Of myths and lemmings

After the apocalypse (definition: revelation) and/or cliff  - what next?

Fact: Death (in some form) awaits us all.

Myth: Lemmings fall out of the sky and/or commit mass suicide.

A lemming corpse

Prognosis: Certain legends, folktales and myths continue to endure over the span of several human generations. [Sidebar: "The patient is not dead, doctor!"]

Over and over again, the memory of lessons learned (albeit not always or often directly) wither away and human groupings, tribes, even nations arise that proclaim superior knowledge; and, occasionally, combined in that, "leadership" skills.

It would seem that just like the mythical lemmings "fallen from the sky," and apparently ready to move forward en masse no matter the obstacle, human beings (exalted, enlightened) go through varying, less apparently instinctive cycles.

The result, at least mythically or metaphorically or sometimes, actually - is that human beings do follow certain leadership, unquestioningly.

Whether through the wilderness, over cliffs or over mountains - "because they are there" - the mysterious; some call it, "divine" quality of human faith, fantasy and folly continues onward.

Now, certainly, in this great age of wonders - never seen before - perhaps, maybe, finally, we might actually get our stories (la grande perspective) right?

Happy New Year!

A new world inquisitor for the end world inquisitive

As the "end of the world" according to Mayan calendar (not calendars) enthusiasts draws near, it might be of some interest here (and elsewhere) to reflect upon the fall (but certainly not the last days) of that civilization.

Diego de Landa Calderón,
(12 November, 1524 – 1579) Bishop of Yucatán

First, discovering Spanish Franciscan missionary Diego de Landa and the bigger picture of his legacy as it stands today:

"In 1549, he was assigned to the Yucatan peninsula where the zealous young friar became one of the first Franciscans to live among the Mayas, learning to speak their language and taking extensive notes about their culture. For more than a decade, Landa and his fellow missionaries struggled to convert the Mayas to Christianity while the indigenous people steadfastly clung to their own spiritual beliefs. Finally, Landa launched an inquisition against the Mayas, torturing thousands and killing more than one hundred in an effort to get them to confess to human sacrifice and other sins."

Secondly, I came across the The Sacred Waters of the Riviera Maya, also known as the cenotes (or sinkholes; deep natural pits) of the Mayas.

Reading carefully one might conclude something remarkable as well as ominous in the story based
on evidence (of human and other sacrifice) found in these sacred waters, which were also an incredibly important resource of fresh water for the Mayans. A theory (one of many)  therefore offered is that the waters became contaminated by the very human sacrifices offered to what was believed to be the entrance to the underworld.

I, personally, could not help but think of these two sets of knowledge together, historically, as well as quite antithetically.

"Evil" religious expression versus evil "religious" expression and/or culture clash ending in forgone conclusion.

God dead *versus* god killed.

Or perhaps I'm way off in such thoughts and for the Mayans (and Catholics/Christians, interestingly) the dead merely represent and supersede all and anything we, the living, can conceive or concoct with our limited, fleshly minds?

And hypothetically, a few questions arise:

Could the (ultimate) encounter have gone any differently? 

What if Bishop Diego de Landa Calderón (his authorities and proxies) had been more tolerant and loving?

What if both Mayans and Catholics had simply learned from each other, grown and changed naturally over the course of time?

Today, the remnant of Mayan culture is getting a lot of attention, ironically, based much upon Bishop Diego de Landa's own writings.

And well it should; for in this new era of peak civilization, the lessons of past encounters, in particular, may helps save us from ourselves - again.



 

The cult of vanity

It amazes me, when I actually take time to simply - Stop, Breathe, Consider - that human beings, all of us, with our inherent impulse to live, move, sense and understand have not all gone into a state of absolute apoplexy, or, where possible; an endless, blissful trance.

Taken in totality (possible these days to some degree, anyway), the vast sum of all human knowledge would seem to lead us (each to each) to that great, terrible, tantamount conclusion . . .

In this Holy Day or Holiday season, whatever the case may be:

Cherish each other and continue working (if you got it or can) to "earn your neighbor's love." 

 Galaxies Collide in the Antennae Galaxies (NASA-Chandra Hubble Spitzer)

Helicopter dreams

Everything is Incredible is the story of a man suffering from the debilitating effects of polio who has dedicated his life to building a working helicopter out of re-bar, bicycle parts and wood. For the last 50 years, Agustin has spent all his energy on his quest to fly and prove to the world that he isn't crazy.

