This cry has to become excruciatingly loud or they will just let these poor people starve. It's all about oil and gas and geopolitics; world mass opinion could matter, but only if it is loud enough. I added the text to this photo. I normally ignore mass pass-it-on appeals, but I hope everyone who reads this DOES send it on to at least a few additional people other than themselves. Burma never gets enough attention. It has been life and death there for years, and the world has just continued to tolerate unbelievably atrocious atrocities. But now it is life and death for over a million - simultaneously. I though the world's ignoring the crackdown on the monks was our final test of karma, but it seems there is one more called Nargis. I hope the word doesn't come to make me cry.

Happy New Year, I guess

It must be coincidental that on the first day of 2008 I finally get confirmation that I am finally considered a subversive by the PTB - the Powers That Be, an abbreviation I also just learned today and think I will continue to use. It was one of my grandfather's favourite terms.

The story is still hazy, and I shall repost on it later. But some friend of mine was apparently told by his/her superiors at, I believe, a school board, that he/she had to "de-friend" me on Facebook, apparently because of the nature of the things I post there.

So, I am very, very proud feeling now, as you might imagine. My attempts to get noticed by someone who cares have been vindicated.

I'm a little curious what it is that I posted to Facebook that set off someone's subversion alarm. I tend to keep my Facebook postings fairly tame since all my real, flesh-and-blood friends (except one) can see them. So I don't post about U.F.O.'s and stuff, and I keep the depleted uranium posts to a minimum. Perhaps it was the Freeway Blogger link that I posted.

On a sad note, and I hope this is not related, on going back through my Facebook posts I discovered that Facebook had removed a posted link to a video on the Burma crackdown. It is possible this was because the original YouTube copy had disappeared, which happened in some cases, as you can see from the missing videos ate the bottom of my Burma page here.

So this is how the new year starts. A sense of foreboding....

Red Bands arrived in the mail

When I went to teach my Sunday English Class today some of my students immediately noticed my red rubber bracelet. I said I had 7 to give away but they had to do something to help Burma to get one. I suggested an essay or something. I had earlier taken time out in class once or twice to talk about the revolution in Burma and tell them my feelings about it. Two of the students just sent me their contributions now, only a few hours after class ended. These are busy students too, so I was surprised. I had already given William a bracelet when he approached me after class to ask me some questions about Burma. His writing is found below. His feelings are sincere I am sure; he didn't do it just to get the bracelet, though I am quite sure he will wear the bracelet with pride, as this style is currently quite popular among basketball-playing youths in Taiwan.

Here is William's essay. I edited the English, as he said he didn't want his grammar mistakes published. There weren't many.

在緬甸所發生的這起流血事件，身為國際的一份子我們不能坐視不管，既然我們可以做，為什麼不做？
但，我們能作什麼呢?
1. 若有認識緬甸朋友，堅定地告訴他，你的支持。
2. 若有任何的聲援活動，盡量參加。
3. 寫信給緬甸政府，要求他們釋放抗議者。
4. 連署給聯合國，要求安理會採取行動，保護緬甸人民。
5. 如果你追隨證嚴、聖嚴、星雲或其他法師，請他們能在他們的網絡中發出一些聲音，發揮菩薩聞聲救苦的影響力，一方面為國際上的佛教徒請命，一方面為緬甸的人權著力。
歡迎所有支持緬甸民主的朋友站出來。

拜託!

The news in Burma, everyone knows it.
We are the persons who live in the world.
Please help them.
What can we do?
1. Call on the phone to tell your friends to help Burma.
2. Go to events in support of Burma .
3. Call Burma's bad government to tell them to stop.
4. Write a letter to UN to tell them to help Burma's people.
5. As for Taiwan's people, they should go on the World Wide Web sites and tell everyone to help Burma.

Please everyone, come out and yell "Burma - We will help you."
Please!

And here is Eric's contribution:

I think we should help Burma because Burma have a bad president, he is very evil, he killed many monks and many peoples, so I hope all of Taiwanese can help them, thank you.
我想我們應該要幫助緬甸因為緬甸有一個壞總統,他很邪惡,他殺了許多人和和尚,所以,我希望所有台灣人可以幫助緬甸,謝謝
Eric

Here are the bracelets:

Please buy a band to show the world your conviction that the revolution in Burma really matters. The funds raised will go to various charities that directly support the victims of the evil junta. The Website makes special note that a substantial portion will go to the Mae Tao Clinic, which was founded and directed by Dr. Cynthia Maung. She recently was in Taiwan to receive the 2007 Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award from the The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Here is a good interview she gave on her visit.

As I explained to my class, one red band cost US$5 plus shipping, and 10 cost US$25 plus shipping, and I thought $5 is a pretty stingy donation. So I had 9 to give away, but felt on principle that I must demand all recipients do something to help Burma.

The first two went to a couple friends of mine who collected toys and stationary to send to the Safe Haven orphanage in northern Thailand (hopefully) in time for (secular) Christmas.

