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Fwd: GMCA July 17-18
by David Zahrt via OE 23 Jul '14

23 Jul '14

*THU Jul 17* Although it was to be an 18-mile day, it seemed difficult to get packed up and leave the church. The directions that Anna posted were not accurate. s I departed Grand Island on Hwy 30 and rode the sidewalk on the way out of town. The 6 ft. shoulder (bike lane) started at the outskirts of the city. I rode about 8 miles. Today’s campsite is the Art Farm. I reached the gravel road turnoff just as Sarah and the Gear truck arrived. for gas. I asked the Gear truck driver if he would haul my bike. The Art Farm was 60 acres owned by a non-profit group of residents. There were numerous old buildings in need of repair. They were dwelling in some of them. It will take 3 to 4 generations to repair/fix the Farm. Their immediate project was restoring the circular roof to the frame of an old grain bin. It was a project that required lots of people-power. We helped them put up the roof. After dinner one of the Art Farm members joined us with a guitar. I got my bass out and played along. By 9:40 the camp had built a fire under the roof we had helped install. All the musicians went to the campfire. *FRI Jul 18* We left the Art Farm and headed for St. John’s Lutheran Church, just beyond Marquette, NE. When Anna visited us at the Art Farm, I asked her what kind of alternatives there were to the gravel road. She directed me to pavement so I had 1.5 miles of gravel and the rest of the 15 miles was on pavement. The church had a large cemetery. The stones from the 1800’s and the last names led me to believe they had Danish heritage. Izzy drove the kitchen truck and bicycled back to the Art Farm to taxi John J’s pickup and trailer to the church. In the afternoon he got a phone call from Doug, who had been with us early on but left somewhere in CA, and was now returning to the March. Izzy took J.J.’s pickup and brought Doug to our campsite. We also had Karen re-join us. She came from Iowa and brought Shari from the office. There are some Nebraskans that have joined us as well. After dinner Kelsey facilitated a meeting to discuss the possibility of reducing the amount of fossil fuel the March is using. She is currently carrying everything she has on the March. She pushes a handcart. She is making a documentary of the March so she’s also carrying electronic equipment. She proposed that everyone reduce the amount of gear they are carrying, put it in a backpack or handcart, and sell the Gear truck! I shared that for several years I rode 3 or 4 days on Iowa’s RAGBRAI with everything on my bicycle. And after 3 or 4 days I badly needed a shower and a Laundromat. There was a lot of discussion. Some agreed to begin using handcarts. The major problem with the handcarts currently in use is keeping air in the tires. They continually keep going flat. And they’re hard to push when they have a flat tire. Another opinion was that the idea could be used for a different March, but not this one. The topic will continue to be discussed by the group. It was dusk when we finished the discussion for today. -- Peace, David

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Re: [Oe List ...] Jaime for Thursday, July 24
by via OE 22 Jul '14

