C'mon Fellas! Its all Ball-Bearings These Days!

I have been waiting for a sunny day to take some pictures around the Glycines, because there are a few nice little gardens with flowers and lime trees and vine-y canopies, but some system seems to have taken up residence over the city and it just rains everyday. Maybe the clouds are having a tough time getting their travel visas from the Algerian government.



At any rate, I do not really feel like commenting more about the karaoke experience other than to say that it was surprisingly fun, way better than French karaoke, where everyone is serious and a jerk about groups who can't really sing. Here the dudes (like any public space in Algeria, it was exclusively dudes outside of our group) were serious about their singing but had a great time plowing through hits with our group of no-talent yahoos. Now if only I could have snuck in a quart of Popov vodka and a SOBE iced tea of some kind we would have had a real party, Elvis?! stylie (embrace the interrobang).



There is an international book "salon" in Algiers starting tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited about going. Its a big deal here in the capital, tons of publishers and tons of books. Don't worry, the organizers have assured the population, through an interview in the newspaper Al-Watan, that they have barred "objectionable" books from the salon.



Whew! Would hate to read anything bad about the government or Islam. Although that isn't really fair, because there is a new vogue in Algerian history that examines the Berber resistance to the colonizing Arabs (and their religion) about a thousand years ago. It is a step in a pretty good direction, it seems. Not that Berber nationalism is any better than other nationalisms, but publishing books like this helps establish the legitimacy of plural identities.



Just one more note: I know everyone is curious about what it is like to be a foreign minister or cultural minister in the Algerian government. Well, good thing there have been various reports lately, and we have gathered that it mainly consists of taking long "working trips" to France to "establish ties" to various French bureucrats, all with an expense budget not available to the public.



And don't worry, if you somehow manage to go eight times in one year - as has the current finance minister - and fail to develop any cooperative projects with France, you will probably still be rewarded for your service to the country with a cushy seat on the Water Resources Oversight Board, from which you can give no-bid contracts to your buddies in the "private" sector. Its actually not dissimilar from being Vice President of the United States (or was that too easy?).