Smugge & Smoethe, Schmucks & Schlemiels.

For whye, they be so smugge and smoethe, that they haue not so much as one heare of an honest man, whereby one may take holde of them.
Up, Down, Appendices, Postscript.

When it comes to taking hold of someone, hair is good. There are other anatomical possiblilities, and then some not-so-anatomical ones. In Beckett's Murphy f'rinstance, Neary says, "Here are the pudenda of my psyche." Those may serve too for taking hold of eh?

I didn't vote for Rob Ford (though I secretly wanted to). And then when I heard the 'the-gravy-train-stops-here' whistles blowing at his victory party a thrill went up my spine and I was glad he won.

A few points in his favour: he's not smug, and he's not smooth. So then ... let's see if he delivers on stopping that gravy train shall we?

Here's some wishful thinking & pundit jizz on the subject. Here he is on As It Happens ... the joke's on Carol Off this time, hahaha, she doesn't like being cut off, poor wee thing. But I did think I could hear the sound of teeth-gnashing correctitude in the background and I bet the CBC will be gunning for our Rob Ford in the days to come.

Election turnouts: 2003 - 40% (Ontario average), 2006 - 39% (Toronto), 2010 - 53% (Toronto). Worth comparing with the last Federal election in 2008 - 59%, the lowest turnout ever they say, and the lowest of the low: 48% in Newfoundland.

So what we have got is that in k-k-Canada at least, less than half of less than half of the people decide the issue these days ... that comes to about 20%. Even less if you consider those who continue disenfranchised one way or another way - the praeterite that's to say, as compared with the elect.

That's where Gable's editorial cartoon misses. He's got the isolated ideologies right, but the 50% who didn't vote are nowhere to be seen.

The OED tells me that 'smug' derives from 'schmuck' etymologically, the change from k to g being noted as 'very irregular' ... so ... And among the OED citations is Thomas More's quote (included as the subtitle to this post above, taken from a longer excerpt below) from the preface to his Utopia.

'Smuk' in Danish is 'beautiful' ... and I think of Smucker's jam. A-and also ... Thomas Pynchon had a specific meaning for 'schlemiel' being someone who simply could not get along with the physical universe (machines in particular as I remember it).

Thomas More puts quite a heavy moral judgement in what he is saying. But in Yiddish (as I understand it), being a schmuck or a schlemiel does not make you a bad person.

Well, the k-k-Canadian government managed to defeat John McKay's Bill C-300. Not by themselves mind you - they had the connivance of Liberal Party Leader (Leader?) Michael Ignatieff and Party Whip Marcel Proulx. There were rumours and reports in the Globe and Mail that Ignatieff was against it, and then there were proofs - he did not even show up for the vote. I can do no less than honour John Mckay with a few pictures - despite he is a lawyer (with a bona fide lawyer's shit-eating grin), despite he is apparently some kind of k-k-christian, and despite he seems to lack discernment and shakes hands with people of questionable character.

And C-311 is coming to the fore again in the Senate. Bill C-311 is now at second reading in the Senate. Senators can debate the principle of the bill - indeed they must. The Conservative Senators have refused to participate in this debate so far, thus preventing it from moving on 'to committee' and stopping progress. Why it needs to go 'to committee' when it has already passed in the House of Commons is a question for which I have no answer.

The sticking points include that eminent elder feminist and past national chair of MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Driving (and I sincerely mean no disrespect to her personal loss here) Marjory LeBreton, the Conservative leader in the Senate, and Richard Neufeld, the Conservative point-man for C-311. If you are inclined to engage them on this issue you can find their email addresses by following the links directly above. They are trying to kill this bill with the death of a thousand cuts - one petty & sophomoric delaying tactic after another and mealy-mouthed sententious nonsense inbetween.

These people are called 'honourable' ... but I see no honour in 'em:


The first news from Nagoya came to me (as usual) via Brasil: Encontro da ONU fecha acordo para conter destruição da natureza, and then over to The Guardian to make sure my rudimentary Portuguese had not fooled me.

The Guardian writer cynically notes, "In the long run, the biodiversity deal scratched out in Nagoya in the early hours of this morning is intended to benefit habitats and species such as tigers, pandas and whales. But in the short-term, the biggest beast to get a reprieve may well prove to be the UN itself."

Maybe it's not cynicism at all though eh? You may have noticed that I have spent some hours as I compose this blog wondering what Dr. Strangelove fantasies our leaders must be indulging ... but the fantasies of bureaucrats are clear as water and smooth as silk - Keep those paycheques comin' in! - and they managed a milquetoast agreement at Nagoya because they feared personal extinction. Do they imagine that increasing protected areas and such like will have any effect? Bah!

Kiyotaka Akasaka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, previously Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), says, "Nagoya is a milestone agreement. It not only provides a new roadmap for protecting our biodiversity, it also puts forward a process that will allow people in local communities to benefit from the fruits of their knowledge of biodiversity that can be commercialized and made profitable. It also shows that, though difficult, the world can come together to achieve all of the Millennium Development Goals and meet the challenge of climate change."

here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
     ee cummings, probably sometime in the 50s.

Don't believe me? Here, read it and weep: First the hierarchy fol-de-rol: UNEP - United Nations Environment Programme, CBD - Convention on Biological Diversity, COP-10 MOP-05; and then the 'Aichi Target' including 20 headline targets, organized under five strategic goals (wait for it) ...

Oops ... can't find the actual signed protocol. I found what must be a draft which I have summarized below. Just read this one to get a taste, "Target #1: By 2020, at the latest, all people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably." Eventually I will find the final agreement maybe and post a link.
2020 is way late you nincompoops!I can never use the word 'taste' in a context like this without thinking of Sylvia Plath's, "Uttering nothing but blood - taste it, dark red!" And the blood that these bloodless bureaucrat twits are uttering ... is ours.

If you still don't think this is nonsense, just look at the verbs in these United Nations 'goals': address, mainstream (as a verb), reduce, promote, improve, enhance. QED.

Or consider the disconnect aroound percentages of numbers of species. David Suzuki tells me in his book Legacy that we have very little idea of the total number of species. So where do statements like "... today, the rate of loss of biodiversity is up to one thousand times higher than the background and historical rate of extinction." come from? The statement was by Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary Of the CBD - Convention on Biological Diversity. How do you compute an average when the total is unknown?

I fell out with my colleague at 350 or bust, permanently I think. It was inevitable. Even so I am bereft.

Then yesterday afternoon as I was waiting for the 501 car at Queen & Yonge there was a drunk across the street raging. He reminded me of John Wayne's imaginary friend Tex in a western movie I must've seen sometime. Hanging onto a lamp post and yelling at a woman who was not present, calling her every name in the book like an advertisement for Tourette's: Cunt! Bitch! Whore! Slut! Though I noticed he was careful not to directly address his tirade at any specific woman crossing the street at the time.

I've been there a couple of times. Nothing broken is ever really fixed, things just change. If I can find John Wayne's Tex I will post it.

Like the Stones' 'jaded faded junkie nurse' I am long since overwhelmed and despairing ... I read a review of Keith Richards' new memoir. The reviewer thought Richards revealed himself as a gentleman, particularly around women. And on the strength of that I guess I will just let them take me on outa' here with a few bars of Let It Bleed.

Be well.

---

Postscript:

Kwesi Abbensetts keeps a blog of his photographs where he reveals what seems to me a rare sensibility and talent.

And then occasionally he forays into a realm somewhere between photography and literature and another side shows up, you might say: callow, precious, sententious ... here's an example:

A Little Story:Sometimes a muse appears, magic becomes real. The spell unwinds - A kind of Astonishment. She brings you enchantment. She pierces the hard heart. Promises are evoked between her lips of redwine dreams. When it was you and only you who Laid the trap to believe her illusion was real. She was your war.

And yet it is quite a little story, nevermind my quibbles. You can see the photo montage here.

Palagummi Sainath is an Indian journalist. I came across his book at the library by mistake. The title is Everybody loves a good drought: Stories from India's poorest districts, and I thought it was fiction. A happy mistake ...

And yet ... He is renowned for his photographs but the examples at the right are about the only ones I could find on-line. I watched a few videos and noted the same upper-caste arrogance I remember from Indians I met at university in the 60s - I could be wrong (but in the video link you will see that he explicitly admits it).

