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 Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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From Gambling Warriors:
Vanity Fair
Magazine Subscription
Into the Valley of Death
A strategic passage wanted by the Taliban and al-Qaeda, جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان Afghanistan's Korengal Valley is among the deadliest pieces of terrain in the world for U.S. forces. One platoon is considered the tip of the American spear. Its men spend their days in a surreal combination of backbreaking labor - building outposts on rocky ridges - and deadly firefights, while they try to avoid the mistakes the Russians made. Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington join the platoon's painfully slow advance, as its soldiers laugh, swear, and run for cover, never knowing which of
them won't make it home.
January, 2008
| Quote: | ... "Prison labor is basically what I call it," says a man I know only as Dave. Dave is a counter-insurgency specialist who spends his time at remote outposts, advising and trying to learn. He wears his hair longer than most soldiers, a blond tangle that after two weeks at Restrepo seems impressively styled with dirt. I ask him why the Korengal is so important.
"It's important because of accessibility to Pakistan," he says. "Ultimately, everything is going to Kabul. The Korengal is keeping the Pech River Valley safe, the Pech is keeping Kunar Province stable, and hence what we are hoping is all that takes the pressure off Kabul."
While we are talking, some rounds come in, snapping over our heads and continuing on up the valley. They were aimed at a soldier who had exposed himself above a HESCO. He drops back down, but otherwise, the men hardly seem to notice.
"The enemy doesn't have to be good," Dave adds. "The just have to be lucky from time to time."
The Korengal is so desperately fought over because it is the first leg of a former mujahideen smuggling route that was used to bring in men and weapons from Pakistan during the 1980s. From the Korengal, the mujahideen were able to push west along the high ridges of the Hindu Kush to attack Soviet positions as far away as Kabul. It was called the نورستان Nuristan-Kunar corridor, and American military planners fear that al-Qaeda is trying to revive it. If the Americans simply seal off the valley and go around, Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters currently hiding near the Pakistani towns of Dir and Chitral could use the Korengal as a base of operations to strike deep into eastern Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is rumored to be in the Chitral area, as are his second in command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and a clutch of other foreign fighters. While thousands of poorly trained Taliban recruits martyr themselves in southerrn Afghanistan, bin Laden's most highly trained fighters ready themselves for the next war, which will happen in the East.
In addition to strategic value, the Korengal also has the perfect population in which to root an insurgency. The Korengalis are clannish and violent and have successfully fought off every outside attempt to control them - including the Taliban's in the 1990s. They practice the extremist Wahhabi version of Islam and speak a language that even people in the next valley over cannot understand. That makes it extremely difficult for the American forces to find reliable translators. The Korengalis have terraced the steep slopes of their valley into fertile wheat fields and built stone houses that can withstand earthquakes (and, as it turns out, air strikes), and have set about cutting down the enormous cedar trees that cover the upper elevations of the Abas Ghar. Without access to heavy machinery, they simply grease the mountainsides with cooking oil and let the trees rocket several thousand feet to the valley below.
The timber industry has given the Korengalis a measure of wealth that has made them more or less autonomous in the country. حامد کرزي Hamid Karzai's government tried to force them into the fold regulating the export of timber, but the Taliban quickly offered to help them smuggle it out to Pakistan in return for assistance fighting the Americans. The timber is moved past corrupt border guards or along a maze of mountain tracks and donkey trails that cross the border into Pakistan. The locals call these trails buzrao; some American soldiers refer to them as "rat lines." The routes are almost impossible to monitor because they cross steep, forested mountainsides that provide cover from aircraft. After firefights, the Americans can listen in on Taliban radio communications calling for more ammunition to be brought by donkey along these lines. (-- pgs. 91-92) |
But the military has made some headway, right?
Wrong.
| Quote: | By many measures, Afghanistan is falling apart. The Afghan opium crop has flourished in the past two years and now represents 93 percent of the world's supply, with an estimated street value of $38 billion in 2006. That money helps bankroll an insurgency that is now operating virtually within sight of the capital, Kabul. Suicide bombings have risen eightfold in the past two years, including several devastating attacks in Kabul, and as of October, coalition casualties had surpassed those of any previous year. The situation has gotten so bad, in fact, that ethnic and political factions in the northern part of the country have started stockpiling arms in preparation for when the international community decides to pull out. Afghans - who have seen two foreign powers on their soil in 20 years - are well aware that everything has an end point, and that in their country end points are bloodier than most.
