Somalia: The Reckoning

If Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam, Somalia is Swahili for Iraq. We see the same deeply divided ethnic (within Somalia) and religious (Muslim Somalia and Christian Ethiopia) as in Iraq, and the same potent mix of idealogically loggerhead groups that are heavily armed as in Vietnam. We can, at least, be thankful we took care of Eritrea before those mongrels could come in and mess up Somalia even worse. I'll accept a retroactive Nobel Peace Prize by mail if neccessary (ethnomorph@gmail.com). I'm sure Muhammed Yunus and I can share.
What is most worrying, and ever present in the subtext of reporting on the issue-both the Ethiopian invasion and the earlier warlord coalition against the Islamic Courts Union- is the tacit support and blessing of the United States, as Al-Riyad newspaper in Saudi Arabia said,"The war could have broken out with the express approval of major countries." It could be a change in strategy, just as Bush appears to be signaling a surge of troops in Iraq, by the US and UK towards proxy wars to avoid major conventional confrontations in the future-be they real or imagined.

Quotes of the day:
"The explosion in this strategic part of the Horn of Africa will not only last but also spread to other sub-Saharan Africa regions already plagued by devastating conflicts. What is strange is the 'smug' silence from the Western powers. The easy solution is to use this war as part of the global war against terrorism; if this is the case, we can expect to see another Hundred Years' War."
--LA NOUVELLE REPUBLIQUE editorial

"While it would be silly to reduce the conflict to a mere contest between the 'Islamist' Somalia and 'Christian' Ethiopia, this religious appendage is appealing to both sides. What the world is witnessing is a resurrection of old tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia, now fanned by proxies... The lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia places the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the African Union and the UN in a precarious position as the Somali crisis threatens to escalate into a regional conflict."
--NATION (kenya) editorial

[explicitive]

Now, I know that thousands of bloggers have seized and commented on the Micheal Richards/renewed n-word debate like latter-day cannibalistic late night talk show hosts, but as an astute chronicler of ethnomorphology, I'm here to not opinionate, but report my early (albeit not statistically or scientifically evaluated) findings.
Our friendly neighbours across the border and here in my own province of British Columbia, Canada, exist as a kind of Great White North, devoid of real diversity beyond venturing into Chinatown, going to a diverstity fair at the local university, or looking out your winding going through the fields or skid row. Real encounters with diversity, even in Vancouver, do not largely existed in a non-scripted environment, and if they do it usually ends with police officer arresting someone.
Even so, in the high school/secondary school/grades 9-12, environment hip hop and rap of all colors have become pervasive, and often use the n-word for any number of purposes.
Whereas in the early days of rap, an rapper would have said "sucker MC" to insult one, The Game in his recent single 'Its Okay (One Blood)' to say "You new nig- ain't shit but new nig-" (reduced to "you new rappers ain't shit but new rappers" in the radio edit).
In the aftermath of the Micheal Richards affair and the debate the has ensued, a strong resurgence of the word "Nucka" has come about, indicated by strong anecdotal and interview based preliminary studies of 9-12 graders in the Greater Victoria area. Thanks to the grad students who did all that great work! As you may surmise, 'nucka' is a combination of the n-word and the word sucka ( a sizable minority of white student users identify it as a combo of the n- and f- words). It first appeared in the late 1990's, but since November has been part of a change in the cultural relationship between the suburban white community and the "street" music and black community (not that they really exist in any way resembling their presentation in the 90's golden age of gangsta rap). This is an incredibely interesting ethnomorph that seemingly happened overnight.