In any event he tells the story of suicide among poor Indian farmers (the beneficiaries of wazzizname? the Nobel prize winner who died recently? ... Norman Borlaug) and he tells it eloquently. Take a close look at these two photogrphs. The hands are in defensive postures. These people are saying, "Don't look at me in this degrading predicament any more," and maybe too, "... unless you are going to do something about it."

There is a film about him which you can purchase for $275 - and I cannot find any other way to see it - so for me it will remain unviewed. Very tempting to buy it and post it on IsoHunt.

David Chen not guilty! The judge was as nasty as he could be, but that had nothing to do with anything I don't think except his wounded pride. If they had convicted this guy I am not sure they knew what they might be facing in the way of public revolt. The thief on the other hand, Anthony Bennett, is entirely invisible on the Internet - not a picture of him anywhere to be found. I wonder why since knowing what a thief looks like might be useful information. No pictures of the judge, Ramez Khawly, either ... (?)

Here's a story from Zimbabwe about diamond mining:


... when you're begging for a crumb.
     Leonard Cohen, Waiting For A Miracle.

[and you are excused if you don't get the 'crumb' connection with ee cummings' poem quoted above]

Two paintings around Parzival by Kelly Moore. For me, either one or both could be Parzival himself, though this is not what the artist had in mind I don't think. But they remind me of a painting by Chagall that I saw once at the Musée des beaux-arts on Sherbrooke Street in Montréal. I thought it was Moses coming down the mountain carrying the tablets. His face was green and there was an ineffable expression which I have always remembered. The only image I can find on-line that even reminds me of it is of Job. And the face I remember was looking to the left not to the right, and I remember that it was a huge canvas.

Ah well, memory is so unreliable. People say, "eff this" and "eff that" ... I like to say ... ineffable.

Everyone knows the story of Parzival, possibly Wagner's opera or maybe a Camelot story. The one I like is from before any of that, as written by Eschenbach, 12th century or so, very early literature indeed.

Parzival goes off looking for the grail, and after many adventures he gets very very close to it. He has a question in his mind but does not ask the question because ... well, who can say exactly why not? But he doesn't, so he fails. And then he has more travail and eventually finds himself again in front of the injured & dying king with the very same question in his mind. This time he asks it, and so finds the grail. Happy ending, king recovers, Parzival is reunited with his wife Condwiramurs, twins are eventually born (or was that before? I can't remember?) and so on ...

The question is very simple. It is this: "What ails thee?" So obvious and so human, which takes me on a meditation linking Blake's Poison Tree with both this story and the story of the Good Samaritan.

---

Appendices:

1. Thomas More to Peter Giles, 1516, Robynson's Translation, 1551.

2. Murphy, Samuel Beckett, 1938.

3. Whose suicide is it, anyway?, P. Sainath, June 25 2005.

4. Ignatieff’s mixed message on mining leaves Liberal heads spinning, Jane Taber, October 28 2010.

5. Encontro da ONU fecha acordo para conter destruição da natureza, Reuters, 29/10/2010.

6. Goodwill and compromise: Nagoya biodiversity deal restores faith in UN, Jonathan Watts, October 29 2010.

7. Judge finds David Chen not guilty; or, The Grocer Wore Grey, Peter Kuitenbrouwer, October 29 2010.

8. There’s good reason the masses are revolting, Margaret Wente, October 30 2010.

9. Revised And Updated Strategic Plan: Technical Rationale And Suggested Milestones And Indicators, Nagoya, October 29 2010.

---

Thomas More to Peter Giles, 1516, Robynson's Translation, 1551.

1. Internet Archive,
2. Google Books,
3. Uppsala University.

More to Peter Giles sendeth gretynge ...

Howbeit, to saye the verie truthe, I am not yet fully determined with meselfe, whether I wyll put forth my booke or no. For the natures of men be so diuers, the phantasies of some so wayewarde, theire myndes so vnkynde, theire iudgementes so corrupte, that they which leade a merie and a iocunde lyfe, followinge theire owne sensuall pleasures and carnal lustes, maye seme to be in a muche better state or case, then they that vexe and vnquiete themselfes with cares and studie for the puttynge forth and publyshynge of some thynge, that maye be either profett or pleasure to other; whiche neuertheles wyl disdaynfully, scornefully, and vnkyndly accepte the same. The moste parte of al be vnlearned: and a great numbre hath learnynge in contempte. The rude and barbarous alloweth nothynge but that which is verie barbarous in dede. If it be one that hath a lytell smacke of learnynge, he reiecteth as homely and commen ware whatsoeuer is not stuffed full of olde moughteaten wordes, and that be worne out of vse. Some there be that haue pleasure onely in olde rustie antiquities; and some onely in theire owne doinges. One is so sowre, so crabbed, and so vnpleasaunt, that he can awaye with no myrthe nor sporte. An other is so narrow in the sholders, that he can beare no iestes nor tawntes. Some selie poore soules be so aferd that at euery snappishe worde theire nose shalbe bitten of, that they stande in no lesse drede of euerye quicke and sharpe worde, then he that is bytten of a madde dogge feareth water. Some be so mutable and waueryng, that euery houre they be in a newe mynde, sainge one thynge syttynge, and another thynge standynge. An other sorte sytteth upon theire allebencheis, and there amonge theire cuppes they geue iudgement of the wittes of wryters, and with greate aucthoritie they condemne euen as pleaseth them euery wryter accordyng to his writinge; in moste spiteful maner mockynge, lowtynge, and flowtynge them: beynge themselfes in the meane season sauffe, and, as sayth the proverbe, out of all daunger of gonneshotte. For whye, they be so smugge and smoethe, that they haue not so much as one heare of an honest man, whereby one may take holde of them. There be moreouer some so vnkynde and vngentell, that thoughe they take great pleasure and delectation in the worke, yet for al that they can not fynde in theire hartes to loue the author therof, nor to aforde hym a good worde; beynge muche lyke vncourteis, vnthankefull, and chourlishe guestes, whiche, when they haue with good and deyntie meates well filled theire bellyes, departe home, geuynge no thankes to the feaste maker. Go youre wayes, nowe, and make a costly feaste at youre owne chargeis for guestes so deyntie mouthed, so dyuers in taste, and bisydes that of so vnkynde and vnthankefull natures.

---

Murphy, Samuel Beckett, 1938.
1The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Murphy sat out of it, as though he were free, in a mew in West Brompton. Here for what might have been six months he had eaten, drunk, slept, and put his clothes on and off, in a medium-sized cage of north-western aspect commanding an unbroken view of medium-sized cages of south-eastern aspect. Soon he would have to make other arrangements, for the mew had been condemned. Soon he would have to buckle to and start eating, drinking, sleeping, and putting his clothes on and off, in quite alien surroundings.
     He sat naked in his rocking-chair of undressed teak, guaranteed not to crack, warp, shrink, corrode, or creak at night. It was his own, it never left him. The corner in which he sat was curtained off from he sun, the poor old sun in
2the Virgin again for the billionth time. Seven scarves held him in position. Two fastened his shins to the rockers, one his thighs to the seat, two his breast and belly to the back, one his wrists to the strut behind. Only the most local movements were possible. Sweat poured off him, tightened the thongs. The breath was not perceptible. The eyes, cold and unwavering as a gull's, stared up at an iridescence splashed over the cornice moulding, shrinking and fading. Somewhere a cuckoo-clock, having struck between twenty and thirty, became the echo of a street-cry, which now entering the mew gave Quid pro quo! Quid pro quo! directly.
...47     Neary drank a little more.
     "What are you doing in this kip at all?" said Wylie. "Why aren't you in Cork?"
     "My grove on Grand Parade," said Neary, "is wiped as a man wipeth a plate, wiping it and turning it upside down."
     "And your whiskers?" said Wylie.
     "Suppressed without pity," said Neary, "in discharge of a vow, never again to ventilate a virility denied discharge into its predestined channel."
     "These are dark sayings," said Wylie.
     Neary turned his cup upside down.
     "Needle," he said, "as it is with the love of the body, so with the friendship of the mind, the full is only reached by admittance to the most retired places. Here are the pudenda of my psyche."
     "Cathleen," cried Wylie.
     "But betray me," said Neary, "and you go the way of Hippasos."
     "The Adkousmatic, I presume," said Wylie. "His retribution slips my mind."
     "Drowned in a puddle," said Neary, "for having divulged the incommensurability of side and diagonal."
     "So perish all babblers," said Wylie.
...

---

Whose suicide is it, anyway?, P. Sainath, June 25 2005.

