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Global Voices Online

Indonesia: Earthquake in Java

Posted: May 27th, 2006, 11:37am PDT by preetam

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icm capital markets ltd Fatih Sayud has a post on the earthquake in Indonesia. The 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit Java island just after dawn and caused the death of around 3000 people.

3quarksdaily

Vanessa Redgrave and Joan Didion, Working on a Merger

Posted: May 27th, 2006, 4:51am PDT by Azra Raza

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From The New York Times:
SOON after the announcement was made last December that Joan Didion would be writing a one-woman play based on her autobiographical book, "The Year of Magical Thinking," Ms. Didion had a meeting with Scott Rudin, the Broadway producer who first proposed the idea, and David Hare, the British playwright who will be directing the production. One of the topics was casting. It was not a long conversation.

itrader reviews Vanessa Redgrave, said Mr. Rudin, "was the only person we ever talked about. There was no one else ever discussed." And so after a phone call to Ms. Redgrave, the two women, among the greatest practitioners of their crafts, started the process of becoming, in a sense, one. "I said, 'My God,' and I couldn't speak for a long time," Ms. Redgrave, 69, recalled in an interview Wednesday afternoon in Ms. Didion's sunlight-filled apartment. "I'd read the book and given it to all my family."

"The Year of Magical Thinking" will be the first play for Ms. Didion, 71. It will not be a strict adaptation of the book, she said, because it will cover events that happened after it was published. The book, an account of the fear, despair and exasperation of bereavement, begins on Dec. 30, 2003, with the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, after a heart attack at the dinner table.
More here.

Open Source

Immigration and Development, with Amartya Sen

Fetched: May 27th, 2006, 3:19am PDT by Chris

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[Booked for Tuesday, May 30, 2006] With the Nobel economist Amartya Sen, we pick up the question hanging at the end of our conversation on remittances and the flood of migrant workers. "
Amartya Sen [UC, Berkeley]
To wit: isn't the immigration crisis the flip side of a development riddle? What would it take to make the lives of Mexican farmers sustainable in Mexico? How does it come to be that there are more African-trained nurses and doctors working in Europe than in Africa? Under the heading of "flood control," what might the US be doing to address the tide of refugees from Latin America before they reach the Bush border fence? Amartya Sen, the Lamont University Professor at Harvard, is of course an immigrant from India -- in an America that he notes has always been hospitable to intellectuals and highly qualified specialists like him. Development economics is only one of his fields, and his technical studies are the least of his worldwide eminence. He is best known perhaps for the observed rule that famines simply do not happen in independent democracies with a free press; famines are invariably political and military "events," as he first suspected on the basis of his own childhood witness of the famine in Bengal in 1943 which took 3 million lives. He is a feminist exponent of the argument that the single most important stroke in development policy (and population control) is the education of women. His new book Identity and Violence takes apart all the easy labels of ethnic and national destiny and smashes the monoliths of East and West: "Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror." A courtly liberal gentleman of the world, Professor Sen seems to relish tests of wit and theory: recently with Robert Kagan, for example, on the "clash of civilizations," and on development aid with William Easterly, dubbed by Sen "the man without a plan." We are asking him for a reasonably grand synthesis here, and a primer on spreading out modernization and growth toward, as we say, "the next 5 billion."

Global Voices Online

Guatemala: Video of Hurricane Stan and the Weekend’s Orange Alert

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 12:08am PDT by David Sasaki

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icm capital markets Patrick of the Guatemala Solidarity Network Blog has posted a 13 minute video of “what it was like in Panajachel when Stan struck last year.” In a followup post, he quotes a recent report that cited “current concerns include that the planting of this year’s crops will be affected by lack of suitable drained land for this purpose.” On an unfortunate cue, Rob Mercatante writes that President Oscar Berger has called a state of orange alert [ES] as the country braces for approaching heavy rains.
Peru: Cucho La Rosa’s New Restaurant

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 11:58pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Peru Food describes the new restaurant in Pachacámac village by renowned chef Cucho La Rosa.
Mexico: “Friki”

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 11:55pm PDT by David Sasaki

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“Friki [ES],” defined by Wikipedia as someone interested in or obsessed by a topic, is a must-know word for the reader of Spanish-language blogs. As Eduardo Arcos points out [ES], it’s also one of the most searched for words on Technorati. And who is the friki of the year?
Argentina, Chile: El Chaltén

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 11:49pm PDT by David Sasaki

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“Just when you thought nationalism had nothing good to offer the world, along comes a wonder like El Chaltén. A town with no conceivable economic or geographic purpose other than sticking it to the nearby Chileans, El Chaltén (Spanish for The Chaltén) is an accidental hikers’ paradise in what used to be one of the most inaccessible parts of southern Patagonia.” Maciej Ceglowski describes the mountainous border region between Chile and Argentina with typical skillfulness.
Argentina: The 25th of May

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 11:46pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Yesterday was Día de la Patria in Argentina, which From Bmore to BA explains commemorates the end of Spanish rule. Jeff Barry describes the rally held in the Plaza de Mayo as “clearly a pro-Kirchner political rally paid for by the government” and even remarks that “according to the news, these bus trips for yesterday’s event were subsidized by the government.” Conservative blogger Rubén Benedetti takes a stab [ES] at Kirchner’s call for “more plurality in Argentine politics. Javier has a thorough review of the day [ES] from all over Argentina’s blogosphere. Lovers Go Home offers up the Argentine National Hymn for download to commemorate the day and Martin Varsavsky says [ES] that good old Peronism has returned to the Plaza de Mayo.
Vietnam: Visiting Saigon

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 11:17pm PDT by preetam

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The blogger at Vietnamese God visits Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and compares it to Hanoi - the city where he lives. “Each time I come here it brings me a different feeling. It seems always new and things are changing very quickly which is good. I love wandering around the old part of Saigon and walking down to the zoo where I can see lots of beautiful old French style buildings and old trees along the street.”
Latin America: Poll Numbers

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 11:14pm PDT by David Sasaki

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As consistent as the sunrise, Boz has this week’s Friday poll numbers.
Martinique: Stabbing over 10 Euros

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 10:40pm PDT by Alice Backer

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“Yet another tragedy in Fort-de-France! [Martinique’s capital]” says (Fr) Bien Vu. “Two 20-year olds get in a fight over a debt! Of 10 Euros! The borrower did not hesitate to pull a knife and stab the [lender] several times. End result, the young man has been in the coma for 24 hours. (…) These are really rough times.”

I cite

Sniper Mom Parties On

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 9:09pm PDT by Jodi

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So my son's 11th birthday party began with a few setbacks. First, I was told that the party room I had reserved was somehow occupied and that the seven boys I was taking to laser tag would have to eat cake and pizza and then run around. I was less than delighted and expressed this with great vigor. So, they comp-ed the party and let us do one mission before cake and two after. I was prepared to pay for the third since they had already comp-ed the rest, but didn't have to. That was pretty great.

Other initial setbacks: when one kid arrived his mom said he had been throwing up all day but really wanted to come to the party. She advised me to bring a plastic bag in the car. He threw up before we left, nearly making the sink in time. Then he threw up right after we payed the toll. But he did great on his missions.

A third setback: one kid refused to go in to the briefing room because he was afraid of the dark (I wonder if there is any connection between this and the fact that his dad is in Iraq.) He finally went in and had fun.

I guess the heavy rain and fog shouldn't be included in the party checks and balances. You can't predict the weather. But, we had to drive over an hour, so I think we can put that in the minus column. On the other hand, Paul had a carload of boys who were no more distracting than Zizek was when Paul took him to the airport under similar weather conditions, so maybe that's a plus.

And, I'm not sure whether the great, great pleasure I took in being a sniper is a plus or a minus. Nothing like shooting kids and strangers with a laser gun in a dark maze. I was so intense about it that I got a really nasty blister on my trigger finger. My daughter, a tiny 7, oddly scored negative 27 points. High scores were over 300. I think this makes her a casualty.

I'd like to suggest this as something for faculty or student groups. But, they'll probably say its too militarist, too violent. Too bad. I love being a sniper.

Global Voices Online

Russia: Ethnic Uzbek in Moscow

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 7:24pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Moscow-based LJ user gr_s (Grigoriy Sapov) hitched a cab and ended up having a conversation with the driver, an ethnic Uzbek (RUS):

An Uzbek Driver

Yesterday. The driver is elderly, respectable, speaks without an accent:

***

The conversation began when we were getting out to the embankment through Neopalimovskie Lanes.

- Take these garbage containers. Recently, in Grokholskiy, in the backyard, I found a Singer sewing machine standing next to a container like this. Someone put it out there and, interestingly, attached a hand-written note: “In working order.” I loaded it into the car - my personal car has seats that can be lowered, so it fit. Took it to my son - my middle son runs a small metal repairs shop, and one more son has chosen our ancestors’ way - he sews footwear, bags, and works with leather in general. So they cleaned it, installed an electric engine. It works well, sews through leather alright. And it says on it that it was made in 1928, by the way.

***

I have six children. Four sons, two daughters. The oldest one is in Malaysia, plays football. He was here in winter - bought us an apartment, two rooms in Mitino. At school my sons attended (and the youngest one attends still), they asked me at a parents’ meeting to talk about how I’m raising my sons so that they don’t drink and don’t swallow some crap. Maybe, they say, this is because you’re an Uzbek, not a Russian person. I replied to them that even though I am an Uzbek, I spent 20 years serving in the Soviet Army. So my answer about sons is simple: [I beat them]. They said, How terrible, and didn’t allow their children to play with mine. Now three of my sons have been long out of school, almost all their classmates have become drunks, some are drug addicts. There was a boy, everyone praised him for good grades, and he is serving his second sentence now. So it turns out that I was raising my sons the right way. And their way was wrong.

***

My wife says that the mother of our daughter’s friend called and asked:

- Is it true that your husband sells kvas [fermented non-alcoholic drink]?
- No, it’s not true. Who told you this nonsense?
- Your son, when they had a written survey, responded to the question on the parents’ work with “father sells kvas, and my daughter saw it.

I ask him in the evening:

- Timurchik, why did you write that I sell kvas?
- If I wrote that you are a driver for a Western company, and if I mentioned what car you’re driving, they’d jump on you, and would extort money and gifts from you, the way they do with other parents who earn well.

***

- Do you speak Uzbek or Russian ay home?
- Well, our children live here, go to school here. I send them to their grandmother for the summer, to Andijon, they get the language back and by the end of the summer can say everything in Uzbek, and they understand everything. Here in Moscow, they, of course, speak Russian with each other, and my wife and I speak Uzbek. That, we speak both at home.

***

- I’ve got give education to one son and marry my daughters, and that’s it.
- Is it important for you that they marry Uzbeks?
- (Thinks, roughly from Borodinsky Bridge to Novoarbatskiy Bridge) Yes, it is important.
- Why?
- It won’t work for them otherwise. It won’t be a family for them, it’ll be nothing but misery. (Fell silent again, as we were driving past the White House.) Strange things are taking place. I think that Russians have won such wars, and in general, they are a kind, open-minded people. And on TV they are being told to attack other peoples. It shouldn’t be this way.

Vegan Lunch Box

Golden Carrot Nominations

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 5:15pm PDT by Jennifershmoo

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Are you one of the lucky few who enjoy a healthy, vegan-friendly school lunch program? If so, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine wants to know about it! PCRM is looking for nominations for its third annual Golden Carrot Awards, and thought Vegan Lunch Box readers might be able to give them a few leads.

PCRM is looking for "outstanding food service professionals working to improve the healthfulness of school lunches". The grand prize winner gets $1,500 plus $3,500 for the school. They're looking for programs that feature "vegetarian entrees, low-fat meals, fresh fruits and vegetables, and nondairy beverage items and that promote nutrition education".

Global Voices Online

Public Schools students coordinate Strike by fotoblogs

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 5:07pm PDT by Rosario Lizana

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More than 40,000 public school students (and now some private (ES) as well) have participated in mobilizations all over Chile in the last weeks. They are asking for free public transportation, free entrance exams, a revision of full time school classes, and the detraction of the Organic Law of Education. The entrance exams/a> (ES) cost US $40 per student (the minimum wage is US $240 a month). In some public schools there is not sufficient infrastructure to have dining halls for a full time classes and the Organic Law of Education (ES) is from 1980. They goverment has made changes to this law in 1990, but the general vision hasn’t changed that much.

They participate through marches, protests, and by occupying public schools, colleges and universities. They are also holding conversation workshops and coordinating with the mayor of each area. And also … by web sites, blogs and fotoblogs. It’s amazing that while authorities were asking how to coordinate nationally, they forgot to check the web. The pro-active student group has more or less 6.000 people and is located in the capital, Santiago.

One of the most traditional public schools, “Instituto Nacional” - more than 12 presidents of Chile have studied over there, last one was Ricardo Lagos- has its website . Another is José Victorino Las Tarrias’ fotoblog (ES). , Liceo 1 Javiera Carrera (ES), Liceo de Aplicación’s blog and fotoblog (ES), Barros Borgoño (ES) . Most use nicknames to refer to the name of the school such as “Carmelianas” (ES) , for example.

They post about the last information, convocation of strike, meeting and events, and also…a competition with all of the public schools fotoblogs in the list to vote for the best one. New leaders are emerging in this groups that in other situations, would probably be weighed down by bureaucracy, and blogs have become a window to make leaders grow and others students participate, sending photos, comments, voting and also emails.

Now, the major plan of the students is to hold a national strike on May 30th. They will not march, the idea is to have peaceful meetings among students. The right wing has taken advantage of this situation to criticize Michelle Bachelet’s governance. The Education Minister is working now with parliaments from the left and right wing to agree on the best solution to resolve the demands of the students.

Vegan Lunch Box

Tahinopita

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:59pm PDT by Jennifershmoo

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Today is a special "Field Day" at shmoo's school, with games, relay races, obstacle courses, and early release. So instead of a lunch box, I thought I'd share another recipe.

Last week the school asked volunteers to bake cakes for a "Cake Walk" fundraiser. The theme was "international", so I made Tahinopita -- Greek tahini cake!

