Thursday, June 30, 2011
Green MSP Alison Johnstone says free the commons!
It’s also time to take another look at Scotland’s Common Good assets, most of which are the legacies of the old Burghs. They do not belong to local authorities - they belong to local people - and I’ll be pressing the Scottish Government to bring in a full register of these assets and clear and simple legislation to protect them for their original purpose. The same process could define how new
Remember when the nurses and teachers crashed the economy?
Remember when teachers, policemen, prison officers, ambulance staff, nurses, doctors and firemen crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax? No, me neither. Please copy and paste to your status/blog etc for 24 hours to show your support against the Government's latest attack on pensions and public sector workers.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Paradox Tribar
Paradox Tribar by Mauro Hernándezhttp://im-possible.info/english/art/computer/mauro-hernandez.html
Green Party Trade Union support for tomorrow's strikes!
GPTU calls on all its members and all Green Party members to suppot the strikers of UCU, ATL,NUT and PCS in the pensions strike tomorrow. We have posted a message from Sally Hunt of UCU on the GPTU blog which explains that, contrary to media myth, public sector pensions are hardly generous. These pensions are in any case a slight compensation for the low salaries of the public sector where many
J30, we are many, they are few!
Strike action over the Teachers’ Pension Scheme tomorrowAs you will know tomorrow on Thursday 30 June UCU members in FE and post-92 universities will be taking strike action alongside PCS, NUT, and ATL and there are picket lines, demonstrations and rallies taking place across the country.Members in post-92 universities, FE colleges and adult education are asked to support their pickets and
Councillor Alan Weeks joins Green Party.
There is a small but interesting green and left tradition in the Liberal Democrats, think of all the sterling work the Young Liberals did to fight apartheid in the 1970's.Indeed some of the people in the Green Party I work with like Victor Anderson come from this traditiona and of course, hate to say this but one of my real political heros is a lib, Eric Lubbock! (cos of his work for indigenous
Monday, June 27, 2011
Dure steen van Magritte in een voordelige omkadering van JdM
Dure steen van Magritte in een voordelige omkadering van JdM by Jos de Mey http://im-possible.info/english/art/mey/mey12.html#107
PUBLIC MEETING : ECO-SOCIALISM - NOT DESTRUCTION
WITH DEREK WALL: GREEN LEFT, ENVIRONMENTALIST & SOCIALIST.TUESDAY 28TH JUNE7.30-9.30 p.m.FRIENDS MEETING PLACE, QUAKER HALL, 34 MILL ROAD, WESTWORTHING,BN11 5DRGlobal warming, climate change, populations starving and indigenous peoples under attack. The environment and the future of our planet is facing a crisis. Our economic system is in a state of collapse. Capitalism has failed
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Trees for Human Rights/ Víctor Jara Festival
ECOMEMORIAMachynlleth, Wales13 - 14 August 2011As part of the Víctor Jara Festival Ecomemoria invites you to participate in the planting of 2 trees in memory of the victims of the Chilean military junta.======================================================================= OVERVIEW (This information is in the attachment.) The decades of the ‘70s and ‘80s were witness to the implementation of
Impossible arches
Impossible arches by Sergey Levin http://im-possible.info/english/art/various/sergey-levin.html
Tragic deaths of Alf Filer and Frank Gallagher
I am just back from a lovely weekend in the North East spending time with Green Party friends and sad to find news in my in-box of the death of two people who I respected so much.One was Frank Gallagher from Donegal who did so much to oppose the Irish Green Party's descent into madness.Also Alf Filer, I have only met Alf more than once or twice but he had asked me to speak in Worthing on tuesday,
Trip To Gaza
No, not me. I try to avoid, at least in theory, places with active armed struggles. My old pal, author Reese Erlich, is the opposite. He goes from one conflict zone to another. The last we heard from him, he was in Egypt, and before that in Cuba and Afghanistan. Gaza isn't exactly a tourist destination. But it's a historical and Biblical place and it can easily be on the route from history-rich Egypt to history-rich Israel... and Palestine. And as Reese told me, Gaza has a lot of potential for tourism, even if that needs to wait for political stability. "It's located along prime Mediterranean seafront. The local folks have enjoyed the sea, beaches and weather for many years. There's even a 5-star hotel built along the seashore, but not opened do to economic problems in Gaza."
There is no foreign tourism in Gaza at the moment because of the Israeli economic blockade. The Israelis restrict foreign travelers to journalists, aid workers, etc. The Egyptians don't allow general tourist traffic either.
The Hamas government is trying to promote what they call "internal" tourism, which means getting Gazans out of their houses and traveling to thebeaches, to parks, etc. The recreational area on the land formally occupied by Gush Katif is an example of internal tourism. It's as much a morale booster as an economic factor. So like everything else in Gaza, real tourism will have to wait until there's an overall political settlement.
Reese was in Gaza recently reporting for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. And it wasn't his first time in one of the world's most troubled areas:
In 2004, I reported from an Israeli settlement in the southern part of Gaza called Gush Katif. The ultra-conservative religious settlers living there told me Gaza was part of historic Israel, and they would never leave. Less than a year later, the Israeli government withdrew from Gaza and forced the settlers out.
A few days ago, I went back to visit the land that was once Gush Katif. The results were pleasantly surprising given my general disagreements with Gaza’s governing party, Hamas.
Back in 2004, I arrived in Gaza on a special road reserved for Israeli settlers and off limits to Palestinians. Gush Katif and other settlements dissected Gaza with settler-only roads. Palestinians couldn’t drive along the coastal highway. Military checkpoints dotted the alternative north-south road. Some days Palestinians got through the checkpoints, and other days they didn’t.
My trip to Gush Katif illustrated why the Israeli settlements are such a critical issue. It’s not just a question of settlers living on Palestinian land and commuting to Israel. The settlements require settler-only access roads, checkpoints and a constant military presence. Under those conditions, Palestinians can’t have sovereignty over their own country. They can’t even drive freely between two neighboring cities.
Since the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from Gaza in August 2005, the checkpoints and settlements disappeared. The coastal road is open. We turned onto a dirt road and there was the former Gush Katif. The city hall, schools and houses were gone. The Israeli military destroyed most of the buildings before departure. Palestinian scavengers walked away with the remaining cement blocks, rebar and other construction materials.
A few buildings still stand, along with the scaffoldings of former hothouses. “We had to rebuild everything,” says Mohammad Thuraya, director of Asda City, which now occupies the land.
The area around Asda City includes Hamas’ TV and radio station, a recreational park and agricultural land leased to local farmers.
In the park, families picnic, a water slide dumps screaming children into a huge swimming pool and a clown jumps around to the kids’ delight.
Outside the park, the Hamas government leased land to local farmers. Saleh Moshen has planted apple trees in the mixture of sand and clay that passes for soil in this part of the world. Within a stone’s throw of the former Gush Katif hothouses, he has several hundred trees.
“I don’t expect to make a profit right away,” he told me. “You need a few years for apple trees to be productive.”
The settlers used to export flowers and vegetables to Europe. Palestinians in other parts of Gaza also exported to Europe until 2006 when Hamas won the Palestinian Authority elections, and Israel imposed economic sanctions on Gaza.
The Israeli pressure eased somewhat after May 31, 2010, when a flotilla of passenger boats from Turkey tried to bring supplies to Gaza. During the Israeli boarding of one vessel, nine people were killed and many injured.
The resulting international outcry forced Israel to modify its policies. Today, cement and construction materials can be imported, but only for previously approved UN projects. More food can be imported, and even a few new cars. Palestinian-grown flowers and strawberries can be exported, but in very limited quantities.
Allaa El-Rafati, Gaza’s Minister of National Economy, told me Israel’s policies still hurt ordinary Palestinians. Truck traffic between Israel and Gaza is only about 25 percent of what existed before 2005. “We’re particularly short of medicines and medical equipment,” he said.
Ordinary Palestinians would like to see an end to Israel’s sanctions and a return to normal life, but aren’t expecting that anytime soon.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Urban Gadabout: Back from Tottenville!
Alas, the Pavilion at Conference House Park was used as a stage for the "musicians," and so was off limits to us Second Annual Raritan Bay Festivalgoers.by Ken
So I really did it, and it all went off without a hitch -- the subway to South Ferry, the 10:30 Staten Island Ferry to St. George, the Staten Island Railway all to the end, at Tottenville, the walk to the Conference House Park Visitors Center for the Second Annual Raritan Bay Festival.
