Survival International is imperilled

Survival International advocates for the rights and freedoms of Aboriginal peoples around the world.  Their website has been hacked ever since they have campaigned vociferously on behalf of the Bushmen of Botwsana.  Please support their efforts.

Khans & The Royal Exchange

Julie Flavell has written a book titled When London Was Capital of America.  One of the illustrations is a print by Thomas Malton of  The Royal Exchange in 1798.  The illustrations I have below are by different artists, but show the same detail.  What struck me most, was how much The Royal Exchange resembled  the Khans we saw in Syria.  Queen Elizabeth I decided that merchants and traders should have a place other than coffee shops to do business, so the first Exchange was opened in 1551.  Khans had been in use throughout the Ottoman Empire long before that.  I am curious to know if the architect of The Royal Exchange had seen sketches of the khans brought back to Britain by traveling traders.

The Royal Exchange

The Royal Exchange

A Khan, Aleppo

Khan off the souk, Damascus

Trouble Brewing in the Balkans?

Veteran NPR European Desk reporter, Sylvia Poggioli, filed a story on the rise of radical/political Islam in the Balkans. After the war that broke up Jugoslavia in the 1990's, the Saudi's contributed a massive amount of aid to the reconstruction of Kosovo and Bosnia, especially the construction of new mosques.  These construction projects have employed large numbers of people,who had been unemployed a very long time:  the unemployment rate in Kosovo is over 40%.  There has been strong local concern and outcry about this invasion of the Saudis, especially with the rise in the number of women in veils.

Bringing out your inner Barbie

A fashion article in this weekend's FT Weekend explains the new (for the moment) fashion statement embraced by Michelle Obama and MadMen coquettes: the hour-glass look.  I loved this sentence: "Part of the reason for the prevalence of the hourglass shape is surgical: the extreme body reconstruction many women have been undergoing, with breast and bottom augmentation, alongside hours of Pilates and yoga, has created a figure as contrived and Barbie-like as bullet bras and waist cinchers (or “waspies”) did 60 years ago".  Here is a photo of said fashions from the FT article

Check out the latest in Barbie fashions here

More news of the ancients.....

The New York Times this week reported on more new news about our ancestors: evidence of grinding stones, hot-stone baking and root flour grains found in Italy, the Czech Republic, and Russia.  More articles in NYT about findings from The National Academy of Sciences, where this information was published, can be found at this link.

Only the Italians would dare say it this way.....

Washington Post story covered in The Seattle Times about the Italians getting tough with the Roma.  A Milanese politician is quoted as saying  "These are dark-skinned people, not Europeans like you and me," said Riccardo De Corato, who is Milan's vice mayor from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ruling party and who is in charge of handling the camps. He later added: "Our final goal is to have zero Gypsy camps in Milan".  I remember when the Italians were described as "swarthy" and not really considered "white" by the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa, only four decades ago....

Yakima Valley Wine Country

Washington State is the home of over 650 wineries,  eleven AVA's or designated appellations, and 350 grape growers.  The Yakima Valley was the first federally recognised AVA.  The Yakima Valley is also home to the Yakama Nation.  This last weekend, I accompanied the wine maker/owner of :Nota Bene to the Yakima Valley to pick up bins filled with grapes-just-picked and drop off bins for grapes-to-be-picked and also for bins ready for next year.  We drove 700 miles, fourteen hours, six vineyards, and brought back 12 bins of beautiful grapes (this was trip three for wine maker Tim Narby; three left to go!).  The vineyards we visited were: Stone Tree Vineyards, Stillwater Vineyards, Ciel du Cheval, Champoux, Dineen Family Vineyards, and Red Willow Vineyards.

                                         View from Stillwater picnic area

                                  Champoux Vineyard:  netting to keep birds away

                                          Ciel du Cheval, stop # 3, loading the grapes

 

Boxes ready for filling.  Champoux Vineyards

A True Hero: A Man Who Died in the Cause of Seeking Truth & Information

On 18 September 2010 I posted a link on Facebook about a story NPR ran about Witold Pilecki, a Polish Army Captain:  "In September 1940, Pilecki didn't know exactly what was going on in Auschwitz, but he knew someone had to find out. He would spend two and a half years in the prison camp, smuggling out word of the methods of execution and interrogation. He would eventually escape and author the first intelligence report on the camp."  He sent this information to Churchill and Roosevelt and the Polish Army in exile tried every means at its disposal to tell the world about the Holocaust.  Take time to learn about this man.

