notes from an occupied land…
by a lost, diaspora Tamil or a gypsy wanna-be…. this is ma journey from a land called S Lanka to occupiied land called kænədəArchive for articles
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
Trade, within a society and among countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social well-being through the market. This they worship as an infallible God.
In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; those with more physical energy, those who are better fed, those who learned how to read and write, those who attended school, those who have more accumulated experience, more social relations and more resources, and those in society who do not have these advantages.
Among countries: those with a better climates and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; those that master technology, have greater development and handle unlimited media resources, and those that, in contrast, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between countries described as rich or poor.
It is the law of the jungle.
There are no differences among ethnic groups in terms of human beings’ mental faculties. This has been thoroughly proven by science. Today’s society is not the natural evolution of human life, but a creation of mentally-developed humans; without that society, their life would be inconceivable. Therefore, what is at stake is whether or not human beings will be able to survive the privilege of possessing creative intelligence.
The developed capitalist system, epitomized by the country privileged by nature to which European whites brought their ideas, dreams and ambitions, is today in crisis. But, it is not the usual crisis that happens once every certain number of years, or even the traumatic crisis of the 1930s; rather, the worst of all since the world started to pursue this model of growth and development.
The current crisis of developed capitalism is taking place as the empire is about to change its leadership in the elections that take place in 25 days; it was the only thing that remained to be seen.
The candidates of the two main parties who will decide these elections are trying to persuade the bewildered voters — many of whom have never bothered to cast a vote — that as presidential candidates, they can guarantee the well-being and consumerism of what they describe as a middle-class people, without the least intention of making real changes to what they consider to be the most perfect economic system that the world has ever known. It is the same world, of course, in the minds of each and every one of them, which is less important than the happiness of some 300 million people who account for less than five percent of the world population. The fate of the remaining 95% of humanity, war and peace, air that may be the fit to breathe or not, will depend to a great extent on the decisions of the empire’s institutional leader, whether or not that constitutional office has any real power in a period of nuclear weapons and computer-controlled space shields, in circumstances where every second counts and ethical principles are increasingly less important. Still, the more or less disastrous role played by presidents of that country cannot be overlooked.
Racism is deeply rooted in the United States, and the minds of millions of white people cannot accept the idea of a black man, with his wife and children, occupying the White House, which is precisely what it’s called: White.
It’s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same fate as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who dreamed of justice and equality in recent decades. Moreover, he tends to look at his adversary with serenity and to laugh at the dialectic predicaments of an opponent who gazes into space.
The Republican candidate, on the other hand, who cultivates his reputation as a belligerent man, was one of the worst students in his class at West Point. He has confessed that he knows nothing about Mathematics, and presumably far less about complicated economic sciences.
There is no doubt that his rival surpasses him in intelligence and serenity.
Something McCain has the most of is age, and his health is not at all secure
I mention this information to indicate the eventual possibility — if anything should happen in terms of the candidate’s health, given that he is elected — of the rifle lady, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska, becoming president of the United States. It is obvious that she knows nothing about anything.
Meditating on the current U.S. public debt that President Bush is laying on the shoulders of the new generations in that country — $10.3 trillion — it occurred to me to calculate the time it would take somebody to count the debt that he, Bush, has practically doubled in eight years.
Somebody working eight hours per day, without missing a second, at the rapid pace of 100 one-dollar bills per minute, in 300 days of work per year, would need 715,000 years to count that amount of money.
I could not find a more graphic way of describing the volume of that sum of money that is now mentioned almost every day.
In order to avert a general state of panic, the U.S. administration has declared that it will secure deposits that do not exceed $250,000. It will administrate banks and sums of money that Lenin, with his abacus, could never have imagined counting.
We might be wondering now about what contribution Bush’s administration might make to socialism. But let’s not entertain any illusions. Once banking operations go back to normal, the imperialists will return the banks to private enterprise, as some other countries in this hemisphere have already done. The people always foot the bill.
Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on egotism and on human instincts.
Human society has no other alternative but to overcome this contradiction; otherwise, it would not be able to survive.
At this time, the flood of money being poured into world finances by the central banks of developed capitalist countries is dealing a heavy blow to the stock exchanges of countries that are trying to overcome their economic underdevelopment by resorting to these institutions. Cuba has no stock exchange. Undoubtedly, we will find more rational and more socialist ways of financing our development.
