darkdoze

Sarkozy Can Help the Euro—and Himself

2011-11-29T22:29:00.000-08:00

For much of the past two years, Germany has endured a lot of criticism for its approach to the euro-zone crisis, not all of it fair. Some say it is guilty of ingratitude, failing to acknowledge how much of its own economic success is due to membership of the euro zone; many believe it has misused its political and economic power to impose ill-judged austerity policies on its European neighbors, worsening their economic crises; and it is accused of a lack of solidarity for refusing to allow policies that might end the crisis, such as greater European Central Bank intervention and the creation of common euro-zone bonds. The result is that Chancellor Angela Merkel can expect to receive much of the blame if, as some now expect, the common currency breaks up.

There is an element of truth to these criticisms. Germany has certainly often been slow to appreciate the consequences of its actions. It underestimated the speed and severity of the contagion that arose after it insisted on imposing losses on private-sector owners of government bonds as a condition of future bailouts; it failed to anticipate the devastating impact on confidence of Ms. Merkel's statement that Greece could leave the euro; and even now, Germany may be underestimating the seriousness of the current crisis—in particular how far the sovereign-debt crisis reflects a loss of confidence in the wider market rather than a lack of credibility in national fiscal policies.

Even so, Germany can't be faulted for its clear-sighted analysis of the euro's failings and what must be done to eliminate them. It has recognized that this is, above all, a governance crisis. Too many European governments had become the prisoners of vast, unproductive public sectors and over-mighty trade unions, buying electoral support with lavish entitlements that destroyed competitiveness and ran up unsustainable debts. At the same time, Germany recognized that the euro zone's institutional arrangements, including the Stability and Growth Pact that was supposed to guarantee fiscal discipline, had proved woefully inadequate. Finally, it recognized that only market forces, no matter how painful, could exert the necessary pressure on governments to reform.

Whatever the current market turmoil, Germany's approach has certainly yielded results: Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain and now Belgium have new governments committed to far-reaching fiscal and structural reform. Meanwhile, Germany's campaign to reform euro-zone governance is also bearing fruit. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, are both working on proposals to improve fiscal scrutiny and discipline. Ms. Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have also discussed fast-track reform ideas that could be implemented without an EU treaty change. A European Council summit on Dec. 9 will consider these proposals amid hopes they will pave the way for a "Grand Bargain," in which a clear commitment from euro-zone leaders to improve discipline and minimize moral hazard will pave the way for a major ECB intervention.

Indeed, the biggest obstacle to a resolution of the crisis may now be France rather than Germany. Unlike Germany, a federal state that has always been comfortable with ceding power to the European Commission, France is a highly centralized state whose own European vision has historically been based on political agreements between nation states. This division has long dogged the European project: France rejected former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's plans for deeper political and fiscal integration at the creation of the euro; it broke the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact, flouted single-market rules and consistently resisted the kind of structural reforms now being demanded of euro-zone member states; more recently, it held up the "six-pack" reforms designed to increase economic policy coordination, only backing down as the price of securing Germany's support for this year's July 21 summit deal.

But French resistance to greater fiscal and political union may be crumbling under the intensity of the crisis. President Sarkozy is due to give a speech Thursday in which he will set out his plans for improving economic integration, increasing fiscal harmonization, guaranteeing discipline, ensuring solidarity and improving euro-zone governance, according to someone familiar with the situation. Whether these proposals will be far-reaching enough to win over Germany remains to be seen. Germany is determined that the euro zone must be based on the rule of law, not political deals. But it may have to give ground, too: Mr. Sarkozy may find it politically impossible to sell any deal to French voters that involves a loss of sovereignty unless Germany is prepared to commit to policies that lead to increased solidarity.

Nonetheless, for the first time since the crisis began two years ago, the outline of a possible long-term solution to save the euro is emerging; after two years of incremental solutions that only undermined market confidence, there is a growing realization that only much deeper fiscal and political union can create the conditions in which the ECB can act and member states might ultimately pool their tax bases to create euro bonds. The ECB, for its part, seems ready to act: It is actively considering a range of options to intervene in what it now considers is a real threat to monetary stability, including yield targeting and funding other bailout vehicles, such as the International Monetary Fund and European Financial Stability Facility, according to someone familiar with its thinking.

Sure, enormous execution risks remain. Any deal will need to be accepted and then ratified by all 17 members of the euro zone—and all 27 members of the European Union if treaty changes are required. And the euro zone is engaged in a race against time: Banks are hemorrhaging funding and parts of Europe already face a severe credit crunch; doubts will persist about the sustainability of some countries' debts. Many countries will take years to restore their competitiveness; further debt relief and possibly fiscal transfers may be needed to keep the euro zone together.

Further dark days are inevitable. But if Mr. Sarkozy can show the political leadership and imagination that has so far been conspicuously lacking throughout this crisis and put forward workable euro-zone governance proposals, he may yet start to draw a line under the crisis—and boost his chances of re-election next year.

Source http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204449804577068380487319736.html

Will Christopher Nolan head into The Twilight Zone?

2011-10-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

Christopher Nolan, currently filming his final installement of the Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, is on the short list to take the helm of The Twilight Zone. While The Dark Knight Rises is slated to hit theaters on July 20, 2012, Nolan could be brought in to revitalize a franchise that was last in theaters in 1983.

The interesting thing here is that Nolan tops a list that includes Michael Bay, Alfonso Cuaron, David Yates and Rupert Wyatt. While Nolan would normally be a lock, it will be interesting to see whether or not Warner Bros. follows The Twilight Zone tradition of hiring multiple directors to piece together their own stories. This took place back in 1983 as Steven Spielberg, George Miller, John Landis and Joe Dante each had a segment in the movie. It is not currently known if the modern day version of The Twilight Zone will be broken into segments or run as a standard feature length film. Something that may push Nolan to take this job would be the involvement of his Inception star, Leonardo Dicaprio, whose Appian Way production company is working on the film.

Nolan has been a breath of fresh air for the Batman franchise, reviving it after it had almost become a parody of itself. The Dark Knight Rises is currently filming in Los Angeles before heading back to New York later this fall.

The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.The film will be going up against The Avengers for Summer 2012 box office supremacy.

New York movie goers can find showtimes and tickets to their local theater here and watch the films at Showcase Cinema De Lux Ridge Hill.

Source http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-new-york/will-christopher-nolan-head-into-the-twilight-zone

Come for a flick, stay for the pho

2011-07-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

If your mission were to source something quick and good to eat, before or after a movie at the AMC Theatre in Kanata, Ox Head would fit the bill very nicely. Directly across the plaza in the Centrum Mall, it’s a bright, tidy place, unpretentious, with dark wood floors, cream and orange walls, and red tablecloths.

I’m not sure the house spring rolls are any better for you than movie popcorn, but they are just as addictive. Much healthier are the fresh rice paper wraps, but these are less tasty for their lack of anything herbaceous in them. While the flavour burst of fresh mint or basil — or, ideally, both — make these wraps what they are, Ox Head’s version came without those aromatics.

Naturally, there is pho, meal-size noodle soups stocked with various cuts of beef. These come in three personal sizes, but the smallest ($7) will fill you up. For something racier, go for the outrageously flavourful bò kho. I like mi bò kho, otherwise known as HC6, with egg noodles. This is a fiery beef stew, the broth fragrant of anise, slightly sweet with layers of heat, piled high and prettily with carrots, daikon, onion, basil.

Dishes better suited for sharing are what we order next. Our server, who seems utterly bored with his job this mid- week night, (and is really the only disappointment in our otherwise fine time here) trundles three plates to our table. The first contains pickled carrots, strips of cucumber, fresh mint and basil, lettuce, chopped peanuts. The second is a plate of grilled shrimp and chicken on a bed of rice vermicelli; and the third holds softened rice paper to bundle up the contents of platters one and two. This is fun, healthy, tasty stuff and we bundle more than we should, dipped in a fish-sauce vinaigrette. Grilled shrimp and pork on crispy noodles with the usual-suspect vegetables are nicely done, the shrimp a good size, crunchy and sweet, the vegetables perfectly cooked, but the sum of the parts isn’t terribly interesting. Or perhaps everything pales after the bò kho.

