Sunday, January 30, 2011

織田信長

小泉淳作

- 昭和16年、17歳で大学の文学部予科仏文科に通いました。文学へ憧れですよ。。。僕なんか相手にされないし、第一仲間にも入れてもらえませんでした。
- 昭和18年、19歳で東京藝術大学に入学しました。。。戦争真っ只中で絵描きには不幸な時代でした。国家の非常時に絵なぞ描く奴は国賊だ、なんていわれて。
- 昭和23年に復学。でもまた胸をやって、今度は別な所が悪くなりました。。。結局卒業したのは昭和27年28歳の時でした。
- 昭和29年、30歳の時に結婚。家族を養わなければなりませんから、デザインの仕事をしたのです。デザインは人のため、絵は自分のためと思っていました。
- 湯呑みを買いにいったら気に入った物がなくて、自分で作れないかなと思いました。昭和37年頃、38歳くらいの時でした。。。作品展を開いたら何とか一年間食えるくらいの収入になりました。
- やっとデザイナーをやめられたのは、昭和50年頃、50歳を過ぎていました。。。楽しいしね。その一方で、やきものは芸術ではない。実用品だという思いがあった。
- (孤高の画家と呼ばれるのは)好きではないね。20年以上も公募展に出品していて、認められず会員にもなれなかった。団体に属さずにきたから、そう呼ばれるのでしょう。そんな格好良いことじゃない。49歳を最後に公募展への出品をやめました。
- 定期的に個展を開いていたら、昭和52年に描いた『奥伊豆風景』が山種美術館優秀賞に選ばれました。53歳の時です。受賞したのは、後にも先にもその1回だけです。
- 水墨画を描くようになったのは還暦になった頃。。。今の日本画よりよっぽど新しいと感じた。そこには哲学のようなものがあった。いつかは水墨画をと思っていました。なかなか難しくてね。
- 不思議ですよ。絵を描き続けてきましたが、画家で生活出来るとは思わなかったもの。画家としてやっていけるようになったら、70歳を過ぎていた。それから2ヶ所の天井画を手がけられるなんて、ありがたいことだと思っています。

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum

N. J. Lindquist, W. E. Nelles

山木秀夫

Friday, January 28, 2011

Clay Shirky

Since the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, the world's networked population has grown from the low millions to the low billions. Over the same period, social media have become a fact of life for civil society worldwide, involving many actors -- regular citizens, activists, nongovernmental organizations, telecommunications firms, software providers, governments. This raises an obvious question for the U.S. government: How does the ubiquity of social media affect U.S. interests, and how should U.S. policy respond to it?

As the communications landscape gets denser, more complex, and more participatory, the networked population is gaining greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Umberto Eco

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

Christophe Chabouté

Randy Newman

Something in your eyes
Makes me want to lose myself
Makes me want to lose myself
In your arms
There's something in your voice
Makes my heart beat fast
Hope this feeling lasts
The rest of my life

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Growth of Muslim populations
by country
(projected change 2010-2030)

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Rachel Sterne

RT @NYCTSubwayScoop: Track Workers prepare to ride Sweeper Train to clean ice, snow from tracks & signals along A Line.http://ow.ly/i/7zxw

The City of New York

Georges-Pierre Seurat

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Michael Scherer

The third question went to another U.S. reporter, Hans Nichols of Bloomberg, who took the opportunity to first ask Hu to address the first question. Hu's answer, while far from satisfying for the U.S. media, which prizes freedom of expression as a fundamental right, nonetheless did offer some explanation for the repression that continues in China today. Rather than defending his country's record outright, he offered a qualified explanation, admitting significant room for improvement. According to the transcript, as translated, he said:

China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights. And at the same time, we do believe that we also need to take into account the different national circumstances when it comes to the universal value of human rights. China is a developing country with a huge population and also a developing country in a crucial stage of reform. In this context, China still faces many challenges in economic and social development, and a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights.

Monday, January 24, 2011

NGO Monitor

NGO Monitor's objective is to end the practice used by certain self-declared 'humanitarian NGOs' of exploiting the label 'universal human rights values' to promote politically and ideologically motivated agendas.

Jonathan Foreman

At the headquarters of Human Rights Watch, more than 30 storeys above the noise and bustle of Manhattan, there is so much high-mindedness hanging in the air you can almost taste it. This is the epicentre of a certain type of socially smart, progressive activism — the kind that persuades Hollywood grandees, power lawyers and liberal financiers to dig deeply into their pockets.