It's a good thing I'd been in the Pavilion at Conference House Park on my previous expedition to Tottenville. We ate our bag lunches in the Pavilion -- in the rain -- on that Municipal Art Society tour last month (link for Municipal Art Society tours: mas.org/tours/) led by the remarkable Justin Ferate, without whom I would never have gotten to Tottenville once, let alone wanted to go back, or actually known where the heck I was going. As I explained last night, the view from the Pavilion was so reduced by the dreadful weather conditions that I could hardly see anything.
Today the weather held pretty well. There was a threat of showers, and from time to time the puffy white clouds gave way to gray ones of varying intensity, but mostly it was okay. So today I could see that what I thought looked like a view of the open ocean, but was really Raritan Bay, was no such thing -- the low visibility simply lopped off the Monmouth County shoreline. (Also, I have to say that Perth Amboy, across the Arthur Kill from Tottenville, looks more picturesque in the mist and gray.) Oh yes, the reason I was glad we'd made it to the Pavilion on that first trip: It was closed off to festivalgoers, to be used as a stage for the, er, musicians (I guess any group of people holding noise-making devices attached to amplifiers and speakers qualify as "musicians") scheduled throughout the afternoon.
This time, however, I made it down onto the beach, where I gave a wide beth to the kiddie kayaking that seemed to be drawing most of the crowd that had arrived in the first hour, in favor of the half-hour horseshoe-crab walk offered every hour by a smart fellow from the Staten Island Museum. (This seems to be my horseshoe-crab season.) I scored some cool literature from the tables of the aforementioned Staten Island Museum and a couple of other interesting-themed organizations (even including a free DVD from one, just for signing up for their e-mail list), and by then I'd been there an hour and decided I'd pretty well "done" the festival, and realized I was probably within striking distance of the S78 bus, which I'd scouted on my way to the park and which would take me close to the train station -- and which came exactly, and I mean exactly at the posted schedule time, 1:07, though I didn't take it all the way, realizing that (a) I would wind up getting to the station way too early for the next train, and (b) I would be deprived of the opportunity to fortify myself with some local victuals.
So I got off at the corner of Amboy Road and Main Street, which passes for a bustling intersection in Tottenville, and bought some local specialties at the Main St. Deli -- Sprite Zero and a Little Debbie peach pie (we urban gadabouts know that while gadding you need to provision yourself to last at least to the next deli). Then I walked on to the station and made the reverse trip again without a hitch. Since I was going to be home so much earlier than I expected, and from the ferry terminal had the whole of the city at my (and my unlimited MetroCard's) disposal, I did allow myself an only slightly out-of-the-way detour to Manganaro's Hero-Boy on Ninth Avenue between 37th and 38th. It was easy to set my sights on s chicken parmigiana hero. The agonizing part -- all the way from the ferry terminal to Manganaro's, in particular the walk from Seventh Avenue to Ninth -- was whether to eat in, as I normally do, or get the sandwich to go, so I could really celebrate the early return. (It was a tough call, but in the end I chose the "to go" option.)
Total travel time, deducting the added stopovers, was just over seven hours door to door. Which means roughly six hours traveling for one hour of festival. Is that a good ratio? You might not think so, but I thought it was a pretty swell adventure.And the sandwich was, as always, wonderful. You'd think you wouldn't want to schlepp a chicken parmigiana hero around for another 45 minutes, but in fact, great as it is when you eat it freshly made and hot, when you let it sit like that, so it cools off and gets a little mooshy, it's just as good. The flavors mingle or something.
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Friday, June 24, 2011
Urban Gadabout: To the end of the island (Staten) -- I'm headed back to Tottenville (weather permitting)
If you look out onto the water from Conference House Park in Tottenville, at the southern tip of Staten Island, you can imagine you're looking onto the open Atlantic Ocean, but off to the east skinny Sandy Hook juts northward from the Monmouth County shoreline, forming the eastern boundary of Raritan Bay. (For a larger view, click on the map.)by Ken
If you don't have anything planned tomorrow between noon and 5pm, plus whatever travel time it would take you to get to Tottenville, at the southern tip of State Island, why not hie on down for the Second Annual Raritan Bay Festival?
It's going to be quite a schlepp for me from the northern reaches of Manhattan -- upwards of three hours if I do it the cheap way, by subway to South Ferry, Staten Island Ferry to St. George, the full length of the Staten Island Railway to Tottenville, then a 15-minute walk to the Conference House Park Visitors Center at Hyland Boulevard and Satterlee Street. I can cut a chunk of time off if instead I catch the X-1 express bus from Lower Manhattan across the Verrazanno Narrows Bridge, connecting with the S78 bus on Hylan Boulevard virtually to within a block of the Visitors Center, but I have to be prepared to spend the $5.50 express-bus fare.THE "CONFERENCE" IN THE CONFERENCE HOUSEA conference took place there on Sept. 11, 1776, in the hope of resolving the unpleasantness (you may have heard of it -- the American Revolutionary War) between the newly-declared-independent Americans and their erstwhile colonial masters, the British. The Americans were represented by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge; the British, by their military commander in America, Admiral Lord Richard Howe, who was then occupying the house of Col. Christopher Billopp, which had been built in 1680 by his grandfather, British naval Capt. Christopher Billopp. (That's a reenactment in the photo, not the original event!) The conference doesn't seem to have accomplished anything. After the war, the actively Tory Billopp family was stripped of its properties.
Actually, I'm kind of looking forward to doing the walk between the SIR station and Conference House Park in at least one direction, which will be retreading old ground, from a Municipal Art Society walking tour to Tottenville led by the inexhaustibly knowledgeable Justin Ferate, on which we actually got to the Pavilion in Conference House Park, and also in the course of our tour visited a stunning private home where we got to meet a special guest, the preeminent historian of State Island, Barnett Shepherd, author of the 2010-published Tottenville: The Town the Oyster Built, published by the Tottenville Historical Society. (To put it another way, or maybe more or less the same way, the town was built on, and prospered from, the rich harvest of oysters in surrounding waters in the 19th century, until pollution put an end to its oyster trade.) Barnett had had quite a schlepp himself -- from the other side of the island, we were told, on an island that developed as a plethora of separate communities, where it's frequently not so easy to get from there to here.
On the May MAS Tottenville walking tour we made it to the Pavilion in Conference House Park at the southern edge of Staten Island, with a view across the Arthur Kill (separating Staten Island and New Jersey) of Perth Amboy, NJ.The one downside to that trip was the weather, which was mostly rotten. By the time we got to Conference House Park, the overcast and mist were so heavy that, while we could see across the Arthur Kill, which separates Staten Island from the North American mainland, to picturesque Perth Amboy, NJ, we couldn't see much else, and it wasn't exactly an ideal day for exploring the shorefront.
A ferry used to join Tottenville to Perth Amboy, nestled between the Arthur Kill and the Raritan River ("perhaps the major drainage channel along the ice front throughout the Wisconsin glaciation," according to Wikipedia) Now they're linked by the Outerbridge Crossing, whose name derives not from a geographical description, as most of us initially suppose, but from Staten Island resident Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge, the first chairman of the Port of New York Authority. It's called "crossing," it was explained to us, because how goofy would "Outerbridge Bridge" sound? There are decent views of the bridge from the Tottenville railway station, by the way.
The Outerbridge Crossing over Arthur Kill, from TottenvilleFor tomorrow the Conference House Park Conservancy is promising 45-minute shoreline walking tours (hourly, at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30) plus "local musicians on two stages, crafts, exhibitions from maritime organizations and historic societies, and plenty of entertainment for children, including a petting zoo and water rides."
Provided the weather cooperates, of course. I mean, I've already seen the view from the Conference House Park in crappy weather, and it's not worth six hours' combined travel time for that again! (At the moment, NY1.org is holding out: "Morning clouds/fog. Partly sunny in the afternoon. Spot thunderstorms." Uh-oh.)
An aerial view of the Pavilion in Conference House Park#
I am going to G..........
Gateshead, lol!for the mini green festival.see some of you tomorrowBill Quay FarmHainingwood TerraceGatesheadCreated by: South Tyneside and Sunderland Transition TownMore info South of Tyne Transition Town and Bill Quay Farm will be holding Gateshead's first community green fest on the 25th June 2011, from 11 o'clock to 4 o'clock. It is going to be family and learning focused with some folky
Kathmandu Essentials: Flying, Breathing, Eating
Look really hard and maybe you'll catch a glimpse of Kathmandu
Did you think I was exaggerating the other day when I mentioned Kathmandu's air is the most polluted of any big city on earth and that it's dangerous to go out without a carbon-filter mask? See that photo above? When I first started visiting Nepal in 1971, you could actually see the Shangri-La-like city from the ridge of mountains that sound it. Now you're just as likely to see... filthy air.
