tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-344863422024-03-06T23:35:41.209-05:00Transparentiquesome thoughts on the world around meAndreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.comBlogger178125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-85956656286370572712008-08-20T23:39:00.004-04:002008-08-20T23:53:56.870-04:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjhm-6WcY6KcRkQApzuNIBL_2z_mYICqvtkwc2Gp7V54cdH73P_YZEcSGMk9NDiBEwfuQKf6DPoUb5-Z8eJqU50s26yYZXA_6v4IfOa2_zoFU2kjaFCcNJIR58ASJdL8zwFKh/s1600-h/DSCF1716.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236813209790519714" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjhm-6WcY6KcRkQApzuNIBL_2z_mYICqvtkwc2Gp7V54cdH73P_YZEcSGMk9NDiBEwfuQKf6DPoUb5-Z8eJqU50s26yYZXA_6v4IfOa2_zoFU2kjaFCcNJIR58ASJdL8zwFKh/s200/DSCF1716.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCuLVyecDe4j95EXSectZqKiGD8mgzMVsDZkTruA6wsBJ1GNrtDKXVsbP-hOfqPa_jOASym4g_ItEYFNzdXjQW8k4XAkcCbPgamqh8F9d4x5JNEpMm21F3svLGvn-mbkFD5Ajw/s1600-h/DSCF1732.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236812909035504802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCuLVyecDe4j95EXSectZqKiGD8mgzMVsDZkTruA6wsBJ1GNrtDKXVsbP-hOfqPa_jOASym4g_ItEYFNzdXjQW8k4XAkcCbPgamqh8F9d4x5JNEpMm21F3svLGvn-mbkFD5Ajw/s200/DSCF1732.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div><br /><br /><p>I'm going to Providence, RI, for Labor Day, and plan on eating shellfish. Not a big fan, having seldom eat such things as a child when I was fed by my midwestern parents, I've got an open mind.</p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3VqIUZ20G-ZDA1c_hGw3hogzxgyUbVDayhVaeUm7NGvaq1vulG178TuaKnpO1gEbtQebgvlOnY7lIejt9v9bEiUciEOmNv-pNZSZChykC_bRV9gUn5IP4cSmfjlICjKw7z-uW/s1600-h/DSCF1693.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236811084251898386" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3VqIUZ20G-ZDA1c_hGw3hogzxgyUbVDayhVaeUm7NGvaq1vulG178TuaKnpO1gEbtQebgvlOnY7lIejt9v9bEiUciEOmNv-pNZSZChykC_bRV9gUn5IP4cSmfjlICjKw7z-uW/s200/DSCF1693.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I also look forward to spending time at the Hot Club. </p></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-58072417925156602932008-08-20T23:09:00.002-04:002008-08-20T23:27:43.286-04:00I'm reading Marc Sageman's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leaderless-Jihad-Networks-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0812240650/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219289078&sr=8-1">Leaderless Jihad </a>now, at a slow pace. The academic discussion between Sageman and Bruce Hoffman is brought up often in the media, as in the opinion piece by Peter Bergen in this <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081502981.html">past weekend's Washington Post</a>. And more people than Bergen come to the conclusion that the answer in the real world is somewhere in between the two. That lone radicalized individuals become dangerous when they link up with Al Qaeda Central.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-64478654712193446712007-10-31T22:50:00.000-04:002007-10-31T23:10:59.673-04:00What books have I read recently? Well, what books have I started?<br /><div></div><br /><div>Corrections, Jonathan Franzen</div><br /><div>The Stillborn God, Mark Lilla</div><br /><div>The Pleasure of My Company, Steve Martin</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>And the only one I've finished is: </div><br /><div><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7DE1F30F932A15751C0A96E948260">Guns and Barbed Wire: A Child Survives the Holocaust, by Thomas Geve</a>. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.buchenwald-dora.fr/images/decor/dessingeve.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.buchenwald-dora.fr/images/decor/dessingeve.jpg" border="0" /></a>There are similarities between Geve's memoir with the fictional Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz, <a href="http://transparentique.blogspot.com/2007/02/im-almost-finished-with-book-suite.html">mentioned earlier on this blog</a>. Although Geve is German, and Kertesz Hungarian, they both arrived at concentration camps as adolescents, and stayed remarkably long, learning to survive and proving themselves very adaptable to their surroundings. Most of all, the tone of the two books, the attitude and approach to daily life is very matter-of-fact, without sentimentalism. However, Kertesz drifts into a type of mania for logic and rationality which brings him into a daze about what is going on around him, whereas Geve exhibits pragmatism and is precociously aware of his need for hope and forward-looking companionship. Both spend time in infirmaries, too, and are of course very lucky, given the odds. </div><br /><div>Geve mentions several times his awareness, even then, of the internationalist attitude he had gained from his experiences, and he contrasts this with others who hadn't been detained with a diverse group like he had. And the euphoria he describes during the days immediately following the liberation of Buchenwald are palpable and joyous, and I don't remember this from Kertesz' book. </div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-55973509093143510672007-10-31T22:40:00.000-04:002007-10-31T22:49:01.309-04:00Along the lines of earlier posts, an article in <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20800">NY Review of Books on Islam</a>, including a new book by Hans Kueng, the German religologist. He notes, for instance, that while many major religions have been able to criticize their texts, including Catholocism at a late date, Islam has not yet been able to do so.<br /><br />I also thought this quote was telling, from Kueng:<br /><br />"religion is no longer, as it was in the Middle Ages and the Reformation, an institution set over the social system to guarantee its unity, but merely a factor, a sphere, a one part-system among several."<br /><br />This is similar to the background I read in Lapidus' book on the Islamic World about the development of Shi'ism as the dominant religion in Iran. Lapidus shows that the country's rulers viewed its popularity as assuring stability and logevity for their rule, both of which were lacking in that region in the Middle Ages.