Antwerpen's doing Autumn today .. rain showers of varying intensities, thunderstorms that roll over and out, wind, and sunshine in between, and so I was web-wandering when I found interesting things over on Erkan's site.
He wrote that Financial Times.com has compiled a 'most influential commentator' list ...
It offers some surprises ... although Thomas Friedman isn't considered America's most influential, he is 'the most read' by India's ruling elite.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
"The need for changebulldozed a road down
the center of my mind."
Maya Angelou
I loved this ... sometimes the only way for us to step out and make changes is for our known world to collapse and fall in on itself.
Finding quotes about change, about growth, about movement have always crashed their way into my mind ... I ignored them for a long time ... small pieces like: 'The shell must break before the bird can fly'.
Tennyson
'We take these risk not to escape life but to prevent life escaping us.'
Unknown.
And 'No se puede nadar y guardar la ropa' is a favourite of mine, useful when I get sad for the books and small things I left back home in New Zealand ... translation: 'You can't go swimming and look after your clothes'.
I'd rather swim ...
Benjamin Franklin said ...
Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities.
Benjamin Franklin
from his report to the King of France on Animal Magnetism, 1784
Lifted from Caterina's blog.
Benjamin Franklin
from his report to the King of France on Animal Magnetism, 1784
Lifted from Caterina's blog.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Water Play, Summertime
I remembered this photograph I took, back home in New Zealand one summer's day.
Sometimes happiness is the simplest of things ...
Superhero Journal and other sites ...
"If your work isn't your dream or leading to your dream, quit sooner rather than later."
Sark
I was web-wandering earlier and stumbled upon a blog new to me called Superhero Journal .
I'm not even sure about how I arrived there because I immediately began exploring the site and lost myself in pages opened and links followed.
The opening quote appeared in the Superhero Journal but was a quote by Sark, and so it goes that I had to explore Sark's site too.
There are some lovely things on the web.
Postscript ...(hmmm or is that 'note to self'?) ... anyway, Danny Gregory's site is kind of delicious too.
And ... one more, she writes yet again in 'edit posts'. Stunning photographs to be found at chromasia .
Sark
I was web-wandering earlier and stumbled upon a blog new to me called Superhero Journal .
I'm not even sure about how I arrived there because I immediately began exploring the site and lost myself in pages opened and links followed.
The opening quote appeared in the Superhero Journal but was a quote by Sark, and so it goes that I had to explore Sark's site too.
There are some lovely things on the web.
Postscript ...(hmmm or is that 'note to self'?) ... anyway, Danny Gregory's site is kind of delicious too.
And ... one more, she writes yet again in 'edit posts'. Stunning photographs to be found at chromasia .
Myrtle Shoupe
This article was kind of quirky ... Myrtle Shoupe even had her own website: Myrtle is an exuberant 95-year-old columnist for the weekly Manchester Enterprise, published in the rugged, remote coal country of Eastern Kentucky. Myrtle began writing about the tiny community of Hima for The Enterprise in 1954, and over the years her column has become a favorite of readers far and wide.
In terms of topics, not to mention syntax, Myrtle is inspired by her verry own personal muse. Since 1956, The Enterprise has run a notice assuring readers the Hima News is indeed "Printed As Written." It seems that Myrtle balked when the editors attempted to clean up the column. When everyone in Manchester, even the mayor, rose up in Myrtle's defense, the newspaper backed down, but it made sure its readers knew that the voice they were reading is Mrs. Shoupe’s alone..
How much do you know about Turkey?
About Blogs ...
The Christian Science Monitor writes: As it happens, blogs are showing up faster than ants at a summer picnic. There are some 37 million blogs in the world, with a new blog created every second, according to a report by David Sifry, founder of Technorati, a website that tracks blogs and blog use. Since Mr. Sifry released his report May 1, the number of blogs tracked by the site has climbed to 39.6 million as of this past weekend.
Thanks Erkan.
Thanks Erkan.
So Is Germany Racist?
Der Spiegel is never afraid of the tough stories: Two days after a former government spokesman caused a furor in Germany by saying out loud what most Germans believe in private -- that non-white World Cup fans should probably keep out of certain provincial towns -- the debate is still on German minds. "There are small and medium-sized towns in (the eastern state of) Brandenburg, as well as elsewhere, which I would advise a visitor of another skin color to avoid going to," Uwe-Karsten Heye said on Wednesday in an interview on German public radio. "It is possible he wouldn't get out alive."
Kevin Sites on Yubaraj Khakada's Nepalese Life
Kevin Sites is reporting from Nepal these days ... showing a side to the city that I hadn't considered.