William's is the third, and Eric's will be the fourth. Some of the older kids at my regular school are planning to write something, but we've been busy learning Christmas carols and stuff. But that's over with now as we held our party early on Friday.

And now I'm gonna take a photo of myself to post on the Don't Forget Burma Website.
...too much time passes...
Viola:


But then I realize that I need to include some message to look as caring as the others on Don't Forget Burma, so I decide to give myself a temporary tat:

Myspace Image Hosting

That should take a while to wash off. My kids will ask lots of questions now. Tis' the season. Merry Christmas.

I Can't Hardly Take It

There are some twisted misters out there.

I just got done firing off an email to the Google News staff about my latest frustrations trying to find good Burma information on the Net. Here's what I typed:

I'd like to know why a few recent stories on this site are included in Google News listings, but most have not been. For example, the following new stories are missing from your archive:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9471
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9474

but this one is included:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9475

Your listings are here:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=site:irrawaddy.org&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&scoring=n

Here is their immediate acknowledgement:

Thank you
Thanks for contacting us. Again, we'll follow up with you only if we require more information or if we have any information to share.

So I won't expect a response, though they have been good in the past in this respect.

What I don't understand is how exactly they could arrange to have some but not all stories off a particular site show up in their listings. Lately, it seems that every story I actually care about is missing. And in all cases, the site in question appears to be indexed.

In fact, I've been wondering if some unseen level of censorship is going on at many different sites. The thing is, I tend to be interested in very touchy topics that don't generally make it onto the pages of the mainstream media. This would include organ harvesting, Burma, and depleted uranium specifically.

Just yesterday I sent an email to CBS5 in San Francisco:

I want to bring something to your attention. This story about Burma seems to be missing from your site though it shows in your search. I am wondering why. Also, I cannot seem to view the 2 video versions that appear in the search (2nd link below) though I can view other videos. Puzzling.

A reply would be much appreciated.

-Peter Dearman

http://cbs5.com/national/Myanmar.Burma.underground.2.596405.html

http://search.cbs5.com/Default.aspx?SearchString=burma&TabId=0

No reply so far. Draw your own conclusions.

Staking out a cause

I've recently been finding that my standoffish nature toward developing Internet friends has led me to meet, online, several people that share my concern that some kind of horrible evil exists. People are afraid to speak its name. No one even has a name for it, but there are lots of photos of Cheney wearing horns lying about the Internet.

I just finished reading the sixth Harry Potter book, and it has altered my thought patterns for a couple days, just as the other five did. I have long had a fantasy about there being a heroic team of evil-fighters who somehow make life actually worth living. And, as I mentioned, lately I find myself sending emails to people asking questions and offering my admiration for their anti-evil deeds. So, you see my point, I wish there was a sort of Dumbledore's Army (Book 5) one could join.

I keep a blog about depleted uranium at GNN.tv and have been trying to find a new home for it. One of the things I am considering is getting a totally new domain name. The name antivoldemortarianism.com came to mind. Perhaps too much a mouthful, or perhaps that is the charm. I'll let the thought stew. I immediately Googled "voldemortarian" (3 Ghits plus mine) to see how original the word was, and to my surprise (lie - my subconscious mind had to know), I am the originator of it nearly two years ago - not exactly; three other refernces to the word show on Google, but I'm apparently the first to use it as a label for the real-world problem for which we still have no better name than neo-conservativism, which is a distortion anyway, since the problem of government-by-evil goes back even further than the Neocons. I think my word is perfect. We have Orwellian, but this is a bit different. This is an actual modern system of government that is even more vile than, and distinctly different from its predecessors, Nazism and Fascism, that it is a necessity that it be named.

I hope I don't need to explain the appropriateness of the choice. Voldemort is the name that most of non-Muggle society dared not to speak. It is almost a given that the name Voldemortarianism will also remain unspoken by most of Muggle society for a while yet. The "unspokenness" (252 Ghits) is the root of this political system's power. By having no name, it can commit the most unspeakable of acts (the list is too long to put here) with impunity. It is if in the anti-universe, the evil Ben Kenobi said to the rightous Stormtrooper, "These are not the Weapons of Mass Destruction you are looking for," and was allowed to pass into the media scrum to spread his illusory "news" about the noble war that was going badly but was still a rightous cause for all "good" people to believe in.

But more than this (good song), I am suddenly attracted the idea of using this domain name to give home to good writers who want to discuss things from this anti-evil perspective.

My use of the word evil is key. I am using it in a "Nuremburg sense" rather than a religious sense. It is not hard to use biology and evolution to explain human aversion to evil. In fact, I am totally convinced that if the species lives long enough biologists will soon demonstrate that altruism and kindness toward others is more important than the other driver of natural selection, competition. The case is already nearly won.

So, please, nobody swipe that domain name. Perhaps I'll go buy it now.

This has been a test post, my first on Blogger I think. Over and out.
-Peter