An interesting musical instrument: kankles
Category: Music
Kanklės(not pronounced like “ankles”, but like “kank-less”)
The oldest and most archaic Lithuanian folk musical instrument is the kanklės. It is considered to be Lithuania’s national instrument. This multistringed musical instrument is believed to have been developed during the Iron Age. (First mentioned in writings in 1580). The word “kanklės” means wooden clapper and is derived from the Sanscrit word “konkani”.It resembles the zither and other countries have similar instruments of similar origin. For example, the Latvians have the kokle,Estonians have the kannel, the Finnish have the kantele, and Russians, the gusli.
In ancient times five, six and twelve-stringed kanklės were played. Today,the instrument can vary from 7 strings to 25 strings. The body of the kanklės is carved from a single piece of wood—linden, maple, black alder, or oak. It has a trapezoid shape: One end is narrow, the other is wide. A metal rod is attached into the narrow end to hold the strings. Holes are cut or burned into the wide end for the pins with which the strings are tightened. The resonating board on the top side is made of spruce,attached to the body of the kanklės with wooden or metal tacks or glue. Strings made of gut, copper or steel are stretched lengthwise across the instrument. The strings are played with the right hand fingers or with a pick made of wood, bone, or feather.
While playing, the kanklės are held that the end with the shortest string isheld towards the player. Sound holes,which traditionally take the shape of a stylized flower or star, are cut into the sounding board, allowing sound to project outward.
In Lithuania, there are regional differences of types of kanklės, where shape, size and styling differ to represent the region. The three major regions are: Northeastern Aukštaitija, Žemaitija, Suvalkija. Some are shaped like round-bottom boats, some carve the ends in the shape of a bird’s beak or fish tail. Others have a spiral figure. The instrument not only sounds beautiful, but is also looks beautiful .
Legends and stories are attached to this instrument. Kanklės were said to be played during sacrifices to the gods and sacred rituals to protect against evil spirits or death. Folklore handed down through centuries states that the best wood for making kanklės comes from deep forests, and the best time for cutting the tree was thought to be between a person’s death and funeral. If the deceased were greatly mourned, then the kanklės were thought to have a sorrowful, bitter voice.
As Christianity took hold in Lithuania, the purpose of the kanklės shifted to celebration to be played at weddings, Christenings, holidays and festivals.They accompany folksongs & folkdances. But it is still very much an instrument of the forest and the mysteries of its pagan past still resonate among Lithuanians. Lithuania is one of the longest lasting pagan cultures still practised today among and within Christianity. And while that juxtaposition appears to be contradictory, it just is the way it is.
I’ve attached two videos. One is of a Lithuanian girl playing in her home, another is Latvian artist Laima Jansone playing the kokle among the trees! Also included are some photos. Hope you enjoy.
We must elect leaders who care about the environment
Category: News and Politics
In December 2009, Canada will meet with other nations in Copenhagen to adopt an international treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. In 2010, the country will also have to report on the progress it has made regarding the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's targets for reducing biodiversity loss. Over the next few years, Canada's government must also formally review its Species at Risk Act, implement a Sustainable Development Act, and tackle a number of other crucial environmental issues.
We need a government that will lead when it comes to caring for the finite world that gives us life and sustains us. We've already squandered 20 years since global warming was first recognized as an issue requiring immediate attention. We signed the Kyoto Protocol 10 years ago, in 1998, and ratified it in 2002, but have done little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since then. On top of that, our oceans have more plastics and pollution but fewer fish, plant and animal species are disappearing at an accelerating rate, and we have failed to take advantage of the many opportunities sustainable development offers.
Even though the environment has at least been on the agenda during this election, pollsters tell us Canadians see the economy and health care as more important. But it's not a matter of one or the other. The health of Canadians depends on a healthy environment, as does a healthy economy. Everything is connected!
The economy is a huge issue, as we can see from the current meltdown in the U.S., which will surely have an enormous impact on our economy. But some politicians are exploiting our fears to imply that environmental protection and action on global warming are not compatible with a strong economy. What planet are these people living on?
That way of thinking is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. A strong, sustainable economy is not possible without a healthy environment. Global warming, pollution, diminishing resources, and loss of species and habitat will cost us increasingly more as our already burdened health-care systems are stretched to the limit, as we run short of fossil fuels and land to grow food, and as ecosystems collapse, threatening the availability of clean water, air, and soil.
Those who argue that protecting the environment will hurt the economy may want to take note that none of the current economic problems in the U.S., here, or around the world has been caused by environmental-protection measures! On the contrary, countries such as Germany and Denmark that took measures early on to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and switch to more renewable energy sources have seen substantial economic benefits and have been less vulnerable to the impacts of volatile fossil-fuel markets. We don't decry $90 a tonne tipping fees for landfills but we scream bloody murder at a suggested $10 a tonne to pollute the atmosphere with carbon. Sweden has a flourishing economy with a carbon tax at $150 a tonne!
