Namasté

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Kenji Nagai, 1957-2007:




This gesture is a mudra; a well-recognized symbolic hand position in eastern religions. One hand represents the higher, spiritual nature, while the other represents the worldly self. By combining the two, the person making the gesture is attempting to rise above their differences with others, and connect themself to the person they bow to. The bow is a symbolic bow of love and respect.

     from Wikipedia - Namasté.

Some background on 8-8-88: Voices 88.

Monday, Spiegel: Buddhist Monks Lead Myanmar Protests, Source.

Tuesday, Washington Post: Myanmar Imposes Curfew, Bans Assembly, Source.

Wednesday, Globe: At least one dead as Myanmar cracks down on protests, Source.

Saturday, NYT: The Monks Are Cut Off, and Burmese Clashes Ebb, Source.

Saturday, NYT: 29/09/07, Editorial, See No Evil, Speak No Truth, Source.

Petition: Stand with the Burmese Protesters.

Burma News: Burma Net.

NCGUB - National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.

Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

     from Bob Dylan, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

     (entirely un-related,
     no connection at all,
     just came to mind y'unnerstan'

     not exactly sad-eyed anyway, is she.).

This from the Junta (via AlJazeera):

"However, a state television report claimed that despite the size of the protests, most monks were not joining the marches. 'Although the marching monks on the streets seem to be a very big number, their forces represent just two per cent of all monks,' it said. 'Ninety-eight per cent of the monks, most of the monks in the country, are busy learning and teaching Buddhism.'"




God bless you all.


But as the days go by I come back again and again to the trigger for these demonstrations, which was reportedly a five-fold hike in gas prices. Monks don't need gas do they? Just the trigger maybe but a telling happenstance. And I have thought for years that a way to get straight on the energy habit would be to do exactly that - double and triple and quadruple the price of energy to the point where people start seeing it.

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'threats without borders'

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I am sure that I have mentioned Mohamed ElBaradei before in this blog - but I cannot find the reference by any Google-ish means ... eventually I hope these Google-related words may become synonyms for incompetence, incredible wealth yes, but ultimately incompetent, stupid, greedy - 'no evil'? hardly.

Anyway ... hum a few bars of that old-time fave-o-rite: 'He's got the whole world ... in his hands.'



17/09/07, Elaine Sciolino - William J. Broad, An Indispensable Irritant to Iran and Its Foes, Source.

Also at Wikipedia, his 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, and his Nobel Lecture, (Archive Copy).

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Laugh so as not to Cry

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[except that I have gotten reasonably adept at posting quickly I would not bother anymore]

"On the face of it, taxpayer-funded breast enhancement is a questionable practice,"
     Joel Fitzgibbon, Labor defence spokesman.

Spokesman? Not Spokesperson?

Analysts say China hopes the 300-strong team will deflect widespread criticism of its reluctance to approve foreign intervention in Darfur.
     some anonymous BBC reporter.

China? China is going to help?

BBC, 16/09/07, Australia navy in breast op row , Source.
BBC, 16/09/07, Worldwide rallies held for Darfur, Source.

A-and then this:
17/09/07, Andreas Lorenz, Courting Beijing's Wrath, Source.
18/09/07, Daniel Leblanc - Brian Laghi, Harper set to meet Dalai Lama despite China, Source.


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uh huh

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"One feels smothered by a general public stupidity, which one cannot trust to correctly judge even the most elementary things ..."

     Hanna Arendt, 1949.

No connection here unless it is the phrase "from another century", which is what I feel like, or maybe from another planet ... whatever.

Something there is about you that strikes a match in me
Is it the way your body moves or is it the way your hair blows free?
Or is it because you remind me of something that used to be
Somethin' that crossed over from another century?

Thought I'd shaken the wonder and the phantoms of my youth
Rainy days on the Great Lakes, walkin' the hills of old Duluth.
There was me and Danny Lopez, cold eyes, black night and then there was Ruth
Something there is about you that brings back a long-forgotten truth.

Suddenly I found you and the spirit in me sings
Don't have to look no further, you're the soul of many things.
I could say that I'd be faithful, I could say it in one sweet, easy breath
But to you that would be cruelty and to me it surely would be death.

Something there is about you that moves with style and grace
I was in a whirlwind, now I'm in some better place.
My hand's on the sabre and you've picked up the baton
Somethin' there is about you that I can't quite put my finger on.

     Bob Dylan, Planet Waves, Something There Is About You, 1974.

Frye would call this doggerel I suppose and dismiss it, oh well ...



There is a word for the psychological state of feeling alienated to the point of believing that you are not actually of the human race at all - that you are from outer space, Mars. I can't remember the word and I can't find it in the Thesaurus.

There is also a word for a child who is not of the family, something-ling (?). A pixie child inserted like a cuckoo into another nest. I can't remember this word either, oh my.

A friend of mine, when he was dying, told me that he believed the human race was composed of two races; one which struggled for the good, and one which simply struggled for itself. His definition was not quite like that, but close. At the time I said he was talking crazy, but I see now that it was a means of expression of this feeling.

Strangeling? (damn the Webster's Dictionary! useless!) a-and the Oxford as well looks like ... does no one register this word?

Aha! (my mistake) Changeling: A child secretly substituted for another in infancy; esp. a child (usually stupid or ugly) supposed to have been left by fairies in exchange for one stolen.

They put a stinkyng harlot in place of the holy spouse of Christe. ... this puttyng in of a changelyng ...

     Thomas Norton, Calvin's Institution of Christian religion, 1561.

Also in Wikipedia: Changeling; and an exposition of related legends at Changelings - An Essay by D. L. Ashliman; and Ibsen's Peer Gynt is available on-line: Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen (1875), (Archive).

Tags: Hanna Arendt, Changeling, Changelyng, Thomas Norton, Peer Gynt, Ibsen, Solveig.
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