Monday, November 9, 2009

“Wampanoag tribe claims wind farm would destroy tribal rituals - Digital Journal” plus 4 more

“Wampanoag tribe claims wind farm would destroy tribal rituals - Digital Journal” plus 4 more

Wampanoag tribe claims wind farm would destroy tribal rituals - Digital Journal

Posted: 09 Nov 2009 04:23 PM PST

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New Zealand offers striking scenery, Maori culture, ‘Zorbing’ - Baton Rouge Advocate

Posted: 07 Nov 2009 10:09 PM PST

ROTORUA, New Zealand — As I tumbled down the mountainside in a gigantic beach ball filled with water, feeling somewhat like I was in a washing machine, it occurred to me that there had to be a better way to experience New Zealand.

Actually, that didn't occur to me until after the Zorb stopped rolling and my screams had subsided into laughter.

But I have since concluded that while Kiwis may be best known for adventure tourism — including skydiving, bungee jumping, gliding and Zorbing — perhaps the most enriching part of my trip was the cultural tourism that taught me about the Maori.

Don't be fooled: "Meeting" a Maori tribe at a heritage center can be just as intimidating as thrill-jumping off Auckland's Skytower. What's the proper reaction when a tattooed, spear-carrying warrior bounds out of a house, shouts something in Maori at you, makes menacing faces and throws a leaf at your feet? Think fast, because that spear is pretty sharp.

Centuries before white settlers came and called the country New Zealand, the Maori arrived in canoes at Aotearoa (Ay-oh-teh-RO'-ah, meaning "Land of the Long White Cloud"), most likely from Polynesia.

Flipping through TV channels today, you might come across the Maori-language news station, but you can hear the native greeting "Kia ora!" (kee-ah-OR-ah) pretty much anywhere you go.

And rugby fans may know of the haka, the Maori dance practiced by the All Blacks, the national rugby team, to rattle their opponents before each game. The players chant in unison while rolling their eyes, slapping their arms and thighs, and thrusting their tongues — it's quite a sight.

My fiance and I saw the haka performed on a stage at Te Puia, a Maori heritage center in Rotorua, after which tattooed warriors taught the dance to men in the audience. It was hardly frightening when the tourists tried to do it; then again, I wasn't exactly the picture of grace when female visitors were taught happy, hip-swaying dances by Maori women in grass skirts.

Te Puia also offered us a hearty Maori feast made in a hangi (earth oven) and served family-style in a dining room with other visitors. Lamb and seafood are local staples, as is kumara, a kind of native sweet potato.

Afterward, we rode a tram to the Pohutu geyser, one of Rotorua's many natural wonders, which include geothermal pools and bubbling mud. (The town's not-so-natural wonders include the Zorb — more on that later — and remnants of the Hobbiton village created for the Lord of the Rings movies, a few miles away in Matamata.)

After an awesome dolphin-watching cruise in the Bay of Islands that left from Paihia, we visited the nearby Waitangi Treaty Grounds, a beautiful coastal property about 150 miles north of Auckland. New Zealanders consider this the birthplace of their country, as it was here that European settlers and Maori natives signed the Treaty of Waitangi on Feb. 6, 1840. The anniversary is observed each year as a national holiday and as a celebration of multiculturalism. The treaty was actually two documents — one in Maori, one in English — and controversy continues to this day over the translations.

Waitangi includes a marae (Maori meeting house) laden with intricate wood carvings and the home of 19th-century British envoy James Busby, now a museum. By the shore, a huge ceremonial waka (war canoe) testifies to Maori craftsmanship and bravery. Would you cross the Pacific Ocean in one of those?

We also paid brief visits to the big cities, which, while filled with kind and gracious people and good restaurants, were not particularly picturesque. Auckland and Wellington are both set on gorgeous harbors, but the streets lack the aesthetic, historic charm of many European cities and even some in America.

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Latest Articles - Dissident Voice

Posted: 09 Nov 2009 06:53 PM PST

"Why would any writer make up stories about the Holocaust?" asks Melissa Katsoulis on mainstream British media outlet The Independent.

