tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26597534663519326682024-03-05T20:18:51.000-05:00AnaïsAnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-76571943783127220912012-03-27T17:59:00.001-04:002012-03-27T21:35:43.077-04:00Maybe it's timeMaybe it's time to wrap them up - he said -<br />
these demons yelling in my head<br />
these crazy bitches clasping my veins shut<br />
<br />
And the heart pumps dry.<br />
<br />
Three angels. Salt wings.<br />
Many revolutions that went by<br />
bad girl moods<br />
hazel eyed peters.<br />
Getting stuck . Falling in love.<br />
<br />
Move slowly on - he said.<br />
Another is waiting. In line.Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-67312557871936188442011-11-07T18:59:00.000-05:002011-11-07T18:59:24.278-05:00Reading Travels: Khan Younis and Rafah - Gaza Strip, November 1956<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?name=footnotesingaza&author=JoeSacco">Footnotes in Gaza</a><br />
Sometimes the books I enjoy the most are not recommended by a friend or carefully selected from my "to read" list. They are, like "Footnotes in Gaza" by Joe Sacco, random picks from a library or bookstore shelf. I was not even looking at books for myself, I was in the graphic books section searching for something that will rather entertain my oldest son, when I spotted the title that arose my interest. The author's name seemed vaguely familiar as well, whatever I read any magazine articles by Joe Sacco before I am not sure, but the fact that he published in some of my favorites such as Times and Harper's represented spoke well for the author and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that I had to borrow "Footnotes in Gaza" . I started reading it as soon as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got home and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>soon I got so absorbed by its lecture that I almost congratulated myself for following my instincts...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Beyond the excellent graphic format - which makes it an enjoyable read even for someone who admits to get easily bored by historical books, especially non-fiction ones - the book is a well documented journalistic and historical account on the IDF killingsof civilians in Khan Younis and Rafah during the occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in November 1956 as the Suez Crisis was unfolding. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The book starts slowly by making the reader become familiar <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with the geo-political context and historical events<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which make Gaza Strip such an uniquely conflict prone area starting with <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1948 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and up to today :</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The author continues to initiate the reader in the details of the political context beyond the Suez crisis and the invasion of Gaza Strip by Israeli forces by sketching the portrait of Jemal Abder Nasser's ambitions and his vision of a pan-Arab coalition, stopping for a short comment on the British and French commercial interests in the Suez Channel and trying to determine through eyewitness accounts the role played by the Fedayeen in the on-going conflict between Israel and the Palestinian refugees living in Gaza Strip. The Fedayeen<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where a guerilla force composed of former Palestinian combatants as well as delinquents backed by the Egyptian government which was supplying the logistics and training. Focusing their attacks on military targets at first, the Fedayeen<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>were usually recording more causalities than the Israeli forces deed as their weapons, military discipline and training were inferior to the IDF. A twisted turn of events and politics switched the focus from military attacks to civilian attacks and in the spring of 1956 a Fedayeen assault on a mosque lead to 11 victims among which several children.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</style> <![endif]--> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Used by Nasser for its own political ambitions , the potential threat of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fedayeen <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>attacks was also one of the "reasons" <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>beyond IDF's actions against civilians in the towns of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Khan Younis and Rafah. Located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the towns are the closest to the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Egyptian border therefore more likely to be used as base by the Fedayeen. Also the Strip's geography makes it easier to isolate them from the northern Gaza City where all the UN international officials were based in 1956. [In fact Rafah's proximity to the border is the reason why the city remains one of the hottest conflict spots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.) Perhaps, notes Sacco, these are reasons why the IDF killings <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>during the November 1956 conflict<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are only a footnote in a book by Chomsky and a handful of documents buried in the archives of the times. The Israeli government is not likely to find an unbiased account of the events <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>work to its advantage as IDF's interest is to assume the least possible responsibility for a continuous conflict that lead to countless civilian victims on both sides. The younger Palestinians are too consumed with their own problems, the best way to deal with the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>present conflict <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to pay attention to the past. From their <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>point of view their times are harder and their fights are much more bitter. And for the older Palestinians? They survived 1948,1956 , 1967 ...and in their memory the events are so intertwined <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that often they cannot tell if this one died in 1956 or in 1967 or was it later?</div><div class="MsoNormal">And thus <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the 275 people killed in Khan Younis and the conflicting accounts on how what was supposed to be the screening of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>male population between 15 and 60 searching for Fedayeen <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>members as well as possible Egyptian soldiers hiding among the civilian population in Rafah lead to 111 dead men became only a footnote in the account of a conflict<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that is but a continuous string of events - the attacks and the counter-attacks, civilian victims of suicide bombings in Israel and civilian victims of the rocket attacks and building demolitions in Gaza <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strip. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe Sacco takes that footnote and not only re-creates the most complete and best documented attack of the events yet, but also gives it its right place among the continuous string of events leading to the problems which his friends Abed and Ashraf have to face every day. Problems as the lack of a proper home as Ashraf <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had to abandon the home started building with his father before they even got a chance to live in it. Since as a consequence of the most recent Intifada is the constant shelling and the destruction Rafah homes near the Egyptian border as they are perceived by the Israeli Army as a potential hub for militants and tunnels to the Egyptian side used now to smuggle black market goods as well as weapons and ammunitions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Block by block, houses near the border are first becoming inhabitable and afterwards demolished - and towards the end of the story the house built by Ashraf's family shares their faith. The irony : his brother cannot marry until he has his own home or apartment, yet he will not qualify for a replacement home until he gets married. And even Ashraf who is married has to wait about seven years until his new house will be completed by UNRWA. Sacco's storytelling skills carry the reader back and forth between the 1956 events and his own account of the conflict as it unfolds in front of his eyes while he searches for witnesses. And thus the 1956 events become as current as the struggles of present day habitants of Khan Younis and Rafah . </div><div class="MsoNormal">Yes history is actual, and perhaps there is no place better than Palestine and the Gaza Strip to look at as we try to understand how current events unfold from the old ones. How current conflicts are rooted in old wounds. Sacco notes in his foreword to the book the comment of an witness: « " I still remember the wailing and tears of my father other his brother;" he said. "I couldn't sleep for many months after that ...It left a wound in my heart that can never heal. [...] [T]hey planted hatred in our hearts."» (p. ix, para. II).The witness was Abed El-Aziz El-Rantisi , a senior official of Hames, the political wing of the Palestinian resistance movement that is often blamed (and culpable) for terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. Terrorist attacks leading Israelis to intensify their efforts to eliminate the armed militants from Gaza Strip and destroy their connections with the outside world - the paths they use to bring in weapons and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>send suicide bombers into Israel. And since rockets and bullets do not make a difference between civilians and militants - the more aggressive are Israeli attacks, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the more likely to hurt Palestinian civilians in the process and the isolation enforced on the overpopulated Gaza Strip<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>leads to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>less employment and trade opportunities and therefore <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>more poverty, more victims, more wounded hearts, more hatred...