22 Jul '14

If you are getting a duplicate of a previous posting that came as one copy of written articles, the individual ones are edited on their way to print. Edits are minor, so if you had read a previous one, the edit is more of a finessing than anything else. The usual caveat goes without saying: if curious, you are welcome; not, see you at the bend. j'aime la vie -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com> To: editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com> Sent: Wed, Jul 23, 2014 6:06 am Subject: Jaime for Thursday, July 24 Canola and rapeseed I asked my seatmate in the bus to Edmonton, Alberta lastweek if the yellow field abundant by the highway was planted with"rapeseed". I was told it was"Canola", the rich vegetable oil with a healthy dose of Omega-3 widelyused for cooking. >From the fields in Manchuria towards NE Nei Menggu, I sawthe same type of fields covered with "rapeseed" but I kept my mouthshut while I googled (yes, the bus had WiFi) the subject. Sure enough, the oil comes from the seed,Canola being a brand name for "Canada oil". Our thought now is about the oil and theseed. I am using this innocuous subject to get me past the monthof July. The first of August is asignificant turning point in my journey, and since evidently, the Canadaportion held more tails of recall and tales of encounter simply by proximity tobrain wave than anything else, I thought I would close the month with itsmention. It also gives me one morestroke at the recently completed journey and farewell to North America. But first, the oil. There is the edible oil for cooking, Canola from the rapeseed. It is abundant in Alberta's agriculturalprairie. The other is the subterraneanoil, evident as pumps seen from the highway brought out the fluid fossil fuelin fields around Red Deer. The Athabasca tarsands (diplomatically referred to as oilsands) are now subject of international debate; a pipeline to transport theliquefied gas to Nebraska is the subject of concerted protest amongenvironmentalists. But as my host,retired Pinay Med GP in Edmonton opined, the oil sands are in demand, and ifone was going to mine and process it, "it might as well be conscientiousCanada." Some might consider the lady delusionary given Canada'strack record on copper mining, but there is no question about the strength of herconvictions. Nor do 80% of the folks Italked to at the local parish in Calgary where I attended Mass who are employedby one sector or the other of the energy industry have any doubts about thereputation, integrity, and reliability of their employ. But the planting of seeds in Alberta is more focused on thebusiness of Agrium (the chemical inputs like fertilizers, insecticides andpesticides into the commercial growing of field plants); the growth of rapeseedproliferates. Also, of hay that feedsthe cattle and horses, and other exotic animals in ranches (e.g., elk andbison) and farms, recently on display at the Calgary Stampede grounds. The bales of hay lie under the summer sun inthe fields, and Alberta this season is adequately watered and gets enough sunto make this year's growth a bumper crop. Ag in Alberta in 2014, compared to drenched Saskatchewan and Manitoba,will be a good year. But like the drenching of Manitoba, the planet is undergoinga major shift in global climate that began more than a decade ago. Weather patterns are shifting so much thatthere was one day when it was warmer in Alaska than it was in Alabama. "Weird and unusual" has suddenlybecome "casual and normal" as the flooding in South China andManitoba, and the drought in California and British Columbia strike differentparts of the world that had not been the focus of such weather extremes before. But even the familiar ones, like typhoon Rammosun in the Philippines and Hainan, camewith Mama Gaia's vengeance this week. Back to Alberta's oil. Sympathetic to our GP friend's sentiment that conscientious Canada canresponsibly handle oil harvests, there is, however, a larger picture on oildrilling, petroleum production and gas distribution that has been the provinceof corporate management not previously known for environmental friendliness nordistributive justice. All of this is nothing but mental masturbation without theurgency of challenge on our individual lives. We used the Canola and the rapeseed obviously as a metaphor to ourdependence as a society on fossil fuel for power, and the need to seed ourfuture with alternative sources of energy. I encourage the use of hydrogen, now commercially viable assupply and demand increases. In Canada,I learned of the auto industry's efforts to stamp down electric cars since itrevolutionized production methods that threatened existing industry. The production of photovoltaic cells has been a source oftension between China and U.S., with the U.S. charging China at WTO of tradepractices inimical to U.S. interests. The WTO recently handed a ruling exonerating China of alleged illegalprotection of the nascent industry. Oil isnot abundant in China, so harnessing a free resource like the sun comesnaturally. Hydropower and biomass arealso in the running, along with wind and ocean wave turbines. The point is that the technologies that do not endanger thelife of a planet whose holding capacity now exceeds by more than half itsinnate regenerative power are present and affordable. Albertans need to go beyond the comfort of familiarfossil fuel extraction, of crude oil, natural gas, and oil sands, to be theCanada of ethics and conscience it claims itself to be. I shall make it my role to remind them of their choice and story. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Fwd: GMCA July 16
by David Zahrt via OE 21 Jul '14

