Audio – Page 80 – Citizen Reporter

Let the World Remember Tsegaye

Sometime during one’s primary and secondary education, for those of us lucky enough to have gotten both, we probably learn some things about poetry. It may not be much or it may not always stick with us, but hopefully there was a teacher who was passionate enough about poetry to awaken the appetite of the student to better understand and enjoy poetry.

Unfortunately for me it didn’t take very well. Ask me to name my favorite poet, and I’ll probably pretend I know alot by naming those all familiar names, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, etc. I can’t recite more than a single line from either of those two great poets, which I consider to be a pity. The only poetry that stuck with me a bit better was Portuguese poetry, which I learned about doing several years of summer courses at the University of Lisbon. But even then I never felt I fully understood it. In hopes that I might one day better grasp them, I keep a Mia Couto and a Luis de Camões book on my shelf.

Beyond that, when it comes to poets from around the world, my own education never seemed to mention much beyond North America and Europe. One might use the excuse that the world is too big, but I still hope that as the world becomes smaller and closer, poets such as Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Ethiopia’s beloved playwrite and poet laureate, will be read in many classrooms worldwide. I heard of his death last week and then took time to search for bloggers writing about his life’s work and it’s importance within Ethiopia and around the world.

I won’t even try to pretend I know enough about him to pass onto to all of you. Instead I refer you to Weblog Ethiopia, Things We Should Have Written Down, and for those who still like mainstream media: The New York Times. After reading them, I’ve made a mental note to read any translations I can find of his work, to one day teach my children.

Some Sundays are Like That

I could almost taste the rain that hadn’t yet started, as I rode towards home trying to somehow cycle faster than is humanly possible. The phone rang and as per tradition, I couldn’t find the right pocket out of my million coat pockets, each filled with a different electronic device that only a citizen reporter would constantly carry on his person. That expression always cracks me up — carrying it on my person.

I decide to call the missed call back, as I could see it was Miss Ditta who just returned from her very long and extensively documented journey through Brazil. Hadn’t yet caught up with her since the return, though blogs pretty much keep friends up to date with each other in my experience:

ring ring…. (conversation takes place entirely in Portuguese, naturally)
D: Where are you? (a classic mobile phone greeting)
BM: Riding from Oost, heading back to the Oud West homestead.
D: Why not come to Prinsengracht number 1 zillion*.
BM: Sure, Im just about to hit the canals of the lovely Jordaan anyway.
D: Good. Ciao.
…click…

Course I had no idea where the house was and I certainly didn’t know who’s house it was, but what does that matter – it’s Sunday, you live in Amsterdam, you almost don’t need a coat today, and all the work you think you have to do can just wait.

I arrive pretty close to number 1 zillion and decide to continue the search on foot. As I walk towards the canal where I spot a bikerack, I catch the eye of a beautiful Dutch girl chatting with some people on a lovely houseboat. I smile like I’ve known her all my life and my mouth almost opens to start talking, when I notice she might not be looking at me, and I have no idea who she is. I notice a bunch of other people on the houseboat, and I think to myself: I miss the days where I used to hang out on houseboats. Around that same moment, a drunken German tourist, leading a group of old people, greets me in French. (why not?)
He asks: — are you from here?
And I reply: — yes I am, and its funny you’ve chosen French to communicate with me.

Then, in a mix of French, German, and English, he asks for a fantastic restaurant recommendation. I’m fiddling with my phone trying to call Ditta, and secretly envying the beautiful girl and all her friends partying on the houseboat. As I glanced up and down the canals thinking of a restaurant, voices from the houseboat start calling towards me:

Bicyclemark, what are you doing? Get over here!

I passed the German tourists onto a German speaker on the boat, and I started making the rounds giving hugs and kisses to all those present.
Oh you’re bicyclemark… soup mark who makes delicious Portuguese soup !, exclaimed another beautiful girl who could only be Ditta’s sister visiting from Slovakia.

I could go on. But at some point you’ll get tired of nationalities and languages and conversations and occasional references to some intriguing female I know nothing about. The moral of the story is: life is random.

Goodnight….. and Goodluck.

