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22:54:10 02/07/12
Fireworks Blaze in Beijing on Lantern Festival
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:54:10 02/07/12
Fireworks Blaze in Beijing on Lantern Festival
For more news and videos visit ➡ english.ntdtv.com Follow us on Twitter ➡ http Add us on Facebook ➡ on.fb.me Amid the lively Chinese Lantern Festival celebrations, a large fire caused by fireworks destroyed a dormitory in Beijing on Monday night. Around 6 PM, sparks originating from fireworks were blown onto the roof of the building, igniting the blaze in west Beijing's Haidian District. The fire was put out about an hour later. No injuries were reported. Firefighters recently warned that it was dangerous to set off fireworks due to the dry and windy in Beijing over the past few days. Every year, numerous fires are ignited across China during the New Year celebrations by amateur fireworks displays. During the Lunar New Year, a firework ban is lifted in most urban areas across China for the 16 days between the Lunar New Year's Eve and the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival, which was celebrated yesterday, marks the end of Lunar New Year. From: NTDTV Views: 31 1 ratings Time: 00:49 More in Entertainment
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05:00:06 02/05/12
D210 TV Episode 02.03.12
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This week on D210 Television Norrelle Dickson takes you to the American Airline Center for the 2011 NBA World Champion Dallas Mavericks game against the San Antonio Spurs. Interviews with Shawn Marion, Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter, Tony Parker and Tim Duncan.
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18:51:57 02/03/12
Iran warns of retaliation as nuclear tension rises
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 18:51:57 02/03/12
Iran warns of retaliation as nuclear tension rises
www.euronews.net Iran has sent a satellite into orbit and a message to the world to mark 33 years since its Islamic Revolution. Officially, the satellite will provide data on the weather. The West fears Iran's space and nuclear programmes have military aims. In Tehran, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke in Arabic, apparently to address the wider region. "Don't trust the US or NATO because they don't care about your interests or your countries," he said. From: Euronews Views: 1090 15 ratings Time: 01:25 More in News & Politics
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18:51:57 02/03/12
Iran warns of retaliation as nuclear tension rises
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 18:51:57 02/03/12
Iran warns of retaliation as nuclear tension rises
www.euronews.net Iran has sent a satellite into orbit and a message to the world to mark 33 years since its Islamic Revolution. Officially, the satellite will provide data on the weather. The West fears Iran's space and nuclear programmes have military aims. In Tehran, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke in Arabic, apparently to address the wider region. "Don't trust the US or NATO because they don't care about your interests or your countries," he said. From: Euronews Views: 2395 21 ratings Time: 01:25 More in News & Politics
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22:42:46 02/01/12
Foley: West's Pursuit Of New District 'Smart Move'
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:42:46 02/01/12
Foley: West's Pursuit Of New District 'Smart Move'
Mark Foley says Allen West is being smart to pursue another district. From: WPBF Views: 40 0 ratings Time: 02:22 More in News & Politics
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13:15:53 01/26/12
Russians Solve Problems on Internet
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Russians Solve Problems on Internet
For more news and videos visit ☛ english.ntdtv.com Follow us on Twitter ☛ http Add us on Facebook ☛ on.fb.me The Internet becomes a tool that helps Russians to solve immediate problems. Although their social online activity is far less than in the West, officials are increasingly using their websites to communicate with the public, and citizens create portals that help make their life better. Alexander was tired of being stuck in traffic jams and four years ago he and other volunteers created Probok.net. Today this organization is a mediator between society and government. Last year it offered more than 100 ways to resolve problems with traffic jams. The citizens of Moscow help with the work by marking the difficult places on a virtual map. Russians today are increasingly using the Internet to solve their problems. Both the authorities and citizens create social portals for this. However, they have to learn how to use them. Recently the Moscow government launched a couple of sites where you can communicate about problems. The government promises to carry out appropriate checks on the basis of these reports. But according to the Chief Editor of the online portal "Neighbours", many Russians are reluctant to use these new tools. [Elena Potapova, Chief Editor of the Online Portal "Neighbors"]: "Now people are not ready to move from a passive position to active when you have to do something in order to get the result. Most people simply do not believe that the result could ... From: NTDTV Views: 69 5 ratings Time: 01:48 More in News & Politics
