A US diplomat has resigned from his post in protest over the US-led war in Afghanistan, becoming the first US official to step down over the conflict since it began eight years ago.
“I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end,” the letter, which was dated September 10, said.
The Washington Post, a US newspaper, reported that Hoh’s decision “sent ripples all the way to the White House”. …
Government officials had tried to convince Hoh to stay, amid concerns that he could become a prominent voice against the US’s involvement in Afghanistan, the Post reported.
Hoh, a former Marine Corps captain who fought in Iraq, also turned down a senior staff-level job at the US embassy in Kabul after he gave in his resignation. …
The former diplomat said that his resignation, which became final on Wednesday, was tended because staying in his post “was not the right thing to do,” he told the Post.
“… you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve”
“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” he said.
“I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right’.”
Rosiland Jordan, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington, said that the content of the letter had won some endorsement.
“There is already support coming from liberal quarters [in the US] for what Matthew Hoh wrote in his resignation letter, which indicated that, in his view, the US has the wrong perception of who the enemy is inside Afghanistan.
“He said that all his efforts inside Afghanistan were being over-run by [what he called] the fact that people in Afghanistan do not like outsiders, regardless of what flag they work under.”
‘Corrupt’ government
Many Afghans fight US forces because of their presence in the country, Hoh said in his letter.
Afghanistan: The boy is but one youth among many throughout the country forced into an age-old underground tradition known as “bacha bazi,” or “boy play,” in which young boys are taken from their families, made to dance and used as sex slaves by powerful men. The number of boys involved is unknown — the practice has been going on for centuries, in a country where such practices are overshadowed by conflict and war: here.
An introduction in the beginning said that most people know Sudan only because of war in Darfur. While it is a country with a long history and rich culture.
The Cultural Nubian Club in the Netherlands is an organisation in The Hague of migrants from Sudan. They did songs and dancing from traditional weddings in Nubian villages in Sudan.
Nubia, the border region in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, has a long history. Sometimes, it was conquered by ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Somertimes, it conquered Egypt, and its kings became pharaohs of Egypt as well.
Its culture had some similarities with ancient Egypt: pyramids were built; gods worshiped in Egypt were worshiped in Nubia as well. However, we still cannot read ancient Nubian inscriptions.
In late antiquity, Christianity came to Nubia. A few centuries later, Islam. However, some more ancient traditions still survive today in wedding ceremonies. The river Nile and its water play a big role in those ceremonies. Also, according to an article by Shawgie Elhay, distributed in the museum, newlyweds have to pass burning incense seven times from the east to the west. As, according to Nubian tradition, eternal life, the hereafter, is in the west. As was the case in ancient Egypt, where the pyramids and royal tombs were built in the desert to the west of the Nile.
That the performance today was in the entrance hall of the museum, before the Taffeh temple, was interesting, as the Taffeh temple is originally from Egyptian Nubia.
Today, the male Nubian dancers, singers, and musicians (on two tambourines) were in white. Their female counterparts wore black, with bright pink headscarves; except for the woman playing the bridegroom’s mother, who wore a black headscarf and golden jewelry.
After the Nubian group there came two sets by Faiza ‘Issa’s wedding singers from Khartoum. Faiza ‘Issa herself did lead vocals and daluka drum. She wore a long dress and long hair, with no headscarf. Her two backup singers both wore headscarves, one of them with a long dress, the other one with jeans. While a young woman danced to the music, sometimes reaching for a cowboy hat, sometimes for castanets from the dance floor.
In Sudan it is tradition to honour young brides with a special ceremony only for women. The new bride is required to dance a couple of wedding dances in various, often rather provocative, outfits. A professional wedding singer is usually hired for the occasion. Faiza ‘Issa is one of the most popular wedding singers in Khartoum today. She teaches young brides the special marriage dances and accompanies them during their performance with songs and percussion (daluka). Faiza and her colleagues are also widely known for their tantalising aghani al-banat: ‘girl songs’ sung from a female perspective about such subjects as sexuality and male-female relationships. Utilising various musical styles and influences, the wedding singers’ performances are both traditional, ceremonial and popular in character.
Two Sudanese women arrested in July were sentenced to 20 lashes and a $100 fine by a court Oct. 22 for wearing ‘indecent’ clothing, AFP reported: here.
