This is more of a test than anything else, but I am curious.
I have not been able to open my blog @ home since since around 1 p.m. today. I can tweak the dashboard and it'll let me edit past posts but I can't view any of them so I have no way of knowing whether the changes have stuck.
Could be a snafu or could be that First Media is again acting on government orders and blocking access... I guess I'll know if I can log on via another service provider tomorrow to see if this post appears.
GT
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
The Urgent Threat To World Peace Is … Canada
The harm this country could do in the next two weeks will outweigh all the good it has done in a century.
By George Monbiot.
Published in the Guardian 20th November 2009
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-urgent-threat-to-world-peace-is-…-canada/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world’s peace-keeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country’s government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I’ve broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.
So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petrostate. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.
Until now I believed that the nation which has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.
In 2006 the new Canadian government announced that it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%(1).
It’s now clear that Canada will refuse to be sanctioned for abandoning its legal obligations. The Kyoto Protocol can be enforced only through goodwill: countries must agree to accept punitive future obligations if they miss their current targets. But the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation(2). Never mind special measures; it won’t accept even an equal share. The Canadian government is testing the international process to destruction and finding that it breaks all too easily. By demonstrating that climate sanctions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, it threatens to render any treaty struck at Copenhagen void.
After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations from striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007 it single-handedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations(3). After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country which had done most to disrupt the talks(4). The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world’s 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th(5).
In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed that the government was scheming to divide the Europeans(6). During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying(7). Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada’s obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth(8).
In Copenhagen next week, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it. But such is the fragile nature of climate agreements that one rich nation – especially a member of the G8, the Commonwealth and the Kyoto group of industrialised countries – could scupper the treaty. Canada now threatens the well-being of the world.
Why? There’s a simple answer. Canada is developing the world’s second largest reserve of oil. Did I say oil? It’s actually a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals. The tar sands, most of which occur in Alberta, are being extracted by the biggest opencast mining operation on earth. An area the size of England, of pristine forests and marshes, will be dug up, unless the Canadians can stop this madness. Already it looks like a scene from the end of the world: the strip-miners are creating a churned black hell on an unimaginable scale.
To extract oil from this mess, it needs to be heated and washed. Three barrels of water are used to process one barrel of oil(9). The contaminated water is held in vast tailing ponds, some of which are so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface(10). Most are unlined. They leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers. The First Nations people living downstream have developed a range of exotic cancers and auto-immune diseases(11).
Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies exploiting them burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes(12). Alberta’s tar sands operation is the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions(13). By 2020, if the current growth continues, it will produce more greenhouse gases than Ireland or Denmark(14). Already, thanks in part to the tar mining, Canadians have almost the highest per capita emissions on earth, and the stripping of Alberta has scarcely begun.
Canada hasn’t acted alone. The biggest leaseholder in the tar sands is Shell(15), a company that has spent millions persuading the public that it respects the environment. The other great greenwasher, BP, initially decided to stay out of tar. Now it has invested in plants built to process it(16). The British bank RBS, 70% of which belongs to you and me (the government’s share will soon rise to 84%), has lent or underwritten £8bn for exploiting the tar sands(17).
The purpose of Canada’s assault on the international talks is to protect this industry. This is not a poor nation. It does not depend for its economic survival on exploiting this resource. But the tar barons of Alberta have been able to hold the whole country to ransom. They have captured Canada’s politics and are turning this lovely country into a cruel and thuggish place.
Canada is a cultured, peaceful nation, which every so often allows a band of rampaging Neanderthals to trample all over it. Timber companies were licensed to log the old-growth forest in Clayaquot Sound; fishing companies were permitted to destroy the Grand Banks: in both cases these get-rich-quick schemes impoverished Canada and its reputation. But this is much worse, as it affects the whole world. The government’s scheming at the climate talks is doing for its national image what whaling has done for Japan.
I will not pretend that this country is the only obstacle to an agreement at Copenhagen. But it is the major one. It feels odd to be writing this. The immediate threat to the global effort to sustain a peaceful and stable world comes not from Saudi Arabia or Iran or China. It comes from Canada. How could that be true?
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2007/som-sum_eng.cfm
2. The government has pledged to match the (feeble) US 2020 target (which in Canada’s case means just 3% against 1990 levels) , but unlike the United States, Canada has proposed no cuts beyond that date.
3. Eg http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=a1a6748c-ef0c-4acf-acad-1cef2bdae5b7&sponsor=
4. Andrew Nikiforuk, September 2009. How The Tar Sands Are Fueling The Global Climate Crisis.
Greenpeace Canada. ***
5. http://www.germanwatch.org/klima/ccpi09res.pdf
6. Lee Berthiaume, 17th June 2009. Government Planned to Split EU On Climate Change Talks. Embassy Magazine. Cited by Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
7. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20091012/kyoto_091012/20091012/?hub=Canada&subhub=PrintStory
8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/canada-criticised-over-climate-change
9. WWF, 2008. Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel?, Page 27.
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/unconventional_oil_final_lowres.pdf
10. http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts
11. Environmental Defence, February 2008. Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: the most destructive project on earth.
http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/reports/pdf/TarSands_TheReport.pdf
12. Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
13. http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts
14. Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
15. ibid.
16. ibid.
17. Ed Crooks, 16th November 2009. Canadian Protest Over RBS Oil Sands Role. The Financial Times.
By George Monbiot.
Published in the Guardian 20th November 2009
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-urgent-threat-to-world-peace-is-…-canada/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world’s peace-keeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country’s government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I’ve broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.
So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petrostate. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.
Until now I believed that the nation which has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.
In 2006 the new Canadian government announced that it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%(1).
It’s now clear that Canada will refuse to be sanctioned for abandoning its legal obligations. The Kyoto Protocol can be enforced only through goodwill: countries must agree to accept punitive future obligations if they miss their current targets. But the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation(2). Never mind special measures; it won’t accept even an equal share. The Canadian government is testing the international process to destruction and finding that it breaks all too easily. By demonstrating that climate sanctions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, it threatens to render any treaty struck at Copenhagen void.
After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations from striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007 it single-handedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations(3). After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country which had done most to disrupt the talks(4). The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world’s 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th(5).
In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed that the government was scheming to divide the Europeans(6). During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying(7). Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada’s obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth(8).
In Copenhagen next week, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it. But such is the fragile nature of climate agreements that one rich nation – especially a member of the G8, the Commonwealth and the Kyoto group of industrialised countries – could scupper the treaty. Canada now threatens the well-being of the world.
Why? There’s a simple answer. Canada is developing the world’s second largest reserve of oil. Did I say oil? It’s actually a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals. The tar sands, most of which occur in Alberta, are being extracted by the biggest opencast mining operation on earth. An area the size of England, of pristine forests and marshes, will be dug up, unless the Canadians can stop this madness. Already it looks like a scene from the end of the world: the strip-miners are creating a churned black hell on an unimaginable scale.
To extract oil from this mess, it needs to be heated and washed. Three barrels of water are used to process one barrel of oil(9). The contaminated water is held in vast tailing ponds, some of which are so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface(10). Most are unlined. They leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers. The First Nations people living downstream have developed a range of exotic cancers and auto-immune diseases(11).
Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies exploiting them burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes(12). Alberta’s tar sands operation is the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions(13). By 2020, if the current growth continues, it will produce more greenhouse gases than Ireland or Denmark(14). Already, thanks in part to the tar mining, Canadians have almost the highest per capita emissions on earth, and the stripping of Alberta has scarcely begun.
Canada hasn’t acted alone. The biggest leaseholder in the tar sands is Shell(15), a company that has spent millions persuading the public that it respects the environment. The other great greenwasher, BP, initially decided to stay out of tar. Now it has invested in plants built to process it(16). The British bank RBS, 70% of which belongs to you and me (the government’s share will soon rise to 84%), has lent or underwritten £8bn for exploiting the tar sands(17).
The purpose of Canada’s assault on the international talks is to protect this industry. This is not a poor nation. It does not depend for its economic survival on exploiting this resource. But the tar barons of Alberta have been able to hold the whole country to ransom. They have captured Canada’s politics and are turning this lovely country into a cruel and thuggish place.
Canada is a cultured, peaceful nation, which every so often allows a band of rampaging Neanderthals to trample all over it. Timber companies were licensed to log the old-growth forest in Clayaquot Sound; fishing companies were permitted to destroy the Grand Banks: in both cases these get-rich-quick schemes impoverished Canada and its reputation. But this is much worse, as it affects the whole world. The government’s scheming at the climate talks is doing for its national image what whaling has done for Japan.
I will not pretend that this country is the only obstacle to an agreement at Copenhagen. But it is the major one. It feels odd to be writing this. The immediate threat to the global effort to sustain a peaceful and stable world comes not from Saudi Arabia or Iran or China. It comes from Canada. How could that be true?
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2007/som-sum_eng.cfm
2. The government has pledged to match the (feeble) US 2020 target (which in Canada’s case means just 3% against 1990 levels) , but unlike the United States, Canada has proposed no cuts beyond that date.
3. Eg http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=a1a6748c-ef0c-4acf-acad-1cef2bdae5b7&sponsor=
4. Andrew Nikiforuk, September 2009. How The Tar Sands Are Fueling The Global Climate Crisis.
Greenpeace Canada. ***
5. http://www.germanwatch.org/klima/ccpi09res.pdf
6. Lee Berthiaume, 17th June 2009. Government Planned to Split EU On Climate Change Talks. Embassy Magazine. Cited by Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
7. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20091012/kyoto_091012/20091012/?hub=Canada&subhub=PrintStory
8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/canada-criticised-over-climate-change
9. WWF, 2008. Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel?, Page 27.
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/unconventional_oil_final_lowres.pdf
10. http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts
11. Environmental Defence, February 2008. Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: the most destructive project on earth.
http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/reports/pdf/TarSands_TheReport.pdf
12. Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
13. http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts
14. Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
15. ibid.
16. ibid.
17. Ed Crooks, 16th November 2009. Canadian Protest Over RBS Oil Sands Role. The Financial Times.
Monday, November 30, 2009
'Immoral' TV Causing RI Disasters, Tsunamis - Tech Minister
Pulling a page from a playbook more often associated with the American evangelical nutter class, Indonesia's Communications and Info Technology Minister used Friday’s Idul Adha prayers to blame 'immorality’ for the country's recent spate of deadly natural disasters.
Fresh from getting excoriated in the blogosphere and by some of his Twittering brethren for unilaterally blocking access to blogger.com last week, Tifatul Sembiring was quoted by the national wire service Antara saying:
"Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur."
He later singled out naughty DVDs produced in Indonesia as particularly blameworthy.
AP quoted an Acehnese tsunami survivor, who lost 10 members of her family to the Dec. 26 disaster as replying:
“I prefer to believe that natural disasters occur because of the destructive force of nature that cannot be avoided by humans.”
Over the past few years Indonesia has experienced a series of natural calamities including the tsunami, multiple deadly earthquakes and more landslides, ferry-sinkings and plane crashes than I care to remember.
To much rejoicing from his acolytes at the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party he fronted until last month, the Minster said he expects to complete (another) piece of anti-pornography legislation in the next six months that will block access to site deemed blasphemous or offensive to ethnic and religious groups… (in other words 70 percent of the content on the Internet).
Though he has only been in office since October, the guy who heads up DepKomInfo is rapidly emerging as one of the leading knuckleheads of SBY’s gormless new cabinet. What, oh what, will he say next?
They might not agree on much else, but the Minister finds himself walking lock-step with some of the more reptilian delegates of the American lunatic fringe.
Over the past decade most of America’s leading evangelical lights have blamed fags, women and porn for a variety of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and diseases: it squares with their reading of the same final chapters of the Old Testament that receive wide reverence from Islamic scholars.
Some notable samples:
"We take no joy in the death of innocent people," Michael Marcavage, the head of Repent America and a former Clinton White House intern said following hurricane Katrina "But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We're calling it an act of God."
In 1998, televangelist Pat Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Fla., that a gay celebration there bring the wrath of God in the form of a hurricane or other disaster. Celebrating homosexuality "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," he suggested.
In 2001, Wee Jerry Falwell blamed gays and lesbians (along with feminists, abortionists and the American Civil Liberties Union) for the terrorist attacks in New York City. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen," he said
In 2007, the Brits piped up to prove Yanks don’t have the corner on the idiocy market. Following widespread flooding in the UK, a group of senior Church of England bishops opined that the grred and immorality of modern society – rather than a lot of rain – was to blame.
Fresh from getting excoriated in the blogosphere and by some of his Twittering brethren for unilaterally blocking access to blogger.com last week, Tifatul Sembiring was quoted by the national wire service Antara saying:
"Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur."
He later singled out naughty DVDs produced in Indonesia as particularly blameworthy.
AP quoted an Acehnese tsunami survivor, who lost 10 members of her family to the Dec. 26 disaster as replying:
“I prefer to believe that natural disasters occur because of the destructive force of nature that cannot be avoided by humans.”
Over the past few years Indonesia has experienced a series of natural calamities including the tsunami, multiple deadly earthquakes and more landslides, ferry-sinkings and plane crashes than I care to remember.
To much rejoicing from his acolytes at the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party he fronted until last month, the Minster said he expects to complete (another) piece of anti-pornography legislation in the next six months that will block access to site deemed blasphemous or offensive to ethnic and religious groups… (in other words 70 percent of the content on the Internet).
Though he has only been in office since October, the guy who heads up DepKomInfo is rapidly emerging as one of the leading knuckleheads of SBY’s gormless new cabinet. What, oh what, will he say next?
They might not agree on much else, but the Minister finds himself walking lock-step with some of the more reptilian delegates of the American lunatic fringe.
Over the past decade most of America’s leading evangelical lights have blamed fags, women and porn for a variety of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and diseases: it squares with their reading of the same final chapters of the Old Testament that receive wide reverence from Islamic scholars.
Some notable samples:
"We take no joy in the death of innocent people," Michael Marcavage, the head of Repent America and a former Clinton White House intern said following hurricane Katrina "But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We're calling it an act of God."
In 1998, televangelist Pat Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Fla., that a gay celebration there bring the wrath of God in the form of a hurricane or other disaster. Celebrating homosexuality "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," he suggested.
In 2001, Wee Jerry Falwell blamed gays and lesbians (along with feminists, abortionists and the American Civil Liberties Union) for the terrorist attacks in New York City. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen," he said
In 2007, the Brits piped up to prove Yanks don’t have the corner on the idiocy market. Following widespread flooding in the UK, a group of senior Church of England bishops opined that the grred and immorality of modern society – rather than a lot of rain – was to blame.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Pups Just Wanna Polka
It has been a long road but the Grinch and his missus will shortly welcome two new members to the Jakarta clan.
She's 26 weeks gone with a belly that ripples occasionally with the Dreaming of Twins. Apparently The Beatles are popular with the unborn set because every time we plug Magical Mystery Tour into the boom box, they get all kung-fu, ninja, "hucky-tucky-YA!" with the barrel rolls and elbow jabs you'd expect from Po & Co. Gonna talk to the Doc and see if we can have a birth-mix of Revolver and maybe a bit of Linkin Park/Prodigy (to get the gal psyched for the howl-y bits) when the time comes...
