May 11 2008

Final Salute

Remember this photo? I’m sure you’ve seen it a dozen times as it’s made it’s way around the web. Her name is Katherine Cathey and she’s a mother, a mother of a son who never met his father Marine 2nd. Lt. Jim Cathey. Katherine mentions this photo in a video, of which I’ll give you the link to in a moment, one you should view.

Recently  NPR’s Fresh Air aired an interview with journalist Jim Sheeler who won a Pulitzer Prize for his series about Marine Colonel Steve Beck and the families of the fallen soldiers. Katherine Cathey was one of those families that Col. Beck helped. The interview was called A ‘Final Salute’ to Fallen Marines and you can read abit at that link, as well as listen to, or you can click here to bring up the NPR player to listen in, it’s abit over 31min. long and well worth the listen.

Jim Sheeler followed Beck for a year, writing about the experience in a Pulitzer Prize-winning Rocky Mountain News series Final Salute. Sheeler’s new book, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives, is a continuation of the series.

There’s an excerpt of his book at the Fresh Air interview link. This aired on the 30th of last month, I passed it on to a few folks but didn’t use it in a posting  untill I caught a video, over at the News Week magazine website a few days ago.

The video is one you should view, it’s short but very moving, the link is in the quote below:

Maj. Steve Beck was charged with notifying families that their loved ones wouldn’t be coming home from Iraq. How one widow received the news.

Katherine Cathey  is featured in Sheelers book, in the Video she makes this statement: “That’s reality, there should be over 4,000 pictures like that that everybody has to look at!”.

Once again the the link to the News Week Video

Katherines statement, in the video, is the reality that this country should be living as those who die in it’s service are brought home, but these pictures are kept well hidden from an apathedic society that’s easily controlled and brought to the fear level, and we seem to like it that way.

We should be viewing the over 4000 pictures of the flag draped coffins, with family members included, 4,075 confirmed as of today from Iraq, and the 499 killed in Afganistan to date.

But what about the hundreds, possibly thousands, of potential deaths that are directly related to these conflicts, suicides, related to physical and mental injuries from these theaters of occupations, unknown causes……………………etc., they to, though not counted, should be embraced and remembered in our countries concious!

The physical and mental injuries don’t just stop happening when those we send into Wars of Choice return, they continue taking there toll for the years left, not only for those military personal but also their families and those who live in the countries invaded who suffer the most!!

There was also a recent report at Stars and Stripes, Four names added to Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The names of four U.S. servicemembers who died years after they were wounded during the Vietnam War are being added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this week.


Stoneworker James Lee holds the paper as Priscilla Mason makes a rubbing of her husband’s newly-engraved name on the Wall. Lance Cpl. Raymond C. Mason, wounded in Vietnam in 1968, died of causes related to his wounds in 2006.

See more photos here

“I can’t even put it into words,” Priscilla Mason, from Riverside, R.I., said after watching Lee at work. “My first reaction was, he’s finally home.

“They were able to put him chronologically where he would have been if he had died Feb. 28, 1968, when he was shot. My first thought was, I wonder how many of those names (on panel 41E) did he know.

“I’m sure he feels he’s home, too.”

Raymond Mason, confined to a wheelchair since he was wounded, died May 28, 2006.


There is a Video at the end of the report as ‘Nam Brother Raymond Masons wife Priscilla speaks about him and his and her comfort in bringing him home to ‘The Wall’!


And what about those who live in the countries invaded and occupied, we think even less of them than we do our own, some even consider All of them our Enemies, and in todays age some already are or will quickly turn into seeking the retaliation for what we’ve done.


Among Iraq’s Children, Orphans Suffer Most


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The number of Iraqi orphans increased in the last few years due to the war. According to official Iraqi government statistics released in December 2007, the number of Iraqi orphans had reached at least five million over the last three years. Many due to the Sunni-Shia conflict. There are several social organizations caring for a small number of these Iraqi orphans, such as Child Aid International. There are approximately 26 orphanages that Alive in Baghdad has been able to locate around Iraq. Eight orphanages are in Baghdad and another 18 are distributed all over Iraq and generally they accept kids between the age of 6 and 18 years old.


One of the biggest scandals that happened in the history of the Iraq conflict is the one that happened in Al-Hanan orphanage. There were many pictures distributed online and by television of Iraqi orphans lying on the floor naked, with no food for weeks, sick and nearly dying. After this the Iraqi government began to show more attention for the orphans, there were many stories being reported regarding Al-Hanan Orphanage, like sexual abuses and bad treatment of the kids living there.