Vegetarians will need to keep flipping the Ox Head menu, past the beef, pork, chicken and seafood dishes, past the page of Thai-style coconut curries (the red curry of chicken was fine, though nothing to cross town for), to the very back of the book, where they’ll find a page of dishes based on tofu, plus some vegetarian spring rolls.

To drink, there’s a bit of beer, a few choices of wine by the glass, and no shortage of shakes and bubble drinks, plus a delicious fresh lemonade. If you need a sweet ending, there’s tempura-battered banana, fried crisp and brown and crackling, the banana within soft, the grease sopped up with ice cream. Order this and you’ll doze through the film. Unless, of course, you’ve had a Vietnamese coffee. In which case you’ll be eyes wide open.

Look for Anne DesBrisay’s guide book, Capital Dining 2011, at bookstores across the region. E-mail her at anne@capitaldining.ca

Source http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Come+flick+stay/5133773/story.html

The old man and the city: Hemingway's love affair with Pamplona

2011-07-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

It is not hard to find him. And I see him first where I had expected him to be. Outside the bullring. There he is in sculpture: head an orb of bronze, hair plastered to giant cranium, beard in bloom. His face wears a look that says he owns the place. In many ways, he does.

Ernest Miller Hemingway. Legendary carouser and drinker. Itinerant American and far-flung traveller. A lover and a fighter who chalked up four marriages in his 61 years. A misogynist and a boor, but one whose bullish approach to life is splashed across the pages of the books he penned. A Nobel-lauded writer who, in the likes of For Whom The Bell Tolls and A Farewell To Arms, was one of the undisputed icons of 20th-century literature.

Many parts of the world can claim an affiliation with the great man, his heavy footsteps solidified in the years he spent trawling their cities, and the novels he crafted as a result – Cuba (The Old Man And The Sea), the Florida Keys (To Have And Have Not), Paris (A Moveable Feast), the French Riviera (The Garden Of Eden), Kenya (True At First Light).

But Pamplona was his first obsession – a mutual romance. Even now, though sizeable of reputation, the capital of the Navarre region is a small city, hemmed into the north-east corner of Spain. In Hemingway's heyday, this was trebly the case – a little-acknowledged citadel barely grown beyond medieval youth, a secret package waiting to be unwrapped.

And unwrap it he did. In total, Hemingway journeyed to Pamplona on nine occasions, the most prolific burst between 1923 and 1927, when he visited every year. Each time he came for San Fermín, the city's famed fiesta of bullfighting and brutality, drink and song.

Of course, "famed" needs qualification here. Because, before Hemingway, Pamplona was not famous. Much of its current-day mystique stems from The Sun Also Rises, the masterpiece that the writer distilled from the ripe fruits of his Spanish summer of 1925. Indeed, you might even say that he forged the modern idea of Pamplona and San Fermín, his celebratory words transforming what had been a provincial party into a global event.

The Sun Also Rises was his first novel (published in 1926), and his finest. A portrait of a group of Bohemians caught in the frenzy of the festival, it fizzes with the abandon of the Roaring Twenties. Its genius is built on fact, inspired by what happened to Hemingway's own friends in the July heat. For the fictional Lady Brett Ashley, whose bed-hopping rips the group apart, you should read Lady Duff Twysden, a British divorcee socialite. For her ex-lover Robert Cohn, you can picture Harold Loeb, Hemingway's former boxing partner. And for the cold voice of the narrator Jake Barnes, you should hear Hemingway himself.

But if 1925 was the beginning of something beautiful, 1959 was the end of the affair. The author's final visit to Pamplona was not a happy one. Increasingly frail of body, mind and mood, he found a city he did not know. The spry Spain of the Twenties had been replaced by a state stifled by the fascist fist of General Franco for two decades, a country in which Hemingway's books were banned.

And San Fermí* had swelled hugely – so much so that Hemingway feared he had created a monster. Writing in The Dangerous Summer, published posthumously in 1985, he mused: "Pamplona was rough, as always, overcrowded... I've written Pamplona once, and for keeps. It is all there, as it always was, except forty thousand tourists have been added. There were not twenty tourists when I first went there... four decades ago." Two years later, on 2 July 1961 – 50 years ago today – he walked on to the porch of his home in Ketchum, Idaho, and put a shotgun in his mouth. It was the week of San Fermín.

While it would be a leap to say his last dalliance with Pamplona was a factor in his suicide, there is no doubt that it left Hemingway troubled. And, so, when I arrive in the city on a spring evening, yet another tourist attracted by his prose, I am aware of the folly of chasing something that Hemingway had deemed spoiled. But I am hopeful that it still exists, the Pamplona of 1925 – café chatter and friendly spirit – that dances in The Sun Also Rises.

It helps that I am not in town for San Fermín, the blood-soaked fiesta where the reckless run with angry cattle, and six bulls die in the ring on each of its eight days. For though it was the festival that called to Hemingway's machismo, the city is far better when calm.

So much is clear in the Plaza del Castillo. A grand rectangular space framed by the pale façades of three-storey buildings, it is the obvious spot to launch a hunt for Hemingway's Pamplona. Here it is, the centrepiece, not only of the city, but of The Sun Also Rises – the playground where the characters nurse their morning coffee and spill their evening wine.

As soon as I enter the square, I feel that I have tripped into a chapter of the book. "The square was hot," says Jake Barnes of his first impressions. "The flags hung on their staffs, and it was good to get out of the sun and under the shade of the arcade that runs around the square." And, though the day is merely warm, I do the same, diving into the semi-dark and tracing the edge of the plaza below the low overhang that still flanks it on four sides.

This brings me, instantly, to a landmark. "We had coffee at the Iruña," Barnes continues, "sitting in the comfortable wicker chairs, looking out from the cool of the arcade at the big square." Café Iruña does not seem to have changed in 86 years – a gilded ghost of the 19th century, vast polished mirrors affixed to its walls, Arabesque pillars rising to ornate ceiling, black-and-white tiled floor scuffed by decades of chair-legs scraping backwards.

It still exudes "local". It is a weekday morning, and, as I sip a café con leche (€1.90), I am surrounded by elderly matriarchs, huddled in pairs at rounded tables. And Hemingway is here, too, swarthy statue standing by the bar in a side room that, until Spain enforced a ban on 1 January, was the smoking area. This is the corpulent Fifties Hemingway (though a photo behind shows the svelte lothario of the Twenties), full of face – and the scowl upon it conveys what would surely have been his opinion on Spain's break-up with tobacco.

There are less subtle alterations to Hemingway's Pamplona blueprint. The bolthole where the group stays in The Sun Also Rises was the Hotel Quintana – or the Hotel Montoya, as it is named in the book. The property, in the south-east corner of the Plaza del Castillo, was run by Juanito Quintana. He was a friend of Hemingway, and the model for the novel's gruff hotelier, Montoya. Quintana, an open critic of Franco, vanished in the Forties, and the hotel was turned into apartments. The ground floor now hosts the Cervecería Tropicana, a rowdy watering hole that, on the evening I pop in, is far removed from the polite retreat of matadors that Hemingway eulogises. Next door, Bar Txoko, where Hemingway drank in 1959, is similarly boisterous. Though, at least it is still there. Elsewhere on the Plaza, Bar Torino – thinly "disguised" in the novel as Bar Milano – is mourned by a plaque on the wall.

Yet I can't lose the belief that the Pamplona of 1925 lingers. And, as I stroll the Plaza that evening, I catch another glimpse. Children are noisily kicking a ball under the arcade, and I'm transported to Barnes's depiction of a scene outside Café Iruña, of "a man, playing a reed-pipe... a crowd of children was following him, shouting and pulling at his clothes."

Then there is the Hemingway mother lode, the Gran Hotel La Perla. While Hotel Quintana is the mainstay of The Sun Also Rises, its colleague, in the north-east corner of the Plaza del Castillo, was the author's favourite. He stayed here on most of his visits, becoming so much a part of its fabric that the room he always booked has been preserved in his name.