Click below or cut-and-paste to your browser to see the Pups Polka on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrO8Ujngi3Y
If that doesn't turn your gears then try the following to catch Animal, Beaker and a talking clam perform Bohemian Rhapsody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGlTzt24Izw&feature=popular
And if that doesn't work, well...piss off
She's 26 weeks gone with a belly that ripples occasionally with the Dreaming of Twins. Apparently The Beatles are popular with the unborn set because every time we plug Magical Mystery Tour into the boom box, they get all kung-fu, ninja, "hucky-tucky-YA!" with the barrel rolls and elbow jabs you'd expect from Po & Co. Gonna talk to the Doc and see if we can have a birth-mix of Revolver and maybe a bit of Linkin Park/Prodigy (to get the gal psyched for the howl-y bits) when the time comes...
Click below or cut-and-paste to your browser to see the Pups Polka on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrO8Ujngi3Y
If that doesn't turn your gears then try the following to catch Animal, Beaker and a talking clam perform Bohemian Rhapsody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGlTzt24Izw&feature=popular
And if that doesn't work, well...piss off
Friday, November 27, 2009
Happy Josaphat’s Day!
Today is Idul Adha, Islam’s Day of Sacrifice and end of the line for several hundred thousand goats, sheep and cattle across Indonesia. For those who care about such things it commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to his (merry prankster) God. The laneways outside mosques are awash in blood as animals are butchered and their meat parceled off for distribution to poor families. It’s a big deal: for many people a more important day on the calendar than the Idul Fitri holiday that caps the fasting month.
Personally, I’m much more interested in the fact that Nov 27 is also St. Josaphat’s Day. One of the more entertaining discoveries of the past six months or so was the fact that sometime back in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church unwittingly canonized Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha) in the form of Josephat. Yer Grinch stumbled across this whilst diligently investigating the entomology of “riffiest riff that ever riffed a raff” http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Yosemite_Sam/ltys_083.mp3 segued into “Jumpin’ Jehosephat” at which point all roads lead to Rome… literally.
As unpalatable as it is to some, there is wide agreement among Catholic scholars that the “Christian” St. Jo is not a historical figure. The evidence points to an engaging, textured story about the origins of the Buddha in 6th century BC captured listeners' imaginations that was carried by the winds of commerce between India/Sri Lanka and Jerusalem over the course of the next millennium+, morphing along the way through the filters of several languages, to be "spun" into a Christian tale. http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2006/03/15-1234-6894.html
I love it not because if gets under the skin of genuine devotees – though this is fine sport as well – but bc it pokes holes in the ‘absolutism’ that is central to so much orthodoxy, and the sweet irony that for centuries the same missionaries who sought (and continue to seek) to “save” the heathen sub-continent were also unwittingly paying homage to the spiritual leader of 360 million Buddhists.
And so it goes…
Personally, I’m much more interested in the fact that Nov 27 is also St. Josaphat’s Day. One of the more entertaining discoveries of the past six months or so was the fact that sometime back in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church unwittingly canonized Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha) in the form of Josephat. Yer Grinch stumbled across this whilst diligently investigating the entomology of “riffiest riff that ever riffed a raff” http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Yosemite_Sam/ltys_083.mp3 segued into “Jumpin’ Jehosephat” at which point all roads lead to Rome… literally.
As unpalatable as it is to some, there is wide agreement among Catholic scholars that the “Christian” St. Jo is not a historical figure. The evidence points to an engaging, textured story about the origins of the Buddha in 6th century BC captured listeners' imaginations that was carried by the winds of commerce between India/Sri Lanka and Jerusalem over the course of the next millennium+, morphing along the way through the filters of several languages, to be "spun" into a Christian tale. http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2006/03/15-1234-6894.html
I love it not because if gets under the skin of genuine devotees – though this is fine sport as well – but bc it pokes holes in the ‘absolutism’ that is central to so much orthodoxy, and the sweet irony that for centuries the same missionaries who sought (and continue to seek) to “save” the heathen sub-continent were also unwittingly paying homage to the spiritual leader of 360 million Buddhists.
And so it goes…
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
More on Indonesian Minister Blocking Blog Access
This story has kinda vanished - there's been little mention about it in 'mainstream' media struggling to do justice to news about the KPK, the Antasari trial, Bank Century investigation etc etc - and I've been too busy to spend a lot of time checking out the local blogosphere.
But from what I've been able to piece together, the Minister for Communications and Technology, Tifatul Sembiring, ordered his staff to issue a letter to Internet providers around the country to block access to a specific blog that was (re)publishing the controversial Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Good little Droogies that they are, the ring-kissers decided to impress the boss with a letter ordering access to all blogsites be blocked. As far as I know, the only company to comply was my provider, First Media.
By all accounts the Minister is wired. He has his own (dormant) website , a blog and Twitter account @tifsembiring (though who actually composes his tweets is unclear). You don't want a modern day Luddite in this position - PKS's ranks are swollen with urban professionals - so in that sense he might be the right pick. But....
This specific case appears to have been resolved now - I'll double check later at home to see if FM has turned the tap on again - but the larger questions will likely will remain - unaddressed:
- by what right does a Minister decide unilaterally what should and should not be accessible to the general public;
- what does it tell us about the Minister's likely agenda - Pak Tifatul is the co-founder and outgoing chairman of the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) - six weeks into a (potential) five year appointment that his first act of office is to restrict access to information;
- is a broader clampdown on how the Internet is used and information, disseminated, in the works and,
- what if any role should the private sector in Indonesia play in pushing back against government edicts of this type.
But from what I've been able to piece together, the Minister for Communications and Technology, Tifatul Sembiring, ordered his staff to issue a letter to Internet providers around the country to block access to a specific blog that was (re)publishing the controversial Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Good little Droogies that they are, the ring-kissers decided to impress the boss with a letter ordering access to all blogsites be blocked. As far as I know, the only company to comply was my provider, First Media.
By all accounts the Minister is wired. He has his own (dormant) website , a blog and Twitter account @tifsembiring (though who actually composes his tweets is unclear). You don't want a modern day Luddite in this position - PKS's ranks are swollen with urban professionals - so in that sense he might be the right pick. But....
This specific case appears to have been resolved now - I'll double check later at home to see if FM has turned the tap on again - but the larger questions will likely will remain - unaddressed:
- by what right does a Minister decide unilaterally what should and should not be accessible to the general public;
- what does it tell us about the Minister's likely agenda - Pak Tifatul is the co-founder and outgoing chairman of the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) - six weeks into a (potential) five year appointment that his first act of office is to restrict access to information;
- is a broader clampdown on how the Internet is used and information, disseminated, in the works and,
- what if any role should the private sector in Indonesia play in pushing back against government edicts of this type.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Yikes! Year+ Since Last Blog
You might be wondering what would provoke me today to resurface.
I mean, since Oct 2008, we've had some seismic stuff going on here, multiple interlocking corruption scandals worth billions in Indonesia, a hip new messiah/prez in the US, a milestone anniversary for the Montreal Canadiens, and a few other wee bits and pieces (we'll get to those in a sec) to spice things up.
So what, you ask, has lit the fire under yer Grinch's furry behind? Well, one of my Facebook contacts posted a note earlier today saying that my cable & internet provider has blocked access to blogger.com
The reasons are a bit hazy but it apparently has something to do with a new letter from the ministry of information and technology the contents of which I've not yet seen. All I can confirm is that I can't log on @ home (First Media) but I can here in the office (which conversely blocks access to FB for reasons unrelated to this note).
So it seems now, at least temporarily, the country's largest cable provider and one of the most powerful industrial conglomerates in Indonesia, has decided I can't write in my blog. So, I'm gonna write in my blog.
Perhaps the floodgates will now open: only time will tell. What I can tell you by way of a teaser is that:
Ths morning I bought three toilets and two bathroom sinks;
In 30 mins I'll watch the boss sign a contract worth a ton of dough for the new project I'm managing, and
The day will close out with the missus and I @ the doctor's office to check the brood.
Interested....?
I mean, since Oct 2008, we've had some seismic stuff going on here, multiple interlocking corruption scandals worth billions in Indonesia, a hip new messiah/prez in the US, a milestone anniversary for the Montreal Canadiens, and a few other wee bits and pieces (we'll get to those in a sec) to spice things up.
So what, you ask, has lit the fire under yer Grinch's furry behind? Well, one of my Facebook contacts posted a note earlier today saying that my cable & internet provider has blocked access to blogger.com
The reasons are a bit hazy but it apparently has something to do with a new letter from the ministry of information and technology the contents of which I've not yet seen. All I can confirm is that I can't log on @ home (First Media) but I can here in the office (which conversely blocks access to FB for reasons unrelated to this note).
So it seems now, at least temporarily, the country's largest cable provider and one of the most powerful industrial conglomerates in Indonesia, has decided I can't write in my blog. So, I'm gonna write in my blog.
Perhaps the floodgates will now open: only time will tell. What I can tell you by way of a teaser is that:
Ths morning I bought three toilets and two bathroom sinks;
In 30 mins I'll watch the boss sign a contract worth a ton of dough for the new project I'm managing, and
The day will close out with the missus and I @ the doctor's office to check the brood.
Interested....?
Monday, October 06, 2008
‘Financial tsunami’ bigger than ‘97, banker says
Worst Still to Come for HK Amid Crisis
‘Financial tsunami’ bigger than ‘97, banker says
South China Morning Post Maria Chan, Cheung Chi-fai
and Agencies in Washington and Paris
5 October 2008
Despite the passage of the US government’s US$700 billion bank bailout, Hong Kong must brace for belt-tightening amid the global “financial tsunami”, the city’s labour chief and a top banker said yesterday.
HSBC Asia-Pacific executive director Peter Wong Tung-shun warned the impact of the crisis would be “far more severe” than that of the 1997-98 East Asian financial crisis.
“This will affect Hong Kong and the whole world,” he said. The effects would be felt for another 12 months and recovery would take “much longer” than a decade ago.
So far investors - including buyers of minibonds backed by bankrupt US bank Lehman Brothers, who scuffled with bank security staff yesterday - have been the biggest losers locally from the crisis. But both men warned its impact would grow.
Mr Wong expected Hong Kong businesses would have to control costs, but said mass layoffs were unlikely. Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, the secretary for labour and welfare, forecast jobs would go, however.
He said: “The financial tsunami will have a far-reaching impact. Enterprises may need to make manpower changes and there is a chance unemployment will rise, particularly in the finance and property sectors. Consumption will likely be hit too.”
China joined governments around the world in welcoming the US House of Representatives’ 263-171 vote in favour of the bailout.
The mainland’s central bank said authorities had contingency measures to minimise the impact of the crisis. The People’s Bank of China said it would strengthen co-ordination with the US and other countries to stabilise global financial markets.
“All countries have to co-operate in view of the current financial crisis,” a PBOC statement quoted Premier Wen Jiabao as saying. Maintaining rapid economic growth would be China’s biggest contribution to the global economy, he said.
Before signing the bailout bill into law, US President George W. Bush thanked lawmakers, saying: “We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street becoming a crisis in communities across our country.”
Friday’s vote capped an extraordinary two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by urgent warnings from Mr Bush that the country confronted the gravest economic disaster since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act. And it was followed by sombre reminders on Wall Street, where enthusiasm over the rescue gave way to worries about obstacles still facing the economy, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 157 points.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pledged quick action to get the programme up and operating.
Highlighting the ferocity with which the global crisis has swept into Europe, Belgium and Luxembourg scrambled to find a buyer for the rest of financial group Fortis after the Netherlands nationalised most of its Dutch units. Last week the three governments had injected €11.2 billion (HK$120.4 billion) to keep it afloat.
In Paris, the leaders of Europe’s four biggest economic powers held crisis talks on the global financial meltdown, despite disputes that killed off talk by French President Nicolas Sarkozy of a joint bailout package for European banks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown only confirmed they would attend after France quietly backed away from a joint fund. German Economy Minister Michael Glos warned “very well paid” bankers they must put their own houses in order.
‘Financial tsunami’ bigger than ‘97, banker says
South China Morning Post Maria Chan, Cheung Chi-fai
and Agencies in Washington and Paris
5 October 2008
Despite the passage of the US government’s US$700 billion bank bailout, Hong Kong must brace for belt-tightening amid the global “financial tsunami”, the city’s labour chief and a top banker said yesterday.
HSBC Asia-Pacific executive director Peter Wong Tung-shun warned the impact of the crisis would be “far more severe” than that of the 1997-98 East Asian financial crisis.
“This will affect Hong Kong and the whole world,” he said. The effects would be felt for another 12 months and recovery would take “much longer” than a decade ago.
So far investors - including buyers of minibonds backed by bankrupt US bank Lehman Brothers, who scuffled with bank security staff yesterday - have been the biggest losers locally from the crisis. But both men warned its impact would grow.
Mr Wong expected Hong Kong businesses would have to control costs, but said mass layoffs were unlikely. Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, the secretary for labour and welfare, forecast jobs would go, however.
He said: “The financial tsunami will have a far-reaching impact. Enterprises may need to make manpower changes and there is a chance unemployment will rise, particularly in the finance and property sectors. Consumption will likely be hit too.”
China joined governments around the world in welcoming the US House of Representatives’ 263-171 vote in favour of the bailout.
The mainland’s central bank said authorities had contingency measures to minimise the impact of the crisis. The People’s Bank of China said it would strengthen co-ordination with the US and other countries to stabilise global financial markets.
“All countries have to co-operate in view of the current financial crisis,” a PBOC statement quoted Premier Wen Jiabao as saying. Maintaining rapid economic growth would be China’s biggest contribution to the global economy, he said.
Before signing the bailout bill into law, US President George W. Bush thanked lawmakers, saying: “We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street becoming a crisis in communities across our country.”
Friday’s vote capped an extraordinary two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by urgent warnings from Mr Bush that the country confronted the gravest economic disaster since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act. And it was followed by sombre reminders on Wall Street, where enthusiasm over the rescue gave way to worries about obstacles still facing the economy, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 157 points.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pledged quick action to get the programme up and operating.
Highlighting the ferocity with which the global crisis has swept into Europe, Belgium and Luxembourg scrambled to find a buyer for the rest of financial group Fortis after the Netherlands nationalised most of its Dutch units. Last week the three governments had injected €11.2 billion (HK$120.4 billion) to keep it afloat.
In Paris, the leaders of Europe’s four biggest economic powers held crisis talks on the global financial meltdown, despite disputes that killed off talk by French President Nicolas Sarkozy of a joint bailout package for European banks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown only confirmed they would attend after France quietly backed away from a joint fund. German Economy Minister Michael Glos warned “very well paid” bankers they must put their own houses in order.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Seven Words...RIP George Carlin 22/06/08
I fell in love with George Carlin as a youngster sitting in neighbour's basement listing to his album Class Clown. Been quoting the entire Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television riff ever since.
"There are 400,000 words in the English and seven of them you can't say on television..."
News of his death today really bums me out.
Here's piece from ten years ago that showed he'd never lost the love of the language.
"I'm a modern man,
A man for the millennium,
Digital and smoke free.
A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist,
Politically anatomically and ecologically incorrect.
I've been uplinked and downloaded.
I've been inputted and outsourced.
I know the upside of downsizing.
I know the downside of upgrading.
I'm a high tech lowlife.
A cutting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal multitasker,
And I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.
I'm new wave but I'm old school,
And my inner child is outward bound.
I'm a hot wired heat seeking warm hearted cool customer,
Voice activated and biodegradable.
I interface from a database,
And my database is in cyberspace,
So I'm interactive,
I'm hyperactive,
And from time-to-time,
I'm radioactive.
Behind the eight ball,
Ahead of the curve,
Riding the wave,
Dodging a bullet,
Pushing the envelope.
I'm on point,
On task,
On message,
And off drugs.
