Bringing Someone to Justice

Despite the bushbaby playpen's devious efforts to deprive him of a trial, despite the fact that most of the charges against him were dropped when it was time to lay them out in a court of law, Padilla has finally met justice.
Sworn jurors, under the eyes of a judge, have, in an American court of law, found the man guilty of those charges brought against him.
This is one of the few correct ways of fighting terrorism and that form of fundamentalism desirous of eliminating justice from the word. This trial is a demonstration of practicing what you preach: equal justice for all in a court of law as a foundation of democracy and civil rights!
It is only a great shame that the playpen stalled on this case, as it is still stalling on so many others today.

Below, excerpts from and links to editorials on the subject in today's papers and then a link to all judicial actions in terrorist cases in the US.

Jose Padilla, symbole des excès de la lutte antiterroriste, a été reconnu coupable
LEMONDE.FR 17.08.07
La Maison Blanche a immédiatement salué cette importante victoire, évoquant une décision "juste". Mais le verdict, qui ne fait pas mention d'un projet d'attentat à la "bombe sale", rappelle toutefois, pour ses opposants, les excès de l'administration Bush dans sa lutte contre le terrorisme.

©

Jose Padilla's Due Process
The five-year path to a verdict is an indictment of the administration.
The Wahington Post, Friday, August 17, 2007; Page A22

Does the orderly disposition of Mr. Padilla's court case prove that every terrorism prosecution can and should be channeled through U.S. courts? No, although civil libertarians will make that case, there will be genuine enemy combatants who may not belong in civilian courts. But every person held by the government -- U.S. citizen or not -- must have due process to challenge that detention. The presumption must be that U.S. citizens can rely on the federal courts to oversee their prosecutions. And Mr. Padilla's abhorrent disappearance into limbo should come to be remembered as an aberration never to be repeated.

The New York Times - Editorial
The Padilla Conviction
Published: August 17, 2007

It would be a mistake to see the guilty verdict against Jose Padilla as a vindication for the Bush administration’s serial abuse of the American legal system. [...]

In hailing the verdict yesterday, a White House spokesman thanked the jury for “upholding a core American principle of impartial justice for all.” It is a remarkable statement, since the administration did everything it could to keep Mr. Padilla away from a jury and deny him impartial justice.

After all that, there was still some good news yesterday: a would-be terrorist will be going to jail. And the Bush administration was forced, grudgingly and only at the very end, to provide him with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

And, finally, the link to FindLaw's special coverage of the war on terrorism, including

• Terrorism Cases Prior To Sept. 11th
• Airplane / Airport Security Cases
• Civil Cases
• Criminal Cases (page 1)
• Criminal Cases (page 2)
• Hate Crimes Cases
• Terrorist Hoax Cases

and court documents such as this: American Jose Padilla’s Terrorism Trial / U.S. v. Adham Amin Hassoun, Mohamed Hesham Youssef, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, Kassem Daher, and Jose Padilla: Jury Verdict Form convicting the three defendants on all terror-related charges (HTML) Aug. 16, 2007

Food for thought

Frédéric Berthet, Journal de Trêve, p.21:

Et la femme fit Dieu à son usage. (Et si l'homme fit Dieu à son image, la femme le fit à son usage.)

MH, GA Bd.13, S.33:

Das Denken, gehorsam dem Seyn, sucht diesem das Wort.
Das Denken des Seyns ist die Sorge für den Sprach-gebrauch.

You can hear a lot of nonsense on the 100 and 200 bus lines, and it helps to read from such works as those I've quoted above, especially when you hear a tourist claiming they misspelled Checkpoint Charlie on the sign posted to tell such creatures how to get there, insisting that, "You spell 'Charlie' with a 'Y'." Now, I ask you, what would that look like? Checkpoynt Charly, I suppose. Somehow, I don't think it would have become famous under that label.
Anyway...

Successful Surprise for Edith's 70th

Well, not just lunch and then coffee & cake, but the route turned out to be a good birthday surprise for Edith. (And I think we all enjoyed it as much as she did.)

Spies and Walls...

Monday, August 13, is the 46th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. It was one of the best examples of the absurdity and horror of trying to keep a people under control and complete observation.

As a reminder, then, a few links to keep things in perspective.

• The Documentation Center and Memorial to the Berlin Wall, with many links and references, available in French, English, Italian, and German.
• The site for the former Stasi prison, now a memorial to those held and tortured there for political "crimes" such as saying the government was bad or trying to leave the GDR or not informing on others, most victims of an intense network of spying and collaborators informing on their friends.
• In an August 11th editorial entitled The Need to Know, the New York Times quite rightly comments that, "If President Bush wants Americans to give him the power to spy on them at will, Americans should be allowed to know how much their freedoms are being abridged."
• And here The New Yorker publishes Jane Mayer's article on secret CIA prisons in Poland and elsewhere, The Black Sites, A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program.
• And finally an editorial from Berliner Zeitung pointing out how absurdly little the bushbaby has learned about giving weapons to supposed allies, forgetting what happened with Saddam and Iran, only to name a few, and blindly believing guns will stop terrorism. Neither it nor spying will.

Various and sundry

• Maebelle died on Monday; Sheila wrote in what seemed good spirits, which we of course wish her & Bobby.
• Jennifer apparently cake-walked through her first law school exams, at least she sounded typically blasé and relieved about them when I caught her at "home" when I wanted to phone with her mom.
• Die Deutsche Bahn meint Streiks gerichtlich verbieten lassen zu können, ihr offenbar lieber als ernsthafte Verhandlungen mit der Gewerkschaft der Lokführer, die den Arbeitskampf als legitimes Druckmittel verwenden wollen. Nun werde Geisler und Biedenkopf vermitteln - hoffentlich kriegen die Arbeiter mehr Geld und nicht nur die "Managers".
• There are cracks in some 425 of the stone slabs of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, although it only opened two years ago. Most aren't serious, but repair must occur before the winter frosts come. Another enduring repair site.
• The brick-facade skyscraper at Potsdamer Platz is still bounded by scaffolding to protect everyone below from the bricks falling out of the building, and there is still no sign of any work being done to fix the structure!
• Edith, my mother-in-law, will turn 70 on Monday, and we're all taking her out on a pedal-train ride preceding and following a fancy lunch. She's promised to serve as my other mom for some time to come, now that Rose is no longer.
• Another MH has arrived for my perusal: Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens, a collection of 66 years of shorter pieces.
• Berthet's Journal de Trêve is also awaiting my reading, as is the rest of Pamuk's Snow, Chomsky's Failed States, and Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus.
• And last night we watched that fabulously quirky 60's film: I love you, Alice B. Toklas with Peter Sellers etc.
  And now it's time for a weekend.

We celebrate our sixth "legal" anniversary

Six ans de PAC

Sechs Jahre eingtragener Lebenspartnerschaft

Six years of civil union

pour/für/for

D&R

7 août/August 2001

(together/ensemble/zusammen

since/depuis/seit

2 mai/Mai/May 1996)

To Those Snoops Reading My Email and Listening to My Phone Calls...

