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Environment - World Citizen Resolution

ummieabi — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:19:11 +0000

3 days late wishing you people out there – “A Very Happy Year 2010″.

Where do I go from here? 2010 resolution?

Of course to be a better world citizen. Contributing in whatever ways I can.

Although Copenhagen Summit failed with many unresolved issues, I’m proud as a Singaporean to say the government had taken steps to “A Clean And Green City” way back to the early 60’s.

Hence Singapore is known by such a name worldwide – 5 decades before this Copenhagen talk comes into picture.

Year 2009 was associated with water.

However, dreadful to say 2010 is associated with fire. Volcano mountain looming to erupt in Philippines will have direct impact to South East Asian countries – For good or bad, we have to be on our toes.

Bali was put on high alert, tipped for New Year bombing. Thank God, it did not happen and hopefully will not happen.

Fire when small is our friend in need. Without it, no food is cooked and all humans will go hungry.

But when the fire is enormous, it’s our foe indeed.

Walk against Warming - 12 December 2009

melbourneprotests — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:31:00 +0000

Banner at head of march

Judging by their website, event organisers were concentrating on getting a sufficient number of bodies to the end-point of the march – Princes Bridge over the Yarra River – to form the human sign which would then be photographed from the air. According to the website the march was due to leave the State Library at 12 noon (http://www.waw.org.au/index.php/page-eighteen.html), with the first walkers arriving at the bridge at 12.30, and the whole thing finished by 1pm (http://www.waw.org.au/index.php/marshalls-information.html). It was as well that this timetable was not kept to, since posters and other materials advertising the rally gave 12 noon as the start time for the rally, and it was only after that time that any serious numbers of people began gathering at the State Library. At 11.50 there were perhaps two hundred, but by the time the speakers had finished and the march set off – about 12.50 – this had swollen to some thousands, although I don’t feel able to endorse the figure of 40,000 claimed by the WAW website …
Posts on Melbourne Indymedia should fill in the details of the speakers, and there are aerial photos on the WAW website (http://www.waw.org.au/), so what is posted here concentrates on the contribution of some of the various groups and individuals who came to express their concerns. A slideshow containing these and several other photos is in preparation.

At the State Library:

Anti-US protest

One sign of an anarchist presence ...

Several banners and placards advocated a vegan lifestyle as a solution

A rather sad detail from the preceding - probably not connected

See following for the text of the message

Detail of preceding

The Socialist Party stall - the police later wanted to have it moved ...

On the march (in no particular order):

One of the many local climate action groups

Another individual statement

There was a fair sprinkling of Greens triangles in the crowd

Planet Earth

FoE seem to have borrowed a banner from Brisbane?

There were quite a lot of young children there

... and young people generally.

The environmental bike band

The Greenpeace float

One of the few signs of a union presence, although there was also a contingent from the LHMU

We saw this last year as well

The pink and black bloc, near the end of the march, with perhaps the final word ...

There will be a link here when the slideshow is available; videos from previous years can be found on EngageMedia (http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/waw06-melb.avi/view http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/waw-11nov07-engage.avi/view and http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/15nov08-waw_transcoded.avi/view)

Click on image to view slideshow

The slideshow is also available on YouTube:

Added 16 December – for some reason this got left off:

Another view of the Pink and Black bloc

Catching up - protests over the last few months

melbourneprotests — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:14:11 +0000

This site continues to attract a surprising amount of traffic, and it seems a pity to disappoint visitors when there is no compelling reason to stop posting. So what follows is a monster posting of events starting where we left off, the Climate Change rally of 13 June, and ending with a protest at the slaughter of seal cubs in Canada, a particularly striking protest organised by Peta on 13 November. (The events are actually posted in reverse order, which is how they would appear if posted as they happened.) All but one of these events was reported on Melbourne Indymedia at the time, and several are accompanied by video on either YouTube or EngageMedia.

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“Canada’s Shame” – Protest at Seal Pup Slaughter – 13 November 2009

Stop the Bloody Seal Slaughter

If like me you thought that bludgeoning baby seals to death was something that ended years ago, then think again: this year over 60,000 harp seal pups were slaughtered, and the figure would have been five times larger if fear of a European Union ban on seal products had not led many fishermen to stay at home (source: http://www.harpseals.org/)

Local members of PETA (people for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – http://www.petaasiapacific.com/) staged an eye-catching protest today outside the Collins Street office of the Consulate of Canada. Quite possibly it went unremarked by the occupants, but it was a different matter with lunchtime passers-by.

If you have a strong stomach and would like to get some idea of why people are protesting, try this short video on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMiUnqaVRtQ

From the group’s media release:

Five People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia members – covered head to toe in red and white paint – will form a giant Canadian flag with their bodies and hold a skimpy banner reading, “Stop the Bloody Seal Slaughter”, at the Consulate of Canada in Melbourne on Friday. The protest is the latest action in PETA’s campaign to focus the world’s attention on Canada’s shame during the run-up to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Sealers shoot these animals or bash their heads in, and baby seals are often skinned alive while their wailing mothers helplessly watch. This year, three-fourths of the nearly 300,000 harp seals expected to be killed were spared, in part because the price of seal fur has plummeted as the international outrage against the seal slaughter rises. The European Union and the US have banned seal products, and world leaders – including bear-hunting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – have spoken out against the massacre.
“The universally condemned harp seal slaughter is a bloody stain on Canada’s reputation”, says PETA Australia Director of Campaigns Jason Baker. “As the world turns its attention to Canada’s Games, millions will also focus on Canada’s shame.”

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“Beds are Burning” – Protest against Peter Garrett – 12 November 2009

How do you sleep - Mr Garrett?

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts was in town to deliver a speech on energy saving, but environmentalists staged a welcome designed to remind him of speeches he delivered before he joined the ALP, in the days when he vigourously and vocally opposed policies he now defends …

It was really not very polite of Mr Garrett to arrive late and scurry out again when nearly everyone had left, because people had gone to a lot of trouble to put on a fitting reception – even to the extent of a genuine burning bed – which the attendant police were not very pleased about – and music that would have brought back memories…

There were brief speeches from Jim Green and Jacob Grech, representing FoE and the peace movement respectively, and one person took advantage of the open mic to put forward the claim that Garrett has all along been playing a double game, infiltrating the ALP purely so as to gather evidence of their dirty tricks, which he would then reveal while at the same time publicly resigning …

The FoE website carries most of the text of a leaflet handed out to passers-by – http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/?q=node/627 – but without the header: “Dear Mr Garrett ..

All we want for Christmas is for you to show some integrity and to put Aboriginal rights, environmental sustainability and peace ahead of your own political ambitions. That’s all.

Thanks! Friends of the Earth”

Video – see http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/garrett-12nov09.mp4/view

More photos:

Just before security brought out the extinguisher ...

The Garrett Mug

One of several banners strung up outside

Movement against Uranium Mining banner - reminder of past campaigns

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ASU rally – Equal Work, Equal Pay – 10 November 2009

Banner at head of march

This protest was reported on the website of the ASU – http://www.asuvic.asn.au/790048.html (though the estimate of numbers may have been a little generous), with links to both video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcuG0Igtzdo) and photos on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/asu-national/sets/72157622772970436/).

Here is the callout, followed by a few photos taken by MelbourneProtests:
All ASU members are called to participate in a Day of Action on *November 10*, assembling at Parliament Gardens at 11am, to protest against the complete failure of the Brumby Government to increase our wages and to demand equal pay with Queensland SACS workers and public sector workers doing the SAME work.

To date, the Victorian budget delivered a pathetic 3.14 per cent increase to community sector indexation that is not guaranteed for wage increases for workers. At the same time, the Government is funding pay increases for their own employees, which again INCREASES the pay gap between public and community sector wages. At the same time the Queensland Government moved to fund pay increases of 18 to 36 per cent for QLD SACS workers. Here’s what the Queensland Treasurer had to say:

“We are also providing resources to some of our hardest working, and most important Queenslanders. Community sector workers who care and support some of our most vulnerable Queenslanders, the frail elderly, the disabled and the unwell, have recently had the value of their work recognised by the independent Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. The single biggest allocation of additional resources in this Budget—some $414 million across four years—is provided to support the community sector to continue their essential work.”

At the same time, the Victorian government has done NOTHING to address our demands for equal pay – instead they have sent our pay BACKWARDS!

We have researched, lobbied and written submissions. An independent Commission has agreed with us, Government reports agree with us, our employers agree with us – our work is seriously undervalued! The time for report writing and polite lobbying is over – we demand IMMEDIATE ACTION from the Victorian Government. We demand Equal Pay for our work so our sector is sustainable into the future and our clients and communities receive the support they deserve from a properly funded and resourced community sector.

http://www.asuvic.asn.au/655404.html

In the Parliament Gardens before the march on Parliament House

The protest at Parliament House

The protest continues at Mr Brumby's office

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Protest at BHP Billiton Melbourne office – 29 October 2009

Picketting BHP Billiton Melbourne HQ

Protesters gathered today at the Melbourne head office of BHP Billiton “in solidarity with communities around the world affected by BHP’s mining activities, and to show dissent to the proposed expansion and proposed open pit at Olympic Dam uranium mine” (FoE Media release).

The rally also marked the release in London of an ‘Alternative Annual Report’:

[From FoE media release]
Melbourne-based Friends of the Earth campaigner Mia Pepper, who contributed to the international report, said: “The Alternative Annual Report documents a number of recurring problems with BHP’s operations around the world – human rights and labour abuses, relocation of communities, mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples, destruction of sacred sites, adverse impacts on food and water, climate change, use of paramilitaries, health concerns, and irresponsible tailings disposal. These problems are evident in Australia, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Africa, Canada, Colombia and Chile.”
[...]

Friends of the Earth’s national nuclear campaigner Dr Jim Green said: “For all of BHP Billiton’s hollow rhetoric about corporate social responsibility, the company operates the Olympic Dam mine in SA under an outdated Indenture Act which exempts the mine from key environmental and Aboriginal heritage laws.

“BHP Billiton has provided over $2 million to Reconciliation Australia. Yet the company will not relinquish its exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. The company’s attitude appears to be ‘do as I say not as I do’. It’s time for this hypocrisy to end.”

…..

Speakers at the rally were Dave Sweeney, Nuclear Free Campainer with the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Duban Velez, a union delegate for workers at the Cerrejon coal mine in Colombia, who spoke in Spanish with an interpreter. (More information: .)

The rally was rounded off by activist rappers Kasey and Izzy.