The Korengal is widely considered to be the most dangerous valley in northeastern Afghanistan, and Second Platoon is considered the tip of the spear for the American forces there. Nearly one-fifth of all combat in Afghanistan occurs in this valley, and nearly three-quarters of all the bombs dropped by NATO forces in Afghanistan are dropped in the surrounding area. The fighting is on foot and it is deadly, and the zone of American control moves hilltop by hilltop, ridge by ridge, a hundred yards at a time. There is literally no safe place in the Korengal Valley. Men have been shot while asleep in their barracks tents. (-- p. 86) |
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| Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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From Gambling Morocco المملكة المغربية Al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiyya
This Blinding Absence of Light
Hardcover
By Tahar Ben Jelloun
Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale
| Quote: | | Actually, the tomb was a cell just under ten feet long and half as wide. Most of all, it was low, only about five feet high. I could not stand up. There was a hole for pissing and crapping. A hole less than four inches in diameter. The hole was a part of our bodies. We had to forget our existence fast, stop smelling the shit and urine, stop smelling anything at all. We couldn't very well hold our noses, no, we had to keep them open without smelling a single thing. That was difficult, at first. It was an apprenticeship, a necessary madness, a test we absolutely had to pass. Being there without being there. Shutting down my five senses, directing them elsewhere, giving them another life, as though I had been thrown into that grave without them. That's what it was -- acting as though I had left them at a baggage checkroom, tucked away in a small suitcase, carefully wrapped in cotton or silk, then set aside without the torturers' knowledge, without anyone's knowledge. Betting on the future. (-- p. 3) |
We think of this one as Pepe Le Moko, Part le deux. Here's the kicker laid out bare on the opening page:
| Quote: | This novel is based upon real events drawn from the testimony of a former inmate of Tazmamart Prison.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:15 am Post subject: |
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From the PokerPulse Gambler's Guide to the Blues:
Deep River of Song
Mississippi: Saints & Sinners
From Before the Blues and Gospel
Audio CD
Featuring Big Charlie Butler, It's Better to Be Born Lucky
| Quote: | It's Better to Be Born Lucky
(Troubled in Mind)
Performed by Big Charlie Butler (vocal)
Recorded by John A. Lomax and Ruby T. Lomax at Parchman Penitentiary, Mississippi, on May 24, 1939.
This tune is from the field or levee camp-holler tradition, with lyrics adapted to prison conditions. Here the "long time" man is hoping for a visit from his woman. The strident, melismatic singing and pentatonic scale (becoming hexatonic in the last two stanzas) are found in many blues from Mississippi, which draw upon this solo work-song tradition.
Big Charlie Butler had recorded for John A. Lomax at Parchman Penitentiary in 1937, and he reimbered Lomax when the folklorist returned two years later. This song of longing for someone in the free world takes on added poignancy when we learn that Butler was the 'gate man' at Parchman Camp No. 1 and therefore the inmate closest to freedom. He was released in July 1942, perhaps to be reunited with his Sal.
Oh, Lordy -
Lord, it's better to be born lucky
than be born blind.
Lord, I'm looking for Sal, baby, on the first thing down.
First thing down, on the first thing down.
Lord, get to thinking about her, get trouble in mind.
Trouble in mind, oh Lordy, get trouble in mind.
Lord, get to thinking about her. I get trouble in mind.
John A. Lomax (spoken): Talk to your horse. Talk to your mule. Go ahead. Sing 'em at 'em.
Trouble in mind, oh Lordy, gets trouble in mind.
Oh, get to thinking about her, I can't keep from crying.
(From the copious liner notes) |
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 8:58 am Post subject: |
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From Mother India:
Glimpses of World History
Being Further Letters to His Daughter Written in Prison, and Containing a Rambling Account of History for Young People
Hardcover
By Jawaharlal Nehru
| Quote: | I do not know when or where these letters will be published, or whether they will be published at all, for India is a strange land to-day and it is difficult to prophesy. But I am writing these lines while I have the chance to do so, before events forestall me.
