a swiftly tilting planet

notes:
+ i've got exactly seven courses left in my degree. three more upper division political science courses and four more upper division history courses will give me 123 credits, a history major with a north american concentration, and a political science minor. i can do three courses this fall, three in the spring, and one next summer. next summer will give me breathing room, in case there are any snafus. next week i will declare a polisci minor and drop my labour studies minor. it's strange; i feel that there is so much more that i should know before graduating.

+ three beers currently come in stubbies: red cap, red stripe, and phoenix gold lager. i like the latter best. it's got a gorgeous retro label and it's tasty too, unlike red stripe and red cap. we played canasta last night while drinking, variously, lemon rum, gin, rye, and beer. i've never had rye whisky before; it tastes like candy. so sweet. my favourite tonic water is the superstore house brand; i think it is 'president's choice'. the safeway house brand and schweppes are lousy. canada dry is ok. in any case, i prefer plymouth gin.

+ amanda and i walked into CJSF today and got ourselves a radio show! we'll be doing segments, possibly leading to full hosting duties, of 'sfu news and issues' this fall. finally, an outlet. maybe i'll finally try to start a music show too while i'm at it.

+ we went through the residences today, and i got all nostalgic for my summer in shell house. that was three years ago. 2003. wild. it changed the way i see the campus.

+ my mussolini paper is now late, but i've got very little (aside from 25% of my grade) invested in it. i did get 35/40 on my internationalisation paper, which equals 87.5%. i failed to investigate the history of the conception of 'trade in services', whioch would definitely have added a lot of meat. i've got about four of the 10 pages i need for the mussolini paper, and can fill at least two up with the moderate/maximallist/hardline tensions in italian socialism from 1919-1924. then another page or two on the technocrat/populist/peasant/industrialist/bourgeoise tensions within fascism over the same period. maybe i'll fill a page with quotes of mussolini hating socialists. he made several speeches about it.

+ five years later, the doha round of WTO negotiations has collapsed. no one seems to care! guys, this was a big deal in 2001; they moved to qatar specifically to avoid protests and media coverage. in a sense, it's smart that we aren't celebrating:
see, in multilateral negotiations, there's always someone who can jam the system, which is why the doha round has put multilateral liberalisation of trade "somewhere between intensive care and the crematorium", to quote india's minister for trade and industry. multilateralism is being replaced with bilateralism, which is far more closed door than the WTO ever could be. the left went from strong systemic criticism of international trade regimes to hipster bicycle fetish parties. what the fuck? the drive to make make social change fun so that people will want to join in has turned into an 'up with people' celebration of our own awesomeness. i miss bill clinton. we didn't hate him; we hated what stood behind him. now we all hate bush so much that we're ignoring the machine.