When the story broke that one of the organisation’s most prominent and vocal members of staff might be a collector of Nazi-era military memorabilia it felt like some sort of sexual scandal had erupted in the Victorian church. For a lobbying group accustomed to adulatory coverage in the media, it was a public-relations catastrophe.

Human Rights Watch is one of two global superpowers among the world’s myriad humanitarian pressure groups. It is relatively young — established in its current form in 1988 — but it has grown so quickly in size, wealth and influence that it has all but eclipsed its older, London-based rival, Amnesty International.

Unlike Amnesty, HRW, as it is known, gets its money from charitable foundations and wealthy individuals — such as the financier George Soros — rather than a mass membership. And, also unlike Amnesty, it seeks to make an impact, not through extensive letter-writing campaigns, but by talking to governments and the media, urging openness and candour and backing up its advocacy with research reports. It is an association that is all about influence — an influence that depends on a carefully honed image of objectivity, expertise and high moral tone. So it was perhaps a little awkward that a key member of staff was found to have such a treasure trove of Nazi regalia.

By day, Marc Garlasco was HRW’s only military expert, the person that its Emergencies Division would send to conflict zones to investigate alleged war crimes. He wrote reports condemning the dropping of cluster bombs in the Russia-Georgia war, the alleged illegal use of white phosphorus by the Israeli army in Gaza and coalition tactics that he said “unnecessarily” put Iraqi or Afghan civilians at risk. An enthusiastic source of quotes for the media, he was incessantly on the phone to journalists.

But by night, Garlasco was “Flak88”, an obsessive contributor to internet forums on Third Reich memorabilia and an avid collector of badges and medals emblazoned with swastikas and eagles.

Human Rights Watch

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been notably reluctant to put pressure on abusive governments. As secretary-general, he has two main tools at his disposal to promote human rights–private diplomacy and his public voice. He can nudge governments to change through his good offices, or he can use the stature of his office to expose those who are unwilling to change. Ban’s disinclination to speak out about serious human rights violators means he is often choosing to fight with one hand tied behind his back. He did make strong public comments on human rights when visiting Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but he was much more reticent when visiting a powerful country like China. And he has placed undue faith in his professed ability to convince by private persuasion the likes of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Burmese military leader Than Shwe, and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Worse, far from condemning repression, Ban sometimes went out of his way to portray oppressive governments in a positive light. For example, in the days before Burma’s sham elections in November, Ban contended that it was “not too late” to “make this election more inclusive and participatory” by releasing political detainees–an unlikely eventuality that, even if realized, would not have leveled the severely uneven electoral playing field. Even after the travesty was complete, Ban said only that the elections had been “insufficiently inclusive, participatory and transparent”–a serious understatement.

When he visited China the same month, Ban made no mention of human rights in his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, leaving the topic for lesser officials. That omission left the impression that, for the secretary-general, human rights were at best a second-tier priority. In commenting on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese human rights activist, Ban never congratulated Liu or called for his release from prison but instead praised Beijing by saying: “China has achieved remarkable economic advances, lifted millions out of poverty, broadened political participation and steadily joined the international mainstream in its adherence to recognized human rights instruments and practices.”

Bernie Siegel

The inexplicable happens all the time. It makes more sense to simply accept things we observe but cannot understand. It is really more scientific to keep an open mind. Until we can understand and explain the things we now label miracles, let us accept them and try to create more of them.

Ralph Waldo Trine

A miracle is nothing more or less than this. Anyone who has come into a knowledge of his true identity, of his oneness with the all-pervading wisdom and power, this makes it possible for laws higher than the ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to him or her.

Marianne Williamson

In asking for miracles, we are seeking a practical goal: a return to inner peace. We're not asking for something outside us to change, but for something inside us to change.

William Blake

The person who does not believe in miracles surely makes it certain that he or she will never take part in one.

Augustine of Hippo

When people truly open their minds, and contemplate the way in which the universe is ordered and governed, they are amazed--overwhelmed by a sense of the miraculous. When people contemplate with open minds the germination of a single seed, they are equally overwhelmed--yet numerous babies are born every day, and no-one marvels. If only people opened their minds, they would see that the birth of a baby, in which a new life is created, is a greater miracle than restoring life.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith.

Philip Jason

To love someone is to always see them as the miracle that they are; as the miracle that they exist, the miracle that makes your own simultaneous existence seem fortunately improbable and therefore defiantly miraculous; is to show them, in your eyes and through the way in which you look at them, the limitless beauty of their true miraculous selves; is to say to them in every glance: "I believe in miracles because I believe in you."

Paulo Coelho

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.

