Goodbye to Afghanistan
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
February 4-5, 2012, © CounterPunch
The day after the Florida primary, when all eyes were fixed in astonishment on the victorious Gov. Romney expressing his indifference to the sufferings of the poor, the Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, gave a speech in Brussels. He said that as early as mid-2013 American forces in Afghanistan will step back from a combat role. . . .

On Death, without Exaggeration

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.

—By Wislawa Szymborska
From "The People on the Bridge", 1986
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

Lovesick wolf's lonely journey
by: Rhys Blakely
February 02, 2012, © The Times
NEVER has a wolf been more lonesome. On December 28, California received a new resident - a lovesick grey wolf. He is the first of his species to enter the Golden State since it was hunted to extinction there nearly 90 years ago and his border crossing was part of a lupine odyssey that has America gripped. OR7, as the wolf is known to scientists, left his pack in northeastern Oregon on September 10, just days before state officials issued orders to have his family shot for killing cattle. . . .

Wislawa Szymborska, sonrisa y agonía en la poesía
Javier Rodriguez Marcos
1 FEB 2012, © El País
Los que se preguntan para qué sirve el premio Nobel encontraron una respuesta en octubre de 1996. Ese año el secretario de la Academia Sueca nombró a una poeta polaca cuyo apellido todavía estamos aprendiendo a pronunciar. Wislawa Szymborska falleció este miércoles a los 88 años de edad en su casa de Cracovia. Los que suelen dudar del olfato de los académicos de Estocolmo tuvieron que darles la razón cuando leyeron a una autora cuya poesía está hecha de una mezcla de emoción e ironía, metafísica y cotidianidad: "Lee a Jaspers y revistas de mujeres", escribió en un poema. Un ejemplo: "Alma se tiene a veces. / Nadie la posee sin pausa / y para siempre. / Día tras día, / año tras año / pueden transcurrir sin ella. / A veces solo en el arrobo / y los miedos de la infancia / anida por más tiempo. / A veces nada más en el asombro / de haber envejecido". . . .

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
—Sigmund Freud

Robert Fisk: We've been here before – and it suits Israel that we never forget 'Nuclear Iran'
Wednesday 25 January 2012, © The Independent
Turning round a story is one of the most difficult tasks in journalism – and rarely more so than in the case of Iran. Iran, the dark revolutionary Islamist menace. Shia Iran, protector and manipulator of World Terror, of Syria and Lebanon and Hamas and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad, the Mad Caliph. And, of course, Nuclear Iran, preparing to destroy Israel in a mushroom cloud of anti-Semitic hatred, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz – the moment the West's (or Israel's) forces attack. . . .

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.
—Sigmund Freud

Robert Fisk: The present stands no chance against the past
Saturday 28 January 2012
The Palestinians are not only, it seems, an "invented people" – courtesy of Newt Gingrich – but the only Arabs on the Mediterranean not to enjoy a Spring or an Awakening or even a Winter. . . .

"La toga sucia y el culpable limpio"
Unas 6.000 personas se manifiestan en Madrid en apoyo al juez Garzón
NATALIA JUNQUERA
30/01/2012, © El País
"Estamos perplejos, aterrados, indignados, avergonzados", resumió el poeta Luis García Montero al término de la manifestación de apoyo al juez Baltasar Garzón que ayer sacó a la calle a unas 6.000 personas en Madrid. "Es una vergüenza que en España, que fue pionera en la oposición a los genocidas, representantes del viejo fascismo español hayan sentado en el banquillo al juez que quiso investigar los crímenes del franquismo", dijo. El poeta leyó un poema que había escrito para la ocasión, La farsa. "Son malos tiempos para la justicia. Vengan a ver la farsa, el decorado roto, la peluca mal puesta...", empezaba. "Vengan aquí y observen, es el tinglado de la nueva farsa, la toga sucia y el culpable limpio", decían sus últimas líneas. . . .

Allan Simonsen
Allan Rodenkam Simonsen (born 15 December 1952) is a former Danish footballer and manager. He most prominently played for German team Borussia Mönchengladbach, winning the 1975 and 1979 UEFA Cups, as well as for Barcelona from Spain, winning the 1982 Cup WInners' Cup. Allan Simonsen is the only footballer to have scored in the European Cup, UEFA Cup, and Cup Winners' Cup finals, and he was named 1977 European Footballer of the Year. . . .

Psychologists' Collusion in Ongoing Illegal Detentions
by TRUDY BOND, ROY EIDELSON, BRAD OLSON AND STEPHEN SOLDZ
January 10, 2012, © Counterpunch
As we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at Guantánamo Detention Center, several thousand miles away sits another United States detention facility, less well-known but with a history perhaps even more gruesome. Obscured throughout the decade-long "global war on terror," the detention center at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan is where two detainees died in December 2002. Initial autopsies at the time ruled both deaths homicides, according to a 2,000-page confidential Army file obtained by the New York Times. Autopsies of the two dead detainees found severe trauma to both prisoners' legs. The coroner for one of the dead noted, "I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus." . . .

Beware of turning into the enemy you most fear. All it takes is to lash out violently at someone who has done you some grievous harm, proclaiming that only your pain matters in this world. More than against that person's body, you will then, at that moment, be committing a crime against your own imagination.
— Ariel Dorfman

The U.S., Indonesia & the New York Times
by CONN HALLINAN
January 24, 2012, © Counterpunch
Why is the New York Times concealing the key role that the United States played in the 1965 coup in Indonesia that ended up killing somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people? In a story Jan. 19—"Indonesia Chips Away At the Enforced Silence Around a Dark History"—the Times writes that the coup was "one of the darkest periods in modern Indonesian history, and the least discussed, until now.". . .

El dilema de Mourinho
El técnico portugués, cuestionado por primera vez por la hinchada, discutido en el vestuario y sin coartadas arbitrales, acude al Camp Nou sin otro remedio que cambiar su táctica y arriesgar
DIEGO TORRES
24/01/2012, © El País
La erosión provocada por la victoria del Barça la semana pasada (1-2) ha cambiado el paisaje entorno al Madrid y su líder José Mourinho. La vuelta de los cuartos de final de la Copa sorprende al entrenador-mánager más debilitado que nunca. Cuestionado por un sector de la prensa que antes le apoyaba, sin el respaldo casi fanático que le brindó una hinchada que ahora le pita y cada vez más resistido por sus futbolistas. En los últimos tiempos, además, ha dado varios volantazos a la táctica y a las alineaciones, con hombres que aparecen y desaparecen de forma repentina, como Carvalho y Granero. . . .

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Arizona's 'banned' Mexican American books
First, the Tucson school district came for the Mexican American studies program. Now, it's come for its books
Roberto Cintli Rodriguez
Wednesday 18 January 2012, © The Guardian
In the aftermath of the suspension of the Tucson Unified School District's Mexican American studies department, TUSD has confiscated and continues to confiscate MAS teaching materials. Besides artwork and posters etc, that includes books. This move came in response to an unconstitutional measure, HB 2281, which was specifically created to dismantle the highly successful MAS-TUSD department. . . .

Historia repetida en el Clásico
Más allá de una excesiva agresividad, Real Madrid sigue sin respuestas ante Barcelona
Por Carlos Bianchi
19 de enero de 2012 , © ESPNdeportes.com
BUENOS AIRES -- El Clásico que pasó mostró un poco más de lo mismo a lo que nos venimos acostumbrando, y que de hecho mencionamos en la columna previa: el Barcelona sigue plasmando una superioridad aplastante sobre un Real Madrid que no encuentra respuestas. . . .

Robert Fisk: The 'invented people' stand little chance
Saturday 14 January 2012, © The Independent
Thank goodness we don't have to hear Newt Gingrich for a while.
His statement that the Palestinians were an "invented people" marked about the lowest point in the Republican-Christian Right-Likudist/Israel relationship. So deep has this pact now become that you can deny the existence of an entire people if you want to become US president. It's time, surely, to take a look at this extraordinary movement, to remind ourselves – since US "statesmen" cannot – just what its implications really are. . . .

How Not to Celebrate an Anniversary
From the Declaration of Independence to the NDAA
by WILLIAM LOREN KATZ
January 17, 2012, © Counterpunch
As 2011 ended the U.S. Senate voted 92 to 6 for the McCain-Levin amendments (S 1867) to the National Defense Authorization Act, and President Obama signed it. In the name of fighting terrorism, an astounding majority of Democratic and Republican leaders granted unlimited authority to the President (and future Presidents) and the Army to arrest anyone, citizen or foreigner, here or abroad, and imprison them in Poland, Pennsylvania, or Guantanamo or anywhere else — indefinitely. 92 of our Senators agreed the detained could be denied access to attorneys and loved ones, and "enhanced interrogation" rather than legal procedures would determine if they are guilty of terrorist plots. True, some rigid Constitutionalists and Libertarians from Senator Rand Paul on the right to the ACLU on the left have condemned S 1867 as a threat to our core beliefs and democratic system. But S 1867 swept through with the President's signature on the 135th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. . . .

GO BIG BLUE!

Guantánamo at 10: the defeat of liberty by fear
The unprecedented executive powers assumed by both presidents since 9/11 have crippled America's body politic
Michael Ratner
Wednesday 11 January 2012, © The Guardian
On 11 January 2002, the United States began showing major signs of what I call "Guantánamo syndrome", after one of the ailment's first and most enduring symptoms. That was the day when the Bush administration transferred the first 20 detainees to Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being assured by its Department of Justice that the location placed detainees outside of US legal jurisdiction. . . .

Ex-Marine testifies at squad leader's court-martial in Iraqi deaths
By Tony Perry
January 11, 2012, © Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Camp Pendleton—
A former Marine testified Tuesday that he and other Marines were justified in breaking into a home in Iraq and killing everyone inside after their squad leader told them the house was to be treated as "hostile.". . .

Guantánamo: still a part of America's conscience, a decade on
• Some 171 inmates remain, despite Obama's promises
• Only six detainees ever convicted; around 600 released
Ed Pilkington
Tuesday 10 January 2012, © The Guardian
The photograph was one of the most poignant images of the aftermath of 9/11. Twenty men dressed in lurid orange jumpsuits, eyes obscured behind blackened goggles, hands and legs shackled, cower behind chainlink fences as US soldiers stand over them. . . .

A good sword is the one left in its scabbard.
—Japanese proverb

Bob Anderson obituary
'Swordmaster' and stunt double who fenced with Errol Flynn and swung the lightsaber for Darth Vader
Ronald Bergan
Wednesday 4 January 2012, © The Guardian
As a stunt double, Bob Anderson, who has died aged 89, was among the many unsung, unknown, uncredited and partially unseen performers of motion pictures whose purpose is to remain anonymous while making the star look athletic, acrobatic, courageous or devil-may-care. For those in the business, Anderson reigned supreme in the fencing department, earning the title of "swordmaster". Given the partly Japanese genesis of the Star Wars franchise, it was an apt description of the man who wielded the lightsaber for Darth Vader in his duels in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). . . .

Sword fighting in film is not about how good the fighter is, but how good the actor receiving the blows is.
—Takeshi Kitano

Fallece Bob Anderson, maestro de armas de Hollywood
ÁLVARO P. RUIZ DE ELVIRA
02/01/2012, © El País
Bob Anderson es uno de esos mitos de Hollywood que nadie conoce por su nombre y sí por su trabajo. Con sus coreografías de esgrima, Darth Vader le cortó la mano a Luke Skywalker en Star Wars, en la trilogía de El señor de los anillos cada 'cultura' tiene su estilo de lucha y en La princesa prometida se pudo ver uno de los mejores duelos de la historia del cine, entre dos espadachines diestros que se hacen pasar por zurdos. Esgrimista -participó en los Juegos Olímpicos de 1952- y actor, Anderson falleció el 1 de enero a los 89 años. . . .

Hora de despertar
may 20, 2011, © antoniomuñozmolina.es
He pensado desde hace muchos años, y lo he escrito de vez en cuando, que España vivía en un estado de irrealidad parcial, incluso de delirio, sobre todo en la esfera pública, pero no solo en ella. Un delirio inducido por la clase política, alimentado por los medios, consentido por la ciudadanía, que aceptaba sin mucha dificultad la irrelevancia a cambio del halago, casi siempre de tipo identitario o festivo, o una mezcla de los dos. . . .

Unalaska, Alaska
© Wikipedia
Unalaska is a city in the Aleutians West Census Area of the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. Unalaska is located on Unalaska Island and neighboring Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Islands off of mainland Alaska.
The population was 4,283 at the 2000 census. Almost all of the community's port facilities are on Amaknak Island, better known as Dutch Harbor or just "Dutch". It is the largest fisheries port in the U.S. by volume caught. It includes Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears, U.S. Army, a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
Dutch Harbor lies within the city limits of Unalaska and is connected to Unalaska by a bridge. Amaknak Island is home to almost 59 percent of the city's population, although it has less than 3 percent of its land area. . . .

Quotes from those amazing Aleutians
A few thought provoking quotes from Bridge to Russia - Those Amazing Aleutians
By Murray Morgan
"The explosions were violent. A hundred miles away they riffled the clouds and shuddered the earth. Four hundred miles away they were mistaken for blasting in nearby hills. Seven hundred miles away people heard thunder from a cloudless sky, and wondered. A mountain had just disappeared" . . .

Aleutian Cultural Heritage in the Permanent Exhibition
© Museum of the Aleutians
Our exhibits depict cultural heritage of Unangan people in prehistoric times, evoke the profound shifts that began when Unangan people first encountered newcomers from outside the region, tell the story of Russian fur traders and the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and its influence on developing the cultural identity of Native people.
Archival and present-day imagery, graphics, and heirloom objects tell the ongoing story of this historic place.
Unique artifacts, quotes, and historic photographs convey how the United States' purchase of Alaska Territory in 1867 has shaped the lives of Unangan people through many generations. . . .