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-39878631399629552512007-09-14T21:15:00.000-04:002007-09-15T12:43:52.588-04:00An <a href="http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373642">interesting article </a>about the Italian Red Brigades' newfound interest in the radical Moslem community. This reminded me of discussions in Power and the Idealists about Marxists from the Islamic world like Azar Nafisi who became disillusioned with the "revolutions" to which they originally pledged allegiance.<br /><br />After reading Berman's book, it seems clear that these new Red Brigades are repeating the mistake that the Marxists in the 1970s made in the run up to the Iranian revolution. The Islamists along with Communist and Marxist parties overthrew the Shah. After that, the Islamists instituted a totalitarian state and wiped out anything left of their left-wing co-conspirators. Berman's main point is that these former Marxists turned away from the ideology to appreciate liberalism and freedoms above all else.<br /><br />Like the radical Moslems at the helm of the Shah's overthrow, some of the Marxist groups of the 1960s in America also had reactionary ideas about society, they also had prescriptions for personal habits and behavior. This indicates that these are not at once contradictory ideas.<br /><br />The new Red Brigades state that the Islamists may be the stronger of the violent radical organizations now, but that Marxist conceptions of the proletarian overcoming its oppressors would win out; these Islamists are just vectors towards this outcome. This reminds me of the twisted strategy of Charles Manson, who tried to foment a race war that once finished, he was convinced, would allow him and his group to take over the country.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-51578636108846282312007-09-03T09:02:00.000-04:002007-09-03T09:52:03.664-04:00A friend asked me yesterday why fighting terrorism was so important when so many people in the world died every day from so many other causes, like poverty and hunger. It's a good question, and deserved a better answer than I gave yesterday.<br /><br />I think there are several ways to answer it. The Islamic terrorism that started surfacing in the 1990s is both internationalized and is focused on destruction rather than political goals. First, the high profile of anti-terrorist policy making in the world is largely a game of catch-up. Sure, in many countries there has been a long history of national terrorism; national terrorists often have political goals, and believe that terror would be the best way to achieve these goals. One can find a way to reason with such groups -- take Northern Ireland. But the internationalized approach of terrorists today and their ability to move around the world force us to think about ways that terrorists can be deprived of their recourse to "safe countries." There shouldn't be any safe countries for terrorists.<br /><br />If one looks back on the statements released from Al-Qaida's leadership, one could say that, like many national-based terrorist groups, it does have a political goal - of creating a global ummah. This is a much more far-flung aim, than, say, autonomous rights for a particular territory within a nation-state. I don't take the creation of a global ummah as a real goal of Al-Qaida, but even if it is genuine, one imagines that the interim goal to achieve this is all out destruction and the propagation of fear in the Western world. <br /><br />And it goes without saying that, if the goal is destruction rather than the achievement of a political goal, that this is a different kind of "war." (I know this is a contentious term; shall I call it a "struggle"?) However, conventional weapons won't work in this struggle. We need new approaches. As I said in the previous post, some have indicated that the advent of suicide missions in connection with this type of terrorism changed the rules of the game. But I think we know that suicide bombers have caused the Western world lots of trouble in the past. One could think of kamikaze pilots, and look to Chechen fighters, and as I indicated earlier, some of these communist rebels in the 1960s. It's true that there have not been any Israeli suicide bombers, and that even though during Israelis' struggle against British occupiers, their brand of terrorism didn't include suicides. However, as Paul Berman describes Debray's concept of suicide, it is far reaching in modern political movements:<br /><br />"Maybe revolution and suicide had somehow drawn close to one another. The vast popularity of the cult of Che in so many places around the world took on a slightly creepy look, from this point of view. But Debray was thinking of many more people than Dr. Guevara. He thought about President Allende in Chile, who killed himself with an AK-47 in the course of General Pinochet's coup, in 1973, and about Allende's daughter, Beatriz, who killed herself three years later, in Cuba...Debray never bothered to glance across the Rhine at his own comrades in Germany - a characteristic omission, on the part of a Franch intellectual. But it's obvious what he would have seen, if only he had bothered to look. For what was the history of the German revolutionary movement in the 1970s, if not a history of people on the verge of suicide, and beyond the verge? - even if no one has ever been able to rule out the possibility of official murders. The prison suicides, if they were suicides of the Red Army Fraction's leaders, the death of one revolutionary comrade after another, the grisly panache, the riots that broke out in the aftermath of those prison deaths - these things did seem to celebrate a cult of human sacrifice." (222)<br /><br />There are several points in this that don't match up. First of all, human sacrifice for what one perceives as the greater good has a long history, rooted namely in Christian if not older traditions, like hero worship in ancient Greece. This is nothing new. Heroes are always dead when they are glorified. They died in battle, so to speak; and in the modern world, battle can take on any number of forms. Furthermore, I think Berman, and perhaps Debray, mistake fighting for lost causes as an obsession with death. That is too great a mental leap. Failure to make good cost-benefit analyses, or caring more about your cause than your life is not really an obsession with death, just a case of extreme fanaticism.