» Archive: May 2003
Poetry
From Swann A Literary Mystery, by Carol Shields (Toronto: General, 1989):
It had always seemed something of a miracle to him that poetry occasionally did speak. Even when it didn't he felt himself grow reverent before the quaint, queer magnitude of the poet's intent. When he thought of the revolution of planets, the emergence of species, the balance of mathematics, he could not see that any of these was more amazing than the impertinent human wish to reach into the sea of common language and extract from it the rich dark beautiful words that could be arranged in such a way that the unsayable might be said.
"Living on Less"
Living on Less is a web journal about, well, living on less, put out by the Common Wheel collective.
Bush at his best
U.S. media blitz on Cuba angers Castro government (MSNBC) "The broadcasts were part of a stepped-up campaign by the Bush administration to bombard Cuba with information and support dissidents seeking democratic reforms under President Fidel Castro's one-party state."
NYTimes: "President Bush charged today that Europe's ban on genetically modified food had discouraged third world countries from using that technology and thus undermined efforts to end hunger in Africa."
Breaking up in the information age
“Technology brings us closer”—conventional advertising wisdom, and it sells long distance plans, but breaking up in the information age is sadder than it needs to be.I have a girlfriend number on my phone's speed dial, embossed with a B from four years ago, then scratched out and replaced with a C three years ago, and replaced with a M less than a year ago. The phone is complicated and I don't remember how to un-program it. Every time something ends, the most recent letter sits there with the ghosts of the other letters below it, inviting a finger-slip, until some night when I sit down in front of the phone and figure out its rules.
Protesting the Native Governance Act
Thunder Bay Indymedia: "Around 4000 First Nations and non-aboriginal people took to the streets of Kenora to protest the First Nations Governance Act (FNGA). Kenora is the home riding of Bob Nault, Canadian Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, and his proposed suite of Bills would mean drastic changes to Aboriginal rights in Canada."
And there was much rejoicing
UPI: White House spokesman Fleischer to leave
Hell Frozen?
Warren Buffet argues against tax cuts for the rich. "Putting $1,000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets."
Rethinking Famine
From the recent issue of Netfuture:
People can starve when the grain elevators are full; they can have enough to eat when crop yields are disastrous. India, for example, has in recent years faced dual crises of both overproduction of food and profound malnutrition. By December 2000, millions of tons of wheat and rice stocks were rotting in India's granaries, while 1.5 million children were dying annually of diseases linked to malnutrition. Promoters of genetically modified organisms often claim that anyone opposed to transgenic crops is turning a blind eye to the needs of those who are starving. But the anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone has suggested that the real moral outrage is the strategic use of hungry people to justify corporate programs to develop these crops. "Malthusian biotechnologists need to explain why crop genetic modification will feed hungry Indians when 41.2 million tons of excess grain will not".
Not to Be
In an article entitled "Blurble, Blurble, Blurble" (The New Quarterly, 20.2), John Vardon writes:
"As an editor of The New York Times Book Review for many years, Randolph Hogan became quite familiar with the stock phrases used in publishing and reviewing. In a satirical article called 'Be a Literary Critic. Earn Big Bucks,' he offered would-be reviewers a list of adverb/adjective/noun combinations that would guarantee a quotation on the dust jacket or back cover of the book in questions. So, by simply choosing a word from columns A, B, and C, reviewers can not only gain a reputation as a literary critic but also convey the impression that they have actually read the whole book. In this way, a novel that a reviewer likes would become a 'devastatingly original tour de force,' a 'superbly engrossing indictment' or an 'absorbingly luminous examination' whereas a novel a reviewer doesn't care for could be called a 'regrettable turgid melodrama,' a 'ploddingly stilted potboiler' or a 'tediously pedestrian soap opera.'''
To Be
In the weeks leading up to the publication of the first issue of The Dominion, I went about asking various artist-friends about their thoughts on newspaper arts coverage in Canada. In a letter to Dru Jay, I wrote:
I think that the arts have perhaps suffered disproportionately from the "expectations of multiple stories per day, low pay, and profit-hogging" that you speak of. In an essay entitled "Fredericton and Fatherhood", published in the fall, 2000 issue of Fiddlehead magazine, Eric Miller writes:
"The love of speed is perhaps characteristic of those who have not experienced death and birth -- or who have strained themselves to keep those experiences at a distance even when death and birth have grazed them closely. Grief is slow and growth is slow and many kinds of love are slow; our lives have less endurance than what they seem to subordinate, and betray a disproportion to the gradualness of our deepest insights. Leontes in The Winter’s Tale took sixteen years to appreciate his error, to merit its qualified rectification. Our mistakes rival our longevity, and the realization of our gratitude often takes as long."
