I'm just back from an enjoyable evening spent with our resident Kiwi-Frenchman and family.
10175. theDiva - 4/15/2000 12:17:53 PM
well, look at that Connor, will you? How is everyone, Irv? Tell all! Anything as exciting as the time you hurled Socko onto a moving train?
10176. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/15/2000 12:20:36 PM
No exciting stories yet, Diva, but the Connor clan was rather travel-weary. I'm sure some will develop as the week rolls on.
10177. PelleNilsson - 4/15/2000 4:52:59 PM
Funny. Alistair looks like his posts. Cool but intense, shall we say?
10178. stostosto - 4/15/2000 5:31:04 PM
Alistair looks smaller than I imagined. And much more French than I'd thought possible.
---
It seems things have been running pretty wild here (and at the New Thread Features thread) the last couple of days. I am sorry I haven't been able to be around much. And then again. To be honest, I am not sure I would have been all that eager to weigh in.
The thing is - and this may sound really corny, but it's actually true - I think all the individuals on all sides in that catfight are formidable people and I'd be loath to end up having to miss any one of them as a participant here over disagreements, real or perceived, topical, hosting policy-wise or personal. But the waves went so high it veered towards a show-down at times. A "This town ain't big enough for the two of us" kind of thing.
Well, I think it is plenty big for the - all told fairly limited - number of international Moties here, and then, hopefully, some. And I tend to think we should strive to make it bigger rather than smaller.
10179. Seguine - 4/15/2000 5:41:10 PM
"And much more French than I'd thought possible."
Boy, no kidding.
I had imagined him being sort of pale and bearded and vaguely Scottish with messy reddish-brown hair.
10180. stostosto - 4/15/2000 5:45:36 PM
He looks like the son of a Marseilleisian gangster who is beginning to have serious moral doubts about his father.
10181. PelleNilsson - 4/15/2000 6:31:35 PM
When I saw that pic of Alistair, some subconscious process started to ask "what actor does he remind me of?" Just now the gears clicked in: 
What do you say?
10182. PelleNilsson - 4/16/2000 3:36:15 PM
sto
Utter crap from the IHT
The last paragraphs:
The biggest, yet least voiced, anxiety about the Oresund link is that it will oblige Danes and Swedes to mix more closely with one another and bury age-old rivalries.
''The truth is, it isn't natural for a Dane to be nice to a Swede,'' said Mr. Moller, a Swede living in Copenhagen.
Or maybe it's true?
10183. stostosto - 4/16/2000 5:50:16 PM
These days I wonder if it's natural for Danes to be nice to anyone...
Wdo tend to behave idiotic towards Swedes in our self-perceived humorous way. I know several Swedes here in Copenhagen who have long since tired of hearing reruns of the same few 'witty' remarks.
But apart from that you're right. It's crap; especially the statement about "the biggest, yet least voiced anxiety". Actually I haven't detected any anxiety whatsoever over the bridge but lots of anticipation. But maybe that's just me.
10184. MrSocko - 4/16/2000 11:27:57 PM
I don't see how Connor can "look" French since to the best of my knowledge he isn't French. The two of us had lunch in Auckland in late 1998 (he paid, bless him) and I was struck by how Kiwi he is, except perhaps when it came to political issues. He seemed very involved when it came to left-wing politics; I, of course, largely live by a to-each-his-own philosophy. Still, I found it an enjoyable meeting.
10185. Jürgen Huber - 4/17/2000 3:38:42 AM
"He looks like the son of a Marseilleisian gangster who is beginning to
have serious moral doubts about his father."
You're a hoot, stostosto. Get it off your chest quickly before he comes back to his senses from his travel fatigue.
10186. stostosto - 4/17/2000 7:59:52 AM
MrSocko
Alistair is French - now. He announced his new citizenship a few weeks ago. (He may have retained his Kiwi one, I don't know whether that's an option at all).
Anyway, just because you don't happen to be French doesn't mean you can't look like one. Or vice versa. As I am sure you will realise once you have given it some thought.
In this country we had a foreign minister for 10½ years who looked indistinguishably like a Romanian chicken thief. 
UFFE ELLEMANN-JENSEN
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, born 1941. Former National chairman of Venstre, Liberal Party of Denmark and vice-president of European Liberal Party. Former Minister for Foreign Affairs (1982-93).
And yet, he isn't French...
10187. PelleNilsson - 4/17/2000 8:01:20 AM
sto has not observed Queen Margarethe's 60th birthday last Saturday. So I do it for him.
 |  |
From left two unknowns, Crown Princess Victoria, Queen Silvia and King Gustav. 10188. stostosto - 4/17/2000 8:16:24 AM
Thank you Pelle. It was yesterday, in fact(Sunday). Born April 16th 1940, exactly one week into the German occupation, her arrival was greeted as a spot of light in that dark time - or so the standard commentary goes.
She is immensely popular in this Lilliput kingdom, a fact that manifested itself by both our national TV stations transmitting non-stop from the same royal events for the whole weekend. ("What's on TV" "The Queen's birthday" "What's on the other channel?" "The Queen's birthday".(Yes, we do get a lot of foreign channels, plus some quasi-national and local crap ones, but we never watch those - especially not the foreign ones).
I saw the Swedish King's speech to her last night. It was quite amusing, really. He got the biggest laugh of the evening when he despondently said to her: "But, dear cousin [they are cousins]. When are you going to start giving up smoking?!"
She notoriously smokes like a chimney. And laughs it.
10189. PelleNilsson - 4/17/2000 8:34:45 AM
 The International Thread |
10190. stostosto - 4/17/2000 8:49:37 AM
...and then some!
10191. stostosto - 4/17/2000 8:50:34 AM
Pelle 'PP' Nilsson.
10192. stostosto - 4/17/2000 10:07:34 AM
Here is one for Rustler:
The end of a Jewish dream
The Financial Times reports from Israel, a special country debating whether to become a normal one - and how.
Excerpts:
"I often wonder if Israel will make it to its 75th birthday," says Kaufmann, a liberal conservative and committed Zionist who recalls the anti-Semitism of America's southern states where she grew up.
"As Jews living here, we are tearing ourselves apart. As peace negotiators, we will probably give away too much land to the Arabs. I've no idea what is going to happen to us. One thing is certain: the Zionist dream - the reason I came here in the first place to share in it - is over."
"Israel is in a state of conflict with itself as it tries to establish where it is going," said Kremnitzer [a law professor; sto]. "What is at stake is whether we want to be a society in which one part of the population, the Jewish majority, uses the Arab minority to its advantage. Or do we want to be a society that believes in an inclusive democracy, an inclusive citizenship? That is the question."
This sense of change, the sense that Israel is shifting from being a country under siege to becoming a normal country, is nowhere as strong as it is in the army. The days when it was the symbol of unity are over, said one senior officer. "An entirely new generation sees things differently. They want to live. They don't want wars. They don't want to fight. And they certainly don't want to die in combat."
The careers officer struggled to explain the radical shift in attitudes. "I suppose it's because society is becoming wealthier, becoming more individualistic, becoming more normal. In that sense, Zionism is over. We have built our state. The kids today just want peace. They don't want to fight for it."
10193. stostosto - 4/17/2000 10:15:40 AM
Actually, I wonder if one subtracts the universal lamenting of the older generation over the younger one's soft complacency, what is left that is truly new?
Perhaps the ruling of the Israeli high court against the Jewish Agency - a mainstay of Zionism - which refused to sell land to an Arab couple.
"The Qa'dans, characteristic of a younger generation of Arabs no longer prepared to accept Israel's "exclusive democracy", went to the courts. They questioned why Arab citizens, who comprise 20 per cent of the population, were prevented from buying land from the Jewish Agency, the Israel Lands Authority or the Jewish National Fund. Together, these organisations manage all state land -which amounts to 93 per cent of all Israel's land.
After five years of deliberations, the Supreme Court last month stunned the public with its ruling. It said the government had broken a law by allocating state-owned land to the Jewish Agency - the Zionist organisation charged with encouraging Jewish immigration to Israel - for the construction of a community that barred Arabs from building homes there. "
The article talks about extensive discrimination against the Arab minority in Israel. Something which, presumably, would have to go if Israel is to be normalised.
Rustler - where are you?
10194. PelleNilsson - 4/17/2000 12:55:18 PM
I just mailed Rustler and asked him to do me the big favour of coming back. We can only hope.
10195. Seguine - 4/17/2000 1:09:31 PM
"And yet, he isn't French..." (LOL)
Yes, but is he having moral doubts about his father?
The FT must be having a subscription drive because we've been receiving it free on the front stoop for the past week or so. So I saw that article about Israel. It sort of struck me as old news.
If one reads anything coming out of Israel, one knows this question (Jewish state vs. non-discriminatory democracy?) has been debated for a long time, and pretty hotly over at least the last ten years. It's also tied up tightly with the question of who qualifies as a Jew.
I hope Pike will come back and offer his take. (I will still refuse, however, to debate with him on the topic Why Feminism Is Vile.)
10196. stostosto - 4/17/2000 1:17:00 PM
Meanwhile we could talk about Italy. The parties of the governing coalition were hit by what some commentators call an electoral disaster yesterday in regional elections. In the North a new-formed alliance between Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the Lega Nord (which ostesibly renounced its previous demands of a split-up of the country) trounced the center-left parties which make up the present government.
Head of gov., Massimo d'Alema, is expected to resign, not because he is under immediate parliamantarian pressure to do so, but because it's seen as the only way he can avert further disaster in the next general election.
And he can do so in the comforting knowledge that his 16 months old government has already lasted 33% longer than the average post-war Italian government...
If anyone cares for an Italian commentary:
D'Alema in barca colpito e affondato
("D'Alema's boat is hit and sinking" - or something like that).
10197. stostosto - 4/17/2000 1:35:45 PM
Rustler also owes us all some heavy and heartfelt gloating over the Irving vs. Ipstadt verdict.
10198. stostosto - 4/17/2000 2:04:57 PM
Reuter's on the Italian elections:
Italy PM Looks Set to Offer Resignation
Perhaps more interesting than the (only too) possible resignation of an Italian government is this bit:
"Some members of the ruling coalition parties are opposed to a raft of referendums due to take place on May 21, in particular a move to scrap proportional representation in the electoral system backed by D'Alema. "
Changing Italy's electoral system to a full "First-past-the-post" one (instead of the present mix of PR and FPTP) should make for a profound change. Or, perhaps not. The Italians seem to exhibit a strange resistance to behavioral change no matter the institutional setup...
According to the Economist there are fairly persistent rumours that former PM Romano Prodi is contemplating a come-back to Italian politics from his present position as chairman of the European Commission where he is said to be frustrated by his narrow room of manoeuver. Prodi of course firmly denies.
But he may be back as early as June, the likely date for an early general election, should the President decide to call one.
10199. stostosto - 4/17/2000 4:10:52 PM
Reuter's on the Italian elections:
Italy PM Looks Set to Offer Resignation
Perhaps more interesting than the (only too) possible resignation of an Italian government is this bit:
"Some members of the ruling coalition parties are opposed to a raft of referendums due to take place on May 21, in particular a move to scrap proportional representation in the electoral system backed by D'Alema. "
Changing Italy's electoral system to a full "First-past-the-post" one (instead of the present mix of PR and FPTP) should make for a profound change. Or, perhaps not. The Italians seem to exhibit a strange resistance to behavioral change no matter the institutional setup...
According to the Economist there are fairly persistent rumours that former PM Romano Prodi is contemplating a come-back to Italian politics from his present position as chairman of the European Commission where he is said to be frustrated by his narrow room of manoeuver. Prodi of course firmly denies.
But he may be back as early as June, the likely date for an early general election, should the President decide to call one.
10200. stostosto - 4/17/2000 4:57:48 PM
Way back, I promised some substantiation of my claim that Danish perceptions of Germans overwhelmingly consists of stereotype rather than anything the Germans actually do or anything that actually goes on in that big neighbour country of ours. Also in support of my assertion that Germany is what I call an undernoticed country. I've dug out a Danish newspaper article to that effect.
Headline: "The eternal villain". Yes, Huber, that's you, you crooked German.
Roy Langer a German (from the East) living in Denmark, employed at the Copenhagen School of Business, has studied Danish media coverage of Germany.
(oops - gotta run... more to follow).
10201. stostosto - 4/17/2000 6:21:52 PM
Langer's analysis (which concerns the year of 1996 and is his Ph.D-thesis in the field of communication and cultural analysis) shows that reporting on sports and cars are the most frequent stories on Germany. It's not stories from people who follow developments on a daily basis like foregin affairs correspondents and political commentators. Sports stars like Steffi Graf and Boris Becker are mentioned most frequently while Helmut Kohl has to make do with a ranking as sixth. The most recurrent themes in the coverage is WWII and the German reunification. One big concern that year was the preservation of a special rule, a dispensation from general EU law, that allows Denmark to prohibit foreigners to buy Danish summer cabins. "Foreigners" in this case is almost identical to "Germans". Examples of headlines on this issueare: "German invasion"; "The Yellow Menace" [referring to the yellow raincoats that Germans are proverbially fond of - and have good use for in our summer climate]; "The Germans are coming"; and "Be prepared to defend". One TV journalist asked another talking head: "Is this, in your view, the 9th of April?", [referring to the date when Denmark was attacked and occupied in 1940]. One editorial quotes Nietzsce as saying that "love of one's neighbour is the desire for new property" and goes on to say: "And we five million Danes live on top of a wealthy German nation which soon will encompass 100 millioin people. These facts compel us to keep close watch on property relations in the border area".
(more...)
10202. stostosto - 4/17/2000 6:22:58 PM
(cont.)
Commentary on the unification was duly benign yet underlying preconceptions were often surfacing. "No neighbour country can in all decency object to a big, peaceful and democratic Germany, not officially at any rate. Legitimate discomfort only arises if a big, united Germany emerges which demands revision of borders and territorial extension - Lebensraum". This statement was made in 1990 by a then leading social democratic opposition politician named Ms. Ritt Bjerregaard. She was later to be appointed commissioner for the environment in the EU commission. Now she is back and has recently been made minister for food (agriculture and fishery).
Langer, the German scholar, is obviously taken aback by the use of the term ‘Lebensraum' which he says is a ‘non-word' in Germany. (He is barely able to breathe the word, according to the article).
Completing the stereotype is the image of German ‘solidity', effeciency, workaholism, conservatism. A country clinging to an old industrial age type of culture. No points for any German software design, or sophisticated fashion, or design. Germans are allowed to be good at big, efficient technical machines, like cars and machine tools. In football, the German national team is often referred to as "the German football machine". (At this point, the female journalist injects a remark that she bought a pair of fancy elegant sandal which, upon the subsequent discovery of them being German-made, she suddenly found to be somewhat clumsy). According to Langer the image of the hard-working Germans is not true at all, by the way. (He points to statistics showing the Germans top the league in absenteeism due to unspecified, i.e. dubious, sickness).
(more...)
10203. stostosto - 4/17/2000 6:24:18 PM
Langer points to the blatant absence of reporting on German youth and sub-cultures, everyday culture, modern culture, education, R&D, and the integration of foreigners. When foreigners in Germany are reported on, it's not the German experience of integrating many, many more immigrants than what is the case in Denmark - even relatively speaking. It's focused on Neo-Nazi hatemongering and the like. (In a country, it is added, which harbours a successful xenophobic which routinely issues statements that would be at odds with the German constitution).
Langer: "I think it's remarkable that there is no feeling of kinship at all with one of the closest neighbours".
He notes that he hasn't studied the coverage of other countries and thinks it likely that e.g. the coverage of France would be equally burdened with simplistic stereotyping. He also doesn't believe that stereotyping should be somehow outlawed. He just wants more variations to the picture. "So that Frankfurt am Main is not only known for its skyscraper banks but also for its 30% foreigners; and that the well-established image of Mercedes and Miele be supplemented by the annual Berliner Love Parade."
(I don't really know about that last bit - I mean, there is one off-shoot to the stereotype of hardworking, efficient, unberably clean-cut Germans: The idea of a disturbing kinkiness... You know the old Dire Straits song Les Boys?)
(My source for the article on Langer's Ph.D-thesis: Weekend-avisen, March 24th 2000).
(end).
10204. stostosto - 4/17/2000 6:30:39 PM
Oops:
(In a country, it is added, which harbours a successful xenophobic party which routinely issues statements that would be at odds with the German constitution).
10205. Jürgen Huber - 4/18/2000 4:34:46 AM
"Actually, I wonder if one subtracts the universal lamenting of the older
generation over the younger one's soft complacency, what is left that
is truly new? " (on the FT article on Israel)
Same thought here. Not much, i think.
"Headline: "The eternal villain". Yes, Huber, that's you, you crooked
German"
NOW i'm interested.
"The
Yellow Menace" [referring to the yellow raincoats that Germans are
proverbially fond of - "
That's hilarious- and i never heard of it! Probably that it's been a quarter of a century ago that i spent my holidays in one of these countless holidays houses along the shore near Esbjerg.
I faintly remember an article in the Economist one or two years ago on prejudices and stereotypes about the Germans in the UK. I think it had to do with one of those regular brouhahas in the Yellow Press à la "The Huns are coming" (lately there's a lot of justified outrage regarding the way BMW treats newly-bought Rover, now that will serve to preserve some prejudices for a few more years). Basically the Economist denied that the Brits had a more negative attitude towards the Germans than the Germans have towards the Brits. But the way the article presented some statistics i got the feeling that some stereotypes are alive and kicking.
Somebody upthread wrote that the similarity and closeness of Germany and Denmark as well as the size of Denmark does a lot to explain why Germany is "undernoticed" and not in very high regard there. I agree. And even if we now pride ourselves to have become more peaceful and less militaristic (after how many wars?) it is still easy to see why Germany by its mere size and economic power remains a potential threat.
It scares quite a few Germans too, you know.
10206. Jürgen Huber - 4/18/2000 4:35:48 AM
'The Yellow Menace'. ROFL, that is such a wonderful and appropriate image. In German those raincoats are jokingly called "Friesennerze" (Nerz = mink) and i think i last owned one during these holidays in Denmark!
10207. stostosto - 4/18/2000 4:52:45 AM
He he. Huber: Did you also sport a navy blue sailor's cap?
10208. Jürgen Huber - 4/18/2000 6:24:22 AM
Nope. Never. I swear.
(Don't expect me normally to immediately check back in for responses. I'm mostly a once-a-day forum guy.)
Buy. See you tomorrow, i hope.
10209. marjoribanks - 4/18/2000 8:38:06 AM
Hello fellows,
nice to see the place hopping, and our favorite Swede still taking his lumps. Don't have anything much to say, since i've been in India for two weeks - but someone may want to find a Stern cover article from a couple of weeks ago highlighting a very interesting quasi-xenophpobic anti-Indian "movement" in germany because someone suggested that the country import Indian computer programmers. Some German politician made the statement -"Children, not Indians" which has pissed off my countrymen no end.
see you all later.
10210. marjoribanks - 4/18/2000 8:45:57 AM
Oh, here's an article about the flap.
10211. stostosto - 4/18/2000 8:50:06 AM
Yes, Marj, the slogan's very catchy in German:
Kinder statt Inder!
But what do you mean by this:
"Don't have anything much to say, since i've been in India for two weeks "
???
I think it interesting no end that that brain-dead German politicking is pissing off Indians no end. Because I haven't heard a thing about Indian reactions.
---
Incidentally, the corollary to your statement seems to be that I have lots to say since I've been sitting here on my ass for those same two weeks. (Which is true, actually, but still).
10212. marjoribanks - 4/18/2000 8:56:47 AM
Well, sto, the only news of interest to me and every other indian at the moment is the stunning revelation that the South African cricket captain has admitted fixing matches featuring his country. The can of worms this has opened up is ataggering, it appears that virtually every cricket side has been involved. Since cricket is more than pastime - it's religion - in the subcontinent, the news has been absolutely devastating.
10213. marjoribanks - 4/18/2000 8:59:05 AM
10214. ScottLoar - 4/18/2000 9:06:29 AM
A strange current to prod Banks from his shell I think.
10215. ScottLoar - 4/18/2000 9:08:04 AM
I mean, how shall we revile the South Africans? Like the German footballers who cheat and when found out admit it is but part of the game, or like the Italians who are outraged at being discovered?
10216. RustlerPike - 4/18/2000 12:08:36 PM
Did you guys notice that the ruling re: Arabs buying land in Jewish settlements was in regard to my home village of Katzir? We are quite in the center of things here. Yours truly was even interviewed on the subject by Dutch Channel 2 recently!
10217. PelleNilsson - 4/18/2000 2:59:09 PM
Good to see you Rustler!
I think sto referred to this buying of land earlier but I didn't understand the issue. Can you explain in a few words?
10218. Seguine - 4/18/2000 3:40:17 PM
"Did you guys notice that the ruling re: Arabs buying land in Jewish settlements was in regard to my home village of Katzir?"
I did! Was hoping you'd show up and tell us what the local reaction was like.
10219. stostosto - 4/18/2000 4:33:02 PM
I knew it! The Dutch get all the best TV.
Rustler da hustler: Welcome back!
10220. uzmakk - 4/18/2000 5:18:45 PM
I always tune in when Pike shows up.
10221. uzmakk - 4/18/2000 5:31:03 PM
i.e. I always pay attention when Pike posts.
10222. arkymalarky - 4/18/2000 5:57:40 PM
Hey RP!
My Russian student told a Stalin joke today. Excuse if you internationals have already heard it.
Stalin was speaking to a large number of his staff, and all were sitting in perfect, tense silence, when suddenly someone sneezed.
Stalin stopped immediately and demanded to know who did it. No one responded, so he had the first row of people removed and shot. He asked again and still no one responded, so he had the second row taken out and shot. When he asked the third row, a man said, "I'm sorry, I'm the one who sneezed," to which Stalin replied "Bless you," and then continued with the meeting.
10223. stostosto - 4/18/2000 6:12:15 PM
arky
Much as I appreciate politeness, you don't have to apologise in advance when telling a joke. Not even here in the eurocentricelitist thread.
And no I hadn't heard it before. It's the kind of joke that would probably have earned one a (shortened) lifetime in the Gulag in Stalin's days, I suppose.
Does your Russian student also tell jokes of Yeltsin and Putin?
10224. arkymalarky - 4/18/2000 7:33:37 PM
Thanks Sto. I just don't want to seem too far out of the International loop. That joke might be to the folks of this thread what all the Clinton jokes are to me (not that it bothers me to hear them over and over).
She doesn't have any jokes about either of them, but she has no fondness for Yeltzin. She seems to like Putin, but I haven't gotten a chance to discuss with her why.
10225. Jürgen Huber - 4/19/2000 4:29:03 AM
"from a couple of weeks ago highlighting a very interesting quasi-xenophpobic anti-Indian "movement" in germany because someone suggested that the country import Indian computer programmers. Some German politician made the statement -"Children, not Indians" which has pissed off my countrymen no end. (Marjoribanks)
That someone who suggested it was Schröder, the German chancellor, at the CEBIT, biggest IT fair in the world as far as i know. I don't think it will remain a suggestion but will put into practice but until that happens a lot more German xenophobia will air.
The one who came up with the catchy "Kinder statt Inder" was Rüttgers from the CDU, who has an election to win and since his fellow Christian conservative Roland Koch in Hesse was wildly successful last year with another (even more outrageous imo) xenophobic campaign against the reform immigration law (mainly to make it easier for second and third-generation Turks to become Germans) and won the election in Hesse.
That was horrible to see that abominable campaign to prove successful in the election. But i think Rüttger's "Kinder statt Inder" will backfire, if not in the election next month than in the longer run. The most amazing thing is that Rüttgers was minister of science under Kohl, so he knows full well how dearly Germany needs specialists- because his own politics failed.
Alas it pays too often to cater to the lowest instincts. At least in Germany.
10226. marjoribanks - 4/19/2000 10:18:31 AM
Odd subcon image of the day. No extra points for guessing where it comes from.
10227. marjoribanks - 4/19/2000 10:30:44 AM
Interesting article from the FEER on Malaysian Indians here. Any comments?
10228. cmboyce - 4/19/2000 10:46:11 AM
Message # 10226: Can I get any points for asking where it came from? Is it a response to the recent murders, etc., or a traditional affair?
BTW, nice to see you Marj. We've both been away, lately. And I know that, in addition to India, you have your little hoopster-in-waiting to deal with. How's it going?
Unfortunately, I have to leave now, to be back God knows when, but I wanted to say hello.
10229. PelleNilsson - 4/19/2000 10:49:35 AM
marj
Nice to see you again!
10230. PelleNilsson - 4/19/2000 10:50:51 AM
You too, of course, Mr Boyce.
10231. marjoribanks - 4/19/2000 12:46:40 PM
Greetings to you too Pelle and Boyce.
The photograph is of traditional Lenten celebrations in Goa. My ancestral church (400+ yrs old) also features a carrying of a massive cross like the one depicted. Though this one is from a different village.
10232. PelleNilsson - 4/19/2000 4:52:15 PM
Tomorrow morning my wife and I will be off for the summer cottage we haven't seen for nine months. One must hope the winter storms have not done too much damage.
I will not bring the laptop. See you Monday.
10233. MrSocko - 4/19/2000 4:58:19 PM
Hey marjoribanks, what are you feeling about your pinup boy Mugabe now that he and the other racist dolts have revealed their grand economic master plan for Rhodesia?
10234. stostosto - 4/19/2000 4:58:44 PM
God påske, Pelle!
10235. pseudoerasmus - 4/19/2000 9:33:57 PM
I don't want to post this in the Language thread, but has anyone read the review of Tmachine's brother's book in the latest Foreign Affairs? It's a short review, but quite scathing.
10236. PincherMartin - 4/19/2000 9:44:25 PM
No, can you link it?
10237. stostosto - 4/20/2000 8:31:13 AM
Foreign Affairs is only partly online - in fact they have only small appetisers. It's quite maddening since they feature many highly interesting articles which could form good basis for discussions here. But here is the table of contents of the current issue.
This is the blurb it gives:
SORTING OUT THE BALKANS Ivo Banac
Two new books on Kosovo and a massive history of the Balkans try to make sense of a troubled region -- with wildly mixed results.
(Pincher: How do you do that nifty HTML tabulation trick of yours?)
10238. PincherMartin - 4/20/2000 11:38:38 AM
Sto --
My tabular skills have been underutilized lately. I'm afraid you are on your own.
10239. marjoribanks - 4/20/2000 5:17:34 PM
Very interesting series of articles on the topic here.
10240. CalGal - 4/20/2000 5:22:04 PM
Have you tried HTML hints? I just checked--the Table link doesn't work (sorry), but you can just scroll down to it.
10241. stostosto - 4/20/2000 7:44:30 PM
marj
I am reading Rushdie due to you; see message in Books
10242. LadyChaos - 4/20/2000 8:08:21 PM
Uh-oh. Great Britain looks set to adopt tough civil forfeiture laws. A very huge mistake being made by a government that has bought Clinton's cynicism lock, stock, and barrel.
10243. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 6:16:38 AM
I just returned from an interesting event.
The occasion was a visit by Indonesian VP Megawati Soekarnoputri to officially open the school my son attends here in Bali.
The most interesting aspect was not the event itself, but the entourage acccompanying Mega. Her entourage outnumbered the invited guests, and filled the front three-quarters of the auditorium (leaving the guests to the rear one-third, far from the action).
The event was originally scheduled for tonight, but was moved to the afternoon to fit Mega's busy schedule. In her entourage were the Supreme Military Commander of the East Indonesia Region, Gen. Kiki Syahnakri (a name well known for his role in East Timor last year), the Governor of Bali, Dewa Made Brata, the Director General of Higher Education and the Director General of Private Schools from the Ministry of Education (the Minister himself was unable to attend, though he had been expected), the Rector of Udayana University, and about 50 other officials and military big-wigs of various types, as well as a large contingent from the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the Australian Consulate here. Former Ambassador to Australia (and former editor of The Jakarta Post) Sabam Siagian was also an unexplained no-show, though he was scheduled to give an address.
[continued]
10244. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 6:18:01 AM
There was nothing memorable about Mega's speech, as she served up a few platitudes and spoke for less than 5 minutes. Of more interest was the speech by Les Rowe, the Charge D'Affaires of the Australian Embassy, who filled in for the ambassador, who was unable to attend. Rowe mentioned the difficulties between the two countries in the past tense, and said that Australia strongly supports everything the current government is doing. He applauded the educational cooperation between the two nations, and pointed out that there are 9000 Indonesian students in Australia (compare that to 70,000 Indonesians in the USA), and that 200,000 Australians are currently studying the Indonesian language in Australia, a figure which impressed me (I'd guess there are no more than 500 Americans studying the language in the USA).
After her speech, Mega signed an official plaque, made a quick tour of the school, planted a Banyan tree in the school courtyard, and banged a gong to make everything official, then hurried off to her next appointment.
Of course, I had my trusty digital camera along, and took some photos. Here they are... less than two hours old (as I post this)...
10245. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 6:24:21 AM
Mega giving her short speech. She spoke in Indonesian, although she showed that her English is not bad at all in casual remarks among the guests afterwards. My son had a chance to speak to her, though I didn't have the opportunity. One interesting aspect of her speech was that she opened the speech with the traditional Islamic speech-opening formula (no surprise) and followed with the traditional Balinese Hindu formula (highly unusual for a Muslim or a government official). 
Mega planting a Banyan tree, a national symbol of strength, protection, and longevity. Unfortunately, this photo does not show Mega's best side.
10246. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 6:27:33 AM
Mega banging the gong to officially open the school. Nothing is official in Indonesia until the gong has sounded (it may be of interest to note here that the English word "gong" was originally borrowed from Javanese). 
Gen. Kiki Syahnakri being interviewed by the Indonesian press. Of the three Australians who welcomed him officially on the stage, not one got his name right.
10247. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 6:33:25 AM
No building is official in Indonesia without one of these plaques. And the higher-ranking the person who signs it, the better. Here in Bali, there is no more prestigious person to have inaugurate your building than Megawati. The road to the school today was blocked to all but invited vehicles (fortunately, I had a pass), and was lined with crowds of cheering people awaiting Mega. 
The sign reads: "With the grace of the one and only God, The Australian International School is officially opened by the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Bali, 22 April 2000."
10248. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 11:48:36 AM
I just realized I forgot to post my best picture of Mega from this afternoon's festivities. 
10249. CalGal - 4/22/2000 12:02:25 PM
Hey, that last one came out very nicely. Nice report.
10250. CalGal - 4/22/2000 12:02:58 PM
And my overuse of "nice" can be attributed to 60+ hours of work this week, and I'm still at work right now.
10251. stostosto - 4/22/2000 1:00:45 PM
Nice work, Cal.
10252. stostosto - 4/22/2000 1:03:39 PM
Thanks for the report Irving. I guess these close-range photos convincingly demonstrate your V.I.P. status in Indonesia, right?
10253. ScottLoar - 4/22/2000 1:38:59 PM
Gen. Kiki Syahnakri being interviewed by the Indonesian press. Of the three Australians who welcomed him officially on the stage, not one got his name right. Simply inexcusable. I myself have great difficulty remembering names and as I must make great effort to get them right I have next to no tolerance for those who do not.
10254. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/22/2000 1:51:29 PM
ScottLoar:
All three were reading from prepared texts. They were simply unable to pronounce "Syahnakri," and evidently hadn't asked anyone how to pronounce it. Not that it's a hard name to pronounce ("shah-NAHK-ree"). It wasn't the only name the Aussies messed up. My wife and I sat in the audience mouthing the correct pronunciations for many of the names. At least they all got Megawati's name correct.
Les Rowe, the Charge D'Affaires at the Australian Embassy, apologized (in horrendous Indonesian) for his inability to speak the language. He later mentioned that 200,000 Australians are studying Indonesian. Perhaps one of those can be appointed as the next Charge D'Affaires.
Sto:
I guess these close-range photos convincingly demonstrate your V.I.P. status in Indonesia, right?
No, they demonstrate that it was a very small crowd, and my abilities to push through a crowd (an ability Mr. Socko can attest to). I take my duties as the Mote reporter on Indonesian affairs seriously, and if a few Australians had to get trampled over in the process of bringing you this report, so be it.
10255. stostosto - 4/23/2000 11:38:02 AM
Irv:
I guess I should send those down-besnodgrassed Australians flowers on behalf of the Mote.
10256. stostosto - 4/23/2000 11:40:33 AM
...and thank you for the exquisite photo reportage. I like the one where Mega plants the tree.
10257. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 1:36:22 PM
By the way, it's often said that the USA imprisons more people than any other country. But apparently that's not true according to the number per 100 000 population. In ascending order of the data:
208 USA
216 Austria
226 Costa Rica
230 Botswana
247 Lithuania
248 Lesotho
248 Mauritius
251 Kyrgyzstan
260 El Salvador
260 Madagascar
263 Hong Kong
272 Norway
278 Maldives
283 Sudan
289 Denmark
302 Estonia
302 Malaysia
314 Brunei
419 Canada
419 Sri Lanka
440 Zambia
462 South Africa
528 Qatar
536 Guyana
631 Singapore
768 Latvia
931 Chile
967 Swaziland
1538 Russia
(source for 1994 figures)
10258. CalGal - 4/23/2000 1:46:33 PM
Jeez, Sto. Y'all are a bit extreme, don't you think?
Of course, the US lowers its numbers by killing some of their murderers off. So maybe we should bump ours up to 208.000023.
10259. stostosto - 4/23/2000 4:28:41 PM
It's an interesting statistic, and I'd like nothing better than to give you an exclusive insight into, a revelation even, of the little-known, and hitherto mysteriously well-hidden dark nature of Danes (or, if you like it that way, of the brutish Danish police state).
But, I think the explanation is probably more straightforward: There is something wrong about the statistic. So I checked an official statistical reference source (Statistisk Tiårsoversigt 1999).
If we look at the average daily number of inmates of 1994, the figure is 3,627. The pop. for that year is 5.197m yielding an incarceration rate of 69.8 per 100,000 pop.
International comparison statistics are frequently flawed. Everybody who is serious about such things knows that, but often when a body such as the UNDP, (or the OECD or the EU, or the IMF, or the World Bank) puts in work and guesstimates to compile a statistic, it's the best one available and is used as authoritative.
It may well be the most authoritative, but that doesn't mean the statistics are always credible.
(I don't know how the UNDP figure is arrived at, btw, my computer choked on that link).
10260. stostosto - 4/23/2000 4:33:44 PM
But it's interesting to note that Norway is also at the bottom end (though subpassed by Denmark) and that together with Austria and Canada (?!) they are the only OECD countries below the US level.
10261. CalGal - 4/23/2000 4:37:15 PM
Yeah, yeah. When in doubt, say the stats are wrong.
BTW, I met an interesting person from TT the other day. She and her husband live in Bolivia, although they are from the southeast US somewhere. I invited her over here--she seems to be the shy sort, so she may not come. But if she shows up, be nice.
10262. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 4:41:14 PM
There sure is something fishy about these stats. Does anyone seriously believe that Canada imprisons twice as many per 100,000 pop as the US?
CalGal?
10263. CalGal - 4/23/2000 4:44:29 PM
Pelle,
Oh, I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if it were true, though. Y'all have these little countries, but a crook's a crook.
I'm just teasing you, though. Even if it were true, it doesn't make us any less the uncivilized barbarians. We like it that way.
10264. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 4:49:12 PM
Everybody who is serious about such things knows that, but often when a body such as the UNDP, (or the OECD or the EU, or the IMF, or the World Bank) puts in work and guesstimates to compile a statistic, it's the best one available and is used as authoritative.
Oh, please. We're not talking about data for Afghanistan or Rwanda. If some twit sitting in Coppershaven could find the statistic, so could even the drunks at the UN.
There sure is something fishy about these stats. Does anyone seriously believe that Canada imprisons twice as many per 100,000 pop as the US?
A fine example of logic. Nilsson uses stereotype to judge the validity of data, rather than some counter-data (like Sto). As though Nilsson knew something about American and Canadian prison populations.
10265. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 4:58:42 PM
No, PE, I know nothing about those. It's that rare but sometimes helpful endowment called common sense that leads me to query whether Canada really is twice as likely to imprison its citizens than is the US.
10266. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 4:59:50 PM
In the face of complete ignorance, to which you've admitted, common sense is nothing more than prejudice.
10267. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:08:42 PM
Pseuder:
Worse mistakes have been made by stat people at the UN and other int'l org's, whether drunk or not.
Danish media knows no quicker way to a scoop than take some 'sensational' international comparison stat and fret about Denmark's worrying position. Often, if you seriously try to delve into such a matter, the story vanishes between one's hands. A recent example known to me is a stat about labour market integration of immigrants. There was a big story a couple months ago about an OECD compilation placing Denmark at the very bottom of the list of countries least likely to offer jobs to foreigners. I thought this interesting because I was making a small report on this subject at the time. But when I looked into it, it was one table buried in a major reference source on migration; not anything resembling an analysis.
And when I asked in the Danish Ministry for Labour, they said that they were not sure how the OECD got that figure at all, and that there are other stats telling different stories. (Admittedly, the ministry has its own agenda, but they did provide what you call counter data).
10268. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 5:09:03 PM
Do you think the figures are correct?
10269. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:11:20 PM
That story, of course, is as much about the media's use of statistics as it's about the OECD's statisticians...
10270. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 5:16:30 PM
Stostosto: I first try to attribute conflicts between data to differences in methodology or definitions. When I've ruled that out, I think it's fine to start talking about mistakes.
10271. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 5:16:36 PM
#10268 was for PE.
10272. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:17:52 PM
Pelle #10232: Are you back early from the cabin? Was it completely gone with the wind so you resolved to go home right away? Or did you bring your laptop anyway? (And what did your wife think of that?)
10273. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 5:17:54 PM
But it's hard to believe that data which are as easy to get as Canadian, American and Danish prison populations could be so vastly mistaken. Pelle's nothing-but-prejudice might be fit for talking about data regarding Kyrgyzstan.
10274. TabouliJones - 4/23/2000 5:20:25 PM
I have to admit my immediate response to the chart posted by PE was similar to Pelle's. I went to the Statistics Canada webpage and found a statistic indicating that, in 1997, the total inmate population in Canada (in both federal and provincial institutions) was 32 970. A low estimate of Canada's population in 1997 would be 25 million people -- which would make it 130 inmates per 100 000 people. So, the number quoted by PE's source would seem to be high for Canada. However, I did not really check the site all that closely to see if its methods were all that exacting. Nor, am equipped to quibble with statistical surveys or speak authoritatively about the reliability of various sources. The numbers could have been guestimates from all that I can fathom. If you wish to check out this source, go to http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/State/justic.htm#cri then scroll down and check out the links "Inmates in federal custody . . ." and "Inmates in provincial custody . . ."
10275. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:20:44 PM
PE: That's a wise strategy, but it wasn't available to me in this instance as the link didn't work. And please note that I said "The explanation is probably more straightforward".
You have NOTHING on me that will stand up in court!
10276. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 5:21:45 PM
sto
The forecast was for rain today (and it was right) so we cut the visit short. To our relief there was only some minor damage from the storms, easily fixed.
10277. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 5:22:28 PM
Pelle should volunteer to go check the US and Canadian statistics, just to see.
10278. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 5:28:23 PM
PE
It seems TabouliJones just relieved me from that task.
10279. CalGal - 4/23/2000 5:30:43 PM
I wonder if Sto and TJ's numbers are for those that are in jail for the whole year?
10280. TabouliJones - 4/23/2000 5:33:55 PM
From the Stats Can. explanation of their numbers:
"Average counts until 1993 were based on 52 weekly counts. In 1993, the count is based on a snapshot taken on March 31."
So no, it would appear that the Stats Can. data does not include just inmates who were in prison for the entire year.
10281. CalGal - 4/23/2000 5:35:18 PM
I was just wondering if the discrepancy could be explained by short-term imprisonments. But apparently not.
10282. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:36:46 PM
PE #10273:
But it's hard to believe that data which are as easy to get as Canadian, American and Danish prison populations could be so vastly mistaken. Pelle's nothing-but-prejudice might be fit for talking about data regarding Kyrgyzstan
Yes, it's hard to believe, but again, it has been known to happen. Another example - which is typical of the pitfalls in international comparisons - was an EU statistic some years ago comparing housing standards. Denmark came out at the very bottom, i.e. all the (poorer) EU countries in (warmer) Southern Europe had more rooms per dweller than in well-off freezing Denmark. Odd.
It turned out that the Danish way of counting housing excluded bathrooms and kitchens from the number of rooms in a dwelling, whereas other countries didn't, and that once you controlled for this, Denmark was near the top (as you'd expect from a country which has a time-honoured record of subsidising both private and public housing).
This was only established after the Danish Association of Constructors had been up in arms about the miserable Danish housing standards, and how the government had to take drastic measures to boost investment in housing in order to close the scandalous 'housing gap' with other EU countries.
10283. CalGal - 4/23/2000 5:38:21 PM
Actually, I was just at Time Magazine for something else (avoiding work, among other things--will this system never be built?) and found this:
For years, America's persistently falling crime rates have baffled the nation's policy wonks. The head-scratching can stop, because it's all been explained by a revelation Thursday from the Justice Department: There's no one left to commit crimes — everyone has been stuffed into prison. In part, of course, we jest; the figures, though, are serious. According to the DOJ's calculations, the U.S. adult prison population reached record levels in 1999; jails housed 1.86 million people last year, or one of every 147 citizens. That makes America, which in 1985 had less than 800,000 people behind bars, the most jail-happy nation in the world, edging out Russia, the former front-runner.
I have no idea how to translate these stats into the same format that PE used, but it looks a bit contradictory.
10284. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 5:40:51 PM
# 10282
But that's a legitimate, if inadvertent, difference in the method of counting. I mean, maybe Danes shit a lot more than Greeks and Italians.
There must be some perfectly logical explanation. I can't find any definitions, though.
10285. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 5:42:52 PM
Well, if you look at US figures for 1994, the UN figures (also for 1994) for the USA are approximately correct.
10286. TabouliJones - 4/23/2000 5:43:25 PM
Well that would make about 680 inmates per 100 000 people. But, who knows. I'm sure to make a proper comparison between countries you would need to cull all of your numbers using one consistent methodology.
10287. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 5:44:00 PM
PE
Upthread you asked about tables. It can be done directly in HTML but that's incredibly tedious. But it can also be done using the "Save as HTML" feature in Excel. It's a bit roundabout, though. I'm off to bed now but I'll post in Try the Mote tomorrow. This will include how to publish Excel charts in the Mote.
10288. TabouliJones - 4/23/2000 5:44:24 PM
That last post was to CalGal.
10289. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:45:41 PM
CalGal
The Danish figure is for the average daily number of inmates, i.e. the number of prisoners serving time on a given day. The total number of imprisonments (everything included) is 35,708. If you use this number as an indicator, the Danish figure for 1994 is 687 per 100,000 pop. (Unfortunately it doesn't give a number close to the one in Pseuder's table; otherwise that could have been a possible explanation for the discrepancy...)
10290. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 5:45:42 PM
on the other hand, the us data seem to distinguish between "inmates" and "prisoners", so I'm not sure whether the UN figure matches the US figure.
nilsson, I did not ask you about tables. I know how to do tables.
10291. CalGal - 4/23/2000 5:47:23 PM
It was Sto who asked about HTML, I think.
PE, I wasn't posting that data to contradict you; I just saw it and thought it seemed pertinent.
10292. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 5:50:58 PM
PE
Yes, as CalGal says, it was sto who asked. Sorry about that.
10293. stostosto - 4/23/2000 5:55:32 PM
Pelle
I asked Pincher about tabulation upthread. He, and CalGal too I think, thought I meant tables so that may be the question about tables that you thought someone had asked. I didn't mean to ask about tables, though - I wanted to know how Pincher does that neat thing when he aligns a text block in the middle of a post to the right of the standard margin. (Isn't that called tabulation? If not that, then what?)
10294. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 6:00:28 PM
sto
I think it's called 'indentation'.
10295. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2000 6:12:00 PM
sto
Example:
I asked Pincher about tabulation upthread. He, and CalGal too I think, thought I meant tables so that may be the question about tables that you thought someone had asked. I didn't mean to ask about tables, though - I wanted to know how Pincher does that neat thing when he aligns a text block in the middle of a post to the right of the standard margin. (Isn't that called tabulation? If not that, then what?)
Syntax:
<_blockquote_> (whatever font formatting you want) text to be quoted<_/blockquote_>
Remove underscores.
10296. CalGal - 4/23/2000 6:16:43 PM
Yes, it's indentation.
BTW, you can eliminate the need for underscores by using the gt/lt form for angle brackets. &_lt and &_gt (eliminate underscores in this example, of course)
<then put in what you like>
10297. stostosto - 4/23/2000 6:18:44 PM
Pelle:
Remove underscores.
I did. That was easy. Thank you.
10298. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 6:22:59 PM
The BBC has a slim but still interesting series on " 10299. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 6:23:14 PM
I guess our thread hosts have decided to completely forsake the idea of summarising world events on a regular basis and decide to focus on Scandinavian trivia?
shit
10300. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 6:24:00 PM
Brazil at 500, a very controversial celebration of the Portuguese "discovery" of Brazil.
10301. stostosto - 4/23/2000 6:58:38 PM
Pseuder
We haven't decided to stop summarising world events. We have just stopped. (It's bloody time consuming...)