Henry David Thoreau

All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every second.

Boyd K. Packer

Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass.

Kelley Vicstrom

Each of my days are miracles. I won't waste my day; I won't throw away miracle.

Wayne Dyer

I am realistic--I expect miracles.

Libbie Fudim

Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none had ever happened.

G.K. Chesterson

The most wonderful thing about miracles is that they sometimes happen.

Willa Cather

Where there is great love there are always miracles. Miracles rest upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for the moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what has been there around us always.

St. Augustine

Miracles are not in contradiction to nature. They are only in contradiction with what we know of nature.

George Bernard Shaw

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.

Bernard Berenson

Miracles happen to those who believe in them.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

つげ義春

貧困旅行記

藤澤清造





ExchangeRate.com

Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are international foreign exchange reserve assets. Allocated to nations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a SDR represents a claim to foreign currencies for which it may be exchanged in times of need.

Today, the US Dollar is the world's primary foreign exchange reserve asset, and SDRs may be little used. Some nations, notably China and Russia (as well as the UN), favor increasing the substance and function of the SDR.

Although denominated in US dollars, the nominal value of an SDR is derived from a basket of currencies; specifically, a fixed amount of Japanese Yen, US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros.

During its creation, it was debated if the Special Drawing Right should be a form of money or a type of credit. Nations, when asked to do so by the IMF, are supposed to purchase SDRs from other nations with weak foreign exchange reserves. As this means that SDR allotments may need to be repaid (although not to the IMF itself), the SDR could be considered a form of debt security. And like debt securities, SDR holdings do accrue interest. However, the SDR is used as a unit of account and is sometimes referred to as a "quasi currency".

Jean Baudrillard

L'information peut tout nous dire. Elle a toutes les réponses. Mais ce sont des réponses à des questions que nous n'avons pas posées, et qui ne se posent sans doute même pas.

La neige n'est plus un don du ciel. Elle tombe exactement aux endroits marqués par les stations d'hiver.

Le simulacre n’est jamais ce qui cache la vérité – c’est la vérité qui cache qu’il n’y en a pas.
Le simulacre est vrai.

Aujourd’hui l’abstraction n’est plus celle de la carte, du double, du miroir ou du concept. La simulation n’est plus celle d’un territoire, d’un être référentiel, d’une substance. Elle est la génération par les modèles d’un réel sans origine ni réalité: hyperréel.

C’est le réel, et non la carte, dont des vestiges subsistent ça et là, dans les déserts qui ne sont plus ceux de l’Empire, mais le nôtre. Le désert du réel lui-même.

United Nations

The dollar has proved not to be a stable store of value, which is a requisite for a stable reserve currency. ...
Developing countries have been hit by the U.S. dollar's loss of value in recent years. ...
Motivated in part by needs for self-insurance against volatility in commodity markets and capital flows, many developing countries accumulated vast amounts of such (U.S. dollar) reserves during the 2000s. ...
(... replacing the dollar with the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights (SDRs), an international reserve asset that is used as a unit of payment on IMF loans and is made up of a basket of currencies.) ...
A new global reserve system could be created, one that no longer relies on the United States dollar as the single major reserve currency. ...
A new reserve system must not be based on a single currency or even multiple national currencies but instead, should permit the emission of international liquidity -- such as SDRs -- to create a more stable global financial system. ...
Such emissions of international liquidity could also underpin the financing of investment in long-term sustainable development.

IMF

With effect from January 1, 2011, the IMF has determined that the four currencies that meet the selection criterion for inclusion in the SDR valuation basket will be assigned the following weights based on their roles in international trade and finance:

U.S. dollar 41.9 percent (compared with 44 percent at the 2005 review)

Euro 37.4 percent (compared with 34 percent at the 2005 review)

Pound sterling 11.3 percent (compared with 11 percent at the 2005 review)

Japanese yen 9.4 percent (compared with 11 percent at the 2005 review)

Albert Camus

... ceux qu'un grand amour détourne de toute vie personnelle s'enrichissent peut-être, mais appauvrissent à coup sûr ceux que leur amour a choisis.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Zemanta

Zemanta is a revolutionary new platform for accelerating on-line content production for any web user. Any user-created text (a blog post, article or web page) is directly “read” by Zemanta, which recognizes all contextual content. Zemanta then combs the web for the most relevant images, smart links,keywords and text, instantly serving these results to the user to enrich and inform their content. What’s more, Zemanta can be deployed on all major content publishing platforms and web browsers through a simple plug-in.

