"From the outside, anarchy might look threatening and scary and exciting. From the inside, anarchy can seem quite boring. But it is a profoundly hopeful type of boring." This more nuanced account of what anarchism is and what anarchists do is a refreshing change from the usual shrill MSM version. A must-read. "

Team Agonist | Blogistan | May 25

As you all know the only poetry thread rules are: no original poetry unless you just happen to be Maya Angelou or an up and coming poet that has been published. Otherwise stick to what has proven to be good poetry.

originally posted Memorial Day May 29, 2006. Please add your favorites.

Cape Town | May 21

Reuters - Israeli goods produced in the occupied Palestinian territories and sold in South Africa may no longer be labelled "Made in Israel," the South African trade minister said on Monday, causing concern in Israel that other countries may follow suit.

"We are, through this notice, requiring that they be correctly labelled and it will then be up to consumers in South Africa whether they want to purchase those products or not," Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies told reporters.

"We are not seeking to prevent the entry of such products into South Africa," he said.

South Africa's trade with Israel is modest, but there is concern in Israel about broader economic and political damage.

A labelling change would bolster an international campaign by pro-Palestinian activists for a boycott of products made by Israeli factories in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in the 1967 war and which Palestinians want as part of a future state.

"If this will move to other places in the world, we will be in big trouble," Israeli Industry and Trade Minister Shalom Simhon told reporters before Davies's news conference.

The demand for a change in labelling was published in the government gazette earlier this month in a statement that said traders must not "incorrectly label products that originate from the Occupied Palestinian Territory" as products made in Israel.

Chicago | May 21

AFP - NATO leaders launched Sunday the first phase of a US-led missile shield for Europe and sought to appease Russian anger over the system by renewing an invitation to cooperate.

President Barack Obama and his allies declared an "interim capability" at a Chicago summit, putting a US warship carrying interceptors in the Mediterranean and a Turkey-based radar system under NATO command in a German base.

The alliance insists that the shield is not aimed at Russia and aims to knock out missiles that could be launched by enemies such as Iran, but Moscow fears the system will also serve to neutralize its nuclear deterrent.

"We have invited Russia to cooperate on missile defense and this invitation still stands," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference.

"We will continue our dialogue with Russia and I hope that at a certain stage Russia will realize that it is in our common interest to cooperate on missile defense," he said.

Besides the ironic title, I guess it explains why Putin refused to go to Chicago.

New York Times Editorial, May 19

Despite the persistent gender gap in opinion polls and mounting criticism of their hostility to women’s rights, Republicans are not backing off their assault on women’s equality and well-being. New laws in some states could mean a death sentence for a pregnant woman who suffers a life-threatening condition. But the attack goes well beyond abortion, into birth control, access to health care, equal pay and domestic violence.

Republicans seem immune to criticism. In an angry speech last month, John Boehner, the House speaker, said claims that his party was damaging the welfare of women were “entirely created” by Democrats. Earlier, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, sneered that any suggestion of a G.O.P. “war on women” was as big a fiction as a “war on caterpillars.”

Peter Lee | May 18 | Asia Times

What's the standoff between China and the Philippines over an atoll in the South China Sea all about? Is it a matter of seafood and sovereignty ... or gas fields and gambling?

To an outside observer, the antics of China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia over conflicting territorial claims smack of farce auditioning for tragedy, and ridiculous claims abound.

Anastasia Tsioulcas | May 18

NPR - Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau — often cited as one of the greatest and most influential singers of the 20th century — died near Starnberg, Germany this morning at age 86...

Fischer-Dieskau's lyricism and sensitivity to the words he was singing made him unmatched among song interpreters. His repertoire was said to include more than 3,000 songs by composers including Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler and Wolf, and he made hundreds of recordings over the course of his 50-year career. .. One of his most frequent collaborators, the pianist Gerald Moore, wrote in his memoirs: "He had only sung one phrase before I knew I was in the presence of a master." (At the time, Moore was 52 years old, while Fischer-Dieskau was just half the pianist's age.).

The Second World War defined a large part of the singer's youth. Conscripted into the German army, he was captured in Italy by the Americans in 1945 and spent almost two years as a POW; while there, he gave recitals of Schubert songs..

