If you are one of the myriad fans of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, you will be heartened to learn that events are moving forward toward the creation of a two movie series based on the original book, “The Hobbit.” This week we learned that Sir Ian McKellen has signed on to reprise his role as Gandalf and that Peter Jackson will definitely be involved.
As was expected, Ian McKellen has agreed to be a part of the two-film Hobbit project, according to Empire magazine.
McKellen had said last year that he would not be involved in The Hobbit if Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson were excluded, which was possible because of since-resolved royalties disputes with New Line Cinema. Jackson will produce the two films being adapted from and adding to J.R.R. Tolkien’s original novel, The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again (1937), slated for 2010 and 2011.
We also learned that Guillermo del Toro (of Hellboy fame) will direct. As the technology of special effects continues to advance, The Hobbit promises some real treats. While there were monsters aplenty in Lord of the Rings, I can’t wait to see what they do with the giant, fire-breathing dragon, Smaug, in this movie rendition. There is also a battle of five armies near the end of the tale which should make for some epic battle sequences.
One concern has been the age of the actors involved as more and more years roll by between films. This is further complicated by the fact that The Hobbit takes place many years before the beginning of Lord of the Rings. For many roles, this won’t be an issue as most of the key characters were new in LoTR. Gandalf is in both, but he was already rumored to be more than 1,000 years old in both films, so that’s not as much of an issue. Gollum is likewise not a problem, since he is actually “played” by an unseen actor in a greenscreen suit who is then digitally edited out and replaced by the CGI monster. The big question will be Bilbo, who features prominently in both series, but is supposed to be far younger in the first film. I’m betting they get a new actor to play the younger version of the hobbit.
Stay tuned for more updates. We have a couple of years to wait still, but this should be another box office giant.
It turns out that one of the doctors in yesterday’s piece on families coping with gender identity issues, Kenneth J. Zucker, Ph.D., is on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group for the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Needless to say, gender-variant LGBT and straight youth, as well as transsexual adults, will likely have to deal with another decade plus of being considered seriously disordered — with its conversion therapy implication for children. Reform models for, or different takes on Gender Identity Disorder in DSM-V aren’t likely to be seriously considered with forceful advocates Zucker and Blanchard on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group, advocating to continue listing gender-variant youth and adult transsexuals as disordered.
It was the step that recognized that individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward people of the same sex weren’t afflicted with a psychiatric disorder.
I make that leap, too. And will share this personal story only to inform the reader of how my experience shapes my beliefs… Read the rest of this entry »
They must have run out of duct tape at Home Depot — or Hillary Clinton’s advisers must believe that an angry Bill Clinton arguing with a female voter who interrupted him in West Virginia is going to win over people who don’t already support Hillary Clinton. For a veteran politician, he can’t turn a lemon (being interrupted) into lemonade (handling it with skill to win over doubters).
Because here he goes again. Watch the clip below. Here he is arguing with a voter who disputed an assertion he made about Hillary Clinton’s claim that she improved health care under his administration. This IS red meat for those who already love Hillary and want her to fight and denounce Barack Obama all the way to the convention.
But to many independent voters, Republicans, Democrats — and probably superdelegates — when they watch this clip they will think: Do we REALLY want to allow this man to take virtual center stage for four — or EIGHT — more years? Oh, please, Mommy, make him go away…
Some Presidents become more endearing and their political skills actually blossom once when they leave office. They grow on people.
Bill Clinton is growing on many people like a fungus.
Make sure you watch the voter’s comment at the end. Presumably, the Clintons want to win over more than their current supporters, but you’d never know that from Bill Clinton’s defensive and angry response.
UPDATE: In fact, Hillary Clinton DOES deserve some credit for improving health care under Bill Clinton. READ THIS. But rather than rattle-off specifics, Clinton became angry and turned it on the voter, turning himself into a kind of radio talk show host. (At least you can TURN OFF the radio and not listen to talk show hosts.)
We’ll try to update this post on a daily or more regular basis, just in case you don’t see or have a chance to check the information elsewhere.
ABC reports that Obama is ahead. RCP still has Clinton ahead by eight, as of 8:35 am Central Time today.
Clearly, this is not an exact science. Justin Gardner explains. For my part, I’m sticking with RCP, as I’ve found them quite reliable and relatively conservative on how they maintain their counts. Better to be surprised than disappointed. At least, that’s my motto.
The Washington Post has further information on an unfolding story regarding several “land swap” deals endorsed by presidential hopeful Senator John McCain, at least one of which seems to be producing a financial windfall for one of the Arizona Senator’s largest fundraisers.
PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers.
Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.
This certainly seems worthy of investigation, but as I will point out, there are two sides to every story. The “land swap” involved a deal where individuals would be able to exchange rugged, undeveloped land primarily owned by Fred Ruskin and the Yavapai Ranch Limited Partnership. This property included some rare, desert woodland ecosystems including habitat for the pronghorn antelope. The land would be folded into the existing Prescott National Forest. In exchange, the owners would receive land which was more accessible and ready for development.
The controversy comes from the fact that Ruskin’s group wound up getting land valued at $120,000 per acre in exchange for land previously worth $2,000 per acre. They then turned around and handed a deal to develop 12,000 homes in this area to SunCor Development, run by Steven A. Betts who has raised a great deal of money for Senator McCain. In his defense, the McCain campaign has released answers to a series of questions on these land deals stating that there were no prior agreements between the Senator and the other parties involved.
There does not yet seem to be conclusive evidence of any sort of quid pro quo here, but since it at least provides the possible appearance of impropriety, a full investigation should begin with the results provided to us. However, as I said earlier, there are two sides to a story like this.
Such “checkerboard” land distribution arrangements are not uncommon, and I’ve observed quite a few of them over the years here in Upstate New York. (They are also commonly referred to as patchwork land deals, and have happened with the Adirondack Park here in the Empire State.) When sections of private land become “trapped” inside of sections of public parkland, problems come up on both sides. Simply put, the most efficient way to manage, patrol and protect the wilderness areas is to keep them contiguous. Anything else leads to zoning problems and dangerous situations for certain animals who may be crossing from public to private property and back again. For the owners, there are even more issues. Development of roads, utility lines and other required infrastructure can prove to be impossible when crossing park lands. Often the only reasonable solution is to fold some of the contiguous land into the park in exchange for accessible land suitable for development being given to the owners.
Further, the idea of trading land worth $2,000 for property valued at $120,000 may sound suspicious, but the true “worth” of the parklands should be measured in more than terms of hard cash. These parks belong to all of us, providing not only habitat for endangered flora and fauna, but wonderful opportunities for hikers, campers, scientists and students. Surely that has some value beyond what can be measured in hard dollars and cents for development deals.
This is an interesting story to be sure, and worthy of further investigation. But we may not want to be too quick to rush to judge Senator McCain’s involvement until we have all the details.
New York, NY, May 8, 2008—Thanks to its historical, 94 years of operation as a non-political entity and relief organization, JDC staff has been granted entry visas to carry out humanitarian aid efforts for victims of cyclone Nargis which hit Myanmar last week. A senior JDC professional is on the ground in Myanmar, where he will assess the situation and carry out plans to aid the estimated several hundred thousand cyclone victims without shelter and safe drinking water. JDC is partnering with MASHAV, Magen David Adom (MDA), and F.I.R.S.T (Fast Israeli Rescue & Search Team) to provide emergency relief, including medical supplies and personnel and rescue workers.
JDC has opened a mailbox and is now accepting donations to provide immediate assistance and relief:
Donate to Myanmar Cyclone Relief:
Online: https://www.jdc.org/donation/jdc_form.cfm
By Phone: 212.687.6200
By Mail: Check payable to: JDC-Myanmar Cyclone Relief, P.O. Box 530, 132 East 43rd St., New York, NY, 10017
A federal judge has ruled that the Georgia Institute of Technology had materials in its office to support gay students that amounted to unconstitutional support for some religious groups over others. […]
The ruling came in a case involving a range of issues over speech codes and support for religious groups at Georgia Tech — issues that mirror those being raised at other public colleges and many of which were resolved in earlier rulings or agreements between the parties in the case. The new part of the ruling, however, focused on a set of materials used in the “Safe Space” program at Georgia Tech, a part of the institute’s diversity office designed to support gay and lesbian students.
The case was filed on behalf of two Georgia Tech students, assisted by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that has sued many public colleges accusing them of violating the rights of religious students. The portion of the suit about Safe Space argued that materials at the public university were effectively religious in that they endorsed some faiths over others — and that these materials were as a result unconstitutional. Judge J. Owen Forrester agreed.
The materials in question dealt with issues that may be faced by religious gay students, or by gay students challenged about the sexuality by people from different faiths. One passage cited in the ruling says that “historically, Biblical passages taken out of context have been used to justify such things as slavery, the inferior status of women, and the persecution of religious minorities.” Such attitudes have led some religious groups to declare “that homosexuality is immoral,” the group’s materials state, while others “have begun to look at sexual relationships in terms of the love, mutual support, commitments and the responsibility of the partners rather than the sex of the individuals involved.”
