July 28th, 2005 Comments Off
Penguin has recently published the English edition of David Lane’s book about Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. The book called Berlusconi’s Shadow: Crime, Justice and the Pursuit of Power, is being promoted it as an “exploration of the dark underside of Italy today”.
The book looks at Mafia, organised crime and corruption in Italy, “and it also looks at Silvio Berlusconi … the principal actor of the Italian political stage since the early 1990s,” Mr Lane told the Associated Press.
The Guardian | Link
July 28th, 2005 Comments Off
There is no longer any doubt that the world is getting warmer. Glaciers in Greenland and the USA are melting. Ocean temperatures are on the rise. And weather patterns seem to be less reliable/predictable… well less like they used to be. Yesterday for instance, Mumbai (Bombay, India) had nearly a meter of rain over a 24 hour period. 200 people died — imagine that! Link
… The reasons for this trend are less certain. The Earth’s climate changes naturally all the time. Witness the many occasions over millions of years in which the planet has slipped into and out of ice ages.
Mark Henderson | Times Online | Link
A few months ago I joined the Stop Global Warming Virtual March on Washington as a bit of fun. It was also a way of putting my hand up and saying ‘I AM CONCERNED’ about what we are doing to our environment.
I’m not sure if global warming is an issue that will bite us today or in a hundred or a thousand years time. What I am sure of is that something funny is going on with the bloody weather. And maaate, when it quacks like a duck, then in my book it may well be a duck. Which only goes to show, I’m really quite a simple sort of guy.
This email arrived today from the Virtual March:
Dear Fellow Marcher,
With most of the country trapped in a sweltering heat wave this week, we turn our attention to Glacier National Park, where the ultimate heat wave — Global Warming — is threatening to destroy a national treasure.
In 1910, Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers. Today, just 37 remain. At the current pace at which temperatures are rising, they will all be gone by 2030! You can read more about the dramatic destruction of Glacier National Park at http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/march/glacier.
This weekend, the March goes electric at the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago. The festival’s founder, Perry Farrell (front man for Jane’s Addiction), will take the stage to urge 90,000 festivalgoers to join our March! Using state of the art “Mobile Marching” technology, music fans will be able to sign up by sending a simple text message from their cell phones via 4INFO.
But don’t leave all the work to Perry! Invite your favourite music lovers to join us on the March to Stop Global Warming from your personal impact page!
More from the road in two weeks…
Laurie David
Founder
July 27th, 2005 Comments Off
Wendell Berry is a prolific author whose writing is rooted in the notion that one’s work ought to be connected with one’s place. His poetic voice is simple and resonant.
This was the first poem of his I read. It was given to me by a friend who wanted to encourage me to write.
A Timbered Choir
by Wendell Berry
I would not have been a poet
Except that I have been in love
Alive in this mortal world,
Or an essayist except that I
Have been bewildered and afraid,
Or a storyteller had I not heard
Stories passing to me through the air,
Or a writer at all except
I have been wakeful at night
And words have come to me
Out of their deep caves
Needing to be remembered.
But on days when I am lucky
Or blessed, I am silent.
I go into the one body
That two make in making marriage
That for all our trying, all
Our deaf-and-dumb of speech,
Has no tongue. Or I give myself
To gravity, light, and air
And am carried back
To solitary work in fields
And woods, where my hands
Rest upon a world unnamed,
Complete, unanswerable, and final
As our daily bread and meat.
The way of love leads all ways
To life beyond words, silent
And secret. To serve that triumph
I have done all the rest.
July 27th, 2005 Comments Off
want to win a prize?
encapsulate news events
in three simple lines
The Guardian Unlimited is offering 20 UK pounds worth of Penguin Classics for the best topical news haiku each week.
July 18th, 2005 Comments Off
This little ditty is doing the email circuit.
It was sent to me by one of my pommy (a pommy is an Aussie name for a Brit) relations. I suppose the French must be upsetting the Brits again!
The email read:
This is on CNN and Reuters so it must be true!
President Chirac has officially raised the French terror alert from “Run” to “Hide”.
There are only two higher alert levels in France, which are “Surrender” and “Collaborate”.
The rise was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France’s white flag factory – effectively crippling their military.
July 16th, 2005 Comments Off
This view from Apollo 11 just after leaving Earth orbit on July 16, 1969.
Five days later on July 21, Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon 20 minutes after Neil Armstrong. Wow! How cool.
Do you remember where you were? I watched the landing on TV at my girlfriend’s house with a whole bunch of mates.
One small step — still, we don’t seem to have come that far in the last 36 years.
July 15th, 2005 Comments Off
You know with absolute certainty that the world has gone totally bonkers when you read how it will soon become a criminal offence in the UK to play a piano in a piano bar, or strum a guitar in the back room of a club, without a license.
Someone, somewhere, actually thought this was a good idea. THEN, they were able to convince someone else to put it into law… I mean, get a life!
Times Online | Link