It was Fischer-Dieskau whom English composer and conductor Benjamin Britten requested to sing in the premiere of Britten's War Requiem in 1962 at the shattered and then rebuilt Coventry Cathedral.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: a guide in clips

BBC News, By Kate McGeown, May 14

Manila - When night falls in Manila, a wave of young people scurry into the skyscrapers which criss-cross the city.

They're call centre agents, and because most of their clients are on the other side of the world, the night shift is their busiest time.

Last year, with more than 600,000 call centre workers, the Philippines officially overtook India as the world's call centre capital.

http://www.linktv.org/programs/dalai

A Link TV exclusive documentary that presents highlights of an extraordinary day-long ethics conference, featuring the Dalai Lama in conversation with some of the nation’s leading activists. A co-production of Tibet House U.S. in New York and Link TV, the program brings together for the first time ever one of the world’s most important spiritual leaders with renowned journalists, economists, environmentalists, and politicians to discuss the ethical dilemmas of the new millennium.

With allegations of government subterfuge, corporate malfeasance scandals and a devastating global warming crisis dominating the headlines, this unprecedented television program gives millions of Americans a rare glimpse into the enlightening ethical teachings, peaceful nature, and often surprising humor of the Dalai Lama.

Howard Schneider & Anthony Faiola | May 14

WaPo - Political deadlock in Greece rattled world markets Monday, reviving fears that the fractious Mediterranean country could spurn an international bailout, abandon the common European currency and risk a fresh round of world economic turmoil.

European stock indexes fell, with Greece’s market now at a 20-year low, while the euro currency continued a recent decline against the dollar. U.S. stocks also fell.

50 years ago student protest movement leaders published the Port Huron Statement, a key foundational document in the then-embryonic counterculture. Decades later, the global Occupy movement has finally taken the next step and crafted a manifesto of its own. That occupiers have decided to establish a foundation for the movement by building a stable to fill up all the ponies they want should not diminish the import of this announcement.

Sure, some may scoff at the seemingly glacial pace at which Occupy has reached what most would consider a key initial step in shaping a social movement. But as anyone who is at all familiar with the theory of inclusive democracy, the pace is drastically different when you're trying to work out so many issues on such a vast scale via a consensus-based model like Occupy is doing. Entrenching these practices in the public consciousness is clearly a vital step before anything truly concrete can take place.

Though the myriad equine proposals contained within will likely never be corralled exactly as specified, that really isn't the point. As Steve noted via FB chat, these sorts of documents "aren't final words but meant to stimulate debate to get to a later more realistic one, which is then a spingboard again," a fact acknowledged by occupiers in the intro:

The statement below does not speak on behalf of everyone in the global spring/Occupy/Take the Square movements. It is an attempt by some inside the movements to reconcile statements written and endorsed in the different assemblies around the world. The process of writing the statement was consensus-based, open to all, and regularly announced on our international communications platforms. It was a hard and long process, full of compromises; this statement is offered to people's assemblies around the world for discussions, revisions and endorsements. It is a work in progress.

Michael Klare | May 10 | Tom Dispatch

The Energy Wars Heat Up: Six Recent Clashes and Conflicts on a Planet Heading Into Energy Overdrive

Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time. Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2012, then, would be part of the normal scheme of things. Instead, what we are now seeing is a whole cluster of oil-related clashes stretching across the globe, involving a dozen or so countries, with more popping up all the time. Consider these flash-points as signals that we are entering an era of intensified conflict over energy.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict -- all tied to energy supplies -- that have made news in just the first few months of 2012:

Washington | Mar 10

AFP - US defense chiefs appealed Wednesday for lawmakers to ratify the UN convention on the law of sea, saying the country was at a disadvantage because of the Senate's refusal to back the accord.

The UN convention governing maritime rights entered into force in 1994 but despite support from successive American presidents from both parties, the US Senate has never ratified the treaty, which requires a two-thirds majority.

A small faction of conservative Republicans oppose the agreement, arguing it could undermine US legal authority over oil and gas resources in the continental shelf.

But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a speech that ratification "has broad support among major US industries, including offshore energy, shipbuilding, commercial shipping, and communications companies."