We're a bit behind, but we can start to catch up by recognizing that environmental initiatives can give the economy a huge boost. We can keep sucking every last bit of coal and oil out of the ground until it's all gone, until it's all been burned and its carbon released into the air, or we can create jobs and economic opportunities by developing renewable sources of energy.
Yes, we can all make a difference through our own individual actions, by changing some of our habits, but we also have an opportunity to elect a government that will contribute to the kinds of large-scale changes needed for a sustainable world. As Canadians, we must hold the politicians to account and ensure that, no matter which party wins the election, we will have a government that shows foresight and leadership at home and abroad. That way we'll have a country that is thriving on opportunity rather than drowning in crisis. If we keep stalling, we won't have to worry about the economy, or health care, or anything else.
On October 14th of this year, Canadians will go to the polls. And the people we choose to lead (and to serve) us can have historic consequences for our country and for the environment for generations to come.
My greatest fear in this election is not that one candidate or one party will win over the other. My nightmare is that the issue of the environment will be ignored in this election and that concerns about our planet will be drowned out by the name-calling and political posturing that have come to mark Canadian campaigns. And if that happens, if we fail to put the focus on the environment, the message to the next government - regardless of which party prevails - will be a mandate for more inaction.
We cannot let that happen. We do not have the time or the luxury.
And to make sure this doesn't happen, what we do between now and October 14th will be as important as what we do on October 14th.
We have to put all candidates' feet to the fire. We have to show them that we will not accept future inaction. We will demand that they address our environmental concerns - that they represent us.
That's what we're trying to do with Vote Environment 2008.
We invite you to consider this your meeting place during the campaign. We've invited many of our friends and some unusual suspects to help cut through the hot air and spin, to get you thinking about the issues. We want to hear your views on the election, media coverage, and the leaders and candidates in your local area.
Russia’s Propaganda Warfare – by William Horsely, European Affairs Analyst....
Western leaders face two fronts in their stand-off with Russia over its use of force to re-draw borders in Europe: one is the Russian army on the ground. The other is a propaganda war. ....
So far, the West has failed to spell out a common response, to get Russia to end its occupation of large parts of Georgia and undo its recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. ....
Meanwhile, Russia has unleashed a propaganda barrage against an "aggressive" Nato alliance, drawing sharp ripostes from western leaders. ....
President Dmitry Medvedev, who came to office with overtures to the West, now warns of a "crushing response" to any other country that threatens the lives or dignity of Russian nationals. He is "not afraid of a new Cold War", he adds. ....
Inconsistencies ....
This war of words is not just a diversionary tactic. ....
The statements of Russian leaders reveal an underlying strategy which suggests that the West is right to see dangers ahead from the actions of a belligerent Russia. ....
But those same statements also show glaring inconsistencies which belie Russia's apparently strong hand. ....
The Russians' strongest argument in defence of its armed intervention is that blame for the outbreak of a shooting war is shared. ....
Most observers agree it is, and that Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili acted rashly or wrongly in ordering his army to bombard and take the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. ....
He was wrong, too, to speak of Russia "exterminating" his nation. ....
But in many other ways, Russia's defence of its armed intervention has been found wanting or false. ....
Russia's official charges of "genocide" by Georgian forces against the South Ossetians were quickly discredited by Human Rights Watch. ....
Broken promises ....
Moscow's South Ossetian allies still claim that nearly 1,700 people died in the Georgian assault but evidence has yet to be produced. ....
Moscow's repeated promises to withdraw its forces as prescribed in the French-brokered ceasefire plan have been broken in many parts of Georgia. ....
That is what prompted the European Union and Nato to accuse Moscow of breaking international law, and breaking its word. ....
Mr Medvedev argued that Russia had been forced to use force to protect its own nationals in South Ossetia. ....
But Russia has deliberately engineered that situation by handing out Russian passports to large numbers of local inhabitants. ....
Sweden's normally soft-spoken Foreign Minister Carl Bildt retorted that Russia's resort to that argument echoed that of Hitler in annexing pre-World War Two Czechoslovakia. ....
Finally, Russia's claim that its motive in Georgia was purely humanitarian was exploded by this week's decision to recognise the independence of the two breakaway regions. ....
This catalogue of feints and deceptions has hardened international opinion towards Russia to the point where the West is undertaking an overall review of ties with Moscow - something scarcely imaginable only a month ago. ....
The acute international alarm regarding Russia stems from the offensive part of its concerted campaign to send messages of varying degrees of threat to other countries. ....
Strategic target ....
Dmitry Medvedev's hint that Russia might feel justified to intervene on behalf even of Russians living in other states brought a defiant show of solidarity from the leaders of Ukraine, Poland and the three Baltic states as well as Georgia. ....
A senior Russian commander explicitly threatened Poland - saying it made itself "100%" into a Russian strategic target - after the Poles signed an agreement with the US to station American troops and missile defence shield interceptors on its soil. ....
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin castigated the western media for what he called their consistently anti-Russian reporting of the Georgia conflict. ....
