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3:29 PM Htet Aung Kyaw
Burma: back to square one after two decades of cease-fire?
By Htet Aung Kyaw
(Mizzima, Commentary) – August 8, 2011, is the 23rd anniversary of the "8888 Uprising" in Burma in which more than 3,000 people were killed by the Tatmadaw. The protestors were killed as they shouted slogans in the streets, "Enough is enough BSPP (Burmese Socialist Programme Party)," "Build a student union" and "Give us democratic rights."
Student demonstrators during the 1988 Burmese uprising, in which hundreds of students and citizens were gunned down by the military. Twenty-three years after this incident, what do we have now?
Some analysts say there has been some progress as a result of last year's national election, while others say we have got nowhere. This is because there are different views on the new military-dominated civilian government and their 2008 Constitution.
In fact, the student protestors' dream of a "student union" has not materialized. Instead, student leaders, including Min Ko Naing of the 88-generation students group, are still behind bars. They did not obtain "democratic rights." The glint of hope for democratic change – when in 1990 the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy won 82 per cent of the vote––evaporated after the results were quashed by the military regime.
Today, many activists are in jail, forced labour continues, child soldiers remain, and the press censorship machine grinds on.
Out of the three demands of the 8888 uprising, only the collapse of the BSPP has come about.
Even then, this appears to be a façade. A clone of the BSPP was born in recent years called the Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP). The USDP won 85 per cent of the 1,100 seats in parliament, in many cases based on so-called advance votes, plus 25 per cent of the seats were reserved for the armed forces in the November 2010 elections. A retired general, Thein Sein, was elected president of the new government. Retired general Shwe Mann is parliament speaker, while all of the ministers in the states and divisions are controlled by the USDP.
After 23 years, however, the challenge does not only come from Aung San Suu Kyi but from the guns of the ethnic armies that signed cease-fire agreements with the Burmese military in 1990s. This is because there are different views on new government and the new Constitution, particularly who will control the ethnic armed forces.
Fighting has broken out again along the Burma-Thai border and Burma-China border with ethnic organizations struggling for self-determination including the Karen, Shan, Mon and Kachin armed groups.
In this context, the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) or Student Army that was founded after the 8888 uprising in Thai-Burma border area joined with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) was soon fighting against the troops. Although many of their members moved to third countries for a new life, hundreds are still in the border regions.
"We very much welcome the ABSDF," Colonel "Moustache" of the DKBA told this correspondent. Although the students are not that numerous, they can be relied on for political force, public support, contacts within the country and international connections and media penetration, he said.
Meanwhile, on the dialogue front, Aung San Sue Kyi met with government minister Aunt Kyi in Rangoon on 25 July. Although they did not announce details of the discussion, a week later Suu Kyi sent an open letter to President Thein Sein, with copies to the Kachin, Shan, Mon and other ethnic groups, offering to help with a dialogue between the ethnic groups and the government. All ethnic groups welcomed Suu Kyi's proposal but there's been no response from the Naypyitaw authorities.
The ABSDF looked on approvingly at the uprisings in the Middle East and has been waiting for the shockwaves to strike and spread through Burma. It is hard to say whether the students are hoping for the impossible. They also admired the bombing of Libya by NATO forces and the rebels' occupying of the country bit by bit.
How close to reality is their hope? How much can the Burmese people do? It would be interesting to see what the views of the NLD and other political parties would be, and the response from the international community.
Whatever it is, the political situation in Burma hasn't improved in the 23 years after the 8888 revolution but has deteriorated to a point where gunfire can be heard again.
Htet Aung Kyaw was a student activist involved in the 8888 uprising and the ABSDF. He is now a freelance journalist and writer based in exile.
A Video document of an ABSDF column in southern Burma, Minthamee camp. in 1995-96.
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Burma's generals are afraid of telephones and the internet
LAST WEEKEND, the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report entitled "Enemies of the Internet", which named Burma as one of 12 countries that actively practices censorship and restricts freedom of speech on the Internet.
"The 12 enemies of the Internet � have all transformed their internet into an intranet in order to prevent their populations from accessing 'undesirable' online information," the RSF report said.
As I work for a daily news service, this report is nothing surprising for me. But I was surprised when I learned that a group of hackers from the jungle capital of the low-speed intranet country attacked high-speed websites in the world's richest country.
"Yes, this cyber attack was made by Russian technicians. However, they are not in Moscow but in Burma's West Point cyber city", claimed Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy ambassador to Washington and a former spy for ousted Burmese prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt. (Many Burmese observers compare the country's Maymyo Academy of Defence Services to the US Army's West Pont academy).
Last September, which was the anniversary of the "saffron revolution" led by Buddhist monks, the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) website and two others leading websites (of the Chiang Mai-based Irrawaddy magazine and Delhi-based Mizzima) were attacked by unknown hackers.
"We can easily say that the Burmese government is behind this attack," said a DVB statement. They used DdoS, or distributed denial-of-service, which overloads websites with an unmanageable amount of traffic."
But the DVB technicians doubt that the attackers are government-backed hackers who are based in Russia. "Technically, it is of course difficult to say who is behind the attack," the statement said.
According to Aung Lin Htut, thousands of Burmese army officers are studying Defence Electronic Technology at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), and hundreds of them return to Burma each year to work in Maymyo after they receive the four-year Masters Degrees. The subjects for Burmese officers studying there are computer software programs, nuclear technology, short range and long range missiles, and aeronautics and engineering.
"There is full-scale electricity supply and hi-speed Internet connections at Napyidaw (the country's official capital city) and the West Point cyber city. The cyber attack is just the beginning of their plan to attack the democracy movement," the former spy told this correspondent in an electronic conversation from Washington.
I asked how these officers would be able to apply their knowledge in Burma, where the electricity supply is intermittent.
Although the two VIP locations are very advanced in IT, the rest of the country is still in the dark. There is not enough electricity, telephone lines, or hi-speed Internet connections for the general population.
"Our office telephone line has been cut for over two years. There is no response from the authority whenever we ask the reason," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy.
"To open an e-mail address for the NLD may lead me to Insein (prison)" he added.
The junta recently arrested dozens of students and activists, including Min Ko Naing's 88 Generation students' group, which took part in the September 2007 uprising and who were involved in distributing relief after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country last year. A number of the students and activists were sentenced to 65 years in prison for violations of the electronic law, meaning that they had used cellphones, cameras, e-mail and the internet without permission from the authorities.