</div><div class="MsoNormal">Another interesting aspect of Sacco's story is the chronicle his own work - the way in which he finds potential witnesses, records their accounts and builds charts to compare their stories <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- one story with all other ones from the same area and timeframe and all stories with the scarce documentation of events he was able to track in UN and Israeli archives. Sacco's account of events is not the sensational aspect of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>story <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- he does not try to build sympathy for Palestinians in the Occident by giving an account of their plies as refugees and victims caught in a regional power game. He is a genuine journalist and his focus is on re-creating the events as objectively as possible given that he has to base his work on subjective memories because documentation is scarce and the Israeli records of the events are likely to be as biased as the memories of Palestinians. (No international officials were allowed in South Gaza during the November 3rd, respective November 12 events. ) This is why he allots more than half of the book to the November 12 events - how did a routine screening for Fedayeen combatants and Egyptian soldiers hiding among <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>civilians in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rafah , days after the invasion and resistance was over, result in more than 111 men being killed and even more being wounded. Where those killed active soldiers or Fedayeen combatants resisting occupation ? Was it a mob looting the UNWRA warehouses ? Did <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Israeli soldiers panic <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when people started running to the screening point trying to get there within the timeframe announced by loudspeakers and started shooting in the crowd as was the Israeli <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>official account of the events? Or where the random killings ,the humiliation of Palestinian civilians and the arrests of retired combatants <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the result of carelessness for human lives by those who were in charge of organizing the screening and a tactic meant to instill such fear among the Palestinian refugees, intimidate them so they won't attempt any actions of resisting the Israeli occupation and accept their faith with no further objections as accounted for by Palestinian witnesses?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">The value of "Footnotes to Gaza" as a history book rests on the quality of Sacco's journalism - it encompasses the accounts of both sides , both perspectives are presented. He does not try to sugarcoat the responsibility of Palestinian resistance fighters for the mood of Israeli troops - some of them were murderers and their victims were civilians and children as well. He includes the solid account of a former government employee working close to Moshe Dayan during the time<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on the dilemma the Israeli government faced than <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(and it is still facing) - how to protect its autonomy in the midst of an "Arab world" especially as it faced a pan-Arab nationalist movement at that time (in 1956). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact Sacco's focus on recreating an objective account of facts and events from biased documentation and subjective memories almost makes him get sidetracked and forget the reasons why he started to work on the footnotes to Gaza n the first place. He saw in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>book <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a witness that can make the not-so-uninvolved- Occidental-witness, i.e. his readers , you and me, aware <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the complex history beyond <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the roles both sides had played in the past, roles making them equally responsible for the present-day conflict. He<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>wanted to give Palestinians the ability to take a step back and look at their current issues as part of their broader historical and political context, as well as preserve an important moment of Palestinian history for the generations to come. He hoped that Israeli readers once confronted with the other side of the story will be more likely to press for an actual solution, a real truce with the Arabs. So he ends by coming back to his original intent and stresses one more time how important human emotions are when they end up trying to find a solution to a state of conflict , especially a violent one that does not allow time for wounds to heal and for people to find their peace as well...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</style> <![endif]--> </div><div class="MsoNormal">On personal note, one question following me since I finished reading "Footnotes to Gaza" : How comes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that so many IDF soldiers showed cruelty or at best indifference and lack of human compassion towards civilians? Yes, some where potential enemy soldiers or murderers -yet many of them were old men or boys as young as 15, they were teachers and merchants , some of them were peacemakers perhaps and some had been <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>living exemplary lives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Considering the year when the killings happen : 1956, 11 years after the end of WWII<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the average age of active soldiers in the IDF , the Israeli soldiers had to remember the years of Holocaust as something that happened in their own time. The memory of those times when they could have faced , and some of them even had faced, humiliation and death just because everybody who held their religious beliefs, who belonged to the same nation was "the enemy" no matter what they had done or how they lived as individuals, that memory had to be still alive in their minds and hearts. And one hopes that the people who belong to a nation surviving so much harm, so much injustice are more likely to act most humanly: showing mercy, compassion, acting justly and avoiding the gratuitous humiliation and violence against their prisoners. Yet, in spite of what might hope, there is perhaps a harsher reality -most of us recall the fear instead. The thought that if they are acting too softly instead of being aggressively in offensive, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they may end up being those oppressed, those victimized... the hopeless ones.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-26486681285353611322011-10-27T18:27:00.000-04:002011-10-27T18:27:08.455-04:00Happines with you was a cry of despairPanic within <br />
your cubicled heart <br />
just naked white <br />
walls naked skin<br />
I hurl curse scream <br />
obscured cubicle walls <br />
pushed in<br />
<br />
Excerpt from the <a href="http://www.315experiment.com/2011/readpoem.php?id=2527">3:15 Experiment (August 21 )</a>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-19342103317868923542011-07-13T09:47:00.005-04:002011-07-13T10:36:49.494-04:00innocentYou were caramel cloud<br />
<br />
before they laid you under the ground.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wedding songs pass over the virgin grave.<br />
<br />
Fireworks blast.<br />
<br />
Your body in pieces innocent.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Somebody’s daughter, you were<br />
<br />
a girl in the market in a city at war.<br />
<br />
somebody’s sister, you were<br />
<br />
a girl in a city at war in the market.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So lost you were<br />
<br />
Innocent.<br />
<br />
How many of those who<br />
<br />
you once knew,<br />
<br />
innocent<br />
