It's Perfectly Comprehensible to me

According to this admittedly not-very-scientific mapping from Strange Maps (a really interesting site, by the way), the speakers a lot of languages express bewilderment at something by saying that it is Chinese to them, but the only analogous constructions in Chinese involve things like 天书 and 鬼符。
Is that indicative of superior understanding of other civilisations and their languages on the part of the Chinese? Or just a sign of pride and conceit---we believe no foreign language is beneath our understanding, even though we might not actually understand any? Or is it a result of China's past relative isolation from further parts of the world? Such isolation could have meant that while the few foreign tongues nearby were readily understood, the further ones, which might not have been comprehended so easily, were too distant and rarely encountered to find their way into such expressions of bewilderment.

What Border?

We thought it was a volleyball net ...

"Walleyball" didn't just present a valid point of view, it illustrated it vividly. The scene wasn't of two beaches in two countries with nothing to do with each other; it was of one continuous stretch of beach, with little to set apart the "American" and "Mexican" sides except that huge wooden thing. Why can't someone on one side of the US-Mexico border just walk over to the other side, to say hi to someone else who happens to be there? Except for that huge wooden thing, of course---that, and the whole idea of the closed, controlled border it represents. The narrator said it best: "It doesn't need a wall ... it doesn't need anything. It just needs a little bit of humanity."

A certain T. L. Wiuslow expressed it more radically when he advocated dissolving the border altogether, in something midway between Merger and annexation, in "The Megamerge Dissolution Solution" (warning: long, rambling article). Ignoring a few bits of residual national supremacism, he actually makes a lot of sense; to think about it, it is only a logical conclusion of the Walleyball line of thinking. Given the blockheadedness and prejudice which prevail at present, however, reason and common sense might take a long time to prevail here.

War / Dance

Watched War / Dance with the parents last Monday, at Sinema@Old School.
The cinema was quite interesting. It was small: one theatre, with red couches for seats (three to a couch), seating up to perhaps ninety people. From the posters on display in the box office-cum-gift shop downstairs we gathered it showed mainly local films, and some foreign independent films. And it had been set up in an interesting locale: the Old School compound (formerly the Methodist Girls' School campus, now converted to "digs for new school thinkers") was full of artist's studios, with plenty of semi-colonial architecture and inviting open space in between. An artist's colony of sorts---a rare creature in this nation of merchants, though it did seem quite in its natural habitat on quaint, quirky Mount Sophia.

The film was even better. The visuals were striking, and the story was deeply gripping---especially since it was a real, not fictionalised, account.

There were two scenes that struck me in particular.
The first was of a convoy of UN container trucks rolling into the refugee camp---now town---of Patongo. 'Every month, the school closes for one day when the UN delivers food to Patongo,' a caption explained. It wasn't just the school, but the whole town which seemed to stop for the supplies. Huge crowds---seemingly the whole population of the camp---gathered in impatient, pushy lines to demand, collect and jealously guard their share. The camera cut to show a child picking up from the ground grains of cassava which had dropped out of a sack. Why, in today's rich, industrialised, modernised world of plenty, should whole villages and districts be reduced to this kind of rationing? Not that the people seemed malnourished, but compared to the commercial plenty in so many other parts of the world, even in the Ugandan capital, it seems such a primitive and disruptive method of distribution.
The second was of the children of Patongo performing their traditional dance in the finals of the National Competition. 'When I dance I feel good,' a voice-over from one of the performers pipes in, 'I am more than a child of war ... I am strong. I am Acholi.' It reflects how it is not, perhaps, the music and dance itself, but rather the bonding with others---with a larger, deeper culture and heritage created and shared by others---through the music which is more therapeutic and healing. The intricate structure and euphonious sounds may soothe and provide distraction, but in this case the social connotations, not denotations, of music probably matter more.
And a lingering mystery ... the Lord's Resistance Army, whose somewhat random but horrific acts of violence form the backdrop of the documentary. They appear to be an Acholi rebel group which originated in a general insurgency against a presidential coup by another tribe but ended up attacking their own tribe when support for their cause wavered. Their present motivations may be unclear, but the nature of their atrocities is unambigiously outrageous. They are now surrounded, outnumbered and outgunned, by the Ugandan military, yet their leader refuses to negotiate, and has allegedly killed a deputy who tried to do just that. They may as well be an organised bunch of crazed lunatics, haunting the northern Ugandan bush at random.