Al-A’ssal House is one of the rare orphanages that still take care of the young children who have a dead father or who are orphans due to losing both parents. The house has a special method and it’s opposed to the toy guns due to Iraq’s situation and the reason behind it, which is the constant conflict that Iraq is undergoing. Another organization was also created by this house, and it’s called the Sazan organization. This organization is taking in orphans for free, with no payment at all. Also this house employs Iraq widows in order to help the Iraqi women support themselves during the war. Despite all their hard work, this orphanage has not yet received any funding from the Iraqi government or sponsorship by a bigger humanitarian aid organization while other orphanages such as Al-Hanan orphanage received funds from the Iraqi government without oversight.


Ask yourself, as I did,

this orphanage has not yet received any funding from the Iraqi government or sponsorship by a bigger humanitarian aid organization


with all the monies being spent, and the War Profitteers reaping, especially on our Private Merc Army and the rest of the No-Bid Contracts, Why The U.S. Is Not Funding This and Other Orphanages along with So Much More!


There’s much more to feelings than title says, ‘Final Salute’!


Not only for our Fallen but also for the Innocents who have lost so much and it will continue!!


And thinking of Burma as well!


Happy Mothers Day?

May 11 2008

So . . . Who Will Be Obama’s V-P??

As so often happens these days, the Saturday evening post-movie (Iron Man) conversation turned to politics.  The consensus is Hillary is through in the campaign.  The lack whether she should be Obama’s running mate.  Some say unity is the thing now.  And the need for Obama to appeal to Joe and Jose Six-Pack.

My take?  No way it’s Hillary.  First, too much animosity between the two and too big a political figure to be a V-P.  In fact, I think Obama, as is his wont, while being conciliatory, will also take the position that the Clintons represent the old way of doing things.  

Second, is Hillary the one to appeal to Six-Pack?  While she does better with this group than Obama, she isn’t exactly loved by them either.  Indeed, if you could choose two candidates that are least loved by Six-Pack, I can’t imagine two lesser than these.  

So, who will it be?  Webb of Virginia?  Fairly conservative, but could help get Reagan democrat southerners.  Don’t think so.  Too conservative and won’t likely pull enough southern man voters to put Obama over the top there.

My bet:  Richardson of NM.  I think Obama can’t win the south and will instead focus on the west.  And the west means hispanic voters.  Richardson appeals to western whites, but more importantly gets Obama the hispanic vote.  

What do you think?

May 11 2008

Mothers Hands

( – promoted by undercovercalico)

My mom’s been gone for nine years now and I can hardly remember her face. When I think of my mother I see her hands. I don’t think this is only due to the fact that her hand is in nearly every picture I have of myself or my sibs from years ago, as much as she was always doing something with her hands. And I don’t think its due to the jangling bracelet she habitually wore with its coins from Arabia, India, Africa & other foreign countries.

She was one of a dying breed, as npk mentions. (and btw~thank you for the inspiration npk!) She was a homemaker, always doing something with her hands.  

One of my earliest memories is her hands brushing my hair. She left my hair long (as did I, later) and some days my hair was quite a mess!  She’d hold a hank of hair in one hand &, starting at the bottom, brush out the tangles & brambles with the other. Her hands were the only ones that trimmed my hair until she said she was too unsteady to do it any longer.

A very early memory is her hand holding tweezers, picking gravel out of my knees after I fell trying to roller skate down a hill.

Her hand smoothed back my hair over & over, my head in her lap watching the red lights go by overhead as Daddy rushed me to the hospital. Or bringing me softboiled eggs & buttered bread or chicken soup on a tray for weeks after that.

But mostly I remember her hands with cloth or pins as she was constantly sewing. She made  dresses, skirts blouses & shorts for my sister & I; she made my brothers shirts & suits; she made bedskirts and curtains, birdcage covers, chair cushions, costumes…damn near anything you could imagine. She taught me to sew when I was in second grade.

If she wasn’t sewing a ‘project’ in the evenings her hands would be busy as she’d knit or crochet.  One of the last things she crocheted was a long cape type thing for our girl. On a whim I entered it in the county fair that year. She won the blue ribbon!

Her hands made dinner ‘from scratch’ nearly every day.(she thought Kraft macaroni&cheese was cheating) Those hands baked pies & cakes, cookies & bread every week and all of it was delicious. Once she tricked my brother who was becoming greedy about ‘his’ blueberry pie. When my brother got home he saw his best friend sitting at table with a large piece of pie half eaten & just a sliver in the pie plate. Boy was he pissed!  His friend Dave had come over early & mom had given him a piece of pie & glass of milk. Then she put a tiny sliver of pie in an empty pie plate and smeared a bit of blueberry around, crumbled some crust bits. After my brother finally said he didn’t really mind Dave having pie (because Dave didn’t always get to have great pie!) Mom brought the rest of the pie out.