The current crisis and the brutal measures of the U.S. administration to save itself will bring more inflation, more devaluation of national currencies, more painful losses in the markets, lower prices for exports and more unequal exchange. But they will also bring to the peoples a better understanding of the truth, more awareness, more rebelliousness and more revolutions.
We will see now how the crisis develops and what happens in the United States in 25 days.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 11, 2008
6:15 p.m.
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
Trade, within a society and among countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social well-being through the market. This they worship as an infallible God.
In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; those with more physical energy, those who are better fed, those who learned how to read and write, those who attended school, those who have more accumulated experience, more social relations and more resources, and those in society who do not have these advantages.
Among countries: those with a better climates and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; those that master technology, have greater development and handle unlimited media resources, and those that, in contrast, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between countries described as rich or poor.
It is the law of the jungle.
There are no differences among ethnic groups in terms of human beings’ mental faculties. This has been thoroughly proven by science. Today’s society is not the natural evolution of human life, but a creation of mentally-developed humans; without that society, their life would be inconceivable. Therefore, what is at stake is whether or not human beings will be able to survive the privilege of possessing creative intelligence.
The developed capitalist system, epitomized by the country privileged by nature to which European whites brought their ideas, dreams and ambitions, is today in crisis. But, it is not the usual crisis that happens once every certain number of years, or even the traumatic crisis of the 1930s; rather, the worst of all since the world started to pursue this model of growth and development.
The current crisis of developed capitalism is taking place as the empire is about to change its leadership in the elections that take place in 25 days; it was the only thing that remained to be seen.
The candidates of the two main parties who will decide these elections are trying to persuade the bewildered voters — many of whom have never bothered to cast a vote — that as presidential candidates, they can guarantee the well-being and consumerism of what they describe as a middle-class people, without the least intention of making real changes to what they consider to be the most perfect economic system that the world has ever known. It is the same world, of course, in the minds of each and every one of them, which is less important than the happiness of some 300 million people who account for less than five percent of the world population. The fate of the remaining 95% of humanity, war and peace, air that may be the fit to breathe or not, will depend to a great extent on the decisions of the empire’s institutional leader, whether or not that constitutional office has any real power in a period of nuclear weapons and computer-controlled space shields, in circumstances where every second counts and ethical principles are increasingly less important. Still, the more or less disastrous role played by presidents of that country cannot be overlooked.
Racism is deeply rooted in the United States, and the minds of millions of white people cannot accept the idea of a black man, with his wife and children, occupying the White House, which is precisely what it’s called: White.
It’s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same fate as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who dreamed of justice and equality in recent decades. Moreover, he tends to look at his adversary with serenity and to laugh at the dialectic predicaments of an opponent who gazes into space.
The Republican candidate, on the other hand, who cultivates his reputation as a belligerent man, was one of the worst students in his class at West Point. He has confessed that he knows nothing about Mathematics, and presumably far less about complicated economic sciences.
There is no doubt that his rival surpasses him in intelligence and serenity.
Something McCain has the most of is age, and his health is not at all secure
I mention this information to indicate the eventual possibility — if anything should happen in terms of the candidate’s health, given that he is elected — of the rifle lady, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska, becoming president of the United States. It is obvious that she knows nothing about anything.
Meditating on the current U.S. public debt that President Bush is laying on the shoulders of the new generations in that country — $10.3 trillion — it occurred to me to calculate the time it would take somebody to count the debt that he, Bush, has practically doubled in eight years.
Somebody working eight hours per day, without missing a second, at the rapid pace of 100 one-dollar bills per minute, in 300 days of work per year, would need 715,000 years to count that amount of money.
I could not find a more graphic way of describing the volume of that sum of money that is now mentioned almost every day.
In order to avert a general state of panic, the U.S. administration has declared that it will secure deposits that do not exceed $250,000. It will administrate banks and sums of money that Lenin, with his abacus, could never have imagined counting.
We might be wondering now about what contribution Bush’s administration might make to socialism. But let’s not entertain any illusions. Once banking operations go back to normal, the imperialists will return the banks to private enterprise, as some other countries in this hemisphere have already done. The people always foot the bill.
Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on egotism and on human instincts.
Human society has no other alternative but to overcome this contradiction; otherwise, it would not be able to survive.
At this time, the flood of money being poured into world finances by the central banks of developed capitalist countries is dealing a heavy blow to the stock exchanges of countries that are trying to overcome their economic underdevelopment by resorting to these institutions. Cuba has no stock exchange. Undoubtedly, we will find more rational and more socialist ways of financing our development.