Online Publishers Association

Web users now spend half their time visiting content, far outpacing time spent with search, communications and commerce.
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A more accessible, and much faster, Internet is driving increased overall time spent online.
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The improvement in search allows consumers to more easily and quickly find the exact content they are looking for, increasing the likelihood they will engage more deeply with that content.
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The Web simply offers far more content than it did, increasing content's share of time.
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The Online Publishers Association's Internet Activity Index has identified a very significant and sustained trend in where consumers are spending their online time. The index indicates that ... the primary role of the Internet has shifted from communications to content.

Paul Waak

When we defend the future of reference work in libraries, we say that ready reference is no longer needed, but research (“real”) reference will remain important. Ready reference has been replaced by Internet search engines that provide fast access to factual data that used to be hidden in volumes of indexed books. But digging up material relevant to a subject is a specialized skill that requires human intervention. So reference is safe. Or so we say.

In a February 2010, article draft by Evan D. Brown titled Copyright on the Semantic Web: Divergence of Author and Work, Evan gives the following example of the semantic web:

Perhaps one can best understand the Semantic Web by looking at particular instances of the technology at work. Take for example the free service calledZemanta. This service offers a Firefox plugin that assists bloggers in gathering content to assemble into posts. As the blog author writes, Zemanta “reads” the content and in real time suggests images to embed, links to insert, and lists of related articles to include. It does this automatically, looking to a number of sources of data such as Wikipedia and Flickr that are encoded in a way to make the data contained within them “broadcast” their meaning and relevance to Zemanta. The technology relegates the drudgery of finding related content to the machines, freeing up the creative attention of the blogger to focus on content.

This is automated research-style reference. As more of our dusty tomes are digitized, services like Zemanta will be able to find and offer increasingly obscure yet relevant and fully cited information. I call this the death of reference as we know it. The days when reference librarians are primarily the golden retrievers of information are numbered. The future of the library reference desk is one of consulting. The primary duties of librarians will revolve around verifying the quality of the results generated by services like Zemanta and teaching our customers how to verify information themselves.

Hisham

The Tunisian revolution seems to bring an endless daily dose of surprises. Yesterday, the Tunisian Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, announced the formation of an interim unity government. The transitional government will include members of the opposition but also figures of the old regime. Some key portfolios remain in the hands of ministers who served under ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, including Foreign Affairs, the Interior, Defense and Finance. But perhaps the biggest surprise, especially for netizens, was the announcement of Slim Amamou, blogger, activist and Global Voices contributor, as Secretary of State for Sports and Youth Affairs.

Slim (@Slim404) broke the news on Twitter:

Je suis secrétaire d'état a la Jeunesse et aux sports :)

In an interview with French Radio, Slim explained that he was approached hours before the new government was announced and that his choice was a natural decision for someone who wants to participate in the building of his country, adding that “it will take Tunisia a least 10 years for a stable democracy to establish itself.”

As soon as the appointment of Slim was made public, reactions on Twitter started pouring in. Along side warm congratulations, reactions were mixed. Some wanted Slim out of the government, others were prepared to grant him the benefit of the doubt.

Mark Dunley

We couldn't get an extra USD 4 billion dollars a year for essential child nutrition programs, but the government just passed a USD 900 billion tax cut - 85% to 90% of that goes to the wealthiest of New Yorkers.

One thing America leads the world in income inequality.

When people are out of work that's when people go hungry and the US is at very high levels of unemployment.

Stephen Leahy

Investors from Saudi Arabia have leased large tracts in land in Ethiopia, Senegal, Mali and other African countries amounting to several hundred thousand hectares. "How can African countries hope to have food security by signing long-term leases to foreign interests?" Kuyek told IPS.
When South Korea's Daewoo Logistics tried to buy 1.3 million hectares, or one-third, of Madagascar's farmland in 2008, violent protests erupted and the government was toppled. South Korea still has at least a million hectares in long- term leases elsewhere and China 2.1 million ha, mainly in Southeast Asia.
Some of the leases are for 99 years at a one dollar a hectare, but local people "are not eligible for the deals being promoted in countries where millions of people remain dependent on food aid", said Howard Buffett, a U.S. farmer and philanthropist whose father is Warren Buffett, the well- known billionaire investor.
Howard Buffet reports being offered land deals where African governments promise to provide 70 percent of the financing, all utilities, and a 98-year lease requiring no payments for four years.

theTrumpet.com

Russia and China were the primary sellers of U.S. treasuries in November 2010 as bond yields soared higher that month, according to U.S. government data released on Tuesday. China remains the world’s largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, but it dropped $11.2 billion in November, bringing its total holdings to $895.6 billion. Some analysts see these fluctuations as evidence of profit-taking because China increased its U.S. debt in the months leading up to the Federal Reserve’s announcement of its new bond-buying program. In the same month, Moscow cut its treasury holdings from $131.6 billion to $122.5 billion, Russia’s lowest level since April 2010. “I worry that we could be at a tipping point,” said Eswar Prasad, former International Monetary Fund official. “If the Chinese say ‘We’re not buying any more treasuries,’ this could act as a trigger around which nervous market sentiment coalesces. People could start wondering how the U.S. is going to finance its deficit.”