In Yavatmal district alone, there's been an eight-fold increase in farmers' suicides in just four years. Yet, thanks to a flawed counting process, even that is a huge under-estimate. P Sainath continues his series on the agrarian crisis in Vidharbha.

25 June 2005 - "Now we can't even commit suicide in peace," laughs Digambar Agose's neighbour in Malwagad village. "Not without reading those forms the officials have created to see we get it right." Another pipes up: "There are some 40 clauses on their inquiry list. All these must apply." In short, if you must kill yourself, make sure you adhere to the pro forma.

Malwagad's graveyard humour aside, the implications are scary. Vidharbha has seen more debt-driven farmers' suicides than any other region in Maharashtra. This, despite the counting process being suspect and often simply wrong. "Our methods," admits one senior official, "work from the point of view of assessing compensation. That's all. Not to learn why the suicides happen." Which means under-counting is built into the process. Governments do not like paying out compensation.

Flawed figures

So a lot of suicides are not recorded as being debt-driven. Yet, even the flawed numbers are startling. In Yavatmal district alone, farmers' suicides went up from 17 in 2001 to 132 last year. An almost eight-fold increase in four years. Most occur between July and November. But there have already been 29 till May this year. This means there have been more suicides in the off-season this year than in all of 2001.

What numbers would a more honest process show? Sadly, even sensitive officers - and Yavatmal has a few - are trapped by the format. So while the ongoing agrarian crisis has spurred several hundreds of suicides across Vidharbha in a short span of time, we will never know their full extent. The counting process stands too corrupted.

Adivasi farmer Digambar Agose (debt: Rs. 70,000) killed himself this January in Yavatmal. His family got no compensation. Agose's suicide "did not meet the norms" set up by the Government to determine which is a "farmer's suicide" and which is not. The norms are baffling. Most local officials cannot say what they are. And the final judgment is often subjective.

It is the same in Buldhana district. "We had 84 farmers' suicides here in the last year," says journalist Narendra Lanjewar. "Just 14 of these have been compensated." That is one in six. Also, only those 14 will be counted as "farmers' suicides."

A survey by The Hindu of 10 suicide-hit households in three districts found major discrepancies. Families with more than twice the landholding of Agose - and fewer members - received compensation. The Agose household, sunk in misery, did not. In some cases, caste played a role. In others, elections. Polls were around the corner when some farmers died but were over when others did. Those affected before voting day were more likely to get help.

But other factors worked, too. At the top, says Yavatmal Collector Harshdeep Kamble, "we want to know: was the victim a farmer? Are there loans against his name? Did the banks issue him notices? What is the general condition of the family?"

Valid concerns. But the problems are many. The Government only takes note of bank and cooperative loans, though the vast majority get their credit from moneylenders. So very large numbers get excluded in the counting. The Government knows this. "First the banks give the farmers no loans," says an official. "And then their suicides are not counted because they have no bank loans. It was lack of bank credit that sent them to moneylenders in the first place."

Who is a farmer?

Next: who is a `farmer?' In every case, the suicide was that of the main breadwinner. But the land may not have been in his or her name. "My son ran the farm," says Sriram Jharekar in Isoli village, Buldhana, "I am 80 years old. However, the land is still in my name." So when his son Ganesh took his own life this January, there was no question of compensation. Ganesh, by the "norms," was not a farmer. He did not own land. Never mind that he was the only working farmer in the household. His infirm parents can do no work. But are "farmers." That is why when Prabhakar Katale took his life in Wardha, his aged father Shamrao settled his land on his remaining sons at once. Likewise, suicides by women farmers won't be counted. There is no land in their names.

The official inquiry checklist has some 43 indicators. Of these a few are routine. Name, age, sex, caste, address and the like. But there are over 35 others that also have to be gone through. When a suicide takes place, the local Talati reports it to the Tehsildar and assists him inquire into it. The latter reports to the sub-divisional magistrate. The SDM in turn reports to the Collector. In practice, subjectivity rules.

"They can decide this man died of `ill-health' or was a drunkard, or anything," says D.B. Naik in Bham village, Yavatmal. "Anything but debt." Naik, a kisan sabha leader here, mocks the process: "They want a signed statement from the victim that debt and [the] Government drove him to suicide."

A local official might also rule out aid to a family not "below the poverty line." The BPL process itself is bizarre. Digambar Agose's family lives in utter poverty. But it has no BPL card. As we leave the Agose home in Malwagad, we meet the new "Man of the House." Madhav Agose is 12 years old and in the eyes of his village "responsible for the entire household." Madhav works from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day tending livestock. For Rs. 20 a day. Digambar's debts have to be paid. "And they got nothing as compensation," say the neighbours, "not even free seed in his father's name."

In the Pandher Kavada office of the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti, another name is about to enter the "Register of Deaths." Abhay Shamrao Chavan, June 16, 2005. Independent groups, rejecting government figures, are tracking the tragedy. They know there will be many more. Ritesh Parchake, a leading journalist here who has reported the suicides for years, looks on sadly. "This is the season," he says wearily. "It's only just begun."

---

Ignatieff’s mixed message on mining leaves Liberal heads spinning, Jane Taber, October 28 2010.

Some Liberals are confused as to where their leader, Michael Ignatieff, stands on issues. Wednesday night was a good example.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, a human rights expert and former academic, indicated last week in caucus he was not in favour of a private member’s bill by Scarborough MP John McKay that called for Canadian mining firms to act ethically abroad or face sanctions, including being denied taxpayer funding.

In caucus this week, however, sources say he did not say a word about it. Instead his Whip, Marcel Proulx, was quietly encouraging Liberal MPs to stay away from the third reading vote Wednesday evening to ensure the bill would be defeated.

Some Liberals were perturbed that Mr. Ignatieff was inserting himself into private member’s business as many MPs view such legislation as their sole opportunity – amid all sorts of control measures by party officials – to practice democracy by voting freely.

Later in the day, perhaps fearing a bit of a backlash from MPs, Mr. Ignatieff’s office sent out a curious backgrounder and series of talking points regarding the bill to caucus members just before Wednesday’s vote. It seemed to suggest the Liberals were falling in line behind Mr. McKay’s proposal.

ISSUE: The House of Commons will vote on Liberal John McKay’s Private Member’s Bill C-300 today, which supports the principle of Corporate Social Responsibility for Canadian mining, oil and gas companies in developing countries.

KEY MESSAGES: Liberals recognize the importance of the mining, gas and oil industry to Canada. We believe that a commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – at home and abroad – makes good business sense and is a Canadian advantage. We are sending a strong message of the government that they cannot continue to ignore CSR for Canadian companies.

It then went on to note that this controversial bill could be improved in the Senate. Some Liberals thought this meant the party leadership was now in favour of the bill.

But it wasn’t to be. A short while later the bill was defeated thanks to a number of Liberal MPs, including Mr. Ignatieff, who did not show up to vote. Mr. McKay’s legislation was defeated 140 to 134.

Then, a few minutes after the vote, the Liberals sent out another release. “Despite the defeat of C-300, the Liberal Party remains committed to the important principle of corporate social responsibility for Canadian industries at home and abroad,” Mr. Igntaieff said in the statement.

He went on to talk about having an “open and transparent process” to deal with CSR issues. Not surprisingly, some Liberals were scratching their heads as to where Mr. Ignatieff actually stands on this issue.

It was reminiscent of the reversal Mr. Ignatieff made on employment insurance last month when he decided that measures for a broad range of enhancements to EI, included in a Bloc MP’s bill, were too expensive and no longer necessary. This, after he had vowed a year before to try to take down the Harper government because it would not make some of the same reforms.

Mr. Ignatieff said the bill was “not fiscally responsible” and he did not show up for the vote. However, his employment insurance critic, Mike Savage, supported the Bloc bill. In the end, it too was defeated.

---

Encontro da ONU fecha acordo para conter destruição da natureza, Reuters, 29/10/2010.

NAGOIA, Japão - Delegados de cerca de 200 países concordaram nesta sexta-feira com um amplo plano para frear a perda de espécies do planeta, ao estabelecerem novas metas para garantir até 2020 maior proteção da natureza e a conservação de seus benefícios para a humanidade.

Ministros do Meio Ambiente de todo o mundo também concordaram com normas de partilha dos benefícios de recursos genéticos da natureza entre governos e empresas.

Essa era uma questão-chave do comércio e propriedade intelectual, que poderá assegurar bilhões de dólares em novos recursos para nações em desenvolvimento.