blown-up by the embrace of a hate hug<br />
<br />
before your body could no longer contain<br />
<br />
their deeds, germinating anger seeds?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Your rage blasting body is stopped<br />
<br />
before you can enter the market<br />
<br />
but, there is no turning point for you.<br />
<br />
Clung to your sister innocent.<br />
<br />
Two bodies crumbled in pieces.<br />
<br />
<br />
This is the edit of an older poem inspired by Gautami's "<a href="http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2008/09/undead-for-eternity.html">Undead for Eternity</a>" -- More on the <a href="http://mondaypoetrytrainrevisited.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/129-monday-poetry-train-revisited/#comments">train. </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14141454">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14141454</a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">just happened.</span></div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-79466815251394961662011-06-27T09:34:00.007-04:002011-06-27T12:03:28.126-04:00I am to blame too...<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">I am to blame too -</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">for my worriless smile always inviting</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">even as my eyes warn</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">"we shall get hurt"</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">- tho'our touching skin is light</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as feathers.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Shouldn't we guilt-trip my over-arching </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">overly dramatic way (the impulsive-neurotic)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> of giving it away?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">If we are to fault one for wanting it together</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">and simple, using time up as currency</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">to wane hurt , drive away anger </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
then why don't <strike>you </strike>fault me?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">to read more poems take the <a href="http://mondaypoetrytrainrevisited.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/127-monday-poetry-train-revisited/">monday poetry train 127</a></div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-51366732420648473682011-04-05T17:27:00.000-04:002011-04-05T17:27:14.105-04:00This writer’s walk…Because this writer's walk had reached a dead end for a while, you may find more trivial stuff by same author on the new blog : <a href="http://pghpabulum.wordpress.com/">Pittsburgh Pabulum </a>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-12639625914793975892011-03-14T15:58:00.000-04:002011-03-14T15:58:57.008-04:00How to make an (almost) healthy desert in less than 15 minutesInspired by a <a href="http://simplesinglemom.blogspot.com/2011/03/money-root-of-all-distraction.html">single mom’s post</a> on how to live simple, keep busy and still cook your own food.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Ingredients: </strong><br />
<br />
10 whole-grain waffles (pre-cooked frozen or lazy version- bought frozen)<br />
<br />
2 oatmeal bars (do not know how to make them, drop me a comment or buy granola type bars)<br />
<br />
2 cups of organic vanilla yoghurt (non dairy version :o-soy)<br />
<br />
One cup of fruits: mixed berries or sliced bananas or nuts & raisins <br />
<br />
Whipped cream (soy –based can also be purchased)<br />
<br />
One or two spoons of milk (or non-dairy versions)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Place five light toasted waffles on a plate (if round place four in a circle and one on top to cover the empty space) . Sprinkle with milk. Put in microwave for 1-2 minutes until milk soaks in and they’re mushy . Cover with one cup yoghurt. Place oat bar chunks on top. Top them with the other five waffles. Cover with one cup yoghurt mixed with fruits. Top it all with the whipped cream. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. <br />
<br />
Makes five servings. I haven't thought about taking pictures before dinner and now is gone.Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-8781581924516403692011-03-12T13:41:00.000-05:002011-03-12T13:41:46.923-05:00Transit and Traffic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0q0-k2X91d-8bm3cnFbsBEaTkSFJ0pZ9xnmXLcv_m_aeQMjwU9d2cYb0s27WQ0EK16d7pCunxzJBYNu86Husbbko2xr4qVXDag044JY2Wq5bn9i3ndgurNbrUzVcNHoqyYG1jiiW82cCl/s1600/traffic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0q0-k2X91d-8bm3cnFbsBEaTkSFJ0pZ9xnmXLcv_m_aeQMjwU9d2cYb0s27WQ0EK16d7pCunxzJBYNu86Husbbko2xr4qVXDag044JY2Wq5bn9i3ndgurNbrUzVcNHoqyYG1jiiW82cCl/s640/traffic.jpg" width="475" /></a></div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-51375562045519260392011-03-10T00:08:00.000-05:002011-03-10T00:08:27.104-05:00I want...<span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/C-Tom-McCarthy/dp/0307593339?ie=UTF8&tag=anais-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="C" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0307593339&tag=anais-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anais-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0307593339" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><br />
<a href="http://blog.joacadeamine.ro/">Octavian</a> is giving away books... again. But this time he wants us to work for them...or write a blog post about them to be more precise.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Well, I know I want McCarthy's "C" . I wanted to read it since I made my mind (last year) to read as many short listed books on Man Booker as I could. Of course, I got side tracked and only read one or two...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
But I am unable to write about it - what could I say about a book I never read. It would be something I read in a review, something somebody else said and not I. I only know that the story of a British man from the 1890 is exactly what this 21st century woman needs after she left two comments on O's blog and zigzagged all evening among two Facebook accounts, twitter and several other blogs and yet ...yet she did not realize that she was suppose to write about the book on her blog...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
It may not make much sense to you , the potential match between history and present distractions but the potential is there. I feel it in my antennas...Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-44080128223614219992011-01-28T15:07:00.002-05:002011-01-28T20:07:19.553-05:00Reading Travels: with Ka in KarsThe recent uprising in Tunisia and the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/01/28/exp.bpr.robertson.egypt.protest.cnn">revolt that is now taking place in Egypt</a> took me back to a reading travel I recently completed - the story of <strong>Ka</strong> and his travel to Kars told by <strong>Orhan Pamuk</strong> in <em>Snow</em>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
In <em>Snow</em>, <strong>Pamuk</strong> swifts between an insightful look into the political issues faced by Turkey and the language of a snow poem. And politics in Kars, a north-eastern town in Turkey that was once a powerful metropolis, is no different than politics in Tunisia or Egypt. It is the story of the fickle balance between Islamist politics and secular autocracy supported by armed forces in a landscape of poverty and unemployment that plagues the city. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Orhan-Pamuk/dp/0375706860?ie=UTF8&tag=anais-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Snow" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0375706860&tag=anais-20" /></a>A former neo-Marxist, <strong>Ka</strong> had to immigrate to Germany in his youth in order to escape political prison in Turkey. The son of a well to do middle class attorney, <strong>Ka</strong> is living now a solitary life in Frankfurt with the means provided by the government aid for refugees. He supplements his aid with meager revenue trickling from publishing poems and readings at Turkish language events. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When able to return to Turkey, he travels to Istanbul to visit his family – his sister and his father. Once in Istanbul he is asked by an old friend, who works as a journalist now, to report on a mysterious “epidemic” of suicides among young girls and women and the oncoming mayoral elections. The mayoral elections in this city forgotten by the world were of interest to the central press because the former mayor was killed before the end of his term. He accepts the task mostly because of a personal reason – he had decided that it is time to get married and he is thinking about a former college classmate reputed for her beauty who is now divorced: <strong>Ipek</strong>. And what makes the story even more interesting is the fact that Ipek’s former husband <strong>Muhtar Bey</strong> is the mayoral candidate of the local Islamist party and he is winning in the polls.