In other news, I'm putting Jonah Goldberg on notice for his insentive and simply stupid editorial downplaying Pinochet's reign of terror and glorifying his dubious achievments, meanwhile misrepresenting and manufacturing numbers on the much more mixed-bag rule of Fidel Castro. You have two weeks. Also, the BBC is no longer called out, along with dedicated.thehideout.net for good behaviour, but William Pitt the Elder is on notice. He's had a free ride for too long.
And on the subject of Time Magazine naming "You" (us) the ,uhm, thing (?) of the year for the Internet 2.0 Revolution, I have one word: [explicitive]

From Chile to Washington (State)

Well, my first order of business (I've been very busy preparing midterms and have been gone quite a while), is to put Sehome High School on notice. This was e-mailed to me at ethnomorph@gmail.com by Tanner Parfly. SHS, as it is called has been weak-kneed in respect to US Army Recruiters, who used underhanded tactics (ie tricking people into signing consent forms for a pullup competition to get personal information) and repeatedly closed the library to students, denying precious learning time. They've been warned. And they don't want to end up like Eritrea. Oh no, they certainly do not. Eritrea is reaching out a country that, at this very moment is conducting a sham of a convention on the "validity" of the Holocaust. Its like truthiness except much scarier. Yes, there is an orthodoxy of information on the events, and yes Israel is opressive to Palistineans, but this is just a bunch of fringe lunatics hiding behind a curtain, but that curtain is clear.
Meanwhile, in Chile we can be happy and sad for the death of Augusto Pinochet. He was never brought to face justice, always slipping away like the weasel that he is . But, he no longer crawleth the earth by night.
As we see the old vanguard of Cold War brutality (Jeane Kirpatrick (go to this link, its great)pass on the the Ethnic Threat Matrix turn from Russians and lefties to Arabs and fundamentalists, we must ever be wary of the Eagle of North America and its long talons. Extroidinary renditions in one step above disapearing people. And just as South America quietly and not-so-subtely assert independence and leftism post-righ-wing Reagan authoritites vs Soviet-esque Rebels, we must remember that when the eagle bites, the world will bite back, just look at Iraq.
Quote of the Day:
"Los Angeles Times
Simple, clear and wrong

Los Angeles Times
It's a coincidence that Jeane Kirkpatrick, the astringent U.S. envoy to the United Nations in the 1980s, and former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died only a few days apart. But in death as in life, the two are associated with a political theory that defined the early days of the neoconservative movement in the United States. Unfortunately for Kirkpatrick, its author, the theory proved to be dead wrong.

The idea was that right-wing authoritarian governments were much better bets for conversion to democracy than left-wing totalitarian ones.

Chile, where the murderous Pinochet eventually relinquished much of his power after a 1988 referendum, seemed to vindicate the Kirkpatrick doctrine. But then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of more democratic governments not only in the formerly captive states of Hungary and Czechoslovakia but also in Russia.

Like other reductionist theories, the Kirkpatrick doctrine ran up against ... H.L. Mencken's observation that "for every problem, there is a solution that is simple, clean and wrong."
--LA Times Editorial, unattributed
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4394859.html

Snow!

Up here in the greater Victoria area, we've recently had a bit of a snow storm (30-60 centimeters for the last three days) and I wanted to provide a brief metaphor: ethnicites will fight brutally, undertaking ethnic cleansing and ethnic realingment in their own parochial areas for ancient reasons resulting in brutal suffering, and yet temporarily unite to carry out further atrocities in the name of god, country in pure, post-geo-ethnic nationalism. Water constantly circulates through the ages in the ocean, a tiny section at the top being lifted into the sky, some to fall as rain in the Amazon and some to fall as snow in Canada. The randomness and blind prejudice of birth and formation of a human is akin to this. Two H's and two O's are still present at the bottom of the ocean as much as it is in the snow I hold in my hand. They are uniquely and universally different, water, snow, hail, ice and clouds working to melt and freeze each other. They are all conduits for something bigger, something unstoppable. If H20 is ethnicity, it is both a part of that unstoppable snowball, and an aside from it.
To move forward we must recognize this and shape our actions, our consciousness and our decisions regarding the small change we can make in the greater change in the world.
Just a thought. Remember to check out www.narconews.com for updates on the developing story in Oaxaca, Mexico and Reuters Alertnet or other resource for news abouth Somalia and the illegitimatized state of Eritrea.

Evicted!