I found the original recipe in a spiral-bound collection of "Popular Greek Recipes" compiled by the "Greek Orthodox Ladies Philoptochos Society of Charleston, South Carolina" that I found in a thrift shop. I don't think I've ever had anything quite like it. It's dense and a bit crumbly, rather like a big cookie. If you leave off the sugar syrup glaze it tastes just gently sweet.

It's very satisfying and filling from all the tahini, raisins, and nuts, and on top of being vegan it contains no soy, margarine or oil. I think it could easily be made with whole wheat or spelt flour, so lots of healthy possibilities with this one. Enjoy!

Damn Interesting

Project Babylon: Gerald Bull's Downfall

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:55pm PDT by Anthony Kendall

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Gerald Bull is a prime example of a man who created his own luck–unfortunately for him most of it was bad. A brilliant and distinguished artillery engineer, Bull spent much of his life in the upper echelons of government-funded weapons research. Though his career took him down a convoluted and often difficult path, he devoted his professional life to a single-minded pursuit of his dream: to build a gun large enough to shoot satellites into orbit. Bull nearly single-handedly resurrected the science of supergun artillery, and in so doing played a major role in 2 wars. But Bull's confrontational style and brusque manner won him very few friends within the governments for which he worked. His poor networking skills combined with a near total disregard for the dangerous politics in which he meddled led to heavy fines, a short stint in prison, and ultimately, to... (More Inside)

Global Voices Online

West Indies: Cricket victory over India

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:35pm PDT by Nicholas Laughlin

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Today Trinidad and Tobago hosted the fourth match in the current West Indies vs India One Day International cricket series. Francomenz didn’t make it to the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain to watch the match, but she followed it on the radio. “Too exciting!!!” she wrote when West Indies captain Brian Lara made a half century. When Lara was caught out, she wondered if she’d jinxed him. But in the end the West Indies won the match and the series; Francomenz explained just why this victory is so important.
Iran: Free Mana Blog!

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:35pm PDT by Farid Pouya

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Free Mana (Persian) is a new blog which reports all news about arrested cartoonist, Mana Neyestani.
Mana drew the cartoon which provoked riots among Azeri community.
India: Office 2007

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:24pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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Kingsley takes a closer look at Office 2007 and comments on User Interface, features and quirks.
Bangladesh: Update on Garment Industry Riots

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:15pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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Rezwan has a very comprehensive post on the Garment Industry Riots - tracing the reasons why it started and links to various sources that have insights and resources on the issue.
Nepal: Secularism and Religion

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:10pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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With Nepal deciding to go secular - what does it mean in terms of intersecting interests of religion and politics? Further, what role does India play in all this at Nepali Netbook.
Arabisc: Arabic Bloggers Ken

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:03pm PDT by Haitham Sabbah

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From Egypt… Malek who was scheduled to be free few days ago is now officially free. He just made his first post, titled: Free Morning. Malek writes:
الحمدلله

تم الافراج عني اليوم في حوالي الساعه الرابعه والنصف من قسم ترحيلات الخليفه

لحد دلؤتي مقريتش حاجه اتكتبت عني بس بجد شكرا جدا لكل واحد كتب عني حاجه او وقف معايا في اللي انا كنت فيه

حرجع اكتب بالتفصيل قريب Thank God!

I was released today at around four thirty

Until now, I haven’t read anything written about me, but seriously, thanks very much to all who wrote or stood by my side

I’ll continue writing soon
Speaking of Egyptian bloggers and the recent reaction of mainstream media, Al Jazeera Network yesterday aired a documentary program about bloggers in the Arab world and focused on Egyptian bloggers. Malek, Alaa and many other bloggers stories were covered. Viewers of the documentary said it was great and will be aired again twice tomorrow.

Bent Mesreya asked her parents to watch the documentary. She wrote about their reaction. She said:
مش عارفة اوصف احساسى بمشاعرهم.. هما مبسوطين ان فى شباب كده.. ومع ذلك عايزينى افضل بعيدة بردو.. “زيزي انتى لأ”.. “زيزي مين، هو انا اطول اعمل حاجة زيهم.. هو حظى كده.. لو كنت عايشة فى مصر.. ولو كنت بشتغل فى مصر زى الاول”.. طول الحلقة على كده.. I can’t describe how they feel.. they are happy to see young people like them.. in spite of that, they want me to stay away… “Zeze (her name), not you”.. “oh me, I wish I can do something like them.. it’s my bad luck.. only if I live in Cairo.. or work there like I used to”..
Along the same line of support for the detained bloggers, few Egyptian bloggers are organizing a live music concert; “Sing, Baheya”:
غنى يا بهية.. من أجل زملائنا المعتقلين

غنّى يا بهية.. حفل ينظمه عدد من المدونين المصريين

تضامنا مع زملائنا المدونين المعتقلين وتكريما لمن تم فك سراحهم

غنّى يا بهية.. حفل موسيقى، مسرحى سيقام فى نقابة الصحفيين

نعلن الآن.. عن مرحلة التنظيم للحفل.. شاركونا فى الإعداد.. على من يرغب فى المشاركة لتنظيم الحفل مراسلتنا على

eheaam@gmail.com

فى موعد أقصاه 10 مساءا - الجمعة 26 مايو 2006 Sing, Baheya… For fellow detainees
Sing, Baheya… Ceremony organized by a number of Egyptians Bloggers
In solidarity with our colleague’s bloggers and to honor those arrested and the released ones
Sing, Baheya… Live music concert and theatre play will be held at the Press Syndicate
Those wishing to participate in organizing the ceremony please contact us:
Eheaam@gmail.com
No later than 10 pm - Friday 26, May 2006
The Ghanne Ya Baheya (Sing, Baheya), bloggers (organizers) are welcoming any help. Among these bloggers are, 30 February, Taranim, Seeking Freedom, Ayoub El Masry, Bent Masreya, Tagreba and Shaimaa.

In Kuwait… Following last couple of weeks parliamentary unrest and following the conflict between the Government and large portion of the parliament member regarding the “election zones” law; Kuwait Emir dissolved the Parliament and called for new parliamentary elections by end of June 2006.

The new elections campaign started immediately after the Emir announcement, so did the local newspapers start reporting events and public meetings around the Emirate. However, some bloggers are critical about what pro-government newspapers are showing on their pages.

Jandeef, cut and pasted and then abrogated some photos to prove them fake. The photos that were published by Al-Watan newspaper shows the “Blue-Ribbon” gathering. They are the supporters of the Government proposal for the new “election zones” law. The opponent group is the “Orange-Ribbon” group, which Jandeef seems to be supporting.

Jandeef then writes:
نحن لا نجزع من تجمع معارضي إصلاح النظام الانتخابي ، فلهم كل الحق في التعبير عن ذلك وعليهم بالعافية ، لكن ترى ما فيها مشكلة يا “الوطن” إذا ما كان التجمع حاشد ، فالتجمع البرتقالي الأول عند قصر السيف كان عدد حضوره قليل بالنسبة للتجمعات التي تلته ، ولكن العبرة ليست بالعدد ولكن بالهدف والمضمون. We are not worried from the gathering of the electoral system reform, opponent’s. They have the right to express themselves, it’s not a problem if the assembly was crowded, the first Orange gathering was small if compared to numbers of groupings that followed, but the lesson is not the number but the purpose and content.
In Lebanon… It was the week of celebrating the anniversary of liberation from the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.

Watani, in support for the “resistance” (a term usually used to describe the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters) writes:
إن مسيرة تحرير الوطن، واستعادة السيادة والإستقلال هي مسؤوليّة جميع اللبنانيين وتتخطىّ التنوّع الطائفيّ والطبقيّ والأجيال. نهنىء اليوم المقاومة على إنجازها الرائع بإرغام إسرائيل على الإنسحاب من لبنان دون قيد أو شرط. فقد تخطّت جميع الصعوبات وقدّمت التضحيات وهكذا كانت النموذج الوحيد في الدول العربيّة الذي استطاع استرداد الحق من دون وساطة أو تفاوض أو تنازل The march of the liberation of the homeland, and the restoration of sovereignty and independence are the responsibility of all Lebanese and it transcends sectarian diversity, classes and generations. Today we congratulate the resistance to accomplish wonderful forcing of Israeli withdraw from Lebanon unconditionally. They (the resistance fighters) exceeded all of the difficulties and made sacrifices and were thus the only model in the Arab world, which were able to recover their rights without mediation or negotiation or giving up.
To Saudi Arabia… On reading and censorship… Tech2click asks, “With the internet betweens our hands, do we still don’t read?” While Saad writes about the brutality of the media censorship.

So, Tech2Click writes about reading online:
فالمنتديات والقوائم البريدية وغرف الحوار ساهمت لحد ما في جعل الشاب يقرأ خارج نطاق الكتاب المدرسي … ولكن مع ذلك مصادر المعلومات في هذه القنوات سببت مشكلة الرؤية بدائرة ضيقة… في الغالب يستقي شبابنا الثقافة والمعلومات التي يحملونها من معلومات متداولة إما في القوائم البريدية أو المنتديات وغرف الدردشة …ولكن هل فكر الشاب أن يخرج من هذه الدائرة الضيقة لنطاق أوسع. قد يقول البعض أن الإنترنت فقيرة من ناحية المحتوى العربي المفيد فمن أين له أن يقرأ؟…هذا القول لحد ما صحيح ولكن هل فكرنا بمحتوى اللغات الأخرى، فالإنترنت في ذات الوقت غنية بالمحتوى المفيد وبلغات أخرى …. يعني ذلك أننا أوجدنا عقبة أخرى سوف تواجه شبابنا وهي اللغة. Blogs, mailing lists and forums contributed to some degree, to make young people read beyond the school books … Yet these sources of information have caused the problem of narrow vision… Often youth obtain knowledge and information they possess from information circulated either in the mailing lists or forums and chat rooms … But did the youth thought of emerging from this narrow scope of this broader. Some may say that the Internet is poor in terms of Arabic content, so what can he read? … To some limit, this is true, but did we think in the content of other languages? The Internet is rich with content in other languages …. This means we have another obstacle facing young people, the language.
Saad has another type of problem with reading. He is complaining about the Media’s official type of censorship. He goes far into calling them ignorant. He writes:
لا مانع لدي أن تقوم الدولة ممثلة بوازرة الإعلام أو جهة أخرى بمراقبة المطبوعات المختلفة من كتب ومجلات وجرائد خصوصاً التي تأتي من خارج الممكلة وتكون تحتوي على ما يخالف أحد توجهات البلد الدينية أو الساسية. لكن مالا أوافق عليه أن يتم عمل هذه الرقابة بإسلوب همجي ومتسرع وأقرب ما يقال عنه أنه متخلف.

هذا بالضبط ما حدث معي قبل أيام عندما اشتريت مجلة “الإسلام اليوم” العدد رقم (18) حيث تم تمزيق بعض الصفحات الداخلية بشكل يدوي شوهـ المجلة ودل على أن من قام بهذا العمل لا يمت للعقل بصلة. كما ذكرت في بداية المقال بأنني لا أمانع حذف ما يخالف قوانين وزارة الإعلام ، لكن هذا الأسلوب لا يرضاه أحد ، بل أنه يدل على إستحقار وأستخفاف بعقل القاريء ، توجد طرق أخرى يمكن حذف الصفحات بها بدون أن يعرف القاريء عنها إما بقطعها بشكل جيد أو منظم على الأقل.

هذا الحدث ذكرني بما كان يحدث قديماً على القناة الثانية للتلفزيون السعودي ، حيث كان يعرض الفيلم وهو مليء بالمشاهد الغير لائقة والتي بالطبع يتم حذفها جميعاً وهذا الحذف يؤثر على قصة الفيلم حيث تفوتك أشياء كثيرة من أحداث الفيلم المترابطة وبالتالي تكون ضائع وسط الفيلم ولا تدري إلا والفلم قد انتهى ثم تتسائل مالذي حدث وماذا حدث لكذا وكذا .. السؤال الذي يطرح نفسه لماذا تم شراء الفيلم من الأساس ونصف الفيلم تقريباً غير صالح للعرض وسيتم حذفه! .. هذه الحادثة تكررت مع أكثر من فيلم ومسلسل لم أفهم بعضها حتى الآن. I have no objection that the State represented by the Ministry of Information or any other official’s to control the various publications of books and magazines and newspapers in particular these that comes from outside of the Kingdom and contains material that is in contrary to one of the country’s religious or political directions. But what I don’t agree with is the barbaric method, hasty and ignorant way this is done.

That was exactly what happened to me a few days ago when I purchased “Islam Today” magazine, where some pages were torn by hand, which distorted the magazine and demonstrated that the work is far from rational mind. As I mentioned before, I do not mind deleting material that contravenes the laws of the Ministry of Information, but this methods are not a satisfactory one, rather, it mocks reader’s mind. There are other ways to do this without readers can come to know about, or well structured methods at least.