An apology and an explanation are needed for this historical series of letters. Those readers who take the trouble to go through them will perhaps find the apology and the explanation. In particular, I would refer the reader to the last letter, and perhaps it would be as well, in this topsy-turvy world, to begin at the end.
The letters have grown. There was little of planning about them, and I never thought that they would grow to these dimensions. Nearly six years ago, when my daughter was ten years old, I wrote a number of letters to her containing a brief and simple account of the early days of the world. These early letters were subsequently published in book form and they had a generous reception. The idea of continuing them hovered in my mind, but a busy life full of political activity prevented it from taking shape. Prison gave me the chance I needed, and I seized it.
Prison-life has its advantages; it brings both leisure and a measure of detachment. But the disadvantages are obvious. There are no libraries or reference books at the command of the prisoner, and, under these conditions, to write on any subject, and especially history, is a foolhardy undertaking. A number of books came to me, but they could not be kept. They came and went. Twelve years ago, however, when, in common with large numbers of my countrymen and countrywomen, I started my pilgrimages to prison, I developed the habit of making notes of the books I read. My note-books grew in number and they came to my rescue when I started writing. Other books of ocurse helped me greatly, among them inevitably, H.G. Wells's Outline of History. But the lack of good references books was very real, and because of this the narrative had often to be slurred over, or particular periods skipped. (From the author's Preface to the original edition, Jan. 1, 1934, p. vii) |
How to father a daughter 101:
| Quote: | How shall we bear ourselves in this great movement? What part shall we play in it? I cannot say what part will fall to our lot; but, whatever it may be, let us remember that we can do nothing which may bring discredit to our cause or dishonour to our people. If we are to be India's soldiers we have India's honour in our keeping, and that honour is a sacred trust. Often we may be in doubt as to what to do.l It is no easy matter to decide what is right and what is not. One little test I shall ask you to apply whenever you are in doubt. It may help you. Never do anything in secret or anything that you would wish to hide. For the desire to hide anything means that you are afraid, and fear is a bad thing and unworthy of you. Be brave, and all the rest follows. If you are brave, you will not fear will not do anything of which you are ashamed. You know that in our great Freedom Movement, under Bapuji's (Mahatma Gandhi's) leadership, there is no room for secrecy or hiding. We have nothing to hide. We are not afraid of what we do and what we say. We work in the sun and in the light. Even so in our private lives let us make friends with the sun and work in the light and do nothing secretly or furtively. Privacy, of course, we have and should have, but that is a very different thing from secrecy. And if you do so, my dear, you will grow up to be a child of light, unafraid and serene and unruffled, whatever may happen.
I have written a very long letter to you. And yet there is so much I would like to tell you. How can a letter contain it?
You are fortunate, I have said, in being a witness to this great struggle for freedom that is going on in our country. You are also very fortunate in having a very brave and wonderful little woman for your Mummie, and if you are ever in doubt or in trouble you cannot have a better friend.
Good-bye, little one, and may you grow up into a brave soldier in India's service.
With all my love and good wishes. (From A Birthday Letter for Indira Priyadarshini on Her Thirteenth Birthday, Central Prison, Naini, Oct. 20/30, pgs. 1-3) |
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:41 am Post subject: |
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From Impossible Odds:
The New York Times Magazine
Magazine Subscription
The Architectural Issue
Behind Bars ... Sort Of
Can a prison have glass walls, balconies, communal cooking spaces and private bathrooms - and still be a prison?
By Jim Lewis
June 14/09
| Quote: | Inside the prison it felt like Sunday afternoon, though in fact it was a Tuesday. There was a glassy brightness over everything, and most surprising, an unbreakable silence. Prisons are usually clamorous places, filled with the sound of metal doors opening and closing, and the general racket that comes with holding large numbers of men in a confined space. Noise is part of the chaos of prison life; (Justice Center) Leoben was serene. I mentioned as much to (architect Josef) Hohensinn, and he smiled and pointed to the whitewashed ceilings. He had taken great care to install soundproofing.