The current crisis and the brutal measures of the U.S. administration to save itself will bring more inflation, more devaluation of national currencies, more painful losses in the markets, lower prices for exports and more unequal exchange. But they will also bring to the peoples a better understanding of the truth, more awareness, more rebelliousness and more revolutions.
We will see now how the crisis develops and what happens in the United States in 25 days.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 11, 2008
6:15 p.m.
Sappho, Sappho’s Leap
|
Sappho’s Leap |
|
A Conversation with Erica Jong Why does a writer set a novel in ancient Greece? The first stories I loved as a child were Greek myths. They seemed to encapsulate all the struggles of human life. Long before I dreamed of being the mother of a daughter, I was enthralled by the tale of Demeter and Persephone. The daughter kidnapped and taken to the Land of the Dead seemed a universal fear with a bittersweet ending. When I read the fragments of Sappho I rediscovered the things I had loved in those myths: pathos, compression, surprising modernity. Also, in times of trouble—subjection to tyrants, impending war, fear of future continuance of life on earth, we naturally turn to the ancients to see how their civilizations survived—or failed to. Sappho’s fragments punctuate the narrative of your story. Why? I don’t think you can write a novel about a poet without telling at least some of the story in poetry. Sappho’s fragments have endured because they so vividly describe women’s feelings. They have to be given pride of place in her story. It’s also important to understand that Sappho first created the metaphors of love that have been used by poets and songwriters through the ages. She is more than a creator, she is a primal source. Sappho’s story, like Fanny’s, like Isadora’s, is a picaresque novel. Have you thought about that? It seems to me that every novelist has a fable embedded in her unconscious. We repeat that fable in all our books. My fable is picaresque. A female naïf sets out on the road of life to seek her fortune. In the process she gains wisdom and sees her experiences with new eyes. I never think I am writing this story. Later I discover I have written it again. Whose translations of Sappho do you use in the novel and how did you find them? The translations are my own. Working with various translations of Sappho’s lyrics I devised my own translations which then were vetted by a classics scholar (see the Afterword). In rereading various translations of Sappho, I came to understand that each period claimed Sappho as a contemporary. I tried to go back to her own texts and render them anew. I hope the reader of this novel will be inspired to read and compare the many translations of Sappho that exist. Modern translations include Anne Carson’s, Mary Barnard’s, Willis Barnstone’s, Paul Roche’s, Suzy Groden’s, Denys Page’s, and those of many other scholars and poets. Sappho inspired both Greeks and Romans to quote and emulate her. Ovid and Catullus fell under her spell and transmitted her to European literature. Like Shakespeare and Dante, she is more than a poet, she is a muse. Is Sappho’s Leap a novel or a biography? There is not enough known about Sappho to write a true biography. The few references to her life in ancient texts tell us only that she was born on the isle of Lesbos before 600 B.C., that she had a brother named Charaxus who loved a courtesan named either Rhodopis or Doricha, that her father was an aristocrat named Scamandronymos, that her mother and daughter were both called Cleis, that she married a trader called Cercylas from the island of Andros. Then there are the dubious and conflicting legends about her. Evidence of her lesbianism arrives via two grammatical forms with feminine endings in two fragments. One is a participle, the other an adjective in fragments 1 and 31, respectively. Her supposed suicide (provoked by unrequited love for a young ferryman named Phaon to whom Aphrodite had given irresistible beauty) is based entirely on myth. Using these few factual and mythic markers, I have invented my own Sappho as writers have always done. You give the women and men in Sappho’s life equal importance as friends as well as sexual partners. Did you do this consciously in order to dispel the myth that Sappho was a lesbian? In Sappho’s time bisexuality was not uncommon, nor was it viewed as taboo as it came to be in Christian times. Marriage was considered a thing apart from love, a dynastic decision rather than a romantic one. Sappho’s passion for women, suggested by grammatical forms in two fragments, did not make her a lesbian in the modern sense of exclusivity to her sex. She was a devotee of Aphrodite and celebrated all the erotic pleasures. We can hardly imagine such an open-minded pagan creature. As a result, we put her into contemporary categories and distort her meaning. Surely Sappho loved women but she also loved men. The point is that she understood passion. We put too much stress on gender and too little stress on eros. Sappho struggles to balance her existence as a sexual being with her desire to be taken seriously as a musician, a mother, and a woman. Both Isadora and Fanny face similar issues. Has it gotten easier for women or do modern women face the same difficulties? The problem of reconciling work and passion is still complex for