Any survivors of the Haitian earthquake able to cast their eyes far eastward to Myanmar would not be consoled by the report from the United Nations on the status of citizens of Myanmar two years after Cyclone Nargis killed 140,000 and left 2.4 million homeless in that country.

From the International Organization for Migration:

IOM is appealing for USD 17 million to meet the shelter needs of 50,000 families in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Delta, almost two years after Cyclone Nargis devastated the area.

“There are still as many as 100,000 families without the basic shelter they need to get through the wet season, but unless we get new funding by May 2010, we will be forced to close our three offices in the Delta and end our shelter programme,” says IOM Myanmar Chief of Mission Mariko Tomiyama.

Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar on 2-3 of May 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 people dead and 2.4 million homeless.

According to the Tripartite Core Group of the UN, ASEAN and the Government of Myanmar, which has coordinated the post-Nargis emergency response and reconstruction effort, as of mid-January, there were still over half a million Nargis-affected people without adequate shelter.

Over the past 20 months, IOM has been actively engaged in emergency and early recovery efforts in the Delta, assisting over 400,000 people in the areas of shelter, health and psychosocial programmes.

IOM’s shelter programme has helped over 58,000 households through a community-oriented approach. In addition to full and partial shelter assistance packages, this provides household level livelihood assistance, through the provision of home gardening kits, cash for work schemes, carpentry training, and community livelihood lending centres.

[Update @ 1436: My comment has appeared in the No. 6 slot. Perhaps it was held longer because I put a link in mine.

Update @ 0931: I’m bummed. Slate has fixed the head, but pulled my comment (I was first).]

I left this comment at Slate:

Shalom Y’all,

As a former WestPac sailor who chased his share of birdfarms around the Pacific, I got a great laugh this morning from the above typo.

I have no doubt that the Nimitiz sailors are doing precisely what you describe in Hong Kong.

B’shalom,

Jeff Hess

Have Coffee Will Write

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

WE GET MAIL… Normally I would simply abstract this email I received from Derek Johnstone concerning Walmart”s Green Business Summit and the Winter Olympics opening tomorrow in Vancouver, Canada, but I felt the whole letter was worth reading. Enjoy. Keep reading…

WALMART PRODUCING TELEVISION SHOW… Decades ago, before television, Proctor and Gamble produced daytime radio dramas that came to known as Soap Operas because of the commercials P&G aired with the shows. Over time the name stuck and today we still talk about the Soaps on television. Keep reading…

HOW WE”VE CUT OUR OWN THROATS… I first wrote about the holiday-season price war between Walmart and Amazon and what it might mean to the publishing industry and struggling writers like myself in October. The fallout from that battle continues to reverberate throughout publishing. Keep reading…

WALMART SUCKERS OREGONIANS… There is no suggestion that Walmart has done anything illegal in taking Oregonians to the carbon-footprint cleaners, but by paying $22.6 million to get $33.6 million Walmart schooled the state on how business is really done. Keep reading…

RUSH: OBAMA TO NATIONALIZE WALMART… That”s what the unemployed/retired people who can listen to Rush Limbaugh”s program now think after listening to his show this afternoon. I”m willing to bet a steak dinner that you”d be hard pressed to find a Rush listener who understands what nationalization is. Keep reading…

QUESTIONING AGGRESSIVE MARKETING… She”s off to a slow start, only three blog posts so far, but Cutesycharm looks to have some promise. In her latest post she takes Walmart to task for deceptive marketing (imagine that!) through the explosion of Great Value products. Keep reading…

WRONG WING CALLS WALMART LEFTY… This is a perfect example of why corporations are not interested in political ideology except as it affects shareholder value. If Walmart thought it could boost value by hanging posters of Marx, Lenin and Che in the boardroom it would. Keep reading…

WHO IS OUR BEST-KNOWN HOCKEY MOM…? I don”t seriously think that Walmart, as a corporation, has produced a commercial as a subtle way to explore unlimited political contributions following Citizens United v. Board of Elections, but you know? We are talking about Walmart here. Keep reading…

Robert Reich writes:

The best way to help reverse this downward slide would be to let bankruptcy judges restructure shaky home mortgages, reducing what borrowers owe. The problem is, the big banks hate this. If mortgages could be restructured this way, the banks would take big hits. They”d be forced to cut the amounts owed by borrowers. They figure they do better by squeezing as much as they can out of distressed homeowners, then collecting as much as they can on foreclosed properties.

So, not surprisingly, the big banks have been mounting a major lobbying campaign to block legislation that would allow homeowners to use bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy has been part of the “free market system” for hundreds of years, but its details are determined through politics – the same politics Continue Reading »

The awesome original is after the jump… Continue Reading »

From Creative Loafing:

At a very fundamental, core level, [Jonathan] Springston did not share our vision for a news publication with a progressive perspective. He held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News. It just wasn”t the right fit.

We have already begun drafting a more programmatic statement on our editorial position regarding objectivity, inter-subjectivity, and news. To be sure, I”ve commented on Creative Loafing”s blog previously about such issues.

At a very basic level, I agree with Atlanta Progressive News Editor Matthew Cardinale, the objectivity grail is a myth, a worthy but unreachable goal. No human can report any experience except through the lens of their subjective reality. That is just the way we’re wired.