This event reminded me of what used to happen at Saudi TV Channel 2, where a film with a lot indecent scene of course will be deleted, but the deletion affects the story of the film until the film’s events become irrelevant and thus the film end while you wonder what happened to this in that part of the story … The question arises: why the film was purchased at first place if nearly half of the film is unsuitable and will be deleted? This incident repeated with in so many films and I still don’t understand them.
Nepal: Peace Talks

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 4:01pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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Consultations, negotiation and a code of conduct may show the way forward for peace in Nepal says Bahas. “Members of the government and Maoist negotiation teams have agreed to a 25-point code of conduct late Friday to be observed by both the sides during the period of ceasefire.The talks ended at 10:15 p.m. after more than six hours of closed-door negotiations between the two parties at Gokarna Forest Golf Resort in Kathmandu.”
India: Art and Fear

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:54pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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The proposed exhibition of MF Husain’s paintings in London has caused a security fear. Pickled Politics on the threats of fundamentalists. The comments space yields an interesting debate and discussion.
Philippines: Ethical Question

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:18pm PDT by preetam

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Blogging Bugs has stopped asking students studying accounting a particular ethical question because she fears the answer might be something she may not want to hear.
Indonesia: Using Religion for Violence

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:16pm PDT by preetam

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Unspun explains why it is both heartening and depressing at the same time to see Indonesia’s major Muslim organisation asking the president to crack down on thugs who use religion to justify violence.
Philippines: Wickedly Sweet Filipino

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:12pm PDT by preetam

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The blogger at Manilastreetwalker introduces “wickedly-sweet” Filipinos he encounters in his travels in Spain.
Malaysia: Corruption in High Places

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:09pm PDT by preetam

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Bridget in Malaysia talks about Malaysian politicians and their confidence in running scams. She gives a recent example of a member of parliament who asked the Malaysian Customs to “close one eye” and let in an illegal consignment of logs from Indonesia to Malaysia
Bermuda: Breaking news: gay rights amendment defeated

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:07pm PDT by Nicholas Laughlin

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Bermudan MP Renee Webb’s private member’s bill proposing the amendment of the Human Rights Code to include sexual orientation has just been defeated in the House of Assembly, reports Christian S. Dunleavy. “The Bill was defeated in committee, therefore there was no formal vote in the House and therefore — no names. Profiles in courage indeed.” Yesterday, A Limey in Bermuda had attempted to contact all the MPs and find out how they planned to vote. “Don’t be a coward and absent yourself from the vote,” he appealed. This afternoon the Limey reports on the sequence of events inside the House of Assembly: “The difference between a committee vote and a vote in the House seemed pretty academic … it was all the MPs who were present that were voting. Unfortunately some … were in the back room listening to the debate on the radio when the committee vote was moved. As a result, they did not participate in the vote.”
East Timor: More Violence

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:06pm PDT by preetam

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Factions continue to fight with each other in East Timor . The blogger at Diligence, in his post titled Another Bad Day, mentions this incident that took place on Thursday, 25th May

The UN released details of the casualties from an encounter between FDTL soldiers and the police after army soldiers attacked the police headquarters :

“As the unarmed police were being escorted out, army soldiers opened fire on them killing nine and wounding 27 others, including two UN police advisers,” Dujarric said.

This is just after the UN police attached to the local police had brokered a deal to lay down weapons and leave the building.

The wounded police were taken to the UN compound where blogger Tumbleweed was helping out

In the clinic, there was no time to feel fear or sadness. We just tried to see how we could help, with instructions from the (thankfully) many doctors working in the UN system. I put on gloves and tried to clean some wounds, bandage some, and comfort others - holding their hands and talking to them, trying to reassure them. I don’t think I was ‘feeling’ anything at that moment. NONE of us did, we just did what was necessary.

They managed to save some of the wounded but some were not lucky. Tumbleweed writes

Earlier when the first wounded policeman was carried in with four bullet wounds on his chest, (this was just outside where everyone had gathered), it really was an emotional scene. my tears just kept rolling down, and i kept saying ‘Hail Marys’ and ‘Our Fathers’ to calm myself down. My heart bled for the women and children who would lose their fathers today. I cried out to the Lord to put sense back into these men’s minds. Today is the DAY OF OBLIGATION for the Ascension of the Lord! This is all so wrong.

The police man died.
NO ONE should die this way.
i’m not bothering to say what actually happened today cos even if i do, it doesn’t make sense. war fare makes no sense. We should simply ban guns around the world.
Pray for peace my friends, if you’re reading
Czech Republic: Trying to Fix a Gas Heater

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 1:21pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Dana of My Czech Republic Blog reproduces an exasperating phone conversation about a heater that seemed to be broken.
Serbia & Montenegro: Belgrade Pictures

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 1:21pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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annabengan of Tirana-based annasblog posts photos from her recent trip to Belgrade: “We went to Serbia a week end to visit Belgrade. Cheap tickets from Tirana, leaving early Saturday morning and coming back late Monday night (May 1st).”
Romania: Sarmalele Reci

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 1:21pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Romerican writes about a Romanian band called Sarmalele Reci: “Sarmale is a traditional Romanian dish. Basically, it’s rice, pork, and spice rolled into cabbage leaves and baked. We can haggle over recipe details another day. Sarmalele is the articulated plural form of sarmale, yet they are pronounced the same way. Reci is the word for cold, when speaking about inanimate objects. The band’s name translates as “the cold sarmale (plural)” which, of course, no one would want since sarmalele should be hot.”
Serbia & Montenegro: Kosovo Documentaries

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 1:20pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Mat Savelli of Roma Roma notes two documentaries on Kosovo, one of which is a must-see: “Easily the best documentary produced on ex-Yugo that I have ever seen, the film covered the issue from a broader regional perspective, i.e. correctly.”
Ukraine: Books on Ukraine

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 1:20pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Dan McMinn of Orange Ukraine has started a Ukrainian book section of his blog: “[…] a list of good (or at least popular) reading material about Ukraine or involving Ukraine. The section includes a number of useful links and things for each book, and categorizes the books a number of ways, but is only six books large at present. Of course I intend to increase it whenever I hear about books to add.” Suggestions are welcome.

3quarksdaily

iconic monumentalism

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 10:02am PDT by Morgan Meis

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Towards the end of the last century major cultural institutions established themselves as generators of urban activity rather than just repositories for artefacts and information. Architecture is central to this role. As the new century progresses, the architecture of high culture is evolving still further, and a new museum now carries with it the weight of cultural expectation, anticipated by both critics and town planners as a potent symbol of place, be it a district, city or even a whole country.
Iconic monumentalism was a reaction against the anodyne Modernism that had become the de facto house style of museology. Sober, self-effacing, functional museum architecture stems from the Bauhaus-era fascination with purity and simplicity. The gradual reduction of the decorated façade into a muted, abstract composition took place in parallel with the most significant American art movement of the postwar era, Abstract Expressionism, an integration epitomized by Philip Johnson’s Rothko Chapel in Houston (1971), a self-consciously pared-down structure built to house a Mark Rothko triptych. Art overflowed the constraints of the canvas; architecture followed meekly.

more from Frieze here.
combines forever

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 9:58am PDT by Morgan Meis

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In 1943, a young sailor named Milton on furlough from his duties in the psych ward at Camp Pendleton wandered into the Huntington Library in San Marino and stood stock-still, transfixed by the aesthetic epiphany of seeing Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy and Lawrence’s Pinkie in the flesh. He remembered having seen them reproduced on packs of playing cards back home in Port Arthur, Texas. “It sounds corny,” Milton later recalled, “but my moment of realization that there was such a thing as being an artist happened right there.”
Ten years later, Milton Rauschenberg had changed his name to Bob and the seed planted by that unholy marriage of male and female über-kitsch archetypes, having passed through an art history wormhole called Erased de Kooning, spawned an outpouring of virtuosic and revolutionary visual artifacts unsurpassed in the history of 20th-century visual culture.

more from the LA Weekly here.
romanians

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 9:53am PDT by Morgan Meis

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SOON AFTER leaving Romania in the late 1940s, Paul Celan wrote to a friend of the “too short season which was ours…” It is a good epitaph for the all too brief explosion of artistic and literary talent in Romania in the first half of the 20th century, set against a darkening background of rising anti-Semitism, invasion and dictatorship.
There were two generations. The first were born in the years before the First World War and included Tristan Tzara (né Sami Rosenstein), the father of Dadaism, the Yiddish poet, Itzik Manger, the screenwriter, Emeric Pressburger (born in Hungary but briefly a Romanian citizen in the 1920s), Mircea Eliade, Ionesco, E.M. Cioran and Saul Steinberg. None of them remained in Romania by the end of the Second World War.

The second generation were born between the wars and included Celan, Elie Wiesel, Aharon Appelfeld and Norman Manea. They were formed by three experiences: the rise of Romanian anti-Semitism in the 1930s, the Holocaust and exile.

more from a review of Norman Manea's memoirs in Salmagundi here.
MID-POINT IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:50am PDT by Abbas Raza

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Tariq Ali in the New Left Review:
Looking down on the world from the imperial grandeur of the Oval Office in the fall of 2001, the Cheney–Bush team was confident of its ability to utilize the September events to remodel the world. The Pentagon’s Vice Admiral Cebrowski summed up the linkage of capitalism to war: ‘the dangers against which us forces must be arrayed derive precisely from countries and regions that are “disconnected” from the prevailing trends of globalization’. Five years later, what is the balance sheet?

On the credit side, Russia, China and India remain subdued, along with Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. Here, despite the attempts of Western political science departments to cover the instrumentalist twists of us policy with fig-leaf conceptualizations—‘limited democracies’, ‘tutelary democracies’, ‘illiberal democracies’, ‘inclusionary autocracies’, ‘illiberal autocracies’—the reality is that acceptance of Washington Consensus norms is the principal criterion for gaining imperial approval. In Western Europe, after a few flutters on Iraq, the eu is firmly back on side. Chirac now sounds more belligerent than Bush on the Middle East, and the German elite is desperate to appease Washington. On the debit side, the Caracas effect is spreading. Cuba’s long isolation has been broken, the Bolivian oligarchy defeated in La Paz and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has assumed a central role in mobilizing popular anti-neoliberal movements in virtually every Latin American country. [1]

More alarmingly for Washington, American control of the Middle East is slipping.
More here.
Here’s how to make an invisibility cloak

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:43am PDT by Azra Raza

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From MSNBC:
Researchers say they are rapidly closing in on new types of materials that can throw a cloak of invisibility around objects, fulfilling a fantasy that is as old as ancient myths and as young as "Star Trek" and the Harry Potter novels. Unlike those tales of fictional invisibility, the real-life technologies usually have a catch. Nevertheless, limited forms of invisibility might be available to the military sooner than you think.

"We're very confident that at radar frequencies, these materials can be implemented on a time scale of 18 months or so," John Pendry of Imperial College London told MSNBC.com. The most exotic technologies involve "metamaterials," blends of polymers and tiny coils or wires that twist the paths of electromagnetic radiation.

"There are recipes for controlling metamaterials," explained
More here.
What Became of the Megafauna?

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:42am PDT by Abbas Raza

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Robert S. Feranec in American Scientist:
Between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, during the final millennia of the Pleistocene Epoch, roughly 100 genera of megafauna (animals weighing more than 100 pounds) became extinct worldwide. Among them are such well-known creatures as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers and the more obscure, though no less significant, Diprotodon (an Australian marsupial the size of a hippopotamus) and Coelodonta (a woolly rhinoceros found in Europe). Whether their disappearance was caused by changes in climate or by "overkill" (being hunted to extinction by humans) has been hotly debated for the past 40 years. In Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America, Paul S. Martin reviews the end-Pleistocene extinction, arguing that overkill is the more likely explanation.
More here.
Water, Water Everywhere

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:38am PDT by Azra Raza

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From Science:
A desert beetle that wrings water from fog has inspired scientists to create a nanomaterial that literally plucks moisture from the air. The invention could boost water supplies in the driest regions, say experts, and a similar setup could be used to precisely control the flow of tiny amounts of fluids for sensitive diagnostic tests.

Stenocara beetles live in the Namib Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Located on the southwest coast of Africa, the region has scarce, unpredictable rainfall and no streams. On mornings when thick fog drifts in from the Atlantic Ocean, the insect climbs to the top of a dune and does a headstand, tilting its back into the breeze. Water droplets collect on the tops of smooth bumps until they spill into waxy, water-repellent grooves studded with smaller bumps that shunt the water down the insect's shell into its mouth.
More here.
Invisible Gladiators in the Petri Dish Coliseum

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:28am PDT by Abbas Raza

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Carl Zimmer in his brilliant blog, The Loom:
Over the past few months I've been working on a book on Escherichia coli (more on that later). To get a feel for how scientists work with the bug, I've been spending some time at the lab of Paul Turner at Yale. He sets up experiments to observe microbes evolve. His lab is full of freezers and incubators and flasks full of suspicious goo. One of his students gave me my first Petri dish of E. coli, which I brought home and put by my desk, where I could observe the colonies spread and then fade.

In addition to his work on Escherichia coli, Turner also studies viruses called phi-six that infect another species of bacteria. He experiments with them to watch how viruses shift hosts, cheat on one another, and go through other fascinating evolutionary changes. I've written an article on Turner's work with viruses--and what it means for everything from flu pandemics to the tragedy of the commons-- in the new issue of Yale's alumni magazine.
More here.

Global Voices Online

Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:24am PDT by Salam Adil

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There is a new government and this historic event has raised more than a ripple in the Iraqi blogs, but, actually, not much more than that. And in this week snapshot of life in Iraq blogs I will show what has been diverting bloggers attention. From high jinks to the the absolute pits of despair, its all here.

If you read no other post this week read this

Meemo, the Baghdad beat blogger is back with a vengeance and his latest post is a stream of conscience which swings wildly..

from the heavy subject of death threats from ‘holy worriers’(sic):

like over addorra there’s only one rule which is follow the holy mother f***er worriers rules or you will get killed, you know cut your head, it’s awesome way to die, meet someone up there in hell or heaven, is that a way to make people religious, lead them to the GOD path, to the heavens door, to the prophet restaurant up in heaven, I guess that’s how they gonna push people out of the religion

to politics:

I guess [the “new leaders”] forgot something which is the united states invaded Iraq for freedom and democracy but right now I can’t see any of these 2 things, I just can see death and more red lines we should not cross, you know about 75% of Iraqis saying what’s going on now is all because of the Americans and British troops, I’m kind of agree with that ’cause they let bunch of stupid suckers to control Iraq

to the complexities of having long hair:

I really don’t know how girls can live with their hair, it’s a full time job, you know I use 2 different kinds of shampoos, hair conditioner, and something called Cosmal cure to make the hair I don’t know what, that’s when I wash it, but when I want to go out it takes me about 30 minutes to make my hair looks like humans hair, use hair gel and wax, and after all this shit I wear a hat, if I don’t use anything for ma hair and don’t comb it ma head will be like a big black ball, believe me it’s the most horrible hair you will see in your life, the good thing is I use ma sister hair stuff

And if you need some advice… “I should give you the weekly advice but I didn’t find any advice for today, I think you can live for the whole week without my advice so I gutta go”

What you will not be seeing on TV

Baghdad is falling to insurgents and militias one neighborhood at a time yet little is being said in the media. It is these groups who are dictating the law on the streets. The punishment for disobeying is being beaten or worse.