And it turns out that it's even dangerous to fly in the soupy mess. The top story in today's English-language newspaper, Republica is ominously entitled "Smoggy Skies Threaten Aviation in Kathmandu."
Many times, environmental issues are sidelined with the assumption that its consequences will be gradual and hence can be dealt with in the future. The question is, how long though?
“We could’ve been killed in that flight. The air pollution in Kathmandu has gotten so bad that if people don’t act now, we’re putting lives in danger here,” Kevin A. Rushing, the former USAID Mission Director to Nepal, commented in a recent conference.
“Just when our plane was about to land in Kathmandu, due to thick smog over the Valley, we couldn’t see the runway, we couldn’t see anything.
The plane then had to divert all the way around, reroute and keep flying in such a condition despite the turbulence risking the lives of all people on board.” He added, “If things don’t improve, you’d really think twice about flying to Kathmandu.”
Captain Vijay Lama, a pilot with Nepal Airlines who has been flying for more than two decades, says that Rushing’s anxiety is valid.
“The flying conditions in Kathmandu have become terrible, especially during winter”, he says. “In winter, when fog combines with smoke and other pollutants in the air, the resulting smog worsens the visibility, and it’s far worse than when it’s foggy.”
According to Lama, the rising pollution can have drastic effects on visibility on both land and in air. “There’s an increase in the number of flights being backlogged, and there are always delays after delays.
It’s all because of the smog and haze condition,” he says. “As the smog is heavier, it settles in lower altitude, and with the amount of smoke and dust particles that adds on with the moisture in the air, it becomes denser, making it impossible to fly.”
Whereas smog is mostly formed in the winter due to the mixture of smoke and fog, haze often occurs in pre-monsoon seasons that have relatively dry air, combining with the smoke and dust or particulate matters or total suspended particles (TSPs) in the air.
The chemicals which contribute to formation of smog also include harmful man-made and naturally occurring compounds, such as sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and ozone.
As reported by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), when these components of smog mix up, they can create dust clouds, black soot and gray fog. This can result in a smog cloud that can reduce visibility by 70 percent.
Captain Lama stresses that if the situation in the Kathmandu Valley isn’t addressed soon, the flying conditions will just get worse, and with the risks involved, the future of aviation in Nepal could be very bleak.
According to the 2006 report “Urban Air Quality Management Strategy in Kathmandu Valley” by Jitendra J. Shah and Tanvi Nagpal, atmospheric visibility data from Kathmandu’s airport, analyzed onwards from 1970, show that there’s been a very substantial decrease in the visibility in the Valley since about 1980.
The number of days with good visibility around noon has decreased in the winter months from more than 25 days per month in the 1970s to about five days per month in 1992/93.
“Visibility is the measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly distinguished or seen. In aviation, it can differ with the aircraft type,” says Mishri Lal Mandal, Deputy Director of Air Traffic Services (ATS) Division of Tribhuvan International Airport Civil Aviation Office (TIACAO).
Basically, for Visual Flight Rules (VFR) or visually aided flights, the minimum visibility to be maintained is 5km.
This means the pilot has to be able to clearly distinguish an object as far as five kilometers away with his eyes whereas for Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) or instrument aided flights, pilots can fly even with the visibility is 800 meters while taking off and 1,600m for landing, he informs.
As helicopters in Nepal only operate with VFR, it’s more risky for helicopter pilots, according to Captain Nischal KC, helicopter pilot at Air Dynasty.
“When there’s haze or smog, it gets very difficult for pilots not just in terms of visibility but they also get disoriented and nauseous at times,” says KC “As helicopter pilots don’t have an instrument landing aid, we have to fly by considering the artificial horizon, and a lot of experience is required.”
KC adds that it’s the reason why during pre-monsoons and winters, when haze and smog problems are at its peak, new pilots aren’t allowed to fly without experienced co-pilots.
Ratish Chandra Lal Suman, General Manager of TIACAO, says, “Instrument flights for the Kathmandu Valley are more complicated with its hilly terrains. (So) We’re planning to bring Required Navigation Performance Authorization Required (RNPAR) technology that can help flights operate even in poor visibility as it operates through satellite signals and follows a specific path and reduces pilot workload.”
Suman shares that the increasing trends in poor visibility conditions result in flights being diverted or stranded. Then, as soon as the conditions become favorable, flights start piling up, and there’s more load than the capacity of the terminal building.
"Safety is our first concern. So we don’t authorize any flight to operate in poor visibility," says Suman. "Besides that, we also lose out on a lot of revenue when flights have to be cancelled, diverted or rerouted due to poor visibility."
KC, however, points out that flights and helicopters are also given the go ahead if there’s a visibility of more than 1,000m. From then on, it’s the pilot’s decision whether to fly or not.
In the article "Are Nepali Skies Safe?" by Amish Raj Mulmi and published in the Kathmandu Post in August 2010, Lama also mentioned that there is pressure for pilots to fly no matter what the weather condition or visibility is like. And the pressure came from everywhere-- political leaders getting late for a meeting, to airline operators losing out on revenues.
...As air pollution in Kathmandu worsens and its skies become obscure with layers of haze and smog looming in its atmosphere, nothing is being done to assure the safety of the thousands of passengers flying in and out of there everyday. Civil aviation remains at risk, and if these conditions remain unchanged, it can only get worse.
Health impacts, Dr Arjun Karki, Chest Specialist at Patan Hospital, says that the primary effects due to smog or haze would obviously be on respiratory health.
"Lung diseases can become chronic, proportionate to the concentration and density of smog," he says. "And if the gases present in the smog comprise specific toxins, the harm could be even greater."
According to Karki, on one hand, smog and haze can aggravate the health of people who already have respiratory problems, like asthma, it can also trigger lung disease in healthy people as well.
"Besides, it also depends on the length of exposure," he says. "Besides respiratory health problems, it can also cause eye irritation for some people."
However, Dr Mukunda Prasad Kafle, physician and Lecturer at the Teaching Hospital, says that while the unhealthy effects of smog or haze in particular can be many, not enough studies in this regard have been conducted here.
"As smog and haze come under air pollution, we can deduce that the health problems are similar to the ones caused by air pollution, like lung diseases and other respiratory problems. And smog can have its own adverse effects as well."
Safe to fly into Nepal? Not anymore safe than breathing the air when you get here. And this week, the tarmac at Tribhuvan International Airport buckled, "developed" potholes, and collapsed, delaying all international and domestic flights to and from and within the country for at least three hours. There seems to be a consensus that the board of Nepal Airlines is responsible.
Lucknow's nearby & Kathmandu's Kakori offers fabulous Awadhi cuisine
Now what about the restaurants? Nepal isn't a culinary destination. The best that can be said about the restaurants in Kathmandu is that they're pretty good... for Kathmandu. The acclaimed tourist spots in the tourist ghetto of Thamel are universally mediocre, although some are rated less mediocre than others. But there's no reason to ever visit one twice, unless you're just looking for fuel for your body. There were three stand-outs and I'll leave the best for last, since it's the only restaurant in the country that's actually good, not just "good for Kathmandu.
We had dinner twice in what used to be the best Indian restaurant in town, Ghar-e-Kabab in the Hotel de l'Annapurna on Durbar Marg (Kathmandu's sad version of 5th Avenue). It's relatively fancy and formal although, by our Western standards, pretty inexpensive for a quality meal. Like all restaurants we visited, around half the menu catered to vegetarians and they're very aware that most westerners are afraid of spices. If you tell them you like it spicy, they give you a normal Indian meal.
We also ate in a few of the tourist-only Nepali restaurants that serve authenticish Newari food (surprisingly decent with music and dancing). The best one was Bhojan Griha on Dilli Bazaar, a medium walk from Durbar Marg. It's in an historic old house and the hospitality is wonderful. The set meals are fine and they offer an à la carte menu as well. We found the food much better than in Thamel House, an old hippie standard, or the newer Utsav, which-- at least the night we were there-- seems to cater primarily to tourists from China.