Her hands did a bit more than traditional women’s work though. My dad was in the military so we moved a Lot. It was moms hands that organized & packed up the house. And unpacked & hung curtains & rods; hung pictures; put furniture back together. She bought some unfinished bookcases & antiqued them herself (an oddity at the time…all the neighborhood women came to see)

Those hands did gardening. Not with gloves like most other moms, she said she liked to feel the dirt. She planted snapdragons every Spring (Gramma showed me how to make them ‘roar’)  and chrysanthemums in the Fall. She trimmed the bushes around the house and cut the grass.

Those hands were so confident, competent as they showed me how to fold diapers, how to test a bottle, how to hold a squirming baby in a bath. And she told me of the first time she held me as Daddy drove home from the orphanage in Germany.

Lookin at some recent photos, I noticed my hand in several. Tweaking a shirt hem or strand of hair, pushing a branch into alignment, not quite getting out of the picture before it snapped. My hands are starting to look like hers.

some Beautiful Words that made me realize, when I think of my mom I see her hands

Ten Views of a Hand

by Cronesense

A baby’s delicate fingers

A child’s deep-dimpled knuckles

A young girl’s first dime-store ring

A teenager’s fascination with nail polish

A maiden’s ring-finger encircled in gold

A young mother’s short, efficient nails

A busy mother’s neglected cuticles

A matron’s age spots

An old women’s swollen joints

A dying woman’s soft, warm palm

May 11 2008

A State Dept. Powerpoint on How to Rule the World

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

David Kilcullen  is a member of Gen. David Petraeus’ famous team of intellectuals.  He has served in Iraq as part of the general’s cadre and is currently working for the State Department as well as in the private sector.  Dr. Kilcullen has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of New South Wales and wrote his dissertation on counterinsurgency in traditional societies.

At the Department of State website devoted to collecting resources about counterinsurgency (“COIN” for short), there is a powerpoint presentation by Dr. Kilcullen titled “Counterinsurgency In Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007 – by David Kilcullen.”  This is possibly the single most, shall we say “interesting,” powerpoint presentation I have ever seen.  

From slide 46:

COIN ops are fundamentally perception management operations in which we shape the perceptions of the population, the enemy, our own side and a global audience. This demands a solid, realistic understanding of the environment and an ability to coordinate enormous numbers of info sources and communication tools.

“US COIN ops” is shorthand for “United States Counterinsurgency operations.”   US COIN ops in Iraq is operating, or anyway is being advised to operate, on a level of sophistication and deliberativeness in psychological counterinsurgency that I had not previously appreciated.  

According to a surprisingly long Wikipedia entry on Dr. Kilcullen:

He is currently serving as the special adviser for counterinsurgency to the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. During 2007 he served in Iraq as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force – Iraq, a civilian position on the personal staff of American General David Howell Petraeus, responsible for planning and executing the 2007-8 Joint Campaign Plan, which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007.

— snip —

He is one of a group of highly educated, combat-experienced, civilian specialists and military officers, including Colonel H.R. McMaster and others, who were seconded in late 2006 to the personal staff of General Petraeus, to oversee the specialized counterinsurgency aspects of the Iraq campaign in 2007. He previously contributed to the new United States Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3-24, published in December 2006, of which he authored a chapter entitled “A Guide to Action”.

Reading through the 90 often text-dense slides in Dr. Kilcullen’s powerpoint, one is struck by the dispassionate insistance on total information control.  Counterinsurgency is critically dependent, we are told, on unity of message “from President to the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman on the street” (slide 47).  War as extended psyop, every military manuver must grow out of strategies of perception management.  Everything, everything is orchestrated by concerns of information control towards the target audiences, audiences both in the country of operations and in the domestic audience back home.

In Slide 33 Dr. Kilcullen notes that there are three approches to war: enemy-centric, terrain-centric, and population-centric.  In slide 34 he insists that counterinsurgency is population-centric:

Why counterinsurgency is population-centric

+This is not about being “nice” to the population, it is a hard-headed recognition of certain basic facts, to wit:

+ The enemy needs the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, provocation)  — without this insurgents wither

+ The enemy is fluid; the population is fixed – therefore controlling the population is do-able, destroying the enemy is not

+ Being fluid, the enemy can control his loss rate and can never be eradicated by purely enemy-centric means (e.g. Vietnam VC losses)

+ In any given area, there are multiple threat groups but only one local population – the enemy may not be identifiable but the population is.

Slide 46:

Components of the Information Dimension

+Intelligence – tactical, operational, political, economic, strategic

++Information collection – geographical, cultural, economic, governance, infrastructure, agricultural, media landscape, local political and social landscape

+ +Information Ops – psychological ops, military deception, operational security,  computer network operations, electronic warfare

+ +Public Diplomacy – education, media engagement, visits, legislative liaison, think tank engagement, long-term perception shaping

+ +Public Affairs – local media, regional media, global media, homeland

+ +Joint Influence Operations – combination of physical + informational

+ + COIN ops are fundamentally perception management operations in which we shape the perceptions of the population, the enemy, our own side and a global audience. This demands a solid, realistic understanding of the environment and an ability to coordinate enormous numbers of info sources and communication tools.

