New things crop up all the time as I search. In searching on robotics, the notion of Artificial General Intelligence and The Singularity cropped up.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Lego Mindstorms interest dawning
My 8 year old thinks that Lego Mindstorms robots are something special and in looking into them, I found out about First Lego League teams and tournaments. FLL teams are a kind of "little league of science" and I am getting pretty interested myself.
Found a lot of info and I'm thinking of ordering either a retail set or an education set, and getting a few neighborhood kids together t o start a team.
Found a lot of info and I'm thinking of ordering either a retail set or an education set, and getting a few neighborhood kids together t o start a team.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Digesting the research about Darfur
My recent focus has fallen on Darfur, but this continues a lifelong theme of focusing on Africa in general. Being African-American and having been to Africa a couple of times, I am interested in the myriad of people there, in my possible ancestry and affinity to those people. I don't know where any ancestors I had might have lived so my connection is general. However, last week when I heard about Ira Newble (of the Cleveland Cavaliers) and his open letter to China about it's involvement in Sudan's oil industry, it suddenly seemed very important to understand something about the situation and become informed. I admire Newble's social consciousness, which stands in stark contrast to other athlete's silence and apparent deafness to social issues.
I'm tackling the effort one day at a time and trying to stay open minded but it's not easy. For one thing, I'm trying to dispel in myself a reluctance to confront a very real, very tragic situation. I don't like the bad news of folks experiencing hell on earth and there is a part of me that wants to continue to bury my head in the sand. But I can no longer, in good conscience, ignore what is getting increased media attention. The democrats commented about it the other night during the debate. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0342349720070604 A brief session with Google with Darfur as a search topic reveals so many blogs, so many focused on commenting, many focused on helping in some way, or protesting in some way. It is becoming a hot issue and rightly so.
And late, by the way; I feel really late. A 2004 Washington Post article was very clear about China's investment in Sudan's oil industry and it's role in supplying arms to the government which are used on villagers, labeled rebels, as the government clears the land. [Reading that Post article, I am reminded of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple and the letters from Nettie in Africa. Nettie wrote about a road that approached the village being built directly through the center of it, destroying several houses in the process. The chief went to protest to discover that the tribe now had to pay rent to live on the land, and in addition had to pay a water tax to use their wells. ]
Sudan is China's largest overseas oil project. China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms. China also invests in Iran's oil industry and pursuing oil ties to Angola.
That's a can of worms because China has been likened to a neo-colonial power in Africa, bringing in money so that they can secure their energy future through the oil fields of Africa, and in return get to call the shots similar to the way the white man owned villages in Africa and sat in goverment cabinets after official colonial times were over. Is this true?
China defends its role in Africa ahead of G8
By Ben Blanchard
June 4, 2007
BEIJING (Reuters) - China sought to defend its role in Africa on Monday ahead of this week's G8 summit, saying its long friendship with the continent was a force for good and shrugging off the threat of criticism at the meeting in Germany.read more at http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/06/04/china_defends_its_role_in_africa_ahead_of_g8/
Darfur: Forget Genocide, There's Oil
By F William Engdahl *Asia Times Online May 25, 2007
To paraphrase the famous quip during the 1992 US presidential debates, when an unknown William Jefferson Clinton told then-president George Herbert Walker Bush, "It's the economy, stupid," the present concern of the current Washington administration over Darfur in southern Sudan is not, if we look closely, genuine concern over genocide against the peoples in that poorest of poor part of a forsaken section of Africa. No. "It's the oil, stupid." The case of Darfur, a forbidding piece of sun-parched real estate in the southern part of Sudan, illustrates the new Cold War over oil, where the dramatic rise in
China's oil demand to fuel its booming growth has led Beijing to embark on an aggressive policy of - ironically - dollar diplomacy. With its more than US$1.2 trillion in mainly US dollar reserves at the Peoples' National Bank of China, Beijing is engaging in active petroleum geopolitics. Africa is a major focus, and in Africa, the central region between Sudan and Chad is a priority. This is defining a major new front in what, since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, is a new Cold War between Washington and Beijing over control of major oil sources. So far Beijing has played its cards a bit more cleverly than Washington. Darfur is a major battleground in this high-stakes contest for oil control.. . .
China has just done an oil deal that links it with two of the continent's largest nations, Nigeria and South Africa. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will lift oil in Nigeria, via a consortium that also includes South African Petroleum Co, giving China access to what could be 175,000 barrels a day by 2008. It's a $2.27 billion deal that gives state-controlled CNOOC a 45% stake in a large off-shore oil field in Nigeria.
Previously, Nigeria had been considered in Washington to be an asset of the Anglo-American oil majors, ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron.read more at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sudan/2007/0525forget.htm
That's quite a bit of explanation about the petroleum politics of the situation. What about the internal government politics of how Sudan's Khartoum central government of President Omar al-Bashir and his governors are going about accepting the big Chinese dollars?
I hope to get more info on that soon. I'm reviewing Reuters' coverage on Darfur.
http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/newsmakerDarfur
One thing catches my eye: Rwanda president "ringing an alarm bell" on Darfur
Wed May 2, 2007 8:43PM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0242867420070503?&src=051807_1443_FEATURES
Reuters Darfur Page
A related but perhaps random thought : The Dust Bowl refugee camps of the 30s here in California. Grapes of Wrath showed some pretty money-grubbing farm agents making good money off the misery of the displaced refugees. That disaster had natural causes with human exacerbation to the misery. The stock market crash of 1929, the resulting Great Depression in 1930, and the severe drought and dust storms of 1931 through 1934 set up an involuntary great migration from the plains and midwest to California. A lot of suffering took place then. In 1936 the L.A. Police Chief sent 125 policemen to patrol the borders of Arizona and Oregon to keep "undesirables" out. The ACLU sued the city of Los Angeles. In March of '37, Roosevelt addressed the nation in his second inaugural address, stating, "I see one-third of the nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished . . . the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." In the fall of 1939, the rain comes, finally bringing an end to the drought.
How does that relate to Darfur? Good question.
In the meantime, a social entrepreneur is a person or entity that takes a business approach to solving a social problem.
May 29, 2007
Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor (exhibit at
the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York features inventions
designed to help the world's poor move out of poverty. )
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. from the NY Times \“A billion customers in the world,” Dr. Paul Polak told a crowd of inventors recently, “are waiting for a $2 pair of eyeglasses, a $10 solar lantern and a $100 house.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/science/29cheap.html
The world’s cleverest designers, said Dr. Polak, a former psychiatrist who now runs an organization helping poor farmers become entrepreneurs, cater to the globe’s richest 10 percent, creating items like wine labels, couture and Maseratis.
“We need a revolution to reverse that silly ratio,” he said.