Video – http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/bhp-29oct09.mp4/view

The ‘Alternative Annual Report’ can be found at http://tinyurl.com/yjjluqg

See also http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear and http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/?q=node/618

The original posting on Melbourne Indymedia also includes MP3s of the speeches – http://indymedia.org.au/2009/10/29/protest-at-bhp-billiton-melbourne-office-to-mark-agm-09-in-london-29-october

Dave Sweeney speaking

BHP - Water Guzzler

The international dimension

Rappers Kasey and Izzy

Kasey

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Friends of the Earth Anti-Nuclear Community BBQ at Batman Park – 24 October 2009

Nuclear energy is a white elephant

Alongside the 350.org actions yesterday, FoE’s Anti-Nuclear and Clean Energy (ACE) campaign held a
community bbq in Batman Park, in the centre of the electorate of pro-nuclear and pro-coal Federal Energy Minister Martin “He might be from Batman, but he ain’t no superhero!” Ferguson …

Billed as an opportunity for informal discussion, info exchange, with face painting, music, food and games, it was a relaxed and enjoyable occasion, with music from Madeline and Kasey via a solar-powered sound system courtesy of Izzy, lots of food, an appearance by Ziggy the nuclear white elephant, and much more. Jim Green, FoE spokesperson on nuclear matters, gave a brief run-down on how matters stand and Alex Bhathal, who is contesting the seat of Batman at the next Federal election, explained the importance of blocking the Labor Government’s CPRS bill – even suggesting people should try sending the Coalition “negative energy” over the next few weeks to prevent a Labor/Coalition deal.

(See also http://www.theage.com.au/national/changes-lock-in-polluter-paradise-2009….)

The accompanying video on EngageMedia (http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/ace-24oct09.avi/view) includes part of what Jim had to say about, amongst other things, the expected imminent decision on a nuclear waste-dump in the Northern Territory, and there is a rough and ready mp3 attached to the versin of this post on Melbourne Indymedia: http://indymedia.org.au/2009/10/25/friends-of-the-earth-anti-nuclear-community-bbq-at-batman-park-24-october.

Because it came up in conversation on the day, here is what Brewer has to say on the subject of “white elephants”:

“A white elephant. Some possession the expense or responsibility of which is not worth while; a burdensome possession. The allusion is to the story of a king of Siam who used to make a present of a white elephant to courtiers he wished to ruin.”

As the photo above shows, Ziggy had some difficulty getting off the ground…

For more on the campaign against a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in the NT see http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/nontdump and accompanying links.

The ACE website is at http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear

Batman Community BBQ

Jim Green addressing the gathering

Message for Martin

Pirates with a message

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No to brown coal exports – Environmental groups protest at Parliament House – 22 October 2009

Protesters on steps at Parliament House

Environmental groups staged a snap protest at Parliament House today, Thursday October 22, in response to moves by Energy Minister Peter Batchelor to compound the disastrous impact of Victoria’s brown coal industry by exporting millions of tonnes of the stuff to India and other developing nations …

An opinion piece in the Age by Mark Wakeham,campaigns director with Environment Victoria, gives the backgound:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/exporting-brown-coal-puts-doll…

In spite of the awkward time and short notice around 200 people of all ages joined the protest. Taegen Edwards of Yarra Climate Action Now was MC, introducing speakers including Mark Wakeham of Environment Victoria, Barrie Pittock, who led the Climate Impact Group in CSIRO until his retirement in 1999, Lou Morris, coal campaigner at Friends of the Earth – and Greg, who explained how he took the initiative of placing Victoria’s brown coal reserves, all 13 billion tonnes of it, on ebay …

Video extracts from the protest on EngageMedia – http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/pc/videos/220ct09-brown-coal.mp4/view

Protesters on steps at Parliament House - 2

Suggestion re Peter Batchelor

Message for Brumby from the Greens

Barrie Pittock

MC Taegen with Mark Wakeham of Enviroment Victoria

Greg explains his post on eBay

Lou Morris of Friends of the Earth

……………………………

This Saturday, 24 October, there will be events across Victoria as part of the 350.org International Day of Climate Action – see notice on this site http://indymedia.org.au/2009/10/18/350org-international-day-of-action
and the website http://www.350.org/ – Melbourne events are listed here: http://www.350.org/action-list?country=au&city=Melbourne

Friends of the Earth will be holding a community bbq on the same day, at Batman Park – details http://indymedia.org.au/community-bbq-in-batman – as part of its anti-nuclear and clean energy campaign (Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, a determined advocate for the coal and nuclear lobbies, is member for the electorate of Batman).

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US out of Latin America – Protest at US Consulate, Melbourne, 11 September 2009

US Out of Latin America!

While the US flag flew at half-mast in memory of the victims of 11 September 2001, representatives and supporters of the Latin-American communities in Melbourne held a small rally to remember the victims of the US-inspired coup in Chile on the same day in 1973, and to demand an end to US interference in the affairs of Latin America.

The numbers were small, possibly reflecting the fact that someone had apparently seen fit to spread disinformation to the effect that anyone attending the rally would be arrested, but as Lucho from LASNET, the organisers of the rally, put it, the important thing was to show that the past had not been forgotten, even here on the other side of the world, and that protests would continue regardless.

There was no formal agenda, but a succession of speakers recalled the history of US interventions in their southern neighbours, a region which one said the US regarded as its backyard, which it felt entitled to control. This was accompanied by a forecast that the current withdrawal from Iraq and eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan would leave the military complex looking for ’somewhere to go’, hence the push for bases in Colombia, one of the main themes of the rally. There was a reminder of the part played by Australia in the Chile coup, through the communications facility at Pine Gap used by US forces at the time of the Pinochet coup, and commentary on the situation in Honduras. Much of the proceedings was in Spanish, as was only right, though doubtful how much would have penetrated to those inside.

There was a minute’s silence for victims, in Chile and elsewhere, and proceedings were punctuated by chants of “Out, out, US out!”, “Gringos go home!” …

When protesters arrived they found four AFP cars lined up waiting. Perhaps they also had been fed some mis-information?

A film and discussion night originally scheduled for the evening at Trades Hall has been postponed to Thursday, 24 September, at 6:30 for 7:00pm.

From the LASNET media release:
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We call to denounce the systematically violation of people’s and indigenous rights in Colombia from the Uribista government and the capitalist partners that accompanies it…

We call to intensify our solidarity and support to the political-social movements and indigenous organisations that fights for their rights… We ask ourselves, who are the real terrorist?

No to the militarisation in Latin America!
United States out of Colombia and Latin America!
No to Micheletti’s dictatorship in Honduras!

For our memory…our tribute to all those that fought against the Pinochet’s dictatorship imposed on September 11 in 1973 with U.S. backup and support, country that not stop its violence against our people.
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See further:

http://www.latinamericansoldaritynetwork.org/

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news

Delivering the message -1

Delivering the message - 2

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Unionists rally for Safe Sites and Pay Equity – 1 September 2009

Placard summarises message

Two campaigns coincided in the rally held on Tuesday in Lygon Street outside Trades Hall – opposition to legislative changes threatening to water down work safety laws in Victoria, and demands for pay equity for women. As VTHC President Kevin Bracken put it at the start of proceedings, “Today is Equal Pay Day, and the reason it’s being held today is because on average women have to work 62 days more than men, so 62 days from the start of the financial year is the first of September, that’s today, and the women have had a breakfast [here at Trades Hall] and they’re wearing red, and they’re going to be leading this march, so everyone’s got to keep behind them.” (Loud cheers)

Speakers at the initial rally included Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary, who later was part of a delegation that delivered a a protest letter to the Premier’s representative at Parliament House; Marg Pekin, AEU health and safety officer, who stressed the importance of the role of OHS reps especially in supporting younger workers in the education field, and above all those on contracts. (There is a report including part of her speech on the AEU website – http://www.aeuvic.asn.au/news/1251784116_11751.html) Bronwen Halfpenny, Campaign Officer at Trades Hall, gave a brief reminder of the 17% pay gap between men and women and repeated the call for women to move to the head of the march, which then made its way through the CBD to chants of “What do we want – Safe Sites”, “Health and Safety Laws – Not Good Enough” and more.

At Parliament House the rally was addressed by ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence, Martin Kingham of the CFMEU, Ingrid Stitt, Affirmative Action Vice-President at VTHC, and Maitea Medina, widow of Tony Medina, who died last year of mesothelioma at the age of 42. To reinforce the sombre message, rows of shoes were placed on the steps of Parliament House to represent workers killed on the job, and a minute’s silence was observed.

Finally, as already mentioned, a delegation delivered a letter of protest to the Sergeant at Arms, representing the Premier.

The accompanying photos roughly follow the timeline of the rally and march, and hopefully the captions are self-explanatory. One that might not be clear, however – as the march set off down Russell Street a school party visiting the old Melbourne Gaol lined up across the street and cheered.

There are some audio clips with the posting on Melbourne Indymedia: http://indymedia.org.au/2009/09/04/unionists-rally-for-safe-sites-and-pay-equity-1-september-09

Maus and True Sight: Defamiliarisation, The Holocaust, Visual Silence, and Mice

Simon — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:23:33 +0000

‘There’s so much I’ll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics… So much has to be left out or distorted.’[1]

-Art Spiegelman, Maus

‘”La-la-la,” said Cruso, and motioned to Friday to repeat. “Ha-ha-ha,” said Friday from the back of his throat.’[2]

-J.M. Coetzee, Foe

I believe this to be a suitable way to begin this discussion of survival, storytelling, and silence. The question is how does contemporary literature cope in describing that which is beyond description? In Maus, Art Spiegelman creates what is essentially a Holocaust comic, yet despite the cultural implications of the form, his art is both distressing and beautiful. I intend to argue that he achieves his success through a process of visual defamiliarisation, which locates the historical and literary tensions in this sensitive issue, and then finds an aesthetic milieu at the centre at which to present what I believe can be seen as true sight. I intend to conclude with the character of Friday in Coetzee’s Foe to hopefully give weight to any discussion of silence, power and narrative that might arise from analysis of these tensions.