As stated on the "campaign" site Round 2:

The objective is two fold

1. Raise enough funds to help Agustin with living expenses by purchasing the helicopter and his home. He will retain both and at the end of his life the helicopter will be preserved to be a lasting legacy of who Agustin is and how he spent his life.

2. We would also like to raise enough to try and get Agustin up in a helicopter.

All of this will be filmed to make a feature length film about this amazing man.

On the other hand, foot, propeller, blade, etc. (or in addition to the above) you can donate to Red Cross disaster relief here.

Rumsfeld on the Decline of America

The video seems to be unavailable. No surprise as things go. Here is the pertinent excerpt:

"Let me be clear: I do not believe America is destined to stay on the current trajectory toward becoming something less than a first-rate country . . . . Only America’s leaders can stand in the way of the American people’s rendezvous with the future. "I don’t think it will surprise anyone to learn that I think changing the trajectory of the last four years requires changing the leadership at the top."

To read the rest of some of Donald Rumsefeld's remarks, go here.

A gulag closes

Unconfirmed reports circulating since June of this year seem to be, at least, partially confirmed that a North Korean prison camp has been closed.

The Wall Street Journal Asia in a report referring to a report from The Daily NK ("a still slightly shaky report – but believable enough given the track record of the Web site," according to the WSJ) states that indeed, after "tracking down the rumor for months,"  "the camp was shut down in June."

Apparently precipitated by the repercussions of events involving the warden running off with another officer to China,  a source told the defector-staffed news site that, “At the start of March they started transferring the sick and malnourished, and then in April they moved all the healthiest ones.”

According to the source, it is "unclear" where the prisoners are now.

At the height of its usage in the 1990s, Camp 22 (Kwan-li-so No. 22) is believed to have held up to 50,000 people.  At 31 miles long and 20 miles wide, it was the largest of the six remaining "giant gulags" in North Korea.

Based on the guilt by association principle (Korean: 연좌제, yeonjwaje) prisoners were most often imprisoned together with the whole family, including children and the elderly - until death.

One down,  five to go, or perhaps not.

For every door that closes, sometimes it is not a window that opens, but merely another door.

In this case, the door is unlikely to be one to freedom.

Quiet Resolve

Few "points of light" have lifted my spirit, of late, but the vision of Aung San Suu Kyi on a tour of America has somehow managed to do just that.

Speaking to supporters last year

Beyond any US domestic politics, she represents what few still do in this day and age: A very real symbol and voice (though still small, perhaps) for hope and change in her oppressed, "gulag" controlled country of Myanmar (Burma).

As the highlight of her two weeks, escorted and draped by various cognizatti (representative, it is hoped, of the full American democratic spectrum) she will travel to Fort Wayne, Indiana, home to over 5,000 Burmese expatriates.

Spending much of the last 20 years under "house arrest" by her country's military junta, Ms. Suu Kyi has received several noteworthy awards as well as much acclaim, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

May her voice only get louder.

Not the Movie: Follow-up

Guy Taylor in yesterday's Washington Times provided some interesting insights on the milieu of the brutal murders in Libya and the simmering violence currently enveloping the apparently still very fluid "Arab Spring."

In the paradox that is the still censored, but somewhat "new and open" Egypt post-Mubarak, remarks quoted by sociologist Saadudin Ibrahim are particularly worth noting.

“The young people who carried out the revolution are not in power,” Mr. Ibrahim said.

“It’s the latecomers who are in power. Some of them, like the Salafis, did not participate in the revolution at all,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “This is an indication of their plan to hijack, control and monopolize.”

Alas, isn't it often so?

7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. 13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:7-14; NIV)

And though the "critics" of the Salafist/Islamists would seem to have some upper hand in the "new Egypt/Arab World," this critical, non-Muslim, outsider, bystander, etc., sees it a little different.

Nevertheless, may religious extremists, everywhere - and perhaps, as well, some (of us) who stand idly by seemingly (or actually) doing nothing or very little at all - lose their (our) foothold upon the souls of men and women.

Korean Society, Women, Wonder

Reflecting this evening on passings, plans and possible outcomes.

Do our prayers have much meaning, particularly (or especially), when reduced to rote repetition or verbal recitation?

What of ceremony; whether collective or individual?

For an individual, might that not become routine?
Among a crowd, is that not called a demonstration (i.e., vanity)?