"I'm very interested in IT and so I learned something about it on the Internet. This is only my guilt that will send me to Insein," said one activist named Zagana as a judge sentenced him to jail.
A recent UN report says that 6 out of every 10 people in the world use a mobile phone.
"But I think the NLD is the only political party in the world that has no telephone, no Internet or website in the 21st century," Nyan Win lamented to me during a cellphone (which he rents from friends) conversation from Rangoon. The NLD members and activists have no permission to buy a cellphone, and are not permitted to own or even use an Internet line or a laptop computer in Burma. If you live in Burma, you need permission from the authorities to buy a cell or land phone, a fax machine, an Internet line, computer, camera, satellite TV, or short-wave radio.
"This is an unacceptable condition for the party that won the 1990 election, while the junta allows everything for the USDA - the pro-government Union Solidarity Development Association - for the 2010 election campaign," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for exiled 88 Generation students and the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
"Cellphones and the Internet are daily basic necessities for politicians and the party," he said to this correspondent in a text message from his Blackberry. "This is very useful and you will see how US President Obama does his daily job using this phone," he added from Bangkok.
But in Burma, the ageing NLD leadership in Rangoon and the army generals in Napyidaw have no Blackberry or cellphone. The generals have banned cellphones in the capital for security reasons, while the NLD leaders have not been able to get either a land phone, a cellphone or an e-mail account.
"This is not just the nature of a generation gap between Obama and Than Shwe. Burma's politics is wrong indeed," Soe Aung added.
Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/03/24/opinion/opinion_30098633.php
Homesick: Vacation on the Thai-Burma border
Jan 19, 2009 (DVB), Although the word 'vacation' is still a strange one to most ordinary Burmese people inside the country, many Burmese in exile, including this correspondent, enjoy taking holidays.
But it may be hard for the western community to understand why many exiles would spend their holidays on the Thai-Burma border rather going to Phuket or one of the other beach resorts popular with western tourists.
According to Burmese dissidents in Mae Sot, about 100 exiles who have resettled in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand visited the border town last year. "Most come from Norway. Why do so many of you come here?" I was asked by a dissident who runs a restaurant in downtown Mae Sot.
After 20 years far from home, I believe that many exiles come here to treat their homesickness. They want to see the Burmese community in Mae Sot or "Little Burma" and maybe take a look across the Moei River to Myawaddy on the Burmese side. For me, as an activist turned journalist, I wanted to learn what was going on in the dissident movement in Mae Sot and the rebel-controlled areas.
The changing face of Mae Sot
In 1941, Mae Sot was a normal border village where the Burma Independent Army was briefly based before re-entering to Burma to fight against British colonial rule. General Aung San and the rest of the 30 comrades led the BIA to Mae Sot and two other border towns on the route back to Burma after they were trained by Japanese army. I had read about it in a school history book before coming to Mae Sot. That might be why some western analysts have criticised our romanticism in dreaming of following in general Aung San's footsteps.
My first trip to Mae Sot was in mid-November 1988, just after the All Burma Students' Democratic Front was founded. I came from southern Burma and stayed at the home of major Soe Soe's of the Karen National Union in Mae Sot before going to attend the ABSDF meeting at Kaladay Camp.
Twenty years after my first trip, Mae Sot has changed a lot. The road to Myawaddy is now a six-lane paved highway where 20 years ago I walked in the dust. Major Soe Soe's house has now been changed into the Peace Development office where I saw the office issuing KNU travel passes which allowed us to travel from Mae Sot to the KNU headquarters in Manaplaw without any questions from the Thai authorities.
But today, KNU travel passes no longer offer any guarantees on Thai soil and the KNU's general secretary Pado Man Shar was killed by unknown gunmen in downtown Mae Sot last February. Officials from the KNU's rival, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, and Burmese government officials travel to Mae Sot, which I never saw 20 years ago. Many Burmese dissidents have been arrested and some deported to Myawaddy which I would never have thought possible 20 years ago.
Despite many challenges, Mae Sot is still the hub of the Burmese dissident movement, especially after the fall of Manaplaw in 1995. I met and chatted with dozens of dissident leaders in Mae Sot. "After the killing of Pado Man Shar, no one is safe here. But we cannot use our own guards or guns as we did in jungle on their soil," said an ABSDF leader who is now working for the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
Although there is no security, "We must still work here. This is because Mae Sot is the closest place to Burma," he explained to me at his hide-out.
It is not only politicians who choose to stay in Mae Sot but also social workers. "We must operate here as much as we can. I would never think of going to a third country," said Dr. Cynthia Maung, know as Burma's Mother Teresa, who run the Mae Tao clinic.
She was one of a few students whom I met at major Soe Soe's house 20 years ago. I personally helped her to clean out the ageing mud hut to run as a clinic in 1989. But now I see about 100 patients on the beds, 200 outpatients, about 30 new buildings beside the old hut that I helped clean. A dozen foreign medics, 50 Burmese members of staff and an annual budget of 40 million baht are overseen by Dr Cynthia.
From idealism to realism?
"Twenty years on, Cynthia's battalion is the biggest in the Student Army," jokes a former ABSDF member who is currently working as a volunteer at the Mae Tao clinic.
It is difficult to find hard evidence of how much the rebels and exile politicians have done for the people in past 20 years, although they claim to have been working for the country's 50 million people. "But in Cynthia's clinic, you will see with your own eyes how many people she helps," the former ABSDF member told me.
"How many people have you helped with your own hands, my comrade?" he asked me while I was interviewing his patients. I could not answer him immediately. In fact, despite my 10 years as a freedom fighter and a further 10 years working in the media, I have never been able to help people physically like he has but only through ideas or words.
I was seized with the desire to do something to help when I meet people from Tavoy, my hometown, who were living as illegal migrant workers along the border from Sankhalaburi to Phuket, some of the two million Burmese migrants and hundreds of thousands of refugees on Thai soil. It was them to whom I once promised to bring freedom and democracy in a speech during the 1988 uprising. Now, 20 years later, I was meeting them on the Thai border, far from my home city, and I was somewhat ashamed that I had not yet honoured my promise.
In the end, the only help I could give them was the contact details of some social organisations run by my comrades, such as Dr Cynthia's Mae Tao Clinic (www. maetaoclinic.org), Aye Aye Mar's social network (http: //socialactionfor women.blogspot.com/), Myat Thu's children's fund (www.aiya fund.com) and Moe Swe's labour rights group (http://yaungchioo.org) in Mae Sot, Aung Myo Min's human rights group (http://www.hreib.com/) in Chiang Mai and Htoo Chit's organisation (http://www.ghre.org) in Phuket.