The suite is usually occupied. But I am in luck. There is a vacancy – and I am led through the lobby of this elegant five-star, past an antique lift and a framed poster for the 1923 fiesta. At the top of the stairs is a time capsule. True, the number has been changed (from 217 to 201) as part of a renovation in 2007, and a new bathroom has been built on to the front. But the bedroom beyond the second door is almost unaltered from the last time Hemingway slumbered here, down to the original furniture: a two-seat sofa in faded pink; a white circular-dial telephone; a writing desk with fold-down lid; a pair of single beds.

Of these, the one by the window is most important. This room was a direct influence on Hemingway's work. When a hungover Jake Barnes is woken by the clatter of bulls on Calle de la Estafeta, it is – to all purposes – in this bed that he stirs. When I doze off that night, I do so aware that I am effectively sleeping within the pages of The Sun Also Rises.

Next morning, I step on to the very balcony where Barnes observes this animal cavalcade, and decide to experience the route myself. Even walking it on a quiet Tuesday, the 851-metre madness of attempting to run with the bulls on these narrow streets is apparent: up the steep gradient of Cuesta de Santo Domingo into the Plaza Consistorial, a quick left into Calle de Mercaderes, a right into the long enclosed corridor of Calle de la Estafeta.

At the end, the bullring lurks. As I approach, the entrance is open. A market is in swing, and I wander inside. The size of the arena (the third largest bullfighting stadium on the planet, after Mexico City and Madrid) is impressive – and you do not have to be a blood-sports apologist to appreciate the place it holds in Pamplona's heart. Nor to appreciate that its seats are where Barnes explains the rituals of battle to Brett Ashley; where the socialite falls for the matador Pedro Romero; where Hemingway himself watched the corrida.

Hemingway was probably fair in his bleak 1959 appraisal of the city. But the thought that he had created a monster was not. Perhaps The Sun Also Rises ushered Pamplona into some awkward teenage phase – because it has since blossomed into adult sophistication.

And it is here that the charming city Hemingway loved lives on: in the Museo de Navarra – a showcase for the region, where an 1804 Goya painting of the Marqués de San Adriá* does dark portents, the clouds gathering behind the nobleman hinting at Napoleon's threat to Spain; in the Parque de la Taconera, a leafy expanse where the art-deco Cafe Alt Wien does Twenties splendour as readily as Hemingway's fiction; in the Ciudadela, a 17th-century stronghold where striking pieces by Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida now nestle behind the fortifications; in the fresh produce on sale in the Mercado del Ensanche in the newer, south side of town; in Rodero, a Michelin-starred restaurant by the bullring where the cochinillo (roast suckling pig) is €26; in the bite-sized pintxos at Bar Gaucho, where the ajoarriero (a pastry parcel of cod and poached egg) should really cost more than €3; in the cluttered ambience of a city that still echoes the medieval era in its defensive walls.

It is to these that I go, seeking a last fragment of The Sun Also Rises. At one point, Barnes and Brett escape the group, ambling to these ramparts to share a moment of peace. And, on a quiet evening, I stalk them – past the Catedral de Santa Maria to the Paseo de Redín.

Here is a special view, the River Arga flowing below, the valley ebbing away, the San Cristóbal mountain rearing to the north. It is the Pamplona that Barnes espies from afar en route to the city, "rising out of the plain... the walls of the city, and the great brown cathedral, and the broken skyline". It is the Pamplona that Hemingway thought was ruined, but which, 50 years after his death, is still extant. You just have to search for it.

Travel essentials: Pamplona

Getting there

* There are no direct flights to Pamplona, but Iberia (0870 609 0500; iberia.com) flies from Heathrow via Madrid or Barcelona.

* Alternatively, the city can be reached from Bilbao, served from Stansted and Manchester by easyJet (0905 821 0905; easyjet.com) and from Heathrow by Vueling (0906 754 7541; vueling.com); or from Zaragoza, served from Stansted by Ryanair (0871 246 0000; ryanair.com).

Staying there

* Gran Hotel La Perla, Plaza del Castillo 1 (00 34 948 223 000; granhotellaperla.com). Doubles start at €260, room only.

* Hotel Alma Muga de Beloso, Beloso Bajo 11 (00 34 948 293 380; almapamplona.com). Doubles start at €149, room only.

Visiting there

* Ciudadela, Avenida del Ejercito (00 34 948 228 237; turismo.navarra.es). Monday to Saturday 7.30am-9.30pm; Sunday 9am-9.30pm; admission free.

* Mercado del Ensanche, Calle Amaya 15 (00 34 948 231 273). Monday to Friday 9am-2pm; Saturday 9am-2.30pm.

* Museo de Navarra, Cuesta de Santo Domingo 47 (00 34 848 426 492; cfnavarra.es/cultura/museo). Tuesday to Saturday 10am-2pm, 5-7pm; Sunday 11am-2pm; €2.

* Catedral de Santa Maria, Calle Curia (00 34 948 212 594; catedraldepamplona.com). Museum: Monday to Saturday 10am-7pm; €4.

Eating and drinking there

* Bar Gaucho, Calle de Espoz y Mina 7 (00 34 948 225 073; cafebargaucho.com) .

* Bar Txoko, Plaza del Castillo 20 (00 34 948 222 012).

* Cafe Alt Wien, Parque de la Taconera (00 34 650 486 569; cafevienes.com) .

* Café Iruña, Plaza del Castillo 44 (00 34 948 175 536; cafeiruna.com).

* Cervecería Tropicana, Plaza del Castillo 18 (00 34 948 222 659).

* Rodero, Calle Emilio Arrieta 3 (00 34 948 228 035; restauranterodero.com).

Source http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/the-old-man-and-the-city-hemingways-love-affair-with-pamplona-2305392.html

Dead mules and the Big Sleep

2011-04-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

Ours may be remembered as the era of the Big Sleep. Barack Obama and the Democrats lie comatose at the switch as the federal government continues to swell up like a dead mule in the heat of late July. Air-traffic controllers doze off with airliners circling airports, frantically trying to get landing instructions.

Joe Biden sleeps through the boss’s forgettable speech about the economy, caught on camera with his chin against his chest, happily sawing hickory logs. A man sitting next to him in the photograph is obviously wrestling with a protocol problem: How loud does a veep get to snore before he gets a sharp elbow in the ribs?

Presidents, on the other hand, can’t take refuge in a nap in the attic, where our lovable and slightly dotty uncles live. So when Standard & Poor’s, a most highly regarded authority on Wall Street, downgrades its assessment of the U.S. credit outlook as “negative,” the White House has to do better than to dismiss the assessment as partisan politics.

“I don’t think we should make too much out of that,” says Austen Goolsbee, Mr. Obama’s top economist. “What Standard & Poor’s is doing is making a political judgment, and it is one that we don’t agree with.”

Presidents always have trouble with bad news, and they’ve never figured out what to do with veeps, sleeping or otherwise. John Adams called the vice presidency “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” When the Whigs approached Daniel Webster about running as Zachary Taylor’s running mate in 1848, he declined: “I do not intend to be buried until I am dead.” John Nance Garner, FDR’s first vice president, famously described the job as “not worth a pitcher of warm spit.” Harry S Truman, who had been kept in the dark about everything, including the atomic bomb and how evil Josef Stalin really was, said the only duties a veep has are to “go to weddings and funerals.” Indeed, the only arguments Joe Biden and the missus ever have is at the breakfast table, over who gets the first look at the obituary page.

Thomas Marshall, who was Woodrow Wilson’s vice president and is best known for his observation that “what this country needs is a really good 5-cent cigar,” was fond of recalling the story of two brothers he knew back home in Indiana. “One went away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States, and nothing was heard of either one of them again.” That’s not the president’s problem with good ol’ Joe. He is heard from early and often, like a conscientious voter in Chicago.