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13:42:07 01/16/12
Costa Concordia Captain is blamed for Disaster: $44 Million Hospital Bill in Stable Men
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Welcome to CRWE Newswire News Update, I'm Christina Collins --- Todays News Update: --- Costa Concordia Captain is blamed for Disaster: Man in Stable Condition After $44 Million Hospital Bill The operator of a cruise ship that ran aground off Italy's west coast blamed the captain for the accident --- Captain Francesco Skettino was arrested on Saturday and accused of manslaughter and abandoning the ship before all of the people were evacuated --- With rescue operations suspended on Monday morning, 16 people were still unaccounted for --- Skettino has said the ship hit rocks that were not marked on maps and were not detected by navigation systems --- The head of Costa Cruises, Pier Luwigi Foski said the ship had deviated from the correct route when it hit rocks near the coast, tearing a large hole in the hull, and that the captain had contravened company's safety procedures ---Foski also said the company had internal witness accounts suggesting the captain stayed on board for a long time after the accident A man says after opening his mail to find a $44 million medical bill from a local hospital said he nearly had an asthma attack --- Alexis Rodriguez an unemployed doorman, received the bill after receiving successful treatment for pneumonia at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital --- It turns out Rodriguez is not the only patient to receive an outsized bill -- PHY Services, the firm responsible for the botched billing, was reportedly inundated with complaints and has since apologized --- PHY is blaming the mistake on a system error that resulted in the bill's invoice number being mistakenly placed in the amount due field --- Mr. Rodriguez, actually owes no more than $300 for outpatient services
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02:33:28 01/13/12
Pretty In Pink: Downtown Bridge To Light Up Friday Night
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 02:33:28 01/13/12
Pretty In Pink: Downtown Bridge To Light Up Friday Night
Officials say Friday's lighting of the Royal Park Bridge in West Palm Beach will mark the beginning of two weeks of fundraisers, including a gala at the Mar-a-largo estate on Palm Beach Saturday night and Race for the Cure marathon Jan. 28. From: WPBF Views: 31 0 ratings Time: 01:29 More in News & Politics
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21:31:00 01/12/12
City of Middletown (Ohio) Planning Commission, January 11, 2012
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January 12, 2012. Includes the roll call, election of the chairman and vice Chairman, appointment of representatives and alternates to the Architectural Review Board, appointment of a Planning Commission representative to the Historic Commission, appointment of a Planning Commission representative to the Board of Zoning Appeals, approval of the minutes from the December 14, 2011 meeting, a public hearing and decision on Use Adjustment Case #1-12, 3224 Roosevelt Blvd. (petitioner: Rachel Lewitt on behalf of Barbara Park Center, Inc.; location: on the south side of Roosevelt Blvd. between Orchard St. and Kensington St.; proposal: A request for approval of a use adjustment to permit the establishment of a public auction business in a C-3 [Community Commercial District] where such uses are not permitted); a continuation of the discussion and a decision and recommendation to City Council on a Planned Use Modification - multi-family development on S. Towne Blvd. (petitioner: Robert Wieneke on behalf of Adam Cristo, Trustee, property owner; location: on the west side of Towne Blvd. between Hendrickson Rd. and Lefferson Rd.; proposal: to construct 216 apartment units on 22 acres on the CP [Commercial-Professional Office Park District] wherein multi-family development is identified as a modified use); a confirmation of and decision on conformation - Use Adjustment Case # 11-11, 2080 Oxford State Rd. (petitioner: Mark A. Frasik and Mary A. Frasik, property owners; location: on the south side of Oxford State Rd. just east of the Norfolk Southern Railway; proposal: to establish a used car sales business in the I-2 General Industrial Zoning District wherein such uses are not permitted); a confirmation on a minor amendment and decision on the confirmation of a Minor Amendment to The Timbers and Miller Ridge Development (confirmation of a Planning Commission decision regarding an application by Kleingers Associates on behalf of property owner Courtney Duff to consolidate two single family lots and a portion of another single family lot into a single lot); and adjournment. Recorded on January 11, 2012 at the Middletown City Building.