However, Dr Cynthia was unhappy when I told her about my feelings, saying "Changing politics and ideology are more important than social work. We all are doing our duty and we shouldn't be blaming each other."
Armed struggle and unwanted guests
Apart from politicians and social workers, I meet another group of former ABSDF members who had been waiting for four years at No Poe Refugee camp to go a third country. "We were all rejected by the US authorities because we all were ABSDF or armed men," one former ABSDF member who was visiting Mae Sot told me. "But they allow fake refugees in with no difficulties. Please tell the true story to the outside world," he pleaded.
According to him, those rejected by the US can by divided into three groups. Firstly those, like him, who have rejected by US and but can apply to other countries. Secondly those whose applications have been stalled but not yet rejected to they can only wait. And third, men who have been rejected while their wives and children were allowed to go to the US and so the families have been split up. Then the men try to go to European countries, Australia or New Zealand while their wives and children board planes to Washington.
ABSDF and KNU officials confirmed that the US authorities have rejected all of their former members since the attacks of 11 September 2001. They also confirmed the allegations of 'fake refugees' and human trafficking. "[The camp authorities] let the new arrivals in from Rangoon who can pay a half million baht each to replace the old ones who have no money after living in the camp for many years," a KNU official told me. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to investigate this accusation for myself.
However, a Burmese journalist in Mae Sot gives me a different view. "As far as human trafficking goes, I agree that the UN and Thai officials need to investigate it urgently," he said. "But as for the meaning of refugee, I think all people in Burma today are suffering an in need of refuge, so why are the dissidents opposing the new arrivals when they claim they are working for all 50 million [Burmese] people?" he asked.
The ABSDF and KNU officials are not only worried about being rejected by the US authority but also about the changing mindset of their former members who have resettled in the west. "Donations from our former members in the US have been reducing month by month since 9/11," an ABSDF financial worker told me. Strangely, the highest number of donations is coming from Japan and Korea where there are no former members of the ABSDF or the KNU.
Change we need: Where is Burma's Abhisit?
After a three-week vacation in Mae Sot, Chiang Mai, Sangkhlaburi and Ranong, I met some Burmese, Thai and western journalists in Bangkok. One western journalist began to question me. "Do you think there will be any change in Burma after the 2010 election? What is the role of the exiles in the coming election?" he asked.
"Yes, there will be a few changes , from khaki uniforms to white shirts. Don't hope for too much," I replied. But as for the role of exiles, I'm not ready to answer that. However, a Thai journalist who has been following Burmese affair for over a decade said, "The exiles are not interested in the 2010 election because they are all too busy with their own election," he joked, referring to a statement by the exile coalition who claimed to be founding a new government in exile in 2009.
A Burmese journalist who was at the gathering suggested, "They should try to found a real government in Rangoon, not in exile. They also should learn some new methods from the new [Thai] prime minister Abhisit [Vejjajiva]".
There have been at least 12 changes of governments in Bangkok in the past 20 years while nothing has changed at all in Rangoon or Naypyidaw. Some observers have contrasted the rise to power of the 44-year-old new Thai premier Abhisit last month with the fate of 46-year-old Burmese 88 generation student leader Min Ko Naing who was jailed for 65 years in November.
"That is why I suggested you look to Abhisit," the journalist went on. "Then you woulf find some creative ideas about how to break a 20-year political deadlock rather than holding on to traditional ways of thinking such as 'kill or be killed', or 'aggression or destitution'."
DVB journalist launches book in Chiang Mai
Dec 11, 2008 (DVB), Former student activist and rebel soldier Htet Aung Kyaw, who now works as a journalist for the Democratic Voice of Burma, launched his book "Far from Home: 20 years in exile" in Chiang Mai yesterday.
In his book, Htet Aung Kyaw looks back over the past 20 years of the struggle for democracy in Burma, drawing on personal reminiscences and political analysis.
"Far from Home" includes many of Htet Aung Kyaw's articles for DVB, the Irrawaddy, the Bangkok Post and the Nation as well as new material on his experiences with the All Burma Students' Democratic Front.
At yesterday's launch, Htet Aung Kyaw spoke about his reasons for publishing the book.
"Now we are reaching 20 years of our democracy revolution and I was asking myself why it has taken 20 years already, and how many more it will take," he explained.
"Then I asked myself what I have done over these years and I had the idea of publishing a compilation of my articles and writing about my experience in the jungle as an ABSDF member," he said.
"I'm publishing this in the hope that it will at least give people something to think about for the struggle."
Htet Aung Kyaw said the focus of his writing had changed over the years.
"The articles I wrote about 10 years ago for various publications , questioned why a lot of people in the exile movement, especially ABSDF fighters, had started to seek asylum in third countries at that time , had they always planned to do that since they came out of Burma?" he said.
"Ten years on from then, today my attention has switched to how far we have come on our journey."
Reporting by Naw Say Phaw and Siân Thomas
Burmese Journalist Looks Back at a 20-Year Struggle
BANGKOK, Dec 19 (Asia Media Forum) - On the 20th year anniversary of the 1988 uprising in Burma, a Burmese journalist in exile looks back at how that crucial event influenced his decision to tell the truth about his country.
"At the moment, it's the only thing we can do — tell the truth — through the media," said Htet Aung Kyaw, a Norway-based journalist and author of'Far from Home: 20 Years in Exile', at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand Dec 17.
Htet was an art student in Burma and a local student leader when the Aug 8, 1988 pro-democracy uprising, focused around a call to an end to 26 years of military rule, exploded. Thousands of people, most of them students, were killed in the ensuing crackdown, and many more went into exile into neighbouring Thailand and other countries, making up a good number of today's exiled community. The series of protests ended on Sep 18, 1988 when the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), as the junta as called, was established after a military coup.
Fleeing to the Karen-controlled rebel area, Htet was recruited into the All Burma Student Democratic Front where he served as commander.
A journalist for the past 12 years, Htet could only shrug when asked about the future of Burma. "Everybody is asking why nothing has happened after 20 years. Frankly, I don't know," said Htet, adding that change does not happen overnight.
In 1989, the SLORC declared martial law to quell further protests and in 1990 held elections, the first time for the country in almost 30 years of military rule. When the National League for Democracy (NLD) party led by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi won by a landslide, the SLORC declared the elections void.