<br /><br />So why do we pay attention to terrorism when fighting poverty and hunger could save many more lives? First, national security is one of the fundamental tasks of the nation-state; if the United States is threatened by terrorism rather than by widespread hunger, then combating terrorism should be one of the nation-state's main tasks. You might say the United States doesn't do enough to fight poverty or hunger around the world, and you are probably right. But it wouldn't make sense for our government to view American and non-American problems in the same light, even though in many ways failed states are a detriment to our own security.<br /><br />Secondly, terrorism has a more widespread impact than its victims. Terrorism is designed to spread fear wider than its randomly selected targets. This fear can cause greater havoc than the terrorist violence itself. It is a challenge, then, for governments to forewarn and arm their citizens with awareness while assuaging their fears. This is difficult, because governments also need to gain citizens' support for new policies to stop terrorists. If citizens don't perceive the threat, or feel the fear so to speak, then they won't support new policies that may inconvenience them or change the way their society has functioned. So this is the government's conundrum in the face of terrorism.<br /><br />Finally, I think terrorism is also viewed as a priority because governments do not want to be taken by surprise. They want to be in control of their nation's security. As they should be. Unlike in a conventional war, the battle can crop up anywhere. This control of the security situation means that many new policies need to be put in place.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-12038663664393119842007-09-02T22:27:00.000-04:002007-09-02T22:38:22.034-04:00A few more comments on Power and the Idealists. There was a small final thought at the end of one of the chapters, holding a lot of meaning but without much explanation, about the connection between some communist rebel movements in the 60s and the Islamic jihad of today. Regis Debray, who had far-reaching access into the lives, ideologies and methods of the leaders of the Cuban revolution, saw that many of the modern leftist rebellions were a kind of suicide mission. His recognition of this began with getting to know Che Guevara, and to see that the way that Che went on his jungle missions were intentionally suicidal, that he knew he would lose but that fight nevertheless required his death. So what was really new about another rebel movement obsessed with death? - he saw jihadis as fitting squarely in the same modern paradigm, and not as new a phenomenon as many have said.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-90499983025282673382007-08-28T23:12:00.000-04:002007-08-28T23:29:36.135-04:00<a href="http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/power%20and%20the%20idealists.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/power%20and%20the%20idealists.jpg" border="0" /></a>After looking at this book sit on the shelf for a long time, I picked up Paul Berman's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Power-Idealists-Passion-Joschka-Aftermath/dp/1932360913/ref=ed_oe_h/103-0865319-1026209?ie=UTF8&qid=1188357081&sr=1-1">Power and the Idealists</a>, which tries to map how certain '68ers like Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit became interventionists who could support going to Afghanistan and other wars. Berman starts out with the scandal surrounding Fischer's connections to RAF radicals in his student days, and to allegations of violent radicalism, but takes the book in other directions too. Most interesting was Berman's extended analysis of Azar Nafisi's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Lolita-Tehran-Memoir-Books/dp/081297106X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0865319-1026209?ie=UTF8&s=books&amp;qid=1188357912&sr=1-1">Reading Lolita in Tehran</a>, and his examination of how once strident Marxists like Nafisi viewed the Iranian revolution and how they came to value individual freedoms above all while living under Iran's totalitarianism. Even though these '68ers didn't live through WWII, Berman is convinced that it informs their views and that their activism has crystallized and matured into a resistance of totalitarianism. Of course I write this while I'm in the middle of the book, so perhaps things will change by the last page....Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-55374874455837135532007-08-05T20:28:00.000-04:002007-08-05T21:13:30.536-04:00I am rereading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Name-Rose-Everymans-Library-Cloth/dp/0307264890/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-5696069-5967928?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186360184&sr=8-2">The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco</a>; it's surprisingly easy to pick up and read from wherever you happen to open the book. I like how the author built into the book the fact that people <em>thought</em> differently during the Middle Ages, didn't use reason or at least it was only in its infancy. That's why you can pick it up anywhere, and also because "enlightened" Brother William's ideas don't just get closer to the reality of things but they also allow the main characters to solve the book's mystery.