Part of my personal "gulag" (used very loosely) is facing the daily challenge of an "intercultural" relationship.

We, of the West (or merely in it) appreciate our parents and love them, but seem to carry a certain "guilt" when we're not able (or even willing) to care for them, particularly in old age.

And then for those of us immersed, enraptured (or merely) somehow captured by the East, we find much that is beautiful as well as much that seems to comfort or assuage that "guilt."

Have we been selfish (about that)?

Further,  when it comes to raising children, it seems, there are also themes of guilt, unresolved, by both the intracultural as well as the intercultural divide.

Who will raise our children when we cannot? Who do we allow, if we do at all, to "help us" when we practically (or by virtue of choice) cannot?  Does the mother (or woman or even "designated person" in this age) become the indispensable, irreplaceable?

And maybe even as Solzhenitsyn [might have] said (in this context): "It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations"?

The "bigger picture," whether culled from faith, hope, religion, the internet or wherever these days may provide us some insight on that.

Here's something from 1995 written (by a Ms. Connie Chung) for a Harvard "bi-annual publication spearheaded by Korean-American undergraduates," that bills (or billed?) itself as Yisei ("second-generation" in Korean).

A (particularly poignant) excerpt:

Korean society, to a large extend [sic], still assumes that "the mother’s first duty is to raise the child, and no one else can substitute for the mother" (Seo Jin Young 139). Thus, even if the number of day-care centers were to increase the mother would still be left feeling guilty. Leaving her child in the care of a substitute, the society tells her, can never equal the quality of her own care. Of course, it may be reasonable to expect that a child growing under the care of strangers or left alone while the mother works may develop problems not faced by "properly mothered" children. However, the widely held notion that the mother alone should be responsible for the well-being of a child’s emotional and educational growth is a prejudiced fallacy indeed. Gong Ji Young, in her novel Go Alone, Like the Horn of a Rhino (based on the well-known tale of a mother who searches for her child kidnapped by a demon) asks, "When the demon took the baby, where was everyone else? The baby’s father? The relatives? How about the society? What was everyone else doing? Why was the woman the only one feeling the pain of eyes gouged out and thorns in her feet? " (Gong Ji Young 231).

Can a mother's unique, special, deep empathy ever be replaced?

Should it?

Why? [must she suffer so?]

Why not? [must I suffer so little?]

Korean mother and child near Seoul; Fall 1945

Because I am small?

Not The Movie

According to facts compiled last week on the blog of Caroline Glick, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC, ,  the 9/11 attacks on the US embassies were defintely not about a movie.

Most telling and of possible, urgent interest to the current Administration, especially as it prepares to powow with Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi next week in New York is this fact:

" . . . as it turns out, the film was screened on an Egyptian Salafist television channel. Obviously the Salafists -- many of whom, like Zawahiri were released from prison by Morsi, wanted to stir up anti-US violence on the eve of 9/11. So if the film is responsible for the violence, a finger needs to be pointed to its chief distributor-- Al Qaida's Egyptian friends and members.

Including Egyptian President Morsi himself?

In the beginning

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that
has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not
understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came
as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him
all men might believe.

He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the
world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but
his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of
God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision
or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen
his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father,
full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he
of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he
was before me.’”From the fullness of his grace we have all
received one blessing after another.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent
priests and Levites to ask him who he was.

He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”

They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.”

Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to
those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of
one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do
you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

“I baptize withi water,” John replied, “but among you stands one
you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of
whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where
John was baptizing.

(John 1:1-28)

Boys, girls, gods, demons

Collaborate or resist?

Little devils . . . 

 . . . versus beautiful angels.

Modern sentimentalism versus unwavering absolutism.

Be the change or get changed.

Pay a compliment.

Insult.

Yin/yang.

Devolve into nothingness (mathematically) or choose the narrow path.

Certain (or ambiguous) archetypes, symbols, myths, and/or forms; endure.

Or as Mitya (Dmitri) Karamazov in Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" stated it, "Without God all things are permitted."

But why is it that in this modern age we (so many of us) still have such a total lack of real consideration (mindfulness) when it comes to "ideas" great and small, much of the time?

It really does seem to be true that "hypotheses tend to devolve into axioms" (or cryptic sound bites), often (even for the above, though oft-quoted).

Let a Russian clarify that for you.

Perhaps rooted in it all is simply the need (or desire) to be nurtured? To be (constantly, faithfully, etc.) "loved"?