I suggest you snoops of my emails and phone calls to the US read the post below from yesterday ("In the Name of the People") to know what category you fall into. Don't expect me to contribute to a memorial to you, however, but surely to your victims when your shenanigans are halted, as they hopefully will be.

In future I shall always attempt to greet you - with a line in every email or phone call to this effect: "Hello, Snoops, hope you're having fun." This was a technique citizens of the GDR used to annoy the Stasi listening in on their phone calls.

Discite iustitiam moniti !

The New York Times

Washington
House Passes Changes in Eavesdropping Program
By CARL HULSE and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: August 5, 2007

Despite serious objections from many Democrats, the House endorsed a bill the Bush administration said was needed to keep pace with new technology. [...]

Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that the bill the administration wanted would allow wiretapping without warrants as long as it was “concerning a person abroad.”

House Approves Wiretap Measure - White House Bill Boosts Warrantless Surveillance
By Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

The Washington Post, Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page A01

Civil liberties and privacy advocates and a majority of Democrats said the bill could allow the monitoring of virtually any calls, e-mails or other communications going overseas that originate in the United States, without a court order, if the government deems the recipient to be the target of a U.S. probe.

Last night, several Democrats said the bill would undermine the Fourth Amendment. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said lawmakers were being "stampeded by fearmongering and deception" into voting for the bill. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) warned that the bill would lead to "potential unprecedented abuse of innocent Americans' privacy."

In the Name of the People . . .

Don't ever forget what crimes have been committed under that label !

Never acquiesce quietly to injustice being done in YOUR name !


Today we visited the Plötzensee Memorial in Berlin, tucked right in among industrial sites, churches, canals, a scenic lake, lovely villas, and a charming lake, easily accesible by all forms of transportation. Nearly 3 thousand were executed there after summary trials by Nazi judges sentencing people to death for such things as saying Hitler was a nut. By those standards, I should have been sentenced and executed decades ago. And you? Think about it.


The following comes from the website of the memorial.

The Plötzensee Memorial Center commemorating the victims of National Socialism is a site of quiet remembrance. From 1933 to 1945, nearly three thousand people unjustly sentenced to death by the National Socialist judiciary were executed here. Today, the execution chamber is a memorial. The exhibition in the room adjoining it documents the practice of the National Socialist judicial and penal system.

One example of the many innocent people executed there "In the Name of the People":

Karlrobert Kreiten is born June 26, 1916, in Bonn as the son of a Dutch citizen. He grows up in Düsseldorf and is regarded as one of the most talented pianists of his generation. Contemplating the defeat at Stalingrad during a concert tour in Berlin in March 1943, he remarks to a friend of his mother that the war is lost. He calls Hitler ”a madman.” His mother’s friend reports Karlrobert Kreiten to the authorities, and he is arrested in July of 1943. The ”People’s Court” presided over by Roland Freisler sentences him to death on September 3, 1943, for ”subversion of national defense, aiding the enemy, and defeatist statements.” Four days later, Karlrobert Kreiten is murdered in Plötzensee.

The court documents of his "guilty" verdict and death sentence:



The photos are some of the ones we made today.

Idealer Gatte to be broadcast again

My German translation of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband will again be broadcast on German television (a video recording of the production in the Schauspielhaus Bochum under the direction of Armin Holz, my co-translator).

August 18, Saturday, from 8:15 to 10:40 pm.

3sat
Samstag, den 18.08.2007

20:15 Uhr
Ein idealer Gatte

Schauspiel von Oscar Wilde

Deutsche Übersetzung von Armin Holz und Richard Gardner

Aufzeichnung einer Aufführung aus dem Schauspielhaus Bochum, 2006
Lord Goring - Sebastian Koch
Lord Caversham - Hans Diehl
Sir Robert Chiltern - Markus Boysen
Vicomte de Nanjac - Michael Lippold
Mr. Montford - Jaschar Sarabtchian
Phipps - Cornelius Schwalms
Mrs. Cheveley - Jeannette Hain
Lady Markby - Margit Carstensen
Regie: Armin Holz

Die intrigante Mrs. Cheveley erpresst den aufstrebenden Unterstaatssekretär Sir Robert Chiltern mit einem Brief aus dessen Vergangenheit. Sie weiß, dass seine Karriere einst mit einem Insidergeschäft begann und droht nun, ihr Wissen zu veröffentlichen. Als ihr Mann das Geheimnis seiner Ehefrau verrät, bricht für die prinzipientreue Lady eine Welt zusammen. Der heiratsresistente Dandy Lord Goring versucht nun, seinem Freund Chiltern zu helfen. Er droht Mrs. Cheveley, mit der auch er eine Vergangenheit hat, als Diebin zu entlarven. Plötzlich steht Intrige gegen Intrige.

Verhängnisvolle Affären stehen im Mittelpunkt dieser Sittenkomödie: Im Spannungsfeld von persönlichen Interessen und gesellschaftlichen Ansprüchen versteht es Oscar Wilde, mit seinem Schauspiel zu brillieren. Geistreich und ironisch zeigt er die Divergenz zwischen Schein und Sein in den Denk- und Verhaltensmustern der Viktorianischen Ära und enthüllt die Fadenscheinigkeit eines Gesellschaftskodex' mit all seinen Normen, Rollenspielen und Illusionen. Er beweist mit diesem Stück einen scharfen Blick auf gesellschaftliche Zwänge und bigotte Moralvorstellungen nicht nur seiner Zeit.

Radiation (Erasure -or- Elimination -or- Strike Out)

Recommended reading regarding relentless relegation of responsible renegades to remunerationless roles. (Or: workless woes wallowing in woeful work.)

Guy Tournaye: RADIATION [2007] , 128 pages, 140 x 205 mm. Collection L'Infini, Gallimard -rom. ISBN 9782070784806. Parution : 20-04-2007. 12,50 €

Here one short exemplary quote followed by my cursory translation:

Tout le monde s'accorde à dire que le chômage est un cancer et qu'il faut traquer sans relâche les faux malades. Mais personne ne se risque à remettre en cause la norme qui fonde un tel diagnostic. Les discours incantatoires sur la valeur travail traduisent au contraire une forme de fuite en avant et tendent à légitimer un modèle social de plus en plus coercitif, où chacun est sommé de brader ses désirs pour accepter n'importe quel poste, à n'importe quelle condition.

Everyone is in agreement in claiming that unemployment is a cancer and that fake patients must be relentlessly pursued. But no one dares to question the norm underlying such a diagnosis. On the contrary, the incantations about the value of labor reveal a form of hasty action and tend to legitimize a more and more coercive social model in which everyone is called upon to surrender his desires to accept any old job no matter what the conditions.