As to focusing on Scandi trivia, well... That's probably what we do best. But I am always glad to welcome your often interesting contributions.
10302. stostosto - 4/23/2000 7:13:34 PM
Regarding Brazil, that far away country of which we Scandies know very little, I half-heard a radio programme about a huge operation that the Brazilian authorities for indigenous people had been running for decades. This agency whose official objective was to protect native Amazon inhabitants had not only systematically plundered and exploited the indians; they had also massacred them in horrible numbers, not shying away from attacking villagers with fighter aircraft.
This was found out by a commission which submitted a huge and detailed report documenting countless atrocities plus a well-organised business operation enriching the officers and bureaucrats in charge. There was a huge scandal, and a purge of at least some of the people responsible.
My understanding was that this took place some twenty years ago. Perhaps others here have heard about this. Like I said, I had my attention at other things as this radio programme was on (sorry).
10303. stostosto - 4/23/2000 7:16:23 PM
Sorry about the first paragraph in my last post. It's a quote from that BBC piece PE linked.
10304. robertjayb - 4/23/2000 11:12:46 PM
.
What it means to be Canadian
North of the border, Canadians have at long last found something to rally 'round. Something that makes them swell with patriotic pride and cheer themselves hoarse. Something that taps into the very essence of their national identity.
A beer commercial...
10305. sakonige - 4/23/2000 11:51:08 PM
Message # 10300
I believe this is the first such massive demonstration by indigenous people in Brazil. Exciting changes are taking place in Latin American Indians' perception of their role in contemporary society. Most native leaders probably come from traditionally communal villages and will tend to be far to the left politically. Their increasing influence will pull governments throughout Latin American to the left.
10306. pseudoerasmus - 4/23/2000 11:54:13 PM
Hahahaha.
10307. ilyavinarsky - 4/23/2000 11:54:58 PM
Pseuder, what do you think of my picture of the Ukrainian economy?
10308. sakonige - 4/24/2000 12:06:38 AM
I think it would increase the polical influence of Indians throughout the region for Toledo to win the presidential election in Peru this summer.
10309. stostosto - 4/24/2000 7:17:36 AM
rjb
That's quite funny. And the Canadian way of distinguishing themselves - by what they are not - sounds familiar to me. I think it's the most common, perhaps the only?, way of building a national identity. Only Canadians probably have to look a little closer than most to see what it really is that is different about them. (The pronunciation of 'Z'...!)
Apart from Quebec, that is. If only the Quebecois weren't so damn French-minded in their heads, Canadians at large would probably tout this enclave as what Canada is all about...
10310. marjoribanks - 4/24/2000 8:54:31 AM
I've skimmed the BBC link on Brazil at 500, and fail to see what is so controversial about the evnts that took place? The protests of the indigenous? In fact, in my opinion, the presence of the Portuguese officials is what is controversial.
The CNCPD (?) a Portuguese semi-governmental organization set up to commemorate the centuries-old "discoveries" tried to pull of similar festivities in India last year. They were roundly rebuffed, denounced by both government and people, and had to settle for a sober funereal little gathering in Calicut. Even that was marked by protestors.
The fact is that while the event of the Portuguese landings should perhaps be remembered at these anniversaries, there is precious little to celebrate.
10311. Adrianne - 4/24/2000 9:29:27 AM
Does anyone know why these folks
10312. Adrianne - 4/24/2000 9:31:09 AM
(excuse me)
CONT: were taken hostage?
10313. marjoribanks - 4/24/2000 9:31:53 AM
Is that a riddle? If so, the answer is - Commies.
10314. marjoribanks - 4/24/2000 9:36:47 AM
Idly, I found the CNCDP homepage. Note it has nothing highlighting the Vasco da Gama trip or anything particular from Asia. This is because the only countries which collaborated in their activities were Cabo Verde and Brazil, as far as I know.
10315. marjoribanks - 4/24/2000 9:38:31 AM
No surprise, given these kinds of images. Note the happy innocent welcome given the jovial traveller from mighty Portugal.
10316. TabouliJones - 4/24/2000 11:42:57 AM
I agree with much of what the article said about Canadian identity issues. And I, in fact, would love to be in the U.S. making some decent money. However, one claim was just flat out ludicrous -- namely:
"Patients in need of high-quality health care flee the country's nationalized medical system."
Our medical system is excellent. Occasionally you will hear stories about the occasional person who goes to the States to get some specific treatment or other. Sometimes the patient is just being, well, impatient -- not willing to wait a reasonable amount of time for minor elective surgery -- or they are after some sort of cosmetic surgery. This is hardly a situation of patients fleeing our health care system. And get this, if you do need to go to the U.S. to receive treatment that can only be done expeditously in the U.S., then the government will pick up the tab.
Every so often, you hear some American pundit claiming that our health care system is in tatters, and that nationalized health care is going the way of the Dodo bird. Such claims are simply specious; and, most likely, have more to do with that person's position on American health care issues, rather than a reasoned assessment of Canada's medical system.
10316. stostosto - 4/24/2000 11:42:57 AM
marj
Could you give a brief brief on your ethnicity? I think you've done it before but I am afraid I didn't pay attention.
How many Portuguese descendants are there in Goa?
10317. stostosto - 4/24/2000 12:13:38 PM
TabouliJones:
I didn't know you were Canadian. I actually had the same thoughts about the remark on health care. It can be infuriating to have to queue for a treatment which can be provided right away in the US or elsewhere where pricing of health services eliminate queues - if you have the money that is. Hence there is bound to be instances where Canadians 'flee' the national system in order to get 'high-quality' health care.
Besides there is bound to be instances where it's simply more economical to have a facility on the American side of the border serve up a market stretching into Canada, especially with specialised treatments that require a large population base. In such cases it's no more than sensible for the Canadian government to pay for its citizens being treated in the US rather than establish expensive facilities themselves. (I don't know whether the Canadian government really is that otherworldly sensible and economical, but it's a possibility).
10318. RustlerPike - 4/25/2000 3:31:43 AM
Hello again all and thanks for the warm welcome some 100 posts back. Things are hectic, sorry... I'm doing a 100 things at once in RL and so cyberlife has to take a back seat for a while. I'll get back to posting as soon as I can.
R. Pike
10319. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 9:36:52 AM
Odd, I just read this story in the Independent, which states that 50 million subcontinental are threatened by the worst drought in a century, and has all kinds of dramatic language about parched fields and dying cattle. Yet, I haven't read a single thing about this "major story" in the subcon press. Then again, there's little in the subcon press these days other than the cricket scandal, the cricket scandal, the cricket scandal, and the President's visit to France.
10320. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 9:49:23 AM
Well, okay, I was wrong. There are lots of articles on groundwater and relief packages in the Indian press. It's just that there is nothing quite as dramatic as the English press coverage. 
Protest riots as 50 million Indians face famine! screams the Telegraph.
10321. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 10:15:24 AM
Irva,
This article on Indonesia from the NYRB may interest you. Comments appreciated.
10322. stostosto - 4/25/2000 10:17:24 AM
marj - thanks for linking that. I heard a report yesterday on the radio and expected you to register it here.
Rediff does have something - if you look for it:
Famine forces Rajasthan's villagers to migrate
"As per official figures, more than 25 million people and 30 million cattle are hit by famine conditions in the state, which is reeling under a famine for the second consecutive year. "
Believe it or not: drought haunts Cherrapunji
"Between January and May, the residents of Cherrapunji - the second wettest place on earth -- spend half their time in collecting and storing water for daily use. "
10323. stostosto - 4/25/2000 10:18:58 AM
Oh. I forgot to refresh after having read marj's #10319.
10324. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 10:25:35 AM
That is one strange article on Cherrapunji, sto.
Its also unrealted to the drought that's affecting Gujerat, Rajasthan, and parts of Eastern India. The areas worst hit in the first two are chronically dry scrubland at the best of times. Anyway, it's clearly going to be an extremely rough summer in India this year, and the monsoons will be even more eagerly anticipated than usual.
10325. stostosto - 4/25/2000 10:29:51 AM
Marj
Everything about India is strange to me. No fault of India's. Nor, certainly, of yours.
10326. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 10:33:05 AM
Well, sto, if you really want to know, I find Scandinavia and Scandinavians bewilderingly exotic and otherworldly.
10327. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 10:43:55 AM
Actually, India never fails to amaze, even for people like myself who hav travelled relentlessly up and down the subcontinent. There is always something stranger and more mystifying that comes up, whether ethnographically or just plain weird circumstance.
I just read a very highly entertaining (though I suspect embellished) book by a winning young Pathan gentleman from England (a member of Afghan nobility, actually) who travelled to and through India in a quest to learn about magic. On the way he manages to debase himself in any number of ways, but the narrative is highly enjoyable and surreal.
Check it out, it's one of the best reads I've had this year.
10328. stostosto - 4/25/2000 10:48:18 AM
How twisted you are. We Scandinavians - no, make that we Danes - are normal in the extreme. We are, quite simply, the yardstick of normalcy.
10329. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 10:54:01 AM
By the way, the book isn't available in the States, but you can see it's highly popular here . Certainly, I'm eager to read his first travel book now.
10330. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 10:56:53 AM
Sto,
The most exotic places I've ever visited:
Gary, Indiana
Cleveland
Dallas
Chicago
Orlando
Milton Keynes
Copenhagen
10331. stostosto - 4/25/2000 11:40:55 AM
Marj #10330: Twisted, indeed. (I guess you haven't been to Duisburg).
Have you seen this interview with Salman Rushdie made during his recent (present?) visit to India?
It's more like a chat and has mostly the sensational value of him giving interviews at all. There is also the curiosity of it being conducted in Hindustani. (Don't worry Anglolinguals, translation is provided).
But one can't help but feel sorry for him, what with that insane fatwa and accompanying hysteria.
----
Does anyone know how it comes about that the word of Iranian Shia Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini has been taken so seriously by non-Persian, Sunni Muslims?
I think I have seen people in the know attempting to parallel this divide in Islam to the one in Christianity between Catholics and Protestants. But which Christian Church leader would be able to command the adherents of churches outside his (or her) own? Certainly not the Pope - and who else is there to command anything whatsoever?
10332. pseudoerasmus - 4/25/2000 12:49:32 PM
Does anyone know how it comes about that the word of Iranian Shia Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini has been taken so seriously by non-Persian, Sunni Muslims?
I don't think there is anything surprising or unusual about it. I am certain there must be something -- a movie or a book or a piece of music -- which Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox have in common found sacrilegious and have taken to protesting (if not issuing a fatwa!).
10333. SpenceMirrlees - 4/25/2000 12:59:23 PM
Marjoribanks: may I ask what and where you visited in Gary, IN?
10334. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/25/2000 1:03:56 PM
Marj Message # 10321:
I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but I've bookmarked it. I look forward to reading Clifford Geertz (one of the experts on Indonesia I respect most, and have for many years) in the NYR, a magazine I read and enjoy whenever I can.
10335. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 1:57:39 PM
Spence,
I spent a day and a half in Gary, visiting a college roommate. That place is damned exotic to my eyes, the factory wasteland part of it alone is absolutely otherworldly.
10336. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 2:00:29 PM
We don't discuss Africa much here but we may soon have occasion to, and for all the wrong reasons.
Here is an Economist "Special" on the tragic and disquieting situation in Zimbabwe.
The mess one man makes.
It's rather long but you can boomark it for later. I will leave it up for a couple of weeks.
10337. SpenceMirrlees - 4/25/2000 2:44:36 PM
marjoribanks, I grew up about 10 miles from Gary, and I too have always been fascinated with the industrial landscape. Not just in Gary, but Whiting and East Chicago as well. The factories, mills and refineries -- but the whole scene as well. I love the restaurants in north Whiting, with 30 foot red velvet curtains and seating for 900 and one room of all green, and fresh lake perch swimming in enough butter that the fish need not actually be dead, where surely many a deal was made between Oldsmobile driving managers at the Inland/US/LTV/Metron/Ryerson Steel Christmas party. I especially enjoy thinking of what it must have been like to entertain foreign managers in such a setting.
10338. SpenceMirrlees - 4/25/2000 2:46:33 PM
and compared to that, Georgie's BBQ Pit on Broadway in Gary is an otherworldly experience. Certainly a different culture.
10339. CalGal - 4/25/2000 2:46:56 PM
My ex is going to Bangalore (sp?) on a business trip. Any advice for him?
10340. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 3:11:06 PM
There is nothing that distingusihes Bangalore from Silicon Valley.
Spence, I think I ate at that restaurant. certainly, i had the strangest ever Chinese meal in or around Gary. The least Chinese Chinese food I've evr encountered in an outrageously velveted setting, with little parasols in my coke.
10341. CalGal - 4/25/2000 3:13:42 PM
So he can get cable TV in the hotel and Starbucks or Peets in the morning?
He'll be relieved to know.
10342. janjon - 4/25/2000 3:15:04 PM
I suppose Urbanfetch could replicate that, marj.
Say, did you see my post to the effect that we've bought a loft in Tribeca and move back in from the tundra in a few months?
It can be done. It can be done.
10343. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 3:17:56 PM
Cable TV, yes. Even HBO and CNBC and other such. Starbucks, there is one. But coffee is rather freely available, anyway.
I saw, Janjon. Enjoy UrbanFetching when you get located. BTW, Tribeca loft? How impressively trendy.
10344. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 3:18:12 PM
CalGal
If Bangalore is like Silicon Valley it must have changed a lot since 1993.
10345. CalGal - 4/25/2000 3:24:30 PM
Pelle,
Well, that's what I'm thinking, too. But Banks is the sort who might not notice the difference.
Actually, I was wondering about restaurants and sights to see. But apparently, he'll be able to go to any one of several excellent Mexican establishments and take a day trip to Carmel.
10346. marjoribanks - 4/25/2000 3:27:25 PM
Well, checkout bangaloreguide.com and tell me if I'm exaggerating very much.
10347. CalGal - 4/25/2000 3:29:54 PM
Heavens, all it takes is a sarcastic prod or three to get useful information. Not bad. Thanks for the link; I'll pass it on.
10348. stostosto - 4/25/2000 4:25:15 PM
Heavens.
10349. stostosto - 4/25/2000 4:28:07 PM
Pelle, hörru!
Neither Bangalore nor Africa is part of Scandinavia.
10350. stostosto - 4/25/2000 4:44:51 PM
If Bangalore is like Silicon Valley it must have changed a lot since 1993.
Perhaps Silicon Valley changed. When were you there last?
10351. stostosto - 4/25/2000 4:54:27 PM
(And Silicon Valley isn't part of Scandinavia neither. Strictly speaking).
10352. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 5:05:10 PM
sto
We must branch out. And break out from our ossified Scandicentric patterns of thought.
10353. robertjayb - 4/25/2000 5:29:26 PM
.
WWI Gallipoli Landings Marked
10354. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 5:42:49 PM
Interesting IHT article about IT students in India. Excerpt:
The seemingly pointless exercise of reducing squares of steel for eight weeks using nothing but a file is a long-standing early part of the core curriculum required of all students at the superelite Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, one of the six undergraduate Indian Institutes of Technology. The schools train a disproportionate number of the world's leading Internet-era entrepreneurs.
Anna Lee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who studies Silicon Valley, reckons that 10 percent of Silicon Valley startups between 1995 and 1998 were created by Indians, most of whom graduated from the institutes.
10355. ScottLoar - 4/25/2000 5:45:39 PM
Okay. What's the point of reducing squares of steel for eight weeks using nothing but a file in an institute of technology (assuming the students are free to come and go as they choose)?
10356. ScottLoar - 4/25/2000 5:46:37 PM
Is this some kind of physical koan?
10357. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 5:49:59 PM
robert
It's a pity that Candide is not around to comment. I recall she said once that the antipodeans still hate Churchill for Gallipoli.
10358. pseudoerasmus - 4/25/2000 5:52:15 PM
No, I pointed how silly the Antipodeans were for blaming Churchill for Gallipolli is (the disaster occurred long after Churchill fell out of the ministry responsible for the disaster, Churchill's plans were not the one carried out). Candide blamed Churchill for some other ills.
10359. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 6:03:35 PM
PE
My recollection is that Churchill was forced to resign as First Lord of the Admiralty as a result of the Gallipoli debacle. He returned to Government a while later in some other capacity (Supplies? Munitions? Something like that.)
10360. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 6:05:23 PM
ScottLoar
The answers are in the article.
10361. ScottLoar - 4/25/2000 6:11:11 PM
PelleNilsson;
I have just read the article. I am no closer to truth and understanding, save the blisters are a badge of honour like the fencing scars from Heidelberg University.
10362. robertjayb - 4/25/2000 6:20:58 PM
.
Speaking of disasters: A Vietnam Premonition...from The New York Times
10363. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2000 6:21:35 PM
PE
I was wrong about WC being forced out because of Gallipoli; it was the Dardanelles failure that did it.
From the Britannica:
In 1915, when Churchill became an enthusiast for the Dardanelles expedition as a way out of the costly stalemate on the Western Front, he had to proceed against Fisher's disapproval. The campaign aimed at forcing the straits and opening up direct communications with Russia. When the naval attack failed and was called off on the spot by Adm. J.M. de Robeck, the Admiralty war group and Asquith both supported de Robeck rather than Churchill. Churchill came under heavy political attack, which intensified when Fisher resigned. Preoccupied with departmental affairs, Churchill was quite unprepared for the storm that broke about his ears. He had no part at all in the maneuvers that produced the first coalition government and was powerless when the Conservatives, with the sole exception of Sir William Maxwell Aitken (soon Lord Beaverbrook), insisted on his being demoted from the Admiralty to the duchy of Lancaster. There he was given special responsibility for the Gallipoli Campaign (a land assault at the straits) without, however, any powers of direction. Reinforcements were too few and too late; the campaign failed and casualties were heavy; evacuation was ordered in the autumn. In November 1915 Churchill resigned from the government and returned to soldiering, seeing active service in France as lieutenant colonel of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers.
So it seems he was given responsibility without authority for Gallipoli. Still, his name is associated with it.
10364. SnowOwl - 4/25/2000 6:24:31 PM
Pelle,
If Candide said that Antipodeans still hated Churchill for Gallipoli she was somewhat overstating the case. Churchill is dead. It was 85 years ago. In fact, ANZAC Day has come to signify the day on which we achieved some sort of nationhood, and it's a day of honour rather than mourning.
A recent survey showed that the majority of young New Zealanders nowadays don't even know where Gallipoli is, let alone have any clear understanding of what happened there.
If we're going to hate him for Gallipoli we might as well hate him for Crete, which was as big a debacle as Gallipoli, and an area in which New Zealanders were heavily involved as well.
10365. Seguine - 4/25/2000 6:28:03 PM
Excellent article in
Foreign Affairs on Assad's motivations re the Golan, Barak's tactical miscalculation, etc.
10366. robertjayb - 4/25/2000 6:39:04 PM
Thanks Pelle, SnowOwl...for your comments. I was struck when reading the Vietnam editorial and the Gallipoli piece by the similarity of the casualty reports.
Now I am pondering what such losses must have meant back then in the populations of New Zealand and Australia.
10367. pseudoerasmus - 4/25/2000 6:45:48 PM
Nilsson, Britannica is a proletarian publication riddled with errors --something Irving and I discovered last year.
Read any biography of Churchill or history of the war -- the Dardanelles operation (the forcing of the straits and bombarding Constantinople) did not fail so much as it was abandoned prematurely. It was abandoned because various admirals got cold feet about losing a few ships and various generals argued that the straits could not be forced without a landing in Gallipoli. Churchill's plan was to force the straits first with the navy before landing any troops anywhere.
10368. CalGal - 4/25/2000 7:25:39 PM
Scott,
I am no closer to truth and understanding, save the blisters are a badge of honour like the fencing scars from Heidelberg University.
I got the impression that they teach the filing, etc, because they want their students to become real engineers--the type that build bridges, etc. Instead, they are all going into high tech.
It wouldn't surprise me that a lot of startups are created by Indians with green cards (although I don't think they could do it with an H1B visa, could they?). Exodus was started by Indians, I know. My guess is that a good number of them came from HP.
10369. ScottLoar - 4/25/2000 7:35:11 PM
No, CalGal, I grasped (groped, as the article is poorly written and poorly presented) that filing cubes is somehow vaguely related to working exactly at a task, a discipline that I would hold akin to the apprentice assasins of the Old Man of the Mountain who would continuously ladle water with pitchers having no bottoms, and so my reference - unappreciated - to a koan.
Ah well.
10370. CalGal - 4/25/2000 7:38:25 PM
Oh, I agree that it was tough to read. I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that filing stuff is big for building bridges--resonant with history and The Old Way.
10371. dusty - 4/25/2000 7:59:00 PM
Does a post require a response to be appreciated?
10372. MrSocko - 4/26/2000 8:04:59 AM
PE:
Do you subscribe to the idea that the Japanese suffer from an anti/philo-semitic complex -- or in the words of one writer, that they "have developed a horror and fascination with the Jews on a par with the strongest European traditions, and a surprising number of Japanese seem to enter political, economic, and intellectual life with Jews on the brain"? I lifted that last bit from a review of "Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype" by
David Goodman and Masanori Miyazawa. Are you familiar with either the proposition or the book?
10373. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 9:23:06 AM
The IIT's are the source of not only a disproportionate # of Internet start-up entrepreneurs, their graduates are wildly overreprented in the higher echlons of both American and U businesses. The CEO of Citibank is an IIT guy, as is the CEO of US Air and several other Fortune 500 companies.
The thing is, these people are the very best and brightest of the whole country. Hundreds of thousands take the open entrance exams (hard-core math, physics, chemisty) and something like 3000 get in. These get a virtually free four year education in engineering or computer science or physics an the majority are courted by Western institutions before they even complete three years. One year, about 15 years ago, the ENTERING class for computer science at the Bombay IIT (30 students) got a blanket recruitment letter from Microsoft.
Michael Lewis's 'The New New Thing' covers a lot of this in an interesting chapter on the IIT's.
10374. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 9:56:50 AM
The best article I've read on the IIT phenomenon.
10375. PelleNilsson - 4/26/2000 10:26:32 AM
marj
When I read about the metal filing exercise I thought about a curious phenomenon occurring in the Middle East and - less frequently - in Africa. There you can see male clerks who have allowed the nail on the little finger grow to an absurd length. This is to demonstrate that they don't have to use their hands for anything more streneous than lifting a pen. It is also a sign of disdain for manual labour.
Is this attitude common within the Indian middle classes as well? If so, could the purpose of the meaningless IIT exercise be to break it?
10376. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 10:31:00 AM
Pelle, the kind of kid who attends IIt is a super-high achieving math geek, fluent in English and usually very Westernized. I think the point of the filing exrcise is to teach discipline and single-mindedness, nothing more.
However, I have seen people who grow that pinky nail in India. I'm unaware of the reason, yours sounds plausible enough.
Unrelatedly, Pelle, I just read an outstanding travel book on Yemen by a qat-chewing English epatriate who has moved there for good. I'll try and find the name.
10377. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 10:35:03 AM
10378. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/26/2000 12:38:30 PM
Strangely enough, here in Indonesia, it is the thumbnail which is grown long to show that a person is not a manual laborer. This tradition, which was still extremely common 20-30 years ago, has been disappearing, and it is rare today to find people with long thumbnails.
Marj:
Why is Yemen called "Dictionary Land"?
10379. ScottLoar - 4/26/2000 1:18:00 PM
Some pimps in the US also affected a long pinky nail. Nothing unusual about this, as long fingernails remark the hand is not for manual labour. In some cultures the fingernail is left long to accent the hand as among dancers and courtesans.
10380. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 1:20:47 PM
Irva,
1) I've sen the long thumbnail more than the long pinkie nail in India. I believe the longest nails on record (as per Guinness's book) were found on some Indian dude.
2) The author of the book found that Yemen would be the best place to study clasical Arabic as per his dictionary at Oxford. At least that's what I understand. A good review of the book is here.
10381. PelleNilsson - 4/26/2000 2:10:14 PM
marj
Thanks for the book tip. I've put it on my to-buy-list. I have his earlier work Yemen - Travels in Dictionary Land which I like very much.
10382. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 2:24:54 PM
Er, Pelle my friend, that is exactly the book I've been touting as you will be able to see in the very large image I reproduced above of its cover.
10383. robertjayb - 4/26/2000 2:28:04 PM
.
A longish piece on Bangalore as Silicon Valley...from wired.com
10384. marjoribanks - 4/26/2000 2:47:10 PM
Interesting article, RJB. Thanks for linking it.
Now see why I said bangalore isn't much different from Silicon Alley?
10385. PelleNilsson - 4/26/2000 3:23:49 PM
marj
The same book? Must be that you refer to the US edition then. My book looks like this and was published in 1997. 
I guess the US is a bit behind on the goodies then.
10386. PincherMartin - 4/26/2000 9:31:24 PM
Here is an interesting ranking of the top forty Asian cities to live in:
ASIA'S BEST CITIES
There are some major surprises. Of the Chinese cities, Taipei is #2 (Wow!!!!!), Singapore is #5, Hong Kong and Shanghai are tied for #9, Kaohsiung is #11, Beijing is #17, Guangzhou is #20, and Chongqing is #21.
10387. pseudoerasmus - 4/26/2000 9:33:14 PM
The fact that Karachi -- Karachi! -- as well as Islambad and Delhi could be ranked above Bombay somewhat vitiates the credibility of that list.
10388. MrSocko - 4/26/2000 10:35:32 PM
No thoughts on Message # 10372, PE?
10389. pseudoerasmus - 4/26/2000 11:08:23 PM
Sorry, I missed that.
Jews and Japan together have never really crossed my mind. I have certainly never heard anti-Semitic remarks from a Japanese, but I do know that earlier in the century Protocols of the Elders of Zion was translated into Japanese and became quite popular. I'm sure the vast majority of Japanese have never met a Jew in their whole life, and I'm equally sure that no Jew has ever been in Japan except as a visitor.
10390. ilyavinarsky - 4/26/2000 11:12:59 PM
Ask Henry Shames about the be-shtreiml-ed man he met while stationed in Japan in 1945.
10391. marjoribanks - 4/27/2000 9:32:19 AM
That Asiaweek list is monumentally stupid. As PE said, the low ranking of Bombay completely destroys its credibility. In comparison to Bombay, Delhi is a monstrously polluted, provincial, overgrown village with horrible traffic.
10392. ScottLoar - 4/27/2000 9:37:45 AM
I have been to 26 cities on that list. That list is crap. I will now move to read how such preposterous rankings came about.
10393. pseudoerasmus - 4/27/2000 9:40:03 AM
Not to mention that Fukuoka (number 1 on the list) just might be the most boring city on that list. Plus, you've got the principal disadvantage of it being populated primarily by Kyushuans.
10394. ScottLoar - 4/27/2000 9:40:15 AM
Well, a rating scheme similar to that used to choose America's best and worst cities which never fails to outrage and amuse depending on one's temper.
10395. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/27/2000 9:49:03 AM
Dumb list. The only thing they got right is the relative ranking of Indonesia's large cities.
I've lived in three of the cities listed (Jakarta, Manila, Georgetown) and visited a good share of the others. There's no justification for putting boring and provincial Georgetown (ranked #7) ahead of (to name a few obvious ones which I have spent time in) Bandung, Jakarta, Manila and Bombay, which are much more interesting and have far more complete facilities and opportunities.
10396. marjoribanks - 4/27/2000 9:52:03 AM
Excellent article on Syria and Assad's Israel policy from Foreign Affairs.
Pike and others, any comments?
10397. marjoribanks - 4/27/2000 9:59:01 AM
Gratuitously, let me add that I actually genuinely hate Delhi. It's a shit city (though with very good shopping) with the most obscenely crude residents (primarily Punjabis). It's horribly polluted and hot, in the summer it's literally hard to breathe at all. The city is horrifically stratified, with glitzy discotheques an 5 star hotels at one end, and poisonous street food at the other with precious little in-between. There are like two halfway-decent bookshops in the whole city, zero decent cinemas, no intellectual life to speak of outside the grotesquely leftist student populations at JNU and St. Stephens and the studiedly bohemian "publishing" types who man Penguin Books and the like. And the beer is terrible, Kalyani's Black Label being ubiquitous and the worst Indian beer by far. There are nice Moghul-era monuments littered everywhere, but that only gets you so far in my book.
I'll be very happy if I never have to go to Delhi again.
10398. ScottLoar - 4/27/2000 10:08:46 AM
I spent six days in Chongqing in 1997 and thought it the very worst city I had ever visited. I hear tell it's improved since then but such dramatic improvements in less than three years' time are, frankly, hard to believe. Rather, it is a sad comment on the state of Asian cities that Chongqing rates #21.
10399. pseudoerasmus - 4/27/2000 10:10:31 AM
I will be in Chongqing, hopefully, by the 10th of May. Is there anything to see? Or is just another smog- and sootathon along the Yangtze?
10400. Wombat - 4/27/2000 10:35:58 AM
A Japanese diplomat in Lithuania (I believe) issued dozens of transit visas to Jews fleeing Poland, which allowed them to take the Trans Siberian Railroad and go from Vladivostok to Japan.
The New York Review of Books had an article about this a year or two ago.
10401. ScottLoar - 4/27/2000 10:38:36 AM
There is nothing to see in Chongqing save rows and rows of shops selling electrical parts for which Chongqing seems to serve as distribution center for Southwestern China. However, you are a man of the world and my yet find some redeeming features which escaped me.
The women are touted by visiting Chinese men as beautiful and accessible (meaning cheaply gained) which I found not true at all. My best time in Chongqing was with a Shanghai girl and her American girlfriend - both married - over drinks and dinner. They left the next morning as I continued in Chongqing.
There are rafts of visitors -mostly Taiwanese - coming through to stay the night before boating up the river. I found the Taiwanese intolerable as they insist on cosmopolitanism by speaking in poor English to everyone.
10402. pseudoerasmus - 4/27/2000 11:23:57 AM
Well, except for the ferry ride on the river (in the direction opposite the usual), I primarily intend a mad dash across China. My minimally planned itinerary, starting this Monday.
10403. ScottLoar - 4/27/2000 1:56:56 PM
Riding by rail through China (which I've never done) you're sure to get a bellyful of the Han Chinese, especially sweet and meet as you're not interested in Han Chinese or Han China.
10404. robertjayb - 4/27/2000 3:08:03 PM
.
The Vikings are coming! The Vikings are coming! 
WASHINGTON - President Tarja Halonen of Finland (L), President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson of Iceland (C), and Queen Sonja of Norway (R), attend the opening of the "Vikings:The North Atlantic Saga" exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, April 27. The Five Nordic countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, all are taking part in the exhibit which celebrates the 1000-year anniversary of the Viking's arrival to North America. Photo by Brendan McDermid (Reuters)
10405. robertjayb - 4/27/2000 3:16:15 PM
..
Including a dashing Dane! (I thought this guy was supposed to be on an expedition in Greenland) 
WASHINGTON - Prince Joachim of Denmark speaks to the press at the opening of the "Vikings The North Atlantic Saga" exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, April 27. The Five Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, are all taking part in the exhibit which celebrates the 1000 year anniversary of the Viking arrival to North America. Photo by Brendan McDermid (Reuters)
10406. PelleNilsson - 4/27/2000 3:28:03 PM
marj -- Message # 10396
For the record: That article was linked by seguine in Message # 10365.
10407. stostosto - 4/27/2000 3:29:55 PM
rjb
You won't hear one word of reproach from me for posting that.
It's Joachim's elder brother Frederik (the crown prince) who is presently on a Greenland expedition. This one is the one who is married to the Hong Kong-born Alexandra who resembles pseudoerasmus's mother.
Frederik, however, is the stuff that tabloid press is made of, going from fling to fling, fancying this girl and that, a model here, a pop singer there, but seemingly never settling down...
10408. robertjayb - 4/27/2000 3:37:19 PM
.
Yes, I soon realized I had the wrong royal...Here is Crown Prince Frederik on the Sirius 2000 expedition. They were recently at Station Nord on the northeast corner of the island. 
Kronprins Frederik og Kresten Mathiesen nyder en cigar
© Victoria Film
10409. robertjayb - 4/27/2000 4:03:14 PM
.
Since the Viking exhibition is coming to Houston this summer, I'm sure my half-Norwegian spouse will want to take it in...Yah! You Betcha!
10410. stostosto - 4/27/2000 5:33:08 PM
Kjempefint!
10411. robertjayb - 4/27/2000 6:28:15 PM
.
?
10412. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 1:07:24 AM
I agree the list is pretty stupid. But the information they based it on is even sillier.
Apart from the enjoyment of reading (and making) such lists, and the happy fact that Taipei -- a fun city to live in -- is near the top of such of a list, this particular list has some serious, serious problems.
Look at the average incomes for several of the cities: here are several that stick out (in US dollars):
1. Tokyo - 44,921
2. Osaka - 39,234
3. Fukuoka - 35,043
4. Singapore - 24,337
5. Kuala Lumper - 23,198
6. Kaohsiung - 22,422
7. Bangkok - 22,140
8. Taipei - 19,080
9. Georgetown - 15, 462
10. Hong Kong - 13, 780
11. Seoul - 12,714
Would the average Bangkok resident have an income higher than that of the average Taipei resident and twice that of the average Hong Kong or Seoul resident? A Kuala Lumperian is as wealthy as a Singaporean?
I don't think so.
Furthermore, Singapore and Ho Chi Minh city are tied for #17 for the number of hospital beds per citizen (2.9), but, again, let me ask you, if you were sick and needed a hospital bed, where would you rather be?
10413. stostosto - 4/28/2000 4:17:37 AM
rjb
It's Norwegian meaning tickety-boo. (Literally 'giant fine'). It's one of those Norwegian expressions which sound so innocent and endearing to us Danes and leads us to harbour grossly misleading images of our northern cousins. We love the Norwegians because we love our image of them. I think we'd probably love them anyway if we actually knew them better, but that would be for very different reasons. (Of course, I am myself most enlightened about the Norgies, I even have friends amongst them, and so I personaaly do love them for the right reasons).
10414. stostosto - 4/28/2000 4:20:07 AM
By the way: 'Vikings in Houston' sounds like a contradiction in terms...
10415. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/28/2000 4:43:31 AM
'Vikings in Houston' sounds like a contradiction in terms
Yeah, especially since the Oilers moved to Tennessee.
(wonder if Sto can figure that one out.)
10416. stostosto - 4/28/2000 4:51:31 AM
You mean the Edmonton Oilers? They moved to Tennessee?
10417. stostosto - 4/28/2000 5:01:00 AM
Pseuder #10402
That's an intriguing-looking travel plan. I wish you - how you say? - Godspeed. But where are you now? I somehow have the impression you are not in Beijing. Sorry, just curious.
10418. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 5:04:02 AM
I'm at home. I don't leave until Monday -- as I said earlier.
10419. stostosto - 4/28/2000 5:06:18 AM
I am also curious to know if your journey has an objective - travel writing, business, academic - or if it's simply for your own idle amusement? Whatever the case, I am eagerly looking forward to any reports you might find time and energy to provide here - for our idle amusement.
10420. stostosto - 4/28/2000 5:09:53 AM
You're at home? Well, so am I. It's OK if you don't want to tell, but I am not clear about where 'home' is to you.
10421. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 5:13:55 AM
My only objective is the desire to do the following:
Yangtze river ferry trip
train ride between Lanzhou and Urumqi (deserts & canyons of Gansu province)
cross from China to Kyrgyzstan via the Torugart Pass via the Pamirs
Caspian Sea ferry between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan
see the Caucaus (Georgia & Azerbaijan) for the first time ever
arrive in Russia by ferry on the Black sea
10422. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 5:15:14 AM
well, I'm not really home. I am at my temporary abode at my university in the USA.
10423. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 5:19:48 AM
But I only have a month, I have to be in Moscow by 1 June. So it's much moving and little lingering during the trip. I intend to linger a while in the south Caucasus, though.
10424. PelleNilsson - 4/28/2000 5:39:39 AM
PE
So you leave already on Monday. I join sto in wishing you Godspeed. Please let us hear from you when the opportunity arises.
10425. PelleNilsson - 4/28/2000 5:57:55 AM
The Economist's Big Mac index.
10426. stostosto - 4/28/2000 6:35:20 AM
Pseuder, a rough estimate suggests that you are going to travel some 10,000 km in 30 days. That's an average 333.33 km a day. All told, I can see why you say you don't have time for lingering... The question is more like: Can it be done at all? I mean by ferry on long stretches, trains of less than Grand Vitesse, and bus through deserts and mountains. I worry about you.
10427. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 7:44:37 AM
re Message # 10412: Of course the average resident of Kuala Lumpur does not have an income approximating that of Singapore, and on and on and on, which questions the methodolody of such results. One of the most infamous and unreliable methods of determing attitudes in Asia is actually asking people.
10428. MrSocko - 4/28/2000 9:17:20 AM
PE:
Yr Message # 10389 strikes me as peculiar coing from somebody with a Japanese background. Surely one does not have to meet a Jew or not to be an antisemite! (Did Shakespeare know any Jews?) Japanese culture is replete with antisemitism. How familiar are you with the Aum Shinriky cult? Or Kawajiri Tru? Or the Nihon seiyshi gakkai? Or Uno Masami? Or even Tanaka Kengo? How can you not know any of these obvious examples?
10429. uzmakk - 4/28/2000 9:47:45 AM
My local paper had a picture of the Dane and a cute little Swedish princess.
10430. uzmakk - 4/28/2000 9:50:27 AM
I recall reading an article in the Nation about President Halonen of Finland. The picture helps.
10431. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/28/2000 10:23:51 AM
Sto:
The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee. They play that funny game where grown men with padding and helmets jump all over each other trying to gain possession of an oddly-shaped ball. Americans call it "football." And, of course, one of the other teams is called the Minnesota Vikings, who no longer visit Houston.
PE:
Parts of your trip sound fascinating. If it were me, I'd fly to Urumqi, and do the rest as planned. I look forward to your reports of a very intriguing and little-known (in the West) region.
10432. stostosto - 4/28/2000 10:55:16 AM
Irv, bleedin-peculiar-American football? Apparently I got the wrong game (damn, I thought I was on to you). Anyway, I'd say Minnesota is a more appropriate place for Vikings than Houston, ceteris paribus.
Utsmäck: Is that the Swedish crown princess? She is indeed very cute. And also quite intelligent and sympatic.
10433. stostosto - 4/28/2000 10:59:25 AM
Socko:
Why wouldn't Shakespeare have known Jews? They were very much present in England from at least around the time of Anglo-Saxon hero Ivanhoe, according to Sir Walter Scott.
10434. stostosto - 4/28/2000 11:01:56 AM
(Notice how casually elegant I managed to throw in a high-brow literary reference there).
10435. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:10:35 AM
Socko: I'm familiar with most but not all of those names. I have never heretofore associated them with antisemitism. If they've made antisemitic remarks, then I didn't know about them. As I said, Jews and Japan have never together crossed my mind.
Stostosto: Yes, I have considered the possibility that I won't make it in 30 days! But you must understand, as much as possible I will be continuously moving between Beijing and Baku, stopping to linger only in Lanzhou & environs. Things will start fast (there's supposed to be a modern express train between Beijing and Wuhan) and get terribly slow, but there it is.
Irving: If I flew from Beijing to Urumqi, that would vitiate the point of at least a third of the trip. I want to see the Yangtze River on a ferry and I want to see the landscape of Gansu province (if only from a train). I'm making Central Asia one big train ride from Bishkek to Turkmenbashi. I've seen it already.
10436. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:14:24 AM
I'm extremely jealous of you, Pseuder, especially since I haven't had a day off (let alone a vacation) for about two months.
BTW, my perception of you is massively changed. Once I thought of you as a rather effete, prissy publicschoolboy. Now I think of you as a rather effete prissy publicschoolboy in a solar topee and khaki jacket.
10437. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:19:27 AM
"effete prissy publicschoolboy"
in the correct jargon, the above should be called swotty PSB
10438. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:21:13 AM
PE,
Is London anywhere on your itinerary?
10439. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:21:25 AM
Ah yes. BTW, I'm reading my first Flashman book and find it very overrated. It's the Wild West one. Are there better ones? This one is highly disappointing.
10440. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:26:44 AM
marzipranks, you're now too old to read the Flashman books and enjoy them. You have to be around, well, PS-entry age.
I've read all of them and the only ones I recall enjoying were Flashman and the Mountain of Light and Flashman in the Great Game.
My honeymoon is in September. Guess where we're going? (It's rather improbable.)
10441. stostosto - 4/28/2000 11:27:30 AM
Jenny: PE linked his itinerary in Message # 10402. London isn't on it.
10442. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:28:07 AM
(Well, we aren't decided. The place I'm pushing for is the improbable one.)
Jenerator, see #10402
10443. Wombat - 4/28/2000 11:28:11 AM
Marj:
You want to start with the first one. Based on your writings in the Fray/Mote, I am not sure that you would like the series.
10444. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:29:10 AM
How long is your honeymoon? Mine was six months (gloat, reminisce, ponder the current situation, feel depressed).
I'll guess some obscure Central European region. Or else, maybe a safari.
10445. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:30:56 AM
Well, I'm not enjoying this one. However, I love most PSB-type books, or at least did when I was roughly that age.
And I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter books.
10446. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:31:46 AM
Actually, I'm pushing for Armenia. When I mentioned this, she shook her head and rolled her eyes.
10447. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:32:45 AM
What am I missing...Beijing to Moscow? How are you getting to Beijing? How are you returning from Moscow? I figured you'd be landing in Heathrow at sometime.
Oh well, my only chance in meeting you is blown. Figures.
10448. stostosto - 4/28/2000 11:33:02 AM
Marj: What are you reading to little Deggie?
10449. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:34:13 AM
You won't believe this but that country actually popped into my head. Going to visit your dour buddy Vahan?
Why not go to the Maldives, or the Seychelles or something? Your future wife will love you for it - nothing to do but frolic in the gorgeous waters and lavish attention on her. The former place doesn't even have TV.
10450. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:34:59 AM
Sto: Dr Seuss.
10451. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:34:59 AM
Jenerator, I'm going to be in Moscow from June to September. I'm not sure how I'm returning from Moscow.
10452. theDiva - 4/28/2000 11:36:35 AM
Banks
Think of what you're saying. Pseuder frolicking?
10453. stostosto - 4/28/2000 11:38:30 AM
Pseud,
Have you ever been to Venice? I know it's corny for a honeymoon, but it is a fascinating place. But go in winter. I was there with my wife in January once. Cool, I tell you. (Not her I mean).
10454. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:39:33 AM
PE,
Sure I tease you, and in some weird way I love you, but in real life as well as online, I wish you and the future Mrs. PE nothing but happiness.;-)
10455. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:40:49 AM
I think I'll stick to riverside beach in Moscow and marvel at the sight of the offensively hirsuite-backed Caucasian gangsters and their blondine Slavic molls.
10456. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:41:45 AM
Venice is good.
I honeymooned in Trinidad and Tobago, Kerala, Goa, Rajasthan, the Maldives, Nepal, Southern Italy, the Loire Valley, Holland and the Lake District.
Then we moved to the States, flat broke and jobless.
10457. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:42:22 AM
...THE riverside beach...
something terrible is happening to me. I'm dropping the definite article left and right in my written English. This is alarming.
Sto: Venice? who hasn't seen it about six times?
10458. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:42:58 AM
Well, T&T was actually BEFORE the wedding, but it still counts as far as I'm concerned.
10459. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:43:06 AM
Why did you move to America?
10460. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:44:25 AM
In pursuit of the American dream, of course. Plus, I happen to be an American citizen.
10461. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:46:06 AM
I thought you had lived in the states since 12 or 13.
10462. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:46:35 AM
Marj,
I thought you were Indian, that's why I've always wondered why you moved to the US.
10463. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:46:53 AM
I moved to Europe after my undergrad degree. UK, then France.
10464. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:47:04 AM
He was the first H1 visa recipient.
10465. stostosto - 4/28/2000 11:47:28 AM
Sto: Venice? who hasn't seen it about six times?
Hmmm. Damn. I am sure there must be someone somewhere. Sheesh!
(Oops!)
10466. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:47:57 AM
I'm getting your details mixed up. I thought you got your BA from LU, then went to a semester at the Sorbonne, and then moved to NY.
10467. marjoribanks - 4/28/2000 11:48:35 AM
What's so complicated?
I lived in India (and partly the UK) until high school.
HS and Undergrad in the USA
Grad school and jobs in Europe
Moved to USA after marriage.
10468. Jenerator - 4/28/2000 11:50:44 AM
I guess the whole American-citizen-but-living-in-India-until-17-or-18 kind of threw me off.
10469. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 11:53:37 AM
Jenerator: The Indian exile Marzipranks has also lived and worked in China, Tanzania, Egypt, Israel, Trinidad, Venezuela, Belgium, the Netherlands, Morocco, Canada, and Portugal.
10470. theDiva - 4/28/2000 11:55:25 AM
Sto
Guilty as charged.
10471. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/28/2000 11:56:01 AM
PE:
Armenia sounds like an interesting destination. I doubt you'll have much competition for the honeymoon suites at the hotels.
My own honeymoon was a week long, and was spent in Bali and Lombok. I was just a poor English teacher way back then.
10472. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 12:15:07 PM
Well, except for baksheesh, I think Armenia may cost no more than Lombok way back then.
10473. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/28/2000 12:29:05 PM
PE:
Lombok way back then included the baksheesh too. It still does, though it (and all other destinations in Indonesia) are no longer dirt-cheap, the way they were two years ago (or 18 years ago, when I had my honeymoon).
