Final PEI Update

I'll be leaving Prince Edward Island tomorrow for Kingston. New Year's Eve was quite fun, with london_calling and teridian and nire_nagaf and tudor_rose, among others. (Breakers was an interesting expedition.)

Right now I'm downtown, having bought Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood with a gift certificate from my aunt and uncle. Later on, Dooly's for celebratory group birthday pool. Oh, and still more final packing.

It's been fun.

Year-End Review

Caesar, in his description of Gaul, said that it had three major geographical components. The past year doesn't have a geography of its own, of course, and it can be conquered only in a metaphorical sense. Still, I see no reason why my evaluation, at least, can't be trifurcated. (Chalk this millennial tendency up to the Indo-Europeans' preoccupation with the number 3.)

( The good. )

( The bad. )

( The things-to-do. )

And that it.

[BRIEF NOTE] Dhimmitude

You know, it would be really nice if certain periodicals stopped referring to Bat Ye'or as an expert on Islamic cultures when it's fairly clear that she doesn't know what she's talking about; or, rather, that she seeks to misrepresent the facts.

(As if Maghrebin and Turkish immigration to western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s was not a simple labour migration but rather part of a plot by European and Arab elites to Islamize Europe. As if, since the oil shock, there has been unrestricted immigration to western Europe. As if the experiences and effects of Muslim immigrants in western Europe in the early 21st century differ in kind, or even in number, from the experiences and effects of southern and eastern European immigrants in the neo-Europes in the early 20th century.)

UPDATE: I go into more detail, beginning here.