Slide 47:

Shaping Perceptions

+ Virtually every action, message, and decision by a force shapes the opinions of an indigenous population, to include how coalition personnel treat civilians during cordon and search operations, the accuracy or inaccuracy of aerial bombardment, and the treatment of detainees. Unity of message is key in this regard. The panoply of U.S. force actions must be synchronized across the operational battlespace to the extent possible so as not to conflict with statements made in communications at every level from President to the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman on the street. Given the inherent difficulty in unifying the American and coalition message across disparate organizations, within and across governments and over time, these shaping efforts must be designed, wargamed, and conducted as a campaign. The goal of such a shaping campaign is to foster positive attitudes among the populace for U.S. and allied forces. These attitudes, while not the goal in and of themselves, help decrease anti-coalition behaviors and motivate the population to act in ways that facilitate friendly force operational objectives and the attainment of desired end states. + +

But we should back up.  What is a counterinsurgency operation?

Slide 5:

Insurgency: an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict…an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control.

Counterinsurgency: military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency. Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies.

Slide 14:

The fundamental problem is CONTROL – of people, terrain and information.

Slide 24:

Narrative as a weapon

+People are not mobilized individually, by cold consideration of rational facts

+They are mobilized in groups, by influencers and opinion leaders, through cultural narratives that include 7 basic elements:

1.A simple, easily expressed story or explanation for events  

2.A choice of words and story format that resonates with the target group

3.Symbolic imagery that creates an emotional bond (ideally at the unconscious level)

4.Elements of Myth (“sacred story”) that tap into deep cultural undercurrents of identity and appeal to universal ideals

5.A basis in, or a call to action (ideally, action that lies within the immediate capacity of the listeners)

6.Credibility built on a high degree of consistency between what is said, what is done, and what is seen

7.A future focus that inspires people to mortgage current self-interest for future benefits

In reading through this powerpoint, I was struck by the extent to which it could easily be re-titled How to Rule the World.  A military — in particular a military larger than the rest of the world’s militaries combines, give or take — devoted primarily to counterinsurgency is a military devoted to neo-imperialism.  I take this as obvious.  

As Defense Secretary Gates said in April:

What has been called the `long war’ is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational challenge cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies.

Tom Engelhardt recently called this long war, hauntingly, “the war in the slum cities of the planet.”  I add only that the war-planners see this war as a war for populations, not to be “nice” to them, as Dr. Kilcullen notes, but to “control” them.  And this is true in the slums of Iraq and in the skyscrapers of Chicago, both.  This war has no exit strategities because it has no boundaries.

So how do you rule the world?

Slide 46:

COIN ops are fundamentally perception management operations in which we shape the perceptions of the population, the enemy, our own side and a global audience.

Slide 14:

The fundamental problem is CONTROL – of people, terrain and information.

May 11 2008

Kokopelli

(kj is graciously filling in for NLinStPaul this Sunday – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Me mum left this earth decades ago and me babies chose not to be born. Seems to me I’m the last person to write an essay on mother’s day. So I’ll throw this out thought out there, and ask for your stories.

The creation energy isn’t limited to our bodies; it isn’t limited to our gender. We– all sexes, all ages– experience the process of conception, gestation, birth and mothering through our projects, our gardens, our loves, our lives.  We experience still birth, early death, abortion. We know the power of a two-year-old’s “No!” and rambunctious thoughts that won’t behave. Most of us have colored outside the lines. And we’ve all rocked ourselves, or someone else, to sleep at night.

So, what are your stories of love and creation?  Of sunny days in the park and late nights in darkness?  Who is your favorite mother?  Who is your most troublesome child? What project just wouldn’t take despite the best sex in the world to make it so? And what joy has been just too enormous for a single heart to contain?  “I wanna story!”  ðŸ˜‰

Because Kokopelli, that rascal, was a mom, too, I’m sure of it!

May 11 2008

On Mothers’ Day Protests In Kathmandu

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Photobucket

Mothers’ Day isn’t celebrated in Nepal.  Modern Mothers’ Day began as Women’s Day of Peace.  In  fact, NPK today has posted the stirring 1870 Proclamation.  So it’s a synchronicity that hundreds of Tibetan women in Kathmandu including Buddhist nuns chose today as an all-woman protest against Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Reuters reports:

Nepali police detained 562 Tibetan women at an anti-China rally in Kathmandu on Sunday, the first all-women protest against Chinese rule in their homeland, officials said.

Some shouted “We want free Tibet” while others wept as they were dragged along the road to police vans and trucks and driven to detention centers. Many were wearing black armbands and had their mouths gagged with cloths.

Nepal considers Tibet part of China, a key donor and trade partner, and has been cracking down on protests by the exiled Tibetans against Beijing.

