Expat In Romania

Earlier this year I finished reading Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and wrote myself a "little" review on it. When I came up on it again a few days ago it dawned on me that it might be useful to anyone who, like myself, was wondering what all the hubbub was about and is considering picking it up. Don't take this post's title too seriously, any book you want to read you should read, but if you just wanted to know what all the brouhaha was for, back when it was published, then my Rushdian review, below, should help answer the question. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where do I begin? With the intro, where Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, dropping out of the sky, the lone survivors of the bombing of the hijacked airliner, Bostan , sing a tune - I forgot which -  while free-falling so that they may begin to fly rather than drop like stones into the waters off the English coast; where a lonely old lady with a storied...

I woke up on Saturday thinking about the US election. These thoughts poked at odd angles inside my head and needed a bit of arranging, so I started writing. The first five points or so were pretty straightforward and mostly based on general consensus, media punditry, and plain old observation. The rest sort of unfolded organically, rolling off of each other in keeping with the theme: The reality of our world's geopolitics in a scenario where the United States withdraws from the international stage to focus on internal strife.  By the time I got to the end I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry. There is, in global conflict - especially the apocalyptical kind - a type of absurdity that is in some ways comical, much in the way Dr. Strangelove was a comedy while accurately reflecting the lunacy that was Cold War MADness.  The below list is hardly detailed. There is much to say for each particular point, but more importantly, there is far more to be said for the roots of thi...