Quotes on character education
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King, Jr.
''Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.'' Warren Buffett, From Omaha World Herald, February 1, 1994. Buffett became the 2nd wealthiest man in the USA by understanding and in investing in great companies.
The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back. Abigail Van Buren
''Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.'' Warren Buffett, From Omaha World Herald, February 1, 1994. Buffett became the 2nd wealthiest man in the USA by understanding and in investing in great companies.
The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back. Abigail Van Buren
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Darfur films and current G8 news
Image from http://www.worldstats.org/continents/africa/maps/africa_political.jpg
Image from http://www.newsreel.org/AFAdarfur.asp 
Image from link belowCalifornia Newsreel :
All About Darfur documentary http://www.allaboutdarfur.com/ 2005
Halaqah Films: Our Story Our Voice http://www.ourstoryourvoice.com/ 2007
Google preview http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2078175686067290788
Darfur's Dirty War 2005
http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2005-07-13
Current
Friday, June 01, 2007
Darfur: G8 to Tell Sudan to Stop Foot-Dragging
From Reuters
A summit of major world leaders next week will send a message to Sudan that they expect Khartoum not to impede plans to end the conflict in the Darfur region, a senior Canadian official said on Friday.
http://coalitionfordarfur.blogspot.com/2007/06/darfur-g8-to-tell-sudan-to-stop-foot.html
The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan
Oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia?
by Sara Flounders
Global Research, June 6, 2006
excerpted from Afrikan Holocaust
U.S. interest in Sudan
Sudan is the largest country in Africa in area. It is strategically located on the Red Sea, immediately south of Egypt, and borders on seven other African countries. It is about the size of Western Europe but has a population of only 35 million people.
Darfur is the western region of Sudan. It is the size of France, with a population of just 6 million.
Newly discovered resources have made Sudan of great interest to U.S. corporations. It is believed to have oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia. It has large deposits of natural gas. In addition, it has one of the three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, along with the fourth-largest deposits of copper.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, however, the Sudanese government has retained its independence of Washington. Unable to control Sudan’s oil policy, the U.S. imperialist government has made every effort to stop its development of this valuable resource. China, on the other hand, has worked with Sudan in providing the technology for exploration, drilling, pumping and the building of a pipeline and buys much of Sudan’s oil.
U.S. policy revolves around shutting down the export of oil through sanctions and inflaming national and regional antagonisms. For over two decades U.S. imperialism supported a separatist movement in the south of Sudan, where oil was originally found. This long civil war drained the central government’s resources. When a peace agreement was finally negotiated, U.S. attention immediately switched to Darfur in western Sudan.
Recently, a similar agreement between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Darfur was rejected by one of the groups, so the fighting continues. The U.S. poses as a neutral mediator and keeps pressing Khartoum for more concessions but “through its closest African allies helped train the SLA and JEM Darfuri rebels that initiated Khartoum’s violent reaction.” (www.afrol.com)
http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/darfur%20report.html
All About Darfur documentary http://www.allaboutdarfur.com/ 2005
Halaqah Films: Our Story Our Voice http://www.ourstoryourvoice.com/ 2007
Google preview http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2078175686067290788
Darfur's Dirty War 2005
http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2005-07-13
Current
Friday, June 01, 2007
Darfur: G8 to Tell Sudan to Stop Foot-Dragging
From Reuters
A summit of major world leaders next week will send a message to Sudan that they expect Khartoum not to impede plans to end the conflict in the Darfur region, a senior Canadian official said on Friday.
http://coalitionfordarfur.blogspot.com/2007/06/darfur-g8-to-tell-sudan-to-stop-foot.html
The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan
Oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia?
by Sara Flounders
Global Research, June 6, 2006
excerpted from Afrikan Holocaust
U.S. interest in Sudan
Sudan is the largest country in Africa in area. It is strategically located on the Red Sea, immediately south of Egypt, and borders on seven other African countries. It is about the size of Western Europe but has a population of only 35 million people.
Darfur is the western region of Sudan. It is the size of France, with a population of just 6 million.
Newly discovered resources have made Sudan of great interest to U.S. corporations. It is believed to have oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia. It has large deposits of natural gas. In addition, it has one of the three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, along with the fourth-largest deposits of copper.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, however, the Sudanese government has retained its independence of Washington. Unable to control Sudan’s oil policy, the U.S. imperialist government has made every effort to stop its development of this valuable resource. China, on the other hand, has worked with Sudan in providing the technology for exploration, drilling, pumping and the building of a pipeline and buys much of Sudan’s oil.
U.S. policy revolves around shutting down the export of oil through sanctions and inflaming national and regional antagonisms. For over two decades U.S. imperialism supported a separatist movement in the south of Sudan, where oil was originally found. This long civil war drained the central government’s resources. When a peace agreement was finally negotiated, U.S. attention immediately switched to Darfur in western Sudan.
Recently, a similar agreement between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Darfur was rejected by one of the groups, so the fighting continues. The U.S. poses as a neutral mediator and keeps pressing Khartoum for more concessions but “through its closest African allies helped train the SLA and JEM Darfuri rebels that initiated Khartoum’s violent reaction.” (www.afrol.com)
http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/darfur%20report.html
The Purpose of Education by Martin Luther King, Jr.
January-February 1947 Atlanta, Ga.
Writing in the Morehouse College campus newspaper, the Maroon Tiger, King argues that education has both a utilitarian and a moral function. Citing the example of Georgia's former governor Eugene Talmadge, he asserts that reasoning ability is not enough. He insists that character and moral development are necessary to give the critical intellect humane purposes. King, Sr., later recalled that his son told him, "Talmadge has a Phi Beta Kappa key, can you believe that? What did he use all that precious knowledge for? To accomplish what?"
As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.
It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.
Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.
The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those the types of men we call educated?
We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.
If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!
PD. Maroon Tiger (January-February 1947)
reprinted from The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume I Called to Serve January 1929-June 1951
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol1/470200-The_Purpose_of_Education.htm
Writing in the Morehouse College campus newspaper, the Maroon Tiger, King argues that education has both a utilitarian and a moral function. Citing the example of Georgia's former governor Eugene Talmadge, he asserts that reasoning ability is not enough. He insists that character and moral development are necessary to give the critical intellect humane purposes. King, Sr., later recalled that his son told him, "Talmadge has a Phi Beta Kappa key, can you believe that? What did he use all that precious knowledge for? To accomplish what?"
As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.
It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.
Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.
The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those the types of men we call educated?
We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.
If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!