Police said the protesters would be freed later.

Nepal borders Tibet.  More than 20,000 Tibetans have been living in Nepal since fleeing their homeland after the recent failed uprising and China’s crack-down.

“We are not against Nepal. Our protests are against China. So why are they arresting us?” asked a 70-year-old protester who gave her name as Chinjhoke, tears rolling down her face.

According to BBC Nepal

cannot allow Tibetans to demonstrate because it recognises Tibet as an integral part of China.

But the UN says the mass arrests are against the spirit of a society governed by the rule of law.

Today’s protest in Kathmandu followed yesterday’s in which

A group of Tibetan protesters chained themselves together in front of the Chinese Embassy’s visa office in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, on Saturday.

Sixteen protesters secured themselves to each other with chains and padlocks at the Chinese embassy in the heart of Kathmandu, and were joined by dozens of other Tibetans who chanted ‘Free Tibet’ and ‘We want freedom.’

Police official Ramesh Thapa says 120 people were detained for defying a ban on demonstrations against China, Nepal’s neighbour to the north.

I don’t think it can be argued that arrests for that reason comply with an acknowledgement of human rights.    Evidently, it’s important to Nepal to mimic Chinese responses to peaceful protest.

I watch all of this with increasing frustration.  I am astonished by the courage of the Tibetan protesters, that they risk so much to bring to the world’s attention their grievances about the occupation of Tibet.  But I don’t believe that what they do will result in action that will change things.  That belief brings me despair.

All I have to offer on this Mothers’ Day is this Metta prayer:

   May all beings be well and safe, may they be at ease.

  Whatever living beings there may be, whether moving or standing still, without exception, whether large, great, middling, or small, whether tiny or substantial,

  Whether seen or unseen, whether living near or far,

  Born or unborn; may all beings be happy.

  Let none deceive or despise another anywhere. Let none wish harm to another, in anger or in hate.”

Just as a mother would guard her child, her only child, with her own life, even so let me cultivate a boundless mind for all beings in the world.

Let me cultivate a boundless love for all beings in the world, above, below, and across, unhindered, without ill will or enmity.

Standing, walking, seated, or lying down, free from torpor, let me as far as possible fix my attention on this recollection. This, they say, is the divine life right here.

May it be so.

May 11 2008

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Simon and Garfunkel I



Sound of Silence



Homeward Bound



I am a Rock



Hazy Shade of Winter

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

May 11 2008

Docudharma Times Sunday May 11



The Shinkansen of News

Sunday’s Headlines: Race may not be Obama’s biggest hurdle: Severe storms kill at least 18 in Missouri, Okla.: Sudan cuts Chad ties over attack: Southern Africa: SADC Divided Over Zimbabwe: Burma exports rice as cyclone victims starve: Abracadabra! Boy saves own life with magic: Parading of fighters’ bodies taunts Mahdi Army: Robert Fisk: Lebanon does not want another war. Does it?: 1968: Josef Koudelka and 1968, summer of hate: As Gazprom Goes, So Goes Russia: Behind the food riots: a debate on how best to farm

System of Neglect

As Tighter Immigration Policies Strain Federal Agencies, The Detainees in Their Care Often Pay a Heavy Cost

Near midnight on a California spring night, armed guards escorted Yusif Osman into an immigration prison ringed by concertina wire at the end of a winding, isolated road.

During the intake screening, a part-time nurse began a computerized medical file on Osman, a routine procedure for any person entering the vast prison network the government has built for foreign detainees across the country. But the nurse pushed a button and mistakenly closed file #077-987-986 and marked it “completed” — even though it had no medical information in it

Support disaster relief in Myanmar (Burma) Through the UN

USA

Race may not be Obama’s biggest hurdle

If he’s chosen as the Democratic nominee, his race might be an issue, but experience and social issues loom much larger.

WASHINGTON — For the first time, a major political party is on the brink of choosing an African American as its candidate for president, but when Democratic strategists and other analysts look ahead, they don’t see race as Barack Obama’s biggest challenge.

They worry more, they say, about other issues: Will swing voters view him as too young? Too inexperienced? Or too liberal?

“I am sure there are people in Missouri that won’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black, but there are not that many of them,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a swing-state leader who endorsed Obama early. “I don’t think that’s going be a deal breaker.”

Instead, she said, Obama’s most important test should he lock up the nomination will come from Republican efforts to paint him as an elitist, a social and cultural liberal outside the mainstream of American life.

Severe storms kill at least 18 in Missouri, Okla.

Tornadoes reported across central U.S.; rescue efforts under way

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A tornado that spun across the Oklahoma-Missouri border killed at least 18 people as severe storms raked the central part of the country Saturday, injuring many and mangling buildings in the storm-weary region.

