06.10.2006 Greetings,
New images were added to the May-June gallery, section III. Included is this recent oil painting by Alyssa Ranae, an English teacher from California and used with her permission. Delightful!
She's headed home and planning to teach in South America this fall. She gave me two very well behaved curving bamboo plants in exchange. They sing in early summer light.
Livia sends her love. Peace.
06.9.2006 Greetings,
(Editor's note: Three Guantanamo inmates committed suicide by hanging on Sunday, 11 June 2006. The Navel commander in charge of the prison called it "an act of war.")
In September 2001, four guys from England went to Pakistan to attend a wedding. They unfortunately became trapped in northern Afghanistan and captured by the Northern Alliance. One disappeared.
They were handed over to the Americans. Suspected of being terrorists they were flown to Guantanamo, Cuba where they were tortured, deprived of their rights under the Geneva Convention and held for two years. They were never charged and finally released. There are currently 460 foreigners held at Gitmo.
"The Road to Guantanamo," a drama-documentary film produced for British TV and scheduled for release in NY on June 23rd is their story. Chilling and all too real. We mention this and share a reading in MK eclectic podcast 23. Check it out.
Peace.
06.8.2006 Greetings,
The school year winds down as university freshmen students prepare for their Oral English final exam 19-23rd.
They choose one topic and speak for 1.5 minutes: a) what is the most important lesson you've learned this year and why? b) what is the best advice you'd offer new freshmen students next fall and why?
Their criteria is pronunciation, grammar, intonation, fluency, vocabulary, interest level and humor. They've all made great progress with increased confidence, staying relaxed and focused with a positive attitude. A joy.
(From the A.P.) "...There are 2.6 million places at China's universities, but the competition is fierce — 9.5 million youths are taking the three-day exams that are widely viewed as crucial to career and financial success.
Most Chinese schools still lack counselors and teachers receive little training in spotting emotional distress, Jin said. Parents are little help, often piling on pressure while ignoring their children's emotional development, he said.
"It's a basic unwillingness or inability to recognize and deal with emotional problems," Jin said.
Wang Yufeng, at Peking University's Institute of Mental Health, estimates the rate of emotional disorders such as depression and paranoia among Chinese students under age 17 at up to 32 percent — a total of 30 million students.
Others say the figure may be as high as 50 percent. A survey last year by the government said nearly 58 percent of students felt highly stressed by academic pressures.
Chinese youth now enjoy greater material comfort and personal freedoms than their parents' generation, but are more emotionally fragile, experts say.
Students educated before economic reforms began in the early 1980s were raised amid austerity and ideals of self-sacrifice. Under the job-assignment system prevailing until the early 1990s, graduates could expect the Communist Party to decide their futures.
Today's Chinese teens are largely preoccupied with the same worries as their Western counterparts — exams, jobs and the opposite sex."
A girl studies in Lhasa. Peace.
06.5.2006 Greetings,
The digital revolution makes it easier to download music, films, poetry and books.
It has an effect on writers, artists and creativity in many forms. Some like the potential, others see it as a threat. Motoko Rich in the NYT presents an article detailing such doings in book publishing.
Who wrote the "rules"? Who runs the show? No writers, no publishers. No publishers, no market. Connect the dots.
Cyber-text, experimentation, e-books, you-name-it. You make it happen in cyberspace. Bypass the traditional ways of agents and publishers. Take control of your own work. Get it out there while enjoying the freedom to publish what you create with passion when you want.
We mentioned the vagaries of the publishing biz in Middle Kingdom podcast #11.
Also, from 4 July - 4 August, Project Gutenberg, - and World e-Book will offer 250,000 free books, articles and documents. Great.
Powells, - one the best independent bookstores in the states is going strong. They offer 4.5 million new, used, rare and out-of-print books. Powell was onto something early. Used books and online sales have revolutionized the bookselling industry in the past few years, industry groups say.
In recent years, used books have been a fast-growing segment of the bookselling business, according to a study by Book Industry Study Group. InfoTrends estimates that total used-book revenue exceeded $2.2 billion in 2004 and 111 million used books were sold, an increase of 11 percent from 2003.
"My goal is not to be visible. My goal is to be successful in getting books to readers," Michael Powell said. "Every book has a potential reader, so the challenge is to find that linkage. Sometimes it takes more effort; ... sometimes there is only one reader."
Peace.
06.4.2006 Greetings,
Here are some random excerpts from various web stories.
..."Books traditionally have edges, some are rough cut, some are smooth cut. In the electronic anthill, where are the edges?" Updike asked the audience, which gave him a standing ovation at the Washington Convention Center. "So, book sellers, defend your lonely forts, keep your edges dry. Your edges are our edges.”
..."On the other hand, as an American writer, one should have right to write about the world as best as he can and as variously as he can. That's why you have an imagination, as well as a memory."
...Dark soya sauce, widely used in east Asia, may prove to be more effective than red wine and vitamin C in combating human cell damage, researchers in Singapore said.
...The government warned the public not to fall for the scam, noting that exam papers are state secrets and those caught leaking them face three to seven years in prison.
...the Arab culture is not receptive to modernity and has scores to settle with the West — some as old as the Crusader Wars against Muslims and others relatively new such as the 58-year Arab-Israeli crisis in which the West is perceived as biased in Israel's favor.
...There are also several prerequisites that should be in place before democracy could thrive in the region, such as a large middle class, stability, lack of militancy, religious reform and the empowerment of women
...credibility is a commodity.
...Iraq spent $4 billion to $5 billion in 2005 to import fuel from abroad. Mr. Alak's research indicates that because of the huge price incentives, between 10 percent and 30 percent of that fuel is smuggled out of the country again. Even at the low end, that would mean smuggling costs account for almost 10 percent of Iraq's gross domestic product, $29.3 billion in 2005.
...The scroll, originally several yards of papyrus rolled around two wooden runners, was found in 1962. It dates to around 340 B.C., during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.
"It is the oldest surviving book, if you can use that word for a scroll, in Western tradition," Veleni said. "This was a unique find, of exceptional importance."
Greek philosophy expert Apostolos Pierris said the text may be a century older.
"It was probably written by somebody from the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, in the second half of the 5th century B.C.” Like this little blog.
This image is Christopher Columbus's home fort at San Marcos, Spain before setting sail to discover the "new" world.
Peace.