I got no need for coke and speed,
I got no urge to binge and purge.
I'm in the moment,
On the edge,
Over the top,
But under the radar.
A high concept,
Low profile,
Medium range ballistic missionary.
A street-wise smart bomb.
A top gun bottom feeder.
I wear power ties,
I tell power lies,
I take power naps,
I run victory laps.
I'm a totally ongoing bigfoot slam dunk rainmaker with a proactive outreach.
A raging workaholic.
A working ragaholic.
Out of rehab,
And in denial.
I got a personal trainer,
A personal shopper,
A personal assistant,
And a personal agenda.
You can't shut me up,
You can't dumb me down.
'Cause I'm tireless,
And I'm wireless.
I'm an alpha male on beta blockers.
I'm a non-believer and an over-achiever.
Laid back but fashion forward.
Up front,
Down home,
Low rent,
High maintenance.
Super size,
Long lasting,
High definition,
Fast acting,
Oven ready,
And built to last.
I'm a hands on,
Foot loose,
Knee jerk,
Head case.
Prematurely post traumatic,
And I have a love child who sends me hate mail.
But I'm feeling,
I'm caring,
I'm healing,
I'm sharing.
A supportive bonding nurturing primary care giver.
My output is down,
But my income is up.
I take a short position on the long bond,
And my revenue stream has its own cash flow.
I read junk mail,
I eat junk food,
I buy junk bonds,
I watch trash sports.
I'm gender specific,
Capital intensive,
User friendly,
And lactose intolerant.
I like rough sex.
I like rough sex.
I like tough love.
I use the f word in my email,
And the software on my hard drive is hard core, no soft porn.
I bought a microwave at a mini mall.
I bought a mini van in a mega store.
I eat fast food in the slow lane.
I'm toll free,
Bite sized,
Ready to wear,
And I come in all sizes.
A fully equipped,
Factory authorized,
Hospital tested,
Clinically proven,
Scientifically formulated medical miracle.
I've been pre-washed,
Pre-cooked,
Pre-heated,
Pre-screened,
Pre-approved,
Pre-packaged,
Post-dated,
Freeze-dried,
Double-wrapped,
Vacuum-packed,
And I have an unlimited broadband capacity.
I'm a rude dude,
But I'm the real deal.
Lean and mean.
Cocked, locked and ready to rock.
Rough tough and hard to bluff.
I take it slow.
I go with the flow.
I ride with the tide.
I got glide in my stride.
Drivin' and movin',
Sailin' and spinnin',
Jivin' and groovin',
Wailin' and winnin'.
I don't snooze,
So I don't lose.
I keep the pedal to the metal,
And the rubber on the road.
I party hearty,
And lunch time is crunch time.
I'm hanging in,
There ain't no doubt.
And I'm hanging tough,
Over and out."
Friday, February 29, 2008
You can take the boy out of NDG but...
This post will only be of interest to a select few but I figured I'd throw it out there.
I joined an amusing Facebook group recently: NDG'ERS BORN BETWEEN 1960 AND 1985.
For sure the years have softened the focus a bit but I have strong, uniformly positive memories of growing up in Notre Dame de Grace, a multi-ethnic neighborhood slightly west of downtown Montreal.
So when I saw a couple of old friends among the roughly 200 'members' contibuting thoughts to the message board, pivotal events, mentors, 'the best friggin suvlaki shop in North America' etc I felt compelled to write.
The board only allows briefs, 1000 characters or less, so this is a somewhat longer version of that list.
For most of you these images won't make a whole lot of sense; for others though all I've gotta say is "Cinema V" or "The Carb" to set heads nodding.
Cheers
Grinch on Tour
I grew up on Grey Ave below the Villa Maria and later Cote St. Antoine opposite NDG Park, the axis around which my childhood and teenage years rotated. Some memories:
- Late-70s on the mound throwing smoke for Mosquito, Pee-Wee and Bantam-level baseball, and shagging flies with friends in the tall, buggy grass in left;
- Brutal British Bulldog (‘Mawwwseee’) and kick-hockey sessions in DOC school yard loosely monitored by the skeletal Brother Martin with his bell, leather strap and the wall-mounted collection of dead bugs outside his office;
- Smoking mum’s Rothmans Kings in the long-gone Claremont Theatre and then wandering over to the Trainatorium gag-shop next door for cigarette loads, garlic-flavored “Dentyne” bubble-gum and u-build plastic model Spitfires and Fokkers to paint and hang with fishing line from a bedroom ceiling amidst KISS Army and Skateboarder Magazine posters;
- The awesome skate ramp (circ ’79/80) with four-feet of vertical in the NDG Community centre, and chlorine migraines from the indoor pool next door;
- Park hockey and half a lifetime in Confederation (now Doug Harvey) arena including brutal 5:30 a.m. starts sharpening skates in Wilson’s pro-shop;
- Shops we knew as Blue Windows and The Greek at Decarie/NDG Ave that we robbed blind as elementary school kids, then skulked back to as young teens to buy cigarettes and porn mags;
- Summer evenings of "Panic", eluding the opposing team's hunters as they scoured the alleyways behind Grey Avenue, watching them gather their prisoners to be take to the 'safe' tree on Perry Wigram's front lawn. And mini-Grinch, sweating, scabby-kneed and covered in cobwebs and dried oak leaves nunched beneath a nearby porch ready to sprint from safety to 'free' his captives teammates;
- Launching plastecine dinosaurs from the roof of my buddy Kevin's apartment building into the crowds of "retards" at the McKay Centre for Deaf and Crippled Children below;
- Playing CCK (chase-catch-kiss) with the prettiest girls in Grades five and six. Guys, why did we run? Why did we hide? And where are you now Laurie Park?
- Standing on Oxford St. outside St Augustine's school one morning in July ‘79 with my baseball mitt waiting for Skylab to crash to earth (in Australia as it turned out). I had in mind a report about there being gold in that thar spaceship;
- All those years hauling a sled/wagon to deliver 120 copies of the 260-page (Saturday) edition of The Montreal Star under the watch of the mad depot manager Mrs. Radu;
- The high school winters avoiding skinheads and others who’d pound a scrawny kid in a maroon Loyola jacket and dress pants out of principle;
- My dog Trudy barrel-rolling down Cote St. Antoine after being hit by a speeding fire truck from the hall on Prud’homme, then ignoring a broken hip to continue the chase for a grey squirrel. The was one hell of a dog;
- Watching old-timer cops laugh off the clouds of ganja hanging over those early, rockin’ Sunday in the Park afternoons;
- The (real) Monkland Tav, the covered 105 bus stop opposite the post office at Wilson and Sherbrooke, Cinema V and The Carb(inier) brasserie in the basement of Alexis Neon Plaza that offered 2-for-1 $5 (solid glass) pitchers and cheap food: all fine drinking establishments when you’re broke and 16.
Monday, February 04, 2008
The Nation Builder
The following appeared in the Feb 2 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.
The author, Paul Keating was prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.
The death of Soeharto, the former president of Indonesia, gives all Australians a chance to assess the value of his life and the relationship between Indonesia and Australia.
More than any figure in the post-Second World War period, including any American president, Soeharto, by his judgment, goodwill and good sense, had the greatest positive impact on Australia's strategic environment and, hence, on its history.
In the 40 years since he came to power in 1965, Indonesia has been the ballast in South-East Asian stability and the foundation stone upon which ASEAN was built.
Soeharto took a nation of 120 million people, racked by political turmoil and poverty, from near-disintegration to the orderly, ordered and prosperous state that it is today.
In 1965, countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe were in the same position as Indonesia then. Today, those countries are economic and social wrecks. By contrast, Indonesia is a model of harmony, cohesion and progress. And the principal reason for that is Soeharto.
We can only imagine what Australia's strategic position would be like if Indonesia's 230 million people degenerated into a fractured, lawless state reminiscent of Nigeria or Zimbabwe.
For the past 40 years, we have been spending roughly 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence - about $20 billion a year in today's dollars. The figure would be more like seven to eight times that, about $150 billion today, if Indonesia had become a fractured, politically stricken state.
Had Soeharto's New Order government not displaced the Soekarno government and the massive PKI communist party, the postwar history of Australia would have been completely different. A communist-dominated Indonesia would have destabilised Australia and all of South-East Asia.
So why have Australians regarded Indonesia so suspiciously, especially over the past quarter-century, when it is evident that Indonesia has been at the fulcrum of our strategic stability?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is East Timor and the wilful reporting of Indonesian affairs in Australia by the Australian media.
That media have, in the main, been the Fairfax press and the ABC. Most particularly The Sydney Morning Herald and to a lesser extent The Age.
This rancour, and the misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life, can be attributed to the "get square" policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five - the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor.
This event was sheeted back to Soeharto by journalists of the broadsheet press. From that moment, in their eyes, Soeharto became a cruel and intolerant repressor whose life's work in saving Indonesia from destruction was to be viewed only through the prism of East Timor.
Rarely did journalists mention that Soeharto was president for almost 10 years before he did anything about East Timor. He was happy to leave the poverty-stricken and neglected enclave in his archipelago to Portugal, with its 300-year history of hopeless colonisation. Soeharto had enough trouble dragging Indonesia from poverty without needing to tack on another backward province.
But in mid-1975, communist-allied military officers took control in Portugal and its colonies abroad were taken over by avowedly Marxist regimes. In East Timor, a leftist group calling itself the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of East Timor, or Fretilin, staged a coup igniting a civil war.
When Fretilin overran the colony by force, Soeharto's government became alarmed. This happened at the height of the Cold War. Saigon had fallen in April of that year. Fretilin appealed to China and Vietnam for help. Fearing a "Cuba on his doorstep", Soeharto reluctantly decided on military intervention. In his 33 years as leader, he embarked upon no other "foreign" exploit. And he would not have bothered with Timor, had Fretilin not made the going too rough. Indeed, Jose Ramos-Horta told the Herald in 1996 that "the immaturity, irresponsibility and bad judgment of the East Timorese provoked Indonesia into doing what it did". Xanana Gusmao also told anyone who would listen that it had been a "bad mistake" for Fretilin to present itself as a "Marxist" outfit in 1975.
But none of this stopped a phalanx of Australian journalists, mostly from the Fairfax stable and the ABC's Four Corners, from reporting Indonesian affairs from that time such that Australians could only view the great economic transformation of Indonesia and the alleviation of its poverty and its tolerance primarily through the warped and shattered prism of East Timor.
The Herald even editorialised in favour of an Australian invasion of East Timor, then Indonesian territory. That is, right up front about it, the Herald urged the Australian government to invade Indonesia. So rabid has Fairfax been about Indonesia and so recreant of Australia's national interest has it been.
Even as late as this week, the Herald claimed the achievements of Soeharto's New Order government "were built on sand", nominating Indonesia reeling from crisis to crisis after 1998, when the Herald knows that Soeharto did precisely the right thing in calling the International Monetary Fund in to help and that the IMF, operating under US Treasury prescriptions, kicked the country and Soeharto to pieces.
The decline in Indonesia, after 30 years of 7 per cent compound growth under Soeharto, had little to do with Soeharto and everything to do with the Asian financial crisis and the short-sighted and ill-informed IMF.
But more than that, Australian journalists knew but failed to effectively communicate that not only did Soeharto hold his country together, he insisted that Indonesia be a secular state; that is, a Muslim country but not an Islamic or fundamentalist one. In other words, not an Iran.
Wouldn't you imagine that such an issue would be matter of high and primary importance to communicate to the Australian community? That on our doorstep there is a secular Indonesian state and not a religious one, run by Islamic law. And wouldn't you, in all reasonableness, give Soeharto full marks for keeping that vast archipelago as a civil society unrepressed by fundamentalism?
Look what happened to us in Bali at the hands of a handful, literally a handful, of Islamic fundamentalists. Imagine the turmoil for Australia if the whole 230 million of Indonesia had a fundamentalist objection to us. But this jaded bunch of Australian journalists could only report how Soeharto was corrupt because his son Tommy, might have elbowed his way into some carried equity with an American telephone company or his daughter something with a road builder. True as those generalisations might have been, in terms of the weight of Australia's interests, the deeds of Soeharto's public life massively outweigh anything in his private affairs.
I got to know Soeharto quite well. He was clever and utterly decisive and had a kind view of Australia. The peace and order of his country, its religious and ethnic tolerance and the peace and the order of South-East Asia came from his goodwill towards neighbouring states and from his wisdom. He was self-effacing and shy to a fault. One had to tease him out of himself to get him going, but once got going, his intellectualism took over.
Soeharto lived in what we would call in Australia a rather old and shabby McMansion in Jakarta. I have been there on a number of occasions. He lived as simply as anyone of his high standing could live.
But Time magazine claimed that Soeharto had stashed away $30 billion-odd, as if those ning-nongs would know, presumably so he could race off to live it up in Miami or the Bahamas. Errant nonsense. Soeharto was an Indonesian who was always going to remain an Indonesian. He lived a simple life and could never have changed that.
I do not doubt that his rapacious family had the better of him and got away with lumps of capital they had not earned. Soeharto was a disciplined leader, but not a disciplined father. But to compare him with the likes of Marcos is nothing short of dastardly.
The descriptions of Soeharto as a brutal dictator living a corrupt high life at the expense of his people and running an expansionist military regime are untrue. Even Soeharto's annexation of East Timor was not expansionist. It had everything to do with national security and nothing to do with territory.
Like all leaders, Soeharto had his failings. His greatest failing was to underestimate the nature of the society he had nurtured. As his economic stewardship led to food sufficiency, education, health and declines in infant mortality, so those changes gave rise to a middle class as incomes rose. Soeharto should have let political representation grow as incomes grew. But he distrusted the political classes. He believed they would not put the national interest first, had no administrative ability and were utterly indecisive, if not corrupt. He told me this on a number of occasions. He would not let the reins go. Partly because he did not want to lose them, partly because he really had no one to give them to.
Soeharto's problem was he had too little faith in his own people, the very people he cared for most.
Whatever political transition he may have wished to have had, it all blew up on him with the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. He had no democratic transition in place and, in the economic chaos, political forces wanted him to go.
In January 1998, nearly two years after I had left the prime ministership of Australia, I flew to Jakarta on my own initiative and at my own expense to see him the day he signed the IMF agreement with the fund's managing director, Michel Camdessus.
The IMF had tragically overplayed its hand the previous November and Soeharto was giving it a chance to dig itself out of a hole. He had a small window of opportunity. I thought that as a former head of government who was on friendly terms with him, I at least owed him advice of a kind I knew he would never get inside Indonesia: to take the opportunity of the IMF interregnum to say that he, Soeharto, would contest the next election but that he would not complete the term. That he would stay long enough to see the IMF reforms into place and then hand the presidency over to his vice-president.
Had he taken this advice, the process of political transformation would have been completely orderly. And a new administration could have set up the organs of democracy.
I discussed this issue with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, both of whom had Soeharto's and Indonesia's best interests at heart. Both gentlemen believed that I was in a better position to broach this subject with Soeharto than either of them. For two hours I had the president in his house with his state secretary, Moerdiano, and his interpreter Widodo. Fifteen minutes into the conversation, when I was making the case for him to step down, he stopped Widodo's translation and took my advice directly, in English. Moerdiano said to me in an aside at the door, "I think you have got him".
Soeharto followed me to the door, put his arms around my shoulders and said "God bless you" as I left. As it turned out, I didn't quite have him, and he hung on thinking he could slip through one more time.