At any rate, Armenia is almost certainly more interesting than Lombok, a place I've had no interest in revisiting.
10474. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 12:34:44 PM
I thought Lombok was a prime backpacker destination.
10475. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 12:35:08 PM
(That is, it's pretty popular, meaning it must have some redeeming features, no?)
10476. IrvingSnodgrass - 4/28/2000 12:55:39 PM
PE:
It is a popular destination, chiefly for its attractive and uncrowded beaches and inexpensive prices for just about everything. But the people are not terribly friendly (very unusual for Indonesia) and the culture isn't terribly interesting. I rarely travel for the scenery, and there's nothing about Lombok which makes me want to return, especially when there are so many places I enjoy visiting (or want to visit), both inside and outside of Indonesia.
10477. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 1:37:08 PM
Socko --
I remember reading an article by Ian Buruma in the NYR of Books that referred to the surprising level of anti-Semitism in Japan. I don't remember the names of the particular people or groups you refer to being mentioned, but one way Buruma described how Japanese anti-Semitism manifested itself was through a strong antipathy to the international financial markets, which many Japanese thought were controlled by Jewish bankers.
10478. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 1:49:51 PM
I've never been to Chongqing, but a good friend of mine has. When he saw this list, he had the same reaction as Scott Loar -- they must have run out of Asian cities to place Chongqing so high.
He then said you know a place is ugly when all of its postcards read "Chongqing at night."
10479. stostosto - 4/28/2000 1:57:26 PM
Aren't Japanese simply incorrigible xenophobes on all fronts?
10480. stostosto - 4/28/2000 1:58:33 PM
In fact, I think they are racially disposed for racism.
10481. PelleNilsson - 4/28/2000 2:04:34 PM
I think Armenia is an excellent choice. Not that I've been there, but based on what I've heard from Armenians, I surely would like to go. And they have those small spicy Armenian sausages the name of which I forget, and the famous bastourma, dried meat in an envelope of spices. There were a couple of Armenian restaurants in Beirut; we always enjoyed the food there.
10482. KuligintheHooligan - 4/28/2000 2:27:44 PM
Here's an interesting saying from South Africa that I have recently heard again:
"The white man came to our land with a Bible in his hand. He asked us to pray with him.
When we opened our eyes after praying, the white man had the land and we had the Bible."
10483. Wombat - 4/28/2000 2:32:19 PM
Why is it that so-called Armenian restaurants in New York City served Turkish food? I especially recall The Dardanelles, where I was introduced to cheese boureks at a tender age.
10484. MrSocko - 4/28/2000 5:54:20 PM
Message # 10435
"I'm familiar with most but not all of those names. I have never heretofore associated them with antisemitism. If they've made antisemitic remarks, then I didn't know about them."
How amazing. The Aum Shinriky cult is/was famously antisemitic and Judeocentric in its views on world banking conspiracies. Uno Masami is Japan's best known (and most prolific) antisemitic writer. Tanaka Kengo is the tabloid editor from Marco Polo magazine whose decision to run Holocaust-denying articles in Marco Polo magazine led to a very public set-to between Tokyo and American Jewish groups. (He was eventually fired, and the publishing house agreed to sponsor a Holocaust forum in Japan, or some such.)
I'm particularly surprised that you don't know anything about any of this given not only your background but the economic dimension to the prejudice: Japanese antisemitism, in its current form, follows on from the Big Bang of 1998 (which is why I lowercase "antisemitism").
Do you know what the Big Bang is?
10485. MrSocko - 4/28/2000 5:59:02 PM
PincherMartin:
Yes, you're quite right. The xenophobe dimension to Japanese fears actually presents an intractable challenge for the Japanese themselves, given that their birthrate has shrunk to 1.38 births per woman of childbearing age, far less than the number needed for self-replacement. The population of Japan is expected to shrink from a peak of 127 million in 2005 to 105 million in 2050. So, in order for Japan to maintain its labor force under these conditions, it will have to admit 600,000 new immigrants per year or raise the retirement age to 77, neither of which is a remotely palatable option. A big bang indeed!
10486. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 6:16:26 PM
Socko: No, I had no idea Aum Shinrikio was antisemitic, though it doesn't surprise me. I don't know the tenets of Scientology, either. So bite me.
I don't look for antisemitism under every rock, even if it might exist under rock. If antisemitism is pervasive in Japan, I've never noticed it, possibly because not being a Jew I don't have the sensitive antennae for it. Have Jews or antisemitism ever been a big news item in or from Japan? I doubt it, except maybe in the pages of Jewish publications.
10487. MrSocko - 4/28/2000 6:38:42 PM
"Have Jews or antisemitism ever been a big news item in or from Japan?"
Extraordinary!
To take just one example out of many:
In January 1995, the mass-circulation monthly magazine Marco Polo, published by the powerful and prestigious Bungei Shunj Company, ran a notorious article titled “There Were No Nazi ‘Gas Chambers.” The author, a neurologist at a sanitarium near Tokyo named Nishioka Masanori, consulted no primary sources, interviewed no
survivors, and spent less than four hours at Auschwitz on a guided tour after the article was written, but instead for his information,
relied on the California-based Institute for Historical Review and other well-known Holocaust-deniers, including Paul Rassinier, Arthur Butz, and Fred Leuchter.So patently absurd was Nishioka’s article that it was rejected by dozens of publications before Marco Polo finally accepted it in July 1994. But rather than publish it immediately, however, the editors of Marco Polo postponed publication until January so that it would coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the
liberation of Auschwitz. The article caused a diplomatic and political storm, leading to the high-profile sacking of those responsible.
Nobody remotely aware of Japan could have not known of this event, which as I say is one of dozens over recent years.
10488. Seguine - 4/28/2000 6:39:32 PM
"Have Jews or antisemitism ever been a big news item in or from Japan? I doubt it, except maybe in the pages of Jewish publications."
Isn't that the way it ordinarily works when the object of a prejudice is quite in the minority?
I've never run into Japanese antisemitism myself, here in the US. (Not that I know, anyway, so who cares.) I did encounter it from a lunatic Chinese woman I worked for once, very briefly. It was of the "You people are very intelligent and good with money" variety. Pretty comical--or would have been except that she was a weird, vicious nut job who should probably have been convicted of something.
10489. MrSocko - 4/28/2000 6:41:41 PM
(All of the above information has been sourced from
existing information which can be found in one form or another at
numerous sites inside and outside Japan.)
10490. Seguine - 4/28/2000 6:43:45 PM
(i should add that failing to encounter japanese antisemitism in the US obviously means little, esp about the state of things in japan)
10491. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 6:48:28 PM
Socko: Well, I know and have seen Marco Polo, which is not a serious magazine but a slick hip-hop trash review, but I never knew it was involved with some antisemitic scandal. But then I wouldn't know about antisemitic scandals anywhere unless they're thrown in my face, unlike the Austria thing.
10492. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 6:48:32 PM
Chinese in general think Jews money-grubbing, clever but unprincipled, having a political influence in the US disproportionate to their numbers (sometimes to the extent of controlling government and determining policy), and otherwise thoroughly unlikeable. I find Jews (well, the American variety I'm most familiar with) like to find similarities between themselves and Chinese (clever people, natural merchants, a people of long history, etc.) without knowing of course how the Chinese see them. The Chinese in general think Germans industrious, intelligent, well disciplined, makers of superior products, logical and overall a superior people with whom they have much in common. Americans are thought lively, lovable and naive. And on and on.
So, are the Chinese anti-Semitic? No, just routinely uninformed and without experience of the very thing on which they so commonly hold opinion.
10493. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 6:49:38 PM
LIKE the Austria thing
10494. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 6:50:53 PM
Nobody remotely aware of Japan could have not known of this event, which as I say is one of dozens over recent years.
I just speak Japanese and have relatives there, and I do not keep myself particularly abreast of Japan. The country doesn't interest me terribly.
10495. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 6:51:23 PM
...BUT i do not keep myself
christ, something is happening to my English language skills.
10496. sakonige - 4/28/2000 7:24:01 PM
I was just talking to a Hopi man in TT about the blue spot many American Indian babies have on their bottom when they are born. He he thinks it is actually something American Indians inherited from Asians. Can anyone tell me if Asian babies usually have a blue spot on their bottom for about a month, too?
10497. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 7:26:35 PM
stostosto: what percentage of Denmark's population is non-European immigrants? I would think it's about 5%, not quite Austria's and Switzerland's 10%.
I know you're a right-thinking liberal Dane and all, so I'm curious. Would you mind if the proportion of Bangladeshis, Ghanaians, Ethiopians, Turks, Kurds, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. shot up to 10% of the population? to 15% of the population? 20%?
I don't mean whether you mind because others mind. I ask whether you personally mind.
I suppose the same question could be asked of Pelle.
10498. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 7:28:21 PM
And basically exclude any financial and economic considerations from your answer.
10499. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 7:34:21 PM
re Message # 10496 I know this as "Mongolian spots" although I learned so years ago and don't know if the phrase is still current. But, yes, the spots - usually a single large one on the buttocks or back - are common to Asians. My own daughter had one (born of white Daddy and Chinese Mamma) to no one's surprise except the mother of one of our white friends who for the slightest instant thought the spot a mark of abuse.
10500. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 7:36:06 PM
The spot, of course, is an agglomeration of pigment.
10501. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 7:52:09 PM
That any Chinese could think any race as "money-grubbing" is rather humorous, since I have never met any group of people so focused on money as the Chinese generally are.
Jews and Chinese get along well for a couple of reasons.
- Jews don't proselytize
- Jews who are involved with China are usually the best students of China and its culture. As my old 70+ teacher back in Taipei told me some years ago, "Jews are the best students of Chinese."
- Jews have an ancient culture, every bit as old as China's
- And more recently, Israel has begun to provide first-rate military equipment to the Chinese military. (This is something which is pissing the U.S. off.)
10502. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 8:35:23 PM
Jews who are involved with China are usually the best students of China and its culture. Nonsense, and contrary to my experience. The best students of China and its culture are those most interested.
Jews have an ancient culture, every bit as old as China's. You could say the same about Egyptians but no one does as, again, a simile is forced between Jews and Chinese.
The Chinese and Germans got along well for reason that after WWI the defeated Germans were one nationality the Chinese could somewhat control and so Krup and German military advisers were used by the KMT.
So, we should say the Chinese and Germans have a history of cooperation and co-dependence?
10503. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 8:36:23 PM
10504. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 8:36:35 PM
Hell, I found the largest number of US students of Chinese and China to be from the Midwest.
10505. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 8:37:03 PM
P.S. No, the majority were not Jews.
10506. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 8:37:39 PM
10507. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 9:00:03 PM
Scott Loar --
Nonsense, and contrary to my experience. The best students of China and its culture are those most interested.
Certainly, but among those, the Jews stood out, at least to this particular lady. She had taught at that language school in Middlebury, Vermont for some years (as well as Taiwan for thirty years), where some of the best students from American univerisities -- particularly the Ivy league schools --go to study languages at an intense pace. I trust her opinion. She had no reason to lie to me about it. I'm not Jewish.
I met very few Jews during my time in Taiwan, but the few I did meet usually fit the stereotype of the serious student or autodidact. One, by the name of Jason Blatt, is an acquaintance of mine who appears on CCTV, where he speaks in Chinese on American politics; he was also sent to Kosovo to do reports there, also in Chinese. His byline appears quite often in the South China Morning Post, over articles on Taiwan. His Chinese is the best I've ever heard a foreigner speak. But he studied Chinese in an actual language course for only one year, before he began to teach himself. Despite this lack of formal education in Chinese, he taught himself well enough (despite a heavy work load) that three years later he passed the exam to enter Zhengzhi Daxue's graduate program for Mainland studies.
Of course he is remarkable for anyone, Jewish or not, but again this commitment to study and improvement among Jews is more pronounced than among non-Jews -- and this is true whether the subject is China or not.
10508. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 9:30:59 PM
I guess Jews stood out because that's what she was looking for. And your Jason Blatt is the model for all others? This commitment to study and improvement among Jews is more pronounced than among non-Jews? And you say so even as you live among Chinese who have to be the most assiduous in study and self-improvement (no, I don't allow for results)?
Only one person of my acquaintance went to Middlebury to study, and he later joined the rest of us in Taiwan. Also, I'm not impressed by Ivy League students, or those from the Stanford Center either. You seem to be more than impressed.
10509. pseudoerasmus - 4/28/2000 9:39:22 PM
#10496
#10499
In Japanese what Loar tells us is known as "Mongolian spot" is called aza or literally "bruise" or "birthmark". My brother had one, even though he doesn't look particularly Asian. It's interesting that a Native American should have it.
10510. sakonige - 4/28/2000 9:41:34 PM
10511. sakonige - 4/28/2000 9:41:54 PM 10512. sakonige - 4/28/2000 9:43:16 PM 10513. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 9:44:00 PM Some sort of context for my remarks above (keep in mind while reading this that Jews represent between 2 and 3% of the American population): 10514. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 9:46:17 PM In Chinese Pseudoerasmus' aza is commonly called a mole. 10515. sakonige - 4/28/2000 9:46:18 PM 10516. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 9:50:19 PM PincherMartin; 10517. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 9:54:38 PM Could it possibly be that a small group of people different from the majority - say newly arrived immigrants, or a displaced group like Cubans - would tend to excel in the second or third generation? Like the British in Argentina as well? What's so strange about that? 10518. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 9:55:53 PM Scott Loar -- 10519. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 9:56:37 PM Why are professional prize fighters so heavily black or hispanic whereas before they tended to be Irish or Italian? 10520. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 9:58:49 PM re Message # 10518, last two paragraphs: Fair comment. 10521. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 9:58:56 PM Asians are disproportionately present among doctors and university graduates among other things, just as Koreans are disproportionately represented at the Juliard School. So what? 10522. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 10:05:03 PM PincherMartin; 10523. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 10:10:39 PM This exchange reminds me of a literature professor at TaiDa who pronounced that literary criticism was outside the understanding of Americans whose history was too short. Germans and French, yes, the British and even the Dutch could critically understand Chinese literature, but not the Americans. 10524. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 10:12:03 PM Scott Loar -- 10525. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 10:14:18 PM I could do a quick run through the scholars in the field to see who are among the leading scholars on China. Any bet that they will be disportionately represented by Jews? 10526. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 10:18:45 PM Well, yes, it is cultural. It depends on who you pal with, to what end you study, and to whom you compare your language skills - which only comparison can be to a native speaker for that's the standard. 10527. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 10:20:40 PM Sure Pincher, scroll and see if Western or US Sinologists are disproportionately Jewish. And don't depend on the last name unless obvious. 10528. ScottLoar - 4/28/2000 10:21:30 PM I'd bet RustlerPike would love all this lather and attention showered on his most favourite subject. 10529. Seguine - 4/28/2000 10:48:45 PM "Can anyone tell me if Asian babies usually have a blue spot on their bottom for about a month, too?" 10530. Seguine - 4/28/2000 10:54:03 PM Loar, 10531. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 11:25:21 PM Three books I've read recently: 10532. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 11:27:08 PM An hour's search and I named many of the major names in the field of China studies, whether they are in political science, history or international relations. 10533. PincherMartin - 4/28/2000 11:33:34 PM The difference between the Chinese (or Asians) is that there are more than a billion of them and there are how many Jews, maybe ten or twenty million at the most. Hell, right now, American Chinese alone must account for at least one-third of American Jew numbers. Then you add in the Chinese from SE Asia, Taiwan and Mainland China. These numbers from the different regions are quadruple the entire populaton of the United States. Give them a strong impetus to study abroad in the U.S. at the finest universities and it should be no surprise that many of them score the best on tests and have the best grades. 10534. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 8:53:28 AM John King Fairbank, Michael Oksenberg, Jonathan Spence, Arthur H. Smith, Joseph Fletcher, Doak Barnett... 5 minutes remembrance. 10535. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 8:56:41 AM Message # 10528 is awkward. It should read "love all this attention lathered on his most favourite subject". 10536. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 9:00:41 AM re Message # 10530, yes, I know that as does the state university system of California. Meaning what? That success in study, ambition and drive if you will, the desire for material success and professional acclaim, can be instilled in a child and reinforced by his peers. 10537. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 9:02:49 AM And if that is true then a group which consistently fails to measure up to standards also has itself to answer to. 10538. MrSocko - 4/29/2000 10:13:15 AM Message # 10400, wombat: 10539. pseudoerasmus - 4/29/2000 10:28:02 AM Still, congrats, old bean, you evidently know more about Japan than the "Japanese" PE. 10540. pseudoerasmus - 4/29/2000 10:31:57 AM Why don't you meet some Japanese and ascertain whether they are conversant in the esoterica of Japanese-Jewish relations? 10541. MrSocko - 4/29/2000 10:36:39 AM "Why don't you meet some Japanese and ascertain whether they are conversant in the esoterica of Japanese-Jewish relations?" 10542. pseudoerasmus - 4/29/2000 10:38:23 AM Well, I'm actually not much interested in the Jewish side of the issue. 10543. Seguine - 4/29/2000 1:10:35 PM Loar, nothing Pincher has said contradicts your 10536 & 7. Moreover, if you cite 50 anglo sinologists and he cites 3 Jewish ones, his point concerning the disproportion of Jewish representation in the field is still made. 10544. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 2:10:19 PM Seguine, I don't know that Jew are disproportionately represented in the field as a a glance at the references from the very texts he cites should show that. 10545. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 2:13:21 PM We could also easily say Midwesterners are disproportionately represented among Americans studying Chinese, or academics from such and such institutions or graduates from such and such universities are disproportionately represented. 10546. pseudoerasmus - 4/29/2000 2:14:44 PM I think her point is that even 3 out of 50 is higher than the proportion in the population as a whole. 10547. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 2:16:55 PM Then I concede that point, even as we can split the representation ever narrower by looking at the examples I give in Message # 10545. 10548. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 2:20:06 PM Let me put it this way. I think the persons attracted to Chinese studies, especially to pre-modern Chinese history and subjects, most likely do so because they are attracted by arcane knowledge or the particular field gives enough allowance that they may stand to make a respectable name for themselves. 10549. pseudoerasmus - 4/29/2000 2:58:55 PM Is there a book on Sinologists comparable to Robert Kaplan's Arabists (which was not just on scholars but also on diplomats and other Arab "hands"). 10550. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 3:10:12 PM Let me put it this way. I think the persons attracted to Chinese studies, especially to pre-modern Chinese history and subjects, most likely do so because they are attracted by arcane knowledge or the particular field gives enough allowance that they may stand to make a respectable name for themselves. 10551. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 3:18:10 PM There's an old biography on Fairbanks I read that spoke of the personal relationships between him and many of the original Sinologists (Fairbank pioneered the field). Unfortunately, I don't have it. I say "unfortunately" because I seem to remember a scene where Fairbanks runs into trouble with the Jewish scholars in the field. There is nothing like Kaplan's The Arabists, however. 10552. Seguine - 4/29/2000 6:23:10 PM Mosher is Jewish. Don't know about Mote. 10553. Seguine - 4/29/2000 6:24:11 PM But in response to all that, PM's original contention was that Jews and Chinese get along, in defense of which he cited cultural parallelisms and Jews' predominance in the field of Sinology (indicating, I guess, strong Jewish interest in the Chinese). 10554. Seguine - 4/29/2000 6:24:28 PM "But anxiety? What in the hell are you talking about? How do you come to such a stupid conclusion?" 10555. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 6:49:17 PM PincherMartin and Seguine; 10556. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 6:50:46 PM PincherMartin, 10557. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 6:55:25 PM Seguine, 10558. pseudoerasmus - 4/29/2000 7:37:49 PM It would be one thing to conclude, based on the other examples given in that message of yours, that the Chinese are at least beset by a sort of equal-opportunity idiotic stereotyping of everyone not Chinese. You might, if you were charitably inclined, stop short of labelling such attitudes racist. But if your characterization of their attitudes toward Jews is correct, then the Chinese are antisemites. 10559. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 8:04:36 PM Thank you, Pseudoerasmus, for making clear what I obviously could not. 10560. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 9:14:12 PM Scott Loar -- 10561. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 9:16:25 PM I have never asked the Chinese their opinions of Jews. It never occurred to me to do so. I have also never heard them speak in any obsessive and generalizing manner about the Jews, so even without my invitation to speak on the subject, they don't -- in my experience -- do so. In fact, I can only remember a reference to them come up in a conversation three or four times during my entire time in Taiwan and each time the reference was only in passing. However, each of those times were also fairly favorable comments: one was the reference I mentioned earlier; one was a comparison of the ability of Jews to make money and the Chinese ability to make money (and, yes, the comparison was favorable), etc. 10562. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 9:19:13 PM And I again note that one of the most important reasons that Jews -- among all westeners -- would be welcome in some quarters among the Chinese is that they, unlike Christians -- don't proselytize. 10563. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 9:26:38 PM Other Jews who have been either China scholars or Sinophiles: Merle Goldman, Steven Goldstein and the journalist Theodore White (the guy who wrote The Making of the President series; he studied under Fairbank at Harvard) 10564. PincherMartin - 4/29/2000 9:27:55 PM Seguine -- 10565. ScottLoar - 4/29/2000 10:03:23 PM Then you can take my dumb-ass commentary and fuck yourself. 10566. Seguine - 4/29/2000 10:35:38 PM Loar, 10567. Seguine - 4/29/2000 10:35:55 PM Then again, perhaps you mean to draw a line between prejudice, bias, and racism (of which most antisemitism is a variant). I used to think such distinctions were useful, but over time I've decided they're quite trivial. 10568. Seguine - 4/29/2000 10:38:02 PM "...and angered that my motives are now in question as being anti-Semitic themselves." 10569. Seguine - 4/29/2000 11:54:08 PM PE: "the Chinese, by Loar's description, overgeneralise about all ethnic groups but hold no particular animus against the Jews nor single out Jews for stereotyping." 10570. Seguine - 4/29/2000 11:54:43 PM (As for the Chinese nut-job I worked for: email me if you really want the details. She was a fundraiser at Penn, apparently a racist, a sexist, and clean out of her mind. Possibly suffering from Alzheimer's, it's hard to know; I didn't wait for a diagnosis, I just fled.) 10571. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 12:07:00 AM No, I try not to judge individuals by the (negative or positive, founded or unfounded) reputation of their ethnic group, and yes I generally think "prejudice (abetted by thinking according to stereotype)" is wrong. But in most real cases, it's a pecadillo, not a great wrong. Of course people obsessed with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have something wrong with them, but those are, I think, pretty rare and they're not what I'm talking about. 10572. stostosto - 4/30/2000 2:51:35 AM Socko #10538 10573. stostosto - 4/30/2000 3:40:29 AM Phew, things have been going fast around here. I haven't got time to read up on everything now but Pseuder asked me a question in #10497 and since he'll be gone shortly, I'll rush to answer it. 10574. RustlerPike - 4/30/2000 3:45:03 AM 10575. stostosto - 4/30/2000 3:47:32 AM PE further said: 10576. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 4:02:03 AM I, on the other hand, feel that too many immigrants coming in too rapidly from countries with shallow or nonexistent liberal & democratic traditions might undermine those traditions. 10577. RustlerPike - 4/30/2000 4:35:43 AM 10578. ButterfieldSwire - 4/30/2000 9:20:13 AM Well, it seems to me that Israel illustrates a potential problem for Western Europe with immigration, but not the one mentioned by Pseudoerasmus and RustlerPike. Virtually every immigrant to the USA has come from a country without a democratic tradition, and the vast majority of Americans today are descended from these immigrants. When these people become a majority in any given district, this can be a problem, see Miami, for instance. But Miami is nothing new in American history, fairly mild really, and life goes on. 10579. Seguine - 4/30/2000 10:29:38 AM "But in most real cases, it's a pecadillo, not a great wrong." 10580. Seguine - 4/30/2000 10:40:56 AM Pike:"These are the kind of absurd peaks of self-nullification that this 'sane', 'Western' thinking leads to." 10581. Seguine - 4/30/2000 10:44:43 AM Pike, what is the situation of Ethiopean Jews in Israel? I read in a solicitation for tzedaka that Israel is developing its own black underclass. 10582. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 12:05:32 PM Stostostosto: 10583. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 12:16:20 PM ButterfieldSwire: The problem of immigrant assimilation in Europe lies not primarily in the immigrants' hostility to European governments, but in the fact that most European countries define their identity in ethnic terms. With the exception of the UK and France, most European countries make it rare and next-to-impossible for immigrants to become naturalised citizens. In Switzerland, each canton holds a referendum on naturalisation! (and rarely confers it on people who are not Germans, French, Italians, or Austrians). Germany's just begun liberalising its citizenship rules, but its millions of Turks and Kurds born in Germany are still not eligible for German citizenship. You've seen Stostostosto's numbers on foreign residents in various European countries (but they don't include the many British and French citizens who are of non-European origin). Unless those countries change their rules, most of them will be permanent residents but also permanent outsiders. It's this exclusion, rather than some colonial antipathy (which is not a factor at all, in my opinion), which will cause problems in the future. 10584. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 12:16:38 PM assimilation is inevitable even in France. Already, there are already so many French citizens of Arab and African descent that this makes it all the more likely. 10585. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 12:23:12 PM But maybe I overgeneralise. Do Sweden and Denmark have liberal naturalisation rules? Somehow I doubt this, but perhaps they do. 10586. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 12:38:34 PM Anyway, ButterfieldSwire underestimates the problem of assimilation in the USA, where Hispanics have become a cohesive bloc of immigrants large enough to immure themselves in linguistic and cultural enclaves. And I'm not talking just about Texas -- there are towns in the Northeast which are almost overwhelmingly Hispanic. Now, I've no doubt their children will eventually assimilate (though probably by stretching the plasticity of Americanness a bit further), but my point is that Arabs and Africans in France do not seem any more intractable than the Hispanics in the USA. 10587. uzmakk - 4/30/2000 12:40:47 PM A point from Who Killed Homer. The society that we are supposedly working towards is multiethnic not multicultural. Cultures like to clash and destroy eachother. 10588. PincherMartin - 4/30/2000 1:09:01 PM Here are some more links showing Jewish and Chinese cultural connections: 10589. PincherMartin - 4/30/2000 1:09:15 PM One of the scholars at the conference is Xu Xin, a Chinese specialist on Judaic Studies who teaches at Nanjing. Here is a Jewish Bulletin article written on him called Jews offer lessons for everyone, says Chinese scholar, authorHere is an outstanding piece on the Kaifeng Jews written by Dr Wendy Abraham of the Stanford Asian Languages Department called The Jews of China 10590. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 1:10:43 PM (Rustler: you're like a backlash incarnate. Male backlash. Pseudo-Sephardic backlash....) 10591. PincherMartin - 4/30/2000 1:26:19 PM Now I suppose none of this matters to someone who ascertained the truth of all matters at a variety of hotel watering holes, but to some I think I have shown that: 10592. PincherMartin - 4/30/2000 1:27:43 PM PE -- 10593. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 2:07:56 PM I was addressing Rustler. though I suppose you were being ironic. 10594. sakonige - 4/30/2000 2:12:43 PM 10595. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 2:18:32 PM Jews -- and Genetic Propensity 10596. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 2:21:00 PM C 10597. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 2:32:44 PM Hello, Transient1, welcome back. 10598. PelleNilsson - 4/30/2000 2:35:29 PM PE 10599. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 2:36:04 PM their names are still used to designate tribes of the Pathan. 10600. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 2:44:04 PM The name of the alleged daughter of Saul in Pathan legend is Afghana. 10601. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 2:44:39 PM are THERE, not their 10602. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 3:01:14 PM By the way, here are the latest figures for European far-right parties in the most recent elections: 10603. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 3:03:32 PM The reaction in Switzerland and I suppose Austria is easy to explain: they've gone from nearly very few immigrants as late as 1980 to something like 10% of the population today. 10604. sakonige - 4/30/2000 3:13:37 PM 10605. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 3:15:19 PM I answered that question above. 10606. sakonige - 4/30/2000 3:18:36 PM 10607. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 5:38:10 PM pseudoerasmus, 10608. stostosto - 4/30/2000 5:50:36 PM Pseuder #10602 10609. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 5:55:52 PM Simcha Jacobovici pronounced the names in way to show a possible Jewish shadow. 10610. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 6:00:43 PM Transient1, #10607 10611. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 6:01:15 PM 10612. stostosto - 4/30/2000 6:02:21 PM pseudoerasmus #10582. 10613. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 6:06:56 PM Nasseri has got nothing to do with Waziri. It's linguistically improbable. 10614. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 6:07:47 PM Durrani supplied the Afghan royal house, the Ghajli the Lodi dynasty in Delhi. 10615. stostosto - 4/30/2000 6:10:55 PM Pseuder 10616. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 6:30:07 PM Yes, sto, my error: those figures are the poll data compiled here. 10617. stostosto - 4/30/2000 6:51:20 PM Pseud: 10618. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 7:08:31 PM pseudoerasmus, 10619. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 7:58:44 PM Tenement, 10620. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 7:59:49 PM Well, I doubt anyone else will be interested in Pathan tribal names. So instead of posting them if you find anything you can email them to me at pseudoerasmus@hotmail.com 10621. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 8:03:44 PM Well, if Reubenie and Leveni are Pathan tribes, then they are very very very very obscure and not located on any of the five tribal maps of Afghanistan and Pakistan that I have. 10622. sakonige - 4/30/2000 8:27:27 PM 10623. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 9:04:34 PM pseudoerasmus, 10624. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 9:15:22 PM Oh, yes, sorry. It may seem like typical PE, but no, that was completely unintended. 10625. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 9:39:29 PM pseudoerasmus, 10626. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 9:54:21 PM Tenement: 10627. Transient1 - 4/30/2000 10:13:01 PM smudge, 10628. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 10:14:49 PM The site which put out Tenement's drivel about the Pathans is http://moshiach.com/. But what on earth is Moshiach? I can't figure out what it is, except that it appears to be some kind of ultra-religious Jewish organisation. 10629. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 10:17:41 PM You should read the argument for the claim that the Japanese worship Isaac (as in the son of Abraham) as a god! 10630. ButterfieldSwire - 4/30/2000 10:42:24 PM Raz- Something like 50% of Hispanics born in the United States marry non-Hispanics. Virtually all hispanics born in the United States, speak English. There seems to be little difference in the way the Hispanic immigrants are becoming American than previous emigrants. Its probably true that they will shift the center of American politics, at least temporarily. But since that would seem to be in a direction you would like to see it shifted, I am puzzled what bothers you about this. 10631. ButterfieldSwire - 4/30/2000 10:53:23 PM Thats not a choice that Americans have to make, but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable demand to me. That people born in Germany wouldn't be able to make that choice makes me think that the barriers to assimilation are not one way. 10632. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 11:08:25 PM #10630 10633. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 11:08:35 PM 10634. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 11:09:14 PM You think Arabs and Africans born in France don't speak English? 10635. pseudoerasmus - 4/30/2000 11:10:17 PM (Plus, not all Arabs in France are Algerians. You've got Moroccans, Tunisians, etc. who are more moderate.) 10636. stostosto - 5/1/2000 3:29:14 AM Socko 10637. RustlerPike - 5/1/2000 3:31:02 AM 10638. RustlerPike - 5/1/2000 3:36:48 AM pseudo: 10639. RustlerPike - 5/1/2000 3:39:04 AM 10640. ButterfieldSwire - 5/1/2000 5:11:58 AM RustlerPike -- I don't think the US has an identity problem and as should be obvious, I was arguing that large inflows of immigrants to the United States has not presented any problems which were serious or permanent. I would attribute your lack of reading comprehension to your exhaustion after a long days work, but since its Labor Day and only the Palestinian manual laborers who land you stole are working, I 'm puzzled that you couldn't see this. 10641. ButterfieldSwire - 5/1/2000 5:13:56 AM 10642. pseudoerasmus - 5/1/2000 8:37:26 AM Well, I did say in my first message to you that Germany is liberalising or has liberalised its citizenships laws, but the point is that until this liberalisation even Turks born in Germany were not eligible for citizenship even if they wished to renounce their Turkish citizenship. 10643. marjoribanks - 5/1/2000 10:33:56 AM I saw a lengthy A&E special on the lost tribes of Israel which postulated exactly what transient talks about - that the Pathans have among them several lost tribes. It also found that the Bene Israelis of Bombay were one, and that tribe along the Indo-Burma border I talked about some years ago was another. It was a fruitcake special btw, the narrator looking fervntly for signs that Armageddon is on its way. 10644. marjoribanks - 5/1/2000 10:36:29 AM That kooky special must be related to that moshiach webpage. There's a whole section on those Mizos here. Apparently, a whole bunch have already moved to Israel. 10645. marjoribanks - 5/1/2000 10:50:29 AM Why has there been a spate of absolutely silly sniping and infighting in this thread the past month or so? The last one was remarkably distasteful to read. I suggest that perhaps we correspondents can forget for a bit that we know each other well (or think we do) and leave alone all the baggage that makes these spats quite so unpleasant and concentrate on discussing issues clearly without personal invective. 10646. RustlerPike - 5/1/2000 11:17:38 AM 10647. RustlerPike - 5/1/2000 11:23:28 AM 10648. MrSocko - 5/1/2000 7:36:03 PM Message # 10636, sto: 10649. RustlerPike - 5/2/2000 3:46:33 AM 10650. robertjayb - 5/2/2000 4:00:11 AM . 10651. ButterfieldSwire - 5/2/2000 6:31:37 AM GristlyPuke - I asserted that a) Israeli Arabs are neither culturally nor politically assimilated b) this lack of assimilation presents significant political problems for Israel. You say this is stupid. Which of these self-evident assertions are you stupidly saying is false. 10652. marjoribanks - 5/2/2000 9:48:21 AM Psocks, 10653. marjoribanks - 5/2/2000 9:52:16 AM Odd sub-con image of theday. 10654. PelleNilsson - 5/2/2000 10:34:52 AM 10655. MrSocko - 5/2/2000 10:39:05 AM Message # 10652 10656. MrSocko - 5/2/2000 10:40:03 AM When you think about it, isn't Mugabe just like a character from an Evelyn Waugh novel? 10657. PelleNilsson - 5/2/2000 10:45:36 AM MrSocko 10658. Transient1 - 5/2/2000 11:07:21 AM marjoribanks, 10659. Transient1 - 5/2/2000 11:10:11 AM pseudoerasmus, 10660. Transient1 - 5/2/2000 11:10:39 AM pseudoerasmus, 10661. MrSocko - 5/2/2000 11:21:39 AM Message # 10657 10662. stostosto - 5/2/2000 11:45:25 AM Socko 10663. Jenerator - 5/2/2000 11:54:10 AM I thought he just didn't like Blacks. 10664. Ronski - 5/2/2000 12:27:39 PM 10665. PelleNilsson - 5/2/2000 2:43:35 PM African do indeed have a lot to blame us Westerners for. But I think -perhaps in contrast to many others - that much if not most of the damage was done in post-colonial times. 10666. Ronski - 5/2/2000 2:57:56 PM A good analysis, excepts that it lets African citizens off the hook for their own compliance in this mess. 10667. PelleNilsson - 5/2/2000 3:10:52 PM Yes, but ironically it was we with our do-goodery that provided the escape clause by saying in effect that "you have been oppressed, you cannot be expected to run a state, now listen to us - your former oppressors! - and we will tell you what to do and provide a lot of money to do it with". 10668. Ronski - 5/2/2000 3:18:32 PM 10669. DanDillon - 5/2/2000 4:03:14 PM Have any of you visited the continent of which you speak? Have any of you spoken to local peoples there? Have any of you acclimated yourselves to its immediate environment? I suspect this would broaden and deepen your knowledge unlike any printed source or expert opinion. You may even develop some compassion. 10670. Ronski - 5/2/2000 4:20:38 PM Dan, 10671. DanDillon - 5/2/2000 4:27:58 PM Isn't wishing people to throw off the yoke of tyrannies such as Mugabe's and wanting to see them enjoy the peace and prosperity of the West compassionate? 10672. Ronski - 5/2/2000 4:30:53 PM Dan, 10673. DanDillon - 5/2/2000 4:37:35 PM You are suggesting that the West does not enjoy greater peace and prosperity than Africa does? 10674. PelleNilsson - 5/2/2000 5:07:09 PM Dan 10675. Ronski - 5/2/2000 5:11:41 PM Dan, 10676. MrSocko - 5/2/2000 7:04:48 PM Message # 10662, sto 10677. MrSocko - 5/2/2000 7:08:45 PM Sto: 10678. DanDillon - 5/2/2000 7:50:01 PM Ronski, 10679. Seguine - 5/2/2000 9:13:36 PM "...the white farmers and black opposition members who are beign murdered daily by government goons ("war veterans" my ass) in Rhodesia?" 10680. RustlerPike - 5/3/2000 1:49:23 AM 10681. RustlerPike - 5/3/2000 2:07:23 AM 10682. uzmakk - 5/3/2000 7:16:42 AM Whuuu. I hear a distant ringing. Oh, hello, Pike. I am not familiar with any of the names, but I heard the ringing. 10683. PelleNilsson - 5/3/2000 7:58:03 AM Rustler 10684. uzmakk - 5/3/2000 9:02:59 AM Pelle, 10685. stostosto - 5/3/2000 9:09:16 AM Ronski #10664: 10686. stostosto - 5/3/2000 9:16:34 AM Socko #10677: 10687. stostosto - 5/3/2000 9:31:53 AM Seguine #10679. 10688. PelleNilsson - 5/3/2000 9:33:39 AM Uzmakk 10689. PelleNilsson - 5/3/2000 9:34:47 AM Sh*t. See WWII I mean. 10690. stostosto - 5/3/2000 9:53:37 AM Regarding Rustler's speculation that the western media's stark departure from its normal indifference to African affairs has something to do with the victims being white, here is a surprising admission from the Economist's leader of April 22nd: 10691. Seguine - 5/3/2000 10:59:36 AM "Zimbabwe's ailing economy is not just about the absence of elephant-shooting Texans. Mugabe has an impressive record of economic mismanagement in all sectors, institutions and policies." 10692. MrSocko - 5/3/2000 11:10:02 AM sto, who has always struck me as being a little bit wet, politically speaking, is seeming more and more like a one-man tidal wave. However, I have to agree with his criticism of Ronski’s reading of my comments. Yes, it’s true that I was offering a generalized political criticism of Africans per se -- they piss me off in the same way that, say, Israelis have in the past for supporting the nutters in the Likud party. I am honestly fed up with their carping and whining, and I don’t see that I need live in Rhodesia to hold this opinion. If this be “racism” then so be it, and ditto if criticizing Israelis makes me an anti-Semite. 10693. MrSocko - 5/3/2000 11:15:16 AM Has sto ever: 10694. Jenerator - 5/3/2000 11:24:54 AM Jenerator’s comment in response to mine is typically foolish, as one might expect from a fatuous individual who all of her life has worn pyjamas to bed each night, as I suspect sto does too, and no doubt cringes her way out of the same sheets each morning. 10695. Seguine - 5/3/2000 11:29:44 AM I should clarify something. In the northern parts of Zimbabwe, agriculture is heavily tobacco, which is exported. But ranching takes place in the south, where animals are beset by parasite-carrying ticks in fantastic numbers. Animals need to be dipped in insecticide every week. 10696. Jenerator - 5/3/2000 11:32:59 AM I read somewhere that the cattle in Zimbabwe are responsible for an alarmingly large percentage of the world's methane gas pollution. 10697. Seguine - 5/3/2000 11:33:53 AM Sto, good article you linked (from Pelle, from Economist). 10698. Ronski - 5/3/2000 11:36:22 AM sto, Socko, 10699. MrSocko - 5/3/2000 11:39:56 AM Message # 10694 10700. Jenerator - 5/3/2000 11:47:53 AM Socks, 10701. stostosto - 5/3/2000 2:14:48 PM What does it mean to be 'wet' politically? 10702. stostosto - 5/3/2000 2:16:50 PM Socko, I don't count you a racist. I just think you are stuck in a juvenile Reaganistic rut. 10703. stostosto - 5/3/2000 2:30:27 PM And, Socko, get this: I don't even think I disagree in your assessment of the relative virtues of Mugabe and Lee. But why the fuck do you find it necessary to throw insults at all Africans who are patently and undeniably the piss-poor people of this world in order to make your pretty obvious point? 10704. PelleNilsson - 5/3/2000 3:58:32 PM Jenerator -- Message # 10696 10705. PsychProf - 5/3/2000 4:15:25 PM PELLE...MANY ARE BUGGED BY THIS NOXIOUS PROBLEM 10706. PelleNilsson - 5/3/2000 4:40:18 PM PP 10707. MrSocko - 5/3/2000 8:48:21 PM Message # 10701 10708. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/3/2000 8:57:54 PM Socko: 10709. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/3/2000 9:01:02 PM Also, Socko, I'll bet Jenerator will inform you that she has been in Hawaii, which, although it is not a foreign country, is indeed a part of Polynesia (despite the fact no one (except those on Nihue Island) speaks Hawaiian any longer, and ethnic Hawaiians make up less than 10% of the population). 10710. MrSocko - 5/3/2000 9:30:13 PM Culture-wise, Hawaii, like NZ, really doesn't count as a Polynesian entity since the overwhelming majority of inhabitants, as you point out, are non-Poly. And I note that both lie on tips of the Polynesian triangle. I still say J. has never visited a country where a majority of inhabitants are not light-skinned, and CERTAINLY not Polynesians. 10711. MrSocko - 5/3/2000 9:31:40 PM The last graf was rambling, but you get my point. 10712. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/3/2000 9:56:08 PM Socko: 10713. MrSocko - 5/4/2000 2:18:26 AM By the way, what on earth is happening with these students in the city of Medan? The wire reports make the situation sound quite awful. 10714. PelleNilsson - 5/4/2000 2:20:11 AM Rustler 10715. RustlerPike - 5/4/2000 5:49:56 AM 10716. RustlerPike - 5/4/2000 9:35:40 AM 10717. RustlerPike - 5/4/2000 9:43:56 AM 10718. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 10:29:37 AM Much as I'd like to have avoided it, psocko's inflammatory comments and rhetoric force me to enter this discussion on land and Zimbabwe. 10719. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 10:29:53 AM Anyway, as this article (contradicting the silly rhetoric bandied about here) points out, Mugabe's actions on this issue have actually been quite temperate as opposed to the wild-eyed speeches he makes for purely political effect. He is a bad man, no doubt. As venal and monomaniacal as any leader anywhere. But his actions have actually not lived up to his rhetoric. 10720. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 10:34:19 AM The problem in Kenya is quite different now. It's the last-gasp effort by Moi and his cronies to hold on to power at any cost. Nobody really argues that further widespread land-reform is necessary. Whites (and Asians) are simply targetted on a random basis in orderto deflect criticism of the government. 10721. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 10:40:39 AM I suspect (and have said as much before) that Psocko would dearly have loved to live in the colonial era, preferably in an Apartheid-type state. There, people like him could vastly benefit from the status-quo and the hopes/aspirations/rights of the millions and millions who actually belong to the land could be swept apart like so much dust. 10722. DanDillon - 5/4/2000 10:48:26 AM Dems be fightin' words. 10723. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 10:52:34 AM Furthermore, I'm coming to really really hate the Brits bcause they will not deviate from the twisted foreign-policy attitudes that have characterized their international actions for so long. It's even more irritating when yelping pie-dog Blair swaggers about like old John Bull. Somehow, even a Thatcher was more tolerable in that pose. 10724. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 10:54:42 AM I now return you to your regularly scheduled program. 10725. jexster - 5/4/2000 11:29:05 AM My favorite city.... 10726. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 11:42:47 AM Nice dawn shot of the Ponte Vecchio, jexster. Florence is one of my favorites too. 10727. janjon - 5/4/2000 12:11:56 PM Florence is grand. But how much nicer it would be without tourists. Even in the dead of winter, there they (we) all are. Almost impossible to escape them/us. 10728. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 12:20:46 PM 10729. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 12:26:22 PM Well, actually it's just the city I'm most loyal to. 10730. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/4/2000 1:31:00 PM My favorite city: 10731. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 1:36:53 PM Nice shot, Irva. Jakarta? 10732. Raskolnikov - 5/4/2000 1:42:36 PM These are some nice pictures but can you all *please* list the name of the cities so we can have a idea of where we should go on vacation? As is, I feel like I have wondered into the Quiz thread. 10733. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 1:44:08 PM Mine were Bombay, then Rio. 10734. janjon - 5/4/2000 2:13:00 PM Certainly not a very typical shot of Rio. I didn't recognize it, and I've been there too. 10735. Raskolnikov - 5/4/2000 2:35:54 PM ...although this is actually a pretty good idea for the quiz thread. 10736. PelleNilsson - 5/4/2000 3:13:57 PM jexster 10737. PelleNilsson - 5/4/2000 3:16:27 PM This is my favourite city in an odd kind of way. 10738. janjon - 5/4/2000 3:17:06 PM Well, Pelle. I normally don't take things personally, but.... 10739. PelleNilsson - 5/4/2000 4:44:59 PM janjon 10740. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 4:48:55 PM Pelle, 10741. marjoribanks - 5/4/2000 4:50:16 PM Here's a better one, so you don't feel too bad. 10742. stostosto - 5/4/2000 4:53:26 PM Socko #10707: 10743. PelleNilsson - 5/4/2000 5:06:18 PM marj 10744. stostosto - 5/4/2000 5:17:05 PM marj 10745. MrSocko - 5/4/2000 5:18:37 PM marjoribanks: 10746. PelleNilsson - 5/4/2000 5:23:32 PM Fine retreat by Socko. 10747. MrSocko - 5/4/2000 5:28:58 PM Message # 10723 is sheer babble. "Furthermore," marjoribanks quivers, "I'm coming to really really hate the Brits because they will not deviate from the twisted foreign-policy attitudes." Oh, really? Seems to me that Britain is merely trying to appeal for calm in a bad situation that it really has little control over. What's so hateful about that? The comparisons between Thatcher and Blair are, while amusing, quite useless in throwing any light on anything. 10748. MrSocko - 5/4/2000 5:37:33 PM Every time I hear there's been a fire in a Manhattan apartment I find myself hoping that it will not have been accidently started by my old chum marjoribanks during one of his nightly sessions marching around the bedroom -- presumably much to the distress of his wife -- with a burning flag and loud-hailer. Hell hath no fury like an Upper East Side socialist scorned by a world that's moved on from undergraduate orations and misty-eyed notions of The Struggle. 10749. stostosto - 5/4/2000 6:05:16 PM Sorry marj, I meant to say (#10744) 10750. stostosto - 5/4/2000 6:11:03 PM What's with Sri Lanka? I hear the government is losing out against the Tamil tigers. 40,000 troops are cut off in the north apparently unable to fight back against heavily armed guerillas, allegedely numbering only 5-10,000. India and Pakistan have been approached for help by the government but have denied it. Now Israel is being wooed. (Israel?!) 10751. stostosto - 5/4/2000 6:35:25 PM Here is some. 10752. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/4/2000 9:16:40 PM Marj: 10753. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/4/2000 9:23:01 PM Of course, there is a downside to a city of 28 million people: 10754. PelleNilsson - 5/5/2000 8:16:12 AM The man we once loved. Typical tippy-toeing around the facts by our old pal, Uncle Psocko. 10756. marjoribanks - 5/5/2000 10:54:50 AM 10757. ButterfieldSwire - 5/5/2000 11:50:37 AM Its almost a given that anyone powerful enough to effect some positive change anywhere is open to accusations of hypocrisy. someone with power probably either acted immorally in the past or did not act sufficiently within their power to prevent some immorallity. It thus follows that someone who opposes positive change on the grounds that the actors are hypocrites are themselves bad actors. 10758. ButterfieldSwire - 5/5/2000 12:05:53 PM Certainly, the British were in every sense hypocritical at pushing democracy, 5 years before the end of Empire. On the other hand, democracy seems like a good thing given the alternative and clearly democracy has been embraced by Hong Kong Chinese. So it seems obvious that the fundamental part of that push for democracy was the democracy itself, not the hypocrisy (which is universal). Anyone who really cares about democracy or freedom in Hong Kong would not think, as marjoribanks seems to, that the most important thing to talk about is what a bunch hypocrites the Brits are. 10759. janjon - 5/5/2000 12:22:58 PM Pelle. It was a feeble attempt at levity. You welcomed jexster as one who is not "seen" here often. Nor am I. 10760. marjoribanks - 5/5/2000 3:07:31 PM BS, 10761. PincherMartin - 5/5/2000 4:18:26 PM Is it hypocrisy for the U.S. to oppose slavery in the Sudan because of U.S. slavery? 10762. marjoribanks - 5/5/2000 4:35:39 PM Pincher, you're missing the point re: Zimbabwe. The Brits left exactly 40 years ago. Since then, they tacitly supported (certainly never acted like this) the Ian Smith rightist government which lasted till 1980. It has exactly no similarity to the cases you mention. 10763. PincherMartin - 5/5/2000 5:14:02 PM Marj -- 10764. PincherMartin - 5/5/2000 5:20:15 PM And partly because Britain and the other donors have flat-out not contributed the monies promised as part of the Independence agreement. Britain continued to sell/donate arms however. 10765. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:22:33 PM "Why is Mugabe playing this card? Is it because he's alone? No. It's because the issue resonates with larger sections of the populace than those which already give him unconditional support." 10766. stostosto - 5/5/2000 5:25:53 PM marj 10767. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:29:57 PM Incidentally, the same people who once thought Mugabe a good enough leader in spite of his well-known corruption (because, to everyone's benefit, he poured money into hospitals and education) now think he has gone mad. 10768. PelleNilsson - 5/5/2000 5:33:30 PM sto 10769. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:35:54 PM "So why don't they tell Mugabe to come to his senses? What is their official attitude at all?" 10770. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:36:55 PM cp w/Pelle's 10771. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:38:35 PM There was a big (6.5) earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Indo, don't know how far from Bali. Anyone heard from Irv? 10772. PelleNilsson - 5/5/2000 5:40:49 PM From the BBC. 10773. CalGal - 5/5/2000 5:47:40 PM Seguine, 10774. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:50:01 PM From the FT (but this mustn't be trusted, it's British): 10775. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:50:21 PM Anglovaal Industries, for example, had permits to export $7m worth of soyabeans to South Africa cancelled after Kumbirai Kangai, the Zimbabwe agriculture minister, and other senior officials were arrested as part of the government's pre-election drive against corruption. New permits were issued but the company doubts their valididity and is considering court action to stop payment on a $3.5m letter of credit. 10776. stostosto - 5/5/2000 5:56:06 PM Good work, Pelle. I hadn't seen that. 10777. Seguine - 5/5/2000 5:58:42 PM CG: Irv's public email address is listed in N&Q. Following is an AP report. 10778. stostosto - 5/5/2000 6:01:38 PM Seguine 10779. PelleNilsson - 5/5/2000 6:02:13 PM BBC has nothing about an Indonesian earth quake. 10780. marshame - 5/5/2000 6:03:44 PM PE 10781. stostosto - 5/5/2000 6:09:46 PM marshame 10782. Seguine - 5/5/2000 6:10:11 PM Mbeki's Address to the Nation (SA) 10783. stostosto - 5/5/2000 6:34:42 PM pseudoerasmus's daunting travel route. 10784. PelleNilsson - 5/5/2000 6:36:12 PM Seguine 10785. stostosto - 5/5/2000 6:54:24 PM Seguine #10782: 10786. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/5/2000 10:17:07 PM Seguine, CG, Pelle: 10787. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/5/2000 11:16:39 PM 10788. PelleNilsson - 5/6/2000 4:37:34 AM Sadly, I find that story entirely beleivable. I have seen the same thing (on a lower level of course): the actions taken, or not taken, are not determined by the requirements in the field, but by the need to gain points with the home organisation. I have very little respect for international bureaucrats. 10789. Seguine - 5/6/2000 9:16:17 AM Pelle, just noticed your 10784--you're right. I had scanned too cursorily & misread an item in the FT. The $Zim is up to about 38 1/2 cents, having risen steadily over the last five or six years. (The rand, however, is falling.) 10790. marjoribanks - 5/8/2000 10:14:13 AM Well, it does look as though India is going to be foolish enough to send troops to Sri lanka again. Though this time on a "humanitarian" mission to evacuate the civilians in Jaffna. Some comments are here. About a month ago I linked an extensive series of articles on the first debacle Indian troops entered in SL under Rajiv gandhi. If there is interest, I'll find that series again - this is one of the most intractable problems in the world. At this point it appears unlikely that any solution short of a Tamil Eelam in SL will work. 10791. marjoribanks - 5/8/2000 10:19:26 AM Pretty good article on the SL situation from the Independent. 10792. marjoribanks - 5/8/2000 10:36:31 AM Even as Sri Lanka has descended into a spiral of horrific bloodletting, reprisals, bomb-blasts, assassinations and suicide squads (every LTTE cadre carries a small vial of cyanide around his/her neck, they are forbidden to be taken alive) - there is an otherworldly, sleepy, bumbling nature to the beautiful island, its people and government. The majority of the island is unaffected by the LTTE war, and people of all religions mingle quite peacefully and continue to live quite a bucolic lifestyle. 10793. PelleNilsson - 5/8/2000 10:36:32 AM Here is what apperars to be the offical Tamil site with a zoomable map and lots of historical information. 10794. marjoribanks - 5/8/2000 10:50:38 AM That's the official LTTE site, alright, Pelle. All kinds of twists and convolutions to determine a historical reasoning for the Eelam state. In fact, the reasoning is uncomplicated - the Ceylonese Tamils were buttressed in numbers by imports of plantation workers by the Brits and favored by the colonialists in the civil and armed services. After Independence, the Sinhalese took away these privileges and deprived the latest imports (the Hill Tamil) of their citizenship rights. The situation festered. The LTTE came into existence. It's pretty much that simple. 10795. PelleNilsson - 5/8/2000 4:11:25 PM An article in the Economist said that there are 18 recognised religious sects in Lebanon. I tried to make up a list. First the ones with real political importance in order of adherents: 10796. profemeritus - 5/8/2000 7:04:03 PM From an article in The Australian Fiancial Review, April 28: 10797. profemeritus - 5/8/2000 8:50:04 PM This article from the Jakarta Post seems to raise concerns about Gus Dur and his henchmen starting down the road of repression or censorship of the press. 10798. stostosto - 5/9/2000 4:40:43 AM marj 10799. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 9:24:21 AM My favorite demagogue, Rajeev Srinivasan, weighs in on Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and the necessity for India to engage them closely. 10800. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 9:28:09 AM I wish Naradar would comment on this article on Tamil Nadu and the LTTE, and on the Tamil "nation's" role in the occurences in Sri Lanka. FWIW, the LTTE is one of the better financed and armed insurrectionist movements in the world, not to mention probably the most effectively ruthless AND best represented in the Western nations. 10801. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 9:46:46 AM One of the first lengthy arguments I got into in the old discussion place (perhaps the first) was with pseuder and several of his alter-egos on the issue of democracy and the subcontinent. I reiterated my hard-to-prove but firmly-held belief that democracy and democratic principles found fertile ground in the subcontinent due to indigenous patterns of rural government and a certain ethos which always existed, particularly in the South of India. 10802. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 9:58:13 AM "Zimbabwe is South Africa's largest trading partner in Africa." 10803. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:06:28 AM Mbeki can't be particularly serious in his attacks because SA will have to go through land reform pretty soon itself. And there is no reason why Namibia shouldn't as well, Hooligan. 10804. stostosto - 5/9/2000 10:08:06 AM Hmmm. Is Islam anathema to democracy? I can think of three (more or less) democratic Muslim countries: Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia. They are not insignificant as countries go, but perhaps not 'core' Islamic countries. (Irv has previously described Indonesia - the fourth-most populous country in the world - as being of marginal importance in the Islamic world). Perhaps there is an 'Arabic' variable at work. But then, there is Pakistan... 10805. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:08:11 AM Hooligan, any idea what % of arable land in Namibia is held by Germans and Afrikaaners? I'm guessing a pretty hefty chunk. Course, there isn't much such land in the first place. 10806. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:10:21 AM Hooligan, any idea what % of arable land in Namibia is held by Germans and Afrikaaners? I'm guessing a pretty hefty chunk. Course, there isn't much such land in the first place. 10807. stostosto - 5/9/2000 10:10:28 AM #10803: 10808. stostosto - 5/9/2000 10:12:55 AM (Gosh, how wet of me to say so!) 10809. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:13:02 AM Sto, the report also found a correlation between Islam and democracy including in the states you mentioned and others. The complete ratings are available at the URL posted above. But here is something quite interesting: 10810. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:16:37 AM "And there is no reason why Namibia shouldn't as well, Hooligan." 10811. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:19:27 AM Of course, if I could only spell MANDELA that would be nice! 10812. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:20:31 AM Kuligin, 10813. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:22:39 AM Thanks for 10811, Hooligan. 10814. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:23:19 AM marjoribanks, I would have to respectfully disagree, but perhaps we aren't talking about the same time period. I was talking about long before Apartheid. When Germans came, at least initially, they purchased land from the coloureds and blacks. Not all of it mind you, but a fair amount of it. It was not automatically stolen. Missionaries, for example, came and purchased land, usually in the form of trading goods. 10815. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:24:56 AM "When compensation of any kind was doled out it was to an uncomprehending populace, and generally to people who had no idea that they were actually "selling" anything, and most usually to people who either had no title to the land, or had no idea what "title" to land meant anyway." 10816. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:27:51 AM marjoribanks, some other issues about "arable land." 10817. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:30:01 AM "So, ladies and gentlemen, unless real and meaningful steps are taken (as they were not in Zimbabwe) you will see similar unrest in South Africa and Namibia in the coming years. It's obvious." 10818. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:36:01 AM Hooligan, 10819. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 10:42:13 AM Hooligan, I wonder if you're familiar with the work of the brilliant old-school English travel writer - Norman Lewis. Unrelated to this discussion, he has written the most brilliant short essays and books on Evangelical missionaries in South America. I've just finished a collection of disparate essays which includes work done by two separate groups of missionaries among the Dani peoples of Papua New Guinea. In both cases, the Dani initially rejoiced at the arrival of so much cargo, were given even more and more, then participated in a ritual buring of all their traditional statuary and fetish-houses and mass baptisms, then got irritated by the lack of endless cargo, then killed, cooked and ate the missionaries. 10820. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:45:01 AM marjoribanks, I don't know of any links that I could point you too, unfortunately. And my comments were from OLD times, back even before the Germans came in force. But admittedly, they were made from books I read several years ago. 10821. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:47:02 AM marjoribanks, I am not familiar with Lewis, but would be most appreciative if you could give me some book names or such that would point me his way. 10822. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 10:48:45 AM Certainly, one of the early problems of many missionaries in Namibia (as well as all over the world of course) was that they tried to make the Namibians "westerners" (be it Americans, or Brits, or whatever) and not "just" Christians. Namibia has obviously embraced Christianity, as over 90% claim to be Christians. I don't think we will see them turn around any time soon and start cooking us missionaries! 10823. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 11:05:17 AM Hooligan, 10824. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/9/2000 11:07:00 AM Sto: 10825. KuligintheHooligan - 5/9/2000 11:12:37 AM marjori, thanks for the link. 10826. marjoribanks - 5/9/2000 11:18:27 AM Irv, 10827. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/9/2000 11:23:45 AM Marj: 10828. PelleNilsson - 5/9/2000 1:46:26 PM The University of Michigan runs a project call World Values Survey in which they interview 1000-2000 people in each of about 60 countries. 10829. stostosto - 5/10/2000 5:37:22 AM Don't worry - be Danish! 10830. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/10/2000 7:22:04 AM Sto: 10831. Macnas - 5/10/2000 8:22:16 AM Sorry to be a bit out of the current context, but I am replying to a request for information from Marjoribanks and Dantheman. 10832. Macnas - 5/10/2000 8:22:55 AM continued... 10833. Macnas - 5/10/2000 8:31:54 AM Reaction to the above has been in the main, positive. However, the Unionist parties are looking for further clarification on such issues as the actual mechanics of decommissioning, and the fact that the IRA has not yet stated that the War is actually over, and that violence will no longer be used by them to achieve thier aims. 10834. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 10:33:47 AM Thanks for the posts, Macnas. I do tend to agree that there will come a point where arms will stop being handed in unless there is a systematic disarming of the loyalists. 10835. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 10:35:39 AM Pelle and Sto, 10836. Indiana Jones - 5/10/2000 10:40:43 AM Pelle: Interesting graph. I'm sure your happy with Sweden's position on it. I'm content with the U.S. position as well. 10837. stostosto - 5/10/2000 10:45:08 AM marj 10838. stostosto - 5/10/2000 10:48:08 AM Indy: Sweden isn't socialist, it just has a big public sector. And the Swedes look at this as a big insurance company freeing them from social obligations towards relatives. I know, because it's the same in Denmark. Only, apparently, less pronounced. 10839. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 10:49:01 AM Well, sto, happiness isn't exactly the same as any subjective gauge of well-being. I've looked for the subject on the web and found nothing. The survey was conducted by a reputable-sounding institution. Unfortunately, I've also forgotten that! 10840. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 10:50:40 AM Now, India rightfully places very low on the "individualism" graph. But I would argue that this is part of the reason Indians in general are happy. 10841. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 10:57:31 AM Well, what the hell do you know. The survey is conducted by research titans Roper Starch. Here is one from 1999. And guess who comes first? 10842. stostosto - 5/10/2000 11:02:49 AM marj 10843. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 11:19:43 AM Sto, 10844. stostosto - 5/10/2000 11:22:24 AM marj 10845. marjoribanks - 5/10/2000 11:56:16 AM Sto, it wasn't censored in Britain, it was a banner headline. 10846. stostosto - 5/10/2000 12:31:48 PM My impression is that British academics have rotten working conditions which might go some way in explaining their particular moodiness. I have a good Danish friend who works at a London University. She is very brainy and earnest. She is also rather neurotic, and always, always, ALWAYS, complaining about her miserable, ghastly, appalling working conditions which, I suppose, do little to dampen her neurotic tendencies. 10847. PelleNilsson - 5/10/2000 2:27:46 PM Macnas 10848. PelleNilsson - 5/10/2000 2:45:17 PM Indy -- Message # 10847 10849. robertjayb - 5/10/2000 5:11:12 PM . 10850. robertjayb - 5/10/2000 5:20:20 PM ...the missing link: 10851. Macnas - 5/11/2000 5:21:07 AM PelleNilsson 10852. Macnas - 5/11/2000 5:24:49 AM marjoribanks 10853. stostosto - 5/11/2000 5:28:21 AM Macnas, he's gay and makes no secret of it. It shouldn't be difficult to verify, but I haven't got the time right now. 10854. Macnas - 5/11/2000 6:14:42 AM Well, there you go, you learn something new every day. 10855. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 9:40:22 AM Macnas, 10856. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 9:51:19 AM The rise and fall and rise again of Peter Mandelson. 10857. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:00:27 AM Where is NARADAR? 10858. ButterfieldSwire - 5/11/2000 10:24:42 AM "could an out homosexual hold such a high post in American politics?" No, of course not. Could an out homosexual hold such a high post in German, French, or Italian politics? Chinese, Indian, or Russian politics? 10859. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:31:28 AM Good question, BSW. 10860. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:34:27 AM Iandian politicians: none that are out. But I can think of at least two gay politicians. In fact, it is often rumored that Vajpayee, the PM, is gay. But in fact, the phenomenon of "open homosexuality" dosn't really exist. Business leaders, politicians, entertainers, live fairly openly homosexual lives but neither dos the media probe, or is there much interest in individual sexuality from the public. 10861. stostosto - 5/11/2000 10:40:01 AM marj 10862. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:42:32 AM Well, I'm not looking any further for gay politicians. However, I did find this amusing list which "outs" celebrities as varied as Churchill, Kitchener, Dag Hammarskjold and Flipper! 10863. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:46:10 AM 10864. stostosto - 5/11/2000 10:48:36 AM From Slate's column International Papers with asorted clips March 27: 10865. Macnas - 5/11/2000 10:52:02 AM I really can't comment on how well an "out" gay politician would fare in america. However, it seems that new labour has changed the face of british politcs in this regard. 10866. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:52:03 AM Mandelson appears to be trumped by the (former?)deputy prime minister of Belgium, Elio Di Rupo, a "French-speaking socialist and an open homosexual". 10867. stostosto - 5/11/2000 10:52:52 AM Mein Gott! Ist das wirklich wahr?! 10868. Macnas - 5/11/2000 10:54:20 AM true as i'm sitting here typing 10869. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/11/2000 10:54:44 AM Butterfield: 10870. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 10:57:38 AM Mandelson appears to be trumped by the (former?)deputy prime minister of Belgium, Elio Di Rupo, a "French-speaking socialist and an open homosexual". 10871. ButterfieldSwire - 5/11/2000 10:58:05 AM You can be arrested in New Zealand for propositioning the hotel staff? 10872. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/11/2000 10:59:43 AM Butterfield: 10873. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 11:00:57 AM Oops. 10874. Macnas - 5/11/2000 11:03:42 AM Well sure is'nt heaven in the detail eh? 10875. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 11:07:51 AM hahahaha. 10876. Macnas - 5/11/2000 11:11:38 AM What about that fool Jeffery Archer? not to mention Profumo... 10877. stostosto - 5/11/2000 11:27:24 AM I suppose no one will be surprised that in the old kingdom of sto, there is a fair number of known gay politicians and ministers. People take the Indian and Indonesian attitude: They don't really care. The same applies to the sexual dalliances of public figures in general. But some eyebrows were lifted a couple of years ago when the Queen for her New Year's ball officially invited a gay minister - and his partner. And they showed up. 10878. janjon - 5/11/2000 11:40:29 AM There is, of course, a handful of openly gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Barney Frank is probably the most prominent. He's been out for years, was involved in what most would call a scandal (involving Congressional pages) and has had at least one housemate who in turn was embroiled in a sex scandal. Frank continues to be very popular in his district (which, even though in very liberal Massachusetts, has very large conservative pockets) and gets re-elected handily every two years. 10879. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 1:23:38 PM Hey, hosts, this site is butterscotchworthy, in my opinion. certainly it's by far the best Africa news source I've ever seen on the Web or off. 10880. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 1:26:59 PM And here we go - my prediction of a couple of days ago looms large: 10881. marjoribanks - 5/11/2000 1:49:23 PM It's things like this that remind me why I voted for Clinton twice and why I'd vote for him again if he ran again. 10882. PelleNilsson - 5/11/2000 3:49:42 PM I remember the incident Macnas refers to. Wasn't a citrus fruit involved in some way? 10883. RickNelson - 5/11/2000 10:48:41 PM The BN government in Sarawak is puffing itself up right now over its talk about NCR land. The Land Code (Amendment) Bill, 2000 is a way to puff themselves up and give a Dr.Feelgood to the promoters. Taib has tabled it and we'll see what comes of it. 10884. stostosto - 5/12/2000 7:50:48 AM Directly to the Mote from the happiest people on earth: 10885. stostosto - 5/12/2000 8:06:01 AM 10886. marjoribanks - 5/12/2000 3:29:54 PM Superb, lengthy, article on Burma by Timothy Garton Ash. 10887. RustlerPike - 5/12/2000 3:56:14 PM 10888. robertjayb - 5/13/2000 12:28:21 AM . 10889. PelleNilsson - 5/13/2000 3:36:51 AM Africa News is now linked in the butterscotch bar. 10890. SnowOwl - 5/13/2000 3:50:35 AM Irving, 10891. robertjayb - 5/13/2000 2:16:11 PM . 10892. PelleNilsson - 5/13/2000 6:22:57 PM Momenteous news just in: 10893. stostosto - 5/13/2000 7:16:00 PM A bit of European entertainment News. The Eurovision Song Contest, held in Stockholm tonight, was won by Denmark for the first time since 1963, turning the country upside down. 10894. stostosto - 5/13/2000 7:24:18 PM Thanks, Pelle. It's a cross-post. 10895. stostosto - 5/13/2000 7:28:26 PM correction #10894 10896. stostosto - 5/13/2000 7:46:38 PM And we have time for one more piece of international news featuring Denmark. The Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is in China lecturing Jiang Zemin on human rights. 10897. Macnas - 5/15/2000 3:17:46 AM stostosto 10898. stostosto - 5/15/2000 3:41:46 AM Macnas 10899. Macnas - 5/15/2000 3:57:45 AM Um...1988 I think, the song was "ne partez pas sans moi", and I think she was singing for Switzerland. 10900. stostosto - 5/15/2000 5:05:23 AM You are right. Here is the list of winners over the years - all the way back to 1956(!) 10901. Macnas - 5/15/2000 5:47:47 AM Hmm, they had a so-so career before the eurovision, and returned to being so-so thereafter, being strictly small-time in England at least. 10902. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/15/2000 6:13:14 AM Celine Dion is Canadian. How was she allowed to represent Switzerland? 10903. Macnas - 5/15/2000 6:52:47 AM I really couldnt tell you Irv, but the rules to that awful contest change all the time. 10904. RustlerPike - 5/15/2000 7:54:23 AM 10905. RustlerPike - 5/15/2000 7:57:10 AM 10906. stostosto - 5/15/2000 8:07:44 AM Macnas, out of curiosity: Where are you from? 10907. stostosto - 5/15/2000 8:14:32 AM I forgot to mention: His name was Toto Cotugno, and he was Italian. What else could he have been? (He he. It's also a perfect opportunity to brush up on your national stereotypes). 10908. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 9:14:45 AM I heard that France came thirty-second out of 33, or something like that. I am proud to say that I have neither seen nor heard any of the songs or contestants. 10909. PelleNilsson - 5/15/2000 9:39:45 AM Misguided colleagues once gave me a "History of Europe" published under the auspices of some kind of EU committee. The contortions those poor historians had go through in order to show that all history from Charlemagne to 1960 in reality consists of deplorable but temporary deviations from the Great Idea of European Unity! 10910. stostosto - 5/15/2000 9:40:13 AM Bof, alistair. The Eurovision Song Contest is arguably the single most Europeanising event of every year. Think about it: One hundred million Europeans giggling over the same involuntarily comic efforts of a bunch of glittering cowboy clad Germans going Wadde hadde dudde da. Forget the Commission, the Euro-Parliament, the ECB, the Common Agricultural Policy, the Rome, Maastricht, and Amsterdam Treaties, on-going intergovernmental conferences, what have you. This is what Europe is all about. 10911. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 9:49:53 AM Exactly my point. 10912. stostosto - 5/15/2000 9:55:52 AM Pelle 10909 10913. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 10:01:28 AM Europe is a racist fiction. The sooner the EC admits Turkey an Morocco, the better. 10914. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 10:06:00 AM Having said that... the essential criteria for admission as far as I'm concerned, are democracy and human rights. And several Eastern European countries (not all) are clearly ahead of Turkey an Morocco on that count. 10915. stostosto - 5/15/2000 10:13:42 AM alistair: 10916. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 10:19:50 AM If I were Danish, I would vote No. I've just been reading about how Denmark how tackled "structural" high unemployment over the last few years, with resounding success it would seem. Through heavily interventionist policies, promoting flexibility but protecting wages and social minima. Given the current governing economic ethos in Europe, that sort of stuff is likely to be progressively outlawed. 10917. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 10:26:24 AM I'm certainly not complaining about the level of the Euro. Though the psychosis around it is telling, because the concept was oversold. 10918. stostosto - 5/15/2000 10:34:16 AM alistair #10916: 10919. Indiana Jones - 5/15/2000 10:37:45 AM Pelle and sto: Thanks for the clarification about Scandinavian-style "socialism." If this... 10920. stostosto - 5/15/2000 10:45:09 AM Indy: They may be easily accessible - but not easily enough. Which also used to disappoint me quite a bit during younger years. 10921. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 11:03:55 AM Sto, I am getting the feeling that whatever the heck has been happening to the US economy for the last couple of years (high growth/full employment/new economy thingy) has finally arrived in Europe - in any case, it seems a plausible explanation for France's current high growth and falling unemployment. What do you think? 10922. Macnas - 5/15/2000 11:09:32 AM stostosto, 10923. alistairconnor - 5/15/2000 11:14:28 AM The Dutch method of reducing unemployment, though an attractive demonstration of social co-operation and solidarity, seems to have come at a cost in productivity, which must surely make the result fragile. 10924. marshame - 5/15/2000 11:17:29 AM Re: The Eurovision Song Contest 10925. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 11:26:51 AM The only thing cheesier than the Eurovision song contest is a lengthy discussion of the Eurovision song contest. 10926. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 12:13:22 PM 10927. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 12:26:54 PM This may belong in the Books thread, but I'll post it here for anyone who may have been following my posts on Sri Lanka. 10928. stostosto - 5/15/2000 12:35:33 PM marj 10929. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 12:44:29 PM Sto, 10930. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 12:48:51 PM Sto, I bet Natraj restaurant, listed here will serve dosas/vadas and other Udipi food. Can't vouchsafe for quality but a good litmus test is asking if they have 'molaga puri' or "gunpowder" to eat with the dosas, and also the simple question "got any rasam?" 10931. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 12:58:52 PM 10932. Jürgen Huber - 5/15/2000 1:08:55 PM I've been out exercising my wickedness, sto. 10933. Jürgen Huber - 5/15/2000 1:11:11 PM Thanks for some really interesting posts on Zimbabwe/Rhodesia and Sri Lanka in the last weeks, Marjoribanks. (Only i can't keep up with the links you keep giving. My fault.) 10934. Jürgen Huber - 5/15/2000 1:15:50 PM It just occurred to me that it is strange that in Germany that European Song Contest is ALWAYS referred to as "Prix d'Eurovision", i.e. in French, not in German. Just to prove to ourselves what phantastic internationalists we all are, if we're not busy to invent catchy slogans like "Kinder statt Inder". 10935. marjoribanks - 5/15/2000 1:24:43 PM Glad to hear you're reading the posts, Jurgen. But never happy to hear that you're not reading my links! 10936. PelleNilsson - 5/15/2000 2:10:59 PM The Swedish interest rate on ten-year bonds today fell below the German one for the first time since the D-Mark was introduced. 10937. PelleNilsson - 5/15/2000 5:09:37 PM Nationalism and Asia. 10938. stostosto - 5/15/2000 5:33:27 PM Jürgen! Herzlich servusgrüssgottzurückwillkommen! 10939. stostosto - 5/15/2000 5:39:18 PM Pelle, I read those reviews, too. 10940. stostosto - 5/15/2000 5:50:20 PM Jürgen, if you take a look at the list of Prix d'Eurovision winners that I linked in Message # 10900, you will discover the reason for Macnas's Eurovision fatigue; the Irish practiacally monopolised the trophy in the 90s winning in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1996. I personally don't remember any of these, but I have a vivid memory of Johnny Logan who won for Ireland in 1980 and 1987. Ahhhh. The nostalgia. "What's another year?" Fabulous. 10941. stostosto - 5/15/2000 6:03:48 PM marshame Message # 10924 10942. RustlerPike - 5/16/2000 2:11:04 AM 10943. Macnas - 5/16/2000 3:19:38 AM Jurgen Huber 10944. stostosto - 5/16/2000 3:20:53 AM Rustler 10945. RustlerPike - 5/16/2000 4:57:48 AM 10946. RustlerPike - 5/16/2000 5:05:12 AM 10947. stostosto - 5/16/2000 5:33:51 AM Beware, Rustler, Arafat may be lurking! 10948. stostosto - 5/16/2000 5:45:42 AM It seems to me that that little quarrel you Israelis are maintaining with the Palestinians sharpens your sense of conspiracy. This is not to say that there aren't any. I guess the Palestinians deem themselves able to see through any Israeli manoeuvering just as deftly. And I guess it's pretty hard to build trust in an atmosphere like that. What could solve the situation? A wall? 10949. Jürgen Huber - 5/16/2000 5:51:20 AM Thanks for the link, RustlerPike. Why do you think a major conflagration is ahead and how serious do you think the situation will get? 10950. Jürgen Huber - 5/16/2000 5:59:41 AM I have this bad habit of downloading a thread and not getting around to post something until hours later after the debate has moved on. 10951. stostosto - 5/16/2000 6:07:32 AM Rustler: The picture in the paper showed them waving the flags. What was it your son found silly? The song (lyrics etc.) or the political dimension, or both? In any case, I'm sure he's absolutely right. 10952. Macnas - 5/16/2000 7:13:31 AM Jurgen, 10953. stostosto - 5/16/2000 7:36:36 AM Defensive knee-jerking..? I have never ignored such a thing. I have not even noticed it. 10954. RustlerPike - 5/16/2000 11:17:14 AM 10955. stostosto - 5/16/2000 12:01:36 PM Shit, Rustler. The Final Showdown? 10956. Jenerator - 5/16/2000 1:32:48 PM Re: Message # 10931 10957. Indiana Jones - 5/16/2000 1:43:24 PM British/UN confrontation? 10958. Wombat - 5/16/2000 3:05:16 PM Indy: 10959. Indiana Jones - 5/16/2000 3:36:15 PM Wombat: I did have a hard time reconciling the first paragraph of that story with this last... 10960. pseudoerasmus - 5/17/2000 12:58:56 AM I;mstill inthe fucking PRC,in fact ive been stuck in kashgar these past three days waiting for a fucking permit to leave the fucking pRC by the Torugart Pass.i might do interesting stuff while waiting except that icant' -- I must stay near the office lest I miss the prmit-issuing officer who is unaccountably absent but might pop in at any time. Things had been going so well until now, contrary to the Homo Danicus's solicitude about the Chinese bumbling TGL (trains a grande lenteur.I tell you the Chinese trainsI took from beijing to yichang and from chongqing to lanzhou to urumqi, all qite efficient, on time and much faster than expected. by the way, Irecommend to all and everyone the absolutely fantastic yangtze river ferry trip, it's 10961. pseudoerasmus - 5/17/2000 1:08:52 AM i must admit however that working the yangtze ferry trip and the torugart pass business into one trip was a BIG BIG mistake. i've been nonstop in trains since i've arrived except for the ferry. 10962. PelleNilsson - 5/17/2000 1:12:44 AM PE 10963. PelleNilsson - 5/17/2000 1:13:46 AM Are you in an internet café now? 10964. RustlerPike - 5/17/2000 1:53:43 AM 10965. RustlerPike - 5/17/2000 1:58:14 AM 10966. sakonige - 5/17/2000 2:01:27 AM 10967. PelleNilsson - 5/17/2000 2:02:00 AM Rustler 10968. RustlerPike - 5/17/2000 2:28:29 AM 10969. RustlerPike - 5/17/2000 2:29:45 AM 10970. Jürgen Huber - 5/17/2000 2:33:38 AM As for the "blackspots" of the German economy, Macnas, the bad thing here is that they look more like huge carpets covering almost all of the East except for some pockets of Saxonia where at least some new chip firms and IT is are blooming, attracted by state subsidies and a rather skilled workforce. 10971. RustlerPike - 5/17/2000 2:37:09 AM 10972. RustlerPike - 5/17/2000 2:39:53 AM 10973. PelleNilsson - 5/17/2000 2:41:58 AM PE has crossed China from east to west. The city of Kashgar where he now waits for the exit permit is about 3,200 km due west of Beijing, near the border with Kazakhstan, a bit north of the mountain ranges of Karakurum and Pamir. 10974. stostosto - 5/17/2000 5:57:20 AM Rustler: Is that a joke? Just in case it's not: No. Who is Suha anyway? His wife? 10975. Jürgen Huber - 5/17/2000 7:06:02 AM The Timothy Garton Ash piece in the NY Review of Books that marji linked to above, is really excellent. 10976. Jürgen Huber - 5/17/2000 7:14:18 AM The Timothy Garton Ash piece in the NY Review of Books that marji linked to above, is really excellent. 10977. Jürgen Huber - 5/17/2000 7:15:44 AM Sorry about the double post, i had again a problem with my connection. 10978. stostosto - 5/17/2000 7:09:22 PM I am going to sleep. 10979. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/17/2000 7:16:51 PM G'morning, sto. Must have been quite an evening you had. 10980. RustlerPike - 5/18/2000 1:57:58 AM 10981. CalGal - 5/18/2000 2:19:15 AM Sto, 10982. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/18/2000 2:58:48 AM Cal: 10983. CalGal - 5/18/2000 3:06:41 AM Well, so is Banks, and he got a mention. I'm more international than he is right this moment. 10984. CalGal - 5/18/2000 3:11:12 AM ...and in case it's not clear, I'm just joshin'. Wanted to show off my pics, and used this excuse. 10985. Jürgen Huber - 5/18/2000 4:44:39 AM 10986. alistairConnor - 5/18/2000 7:07:53 AM I completely agree about Chinese trains, a fine way to travel, as long as you can get a sleeper - an overnight trip on wooden seats is worth missing. Do they still run a two-tier pricing system? Fifteen years ago, foreigners had to pay about double. It was still pretty cheap. 10987. RustlerPike - 5/18/2000 7:30:29 AM 10988. stostosto - 5/18/2000 8:43:41 AM CalGal-of-ever-fabulous-fabulousity! 10989. stostosto - 5/18/2000 9:56:24 AM 3 Stabbed in Clashes Before UEFA Final 10990. alistairconnor - 5/18/2000 11:08:42 AM The problem is, the English yobs have such a reputation, everyone wants to have a go at them. 10991. alistairconnor - 5/18/2000 11:19:04 AM Disappointment in France as Arsenal are practically a French team - three internationals. 10992. stostosto - 5/18/2000 11:37:03 AM alistair 10993. PelleNilsson - 5/18/2000 12:06:48 PM alistair 10994. marjoribanks - 5/18/2000 12:29:14 PM Diamonds, and war, and intrigue. 10995. sakonige - 5/18/2000 12:44:56 PM 10996. sakonige - 5/18/2000 12:57:21 PM 10997. Jenerator - 5/18/2000 1:08:46 PM Sto, 10998. alistairConnor - 5/18/2000 4:23:17 PM Sto : 10999. PincherMartin - 5/18/2000 4:51:25 PM I returned from Thailand last night. It was far too short a trip as I had to make it back before the twentieth, but I enjoyed it immensely. Two days in the air (or sitting in airports), four days in Phuket, and four days in Bangkok. This was my second time to Phuket (I had taken my parents there three years ago when they visited Taiwan), but I had never been to Bangkok before. It's a beautiful city, full of ancient wats (Buddhist temples) and modern skyscrapers (although it's also the first Asian city I've been to which suffers from American sprawl). 11000. PincherMartin - 5/18/2000 4:53:27 PM One funny incident from my trip: Right after I arrived in Phuket I rented a jeep from the hotel I stayed at. In Thailand, one drives on the left side of the road, something I had never done before. But I figured it would be a snap. Phuket's Thai drivers are only slightly deranged and there aren't that many of them. Phuket is largely a tourist's island and this is the off-season (rainy season). So off I drove, feeling oddly uncomfortable on the right side of the vehicle, but still thinking everything would come out alright. 11001. PincherMartin - 5/18/2000 4:55:46 PM Unfortunately, a Japanese tour bus had dropped off some twenty Japanese men just before I arrived. Since I was a single, the starter said she could squeeze me in with a threesome. But I didn't really want to play with Japanese (and I'm sure the feeling was reciprocated), so I told her maybe I would come back in the morning. Back in my jeep, and down the hill I went. About halfway down, I reached behind me in the backseat to grab a Coke can that was rolling around back there. When I came back around, it was too late. The jeep dropped halfway in and then slammed against a concrete drainage ditch on the left-hand side of the road. I hadn't even seen the damn thing. After the collision, I was almost, but not quite, lying on my side strapped in the seat. Cursing, I took my seat belt off and hoisted myself out the driver's window. Just about then, a young lady on a motorscooter drove up the hill. I didn't need to explain much as it was pretty clear what my problem was. I told her in simple declarative sentences. "Help me." "Take me back." (pointing towards the clubhouse) "I need five men." (making pushing motions as if to show how we would lift the jeep out of the ditch) 11002. PincherMartin - 5/18/2000 4:56:15 PM Back at the clubhouse, the recruitment began. A truck was commandeered. Five lackeys enlisted. And back down the hill we went. Fortunately for me, a small crowd of golf course workers had gathered at the scene of the accident. (It would take ten of us to lift that jeep out of that ditch and get it back on the road.) The Thais had amazed looks on their faces and were babbling away to each other in their tongue. I don't speak Thai, but it easy enough to guess at what they were saying. Something like "Who the fuck would be stupid enough to drive into a ditch?" 11003. Macnas - 5/18/2000 5:08:17 PM stostosto, 11004. alistairConnor - 5/18/2000 5:08:24 PM You Americans and your unhealthy obsession with coca-cola. See where it gets you. 11005. alistairConnor - 5/18/2000 5:11:34 PM I remember when Lyon played Trabzonspor a couple of years ago. Lyon were playing at home... but the stadium was packed with 40 000 Turks, who had come from all over France to support their people. Trabzond won convincingly. No violence. 11006. Macnas - 5/18/2000 5:14:16 PM Point taken Alistair, However, the last international fixture in Turkey resulted in 2 englishmen stabbed to death by rival Turkish supportors, it boggles the fucking mind. 11007. stostosto - 5/18/2000 5:50:41 PM Macnas: Exactly, and it was the exact same team, Galatasaray, who seems to have some real brain dead supporters. The English team was Leeds United. Here, they partied all day Tuesday in the center of time, and started eventually looking for trouble which they found in the form of Arsenal supporters in a couple of pubs. The police tried to keep the two groups from each other, but clearly didn't control the situation very well. 11008. stostosto - 5/18/2000 5:52:26 PM correction: 11009. Macnas - 5/18/2000 5:54:15 PM Pity the game was'nt worth a bloody nose, never mind rioting. 11010. Macnas - 5/18/2000 5:55:14 PM partied all day at the centre of time?? sounds way existential to me. 11011. stostosto - 5/18/2000 6:00:22 PM Pincher: 11012. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/18/2000 8:58:25 PM Pinch: 11013. SnowOwl - 5/19/2000 12:39:56 AM We're just getting news of another coup in Fiji. Very few details yet. 11014. Macnas - 5/19/2000 3:20:07 AM Armed and masked gunmen entered the parliament building during a debate session, and are holding the prime minister and some other cabinet members hostage. 11015. Macnas - 5/19/2000 3:22:20 AM "who have thier own satellite LINK" is what that should read, obviously. Its still too early for me... 11016. robertjayb - 5/19/2000 3:37:00 AM . 11017. PincherMartin - 5/19/2000 6:22:48 AM 11018. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 7:22:03 AM
DavidS (Sekaquaptewa), the Hopi man I mentioned, is one of the most interesting people I have encountered in TT. He has always lived on the Hopi reservation in a traditional community that is nearly matriarchal. It astonishes everyone, myself included, that a man could be comfortable in a society so controlled by women. He is someone with first-hand knowledge of the way the strongly matrilineal societies of ancient America worked. I would love to just sit down and talk to him about it, but the subject generates too much noise. I've tried to get him to join discussions in the International Issues folder, but he won't speak up enough and be laughed at and attacked like everyone else in that environment. He wrote some interesting remarks in a TT Science and Nature thread on matrilineal societies, and he is enjoying teasing Mormons about being sexist in a Mind and Spirit thread.
oops
Message # 10499
msg num, not a href
Jews are disproportionately present among many sections of elites, largely drawn fom the college-educated. These include the leading intellectuals (45%), professors at the major universities (30%), high-level civil servants (21%), partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington, D.C. (40%), the reporters, editors, and executives of the major print and broadcast media (26%), the directors, writers, and producers of the fifty top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982 (59%) and series (58%). Since the 1994 congressional election, there are twenty-four Jewish representatives and nine senators. Since almost all Jews in the previous Congress were Democrats, and the latter suffered heavy losses in the mid-term contests, it is noteworthy that over three-fourths of the Jewish representatives were reelected. Many represent regions with few Jews.
These achievements are related to the scholastic accomplishments of American Jews. At the beginning of 1990, 85% of college-age Jews were enrolled in higher education, as compared to two-fifths of the general population. And, like the Jewish faculty, they are heavily located in the more selective schools. An American Council on Education survey of college freshmen found that those of Jewish parentage had significantly higher secondary school gardes than their Gentile counterparts, in spite of the fact that a much larger proportion of Jews than of others go to college. Moreover, Jews seemingly perform better as undergraduates; by a considerable margin, they are disproportionately elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Source: American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword by Seymour Martin Lipset
Anyway, re: Message # 10509,
DavidS asked if anyone knew about this blue spot on Asian babies in the Table Talk Mind and Spirit topic, Ex-Mormons R Us thread. He's an interesting guy. He says he is into architecture.
Asians are disproportionately present among doctors and university graduates among other things, just as Koreans are disproportionately represented at the Juliard School. So what?
I guess Jews stood out because that's what she was looking for. And your Jason Blatt is the model for all others? This commitment to study and improvement among Jews is more pronounced than among non-Jews? And you say so even as you live among Chinese who have to be the most assiduous in study and self-improvement (no, I don't allow for results)?
As is well known, the Chinese are known for their commitment to education, but we were talking about outsiders studying Chinese culture, not how the Chinese study it themselves.
Jason Blatt, as I said, was just an example. As I admitted, I didn't see a whole lot of Jews in Taiwan; those I did see, however, were notable for their seriousness.
Only one person of my acquaintance went to Middlebury to study, and he later joined the rest of us in Taiwan. Also, I'm not impressed by Ivy League students, or those from the Stanford Center either. You seem to be more than impressed.
It's easy not to be impressed by any accomplishment or honor. I use to be that way when I was much younger until I recognized that feeling as my own jealousy of another's accomplishments rather than any objective criteria.
I don't like the man in question. In fact, he is a dweebish dickhead. I have no hero-worshipping aspect to me, but I also will openly admit when a person has a skill or admirable talent that is noteworthy. I can also separate that talent from the character of the person in question.
So you admit that these things are disproportionate, but it is just in study of Chinese and of things related to China that they are not?
One large difference between the Jews and the Asians' remarkable accomplishments is that there are many more Asians than Jews.
Again, I did not find Sinology and Chinese language heavily freighted with Jews, nor did I suspect a language gene by which one's DNA allows an edge in fluency.
Well, that's my anecdote. Sure didn't know the professor's take on Jews though.
Again, I did not find Sinology and Chinese language heavily freighted with Jews, nor did I suspect a language gene by which one's DNA allows an edge in fluency.