For an example, a sketchy study by a couple of economists in 2003 concluded that women are more likely to divorce their husbands, particularly IF they are parents of girls.

And nurturing seems to figure prominently in that reasoning.

As Steven E. Landsburg put it in his Oct 2003 article for Slate magazine on the study, "All over the world, boys hold marriages together, and girls break them up."

An oddly interesting, if axiomatic conclusion.

Elsewhere, the corporate philosophy of "productive conflict toward harmony" has its merits, though figures less well.

But then, a marriage (or family; including brothers and/or sisters) is not like a corporation. [Is it?]

Ultimately, agreement, ever elusive in the best of times, might be found in affirming that none [should] be lonely or without help.

We need each other.

"True" religion somehow maintains a place somewhere within our most basic (or primeval) psyche, heart, hunger and/or quest for the good, the better and the best; despite its consistent failure (s) to lead us (collectively, inclusively) forward.

However, within that hunger and/or quest, maybe someday our everyday uncertainty - whether inherent or inflicted - will become an overtly, humbly acknowledged constant.

Finally, as an afterthought, might Dostoevsky just as easily have written the words of Dmitri as: "With God 'all things' are permitted"?

North Korea High

Kuryong Falls at Mt. Kumgang

North Korean optimism (within its capital, that is) has seldom been so high.

With new love at the top (what else is there?), an Olympic high, news comes also of Uncle Jang going north to China.

According to Chinese state media, Beijing and Pyongyang have agreed to
"accelerate their joint development of two trade zones in North Korea."

"Kim Jong Un's powerful [sic] uncle Jang Song Thaek formalized the agreements Tuesday in meetings with China's Ministry of Commerce."

Jang is a vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission and is seen
as a leading economic policy official.

Uncle Jang's six-day visit could (even) be prelude to a visit by Kim.

Chalk it all up to the July surprise wedding honey?

Hope (and true love?), even in the darkest of nights, springs . . .

Kim Jong-un and Ri Sol-ju take a stroll

Peace through strength

Ronald Reagan is certainly the most modern day statesman to make the concept "peace through strength" his own, but it should be old news that the root of such a stance is an ancient one.

A curious (public) response to how such a philosophy would, might or should apply in the case of the gun violence at the cinema incident in Colorado has me, personally, considering this idea more deeply.

The response, in three words, was basically: "Attack the attacker!"

But does [brute] strength, indeed (and always), deter evil?

For example, could the "joker" at the cinema have been stopped in his tracks if even one person, carrying a concealed weapon (with permit) had been there - and actually taken a shot?

Or, to take this to its most extreme, yet surely most noble context: Remember September 11, 2001.

"Let's roll."

 

What would "I" have done?

Of martyrs and media stars

George Zimmerman and James Holmes would seem to have very little in common.

Zimmerman describes himself as a man versus "the gun" (in a Sean Hannity/Fox TV interview).

Holmes has yet to describe his view of self in light of recent gruesome events, but wait not too long.

It may be coming.

Which brings me to questions redundant, never fully answered.

How does media, whether manipulated (or prodded) by victim's interests as well as particular so-called perpetrator "rights" serve the (best) public interest in such cases?

To inform factually is a given, however, does media, by exposing every angle and facet of a crime while the investigation and prosecution is in progress, truly serve the public?

How much information is too much?

In particular, when does a (self-confessed) perpetrator of violent crime, involving death and/or debilitation, deserve to be heard?

The Zimmerman justification is (uniquely) more or less: "He's been convicted in the press already by a liberal-inspired agenda that used the parents of the victim to elicit an emotional rush to judgement, so let George speak."

He has.

A sampling:

""I feel that it was all God's plan, and for me to second guess it or judge it," (shook his head).

The Holmes justification might be: "He murdered 12 people (58 injured) in a premeditated rampage, but he's very bright, so let's hear what he has to say."

In other words, the upcoming (recurring) refrain might be, "the mentally ill are our problem - as collective humanity; shame on us . . . and let's hear from this pitiful [expletives deleted].

So far (thankfully) the victim's voices have been the loudest and clearest.

Bottomline:

How well do media (or any of us) actually listen (well) to the voices of the dead - as well as those now separated from their loved ones?

Shouldn't we, can't we do better?