But the crisis and the behaviour of the IMF and the US Treasury had marooned him. Completely determined to act constitutionally, he turned over his singular power, at his own initiative, to his vice-president to avoid any upheaval of the kind Indonesia had experienced during earlier transitions.
The new president, B.J. Habibie, then, by all due process, picked up the reins of government to deal with the continuing financial reconstruction and the long process of democratisation.
When the acting Foreign Minister, Robert McClelland, and I arrived in Indonesia for Soeharto's funeral last Monday, we drove the 30-odd kilometres from the airport at Solo to the mausoleum where he would be buried alongside his wife. For not one metre of those 30-odd kilometres, was there no person present. In some places they were six and eight deep, all holding their baskets of petals to throw at his cortege. They all knew they were burying the builder of their society and all felt the moment.
How many Australian leaders would have a million or so people to grieve for them beside the roadway? Soeharto's funeral was a tribute to what his life truly meant. I felt honoured to have been there but more than that, to have known him.
The author, Paul Keating was prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.
The death of Soeharto, the former president of Indonesia, gives all Australians a chance to assess the value of his life and the relationship between Indonesia and Australia.
More than any figure in the post-Second World War period, including any American president, Soeharto, by his judgment, goodwill and good sense, had the greatest positive impact on Australia's strategic environment and, hence, on its history.
In the 40 years since he came to power in 1965, Indonesia has been the ballast in South-East Asian stability and the foundation stone upon which ASEAN was built.
Soeharto took a nation of 120 million people, racked by political turmoil and poverty, from near-disintegration to the orderly, ordered and prosperous state that it is today.
In 1965, countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe were in the same position as Indonesia then. Today, those countries are economic and social wrecks. By contrast, Indonesia is a model of harmony, cohesion and progress. And the principal reason for that is Soeharto.
We can only imagine what Australia's strategic position would be like if Indonesia's 230 million people degenerated into a fractured, lawless state reminiscent of Nigeria or Zimbabwe.
For the past 40 years, we have been spending roughly 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence - about $20 billion a year in today's dollars. The figure would be more like seven to eight times that, about $150 billion today, if Indonesia had become a fractured, politically stricken state.
Had Soeharto's New Order government not displaced the Soekarno government and the massive PKI communist party, the postwar history of Australia would have been completely different. A communist-dominated Indonesia would have destabilised Australia and all of South-East Asia.
So why have Australians regarded Indonesia so suspiciously, especially over the past quarter-century, when it is evident that Indonesia has been at the fulcrum of our strategic stability?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is East Timor and the wilful reporting of Indonesian affairs in Australia by the Australian media.
That media have, in the main, been the Fairfax press and the ABC. Most particularly The Sydney Morning Herald and to a lesser extent The Age.
This rancour, and the misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life, can be attributed to the "get square" policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five - the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor.
This event was sheeted back to Soeharto by journalists of the broadsheet press. From that moment, in their eyes, Soeharto became a cruel and intolerant repressor whose life's work in saving Indonesia from destruction was to be viewed only through the prism of East Timor.
Rarely did journalists mention that Soeharto was president for almost 10 years before he did anything about East Timor. He was happy to leave the poverty-stricken and neglected enclave in his archipelago to Portugal, with its 300-year history of hopeless colonisation. Soeharto had enough trouble dragging Indonesia from poverty without needing to tack on another backward province.
But in mid-1975, communist-allied military officers took control in Portugal and its colonies abroad were taken over by avowedly Marxist regimes. In East Timor, a leftist group calling itself the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of East Timor, or Fretilin, staged a coup igniting a civil war.
When Fretilin overran the colony by force, Soeharto's government became alarmed. This happened at the height of the Cold War. Saigon had fallen in April of that year. Fretilin appealed to China and Vietnam for help. Fearing a "Cuba on his doorstep", Soeharto reluctantly decided on military intervention. In his 33 years as leader, he embarked upon no other "foreign" exploit. And he would not have bothered with Timor, had Fretilin not made the going too rough. Indeed, Jose Ramos-Horta told the Herald in 1996 that "the immaturity, irresponsibility and bad judgment of the East Timorese provoked Indonesia into doing what it did". Xanana Gusmao also told anyone who would listen that it had been a "bad mistake" for Fretilin to present itself as a "Marxist" outfit in 1975.
But none of this stopped a phalanx of Australian journalists, mostly from the Fairfax stable and the ABC's Four Corners, from reporting Indonesian affairs from that time such that Australians could only view the great economic transformation of Indonesia and the alleviation of its poverty and its tolerance primarily through the warped and shattered prism of East Timor.
The Herald even editorialised in favour of an Australian invasion of East Timor, then Indonesian territory. That is, right up front about it, the Herald urged the Australian government to invade Indonesia. So rabid has Fairfax been about Indonesia and so recreant of Australia's national interest has it been.
Even as late as this week, the Herald claimed the achievements of Soeharto's New Order government "were built on sand", nominating Indonesia reeling from crisis to crisis after 1998, when the Herald knows that Soeharto did precisely the right thing in calling the International Monetary Fund in to help and that the IMF, operating under US Treasury prescriptions, kicked the country and Soeharto to pieces.
The decline in Indonesia, after 30 years of 7 per cent compound growth under Soeharto, had little to do with Soeharto and everything to do with the Asian financial crisis and the short-sighted and ill-informed IMF.
But more than that, Australian journalists knew but failed to effectively communicate that not only did Soeharto hold his country together, he insisted that Indonesia be a secular state; that is, a Muslim country but not an Islamic or fundamentalist one. In other words, not an Iran.
Wouldn't you imagine that such an issue would be matter of high and primary importance to communicate to the Australian community? That on our doorstep there is a secular Indonesian state and not a religious one, run by Islamic law. And wouldn't you, in all reasonableness, give Soeharto full marks for keeping that vast archipelago as a civil society unrepressed by fundamentalism?
Look what happened to us in Bali at the hands of a handful, literally a handful, of Islamic fundamentalists. Imagine the turmoil for Australia if the whole 230 million of Indonesia had a fundamentalist objection to us. But this jaded bunch of Australian journalists could only report how Soeharto was corrupt because his son Tommy, might have elbowed his way into some carried equity with an American telephone company or his daughter something with a road builder. True as those generalisations might have been, in terms of the weight of Australia's interests, the deeds of Soeharto's public life massively outweigh anything in his private affairs.
I got to know Soeharto quite well. He was clever and utterly decisive and had a kind view of Australia. The peace and order of his country, its religious and ethnic tolerance and the peace and the order of South-East Asia came from his goodwill towards neighbouring states and from his wisdom. He was self-effacing and shy to a fault. One had to tease him out of himself to get him going, but once got going, his intellectualism took over.
Soeharto lived in what we would call in Australia a rather old and shabby McMansion in Jakarta. I have been there on a number of occasions. He lived as simply as anyone of his high standing could live.
But Time magazine claimed that Soeharto had stashed away $30 billion-odd, as if those ning-nongs would know, presumably so he could race off to live it up in Miami or the Bahamas. Errant nonsense. Soeharto was an Indonesian who was always going to remain an Indonesian. He lived a simple life and could never have changed that.
I do not doubt that his rapacious family had the better of him and got away with lumps of capital they had not earned. Soeharto was a disciplined leader, but not a disciplined father. But to compare him with the likes of Marcos is nothing short of dastardly.
The descriptions of Soeharto as a brutal dictator living a corrupt high life at the expense of his people and running an expansionist military regime are untrue. Even Soeharto's annexation of East Timor was not expansionist. It had everything to do with national security and nothing to do with territory.
Like all leaders, Soeharto had his failings. His greatest failing was to underestimate the nature of the society he had nurtured. As his economic stewardship led to food sufficiency, education, health and declines in infant mortality, so those changes gave rise to a middle class as incomes rose. Soeharto should have let political representation grow as incomes grew. But he distrusted the political classes. He believed they would not put the national interest first, had no administrative ability and were utterly indecisive, if not corrupt. He told me this on a number of occasions. He would not let the reins go. Partly because he did not want to lose them, partly because he really had no one to give them to.
Soeharto's problem was he had too little faith in his own people, the very people he cared for most.
Whatever political transition he may have wished to have had, it all blew up on him with the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. He had no democratic transition in place and, in the economic chaos, political forces wanted him to go.
In January 1998, nearly two years after I had left the prime ministership of Australia, I flew to Jakarta on my own initiative and at my own expense to see him the day he signed the IMF agreement with the fund's managing director, Michel Camdessus.
The IMF had tragically overplayed its hand the previous November and Soeharto was giving it a chance to dig itself out of a hole. He had a small window of opportunity. I thought that as a former head of government who was on friendly terms with him, I at least owed him advice of a kind I knew he would never get inside Indonesia: to take the opportunity of the IMF interregnum to say that he, Soeharto, would contest the next election but that he would not complete the term. That he would stay long enough to see the IMF reforms into place and then hand the presidency over to his vice-president.
Had he taken this advice, the process of political transformation would have been completely orderly. And a new administration could have set up the organs of democracy.
I discussed this issue with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, both of whom had Soeharto's and Indonesia's best interests at heart. Both gentlemen believed that I was in a better position to broach this subject with Soeharto than either of them. For two hours I had the president in his house with his state secretary, Moerdiano, and his interpreter Widodo. Fifteen minutes into the conversation, when I was making the case for him to step down, he stopped Widodo's translation and took my advice directly, in English. Moerdiano said to me in an aside at the door, "I think you have got him".
Soeharto followed me to the door, put his arms around my shoulders and said "God bless you" as I left. As it turned out, I didn't quite have him, and he hung on thinking he could slip through one more time.
But the crisis and the behaviour of the IMF and the US Treasury had marooned him. Completely determined to act constitutionally, he turned over his singular power, at his own initiative, to his vice-president to avoid any upheaval of the kind Indonesia had experienced during earlier transitions.
The new president, B.J. Habibie, then, by all due process, picked up the reins of government to deal with the continuing financial reconstruction and the long process of democratisation.
When the acting Foreign Minister, Robert McClelland, and I arrived in Indonesia for Soeharto's funeral last Monday, we drove the 30-odd kilometres from the airport at Solo to the mausoleum where he would be buried alongside his wife. For not one metre of those 30-odd kilometres, was there no person present. In some places they were six and eight deep, all holding their baskets of petals to throw at his cortege. They all knew they were burying the builder of their society and all felt the moment.
How many Australian leaders would have a million or so people to grieve for them beside the roadway? Soeharto's funeral was a tribute to what his life truly meant. I felt honoured to have been there but more than that, to have known him.
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Ol’ Croc is Dead; What Happens Now?
Former Indonesian President Suharto died Sunday, January 27, at 1310 local time after several weeks in and out of consciousness in a Jakarta hospital.
Rumours have been flying since he was hospitalized January 4 about the various medical and spiritual interventions being made: the kids will keep him alive at all costs; he's lucid and talking to visitors; he's a drooling brain-dead; he’s critical and about to die; he's already dead (multiple times) but it's being kept hush-hush because it's bad Mojo to die on this day in the Javanese calendar; his brain has been removed and placed in stasis for possible transplant into a host organism (actually I made that last one up).
It’s kinda hard to read the street mood right now because few will speak ill of the dead until it’s clear they're not going to come back and ruin the crops, infest the house with geckos or hypnotize your wife into handing over all her Bank ATM- and VISA cards and PINs to a stranger.
What I can see is that everyone who is supposed to be in my office today is here; the traffic along Jakarta’s main drag Jalan Sudirman is as nasty as ever and, once you sweep away the kilometer-long convoys of official cars speeding for the airport with their Harley-Davidson-driving police outriders, it appears to be business as usual. No wholesale tears or gnashing of teeth here.
The foreign correspondents have dutifully dusted off the obits they’ve had ready for years. I've got some early, amateurish version squirreled away somewhere since his first serious medical crisis back in 2000. There's an inevitable and dull predictability to the tone and content of the writing I've seen thus far. Breaks down like this: Suharto did a lot of good for the country over 32 years, it’s too bad about all those folks butchered on his watch, and the legacy of corruption and waste that bedevils Indonesia to this day.
The obits are quite correct though I would add a slightly less tangible but ultimately more dangerous product of Suharto’s rule: the fostering of a distinctively Javanese brand of Imperial Cynicism which, at its most refined produces the almost pathological lack of public and personal accountability (or shame) that today permeates every sector and strata of Indonesian society regardless of the volume and sophistication of the accompanying ethnic baggage.
Suharto’s legacy, like that of all 'great' leaders is hard to reconcile. It's impossible to lift a country of this size and complexity from the malarial bowels of the Third World (it didn’t qualify as the less colonial adjective ‘developing’ in ’65) to relative global competitiveness in three decades by observing all the niceties, singing Kumbaya around the campfire.
In the real world somebody's flowerbed is going to get trampled; someone's Dad is gonna vanish forever on the walk home from work; someone's family business is going to be stolen away from them and handed to shadowy interests. The question folks here need to consider – and won’t for a several doctoral thesis’ worth of reasons - is whether it was truly necessary and acceptable to butcher 800,000 - 2 million people (including some hard line, virulent Communists who would have certainly putsched back if the shoe was on the other foot) in nine months after the 'coup' in '65 to make it happen? Or see another quarter million, one-in-four, murdered and starved to death in East Timor, and countless tens of thousands mowed down by helicopter gunships and Scorpion tanks in Papua and Aceh.
Does the blood ledger ever balance out? Villages wiped off the map vs national electrical infrastructure built; ethnic Chinese raped and systematically marginalized vs national school and health curriculums created; mass graves filled with the macheted bodies of agricultural coop members in East Java and Bali vs regional stability and generally good relations with the neighbors; a paranoid and corrupt security apparatus that excels only in killing its own citizens vs relative ethnic and religious peace and stability.
Not surprisingly for most Indonesians it’s a matter of one’s personal proximity to the events and access to information about what has gone before that shapes a world view.
As a consequence, the overwhelming numbers of people are prepared to forgive Suharto (and to a lesser extent his security apparatus) their excesses. They’ve begun erecting about him an edifice of artifice and mythology centered around several basic tenets: that development was worth the human costs and that some (Acehnese, Papuans, Timorese, Labor activists, Chinese etc) kinda deserved their fates; that the armed forces from which Suharto (and the current president) emerged remains a central, unifying and stabilizing force which lamentably contains ‘rogue’ elements responsible for decades of excesses; and that ultimately it is understandable (indeed laudable) that the Old Man would dote on his kids (by providing them monopolies on key goods and services for example) but how could he possibly have known (kasihan!) that the little pack of veloci-raptors would be so conscienceless and rapacious?
But the story is by no means done. My gut tells me that part of the deal the country has cut with its conscience is the following: Now that the old man is dead, his shadowy and powerful patronage no longer stretching from the relatively modest Central Jakarta residence where he’s lived since resigning in May 1998 to the National Palace, surely the hounds will be released on his venal children and their playmates? Is it possible that a measure of the justice Suharto eluded might come crashing down on those closest to him? Could it be that the weakened, prevaricating current President will finally hit stride, securing himself a second term in 2009 on the back of a widely popular crackdown on Suharto-era cronies and corruptors?
And what if after an appropriate period of mourning the government fails to act against those that remain? Will the public tolerate it or are we on the cusp of another painful and inevitably bloody period of national upheaval?
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Harry Burton's Killer Finally Executed
It has been ages but at least I'm back with good news from the Associated Press.
Although fundamentally I'm opposed to the death penalty, this sonofabitch Reza Khan deserved to die, gunned down like a dog by Afghan soldiers in a dusty prison courtyard.