Conquered people tend to be witty.
—Saul Bellow

Robert Fisk: Turkey's long road to reconciliation
Saturday 24 December 2011, © The Independent
Just for a moment, put aside the current Franco-Turkish war over the 20th century's first Holocaust – of the Armenians – and remember that Nicolas Sarkozy's electoral venality (500,000 French-Armenian voters want to hear him tell the truth) and Turkish nationalism (which feeds on holocaust denial) make a bad cocktail. . . .

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.
—Saul Bellow

Republicans Try to Impose Selfishness on American People
by: Leo Gerard
Wednesday 28 December 2011, © truthout
In the iconic Christmas film, "It's a Wonderful Life," an angel offers the beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class. . . .

Why the Establishment is Terrified of Ron Paul
by DAVE LINDORFF
December 27, 2011, © Counterpunch
It's fascinating to watch the long knives coming out for Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, now that according to some mainstream polls he has become the front-running candidate in the Jan. 3 GOP caucus race in Iowa, and perhaps also in the first primary campaign in New Hampshire. . . .

America's Debt to Bradley Manning
By Robert Parry
December 24, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
One criticism about the value of the information that Pvt. Bradley Manning allegedly gave to WikiLeaks is that most of it was known in some form and thus didn't justify the risks to sources who might be identified from the diplomatic and military cables. However, that complaint misses the importance of detailed "ground truth" in assessing issues of war and peace. . . .

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.
—William S. Burroughs

PERCEVAL PRESS WISHES ONE AND ALL A PEACEFUL END OF THE YEAR AND ALL THE LOVE YOU CAN GIVE AND RECEIVE IN 2012.

Thud of the Jackboot
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Weekend Edition December 23-25, 2011, © CounterPunch Diary
Too bad Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket last weekend. If the divine hand that laid low the North Korean leader had held off for a week or so, Kim would have been sustained by the news that President Obama is signing into law a bill that puts the United States not immeasurably far from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in contempt of constitutional protections for its citizens, or constitutional restraints upon criminal behavior sanctioned by the state. . . .

Maradona no sabe perder
ELEONORA GIOVIO
12/12/2011, © El País
Tiene 58 años y el físico de un jugador de 20. Claudio Gentile nació en Trípoli (Libia) en 1953 y nunca regresó. Se lo impidió una ley de Gadafi. Adonde sí ha vuelto es al Bernabéu. "Allí, desde la derecha, metí el centro a Paolo Rossi para que marcara el primer gol", dice señalando el césped. Era el 11 de julio de 1982. Italia se proclamó campeona del mundo al derrotar (3-1) a Alemania. Gentile, que antes había secado y desquiciado a Maradona en Sarrià no había vuelto al estadio del Madrid hasta el pasado miércoles. . . .

Robert Fisk: The adventures of Tintin in Beirut
Saturday 17 December 2011, © The Independent
We are all haunted by war.
The First and Second World Wars continue to hold us in their sticky embrace. The Lebanese are still trying to shake off the Christian-Druze massacres of 1860, let alone the 1975-1990 civil war. And there's a fascinating view that the events which lead to war somehow enter our bloodstream, become part of us, a history that goes round and round inside our bodies for ever. Most Lebanese regard the start-line of their civil war as the Christian Maronite Phalangist attack on a bus-load of Palestinians in the Beirut suburb of Ain el-Remmaneh, a red and cream American school bus – actually made at Kew in England – that now lies rusting in a field in southern Lebanon, registration plate long torn off but bullet holes intact and ghosts still aboard. . . .

Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.
—William S. Burroughs

Do Private Military Contractors Have Impunity to Torture?
by LAURA RAYMOND
December 21, 2011, © Counterpunch
Unbelievably, in 2011 this question has not yet been settled in the courts of the United States. Human rights attorneys are headed back to court in the coming month to argue that, yes, victims of war crimes and torture by contractors should have a path to justice. . . .

Your best teacher is your last mistake.
—Ralph Nader

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Propagandizing for Perpetual War
by MIKE LOFGREN
December 20, 2011, © Counterpunch
According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has appropriated $806 billion for the direct cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Including debt service since 2003, that sum rises to approximately $1 trillion. The White House estimates the number of U.S. military wounded at 30,000; the web site icasualties.org states that U.S. military fatalities from the Iraq war now stand at 4484. It is impossible to estimate precisely the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths, but they are frequently cited as being in excess of 100,000. There are now around two million internally displaced Iraqis in a country of 30 million inhabitants. As United States armed forces (but not up to 17,000 State Department employees, contractors and mercenaries) leave the country, Iraq is plunging into a sectarian and ethnically-fueled political crisis. Even if it survives that crisis and remains a unitary state, it will almost certainly be pulled closer to the orbit of Iran, our bogeyman du jour. . . .

The Life and Death of American Drones
Nick Turse
December 20, 2011, © The Nation
The drone had been in the air for close to five hours before its mission crew realized that something was wrong. The oil temperature in the plane's turbocharger, they noticed, had risen into the "cautionary" range. An hour later, it was worse, and it just kept rising as the minutes wore on. While the crew desperately ran through its "engine overheat" checklist trying to figure out the problem, the engine oil temperature, too, began skyrocketing. . . .

Supermarked står i vejen for San Lorenzo
16. dec. 2011 11.18 Fodbold, © DR
Cirka 2000 tilhængere af klubben San Lorenzo, bevæbnet med flag, bannere og nødblus, gik i samlet flok gennem Buenos Aires, og sluttede deres march foran den franske ambassade, hvor de ville overdrage en begæring til den franske ambassadør. . . .

Farewell to C.H.
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
December 16-18, 2011, © CounterPunch Diary
I can't count the times, down the years, that after some new outrage friends would call me and ask, "What happened to Christopher Hitchens?" – the inquiry premised on some supposed change in Hitchens, often presumed to have started in the period he tried to put his close friend Blumenthal behind bars for imputed perjury. My answer was that Christopher had been pretty much the same package since the beginning — always allowing for the ravages of entropy as the years passed. . . .

Le Joconde
Par EDOUARD LAUNET
Le 23 novembre, 2011, © Libération
Pour tout Français de plus de 50 ans, Claude Rich est comme un membre de la famille. Un oncle élégant et discret qu'on a toujours connu. Un type bien. Depuis qu'il est monté sur scène en 1951, l'acteur a joué dans une cinquantaine de pièces et pas loin de 80 films, amassé césars et molières sans pour autant avoir un parcours fracassant, inscrit ses traits d'éternel jeune homme dans la grande fresque murale du pays. Aujourd'hui, à 82 ans, il confie avec simplicité, dans la pénombre d'un pied-à-terre parisien proche de Saint-Lazare : «Je suis heureux.» Et l'on pourrait faire défiler une litanie d'anecdotes pour raconter une belle et bonne vie. Mais Rich ne se réduit pas au charme d'un sourire ambigu de Joconde ni au masque du comédien qui s'anime sur commande. Il est aussi ce petit garçon qui, à 7 ou 8 ans, se jetait au pied de son lit en remerciant Dieu car sentant en lui un bonheur si grand qu'il aurait été prêt à mourir sur le champ. Cette expérience de l'extase, il l'a connue de nouveau vers 18 ans. Depuis, une sorte d'illumination intérieure a fini par rayonner sur son visage. . . .

Lola Montes Schnabel
Love Before Intimacy
December 16th, 2011 - February 4th, 2012
OPENING December 16th, 6-9PM
The Hole is proud to present a new group of paintings by Lola Montes Schnabel. These five works, created over the period of the last year, comprise a suite of allegorically suggestive figurative paintings that use a shared five-color palette to great effect. . . .

Climate deal: A guarantee our children will be worse off than us
Getting a deal was a success, but a pitiful one. The world's climate debt is soaring and postponing action threatens an environmental austerity far greater than today's economic woes
Posted by Damian Carrington
Sunday 11 December 2011, © The Guardian
After the feast of words in Durban, comes the reckoning: the deal ensures beyond doubt that our children will be worse off than we have been.
Unlike the economic debt currently transfixing the attention of world's leaders, it appears possible to them that we can put our climate debt on the never-never. . . .

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.
—Seamus Heaney

"En San Juan nos jugamos una final del mundo"
Jonathan Bottinelli habla de su presente, de sus inicios como jugador y de lo que se le viene en un futuro. No está acostumbrado a pelear abajo, pero sostiene que lo sacarán adelante.
11/12/2011, © Mundo Azulgrana
Jonathan Bottinelli confiesa que sueña con ser técnico, nos habla de su círculo íntimo, confía en revertir la situación y, si emigra, desea irse por la puerta grande.
-¿Cómo estás, cómo te sentís con esta actualidad que está viviendo San Lorenzo?
-La verdad que, por ser del club, bastante mal. No pudimos ser regulares, no pudimos tener un campeonato digno de lo que se merece la gente de San Lorenzo y estamos con muchas deudas de cara al campeonato que viene. . . .

I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center.
—Seamus Heaney

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Felicitats a tots els culés per aquesta victòria merescuda.

¡Felíz cumpleaños 24 al Pipita Higuaín! Lástima que Mourinho no le dejó jugar desde el arranque en vez de Cristiano Ronaldo. ¿Aprenderá ese técnico alguna vez que Higuaín, Benzema, Di María, Özil, Alonso y otros jugadores DE EQUIPO son los que valen para los partidos importantes y no un egoísta obsesionado con laureles individuales como Ronaldo?

Join us to celebrate the release of X: THE UNHEARD MUSIC Silver Anniversary Special Edition.
Film screens at 7PM, followed by Q&A with band and filmmakers.

L.A. Film School 6363 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood CA 90028 (enter on Ivar)
Sponsored by Amoeba Hollywood, Angel City Media and MVD Entertainment
For more info: Amoeba Music • Facebook X-The Unheard Music

__________________

The best of my nature reveals itself in play, and play is sacred.
— Karen Blixen

Thousands March at U.N. Climate Summit in Durban to Demand Climate Justice
December 05, 2011, © Democracy Now
We are broadcasting this week from Durban, South Africa, where critical talks on fighting climate change have entered their second week. Key issues at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 17, remain unresolved, including the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty with enforceable provisions designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Delegates are also debating how to form a Green Climate Fund to support developing nations most affected by climate change. We begin not inside the summit, but out in the streets of Durban, where thousands of people marched on Saturday calling for climate justice. "We are here to send a solid, strong message, simple message to the leaders and negotiators at the climate change conference that this is no time to play around," says award-winning Nigerian environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey. "This is a time for a real commitment to cut emissions, a legally binding agreement to cut emissions, as such that rich, polluting countries should understand that their inaction…will destroy the planet… We can't accept that." . . .

I don't believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots.
—Karen Blixen

Robin Hood of the Information Age
By Lawrence Davidson
December 4, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
Julian Assange, perhaps one of the men most hated by the U.S. government, was given Australia's Walkley Foundation Award for outstanding journalism last week. He accepted it from a distance, using Skype, because he is under house arrest in England pending extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning on sexual misconduct allegations. . . .

Zakaria and Democracy 'Tension'
by Peter Hart
12/02/2011, © FAIR
In the new issue of Time (12/12/11), Fareed Zakaria writes in the first sentence of his column:
It is difficult to find a country on the planet that is more anti-American than Pakistan. In a Pew survey this year, only 12 percent of Pakistanis expressed a favorable view of the U.S.
It's not that difficult. The same survey of seven countries found one of them, Turkey, with an even lower 10 percent favorable opinion of the U.S., and Jordan just a hair above at 13 percent. . . .

The Problem with Clint Eastwood's Hoover
Missing the Target
by CLANCY SIGAL
December 05, 2011, © Counterpunch
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's long time chief, J Edgar Hoover, was in a sense "family" for me. He was a presence, heavy and omniscient, like a bad uncle. In the 1920s, during the infamous "red scare" Palmer Raids, agents of his newly-formed Bureau of Investigation arrested, beat up and tried to deport my immigrant father for "criminal syndicalism" (union organizing). . . .

Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.
—Galileo Galilei

Robert Fisk: Sanctions are only a small part of the history that makes Iranians hate the UK
Wednesday 30 November 2011, © The Independent
It's a weird irony that Iranians know the history of Anglo-Persian relations better than the Brits. When the newly installed Ministry of Islamic Guidance asked Harvey Morris, Reuters' man in post-revolutionary Iran, for a history of his news agency, he asked his London office to send him a biography of Baron von Reuter – and was appalled to discover the founder of the world's greatest news agency had built Persia's railways at an immense profit. "How can I show this to the ministry?" he shouted. "It turns out that the Baron was worse than the fucking Shah!" Of which, of course, the ministry was well aware. . . .

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves
—Galileo Galilei

Battlefield America: U.S. Citizens Face Indefinite Military Detention in Defense Bill Before Senate
November 29, 2011, © Democracy Now
The Senate is set to vote this week on a Pentagon spending bill that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — anywhere in the world — without charge or trial. The measure would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the military's "battlefield" to anywhere in the world, even within the United States. Its authors, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have been campaigning for its passage in a bipartisan effort. . . .

Doubt is the father of invention.
—Galileo Galilei

Paulson's plaintive plea
by Jim Hightower
Monday, November 28, 2011, © Jim Hightower
Who's the most befuddled Wall Streeter of all? The richest guy on the Street.
In assessing the spreading public protest against the rampaging greed of today's financial elite, John Paulson turns out to be as confused as a goat on Astroturf. Oh, he gets it that the people's anger is directed at hedge fund profiteers like him, but he claims they are simply confused on the virtue of accumulated wealth. While he raked in nearly $5 billion in personal pay last year (the largest single haul in Wall Street history), gaining his bonanza from rigged Wall Street casino games – he asserts that the amassing of wealth itself serves the public good. . . .