women, but at least more choices are open to us. We are far from having complete equality and our revolution has far to go. Our importance to society is still not honored. Still, our role as mothers and grandmothers gives us great vulnerability and also great understanding of the human condition. Sappho’s journey can be seen as an odyssey both literally as she travels the world in search of her daughter and figuratively as a voyage of self-discovery. Typically, in ancient Greek literature, these journeys belong to men. Does Sappho fill a void in the genre of the time period by being a woman embarking on such a voyage? I have always wanted to reclaim heroic stories for women. Perhaps I was initially drawn to Greek myths because women are so important in them. In the novels I loved as a teenager—Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Catcher in the Rye—I always had to imagine myself through the eyes of a boy. Not that such transposition is impossible. People are people. Men and women suffer similar crises of identity in different ways. But as I grew up I was drawn to create women protagonists who suffered human limitations rather than the limitations of gender. Why is Praxinoa such an important character in the book? In what ways does she help Sappho grow and change during her journey? Sappho is an aristocrat. Praxinoa is a slave. Sappho comes to understand slavery through her and also comes to appreciate liberty. The Greeks had a slave society. For this we often fault them. But slavery also exists in our world though we call it by different names. People in rich societies profit from child labor in poor societies but we prefer not to focus on such exploitation. Slavery simply has taken new and invisible forms in the twenty-first century. Although Sappho’s Leap was written nearly thirty years after Fear of Flying, Sappho, in many ways, is the precursor to Isadora. Did you consider this while you were writing Sappho’s Leap? Was Sappho the poet an influence on you while you were creating Isadora? I had read Sappho in college but I don’t think I understood her at all when I created Isadora. It was only when I reread her later that I began to see all she had in common with modern women. |
Links further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho
Sappho, Sappho’s Leap
|
Sappho’s Leap |
|
A Conversation with Erica Jong Why does a writer set a novel in ancient Greece? The first stories I loved as a child were Greek myths. They seemed to encapsulate all the struggles of human life. Long before I dreamed of being the mother of a daughter, I was enthralled by the tale of Demeter and Persephone. The daughter kidnapped and taken to the Land of the Dead seemed a universal fear with a bittersweet ending. When I read the fragments of Sappho I rediscovered the things I had loved in those myths: pathos, compression, surprising modernity. Also, in times of trouble—subjection to tyrants, impending war, fear of future continuance of life on earth, we naturally turn to the ancients to see how their civilizations survived—or failed to. Sappho’s fragments punctuate the narrative of your story. Why? I don’t think you can write a novel about a poet without telling at least some of the story in poetry. Sappho’s fragments have endured because they so vividly describe women’s feelings. They have to be given pride of place in her story. It’s also important to understand that Sappho first created the metaphors of love that have been used by poets and songwriters through the ages. She is more than a creator, she is a primal source. Sappho’s story, like Fanny’s, like Isadora’s, is a picaresque novel. Have you thought about that? It seems to me that every novelist has a fable embedded in her unconscious. We repeat that fable in all our books. My fable is picaresque. A female naïf sets out on the road of life to seek her fortune. In the process she gains wisdom and sees her experiences with new eyes. I never think I am writing this story. Later I discover I have written it again. Whose translations of Sappho do you use in the novel and how did you find them? The translations are my own. Working with various translations of Sappho’s lyrics I devised my own translations which then were vetted by a classics scholar (see the Afterword). In rereading various translations of Sappho, I came to understand that each period claimed Sappho as a contemporary. I tried to go back to her own texts and render them anew. I hope the reader of this novel will be inspired to read and compare the many translations of Sappho that exist. Modern translations include Anne Carson’s, Mary Barnard’s, Willis Barnstone’s, Paul Roche’s, Suzy Groden’s, Denys Page’s, and those of many other scholars and poets. Sappho inspired both Greeks and Romans to quote and emulate her. Ovid and Catullus fell under her spell and transmitted her to European literature. Like Shakespeare and Dante, she is more than a poet, she is a muse. Is Sappho’s Leap a novel or a biography? There is not enough known about Sappho to write a true biography. The few references to her life in ancient texts tell us only that she was born on the isle of Lesbos before 600 B.C., that she had a brother named Charaxus who loved a courtesan named either Rhodopis or Doricha, that her father was an aristocrat named Scamandronymos, that her mother and daughter were both called Cleis, that she married a trader called Cercylas from