In Murder in our Midst, Omer Bartov discusses the problems of teaching students about the Holocaust: ‘Nor for that matter anyone who had experienced it or studied it from some geographical or chronological distance could quite grasp the essence…or make it understandable to others.’[3] If one aspect the Holocaust can be verbalised, it is the cliché that those events will remain one atrocity that is beyond our human power of description. As Omer Bartov digresses: ‘Somehow fiction and imagination seem to be unable to confront… Auschwitz, a place even those who had been there, both victims and perpetrators, kept describing as unimaginable.’[4] A secondary and rather sardonic cliché might be consideration of how history could have unfolded slightly differently had Adolf Hitler been successful in his goal of being an artist, rather than a politician. This link is often stated implicitly, for example in Glamorama, a postmodern satire on the image and destruction, Bret Easton Ellis begins his tale with a quote directly from Hitler: ‘You make a mistake if you see what we do as merely political.’[5] Indeed, it is impossible to study this period without considering the successful use of aesthetics in tyranny; the legacy of Nazi propaganda all the way from the Second World War to contemporary pop culture. Spiegelman also begins by merging the political and the aesthetic by taking Hitler’s view that ‘The Jews are undoubtedly a race but they are not human’[6] and manipulating the concept into something subversive to that ideology. The first tension provided to us is between the aesthetic power of Nazi Germany, and the void of representation it left behind through genocide. Spiegelman’s first success is retelling the story through his own images and those of his Father, highlighting both the success and failure of the image and its implicit work in politics of representation, both past and present.

Bartov also presents us with our second example of tension: Should the Holocaust be seen as the most important event of the epoch, or merely as a distraction which ‘obscures our perception and prevents us from a more vivid understanding of the real issues and cardinal problems’[7]? Indeed, the Holocaust may resist representation because it is being pulled apart from two opposing perspectives and cannot remain stable. All representations are also subject to varying motives, be they to achieve catharsis, or to promote a moral rhetoric. This myriad of tensions does create a problem for art. However, as Bartov relates, there is one solution: ‘Perhaps we can remember the unimaginable, but we can’t imagine it by definition.’[8] Although ultimately fragile, the personal memory seems to be the key in Maus, which is able to aim between the dichotomies, and strike ever so poignantly where prose would just remain ‘contrived.’[9]

However, this raises the question of whether Maus should be viewed as fiction or nonfiction. Despite critical acclaim upon release, it was initially relegated to the fiction section of The New York Times’ Bestseller List, until an acerbic letter was sent by a less than impressed Spiegelman and it changed category. Although the artist may not have approved of this error in journalism, he could surely have taken solace in the larger symbol of Maus moving freely between fiction and nonfiction so effortlessly, both artistically and inside the text, as well as outside in reproduction and consumption. As a piece of genre transcending art, Maus does achieve an almost ethereal status. Part of this is due to the fact that with its chosen subject matter, ‘poetic license and tolerant forbearance are not granted automatically’[10]; the Holocaust aesthetic means that Maus cannot be subjugated to regular media. Indeed, as Thomas Doherty also notes: ‘Maus redrew the contractual terms for depictions of the Holocaust in popular art.’ Of course, Maus is no regular text, as it has movement both in genre and through the tensions which complicate representation of the Holocaust.

The primary technique being used in Maus is what Viktor Shklovsky might label defamiliarisation. As Doherty observed, where the Holocaust is concerned, there are slightly different rules for attempts at media representation. Being a sensitive subject, there have to be boundaries constructed so that it is never treated flippantly. In this respect it can never become overly familiar because access is not so easily granted. However, with such fixed status, it could always remain static in perception. The result therefore requires a more spherical view of Shklovsky’s concept that ‘as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic.’[11] Indeed, he notes that ‘art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stoney.’[12] Maus is certainly an exposition of the latter parts of this statement, but its true success is not in recovering the sensation of life, but rather in penetrating the void and also recovering either the truth of loss, or perhaps the essence of death. A very subjective version of defamiliarisation is in effect in here, where Maus approaches the concept from both angles, once again manipulating tensions. Ironically, the idea seems reluctant to be articulated, but perhaps the best example of a similar interpretation can be found in the world of graffiti. On the website of urban artist Banksy, a manifesto is provided. This is an extract from a military man’s diary, and his recollections upon liberating a concentration camp. He can give ‘no adequate description’ of the terrors he saw, but one event stands out; when the Red Cross distributed lipstick. I believe this result to be very close to the visual defamiliarisation employed in Maus:

This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.[13]

By recovering both life and death as sensation and art, Maus finds a true sight that can only be described as human.

Much like the subversive effect of graffiti, defamiliarisation in Maus is enhanced by its style of illustration. The use of the comic form allows many techniques to flourish where in prose they may not be possible, or may also appear ‘contrived’ as stated earlier. In many places, Maus uses a dual technique of speech and symbolic imagery to add further metaphor to a point. For example, early in the story, Vladek is waylaid and nearly caught in an ambush by violent German officials. The frame captures him in a spotlight and is captioned ‘will I walk slowly, they will take me… will I run they can shoot me.’[14] The spotlight itself is shaped as the Star of David, matching the mandatory badge Vladek is forced to wear, which in turn creates a spotlight of race and difference in a crowd. It also points him out as a literal target to be shot, with the startled animal expression made more effective by Spiegelman’s use of actual creatures. Vladek is caught in the beam of something far worse than a car headlight, but the danger is equally imminent. An equivalent device is also employed much later in a frame captioned ‘Anja and I didn’t have where to go. We walked in the direction of Sosnowiec- but where to go?!’[15] Their sense of hopelessness and the futility of their journey can be brought right down to the terrain in this format, as they follow a road shaped like a Swastika. This further emphasises that all paths available to them lead to the same fate, as well as the fact that their world is under the control of a malevolent force; from the horizon to the ground under their feet. In prose this could certainly appear a spurious sentiment, but it is deadly effective in Maus.

As well as reinforcing larger themes, the comic format also encourages repetition as a device in a way language could not mirror so subtly. For example, as tension builds and Vladek is conversing about hiding his son with another family, the angle of the frame emphasises the young mice on the floor playing with a train set.[16] Their innocent play pre-empts a more sinister use of transport later in the narrative during Vladek’s train journeys to and away from Auschwitz. In the next frame, as the adults grow troubled and insistent (shown by the now straight angle) the children curiously dismantle the train. They won’t find what Vladek sees later on surrounded by corpses in a packed carriage. Another such repetition would be Anja’s hysterical expression upon realising the likely fate of her family and her own isolation: ‘Why are you pulling me, Vladek? Let me alone! I don’t want to live!’[17] Her expression seems purposefully identical to that of Vladek’s girlfriend Lucia when he informs her that he is leaving her for Anja much earlier in the memoir.[18] Instead, Lucia begs him to stay with her, whereas in the more traumatic circumstances Anja is begging to be left to die. This shows the effect of different levels of crisis on personal relationships. With Lucia, Vladek can be irresponsible, but his carelessness here intensifies his responsibility with his wife when their lives are threatened much later on. It also gives a human ambivalence to the mice, as Vladek is presented in both examples of a masculine role (carefree and restless, then later fiercely protective) showing that he is far from a faultless individual, but very much a human model.

In fact, Spiegelman’s primary mode of defamiliarisation is the use of animal characters in place of human facial features. Presumably, each species reflects either the stereotype or common misconception of each race or nationality as Spiegelman illustrates when he reflects on how to draw his wife. Her suggestion of a ‘bunny rabbit’ would be too cute to represent the French; ‘let’s not forget the years of anti-Semitism.’[19] However, Francoise appears as a mouse like her Jewish husband, showing that although the representation is a satire of generalisations its conditions are purely on personal experience level. This malleability is further highlighted when a supposed German war hero steps out from the captive Jews, begging for his life and a new definition. Mirroring his oppressor’s perceptions, he is drawn as a mouse, but in the next frame a shadow of the character (as well as his speech) appears with a feline form. German or Jew; cat or mouse, the character was still ‘dragged away’ by a guard who ‘jumped hard on his neck…’[20] Katalin Orbán suggests that the purpose of this device is to ‘prompt viewers to mobilize their imagination.’[21] Without wishing to compare Maus to a child’s colouring book, but the black and white figures often beg for definition and non-literal colour from the reader to fill in the gaps. Once again Spiegelman finds a true visuality, here by creating an absence of representation as a form of defamiliarisation.

There are also many connotations of using mice in particular to represent the Jews. As well as belonging to a food chain of prey (we could say: dogs, cats, mice), rodents are known to be quiet. This could mean in terms of storytelling; their perspective is silent. This could also play on derogatory perceptions of rodents as vermin, or pests which live quietly under the nose of society and unnerve the public when they reveal their malevolent presence. This generalisation is manipulated by Spiegelman to its full potential. One chapter begins with the illustration and the title ‘Mouse Holes’[22], but instead of lurking in society’s architecture waiting to sneak around, the mice are huddled for shelter, starving. This symbol is taken further as Vladek describes how his friends and family were forced to hide from their German oppressors. He draws Arty a picture of his ‘Mouse Hole’, which is a bunker in a coal cellar. The following three frames are structured around the diagram[23], as the comic form hides its characters in its own illustration, yet another method that prose could not articulate. It appears that Spiegelman’s methods of defamiliarisation often focus on absence as well as presence; silences and what remains unsaid (perhaps hidden, or in death) alongside the narrative that is actually explained to us.

Another technique employed in Maus is the framing device of the relationship between Vladek and Arty, as the narrative is structured through Vladek’s recollections which are recorded by his son. Memory is shown to be a painful process as Vladek mounts his exercise bike layered over three frames, and essentially begins pedalling into the past.[24] The number tattooed on his arm is clearly visible as a picture of his younger self appears in a circular frame where the wheel of the bike would be, presumably spinning to show a portal between past and present. Vladek cycles through a lot of his story until the exertion, either physically or mentally causes him to need rest.[25] Here we see Spiegelman assault the tension between past and present. Historians often assume that History benefits from a detached perspective, so to pierce the perceptions of his audience even more, Spiegelman uses an amalgamation of past and present to literally bring the effects of the Holocaust home: to introduce part two of Maus, we see a close up map of Auschwitz juxtaposed with a road map of New York State.[26] In the illustration of Birkenau we can see in personal detail the barracks where Vladek survived, whereas the road map merely shows impersonal interstates, and the location of Rego Park, where Vladek now resides. This contrasts Vladek’s two forms of survival; as a prisoner of race, but also as a prisoner of memory in his old age. Ironically, it is the modern map which appears akin to the detached historian’s perspective of History, simply added to the more immediate image of the concentration camp which consumes the page and our view of chronology in the tale.

As past and present are merged, Arty and Vladek’s relationship is shown to be complicated by the horrors we see conjured in the story. Their confrontations add a layer of struggle and legacy to the narrative, contributing to the tensions inherent in the idea of true sight. They argue over many things, which contrast the image of Vladek as a resourceful victim to his modern persona of utmost Jewish stereotype. Out of all things, it is Arty’s new tape recorder (the method of retelling Vladek’s story) that proves the stereotype to be correct, as Vladek criticises his son’s financial decision, saying he could have got the product cheaper elsewhere.[27] Also, whereas warmth and security are important in the Auschwitz narrative, Vladek is not averse to throwing out his son’s coat and replacing it with one of his own that he has no further use for.[28] It is important to note that later when Arty returns, he is wearing a different coat to the one his father gave him[29], rejecting part of his influence. Here we see how survival in the past has designed family life in the present. It is evident that Spiegelman’s true sight has a keen grasp on the layers of human relationships.