This is essential reading for everyone who can understand French and who is prepared to think about the condition of our world today. Hopefully it will also be translated into many other languages, English and German among them, as it portrays in a charmingly novelistic esayistic manner the malaise of our age in its inability to come to terms with work and distribution of funds for living.

Birgit Winkler +

It was a privilege to have known you, Birgit, even though it wasn't very long. I quickly discovered my great respect for your mind, your heart, your charm, your ideas. May your two daughters Anna and Nina and your son Uli gather all they had with you up into a soothing whole: They, too, were able to be there with you as you concluded your path, and you know how important that was for me as my mother finished hers. Thank you for your smiles and for sharing some of your time with me and speaking so well and intelligently with me in both your and my languages!

Birgit Winkler

née Sievers

29 August 1950 - 30 July 2007

Woman Hides with Children from Beating Husband and Is Condemned in Court

Une femme battue doit communiquer sa nouvelle adresse à son mari violent - 20minutes.fr:
"Le tribunal correctionnel de Dunkerque (Nord) a condamné à trois mois de prison avec sursis, jeudi, une mère qui s’était réfugiée avec ses enfants auprès de l’association Sedire. Motif: ne pas avoir communiqué sa nouvelle adresse à son mari..."

That's the kind of judgements that let you speculate about whose rights are being protected by whom!

German-American Summer Fun in Berlin

This is where we were yesterday evening, almost like a county fair somewhere in the South. And we even rode the ferris wheel, I ate spare ribs and Detlef a steak. We were there more or less during the early evening "family hours" and headed back home before the rowdies started getting too out of hand. Later the American beers and whiskeys start to rev up another aspect of the occasion.

47. Deutsh-Amerikanisches Folksfest

and two typical shots of the "food mile /American village":

He'll never understand ...

... but hopefully he won't drive us to oblivion before he's driven from office !
HE opened the way for them in Iraq, and no one else; HE's responsible for giving them the opportunity to wreak havoc there!

President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11
By JIM RUTENBERG and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: July 25, 2007; The New York Times
President Bush sharply criticized those who contend that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the network responsible for the attacks on 9/11 are independent of each other.

A Modest Suggestion ...

... to the bushbaby and his entire playpen :

SIMPLY CLOSE GUANTÁNAMO

BRING THOSE DETAINED THERE TO JUSTICE

(WHICH MEANS TO A COURT OF LAW)

TO FACE THE CHARGES AGAINST THEM

(INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY)

AND CONDUCT A FAIR AND IMPARTIAL TRIAL

(AS REQUIRED BY THE US CONSTITUTION)

Then you wouldn't have to deal with this constant badgering about telling everyone about what's going on there, because it would no longer exist. We wouldn't need a list of all the people you've kept their in deprivation of their fundamental rights, denying them the opportunity to face those bringing charges against them. That the Constitution demands a speedy trial is something you can no longer remedey: you've waited far too long already. And here, in case you don't read the court decisions against your baby-rattler notions (which you apparently don't) information on the latest court decision against the legitimacy of what you're doing in Guantánamo.

Court Tells U.S. to Reveal Data on Detainees at Guantánamo
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
The New York Times - Published: July 21, 2007
In a stinging legal challenge to the administration’s detention policies, a ruling requires virtually all information to be shared with defense lawyers.

busbabies just don't get scared

Eugene Robinson - Bush's Cognitive Dissonance - washingtonpost.com

One hopes the leader of the free world hasn't really, truly lost touch with objective reality. But one does have to wonder.
Last week, George W. Bush invited nine conservative pundits to the White House for what amounted to a pep talk, with the president providing the pep. Somehow I was left off the list -- must have been an oversight. But some columnists who attended have been writing about the meeting or describing it to colleagues, and their accounts are downright scary.
[...]
It's bad enough that Osama bin Laden is still out there plotting bloody acts of terrorism, convinced that God wants him to slay the infidels. Now we know that the president of the United States believes God has chosen him to bring freedom to the world, that he refuses to acknowledge setbacks in his crusade and that he flat-out doesn't care what "the polls" -- meaning the American people -- might think. I'm having trouble seeing the bright side. I think I need cognitive therapy.

By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, July 20, 2007; Page A19

I've recognized and been talking and writing about this alarming aspect of the bushbaby and his playpen for many years now. Good that a Washington Post columnist has also seen the two faces of the one coin of fundamentalism, its resultant terror and its underlying denial of reality. Such inability or unwillingness to call a spade a spade is also one of the definitions of INSANITY.

Just to say thanks...

Many have followed the wishes of the Countess and given memorials after her death. The Lady-in-Waiting has written to them all to express our thanks, and here, I, the Page, would like to add my personal thanks to all of you below who with us remember Rose Tyson Gardner.

Memorials to West Haven Presbyterian:
The F.M. Pridgen Sunday School Class
Ruth McLean
Henry and Wilma Tyson
David and Melanie Gardner

Memorials to Hospice of Nash General:
Jane Gardner Smith
Tommy and Margaret Gardner
George and Ruth Price
Amos Tyson
Mary Smith
Charles Sutton
Sandra Bonner
Mary Ann Sutton
Lichtenfelt Nurseries
Joe and Marti Cash
Park and Thomas Williams
Sally Mozingo
Inez and Julian Gardner
Jeanette Allen
St. Giles Presbyterian Women

Memorials to St. Giles Butterflies & Memories Garden:
The Greenville Chamber Singers
Memorials to the NC Order of Eastern Stars Foundation:
25/Past Matrons Club
Nell Boone
Nashville Chapter #332

Flowers:
Sag Harbor
Battle & Steven Whitley

If anyone has been omitted, it is not intentional. Please let me or Terri know if we have not listed you and thanked you for a memorial. The information is not always very quick getting to us and we are truly grateful to everyone for their accompaniment of us and Rose on her final path.

Jour de la Bastille

La Marseillaise

A. Roiné © Tous droits réservés

Allons enfants de la Patrie

Le jour de gloire est arrivé !

Contre nous de la tyrannie

L'étendard sanglant est levé

Entendez-vous dans nos campagnes

Mugir ces féroces soldats?

Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras.

Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!

Aux armes citoyens

Formez vos bataillons

Marchons, marchons

Qu'un sang impur

Abreuve nos sillons

Tremblez, tyrans et vous perfides

L'opprobre de tous les partis

Tremblez! vos projets parricides

Vont enfin recevoir leurs prix!

Tout est soldat pour vous combattre

S'ils tombent, nos jeunes héros

La France en produit de nouveaux,

Contre vous tout prêts à se battre.

Amour sacré de la Patrie

Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs

Liberté, Liberté chérie

Combats avec tes défenseurs!

Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire

Accoure à tes mâles accents

Que tes ennemis expirants

Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire!

Mireille Mathieu's performance

The bushbaby knows worst...