I wait for similar news about the other two animals involved in the murder of my mate Harry, and his travelling companions Maria, Azizullah and Julio nearly six years ago (as well as the masterminds of the Bali bomb now sitting on deathrow here in Indonesia).
15 executions break Afghan moratorium
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
Mon Oct 8, 3:35 PM ET
Ending a three-year moratorium on the death penalty, Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners by gunfire, including a man convicted of killing three foreign journalists during the U.S.-led invasion, the prisons chief announced Monday.
The United Nations protested the executions, which could complicate the missions of some NATO nations here.
The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law, which calls for condemned prisoners to be shot to death, said Abdul Salam Ismat, who oversees Afghanistan's prisons.
The crimes committed by those executed included murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, but officials said no Taliban or al-Qaida fighters were among the prisoners.
Until it was ousted in late 2001, Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime carried out executions in public, many of them at the Kabul stadium. The new government pledged to the international community it would halt executions, and had carried out only one previously, in 2004.
The 15 deaths could complicate relationships between the government and some NATO countries with military forces here. Foreign troops often hand over captured militants to the Afghan government, raising the question of whether countries that do not use the death penalty might stop surrendering prisoners.
The Netherlands was one of the first to criticize the Afghan announcement, calling the executions "extremely unwelcome." But it also said Dutch troops would continue to transfer militants to the Afghan government, saying it had an agreement protecting those prisoners from execution.
Anger over the executions also could prove a snag for NATO's efforts to get its member nations to send more troops to Afghanistan. NATO has some 40,000 soldiers here but commanders complain they need more helicopters, mobile troops and instructors to train the Afghan army.
"The fact that we have not fully been able to live up to the promises that nations have made is a point of concern for me," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday in Denmark before the executions were announced.
Among those executed was Reza Khan, who was convicted of adultery and the murder of one Afghan and three foreign journalists in 2001. The four were pulled from their cars, robbed and shot near the eastern city of Jalalabad while driving toward Kabul six days after the Taliban abandoned the capital under heavy U.S. bombing.
The four were Australian TV cameraman Harry Burton, Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of the Reuters news agency, Maria Grazia Cutuli of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo.
Also executed was Farhad, who is also known as Pahlavan and like many Afghan used only a single name. He was involved in the 2005 kidnapping of Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni; she was freed after three weeks.
Tom Koenigs, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said the U.N. had expressed its concern over the use of the death penalty many times in the past.
"The United Nations in Afghanistan has been a staunch supporter of the moratorium on executions observed in Afghanistan in recent years," Koenigs said. "I expect Afghanistan to continue working towards attaining the highest human rights standards and ensuring the due process of law and the rights of all citizens are respected."
The government's official announcement of the executions came on state television Monday evening, saying said Karzai ordered the executions following a decision by a special commission he set up to review rulings by the Supreme Court.
"After all the discussions and after looking back over the cases ... in order to prevent future crimes, such as murders, armed robberies, kidnappings, and to maintain the stability of the country, (Karzai) approved the prisoners' death sentences," a statement read over the news said.
Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, had told The Associated Press last week that Karzai was taking "extreme care in execution cases."
"He has been holding on to these cases because he wants to make sure that the justice is served and the due process is complete. He personally does not like executions, but Afghan law asks for it, and he will obey the laws," Hamidzada said.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry expressed distress at the executions.
"For the Netherlands, the abolition of the death penalty is one of our priorities in terms of international human rights policy," spokesman Bart Rijs said. "We had understood there was a moratorium on the death penalty in force."
Rijs said Dutch troops would continue to hand over prisoners because the Netherlands had signed a memorandum of understanding with Karzai's government guaranteeing those inmates would not be executed. Rijs said there were 10 such prisoners and all were believed in good health.
Amnesty International said six countries were responsible for 91 percent of all known executions worldwide last year: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States. Eighteen other countries also carried out executions, the group said.
Although fundamentally I'm opposed to the death penalty, this sonofabitch Reza Khan deserved to die, gunned down like a dog by Afghan soldiers in a dusty prison courtyard.
I wait for similar news about the other two animals involved in the murder of my mate Harry, and his travelling companions Maria, Azizullah and Julio nearly six years ago (as well as the masterminds of the Bali bomb now sitting on deathrow here in Indonesia).
15 executions break Afghan moratorium
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
Mon Oct 8, 3:35 PM ET
Ending a three-year moratorium on the death penalty, Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners by gunfire, including a man convicted of killing three foreign journalists during the U.S.-led invasion, the prisons chief announced Monday.
The United Nations protested the executions, which could complicate the missions of some NATO nations here.
The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law, which calls for condemned prisoners to be shot to death, said Abdul Salam Ismat, who oversees Afghanistan's prisons.
The crimes committed by those executed included murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, but officials said no Taliban or al-Qaida fighters were among the prisoners.
Until it was ousted in late 2001, Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime carried out executions in public, many of them at the Kabul stadium. The new government pledged to the international community it would halt executions, and had carried out only one previously, in 2004.
The 15 deaths could complicate relationships between the government and some NATO countries with military forces here. Foreign troops often hand over captured militants to the Afghan government, raising the question of whether countries that do not use the death penalty might stop surrendering prisoners.
The Netherlands was one of the first to criticize the Afghan announcement, calling the executions "extremely unwelcome." But it also said Dutch troops would continue to transfer militants to the Afghan government, saying it had an agreement protecting those prisoners from execution.
Anger over the executions also could prove a snag for NATO's efforts to get its member nations to send more troops to Afghanistan. NATO has some 40,000 soldiers here but commanders complain they need more helicopters, mobile troops and instructors to train the Afghan army.
"The fact that we have not fully been able to live up to the promises that nations have made is a point of concern for me," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday in Denmark before the executions were announced.
Among those executed was Reza Khan, who was convicted of adultery and the murder of one Afghan and three foreign journalists in 2001. The four were pulled from their cars, robbed and shot near the eastern city of Jalalabad while driving toward Kabul six days after the Taliban abandoned the capital under heavy U.S. bombing.
The four were Australian TV cameraman Harry Burton, Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of the Reuters news agency, Maria Grazia Cutuli of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo.
Also executed was Farhad, who is also known as Pahlavan and like many Afghan used only a single name. He was involved in the 2005 kidnapping of Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni; she was freed after three weeks.
Tom Koenigs, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said the U.N. had expressed its concern over the use of the death penalty many times in the past.
"The United Nations in Afghanistan has been a staunch supporter of the moratorium on executions observed in Afghanistan in recent years," Koenigs said. "I expect Afghanistan to continue working towards attaining the highest human rights standards and ensuring the due process of law and the rights of all citizens are respected."
The government's official announcement of the executions came on state television Monday evening, saying said Karzai ordered the executions following a decision by a special commission he set up to review rulings by the Supreme Court.
"After all the discussions and after looking back over the cases ... in order to prevent future crimes, such as murders, armed robberies, kidnappings, and to maintain the stability of the country, (Karzai) approved the prisoners' death sentences," a statement read over the news said.
Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, had told The Associated Press last week that Karzai was taking "extreme care in execution cases."
"He has been holding on to these cases because he wants to make sure that the justice is served and the due process is complete. He personally does not like executions, but Afghan law asks for it, and he will obey the laws," Hamidzada said.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry expressed distress at the executions.
"For the Netherlands, the abolition of the death penalty is one of our priorities in terms of international human rights policy," spokesman Bart Rijs said. "We had understood there was a moratorium on the death penalty in force."
Rijs said Dutch troops would continue to hand over prisoners because the Netherlands had signed a memorandum of understanding with Karzai's government guaranteeing those inmates would not be executed. Rijs said there were 10 such prisoners and all were believed in good health.
Amnesty International said six countries were responsible for 91 percent of all known executions worldwide last year: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States. Eighteen other countries also carried out executions, the group said.
Monday, July 16, 2007
The True North, Stoned and Free
The Globe and Mail
July 16, 2007
Listen, Canada, we need to talk.
It's about your little pot habit.
Just look at these numbers from the United Nations. More people smoke in Canada than in nearly every other country. More than Jamaica. More than the Netherlands.
Dude, that has to tell you something.
Do you want to end up like Papua New Guinea or Micronesia?
Stop giggling. They are too real countries.
Sigh. For the last time, no, it's not 4:20 yet.
Canada is a nation of stoners.
According to the United Nations' 2007 World Drug Report released last week, Canadians lead the industrialized world in marijuana smoking. Canadians are four times more likely to have smoked pot in the past year than residents of nearly every other country: 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 use marijuana, compared to a global average of 3.8 per cent.
Why so high?
While experts aren't concerned about Canadians' pot-smoking habits – they worry about abuse, not recreational use – they agree that the country's fondness for weed says something about our national character.
But opinions vary widely on what, exactly, it says.
“That's a reflection on our national accountability,” says Albert de Goias, director of the Toronto-based Prometheum Institute, an addiction counselling centre.
Dr. de Goias says the pot-smoking rates don't bother him, and he rarely sees people seeking treatment for marijuana dependence. But he thinks it's symptomatic of a collective lack of ambition.
“We have a very progressive economy, and a tendency to be overprotective of personal rights, much more so than other countries. We have a tendency to feel we have a right to get everything without really having to earn it.”
Some pot smokers, however, say Canada's high rate of recreational use is not because we're a nation of slackers, but merely a side effect of the country's go-getter work ethic. Canadians work hard and, unlike Europeans, don't get 10 weeks of vacation or two-hour lunches – so we find other ways to unwind.
“You're putting in way too many hours at work, you just want to go out and relax,” says one recreational user, a business owner and married father of three who smokes pot several times a month. Marijuana, he explains, allows busy professionals to “maximize your leisure time.”
“You go to a bar, you're hanging out with friends – if you're stoned, everybody's funnier,” he says. “If you're not sure about a movie? Get high, you'll like it better.”this is notes
Pot's mainstream popularity shows how far Canada has progressed (or drifted, depending on your perspective) from its strait-laced roots. While still illegal, marijuana has gained widespread social acceptance in Canada.
“Canadians have come far and fast from the kind of pasty white Protestant culture of the early post-War period to a much more diverse society founded on individual freedom,” says Rudyard Griffiths, co-founder of the Dominion Institute. “Soft drugs are probably part of that.”
In 2001, Canada became the first country to legalize medical marijuana. In 2003, Jean Chrétien's Liberals tabled a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession, but the legislation died in 2006.
Still, 55 per cent of Canadians believe marijuana should be legal, according to an Angus Reid poll conducted this June.
And many smokers aren't letting the current laws stop them.
Canadians are more likely to smoke pot than people in the Netherlands, where cannabis is legal yet only 6.8 per cent of the population had used it in the past year. The only countries more likely to spark up are Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Ghana and Zambia.
Canadians are no slouches when it comes to other mind-altering substances, either. Alcohol use is 30 per cent higher than the global average, and Canada ranks fourth, after Spain, England and the United States, for cocaine use – 2.3 per cent of the population tried cocaine in the past year.
But Canadians' laissez-faire attitude has limits, Mr. Griffiths says. For example, attitudes about pornography are much more conservative here than in Europe. And lighting a tobacco cigarette earns you more dirty looks in some circles than lighting a joint.
“I don't think we're slouching toward Gomorrah,” Mr. Griffiths says.
While some pin Canada's penchant for pot on social liberalism, others say it's just the opposite – the illegality of marijuana actually boosts its appeal.
“The more something is prohibited, the more it becomes appealing to some people,” says Benedikt Fischer, a drug policy expert at the University of Victoria and a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
He cautions that patterns of use are more significant than one-time use, and he notes that the U.N.'s method of counting anyone who's smoked pot in the past year casts a very wide net. He's not surprised Canada's numbers are so high.
“We're a very prohibitionist society when it comes to psychoactive drugs, or fun, or anything that has a flavour of immorality,” Dr. Fischer says. “This is a cultural knee-jerk reaction, the rejection of unaccepted norms.”
Robin Ellins, proprietor of the Friendly Stranger, a head shop in Toronto, agrees.
“Consumption would go down if it was legal,” he says, as shoppers browse among ornate bongs and hemp clothing. “That's definitely a big part of the attraction.”
Mr. Ellins thinks Canada's commanding lead in the global drug survey might be traced to a positive national trait: honesty.
Whereas some countries keep their reefer madness quiet, Canadians are proud pot smokers.
“We have a willingness to admit that we actually do partake,” he says.
July 16, 2007
Listen, Canada, we need to talk.
It's about your little pot habit.
Just look at these numbers from the United Nations. More people smoke in Canada than in nearly every other country. More than Jamaica. More than the Netherlands.
Dude, that has to tell you something.
Do you want to end up like Papua New Guinea or Micronesia?
Stop giggling. They are too real countries.
Sigh. For the last time, no, it's not 4:20 yet.
Canada is a nation of stoners.
According to the United Nations' 2007 World Drug Report released last week, Canadians lead the industrialized world in marijuana smoking. Canadians are four times more likely to have smoked pot in the past year than residents of nearly every other country: 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 use marijuana, compared to a global average of 3.8 per cent.
Why so high?
While experts aren't concerned about Canadians' pot-smoking habits – they worry about abuse, not recreational use – they agree that the country's fondness for weed says something about our national character.
But opinions vary widely on what, exactly, it says.
“That's a reflection on our national accountability,” says Albert de Goias, director of the Toronto-based Prometheum Institute, an addiction counselling centre.
Dr. de Goias says the pot-smoking rates don't bother him, and he rarely sees people seeking treatment for marijuana dependence. But he thinks it's symptomatic of a collective lack of ambition.
“We have a very progressive economy, and a tendency to be overprotective of personal rights, much more so than other countries. We have a tendency to feel we have a right to get everything without really having to earn it.”
Some pot smokers, however, say Canada's high rate of recreational use is not because we're a nation of slackers, but merely a side effect of the country's go-getter work ethic. Canadians work hard and, unlike Europeans, don't get 10 weeks of vacation or two-hour lunches – so we find other ways to unwind.
“You're putting in way too many hours at work, you just want to go out and relax,” says one recreational user, a business owner and married father of three who smokes pot several times a month. Marijuana, he explains, allows busy professionals to “maximize your leisure time.”
“You go to a bar, you're hanging out with friends – if you're stoned, everybody's funnier,” he says. “If you're not sure about a movie? Get high, you'll like it better.”this is notes
Pot's mainstream popularity shows how far Canada has progressed (or drifted, depending on your perspective) from its strait-laced roots. While still illegal, marijuana has gained widespread social acceptance in Canada.
“Canadians have come far and fast from the kind of pasty white Protestant culture of the early post-War period to a much more diverse society founded on individual freedom,” says Rudyard Griffiths, co-founder of the Dominion Institute. “Soft drugs are probably part of that.”
In 2001, Canada became the first country to legalize medical marijuana. In 2003, Jean Chrétien's Liberals tabled a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession, but the legislation died in 2006.
Still, 55 per cent of Canadians believe marijuana should be legal, according to an Angus Reid poll conducted this June.
And many smokers aren't letting the current laws stop them.
Canadians are more likely to smoke pot than people in the Netherlands, where cannabis is legal yet only 6.8 per cent of the population had used it in the past year. The only countries more likely to spark up are Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Ghana and Zambia.
Canadians are no slouches when it comes to other mind-altering substances, either. Alcohol use is 30 per cent higher than the global average, and Canada ranks fourth, after Spain, England and the United States, for cocaine use – 2.3 per cent of the population tried cocaine in the past year.
