When is an army not an army? When you call it a police force. But when you refer to the people charged with civil order in your country as regiments, it allows outsiders to better comprehend what is happening. In Myanmar the government has moved a portion of it’s 500,000-member military thwart demonstrators.

Here is how the story was reported yesterday.

From Narinja:

A police regiment from Burma proper has shifted to Arakan State in order to crack down on any further demonstrations that might break out in the area, said a politician from Taungup Township in southern Arakan.
“I saw many police and their family members yesterday brought to Sittwe from Taungup on three ferry ships, a day after they first arrived at Taungup from Burma proper,” the politician said.

In Arakan State there were previously three police regiments in Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maunghdaw.

Today, the story has changed, for the worse.

From Narinjara:

Over 1000 soldiers from several battalions under Sakakha 15 based in Buthidaung, 80 miles north of Arakan State capital Sittwe, left recently for the eastern frontlines to wage war against ethnic rebels, reports a source close to the army.
“The army column left from Buthidaung jetty to Sittwe on 18 November, proceeding to the eastern frontline in several ships,” the source said.

Many military analysts said that the authority has dispatched a large number of soldiers from Arakan State to the eastern frontlines to start the dry season offensive against ethnic rebels such as the Karen and Shan.

Who are the police and who are the soldiers? In Myanmar does it make a difference?

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the border between science and spirituality by John Horgan.

“Just as you become lucid in a dream, and realize that all is illusionary, so it is possible to become aware of the constructed nature of the self and of all reality even while awake. In this way you can see into the essential emptiness of it and the connectedness of everything which can be experienced. It is simultaneously total aloneness and complete oneness. This is the key insight into the mystical experience.” p. 113

Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Next to the dog, the wastebasket is man”s best friend. p. 137

The beginning of an uprising of Buddhist monks, nuns and students outside of Myanmar has taken much longer to begin that I would have predicted, but it has begun and that is a great reason for optimism. I know that there are those who believe protest marches are somehow un-Buddhist.

I believe that eight-fold path is wider than that. Right action is always right action.

From Reuters:

Hundreds of Buddhist monks, nuns and students marched against Myanmar’s military regime in eastern India on Monday, urging Buddhists around the world to unite against the junta, officials said on Monday.

At least 1,000 monks and nuns, draped in yellow robes, sang religious hymns and walked through the Buddhist holy town of Bodh Gaya in Bihar state, witnesses said.

That the Buddhists marched, and intend to take part in an indefinite sit-in, in Bodh Gaya is significant because it is the historic location of the Bodhi tree under which the The Buddha attained enlightenment.

And from Asia News International:

Monk Pragyadeep said that the Myanmar’s military government was suppressing the demands for establishing democracy there.

“The military junta is trying to suppress the demands for democracy, therefore we are organising these protests everywhere so that our voice can reach their ears and democracy can return in Myanmar,” said Pragyadeep.

Here’s to a robed march coming to a street near you soon.

Also: U.N. Burma fact-finder to speak at Brown. And,

Myanmar junta frees ethnic Chin leader.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Slow down with slow foods.

Eric Coulson: Soldiers have traditionally, for very practical reasons, carried very little in the way of personal items with them. In an historical context those of us in Iraq have traveled very heavy. Nonetheless we carry little compared to what we have in our homes, and I still find that I have many things that I can do without. I anticipate much simplifying when I…

WHAT PURE CRAP!

PERIOD.
END OF STORY. Tom Peters

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 chuckle I present: From My Dad.

If you sometimes get the sudden urge to run around naked. Drink Some Windex. It will keep you from streaking.

The national media once again turns its non-sports attention to Cleveland. (Is it any wonder that barely a day goes by that sports don’t dominate page one of the Plain Dealer?) This time the notice comes from USAToday’s brief blurb over our depression-era image. Can selling apples on street corners be far away?

Cleveland’s first Wal-Mart is about to open, and with it comes 300 jobs in a metro area that is struggling economically. The result, according to the Plain Dealer: 6,000 people applied, or 20 applicants for every one job.

“That’s Depression-era kind of imagery,” Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, told the Plain Dealer. “You can’t have an economy that works that way. It speaks to the need to generate a different kind of employment in Cleveland.”

The only thing that politicians are capable of doing is giving away tax dollars; they are otherwise powerless. Leaders, on the other hand, are able to inspire and call people to great acts.

We have many of the former in Cleveland, but none of the latter.

How sad.

Myanmar is not a simple country worth of a simple solution. Helicoptering in like some boomer parent ready to make nice and fix the boo-boos can’t help to guide the nation’s 50 million people toward freedom and democracy. As I learn more about this nation, the more I’ve come to appreciate the complexity all communities present.

Blogger Otto Spijkers, at the University of Leiden, offers a comprehensive view in The political economy of Myanmar/Burma.

Part of the mainstream media’s failure is their inability to pursue a topic when “things” are no longer “happening” so we do not get any insight into history, social context, politics, or other information that could help us understand why things happened the way they did and what might happen in the future.

While the emotion and international outrage brought about by the regime’s brutal crackdown has created some possibility of changing the status quo, channeling the will and resources (such as they are) will also require more analysis than “military bad, monks and students good” which is my general impression of media coverage so far.