Katsoulis has recently published a book about the history of literary hoaxes. She is interested in particular in a unique fictional genre; namely 'the Holocaust hoaxers'.

On the one hand, she confesses that "special privilege must be given to those increasingly few witness-writers who survived the Second World War in Europe." She is even willing to accept Elie Wiesel's peculiar take on 'truth and fiction', that "some stories are true that never happened."

On the other hand she says, "those memoirists who think that they can pretend they were there when they weren't ought to remember that hijacking the experiences of others for selfish ends will only end in ignominy."

Katsoulis suggests that perhaps what "readers seek in trauma stories is akin to what people look for in pornography: something edgy they have never seen before, followed by a spectacular resolution". Very much like the case of pornography, the dedicated audience of Jewish pain "want to identify (safely) with what they are reading; to try on someone else's crisis for a while and see how it compares to their own."

Katsoulis' reference to 'pornography' is indeed interesting bearing in mind that, at the time of the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem (1960's), a new genre of S&M pornography namely Stalagemerged in Israel. It was a short-lived, highly sexualised fictional magazine that drew its imagery from Nazi exploitation of inmates in prisoner camps.

However, Katsoulis' reference to 'pornography' may raise some questions. While pornography consumption can be realised as an attempt to seek libidinal pleasure through the imagery of others celebrating their symptoms, one may wonder, what kind of satisfaction anyone might seek from the repetition of a holocaust memory? Do we look for satisfaction? And if we do, what kind of satisfaction are we after exactly? What are the symptoms that are celebrated by the story tellers, and what are our symptoms consuming them?

Instead of a culture hooked on recycled images of degradation and suffering, I would actually expect a moral lesson to surface from the Shoa. I would hope for a genuine search for mercy and compassion. Evidently, this has never happened. Putting aside Israeli barbarism in Palestine, the West and the English speaking empire have never stopped igniting wars in the name of fake values driven by the Holocaust (democracy, liberalism, 'universal' human rights and so on).

Katsoulis stresses that the 'hoaxers' "had difficult childhoods but, feeling that their truth was shamefully small, they sought the grand signifier of the Holocaust to attract the compassion that they desired." I urge you to read Katsoulis and if you have a spare moment, check out the comments that are no less revealing.

I myself saw recently saw two short videos that left me puzzled.

The first was an ABC News televised interview with Herman Rosenblat.

"The twinkly-eyed American pensioner who came forward with a story so magical that it lifted the heart of every cynic in New York," was nothing but that of a compulsive liar. Once Rosenblat was confronted as a hoaxer he told the camera.

"It wasn't a lie. It was my imagination. I believed my imagination, I believe my mind, I believe it now"

"But you know it wasn't true" he is challenged by the ABC interviewer. "Yes", he answers, "But in my imagination it was true".

I guess that no one can argue with such an advanced post modernist argument.

In another video clip; Irene Weisberg Zisblatt, whose testimony is showcased in Steven Spielberg's documentary film The Last Days, is caught lying to the camera at least twice.

I am not judging Zisblatt's dishonesty or her tendency to exaggerate. It is more than likely that this woman went through hell on earth. But I do challenge Stephen Spielberg who, for some reason decided to exploit this woman in his Holywoodian attempt to archive and depict what he calls the 'truth' of the holocaust.

The question we are left with is why. Why does she lie? Why does he lie? Why does anyone lie? And if they lie and are entitled to believe in their figment of imagination, where can we learn about the truth? What can we learn about the truth? What is truth? Is there any truth? And if we can ever be lucky enough to find the truth or even just 'a truth', can we announce it without being at risk of social exclusion or even losing our freedom?

Katsoulis exposes a perverse tendency in the midst of our Western discourse. It is proved beyond doubt that our freedom to speak, and even to think, is under severe assault. I would take it one step further and argue that the Holocaust religion is the biggest current assault against humanity and humanism. First, it stops us from revisiting and revising our own living memory. Second, it stops us from drawing a universal ethical lesson from history and third, it leads to more and more genocidal crimes.

Instead of a revenge-driven doctrine, what we really want is grace and compassion.

