satire

Culture shocks while visiting Kathmandu, Nepal. I'm here for Harris' friend's wedding, and the country is way poorer than I realized. GDP per capita is just under $1400 (in 2023), 2022's HDI is ~.6 (medium human development), both of which are apparently among the lowest in South Asia.

• The roads are crazy! There are very few stop lights or stop signs at intersections. There are some large traffic circles with police directing traffic. Mostly it looks like it's just a free-for-all (with some order I can't decipher), with cars, motorcycles, bikes, trucks, buses, and pedestrians sharing the road. A yoga teacher at our hotel told Harris that they're pro-Trump and glad that the US is stopping aid to Nepal, because the money goes to oversea bank accounts/corruption rather than actually improving things in the country. The sentiment  was somewhat echoed by a nice taxi driver we had (on Pathao, the Uber equivalent), who apologized to us for the state of things in the country. 
• I've seen several people on the streets (porters?) transporting heavy loads (like large appliances) using straps tied around their foreheads.
• Preservation of history - we visited the Patan Durbar Square yesterday, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was remarkably accessible to visitors (few things were even cordoned off), probably a similar situation to what the Forbidden City was like before they started closing sections off for repair/preservation. The most surprising thing to me was how little historical information they have about the site and its function, given that it was built in the 17th century.
• Momos here are way better than the ones I've had in the US

Pre VP Debate warm up. Pre VP Debate warm up. I was thinking that Trump resembles Anger from Inside Out, and in the first movie, when Anger gets fed up, he goes rogue, steals mom’s credit card and buys a bus ticket to Minnesota (Make Riley Great Again). The only problem with going back, is that back isn’t a place or time we can get to.

And then I thought about Kamala, and her refrain We’re not going back but recognize she is talking about a different back, and the two sides don’t see back the same way. But her refusal to go back is also not so great. The Democratic party is kind of like Sadness, ready to flood us into liquidity such that no fires can start.

This metaphor isn’t great, I’ll admit, but it does bring up a notion about lesser of two evil’s approaches. If we are only restricted to Trumps sparky forest fire, or Kamala’s rainy kumbaya that eventually leads to massive mud slides while Mickey prays for the wizard to stop to water-bearing brooms (sorry Ashville and Georgia), we could spend so much time trying to combat the other guys (you know, team evil), that we’re not really spending any time doing something better.

Tribal allegiance, nor simple bipartisan get-along-ism isn’t going to change the fact that we need much more innovative approaches to changing our global ways. We’re not even being honest about the impacts we’re inducing.

Dang, I was hoping this was heading somewhere inspirational. Come on Joy pull a rabbit outta that hat, and make Pizza Delicious again.