But in Europe's free and diverse media Russia's side of the story is regularly reported in detail, and views critical of the US over Iraq and Kosovo are commonplace. ....
In Russia, by contrast, the most influential medium of TV is heavily slanted to favour the Kremlin's line. ....
Catastrophic ....
Russia's plea for understanding is undermined by its various punitive actions over recent years against nearly all of its neighbours to its west, from cutting the flow of gas to Ukraine to alleged cyber-attacks against Estonia. ....
Russia does indeed have friends in the West who are inclined to take a lenient stance now - Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for one, who once put himself forward as Vladimir Putin's "defence lawyer". ....
But the real international fallout from Georgia is proving little short of catastrophic for Russia. ....
By its actions it has put at risk its privileged position within the G8, and earned the clear condemnation of Europe's two major international institutions devoted to building democracy and peace - the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. ....
A way out for Russia lies in the precise pledge made by Mr Medvedev when he became president of Russia only three months ago - that he would strive to make Russia a nation that truly respects the rule of law and international norms. ....
Otherwise Russia could be undone by its own myths, and be isolated in the new Cold War that its leaders still say they do not seek. ....
A specter is haunting Europe-the specter of Putinism. Confronted by a masterful Russian leader without living peer in brilliance or ruthlessness, the continent sorely lacks leadership and a sense of common purpose. In their muddled reactions to the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia, European states revealed a gap in perceptions that threatens to deepen: Those who suffered under the Soviet yoke sense the return of an existential threat, while those who thrived under the Pax Americana are merely annoyed at being disturbed. As Russian troops and their mercenary auxiliaries savaged a free, democratic country yearning Westward, the world got another lesson in how ineffectual Europe is in a crisis without American leadership.
The United States performed no better. Scorned for his aggressive behavior in the past, President Bush spent the first crucial days of the Georgia crisis as a bewildered observer reluctant to recognize the gravity of the problem. Putin went to war and the American president went to a basketball game--reinforcing the Kremlin's conviction that it could do as it pleased and get away with it. (Bush's gravest flaw is that he's a dreadful judge of character, stubbornly trusting undeserving men, from Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, through the incompetent Alberto Gonzales, to Vladimir Putin, who played Bush for a fool.)
..
The American president is furious now, but it's too late. High noon came and went, and the much-derided cowboy-president wasn't there when he was needed. Instead, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, well-intentioned and inadequate, took time off from the Feydeau farce of his personal life and rushed to Moscow to "demand" a cease-fire in Georgia.
The Putin regime was perfectly willing to let Monsieur le President return to Paris with a signed piece of paper. The Russians have drawn the lesson from Western efforts to negotiate with Iran and other rogue states that Europe can be narcotized with empty agreements and nebulous promises and that Europe has become a continent of bureaucrats who much prefer paperwork to reality. And there are no penalties when the agreements prove
worthless. The Russian government was reasonably polite, but did not take Sarkozy seriously. Even as he presumed to speak for the European Union, he had no practical leverage with the Kremlin.
One can only admire the unrivaled acuity with which Putin, the old KGB agent, sized up the other players he knew would come to the strategic gaming table. He took his cue to begin planning his punitive expedition into Georgia last winter, when a core group of European states, led by Germany, refused to inaugurate concrete measures (such as MAPs, or Military Action Plans) to set Ukraine and Georgia on course to become NATO members. Moscow read NATO's Sendung as an abandonment, especially of Georgia. Thereafter, Russia's leader surveyed the international characters who had chips on the table: President Bush had convinced himself that Putin was his friend and could be blindsided; Europe's leaders could be depended upon to quibble among themselves while seeking to avoid incurring any serious costs; and the mercurial President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia could be goaded into a conflict at the time of Russia's choosing.
Putin chose that hour well. Beginning in late July, artillery barrages, sniping incidents and raids staged from South Ossetia increased in intensity as Russia's local clients prodded Georgia to respond. Politically and practically, Saakashvili had to react: no national leader can permit deadly, daily attacks upon his electorate to go unanswered. As Russian troops finished massing on Georgia's northern border, Putin notched the violence up again. Saakashvili took the bait on schedule.
Western intelligence analysts had been expecting a violent confrontation for many months, yet none believed it would come just when it did, assuming that Putin wouldn't act during the Olympics. But Putin saw opportunity where others saw impossibility-a hallmark of genius. He exploited the simultaneous opening of the Olympics and the departure of EU, NATO and national European bureaucrats for their August vacations. Key leaders would be in Beijing, far from their capitals and staffs, while the world's attention would be focused on swimmers and gymnasts. From Washington to Berlin, the best and the brightest would be standing down at their beach homes, Tuscan farmhouses or Wyoming ranches. Putin gained a decisive 100 hours.
