Author: Trent

  • Okinawa Uncovered

    Okinawa Uncovered

    Please read the comments below. They are more informative and correct than this article may have been. It seems obvious to me that the article I quoted here is not up to snuff. -Trent

    From the Guardian Newspaper:

    “First, I cut off your head. Then, I cleave you in two.” Eugene, my travelling companion and a fluent Japanese speaker, translated as a 450 year old samurai sword sliced a curving arc around his body, inches away from his face and chest. The words, and the sword, belonged to Hamamoto, a 70-year-old sensei and founder of the Hamamoto fighting style. The Hamamoto style, we soon discovered, is extremely violent and quite unsporting: he beckoned Eugene to kneel opposite him and encouraged him to bow. Mid-bow he suddenly unsheathed his sword and told him: “Now I take the butt of my sword and break your chin. Then I disembowel you.”

    More Here.

  • Armenian Teen Slain on Train

    From the Moscow Times:

    No suspects had been detained as of Tuesday.

    “According to witnesses, the killers were yelling, ‘Glory to Russia’ and ‘Long live Russia,’” said Simon Tsaturyan, the Sardaryan family’s lawyer.

    Tsaturyan said the attackers pulled the train’s emergency lever after stabbing Sardaryan and fled the scene. Sardaryan died on the spot, Tsaturyan said.

    Here.

  • Zimbabwe demolition images shown

    Zimbabwe demolition images shown

    From the BBC:

    The satellite images show the destruction of one settlement near Harare, which had contained some 850 structures before last May.

    The human rights group says the photos are irrefutable evidence how entire communities were obliterated.

    The UN says some 700,000 people were directly affected by the demolitions.

    Here.

  • Transmission 4.0

    Transmission 4.0

    From Vinyl Pulse:

    MUTTPOP X KOZIK = EL BRUJO NARCO SATANICO TEQUILA

    ON SALE EXCLUSIVELY AT VINYLPULSE.COM NEXT TUESDAY (6/6/6).

    LIMITED TO 333 FIGURES.

    Here.

  • Doctor Who loses momentum

    From the Guardian:

    It’s another mystery for Doctor Who – where have the viewers gone?

    BBC1’s Doctor Who revival has been lavished with critical praise and awards, but there are signs midway through its second series that viewers may be tiring of the time travelling sci-fi drama.

    Saturday’s Doctor Who, the seventh out of 13 episodes in the second series, was the lowest-rated yet since the show returned last year to rave reviews and big audiences.

    Here.

  • The Troops Have Moved On

    The Troops Have Moved On

    From the New York Times:

    Somehow Operation Iraqi Freedom, not a large war by America’s historical standards, has blossomed into a crisis of expectations that threatens our ability to react to future threats with a fist instead of five fingers. Instead of rallying we are squabbling, even as the slow fuse burns.

    One party is overly sanguine, unwilling to acknowledge its errors. The other is overly maudlin, unable to forgive the same. The Bush administration seeks to insulate the public from the reality of war, placing its burden on the few. The press has tried to fill that gap by exposing the raw brutality of the insurgency; but it has often done so without context, leaving a clear implication that we can never win.

    Here.

  • Bigots Not Discriminating About Their Targets

    From the Moscow Times:

    “I punched him in the face myself because I’m a normal Russian guy,” Alexei said, grinning.

    Using a widespread Russian expression, Alexei said he and others came to protest the march to “combine the pleasant things with the useful things” — hanging out with his friends while physically beating people he considers perverts.

    Here.

  • Somalis Brave a Sea of Perils

    Somalis Brave a Sea of Perils

    From the New York Times:

    The Somali smugglers are a ruthless lot. They charge $30 to $100 for passage, quite a bit since they pack 80 to 200 bodies into the fishing boats. And payment does not guarantee safe passage, not by a long shot.

    If the seas get too rough, some passengers might be hurled overboard to lighten the load. If someone dares to stand up during the voyage, a whack with a stick or a gun butt is the inevitable punishment. Unaccompanied women might find themselves sexually molested by the crew in the dark.

    But it is when the Yemeni Coast Guard appears and the boat owner risks losing his craft that things get even worse. The crew is likely to force all the passengers into the sea at gunpoint. If anyone hesitates, the crew will sometimes tie the hands of the passengers and throw them out, or simply shoot them.

    Here.

  • Iraqis' Accounts Link Marines to the Mass Killing of Civilians

    From the New York Times:

    Hiba Abdullah survived the killings by American troops in Haditha last Nov. 19, but said seven others at her father-in-law’s home did not. She said American troops shot and killed her husband, Rashid Abdul Hamid. They killed her father-in-law, Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, a 77-year-old in a wheelchair, shooting him in the chest and abdomen, she said.