PD. Maroon Tiger (January-February 1947)
reprinted from The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume I Called to Serve January 1929-June 1951
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol1/470200-The_Purpose_of_Education.htm
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Darfur - an opportunity to help stop the violence against women
Reducing Rape/Violence against Women in Darfur
Info: http://darfurstoves.lbl.gov/index.html
Giving:
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1700/proj1632a.html
http://www.chfhq.org/content/general/detail/2927
A more fuel-efficient stove reduces the number of wood-collecting ventures made by IDP women and increases the number of cooked meals possible from purchased wood.
CHF International and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at Berkley University conducted research in North and South Darfur to understand the household parameters related to family size, food, fuel, cooking habits, cooking pots, expenditure on fuel, and preferences related to alternative ways to spend time/money if fuel could be saved. The research teams found that a significant fraction of families are missing meals for lack of fuel—50% in South Darfur, and 90% in the North Darfur camps that were surveyed.
Info: http://darfurstoves.lbl.gov/index.html
Giving:
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1700/proj1632a.html
http://www.chfhq.org/content/general/detail/2927
A more fuel-efficient stove reduces the number of wood-collecting ventures made by IDP women and increases the number of cooked meals possible from purchased wood.
CHF International and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at Berkley University conducted research in North and South Darfur to understand the household parameters related to family size, food, fuel, cooking habits, cooking pots, expenditure on fuel, and preferences related to alternative ways to spend time/money if fuel could be saved. The research teams found that a significant fraction of families are missing meals for lack of fuel—50% in South Darfur, and 90% in the North Darfur camps that were surveyed.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Darfur - an opportunity and a test
Cold, Lonely and Tired
I'm not feeling that way, at least not now, thank God, but I read that phrase in a book and it reminded me of times in the past when I did feel that way. It wasn't fun, to say the least. It was very difficult and confusing. I mean, the words aren't really there to describe my dark phases but I also know, deep in my heart, that what seemed dark to me is really just a cloud cover to someone else. I haven't hit the bottom of human despair and hopefully never will. Maybe I don't possess that depth to my character and emotions. Maybe I'm just too superficial. Either way, I'm glad to dodge that bullet, if indeed I have dodged it.
I try to help other people in my own feeble way. My heart goes out to people in suffering. I really admire that NBA Cleveland Cavaliers player Ira Newble for his effort to get signatures on an open letter to the government of China regarding its investments and business dealings in Sudan -- where hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions have become refugees in Darfur Province. I want to help. And I'm happy that he wants to help. Sports and politics are uneasy bedfellows but there is plenty of precedent for it; example: Jackie Robinson. Olympics and South Africa. Olympics and Black Power. That kid Newble is less self-absorbed, I assume, than the average athlete.
So today I seek more information about Darfur and have turned up several nuggets for consideration. The most interesting nugget so far has been the counter to the genocide portrayal. I'm not well-informed at this moment, but I am trying to become informed and to that end, I'm reading up on both sides of the story.
One fact about the Darfur situation is Darfur, a region in western Sudan, is in a continuing armed conflict, mostly between the Janjaweed (comprised of Arab-identifying Sudanese) and the non-Arab Sudanese.
My heart is moved and I can only imagine the plight of people who are living through this civil conflict. I don't have any particular link to be able to help right now, but I hope to find some way soon.
I also don't feel that we should go in militarily and deny the sovereignty of Darfur the way we did in Iraq. I especially don't want to see African leaders just steamrollered, since I'm African-American. However, is this a reason for non-intervention?
Who cares whether the Sudan government has a written plan to genocide Africans or not? They are sponsoring the killing of between 200,000 and 500,000 and still continuing. Let's condemn these killings with maximum intensity. Let's point the finger at the perpetrators and pursue the cease and desist of it immediately.
Clearly there are several points of view to be considered: Western, Arab and African sources need to be considered.
In the meantime, here's the info I've been reading:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/30/asia/AS-GEN-China-US-Sudan.php
US briefs China on move to sanction Sudan for its role in Darfur
The Associated PressPublished: May 30, 2007
"BEIJING: The U.S. briefed China on Wednesday about the administration's plans to introduce a new U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning Sudan's government for failing to do enough to halt the bloodshed in Darfur."
"The U.S., which has condemned the crisis in Darfur as genocide, has long pushed for a tougher stance against Sudan's government, while China has consistently opposed attempts to pressure Khartoum, saying the issue should be resolved through diplomatic negotiations.
"Hill refused to talk about the gap in their positions, and gave few additional details about his conversation with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei. He said [that] he expressed support for China's decision to send engineers to Darfur to support a small force of U.N. peacekeepers that Sudan has agreed to."
http://www.darfurinfo.org/
From http://www.darfurgenocide.org/index.php
"The ongoing Darfur Genocide is no accident, no local tribal conflict. The genocide is the brutal plan of three men in the Sudanese national Government -- President Bashir, Vice-President Taha, Security Chief Gosh. Now they are spreading their system of terror to other African countries, including Chad and the Central African Republic . Yet our governments continue to cut deals with them - deals they repeatedly break. It is time for the US and European governments to stop appeasing genocide. We call on our governments to fully support the International Criminal Court to indict the perpetrators of genocide, and to help ensure their arrest. It is time for justice, because only justice can bring peace. "
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/sudan/about/
A counter definition and opinion. Should we consider both sides of the story?
The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency by Mahmood Mamdani
NEWS STORY Friday, March 23, 2007
Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. His most recent book is Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror.
This article originally appeared in the London Review of Books
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html
There several letters to the editor regarding the article are published, as well as a response from Mamood Mamdani, published 26 April 2007.
Also published in full at http://www.sudanembassy.org/default.asp?page=viewstory&id=485
"At a press conference at the UN on 23 September 2004 Obasanjo was asked to pronounce on the violence in Darfur: was it genocide or not? His response was very clear:
Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will have to have a definite decision and plan and programme of a government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that. What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion. That’s what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence. "
"The journalist in the US most closely identified with consciousness-raising on Darfur is the New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, often identified as a lone crusader on the issue. To peruse Kristof’s Darfur columns over the past three years is to see the reduction of a complex political context to a morality tale unfolding in a world populated by villains and victims who never trade places and so can always and easily be told apart. It is a world where atrocities mount geometrically, the perpetrators so evil and the victims so helpless that the only possibility of relief is a rescue mission from the outside, preferably in the form of a military intervention."
"Newspaper writing on Darfur has sketched a pornography of violence. It seems fascinated by and fixated on the gory details, describing the worst of the atrocities in gruesome detail and chronicling the rise in the number of them. The implication is that the motivation of the perpetrators lies in biology (‘race’) and, if not that, certainly in ‘culture’. This voyeuristic approach accompanies a moralistic discourse whose effect is both to obscure the politics of the violence and position the reader as a virtuous, not just a concerned observer."