From the start, Russian government voices all sang from the same score. Putin set the pitch, deploying lyrics he knew would resonate in the West, such as "genocide" and "response." With cold-blooded aplomb, the Russians accused the Georgians of doing precisely what the Russians were doing to the Georgians. Putin and his team understood that, in the Information Age, gaining early control of the narrative of events is essential and the Russians did it artfully. Throughout the first ten days of the crisis, the global media continued to find a moral equivalence between Russia's actions and Georgia's that was never there: untutored in the complexities of the region, lazy journalists accepted Moscow's proposition that a tiny nation with 87 decrepit tanks in its inventory had vigorously attacked a power that could deploy over 6,400 tanks.
The result? Russia won this war, energetically integrating the various elements of governmental power-military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic and informational-in the manner that Western doctrine preaches, but to a degree that Western powers have yet to achieve anywhere. While frightened Poland immediately agreed to participate in a new American anti-missile program and terrified Ukraine asked to be included, as well, the cocktail-reception anger elsewhere on the continent will dissipate rapidly. And the United States can do little in the Georgia case without determined European support. "Reason" will prevail, and Russia will suffer no meaningful penalties. Putin will, literally, get away with murder.
He'll murder again, as a consequence. We've seen this pattern played out in the United States, when, in the 1990s, the Clinton administration refused to take Islamist terrorism seriously: al Qaeda was supposed to fade away because we wanted it to fade away. But al Qaeda wasn't interested in our wishes. Likewise, Western European states that have enjoyed the richest, longest stretch of peace in their history don't want the party to end and so make excuses for Russia.
But the party always ends. Vladimir Putin just put Europe on notice that time's up and the catering bills are due. Nonetheless, Western Europe will continue its efforts to duck out on its strategic creditors: The continent's oldest democracies will have to be cornered miserably before they accept the new, brutal reality created by Russia's new czar. In the short term, Putin will continue to terrorize Georgia. In the mid-term, his diplomats will placate Europe with promises. In the long-term, he'll do whatever he damn well pleases. For all his savagery, it's impossible not to admire Putin's Kampfgeist. He may well be the giant of our age.
That said, this latest burst of Russian imperialism will end badly for Russia-eventually. Russia's patterns are deeply ingrained, and Putin is the quintessential Russian in his ambitions (if not in his tee-totaling). Russia always overreaches, and Putin will, too. But the longer he is left unchecked, the grimmer and costlier the ultimate confrontation is going to be.
It's become a cliche to cite Putin's KGB past when explaining him. Yet, Russia's new strongman isn't an ideologue; he's an ethnic nationalist. There's no taint of dialectical materialism in the cold-eyed man from St. Petersburg; on the contrary, he's far more a creature from a Dostoevsky novel than a "new Soviet man" produced by Lenin. Even Putin's heritage as a secret policeman reaches farther back than the recent era of the KGB-or Cheka, or NKVD, or MGB. Putin harks back beyond the czarist Okhrana to the proto-Gestapo Oprichniki of Ivan the Terrible, whose twin concerns were internal order and the exclusion of all things foreign, and whose elementary traits were paranoia and cruelty.
The rise of Vladimir Putin is bad news for Russia's immediate neighbors (who realize it), for Western Europe (which struggles to deny it), and for the United States (which cannot act effectively against Moscow without European solidarity). Putin understands the principle of "divide and conquer." The founding-generation states of NATO appear to have forgotten the counter-principle of "unite and win."
What did Putin seek when he sent his revitalized military and its vicious auxiliaries across the Great Caucasus? Three things:
1. To punish Georgia for its Westward yearnings and to destroy its president. Putin meant to make it clear that Moscow's former possessions will not be allowed to create freewheeling, Western-allied democracies on Russia's borders. Additionally, Putin resembles Bush in one odd respect: Both men personalize diplomacy, but where Bush has a Texan confidence that he can make a friend of anyone, Putin assesses every interlocutor as a potential enemy. Now Putin is venting his personal hatred of Georgia's president, who had the audacity to talk back to the new czar.
2. To send a message to the strayed states of the old Russian (not Soviet) empire that Moscow still intends to rule all that the czars once ruled. Hungary, the Czech Republic and their Central European brethren aren't included in Putin's present appetite, but the entire Caucasus, Central Asia, the Baltic triplets, Ukraine and eastern Poland are on the Kremlin's strategic menu.
3. To gain hegemony over the last non-Russian-controlled pipelines delivering gas and oil from the Caspian Basin and Central Asia to the West. Like many historically minded Russians, Putin recalls how desperate the World War II-era Germans were to reach Baku and its oil fields. The lesson he's drawn is that, instead of merely depriving Panzers and Stukas of gasoline, reborn Russia can deny fuel to all of Europe in a crisis. Given that Kremlin-backed Russian energy interests have been able to hire a former German chancellor for a handful of Euros, it's difficult to envision Europe uniting to diversify its energy sources: Europe is strolling open-eyed into energy slavery.