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.
—Galileo Galilei

Blue Dogs took up the fight for doctors' pay as poor lose health coverage
By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, June 2, 2010, © The Washington Post
The Blue Dogs want you to believe that, unlike those other profligate politicians, they really, really care about bringing the federal budget deficit under control, even in the midst of the worst economy in 75 years. . . .

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.
—Galileo Galilei

Ivan Eland Disputes War-for-Oil Dogma
By Carl Close
November 29, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
Ivan Eland's new book, No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East, challenges a long-standing pillar of U.S. foreign policy — the belief that U.S. national and economic security require that American taxpayers fund the military protection of oil-rich foreign lands, especially in the Persian Gulf. . . .

I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night
—Galileo Galilei

Patriot Millionaires: Let the Bush Tax Cuts Expire Once and for All
by Rose Aguilar
Tuesday 29 November 2011, © Truthout
Patriot Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a group of citizens who make more than $1 million a year, met with politicians from both parties on Wednesday, November 16, in Washington, DC, with a unified message: Let the Bush tax cuts expire once and for all, and return the top marginal tax rate back to the Clinton-era levels. . . .

Who said Gaddafi had to go?
Hugh Roberts
Vol. 33 No. 22 · 17 November 2011, © London Review of Books
So Gaddafi is dead and Nato has fought a war in North Africa for the first time since the FLN defeated France in 1962. The Arab world's one and only State of the Masses, the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyya, has ended badly. In contrast to the bloodless coup of 1 September 1969 that overthrew King Idris and brought Gaddafi and his colleagues to power, the combined rebellion/civil war/ Nato bombing campaign to protect civilians has occasioned several thousand (5000? 10,000? 25,000?) deaths, many thousands of injured and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, as well as massive damage to infrastructure. What if anything has Libya got in exchange for all the death and destruction that have been visited on it over the past seven and a half months? . . .

As can be seen in this advertisement played during the recent national political campaign on Intereconomía Televisión (a conservative t.v. channel not unlike the FOX news channel in the U.S.), Spain's right wing corporate extremists have nothing to be ashamed of with regard to those in any other country when it comes to divisive politics, repugnant generalisations and bald-faced lies:

Israeli Democracy Fades Toward Black
America's Founders understood that creating a nation that favored one religion over others was a recipe for repression. Israel's founders rejected that wisdom and sought a Jewish state with democratic ideals. But it is turning out that America's Founders were right, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
By Lawrence Davidson
November 20, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
Have you seen those old-time movies notable for their predictable endings? The cowboy is seen riding into the sunset or the lovers are reunited, etc. And then comes the end – the screen dramatically fades to black. . . .

The Fable Of Midas (1)
Midas, we are in story told, (2)
Turn'd every thing he touch'd to gold:
He chipp'd his bread; the pieces round
Glitter'd like spangles on the ground:
A codling, ere it went his lip in,
Would straight become a golden pippin.
He call'd for drink; you saw him sup
Potable gold in golden cup:
His empty paunch that he might fill,
He suck'd his victuals thro' a quill.
Untouch'd it pass'd between his grinders,
Or't had been happy for gold-finders:
He cock'd his hat, you would have said
Mambrino's(3) helm adorn'd his head;
Whene'er he chanced his hands to lay
On magazines of corn or hay,
Gold ready coin'd appear'd instead
Of paltry provender and bread;
Hence, we are by wise farmers told (4)
Old hay is equal to old gold: (5)
And hence a critic deep maintains
We learn'd to weigh our gold by grains.
This fool had got a lucky hit;
And people fancied he had wit,
Two gods their skill in music tried
And both chose Midas to decide:
He against Ph(oelig)bus' harp decreed,
And gave it for Pan's oaten reed:
The god of wit, to show his grudge,
Clapt asses' ears upon the judge,
A goodly pair, erect and wide,
Which he could neither gild nor hide.
And now the virtue of his hands
Was lost among Pactolus' sands,
Against whose torrent while he swims
The golden scurf peels off his limbs:
Fame spreads the news, and people travel
From far, to gather golden gravel;
Midas, exposed to all their jeers,
Had lost his art, and kept his ears.
This tale inclines the gentle reader
To think upon a certain leader;
To whom, from Midas down, descends
That virtue in the fingers' ends.
What else by perquisites are meant,
By pensions, bribes, and three per cent.?
By places and commissions sold,
And turning dung itself to gold?
By starving in the midst of store,
As t'other Midas did before?
None e'er did modern Midas chuse
Subject or patron of his muse,
But found him thus their merit scan,
That Phoebus must give place to Pan:
He values not the poet's praise,
Nor will exchange his plums (6) for bays.
To Pan alone rich misers call;
And there's the jest, for Pan is ALL.
Here English wits will be to seek,
Howe'er, 'tis all one in the Greek.
Besides, it plainly now appears
Our Midas, too, has ass's ears:
Where every fool his mouth applies,
And whispers in a thousand lies;
Such gross delusions could not pass
Thro' any ears but of an ass.
But gold defiles with frequent touch,
There's nothing fouls the hand so much;
And scholars give it for the cause
Of British Midas' dirty paws;
Which, while the senate strove to scour,
They wash'd away the chemic power. (7)
While he his utmost strength applied,
To swim against this popular tide,
The golden spoils flew off apace,
Here fell a pension, there a place:
The torrent merciless imbibes
Commissions, perquisites, and bribes,
By their own weight sunk to the bottom;
Much good may't do 'em that have caught 'em!
And Midas now neglected stands,
With ass's ears, and dirty hands.

—Jonathan Swift
(this version, and footnotes that follow, found in www.readbookonline.net)

Footnote 1: This cutting satire upon the Duke of Marlborough was written about the time when he was deprived of his employments. See Journal to Stella, Feb. 14, 1711-12, "Prose Works," ii, 337.
Footnote 2: Ovid, "Met.," lib. xi; Hyginus, "Fab." 191.--_W. E. B._
Footnote 3: Almonte and Mambrino, two Saracens of great valour, had each a golden helmet. Orlando Furioso took Almonte's, and his friend Rinaldo that of Mambrino. "Orlando Furioso," Canto I, St. 28. And readers of "Don Quixote" may remember how the knight argued with Sancho Panza that the barber's bason was the helmet of Mambrino.--"Don Quixote," pt. I, book 3, ch. 7.--_W. E. B._
Footnote 4: Stella.
Footnote 5: The Duke of Marlborough was accused of having received large sums, as perquisites, from the contractors, who furnished bread, forage, etc., to the army.--_Scott_.
Footnote 6: Scott prints this word "plumes," substituting a false meaning for the real point of the poem.--_Forster_.
Footnote 7: The result of the investigations of the House of Commons was the removal of the Duke of Marlborough from his command, and all his employments.--_Scott_.

Slanting the Case on Iran's Nukes
By Robert Parry
November 21, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
As Washington's political/media class rises up in arms over new WMD allegations against Iran, it might be worth recalling how a similar process played out nearly a decade ago when the U.S. public was drawn into a war with Iraq. It wasn't just that George W. Bush told some lies; it was more complicated than that. . . .

Reporter Greg Palast Exposes How U.S. "Vulture" Funds Make Millions By Exploiting African Nations
November 22, 2011, © Democracy Now
American "vulture" investors, including a top funder of the Republican Party, have demanded that African nations pay over half a billion dollars for old debts – for which the investors paid only a few million. One New York vulture speculator, Peter Grossman of FG Capital Management, is demanding $100 million from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Is he collecting a legitimate debt from the Congo — or is the vulture's claim based on a stolen security? Greg Palast reports from the Congo, Bosnia and New York in the joint investigation by the BBC, the Guardian and Democracy Now! . . .

The Evolving Truth about Fracking for Natural Gas
Scientists are speaking out about the risks that fracking may or may not pose to drinking water
By Mark Fischetti
October 19, 2011, © Scientific American
An article in the November issue of Scientific American investigates the scientific truths about fracturing deep shales to harvest natural gas. But the story continues to develop in the news, so we've created this Storify file to track ongoing developments. Come back each week for the latest. . . .

¡SAN LORENZO CAMPEÓN!

"ESTO FUE UNA ALEGRÍA INMENSA"
19 de noviembre de 2011, © SanLorenzo.com
La consagración de la Séptima División es el fruto de un trabajo consciente y de una idea clara de juego, que fue transportada a la cancha por jugadores inteligentes, capaces y que supieron cómo interpretar sus roles, para construir un equipo que logró enamorar a la gente, a partir de su criterioso trato de pelota, de la disciplina táctica que impuso y también de la jerarquía individual. . . .

Noam Chomsky: On Knowledge and the Mysteries of Language
Professor Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor of Linguistics at MIT, discusses his conception of knowledge and the mysteries of language. . . .

Noam Chomsky on Occupy Boston 9/30/2011
Noam Chomsky with a few words of encouragement for the Occupy Boston movement. . . .

'Operación cuadro grande': 30 años ya
Los protagonistas del viaje del 'Guernica' a España evocan su rocambolesca aventura
JAVIER RODRÍGUEZ MARCOS
19/11/2011, © El País
Un día de principios de septiembre de 1981 dos funcionarios españoles viajaron en secreto a Nueva York para encargarse del traslado del Guernica a España. Eran Álvaro Martínez Novillo, subdirector general de Artes Plásticas, y José María Cabrera, director del Instituto de Restauración, que viajó con su esposa. Una tarde, al salir del MoMA, depositario del mural de Picasso, los tres españoles se encontraron en unos grandes almacenes con Luis García Berlanga. El cineasta atribuyó la cara de incómoda sorpresa de su amigo Martínez Novillo, a que no acompañaba su mujer, a la posibilidad de que anduviera metido en un lío de faldas. Sin soltar prenda, se fueron todos a cenar a un restaurante en el que Berlanga bromeó con un camarero: "Trate bien a estos señores, que vienen a llevarse el Guernica". Los comensales que estaban en el secreto se miraron con estupor. "Eso no lo verán ni mis nietos", fue la respuesta del mesero. Días más tarde, el jueves 10 de septiembre, a las 7.45, el cuadro aterrizaba en Madrid dentro de las bodegas de un jumbo de Iberia llamado Lope de Vega. . . .

"Ya veo que lo dejé todo bien atado"
200 personas piden en el Valle de los Caídos la retirada de los restos de Franco
NATALIA JUNQUERA
20/11/2011, © El País
"Lo dejé todo atado y bien atado y ya veo que lo habéis mantenido. Así me gusta", dijo Franco ayer, frente al Valle de los Caídos. En realidad era una chica del Foro Social de la Sierra del Guadarrama quien imitaba al dictador vestida con ropa militar y con un bigote pintado en la cara. Como en los últimos cinco años, unas 200 personas se concentraron ayer frente al Valle de los Caídos para exigir que se tire abajo la gran cruz que lo corona, que dejen de celebrarse allí misas y que los restos de Franco y Primo de Rivera sean exhumados y entregados a sus familias. . . .

El Pequeño Adolf y los asesinos neonazis
Ni la policía alemana entiende cómo una banda hitleriana, vigilada por un servicio secreto, pudo matar a diez personas, poner bombas y vivir tranquilamente durante 14 años
JUAN GÓMEZ
20/11/2011, © El País
A las cinco de la tarde aún era de día en Kassel, pero nadie vio huir al pistolero que disparó en la cara de Halit Yozgat, un chico de 21 años. Solo uno de los cuatro clientes que usaban los ordenadores de la trastienda escuchó un "ruido fuerte" al que no dio mayor importancia. Así que a Ismail Yozgat le tocó descubrir el cuerpo de su hijo agonizando entre los locutorios del cibercafé familiar. Los testigos que pudo reunir la policía recordaban a otro cliente con gafas, alto, rubio y fornido. Las huellas del ADN permitieron la detención de quien resultó ser un agente de los servicios secretos identificado como Andreas T. y conocido en su pueblo por el sobrenombre de Pequeño Adolf. Lo soltaron por falta de pruebas. . . .

Tiempo al tiempo
RAY LORIGA
20/11/2011, © El País
El tiempo transcurre más veloz hacia atrás, eso es evidente, y la vida sucede consumiéndose, por eso Zacarías a menudo no termina su café cuando se sienta con Irene a saborear una de las escasas mañanas que Irene le regala. No es su amante nocturno, es su amante del mediodía, y apenas consigue pasar con ella dos noches. Uno sabe mejor quién es y de dónde viene cuando una mujer le regala por fin una mañana. Zacarías se muestra agradecido pero cauteloso. Al fin y al cabo, el cuerpo de una mujer se puede contemplar eternamente y las horas se consumen mejor así y de manera más efectiva que de ninguna otra. No hay mujer en este mundo que no sea dueña de sus propios detalles y en esa tarea se emboba uno con frecuencia desestimando la importancia de otras muchas cosas. Esos dígitos robados del cálculo total permanecen para siempre y recordándolos se puede pasar una vida entera, una vida que Zacarías no tiene. . . .

No Room for Smugness on Iran
There's a "Lucy-yanks-the-football-away-from-Charlie-Brown" quality to how Americans are handled each time a new war with a foreign "enemy" is being sold. There's a slightly varied pitch and the public belatedly learns it's been conned, as is now happening with Iran, notes ex-U.S. intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.
By Elizabeth Murray
November 16, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
I remember thinking smugly to myself in late 2002/early 2003: "Those neocons will never be able to launch their much-desired war in Iraq; their lies are so blatant; their allegations are nonsense; and the world is against them." . . .