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15:41:30 01/04/12
American Experience | This Season on American Experience | PBS
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 15:41:30 01/04/12
American Experience | This Season on American Experience | PBS
Watch a short video about our 2012 shows, with message from Executive Producer Mark Samels. We hope you enjoy our upcoming season, which kicks off with our "Wild West Collection" on your local PBS station January 10 at 9/8C. From: PBS Views: 661 8 ratings Time: 05:51 More in Education
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07:41:54 12/28/11
On "If I were a poor Black kid"...
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 07:41:54 12/28/11
[ VIDEO ] Joe Hicks discusses the controversy over Gene Marks' blog post at Forbes entitled " If I were a poor Black kid ". Basically he asks, "Why can't white people contribute to the national dialogue on race and racism?"
It does seem like a cop out to just tell someone that they have nothing to say because they're not a poor Black child so they can't relate in any way. I've had a white geography teacher in high school - GO FALCONS - who said that he could relate because he was poor. Of course the conclusion could be that he thinks all Blacks are poor, but that's only a thought and not necessarily based on reality.
All the same Marks bounces off of a recent speech by President Obama in Kansas where he discussed the gap between the rich and the poor:
> The President’s speech got me thinking. My kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city. My kids have it much easier than their counterparts from West Philadelphia . The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder. This is a fact. In 2011.
I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.
It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology. As a person who sells and has worked with technology all my life I also know this.
If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.
And I would use the technology available to me as a student. I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays. That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home than on the streets. And libraries and schools have computers available too. Computers can be purchased cheaply at outlets like TigerDirect and Dell’s Outlet . Professional organizations like accountants and architects often offer used computers from their members, sometimes at no cost at all. You will see at the end of this posting links to several rebuts to Marks' comments. I will add my two cents just as Hicks and those other links have.
I didn't go to the very best schools in Chicago. I'd say my old elementary school was an average at best school and my old high school - when I attended - was one of the worst. My marks weren't that great in elementary school but for some reason my marks in high school were often in the honor roll range. With that in mind though I consider that a fluke today.
My time in high school wasn't a time to seek out options. I never thought of my grades as a ticket mainly because they were had too easy. It was never a challenge academically and who knows how that would've been weathered. The serious challenge was in college where I struggled to keep up.
If only I had the tools back then that the young people have today to help me study and understand the various subjects. I wouldn't just be ahead of my peers but it would be light years ahead of them. But when I was in public school most of those tools did not yet exist.
In spite of the nay sayers - and I will get to one in a moment - Marks isn't wrong. Make the best grades you can where you are take advantage of all the tools you can. Don't have a PC at home go somewhere to use one, especially the library. At that there are people at your school who if you establish a relationship with them will help you move forward.
This nay sayer, well is making more of this than he realizes:
> No believer in Bell Curv-ish nonsense about black intellectual inferiority, Marks makes clear that the children about whom he speaks are no less capable than his own kids. Of course, one wonders just how much of a compliment Marks really intends for this to be, given his strange habit of dissing his offspring, on more than one occasion, as rather unintelligent, unmotivated, promiscuous and even inclined to petty criminality. Not sure what kind of asshole says things like this about his children in print, but I suppose we can leave that discussion for another day.