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Goodwill and compromise: Nagoya biodiversity deal restores faith in UN, Jonathan Watts, October 29 2010.

After the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks, a successful agreement to protect biodiversity has provided a timely morale booster.

In the long run, the biodiversity deal scratched out in Nagoya in the early hours of this morning is intended to benefit habitats and species such as tigers, pandas and whales. But in the short-term, the biggest beast to get a reprieve may well prove to be the UN itself.

After the misery, disappointment and anger of last year's climate talks in Copenhagen, the body was fiercely criticised and the entire multilateral negotiating process called into question. It seemed time-consuming, prone to grandstanding and dominated by selfish national interests rather than pressing global concerns.

At the start of this week, the talks in Nagoya looked likely to become another chapter in the same sorry story. But since then, there has been an impressive – and ultimately successful – willingness to work.

Square brackets (which denote areas of disagreement) have been steadily whittled away from the negotiating texts. Pragmatism has been more evident than ideology. Delegates actually seemed willing to listen to the advice of scientists warning of the perils of inaction.

Some key goals have been set, including a plan to expand nature reserves to 17% of the world's land and 10% of the planet's waters. For a scarred veteran of the Copenhagen or Tianjin climate talks, the extent of the progress, goodwill and readiness to compromise during these past few days has been pleasantly shocking. Right up to the final hour, there have been moments when the talks appeared on the verge of collapse. But negotiators have been flexible enough to skirt around the danger zone.

This is no accident. Ahead of this event – and not wanting to repeat the breakdown of last year's talks - the EU negotiating team was given a wider mandate. The same may be true of other nations.

That alone cannot explain why the results of Nagoya and Copenhagen were so different. Other factors include the smaller scale of this event and the expectations for it. There was less superpower pride and influence at stake: the United States is not a signatory and China has been relatively low-key. Brazil and the EU have bent over backwards to secure a deal. China and India have shown a willingness to compromise. Even Bolivia and Cuba complained but did not block.

The Japanese hosts also deserve a great deal of credit for the smooth organisation, though at times they have been almost comically hospitable in breaking up finelypoised negotiating sessions for food, drink and music receptions.

But the most important difference may be in implementation. One of the reasons why climate negotiations are so tetchy is because rival nations want stringent checks in place to make sure everyone complies and on course to realise their goals to reduce carbon emissions.

That is sadly not true for biodiversity targets, which tend to be vaguely worded and voluntary. Nature cannot complain if it gets cheated. This is a major reason why the last set of UN biodiversity goals were nowhere near being realised.

The drafters of the new Nagoya protocol say such lessons have been learned so a tighter road-map will be put in place that ties funds to progress, mobilises private finance as well as public funds and sees nature in terms of benefits to be shared rather.

One of the great achievements of this conference has been to highlight the fact that biodiversity is not just about saving a few cute animals, but about preventing risks to entire ecosystems, economies and ultimately human life. As a result, bird-lovers and tree-huggers have started to find common cause with insurers and investors.

In the conference centre last night, the mood was one of relief more than euphoria. But many expressed hope that this deal may provide momentum for the climate talks at Cancún next month. That seems optimistic.

It is too early too say whether Nagoya marks a turning point for UN multilateralism, let alone life on Earth. But for both, it is at least a much-needed morale booster.

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Judge finds David Chen not guilty; or, The Grocer Wore Grey, Peter Kuitenbrouwer, October 29 2010.

In a cliffhanger ruling that mixed references to film noir and pulp fiction, Mr. Justice Ramez Khawly of the Ontario Court of Justice took two hours this morning, in a court packed with 100 people waiting on baited breath, to get to his ruling: David Chen, the vigilante grocer, is not guilty on all charges.

Justice Khawly, with references to James Cagney, Frank Capra, Richard Nixon, Emil Zola and George Orwell, spared nobody in his ruling — except perhaps the prosecutors. The judge unleashed barbed attacks on the press, the defendents and the defendent’s laywers. He accused many of attempting to manipulate public sympathy for the grocery to waylay the course of justice. At times he attacked and at times he defended the police but overall he called on the assembled to curb their criticism of Toronto’s justice system.

“Toronto the Good, like any other big city, has an underbelly that doesn not lead itself to a tourism marketing jingle,” Justice Khawly said. “The Toronto Tourism and Convention Bureau do not employ the Toronto police.”

“To blame police for not having pulled the charges is not an accurate reflection of the chain of command,” he added.

Police arrested Mr. Chen along with two other store employees, on May 23, 2009, and charged them with assault and forcible confinement after they caught a shoplifter and tied him up. During the months leading up to the trial, he became a hero not just to grocers in Toronto — who packed the court earlier this week during the closing arguments — but also to many across Canada. Two MPs have introduced private members’ bills in Ottawa with amendments to the citizens’ arrest provisions in the Criminal Code.

Justice Khawly attacked the grocer for testimony which he said strained credulity.

“Burdened by an English worthy of a Frank Capra film, [Mr. Chen] well knew that [crown prosecutor Eugene] McDermott would be gunning for him,” Justice Khawly said of the cross-examination of the greengrocer. “He had a story that did not quite hang together. He was trying to put his evidence in the best possible light. His testimony was full of evasions, contradictions and hardly credible assertions.” As to why the grocer bound the thief hand and foot, the judge said, “I am not sure I ever got a straight answer.”

But the judge said that the case also reflected an apparent police neglect of Toronto’s Chinatown. He made reference to the “broken windows theory,” noting, “when petty thefts are not deterred there is a corresponding decline in peoples’ sense of security.”

“David Chen tried to fill the void where the justice system failed,” he said, asking, “Could David Chen be after all the canary in the coal mine?”

And then he said the words all had waited for: “It is impossible for me to say that I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt” of Mr. Chen’s guilt. “The only conclusion I come to is that I have a reasonable doubt. All such doubts must resolve in favour of the defense. All charges against you are dismissed.”

Mr. Chen emerged from the courthouse slightly dazed, with a glowing smile on his face, wearing a fleece-lined grey hoodie, every inch the grocer. He had visited the Ontario Food Terminal early this morning, picking up three skids of kiwi, two skids of bananas, one skid of apples and one skid of cabbage. Kiwi is on sale at the Lucky Moose, $1.29 for a bag of 10.

“Thank you to all you people for all your support of me,” Mr. Chen told the crowd outside court. “It’s important for the Canadian Chinese community to speak out, and if people are united their voice will be heard.”

With that, he headed back to his store.

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There’s good reason the masses are revolting, Margaret Wente, October 30 2010.

My best friends are wonderful people – talented, accomplished, generous, smart and caring. So it’s hard to see them in such fear and pain. The way they see it, the Visigoths have battered down the gates of Rome, and the Vestal Virgins had better scramble for cover. In the aftermath of Toronto’s election rout, their only consolation is that Rob Ford is probably too stupid and incompetent to completely sack the place. If only they lie low for the next four years, sanity will surely return to city politics.

Like my friends, the people who work in much of the major media – the CBC, the Toronto Star, even my own beloved paper – were stunned by the Ford tsunami. After all, the polls had predicted a squeaker. But there’s another reason they didn’t see the big wave coming. Very few of these people live or work outside downtown Toronto. Very few ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it. They remind me of the super-smart editorial writers at The New York Times who are sincerely convinced that Tea Partiers are dangerous crackpots – even though they’ve never met any.

The media think they understand why people voted as they did. As one Toronto Star pundit helpfully explained, the voters – Ford voters, that is – “were full of largely pointless rage.” Only pointless rage could explain why voters ignored the editorial endorsements of two leading newspapers, as well as a long line of former mayors who begged them, in the name of decency, to vote for George Smitherman. Even Justin Trudeau’s twinkle dust didn’t work.

The day after his election victory, Mr. Ford gave a hilariously disastrous interview to As It Happens, while simultaneously coaching a football game. It was obviously a mistake. It was also clear that, like most of his constituents, Mr. Ford doesn’t really give a darn about the CBC, never listens to As It Happens and believes that coaching his football team is far more important than talking to Carol Off. As much as I adore As It Happens, I find this moderately refreshing.

Tuesday, the U.S. Democrats will face their own tsunami. Like Toronto’s downtown liberals, they blame the masses, not themselves. The voters are full of pointless rage, they explain. Populist politicians (Tea Partiers, Rob Ford) have whipped up voter discontent with their simplistic slogans. These people are dangerous because their ideas, apart from being incoherent, are also unrealistic and destructive. And if they ever tried to implement them, they would wreck the place.

