Random thoughts, and Monaco

So i thought i posted a blog entry on my day trip to monaco, but i
didn't. But now i can't really remember what i wanted to say.
Highlights: Casino at Monte Carlo, princess grace rose garden, lots of
exotic cars, Le Texan (a tex-mex place in monaco), Train station
Lowlights: Dog Poo (can i not escape it anywhere), Expensive stuff,
Palais Princier (boring!)

And now, random thoughts:

- Athens is great. I hope to spend more time there soon - hopefully with
some Greeks (that's you, Nikos and Sot!)

- I knew that coming abroad would be an opportunity for me to change -
i just didn't know how. I think one unexpected change is that i feel
more connected to my own culture. I think this is because i see that
the West has done a tremendous job of cataloguing and promoting their
history, while advancing commercially (granted, for this to happen
significantly in Athens, it took $12 billion and an international
event, but, you get the idea). I think China and India are maybe pushed
into pursuing commerce as it's own end (like pictures of Krishna on
t-shirts), and along the way, are eroding their own cultural history,
not inferior to the West's in anyway.

- If the Olympic games can change a city as drastically as it has
appeared to change athens, i think it is encumbent on the IOC and the
world community to encourage future games to be held in cities that
need the improvement. Not New York, Paris, or London - but Athens,
anywhere South America, parts of Africa, etc. Even if it means other
countries chipping in. We owe to these areas to provide a model of the
future, of their own. This doesn't mean that the summer games
completely fixed Greece's problems (9 computers for every 100 people
compared to 65/100 in the US, for example), but i think it added a
spring in their step - I saw a greek man finish his cigarette, and
actually look for a place to put it out, rather than just throw it on
the street corner.

- I was reading about Russia ratifying Kyoto, and while initially I
thought the US should have definitely signed the treaty, now, i'm not
so sure. One, I don't know how it's being covered in the US (if at
all), but it seems to me that nobody, at least the businesses involved,
quite understand what the hell is going on. And, the fact that russia is
enough to activate the treaty (based on it's emissions from 1994), is
ridiculous. Because, since the treaty's creation, the russian economy
has basically collapsed, and the country is already producing 30% less
greenhouse gas than they were in 1994. So they've met the threshold for
Kyoto, without any real environmental reform. And now, they get to sell
their emissions credit on an open market, and pocket the money. So
basically, energy companies profit becuase the russian economy is in
the shitter. Doesn't seem to make sense to me. And, while Kyoto was
definitely a first step in environmental reform, it's hard for me to
see where the next step is, and how to make it worthwhile - the US
definitely needs to take the lead on this (where are you, Al Gore?)