Nor do I think genetics has anything to do with it. I think it is cultural. Many of the white Gentile Americans I hung out with during my first two years in Taiwan were from some of the best institutions in the United States -- the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Chicago, U.C. Berkeley, etc., but many of them had, at best, so-so Chinese (effective, passable Chinese, but not great), even after a couple of years in the country. Why? Well, like me, they had varied lives: they liked sports, they worked, they chased women at the local pubs, etc. In other words, they had so-so Chinese because they gave it a so-so effort. They weren't stupid, they simply didn't care enough to push it that extra little bit to make the difference.
I lived a favoured life but remember, one of my ends was the babes and that called forth the greatest amounts of k'ou-tsai.
Not just Asians, but those of Mediterranean extraction. Olive-skinned people (like me, my mate, and our offspring).
The spot, which looks like a bruise, can persist up to about a year of age.
In the US, if I remember correctly, Asians are now displacing Jews as the ethnic groups most disproportionately represented in elite educational institutions.
The highest scorers on IQ tests apparently are Asians (not sure whom that includes exactly) and Ashkenazi Jews (but not, apparently, Sephardim).
What this means, of course, is that China is one of the lost tribes of Israel.
The Cultural Dimensions of Sino-Japanese Relations by Joshua Fogel. In it, Fogel refers to a vast scholarship found in the original Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. At his website at UCSB, I see he has translated numerous volumes from Yiddish. He received his Ph.D form Columbia.
Disovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past by Paul Cohen. The finest book on American historiography of China. There is none better. Cohen received his PhD from Harvard. Here is his website.
Andrew Nathan's China's Transition. I'm pretty sure Nathan is Jewish (I remember reading a reference to his ethnicity somewhere -- he is a distinguished scholar who gets a lot of press for his strong views on China), but there is no proof I can find right now and Nathan doesn't strike me as a Jewish name like Cohen or Bernstein.
His colleague's name is Thomas Bernstein. He is also a China specialist.
Benjamin Schwartz is a professor emeritus at Harvard. He wrote the famous The World of Thought in Ancient China, the best comparison of Chines and western philosophy.
Are (Ezra) Vogel, (Madeline) Zelin and (Joesph) Levenson, Jewish names? I'm pretty sure they qualify.
Vogel is at Harvard (he wrote the famous Four Little Dragons; Zelin is at Columbia; Levenson has written the masterly Confucian China and its Modern Fate, a trilogy on China's modern intellectal history.
The Japanese consul you were thinking of was Chiune Sugihara (there are various spoellings of his name), who saved 2,132 Polish Jews from almost certain death in wartime Europe by issuing exit visas to Japan and Japanese-occupied China. He worked in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Still, congrats, old bean, you evidently know more about Japan than the "Japanese" PE.
Message # 10433, sto
"Why wouldn't Shakespeare have known Jews? They were very much present in England from at least around the time of Anglo-Saxon hero Ivanhoe, according to Sir Walter Scott."
Erm, no. Jews were prohibited from living in England for 400 years, from 1290 to 1656. That did not prevent the English, including Shakespeare, from cultivating vivid myths about them. (See Bernard Glassman, _Anti-Semitic Stereotypes Without Jews: Images of the Jews in England 1290-1700_ (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975).)
Message # 10456 marjoribanks:
Pretentious twaddle. Why not skip the guff concerning your honeymoon and move on to the apologia we've all been waiting for with regard to Rhodesia and that homophobic old savage, Bobby Mugabe?
I'm not Japanese.
Your (understandable) interest in Judaica is not shared by everyone else.
I have.
"Your (understandable) interest in Judaica is not shared by everyone else."
Well, I'm actually not much interested in the Jewish side of the issue. But Japanese antisemitism (note lower-case spelling) interests me in a general way in respect of what it says about Japanese views of the nation itself and the world at large.
Yes, that's so terribly obvious.
To my remark that Asians are replacing Jews as the nation's disproportionate overachievers: "Meaning what? That success in study, ambition and drive if you will, the desire for material success and professional acclaim, can be instilled in a child and reinforced by his peers."
Yes, and since no one here has suggested anything else, I'm at pains to imagine what the source of your anxiety about it is.
Jews used to be motivated by certain Jewish cultural values in combination with their inferior status in this country (as elsewhere). Now we have for the most part assimilated to the US. Those cultures which share our values wrt education and are otherwise like we used to be (striving, unassimilated immigrants & their 1st generation offspring) are now replacing Jews in higher ed and positions of influence.
But anxiety? What in the hell are you talking about? How do you come to such a stupid conclusion?
And as usual, your last paragraph tells me what I had already posited in previous posts.
Nothing I have said anywhere contradicts these claims. Presumably, however, whatever attraction to arcane knowledge or a particular field to make a name for themselves stands consistent among Jews and Gentiles for many things. So why are many prestigious fields dominated by Jews.
We could also easily say Midwesterners are disproportionately represented among Americans studying Chinese, or academics from such and such institutions or graduates from such and such universities are disproportionately represented.
Yes, I have also met a high number of Midwesterners in Taiwan (including, for some inexplicable reason, a high number of Wisconsinites), but none of them struck me as particularly brilliant on the subject of China -- just loafers interested in getting out of the states and developing some skills that would help them make a living. Nothing wrong with that of course. That's the way 95% of us get through life. But that's not exactly what we have been arguing about.
Just for fun, let's test your thesis: name some Midwesterners with a high profile among China scholars. Those like Fairbank who were the children of missionaries don't count.
John King Fairbank, Michael Oksenberg, Jonathan Spence, Arthur H. Smith, Joseph Fletcher, Doak Barnett... 5 minutes remembrance.
Fairbank is the son of Christian missionairies in China; I don't know what Oksenberg is except that he taught at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and his speciality is Chinese politics. Spence is English. Smith, Fletcher, and Barnett, I have never heard of.
BTW, to anyone, what kind of names are "Mote" and "Mosher?"
Loar,
Now that you've brought up my apparent stupidity, let's all reflect on the hilarity of yours:
"Chinese in general think Jews money-grubbing, clever but unprincipled, having a political influence in the US disproportionate to their numbers (sometimes to the extent of controlling government and determining policy), and otherwise thoroughly unlikeable. ...
So, are the Chinese anti-Semitic? No, just routinely uninformed and without experience of the very thing on which they so commonly hold opinion."
It would be one thing to conclude, based on the other examples given in that message of yours, that the Chinese are at least beset by a sort of equal-opportunity idiotic stereotyping of everyone not Chinese. You might, if you were charitably inclined, stop short of labelling such attitudes racist. But if your characterization of their attitudes toward Jews is correct, then the Chinese are antisemites.
He went on to say: "Jews who are involved with China are usually the best students of China and its culture." To which you answered, "Nonsense, and contrary to my experience. The best students of China and its culture are those most interested."
Pincher wondered why you think Jews should fail to excel at Sinology given the long list of other endeavors they excel at. You then offered explanations for why Jews are, in fact, better at this, that, or the other thing; but for some unstated reason China studies couldn't make the list in your estimation.
I confirmed your explanations, my position being informed by personal experience as well as what I've read on the subject. But the POINT of my last paragraph, which you seem to have missed, is that Jews no longer are as overrepresented in the lofty zones, as they are being replaced among "overachievers" by Asians. Had you paid the slightest attention, you might have taken from this the opportunity to compare current and former numbers (or prominence) of Jews studying things Chinese. If you could argue that Jews no longer are represented as strongly in the field, then you could have said to Pincher, "It was a passing effect of Jews' immigrant striving, not the result of a genuine affinity between Jews and Chinese, and so does not suggest a reason for the two peoples to get along especially well relative to others."
Your defensive non-sequitur about genetic propensity (a subject PM certainly never brought up)? Your sweaty, manly efforts to avoid conceding that Jews are overrepresented in China studies? (Personally, I'm only acquainted with one academic Sinologist. He is, I can't resist noting, a Jew...)
Seguine;
You can take "my sweaty, manly efforts to avoid conceding Jews are
overrepresented in Chinese studies" and walk away profound in the knowledge that yes, Jews rule in Sinology and Chinese language.
PincherMartin;
You can continue to live with the delusion that the Chinese like Jews because they share so much in common - a long history, weapons purchases (I forgot the third) - or you can ask the Chinese themselves. But you will be responsible here, at least to Seguine, that Chinese like Jews.
Your invitation to find notable Midwesterners in Sinology is impossible and that's not what this exchange was about. You know that, and such an invitation is intellectually dishonest.
Passing this exchange with you has not been fun.
I yet don't understand why the Chinese may hold an opinionated, stereotypical view of many persons and things yet their view on Jews (assuming I'm right, for which you and surely PincherMartin think I'm dead wrong)is anti-Semitic. Would their views on the Japanese if disfavourable become anti-Japanese? Their views on Hong Kong Chinese as being immoral and the untoward beneficiaries of British colonial rule anti-Hong Kong Chinese, etc.? Or, does anti-Semitism rate a special rung in hell?
Why?
I was going to say something very similar to what Loar said, with respect to the "lunatic Chinese woman" you once worked for.
the Chinese, by Loar's description, overgeneralise about all ethnic groups but hold no particular animus against the Jews nor single out Jews for stereotyping.
I'm not sure how they can be called antisemitic.
In my experience, people in most countries tend to judge an individual by the reputation (founded or ill-founded) of their ethnic group. Many times I have known people who "side" with Greeks in the Graeco-Turkish dispute because their experience with individual Turks has been bad. What's unusual is that this kind of thinking is considered wrong in the USA and some Western European countries.
I had thought Message # 10492 a balanced, dispassionate and well-known description of general Chinese attitude towards specific groups that came immediately to mind. I am staggered that PincherMartin would think it not so, and angered that my motives are now in question as being anti-Semitic themselves.
You can continue to live with the delusion that the Chinese like Jews because they share so much in common - a long history, weapons purchases (I forgot the third) - or you can ask the Chinese themselves. But you will be responsible here, at least to Seguine, that Chinese like Jews.
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of your dumb-ass commentary parading itself as the final say. I have been far more polite to you than your opinions deserve. I thought it was outrageously silly, when just prior to the election of Chen Shui-bian, you staked your thirty years experience in Asia on the coming war between Taiwan and China should Chen be elected. I also thought it outrageously silly that you thought one way China would warn Taiwan off independence would be by buzzing the Presidential Palace. I also thought it egregiously silly that you thought the comparison between Texas and Taiwan was an apt and telling one. But rather than suggest you (or your opinions) were delusional, as you have done to me here, I simply went straight to the points that supported my contrary opinion.
If you don't like my opinion or simply disagree with it, then you are free to say so (as if I need to tell you this). If you choose to back up your opinion with nothing more than your strident claims that it is so, don't expect me to kowtow to it. Provide some proof; flesh out some of your personal experiences; make some genuinely interesting argument to support your claim. Perhaps these will change some minds including my own, but don't -- DON'T! -- simply state your view and then whine (with your typical refrain to "speak to the Chinese if you don't belive me", like you're the only person to ever speak to the Chinese about anything) when it isn't accepted as Gospel on the subject.
But more important to my opinion on this subject (which I cling to lightly) than any personal experience is some of the commentary I have read. As even you referred to in Message # 10492, the Jews feel a connection to China and Chinese. You claim it isn't reciprocated; I claim that the Jews -- to the extant the Chinese care about them at all -- are usually welcome and liked to the extant the Chinese like any group at all.
Your invitation to find notable Midwesterners in Sinology is impossible and that's not what this exchange was about. You know that, and such an invitation is intellectually dishonest.
Bullshit. I say Jews are some of the best students of China and Chinese and provide some examples of this; you refer to Midwesterns as some of the best students of China and Chinese and provide nothing to support this (other than yourself, I suppose). Then you call me intellectually dishonest. Don't be such a quack. I'm not intimidated by your faux-outrage.
Your defensive non-sequitur about genetic propensity (a subject PM certainly never brought up)?
Exactly, and he calls me intellectually dishonest.
"I yet don't understand why the Chinese may hold an opinionated, stereotypical view of many persons and things yet their view on Jews (assuming I'm right, for which you and surely PincherMartin think I'm dead wrong)...
I have no opinion about your assessment of Chinese views about Jews or anything else. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, as I've heard it reported before that Chinese (and Japanese, BTW) hold unflattering views of virtually all other ethnic groups.
"...is anti-Semitic. Would their views on the Japanese if disfavourable become anti-Japanese? Their views on Hong Kong Chinese as being immoral and the untoward beneficiaries of British colonial rule anti-Hong Kong Chinese, etc.?"
One might harbor generalizations about any group of people, and they might even be correct as broad political or cultural generalizations. (Americans are "violent"--perhaps true as a comparative cultural, maybe even political, generalization, but certainly the equivalent of racism if held as an expectation about individuals.) But at some point, such generalizations and stereotypes indeed become racist (or anti-whatever). The US southerner's loathing of "northerners", for instance.
But you know, when you get down to such inherently personal generalizations as "money grubbing" and "thoroughly unlikable", and when you conclude per the fucking Protocols of the Elders of Zion that Jews "control" the American government, then YES, THAT'S ANTISEMITISM, and if you need me to tell you so then you're a dipshit white boy, aren't you? If the same sort of generalizations were applied to blacks (and I'm told they are), I sure as hell hope you'd recognize them as racist. Your confusion over this surprises me.
"Or, does anti-Semitism rate a special rung in hell?"
You evidently have me confused with RustlerPike. Re-read the last paragraph of Message # 10552.
Sometimes I wonder if you know any Jews, Loar, or if your experience of us is strictly limited to those appeals-by-mail for contributions to the National Holocaust Museum.
Do you sing opera, too?
Give it a rest. No one has accused you of any such thing.
Go back and read the paragraph of mine you quoted. I didn't claim the Chinese "single out" Jews, I said that Loar's description was undoubtedly a description of animus.
I did say that if one were charitably inclined, one might stop short of labelling all such stereotyping racist. I would not consider a neutral stereotype--of Americans as blonds, for instance--particularly racist, merely uninformed.
In fact I'm generally unmoved to special disdain by observable generalizations if they're provisional, somewhat accurate, are based on someone's direct experience--as long as the generalization is made with the understanding that that's all it is. But I'm not charitably inclined wrt to patently nasty stereotypes of the sort Loar described. I don't care who they're aimed at, nor should anyone.
To pose an example, there's an obvious difference between observing the public behavior of Jews concerning some political issue and concluding that Jews as a group are, say, "holocaust-obsessed", and observing the same behavior and concluding that Jews are by nature "theatrical".
"In my experience, people in most countries tend to judge an individual by the reputation (founded or ill-founded) of their ethnic group."
Do you?
"What's unusual is that this kind of thinking is considered wrong in the USA and some Western European countries."
The notion that prejudice (abetted by thinking according to stereotype) tends to be pernicious may well be "unusual", but I have no doubt you and Loar are just as attached to it as I am.
I didn't know Jews were outlawed in England from 1290 to 1656. I just remember there was a Jewish merchant in Scott's Ivanhoe tale who had a daughter named Rebecca who played a supporting role in the plot (if I am not mistaken). But since Ivanhoe is set around the time of Richad Lionheart and Prince John, that squares with your information.
I forgot the historical inclination of many European countries to get fits of Jew expulsion from time to time and simply assumed that if there were Jews present around 1100, then there were also Jews present around Shakespeare's time...
what percentage of Denmark's population is non-European immigrants? I would think it's about 5%, not quite Austria's and Switzerland's 10%.
According to the Danish Statistical Office, the total proportion of foreigners (residents and their first gen. descendants) in Denmark was 6.9% in 1999. Of these 3.7% hail from what the statisticians dub 'less-developed' countries, i.e. all but USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and all of Europe bar Turkey, Cyprus and parts of FSU. If you include people from former Yugoslavia in that category (debatable, of course like some of the others), it's
4.4%.
These 4.4% 'less-developed' foreigners are comprised of people from
Turkey 24%
Yugoslavia (incl. former) 19.7%
Africa (excl. Somalia) 8.4%
Lebanon 7.8%
Pakistan 7.2%
Somalia 5.8%
Iraq 5.4%
Iran 5.4%
Vietnam 4.5%
Misc. others 19%
As to the percentage of foreigners in other countries, I have this from the Economist, March 11 2000 (which references the OECD)(but I think these numbers include all foreigners, i.e. both from 'more' and 'less' developed countries). Data from 1997 (bar France 1990, and Denmark 1996).
Luxembourg 34.9
Australia 21.1
Switzerland 19.0
Canada 17.4
U.S. 9.3
Netherlands 9.2
Germany 9.0
Belgium 8.9
France 6.3
Sweden 6.0
Denmark 4.7
Norway 3.6
Britain 3.6
Finland 1.6
Hungary 1.4
Japan 1.2
What is wrong with Janet Reno? Parkinson's? Why is she shaking so badly on CNN?
I know you're a right-thinking liberal Dane and all, so I'm curious. Would you mind if the proportion of Bangladeshis, Ghanaians, Ethiopians, Turks, Kurds, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. shot up to 10% of the population? to 15% of the population? 20%?
No I wouldn't mind. (But I doubt this attitude would be liable to be perceived as 'right-thinking' by most of my fellow Danes).
I don't mean whether you mind because others mind. I ask whether you personally mind.
I suppose the same question could be asked of Pelle.
I suppose so too. And of everybody else for that matter...
I've always wondered whether the gradual enlargement of the Sephardic proportion of Israel's population at the expense of the founding Ashkenazis might account for the clear rightward shift in Israeli politics implied by the rise of Likud in the 1970s.
Rustler?
I've always been fascinated by the relationship between Israel's politics and its constantly shifting demographics.
pe:
I've always wondered whether the gradual enlargement of the Sephardic proportion of Israel's population at the expense of the founding Ashkenazis might account for the clear rightward shift in Israeli politics implied by the rise of Likud in the 1970s.
Well yeah, but that's almost a truism - it is indisputable and undisputed. There are a lot of Ashkenazim who would agree with your implication (if I'm reading it correctly) that this rightward shift is necessarily a bad thing. I used to feel that way myself, but I have have grown to despise the Ashkenazi elite that I came from just as much as the Sepharadim do.
I also find their politics less and less the product of reason or any kind of coherent weltanschauung (sp?) and more and more some kind of elitist fashion statement. If you look at the current row between Shas and Meretz, it is all about that.
I don't know what this will mean to a non-Jew, but we were guests, for the Seder, at some patrician friends of my mother's. One of the women sitting there retorted to every passage in the Haggadah which struck her as politically incorrect. When we read the passage "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt", she said: lo nora, ('so? it's not so terrible'). These are the kind of absurd peaks of self-nullification that this 'sane', 'Western' thinking leads to.
Perhaps, a difference for Western Europe today, maybe France in particular, is that many of their immigrants come from their former colonies, and thus are anti-colonialists and thus are inherently hostile toward the government. Consider, not the Sephardic Jews, in Israel, but instead the Israeli Arabs. Is it possible to imagine either the Arabs assimilating in Israel or Israel changing so as to absorb them as part of the population. Or that a city the size of Miami, in Israel, could be essentially run by the Arabs, in the way Miami is run by the Cubans. Maybe or maybe not, but the problem seems much larger than anything about the conservative tilt of Israel due to the Sephardic Jews.
Further, it seems possible that Arab and North African immigrants to Europe could prove every bit as impossible for Europe to assimilate as for Israel.
You'll note that I termed racism pernicious, not "wrong", the moral angle being your attribution. The baldest racism disgusts me simply because it's unjustifiably vicious, not because it is a violation of moral principle. What you term a peccadillo I disdain as mindless and to varying degrees injurious (of individuals, civic pluralism, or both).
It would also be accurate to say I have an aversion to the cast of mind that supports racist views. The same cast of mind supports a variety of stupid or pernicious fixations that have nothing to do with race.
And I suppose this needs pointing out: if you examine 'don't know no better' prejudice in isolation--if you denature it--then sure, the tendency not to consider people as individuals may be a minor failing. But it is one which can quickly be mobilised by demagogues to create serious inter-group conflicts where only minor political or cultural squabbles truly exist. Plus, the effect of a lifetime of idiotic presumption, from the standpoint of one being stereotyped, is incredibly tiresome and produces its own ill effects.
Maybe the slippery slope is steeper in Israel? Can't say I've ever heard of such a Seder anecdote in the US.
(I do have one Haggadah that proposes among several explanations for the dipping of parsley in saltwater that we weep not only for ourselves for the suffering Egyptians who, although they enslaved us and had to be punished harshly in order to secure our freedom, were also God's creations.)
You realise, of course, that those numbers for the UK and France don't include the many non-Europeans, whether first-, second- or third-generation, who are naturalised UK or French citizens.
I think the UK has done most toward loosening up what constitutes a Briton than any other European country. The rhetoric of "multicultural society" is pretty big in the UK, and most Britons accept the idea of a Briton of a non-European descent.
Contrary to your opinion, I think France is perhaps the second least likely to experience the problems you refer to. French identity is not ethnic, but cultural. France will accept as French those willing to adopt French culture (and conversely reject as French those unwilling to adopt it, as evidenced by rejections of requests for naturalisation on thinly disguised sartorial grounds). And I think despite the large number of immigrants who seem to reject cultural assimilation,
And the countries these hispanics come from have a tradition of anti-yankee imperialism at least as deep and vivid as any tradition of anticolonialism in Arab and African countries.
But as in France as in the USA, anti-imperialist sentiments I don't think pose any problems.
Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory by Vera Schwarcz.
Here is an interesting site called Jews of Asia
Scholars Gather in Germany to Discuss Jews in China
Most of the scholars at this link focused on the Jews of Kaifeng, but a couple of scholars (both of them Chinese) presented papers on Chinese attitudes towards Jews. Unfortunately, there are no links to the papers presented at this conference. Here are the highlights:
Pan Guang, in his paper “Uniqueness and Generality: The Case of Shanghai in the Annals of Jewish Diaspora” discussed how and why Shanghai became a home for Jews from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. He noted that as a result Shanghai turned out to be a bridge for the promotion of traditional friendship between Chinese and Jews.
Zhou Xun, a Ph.D. candidate from London University, presented “A History of Chinese Perceptions of the Jews.” Though her paper did not deal directly with Jews in China, it, nevertheless, traced to the 19th century the Chinese attitude towards Jews and Jewish issues when some direct encounters between two peoples took place, and she gave a thorough historical overview of the subject. Since the colloquium was not open to general audience, except for a few public lectures, the participants had much freedom and time to focus their discussions among themselves, even to debate some issues.
continued...
Here is another Jewisn Bulletin article written on Harry Wu, the Chinese dissident, which describes his engrossment with the Holocaust and his criticism of Israeli arms deals with China. Why U.S. Jews should listen to dissident Harry Wu
Highlights:
In August 1995, Wu charged that Israel's military ties to China were helping to perpetuate "evil."
Later: In his latest book, "Troublemaker: One man's crusade against China's cruelty," Wu does not repeat his denunciation of Israel. Instead, he tells of his research into Jewish suffering and how it helped him better understand his own country.
"When I came to the United States, I realized that China was not always the center of the universe, certainly not for mass tragedy," Wu relates. He says he "became engrossed with the Holocaust," finding haunting comparisons between the madness of Kristallnacht and China's chaotic, devastating Cultural Revolution.
Visiting Dachau, Wu was stunned to learn that the slogan over the concentration camp's entrance, "Arbeit macht frei," means "Work makes you free." It was identical to slogans at the Chinese camps where millions of prisoners perished.
And finally, U.S. rabbi asks China to officially recognize Jews
I am Pincher Martin, not Rustler Pike, although at this point in time Scott Loar probably can't tell the difference.
By the way, Xiang is a Jewish American.
Re: 10593
How in the world did you figure that out?
A
1. Why white men can't jump, Jon Entine
2. Finding differences feeds stereotypes, John Hoberman
In another context, the above two articles present both sides of the argument. I lean towards 1.
Simplistically stated:
Ashkenzi tend to do better because cultural forces tended to make them breed for intelligence. Rabbis were chosen for their intellect, expected to marry young and have large families, and were given their choice of mate.
In contrast, Sephardim, who came from the same stock, have IQ's that are, on the average, 15 points lower.
See: The Jewish Mystique by Ernest van den Haag (1969).
BUT
Things are far from simple:
Are Russian Jews Descended from the Khazars? A Reassessment Based upon the Latest Historical, Archaeological, Linguistic, and Genetic Evidence, Kevin Alan Brook
Another interesting article is:
Steve Jones 1996 In the Blood: God, Genes and Destiny
B
PseudoErasmus,
Contrary to your statement, there seems to be good evidence that the Pathans are, in part, descended from four lost tribes ofIsreal - their names are still used to designate tribes of the Pathan. An interesting 2 hour TV program, Quest for the Lost Tribes with Simcha Jacobovici, presented evidence from customs, names and relics. (Afgan is supposedly the name of one of King Saul's sons.)
Have a good vacation.
Subtle genetic differences do help define what an individual is, whether genius or lunatic -- or both. Whether susceptible to alcoholism or not. This is not to underestimate the effect of environment.
An interesting example is found in the book, The Mind of a Mnemonist (AR Luria 1968), which documents a person cursed with a
phenomenal memory. The person, never named, was Jewish with very bright siblings. Unfortunately, his mind was so cluttered
with information that he had great difficulty coping with relatively simple tasks.
Another example is in one of today's science news:
Scientists Localize Susceptibility Gene For
Schizophrenia
By the way, one study I saw a long time ago claimed that Jews' strength was in the verbal reasoning component of IQ, while the Asiatics' were in the visual reasoning component.
I see that you have not abandoned your irritating posting style.
Transient1 = slaterdr9
Immigrants from non-Nordic countries can get Swedish citizenship after five years' residence.
No kidding. The name of mine is "Yosefzai", the son of Joseph.
What customs and relics are evocative of Jews?
By the way, I can't think of many other tribal names which evoke a Jewish etymology.
Achakzai. Durrani. Wazir. Makhsud. Khattak. Bangash. Afridi. Mohmand.
Are their Jewish shadows in these names?
Austria: 27%
Switzerland: 22%
Denmark: 18%
Norway: 15%
Belgium: 10%
France: 9%
Italy: 5%
Germany: 3%
the UK: 1-2%
Sweden: less than 1%
Spain: less than 1%
In the UK, the first-past-the-post-electoral (FPTP) keeps the loony parties from entering the House of Commons, but the FPTP may not be necessary for that purpose -- you just wouldn't have in Britain something the size of the National Front even under proportional representation.
French results probably underestimate far-right feelings because the National Front imploded and split a little while ago and the resulting two parties now muster less than the united FN had previously done.
But still, France and Germany probably deserve less attention for their far-righters than some other countries!
But I wonder what percentage of the popular vote Buchanan will get in November, now that he is going to be an independent candidate (or third-party candidate, whatever).
Why are the Danes so prone to far-right feelings than the Swedes?
Now, I wonder what Buchanon will get in the USA in November, now that he says he'll be a third-party candidate.
If there were a recession it's plausible Buchanon might get at least 15%. After all, Perot got nearly 20% in 1992.
pseudoerasmus, tell us about your trip. Why are you travelling by train across China?
That must have been a few days ago, where you linked a marked-up map with showing your route. I must have been at work that day.
No kidding. The name of mine is "Yosefzai", the son of Joseph.
Hmm. You've got me.
The five tribes were mentioned: Reuben, Shimon, Gad, Ephrain, and Levi -- the first four being lost tribes. The Pathan names were in a slightly different form. A sub-tribe, the Wasseri (?), were thought to be an Isreali sub-tribe, the Nasseri (?). Like the ancient Nasseri, they wore their hair long. As in ancient Isreal, the Ephrain are the most numerous.
The customs mentioned were lighting candles for Sabbath -- but the Pathans did not know the meaning of the custom. Also wearing prayer shawls in the form of four cornered garments. The practice of biblical laws. And the practice of allowing those who are accused of manslaughter to take refuge in designated cities.
About 2300 years ago, the Buddist Emperor Ashoka (?) erected propaganda pillars which were all thought to be in Sanskrit. Four are now known to be in Aramaic. The one in Mardon, Pakestan was shown.
Are the Yosefzai numerous and not a sub-tribe? When the Yosefzai tribe was established? And how many major, definitely ancient, tribes are there?
It is possible that Simcha Jacobovici is simply wrong.
Maybe there is better information somewhere, possibly on the Net?
I don't think the number for Denmark is the result from the latest election (March 1998) where far rightists got 9.8% of the vote (granted, still a tidy share). But they have been hovering around the cited 18% in opinion polls for the past year or so.
I don't have any good idea why far-rightists do better here than in Sweden. Only improbable, or unsuffiently informed speculations.
One institutional difference is in the electoral systems where the Danish threshhold for representation is 2%, vis-a-vis the Swedish one of 5% (is that right Pelle?). This might deter fringe parties from attempting election in the first place and/or dissuade voters from voting for a party which is unlikely to gain representation. (I certainly attribute the UK number of 3% to this factor). But the latter factor might plausibly be overcome by the publication of opinion polls showing above-threshhold support for such parties.
Anyway, once such a party has gained representation, it has a platform from which to influence the agenda and peddle its policies; it becomes a 'normal' or at least 'regular' feature of the political setup thus more likely to perpetuate itself.
In Denmark we had a big breakthrough for a far right party as early as 1973, the Progress Party led by a highly charismatic, imaginative demagogue character, Mr Mogens Glistrup. Then, foreigners all but absent, it was a party of tax revolters, bureaucrat haters and anarcho-libertarian bigots. The present successful far right party - the Danish People's Party - is an off-shoot of the Progress Party.
They have never really had anything similar in Sweden. (With the possible exception of one party led by a certain Mr Ian Wachtmeister - I demember its name. My impression is he has provocative opinions but is personally rather dull and is of fading significance (Pelle? Comments?)).
Wazir to Nasseri.
Afridi (the most numerous tribe?) to Ephraim.
The other tribes he mentioned you seemed to have missed.
I guess I am going to have plead deep ignorance on this question.
The five tribes were mentioned: Reuben, Shimon, Gad, Ephrain, and Levi -- the first four being lost tribes. The Pathan names were in a slightly different form. A sub-tribe, the Wasseri (?), were thought to be an Isreali sub-tribe, the Nasseri (?). Like the ancient Nasseri, they wore their hair long. As in ancient Isreal, the Ephrain are the most numerous.
I have in front of me a digest of Pathan tribal geneologies, and I can't find any such name as you list, except maybe "Wasseri" which may be cognate to Waziri. But "Waziri" is more likely a corruption of "wazir" as in Grand Vizir.
The customs mentioned were lighting candles for Sabbath -- but the Pathans did not know the meaning of the custom. Also wearing prayer shawls in the form of four cornered garments.
Each tribe has different customs and different dress and some even have different racial features. (Many tribes look more European, other tribes look more South Asian, still others look Levantine, still others have slight Mongoloid features.)
The practice of biblical laws. And the practice of allowing those who are accused of manslaughter to take refuge in designated cities.
This is common to all tribes and the custom is known as melmastia (or "hospitality") and this is why Usama bin Ladin will never be extradited.
About 2300 years ago, the Buddist Emperor Ashoka (?) erected propaganda pillars which were all thought to be in Sanskrit. Four are now known to be in Aramaic. The one in Mardon, Pakestan was shown.
Mardan is Yosefzai country, my family are from there. I've seen Mauryan pillars in the museum there but never any Aramaic inscription! (Not that I would recognise Aramaic if I saw it.)
Are the Yosefzai numerous and not a sub-tribe?
The second-largest tribe, and the largest lowland tribe, i.e., living in towns and cities, as opposed to the hill tribes living in mountains or in tribal agencies.
When the Yosefzai tribe was established? And how many major, definitely ancient, tribes are there?
They say 550 BC, but that's just piffle. I've no idea how many. People usually say 60. But others say 40.
It is possible that Simcha Jacobovici is simply wrong.
Was his name Erich von Daniken before he changed it?
Maybe there is better information somewhere, possibly on the Net?
Not this kind of information, the information on the net is mostly political stuff related to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and some poetry. But there are lots of books about Pathans.
You realise, of course, that those numbers for the UK and France don't include the many non-Europeans, whether first-, second- or third-generation, who are naturalised UK or French citizens.
Yes, and it's a perfect example of the pitfalls of international comparisons that I talked about the other day. I'd say the OECD has been less than thorough-going in compiling this statistic as far as controlling for different methodologies. But, there it is. The OECD is an reputable source and so is readily used by The Economist; conceivably in the absence of a better comparison.
Afridi to do with Ephrain? Another silly stretch.
here are some other tribal names:
Tarklanri. Utman Khel. Khugiani. Shinwari. Luni. Spintarin. Kakar. Musa Khel. Ghalji. Tortarin. Orakzai. Darwesh Khel. Shirani. Mando Khel. Isot. Jafar. Musa Khel. Babar. Gandapur. Marwat. Bhitanni. Zmara. Muqbil. Chakmani. Mangal. Jadran. Tani. Khostwal. Zaimukht. Gadun Jadun. Muhammadzai. Mallagori. Daudzai. Shilman. Khalil. Bara Mohmand. Chamkanni. Mashwani.
there are more.
You should be busy packing.
Transient1
Welcome! (slaterdr9 rings no bells, but that may be my fault.)
Interesting link, thank you. I am going to bed now, and will just onece again wish you a good journey which I expect will be done Phileas Fogg style. You'll be chopping up the train to feed the steam engine in order to get to Moscow in time.
You'll be missed here, but don't let that rest to heavily on your heart - though I know it's difficult for a sensitive prissy PSB like yourself.
Ta ta.
Thanks for the information.
This was supposed to be an award winning documentary released in 1999 and produced with funding from the Canadian Television Fund and A & E.
The first Mauryan pillar with Aramaic script was found in the 1950's. None of the four are in a museum.
I went back and reviewed the some of Simcha Jacobovici's commentary.
The name of the alleged daughter of Saul in Pathan legend is Afghana.
Jacobivici stated that Afghan was claimed to be the name of Saul's son.
He stated that there are eleven tribes of Pathans. And gave these correspondences:
Reubenie to Reuben
Leveni to Levi
Shimwara to Shimon
Gadun to Gad
Ephriebie to Ephrian
(My spelling of the Pathan names are most probably wildly out.)
Also the Pathans follow the law as laid down in the Puchtunwali not Islamic of the Koran. And the Puchtunwali is basically
the law of the Old Testament without the tempering interpretations of later rabbis.
The Pathans he choose all looked biblical and he commented on their features.
ANYWAY,
If I find anything of interest, I will post it.
It's better spelt pukhtunwali, or the way of the Pathan.
the Puchtunwali is basically the law of the Old Testament without the tempering interpretations of later rabbis.
Sounds a bit fanciful. Maybe. Except Pathans say things like "head for an eye, leg for a tooth".
Your Jacobivici is on drugs if he thinks there are only 11 Pathan tribes. Any book on the Pathans will list dozens.
there are no such tribes as Reubenie and Leveni.
Ephriebie could be a corruption of some other name.
What kinds of things do you pack for a trip like the one you are taking? I'm imagining a large backpack with a tux rolled up in the bottom under a layer of dictionaries.
#10619
The logic behind the transmogrification of Transient1 to Tenement eludes me.
Maybe a simple lapse of memory?
A quick search yielded this:
The Ten Lost Tribes: Pathans "
Interesting insights into Pathan practices.
As to physical appearance:
"When not wearing their traditional clothing Pathans are indistinguishable from other Jews of the area."
MAYBE
You are simply wrong.
Most of that is unadulterated nonsense, just another typical internet unsubstantiated babbling. I could put up nonsense about the Ainu being the lost tribes of Israel and a complete ignoramus like Tenement could cite in an argument.
MAYBE You are simply wrong
Me and my entire extended Pathan family.
"When not wearing their traditional clothing Pathans are indistinguishable from other Jews of the area."
What other Jews of the area? The nearest are in India or Iran.
This claim is idiotic. Pathans physically look different from region to region, from tribe to tribe.
Please find a single Pathan named Reuben, Manasseh and Ephraim.
Have a good holiday.
I have no way judging who is correct -- or partially correct.
It is interesting, but absolutely of no importance to me.
Some more of its strange claims, completely unreferenced and unsubstantiated:
Israelites came to ancient Japan.
It would be interesting to see the intermarriage rates of immigrants to France and compare with the US.
By the way, don't the German's say that the Turks can become citizens of Germany, they just have to give up their Turkish citizenship?
Further, it strikes me that the last time they had an election in Algeria, they had to shut it down because a party that vowed to impose Islamic law and end democracy was going to win. Call me crazy, but that makes me think it might be difficult to assimilate a large population of Algerians into either the French polictical system or French culture.
Something like 50% of Hispanics born in the United States marry non-Hispanics.
Really?
Virtually all hispanics born in the United States, speak English.
You think Arabs and Africans born in France don't speak English? Hell, their parents often arrive already speaking French.
Its probably true that they will shift the center of American politics, at least temporarily. But since that would seem to be in a direction you would like to see it shifted, I am puzzled what bothers you about this.
I didn't say anything about them bothered me. But you seemed to foresee trouble with non-European immigrants. I was just saying that the assimilation of immigrants in the UK and France doesn't seem more problematic than the assimilation of Hispanics in the USA -- particularly since you cited anticolonialism as a factor.
By the way, don't the German's say that the Turks can become citizens of Germany, they just have to give up their Turkish citizenship?
No. Germany does not permit dual citizenship, but that is not the barrier to Turks even those born in Germany of becoming German citizens. Germany simply doesn't grant German citizenship very often to those who are not of German origins.
Further, it strikes me that the last time they had an election in Algeria, they had to shut it down because a party that vowed to impose Islamic law and end democracy was going to win. Call me crazy, but that makes me think it might be difficult to assimilate a large population of Algerians into either the French polictical system or French culture.
Well, that's certainly the opinion of many French opinion, and reinforced by the scarf issue. But then, again, more than half of the nearly 5 million Muslims in France are already French citizens. But I don't know of any political ramifications of that -- except in terms of xenophobic backlash.
should of course read FRENCH
Nice to hear from you, even in these sporadic outbursts (inbursts) that have become so characteristic of you. Perhaps the little Socklet lays claims to your free time..?
Seeing that you concern yourself with Japanese Jewophobia for the time being, I am reminded that you once asked me about general European attitudes towards Germans. I answered you briefly then, but just recently there was a brief exchange here on the subject (featuring our newly arrived German participant Jürgen Huber of Berlin).
I quoted a scholarly study on the Danish media's coverage of Germany, starting at Message # 10200. We have those bastards nailed, you know. Right there deep in their designated pidgeon-hole.
Butterfield:
Virtually every immigrant to the USA has come from a country without a democratic tradition, and the vast majority of Americans today are descended from these immigrants. When these people become a majority in any given district, this can be a problem
Or maybe the problem in the US is that a majority of its founding citizens and present-day elites originally came from a countries with a long colonialist - supremacist - imperialist -racist history? That they took into their borders people from a faraway continent and used them for slave labor, whippings and free sex, and don't know what the fuck to do with them now that the fun's over?
I agree that the US has a serious identity problem, but dumping it all on the 'immigrants' 'non-democratic traditions' means you're still thinking the same way that got you into this mess.
(Rustler: you're like a backlash incarnate. Male backlash. Pseudo-Sephardic backlash....)
Shall we add anti-White to that list? Or just anti-white-racist-superiority?
PS
'Moshiach' is the Ashkenazi-Yiddish pronunciation of mashiakh - messiah.
The New York Times on German citizenship.
Germany liberalizes its citizenship law on Saturday to help millions of people, principally Turks, who have been working and living here for decades without full rights.
But few of those who could most benefit seem to be rushing to raise their status from legal German resident to citizen.
For many Turks, turning in their old passports for bright red German documents is tantamount to turning in their old culture and cutting ties to their homeland.
Turkish newspapers in Germany have for weeks urged people not to apply for citizenship because of the double passport restriction.
Without a Turkish passport, many Turks may be denied the right to be buried in their homeland, inherit land or run a business.
Some 40 percent of Germany's Turkish residents have been living here for 15 years or more -- meaning they were eligible for citizenship under the old law and yet did not apply.
Much of the law's impact will be apparent only in 23 years -- when the first children born to foreign parents under the new law must decide whether to have German passports or passports issued from their parents' countries.
I must now go. bye.
Some notes:
1) The Pathans are obviously not Jews, but very now and then people look for signs that they'r something othr than Afghan/Pak highlanders. The fashionable claim among Pathans themselves is that they're descendants of Alexander's legions. For this, there is some evidence.
2) The existing archaeological evidence is manipulated. The fact that there are carvings in the area with Amharaic on them means nothing more than the well-known fact that the trade route that winds through the area had established Jewish communities using it.
Buttercup:
Perhaps I misunderstood your post and thought you were saying something wrong, when in fact you were simply saying something stupid?
10578. ButterfieldSwire (...) Consider, not the Sephardic Jews, in Israel, but instead the Israeli Arabs. Is it possible to imagine either the Arabs assimilating in Israel or Israel changing so as to absorb them as part of the population. Or that a city the size of Miami, in Israel, could be essentially run by the Arabs, in the way Miami is run by the Cubans. Maybe or maybe not, but the problem seems much larger than anything about the conservative tilt of Israel due to the Sephardic Jews.
I don't know what the population of Miami is but it is probably more than Tel Aviv's, and perhaps close to Israel's entire population. So if you remove the condition of being like Miami in size, if you're talking about predominantly Arab cities -there are actually several of them in Israel. Nazareth is one, I believe Umm el-Fahm gained municipal status recently, and there are others. Most of these are not 'essentially' run by Arabs, they are completely inhabited and run by Arabs. So what you are saying eludes me.
Further, it seems possible that Arab and North African immigrants to Europe could prove every bit as impossible for Europe to assimilate as for Israel.
Now, again, this sounds like you are making a parallel between North African Jews in Israel and North African Jews/Arabs/whatever in Europe. Or are you again saying something much, much dumber?
marj:
I'm sure we once discussed the mizos. I remember postulating they were originally British Jews, and the zo in their name a corruption of the ser in the original.
Yes, I've been pretty sporadic. It's been a mix of baby and work taking me abroad a lot more than usual. On the road and off, though, I try to follow the more interesting exchanges here. And, of course, I'm STILL waiting for marjoribanks to revisit the subject of Rhodesia, once the object of his deepest admiration.
Battle cry of the Jewish Legion:
"No advance without security!"
Buttercup:
I didn't steal anyone's land, to the best of my knowledge. There was a dispute, we agreed to a compromise, they didn't, they wanted all of the land for themselves along with our heads as trophies, there was a fight, we won, they lost some of their land. They have plenty more. We don't. And I remind you, we were here first and have quite a solid claim to the land. Perhaps you know otherwise. Enlighten me if you must.
No one answered me: does Janet Reno have Parkinson's?
Yes, Janet Reno has had Parkinson's disease for about four years.
What do you want me to say about Rhodesia and your pin-up boy Ian Smith? That he was right? That Apartheid should be reinstituted? Sorry, I'll have to disappoint. 
I guess this must have to do with the festival of Gangaur in Rajasthan.
Ian Smith doesn't interest me one way or the other. What does interest me is your defense of such a thoroughly nasty piece of work as Mugabe, who I should have thought represents pretty much everything a World Citizen should detest. He's a provincial hick, populist moron, bully, racist, ugly old homophobe, and economic know-nothing. How can you claim to admire this callow moron?
It's not my argument but Mugabe was not always thus.
1
>That kooky special<
Simcha Jacobovici special was tongue-in-cheek. He knows the Pathans will never immigrate to Isreal to initiate "the end of days". He stated that his interpretation was his best conjecture and he was open to better conjectures. He has obviously taken some "poetic" liberties and pushed the envelope, in instances, too far.
And, of course, I could be wrong. Maybe he is a religous zealot -- but I very strongly doubt it.
2
http://www.abest.com/~angelos/afghan.html
Here is some interesting commentary on Greeks in Afganistan.
3
>The fact that there are carvings in the area with Amharaic on them means nothing more than the well-known fact that the trade route that winds through the area had established Jewish communities using it.<
I doubt if any conjectures as what may have happened 2300 years ago can be described as a "well-known fact". And this "well-known fact" certainly raises more questions than it aswers. Like, how big did these communities become? And did these communities substantially contribute population to what are now Pathans -- and to which Pathan tribes? And could these tribes still practice relic rituals, customs, and laws from these ancestors as Joacobovici and others claim?
4
psmudge knows I like to provoke him and I am too immature to restrain myself. Just as I know that he will be provoked and is too immature to restrain himself. In other words, it is just a good natured game -- at least, I hope so.
1
I kind of garbled the information I relayed.
Jacobovici did not state there were 11 Pathan tribes. One of your extended family (?), Wali Khan (a Pathan Elder) stated that there were 11 Pathan tribes in the Khyber.
2
Jacobovici pointed out there are no Jews in Afganistan. The last left when the Soviets invaded. There is a small number of Afgani Jews in Isreal.
This may interest you:
The "Other" in "Afghan" Identity: Medieval Jewish community of Afghanistan
1
I kind of garbled the information I relayed.
Jacobovici did not state there were 11 Pathan tribes. One of your extended family (?), Wali Khan (a Pathan Elder) stated that there were 11 Pathan tribes in the Khyber.
2
Jacobovici pointed out there are no Jews in Afganistan. The last left when the Soviets invaded. There is a small number of Afgani Jews in Isreal.
This may interest you:
The "Other" in "Afghan" Identity: Medieval Jewish community of Afghanistan
Well, Mugabe is certainly that way now.