This humanity is continually shown through ambiguous representations of the characters. Vladek may be a hero by default because he survived, but as well as being a stereotype who collects wire from the street[30] and returns half eaten groceries[31], he is also a serious racist. When Francoise picks up a black hitchhiker, Vladek is quick to make similar negative generalisations to the prejudices which ultimately allowed the Holocaust to occur: ‘I thought really you are more smart than this, Francoise… It’s not even to compare the shvartsers and the Jews!’[32] Vladek’s ignorance helps dispel any notion of Maus being a didactic moral sermon. We see that once again it presents two contrasting points of tension, and finds a middle ground which best captures humanity, however hypocritical it might sometimes be.

To illustrate true sight and the contradictory nature of humanity, Spiegelman occasionally has his characters wear masks. When Vladek and Anja are forced to hide their race they appear drawn with pig masks to blend with the Poles, but the most notable example of masked behaviour is when Spiegelman deals with the subject of survivor’s guilt, through the character of himself. In the chapter ‘Time Flies’ the artist appears at his desk with a mouse mask over his human head, observing how quickly time has passed since events he is writing about occurred, whilst also surrounded by actual flies.[33] These flies are the pestilence of Auschwitz being summoned back by memory, although not his own. The mouse mask may symbolise his reluctance to adapt a story of his own race, or perhaps his sense of being an imposter for succeeding commercially with a personal narrative. As the frames continue, we see the bodies pile up underneath his desk, a watchtower appears outside the window, and an anonymous voice announce that they are ready to ‘shoot’[34]; either in media or military terms. Whereas the past and present had merely been juxtaposed before, here they literally return to plague the artist. The tensions in his relationship with his father gave Maus the middle ground of true sight, but his narrative also draws absence as much as it does presence, and here the ghosts of what hasn’t been said choose to surface.

Previously, Arty has tried to explain to Francoise the impossible task before him: ‘I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams.’[35] Her only advice is to be honest. Due to the fact that Arty can never comprehend some of the images he must present, he begins to be haunted, ironically by an image; that of his lost brother. Richieu’s death relegated him to a photograph; something Arty’s parents never needed of him because was alive. He therefore developed a ‘sibling rivalry with a snapshot!’[36] Arty is attempting to create an immortal image, yet the only which he finds is that of Richieu, who had he survived would have a grasp of the horrors he lived through in a way Arty can never have. Arty begins to develop a strange sense of guilt because his story (Part One of Maus) was a commercial success, yet he believes his brother’s story would have been closer to the truth. This gives Arty’s character the body of a child while Spiegelman meditates on his thought process with this difficult issue. In fact, Arty has the true sight because he includes both the presence of his father’s tale, and the absence of his brother’s ghost narrative which must remain as a silence.

The result this brings is another aspect of the defamiliarisation in Maus; recovering not life, but death. As both the narrative and Arty’s shrink suggest, there was a tension between luck and skill as a means of survival. The shrink suggests that Arty is the true ‘survivor’[37], and in many ways he has experienced the impact of the Holocaust through his relationship with Vladek. In terms of survival, the theme which is important is silence: ‘it’s as if life equals winning so death equals losing… the victims who died can never tell their side of the story.’[38] As Arty grasps this concept he regains his human form (but retains the rodent mask) and relocates his muse. By the end of the chapter Arty has realised that describing the indescribable is a dual form of defamiliarisation; regaining the sensation and poignancy by also including noted absences and untold narratives, such as his brother’s. The last frames end with a symbolic silence of speech disturbed only by Vladek, whose nightmares cause him to moan in his sleep (proving him to be the opposite of silence in the tale). The flies from the beginning of the chapter return to gnaw at the artist’s body and subjectivity—‘damn bugs are eating me alive’[39] – but they can be dispelled into silence also as Arty now holds an insect spray. The dead time flies fall outside the frame as the question of the indescribable has been answered in Maus. The answer is silence.

The first of these silences is that of Anja’s diaries which Vladek destroyed. Although they would have benefitted the memoir, their absence serves the larger symbol; Arty calls his Father a ‘murderer’[40] but this death is also vital. The other is of course Richieu’s ghost; an aesthetic (photographic) silence. This perhaps best explained by the inclusion of a real photo of Vladek towards the conclusion of the text. Posing in a camp uniform after the event makes this ‘souvenir photo’[41] looks decidedly unrealistic compared to the two hundred and ninety three pages of mouse comic which precede it. An aspect of realism is certainly lost when Maus chooses to borrow visually from reality. This photo also serves as a double form of defamiliarisation, reminding us of the relationships and tensions Maus has employed until this point that have only come as close as they can to what really happened. It also proposes that was has happened with the mice is the actual true sight, and that reality ultimately fails next to art in this task of representation.

Perhaps this is because reality relies on presence and life, whereas art can also include absence and death. Maus concludes with Vladek in poor health, and he ends his tale as such: ‘more I don’t need to tell you. We were both very happy and lived happy, happy ever after.’[42] Of course, we know from earlier that this is a fallacy; Anja committed suicide and Vladek becomes nothing but frustrated with his new partner Mala. Before the frames cease and the lives of the characters thereby end, Vladek’s final address is not to Arty, but to Richieu. Here, all the tensions previously mentioned meet in the middle and the last aspect of true sight cements its creation. The two narratives of life and death, of presence and absence, of voice and silence have met and created this space. The story belongs to the ghost of Richieu as much as Arty. This is unsettlingly effective both in its literary technique, and its poignancy.

Katalin Orbán reaches a similar conclusion about the text. This critic believes that as time passes (or perhaps ‘flies’) the Holocaust slowly becomes de-sanctified and reduced to melodrama as generations end and culture changes. The success of Maus is how it models these changes by finding a middle ground: ‘it cancels and yet authorizes its own visuality and thereby seems to validate both sides of the conflict in an ambivalent and dynamic way.’[43] This is much like Bartov describing the conflicting social and historical tensions which capture the Holocaust in a difficult web. Orbán describes how Maus has ‘an ability to see inwardly, without the eyes, cancelling the visual image’ creating ‘blindness as true sight’.[44] With the Holocaust as a web of representation, Maus manages to locate an aesthetic milieu in the centre of the numerous tensions, and uses the numerous opposing forces to capture that which cannot be described.

If we are discussing the concept of visual silence, we should at least mention Foucault and the relationship between silence and power: ‘There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.’[45] Here, we see that ‘for Foucault discourse is always inseparable from power, because discourse is the governing and ordering medium of every institution.’[46] In many ways Maus can be seen as a power struggle between Arty and Vladek; both in terms of their relationship, and in terms of the life and death narratives. Indeed, Arty comments that he only became an artist because his father would not threaten him in that field.[47] If we are probing the depths of Maus, power and discourse must be relevant. Our model for this conclusion is the theoretical labyrinth of Foe.

Initially, Foe can be seen as a text which also deals with race, in this case, contemporary South African racial politics. Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran suggest that the eponymous ‘foe’ will be ‘those who design, uphold, live amidst, fail to dismantle, or fail to detach themselves from systematic racial dominance.’[48] Indeed, the character of Friday remains a silence throughout, as those who struggle to extract his story believe he ‘has no command of words and therefore no defence against being reshaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others.’[49] Susan Barton does find Friday’s presence (or perhaps absence) to be quite vexing at times, as she finds herself wiping ‘the utensils which his hands had touched’[50]. Presumably because these may have entered the mouth she is frightened to examine, and touched the neutered stump where a tongue once existed to promise a story she cannot control by herself. If we consider these racial terms alongside Maus, the story itself is both an object of power and oppression, leaving Friday as ‘helpless’[51] as a mouse shivering in its bunker.

There are many examples in Maus however where Vladek uses language as a means of survival[52]. Coetzee also painted a response to a reversal of power in the depths of the critical Foe. Lewis Macleod proposes that Friday may in fact have a tongue, and his silence is therefore ‘an epic gesture of defiance’[53]. This is certainly a possibility, as on the island we learn that Crusoe’s teeth have become rotten, yet Friday’s have remained ‘white as ivory’[54]. The contents of his mouth may be pure out of his choice to resist the seduction of storytelling offered by Barton: ‘unlike Susan, he refuses to put the story… of his life into anyone else’s hands and as a result he seems to avoid the kind of narrative conscription that troubles his more ambitious caretaker… he avoids becoming source material.’[55] If we see the tensions that Maus manipulates represented by Barton and Foe, each struggling for discourse and power, Friday’s silence is another example of what we can now more confidently label true sight.

Friday also represents the exhibition of death and absence in a story, as Barton recalls ‘townsfolk pay us no heed’[56] because they move like ghosts. There are several ways to interpret the almost incongruous final chapter of Foe, but if we are using it as a theoretical explanation of Maus we can see the endings of both texts as very similar. The now anonymous narrator informs us that ‘this is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday’[57]. It is a place of death that concludes Maus, where all the stories not told can exist, both Friday’s, and Richieu’s. As the speaker opens Friday’s mouth, his side of events flow forth, ‘up through his body and out upon me… soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.’[58] These are all the tensions and contradictions, historical, cultural, even personal, and all the complications that give Maus a true sight. Of course, this is where the text ends, so the silent story remains untold, to us at least. Both texts have located the space that exists between the tensions, and successfully found a way to capture the indescribable in contemporary literature. As Holocaust survivor Primo Levi states: ‘Silence, the absence of signals, is in its turn a signal, but it is ambiguous, and ambiguity generates anxiety and suspicion. To say that it is impossible to communicate is false; one always can.’[59] Describing the indescribable is possible through true visuality, an aspect of which will always include silence.

Let us conclude simply with Katalin Orbán saying that Maus ‘alerts one to the artificiality of visual representation.’[60] If discourse and storytelling is a power struggle, then Maus is a warning of this. The true sight that it achieves is reclamation of the power through its various techniques of anti realism and defamiliarisation. The type of power it has is its invitation to think about the holocaust in light of contemporary media[61] and therefore question political discourse as well as the power of the image in general. This purpose is illustrated with a certain grace through Foe’s Friday, who responds with a mocking ‘ha-ha-ha’ when asked to repeat after Crusoe’s inane ‘la-la-la’. Perhaps he is laughing because ‘real power is executed through discourse, and… this power has real effects’[62] or because like many readers he did not envision a Holocaust comic about mice to be so delicate and powerful, until he also fell under its spell.