21 Jul '14

*WED Jul 16* It was a Rest Day in Grand Island, NE. As usual I was up early and so went to the kitchen truck to create my breakfast. At home I’d been in the habit of eating my homemade granola and yogurt. I’m delighted to find that combination has become a standard breakfast menu on the March. After breakfast I got directions to the Library and headed off on my bike. I found an Ace Hardware on the way and bought a tail-blinker light for my bike. I’m anticipating the days getting shorter so I will have lights if need be. Later Izzy told me that lots of people stayed up ‘til 1 AM last night and so got up at various times. I got a chance to use the Library’s computer and came back to the church for lunch. In the afternoon I shopped for batteries and confirmed the departure route. Grand Island residents and the Church offered us a potluck dinner. Wayne was a guest and told us about all the issues he has been addressing— Keystone XL Pipeline; climate change; interfaith cooperation, homeless families; same sex marriage; and many more. He had us help plant an apple tree in the church yard so that there would be apples for everyone. After we planted the tree there was a presentation in the sanctuary that described the impact climate change will have on Nebraska’s water table, and as a result the impact on fish and waterfowl. It underscored the importance of reversing climate change. And it made it clear that inability to reverse it will result in the permanent loss of the species that depend on the water table. The presentation went until 9 PM. It was time to prepare for bed because we wanted to get going early in the morning. -- Peace, David

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] "Mountain of Care" reflection by Charles Moore
by Timothy Wegner via OE 19 Jul '14

19 Jul '14

This is a bit late, but I noticed that the Charles Moore talk on compassion that Terry Bergdall found in the Archives is also on the Golden Pathways. That version is much more readable because it is not a scan of an old dot matrix printout. The link is here: http://wedgeblade.net/gold_path/data/leci/10127019.htm I have left online the link to the dot matrix version quoted at the very bottom in Terry's earlier email. Two small additional notes: 1. There are a few additional Charles Moore reflections at the bottom of http://wiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view/Main/CharlesMoore that have been added that may not have appeared here on the mailing lists. The most recent is from Alfrieda Wilkins. 2. For whatever reason Google does not pick up content on the page http://wiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view/Main/CharlesMoore. I am investigating why. But the searching for the terms site:wedgeblade.net Charles Moore does pick up other information on Charles at wedgeblade.net, such as his talks on Golden Pathways. Tim On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 10:15 AM, Terry Bergdall via Dialogue < dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > When I heard this talk in 1974, it was an enormous inspiration to me. > Forty years later, I can still vividly recall much of it point by point by > point. Through the good work of Sally Fenton and Jean Long at the Global > Archives, and the assistance of Tim Wegner, here is a link whereby you can > read Charles's spin in total. I can think of no better way to contribute to > his Memorial on Saturday than by sharing this. > > http://wiki.wedgeblade.net/pub/Main/CharlesMoore/mt-care-all.pdf > > Grace and Peace, > > Terry > > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net > >

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Jaime for Friday, July 25
by via OE 19 Jul '14