Since then, Burma has been under the tight grip of the Gen. Than Shwe-led government, now renamed the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be under house arrest, along with other opposition figures.
Although not much improvement is seen in the political situation, Htet have noted subtle changes happening.
"The way people think does seem to have changed. This shift in mentality could be said to be the most significant sign of progress in the past 20 years," Htet wrote in an article he wrote for the Democratic Voice of Burma website in September this year.
In September 2007, the military cracked down on massive protests led by thousands of monks in different cities in Burma. What began as a series of fuel price hike protests became a pro-democracy movement. The protests resulted in at least nine people being killed (independent reports say the figure was much higher), hundreds injured and reportedly thousands of arrests made.
One of the major changes, Htet said, is the advent of new media which allowed people to share information faster and to a wider audience. The 2007 protests, for instance, are a prime example of this power given to the people. Through mobile phones and the Internet, particularly via blogs and through the contributions of citizen journalists, the outside world was able to witness the events in Burma.
Short-wave radio also helped a lot in the pro-democracy movement's information campaign, especially via such programmes as Radio Free Asia Burmese and the Democratic Voice of Burma.
"The media coverage provided by those in exile is crucial given the current unrest. . . .This time, four short-wave radio stations, a satellite television channel broadcasting to Burma and the Democratic Voice of Burma TV and radio provide non-stop reports from inside Burma," he wrote for Thailand's English-language daily 'The Nation' on Oct. 2, 2007.
"I think that the Burmese media in exile have contributed a lot in terms of exposing the issues that the government want suppressed. We say this in such events as the 2007 monk-led demonstration and the May 2008 Nargis cyclone," Htet told AMF.
While he does not see the media within Burma being free anytime soon, he believes that there are many good journalists there who share pro-democracy groups' sentiments. "They just have no chance to voice out their ideas for obvious reasons," he added.
But despite these changes, Htet concedes that much work needs to be done, especially in uniting the different factions among opposition parties and ethnic minorities in Burma, as well as the conflicts among the Burmese media in exile. "We need to have a systematic strategy, a step-by-step approach to finding a resolution. We need to change the thinking of people," he said. "We also need a unified and leading organisation to be successful."
Unfortunately, he said there is a lack of dialogue between ethnic minorities and the NLD. In the past, ethnic minorities complained that the NLD does not have their best interests in mind and would likely to continue the government's unfair policies towards the ethnic groups, which include the Karen and Shan.
When asked about the Association of South-east Asian Nations' (ASEAN) role in a free Burma, Htet again shook his head. "Although it is playing a more active role now than before, the ASEAN, of which Burma is a member, still has its limitations. I don't see a way they can change the political situation in Burma anytime soon," he said.
After the September 2007 protests, ASEAN urged the government to stop the violent crackdown against the demonstrators, one of its strongest statements ever against a member country.
As for the planned national elections in 2010, Htet is wary about getting his hopes too high. "I don't see a democratic government after the elections. It's merely a changing of 'uniforms' from military to civilian 'clothing' but I am afraid it will still be the same," he said. — Lynette Lee Corporal (END/IPSAP/LLC/JS/181208)
Far from Home: 20 years in exile.
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Crystal Palace travelled to the "highest altitude" ground in English professional football to take on West Brom in Alan Pardew's first game in charge.
Back from my brush with death, maybe not quite but that's how it felt, I was in a much better condition to watch today's game than I was last week.
You couldn't have predicted this a year ago when we sacked Alan Pardew, that his first game as manager of the next team for him to manage would be against us. Actually, yes. I think most of us could have predicted it because that's how football seems to go.
Let me get this out of the way at the beginning. I felt Pardew was poorly treated by Newcastle fans. I felt he was given more than enough rope for him to hang himself at Palace and when he was eventually sacked it was deserved and overdue.
I supported Pardew, and Steve Parish, right up until our 5-4 defeat away to Swansea. I believe Pardew tried his best, wanted the best for us in exactly the same way as Parish does. Much like Parish, Pardew isn't as able as he thinks he is and in the year since they have both made themselves look a little silly.
That aside, Palace travelled to the league ground which lies at the highest altitude in the English league. It always looked like it was going to be a close and tight affair with little between the two teams.
In the warm-up, Hennessey and Dan were declared not fit after being named in the squad so Kelly came into the starting line-up as did Speroni and Palace were forced to name just 5 substitutes.
The first half seemed to be going according to the script though in truth I'd say Palace were the better team. There were few clear-cut chances in the half and the three clearest from either side which sticks in my mind fell to Benteke and Zaha. In all three occasions, both players drew decent saves from Foster.
Benteke had a good header from a corner and a low shot saved on the right and Zaha had a low shot on the left saved.
The second half saw things continue in much the same way that the first half left off only with West Brom being the livelier at the start before Palace reasserted their dominance. That isn't a sentence I thought I'd write this season.
West Brom edged their way back into the game as it opened up through tiredness and individual mistakes but neither keeper were forced into anything other than run-of-the-mill saves.
As the clock ticked down to full-time it seemed that both teams were going for it and not settling for a draw but ultimately a point away from home against a relegation rival is something Palace should be pleased about.
Just 3½ weeks left until we can sign reinforcements and breath some fresh life into what looks like a tired team. The transfer window can't open soon enough.
Verdict: Glass half empty or half full? Two games without scoring but then it's two clean sheets.


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Showing class pride with a class ring
Joel Molina
The class ring is one of many ways to commemorate high school and college graduations and is a tradition that has been a part of the history of the U.S. for many years.
Elisha Nuñez, Staff Reporter
From high school to college graduations, there are plenty of ways for graduates to keep memories or souvenirs from their times at school. One way is by buying a class ring, which can be customized with symbols or achievements that tell you and other people about your identity during your time in school. Now, as graduation comes closer and closer, some students may be asking themselves whether to purchase one right now.
The tradition of the class ring is deeply rooted in the United States, making it a predominantly American practice. According to Fashionista, the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, was the first institution to have students graduate and take class rings with them in 1835. From there, the new trend began to spread throughout the country and is now a tradition with colleges and high schools across the U.S.
At first, class rings were uniform in design and pertained to the school one graduated from. Today, these rings can be personally customized and designed with symbols or other things pertaining to a student's accomplishments and student identity.
"From a dull wax model to final gleaming product, each personalized ring takes dozens of workers, each a master in their step of the process, dozens of hours to complete," said Gary Scheaffer, a former Jostens employee. "No ring leaves the factory without assuring it meets the customers specification."