The essential point here is that Russia has a strategic vision, while the West does not. Putin acts, we react. Russia plans, we improvise. Our behavior is both ineffective and woefully inefficient. Worsening the situation, the United States is weary and, increasingly, inward-focused. Meanwhile, Europe enjoys complaining about an over-engaged America, but it may find that it likes a disengaged America a great deal less. There is nothing that passes for a convincing strategic vision in either Washington or Brussels. We are simultaneously outclassed by our self-appointed opponent and determined to put off any unpleasant reckoning: The two richest and most-powerful continents in history cannot rally together against a middling state with an aging, dying population that depends on a single source for its national income.
The determination, especially in Western Europe, to minimize the importance of the rape of Georgia-Putin's actions amount to nothing less-is gratingly reminiscent of the cries of "Why Die for Danzig?" that echoed in Britain and France in the late 1930s. And, while politicians and pundits will do their best to minimize the perception of a military threat from the new Russia, it bears remembering that, in 1930, the German Reichswehr had 100,000 men and equipment hardly fit for a playground, yet, a mere ten years later, the Wehrmacht had millions of men under arms, the best weaponry in the world, and most of Europe under its boot-heels. While it may be unhelpful to be an alarmist, it's even less useful to be willfully naïve.
Putin's team won the Georgia match and every point in play. In the absence of meaningful European unity and Euro-American solidarity, Moscow will win the next round, too.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer, a strategist and columnist, and the author of the new book, Wars Of Blood And Faith, The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-First Century.”
I attended a very simple birthday party among very non-pretentious, simple people living in an old village in Lithuania.
I did not expect much more than the usual over abundance of feeding, drinking and laughter. Lithuanians typically and traditionally honour each guest as if they were kings and queens. Food, spirits, wine, and gifts are regular fare even in the most humble homes. This, to me, is always a pleasure to experience, albeit I am often embarrassed as their financial situation pales greatly in comparison to mine. I often feel it should be me who brings gifts, food, pays for things. Yet, this is not the tradition. Lithuanians are rather confused by gifts from others. It is their duty to feed and entertain "their" guests, not the other way around. It has taken me several visits to shake my need to equal the terms, to present gifts, to buy things. That's NOT what's it's all about. I have to switch my gears when I visit the land of my forebears.
But this is about the birthday party. It's a party given for a woman who cannot have her birthday at home because her husband drinks too much, does not love her, and refuses to recognize her birthday. So, her close friend decided to have one for her, secretly. The "foreigners" were invited as well, and we have met her once before. She is an interesting and intelligent woman. She is a woman who would have excelled in some way if given the opportunity. Her life has been the village, serving husband and children. She has read everything and anything she could get her hands on, she has volunteered at the local church and library, she has expanded her mind in whatever way she could.
Another woman joins us, an anomaly of sorts. She is in her mid sixties and single. The "never married" are looked upon as strange in these old villages. Yet, she seems entirely content and entirely interesting.She brings a small bag of "items". She tells us it will be a party game for later.
My husband's father, a man nearing his 90th year, is concerned with what people are drinking. He fusses about with wine and spirits and wants everyone to have exactly what they wish. So many glasses are filled at once and before me sits a glass of red wine, a jigger of brandy, a flute of champagne and a beer. Everyone else has the same deal. I don't think, realistically, that I will get through all except for the glass of red wine (and will secretly hope that another may be offered of the same). His "housekeeper" is difficult to define. She is more than that. She cares for him and sleeps in his bed. She makes his meals, she cleans house, she shops for him, but she also cuddles with him and keeps him warm. Not exactly a "lover" and not exactly a "maid". They co-habitate, share expenses. It's what it is.
We eat copious amounts of food at this party that I feel immediately uncomfortable with. I am conscious of the criticism that I "don't want to eat". One must eat! Eat again. Eat. Eat. It's such a burden. I want to balance being respectful with being realistic. I lose that balance, each and every time. This is not a place to go or stay on a diet, or eat "normally".
The conversation somehow starts to center on politics. Shortly thereafter the idea of love comes to the fore. Then the most interesting thing of all occurs. The woman, who could not have her own party at home, starts to recite by memory, a poem. The poem is deep. It links love and politics in such a profound way that I start to tear up. I more than tear up and they respectfully join me by tearing up as well. They break into song. I do not know the words.
Shortly after, the unmarried woman takes out her bag of gifts and starts to ask questions. Each question is significant. It touches a chord deep and wide, and when the answer is correct, she presents a small token to represent the question/answer. For a few of us it was a calendar, or chocolate bar, or piece of linen. The depth of this experience was overwhelming me. This was all just regular fare among these people, but for me, it was something I never really experienced, because so much popular culture comes teeming in to replace the simplicity and beauty of such events. The game of choice in North America would have been Balderdash or something of that ilk, a discussion about movies or current c.d.'s. No one would have quoted Rilke, Cohen, or broken into "Four Strong Winds" by Ian and Sylvia. No one.
Then poetry abounded. It was as if poetry was suddenly unleashed. The alcohol must have helped, but who cares. Beautiful, profound, poetry! At a village party. Poetry about the rye in the fields. Poetry about suffering and longing, oppression and sadness. Poetry about the sound of swallows cheeping in the morning. Poetry about song. Not a paper in hand. All memorized. Eyes closed or with clenched fists. Nodding heads…tears…holding hands. Love and understanding.