Everyone knows better, some may know pretty well, but the bushbaby knows absolutely worst: His war in Iraq is helping the terrorists, fomenting fundamentalism, damaging the image of democracy, trampling on human rights, disregarding justice, and flying in the face of reason. When the troops leave, there will be a disaster, a bigger one the longer they stay, even bigger the more time passes before a plan is devised how to pull them out with as little resultant bloodshed as possible.

No Progress Report - New York Times
Editorial
No Progress Report
Published: July 13, 2007

President Bush still refuses to talk about what almost everyone else now understands is essential: the need for a plan to extricate American troops from a lost cause in Iraq.

More From Maledictus fundamentalistus !

Vatican says other Christian churches wounded - International Reuters:

"A 16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a 'wound' since they do not recognize the primacy of Pope.
But the document said the 'wound is still more profound' in Protestant denominations.
'Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them,' it said."

Just a little assistance for the Reuters translators: the German word they translated as "wounded" also serves to describe a DEFECT, so essentially the papal dictator was declaring all churches other than his own as "religiously defective".

Anyone still wondering why the ability to think is so rapidly disappearing, amidst all the clouds of shadowy smoke designed to debilitate all brains everywhere ?

Ob Schäuble sich freut ?

Vielleicht würde Herr Schäuble sich besser fühlen, wenn er am Monitor eines solchen Systems in Berlin säße? Obwohl zu häufiges Fernsehen angeblich die geistigen Kräfte mindert. Er könnte aber viele arbeitslose Fernsehzuschauer im Innenmnisterium dafür einstellen...

New York Plans Surveillance Veil for Downtown - New York Times

The program would include license plate readers and 3,000 security cameras below Canal Street.
[...]
There is little evidence to suggest that security cameras deter crime or terrorists, said James J. Carafano, a senior fellow for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group in Washington.
For all its comprehensiveness, London’s Ring of Steel, which was built in the early 1990s to deter Irish Republican Army attacks, did not prevent the July 7, 2005, subway bombings or the attempted car bombings in London last month. But the British authorities said the cameras did prove useful in retracing the paths of the suspects’ cars last month, leading to several arrests.
While having 3,000 cameras whirring at the same time means loads of information will be captured, it also means there will be a lot of useless data to sift through. “The more hay you have, the harder it is to find the needle,” said Mr. Carafano.

Schließlich möchte Schäuble jeden Tag mehr Spielzeuge einführen:

SPIEGEL-INTERVIEW

07. Juli 2007 Hamburg

Schäuble fordert Handy- und Internetverbot für Terrorverdächtige

Schäuble macht ernst: Für den Anti-Terror-Kampf fordert der Innenminister im Gespräch mit dem SPIEGEL eine deutliche Ausweitung der staatlichen Befugnisse. Seine Liste reicht von Handy- und Internetverboten bis zur vorsorglichen Internierung von Gefährdern.

"Man könnte beispielsweise einen Straftatbestand der Verschwörung einführen, wie in Amerika", sagte Schäuble im Gespräch mit dem SPIEGEL. Zudem denke er darüber nach, ob es Möglichkeiten gebe, "solche Gefährder zu behandeln wie Kombattanten und zu internieren".

"Contre le terrorisme, l'aide aux moins riches est plus efficace que des chars"
LE MONDE 09.07.07

Aujourd'hui, vous pouvez rajouter des avions de combat et des missiles, vous ne combattrez pas les vrais fléaux de l'humanité que sont le terrorisme, les pandémies et le réchauffement climatique. L'aide est infiniment plus efficace que des chars, mais elle suppose que l'on sorte des conservatismes budgétaires qui reconduisent d'année en année les mêmes dépenses en faveur d'armées régulières inadaptées dans le monde actuel. Je sais de quoi je parle : j'ai été ministre des finances de mon pays, la Turquie.

©

Caritas Sine Amore ?

Papus maleficus missa latina edicet.

Verbum sine vi.

Fiat mysteria.

For example, if other fundamentalists annoy you with strange formulations in another language and never recognize translations of their holy text, but insist on the original, like this:

ذَلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لاَ رَيْبَ فِيهِ هُدًى لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ

الَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ وَيُقِيمُونَ الصَّلاةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ

والَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ وَمَا أُنزِلَ مِن قَبْلِكَ وَبِالآخِرَةِ هُمْ يُوقِنُونَ

أُوْلَـئِكَ عَلَى هُدًى مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَأُوْلَـئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

... then the popal one wants you to answer like this ...

in principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum
hoc erat in principio apud Deum
omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est
in ipso vita erat et vita erat lux hominum
et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt

On the other hand, you could go with the following to evoke another monoculture:

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ.

וְהָאָרֶץ, הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְחֹשֶׁךְ, עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם; וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם.

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, יְהִי אוֹר; וַיְהִי-אוֹר.

[SOURCES- Koran: The Cow 2:2-5; Bible: John 1:1-5; Torah: Moses I 1.1-3]

If you don't grasp any of the versions and are more interested in mystification than in thinking, you are the papal piddler's intended audience, especially given that his version isn't the original anyway.

FIAT LUX !

Home Again ... !!!

Hooray for a relatively sunny beach vacation while the rest of Germany was pretty much rained in the whole week ! And that continued this morning with our departure: it was raining when we got up, cleared up for us to go to and board the ferry, started raining again before the ferry reached the next island port, but we were ensconced in our cozy seats and looking for rainbows, which we found, as the first picture below testifies, also indicating that the rain stopped.

Well, it started again, but ceased and let the sun come out for our short bike trip to the train station in Stralsund, where it again started after we left. On the way to Berlin, we passed through another couple of hefty showers, but, when it was our stop and we were on our bikes from S-Bahnhof Greifswalder Straße, the sun was shining again. Once we were unpacking in our wonderfully clean apartment (Edith had been there while we were away) it started raining again, until we were ready to go pick up Koko, our famous parrot. On the way, while we were dry on mass transit, there was a downpour, stopping again in time for the walk to the site of poor Koko's week-long exile at Rainer's. And then once we got him back here, it started raining again, but will surely stop before we head over to Erich's for his gallery open-house this evening.

And it IS good to be rested and relaxed and a bit tan and home again!

The next pictures give a mere hint of what went on at yesterday evening's grill event with our vacation abode hosts.

And today was once again BEACH WEATHER

Actually, mixed weather: some clouds, some sun, some storm, some beach, and this evening a grill party with our "hosts" the owners of the place here and the other guests. Tomorrow we head out on the first ferry --- at 7 am and should be back in Berlin in time to go to Erich's Atelierfest (gallery party) in his artist-village.

(The earlier post today was before the weather was ready to permit our outings.)

Even a rainy day is enjoyable...

Just walk down the street to the inn for coffee and lunch...

This is the main street of the artists' and writers' town, the fashionable village of Kloster.

Ein bißchen Klarsicht - A bit of transparency

As can now be found on the website of the German Parliament / Deutscher Bundestag, Germany's Supreme Court ruled constitutional the law requiring members of parliament to make public income they receive from other sources. Now, the official biographies for each member include this information for all the world to see. First below, the link to the information on the website, then within the quote the link to the bios with incomes.