Mass murder of 2,749 Jews on the beach near the city of Liepāja,

in Latvia, on December 15 through 17, 1941.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint." ~Edmund Burke

Native Wisdom

"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

~Chief Tecumseh (allegedly composed by him, but also ascribed to Wabasha, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Wovoka) [and as recently quoted in the movie, "Act of Valor"]

Tecumseh

Greek gods and ends

With so many Greek (and Greece) references bombarding the senses lately (the titanic "Alien" prequel epic Prometheus, for one; not to mention the focus of European economic ruin and gallant efforts, also) I thought I'd at least come on board with something on a subject near my heart and of some relevance to this blog's continuing theme of divine/human juxtapositions.

No matter what the ruling this week on the Great American Healthcare Boondoggle, the debate (and spin) will continue.

A  2006 article from Businessweek read over this morning got me considering some of the other sides of why this is so.

So much of medicine (politics, etc.), even today, remains guesswork.

That said, Dr. David Eddy (featured in aforementioned article) today continues to promote solutions through computer modeling as well as prudence and due diligence before any (particularly such high and mighty) policy recommendations.

Founded in 1992, his Archimedes, Inc. began as a consultancy for Kaiser Permanente.

A watershed for Archimedes came in 2007 when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded it a $15.6M grant to make the power of the Archimedes Model "accessible to a wider range [of] health policy and healthcare decision makers, more rapidly and less expensively that had been possible in the past."

It would seem to behoove we the voting populace of citizens everywhere to realize that *many* politicians (aka titanic tricksters) have seen us, more or less, as their very own private guinea pigs.

Armed with such knowledge, does it not make some sense, therefore, that we might simply be stuck here (on terra firma with Gaia), forever, striving to embody the elusive, yet commonsensical Hippocratic mantra of "Physician (and patient) heal thyself"?

Prometheus bound: "May I at least have a nice Chianti to go with that?"

Our Indispensable Moon

Caught a documentary on The Science Channel early the other morning (first broadcast back in 2011 on BBC Two).

Space scientist and "lunar fanatic" Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock explores our intimate relationship with the Moon. Besides orchestrating the tides, the moon dictates the length of a day, the rhythm of the seasons and the very stability of our planet.

Yet the Moon is always on the move. In the past it was closer to Earth and in the future it'll be farther away. That it is now perfectly placed to sustain life is pure luck, a cosmic coincidence. Using computer graphics to summon up great tides and set the Earth spinning on its side, Maggie Aderin-Pocock implores us to look at the Moon afresh: to see it not as an inert rock, but as a key player in the story of our planet, past, present and future. Toward that end, the discovery of water on the moon is highlighted to powerful effect.

Another documentary (broadcast in 1999 on Discovery) entitled "If We Had No Moon,"
though obviously less up to date scientifically, delved deep into the "indispensable quality" theme.

An essay by Bernard Foing, Executive Director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group, in Astrobiology Magazine online sums up the Moon's place (so far) within the human universe fairly succinctly:

"Finally, the Moon had a key role in the emergence of science, and in our understanding of our place in the universe. We saw the repetition of the phenomena of lunar phases, and we observed solar and lunar eclipses. These were big challenges to our understanding of nature, and a few astronomers were put to death because they weren’t able to predict the eclipses. This challenged us to develop accurate predictions for the motion of the sun and the motion of the Moon.

Studying the Moon helped us determine distances in the solar system and the size of celestial objects. By studying lunar phases, for example, people were able to determine how far the Moon is from the Earth, the size of the Earth, and our distance from the sun. More recently, the Moon was the terrain where the space race took place between two political systems, allowing for great technical and scientific achievements. The Moon has inspired humankind to learn how to travel to space, and to bring life beyond Earth’s cradle."

When they came for me

In Sudan, security forces have confiscated a third consecutive issue of the country's Communist Party newspaper, Al-Midan, reportedly for "ignoring a warning to avoid writing about the killing of a girl by police which sparked protests," according to the editor.

Though Sudan's constitution guarantees freedom of the press, such incidents have increased, coinciding with the secession of South Sudan in July 2011.

In total, three newspapers critical of the government since the start of the year have had publication suspended, although one has since resumed production.

Of note, also, Sudan has [somehow] avoided a popular uprising such as those seen in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.

However, small protests in Khartoum and other cities over rising food prices and other issues have apparently been worrisome, particularly for international outlaw, Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, President of Sudan.

Gulag Ethiopia

Well regarded and widely read, Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam, who teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino has been writing weekly on the plight of his countrymen and their particular regional issues for the last several years.