19 Jul '14

A seven-year itch ofwriting Since this year, I am resolved to write 10 pieces ofliterary outputs, quitting on the seventh year when they might be widely shared. The image of the "seven-year itch" comes from amovie where the psychological insight that the passion on anything,particularly in marriage, wanes after the seventh year. This would be a psycho-interest span akin tothe attention span we use in classrooms. Statisticians point out that the current mean time for marital divorceshover at the 7.2 to 7.4 years. While used here as a metaphor, it is also going to be lookedat as a chronological marker. At thestart of 2014, I started the venture of memoir writing, the first being abio-profile draft for my grandchildren in case they wish to know more abouttheir "other grandpa" when they grow older. Though very limited in circulation, I havegotten word of caution about the use of actual names since the"letting-all-hang-out" tone of the narrative does not fit well withthose who wish to keep their privacy away from reach to those who mightconsider possible abuse and harm. However, it gives me a time frame of when I will definitelydesist from laying my fingers on the laptop's keyboard, and say, "I'mdone." To date, there really hadnot been anything "missional" about our wordsmithing. Good friend Jun at BoE once commented thatthe reason Jaime writes the way he does is so that BoE members are encouragedto use their dictionaries more often. That was a good cover for the deficiencies in our syntactical andvocabulary tableaus. It also means,however, that though we think we are serious, we should be taken with a fizz ofseltzer! The Torahhas Ten Commandments, 10 being a convenient number and tool to recall anything,there being (usually) ten digits on one's hands and feet. On my Seven-Year Itch, I aim to write in someformat of writing-made-easy so others can do likewise. My bio-profile got the ball rolling. Here's a targeted list: I 'Sang Pinoy tatakordinaryo j'aime la vie for my grandchildren on my 86 years of existence; II Pinoy sa Puso is on the affairs of the heart and other places, a TY "toall the girls I've known before"; III Pinoy Saipan chronicles life with the United MethodistChurch in Saipan, being part of STaRPO (Saipan, Tinian and Rota ParentOrganization), our writing stint in the Opinion section of the Saipan Tribune and 10-years of lounging withan imaginal beer by Saipan's lagoon; IV Pinoy SVES is a journey through the art &discipline of pedagogical maintenance (no relations to Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance) with PSS and San VicenteElementary School; V Pinoy Chinoy recalls travels to Sichuan, Chung Qing, Manzhouli, Yanji, Lhasa, andUrmuqi, the last place two places still on hold being a foreigner not allowedin those places until the foreign affairs office feels that political stabilityis restored; VI WangZhimu, James V in Zhonghua, is the imaginalJourney on the famed trail of Santiago de Compostela, once a distinct physicalpossibility but now, kept only as a fertile romp in the mind; VII La Liga Ekumenika details my participation in churchrenewal post-Vatican II before the institutions of Christendom kicked thebucket, along with my tepid efforts in the field of human development andspirit life, EI/ICA/O:E version (Ecumenical Institute, Institute of CulturalAffairs, Order:Ecumenical); VIII Pinoy Hemingwei is a personal journey of meaning andoblivion, a womb-to-tomb introspection reminiscent of but not patterned after Ernest's"the old man and the sea"; IX Pinoy englisCHe is oral English pedagogy with CH as"Chinese characteristics" issued as an expanding notebook for anyonewishing to improve their spoken English; and finally, X PinoyJournal collects 366 quotes for 366 days (written on and for a leapyear) with 366 world-wise and street-smart reflections. Obviously,the above list is a projection subject to change in the next seven years. If you can bear with our literary neurosesand idiosyncrasies, it will be fun to journey together. You might consider getting out that tabletand start hacking your own, in words and/or pictures, one-page, one-year at atime. One canbegin this week with how one processes the news of the downed MH17 inUkraine. My first response was, why wasit flying off course, and why do the media keep referring to it being downednear the Russian border when it was clearly downed in Ukraine? One can use this as a practice run ondescribing the facticity of the event, my emotional response to it, thecognitive conclusions my intelligence arrived at, and the decisions I made as aconsequence. I madethis reflection in the eerie atmosphere of flying from Calgary, Canada to Chinaon the weekend via Air Canada and Air China, just as typhoon Rammosun (Glenda in the Philippines)raged in the Philippines and ravaged in unprepared Hainan and Guangdong. Still around to keep writing. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Jaime for ST Thursday, July 24
by via OE 19 Jul '14