But Canadians' laissez-faire attitude has limits, Mr. Griffiths says. For example, attitudes about pornography are much more conservative here than in Europe. And lighting a tobacco cigarette earns you more dirty looks in some circles than lighting a joint.
“I don't think we're slouching toward Gomorrah,” Mr. Griffiths says.
While some pin Canada's penchant for pot on social liberalism, others say it's just the opposite – the illegality of marijuana actually boosts its appeal.
“The more something is prohibited, the more it becomes appealing to some people,” says Benedikt Fischer, a drug policy expert at the University of Victoria and a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
He cautions that patterns of use are more significant than one-time use, and he notes that the U.N.'s method of counting anyone who's smoked pot in the past year casts a very wide net. He's not surprised Canada's numbers are so high.
“We're a very prohibitionist society when it comes to psychoactive drugs, or fun, or anything that has a flavour of immorality,” Dr. Fischer says. “This is a cultural knee-jerk reaction, the rejection of unaccepted norms.”
Robin Ellins, proprietor of the Friendly Stranger, a head shop in Toronto, agrees.
“Consumption would go down if it was legal,” he says, as shoppers browse among ornate bongs and hemp clothing. “That's definitely a big part of the attraction.”
Mr. Ellins thinks Canada's commanding lead in the global drug survey might be traced to a positive national trait: honesty.
Whereas some countries keep their reefer madness quiet, Canadians are proud pot smokers.
“We have a willingness to admit that we actually do partake,” he says.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Tangled up in Seuss: Grinch Strikes Back
When a musician recorded "Green Eggs and Ham" in the voice of vintage Bob Dylan and posted it online, the Grinch estate promptly replied: One fish, two fish, cease and desist.
By Dan Brekke
Apr. 13, 2007 | Kevin Ryan doesn't want to talk about his recent fling with Web stardom. He's a bit rueful and more than a little nervous about it, in fact, and wishes the whole thing would just go away.
If you missed his star turn, here's what happened: Ryan, a 33-year-old Houston music producer and author, went into his home studio and engineered a sort of retro mash-up of two of his favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Dr. Seuss.
Ryan took the text from seven Seuss classics, including "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham," and set them to original tunes that sounded like they were right off Dylan's mid-'60s releases. He played all the instruments and sang all the songs in Dylan's breathy, nasal twang. He registered a domain name, dylanhearsawho.com, and in February posted his seven tracks online, accompanied by suitably Photoshopped album artwork, under the title "Dylan Hears a Who."
"Green Eggs and Ham" was set to a tune and arrangement somewhere between "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues," complete with Dylan's rushed, occasionally sneering phrasing. Familiar passages are run together in impatient run-ons:
Would you eat them in a box?
Would you eat them with a fox?
Not in a box not with a fox
Not in a house not with a mouse
I would not eat them here or there
I would not eat them anywhere
All this accompanied by an up-tempo electric band, complete with the jaunty skirling of a Hammond organ.
It was clever and delightful. Ryan had immersed himself so fully in Seuss' words and Dylan's style that he managed to merge two quite different creative intelligences. Many who have heard the tracks come away convinced they're really listening to Bob Dylan.
Reached in Houston, Ryan confirmed the work was his but declined to speak about it on the record except to say he never expected it to attract any attention. Instead, "Dylan Hears a Who" was quickly picked up by bloggers and the popular Web site BoingBoing and went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Then Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the La Jolla, Calif., firm that publishes the works of the late Theodor Geisel, heard "Dylan Hears a Who." Only two weeks after word of the site began spreading, Ryan got a cease-and-desist demand from the Seuss lawyers, who said the site and songs infringed the company's copyrights and trademarks. Ryan complied quickly and quietly. Instead of the Dylan/Seuss tracks, visitors to dylanhearsawho.com find a brief message saying the site has been "retired" at the request of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
If you were caught up in the momentary wonder of how someone could execute such an ingeniously perfect blending of period musical style, '60s attitude and loopy storytelling, it was tempting to see all of this as just another case of a heavy-handed corporate copyright holder -- a master of copyright war, to call on the old Dylan oeuvre -- sticking it to the little guy.
Ryan -- best known as the coauthor of "Recording the Beatles," a meticulous investigation of every track, take and song the group committed to vinyl -- was face-to-face with a company that zealously guards its intellectual property. Losing a copyright-infringement case can be extremely expensive. In addition to the federal law's $150,000 maximum in statutory damages, defendants can find themselves on the hook for the plaintiff's legal fees. (Dr. Seuss Enterprises declined comment on "Dylan Hears a Who," questioning why it was even a subject of interest. Dylan's attorney did not return a call for comment on Ryan's work.)
As it happens, if Ryan was going to get into a fight over the legal limits of parody, he couldn't have run into a better-prepared opponent than Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The company helped write an important chapter in current case law regarding what is and what isn't parody for purposes of fair use. In 1996, Dr. Seuss successfully sued Penguin Books to stop publication of "The Cat NOT in the Hat," a send-up of the O.J. Simpson murder written and illustrated in the Seuss style.
Still, the Copyright Law of the United States was put on the books by the very first Congress not to secure the intellectual property rights of the corporate few, but to "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts" -- even when that progress involves a writer, artist or musician lifting words, images or melodies from one source as part of making something new.
So if there was a legal defense for Ryan using Dr. Seuss' words and images -- and Dylan's name and likeness, for that matter -- it probably lay in the Copyright Law's "fair use" exception. The provision, which reaches back at least to early 18th century English law, allows "the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ... scholarship, or research."
What does that mean when it comes to the unlikely trio of Dylan, Seuss and Ryan?
I asked Jennifer Rothman, an assistant professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis who specializes in intellectual property, entertainment law and the First Amendment. Her take surprised me, coming from someone who said she's on the side of small creators vs. corporate intellectual property interests.
"There's no question that big intellectual property holders are intimidating small-time players with cease-and-desist letters and unreasonable I.P. claims and that the small players often buckle under," she said. "This does chill speech."
But the general climate aside, she said Ryan "is not standing on solid ground. If I were him, I wouldn't want to litigate this because most courts would likely find he violated current I.P. law."
Then she walked me through her reasoning, using as a primer Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous 1992 ruling that found 2 Live Crew's smutty, suggestive and sophomoric take-off on Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" deserved fair-use protection as parody.
The key to the court's finding was that Luther Campbell, the author of the 2 Live Crew work, did more than grab snippets of the original lyrics and sample portions of the song's instrumental track. In the language of fair use, Campbell's version was a "transformative" new work.
"While we might not assign a high rank to the parodic element here, we think it fair to say that 2 Live Crew's song reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it, to some degree," Associate Justice David Souter wrote for the court. "2 Live Crew juxtaposes the romantic musings of a man whose fantasy comes true, with degrading taunts, a bawdy demand for sex, and a sigh of relief from paternal responsibility. The later words can be taken as a comment on the naivete of the original of an earlier day, as a rejection of its sentiment that ignores the ugliness of street life and the debasement that it signifies."
However, whether a work is "transformative" in going beyond an original with "new expression, meaning, or message," is just one of the factors courts must consider when assessing fair use. Judges must also weigh whether a new work is created for profit; whether the original work merits protection from copying; how much of the original was appropriated to make a new work; and what market impact the appropriation might have on the original work.
In Rothman's opinion, Ryan's work flunks two essential tests.
First, it fails to be a transformative work in that there's no clear comment on or criticism of the Seuss original. "I think he's not even close to the line on this. He's far in the infringing camp," Rothman said.
Second, "Dylan Hears a Who" appropriates too much of the original material. "It takes the entire Dr. Seuss material; it's not like taking just a few lines to make a point," Rothman said. "One question a court would ask is, Did the defendant take more than was necessary for a parody? and here I think the answer is clearly yes." The one factor that might weigh in Ryan's favor, Rothman said, is that "Dylan Hears a Who" did not appear to be commercial.
I asked Rothman to back up for a moment and consider an argument that went like this: By inserting Dr. Seuss' words into a novel context, specifically, the voice and style of a radical 1960s troubadour, the "Dylan Hears a Who" project comments on the original work by exposing a sly, rebellious, countercultural dimension to his work that has remained hidden. At the same time, it exposes a playful though pointed creative intelligence shared by two of the most important figures of the 1960s.
Rothman said that wasn't a bad stab at a defense, but didn't think a court would buy it. "It's too obvious that the point of the site is, Wouldn't it be fun to sing Dr. Seuss in a Dylan voice? And that's not something most courts would be sympathetic to."
Ryan himself -- speaking, of course, after he heard from Seuss' lawyers -- seems to confirm Rothman's judgment when he wrote in an online forum that "Dylan Hears a Who" was merely "a fun little project." Having fun doesn't make it impossible to produce parody, but to have a ghost of a chance of prevailing in a fair-use dispute, you need some serious justification and the ability to demonstrate it. In a sense, Ryan undid his most serious defense by admitting he used someone else's protected material just for fun.
Ryan's work aside, Rothman said the current copyright regime is an increasing burden to artists and one that, the three-century history of fair use notwithstanding, is drawing an ever tighter circle around the choices of writers, musicians, filmmakers and creators of all stripes.
A case in point is an often-cited incident involving filmmaker Jon Else and his 1999 documentary "Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle." As detailed in "Free Culture," by Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, Else shot a scene of stagehands playing checkers. In the background, "The Simpsons" was on TV. Else wanted to use a four-and-a-half-second shot that included the cartoon, which was incidental to the scene. It was probably a case of fair use, but he sought permission from the copyright owners. Fox said Else could use the 4.5 seconds at its educational rate: $10,000. Dismayed by the cost and the prospect of costly and time-consuming litigation to keep the shot intact, the filmmaker dropped his request and wound up digitally substituting a documentary he owns the rights to onto the TV in the scene.
"In theory, fair use means you need no permission," Lessig concludes. "The theory therefore supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture." But summarizing Else's experience, he says, "The fuzzy lines of the law, tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
So is there hope for daring creators? Even those who, like Ryan, make something remarkable on a lark? Rothman points to efforts such as the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and law clinics at Harvard, UC-Berkeley, Stanford and several other universities to help pool information on copyright issues and advice for artists facing cease-and-desist demands.
But she also suggests that the most effective response might be fighting fire with fire: being prepared to go to court to fight unreasonable intellectual property demands from corporations. Of course, a movement like that would need deep pockets, and Rothman says some have arrived on the scene: Google, for instance, which has seen copyright law become a major factor in many of its activities.
"We're just starting to see a movement to push back," she said. "I and other I.P. scholars are saying we need more litigation of these questions."
In the meantime, "Dylan Hears a Who" lives on, even if Ryan's site is shut down. The songs were online long enough for music fans to do what fans do on the Web: copy the songs and repost them. Despite the fumings of the intellectual property grinches, Bob Dylan's gig with Dr. Seuss is guaranteed a long run.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/04/13/dylan_seuss/print.html
By Dan Brekke
Apr. 13, 2007 | Kevin Ryan doesn't want to talk about his recent fling with Web stardom. He's a bit rueful and more than a little nervous about it, in fact, and wishes the whole thing would just go away.
If you missed his star turn, here's what happened: Ryan, a 33-year-old Houston music producer and author, went into his home studio and engineered a sort of retro mash-up of two of his favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Dr. Seuss.
Ryan took the text from seven Seuss classics, including "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham," and set them to original tunes that sounded like they were right off Dylan's mid-'60s releases. He played all the instruments and sang all the songs in Dylan's breathy, nasal twang. He registered a domain name, dylanhearsawho.com, and in February posted his seven tracks online, accompanied by suitably Photoshopped album artwork, under the title "Dylan Hears a Who."
"Green Eggs and Ham" was set to a tune and arrangement somewhere between "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues," complete with Dylan's rushed, occasionally sneering phrasing. Familiar passages are run together in impatient run-ons:
Would you eat them in a box?
Would you eat them with a fox?
Not in a box not with a fox
Not in a house not with a mouse
I would not eat them here or there
I would not eat them anywhere
All this accompanied by an up-tempo electric band, complete with the jaunty skirling of a Hammond organ.
It was clever and delightful. Ryan had immersed himself so fully in Seuss' words and Dylan's style that he managed to merge two quite different creative intelligences. Many who have heard the tracks come away convinced they're really listening to Bob Dylan.
Reached in Houston, Ryan confirmed the work was his but declined to speak about it on the record except to say he never expected it to attract any attention. Instead, "Dylan Hears a Who" was quickly picked up by bloggers and the popular Web site BoingBoing and went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Then Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the La Jolla, Calif., firm that publishes the works of the late Theodor Geisel, heard "Dylan Hears a Who." Only two weeks after word of the site began spreading, Ryan got a cease-and-desist demand from the Seuss lawyers, who said the site and songs infringed the company's copyrights and trademarks. Ryan complied quickly and quietly. Instead of the Dylan/Seuss tracks, visitors to dylanhearsawho.com find a brief message saying the site has been "retired" at the request of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
If you were caught up in the momentary wonder of how someone could execute such an ingeniously perfect blending of period musical style, '60s attitude and loopy storytelling, it was tempting to see all of this as just another case of a heavy-handed corporate copyright holder -- a master of copyright war, to call on the old Dylan oeuvre -- sticking it to the little guy.
Ryan -- best known as the coauthor of "Recording the Beatles," a meticulous investigation of every track, take and song the group committed to vinyl -- was face-to-face with a company that zealously guards its intellectual property. Losing a copyright-infringement case can be extremely expensive. In addition to the federal law's $150,000 maximum in statutory damages, defendants can find themselves on the hook for the plaintiff's legal fees. (Dr. Seuss Enterprises declined comment on "Dylan Hears a Who," questioning why it was even a subject of interest. Dylan's attorney did not return a call for comment on Ryan's work.)
As it happens, if Ryan was going to get into a fight over the legal limits of parody, he couldn't have run into a better-prepared opponent than Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The company helped write an important chapter in current case law regarding what is and what isn't parody for purposes of fair use. In 1996, Dr. Seuss successfully sued Penguin Books to stop publication of "The Cat NOT in the Hat," a send-up of the O.J. Simpson murder written and illustrated in the Seuss style.
Still, the Copyright Law of the United States was put on the books by the very first Congress not to secure the intellectual property rights of the corporate few, but to "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts" -- even when that progress involves a writer, artist or musician lifting words, images or melodies from one source as part of making something new.
So if there was a legal defense for Ryan using Dr. Seuss' words and images -- and Dylan's name and likeness, for that matter -- it probably lay in the Copyright Law's "fair use" exception. The provision, which reaches back at least to early 18th century English law, allows "the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ... scholarship, or research."
What does that mean when it comes to the unlikely trio of Dylan, Seuss and Ryan?
I asked Jennifer Rothman, an assistant professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis who specializes in intellectual property, entertainment law and the First Amendment. Her take surprised me, coming from someone who said she's on the side of small creators vs. corporate intellectual property interests.
"There's no question that big intellectual property holders are intimidating small-time players with cease-and-desist letters and unreasonable I.P. claims and that the small players often buckle under," she said. "This does chill speech."
But the general climate aside, she said Ryan "is not standing on solid ground. If I were him, I wouldn't want to litigate this because most courts would likely find he violated current I.P. law."
Then she walked me through her reasoning, using as a primer Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous 1992 ruling that found 2 Live Crew's smutty, suggestive and sophomoric take-off on Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" deserved fair-use protection as parody.
The key to the court's finding was that Luther Campbell, the author of the 2 Live Crew work, did more than grab snippets of the original lyrics and sample portions of the song's instrumental track. In the language of fair use, Campbell's version was a "transformative" new work.