Now, the one world-class actually excellent restaurant in the whole city is Kakori, an Indian restaurant in the Soaltee Crowne Plaza Hotel, far the hell away from anywhere else in town-- a 200 rupee taxi ride (less than $3). It was briefly called the Bukhara, having been developed and run by the folks from the restaurant of the same name in New Delhi's Sheraton, probably the best high-end restaurant in India. I reviewed it when I ate there in 2007. Kakori serves Awadhi cuisine (from Lucknow) and the restaurant's menu was developed by Nawab Sayed Nazir Haider Kazmi, grandson of Great Nawab Mir Wazir Ali Kazmi of Kakori, Uttar Pradesh's princely family. We had as good a dinner as we would have had in a fine Indian restaurant in India or London and at a fraction of the price, though expensive by Nepal's standards. And if you read my review of the ultra-rich dahl they serve in the Bukhara in Delhi... yes, it's pretty much the same-- not exactly but at least just as good.
We're staying at the Yak & Yeti and their signature restaurant, The Chimney-- which I remember as Boris'-- serves Russian and "continental" cuisine. The menu didn't appeal to us and we passed it up this time around. My tip: acclimate yourself to the fact that Nepal has other traits than great cuisine (or air) to recommend itself and... bring some of your favorite bars with you as a backup.
UPDATE: Tourist Plane Crashes Near Kathmandu
Both times I went to get a look at the Himalayas, I walked. This last time, we noticed there were flights-- really expensive ones-- that take a couple dozen tourists for a ride around Mount Everest. One of them crashed today, killing everyone on board.
A plane carrying tourists to view Mount Everest crashed while attempting to land in dense fog in Nepal on Sunday, police and eyewitnesses said. A witness said 18 bodies were pulled out of the wreckage of the plane, which was carrying 19 people.
The Beechcraft-made plane belonging to Buddha Air was carrying 16 foreign tourists and three crew members and crashed in Bisankunarayan village, just a few miles (kilometers) south of the capital, Katmandu.
...An eyewitness, Haribol Poudel, told Avenues Television that the plane had hit the roof of a house in the village and that 18 bodies were pulled out. He said a man who appeared to have survived was taken to a hospital.
Poudel said it was foggy, and that visibility was very low in the mountainous area... The plane had taken the tourists to view Mount Everest and other high peaks and was returning to Katmandu. The “mountain flight” takes tourists over the Everest region, and passengers can view some of the world’s highest peaks from the airplane windows.
Most of the tourists on board were Indian-- most tourists in Kathmandu are from India-- but there were two Americans on board as well.
Adrian Ramsay says 'No Nukes!'
Greens say Britain should avoid dangerous nuclear distraction"Nuclear power creates a toxic legacy of waste and is bad value for money.Investing the same amount in energy efficiency and renewable energy wouldmake much more difference more quickly in reducing carbon emissions, makingour energy supply more secure and creating skilled, lasting jobs."Green Party deputy leader Adrian Ramsay responded
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Failed States Of South Asia-- India's Unhappy Neighborhood
In some ways India and its neighborhood is about as different from the U.S. as you can possibly be. I've been writing about that since I first went there in 1969. But, viewed from Kathmandu-- where the tourist scene these days is almost all Indian and where the English language TV channels are all Indian-- India is very much like the U.S. Oh, not that India... the other one, the 21st Century one. That one watches Glee, How I Met Your Mother, HBO and Indian TV shows that display a culture so disgustingly celebrity-oriented that it even puts our own to shame... well almost. I don't know what they call Madison Avenue in Mumbai but, God do these guys ever run the show.
I just watched an episode of a popular show, India's Most Desirable. I don't recommend it... but go ahead:
India has (another) problem. It's surrounded by the world's most failed states Africa's worse. Somalia's #1. Chad, Sudan, Nigeria, and the Congo, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Niger, Burundi, Kenya, Guinea Bissau, even Ethiopia are right up there among the world's most vulnerable countries. But none of those places are as much like our country as India is. And India's neighbor's... every single one of them is high on the list of the most failed states index:
#7- Afghanistan
#12- nuclear-armed Pakistan
#18- Myanmar
#25- Bangladesh
#27- Nepal
#29- Sri Lanka
#50- Bhutan
India doesn't have any other neighbors-- except Tibet, which isn't considered a country, but a region of China. But the occupation forces there apparently feel there's a problem. They just pulled all foreigners' visas for a month. I know. I was supposed to be there now.
On Pakistan, the report said, "Pakistan has long been dubbed the world's most dangerous country in Washington policy circles" and "yet Pakistan isn't just dangerous for the West-- it's often a danger to its own people."
On Bangladesh, the report said, two of five Bangladeshis live under the poverty line. Any improvements will also be fighting the environmental clock. If sea levels rise just by 1 metre, scientists warn, 17 per cent of the country could be submerged.
"Nepal is the poorest country in South Asia, according to the United Nations, and that's unlikely to change until the peace process is implemented and security restored. There are signs that the Maoists may be losing patience-- and thinking about going back to the trenches to fight for more," the report said.
On Sri Lanka, it said, "The government's final push against the rebels relied on the shelling of civilians and other atrocities, according to a 2010 report by the International Crisis Group.
"The most recent statistics from last year indicate that some 327,000 are still displaced from the conflict."
"Despite the pronounced fractures still lingering, the Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo seems eager to forget the past," it added.
I've visited almost all these countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1969 and 1972; Nepal 3 times, Sri Lanka in 1970 and again in 1997, Myanmar in 2007. I tried getting into Bhutan this month but it was so complicated and bothersome-- and the monsoon is so awful-- that we decided to go to Nepal and Tibet instead-- a bad idea (at least the Tibet part) because China was able to pull the rug out from under us suddenly after a year of planning. Do I feel like I'm in a failed state when I'm visiting these places? HELL YEAH! They're all unsafe on one level or another, usually more than one level. Some I affectionately refer to as hellholes. Even if we don't wind up in an airplane mishap here or get caught in the crossfire between the Maoists and garden variety Communists, Roland is certain we're taking a year off our lives just by breathing the air in Kathmandu.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Animated wireframe impossible triangles by Friedrich Lohmüller
http://im-possible.info/english/anim/a_lohmuller.html
Impossible triangles by Friedrich Lohmüller
http://im-possible.info/english/art/computer/friedrich-lohmuller.html
Kathmandu, Not #1 For Much... Except Pollution
I'm guessing anyone will look this dirty if they walked around Kathmandu for a day or two
I don't remember Kathmandu being especially more polluted than any of the Asian cities I visited in the late '60s and early '70s. Even in 1991, the last time I was here, the air quality wasn't especially unbearable. It is now. If there's one item not to forget when you plan a trip to Kathmandu, let it be as high a quality face mask as you can find. I've got one with a carbon filter by a company called I Can Breathe! I wouldn't go out of my hotel without it. Think I'm exaggerating? A couple weeks ago the Vancouver Observer published a feature by Linda Solomon, Air Pollution in Kathmandu Off The Charts.
She starts by pointing to a World Health Organization report that declares Kathmandu is now the most polluted city in Asia. The air here can kill you.
WHO scientists estimate 537,000 people in Southeast Asia and the Pacific die prematurely each year due to air pollution. The level of PM10 in the air of Kathmandu is 120 microgram per square meter. As per the standard of the World Health Organization, the level of PM10 should be 20 microgram per square meter. The level of PM10 is higher than the official standard in most of the places of Kathmandu valley.
The air in several Asian cities will kill you sooner of later: Beijing, Dhaka, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Kolkata, New Delhi, Shanghai... But Kathmandu is worst of all, a big development since our report on the world's worst city air in 2009. In the list from 2004 Kathmandu didn't even show up in the Worst 20. Solomon knew it was going to be polluted but she wasn't prepared for how terrible it is now. No one could ever be.
Kathmandu in the dark on the way to the hotel from the airport had been hard to evaluate, beyond the obvious: people were poor. Millions. And the air stank and didn't go down easily into the lungs. It was as bad or worse than the air I breathed in New York City right after 9/11. I had fled from post-World Trade Centre attack air, because I couldn't inhale it, and I believed it would do serious damage to my children's health. And people here were much breathing worse, like it was normal. They were stuck in it.
I had certainly HEARD about the pollution in big cities in the developing world. I'd experienced it in the nineties. But between the nineties and now, pollution had taken quantum leaps. I thought of my friends in Canada working so hard to fight climate change. By comparison Canada seemed so pristine. Here was where the real work would need to happen. Cities in the developing world. Cities like Kathmandu.
The noise pollution is easily the worst I've ever heard. All drivers honking all the time. It's almost unbearable to be out in traffic. That's why everyone who comes to Kathmandu can't wait to get away from the valley as soon as possible.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
That Petrol Emotion Big Decision
That Petrol Emotion!Marxist pop I love, Scritti Polliti, Gang of Four, etc.