19 Jul '14

Canola and rapeseed I asked my seatmate in the bus to Edmonton last week if theyellow field that was abundant by the highway was planted with "rapeseed". I was told it was "Canola" for the richvegetable oil with a healthy dose of Omega-3 widely used for cooking. >From the fields in Manchuria towards Nei Menggu, I saw thesame type of fields covered with "rapeseed" but I kept my mouth shutwhile I googled (yes, the bus had WiFi) the subject. Sure enough, the oil comes from the seed,Canola being a brand name that either refers to "Canada oil" or"Canada oil low acid". Like it made much difference! Still, our thought for now is about the oiland the seed. I am using this innocuous incident and subject to get mepast the month of July. The first of Augustis a significant turning point in my journey, and since evidently, the Canadaportion held more tails of recall and tales of encounter simply by brain wave proximitythan anything else, I thought I would close the month with its mention. It also gives me one more stroke at therecently completed journey and farewell to North America. But first, the oil. There is the edible oil for cooking, Canola or the rapeseed. It is abundant in Alberta's agriculturalprairie. The other is the subterraneanoil, evident as pumps seen from the highway brought out the fluid fossil fuelin fields around Red Deer. The Athabasca tarsands (diplomatically referred to as oilsands) are now subject of international debate; a pipeline to transport theliquefied gas to Nebraska is the subject of intense protest amongenvironmentalists in Canada and the U.S. But as one retired Pinay Med GP in Edmonton opined, the oil sands are indemand, and if one was going to mine and process it, "it might as well beconscientious Canada." Some might consider the lady delusionary, but there is noquestion about the strength of her convictions. Nor do 80% of the folks I talked to at the local parish in Calgary whereI attended Mass who are employed by one sector or the other of the energy industryhave any doubts about the reputation, integrity, and reliability of theiremploy. Planting of seeds in Alberta is more focused on the businessof Agrium (the chemical inputs like fertilizers, insecticides and pesticidesinto the commercial growing of field plants) though the growth of rapeseedproliferates. Also, of hay, which goesto feed cattle and horses, and the other exotic animals in ranches (e.g., elkand bison) and farms recently on display at the Calgary Stampede grounds. The bales of hay lie under the summer sun inthe fields, and Alberta this season is adequately watered and gets enough sunto make this year's growth a bumper crop. Ag in Alberta this year, compared to drenched Saskatchewan and Manitoba,will be a good year. But like the drenching of Manitoba, we are undergoing amajor shift in the global climate that began more than a decade ago. Weather patterns are shifting so much thatthere was one day not too long ago when it was warmer in Alaska than it was inAlabama. "Weird and unusual"has suddenly become "casual and normal" as the flooding and thedrought strike different parts of the world that had not been the focus of suchweather extremes before. But even thefamiliar ones, like typhoon in the Philippines, Rasossun came with Mama Gaia's vengeance this week. Back to Alberta's oil. Though I am sympathetic to our GP friend's sentiment that conscientiousCanada can responsibly handle oil harvests, there is a larger picture on oildrilling, production and distribution that has been the province of corporatemanagement not previously known for environmental friendliness nor distributivejustice. All of this is nothing but mental masturbation without theurgency of challenge on our individual lives. We used the Canola and the rapeseed obviously as a metaphor to ourdependency as a society on fossil fuel for power, and the need to seed ourfuture with alternative sources of energy. Hydrogen is an example, now in use and commercially viableas supply and demand increases. InCanada, I learned of the auto industry's efforts to stamp down electric carssince it would really revolutionize production methods that might threaten anexisting industry. The production of photovoltaic cells has been a source oftension between China and U.S., with the U.S. charging China at WTO of tradepractices inimical to U.S. interests. The WTO just handed a ruling exonerating China of alleged illegalprotection of the nascent industry. Oil isnot abundant in China, so harnessing a free resource like the sun comesnaturally. Hydropower and biomass arealso in the running, along with wind and ocean wave turbines. The point is that the technologies that do not endanger thelife of a planet whose holding capacity now exceeds by more than half itsinnate regenerative power are present and affordable. Albertans need to go beyond the comfort of familiarfossil fuel extraction, of crude oil, natural gas, and oil sands, to be theCanada of ethics and conscience it claims itself to be. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Jaime for ST Wednesday, July 23
by via OE 19 Jul '14