    Her sister-in-law, Asma, “collapsed when her husband was killed in front of her eyes,” Ms. Abdullah said. As Asma fell, she dropped her 5-month-old infant. Ms. Abdullah said she picked up the baby girl and sprinted out of the house, and when she returned, Asma was dead.

    Here.

  • Coverup of Iraq Incident by Marines is Alleged

    From the Washington Post:

    But, he (Congressman Jack Murtha) said, “I will not excuse murder, and this is what has happened,” adding that there is “no question in my mind about it.” He reiterated a previous statement that shootings of women and children occurred “in cold blood” and that there was no firefight in which civilians were killed in a crossfire, as some Marines asserted after the event.

    “This is worse than Abu Ghraib,” he said, referring to the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at a prison west of Baghdad that, when revealed in spring 2004, became a major setback for the U.S. effort in Iraq.

    Here.

  • NoTxt site updated

    NoTxt site updated

    New site for NoTxt. This will be where to keep current on what’s going on over there.

    Here.

  • Chechnya names first beauty queen

    Chechnya names first beauty queen

    From the BBC:

    And the correspondent was also keen to get his views on fashion issues.

    “Long skirts,” Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov said. “As if they were going to church.”

    But then he added a little later: “Well, about skirts, if she’s got good legs then a bit shorter. But if she’s got bad legs best to have a long skirt.”

    Here.

  • A picture is truly worth 1000 words

    From The Spectrum:

    My life, though, is about to get a lot easier. The Daily News finally has a “real” photographer on staff.

    A month after I introduced you to our new-look reporting staff, I’m happy – thrilled, actually – to introduce you to Garrett Davis, who has more photography talent in his right index finger than I have in my entire body.

    Just look at his photo on this page. The one of the American flag on the rooftop at Steve Giger Auto Sales. Cool, huh?

    Here.

  • Review: In the Belly of the Green Bird; The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq

    Review: In the Belly of the Green Bird; The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq

    In the Belly of the Green Bird : The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq

    In the Belly of the Green Bird; The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, by Nir Rosen.
    [rating:4/5]

    Nir Rosen’s book gives us something I hadn’t seen much before- the view of an occupied Iraq from the Arabic point of view:

    A nervous soldier asked me to go explain the situation to the bespectacled staff sergeant, who had been attempting to calm the situation by telling the demonstrators, who did not speak English, that the U.S. patrol meant no harm. He finally lost his temper when and Iraqi told him gently, “You must go.”

    “I have the weapons,” the sergeant said. “You back off.”

    “Let’s get the fuck out!” one marine shouted to another, as the tension increased. I was certain that a shove, a tossed stone, or a shot fired could have provoked a massacre and turned the city violently against the American occupation. Finally, the marines retreated cautiously around a corner, as the worshipers were held back by their own men. Women peered at the marines from behind cracked open doors and children waved to them and gave them a thumbs-up.

    Rosen, a Turk, is able to travel and speak with the Iraqi people, imams, and fighters, in a way that I have not seen anywhere else. He carefully details the change in Iraq from the heady liberation, the growth of the insurgency, and today’s sectarian strife:

    Haidar was the father or two children and a frail man, with an attenuated body made even smaller by the immense turban he wore that pressed down on his large ears. Wide eyes and a long nose protruded from his long, thin face, made longer by a beard. In Moqtada’s prison, he was chained to a column and beaten. He claims he was also tortured with electric shocks. Haidar’s forehead is scarred because his keepers bashed it into a column. He claims there were about thirty-five detainees in the prison, including a twelve-year-old accused of homosexuality and a fourteen-year-old who stole money.

    Haidar was finally released after his face was broadcast on TV as a missing person and representatives from the seminary pressured Moqtada’s office. His true “crime” had been some public statements blaming Moqtada’s men for a murder back in April 2003.

    As a westerner, it did get hard keeping track of who is who. Rosen interviews so many key figures that it’s often an effort to keep up. But it’s so worthwhile. His is one missing viewpoint in most American minds.

    My last night I sat with my friends on Sandra, my favorite fresh fruit juice and ice cream place, happy that the owner still recognized me and remembered my usual drink, a strawberry and banana milkshake. One friend, a Sunni, confided to me that things had been much better under Saddam. Another friend was annoyed that Iraqis could be celebrating Eid and ignoring the horror all around them. Yet, he said, “They could level all of Baghdad and it would still be better than Saddam. At least we have hope.”