<br /><br />Another major topic of the book is heresy, and the question of where heresy and officially sanctioned belief diverge. I was reminded of all this because my boss took a detour on a business trip to Albi, in France, because it's one of the stops on the Tour de France. A day after he mentioned it I realized that this was the site of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusades">Albigensian Crusades</a>, and not just a pit stop for that parade of doping die-hards. Through a wonderful course I took in college with <a href="http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/Medieval/?view=usa&ci=9780195171310">Mark Pegg</a>, and the time I've spent near Prades, in the Pyrenees, I am still interested in this time period and the locations bound up with it. That includes the abbey of Saint Michel de Cuxa, which is so connected to the Cloisters in Fort Tryon park in New York, and lies close to the valley running through that part of the Pyrenees, to <a href="http://www.art-roman.net/st-martin-du-canigou/st-martin-du-c.htm">Saint Martin du Canigou,</a> which sits high atop rocks which are the precursors to the Canigou mountain. And there is the priory of <a href="http://www.pyrenees-decouvertes.com/en/visites/artroman/serrabone/index.php">Serrabonne</a>, the hard to reach abbey to the south. All of them quite old, with structures even from the 12th century.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-28743532834468276632007-07-14T09:00:00.000-04:002007-07-14T09:10:37.749-04:00I've been living near 9th street for about 5 months now, and still hadn't been to <a href="http://www.vegetatedc.com/portal/">Vegetate </a>until this past Thursday. Vegetate is a vegetarian restaurant sandwiched between two vacant buildings on 9th street, one of which is even "condemed" for unsanitary conditions (don't you wish the employees of the Board of Condemnation (doesn't that sound biblical?) could spell?). Does not bode well for the restaurant next door, does it?<br /><br />In any case, the atmosphere inside the restaurant is calm and clean, and having a DJ as the owner meant that the music was good.<br /><br />However, the food was disappointing. I heard from another person afterwards who had also been there that, like me, she had gotten a dish that looked like it was meant for an octagenarian. The chef seemed to throw in hot pepper pieces to counteract the fact that there was little taste in some dishes. And some things that sounded fancy were failures, like the macaroon (tasteless) and lavender-infused ice cream (not good, despite the fact that I love lavender scents).Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-56800497494288811582007-06-17T22:08:00.000-04:002007-06-17T22:36:48.229-04:00While watching birds kill each other on National Geographic Channel, I thought I'd take a moment to say something about a review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book. Although short, I think the New Criterion author Douglas Murray picked a telling title for his review: "<a href="http://newcriterion.com:81/archives/25/04/a-passion-for-the-future/">A passion for the future</a>." That's the problem, isn't it? Hirsi Ali is a modern in a postmodern world. She believes in the progress that the West promises even when its intellectual leaders have long ago abandoned this outlook in favor of ...who knows? certain doom at the hand of global warming? I mean, we can all become cynics, but where will it get us, right?<br /><br />Criticism and the battle of ideas (rather than of fists) is still important today; and I'm talking about what we want the world to look like in the future and which principles we think are important enough to apply to everyone, not just our countrymen. We can't always get involved in the discussion ourselves, but we can give people the tools, the room and the support to have this discussion themselves.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-51644433942439790512007-06-07T00:22:00.000-04:002008-12-09T00:23:59.422-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGpVFe4mYO8j6CUxibuPrUohwLXhyphenhyphenS1zgeSShF8E8xO32DTxLDzVFFrT93dcqUO6NPKVOaDjkdw-Cfqi9YcVCvdBuybRm1F5Vvy1JkDnxfU-SqnItwN8rzriCSHG6Yx0llzXP-/s1600-h/427.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073174160079168434" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGpVFe4mYO8j6CUxibuPrUohwLXhyphenhyphenS1zgeSShF8E8xO32DTxLDzVFFrT93dcqUO6NPKVOaDjkdw-Cfqi9YcVCvdBuybRm1F5Vvy1JkDnxfU-SqnItwN8rzriCSHG6Yx0llzXP-/s400/427.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5T2YykmP_h1nMv3KlWP396gM7q-1OUh-hZd3Pm762xB5-TbnjavV-NkWKp_JcE8UeaSDKeqSFGTUntSBKeeAadyEZZYX0KZ72SOgirVPWDsvCW1f5aOg04GGFzmbHZXVPueg/s1600-h/422.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073174160079168450" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5T2YykmP_h1nMv3KlWP396gM7q-1OUh-hZd3Pm762xB5-TbnjavV-NkWKp_JcE8UeaSDKeqSFGTUntSBKeeAadyEZZYX0KZ72SOgirVPWDsvCW1f5aOg04GGFzmbHZXVPueg/s400/422.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyyAIUcpbprfduGpsAftmbahC933RFltQNiH5POmbLshPxAEixl4Vk1de1MuW_ukBGNny8i9w7o3GxoOnj9rzHqaMgOu7QbmMlFh7OQS7U15RJbSuDuVrkaDvYiDQklTdQn0BB/s1600-h/429.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073174164374135762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyyAIUcpbprfduGpsAftmbahC933RFltQNiH5POmbLshPxAEixl4Vk1de1MuW_ukBGNny8i9w7o3GxoOnj9rzHqaMgOu7QbmMlFh7OQS7U15RJbSuDuVrkaDvYiDQklTdQn0BB/s400/429.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I won't try and describe the whole trip I took recently in detail, but I will say how much we enjoyed Edam, north of Amsterdam. The town was quite important back in the 17th century as a place where whalers lived (I don't quite understand the geography of where exactly they were whaling, ...), and there are a lot of buildings left from that time. We went there on a recommendation for the restaurant (and hotel) "<a href="http://www.fortuna-edam.nl/">De Fortuna</a>," which is a conservative, lovely restaurant with a patio next to the canal. It's wonderful for walking around, and I suppose it has a cheese market like Alkmaar, although we didn't see it. </div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-695965220072233662007-05-13T23:35:00.000-04:002007-05-13T23:42:54.477-04:00Where are the PR people when you need them? I thought I heard a kid asking his friend on the Mall the other day if he had gotten the <a href="http://janusmuseum.org/panabasis/may07.htm#13may2">pretend hand grenade </a>from the Public Service event that was about half military.