Eurotrip v2.0, Vol II

Right now we're cooking breakfast and readying ourselves for a trek into Liverpool. We're staying with Eric's fiancé's apartment in Ellesmere Port, 30 minutes outside the city. It stands in pretty sharp contrast to the hostels we've been staying in. Everyone here lives in really narrow townhouses with all the common areas at the bottom and bedrooms upstairs. Abe and I get the couches downstairs. Last night we just relaxed and watched TV. The most popular channel here is the bSkyB network, run by the Evil Murdoch Empire, so it was largely Simpson's episodes and reality TV.

Eric is an interesting fellow. He left Gainesville in October of 2001 for a three month trip to Europe. He loved it here and fell for a British woman in Amsterdam who he's now engaged to. They work together around Europe in the travel industry, doing things like car rental in Greece. Claire, Eric's fiancé, is off right now getting training for a job either in the Canary Islands or Greece.

I can't wait to get back to the hostels. Sometimes I think half the reason I travel is to meet the people I meet there. Hostels are like old veteran lodges, where people come and fish tales of distant lands, crazy locals, and the most beautiful views in all the world. You have two types of people there: backpackers and urban explorers. The backpackers have been hiking or biking the country and camp nights on end. They pop into the hostels for a hot shower and a warm bed and company. Then there's the urban explorers like Abe and I, who hop cities and never see the countryside unless through the windows of a bus or train. It's a place though where all of the different vagabond souls can meet up together.

From Liverpool,
Trey Menefee

Tags: Treyopia Europe Travel Liverpool

Eurotrip v2.0, Vol I

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 16:57:06 -0800

Hey guys,

So we arrived in London on Thursday. The exchange rate is killing us. Most meals cost around $10 just for a sandwich and a drink. The hostel we're staying at is great and Abe and I have made a lot of great friends. There's a little gang of us that meet up every night at the in-house bar for the cheapest Guinness in town. Abe and I have spent most of our time just walking the city, shooting pictures, and visiting interesting places. Who ever heard of the Statue of All Physical Energy? We also saw a play tonight at Westminster.

London's been so gray and wet that most of my pictures have come out very dull, but I finally got some good ones taken at dawn and dusk today that came out very nice. I've been photoshopping them on Dad's laptop at night when things settle down.

My biggest complaint is that their are too many Americans... we're everywhere! The hostel is 80% American (with half of them being from Wisconsin and Minnesota) and the uptown area's are very touristy. Honestly, London feels much more American than European. Maybe it's because the language barrier is broken and that sense of alienation isn't as pervasive, but a lot of my expectations built during my summer 2001 trip were a miss.

Sadly, not everyone will be getting post cards. I brought 18 postcards to a register and asked for stamps, and I was asked for £18 - roughly $40. I bought half that many - priority will be given to those who have sent me postcards in the past :-)

Much love,
Trey Menefee

PS - Feel free to forward this out to friends and family that I missed (i'm working off an old email list)


Tags: Treyopia Europe Travel London

Sanctity

President Bush decided recently that he would support a Constitutional ban on gay marriage. It would seem then that Karl Rove is positioning the topic of homosexual rights to the front of the agenda, where Republicans have popular support on their stance. This is tragic in both how it reflects on our society and our Constitution grounding.

Homosexuals have become the scapegoat for all that is wrong in American society. Societies outrage at young sexual exploration, teen pregnancy, high divorce rates, and the homogenization of sociopathic and destructive tendencies in our youth are channeled at the loudest group urging for a loosening of societal norms. Somehow, it is felt, that if only gays were banned from making legally binding lifelong commitments to their significant others, then straight couples would learn to work together in the best interest of their family in their own marriages! Besides, Britney Spears getting married during a Vegas weekend made a better case for allowing gay marriage than any pride parade ever could have.

Though loosening popular norms might be part of the equation for the general decay in the social fabric of our nation, there is more. Perhaps it is the rigged individualism preached in our society as the pillar of all that is American. Think about it, our entire economic system is based on the premise that if everyone just acts autonomously in their own self-interest all of the time somehow society is elevated. Thinking this at least eight hours a day must lead to some bleeding through into our social interactions.

The other problem is the sanctity of our Constitution. The Constitution, with one bad example of prohibition, has always been a granter of the people’s rights rather than a denier. Denying rights based on sexual identity has not place in the same document that enshrines my freedoms of speech and peaceful assembly.

It worries me that perhaps we do not take our Constitution as seriously as we used to. We are continuing to see the erosion of the right to bear arms and simple civil liberties like habeas corpus and right to trial have been revoked for US citizens with the wrong friends. Constitutional amendments banning rights to US citizens have no place in this years campaign guide.

Tags: Treyopia Spinnaker Gay Marriage Constitution Bush Amendment

The Fog of War

_____ Fog of War ____

Events in Iraq are unfolding the same way they have been for almost a year – dizzying yet familiar in that nothing is a surprising anymore. Though the headlines are fading, but the fog of war has yet to lift from this ancient land. American troops are still dying at a rate of about one a day, which is a bit lower than it was over the summer before the Army devised tactics to counter urban ambushes and the infamous “improvised explosives.” Helicopters are now flying more erratic routes to avoid surface-to-air missiles. Though the death of any man is tragic, this is not what should worry us. What should worry us is the growing prospect of civil war in Iraq – and that’s seems precisely the aim of the insurgents.

Because American targets are becoming harder to hit, the new Iraqi police have become cannon fodder to the nihilistic insurgents. In one week in February, at least 150 Iraqi police died in car bombings. The intent is clear: minimize the raw numbers and morale of the American proxies once sovereignty is allegedly restored this July and troops begin pulling out of urban areas.

Once we begin urban withdrawal, these men will be doing our bidding on the streets of Baghdad – fighting terrorist and crooks alike. These men will be the protectors of the Governing Council; American GI’s will try to act only as backup. It would seem the larger strategy is to force an American withdrawal under fire. They intend to do this by sucking us back into the cities or to become actors in a civil war to play the part of the neo-colonialist that never intends to leave. We cannot win with that role.

Let us not forget the historical example Al Qaeda & Co. intends to follow – the Mujahideen resistance in Afghanistan. There they patiently brought a superpower to its knees and sparked the collapse of an entire empire. That was on the Soviet’s own border, we are half a world away. This prospect should scare Republicans and Democrats, friend and French alike. It is time that both parties put resources and minds together to create a serious but flexible exit strategy from Iraq.

We must not overreact and play into their plans, but we must not retreat because we are under fire. By reacting the way they want us to, staying because they are still violent, we are playing into their plans. This is precisely the endless conundrum the Israeli's are in. If American GI’s are still patrolling the streets of Baghdad two years from now, we will have lost this battle in the Terror Wars. If American GI’s are still patrolling the streets of Baghdad five years from now, we will have already lost the War.

Tags: Treyopia Spinnaker Current Events Bush Iraq Quagmire Terrorism