Nebeneinkünfte der Abgeordneten online abzurufen: "Die Angaben der 613 Abgeordneten zu ihren Nebeneinkünften sind online veröffentlicht. Unter den Biografien der einzelnen Parlamentarier stehen nunmehr auch die veröffentlichungspflichtigen Angaben, die unter anderem Auskunft über bezahlte Tätigkeiten neben dem Mandat geben. Bundestagspräsident Dr. Norbert Lammert hatte nach der Entscheidung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts am Mittwoch, dem 4. Juli 2007, die unverzügliche Bekanntmachung angekündigt."

Fireworks for Fourth of July at the Baltic Shore

This picture really says it all!

[This morning it's raining, but yesterday was the first time clouds opened up on the western horizon as the sun went down. So even if we spend more time indoors today, yesterday truly was a perfect July 4th, even giving us our first sunset on this trip. Now we can watch the low swooping swallows and listen to the croaking frogs all playing in the drizzle. Later we'll venture out to the beach, enjoy some nature, read, relax, do exactly what vacation means.]

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident

On the Fourth of July, a brief reminder of what it's all about, warmly blogged by an unashamedly overly idealist American after a morning on the beach of Hiddensee (Germany) on the Baltic shore with his husband-&-lover, proudly noted again as a bushbaby reveals what could in the same document hereinafter to be quoted be deemed tyrannical behavior necessitating removal from office (condoning libbying lobbying lying), but anyway, here some snippets to remember, to take to heart, and to ponder, followed by a couple of Fourth of July pictures from the real world.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident [...] all Men are created equal [...] certain unalienable Rights [...] among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness [...] to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted [...] deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed [...] [One] whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

And here photos of moments when such thoughts occur to me on The Fourth of July - Those are fireworks of thought designed to light up the world and stand up against fundamentalist darkness.

And here a video Fourth Of July to make you all envious:

Yesterday hiking, today on the beach

Today we spent the morning on the beach (photos tomorrow) and yesterday, before the enchanting puppet production of Robinson Crusoe, included a nice hike in the hills at the islands north end, as shown here.

And the sun is still shining, so, with lunch over, we're off again.

Remembering Beverly Sills

She was one of the highlights of my time at the Metropolitan Opera as well. Bubbles from Brooklyn, as the ushers there called her, was one of a kind, a queen among divas, a gift to opera audiences, and a true boon to fundraising for the continued production of high-quality opera in New York City.

Beverly Sills, the All-American Diva, Is Dead at 78 - New York Times

Beverly Sills, the acclaimed Brooklyn-born coloratura soprano who was more popular with the American public than any opera singer since Enrico Caruso, even among people who never set foot in an opera house, died last night at her home in Manhattan. She was 78.

Justin Lane for The New York Times
Beverly Sills in 2002, after coming out of retirement as chairwoman of Lincoln Center to lead the Metropolitan Opera

Second Morning With Sunshine ...

Unbelievably enough, while storms may be brewing elsewhere, we had a hazy sunny day yesterday, comfortable but not too hot; and the sun is shining this morning, though heavy thunderstorms are promised for the afternoon and evening. But then we're going to the puppet theater next door for their production of Robinson Crusoe, so who cares !

And here there are no cars (to be searched or feared), no airports (to wait in lines at or worry about attacks in), no trains (to miss because of wildcat strikes), no targets (to be hit by fundamentalists to defeat enlightenment), and no way on or off except by ferry from three easily controllable little harbors.
This is truly a little island paradise.

Yesterday we did the lighthouse and Enddorn; this morning we're going to do the Dornbusch hike up around the cliff edges to the west & north. And we're enjoying every minute of it.

We Made It to Our Vacation Island on the Baltic Shore

HIDDENSEE AT LAST

From Hiddensee 2007

There we are with the intermittently stormy Baltic and dramatic sky behind us on the beach.

And this is what we got to see from our room's window, looking away from the sea towards the sound, minutes after arriving !

Global Unease With Major World Powers

Pew Global Attitudes Project: Summary of Findings: Global Unease With Major World Powers

Global Unease With Major World Powers
Rising Environmental Concern in 47-Nation Survey
Released: 06.27.07
A 47-nation survey finds global public opinion increasingly wary of the world's dominant nations and disapproving of their leaders. Anti-Americanism is extensive, as it has been for the past five years. At the same time, the image of China has slipped significantly among the publics of other major nations. Opinion about Russia is mixed, but confidence in its president, Vladimir Putin, has declined sharply. In fact, the Russian leader's negatives have soared to the point that they mirror the nearly worldwide lack of confidence in George W. Bush.

COPYRIGHT PEW RESEARCH CENTER
Pew Global Attitudes Project, a project of the PewResearchCenter
1615 L Street, NW Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036
p 202.419.4400 f 202.419.4399 e info@pewglobal.org

Resegregation Now

I was fortunate enough to have attended a fully integrated high school and to have had the opportunity to help create it. It is lamentable that future generations will perhaps no longer have the experience of learning and living with those OTHER from themselves. Education should not resign itself to being a mirror of the self, but always and only a window onto what the student himself is not.

Resegregation Now - New York Times

The Supreme Court ruled 53 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated education is inherently unequal, and it ordered the nation’s schools to integrate. Yesterday, the court switched sides and told two cities that they cannot take modest steps to bring public school students of different races together. It was a sad day for the court and for the ideal of racial equality.
[...]
There should be no mistaking just how radical this decision is. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said it was his “firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.” He also noted the “cruel irony” of the court relying on Brown v. Board of Education while robbing that landmark ruling of much of its force and spirit. The citizens of Louisville and Seattle, and the rest of the nation, can ponder the majority’s kind words about Brown as they get to work today making their schools, and their cities, more segregated.

Finally, vacation !

We're off Saturday for a week on our enchanted island of Hiddensee.
Finally a week just for us - to relax and enjoy all by ourselves !
And HERE'S THE LINK to the live webcam of the beach there from the fish restaurant we love to eat in!

Agreement in the middle of the night...

EU leaders clinch a deal on Reform Treaty

"An agreement on the reform of the EU institutions was reached at the European
Council in Brussels on 23 June. After two days of tough negotiations, EU leaders
agreed on a mandate for an Intergovernmental Conference which will draw up the
Reform Treaty by the end of 2007. If ratified, this treaty could enter into
force in June 2009, ahead of the next elections to the European Parliament."

CSD in Berlin 2007

This picture reveals a lot

From CSD Berlin 2007

and the others in the album show a bit more of today's celebration while demanding equal rights in all respects for all.

Just Close It --- Finally !