The companies see the treaty as providing legal certainty and "the same is true for national security," Panetta told a conference organized by the Atlantic Council and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Panetta was joined by the US military's top officer, General Martin Dempsey, who also argued that the convention would "strengthen our strategic position in Asia."

Pentagon officials see the treaty as crucial given a renewed US focus on naval power and the Asia-Pacific region. With China's more assertive stance in the South China Sea, US officials believe the convention will enable US warships to continue to operate in the Pacific and hold exercises.

By backing the convention, the United States would "ensure that our rights are not whittled away by the excessive claims and erroneous interpretations of others," said Panetta, apparently referring to China's maritime disputes with other Asian states.

By opposing the treaty, the United States potentially undermines its "credibility" in Asia "just as we're pushing for a rules-based order in the region and the peaceful resolution of martime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea and elsewhere," he said.

"How can we argue that other nations must abide by international rules when we haven't officially accepted those rules ourselves?"

Robert Lee Hotz | May 7

WSJ - Talking about ourselves—whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter—triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money, researchers reported Monday.

May 5

BBC - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his challenger Francois Hollande are observing a mandatory election silence ahead of Sunday's run-off vote.   

Al-Jazeera (May 4) - from Nikolas Kosmatopoulos's provocative Op-Ed just prior to this Sunday's elections, May 5:

Urban myth has it that a slogan by the Spanish protesters in Puerta del Sol fuelled the spark for the Greek Tahrir - Syntagma Square - in spring 2011: "Be silent or you will wake up Greece".
 

The "Greek crisis" has had at least two side effects so far: it demonstrated that official politics has no vision whatsoever, and that mainstream journalism has no shame...

While workers and pensioners throughout the country are deprived of basic means for survival, both parties ask them to be patient and make sure they do not die until May 6.

In the face of all this, it appears essential to ask whether, instead of drafting an electoral program, it would be more useful to craft everyday programs of population mobilisation against elite-driven violence and misery.

Read the entire piece (photo: BBC).

Reuters, By Chris Michaud, May 1

New York - Nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think the Mayan calendar could signify it will happen in 2012, according to a new poll.

The end of the Mayan calendar, which spans about 5,125 years, on December 21, 2012 has sparked interpretations and suggestions that it marks the end of the world.

"Whether they think it will come to an end through the hands of God, or a natural disaster or a political event, whatever the reason, one in seven thinks the end of the world is coming," said Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs which conducted the poll for Reuters.

Mansur Mirovalev | Moscow | May 3

AP - Russia's top military officer has threatened to carry out a pre-emptive strike on U.S.-led NATO missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe if Washington goes ahead with its controversial plan to build a missile shield.

President Dmitry Medvedev said last year that Russia will retaliate militarily if it does not reach an agreement with the United States and NATO on the missile defense system.

Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov went even further Thursday. "A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens," he said at an international conference attended by senior U.S. and NATO officials.

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov also warned on Thursday that talks between Moscow and Washington on the topic are "close to a dead end."

U.S. missile defense plans in Europe have been one of the touchiest subjects in U.S.-Russian relations for years.

Moscow rejects Washington's claim that the missile defense plan is solely to deal with any Iranian missile threat and has voiced fears it will eventually become powerful enough to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent. Moscow has proposed running the missile shield jointly with NATO, but the alliance has rejected that proposal.

Makarov's statement on Thursday doesn't seem to imply an immediate threat, but aims to put extra pressure on Washington to agree to Russia's demands.

New York Times, By Patricia Leigh Brown, May 1

HamTramck, MI — The prom countdown was nearly complete, the do-it-yourself Greek columns, pink and white tulle bows and plastic flutes with the “Once Upon a Dream” logo awaiting the evening of evenings.

But as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, her one-shoulder lavender gown matching the elaborate hijab that framed her face in a cascade of flowers — a style learned on YouTube — Tharima Ahmed knew that what lay ahead was more than simply a prom.

As organizer of Hamtramck High School’s first all-girl prom, which conforms to religious beliefs forbidding dating, dancing with boys or appearing without a head scarf in front of males, Tharima, 17, was forging a new rite of passage for every teenage Muslim girl who had ever spent prom night at home, wistfully watching the limousines roll by.

