Month: July 2010

by KELLY ZEN-YIE TSAI

everything is autobiography

a play, an album, a critical
essay, a magazine article,
a poem, a song, a mural

everything is autobiography

a small business plan,
a marketing campaign,
a novel, a screenplay

everything is autobiography

the writer cannibalizes life:
poos it out like an owl pellet,
reconfigures mouse fur, dried
seed, slender bird bones

the history of the writer’s digestion
is in this nugget, cut away the layers
for the gruesome childhood trauma,
the unaired grievance

the wound that never healed
nor revealed
where its initiating strike
came from

Kelly Tsai can be reached at kz_at_yellowgurl_dot_com; her website is Yellow Gurl

by Gitonga Njeru

“One-third of the people in Africa live in drought-prone areas and are vulnerable to the impacts of droughts,” predicted the World Water Forum in 2000.

…

Human contact with polluted water often includes wide exposures to bacteria, viruses and parasites as well as chemical contaminants. The list of dangerous waterborne pathogens is long and extensive. Human and animal waste in water is the most common contaminate. In industrial regions, chemical contaminants are also an ongoing contributor to pollutants.

Women News Network for more

by BELEN FERNANDEZ

Stewart dedicated her life to providing controversial and unpopular clients legal representation. She was often overworked, underpaid and sometimes not paid at all. She has made many enemies, perhaps none as powerful and influential as former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who laid the initial charges against her. Even while living a life full of struggle, Stewart extended her compassion to all human beings, including Abdel-Rahman (known as the “blind sheik”), whose extreme state of forced isolation compelled her to commit an act that she may pay with her life for.

Those who wish to discredit Stewart associate her with the charges laid against her clients while ignoring the fact that it is lawyers like her who keep the merits of the American legal system alive. Stewart’s case may indeed serve as a warning as Goodwin hopes. There is already a deficit of attorneys who are willing to represent those labeled as ‘terrorists’ for fear that they may also be targeted in the process. What is truly frightening, however, is the fact that the other warning that Stewart’s case provides about the degradation of the right to proper legal counsel in the US may be ignored until it is too late.

Pulse Media for more

by ADELAY CARIAS

I was born in the time of dictators and coups (1975), but I don’t remember the stories they told me about those days, when the country woke up one morning to find itself occupied and the television and radio stations announced that the military had taken power (again). Even so, I felt an enormous, dull fear when I saw the warplanes circling above; doubtless, there is a historical, collective, subterranean memory that goes beyond what we have experienced as individuals.

Immediately, I turned on the television to see the news, to find out what was happening. I saw unbelievable images… the presidential palace taken by the army, the news that Mel Zelaya had been kidnapped and taken to Costa Rica, and that Roberto Micheletti, who was then president of the National Congress, had assumed the presidency. Fifteen minutes later the electricity went out and the broadcast of shocking events and images ended abruptly. At a loss for what to do, I called my feminist friends, asking: What do we do?

Americas Program for more

Link

by YIFAT SUSSKIND

The shy 14-year-old was not sure how many people she had killed. “When it was my turn to shoot someone, I always hid my face because I was afraid.” Julia (not her real name) is one of thousands of children in Colombia who have been recruited for combat in a decades-long war.

Her story is tragically typical. Years ago, Julia’s family fled their home in the countryside when her father was accused of betraying the local guerrilla commander. Like so many displaced people, Julia’s family ended up in one of Bogotá’s sprawling and dangerous shanty towns.

Z Net for more

by MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

I AM SURPRISED but astounded, for Shah Mehmood, as I have known him all these years, is, on the face of it, just about the best Pakistani Foreign Minister an Indian could hope for. He hails from the most distinguished spiritual family of the Multan region of southern Pakistani Punjab. As his honorific “Makhdoom” indicates, he will be the Pir one day in succession to his father. He has the closest ties of family and kinship with Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani, who hails from the same region and is also the designated inheritor of his father’s spiritual Pirship. Qureshi’s political credentials are impeccable. He never wavered in his commitment to the PPP, and was, along with his fellow Pir, Amin Fahim of Hala (who really should have been Pakistan’s Prime Minister but is now no more than Asif Zardari’s Commerce Minister), one of Benazir’s most trusted and faithful followers. Wealthy beyond the fondest imaginings of any Indian zamindar. Suave. Highly educated (even if his degree is from Oxford), beautifully dressed at all times, extremely well-mannered and highly sophisticated in language and expression (particularly in English, perhaps less so in Urdu — is that because his mother tongue is Serhaiki?). I would have wanted Qureshi as my counterpart, had I been able to make it to our own External Affairs Ministry.

Tehelka for more

(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)

By NATALYA KRAINOVA

On the surface, there is nothing surprising about the Orthodox church reaching out to young people. Many Christian denominations in Western countries have their own youth groups, and in 1991 the Russian church itself created the All-Russia Youth Orthodox Movement, an understaffed organization that works mainly with children and early teens.

What makes the new youth groups stand out is their planned promotion of a blend of religion, anti-Western philosophy, politics and patriotism — values that will be passed on by youth leaders like Batrakov, who is among 100 people who signed up for a two-month crash course on Orthodox youth leadership in Moscow that started in May. Church representatives said the number of such leaders might reach into the thousands.

Moscow Times for more

by JESSICA E. SARACEN

In northern Peru, archaeologists have uncovered what they say is a ceremonial hall decorated with murals where the Moche carried out the ritual killings of prisoners of war.

A long-term occupation site on the eastern shores of Lake Huron has yielded everything from stone tools to copper trade items from the nineteenth century. Dog burials have been found, so there may also be human burials.

The upper-right jawbone of a dog unearthed in Swiss cave in 1873 has been radiocarbon dated to between 14,100 and 14,600 years ago. “The Kesslerloch find clearly supports the idea that the dog was an established domestic animal at that time in central Europe,” said Hans-Peter Uerpmann of the University of Tubingen. Other scientists disagree—some think that dogs were domesticated much earlier, and others that the Kesslerloch fossil represents an “incipient dog.”

A new organic molecule may be the culprit behind the blue sheen covering stone tools and other artifacts housed in an old armory in Verona, Italy, according to Gilberto Artioli of the University of Padua.

Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University thinks that the circular structure discovered near Stonehenge is more likely to be a barrow, or tomb, rather than the remains of a wooden henge.

Archaeology for more

by BEENA SARWAR

The good news at the end of the much hyped-up meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and India was that the two countries will continue the dialogue. The bad news was that none of the gains that had been expected were in sight – easing of visa restrictions (which would benefit ordinary people from both countries as well as boost local economies), forward movement on Kashmir (Pakistan’s hope/expectation), a commitment from Pakistan on ‘terror’ (India’s hope/expectation) to name some.

Aman ki Asha for more

(Thanks to Pritam Rohila)