Fourteen-year-old Yubaraj works around the clock parking cars in Katmandu. For his family it's survival - for him, a kind of suicide by exhaust fumes. "I start at 10 a.m. and I usually have to work until 10 p.m. to make the 820," he says. "Then I can start earning for myself."
Yubaraj says he makes about 2,500 rupees a month, about $33, but sends two-thirds of it back to his family. The rest he uses to pay for a small room in a hotel where he lives with a couple of older boys.
He washes his own clothes and usually eats two meals a day of rice, beans and curry at the hotel.
"At first, I used to get lonely," he says, "but now I'm used to it."
Fourteen-year-old Yubaraj works around the clock parking cars in Katmandu. For his family it's survival - for him, a kind of suicide by exhaust fumes. "I start at 10 a.m. and I usually have to work until 10 p.m. to make the 820," he says. "Then I can start earning for myself."
Yubaraj says he makes about 2,500 rupees a month, about $33, but sends two-thirds of it back to his family. The rest he uses to pay for a small room in a hotel where he lives with a couple of older boys.
He washes his own clothes and usually eats two meals a day of rice, beans and curry at the hotel.
"At first, I used to get lonely," he says, "but now I'm used to it."
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Wandering ...
Sometimes I have to wander to find myself, and when I'm not free to wander I have to read ... searching I guess, for some thing to hold or interest me, to allow movement of another kind.I love a journey, be it real or imagined; mine or belonging to someone else.
Dan Eldon made sense when he wrote 'The journey is the destination' and he lived his life accordingly.
In 'The Great Arc', Carrithers wrote, 'The first moral is that human life is 'metamorphic'. 'Metamorphic' here is a term of art meant to capture the incessant mutability of human experience, the temporality woven into all human institutions and relationships.'
But that's not how we're encouraged to live ...
Rita Golden Gelman became another I admire when she went wandering: I am a modern-day nomad. I have no permanent address, no possessions except the ones I carry, and I rarely know where I’ll be six months from now. I move through the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities.
Her book, Tales of a Female Nomad, is one I've often recommended since first reading it back home in New Zealand ... in those days when my acts of nomadism were limited to how far my car would take me.
Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, devoted an immense amount of time and scholarship to showing that travel was not a curse but a cure for melancholy; that is, for the depressions brought on by settlement: 'The heavens themselves turn continually, the sun rises and sets, the moon grows bigger, stars and planets keep their constant motions, the air is tossed by the winds, waters ebb and flow ... teaching us that we should ever be in motion.
He who does not travel does not know the value of men ...
A Moorish proverb.
Erica Jong
Erica Jong has long been one of my favourite writers ...
What You Need to Be A Writer
After the college
reading,
the eager
students gather.
They ask me
what you need
to be a writer
& I, feeling flippant,
jaunty
(because
I am wearing
an 18th century
dress
& think
myself in love
again),
answer:
"Mazel,
determination,
talent, & true
grit."
I even
believe it--
looking
as I do
like an
advertisement
for easy
success--
designer dress,
sly smile
on my lips
& silver boots
from
Oz.
Suppose
they saw me
my eyes
swollen
like sponges,
my hand
shaking
with betrayal,
my fear
rampant
in the dark?
Suppose they saw
the fear
of never
writing,
the fear
of being
alone,
the money fear,
the fear fear,
the fear
of succumbing
to fear?
& then there's all
I did
not say:
to be
a writer
what you need
is
something
to say:
something
that burns
like a hot coal
in your gut
something
that pounds
like a pump
in your groin
& the courage
to love
like a wound
that never
heals.
What You Need to Be A Writer
After the college
reading,
the eager
students gather.
They ask me
what you need
to be a writer
& I, feeling flippant,
jaunty
(because
I am wearing
an 18th century
dress
& think
myself in love
again),
answer:
"Mazel,
determination,
talent, & true
grit."
I even
believe it--
looking
as I do
like an
advertisement
for easy
success--
designer dress,
sly smile
on my lips
& silver boots
from
Oz.
Suppose
they saw me
my eyes
swollen
like sponges,
my hand
shaking
with betrayal,
my fear
rampant
in the dark?
Suppose they saw
the fear
of never
writing,
the fear
of being
alone,
the money fear,
the fear fear,
the fear
of succumbing
to fear?
& then there's all
I did
not say:
to be
a writer
what you need
is
something
to say:
something
that burns
like a hot coal
in your gut
something
that pounds
like a pump
in your groin
& the courage
to love
like a wound
that never
heals.
Der Spiegel and Henry Mafarna
"I've got just two options," he said. "I'll either make it to Europe or die trying."
Henry Mafarna
"Even if I have to live on the streets in Europe, even if people there look down on me, it can't be any worse than here," Henry says. When night begins to fall, he proposes a bet. He asks me to give him my e-mail address. "I'll write to you from Spain," he says grinning, "and then you have to come and visit."