On the other hand, people in publishing have a name for those whose ignore that which disagrees with demonstrable facts: we call them flacks, and you know what? Sometimes flacks wear journalist’s clothing.

The best any journalist can do is to be open to hearing intelligent points of view and doing their best to present readers with the clearest story of why an event is what it is. Realizing that goal is commendable, but it’s not objectivity.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog weather update I present: From My Dad.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

There are a couple of reasons why this makes sense. First, you don”t have the prospect of ultimately going back and revising constantly nagging at your. Once you”ve done your work, you can feel good about the portion that”s written and devote your complete attention to what”s coming up next. Second, then changes you make in the early part of the script may spark additional developments later on. This kind of revision is like fence mending; the sooner you see to it, the less elaborate a job it winds up being in the long run. p. 111

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

Amnesty International is worried that in the months ahead leading up to the maybe-fall elecdtion the political and media focus in Myanmar will tighten on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party and miss government repression among the country’s ethnic minorities.

From the BBC:

Amnesty said Burma’s ethnic minorities – up to 40% of the population – had played “an important but seldom acknowledged role” in the opposition movement.

But it said they faced surveillance, harassment and discrimination when trying to carry out legitimate political activities.

Benjamin Zawacki from the group told the BBC it was “almost inevitable” that, in the run up to the elections, the world’s media and organisations would look to Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD).

“The ethnic minorities states are simply beyond the spotlight that’s typically placed on Myanmar [Burma],” he said.

“So it’s that much easier for the regime to persecute and to repress ethnic minority activists simply because they feel they can do so without a great deal of attention, much less accountability for those abuses,” he said.

Jennifer Brunner writes (in an email not yet posted to her blog):

This is the first time I have openly challenged Rob Portman to explain his actions (and now his failure to act). My opponent in the primary has been trying to land a punch on Mr. Portman for 6 months with no luck. Portman just says “jobs czar” and moves on. But as soon as we tell Mr. Portman to be decent and to show bipartisanship, the National Republican Senatorial Committee attacks with a data-dump of unrelated opposition research. Who are they afraid of?

The answer to that is obvious and yet one more reason why I’m backing Brunner.

Last Tuesday, 9 February, our Socrates Café met at the Mayfield Road Phoenix Coffee House.

The question we pulled from the jar was:

Is knowledge of the universe — quantum mechanics, relativity, etc. — necessary to live a fulfilling life?

As usual, the discussion ranged far and wide. We quickly dismissed the specific question of knowledge of physics and broadened the question to consider whether or not intellectual curiosity was an important part of living a fulfilling life. The only answer we could arrive at was: that depends.

I’ve often said that, for myself, if I’m not learning, I’m dying, but what we choose to learn is a matter of personal taste.

We did spend considerable time on the question of whether or not willful ignorance was acceptable, particularly as it pertains to spiritual beliefs. While I recognize that we have no empirical evidence for the existence of any supernatural power or place, I argued that such beliefs may be beneficial to individuals in crisis affecting either their own life or the lives of those close to them.

This week I’m finishing up the Dune series with Sandworms of Dune. Frank Herbert’s epigrams have always fascinated me and one in particular caught my attention in this book:

Why is religion important? Because logic alone does not compel a person to make great sacrifices. Given sufficient religious fervor, however, people will throw themselves against impossible odds and consider themselves blessed for doing so. -Missionaria Protectiva, first primer. Sandworms of Dune, p. 23

Yes, this is a fictitious quote, but I’ve found Herbert’s insights to be fascinating. While he’s referring to grand battles, I think the thought also applies to the person who has lost a loved one. Logic offers little comfort when someone close to you has died.

I don’t suggest that there is any truth to such superstitious beliefs, only that they comfort when nothing else will.

If you’ve had a morning-after thought, or if you missed our gathering and would like to throw in your two-cents worth, please enter the conversation and write a comment.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog weather update I present: From My Dad.

Continue Reading »

Found in my electronic chapbook.

All a sloppy first draft teaches you is to be sloppy in your writing. p. 111

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

The list of Myanmar’s neighbors telling the country’s military leaders that free, fair and transparent elections this fall are to everyone’s benefit continues to grow. This week, Myanmar’s neighbor to the the south, Thailand, added its voice to urging Myanmar’s military dictators to not fuck the elections up.

From The Jakarta Post:

It is in the interests of the ASEAN community to help Myanmar hold fair, free and transparent elections this year, to return democracy and peace to the country, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya says.

The visiting Thai foreign minister said in an interview here Sunday that as the two most democratic members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Thailand and Indonesia could help Myanmar achieve this goal.

“Without being seen as interfering in Myanmar”s domestic issues, as friends and members of the ASEAN family we would like to see national reconciliation and peace in Myanmar. Holding free and fair elections will allow the country to bring peace and reconciliation back,” he said.

Piromya said a stable and democratic Myanmar would be of benefit to Thailand (which shares borders with the reclusive country) as well as to ASEAN in general.

Kasit said Thailand would offer training for Myanmarese officials to make sure the elections ran according to democratic principles.

“We will even provide observers for the elections,” he said.

How well, however, can peer pressure work?