Working

I have landed my first official job, and also nearly ended it in the same day. Having been hired to work on a phase 1 archaeological survey in Mississippi, I almost stepped on a water moccasin. Needless to say I have rethought my life and solidified my urge to work in the Middle East. Lower humidity, doubtfully any swamps, fewer deadly snakes, and mosquitoes are a little more manageable. If anybody would like to hire me to work in Jordan, or Syria after the Revolution has ended, or Iraq once their civil war has ceased I'll be more than willing to relocate for work. If by any chance Saudi Aramco employee's read this please inform them.

 Have trowel, will travel.

This is not the last thing I want to see.

This is one of the last things I want to see.

Have fun.

*Neither of those are my pictures they were taken off the internet*

US involvement with Egypt under Former Field Marshal el-Sisi

For those who saw my introduction and understand what it says in the "what this blog is about" heading (not sure what that is called, leave a comment if you do) you'll know I am somewhat a Middle East expert. I have nothing on certain professor I have had, and many of those "experts" on TV. However I am still entitled to my "expert" 2 cents by the Constitution of the United States.
  An article I received through email from the Carnegie Endowment  http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/06/05/u.s.-strategy-toward-egypt-under-sisi/hcun rekindled a memory about a conversation I sat through one day while during April. It was between several of my Egyptian friends, they were animatedly discussing the upcoming vote, now past and Field Marshall Sisi won. There were three major opinions, probably shared by Egyptians around the world.

1. Vote for Sisi
2. Vote for Sabahi 
3. Not vote because it wouldn't matter

  The three opinions of my Egyptian friends were expressed by some interesting people, all friends one a Christian, one a former member of the Brotherhood, and one a secularist. The various backgrounds brought up some interesting opinions from odd places. The Christian in a long winded way said he would not be voting, his future was in America now, he is currently in the process of moving his family here and finishing his Masters, making the general statement that the voting would be rigged anyway. My friend who is late of the Brotherhood said that he would be voting for Sisi. Because the military was right when they evicted Morsi and his Brotherhood leaders out of office and power. I generally agreed with this statement, the Brotherhood though was clearly in the best possible position to win, looking back through history the Brotherhood has been active in one form or another since the 1920's. While everybody else rushed out to vote for a new president when there was only a year to organize political parties and weed out the trouble the Brotherhood was doing what it had always done; plan, negotiate, prepare. When it came time to take over they slid in like butter on a hot potato. The third guy said he would vote for Sabahi.  He did not trust the Army, because of the actions that led to Morsi being in power, the brotherhood negotiated their way into power with the Army. This he felt was little better than betraying everything that he and the other two guys had stood for in the Square (I've seen footage taken by all of them). Sabahi was one of the first prominent people to take to the streets at the beginning of the Revolution in 2011, he also ran in the election against Morsi. If I had to pick a person to vote for it would have been this guy also.
  In the end it was obvious that Sisi would win, the Army are the hero's of Egypt, even when they are doing everything visibly bad. The "Revolution" was nearly not because the protester's, Brotherhood or not, began to be locked up, tortured, and interrogated many died at the hands of the military. Yes large numbers of people will say that these are incidents that were perpetrated by members of various organizations within the government, the Army is a part of the government! I am probably beating a dead horse when I say that.
The reason the article brings back the conversation is because after awhile of them going back and forth on the merits of each stance they asked me as an American how I felt. Naturally there was the standard "Yippee democracy" which probably should have been pronounced "democrazy"... When posed with how I felt the US government should work with Sisi; I couldn't come up with an answer. I knew that the US wasn't well looked upon after the ousting of Mubarak and Morsi because of the assistance we gave them. In defense of the US, we saw a country that was taking steps towards democracy and wanted to help the government continue to grow. However it was to early we should have waited to see where it was going. By the time "The Pharaoh" as Morsi went on to be known was removed from office by Sisi himself, playing right into the hands of the masses as the savior of Egypt and pretty much securing his seat in office, the US was seen as a menace to Democracy and the people of Egypt. But now we should move along to the whole point of this post. What should the US do? I agree completely with the urge to focus on programs for the people specifically, establishing political parties and the likes. I don't think we should talk about setting up funds for students without government involvement when (and I include myself in this) our student debt to the government is out of control.
  All in all, I think the US involvement with Egypt should be kept to a level where we work with the citizens and not try to broker our way back in with the Government.

Introduction

Being a member of the most recent class of Graduates from UAB I am proud to say I'm done. It took four years and 10 months to graduate, but in reality it was three to get a degree. Originally a Biochemistry major I eventually realized that it would be my suicide to continue. After a week of head banging and hair pulling nights I realized that History was where I belonged. We History majors are a strange lot, and when we pair with the likes of Archaeology it becomes even better. For many in colleges and universities around the World history is that class you had to take during your freshman year that you hated more than GenChem or Biology lab. For those of us who went to Western Civ and slept through it on the front row there is nothing better than hearing about the likes of the Spartans, Augustus, and Nero, or Genghis Khan, and Suleiman. As a historian I feel that I have perhaps learned a lot about other academic areas also. Because while Chemist's learn Chemistry, and Educators are taught to teach, we study the people who came up with the methods and ideas and not just the techniques and experiments that succeed. That doesn't make us experts, I know how to balance a chemical equation but only because I took two years of chemistry courses, I doubt that most historians without the scientific background could just whip out and do it. 

This is a World cup year which means that everybody and their entire family will be glued to the sporting world of Brazil, and as I am a huge soccer fan I'll be along with my two cents also. As a huge fan of the USMNT I'm cheering them on, but with the group of destruction we have been placed in there is little chance we will make it out of the group stage. My chosen teams to beat this year are Germany and Brazil. Brazil with the home advantage and an exceptionally talented squad back under the reigns of Big Phil will prove to be one of the best showings of a Canarinho in a long time. And German soccer is surging forward with German engineering all the way. Spain will make a show with their usual tiki-taka and win their group, but I'm looking to them being knocked out by Brazil. All to end the Cup with a Brazil-Germany showdown on July 13th. 

As I said there would be random writings at times, this is really as good example of jumbled writing as I'll give. 
And next time you look at a History major and tell him he/she has it easy, take a look at what they read about in their spare time it might be more complicated than thermodynamics to explain.  

This is just the beginning!

As the title of this site says this will be a Rambling word wreck. I may speak my mind or just have a seizure on the keyboard about whatever crosses my mind. With that in mind I will leave you all in pieces until the inspiration to spread my blabber about the internet strikes again
Thanks for dropping by...