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After arriving Kars, <strong>Ka</strong> is stranded in the town by snow blocked roads. And as he is unable to live the town he is caught in the midst of a bloody revolt that starts on the stage with the support of a local army regiment. And as he falls in love in the midst of a revolution, ideological disputes and suicide girls, his life would change beyond any point of return.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The story is told in the third person and it gives the reader an eerie feeling of omniscience as its outcome is insinuated from the first pages and the author inserts paragraphs that hint to <strong>Ka</strong>’s faith after he leaves Kars across the story. The plot “spoilers” underline the concept of faith as often understood by middle-eastern cultures, <strong>Ka</strong>’s destiny was already determined , even before he boarded the bus to Kars. In opposition to western cultures, <strong>Ka</strong> “<em>might have realized that he was traveling straight into a blizzard; he might have seen at the start that he was setting out on a journey that would change his life forever and chosen to turn back</em>.” But he would not and he could not realize that.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">On a personal note: the story of the <strong>“veiled girls”</strong> is an insightful account into the social status of women in Asia Minor that mirrors the story of the girls from <strong>Azar Nafisi </strong>’s <em>Reading Lolita in Tehran</em>. If in <em>Reading Lolita…</em>young women were forced to cover their heads in order to be able to attend post-secondary school, in <em>Snow </em>they were forced to bare their heads in order to enter the university. What is common for both stories – the decision did not belong to those young women. The decision was already made and enforced by men… </div><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anais-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0375706860" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-24649053407551872382011-01-17T16:04:00.011-05:002011-01-17T18:10:36.461-05:00The closed eye -Ana BlandianaToday, I would like to present to you the poetry of Ana Blandiana. <br />
<br />
<br />
Her poetry was censored and its publishing banished during the communist years due to political reasons. She continued to be an active presence in the political environment after the fall of the Eastern regimes in 1989, and she took over the presidency of P.E.N. Romania in 1990.<br />
<br />
Yet what I like most of her poetry is the melancholic voice and feminine gracefulness of her language. Here is a poem I recently found online (in Romanian ) and translated for you.[1]<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>The Closed Eye</strong></span><br />
<br />
</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Not for a moment did I dream to close my eyes</blockquote><blockquote>for fear that<br />
<br />
I will crush the world between my eyelids,<br />
<br />
I will hear it crumble with a loud crunch<br />
<br />
a peanut between my teeth.<br />
<br />
How long can I steal my sleep?<br />
<br />
How long could I<br />
<br />
keep it alive?<br />
<br />
I <strike>watch</strike> gaze with despair, <br />
<br />
work up my pity for <br />
<br />
this defenseless universe <br />
<br />
that will perish in my closed eye.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</blockquote>1. The original <a href="http://www.poezii247.info/ochiul-inchis-de-ana-blandiana.html">"Ochiul inchis"</a> can be found<a href="http://www.poezii247.info/ochiul-inchis-de-ana-blandiana.html"> here</a>.Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-12553916542797421652011-01-11T16:19:00.003-05:002011-06-27T12:40:44.871-04:00Confession Tuesday: We are all responsible for the Arizona shootings<h3 style="margin: 10pt 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Cambria; font-size: small;">or weren’t we supposed to be the most politically mature country in the world?</span></h3><br />
<blockquote><em>Dear V.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>I imagine that you already heard the news about the Arizona shootings. You had followed perhaps the discussion surrounding the shooters profiling and about who is to blame for it. And I know that it is even more confusing for you who are listening all this disputes there, back home…</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>So let me tell you what I think – we shall not blame Sarah Palin, nor Glenn Beck. Not even Jesse Kelly and his M16 shooting campaign event should get blamed for this. As for the shooter, who knows what went through his mind?H</em><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em>e is </em><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><em>mentally unstable</em></span><em>. but somehow he did wait for the 2010 election campaign to be over in order to act… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not want to imply that they are all legally responsible, but they should feel morally responsible. And to that extent <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we are all responsible. There wouldn’t be a Sarah Palin, Beck and all those who are spewing political vitriol without us, the millions of Americans who are funding their campaigns and raising the ratings of their shows.</em></span><em> It was John Dickerson who noted, I think, that the best videos of the 2010 campaign were the “viral” ones. You may recall that I wrote you about, now senator Joe Manchin III and the video that helped him win the elections – the one where he shot the Cap and Trade bill. It is sad I think that he needed to express his position in such an extreme form in order to win the dispute. And whilst the position on Cap and Trade is his to hold, the demand for thus form of expression is ours …</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Do you recall how, in the years of our youth, we praised the political maturity of the American voter. And how we did wish that our country will, once more, overcome its dark age and experience democracy and grow into the same political maturity. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">How we re-read Tocqueville again and again. </span>And now… Today I wonder where is this political maturity gone. And how much more perilous our bias had become without it. I wonder if we shouldn't better stop pointing fingers and look to ourselves first ...</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Oh I know, there is an explanation in the ways our media platforms are changing and the Internet and all that, but…</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>I have to return to work now, </em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>I hope to be able to call soon and that Maja feels much better nowadays</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>As always </em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Yuri</em></blockquote>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-25698635438146956312011-01-07T14:15:00.000-05:002011-01-07T14:15:32.183-05:00Eco-Friday: Why I've always loved to travel by train<div style="background: #000000; width: 370px;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://amtrak2.votigo.com/swf/entrynew.swf?v=2&sc=ns&url=http://amtrak2.votigo.com/entries/entrydetailswebservice/698365&domain=amtrak2.votigo.com&fontcol=#F0303D" style="height: 310px; width: 370px;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><br />
<div style="background: #000; text-align: center;"><a href="http://amtrak2.votigo.com/votes/vote/698365/0/love_it"><img alt="Vote for me!" border="0" src="http://amtrak2.votigo.com/img//ht/vfm.gif" /></a></div><div style="background: #ffffff; border-bottom: #000 1px solid; border-left: #000 1px solid; border-right: #000 1px solid; border-top: #000 1px solid; height: 50px;"><a href="http://amtrak2.votigo.com/"><img border="0" src="http://amtrak2.votigo.com/img//amtrak2/amtrak.gif" style="float: left; margin-top: 5px;" /></a><a href="http://amtrak2.votigo.com/pages/amtrak2/rules" style="color: #f0303d; float: right; font: 8pt arial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 3px; padding-top: 8px; text-decoration: none;">Contest details</a></div></div><br />
and many thanks to <a href="http://farefreepburgh.blogspot.com/">Fare Free Pittsburgh</a> for mentioning it.Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-6876462337254841682010-12-31T12:00:00.001-05:002010-12-31T12:01:53.277-05:00<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xWYWRmkCvok" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Hope<br />
<br />
I had faith that always.<br />
hoped that always<br />
beauty &love will flow free<br />
never, but NEVER accept<br />
to be encaged by paradigms,<br />
stereotypes…patterns.<br />
<br />
<br />
A happy new year from to you out there, you who are reading our stories, you who follow this blog<br />
<br />
from me (the author) and also from<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anaïs , Annamari, Nim , Yuri and Mona !</span></div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-13179517390745098602010-12-28T15:31:00.009-05:002010-12-29T21:20:51.341-05:00The books that changed my 2011<span xmlns=""></span><br />