"The camp of peace needs to come to a second realisation: that peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention, which is the language of big powers. The history of colonialism should teach us that every major intervention has been justified as humanitarian, a ‘civilising mission’. Nor was it mere idiosyncrasy that inspired the devotion with which many colonial officers and archivists recorded the details of barbarity among the colonised – sati, the ban on widow marriage or the practice of child marriage in India, or slavery and female genital mutilation in Africa. I am not suggesting that this was all invention. I mean only to point out that the chronicling of atrocities had a practical purpose: it provided the moral pretext for intervention. Now, as then, imperial interventions claim to have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to rescue minority victims of ongoing barbarities and, on the other, to quarantine majority perpetrators with the stated aim of civilising them. Iraq should act as a warning on this score. The worst thing in Darfur would be an Iraq-style intervention. That would almost certainly spread the civil war to other parts of Sudan, unravelling the peace process in the east and south and dragging the whole country into the global War on Terror."
From the footnotes of the London Book Review article:
‘Those tribes in Darfur who support rebels have increasingly come to be identified as “African” and those supporting the government as the “Arabs”. A good example to illustrate this is that of the Gimmer, a pro-government African tribe that is seen by the African tribes opposed to the government as having been “Arabised”.’ On the other hand, this development was being promoted from the outside: ‘The Arab-African divide has also been fanned by the growing insistence on such divide in some circles and in the media.’
Darfur Crisis
By Mahmood Mamdani
29 October, 2004
Black Commentator
http://www.countercurrents.org/darfur-mamdani291004.htm
"What Should We Do?
First of all, we the civilians - and I address Africans and Americans in particular - should work against a military solution. We should work against a US intervention, whether direct or by proxy, and however disguised - as humanitarian or whatever. We should work against punitive sanctions. The lesson of Iraq sanctions is that you target individuals, not governments. Sanctions feed into a culture of terror, of collective punishment. Its victims are seldom its target. Both military intervention and sanctions are undesirable and ineffective."
"Finally, there is need to beware of groups who want a simple and comprehensive explanation, even if it is misleading; who demand dramatic action, even if it backfires; who have so come to depend on crisis that they risk unwittingly aggravating existing crisis. Often, they use the call for urgent action to silence any debate as a luxury. And yet, responsible action needs to be informed."
"For the African Union, Darfur is both an opportunity and a test. The opportunity is to build on the global concern over a humanitarian disaster in Darfur to set a humanitarian standard that must be observed by all, including America's allies in Africa. And the test is to defend African sovereignty in the face of official America's global "war on terror." On both counts, the first priority must be to stop the war and push the peace process."
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/41564
The politics of apologetics: genocide denial, Darfur version
Kwesi Kwaa Prah (2007-05-22)
Kwesi Kwaa Prah critiques Mahmood Mamdani's writings on Darfur. He posits: 'Mamdani indulges in technicist sophistry, tip-toeing nimbly around the real issues in Darfur and effectively providing solace to the Khartoum regime.'
I'm not feeling that way, at least not now, thank God, but I read that phrase in a book and it reminded me of times in the past when I did feel that way. It wasn't fun, to say the least. It was very difficult and confusing. I mean, the words aren't really there to describe my dark phases but I also know, deep in my heart, that what seemed dark to me is really just a cloud cover to someone else. I haven't hit the bottom of human despair and hopefully never will. Maybe I don't possess that depth to my character and emotions. Maybe I'm just too superficial. Either way, I'm glad to dodge that bullet, if indeed I have dodged it.
I try to help other people in my own feeble way. My heart goes out to people in suffering. I really admire that NBA Cleveland Cavaliers player Ira Newble for his effort to get signatures on an open letter to the government of China regarding its investments and business dealings in Sudan -- where hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions have become refugees in Darfur Province. I want to help. And I'm happy that he wants to help. Sports and politics are uneasy bedfellows but there is plenty of precedent for it; example: Jackie Robinson. Olympics and South Africa. Olympics and Black Power. That kid Newble is less self-absorbed, I assume, than the average athlete.
So today I seek more information about Darfur and have turned up several nuggets for consideration. The most interesting nugget so far has been the counter to the genocide portrayal. I'm not well-informed at this moment, but I am trying to become informed and to that end, I'm reading up on both sides of the story.
One fact about the Darfur situation is Darfur, a region in western Sudan, is in a continuing armed conflict, mostly between the Janjaweed (comprised of Arab-identifying Sudanese) and the non-Arab Sudanese.
My heart is moved and I can only imagine the plight of people who are living through this civil conflict. I don't have any particular link to be able to help right now, but I hope to find some way soon.
I also don't feel that we should go in militarily and deny the sovereignty of Darfur the way we did in Iraq. I especially don't want to see African leaders just steamrollered, since I'm African-American. However, is this a reason for non-intervention?
Who cares whether the Sudan government has a written plan to genocide Africans or not? They are sponsoring the killing of between 200,000 and 500,000 and still continuing. Let's condemn these killings with maximum intensity. Let's point the finger at the perpetrators and pursue the cease and desist of it immediately.
Clearly there are several points of view to be considered: Western, Arab and African sources need to be considered.
In the meantime, here's the info I've been reading:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/30/asia/AS-GEN-China-US-Sudan.php
US briefs China on move to sanction Sudan for its role in Darfur
The Associated PressPublished: May 30, 2007
"BEIJING: The U.S. briefed China on Wednesday about the administration's plans to introduce a new U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning Sudan's government for failing to do enough to halt the bloodshed in Darfur."
"The U.S., which has condemned the crisis in Darfur as genocide, has long pushed for a tougher stance against Sudan's government, while China has consistently opposed attempts to pressure Khartoum, saying the issue should be resolved through diplomatic negotiations.
"Hill refused to talk about the gap in their positions, and gave few additional details about his conversation with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei. He said [that] he expressed support for China's decision to send engineers to Darfur to support a small force of U.N. peacekeepers that Sudan has agreed to."
http://www.darfurinfo.org/
From http://www.darfurgenocide.org/index.php
"The ongoing Darfur Genocide is no accident, no local tribal conflict. The genocide is the brutal plan of three men in the Sudanese national Government -- President Bashir, Vice-President Taha, Security Chief Gosh. Now they are spreading their system of terror to other African countries, including Chad and the Central African Republic . Yet our governments continue to cut deals with them - deals they repeatedly break. It is time for the US and European governments to stop appeasing genocide. We call on our governments to fully support the International Criminal Court to indict the perpetrators of genocide, and to help ensure their arrest. It is time for justice, because only justice can bring peace. "
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/sudan/about/
A counter definition and opinion. Should we consider both sides of the story?
The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency by Mahmood Mamdani
NEWS STORY Friday, March 23, 2007
Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. His most recent book is Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror.
