A Sad State of Current Affairs

Recently US aid to Yemen, specifically, it's projected increase in the coming year, has been in the news. [Pause to put my tail between my legs.] I found that the first thought in my head upon hearing "Yemen" was the episode of Friends in which Chandler lied about having to travel there for work. How have I missed a country to which the US contributed $70M in aid in 2009? I could distract from the issue by saying that, relatively speaking, this is a small amount in the course of our government's aid budget. But the real issue is my complete and utter avoidance of all things foreign policy. I have such a low tolerance political bullshit (not limited to just that of our own government) that it's easier just to remain ignorant. But it's much more difficult to be apathetic about these types of things when you think about them enough to write about them. And thus began my education on Yemen - a mere 41 countries from the least developed nation in the world despite its proximity to the major oil producers on the planet. My research was very preliminary but a couple of things seem to be clear: US funding is a result of perceived terrorism risk (ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden among other rationale), Obama's funding seems more focused on development while past aid has been military, and finally that there are systemic problems within the government and the country's ability to sustain itself that causes me worry over whether this is truly the best use of our resources. Or perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me do a little more research...

Great Assumptations

I have long felt that if I'm surprised about the outcome of a situation or about someone's behavior, the answer can almost always be traced back to a differing of expectations. Often times these are situations in which I made assumptions or had initial preconceived notions the magnitude of which I was unaware. Though understanding them post-mortem doesn't change the outcome of the initial situation it does (in theory) help to make me more prepared for future situations.

Yesterday, AK provided another dimension to the role of expectations that fits in with my 2010 theme. She commented that a person is reponsible for their own expectations. For example, if I continually go to the butcher for new tires because I expect that they will service my car, I am responsible for that expectation and the accompanying disappointment. Of course our conversation was not talking about anything quite as black and white. When you apply this theory to relationships things become significantly more complex. When do you cross the line from taking responsibility for what a person (friend, relative, colleague) is unable to provide to you and letting that same person off with carrying less than their share of your relationship? It would seem also that this more active approach to managing relationships would call for a more constant reprioritizing and possibly even sunsetting of the people in our lives. Perhaps I'm over thinking this and it has always been this way and I've just been floating around blissfully unaware! One thing is for certain - I'm certainly tuned in to it now.

Theme of 2010

KP asked me today if I had any new year’s resolutions. I generally shy away from any type of aggressive commitment to change as my natural instinct is to mount a full on campaign of equal strength against said change. Perhaps this is because it’s always easier to work from an idea than to build one from scratch.

That being said, I have adopted a softer approach to the resolution: the theme. And the theme for 2010 is tomballery. A word of my own invention, tomballery refers generally to avoiding responsibility and specifically to the passing off of said accountability to someone else. I hope through this blog to keep myself honest when I engage in such behavior and also use it to identify the offending acts of others. Wish me luck, interweb!