It is that time of the year…the time when we start to make lists about what we may do different in the year to come. And, as I'm no different than most, it is the time for me to figure out what I may like to try changing in 2011. But, before I do so I usually look at what had changed me in the year that is about to end, like the books that had an impact on my reading choices and are most likely to impact my to read list for 2011…<br />
<br />
Now, these are very personal choices as this is a list of the books which had the most impact on me as a reader (who is implicitly "a person" as well). Thus, an excellent book such as Midnight Children, and an well prized one (1), is not on the list. But the more modest <strong><em>Sea of Poppies</em></strong> is included because of the approach which Amitav Gosh took to cultural transitions in India which was so familiar to me (the hopeful rationalism of Victorian England and colonial France) . By all means, written more powerfully and with an authentic voice, <strong><em>Midnight Children</em></strong> would probably stroke a deeper chord if I weren't born and raised in Europe… <br />
<br />
I also chose not to include re-reads such as <strong><em>Madame Bovary</em></strong> and <strong><em>Anne Frank</em></strong> (because no matter the impact they had it was not as I first read them ) and for the same reason , <strong>Juliet Wilson</strong> and <strong>Julie Buffaloe- Yoder's</strong> chapbooks were not included either ( because I was already familiar with their writing from their blogs). <br />
<h2>As a woman:</h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Adrienne Rich</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-travels-from-france-post-wwii.html">The Dream of a Common Language</a><br />
<strong>Ayaan Hirsi Ali</strong><br />
<a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/07/confession-tuesday.html">Infidel</a><br />
<strong>Mario Vargas Llosa</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/10/following-bad-girl-lima-paris-london.html">The Bad Girl</a><br />
<strong>Sapphire</strong> – <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/04/reading-travels-precious-harlem.html">Push</a><br />
<strong>Susan Musgrave (ed.)- </strong><a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/search?q=nerves+out+loud"></a><strong> </strong><a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/06/confession-tuesday-extravaganzas.html">Nerves Out Loud</a> (YA)<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>As an MBA graduate:</h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Jared Diamond</strong> - <span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/09/week-end-books.html"><span style="color: purple;">Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</span></a></span><br />
<strong>J.H. Gittell -</strong> The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance. Operations management for companies that care more about people than about frills.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>Once upon …the time of my youth - children, YA</h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Susan Musgrave (ed.)- </strong><a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/06/confession-tuesday-extravaganzas.html">Nerves Out Loud </a><br />
<strong>Morris Gleitzman</strong>- <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/search?q=two+weeks+with+the+queen">Two Weeks with the Queen</a><br />
<strong>Shyam Selvadurai</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-travels-swimming-in-monsoon-sea.html">Swimming in the Monsoon Sea</a><br />
<strong>Neil Gaiman</strong> – Sandman (Yeah, really. Though we did not dig Stardust)<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>Nostalgia ( les neiges d'antan) </h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Jacques Prevert</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-travels-from-france-post-wwii.html">Paroles</a><br />
<strong>Czeslaw Milosz</strong> – The Second Space<br />
<strong>Herta Muller</strong> – <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/06/back-to-land-of-green-plums.html">Herztier</a> [Animalul Inimii , Romanian, translator Nora Iuga)<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>Relationships (but not the type your marriage counselor will encourage reading about)</h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Mario Vargas Llosa</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/10/following-bad-girl-lima-paris-london.html">The Bad Girl</a><br />
<strong>Bryan Borland (ed.)</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/05/big-tent-poetry-step-1.html">Fag Hag – A Scandalous Chapbook of Fabulously-Codependent Poetry</a><br />
<strong>Ray Bradbury</strong> -Farewell Summer<br />
<strong>Christopher Isherwood</strong> - A Single Man<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>The Other </h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Shyam Selvadurai</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-travels-swimming-in-monsoon-sea.html">Swimming in the Monsoon Sea</a><br />
<strong>Ayaan Hirsi Ali</strong><br />
<a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/07/confession-tuesday.html">Infidel</a><br />
<strong>Sapphire</strong> – <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/04/reading-travels-precious-harlem.html">Push</a><br />
<strong>Laila Lalami</strong>- <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/05/reading-travels-morocco-to-spain_9624.html">On Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits</a><br />
<strong>Andrea Levy</strong> -<a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/09/reading-travels-in-19th-century-jamaica.html">The Long Song</a><br />
<strong>Amitav Gosh</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/01/reading-travels-passenger-on-ibis.html">Sea of Popies</a><br />
<strong>Christopher Isherwood</strong> - A Single Man<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>Obsessive </h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Czeslaw Milosz</strong> –The Second Space<br />
<strong>Arthur Koestler</strong> - <a href="http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-travels-over-there-in-country.html">Darkness at Noon</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(1) it did won the Booker of Bookers. But there's no reason to pout as there are enough laureates on the list ...Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-49066592185046561872010-12-24T10:48:00.000-05:002010-12-24T10:48:17.593-05:00Suburbanite -big poetry tent for 12/24<strong>Suburbanite</strong><br />
<br />
Stalled <em>performance</em> & she notices<br />
the <em>hoarse</em> noise that <em>ropes</em> around <br />
the <em>engine</em>. <em>Slight</em> vibration’ n the stillness <br />
between soundproof windows & oversized lawns.<br />
Fretful fingertips drumming her hand reaching in<br />
the glove compartment. Smartphone. - overdue oil change<br />
<strong><em>that kind of stuff that troubles the Suburbanite.</em></strong><br />
<br />
<em>Swift</em> rounding moves and she’s turning the wheels.<br />
Into traffic, fluorescent lights & humming.<br />
Glittering clouds <em>immerse</em> the highways, the city;<br />
into the space hungry vehicles’ surroundings <br />
you <em>vanish</em> ’n alikeness– a car among million other<br />
amorphous outfits figureless beyond tinted windows<br />
<strong><em>the kind of stuff that doesn't trouble the Suburbanite.</em></strong><br />
<br />
Pedestrian silhouettes, urban coquettes’re forgotten<br />
like those obsolete costumed parades with cape <br />
& panache from college. <br />
Your children grow unaware of <br />
the compactness of cities the overwhelming presence of people every street corner<br />
the unity of farmers as contrast to the vastness of crop-fields<br />
<strong><em>Does this even trouble your kind Suburbanite?</em></strong><br />
<br />
For you built on a <em>base-ment</em> <em>dis-loyal</em> to the concept <br />
beyond the social artifact. You did <em>topple </em>ancient topologies<br />
in an attempt to squeeze out those you labeled as untouchables<br />
<strong><em>and it did not seem to trouble you much Suburbanite.</em></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
the wordle prompt :<br />
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2878039/wordle_december_20" title="Wordle: wordle_december 20"><img alt="Wordle: wordle_december 20" src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/2878039/wordle_december_20" style="border-bottom: #ddd 1px solid; border-left: #ddd 1px solid; border-right: #ddd 1px solid; border-top: #ddd 1px solid; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px;" /></a>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-50571158106997338652010-12-21T15:25:00.004-05:002010-12-21T23:57:32.846-05:00Lunar Eclipse - A Christmas FableAbove frost like reason the atmosphere revolved <br />
<br />
clearer: yet ‘twas the darkest night of the year<br />
<br />
lunar eclipse during winter solstice <br />
<br />
happens once in five hundred years. (Aren’t <br />
<br />
we smart to predict such a rare occurrence<br />
<br />
to un- whirl the human genome to create<br />
<br />
mice that tweet?) <br />
<br />
What wonderous knowledge, indeed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Below your desk a high-school quiz on STDs:<br />
<br />
no cure for AIDS, 33 million HIV + worldwide gives<br />
<br />