No doubt Marks would say that he was simply encouraging poor African American kids to take personal responsibility for their success. He might even say that by acknowledging unfair and unjust structural inequity (and even, indirectly, white privilege), he was doing so in a politically ecumenical way. Certainly Marks would perceive his words and intentions as quite different from those of right-wingers whose hectoring of the poor so often involves blaming those at the bottom of the nation’s economic hierarchy for their station in life. To Marks, poor black kids are not to blame for the position in which they find themselves, but they nonetheless hold the keys to their own liberation, and if they would simply follow his sage counsel they could surely make it, like anyone else: even the cerebrally challenged and oversexed spawn who slumber each night just down the hall from he and his wife.
There is much one could say about Marks’s advice — rather typical bootstrapping fare about studying hard, coupled with a more modern emphasis on becoming a techie like him, and thereby, presumably, an irresistible college or job applicant — and most of it has been said already. Like, for instance, this piece , or this one , or this one , or maybe this one , all of which eloquently critique the privileged and naive mindset displayed by Marks, and explain how even when poor kids of color do everything right, the structures of society are too often set up to help them fail anyway.
...
And it’s this last point that we might do well to explore further. Fact is, Gene Marks knows his readership at Forbes . He knows that it includes virtually none of the people to whom he is ostensibly offering advice, which means that he isn’t really giving them advice at all; rather, he is inviting his mostly white, mostly affluent audience to engage in a perverse moralistic voyeurism at the expense of impoverished African American youth, almost none of whom that readership will ever meet, and whom they will, in fact, go out of their way to avoid. He is offering a kind of secret white-male handshake to others in the club, assuring them that the problems of urban poverty are not theirs to fix, that they are off the hook as it were, and isn’t that a relief? That Marks may not be as vile in his desire to blame the poor for their status as some, hardly acquits him of the charge that by pandering to the biases of his readership, he has, with some 700-odd simple (and simplistic) words, managed to reinscribe all the worst of their prejudices, many of which one can see on grand display in the readers’ comments section of the original article. Make no mistake, Gene Marks’s column is contempt cloaked as compassion and bigotry dressed up as benevolence. And it can do nothing but contribute to the indifference and even antipathy towards the poor that those who rely on Forbes for insights already possess in ample supply. Starting with that last paragraph it's true, Forbes may not have a significant audience in poor inner city communities. Without having to purchase a subscription you can always go to a library to access past issues of magazines. Also with internet access you can access magazines as well and blog posts such as this one which surely don't require a subscription.
As for Mr. Tim Wise who wrote the above excerpts, how is he going to call that man out for what he refers to his kids. Yeah it may be wrong to say your kids are very bright, but somewhere out there some parent is doing it. I also recognize that Marks is merely a commentator who is definitely using his platform to say what he wants to say.
The main point surely Marks is making is that his children are not much different than poor inner city children. Just that they have different opportunities living in a different part of the Philadelphia area than the inner city children. Perhaps even different expectations from parents, perhaps different staff and different schools. He didn't write the "poor black kid" piece to denigrate his children.
I think what he wrote was real. It shouldn't be impeached merely for that reason. That alone is weak! Although to Mr. Wise's credit he is at least has some suggestions for Marks to put his money where his mouth is. Marks could always help get the information out aside from using his platform at Forbes.