Where was the mention of Margaret Thatcher's victims?
Meryl Streep, who plays Thatcher in The Iron Lady, invited me back for apple pie after a screening. But that didn't lessen my hatred for the former Tory leader
Suzanne Moore
Wednesday 16 November 2011, © The Guardian
Meryl Streep is undoubtedly a great actor. Amazingly, I am not. So I did my best to act casually when she served me apple pie that she had baked herself. But my stomach was churning because of the film in which I had just seen her. She plays Margaret Thatcher in the biopic The Iron Lady. She is mesmeric on screen and indeed in the flesh. . . .

Overcoming Contradictions
Do Governments Hate Their People?
by KATHY KELLY and HAKIM
November 16, 2011, © Counterpunch
At Tabor House Technical College, 21 young people sit in a semicircle looking curiously at Hakim and me. We've been invited to speak with them about the practice of justice. Hakim, who has lived among Afghans for the past nine years, begins by describing how an Afghan youth, Zekerullah, would greet them. "Salam," he says to all. With his hand over his heart, Hakim makes eye contact with each student, and then nods in silent greeting. I smile, having watched Zekerullah do just this, whenever he entered a room. The students are interested. . . .

Free Guerilla Action Ads.mov
On Oct. 6, 2011, many Eugene, OR citizens downtown for the monthly Art Walk were surprised to see these anti-corporate, pro Occupy Wall St statements projected on the wall of the Wells Fargo bank all evening. . . .

Occupy Messages Projected on Wells Fargo Building
By Jessica Debbas
November 7, 2011, © Kezi.com
EUGENE, Ore. -- Occupy Wall Street messages were projected on the side of the downtown Eugene Wells Fargo building last week.
An Occupy Eugene member took video of it on his camera that night and posted on YouTube.
Slogans like "Advertising Replaces Education" and "Stand Up for Kids not CEOs" popped up across the bank wall. . . .

They Fought in Any Case

These fought in any case,
and some believing
pro domo, in any case .....

Died some, pro patria,
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.

—Ezra Pound

He's No Bill Clinton!
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
NOVEMBER 11-13, 2011, © Counterpunch
As he prepares to follow Gov. Rick Perry into the oubliette of campaign history Herman Cain can at least console himself that as an alleged harasser of women, his was certainly a classier act than that of a man who not only got elected president in 1992 but was triumphantly reelected in 1996, each time by about 45 million Americans armed with the knowledge that if you left your wife at the next table to Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas in Macdonald's, by the time you got back from ordering more fries Bill would be ensconced in your seat, his hand already hovering above your wife's thigh. . . .

El voto de oro
SANTIAGO SOLARI
07/11/2011, © El País
"Esto son goles, no votos". Esa fue la breve explicación que ofreció Cristiano Ronaldo cuando le instaron a pronunciarse sobre las diferencias entre la Bota de Oro, que recibió como máximo goleador europeo, y el Balón de Oro. Su reflexión me pareció irrefutable.
No hay nada que discutir cuando lo que medimos son cantidades. La razón numérica impera a la hora de probar quién fue más eficaz agujereando redes siempre que no tengamos en cuenta el coeficiente de cálculo que se aplica a Ligas consideradas menores, en las que por alguna razón se presupone que es más fácil marcar como si al disminuir el nivel de los defensores no lo hiciera también el de los propios compañeros. . . .

Looming Crisis of Climate Chaos
Amid the anti-science fervor on the American Right, Republican presidential contenders either shy from the worsening crisis of global warming or deny the problem exists. But the crisis of climate chaos is already spreading across the earth, warns Richard Lee Dechert.
By Richard Lee Dechert
November 7, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
On June 21, I had six hours of surgery for renal cell cancer. At age 79, I'm devoting my remaining time and energy to the vital issue of climate chaos and dedicating this piece to Luc, my first grandchild, who was born on Aug. 31 as an innocent, unaware member of what researcher and writer Mark Hertsgaard calls "Generation Hot" — "the two billion young people worldwide who will spend the rest of their lives coping with mounting climate disruption." . . .

The Iron Heel and the Resistance
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
NOVEMBER 4-6, 2011, © CounterPunch Diary
Three years of President Obama, as of today. Count and weep. Just over a year from now Americans will be deciding whether to reelect Barack Obama or… probably Mitt Romney. In the latter case this is to assume that that Mitt, a Mormon and family man – both danger flares — doesn't get caught up in the minefield known as "charges of sexual harassment," as has Herman Cain, one of his rivals for the Republican nomination. Study recent photographs of a broken Frenchman named Dominique Strauss-Kahn if you want to be reminded of what such charges can do to a candidate for high office. . . .

"Deadly Monopolies": Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington on How Firms are Taking Over Life Itself
October 31, 2011, © Democracy Now
One of the major themes raised by the Occupy movement is the increasing power of large corporations over more and more aspects of our lives. We spend the hour looking into the issue of the corporate control of life itself. Our guest, Harriet Washington, is a medical ethicist and has just published a book that examines the extent to which what she calls the medical-industrial complex has come to control human life. In the past 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone—many more patents are pending. Washington argues that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies patenting these genes are more concerned with profit than with the health or medical needs of patients. Her new book is called "Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future." . . .

There is a crack in everything,
that's how the light gets in.

En todo hay una fisura,
así es como entra la luz.

—Leonard Cohen

Sen. McCain's Libyan Two-Step
By Morgan Strong
October 28, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
A delegation of U.S. senators, led by John McCain, visited Libya in early October to pledge American support for the new government, to praise the revolution, and perhaps most importantly to extract promises of favorable treatment for U.S. business interests. . . .

Sobrevuelos: "Con vida, sin vida".
29 de octubre de 2011
Viggo y su sentir sobre la violencia en el fútbol, el perdón y hasta sobre la belleza del fútbol femenino, en una charla imperdible con Fabián Casas.
SOBREVUELOS
5."Con vida, sin vida".
Viggo:
Hola Fabián,
Parece que Bottinelli, nuestro defensor a muerte, y otros jugadores de San Lorenzo se pueden ir a causa de las agresiones de las barras -- y porque ni nuestro club, ni la AFA, ni el gobierno de Argentina parecen haberse dado cuenta de que hay que hacer un esfuerzo mayor para proteger al deporte, a los jugadores, y a los hinchas de las amenazas de esta desgraciada minoría violenta que está llevando todo al carajo. Bottinelli y los otros se enojaron hasta el punto de decir ¡BASTA!, y con TODA LA RAZÓN DEL MUNDO. Ojalá hubieran sido nuestro presidente y otros presidentes de clubes de fútbol los primeros en decir BASTA y en HACER ALGO serio para demostrar su sinceridad y coraje. Es una vergüenza esta situación. . . .

Why Experience Is No Teacher

Not mine -- the body you were promised
is buried at the heart
of an unusable machine
no one can stop or start.

You'll lie with it? You might dig deep --
escape a Law or two -- see a dart
of light. You
won't get near the heart.

I tried -- I am the same -- come the same.
I wanted my senses to rave.
The dart was ordinary light.
Will nothing keep you here, my love, my love?

—Leonard Cohen
(from FLOWERS FOR HITLER, 1964)

GEORG GUÐNI - Landskaber
28. oktober - 30. december

Indtil sin alt for tidlige død i forsommeren i år, stræbte den islandske maler Georg Guðni (1961-2011) igen og igen efter at indkredse og fortolke det islandske lys og landskab i sine billeder. Med penselstrøg efter penselstrøg fremmanede han dybe, ofte melankolske og næsten sfæriske landskabsskildringer, hvor perspektiv og horisontlinjer er på grænsen af opløsning, og hvor himmel og jord under tiden bliver et.

Inspireret af bl.a. romantikkens såvel som det traditionsrige nordiske landskabsmaleri, søgte Georg Guðni siden studieårene i 1980'erne at finde en egen kunstnerisk identitet og retning. En retning der gik modsat de jævnaldrende kollegers, som for en stor dels vedkommende havde blikket rettet mod den mere ekspressive internationale kunstscene.

Georg Guðnis største inspirationskilde var dog det islandske landskab med dets bjerge, kløfter, dale, vulkaner og ikke mindst de grænseløse lavamarker. Som søn af en geolog havde han gennem hele sin opvækst rejst på kryds og tværs af Island, og på nærmeste hold oplevet landets natur i al sin storslåede mangfoldighed.

Indtrykkene fra barndommen og de indre landskabsbilleder, der dengang blev skabt, øste han af resten af livet. For selv når Georg Guðni i dagligdagen var tæt på dette landskab, malede han ud fra erindringen. Motiverne er erindringslandskaber, som han besjælede med sine penselstrøg og bragte det jordnære sammen med noget dybt sensitivt og metafysisk.

Landskaber er den første soloudstilling med Georg Guðnis værker i Danmark. . . .

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
—Mark Twain

Convicting Iran Outside a Courtroom
October 26, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
By Joe Lauria
The United States has attempted to turn the U.N. Security Council into a courtroom. Before they had even been indicted in a court of law, the U.S. tried Iranian suspects before foreign governments in the bizarre story of an alleged assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador to Washington. . . .

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
—Mark Twain

Falling for New Neocon Propaganda
October 22, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
By Ray McGovern
Paul R. Pillar, my former colleague in the CIA's analytical division, has raised a warning flag, cautioning that the same imaginative neocon composers who came up with the various refrains on why we needed to attack Iraq are now providing similar background music for a strike on Iran. . . .

Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
—Mark Twain

7 - 8
Congratulations to the All Blacks for withstanding the brave French to win the championship. Félicitations aux Bleus pour lutter si bien, pour apporter du courage à tout moment.

Exclusive: Nobel Laureate Tawakkul Karman on the Struggle for Women's Rights, Democracy in Yemen
October 21, 2011, © Democracy Now
In a Democracy Now! exclusive interview, we speak to Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Yemeni activist, Tawakkul Karman. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote on a resolution calling on Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to immediately step down after 33 years in power. All five permanent members of the Security Council back the measure, which "strongly condemns" government violence against demonstrators. The popular uprising in Yemen continues despite more attacks by government forces, including dozens of demonstrators murdered by snipers in recent days. Karman has been in New York City all week to press for international pressure on the Saleh regime. She is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. A 32-year-old mother of three, an outspoken journalist and Yemeni activist, Karman has agitated for press freedoms and staged weekly sit-ins to demand the release of political prisoners from jail. . . .

______________________________

Matyrs at "Change Square" in Sanaa

The Betrayal*

My faith in poetry is betrayed, as blood,
gushing from the heart of the square,
now masks the face of words

My eyes can no longer
make out the shape of things,
the tone of things

Blood, blood, and more blood

It shrouds my soul, my tongue
it envelopes the horizon
and stains people's bread,
falling on plates,
coffee cups,
and the eyes of children.

What dark shadow
casts its corpse across our homeland,
in this city made of light?

What day long bloody hours
lurk over the public square,
in a time of darkness,
hunting for young men
at the age of youthful dreams
and the most beautiful vision
of days to come?

What shame it brings
when the light dies,
shot by bullets of blind hatred

I have no words
but pale ones,
and can offer only tears
streaming down my face,
onto the pages

I tell you: this people
has sent many, many heroes,
and offered many, many sacrifices,
along the path to freedom!

Oh Ghaymaan! Oh Aybaan!
Aren't you crushed as tears
shed by the street turn to stone,
and the heart of the public square
anguishes at the passing of sons
who sacrifice for the meaning of change?

They bare their chests
and raise their heads high
catching betrayal's bullets
in a full embrace
of the nation's precious soil

Tens killed, hundreds injured,
is it enough, oh Ghaymaan,
that your heart weeps,
is it enough, oh Aybaan,
that you soul is touched by tragedy?

Or must we construct
a dam and mountains
made of human beings
to obstruct this savage rising tide,
and stop the blood baths?!

(Translation of the poem and commentary below by Stephen Day)
* translator's title

Commentary on "The Betrayal"

Abd al-Aziz al-Maqaleh is Yemen's best known poet, past president and current distinguished professor emeritus at Sanaa University, and long time director of the government-funded Yemeni Center for Studies and Research. During the last three decades, al-Maqaleh has been widely recognized inside Sanaa as leader of the city's top cultural arts and literary circles. Frequent host at official ceremonies and private diwans, he moves easily among the country's ruling elites and average citizens, generally accessible to anyone seeking his insights and opinions on important issues of the day. At the Yemeni Center, he also welcomes any foreign visitors conducting studies and research about the country.

As an associate of top officials in Yemen's ruling party, including President Ali Abdallah Salih and former prime ministers Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Ghani and Abd al-Kareem al-Iryani, Dr. al-Maqaleh regularly entertains government officials with readings of his poetry at official ceremonies. Over the years, on many national holidays marking the country's revolutions of September 1962 and October 1963, as well as the unification of north and south Yemen in May 1990, this senior poet's voice could be heard, filled with quiet passion, lauding the values of the nation and praising the accomplishments of its political leadership. Heroism, courage, bravery, sacrifice, solidarity, equality, liberty are common themes of poetry read at national holiday celebrations in Yemen. They also are the values upheld by the regime in Sanaa.

In March 2011, Dr. al-Maqaleh wrote a poem about a recent event known as "Bloody Friday" in Yemen. This event took place near the entrance of Sanaa University's new campus, which is located near a large mountain on the northwest edge of the capital. During the preceding month, this site had been enthusiastically renamed "Change Square" by students inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. On March 18th, Yemen's "Change Square" witnessed the brutal shooting deaths of more than fifty youth. Snipers in plain clothes, but widely associated with the regime's national security forces, stood atop four and five story commercial and residential buildings in the neighborhood, taking deadly aim at the heads and necks of unarmed demonstrators in the street below. The firing line of these snipers was similar to the firing line of many men in Yemen's gun culture, who practice their shooting skills while standing at the edge of the country's many mountain canyons.