<br /><br />I made a comment to my friend about how such an object, if it existed, 1) was stupid from a public safety standpoint, and 2) was a glorification of dangerous weapons that kill people. Well, those grenades existed, if you can believe it. Where is the PR vetting for the order of 1000 squishy stress ball hand grenades?<br /><br />Did we not learn anything from the effects of black toy water guns? how many people got shot when those were pointed at police or other people?<br /><br />(via <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/13/an_alarming_army_fre.html">Boing Boing</a>).Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-2673043477603950722007-05-12T15:45:00.000-04:002008-12-09T00:23:59.727-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVba1P891VHR3Osz7BY-nXsuCJKKHF6EoiR1uWBQG7S4MRl2SR9hevsBIhB5yxAdpt-V9nzpOQFIa1sRp8ChYWIsgmeyc_lMsgmW-kkcJ1YpypsUPMFxFG8zSxh5iT2BkzDlbD/s1600-h/DSCF1506.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5063767538566661442" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVba1P891VHR3Osz7BY-nXsuCJKKHF6EoiR1uWBQG7S4MRl2SR9hevsBIhB5yxAdpt-V9nzpOQFIa1sRp8ChYWIsgmeyc_lMsgmW-kkcJ1YpypsUPMFxFG8zSxh5iT2BkzDlbD/s400/DSCF1506.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi32AwY0OkagFw6WVg8tsRZ_SGa8l6A4r5ueJsWRXzwzpzHg-00ZQ8InIygGD5ea5SzkoqCkB0IndXF-FWVAoA4xgW15dpg76A_ESULrpxkPo__mYEy4JgARIBks_y72kOWhn3W/s1600-h/DSCF1504.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5063764124067661074" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi32AwY0OkagFw6WVg8tsRZ_SGa8l6A4r5ueJsWRXzwzpzHg-00ZQ8InIygGD5ea5SzkoqCkB0IndXF-FWVAoA4xgW15dpg76A_ESULrpxkPo__mYEy4JgARIBks_y72kOWhn3W/s320/DSCF1504.JPG" border="0" /></a>I've started to take care of the garden at the back of my house. I've watched the roses bud and then bloom, but to my horror, the blooms exhibit black spots and signs of damage. It didn't take much looking to find both green and "wooly" white aphids covering the roses' new growth. As I wanted to work with what I had on hand (city hardware stores are usually a joke), I found <a href="http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/bbtd/aphid_control.asp">some internet recipes for soap-oil-water </a>mixtures for killing aphids. So far, my little mixture hasn't deterred the green buggers at all, but today I sprayed the bushes with a strong stream of water to remove the aphids, so maybe the end of the damage is near?<br /><div></div><br /><div>My grandfather used to be the editor of the newsletter of the <a href="http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/8493/">St. Louis Rose Society</a>, and he had an impresive collection of very healthy rose bushes, so I should have learned something from him. But I only remember stuffing envelopes, the stinky bloodroot (dried cows blood) he used to fertilize the plants, and my grandmother's attentive snipping of the rose hips. They had many many kinds of roses in their garden, including a bush of miniature "Andrea" roses. I really love the smell of roses, and even the aphids can't take that away. But I would love to see perfect ones growing in my garden this summer. </div></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-79705693571020729202007-05-06T14:15:00.000-04:002007-05-06T14:26:18.986-04:00I woke up at 6 this morning to run the Sallie Mae 10k, starting behind the Lincoln Memorial. My friend and I had said to each other that we would try to run together until one of us felt the need to go faster. I was shocked to see that our first mile took 10.3 minutes to complete, and we had been running for 19+ minutes when we got to the second mile marker. Then my friend broke away to run faster, and I figured I would be running more 10 minutes miles. At the third mile marker I was at 28 minutes, and I thought to myself how that was an acceptable time for 3.5 miles, not 3. At mile 5, however, I was at 45 minutes, so somehow I had gotten back to a 9 minute mile pace along the way. And I finished with 56.40, so my average pace was 9.08 minutes/mile.<br /><br />But the time doesn't matter to me as much as the fact that I ran the whole race wtihout stopping to walk, not even once, even though I had never run that distance before, and I usually took walk breaks during 5 mile runs. The track was beautiful; we ran around Hains Point and had water to left or right side of us for the whole race. The temperature was in the 60s, so I never felt overheated, which I had worried about, because I don't have a sense of what the boundary is for overheating, i.e., when I need to stop and take a breather.<br /><br />And what's more, I didn't have my iPod.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-56840168306759738602007-05-05T19:02:00.000-04:002007-05-05T19:20:26.284-04:00My team participated in <a href="http://www.servathon.org">Servathon</a> today, and we chose the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/keaq/index.htm">Kenilworth Aquatic National Park </a>in Anacostia as the site of our labor. The team leader and I chose the site because neither of us had been anywhere near it; neither of us had even been to Anacostia before. Anacostia was so much more suburban-looking than I imagined. There were homes on quite large pieces of land, some with beautiful porches, some broken down. And in the middle of all this is the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/keaq/index.htm">Kenilworth Aquatic Park</a>, a vast series of ponds and marsh filled with lily pads and reeds (and some garbage, which we picked up). My team came very close to falling into the "gravy" as we called it (because of the film of oil floating on top), but we managed to pick up some of the trash within reach and to see a snake along the way.<br /><br /><div align="center">***</div><br />I am making dinner for a couple this coming week, and I am tempted to replicate this beautiful salad I had in Paris a couple years ago, which was made with prawns, grapefruit and cilantro. I don't want to devein anything, though. Do I need to? This salad was so simple and was served on a few pieces of greens at a Thai restaurant in Chinatown near Place d'Italie.<br /><br /> The other option is to make some kebabs with chicken and vegetables marinated in something with lemon. And to have some nice couscous, hummus, and olives on the side.