2 Views
17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
The Black Googler Network presents the creators and cast members from The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl in a conversation with Camille Hearst. We also screened some never-before-seen footage. Bios: Issa Rae ("J"): Issa is a producer/director/writer striving to make her mark on the entertainment industry. She received her BA from Stanford University, where she produced and directed four theatrical productions, including two stage adaptations of Spike Lee films. Because film was her true passion, she took time off from Stanford to attend the New York Film Academy where she honed her filmmaking skills. Upon graduating, Issa Rae has worked on various music videos and shorts.The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, often referred to as ABG, is Issa Rae's third web series. It has been featured on several sites and publications, including CNN, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Vibe and Essence magazine. Tracy Oliver ("Nina"): A South Carolina native, Tracy Oliver came out west to attend Stanford University. After graduation, she received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In May 2010, Tracy received her MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. At USC, she wrote and produced the award-winning short film, La Pastisseria, which was accepted into the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Her script, Marriage is for White People, received critical acclaim from BET and various media outlets. She is currently ... From: AtGoogleTalks Views: 18331 681 ratings Time: 01:00:23 More in Education
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17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
The Black Googler Network presents the creators and cast members from The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl in a conversation with Camille Hearst. We also screened some never-before-seen footage. Bios: Issa Rae ("J"): Issa is a producer/director/writer striving to make her mark on the entertainment industry. She received her BA from Stanford University, where she produced and directed four theatrical productions, including two stage adaptations of Spike Lee films. Because film was her true passion, she took time off from Stanford to attend the New York Film Academy where she honed her filmmaking skills. Upon graduating, Issa Rae has worked on various music videos and shorts.The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, often referred to as ABG, is Issa Rae's third web series. It has been featured on several sites and publications, including CNN, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Vibe and Essence magazine. Tracy Oliver ("Nina"): A South Carolina native, Tracy Oliver came out west to attend Stanford University. After graduation, she received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In May 2010, Tracy received her MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. At USC, she wrote and produced the award-winning short film, La Pastisseria, which was accepted into the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Her script, Marriage is for White People, received critical acclaim from BET and various media outlets. She is currently ... From: AtGoogleTalks Views: 18331 681 ratings Time: 01:00:23 More in Education
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17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
The Black Googler Network presents the creators and cast members from The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl in a conversation with Camille Hearst. We also screened some never-before-seen footage. Bios: Issa Rae ("J"): Issa is a producer/director/writer striving to make her mark on the entertainment industry. She received her BA from Stanford University, where she produced and directed four theatrical productions, including two stage adaptations of Spike Lee films. Because film was her true passion, she took time off from Stanford to attend the New York Film Academy where she honed her filmmaking skills. Upon graduating, Issa Rae has worked on various music videos and shorts.The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, often referred to as ABG, is Issa Rae's third web series. It has been featured on several sites and publications, including CNN, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Vibe and Essence magazine. Tracy Oliver ("Nina"): A South Carolina native, Tracy Oliver came out west to attend Stanford University. After graduation, she received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In May 2010, Tracy received her MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. At USC, she wrote and produced the award-winning short film, La Pastisseria, which was accepted into the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Her script, Marriage is for White People, received critical acclaim from BET and various media outlets. She is currently ... From: AtGoogleTalks Views: 18331 681 ratings Time: 01:00:23 More in Education
7 Views
17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 17:09:26 12/21/11
@Google: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
The Black Googler Network presents the creators and cast members from The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl in a conversation with Camille Hearst. We also screened some never-before-seen footage. Bios: Issa Rae ("J"): Issa is a producer/director/writer striving to make her mark on the entertainment industry. She received her BA from Stanford University, where she produced and directed four theatrical productions, including two stage adaptations of Spike Lee films. Because film was her true passion, she took time off from Stanford to attend the New York Film Academy where she honed her filmmaking skills. Upon graduating, Issa Rae has worked on various music videos and shorts.The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, often referred to as ABG, is Issa Rae's third web series. It has been featured on several sites and publications, including CNN, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Vibe and Essence magazine. Tracy Oliver ("Nina"): A South Carolina native, Tracy Oliver came out west to attend Stanford University. After graduation, she received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In May 2010, Tracy received her MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. At USC, she wrote and produced the award-winning short film, La Pastisseria, which was accepted into the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Her script, Marriage is for White People, received critical acclaim from BET and various media outlets. She is currently ... From: AtGoogleTalks Views: 17977 680 ratings Time: 01:00:23 More in Education
5 Views
20:00:00 12/19/11
Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:00 12/19/11
Former President Havel addresses a European cultural congress on the economics of culture
On a warm evening in 1991, a colleague and I found an out-of-the-way café in the old part of Prague. Two men with blank expressions stood outside. The interior was dim and close, with room for only eight or nine tables. The place was almost empty. Just a sleepy waitress, a bartender polishing glasses, and a single patron who sat alone drinking wine and chain-smoking cigarettes.
