What does 'Europe' mean again?

First, a diagram.


And now, statistics.

In a 2007 survey conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers:

• 84% of Georgians surveyed were in favor of "more economic cooperation with the EU"
• 85% of Georgians surveyed were supportive of "more political cooperation with the EU"
• 18% thought Georgia was already a member of the EU, another 25% weren't sure, and 21% thought Georgia was a member of the "Organization for European Development", which, by the way, doesn't exist
• When asked to evaluate their knowledge "about the European Union, its policies, its institutions" on a scale from 1 to 10, 86% responded with a 5 or less
  

I can assume only that the grass is always greener. Although, I wouldn't know what I didn't know if I had a President like Saak literally running fake news broadcasts, either.

Meanwhile, Medvedev spent the second anniversary of the war in Tskhinvali and Sukhumi (capitals of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, respectively), laying wreaths, listening to memorial requiems, and saying things like, "We acted correctly. We saved people and prevented a bloodbath here."

Mr Saakashvili spent the week in Colombia for President Santos's inauguration, (worried, as he is, that Colombia may follow Venezuela and Nicaragua in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia), but was kind enough to deliver a speech from Bogota on August 7th, during which he noted that "the battle for Georgia's deoccupation would continue to the end."

A question

I have been sequestered in my parents' house for the past four days, in the middle of suburbia, with no knowledge of how to drive, and thus have been drinking bourbon for the past two days, as my vodka stash ran out before then, and I have to ask-

why on earth do people think whiskey is somehow manlier than vodka (my liquor of choice)?

Bourbon tastes like sugared vintage lincoln logs; vodka tastes like fire.

If it is merely because other whiskeys are radically different from bourbon, I retract the question, but my God I've had screwdrivers that taste less girly than the Bulleit bourbon I've been guzzling (not to look a gift horse in the mouth, of course).

EDIT: I didn't mean to suggest that I am wholly unfamiliar with Misters Daniels, Beam, or Williams, but I only turn to them as a last resort, and so have never noticed anything much beyond their respective... aromas.

Well when I woke up tonight I said I...

Tonight I woke up, assuming I was in Petersburg, and in my head, made plans to visit the graves of the Romanovs. I gained some small degree of consciousness, recognized the music I was listening to, and assumed I was in DC, and so made plans to visit the Hillwood Estate. Finally I opened my eyes, realized it was 10pm on Long Island, had a drink, wrote this, and am now going back to sleep.

Life is farce, my friends. Farce.

A thought

Tears that do not ruin mascara are needlessly self-indulgent.

Happy birthday to me

My future!

But tonight, we drink.

Notes from an unfinished smoking piece

Found this in an old-ish word doc today. The following is completely unedited.

"MISC NOTES:
health is only for the tomb
compare non-smoking readers to over-eager converts never going to church (y'all just can't get it)
Dasein and Dunhills
show, don't tell
heuristic not for judging character, but Character
egalitarian breach of intersubjectivity
suits all emotions/aesthetics (Gogol Bordello's “Alcohol”)
never alone! (dining hall, newspaper, who needs that many words when all I want is one: Marlboro)
“infinitely customizable, always recognizable”?
Ice-breaker
not like ether, or some other erstwhile fashionable narcotic- tobacco as modernity, inescapable, the anxiety of being(-in-the-World)/theodicy/angst?"

I was going to finish the article, but figured anything I write won't really live up to that.