[NNWM] New Journal

Because my previous journal obstinately wouldn't let me in, not even when I inputted the correct user name and password, I created a new journal.

randynnwm2004

Feel free to LJ-friend that journal or link to it if you're interested in following the story's development. Comments on the project in this journal will be limited to observations about the writing process, related researches, and various frustrations.

[NON BLOG] Toronto's Craigslist

Thanks to skooshje for pointing me to here.

[NNWM] Setting Notes

I've made a note, in two parts, on the setting of my NaNoWriMo novel. The provisional title is Going North, incidentally.

There's some research I'll have to accomplish. I'll need to read more about Argentine history and social life in the 1970s, I'll have to listen to a lot more Brazilian popular music and French chanson to try to get a better handle on what a popular music drawn from those two sources would sound like, and more information on certain environmental side-effects of largish nuclear exchanges outside of those areas directly impacted. Oh, I'll also have to imagine a different Charlottetown.

[LiE] Some Thoughts on Turkey and the European Union

Internet news sites and the blogosphere have already reported that the European Commission, after a highly public and emotional debate, has decided to recommend that Turkey be considered for membership in the European Union, and proposed opening initial talks on membership.

It's more than a bit troublesome how frequently historical emnities between Christian European states and Muslim Turkey, dating back to the Ottoman Empire's invasions and conquests in Europe in the 15th century, were invoked as a reason against Turkish membership. pompe was quite right to point out that the European Union's origins has its origins in a successful attempt to permanently settle the Franco-German enmity that had helped cause three major wars in as many generations. A history of past conflict--particularly a history that, by all accounts, ended a generation ago--is a poor argument to bring to bear.

One thing that I've noted about the debate on Turkish entry into the European Union is that proponents and opponents tend to use hyperbolic language. At one extreme, Tork, writing at Living in Europe, makes what I think is an overoptimistic case in favour of Turkey joining the European Union (will Turkey's problems really resolve themselves so nicely?). At GNXP, what I think is an overly pessimistic argument has been written (is Turkey really so incapable of modernizing?).

( What the Economist concludes, and why its argument is flawed. )

( You say Europ-a, I say Canad-a . . . )

( Counterfactual Canada #1: A Smaller Canada. )

( Counterfactual Canada #2: Canada versus Atlantica. )

( What do these comparisons mean for the EU-Turkish relationship? )

If the European Union and/or Turkey decided to break off their relationship because of perceived cultural incompatibilities, though, disregarding the real connections uniting the two sides or the potential new economies of scale resulting from this enlargement, that would be a disaster.

Turkey bears watching for the next while. It's still a very poor country by European standards if not by world standards, in my opinion the prospect of large-scale Turkish migration to the EU-25 is more destabilizing than it is energizing, and the security of Turkish democracy and secularism remains open. For the time being, though, I'd have to say that the Commission's recent decision is a positive one. It may not matter much, but I'm happy.

[BRIEF NOTE] Why is HIV/AIDS funding so important?

Over at GNXP, Arcane argues that current high levels of funding to HIV/AIDS-related programs--funding to victims, research into treatment--are excessively high and should be reduced. Referring to Michael Fumento's article "When Is Enough Enough?" at Tech Central Station, Arcane goes on to ask why the United States--and presumably, by extension, the rest of the world--invests such a large amount of funding into HIV/AIDS.

That's a good question. I can think of a few reasons.

( To be precise, five. )

I agree with Fumento in his original article, and with Arcane, that other diseases are underfunded in comparison to HIV/AIDS. It is, however, a fallacy to assume that the only way to redress the comparative imbalance is to reduce HIV/AIDS funding. A better solution for all might be to increase funding across the board.

Incidentally, the Ugandan model of AIDS prevention appears not to be working as its proponents claim. Last month, some fuss occurred when Uganda's National Guidance and Empowerment Network released the results of a survey of which surveyed 53 of the country's 56 districts, suggesting that 17% of the adult population was infected, quadruple the official rate of 4.1%. Uganda's figures on HIV seroprevalence are based on testing of pregnant women at government maternity centres. How accurate are these figures? Not very.

Beatrice Were, head of HIV/Aids in Uganda for Action Aid, agreed the [figure of 17.1%] was too high, but she said the official measurement overlooked women unable to reach maternity clinics because of poverty, remoteness or the war in the north. "I would say the infection rate is between 10 and 12%."

That's better than one-quarter of the population, but not much. Even if you manage to encourage people to reduce their number of sexual partners, without condom use the chances of contracting HIV aren't necessarily much reduced. Who's safer: Someone who has a single encounter with each of ten people of unknown serostatus over the space of a year using condoms, or someone who has ten unprotected encounters in the same time period with someone of unknown status? Abstinence might well be a good ideal to encounter, but it surely cannot be the only ideal.