It started last week when bloggers reported leaflets being thrown in the streets ordering people on how to behave in public. Now this has spread across several districts. Meemo, gives a full report. In Mansour it is a simple sign saying “my dear sister cover your hair ’cause that will protect you from the monsters” but as he says it varies by what force operates in each district:

“[In the districts of] al-ghzalya, al-3amrya, and 7ay al-jame3a, there are some new rules … the rules are:
Women should not drive cars.
It’s not allowed for girls to wear any kind of pants (jeans, baggy, short) and the penalty for the one who wear any kind of pants will be breaking her legs.
its not allowed for girls to walk in the street with uncovered hair or the penalty for the one who don’t wear scarf over hair will be cut her hair (bald head)”.

Ishtar compares the present day to the lawless times just after the end of the war in 2003. “Now, after three years, and with all this pompous talk we hear by the Iraqi government and US administration about the increasing number of the Iraqi security forces… I found myself doing the same stories.” She explains: “if you tour Baghdad’s neighborhoods, you will find 90% of them are blocked by trees trunks, barrels and big stones and men are guarding them with their private guns … I found myself doing the same story about women who are threatened and killed just because they do not wear hijab or they drive cars.”

She also reports who is behind some of these killings. Gunmen driving in a car shot eight kids for wearing short pants.. “By chance a patrol for keeping order forces were passing by and saw the massacre and chased the cars, one of the “Opel” car was captured and for the surprise of the forces, when they took off their kufyias, they found that they were all between 14-16 year.”

Nibras Kazimi gives happy talking American officials a reality check: “Central Baghdad’s Dawoodi neighborhood is now part of an Islamist “regime” that issues fatwas banning salads, fatwas that frightened people are following to the letter. See, apparently cucumbers are males while tomatoes are females, and mixing them up leads to the Devil. Dawoodi is the doorstep to Mansour, and Mansour is the doorstep to Harithiya, which in turn is the doorstep to the Green Zone.”

Oh, and by the way, there is a new government

It took them time and one blogger had almost given up hope, but the comments eventually came rolling in about the new Iraqi government.

Ishtar is encouraged by Maliki’s emphsis on national reconciliation but “Mr.Malki killed it in its bed when he insisted on keeping former minister of Interior ”Jabbur Solagh” in the new government”. She also says that Sunnis are already speaking of this as his fatal mistake.

Eye Raki gives a run-down of the cabinet and points to the fact that “there are of course some very pointless and stupid ministries that were set up for the sole purpose of satisfying a group or party that will have complained of being left out”. And Iraq the Model gives an extensive review and ends by saying: “Yes, it does not meet our ambitions but also our ambitions have no limits.” But later Mohammed sees some positive signs:

“apparently the competition among politicians to prove competence and win trust in addition to the lessons learned from the previous stage is pushing the new leaders to pick a new course with less emotional speech-making and more pragmatic thinking. Officials now realize that they did not inherit their seats from their fathers and that there are other people waiting for them to make the slightest mistake to expose them and discredit them.”

The Iraqi oil minster will have his work cut out. Zappy used Google Earth to measure three petrol queues:

Mustansiriyah length of queue approx 3,480 Meters / 3m (approx. length of car) = 1160 cars
Al Sadoon queue length approx 1140 meters /3m (approx. length of car) = 380 cars
And the Oscar goes to Al Khilani Pump Station, Queue length is 5230 meters /3m (approx. length of car) = 1743 cars!!!
Obviously we have a fuel shortage
And he warns, “If you have stopped the black market, then you’ll find that you just made your first mistake.”

Nibras Kazimi makes a good point “Anyone casting doubts on Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s efforts to run Iraq will be labeled as “embittered”, “unfair” or “hasty”; for the man rightly deserves a grace period.” He then goes on to promptly pour doubt upon doubt. Well, who says bloggers are not embittered, hasty and unfair!

For my part? if I have nothing positive say then I am not going to say it.

The depths of despair

There is no lament sad enough to describe the following set of posts. If, like me, you hate to read depressing material scroll down to the next section.

You know things are bad when Iraq the Model starts talking of the hardship faced by Iraqis and the dilemma of whether to stay or leave Iraq:

The other day I was with some friends at home and the subject eventually surfaced “let’s just wait for another six months, I’m sure things will improve by then” one friend said and I nodded in agreement “I’m not willing to take the risk, what if I get killed or kidnapped tomorrow or next month!? I’m leaving Iraq to live somewhere else until I believe it’s safe to return, we live only once guys!” and I nodded in agreement too.
Both opinions make a lot of sense and I could never say the first friend was a coward since he’s still living through what I and the other friend are living through.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and so do many people but they wonder if the tunnel is going to collapse before we reach its end.

Chikitita is one of those leaving Iraq and she grieves for the memories she has lost. “Now all that’s left for me is the polluted air which cannot be captured in snapshots or saved in jars. And even that I know I should leave behind, for my life must start across the borders, where I’ll have to go with the flow and pretend that I won’t miss what’s within these dotted lines I’ve always called home.” she writes.

Iraq sweet Iraq describes a tragedy of murder and kidnappings that befell his neighborhood: “when it gets too sad, even if it is true with no fiction involved , it gets ..what is the word .. ridiculous ? no I wouldn’t say that, it gets unbelievable, you can not believe that things like that can actually happen in real life, so dark and miserable; just like an Indian film, too many tears to be true. What happened a few weeks ago was something like that…” read on if you dare.

Baghdad Treasure lost a beloved neighbor in a recent explosion. He writes:

“It was so hard to see her dead. She was a kind woman. I just saw her few days ago when I was with her son. My heart is full of sorrow and pain. …

I can’t even think of any hope at the meantime. It is only despair that hovers over us. It seems it is going to stick with us. I don’t know why we have to live like this. Why do I have to wake up everyday on sounds of explosions and shootings? Why do I have to be afraid all the time, why do I have to sleep and wake up with a tear in my eyes? why why why? I don’t want democracy and freedom. I want to live. I just want to live. These two damn words brought only destructions. They never brought hope. It is only death and death and death.”

And finally

ChildrenVoiceIraq describes a game Iraqi children play when the rains come late.

it starts with one kid (his age 12-14 has to be boy) he is going to be leader for group; the leader prepares every thing necessary for them, leader bring bags and makes flag and pots…
When every thing is prepared leader starts to go out and yell slogans (slogans; ask God and pleasing God to send rain) every kid in neighborhood joins with him to make group and they walk yelling after the leader (kids age 6-14 boys and girls), kids stop in front of each house to collect rice, vegetable oil, Burghul (Burghul is food made of wheat) salt, bread and everything helps them to cook…
When the kids collect enough stuff to make enough food for kids they walk directly to the nearest graveyard to cook and pray for God to send rain, after everything is cooked the leader puts it in small dishes and hands out for kids around him then kids dump the remained on graves to be food for homeless dogs and birds (kids believe after dogs and birds eat this food will pray to send rain).
Finally after they are done kids come back home waiting rain in home when it rains during or after their operation kids became very happy and dance.

And Nibras is up to some high jinks outing a prominent Iraqi politician for being corrupt, a CIA asset and cheating the CIA of the $100,000 it gave him to bribe other Iraqis. Nibras is not naming names but giving us a riddle. He is someone who:

“has risen to even more prominence as a member of the newly unfurled Maliki cabinet … he played a very prominent role in advising current US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad as to how to go about thwarting Ja’afari’s bid for the PM slot and staffing the Maliki government…. Journalists tend to find this politician charming and gregarious and he is often quoted as an authoritative and objective figure on Iraqi affairs. His connections to US intelligence have never been published before.”
Any Takers?
Iran: Syriana in Iran!

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:20am PDT by Farid Pouya

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Hanif Mazroi, Iran based blogger & journalist, says George Clooney’s Syriana was broadcasted on Iranian Channel 3. Mazroi, who had already seen movie in English version, adds that in Persian version, dialogues have been changed so much that we thought Clooney and others are playing a new script written by Islamic Republic (Persian).
Iran: Bribing System

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:20am PDT by Farid Pouya

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Karmand writes about bribing system in Iran. This blogger says if you are an employee either you get bribe or you keep silence about it. Blogger adds in country everybody is in competition to become rich and there is no rule in this competition (Persian). According to blogger humanity & dignity are the words that make laughed people. The blogger says not only as employee you get bribe but you should bribe your boss to get promotion.

3quarksdaily

Below the Rim

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:19am PDT by Abbas Raza

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David Roberts in Smithsonian Magazine:
The Grand Canyon occupies such an outsize place in the public imagination, we can be forgiven for thinking we “know” it. More than four million tourists visit the canyon each year, and the National Park Service funnels the vast majority of them through a tidy gantlet of attractions confined to a relatively short stretch of the South Rim. Even people who have never visited America’s greatest natural wonder have seen so many photographs of the panorama from Grandview Point or Mather Point that the place seems familiar to them.

But the canyon is a wild and unknowable place—both vast (the national park alone covers about 1,902 square miles, about the size of Delaware) and inaccessible (the vertical drops vary from 3,000 feet to more than 6,000). The chasm lays bare no fewer than 15 geological layers, ranging from the rim-top Kaibab Limestone (250 million years old) to the river-bottom Vishnu Schist (as old as two billion years). The most ecologically diverse national park in the United States, the Grand Canyon embraces so many microclimates that hikers can posthole through snowdrifts on the North Rim while river runners on the Colorado below are sunbathing in their shorts.
More here.
The Rise of the Aerotropolis

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 3:05am PDT by Abbas Raza

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John D. Kasarda in The Next American City:
Across from Schiphol’s passenger terminal, one finds the World Trade Center, which contains conference facilities as well as the regional headquarters of such firms as Thomson-CFS and Unilever. Two five-star hotels adjoin this complex. Within a ten-minute walk is another complex of class-A office buildings that house financial and consulting firms which serve the aviation industry. Clustered along the A4 and A9 motorways linking the airport to downtown Amsterdam are large business parks for companies in industries that make intensive use of the airport, such as telecommunications, logistics, and distribution. With the airport and its immediate area serving as a multimodal transportation and commercial nexus, a new economic geography is taking shape: property near the airport commands premium office rental prices for the Amsterdam area, even above those in Amsterdam’s central business district.

Schiphol is but one example of how major airports are beginning to drive business siting and urban development in the 21st century, much as highways did in the 20th, railroads in the 19th, and seaports in the 18th. As aviation-oriented businesses cluster at and near major airports, a new urban entity is emerging: the Aerotropolis. Similar in shape to the traditional metropolis of a central city and its commuter-heavy suburbs, the Aerotropolis consists of an airport city core and an outlying area of businesses stretching fifteen miles along transportation corridors.
More here.
Poppycock: Romantic nonsense about drug addiction

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:58am PDT by Abbas Raza

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Theodore Dalrymple in the Wall Street Journal:
In 1822, Thomas De Quincey published a short book, "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater." The nature of addiction to opiates has been misunderstood ever since.

De Quincey took opiates in the form of laudanum, which was tincture of opium in alcohol. He claimed that special philosophical insights and emotional states were available to opium-eaters, as they were then called, that were not available to abstainers; but he also claimed that the effort to stop taking opium involved a titanic struggle of almost superhuman misery. Thus, those who wanted to know the heights had also to plumb the depths.

This romantic nonsense has been accepted wholesale by doctors and litterateurs for nearly two centuries. It has given rise to an orthodoxy about opiate addiction, including heroin addiction, that the general public likewise takes for granted: To wit, a person takes a little of a drug, and is hooked; the drug renders him incapable of work, but since withdrawal from the drug is such a terrible experience, and since the drug is expensive, the addict is virtually forced into criminal activity to fund his habit. He cannot abandon the habit except under medical supervision, often by means of a substitute drug.

In each and every particular, this picture is not only mistaken, but obviously mistaken. It actually takes some considerable effort to addict oneself to opiates: The average heroin addict has been taking it for a year before he develops an addiction. Like many people who are able to take opiates intermittently, De Quincey took opium every week for several years before becoming habituated to it. William Burroughs, who lied about many things, admitted truthfully that you may take heroin many times, and for quite a long period, before becoming addicted.
More here.
The Simpsons as philosophy

Posted: May 26th, 2006, 2:48am PDT by Abbas Raza

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From the BBC:
The Simpsons is more than a funny cartoon - it reveals truths about human nature that rival the observations of great philosophers from Plato to Kant... while Homer sets his house on fire, says philosopher Julian Baggini.

With the likes of Douglas Coupland, George Walden and Stephen Hawking as fans, taking the Simpsons seriously is no longer outre but de rigeur.

It is, quite simply, one of the greatest cultural artefacts of our age. So great, in fact, that it not only reflects and plays with philosophical ideas, it actually does real philosophy, and does it well.

How can a comic cartoon do this? Precisely because it is a comic cartoon, the form best suited to illuminate our age.
More here.