Rather than a singular monolithic belief system promoting a deceptive notion of freedom centred on Jewish pain, what we really want is real pluralism and tolerance that would accept more than just one truth and encourage belief systems to respect each other.

In fact, the Jews, should have been the first to grasp it all. As Emmanuel Levinas suggested after WWII, Jews should have located themselves at the forefront of the battle against evil and racism. Despite there being a handful of Jewish 'self haters' who are committed to the exposure of the Zionist crime, this never happened. Not only did it not happen, the Jewish state is the ultimate example of a racist nationalist terrorist state.

Katsoulis is far from being a Holocaust denier. She believes that the Holocaust happened, yet she writes about the robbery of its memory. "When a writer stands before other survivors and gives as scripture what is stolen from the memories of real witnesses, they can expect little sympathy." Katsoulis offers some criticism of the "unregulated Holocaust "industry", where victimhood is rewarded by money and fame."

However, I would like to extend Katsoulis' quest. I would maintain that in fact we are the witnesses of an ongoing holocaust in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We also witness Israel preparing itself to nuke Iran in the name of Jewish history and the Holocaust in particular. In front of our eyes we see the emergence of evil on a colossal magnitude, and we are somehow paralyzed by a historical chapter that, in comparison to contemporary Israeli crimes, has less and less significance or relevance.

Rather than being subject to an idolatry of an untouchable past, we better start to be concerned with the HERE and NOW, with the genocides that are committed in our names and under our nose by Israel and its supporters around the world.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London, and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.

This article was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 9:00am and is filed under Disinformation, History, Zionism.

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Man with 3 DWI arrests indicted for murder - News 8 Austin

Posted: 09 Nov 2009 07:36 PM PST

Jaimi Bonilla Alvarado, 23, has been indicted for murder in the death of a 64-year-old Austin man.

In September, police were chasing Alvarado when he hit a car being driven by the victim, Robert Joel Benn, at the intersection of Bolm Road and Airport Boulevard.

The Austin Police Department said this was Alvarado's fourth arrest in Travis County for driving under the influence.

Alvarado faces five to 99 years in prison if convicted of murder.

He has also been indicted on a charge of evading arrest, and could get two to 20 years if found guilty for that crime.

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Secretary Clinton Meets with Embassy Personnel and Their Families - U.S. Department of State

Posted: 09 Nov 2009 07:07 PM PST

I am absolutely delighted to see all of you. I want to thank you for the work that you do every single day, and I am thrilled that this Embassy is right in the middle of Berlin and that it has a presence for America representing that vital relationship that the ambassador mentioned. And to see it and to be able to walk into it is absolutely thrilling personally and in every other way.

I am really pleased to have seen Ambassador Murphy. He hit the ground running here in Germany – and I don't mean just on the field as part of soccer diplomacy. (Laughter.) And both the President and I are grateful for your service and really look forward to a lot of close consultation over the next several years.

And this evening, I am very excited to be joining Chancellor Merkel, as well as many others, to commemorate that day 20 years ago when the Berlin Wall gave way to a new era of peace in a united Germany, in a united Europe.

I spend my time going around the world talking with people who are very much at loggerheads over conflicts that happened 100 or 200 or 500 or 1,000 years before. And then you come here, and you think about how horrific the conflicts of the 20th century were, right here in Europe. And tonight, we will have the chancellor of Germany and the president of France and the prime minister of Great Britain, because they are leading a Europe that understands how imperative it is to move beyond the history that we have all lived.

It doesn't matter how hard we try, we're not going to change the past. It is the past, by definition. That doesn't mean we forget about it or marginalize or trivialize it. But it does call all of us, leaders and citizens alike, to think about the kind of future we can create. And that will be on display this evening.

We're celebrating the triumph of democracy and freedom, and the important role of the German-U.S. relationship. And it's very strong today. I had breakfast with Chancellor Merkel. We did a kind of round-the-world tour. And we are grateful that German and American troops have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in international peacekeeping and security efforts in the Balkans, throughout Africa, and now also in Afghanistan, where Germany has contributed more than 4,000 troops.