Well, I'm sorry to say the two weeks notice and three days grace has passed for Eritrea, who was put on notice for supporting the Islamist in southern Somalia. Recent news concerning attacks by the government, against the people and lately journalist has forced us to evict the aforementioned "State of Eritrea" from the land it currently claims. Its name shall be taken from all maps, and all international recognition (lead by this organization) shall cease. We ask all those connected to the government or control structure of the evicted member to step forward into our custody.
Please stay tuned for an ethnomorphology.blogspot.com map of the world. Here's how it works: the first person to e-mail me their call out or thing they want on notice a ethnomorph@gmail.com gets to name the country the will replace the area the State of Eritrea used to rule.
quote of the day:
"[Eritrea is] Throwing its own media workers in jail is another terror tactic from a state that has already shut down the entire private press and refused to account for 13 journalists held incommunicado in secret jails, three of whom are feared dead"
--Julie Crawford

So, e-mail your call outs/on notice request with the name of the new country to: ethnomorph@gmail.com

Hella Pixelated: The Superliminal Remix

DJ Supraman remix of Hella Pixelate: A Visual Extraveganza...., this video inverts and and supra-speeds the original way beyond the sub- and cognitive consciousness and into the Hella Conscious, the Superlymonal, the Superliminal, the supra-man matrix. Music by DJ XTB, Amp Attack and The Game

Responce to Libretarian girl

I'm responding to Libretarian girl's post on the civil war:

Some people have made some great points, but as a proud member of the far-left I'd like to add a little.
First, I don't hate America, I'm a dual-citizen of Canada and America, and consider America--faults and follies included--to be neither evil or some kind of new Jerusalem. Of course slavery was bad, but it wasn't like the mason-dixon line delineated an end to slavery. http://www.slavenorth.com/
Now the reason that slavery didn't continue, as stated on the link, is largely the non-development of large-landowner(plantation)based agrarian economy.
So here we see an economic divergence, just as there is a rise in sectionalism during the late 1820's, following the end of fervent nationalism inspired by the war of 1812. At the same time there is great expansion into the west, both playing into the hands of sectionalist politicians and exasperating their differences.
This battle of political influence becomes the central narrative of the period from the mid 1830's through the 1850's. I should add I have no paticular guilt about this as an American. As a member of a species who did cruel things like this across the world, I suppose I feel a level of shame and horror. Also, to be perfectly realistic, wars are never based on ideals. They're based on economics, politics and power, and even the few examples to the contrary barely hold up to a hard look-over. People may think or be told that there are idealistic reasons for the war they are/were in, but it happens every time. (American Revolution-motivated by want of power over politics and economics among the rich-planting class, not idealism about liberty and freedom among the common people).
Slavery acts as one facet of this struggle from the 1830's-50's. The other equally important facets include issues like tarriffs, states' rights and the economic dynamics as the North industrialized.
To say the South didn't have a problem with its rights being trampled on is to fundamentally misunderstand the issue. Its not an issue of whether it was happening, but if they thought it was happening. If you feel threatened, it doesn't matter if you actually are, you respond in the same way.
I don't have the info to get bogged down in an argument about the foundations of the republican party, but the whole "The real history of the Civil War is that people in the North got fed up with allowing the barbaric practice of slavery to continue" is a half-truth designed to mislead. You can say that the fear Lincoln would end slavery caused secession, but again this fits into the greater fears of Northern control over the South, held by both the majority white poor and the minority white, rich land and slave owning upper class.
Slavery was an important part of their economic dynamics, one that they felt was wholly threatened by the North. Their fear of no more slave states is more about political influence than it is about the righteousness of slavery. It is equally about the set of other motives (federal power etc).
As many have pointed out above me, if you look at the primary source writings of the time, the vast majority of the north (the "moral majority") was a product of the time, overtly racist and accepting of slavery. There was a vocal minority that opposed slavery, but while they certainly player more heavily into Lincoln's administration then earlier ones, they were not the factor that the south was afraid of. People weren't fed up with slavery, they were strong unionist, distrustful of secessionists and southerners, a purely geo-cultural effect. Which is my final point, and where I agree with dablameit, that there is an important geo-cultural (rising out of economic disparity in the North and South, and geographically based cultural differences and prejudic) divide that drove the common people behind their leaders (driven by economics, power and politics) during the civil war.
Slavery was important, but was in no way the central or singular conflict.