Global Voices Online

Bolivia: “Reelection is not an Official Position”

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:43pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Responding to the pervasive worry that Evo Morales is trying to change the constitution in order to stay in power, Eduardo Ávila responds that while “some of the social movements and other MAS congressmen have publicly come out in favor of changing the Constitution so that a president can be reelected for a consecutive term … Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the offical MAS stance does not support this proposal.”
El Salvador: Violence, Economics

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:35pm PDT by David Sasaki

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The blog of “El Salvador/CNY Companion Diocese” reports that there were twenty two murders in El Salvador just on Sunday and Monday of this week. “The government claims to have deterred violence in many different locations. The numbers don’t support their assertion.” Tim Muth posts an excerpt of the IMF’s most recent report on the state of El Salvador’s economy.
Venezuela: Raiding ULA and Featuring Bolivarian University

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:31pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Oil Wars recommends an article in the Washington Post about Venezuela’s new, free Bolivarian University. Both Daniel Duquenal and Miguel Octavio say that the Venezuelan National Guard illegally raided University of Los Andes.
Argentina: “Northern soul, boobs, and comics”

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:27pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Liz Henry introduces the Argentine feminist blog Pescado Rabioso [ES].
Colombia: Revolutionary Baby Delivered by Military

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:24pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Commenting on an incredible story found in Colombia’s daily paper El Tiempo Boz asks “What sort of country is that child being born into? There are reasons for both hope and despair within that story.”
New Caledonia: Holidays Not Necessarily Days Off

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:08pm PDT by Alice Backer

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Notre vie a Noumea explains that although today was a holiday in New Caledonia, she did not take the day off. You see (Fr) “In New Caledonia, holidays are not necessarily days off. The employer can ask employees to come to work anyway. Every industry has 6 to 7 days off a year.” The blogger implies that this system departs from the metropolitan French way of handling holidays.
Chile, Argentina, and Latin America’s Two Lefts

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 9:14pm PDT by David Sasaki

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After years in the shadows - and only referenced for its Cold War legacy - Latin America is back in the limelight. The world over, economic liberalization has been the call of the day. But recent elections throughout Latin America have inspired commentators to call the region a notable ideological exception: “Populism versus the Washington Consensus” according to some and “Latin America’s socialist democratic left versus a caudillo populist left” according to others. The most common caricature now portrays Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, buoyed by Bolivia’s new president Evo Morales, on one side of the boxing ring with the moderate presidents of Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil huddled together in the opposite corner. Argentina’s Kirchner is somewhere in the middle they say, while excluded entirely from the equation are Ecuador, Colombia, and Paraguay, not to mention all of Central America.

Argentine native and Spanish citizen, Martin Varsavsky believes that there are indeed two leftist models at work in Latin America:

He recibido muchas criticas a mi postura de que el socialismo chileno, y no el populismo venezolano imitado por Evo Morales, es el modelo de desarrollo ejemplar para Latinoamérica. Las he leído con cuidado, pero no he cambiado de opinión. Sigo pensando que Evo Morales es un “gasodictador” y que ha comenzado muy mal su gestion. Sigo sosteniendo que hay otro modelo para defender los intereses nacionales y lograr el desarrollo y el modelo es simplemente Chile.
I’ve received a lot of criticism for my position that it is the Chilean socialism, and not the Venezuelan populism imitated by Evo Morales, which is the exemplary model of development for Latin America. I have read those criticisms carefully, but I haven’t changed my opinion. I continue to think that Evo Morales is a “gasdictator” and that he has started his governance very poorly. I still maintain that there is another model which looks out for national interests and achieves development and that model is simply Chile.

Primero la crítica a Evo Morales:
- Que le elijan Presidente no quiere decir que tenga el poder legislativo y judicial, sólo quiere decir que tiene poder ejecutivo con sus limitaciones.
- Es muy común en algunos nuevos líderes sudamericanos no aceptar estas limitaciones y querer acumular todos los poderes. Esto lo hacen poniendo jueces que no son realmente independientes y pasando decretos o saltándose directamente al poder Legislativo. Comportarse de esta manera no es democrático. Hay una gran correlación entre la inseguridad jurídica y el retraso económico y social. Evo Morales está transitando por ese camino al comenzar encarcelando ejecutivos y enviando al ejército a ocupar yacimientos y gasolineras.
- Evo Morales tiene todo el derecho de usar su limitado poder para tratar de que Bolivia consiga explotar sus recursos naturales en mejores condiciones que hasta ahora, pero optó por abusar del mismo. Bolivia puede y debe mejorar su situación, pero en el marco de sus leyes y el diálogo.
El pueblo boliviano es muy pobre y vive en condiciones muy tristes. Su situación es de las peores de Latinoamérica. Sin embargo, sabemos que el socialismo que ha funcionado en España y en Chile, el socialismo que yo apoyo, es el socialismo de mercado en el que el gobierno interviene como regulador y como redistribuidor del ingreso. El socialismo que no ha funcionado nunca es el socialismo/comunismo en el que el Estado se transforma en el productor principal de bienes y servicios y un dictador, o similar, controla el principal recurso exportador.
First, my critique of Evo Morales:
- Just because they select him president doesn’t mean that he has legislative and judicial power, it only means that he has executive power with all its limitations.
- It’s very commong for some of the new South American leaders to not accept these limitations and want to accumulate all the power. They do this by installing judges that are not really independent and passing decrees which bypass the legislature. Conducting oneself in this manner is not democratic. There is a large correlation between legal insecurity and economic and social retardation. Evo Morales is travelling down this path when he begins imprisoning executives and sending the army to occupy oil fields and gas companies.
- Evo Morales has the complete right to use his limited power to try to get Bolivia to exploit its natural resources with better conditions than it so far has, but he chose to abuse in this attempt. Bolivia can and must improve its situation, but with the stamp of its laws and dialogue.
- The Bolivian people are very poor and live in dismal conditions. Their situation is one of the worst in Latin America. However, we know that the socialism which has functioned in Spain and Chile - the socialism that I support - is the socialism of the market in which the government intervenes as a regulator and redistributor of income. The socialism that has never functioned is the socialism/communism in which the state is transformed into the principal producer of goods and services and a dictator, or something similar, controlls the exportation of resources.
Al verme acusado de ser tan de derechas por apoyar el modelo chileno, sentí que muchos en Latinoamérica no conocen modelos exitosos y caen en extremos. Estos críticos sólo conocen la ultraderecha del neoliberalismo corrupto y ahora han decidido experimentar con el otro extremo, saltándose el modelo ganador que es el que está en el medio, el modelo que yo apoyo, el de Chile y que similar al del país donde vivo, España.
To watch me be accused of being so “of the right” for supporting the Chilean model, I felt that many people in Latin America don’t know succesful models and end up on the extremes. These critics only know the ultra-right of corrupt neoliberalism and have now decided to experiment with the other extreme, jumping over the winning model which is in the middle, the model that I support, the model of Chile and which is similar to the country where I live, Spain.
Varsavsky then goes on to explain his own experience of starting his Educar project both in Chile and Argentina and claims the difference between the two countries is that in Chile, “the officials that love their country and build its future are the rule while in Argentina they are the exception.”

La Argentina de Kirchner puede optar por el modelo chileno o por el venezolano. Parece tener ministros de las dos tendencias. Espero de todo corazón que opte por el modelo chileno. Todos los latinoamericanos que crean que la opción es el neoliberalismo corrupto o las pseudodemocracias populistas se equivocan, porque hay otra opción, que se llama Chile, y que no fue construida por Pinochet como dijo alguno en un comentario, fue construida por Allende y su equipo, que volvió al poder con gente como Fernando Flores y segundas generaciones como Michelle Bachelet.

Cuando tenía 13 años fuí a gritar “arriba la izquierda, viva Chile mierda” a la embajada chilena luego del golpe de Pinochet. Hoy leyendo las críticas en mi blog lo vuelvo a gritar. Allende era un demócrata socialista que murió luchando por los intereses de su país. Allende, Lagos, Bachelet, inclusive el uruguayo Tabaré Vazquez, son modelos a seguir. Morales, Ollanta y Chávez son modelos a evitar. ¿Y Kirchner? Como comentó uno, Kirchner da en el palo (expresión argentina que quiere decir que no es gol, pero casi).
Kirchner’s Argentina can opt for either the Chilean or Venezuelan model. He seems to have ministers of both tendencies. I hope with all of my heart that he chooses the Chilean model. All of the Latin Americans who believe that the option is the same as the corrupt neoliberalism or pseudo-democratic populism are mistaken. Because there is another option and it’s called Chile and it wasn’t constructed by Pinochet like someone said in a comment, it was built by Allende and his team, which returned to power with people like Fernando Flores and second generations like Michelle Bachelet.

When I was 13-years-old I went to yell “power to the Left, long live Chile” in front of the Chilean embassy after Pinochet’s coup. Today, reading the criticisms on my blog, I will yell out again. Allende was a socialist democrat who dies fighting for the interests of his country. Allende, Lagos, Bachelet, as well as the Uruguayan, Tabaré Vazquez, are models to follow. Morales, Ollanta, and Chávez are models to avoid. And Kirchner? Like one person commented, Kirchner hits the pole (an Argentine expression which means that it’s not a goal, but almost).
The post generated a strong response, both in the comments section and in a continuing conversation around other blogs throughout Latin America. Jordi, a Spaniard living in Venezuela comments:

soy español y resido en CAracas desde hace casi un año. Estoy totalmente de acuerdo con tus post relativos a la izquierda en latinoamérica. Entre esgolpistas [sic], dictadores energéticos… el continente está bien mal. Espero que todo cambie, pero te aseguro que por aquí las cosas están bien feas.
I’m Spanish and I have resided in Caracas for almost a year now. I completely agree with your post regarding the left in Latin America. Among coups, energy dictators … the continent is in bad shape. I hope that everything changes, but I assure you that over here things are very ugly.
Diego Giol, an Argentine from the Northern city of Mendoza now working for the UN in Switzerland also leaves a comment in support of Varsavsky’s position. And then continues on his own blog:

Ayer di con un video de Hugo Chávez que se emitió en la televisión Argentina que me hizo reflexionar mucho sobre algunos de los líderes en nuestra región. Yo creo que de verborragia, latinoamérica ya ha tenido demasiado. Me da mucha lástima ver la pobreza que crece al ritmo de los agravios. Me apasiona la política, el desarrollo y la economía (por ello estoy en las Naciones Unidas ) y cosas así me dan impotencia. Pero por otro lado veo la otra izquierda, la Chile, la de Bachelet y veo cómo ese país sigue creciendo, reduciendo su pobreza, invirtiendo en infraestructura y haciendo acuerdos estratégicos con países importantísimos como China y Estados Unidos entre otros. Verdaderamente espero que el crecimiento y la coherencia se expandan por la región y desplacen al populismo que tanto mal nos ha hecho en el pasado.
Yesterday, a video of Hugo Chavez broadcasted on Argentine TV made me reflect a lot about some of the leaders in our region. I believe that Latin America has already had enough with the verbose rhetoric. It fills me with pity to watch poverty increase at the same pace as the political insults. I’m passionate about politics, development, and economics (which is why I’m in the United Nations) so things like that make me feel powerless. But on the other hand, I see another left, that of Chile, of Bachelet, and I see that this country keeps growing, reducing its poverty, investing in infrastructure and making strategic agreements with important countries like China, the United States, among others. Truthfully, I hope that the growth and the coherency are expanded throughout the region and that they displace the populism that has done so much bad to us in the past.
But not everyone is so eager for advice from Europe. An anonymous commenter on Varsavksy’s post says:

Yo habiendo vivido en America latina puedo decir que lo mejor es que los pueblos debemos ir buscando nuestro camino, que cometeremos errores, asi es, pero por favor dejenos cometer nuestros errores. Afortunadamente los paises no son como las empresas, donde una sola persona decide todo. Un pais debe ser conducido por el pueblo, asi esta diseñada la Democracia, la cual desgraciadamente es lenta. El Banco Mundial trato de dirigir como un gran dictador las economias de estos paises con los errores que ya todos conocemos. No creo que nadie tenga la formula secreta para que cada pais avance de la noche a la mañana hacia el exito total, yo creo que es un proceso.
Having lived in Latin America, I can say that the best option is that the people should go searching their own path. We’ll commit errors, that’s how it goes, but please let us commit our own errors. Fortunately the countries aren’t like businesses where just one person decides everything. A country should be driven by its people, that’s how democracy is designed, and unfortunately it goes slow. The World Bank tries to lead the economies of these countries like a grand dictator making all the errors which we’ve all come to know. I don’t believe that anyone has the secret forumla for each country to become an overnight success. I think it’s a long process.
Antonio is much more aggressive in his criticism:

Realmente me asombra lo que decis Martin. Yo amo la democracia, la libertad y la Paz, pero debo decirte que no estoy de acuerdo con lo que decis. Mi opinion es que Evo Morales como indigena demostro a los seudoeuropeos Argentinos, Chilenos, Brasileños ETC, como se deben defender los recursos naturales de un Pais y por eso no es un DICTADOR, simplemente no deja que le sigan ROBANDO como lo vienen haciendo desde hace 500 años los Europeos especialmente España y desde hace 150 años EEUU.
What you say really astonishes me Martin. I love democracy, liberty, and peace, but I must tell you that I don’t agree with what you say. My opinion is that Evo Morales, as an indigenous leader, showed the psuedo-European Argentines, Chileans, Brazilians, etc. how the natural resources of a country must be defended and for that he’s not a dictator; simply put, he didn’t allow [foreigners] to keep stealing like they have been doing for the past 500 years, especially Spain, and for the last 150 years, the United States.
Corsaria maintains that Bolivia’s situation cannot be compared to Chile’s or Argentina’s:

Evo Morales es la respuesta a un modelo económico fallido en Bolivia. Hay que proponer modelos que redistribuyan la riqueza y no solo se limiten a crearla. El caso de Bolivia no es comparable al de Chile ni muchísimo menos al de España. El socialismo importado de Europa no puede funcionar en sudamerica. Y eso es algo que muchos no entienden. De hecho las políticas que funcionan en Chile no tienen porqué funcionar en paises cercanos. Son casos distintos al margen de su situación geográfica. Evo no es el problema, sino el modelo económico que este hereda. La nacionalizacion es posible que no sea la mejor solución pero no he visto alternativas que no sean… liberalizar, liberalizar y liberalizar. Esta receta ha fallado.. asi que hay que dejar de incidir en ellas.
Evo Morales is the response of a failed economic model in Bolivia. There must be proposed models that redistribute the wealth and don’t just limit its creation. The case of Bolivia is not comparable to that of Chile and much less that of Spain. Socialism imported from Europe cannot function in South America. And that’s something which many don’t understand. In fact, the policies that work in Chile, won’t work in neighboring countries. They are distinct cases dependent on their geographic situation. Evo is not the problem, but rather the economic model that is inherited. Nationalization is possibly not the best solution, but I haven’t seen alternatives which aren’t … privatize, privatize, privatize. This recipe has failed and we must stop from falling into the same trap.
In all, Varsavsky’s post attracted more than 60 comments, many of them disagreeing with his comparison of Salvador Allende to the leadership of Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet. Others were in support of his praise of Chile’s political and economic model, while a few called for each country to follow its own path without following any “model” at all. Yet still others disagreed violently, arguing instead that Chávez and Morales were exactly what Latin America’s poor need to recover the resources stolen from them by colonization and then Neoliberalism.