Good ol’ Joe represents Malaprop City, easily forgiven by the rest of us because so many of us hail from there, too. He famously greeted Chuck Graham, a state senator, at a rally in Missouri with a bluff and hearty: “Stand up, Chuck. Let ‘em see ya.” When Chuck didn’t stand up, the veep insisted again, only to discover that Chuck was sitting in a wheelchair. “Oh, God love ya,” the veep said. “What am I talking about?”

Who knew? Facts often confuse good ol’ Joe. In a campaign interview, he recalled that after the 1929 crash on Wall Street, President Roosevelt went on television to reassure the nation that everything was going to be OK. However, and it was a big however, Herbert Hoover was the president in 1929 and television was only a distant gleam in the eye of its inventors. The politicians were still trying to master radio in 1929 (and FDR famously did, half a decade later).

It doesn’t matter whether Mr. Obama and his sleepy wise men agree with S&P. Like it or not, the highly regarded S&P credit assessment is out there, and when Wall Street talks, a lot of money can walk. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader in the House, calls the S&P assessment “a wake-up call” for those who want to raise the U.S. debt limit without “meaningful fiscal reforms that immediately reduce federal spending and stop our nation from digging itself further into debt.”

Once upon a time, a White House could console itself that such jeremiads were only aimed at economists and Washington policy wonks. Ordinary Americans were more interested in baseball, celebrity scandals and the latest politician shot down by the Gaffe Patrol. But the public is fully awake now, with neither appetite nor tolerance for drowsy addicts of the Big Sleep.

Source http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/19/pruden-dead-mules-and-the-big-sleep/

Govt to provide 19 rural villages with electricity

2011-04-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

Though electricity has reached almost all villages in Goa, a few hamlets still remain in the dark zone. The Goa government now plans to provide lights to around 19 non-electrified hamlets in various rural parts under the rural village electrification scheme (RVE).

In a written reply to Mayem MLA Anant V Shet's starred question, chief minister Digamber Kamat who holds charge of non conventional energy sources said that under RVE, solar home lighting systems are being provided for households without conventional power supply. The scheme is operated by the Union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE).

Though no applications have been received from any section, Goa energy development agency (GEDA) has undertaken a survey voluntarily and submitted a proposal to the MNRE, Kamat said.

GEDA has plans to undertake electrification of 19 non-electrified hamlets, which are not accessible to conventional means of electricity. There are approximately 95 households for which sanction has been received, and the work for the same is expected to commence shortly.

Meanwhile, GEDA received 41 applications from institutions during the last five years to set up solar street lighting systems. It disbursed an amount of ` 49,93,200 in subsidies to these institutions.

Most of the applicants comprise civic bodies, educational and defence establishments, wildlife sanctuaries, and a few housing cooperative societies, who had sought subsidies for providing street lighting in their campuses and gardens.

Source http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-04/goa/29379584_1_lighting-systems-hamlets-renewable-energy

The Boxer Rebellion - The Cold Still Album Review

2011-03-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

Review of The Boxer Rebellion's album The Cold Still

Subscribers to the theory that the big, bad old music industry exists to hold us captive to their view of what's what are plentiful, and a look at the charts says that they've probably got a point. It's a lovely conspiracy theory, but now and then a few artists emerge to debunk it, proving that life outside the machine can still provide a living, creative fulfillment and - just occasionally - great music.

If ever an act could claim to epitomise this state of balance and perfection, The Boxer Rebellion would surely be it. Without a label since Alan McGee's Poptones went belly up a fortnight after the release of their debut album Exits in 2005, the London based four piece have sustained themselves both live and on record in a way almost unheard of prior to the download era, to the extent that The Cold Still's predecessor - 2009's Union - was held off the top slot in the iTunes alternative rock charts only by Kings of Leon.

Score one for the man against the suits then, but that's a sideshow; we can happily report that The Cold Still is not only a record of great depth and poise, but refreshingly it also refuses to compromise by using empty props or the stuff of passing fads. It's a stance that subtly underlines the belief that the The Boxer Rebellion are bona fide talents in their own right, an outfit who clearly understand that their product doesn't need flashy global marketing to convince us of its merits.

Perhaps the biggest clue as to the derivation of the band's sound - a kind of organic, bombast free rootsy stadium folk-rock (Sorry) - is in the nature of their lineup, with American vocalist Nathan Nicholson being joined by Australian guitarist Todd Howe and Englishmen Adam Harrison and Piers Hewitt. The result is a trans-Atlantic composite, borrowing equally from the musical wells of both continents. Nicholson's voice wavers between pristine falsetto and gravely, careworn bluesman throughout, the latter giving the solemnity of opener No Harm and the upliftingly epic light/darkness of Both Sides Are Even parallels in the very best moments imagined by The National.

Here undeniably are songwriters on a winning streak, demonstrated by listening to Exits signature effort Watermelon, and then by measuring the progress made since then. Back in 2011, Organ Song stomps pastorally like the best Cajun knees up you never went to, whilst despite its post-punk roots, Memo ricochets into understated guitar heroics and comes armed with a frown-lifting chorus from the fringes of pop.

This soundtrack for a post-modern ceilidh can be galvanising, but The Cold Still is at its best when waltzing slowly, pirouetting gently around the ethereal tones of Caught By The Light and it's cousin, the gradually building closer Doubt. Neither are austere, but they sum up The Boxer Rebellion's strengths succinctly; power, and control. The machine's loss is our gain.

Source http://www.contactmusic.com/new/home.nsf/albumreview/the-boxer-rebellion-the-cold-still

In Nungambakkam, a no-go zone' after dark for women

2011-03-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Two groups of transgenders in Nungambakkam one on the stretch from Taj Connemara to a State Bank of India branch on Mahatma Gandhi Road and the other near Loyola College are said to be literally giving sleepless nights to women passing by or those waiting for transport.

Many women say a bunch of transgenders hang around the area, notorious for the lack of policing after 8 pm, to be picked up by drunk men. The latter coming in search of the trangenders then gesture to women waiting there, stop their cars and bikes and harass them.

A journalist waiting for an autorickshaw last week was subjected to such behaviour but said she managed to hop on to an autorickshaw and flee before the situation could turn ugly. An ongoing con by the transgenders, locals say, is to get into a car and go for a drive. Later, when their identity is revealed and they are asked to get off, the transgenders demand money. In case the men refuse, a gang following the car in an autorickshaw attacks them, the locals add. These cases go unreported since the victim is too embarrassed to approach the police.

Source http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-05/chennai/28658416_1_transgenders-autorickshaw-rowdy-elements

Community in dark on Disraeli Bridge construction: activist

2011-02-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

Bridges are supposed to be, well... bridges.

Structures that join people, not separate them.

Once they're built, anyway.

You might not live near where construction is underway on a new $195-million Disraeli Bridge, but most of us should be able to feel for the people who do. If not, maybe this will help.

Martin Landy knew he was coming back to the reality of winter when he returned last weekend from a relaxing Jamaican vacation, but he wasn't prepared for the other reality.

"Imagine my surprise to be awoken early on a Saturday morning to a continuous loud banging. Then realize that it is not my head making this sound; it is coming from across the street. What made it worse is that I noticed that things are moving around the house, a glass has vibrated off the counter and onto the floor."

That loud banging was the pounding of a piledriver.

"Bam! Bam! Bam!"

Landy is the designated spokesman for the Point Douglas Residents Association. But he not only lives in North Point Douglas, a neighbourhood with 100-year-old houses on fragile 100-year-old foundations, he works in the area of the bridge where, in Landy's words, the community has become the construction equivalent of a war zone, with big trucks and big piles of rubble.

"The community is under siege," Landy told me this week.

It's not that the residents weren't prepared for some disruption. They'd met last April with the city and its construction partners, who promised to keep them informed on the project.

"What we were not prepared for was the piledriving to start and to run for 12-plus hours a day and for six days a week."

That's not all that's shaken the residents, and their homes. People walk more than they drive in Point Douglas, but in Landy's view the construction just keeps on truckin' as if there's no one living there.