So far, he hasn't written.
Henry Mafarna
"Even if I have to live on the streets in Europe, even if people there look down on me, it can't be any worse than here," Henry says. When night begins to fall, he proposes a bet. He asks me to give him my e-mail address. "I'll write to you from Spain," he says grinning, "and then you have to come and visit."
So far, he hasn't written.
Kudsi Erguner, Musical Archaeologist
Sometimes you follow a small trail and find something truly delicious ...I was reading through my July 2005 copy of the Turkish Airlines magazine called 'Skylife' when I found a feature article on Kudsi Erguner.
I read of a man who studied both architecture and musicological research in Paris, who writes books, composes music and teaches.
Curious to know more, I searched for his music online and loved the two pieces I found ... Ney Taksimi and Ud Ve Kanun Ta.
He has some 92 albums to his name and is regarded as one of the world's leading representatives of sufi music. Yet to be searched are the compositions he has created while researching classical Turkish music, mixing Ottoman music with western rhythms and improvisational jazz.
Kudsi 'expresses mystical philosophy through his 'ney' (reed flute), an instrument he learned while following in the ney playing footsteps of his father and grandfather.
France gets more than it seems to deserve in these days when he talks of the multi-cultural aspect of his projects. He says, 'Let's say it's a spinoff of living in Paris. Because Paris is a world city; you meet a lot of artists there.'
He has a book ... 'The Fount of Seperation: A Ney Player's Journey'. It's intended to be autobiographical but is more of a first-hand account of the period in which my generation lived.
I woke in a dark mood, I was sure it was my mood for a week ... my only plan for the day was cancelling my flight home for the last time but then things changed. It seems I lack the depth required to maintain a good long sulk.
Wandering woman in Spain made me laugh ... not once but twice, and Cindy's threatened deportation from Belgium made me remember that there are so many worse off than me.
So I moved on, will delete my sad and grouchy cancelled ticket post and will post news of Flat Stephanie's school visit over on my other site.
Oh yes, I have a heavy schedule of Steph-type appointments in the days ahead of me ... what more can a girl ask for? ;)
Wandering woman in Spain made me laugh ... not once but twice, and Cindy's threatened deportation from Belgium made me remember that there are so many worse off than me.
So I moved on, will delete my sad and grouchy cancelled ticket post and will post news of Flat Stephanie's school visit over on my other site.
Oh yes, I have a heavy schedule of Steph-type appointments in the days ahead of me ... what more can a girl ask for? ;)
New Zealand and Immigration
Hmmm do unto others as you would have done unto yourself...
I don't imagine politicians and lawmakers are the type to immigrate to other countries, I guess this is fortunate because they surely wouldn't enjoy the experience.
In the interests of being balanced in the presentation of immigration woes, I should offer up any other piece of foolishness that catches my eye ...
Australia welcomes Danish musician snubbed by NZ migrant rules
By Angela Gregory
Two of his biggest fans are Denmark's Prime Minister and the Crown Prince but Danish musician Michael Hardinger will be making a new life in Australia because he cannot get a work permit to come to New Zealand.
About five years ago Hardinger had wanted to emigrate to New Zealand from his base in Los Angeles where he writes film scores.
He loves New Zealand, which he has visited many times, and had hoped to build a recording studio and later retire with a bed and breakfast business in the Bay of Islands.
But Hardinger quickly learned he was not eligible for entry under the New Zealand talents policy and could not meet the steep financial requirements of the investor category.
"I gave up on New Zealand because there was no category there that would accept me."
Those with exceptional talent in a declared field of arts, culture or sport can get a work visa or permit but they have to be sponsored by a nationally reputed New Zealand organisation and be 55 or under.
Hardinger was 53 at the time he considered moving to New Zealand but did not have a sponsor. He is now moving with his wife and child to Australia in July under a similar talent visa scheme.
In his application to Australian immigration Hardinger supplied personal recommendations from Denmark's Prime Minister and Crown Prince, who were fans of the commercially successful Danish rock band Shu-bi-dua in which he played guitar and keyboards.
He has solo recordings with sales of more than six million and has written five film scores.
A bow to those who make rules in New Zealand ...
I don't imagine politicians and lawmakers are the type to immigrate to other countries, I guess this is fortunate because they surely wouldn't enjoy the experience.
In the interests of being balanced in the presentation of immigration woes, I should offer up any other piece of foolishness that catches my eye ...
Australia welcomes Danish musician snubbed by NZ migrant rules
By Angela Gregory
Two of his biggest fans are Denmark's Prime Minister and the Crown Prince but Danish musician Michael Hardinger will be making a new life in Australia because he cannot get a work permit to come to New Zealand.