U.S. military officials are now saying that yesterday’s reports of the capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, were somewhat premature.
U.S. military officials were surprised about the report of Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s capture — first reported by Iraqi media and picked up by The Associated Press. And intelligence officials said they were skeptical, even though Iraqi officials said al-Masri was already in U.S. military custody.
Al-Masri (”the Egyptian”), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, took the reins of the Iraqi al Qaeda offshoot in June 2006 after a U.S. missile strike killed his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
You may recall that announcements have been made over the last year or so that al-Masri had been captured three times, killed twice, and horribly injured once. It is somewhat reminiscent of the revolving door position of the “number three man in al Qaeda” who seems to be routinely killed and/or captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan every six months or so.
The position al-Masri holds clearly makes him one of the more dangerous, high value targets in our fight to get al Qaeda under control. The man is apparently part feline in nature and is using up his nine lives quickly. For the time being, though, it seems the hunt goes on.
On the 492nd day of Hillary Clinton’s quest to become the first woman president, one inevitability was rudely replaced by another.
That was the number of days that elapsed from January 20, 2007 when Clinton (photo) announced that “I’m in. And I’m in it to win,” something that few observers could seriously doubt, and Tuesday past when voters in North Carolina and Indiana delivered another message: Her defeat at the hands of Barack Obama in the political cage match of the young millennium was no longer a probability but an inevitability.
Sure signs of this seismic shift are the uproar from the hardest of Clinton’s hardcore supporters and flurry of kamikazee analogies from pundits shaking their heads over her stubborn refusal to bow to that inevitability.
These supporters declare that Obama is unelectable although more Americans may vote for him in November than any presidential candidate in history. And that Clinton should be gifted the Democratic nomination although she trails Obama in popular votes, pledged delegate votes, opinion-poll positives, contributions and endorsements, and any second in superdelegates, as well.
The hardcore ranges from big-time bloggers like Taylor Marsh, who will now have to return that lovely dress she bought months ago to wear to the inaugural balls (but at least is making noises about possibly embracing Obama) to some really pissed-off feminists (who are demonizing Marsh for seeing the light).
I’m going to focus on the Hell Hath No Fury Like a Feminist Scorned crowd, which is shaping up to be a bunch of especially poor losers.
May 9th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
According to my contact in Yangon, what pitiful supplies are on the ground, have no distribution whatsoever to any of the thousands of villages and tributaries in Burma hit into utter devastation by the tsunami/ cyclone. The Burmese, most poorer than poor before the tsunami, are going on their 6th sunrise without clean water, food, or shelter or medicines.
Meanwhile, it is certain, while the military government gets down their fiddles, the infants and newborns and toddlers grow dehydrated. Without adequate water and food, their mothers’ breasts will have run out of milk, and the children will die from dehydration, an entire generation of young will be gone within a week.
Than Schwe: You cannot keep others from knowing about the mayhem of your country. Burma is on satellite. The floods and the people and the animals can be seen dead and floating and bloated. The living can be seen by satellite also, picking through ruins, entire villages wiped out with no survivors.
Than Schwe, delaying allowing aid workers in, makes you only look more and more unleaderly.
Than Schwe, animals survive by adapting. Animals who can learn new behavior, survive the unforeseen.
Than Schwe, animals who do as they have always done, die.
Than Schwe, open your heart, if not your mind. Be known as a ruler who took care of his people in every way possible, rather than going down in history as the leader who stood by paralyzed and allowed holy people and helpless people, his own kith and kin, to die in misery.
CODA
I hear from my contact in Yangon, that the people on the ground in Burma are begging that international aeroplanes please fly over and drop supplies.
Than Schwe, if they fly, let them fly unmolested. Add no more horror to horror. It’s within your power. Choose honorific over horrific.
Than Schwe, the new respect you would receive then, would be remarkable.
This is our deepest prayer for you Than Schwe, and for the people of Burma… the Central Buddhist Precept:
Look at these faces. While the rest of the world wrings its hands and waits helplessly on the sidelines, Burma’s government says it will accept aid, but that it doesn’t want the help of foreigners in getting it to the people. (BBC News) The UN is pretty sure the government’s own unaided efforts won’t be enough.
The UN says that up to 1.5 million people may have been affected by Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region on Saturday. Burmese state media say 22,980 people were killed, but there are fears the figure could rise to 100,000.
Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water or shelter. Officials say people could die because no help is getting to them.
In a statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the junta to prioritise the aid effort over tomorrow’s nation-wide referendum on a widely-criticised new constitution.
It would be "prudent to focus instead on mobilising all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts", he said. (BBC News)
As the Bush era draws to a close, Europeans are anxious to know what about American policy will change when he’s gone - particularly if a Democratic victory occurs as planned.
“In view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? … All three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force.”
“Clearly, a Democratic victory in November would undoubtedly open the door to a more left-wing America. But it would be a kind of American left, certainly not modeled on Europe. Both candidates have rejected a “single payer” system for health insurance, like the Canadian and European models. The change ahead will not mean the end of the American exception, but the end of American triumphalism.”
LEADING ARTICLE
Translated By Kate Davis
May 8, 2008
France - Challenges - Original Article (French)
All countries are exceptional. But the United States gladly considers itself exceptionally exceptional, different from all other developed countries in its social organization and its fundamental values. The State is less extensive and the distribution of wealth more unequal. The United States is also more strongly committed to what Margaret Thatcher called the “Victorian values:” individualism, voluntarism, patriotism.
Thus the Bush government, which supports conservative values domestically and demonstrates an unlimited self confidence externally, is the most “exceptional” known in recent years. But at the end of Bush’s mandate, isn’t the United States entering a new cycle, characterized by the rejection of conservatism and a convergence with Europe’s standards?
In reality, three quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and for example, vigorously support a system of universal health care. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have promised to address that. They also want to improve their image in the world. The next government will certainly initiate significant reforms, such as closing Guantanamo or adopting a more rigorous environmental policy in order to address some of the country’s more aberrant characteristics.
Yet in view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? John McCain won the nomination of his party despite strong internal opposition. Barack Obama is the leader of an uprising against the Democratic old guard.
All three preach a patriotism specific to the United States. John McCain boasts of his service in Vietnam. Barack Obama claims that there is no red or blue, but only one America united by common values. The three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force. John McCain sings, “Bomb, bomb [bomb, bomb bomb] Iran.”
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.
Whatever happened to the Melting Pot? Now we learn that “Barack Obama is faring better than might be expected among Jewish voters, beating John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily general-election matchups and trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats’ preferences for the Democratic nomination.”
This crucial piece of information tells us what? That Jews don’t blame Obama for the anti-Semitic outbursts decades ago by Louis Farrakhan, who is admired by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is this something we need to know? A wise old editor I worked with used to say about such useless information, “Uninteresting, if true.”
As pollsters and political “experts” turn this election year into a demographic nightmare, pinning labels on voters by race, gender, religious affiliation, age, income, education, everything but height and weight, the dominant theme of the campaign coverage has become parsing everything that divides Americans and deciding which politician profits from which.
Obama keeps talking about reaching across those divisions, but the media story line keeps magnifying them. All of this perpetuates the beliefs of Karl Rove and his ilk that the way to win elections is to divide and conquer.
Voters, who have seen how well that worked out for them in the past eight years, may be ready to defy the labels and surprise the experts. Now that would be interesting, if true.
How dirty does the upcoming 2008 campaign promise to be? The focus has been on what the GOP might try to do to Democratic Senator Barack Obama if he gets the Democratic presidential nomination. But MSNBC’s David Shuster contends that the Republicans also have a treasure chest of goodies ready to use against Senator Hillary Clinton if she heads the ticket:
Two Republican officials at the Republican National Committee who are involved in “opposition research efforts” in preparation for the general election say the RNC’s oppo research dossier on Sen. Clinton runs more than 1,200 pages in length.
FYI: In some newsrooms two sources (not named in the story but revealed to editors) are enough to confirm a story. Some editors insist on three if it’s a huge development. MORE:
According to these officials, the book includes “previously undisclosed information about Hillary Clinton’s connections to the Whitewater scandal, travel office firings, and Democratic fundraising efforts.” Given that the book has not been shared with us, we’ve been unable to confirm this assertion. Furthermore, the Republican officials would not describe the nature of the “new information.”
However, I was not directed away from a front-page story in today’s Washington Times about memos/documents from the estate of Sam Dash, Ken Starr’s ethics adviser during the early stages of the Whitewater investigation. The Dash Whitewater memos and documents have been turned over to the Library of Congress (where they were presumably available to the Washington Times reporter/researcher). The documents reportedly show that prosecutors concluded that Hillary Clinton concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for the Savings and Loan at the heart of the Whitewater investigation. The allegation that she concealed and misled is not new, and was sourced by reporters who covered the investigation in the 1990s (including me) to “attorneys close to Starr” or “sources in the office of the independent counsel.