"There are changes to the surrounding streets; routes I take to visit a neighbour or the way I walk to work are no longer there. Instead of walking across a gentle slope I encounter a 10-foot wall of rocks in my path and, with the large snowfall, no cleared path around. I see a woman carrying a baby through snow, that with one missstep, has her waist-deep in snow as she struggles to get to a bus stop. This is now my life."

And apparently it will be for the next two years.

But, aside from the noise and the nuisance of the construction, what Landy really wasn't prepared for was what he feels is the city's indifference since construction started last month -- the absence of communication that was literally driven home by a piledriver.

"We were promised a construction schedule."

Landy said the city project manager, Bill Ebenspenger, did respond recently to a request for information four days after he made it.

He said Ebenspenger told him via email that they don't have a construction schedule for the piles. And that they were working quickly because of the potential of flooding and how it might disrupt construction.

But what about the disruption to the residents? How bad is it?

"My partner has told me that she is not sure if she can put up with this for the next two years, and that we must make a decision that will affect our futures," Landy said. "But how can we when no one is talking?"

By Wednesday someone was talking to me.

Brad Sacher is the city's director of public works. He agreed that the city had pledged to keep the community "in the loop" on the construction. And he thought there had been "a tremendous amount of communication" all through the project. He went on to say that he empathizes with the reality that having "a construction site in a residential area is a very delicate thing."

But it is a construction area and there will be noise, Sacher said, adding the city and its construction partners are doing everything they can to "minimize" the impact.

I told Sacher everyone appreciates it's a construction zone and that there will be noise. But, neither he nor I would appreciate having a piledriver pounding away for 12 hours a day.

That, I gently told him, is not what I call an attempt to "minimize" construction disruption.

In any event, I suggested, the bigger issue is a feeling that the city has neglected their promise to communicate.

Someone from the city needs to pick up the phone. And build a different kind of new bridge.

Source http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/community-in-dark-on-disraeli-bridge-construction-activist-116386679.html

Cuba's Fidel Castro hails 'Egyptian Revolution'

2011-02-15T00:26:00.000-08:00

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro threw his support behind Egyptian protesters Monday, hailing the "defeat of the United States' principal ally in the bosom of Arab countries."

In a newspaper column called "The Revolutionary Rebellion in Egypt", Castro accused Washington of looking the other way while Hosni Mubarak pillaged his own people.

"We support the people of Egypt and their brave fight for political rights and social justice," he wrote.

Castro was in power for nearly five decades after his own revolution defeated Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He was forced to hand power to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2006 when he fell ill.

Cuban dissidents have also allied themselves with Egypt's young protesters, saying they too should try to use social media more to organize protests against the government.

On the day of Mubarak's fall, prominent Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez announced via Twitter, "Right now I feel like I am in Cairo. I shout and celebrate just like them," she wrote. "I call all my friends to tell them: there is one less dictator."

Source http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/02/14/cuba.egypt/?hpt=T2

Spring is early morning for bears

2011-02-08T02:17:00.000-08:00

Spring is morning for bears. All winter bears have been in small, cramped hidey holes, perhaps dreaming of clover-filled meadows, defenseless fawns, teaming anthills. They awaken to a spring day filled bird song, rapidly growing vegetation, and balmy breezes. The season with its promise of abundance to come, adventures to be had, and all the delights of summer, stretches ahead. Their stomachs are growling and the very most important thing is to satisfy that emptiness. Other important activities are to doze in the sun, scratch at those pesky ticks, roll around and wave paws in the air. Ah, spring.

This May, a young cinnamon-colored bear hung around for over a week grazing in a small field across the creek from our hayfields and below the county road. Two separate fellows had the courtesy to stop and ask permission to kill the little guy on private property. We thanked them for checking with us, but declined. A neighbor kindly used some of his orange signs to post the field. I made daily patrols to keep the turkey hunters honest.

The small bear, perhaps 150 pounds, seemed unusually tame. He was unfazed by the rumble of the school bus, the sound of human voices, idling cars. Everyone in the neighborhood had seen and watched the bear as he grazed or dozed. Questions were raised, and opinions varied about his apparent lack of fear: was he a bear spoiled by human contact; was he too sick to be fearful?

One of the hopeful hunters described him as a large bear. At first glance, bears always look big. The biggest bear I ever saw charged out of the stream side brush directly towards me and my son. It wasn’t until the creature dashed past us, being chased by our lab, that we realized the bear was the size of a spaniel. We collected our dog and hightailed it out of there before mama found us.

Bears have taught us many lessons that should be shared with the uninitiated. Bears, who know how to rip apart stumps, have the skills to open refrigerator doors. Bears, who can carry a deer carcass, can haul a 50-pound plastic tote from a garden shed into the forest, where, finding privacy, a bear can get the lid removed and slurp up blood meal. Bears make a mental map of the orchards and the berry patches. In the Missions, grizzlies come back every year to certain mountain tops to feast on migrating ladybugs.

Food is the most important thing for bears, and they must be smart enough to find it. And we should be smart enough not to habituate them to humans as a food source. Most bears upon learning our sloppy ways will become problems. If you live in the country, it is a social responsibility to keep feeders, pet food, garden supplements and garbage secured from bears.

That is why it seems really stupid that the state of Idaho allows baiting bears. Training bears to become problems seems dumb. And to call it hunting? Setting out smelly food to attract, and then kill, a bear doesn’t sound like hunting, or even sport.

Spring bear season doesn’t really seem like a fair sport either. The poor bruins have just come out of a smelly, dark, damp hole into the glories of spring. The rationale for this hunting season: “to give hunters further opportunity” seems lame since females are sometimes slain and their cubs then starve.

On the other hand, a fall hunting season makes perfect sense. Bears are cranky, and destructive, driven by a terrible need to eat before a winter’s sleep. In autumn, bears have nothing to look forward to but that dark, damp hole. Ah, but in spring the whole world vibrates for a young bear.

Source http://riverjournal.com/vivvo/features/editorial/652-currents_springbears_062009.html

Locals urged to doorknock flood-zone homes

2011-01-18T19:46:00.000-08:00

Brisbane's Lord Mayor has appealed to residents to check any homes where there has been no activity since the floods.

Campbell Newman says authorities are concerned for the welfare of some residents after the Brisbane River hit a peak of 4.46 metres on Thursday morning, inundating more than 20,000 homes and businesses.

"We're very worried that there might be people even that have died. We hope not, but we've asked people to go and knock on doors," he said.

"There might be elderly people who aren't coping who are just holed up in their house in a dark room.

"There might be people who have mentally just almost broken down."

Mental health expert Professor Patrick McGorry says it is important in the coming months for people not to ignore the mental health of those affected by floods.

He says around 20 per cent of Queenslanders are affected by mental illness, and communities must come together and give "psychological first aid" to flood victims.

"There are very intense emotions for the people most directly affected - the grief the loss the shock the numb [feeling]," he said.

"But then it's replaced by other emotions - anger, the sense of terrible loss, even depression."

Residents checking on flood-affected homes have been warned that people caught looting properties face up to 10 years in jail.

Police Operation Safeguard, a 200-strong taskforce to protect houses and businesses in Brisbane and Ipswich, begins tomorrow.

On Friday a man almost drowned trying to flee police after he was caught, along with two other people, allegedly stealing from abandoned boats at the port of Brisbane.

Police from New South Wales and South Australia have been asked to help their Queensland colleagues in the aftermath of the devastating floods.

Fifty-five officers from NSW will arrive in Brisbane today when they will be sworn in as Special Constables.

The squad's commander, Detective Superintendent Kyle Stewart, says the group's tasks may include guarding crime scenes and providing support to emergency services.

"Quite frankly the writing instructions that I've given to the officers here today is that absolutely no task will be too small for us and no task will be too complex," he said.

"Very clearly all it is that we are about is making sure that we offer the highest level of support and help to Queensland police that is possible."

Thirteen officers will also travel from South Australia for a 10-day deployment.

Assistant Commissioner Brian Fahy says they will mainly be concentrating on the effort to prevent looting.

"Our officers will be going up there to assist in Operation Safeguard," he said.

