Miscellaneous

A bunch of things that don't warrant their own posts:

1. I have a new part-time coworker who, on top of being really nice person, has 25 years' experience in ESL at the college level. Very nifty.


2. New exercise goal: run 5K (no walking) by Christmas. Last night I did 4K, alternating every quarter-kilometer between a slow jog (8K/hr) and walk (6K/hr).


3. After ten days, my fire coral sting has finally stopped burning* and itching. Hallelujah! My skin is still discolored and weirdly shrunken, though. Fire coral is definitely nastier than jellyfish -- or at least the jellyfish I ran into.


3a. When a jellyfish is touched, it releases its stinging nematocysts in a matter of microseconds -- it's one of the fastest biological processes on the planet. BUT, while some jellyfish sting (and eat) other types of jellyfish, they don't sting members of their own species. Isn't that amazing? I wonder how they know.


4. After requesting application materials and course catalogs from my top three religion grad schools, I've formulated a new Plan A: get an MTS with a specialization in World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, and then enter the (non-Divinity-School) Ph.D. program, specializing in Religion and Anthropology under Option III. That's my dream this week, anyway!

* burning in the temperature-related sense. For the first week, the sting was radiating so much heat you could actually locate it just by running your hand over my pants. Well, assuming I like you enough to let you run your hand over my pants, anyway.
 

Clinton's Doha Debate talk

I want President Clinton back, dammit. Those of us who attended the simulcast of his talk here last night kept remarking how refreshing it was to hear a president talking thoughtfully and articulately about international affairs. Sigh.

The event has been another lesson in not believing the Qatari media, however. The Gulf Times reports:

"Answering a question on what he would have done on Iraq had he been the president, Clinton said given the situation he would have wholeheartedly supported the war."

The Peninsula reports his answer to that question rather differently:

"The question was 'Would you have attacked Iraq, if you had still been the president of America?' 'No. Not in the way it had happened,' Clinton replied.

"He said he had supported the move to bring UN inspectors back into Iraq to check the existence of chemical or biological weapons but was against a 'pre-emptive military action' without securing the UN support."

In fact, both reports are incorrect. Obviously, Clinton did not say that he would have supported the war. He did say that, had he been a senator, he would have voted to authorize the use of force in order to resume inspections. However, he spoke strongly against using that authorization to attack Iraq after inspections had resumed. He most definitely did not say he supported the war.

However, he also did not say that UN support is necessary for pre-emptive military strike -- that would have been a rather problematic stance for a president who bombed Serbia in a pre-emptive military action without UN authorization! He did explain in quite some depth the differences he saw between his actions in Serbia and Bush's in Iraq -- in particular, that he had broad international support, and he says he knew more innocent people would die if he didn't act than if he did.

So don't believe everything you read... particularly in the Gulf Times.