Signifying ones' time at their institution and other details of their academic journey, the class ring is a symbol itself.
Tying into the tradition of wearing rings, the class ring is also supposed to go on the ring finger of the right hand, that way it will not be confused with the ring finger on the left hand.
According to "The Complete Book of Etiquette" by Amy Vanderbilt, the insignia on the ring is also supposed to face outward so that people can easily see it.
The U.S. is not the only country in the world with traditions for alumni who keep their school memories with them after graduation. In the United Kingdom, graduates of their school or military unit will wear the necktie that belonged to said institution. In Canada, the class rings are more like gold bands, and signify a more intimate relationship between a graduate and their alma mater.
There are plenty of options for graduates to show their school pride and the relationship they carry with it. Class rings are just one of the many ways people can show others about the school they went to, segments of their student identity and the memories they made during the time spent there.
Elisha Nunez is a staff reporter and may be reached at [email protected]
Elisha Nuñez is a multimedia journalism student with a minor in marketing at the University of Texas at El Paso. He works as a reporter for The Prospector,...
Joel Molina, Photographer
Joel Molina is a multimedia journalism student with a minor in film at UTEP. He works as a contributor for The Prospector and wants to use the magic of...
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Literature in the Digital Age
0:07Skip to 0 minutes and 7 secondsEzra Pound published 'In a Station of the Metro' in the April 1913 issue of Poetry magazine. Edited by Harriet Monroe, Poetry magazine was one of those little magazines where US modernism happened. It was at Ezra Pound's urging that his friend T.S. Eliot's wonderful and famous poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' was published there. Pound was a tireless promoter of his fellow modernist writers.
0:39Skip to 0 minutes and 39 secondsAnd there was something else that Pound was very good at: he was very good at inventing literary movements. And the most influential literary movement that he invented was Imagism. In the March 1913 issue of Poetry magazine, that issue which immediately preceded the one where he published 'In a Station of the Metro', two imagist manifestos were published, one by Pound one by F. S. Flint. And it's in F. S. Flint's manifesto, simply entitled 'Imagisme', where we find the most useful definition of some of the main tenets of Imagism. The first of these tenets is 'Direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective'. What does this mean?
1:32Skip to 1 minute and 32 secondsThe first tenet - direct treatment of the 'thing', whether subjective or objective - means that modernists should deal with the real world, the material, physical world that we can see, hear, feel, touch and taste. And that is in direct contrast to earlier romantic writers, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who sought to pierce through the world of appearances to get at a more real world of spirit and ideas beyond the world we can see.
2:08Skip to 2 minutes and 8 secondsNot so the modernists: they sought to deal with the world we're actually in, with the urban crowd in a metro station.
2:18Skip to 2 minutes and 18 secondsThe second tenet of Imagism is equally important: 'To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.' Modernist writers such as Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, H.D. and Gertrude Stein considered themselves craftsmen or craftswomen whose main job was to work on and with language, to cut it down to the bone, to use language with as much precision and concision as possible. Ernest Hemingway put it most memorably perhaps when he said that he sought to write 'the one true sentence.' And that's precisely what Pound aimed for in 'In a Station of the Metro'. According to his own account, this poem was originally 30 lines long.
3:13Skip to 3 minutes and 13 secondsAnd he pared it down to those famous two lines: 'The apparition of these faces in the crowd. Petals on a wet, black bough.' Why call the movement Imagism? In his essay 'A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste', which was published right after Flint's imagist manifesto,
3:35Skip to 3 minutes and 35 secondsPound defined the image thus: 'An image is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.' And again, this is precisely what Pound does in 'In a Station of the Metro'. He creates an instant image of faces emerging from an anonymous crowd in a station of the metro. 'The apparition of these faces in the crowd. Petals on a wet, black bough.' And this relation of images corresponds to a more general feature of modernist writing.
4:15Skip to 4 minutes and 15 secondsModernist writing was faced with a great difficulty, namely how to render the new chaotic, disjointed, fragmented, urban, industrialised world of modernity, a world that no longer seemed to be kept together by shared norms and values, all of which would soon be swept away by the First World War, which broke out one year after Pound published 'In a Station of the Metro'. And one of the responses that modernists gave to this crisis of representation was to create instant images, instant flashes, rather than creating organic, all-encompassing wholes.
5:00Skip to 5 minutes and 0 secondsAnd this is precisely what Ezra Pound did in 'In a Station of the Metro': creating a fragment for a fragmented world.
What are the literary-historical contexts of 'In a Station of the Metro'?
The literary-historical contexts of a work include, among others, the institutional aspects of its publication, its relation to the dynamics of various literary and artistic movements, and the connection of its author to other authors.
These provide yet another frame of reference in which literature can be analyzed and interpreted. Watch Philipp Schweighauser expand on the literary-historical contexts of Ezra Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro.'
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Divergent will never be the next Hunger Games or Twilight
After reading the last chapter of Divergent, I was so shocked, how often does the main character die in these things? I've always thought it was a little unrealistic how the hero always manages to escape unscathed after staring danger and death in the face over and over again. No closure on what so ever on part of Four. I was crushed and confused on the writer decision how to end the book. Come on, why do you think the Twilight and Hunger Games series were so successful? Lets face it, they were both very basic stories, a girl in love with a boy that out of her league and girl fighting back against tyrant, but they both delivers a very happy ending and concluded very wisely.
Ok not everyone loves to have a happy ending, but just to be different on other best sellers book is not an escaped to go against the based on the beginning of your story. Half of the fan base that finished the last book, tell people that they wished they'd never started the series is not a good book. Remember this is a young adult genre, they doesn't want perfect character, Twilight and Hunger Games stumbled in their final installments, but the movie audience showed up because they knew how the stories ultimately ended and they knew that, despite the missteps along the way, they would get their payoff.
Maybe it just me… still reading a happily ever after stories, have hang ups with Cinderella and Snow white. But this is entertainment, I craving for happy ending and still believing that happy ending still existing though we don't have perfect life.
Author Apple IlaganPosted on September 5, 2014 Categories Blog, Books, Entertainment, iMax MoviesTags Amazon, applebyte, book reviews, Books, entertainment, inspirationLeave a comment on Divergent will never be the next Hunger Games or Twilight
Read the Harry Potter Prequel!
J.K. Rowling penned an 800 word prequel to her Harry Potter series to be sold at an auction. All proceeds will be donated to
English PEN and Dyslexia Action. Here is the transcribe of HARRY POTTER PREQUEL sold for about $50,000.
