After the events of part 1, a gay italian dude (let's call him V for now) moved in as one of my housemates - he didn't look the part of the stereotypical feminine thin ass gay guy though.
Nope, V had the look of a tough guy you wouldn't cross - middle aged skinhead with a round tummy who looked like a mafia boss (think Kingpin from Spiderman).
One morning as I woke up and started towards the toilet. As I pushed the door aside, I saw V naked except for a Borat style G-string. And he had a 'friend' with him too. As he saw me, he squealed and waved his hands in the most feminine manner, befitting the Queen.
Otakumanichiwa said:
I will humbly bow down and kiss your shoe.
Oh well, since you asked:
Back in my university days, I used to have 7 close friends - one of them, a girl (let's call her K for now), was in the same dorm as I was; and the rest were living on the same street.
She was one of those Asian girls who look like lolis - a DFC; the only part that was unloli-like were her largish hips (in proportion to her size)
Fast forward a year later, the 7 of us were living in the slums together - I was had a room next to K, separated by a thin corrugated steel "wall" which had an opening at the end, where we could see each other.
One night, after a vivid nightmare, I woke up, shivering. I looked at my clock - 4am. I turned around and saw her masturbating through the opening in the "wall". She did not notice me at first, and naturally, well, I got a huge boner.
What else could I do but fap? It was then she saw me, but did not stop. So we just stared at each other and masturbated, until we both came (not at the same time).
We never spoke about it ever, and the following year, the 7 of us went on to live in different places.
I have never discussed politics on this blog before. So what's up today? Najib? Pakatan? Nope. Obama? Naoto Kan(菅直人)? Capitalism v.s. communism? Nope. Are you running for office, Envoy? Nope. I'm going to look past the usual slogan shouting faggotry and present it the way I think about politics - as human group patterns with fundamental similarities regardless of which continent you are on or your religious/racial/cultural heritage. Let's start with how it all began, shall we? A long, long time ago, in the exact same place we are now, people roamed the land in groups related by blood (or what we call families), not very different than animals. Then, other people joined these families, growing into bigger groups called bands. These bands grew into tribes. Stronger tribes conquered weaker tribes, becoming states, the strongest states became empires through conquest.
At some point, it became too expensive for empires to continue conquering and maintaining more territory. So an alternative system was set up, rule by proxy. This works in many ways. A subject state may pay annual tribute to the empire in the form of goods or services. A subject state may also have to give trade rights to the empire, or be ruled by a puppet leader installed by the empire. Or they are used as pawns to fight the influence of rival empires. Moral reasons were sometimes given for this to sugarcoat both direct rule and rule by proxy - "We are bringing civilization to the savages", "They were worse off before we took over".
In ancient times, this was notably practiced by empires such as the Roman Empire over Judaea where the king of the Jews was ruler only with consent of Rome and the Jews paid taxes to Rome. In the Achaemenid Persian Empire, kings called satraps ruled over their own province fairly independently, but was subject to the Persian King, who was known as the "King of kings".
Further east, states in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Borneo, Indonesia, South Asia and Central Asia paid tribute to Imperial China. Similar subjugation, but under the mantle of religion arose in the forms of the Islamic empires and the stranglehold the Pope had over the kings of Europe. But the interesting bit happens after that. Following sailing expeditions from Portugal and later Spain, leading European kingdoms colonized many other cultures around the world. Not all were direct conquests. Some were vassal states - they had "advisors" sent from an European power, who in effect conveyed orders from Europe instead of giving mere advice. Reasons were also sometimes given to justify the colonization - "We are bringing civilization to the savages", "They were worse off before we took over", "We are bringing light to the heathens". One notable difference to the earlier empires was that the whole world was now in the power play. Globalization in the modern sense, happened.
OK, lets recap. Note one similarity? Empires rise, take over and rule other states (either directly or by proxy) and sometimes give reasons to sugarcoat the reason why most wars or conquests happen - to acquire more resources. These empires then fall (Rome, Persia) or wither away into insignificance (Imperial China). This happened throughout different periods of time, with different cultures, and under different ideologies (early Roman empire was a republic, Persia, China are monarchies, Islamic empires were theocracies).
Like the empires before them, the European ones withered away amidst independence of their colonies and two major wars. Post World War 2, two superpowers emerged among the victors - the United States of America (U.S.) and the Soviet Union. As direct rule became morally unjust in the eyes of a now connected world following the fall of the European empires and Hitler's failed plan to conquer the world, rule by proxy became the primary method of ruling subject states. And so the Cold War started. The U.S. and the Soviets intervened in the matters and conflicts of other weaker states, both claiming to want to help make things "better", but in fact these states were pawns between the whole U.S. versus Soviets game.
After a couple of decades of this, the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 (within the lifetimes of yourselves, the readers). By now, the U.S. is the most influential nation in the world (with the most bullying power), U.S. corporations dominate the global economy and the U.S. dollar is the world standard.
Like other empires before it, the cracks in the armor appeared for the American empire. This millennium saw the U.S. invading Afghanistan and Iraq for oil rights under the slogans "We're liberating them", "We're waging war on terrorists", "WMDs!". Sound familiar? This led to a protracted and very expensive occupation in both countries by the U.S. In 2008, the U.S. found itself in economic recession.
Fast forward to today. The U.S. is slowly declining. The next "world superpower" in line is China (this time under the a nominal communist government, but powered by capitalism).
My guess as to what will happen in the coming years/decades? China will slowly replace the U.S. as the world's police. The U.S. will be relegated to the current status of the world's superpower before it - the British Empire, which became today's United Kingdom (U.K.). India, Brazil, Russia and Australia will become the other most important powers.
China will act like the U.S. and other empires before it, ruling by proxy - intervening in other states, dominating the economy etc. I'm guessing "economic cooperation" and "sending aid" will be the slogans used by China for intervening in other nations. Other rival powers (named above) will form a clique of their own, opposing China by using other states as their pawns.
And the cycle goes on. Regardless of ideology or cultural background, some things never change.
Note: I will try to reply to the comments here, and if the reply is too long, I'll make a new post in response. Silence means you agree with me.