a country for people with a death sentence in a medical file.<br />
<br />
Newspaper picture: a girl too young to be bride fading<br />
<br />
bliss beams in a seat her beloved (never husband <br />
<br />
to be ) gives her a ring. Then she went gentle<br />
<br />
into that good night, yet ‘twas<br />
<br />
no raging against the fading of the light.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
For all our knowledge and our human might is<br />
<br />
just awareness of the moonless night.<br />
<br />
<em>And </em><em>now abide faith, hope, love, these three;</em><br />
<em>but the greatest of these is love. </em>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-73570301744884126222010-12-20T19:43:00.008-05:002010-12-21T12:20:03.989-05:00This story comes in handy when cutting toenails...<span xmlns=""></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: CommercialScrDEE; font-size: 20pt;"><strong>O</strong></span>nce upon a time, in a city like this one lived a little boy called Nick. Now, let me tell you from the beginning, there was nothing extraordinary about Nick, whom like any other little boy was brave enough to climb trees and defend his sister from mischievous dogs. Like you and you and like you too… There was only one thing in this world that Nick was afraid of… and that was not monsters in his closet or dragons but getting his toenails cut. His mother had to develop a very complex ritual around cutting his toenails, even more complex than washing and brushing his sister's long hair.<br />
<br />
But one summer, his parents were getting ready to move to another big city (for his father's career); and Nick had to go live with his grandmother. His grandmother did not live anywhere near the city, but in a small township by the Allegheny National Forest. She had a small wooden cabin with a cozy fireplace, an eat-in kitchen and only two bedrooms –one for her and one for the grandkids. Other than that she was one of the most ordinary grandma's: like yours and yours and like your granny too… She baked cookies, played bingo and had some old, old eyeglasses. And she had no idea about "toenail cutting" rituals. Because Nick's parents were very busy, busy with their moving and job transfers, so they forgot to mention it. And Nick did not say a thing about it, of course, what big boy would admit to be afraid of having his toenails cut. And he made his sister promise she won't tell either…<br />
<br />
After a few weeks Nick started complaining that his shoes got smaller and are hurting his feet. So his grandma' took him to the shoe store and they bought a new pair of shoes: size 8 [one size bigger]… But that solution was short term. And after a few more weeks she had to take him to the shoe store again, because he complained that his shoes were getting smaller and were hurting his feet again. This time she bought him a pair of size 9 shoes. And grandma' had to use the money she had saved to buy a new pair of glasses to pay for them. (This is what usually happens when grandchildren spend their summer with their grandmother's – the grandchildren get new shoes and the grandmothers get to keep their old glasses.) But she was also worried. So would if your grandparents and yours and yours too, if their grandchildren's feet grew much faster than it is usual for ordinary boys and girls… this when Nick's grandma called the local pediatrician to make an appointment.<br />
<br />
As we now, pediatricians in rural areas are only few and far in-between and they are very, very busy. Thus Nick had to wait for about a month in order to be seen by the doctor, since, as abnormal as foot overgrowth may seem it's no emergency when the child has no fever but plenty of appetite for home cooked meals and energy. Not long before the month had passed Nick started complaining about foot pain again, it seemed like his shoes were magically shrinking… Hence his grandma took him again to the small countryside department store and so it happened that they were out of shoes size 10 and up that week…They ordered more big size shoes and meantime Nick had to go home wearing some props that were used for advertizing…<br />
On the way home, grandma and Nick stopped to visit a friend of hers' who used to work as a nurse. And he saw Nick's unusual shoes and asked grandma':<br />
<br />
<strong>Friend:</strong> What is wrong with his feet?<br />
<br />
<strong>Grandma:</strong> Well, since he came here his feet grew and grew until we ran out of fitting shoes. And I bought him bigger …<br />
<br />
<strong>Friend:</strong> Let me have a look.<br />
<br />
And when Nick took the prop shoes off, Grandma's Friend noticed the overgrown toe nails and realized that they were the cause of all that ado. So he went to his tool shack and grabbed a small axe he used for wood carving and "chomp, chomp" he cut the toenails like they were some overgrown branches. (And to be honest with you I do not believe that there were any scissors strong enough to cut those toenails, this is why an axe had to be used…)<br />
Nick did not fear any scissors since and his grandma' agreed to keep this story a secret. Tho' his sister was not able to keep a secret and this is how I heard the story and now I am telling it to you…<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>In memoriam Ana B. (1949?-1992?)</em>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-63152882165535555782010-12-14T23:25:00.006-05:002010-12-15T00:06:31.694-05:00The confessions of a bus rider (4)<span xmlns=""></span><br />
<h3>The bridges of Armstrong County or how to persuade your Republican representative to fund public transportation</h3><br />
<br />
After the most recent pre-election campaign I realized -<em>like this was not common knowledge already, noted Nim</em> - that Republicans do not like taxes. Or so they say… To be more precise, they oppose both taxation and centralization. So, to write a republican and ask them to establish a dedicated state fund for public transportation in Pennsylvania, because that would raise two issues he (or she) likes to oppose (or at best avoid discussion). One issue is revenue –more taxes, more fees? The other is redistribution of funds (<em>who will get what</em>) therefore centralization. So instead of asking for dedicated funding, what I'd like to ask them (the Republicans) is to reduce taxes. Yes, you read it well: <strong>Reduce Taxes.</strong> More specific: <strong>reduce state taxes</strong>. Give each county the ability to re-direct that potential revenue towards whatever that particular county needs more. And if you do look at the numbers, it may even make sense…<br />
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For example, when the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission had to vote recently on a new "band-aid" funding solution for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, 22 of the 49 commissioners present decided to oppose it. For example two out of the three Armstrong County commissioners present voted nay. So if it were up to Armstrong County the funding solution as pernicious and temporary as it was, it'd fail. But if you listen to their point, you cannot but nod in agreement. They too have roads and bridges in dire need for upgrades and repairs and when some extra money is available at state level, what does the state do? Patching public transportation budgets in Allegheny County.<br />
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<em>It does not seem fair, does it?</em> said Yuri<br />
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Well, to be fair, if one uses the 2000 Census numbers and a median 3.3% state tax (excludes unemployment contribution)applied to each median income to figure out each county's contribution to PA revenue from payroll (1) taxes only, it results that Allegheny County's contribution is about $651,783,921 and Armstrong County's is $25,563,236 (2). (And these numbers do not even consider all other contributions such as business taxes, tobacco & alcohol fees, sales taxes etc. ) <strong>So what if we wouldn't pay any state taxes from our incomes? </strong><br />
This means the Port Authority's budget shortfall is about 7.2% of what we pay in state taxes. And why we ask to pay less in state taxes, so we could pay more towards local projects without paying more taxes. Same for other taxes the county businesses do pay to<br />
wards the state budget - instate of increasing them, just lower the percentage that goes to the state coffers so more can get to local projects. As for Armstrong county, they shall finance their bridge and road projects from their own residents revenues - after all it is only fair...<br />
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<em>Or not?</em> asked Anais -<em>after all this is <strong>one state</strong> we all live in.</em><br />
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<em>Yeah, but I ride the bus in Pittsburgh and I could not care less about the</em> <em>crumbling bridges of Armstrong County.</em>(Annamari)<br />
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Notes:<br />
(1) adjusted gross earnings for individuals <br />
(2) these are very rough estimates of the actual tax contributions that will make most accountants cringe. But they do reflect an actual ratio ... In Pennsylvania the<br />
