A Free Man

I really tried to resist writing this post. I left it alone with Vitter and Florida’s Bob Allen but with the latest Republican sex scandal, I just can’t hold it in any more. The hypocrisy is just so thick and sticky that it’s starting to feel like a public mens’ room around the Capitol.

It’s certainly been a libidinous twelve months for the GOP. Larry Craig is just the latest in a cascade of Republican lawmakers and public figures in the past year to collapse under the weight of their own denial. Former Florida Congressman Mark Foley kicked it off last year when the knowledge of his creepy obsession with teenage boys became public. Foley, who campaigned against child pornography and for sexual abstinence, got caught sending dirty messages to teenage Continue Reading »

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“Excess ain’t rebellion.
You’re drinking what they’re selling.
Your self-destruction doesn’t hurt them.
Your chaos won’t convert them.
They’re so happy to rebuild it.
You’ll never really kill it.”

-Cake - “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle”

I was listening to Cake’s wonderful 1994 album “Motorcade of Generosity” yesterday and that album as well as the imminent college football season (Gooooooo Dawgs! Sic ‘em!) got me thinking of Athens, Georgia. I lived in that wonderful university town for three or so years in the mid-nineties after crashing out in the big city of Seattle. Athens is one of those Continue Reading »

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Today, I’m starting a new feature here at chrisdellavedova.com - trying my hand at scientific writing for a lay audience. Each week I’ll try to distill an article or two from one of the big scientific journals. This new theme corresponds a bit with a recent post about career goals, so I would be eternally grateful for any comments regarding the Science Tuesday feature - critical or complimentary.

I’m a plant geneticist by trade, but this week what caught my eye were two papers describing research into what’s going on in the brain. First, an article in Nature looking at the genetic basis of obsessive compulsive disorder (something that both Dr. O’C and my friend Martha tell Continue Reading »

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“People on the internet
A new life for the intellect
People judge me so hard
Coz I dont floss my titty set
I was born out of dirt like im porn in a skirt
I was a little girl who made good with all that I blurt
I put people on the map that never seen a map
I show em somin they aint never seen
And hope they make it back!!!!”

-M.I.A. - “20 Dollar”

Last week was a veritable new music orgy. Between eMusic and Nectar Points (the 21st century S & H Green Stamps) I got five new albums including new records from The New Pronographers, Rilo Kiley, Teddy Thompson, Suzanne Vega and M.I.A I’ve decided to review my favorite first and move down the list. Surprisingly, my favorite was one I picked up as an afterthought the new M.I.A. record. “Kala” is the sophomore album from London based Maya Arulpragasam, the daughter Continue Reading »

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Portland, Oregon of the first part of the naughties is like the Seattle of the early 90’s or the Athens, Georgia of the early 80’s - it is churning out some of the best bands in the world right now. The Decemberists, Modest Mouse, The Dandy Warhols and The Gossip are all based out of Portland, and that’s not to mention the hundreds of lesser known acts that call this little corner of the Pacific Northwest home.

One of those lesser known acts is Blitzen Trapper, who must win some sort of prize for best band name. This sextet has been generating lots of buzz amongst the cool kids at Stereogum and Pitchfork and have recently signed to Sub Pop. I’ve got about a half dozen free tracks over the past few months, but it was “Sci-Fi Kid” (courtesy of KEXP) that turned my crank this morning with its sort of garage psychedelia sound that transitions into synth heavy carnivalia. “Wild Mountain Nation”(from Stereogum), the title track from their most recent record, features Led Zeppelin guitars with a refreshing country twang reminiscent of “Hot Dog”. Good stuff out of the Northwest - enjoy!

“Wild Mountain Nation” is available from eMusic, and Amazon.

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What’s going on with Vladmir Putin? In the last few weeks ago I’ve seen this cheesecake photo of him fishing in Siberia (won’t nobody call him Dobby the house elf anymore). There’s been this sort of Cold War posturing with the US over the missile defense and with the UK over spies and expulsion of diplomats. This week, the UK scrambled F2 Typhoon fighters to intercept and “shadow” a Russian bomber that approached British airspace. This was the same day that Russia announced they were resuming long range bomber patrols. First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said that Russia was “flying by the same transparent, understandable rules as our American partners so Russian pilots can acquire professional experience, and that there is nothing to worry about” - nice jab. Continue Reading »

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Some of you may know that I have fallen out of love with academic science. This is hardly a new break up and there are lots of reasons for the cooling of my passions. But lest this post become an indictment of all the things wrong with academia, I’ll refrain from bitching. I kind of knew that the academic life wasn’t for me about four years into my Ph.D., but at that point you just finish things up - no sense wasting that much time. The easiest thing to do after finishing a Ph.D. is a post-doc, and being a fairly lazy man I took the path of least resistance. And I gave my post-doc a good go, but the academic life requires a real passion and real drive and I realized after a while that it just wasn’t going to happen. But, with a family on the way, no right to work in Britain other than for Oxford University and the incredible cost of living in Britain, I needed to keep working. Fortunately I’ve Continue Reading »

