Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Thursday, 23 October 2003

# 4:45 AM

Time was, chopping up onions didn't bother me at all. These days, it seems like I can barely get started before I have to go flush out my eyes. I always thought this was just me getting more sensitive to the key chemical (propanethial S-oxide) as I got older. But just now I went to chop up a leftover onion half that had been stored in the fridge ... no problem at all. Thinking back on it, I used to keep onions in the fridge, because I didn't have anywhere else to keep them (this was in college, where I was sharing a tiny kitchen with four to six other people). Maybe they don't exude so many fumes when they're cold.

On a completely different note, consider the following political proposition: Everyone should be allowed to move to a different country, if they want, no questions asked. Once there, they should automatically get all the duties and privileges of citizenship of that country. Pay taxes there, vote there, everything. In other words, migrating between countries should work the same way migrating between subregions within a single country does now.

I'm certain this is a radical position. What I'm wondering is, does it have a name, and are there now, or have there ever been, political groups that advocated it? If so, what were their other positions?