19 Jul '14

A New Journey I start anew. Thesafety rails of academia's steady support and income is gone. I am left with my own devices again. A close friend once quipped: "I am not worried. You have always managed to survive yourtransitions." The gift of articulatingwit and wisdom graces our keyboard hacking; I hope to survive simply out of theassets of genetics and wordsmithing since my social net are hardly existing. Newspaper opinion writing is hardly a living. In every journey, it is a virtue to know what one is turningone's back from, as it is getting familiar with the arena and scope of what oneis going to face. As once said by Lolo PepeRizal: "ang hindi lilingon sapinanggalingan, ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan" (ze who fails toknow where ze comes from will not reach where ze is going). I just left for good the geography of North America as wellas my social relations and kin there. Ialso left behind half a century of engagement in the affairs of a nation that Iwill continue to relate to in a tenuous relationship as a resident of its CNMIin Saipan, and Honolulu of its Pacific naval station. But more than the departure of body and soul,I also leave behind a mind familiar with the mental maps that chartedcivilizational courses beginning in Greece and Rome, and culminating in theWestside of Chicago and the Bay area of San Francisco. There is a rich throve of metaphors I am giving up that hadserved me deal with the fundamental human questions of identity, vocation andlifestyle. My identity once was labeledas being "the child of the living YHWH, God, Allah"; my vocation wasunconditional expenditure of one's life beyond one's self, in the liberatingways of Moses, the redeeming task of Jesus, and the prophetic lucidity ofMohammed; and the lifestyle of one who does not shrink from the challenge andresponsibility of freedom - a Holy (wholesome) spirit. In the scientific, secular, and urban surroundings of mycurrent journey, I may or may not rephrase the life questions in similarfashion as the above, though the not doing so is more to avoid pat answers tostandard questions. Authentic lifeawaits to be lived, nonetheless. What I do know given the current state of knowledge about theuniverse and my place in it is that the 14.5 billion years journey of my knownuniverse and the 4.3 billion years of my planet makes a less than a century ofmy lifetime look petty and insignificant. As a child of the universe where the carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen in mybody preceded the big bang of my solar system, I am but a recycled NOBODY. The odds, however, of my one, unique, unrepeatable gift oflife happening to create me is in trillions. The 200 million sperms alone that my father unleashed in one exchange offluids with my mother, after several attempts, that brought me in being, isalready considerable. The permission ofmy mother's ovum to penetrate a shield to union is purely an indiscerniblechoice. Created was a segment of timeand a particular space where I can leave my footprints and hang the syllablesof my name. Statistical probability leadsme to think that I am responsible for 86 years of existence for this body,heart, mind and soul, a SOMEBODY by choice. Longevity is not the issue, quality of life is. The NOBODY-SOMEBODY who walks this earth with my name doesso from the practice and perspective of freedom. Yes, sheer freedom. There is no supernatural power that determinedor works my 86 years. There is nobody toblame; to whine is to waste energy. Ihave no way of returning to what is already done, and the beginning of thefifth phase of this journey in 2014 in increments of 17, is now a decidedperiod of gracious aging. Old. Forget the cosmetics of youth. I wish to live the natural wilted-ness of myage! The arrival point of life is birth; my departure isestimated at 2031. Today, my life is notdetermined by what has transpired before, nor am I hung up in the despair ordelight of failures and accomplishments. I do not waste time regretting the first, nor engrossed in gloating overthe second. I have the here-and-now; myresponsibility is simply to make choices and innovate on chosen options ifpossible, or to decide to create the path I travel every step of the way! Before someone dubs my view as that of an ingrate, my fealtyis not about the cult of rugged individualism, or urbane sophisticatedself-centeredness without regard of the infinite mystery that is at the core ofmy existence. I do take comfort on the simplenature of things: that life begets life when used and invested. I know that life, when unconditionally given away, managesto be significant. I do not plan,factor, or expect anything from a return, yet, I am eternally grateful. I am detached but with compassion on materialwealth and spiritual poverty; totally engaged in meeting the unknown headlongsingle-mindedly with care; obedient to the way life is, not manipulating it norbeing subdued by it. If you arecontinually moving on, you have company on your side. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Jaime for Tuesday ST, July 22
by via OE 19 Jul '14