An assistant warden accompanied us on our tour, one of three guards on duty tasked with watching more than 200 inmates. On one side of the prison there was a block of prisoners on remand; on the other side were the convicts, living in units called pods — groups of 15 one-person cells with floor-to-ceiling windows, private lavatories and a common space that includes a small kitchen. We came upon one prisoner cooking a late lunch for a few of his podmates; we stood there for a bit, chatting. They were wearing their own clothes. The utensils on the table were metal. “They are criminals,” Hohensinn said to me, “but they are also human beings. The more normal a life you give them here, the less necessary it is to resocialize them when they leave.” His principle, he said, was simple: “Maximum security outside; maximum freedom inside.” (The bars over the balconies are there to ensure the inmates’ safety, Hohensinn said; the surrounding wall outside is more than enough to make sure no one gets free.)
We walked around some more. There was a gymnasium, a prayer room, a room for conjugal visits. I asked Hohensinn what he would do if, contrary to fact, it were conclusively proved that prisons like his encouraged crime rather than diminished it. Would he renounce the design? He shook his head. “The prisoners’ dignity is all I really care about,” he told me.
Suppose we can’t bring ourselves to be quite so magnanimous. Suppose all we’re interested in is reducing crime. If you trust a criminal with a better environment, will he prove trustworthy? As far as Leoben is concerned, it’s too soon to tell. The place has been open for only four years. But I noticed something as we were leaving, and in the absence of any other data it seemed significant. In the three or four hours we spent roaming all through the place, I hadn’t seen a single example of vandalism. ...
In fact, though most of us are reluctant to admit it, we mainly use prisons as storage containers, putting people there with the hope that, if nothing else, five years behind bars means five years during which they can’t commit more crimes. It’s called warehousing, and we do a lot of it. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, by far — it is more than five times as high as in the U.K. About 1 in every 100 American adults is in federal or state prisons or local jails — 1 in 30 men between 20 and 34, 1 in 9 black men of the same age. All told, we keep about 2.3 million adults behind bars: if the entire prison population were treated as a single city, it would be the fourth-largest in the United States, just behind Chicago and just ahead of Houston. Moreover, our incarceration rate has climbed, or rather rocketed, for the past 30 years: adjusted for population growth, there are about four times as many people in prison this year as there were in 1980. In response, we’ve hastily thrown up hundreds of prisons. But not nearly enough: facilities are strained, units are grotesquely overcrowded and space for medical and psychological services has become profoundly inadequate. We pay lip-service to the idea of rehabilitation, but we do little to make it happen. About 67 percent of the prisoners who are released are arrested again within three years. The result, to borrow a phrase from a Conservative British home secretary, has been “an expensive way of making bad people worse.” (-- pgs. 51-52) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:36 am Post subject: |
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From Loaded Dice:
The New Yorker
Magazine Subscription
July 6 & 13/09
| Quote: | A Dream
In a deserted place in Iran there is a not very tall stone tower that
has neither door nor window. In the only room (with a dirt floor
and shaped like a circle) there is a wooden table and a bench. In that
circular cell, a man who looks like me is writing in letters I cannot
understand a long poem about a man who in another circular cell is
writing a poem about a man who in another circular cell...The process
never ends and no one will be able to read what the prioners write.
-- Jorge Luis Borges
(Translated from the Spanish by Jill Levine)
(-- p. 82) |
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| Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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From Loaded Dice:
CBC Early Edition
Radio One
July 31/09
| Quote: | Editor's Note: Between national news at 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., the program host interviewed Christine Hemingway, a former inmate at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge, B.C. who is preparing to sue the B.C. Corrections Branch for medical neglect after a bladder infection progressed to kidney stones and a series of blod clots while she was incarcerated. Hemingway said the centre has contracted with a private medical service, which provides only one doctor only once a week to treat all 140 women. In addition, she said, the private service refuses to honor inmates' previous diagnoses and prescriptions, forcing inmates to submit to re-testing according to the private provider's terms.
We're deeply disturbed to learn of the B.C. gov't's secret privatization of any health care services - not that we can expect much from the NDP Opposition, which, according to former Premier Dave Barrett, enjoyed a 'significant contribution' from at least one U.S. insurance firm.