    A few weeks later the same friend e-mailed me in despair: “I’m living here in the middle of shit, a civil war will happen I’m sure of it… You can’t be comfortable talking with a man until you know if he is Shia or Sunni…People don’t trust each other…To be clear, now Shia are Iranians for the Sunni, and Sunni are Salafi terrorists for the Shia. We have a civil war here; it is only a matter of time, and some peppers to provoke it.”

    In the Belly of the Green Bird; The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, by Nir Rosen. Grade: B

  • Heady Metal

    Heady Metal

    From the New York Times Magazine:

    When I asked Anderson about Sunn0)))’s stage theatrics, his response was almost Warholian in its mastery of spin, laying claim to absolute sincerity while playfully allowing that a certain degree of camp might be involved. What about the robes? I asked. Anderson frowned. “The robe makes it easier for me, personally, just to forget about the audience and concentrate on what’s going on onstage — the chemistry, the tones, the sounds.” What about the fog machines? “The idea is that this is a ritual, somehow: not a ‘gig,’ not a concert, but a sort of invocation. That shifts the expectations of the audience.” What about the final track on “Black One,” the band’s breakout 2005 album, for which one guest vocalist, the legendary “suicidal metal” recluse known only as Malefic, supposedly recorded his vocals while sealed inside a coffin? This, finally, prompted Anderson to smile.

    “That was about capturing a certain kind of claustrophobic, isolated tone. There was actually a hearse parked outside the studio — a Cadillac hearse, painted purple — that belonged to the studio owner. So, we’re like, well of course we have to put the coffin in the hearse! So we actually put contact mikes inside the hearse, and inside the coffin and on top of it, and shut the lid. Malefic’s a tall, lanky guy, and he didn’t really fit inside too well. Eventually he started feeling claustrophobic, and that’s how we got the tone we wanted. There are outtakes of him knocking on the lid, saying: ‘O.K., I’m done! Let me out!’ ” Might that not qualify as tongue-in-cheek? I asked. “Tone first,” Anderson said, holding up a finger. “What this group’s about is tone.” He watched me closely for a moment, then his smile suddenly widened. “I love metal,” he said, as if confessing a closely guarded secret.

    Here.

  • Bringing it all Back Home

    Bringing it all Back Home

    From Scott Anderson (photos by Eugene Richards/VII), New York Times Magazine:

    Norris, too, had come to understand that his presence was not appreciated, or worse. His officers, he told me, “were always drumming into us: ‘Hearts-and-minds, hearts-and-minds. We’ve got to win these people over.”‘ He gave a laugh. “These people just wanted us dead.”

    Here.

  • Review: Keep Sweet; Children of Polygamy

    Review: Keep Sweet; Children of Polygamy

    Keep Sweet; Children of Polygamy, by Debbie Palmer & Dave Perrin. Grade, regular reader: D; Polygamy-obsessed: B.

    Picked up a signed copy of Keep Sweet at a small bookstore in Creston, BC, just a few kilometers from where the events in the book took place. The inscription from Debbie Palmer, “Hope you enjoy” struck me as odd from the start, but especially when I got to this paragraph:

    Early one Friday morning, I was stuck in the only bathroom in the house, vomiting. I threw up green, slimy liquid, then was hit with a terrible attack of diarrhea. Children soon started pounding on the door. Sharp pains stabbed my right side, and a flush of fever left me sweating and weak. I crumpled in a ball onto the floor, unconcerned that I was lying in my own mess. A stern command from Daddy brought me to my feet, and I unlocked the door.

    Hope you enjoy? Um, okay.

    This book isn’t what I thought it would be. Coming from a woman who left polygamy after three tough marriages and apparent trauma, you expect a strong voice speaking out against, what I would think she feels, is a lifestyle incompatible with equal rights for women. But Palmer isn’t that speaker. She was a believer and her story seems pretty honest. She takes some shots, but then portrays herself as almost an idiot. The book is less an anti-polygamy diatribe from an exile than a look into the fundamentalist religion of intense faith and, often, poverty. It is a religion at odds with Canadian and US law:

    Uncle Isaac called the whole family to evening meetings and firesides. He would read from a book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. Over and over he told us, “When it is my time to die, which could be anytime, none of you will ever see my face again, let alone the face of Christ, if you are not prepared to suffer as Christ suffered. You people cannot expect to slide into the celestial kingdom on someone else’s coattails. You’ve got to suffer and sacrifice and be maligned and hated. Do you think the world will love you if you’re doing the Lord’s will? We can be dull, stupid, and common like all the other seagulls on the shore fighting for the rotten, stinking fish, or we can soar like Jonathan Livingston Seagull into the next life with a celestial vision.” Uncle Isaac was firece and bold and we loved it. I became determined I would be a high-flying seagull, no matter what the pain or sacrifice.