Islamization Watch


Girls from the Red Mosque madrassa, Islamabad.

Christian devotees raise hands while singing during a Christmas mass at a stadium in Jakarta December 5, 2009. Approximately a hundred thousand Christians gathered for the celebration in Jakarta's biggest stadium.

A girl wearing a Turkish flag holds a Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, June 2, 2010.

Sahil Kapur

As a presidential candidate, Obama promised to close Guantánamo, arguing in part that it had become a worldwide symbol of a United States gone morally awry. He appeared to be making good on his pledge when he ordered the detention facility shut during his first week in office, explicitly banning its use for more suspects.

But, facing a defiant Congress and a public that's skittish about trying terror detainees in civilian courts, Obama's plan stalled. Several months into office, Obama accepted the use of military tribunals for some suspects. Two years later, it appears the administration has accepted the use of Guantánamo.

Critics have argued that shutting Guantánamo is necessary to restore respect for the rule of law, as the facility has been used to imprison suspects indefinitely without due process, casting a dark shadow over America's outspoken advocacy for human rights.

Guardian

Human Rights Abuses by country

The number in each column indicates the relative intensity of different rights abuses in that country (see the key below). These have been totalled to give a score in the right-hand column; the countries are ranked from the worst abuser down.
(For the rest of the list follow the link at the bottom of the screen)

COUNTRYEJEDIST/ITDICPOCUFTDWCTEXECSODAOGTOTAL
Congo, DR 3 3 33333324.0
Rwanda3332 2323324.0
Burundi3233 33 3323.0
Algeria323 233 3322.0
Sierra Leone3 3212323322.0
Egypt 13223323221.0
North Korea123123333 21.0
Sudan333122211321.0
Indonesia333 322.5 2220.5
Yugoslavia332.51133 1320.5
Pakistan212.533 1.513219.0
China 2.5232333 18.5
Libya222 233 2218.0
Burma2232 23 317.0
Iraq223 2 332 17.0
Afghanistan3 3 321.5316.5
Iran112 222222.516.5
Yemen1221122221.516.5
Chad3 212222 216.0
Congo, R32322 2 216.0
Uganda21311 3 2316.0
KEY
EJE=Extrajudicial executions, DIS=Disappearances, T/IT=Torture/inhuman treatment, DIC=Deaths in custody,POC=Prisoners of conscience, UFT=Unfair trials, DWC=Detention without charge or trial, EXE=Executions (death penalty), SOD=Sentence of death, AOG=Abuses by armed opposition groups

UNDP

Human Development Index (HDI) - 2010 Rankings

  1. Norway
  2. Australia
  3. New Zealand
  4. United States
  5. Ireland
  6. Liechtenstein
  7. Netherlands
  8. Canada
  9. Sweden
  10. Germany
  11. Japan
  12. Korea (Republic of)
  13. Switzerland
  14. France
  15. Israel
  16. Finland
  17. Iceland
  18. Belgium
  19. Denmark
  20. Spain
  21. Hong Kong, China (SAR)
  22. Greece
  23. Italy
  24. Luxembourg
  25. Austria
  26. United Kingdom
  27. Singapore
  28. Czech Republic
  29. Slovenia
  30. Andorra

Gallup World Poll

The World's Happiest Countries
RANK
(BY % THRIVING)
COUNTRYREGIONPERCENT
THRIVING
PERCENT
STRUGGLING
PERCENT
SUFFERING
DAILY
EXPERIENCE
1DenmarkEurope821717.9
2FinlandEurope752327.8
3NorwayEurope693107.9
4SwedenEurope683027.9
4NetherlandsEurope683217.7
6New ZealandAsia633527.6
6Costa RicaAmericas633528.1
8CanadaAmericas623627.6
8SwitzerlandEurope623627.6
8AustraliaAsia623537.5
8IsraelAsia623536.4
12PanamaAmericas583938.4
12BrazilAmericas584027.5