"That's primarily about anti-looting because apparently there is a bit of that that's occurring up there, but they'll also be assisting the Queensland police in whatever role we can assist them with in fulfilling their commitment to community safety."

Source http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/17/3114505.htm?section=justin

Top 10 movies of 2010 in China

2011-01-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

The year has seen Chinese cinema mature with films that have not just performed well but pushed the boundaries in terms of plot and execution. Raymond Zhou picks the top 10.

Chinese cinema is expected to pass a milestone in 2010. Its gross box-office revenue is likely to be more than 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) for the first time (counting just the mainland). That's roughly the same as the US box office in dollar terms. If you factor in the currency disparity, per-capita, consumption and the ancillary market such as television and DVD rights, it is still minuscule, but hints at the vast potential that has been tapped into seriously only in the past five years.In terms of the quality of offerings, Chinese cinema has always been the target of public ridicule. Simply put, it is an industry people love to hate and yet cannot stop talking about. This year, diversity has taken reign and big-budget period dramas with their all-too-familiar sequences of kungfu fighting have given way to a rich crop of genres, some hard to categorize. Whatever your taste, you will find something to your fancy. The following are 10 feature films our editors consider worth recommending.

Let the Bullets Fly

This is a year when China's triumvirate of top filmmakers (Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang) all had new releases, but were upstaged by someone who calls himself "an amateur".

Jiang Wen is an actor-turned-director and has made only four full-length features since 1994. But the scarcity of his output correlates with high quality.

His new movie (pictured above), set in the early 20th century, is a fast-paced heist movie. Well, "heist" could be a misnomer because the coveted object is the position of a county magistrate and all the loot it comes with. It also has the feel of a western when scenes move outside the county town.

Jiang has a sense of humor that's not just black, but pitch dark. Many of the lines have layers of meaning, which may yield contradictory interpretations. His subtle use of anachronism and the symbolic meaning of many scenes and props have become an object of cinephile obsession. All actors are perfectly cast.

Monga

Gangster movies have been done to death in Hong Kong. So, when Taiwan's Doze Niu tried his hand at this hoary genre, nobody expected him to breathe new life into it. The story is predictable, but the way he tells it, with a refreshingly good-looking young cast, has turned heads and created a box-office bonanza.

Though not shown officially in the mainland, the movie has strong word-of-mouth and was avidly downloaded and watched. Essentially this is a coming-of-age story framed in a gangster narrative. The chase and fight sequences exude a vim and vigor that's more musical than a crime spree. The theme of bonding has a sincerity reminiscent of a good love story.

Echoes of the Rainbow

This intimate story of a Hong Kong family struggling through the 1960s and 70s is a microcosm of the British colony and its Chinese inhabitants on the verge of an economic miracle.

Based on the family history of writer-director Alex Law, it is full of bittersweet details. Simon Yam and Sandra Ng deliver top-notch performances of restraint and refinement.

Deep in the Clouds

This small movie has not had a wide release yet, though it won several accolades at the Shanghai Film Festival. It is about a mountain village caught between the need to protect the eco-system with its black bears and the yearning for a better life.

Using locals who had barely seen a movie and an ethnic language not even understood by the director, the movie has an authenticity and also a lyrical beauty rarely seen in a message film.

Aftershock

Book-ended by two major earthquakes, beginning with the Tangshan earthquake of 1976 and ending with the one in Sichuan in 2008, this is supposed to be a disaster film, but Feng Xiaogang mustered the courage to turn it into a family drama of love and generational misunderstanding.

Perhaps it is easier to approach the movie as a Chinese equivalent of Sophie's Choice. There are details in the movie about survivors hardly known to outsiders, such as the annual ritual of burning paper in the early morning of the anniversary of the loved one's death. Xu Fan's performance packs a punch in portraying a survivor's guilt and the love of a mother under life-and-death circumstances.

Lost on Journey

This little comedy could have been inspired by Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a Steve Martin laugh fest about the trials and tribulations of a journey back home. The Chinese version consists of uniquely Chinese situations, with the duo of comedians representing two halves of society.

The movie is perfectly paced, with plenty of comic chops to keep one laughing. It also has a heart that goes to those less fortunate. While all ends well, the journey is symbolic on a certain level of what the country is going through on the whole.

Vegetate

This is social realism at its most critical, the kind of movie enshrined in Chinese textbooks yet rarely seen on the big screen. This sharp criticism of China's pharmaceuticals industry, which churns out so many products you'd wonder if there is any testing or inspection, is built on a series of twists and turns that's melodramatic on the surface yet hint at inner truth.

A worthy follower of Julia Roberts' Erin Brokovich or Russell Crowe's The Insider, Vegetate falls short on casting and the absence of star power hinders its box-office performance.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

This lavishly produced whodunit shows China during its most extravagant period, the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906), with the sole female ruler in its history, Empress Wu Zetian, on the throne. The intricate plot keeps the audience on edge and the starry cast is matched by the mammoth but ingeniously conceived set.

It is a Chinese response to the new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr., but Detective Dee, though a historical figure, was mostly created by a European sinologist. So, cross-cultural influences go to the very root of this action suspense thriller.

The War of Internet Addiction

This is not a theatrical release, but an online feature made by maneuvering visual elements in games, but with an original storyline and dialogue dubbed by people all over the Net.

But the movie is more than a technical feat. It gives voice to a huge swath of the online population whose frustrations at being cut off from their favorite online game has come to exemplify an age of angst and anger. The climax scene is so heartfelt it has the effect of a bolt of thunder.

Love in a Puff

Pang Ho-Cheung captures the urban vibe in this quietly observant study of modern dating.

The free-flowing plot is a reflection of a new generation with its laissez-faire attitude and hard-to-define notions about love.

Honorable mention:

Avatar and Inception (pictured above) are not Chinese fare, yet their impact has gone beyond the film industry in China.

The former has set a new box-office record that may take years to be surpassed and along with it, a new standard for technical excellence and imagination.

The latter has kindled a public interest in dream interpretation, something Sigmund Freud never achieved on such a scale among the Chinese populace.

Source http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/ent2466.html

Lucasville, Ohio, prison uprising leaders go on hunger strike

2011-01-04T03:04:00.000-08:00

Four death-sentenced prisoners, wrongfully convicted of crimes following the 1993 prison rebellion in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, started a “rolling” hunger strike Jan. 3. The strike is to protest the highly restrictive solitary confinement where they have been placed in the supermax Ohio State Penitentiary, located in Youngstown, since 1998.

These prisoners are starting to run out of appeals. They say they would rather die, if they must, on their own terms, rather than on a gurney by lethal injection. They intend the hunger strike to help strike a blow against confinement conditions so inhumane that they amount to torture.

Bomani Shakur (convicted as Keith LaMar) was the first to refuse food. He writes in a public statement, “If we must die, we should be allowed to do so with dignity, which is all we’re asking: the opportunity to pursue our appeals unimpeded, to be able to touch our friends and family, and to no longer be treated as playthings but as human beings who are facing the ultimate penalty.” (Read his full statement on workers.org.)

The plan is that on Jan. 6, Iman Siddique Abdullah Hasan will join the hunger strike. Imam Hasan, a leader of the Sunni Muslims during the 1993 rebellion, was one of several negotiators for the prisoners. The resulting settlement prevented a reoccurrence of the massacre that took place during the Attica, N.Y., prison rebellion in 1971. Hasan’s “reward” was a death sentence.

Jason Robb is scheduled to start refusing meals on Jan. 9. Robb, a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, was also a negotiator during the 1993 uprising. Finally, Namir Abdul Mateen (aka James Were) will join the hunger strike to the extent that his health permits.

As seen in the recent prisoner strike in Georgia, the once-hostile Ohio prisoner groupings forged a powerful unity during the 1993 rebellion that has stood the test of time.

The four prisoners went on another hunger strike together in 1996 with George Skatzes, the fifth prisoner to receive the death penalty following the uprising. This hunger strike achieved its aim: Skatzes was transferred out of OSP for medical reasons.