We'll try to follow this story as it develops. Please send links, tips, comments to editor@bcdisabilities.com. |
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| Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:38 am Post subject: |
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From Losing Streak:
LIVE
Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie
Together in Concert (1975)
Audio Cassette
COMING SOON to Audio CD
Featuring Huddie Ledbetter's blues classic,
On a Monday (Almost Done)
Here's a taste from a 1978 concert
posted at youtube.com.
| Quote: | "There is no gap in the two generations of singers heard on this record. Rather, the music and songs express a continuity of understanding and a reflection of the world as it is and has been. The audience at these concerts- those who were lucky enough to get tickets- spanned several generations: grandfathers and grandmothers with their grandchildren, workers and students, young and old. A New York reviewer perhaps best summed up when he wrote,"It is another time, but the need for the Seegers and Guthries of whatever generation remains."
-Harold Leventhal (Sometime manager of Pete, Arlo and Woody)(From Rising Son Records) |
| Quote: | On a Monday
By Leadbelly
On a Monday, I was arrested
On a Tuesday, I got locked up in jail
On a Wednesday, my trial was attested
On a Thursday, nobody would go my bail
Now I'm gone, I'm almost gone,
Yes I'm gone, I'm almost gone.
Yes, I'm gone, I'm almost gone,
and I ain't gonna be seein 'em pretty wimmin no more.
Take these stripes, stripes from offa my shoulder
Take these chains, these chains from offa my legs
Lord, these stripes, it sure don't worry me
But these chains, these chains are killing me dead.
Yes, I'm gone, I'm almost gone,
Yes, I'm gone, I'm almost gone.
Yes, I'm gone, I'm almost gone, and I ain't gonna' be
seein' 'em pretty wiimin no more.
Well, on a Friday, my baby went out walking,
On a Saturday, she locked up the door,
On a Sunday, we were sitting down a-talking,
On a Monday, she pawned all of my clothes.
Yes, I'm gone, I'm almost gone.... |
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| Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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From Impossible Odds:
Clinging to the Wreckage
Paperback
By John Mortimer
| Quote: | Future experience was to show me that my early distrust of sport was well founded. I was told of a public school where the lascivious butler used to change into games clothes and crouch behind a bush from which he would leap during the muddy confusion of a 'scrum down' and covertly join in the game for the purpose of fondling the boys in an intimate manner. Sport, as I have discovered, fosters international hoistility and leads the audience, no doubt from boredom, to grievous bodily harm while watching. The fact that audiences at the National Theatre rarely break bottles over one another's heads, and that opera fans seldom knee one another in the groin during the long intervals at Covent Garden convinces me that the theatre is safer than sport. In my case the masters at my prep school agreed to the extent of sending me to the local repertory theatre with a bar of Fry's Mint Chocolate. In this way I saw most of the plays of Bernard Shaw, which must have been better than playing cricket. (-- pgs. 32-33) ...
The sight of a woman at my public school was almost as rare as a Cockney accent in class; and if we spotted one it was, as often as not, a fierce and elderly matron. We were waited on at table by footmen in blue tailed coats and settled down for the night by a butler called 'George.' Our homosexuality was therefore dictated by necessity rather than choice. We were like a generation of diners condemned to cold cuts because the steak and kidneys was 'off.' ...
... There were the 'one yearers' who had to keep all their buttons done up, 'two yearers' who could undo one jacket button, 'three yearers' who could undo two and 'four yearers' who could wear fancy waistcoats and put their hands in their pockets. 'Five yearers' were said to be allowed to grow moustaches or even marray a wife if such a thing were available. If 'four yearers' mixed with 'one yearers' the worst was suspected and very often turned out to be true.