The street near Sanaa University's new campus is one of the city's main streets, and the buildings along it form an urban canyon. Early on "Bloody Friday," this canyon was filled with tens of thousands of demonstrators, holding banners and placards, dancing and singing. In an instant, one sniper's shot rang out, and others immediately joined in a reckless killing spree that reportedly continued for more than twenty minutes. One minute there was joy in the hearts of young street protesters. And in the next minute, many lay in the street dying from horrific wounds. Others numbering in the hundreds were injured and bleeding profusely. Friends and strangers raced in panic to rescue the fallen, carrying them to makeshift medical facilities in nearby mosques and other buildings. Pools of blood formed on the streets and sidewalks, entrances and hallways of buildings, staining people's hands and feet.

During the days after "Bloody Friday," Abd al-Aziz al-Maqaleh wrote a poem describing his reaction to news of this nightmarish scene. In this poem, which I have taken liberty to entitle "The Betrayal," he reveals an important side of the political culture among Yemeni elites in Sanaa. Al-Maqaleh addresses his own sentiments more than the sentiments of the young dying and injured students in the streets. Through the decades, this beloved national poet's sentiments have been sculpted atop a pedestal created by the regime in Sanaa, mainly for the sake of public admiration for the regime's nationalist and patriotic credentials. As expressed in this poem, al-Maqaleh's sentiments betray his own association with a regime that could hire snipers who carried out the "Bloody Friday" massacre -- a massacre committed against a younger generation, a new set of heroic sons, who died with their dreams and ideals.

The poem embraces the same sense of patriotism which al-Maqaleh regularly expressed on national holidays at parade grounds in Sanaa. But it also signals his awareness of the role he played in the betrayal of today's younger generation, due to the failure of his own older generation to develop a just, fair, and free politics in Yemen. Referring to "Ghaymaan and Aybaan," al-Maqaleh hints at tragic history repeating itself because of the habitual corruption of Sanaa's ruling class. During the mid-20th century, the city and its surrounding mountainous territory were ruled by Zaydi imams. Today these rulers are remembered as cruel figures who kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured in order to keep the general population uneducated and poor. The imams are the villains in most Yemeni national poetry. When Imam Ahmad, son of the more famous Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din, died in mid-September 1962, he was replaced by his son, Muhammad al-Badr. This set in motion an armed rebellion by officers in the Imamate's army, who fought to establish the modern republic that President Salih eventually came to rule in 1978.

In recent years, President Salih began indicating that he wanted his own son, Ahmad, to serve as the nation's next leader. In the late 1990s, Ahmad Salih became head of the national Republican Guard, a position that was considered a stepping stone for his ascension to the post of president. For at least the past ten years, the political opposition in Yemen has been accusing President Salih (a man from a simple tribal background) of behaving like the Zaydi imams once did. Not only was Salih perceived to accept the principle of inherited rule, but he used kidnapping, imprisonment and torture against his political opponents. Similar to the accusations of illegitimacy made, during the last decade, against the elevated sons of other Arab republican leaders, like Gamal Mubarak in Egypt, Sayf al-Qadhafi in Libya, and Bashar al-Asad in Syria, Yemeni president Salih's son Ahmed faced widespread public criticism, charging that he was unfit to replace his father as head of state.

Perceptions about the illegitimacy of inherited rule are one of the factors driving popular uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Yet recent events in Yemen, and the intent of al-Maqaleh's poem, indicate that these uprisings are also driven by other perceived illegitimacies. One example is the widely perceived failure of republican rule founded on popular revolutions five and six decades ago, which generally proved incapable of delivering broad social and economic justice. The elites of these republican regimes continue to use the same rhetoric from the past, spouting stale words about national triumph and accomplishment, while enriching themselves in order to afford ever more palaces, jet planes, and luxury cars. This reality goes unmentioned in al-Maqaleh's poem, but it lies at the root of the betrayals mentioned in his poem. Yemen's new ruling son, Ahmad, and his many brothers and cousins, live like royalty. They also control the nation's elite military and security forces, some of which are suspected of firing at student demonstrators in "Change Square."

Surrounding Sanaa on all sides, there are enormous mountains. But the tallest sit directly to the east and west. Each day, the sun rises and falls over these mountains. Mornings and evenings in Sanaa are beautiful times, a fact readily acknowledged by anyone who visits this magical city set in a fertile mountain valley. By tradition, the mountain in the west, nearest the new campus of Sanaa University is called "Aybaan." In the late 1960s, the royalist tribal forces of Imam Muhammad al-Badr Hamid al-Din stood atop this mountain to bombard the republican army in Sanaa, during the city's famous "Seventy Day Siege." Tales of the heroic defense of Sanaa, in the late fall and early winter of 1967-1968, inform key elements of Yemen's national memory. Many patriots died, and far more were injured, during a bombardment that was supplied covertly by American, British, and Israeli sources, operating in coordination with the Saudi king to the north. Each of these foreign countries sought to turn back Yemen's revolutions in the 1960s.

By referencing "Ghaymaan and Aybaan" as natural elements rising above the city of Sanaa, al-Maqaleh intends to recall this earlier bloody sacrifice in the streets of Sanaa. It goes unmentioned, a second time, that the snipers of "Bloody Friday," who stood atop the urban canyon overlooking "Change Square" in the shadow of Aybaan in March 2011 had earlier been supplied and trained by American and other western countries, which hoped to keep young Ahmad Salih and his brothers and cousins in command positions of Yemeni security forces. These unmentioned things remain outside the poem's field of vision, but they undoubtedly inform the memories of friends and family of those students who fell on Yemen's "Bloody Friday." What does get mentioned in al-Maqaleh's poem, and is plainly intended by his metaphor about tragic history repeating itself, is the betrayal of it all. Dr. al-Maqaleh remorses at the younger generation's betrayal by an older generation of revolutionary republican elites, who could sadly behave as badly as the preceding villains of the Zaydi Imamate era.

Cohen, un principiante que lucha contra el silencio
El poeta, novelista y cantante canadiense recibirá este viernes el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras
Jueves, 20 de Octubre de 2011, © Informador
OVIEDO, ESPAÑA (20/OCT/2011).- "Cuando escribes siempre eres un absoluto principiante; por tanto, cada vez que tomas la guitarra o te sientas ante una página en blanco, empiezas desde cero, es una lucha contra el silencio, contra tus propias debilidades", explicó Leonard Cohen, poeta, novelista y cantante canadiense que este viernes recibirá el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras. . . .

Robert Fisk: Great War secrets of the Ottoman Arabs
Saturday, 15 October 2011, © The Independent
Forgotten soldiers. We all know about Gallipoli; hopelessly conceived mess, dreamed up by Churchill to move the Great War from the glued trenches of France to a fast-moving invasion of Germany's Ottoman allies in 1915. . . .

La educación en PROblemas
Por Pedro Lipcovich
Lunes, 17 de octubre de 2011, © Página 12
Por cada alumno que vaya a la escuela pública en los barrios de Constitución o Monserrat, la Ciudad de Buenos Aires invertirá en infraestructura la quinta parte de lo que le tocará a su compañerito de Belgrano o Núñez; el niño de Villa Lugano recibirá la sexta parte de lo que conseguirá el de Villa Devoto. En conjunto, los alumnos de los cinco barrios más pobres recibirán casi un tercio menos que los de los cinco barrios más ricos. Así lo señala un análisis que la Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (ACIJ) efectuó sobre el presupuesto educativo para 2012, enviado por el gobierno porteño a la Legislatura. Además, "el proyecto de presupuesto disminuye fuertemente lo asignado a Educación Especial" y "no especifica obras para la accesibilidad de personas con discapacidad". . . .

Assad, his raids on Lebanon, and Syria's slow slip into civil war
In Damascus, the regime presents a picture of vast rallies of support. But as tensions rise on the nation's borders, cracks are showing. In Beirut, Robert Fisk peers behind the propaganda
Monday, 17 October 2011, © The Independent
Cross-border tank incursions; four Syrian opponents of the Damascus regime kidnapped in Lebanon, supposedly in a vehicle belonging to the Syrian embassy in Beirut; a truckload of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades destined for President Bashar al-Assad's opponents on the other side of the Lebanese frontier seized by the Lebanese army – not to mention the mass rally in favour of Bashar in Damascus last week, which Syrians arriving in Lebanon say really – really – did count a million people on the streets. Every tragedy has its mystery, I suppose, but this one is taking on Gone With The Wind proportions. . . .

Sigmund y Alexander
Por Lydia Marinelli y Andreas Mayer
Lunes, 17 de octubre de 2011, © Página 12
Cuando apareció La interpretación de los sueños, a fines de 1899, el psicoanálisis era un campo prácticamente ignorado en el entorno vienés. Esto incluía desde la técnica usada por Freud hasta el vocabulario empleado en ese dominio. Para muchos, la psicoterapia seguía estando ligada a la hipnosis. Con breves relatos de algunos casos, Freud había venido explicando su procedimiento (que desde 1896 denominaba "psicoanalítico"), pero no había publicado ninguna elaboración de índole general que permitiera que otros lo corroboraran y practicaran. Las observaciones vertidas en los Estudios sobre la histeria son completamente insuficientes como para posibilitarle al lector el dominio de esa técnica y tampoco es ese su objetivo. Con La interpretación de los sueños, cuya publicación se anuncia por primera vez en 1898, Freud estaba escribiendo un texto que, por el contrario, tenía como meta ese aprendizaje. . . .

Ruthless All Blacks beat Wallabies 20-6 in World Cup semifinal; will face France in final
Steve McMorran, The Associated Press
Oct 16, 2011, © 1310 News
AUCKLAND, New Zealand - New Zealand will face France in the final of the Rugby World Cup after beating archrival Australia 20-6 in a semifinal Sunday, moving a giant step closer to the end of a 24-year quest for its second world title. . . .

Alleged Inhumane Conditions for Post-9/11 Suspects Sparks Global Scrutiny of U.S. Detention Policies
October 14, 2011, © Democracy Now
Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, detention policies in the United States are facing increasing scrutiny both here and abroad. American citizen Tarek Mehanna is set to stand trial this month on charges of "conspiring to support terrorism" and "providing material support to terrorists." Mehanna is accused of trying to serve in al-Qaeda's "media wing." He was 27 years old when he was arrested in October 2009 and has been held in solitary confinement since then. Mehanna was originally courted by the FBI to become an informant. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights is hearing a case on the legality of extradition of terror suspects to the United States on the grounds that inmates are subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement and routine violations of due process. This could become a landmark case in human rights law, potentially damaging the international reputation of the U.S. legal system. To discuss detention policies since 9/11 in the United States, we're joined by Tarek Mehanna's brother, Tamer, and Gareth Peirce, one of Britain's best-known human rights attorneys. She's represented numerous prisoners held at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, as well as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. . . .

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"EL EQUIPO CORRIÓ, METIÓ Y SE LLEVÓ UN GRAN PREMIO"
15 de octubre de 2011, © San Lorenzo
Jonathan Bottinelli analizó el triunfo de San Lorenzo ante Banfield en el Nuevo Gasómetro y expresó: "En el primer tiempo sufrimos bastante. La parte táctica que ofrecieron ellos, nos desacomodaron y no les pudimos encontrar la vuelta. En el segundo tiempo, nos retrasamos un poco, le quitamos espacios a Banfield y logramos concretar (…)Esta vez ligamos nosotros un poquito porque habitualmente nos llegan una o dos veces y nos hacen los goles". . . .

Lo ganó la gente
Por: Román Perroni
15/10/2011, © Mundoazulgrana.com
¿Se acuerdan en el Clausura 2001 cuando en cancha de Vélez, desde el entretiempo, se inmortalizó el "por lo que yo te quiero, Ciclón, te aliento hasta morir"? Desde esa tarde/noche, San Lorenzo construyó un equipo. Un equipo campeón, record y que hoy todos anhelamos. Fue un título y trece éxitos al hilo que ponen a aquel team en un cuadro de honor. . . .

Araucaria

Todo el invierno, toda la batalla,
todos los nidos del mojado hierro,
en tu firmeza atravesada de aire,
en tu ciudad silvestre se levantan.

La cárcel renegada de las piedras,
los hilos sumergidos de la espina,
hacen de tu alambrada cabellera
un pabellón de sombras minerales.

Llanto erizado, eternidad del agua,
monte de escamas, rayo de herraduras,
tu atormentada casa se construye
con pétalos de pura geología.

El alto invierno besa tu armadura
y te cubre de labios destruidos:
la primavera de violento aroma
rompe su sed en tu implacable estatua:
y el grave otoño espera inútilmente
derramar oro en tu estatura verde.

—Pablo Neruda

___________________________

"...the most effective disturber of complacency in our time."
—from a 1939 New York Times editorial on Sigmund Freud, 2 days after his death.

No Direct Evidence of Iranian Government Complicity in Plot
The Obama administration continues to claim the Iranian government helped orchestrate the plot, while admitting evidence is lacking
by John Glaser
October 12, 2011, © Anti-war.com
United States officials in the Obama administration and Justice Department have explicitly claimed that Iran's supreme leader and the Quds Force covert operations unit were likely aware of the so-called terror plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. But evidence of that is lacking and many officials have admitted there are gaps in their understanding of the plot.
The Obama administration has combatively blamed the highest echelons of the Iranian government and promised impending consequences, despite the fact that there is no solid information about "exactly how high it goes," as one official put it. . . .

We work n the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.
—Henry James

Rick Perry's Revolutionary War 'History'
October 12, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
Exclusive: The stupidity of the Republican presidential field seems to know no bounds, with Gov. Rick Perry's putting the American Revolution in the 1500s and joining Rep. Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party in messing up the history of the nation's founding, notes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
For people who supposedly revere the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, the Tea Party and its favored candidates seem to know little about the actual history of the Revolutionary War or why the Constitution was written.
Instead, the Right has spun an upside-down narrative of America's founding era, much as the Right's pervasive media has created false narratives about almost everything else, a disturbingly easy process given how ignorant some Americans are about their own history. . . .

Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.
—William Gaddis

A New Bush Era or a Push Era?
By Amy Goodman
Posted on Oct 11, 2011, © Truthdig
Back when Barack Obama was still just a U.S. senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a New Jersey suburb, "Make me do it." He was borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph's demand for civil rights for African-Americans. . . .

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
—Henry James

The "very scary" Iranian Terror plot
The most difficult challenge in discussing the government's claims is trying to take them seriously
Glenn Greenwald
Oct 12, 2011, © Salon.com
The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it. But since the U.S. Government rolled out its Most Serious Officials with Very Serious Faces to make these accusations, many people (therefore) do believe it; after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth. All Serious people know that. And in the ensuing reaction one finds virtually every dynamic typically shaping discussions of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy. . . .

____________________________________

A PESAR DE LO QUE SE HA PUBLICADO CON RESPECTO A LA NUEVA "PELÍCULA" DEL SUPUESTO DIRECTOR DE CINE GONZALO ROLDAN ,Y AL APARENTE VÍNCULO DE LA MISMA CON EL PARTIDO POLÍTICO UNIÓN POPULAR, VIGGO MORTENSEN NO TIENE ABSOLUTAMENTE NADA QUE VER CON ESE PARTIDO POLÍTICO, CON ROLDAN, CON SU PELÍCULA "EL DESTINO DE LUKONG", O CON LA MANGA DE BOLUDOS ASOCIADOS CON LA PROMOCIÓN DE ELLA QUE SE CREEN TAN GRACIOSOS.

TILLYKKE!!!

Robert Fisk: Violence shows uneasy place of minorities after Arab Spring
Egypt is no stranger to religious tensions – but where do Christians fit into its revolution?
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
The statistics are easy, the future is not. Up to 20 million Copts in Egypt, 10 per cent of the population, the largest Christian community in the region. But President Anwar Sadat once described himself as "a Muslim president for a Muslim people" and the Christians have not forgotten it. . . .

IN MEMORIAM: Amigo Félix
Antonio Pérez Lasheras
08/10/2011, © Heraldo.es
Félix era una máquina de ideas. Las regalaba como otros regalan sonrisas, miradas o desprecios. Félix era generoso con todos, sobre todo con su tiempo y sus ideas. Félix era "duro con las espuelas y blando con las espigas", "suave como la arcilla y duro del roquedal". Félix era hombre de convicciones y las defendía con tenacidad, a veces con contumacia. Félix amaba la libertad ante todas las cosas, aunque en ocasiones tuviera un concepto discutible de la misma. . . .

Salida de la carcel de Torrero

El adiós de Ledesma, a pura emoción
Por Patricio Connolly
9 de octubre de 2011, © Espndeportes
AUCKLAND -- Este partido con la camiseta de los Pumas y ante los All Blacks en el Eden Park no fue uno más para Mario Ledesma. La derrota por 33-10 en los cuartos de final del Mundial marcó el último test para el hooker, que con 38 años jugó su cuarta Copa. Con lágrimas en los ojos dejó la cancha a los 29 minutos, y ya pasada la medianoche neocelandesa habló en los pasillos del estadio, todavía con el llanto a flor de piel. "Estoy contento por el partido que jugamos. En realidad no sé si la palabra es contento. Orgulloso de todo lo que dieron los chicos adentro de la cancha", afirmó. . . .

Reagan's 'Greed Is Good' Folly
October 5, 2011
By Robert Parry, © Consortiumnews.com
So, it turns out that greed isn't good after all – at least not for the vast majority of the American people. But this is a lesson that many U.S. opinion leaders still resist.
For the past three decades – since Ronald Reagan's Republican landslide in 1980 – the United States has undertaken arguably the most destructive social experiment in American history, the incentivizing of greed among the rich by halving their top marginal tax rates. . . .

Remember, any lie you are told, even deliberately, is often a more significant fact than a truth told in all sincerity.
— Halldór Laxness, (from Under the Glacier)

David Cronenberg Interviewed
Posted by Amy Taubin
10.4.2011, © Film Society Lincoln Center
This interview took place a few days before the New York Film Festival's gala screening of A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg's intellectual adventure film that depicts the famous feud that developed between Freud and Jung during the early days of the psychoanalytic movement by focusing on a third person, Sabina Spielrein. A brilliant, young Russian Jew, Spielrein was treated by Jung for hysteria when she was still a teenager, had an affair with him while she was his patient, graduated from medical school in her early twenties with a degree in psychiatry, and became an analyst herself and an ally of Freud while remaining in love with Jung. The film's script by Christopher Hampton is based on Hampton's own 2002 play, The Talking Cure, which was made possible by John Kerr's 1993 A Most Dangerous Method, a thorough history of the early years of psychoanalysis. Kerr gives prominence to Spielrein's papers (her diary and her exchanges of letters with Freud and Jung), which were discovered in 1977, 35 years after her death in the Soviet Union at the hands of the Nazis. Cronenberg had long wanted to make a movie about Freud and psychoanalysis. Hampton's dramatization of Spielrein's story gave him the narrative handle he needed. . . .

Que hable el pueblo del Sáhara Occidental
JAVIER BARDEM
04/10/201, © El País
La primavera árabe nos ha dejado un mensaje muy claro: el pueblo debe hablar. En el norte de África y en Oriente Próximo, el pueblo clama por su derecho a elegir sobre su futuro.
Pero existe un lugar en el que ese grito desesperado está siendo silenciado. El territorio del Sáhara Occidental, la última colonia de África, se halla bajo ocupación marroquí desde 1975. Hoy, el pueblo saharaui sufre represión, violencia y encarcelamiento si trata de reclamar sus derechos. Esto incluye su derecho fundamental a decidir el futuro de su país. Este derecho ha sido refrendado en repetidas ocasiones por el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas y, por extensión, por Estados Unidos. . . .

"Fear, Inc." Exposes the So-Called Experts and Donors Behind Islamophobia in the United States
September 06, 2011, © Democracy Now
A new report by the Center for American Progress called "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America" shows how a small group of self-proclaimed experts backed by a host of donors are spreading fear and hostility toward Muslims in the United States. . . .

Obama: A Disaster for Civil Liberties
By Jonathan Turley, Los Angeles Times
01 October 11, © Readersupportednews.org
With the 2012 presidential election before us, the country is again caught up in debating national security issues, our ongoing wars and the threat of terrorism. There is one related subject, however, that is rarely mentioned: civil liberties.
Protecting individual rights and liberties - apart from the right to be tax-free - seems barely relevant to candidates or voters. One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States. . . .

With Death of Anwar al-Awlaki, Has U.S. Launched New Era of Killing U.S. Citizens Without Charge?
September 30, 2011, © Democracy Now
The United States has confirmed the killing of the radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, in northern Yemen. The Obama administration says Al-Awlaki is one of the most influential al-Qaeda operatives on its 'most wanted' list. In response to news of al-Awlaki's death, constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald and others argue the assassination of U.S. citizens without due process has now has become a reality. "One of the bizarre aspects of it is that media and government reports try to sell al-Awlaki as some grand terrorist mastermind … describing him as the new bin Laden. The United States government needs a terrorist mastermind to replace Osama bin Laden to justify this type of endless war … For a while, al-Awlaki was going to serve that function," Greenwald says. "If you are somebody that believes the President of the United States has the power to order your fellow citizens murdered, assassinated, killed without a shred of due process … then you are really declaring yourself to be as pure of an authoritarian as it gets." . . .

"No sé si es bueno..."
SAN LORENZO
01.10.2011, © Olé
Romagnoli no ve del todo positiva la vuelta de Marcelo Tinelli al club. "Hubo algunas problemas antes y se fue. Yo llegué de la mano de él y tengo un contrato incumplido", tiró Pipi. Polémica instalada en el Ciclón.
Por estos días, San Lorenzo sufre. Agobiado por el promedio y, por si fuera poco, con deudas económicas que dificultan el normal funcionamiento de la institución, no transita sus mejores horas. Así, tratando de hacer malabares para enderezar el rumbo, Carlos Abdo, presidente del club, tuvo algunas reuniones con el empresario y conductor televisivo Marcelo Tinelli. Dispuesto a dar una mano en este momento complejo, Tinelli volvería una vez más, como lo hizo hace un par de años, para aportar su imagen, con el objetivo de aportar su granito de arena para mejorar las arcas alicaídas del club. . . .

Palestine, yes, but Israelis draw the line at Jerusalem
Robert Fisk
Tuesday, 27 September 2011, © The Independent
They wear their wounds well, the buildings of the old "green line". Forget the new Jerusalem hotels across the road, the state-of-the-art tramway that glistens down the highway; just take a look at the bullet holes on the walls to the left, the shell gashes in the preserved façade of what was once an Israeli army bunker and is now Raphie Etgar's little art gallery. . . .

Argentina hail key win, likely to face All Blacks in fortnight
James Mortimer
26/09/2011, © Allblacks.com
The Pumas are in a strong position to progress to the quarter-finals, with their heroic 13-12 victory over Scotland in Wellington giving Argentina likely progression to the round of eight. . . .

"Fins El Mai"

Vull estimar el teu cos fins el mai, fins cansar-me,

fer de la teva pell corriols i estimballs,

jo, vianant d´amor si tu ets el meu viatge,

i assedegar-me del tot si tu ets la meva font.

Vull tot l´aroma fresc de la teva besada,

poder sentir els segons pels batecs del teu cor,

jo, mariner expert si tu ets la meva barca,

i amarinar-me amb tu més enllà de l´horitzó.

—Lluís Llach

Robert Fisk: Prayers, taunts and weary resignation in Jerusalem
Saturday, 24 September 2011, © The Independent
So there I was, on the Via Dolorosa of course, chatting to a middle-aged guy in a red T-shirt and just a wisp of a beard with a prayer rug under his left arm.
And I asked him, of course, what he thought about Barack Obama's speech. He grinned at me like he knew I had already guessed what he was going to say. "What did you expect?" he asked. Correct guess. After all, Haaretz had already referred this week to "President Barack Netanyahu" while the racist Israeli foreign minister said he would sign the speech with both hands. Maybe, I reflected in Jerusalem yesterday, Obama really is seeking election – to the Israeli Knesset. . . .

Argentina ganó un partido "de infarto" ante Escocia y "sigue viva" en el Mundial de Rugby
25/09/2011, © cooperativa.cl
Partidazo. Argentina supo reaccionar a tiempo y dio vuelta un duelo de infarto ante Escocia por la tercera fecha del Mundial de Rugby, ya que ganó por un ajustado 13-12 en Wellington, con lo cual quedó con la primera opción para acceder a los cuartos de final. . . .

KINDNESS ON THE FIELD

Be kind to the hooker, or else in the scrum
Thy poor tender shins he will hack;
Or take the first chance that is offered to him
Of planting his foot in your back.
Be kind to the hooker, he's hidden from view,
And can work his revenge in the dark,
So if you insult him, as sure as you're born,
He'll deprive you of some of your bark.

Be kind to the half-back, he's nippy and sly,
And will grab you when rounding the scrum,
Or will collar you low, your heels up he'll throw,
And bang on the ground you will come.
Be kind to the half-back, that watchful young man,
If you hurt him he'll likely feel wild;
And if he should meet you again in the field,
You'd probably know why he smiled.

Be kind to the winger, or you he may prod
In the home of your afternoon tea;
He's fond of a scrap, and won't mind a rap
If your eye comes to grief on his knee.
Be kind to the winger, he's out for a go,
And promptly pays all that he owes;
So be careful to give him no more than his due,
Or he'll give you the change on your nose.

Be kind to three-quarters, they're heady and strong,
And can run like their master, Old Nick;
So if you tread hard on their corns beg their pardon,
Or limp off the field with a rick.
Be kind to three-quarters again let me say,
For their hatred of roughness is such
That, if you should fend them, or neatly upend them,
You'll travel henceforth on a crutch.

Be kind to the full-back or, when in his grip,
He'll handle you roughly for sure.
He's a virtuous fellow, and hates fast young men,
So take care that your language is pure.
Be kind to the full-back, 'tis kindness well spent,
Don't approach this stern player with vim;
If to score you must try, put your collar-bone by –
A collarbone's nothing to him.

—Robert J. Pope
(From The Evening Post, N.Z.

Las damas primero, las mujeres últimas
Ian Buruma
2011-09-07, © Project Syndicate
NUEVA YORK – Mucha gente todavía cree que los atentados del 11 de septiembre de 2001 no fueron simples actos de terrorismo político, sino parte de una guerra cultural, un choque de civilizaciones. Las dos cosas que más agitan a la gente en los conflictos culturales son la religión y el sexo, especialmente la manera en que los hombres tratan a las mujeres. Obviamente, están íntimamente relacionadas: muchas veces se utiliza la religión como un modo de regular el comportamiento sexual y las relaciones entre los sexos. . . .

Laicismo y búsqueda de la verdad
JOSÉ MANUEL SÁNCHEZ RON
23/09/2011, © El País
Aunque el tiempo, que tantas cosas borra, vaya pasando, no es conveniente dejar de reflexionar sobre la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud que tuvo lugar en Madrid el pasado mes de agosto. El que cientos de miles de jóvenes se reuniesen respondiendo a una llamada institucional constituye un acontecimiento que se debe analizar. . . .

Cheney and justice for torture victims
By Ariel Dorfman, Special to CNN
September 23, 2011, © CNN
Dick Cheney, it has been said, fears that "somebody will Pinochet him."
This extraordinary grammatical twist of the word Pinochet cannot be found in Cheney's recently published memoirs. It was used in several television interviews by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell, to suggest that George W. Bush's vice president dreads the possibility that he, like Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chile's late dictator, will be put on trial for crimes against humanity in a foreign land. . . .

