I attended a local conference called Globalization, Modernities and Violence on Friday and Saturday and my mind became filled to the brim with interesting perspectives, ideas and hope. Speakers included: Cynthia Enloe, Rashid Khalidi, Naomi Klein, Mahmood Mamdani, Vandana Shiva. If you visit the conference site, you can download whole chapters from the speaker's books to get a feel for the fantastic thinking these people bring to questions of international relations. The conference was well-attended, despite the unfortunate name. It sounds like postmodern mumbo jumbo. I'll try to write more later and provide links. The people I had read the least: Mamdani and Enloe, turned out to fascinate me the most. So I will have to do more research.

I was up late last night thinking and reading. Today I have been napping pretty much all day. Finally, I convinced Ravenhub to go for a walk with me just as the sun was setting so I hadn't wasted the entire day. It's a warm, calm night after all-day rain yesterday. The trees are just about to burst out in their finest green dress. For the past couple of days they've been in that bizarre state that allows us to still see the brown and black skeletons, but the tips of the branches have their first open buds of bright green. Instead of looking black or green, the trees look blurry. With the rain and warm temperatures, the transformation will take place this week and winter will be a memory.