5225 words

Bibliography:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html (last checked 8/01/08)

Bartov, Omer, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Coetzee, J.M., Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987)

Doherty, Thomas, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

Easton Ellis, Bret, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006)

Foucault, Michael, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979)

Levi, Primo, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988)

Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

MacLeod, Lewis, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

Orbán, Katalin, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’, Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993)

Shklovsky, Viktor, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004)

Spiegelman, Art, The Complete Maus, (London: Penguin, 2003)

[1] Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus, (London: Penguin, 2003) p.176

[2] J.M. Coetzee, Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987) p.22

[3] Omer Bartov, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) p.115

[4] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[5] Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006) p.3

[6] Maus p.10

[7] Murder in Our Midst p.117

[8] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[9] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[10] Thomas Doherty, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

[11] Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004) p.15

[12] Art as Technique p.16

[13] http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html

[14] Maus p.82

[15] Maus p.127

[16] Maus p.83

[17] Maus p.124

[18] Maus p.22

[19] Maus p.171

[20] Maus p.210

[21] Katalin Orbán, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’, Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

[22] Maus p.97

[23] Maus pp.112-113

[24] Maus p.14

[25] Maus p.93

[26] Maus p.166

[27] Maus p.75

[28] Maus p.71

[29] Maus p.108

[30] Maus p.118

[31] Maus p.249

[32] Maus p.259

[33] Maus p.199

[34] Maus p.201

[35] Maus p.176

[36] Maus p.175

[37] Maus p.204

[38] Maus p.205

[39] Maus p.234

[40] Maus p.161

[41] Maus p.294

[42] Maus p.296

[43] Trauma and Visuality

[44] Trauma and visuality

[45] Michael Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979) p.27

[46] Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) p.127

[47] Maus p.99

[48]Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

[49] Foe p.121

[50] Foe p.24

[51] Foe p.121

[52] For example, Vladek teaches his Kapo to speak English, and is treated less harshly as a result, Maus p.192

[53]Lewis MacLeod, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

[54] Foe p.22

[55] Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

[56] Foe p.87

[57] Foe p.157

[58] Foe p.157

[59] Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988) p.69

[60] Trauma and Visuality

[61] Trauma and Visuality

[62] Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory p.158

FOE Fall 09 - Part I

jpsfreshbread — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:39:09 +0000

Here is what FOE will be dropping in a month or two. Stay tuned as the Second part will included mor

Stopped out FOE @ 7.26

stocktagr — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:44:16 +0000

My auto stop kicked into place this morning at 7.26 (3% stop loss)

entry price 7.05 – 7.26 exit price= -0.21/share

(319 shares * -0.21)=-66.99 + 10 commission = 76.99

So total lost on this position was = -76.99 (including commission)

(Original FOE position) 2258.95 + (cash balance) 18.55 – (0.21/share including commision) – 76.99 = 2200.51

Account balance = 2200.51 after that minor set back…

20091110

cloudclear — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:28:18 +0000

In a land far away, in a time long ago, there was a man who had enough and had he not just enough, but to excess had he. His hours were long, his toils sincere, and his earnings quite dear. He ate well, he lived well, and he slept well. For this was a man with enough to spare and did he, with others share. For this, he was well regarded by his brethren, kin and neighbor, too. Even his foes kept a fond distance, for they were few and their character untrue, with only the cowardice of envy to spare. And so, the man slept well and he lived well.

It was common in those times, as in times now, for like to live by like. And so it happened that in a dwelling nearby lived a second man, well to do as he was. This man, too, had more than enough, enough even to excess. He ate well and he lived well, but he did not sleep well. Though his hours were likewise long, his toils were not sincere. The wind hums in question, how were his earnings dear? With cunning and not without conniving, this second man pondered and plotted his hours away. He left his toils to others near, that they may have reason not to stray. And stray they did not, their fear keeping them near. His foes were neither few and ever nearer they drew. Respect for this man fell away; in its place, stood only their contempt. And so, the second man, though he lived seemingly well, did not sleep so well.

It was true in those times, as in times now, that where a mountain stands tall, a valley lays nearby. And so it were that a third man lived not so far from the first and second men. But though he ate well enough, he did not live well and he did not sleep well. His toils were many and his hours even more. And whilst he would utter not such words, it was for the second man that he toiled so. Neither foe had he, nor friends with which to be. His hours filled with anger true and one part angst, and toil alone did he. And so, the third man did not sleep well, because he did not live well.

It was inevitable in those days, as in days of now, that where the sun shines upon a tree, never the land below is a golden ray to see. And so there was a fourth man, who served below all the others. Of excess and its meaning he understood not, knowing it to be a thing only that he lacked. His toil was not much, his time of rest neither more. For his hours were long and he never knew when, if, it would end. Foes he had not; for nothing did they fear nor more was there to envy dear. Friends were likewise few, too afraid of filth to stand even near. He ate not well, and by no man’s standard did he live well. But he did sleep well. With little to weigh him down and not a regret to hold him back, only the night was his friend, ever to return and always to keep him until the morn. And so, the fourth man did not live well, but he slept so very well.

With a heavy heart do we toil away what otherwise would we idle, or with light heart shall we rest when the day has met its end and bids farewell the eve.

This story of four men is but a tale of two: two ways to eat, two ways to sleep, and keeping true –there are but two ways to live.

Short FOE @ 7.05

stocktagr — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:07:17 +0000

Short 310 shares of FOE @ 7.05

(319 shares * 7.05) + 10 comission = 2258.95

(account value) 2277.50 – (FOE position) 2258.95 = 18.55 cash balance

Love Stinks......... Yeah Yeah......

Lissie75 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:03:48 +0000

Ok so we have established that I love Sex and the City, great well I have turned into her with out a script to get Mr. Big at the end! Where to begin, my 8 yr relationship came to a crashing halt back in March, so I was hurt, beyond hurt devastated, but I thought the weight has been lifted since we called the wedding off right before, and still stayed together 4 years after. It was going no where, so finally someone said something that someone wasn’t me, and I got my own place, etc. We still talked all the time, and hung out. I went on vacation met someone, he freaked out, said that he wants me in his life, and can’t imagine a life with out me, but if someone comes along in the mean time who are we to say how it turns out. I basically throw the new guy away for the old guy, who now wants friends with benefits, and seems to want to be together. Well, enter Facebook, he had been acting weird, so I confront him on it, he rips me a new ass about seeing someone I just bought you this great, birthday present etc, 2 weeks later Relationship status IN RELATIONSHIP WITH woman with kids. Ok this is how I find out, and I am not supposed to be mad, we are best friends, I do talk or text him multiple times a day as does he to me. He usually calls when he wakes up and through out the day, and when crisis hits, I am the first phone call. I was told we had more like a brother sister relationship now, well do you always sleep with your sister?? This new one seems like a real winner 2 kids premade family, but does she know that he calls me and texts me all the time, gee I wonder. Also, does she know he said to me that there is always a special place for me in his life and no other girl will ever get in the way of that, and he would do anything for me at anytime given what we have been through with the 9 years in the past history that we have. Hmmmm how will it turn out, well I called new guy back and he is thankful and even though out-of-state wants to get together, and see me, even after I wrote him off, I must be that tremendous person old guy said that I was for new guy to want me back. Why are relationships so f***in difficult.

Guru-guru yang Memusuhi Saya di SLTPN 9 Bogor

Wana Sedayu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:07:07 +0000

Masa SMP adalah masa yang ‘kelam’ buat saya. Ini terlihat ketika saya menginjak kelas 2 SMP. Di situ saya menjadi anak yang mereka bilang dengan nakal. Tapi saya tidak merasa begitu. Saya hanya malas bersekolah. Dan pada akhirnya saya sering sekali bolos. Saya pergi dari rumah seakan-akan berangkat ke sekolah. Padahal sebenarnya saya ke arah lain. Lebih sering balik ke rumah sendiri ketika rumah sedang kosong. Sebab, biasanya jika sudah jam 9 pagi, rumah kosong karena orang tua bekerja dan kakak-kakak berkuliah. Dan ini berlangsung sampai saya kelas 3. Tidak heran banyak guru yang tidak senang kepada saya.

Mungkin saya setuju dengan apa yang mereka pikirkan. Bahwa saya memang the freak one. Anak aneh yang autis dan setengah sakit jiwa. Sebab saya jarang berada di lingkungan mereka. Saya lebih sering ke perpustakaan atau menyendiri di belakang sekolah. Saya memang punya teman. Tapi tidak banyak. Ketika kelas 2, teman saya Dian dan Ria dan Asto yang suka usil. Saya duduk paling belakang sendirian dan mereka ada di depan saya. Sementara kelas 3, saya berteman dengan anak bodoh dan pintar mencontek yang bernama Imam. Tapi kemudian saya ‘diterima’ dan berteman akrab dengan Samsul.

Dipermalukan si Enny

Waktu kelas dua dan kelas 3, saya sering dipermalukan oleh guru-guru di sekolah di hadapan teman-teman sekelas. Dan tahulah rasanya. Sangat tidak mengenakkan. Nggak heran saya benci banget sama beberapa guru di bekas sekolah saya dulu itu.

Diketahuilah seorang ibu-ibu berjilbab bernama Bu Enny. Ia mengajarkan PPKN. Budi pekerti. Setiap kali pelajarannya, saya tegang melulu karena takut kembali dipermalukan. Contohnya ketika ia menyuruh saya membagikan kertas ulangan. Saat itu saya duduk di jajaran paling depan. Dan ia menyuruh saya dengan kode tangan. Saya masih sibuk mengambil peralatan tulis di tas saya. Makanya saya suruh teman saya dulu. Bu Enny yang merasa saya mengacuhkannya, malah marah. Ia kemudian menegur saya keras. Saya pun akhirnya membagikan kertas ulangan tersebut pada semua kawan saya sekelas. Dan tahukah kalian? Ketika saya melakukan perintah orang itu, guru yang seharusnya punya tata krama itu terus nyerocos tak karuan mengungkit-ngungkit kesalahan saya yang tak seberapa itu. Katanya saya pura-pura cuek dan tak mau mengikuti perintahnya.

Ini sangat tidak enak. Semoga anaknya kelak diperlakukan begitu juga oleh guru di kelas. Pengalaman itu buka satu-satunya. Setiap kali saya masuk sejak membolos, ia menjadikan saya bahan ceramahan. Sayalah obyek yang berdosa itu. Ha-ha. Padahal di kelas, tidak hanya saya yang suka bolos. Ada dendam apa sih, dia sama saya?