Tú venías

No me has hecho sufrir
sino esperar.

Aquellas horas
enmarañadas, llenas
de serpientes,
cuando
se me caía el alma y me ahogaba,
tú venías andando,
tú venías desnuda y arañada,
tú llegabas sangrienta hasta mi lecho,
novia mía,
y entonces
toda la noche caminamos
durmiendo
y cuando despertamos
eras intacta y nueva,
como si el grave viento de los sueños
de nuevo hubiera dado
fuego a tu cabellera
y en trigo y plata hubiera sumergido
tu cuerpo hasta dejarlo deslumbrante.

Yo no sufrí, amor mío,
yo sólo te esperaba.
Tenías que cambiar de corazón
y de mirada
después de haber tocado la profunda
zona de mar que te entregó mi pecho.
Tenías que salir del agua
pura como una gota levantada
por una ola nocturna.

Novia mía, tuviste
que morir y nacer, yo te esperaba.
Yo no sufrí buscándote,
sabía que vendrías,
una nueva mujer con lo que adoro
de la que no adoraba,
con tus ojos, tus manos y tu boca
pero con otro corazón
que amaneció a mi lado
como si siempre hubiera estado allí
para seguir conmigo para siempre.

—Pablo Neruda

CORAJE

Robert Fisk: Why the Middle East will never be the same again
The Palestinians won't achieve statehood, but they will consign the 'peace process' to history.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011, © The Independent
The Palestinians won't get a state this week. But they will prove – if they get enough votes in the General Assembly and if Mahmoud Abbas does not succumb to his characteristic grovelling in the face of US-Israeli power – that they are worthy of statehood. And they will establish for the Arabs what Israel likes to call – when it is enlarging its colonies on stolen land – "facts on the ground": never again can the United States and Israel snap their fingers and expect the Arabs to click their heels. The US has lost its purchase on the Middle East. It's over: the "peace process", the "road map", the "Oslo agreement"; the whole fandango is history. . . .

Time to go Home

Late and starting to rain,
it's time to go home.
We've wandered long enough
in empty buildings.
I know it's tempting to stay
and meet those new people.
I know it's even more sensible
to spend the night here with them,
but I want to go home.

We've seen enough beautiful places
with signs on them saying
This is God's House. That's seeing the
grain like the ants do,
without the work of harvesting.
Let's leave grazing to cows and go
where we know what everyone really intends,
where we can walk around without clothes on.

~ RUMI (from: Open Secret, translated by Coleman Barks)

All Black quartet set to face France
20/09/2011, © Allblacks.com
Key All Blacks, captain Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, along with Mils Muliaina and Israel Dagg all look likely to be available for the crunch Rugby World Cup pool A match against France in Auckland on Saturday night. . . .

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, you can't build on it it's only good for wallowing in.
—Katherine Mansfield

La derrota se llama Afganistán
Un reportero de El PAÍS empotrado en el ejército de EE UU comprueba el fracaso en la reconstrucción de un país devastado
DAVID ALANDETE
18/09/2011, © El País
Martes, una de la tarde. Polvo y ráfagas de calor asfixiante barren Kabul. El teniente de la Guardia Nacional Michael Orourke se reúne con un destacamento de sus hombres para salir a pie, con un intérprete, a Udkhel, una aldea aledaña a la base regional de Camp Phoenix. Es una misión militar, pero su objetivo y sus medios son muy distintos a lo que cualquier soldado pudiera esperar en un país que ya lleva 10 años en guerra. . . .

La necesidad del catalán
El mismo utilitarismo al que se apela para saber inglés vale para la lengua propia de Catalunya
Domingo, 18 de septiembre del 2011, © El Periódico
Las lenguas que no son necesarias tienen los días contados. A raíz del desgraciado auto del Tribunal Superior de Justícia de Catalunya sobre las lenguas vehiculares en la enseñanza se ha reavivado el debate sobre el idioma del país. El homenaje que se rindió durante la celebración de la Diada a la Secció Filològica del Institut d'Estudis Catalans, con motivo de su centenario, fue una ocasión para que algunos responsables del fomento de la lengua catalana intervenieran de nuevo. Con vehemencia. . . .

Palestinian anger at US fuels diplomatic crisis over statehood
President Abbas takes case for UN recognition to the security council after negotiators say US response was 'final straw'
Harriet Sherwood
Saturday 17 September 2011, © The Guardian
Palestinian negotiators accused Washington of failing to offer measures that might have headed off a looming diplomatic crisis over UN recognition of a Palestinian state. A senior official said US proposals had been the "final straw" that led to the decision to go to the UN. . . .

Del Tea Party al Carajillo Party
ÁNGEL LÓPEZ GARCÍA-MOLINS
19/09/2011, © El País
Un cuarto de siglo de pertenencia a la Unión Europea ha interiorizado en la conciencia de los ciudadanos españoles la convicción de que somos plenamente europeos, hasta el punto de que, cuando se nos hace ver que no nos comportamos a la europea, acogemos este juicio con manifiesta incredulidad. Sin embargo, en algunos aspectos nuestra cultura política tiene muy poco de europea. Que dos grandes partidos, uno de derechas y otro de izquierdas, se repartan el espectro político sin dejar hueco para nadie más con posibilidades de gobernar, resulta muy poco europeo, es más bien lo que sucede en Estados Unidos. De ahí el revuelo que se ha organizado con la modificación constitucional pactada por dichos partidos: la reacción de las formaciones nacionalistas no tiene que ver con el fondo del asunto -si sus comunidades hubieran sido independientes, la UE les habría impuesto lo mismo-, sino con las formas, manifiestamente antidemocráticas, en un asunto de tanta importancia. . . .

Diez razones para el "sí" europeo
MARTTI AHTISAARI / JAVIER SOLANA
19/09/2011, © El País
No es muy frecuente que Europa tenga la oportunidad de desempeñar un papel crucial en el escenario mundial. Pero, en plena campaña de los palestinos para que la ONU reconozca su Estado este mes, las dos partes buscan el voto de la UE, que ha descubierto que no tenía tanta capacidad de influencia en el proceso de Oriente Próximo desde los Acuerdos de Oslo. . . .

Noam Chomsky: The U.S. & Israel Strongly Oppose "Rise of Any Meaningful Democracy" in Middle East
September 19, 2011, © Democracy Now
Earlier this month, Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and other senior diplomats after the release of a United Nations report on Israel's attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla in 2010. The report accused Israel of "excessive and unreasonable force" in its attacks on the Gaza aid ship, Mavi Marmara, which killed nine people. But it also called on Israel to issue a statement of regret and compensate the families of the dead, as well as the wounded passengers. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refused to apologize. We talk to MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky about the relationship between Turkey and Egypt, long key allies for Israel, and how the deterioration of their relations "contributes very substantially to Israel's isolation in the region." . . .

El dedo de Lagos
JUAN CRUZ
18/09/2011, © El País
Hay un vídeo en YouTube que ustedes pueden consultar ahora mismo, antes de seguir leyendo esta crónica. Ustedes teclean el dedo de Lagos y ahí sale el dedo del expresidente chileno Ricardo Lagos.
Ricardo Lagos era un joven abogado opositor al régimen de Pinochet, que asesinó a muchísimos chilenos con el pretexto de acabar con Allende e incluso con las huellas de Allende. . . .

Noam Chomsky: 2012 GOP Candidates Views are "Off the International Spectrum of Sane Behavior"
September 19, 2011, © Democracy Now
MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky discusses the position of the Republican presidential candidates on issues such as climate change and calls them "utterly outlandish." "I'm not a great enthusiast for Obama, as you know, from way back, but at least he's somewhere in the real world," Chomsky says. "Perry, who's very likely … to win the primary and win the nomination, and maybe to win the election, he's often in outer space." . . .

"Cuando trabajas con la vanidad, te conviertes en peor persona"
JUAN CRUZ
18/09/2011, © El País
Este hombre ha vuelto a ser Jorge Valdano, argentino de Santa Fe, un exfutbolista de 55 años que fue campeón del Mundo con su país y vivió días de gloria jugando con el Real Madrid, del que luego fue entrenador y (en dos épocas) director general, hasta que, a finales de mayo, el presidente Florentino Pérez optó por hacerle caso al entrenador José Mourinho y prescindir de quien había sido su mano derecha. . . .

Mor Jordi Dauder
16/09/11, © El Punt Avui
L'actor Jordi Dauder i Guardiola ha mort a la Clínica Ruber de Madrid, on estava ingressat des de l'11 de setembre per una recaiguda relacionada amb el càncer que l'afectava.
Dauder, de 73 anys, ha tingut una llarga trajectòria en el món del teatre, el cinema i la televisió. Es va fer amb el Goya al millor actor secundari l'any 2008 pel seu paper a la pel·lícula de Javier Fresser, Camino. Recentment, va ser reconegut amb el premi Gaudí d'Honor del 2011 de l'Acadèmia de Cinema de Catalunya. . . .

L'ÀNGEL DEL SAQUEIG
Com si la soledat dels homes i del temple
tingués mai un demà de festa i d'harmonia,
com si aquest ploviscó que creix fos un diluvi
que s'insinua amb por,
com una veu que ens vol rebuig i escàndol,
arriba l'àngel del saqueig,
rabent, ales de foc que inflamen tot amb fúria,
revela l'ànima dels llibres,
fendeix l'espai ferit de grocs i blaus i flames,
crema el desig quan surt dels llavis del desig
i marxa amb so de perles en tempesta
mentre s'ensorra el temple.
Ens resta sols un viu dolor
damunt l'altar de la memòria.
—Carles Torner

Noam Chomsky on the U.S. Economic Crisis: Joblessness, Excessive Military Spending and Healthcare
September 13, 2011, Democracy Now
President Obama sent his new jobs proposal to Congress on Monday with a plan to pay for the $447 billion package by raising taxes on the wealthy. Noam Chomsky says, "The healthcare system...the huge military spending, the very low taxes for the rich (and corporations)...those are fundamental problems that have to be dealt with if there's going to be anything like successful economic and social development in the United States." As Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," and Democrats buy into the narrative that the program is in crisis, Chomsky notes that "to worry about a possible problem 30 years from now, which can incidentally be fixed with a little bit of tampering here and there, as was done in 1983, to worry about that just makes absolutely no sense, unless you're trying to destroy the program." . . .

All the world complains about the bad weather, and no one does anything about it.
—Johann Nestroy

Noam Chomsky: U.S. to Veto Palestinian Statehood Bid Despite "Overwhelming International Consensus"
September 13, 2011, Democracy Now
President Obama publicly confirmed Monday that the United States will oppose any attempt by the Palestinians to achieve statehood at the United Nations, but Palestinians leaders are still vowing to move ahead with their bid for statehood this week. What will the ramifications of a U.S. veto be? For more, we speak with Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky. "If the Palestinians do bring the issue to the Security Council and the U.S. vetoes it, it will be just another indication of the real unwillingness to permit a settlement of this issue, in terms of what has been for a long time an overwhelming international consensus," Chomsky says. . . .

You can't legislate against rumour.
—Johann Nestroy

Noam Chomsky on the 9/11 Decade and the Assassination of Osama Bin Laden: Was There an Alternative?
September 13, 2011, Democracy Now
Ten years ago, at a time when lawmakers from both sides of the aisle joined together to authorize endless war, Noam Chomsky's was the leading voice to call for the United States to rethink its actions in the Middle East and across the globe. His 2001 book, simply titled "9-11," became a surprise bestseller. The book collected a series of interviews Chomsky had given on the roots of the 9/11 attacks and his prescription for a just response. A decade later, Chomsky has just released an updated version titled "9-11: Was There an Alternative?" which refers to the U.S. assassination of Osama bin Laden and the continuity Chomsky sees between the Bush administration's foreign policy and President Obama's. "Right at this moment, Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world," says Noam Chomsky. "The policies change, but they're hostile. We should understand where atrocities come from. They don't come from nowhere. And if we're serious, we should try to do something about what is the basis for them." . . .

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
—Carl Jung

All Blacks attention slowly turns to France
James Mortimer
13/09/2011, © Allblacks.com
While Japan will play the All Blacks in their next test in Hamilton, already talk is beginning to drift towards France, likely to be the host's toughest pool opponent.
Indeed, Les Bleus could constitute the most difficult round robin game the All Blacks have ever played in World Cup history, although they were paired with England in the 1991 and 1999 tournaments. . . .

Quebec's War Against The Censors
Mark Bourrie
Sept. 12, 2011, © National Post
The Fog of War describes the problems Ottawa faced censoring Canada's media in the Second World War. The author, parliamentary reporter Mark Bourrie, first became interested in the wartime press when he interviewed the last living censor, Fulgence Charpentier. Through most of the war, Charpentier had fought a running battle with the nationalist and pro-Fascist elements in the Quebec press. . . .

...Inmortal...

de Eduardo José Bejuk, el Domingo, 11 de septiembre de 2011

Rajá, fantasma, rajá. Yo soy San Lorenzo, ¿entendés? Grande. Unico. Irrepetible. Matador invicto. Camboyano temerario. Carasucia feliz. Cuervo desde que mi viejo me llevó la camisetita a la cuna y me lloró la primera lágrima ahí, en el piqué azulgranado que me parió. Rajá, fantasmita, que no tenés ni para empezar. Yo sé sufrir, la gloria no me la regalaron: la sudé, la lloré, la busqué desagrándome, volví de la B, reventé los estadios, levanté una cancha, me desaparecieron la otra pero yo soy mago, alquimista de sentimientos, santo de mil martirios y resurrecciones, y la voy a hacer aparecer ahí, justo donde estaba, y voy a gritar tantos goles, y voy a dar tantas vueltas, y voy a lastimar tantas gargantas a puro grito por el Ciclón que vos, pobre fantasma sin alma, por fin vas a entender lo que te estoy diciendo: la bandada de cuervos de todo el mundo, alas desplegadas, graznido de guerra, se avalanza sobre vos para protegerme de toda acechanza. ¿Te creés que soy como los otros? ¿Te creés que me van a dejar solo? Ya te humillé cuando jugaste a matarme, sin darte cuenta que por ellos, siempre por ellos, tengo la inmortalidad asegurada. No te atrevas, iluso, que ya preparan la avalancha.