At least 12 people were killed after severe storms spawned tornadoes and high winds across sections of southwestern Missouri, the State Emergency Management Agency said. Ten of the dead were killed when a twister struck near Seneca, near the Oklahoma border.

Arica

Sudan cuts Chad ties over attack

Sudan says it has cut off diplomatic relations with Chad, blaming it for helping rebels from Darfur to launch an attack on Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

Both Chad and Jem rebels deny working together to launch the assault on the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman, which the rebels say they have taken control of.

The government said the rebel advance, the closest they have come to Khartoum, had been defeated.

An overnight curfew imposed on Khartoum has been extended indefinitely.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made the announcement that his country was breaking off diplomatic ties with Chad on state television.

Southern Africa: SADC Divided Over Zimbabwe

THE crisis in Zimbabwe has exposed divisions among southern African nations who have traditionally supported each other against what they perceive as Western interference, analysts said.

The rifts in the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc), a 14-member regional bloc, are mainly between countries led by anti-colonial national liberation leaders and heads of state driven by a more pro-Western agenda.

Neo Simutanyi, political science lecturer at the University of Zambia, said there is a view among the old guard that Western nations wants to replace leaders such as Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe with “imperialist agents”.

Asia

Burma exports rice as cyclone victims starve

Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving survivors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people.

Sacks of rice destined for Bangladesh were being loaded on to a ship at the Thilawa container port at the mouth of the Yangon River at the end of last week, even though Burma’s ‘rice bowl’ region was devastated by the deadly storm a week ago.

The Burmese regime, which has a monopoly on the country’s rice exports, said it planned to meet all its contractual commitments.

Abracadabra! Boy saves own life with magic

Dean Nelson in Delhi

When nine-year-old Ashley Vanristell was told he had a blood disorder that would kill him unless he had expensive treatment that his parents could never afford, he did not despair. He turned to a Christmas magic kit to conjure up the cash he needed.

Ashley, who lives with his Anglo-Indian family in a Mumbai slum, was gravely ill with pneumonia when doctors discovered that he was one of thousands of Indian children born with a hereditary immune disorder. The condition means his body cannot resist the many infections common in India without monthly transfusions of purified gamma globulin.

His parents, Andrea and Clive, who are descended from British railway workers in India, were told the cost of saving his life would be about £800 a month, more than double his father’s wage as a labourer on a Gulf oil rig.

Middle East

Parading of fighters’ bodies taunts Mahdi Army

A humvee military vehicle idles on a broad avenue as an Iraqi army soldier walks nonchalantly past without so much as a glance at the body slung across the bonnet.

The dead man’s trousers have been pulled down to his ankles, exposing white underwear below a torn T-shirt drenched in blood from wounds to his chest and side.

Behind is a second Humvee with another body sprawled over the front, arms and legs outstretched. On his white shirt, a large bloodstain indicates the wound that may have killed him. A soldier sitting on the roof dangles his legs over the windscreen and seems to prod the corpse’s stomach with his boot.

Robert Fisk: Lebanon does not want another war. Does it?

Despite everything that has happened in the past few days, the people have no appetite for yet more civil conflict

By Robert Fisk in Beirut

Sunday, 11 May 2008

I went to cover a demonstration in West Beirut yesterday morning – yes, please note the capital W on “West” – and then I get a text from a Lebanese woman on my mobile phone, asking if she will have to wear a veil when she returns to Lebanon. How do I reply? That the restaurants are still open? That you can still drink wine with your dinner?

That is the problem. For the war in West Beirut is not about religion. It is about the political legitimacy of the Lebanese government and its “pro-American” support (the latter an essential adjective to any US news agency report), which Iran understandably challenges.

A few days ago, I went to view an exhibition – here, in Beirut – of posters of the terrible 15-year civil war which cost the Lebanese and Palestinians 150,000 lives.

Europe

1968: Josef Koudelka and 1968, summer of hate

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia sent shock waves around the world. Amy Turner meets Josef Koudelka, the reclusive photographer who saw the tanks roll in, then smuggled these historic images to the West

Josef Koudelka crouched on the roof of a building in Wenceslas Square, Prague, his camera lens trained on the street below. Thousands of Soviet troops rumbled past in tanks – the city was being invaded. Below him, houses and buses were ablaze, bullets were flying and the wounded cried out. Protesters chanted the name of their hero, the Czech president Alexander Dubcek. Some threw stones at the troops. Others pleaded with the soldiers, begging them to go home. One man simply stood before a tank, silently opened his jacket and defied the soldiers to shoot him in the chest.

As Gazprom Goes, So Goes Russia

ON a frigid evening in February, the hottest place to be here was the Kremlin Palace theater.