This article originally appeared in the London Review of Books
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html
There several letters to the editor regarding the article are published, as well as a response from Mamood Mamdani, published 26 April 2007.
Also published in full at http://www.sudanembassy.org/default.asp?page=viewstory&id=485
"At a press conference at the UN on 23 September 2004 Obasanjo was asked to pronounce on the violence in Darfur: was it genocide or not? His response was very clear:
Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will have to have a definite decision and plan and programme of a government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that. What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion. That’s what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence. "
"The journalist in the US most closely identified with consciousness-raising on Darfur is the New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, often identified as a lone crusader on the issue. To peruse Kristof’s Darfur columns over the past three years is to see the reduction of a complex political context to a morality tale unfolding in a world populated by villains and victims who never trade places and so can always and easily be told apart. It is a world where atrocities mount geometrically, the perpetrators so evil and the victims so helpless that the only possibility of relief is a rescue mission from the outside, preferably in the form of a military intervention."
"Newspaper writing on Darfur has sketched a pornography of violence. It seems fascinated by and fixated on the gory details, describing the worst of the atrocities in gruesome detail and chronicling the rise in the number of them. The implication is that the motivation of the perpetrators lies in biology (‘race’) and, if not that, certainly in ‘culture’. This voyeuristic approach accompanies a moralistic discourse whose effect is both to obscure the politics of the violence and position the reader as a virtuous, not just a concerned observer."
"The camp of peace needs to come to a second realisation: that peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention, which is the language of big powers. The history of colonialism should teach us that every major intervention has been justified as humanitarian, a ‘civilising mission’. Nor was it mere idiosyncrasy that inspired the devotion with which many colonial officers and archivists recorded the details of barbarity among the colonised – sati, the ban on widow marriage or the practice of child marriage in India, or slavery and female genital mutilation in Africa. I am not suggesting that this was all invention. I mean only to point out that the chronicling of atrocities had a practical purpose: it provided the moral pretext for intervention. Now, as then, imperial interventions claim to have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to rescue minority victims of ongoing barbarities and, on the other, to quarantine majority perpetrators with the stated aim of civilising them. Iraq should act as a warning on this score. The worst thing in Darfur would be an Iraq-style intervention. That would almost certainly spread the civil war to other parts of Sudan, unravelling the peace process in the east and south and dragging the whole country into the global War on Terror."
From the footnotes of the London Book Review article:
‘Those tribes in Darfur who support rebels have increasingly come to be identified as “African” and those supporting the government as the “Arabs”. A good example to illustrate this is that of the Gimmer, a pro-government African tribe that is seen by the African tribes opposed to the government as having been “Arabised”.’ On the other hand, this development was being promoted from the outside: ‘The Arab-African divide has also been fanned by the growing insistence on such divide in some circles and in the media.’
Darfur Crisis
By Mahmood Mamdani
29 October, 2004
Black Commentator
http://www.countercurrents.org/darfur-mamdani291004.htm
"What Should We Do?
First of all, we the civilians - and I address Africans and Americans in particular - should work against a military solution. We should work against a US intervention, whether direct or by proxy, and however disguised - as humanitarian or whatever. We should work against punitive sanctions. The lesson of Iraq sanctions is that you target individuals, not governments. Sanctions feed into a culture of terror, of collective punishment. Its victims are seldom its target. Both military intervention and sanctions are undesirable and ineffective."
"Finally, there is need to beware of groups who want a simple and comprehensive explanation, even if it is misleading; who demand dramatic action, even if it backfires; who have so come to depend on crisis that they risk unwittingly aggravating existing crisis. Often, they use the call for urgent action to silence any debate as a luxury. And yet, responsible action needs to be informed."
"For the African Union, Darfur is both an opportunity and a test. The opportunity is to build on the global concern over a humanitarian disaster in Darfur to set a humanitarian standard that must be observed by all, including America's allies in Africa. And the test is to defend African sovereignty in the face of official America's global "war on terror." On both counts, the first priority must be to stop the war and push the peace process."
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/41564
The politics of apologetics: genocide denial, Darfur version
Kwesi Kwaa Prah (2007-05-22)
Kwesi Kwaa Prah critiques Mahmood Mamdani's writings on Darfur. He posits: 'Mamdani indulges in technicist sophistry, tip-toeing nimbly around the real issues in Darfur and effectively providing solace to the Khartoum regime.'
A lot of thoughts
Dealing with a 14 year old young man and staring my 53rd birthday dead in the face . . . seems like a weird juxtaposition of events.
I don't have a teenager, I have a 7 year old who wants to be a teenager.
But enough about them, I find me more fascinating :)
Actually, there isn't probably any one thread I can use to tie all my recent thoughts together but I want to try.
Soul Hunger
Critical Thinking
Best Friend Forever Mother
Humility and Forgiveness
Making every day Count
Family Routine
It's a blessing to have a family. The bible says God puts the lonely in families. Family gives us our place, the belonging place. That is our foundation and it's much more than I ever knew when I first wanted a baby. Luckily, I learned more about how to make a family as I went along and was it a hard lesson. Still learning that lesson, too. That "loneliness" is a form of soul hunger and the instinct to make family is the human drive to fill the emptiness of life. That's not to say that all lives without families are empty but it takes a lot to fill the emptiness; family seems like a built in mechanism to make it happen a little easier.
Most of us learned how to nourish our bodies and their are enough fast food joints on most corners to give us the illusion of nutrition and to at least fill the belly. We don't necessarily learn to nourish our souls and reach satisfaction in the heart. I use the word contentment to describe that soul satisfaction.
What creates contentment, inner peace? How the hell am I supposed to know? I just posed the question! But really, religions and self-help industries have been formed to answer that question so I don't presume to even go there. But without some way of nourishing one's soul, one walks through life hungry, perhaps ravenous, on the soul level. Empty and aching and perhaps confused, a person can get horribly lost and twisted.
That brings me both to critical thinking and to best friend mother. Both are ways to unravel the twists and turns and ease the aches of soul starvation and straighten out the faulty thinking and twisted characters that can result from the lack of both. I think we need both a nurturing and accepting mother self and an analytical and methodical critical-thinking self. Those two being war in me and most of the time the critic wins.
So that's where humility and forgiveness comes in and makes it possible for me to live with myself, despite all the mistakes I am prone to make. Knowing I am a fallen and flawed human being, I can yet freely admit that and ask forgiveness of the person/people I do or might offend. I can say "I was wrong" or "I was foolish" or "Man, that was silly of me." Saying that, I don't take pride in it or get there easily but I can eventually get there. It's not easy to admit one's errors or even to see them, but seeing them and seeing oneself as fallible makes one easier to live with and to be a family with. Somehow this notion isn't a popular one and I think it's because of Darwin, and his survival of the fittest notion. We want to see ourselves as "the fittest" so that we can see ourselves as winners and at least as survivors. However, I think this evolutionary treadmill theory taints our thinking and puts us in a competitive mode all the time. Or I could be wrong and it actually is a natural law (like gravity) and we are truly going to get hunted down by the alpha dog and eliminated if we admit to a weakness. Hmmm . . . I'll stick with my humility and forgiveness story, at least for now.