I would add to Miller's list. Grief is slow and growth is slow and many kinds of love are slow. And art tends to be slow, as well. Not that it can't happen in a lightning flash, but the charged particles that give rise to the flash build up in clouds that are centuries old.
The challenge in creating a great arts section in the Dominion would have to do, in part, I think, with reconciling this necessary slowness with the necessary speed of a publication that purports to be a newspaper -- after all, we have magazines and books of all varieties to grapple with things at length.
But it's a challenge that interests me.
I sent a copy of this note to GaRRy Williams, an actor, director, and theatrical-thinker, currently working in the Canadian maritimes. He wrote:
Your thoughts about slowness resonate with my own; they also remind me of Bruce Chatwin's fascination with the pedestrian activity as one conducive to thought, health and humanity; the nomadic lifestyle as somehow utopian (see Siddharta, Jesus, Gandhi etc.). Art is about movement, but certainly not on high-powered speed boats of hyper-jets.read more...
State Dept. and Terrorism, take II
Utusan Malaysia has a report that is more specific about the State Department claims of less terrorism in 2002. As it turns out, most of the instances of "global terrorism" were attacks on an American pipeline in Colombia.
Immigration in Europe
CS Monitor: 'Belgian Malcolm X' seeks office
Railing against high minority unemployment and government inertia, Abou Jahjah says he wants to form a Continent-wide political movement to defend Muslim rights.
Teens held at Gitmo
Another criminal violation of human rights US admits jailing children at Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay can only be described as a hellhole. Adult prisoners, who are subjected to sleep deprivation and other forms of torture, are held in tiny 6.8 feet by 8 feet cells (2.1 x 2.4 metres) and are only allowed out for two 15-minute shower and exercise sessions per week. According to recent news reports, 10 percent of the inmates have mental health problems and are being treated with anti-depressants.
Terrorism Hits All Time Low
Voice of America: "In 2002, there were 199 terrorist attacks worldwide - down from 355 attacks recorded in 2001. A total of 725 people were killed in those attacks last year. This was far below the 3,295 people killed in 2001 - the year of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. But Mr. Powell said despite the decline, the world cannot relax its vigilance against terrorism."
Don't Lift the Sanctions
Rahul Mahajan: Don't Life the Sanctions Yet!
Did this administration, which tried to keep Iraqi infants from being vaccinated for diphtheria and limited imports of streptomycin into the country, see a blinding light on the road to Baghdad? And did other countries suddenly decide that the deaths of Iraqi children was, as Madeleine Albright put it in an interview in 1996, a price worth paying and this time merely in order to uphold a trivial legalistic argument?Actually, it's not so confusing. The United States has moved to consolidate control over Iraq. The talks being held by selected members of the "Iraqi opposition" under the control of the U.S. military are not intended to create an independent government, but rather one which is tightly controlled by the United States just as in Afghanistan. As in Afghanistan, the meetings are excluding entire segments of the political spectrum. They are being done with express disregard of calls across that spectrum for meetings to be held under neutral U.N. auspices rather than under those of an occupying power with clear plans for increased regional domination.
Those plans have become clear as well. The Bush administration wants to set up permanent military bases in Iraq, making it the main Middle East staging area for U.S. "force projection." The massive political leverage given by this presence will be used as a club against Iran and Syria and also to force the Palestinians to acquiesce to the Israeli occupation through the latest "peace plan." The administration also wants not only to open up future Iraqi exploration to foreign corporations (with U.S. and maybe British corporations presumably favored) but to privatize, at least in part, the state oil companies and their currently producing wells.
War Crimes
AP: A group of Iraqis will file a war crimes case against the commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks, their lawyer said Tuesday."There are 19 victims of the war so far that have come forward to back the case," lawyer Jan Fermon said.
Giving Up On WMD
Washington Post:
"The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of outlawed arms, according to participants.The 75th Exploitation Task Force, as the group is formally known, has been described from the start as the principal component of the U.S. plan to discover and display forbidden Iraqi weapons. The group's departure, expected next month, marks a milestone in frustration for a major declared objective of the war."
John Manley discloses
John Manley has recently disclosed all of the contributors to his leadership campaign. The media have all swallowed the spin about Manley "challenging" Martin and Copps to disclose their contributors as well, but almost no one is looking closely at the actual list. This is disappointing, since it offers us a rare opportunity to see Canadian democracy in action.
Here are the contributors who gave $25,000 or more:
American Farm Investment Corp.
Bell Canada Enterprises
Bombardier Inc.
Canwest Media Inc.
Capital Hill Group
Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP
Encana Corp.
Freeman, Jay
Kochar, Cuckoo
MacDonald, John A.
Magna International
Matthews, Terence
McLennan, John T.
Ottawa South Federal Liberal Riding Association
Profac Facilities Management Services
Torys LLP
Equity Management International limited
Dimakopolous, A.