Isn't Africa a political joke? Everything that goes wrong is blamed on the white man, even if the legacy is non-existent or long faded. Somebody's roads don't work -- blame the white man. The economy is in tatters -- blame whitey. Tinpot dictators rule -- blame whitey. Corruption is endemic -- blame whitey. What a bunch of losers.
Call me a softie and a pinko and an insufferable earnest Scandinavian, but seeing incredibly privileged people like yourself crow over and deride the very poorest of the piss poor people of the world, undereducated, poverty-, sickness, and AIDS-ridden, underbloodyfed for goodness sake!, that makes me kind of mad.
Mugabe uses the whites as scapegoats, yes, but the concept of scapegoating foreigners and different ethnic groups is popular with all authoritarian leaders of every continent and country, including such "winners" as Malaysia's Mahathir and Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew whom, if I remember correctly, you respect a great deal more.
sto,
It appeared to me that Socko was criticizing murderous, evil dictators who, incidentally, almost invariably oppress their people economically while larding funds for themselves in Swiss banks.
Or did I miss something?
And, it overlooks the malfeasance of the communist countries and assorted anti-capitalist revolutionaries around the world in trying to lead the developing nations down the path of central planning and dictatorship.
OK so there was communist influence, but don't forget that the central planning approach was condoned by the World Bank which is in effect ruled by the US. I'm not sure but I think that Japan was seen as some kind of role model.
I agree that the World Bank, and even banks in general, have some things to atone for.
Isn't wishing people to throw off the yoke of tyrannies such as Mugabe's and wanting to see them enjoy the peace and prosperity of the West compassionate?
The posts above make it pretty clear we have some understanding of how the Africans got themselves into this mess with the help of the West and the proponents of socialism and communism.
But that does not mean we should wish the Africans stay mired in their current condition. On the contrary.
And I did not have to visit the Czech Republic or the GDR to know that my relatives there suffered under communism.
No. I would call that occidental ethnocentrism. Compassion arises from shared experience.
I did not have to visit the Czech Republic or the GDR to know that my relatives there suffered under communism.
Certainly not. To know a fact, one need not inhabit the Land of Facts; one simply needs to have reference source.
You are suggesting that the West does not enjoy greater peace and prosperity than Africa does?
Your first paragraph makes little sense.
And be a fool? No. I am not suggesting such a thing. I'm merely saying that to impose a system--political, economic, philosophical, social, religious, or any other--upon an existing culture reeks of colonialism. Do you not agree?
I have been a relatively frequent visitor to sub-Saharan Africa for the last twenty years or so, and I lived in Algeria for almost two years.
I agree with your last and essentially that is what I said (or meant to say) in the penultimate para of Message # 10665.
I, too, thought I was arguing against imposing a system.
"Call me a softie and a pinko and an insufferable earnest Scandinavian, but seeing incredibly privileged people like yourself crow over and deride the very poorest of the piss poor people of the world."
Ronski has answered this. The political louts in Africa are in no wise piss poor. Most would make considerably more money (illegally) than their western counterparts. If you're so soft and earnest, then why not spare a thought for the white farmers and black opposition members who are beign murdered daily by government goons ("war veterans" my ass) in Rhodesia?
Would you also be so kind as to instruct us on the similarities you see between Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Rhodesia's Mugabe? Unfortunately they seem to have eluded me, although I'm sure you can furnish a list for all of us to ponder.
I never claimed you wished to impose anything. I would argue, though, that you've held up the democractic (North American?) model as a system Africa ought to look to.
Accurate, according to my source, who just got back yesterday from visiting Zimbabwe, his homeland.
The "war veterans" are actually paid thugs. The farm seizures and murders comprise an engineered action--a political manoever--not a race war. Actual veterans from the war between colonialist whites and blacks (which dates back to Britain's relinquishment of Congo) are now in their 50s.
The farm squatters are operatives paid by Mugabe (about $2,000/yr). They're illiterate and can't farm--they haven't the resources or know-how.
However, they're poaching elephants & tigers from southern wildlife parks. All the Texans who ordinarily come there to spend $10K to kill a single elephant have cancelled their trips. The region is therefore in an economic crisis, and elephants are being slaughtered without oversight. Meanwhile, Harare is policed by thugs who demand ID at every intersection. Foreign investment has fled and is fleeing S. Africa as well.
My source says he thinks Mugabe has gone mad. The prospect of legitimate elections now is pretty much nonexistent.
It strikes me, if I may butt in, that Moi of Kenya has been doing the same kind of things as Mugabe is now doing, including killing people by the hundreds in engineered "tribal clashes", assassinating opposition leaders, rigging elections etc., and we always thought - now this is bound to be picked up by the BBC, this will make headlines in the foreign press, but nada. Now that the people being killed are white, it's more of a story I guess. There just aren't that many white farmers in Kenya, I think. The only serious white pol is Leakey, who lost his legs in an air accident that may also have been arranged from above.
Here are some names I doubt are familiar to anyone in this discussion: Dr. Robert Ouko, Bishop Muge, Masinde Muliro, J.J. Kariuki (I think that was his name), Koigi wa Wamwere... any of these ring bells anywhere?
No doubt that Moi is an ugly customer. His machinations have been reported on here but somehow the media don't seem able to work up any real indignation.
Also no doubt that the newsworthiness of Zimbabwe is "Whites beaten and and mureder by black thugs and their property confiscated without compensation". That's why Socko gets so worked up (plus is wish to sock one onto marj) when in fact the goings-on in Zimbabwe pale in comparison with Congo, Angola and, probably, Kenya.
Our people in Zimbabwe also think that Mugabe has gone off his rockers but I think that explanation may be too simple. He and his cronies must hang on because they are so deeply implicated in corruption and misuse of power.
I don't recognise any of the names you posted.
Did you see my 2059 to you in Poetry. I seem to remember you and someone marvelling about coincidence recently, perhaps on that high powered slow thread?
It appeared to me that Socko was criticizing murderous, evil dictators who, incidentally, almost invariably oppress their people economically while larding funds for themselves in Swiss banks.
No, I'd say you added something in your reading of what Socko said. I fully agree with this statement of yours, bar the first eight words that is, because I don't see how it corresponds to or can be inferred from Socko's #10661:
Or did I miss something?
Isn't Africa a political joke? Everything that goes wrong is blamed on the white man, even if the legacy is non-existent or long faded. Somebody's roads don't work -- blame the white man. The economy is in tatters -- blame whitey. Tinpot dictators rule -- blame whitey. Corruption is endemic -- blame whitey. What a bunch of losers.
"Tinpot dictators rule --- blame whitey." Doesn't sound like a reference to Mugabe but to ordinary Africans. I took offense precisely because the wording extends the oppression, corruption and incompetence of leaders like Mugabe into a sweeping statement about Africans in general. "What a bunch of losers." It's one thing to point out to a poor and sick man that he may have a responsibility for his situation and that he shouldn't rely solely on others for aid. It's quite another to spit him contemptingly in the face.
And Jenerator's (#10663) reading of Socko's message seems more in line with what he actually said:
I thought he just didn't like Blacks.
Would you also be so kind as to instruct us on the similarities you see between Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Rhodesia's Mugabe? Unfortunately they seem to have eluded me, although I'm sure you can furnish a list for all of us to ponder.
The only characterisation of Mugabe you offered yourself was one of "blame whitey". Lee Kuan Yew has coined his specious "Asian values" argument as a pretext for obstructing free flow of information as well as a platform for critisising his opponents; they are "under un-Asian influence". That's where I see the parallel. To use foreigners as scapegoats is a common trick for authoritarian leaders.
And speaking of South East Asia, you have heard of the concept of "crony capitalism", right? That's another parallel with Mugabe and other African leaders. (And no, Lee isn't the worst).
Interesting eye witness report. I recommend the article Pelle has knicked from The Economist and put up on his website here.
Zimbabwe's ailing economy is not just about the absence of elephant-shooting Texans. Mugabe has an impressive record of economic mismanagement in all sectors, institutions and policies.
Interestingly, the article says that few Zimbabweans go along with Mugabe's "blaming whitey". They say "IMF": It's Mugabe's Fault.
See Poetry.
"ARE outsiders making too much of the disturbances in Zimbabwe? Africa has become a violent continent. Only six years ago, it was the scene, in Rwanda, of the world’s greatest genocidal slaughter for half a century. Since then, war has spread from Ethiopia and Eritrea across a swathe in the middle to Angola in the south-west. Warlords have butchered and mutilated the people of Sierra Leone. At the end of February, hundreds of Nigerians died in an outbreak of ethnic violence that raised the spectre, at least for a few days, of a repetition of civil war in the continent’s most populous country. Far more people were killed in a single explosion in Congo last week than have died in two months of farm invasions in Zimbabwe (see article). Is the western world’s concern about the turn of events there just a reflection of the fact that some of the people being beaten and shot in Zimbabwe are white?
Yes. There is no other honest answer. "
That anecdote obviously wasn't intended to suggest anything about Mugabe's long-term "mismanagement", but rather about an acute economic effect being caused in one place by the current circumstances (i.e., by Mugabe's paid thugs).
In fact, I think my source may be of the opinion that in spite of Mugabe's (and his party's) pervasive corruption, the economy was in relatively good shape before this debacle, largely because of foreign money. Which is now gone or going, and at the very same time that some of Zimbabwe's major sites of agricultural production have been hijacked by people who are incapable of continuing it. IOW, the situation portends a crisis considerably worse than what we're seeing now.
My source supposedly travelled some 6 thousand miles in Africa during his visit last week. If I can obtain more details, I'll post them.
Jenerator’s comment in response to mine is typically foolish, as one might expect from a fatuous individual who all of her life has worn pyjamas to bed each night, as I suspect sto does too, and no doubt cringes her way out of the same sheets each morning.
And Sto’s comment WRT Lee Kuan Yew is fatuous. God knows, this has been hashed over many times here, but even Lee’s harshest critics would not accuse him, or the city-state, of supporting crony capitalism. Singapore is squeaky clean. A worse comparison with Mugabe is hard to imagine.
(a) been a scoutmaster?
(b) sung in a church choir?
(c) filed assault charges against his wife?
(d) all of the above?
Socko, you quasi-quidnunc, you're easy to peg. You're simply a self-righteous selectively racist xenophobe and it only takes a simply glance at your posts to see that, with or without pyjamas.
Difficulties of this sort make farming there more complicated than what westerners might expect. Requires a fair amount of collective action on the part of farmers, money for pharmaceuticals and bug control, the ability to read and understand some technical details of husbandry. None of which the squatters/"veterans" appear familiar with.
It's all very well to want more just land redistribution, but if those to whom a critical resource is given haven't the wherewithal to manage it productively, everyone who depends on it will suffer.
Thank you for the clarifications.
I will add that the Africans I've met in this country rarely blame white people for anything, although I do occasionally see that expressed by a small minority of American blacks. Frankly, I don't see this attitude as terribly different from that of numerous white people who blame someone else for their own shortcomings or their own misfortune, or sue somebody at the drop of a hat.
Sorry, but a xenophobe is one with a morbid dislike of foreigners. I happen to dislike my own countrymen and very much like ... oh, the English, Indonesians, Indians, the Palestinians and the Americans (the latter accounting for all kinds of racial groups). I sometimes like the Israelis and the Irish (the first gets an edge on account of its beautiful women), and pretty always dislike the continental Europeans who, as I've indicated with respect of sto, tend to be extremely wet.
I hope this clarifies the matter of my wild stereotypes, which, as I've said, are largely based on my political views and the fact that I post at 3AM local time.
By the way, Jenerator, have you ever actually visited a country with non-light-skinned people? Somehow I suspect you haven't.
Are Polynesians considered light skinned? Mexicans? S. Africans? And I'm not buying any of what you're selling in your cheap explanations of your 'idiosyncracies.' If you now feel the need (as you usually do) to tell me me how many publications you read and how many countries you've visited, as if it makes you better and your wild ideas more valid, feel free. I'm going to be getting up from this computer now, I suspect a major cringe.
Wrt blaming others for ones woes, I agree with Ronski. It's by no means an African specialty. That was my whole point. And I threw in Lee Kuan 'squeaky' Yew mostly to irritate you. I don't keep track on him and his tin pot boring Lilliput state (it's smaller than Denmark! Ha!), and I am not inclined to spend time digging out that piece I read a while back about some alleged crony construction projects of his.
One more thing: Did you know that Botswana, Zimbabwe's neighbour country, has outpaced each and every South East Asian country economically over the last three decades?
I read somewhere that the cattle in Zimbabwe are responsible for an alarmingly large percentage of the world's methane gas pollution.
It is early days of course but I doubt if there will be any real competition for Inane Post of the Week.
Zimbabwean Monster Cows' Alarmingly Large Methane Emissions Threaten Ozon Layer
click on SOLUTION 
That's really goo stuff. And we'll get rid of Lyme disease, syphilis and gum disease as a kind of bonus.
Another interesting proposal is that if all six billion people stopped breathing, CO2 emissions would be brought to safe levels.
I think it was Maggie Thatcher who came up with the wet/dry distinction in politics. But I also it in a more personalized sense -- wetness is something associated with constant hand-wringing along with a somewhat overpowering choirboy-like earnestness. A wet individual might reasonably be expected to drive a Skoda, favor wearing grey shoes, take a packed lunch to work and wear, as I've already said, pyjamas to bed at night.
Canada, for example, is a nation of wets; a veritable rainforest of wetness.
I hope this clarifies matters.
Message # 10700
I strongly doubt that you've spent any time in Polynesia. What good does it do inventing these claims?
All:
Can we please clarify this issue of racism. For me, it's very simple: I understand racism to be a view based on factors which an individual cannot change, has no power over: skin color being an obvious example. But my criticisms are ALWAYS based on the man-made, the cultural, the aspects of humans that individuals have a choice about.
So if many Africans choose to explain their woes on the white man, then I reserve the right to point out that they are behaving like losers in doing so. I would offer Indonesia as a good example of a nation where people every bit as poor (in a majority of cases) do not subsist on the same tired myths\. For this reason, and on this issue, I respect that nation's culture a lot more than the culture represented in the politics of Rhodesia's Mugabe.
It's true that Indonesians do not blame their troubles on the white man. But that's only because they have the Chinese. Blaming one's troubles on others is a universal human trait.
And Robert Mugabe reminds me of Suharto an awful lot... he has followed the same increasingly vicious and greedy path. The only difference is that Suharto was never elected to power in a fair election.
I wouldn't equate Indonesia's scapegoating of the Chinese to be in the same league as Rhodesia's current behavior. (I wouldn't even say Mugabe is a tenth as smart an individiual as Suharto, for that matter.) Perhaps one could compare the situation to Indonesia after independence though.
I agree about Hawaii and NZ.
I wouldn't equate Indonesia's scapegoating of the Chinese to be in the same league as Rhodesia's current behavior.
I'm not talking about degrees of scapegoating, but merely that scapegoating is universal. No one ever blames their troubles on themself.
The Chinese in Indonesia have come under pretty heavy fire, but not from the leaders of the nation.
Even in the years after independence, Indonesia didn't blame its troubes on the white man. Soekarno, especially in his later years, was well-known for choosing targets that drew the blame away from himself, but there has never been a true anti-western feeling in Indonesia (despite Soekarno's best efforts in this direction). After Soekarno's fall, all vestiges of the passions he had inflamed disappeared overnight.
In Kenya, Too, Anger Is Growing Among Landless Squatters
Dr. Robert Ouko was Foreign Minister under Moi, but was eventually perceived as a threat and murdered viciously.
Bishop Muge was killed by a truck that crashed into his car just when the Council of Kenyan Churches began becoming too vocal in its opposition to Moi.
Masinde Muliro, who was either from the opposition or opposed Moi from within KANU, died mysteriously in Jomo Kenyatta airport after coming home from London. During his trip back, then-Minister (and Moi's right hand man) Nicholas Biwott, one of the most feared men in Kenya, sat behind Muliro. Some people say he poisoned him, others say Muliro was so scared he died of a heart attack.
J.J. Kariuki (I think that was his name... maybe J.M.?) was another political opponent killed brutally.
Koigi wa Wamwere is an opposition MP who was badly tortured in jail.
There are many others. Biwott has three wives, by the way, one of whom is a Jewish lady. He owns some real estate in Israel.
These are some of the more dramatic stories, involving leading figures. But over a thousand, maybe several thousand, Kenyans have been killed in the past few years in 'ethnic clashes' perpetrated by Moi's subtribe and other small, backward tribes whose leaders are Moi's pals in the government, against Kikuyus and others.
Tens of thousands were displaced and their land taken from them (including my wife's family, by the way). According to Kenya's freer press, the 'clashes' were perpetrated by men who were transported in government trucks, and were supplied with weapons brought to the scene of the massacres by army helicopters. Ironically, these weapons were usually bows and arrows - this in order to make the events look like spontaneous clashes between rival tribes.
I'm sorry - J.M. Kariuki was murdered in Keyatta's time, not Moi's. Kenyatta was quite a killer himself.
Take a slightly long perspective on this issue. In both Kenya and the then Rhodesia, British colonial policy was directly and openly engineered to drive Africans off the arable land and into reserves, while creating vast plantations and estates for White settlers. In both countries, Africans owned less than 5% of arable land and even non-arable land was largely in white hands just a few decades ago.
In Kenya, the Mau-Mau insurgency and rapid "land-reform" changed the picture dramatically though just a few whites still control a hugely disproportionate portion of farmland and "game farms". This in a country where the majority is still landless.
In Zimbabwe, the situation is much more charged. The land-reform promised upon Independence has largely not taken place. Partly because of Mugabe's habit of taking funds donated for himself and his cronies. And partly because Britain and the other donors have flat-out not contributed the monies promised as part of the Independence agreement. Britain continued to sell/donate arms however.
And the problem still persists. The Apartheid-era massive farms are very much still in place. 70% of the population is landless. 4000 white individuals own over half the land in the whole country. And much of this land is under-utilized. Hence, land-reform is very much needed. It shouldn't have to come this bizarre way, and if the article is right - it won't. But it will have to come. There's nothing surprising or spectacular about it - almost every colonial-era country has gone through it. South Africa will be next.
And the Kikuyu who are also targetted are simply victims of petty tribalism perpetrated by Moi's kinsmen, in an attempt to destroy opposition to the minority-tribe government.
A Psocko settling in Kenya or Rhodesia or S. Africa just a few decads ago could have bought tens of thousands of acres of "empty" (read cleared-off of Africans) land for pennies, had an ample suply of cheap and beaten-down labor from the nearest reservation where the Africans had been herded into - without real means of subsistence, and lived that khaki and linen clad 'Out of Africa' existence that we're all familiar with.
Admit it Psocks. That's the world you yearn for isn't it? And you're pissed off that that charade has been swept away by nasty black people , incompetents all.
Look at what they're yapping about in Zimbabwe now. Armed intervention, human rights abuses, anti-democratic actions, unfair, unfair, unfair.
First of all, Britain did jack-shit in terms of 'democracy' all the years they were in control in the region. They also did jack-shit to promote democracy when Ian Smith and his goons were in control. Funny how the words "human-rights" didn't figure in the conversation all those years. It's unfair that Mugabe is posturing about seizing land distributed in vast swathes to Apartheid-era settlers? Fuck you. How come you piece-of-shit bastards didn't stop arming Mugabe until last fucking week? How come you reneged on the millions promised for land-reform two decades ago?
This is the crux of the case I've been making to Psocko lo these many years. Zimbabwe is ruled by a crackpot dictator with idiotic ideas and a nasty mouth and an even nastier set of armed goons. But Rhodesia was not only no different, in many ways it was fucking worse. Let alone the era where Oxford boy/jackbooted thug Rhodes owned the whole fucking party including the poor benighted locals. But now is when these bright-eyed defenders of democracy and human rights show up. How fucking hypocritical.
At least in Venice you can very quickly be under the illusion that there are no other tourists around.
Give me all of Italy. All of the time. 
My own favorite city.
The city I've had the best time in my life is this one: 
I thought Bandung was your favorite Indonesian city. And what about bucolic Denpasar?
Very enjoyable. Even at the cost of a watch. Taken, not purchased of course.
Nice to see you here. It is not often we have the honour. 
I do buy Swedish made items, incidentally. (um, wonder if I should point out that they are from companies now owned by American firms.)
I don't understand.
Your city sucks compared to ours. At least the photo does. So there. 
I think it was Maggie Thatcher who came up with the wet/dry distinction in politics.
Well, it reminded me of the soggy/crunchy distinction that a leader writer at The Economist came up with in the late 80s. Nico Colchester was his name, he died a couple years ago and the magazine published his old take on sogginess vs. crunchiness as a sort of a gesture. (That's why his name is known to me, otherwise they have this peculiar policy of not naming their journalists).
It's your glossy touristy photo that sucks compared to the genuine stuff snapped by a fellow Motie. But solidarity means nothing these days.
But, OK, your photo shows parts of the city wall and the Bab El Mandab, the Great Gate. Still in 1970 it was closed at sundown and opened at first light.
Nice going on Zimbabwe. It seems you have a thing going with Socko (and Pseuder) dating back from before my time. I am delighted that you care to rehearse it for our enlightenment and amusement. But aren't you a bit harsh on your pinup-boy Mugabe?
He is a bad man, no doubt. As venal and monomaniacal as any leader anywhere.
Zimbabwe is ruled by a crackpot dictator with idiotic ideas and a nasty mouth and an even nastier set of armed goons.
Regarding the land reforms which haven't taken place for 20 years of Mugabe rule: It puzzles me that British money should be necessary. And from what I've heard the explanation for its absence was precisely that Mugabe from the start tended to hand over the assets to his cronies. (Hardly a project you'd find worthy of financing any way you look at it).
Rustler
Very interesting posts on Kenya. I believe both Kenya and Zimbabwe are among the targeted countries for Danish development aid. (Comparatively large, at 1% of our GDP). That's my hard-earned money! I forgo a Skoda so that Moi can drive a Rolls! (Yes, Socko, much as I'd like to own a Skoda I don't even have a car -that's how wet I really am).
It is you, not me, who supplies the self-parodies around here when it comes to southern Africa,
For the record, I have not the slightest interest in the dark continent, still less do I yearn for the good old days when gentlemen in tweeds sucking pipes ruled the roost. But it's necessary for you to conjur with the image, not out of any desire to shed light on current affairs in Rhodesia but to lubricate your own fantasies of speaking for the masses who push and plead.
The situation in Rhodesia is really very simple. Many people, black and white, are being raped and murdered by goons loyal a geriatric old man intent on manipulating violence for his own agenda. This is not good. The actions will almost certainly plunge his nation further into economic ruin. This is terrible.
Some people, I included, see fit to criticize the situation. Others, perhaps including you, would rather compose little ditties on the noblity of the class struggle at any cost. That's fine, I guess, but not terribly perceptive or intellectual.
And the graf where MB slips straight into the voice of a "war veteran" himself ("How fucking hypocritical. Fuck you. How come you piece-of-shit bastards didn't stop arming Mugabe until last fucking week? ... How fucking hypocritical.") really belongs in a Private Eye spoof. I think I shall print it out right now and submit it on his behalf to the magazine.
"But aren't you a bit harsh on your supposed pinup-boy Mugabe? "
The report I heard emphasised a special weapons system which the guerillas had but the gov. troops didn't - a missile launcher, I think. How come the guerillas have them? Who supplies them? How are they financed? Anyone knowing anything? Anyone caring?
Sri Lanka resumes ties with Israel
(Clip:)
"COLOMBO, MAY. 4. Sri Lanka today decided to resume diplomatic relations with Israel with ``immediate effect''.
Ties with Israel were severed in the 1990s during the Premadasa regime with the closing down of an Israeli interest section in the U.S. Embassy. Plans to resume diplomatic ties have been on since 1995. The decision to resume ties with Israel is seen as an immediate need for gaining military hardware as well as the expertise of the Jewish State in counter-insurgency operations."
No military role in Lanka: Govt
(Clip:)
"India has ruled out a repeat of the 1987 exercise in Sri Lanka and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh reiterated in Parliament today that the Vajpayee Government will not undertake a military intervention this time round.
A day after committing a "humanitarian mission" to civil war-torn Jaffna peninsula of northern Sri Lanka, the Minister told the Rajya Sabha that India was keen to mitigate the suffering of the civilians affected by the conflict in consultation with the Government of Sri Lanka.
Mr Singh was under pressure for a promise of this nature from not only the Opposition but also from members of Tamil Nadu-based parties which are part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
For the first time he admitted today that "some requests" have been received from Colombo in the context of the present situation and these were receiving the Government's "urgent consideration." He also stated that civilians, not the Sri Lankan Army trapped in Jaffna in great numbers (varying between 25,000 and 40,000), will be the focus of New Delhi's mission. "
Nice shot, Irva. Jakarta?
I thought Bandung was your favorite Indonesian city. And what about bucolic Denpasar?
It is Jakarta. Bandung is the most attractive city in Indonesia, but Jakarta is my favorite. This quote from a Jakarta site sums it up, for me:
So, why should you visit Jakarta? Well, for the same reasons you would visit New York, or London, or Paris, or Singapore, or any other big city. Because you can find everything here...
Denpasar, btw, is a sleepy small town, and doesn't qualify as a city. I often miss the bright lights of the big city. 
10755. marjoribanks - 5/5/2000 10:54:39 AM
I have said nothing that can be construed as sourced from a class struggle handbook for British Marxists. Rather, I have clearly outlined some facts:
1) The colonial occupation of what became Rhodesia, Kenya and S. Africa was centrally about land.
2) Africans were herded (by force and legislation) off the majority of land in those countries and virtually every single arable strip. This is incontrovertible, I suggest psocko do some research into the 1860 legislations, even the ones as recent as 1930 in what later became Zimbabwe.
3) This land was disposed off in vast swathes to White settlers, farms of tens of thousands of acres were far from uncommon, they were more like the norm.
4) meanwhile, Africans were further deprived (by force and by legislation) of opportunities to do very much more than work extremely cheaply on these farms and in the mines.
5) When Independence came to Kenya, some of this extreme imbalance was righted and land was distributed and Africans were no longer required to live in the arid reservations set up by the colonists.
6) When Rhodesia was established, by contrast, a rightist Apartheid-like regime took over under ian Smith and no land reform took place at all. The "war of independence" fought by Mugabe et al was all about land and the highly inequitable status quo.
7) When this war ended, it was agreed that Britain and other donors would pay for a peaceful handover of some of the white owned land (that is -almost all the land in the first place) to Africans.
8) However, while coddling Mugabe on one side (and selling him arms without respite) the donors discovered that the man was siphoning off funds and not really engaging in the kind of reform required. They then continued to send him arms - but ceased to finance the land transfer.
9) So, we enter the 21st century with the Apartheid and colonial landowning structure largely intact in Zimbabwe. More people are pissed than Mugabe's cronies, of course, don't believe the hype. This structure needs to be reformed, it should be reformed peacefully, an the donor countries should work to ensure that it is. But it has to happen, the status quo is untenable and long overdue an overhaul.
---------
Nothing I have said here or above is even in the slightest bit unreasonable. You may disagree with the tenor of my comments about Britain, I'm afraid do find the actions of that country hypocritical in this matter - just as it was hypocritical in suddenly discovering democracy and human rights in Hong Kong a scant few months before they had to hnd the place over. But Britain-watchers like myself aren't too surprised - it's been the MO for centuries.
Take the case of Hong Kong, for example. For all of the time that Britain ran Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chinese were less free and less priviledged and had less political power than Britains in Hong Kong or, certainly Britains in Britain. On the other hand, they were more priviledged and free than the Chinese in China. At the end of the British regime, the British government tried to increase the freedoms and priviledges of the Chinese people in Hong Kong.
Rest assured, however, that I don't harbor the slightest bit of miff.
I am not in the least saying that the "most important thing' in the HK issue is British hypocrisy. I'm merely saying that it is something to note, especially when observing this Zimbabwe situation where Britain is doing something similar.
The "most important thing" to note in the case of HK is that the engine of whatever democracy movement exists is the HK Chinese themselves. And in the case of Zimbabwe, without a doubt, the engine for land reform comes at the base from a disgruntled populace unhappy with the maintenance of what is very much still an Apartheid/colonial-era status quo.
Why is Mugabe playing this card? Is it because he's alone? No. It's because the issue resonates with larger sections of the populace than those which already give him unconditional support.
Is it hypocrisy for the U.S. to oppose efforts to eradicate Tibetan culture or any other culture because the U.S. eradicated many cultures in North America?
Is it hypocrisy for the U.S. to sponser globalism because it had high tariffs in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
Of course not. There is no entity called the U.S. with a single mind that can be accused of this hypocrisy.
It is child's play to examine some aspect of a country's foreign policy and then to search in its history for inconsistencies. This is true even when dealing with recent history, let alone the longer periods that might let one say that the PRC can't sponser a UN forum on women's issues, and be free from the charge of hypocrisy, because it practiced foot-binding for several centuries.
I don't have an opinion on this Mugabe character or a strong opinion on the British or American reactions to his recent shenanigans, but what little I have read about the U.S. position suggests that it would rather not get involved at all (instead, it would be happy to see South Africa take the lead).
I do think that accusations of hypocrisy in foreign affairs are groundless unless it can be shown how one administration made two different policies for remarkably similar situations. Calling Blair hypocritical because he takes such a strong position on this issue, but, historically, his country was responsible for the distribution of land in Zimbabwe seems a weak charge.
In any case, maybe every nation practices hypocrisy routinely in foreign affairs. It's never useful to dismiss or disregard it when it crops up however. It should be recognized, and categorized appropriately.
"Calling Blair hypocritical because he takes such a strong position on this issue, but, historically, his country was responsible for the distribution of land in Zimbabwe seems a weak charge."
I don't think so. That is only my opinion, however. On the other hand, it is also my opinion that every example of potential hypocrisy you have raised is wildly unlike the situation I have criticized, and also wildly unlike anything I would ever say or have ever said in this forum or elsewhere. There are specific, highly specific reasons why I have made my argument. They are detailed above. Contradict them please, before making wild allusions to potential arguments that you and others are aware I would never make.
I reread your posts. They are eloquent diversions from my point.
I agree with you that my examples are more extreme than is your example, as they were meant to be. (I wanted to show how silly it can be to start characterizing a country's actions in some anthropomorphic way.) How is a country guilty of hypocrisy? Why would consistency in a country's international actions over a span of changed administrations ever be considered a virtue? Times change. Governing philosophies change. What informs policy changes. The international system changes.
By the way, how is my admittedly longer perspective on a country's hypocrisy qualitatively different than yours? Is there a statute of limitations on it?
Here is one of your quotes:
"Take a slightly long perspective on this issue. In both Kenya and the then Rhodesia, British colonial policy was directly and openly engineered to drive Africans off the arable land and into reserves, while creating vast plantations and estates for White settlers. In both countries, Africans owned less than 5% of arable land and even non-arable land was largely in white hands just a few decades ago."
So the point remains: how is Blair's administration responsible for these colonial policies towards Zimbabwe of British administrations past? Responsible in such a way that it (the Blair Administration) could be labeled hypocritical?
If Blair is not giving the money as promised (unless of course, there were stipulations to the money that you haven't mentioned), then his administration might be guilty of hypocrisy.
If I read your post correctly, though, the sales/donations of arms were discontinued last week when these attacks began to intensify so that doesn't seem to mean anything in this context.
"Resonates"? Shit, banks, Mugabe has to pay his thugs good money ($2K per year goes a long way in Zimbabwe) to get them to occupy farms they can't tend, knock off a few whites and black "conspirators", and run about in Harare with machine guns. (BTW, my info comes from a black Zimbabwean who was just there a week ago and has relatives in the government.)
You make it sound like Africans are stupid. the truth is, they're put-upon. Whatever faction you can point to that claims to want farm redistribution more than prosperity from trade and tourism is likely insignificant. This thing is a political ploy, all of Africa knows it, the rest of the world knows it. It's simply not about race or righting colonial wrongs.
Blacks in Zimbabwe want Mugabe and Zanu out of power. The man and the party don't want to go. The farm seizures have not moved public opinion toward Mugabe, but away from him.
The Economist's (British) take in the leader I quoted earlier is that there isn't much the British can do simply because the Zimbabweans want nothing to do with the former colonial masters. Likewise no other western country will be able to mediate in the situation. It will inevitably be seen as an attempt to protect the white farmers out of racial solidarity or whatever.
But the ones that could make a difference are other Africans. However, most of the continent's governments have not much moral authority and would be vulnerable to questionings about their own behaviour. But some could plausibly speak up against Mugabe's total disregard for the rule of law. Notably South Africa.
And why don't they? That would be the right thing to do. Not shutting up and giving the impression of tacit support to thuggery, stealings of elections etc. South Africa should be in a position to do this having under Mandela steered reasonably free of the slippery slope to tribal authoritarianism using truth commissions in stead of mob rule.
So why don't they tell Mugabe to come to his senses? What is their official attitude at all?
There is no doubt all this is bad for business, also in SA. The white and coloured people there - and black business people too - must ask themselves: Could this happen here too? No wonder capital and investment is fleeing Southern Africa.
So what if they do? Can't the Africans do very well without them white imperialists commercial exploitation, thank you very much? Well, if business is down, every conflict will worsen making it that much more likely for banditry and violent outbursts to carry the day. I'd say they can't afford this idiotic situation.
South Africa's Mbeki has now come out against Mugabe according to BBC news. I have no details because at the time my attention was divided.
I thought Desmond Tutu damned Mugabe a week or two ago. As for SA's "official" policy, it's economic: they're demanding payment at the border for all goods sold to Zim, because Zim is in default on loans and payments to everyone and its currency is rapidly becoming worthless.
Excerpt:
South African President Thabo Mbeki has called on the Zimbabwean leader, Robert Mugabe, to seek a peaceful solution to the nation's violent dispute over land reform.
"Peace, stability, democracy and social
progress in Zimbabwe are as important for
yourselves as they are for the rest of the
region," Mr Mbeki said in a speech opening the Zimbabwe Trade Fair in Bulawayo.
Mr Mbeki's comments - his most forceful yet - come after weeks of political violence and a campaign by squatters and self-styled war veterans to occupy white-owned farms in Zimbabwe.
He shared the podium with Mr Mugabe, who remained silent throughout the speech and made no comment afterwards.
I can't find a link on it; do you have one? I don't have his email--or Prof's--here at work.
Zimbabwe decline hits trade
By Victor Mallet in Harare
Published: May 4 2000 18:49GMT | Last Updated: May 4 2000 21:38GMT
The steep decline of the Zimbabwean economy this year has disrupted regional trade and forced many South African importers to demand "delivery at frontier" terms or DAF - a sure sign of crisis - for goods from Zimbabwe, South African business leaders said on Thursday.
Members of the ruling Zanu-PF party have attacked and killed opposition supporters and occupied white-owned commercial farms as part of a violent election campaign.
The trouble has frightened away tourists and foreign investors and prompted the withdrawal of credit lines and export credit guarantees for trade with Zimbabwe. Insurers are also refusing to provide further cover for goods in transit inside the country.
"The moment you prostitute the rule of law and allow property rights to be ignored is the moment normal business instruments are withdrawn," Kevin Wakeford, chief executive of the South African Chamber of Business, said at the end of a visit to Zimbabwe. "It really makes it very, very difficult for us to conduct normal business."
South African exporters and importers, already affected by international concern about the southern African region as a result of the violence, have also been hit by Zimbabwean foreign exchange shortages and the country's export controls.
Mr Wakeford said the Zimbabwean authorities, in spite of the severity of the economic crisis, maintained tight controls on flows of money and commodities. "The controls have virtually created a siege economy," he said before flying to Johannesburg. "They are going through this peculiar, suicidal process of self- isolation."
Zimbabwe is South Africa's largest trading partner in Africa.
Well, I guess that's something. The question is whether it's enough. As the article further reports:
Mr Mbeki had said in a state of the nation address on Thursday that South Africa would maintain an attitude of quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe.
Seems to me Mbeki is tip-toeing a bit too much. Still:
"We feel his speech did not go any further to condemn the lack of law in Zimbabwe and that his "softly, softly" approach has failed to stem the murder of farmers," said the protest organiser, Paul Carter.
But some analysts said they expected Mr Mbeki to press Mr Mugabe to resolve the crisis in the interests of the regional economy.
It's the economy, stupid.
South Africa's currency, the rand, fell to record lows early on Friday because of jitters caused by the situation in Zimbabwe.´
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) _ The death toll from a powerful
earthquake that struck in central Indonesia increased to 17 Friday
as remote areas began reporting casualties, the military said.
The 6.5-magnitude quake hit at 11:21 a.m. Thursday, damaging
hundreds of homes and buildings along a wide stretch of eastern
Sulawesi and the offshore islands of Peleng and Banggai.
Sgt. La Sande, an officer at the military station in Luwuk, a
town on the eastern coast of central Sulawesi, said the death toll
has reached 17 by Friday afternoon.
It was expected to rise because coastal villages struck by a
small tsunami tidal wave that followed the earthquake had not yet
reported due to communications problems.
Sande said paramedics with medicines and other supplies were on
the way to remote islands.
Sevatius Suyitno, chief of the Geophysics Agency in Luwuk said
80 percent of the buildings on Banggai were damaged.
In August, the Banggai area _ located about 1,100 miles
northeast of Jakarta _ was hit by a 6.0-magnitude earthquake.
Dozens of buildings were damaged or destroyed but no lives were
lost.
Interesting. (I hadn't seen that either). Zimbabwe seems to be on a worrying crash course.
Don't they have internet connections in Russia? Or are you taking this pre-marital thing seriously?
PE is somewhere in China right now. I'll link his itinerary in a moment.
(He's supposed to do it in a month!)
its [Zimbabwe's] currency is rapidly becoming worthless.
No. One of the problems is that it is overvalued. The tobacco farmers are withholding their produce waiting for the inevitable devaluation.
That's an enlightening speech which nicely sums up some of the process leading to the Zimbabwean farm occupations. (The British actually did commit to funding land reforms, but for "various reasons" they weren't implemented). I also think Mbeki sounds very sensible and more or less says the things that need to be said without outright critisising Mugabe by name. Which may be wise given there is still room for negotiation.
Mbeki's resume of the British role:
"In 1998, with President Mandela's authorisation and President Mugabe's agreement, I approached the British Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Tony Blair.
The purpose of this approach was to request that Her Majesty's Government, and other countries, should contribute funds to enable the Government of Zimbabwe to address the colonial legacy of the land dispossession of the indigenous black majority.
Prime Minister Blair agreed to this and persuaded other Governments and international organisations to join in this effort.
These donors met together with the Government of Zimbabwe during the same year, 1998, and agreed on various measures to solve the Zimbabwe land question.
For various reasons things did not proceed as had been agreed. Consequently, the land question, a direct product of the colonisation of Zimbabwe, essentially and substantially, remained still to be addressed."
The earthquake in Eastern Sulawesi was very far from here, and has been nothing more than a minor item in the news (it didn't even make the front page of the local paper). It isn't big news internationally because no white people were injured.
To give some perspective, the quake was about 1200 kilometers from me. or about the distance from New York to Chicago, or Stockholm to Vienna.
Quake News from the Jakarta Post
In case anyone is wondering what's happening in East Timor (the forgotten news story of the year), here is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald.
BTW, some of the most effective fighters in the LTTE are women. In the last huge battle over Jaffna, a squad of them (girls, really) held off and then routed a whole battalion of tanks. In William Dalrymple's 'Age of Kali' there is an absolutely fascinating essay on these girl fighters.
I recommend several books on and by Sri Lankans, who by the way have produced some superb literature in English the past decade or so. The best of all of these is Michael Ondaatje's absolutely brilliant 'Running in the Family' which is a very slim but delightful volume. Part travelogue, part family history. But there are other writers who have written wonderful novels reflecting the rather curious mix and lifestyle of the Lankans. Other genuinely wonderful SL writers are Romesh Gunusekera (especially Reef) and Shyam Selvadurai (especially Funny Boy). Or you can simply read the front page of this newspaper. The mix of incompetence, humor, elaborate insult, and general lackadaisicalness is something quite particularly Sri Lankan.
Shias
Maronites
Sunnis
Druze
The rest in alphabetical order:
Armenian-Catholic
Armenian-Orthodox
Chaldeans
Copts
Episcopalians
Greek-Catholic
Greek-Orthodox
Ismailites
Jews
Lutherans
Roman-Catholics
Syrian-Catholics
Syrian-Orthodox
NOTES
I'm not sure about the Copts.
I don't know which variant of Ismaelites.
When we stayed in Lebanon in the 70's there were one or two hundred Jews in Beirut. I suppose they are gone now.
The Maronites, the Armenian-Catholics, the Greek-Catholics and the Syrian-Catholics belong to the "Churches of the Eastern Rite". They accept the Catholic dogma but retain their own ritual.
The Chaldeans are mainly from Iraq. I'm too lazy too look them up but I think they are Monophysist, i.e. Christ is only God, not man.
Even if I'm right about list as shown there is one sect missing.
I have a feeling that it might be that sect in Syria which still uses Arameic as its ritual language but I don't remember its name. Syrianic?
Last November, when Abdurrahman Wahid, the president of the world's largest Muslim nation, met Bill Clinton, a president whose proclivities are only too well known, he told him a joke that went like this: Winston Churchill and labour leader Clement Attlee were walking in a park and Churchill said he had to stop for a pee. Attlee stopped too, whereupon Churchill, in his most authoritative and stentorian tone, ordered him to move on. "Why?" asked
Attlee. "Because whenever you see anything big you want to nationalise it," was Churchill's reply. What was Clinton's reaction? He laughed, says Wahid's daughter Yenny, who was at the meeting.
How many other national leaders would go to the Oval Office and tell Clinton a joke about a penis? Wahid is a one-off, a maverick, a leader who could only be thrown up in a time of crisis. But does he have the goods to deal with Indonesia's profound problems?
thanks for commenting on Sri Lanka. I find it highly interesting what happens there. (As you know Sri Lankans had a devastating effect on the Danish political system some years ago). Unfortunately I haven't got the time to look into it for the time being. But I appreciate your links. I hope to get back to them.
(Girl soldiers...?)
Did you know that Sri Lankan women live 12 years longer on average than their Indian sisters? (75 to 63). For men the difference is only 9 years (71 to 62). And only 7% of the male population and 13% of the female is illiterate corresponding to 35% and 62% respectively for Indians. (Source: World Development Report 1998/99).
Now, freedomhouse.org, comes out with the following. If Pseuder were around he'd pooh-pooh. But he ain't, so I'll post -
"Pakistan joins five other countries -- Eritrea, Honduras, Malawi, Nicaragua and Venezuela -- where freedom declined in the past 12 months. The 1999-2000 Freedom House Survey finds Bangladesh among 12 countries, including Russia, Uganda and Ethiopia, that registered "significant negative trends".
The survey, released in New York on December 22, said of Pakistan: "The new military dictatorship, which toppled a democratically elected though corrupt regime, shows no inclination to restore electoral civilian government."
The survey explicitly linked democracy and Hinduism.
"There is also a strong correlation between electoral democracy and Hinduism (India, Mauritius, and Nepal)," it continued, "and there is a significant number of free countries among traditionally Buddhist societies and those in which Buddhism is the most widespread faith (Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, and Thailand)."
This makes sense, but I don't think it would have been my first guess.
The rand dropped dramatically, which isn't all that bad for me actually, since I bring USD into the country. When I first came to Namibia back in 1994 (and the Nam $ is directly tied to the RSA Rand, as is the currency of Lesotho and Swaziland) the exchange rate was ~3.6 Nam/USD. Now it is around 7.
As for the Zimbabwe mess, someone ought to just shoot Mugabe. Okay, mebbe that ain't the best solution, but too few Southern African leaders are speaking up about the crisis. I'm glad to see Mbeke say at least something "hard" about it. But there are still some in Namibia looking at Zimbabwe and saying, "Shouldn't we be doing the same thing, taking the land by force?" Hopefully, though, they won't be so foolish here. But, in another ten years, who knows??
Interestingly, Mandela (under no constraints) echoed your comment above by saying that people should "pick up their rifles" to rid themselves of people like Mugabe. When asked by a somewhat stunned audience whether he was talking directly about Mugabe he said "you all know who I'm talking about."
How does Iran fare on the freedom list, marj? It's my impression from reports from there - pseuder's travelogue among them - and conversations with Iranians resident in Denmark that it's a relatively open society despite the mullahs. They even have elections such as the one that put Khatami into whatever important office it is that he holds, despite the clerics open hostility to his relatively liberal views. That's a whole lot more than can be said of Saudi Arabia...
I like Mandela.
"In 1900, no countries had governments elected on the principal of universal adult suffrage. Today, there are 119 such countries, or 62 percent of all the countries in the world. These are the dramatic findings of a new comprehensive end-of-century study released today by Freedom House, the New York based research group that tracks political rights and civil liberties around the world.
Parallel with the expansion of electoral democracy there has been a commensurate expansion of sovereign states. In 1900, there were only 55 sovereign countries and 13 empires. Of the countries that are independent today, 113 were parts of colonial and imperial systems, while a further 33 were parts of other states.
At the century’s beginning, approximately five percent of the globe’s adult population had the right to democratically select their most significant national leaders in competitive elections, while women and in some countries ethnic and racial minorities and the poor were denied the right to vote. Today, the proportion of adults who can democratically elect their leaders exceeds 58 percent. This progress has occurred despite the fact that the 20th century has been filled with destructive global wars, vicious regional conflicts and inter-state wars, and the deaths of millions in the Holocaust and under Mao’s, Stalin’s and Pol Pot’s reigns of terror.