Tapi diantara sekian banyak guru yang menyebalkan itu, ada satu guru yang ‘memihak’ saya. Dia wali kelas saya waktu kelas 3. Namanya Bu Aat, guru Bahasa Indonesia. Dia pernah mengatakan di depan kelas bahwa sebaiknya kita tidak sok suci. Artinya masing-masing dari kita punya kesalahan alias jangan menganggap diri kita lebih bersih dari orang lain. Kata-kata itu akan terkenang selamanya dalam kepala saya. Perilaku Bu Aat yang lunak dan tidak keras malah membuat saya sadar dan mulai berubah. Saya justru akan membangkang dengan seseorang yang juga keras dan menuding-nuding saya serupa saya ini pelaku kriminal!

Dia Membuat Ibu Saya Menangis

Bu Enny (Yenny, atau siapalah itu namanya) hanyalah salah satu guru yang tidak menyukai saya. Yang jelas dia salah satu guru yang menjadikan saya bahan pembicaraan saat berkumpul di kantor guru bersama rekan-rekan guru.

Ada satu hal lagi yang membuat saya semakin membencinya. Suatu hari ibu saya dipanggil ke sekolah. Dan tahukah kalian apa yang si Enny katakan? Ia mengatakan kalau saya berkemungkinan memakai narkoba. Ia pernah lihat saya kena hukuman gara-gara terlambat masuk dan mendapati mata saya merah. Dia juga melihat betapa ‘lemas’ dan sering membolosnya saya. Hal itu membuat ibu saya menangis. Kenapa sih, si Eny itu tega sekali.

Saya, merokok saja tidak. Apalagi pakai drugs? Sesekali mata orang memerah karena iritasi, apa itu bisa dijadikan alasan? Salah satu kesalahan yang saya akui adalah membolos. Ya, hanya itu. Selebihnya tidak. Lalu makhluk apakah Enny itu? Apakah ia punya banyak mata-mata? Atau ia sejenis jin yang bisa mengikuti kemana saya pergi?

Sepuluh Besar

Saya mungkin tidak bersinar. Tapi masa-masa selama kelas 1 SMP adalah masa yang cukup indah. Teman saya banyak dan baik. Tapi mungkin setelah masuk masa puber, setahun kemudian saya berubah dan lingkungan pun terkena dampaknya. Prestasi akademik selama kelas 2 memang tidak cemerlang. Tapi saya sempat masuk sepuluh besar lagi saat kelas 3 setelah saya bangkit dari keterpurukan.

Bagaimanapun saya tidak harus menyimpan kebencian terlalu lama pada guru-guru di sana. Mereka hanya kurang memahami anak-anak. Mungkin ini bisa mereka jadikan pelajaran. Tapi buat saya, hal semacam itu membuat saya menjadi anak yang lebih kuat. Yang tidak akan pernah merasa aneh lagi jika dipermalukan di hadapan umum lagi. Sebab saya akan lebih keras melawannya. Dan memperjuangkan harga diri saya.

Terima kasih ya, Bu Enny, dan guru-guru di SLTPN 9!

04/NOV/2009 13:30:36

Vidi dan Doni: Dua Imbisil di Unpak

Wana Sedayu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:03:13 +0000

SEWAKTU saya berkuliah di Universitas Pakuan, saya sekelas dengan dua orang imbisil macam Doni dan Vidi. Awalnya, saya merasa mereka baik-baik saja. Tapi seiring waktu, saya tahu kalau mereka menyebalkan. Puncaknya, saya sempat adu jotos dengan dua orang bodoh ini.

Kaum Minoritas

Setelah lulus SMA, saya memutuskan untuk memilih jurusan Bahasa Indonesia di Universitas Pakuan setelah saya gagal masuk SPMB. Saya tidak menyesal menjadi kaum minoritas di sana. Sebab pada kenyataannya mahasiswa jurusan tersebut sangat sedikit. Hanya sepuluh orang. Pihak fakultas pun tak memperlakukan kami secara ‘serius’. Kami harus pakai kelas yang kosong dan jika kelas akan dipakai, kami ‘diusir’.

Akhirnya kami sempat ‘ditaruh’ di ruang rapat. Di sana kami ‘bebas’ dan saling menjajaki diri kami. Kesemuanya baik-baik kepada saya. Saya sempat mengira kalau saya dan mereka semua cocok. Tapi perkirtaan saya salah. Dengan Vidi, anak asal Sukabumi itu. Ayolah, dia lebih imbisil dari apa yang pernah saya duga. Sementara Doni, dia hanya ikut-ikutan. Tapi percayalah, dia sama menyebalkannya.

Suatu hari kami sejurusan mendapat kelas baru. Akhirnya. Tapi apa yang mereka berikan pada kami? Ruangan berukuran 3 kali empat. Sampai tahap ini saya masih bisa sabar. Saya mengikuti perkuliahan dengan serius. Sampai sejauh itu saya masih ‘menerima’. Tapi tunggu sampai ada banyak hal yang tidak menyenangkan.

Sahabat, Kelas, dan Dosen

Saya bersahabat dengan Endah dan Vira. Diantara keduanya, saya paling dekat dengan Endah. Sementara Vira terkesan malu-malu dan sangat feminin. Hubungan dengan yang lain juga baik-baik saja.

Di kelas, saya termasuk orang yang (mencoba) aktif. Saya juga lumayan dikenal oleh para dosen dan ‘orang-orang’ (mahasiswa) dari fakultas lain (Inggris atau Jepang). Ini mungkin karena saya pernah menjadi ketua dalam acara sejenis ospek kampus yang diselenggarakan di perbukitan yang ada di Sukabumi.

Semua tampak baik-baik saja. Sampai ada dua orang keparat itu.

Berkelahi

Pada April 2004, ketika kaum minoritas ini sedang ngaso di koridor kampus, sikap Vidi semakin keterlaluan. Selama ini dia suka melecehkan saya secara verbal dan gerak motorik. Dia bersetuju dengan orang-orang yang terlalu menganggap saya tipikal kalau saya cowok yang lembut atau terkesan feminin.

Ayolah, ini lagu lama. Ketika teman-teman selama sekolah menerima keberadaan saya, mengapa dia bersikap sangat berlebihan begitu? Maksudnya, ada berapa banyak orang dewasa di dunia ini suka memperlihatkan ketidaksukaan mereka terhadap seseorang selain di sinetron? Yah, stereotipe tokoh antagonis. Yang menyudutkan seseorang yang dijadikannya obyek penderita dan badut keadaan. Ayolah, ini tidak akan berhasil. Kesabaran manusia biasa itu ada batasnya.

Maka saya pun melawan. Awalnya dengan menegur. Tapi Vidi semakin menyebalkan. Akhirnya karena kemarahan saya sudah di ubun-ubun, saya pun mulai menyerang. Itu pun dengan menamparkan cup bersisi minuman yang selama itu saya pegang. Saya damparkan gelas plastik beserta isinya itu ke mukanya.

Kontan dia marah. Dia pun memukul saya. Saya ingin membalasnya. Tapi sial, saya terpeleset. Teman-teman saya berteriak terutama yang perempuan. Sementara dalam hitungan detik kepala saya sudah pening. Entah ditonjok Vidi atau Doni. Dua lawan satu mana bisa menang? Saya kan, tidak memegang sabuk hitam.

Perpisahan

Kalau mereka (teman-teman seangkatan saya di sana) mengira saya keluar dari UNPAK gara-gara masalah itu, mereka salah. Begitu banyak pertimbangan. Keadaan di sana menyadarkan saya bahwa dengan kelas minoritas itu, suasana perkuliahan tidak begitu kentara.

Setelah saya tidak pernah lagi menunjukkan batang hidung di kampus, suatu hari sahabat saya Endah dan Vira mengatakan pada saya kalau fakultas sastra akan kedatangan Ayu Utami. Saat harinya tiba, saya ke sana bareng sahabat saya Tb, yang ketika itu berkuliah di Ibn Khaldun.

Moment itu adalah moment yang tak terlupakan. Sebab Ayu adalah idola saya. Dia adalah penulis perempuan yang hebat. Di sana saya menjadi penanya yang pertama. Saya bangga pada waktu itu karena saya telah berani. Meskipun pertanyaan saya lugu dan bodoh, tapi saya puas bisa berbicara dengan idola saya dan berfoto dengannya. Oh, ya, saya juga mendapatkan tanda tangannya. Meski sial, lupa bawa novel-novelnya.

Dua imbisil itu juga berada di sana. Tentu saja mereka tak ikut foto. Saya ingat saya dan Doni sempat bersalaman dan terlihat berdamai. Tentu saja saya juga sudah melupakan kejadian itu meski tidak dapat melupakan kebrengsekan Vidi.

Yang jelas, diantara kaum minoritas itu, hanya saya yang bertanya. Padahal mereka masih aktif belajar di kampus. Sisanya, pertanyaan itu datang dari anak-anak Sastra Inggris atau Jepang. Sementara yang mengadakan acara itu pihak dari jurusan Sastra Indo. Saya pun ingat terhadap perkataan salah seorang dosen fakultas pada anak-anak Sastra Indo. Ia menjanjikan akan memberi mahasiswanya nilai A sesuai dengan mata kuliah yang diajarkannya jika yang bersangkutan bertanya pada saat jumpa sastrawan tersebut.

Saya tahu saya berhak mendapatkannya. Tapi itu tidak mungkin. Saya sudah keluar. Saya juga sudah mengikhlaskan semuanya. Termasuk dengan uang beasiswa yang tidak pernah saya dapatkan. Sebagai catatan, pihak di sana mengaku pernah menghubungi saya via telepon rumah. Tapi karena mereka menganggap tak ada tanggapan dari pihak saya, beasiswa dibatalkan. Hi-hi. Padahal saya tahu mereka tidak pernah menghubungi. Tak ada telepon dari sana. Sementara saya belum mengutarakan kalau saya akan keluar setelah menjadi mahasiswa di sana selama satu setengah semester.

Awal Baru

Saya tahu apa yang saya inginkan. Dan saya tak menyesal keluar dari sana. Saya tetap harus bersyukur. Sebab kalau saya tidak pernah di sana, mana mungkin saya bertemu dengan teman-teman yang baik macam Endah dan Vira. Atau bertemu langsung dengan Ayu Utami.

Pada Agustus 2004, saya dinyatakan lolos SPMB dan hijrah ke Bandung. Di sanalah saya mencari ilmu ‘sebenar-benarnya. Di almameter kebanggaan saya, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia.