(*number changed for privacy purposes)

bm115 A Visit to Venezuela, the Observations of Steve Shalom

It becomes hard to tell what is really happening in Venezuela with all the conflicting reports coming from the United States government, US media, the international press, and the country itself. How you view the situation seems to hinge on whether you are pro-Chavez or anti-Chavez. While I was in New Jersey in December, my former professor and good friend Steve Shalom informed me that he was going to be part of a group from my alma mater, paying a special visit to Venezuela this month. He recently returned and in the podcast I bring you his observations; the good, the bad, and the still-too-early-to-tell.

Music –
Various songs from Luis Silva
Los Amigos Invisibles – Esto es lo que hay
Un Solo Pueblo – Venezuela

Also: Panel Discussion on US Drug Policy and Latin America at NYU coming up. Anyone interested and in the area, read about it over at the LatinAmericanist blog.

As discussed in the show, here is the photo from the cover of the NY Times, I labelled it.

New Jerseans Abroad

B has been in Amsterdam this week, visiting from Paris. He’s been living in Paris for something like 5 years now, along with his fiancé. B and I go way back to the days where we studied together in Aix-en-Provence, down in the sleepy south of France, 2000. As cosmic forces would have it, we are both from New Jersey, and for the last 6 years we’ve managed to meet up fairly often in either the US or Europe. I must say it is extremely comforting to hang with an old friend and someone who can relate on so many levels as an expat from new jersey with an additional european nationality, living in a third country. Sounds a bit like jupiter aligning with the pluto or whatever your favorite unlikely scenario.

We’ve spent a good amount of time comparing life and work in the Netherlands versus France. Naturally we’ve touched upon the demonstrations in the streets of France and the CPE law which effects the employment of young people. B expressed mixed feelings about the demonstrations, especially considering their timing – only after the law was passed did people take to the streets. He remembered reading extensively about the proposed legislation back in November during the street battles in the Parisien suburbs. Somehow at that time the type of collective action we see now did not occur. A bit late, is what B seemed to be saying.

Practically speaking, whether you live in France or Bolivia or wherever, it is indeed frustrating when people only get concerned about laws after they are passed. Even if there is a good amount of information available and decent warning from all the different types of media available these days, many seem only capable of ignoring it and then later when it’s much more difficult to change something, they get angry. It is, in basic terms, a bad habit. But a typical one of the type of democracies many of us live in.

bm114 Freud, Luntz, and the longterm effects of political manipulation

There’s lots of talk about how the Bush Admin’s policies are a distaster, and how the approval ratings are at an alltime low, and it is almost assumed that there is light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a u-turn in policy and representation.
But is that really true? Do these policies and worldviews stop with the downfall of one person or one administration? I rehash Freud’s views on people’s irrationality and place them alongside the theories of Bush’s prized pollster Frank Luntz, who crafted the lexicon for making people believe in the invasion of Iraq and the government plan.

AudioCommunique #114 (mp3)

Music:

REM – World Leader Pretend
Immortal Technique – Industrial Revolution
Phil Ochs – The War is Over
The Slackers – Power
Vashti Bunyan – Here Before

Much of the audio courtesy of ABC radio national.

Essential Insight on Manipulating Citizens

Riding my bike past the zoo (artis) and towards the economics faculty of the U of Amsterdam, with visions of baklava in my head, I was listening to my usual lineup of podcasts. Australia’s Radio National has long been a source of great journalism for me, but what I heard today was much more important than their usual reports. Therefore I had to write this up.

Lots of people probably feel bamboozled, confused, frustrated or lost when it comes to the actions of the American government and generally speaking, how many actually supported them (this government, this party, etc) in the past. It is no doubt not a simple thing to break down or grasp, which explains why lots of people will just tune it out, or just be bitter in their own silent way. But I strongly suggest, hell, I demand you listen to this latest Background Briefing program on the psychological strategy and reasoning that advisors told the Bush administration to use in order to get public support for attacking and invading Iraq. You will hear it directly from the very people who developed the theories and this report is actually the key to understanding what has happenned that has so scarred American and world politics for probably the next 50 years. Go listen, learn, understand.