The President of Czechoslovakia wasn't reviewing official papers. He was reading a book, a startlingly un-Presidential act to our American eyes. My companion, a neoconservative State Department official, already admired him for defying and defeating a Communist state. He'd impressed me by bringing a writer's sensibility and an affinity for true underground culture to his role as head of state.
Václav Havel even tried to appoint Frank Zappa as his Minister of Culture. "We're not rock musicians," Zappa told a reporter back in the sixties. "We're electronic social workers." The State Department wouldn't let Zappa assume the post, but Havel had made his point to the Czech public by offering this apparatchik's position to the composer of songs like "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" ("Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind .")
We never spoke to Havel that night. It didn't seem polite to offer anything more than the curt nod of acknowledgement any café patron gives another at that hour. But Havel spoke to us, to all of us. And on the occasion of his death, the real lessons of his life's work are in danger of being lost.
Today we're told that the Occupy movement is too idealistic, too naïve. Naïve? Try Havel's words if you want naïve: "May truth and love triumph over lies and hatred."
Think of that as the Velvet Revolution's "one demand."
Portrait of the President as a Young Freak
As millions of people know, the underground playwright Havel first made his political mark in Charter 77. That group was formed to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, a banned and imprisoned rock band working in the Zappa mold of musical dissonance and cultural dissidence.
The Occupy movement is not on the cultural fringe, despite what its detractors say. But Havel's movement began as a Yippie-like creature of the underworld. Charter 77 rarely had more than a thousand members. It was a strange blend of political idealism and the hippie subculture where people proudly labeled themselves "freaks" to the conventional world. Despite its later alignment with economically conservative forces, it was more Allen Ginsburg than Alan Greenspan.
And it was created to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, whose grating music makes Occupy's drum circles seem like a children's choir serenading the bored residents of a home for aging veterans.
Words
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - what wonderful words! And how terrifying their meaning can be! Freedom in the shirt unbuttoned before execution. Equality in the constant speed of the guillotine's fall on different necks. Fraternity in some dubious paradise ...
Havel addressed the liberal democratic West on words in the 1970s, noting that the suppression of speech can give language enormous power: >
I ... live in a country where a writers' congress speech is capable of shaking the system ... a manifesto served as one of the pretexts for the invasion of our country one night by five foreign armies ... a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
When a system has become inflexible and is in danger of collapsing, what it fears most is words. Think about that the next time you see a phalanx of cops tear down a tent city on television.
Havel had been burned by language, too: >
The same word can at one moment radiate great hope, at another it can emit lethal rays ... true at one moment and false the next, at one moment illuminating, at another, deceptive. On one occasion it can open up glorious horizons, on another, it can lay down the tracks to an entire archipelago of concentration camps.
And as we approach an election year that will be filled with the rhetoric of freedom, this observation still resonates: >
The same word can at one time be the cornerstone of peace, while at another time machine-gun fire resounds in its every syllable.
Control
In 1975 Havel had the presumption to write directly to Czechoslovakian head of state Gustáv Husák with a few suggestions. There's more than a passing resemblance between the fear-driven Communist society Havel condemned in that letter and the financial anxiety many Americans endure today: >
The technique of existential pressure is ... universal. There is no one in our country who is not, in a broad sense, existentially vulnerable. Everyone has something to lose and so everyone has reason to be afraid. The range of things one can lose is broad, extending from the manifold privileges of the ruling caste... down to the mere possibility of living in that limited degree of legal certainty available to other citizens.
Today, one out of two Americans lives in financial insecurity. Even many upper-middle-class citizens live from month to month, just one layoff notice away from medical bankruptcy or home foreclosure.
"Everyone has something to lose," observed Havel.