Democratically elected systems can today be found in all parts of the globe and in all major civilizations, although the report’s dramatic findings underscore that no significant progress toward democracy has been made in China, where over 20 percent of the globe’s population lives."
marjoribanks, I was referring to taking the land by force with no payment for it, not "land reform" in its saner forms. It is the logic, "Well, they stole it from us in the first place" that I don't like. Fact is, at least in Namibia, much of the land at least originally was taken by payment - in the form of guns, liquor, or other trading items - and therefore was purchased, if not at an unfair payment, yet purchased just the same.
Mendela never ceases to impress me, BTW.
"Hooligan, any idea what % of arable land in Namibia is held by Germans and Afrikaaners? I'm guessing a pretty hefty chunk. Course, there isn't much such land in the first place."
Here's what I have heard. Since Independence in 1990, only about 5 to 10% of the land has been purchased by the government and given to blacks. But, understandably, that hasn't been the prime or choice land. So I would have to say that easily 80% of the land is owned by whites. I could be wrong of course, but that is my guess.
Many Namibians realize the problem of simply taking the land from people that have worked it for generations and giving it to people that may not be able to work it as well. Namibia barely makes enough food to feed itself, and it would be an economic disaster to take ALL the land and give it to people that may not be able to produce from it as well as the previous owners.
"much of the land at least originally was taken by payment -in the form of guns, liquor, or other trading items - and therefore was purchased, if not at an unfair payment, yet purchased just the same. "
Wrong , in much of Africa, particularly the Southern part, land was largely appropriated with no compensation. When compensation of any kind was doled out it was to an uncomprehending populace, and generally to people who had no idea that they were actually "selling" anything, and most usually to people who either had no title to the land, or had no idea what "title" to land meant anyway.
IOW, the "purchase agreement" was one sided, with only the "buyer" having any kind of understanding of the deal in the first place.
So, ladies and gentlemen, unless real and meaningful steps are taken (as they were not in Zimbabwe) you will see similar unrest in South Africa and Namibia in the coming years. It's obvious.
It is in the Namibian history books.
This I would not dispute, though. That is what I meant by "unfair payment." Sure, the whites gave them something for the land, but was it a FAIR payment?
Your other comments fit well with the land distribution policies of Apartheid, and the formation of "home lands."
Like you pointed out, the vast majority of land in Namibia is uninhabitable. I am wondering, though, if one would define "arable" as land used to raise, for example, ostriches, and such. The land used to grow crops in Namibia is actually quite small. I lived for my first two years in the "agricultural triangle" of Namibia which comprises Grootfontein (where I lived), Tsumeb, and Otavi. But when you compare that to the overall size of the country, it is really quite small.
Up north, along the Angolan border, where there is much more rain, there is much more growth. But the landscape isn't conducive to growing, say, maize or such. Not in large plots of land anyway.
I recounted in that brief subthread that I once had the story of the protest march through Windhoek, the capital city. I had squeezed my way up to the front of the crowd watching the people march by with signs demanding their land be returned. Several of the men marching by saw me and my white face, and start to wave their hands in a backward fashion, as if to say, "Get out of our country!" Of course, they had no idea who I was and that I didn't own any land in Namibia! All that mattered to them was that I was white.
This from Brittanica would sem to contradict what you say above. A cursory reading indicates that (1) the majority of Africans in what became Namibia were outright killed (2) those who lived were herded into concentration camps (3) land was distributed by the ruling authority without concern for compenstion or anything like it.
BTW, I'd be interested in any Namibian history links you can point me to. I know far too little about that country (though your reports have helped greatly).
Now they're back to being just Dani. Or at least 2/3 of them are.
Don't know why I'm telling you this, just that the story's fresh in my head.
The majority of Africans that were in Namibia were killed I would find very hard to believe. It is true that the Germans attempted to exterminate the Herero people (and they still have not forgiven them for it) and that is why many Herero live even today in Botswana. But the MAJORITY of them killed? I would have to say that that is very inaccurate. (I have not read your link yet, though, so maybe "majority" is your take on the article).
In any event, I can't argue with you. The MAJORITY of the land was certainly taken by whites, although not ALL of it, which always seems to be the implied understanding.
"then got irritated by the lack of endless cargo, then killed, cooked and ate the missionaries"
I'm not entirely sure why this made me chuckle!
Hopefully, anyway.
It appears that the essays on Latin America and the South pacific have been collected in this volume: 
It's available at Amazon UK.
Don't be misled, Norman Lewis is not an unreasonable man or a fanatic or an extremist of any kind. He's an eminently sane and balanced writer. In fact, I recommend every book by him, they're all great and he's been producing superlative travel literature for 50 years.
In 1968-69, however, he went into Brazil's Amazonia and saw first-hand the rampaging several evangelical sects there and was horrified. His seminal article on the subject in the London Times brought this issue to the world, and groups like survival.org came about as a direct result of it. I recommend that essay, It's part of the book mentioned here.
Hmmm. Is Islam anathema to democracy? I can think of three (more or less) democratic Muslim countries: Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
I realize your mention of Malaysia was probably influenced by Srinavasan's ignorant inclusion of Malaysia in his list, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. Malaysia's sham of an election last year should give lie to any assertion that it is a democratic nation, and its record of Islamic fundamentalism and racism should prove that it is not a mellow, happy nation, as the article Marj linked indicated.
There are only two Islamic democracies: Turkey and Indonesia. I think it's fair to say that Islam, as it has been applied, is anathema to democracy, but that is not due to anything in the religion itself, but rather the traditions and cultures of those who follow it. It's interesting that the two Islamic democracies are not only non-Semitic but also non-Indo-European (the IE Muslims -- Pakistanis, Afghans, and Iranians, especially -- are as ruthless as the Arabs in their interpretation of Islam).
They are not insignificant as countries go, but perhaps not 'core' Islamic countries. (Irv has previously described Indonesia - the fourth-most populous country in the world - as being of marginal importance in the Islamic world). Perhaps there is an 'Arabic' variable at work. But then, there is Pakistan...
Indonesia, as the most populous Muslim nation. is of more than marginal importance in the Islamic world. Indonesia would like to take a more active role in the Islamic world, as witness Gus Dur's attempts to mediate in the Middle East (where he is portrayed as a Zionist tool), but the hard-core Islamic nations distrust Indonesia's historic tolerance and new-found democracy. Still, you simply can't discount 200 million Muslims.
Marj:
Srinavasan's condescending view of South-East Asians as India's happy little brothers reeks of racism.
Of course Srinivasan comes off as a nutter. He is one, but an entertaining one. I only link him here for comic effect.
BTW, here is something from freedom house on Islam and democracy:
"If we factor in the Muslims living in the electoral democracies of Europe, the Americas, and India, a majority of the world's Muslims (roughly 600 million out of 1.15 billion) live under democratically elected governments."
That's a great statistic... I'll have to use it. I assume they have already counted Indonesia and Turkey in there. Indonesia is a truly functioning democracy these days (we've still got tons of problems, but I suppose it's nicer to have the problems in a democracy).
I know your opinion of Srinavasan, but I had to register the objection.
This is graph from their site. Sorry for screwing up the margins but they will be OK when the pic scrolls off the screen. 
The printed version I saw had 'Secularisation' on the vertical axis and 'Individualisation' on the horisontal. I liked that better.
Percentage "Very satisfied" with life as a whole. 1973-1998 
(Click to see the picture better)
That statistic puzzles me no end.
Life apparently sucks in Portugal...
Interesting that, without exception, the Germanic peoples are more happy than the Romance peoples (and Belgium, as it should be, is pretty much between the two).
But the burning question is: where are the Swedes?
I think it'll help to first off give the full version of the recent IRA statement:
Leadership of the IRA
"Committed to a just and lasting peace"
The leadership of the IRA is committed to a just and lasting peace. We have sustained that commitment despite the abuse of the peace process by those who persist with the aim of defeating the IRA and Irish Republicans. Republicans believe that the British Government claim to a part of Ireland, its denial of national self-determination to the people of the island of Ireland, the partition of our country and the maintenance of social and economic inequality in the Six Counties are the root causes of conflict.
The maintenance of our cessation is our contribution to the peace process and to the creation of a future in which the causes of conflict are resolved by peaceful means. For our part, the IRA leadership is committed to resolving the issue of arms. The political responsibility for advancing the current situation rests with the two governments, especially the British government, and the leadership of the political parties. The full implementation, on a progressive and irreversible basis by the two governments, especially the British government, of what they have agreed will provide a political context, in an enduring political process, with the potential to remove the causes of conflict, and in which Irish Republicans, and Unionists can, as equals pursue our respective political objectives peacefully.
continued...
In that context, the IRA leadership will initiate a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use. We will do it in such a way as to avoid risk to the public and misappropriation by others and ensure maximum public confidence. We will resume contact with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning and enter into further discussions with the Commission on the basis of the IRA leadership's commitment to resolving the issue of arms. We look to the two governments and especially the British government to fulfil their commitments under the Good Friday Agreement and the Joint Statement. To facilitate the speedy and full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and the government's measures, our arms are silent and secure. There is no threat to the peace process from the IRA.
In this context, the IRA leadership has agreed to put in place, within weeks, a confidence-building measure to confirm that our weapons remain secure. The contents of a number of our arms dumps will be inspected by agreed third parties, who will report that they have done so to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. The dumps will be re-inspected regularly to ensure that the weapons have remained silent.
The Irish and UK governments are, of course, pushing this as the most positive step yet, and I must say I agree.
I do wonder though, at the gall of the unionist parties, when there still exists a considerable amount of arms held by loyalist terror groups. I know, some time ago, that the UVF handed over a token amount of weapons, but hardly enough to even jokingly say they have dis-armed.
So even if the weapon stockpile (which is considerable) of the IRA is put beyond use, there still exist the weapons of the loyalists, and of course, the crown forces themselves.
By the way, do you have an assessment of Mandelson? I found it astonishing that his rehabilitation came o swiftly and he was given so very important a post immediately. I mean, what does he know about Ireland? On the other hand, it's nice to see that other countries don't have the same outrageous attitudes as the US - I mean there was such an unbelievable hullabaloo about appointing an "openly" homosexual man to the incredibly unimportant post of Ambassador to Lichtenstein. You'd never see an out gay person in as important a role in this country as Mandelson is in the UK.
------------
On another note, here is an interesting news piece on joint naval exercises in the South China Sea.
When I was in England a few weeks ago, I clipped an article on an international happiness survey which I intended on posting here at the Mote. Sadly, I lost it, but the upshot is that (unsurprisingly for me) Indians were the second happiest people in the world. Don't ask me who were the first, I've forgotten.
How does Sweden rate so extremely individualistic, however, given that its socialist? (I take it the horizontal access is meant to measure cooperation versus individualism.)
I would be interested if you can dig up that article. At the very interesting site Pelle linked there are many data from cross-country studies of "subjective well-being". None of them have India second, not even close.
(I'm going to try and find that survey again.)
Sto's crew!
I assume they've done another one early this year, because I distincly remember India was second in this one - even if I don't remember anything else about it.
The World Values Survey that Pelle linked to looks quite impressive as such projects go. Here is a graph paring levels of GDP with levels of "subjetive well-being" (click on it for a clearer view): 
India doesn't stand out, not even among countries at its economic level (apart from those seriosly depressed former communist countries).
It seems that Roper Starch only surveyed 22 countries. Obviously, thet isn't anything comprehensive. However, even then, the survey result they come up with doesn't surprise me. Look at some of the odd parts of it. Indians are among the happiest with the amount of money they make and of their technological capability. This may seem strange when compared with some of the other countries surveyed, but in large part it mirrors my own observations.
It's a very interesting press release. Venezuelans are most happy about their sex life - by far! Who'd have thunk it? (They are also the most happy about their mastery of technology. I wonder if there's a connection?)
Also interesting that you found it on a site listing the most censored press releases of 1999. Some people of power apparently hate the idea that their people aren't ecstatically happy about their lives, much less of letting this fact be known...
BTW, if there is a doubt I have about the survey it's the case of Britain. My personal experience is that people are largely miserable there and an absolute majority want to emigrate if they get the chance. I have attended alumni meetings both in the US and the UK and it never fails to strike me how depressed and relatively unhappy the Brits seem compared to the Yanks. This despite achieving a high level of success.
Ever hung out with British academics in particular? Miserable, curmudgeonly bunch, with very little sense of humor.
Incidientally, she had such high hopes when Tony Blair swept to power, but was VASTLY disappointed (another favourite subject of hers), so that now she is doubly depressed.
Perhaps this political disappointment factor is more general? But then, it doesn't seem to ruin Blair's overall approval though he did get one in the nose recently by Ken Livingstone.
Thank you for your information in Northern Ireland. A bried comment.
I think there is a phsychological difference between handing over weapons and incapaciting them in situ. If you hand over your sword it is an act of defeat and humiliation. If you defiantly break it over your knee and throw the pieces to the ground you acknowledge that further fighting is meaningless, but you still stand tall, your honour undiminished.
"Socialist Sweden" is partly myth just as the tales of the easily accessible voluptous blondes. The closest parallel to Sweden as far as "degree of socialism" is concerned is the UK. Sweden is not, has never been, and could not have been, like East Germany.
I don't think the right end of the horisontal scale represents "cooperation" but rather conformism and submission to external values, either traditional (the sub-continent), or imposed by the state (the ex-communist countries). I think you agree that cooperation between free individuals is both desirable and possible.
I'm a bit surprised, though, that we are deemed more individualistic than the Danes who are often described as "bourgeouise anarchists".
Message # 10835
Pehhaps Indians are happy because they are very, very busy making more Indians.
India Marks 1 Billion People
You are of course, correct in what you say. The IRA has, I feel, cast itself to peace, but will act like an army, which it see's itself as, and not capitulate in the manner being touted by unionists.
Unfortunate news this morning though, as it seems the more hardline unionists are refusing to even consider the IRA statement, and for a very regrettable reason.
Some short time ago, a report on policing in Northern Ireland was undertaken (the Patton report), the results of which showed the RUC (royal ulster constabulary) as a force which was biased in its very nature, but only recommended some largely cosmetic changes, such as the symbology used in the emblem, and a name change. (no other police force in the UK uses the royal prefix)
It is this piddling matter over which the unionists are now using sticking their heels in. I know they love thier pomp, ceremony and parades, but this is just taking the piss! If anything, it shows them up to the world.
How sad would it be, if the peace in sight was lost, for the sake of a cap badge and title??
Where did you get the news that Peter Mandelson is gay? I'd never heard that he was, and yesterday,could not verify it on the web. Perhaps you are confusing him with another MP, whose name is Brown or something.
Mandelson was involved in some scandel a few years ago, but that was purely a money matter.
Mandelson is "out". His scandal involved him getting a rather large sum of money as a loan from a Labour fundraiser to buy a much-ballyhooed and designer-decorated house in, I believe, Notting Hill. He was forced to resign his post as honcho for the Millenium preparations.
The real surprise is not that he's gay, or that he's been rehabilitated (he is considered on of the Svengali-like keys to Blair's victory) but that he's been put in this extremely important job immediately on his return to public life. I suppose he's being groomed for a "serious" ministership, which is also a bit startling to me. It's slightly like Dick Morris being put as Ambassador to the UN, if you follow me.
I ask the question again: could an out homosexual hold such a high post in American politics?
I'd appreciate comment from him on the Sri Lanka situation. As this article points out, the LTTE is using its normal scorched earth suicide tactics and is on the verge of overrunning Jaffna. Of particular interest is the paragraph pointing out the role of the overseas Tamil "nation."
Naradar, please elaborate on this, I know you have both opinions and observations on the matter.
I think in many of those countries, "don't ask, don't tell" is a rule of thumb. But I do know that Haider has been outed and it apparently hasn't affected his popularity.
I wonder if anyone can come up with list of out politicians around the world. It'll be interesting if Mandelson is the highest-placed.
Has Haider been outed, or is he rumoured to be gay? There is a difference. I think Huber commented on this a while back. He didn't seem to believe the rumour. (Where is that wicked German?)
A curious piece in Sunday's Observer focused on a non-story: According to the paper, Die Tageszeitung of Berlin outed far-right Austrian leader Jörg Haider as gay, information that "has been common knowledge [in Austria] for years, but has never been publicly declared." The Observer claimed that liberal daily Der Standard and private TV station AT are the only Austrian media to have covered the outing thus far.
Whereas I honestly did not know that Mandelson was gay, I do know that there is at least one other MP who has come out.
It may be that people have a bit of respect for someone who is straightforward with regard to thier sexual orientation, more so perhaps when compared to the conservatives awful record in this area.
An example be the MP, whose name escapes me at the moment, who was at the forefront of the conservatives abnoxious "back to basics" morality campaign. The misfortunate fellow was found dead in his apartment, having acidentally choked himself while engaging in an autoerotic session while wearing nothing but pantyhose.
This is not an urban myth by the way.
Could an out homosexual hold such a high post in German, French, or Italian politics? Chinese, Indian, or Russian politics?
I don't know about those countries, but one of the most powerful government ministers here in Indonesia for over 20 years was the openly gay Joop Ave (he lost his position, along with the rest of the government, when Suharto fell). He once survived a scandal when he escaped arrest in New Zealand for propositioning the room boy in a hotel. He was whisked out of the country on an Indonesian air force jet, creating a diplomatic mess, but no one in Indonesia cared in the least.
I should have said "propositioned." In actual fact, I believe the poor room boy was physically assaulted.
Macnas, i forget the guys name as well, but you left out one important detail. he was found spreadeagled on his kitchen table as you described with an orange suffused with some chemical stuffed in his mouth.
I think I remember the orange bit now, jaysus, but there must have been absolutly nothing on television that he wanted to see that night...
Yes, that's surely the single weirdest episode among many Tory scndals that year. Remember the minister who wrote a book telling of screwing both the wife and the daughter of a S.African judge and the arrival of that judge on British soil with the stated aim of administering a "horsewhipping."
It was good publicity for the minister as well as for the Queen.
We also have an openly lesbian former minister of health.
Others, like cellardoor, could perhaps provide a more definitive list. I don't believe that there are any openly gay U.S. Senators or cabinet members or Governors.
"The crisis that is currently taking place in Zimbabwe could spill over to South Africa if victims of apartheid do not receive adequate compensation, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, warned in Geneva Wednesday.
Ndungane, who is also patron of the Jubilee 2000, suggested that reparations should be paid from a fund financed by Switzerland, Germany, Britain and the US, which profited from loans and business ties to the former apartheid regime.
"Western governments and corporations must acknowledge their culpability in the development and defence of what came to be called apartheid. It is in this way that Western governments are liable for reparation," Ndungane pointed out.
The South African association Jubilee 2000, of which Ndungane is president, has estimated that South Africa and its neighbours are entitled to more than 78 billion dollars in compensation because of costs to the region resulting from apartheid.
Ndungane said the greatest miracle in recent times has been the process of transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa, which was attained through a negotiated settlement after years of bitter struggle.
"The key element is that transition has been the principle of restorative justice as distinct from retributive justice whose main feature is revenge. With restorative justice goes reconstruction, reparation, healing and wholeness," he added.
"The situation in Zimbabwe is a living testimony of what could happen if carefully thought out processes are not followed to the satisfaction of all," he said. "We would not want that situation to happen in our country. I would therefore like to appeal to the government of your country for more assistance to be given to the victims of human rights abuses, especially those who appeared before the TRC."
Good show, Bill.
The idea is that the govt. is newly inspired to help establish the rights of NCR land holders. Inspired to obtain the advice and guidance of the native leaders.
Maybe.
I always said Haider was a faggot.
Miss Universe, Lara Dutta of India... 
Thank you, marj.
You are right about Joop Ave. He was accused of assaulting the hotel staff member and it did cause a bit of a flurry here when he escaped.
We've got a number of gay politicians and of course have the honour of having the world's first transexual Member of Parliament, Georgina Byer. She's had a rather interesting career, her previous occupations have included male prostitute.
We also have a rather interesting Roman Catholic Bishop, who is in favour of recognising same-sex relationships in terms of matrimonial property benefits etc. He also believes that while Roman Catholics should not indulge in pre-marital sex, if they do they'd better be sure to use contraception. 
Lara sans sari...
Denmark's Olsen Brothers won the European Song Contest with 'Fly on the Wing of Love'.
Well deserved too, IMHO.
I actually quite like the song, written and performed by a couple of oldish blokes, the Olsen brothers, who have been on and off the Danish pop scene since who knows when. 
You can see and hear a video with the song here, Little Mermaid in the background and all: Fly on the Wings of Love
The Eurovision Song Contest is a peculiar phenomenon. Every year the various European countries hold national contests to select a new pop song for participation in the all-European contest. This Euro show is held in the country that won the year before (Sweden won last year, hence Stockholm).
It keeps European viewers glued to the set for three hours of hopeful pop tunes of varying quality performed by pop singer hopefuls, equally varying. 24 songs - and then the voting, excruciatingly prolonged as the results from each participant country are transmitted, read aloud score by score, repeated by the hosts in English and French. Except if you have bets going - or, if your country is among the 2-3 top contenders.
It's a formidable demonstration of the attention capturing force of combining national identification with an element of competition - or is it the other way around?
Strangely enough, the winners seldom go on to international star careers. The only real example of this is ABBA who won in 1974 with Waterloo.
I have to pad your national back a little. It was a truly great show put on by Swedish Television. And that Globe hall is amazing. What a structure. Have you ever been there?
Did you see the show? I loved the song/video/dancing/performance piece that was put on in the intermission between the songs and before. That was tryly astonishing in its incredibly imaginative and virtuous use of a multitude of media effects. Well done.
Next year it's in Copenhagen. Something to live up to!
"..that was put on in the intermission between the songs and before the voting." 
In perhaps a new turn in the Chinese PR stance on the matter, the Chinese actually were willing to discuss it.
»Jiang orienterede Rasmussen om Kinas store fremskridt inden for menneskerettighederne, idet han sagde, at verden udvikler sig i mange retninger, og selv om de to lande har forskelligt syn på nogle spørgsmål, er Kina villig til at udvide det fælles grundlag og den fælles forståelse med Danmark gennem dialog på basis af lighed og gensidig respekt.«
"Jian informed Rasmussen on China's great progress on human rights saying that the world develops in multiple ways and even though the two countries see differently on some questions, China is willing to expand the common foundation of mutual understanding with Denmark through dialogue on a level basis of mutual respect."
(My translation of the Danish blurb above, probably based on an English translation of a Chinese statement).
The meeting is described in very positive language by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, my source from the above. It's said that the two leaders had an unexpectedly substantial and serious political conversation that lasted all of 75 minutes, though scheduled to only 30 minutes of supposedly harmless exchange of courtesies. It's said that it was actually the Chinese who took the initiative on discussing the human rights issue. Probably in order to set the terms, but nevertheless with a newfound willingness to discuss it openly rather than dismissing it as China's internal affairs.
You're forgetting Celine Dion.
I certainly am. I didn't know she has won. When? Which country did she represent? (My guess: Luxembourg). What was the song?
It really is hard to find names who have made it to a broader international top career. Katrina and the Waves won in 1997 - perhaps they qualify...
Katrina is american, if my memory serves.
Used to be that all the songs were sung in the native language, not so any more. (This made for some truly awful scandinadian songs.)
Used to be that all the music had to be played live, now you can use backing tracks.
It's a bad show anyway, no point in wasting brain cells on it.
The Israeli representatives to the Eurovision contest managed to get 95% of the country to hate them the other day. They did a song with terrible lyrics (I imagine the melody also sucks, but I haven't heard it) about a love affair between an Israeli girl and a Syrian soldier, and waved little Syrian and Israeli flags, to the horror of all but the most radical left-wingers. I would advise them to refrain from shopping in the shuk for a while.
Meanwhile, me and a few friends of mine are planning something which could start a mini-war here in Israel, I think. Details to follow.
The Eurovision Song Contest, btw, is an absolutely wonderfully kitschy thing. Many many people take it very seriously, and many many people - equally many, I think, have a ball ridiculing it thoroughly. Makes for great contests of who can think up the best ridiculing remarks to deride the German, or Dutch, or Irish, or Belgian entry the most. Absolutely hilarious.
The all-time high of this exquisite pastime must have been in 1990 when a Latin lover wannabe who was desperately trying to look 15 years younger won with the mind-boggling ghastly song "Insieme: 1992", celebrating - I kid you not! - the implementation of the EU's single market. (Then it was called the EC, actually).
Unite, unite, Europe!
Ah, the thought alone gives me the goosebumps!
Rustler: As far as ridicule goes, Israel won the contest this year at my house. My son of 10 was positively appalled that anyone could think of having such a ludicrous entry represent them. (I didn't see that one myself, as I was minding my paternal duties (sent to get candy...) but I hear they didn't wave the Syrian flag after all).
Just another illustration of the total vacuity of the concept of "Europe". All that common culture and history eh!
At least it makes an amusing diversion from the other Euro-nion-event of the year: the Euro.
(The Euro-what? Euro is an adjective, not a noun.Euro-dollar? Euro-mark? Euro... yen??)
Hate the name. L'euro. Most inelegant. Homophone in French: "Le rot" (the burp), instead of the much more satisfying and euphonious L'écu (the arses).
I've been watching the Incredible Shrinking European Currency for the last few months, with some amusement. This is what we've been sold as the Great Unifier of Europe. Let's just get each country to align a few macro-economic indicators, never mind the contorsions of creative accounting or widely diverging economic and social policies which are used to achieve this, and this will become a powerful vector of integration!! Bullshit.
I think I've heard about that book. Their definition of "Europe" coincided strangely with the EU borders, at least to the east. Norway, Sweden and Finland were allowed in for some unknown reason. It was published just before the Berling wall came down, if I am not mistaken, an event which was highly inconvenient to this view of Europe. It turned out that not just eastern Germans, but Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, even Ukrainians and Russians (a little on and off in their case, perhaps) perceive themselves as Europeans.
"Le rot" = the burp!!!!
Ha!
Regarding the euro being sold as an integrationist project: Here in Denmark, we are going to vote on whether to join the euro on 28 September.
As you know, the Danes are notoriously suspicious towards the European project, so the last thing the supporters would do is to campaign for the euro as an integration driver. The problem with this line is that that's most definitely what it is, and there's no way around it. European economies are being forced to march to the same tune set by the ECB. And the gains, if any, will come in the form of increased integration of markets bringing down production and operating costs for European business due to economies of scale, and bringing down prices to the consumeres due to increased cross-European competition.
I don't see the falling euro as a problem at all for the euro countries, btw. Quite the contrary, in fact. The notion that this somehow imparts on European grandeur is completely misguided.
I am completely agnostic about currency levels. After all, the franc and the DM were both much lower against the dollar through most of the eighties - yet at the same time, the French government was obsessed with maintaining a "strong franc" - this was actually a code word for maintaining parity with the DM at all costs. And the costs were high it would seem, particulary in jobs.
You are perfectly in tune with the Danish euro opponents. But actually the Danish success in bringing down unemployment is as much a result of a progressive tightening of the rules for unemployment benefit, and the demands on the unemployed to be available for the labour market. Combined with perhaps the EU's laxest job protection regulation for working people. In many ways Denmark makes for a role model to EU's labour market reformist (though the Dutch seem to be getting all the attention...). True, there is also an element of an active role for the government in securing education and training and - perhaps even more crucial - of what in EU parlance is called a "social partnership", i.e. organised labour and organised employers are highly involved in the implementation of these policies. And true, the unemployment benefits are kept relatively high, though only for the lowest incomes. It's also true that the income distribution is relatively equal and hasn't been worsening over the last couple of decades, but rather displays a weak tendency towards further equalisation.
But none of this is due to any kind of regulation in breach or at odds with EU rules. The skepticists remain, however, skeptical.
"cooperation between free individuals"
...is truly an accurate description, then of course I agree that it is highly desireable thing. I have wondered, though, if part of the reason such cooperation has been more easily achieved in Scandinavia is the homogeneity of the populace. That is, some of the hurdles caused by diversity in the United States (for example) just don't come up in a place like Sweden.
When I did a train tour of Scandinavia, I shared a car with a Greek who had applied for Swedish citizenship (and if I recall correctly, been granted it). He told me at the time that some friction was occurring over the influx of refugees from Yugoslavia--that Sweden was having to face the absorption of a culture/ethnicity not like its own.
Those kinds of challenges have been going on in the U.S. of course since the beginning.
Perhaps one of you could comment on this (or maybe it's been addressed already). If my comments seem superficial, put it down to having a superficial (three-week) experience of Scandinavia.
I'm also sorely disappointed that the easily accessible voluptuous blondes are only a myth--or at least the easily accessible part. I saw voluptuous blondes with my own eyes.
I think you are right about the homogenous populace being a prerequisite for a highly redistributive welfare state. And your observation on the strains that an inflow of foreigners might put on this model is being played out emphatically in Denmark these years - and to some extent Sweden too, if taking slightly different forms. You might say that Austria is an example of the same phenomenon.
I,m Irish actually. And if anyone has a right to be sick of eurovision, its us.
What I'm worried about is that the German approach, which seems to consist of letting second-rate part-time jobs proliferate, "exempt" from social welfare charges and benefits, may become the model for other European countries. The intent seems to be to absorb unemployment by creating a two-tier workforce, which is very much at odds with the results in Holland or Denmark, and with the aspiration in France.
Does anyone know the words to "Blame Canada"? That would be a natch for a parody-European style.
Now, a few months ago, we had a brief discussion of the onslaught of American and American-style fast-food outlets around the world and the curious phenomenon of their almost complete failure in India. This article elaborates.
BTW, another major failure in India has been American-style breakfast cereals (Kelloggs has flopped big time). The Indian consumer simply cannot see the advantage of these over the myriad hot and nutritious indigenous breakfast foods.
Michael Ondaatje, who is IMO one of the two or three very best writers in English these days has finally written another book on Sri Lanka, this one more substantial than his slim, brilliant, family-history/travelogue 'Running in the Family.' More on the book.
This volume promises to be one of my personal reading high points of the year and after reading this particular review yesterday, I'm literally itching to get my hands on it. I'll post my thoughts after finishing it, but have no hesitation in breaking my usual rule and recommending it heartily to everyone even before reading it myself. The writer is brilliant, the topic is complex and fascinating, and we're sure to gain genuine insight into what is one of the worlds most intractable situations.
Why don't the Indians swamp the rest of us with their Udipis? I would certainly like to see some real competition to the unimaginative and bland tasting American fast fooders. The same goes for breafast prodcucts. Why must we make do with Kellogg's in the west when Indians have such exquisite breakfast menus? Come on, India, go for it! Show some Indian initiative! Conquer the world market with Indian food. I can't wait. Seriously.
You may be interested to know that the masala dosa is freely available and highly popular all over the big cities of the UK, and in NYC as well. Sadly, the gujerati thali and my own favorite, pani puri, haven't quite caught on at the same level but it may actually only be a matter of time. NYC even has several kosher Udipi restaurants.
-----------
International threaders should read this article on Africa , a good, sobering, analysis from the Economist. 
Masala Dosa
And i only came back to learn who won the Prix d'Eurovision.
And now i find you talking about money! You materialist bunch.
"And if anyone has a right to be sick of eurovision,
its us."
Macnas, could you expand on that? Would that be because of the danger of an overheating economy in Ireland? But on the other hand Ireland did profit considerably from Europe over the last decade, did it not?
Actually the guy who invented and promoted that slogan lost the election in Nordrheinwestfalen yesterday.
Also, keep us posted on the amusing 'Kinder statt Inder' campaign. I hear that germany is going ahead with the plan to import software geeks anyway.
La Couronne forte se met en tête d'Europe!
Tremble.
Book reviews some of you may find interesting.
You call it "Prix d'Eurovision"? We call it "Melodi Grand Prix". The Swedes call it something like "Melodifestivalen".
Are you by any chance related to that other German Huber, the tennis girl? Or is Jürgen Huber just your nom d'Internet? (You don't have to answer, of course, I shouldn't ask in the first place).
Marj, thank you for the link with Copenhagen Indian restaurants. I have eaten at India Palace a couple of times, notably to celebrate my graduation. I may also have tried one or two of the others, but I don't remember, and I actually don't think so. I do such things far, far too seldom.
What makes you think that Restaurant Natraj specifically serves, whatsitsname, dosas and vasas? Is it a Bombayite name?
I would imagine that even the most hardened Irish Eurovision fanatic might experience a lull in the enthusiasm after such a showing.
Re: The Eurovision Song Contest
I don't think I do. What would it be a good parody of, European style? Or would it be a good European-style parody? Of what? Canada? No, obviously not... I suspect "Blame Canada" is already a parody of Canada. Or, perhaps, rather of Americans blaming others for their troubles. The song probably picks on Canada because it's so obviously and hopelessly harmless that it's silly to blame anything on it. But then, what does that have to do with the Eurovision Song Contest..?
Does anyone know the words to "Blame Canada"? That would be a natch for a parody-European style.
You have my head spinning, marshame. Please expand!
Sto:
The picture in the paper showed them waving the flags. What was it your son found silly? The song (lyrics etc.) or the political dimension, or both? In any case, I'm sure he's absolutely right.
On a more serious matter:
It was not a spontaneous outbreak of Palestinian civil disobedience. This time real battles were involved. True, they were contained and limited to certain locations, but the exchanges of fire yesterday between IDF soldiers and Palestinian security people were significantly more serious than even the Hasmonean Tunnel incidents of September 1996.
Israel opened the tunnel, and the situation quickly deteriorated. Yesterday, by contrast, almost everything was planned. Palestinian security agents and numerous politicians were among the demonstrators.
(from a piece by Danny Rubinstein in Ha'aretz). I'm telling you, we're not too far from a major conflagration here. Even my Arab friends say so.
Do I detect a hint of animosity there?? Exactly how my dislike of the eurovision relates to our economy and our benefiting from being in the european union, escapes me.
Nevertheless, if it was just a chance to get something off your chest, or your shoulder, not to worry.
If all reports of our overheated economy were to be taken seriously, we would have imploded 3 years ago. Our main concern is inflation, but is'nt that a German concern as well??
Our current economic success is based on our sound national agreements, the fostering of industrial growth and careful spending and investment of the funding which we recieved from the EEC.
And if it bothers you that we did so well from this funding, would it be enough to say we're very grateful? and thanks very much?
I'm sure that makes everything alright.
That sounds ominous. What do you think about the statement, "Israelis only understand the language of violence"? The piece mentions the Hebron withdrawal obtained by Arafat in the negotiations after the tunnel riots. Rubinstein's angle seems to be that there is actually some truth in that Palestinian view, isn't it?
Sto,
Well, I don't know if I would say that Rubinstein agrees with the position he is quoting, but the tone of the article is surprisingly pessimistic for a generally dovish commentator like Rubinstein. Basically, the article is not very far from endorsing the right-wing position in Israel, which says that we are being blackmailed by the Palestinians into ceding more and more territory, that they perceive our concessions as stemming from fear and weakness rather than, say, a desire to accommodate our neighbors for the sake of acheiving a permanent peace, and that thus the more we give - the more we encourage their violence, not vice versa.
In other words: if we just give them enough land, they'll go to war with us.
A new angle in all this is the growing militancy of Israeli Arabs, who have taken to violent demonstration and flag burning of late. And this ties in, I think, with the Katzir land case. The Katzir case is not about civil rights and equality: it is rather (I think) a well thought out Arab action aimed at neutralizing - at least as far as psychological value is concerned - the strategically located Jewish settlement that overlooks the overwhelmingly Arab valley of Wadi 'Ara. The bigger idea, if you ask me, is to bring about another intifadeh, this time within pre-1967 Israel.
Little do they know that inside the peaceful village of Katzir, there resides an evil, bearded Mote-dweller who has figured their plans out - and has a plan of his own...
Heh heh heh...
As the old British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm observes: Ethnic cleansing can sometimes solve problems. And I suppose he is right. The only remaining question is: Who gets to cleanse whom?
Seriously, Rustler, I actually perceived the implication of the Rubinstein piece to be that Israelis should be willing to talk with the Palestinians, even when - especially when - they behave and not, like Netanyahu did, play tough and stonewall them until they go violent, then concede something to them.
Makes sense to me.
Anke, the tennis player, is not a relative of mine, but Huber is my real name. Sometimes i'm not sure why i'm still using my real name in online forums. I guess it's mainly because most of the people i interact live so far away from me that even the cranks don't have that much of a chance to go get me, if i piss someone off.
I interpreted Macnas comment about the Irish sickness with "eurovision" as a political statement! I guess that's because with the falling euro euro-fatigue is on the rise here.
We should have kept our beloved D-Mark and this would have never happened! Never mind that we had much bigger swings in the past long before we introduced the euro. Now a dollar costs 2.15 marks, which is kind of sobering, but 12 or 13 years ago under Reagan the dollar cost 3.40. My guess is that people here still underestimate the power of the "New Economy".
"I hear that germany is going ahead with the plan to import software geeks anyway."
Of course. There's xenophobia here, but not always does it overwhelm common sense and rational thinking. Especially if economic interests are involved. We're beginning to copy the American visa system, which is quite a change of policy for a country which always liked to stress that it was "not an immigration country". It was a lie anyway.
"And if it bothers you that we did so well from this funding, would it be enough to say we're very grateful? and thanks very much?
I'm sure that makes everything alright."
Heh.
Don't thank me personally! It was just a way of airing my envy! The part of Berlin where i live in has an unemployment rate of 20 %.
And my SO keeps bugging me that we should plan a trip to Ireland, but i'm not sure if we could afford it.
He neither knows anything nor cares about the Israeli political situation. Is that a sign of late development do you think? He is 10, after all (or, rather will be on Saturday). I am worried. He is into Pokemon, Nintendo and American sit-coms. And, as of last Saturday, Eurovision Song Contests. I believe his negative take on the Israeli entry was purely on its merits.
You can ignore my defensive kneejerking, after all, everyone else does!
It pains me to hear of localised unemployment, especially when a country as an economic whole is doing quite well. We have the same here, "blackspots" where the unemployment levels are drastically higher than the national average.
As for coming here for a visit, well, it can be expensive. However, the west Cork region attracts many germans, and quite a few like it so much they come here to live. The precentage of german and dutch people living in this region is one of the highest in the country.
Jürgen Huber:
Why do you think a major conflagration is ahead and how serious do you think the situation will get?
I think it will get quite serious, because essentially this is the final showdown over who controls the land of Israel/Palestine. And I think the earlier it happens, the better for Israel. The worst case realistic scenario has the Palestinians in the Territories teaming up with the Israeli Arabs, with an Arab country like Iraq joining in for good measure.
It's a good thng you get a jumo size serving of bread with the ramakin and mini-scoop of sauce in that Masala Dosa.
It looks good, but I usually eat more than that.
"UNITED Nations peacekeepers from Nigeria have threatened to shoot British soldiers in Sierra Leone after several days of growing tension between the two allies."
That would be a first. The British would destroy 'em.
"But the reality is that the British force is more effective than the UN force 10 times its size."
That is, the British are handling an adversary the UN cannot, yet the UN wishes to confront the British? It's like a drunken diner losing a fistfight with the waitress and then challenging the bouncer.
world class; the passage through those phantasmagorical narrow gorges is absolutely thrilling, and stunning. you must see it before 2010 or so because the gorges will be under a mile of water by then. Equally worthy is thetrain ride from lanzhou to urumqi, I rate it among the best rail journeys i've been on, for scenery only. never mind that the trip is mind-numbingly long. Since I'm behind schedule I'm going to skip the train across Central Asia altogether and take a plane from Bishkek to Turkmenbashi --if there is such a flight.
I envy you in spite of your current misfortune.
Sto:
You're right. "The Big Showdown"?
Pelle:
Did you get my e-mail?
It's a shame we can't see pictures of PE until he gets back. I mean, a little digital camera would be great for showing us where he is.
I hope Kosovo gave us a better perspective about staying out of the way of these putrid old world shitstorms.
I answered 5 mins ago.
sto:
It seems to me that that little quarrel you Israelis are maintaining with the Palestinians sharpens your sense of conspiracy.
Stokeleh, we've had a major war with the Arabs every decade, on the decade, since the day we were born: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 1991.
It's 2000 now.
Pelle:
I got it, thanks.
I've never been to Ireland, but i'm aware that my countrymen started flooding your country a long time ago - as they did in Denmark. Heinrich Böll published his "Irish Diary" in the fifties i think, and what he wrote there could really make one long for that green island and it's people.
Alistair, i share your dislike for how they named the European currency: "euro" just isn't a name for a currency, plus it doesn't sound good in either English, French or German. They should have called it franc/Franken, but that way the German mourning over their beloved currency (it really is a love affair, the D-Mark was *the* national object of love in country that didn't dare to indulge in nationalist feelings after Hitler; and now it's dead! Well, almost.) would have become deafening.
RustlerPike, i hope you're too pessimistic.
The average lull between wars is (8+11+6+9+9)/5= 8.6 years. So this one is already overdue, you see.
Sto:
Wait a second - was that you who wrote a message in my guestbook and signed it Suha Arafat?
The Beauty and the Beast in Burma
And Ash is a romantic too!
Finally, and I fear most unrealistically, I would hope against hope for a fourth miracle: that something of the tranquil beauty of an isolated, traditional culture, almost unique in today's world, could survive the necessary and longed-for tempest of modernity. But the armies of global capitalism are waiting at the frontier, engines revving up, with their container-loads of tawdry goods, their ready-made life-style packages, sex shops, reversed baseball caps, and state-of-the-art software for the unceasing manufacture of new consumer desires. These armies are more irresistible than any Tatmadaw or People's Army, because they are truly welcomed as liberators. If so few of the good things of an older world have survived in Central Europe, where conditions were so much more favorable, how could they be saved here?
The Beauty and the Beast in Burma
And Ash is a romantic too!
Finally, and I fear most unrealistically, I would hope against hope for a fourth miracle: that something of the tranquil beauty of an isolated, traditional culture, almost unique in today's world, could survive the necessary and longed-for tempest of modernity. But the armies of global capitalism are waiting at the frontier, engines revving up, with their container-loads of tawdry goods, their ready-made life-style packages, sex shops, reversed baseball caps, and state-of-the-art software for the unceasing manufacture of new consumer desires. These armies are more irresistible than any Tatmadaw or People's Army, because they are truly welcomed as liberators. If so few of the good things of an older world have survived in Central Europe, where conditions were so much more favorable, how could they be saved here?
All the while,
One little Pelle is asleep in Sweden.
One little Huber in Berlin.
One little Rustler's asleep in Israel. (Take care Rustlerkeleh! Sleep but lightly!)
One little PE should be asleep in Chinese altitude (waiting for his Kazakhstani pass); if only he wasn't so insomniacal.
One little Irv is certainly fast asleep in Indonesia. Or has day broken already there? Oh, yes, just. But Irv steals one last turn on the other side. Phmummphh...
One little Jenny asleep in London.
One size-fits-all Socksman cringes his crunchy pajamas, giggling smugly.
One little marj is busy doing marjy stuff. But soon he too will down his dosas and vasas and pomfrets, take a disinterested look at something his wife points to in Dr. Seuss, yawn, kiss little Deggie on his little sleeping nose, yawn real hard, scratch his (scratched), find bathroom, brush teeth, hum softly a little tune from his happy subcontinental childhood, gravitate to bed, to sheet, to submerged subconsciousness.
Many more do, and reasonably, sensibly too.
And I -
I am hanging tall within an Olympic state of mind.
Night all.
Sto:
#10978 shall live on for a long time as one of the nicest posts ever posted in these here parts, though I would have added "subcontinental" to "submerged subconsciousness".
As for Suha - she is Yassir's wife. Someone did sign my guestbook using that name.
You forgot little CalGal, out on an island in the middle of the Pacific. 
You may be in the middle of the Pacific, but you're still in the USA.
I see the digital camera is turning out to be a good investment. Very nice photos.
There are more pictures in the Corner, and I'm writing up some of the sights I saw in Maui. I just arrived in Oahu earlier in the evening.
I really wish I knew more about photography. Obviously, even a complete nimrod can't screw up scenery like this, but I still would love to understand lighting a bit better. One little PE should be asleep in Chinese altitude (waiting for his Kazakhstani pass); if only he wasn't so insomniacal.
Hopefully he'll use his bouts of insomnia to jot down his travel notes that he will share with us here.
Are we going to collect money so that we can get him a mobile internet connection so he can directly post his travel adventures into the Mote on his next trip? Our Far-Flung Correspondent in the vastness of the Asian continent? These little tidbits aren't but whetting one's appetite.
I also completely agree about the Yangtze trip - we did it in two stages, Chongking to Wuhan, and Wuhan to Nanking. We got stuck for three days in Wanxian, the river was closed for cleaning - when they finally let the boat through, we saw a village which had been sliced in half by the landslide.
Wuhan to Nanking wasn't nearly as interesting, the river often stretches to the horizon on both sides.
Fellow Motifs, Jews and non-Jews alike:
Do you think the domain name www.schnor.com has any kind of revenue-raising potential and if so - what?
You merit special mention wherever you may be.
Great pictures, neat way of posting them.
Rustler: Nice of you to say so, I am not beyond smiling when smiled at.
Irv: It was a night of working very, very late, much too late, preparing a presentation I did this morning. It went well.