Everyone who can think and cares about democracy and justice and the principles which the west and Enlightenment seek to defend against fundamentalist incursions and dictatorships everywhere knows Guantánamo should be closed, should never have been opened.
So stop talking and considering! Close it and raise charges against those to whom such is applicable, bring them before a court, try them, and have the judicial system detemine their guilt or innocence. There are prisons enough without creating camps outside the reach of judicial review! Bringing terrorists to justice, i.e. before a court of law, could inform those opposed to democratic systems and liberty about the benefits thereof!

The New York Times
Washington
At White House, Renewed Debate on Guantánamo
By HELENE COOPER and WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: June 23, 2007
The Bush administration said top officials were once again debating how and when to close the detention facilities.
On Thursday night, in response to questions about the A.P. article, Gordon D. Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, issued an opaque statement that did not reflect the deep debate.
“The president has long expressed a desire to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and to do so in a responsible way,” his statement said. “A number of steps need to take place before that can happen, such as setting up military commissions and the repatriation to their home countries of detainees who have been cleared for release. These and other steps have not been completed. No decisions on the future of Guantánamo Bay are imminent and there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow.”

Or: to clearly make the point by quoting a classic:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

- W.S.-Macbeth

Making it clear who's with you and who's against you...

And they shouldn't forget that Christopher Street Day is the day after tomorrow and that gay pride is powerful !
Equal rights for registered civil unions will be achieved; not even Bavaria is provinical enough to stop it. And this is Europe, not some uniformed parched tobacco field in the fundamentalist provinces of the south of the USA !

Bundestag Union: Kein gleiches Recht für schwule Paare in Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de:

Homosexuellen Partnerschaften sollen nach dem Willen der Union nicht dieselben Rechte wie einer Ehe eingeräumt werden. Ihr Koalitionspartner will trotzdem weiter an der rechtlichen Gleichstellung arbeiten. [...]
Der Parlamentarische Geschäftsführer der Grünen, Volker Beck, sagte, es gebe keinen Grund, Lebenspartner schlechter zu stellen als Ehepaare. Den vom CSU-Abgeordneten Georg Fahrenschon betonten besonderen Schutz von Ehe und Familie wies Beck als "alte Leier" zurück.

The Bushbaby Playpen as depicted in "Lil' Bush"

Just had to provide the link to this REALISTIC PORTRAYAL of the playpen ! Everyone in Europe would consider it a documentary, since that's the general opinion here of the incompetence and childishness going on in the only semi-white house in DC these days.

Comedy Central: Shows - Lil' Bush

As Comedy Central itself describes it:

Ever wonder how legends are made? Find out on Lil' Bush: Resident of the United States, the animated series that takes you back to the playground days of our 43rd president, George W. Bush. Enjoy the antics of Lil' George and his Lil' White House posse, including Lil' Condi, Lil' Rummy and that unintelligible, foulmouthed wisecracker, Lil' Cheney. They're like the Little Rascals with access to the A-bomb -- getting into mischief, learning stuff and meeting friends (Lil' Tony Blair) and foes (Lil' Kim Jong Il). Plus, they're always ready with a song. And some influential alternative rockers are grabbing the mic to provide guest voices, including Iggy Pop, Frank Black, Jeff Tweedy, Colin Meloy, Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Dave Grohl. Creator Donick Cary has written for The Simpsons and Just Shoot Me, and now takes Lil' Bush from its cult following on Amp'd Mobile to your TV screen. So join Lil’ George as he leads his lil’ cabinet and takes this dream team to elementary school political glory. The new show airs Wednesdays at 10:30p / 9:30c.

And I have to give credit to my lawscholarly ducal niece for putting me onto this! Thanks, Jenn!

Laboratory for a Fortressed World

Take a look at No Logo author Naomi Klein's trenchant thinking assessment of one aspect of our rather thoughtless contemporary world...

Laboratory for a Fortressed World
by Naomi Klein
[from the July 2, 2007 issue
of The Nation]
Gaza in the hands of Hamas, with masked militants sitting in the president's chair; the West Bank on the edge; Israeli army camps hastily assembled in the Golan Heights; a spy satellite over Iran and Syria; war with Hezbollah a hair trigger away; a scandal-plagued political class facing a total loss of public faith.
At a glance, things aren't going well for Israel. But here's a puzzle: Why, in the midst of such chaos and carnage, is the Israeli economy booming like it's 1999, with a roaring stock market and growth rates nearing China's?

It would indeed be nice to know a few more people are thinking as well ! Are you one ? Do you think ?

And here's a cartoon that says it all from Harpers's Magazine by Mr. Fish

Needless to say, but I needed to tell you to look...

18 JOINT 2007
Avant la guerre totale!
18 HEURES, 18 JUIN À LA VILLETTE !

(à Paris)
TOUS EN TENUE DE COMBAT

(camouflage, nez de clown, casque... et pétards bien chargés)
POUR MONTRER AVEC HUMOUR ET DÉRISION QUE NOUS SOMMES

CONTRE TOUTES LES GUERRES !

Just Another Day on Planet Earth...

Looking at the pictures accompanying the story on Hamas' coup in Gaza, I realized that satirical cartoons with the exact same content and images would provoke fundamentalist riots around the world and death threats to the cartoonists. Perhaps writers may also be threatened with death for pointing out this fact; but just look at the pictures of these "religious" people posing voluntarily for the camera and tell me how one could possibly "injure" their religious feelings (or, if so, why that would not be a good thing):

Hamas takes control of Gaza The Guardian Guardian Unlimited

Palestinian militants from Hamas stand at the desk of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, inside Abbas's personal office after it was taken over by Hamas infighting in Gaza City. Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP.

And back to Europe:
Britain does not want the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Constitution...
Poland wants more weight in votes than it has in population...

(But doesn't want to contribute financially according to the same measure...)
The Netherlands just wants to be contrary, but is willing agree...
Angie of Germany wants any agreement whatsoever next week during her EU-Presidency, but she should not sacrifice essentials to expediency...
PASS THE CONSTITUTION OF EUROPE as it already exists!
FINALLY !
(Or just agree to let those who don't play in a lesser entity of Europe, while those abiding by, ratifying its constitution are full members committed to further integration.)
Poland and Great Britain could also just quit if they don't really want to be part of something bigger and greater than their little selves.

The Constitution would finally give Europe a basis for democratic control and social equality.

Justice Does Exist After All...

Judges Say U.S. Can’t Hold Man as ‘Combatant’
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: June 12, 2007
A federal appeals court ruled that the president may not declare civilians in this country “enemy combatants” and have the military hold them indefinitely.
- The New York Times

Saudi prince 'received arms cash'

BBC NEWS Programmes: Panorama

Saudi prince 'received arms cash'

A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.
The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.
Prince Bandar would not comment on the investigation and BAE Systems said it acted lawfully at all times.
The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.
[...]
"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it."
Panorama will be broadcast on Monday 11 June 2007 2030 BST

Dry as a bone after 8Gs

And we can rest assured Sarkozy had only had water to drink during his talks with Putin behind the expensive playpen fence at the Baltic Sea ...