I was moved more deeply than I have been moved in many years. This was not "spoken word" it was the word spoken. Relevant. True. Simple and complex. It was tied to the land as if breathing. It was important.
I didn't want to go to this party. I thought it would be boring and lame. I thought I would have to put up with "old people's" complaints. No one complained about anything personal. I had my North American hat on, but luckily I could throw it to the floor in order to grasp and enjoy this experience in all its preciousness.
Prehistoric man did dance and archeological evidence from anthropological research, suggests that it was a highly important part of life.
Dance is also referred to as the great mother of the arts. Primitive dance, with its rhythm, stamping of feet, clapping of hands, shaking of rattles and beating of sticks, led to the beginnings of music's ancestry. Throughout pre-history and modern history that followed, societies branched out and developed many rich and varied forms of artistic expression: music, drama, painting, poetry and so forth.
What might distinguish dance from other forms of expression, besides its historical roots and significance?
Two things come immediately to mind. The first is that dance is an instrument of the human body, and secondly, it is ephemeral. It does not leave any lasting product or record of itself.
Dance philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnston explains this sentiment as follows:
"The dance…is a unity of succession, a cohesive moving form, and so it is to the audience…it is a form which is in flight, is in the process of becoming the dance which it is, yet never fully the dance at any moment…it is also a living, vital human experience for both dancer and audience."
Much has been written in dance discourse about the element of emotionality in dance. The concept of expressing emotion is central to the definition of dance in many if not most of its manifestations.Perhaps, again, the centrality of this notion arises from our primordial past before words were readily available. Still today, however, the intuitive reaction to manifest a feeling, to externalize it by resorting to movement when words cannot express that feeling rationally, is the basis of dance.
Arts advocate, educator, philosopher & writer Charles B. Fowler writes of dance:
"Dance is a way to feel what it is to be human and to be alive. In that sense it is celebration. It makes something special out of life. It is revelation; some would say, illumination. Because it involves the self, it reveals self. It communicates what one knows of one's own body feeling. Like all the other arts, dance is a code, in this case a structuring of gestures and motions that captures and conveys subjective inner experience.The elements that make up this code are sound, movement, line, pattern, form, space, shape, rhythm, time and energy."
Dance has also taken on a significant role in many cultures for the purpose of ritual, communal function, and social identification.Studies by Margaret Mead and Havelock Ellis of tribes in Samoa and Africa reveal that dance established a sense of tribal unity, collective strength and purpose. Bantu tribes would greet each other with the question: "What do you dance?"
In the 17th century, Louis XIV instilled such high social standards to dance, that it served as a political ploy to maintain his complete authority. The stringent methods of acquiring precise social etiquette within his society, where one had a "dance master" assigned to their child's private education, was the development of much of today's movements/steps in classical ballet.
Aside from philosophy, anthropology, sociology, there is also the psychological aspect of dance. Carl Jung discusses dance in the sense of the collective unconscious, where dance grows out of the history, traditions, myths and primordial images of a people. All human behaviour, including dance, is influenced and shaped through folklore, legends, heroes, fairy tales, and historical events. Dance then, is an expression of deep, hidden psychological impulses and cultural influences.
While this may be true, one cannot but help notice that movement and the human is a pervasive need. Observe a child and you will observe constant motion: Play, crawling, lifting, clapping, kicking, running, manipulating the environment physically. The unborn child moves, reacts to a mother's heartbeat, the newborn sets on a path of continuous motion. When we sleep we move, our hearts beat, our intestines work. Life is movement. Movement satisfies a basic need. In dance, we have the capacity to heighten, with exhilaration and joy a unique physical and emotional response that is of being and of integrated expression.
Dance may just well be one of the healthiest things for the development of the ego. Those who do not dance may have imprisoned their ego and have lost an essential flavour to their life.The rhythm of life becomes passive and mechanical. Life lacks the passion that links emotion to the body's ability to express motion on a deeper level.
Dance among the arts is the least appreciated. This is evident with funding, societal ambivalence and regard. Writers, fine artists, actors and musicians surpass dance appreciation. This is partially due to the elitism of classical ballet and inexperience with other forms of dance. Only recently has it gained any attention as an adjunct in public education.
Important article by Naomi Klein: Disaster Capitalism...
Category: News and Politics
Naomi Klein-
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (September 2007); an earlier international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies; and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002).
This is her recent article in The Nation (July 1, 2008)
Disaster Capitalism: State of Extortion
Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." It usually goes well--until it doesn't.
For instance, "independent conservative" radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: "I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down," Doyle announced. "We've invested $650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Shouldn't we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the Stinkin' Lincoln, at rush hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government. Why don't we just take the oil? We've invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in ten days, not ten years."
There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stickup in world history. The second, that he was too late: "We" are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the cusp of doing so.