The draw inside the towering hall wasn’t Tina Turner or Deep Purple – rock icons well past their prime – but Gazprom, Russia’s most powerful corporate leviathan, which was celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Gazprom certainly had reason to party: its chairman, Dmitri A. Medvedev, was riding high on the Russian campaign trail as the hand-picked successor of President Vladimir V. Putin. Although Gazprom forked over a handsome sum to book Ms. Turner and Deep Purple, Mr. Medvedev’s favorite band, the opportunity for the company, the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, to have its own man installed as Russia’s next leader was priceless.

Latin America

Behind the food riots: a debate on how best to farm

MEXICO CITY – Sitting in a Mexico City office, dressed in a pressed white shirt, Gerardo Sanchez seems a world away from his herds of goats and fields of beans.

But he’s no poster boy for the new world agricultural order, in which peasants are supposed to leave their unproductive farms and strive for middle-class prosperity while food production is left to agribusiness in the countries that farm most cheaply and efficiently.

Sanchez works for the National Campesino Federation, a lobbying group for small farmers that has been active lately in protests against the rising price of food, notably a doubling of the price of tortillas. Here, NAFTA and globalization are dirty words.

May 11 2008

Mother’s Day

Many of us have read Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870:

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise all women who have hearts,

Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears

Say firmly:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of

charity, mercy and patience.

“We women of one country

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with

Our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!

Blood does not wipe out dishonor

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have of ten forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace,

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality

May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient

And at the earliest period consistent with its objects

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions.

The great and general interests of peace.

Stirring stuff.  Still meaningful over a hundred years later.

I was over at a friend’s house last week.  She’s moving, and I came over to give her moral support and basically hang out.

In her packing she came across a Barbie Doll suitcase filled with Barbie’s and one Ken doll with very strange hair, and lots of doll clothes.

She showed me some of the clothes her mother had made for her dolls.  They were fantastic, so well sewn, miniature works of art.

I started going on about how fabulous they were, and then remembered that my mother was a great seamstress as well.

So we wondered why too many modern Americans don’t know how to sew any more.

Not that our mothers wanted to sew to become famous fashion designers.  They just knew because their mothers taught them and so on.

My mother had six children to raise on very little money.  She was resourceful but probably didn’t think of it that way.  It was just how she was raised.

Homemaking, another almost lost skill.  Coming home and having food on the table, having the laundry done, all that.  Not just housekeeping.  Homemaking.

My mother belonged to a club called The Homemaker’s Club.  These were all very busy women who didn’t have a lot of time for socializing.  But once a month or so they’d meet at various members’ homes and have some sort of a lunch and show off crafts and such.  I remember teasing my mom about her club.  There was a magazine they all subscribed to called Workbasket.

I remember being fascinated by one column where someone would write in asking what to do with, say, 500 styrofoam balls, and the columnist would give out several ideas, like making them into a hamper or something, lol.  I was not into crafts, so I would always tease my mom about the magazine.

When my mother died in 1992, all the ladies from her Homemaker’s Club who were still alive came to her funeral.  I noticed a wonderful glow, an aura, emanating from them, friendships that had lasted over 50 years, such kindness from these women.

My mother was not a well educated woman.  But she could see through bullshit a mile away and taught me to do the same.  ‘Course she always saw through my bullshit, too, which wasn’t so pleasant.

If she were still alive she wouldn’t be reading the blogs.  But she would have known what was what with this misAdministration and with the culture in general here in the USA.  She had common sense … a rare commodity these days.

I was glad that my mother lived long enough for me to finally dig her for what she was and have her transmit knowledge to me of her generation.  She gave me her stubbornness, her love of laughter, a tiny drop of her common sense and a great deal of strength.

Happy Mother’s Day, Ma.  I’m glad you had me … wouldn’t have missed this carnival for anything.

May 11 2008

Iglesia………………………………………Episode 54



(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode and previous pertinent episode.

“How did you cheat?” Abe asked.

“Thusly,” Rogers replied

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and took out two pieces of paper. He handed one to each of them and told Abe to read it aloud. Fast, without stopping, no matter what happened. He told Iglesia that as soon as Abe stopped, she should do the same.

Peja Stojakovic

gleefully festooned the limpid girth

of the interwoven zeppelins

haphazard projectiles

portentously looming

their beribboned visages

unforeseen by conventional telemeters

bulging obscenely

with the inglorious ornaments

in the hoary gloaming

as they lingered inconsequentially

beneath the interstices

of the frosted spheroids

calculating the intransigence

of polyamorous hijackers

hellbent on

inciting randomized fractal mischief

in these fecund fields

where once lay the head of kings

and radishes

and Rashomon the only

gainsaying determinant

of who would rue the day

the hour however

belonged incontrovertibly

to Peja

As Abe read each line an “image,” seemingly solid and real, that roughly corresponded to the line, appeared in the gymnasium. A series of surreal images, but in a form solid enough so that whatever images his mind perceived within the gibberish, however his consciousness ‘understood’ it…. a form of corresponding “perceived image”, became “real.” For a moment, at least.