In fact, a few days later - after meeting with Mariano Amartino and Alejandro Piscitelli - Varsavsky remarked:

Hablamos sobre Chile y yo comenté que al apoyar el modelo chileno y no el venezolano en mi blog había recibido comentarios a favor, pero muchos en contra y algunos que no publiqué en el que me insultaban muy fuertemente. Mariano comentó que el dejó de escribir sobre política porque le llegaron a rayar el auto. Alejandro dijo que el mío era más difícil que me lo vinieran a rayar aquí…Yo pensé que mejor que te rayen el auto y no que te rompan la cabeza como le hicieron a mi padre en la noche de los bastones largos o que directamente que te maten como lo asesinaron a mi primo.
We spoke of Chile and I commented that the post supporting the Chilean model and not the Venezuelan one had recieved favorable comments, but also many in opposition and some which I didn’t publish because they insulted me strongly. Mariano commented that he stopped writing about politics because it got so bad that they scratched up his car. Alejandro said that it would be more difficult for them to come and scratch my car here … I thought that it’s better that they scratch a car and not smash your head like they did to my father during “the night of the long batons” or that they simply kill you like how they assassinated my cousin.
Varsavsky also has a blog in English, though it tends to focus on his company rather than Latin American issues.
Martinique: French Black Presidential Candidate Stephane Pocrain

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 7:52pm PDT by Alice Backer

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Le Blog de [Moi] on Stephane Pocrain’s candidacy for the 2007 French Presidential Election (Fr): “Yet another candidacy from the left. Ex- Green Party spokesperson and founding member of the Representative Council of Black Associations of France (CRAN), Stephane Pocrain enters the dance. His program? First and foremost, equality and training for youth.”
Senegal: Immigration as colonization

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 6:18pm PDT by Alice Backer

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“No Sarkozy! Immigration does not come from a vacuum,” says (Fr) Semett in a post on French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s immigration policies. “With centuries of merciless exploitation of subsaharan countries and a continuous transfer of their riches to the North, it is logical that the disinherited masses from Africa turn to Europe to recapture their goods (…) The colonization of Europe is imminent.”
Argentina: Music and Misinformation

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 6:11pm PDT by Jorge Gobbi

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This week, Argentinean newspapers informed readers that some Internet users had reached an agreement with CAPIF, the company that represents record companies in Argentina, to pay an amount of money as a compensation for the songs they had illegally downloaded from the Internet. The news coverage shows clear differences between media outlets, and how commercial interests affect informative coverage.

The newspaper Infobae is an interesting case. The same group, managed by Daniel Hadad, owns 10Musica, a music download site. Obviously, they were the ones who dedicated the most space to the topic. But as Zona Indie states, the newspaper informs in an “imprecise” -let’s use this word, just to be kind - way. For instance, they say “the argentinean justice condemned users”, when in fact what took place was a series of extrajudicial agreements. At Denken Uber, Mariano Amartino analyzes the same problem of misinformation on this issue.

At Señales de Humo, Patricio Cañete analyzes many of the problems about coverage on the topic. Among the facts he points out, I’ll cite three very interesting ones:

-There’s no concrete reference to the infractors, no names or last names, nor information about the companies. It doesn’t state how many got fined, where they were located (Buenos Aires, other important cities, etc.), how they were identified, etc.
-Nor does it state which authority applied the fine: administrative or judicial instance, of local, provincial or national jurisdiction, etc.
-Much less does it say anything about what process has been applied to the corresponding fines, what law, resolution or process prescribes a sanction of such dimensions.

There are also opinions on this topic at Diario de un viaje a Misiones [ES], Blog de Efra [ES], Juan en los medios [ES], Los Bits [ES] (which proposes a Google Bombing that links the word “delincuentes” -delinquents- to CAPIF’s website) and Nivel 13 [ES].

The intention of some media outlest is, clearly, not to inform, but to frighten users and make them stop downloading music. This way, they promote “legal music download” businesses, that attempt to sell us songs that we can only listen to - because of a “digital rights” management - on certain devices. We have to deal with the fact that the value of things are defined in a supply and demand dynamic. And many people in Argentina don’t believe an album is worth 35 pesos (about 12 US dollars) or more. There’s simply not much they can do about that. Why don’t they try a new, renovated business model instead of criminalizing their own consumers?
Sri Lanka: M.I.A not welcome in the US

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 5:41pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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London rapper M.I.A who is of Sri Lankan origin, and sprinkles her lyrics with quite a few political statements has been denied a visa by the US. Moju on why this could be and what it implies for making political statements about the LTTE.

I cite

Monkeying Around Interspecies Style

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 5:40pm PDT by Jodi

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Monkeying Around Interspecies Style
Originally uploaded by manahanwill.
yet another not to be missed version of the fundamental fantasy, distorted, it seems to me, in a masculine direction for he is surely not the manpanzee of anyone's dreams.

Global Voices Online

Sri Lanka: Da Vince Code Banned

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 5:37pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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The Da Vinci Code has been banned in Sri Lanka. Deane’s Dimension on the issue - “On a more personal note, I, myself being a practicing catholic don’t think anything depicted in the movie (or the book) will change my prospective on the religion I was brought up on. The fact that Jesus could have been married and had children with Mary Magdalene is irrelevant to the philosophy of Christianity I believe in.”

I cite

The Sock Monkey King

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 5:35pm PDT by Jodi

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The Sock Monkey King
Originally uploaded by Monkey River Town.
For more flickr monkeys there is this nifty set (don't miss the monkey train). And, then the wonderful green monkey series. And, why not, Jodi's own selection of monkeys.

Damn Interesting

Does Your Handwriting Express Your Personality?

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 4:49pm PDT by Marisa Brook

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It is a technique used all over the world, and training in it is widely offered. Many employers, especially in France, rely on it heavily to evaluate contenders for high positions. Specialists are called upon to share their views in court and even for the Secret Service. Which technique is this? Graphology, or the analysis of handwriting to reveal character traits. Along with the International Graphology Association itself, handwriting experts generally object to being associated with anything New Age. Yet psychologists tend to agree that graphology is a pseudoscience. The fact is that the empirical evidence overwhelmingly refutes it; of all the studies which have examined graphology, only one has found a correlation between personality and handwriting styles. The British Psychological Association considers handwriting analysis to be absolutely worthless. The consensus from the psychology world is that graphology is only slightly more useful than astrology. Yet the practice continues. The "slightly" comes... (More Inside)

3quarksdaily

The US in Peril?

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 3:17pm PDT by Abbas Raza

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Jeff Madrick reviews American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips, in the New York Review of Books:
In Kevin Phillips's view, the Bush energy policy is a prime example of America's failure to confront its most difficult challenges. Phillips, once a member of the Nixon administration, has written a timely book that argues that America is very different from the independent and omnipotent nation portrayed by President Bush and his administration. Dependency on oil is one of three major tendencies that will seriously undermine America's future, he writes, the other two being the influence of radical religion and the growing reliance on debt to support the economy. For Phillips, these constitute "the three major perils to the United States of the twenty-first century," and he offers little hope that the US will avoid the consequences. Since he wrote his widely read The Emerging Republican Majority in 1969, Phillips has published several books lamenting how poorly the Republicans have handled their responsibilities. American Theocracy is his most pessimistic work to date.

Phillips is concerned with problems that all nations have to contend with in one form or other as they grow older. The very sources of national success, whether in resources or industrial innovation, eventually reach their limits; what lasts is a structure of power and influence that inhibits reform. But by limiting the scope of his book to oil, religion, and debt—although they can be connected with practically every other issue—Phillips has only partially described what is wrong with the US.
More here.
At the Top of Everest, Physical Triumphs and Moral Failings

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 2:50pm PDT by Robin Varghese

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The BBC reports of a double amputee's climb up Everest and the ethical cliff he fell off of along the way.
Experienced climber David Sharp, 34, of Guisborough, Teesside, was on his way down from the world's highest mountain when he got into difficulties.
New Zealander [and double amputee] Mark Inglis, said his party saw Mr Sharp as they climbed the 29,028ft (8,500m) peak.
He said there was nothing they could do for him.
Sharp apparently managed to get to a cave before dying. The "ethicist" Daniel Sokol (who knew Randy Cohen could look so good) offers some strange thoughts on the decision, which mostly consist of distinctions to be kept in mind when making moral evaluations, although not much by way of which ones really apply in this instance and the reasons they do. Instead he offers a simple defense: they really, really wanted to reach the top of the mountain. In the BBC:
At 8,500m and -38C, in considerable physical and emotional discomfort, in a group of 40 climbers whose life ambition is to reach the top, and with maybe only enough oxygen for a direct climb to the summit, it is perhaps excusable that no-one volunteered to stay behind.
These extreme meteorological, psychological and social conditions should be taken into account when evaluating the climbers' decision. It is too easy to lay blame on the climbers by appealing to abstract moral principles and high-sounding virtues.
Decisions are not made in a vacuum, but in specific circumstances, and few can be as adverse and traumatic as those faced by the climbers.
(The current issue of Democratiya reprints Judith Shklar's famous piece on cruelty and liberalism, "Putting Cruelty First", which for some reason the whole Everest story reminded me of.)
Boy finds Welsh mountains, wins $25K

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 2:47pm PDT by Abbas Raza

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From CNN:
Could you locate the Cambrian Mountains on a map? Twelve-year-old Bonny Jain could and his knowledge made him the winner Wednesday of the 2006 National Geographic Bee.

The eighth-grader from Moline, Illinois, won a $25,000 college scholarship by correctly naming the mountains that extend across much of Wales, from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel.

It was Bonny's second appearance at the national bee. Last year he came in fourth place.

His victory was the culmination of a four-year effort -- the first time he entered the contest, he got only second place in his local school's geography bee.
More here.

I cite

Before the law? vulnerability and legal recognition

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 12:45pm PDT by Jodi

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In Precarious Life, Butler turns to the Hegelian struggle for recognition in the context of her own meditations on vulnerability. Posting vulnerability as a resource for apprehending and producing commonality, Butler considers the ways that norms condition how it is that we perceive or recognize vulnerability. That is to say, vulnerability is a primary condition of being human. Yet, this vulnerability is itself posited, recognized, and constituted as vulnerability. Thus, we may fail to recognize others or ourselves as vulnerable. We may fail to recognize others at all. Vulnerability, then, has to be recognized and constituted and norms are one of the vehicles for this recognition and constitution. So, we have to think about vulnerability from within the field of power and the differential operation of norms of recognition. She writes:
When we recognize another, or when we ask for recognition for ourselves, we are not asking for an Other to see us as we are, as we already are, as we have always been, as we were constituted prior to the encounter itself. Instead, in the asking, in the petition, we have already become something new, since we are constituted by virtue of the address, a need and desire for the Other that takes place in language in the broadest sense, one without which we could not be. To ask for recognition, or to offer it, is precisely not to ask for recognition for what one already is. It is to solicit a becoming, to instigate a transformation, to petition the future always in relation to the Other. It is also to stake one's own being, and one's own persistence in one's being, in the struggle for recognition. This is perhaps a version of Hegel that I am offering, but it is also a departure, since I will not discover myself as the same as the "you" on which I depend in order to be.
To my mind, this encounter might also be thought as a scene of law, as a form of petitioning or coming before the law. Becoming here does not imply restoration or finality. It does imply the possibility of relation and change, of acknowledgement and responsiveness. Coming before the law changes the law. The law does not remain steadfast and impermeable. Rather, each application, each interpretation and extention, implies a 'this not that' that was not present prior to the encounter.

3quarksdaily

Signandsight.com/PEN Int'l Roundtable on Multiculturalism

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:53am PDT by Robin Varghese

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In Sign and Sight, an abreviated transcript of the April 28th signandsight.com/PEN International roundtable on multiculturalism, featuring Kwame Anthony Appiah (moderator), the Turkish German sociologist Necla Kelek, the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner, and the Mexican-American essayist Richard Rodriguez.
Richard Rodriguez: My impression is that multiculturalism comes into the United States from the north - and is therefore suspect - illegally across the Canadian border. It was invented by Pierre Elliot Trudeau. So to speak of it as I do tonight is already to acknowledge that I am a child of Trudeau. It is honourable, as a Canadian idea. All Canadian ideas are honourable. It is however not very erotic. Canadians are not famous for their eroticism. It posits the dignity and the specialness of individuals and individual communities. By comparison, there is another philosophy, another way of understanding civic life that is pushing up from the south. In the 16th century, the Indian and the Spanish conquistador met in Mexico. His name was Antonio Banderas. her name was Marina la Malinche. The nature of their eroticism is not clear to this day. The male version has it that he raped her. But there is a sizeable opinion among feminists in Mexico that in fact she had designs on him. And that rather like Pocahontas here in the United States, she begins a sexual drama that the male history is unable to compete with...
Kwame Anthony Appiah: One thing that's struck me so far is that we can focus on two different kinds of questions. One has to do with the response of majorities to the fact of pluralism. The other, especially in Necla's and Pascal's bits, was the question of – either explicitly or implicitly - what it is that makes minorities close themselves off. I mean, what Necla Kelek was talking about in Germany is in part a problem created - for whatever reason - by a sense that some of these Turkish German communities are closing themselves off to the wider Germany. And clearly there's a sense of self-enclosure in some of the French banlieus. I'm wondering whether from the point of view of the minority, the story is: well we closed ourselves off because you didn't open to us. And now you tell us – because it's causing you problems – that we should be open. But if you'd been open when we first arrived, we wouldn't be closed now. Now I think there's a real challenge of how to answer Pascal's question, which is: how do we maintain this openness?
An audio of the talk can be found here. A summary article is also available.
Evil-ing Up Axis of Evil-y Evildoers

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:36am PDT by Robin Varghese

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In The Jewish Week, the story behind Amir Taheri's, er, story of Iran's new dress code law. (Via TPM Cafe)
Taheri's column reported that a law passed by Iran's parliament on May 15, "mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear 'standard Islamic garments' designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions ... and to eliminate 'the influence of the infidel'."
"It also envisages," stressed Taheri, "separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zorastrians, who will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public. ... They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths."
For Iran's 25,000 Jews: "A yellow strip of cloth in front of their clothes," he wrote, "Christians will be assigned the color red. Zorastrians end up with Persian blue."...
But within hours after the National Post of Canada hit the streets Friday morning, it became clear the story had serious problems. By 7:41 a.m., a Montreal news radio station, AM940, had an interview with Israeli Iran expert Meir Javedanfar of Middle East Economic and Political Analysis debunking it..
"It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told the station. "Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colors. The Iranian people would never stand for it. The Iranian government wouldn't be stupid enough to do it."
Indeed, the law's text and parliamentary debate, available in English from the BBC Service, discloses no provision mandating that any Iranians will have to wear any kind of prescribed dress."