Both Barack Obama and outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller insist the voters simply don’t appreciate what they’ve accomplished. They say their only real mistake was to not focus enough on positive PR. Both the Democrats and Toronto liberals are convinced they know what’s best for the masses, even if the masses massively disagree. They believe that many of the people who vote for their opponents are basically deluded, ignorant and poorly educated (even though the Republicans are currently leading by 20 per cent among U.S. college graduates). They also believe the people on the other side are basically intolerant, anti-immigrant racists (even though a pre-election poll said half of voters born outside Canada were set to cast votes for Mr. Ford).

In other words, this is just another classic anti-incumbency wave, and all they have to do is ride it out.

The other possibility is that it’s something else. Could it be that the masses have good reasons for revolting?

Here are some. During the seven years Mr. Miller was in charge, Toronto’s spending increased by 44 per cent while services got worse. People grudgingly put up with the city’s unrelenting efforts to turn their porches into recycling depots. But they got seriously annoyed when they learned that striking city workers had better perks than they did.

In the United States, people’s lives have only gotten worse since Mr. Obama took office. Unemployment is higher. More than half of all families are worried about making next month’s mortgage or rent. Health-care reform is so impenetrably complex that people don’t know where they stand. What they do know is that their premiums have gone up and their Medicare coverage is being cut. Sixty-three per cent of Americans say they don’t feel they’ll be able to maintain their current standard of living. They know Mr. Obama didn’t create the mess, but they think he’s made it worse.

No wonder the independent voters who put Mr. Obama into office have deserted him. Fifty-five per cent of the electorate now say they are or lean Republican.

Americans believe their country is in crisis, and they’re right. By next year, the United States will reach Third World debt territory. Yet both major parties seem oblivious. Neither of them has a plan, or even publicly acknowledges the severity of the crisis. If the Tea Party does nothing else, it may at least force the Republicans to face this highly unpleasant fact. If Mr. Obama wants a second term, he’ll have to face it too.

Although Canada is far more blessed, even we won’t entirely escape the massive restructuring that faces almost every country in the Western world. The problem is simple. People have a lot more government than they can or will pay for. Mr. Ford and Tea Partiers know that. Scaling down the scope of government is the political challenge of the next generation. And if mainstream politicians stay in denial, they’ll be toast.

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Revised And Updated Strategic Plan: Technical Rationale And Suggested Milestones And Indicators, Nagoya, October 29 2010.

Strategic goal A. Address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society.

Target 1: By 2020, at the latest, all people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably.
Target 2. By 2020, at the latest, the values of biodiversity are integrated into [national accounts], national and local development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes.
Target 3: By 2020, at the latest, incentives[, including subsidies,] harmful to biodiversity are eliminated, phased out or reformed in order to minimize or avoid negative impacts [and positive incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity are developed and applied, [consistent with relevant international obligations]] , taking into account national socio-economic conditions.
Target 4: By 2020, at the latest, Governments, business and stakeholders at all levels have taken steps to achieve or have implemented plans for sustainable production and consumption and have kept the impacts of use of natural resources well within safe ecological limits.

Strategic goal B. Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use.

Target 5: By 2020, the rate of loss and degradation, and fragmentation, of natural habitats, [including forests], is [at least halved][brought close to zero].
Target 6: [By 2020, overfishing is ended, destructive fishing practices are eliminated, and all fisheries are managed sustainably.] or [By 2020, all exploited fish stocks and other living marine and aquatic resources are harvested sustainably [and restored], and the impact of fisheries on threatened species and vulnerable ecosystems are within safe ecological limits].
Target 7: By 2020, areas under agriculture, aquaculture and forestry are managed sustainably, ensuring conservation of biodiversity.
Target 8: By 2020, pollution, including from excess nutrients, has been brought to levels that are not detrimental to ecosystem function and biodiversity.
Target 9: By 2020, invasive alien species are identified, prioritized and controlled or eradicated and measures are in place to control pathways for the introduction and establishment of invasive alien species.
Target 10: By [2020][2015], to have minimized the multiple pressures on coral reefs, and other vulnerable ecosystems impacted by climate change or ocean acidification, so as to maintain their integrity and functioning.

Strategic goal C: To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity.

Target 11: By 2020, at least [15%][20%] of terrestrial, inland water and [X%] of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through comprehensive, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of effectively managed protected areas and other means, and integrated into the wider land- and seascape.
Target 12: By 2020 the extinction and decline of known threatened species has been prevented and improvement in the conservation status [for at least 10% of them] has been achieved.
Target 13: By 2020, the loss of genetic diversity of cultivated plants and domestic farm animals in agricultural ecosystems and of wild relatives is halted and strategies have been developed and implemented for safeguarding the genetic diversity of other priority socio-economically valuable species as well as selected wild species of plants and animals.

Strategic goal D: Enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Target 14: By 2020 ecosystems that provide essential services and contribute to health, livelihoods and well-being, are safeguarded and/or restored and equitable access to ecosystem services is ensured for all, taking into account the needs of women, indigenous and local communities and the poor and vulnerable.
Target 15: By 2020, ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks has been enhanced, through conservation and restoration, including restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation and to combating desertification.
Target 16: By 2020, access to genetic resources is [promoted] [facilitated] [enhanced], and benefits are shared consistent with national legislation [and the international [regime][protocol] on access and benefit-sharing, and the regime is in force and operational [and an access and benefit-sharing fund providing timely, adequate and predictable funds to developing countries, in particular the least developed among them, small island developing States and countries with economies in transition as a precondition for the fulfilment of their commitments under the protocol]].

Strategic goal E. Enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management and capacity-building.

Target 17: By 2020, each Party has developed, adopted as a policy instrument, and implemented, an effective, participatory and updated national biodiversity strategy and action plan.
Target 18: By [2020], [[have [sui generis legal] systems in place to protect] traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities that are relevant to biodiversity and their customary sustainable use of biodiversity are respected, preserved and maintained, and their contribution to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is recognized and enhanced.] [The traditional knowledge and customary sustainable use relevant to biodiversity of indigenous and local communities are fully recognized and mainstreamed in the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, its programmes of work and cross-cutting issues, at all levels.]
Target 19: By 2020, knowledge, the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity, its values, functioning, status and trends, and the consequences of its loss, are improved, widely shared and transferred, and applied.
Target 20: By 2020, capacity (human resources and financing) for implementing the Convention has increased [tenfold].

---

why nobody came ... XXVI

Up, Down.

I have mentioned 350 here at least twice already ... in the first blush of enthusiasm and at the onset of ennui, now it seems I have progressed to full-blown angst :-)    for the record, I know I am abusing 'ennui' & 'angst' ... but ... Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn    (anymore ... tonight ... whatever)

there were signs ... there were hints that all was not as it was supposed to seem to be ... 350 could not keep their database of actions clean and it quickly got full of flotsam and jetsam which stayed there - lack of attention? or lack of manpower? I can't say, I signed up for e-mail alerts and when they began to arrive I noted that they came from a person instead of an organization, Bill McKibben?, I guess I was supposed to know who he is, and there was the tone of these epistles which became more-and-more focussed on the degree to which the 350 notion had caught on in the media

but ok

so I picked my way through the database and found the Toronto event and eventually received an e-mail and figgured out that the Toronto Climate Campaign (© 2008 — All rights reserved) was where it's at, and a meeting was advertised for interested supporters hopefully with cash ... so I went along to the meeting and ... no one was there! ... obviously the meeting was somewhere else or had already taken place - after a week of miserable climate denials in the Globe (by Margaret Wente & Rex Murphy) I even wondered if the whole plan had simply been abandoned

but at around 1 this afternoon I hopefully boarded the streetcar towards Queen's Park

to digress for a moment - as we passed Parliament&Queen a young black woman came out of the convenience store, she was not beautiful and did not look either very clean or very smart, but she was obviously in distress, from the way she was scratching at her wrists and neck I thought it might be drugs, and I did not step out of the car and give her a 50, though if that was God speaking to me at the time, then that was what he was telling me to do - and then at Jarvis&Queen there was a skinny little old black woman with one of those bubble blowing kits you get for kids, and she was looking around with a smile that was aimed at no one in particular and blowing bubbles and watching them disappear, and I did not step out of the car there either - when I finally face Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates I know these things will be on my account and will have to be explained