the island of Andros. Then there are the dubious and conflicting legends about her. Evidence of her lesbianism arrives via two grammatical forms with feminine endings in two fragments. One is a participle, the other an adjective in fragments 1 and 31, respectively. Her supposed suicide (provoked by unrequited love for a young ferryman named Phaon to whom Aphrodite had given irresistible beauty) is based entirely on myth. Using these few factual and mythic markers, I have invented my own Sappho as writers have always done. You give the women and men in Sappho’s life equal importance as friends as well as sexual partners. Did you do this consciously in order to dispel the myth that Sappho was a lesbian? In Sappho’s time bisexuality was not uncommon, nor was it viewed as taboo as it came to be in Christian times. Marriage was considered a thing apart from love, a dynastic decision rather than a romantic one. Sappho’s passion for women, suggested by grammatical forms in two fragments, did not make her a lesbian in the modern sense of exclusivity to her sex. She was a devotee of Aphrodite and celebrated all the erotic pleasures. We can hardly imagine such an open-minded pagan creature. As a result, we put her into contemporary categories and distort her meaning. Surely Sappho loved women but she also loved men. The point is that she understood passion. We put too much stress on gender and too little stress on eros. Sappho struggles to balance her existence as a sexual being with her desire to be taken seriously as a musician, a mother, and a woman. Both Isadora and Fanny face similar issues. Has it gotten easier for women or do modern women face the same difficulties? The problem of reconciling work and passion is still complex for women, but at least more choices are open to us. We are far from having complete equality and our revolution has far to go. Our importance to society is still not honored. Still, our role as mothers and grandmothers gives us great vulnerability and also great understanding of the human condition. Sappho’s journey can be seen as an odyssey both literally as she travels the world in search of her daughter and figuratively as a voyage of self-discovery. Typically, in ancient Greek literature, these journeys belong to men. Does Sappho fill a void in the genre of the time period by being a woman embarking on such a voyage? I have always wanted to reclaim heroic stories for women. Perhaps I was initially drawn to Greek myths because women are so important in them. In the novels I loved as a teenager—Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Catcher in the Rye—I always had to imagine myself through the eyes of a boy. Not that such transposition is impossible. People are people. Men and women suffer similar crises of identity in different ways. But as I grew up I was drawn to create women protagonists who suffered human limitations rather than the limitations of gender. Why is Praxinoa such an important character in the book? In what ways does she help Sappho grow and change during her journey? Sappho is an aristocrat. Praxinoa is a slave. Sappho comes to understand slavery through her and also comes to appreciate liberty. The Greeks had a slave society. For this we often fault them. But slavery also exists in our world though we call it by different names. People in rich societies profit from child labor in poor societies but we prefer not to focus on such exploitation. Slavery simply has taken new and invisible forms in the twenty-first century. Although Sappho’s Leap was written nearly thirty years after Fear of Flying, Sappho, in many ways, is the precursor to Isadora. Did you consider this while you were writing Sappho’s Leap? Was Sappho the poet an influence on you while you were creating Isadora? I had read Sappho in college but I don’t think I understood her at all when I created Isadora. It was only when I reread her later that I began to see all she had in common with modern women. |
Links further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho
Shutdown of music-downloading site “ideological warfare,” York prof says
Popular sharing site OiNK under criminal investigation
TORONTO, October 24, 2007 – A new study by a York University professor says that censure of music downloading sites is part industry bluff, part consumer pushback – indicating a bigger trend towards what researchers have dubbed “market staging.”
The study analyzes the war on music downloading over the past seven years using ethnographic methods to better understand how the music market evolves. It’s particularly relevant to yesterday’s shutdown of OiNK, one of the world’s largest sites for sharing of pirated and pre-release music, says study author Markus Giesler, Assistant Professor of Marketing in York’s Schulich School of Business.
“The shutdown of OiNk is an example of how the music industry creates a false drama – shutting down one platform with great publicity, with no significant or widespread legal ramifications – to show to the public what will happen if they don’t comply,” Giesler says. “This creates expectations and anxieties and therefore changes the behavior of people. It’s a form of ideological warfare.”
Giesler’s theory is that all markets function in this manner, what he calls a “staged compromise between sharing and owning,” which evolves as consumers and producers wrestle over the right balance between the two.