Now I come to making every day count. I get there by virtue of pulling up hard on 53. Never give up, never surrender. Every day dawns and offers a new beginning. Renewal. Rejuvenation. Lots of forces rally against those truths. The cycle of life and the circle of life and the rut of living. No matter what we do, we are part of the circle of life yet we don't have to stay in the rut of living. At least not in America. At least not most of us. That's the theory of the American Dream anyway. So I say, make every day count, one new word at a time, one new thought at a time. Keep hope alive, basically. Thanks, Jesse.
And the family routine, as much of a rut as it can be, still serves us well. It gives us a foundation, a base to start each of those new dawns. We can get our faces washed, teeth brushed, clothes on, that cup of coffee, and get fueled in our bodies and in our souls to start this day off with the notion that every day counts, we can start over, we can be forgiven for being the wretch that we are, we can still count on mom and dad despite being a fickle 14 year old, we can still count on hubby / wife despite being an aging hausfrau/house husband. We can start this day knowing we can both think analytically and nurture others; and knowing that we can benefit from others nurture and clear thinking.
That's it; that's all.
I don't have a teenager, I have a 7 year old who wants to be a teenager.
But enough about them, I find me more fascinating :)
Actually, there isn't probably any one thread I can use to tie all my recent thoughts together but I want to try.
Soul Hunger
Critical Thinking
Best Friend Forever Mother
Humility and Forgiveness
Making every day Count
Family Routine
It's a blessing to have a family. The bible says God puts the lonely in families. Family gives us our place, the belonging place. That is our foundation and it's much more than I ever knew when I first wanted a baby. Luckily, I learned more about how to make a family as I went along and was it a hard lesson. Still learning that lesson, too. That "loneliness" is a form of soul hunger and the instinct to make family is the human drive to fill the emptiness of life. That's not to say that all lives without families are empty but it takes a lot to fill the emptiness; family seems like a built in mechanism to make it happen a little easier.
Most of us learned how to nourish our bodies and their are enough fast food joints on most corners to give us the illusion of nutrition and to at least fill the belly. We don't necessarily learn to nourish our souls and reach satisfaction in the heart. I use the word contentment to describe that soul satisfaction.
What creates contentment, inner peace? How the hell am I supposed to know? I just posed the question! But really, religions and self-help industries have been formed to answer that question so I don't presume to even go there. But without some way of nourishing one's soul, one walks through life hungry, perhaps ravenous, on the soul level. Empty and aching and perhaps confused, a person can get horribly lost and twisted.
That brings me both to critical thinking and to best friend mother. Both are ways to unravel the twists and turns and ease the aches of soul starvation and straighten out the faulty thinking and twisted characters that can result from the lack of both. I think we need both a nurturing and accepting mother self and an analytical and methodical critical-thinking self. Those two being war in me and most of the time the critic wins.
So that's where humility and forgiveness comes in and makes it possible for me to live with myself, despite all the mistakes I am prone to make. Knowing I am a fallen and flawed human being, I can yet freely admit that and ask forgiveness of the person/people I do or might offend. I can say "I was wrong" or "I was foolish" or "Man, that was silly of me." Saying that, I don't take pride in it or get there easily but I can eventually get there. It's not easy to admit one's errors or even to see them, but seeing them and seeing oneself as fallible makes one easier to live with and to be a family with. Somehow this notion isn't a popular one and I think it's because of Darwin, and his survival of the fittest notion. We want to see ourselves as "the fittest" so that we can see ourselves as winners and at least as survivors. However, I think this evolutionary treadmill theory taints our thinking and puts us in a competitive mode all the time. Or I could be wrong and it actually is a natural law (like gravity) and we are truly going to get hunted down by the alpha dog and eliminated if we admit to a weakness. Hmmm . . . I'll stick with my humility and forgiveness story, at least for now.
Now I come to making every day count. I get there by virtue of pulling up hard on 53. Never give up, never surrender. Every day dawns and offers a new beginning. Renewal. Rejuvenation. Lots of forces rally against those truths. The cycle of life and the circle of life and the rut of living. No matter what we do, we are part of the circle of life yet we don't have to stay in the rut of living. At least not in America. At least not most of us. That's the theory of the American Dream anyway. So I say, make every day count, one new word at a time, one new thought at a time. Keep hope alive, basically. Thanks, Jesse.
And the family routine, as much of a rut as it can be, still serves us well. It gives us a foundation, a base to start each of those new dawns. We can get our faces washed, teeth brushed, clothes on, that cup of coffee, and get fueled in our bodies and in our souls to start this day off with the notion that every day counts, we can start over, we can be forgiven for being the wretch that we are, we can still count on mom and dad despite being a fickle 14 year old, we can still count on hubby / wife despite being an aging hausfrau/house husband. We can start this day knowing we can both think analytically and nurture others; and knowing that we can benefit from others nurture and clear thinking.
That's it; that's all.
Monday, May 14, 2007
What's going on? Homeschooling for 3 more weeks, remodeling, shopping for new furniture, painting, reinstalling new fireplace mantel, new carpet, joined WeightWatchers for the first time, sauna and swimming and walking.
Blogging is getting further down the list, unfortunately.
I started the weight loss trail on year ago. I lost 48 and put back on 13 so I've lost 35 total. I am hoping to lost at least 20 more this summer, and more for the rest of this year. I took a break from Thanksgiving through end of April, so it actually isn't to awfully bad.
Blogging is getting further down the list, unfortunately.
I started the weight loss trail on year ago. I lost 48 and put back on 13 so I've lost 35 total. I am hoping to lost at least 20 more this summer, and more for the rest of this year. I took a break from Thanksgiving through end of April, so it actually isn't to awfully bad.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Snow on Vesuvius
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in the morning, there were patches of snow on the trail.
Sun coming out
Our walk was overcast on the trail but as we started down, the sun started to reach the trail a bit. It wasn't exactly a clear view from the top, but I kept snapping hoping to get a good light that would allow us to see the Bay of Naples and the city of Naples lit up. Vesuvius is known for having heavy cloulds at the top.
Top of the West Side
Nathan and Isaac were pretending to be Sam and Frodo returning the ring. The baby was Smeagle, which was pretty mean.
Smoking crater
I don'thave a wide angle lens, so I snapped a lot of shots to try to record the majesty of the crater, which is huge. It was smoking in spots as well.