I cannot say I found Harrow brutal or my time particularly unhappy, but life there never approached the Elizabethan splendours and miseries of my prep school. Harrow's great advantage was that we had rooms of our own, although in the first year these had to be shared with one other boy, and these did provide a sort of oasis of privacy. Each room had a coal fire and a wooden bed which let down from the wall on which various political slogans were burned in poker-work, such as 'Death to the Boers' and 'No Home Rule for Ireland.' You could bring your own furniture and set out your own books on the shelves and enjoy some of the privileges of a long-term, good conduct prisoner (it's rightly said that the great advantage of an English public school education is that no subsequent form of captivity can hold any particular terror for you. A friend who was put to work on the Burma railway once told me that he was greeted, on arrival, by a fellow prisoner-of-war who said, 'Cheer up. It's not half as bad as Marlborough'). (-- pgs. 47-48) |
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:20 am Post subject: |
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From Impossible Odds:
The Irish Times
Segregation wall strangles the life out of Bethlehem
City is now Palestinian ghetto and subject to Israeli checkpoints
Opinion & Analysis
By John Kelly, Professor emeritus and former Registrar of University College Dublin
June 24/06
| Quote: | Right across the West Bank, the route of the wall deviates from the internationally accepted pre-1967 borders, known as the Green Line, in many cases cutting Palestinian farmers off from their farms so that at this moment, thousands of tonnes of citrus fruits and olives are unattended and destined to rot later this summer.
One example, out of many hundreds of similar ones, tells the sad story of an elderly farmer whose home is some 60 m across the road from his olive tree farm. But with the construction of the wall right on his doorstep, he now has to travel 22km over dirt roads to get to it. More often than not, he is not permitted to get through the Israeli checkpoint.
As always when that happens, no reason is given. It would appear that the instructions given to the Israeli guards on these checkpoints are simply to humiliate the Palestinians and make life as awkward for them as they can. Farming is the main source of income for the Palestinians along the fertile route of the wall, and separation from their farms and the lack of mobility is causing enormous hardship.
... Despite a number of UN resolutions, the Oslo 1 and 2 agreements, the Sharm-El-Sheikh agreement (see BBC News report, The Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, of Oct. 17/00), and just recently the agreement on movement and access (see the 36-page report by the World Bank Technical Team of Dec. 2/05), brokered by James Wolfensohn after the Gaza disengagement of last autumn, the Israeli government gives them all the two-finger salute, and proceeds with the building of its monstrous settlements and now this segregation wall, further and further into the Palestinian lands.
Agreed borders are totally ignored. And just recently, along with the US, and lately the EU, the Israeli government expressed its surprise and criticism at the results of the democratic elections which elected the so-called terrorist party, Hamas.
It beggars belief that prime minister Ehud Olmert, standing alongside George Bush on the steps of the White House on May 23rd, appealed to the Palestinian people to engage in peace talks while at that very moment, his troops are throwing them out of their homes, destroying their livelihood and treating them like animals.
His appeal is all the more outrageous since, despite becoming prime minister almost six months ago, Mr. Olmert has made no attempt whatsoever to engage in dialogue, or even meet, the very moderate president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. (-- p. 15) |
Related story of impossible odds in the Israeli war on Lebanon:
| Quote: | The tour was organized so that journalists could meet representatives of the government and the Israeli defences forces; unfortunately, though, there were to no meetings with anyone who might have a critical view of Israeli actions.
Such people, however, can be found on the streets of Tel Aviv. There, one finds little opposition to the military action itself but some anxiety about its duration. Tel Aviv is hardly touched by the war being waged just 50 km to the north, and a protest rally draws a crowd of less than 3,000. The army is not in evidence at all, beaches are full, shops are bustling, and the traffic is terrible. Three of the students taking part in the rally admit to me that opposition is largely limited to left-wing students, communists and - rely on Israel for contrasts - some ultra-orthodox religious. But, they argue, the longer the war drags on, especially as casualties and economic damage accululate, their numbers will grow. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's daughter, they point out with some satisfaction, was among the protesters. (Excerpt from At war and fighting a PR battle, Israel's leaders feel their actions are not being accurately reported in the West, but they refuse to acknowledge the suffering of the Lebanese and the resilience of Hizbullah, reports Eoin McVey from Haifa and Tel Aviv, in the Irish Times, July 29 at p. 3 of News Features). |
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:10 am Post subject: |
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From Impossible Odds:
BBC
BBC's Alan Johnston is released
Mr Johnston said his time in captivity was the worst of his life
July 4/07
| Quote: | BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been released by kidnappers in the Gaza Strip after 114 days in captivity. Mr Johnston, 45, was handed over to armed men in Gaza City. He said his ordeal was like "being buried alive" but it was "fantastic" to be free. Speaking live from Jerusalem later, he thanked those who had supported him, and vowed to return to "obscurity".