“The music industry wants to make the most money possible. Consumers want to spend the least money possible. They’re natural antagonists,” Giesler says.
“The great marketing bluff is that producers are your friends, products are your friends. We see this in all sorts of industries. When consumers push back, and industry responds with censure, the curtain on this drama is pulled back.”
Giesler’s marketplace drama model theorizes market evolution in terms of four stages, or acts: First, a breach (in which one party deviates from the norm), which is followed by a crisis. The antagonist then executes some disciplinary measure to restore normalcy. This leads to the final stage, reintegration, in which a new compromise is reached — for example, the case of commercial downloading via iTunes.
The study, “Conflict and Compromise Drama in Marketplace Evolution,” is forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research (April, 2008). It can be downloaded online at http://www.marketplacedrama.com .
York honours the author of The Concubine’s Children
Like the writer she is, Denise Chong thanked York for giving her an honorary degree Saturday by telling a story. “My grandfather in the dinginess of his rooming house in Vancouver’s Chinatown Left and below: Denise Chong A third daughter – Chong’s mother – grew up in Canada. She led a transient life following her own mother from job to job in Chinatowns on Canada’s west coast. “The one constant in my mother’s life was her academic achievement,” the biographer told education and arts graduating students. Neither Chong’s mother nor her father went to university, unable “to scale the walls of discrimination,” but “they did sow the seed of education in the fertile ground of the next generation and for that I’m grateful.” Raised in Prince George, Chong ended up a senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa. Chong left public service in 1985 to write. Her first book, The Concubine’s Children, chronicles her family history in Canada. Her second book, The Girl in the Picture: The Kim Phuc Story, focuses on the girl, now resident in Canada, whose image fleeing naked and screaming after Americans napalmed her village became a symbol of the Vietnam war. The Concubine’s Children won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the City of Vancouver Book Award. Both books were shortlisted for Governor General’s literary awards and forged Chong’s reputation as a leading chronicler of the Asian-American experience. “I don’t know where the yearning to write came from,” said Chong. Perhaps it came from not knowing “why things had gone so wrong for my grandmother” or from “imagining what lay beyond the reach of the plume from the pulp mill,” she said. “Or do I owe wanting to write to my beginning a working life in Ottawa, to being caught by surprise by how some chose to see me, for good or for ill, “This I do know,” said Chong. “Writing opens my mind to possibilities. As a writer I can cross barriers and transcend boundaries – those of class, of race, of gender; economic, political. I could go on – boundaries of diet, of fashion, geographic boundaries, generational ones.” “Writing is my way to explore the unknown,” she said. She urged the graduating students to explore “worlds we don’t fully know” and quoted Marcel Proust: “Don’t be afraid to go too far, for the truth lies beyond.” How far to go? she asked. “At least until we find something enduring, resonant, that is, some kind of permanent truth.” The arts can offer truth and permanence, Chong said. Art, music and architecture “are evermore necessary in our hurried lives and our thirst for establishing some moral order to the reality around us.” Chong shared two lessons she has learned as a writer. The first is the virtue of humility. Paraphrasing the late essayist Susan Sontag, Chong suggested trusting your ears more than your eyes because the ears are less judgmental. The second is that humans are and must be united by a common purpose to survive in this world. Chong’s life reflects her sense of common purpose. She serves on task forces, public boards and committees, including the Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service, the National Advisory Board on Culture Online, and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Northern British Columbia.
tried to father from afar his two young daughters left behind in rural China. I would come across his worlds in a letter to them 60 years later. ‘Study hard or you’ll be nothing but peasants chasing toads in the field.’” 
in ways of difference – female, young, of Asian descent – when what had drawn myself to the nation’s capital was to share a passion for being Canadian?”
‘You can’t lump all terrorists together’
‘You can’t lump all terrorists together’
Michael Tomasky asks Hillary Clinton about Iraq, the legacy of the Cold War, Mukasey and ceding executive powers
Tuesday October 23, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Well, I think it is clear that the power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer. Other presidents, like Lincoln, have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to the Congress for either ratification or rejection. But when you take the view that they’re not extraordinary powers, but they’re inherent powers that reside in the office and therefore you have neither obligation to request permission nor to ask for ratification, we’re in a new territory here. And I think that I’m gonna have to review everything they’ve done because I’ve been on the receiving end of that. There were a lot of actions which they took that were clearly beyond any power the Congress would have granted or that in my view that was inherent in the constitution. There were other actions they’ve taken which could have obtained congressional authorization but they deliberately chose not to pursue it as a matter of principle.