The Harry Potter Prequel, by J.K. Rowling
The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted 'whoa!' Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without unseating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail light, vanished up the narrow side street.
'We've got 'em now!" cried PC Anderson excitedly. 'That's a dead end!"
Leaning hard on the steering wheel and crashing his gears, Fisher scraped half the paint off the flank of the car as he forced it up the alleyway in pursuit.
There in the headlights sat their quarry, stationary at last after a quarter of an hour's chase. The two riders were trapped between a towering brick wall and the police car, which was now crashing towards them like some growling, luminous-eyed predator.
There was so little space between the car doors and the walls of the alley that Fisher and Anderson had difficulty extricating themselves from the vehicle. It injured their dignity to have to inch, crab-like, towards the miscreants. Fisher dragged his generous belly along the wall, tearing buttons off his shirt as he went, and finally snapping off the wing mirror with his backside.
'Get off the bike!' he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it.
They did as they were told. Finally pulling free from the broken wind mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter's guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band.
'No helmets!' Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. 'Exceeding the speed limit by – by a considerable amount!' (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motorcycle could travel.) 'Failing to stop for the police!'
'We'd have loved to stop for a chat,' said the boy in glasses, 'only we were trying -'
'Don't get smart – you two are in a heap of trouble!' snarled Anderson. 'Names!'
'Names?' repeated the long-haired driver. 'Er – well, let's see. There's Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…'
'And what's nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl,' said the boy in glasses.
'Oh, OUR names, did you mean?' asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. 'You should've said! This here is James Potter, and I'm Sirius Black!'
'Things'll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little -'
But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staring past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.
For the space of a heartbeat both policemen imagined guns gleaming at them, but a second later they saw that the motorcyclists had drawn nothing more than –
'Drumsticks?' jeered Anderson. 'Right pair of jokers, aren't you? Right, we're arresting you on a charge of -'
But Anderson never got to name the charge. James and Sirius had shouted something incomprehensible, and the beams from the headlights had moved.
The policemen wheeled around, then staggered backwards. Three men were flying – actually FLYING – up the alley on broomsticks – and at the same moment, the police car was rearing up on its back wheels.
Fisher's knees bucked; he sat down hard; Anderson tripped over Fisher's legs and fell on top of him, as FLUMP – BANG – CRUNCH – they heard the men on brooms slam into the upended car and fall, apparently insensible, to the ground, while broken bits of broomstick clattered down around them.
The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers.
'Thanks very much!' called Sirius over the throb of the engine. 'We owe you one!'
'Yeah, nice meeting you!' said James. 'And don't forget: Elvendork! It's unisex!'
There was an earth-shattering crash, and Fisher and Anderson threw their arms around each other in fright; their car had just fallen back to the ground. Now it was the motorcycle's turn to rear. Before the policemen's disbelieving eyes, it took off into the air: James and Sirius zoomed away into the night sky, their tail light twinkling behind them like a vanishing ruby.
What did you think? Who do you think the guys in the alley were? Why were James and Sirius trying to go so fast on their bikes? So many questions!
Author Apple IlaganPosted on September 14, 2010 Categories EntertainmentTags Books, entertainmentLeave a comment on Read the Harry Potter Prequel!
Harry's 3D exceeds my expectations
The dark smoke, the flying Death Eaters, the dark alleys, the city of London takes my breath away. Yup the movie is dark, but it creates a mood of deeper emotions. The movie's opening sequence, approximately 12 minutes, has been converted to IMAX 3D format was real fantastic.
The trio interactions and they are amazing in their roles that pull them off well together. Definitely Half-Blood Prince is also very funny, Ron will have you laughing a lot. Seriously, I don't feel much of love in the air but rather I felt the deepest emotions of Draco, the struggle of being young and corrupted by the adults and system of Death Eaters. Bravo David Yates for motivating these young actors and actresses, they become more matured. And Bellatrix and Snape performance was equally brilliant.
I love the screen writer idea of Harry transformations to adolescence. I admit, the late at night in a cafe of the London Underground, while reading a copy of the Daily Prophet and the flirting of the waitress is a perfect idea. And perhaps Ron is a lucky man, with lots of snogging while Harry with quiet innocent one with Ginny.
Frustration… Well, the retrieving of necklace of Harry and Dumbledore in the lake somehow was shortened. I hope they have extended version on the DVD. Also, I was hoping they will include the Memorial Scene of Dumbledore with the crying of Fawkes lamentation, giving respect of the mermaid and the gathering of powerful witches and wizard. The fight scene of Harry's friends with the Death Eaters was not included in the movie. Well, the fire in the Burrow… I hope the Burrow was only damaged because after the death a wedding will come.
Author Apple IlaganPosted on July 17, 2009 October 31, 2016 Categories Books, iMax MoviesTags BooksLeave a comment on Harry's 3D exceeds my expectations
The Most Espensive Harry Potter Book
An online auction held and the First edition, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. [London]: Bloomsbury, [1997], with all first issue points including "Joanne Rowling" and "Thomas Taylor1997" was sold almost $20,000.00
Yes, the first book in the Harry Potter series, was issued simultaneously with 300 hardcover and 200 softcover. Nearly all of these went to schools and libraries. Therefore the rareness of this first printed auction from $8,000 – $12,000 was sold to $19,120.00
Author Apple IlaganPosted on May 1, 2009 October 31, 2016 Categories AppleByte Store, BooksTags BooksLeave a comment on The Most Espensive Harry Potter Book
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince attached on Star War: The Clone Wars
I have read a rumor that the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film will be include in Star Wars: The Clone Wars Primer night on August 15, 2008.
Harry Potter Fans website such TCL now received several credible reports from sources who say there will be a trailer for HBP attached to Star Wars: The Clone Wars when it opens on August 15. However the latest twist is that this will be the full -length trailer as Warner Brothers is eschewing a teaser to bring a longer amount of footage for fans next month.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Release Date on 21 November 2008 (USA).
Spoiler Alert and what we expected on the Half Blood Prince
Continue reading "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince attached on Star War: The Clone Wars"
Author Apple IlaganPosted on July 14, 2008 Categories BooksTags Books, movie1 Comment on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince attached on Star War: The Clone Wars
After about 10 Millions Sold Copy What Next to Harry Potter?