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Not to mention the 10k I am running tomorrow!!! To bring or not to bring the iPod, that is the question. The friend with whom I am running the race told me it's against runners' culture to bring an iPod. Which I guess I understand. But those who adhere to the "runners' culture" can get through a 10k without straining themselves, and without such devices; whereas I wonder whether I will make it without pounding beats piercing my eardrums.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-90127316778059111132007-04-26T22:08:00.000-04:002007-04-26T22:52:42.728-04:00<a href="http://www.travelplan.it/img/fvg03.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.travelplan.it/img/fvg03.jpg" border="0" /></a>The vacation Pawel and I took in the summer of 2005 was mostly about getting away from tourists. When we encountered too many Dutch campers on the shores of Lago di Garda, we fled northwards, to Belluno. I mostly wanted to go to Belluno because it was the setting for a book I had read earlier in the vacation by Donna Leon, <em>A Noble Radiance</em>. The town of Belluno sits high above the road, and there is an elevator to get from a big parking lot up to the town. The area surrounding the town has lots of steep mountains, hills, and ravines. After suffering bouts of fear of heights on the craggy mountain tops in the heart of the Dolomiti, we drove eastwards, towards Slovenia. On our way there, we stopped in Udine (Pawel was hungry, pizza was procured), and it was a pleasant town with few tourists. Further along the road, we made an extended pit stop in Cividale del Friuli, a town reaching back to Roman times. Along with the nearby Aquileia (site of a Roman city, and unforgettable mosaics from the 4th century), it played an important part in Italian history in the Middle Ages. This town was one of our favorites; we felt like we were discovering it for ourselves - once in a while we'd see a furtive tourist with guidebook in hand, but it was rare. We liked that.<br /><br /><br />The see of Aquileia was founded by St. Mark, who had been sent by St. Peter to go to Alexandria. From 535 to 536, the Bishop of Aquileia along with some others broke off from the Pope in Rome. After Italy was overrun by Lombards, and many of the smaller entities that had been subservient to Aquileia (whose leaders had now fled to Grado, an island off the coast of Trieste) adhered to the Pope, the Lombards set up a new patriarchate at Aquileia; so there were now two Aquileian patriarchs. The Popes went on to recognize those in Grado (rather than those actually in Aquileia). The city flourished in the years around 1000, but by the 14th century an earthquake and other problems left it deserted.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-60301640857301377442007-04-24T21:37:00.000-04:002007-04-24T22:02:09.753-04:00<a href="http://www.viff.org/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/images/filmstills/0741.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.viff.org/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/images/filmstills/0741.jpg" border="0" /></a>My friend Erika noted yesterday that she and I are becoming regular Czech film buffs. Yesterday we went to go see <a href="http://cineuropa.org/making.aspx?lang=en&documentID=1068">Beauty in Trouble</a>, a film by Jan Hrebejk, who also directed <a href="http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/specialy/horempadem/">Horem Padem</a>. Beauty in Trouble was being shown as part of the <a href="http://www.filmfestdc.org">DC film festival</a>, and the best part was having the director present to discuss the film after the screening. Prior to this, we had seen a bunch of films as part of the <a href="http://www.theavalon.org/news.cfm?id=77">Lions of Czech Cinema </a>series, which is sponsored by the Czech embassy. We saw <a href="http://www.csfd.cz/film/36451-smradi/">Smradi (Brats), </a>and <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=262444">Wild Bees</a>. <div><div><div><div></div><br /><div>Out of all of these, I liked Beauty in Trouble the best, and mostly because of the character of Risa, the parasitic "uncle" who can't tell a lie in the film. He is a thoroughly pathetic character, yet he also gets the best comical lines in the script. </div><a href="http://img.radio.cz/pictures/filmy/kraska_v_nesnazich_schmitzerx.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://img.radio.cz/pictures/filmy/kraska_v_nesnazich_schmitzerx.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div></div></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-58379324507422315602007-04-22T20:05:00.000-04:002007-04-22T20:32:01.266-04:00To continue the <a href="http://transparentique.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-am-in-middle-of-reading-ayaan-hirsi.html">earlier post on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "The Caged Virgin".....</a><br /><br />Hirsi Ali points to several unethical acts of the prophet Mohammed, as recorded in the Koran, which one would not do well to emulate today. For instance, he took a nine year old as his wife, and he led aggressive military campaigns against neighboring countries.<br /><br />Is it true that these particular behaviors are not questioned in Islam, as they would not belond to Mohammed's example to be followed by believers? Is Hirsi Ali right? I am trying to think of any of Jesus' acts as recorded in the Gospels that we would not want to imitate in today's world.<br /><br />In any case, there is a difference between claiming that the religion is the root of the problems that Hirsi Ali points to, or whether the religion, as Ali's friend <a href="http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/">Irshad Manji </a>says, is "weighed down with the pressures of Arabian cultural imperialism, which dictate that women must give up their individuality in honor of the family and become communal property."