counties in major urban metro area generate significantly more tax revenue than rural areas.<br />
<br />
<strong>Sources: </strong><br />
<a href="http://twitter.com/lndaley">@lndaley</a> reports from Dec.13 SPC comission meeting<br />
Census data for Allegheny and Armstrong Counties from : <br />
<a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42003lk.html">http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42003lk.html</a><br />
respective : <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42005lk.html">http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42005lk.html</a>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-28153146255030355122010-12-06T15:54:00.000-05:002010-12-06T15:54:51.740-05:00a motherShe used to consider motherhood as being a transient state of facts. She said you need to dwell in it positively but have to not let it define you. To hold unto that which you were before you were with child and you will become again once they'll move forward and return only as visitors. <br />
<br />
Yet, this morning, an image of three Barbie dolls sitting cleverly on a table chair and taking in the morning son, got caught in her field of view. And she knew, as soon as the image of her current reality touched the boundaries of her visual field, that she had changed and this change is irreversible. <br />
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.Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-78314436662416502942010-11-23T12:51:00.005-05:002010-11-23T15:00:19.931-05:00Reading Travels: Over There, in the Country of The Revolution<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Noon-Time-Reading-Program/dp/B0007E6L52?ie=UTF8&tag=anais-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Darkness at Noon (Time Reading Program)" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B0007E6L52&tag=anais-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anais-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0007E6L52" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />Mona: <br />
<blockquote><em>“One thing I can vividly recall about my life under communist ruling was that you were asked to sacrifice most tangible benefits and rights for an abstract construct and the slight possibility of a better future for your children.”</em></blockquote><br />
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Soon after the 1989 fall of communist regimes, a friend of my mother’s lent me a poor translation of Orwell’s <em>Nineteen Eighty-Four</em> and that book stuck with me. Later I will read it in a better edition and realize that the narrative flaws were not entirely the translator’s shortfalls. Yet for many years “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was unique in the way it grasped the fundamentals of totalitarianism as only the accounts of expats and survivors of political oppression did. Orwell does not only refute the Stalinist version of a communist regime but any regime built on the same fundaments. Other refutations I had read –Istrati , Gide- seemed to be focused more on the specific of Stalinism than on the flaw of the ideology that lead there . <br />
<br />
Now I know that if I would have read <em>Darkness at Noon</em> earlier, I would have realized that Orwell’s work is not unique, not in the way mentioned above. Koestler grasps as well the idea that the whole ideological construct is flawed and it could not have ended any other way than it did end –in a self-destructive totalitarian regime. However there are major differences between the two works and therefore they remain worth to be read as unique masterpieces. <br />
<br />
<em>Nineteen Eighty-Four</em> ’s dystopian structure leans towards a theoretic approach that can be applied to many a totalitarian regime. The story does not linger any specific ideology besides the one that applies to any totalitarian oligarchy or autocracy. <em>Darkness at Noon</em> focuses on the Communist (Marxist –Leninist) Utopia - like the central role of History in the doctrine. In fact Koestler accomplishes a very thorough and well founded critique of Marxism and its communist interpretation noting its intrinsic religious nature whilst maintaining the pretense of science. [1] .<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Yet his theoretical digressions have less impact on the narrative quality of the story and the authenticity of its characters than they do in Orwell's case. Unlike Orwell's characters that are /or end up to be completely dehumanized , Koestler's personages are ultimately human. </span><br />
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<br />
<em>Darkness at noon</em> is the story of detention, trials and execution of the Old Bolshevik guard during the late 30’s Stalinist purges. Its main character <strong>Nikolai Rubashov</strong> was most probably inspired by the figure of <strong>Nikolai Bukharin</strong>, the best known Marxist theorist among the Bolsheviks and former Stalin’s mentor. It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that <strong>Rubashov</strong> had been also the mentor of his own interrogator <strong>Ivanov</strong>, the mastermind that builds the 'logic trap' in which <strong>Rubashov</strong> will finally fall. Ulitmately <strong>Rubashov</strong>’s figure represents any of the old guards’ theorists – be it Bukharin, Trotsky, Kamenev or ... He is an almost inhumanely heroic figure – the kind that is not stopped neither by torture, nor by feelings in his pursue to achieve the Party’s will and what he thinks is ultimately the path traced by an impartial, deterministic History that is above the faith or actions of individuals or even groups. Yet during the story his humanity is revealed by his shortfalls, his vanity as well as ability to show pity and feel remorse. And also to doubt…<br />
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He is first interrogated by his former friend and apprentice, <strong>Ivanov</strong> who attempts to lure him into signing a confession not through torture but by using the same logic and reasoning process he had learned once from <strong>Rubashov</strong> himself. However, in the third part of the novel, <strong>Ivanov</strong> suddenly disappears after obtaining a signed confession from <strong>Rubashov</strong> in which the later admits <em>to have doubted as well as to </em><strong><em>oppositional reasoning</em> </strong>but to no subversive action or treason. He is replaced by his own apprentice Gletkin, who uses tougher methods such as sleep deprivation to get Rubashov to sign several confessions in which he finally admits to subversive actions and plots against the Party and his ruler. He ends up giving up and signing all of them except one. He tries his best to fight against the absurdity of each accusation individually though he knows from the start that the war is already lost. Why then does he still fight each battle? He finds hard to explain it himself… Vanity or perhaps an attempt to preserve his own sense of dignity. Or perhaps because he is trying to convince himself that the Revoolution is not lost, that there is an actual reason for all the sacrifices he made - Little Loewie, Arlova, a career in astronomy... Yet, in the end , Rubashov does admit his guilt in a public trial and he is executed… His confession is centered around a question echoing Bukharin’s letter to Stalin : <em>“why do I have to die?”[2].</em> And this is ultimately a question with a double meaning (why did I give up my life for…). <br />
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His first interrogator, <strong>Ivanov</strong> is also a member of the old guard. Yet, unlike <strong>Rubashov </strong>he states that his is not moved by pity, doubt or his own feelings. <strong>Ivanov</strong> is perhaps the only character that seemed to have renounced any trace of humanity, a long time ago when he woke up in a hospital to discover his leg was gone and thought about suicide. It was <strong>Rubashov</strong> who changed his mind and thought him to think himself above pity or self-pity. This is how he motivates his actions at the beginning of the interrogatory – he owes <strong>Rubashov</strong> his own life, therefore he will help <strong>Rubashov</strong> keep his as long as he signs a confession admitting to reactionary thoughts. However, as soon as <strong>Rubashov</strong> had signed this confession he disappears and we are told he was himself arrested, convicted and executed. Yet, <strong>Ivanov</strong>’s last conversation with <strong>Gletkin </strong>throws a shadow of doubt on wherever he was indeed arrested and convicted because he tried to protect his old friend or he staged his own disappearance in order to remove even the possibility of hope from <strong>Rubashov</strong> once his first confession signed…<br />
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<br />
<br />
Another interesting character is the nameless <strong>no. 402</strong>, a former czarist officer , a survivor of the real old guard –the one that lacks a name and personal history. That is because he plays an impersonal role – that of Rubashov’s doppelganger. He is the only friend that Rubashov has left in the end and that is because in spite of their apparent differences they are quite similar. In fact I could only think at one essential distinction …<br />