Vegan Lunch Box

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 11:32am PDT by Jennifershmoo

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Today is "Birthday Free Dress Day" for all the students with summer birthdays. We decided to celebrate shmoo's "unbirthday" by bringing in a batch of cupcakes to share. We made our favorite chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and organic sprinkles.

For lunch, a "low carb" tortilla is wrapped around refried beans and packed with a container of salsa for dipping, plus cantaloupe balls, jicama, and baby carrots. I'm not really a low carb person (to say the least!) but these "low carb" tortillas were the healthiest choice at the grocery store; they're made with oat and whole wheat flour, and oil instead of hydrogenated shortening or lard.

Verdict: I felt grumpy waking up early to frost 27 cupcakes (you don't appreciate how many kids that is until you have to frost them each a cupcake at 6 in the morning), but bringing them in and hearing the kids cheer made it seem worth it. The "low carb" roll-up was a big hit, too. Only a couple baby carrots remained in the lunch box. 4 stars.

3quarksdaily

Gray on Nussbaum's Latest

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 10:52am PDT by Robin Varghese

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In The Nation, John Gray reviews Martha Nussbaum's Frontiers of Justice.
That Rawls's theory has little to say on many of the issues that are currently most politically contested has not prevented his heirs from trying to extend his work to precisely these questions. Martha Nussbaum's most recent book, Frontiers of Justice, is the latest such effort. She aims to widen the reach of Rawlsian theory by addressing questions it has thus far largely neglected, such as the role of distributive justice in international relations, the claims of disabled people and the moral status of nonhuman animals. Nussbaum's resourceful and imaginative exploration of Rawls's work displays a command of the longer tradition of political philosophy that matches and even surpasses that of Rawls, along with a notably richer sensitivity to the history and variety of constitutional arrangements. The result is a notable contribution to philosophical inquiry that merits the most careful study by all who try to think seriously about public policy.
Still, a puzzle remains as to why Nussbaum has chosen to view the issues with which she is concerned through the lens of Rawlsian theory, when she could--perhaps more profitably--have examined them in the light of her own views. As she is fully aware, applying Rawls's theory to these areas is no easy matter. His vision of a scenario in which principles of justice are adopted is an idealized version of rational choice by competent human adults. Since the theory makes no reference to disabled persons, children or nonhuman animals, it is hardly surprising that the principles that emerge from it give no clear guidance as to how they are to be treated. Again, Rawls's theory was constructed to apply within modern states. It was never meant to be a charter for global redistribution. In later work he tried to develop some account of morality in international relations, but he was clear that his conception of justice reflected a moral consensus that exists (so he believed) within nation-states and could be implemented only by nation-states. When Rawls failed to apply his theory to the issues Nussbaum raises, it was not an oversight. It was because the structure of the theory he constructed precluded it from being applied in these ways.

Open Source

The Iraqi Police

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 9:00am PDT by Katherine

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Click to Listen to the Show (24 MB MP3)
Police Academy[Chad Sandoe / Flickr]
A strong Iraqi police force is one of the stated "pillars" of the Bush Administration's Iraq strategy. It's essential to the country's stability -- and therefore to any plans for U.S. troop withdrawal (about which rumors are heating up again). So how is it that three years after the fall of Baghdad the police force is exhausted and ineffective -- and seems in fact to be at the very root of the country's simmering civil war? What went wrong and when? What did we learn from Bosnia and Kosovo (and countless other post-conflict countries) about basic law and order that we could have applied here? Why didn't we do it? And what happens now? Michael Moss Reporter, The New York Times Author, "Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police," The New York Times Author, "How Iraq Police Reform Became Casualty of War," The New York Times Richard Mayer Former deputy director, ICITAP, Department of Justice Worked for Lt. General Jay Garner preparing pre-war plan for development of Iraqi police Recently retired senior police advisor, Department of State Former chief of police, Brunswick, Maine Gerald Burke Former national security advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior Retired Massachusetts State Police major Andrew Mackay Brigadier, British Army Directed the civilian police training in Iraq for the Pentagon in 2004 Was involved in security sector reform in Kosovo

I cite

For those who might claim the nightmare

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 7:50am PDT by Jodi

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Chumans and manpanzees
Neoconservatives twisting mind games
into an unconscionable monkey business
plan for profit.

Fundamental fantasies embed in links
missing or otherwise, dead linked fetishes
securing our dreams, preventing any waking
confrontation with the nightmares, that come
to think of it, celebrate faith and foreclose any
thought of evolution.

In the spirit of IT's monkey business (which has been updated--I actually think it may be impossible--but necessary?--to overdose on monkey cites and commentaries) I post this horrifying image of nasty neocon Charles Krauthammer. And, I include a little nod to DF's half cocked nightmare. In the discussion below and over at IT, a couple of folks have reminded us of the Soviet dream of a hybrid army, which I posted about earlier in my typically overly serious and literal fashion. Here is a bit from the initial post on Krauthammer (which I found via emailed updates from the konspiracist list, a remnant and trace from my forays into conspiracy theory; one of the fascinating things today about much conspiracy theory is how tame it is when compared to the machinations and interconnections of Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, the FBI, etc. In fact, on that note, I also include below the fold as it were another post from the same site on the Top 10 signs that the US is (becoming) a police state. )

Krauthammer himself writes:

The Op-Ed pages are filled with jeremiads about believers--principally evangelical Christians and traditional Catholics--bent on turning the U.S. into a theocracy. Now I am not much of a believer, but there is something deeply wrong--indeed,deeply un-American--about fearing people simply because they believe.
Following this quote, Allan Uthman writes:
We don’t fear them because they believe, Charles; we fear them because they actually are bent on turning the U.S. into a theocracy. Antonin Scalia, our probable next Chief    Justice, says our government derives its authority and its laws from God, and he is not alone by a long shot. But this is demonstrably untrue. Only 2 of 10 commandments even parallel current law, and these are the easy ones, killing and stealing, which have always been illegal everywhere.

If the Bible is the ultimate source of truth, why not just get rid of the constitution, which doesn’t even mention God, and enforce biblical law? If you were a true believer, of course this would seem like a good idea. So fearing people, simply because they believe, is perfectly logical for those who don’t.
Top Ten Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State
   Allan Uthman

The Internet Clampdown

One saving grace of alternative media in this age of unfettered corporate conglomeration has been the internet. While the masses are spoon-fed predigested news on TV and in mainstream print publications, the truth-seeking individual still has access to a broad array of investigative reporting and political       opinion via the world-wide web. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the government moved to patch up this crack in the sky. Attempts to regulate and filter internet content are intensifying lately, coming both from telecommunications corporations (who are gearing up to pass legislation transferring ownership and regulation of the internet to themselves), and the Pentagon (which issued an “Information Operations Roadmap” in 2003, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, which outlines tactics such as network attacks and acknowledges, without suggesting a remedy, that US propaganda planted in other countries has easily found its way to Americans via the internet). One obvious tactic clearing the way for stifling regulation of internet content is the growing media frenzy over child pornography and “internet predators,” which will surely lead to legislation that by far exceeds in its purview what is needed to fight such threats.

“The Long War”

This little piece of clumsy marketing died off quickly, but it gave away what many already suspected: the War on Terror will never end, nor is it meant to end. It is designed to be perpetual. As with the War on Drugs, it outlines a goal that can never be fully attained—as long as there are pissed off people and explosives. The Long War will eternally justify what are ostensibly temporary measures: suspension of civil liberties, military expansion, domestic spying, massive deficit spending and the like. This short-lived moniker told us all, “get used to it. Things aren’t going to change any time soon.”
The USA PATRIOT Act
Did anyone really think this was going to be temporary? Yes, this disgusting power grab gives the government the right to sneak into your house, look through all your stuff and not tell you about it for weeks on a rubber stamp warrant. Yes, they can look at your medical records and library selections. Yes, they can pass along any information they find without probable cause for purposes of prosecution. No, they’re not going to take it back, ever.
Prison camps
This last January the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root nearly $400 million to build detention centers in the United States, for the purpose of unspecified “new programs.” Of course, the obvious first guess would be that these new programs might involve rounding up Muslims or political dissenters—I mean, obviously detention facilities are there to hold somebody. I wish I had more to tell you about this, but it’s, you know…secret.

Touchscreen Voting Machines

Despite clear, copious evidence that these nefarious contraptions are built to be tampered with, they continue to spread and dominate the voting landscape, thanks to Bush’s “Help America Vote Act,” the exploitation of corrupt elections officials, and the general public’s enduring cluelessness.

In Utah, Emery County Elections Director Bruce Funk witnessed security testing by an outside firm on Diebold voting machines which showed them to be a security risk. But his warnings fell on deaf ears. Instead Diebold attorneys were flown to Emery County on the governor's airplane to squelch the story. Funk was fired. In Florida, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho discovered an alarming security flaw in their Diebold system at the end of last year. Rather than fix the flaw, Diebold refused to fulfill its contract. Both of the other two touchscreen voting machine vendors, Sequoia and ES&S, now refuse to do business with Sancho, who is required by HAVA to implement a touchscreen system and will be sued by his own state if he doesn’t. Diebold is said to be pressuring for Sancho’s ouster before it will resume servicing the county.

Stories like these and much worse abound, and yet TV news outlets have done less coverage of the new era of elections fraud than even 9/11 conspiracy theories. This is possibly the most important story of this century, but nobody seems to give a damn. As long as this issue is ignored, real American democracy will remain an illusion. The midterm elections will be an interesting test of the public’s continuing gullibility about oting integrity, especially if the Democrats don’t win substantial gains, as they almost surely will if everything is kosher.

Bush just suggested that his brother Jeb would make a good president. We really need to fix this problem soon.

Signing Statements

Bush has famously never vetoed a bill. This is because he prefers to simply nullify laws he doesn’t like with “signing statements.” Bush has issued over 700 such statements, twice as many as all previous presidents combined. (For more on the laws, see this post based on the Boston Globe article).

Essentially, this administration is bypassing the judiciary and deciding for itself whether laws are constitutional or not. Somehow, I don’t see the new Supreme Court lineup having much of a problem with that, though. So no matter what laws congress passes, Bush will simply choose to ignore the ones he doesn’t care for. It’s much quieter than a veto, and can’t be overridden by a two-thirds majority. It’s also totally absurd.

Warrantless Wiretapping:

Amazingly, the GOP sees this issue as a plus for them. How can this be? What are you, stupid? You find out the government is listening to the phone calls of US citizens, without even the weakest of judicial oversight and you think that’s okay? Come on—if you know anything about history, you know that no government can be trusted to handle something like this responsibly. One day they’re listening for Osama, and the next they’re listening in on Howard Dean.

Think about it: this administration hates unauthorized leaks. With no judicial oversight, why on earth wouldn’t they eavesdrop on, say, Seymour Hersh, to figure out who’s spilling the beans?

“Free Speech Zones”

I know it’s old news, but…come on, are they fucking serious?

High-ranking Whistleblowers:

Army Generals. Top-level CIA officials. NSA operatives. White House cabinet members. These are the kind of people that Republicans fantasize about being, and whose judgment they usually respect. But for some reason, when these people resign in protest and criticize the Bush administration en masse, they are cast as traitorous, anti-American publicity hounds. Ridiculous. The fact is, when people who kill, spy and deceive for a living tell you that the White House has gone too far, you had damn well better pay attention. We all know most of these people are staunch Republicans. If the entire military except for the two guys the Pentagon put in front of the press wants Rumsfeld out, why on earth wouldn’t you listen?

The CIA Shakeup

Was Porter Goss fired because he was resisting the efforts of Rumsfeld or Negroponte? No. These appointments all come from the same guys, and they wouldn’t be nominated if they weren’t on board all the way. Goss was probably canned so abruptly due to a scandal involving a crooked defense contractor, his hand-picked third-in-command, the Watergate hotel and some (no doubt spectacular) hookers.

If Bush’s nominee for CIA chief, Air Force General Michael Hayden,mis confirmed, that will put every spy program in Washington under military control. Hayden, who oversaw the NSA warrantless       wiretapping program and is clearly down with the program. That program? To weaken and dismantle or at least neuter the CIA. Despite its best efforts to blame the CIA for “intelligence errors” leading to the Iraq war, the picture has clearly emerged—through extensive CIA leaks—that the White House’s analysis of Saddam’s estructive capacity was not shared by the Agency. This has proved to be a real pain in the ass for Bush and the gang.

Who’d have thought that career spooks would have moral qualms about deceiving the American people? And what is a president to do about it? Simple: make the critical agents leave, and fill their slots with Bush/Cheney loyalists. Then again, why not simply replace the entire organization? That is essentially what both Rumsfeld at the DoD and newly minted Director of National Intelligence John are doing—they want to move intelligence analysis into the hands of people that they can control, so the next time they lie about an “imminent threat” nobody’s going to tell. And the press is applauding the move as a “necessary reform.”

Remember the good old days, when the CIA were the bad guys?

3quarksdaily

India's 'Idol' Recipe: Mix Small-Town Grit and Democracy

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 6:28am PDT by Azra Raza

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From The New York Times:
For a glimpse into the hungry hearts of young India, step inside a giant hulk of a studio here in the country's film and television capital for the weekly taping of "Indian Idol 2." This is where Indians come to be discovered: Antara Mitra from the remote eastern border in Bengal; Amey Date from a small third-floor walk-up in central Mumbai; Sandeep Acharya, from Bikaner, a small town in Rajasthan; and N. C. Karunya, on leave from an engineering college in the southern high-tech hub, Hyderabad.