It's been ten months since the publication of my book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which I argue that today's preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis. With the globe being rocked by multiple shocks, this seems like a good time to see how and where the strategy is being applied.
And the disaster capitalists have been busy--from private firefighters already on the scene in Northern California's wildfires, to land grabs in cyclone-hit Burma, to the housing bill making its way through Congress. The bill contains little in the way of affordable housing, shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers and makes sure that the banks that made bad loans get some payouts. No wonder it is known in the hallways of Congress as "The Credit Suisse Plan," after one of the banks that generously proposed it.
Iraq Disaster: We Broke It, We (Just) Bought It
But these cases of disaster capitalism are amateurish compared with what is unfolding at Iraq's oil ministry. It started with no-bid service contracts announced for ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (they have yet to be signed but are still on course). Paying multinationals for their technical expertise is not unusual. What is odd is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil service companies--not to the oil majors, whose work is exploring, producing and owning carbon wealth. As London-based oil expert Greg Muttitt points out, the contracts make sense only in the context of reports that the oil majors have insisted on the right of first refusal on subsequent contracts handed out to manage and produce Iraq's oil fields. In other words, other companies will be free to bid on those future contracts, but these companies will win.
One week after the no-bid service deals were announced, the world caught its first glimpse of the real prize. After years of back-room arm-twisting, Iraq is officially flinging open six of its major oil fields, accounting for around half of its known reserves, to foreign investors. According to Iraq's oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign firms will keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 percent for their Iraqi partners.
That kind of ratio is unheard of in oil-rich Arab and Persian states, where achieving majority national control over oil was the defining victory of anticolonial struggles. According to Muttitt, the assumption until now was that foreign multinationals would be brought in to develop brand-new fields in Iraq--not to take over ones that are already in production and therefore require minimal technical support. "The policy was always to allocate these fields to the Iraq National Oil Company," he told me. This is a total reversal of that policy, giving INOC a mere 25 percent instead of the planned 100 percent.
So what makes such lousy deals possible in Iraq, which has already suffered so much? Ironically, it is Iraq's suffering--its never-ending crisis--that is the rationale for an arrangement that threatens to drain its treasury of its main source of revenue. The logic goes like this: Iraq's oil industry needs foreign expertise because years of punishing sanctions starved it of new technology and the invasion and continuing violence degraded it further. And Iraq urgently needs to start producing more oil. Why? Again because of the war. The country is shattered, and the billions handed out in no-bid contracts to Western firms have failed to rebuild the country. And that's where the new no-bid contracts come in: they will raise more money, but Iraq has become such a treacherous place that the oil majors must be induced to take the risk of investing. Thus the invasion of Iraq neatly creates the argument for its subsequent pillage.
Several of the architects of the Iraq War no longer even bother to deny that oil was a major motivator. On National Public Radio's To the Point, Fadhil Chalabi, one of the primary Iraqi advisers to the Bush Administration in the lead-up to the invasion, recently described the war as "a strategic move on the part of the United States of America and the UK to have a military presence in the Gulf in order to secure [oil] supplies in the future." Chalabi, who served as Iraq's oil under secretary and met with the oil majors before the invasion, described this as "a primary objective."
Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. That means that the huge task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure--including its oil infrastructure--is the financial responsibility of Iraq's invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations. (Recall that Saddam Hussein's regime paid $9 billion to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion.) Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75 percent of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation.
Oil Price Shock: Give Us the Arctic or Never Drive Again
Iraq isn't the only country in the midst of an oil-related stickup. The Bush Administration is busily using a related crisis--the soaring price of fuel--to revive its dream of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). And of drilling offshore. And in the rock-solid shale of the Green River Basin. "Congress must face a hard reality," said George W. Bush on June 18. "Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today's painful levels--or even higher--our nation must produce more oil."
This is the President as Extortionist in Chief, with gas nozzle pointed to the head of his hostage--which happens to be the entire country. Give me ANWR, or everyone has to spend their summer vacations in the backyard. A final stickup from the cowboy President.
Despite the Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less bumper stickers, drilling in ANWR would have little discernible impact on actual global oil supplies, as its advocates well know. The argument that it could nonetheless bring down oil prices is based not on hard economics but on market psychoanalysis: drilling would "send a message" to the oil traders that more oil is on the way, which would cause them to start betting down the price.
Two points follow from this approach. First, trying to psych out hyperactive commodity traders is what passes for governing in the Bush era, even in the midst of a national emergency. Second, it will never work. If there is one thing we can predict from the oil market's recent behavior, it is that the price is going to keep going up regardless of what new supplies are announced.
Take the massive oil boom under way in Alberta's notorious tar sands. The tar sands (sometimes called the oil sands) have the same things going for them as Bush's proposed drill sites: they are nearby and perfectly secure, since the North American Free Trade Agreement contains a provision barring Canada from cutting off supply to the United States. And with little fanfare, oil from this largely untapped source has been pouring into the market, so much so that Canada is now the largest supplier of oil to the United States, surpassing Saudi Arabia. Between 2005 and 2007, Canada increased its exports to the States by almost 100 million barrels. Yet despite this significant increase in secure supplies, oil prices have been going up the entire time.
