Grateful Dead

I was so caught up in what I was saying that I forgot to post the link to the article I was talking about. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487034673045753831315927678… ********************************** By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean. Mark Twain

A friend showed me this article today, which I found to be very interesting. This friend and I were then discussing how a sentence expressed in one langauge can be completely missunderstood by another person, if said other person did not grow up speaking the language of the conversation. I will give one exampe. There is a classic German joke about a man and woman on holidays in New York. They check into their hotel room, but a few minutes later are at the reception desk. The man says "there is a train in our room, can I have another ceiling please." This is funny because what he wanted to say was "there is a draft in my room, could I have another blanket please." In German the word "Zug" can mean either draft OR train; and the word "Decke" can mean either blanket or ceiling, depending on the context of the sentence in which these words are used. So to take this different languages/possibly different "trains" of thought a wee bit further, it seems logical to me that learning at least a little bit of someone else's language could possibly do small wonders in avoiding some missunderstandings between people from different parts of the world. ALSO this makes me pretty damn sure that the Americans who have told me vehemently "I have no need to learn another language" are basically pooh-poohing a potential level of deeper understanding without even realizing it. ********************************** By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean. Mark Twain

...is laughing at environmentalists and putting big, fat buy recommendations on BP. Even if you're not involved in investments it is revealing to read the business pages. It can be like seeing through very different eyes. They are the enemy of every living thing on this planet and it would not be too much to say that the pursuit of money to the exclusion of all else is a dark, demonic force. Of course the profit motive is also the reason people work hard and we have technical innovation. Still, small is better consume less kill your computer and go take a walk in the woods

...of your working in Cambodia, Badger... In what capacity? I didn't mean to imply that Cambodians were at fault for not putting this behind them. It has not been long and it is a huge task. I thought it was a given that people knew that the US sewed the seeds of this but never overestimate I guess. I too have had contacts with the Cambodian community, albeit in the US. They are a beautiful, humble people and they are haunted by their past and, as you say, working to put it behind them. Kissinger and Nixon's bumbling in Cambodia that led to this is just mind-blowing. Talk about bad karma!

A visit to the memoral and museum at the Toul Sleng former torture camp, where Duch was commander, is one of the most moving and harrowing experiences I have ever had. Not subjecting Duch to death is a brave rejection of the culture of judicial murder and the cycle of revenge. I hope he dies in jail. Having lived and worked in Cambodia for a few years, it was all too clear to me that the shadow of the KR still hangs over everyone, but that people are working to put it behind them. Many people I know there do not know how old they are, do not know their birthday or true name and have no living relatives. I won't go into what they suffered as children. At the same time it is amazing to see how they have survived this and are working with good humour to build up their country. I have also spent a lot of time working with former KR soldiers, almost all recruited and indoctrinated as children.They are haunted and tortured by what they did. Most have been assimilated into civil society and are trying too to live positive lives. The determination among so many to seek forgiveness and reconciliation is a humbling lesson to us all. If you want to find out about the role the US played in creating Cambodia's nightmare read 'Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia' by William Shawcross.

Comrade Duch, notorious prison commander where more than 10,000 died brutal deaths, was sentenced to 19 years in prison. More than one million Cambodians died in that civil war. The Khmer Rouge was a revolution run amok in the 70s with a fascist sect of Cambodians carrying out an uber Maoist 'Cultural Revolution'. People died in some pretty horrible ways. The Grateful Dead a benefit for Cambodian refugees in 1979. Duch is elderly, has been in prison and is likely to die in prison. Still, the victims felt the sentence was too lenient. The Cambodian people have not come to terms with their own recent holocaust.

PATHALAIYA/ KATHMANDU: Police on Monday interrogated Ram Bahadur Bomjan, famously known as Buddha Boy, in connection with the thrashing of local villagers by him for trying to disrupt his penance on Thursday. A squad of police, led by inspectors Rudrakanta Jha and Bhesh Raj Rijal from Bara District Police Office visited Bamjan in Halkhoriya forest, Bara, following complaints registered against him by a group of 17 vilagers. Talking to the police, Bomjan admitted to having thrashed the villagers. "Yes, I took a minor action against them because they tried to disturb me while I was meditating," he said. Refuting the victims' claimthat they mistakenly stepped into Bomjan's meditating site while searching wild vegetables, Bomjan said, “They came to this area just to disrupt my meditation." Bomjan also admitted that he had taken the villagers into his control for 24 hours. “I had to do so personally because I did not have anyone around to punish them," he said. Though Bamjan claimed he only used hands while thrashing, the villagers have said he had thrashed them with a handle of an axe continuously for three hours.

Thanks for the introduction to the Playing for Change Project.

it shows up as filler and such on PBS a lot, which is where I first saw it. Gets me every time!

Hadn't seen that one before, sweet!