19 Jul '14

Forwarding the next four submissions to Saipan Tribune as I leave Canada for China. Jaime Coming Home TheZhang Yimou-Gongli tandem that combined talents as director and actress infilms like Red Sorghum and Raise the RedLantern, joined forcesagain in a film entitled Coming Home. The movie is set during China's CulturalRevolution an era in Chinese history that still invites polarity in thepolitical divide. The story of Coming Home isadapted from a novel, The Criminal LuYanshi. Lu Yanshi was a professorsent to a labor camp, escaped and tried to rendezvous with his wife. Their daughter was a budding dancer whocannot play the leading ballerina role due to her father's "outlaw"status, so she betrays the details of her parents' plan, leading to herfather's capture and she getting the dancing role. Released after the Cultural Revolution, the father finds the daughteras a mere textile factory worker, and the wife developed amnesia as aconsequence of the sexual harassment she suffered from an officer's misuse andabuse of power. Unhappily, the wife mistakesand identifies her returned husband as the officer. The husband continues to write his wife toforgive their daughter's betrayal and to expect her husband's coming home. The movie ends with the wife waiting outsidethe train station while the husband faithfully stands by her side as the taxidriver. I am not suggesting that my coming home to Dong Bei is tragic. However,I must say that it is difficult to remove certain bitter aftertastes of myUS-Canada experience of the last 50-yrs. A recollection of two is enough. My primal wife and I, while still courting in Chicago in '67,were walking by Madison Ave. on her way to the train took her to a suburbanhome when a wino grabbed me by the cuff, pulled me against a wall, and asked:"what are you doing with a white girl, boy?" The law has change much; the sentiment hasnot! Not too long ago, a colleague in Edmonton came to Calgary for ajob interview. The appointment was made onher married Caucasian name, but when the interviewer saw her, he declared thathis secretary made a double appointment and he was sorry he could not see her. He abruptly left his office while she wasleft holding her application form stunned by what she felt was a blatant racialprejudice in the encounter. Asians staffmenial jobs while the white collars stay white! The prejudice against Confucian teachers was clear during theCultural Revolution, for like the illuminatiof Bavaria and the illustrado of España,the learned Confucian master tended to be aloof and powerful in ze control of thelearned elite. They held the covetedgates of Party leadership. Mao in theCultural Revolution wanted to return to the raw energy of workers and farmhandsrather than the disciplined rationality of the motivated petite bourgeoisie andconfident national capitalists among the four groups identified in China'srevolution. A decisive move placed CPCintellectuals closer to the proletarian Peoples Liberation Army. I saw as a University teacher how this structural haughtiness ofteachers and school administrators in China was displayed in our school diningroom where the first three floors were for students, tiered according to theprice of servings with the first floor being the cheapest; and then the fourthfloor exclusively for teachers and administrators with the price of lunchheavily subsidized by the school, and the floor equipped with an elevatorexclusively for their use. I come home to China without much illusion. I am no Sinophile but I affirm without being patronizingthe clear trends that I live with. Hereare some: 1. As the percentage ofHigh School graduates attending College (ten years ago, it was at 25 percent;in 2010, 62 percent) increases, the China market is saturated with degreedpersonal that cannot find the desired white-collar jobs. Parents are dismayed that their child canonly get factory-line work, while children who spent a fortune for theireducation stay as far away as possible so they can be in denial, maintain aproper "face" for themselves and their family, while doing piddlylabor elsewhere. 2. A majority in China cuddles western consumerism and thedomestic market is measured by expenditure on non-essential consumer products, onyouth cosmetics and well-publicized but overpriced pharmaceuticals for weightloss. 3. Many Chinese see thegrass as always greener on the other side, so they deeply and extensively borrowfunds for the chance to permanently live in another country, a major source ofheartaches for those who fall prey to unscrupulous recruiters on falsepromises. (There were plenty of these inthe Saipan textile industry.) 4. Ostentatious lifestylemaintains social standing. Prodigiousspending is not unheardof in the Chinatowns around the world, and many Chinese leaving the countrystrive to join their tribe. Mychallenge remains to be human in globalis. A new Zhongguoren (Chinese) can choose to be culturally centered, balancedand ever harmonious in a new planet strained by humanity's folly toself-destruct in the trappings of fame and fortune that overcomes ze sense ofselfhood. China ina new earth is where I make home. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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United in grief
by via OE 18 Jul '14

