Unguided Blog

There are few authors who can tackle the issue of coincidence or luck if you will, more striking than Paul Auster. In almost all of his novels the element of chance is ever present. But is it not the same in real life, too? You are born in one place and find all the good things, change the place of your birth to a few hundred kilometers to any direction and you are in deep shit.

Greenpeace had an amazing photo story about e-waste, titled Scraplife: E-waste in Pakistan, written and photographed by Robert Knoth. In June 2008 Greenpeace tracked a shipment of e-waste from Europe to its final resting place - Pakistan. This is the story of what happens to that e-waste and the people it affects. You might want to see and read what happens to those who are less fortunate than you are and take action to tell Philips to take back and recycle. You could have been born there.

I had to give a hiatus to blogging due to a sickness of a relative of mine. Well, she is still sick but better at least. Same, however, can not be said for our beautiful government; they are simply getting worse. This lovely government with sweet ministers who are not even worth standing next to them in the same room, has finally added their most democratic endeavor to their score card: all access to blogger.com and blogspot.com domains has been blocked as of last Friday.

Of course, despite a few geniuses who claim this is a liberal government and will continue to say so, I have never shared their view. I am usually good at analyzing people, 25 plus years of management experience in weird and wonderful places gives one an edge, I believe.

I have always watched my language here. Yet, I can not find a more appropriate word for these people:

Assholes!

Come on, block this blog, too.

Have I told you that Unguided is hosted in New Orleans? Visitors of the last 24 hours only saw a message saying “Error in establishing a database connection” and possibly never guessed why. Now you know the reason. Although the main site including mail and ftp servers were up and running, the database went haywire. The staff at the hosting company, well, they all evacuated the city. They were kind enough to say at their site they would continue to give support remotely by e-mail, but I decided to wait instead. After all, the Earth would not stop turning if Unguided blog did not function a day and it would be selfish, if nothing else, to annoy them in the middle of all things they were going through, or so I thought.

Today, I am glad to see my problem solved with no intervention on my part. My best wishes go to the people of New Orleans or Louisiana I should say, and I sincerely hope they are safe and sound after Gustav’s unwanted visit.

I am back, finally! Being unemployed for so long had taken its toll and I had to take a vacation to shake off all the dust. Fortunately, living in Turkey gives some privileges, so I did not have to take a long distance flight, bored with complicated hotel bookings, transfers at an airport in strange hours of the day, or night.

However, I am picky when it comes to where to go, if it is summer time. I have some rules, or so claim a few of my friends. I call them habits. I admit, it is sometimes difficult to explain to those who have not been born by the sea, but those who have will probably sympathize with me.

So, without further ado, my rules, written or unwritten:

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What happens when you combine oriental shrewdness with modern business practices? I can not help but think about it when I read the post EGYPT: What’s beyond traffic?! at Babylon & Beyond in Los Angeles Times. This is the paragraph to blame:

The new law has been met with several suspicions: First, many people allege the heavy fines aim at extracting more resources for the indebted treasury while others believe that the imposition of new safety measures aim at benefiting government-supported businessmen who would allegedly be involved in the importation of anti-reflection stop triangles, first-aid kits and fire extinguishers, which are now required in all cars. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif had reportedly denied such accusations saying that the government just sought to tighten safety measures and eliminate traffic jams.

Ignoring Prime Minister Nazif’s comment, I have nothing to say about government-supported businesses will benefit most, because it is a certainty. I have doubts, though, if they will succeed pulling up the sorely needed resources to beef up the treasury. As the writer has pointed out:

On the contrary, the new law is believed to have opened a new door for more corruption as it gives cops a better chance to ask for higher bribes and turn a blind eye to violations in return.

If they are not careful, the new law is indeed likely to increase bribes while not being registered in inflation statistics for they are completely off the record, and leave the treasury empty like it usually has been before. Fortunately, there is an easy solution to every difficult problem as Occam had proved with its razor long time ago. Our elders have said: “There is no need to rediscover America, it has already been discovered.” For the Egyptian officials, this typically translates to: Follow our beautiful government (you, dear readers, follow me).

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