I guess I’m asking, can a president, once in the White House, actually give up some of this power in the name of constitutional principle?
Oh, absolutely, Michael. I mean that has to be part of the review that I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that.
Interesting. Liberal intellectuals and foreign policy thinkers have, since the start of the Iraq war, been engaged in debate about Iraq and the legacy of Cold War liberalism. Do you think the Iraq war was within the tradition we associate with Truman and Acheson?
You know, that’s a very hard question to answer with any certainty or even full intellectual understanding because we are in a post-Cold War world, and I think that the argument has been missing that basic premise. It’s hard to take what was a philosophy with respect to the use and containment of power during the Cold War and try to shoehorn it into a post-Cold War context. So I don’t really think there is an easy or satisfying answer to that. You know, obviously, if you read my article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, I think we can have an approach that tries to project power and authority in an appropriate way that draws on all aspects of American power, that inspires and attracts as much as coerces, if we avoid false choices driven by ideology and theory. One of the lessons that I think we all should take out of the last six-and-a-half years is that ideologically driven foreign policy that is not rooted in a realistic assessment of the world as we find it today is not likely to result in any positive outcome.
Yeah. Do you think that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, or do you think they have specific geopolitical objectives?
Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilized throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, others territorial. There are personality-driven terroristic objectives. The bottom line is, you can’t lump all terrorists together. And I think we’ve got to do a much better job of clarifying what are the motivations, the raisons d’être of terrorists. I mean, what the Tamil Tigers are fighting for in Sri Lanka, or the Basque separatists in Spain, or the insurgents in al-Anbar province may only be connected by tactics. They may not share all that much in terms of what is the philosophical or ideological underpinning. And I think one of our mistakes has been painting with such a broad brush, which has not been particularly helpful in understanding what it is we were up against when it comes to those who pursue terrorism for whichever ends they’re seeking.
It sounds like you’re saying it’s not particularly useful when Bush and others say terrorists hate us for our freedoms?
Well, some do. But is that a diagnosis? I don’t think it’s proven to be an effective one.
Just quickly on Iraq. You know 67% of the respondents to a Washington Post poll said either cut off funding or attach it to timetables. Why is hard for Congress to do something 67% of American people say they want done?
Well, actually, I support that position, I have voted against funding, I have voted a number of times for timelines. But the bottom line is we don’t have enough Republicans who are willing to depart from the president’s policy. And we have a very narrow majority in the Senate, and until we can persuade enough Republicans to defeat a threatened filibuster we can’t cut off funding, we can’t attach timelines. I think the House could get a vote to attach timelines. I don’t know whether they could take the step of cutting off funding, but they might be able to do it as a result of a series of actions. But in the Senate, you know, we have a 51-49 majority, and for most of the year, until Tim Johnson returned, we had a 50-49 majority. And you’re not going to see the Republicans lining up until they’re absolutely convinced that they have no alternative, and that’s what we’re trying to convince them of. We’ve got an election year coming up. I think we’ll continue to try to push the president, but the political reality is we don’t have the votes.
I want to shift to a couple of domestic issues. In light of some of Michael Mukasey’s comments Thursday on torture and waterboarding, will you vote to confirm him?
Well, I’m gonna look at the entire record of the hearing. His questions in a number of areas raised issues for me, so I have to look closely and see what I should do in terms of voting, and I will be doing that.
What were you most concerned about?
Well there were a number of issues. Obviously, I do not believe in as expansive a definition of executive power, and some of the questions on the second day about presidential authority with respect to interrogation also concern me.
Does his longtime friendship with Giuliani trouble you at all?
No.
You know one criticism among some progressives is that you’re an overly cautious politician. Can you name one issue during your Senate tenure on which you risked political capital, really stuck your neck out in behalf of a progressive policy goal?
Well, I think, you know, voting against funding. What did we get, 12, 13, 14 votes? A lot of people who consider themselves very progressive who voted against authorizing the war in Iraq were not with me on that vote.
Previously? On domestic issues?