18 Jul '14

On Monday ST. Jaime United in Grief Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is back before thecrowd in a Press Conference. The worldis united in grief, he said, this time over the downing of MH17, a 777-Boingflying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately, inclement weather re-routed its normal flight pattern andwas diverted instead over the war zone in Ukraine, on the eastern sidebordering towards Russia where pro-Russian separatist have declared theirindependence from the Kiev government. Ukraine since November of last year has been inturmoil. It started over a tradeagreement it was ready to sign with EU that the then President ViktorYanukovych reneged to ink and turned to Moscow instead, for what he thought wasa more reasonable arrangement, given the countries dependence on Russia for itsgas. Ukraine west of Dnieper river is perceived to be pro-EU(borders with Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova) while theeastern part is pro-Russia, particularly Donets'k, Luhans'k, and Karkiv. Ukraine's capital Kiev sits astride theDnieper River that conveniently divides the State. Chernobyl, the site of the nuclear accidentin 1986 is northwest of Kiev near Belarus, from which the Dnieper comes fromoriginating in Smolensk of Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO actively triedto get eastern European countries to join EU. Many in Ukraine's west were eager to join. Russia's President Vladimir Putin is opposedand had warned the west that there are certain parts of the former Soviet Unionthat are none negotiable in terms of their membership in Moscow's sphere ofinfluence. Ukraine numbered amongstthem. When it was still the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republicwithin the Soviet Union, the State contributed Nikita Khrushchev who was bornin the small Russian town of Kalinovka on the border of Ukraine, and who laterbecame Ukraine's Commissar for Stalin after his involvement in the defense ofRussia in the Battle of Stalingrad vs. the German Nazis. It was Khrushchev who unilaterally attachedRussian Crimea into Ukraine. It is thisdivide between the west and the east of Ukraine that has become the world'sheadache in 2014. After President Yanukovych was ran out of Kiev by forcesfriendly to EU, and sought asylum in Moscow, Russia took Crimea back andpro-Russian separatist declared independence in Donets'k and Luhans'k. In the heat of an undeclared civil war,pro-western Petro Poroshenko was elected President and had vowed not only toregain the separatist regions of East Ukraine, but also, to get back Crimeafrom Russia. The U.S. and NATO havepublicly declared their support of the Kiev government. In the last week, as Ukrainian armed forces battledseparatist groups, two ground-to-air missiles shot two Ukrainian planes fromthe sky. Then an identified jet flyingat 32,000 was shot down, turning out to be a civilian plane. MH17 wandered into a war zone already avoidedby other commercial carriers for obvious reasons. Air controllers' diversion of MF17 to the warzone from bad weather has now proved very costly. Here is a part of a transcript of an alleged interceptedtalk between Cossack Nikolay Kozitsin and a Russian intelligence adviserreleased by Ukraine's government: “It has a Malaysia Airlineslogo on it, they say,” said the unidentified militant. “What was it doing inUkraine’s territory?” To that,Kozitsin is heard responding: “That means they were carrying spies, f**k them,got it? They shouldn’t be f**king flying. There is a war going on.” Itnow appears that a ground-to-air missile struck MH17 and the blame gamehas flown thick ever since. Separatistforces retrieved the plane's black box, have no way of deciphering it, nor arethey inclined to turn it over to Kiev, so it is believed to have been turnedover to the Russians across the border. The manifest revealed 295 total passengers, listed ascitizens of the Netherlands (154), Malaysia (43), Australia (27), Indonesia(12), UK (9), four each from Germany and Belgium, Philippines (3), Canada (1)and 41 victims still unverified. All 15Airline crew were Malaysians. Ironically, Mother Nature's fury added to the grief astyphoon Rammasun (aka Glenda took 38lives in the Philippines) ravaged the south of Manila, and raged ferociouslytowards unprepared Hainan and Guangdong in southern China. Flights were grounded in Haikou and HongKong. Boats at the Sanya port batteneddown for the super typhoon, reputed to be the strongest so far to devastate theregion. Grief not only was on lost livesbut on the destruction of the region's economy and social structures, as well. Meanwhile, Israel cleansed Hamas forces holed in tunnels inGaza. Israel does not recognize the U.S.supported coalition government in Gaza that joined moderate Hamas led by MahmoudAbbas to the more radical jihadist combatants like al-Fatah. Malaysia's PM Najib Razak was on the money when he said thatthe world is again united in grief. InIsrael's case, it seems to have become endless. In MH17, we are now looking for scapegoats. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Change in our email address
by T. Mark Dove via OE 18 Jul '14

18 Jul '14

This comes from Mark and Jenelle Dove 6000 Riverside Drive Apt. B213 Dublin, Ohio 43017. Our email address has been changed to tmarkdove(a)gmail.com <mailto:tmarkdove@gmail.com> Thanks for updating our address.

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