Variation of impossible cube
Variation of impossible cube by Sjesoft http://im-possible.info/english/art/computer/sjesoft.html
Alberto Pizango believes that President-elect finds Peru in a deplorable condition.
The Amazon leader Alberto Pizango, exiled for time to Nicaragua by the previous Garcia government (who murdered the indigenous at Bagua in the government campaign to open the Amazon), has argued that the incoming President Humala finds Peru in a desperate state. Indigenous are in poverty and have had their land stolen for inappropriate projects. An economy that respects the indigenous and
Green Party argues MPs must act on cruelty
Greens call on MPs to listen to constituents' views on wild animal banThe Green Party has called on MPs to listen to the voices of theirconstituents this Thursday, when they have an opportunity to vote on a banon the use of wild animals in circuses and make the coalition act on thisissue. Nearly 3 out of 4 British citizens favour a ban. As MPs prepare to vote, ministers have tabled a
US government apologies to indigenous with $3.4bn award
Good news but comes after the systematic theft of resources by corporations and US governmentA US federal judge has approved a $3.4bn settlement over mismanaged Native American royalties, in a case that represents the largest settlement ever approved against the US government.Elouise Cobell of Browning, Montana, claimed in the 15-year-old suit that for more than a century, US officials
Monday, June 20, 2011
African Union says Libyan bombing must stop
On 15 June 2011, the United Nations Security Council and the African Union met to discuss the war in Libya. Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, gave the African Union’s stand on NATO’s bombing of Libya: Mr President, 1. Thank you for organising this interactive dialogue. It is good that the United Nations Security Council has met the African Union (AU)
M.C. Escher as a Child
M.C. Escher as a Child by John McPherson http://im-possible.info/english/art/cartoons/john-mcpherson.html
Green Party must confront war culture.
love water melon harris blog, great blog from Australia, must must must re-post more of his stuff.If you are in the know Leichhardt is a word to conjure with!More deaths in Afghanistan - the Greens must confront Australia's war cultureThe Greens attempt to challenge Australia’s Afghan war policy in parliament last year has by and large sunk without trace. In spite of recent polls showing
Peru After the Elections: A Panel Discussion
Peru After the Elections: A Panel Discussion Wednesday 22nd June 20114pm - 6pm Committee Room 4a Palace of WestminsterSW1A 0AAFollowing a tightly-run contest, left-of-centre candidate Ollanta Humala narrowly defeated Keiko Fujimori on 5th June 2011 to become Peru’s next president. But what will the new administration look like and what will be the major political, economic and social challenges
Nepal Heading Backwards On Same-Sex Marriage?
I was especially glad I've been taking my Rhodiola Force 300, which purports to help you feel more energetic and improve your mood, mental alertness, memory, and physical endurance but was recommended to me by an L.A. herbologist as something to help with altitude sickness. It's derived from Rhodiola rosea or Rose Root, an exalted herbal stress “adaptogen.” It thrives in high altitudes and in nature’s most challenging climates and is supposed to enhance concentration and endurance and support optimal immune, adrenal and cardiovascular function under conditions of severe stress. It's advertised as being "widely used by Russian athletes and cosmonauts to increase energy, Rhodiola delivers the promise of an inner oasis of peace and energy in our hurly-burly world... Those phytonutrients include numerous and unique anti-stress compounds like rosavins, salidrosides and other biologically active compounds." I spent yesterday trekking in the Himalayan foothills at around 8,000 feet. And I felt great, even in the rain. We were wandering around, looking down at the clouds, in knee-high rubber boots, sure we were protecting from the leeches. That was why we came to Nepal. That and... well this very accurate description by Frommer's that updates my own first memories of the place from a far more tranquil (and less "developed") 1971:
Kathmandu. The very name conjures up images of snow-covered peaks, snake charmers and mountaineers, holy men and sacred cows. Perhaps no other city on earth has seemed so mysterious. This city, capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, lies in a wide valley hidden behind a wall of nearly impenetrable mountains. Today, winging into Kathmandu on an international flight, the Mahabhaharat Range slides by below as the Himalayas shimmer in the distance. The jumbled landscape doesn't give the appearance that it could ever provide a level surface large enough to land a Boeing or Airbus. Then, as the peaks below grow uncomfortably close to the belly of the plane, mountainsides give way to gentler slopes and terraced hillsides, which are dun-colored in the post-monsoon months favored by trekkers. Brick houses dot the fields of a seemingly idyllic rural setting. Suddenly the city comes into view-- uniformly brown and low-rise, it sprawls across the valley floor. There's a quick glimpse of a huge white hemisphere in the distance, and suddenly the plane is on the runway. The passengers breathe a communal sigh of relief for having safely landed amid the Himalayan peaks. The excitement is palpable as passengers wait to deplane. Through the door lies Kathmandu, city of mystery, the most exotic city in Asia.
However, as feet hit tarmac, the reality of modern-day Kathmandu immediately comes to bear. The arrivals hall is a zoo and no one seems to know what to do. Guards want to inspect your bags as you leave the arrivals hall. Outside, hordes of taxi drivers, porters, and hotel touts block the exit door. Beyond the airport gates, the streets are chaotic at best. Clouds of blue-black smoke billow from diesel trucks, buses packed like sardine cans stop in the middle of the road, cows wander aimlessly, and horns blare incessantly. The smoke of funeral pyres mingles with the stench of garbage. Women in colorful saris dash out of the way of your careening taxi as it bounces upon potholes large enough to swallow a car.However, once you have settled into your hotel, you can venture out onto the streets of old Kathmandu, where a different picture slowly begins to emerge. Kathmandu is a city of alleyways leading into the unknown, a city where roadside shrines are sprinkled with marigold petals and aging temples double as produce markets. Strange odors--a melange of incense, cow dung, and rotting garbage-- drift through the streets. Eerie discordant music-- the tinny jangling of cymbals, the drone of a harmonium, the pulse of drums-- might fill a nearly deserted square at nightfall as musicians sit hunched over their ancient instruments on the floor of a tiny temple. In the market, vendors swaddled in woolen shawls sit behind baskets full of mandarins and radishes. Kathmandu has been called a medieval city, and it is hard not to think of it as such as you wander its back streets. The lanes are narrow, and in the oldest parts of town, there is little traffic (though the few cars and motorcycles that venture into these ancient alleys make frequent use of their horns). People do the heavy work here, not vehicles. They carry heavy-laden baskets on their backs or slung from poles across their shoulders. Perhaps time has not completely stood still in Kathmandu, but it certainly has not passed as swiftly as it has in other parts of the world.
For more than a hundred years Kathmandu was cut off from the outside world by a government that wished to keep the country isolated. When the royal family was restored to power in the mid-1950s, Nepal opened its borders and the painful process of entering the 20th century began. Today, Kathmandu has much of the Western world's technology, but alas, many of its environmental and social woes as well. There are cars and computers, fax machines and factories, cellular phones and satellite TV. There are also traffic congestion and smog, deforestation and unemployment. However, with the help of the West, Nepal is working to overcome these problems. Kathmandu is certainly no Shangri-la, but it is one of the world's most fascinating cities, nonetheless.
Last year we saw how Nepal had moved so far as to legalize same-sex marriage after the people dumped the monarchy, like anywhere a bastion of conservatism, and embarked on a new progressive path. Well, we're not here to get married and it probably wouldn't have even crossed my mind except when I was in our hotel's business center I tried to access a post Ken wrote at DWT about the politics of same-sex marriage in the New York State Senate, a place not nearly as advanced as Nepal. There's nothing "sexy," let alone prurient about the post. But it was auto-blocked on the public internet. (I can access it in my room over the same wireless system.)
There's a Communist primer minister, a Maoist revolutionary opposition and one of the world's most vibrant revolutionary atmospheres in Nepal now. But there are also second-thoughts about the legalization of same-sex marriage, now three years old.
Gay rights activists are alarmed by a new bill that could become law soon if approved by parliament as part of the government's bid to modernise the legal code-- Muluki Ain, or law of the land-- formulated in 1854 first.
The law and justice ministry, in consultation with judges, has completed the drafts of a new criminal code and a civil code of law, which were submitted in parliament recently after being approved by the council of ministers. ... The marriage clauses in the new codes define the union as only that between a man and a woman, treating homosexual unions as "unnatural sex offenses."
"The proposed civil and criminal laws contain provisions to re-criminalise so-called 'unnatural sexual offenses'," [said Manisha Dhakal, a transgender and senior member of the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's pioneering gay rights organisation]. "These attempts by the law ministry are a clear sign not to follow international human rights standards, a clear intention not to implement the Supreme Court's decision and also go against the spirit of the interim and new draft constitution of Nepal."