Birds’ rhythmic abilities offer clues to the origins of dance
By Nicole Branan
Researchers have long assumed that humans were the only animals that could dance—even our close primate relatives cannot keep a steady beat or be taught to move to a rhythm. But new evidence shows that birds can dance, revealing that the mysterious ability could be a by-product of vocal learning.
Aniruddh Patel of the Neurosciences Institute, Adena Schachner of Harvard University and their colleagues studied several birds, among them a cockatoo that dances to the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody.” When Patel sped up or slowed down the song, the bird adjusted its moves to match the tempo, eliminating the possibility that it was in sync with the music by chance. Intrigued, Schachner and her colleagues started searching YouTube for videos of other dancing animals. They found 15 bopping species (14 parrot and one elephant) that also share an additional trait: the capability to imitate sounds. That correlation suggests our musical ability grew out of the vocal learning system instead of being “a special-purpose ability,” Patel says.
The findings could help advance research on movement disorders, he adds. Hearing music helps Parkinson’s patients to walk, for example. So far scientists do not understand the underlying mechanisms, but if bird brains share certain key circuits with humans, then scientists may find answers by studying them.
SUGARLAND, TX (IWR News Satire) - Tom DeLay announced today that he will be starring in a remake of the Elvis Presley movie Jailhouse Rock to help pay his mounting legal fees for the recent string of criminal charges brought against him in his home state of Texas.
Mr. DeLay will play Vince Everett, who is serving a twenty-year to life jail sentence for felonious obnoxiousness and money laundering.
While in the big house, his cellmate, a former country singer, played by Orrin Hatch, introduces Vince to the record business.
Everett then becomes an overnight sensation as a rockabilly gospel singer and is eventually paroled by President Bush.
No, I am not linking to the ABC News story about it. DeLay may be from Sugar Land in Texas; but that is no excuse for all those sugary euphemisms about this extreme Right politician in this corporate media story, which manages to avoid the problems with DeLay. Many people will say that if DeLay wants to dance, he should do so in a prison cell with himself; not on national TV.
Former Dick Armey aide indicted for helping Jack Abramoff: here.
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has condemned his successor Boris Johnson for denying funding to an annual Jewish cultural festival, forcing it to close.
Organisers of Simcha on the Square, which was the largest festival of Jewish culture in Europe, announced on Friday that the festival cannot take place this year because Mr Johnson had slashed proposed funding from £50,000 to £20,000.
In previous years Simcha on the Square had been strongly supported by Mr Livingstone’s mayor’s office, working with Jewish Culture UK, receiving an annual grant of £50,000 and free use of Trafalgar Square.
Mr Livingstone said: “Boris Johnson’s Tory administration has adopted a narrow-minded approach which will be harmful to London’s international standing and to its many communities.
“By officially recognising and celebrating Jewish culture we made clear our commitment to fighting anti-semitism.
“Simcha on the Square officially celebrated the Jewish contribution to London and gave all Londoners a chance to share the richness of Jewish culture, dance and music.”
Next week, David Cameron will unveil the Conservative Party’s new right-wing allies in the European Parliament. To the dismay of pro-European Tories, they include parties accused of being anti-women, racist, homophobic and in denial about climate change.
Aba Taano are a dancing and vocals group from Kampala, Uganda.
They often go to Europe, especially Spain, to raise money for an orphanage in Kampala. However, there was a threat that their tour of Spain would be canceled this year. So many concerts had been nixed because of the economic crisis, particulary sharp in Spain, that they either would have to cancel the whole tour, or find gigs in other countries. They managed to solve this by playing in the Netherlands.
They played in Amersfoort on 31 May. On the same day, in the evening, they played the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
On 1 June, Muiderberg, 2 June in Valkenswaard. 3 June Lochem. 4 June, Beverwijk. 5 June, Wijk bij Duurstede. And 6 June in Hilversum; where we saw them.
Then, the Jussen brothers left, but conductor Weierink and Camerata stayed on stage for the third part.
Aba Taano came. During their second song, there was an experiment of African vocals, backed up by European classical instruments.
