Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Al Jawala
a great many excellent things arrive in an unexpected / accidental manner...like this creators of twisted, brilliant music, which I got to hear in a chilled-out evening such as only GreenHours in Bucharest can provide...
it had been a short while before hearing it when I was thinking that all the gypsy/east european/klezmer music I'd been listening to felt by now slightly dull, repetitive..
no more of that, because Al Jawala put it all in a huge pot, dressed it up with some funky beats, spiced it up with jazz-a-like inflexions and came up with a wicked new audio dish... add to all this, the occasional presence - along with drums, saxophone and bass - of a didgeridoo (not your average instrument in the east european music) and you know you're in for some wonderful experience..
it had been a short while before hearing it when I was thinking that all the gypsy/east european/klezmer music I'd been listening to felt by now slightly dull, repetitive..
no more of that, because Al Jawala put it all in a huge pot, dressed it up with some funky beats, spiced it up with jazz-a-like inflexions and came up with a wicked new audio dish... add to all this, the occasional presence - along with drums, saxophone and bass - of a didgeridoo (not your average instrument in the east european music) and you know you're in for some wonderful experience..
Monday, November 20, 2006
Of human rights and human shields
Gazans gather to foil air strike
Large numbers of Palestinians have converged on a home in Gaza belonging to a senior member of the ruling Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The move follows reports the Israeli air force was about to attack it, but there has been no confirmation of this.
Similar action on Saturday caused Israel to call off an air strike on the home of another militant leader...
................................................
The violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories are intolerable. I think it's clear that civilians are tremendously exposed...
Louise Arbour (UN High commissioner for human rights)...
This is perversity taken to perfection...when a group of people rushes in and surounds a building about which it has been communicated that will be attacked, those people have become "exposed" to the merciless fury of the Israel army....BUT HANG ON: isn't this the same Israel army that had called 10 minutes before to announce that the house will be bombed specifically so that there would be no people exposed???
I bet there were already 20 cameras ( 19 of which belonging to Hamas staff) ready to record another 'Israeli abuse'...In fact, I'm sure Hamas will soon begin surounding all its leaders homes with innocent civilians, in the hope Israel will pull the trigger...Let's be serious, they'll get tremendously more benefits from the media coverage of the tragedy, rather than from saving the house...
Large numbers of Palestinians have converged on a home in Gaza belonging to a senior member of the ruling Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The move follows reports the Israeli air force was about to attack it, but there has been no confirmation of this.
Similar action on Saturday caused Israel to call off an air strike on the home of another militant leader...
................................................
The violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories are intolerable. I think it's clear that civilians are tremendously exposed...
Louise Arbour (UN High commissioner for human rights)...
This is perversity taken to perfection...when a group of people rushes in and surounds a building about which it has been communicated that will be attacked, those people have become "exposed" to the merciless fury of the Israel army....BUT HANG ON: isn't this the same Israel army that had called 10 minutes before to announce that the house will be bombed specifically so that there would be no people exposed???
I bet there were already 20 cameras ( 19 of which belonging to Hamas staff) ready to record another 'Israeli abuse'...In fact, I'm sure Hamas will soon begin surounding all its leaders homes with innocent civilians, in the hope Israel will pull the trigger...Let's be serious, they'll get tremendously more benefits from the media coverage of the tragedy, rather than from saving the house...
Monday, November 13, 2006
There's something fundamentally wrong...
I wrote my last entry almost 2 months ago, telling the story of a disturbing scene I’d been witness too...having not written anything for so long, I am actually sad that it is something similar that has pushed me now...but, no, it's not similar, it is terribly more sickening and horrible...