Football riots in Copenhagen Tuesday and Wednesday as the city hosted the UEFA Final between England's Arsenal and Galatasaray of Turkey. They were bloody mad, I tell you. The pigs. The reports have the Turks as the worst culprits, some even claiming Turks resident in Denmark.
The Turkish team won, btw, on penalties. I didn't see the match as I was busy working, but they say it was a boring 0-0 match. ("Fucking tied, 0-0").
Meanwhile, at the Cannes film festival, Lars von Trier is being fussed over. Apparently he drove down from Denmark in a camper van, like a vulgar Scandy tourist, as he has a thing about flying. By all accounts he's a bit of a weirdo.
His film features Catherine Deneuve and Icelandic icon Bjork. One hopes it will be more in the style of his blockbuster Breaking the waves rather than that sordid thing he released last year -Breaking the winds?
von Trier is a certified weirdo. He is on valium and fontex to cope with a variety of phobias that have on several previous occasions kept him from appearing in Cannes at all even though his films did.
His "sordid" film of yesteryear was The idiots and was largely a flop as it was a thorny, rather unappealing work. Personally, I don't think it was without merit.
But I just read a review of his Cannes entry this year, Dancer in the Dark, which was shown to the press yesterday. It was a raving review, and the film met with enormous applause, allegedly the biggest yet this year. To go by its reception by the media, it's going to win the golden palms. But who knows with those eccentric jury members.
Anyway, regarding your concern on what type of film this is: It is definitely the Breaking the Waves category. The hardened critics openly cried in the cinema. von Trier himself says it's practically a remake of Waves, so he didn't even need new inspiration.
I am looking very much forward to seeing it.
The river was closed for cleaning
The mind boggles.
sto
That was a very nice good-night post.
RustlerPike,
You know, "schnor" kind of looks like a parody of "snore". Is that intentional?
Thanks a lot for the wonderful pictures, CalGal. Now I can't stop thinking how much I would enjoy having a digital camera. It would be a lot of fun to make a digital scrapbook of visits to Indian reservations along the powwow highway.
Here, the Brits are being blamed. Supposedly 15 of them were arrested in yesterday's rioting and some store fronts in England were damaged.
Presumably when von Trier works in the USA, he goes there in a Viking longboat? And ... takes Hollywood by storm?
Bangkok's infrastructure is far better developed than I had imagined. I had read of Bangkok's nightmare traffic with Thais taking portable toilets in their cars because of six hour commutes (supposedly, Bangkok has the worst traffic in the world). But during my four days there I never came across anything which resembled this nightmare; traffic flowed pretty smoothly. Certainly, traffic in Los Angeles is worse than anything I saw during my four days in Bangkok.
I was staying in Ao Patong. I wanted to go to Phuket city (on the other side of the island -- maybe thirty to forty minutes away) and then play a round of golf at Phuket Country Club (PCC) on my return. On my way back from Phuket city, I drove up the hill to PCC's clubhouse. I didn't have a reservation, but I didn't think I would need one. PCC is a nice golf course, but not one of the best on Phuket, and its green fees still ran at about $100 a shot. The last time I had played there had been during the peak tourist season and my father and I saw only two other golfers on the entire golf course during our round.
continued...
continued...
When the jeep was back on the road, I surveyed the damage. I was very lucky. Nothing too serious. The side mirror and some molding was torn off and the entire passenger side of the vehicle was scrapped up pretty bad, but the door still opened and the windows were not broken. I saw something leaking, but I figured that was to be expected when a car has been tilted up at such an unnatural angle. After I started it up, I knew I had made out better than I should have. I paid the head honcho 5,000 baht (about a hundred and fifty dollars) and indicated to him that he was to spread it around among the helpers and off I went.
Highly unfortunate business before the match. A pity really, as Arsenal supporters have a good record of behavior especially wrt away fixtures.
Eveywhere the turkish supporters go, knives are used. Nasty.
Some of the supporters carried long sticks of some kind, seemingly a natural part of their equipment.
One English guy was knocked unconscious in a pizzeria, then smashed with a big table. It's sheer luck nobody died.
...they partied all day Tuesday in the center of town.
Nice to see you again.
You may be a lousy left-side driver, but you're one cool trouble fixer.
Wasn't it bloody lucky you weren't hurt going off-road downhill?
Great story. Please tell more of your trip to Thailand.
What side of the road is traffic in Taiwan? I would have thought it was on the left as in most of Asia (the only exception I know of is the Philippines).
Did you get to play the Phuket CC? I've played it several times, and found it a friendly, though uninspiring, course. My favorite course in the Phuket area is one just off the northern tip of the island, on the mainland, though I can't recall the name. The most famous course there is Blue Canyon, which I wasn't able to play.
An interesting feature of the Phuket area is the scattered Sea Malay communities. I visited some of their towns built on stilts over the sea, and was pleasantly surprised to discover I could communicate with them fairly easily in Malay. The name of the island of Phuket itself is derived from a Malay word ("bukit," meaning "hill").
Communications seem to be down, with only occasional reports from the journalism college, who have thier own satellite.
Thats all I got so far.
BBC on armed coup in Fiji
fijilive.com What side of the road is traffic in Taiwan? I would have thought it was on the left as in most of Asia (the only exception I know of is the Philippines).
The Taiwanese drive on the right side of the road, just like in the states.
Did you get to play the Phuket CC? I've played it several times, and found it a friendly, though uninspiring, course. My favorite course in the Phuket area is one just off the northern tip of the island, on the mainland, though I can't recall the name. The most famous course there is Blue Canyon, which I wasn't able to play.
No, I never made it back. The weather was pretty bad after that day.
I forget which of the other courses I played in Phuket the last time I was there three years ago. It was on the north side of the island, though, so it could have been Blue Canyon. (Does the name Banyon Tree ring a bell?) I agree with your assessment of PCC, but its very ordinariness (by Phuket standards) was its attraction that day as I thought I would be able to get out on the course without a reservation.
An interesting feature of the Phuket area is the scattered Sea Malay communities. I visited some of their towns built on stilts over the sea, and was pleasantly surprised to discover I could communicate with them fairly easily in Malay. The name of the island of Phuket itself is derived from a Malay word ("bukit," meaning "hill").
Are they Muslim? I read somewhere that 30% of Phuket's population is Muslim, but with the exception of a couple of well-wrapped females I didn't see any evidence of this.
| International |
| Where particular people congregate |
11019. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 7:23:31 AM
100 bonus points for correct attribution of the second line.
11020. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 7:27:59 AM
Pincher
Welcome back. Sounds as if you had a great time. I collected your nice story for inclusion in the collection. Hope you don't mind.
I was surprised to read that the traffic in Bangkok is no worse than in Los Angeles. I haven't been to Bangkok since 1976 and I woved never to go back because of the traffic. So either great progress has been made there or Los Angeles is virtually beyond imagination.
11021. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/19/2000 8:18:39 AM
Pinch:
The Taiwanese drive on the right side of the road, just like in the states.
That's interesting. I wonder what historical factors led to that. What side do they drive on in China?
I forget which of the other courses I played in Phuket the last time I was there three years ago. It was on the north side of the island, though, so it could have been Blue Canyon. (Does the name Banyon Tree ring a bell?)
I'd forgotten about Banyan Tree. It's one of the world's great resorts, but the golf course is not rated that highly (though I've never played it, and it may be a great course). Blue Canyon is one of the top courses in Asia, and has hosted several international tournaments. The one I was thinking of is Thai Muang, designed by Pete Dye (and one of the nicest courses I've ever played).
Here are some Phuket golf links:
Thai Muang
Phuket Country Club
Blue Canyon
Banyan Tree
Are they Muslim? I read somewhere that 30% of Phuket's population is Muslim, but with the exception of a couple of well-wrapped females I didn't see any evidence of this.
Yes, they are, as are most of the coastal Malays and Pattani Malay farmers of Southern Thailand. Except for the coastal Malays, I didn't see any Muslims in Phuket either, but I've read the same statistics, and they must be there somewhere. Probably fishing villages in non-tourist areas.
11022. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 8:28:01 AM
Irv
I was in a discussion over a beer a while ago whether most people in the world drive on the right or on the left. With the whole of the subcontinent on the left and most (or all?) of sub-Saharan Afric too, and Japan, China is the deciding factor.
11023. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 8:32:40 AM
The Independent on the Fiji coup.
11024. alistairconnor - 5/19/2000 9:15:02 AM
I seem to remember they drive on the right in China. Also, I would guess that Africa is about 50-50, as the French speaking countries presumably drive on the right.
The Fijian coup is pretty depressing. Mara, the president, has condemned it, as has Rabuka, the leader of the 1987 coup, but the other ethnic Fijian politicians all seem to be lining up to endorse it. It took them over 10 years to get back to democracy after that one, and here they go again. The army is remaining very passive - the commander is currently in Norway, which is probably not unrelated to the timing of the coup.
Mara is in an invidious position: his daughter is one of the cabinet ministers being held hostage.
The Indians are presumably keeping very quiet indeed. There is burning and looting in Suva.
11025. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 9:29:51 AM
The jitters return
The Economist on Indonesia's economy.
11026. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/19/2000 9:49:10 AM
I remember reading about one African country, which had decided to switch from driving on the left to driving on the right. The change, they announced, would be implemented gradually.
11027. alistairconnor - 5/19/2000 10:03:17 AM
Yeah, the rupiah collapses now, after all my Visa bills are in... Bad timing.
The anti-Chinese rioting is bad news indeed. Any idea who is behind it, Irving? I saw some news recently that the infamous Suharto son-in-law was heading back to Indonesia.
11028. marjoribanks - 5/19/2000 11:51:09 AM
The monsoons have arrived in Bombay. 
11029. marjoribanks - 5/19/2000 11:59:39 AM
The first monsoon rains are one of the most blessed events a human being can experience. As a child, I remember sitting listlessly in a crowded classroom in the sultry heat of the end of the hot season. The teacher droned on and on, and there were tests to be taken and homework to be handed in. Your shirt stuck to you, your deskmate and you surreptitiously sucked ice-lollies that you'd smuggled into class.
Then, suddenly, the sky would become overcast and with a massive thud and thunderclap the skies would open up and sheets of water would cascade down into the trees and the playground outside. As one, including the teacher, we'd instantly abandon whatever important task and agenda we had set for us and charge outside yelling with pleasure.
And the warm rain would envelop us, along with that delicious scent of parched earth restoring itself. Pulling off our shoes and socks, we'd abandon ourselves to a bacchanalia of running and splashing and screaming and jumping into puddles and chasing the frogs which appear miraculously all over. School would be out for the day, there was nothing the disapproving padres could do.
11030. marjoribanks - 5/19/2000 12:47:14 PM
< AHREF="http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/abroad/rg2000-03-01.htm" target="new">From this article:
" I began constructing an elaborate scheme to escape for three or four days. It was, I reasoned, a three-hour flight to Bombay. There I could hide out at a friend's apartment, preferably one with a balcony on which I might sit and watch and feel the rain, slowly drinking a beer and eating deliciously hot pakodas, those deep-fried savories whose soul comes to life only when it is raining hardest. I could wear shorts and an old shirt and rubber sandals and wade across the streets. I could jump and dodge to avoid being splashed by the big city buses that plough through the floods, never mind that I'd be soaked to the skin anyway. I could watch the tremendous waves that come out of the gray sea pound the bandstands and the breakwaters, while the sellers of bhuta -- the corn-on-the-cob smeared with a salty, spicy masala whose taste is unmistakably monsoon -- huddled under umbrellas. I could, I convinced myself, escape for just three days to Bombay and do all this. "
Obviously, my nostalgia for the monsoons in Bombay is shared...
11031. marjoribanks - 5/19/2000 12:48:11 PM
Sorry, the article is here.
11032. marjoribanks - 5/19/2000 1:02:00 PM
Best book I'veread on the topic: 'Chasing the Monsoon' by Alexander Frater. Really very entertaining and informative.
11033. RickNelson - 5/19/2000 1:55:27 PM
Kewl marj. You've added another dimension to enjoying, glorious rain.
11034. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 3:15:48 PM
marj
The first rains are really something. I remember from Yemen (which is also affected by the monsoon) that my wife and I used to go outside to get wet and to smell the rain.
Another thing. Your picture is too wide causing problems for at least one Motie (see Technical). You can control the width thus:
< img src="LocationOfPic" width=n> where n should not exceed 425. You don't need to worry about the height, It scales automatically.
11035. PelleNilsson - 5/19/2000 3:20:05 PM
Irv Message # 1026
Before WWII the Czechs drove on the left. The Germans changed that and according to Czechs they did it by issuing a proclamation: "As of such and such date all German military vehicles including tanks will drive on the right. You do as you want."
11036. wabbit - 5/19/2000 8:07:52 PM
Banks,
That photo makes lovely wallpaper, thank you (from MisunderstoodG also).
11037. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/19/2000 8:25:47 PM
Alistair:
The anti-Chinese rioting is bad news indeed. Any idea who is behind it, Irving?
Unlike similar situations during the Suharto era, the riot last Saturday wasn't instigated and was very short in duration (with damage to property, not people). In addition, it wasn't really targeted at Chinese, but appears that way only because it took place in the Chinese part of town. You can blame it on heavy-handed (and misdirected) police action.
What happened was the police decided to confiscate illegal bootleg VCDs. They targeted the traders in Chinatown, in front of the largest shopping center in that area. These traders are non-Chinese, and are scraping by making a marginal living off these bootleg products in these hard economic times. The products themselves are produced by Chinese businessmen (I know some of them) who make a large profit off them, while leaving the scraps for the traders who sell them.
When the police moved in, the traders got upset at losing their only means of earning money, and went on a rampage. Other desperate people joined in, blowing off steam at the prolonged economic crisis. There may have been an element of frustration at the fact that the real guilty parties (the ones making the bootleg VCDs) weren't targeted, though that hasn't been reported.
The riot didn't last very long, and, in a strange way, sort of cleared the air. I was in Jakarta last weekend when it happened, and there certainly wasn't the ominous atmosphere which has accompanied previous riots. Most public anger has been directed against the police, who screwed up. There has been a lot of passing the buck among the police the past few days, with everyone blaming someone else for the fiasco.
11038. PincherMartin - 5/20/2000 3:48:27 AM
Irv --
Thanks for the links. Banyan Tree is the golf course I played. I haven't played Thai Muang or Blue Canyon. Maybe next time I go to Phuket I will reserve a tee time at one of those golf courses. The photos of the Blue Canyon course that you linked to are beautiful.
How do the courses in Bali compare to the courses in Phuket?
The Chinese drive on the right hand side of the road; Hong Kongers drive on the left. What I can't figure out is why there is so much smuggling of stolen luxery cars from Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland. It seems like they wouldn't be of much use in the Mainland.
11039. robertjayb - 5/20/2000 4:50:21 PM
.
Fiji PM resigns and will be released - Fiji Radio
....Updated 4:16 PM ET May 20, 2000....
SUVA, May 21 (Reuters) - Fiji Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry has signed a letter of resignation and will soon be released by armed gunmen who have held him hostage since Friday, Fiji Radio said on Sunday.
"Chaudhry has signed his resignation letter, which will allow him home to his family," the radio said.
Three local reporters were allowed inside the parliament complex late on Saturday and said the prime minister had a bruised right eye after being beaten by his captors, led by businessman George Speight.
11040. stostosto - 5/20/2000 6:30:20 PM
Marj, I don't think you have ever told us about The Fighting Bulls of Goa
"These are bulls who are sure of their staying power and their ability to strike, who know how to hook viciously around and through the tough folds of skin on their opponent's necks, who know how to make the blood flow and weaken their foe, and who then plant their massive hooves into the red Goan soil and slash at the belly. These are the calculating warriors -- fewer and fewer are bred and fight nowadays -- and it still sends shivers down the spines of the old-timers when they hear of the steady-eyed fighting bulls of Goa."
11041. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/20/2000 6:59:56 PM
Pinch:
How do the courses in Bali compare to the courses in Phuket?
There are only four golf courses in Bali. Two of them (Nusa Dua and Nirwana -- the latter designed by Greg Norman) are of international standard, and are as nice as any I've ever played on. A third (Bedugul Handara) is up in the mountains, and offers a pleasant cool environment and a nice escape from the heat and hmidity, though it's nothing great as a golf course. The fourth, Sanur Bali Beach, is a nine hole course located minutes from where I live, and it sucks. All four courses are outrageously expensive, which is a major reason I rarely play in Bali.
Only one course has a decent website:
Nirwana Golf
The Chinese drive on the right hand side of the road; Hong Kongers drive on the left.
Are there any plans to switch Hong Kong to the other side of the road?
11042. ButterfieldSwire - 5/20/2000 8:03:48 PM
IrvingSnodgrass - "Are there any plans to switch Hong Kong to the other side of the road?" No . (Actually, I'm sure the CCP has some 50 year plan to incorporate Hong Kong into China [since their just the sort of Fu Manchu mofo's that don't take a dump without a 50 year plan] which probably covers details like switching the side of the {captialist} road HK'ers drive on).
I've heard that Denmark switched to the correct side in what should be stostosto's living memory.
11043. ButterfieldSwire - 5/20/2000 8:07:31 PM
Actually, the biggest adjustment to changing the side of the road people drive on has to be made by pedestrians. When crossing a road, you tend to look for oncoming traffic on the wrong side.
11044. arkymalarky - 5/20/2000 10:49:44 PM
Jürgen,
I hope you see this since you seem to be in sporadically, but I noticed you said you were in eastern Germany, and my brother has friends in eastern Germany who play bluegrass music. He played in Europe last summer with the group. This is their homepage:
Foxtower
11045. stostosto - 5/21/2000 8:28:48 AM
Butterfield #11042:
I've heard that Denmark switched to the correct side in what should be stostosto's living memory.It wasn't us, but the Swedes who previously drove on the left and who switched some time in the sixties. We talked about it some months ago, Pelle can give you details. I believe the transition was handled by Olof Palme who at the time was an up and coming politician with the brief of minister of traffic. The successfully managed transition further boosted his reputation.
11046. PincherMartin - 5/21/2000 9:50:02 AM
Irv --
Those photos of Nirwana GC look stunning. Is it a difficult course to play? If those 'shark tees' are championship length (in other words, what many courses in the states would call black), then it's a rather short course.
By the way, Phuket also has a Meridien Hotel just south of Ao Patong; it's one of the finest on the island.
11047. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/21/2000 10:04:48 AM
Pinch:
The Nirwana course plays pretty long, and is hard to score well on, since many greens have water on one or more sides, and long irons are aways a risk. It's a beautiful course, and is always a pleasure to play. For some strange reason, I've had some of my best drives ever on the course (I once cut a corner on a par 5 there, and had 70 yards to the green for my second shot), but I've never scored really well for a round. Nirwana is my second favorite course on the island, with the Bali Country Club at Nusa Dua being my favorite. I hope you can schedule a visit to Bali on one of your Asian trips. I'll personally give you a tour of Bali's golf courses.
11048. PincherMartin - 5/21/2000 10:14:57 AM
Sounds like a lot of fun. I was thinking of visiting Indonesia some time later this year.
11049. IrvingSnodgrass - 5/21/2000 10:34:48 AM
Pinch:
That would be great. If you're interested in Jakarta, too, I'd be happy to meet you there, where the golf is much better (and much cheaper). I'll drop you a line.
I haven't found a web site for my favorite course in Bali, but I did find this photo and description: 
This Robin Nelson and Rodney Wright design is located in the Nusa Dua area. The course plays uphill through tropical vegetation giving views of the Indian Ocean and distant volcanoes. There are creeks and waterfalls and canyons on this part of the course. Then you play through an area of tall coconut palms and then toward the beach and back again. The wind can be a factor on the 17th and 18th.
11050. PelleNilsson - 5/22/2000 6:22:08 AM
On a stupidity scale from zero to ten the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea must surely rank a 9+. Both countries are dirt poor. Ethiopia is threatened by famine. The war is conducted along WWI lines with trenches, artillery barrages and human wave assaults In recent battles, losses amounted to some 25,000.
Read more here.
11051. marjoribanks - 5/22/2000 11:27:17 AM
Here's partly why Germany wants to import Indian techies.
11052. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:33:06 AM
It looks like the coup attempt in Fiji is close to resolution. However the hostage crisis could drag on for a while, mainly because of the difficulty of finding a semi-honorable exit for the idiot coup leader, Speight.
The Council of Chiefs, which is more or less Fiji's Senate, has been deliberating for hours, and although no decision has been announced yet, it looks like they are backing the President and the constitution. Speight's last hopes are crumbling.
The probable outcome is that Prime Minister Chaudry will be replaced, by someone who is acceptable to both the Chiefs and Parliament. A multi-racial government will continue, in any case.
11053. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:47:01 AM
Here's a fairly long article which provides some background and does a lot to dispel a simple race-conflict view of the Fijian crisis.
Comment: Fijian nationalism and the current political crisis
By poet, mother, and former USP academic, Teresia Teaiwa, who is now Lecturer in Pacific Studies at Victoria University in Wellington, NZ.
The problem with Fijian nationalism is that there is no Fijian nation. There are Fijian provinces, and traditional Fijian confederacies, but the two military coups of 1987 and the current hostage crisis illustrate with disturbing insistence the erosion of indigenous Fijian social order and the fragmentation of indigenous Fijian leadership. The problem with prevailing analyses of the political situation in Fiji is the notion that the conflict is between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians. The “race” card is misleading and mischievous, and unfortunately, Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji ‘s first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister played right into it with his abrasive leadership style. But in the end, Chaudhry is not the problem and neither are the Indo-Fijian communities. Fiji ‘s problem is Fijian. Following the fortunes and misfortunes of the country ‘s three indigenous Prime Ministers--Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Dr. Timoci Bavadra, and Sitiveni Rabuka--we see the increasingly problematic configuration of indigenous leadership in the country. Ratu Mara ‘s leadership draws on the mana of his own chiefly title, Tui Nayau; his wife ‘s mana, (the Roko Tui Dreketi, from the confederacy of Burebasaga, is the highest chiefly title in the islands); and his close association with a tight elite cohort of European, part-European and Indo-Fijian business interests.
11054. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:47:37 AM
The problem with Fijian nationalism is that there is no Fijian nation. There are Fijian provinces, and traditional Fijian confederacies, but the two military coups of 1987 and the current hostage crisis illustrate with disturbing insistence the erosion of indigenous Fijian social order and the fragmentation of indigenous Fijian leadership. The problem with prevailing analyses of the political situation in Fiji is the notion that the conflict is between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians. The “race” card is misleading and mischievous, and unfortunately, Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji ‘s first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister played right into it with his abrasive leadership style. But in the end, Chaudhry is not the problem and neither are the Indo-Fijian communities. Fiji ‘s problem is Fijian. Following the fortunes and misfortunes of the country ‘s three indigenous Prime Ministers--Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Dr. Timoci Bavadra, and Sitiveni Rabuka--we see the increasingly problematic configuration of indigenous leadership in the country. Ratu Mara ‘s leadership draws on the mana of his own chiefly title, Tui Nayau; his wife ‘s mana, (the Roko Tui Dreketi, from the confederacy of Burebasaga, is the highest chiefly title in the islands); and his close association with a tight elite cohort of European, part-European and Indo-Fijian business interests.
11055. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:50:32 AM
(sorry for the repetition)
Ratu Mara‘s leadership, however, has alienated rival chiefs, proletarian and nationalist groups within his domain of Eastern Fiji, and has generated resentment in the Western provinces. The late Dr. Timoci Bavadra, Prime Minister in the predominantly Indo-Fijian Labour/National Federation Party coalition government, was consistently described in the media and literature as a “commoner” even though he came from a noble Fijian background in the chiefly village of Viseisei. The problem with Dr. Bavadra‘s political genealogy in 1987 was not so much his Labour ideology nor his “commoner” status, but the fact that significant and powerful sectors of indigenous Fijian society in the East-were not ready for a Fijian Prime Minister from a Western province.
Being both a “commoner” and national leader clearly was not a problem for Sitiveni Rabuka. In fact, a large part of Rabuka‘s popularity with indigenous Fijians is his “commoner” status. For indigenous Fijians Rabuka‘s mana comes from the interweaving of his traditional “bati” or warrior genealogy (in the Eastern province of Cakaudrove), his career in modern armed forces, his identification with and deployment of Christian/Methodist discourse, his staging of the two coups d‘etat in 1987, and the support he has consistently received from the Great Council of Chiefs. Rabuka has even gained political mileage out of his “human frailties”: sexual and financial indiscretions, as well as flip-flopping policy decisions have increased rather than diminished his appeal. Many indigenous Fijians identify with Rabuka much more easily than they can with the aristocratic Ratu Mara. Counterposed in this way against the elder statesman of Fiji, Rabuka developed his own ethos of popularism and “can-do” capitalism exemplified by the National Bank of Fiji debacle. During his Prime Ministership, a brash nouveau riche elite of “indigenous” Fijians developed and thrived.
11056. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:51:00 AM
George Speight is a good representative of this group, but an even better example is his mentor and benefactor Jim Ah Koy: both illustrate a new opportunism in regards to identity politics in Fiji. A “general elector” MP in the 1970s, Chinese/Fijian Ah Koy was sent into political coventry by Ratu Mara for insubordination. Concentrating his energies in business during the 1980s, Ah Koy ‘s phenomenal success became worthy of a Horatio Alger story. In the first post-coup election of 1992, however, Ah Koy re-emerged as a political candidate, this time on the indigenous Fijian electoral roll. Although his eligibility to stand as a Fijian was challenged by other indigenous Fijians, Ah Koy won his case in court, and has represented his maternal constituency of Kadavu in parliament ever since. Like Ah Koy, George Speight ‘s father, a “part-European” and former general elector named Sam Speight, became a “born again Fijian” in the post-coup era. Sam Speight legally changed his name to Savenaca Tokainavo, winning an indigenous Fijian electoral seat in parliament in the 1992 and subsequent elections.
In Fiji ‘s disconcertingly racialized electoral system (comprising three electoral rolls Fijian, Indian, and General) general voters have historically aligned themselves with indigenous Fijian chiefly interests. The category of general voters covers Fiji ‘s multitude of ethnic minority communities: Banabans, Chinese, Europeans, Gilbertese, “part-Europeans”, Samoans, Solomon Islanders, Tongans, and Tuvaluans. “Part-Europeans” form the largest and most influential group of general voters and in the post-coup era have shifted away from their historical identification with colonial European privilege towards a reclamation of their “part-Fijian” or vasu-i-taukei roots. This shift in “part-European” identification reflects a recognition of the contemporary realities of political power in Fiji: indigenous Fijians rule.
11057. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:53:24 AM
George Speight claims to represent indigenous Fijian interests. Sporting his European name, speaking exclusively in English, drawing on his Australian and American degrees in business for mana, and wearing his designer clothes, Speight does indeed represent indigenous Fijian interests. But Speight ‘s indigenous Fijian interests are clearly neither the indigenous Fijian interests of Ratu Mara nor those of the late Dr. Bavadra. Speight ‘s version of indigenous Fijian interests probably coincides in many areas with Rabuka ‘s version of indigenous Fijian interests. But the men Speight has surrounded himself with also represent a changing of the guard from Rabuka ‘s Queen Victoria School Old Boys network to an unlikely coalition of relatively young “old boys” from Marist Brothers High School (Ratu Mara ‘s alma mater) and Suva Grammar School.
And what of Speight et al ‘s relationship with the marching/looting masses who were so inspired by the illegal actions in the House of Parliament on Friday 19 May 2000? It is a relationship of convenience: Speight has about as much respect for the 1997 constitution he once congratulated Professor Brij Lal on, as he does for the indigenous marama in sulu and jaba helping herself to bales of cloth through the shattered window of a Waimanu Road store. The march was organized by church and Taukei Movement leaders, and though the looting may not have been planned they certainly enabled it. Looting has become an ominous feature of recent indigenous Fijian responses to crisis: during the floods of 1998, at the tragic crash site of flight PC 121 in 1999, and now in the streets of Suva ”the millenium city”. The image of a humble, God-fearing, dignified and hospitable people marketed by the Fiji Visitors Bureau is chillingly contraverted.
11058. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 3:54:01 AM
The chiefs and church ministers stir their people but the simple truth is they do not control them: a group of alert and ambitious businessmen has used this feature of Fijian leadership to its advantage. Indigenous Fijians rule, but indigenous Fijians are not united.
This puts the past 12 months of the Mahendra Chaudhry Labour Coalition government ‘s rule in perspective. The government has survived this long because of the backing of Ratu Mara. The government is in crisis right now because other indigenous Fijian groups are challenging Ratu Mara ‘s authority. Rabuka has recently acknowledged this: the real struggle is amongst indigenous Fijians, and it is continually masked by the rhetoric of a racial conflict between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians. The impoverishment and disaffection of indigenous Fijians is not a result of 12 months of leadership by an Indo-Fijian. It is the result of thirty fraught years of modern indigenous Fijian leadership that have sacrificed the economic and cultural well-being of a people for the advancement of a few. Speight ‘s ignominious entry into the national and international limelight is but a symptom of the complex contradictions and competing interests facing indigenous Fijian society today.
George Speight has not only kidnapped a democratically elected Prime Minister and his cabinet; he has taken hostage much of the hope and potential Fiji had at the turn of the century to become a nation united. And when the present crisis at Fiji ‘s House of Parliament in Nasese passes, as it inevitably will, the question will remain: what is Fijian nationalism when there is no nation?
--22 May, 2000
11059. PelleNilsson - 5/23/2000 6:20:19 AM
Very, very interesting, alistair. Nothing is as simple as it looks at first sight or from a distance.
11060. RickNelson - 5/23/2000 7:49:38 AM
Alistair,
Did a Reagan economic advisor settle in Fiji?
Trickle down economic selfishness appears to be in action in Fiji.
I hope in spite of Speight that this Fijian crisis creates a broader interest of Fijian people concerned with their political and economic governing.
When things appear slow in here, I have some information about Sarawakian NCR land policy and the people to let go of.
11061. MrSocko - 5/23/2000 7:54:02 AM
I must say, this Speight chap in Fiji is an awful oaf -- vain, dim, bad sunglasses, the whole bit. My only prayer is that nobody has mentioned his existence to marjoribanks, who I suppose will immediately see him as a brave anticolonial force fighting on behalf of the toiling masses who push and plead.
(Mind you, given that the Speight oaf hates Indians I suppose our friend might take a more sensible view of the Fijian antics.)
11062. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 8:03:58 AM
Let me guess : you've been hiding up a tree in Fiji?
11063. uzmakk - 5/23/2000 8:44:52 AM
Hello, Mr. Socko. It is truly a pleasure to read you again.
11064. alistairconnor - 5/23/2000 9:23:19 AM
Rick,
More likely the bad influence of big brothers New Zealand and Australia, with their extreme-liberal approach of recent years.
Looks like Speight was a last-minute ring-in as coup leader - he certainly seemed a bit of a lightweight to me. The real boss is Colonel Ilisoni Ligairi, formerly in charge of Fiji's disturbingly named Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit, and formerly of the British SAS.
11065. marjoribanks - 5/23/2000 2:39:16 PM
Psocko, you scalliwag, have you noted that your pin-up boy, Ian Smith, had his farm invaded in Zimbabwe and made some muted conciliatory noises?
11066. RickNelson - 5/24/2000 7:28:49 AM
alistair, your quip of MrSocko has me in a grin. And wrt Fiji, you're article find is quite good for me. Also your mention of the outside "big brothers" does some explaining, along with the crony colonel.
It is good to see your moniker again Mr.Socko. I have been one of many I believe, who are interested in what came of the latest look into computing in S.E.A.? Perhaps it was across the whole of South Asia and I missed that, but interest is true.
11067. RickNelson - 5/24/2000 8:06:11 AM
NCR land in Sarawak will continue shifting in ownership, away from the rightful holder of the land, and into the hands of the government, ministers, small and big speculators and of course the powerful and rich.
The current blathering of Taib, Mahatir's crony in Sarawak, along with the myriad of ministers, who have eyes to see the riches that await their manipulations, have tabled an amendment and left it tabled. They will again, blah, blah, blah the people as to the great progress being made to create a fair and just governmental watch, committee designed to ensure the proper and fair handling of NCR land.
Have mercy upon me for caring. This is an area of life where the cycle of the native culture is sacrificed for progress. How long has this been occuring? The last millenium saw it throughout the Americas. Now, and it's not that new, it's Asias turn.
The Penan policy is touted and seen as success. Taking this, last and only nomadic culture in S.E.A. out of the forest and settling them. Forcing them to find an area and make it a home. I pray it's near a track that is to be set aside in reserve, so they may continue parts of their culture. Perhaps like some few lucky tribes in the U.S. have been able to maintain their culture on traditional land, now their reservation. The Penan will have no rights to land nor payments for the vast tracts they roamed and must give up. They will be expected to pay for the governments service in home building and land clearing for their wonderful new home.
The Long House folk will suffer most dearly and pay through the nose, proven by the Bakun Dam example/fiasco.
11068. RickNelson - 5/24/2000 8:06:46 AM
The thought is to look at photos from 1953 and after which show cultivation. It seems that year a vast arial survey was completed. This and face to face accounts and histories, along with backing or disputes of leaders, and looking at what has been recently and currently cultivated and held with fruiting trees will determine ownership of land. Fallow land may be taken by the government.
In a Swidden cultivation culture, fallow land is a must. So the theft of land held fallow will be a bitter pill. Oh, and taxing for the much touted new infrastructure is not far behind. Own the land, pay for government services.
Anyway, the government in all its wisdom again holds the cards, again makes grand words and gestures its message. Praising itself for inspired and faithful service, yet pouring out empty jargon and empty promises. The committees and processes commited to establishing the NCR land rights now being looked at again, with the motive being to expand their operations and procedures. Making for a bigger bureaucracy the likes of which repeatedly shows slowness and corruption.
I look upon Taib as the long lasting legacy of deceit to the people and padding his pockets with the money of lieing and theft. He and all of the ministers, committees and departments, set upon the mission of service to the government and the rich palm oil plantation speculators instead of to the people. Hailing this progress as what the native cultures need to bring them into the future of Malaysia.
Sure, the inevitable progress, but, what would hurt to have it occur in the peoples way and not shoved down their throats!
1 million "new" hectares are now the goal for palm oil in Sarawak by 2010.
11069. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 10:31:57 AM
Hokay, a while ago I recommended (before reading it) Michael Ondaatje's new novel, a work on Sri Lanka called 'Anil's Ghost.' I anticipated it would be his usual crystalline prose with some interesting insights/evocations of the ongoing Sri Lanka crisis. That it is, but not nearly as focussed as I'd like. rather, it explores the daily horrors without really making any sense of the maelstrom of Sri Lankan violence. The characters are keenly drawn, but blame me for high expectations - the work eventually left me less than satisfied.
On the other hand, with considerably lower expectations, I also picked up Shyam Selvadurai's new book on Sri Lanka - 'Cinnamon Gardens'. And this one really enaged me. It deals with lighter material than Ondaatje's book, relations within an upper class family in 20's Sri Lanka. But politics is never far from the surface, both the obvious kind and gened, class and sexual politics. never even remotely heavy-handed though. The author wrote the absolutely class gay SL coming-of-age story 'Funny Boy' a few years ago and this book is a very worthy follow-up. It reads like a Jane Austen work set in the lush tropics. I recommend it highly.
11070. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 10:33:01 AM
'gened' should be gender.
11071. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 10:36:42 AM
BookList review:
The evocative title comes from the name of a suburb of Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), in 1927. This world, of Tamil Christians and Hindus, of heated discussions over self-rule and suffrage, of class divisions and control, and of the place of women, is both wildly exotic and oddly modern. Selvadurai has written an almost Victorian novel, with the lives of his characters intertwined and interrelated, rich with the heat and scent of British colonial overlay on an ancient society. He has tied together the bloodlines and relations of the two main characters: Annalukshmi, who at 22 has qualified as a teacher despite the strong objections of her well-placed family, and her uncle Balendran, who suffers under his father's heavy and powerful hand and who struggles with the love that dare not speak its name. When Balendran's first love, a man named Richard whom he has not seen in 20 years, arrives from England to study Ceylon's political situation, a delicate and bittersweet reunion rings a chord of romance and longing that echoes throughout the story. Meanwhile, Annalukshmi takes strength from her studies, her reading, and her growing insights into the choices made by her school headmistress and her mother, sisters, and friends, to extricate herself from the compromises of marriage. Uncle's and niece's paths cross naturally in the telling of their tales. Wry references to love, always in terms of fever or illness, grace notes of description for a lock of hair or the fold of a sari, and elegant chapter headings taken from the Tirukkural, the famed work of Tamil philosophy, add to the ambience generated by this beguiling novel.
11072. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 10:41:00 AM
Sto,
I read that article on the fighting bulls of Goa a while ago. It's pretty funny and accurate. Any reason you picked that particular passage to quote?
The funniest thing about the fighting bulls is their names. Rambo and The Terminator clones abound. I once saw a battle between Hero #1 and Salcette Shaitan (devil). Hero#1 ran away in ignominy.
11073. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 10:48:57 AM
In the end, they just skulked away. But can the war really be over?"
Another searing article from Robert Fisk in Lebanon. This time, on the Israeli withdrawal from the "buffer zone" in the South of that country. Hey Pike, any comments?
11074. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 10:51:01 AM
Surreal scene continues in Fiji. From the Independent:
"The country, in limbo since a state of emergency was declared last Friday, is hanging on the result of a conference of the Great Council of Chiefs. The meeting, at the Queen Victoria Army Barracks in the Suva suburb of Nabua, was meant to start and finish yesterday, but the chiefs - who represent the villages and provinces of the South Pacific island nation - will not be hurried. At dusk they adjourned, gliding away in gleaming white four-wheel-drives.
In an interim resolution conveyed by Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka, chairman of the Great Council, they stated that while they did not approve of Mr Speight's methods, "they have a lot of sympathy for the views expressed by his followers". That was sufficiently ambivalent to enable Mr Speight to claim he was confident ofreceiving wholehearted endorsement today.
The position inside the compound is increasingly surreal. As Mr Chaudhry and the other hostages sweat it out in an upstairs room, thoughts of death no doubt never far from their minds, supporters of Mr Speight roasted pigs in underground ovens in the ornamental shrubberies and washed down their meal with quantities of cava, a traditional brew.
About 1,000 indigenous Fijians - who back the attempt to depose Mr Chaudhry, the country's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister - have taken up residence in the parliamentary grounds. Mr Speight's defiant words at last night's open-air press conference were almost drowned out by snores emanating from the bushes as well as by the chirping of cicadas."
11075. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 11:09:49 AM
I've long been a critic of the NYTimes foreign coverage in this forum. They're rotten, biased, sensationalist, shallow: everything you wouldn't want from a "newspaper of record." I've even established a competetion - whenever they publish a lengthy article on India, I've a running bet with a colleague that I can identify at least one factual error. So far, I've never lost.
However, they do occasionally come up with something worthwhile. I no longer subscribe to the print edition. But lengthy web special is well worth reading. It's on diamonds in Africa, and how mining and selling them fuels the most awful events. In many ways, diamond wealth has been a curse to the common people who live in areas where it is a fact.
11076. Jürgen Huber - 5/24/2000 1:16:09 PM
arkymalarky,
that's a snazzy website the bluegrass friends of your brother have got! I do live in East Germany, to be precise in the part of Berlin that used to be Westberlin, that capitalist island in the socialist sea.
11077. PelleNilsson - 5/24/2000 4:39:52 PM
Germany has not been cured of the derailment that Nazism represented in its history.
It has a conception of the nation that is that of the Volk, that is, an ethnic conception.
Germany still dreams of the Holy Roman Empire.
From a TV interview with French interior minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement.
He has partially retracted but what has been said cannot be unsaid.
11078. PelleNilsson - 5/24/2000 4:46:30 PM
I forgot to link the IHT article. Sorry.
11079. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 4:57:27 PM
MarjoriBanks,
I just moved down the street from one of the more famous scenes from an Ondaatje novel. In the book, In the Skin of a Lion, there is an improbable (but quite beautifully rendered) scene in which a construction worker (Caravaggio???) saves a nun who has just made a suicide leap from the bridge that he is helping to build. I now live about one-quarter mile from that bridge, which is in fact a hot spot for suicides.
Just some useless information. Back to your ordinarily scheduled programming.
11080. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 4:59:10 PM
The reviews of Anil's Ghost have been mixed, but I am tempted to give it a read. Updike's review in The New Yorker was odd. Did anyone read it? It was impossible to tell what he actually thought of the book.
11081. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 5:06:52 PM
I like that Ondaatje book a lot, TJ. That part, particularly.
You know, Selvadurai (hyped above) also lives in Toronto, so do several other top subcon writers. In some ways,it'sthe biggest hotbed for subcon writing outside the region itself.
11082. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 5:08:13 PM
Oh yeah, 'Anil's Ghost' is very good, don't get me wrong. It just didn't quite meet my expectations for it. Read 'Running in the Family' (Ondaatje's brief family memoir) first, I'd say.
11083. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 5:13:28 PM
Running in the Family is wonderful, by far the best Ondaatje that I have read. I may check out the Selvadurai book. Another interesting subcon author living in the Toronto area is Rohinton Mistry. Mistry actually lives in the suburb that I fled a decade ago, and I am hoping that he will write about it in the future (despite the fact that it is a dreadfully boring place).
11084. arkymalarky - 5/24/2000 5:16:45 PM
Jürgen,
I'm glad you caught my post. At least one of the musicians is from Jena. The first time my brother went to East Germany is when he met them. Some American had set up a tour with some very bad country music in the early 80s before the Eastern Bloc became independent, and had hired my brother and some of his musician-friends to play. They toured quite a few places in Hungary and East Germany, and my brother got to go through the Berlin Wall at night. The crowds they played for were huge, up to 10,000. He's been a couple of times since, playing with Foxtower, and they've been to the US. Last summer a man in the audience in Germany came up and handed my brother a tape of that first tour years ago. My brother was amazed, and the sound quality was actually pretty good.
11085. marjoribanks - 5/24/2000 5:17:06 PM
TJ,
The first Mistry book (sold here as 'Swimming Lessons') ends with one short-story (maybe two) on Canada. It may be of the suburb you're referring to. Most subcons I know wind up in Missassauga, is that the same one?
11086. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 5:31:04 PM
Marjori,
The short story collection that includes Swimming Lessons is sold here as Tales from Firosha Baag (Sp.???). I have read that collection, and remember that it contains two stories about Downsview, another suburb of Toronto.
Mississauga (sometimes known as Misery-sauga to many who have lived there) has a very large subcon population. However, Mistry has lived in Brampton (the next suburb West) for about a decade now. brampton has a very large and varied subcon population, but not quite as large as that in Mississauga. There is a portion of Brampton known as Bramalea that is close to 50% subcon. It is euphemistically known as Bramladesh; which exhibits the same sort of brain dead logic that leads to the widespread use of the racist word "Packie" to refer to all subcons. Such racism, as well as Canada's official multi-culturalism policy, make me wish that Mistry will turn his pen to describing his life in Brampton.
11087. LadyChaos - 5/24/2000 10:55:20 PM
Pictures like this make me miss Spring in Prague something awful. 
11088. LadyChaos - 5/24/2000 11:04:54 PM
Those spires mark the castle where spouse and I were married. 
11089. LadyChaos - 5/24/2000 11:21:58 PM
It's not a terribly good composition, but this is a Frank Gheary building that went up while I was there. 
11090. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 11:24:07 PM
That is known as known as the "Fred and Ginger" building, is it not?
11091. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 11:25:34 PM
At least that is what Gehry fans usually call that particular building.
11092. LadyChaos - 5/24/2000 11:31:52 PM
Tabouli,
"Fred and Ginger" it is. It's built on a lot that was owned by the Havel family. The original building was destroyed in the accidental bombing on St. Valentine's Day, 1945, when some American bombers went astray and mistook Prague for Dresden. Little Vaclav Havel was playing in the building next door (where he still resides) when the bombing occurred. He donated the lot and, I believe, was influential in selecting Gehry for the design.
If you were to go up the street to the left about half a block, you would come to the Orthodox cathedral where the assassins of Heydrich were caught and trapped by the Germans.
11093. TabouliJones - 5/24/2000 11:41:35 PM
Such a bold design for such a historic block of buildings. I would love to see it up close and personal. One day, perhaps.
11094. spudboy - 5/25/2000 12:03:49 AM
Interesing note: Gehry's latest creation, the Experience Music Project, is about to open in Seattle. I couldn't find any images that do it justice, though this page gives you a rough idea. (There's also a Webcam at the EMP Web site, but unfortunately, since it's now near completion, it is currently being wrapped up.)
At any rate, it's a very very strange building. Mrs. Spuds hates it. I think it's incredible.
11095. LadyChaos - 5/25/2000 12:09:36 AM
The Fred & Ginger building is notable for its fluid lines, but I found myself put off by the bare concrete surface. It begs for color of some sort. It seems to want art deco hues, but that might be the Miami influence talking ;-)
11096. TabouliJones - 5/25/2000 12:17:17 AM
LadyChaos,
Gehry's designs are certainly more palatable when clad in Titanium or some other metal. It (apparently) adds to the fluidity and makes for a more interesting viewing experience (given the play of light on metal).
Spud,
I like much of Gehry's work, but I find his design for the Experience Music Project to be off-putting (to put it politely).
11097. spudboy - 5/25/2000 12:21:30 AM
TJ:
I was extremely skeptic