The Roma, again

PRI's The World reported on efforts to reintegrate the Roma into Bulgarian society.  This link should get to an audio of the report.  The question remains/arises:  what is  it about Europe (east or west) or elsewhere that the Roma  create this tension and inability for one group to be accepted by another.  This situation has been intractable for over 1000 years. A second Wikipedia link has some interesting information on the arrival of Roma people in North America in the early 19th century.

Zuma heading south?

The Economist blog features this article re: Zuma being sidelined. Seems to me, the only way forward for South African politics is that COSATU and the ANC  separate and that other parties begin to fill the void.  The coziness of the two powerhouses, especially given the organizational/power structure of the ANC, equals corruption and stagnation for South Africa. The ANC Youth League seems to have been chastised for 'behavioural' issues.  For more of Zapiro's political cartoons and commentary, see this link.

Cross Dressing, Gender Roles, Social Needs

In June 2008, the New York Times carried a fascinating story about women in Albania who live their lives as men, largely because their families had lost viable males in honour killings, war, etc.  This practice is, apparently dying out. Today the NYT has a story about girls in Afghanistan who are dressed as boys. Many of these girls are loathe to return to female roles/clothes because of the constraint this places on their lives. Be sure to read the comments (click on the 'Highlights' tabs of the comments section): some people are shocked, amazed, puzzled, intrigued, etc.  The particularities of situations like this vary, but there have certainly been examples of women dressing as men (in life and fiction), men dressing as women, in all cultures through many ages.

The ANC Continues to Accumulate Demerits....

In Sunday's New York Times, Andre Brink contributed an op-ed piece on the "cloud of secrecy" beginning to shroud the dissemination of untainted information in South Africa.  In Tuesday's Mail & Guardian there is a report on a conference in Cape Town on this very cloud of secrecy. The shudders are starting to ripple.....when will the tide turn against the rot in the ANC....

A rightful slap on the wrist....

The EU has finely had enough and found it's spine: 
European Commissioner Vice President and Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding scolded the French for hiding their true intention of getting rid of the Roma, despite protests that these eviction notices pertained to all illegal immigrants, etc, etc, etc.

Another fine intellect departs.....

I was traveling and out of the news-loop (learning about horse racing instead) and so just today learned about the death of Frank Kermode on 17 August 2010.  His wisdom and insights will be missed.

The Booker Shortlist is Announced

The six shortlisted authors are:
Peter Carey, Emma Donoghue, Damon Galgut, Howard Jacobson, Andrea Levy and Tom McCarthy.
I am sorry that David Mitchell was not amongst the above.  Damon Galgut is my favourite: his earlier work, The Impostor, is very thought-provoking, on a personal and political level.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the kind of book I want to race through to see how it ends, but the language is so beautiful, the observations so acute, the texture so deep, that restraint is required.  And, the book doesn't just end...there are endings, and twists, and turnings, all the way through.  A brilliant writer, interesting topic.

Now it's the Italians, again, dumping the Roma....

Today's New York Times features the Italians vs. Roma. Following the lead of the French, the Italian authorities are closing legal encampment sites..in some cases, Roma families have been living, and making a living, here for several decades.  The situation of the Roma in all of Europe is untenable and seems intractable.  For  personal views by an outsiders, read Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca and Zoli by Colum McCann

At least there are some in France who have a conscience

Members of the French public and a number of politicians have spoken out against Sarkozy's Roma expulsion mania.  Today's Financial Times provides details.  A search of the FT's site finds 79 articles on the issue of Roma in France.  Peruse them to get a sense of the problems faced by these people everywhere.

Another attack on Roma...in Bratislava, this time

Leshka, 2005, Lithuania. by Andrew Miksys

Today, seven members of a Roma family were killed by a gunman; fourteen others were wounded;he then killed himself.

The Plight, and Forced Flight, of the Roma

So, the Roma are once again on the run.  This time it is the French who are kicking them about and kicking them out.  According to the New York Times, "On instructions from President Nicolas Sarkozy, the French police have been dismantling improvised Roma camps in recent weeks and deporting Roma groups to Bulgaria and Romania."  Bulgaria and Romania?  And how are the Roma treated there?: As reported in WAZ.euobserver.com: "The Romanian society sees the gypsies as a foreign element", said Claudiu Padurean, a journalist and executive director for the Human Rights League in Cluj, a Transylvanian city with a large gypsy population. "Their degree of integration into the society is very much reduced. One can only imagine what the general reaction would have been if the expelled people were ethnic Romanians, and not Rromas", Mr Padurean said."  As for the Bulgarians, perhaps their attitude is somewhat better than that of the Romanians

France is not alone:  Denmark began expulsions a few weeks ago, as well.