A web transcript of JK Rowling at Bloomsbury's revealed the next to Harry Potter Deathly Hallow is the Harry Potter Encyclopedia, according to the author whom celebrated her 42th Birthday last July 31…
On her web chat transcript, interviews and other… She gave additional information on the futures of the main characters that she chose not to include in the epilogue of the book. Below are some of them.
Harry went back to Hogwart and finished his N.E.W.T.
Together with Ron, Hermione, Ginny et al they play a significant part in the re-building of wizarding society through their future careers. Of course Harry and Ron became Auror. Then by Kingsley recommendation Harry became the Department Head of Auror's.
Hadgrid gave him Siruis motorcycle which Arthur Weasley (father of Ginny) fixed up for him. In between those years he married Ginny Weasley and have 3 children….
After his last year at Hogwart, just for a while Ron worked to George at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Of course after he got SPEW and earned himself a snog with Hermione, they married and had a daughter. Then he also became an Auror, side by side, Harry and Ron revolutionized the Auror Department.
Hermoine Granger
Hermione began a career at the Ministry of Magic at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and greatly improved life for house-elves and their like, but later moved to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; she helped ensure the eradication of oppressive, pro-pureblood laws. She also found her parents and undid the memory modification she put upon them.
Neville finds happiness in his grandmother's acceptance of him as a gifted wizard and as the new herbology professor at Hogwarts. He also got the gryfindor sword.
She played for the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team for a while and then left behind her athletic career for marriage and family with Harry. She eventually becomes the lead Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet.
Luna Lovegoods
Luna Lovegood has become a very famous wizarding naturalist , searching the world for odd and unique creatures. She eventually marries Rolf, the grandson of Newt Scamander. She realized that there is no Crumple-Horned Snorkack, her father just made up the story.
The Ministry of Magic
Kingsley Shacklebolt permanently became Minister of Magic, with Percy working under him as a high official. Azkaban no longer uses Dementors, as part of the changes introduced by Kingsley. Umbridge was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for crimes against Muggleborns.
Author Apple IlaganPosted on August 3, 2007 Categories BooksTags BooksLeave a comment on After about 10 Millions Sold Copy What Next to Harry Potter?
Mary Grande – Harry Potter Artist
Mary Grandpre has received worldwide recognition for her Harry Potter artwork. She pays close attention to light and color while illustrating Harry's adventures, drawing the viewer into a magical dreamlike world. She is responsible for the dramatic images found on each Harry Potter book cover and chapter heading.
A must for HARRY POTTER fans. All SIX of the signed and match numbered Potter giclee prints are collected together in a custom leather potfolio case PLUS a seventh image — "The Flying Keys" — which is available only in this special portfolio as a bonus at no additional cost.
Seven limited edition giclees on paper, all from editions of 250 with identical numbers, signed by artist, size 9.375 x 11.75, $900 in custom leather portfolio case. There are only 100 of these suites available nationwide.
She has also created illustrations for Atlantic Monthly, Time Magazine, and Random House publishing where she illustrated classic tales such as Cinderella. She also developed scenery for the Dreamworks feature film Antz. Grandpre has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators professional organization for her artistic works.
Each print is reproduced as a quality fine art giclee and is hand signed by Mary Grandpre in a numbered edition limited to 250 images.
Author Apple IlaganPosted on March 6, 2006 Categories BooksTags BooksLeave a comment on Mary Grande – Harry Potter Artist


Al Jazeera: Venezuela faces food and medical supply shortage (24 June 2017). Video Source: Youtube.
"Almost two decades after Venezuela's late president, Hugo Chávez, came to power in an electoral landslide, his country's transformation seems to be taking an ominous new turn. A country that was once one of Latin America's wealthiest is seeing its democratic institutions collapse, leading to levels of disease, hunger and dysfunction more often seen in war-torn nations than oil-rich ones.
Mr. Chávez's successor, President Nicolás Maduro, has called for a National Constitutional Assembly to be elected on July 30 to draft a new constitution, in which ill-defined communal councils will take the place of Venezuela's traditional governing institutions, such as state governments and the opposition-dominated Congress. The new assembly appears to be rigged to heavily represent groups that back the government.
The Maduro government says that the new assembly will find a peaceful way forward for a country enduring an economic depression and standing on the brink of civil conflict. The government says it is building on the legacy of Mr. Chávez, a military man who vowed to fight corruption, dismantle the venal old political establishment and be a voice for millions of poor Venezuelans. But the opposition, which is boycotting the assembly vote, calls it a naked attempt to end democracy and turn the country into a Cuba-style communist autocracy. The government's own attorney general calls the vote illegal.
The 545-member assembly, a modern-day soviet, would hold unlimited power while it writes a new governing charter, which could take years. Meantime, the assembly is widely expected to scrap next year's presidential elections.
'This is the last battle for democracy in Venezuela,' says David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University.
For the U.S., the prospect of a new Cuba sitting atop trillions of dollars of oil reserves is profoundly unpleasant. For the past decade, Venezuela has aligned itself with Russia, China, Iran and Syria. Whether it thrives or implodes, Mr. Maduro's petrostate could cause far greater headaches to the U.S. and Latin America than isolated Cuba. An implosion could mean bigger shipments of cocaine to Central America and the U.S., as well as a massive increase in the current flow of tens of thousands of refugees already fleeing the country for the U.S., Colombia, Brazil and elsewhere. And a consolidation of power could let Mr. Maduro deepen his partnership with U.S. adversaries.
Mr. Maduro's move has aggravated Venezuela's political crisis. The opposition, sensing a do-or-die moment, plans to ramp up daily street protests. Some 80 people have died in such demonstrations in the past three months, and the president is unlikely to ease off on the tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.
'Maduro's ultimate aim is to turn Venezuela into Cuba. And we will not accept being put in that cage,' says Julio Borges, the head of the opposition-dominated National Assembly.
Venezuela's momentous new step isn't taking place amid the kind of revolutionary euphoria that Mr. Chávez may have imagined before he died of cancer in 2013. Rather, it is being pushed by an unpopular government trying to keep power amid an economic implosion.
By year's end, Venezuela's economy will have shrunk by nearly a third in the past four years—a plunge similar to Cuba's after the fall of the Soviet Union, and one rarely seen outside of conflict zones. In a nation estimated to be sitting on as much oil as Saudi Arabia, it is common to see poor families rummaging through garbage for food, even as the wealthy pack nearby gourmet restaurants.
Inflation was estimated by the International Monetary Fund at 720% this year; it is expected to surpass 2,000% next year. Shortages are so acute that three out of four Venezuelans lost an average of 18 pounds last year, according to a survey by Venezuelan universities. Diseases not seen there in decades, such as malaria, are back."