<br /><br />Hirsi Ali asks Manji, "Why are liberal, secular Westerners so afraid of taking a stance against the abuses of Islam?" First, as Hirsi Ali herself noted earlier in the book, liberal Westerners would trace the cause of abusive actions back to problems of the indivual committing them, and not to the religion he or she belongs to. Second, I appreciate the author's encouragement to Westerners to confront people who are denying their family members the benefits of an open, equal society, but whatever reform the author wants to occur would have to come from within. There is too much colonial and other baggage in the relations between the West and the developing world to make this a legitimate topic of discussion between the two, if it were needed, which I'm still not convinced of after reading her book.<br /><br />As has been said before, her accusations against Islam put her in the company of some very biggoted people. Her goal, she says, is to promote change; the fallout from that is irrelevant to her.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-82560484877469609072007-04-22T19:35:00.000-04:002007-04-22T19:53:50.772-04:00<div>The silent films with live piano accompaniment at Brussels' <a href="http://www.cinematheque.be/fr/index.htm">Film Museum </a>were one of the best entertainment deals in town (only 2 Euros). </div><div> </div><div>Those times I went with my film buff friend Zofia came back to me as I watched another silent film accompanied by elaborate instrumentation at the National Gallery today. As part of the <a href="http://www.filmfestdc.org">DC Filmfest</a>, the museum put on Hungarian-American <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=89510">Paul Fejos' </a>1928 film "Lonesome," to an amazing score composed and played by the Alloy Orchestra. The funniest part of the film were the three brief sound dialogues, which were cringe-inducingly stupid. <a href="http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Eugene-Boudin/The-Rail-Road-Suspension-Bridge-Giclee-Print-I12280125.jpeg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Eugene-Boudin/The-Rail-Road-Suspension-Bridge-Giclee-Print-I12280125.jpeg" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br />I also saw the exhibits at the museum before the film started, including the Eugene Boudin (pictured to the right) and the two Jasper Johns exhibits - early work and prints. The Boudin exhibit was good; I liked that his work showed all classes hanging out on the beach. To me it seems funny that women in billowing dresses hung out in the sand, but I guess that's what they did in those days and in those outfits. The Johns prints exhibit was more to my taste, having done some printmaking in my day. Sometimes he printed on handmade paper, which reminded me that I want to learn how to do that.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-77006506220464719792007-04-20T23:02:00.000-04:002007-04-20T23:09:00.664-04:00<a href="http://englandexpects.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-know-we-call-it-pond-but.html">This is very funny</a>. Follow the instructions (At <a href="http://maps.google.com/">Googlemaps</a>, click on "Get directions" before typing in "New York" and "London").<br /><br />29 days.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-61912965966280867652007-04-20T21:54:00.000-04:002007-04-20T23:17:46.953-04:00<a href="http://www.simonsays.com/assets/isbn/0743288335/BC_0743288335.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.simonsays.com/assets/isbn/0743288335/BC_0743288335.jpg" border="0" /></a>I am in the middle of reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's <em>The Caged Virgin</em>. <div>For the past few years, I've read many articles about Hirsi Ali, and have known her views, but I had never read any lengthy works by her. For instance, she was featured as the obsessive fascination of Ian Buruma in his recent book, <a href="http://transparentique.blogspot.com/2006/11/after-long-time-of-floundering-through.html"><em>Murder in Amsterdam </em>(previous post). </a></div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>It's a shame to always be writing on this blog when I'm halfway, rather than all the way through these books. Don't I want to give the author a chance? </div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Hirsi Ali's ideas about having a public debate of ideas in the Netherlands with the country's Muslim minorities about integration, about terrorism, about radicalization, about laws that relate to them, sound very familiar. I've heard it echoed by others, and I think it is wise. </div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Ayaan is adamant about blaming Islam for many of the ills that plague Muslim countries in the world and Muslim immigrants in the West. There hasn't been an Enlightenment in the Islamic world as there has been in the West, she argues. There is no culture of questioning authority and religion ("Let us have a Voltaire," she proclaims). And the patriarchalism of Islam's rules and its tribal legacy dictates that Muslims and their nations will lag behind the West. She backs this up with, at one point, lengthy passages from the Koran. She diagnoses Muslim women who defend the veil as sufferers of a kind of "Stockholm syndrome," that they persist in defending their captors. </div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>I'm still not convinced that "Islam" couldn't be replaced by "Moroccan," "Algerian," or "rural Turkish" culture, and she readily admits that immigrants to the Netherlands are coming from the least developed areas of these countries. And what of the rest of Turkey, which is Islamic yet somehow manages to almost never be categorized with the rest of the Islamic world and its failing development? (Last week's <a href="http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_JDDJDNP"><em>Economist </em>article </a>about the persistence of honor killings of female relatives who dishonor families in rural areas of Turkey).