Month: June 2010

by JOHN SUTHERLAND

Does a writer’s carnal experience matter? D H Lawrence, the most unzipped of British novelists, believed it did. His chauvinist sneer at Austen as a ‘narrow-gutted spinster’ indicates that some rumpy-humpy would have done wonders for her fiction.

Of Forster, Lawrence told Bertrand Russell: ‘Morgan sucks his dummy – you know, those child’s comforters – long after his age.’ He should, one deduces, have graduated to his grown-up sucking earlier, for the good of English Literature.

Literary Review for more

via 3 Quarks Daily

by ANJLI RAVAL

The intense pressure to get near 100 per cent in examinations throughout secondary school, university and entrance tests for postgraduate studies is cited as one of the reasons behind India’s suicide figures for young people. The National Crime Records Bureau notes that out of every three cases of suicide reported every 15 minutes in India, one involves a youth in the 15-29 age group. In 2008, the most recent year for which official figures are available, 2,730 students committed suicide, due to failed examinations. Police say that thousands more exam-related suicides go unreported because of fear of shame on the family.

Financial Times for more

PHYSORG

The study suggests that cognitive demands—how much brainpower is needed for a particular task—may determine whether neurons in the prefrontal cortex “multitask” or stick to specialized categories.

“This ability to ‘multitask’ allows the brain to re-utilize the same pool of neurons for different tasks. Without it, storage capacity for critical thought might be severely limited,” Miller said. The work could lead to a better understanding of disorders such as autism and schizophrenia in which individuals become overwhelmed by individual stimuli. For instance, a person with autism, when asked to picture a dog, may be flooded with dozens of mental images of all the canines he had ever seen.

PHYSORG for more

(Dunya TV’s report is about a slaughterhouse in Lahore, Pakistan–there are many throughout the country–where they use dogs, rats, donkeys, and other animals to make oil and ghee/clarified butter. Even trashed bones from outside the restaurants are utilized for the same purpose. The food items prepared with these oil and ghee are also exported to other countries. Ed.)

Link

(Submitted by reader)

DAVID ABDULLAH

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar PHOTO/Trinidad and Tobago News Blog

For the first time in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, a female, in the person of Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar has become the Prime Minister. Mrs. Persad-Bissessar only in January won the leadership of her party, the United National Congress, in an internal, one-member, one vote election. She defeated that party’s founder and leader, Mr. Basdeo Panday by a huge 10-1 margin. By leading the People’s Partnership into government she also resoundingly defeated the other long standing political figure in the country – Mr. Patrick Manning, leader of the PNM. Both Panday and Manning were symbolic of the old politics of maximum leaders and dividing the people along ethnic lines in order to win elections.

ALAI for more

THE ECONOMIST

“The chances of another coup in Bangladesh are close to zero,” says a former general in Bangladesh’s army. That sounds excellent. But the country’s “rival queens”—Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, and Khaleda Zia, who were both jailed during an anti-corruption drive by an army-backed government in 2007-08—seem to see the soldiers’ docility as an opportunity. The result is that, 18 months after Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) won a parliamentary election in a landslide, Bangladesh’s politics is back to normal: personal, vindictive and confrontational.

The Economist for more

(Submitted by Robin Khundkar)

WOMEN LIVING UNDER MUSLIM LAWS

Iranian prisoner of conscience, Shiva Nazar Ahari, spent her 26th birthday, on Thursday 10 June, in Evin Prison. Staff at the head office of Amnesty International in London wanted to wish her ‘happy birthday’ and call for her release. So we gathered, with cakes, to remembeer Shiva.

Women Living Under Muslim Laws for more

by JAMES RISEN

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

The New York Times for more

(Submitted by reader)

INTELLIGENT LIFE

Barbara met Norman Mailer the next year. He was passing through Arkansas, and she wrangled an invitation to a cocktail party held in his honour. Norman was, at 52, twice her age. He was also married to one woman, living with another, having a serious affair with a third, and leaving the next morning. “So we did it on the living room floor,” she writes. Within a year, Barbara moved to New York. She signed with a modelling agency and changed her name to Norris Church—a combination of her first husband’s last name and a nod to the Baptists.

Intelligent Life for more

ALEX PAREENE

Yes, Thomas Friedman, friend to Turkey, places “humanitarian” in scare quotes. But there is his diagnosis: the sides are “out of balance.” Back to the center with you two! Everyone has to get back to the Thomas Friedman-defined “center!”

(Thomas Friedman knows how to solve this problem in the Gulf of Mexico, too: the oil must get back to the center of the pipe.)

“I have long had a soft spot for Turkey,” Friedman then says. Because “Turkey’s role” is “one of the critical pivot points that helps keep the world stable.” So… I guess traders calculate Turkey’s role to decide if they are bullish or bearish on world stability, then? That is, I think, what that means.

Slate for more

via 3 Quarks Daily