Hiking Mt. Vesuvius
Isaiah, Daniela, Isaac, Nathan and I hiked up the mountain to the very top in an hour and an half. We had to walk at a 2 year old's pace but it was fine.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Stonehenge Day 10
Well, it was cold and windy yet very impressive. We listened to an audio tour while we walked around the awesome, towering stonehenge. The tour was devoid of spiritual content, IMO. The mystery of how is matched with the mystery of why these humungous stones were brought here from 200 miles away by people assumed to be primitive. But nevertheless, I felt an unspoken spiritual richness about the place and was impressed with the feat and the results.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Oxfam Unwrapped - Gifts with conscience
Oxfam Unwrapped How does the scheme work?
You buy a gift from Oxfam Unwrapped. You receive a card and a fridge magnet that represents the gift that you have chosen to give to your friend or family member. Someone in the developing world receives this gift. Whether it be an alpaca to earn a living from, the means to plant an allotment or safe water to drink – the result is that their lives are much improved!
I suggest that we all consider this when thinking of gifts to buy our friends. Help the poverty stricken in Ethiopia or Rwanda or dozens of other countries in Africa with gifts that they really need. You can help in Asia, South America and Mexico. It's a marvelous and very special gift to give a friend.
America also has an option: http://www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com/
My husband has a last minute birthday party to go to and I thought of a fishing net (yes, a net http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com/ProductItem.aspx?ProductID=OU2601) for his colleague. Hope he likes it.
You buy a gift from Oxfam Unwrapped. You receive a card and a fridge magnet that represents the gift that you have chosen to give to your friend or family member. Someone in the developing world receives this gift. Whether it be an alpaca to earn a living from, the means to plant an allotment or safe water to drink – the result is that their lives are much improved!
I suggest that we all consider this when thinking of gifts to buy our friends. Help the poverty stricken in Ethiopia or Rwanda or dozens of other countries in Africa with gifts that they really need. You can help in Asia, South America and Mexico. It's a marvelous and very special gift to give a friend.
America also has an option: http://www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com/
My husband has a last minute birthday party to go to and I thought of a fishing net (yes, a net http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com/ProductItem.aspx?ProductID=OU2601) for his colleague. Hope he likes it.
Adding to the Yarn Stash
Even tho I'm thousands of miles from home, I knew I would find something to add to my yarn stash. I found a good deal on something different . . . Hobbycraft had R2 Paper Tape (148 yrds) 100% Nylon and R2 Rag (27 yds) 100% Cotton each for 49p (about $1.00). I got 4 ball of Blue Paper Tape and 13 balls of Rag (4 black, 4 sky blue and 5 khaki). I started a patchwork crochet throw with the paper tape, to give us something to throw around us when we sit on the sofa. I figure it's cheap to play with until I decide to buy something nice.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Local Yarn Shops in Reading
I've already found 3 nice yarn shops in the local area:
1. Jackson's Department Store on King Street http://www.jacksonsofreading.co.uk/lifestyle.htm , very old style but friendly.
2. John Lewis in The Oracle http://www.johnlewis.com/Shops/DSShop.aspx?Id=19 , a very well-lit, modern and clean yarn selection, with lots of notions and a nice selection of fabric.
3. Hobbycraft, Forbury Retail Park, Off Kenavon Drive, http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/ . Going to check it out in a few minutes.
I bought a knitting kit for my son . . . it's an octopus for fun. Knitting is not easy for a 7 year old, tho. 6.99 pounds was a bit steep for 4mm needles and yarn with instructions but he was excited.
I will be starting something with either the camouflage yarn I brought with me or with something new I pick up at HobbyCraft.
1. Jackson's Department Store on King Street http://www.jacksonsofreading.co.uk/lifestyle.htm , very old style but friendly.
2. John Lewis in The Oracle http://www.johnlewis.com/Shops/DSShop.aspx?Id=19 , a very well-lit, modern and clean yarn selection, with lots of notions and a nice selection of fabric.
3. Hobbycraft, Forbury Retail Park, Off Kenavon Drive, http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/ . Going to check it out in a few minutes.
I bought a knitting kit for my son . . . it's an octopus for fun. Knitting is not easy for a 7 year old, tho. 6.99 pounds was a bit steep for 4mm needles and yarn with instructions but he was excited.
I will be starting something with either the camouflage yarn I brought with me or with something new I pick up at HobbyCraft.
Reading - along Chestnut Walk near the Abbey ruin
We are having a good time walking around town. This is a footpath on the River Kennet, not too far from the apartment.
This weekend, we'll visit Stonehenge, for what that's worth. It's far out into nowhere, about 90 minutes from here.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
By train From Paddington Station, London to Maidenhead then drive to Reading, Berkshire
Reading is not very far from London. We'll walk around Reading today. There is a mall called The Oracle which is a 20 minute walk from the apartment. Isaac and I will tackle it later today, if it's as beautiful and sunny as it was yesterday.
Monday, March 12, 2007
UK day 4- Move from London to Reading UK
We moved to Reading, a town in Berkshire . . .Berkshire is a county in the South of England, to the West of London, in the Thames Valley. It is one of the oldest counties in England, dating back to the setting of county borders by King Alfred the Great. Berkshire saw many battles throughout history, from Alfred's fight against the Danes to two battles in Newbury in the Civil War, and the Battle of Reading in the Revolution of 1688.
The county was often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire, due to it's being the home of the monarch, and this title was formally ratified in 1958. However the Berkshire County Council was dissolved in 1998. The county now exists only geographically and in ceremonial matters.
The move took place by train from Paddington Station to Maidenhead. We took a taxi to pick up Henry's car, then he drove to Reading where we now live in a very nice 2 bedroom 2 bath flat.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
London day 2 029
Okay, we got our grub on at this steak house, but I wasn't that impressed with the steak I had. It was nice to sit by the window, tho, and watch the Piccadilly Circus go by.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
ISBN 4893968556 
ISBN 4579110811 Couple of new japanese craft books: Relax Goods, and Quilted Items.
I hope to take them with me on my trip to London. I'll be taking some needles and some fabric for some handsewing. Also some crochet needles and yarn to keep my hands busy. I checked the TSA website and apparently crochet needles aren't a problem. I'm carrying a selfaddressed stamped envelope with me just in case I need to mail a confiscated item back home.
Monday, February 26, 2007
New interest - Japanese crafting books
After getting acquainting with the inspiring and excellent crafters in the blogsphere, I got interested in the Japanese craft books I'd been seeing. I contacted one gracious lady about her post about a book and she gave good advice about trying to buy through several online sites, including ebay. They have a lovely selection. I tried and tried and was tempted but didn't buy anything.