Rallies worldwide had called for Mr Johnston's release. An online petition was signed by some 200,000 people.
Mr Johnston's father Graham said he and his wife were "overjoyed" at their son's release. "It's been 114 days of a living nightmare," he said.
Gordon Brown, in his first prime minister's questions session in the UK parliament, said: "The whole country will welcome the news that Alan Johnston, a fearless journalist whose voice was silenced for too long, is now free."
Mr Brown acknowledged the "crucial" role played by Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in securing Mr Johnston's release. But a spokesman for Mr Brown said Britain's policy towards Hamas had not changed, and the movement was still expected to recognise Israel and show a commitment to non-violence. |
Send Al a cold one courtesy of the BBC!
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=4578#4578 |
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editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:28 am Post subject: |
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From the Will to Win:
Tadeusz Borowski
Selected Poems
Hardcover
Translated by Tadeusz Pióro with Larry Rafferty & Meryl Natchez
Introduction by Stanislaw Barańczak
| Quote: | The Interrogation
for Wiket Piatkowski
They beat him all day, and the next. Nothing doing.
They beat him 'round the D, banged his head on the table.
"Say just one sentence! Just one word!"
They showed him his passport, foreign visas,
books and secret documents from the lining of his suitcase,
but then when they showed him his English tommy gun
he said, "take away the tablecloth, I'm going to throw up."
That's all he said. He was black and blue.
They took him to Majdanek, locked him behind the wire.
At night he cut the wire, escaped right under the sentries' eyes.
What use is glory if this memory dies?
Badanie
Witkowi Piatkowskienu
Bili dzien, bili drugi, nie idzie,
bili przez cala dobe. Tak wi kolko - przez tydzien.
,,Mow, mow - krzyczeli - przeciez wiemy wszytko!
Snamy twoj pseudonim! I twoje nazwisko!"
Pokazywali dowod, tlukli o stol glowaj:
,,Powiedz choc jedno zdanie! Chociaz jedno slowo!"
Pokazywali paszport, zagraniczne wizy,
ksizki, tajne instrukcje wyprute z walizy,
ksiazki, tajne instrukcje wyprute z walizy,
az gdy mu pokazali angielski Tumigan,
rzekl: "Wezcie obrus ze stolu. Zaraz bede rzygal."
I wiecej nie rzekl nic, cialo mial sine.
Zawiezli na Majdanek i zamkneli w drucie.
Przecial druty, na oczach warty noca uciekl.
Coz jest slawa, jezeli taka slawa ginie?
(-- pgs. 36-37) |
| Quote: | Friends
All my friends,
damn it,
knew how to live in the damp cells
of Pawiak.
All my friends,
the fools,
refused blindfolds
at the post.
All my friends,
the asses,
already have grass
on their graves.
All my friends,
all mad ...
Write the poem, hold the tears.
Nothing more.
Przyjaciele
Wszyscy moi przyjaciele,
mac taka,
syc umieli w mokrej celi
Pawiaka.
Wszyscy moi przyjaciele,
ze glupi,
ocz nie dali sobie wiazac
pod slupem.
Wszyscy moi przyjaciele,
ze osly,
juz na grobach im zielen
wyrosla.
Wsyscy moi prozyjaaciele
szalency.
Wiersz napisac, lzy powstrzymac.
Nic wiecej.
(-- pgs. 52-53) |
Link to this entry
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editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:09 am Post subject: |
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From World's Craziest Poker Games:
Liquidation
Hardcover
By Nobel Prize winner 2002 Imre Kertesz
| Quote: | "You must be thinking of Lager poker," Oblath enlightened me. "A simple game, simple rules. The players sit around the table and each person says where they have been. Only the place-name, nothing else. That was the basis for determining the value of the chips. As best I remember, two Kistarcsas were worth one Fo Street ... one Mauthausen, one and a half Recsks ..."
"That's open to dispute, though." Kurti showed signs of life. "Even now I would find it hard to decide."