George Monbiot ~ A one-sided justice sees weaker states punished as rich nations and giant corporations project their power across the world

Ethan Zuckerman throws a cold bucket of reality onto some of the more idealistic notions re: information, interconnectivity, and ye olde series of tubes (aka, the panacea that wasn't):

A central paradox of this connected age is that while it’s easier than ever to share information and perspectives from different parts of the world, we may be encountering a narrower picture of the world than we did in less connected days. During the Vietnam War, television reporting from the frontlines involved transporting exposed film from Southeast Asia by air, then developing and editing it in the United States before broadcasting it days later. Now, an unfolding crisis such as the Japanese tsunami or Haitian earthquake can be reported in real time via satellite. Despite these lowered barriers, today’s American television news features less than half as many international stories as were broadcast in the 1970s.

The pace of print media reporting has accelerated sharply, with newspapers moving to a “digital first” strategy, publishing fresh information online as news breaks. While papers publish many more stories than they did 40 years ago (online and offline), Britain’s four major dailies publish on average 45 percent fewer international stories than they did in 1979.

Why worry about what’s covered in newspapers and television when it’s possible to read firsthand accounts from Syria or Sierra Leone? Research suggests that we rarely read such accounts. My studies of online news consumption show that 95 percent of the news consumed by American Internet users is published in the United States. By this metric, the United States is less parochial than many other nations, which consume even less news published in other countries. This locality effect crosses into social media as well. A recent study of Twitter, a tool used by 400 million people around the world, showed that we’re far more likely to follow people who are physically close to us than to follow someone outside our home country’s borders, or even a few states or provinces away. Thirty-nine percent of the relationships on Twitter involve someone following the tweets of a person in the same metropolitan area. In the Twitter hotbed of São Paulo, Brazil, more than 78 percent of the relationships are local. So much for the death of distance.

Lolita Baldor | 20,000 feet up | Apr 28

AP - In these days of shrinking U.S. defense budgets, the Obama administration is looking to South America to help monitor and protect the Asia-Pacific region in the years ahead.

During visits to Colombia, Brazil and Chile this past week, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta underscored their importance as military partners in the Pacific, where China is challenging U.S. influence in a number of countries. As those defense relationships grow, officials say it can only help U.S. economic and political ties across South America.

bottom line:

Defense chiefs Juan Camillo Pinzon of Colombia, Celso Amorim of Brazil and Andres Allamand of Chile brought up cyberthreats as a major concern, including incidents of hacker attacks and data thefts, U.S. defense officials said.

The three countries, said one official said, want help from the U.S. in hardening their computer networks against breaches and increasing their technological skills. The official said there is a recognition of how vulnerable they are, and they want to learn more about the nature of the threat and how to combat it.

That threat is likely to involve China, which is steadily gaining as a top trading partner and economic developer in South America. It's surpassing the U.S. in trade with Brazil, Chile and Peru, and is a close second in Argentina and Colombia.

Verena Dobnik | New York | April 26

AP - Rock music fans Thursday were mourning the death of Pete Fornatale, a beloved New York radio disc jockey who promoted the best new musicians for decades in his easy, free-form style. He was 66.

Fornatale died in New York a week after suffering a stroke, his son, Peter Thomas Fornatale, told AP. "He represented the golden age of progressive FM radio,"

When The Beach Boys "were the most uncool thing in the world," he said, his father had the clout, in the 1970s, to help make them popular again—by introducing them on the Carnegie Hall stage. Fornatale entered with a surfboard.

"It's a very sad day for radio," said songwriter Paul Simon. "New York has lost one of its most acclaimed and wonderful radio personalities.

_{(photo:Don Thiergard)}

Monica Hesse | April 24

WaPo - The Internet Society in Geneva announced its inaugural inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame on Monday. Al Gore got in, and so did the founder of Craigslist; for the most part, the inductees were an oldish, whitish, mostly male pride, important for doing things online that few people are technologically equipped to understand.

There was also Raymond Tomlinson, godfather of e-mail, benefactor of “@.”

 
Good short info/history piece on @