Protestas en Venezuela 22 de junio 2017 (23 June 2017). Video Source: Youtube. More from 22 June here.
Political prisoners in Caracas are transported to a former drive-in shopping mall, now prison, called the Helicoide. Failed Architecture provides a full history on the ominous building, which already had a negative, creepy reputation. There are rumours that there are underground tunnels under El Helicoide which reach out into different parts of the city. Image Source: arquitecturayempresa.
"The headquarters of the Venezuelan intelligence service is a vast pyramid-shaped edifice known as the Helicoide, a former shopping mall which now functions as an interrogation pen for political prisoners and protesters.
The 30-year-old economics student had heard enough about the infamous building to be terrified as he was led into a dank cell in early April — his eyes blindfolded, his wrists bound by his shoelaces.
'You're going to die here,' a guard informed him, he later recalled.
The student had been detained after throwing rocks at an anti-government protest. During the 12 hours he spent inside the Helicoide, he said, the guards pummeled his torso, gave him electric shocks and ignited a type of powder in his cell that had the effect of tear gas, causing him to press his face into the concrete floor to escape the fumes."
One Youtuber denies it all; he says no one is hungry and the neighbourhoods in Caracas are almost all quiet. You can watch his dashcam video from 23 June 2017 here. The video had a high number of dislikes. Another video from the same day, via El Pais, shows a scene with a man heard yelling in the distance, supposedly from a prison cell, that he is being tortured. A fortune teller read Tarot cards to predict Venezuela's future.
Image Source: Alejandro Cegarra/Washington Post.
The Economist predictions for 2017, released November 2016. Image Source: The Economist.
The cover may or may not predict a terror attack in Europe or a nuclear threat in Asia in the first quarter of the year, cementing Trump's presidency in the second quarter. Despite the fact that Trump will backtrack on promises, his ability to mesmerize the populist masses will grow. A huge upheaval is expected in the third quarter, with Merkel likely to lose the German election and Wilders and LePen gaining in earlier elections in the Netherlands and France. A divided body politic must find middle ground. After watching this unfold, the globalist liberal establishment will renew itself by December through the debut of exciting new technology, increased connectivity in developing countries, and a redoubled effort to control the public space, both online and off, with figures from government, banking, entertainment and academia entering online discourse in earnest. They will absorb formerly independent Internet enterprises, recapture lost ground, go on the attack, and flip the populist script.
On Youtube, I sensed the alt-right, alt-media types didn't want to look at The Economist. They are weary. "They do this to us every year," sighed one Youtuber after making three videos on the subject. Even the conspiracy theorists are sick of conspiracy theories. They only reviewed this Planet Trump thing out of a dogged sense of obligation to keep up their end - New World Order, Illuminati, Trump, Pizzagate, yadda yadda. They were all sure about one thing. The cover contains a hidden message.
I envy the flat rationalist, who would scoff before imagining anything arcane here. This is merely an illustrator's whimsical reference, as though the editors had chosen a picture of a woman reading the future in a crystal ball. I hope it is true.
Perhaps the editors did this as a tongue-in-cheek layout to bait crazy conspiracy theorists. Actually, I think the editors at The Economist do not care how the cover is received by the alt-media, who are beneath their contempt. If so, then this is another tone-deaf, top-down misconception of the impact of the Internet on the public debate. On the Internet, mimetics, semiotics, virality and truth excavations rule the day, not inside jokes and polished arguments to a select audience. A tarot spread confirms the worst conspiracy theories about magic infecting high politics. To give evidence of this - straight from the horse's mouth - strengthens the alt-media, which cannot be good for The Economist.
In an earlier post, Magic, Numerology and the IMF, I observed that Christine Lagarde did not realize that she now had to speak to two audiences. Every speech she made would be channeled into the old MSM theatre, as well as the alt-media. She plainly did not understand the latter at all. Her clever asides would be taken the usual way by the old establishment, but on Youtube, they would feed the independent machine of conspiracy theorizing and populism.
To make matters worse, she seemed to confirm the conspiracy theorists' fears about a magic-obsessed establishment. Lagarde was making predictions for the year 2014, peppering her predictions for the coming year with numerological nudge-nudge-wink-wink-hint-hints, which promised (precisely, down to the day) the manipulation of oil prices to hurt Russia. To the alt-media, this made it look like her policy speech had a magical subtext and potency. The liberal democracies are supposed to be secular, humanist, and rationalist; they should not be run by the rules of parlour games, or by people who believe that parlour games are real. I argued that parlour games should stay in the parlour.
Your Aquarian blogger is on a birthday break until 20 February 2016. The post featured for the interim on the right-hand sidebar covered the 600th birthday celebration of Prague's astronomical and astrological clock in 2010. The Aquarian season is associated with several festivals which anticipate spring, renewal, and an awakening of the mind after winter's sleep and constrictions. The Gaelic Imbolc, the Celtic Brigid's Day or Saint Brigid's Day, together reflect a fire festival marking the halfway point on 1 and 2 February 2016 between the northern winter solstice and the spring equinox. The Christian Candlemas, a ritual for the purification of Christ's mother Mary on 2 February 2016, is represented in secular form in North America as Groundhog Day (in French Canada, it is known as Jour de la Marmotte). And the lunar new year on 8 February will be observed in Asia in 2016 as the start of the Year of the Yang Red Fire Monkey. You can find your Chinese zodiac sign here, although that gives only the simplest idea of the Chinese astrological system and another calculator is here. The celebrations run until the Lantern Festival on 22 February 2016.
The Star archetype is concerned with the gradual emancipation of personal awareness by offering it a greater field of vision which evolves into a more impersonal or universal understanding of the self and its proper role. Existence begins to be viewed as inclusive rather than exclusive, other people's beliefs, traditions, and religions begin to be seen not as wrong but simply different and appropriate to their needs. This new tolerance ushers in a flow of potential, which was impossible, as long as former emotional patterns and thought structures remained crystallized.
In the Major Arcana deck, the Star card follows the Tower card; the latter symbolizes harsh, rapid collapse, change, and lessons. Thus, the Star card indicates deeper wisdom after trials, disappointments, and hardships, and a phoenix-like light from the ashes. The American film, Groundhog Day (1993) was admitted to the United States National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2006. It depicts the cyclical learning curve and mental and spiritual awakening symbolically associated with this time of year.