coming out of the subway at Queen's Park I could see that, indeed, there was something goin' on up there, ran the gauntlet of everyone and their dog and even the official Socialists and someone representing Olivia Chow handing out literature, a hundred or so people gathered with a cold wind blowing and it began to rain and a woman with long white hair was getting it together on a little stage, a beautiful young woman asked me if I would carry a 350 placard - how could I refuse? - and things got underway

the mistress of ceremonies explaining that the trade unions and the environmentalists have buried the hatchet - who knew they were at war?; the Raging Grannies (including one black granny) singing a few excellent ditties; a woman ranting emotionally, her voice breaking, about the new-and-expanded GO trains being diesel instead of electric; a young woman with a sweet but quickly tired voice singing Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi (skipping the verse about the big yellow taxi); an activist/journalist from Bangladesh trying to make some intellectual distinction between the 'north' and the 'south'; another young woman dissing 'W' and war and stuff - I guess she didn't hear yet that Barack Obama has been elected down there - and then singing/shouting off key like some drunken irish; and finally a young woman from Greenpeace revelling in civil disobedience and 'getting arrested' (and surprisingly reminiscing about some Greenpeace event in Seattle ten years ago - just like some old fart telling stories about his youth that no one wants to hear :-) and reiterating the end of hostilities between labour and the environment - I guess she must have been referring to the blue-collar/red-neck vs environmentalist/hippie 'schism' do you think? like at the end of Easy Rider?

and that was it - oh, I forgot to mention two delightful young women, with lip rings and dressed as starving polar bears, in fact, the white fuzzy mini-skirts left me unsure what they were and I had to ask them and what the connection was but they laughed when I asked, handing out flyers about Nuclear Energy - they were the high point of the event for me, them and the Raging Grannies

riding back home on the streetcar I wondered if it was that the event was so clearly dominated by women? (who don't know how to organize things :-) or that background radiation from Pickering/Darlington is having an even larger effect on IQ than the research indicates?

I forgot to take my camera so when I got home I looked for pictures on the Internet, and found a clue - the 350.org site had pictures but no way to search for a specific event ... hummm ... a failure to imagine what people would want?

I didn't mention that I spoke to a gent from Trinity St. Paul's United Church, I thought I might go there for worship tomorrow ... but when I looked at their website I discovered that this is the crowd, Frances Combs & Ralph Wushke, who can't seem to get their notions around Jews sorted out ... oh well

everybody wants to call up Ghandi and Martin Luther King but they haven't done their homework and the exhortation falls flat, so why don't they do their homework? well, I think "It is all about ME!"

a few weeks ago I went out on a Sunday morning to see what I could see about Gretta Vosper up at West Hill United Church (© 2009 - some rights reserved), and I was lucky, she was there ... having been in soooo many United Churches over the years and having been so rarely even spoken to nevermind 'received' I have become jaded I guess, that I continue to trudge hopefully to their doors says something maybe ... in any event, as I was sitting there listening to them I had a vision - my vision was Gretta Vosper lifting her shirt to show us her tits, I know that no one reading this, if anyone reads it anyway which I doubt, will believe me when I say that I mean no disrespect, that was simply the vision I had, that was what came to me, anyone who does read this may also note my 'boobage' rubrick, dancing on the polka dots ... "I'm depraved on account'a I'm deprived?" ... whatever

I have read her book, With Or Without God - Why the way we live is more important than what we believe, but I have also read Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, and Northrop Frye's Creation and Recreation and whatever the male equivalent of peitos a fora is, I have not had a corresponding vision of either Taylor or Frye doing it

so, Why Nobody Came? ... in short, It's All About Me simply doesn't wash, there are reasons: failure and even inability to imagine the other; the limitations of solipsism; the little-appreciated changes in personal identity in a secular age (understood but not 'appreciated,' not 'grokked in their fullness') ... oh, there's probably more and more and more and more but that's the nut I think

I was in a pub last week having pints with an old friend and when I asked about climate change he started in on the middle-ground denial tape so I just changed the subject ... I am tired, I guess this is what happens, your prostate swells up cancer in it or not and you can't piss anymore and you can't fuck anymore and you can't see clearly anymore even with the latest surgery and your glasses on ...

there are other questions that could be answered - Why did so few turn out in Toronto (a city of 3 million) as compared with, say, Rio Grande Brasil (a city of 200,000)?

you get what you deserve, k-k-Canada gets Stephen Harper and America gets Barack Obama ... go find some boobage to post ...

but first I will just return to Bill McKibben for a sec & focussing on media attention: I saw this with The Age of Stupid, the hype was so effective, I was anticipating, I was full of expectation, but the movie was a bust, not very well done, incomplete, and I saw this with The Yes Men, good gigs, imaginative & well executed, but 'one eye on the mirror as you watch yourself go by' and the same lack of attention - the notion that once you have shown your titties it's all over, except it's not over, that's just the beginning, you have got their attention and now it is time to pull out the rabbit (from the hat that is), and if there is no coherent vision revealed then it's fade to black ...

Trout Fishing in America James (Richard?) Brautigan ... "and no birds sang," is that the line? and the other one, Watermelon Sugar when the guy says, "no, that's not I death, this is I Death," and proceeds to cut himself up with a razor ...

Bob Dylan, Things Have Changed: 2000 (Wonder Boys), 2000 (Tell Tale Signs), Live In Sweden 2009.

I think that any love is good lovin' so I took what I could get, yes, I took what I could get and then, she looked at me with her big brown eyes, and said ...

Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet: 1974, 1975.

... here's somethin' you never will forg-e-et ...

Tatiane de Moraes Ramos has figured here before, back in 2006: Sept. 23 Sept. 20, & Sept. 17, and I do notice a certain amount of traffic entering at those pages, so curiosity prevailed and I Googled her again and discovered that life goes on, she must be 24 by now I guess, got her tattoo finished - good idea! that'll open some doors, no evidence of plastic thank goodness, and she is wearing a wedding ring whatever that means (we hope for the best eh?), and I found a story:


take a look at the agribusiness article below, it is a perfect bullshit storm, cleverly plays on all the notes like a magician, nothing too overt - but compelling, even conjuring on the image of Norman Borlaug, Nobel hero ... compelling that is, unless you do a captcha on the fnords, I got derailed a while back reading about all the Indian farmers drinking pesticide, I was imagining their small children waking up and finding their father laying in the field, that became part of Norman Borlaug's legacy for me, despite that he was a good man, that he was striving for the commonwealth, that he 'saved billions' (of people that is) with his Green Revolution - Phase 1

Phase 2 is less ambiguous eh?

but nevermind phases ... the planet can't support all these people ("There is no Planet B" on a placard I saw today - and I thought it was a gooder), millions upon millions are going to die, maybe billions, the easy choice would be to 'replace' the ones who are going to die with ones who were never born, but Malthusian arithmetic is driven by fundamental forces (fundamental in both senses) one of which is that as soon as this Homo sapiens fellow has got a bit of food and security he builds a house and fills it with kids (I did exactly the same), so the easy choice is not going to happen

a young woman has an abortion and wants expiation, that is, she does not want to want expiation but if she is more-or-less conscious she ends up wanting it, and maybe she lives through it fully, maybe later on sometime she gains some understanding and compassion both for herself and for others, my point is that it is a tough choice, very very very tough, and in my life I have held hands with one or two who have done it so I know whereof I speak, then too, maybe she does not live through it fully, grows bitter and exploited ... this to describe a moral quandary by the way, not to suggest birth-control by abortion

spending our way out of the depression? publicly supporting (with essentially extorted funds) the corporations that are digging up the Tar Sands? that are creating the Genetically Modified food nightmare? and to the naysayers comes the argument, "Well, unless we support them, millions will die!" and the argument works because another fundamental force is at work - avoidance of tough decisions, especially within committees and bureaucracies

Abra as pernas aí, mulher, que eu vou sentar a jibóia na sua ximbica! Fonte: Dicionário inFormal.

(I wish ...)

Esteja bem/Be well.


Appendices:
1. Standoff over fertilizer prices imperils world food supply, Jessica Leeder, Oct. 24 2009.
2. Tatiane de Moraes, Pulp Magazine, Jan 2007 (?).


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Standoff over fertilizer prices imperils world food supply, Jessica Leeder, Oct. 24 2009.

World's largest sellers seeing an unprecedented crumpling of profit as farmers wean crops

Amidst the heaves of soil and rows of crops that fill farm fields around the globe, a game of cat and mouse is playing out.