What is driving the ANWR push is not facts but pure shock doctrine strategy--the oil crisis has created the conditions in which it is possible to sell a previously unsellable (but highly profitable) policy.
Food Price Shock: Genetic Modification or Starvation
Intimately connected to the price of oil is the global food crisis. Not only do high gas prices drive up food costs but the boom in agrofuels has blurred the line between food and fuel, pushing food growers off their land and encouraging rampant speculation. Several Latin American countries have been pushing to re-examine the push for agrofuels and to have food recognized as a human right, not a mere commodity. United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has other ideas. In the same speech touting the US commitment to emergency food aid, he called on countries to lower their "export restrictions and high tariffs" and eliminate "barriers to use of innovative plant and animal production technologies, including biotechnology." This was an admittedly more subtle stickup, but the message was clear: impoverished countries had better crack open their agricultural markets to American products and genetically modified seeds, or they could risk having their aid cut off.
Genetically modified crops have emerged as the cureall for the food crisis, at least according to the World Bank, the European Commission president (time to "bite the bullet") and Prime Minister of Britain Gordon Brown. And, of course, the agribusiness companies. "You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms," Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé, told the Financial Times recently. The problem with this argument, at least for now, is that there is no evidence that GMOs increase crop yields, and they often decrease them.
But even if there was a simple key to solving the global food crisis, would we really want it in the hands of the Nestlés and Monsantos? What would it cost us to use it? In recent months Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF have been frenetically buying up patents on so-called "climate ready" seeds--plants that can grow in earth parched from drought and salinated from flooding.
In other words, plants built to survive a future of climate chaos. We already know the lengths Monsanto will go to protect its intellectual property, spying on and suing farmers who dare to save their seeds from one year to the next. We have seen patented AIDS medications fail to treat millions in sub-Saharan Africa. Why would patented "climate ready" crops be any different?
Meanwhile, amid all the talk of exciting new genetic and drilling technologies, the Bush Administration announced a moratorium of up to two years on new solar energy projects on federal lands--due, apparently, to environmental concerns. This is the final frontier for disaster capitalism. Our leaders are failing to invest in technology that will actually prevent a future of climate chaos, choosing instead to work hand in hand with those plotting innovative schemes to profit from the mayhem.
Privatizing Iraq's oil, ensuring global dominance for genetically modified crops, lowering the last of the trade barriers and opening the last of the wildlife refuges... Not so long ago, those goals were pursued through polite trade agreements, under the benign pseudonym "globalization." Now this discredited agenda is forced to ride on the backs of serial crises, selling itself as lifesaving medicine for a world in pain.
One economic factor that shifts the status of a Third World Nation into a healthier and more robust developing nation is a strong middle class. China, for example, has struggled through much adversity and oppression to achieve a middle class among its citizens.
As in developed nations, this status is often represented by the ownership of a car. Seemingly innocuous, the emergence of car ownership in China stretches the already obscene global dependence on fuel.
Economists have predicted that the middle class in China will reach approximately 35 percent of the population by 2020.China, the world's largest and most populous country, with just over 1.3 billion people would translate that 35 percent to be 450,000,000.
That's almost the equivalent to the entire estimated population of the US in 2020. How on earth is this sustainable given the oil prices/crisis as it stands today?
To add to such injury, China requires 450 million metric tons of grain while domestic production will only reach 420 million tons. The shortfall will be made up from imports.
With a middle class clearly reaching 35% of the population before long, "Made in China" products may have to be deferred to some other poor, destitute nation, producing a new crop of sweat shop production. Ethiopia? Sudan? Will "Made in Ethiopia" become the norm in our middle class nations?
One of the reasons for a global food shortage is the ever-growing demand for meat and dairy products from the new middle class countries of the world, China and India predominantly.Food output is going to have to expand significantly, if the world expects to get enough food to the new middle classes.
This impacts the entire world, as food prices will increase, and with wheat prices alone rising over 92% this past year, one can assume just how much it will impact the poor nations.
To add to this rising concern is the food catastrophe about to hit: corn.
Corn supplies the ethanol industry and corn also feeds livestock, which provides the world with meat.The US mid-west provides over half of the world's corn supply. This will give the US a huge edge and also the danger of suspending exports of corn to keep for itself. Biofuels, subsidized in the US, are said to eat up about a third of America's grain harvest.
In order to increase production, the US will use more fertilizer, more genetically modified seeds, more machinery, technology, and bigger farms to keep the edge.
What a conundrum. Does China or India, or new EU member countries deserve to have a middle class? How could anyone deny their progress? Yet, how can this be progress of any kind, given the numbers? Who has the will to give up what they've always had, and are we willing to see the poor nations suffer catastrophically because of global food shortage created in part by a burgeoning middle class?