________________________

Congratulations to Novak Djokovic, who has won this year's U.S. Open men's singles tennis championship. Just when it looked like Rafael Nadal had turned the tables on him after taking the 3rd set of their hard-fought match, Djokovic took a lengthy time-out, his third one since Nadal had begun to gain the upper hand, to have a medic work on his apparently ailing back. He also used the momentum-killing break as an opportunity to ingest fluids, take pain killers and to evidently refocus. After returning to the court, while Nadal had cooled down and lost the rhythm he had built up, the Serbian seemed much reinvigorated as he took advantage of the fresh start to run away with the 4th and deciding set. Djokovic now ran and leaped about the court with renewed strength, his back problems seeming to have miraculously disappeared, much to Nadal's apparent (and my definite) surprise. The Mallorca native is too much of a gentleman to call his opponent's time-outs -- particularly the lengthy and refreshing 3rd one -- anything like gamesmanship. I suppose that I must be less of a gentleman, because the sequence of events did not smell right to me. I congratulate the winner on a remarkable year of tennis, as Nadal graciously did after this match, but i found Djokovic's conduct and his victory a little less than pristine.

Petulant Serena goes bonkers again at U.S. Open
JEFF BLAIR
Sep. 11, 2011, © Globe and Mail
You'd like to give Serena Williams a pass, it being the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and all.
But faced for the first time at the 2011 U.S. Open with an opponent who believed she could be her physical match, Williams turned into a caricature, a stereotypical Ugly American on Sunday afternoon at Arthur Ashe Stadium. In a match that will be remembered less for its winner and more for Williams's berating of chair umpire Eva Asderaki, Williams saw her game dismantled in the women's final by Australia's Samantha Stosur 6-2, 6-3 in 1 hour 13 minutes. . . .

Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.
—Sigmund Freud

The Belated Wisdom of Ex-Leaders
September 10, 2011, © Consortiumnews.com
By Lawrence Davidson
There is an interesting phenomenon which we can call "the political retiree's confession." I don't mean all those hyped memoirs, ghost-written for all manner of high-ranking ex-officials. Here I refer to statements by important political leaders and bureaucrats, either out of office or about to vacate their positions, publicly describing what really needs to be done. . . .

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
—Sigmund Freud

Was There an Alternative? Looking Back on 9/11 a Decade Later
by: Noam Chomsky
Tuesday 6 September 2011, © TomDispatch
We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of September 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world. On May 1st, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan by a team of elite US commandos, Navy SEALs, after he was captured, unarmed and undefended, in Operation Geronimo.
A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S. "He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them," Eric Margolis writes. "'Bleeding the U.S.,' in his words." The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden's trap... Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction... may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States" -- particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.
That Washington was bent on fulfilling bin Laden's fervent wishes was evident at once. As discussed in my book 9-11, written shortly after those attacks occurred, anyone with knowledge of the region could recognize "that a massive assault on a Muslim population would be the answer to the prayers of bin Laden and his associates, and would lead the U.S. and its allies into a 'diabolical trap,' as the French foreign minister put it."
The senior CIA analyst responsible for tracking Osama bin Laden from 1996, Michael Scheuer, wrote shortly after that "bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. (He) is out to drastically alter U.S. and Western policies toward the Islamic world," and largely succeeded: "U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it is fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden's only indispensable ally." And arguably remains so, even after his death. . . .

The Waste Land
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
September 9, 2011, © CounterPunch Diary
Across two evenings this week, we've been offered America's future in a couple of visions. Neither of them offered the prime vitamin of bearable politics, the promise of good cheer and a better life at the end of a shortish tunnel.
Version one came in the Republican presidential candidates' debate at the Reagan Library in California on Wednesday evening. This was Texan governor Rick Perry's first joust with the other contenders. As is customary, feather-puff punches and leaden sarcasms were inflated by the press into Swiftian repartee. . . .

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.
—Sigmund Freud

Robert Fisk: For 10 years, we've lied to ourselves to avoid asking the one real question
Saturday, 3 September 2011, © The Independent
By their books, ye shall know them.
I'm talking about the volumes, the libraries – nay, the very halls of literature – which the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001 have spawned. Many are spavined with pseudo-patriotism and self-regard, others rotten with the hopeless mythology of CIA/Mossad culprits, a few (from the Muslim world, alas) even referring to the killers as "boys", almost all avoiding the one thing which any cop looks for after a street crime: the motive. . . .

Time spent with cats is never wasted.
—Sigmund Freud

Robert Fisk: It's not the brutality that is 'systematic'. It's the lying about it
Friday, 9 September 2011, © The Independent
It was Baha Mousa's dad I will always remember. On an oppressively scorching day in Basra, Daoud Mousa first spoke of his son's death, telling me how the boy's wife had died of cancer just six months earlier, how Baha's children were now orphans, how – not long after the British Army had arrested Baha Mousa and beaten him to death, for that is what happened – a British officer had come to his home and stared at the floor and offered cash by way of saying sorry.
"What do you think I should do?" Daoud asked me. Get a lawyer, I said. Tell Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. Let me write about it. When I called at the British base at Basra airport, one officer laughed at me. "Call the Ministry of Defence," he said dismissively. He didn't care. . . .

Study in Orange and White

I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised when I found the painting
of his mother at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.

And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble my own ancient mother
who was now fixed forever in the stars, the air, the earth.

You can understand why he titled the painting
"Arrangement in Gray and Black"
instead of what everyone naturally calls it,
but afterward, as I walked along the river bank,
I imagined how it might have broken
the woman's heart to be demoted from mother
to a mere composition, a study in colorlessness.

As the summer couples leaned into each other
along the quay and the wide, low-slung boats
full of spectators slid up and down the Seine
between the carved stone bridges
and their watery reflections,
I thought: how ridiculous, how off-base.

It would be like Botticelli calling "The Birth of Venus"
"Composition in Blue, Ochre, Green, and Pink,"
or the other way around
like Rothko titling one of his sandwiches of color
"Fishing Boats Leaving Falmouth Harbor at Dawn."

Or, as I scanned the menu at the cafe
where I now had come to rest,
it would be like painting something laughable,
like a chef turning on a spit
over a blazing fire in front of an audience of ducks
and calling it "Study in Orange and White."

But by that time, a waiter had appeared
with my glass of Pernod and a clear pitcher of water,
and I sat there thinking of nothing
but the women and men passing by--
mothers and sons walking their small fragile dogs--
and about myself,
a kind of composition in blue and khaki,
and, now that I had poured
some water into the glass, milky-green.

—Billy Collins

Discovered Files Show U.S., Britain Had Extensive Ties with Gaddafi Regime on Rendition, Torture
September 07, 2011, © Democracy Now
Human Rights Watch has uncovered hundreds of letters in the Libyan foreign ministry proving the Gaddafi government directly aided the extraordinary rendition program carried out by the CIA and the MI6 in Britain after the 9/11 attacks. The documents expose how the CIA rendered suspects to Libyan authorities knowing they would be tortured. One of the most prominent suspects rendered to Libya was an Islamic militant named Abdelhakim Belhaj, who is now the military commander for the Libyan rebels. At the time of his capture in 2004, Belhaj was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group that had ties to al-Qaeda. We speak to Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, who helped find the documents in Tripoli, and Gareth Peirce, a well-known British human rights attorney who has represented numerous Guantánamo prisoners as well as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. . . .

________________________

detail of "Arrangement in Black and Brown",
by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

________________________

"Tell us a story from before we remember"

Yesterday, I finally got the chance to watch Terrence Malick's THE TREE OF LIFE. As soon as it was over I watched it again. I'll probably see it a third time before long. Our time on this earth is short, but some stories do bear repeated viewing.

More often than not, I feel that prizes given to movies, directors, and performers in Cannes (where Malick's movie won the Palme D'or this year) and at other film festivals, not to mention at just about any award show in the world, result from wrong-headed choices based more on political, personal or public relations-driven factors than on the purely creative merits of those anointed as winners. Once the promotional fairy dust settles and eventually vanishes, usually 6 months to a year after such awards are given, one wonders how candidates that obviously were more-deserving could have so frequently been overlooked in favour of adroitly-hyped mediocrities. On further reflection, time usually tells us some of the truth about who might have been the more just candidates or winners, but the damage will have been done and there is nothing movie fans can do but move on. Move on, that is, to a new season likely to see critics, jurors and regular moviegoers all letting ourselves be hoodwinked at some point, followed by seemingly endless debates over the many poor conclusions we consequently drew in the heat of the marketing moment.

I personally feel that THE TREE OF LIFE has deserved the official recognition and rewards for its extraordinary qualities. It is the kind of cinematic accomplishment that stands apart from other movies, if not necessarily above all of them. Stands apart from aspects of other works that can reasonably be compared. Seems part of another genre, another medium. Some critics have complained in so many words that this movie, though beautifully filmed, is all over the place and tries too hard to be profound. Sean Penn, one of the principal players in this story, has recently spoken out publicly against the editing choices made by Malick, lamenting in particular the way his character ends up coming across (or not coming across) in the final cut of the movie. I found no fault with Sean's or any other actor's performance, no fault with the photography, music, story-telling. All was just as it needed to be, just so and so true. All elements appeared to have melded, to have been carefully synchronised by Malick in a work of art that stands miraculously and effortlessly alone. It is, in my opinion, a movie story even more profoundly moving than the promotional trailer and early word led us to hope it might be, well beside the negative critiques that some have attempted against it. A sincere and well-enacted study of compassion with endless mercy and love of life in every frame. What's there to rail against here? Who other than Malick could have told a story with such meticulous attention to detail and musical timing, such graceful boldness, unpretentious dignity and undiluted affection for people and things?

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.
—Karen Blixen

Needless to say, I strongly recommend this movie to anyone who has not seen it, and also to anyone who has seen it but perhaps did not take much inspiration from it on first viewing - or was swayed by the more negative reviews it received from some journalists.

V.M.

El régimen cubano retira la acreditación al corresponsal de EL PAÍS en La Habana
04/09/2011, © EL PAÍS
El Gobierno cubano ha retirado la credencial de prensa al corresponsal de EL PAÍS y la cadena SER en La Habana Mauricio Vicent, quien en los últimos 20 años ha cubierto para este diario los principales acontecimientos informativos que han tenido lugar en la isla. Mauricio Vicent fue convocado recientemente por el Centro Internacional de Prensa (CPI), dependiente del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba, donde se le informó de que no sería renovada su credencial de trabajo, imprescindible para ejercer la labor de corresponsal, en virtud del artículo 46 de la Resolución 182, del año 2006, que regula el ejercicio de la prensa extranjera. . . .

Argentina's Turnaround Tango
By IAN MOUNT
September 1, 2011, © The New York Times
ARGENTINA may seem like one of the last countries on earth to offer lessons for dealing with economic malaise. Once the eighth-largest economy in the world, it steadily slid through the 20th century, thanks to decades of repressive dictatorships and inconsistent market experiments. This ended ignominiously in 2001, when it defaulted on $100 billion in sovereign debt, plunging over half its 35 million people into poverty. . . .

________________________

The Dancer Steps Forward

The dancer stays home
digging in his earth,
looking for the bone that will
sing to him.

His friends have run off to Europe.
They groan, pull their hair, wail,
America is a paltry place for the imagination.
They hit the walls, deny their past.
They become good Europeans.

The dancer shrugs in his New Jersey afternoon,
begins to dance
around the circumference of his native ground.
I've got to learn the language, he says.
I've got to follow through on the syntax.
There is a music here. Don't be so quick to deny it.

He steps out onto the American earth.
People come to him, ask,
do you know what they are doing across the sea?
They are writing epics!
They are tearing up the linear fabric.

Let me do my digging, he says
and the music that is alive there
begins to attach itself to his skin
in that hard working New Jersey afternoon.
His patients come, his patients go.
The good doctor knows there is a music
here.

One of his good friends,
an old schoolboy pal
who will later do time for mixing aesthetics and politics,
keeps haranguing him to come to Europe.
I'm too busy digging, he says,
there is a music here, I tell you,
and my job is to find it,
learn it,
sing it.

You can have your poets of Provence,
you can have Confucius.
I'm hunting a different game altogether.
The sun grows hot.
He begins to sweat there in the yard,
digging.

He takes a drink of water.
We leave him at his work
as night quietly shows up.
Later he steps onto the front porch.
He will begin naming the new rhythm,
the kind of rhythm that you recognize
on the street, maybe.

Not some secret arcane language,
not some language you need a dictionary to understand,
the kind of rhythm
you can maybe
figure out all by yourself
as you roll it around in your mouth,
as you begin to say it and it begins to sing you.

There is a music in the American idiom,
he says
and wipes his face for the last time,
and begins to think about going up to bed.
Tomorrow is another song.
Tomorrow will be other patients and
words to discover and stories behind such words
that illuminate.

The game, after all
is one of discovery.
The day you stop finding out things
is the day
you might as well
turn yourself in for good.

He slowly makes his way upstairs to
his beloved Flossie.
There is a music here.
All you have to do is believe,
and the rest
is just
some history of
song
and love.

—Scott Wannberg, from TOMORROW IS ANOTHER SONG
____________

L'une des clés d'une relation amoureuse est de respecter la maladie que l'autre porte en lui.

Wild Horse Preservation:
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come.