Winnowed from some 30,000 contestants who lined up on the first day of auditions, these four contestants were among the show's eight finalists this spring. They were all in their late teens and 20's. None of them were low on grit or ambition. All had been studying music since they were children. Each dreamed of becoming a professional singer in the dog-eat-dog Indian movie industry. "Indian Idol" was their one chance of swimming straight to the top.

"Indian Idol," a variation of the British "Pop Idol" and "American Idol," is one among a spate of talent hunts that have mushroomed across the television landscape in the past couple of years. "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge," a stand-up comedy contest, is in its second season. "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa," a song contest named after the notes of the Indian musical scale, wrapped up its first season in February. "Nach Baliye," a dance contest whose name means "Let's Talk Dance," is expected to begin its second season later this year.
More here.
Mutant mice challenge rules of genetic inheritance

Posted: May 25th, 2006, 6:16am PDT by Azra Raza

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From Nature:
In a discovery that rips up the rulebook of genetics, researchers in France have shown that RNA, rather than its more famous cousin DNA, might be able to ferry information from one generation of mice to the next. DNA has long been credited with the job of passing traits from parent to child. Sperm and egg deliver that DNA to the embryo, where it ultimately decides much of our looks and personality.

The new study in Nature thrusts RNA, DNA's sidekick, into the limelight. It suggests that sperm and eggs of mammals, perhaps including humans, can carry a cargo of RNA molecules into the embryo - and that these can change that generation and subsequent ones. "It's a very exciting possibility," says Emma Whitelaw who studies patterns of inheritance at Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia. "DNA is certainly not all you inherit from your parents."
More here.
The Social Burden of Longer Lives

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 12:01am PDT by Abbas Raza

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Brilliant report by 3QD's own Ker Than, in LiveScience.com:
Adam and Eve lost it, alchemists tried to brew it and, if you believe the legends, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon was searching for it when he discovered Florida.

To live forever while preserving health and retaining the semblance and vigor of youth is one of humanity's oldest and most elusive goals.

Now, after countless false starts and disappointments, some scientists say we could finally be close to achieving lifetimes that are, if not endless, at least several decades longer. This modern miracle, they say, will come not from drinking revitalizing waters or from transmuted substances, but from a scientific understanding of how aging affects our bodies at the cellular and molecular levels.

Whether through genetic tinkering or technology that mimics the effects of caloric restriction—strategies that have successfully extended the lives of flies, worms and mice—a growing number of scientists now think that humans could one day routinely live to 140 years of age or more.
More here.
More on An Inconvenient Truth

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 11:21pm PDT by Robin Varghese

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Jennifer, as ever, offers some insightful observations, this time in her review of An Inconvenient Truth and on climate change.
We can quibble all we like about minor instances of massaging the data to make an emphatic point, but the underlying core message, and the science that supports it, is certainly very sound indeed. And frankly, maybe we need to be a bit more willing to use the tools of propaganda in such a crucial debate. After all, those tools have proved highly effective for those who have exploited them in the past, and our very survival may be at stake. The Gore film has attracted its share of critics, at least one of whom poked fun at the many meditative profile shots of Gore, claiming he looked like he was campaigning for Druid-In-Chief. (In all honesty, Jen-Luc could have done with a few less of those shots as well.)
And so the inevitable backlash begins. Is it merely coincidence that this past Sunday, the Washington Post ran a feature article about former NASA scientist Roy Spenser and his Web site spoofing the global warming "alarmists"? I'd say it's about as much a coincidence as the fact that Spenser gets paid to write for TCS Daily, a Web site partially funded by ExxonMobil. (Interestingly, even Spenser, when pressed, admits that human activities have "likely" contributed to climate change, so he's more honest than most naysayers.) Even more insidious is the onslaught of paid anti-climate-change advertisements that will be blanketing the airwaves this week, courtesy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of which makes the following ludicrous statement: "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life." By now the entire blogosphere has probably seen both DarkSyde's commentary on Daily Kos and Chris Mooney's hilarious spoofs of that tagline, but far be it for me to buck the linkage trend. Per Mooney: "Water. They call it drowning. We call it life."

I cite

Reefer Madness Redux: "Sleeper effect" of cigarettes can last for years - Yahoo! News

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 10:54pm PDT by Jodi

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This strikes me as completely stupid and lame, the proof that proves nothing, a symptom of a therapeutic society where everything is an addiction. How does this link to the studies that say cutting down on fat does nothing or that smoking Brits are healthier than abstemious Americans? I'm not saying that smoking is good for you. But this sleeper effect business is nonsense on stilts. It reminds me of a kind of Refeer Madness. Will folks in 20 years have satires on this kind of health hysteria? And why do Americans continue to scream about health even as we refuse to pursue national health insurance? The contradiction is agonizing.

Link: "Sleeper effect" of cigarettes can last for years - Yahoo! News.
Scientists have discovered that a single cigarette has a "sleeper effect" that can increase a person's vulnerability for three years or more to becoming a regular smoker.

Global Voices Online

Yerevan: Destroying the Past

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:41pm PDT by Nathan Hamm

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Christian Garbis continues his reporting on the destruction of Yerevan’s pre-Soviet buildings to make way for new construction.
Kazakhstan: A Kazakh-American Hero

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:37pm PDT by Nathan Hamm

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News From The Caravan writes about a Kazakh-American hero who saved the lives of two young boys in a small American town in the 1950s. The story is certainly a must-read if for nothing else but the image of a 60 year old Kazakh woman charging through a crowd on a comandeered police horse.
Tajikistan: Dushanbe Transport

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:29pm PDT by Nathan Hamm

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Elizabeth explains the role of the marshrutka (route taxi) in Dushanbe’s public transportation and reports on tremendously bad legislation that puts the vehicles at risk.
Bolivia: Morales Wants the Possibility of Reelection

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:18pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Miguel Centallas, Briegel Busch, and Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas are all concerned by the announcement that Evo Morales will seek a new constitution that allows for reelection of the president and vice-president. Centallas reminds readers that “historically, other Latin American executives have used constitutional changes to stay in power beyond their original mandate. The names Fujimori & Chavez come immediately to mind.” But then adds that “Peru & Venezuela are not models to imitate.” Busch says [ES] that “it’s not a question relevant only to Bolivia but for all the neighboring countries and the region in general.” Ruiz-Navajas is even more critical: “Future generations of Bolivians, when [the Movement to Socialism party] is (hopefully) long gone, will judge us and unanimously agree our stupidity. After all, we have had all possible warnings. We have seen what happened in Venezuela and we can be sure Evo is nothing but a puppet.”
Kyrgyzstan: Rumor Mill

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:16pm PDT by Nathan Hamm

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Amira has a report on what’s being said in the Kyrgyz political rumor mill.

I cite

Midgets are Big

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:13pm PDT by Jodi

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There's something odd in pop culture right now: the bodies of little people are becoming more visible, more present, but present and visible not as themselves, not as the bodies of persons, not as a way that people are present, exposed, not as a way of being human, but as a figuring of a certain set of contemporary symptoms and fantasies.

I just saw an add for a movie called "Little Man" and then a commercial that placed adult heads on children's bodies. The former relied on a visual arrangement that not only shrunk a typical adult male body (The incredible shrinking man!) but also compressed in and in so doing infantalized it and made it abnormal. The commercial made its figures adult children: adult heads on kids' bodies. So, they were like little people but were not actually little people--it's like they wanted to gesture toward little people without being them, to comment on or evoke them and then in some way twist or refigure the reference.

I would think that folks in disability studies would have much that is helpful on this. I'm not well read on this. More likely, the opposite: I have a passion for "Freaks" (one of us, one of us!) and freak shows (my grandmother claimed to have known an actual geek). I fetishistically follow this material, but not within an academic terrain (other than a kind of Marxist critique of the disabling of people with talents and abilities that enabled them to earn a living exploiting the saps who would go to carnivals and travelling shows).

But, today there seems to be a reappropriation of the little body in a way that effaces those who inhabit little bodies so as to fetishize a kind of adult infant. It turns adults into children--or, privileged adults into spoiled children. We already know that racialized bodies, lower and working class bodies will be called into being as adult subjects capable of responsibility, trial, and execution at ages much, much younger than the privilege youthful exploits of, why not, George W. Bush--drinking, doing coke, destroying companies well into his 30s. What do you call a black man who does this sort of thing?

I read tabloids but rarely watch them. Yet, I think that little people have figured on some of the more disgusting reality shows, perhaps those on VH1. Generally they are figured as hyper sexual--not just mini-me, I don't think. When this kind of a 'ableist' (?) 'sizeist' (?) term ( I put them in quotes because I have to confess that I am not as aware or pc as I would like and these terms strike me as awkward and bizarre) or figure comes to stand in for or signify the adult as child, we have a celebration--without joy--of the worst combination of adult and child: the selfish demands of the child, with the exploitive viciousness and sexuality of the adult.

Global Voices Online

Mongolia: Ivanhoe Press Conference

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 9:13pm PDT by Nathan Hamm

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Luke Distelhorst reports on a press conference held by Ivanhoe Mines about its operations in Mongolia, which are the subject of controversy at the moment.
Honduras: Blog of Juan Almendares

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 8:43pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Dr Juan Almendares Bonilla, executive director of the Centre for the Prevention, Rehabilitation and Treatment of Victims of Torture in Honduras now has his own weblog [ES]. Several months ago, Bolivia-based blogger Jim Shultz described “serious threats being launched against” Almendares.
Colombia: “Friendly fire or foul play?”

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 8:32pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Adam Isacson has a thorough review of the controversial incident on Monday, which has been officially described as “friendly fire” and mistaken identity between units of Colombia’s army and police.
Chile: Demanding Better Cell Phone Service

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 8:20pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Following a campaign for universal broadband internet access, the web community Atina Chile is now demanding better cell phone service from Chilean service providers.
Chile: New RSS Aggregator

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 8:00pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Rsschile.com is a new aggregator of all things Chilean. There is also an English-language section.
Argentina: More on Borges

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 7:51pm PDT by David Sasaki

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The 20th anniversary of the death of Jorge Luis Borges continues to leave its mark in Argentina-based weblogs. Roberto Bobrow cites an allusion made to Borges by Italian intellectual Umberto Eco. Jeff Barry, meanwhile, is already on day five of an ambitious series called “30 Days with Borges.” It seems useful to those as of yet unacquainted with the Argentine literary giant as well as those who would like to dig deeper into Borges’ life, works, and impact.
Peru: Debate, Human Rights, and Food

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 7:25pm PDT by David Sasaki

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Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas has a helpful collection of links about last weekend’s presidential debate. Jorge Bazo Escudero writes [ES] that Amnesty International “has condemned the blatant ignorance of both presidential candidates with respect to human rights issues.” And, away from politics, Peru Food has fresh content with a translation of an article about eating well in Lima’s port city, “el Callao.”

Damn Interesting

Measuring Great Hearts

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 6:51pm PDT by Cynthia Wood

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SecretariatSince the earliest days of horse racing enthusiasts have talked about horses with great hearts. Horses who have stood out dramatically from their fellows – who run not only faster, but harder, who never give up until the finish line. It did not refer to a clear-cut physical characteristic, but to a quality of spirit. Imagine then, the surprise when the autopsy on the English racehorse Eclipse – one of the most famous horses of all time – showed him to have a heart more than twice the normal size. An average racehorse of that era had a heart weighing around six pounds; Eclipse’s heart weighed fourteen. Two hundred years later when the Triple Crown winner Secretariat was autopsied, his heart was estimated at an astonishing twenty-two pounds. For comparison the average modern Thoroughbred has a heart weighing eight and a half pounds. Indeed, many of the greatest racehorses of... (More Inside)

Global Voices Online

Ukraine: President’s Son Misbehaving Again

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 5:31pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Andriy Yushchenko, president Yushchenko’s son, seems to be making trouble again: this time, he, allegedly, almost caused a car crash, verbally abused a high-ranking law enforcement official and didn’t prevent his bodyguard from shooting the man in the leg with a rubber bullet. LEvko of Foreign Notes reports on this and comments on the president’s reaction to his son’s behavior last year: “Last time Andriy made a fool of himself, the Pres. called the journalist from ‘Ukrainska Pravda’, who ran the story, ‘a hired killer.’” Scott W. Clark points out that “anybody with connections or money will do the same thing. Life is cheap here and any consequences for risking it or taking it can disappear through the magic of money or of the right contacts. Get to the right person and pay the right fee and it will be as though it never happened.”
Russia: Translating Joseph Brodsky

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 5:31pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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David McDuff of A Step At A Time has posted an interview with himself, in which he talks about what it was like to work with Joseph Brodsky on his poetry and prose translations: “I think it needs to be remembered that for Joseph the process of translating his own poems was in many ways not ‘translation’ in the usual sense at all. He used to talk of ‘throwing away the original, as it’s not important now’. The idea was to create a new poem in English – and that was going to involve reliving some of the same existential tensions that had led to the writing of the Russian version.”
Russia: Krasnodar Encounters

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 5:31pm PDT by Veronica Khokhlova

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Brigid of Laughter in the Dark writes about the well-meaning but racist director of Krasnodar’s archive; a Krasnodar woman whose dream is to move to the United States; and a Kuban State University historian who would really love to have a map of the world made in the United States. Brigid also posts a few photos of Krasnodar’s makeshift open-air markets and of people waiting for a tram.
India: Through Goa by train

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 3:39pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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Windy Skies takes a trip on Konkan Rail through Goa and has a lot to share on things seen and felt through the journey.
Nepal: What now for the Maoists?

Posted: May 24th, 2006, 3:33pm PDT by Neha Viswanathan

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What are the Maoists upto in Nepal? What outcomes do they desire? United We Blog! comments “While the country is readying itself for the first round of peace talks with the Maoists, the rebels are continuing the activities, some say, they are best known for: extortion, intimidation and abductions.”

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