The best way to measure the score is via the stock market, which has been recording an unprecedented crumpling of profit among the world's largest sellers of farm fertilizers – the result of a diet cash-strapped farmers have imposed on their crops.

Fears over the impact this battle could have on an already hungry planet deepened this week when PotashCorp, the Saskatchewan-based company that is the world's largest supplier of potash, an expensive but essential crop nutrient, reported an 80-per-cent profit plunge. Next, the Calgary-based fertilizer company Agrium warned that its own third-quarter earnings could be even worse, down 90 to 95 per cent from last year.

For farmers, the numbers are powerful signs that their decision to wean crops onto lower amounts of fertilizer until the industry drops its prices, which skyrocketed to record highs last year, is registering impact. The question is how long they – and by extension, the global food supply – can avoid suffering side effects, such as reduced yields.

“Growers are doing what they need to do to stay above water, and that is they're collectively trying to influence the market with their buying behaviour,” said Dave MacKay, president of the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers, which represents about 1,000 Canadian fertilizer dealers. “This is the reality of a commodity market. It's ruthless,” he said, adding: “They can only play this game so far before it will impact their bottom line.”

He noted that farmers scored a recent success in driving down the prices of nitrogen and phosphate, two of three key fertilizer ingredients, by strictly limiting use for a year. Whether they can do the same with potash, which nourishes soil with potassium and chloride and is produced by a small number of agri-industry giants, will hinge not only on the strength of their resolve, but on the fertility of their soil.

“Think of a nutrient budget like a financial budget,” said Don Flaten, a soil science expert at the University of Manitoba. “If you've got a relatively large savings account and you're taking a little bit more out than you're putting back in, you can get away with that in the short term,” he said. “But if you continuously remove more than you replace, eventually you run out.”

Fear that will happen is exactly what companies like PotashCorp are banking on.

“Food production is too important to put at risk,” the company's CEO, William Doyle, told analysts this week. “Farmers know this and they will start feeding their soil again. The question is not if it will happen, but when the rebound will begin.”

Mr. Doyle has been warning for months that the under-application of chemical fertilizer all over the world will have dire consequences for the world's food crisis, which he argues has been overshadowed by the global economic implosion. His company's research has measured decreased yields in Brazil, Argentina and China, which is the world's largest importer of potash.

Soil experts argue that a year's worth of fertilizer reduction is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on global yields, and by extension, hunger.

However, some argue farmers don't have a lot of wiggle room. Global food insecurity is already hovering at dangerous levels. A recent United Nations report put the number of the world's hungry at 1.02 billion – the highest number recorded in four decades, since the UN began collecting statistics.

In addition, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization is forecasting global population growth from its current 6.8 billion to more than nine billion by 2050, which will necessitate a doubling of food production in developing countries.

While there are alternatives to chemical fertilizers those countries can turn to, none are as efficient. Mr. Doyle is banking on the fact that farmers in the developing nations that have become lucrative markets for his company will need to come back to potash if they're going to feed all those people on a limited supply of land.

“The future value of our product is clear,” he told analysts, imploring them to be patient.

Were he alive, at least one lauded expert would undoubtedly back Mr. Doyle up.

In an interview with The New York Times last year, Norman Borlaug, a now-deceased American scientist who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in spreading intensive agricultural practices to poor countries, said there is only one remedy to feeding 6.6 billion people, the global population at the time.

“Without chemical fertilizer, forget it,” he said. “The game is over.”



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Tatiane de Moraes, Pulp Magazine, Jan 2007 (?).

A Profoundly Pulchritudinous Paulistanos Woman By Andrew Rudder for Pulp Magazine

I searched throughout the vast highlands of the largest and most populous city Sao Palo in the Southern Hemisphere of the ethnically diverse country of Brazil,
I couldn’t fine another profoundly pulchritudinous Paulistanos like Tatiane de Moraes whose aesthetic appeal is so pristine and potent, and unequivocally fits the bill,
For upon catching a glimpse of her poignant pulchritude the perceptual indices such as the swing of the pendulum and the movement of the clock’s hands become peripheral,
For once you become enthralled by her enticing exquisite elegance and enter into the ravishing realm of her alluring aesthetic domain . . . the cup of your aesthetic pleasure she will surely fill,
And like the consciousness-altering effects of Ecstasy your conception of time will be so altered that time will literally stand still,
And looking at her prepossessing pictures that capture the freedom of her artistic expressions elicits such a fervent thrill,
As the spirit of her prepossessing pictures personify the self-consciousness of her freewill,

They say that the eyes indicate the antiquity of the human soul,
Look into the blissful brown beautiful bewitching eyes of the tantalizing, titillating Tatiane and you’ll see a reflection of her poignant passions and goals,
You’ll see the tour de force behind a ghetto story that transformed tears of sorrow bound by the clenches of poverty,
Toward the self-actualization of her chosen path to the higher echelons of the modeling world that now evokes tears of jubilation and victory,
Look at the prepossessing pictures that comprise her strikingly beautiful portfolio,
And you’ll see all the facets of the boundless beauty of the ethnically diverse and culturally rich mosaic of the city of Sao Paulo,
All of its stunning splendor, arresting allure & awesome adventure, gorgeous grandeur, magnificent mystique and pulsating passion grouped together to produce a striking tableau,
All manifested in thousands upon thousands of eclectic poetic artistic prepossessing pictures accentuated by a statuesque physique more pristine than the Venus de Milo,

As Tatiane de Moraes continues to live out her dreams by bringing them to fruition within what has been a truly joyous journey,
That enables her to bare the fruits of her labour as she travels extensively from European country to country,
She will always live for her son first and strive for a better life to help her family.

From Tears of Dismay to Tears of Jubilation and Triumphs
By Andrew Rudder for Pulp Magazine

You can search throughout the southeastern region of Brazil within the ethnically diverse global city of Sao Paulo, and I promise that you will not find another wondrous winsome woman like the inimitable Tatiane de Moraes, who has worked extremely hard all of her life to overcome life’s many struggles and attain a better life for herself and her family. She was born and raised in the most populous city of the Southern Hemisphere within a poverty stricken neighborhood with her mother and two brothers, “We lived in the Favellas of Sao Paulo . . . when it was raining I was woken up and had to go out of my little house because of the water . . . some days we needed to look for food in the streets; it was a very hard life when I was a young girl.” Even though at an early age Tatiane was not wealthy with a lot of materialistic things that many of us take for granted, she was enriched with values pertaining to a love for and an appreciation of family, the essence of hard work and an honest days living, and a compassionate respect for others.

Living in Sao Paulo and seeing the conditions in which her and her family had lived in and the many seemingly insurmountable obstacles that they had to overcome on a daily basis, planted a seed of burning desire within her heart to move on out of the poor neighborhood, strive for a better life elsewhere and help the ones she loves dearly, “My father died when I was 14 and at that moment I knew that I did not want this life in poverty and walking everyday in the streets together with my mother trying to sell hand towels . . . I met my boyfriend when I was 15 and started to travel with him. For me it was another life as I have never been outside of Sao Paulo and now I was traveling together with him in the rest of South America . . . we stayed in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and Columbia after one year . . .he needed to go back to Europe and when I was 17 I came over to Holland.”

Once this arresting angel arrived in Europe she began to pursue a professional career as a model, and began to earn money while having the opportunity to creatively collaborate with a lot of artistic minded photographers as she moved from one European country to the next, “ It was not easy when I took my clothes off for the first time in front of a camera . . . we lived in different countries within Europe for two years in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France and finally Spain . . . I think it was because I wanted to study, and to see the rest of the world.”
Tatiane attributes her modeling success in Europe to her tireless work ethic and her distinct look, as a young pulchritudinous Brazilian lady with dark skin is not easy to find. So what is next for this awe-inspiring beautiful young lady whose blossoming modeling career is on the rise with no end in sight, “Now I live in Spain and the most of my time is very occupied with my son who is one year old now. I would like to finish my studies and later when my son is older work as a social worker for women who are in need of help.”
If you would like to send Tatiane a gift or donation for her Street Children Project in Sao Paulo, then please feel free to contact Tatiane at any time at tatianedemoraes_model@yahoo.com.br .

Interview:

Andrew: It’s with great pleasure that I introduce to you a strikingly beautiful professional model original from Sao Paulo Brazil and now residing in Spain named Tatiane de Moraes, who has taken the time out of her busy schedule to do this interview with yours truly. On behalf of the Pulp Magazine family whom work extremely hard to bring our loyal readers the very best in informative and entertaining content, I’m very delighted to have you Tatiane and I’m very excited to interview you! I hope that this interview will be the first of many with us and other magazines during your young and truly promising modeling career. So without further adieu let us get this interview started!