The documents from Dash’s estate, however, mark the first available “documentary evidence” that Ken Starr’s office drafted a criminal indictment of Senator Clinton, also known as a “pros memo” and debated verbally and through written memos whether Clinton should actually face charges.
According to Shuster, they decided not to go after Clinton because they had doubts about the strength of their evidence and their ability to convict a first lady.
But such memos, documents, and etc. about the internal debate in the office of the independent counsel could be a gold mine for negative ads, etc.
So this means Obama is pristine and won’t face negative campaigning that will fill hours of air time for Sean and Rush et al? Hardly.
By the way, to put the RNC’s opposition research effort into context, I’m told the dossier on Senator Obama is 1,000 pages in length and that Republican researchers spent a few weeks in Chicago recently collecting information on Obama’s ties to the Weather Underground” and separately to Tony Rezko (who is currently on trial for federal corruption charges).
The difference here is: Clinton’s campaign has been saying she is totally vetted and that there is nothing new that can come out or be used against her. If there are some alleged 1,200 pages to play with, it’s unlikely that she’d face a free issue-oriented path to the White House.
Prediction: The formidable slime/distraction machine will run…no matter who is the Democratic nominee.
I began this piece the other day and should have posted it then. I’m late tothe party. I was responding to a commenter who wrote:
It’s really sad how much the talk circles around race.
It’s a constant reminder how far we haven’t come.
Even though I knew that to be true, this campaign is just a daily reminder.
The comment was in response to me quoting Thomas Schaller. The irony is that much as I liked what Schaller had to say the other day I’m highly ambivalent about him. I’ve been railing against his Whistling Past Dixie plea for Democrats to abandon the South and turn Southern racism into a (p.18) “burdensome stone to hang around the Republicans’ neck” for a very long time.
Democrats are too quick to hang that racist label on Republicans, and tactical ideas like Schaller’s miss the point don’t they? Back when Schaller wrote his book I was advocating that we should instead address our own racist past as highlighted by Republican Bruce Bartlett in, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past, and redouble our efforts to fight racism whenever and wherever we find it.
You’ve got to wonder if Hillary’s not getting away with her nonsense now — party bigwigs, where are you? — because of our own record of putting strategy before substance! (Speaking of which, I can only hope Ms. Genardo is wrong about John Edwards not endorsing because he’s holding out for a Cabinet position.)
Now I’m no expert on demographic shifts and voting patterns but these days events seem to be taking on a life of their own. And I’m left wondering if, hoping even, that with Blacks having moved back to the South, this religious, rural, evangelized, conservative Southern region that flipped from Democrat to Republican might surprise everybody and just as quickly flip right back.
— Democrats cast nearly 53 percent of the 2,007,544 ballots counted on Feb. 5.
— Within the Democratic primary, African-Americans cast 55 percent of the vote. This is the first time that’s happened. White voters made up just a tad less than 40 percent of the Democratic vote.
— White voters made up 96 percent of the Republican presidential primary vote.
— African-Americans cast 30 percent of all votes on Feb. 5. In November 2006, with gubernatorial candidate Mark Taylor at the top of the Democratic ticket, black voters cast only 24 percent of all ballots. This is the number causing Republicans to lose sleep.
— In addition to juicing turnout among black voters, the Feb. 5 primary showed signs of a shift in party preference among the state’s youngest voters. You read above that Democratic voters accounted for 53 percent of all ballots.
But 61 percent of voters 24 and under picked up a Democratic ballot.
— Young voters are notoriously unreliable, but young African-American voters — 24 and under — had a voter turnout rate of 26 percent. That’s remarkably strong. Turnout among young white voters was 22 percent — again, not too shabby.
You know, I believe I have a certain familiarity with Hillary Clinton’s personality insofar as she is 15 years older than I, to the day… we Scorpios are often maniacally loyal (think about why she stays with Bill) and maniacally driven (I’ve completed 18 marathons, despite a complete lack of physical talent, and I continue to write my blog, week in, week out, six and a half years on, despite a lack of particular literary talent or tremendous popularity among blog-readers, while Sen. Clinton continues to run for President, despite an obvious lack of political talent or popularity among voters).