We are appreciative of the solidarity that our German counterparts have shown in the P-5+1 negotiations with Iran. And we have worked closely together on a range of transnational threats: from the global economic crisis to climate change. So we appreciate greatly our relationship with Germany, and we want to continue to grow and develop it so that it will be the strong platform for the kinds of changes that people are looking for in our world in the future.

I don't think that our relationship would be as strong as it is without all of you and the work of this Embassy. Day in and day out, you lead one of the most complex missions we have at the State Department. The five consulate general units – Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Leipzig, and Frankfurt – along with the liaison office in Bonn, reflect the breadth of our engagement with not just the German state – the German states and the people of Germany. And your coordination of the 11 federal agencies represented here ensures that all of our government is working toward common objectives.

I am very appreciative of those of you who have embraced the commitment that we've made to robust diplomacy and public outreach, engaging not only with representatives of the German Government, but civil society, business leaders, teachers, students, ordinary Germans. That outreach effort conducting town halls and interviews, public discussions, and yes, soccer diplomacy, has helped introduce the United States to a newer, younger, and more diverse generation of Germans.

Certainly, President Obama's leadership and the message that he exemplifies is very well received here in Germany. And we have to build on that, and translate it into institutional change, and create the environment in which we can do even more to help formulate and implement policy, and organize in the cultural and educational exchanges.

Yesterday at the dinner that the Atlantic Council sponsored, two of the leading German speakers – one from the past, one the foreign minister, very much from the present and the future – talked about what it meant to them to have participated in the International Visitors Program in the United States. I would like to see us redouble our efforts, particularly reaching out to young Germans, and particularly those from the east, to build a strong foundation of understanding and respect.

I want to pay special tribute to the nearly 500 locally employed staff, comprised not only of German citizens and resident American citizens, but also third-country nationals, who serve as the backbone of this mission. And I understand that 56 locally employed staff have worked here for more than 25 years. And two, Ishaq Mohammed – Ishaq, and Michael Hahn, have served this mission the longest, for 40 and 39 years, respectively. (Applause.)

That's a long time of service. And of all the embassies I visit, I'm not sure which can claim the longest serving employee, but Embassy Berlin must be right up there. Because the fact is that the level of dedication and skill that I have seen around the world, and what I know is present here in Germany, is absolutely critical for our mission.

This trip is too short. Lots was jammed into it. And it is at a moment when all the eyes of the world are focused on Berlin, as well it should. But I look forward to working with you as we broaden and deepen our engagement with Germany. With Chancellor Merkel reelected, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

And I know that even though it was a short trip, it was a demanding one because of all the moving parts that you've assisted with. And there is a tradition, Ambassador Murphy, that when I take off for Singapore tonight, and you see that plane finally clear – (laughter) – it's time for a wheels-up party – (laughter and applause) – because I then become somebody else's responsibility. (Laughter.) And everybody can go back to doing the work you're supposed to be doing every single day, right? Instead of all of the interruptions and the hurry-ups, and this and that.

But this is a beautiful Embassy. And I will end where I started, by saying it's truly thrilling for me to see one of our new embassies right in the middle of a city. As you know, so many of our embassies are now in the outskirts. They are not accessible for security reasons, which we know are very serious. But this Embassy, with its historic location, with its beauty, is a real symbol of the seriousness of our commitment to our relationship with Germany.

And when I am privileged to speak tonight at the commemoration, I will be thinking about all those who served the United States, going back many, many years, who did their parts – diplomats and soldiers, Foreign Service officers and civil servants, locally employed staff, citizens of every kind and plight from our country, who contributed in their own and your own way to the remarkable accomplishment of what we see today.

So I thank you. There was never any doubt in my mind that someday Germany would be free and reunified, but I had no idea when. And it is such a great personal privilege to be joining with the German people, and people throughout Europe and the world, to celebrate this occasion.

Now we have to turn our attention to the challenges of the 21st century. A wall, a physical wall, may have come down, but there are other walls that exist and we have to overcome. And we will be working together to accomplish that as well. Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

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