Sarah: "A cynical game, that."
"What was cynical about it?" Kurti flared up. "We had no money, we were only able to play with the values that life had dealt us."
"Am I right in recollecting that Bee pulled out of that hand?" I asked.
"Right." Oblath grinned. "He didn't want to cheat. He must have been aware from the beginning that he had a royal flush up his sleeve."
"Auschwitz." Kurti nodded. "Untrumpable." -- p. 51 |
Kertesz on luck:
| Quote: | | "Never put a gloss on the truth," he would instruct the family. "Don't accept ready-made cheap words. Let us at least keep our nerve; that can't be nationalized. Look facts in the face: The reason we are able to live here, the reason we have any dwelling at all, is because, luckily, the original owners were exterminated. Otherwise we would have nowhere to live. There you are...that's Hungarian luck for you," he added (nomen est omen) bitterly. -- p. 36. |
On chance:
| Quote: | | ... While I was listening to my wife - I recall it precisely - my attention was increasingly focused on her upper lip, that harmoniously arched, slightly short upper lip with which I had originally fallen in love, and I mused on what an absurd thing love is after all, that a person's entire frail life is founded on such absurdities. One fine day, we wake up with a stranger in a strange bedroom, I thought to myself, and never again do we find our way back to ourselves: Our impossible life is determined by chance, lust, and the whim of a moment, I thought to myself. -- p. 47 |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=4587#4587
Last edited by editor on Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:26 am; edited 2 times in total |
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editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:25 am Post subject: |
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From World's Craziest Card Games:
The Ninth Configuration
DVD
| Quote: | Written and directed by the same sick individual who gave us The Exorcist, this one feels almost like an apology one might take seriously. A bunch of 'Nam vet psychos are holed up somewhere in the Pacific Northwest in an authentic German castle we're told was donated for the war effort by the wealthy Biltmore family, who supposedly had the place reconstructed there. Our mission in the film is to find out whether Stacy Keach is the psychiatrist with the right stuff to save these lunatics or if he's really just one of them.
In this scene, we have a terrific rainstorm, a medic with no pants, a black guy in blackface and white gloves singing along with Al Jolson and five inmates who assume the position at a card table under a particularly affecting wall sconce of a gargoyle: |
| Quote: | Guy 1: OK, seven cards.
Guy 2: Anything wild?
Guy 3: Deuces, threes, fives, sevens, nines and Jacks.
Guy 1: You are a very sick man. (Cuts the cards repeatedly).
Guy 3: Are you finished?
Guy 1: Most people cut them only once.
Guy 3: Thirteen is my lucky number.
Guy 1: Jacks are better. Come on.
Guy 3: Kings or better!
Guy 1: (Calmly) No, Jacks or better.
Guy 3: I am dealing. I call it.
Guy 2: Did I not hear something about wild cards at the outset?
Guy 3: Yes.
Guy 2: Would you repeat that?
Guy 3: Deuces, threes, fives, sevens, nines and Jacks.
Guy 2: Would you like to add a one-eyed king?
Guy 1: Deal. Please. |
Based on the novel:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane
Paperback
By William Peter Blatty
Link to this entry
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editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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From Loaded Dice:
The Trials of Darryl Hunt
DVD
| Quote: | In December 2003, Willard E. Brown confessed to the 1984 rape and stabbing death of Deborah Sykes after DNA testing linked him to the crime. His confession led to the release of Darryl Hunt, who had served about 18 years of a life sentence for a crime he always denied committing.
On February 6, 2004, Superior Court Judge Anderson Cromer vacated Hunt's murder conviction in the case. Cromer dismissed the case against Hunt "with prejudice," meaning he can never be tried in the murder again.
Over the course of its inquiry from 2005-2007, a citizens committee revealed mistakes made by law-enforcement officers in the handling of the Sykes case and three other rape cases that occurred in the same time frame. In February 2007, their report was released and the city issued a formal apology to Darryl Hunt.
» Sykes Committee Report (PDF)
» City of Winston-Salem's Apology (PDF)
(From From Murder, Race, Justice, The State v. Darryl Hunt accessed Sept. 28/09) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=4614#4614 |
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