Well, you know I’ve made so many votes, Mike, and I’ve tried to vote as I thought was the right thing to do, and if you look at my voting record as it’s evaluated by most of the progressive organizations that look at voting records, I have a very, very high percentage of having voted with them, so I don’t quite know what their concern is. You know, look what I’m doing in the campaign. I’m obviously running on my plans to change the country, I have very specific policies that I’ve rolled out day after day, I’m zeroing in on what I think should be done to restore America’s leadership in the world and rebuild a strong and prosperous middle class and reform the government. And I think the results speak for themselves. We’re getting an enormous amount of support because people understand that change is just a word if you don’t have the strength and experience to make it happen.
Last question. Will health reform come first in your administration before the 2010 midterms or will you start smaller?
A: It will be my highest prior as soon as I am inaugurated.
Senator fires back at U.S. family upset with seal huntLast
Updated Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:16:34 EST
CBC News
A Liberal senator has replied to a family in Minnesota upset about Canada’s seal hunt with a letter denouncing the United States for executing prisoners at home and killing people in Iraq.
IN DEPTH: The Seal Hunt
Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette says Americans are in no position to criticize the Canadian seal hunt. (CP Photo/Fred Chartrand)
The McLellan family had written to Canadian senators to say they cancelled a vacation in Canada because of the hunt, which they called “horrible” and “inhumane,” Montreal’s La Presse reports.
In her response, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette said that what she finds horrible is “the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners – mainly blacks – in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, the destabilization of the entire world by the American government’s aggressive foreign policy, etc.”
YOUR SPACE: Send us your thoughts
YOUR LETTERS: Seal hunt response
She said Americans are not in a position to criticize others. “They must start to look at their own behaviour, the permanent heightening of the planet’s insecurity since the election of Bush,” she told La Presse.
“All senators received the letter from the McLellans and I was the only one to respond,” she said.
The family “did not choose a good cause,” she added.
In their letter, the McLellans said they love Canada and have Canadian ancestors but cancelled a trip to Canada last year because of the seal hunt and will scrap plans for one this year if the spring hunt goes ahead, La Presse said.
FROM MARCH 8, 2006: Seal hunt will go ahead
Hervieux-Payette, a lawyer and former Liberal MP, was appointed to the Senate in 1995 by then prime minister Jean Chrétien. She last drew public attention with a private member’s bill in 2004 to outlaw spanking of children.
Canadian sealers (file photo)
In defending the seal hunt, she called it a centuries-old practice and part of the livelihood of coastal residents both native and white.
She invited the McLellans to come to Canada to see a humane society that lives in safety and respects the traditions of its native people.
It is not clear whether she might pay a penalty for remarks that could be seen as anti-American. Once appointed, senators have a job until retirement at 75.
A Toronto-area MP, Carolyn Parrish, was thrown out of the Liberal caucus in 2004 after she stomped on a George Bush doll and renounced her loyalty to the party. She stayed in Parliament as an Independent but did not seek re-election this past winter.
~~~~~~~~~~~
originally posted on: 3/18/06 12:59 AM @ http://lazy-raniii.blogspot.com/
Julia Stiles slams Hollywood’s Lolita syndrome
13/03/2006 12:00:00 AM
(KP International) – Julia Stiles has spoken out against the way her generation of performers are creating unhealthy role models under an influence she’s labelled the ‘Lolita phenomenon.’
Julia Stiles (CPimages/AP)
“I grew up with Madonna and other female icons who were sexual, but they owned it. They were in control and they had the brains to back it up,” said the 24-year-old actress. “Today, pop culture is full of images of young women who are very sexual and provocative, but they’re not the ones in control of their image – they’re just put out there by their handlers for public consumption.
Stiles, whose work in such films as ’10 Things I Hate About You’ and ‘Mona Lisa Smile’ has gained her a reputation as one of Hollywood’s bright, up-and-coming talents, expressed her disdain for the smoke-and-mirror talent out there.
“They’re not really expressing anything. They’re using their ability to turn men on as a way of selling albums or movie tickets. It’s not even so much a feminist issue for me. It’s more of an artistic issue – it’s an empty product.
Stiles’ next project is a remake of the 1976 horror flick ‘The Omen,’ costarring Liev Schreiber and Mia Farrow. The devilish slasher pic hits theatres ominously on the sixth day of the sixth month in the sixth year of this millennium. Er, that’s June 6 folks.
-0-
thanks:-
http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/Celebs/News/ContentPosting.aspx?contentid=9c0fb8cbade7483e89a67318747cb0ac&show=False&number=0&showbyline=False&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc
originally posted on: 3/18/06 12:58 AM @ http://lazy-raniii.blogspot.com/
