Truce Collapses?

As i sit here frantically working away, i noticed on the BBC ticker that flickers across the top of my screen a news story about “Truce collapses in Somali capital.” Now (and I’ll admit it is in a dorky way) I found this somewhat amusing, as I did not recall that unfortunate little nation ever actually having a truce in the first place. Granted, I do not sit around contemplating Somalia, but I have a peripheral awareness borne from curiosity about the place. Anyhoo, I read the article and it turns out the truce was called on Tuesday and was the result of a lack of ammunition more than anything else. How depressing.

Initially, this was meant to be humorous about how comical it was that the country’s truce could be broken before it was even known that it had happened, but then in reality it is even worse. So theoretically, funnier. However, it is pretty sad. Oh well.

This is a somewhat random entry. However, I have decided to start using this as thus, since otherwise I never get anything down.

Female Unit

Dear readers, i apologize for the absence. Given the lack of complaints, i can only assume it is due to a lack of readership. Oh well. My excuse is that i have been abroad and fantastically busy. I am assembling some thoughts on the trip, and i may post separately, but for now, here is a story that i found kind of amusing.

I was sitting through a workshop roundtable for a paper that i have been working on. I say working on, what i really mean is pestering my boss and another senior staff member to write the blasted thing. Any attempt by me to feed pieces into the paper has been mostly a waste of time, as they prove to be obsolete once my boss decides what arbitrary direction he is going to drag the paper in now. Nevertheless, the object itself is shifting in the right direction, and we are now at the stage of having something for a group to discuss.

I set the meeting up, and gather the usual group of balding white men (this is after all a security workshop) to sit around and ponder this. I end up getting stuck sitting next to one of our more humorous scholars who we had invited (this sounds more torturous than it really is, he is very entertaining. I once had to sit through a briefing for a cement company where he insisted on continuing to refer to the compnay as Laforge as oppose to Lafarge. He had made the joke to me ahead of the briefing and kept glancing over when he said it. I kept snickering in front of the CEO we were briefing) who aside from making snide comments throughout, noticed that there was a woman sitting at the corner of the table. A shock, since as i mentioned this was a defense (and i mean the technical kind, rather than grand strategy) workshop, the solid realm of the nefarious looking bald white men whom all look like rich accountants.

He leaned over and asked "Who's the female unit?"

Well, i found it funny.