Somalia

Now here in in the greater Victoria area, we have a large expatriate Ethiopian population. They're good people, and come to me for advice as the transition into a new cultural (morphing) where they are not the dominate ethnicity. They also give me information on a subject I'm very interested in, Somalia. The BBC may have a section under Somalia called 'surviving anarchy', but thats just another oversimplification from those tea-drinking, Mercedes driving extreme-centrist who can't even hold a candle to the CBC. They're Called Out. I've also put Dr. Math on notice for being a conformist who won't stand up to the Industria-Mathematics Establishment that is responsible for the largest caper in American history, math. Can't divide by zero my parakeet! 1 divided by zero is ten. One goes into ten exactly ten times, which is a combination of one, and zero. Its mathematically provable with a Isoceles triangle, who was usurped by that Dr. Math of the 6th century BC, and is therefore called out.
Anyway, in Somalia, they're is a lot of confusion and talk about war. Islamists are within 30 km of Baidoa, where those peons in the so-called interim government are hiding out. To maintain order, the good people of Ethiopia have graciously stepped in a few troops to help out. Its only rational, despite the fact many of my Ethiopian friends seem to think the interim government hasn't failed, and is still a good hope (sound like some other country located in the Mid East?).
Anyway, the solution is the establishment of ethno-clan-based government like Somaliland or Puntland.
quote of the day:
"We are telling the American population we are not a threat to them. They should remove the administration of Bush, which resembles the Nazi government of Hitler in so many ways." --Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed

Oaxaca

Things are heating up. http://laluchita.blogspot.com/2006/10/oaxaca-burns-pfp-invasion-right-now.html , www.narconews.com.
Latest:http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/10/29/162836/67

France

On Friday, France marked the anniversary of the October 2005 riots, set off by the electorcution death of two youths after being chased by two police. It ignited the anger of France's, largely Muslim, Africanand Middle-Eastern populations, concentrated in ghettos like Clichy-sous-Bois. It is a classic example of immigration-based ethnic conflict between immigrant and homelander.
The most prescient example that can be applied here is the Brixton Riots (I highly reccomend Urban75's excellent narrative account). The narrative is the same: impoverished, non-white immigrants, largely from former colonies move into the land of their former colonizer, often into the same neighbourhoods. They are socioeconomically and ethnically sidelined, and conflicts with the white establishment (police, government), is inevitable. Desperation breeds crime, mixes with police brutality and the smallest incident will cause massive civil unrest.
Though characterized by xenophobic public officials (Nicolas Sarkozy's "scum" comment) and newspapers are destructive nihilism and youth rioting because they stupid and hate the world, it is a legitimate form of resitance against centuries of agression and repression--it's latest incarnation being police beating (whether Brixton or Clichy-sous-Bois), and physical, cultural and economic sidelining into ghettos.
Che-like guerilla revolution is no longer applicable in such situations, I am told by me eco-anarchist friend Chasuble Bane, but Revolution by Riot (the destruction and overthrow of capitalist control-cops and corporations, and from the ashes will rise the new society) IS. It is true that snowball effect like the one we saw in France last year could effectively shut down the state and its business cohorts, like '68 only bigger.
Burt returning to Brixton: what lessons can we learn? Things might just get worse before they get better. There were two subsequent riots in Brixton and Handsworth, the lesson there being things might get worse before they get better. The main thing we can gather from 1980's Britian (under Thatcher) and 00's France (under Chirac) is that knee-jerk xenophobia is one of the easist and biggest roots to cut to stop this sort of thing.
Immigrants are misunderstood and feared, something fed off of by right-wing nationalistic politicians like Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front, or the National Front in England in the 80's.
Once this is stopped, through cultural understanding intiatives and work against xenophobic bottom feeders, we can start to work on the economic problems and cause fear, distrust, and even violence on both sides.
My main point: Racism has many sides--Economic racism, cultural, post-colonial, anti-immigrant, and we must attack it on all sides. When this is done, the barriers of those ghettos start to come down, and with it the discontent they breed. This is how the ethnic immigrant minorites can effectively morph into mainline society, rather then outright war.
But, one must consider, if this is not done by mainline society (in conjunction with strong local, communitarian solidarity movements), then riots are inevitable, if not justifiable.
In fact, its already happening, with news out of France looking worse by the moment.
ETM theory certainly says that it will.