In November 2008, Nepal's Supreme Court recognised homosexuals as a "natural people" and asked the government to ensure that they received the same rights and considerations as any other citizen. In the landmark judgment, the court also ordered the government to enact laws to allow same-sex marriages.
...Since 2008, Nepal has established itself as a gay rights haven with people flocking to the Himalayan nation for same sex unions.
In the past, couples from India and Britain have tied the knot in Nepal and during the monsoon, the Blue Diamond Society has planned a public wedding between a lesbian couple from the US.
The weddings are part of the community's effort to draw gay tourists to Nepal and have been welcomed by Nepal's tourism ministry, which is celebrating 2011 as Nepal Tourism Year with the target of bringing in one million air-borne visitors.
On my way to Nepal, I stopped over for a couple days in Hong Kong, one of the world's most modern cities. In many ways it's more modern, at least superficially, than any city in the U.S. But not in a gay way. There was a big to-do over the city-state, a semi-autonomous part of China, hiring a "gay conversion expert" to "cure" government employees.
Hong Kong has hired a prominent local psychiatrist who claims he can "re-wire" homosexuals as a trainer for its social welfare staff, sparking outrage among gay rights activists on Friday.
Critics said the move could be the world's first government-sponsored training session on gay conversion therapy, which includes prayer, cold showers and practising abstinence as a way to avoid same-sex relationships.
"The government seems to think that homosexuals are possessed by evil spirits and needed to be 'cleansed' or 'cured' through conversion therapy," Joseph Cho, a spokesman for gay rights group Rainbow Action, told reporters during a protest outside the city's Social Welfare Department Friday.
"They are criminalising people with same sex orientation-- this is an international joke," he added. ... Despite its reputation as an international financial hub, critics said Hong Kong remains a conservative city when it comes to gay rights, only decriminalising homosexuality in 1991.
A government survey in the 1990s concluded that most Hong Kong residents were "not ready" for laws banning discrimination against homosexuals, and the city had made little headway since to protect gays, said Dora Choi, director of the Gender Studies Committee at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
"(But) this is very bizarre that the government would sponsor classes like these," she told AFP.
"It is the first time the government has publicly taken a stance on this issue. (It) should be neutral but it is obviously taking sides," she added.
Maybe both these countries are ready to write off gay tourists and eager to invite evangelicals instead. Good luck with that!
UPDATE: This url is blocked here!
I guess "same sex marriage" triggers an auto-blocking mechanism. But this one isn't just blocked in public areas but in my own room! I feel like I'm back in Myanmar!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Impossible open cube
Mosaic of impossible open cube by Carolien Reef http://im-possible.info/english/art/applied_art/carolien-reef.html
Daisy Zapata Fasabi salutes the Aymara struggle for Mother Earth!
Aymara protesters have mobilised to stop a silver mine on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Southern Peru, three days ago, their leader Walter Aduviri was threatened with arrest by Alan Garcia's government after a TV interview.For a time Aduviri was trapped in the TV building but is now free, Garcia's police murdered hundreds of indigenous Amazonians at Bagua.The vice president of the federation of
Grill 3
Grill 3 by Andreas Aronsson http://im-possible.info/english/art/computer/andreas-aronsson.html#2011-06-19
Brian Haw - Rest in the peace you fought for every day
So sad that Brian Haw has died.He worked for peace and was a thorn in the side of the killer clowns in the House of Commons.Met him once or twice, a towering presence and a proud embarrassment to the killers, arms dealers, back bench MPs who did so much evil.He was persecuted everyday....him memorial will be more of us making a noise for peace.Saturday 18th June 2011 Dear friends and supporters,
'"Activism is my rent for living on the planet."
Alice Walker once said "Activism is my rent for living on the planet."I owe Alice a big thank you, when I was writing my anthology 'Green History', published in 1993, she let me use her piece 'Nobody was supposed to survive' about the MOVE organisation, radical ecologist murdered in Philadephia.You can find it fairly easily on the net and its always worth reading:'Nobody was supposed to survive.'
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Palestinians call for flotilla support
More than 40 Palestinian civil society organisations released a statement on June 12 calling for international support for the Freedom Flotilla 2, which aims to break the siege of Gaza.The first freedom flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza was violently attacked in May, 2010. Israeli commandoes killed nine Turkish volunteers aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla’s lead ship.Israeli troops
"They care more about trees than people"
Interesting article from Naomi about the population debate from last year, Amartya Sen's work on population and the 100 million missing womenis also essential.Charles Coven wrote recently in the Sunday Times of the green dividend to the child benefit cut. Put simply, less benefits will result in fewer children and therefore less consumption and while this is not the aim of the cuts it is
Friday, June 17, 2011
De antropomorfe schoenen van Magritte op een tafel van JdM
De antropomorfe schoenen van Magritte op een tafel van JdM by Jos de Mey
http://im-possible.info/english/art/mey/mey12.html#105
New victory for Amazon indigenous as Peru recognises their languages
Aidesep are amigos of amigos, the federation of indigenous Amazon people in Peru, they mobilise for their communities and Mother Earth especially seeking to conserve the Amazon.I have quickly translated this news of the new law in Peru to defend indigenous languages. Spread the word, salute Aidesep!AIDESEP, June 15, 2011. The Peruvian Congress has approved the Law for the preservation and use of
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Impossible fork
Impossible fork by R. Stevens http://im-possible.info/english/art/computer/stevens.html
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Hommage aan Arcimboldo-zomer
Hommage aan Arcimboldo-zomer by Jos de Mey http://im-possible.info/english/art/mey/mey12.html#104
Optical illusion font
Optical illusion font by Regan Fred Johnson http://im-possible.info/english/art/misc/fonts/regan-fred-johnson.html
Green leader challenges homophobe visit to parliament
Green Party leader in Scotland, Patrick Harvie does an impressive job, just spotted this story.Brigham Young is a hardcore anti-LGBT university, what with Brian Souter's support for the SNP it makes one wonder whether an independent Scotland would be friendly to LGBT people.BY university states quite boldly: "Homosexual behavior or advocacy of homosexual behavior are inappropriate and violate the
Mass blockade of Hinkley nuclear power station announced
With Italy being the latest European country to reject nuclear power, a coalition of anti-nuclear groups in Britain has announced plans to hold a mass non-violent blockade of Hinkley Point nuclear power station on 3rd October. The plant, near Bridgwater in Somerset, is expected to be the site of the first new nuclear power station, if current plans go ahead.Hundreds of campaigners are expected to
Green politics and socialism
Chris Burton joined the Green Party because of its environmental policies but has increasingly been impressed by its socialist principles.Here he kicks off a debate.To my mind Caroline Lucas has got this right already, no ecology without social justice.Socialism must be 'eco', democratic and effecient (think commons/open source/Ostrom).Indeed Caroline has written about Elinor Ostrom
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Sign the petition for arrested students
www.defendtherighttoprotest.org Defend the right to protest – Drop the charges – Full independent investigation into SOAS arrests now! On late Monday afternoon, a hundred students and staff from SOAS and the University of London assembled to protest against Universities Minister David Willetts’ visit to the college. In order to avoid a repetition of what happened to A.C. Grayling’s lecture at
Eider duck or how sustainability can still be cruel.
My surprise was slightly modified when I knew that this tranquil and solemn personage was only a hunter of the eider duck, the down of which is, after all, the greatest source of the Icelanders' wealth.In the early days of summer, the female of the eider, a pretty sort of duck, builds its nest amid the rocks of the fjords—the name given to all narrow gulfs in Scandinavian countries—with which
Urban Gadabout: Two toxic-waterway tours in a single week -- does it get any better?
Scenic Superfund site: Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal
by Ken
The tease on the contents page of this week's Time Out New York got me: "Explore Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal, two of NYC's Superfund wonders." I confess that both of these industriaily befouled NYC waterways have fascinated me for ages, and I've become increasingly curious about having more or less direct contact with me.
Newtown Creek is the western segment of the boundary between the borough of Queens to the north and Brooklyn (which is Kings County, of course) to the south. Gowanus Canal is the man-expanded expansion of a onetime tidal inlet which links the onetime industrial heartland of central Brooklyn to Upper New York Bay. Both are massively polluted, and have been anointed Superfund sites, though it's my understanding that so little action is being taken on so many sites ahead of them on the list that one might not want to hold one's breath till the fund gets to them. One might, however, wish to hold one's breath around them for other reasons.