Sarkozy a changé : il est ivre
Hochgeladen von prochoix

[Or: the bushbaby's not the only one the Russian potentate trumped at Angie's fest.]

A Reminder

Guantánamo is illegal, injust, and a disgrace for the United States.
Close it and raise charges against any inmates for whom that may be applicable and try them in a court of LAW. That would be "bringing them to justice".
Even the "military judges" created by the bushbaby playpen now rule against the very system they were appointed to act within, dismissing the charges raised there as groundless.

See, too, this correct editorial from the NYTimes: "Gitmo: A National Disgrace"

And meanwhile, they start their playpen session in the fenced off sanctuary on the Baltic coast without public opinion having any chance of approaching them.
Perhaps Angie or Sarko or the blairing lapdog or Proding or Putt-Putt or Chin-Chin will tell the bushbaby a thing or two
... about anything...
climate,
freedom,
justice,
democracy.
Even though taking advice from some of those sources on some of those topics, that bushbaby would be admitting how very little he knows about the subjects.

Even Military Judges Fault Playpen Procedures

The New York Times
International / Americas
Military Judges Dismiss Charges for 2 Detainees
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: June 5, 2007
The rulings, the latest legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war crimes charges against detainees, could stall the military’s prosecutions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Cold War Redux !?!

Between the bushbaby and pouting putin, we're on the way to a new nuclear arms race with fundamentalist terrorists waiting with bated breath for the goodies that, as a result, may well fall into their bloody hands. Anybody remember that we might should work together for enlightenment and human rights against the obscurantists ready to enslave us all?

Paix armée au G8
LE MONDE 04.06.07

L'équilibre de la terreur sera à l'ordre du jour du sommet du G8, les huit pays les plus industrialisés, qui se tient du mercredi 6 au vendredi 8 juin à Heiligendamm, en Allemagne. On se croirait revenu au temps de la division du monde en deux blocs antagonistes. Le projet américain consistant à installer des éléments d'un bouclier antimissile en Pologne et en République tchèque est à l'origine de cette tension.

©

8 Gs in a Fenced-In Playpen

For 12.6 million euros the Berlin government has built an impenetrable fence around a place at the Baltic shore whose name translates as "holy dam" to create a gigantic fortified playpen for angie and the bushbaby and putin and the lapdog blair and prodi and sarko and a guy from canada and somebody from japan, oh, and a smiling rights-trampler from china to come to no decision in, attend some glamorous banquets, smile at the cameras, ignore the protesters, and all of them with no intention of doing anything of any consequence - except maybe to agree to build more impenetrable barriers to protect themselves against terrorists. They can wrap themselves in barbed wire and call that the outside and claim to have fenced in everything dangerous.
But the climate will continue to deteriorate, the poor to starve, the migrants to move, the fundamentalists to threaten, and freedom to diminish.
Even a teleconference would have been too great an expense for the little these 8+ leaders are about to agree not to agree on and "announce" after a summit of no height whatsoever, but it would certainly have been more appropriate and less expensive. €12.6 million would treat a lot of severely ill people, feed a lot of starving children, employ a lot of jobless, etc., etc....

The circus is certainly not worth the expense, the effort, or the curbing of civil rights entailed.

And the whole area has been sealed off to humanity, as of today, until the fiasco ends on June 8-9.

Another birthday

Here's where we went for a walk in the morning:

Rummelsburger Bucht

And one shot of me there, too:

Here's where Detlef took me out to eat for lunch:

Good Time

Hausvogteiplatz 11

Thai, Asian / Fusion

The three Good Time Restaurants have independently developed a good reputation for Thai food amongst Berliners - pretty amazing considering that a new Thai restaurant opens here every eight seconds. Little surprise really as the food quality here is high. All fruit and vegetables are flown-in daily and prepared and cooked traditionally by experienced chefs. Half the menu is also Indonesian - a refreshing mix-up for the Berlin gastronomy scene. Meals range from 12€ - 18€, lunch is cheaper. The fresh juices also give you a taste of the tropics. Hausvogteiplatz 11, Mitte, U2 Hausvogteiplatz.

And here's what we saw in the theater in the evening in Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater:

Kabale und Liebe

von Friedrich Schiller

Die Liebesgeschichte von Ferdinand und Luise ist von Beginn an eine Problembeziehung: Er ist adlig, reich und macht Karriere. Sie ist bürgerlich, arm und fromm.Luise sieht das Unheil heraufziehen, doch Ferdinand klammert sich blind an seine Utopie der alles besiegenden Liebe – und wird so zum gefundenen Opfer für die Neider und Intriganten, die ihn mit Lady Milford, der Konkubine des Fürsten, verkuppeln wollen. Kann man sich dieser Welt und dem Druck der Gewalt moralisch erwehren? Mit Luise stellt Schiller diese Frage und lässt die anderen Figuren des Stücks Antwort geben – das die nicht schön ausfällt, ist kein Wunder. An ein Wunder aber grenzt die moderne Klarheit und pathetische Eindringlichkeit von Schillers ausufernder Sprache: ein Klassiker, der noch heute wütend macht. Präsidentin von Walter: Ruth Reinecke, Ferdinand: Florian Stetter, Hofmarschall von Kalb: Michael Klammer, Lady Milford: Hilke Altefrohne, Wurm: Ronald Kukulies, Miller: Robert Kuchenbuch, Luise: Hanna Eichel, Ein Kammerdiener: Michael Klammer, Regie -Florian Fiedler, Bühne -Annette Riedel, Kostüme -Selina Peyer, Dramaturgie -Ludwig Haugk

A wonderful day.

G8 : DOA

Sadly enough, the playpen is again flaunting international discussion and rejecting in advance G8 agreements on substantial efforts to keep our planet hospitable to life as we know it. Perhaps they should avoid some climate damaging emissions and just all stay home, talk on the telephone, and exchange thoughts by e-mail. A joint tele-conference would be enough to announce their failure to achieve anything worthwhile for mankind and his environment. (And aid to Africa will probably succumb to their summit party as well.)

U.S. Rejects G-8 Climate Proposal - washingtonpost.com

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 26, 2007; Page A09

U.S. officials have raised a second round of unusually bluntly worded objections to a proposed global-warming declaration that Germany prepared for next month's Group of Eight summit, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Representatives from the world's leading industrial nations met the past two days in Heiligendamm, Germany, to negotiate over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposed statement, which calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Bush administration officials, who raised similar objections in April, rejected the idea of setting mandatory emissions targets as well as language calling for G-8 nations to raise overall energy efficiencies by 20 percent by 2020. With less than two weeks remaining, said sources familiar with the talks, the climate document is the only unresolved issue in the statements the world leaders are expected to sign at the June 6-8 summit.
"The U.S. still has serious, fundamental concerns about this draft statement," a paper dated May 14 states. "The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple 'red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to. . . . We have tried to 'tread lightly' but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position."

It's entirely up to us...