Then, as Iglesia started reading, an entirely new set of images…her perceptions…appeared. Hers seeming more solid from the get go. Partially at least, because unlike Abe, she knew who the fuck Peja Stojakovic had been. As she finished reading, Peja drained a three pointer. A buzzer sounded.

And then Peja quickly vanished, for lack of a lasting belief in his existence.

May 11 2008

Time For Hillary and Bill To Go!

I have no place in the church of Barack Obama. I do not believe Barack Obama is the messiah. I do not believe in Barack Obama.  

I do not trust Barack Obama. I do not believe he has any respect for Hillary Clinton and the millions who support her. I do not believe he did not hear Jeremiah Wright’s hate-filled screeds.

I do not believe Barack Obama did not know Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn plotted the downfall of the United States. I do not believe Barack Obama does not understand many of his closest supporters view opponents as ‘monsters’

I do not believe Obama supporters do not understand that they are practicing the dishonest politics of hate, when they accuse Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro and the  millions who support a candidate other than Obama of race-baiting and racism.

I do not think for one second that Barack Obama is in the slightest contrite about using and  then abusing Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church.

I do not believe Hillary Clinton owes the Democratic party that has vilified her and her husband for the last 16 years one more second of loyalty.

I sincerely hope Hillary Clinton and her supporters wake up and smell the coffee. The accusations of racism, of race-baiting, and arrogance will never, ever end. Barack Obama will use her supporters to try to defeat another much-maligned American and then send Hillary Dems voters into the anti-rooms of power. Every dissent in the church of Obama will be punished by accusations of racism and of hate.

Many prominent Obama supporters have stated explicitly that Hillary Clinton is not really a Democrat and that she and her politics have no place in the Democratic party of Barack Obama.

Hillary and Bill Clinton and their millions of supporters have no place in the church of Obama.

Barack is not my personal savior. I see only a nice suit and a great smile fronting for a superb data-mining operation, an operation that tells me everything I want to believe about myself no matter who I may be.

I sincerely hope Hillary, Bill and Chelsea cross the aisle. I hope they put issues and America before party politics and loyalty to a party that has shown them nothing but ingratitude and disdain for 16 years.

Hillary, Bill and their supporters belong in the Party of Lincoln.

It’s time for the farce to end.

May 11 2008

Sex: Part 2

If you think about it, there is not a broader category of human experience to talk/write about than sex. It deeply informs and influences every aspect of human activity and interaction, as I pointed out in Sex: Part 1. From politics to spirituality to health to science, there is just a amazing amount of subject matter. In this edition, I had intended to write about the patriarchy and its cowardly attempts at domination and oppression of women over the past few eons….might makes right and all of the social and political aspects of that, sad state of affairs. But I find myself moved instead to write about the deepest reality and aspect of sex. The pure human aspect of it. The comfort and warmth and joy of it, the giggling slap and tickle….the lonely, longing, deep despair of losing it, the flush of excitement and horniness, and fear….of finding it. There is nothing more universal, human, and natural, which is why it’s also pretty confusing to think that some are adamant that pornographic material from sites such as videos hd and others, isn’t natural also.

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than sex.

Gay or straight, kinky or vanilla, shameful or gloried in, physical or through mediums like https://www.35p-cheap-phone-sex.com/, it matters not. Sex is the root of all human being. We are born of it, we are filled with it, we are at our happiest when we are one with it.

For oneness is what sex is.

Our first experience in this cold, rough and tumble world is separation. Pushed and pulled from the constricted comfort ad safety of our mothers womb into the air, separate and alone for the first time, for the first of many separations. We know hunger the first time when we are pulled from the breast. We know loneliness and fear for the first time when we call for our mother and she is not there. We know the separateness of anger for the first time when we want and are denied. We leave home to go to school, we move away from home to become adults. All separations. We may find some unity along the way when we meet and connect with like minded friends, for some there is a union achieved through religion, (some would say that the first separation, the deepest separation humans feel is from ‘god,’ as a product of being human) but….

The only real unity we ever achieve on every level of our being…is sex, and hopefully, if we are fortunate the love that goes with it in the best of cases. And some never even have the luck to feel that. We are all seekers after union, and that union is found in sex. The poets sing paeans to love and their tender tunes pluck the strings of our heart and lead us to lose ourselves in love….

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…..til it’s time to do the nasty….and we must fill or be filled…and all pretense is stripped away….and we are …home. In union.

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The evolved art of love is cast aside with our clothes and the deep primal need for sex drives us panting into each other. No matter who, priest or politician, denies it how, with law or taboo.

The greatest separation (god aside, if you are into that) is the human spirit being separated into ‘male’ and ‘female,’ (physical forms and parts aside, in the case of our gay brothers and sisters) and there is only one true way to bridge that gap, if only for those slim moments in time when we are one. In union. Fucking.

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