About five years ago Hardinger had wanted to emigrate to New Zealand from his base in Los Angeles where he writes film scores.
He loves New Zealand, which he has visited many times, and had hoped to build a recording studio and later retire with a bed and breakfast business in the Bay of Islands.
But Hardinger quickly learned he was not eligible for entry under the New Zealand talents policy and could not meet the steep financial requirements of the investor category.
"I gave up on New Zealand because there was no category there that would accept me."
Those with exceptional talent in a declared field of arts, culture or sport can get a work visa or permit but they have to be sponsored by a nationally reputed New Zealand organisation and be 55 or under.
Hardinger was 53 at the time he considered moving to New Zealand but did not have a sponsor. He is now moving with his wife and child to Australia in July under a similar talent visa scheme.
In his application to Australian immigration Hardinger supplied personal recommendations from Denmark's Prime Minister and Crown Prince, who were fans of the commercially successful Danish rock band Shu-bi-dua in which he played guitar and keyboards.
He has solo recordings with sales of more than six million and has written five film scores.
A bow to those who make rules in New Zealand ...
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Antwerp, City of Diamond Traders
Der Spiegel have an interesting article on the changing situation amongst the diamond traders of Antwerp.
The Belgian city of Antwerp has the largest diamond market in the world. Orthodox Jews controlled the trade for centuries, but now globalization has seen them displaced by dealers hailing from India.
... The High Diamond Council, the trade's main governing body, has only recently caught up with the times. Earlier this month Indians won five of the six elected seats on the 11-member board. Indians already account for €15 billion ($19 billion) of the annual diamond trade of a total of €23 billion.
While competition between them is harsh, the Jews and the Indians -- most of them belonging to the Jain faith -- have a friendly, neighborlike relationship. There are even some Jewish-Indian married couples in Antwerp. "Judaism and our Jainisim have a number of similarities," diamond dealer Ramesh Mehta explains. Like Jews, he says followers of Jainism are used to working hard and they reject every form of violence.
The Belgian city of Antwerp has the largest diamond market in the world. Orthodox Jews controlled the trade for centuries, but now globalization has seen them displaced by dealers hailing from India.
... The High Diamond Council, the trade's main governing body, has only recently caught up with the times. Earlier this month Indians won five of the six elected seats on the 11-member board. Indians already account for €15 billion ($19 billion) of the annual diamond trade of a total of €23 billion.
While competition between them is harsh, the Jews and the Indians -- most of them belonging to the Jain faith -- have a friendly, neighborlike relationship. There are even some Jewish-Indian married couples in Antwerp. "Judaism and our Jainisim have a number of similarities," diamond dealer Ramesh Mehta explains. Like Jews, he says followers of Jainism are used to working hard and they reject every form of violence.
Belgium and its process of residency
It's not that I'm forming an overall bad impression of Belgium but this story is kind of cruel and ridiculous as the immigrant in question is here with her husband and still in process, with assistance from a relocation expert ... clearly not even a relocation expert can stand against the tsunami that is residency paperwork.
Cindy is an American expat living in Brussels and today she was spoken to by the Belgian police.
The story: Today, a police inspector informed me that I have 5 days to leave the country. Yes, you read that right. D-E-P-O-R-T-E-D. I was handed an "Ordre de Quitter le Territoire" and was told "you must leave Belgium." Since I don't speak or read French, I have no idea what is going on.
Cindy is an American expat living in Brussels and today she was spoken to by the Belgian police.
The story: Today, a police inspector informed me that I have 5 days to leave the country. Yes, you read that right. D-E-P-O-R-T-E-D. I was handed an "Ordre de Quitter le Territoire" and was told "you must leave Belgium." Since I don't speak or read French, I have no idea what is going on.
A slice of my day
Events are conspiring to break into my self-imposed 'I'm working and need to concentrate' state.Flat Stephanie requires exercise of the interactive type and so it was that this morning we popped over to Marco's third grade class with our flat American guest. I was looking forward to it, curious about Belgian schools after two years spent teaching in the Turkish private school system.
Oddly enough, I discovered I had less interest in the process of education and discovered a certain relief in being out of it all, as in ... 'Did you see how demanding that class was?' The students were lovely but I was happy to be on the guest side of the experience ... admiring what it takes to teach 22 short people and keep them in order as opposed to doing the ordering.
Meanwhile, Gert is home with an inner ear infection which translates to an almost permanent state of motion-sickness. I envy him not. Anything that involves not being able to read ... neither computer screen nor printed page, gives me the horrors, although I may have taken my sympathy too far ... staking out the other couch, the one in the sun, and sleeping the entire afternoon away.
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