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But if you are indeed interested in finding out what distinguishes the supporter of the czarist autocracy from the supporter of the communist one, besides the fact that one wears a monocle while the other one a pince-nez, you must read the book … <br />
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[1] By “religious nature” we denote any theoretic system (ideology) that clings to a core of fundamental ideas even when any factual evidence refutes them. In this sense, the belief of economists that they can provide a rational explanation of human behavior no matter what is also religious in nature. Or as Djilas puts it :"<em>The major flaw of Communism is their belief of sole knowledge of the laws of society, and their sole right to control society. This is a dogmatic religion" (The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System</em> 1957 p.3).<br />
[2] Rumor has it that Bukharin's last note to Stalin asked the same question ""Koba, why is my death necessary to you?" <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/nov/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview6">http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/nov/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview6</a>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-72645926825876976732010-11-18T21:59:00.001-05:002010-11-18T22:43:02.998-05:00Random Thursday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uuU49h1SCNc/TOXoACKZZZI/AAAAAAAAASA/M6czqbEHYOc/s1600/rallies+for+pittsburgh+public+transport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" ox="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uuU49h1SCNc/TOXoACKZZZI/AAAAAAAAASA/M6czqbEHYOc/s640/rallies+for+pittsburgh+public+transport.jpg" width="478" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This one poster is based on a post from the <a href="http://alleghenysc.org/?p=2025">Sierra Club Allegheny Group</a> site & we had fun designing it.</div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-29135031590055171402010-11-16T19:05:00.001-05:002010-11-17T12:03:55.957-05:00Confession Tuesday: The confessions of a bus rider (3)...and a train rider, I may add.<br />
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After reading the new <a href="http://bit.ly/aZr2RE">TSA related stories</a> , <strong>Mona</strong> wondered if those voices opposing a universal health care plan (with or without a government option) arguing that it opens the door for the government into our private health care issues will also oppose the government’s interference of the with peoples most intimate body parts. <br />
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<br />
<strong>Yuri</strong>:<br />
<br />
<em></em><br />
<blockquote><em>These are the people who inferred (and believed) that the government will control treatment options and medication choices in a larger measure than health insurance providers do now – that is for any other reasons than cost related ones. Not impossible </em></blockquote><br />
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- slightly possible, adds <strong>Nim</strong>. So they will start suggesting alternatives – like the railroads they refuse to rebuild and support…<br />
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Slightly possible alternatives, noted <strong>Annamari</strong> with her usual lack of tact. This is no longer the country where everything is possible, but the country where the least possible is most likely to become reality.Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-64513807414127949272010-11-10T17:10:00.000-05:002010-11-10T17:10:05.286-05:00Wordless Wednesday<a href="http://earthwalker.roua.org/?p=2458">Sleeping Cat by Beatrice </a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5KUl_sDnFsWkKJ_l4wH4ptwIdxyNBlay6egZ2zlXir0MGOKLmMUG1xtDiowSuTR41zntx15s7mrTXJk3VoGYR9e3bF1J4Z5GympekXmX0x6xLcWUxMGCW2P9jo8QpA0ce6MDUqhLqKu2f/s1600/pisipasa-242x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5KUl_sDnFsWkKJ_l4wH4ptwIdxyNBlay6egZ2zlXir0MGOKLmMUG1xtDiowSuTR41zntx15s7mrTXJk3VoGYR9e3bF1J4Z5GympekXmX0x6xLcWUxMGCW2P9jo8QpA0ce6MDUqhLqKu2f/s1600/pisipasa-242x300.jpg" /></a></div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659753466351932668.post-34855053559000344892010-11-09T17:09:00.001-05:002010-11-09T17:51:21.369-05:00Confessions Tuesday : about several authors...When I woke up this morning my Droid was blinking - as it does when I get new e-mail. So I check my e-mail and realized that one is a notice - I was tagged on Facebook><br />
<br />
"Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes, and they don't have to be listed in order of relevance to you. "<br />
I got to think a little about my list since I hate typing in the droid so I took my morning shower and got dressed before I opened my computer and wrote my own list:<br />
<br />
<strong>"1. William Shakespeare</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<strong>2. William Faulkner</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>3. Fyodor Dostoevsky</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>4. Marin Sorescu</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>5. Panait Istrati</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>6. Andre Gide</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>7. Reiner Maria Rilke</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<strong>8. Omar Khayyam</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>9. Elizabeth Bishop</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<strong>10. Adrienne Rich</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<strong>11. Michael Ondaatje</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>12. Iris Murdoch</strong><br />
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</strong><br />
<strong>13. Paul Squires</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<strong>14. George Bacovia</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<strong>15. Hans Christian Andersen"</strong><br />
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This is not an exhaustive list - Being an aspiring writer myself I have to acknowledge the influence of some writers such is more about style than it is about an impact on my life. This explains the presence of Elizabeth Bishop.<br />
<br />
In fact, it is interesting that when trying to figure out this list I excluded all authors of philosophy and non-fiction books. Although I owe more to <strong>Immanuel Kant, Plato, Wittgenstein, T.S. Kuhn </strong>or<strong> John Stuart Mill</strong> when making life changing decisions than to any author above - with the exception of <strong>Dostoevsky, Khayyam </strong>and<strong> Murdoch</strong>. Not to mention that my good habit of questioning stereotypes was perhaps rooted in the works of <strong>Jean Henri Fabre</strong> and his notes on the helpfulness and friendliness of creatures long considered bearers of bad fortunes such as the owl, the bat and the frog. <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But it also made me realize that there are several authors such as <strong>Koestler</strong> and <strong>Luise Rinser</strong> who did not make the list because I never got to read a second book by them even though the first had a definite impact on me. I am talking about <em>The Call Girls</em> and respective <em>Mitte des Lebens. </em>It is perhaps the time to add more titles to my list... this is why I am forwarding the request to<a href="http://earthwalker.roua.org/"> Bea</a>, <a href="http://juliebuff.wordpress.com/">Julie</a> , <a href="http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/">Gautami</a>, <a href="http://www.thestorialist.com/">Hannah</a> , <a href="http://bryanborland.com/">Bryan</a>, <a href="http://utopianfragments.wordpress.com/">Dhyan</a> and whomever wants to try it...No need to reply or foward it , just try it for yourself...</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></strong><strong></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>PS</strong> If you would like to read one of the Romanian authors from the list but cannot read in Romanian </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">f<span><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anais-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1856100472" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span>or Bacovia I'd suggest Brenda Walker's translation :<span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poetical-Selected-George-Bacovia/dp/1856100472?ie=UTF8&tag=anais-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Complete Poetical Works and Selected Prose of George Bacovia</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anais-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1856100472" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">and for Marin Sorescu :<span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-Translated-Michael-Hamburger/dp/B002DIWKBY?ie=UTF8&tag=anais-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Selected Poems. Translated By Michael Hamburger</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anais-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002DIWKBY" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></div>Anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06611955404994410354noreply@blogger.com5