Steven: The New Enemy

Wana Sedayu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:01:37 +0000

Steven si Cakep di Bogor dan Kisah Mengenaskannya

STEVEN adalah remaja 19 tahun (menurut usia yang diakuinya) adalah pemuda yang tampan dan berkulit bersih. siapapun mungkin akan tertarik dengan penampilan luarnya itu. Terlebih jika orang-orang sudah mendengar latar belakang kehidupannya (paling tidak sekali lagi menurut yang diakuinya).

Tolong siapkan tisu jika kelak kalian terharu mendengarnya. Tapi jangan khawatir, bahasa saya tidak akan didramatisir. konon, orangtua Steven meninggal dunia entah disaat usianya yang ke berapa. Ia juga tidak punya keluarga kandung lain selain saudara tirinya. ia sempat tinggal di rumah bibinya namun diusir secara halus oleh suami bibinya. bagaimana tidak? Steven mengetahui skandal suami bibinya yang ternyata main serong sama pembantu di rumah.

Tapi pemuda ini merupakan pemuda yang gigih dan bekerja keras. ia berhasill pindah dari kota kelahirannya di Surabaya ke Bogor dan berhasil mendapatkan pekerjaan tetap juga pacar yang baik.

Tidak hanya itu, pengalaman cintanya pun tentu saja menempati ranking satu pengalaman terpanjangnya. katakanlah, ia pernah diselingkuhi, didustai, sampai di suatu waktu keterlukaanya membuat ia sadar untuk terus maju ke depan. alias berpikir realistis.

Steven hanya satu diantara sekian banyak orang yang terkecoh ketika mengenal saya. sama seperti yang lain, dimatanya saya adalah sosok lugu, tak berpengalaman, lemah dan (seperti yang diakuinya) pengalaman saya nol besar?

Tapi satu yang dia (dan yang lain) tidak tahu. kalau saya kebanyakan diam bukan berarti tidak sedang berpikir. Saya mengamati. saya terbiasa memerhatikan gaya bocara orang, tingkah laku mereka, pola pikir mereka. Dan percayalah ketika pemuda itu berbicara kepada saya (dan mungkin kepada semua orang yang dikenalnya) ia akan berpikir kalau dirinya sangat menyenangkan. friendly, apa adanya. dan memang itulah yang saya rasakan untuk pertama kali.

Tapi kejadiannya jadi lain, ketika ia mulai mencampuri urusan saya. lebih tepatnya urusan temannya.

Before The Insiden

Ceritanya begini, saya ditembak temannya A (lebih tepatnya temannya pacar dia). saya menolak dengan halus sebagaimana saya beberapa kali menolak orang lain yang mau jadi pacar saya. kemudian si A ini meminta untuk tetap berhubungan baik dengan saya. Ia tahu saya akan menolaknya. dan ia tidak ingin saya berubah.

Saya pun menurutinya. toh dari awal niat saya kepingin berteman. si A menawarkan kebaikannya untuk saya. menraktir makan, nonton film sekali, dan itu hanya berlangsung dalam seminggu.

Kemudian si S menelepon saya. saya membuka dengan tangan terbuka. mungkin dia ingin jadi sahabat karib saya juga. Tapi ternyata dia kepingin mengorek lebih jauh tentang sikap saya kepada si A. Dia kemudian menganggap saya telah menyakiti A, memanfaatkan A, melukai hati A, mempermainkan A, dsj. Hanya karena saya mengatakan:

‘Pengorbanan A tidak lebih baik dari pengorbana yang pernah dilakukan mantan saya.

Saya mengatakan itu. dengan catatan tidak dikatakan lagi pada A karena hal itu pasti kurang enak didengar. tapi belakangan S tidak menjaga mulutnya. A pun tahu kalau saya menganggapnya begitu.

Tapi pikir saya kan, saya minta tolong si A karena dia teman. tidak ada tendensi apa-apa. kalau mau jemput ya, syukur, kalau nggak, ya nggak apa-apoa. lagi pula A yang nawarin. Masak saya nolak ditemenin temen?

Hujatan Via SMS

Sayangnya S merupakan tipikal orang yang menilai segala sesuatu dari ukurannya sendiri. belum apa-apa (belum tahu banyak soal saya) dia malah mencap saya dengan sarkastik. Dibilangnya saya harus sadar kalau saya sudah tua dan nggak pantes manja, dikatakannya pengalaman saya nol besar, ditanyakan penghasilan saya berapa untuk menunjukkan sudah seberapa matangnya dia di dunia karir.

Padahal saya mengatakan (ini pun ke si A) kalau saya tidak begitu senang saat pemuda 19 tahun menguliahi saya. saya juga bilang cara terbaik menghadapi orang seperti S adalah dengan mengalah. Saya bahkan sempat meminta maaf via sms setelah S meng-sms saya dengan isi yang lumayan sarkastik.

Tapi orang-orang itu memang susah dipercaya. si A tentu saja menceritakan sms saya pada temannnya (pacar si S). eh, si S malah maki-maki saya via sms. lumayan kasar juga smsnya. yah, yang dia nanya-nanya gaji, bilang saya banci cengeng, dsj.

Saya sih, sempet mendidih dikit. tapi kok,jadi lucu. tahu kenapa saya tahan emosi? pertama: dilarang menghujat anak yatim piatu, kedua: janganlawan api dengan api. usia 19 tahun punya emosi yang labil. dia boleh sebut saya ‘udah tua tapi kelakuan kayak bayi’. Tapi dari sini bisa kita lihat, lah siapa yang jadi bayi beneran. Ketiga: membalasnya dengan nada yang sama -hujatan- akan mengurangi kualitas diri saya. Ini sama sekali tidak benar. kecuali kalau saya caci maki mantan saya yang nggak tahu diri itu. itu lain soal. Usia kami sebaya. jadi enak kalau pake semprotan anjing, asu, taik, atau apalah.

Terus, karena saya tipe orang yang malas bergaul sama orang yang memang sudah mencap saya antagonis, saya pun menghindari mereka. Termasuk si A yang beberapa kali menelepon saya tapi kagak saya angkat, sms pun begitu. kalau saya bilang sms-smsm si S bisa-bosa dia curhatin lagi ke temen-temennya. Terus saya dihujat lagi sama si S atau bahkan pendukungnya yang lain. aduh, musuh saya makin banyak, dong.

Makanya saya balas aja sms si S itu dengan: HAHA HAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHA!

1:07 AM 11/Mei/2009

Student Evaluation of Teaching (Fall 2009)

ecpsstudents — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:16:26 +0000

On behalf of the SCET Office, please refer to the document below regarding implementation of teaching evaluation.

University of British Columbia | Faculty of Education

Administration of Teaching Evaluation (SCET) Forms (for courses taught face-to-face or by direct instruction)

University of British Columbia Senate regulations require that teaching evaluations be carried out annually. Since 1979 Faculty of Education policy has been that all courses taught under auspices of the Faculty of Education are to be evaluated. Courses with an enrollment of less than five are not usually evaluated.

Instructors (faculty, sessionals and graduate students) need not wait until the last day of class to administer the forms. Evaluations may be administered any time within the last two weeks of term, avoiding the last few days of class when students are pressured. Evaluations should not be administered on an exam day or during an exam period.

On occasion the SCET Office has had complaints about instructor behaviour during evaluation administration, such as, making potentially prejudicial remarks, not leaving the classroom during the evaluation or popping in and out of the classroom, lingering outside the classroom door, or standing and looking over a student’s shoulder during an evaluation. These are violations of standard procedure for the administration of the forms. The instructor should leave the room and the immediate vicinity.

The correct procedure for administering the forms:

The instructor should not comment about the evaluation forms or the process in a manner that may bias student response. The instructor should allow 15-20 minutes at the end of a class session for the students to complete the evaluation.
The instructor should identify a student to be the administrator, then leave the room and immediate vicinity. Instructions for student administration are in the evaluation envelope.
The student reads the instructions to the class, distributes and collects the forms, places the forms in the envelope and deposits the envelope in one of three secure locations in Scarfe:

- the SCET LOCKER at the end of the hall on the third floor of the classroom wing beside the SCET Office door in SCARFE, Room 1303A; – this location is accessible Monday-Thursday 8am to 9:00 pm, Friday 8am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday noon to 5pm.
- or the SCET drop box in the Teacher Education Office Monday to Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm.
- or the SCET mail box in the Education Mailroom weekdays.

If you have any difficulty or further questions, please contact Madelene Klassen at the SCET office at 822-5352, in Scarfe, Room 1303A, or at madelene.klassen@ubc.ca.

At War

Weatherstone — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:58:13 +0000

conflicts cause confusion
words thrown like punches
accusations jab at one another
strategies dance to seek advantage
more than win a friend

words wage war
threats attempt to flank opponents
rhetoric marches forces forward
amassing arsenals of lethal language
rather than calm a foe

Foe

tls23 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:13:26 +0000

This idea plays with my imagination and plays with my world: Writing is not doomed to be the shadow

Testigos del Cambio Climático en América Central

Hector Pistache — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:18:46 +0000

En 2008, CESTA (FoE El Salvador), colectaron durante un encuentro de víctimas del Cambio Climático u

Randall Terry Urges "Burn In Hell Protests", Calls for Burning Pelosi and Reid in Effigy on Halloween

audiegrl — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:31:04 +0000

Posted by Audiegrl

Randall Terry

AP/Ann Sanner—Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry is calling on people to burn effigies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this Halloween, as part of a “Burn in Hell” video contest to protest the health care legislation in Congress.

Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said Tuesday that the contest serves as a political and spiritual statement that “gives people a chance to peacefully vent their rage.”

“If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid force us to pay for child killing and they die unrepentant, they will burn in hell for this,” Terry said in a telephone interview.

A YouTube video of the contest instructions shows how to print a poster of Reid and Pelosi and construct a stand for it. The clip shows a person dousing the Democratic leaders’ images with flammable liquid. The next scene shows their picture going up in flames. People are then encouraged to take pictures, record and submit online the footage of their Oct. 31 protests.

“No, this is not a threat to their body,” an unidentified man says in the instructional video, “but it is a threat to their soul.”

Terry insisted the contest was not a threat to Reid or Pelosi. He contended that the Democrats’ plan to overhaul health care would allow federal funding of abortion.

More @

Operation Rescue Halloween: Nancy Pelosi Burn in Hell Contest

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Colorado Independent/John Tomasic—Randall Terry, the founder of fanatical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is sending around an email to supporters asking them to burn Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in effigy as part of a national Halloween protest and video contest. The email and video rallying supporters is characterized by an ironic tone that serves only to heighten the threatening factor that has come to characterize the organization and its actions.