There are various influences on Aba Taano. From within Uganda; one song dates from the times when Uganda was a kingdom. But many of the songs are not in Ugandese languages, but in Swahili (first language to few, but second language to many East Africans); English; or Zulu.
On their album, The Joy of Africa, 7 out of 18 songs are in Zulu. One is in Xhosa (also South African). 5 are in English. 3 are in Swahili.
One song is in Sotho and Zulu (both South African), English, and Luganda. One is in Luganda.
* 17:35 20 April 2009 by Michael Marshall and Sandrine Ceurstemont
Freshwater algae can dance around each other in stable groups, held together only by fluid flows in the surrounding water.
Raymond Goldstein of the University of Cambridge and colleagues studied a well-known alga called Volvox. This species lives in colonies of cells around a thousand strong: the individual cells live on the surfaces of spheres of jelly.
Each cell has a pair of flagella: thin flexible rods that extend out into the surrounding water and function as outboard motors, propelling the colonies around – as well as causing them to spin like tops.
When the colonies swim near the surface of the water, they can get together in one of two formations.
The first is called the “waltz”: the two colonies orbit around each other, like a planet circling the sun. The second is the “minuet”, in which the colonies oscillate back and forth, as if held together by an elastic band.
Goldstein’s team have developed a mathematical analysis that explains the two dances – they are caused by the unusual behaviour of the water near its surface.
China to bring Das Kapital to life on Beijing stage
Producers promise blend of Broadway and Vegas for all-dancing, all-singing adaptation of Marx’s treatise
* Tania Branigan in Beijing
* Tuesday 17 March 2009 08.22 GMT
You’ve read the book, attended the seminars and pondered the accumulation of surplus value – now see the musical.
Chinese producers are attempting to transform Das Kapital from a hefty treatise on political economy into a popular stage show, complete with catchy tunes and nifty footwork.
Whether Karl Marx would approve of his masterwork being served up as entertainment for China’s new bourgeoisie is a matter of speculation. But the director He Nian – best known for his stage adaptation of a martial-arts spoof – has promised to unite elements from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows in a hip, interesting and educational play featuring a live band, singing and dancing.
“The particular performance style we choose is not important, but Marx’s theories cannot be distorted,” he said sternly, in an interview with the Wen Hui Bao newspaper.
Zhang Jun, an economics professor at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, is being drafted in to ensure the production is intellectually rigorous.
The director said the play, which is to open next year, will be set in a company and will document the progress of its workers. In the first half they realise their boss is exploiting them and begin to understand the theory of surplus value. But far from uniting, as Marx enjoined them in the Communist Manifesto, some continue to work as before, some mutiny and others employ collective bargaining.
Yang Shaolin, the general manager of the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, said that in the past it would have been difficult to imagine Das Kapital adapted into a play with “main characters, major dramatic elements, and profound educational meaning”, but that it was now possible thanks to the flourishing of different styles in Chinese theatre.
Even so, the producers face a tough challenge. True, the social criticism of Marx’s 19th century contemporaries Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo has been transmuted into two hugely successful all-singing, all-dancing musicals – Oliver! and Les Miserables. But unlike the novels on which those were based, Das Kapital has never been noted for its vivid characterisation or gripping plot.
There is some precedent for the new production. A Japanese writer and translator is said to have adapted Das Kapital for the stage in the 1930s, and the result was subsequently translated into Chinese.
I sat a table with a couple, now living in Rotterdam, but back in Suriname for a short time. Half of their family living in the Netherlands, the other half in Suriname. Typical for many Surinamese.
First on stage were three men: two electric guitarists, one singer. They started playing English language love songs. Not particularly Javanese or Surinamese, and not causing really much reaction from the audience.
However, that changed drastically with the first notes of their third song.
It was Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry. People applauded just after the first notes; in the middle of the song; and at the end of the song.
Then came traditional Javanese dancing, performed by Javanese-Surinamese ladies working at the Indonesian embassy, to recorded gamelan music.
Third on stage were an angklung orchestra with scores of male and female angklung players and a woman organ player. An angklung is a bamboo instrument, originally from West Java. This orchestra was founded five years ago, in the Evangelische Broedergemeente, the biggest Protestant church in Suriname. They played songs like Edelweiss from the Sound of Music, and Spanish Eyes.
After 