One of the perhaps-most-obvious, but for me - very important lessons I’ve learned from my dad is that no excess can ever be good, even when the excess is of possibly the most useful thing/idea/process...etc. I look to Singapore and am more and more convinced that it has fallen into a sad trap: in its desire to curb excesses, to control over-reaction, over-usage, over-expressions, it has become deeply addicted and somehow rotten by the...excess of regulations, law, directives, advices…
Tonight, in one unfortunate incident, I had three 'clear showcases' of this status. We'd been waiting for a cab, when I saw a girl fainting...I approached quickly, but was immediately pushed aside by her friends who put a serious effort in convincing me she was ONLY terribly drunk and had 'not taken anything'...it was more than obvious that is was 'taking lots of something' that had happened to her. I asked them to take her to hospital, but they furiously/in panic refused the idea. It's not hard to figure out why: given the more than draconic (some call them 'savage') punishments given for drugs abuse here, those kids were so scared that they were willing to risk their friend's life rather than take the risk of the terrible punishments.
I went to the taxi I had ordered for myself and asked him to change the destination and take the sick girl instead. He refused, arguing that he had been working for long hours, and was willing only to take orders towards his home. I don't know what is worse to think: that he really didn't care if a person was going to die because of him rushing to bed, or that he simply 'didn't want anything to do' with something 'suspiciously looking'? Both options are equally disgusting...
Coming back angrily to the taxi stand, there's a cab coming, and just when it stops, the people who were first in line, literally jumped towards it, to make sure no one has the time to ask them to give their turn to the kids...Explanation for this behaviour? I don't know, I really can't think of any, except that for one second, when rushing, the guy turned his head towards the sick girl and all his face was saying was " she deserves it"...
Perhaps there's no connection between the 3 reactions, perhaps it's a series of miserable coincidences....perhaps those behaviours were not generated by cautiousness, by fear, by 'civic outrage'...perhaps Singapore's values "Community support and respect for the individual ", "society before self " are in fact engrained in the souls of its citizens, as meant by the patriotic excess of...guidelines...
I’m sorry if the above made no sense at all...I just had to write it so I can fall asleep.
One of the perhaps-most-obvious, but for me - very important lessons I’ve learned from my dad is that no excess can ever be good, even when the excess is of possibly the most useful thing/idea/process...etc. I look to Singapore and am more and more convinced that it has fallen into a sad trap: in its desire to curb excesses, to control over-reaction, over-usage, over-expressions, it has become deeply addicted and somehow rotten by the...excess of regulations, law, directives, advices…
Tonight, in one unfortunate incident, I had three 'clear showcases' of this status. We'd been waiting for a cab, when I saw a girl fainting...I approached quickly, but was immediately pushed aside by her friends who put a serious effort in convincing me she was ONLY terribly drunk and had 'not taken anything'...it was more than obvious that is was 'taking lots of something' that had happened to her. I asked them to take her to hospital, but they furiously/in panic refused the idea. It's not hard to figure out why: given the more than draconic (some call them 'savage') punishments given for drugs abuse here, those kids were so scared that they were willing to risk their friend's life rather than take the risk of the terrible punishments.
I went to the taxi I had ordered for myself and asked him to change the destination and take the sick girl instead. He refused, arguing that he had been working for long hours, and was willing only to take orders towards his home. I don't know what is worse to think: that he really didn't care if a person was going to die because of him rushing to bed, or that he simply 'didn't want anything to do' with something 'suspiciously looking'? Both options are equally disgusting...
Coming back angrily to the taxi stand, there's a cab coming, and just when it stops, the people who were first in line, literally jumped towards it, to make sure no one has the time to ask them to give their turn to the kids...Explanation for this behaviour? I don't know, I really can't think of any, except that for one second, when rushing, the guy turned his head towards the sick girl and all his face was saying was " she deserves it"...
Perhaps there's no connection between the 3 reactions, perhaps it's a series of miserable coincidences....perhaps those behaviours were not generated by cautiousness, by fear, by 'civic outrage'...perhaps Singapore's values "Community support and respect for the individual ", "society before self " are in fact engrained in the souls of its citizens, as meant by the patriotic excess of...guidelines...
I’m sorry if the above made no sense at all...I just had to write it so I can fall asleep.
