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
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
[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]
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]
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
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
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
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