Iraq

My colleague Professor Merriam Jones-Sanchez, who teaches Higher Mathematics at the University of Victoria at Large, and I had a very interesting conversation about ethnomorphology and the Iraq war.
In Iraq, we see a crucible of three distinct ethno-cultural/religous groups (Kurds, Sunnis and Shia), divided by geography, belief, ethnicity and thousands of years of interaction but put into one country due to the post-WWI division of the Mid East by the whims of the victorious allies. Under the rule of Saddam Hussien, the minority Sunnis held sway and power over the more populous Shia and the fiercely independent Kurds, with a partially autonomous state and political structure before the 2003 American Invasion.
The course of the war has not only opened old wounds, but ethnomorphologically changed and raised the stakes of their interaction. As they grind up against each other we see increasing conflict arising, and the divisions growing deeper. Mixed suburbs are slowly disapearing as religous affialiates seek reprieve from dangers like death squads by moving into areas highly populated by their own religous brethren.
The long-term effects of this can only be predicted, but increasing ethnic isolation has almost always lead to long-term economic and political segregation, a result of heavy ghetto-ization. Under such conditions, mutual distrust and misunderstanding flower, creating giant barriers to recconciliation.
Ultimatly, reconcilitation is what is needed to avert civil war or death-squad lawlessness (there is even talk of coups of the weak government), and this will make it very hard.
The solution? No one can know for sure, but reconciliation must start at the local, community level. Solutions don't come from a weak central government, who has a very close relationship with the death squads, they come at the level that the common people are at. The Insurgency, or the Americans depending on your view, won't be defeated until the rug is pulled from under them. End Ghetto-ization, establish strong community rule stemming from strong, semi-autonomous regional groups of provinces (see Kurdistan), only then will a measure of peace be restored, and ethnomorphological phenomena be routed to further stability and life.
These phenomena are two-way roads, and ones like reconciliation through association can be used to benefit all.

Ethnomorph

First, I just wanted to promote my video of the 2006 Crankworx Mountain Bike Festival in Whistler.
Second, I wanted to explain the definition of ethnomorph. An ethnomorph (plural ethnomorphs) is someone effected by the processes and actions studied by ethnomorphology (see first post). A popular example in ethnomorphology 101 at the University of Victoria at Large is Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz aka Jon Stewart aka The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. At least in theory. Some argue it is over a strained relationship with his father, but nevertheless it is a good example under the assumption he changed it due to cultural influences.
Under such an assumption, we can view his move to change his name for showbiz as reflective of the attitude (widely held but not often considered anti-semitism) that Hollywood is controlled by Jews. Therefore, it could be inferred that a very jewish sounding name could sound aloof, or 'too hollywood.' As such, Jonathan Leibowitz was affected by ethno-cultural attitudes to change his name.
More in this later