Andrew: Why don’t we start with you first telling us a bit more about yourself: like how and why you got into modeling, and what is it about it that captivates your mind and stimulates your creative imagination.

Tatiane: I started modeling when I was extremely young. I was 16 when I did my first shoot in Buenos Aires for a very small agency it was a bikini shoot and they even did not pay me i never got any photo it was a very bad experience.

Andrew: Did you always know that you wanted to pursue a professional career in modeling from the time you were a little girl?

Tatiane: No not at all. It was my boyfriend, he told me that I needed to do something with my eyes and my face, do not forget I come from a very poor family so I did not have any high school or similar education so he told me to go for modeling and with the money to go back to school.

Andrew: Being convinced to pursue a career in modeling is one thing, but actually believing that you possess the requisite talent, focus and drive to succeed in a very tough, unforgiving business is quite another. When did you actually believe that you possessed the requisite intangible qualities and characteristics to make it in the entertainment industry as a model?

Tatiane: My shoots in South America did not give much success because you have many Tatianes walking on the streets there and also it is not so professional like as Europe. I started really to model when I arrived in Europe and with the help from a photographer who related me with many other people.

Andrew: What experience do you value more and attain more personal satisfaction from as a model: the creative process behind an intimate collaboration with a talented photographer, make-up artist and/or designer OR seeing the reaction from your family, friends and fans as they bare witness to the finished product?

Tatiane: I never wanted to work with agencies because in my opinion the model does not have anything to say with them, and she can not say no, so I worked only freelance and never took any offer from a modeling agency. I found always my shoots by myself, and with the help from my boyfriend and other photographers.

My family in Brasil did not know that I was doing nude modeling until the day they saw it on the internet but the reaction was that it is my life and that they are happy with it.

Andrew: Who are some of the role models that you greatly admire?

Tatiane: You mean other models? It was for me never possible to do the catwalk because then I will be with an agency and manager but also I am not a girl for showing clothes. I have a great admiration for other models who are working very hard for the big magazines. I am sure that I cannot do that.

When I do a shoot then I am the boss not the photographer. I make the decision of what is possible and what is not, that is what I like because I am free.

Andrew: How has your experiences growing up in Sao Paulo Brazil changed the way you perceive the world today as a young woman with a young child?

Tatiane: When I went out from Brasil i was very very young, and believe it or not but I had no idea that the world is so big and very hard. I see other women from Latin America in very, very bad situations here in Europe. some of them are exploited by others and have no job etc. I was lucky that i was successful with my little job to do shoots and to have a situation, because I see that many immigrants have a very hard life. I think that I was very lucky that I was successful, I still need to fight every day because I have my little son that I need to take care.

Andrew: What advice would you give other young ladies from South America who are seriously considering pursuing a professional modeling career in Europe about the nature of the modeling industry?

Tatiane: I would say to a young girl who would like to go to Europe to take very good care and to find asap a photographer that she can have confidence in at 100 percent, and never do shoots with private photographers etc., because that is asking for problems.

Also one of the first professional photographers that I worked with told me that I was the one that was making the shoots and he was using the camera, but I was the boss and he was working for me.
And in one way it is the true. You need to be very sure about yourself and you need to be strong because if I will write a book from what I have seen in the beginning when I was working with private photographers I will be rich. It is unbelievable what you see and the most difficult country is France because they want only to sleep with you.

Andrew: You have a beautiful statuesque physique, so I’m curious to know what does your diet and exercise regimen consist of?

Tatiane: No diet. Nothing. I eat more than my friends.

Andrew: Do you place any limitations on yourself in terms of what you will and will not do in this industry to succeed?

Tatiane: I will never do porno shoots or toys pink etc. I believe that a nude shoot from a young women is more erotic that porno, because you can fantasize and you can make a photo so nice that you are really sexy in it, but I got for example many offers to come to the US and to make a lot of money to do porn but the answer was always no.
I prefer a nice and kind photographer who is so happy with his photos, than a camera men telling me what I need to do.

Andrew: Do you think that the emerging online communication networks out there such as myspace.com, onemodelplace.com, and modelmayhem.com have enabled entrepreneurial minded models such as yourself to effectively market yourself and as a result replace modeling agencies?

Tatiane: In all the time that I was in one model place I got only two serious offers but you need to put your name somewhere to get work. The best was for me the photographers contacts.

Andrew: If I was accompanying you to a photo shoot from Barcelona to Madrid, what albums would I definitely be listening to in the car on the trip there?

Tatiane: You will be bored with me! It will be Celine Dion!

Andrew: My no limit credit card slips out of my pocket and magically appears in your hands as I finish this interview with you; what do you buy before I find out that it’s missing?!!! [I know in real life you would have returned my card!]

Tatiane: Well I would give you the card yes, but if I had a no limit card I will be for one afternoon in Sao Paulo and buying all what my family needs and I will buy me some nice clothes etc., but first for my family that is 100 percent for sure.

Andrew: What is your ideal exotic getaway?

Tatiane: My dream is to go back to Brasil when my son is finished one day with his school so that is still a long time.
I would like to open one day a house for street children and do something with them so that they can survive. Maybe a model agency for street kids because I was one of them and I will never forget this. I get always nervous when I see the poverty in my country.

Andrew: What sort of qualities in a man do you look for and really turn you on?

Tatiane: Honesty, kindness, and always a big smile.

Andrew: What is your favorite food?

Tatiane: Brazilian food

Andrew: Who is your favorite actress and what is your favorite movie?

Tatiane: Dirty dancing and Sean Connery

Andrew: Name one of your addictions? (Something that you cannot do without)

Tatiane: I am smoking and that is not good I know.

Andrew: What is your favorite word to cuss with when your really upset in English, Portuguese or Spanish?

Tatiane: Portuguese

Andrew: What is your favorite part of the human anatomy?

Tatiane: I am from Brasil; what do you think?! The Brasilian women have a reputation to be soft as silk during the day and a thunder when it is about making love!

Andrew: If you were a super heroine what super powers would you want: super speed, super strength, X-ray vision, invisibility or the ability to fly?!

Tatiane: Invisibility

Andrew: What is your favorite column or feature in Pulp Magazine?

Tatiane: Rogue Angels

Andrew: What does sex appeal and beauty mean to you? Is it a state of mind and attitude (mental/intellectual), physical perfection as defined by society, or being born with the right set of physical attributes that get the teenage boys’ hormones into a frenzy?

Tatiane: Well for me it is not important that my husband is not very well looking, but it is more important that he is very intelligent and that he is kind and friendly, and very straightforward and honest.

Andrew: What is beautiful about yourself?

Tatiane: It seems that I am a nice woman. I was thinking that I was like all the girls in my country but I am sure that I am beautiful with my heart.

Andrew: If you had to change one thing about yourself what would it be?

Tatiane: I will be much harder in business.

Andrew: Tell our Pulp readers a bit more about some of your social work aspirations.

Tatiane: My website will be a paid website and all the profits are going to a welfare house in Sao Paulo for the street children.

Andrew: William Faulkner is quoted as saying, “The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move.†When your profoundly beautiful pictures move again in the mind’s eye of people a hundred years later Tatiane, what do think they will say?

Tatiane: Wow! Who IS this girl????

Andrew: Are there any other exciting projects that you will be working on that you want to tell our readers about and/or anyone that you want to thank?

Tatiane: Like I told you I am working on a project for street children and I would like to thank the photographers that have photographed me so much and did a lot for me. He is the best photographer I know and his name is Jeroen Gordijn from the Netherlands.

Andrew: Thank you Tatiane for doing this interview with Pulp Magazine and I! We wish you all of the best in your future endeavors, look forward to hearing about your success in the media as a model and as a social worker for the betterment of women within our communities, and we would love to have you back anytime!

Tatiane: Thanks very much for this interview Andrew! I was very happy to do this for your beautiful Pulp Magazine. It is great for me to be there and to answer your questions, especially for a non professional model like me.
I wish you all the best with your magazine and please feel free to come back any time you like.
Very truthfully,
Tatiane

Andrew: If you would like to send Tatiane a gift or donation for her Street Children Project in Sao Paulo, then please feel free to contact Tatiane at any time at tatianedemoraes_model@yahoo.com.br.