There has been increasing attention paid, and actual visitation, to both. Hence my response to the TONY tease. But imagine my horror when I thumbed ahead and found an entire magazine page devoted to a pair of events dedicated to these woebegone waterways, and it turned out that the events in questions are tours offered by the Municipal Art Society (MAS; the website is an incredibly easy-to-remember mas.org), which I already have marked as "must do"s on my calendar:
* Crossing Newtown Creek, this Wednesday evening (June 15), led by one of my most valued tour leaders, urban geographer (and Queens borough historian) Jack Eichenbaum.
* Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, this coming Sunday (June 19), led by MAS mainstay Matt Postal, an architectural historian with whom i've done countless tours, most recently day before yesterday: a tour of the skyscrapers of Park Avenue (starring Lever House and the Seagram Building, of course).
Now I hope it's blindingly clear that the horror to which I referred above is no reflection on the tours themselves. Let me stress that it would take some sort of personal crisis or mighty extreme weather (of the kind that would probably cause tour cancellation anyway), to keep me away from either of these tours. No, the horror is purely selfish. I'm just concerned about the effect this outstanding (and well-deserved) advance publicity is going to have on attendance.
You have to understand that the Municipal Art Society organizes its walking tours around the city, which it's been doing for 55 years now, in two ways -- some by advance reservation and payment, some by and pay-at-tour walkup. I have a personal fondness for the preregistered tours, which (1) put a cap on the number of registrants and also let me assure my place. In the mere eight months I've been a member (and it was, as I've mentioned, Jack Eichenbaum who first clued me in to MAS, when I did a sensational New York Transit Museum tour with him visiting three NYC subway nodes, which is to say places where two or more separate subway lines intersect, and seeing how being a transit hub has shaped those areas' development), I've learned to haunt the MAS website as the time approaches for announcement of the next two- or three-month bloc of scheduled tours, and to pounce on it and do a slew of online registrations.
DID I MENTION THAT THE STANDARD PRICE . . .
. . . for MAS tours is a paltry $10 for members and $15 for nonmembers? Longer tours are priced accordingly. For example, this Saturday (June 18) I'm doing a half-day visit to Staten Island's Stapleton Heights with the amazingly well-informed and informative urban historian Justin Ferate, with whom I did a truly memorable most-of-the day tour last month to Tottenville, the southern tip of Staten Island. The Stapleton Heights tour, which is by reservation, and for which I think there may still be places available, is $20 for members, $25 for nonmembers.
By the way, an MAS individual membership is only $50, and benefits include a chit for a free nonreserved tour.
Speaking of the nonreserved tours, I've done plenty of them in my eight months too. The thing is, if the weather is good, and especially if the tour has been picked up by one of the big-reach media outlets -- I sometimes wonder how many zillions of people who just don't know about these tours, the way I didn't for so long, would show up if they knew about them -- the group can get pretty large. (Sometimes there's simply no explaining why people do or don't come out. In March I did a tour of Brooklyn's Crown Heights North with Matt Postal, who's doing the Gowanus Canal tour, on a not especially pleasant-looking Saturday, a tour that Matt indicated hadn't gotten much media notice, and the turnout was huge. Fortunately, Matt is extremely good with large groups, keeping them organized and in good hearing range.) It's another mark of what a bad person I am that after the big TONY spread, maybe the weather won't be so great Wednesday evening and Sunday morning.
AS IT HAPPENS, I'VE ALREADY MISSED THE
"CROSSING NEWTOWN CREEK" TOUR ONCEWe'll actually be crossing the Pulaski Bridge from (r to l)
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to Long Island City, Queens.
It was in early November, not long after my Transit Museum tour with Jack Eichenbaum, and I had joined MAS and gotten my free-tour chit in time to make this my first MAS tour. What's more, I even worked out the formidable transit logistics of getting from the way north of Manhattan to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and arrived at the tour location what I considered a perfect 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled start time. Or it would have been if the tour was Sunday, when I arrived. Unfortunately, it was Saturday, so instead of being early, I was 24 hours late, or maybe 23 hours and 45 minutes.
(And wouldn't you know, there are not one but two other events Wednesday night that I dearly want to do, one of them a class I had previously scheduled and had to cancel when for medical reasons, the other something that's not likely to be repeated this year. I spent a couple of weeks going back and forth between them, even trying to figure out whether I could attempt to do both, which fortunately prevented me from registering for either, whenl I finally looked at the calendar and realized it's the same night as "Crossing Newtown Creek.")
As it worked out, my actual first MAS tour, later in November, was one with Matt Postal, and as I think I've mentioned here, it's still perhaps my favorite from a conceptual standpoint: a walk along the route of Robert Moses's never-built Lower Manhattan Expressway.
For those who are curious about what TONY dubbed "Postindustrial waterfront tours," for each, writer Andrew Frisciano begins with sections on "Where it is," "The history," and "How polluted is it?"
NEWTOWN CREEK
Wednesday, June 15, 6pm-8pm
Will hanging out there kill you? Probably not, although small amounts of harmful vapors have been detected. “When you get down to the water’s edge, the creek itself is pretty dismal,” says Eichenbaum. “But it’s not completely dead -- I’ve seen cormorants sitting on the side of Newtown Creek. They dive for fish, so there have to be some there.”
What you’ll see on the tour: Eichenbaum will stop at the nature trail that surrounds NCWTP [the Newtown Creek Water Treatment Plant]: The walkway, lined with sculpted concrete walls and native plants, features an amphitheater-like area for admiring the water. “Once you’re down at the creek level, the city opens up and becomes a much more horizontal landscape,” he says. The tour also visits the Pulaski Bridge to visit Long Island City’s Gantry Plaza State Park, which sits next to a cluster of shiny new condos. “You’re seeing resurgence in all kinds of industrial neighborhoods,” says Eichenbaum. “The artistic community has found new niches in these places.”
Check it out! Crossing Newtown Creek walking tour; meet at northeast corner of Greenpoint and Manhattan Aves, Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
GOWANUS CANAL
Sunday, June 19, 11am-1pm
Will hanging out there kill you? No, but you’ll probably get a whiff of something gross. “I notice [the smell] around Union Street or Butler Street,” says Postal. “There’s nowhere for it to go.” In 1999, the city repaired a flushing tunnel, which brings fresh water into the canal, to help ameliorate the stench. “There’s no question that it’s better than it was ten years ago,” says Postal. Plus, a recent study turned up an array of fish and even crabs -- though eating them isn’t advised.
What you’ll see on the tour: Postal will point out historic landmarks, including the retractable Carroll Street Bridge, built in 1889 and still functional today. He’s also interested in how the neighborhood’s residents interact with the canal’s industrial origins; off-the-grid types have built homes on the canal, while creative spaces embrace the canal’s less-than-pleasant past. “Proteus Gowanus [a stop on the tour] has an area of their building called Hall of the Gowanus, which is a kind of artistic response to the history of the area,” Postal says.
Check it out! Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal walking tour; meet at northwest corner of President and Smith Sts, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
#
Monday, June 13, 2011
Impossible staircase
Impossible staircase by Oscar Reutersvärd http://im-possible.info/english/art/reutersvard/reut10.html#128
Caroline Lucas looks to decriminalising drugs
An urgent new evidence-based approach is needed to tackle the UK’s drug crisis and make our communities safer, Caroline Lucas MP will say today.The Green party leader will make a speech to NHS healthcare professionals in Brighton this evening. She will echo the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which earlier this month called for a major review of drugs policy.The Brighton MP will
Italian voters say good bye to Berlusconi
Just got this from an Italian facebook friend.WE WON!!!! The referendum in Italy repealed the laws for the return of nuclear power, for privatization of water and immunity for prime minister. The age of Berlusconi is coming to an end. In a green way ;)...looks like Italy is heading in the Green direction.Love to see Blair in prison with Berlusconi, Tony used to borrow the old crooks holiday home.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Indigenous leaders threatened with death
Indigenous leaders, community members, rural workers and members of socialmovements are receiving death threats because of their opposition to the BeloMonte Dam Complex on the Xingu River in Pará, Brazil. The threats, which have been going on for some time now, are adding to anextremely tense situation which has only worsened [...]Continue Reading:http://intercontinentalcry.org/
EUROZONE IN CRISIS - Solidarity with the Resistance
just had this from Joseph Healy, gracias Joseph.EUROZONE IN CRISIS - Solidarity with the ResistanceWednesday 15 June 6:30pmUniversity of London Union, Malet Street, London WC1Speakers:Esther Romero, Democracia Real Ya – LondonSofia Hilari, Greek anticapitalist activistKate Hudson CNDAlex Kenny, NUTThe EU, the IMF, and the European Central Bank have created a Europe of bailouts for the rich and
#SpanishRevolution, and the Commons Here and Now
Its commons or catastrophe, I believe.Going to take part in this splendid event, hope some of my readers do too....spread the word24 June · 13:00 - 17:00Location SOAS - School of Oriental and African Studies London, Woburn Suite Large Room (B102)Thornhaugh Street, Russell SquareLondon, United Kingdom “In the beginning, nobody, not the traditional media, nor the big parties thought that it was a
Climate change' an excuse to pay bankers a bonus and steal forests?'?