And this is precisely why blogs have altered the communication paradigm.

Some people might have the mistaken impression that only a small cabal runs the country and benefits through corruption. The fact is that, in a nation of 50 million people, the armed forces include over 500,000 men. Combined with their families – and the average household size is about 3-4 people, though cohabitation with extended families is common – that makes about 2 million people with direct links to the military.

Throw in the civil service and others and it is not hard to believe that as much as 10 percent of the population benefits from their allegiance to the government. Like Cuba, the former Soviet Union, and other countries with largely nationalized industries, there is a large constituency to maintain the status quo. The regime could not function without their loyalty and support.

Compare that to our 2.7 million Federal employees plus 1.4 million active-duty military personnel which gives you a rough total of 4.1 million personnel. Multiply that by an average family size in the United States of 2.59 gives you nearly 11 million people directly tied to the federal government in the United States.

Our population is a little more than 300 million, so those 11 million people represent about 3.67 percent. Compare that to the 10 percent in Myanmar and you begin to grasp the situation a little better.

(Yes, I know that my figures are very rough and I didn’t consider state and local employees, but hey a blogger can only do so much math in one day.)

In both the 1988 and 2007 protests, economic mismanagement led to small protests, which led to a harsh government crackdowns, which led to larger protests that soon began to demand “democracy.” What outsiders like us should understand is that the majority of the Burmese people are not ideologically committed to democracy or a particular form of government – they just want a government that is responsive to their suffering and that offers them some hope for the future.

This point is central. We in the west have the misconception that the rest of the world aspires to be like us; they don’t.

There is much, much more in Spijkers’ post, including a Part II.

Enjoy.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the border between science and spirituality by John Horgan.

“Parapsychology has failed not because psi doesn”t exit, but because psi has “nothing to do with the real mystery.” The real mystery is not exotic phenomena that parapsychology addresses – such as extrasensory perception and astral projection – but the ordinary reality and ordinary consciousness in which we are immersed each and every moment of our lives.” p. 112

Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Take the to-do lists that have been lying in a swirl in the drawer and go through each one. Copy what is appropriate into your grass-catcher list or, if it is of higher significance, into the to-be-done section of your datebook organizer to be incorporated as part of a daily action list. p. 137

One of the horrible realities of growing up in parts of Southeast Asia is that you may be a burden and not a blessing to your family. The selling of children into the sex trade has been widely documented in exposes of sexual tourism industry. But a United Nation’s report focuses on another aspect of child exploitation: military conscription.

From Scoop:

Grave child rights violations, including recruitment into armed groups, continue in Myanmar, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report, calling on the Government to take measures to address the problem which is common to both State and non-State actors.

He notes progress in a number of areas, including the commitment by the Government that no child under the age of 18 will be recruited and the signing by two non-State actors – the Karen National Union and the Karenni National Progressive Party – of Deeds of Commitment to cease the recruitment and use of children.

I do have a problem with the under-the-age-of-18 line, cultural differences do play a role, but the U.N. has to draw it somewhere, and 18 is as good as any.

“Also of grave concern are the reliable reports of a number of incarcerated children/minors who have been convicted of desertion and sentenced to prison terms of up to five years,” Mr. Ban writes, noting that international practice and principles stipulate that children who have been unlawfully recruited or used by armed forces should not be treated as deserters.

Other actors cited in the report in connection with the recruitment of children include the United Wa State Army; the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation National Progressive Party/Karenni Army; Kachin Independence Organization/Kachin Independence Army; Karenni National People’s Liberation Front; Democratic Karen Buddhist Army; Shan State Army-South and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army; and the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council.

In a class I may be teaching in celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, I’m considering the role of children in Israel’s War of Independence where it was not uncommon for young teenagers to serve as messengers and in many cases combatants. Yes, they were volunteers and not conscripts, but when it comes to revolutionary groups fighting against dictatorships, the age-line becomes blurred.

I can see both sides of the argument when it comes to rebel or liberation groups.

The Wal-Mole formerly known as BBC American dropped me an email this afternoon. BBC was bothered by the 300 number the Wal-Flacks bantered about for the number of jobs at the Wal-Mart Supercenter at Cleveland’s Steelyard Commons. Heres the problem: Wal-Mart seems to be shrinking staff without shrinking store size.

From Wal-Mart Facts — 2004:

Located at 1675 St. Lucie West Blvd., the new 208,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter has been designed as a one-stop family shopping center… The store will employ approximately 600 associates.

From Wal-Mart Facts — 2005:

According to Store Manager John Wieber, the new 210,238-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter features 36 general merchandise departments… The store will employ approximately 425 associates.

From Wal-Mart Facts — 2007:

Originally opened in 1995, the newly relocated 225,000-square-foot Supercenter… [T]he store will employ approximately 425 associates.

From Wal-Mart Facts — 2007:

Designed as a one-stop family shopping center, this new 217,000-square-foot [Cleveland, Steelyard Commons] store features a variety of departments… The new store…plans to hire approximately 350 associates.

You know, sometimes I wonder if anybody at the Plain Dealer knows how to use the Internet.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Oregon High Court Grapples With Circumcision Dispute.