Norbourg Inc.
Simpson Law Office
Manley's Donors
Democracy Watch: "Several companies making large donations to Manley's campaign are registered to lobby the government on a wide range of issues. The corporate lobby firm Capital Hill Group, for example, contributed $20,000 in cash and another $30,000 in kind, covering staff salaries. Other lobby firms on the list include Global Public Affairs ($1,500) and Hill and Knowlton ($1,500), as well as industry lobby associations, such as Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceuticals Companies ($9,000), the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance ($1,500), the Brewers Association of Canada ($3,000), Railway Association of Canada ($1,500), and Association of Canadian Distillers ($1,500). "
Looting
BBC: US Troops 'Encouraged' Iraqi Looters
More on Argentina
Klein on Brukman Factory Occupation
Z Magazine's Argentina Watch
Two Reuters strories on Brukman, via Infoshop News.
Sharon
ArabNews: Sharon Rebuffs Powell on Settlements "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday rejected any talk of dismantling Jewish settlements in the foreseeable future despite US calls for conciliatory gestures to advance a new Middle East peace plan. His remarks, underlining his rightist coalition’s objections to the peace “road map”, were in an interview published as he prepared for talks with the new Palestinian premier later this week and US President George W. Bush on May 20."
Death Toll Passes 3500
According to Iraq Body Count, over 3700 civilians were killed in the war.
Mother's Day
Mother's Day Proclamation, by Julia Ward Howe
Race and Reporting
Farai Chideya: AlterNet: When Is a Good Liar Better than a Good Reporter?
Race is always an issue; one that, if you live long enough, will work both for and against you. As America gets more diverse, the total number of black and of-color newspaper reporters has stagnated from year to year, in some cases dropping. The failure of America to have a truly integrated media does two things: 1) reinforces racial essentialism (i.e., all black reporters are held accountable for the sins of one; not so for whites) and 2) gives people who really want to play the race game a wide open field in which to do it.
Racial essentialism means that whites are thought of as having no race, and blacks (and to a lesser extent, other non-whites) are thought of as only seeing the world via race. This skewed perspective leads to the assumption that whites are "objective" when covering race (because they are somehow neutral, or raceless) and blacks are biased. It also means that white people don't have to apologize for famous plagarists like the Boston Globe's Mike Barnacle and Ruth Shalit (who penned a controversial article on race in the newsroom for The New Republic). Blacks apparently do.
Klein
Naomi Klein: Elections vs. Democracy in Argentina
On December 19 and 20, 2001, when Argentines poured into the streets banging pots and pans and telling their politicians, que se vayan todos, everyone must go, few would have predicted the current elections would come down to this: a choice between two symbols of the regime that bankrupted the country. Back then, Argentines could have been forgiven for believing that they were starting a democratic revolution, one that forced out President Fernando de la Rua and churned through three more presidents in twelve days.
The target of these mass demonstrations was the corruption of democracy itself, a system that had turned voting into a hollow ritual while the real power was outsourced to the International Monetary Fund, French water companies and Spanish telecoms--with local politicians taking their cut. Carlos Menem, though he had been out of office for two years, was the uprising's chief villain. Elected in 1989 on a populist platform, Menem did an about-face and gutted public spending, sold off the state and sent hundreds of thousands into unemployment.
When Argentines rejected those policies, it was hugely significant for the globalization movement. The events of December 2001 were seen in international activist circles as the first national revolt against neoliberalism, and "You are Enron, We are Argentina" was soon adopted as a chant outside trade summits.
The Russians
kuro5hin.org: Best war reporters: The Russians?
You see, Russians are monitoring all radio traffic over Iraq, and they have some fancy toys that give them a very clear picture of what's going on. But what's amazing is that they post their findings on the internet. I started reading these a few days ago with a "this is surely a hoax" attitude. Since then, I am convinced that it's the real thing. They predict division movements and tactics with devestating accuracy, and their analysis seems very well supported. One webpage, which takes a few minutes to read, contains far more information about the war than 4 hours of CNN.
Don't Lift the Sanctions Yet!
Rahul Mahajan: Don't Lift the Sanctions Yet!
ï¿ŠAfter five years spent working to end the sanctions on Iraq, I find myself in an odd position. I'm opposed to the current U.S. plans to end the sanctions. The new situation is fascinating. For a dozen years, every time we in the anti-sanctions movement talked about the suffering caused by the sanctions (well over 500,000 children under the age of five dead and a society in ruins), the constant refrain from the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration -- was that the suffering was not caused by sanctions but by the regime. Once the regime is destroyed, miraculously, the Bush administration realizes overnight that sanctions were actually harmful and that it's necessary to remove that burden from the Iraqi people in order to provide humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
Dykes
Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For is a great comic strip.