The global solutions to climate change are pants, they use market mechanisms to commodify nature, and to line the pockets of bankers....even the survival of the planet is an excuse for the fattest people on the planet to put on more weight. Stupidity and greed are the statues that worshipped by the policy makers, we need real action on climate change and we need it now.REDDS as Bolivian
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Indigenous welcome Humala victory but remain firm in their protest
video is a little out of date but if you don't hable Espanol, it will give an idea....sin embargo its best to get the news from the indigenous rather than mainstream media...Just translated this, the indigenous welcome Humala's victory but remain firm. The social movements in Peru are strong and strong in defence of their rights and the rights of Mother Earth, I salute them, spread the word,
Summer Travel Plans-- The Price Of Gas To Last Minute Reservations At The Best Restaurant In Hong Kong
Although Hutong has the best views in town, it's even better known for it's incredible kitchen
A political polling firm, Anzalone Liszt Research, usually spends its time helping elect Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats. Perhaps because their client base was so badly decimated in the last election, they recently turned to examining how Americans plan on spending their time off, and their concerns about summer travel. Actually what they did was interpret the Trip Advisor survey that predicts that "despite a still-weakened economy and rising gas prices, a majority of Americans plan on getting away this summer, many of them by car"-- 86% of us. (up from 83% last year).
USAToday found that 61% of Americans believe that it is important to get away from home this summer, including 36% who said that it is "very" important. Despite this, CNN cites a Reuters poll that found that only 57% of US workers take off all the days they are entitled to.
A plurality of Americans will travel within the US, finds an AOL users poll (49%), and they are traveling with family (40%) compared with 36% who are not. In May, AAA's Memorial Day study found that 88% of Americans said they would travel via car for their trips that weekend, and TripAdvisor finds that 63% will travel by car for their summer travel plans. TripAdvisor also finds that 50% of Americans traveling this summer are heading towards a city destination, and New York City, Boston, and Washington DC top the list of cities. Closely behind cities are ocean destinations (40%), and then national parks (18%) and lakes (16%).
Cost is a concern among American travelers this year, and they expect to pay more this year for their travel. USA Today finds that 71% expect to spend more on transportation costs for their trips this year, and a AAA survey finds that 39% have scaled back their own vacation plans because of the rising gas prices. AAA finds that gas prices are already nearly a dollar more expensive than last year-- last Memorial Day weekend the average gas price was $2.85/gallon; this year it was $3.91. Americans expect prices to continue to climb this summer, and 76% believe they will hit at least $4.50. Twenty-six percent expect them to reach $5, and 13% see them exceeding $5.
Rising airfare costs are an additional cause of irritation to American travelers, tying the cost of gas for their biggest pet peeve when traveling (37%) according to AOL. Twenty-one percent of Americans say they would be willing to drive up to 10 hours to save money on airfare, and 43% have had to book connecting flights to reach their destination to stay within their travel budgets. Airline fees also frustrate travelers, and nearly half (46%) believe that the checked baggage fee is the most annoying, followed by 24% who believe seat selection fees are, and 18% who are most annoyed by the carry-on bag fees. Regardless of their irritation, 72% of Americans expect fees in general to rise during the remainder of the year.
Me... I'm making the last minute touches to my summer travel plans. I e-mailed the hotel in Kathmandu and persuaded them to give us a free upgrade to a two room suite. It's low season and there's an incipient revolution in Nepal and I knew the rooms wouldn't be in great demand. It just took two e-mails to convince them. I also made dinner reservations for my first night in Hong Kong-- I'm stopping on my way to Nepal to get my Asia sea legs-- at my all-time favorite Kowloon restaurant, Hutong. I e-mailed them for a table; they e-mailed me back with a reservation for 90 minutes at one of the most sought after tables in town. Then lunch the next day at Yan Toh Heen. And... on a more mundane level, if you print out your on-demand Nepal visa application, fill it out, stick on a passport-sized photo and have your $30 cash in hand, you don't have to wait on line at the airport. So I did that too.
Take action against Brian Souter knighthood
We the undersigned are deeply offended that Brian Souter has been awarded a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2011.Mr. Souter ran a campaign of fear and misinformation which was deeply hurtful to the LGBT community in Scotland.The Keep The Clause Campaign increased hatred towards an already victimised group and saw a corresponding increase in violence against LGBT people.We believe that
Oil is thicker than blood?
Lot of hot air about climate change but when the indigenous defend the Amazon and stop it being wrecked by gas and oil companies, how many environmentalist defend them from the death squads?Too busy worrying about climate change to defend the indigenous defending our collective future?Two years ago over a hundred indigenous people were massacred at Bagua. Defeating the hard right candidate in
Friday, June 10, 2011
Foto voor de identiteitskaart van een Homo Geometricus Magrittianis
Foto voor de identiteitskaart van een Homo Geometricus Magrittianis by Jos de Mey http://im-possible.info/english/art/mey/mey12.html#103
Another World is Probable: Opening of the People's Bookshop in Durham
Just had this from Benm gracias Ben!As many of you will know, since leaving the TUC at the end of February, I have been hatching a plan to open a second hand bookshop in Durham. The first stage came with the discovery of a beautiful little space tucked away in Saddlers Yard. Now, after a lot of hard work, the rest of the pieces of the jigsaw have finally been shoved into place and on Saturday the
Tahrir is in Yorkshire
DEMOCRACY CAMP YORKLibrary Square until at least SundayInspired by similar camps around Europe and in Trafalgar Square, the camp is turning the newly revamped Library Square into a place to debate the failures of our current political system, and cuts are high on the agenda. A statement explaining the camp (and an early draft) are on the website: http://democracycampyork.wordpress.comRegular news
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Vote Tory, kill a cyclist?
Injury and death to cyclists seems to be the policy!JennyJones AM, Green Party candidate for London Mayor 2012, has responded afterConservative Assembly Members walked out on her motion calling for theretention of the 20mph speed limit on Blackfriars Bridge. The temporarylimit was put in place due to road works, but Jenny's motion would havesent a strong message to Mayor Boris Johnson that the
Sian Berry joins the mutiny!
Sian Berry former London Green Party Mayoral Candidate is going to be a star attraction at the Mutiny on 4th July.Love the mutiny, always a good night.“Work is the curse of the drinking classes”, joked Oscar Wilde. And today there are few lives which are not blighted by work. Hours seem to ever increase, wages have stagnated and fallen in real terms, bosses continue to be vindictive.Mutiny
Peruvians say Earth First! Profit Last!
well the slogan is "Mina no, agro si" but saw this on the Earth First! UK site while I was finding out more about the mining protests.24th May 2011For more than two weeks, thousands of people have blocked an international border in Peru — and almost no one in the English-speaking world seems to have noticed.The story has fallen through the cracks, but here's what's happening:A proposed mining
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Vandana Shiva on the great India land grab
Land is life. It is the basis of livelihoods for peasants and indigenous people across the Third World and is also becoming the most vital asset in the global economy. As the resource demands of globalisation increase, land has emerged as a key source of conflict. In India, 65 per cent of people are dependent on land. At the same time a global economy, driven by speculative finance and limitless
Massimo De Angelis on commons
Massimo De Angelis: My interest in the commons is grounded in a desire for the conditions necessary to promote social justice, sustainability, and happy lives for all. As simple as that.MORE HERE
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Caroline Lucas MP argues conservation limited if no real action on carbon
GOVERNMENT'S MIXED MESSAGES ON NATURAL ENVIRONMENT COULD HAMPER CONSERVATION EFFORTS, SAYS GREEN MPGreen MP Caroline Lucas today warned that the Coalition Government's inconsistency on policies to protect our natural world and encourage a greener, more sustainable economy could ultimately hamper conservation efforts.While she welcomed the Natural Environment White Paper published by the
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