Of the many notable features of the Operation Rescue call-out is the explicit references it makes to major mainstream U.S. corporations FedEx Kinkos, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. The references have the feel of embedded advertising. Do the companies know Operation Rescue is sending them their “Nancy Pelosi Burn in Hell” business? Do they want that business?

FedEx spokesperson Jenny Robertson told the Colorado Independent that the company had no part in the video.

“Fed Ex is in no way affiliated with [the Terry project] and did not provide permission to film the video in one of our centers. They probably took that video in the store very quickly and there was no time to stop it“.

And an ironical disclaimer on the video:

Legal Mumbo Jumbo: Obey local laws on open flames; be careful; if under 18, do not burn Nancy Pelosi in effigy unless your mom or dad is with you, and gives you permission, and strikes the match; do not burn yourself; do not burn another human being; do not burn small animals; do not burn large animals; do not burn anyone from PETA; and remember: this is not a threat to Nancy Pelosi’s or Harry Reid’s person…it is a prophetic witness of what awaits them when they die if they do not repent for this horrific sin.

More @

Far-Right Activist Launches Nancy Pelosi And Harry Reid ‘Burn In Hell!’ Contest

Friend or Foe?

fatabbot — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:37:33 +0000

New image in the fear factor photography contest

A strange black dog can look fearsome when baring it’s pearly whites. Sometimes it’s hard to read their intentions until it’s too late and they’ve …
Friend or Foe? photography picture

Neighbors friend or foe?

Lissie75 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:31:45 +0000

Recently I had the best place to live, was there for at least 6 months and then I got the text that would change it all, Guess who is moving in below you Meeeeeeeeeeee!!!! It will be so great I just jumped at the opportunity, and with you upstairs what could be better?

Well I could think of a lot that could be better with this situation. I must say after touring some of the other apts, in my building on the upper west side of the burbs, mine had the most charm and at home charisma than the other apts in the building. I haven’ t been able to see what the out building behind us looks like but they are newer and don’t have the Victorian charm that this one does. So now my cool factor just hit like a 5, in my rating system for this fact that I liked where I lived and said hi to the neighbors but it wasn’t like they felt the need to knock on my door for tea or milk or something.

I had experienced that before, we moved in to a second floor new apt, when I was with the boyfriend who shall remain nameless. This was to avoid the slum lord that we had as a previous landlord. ( when mouse sh*t ends up on your dinner plate in the cabinet! Time to move) This was brand new mouse free zone, perfect. Well they thought since it was their house they would come up to say hello, or invite us down for drinks. Before I knew it communal living was taking place where their kids were popping in to see if we wanted to play t-ball or have a bbq. Ugh~ what had I done, there was no privacy!

Then we had the condo situation where that seemed to be great your own place, no work everything is done. With strings attached, if you put out too many decoration Letter from the board. Too many people over not parked properly Letter from board with violation. Didn’t move your car in time to plow Snow Fine from the board. It was kind of like a nursing home since everyone there was older, and the younger people had children. We lived in the nosey section, our neighbors actually walked up to the back slider as we were redoing the condo. ( I have proof of footprints in the snow and confirmation from one neighbor) Then when spring came I didn’t even have the first shovel full of dirt before they were asking me what I was planting if I was doing a more involved landscape, container gardening? What the hell is a container garden I work for a living and don’t have time for this. So this was one of the final things that made me miserable which was a downward spiral and lead to me being unhappy and the end of the BF relationship.

Then I found my solstice, the Penthouse, quaint, cute, homey and I didn’t know the neighbors. It was even better after meeting them I found out I knew 2 of them from my Ex-boyfriend, we said hello, there were no facebook requests or tweets. Then they move and BAM her we go. I got a few emails about if anyone had DSL or internet well, can we say I am not having you steal free internet, no all systems are locked in the house. Who even asks that question wouldn’t you just take your computer and see first? So she was all budget concerned, ok I am conscious about that too but I wouldn’t budget any utility until I have lived there a year and seen if there is a need. She is a constant facebook updater also, this scared me a little since I don’t want to end up on her page.

She moves in and I was scare since I didn’t want to get roped in to helping with that either. I didn’t see her that much and she still would update so I can honestly say I knew exactly what was going on. She had told me of her failed marriage, and new guy she could never meet anyone good. Well seems a change is address is a change in karma, seeing she now has a boy toy shall we say that seems to visit quite often. Which is great and fine, but some of us don’t take every Wed,Thurs off to have a party at the house where you are loud until 11:30. I don’t even want to consider what goes on below me, but some of us sleep and go to the gym at 5:30 am.

Here in lies the dilemma the other night I am obviously home and she sends me a message on facebook, that says sorry I missed your b-day, don’t know how I live below you. Great, that ended up on the Wall, grrrrr I like to use facebook as the social network not as the I just ate lunch at Spago type of thing. Which leaves me with this, is it better to be a neighbor that lives secretly and just says a casual hi, or to befriend your neighbor and gush about happenings?

Foundations part 3 - Understanding Others

smnori5 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:18:26 +0000

Foundations – Understanding

To build that solid, concrete hard foundation that a relationship is set up on, you need to have a degree of understanding. You need to be able to discern and comprehend certain aspects of someone else’s life without even speaking to them. To be able to do this, you need to listen, observe, and understand that person’s behavior as well as your own. This can take some time as well and it requires you to spend time with the person that you want understand.

For example, when I spend time with my best friend, I can almost always determine what she might say before she says it. I also know her to the point where I know where her keys are when even she doesn’t know! That’s because I spend so much time with her and I understand her mannerisms, how she acts, and what she is most likely going to need.

However, before you can understand and discern what other people may do or say, you first need to know what you will do or say. This goes back to the ‘Knowing Yourself’ portion of our talk together. Because when you understand yourself then you will understand why others treat you the way they do. Why some interact with you and others don’t. You cant please everyone, so don’t even try. You’ll only end up frustrated and depressed.

Some people may see you as a jerk while others may think you are pretty cool. That is just the way we are wired, not everyone is compatible with one another. This is why there is war, death, and tyranny throughout the world. Because feels the need to get rid of those things which we don’t like, don’t understand or doesn’t fit into our little universe. Referring to what God said in the bible, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44. This means that while you will have enemies in your life; be kind to them even when they mean to you. Because returning evil for evil only leaves both parties with grief and pain.

However, this verse is most often misinterpreted to mean that you should abstain from violence altogether. I wholeheartedly believe this statement is a load of crap. If someone is threatening you or trying to kill you, I am relatively sure that you are allowed to defend yourself.

I digress, coming back to the topic at hand. You won’t like everyone you meet, and not everyone you meet will like you. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.

For example, my one roommate that I currently have believes that he is awesome. The problem is, no else really thinks so. Mainly because he tells and weaves so many lies that you cant pick out the truth anymore. Its unfortunate but that is the way he is, I feel sorry for him and I tolerate his behavior, but do I think he is awesome? Not really.

Tolerance is a form of understanding, which means you know enough about them to be able to interact with the as a civil individual. I understand why my roommate is the way he is, and I know that he feels the need to smoke drugs and sleep with a new woman every night so that he feels alive. I may not agree with this nor like it. But that doesn’t mean I have to hate him for it.

Now, you may be wondering, why don’t you tell him why he shouldn’t and show him the errors of his way.

The reason being, he is so set in his ways that there is nothing I can do for him. Only God can help him, and if I am the one to assist him, then so be it. All I can really do is be an example and show him the love of God through my actions and works.

How does the saying go?

Talk is cheap? But actions something something…

I don’t remember, the point is that to know someone is to understand them and to understand them is to tolerate them even if you don’t like them.

STUFF YOUR CHOCOLATE BANANA

cooktobang — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:31:29 +0000

Get stuffed? Don't mind if I do! Be ready to feel overshadowed unless you are packing serious he

Why is this not on the news?

darkpurplemoon — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:19:55 +0000

I received a mailer from Friends of the Earth on Friday talking about climate change and asking for some money to support their campaign to attend the UN Conference on Climate Change at Copenhagen in December.

Reading I came across this horrible fact:

Please help us to promote the voices of people who are being totally ignored. Take Maria Tiimon from the Kiribati Islands in the Pacific – the eastern-most point in the world that was the first to welcome in the new millennium… Now her beautiful homeland is facing complete destruction. Sea levels are already rising to engulf the island, with high tides flooding the capital, contaminating water supplies and killing crops. It’s likely the islands will soon be submerged and more than 100,000 people will have to evacuate. If climate change continues, this is likely to be the first of many mass migrations across the world.

Why on earth are we not hearing about this in the news every day? 100,000 people are going to lose their homes, livelihoods and communities. And this will not be the last of it, but just the beginning.

Why is the mainstream media not discussing this on the main headlines?

Why is everyone not aware of this and trying to do something about it?

Well, I know at least one answer on why they are not covering this in the media. There are no horrific images to grab our attention. There isnt an easy soundbite which can be used by every station from some poor wretch who has lost everything now. It doesn’t tie in with our short attention spans and instant gratification which we need to have now and so they wont tell it to us. People aren’t aware of it because they don’t want to be and are more interested in the latest X-factor/Pop Idol/Football/other opium of the masses.

I don’t know what the answer is, I have signed their petition and donated a small amount of money on top of my usual monthly donation, but what else can I do? This comes back to my previous post about taking action but where do we focus our action in the most effective way? Do any of you take a more active role and how do you do it?

20091017

cloudclear — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:37:45 +0000

A coward feigns friendship with a foe.

Foe And Friend

slayergrey — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:33:52 +0000

Bar the door right now,

It’s not too late,

The horse has not bolted yet,

He stands still in the barn.

The messenger of death,

Hovers over your head,

Waiting for a slip,

Waiting for metal to touch skin.

He lurks in the shadows,

Touching the weak and the tired,

His power, boundless,

His patience, infinite.

He will wait forever,

For the mistake comes eventually,

The hollow rod passes through the outer,

And consumes the inner.

He stands with the coins,

The payment for the boatman,

For if you succumb to it,

The ride across the river will be your reward.

Plunger, plastic, mosquito bite,

Rose of blood in the clear cage,

Extended arm, cinched tightly,

And the silver bullet explodes.

But, despair not, for,

The messenger is not alone,

He has a foe, one he fears,

The foe of your foe is your friend.

He waits, with outstretched wings,

With power to save and to heal,

His patience knows no bounds,

His love is infinite.

Foe and friend, together they dwell,

Without them, within you,

Wither you shall, however,

Which shall you choose?