Someone Else Willing

Apparently it's not only Muslims and Arabs who are free to invoke insy'Allah. Christians may (but increasingly do not) avail themselves of the Latin deo volonte, or the abbreviated d. v. if convenience demands.

National Day of Service and Remembrance

It may be slightly unwieldy a name, but wouldn't it be better for everyone if September 11 were remembered in this spirit, instead of the distinctly parochial, closed, mailed-fisted spirit lurking just behind "Patriot Day"? If Americans would forget their wrath which has brought so much more disquiet and suffering to the world, and recall instead the noble deeds that allowed them to prevail, and then remember, in humility, that they are scarcely alone in their suffering?

If at first you don't succeed ...

Try and try and try again.

A Democratic Spirit

The belief that truth is manifest is the basis of all tyranny - Sir Karl Popper (?)

'The truth can only be found by a critical process, by a creative process, by a process that is open, and our only criterion for whether one idea is better than another is whether we prefer it.'
Or, actually, if we take this view, there is hardly any room for an objective conception of truth anymore, won't you think? When the only criterion for judgement is subjective, when anything and anyone's contributions can be equally valid.
But maybe that was the whole point: it is far better to resolve differences and conflicts at hand and work things out, than to get entangled in intractable tussles over a slippery notion of abstract truth. And besides, wouldn't any definite choice of criteria be somewhat an arbitrary imposition on an otherwise open critical and creative process?

En pantoufles

Freely, easily, in as relaxed a manner as would be suggested by someone ambling around lazily in slippers, like Singaporeans do almost everywhere. We must be one of the most relaxed nations on Earth, by the standards of this French idiom ...

Advienne que pourra!

Fais ce que dois ... not just a moral injunction, but a steely declaration of determination: come what may! A almost devil-may-care reckless perserverance in one's rightful duty ...

Lares and Penates

In Roman mythology, lares were minor deities who guarded homes, crossroads and cities. Penates were in charge of the pantry and the household. 差不多就像地方神和灶神。The Romans and their descendants must have loved these small gods dearly, for lares and penates now refers to one's treasured household possessions.

Barenboim's Orchestra for Peace

If Longfellow was right about music being humanity's universal language, the West-Eastern Divan is a very encouraging project.
Barenboim says he founded the extraordinary youth orchestra as a 'project against ignorance', 'a platform where the two sides [Israelis and Palestinians] can disagree and not resort to knives.' He believes, quite deeply, music can teach the two sides about compromise and working together.
A lot of the "music as a model for life" stuff may be waffly and too steeped in metaphor to have much meaningful impact in the hard real world of international conflict and geopolitics. But the opportunity afforded by the orchestra for the two sides to sit down and work together towards something peaceful, productive, and beautiful---that could help, slowly but surely, in building up relationships and trust between them. If only there were more such initiatives ...
On a separate note, isn't it supremely fitting for the orchestra to be based in Seville? The capital of Andalusia, once a bastion of tolerance for Muslims, Jews, Christians and all other peaceful comers.

Montero's Fantasie-Impromptu

'
"Improvisation on Goldberg Variations"?  I think Fantasie-Impromptu would have been a more appropriate title for an extempore burst of music of this length, coherence and sophistication. Besides it is stylistically so far away from Bach's original ...

Live Tetris!

Using a high-rise dormitory block as the playing arena! w00t. Now what if we wired all the lighting systems to a Playstation or XBox controller, programmed the linked system to generate Tetris games, and really played Tetris? It would look pretty darned grand. Though perhaps not if you were inside one of those rooms  ...