</div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>She seems to contradict herself by, on the one hand seeing Islam as the root of the problem, while at at least one point so far, also describing it as a tool of the powerful ruling classes to manipulate citizens in Islamic countries. If Islam can be used as an instrument, then it can bend to the will of those who want to use it as such. Can't its rules be interpreted in liberal vs. conservative ways just like Jewish or Christian texts? Why does the literal interpretation have such a powerful hold on the Islamic world? </div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>She blames Islam for the lagging development in Muslim countries, whereas there are lots of non-Muslim countries that also have these problems. I don't think she takes into account the way that economic structures in some parts of the Islamic world perpetuate some problems, like reliance on one commodity, funneling funds into government coffers while the economic need to invest in the population is absent. </div><div>.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>It is a psychological tactic that Hirsi Ali dismisses the colonial legacy as a factor in problems in the Islamic world. Whether or not this concept increases the sense of victimhood in former colonies, it deserves more consideration in her worldview. Hirsi Ali, however, is not writing as a historian but as a polemicist. And she's pretty good at it. </div><div></div><div></div><div>Like I said, I'm still reading. </div><div></div><div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-28469438025233973592007-04-18T23:04:00.000-04:002007-04-18T23:09:26.904-04:00On the prominent Dutch newspaper <a href="http://www.devolkskrant.nl">de Volkskrant</a>'s website, the headline about "190 confirmed dead in Baghdad attacks" (<a href="http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/article417001.ece/Zeker_190_doden_bij_aanslagen_Bagdad">Zeker 190 doden bij aanslagen Bagdad </a>) is more prominent than "Cho sent in materials to NBC" (<a href="http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/article417151.ece/Cho_stuurde_materiaal_aan_tv-station_NBC">Cho stuurde materiaal aan tv-station NBC</a>).Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-32827028897185254312007-04-18T21:54:00.000-04:002007-04-18T23:14:24.095-04:00Juxtaposed against the background of 171 people dying in Iraq today in terrorist attacks, we're learning more about the Virginia Tech shooter. At least some mental health professionals noted that he was a danger to himself, but as has been reported earlier, he wasn't volunteering for therapy.<br /><br />Poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Giovanni">Nikki Giovanni calls him just plain "mean</a>," although I don't understand how a professor can think that one person is "mean," without thinking that the "mean" had to come from somewhere -- e.g., mental illness, abuse, trauma. It doesn't just come out of nowhere. Would a skillful author describe one of her characters as "just mean," without explaining why that person was mean or evil? Wouldn't that make her a pretty bad author, to revert to the old good vs. evil trope?<br /><br />Yes, he's hard to understand. The snippets from the video he sent to NBC are vague: they blame "you" for what he did. Who? Everyone? If he was trying to send a message to people, he did a really bad job.<br /><br />This student seemed to have slipped through the cracks, because he really should have been committed, if only for his own sake. But what will this mean for the other maladjusted kids out there? Are they going to be thrown at therapists right and left all over campuses, when some of them may actually be acting within the normal range of human behavior, just quieter, more reserved, less expressive?Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34486342.post-16850198783871110822007-04-16T23:04:00.000-04:002007-04-16T23:32:46.064-04:00<a href="http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/1/11/VT_Emblem.gif"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/1/11/VT_Emblem.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The Virginia Tech Shooting<br /><div></div><br /><div>An Asian-American Virginia Tech student was responsible for killing 33 people today on the school's campus, including himself. If only there had been a more alarmist reaction to the two initial deaths committed at 7:15 a.m. and deemed domestic in nature, considering that authorities did not know whether the killer was still on the loose on campus. </div>(<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/campus.security/index.html">CNN</a>)<br /><br />See the emails below. Who was the gunman the authorities had in custody? Did the police make a mistake? And why did they write an email at 9:26 if the first shootings took place at 7:15?<br /><br /><strong>Here are the emails the university administration sent to students: (from CNN)</strong><br /><br /><strong>Time sent: 09:26:24<br />Subject: Shooting on campus<br /><br /></strong>A shooting incident occurred at West Ambler Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.<br />The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case. Contact Virginia Tech Police at 231-6411<br /><br /><br />Stay attuned to the www.vt.edu. We will post as soon as we have more information.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Time sent: 9:50 a.m.<br />Subject: Please stay put<br /></strong><br />A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows<br /><br /><br /><strong>Time sent: 10:16:40<br />Subject: All Classes Canceled; Stay where you are<br /></strong><br />Virginia Tech has canceled all classes. Those on campus are asked to remain where they are, lock their doors and stay away from windows. Persons off campus are asked not to come to campus.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Time sent: 10:52:45<br />Subject: Second Shooting Reported; Police have one gunman in custody<br /></strong><br />In addition to an earlier shooting today in West Ambler Johnston, there has been a multiple shooting with multiple victims in Norris Hall.<br />Police and EMS are on the scene.<br />Police have one shooter in custody and as part of routine police procedure, they continue to search for a second shooter.<br />All people in university buildings are required to stay inside until further notice.<br />All entrances to campus are closed.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04254040442637308456noreply@blogger.com0