JarJar Nixon's Blues Kitchen

Just spent two days about an hour east of Seoul with a couple dozen university journalists. Clean air, plus we walked up to a temple on Yongmun Mt.

Have had tickle in my throat during the day, and a hacking cough at night, for the better part of two months. There always has been sanding blowing into Korea from the Gobi Plains of China and Mongolia, but nowadays it is thick with lead, cadmium and other yucky metals. You can even smell it when you walk outside.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=35611&archive=true

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-vietnam-gates.html

HANOI (Reuters) - Thousands of Vietnamese students climbed trees or pushed against barricades to give Microsoft founder Bill Gates a pop star's welcome in Hanoi on Saturday.

The world's richest man spent the day in the impoverished Southeast Asian country, which has the highest rate of fake software sold in the world, according to trade groups.

He signed an agreement with the Ministry of Finance to make it the first arm of the government to use licensed software in its systems. Vietnam wants to join the World Trade Organization and will have to abide by intellectual property agreements....

Gates, who is worth $50 billion according to Forbes magazine, was greeted with a combination of adulation and curiosity during his encounters with the public at Hanoi University of Technology and in the countryside.

``I want to see the face of the Microsoft founder and the richest man and the most famous man in the world,'' said Nguyen The Vinh, 19, of Tam Son.

On Saturday morning, about 7,000 students swarmed the campus to see Gates. They climbed trees and crowded onto balconies for a better view. Others pushed against security barricades.

Students inside the university auditorium gave Gates an ovation before he made a speech and answered their questions.

``I hope that one day I can be as successful as him,'' said one student, 19-year-old Nguyen Trung Dung.

Vietnamese Literature in the Regional and International Context of
Cultural
Exchanges

Co-organized by

The Institute of Literature (Vietnam) and Harvard-Yenching Institute,
Hanoi,
November 17-18, 2006


The Conference's organizers plan to have five panels as follows,

1. Vietnamese Literature in the Doi Moi Period (1986-2006)

2.  Literature and Culture

3. Translation and the Development of National Literature

4. Interacting Relationship between Oral and Written Literatures

5. Literature and the Arts


Deadline for paper submission is September 15, 2006.

For further information, please contact
Dr.
Tran Hai Yen or Dr. Tran Thi An via email at
hoithaoquocte2006@yahoo.com, or
by airmail at: Vien Van hoc, 20 Ly Thai To, Ha Noi, Vietnam.

Vietnam: Bill Gates to have exchange with Vietnamese students
8 April 2006Thai News ServiceEnglish(c) 2006 Thai News Service

Section: Regional News - This is part of Bill Gates' activities during his visit to Vietnam from April 21-24 at the invitation of Prime Minister Phan Van Khai.

Microsoft Group's President Bill Gates will have an exchange with Vietnamese students at Hanoi Polytechnic University from 9.30am to 10.45am on April 24, according to the Ministry of Education and Training (MET).

This is part of Bill Gates' activities during his visit to Vietnam from April 21-24 at the invitation of Prime Minister Phan Van Khai.

http://vietnamlit.org/lylan/index.html

The CD by David Greenberger and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic arrived today (see my post from about a week ago). It is so obscure I had to submit the CD info the Apple iTunes database.

What's it like? Indescribable. Somewhere between a hallway with the furniture mounted on the walls and a living room monologue without a script.

Plus...the amazing Rikki Bates is a guest drummer. He is the Chandler Travis Philharmonic regular.

Finally finished "The Historian" and am now reading an account of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. The 1204 sacking of Constantinople by Western Christendom, a bizarre detour along the Fourth Crusade route, did more than of the pre-1453 Muslim and pagan attacks on the city to weaken it for its eventual capture by Sultan Mehmet II.

Apparently it was popular back in the States, opening to big box office $s. Saw it on Friday night, a packed theater here on the U.S. military base. Nice CG but a wooden script and few laughs for adults. "Hoodwinked," another recent CG-driven kids' movie, was better by far.

...is sometimes not as dangerous as trespassing on private property when told not to...


McMINNVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Three members of a video team for The Weather Channel have been charged with trespassing for allegedly refusing to leave the property of a Warren County, Tennessee, woman who was killed by a tornado.

Edward John Lazano Jr., Bradley Reynolds and Jorma Brandon Duran were freed on $500 bail each after their arrests Wednesday, The Southern Standard reported. Calls seeking comment Saturday from the Warren County sheriff's office were not immediately returned.

They allegedly were videotaping on the property of Sherry Bruce, who was killed when storms struck the area on April 7.

"There are eight no trespassing signs posted on the property," Bruce's brother-in-law, Lynn Boren, wrote in warrants filed against the video team. "They were asked at least six times over 30 minutes to leave."

Sheriff Jackie Matheny denied reports that he gave them permission to be on the property.
"If they say they were given permission by me, they are telling a big one. Plus I'd have no authority to tell them that since it's private property," Matheny said....


Full story at:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/15/reporters.arrested.ap/index.html

Subject: Can you read this?
>> >>
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny
iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The
rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can
raed tihs forwrad it.

http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/wafer.html

The Wagner Society of Washington, DC presents John Edward Niles "The Carriers of the Flame: Humperdinck, Pfitzner, andvon Schillings"

Thursday, April 13, 2006
7:30 p.m.
The George Washington University
Funger Hall
2201 G Street, NW
Washington, DC

Mr. Niles will discuss the three composers who were considered to be Wagner's successors. Mr. Niles is a WSWDC Board Member, Program Director of WSWDC's Evelyn Lear & Thomas Stewart Emerging Singers Program, and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia.

The Wagner Society of Washington DC http://www.wagner-dc.org

I just ordered David Greenberger's new collaboration with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic:


http://www.duplexplanet.com/giftshop.html

In a sign that the Rolling Stones' songs are either still dangerously provocative (or that China's censors are totally out of touch with reality), Mick Jagger was forbidden from singing five songs (including "Honky Tonk Women") at his Shanghai gig last night. Most of the 8,000 people in the audience were expatriates or visiting foreigners--the tickets cost about 1-3 months' wages for the average PRC worker.

Mick's retort to the censorhip:

"I'm pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the expat bankers and their girlfriends that are going to be coming."

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/04/08/ap2657334.html


The Party's hand-wringing reminds me of having to submit the lyrics to "Porgy and Bess" and other early 20th century classics to censors in HCMC in January 2002. I realized that "Old Man River" actually has a seditious strain to it...take a look at the words sometime.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84f60minutes.phtml

http://www.william-shakespeare.org.uk/a2-shakespeare-insult-generator.htm