    Put aside the polygamy, the religion here is fierce and fundamental. The polygamist leaders in Keep Sweet are very intense in their beliefs, and the religion is portrayed by Palmer as one where fear is the key motivation:

    Joseph White Musser decreed the Lord required us to bring our earthly needs and desires under subjugation “every whit” before we’d be allowed to parent these choice spirits. When a woman was married to a man for all eternity, she shouldn’t think she could let her passions run loose in the way of the gentile world. He said the Lord’s commandment to multiply and replenish the earth has an order.

    “We watch the animals of the earth and see that they follow the natural order the Lord has designed for them. Therefore we must counsel together as husbands and wives and find out the time when we may conceive, and otherwise bring the passions of the flesh under control so our energy will be used in serving the Lord.” This commandment weighed heavily on the woman; if she deceived her husband and did not inform him of the proper times, she would be guilty of adulterating the birth canal, and the consequences would be “dire and severe.” There was a short verse at the end of the passage: “Sow in the morn thy seed, In the eve hold not thy hand.”

    I wish this book had been edited more tightly. It seems as if Palmer is trying to get every last detail and every event in here, and a lot of it doesn’t move the story along. And the book ends before she leaves the group. But I think Palmer tells it the way it was, and often it’s as unflattering to her as it is to the fundamentalist religion she left behind. Don’t read this book expecting to find a hero, or even a sympathetic character. It’s more interesting as an insight into religion. I think that was most valuable to me: reading the experiences of someone who spent some time around polygamist prophet LeRoy S. Johnson and other insights into the FLDS fundamentalist mormon religion:

    We were truly blessed that our prophet and his apostles visited Canada every three months now so they could update us on what God had in mind for his people. They arrived shortly after the gentile media made a big fuss about the United States being the first world power to build a spaceship and send a man to walk on the moon. Newspapers, radio, and television were talking non-stop about beating Russia in the race for space. We were all excited, and most everyone managed to find a television to watch “the moonwalk” over and over again. Uncle Isaac reminded us that our prophet had said, “God would never, worlds without end, allow a man to walk on the moon. The moon and all the celestial bodies in the heavens were protected from man by God, and He would never allow man to reach any of His creations off this earth.”

    That certainly dampened the excitement in our group, and some of the kids were even wondering if the prophet had been wrong. We all stopped talking about it until he arrived to explain to us why the newspapers and television were contradicting what he’d told us. We were relieved to find out how Satan had inspired the government of the United States to create fake pictures of the moonwalk in order to further trick and confuse people on Earth. After the meeting, everyone was distraught to discover the lengths the devil would go to make people “believe a lit and be damned.” Jan immediately included the prophet’s teachings about the treachery of the gentile nations in our classes at school so we wouldn’t be tempted to believe what we heard on television or happened to read. We just needed to be very sure to remember that Satan’s number-one tool to deceive and destroy people through temptation was television.

    Keep Sweet; Children of Polygamy, by Debbie Palmer & Dave Perrin. Grade, regular reader: D; Polygamy-obsessed: B.

  • Okigwe: Imo State's wretched city of darkness and dry taps

    Okigwe: Imo State's wretched city of darkness and dry taps

    From the Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:

    Any time you meet a person telling you that the government of Imo State has turned the state to wonderland, don’t believe it until you go to Okigwe, one of the three major cities of the state.

    After your visit to Okigwe, you will have every reason to boldly stand up and tag the person laying claims to such wonders a liar.

    Here.

  • Okwe, a town under siege

    Okwe, a town under siege


    From the Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:

    “Pressman, you have no need to ask questions on whether we live under the terror of security operatives. You have witnessed it and we guess your story will just be a narration of what you have encountered”. It was a story that told itself and investigation practicalised by the constant visit of daring security men to the town. There were three of such visits on Monday, May 8, and we all ran into the bush whenever they came. One managed to peep from the hiding to catch a glimpse of the armed men who called like ravenous wolves to take a prey.

    Here.

  • The Aquabats recruit new guitarist, detail "Charge!!" DVD

    The Aquabats recruit new guitarist, detail "Charge!!" DVD

    From PunkNews:

    The Aquabats have gained a new member. Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk will be taking over guitar duties from Chainsaw, the prince of Karate who injured himself just prior to May.

    Here.