"While we might not assign a high rank to the parodic element here, we think it fair to say that 2 Live Crew's song reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it, to some degree," Associate Justice David Souter wrote for the court. "2 Live Crew juxtaposes the romantic musings of a man whose fantasy comes true, with degrading taunts, a bawdy demand for sex, and a sigh of relief from paternal responsibility. The later words can be taken as a comment on the naivete of the original of an earlier day, as a rejection of its sentiment that ignores the ugliness of street life and the debasement that it signifies."
However, whether a work is "transformative" in going beyond an original with "new expression, meaning, or message," is just one of the factors courts must consider when assessing fair use. Judges must also weigh whether a new work is created for profit; whether the original work merits protection from copying; how much of the original was appropriated to make a new work; and what market impact the appropriation might have on the original work.
In Rothman's opinion, Ryan's work flunks two essential tests.
First, it fails to be a transformative work in that there's no clear comment on or criticism of the Seuss original. "I think he's not even close to the line on this. He's far in the infringing camp," Rothman said.
Second, "Dylan Hears a Who" appropriates too much of the original material. "It takes the entire Dr. Seuss material; it's not like taking just a few lines to make a point," Rothman said. "One question a court would ask is, Did the defendant take more than was necessary for a parody? and here I think the answer is clearly yes." The one factor that might weigh in Ryan's favor, Rothman said, is that "Dylan Hears a Who" did not appear to be commercial.
I asked Rothman to back up for a moment and consider an argument that went like this: By inserting Dr. Seuss' words into a novel context, specifically, the voice and style of a radical 1960s troubadour, the "Dylan Hears a Who" project comments on the original work by exposing a sly, rebellious, countercultural dimension to his work that has remained hidden. At the same time, it exposes a playful though pointed creative intelligence shared by two of the most important figures of the 1960s.
Rothman said that wasn't a bad stab at a defense, but didn't think a court would buy it. "It's too obvious that the point of the site is, Wouldn't it be fun to sing Dr. Seuss in a Dylan voice? And that's not something most courts would be sympathetic to."
Ryan himself -- speaking, of course, after he heard from Seuss' lawyers -- seems to confirm Rothman's judgment when he wrote in an online forum that "Dylan Hears a Who" was merely "a fun little project." Having fun doesn't make it impossible to produce parody, but to have a ghost of a chance of prevailing in a fair-use dispute, you need some serious justification and the ability to demonstrate it. In a sense, Ryan undid his most serious defense by admitting he used someone else's protected material just for fun.
Ryan's work aside, Rothman said the current copyright regime is an increasing burden to artists and one that, the three-century history of fair use notwithstanding, is drawing an ever tighter circle around the choices of writers, musicians, filmmakers and creators of all stripes.
A case in point is an often-cited incident involving filmmaker Jon Else and his 1999 documentary "Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle." As detailed in "Free Culture," by Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, Else shot a scene of stagehands playing checkers. In the background, "The Simpsons" was on TV. Else wanted to use a four-and-a-half-second shot that included the cartoon, which was incidental to the scene. It was probably a case of fair use, but he sought permission from the copyright owners. Fox said Else could use the 4.5 seconds at its educational rate: $10,000. Dismayed by the cost and the prospect of costly and time-consuming litigation to keep the shot intact, the filmmaker dropped his request and wound up digitally substituting a documentary he owns the rights to onto the TV in the scene.
"In theory, fair use means you need no permission," Lessig concludes. "The theory therefore supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture." But summarizing Else's experience, he says, "The fuzzy lines of the law, tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
So is there hope for daring creators? Even those who, like Ryan, make something remarkable on a lark? Rothman points to efforts such as the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and law clinics at Harvard, UC-Berkeley, Stanford and several other universities to help pool information on copyright issues and advice for artists facing cease-and-desist demands.
But she also suggests that the most effective response might be fighting fire with fire: being prepared to go to court to fight unreasonable intellectual property demands from corporations. Of course, a movement like that would need deep pockets, and Rothman says some have arrived on the scene: Google, for instance, which has seen copyright law become a major factor in many of its activities.
"We're just starting to see a movement to push back," she said. "I and other I.P. scholars are saying we need more litigation of these questions."
In the meantime, "Dylan Hears a Who" lives on, even if Ryan's site is shut down. The songs were online long enough for music fans to do what fans do on the Web: copy the songs and repost them. Despite the fumings of the intellectual property grinches, Bob Dylan's gig with Dr. Seuss is guaranteed a long run.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/04/13/dylan_seuss/print.html
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Science Confirms Grinch Virile, Studmuffin
The Grinch had another one of those eye-opening (slap-head, surely!) moments last week, blundering into a situation that could very easily have snuck up and bit his furry green butt rather mightily. Yes, weighing the consequences has never been his strong suit and the visit to the fertility specialist did not fail to entertain.
As noted in an earlier post, our Grinch is no spring chicken. Give the powerful desire for pups – and the unspoken wishes of the Missus - it was felt that a visit to the vet might be in order. A quick exam would ensure all the plumbing is behaving as it should, that decades of late nights, whiskey and cigarettes combined with chronic self-abuse had not critically abraded his ability to procreate.
Who knows what form these kinds of examinations take in the real world but the Grinch had naively thought the physician (who enjoys the mate’s complete confidence) might have a few questions. No so.
Here in Indonesia – where lotions and potions for all that ails ya are available on every street-corner and matters of conceptual prowess are a constant source of speculation amongst the chattering classes – he was instead greeted by a smiling, 50-something lab tech lady in the headscarf who kindly provided a specimen cup (plastic double-shot jigger with a yellow cap) and told to make sure it was returned “from home” within 30 minutes of having “provided a sample”.
Now the Grinch is expert in these matters but it struck him that unless his cave were right next door, the chances of that sample making it back to the lab in any condition to provide an accurate gauge of this his fertility were next to zero. Besides, even the Grinch is insufficiently ironic and post-modern to countenance a “post-production” ride in the back of a Silver Bird taxi from boudoir to clinic. Weird and wrong, but in a bad way.
So he carpe-d the diem, seized the sample jigger and disappeared into the heavily mirrored and extremely brightly lit, white-tiled bathroom sans naughty magazines or other visual aids and got busy. Always the consummate solitary professional (ibid: para 2), he was back in 10 minutes (take that, Dominos!): the head-scarved techie said it would only take a few minutes to analyze the sample.
And with those words, the oddest thought, something that might have been hovering, maddeningly and unidentified about the periphery of his consciousness, popped into full view: what if decades ingesting nasty chemicals HAD made an impact? What if the Grinch were to learn that no amount of spinach and prayer would produce a natural heir?
It had never really occurred to the Grinch that this might be the case. Not that there is a lack of evidence that infertility exists. In recent years several individuals in his immediate realm have discovered they are unable or highly unlikely to sire and have fallen back on adoption or in-vitro efforts, both emotionally fraught, time-consuming and expensive measures with no guarantee of success.
Though blessed with foster siblings, the Grinch is the last in his line. A failure to reproduce dooms one fragile genetic strand and its traits real and imagined (blue eyes, athleticism, long-windedness, appreciation for Spreyside single malts) to oblivion. It would be a lie to say that these issues keep the Grinch awake nights – there’s no crew filling these kinds of potholes on life’s road – but the possibility still elicits a visceral (genetic?) negative reaction that’s fodder for a robust nature/nurture argument at some point in the future.
For several minutes he sat shrouded in a dull mist on the outside the lab, considering for the first time what exactly was at stake, a leaden weight growing in my stomach. Because surely if anyone was going to be blindsided by a psychic roundhouse kick to the head it is your long-suffering Grinch, right?
A blue headscarf bobbed into view.
“Would you like to take a look,” she inquired, smiling?
“Huh?”
“A look in the microscope…?”
So he followed her into the lab greeted by half a dozen beaming techies in white lab coats. His mind accelerated… What do those smiles mean? Are these “So, the green fella’s the Kentucky stud farm breeder” smiles? Or are they “my village has been leveled by an earthquake and my entire family is dead” smiles? In Java one just never knows.
The microscope looms large. Ms Headscarf points to the barrels on either side to adjust focal lengths and angles… Her eyes are closer together than his so the first view was nothing but black.
When things cleared up the Grinch was privy to a bright, mottled universe populated by what appeared to be thousands of wriggling larvae, all busily going about the business of trying to get somewhere without any clear idea about where exactly “somewhere” might be. With apologies to Monty Python, a “100 Meter Dash for Tadpoles With No Sense of Direction.”
And the bulb literally snaps on.
“Holy smokes,” he thought, “they be Me! Or at least, part of Me. And look how many of Me there are! Swarms of little swimming, writhing Me’s all busily, mindlessly, fruitlessly trying to decide which way to go.”
Wrapped up the moment, the headscarf lady gave her thumbs-up.
It felt like the whole room was going to burst into applause (which would have been appropriate after all); certainly there was a conspicuous exhale, a decompression. The Missus confirmed matters for her own peace of mind, but talked the Grinch out of inviting the entire office in for a view, maybe selling tickets, doing a few interviews etc.
So the good news is that the Grinch’s status as a virile stud-muffin remains intact. Whether he’s actually learned anything from all this is up for debate. It seems likely he’ll continue to blithely blunder into these emotionally charged, potentially life-changing events clear-eyed and unreflective, almost childlike in his ignorance.
As noted in an earlier post, our Grinch is no spring chicken. Give the powerful desire for pups – and the unspoken wishes of the Missus - it was felt that a visit to the vet might be in order. A quick exam would ensure all the plumbing is behaving as it should, that decades of late nights, whiskey and cigarettes combined with chronic self-abuse had not critically abraded his ability to procreate.
Who knows what form these kinds of examinations take in the real world but the Grinch had naively thought the physician (who enjoys the mate’s complete confidence) might have a few questions. No so.
Here in Indonesia – where lotions and potions for all that ails ya are available on every street-corner and matters of conceptual prowess are a constant source of speculation amongst the chattering classes – he was instead greeted by a smiling, 50-something lab tech lady in the headscarf who kindly provided a specimen cup (plastic double-shot jigger with a yellow cap) and told to make sure it was returned “from home” within 30 minutes of having “provided a sample”.
Now the Grinch is expert in these matters but it struck him that unless his cave were right next door, the chances of that sample making it back to the lab in any condition to provide an accurate gauge of this his fertility were next to zero. Besides, even the Grinch is insufficiently ironic and post-modern to countenance a “post-production” ride in the back of a Silver Bird taxi from boudoir to clinic. Weird and wrong, but in a bad way.
So he carpe-d the diem, seized the sample jigger and disappeared into the heavily mirrored and extremely brightly lit, white-tiled bathroom sans naughty magazines or other visual aids and got busy. Always the consummate solitary professional (ibid: para 2), he was back in 10 minutes (take that, Dominos!): the head-scarved techie said it would only take a few minutes to analyze the sample.
And with those words, the oddest thought, something that might have been hovering, maddeningly and unidentified about the periphery of his consciousness, popped into full view: what if decades ingesting nasty chemicals HAD made an impact? What if the Grinch were to learn that no amount of spinach and prayer would produce a natural heir?
It had never really occurred to the Grinch that this might be the case. Not that there is a lack of evidence that infertility exists. In recent years several individuals in his immediate realm have discovered they are unable or highly unlikely to sire and have fallen back on adoption or in-vitro efforts, both emotionally fraught, time-consuming and expensive measures with no guarantee of success.
Though blessed with foster siblings, the Grinch is the last in his line. A failure to reproduce dooms one fragile genetic strand and its traits real and imagined (blue eyes, athleticism, long-windedness, appreciation for Spreyside single malts) to oblivion. It would be a lie to say that these issues keep the Grinch awake nights – there’s no crew filling these kinds of potholes on life’s road – but the possibility still elicits a visceral (genetic?) negative reaction that’s fodder for a robust nature/nurture argument at some point in the future.
For several minutes he sat shrouded in a dull mist on the outside the lab, considering for the first time what exactly was at stake, a leaden weight growing in my stomach. Because surely if anyone was going to be blindsided by a psychic roundhouse kick to the head it is your long-suffering Grinch, right?
A blue headscarf bobbed into view.
“Would you like to take a look,” she inquired, smiling?
“Huh?”
“A look in the microscope…?”
So he followed her into the lab greeted by half a dozen beaming techies in white lab coats. His mind accelerated… What do those smiles mean? Are these “So, the green fella’s the Kentucky stud farm breeder” smiles? Or are they “my village has been leveled by an earthquake and my entire family is dead” smiles? In Java one just never knows.
The microscope looms large. Ms Headscarf points to the barrels on either side to adjust focal lengths and angles… Her eyes are closer together than his so the first view was nothing but black.
When things cleared up the Grinch was privy to a bright, mottled universe populated by what appeared to be thousands of wriggling larvae, all busily going about the business of trying to get somewhere without any clear idea about where exactly “somewhere” might be. With apologies to Monty Python, a “100 Meter Dash for Tadpoles With No Sense of Direction.”
And the bulb literally snaps on.
“Holy smokes,” he thought, “they be Me! Or at least, part of Me. And look how many of Me there are! Swarms of little swimming, writhing Me’s all busily, mindlessly, fruitlessly trying to decide which way to go.”
Wrapped up the moment, the headscarf lady gave her thumbs-up.
It felt like the whole room was going to burst into applause (which would have been appropriate after all); certainly there was a conspicuous exhale, a decompression. The Missus confirmed matters for her own peace of mind, but talked the Grinch out of inviting the entire office in for a view, maybe selling tickets, doing a few interviews etc.
So the good news is that the Grinch’s status as a virile stud-muffin remains intact. Whether he’s actually learned anything from all this is up for debate. It seems likely he’ll continue to blithely blunder into these emotionally charged, potentially life-changing events clear-eyed and unreflective, almost childlike in his ignorance.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Aceh Police Sexually Assaulted Gay NGO Workers - AHRW
The Grinch has no way of confirming the details of this case though it was brought to his attention about six weeks ago. Asian HRW (who produced the story below on their website) is a reputable organization that doesn't make specious accusations.
These allegations emerge four months into a three-year, multi-million dollar police training program in Aceh designed to improve police awareness of human rights and community policing among the province's 11,000 police officers.
The same week the training program was launched, a group of uniformed police beat to death - outside the offices of the chief of police in downtown Banda Aceh - a young secuity guard who mistakenly flew the Indonesian flag upside-down outside a government building.
BANDA ACEH, March 17, 2007 – A 32-years-old NGO worker and his same-sex partner were allegedly brutally tortured and sexually abused by the Banda Aceh police while in custody in January, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has revealed.
AHRC has named the NGO official as Mr. Hartayo and his partner as “Bobby”.
The alleged underlying motive behind the detention, torture and sexual abuse of the victims is because they are homosexuals, AHRC says in an ‘urgent action’ appeal.
“We were also informed that the police made the victims to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again,” the appeal says.
“The AHRC is deeply concerned that such brutal violence against the victims was committed without hesitation not only by the civilian attackers but also by the police whose mandate is to protect the rights of people.”
On January 22 at around 11:30pm, the victim, Mr. Hartayo, a 32 year-old NGO worker in the Aceh province, was at home with his partner, Bobby, when two men, one of whom the victims identified as an employee of the local Pesona cafe below his boarding house, kicked down his front door and barged into his home, and proceeded to vandalize the property before assaulting both Mr. Hartayo and his partner.
Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then forced out of their home and ordered to go outside by their attackers, where a crowd of some 15 people had gathered. The beatings and verbal abuse continued. Mr. Hartayo specifically recalled the words of one of his attackers: “You outsiders slander us; you soil our place with your filthy tricks.”