As he writes:

In August 2009, I spoke at a town hall meeting organized by “Gasha for Ethiopia”, a civic organization, on the importance of remembering Ethiopian political prisoners:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,” said Dr. Martin Luther King… Nothing is more important and uplifting to political prisoners than knowledge of the fact that they are not forgotten, abandoned and forsaken by the outside world. Remembrance gatherings at town hall meetings such as this one serve to remind all of us who live in freedom the divine blessings of liberty and the unimaginable suffering of those trapped in the darkness of dictatorship.

Andualem Aragie and countless political prisoners in Ethiopia reamin trapped in the darkness of dictatorship. They have been beaten down and brought to their knees. We cannot hear their whimpers of pain and desperation. Few, other than their tormentors, will be able to see their mangled bodies. Because they have no voice, we must be their voices and speak on their behalf. Because they are walled in behind filthy and subhuman prison institutions, we must unflaggingly remind the world of their suffering. We must all labor for the cause of Ethiopian political prisoners not because it is easy or fashionable, but because it is ethical, honorable, right and just. In the end, what will make the difference for the future of Ethiopia is not the brutality, barbarity, bestiality and inhumanity of its corrupt dictators, but the humanity, dignity, adaptability, audacity, empathy and compassion of decent Ethiopians for their wrongfully imprisoned compatriots. That is why we must join hands and work tirelessly to free all political prisoners held in Ethiopia’s public and secret gulags. “Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.”

Further and more recently:

The “Gulag” prison system in the old Soviet Union was infamous for warehousing and persecuting dissidents and opponetns. The gulags were used effectively to weed out and neutralize opposition to the Soviet state. They were the quintessential tools of Soviet state terrorism. Some called them “meat-grinders” because of the extremely harsh and inhumane conditions. Torture, physical abuse by prison guards, solitary confinement, inadequate food rations and officially instigated inmate-on-inmate violence were the hallmarks of the gulags.

Ethiopia’s prison system today are reminiscent of the Soviet gulags in their abuse and mistreatment of political and other prisoners. Let the facts speak for themselves -->>>

Meanwhile, the country as a whole finds itself (also) in the grips of yet more drought and consequent famine.

And, in any case, the forecasts of various forecasters, whether official, professional or anonymous remain, ultimately, bleak.

There is, however, ever, music . . .

Somewhere Syria

In Syria, as elsewhere, Arab Spring continues to bleed.

Will "Democracy" truly save the day?

A "Friends of Syria" parlay hopes so:

[U.S. Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton leaves London for a visit to Tunisia to participate in the meetings. The State Department said the meeting was "part of our ongoing efforts with our friends, allies, and the Syrian opposition to crystallize next steps to halt the slaughter of the Syrian people and pursue a transition to democracy in Syria."

A report from the independent international commission of inquiry on Syria found the government has "manifestly failed" to protect its own people.

"The present situation risks further radicalizing the population, deepening inter-communal tensions and eroding the fabric of society," the panel found.

The panel, in a 72-page report published Thursday (2/23), said there was a "reliable body of evidence" to suggest officials at the "highest level of government" were responsible for crimes against humanity in Syria.

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Fear and Loathing in North Korea

Or more to the point: Bow or Die!

A report by Donald Kirk of East-Asia-Intel.com seems to explain the current environment in the post Kim Jong-il, new Kim Jung-un North Korea fairly well.

The rise of the son as "supreme commander" of North Korea's armed forces gives
rise to nostalgia. Already the reign of the father is beginning to seem like the
good old days.

At least as long as Kim Jong-Il was around a certain sense of security
prevailed. South Koreans could be sure, despite "incidents", that North Korea
was not going to stage more than isolated attacks. And North Koreans could be
sure, as long as they suffered in silent acceptance of their fates, they would
not be consigned to the country's vast gulag system or some lesser form of
torture and imprisonment.

Now, as Kim Jong-Un begins to throw his considerable weight around, that sense
of security is gone. The rules are tightening. Families are subject to execution
unto the third generation if one of their members is caught sneaking across the
Yalu or Tumen River borders into China. Authorities are cracking down on private
markets, the lifelines for millions in the starving countryside.

More than anything else, the specter of purge hangs over the populace.

It's begun with confessions and punishment for those who did not mourn
convincingly over Kim Jong-Il's death; those who missed mass weeping and wailing
in cities and towns around the country or who did not seem sufficiently sincere . . .

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