The current hunger strike is up against a warden, David Bobby, who has publicly made it known that he will not give any ground to the hunger strikers.

Ohio executions on the rise

The bigger picture is that Ohio is inaugurating a new governor, John Kasich, an extreme right-winger. Ohio could set a new record for executions, which is already second only to Texas. Ohio was the only state to perform more executions in 2010 than in 2009.

The severe sensory deprivation that the four prisoners have suffered for so long is vindictive punishment for the death of a guard in the 1993 uprising. They have been deliberately kept at the most restrictive security level, Level 5, since they were brought to OSP, in spite of good behavior and cooperation with prison programs. During one of the annual reviews, prison authorities stated in writing, “ ... your placement offense is so severe that you should remain at the OSP permanently or for many years regardless of your behavior while confined at the OSP.” (http://tinyurl.com/3aywndt)

Supporters of the hunger strikers will gather at the gates of OSP on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Jan. 15, for a rally and press conference. There will be reports on the status of the hunger strikers, statements from the prisoners and solidarity messages from across the country and around the world.

These prisoners’ convictions should be reexamined immediately given that in recent years key witnesses have recanted damaging testimony against them. These convictions need to be overturned and new trials granted. Attorney Staughton Lynd has provided proof that these convictions relied almost exclusively on witnesses who perjured themselves in exchange for reduced sentences. (Capital University Law Review, Spring 2008, vol. 36, no. 3, p. 559, “Napue Nightmares: Perjured Testimony in Trials Following the 1993 Lucasville, Ohio, Prison Uprising”)

An international movement to support these hunger strikers and to end all inhumane treatment of prisoners is gathering momentum. Now is the time to get on board. Sign the electronic petition in support of the Lucasville hunger strikers at the International Action Center website, www.iacenter.org, to demand that the Ohio prison authorities and elected officials allow these heroic prisoners to have their security levels fairly evaluated and reclassified so that at the very least they can have the same privileges as other Death Row prisoners.

Daily updates will be posted on the Facebook site “In Solidarity with the Lucasville Uprising Prisoners on Hunger Strike,” as well as on the IAC website.

Free all political prisoners including the hunger strikers! Humane treatment for all prisoners! Dismantle the profit-making prison-industrial complex!

Source http://www.workers.org/2011/us/lucasville_0113/

Jonglei governor says security improved in 2010 despite Athor’s rebellion

2010-12-28T01:35:00.000-08:00

Jonglei state governor. Kuol Manyang Juuk, has said that Jonglei state security has improved considerably in 2010 compared to 2009. Although he accepted recent clashes between the southern army – the SPLA - and the forces of former SPLA General, George Athor, who has rebelled against the southern government, has been a threat to stability in northern counties of Jonglei.


Southern Sudanese march in Bor, Jonglei State to celebrate Christmas Eve. Dec. 24, 2010 (ST)

Athor took up arms against the Government of Southern Sudan after he failed to win the governorship race in Jonglei State, contesting the April elections as an independent candidate as he was not selected by the SPLM the south’s governing party.

At least 12 people were killed in clashes between the SPLA and Athor’s forces on December 18 and 19 despite a delegation from the southern government meeting Athor earlier in the month.

Governor Juuk noted that so far all efforts to resolve the conflict had so far been futile. He told registered voters for the January referendum that they should expect to vote in the self determination referendum in a peaceful atmosphere.

Speaking at Lieudier Cathedral, the seat of Bor diocese, the governor called on church leaders and south Sudanese to maintain peace ahead of referendum as well as during and after the plebiscite.


Southern Sudanese march in Bor, Jonglei State to celebrate Christmas Eve. Dec. 24, 2010 (ST)

Thousands of Christians marched on the streets of Bor town on Friday and Saturday to celebrate Christmas. Churches say they recorded the largest attendance of the year with the headquarters of Bor diocese counting over 20,000 thousand people for services on Christmas Day.

Wearing different attires; women, men, youths and children thronged to the roads and halted traffic for several hours. Traffic police had to control people movements instead of cars.

The marchers played drums and sang songs composed in local languages, witnessed by many spectators.

This year’s Christmas celebration come less than two weeks before Southern Sudanese vote in a referendum on the independence of the region. Community leaders urged the population to celebrate with restraint.

Bishop of Bor diocese, Nathaniel Garang Anyieth, called for patience and prayers in the lead to January, 2011 vote. Bishop Garang directed his calls for prayers to the youths whom he said are “future of tomorrow” to be committed to prayers and hard work amidst the challenges of life.

Church authorities say 20,019 people attended Christmas at Lieudier on Christmas Day, the highest attendance of the year. Nigel church came second with more that 10,000 people for their Christmas services.


Southern Sudanese march in Bor, Jonglei State to celebrate Christmas Eve. Dec. 24, 2010 (ST)

Thousands of people travelled from Juba to Bor to celebrate the festival at the countryside. Prices of some food items, clothes and other essential holidays doubled in days leading up to Christmas.

There are less than two weeks before southern Sudanese are due to vote in a referendum to choose for unity or separation of Africa’s largest country in accordance with a 2005 peace accord that end two decades of north-south civil war that left more two million people dead.

Southerners are widely expected to vote for independence according to observers.

Source http://www.sudantribune.com/Jonglei-governor-says-security,37420

Why Young Christians Should Temper Their Rebellion

2010-12-22T00:37:00.000-08:00

Even as many “next Christians” remain rightfully critical of the ways they were raised to think and believe, there’s the indisputable fact that many of us have gone on to live happy lives with relative intellectual stability and modest to wild success in whatever endeavors we choose. We may have been inculcated with science denialism or bigotry or more difficult emotional things like self-hatred and repression.

But on the whole, the “next Christians” are not badly damaged, wounded souls whose parents and churches have left them for dead. In fact, quite the opposite: many are well-adjusted, upwardly mobile young professionals who owe what success and sanity they have to the values they were raised on. It’s important that every Christian who faces the inevitable bitterness that results from breaking out of a small-minded worldview remember that when they turn to critique the ones who came before. And though I clearly believe in opposing those who continue to articulate a reactionary political version of Christianity, I think a lot of the Next Christians can probably do more good persuading their parents than condescending to them.

For a lot of people, it is far easier to identify what their parents did wrong than to perceive, let alone appreciate or understand, what they did right. Doing both is the best way to make progress from one generation to the next.

What I like about the attitude that Sessions suggests – persuading parents rather than condescending to them – is that respectful efforts at persuasion leave the person engaged in them open to being transformed , whether by being shown that they are in error, or else that they are correct but needful of nuance. Its an insight that would seem to apply to people of all faiths, or none.

Source http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/12/why-young-christians-should-temper-their-rebellion.html

Obama works to quell open rebellion in party

2010-12-08T02:33:00.000-08:00

President Obama on Tuesday strongly defended his tax-cut deal with congressional Republicans against intense criticism from his party, insisting it was "a good deal for the American people."

Struggling to ensure the package would win approval, the White House deployed Vice President Joseph Biden to Capitol Hill in a bid to allay the concerns of Senate Democrats. Obama also held a news conference where, with uncharacteristic emotion, he suggested that liberals were unrealistic about what they could achieve in Washington and also slammed Republicans, at one point comparing them to hostage-takers.

"I've said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts," Obama said. "I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed."

Biden failed to persuade many of his former Senate colleagues to line up behind the plan. He called it "a bad situation" but "a good deal," participants said.

While many Democrats in the Senate and House raged against the idea of continuing President George W. Bush's tax policies for two more years — and some voiced serious concerns about adding the $900 billion cost to the deficit — the package seemed likely to win approval provided Republicans vote for it in big numbers, as party leaders predicted they would.

Even with unanimous GOP support, which is not assured, at least 18 Senate Democrats would need to support the package to overcome a potential filibuster. About a dozen Senate Democrats have voiced a willingness to extend all Bush-era tax rates temporarily, given the weak economy. Aides said about 30 were firmly opposed, leaving 16 or so undecided.