Then I searched on Japanese book stores and discovered that we have a great Japanese bookstore within 20 minutes drive of my house. Sunday, I visited it along with my son and god son, who are anime and manga enthusiasts. Lo and behold I found good stuff and better yet, I discovered I could order just about any book and they would call me and not charge me shipping!! What a deal!
Then I searched on Japanese book stores and discovered that we have a great Japanese bookstore within 20 minutes drive of my house. Sunday, I visited it along with my son and god son, who are anime and manga enthusiasts. Lo and behold I found good stuff and better yet, I discovered I could order just about any book and they would call me and not charge me shipping!! What a deal!
The Sanseido bookstore has a website http://www.books-sanseido.co.jp/ but I found it difficult to navigate, considering I don't read or speak Japanese.
The clerk used this website http://www.bk1.co.jp (all Japanese of course) which is much more intuitive and allows one to search on ISBNs and see the covers. Very helpful.
So, I bought 3 books off the shelf and ordered 4 books.
Bought:
The clerk used this website http://www.bk1.co.jp (all Japanese of course) which is much more intuitive and allows one to search on ISBNs and see the covers. Very helpful.
So, I bought 3 books off the shelf and ordered 4 books.
Bought:
1. 4-8347-2396-8 Sew smart with only 50cm cloth 2006/03 $11.60
2. 4072464805 Every everyday of ホビーラホビーレ it needs, bag selection 2005/06 Bought for $17.40.
flat bag, tote bag, bucket tote bag, granny bag, lagoon bag.
3. 4-309-28033-1 Watabe サト work 2005/10 $17.40
Shoes, bed cover, hat, coaster, bag, apron, cushion cover, curtain, pouch, etc.
ORDERED through Sanseido bookstore for cover price and no shipping.
1. 4-569-63553-9 As for Tokyo it is the ど め well club compilation 2004/06 $20.30
2. 4-8347-2235-X The ever popular Cozy handbag and pouchettes ふ or ふ or bag & pouch (ready boutique series sewing)
2005/1 $12.35
3. 4-579-11023-4 ZAKKA where it is and the っ does and would like to live in the ょ 2004/11 $20.30
4. 4-8347-2366-6 The cloth which is made with natural material it is dense the thing (ready boutique series sewing) Using the linen and the cotton, and the wool a little, the cloth of the miscellaneous goods feeling which it makes it is dense thing collection 2006/01 $12.35
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Crafting philosophy: physical items tell a story
Sometimes, my own words seem excessive to express profound thoughts. I borrowed these from proverbial Celtic wisdom. These sayings capture elements of a thoughtful life and which I strive to embrace, with emphasis on truth. Being mother to a 7 year old and a 32 year old somehow makes these reflections about good character really relevant to me. And it's an odd reality that living a truthful life, a skillful life, a hopeful life and joyful life, and a full life all can be expressed somehow through one's art and craft.
Three aims to the future: planting trees, improving handicraft, and rearing lawful children.
It is easier to determine the truth when these three prime evidences are existent: physical items which tell a story; trustworthy witnesses which tell their story; and concurrence with known truths. .
Three things by which excellence is established: Taking all things in moderation with nothing in excess; abidance to oaths; and acceptance of responsibility.
Three things from which never to be moved: one's oaths; one's Gods; and the truth.
Three things which strengthen a person to stand against the whole world: Seeing the quality and beauty of truth; seeing beneath the cloak of falsehood; and seeing to what ends truth and falsehood come.
There are three things excellent among worldly affairs: hating folly; loving excellence; and endeavoring constantly to learn.
Three manifestations of excellence : the honoring of parents, the respecting of the aged, and instructing the young; and to this a fourth, defending of infancy and innocence.
Three ways to lose excellence: to become a servant to one's passions, to not learn from the examples set by others, to indulge to excess.
Three manifestations of humanity: Affectionate bounty; loving manner; and praiseworthy knowledge.
Three things which spring from following lawful goodness: universal love from the Wise; worldly sufficiency, and better place in the life to come.
Three things without which there can be nothing good: truth; peace; and generosity.
Three beautiful beings of the world: the upright, the skillful, and the reasonable.
Three tendencies of a persons lifetime: hope, love, and joy.
Three things which make one glad: their mate loving them, their labor prospering, and their conscience easy.
http://www.technoharp.com/WychWood/triads.htm
Three aims to the future: planting trees, improving handicraft, and rearing lawful children.
It is easier to determine the truth when these three prime evidences are existent: physical items which tell a story; trustworthy witnesses which tell their story; and concurrence with known truths. .
Three things by which excellence is established: Taking all things in moderation with nothing in excess; abidance to oaths; and acceptance of responsibility.
Three things from which never to be moved: one's oaths; one's Gods; and the truth.
Three things which strengthen a person to stand against the whole world: Seeing the quality and beauty of truth; seeing beneath the cloak of falsehood; and seeing to what ends truth and falsehood come.
There are three things excellent among worldly affairs: hating folly; loving excellence; and endeavoring constantly to learn.
Three manifestations of excellence : the honoring of parents, the respecting of the aged, and instructing the young; and to this a fourth, defending of infancy and innocence.
Three ways to lose excellence: to become a servant to one's passions, to not learn from the examples set by others, to indulge to excess.
Three manifestations of humanity: Affectionate bounty; loving manner; and praiseworthy knowledge.
Three things which spring from following lawful goodness: universal love from the Wise; worldly sufficiency, and better place in the life to come.
Three things without which there can be nothing good: truth; peace; and generosity.
Three beautiful beings of the world: the upright, the skillful, and the reasonable.
Three tendencies of a persons lifetime: hope, love, and joy.
Three marvelous deeds: to forgive a wrong done, to amend everything possible, and to refrain from injustice.
Three joys of the happy: avoidance of excess, peace, and loyalty.
Three antagonists of goodness: arrogance, passion, and covetousness.
Three rewards of those who learn to temper their emotions: experience, strength, and introspection.
There are three kingdoms of the happy: the world's good word, a cheerful conscience, and firm hope of the life to come.Three things which make one glad: their mate loving them, their labor prospering, and their conscience easy.
http://www.technoharp.com/WychWood/triads.htm
Friday, February 23, 2007
WA$TED! - The Official Website - only on TV3
WA$TED! - The Official Website - only on TV3 A TV show about going green!!!! Brilliant!!
:: rag-bag ::
:: rag-bag :: I love these business that have figured out how to use our wasted plastic or used plastic and make something productive and useful!
Cohda Design - Innovative Product Solutions
Cohda Design - Innovative Product Solutions Recycling plastic bags at the highest level!
Isabelle Teste
Isabelle Teste has definitely inspired me to be even more creative and diligent about repurposing/refashioning and upcycling.
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