Pianism

Is pianism merely the act of composing or arranging for the piano, or the art or technique of playing it? Should it not also encompass an exceptional mastery of that instrument: the ability to speak through its music as though it were one's own voice, and one's fingers the vocal chords?

Cipher

A cipher is a code, something which presents a convoluted, obscured face and which can only be read with great effort, or secret knowledge. The word can also refer, however, to an intertexture of letters, especially the initials of a name engraved as a monogram---especially used of Turkish or Arabic names so written. How did that sense come about? Probably through the sheer bafflement of the earliest Englishmen to encounter these elaborate swirls composed from foreign alphabets according to the patterns of vastly differently-constructed names ...

Remember, remember ...

Whereas at the end of the war many Germans tried to hide their passports or to exchange them for another one, German nationality today is highly valued.

We certainly have no reason to be arrogant and self-righteous. But we may look back with gratitude on our development over these 40 years, if we use the memory of our own history as a guideline for our future behavior.

If we remember that mentally disturbed persons were put to death in the Third Reich, we will see care of people with psychiatric disorders as our own responsibility.

If we remember how people persecuted on grounds of race, religion and politics and threatened with certain death often stood before the closed borders with other countries, we shall not close the door today on those who are genuinely persecuted and seek protection with us.

If we reflect on the penalties for free thinking under the dictatorship, we will protect the freedom of every idea and every criticism, however much it may be directed against ourselves.

Whoever criticizes the situation in the Middle East should think of the fate to which Germans condemned their Jewish fellow human beings, a fate that led to the establishment of the state of Israel under conditions which continue to burden people in that region even today.

If we think of what our Eastern neighbors had to suffer during the war, we will find it easier to understand that accommodation and peaceful neighborly relations with these countries remain central tasks of German foreign policy. It is important that both sides remember and that both sides respect each other.

from Richard von Weizsäcker's speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of VE Day in 1985.
If you accept that humankind is possessed of free will and can meaningful control its own thoughts and actions, there should be no reason why we cannot learn from history.

Air and Simple Gifts

Forgetting the whole brouhaha about the performance being pre-recorded, the performance of John William's Air and Simple Gifts has plenty of aspects which speak of America's strengths.
The musical material was drawn by Williams from his compatriot Copland, and had originated from a Shaker hymn. What does this tell us? No doubt, that America, a young nation though it may be compared to Europe's grand old dames, has a considerable cultural heritage.
The performers, all world-class masters in their instruments, were all American by descent or choice, and represented four different ethnicities. Could the implication be any clearer? America has drawn, and continues to draw, the best talent from all over the world, and to produce its own talent too.

A Case for Gun Control

A favourite argument of pro-gun advocates is that allowing the common citizen to carry arms is a deterrent to violent crime: criminals are less inclined to perpetrate on people who may be able to retaliate with firearms. Anti-gun advocates retort that an increased prevalence of firearms actually increases rates of violent crime, in particular shootings, by making both criminals and potential victims reckless and trigger-happy: maybe he has a gun, but then I do too---let's just do it.

Since the renewal of violence in southern Thailand in 2004, Thai government programmes arming civilian militias have led to a huge influx of firearms into the region. An accompanying increase in shootings in the region suggest that the anti-gun advocates' argument is closer to the mark of reality.

Of course, the chain of causation may run the other way round: a culture of violence, fueled by unresolved local squabbles and encouraged by recent militantism, creates a strong incentive for arms-traders and smugglers to bring firearms into southern Thailand. The government programmes were only the spark which unwittingly opened the floodgates for these firearms to flow in freely, driving the violence which may have previously lain latent.

The Onion: Very Reliable News Source

The next time you peruse The Onion News Network's satire, you would do well to remember that however many facts it may incorporate, it's not actual news. Don't do what two Bangladeshi newspapers did, and run a story from the Onion in an actual newspaper: 'Neither they nor the New Nation, which later picked up the story, realised the Onion was not a genuine news site.' 
Although, considering the conspiracy theories that surround the moon landings, might the Onion story not have been that off?