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“No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks…”

-They Might Be Giants - “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”

Turkey’s been at the center of some political melodrama this week, partially of its own doing and partially in response to the increasingly impotent US Congress. Earlier this week, a U.S. Congressional committee proposed a resolution to recognize the genocide committed in 1915 by Turks in the Ottoman Empire against ethnic Armenians. This elicited an angry response from Turkey who has never acknowledge that what they did in World War I was genocide as such. Later in the week, the Turkish parliament voted to authorize sending troops into northern Iraq to deal with Kurdish rebels. This drew cautious scolding from the U.S. with President Bush saying, apparently without irony, “there’s a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into the country.” These two events are apparently unrelated but mark potentially serious troubles in Turkish-American relations. Let’s look at each individually.

Today, the Armenian Genocide Resolution will be introduced to the full House of Representatives after being approved by the House Foreign Affairs committee earlier in the week. This is essentially one of the non-binding resolutions that the Pelosi House has become infamous for, officially labeling what happened in Turkey in 1915 as genocide. I’ve no idea where this is coming from and why it’s coming now. Various theories are that it’s designed to embarrass Bush, an effort to secure the Armenian votes for the Democrats or a backhanded way to get out of the Iraqi war. The most likely scenario is that it is just poor timing. The reality of the situation is that Turkey is a pretty critical way point for shipment of goods to Iraq. We need Turkey to carry on this war. Now is not the time to antagonize them over something that essentially comes down to semantics. This is not the House getting tough, this is the House being pedantic. Turkey’s response is no better. Everyone who knows their World War I history knows that the Turks that ruled the Ottoman Empire committed genocide. Those who don’t know their WWI history didn’t know that until the Turks spat the dummy this week. Both the House of Representatives and the Turkish government need to grow up or have a time out. My Political Friday posts of late may lead you to believe that I’m a right winger bashing Dems. I want to assure you that is not the case. I’m just tired of the Democrats who have power in both house of Congress failing to do anything except meaningless non-binding resolutions. I know they don’t have a veto or filibuster proof majority, well work it out. Show some leadership and get some bipartisan support. Just stop with these bullshit symbolic things and do something.

The potential invasion of Kurdistan is a bit of a messier situation. Some pundits are trying to write this as a response to the genocide resolution, but that is simply not the case - typical right wing talk radio oversimplification. This is a long and messy problem. The Turks invaded northern Iraq at least once before when Hussein was still in power and this is a long ethnic conflict between Turks and Kurds. If the Turks were to repeat that now, they put both themselves and the U.S. in a very awkward situation. Kurdistan is the only truly stable part of Iraq. A Turkish invasion of any scale would potentially change that dramatically. The Kurds have their own security forces and while a minor incursion may be overlooked, a major attack could result in a serious armed conflict. The U.S. presumably could not sit idly by while what is essentially our colony was invaded. What I find curious about this is the softly, softly response that this is getting from the Bush Administration. If Iran passed a resolution allowing them to invade Iraq how long do you think it would take for the U.S. bombers to get to Tehran?

The thing is, this war of semantics with the US Congress and threats of invasion is probably all bluster. Turkey is not likely to break off diplomatic relations with the U.S., nor goad them with a messy conflict in northern Iraq. The fact is Turkey doesn’t have a lot of friends. The Arab states have political and ethnic differences that supercede the religious similarities between their countries and thus treat Turkey with suspicion. Turkey has been trying for years to get into the European Union, but like a pimply school boy their courtship of the EU prom queen has been met with derisive lack of consideration. The U.S. has played the role of matchmaker in this pursuit, but their waning influence in Europe has done little to convince the coy EU to let the Turks in. The U.S. got Turkey into NATO, the Turks only real alliance of any consequence. Without the U.S. support and friendship, Turkey is essentially an isolated nation on the borders of Europe and Asia but a part of neither.

The leaders of Turkey are smart enough to know not to push the Americans too far. The sound and fury about the Armenian genocide resolution will continue for a while. But even if Congress manages to pass it, doubtful as that is, the Turks will ultimately just have to suck it up. The same is true for an invasion of Kurdistan, if the Turks actually risk such an incursion, the U.S. will be able to do nothing more than bluster and rant. But like the Congressional resolution, this will probably be managed before it gets to the point of a large scale invasion. The fact of the matter is that in their current political manifestations, Turkey and the U.S. are inextricably allied. Great to have friends.

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