ETM Theory

First, I've got to promote Rob Lafoille's new video project, Hella Pixelated. Lafoille is majoring in art and minoring in ethnomorphology at UVIC, and this new video combines the two in a expiremental piece that is also an ethnomorphology case study. See it at Google and Youtube--though they are one company at this point.
Lafoille"stretched the boundaries of digital art, tearing it to its rawest, undiluted form", reveling the pixels, the most basic unit of our digital world. What seperated Kim Jong-Il from Guantanamo? What seperates the different ethnicites of our world?
Anyway, I wanted to give you a sneak preview of my upcoming article "Ethno-Threat Matrix Theory" as part of the 'New Frontiers' series in the Canadian Futurism Journal. Ethno-Threat Matrix theory started American and Canada around 2003, as Ethnomorphologist became interested in the ethnomorphological aspects of the Arab-American conflict, specifically the view of Americans that Arabs were an imminent threat. ETM Theory not only studies the past of these phenomena, but seek to predict the trajectory emergence of new "threats", real or imagined, invented or spontaneous.
America therefore represents a plethora of cases, not just Mexican and Arab, but throughout its history (German, Irish, Chinese, etc.). The history is also concise, so cause and effect are closer together and therefore easier to see and correlate. Look for more information on this exciting new field soon, and a class in the coming semesters.

ON NOTICE!

I've created a "Called Out" Board and an "On Notice" Board to keep tabs on everything that is on notice. The called out board will put a shout out to offenders of me and the field of ethnomorphology, giving them time to make amends and redeem themselves. If they do not, they may be put on the On Notice Board, signifiying their lives of luxury may soon mysteriously come to an end.

Called Out:
William Pitt the Elder: Prime Minister of Great Britian, from 1766-1768, Whig Party. Total Asshat.


Fast Colocation
Fast Colocation is giving networks to the people at dedicated.thehideout.net, and cheap domains is giving a domain. They have been contacted and asked to investigate the problem.

American Pageant, 11th edition
For horribly obscuring American History, tantamount to fraud perpetraded on all readers, specificially United States Board of Education Mandated Advanced Placement United States History Course. Also, defamation against anarchism in misrepresentation, perpetuation of stereotypes by prejudice and connotation.
Read Professor Bruce I. Kinley's Review on Amazon.com:
""While this text is factual, it reads like a novel - sensational and wordy. I love history, but this book was flat and irritating. I can't believe high-schoolers are reading this. I'm over 30 and have a PhD, and struggled through parts of it. I should note my struggles in this book came from confusing text. I felt the authors were trying so hard to "sound" intelligent that they ended up saying nothing. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY on this. It's a shame that authors like this continue to write such trash, destroying history and publishing. If you are forced to or want to read this be warned: it is written in overly formal English."

ON NOTICE:
Milk
It had it coming.
Ask Stephen Colbert

Dedicated.thehideout.net & Company
Punch of hackers portscanning me and and some other people. I'm coming for your, and all you friends at Sandy.thehideout.net, Sandy2.thehideout.net, and Dedicated19.hideout.net, and all other numbers. Its on. You're on notice.

Train/pain

Today's quick fact: Generally, when you get hit by a train, you don't feel pain

Recent Researchy by Ilie Badescu

World Renowned Ethnomorpholigograher Ilie Bădescu recently publish a paper at http://www.cee-socialscience.net/archive/sociology/romania/report1.html. Here is a great excerpt, also the subject of my upcoming class at UVAT

"Ethnicity as collective inhabiting
[38] Dorel Abraham, Septimiu Chelcea, and Ilie Bădescu specify their constructivist approach in terms of ethnomorphology, treating cohabition as a phenomenon of ethnic interaction, in contrast to the old cliches of ethnic monads. Backed by such analytical instruments as Bogardus’ scale of social distance and Tajfel's theory of social comparison, the authors have delineated four different patterns of cohabiting specific to the various cultural areas of Romania: cosmopolite, intercultural, cantonal, and ethnocentric (1995)."
Also see him at http://www.unibuc.ro/en/cc_cgsv_en

Ethnomorphology

Ethnomorphology is the study of the transmutation of ethnic and racial boundaries. I am professor Jose Chavez, and I teach ethnomorphology at the Univerisity of Victoria(At Large).

Today's Quick Fact: Squirrels are purple and brown and live underground. Squares are oblique and brown and live in town.