Biden, who personally negotiated the deal with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, used a lunch meeting to emphasize provisions the White House had won, including a one-year payroll-tax cut for all workers, a 13-month extension of jobless aid for the long-term unemployed and other steps to help lift the still-struggling economy.

But even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed unhappiness with the deal and said changes were needed.

"This is only a framework," Reid said. "It's up to the Congress to pass it. Some in my caucus still have concerns."

Others were in full revolt. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was one of three senators who interrupted Biden's presentation. Afterward, he vowed to "do everything I can to defeat this proposal," including staging a filibuster.

The anger was rawer in the House, where Democrats met Tuesday night to discuss the proposal. Biden will address their concerns Wednesday, according to several lawmakers.

"I don't think the president should count on Democratic votes to get this deal passed," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has refused to commit her support, said only that "there's unease" in the caucus.

In the unlikely event that House Democrats vote down the package, the incoming Republican majority presumably would approve it in January — perhaps after extracting further concessions from Obama.

McConnell described the accord as "essentially final" and predicted the vast majority of Republicans would vote for it.

Obama's long-simmering frustration with his party's liberal wing seemed to boil over as he implored Democrats not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Facing questions about his "core principles," Obama referred to the health-care debate, in which liberals accused him of abandoning Democratic ideals when he gave up on a government-backed "public option."

"This is the public-option debate all over again," Obama complained. "Now, if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then, let's face it, we will never get anything done.

"People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are, and in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of pre-existing condition, or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out."

Obama said he was taking a long view. "My job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there," he said. "What is helping the American people live out their lives?"

Top advisers to the president emphasized that, in extracting concessions from Republicans on jobless benefits and other middle-class tax cuts, the administration hardly had given away the store.

"This agreement greatly exceeds what anyone believed we could get," one senior official said.

But some Senate Democrats said it was difficult to make sense of Biden's sales pitch, other than to describe it as the best deal the White House could muster.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., paused for eight seconds when asked what Biden's main argument was in favor of the plan.

"I am really not sure what his main argument was," she said. "We have got this huge debt and deficit. We know it. This adds a trillion dollars to it. It's a problem."

Feinstein said she might be persuaded to support the plan if she concluded it would spur economic growth, an argument that Gene Sperling, counselor to the Treasury secretary, made at the lunch.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., complained about the "nonsensicalness" of continuing lower tax rates for the wealthy. She was one of only a handful of Democrats to support the original Bush tax cuts in 2001.

Democrats expressed particular displeasure with an agreement on the federal estate tax, which would set an exemption of $5 million per individual and a maximum rate of 35 percent for two years. The estate tax lapsed entirely this year but is due to return Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million and maximum rate of 55 percent.

Some Democrats, particularly centrists, said they would support the proposal.

"The entire package is necessary to strengthen economic growth for next year," North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad said. "The president did about what he had to do. And he deserves credit for that."

Still, Conrad said he did not like the estate-tax proposal.

While many Republicans said they liked the deal, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said he still wanted the Bush-era rates extended permanently and that the cost of the package was worrisome.

DeMint said he had not decided how to vote.

Source http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013620664_obama08.html

Dark days as plug pulled on illuminating Oireachtas gathering

2010-11-30T22:44:00.000-08:00

IT’S A nice tradition, the annual switching on of the Leinster House Christmas tree lights.

Peter the usher marches down the steps playing his bagpipes while a choir drawn from Oireachtas staff sings carols they’ve been practising in their spare time and the party leaders temporarily set aside their hostilities for the season that’s in it.

Last year, the Dublin Gospel Choir added to the gaiety and even the Taoiseach forgot his woes for a few minutes when he sang along with them.

This year’s ceremony was scheduled to take place today. It’s only a small event but it cheered people up, if only for a little while.

Now it’s been cancelled.

The gloom is getting gloomier.

And what of the pensioners from nearby Pearse Street community centre, who were brought in by mini-bus for the happy occasion and then treated to tea and sandwiches afterwards? Leinster House is a bun-free zone for them today.

Mind you, in the last couple of years, some of them confided that while it was still “lovely” it hasn’t been the same since poor Bertie departed. He had a way with the OAPs.

So why has it been scrapped? Lots of reasons, all of which can be put down to our old friend, health and safety.

Given his run of bad luck since becoming Taoiseach, it was a minor miracle Brian Cowen hadn’t been electrocuted when flicking the switch on his previous two outings. Perhaps better not to leave himself open to a case of third time unlucky.

And with an election just around the corner, getting Enda and Eamon together in the one spot beside a large electrical item would have sparked a very dangerous power surge.

How would the Ceann Comhairle have coped if a fight broke out between the party leaders? Endless permutations there.

Of course, there was always the very real worry that John Gormley would pull the plug. He’s good at that.

Then there’s the optics. The public is not in any mood to see their political leaders standing together looking happy. Although it’s very likely that while they would have stood together today, the usual air of bonhomie would have been rather strained, to put it mildly.

Not to mention the weather. Passersby on Merrion Street (provided they have a strong arm and steady aim) could cause havoc with snowballs if they saw a collection of our finest politicians assembled in full view on the lawn.

Taking everything into consideration, the Ceann Comhairle Séamus Kirk and his Seanad counterpart Pat Moylan took a joint decision to call the whole thing off.

“They have decided this year to break from tradition as the main participants in the ceremony, the party leaders, have other more pressing demands and priorities this time,” an Oireachtas spokesman told us yesterday.

The tree will be switched on by an unseen hand, probably under cover of darkness.

The twinkling lights will thus cheer discontented citizens outside the Merrion Street gates while they shake their fists at Leinster House.

But Christmas has not been cancelled. A fine tree is up and decorated in the entrance hall. This year, the colour theme is white. Obviously it should be red, in sympathy with the national finances, but nobody needs reminding of that.

They talk of nothing else, which is why this sketch is a bailout-free area today.

The choice of baubles is interesting.

Peacocks and balls.

Make of that what you will.

In the chamber, the Opposition lustily sang “Deck the halls with Biffo’s folly”. Enda summed up his approach to handling the economy as “do the deal in Brussels and let them eat cheese”. The Taoiseach found it all a bit repetitive, presenting, as he put it, a “counter-factual” voice to their chorus.

That means “alternative”, he explained, challenging Enda and Eamon to come up with one to his Government’s plans.

The Sinn Féin glee club swelled with the addition of Pearse Doherty, who proudly took his seat in the Dáil following his win in the Donegal byelection last Friday. His mother Gráinne and wife Róisín watched him with pride from the distinguished visitors’ gallery.

His party leader, Gerry Adams, was stalking the corridors and sliding his tray along the self-service counter in the canteen with the rest of the deputies, like he is already a TD for Louth.

Jarry’s prospects will have improved with yesterday’s announcement from Dermot Ahern, Fianna Fáil’s big beast in that constituency, that he will not be standing next time.

The reality of life in the Dáil hit home quickly for young Pearse, who found himself sitting next to Fine Gael veteran PJ Sheehan.

PJ, who is also hanging up his expenses come the general election, is already beginning to wind down if his exuberant performance yesterday was anything to go by.

The same might be said for the Taoiseach, who seemed far less care-worn and crotchety than usual.

As he listened to Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin take an age to ask him a question, Biffo moved his head from side to side with each sub-clause, trying to anticipate when he might be able to rise and punch back an answer.

“I feel like Bruce Grobbelaar here,” he declared, likening himself to the former Liverpool goalkeeper.

There were statements, more bloody statements – it’s all they do in the Dáil, on the bailout. Or “Stability and the Budgetary Process” as the Government preferred to call it.

But never mind all that talk, the big story yesterday was that Jackie Healy-Rae appears to have had a makeover.

That trademark molten liquorice look was gone and his hair, which appeared shorter and lighter, was combed back instead of pooled across his forehead like a stubborn oil slick. He looked like a rather raffish Arthur Lowe, particularly with his trendy little roundy spectacles.

Now if that isn’t something to celebrate, what is? Bring back the choir and the bagpipes!

Source http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1201/1224284486059.html

test

2010-11-24T02:11:00.000-08:00

test