«Auf uns kommt es an, [...] ob wir die Sterblichen sein können, die wir sind, nämlich die, die im Zuspruch des Seins stehen. Nur solche Wesen vermögen zu sterben, d.h. den Tod als Tod zu übernehmen.»
[MH: Der Satz vom Grund, S. 209]

It is up to us whether or not we can be the mortals we are, namely, the ones standing in Being's comforting-addressing ascription. Only such human-selves are capable of dying, i.e. of taking on death as death. [my own translation]

One month ago today, the Countess gathered her life together into a collected graceful completion.

Tired ...

... and glad not to have to do anything today!
... and glad the wolf is out of the meadow!
... and glad the sun is shining!
... and ready just to doze off with a good book.

Wolfing Down Everything In Sight

The amazingly voracious WOLF of the bushbaby playpen is willing to resign the position for which he never had any competence and with which he was rewarded for designing the playpenal farce in Iraq, yes, willing to resign, due to his nepotistic self-serving and crony-serving personnel actions at the World Bank, but only if the Board, that, with the exception of the bushbaby and his chainy master, want him out because of his unethical actions first agree to proclaim that he has done nothing wrong.
Caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the wolf cries out, "Tell the world I've never touched a cookie, never ever, and then I'll take my hand out of the cookie jar."

See the links below for details:

The New York Times
Washington
Wolfowitz Said to Push for Deal to Quit
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: May 17, 2007
Paul D. Wolfowitz wants to be cleared of wrongdoing before he resigns as the World Bank’s president.

REUTERS 17 May 2007
Wolfowitz, under a cloud over his handling of a raise and promotion for his companion, refused to bow to heavy European pressure to resign as he sought to clear his name in talks with the bank's board over a possible exit strategy.
"Mr. Wolfowitz will not resign under this cloud and he will rather put this matter to a full (board) vote than to capitulate on his integrity," his lawyer Robert Bennett told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Inaugural Address of M. Nicolas SARKOZY, Président de la République Française

Allocution de M. Nicolas SARKOZY, Président de la République, à l'occasion de la cérémonie d’installation
"Je ferai de la défense des droits de l'homme et de la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique les priorités de l'action diplomatique de la France dans le monde."

At the linked site, video and audio transmissions of the speech are also available. Whatever one thought before the election, we should all carefully listen to this speech in order to know exactly what was said and to what one may in future hold this new president accountable.

Which is greater ... ?

Here, once more, my own stab at a quick translation of a short passage from Heidegger, this time from volume 67 of his complete works, "Metaphyicis and Nihilism", the appendix with his own annotations to the second major essay in this volume (The Essential-Being of Nihilism), part I, number 5. In this entry, first my English, then my French version, and only then the original German, since I have the feeling, sometimes, that people don't read them if I begin with the German ... But they should !

I.5. Thinking's Estranging — a being-historical momentary glimpse

What is greater today —

unwillingness towards thinking

or displeasure in thinking

or misdirection in thinking

or fear of thinking

or incapacity to think (whereby personal inablity to engage in thought processes is not meant)

or are indeed all equally great because they are the same?

The consequence of an omission of the truth of Being — the dis-liking of Being.

I.5. Le Déconcertant du penser — aperçu aître-historique

Qu'est-ce qui est aujourd'hui plus grand —

la malveillance envers le penser

ou le déplaisir de penser ou le mal-diriger du penser

ou la peur de penser

ou l'incapacité de penser (ce qui ne veut pas dire une impuissance personnelle au processus de penser)

ou est-ce que tous sont en fait aussi grand en tant qu'ils sont le même?

La conséquence d'une omission de la vérité de l'Être — le ne-pas-aimer-l'Être.

« I.5. Das Befremdliche des Denkens
seinsgeschichtlicher Augenblick

Was ist heute größer —
das Mißwollen gegen das Denken
oder das Mißvergnügen am Denken
oder die Mißleitung im Denken
oder die Angst vor dem Denken
oder das Unvermögen zum Denken (womit nicht die persönliche Unfähigkeit zur Denktätigkeit gemeint ist)
oder sind gar alle gleich groß, weil sie das Selbe sind?
Die Folge eines Auslassen der Wahrheit des Seins — das Un-mögen des Seins. »

[MH: GA, Bd.67, S.262]

If you don't know the words...

... you can still sing along with this group of jubilant nuns. Let music reign!

And credit is due here, for sharing this with me, to the Lady-in-Waiting and to her friend in her choral group who put her onto it.

Au ministère de l'identité nationale

La chronique de Philippe SOLLERS
Le journal du mois
Paru dans le JDD, Lundi 30 Avril 2007
>Le mauvais rêve du mois dernier continue. Après mon interrogatoire éprouvant au ministère de l'Identité nationale, me voici maintenant convoqué au ministère du Contrôle génétique. Le nouveau président de la République française, Nicolas Sarkozy, vient de l'inaugurer, et ça va chauffer.

Restore Habeas Corpus!

The New York Times
Editorial
The Democrats’ Pledge
Published: May 9, 2007
[...] let’s be clear. There is nothing “conservative” or “tough on terrorism” in selectively stripping people of their rights. [...]
Democratic leaders must make promised measures to restore habeas corpus a priority and members of both parties must vote on principle, not out of fear of attack ads.

Solidarity with Warsaw's CSD 2007

Warschauer Pakt 2007 – Solidaritätsaktion für den CSD in Warschau
Die Initiative Warschauer Pakt 2007 wird auch in diesem Jahr die „Parade der Gleichheit" aktiv unterstützen. Die Parade wird am 19. Mai 2007 in Warschau stattfinden. Nähere Informationen werden fortlaufend hier sowie auf der polnisch/deutschen Website der Veranstalter veröffentlicht. Aktuelle Stimmungsbilder und praktische Infos (zum Beispiel wo es T-Shirts für die Demo gibt) findet sich auf unserem WarschauerPakt-Blog.

Le duel BHL-Glucksmann

Le duel BHL-Glucksmann
Bernard-Henri Lévy (for Royal) and André Glucksmann (for Sarkozy) debate the issues at stake, and one can hope they will continue to exert influence with their voices now that the vote has gone to Sarko.

Warm in the Sun

Here, it is warm and sunny and we have friends to meet who also need some support, one in a relationship crisis, others amidst trauma therapy, and we hope to have a nice walk in the countryside...
Time to share, and glad we are together to do so!

With Memories...

The Countess securely in our memories, we have traversed the Atlantic once again and returned to our home, spoken with my dear sister, whose truck made it full of untattered packages back along her land route and whose voice attracted the responsive attention of our parrot. In days to come, correspondence must begin with all those who held us close in their feelings. And here it is blooming spring, sunny, bright, with baby shoes from other decades and other geographic coordinates now on our shelves, things that belonged elsewhere are now with us at home here.
And today is our eleventh anniversary!

Saying Goodbye to Chicora Chicks at Court

This is truly caring and affection!

Long Live The Chicks of Chicora Court!