Havel's description of his 20th Century Communist society echoes our own: >
The more completely one abandons any hope of general reform, any interest in suprapersonal goals and values, or any chance of exercising influence in an 'outward' direction, the more one's energy is diverted in the direction of least resistance, that is, 'inwards.'"
People today are preoccupied far more with themselves ... They fill their homes with all kinds of appliances and pretty things, they try to improve their accommodations, they try to make life pleasant for themselves, building cottages, looking after their cars, taking more interest in food and clothing and domestic comfort ...They turn their main attention to the material aspects of their private lives.
Havel concluded that "Despair leads to apathy, apathy to conformity, and conformity to routine (political) performance - which is then quoted as evidence of 'mass political involvement.'"
Ambition
Havel understood the psychology of greed and power, too. From his letter to Husák: >
If it is fear which lies behind people's defensive attempts to preserve what they have, it becomes increasingly apparent that the chief impulses for their aggressive efforts to win what they do not yet possess are selfishness and careerism.
It is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied more than ever before by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record.
From Prague to Washington, from Moscow to lower Manhattan, the opportunities change. But human nature never does: >
Seldom in recent times has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.
Technocracy
It's a historical irony that those who claim they'll govern with the most efficiency usually wind up governing with the least effectiveness. Today corporate-funded politicians from both parties argue that the country should be led by "technocrats' who'll govern without messy "ideologies."
That's a false premise Havel knew well. He called it the "process by which power becomes anonymous and depersonalized, reduced to a mere technology of rule and manipulation."
Washington's technocratic "bipartisans" dream of a world where, in Havel's words, the "professional ruler is (seen as) the 'innocent' tool of an 'innocent' anonymous power ... legitimized by science, cybernetics, ideology, law, abstraction, and objectivity - that is, by everything except personal responsibility to human beings as persons and neighbors." Havel's Prague is our Beltway: >
States grow ever more machinelike; people are transformed into statistical choruses of voters, producers, consumers, patients, tourists, or soldiers, (where) in politics good and evil, categories of the natural world and therefore obsolete remnants of the past, lose all absolute meaning (and where) the sole method of politics is quantifiable success.
Havel condemned a system of state-orchestrated political theater, and the self-perpetuating failures of imagination which mistook the indifferent and pro forma participation of its citizens for genuine democracy. And he saw its universal nature: >
(It) has a thousand masks, variants, and expressions. Essentially, though, it is the same universal trend ... the essential trait of all modern civilization, growing directly from its spiritual structure, rooted in it by a thousand tangled tendrils and inseparable even in thought from its technological nature, its mass characteristics, and its consumer orientation.
"The contemporary concept of 'normal' behavior is," Havel wrote, "deeply pessimistic."
Responsibility
"I favor 'antipolitical politics,'" said Havel, "politics not as the technology of power and manipulation, of cybernetic rule over humans or as the art of the utilitarian, but politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them." >
I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans.
None of us--as an individual--can save the world as a whole, but . . . each of us must behave as though it were in his power to do so.
Decades later he said this to the leaders of Western countries: >
Today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, everything is interrelated ... Because of this, the future of the United States or the European Union is being decided in suffering Sarajevo or Mostar, in the plundered Brazilian rain forests, in the wretched poverty of Bangladesh or Somalia.
Havel had glaring faults. American neocons offered him small favors during his final rise to power. He reciprocated, consciously or unconsciously, by aiding their destructive military ventures and adopting their foolish economic policies. He succumbed to the politics of personality, both his own and those of the leaders who courted him. But it would be a shame if that's all the world remembered.
Havel seemed unhappy in the role of leader. It's possible than he lost sight of his deepest insights, his truest gifts. It was the outsider Havel, the dreamer of the impossible, the surrealist and absurdist, we should remember. That's the Havel who can and should inspire dissidents everywhere.
"Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?" he once asked. With his life and his words, Václav Havel gave us his answer. He showed us the power in each individual and the responsibility that accompanies that power.
At his best, and above all else, Havel was a dissident outsider who realized his power and used it. Now it's our turn.