There: I said it. She doesn’t GET that her husband has more talent in his one little wagging finger than she has in her whole body (and Mark Penn’s too). She became my fair state’s junior senator solely on the strength of her famous husband. She somehow thought that being an otherwise underachieving back-bench senator and Bill’s wife qualified her not only to run for President, but to win her party’s nomination by acclamation. This led her to run a cynical and vapid campaign that just assumed that the nation’s Democratic voters would be as forgiving and fawning over she and her famous husband’s as New York voters were (in her decisive victories over political heavyweights Rick Lazio and John Spencer). Like George W. Bush, a man also in his current job because of a famous relative, Hillary actually believed that this nomination was hers, without having to earn it with actual voters. Which is why, presumably, she may well be living in a bubble where she actually believes that the battle for the Democratic nomination isn’t over. Read the rest of this entry »
May 8th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Various news reports say there are over 200,000 dead in the cyclone and tsunami that hit Burma… now five days ago.
Other reports say over 500,000 will be dead if the thousands of bodies floating in water and lying in mud are not burnt or buried, and the injured given help, and the vulnerable given clean water.
This is after the government originally said there might be a total of 10,000 dead. Maybe not even that many, they said.
This from The Sun, U.K., by Nick Parker, Chief Foreign Correspondent at Mae Sot on the Burmese border
and James Clench
The UK has so far pledged more aid than anyone, announcing a £5million package to be channelled through the UN.
Charities Save the Children, Oxfam and the British Red Cross have also swung into action.
But most of the aid is yet to be distributed because of the secretive Burmese junta, led by ruthless General Than Shwe.
His isolationist regime is paranoid an influx of foreigners might have a political impact on a national referendum due tomorrow, set to strengthen the army’s grip still further.
Three days ago, the dictatorship’s Health Minister went on TV, in what was called a rare appearance, and he said aid was on its way to the Burmese people. Right away.
It’s not. Aid is not on its way. Five days later, world aid is not present in Burma.
General Than Schwe, dictator of Burma, has 400,000 soldiers at his behest.
And as I wrote at TMV earlier, hopefully Than Schwe would stand out of the way and allow the experienced international teams of aid workers to bring equipment and supplies, and the means to both unload it and distribute it.
It didn’t happen.
Ships from many nations are still fully loaded all over the world waiting orders to turn the wheel and steam toward Burma. Cargo planes are loaded and waiting. They are filled with medical supplies At various airports outside Burma, aid workers are sitting on their packed duffels and backpacks ready to go: parameds, post trauma specialists, doctors, engineers, health care workers, and heavy equipment, such as back hoes, trailers. All waiting.
And waiting
And waiting
Than Schwe, hugely well fed dictator of the ancient Burmese people, he who has suffered no personal loss from this disaster for he is ensconced more than 200 miles away from where the tsunami/ cyclone hit… and it is Than Schwe, who wanted to be king of everything and who wanted to control everything, it is he who has publicly failed the world soul, failed the world heart that cries out for a humane response…
Than Schwe has failed publicly and utterly by keeping aid workers out of Burma, by putting no real teeth behind his health minister’s claim that help was coming, big help was coming, right away, huge help was coming.
Than Schwe is merely keeping all aid workers on strings… without cutting the red tape.
The dictatorship’s excuse? Than Schwe and his merelings continues to parrot that they “cannot let aid workers into the country out of concern for the workers own safety.”
Than Schwe,NEWS ALERT: to aid workers, a disaster site wouldn’t be a disaster site if it weren’t unsafe.
Than Scwe’s huge lie will not hold water, not even a drop left behind by the tsunami.
The world’s second most populous nation is up-in-arms over remarks recently made by President Bush, as he attempted to explain rising food and energy prices to an audience in Maryland.
The president said the following:
“There are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population,” said Bush. “And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”
Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh: “George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics. And he has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is.”
West Bengal’s Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: “It is preposterous for anyone to say that global food crisis, including the crisis in America, is because Indians are eating more. It is needless to say what the Indians get to eat or what they (Americans) eat. This only shows how he has lost his senses” … he added that Bush’s remark was nothing more than a “cruel joke.”
But striking a conciliatory note, Surojit Chatterjee writes for the Business Times: “Being well-informed or choosing words carefully are not his specialty. … Let’s be forgiving to the U.S. President. … Let us stop pointing fingers at one another and receive Bush’s remark with a pinch of salt and a hearty laugh.” Read the rest of this entry »
On the 492nd day of Hillary Clinton’s quest to become the first woman president, one inevitability was rudely replaced by another.