Mr. Hartayo was then ordered to immediately vacate the boarding house, and was marched back to his room to pack his belongings. His ID card and wallet were taken from him, and he was then made to squat on the ground with his partner, while his attackers deliberated on what to do next. They eventually decided to inform the local police authorities.
Four police officers arrived at the scene about 1.30am in an official police vehicle. Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then taken to the Banda Raya police station.
There, both men were allegedly made to strip down to their underwear, and were then viciously beaten and verbally abused by the officers.
In his testimony, Mr. Hartayo alleges that the officers sexually abused him and then forced his partner to perform oral sex on him. Mr. Hartayo started weeping and attempted to push his partner away, only to be kicked and scolded by the officers who took some perverse “enjoyment” out of their humiliation.
The victims were then dragged to the police station courtyard where they were made to squat on the ground in their underwear. Officers then sprayed them with ice-cold water from the courtyard hosepipe. At this point, Bobby asked the officers for permission to go to the toilet. The officers refused, and instead forced him to urinate on Mr. Hartayo's head.
Mr. Hartayo and his partner were then taken to a police cell, where they were detained until the morning. Mr. Hartayo requested several times to contact his family to inform them of what had happened, a basic human right when facing criminal detention. Each time, his request was denied.
While in the police cell, Mr. Hartayo was instructed by the officers to introduce himself to the detainee who already occupied the cell. When Mr. Hartayo innocently stated that he was a homosexual, an officer entered the cell and severely beat him.
According to Mr. Hartayo, he was treated with complete contempt by all the officers he encountered during his detention.
At around 9:00am on January 23, Mr. Hartayo was finally allowed to speak to his fellow NGO co-workers, although for not longer than five minutes. Both Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were asked by representatives from the Aceh NGO Coalition whether they wanted to file a formal complaint.
Physically and mentally exhausted, both men decided not to pursue the case, and were then made to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again.
“I felt that my dignity as a human being had been trampled,” Mr. Hartayo told the Aceh NGO Coalition.
These allegations emerge four months into a three-year, multi-million dollar police training program in Aceh designed to improve police awareness of human rights and community policing among the province's 11,000 police officers.
The same week the training program was launched, a group of uniformed police beat to death - outside the offices of the chief of police in downtown Banda Aceh - a young secuity guard who mistakenly flew the Indonesian flag upside-down outside a government building.
BANDA ACEH, March 17, 2007 – A 32-years-old NGO worker and his same-sex partner were allegedly brutally tortured and sexually abused by the Banda Aceh police while in custody in January, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has revealed.
AHRC has named the NGO official as Mr. Hartayo and his partner as “Bobby”.
The alleged underlying motive behind the detention, torture and sexual abuse of the victims is because they are homosexuals, AHRC says in an ‘urgent action’ appeal.
“We were also informed that the police made the victims to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again,” the appeal says.
“The AHRC is deeply concerned that such brutal violence against the victims was committed without hesitation not only by the civilian attackers but also by the police whose mandate is to protect the rights of people.”
On January 22 at around 11:30pm, the victim, Mr. Hartayo, a 32 year-old NGO worker in the Aceh province, was at home with his partner, Bobby, when two men, one of whom the victims identified as an employee of the local Pesona cafe below his boarding house, kicked down his front door and barged into his home, and proceeded to vandalize the property before assaulting both Mr. Hartayo and his partner.
Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then forced out of their home and ordered to go outside by their attackers, where a crowd of some 15 people had gathered. The beatings and verbal abuse continued. Mr. Hartayo specifically recalled the words of one of his attackers: “You outsiders slander us; you soil our place with your filthy tricks.”
Mr. Hartayo was then ordered to immediately vacate the boarding house, and was marched back to his room to pack his belongings. His ID card and wallet were taken from him, and he was then made to squat on the ground with his partner, while his attackers deliberated on what to do next. They eventually decided to inform the local police authorities.
Four police officers arrived at the scene about 1.30am in an official police vehicle. Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then taken to the Banda Raya police station.
There, both men were allegedly made to strip down to their underwear, and were then viciously beaten and verbally abused by the officers.
In his testimony, Mr. Hartayo alleges that the officers sexually abused him and then forced his partner to perform oral sex on him. Mr. Hartayo started weeping and attempted to push his partner away, only to be kicked and scolded by the officers who took some perverse “enjoyment” out of their humiliation.
The victims were then dragged to the police station courtyard where they were made to squat on the ground in their underwear. Officers then sprayed them with ice-cold water from the courtyard hosepipe. At this point, Bobby asked the officers for permission to go to the toilet. The officers refused, and instead forced him to urinate on Mr. Hartayo's head.
Mr. Hartayo and his partner were then taken to a police cell, where they were detained until the morning. Mr. Hartayo requested several times to contact his family to inform them of what had happened, a basic human right when facing criminal detention. Each time, his request was denied.
While in the police cell, Mr. Hartayo was instructed by the officers to introduce himself to the detainee who already occupied the cell. When Mr. Hartayo innocently stated that he was a homosexual, an officer entered the cell and severely beat him.
According to Mr. Hartayo, he was treated with complete contempt by all the officers he encountered during his detention.
At around 9:00am on January 23, Mr. Hartayo was finally allowed to speak to his fellow NGO co-workers, although for not longer than five minutes. Both Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were asked by representatives from the Aceh NGO Coalition whether they wanted to file a formal complaint.
Physically and mentally exhausted, both men decided not to pursue the case, and were then made to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again.
“I felt that my dignity as a human being had been trampled,” Mr. Hartayo told the Aceh NGO Coalition.
Another One Bites The Dust
The Grinch's 42nd birthday winked by over the weekend, conveniently and perpetually stapled onto the St. Patrick’s Day excesses so no one can claim I’m grandstanding when I call up asking about their plans for the 17th.
Managed to lasso several people into meeting for commemorative post-magrib Irish Coffees at the Waterfall Bar in the Hyatt in central Jakarta. Commemorative in as much as St. Pats will always be the object of deliberate situational irony: I converted to Islam on the same date in 2004 – it is illegal to perform inter-religious weddings in Indonesia – and made a bee-line from the mosque to the Hyatt (2005 photo above) to mark the holiday. As I’ve been bottled up in Aceh the past two years it seemed appropriate to mark the first post-tsunami Jakarta anniversary of – as one close family member described it “my apostasy” – in similarly irreverent fashion.
Later we retired to the salubrious confines of a dime-a-dozen “Irish” pub in a second Western hotel for multiple refreshing Guinni and fish n chips, where I won a draw for a Rupiah 150,000 (Can $20) voucher to yet another hotel bar – famed for the youth and relative health of its female patrons (known locally as ‘ayam’ or ‘chicken’) – which is sufficient funds to get a fine glow-on.
I had one of “those” conversations about aging with some hanger-on though predictably the perspectives are quite different on account of this Grinch’s legendary constitution, anticipated late punch-out date and numerous inebriated promises not to die before people several decades his junior.
I believe we broke much new ground, concluding among other things that:
1. Youth is wasted on the young.
2. The worst performance of Led Zeppelin’s career still totally kicks the ass of any rock band currently in existence.
3. The female of the species only truly starts to bloom at 40. (Editors Note: Article 4 revised up from 35, 30, 25, 20 and 18 over past two and a half decades. See Grinch Archives).
4. Drivers licenses should only be issued to people over 30 (with exceptions made for under-30s driving agricultural vehicles providing they are restricted to tertiary roads and farms.)
5. Anyone between the ages of 18 and 40 with a barbed wire tattoo who has not served time in a federal penitentiary should be immediately incarcerated.
6. Brittany Spears and her ilk are a bad influence.
7. Life becomes more valuable as you get older because young people are stupid.
8. Its hard to understand why yoots don’t ask their parents for advice about things like sex, alcohol and peer-pressure. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that they were in the same position, right?
9. Is it just me or is the music in here too loud?
10. Larry King’s interviews with Red Buttons and Angie Dickenson really crackle.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Last Rites
It has been a crappy week.
We went over to Liz’s place last Wednesday to find husband Wayne grey and wounded. A decent, decent fellow with a nine-month-old daughter suddenly widowed in the most tragic and public of circumstances.
Situation worsened by the fact that until Sunday there was no official confirmation of the identities of several of the most damaged remains which had been subjected to two hours in an aviation-fueled inferno. Then there’s the unasked question hovering about the periphery about whether our friends suffered, whether they were still conscious, pinned into their business-class seats by the force of the impact as the fire tore through the aircraft.
My understanding is that several survivors indicated the foreigners in the front of the plane was critically injured and likely not aware of the evacuation going on behind their heads. A small blessing.
We brought Wayne a few memories and laughs. Recalled how hard it was for Liz to lay off the wine at the New Years 2005 dinner (the photo above) we had together just weeks after learning she was pregnant; Liz sounding off at (cowering) Indonesian police for kicking ABC Australia’s satellite rig in the minutes after the Embassy 2003 bombing; Liz telling Wayne how she planned to attend an embassy planning meeting at “not say a thing”, a pledge she was incapable of keeping under any circumstances.
Knee-high Lucy is the spitting image of her mother, bold, anxious to walk unaided, unafraid of adults; a zero-maintenance baby that provide itself hours of amusement. By the weekend visitors detected a shift. She is searching women’s faces, squirmy and crying long and loud for no apparent reason.
Sunday there was a drinks memorial for Australian Financial Review correspondent Morgan Mellish at the unofficial Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) press club, the same Indo-Thai restaurant where I proposed to Jihan etc. The last time I saw him was at the bar’s 10th anniversary two weeks earlier, one of the best nights out we’ve had in a long time. Mohitos and ales flowing, plenty food and good music. All in the best of humor, unnatural couplings (and subsequent horror!) the order of the night; table dancing, the staff fully part of the celebrations. Think we poured ourselves through the gate at 430 a.m.
The memorial was pretty laid back event, not nearly as maudlin as these things can be. Several journo friends have flown in from Australia, Singapore and elsewhere to cover the story. There is sense of community that one only ever feels at these all-too-frequent events, the commemoration of an untimely and unexpected death. Quite a number of embassy staff also attended so for a brief while the walls were down.
Morgan’s mum Dawn and sister Caroline were there. The family set up a blog for the occasion (http://www.morganmellish.blogspot.com) that contains dozens of photos of Morgan that really tell you a story.
A clear-eyed Dawn told me she felt that his time had come. There were at least three opportunities for Morgan to avoid being on the doomed plane, she said. I understand he got a ticket from Liz on Flight GA-200 at the very last minute, neglecting to mention to his traveling companion on another airline that they wouldn’t be flying together.
She said her son dreamed of three things: working for the AFR, working as a foreign correspondent, and winning a Walkley Award (Australian journalism gong) all of which he’d accomplished. I don’t know what her demeanor was like when alone, but she struck me as a most extraordinary woman.
Liz, Morgan ad the bodies of three other Australians who died in the crash were flown out of Yogyakarta aboard an Australian Air Force C-130 yesterday, for a ceremony Wednesday in Canberra.
We went over to Liz’s place last Wednesday to find husband Wayne grey and wounded. A decent, decent fellow with a nine-month-old daughter suddenly widowed in the most tragic and public of circumstances.
Situation worsened by the fact that until Sunday there was no official confirmation of the identities of several of the most damaged remains which had been subjected to two hours in an aviation-fueled inferno. Then there’s the unasked question hovering about the periphery about whether our friends suffered, whether they were still conscious, pinned into their business-class seats by the force of the impact as the fire tore through the aircraft.
My understanding is that several survivors indicated the foreigners in the front of the plane was critically injured and likely not aware of the evacuation going on behind their heads. A small blessing.
We brought Wayne a few memories and laughs. Recalled how hard it was for Liz to lay off the wine at the New Years 2005 dinner (the photo above) we had together just weeks after learning she was pregnant; Liz sounding off at (cowering) Indonesian police for kicking ABC Australia’s satellite rig in the minutes after the Embassy 2003 bombing; Liz telling Wayne how she planned to attend an embassy planning meeting at “not say a thing”, a pledge she was incapable of keeping under any circumstances.
Knee-high Lucy is the spitting image of her mother, bold, anxious to walk unaided, unafraid of adults; a zero-maintenance baby that provide itself hours of amusement. By the weekend visitors detected a shift. She is searching women’s faces, squirmy and crying long and loud for no apparent reason.
Sunday there was a drinks memorial for Australian Financial Review correspondent Morgan Mellish at the unofficial Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) press club, the same Indo-Thai restaurant where I proposed to Jihan etc. The last time I saw him was at the bar’s 10th anniversary two weeks earlier, one of the best nights out we’ve had in a long time. Mohitos and ales flowing, plenty food and good music. All in the best of humor, unnatural couplings (and subsequent horror!) the order of the night; table dancing, the staff fully part of the celebrations. Think we poured ourselves through the gate at 430 a.m.
The memorial was pretty laid back event, not nearly as maudlin as these things can be. Several journo friends have flown in from Australia, Singapore and elsewhere to cover the story. There is sense of community that one only ever feels at these all-too-frequent events, the commemoration of an untimely and unexpected death. Quite a number of embassy staff also attended so for a brief while the walls were down.
Morgan’s mum Dawn and sister Caroline were there. The family set up a blog for the occasion (http://www.morganmellish.blogspot.com) that contains dozens of photos of Morgan that really tell you a story.
A clear-eyed Dawn told me she felt that his time had come. There were at least three opportunities for Morgan to avoid being on the doomed plane, she said. I understand he got a ticket from Liz on Flight GA-200 at the very last minute, neglecting to mention to his traveling companion on another airline that they wouldn’t be flying together.
She said her son dreamed of three things: working for the AFR, working as a foreign correspondent, and winning a Walkley Award (Australian journalism gong) all of which he’d accomplished. I don’t know what her demeanor was like when alone, but she struck me as a most extraordinary woman.
Liz, Morgan ad the bodies of three other Australians who died in the crash were flown out of Yogyakarta aboard an Australian Air Force C-130 yesterday, for a ceremony Wednesday in Canberra.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Untimely Deaths in the Heart of Java
We received confirmation in the past few minutes that two Australian friends are among those killed in this morning's Garuda plane crash in Yogyakarta.
Australian embassy public affairs officer Liz O'Neill (above, 31/12/05) was a new mum, wife to Wayne and a regular at various expat social & sporting events. We spent New Years 2005 with the pair of them and friends Tim and Sian. Liz organized the first media v Embassy staff tennis tourney a couple of years back and J and I were sitting in her backyard drinking wine back in Dec 2004 when we learned that our closest friends here has given birth to a baby boy (now my Godson). She was chatty, opinionated Australian patriot.
Morgan Mellish was the Australian Financial Review correspondent who replaced our good friend Andrew Burell last year. Although I can't say I knew him very well, we spoke professionally on a number of occasions when he was looking for information about Aceh, and chatted over beers a couple of times here in Jakarta.
I understand they were sitting together in business class when the plane landed in Yogya, bursting into flames. Passengers fleeing the aircraft – which was completely destroyed by the fire – said they were critically injured and unconscious before the catastrophic fire broke out.
There are still several unidentified bodies in the morgue at Yogyakarta's main hospital. We believe several of them are diplomats and Australian federal police who like Liz and Morgan, had traveled to Central Java to follow Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's trip to the area.
The final death toll remains unclear, somewhere between 22 and 49 of the 140 passengers and crew are reported to have died. We recognize a number of Indonesians who survived but will wait for the final names to be released before allowing ourselves to exhale.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)