Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Six Time Power Procedures: change routine, cultivate observation, make your motions faster, think with a pencil in your hand, make comparisons, use the spontaneous goal (ask what is the purpose of your action, pulling yourself into focus on what is relevant, on the vital issues). p. 116
Could it be that the generals in Myanmar picked the wrong year to flex their muscles. With less than a year to go to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the Communist government in China does not want anything to mar its global-China image; like a brutal fascist crackdown in a client state.
China called on Myanmar to speed up democratic reforms, state media reported Saturday – an unusual move for Beijing, which has traditionally refrained from criticizing the military regime.
The call came as a U.N. human rights investigator wrapped up a trip to the country that he said had helped him to determine that at least 15 people died during the junta’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September.
China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi also expressed support for U.N. attempts to reconcile the regime and the suppressed democracy movement during a two-day meeting with the junta that ended Friday. The state-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported the meeting only after Wang had left the country.
Compared to the estimated 3,000 to 5,000 slaughtered on 4 June 1989 in Tienanmen Square, 15 dead seems inconsequential. But 19 years later, the Chinese want the world to remember the gold medals, not the tanks, 300,000 troops and live ammunition it used to put down its own protest problem.
Beijing does not usually publicly criticize Myanmar’s military government, a reflection of its position of strict noninterference in the internal affairs of the country.
But in recent weeks, it has been credited with working behind the scenes to pressure Myanmar to embrace democratic reforms after the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.
China also provided important backing for the mission of Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. secretary general’s special envoy on Myanmar, by supporting a Security Council declaration and helping persuade Myanmar to allow him to visit twice.
As Wang’s visit ended Friday, U.N. human rights investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro announced that at least 15 people died in Myanmar’s biggest city when the military crushed the demonstrations, five more than the government had acknowledged.
Even President Jimmy Carter has publicly said that a boycott of the 2008 Olympics would be inappropriate and unproductive. But the world seems itching for an excuse to stay home and China’s long association with the military dictatorship in Myanmar could just be that excuse.
Kinky Friedman lost in his bid to be governor of Texas, but he saved his record of the race in: You Can Lead A Politician To Water, But You Can’t Make Him Think. The book is brilliant and political wonks will hate it; sufficient reason to buy and study it, if for no other reason than to piss off the 
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 Christian Thespians Scold ‘Vulgar’ Comic.
@WR: Not everyone has the luxury of being here at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, surrounded by a medically concentrated community such as this. Many Soldiers and their families move rapidly through the system. From med evac in theater, to Germany, then to the hospital, treatment, and before they know it they are separated from service or…
If pressed, I tell people I favor Vice President Al Gore as our next president, but I really don’t give a feck right now about all the debates and posturing. I’ll pay attention about two weeks before the Ohio Primary when it becomes important. It sure doesn’t matter right now. A Daily Dish reader reminds me this morning why that is.
From CBS News:
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has pulled away from the field in the Democratic Presidential nomination race: his support among Democratic primary voters nationwide has risen in the past month, and held steady after the news of Saddam Hussein’s capture. But the race remains open: more than half of Democratic voters still have no opinion of Dean, most have not made up their minds for sure, and large numbers remain undecided.
Dean has been a vociferous critic of the Iraq war. Most voters believe, as Dean does, that the U.S. is no safer from terror in the wake of the arrest of Saddam Hussein. And while Dean”s rise may have been helped along by former Vice-President Al Gore”s recent endorsement, most primary voters say Gore”s nod makes no difference to them.
And, of course, the accompanyng table helps.
CHOICE FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE
(Democratic primary voters)
Howard Dean: 23%
Wesley Clark 10%
Joe Lieberman 10%
Richard Gephardt 6%
Al Sharpton 5%
John Kerry 4%
John Edwards 2%
Moseley-Braun 1%j
Right now I see the non-stop campaign posturing as merely a bit of bread-and-circuses to distract us from Congress’s continued ineffectiveness and our nation’s shame in the Middle East.
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.
There were five houses of worship in a small Texas town: the Presbyterian church, the Baptist church, the Methodist church, the Catholic church and the Jewish synagogue.
Each church and synagogue was overrun with pesky squirrels.
One day, the Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn’t interfere with God’s divine will..
In the Baptist church the squirrels had taken up habitation in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a cover on the baptistery and drown the squirrels in it. The squirrels escaped somehow and there were twice as many there the next week.
The Methodist Church got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creation. So, they humanely trapped the wquirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days later, the squirrels were back.
The Catholic church came up with the best and most effective solution. They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.
Not much was heard about the Jewish Synagogue, but they took one squirrel and had a short service with him called “circumcision” and haven’t seen a squirrel on the property since.
[Also from Myanmar:
Burmese bloggers are united
Burma monks not ready to forgive]
Protesters fighting against military dictatorship and for a people’s democracy in Myanmar risk death, which makes Mike Robertson’s risking a five-year jail term in Paris pale in comparrison, but nothing should be taken away from the professional climbers efforts to draw attention to the fight of the people of Myanmar.
From PlanetMountain:
Last Monday Mike Robertson, the British climber, photographer and recent Banff guidebook award winner for Deep Water, attempted to climb the Eiffel Tower in protest against the French oil company Total’s involvement with the Burmese regime.
As www.ukclimbing.com reports, Mike was arrested by the French police at circa 219 m, circa 100m short of the top of the symbol of Paris. “I wore a shirt with ‘Total leave Burma’ on it… I tied a red scarf – the colour of the Monk’s attire in Burma – on the lower arch, at about 230ft… I was arrested at around 720ft, where I felt it prudent to ‘come quietly’, especially in view of a possible jail term”
Mike Robertson was handcuffed and taken to questioning, and was released after circa 3 hours. Although he may risk up to 5 years in jail, Mike explained “The situation in Burma is dire; the beatings and deaths continue. Aung San Suu Kyi, is still under house arrest, and there’s currently a news blackout, mainly due to the cutting of all communications and phone lines by the Generals. I climbed the Eiffel Tower to help draw more attention to the atrocities and the pro-democracy movement in Burma.”
Remember that here in the United States, Total is Chevron.
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.
“Wilber thinks he has the final framework after all: a mystical periodic table” p. 67
Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: It is often wise to leave the work environment and take a few minutes to go out for lunch. You will generally find yourself at a higher level of productivity when you return. p. 115
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 The Garfield Randomizer.
Eric Coulson: “Why?” That is a question I have received frequently over the last couple of weeks. Why, when I could be at Fort Living Room, seated on Camp Couch, my command and duty safely behind me, two dogs, a cat, and a loving wife vying for my attention, did I choose to stay in Iraq? The answer of course is complex and has a myriad of reasons both personal…
Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.
1002 PD does nice profile of a blogger…from New Haven
0629 Top 30 newspaper sites for 10/07
0627 Is media outlet being unethical
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.
The Tomato Company
An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids.
He applies for a janitor’s job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.
The human resources manager tells him, “You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day.”
Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address.
To this the manager replies, “You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day.”
Stunned, the man leaves not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers’ market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than two hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100 percent profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family .
During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.
Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.
At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.
By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard.
Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company’s payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars.
Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance.
Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.
When the man replies that he doesn’t have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, “What, you don’t have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you’d had all of that five years ago!”
“Ha!” snorts the man. “If I’d had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour.”
Which brings us to the moral of the story:
Since you got this story by e-mail, you’re probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire. Sadly, I received it also.
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