#FREEUAB!

In case my few and far between readers haven't heard this; UAB football, Rifle, and Bowling teams were cut as a scheme to save funding for the University. What is far more likely to have happened is that Football was told to be axed, and our spineless president was more than willing to go along with the idea. In the letter that I sent to him I borrowed a quote from T.E. Lawrence, one of my hero's and perhaps where I take inspiration from in my education. The quote, "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." This quote pretty much states how I feel UAB has been treated by the President of the University and the UA System Board of Trustees. Somebody started dreaming and didn't do it in the comfort's of their bed....
As an Alum of UAB, former (brief) employee of the football team, B.A. in History, with a strong focus to the Middle East, and about to be in pursuit of my Second undergrad degree this affects me very much. First off, when I was a student for my first degree I was very much the commuter student, I would go to campus for school, and since throughout my time there I held a job on campus I would study in the library or, even rarer, hang out with friends until I had to go to work, being nearly every night. This didn't leave me much time to enjoy the "University experience" which meant I missed out on a lot of football games, which didn't really bother me, then I got a job, which didn't last long, with the football team as a manager. I had been a manager for my high school team, but working at the University level was a monster, I had to be in the locker by 6 AM most days, and if it was my laundry night I wouldn't leave until 10:30 PM at the earliest, usually it was Midnight. I quit not long into the gig because I was there for school first and foremost, everything else was second. After going through a nearly suicidal semester I changed to a new degree track from Biochemistry, becoming a History major left me a lot of time, though I was still much the same person. But I did go to some football games, to support those guys who I had sweated, and worked with like a dog to keep ready to play for a month of hell. These are guys, who when a player that had been cut from the team was murdered the next year we mourned as a family, We slept on the locker room floor together and ate meals together. While by the time I graduated a few months ago there weren't many left, and when I return there will be even fewer.
What I feel is going to affect the university even more are the rumors that are spreading around, from this cut in athletics there have also been a blossom in rumors that there will be cuts in Academics; History, Japanese, and Arabic language courses are just some of the smallest rumors and nearly confirmed casualties of this war. When somebody starts cutting academic programs in a University I lose all faith in the ability of this person. Being a B.A. of a History degree I can point to endless moments in time when cutting education is probably the stupidest of things any "Educator" can agree with. While I am not a very good football fan, and in the case of the Rifle and Bowling teams I was an even worse supporter. I will stand up for your causes since their losses signify the beginning of a fall of a University that was once regarded as one of the top Medical research universities in the Country. The University of Alabama at Birmingham needs to be freed from the clutches of the University of Alabama System. I have no problems with the University of Alabama itself, their students, faculty, and football team. I have a problem with the leadership of the whole system. So please join me in Saying #FREEUAB #FIRERAYWATTS!

Israel and Gaza

While I have tried to stay away from vocalizing my opinions about this current round of violence I find my silence and tolerance of stupid people and their comments wearing out.
I do not support Israel, nor do I support Hamas. I find both to be equally trying and failing at deceiving the World of their true nature. Both Hamas and Israel are religious to the point of intolerance and yet if you were to take a citizen of Israel and a citizen of Gaza and strip them of all identifying markers they would be exactly the same. HUMANS!
A comment made by an elderly Israeli "I survived Hitler, Hamas doesn't scare me" (Al-Monitor). Without reading the article I have already formed a rather negative opinion, and to this Israeli I would ask how many other people have survived the Holocaust and put up with bullshit everyday. The state of Israel only exists because the USA and Great Britain wanted to save their faces about having sent Jews and others back to the Nazi occupied areas, now for political reason they still support Israel. You wouldn't have to put up with this shelling if perhaps some members of the early Israel government had perhaps followed through with the suggestion of putting the Jewish state in the USA, in Montana! Nobody lives in Montana anyway. So to this old Israeli I say Hamas doesn't scare you because you have become Hitler, just look at all the settlements built, and the behavior of locking down the Palestinians behind walls. If this isn't a new Holocaust, what is?

Plenty will scream about the right to defend oneself as is the usual argument for Israel's behavior, but their comes a point when defending turns into attacking. If 3 rockets fall and kill 1 maybe 2 people write it off. Going into Gaza with tanks chasing Nissan Sentra's up and down the street while blowing up a hospital (rockets or no rockets) creates a bigger problem than before. The number of Israeli's who died has not even gotten to 20 and all are soldiers. The number of Palestinian deaths is over 500, and mostly innocent people. Which is part of the problem; groups like Hamas want you to kill the innocents because this creates more fighters and group members. With Israel being one of the most technologically advanced states in the world when it comes to intelligence and military they could come up with a way of better targeting.

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...