recently received the following announcement...
A documentary film about the Koreans of Kazahkstan:
Koryo Saram; the unreliable people
exec. producer: Meredith Jung-En Woo
director & producer: Y. David Chung
photography dir. & editor: Matthew Dibble
Oct. 29, 2006 / Sunday / 2pm
Smithsonian Freer Gallery
Meyer aud.
Wash.,D.C.
(202) 633-4880
Nov. 6, 2006 / Monday / 5pm
Michigan Theatre
Ann Arbor, MI
(734) 668-8463
The language of the warrior goblins will be explained at the Air & Space museum. Here's the announcement:
The Dark Side of the National Air and Space Museum
With special guest, Marc Okrand, creator of the Klingon language
Thursday, October 26
6:00 PM
Throughout the National Mall building
Admission: Free, reservations required
email: whatsup@si.edu
phone: 202-633-1000
web: http://www.nasm.si.edu/
When darkness falls on the National Air and Space Museum on October 26, the focus of attention becomes the unusual, bizarre and supernatural.
Join us to hear some strange aviation and space tales not usually presented in the light of day such as:
The frightening hallucinations that plagued astronomer George Ellery Hale; the obsessions of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes; the bizarre stories about Amelia Earhart's disappearance; the "face" on Mars; the Great Moon Hoax of 1835; the WWI German ace, Baron von Richthofen and the “Red Baron” mystique; and amateur astronomer Percival Lowell, whose theories convinced millions that Martians existed.
After hearing an array of amazing stories, visitors can gather at 7:30 p.m. in the theater for “Klingon 101,” with Marc Okrand, creator of the Star Trek language. Okrand will discuss the development and uses of the Klingon language. The language has proven so popular that several Shakespearian plays have been translated into it and dedicated Star Trek fans still converse in it. [editor: my underlining]
After the presentation, Okrand will be available to autograph one of his several books: The Klingon Dictionary, Klingon for the Galactic Traveler, and Star Trek Power Klingon.
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So, is the language popular enough that somebody will develop voice recognition software?
In the meantime, here are some phrases to build your Klingon vocabulary:
Klingon / English
HIjol / Beam me aboard!
HIghoS / Come here!
bInep / You lie.
tlhIngan jIH / I am a Klingon.
cha yIbaH qara'DI' / Fire the torpedoes!
quSDaQ ba'lu"a' / Is this seat taken?
(from http://www.kasper-online.de/en/docs/startrek/klingon.htm)
I happened to be perusing the NY Times website, when I caught a picture of a woman who resigned yesterday from the White House staff. She looked like she could be Asian.
She turned out to be, but more on that later.
At least one news report is wondering why she resigned:
Why Did Rove Aide Resign?
Investigation shows Susan Ralston was conduit between Abramoff and White House
By JAKE TAPPER / ABC News
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2006 — -Hours before the beginning of a three-day holiday weekend, the White House announced the resignation of Susan Ralston, a top aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.
Just a week before, Ralston's name was mentioned 162 times in a 93-page congressional report on the influence wielded in the Bush White House by uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a convicted felon.
The bipartisan House Government Reform Committee studied documents from Greenberg Traurig L.L.P., Abramoff's former lobbying firm -- billing records and other documents -- indicating that Abramoff and his team had made 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials over three years -- 69 of which were with Ralston, who seemed to have served as a messenger between the Abramoff and White House camps.
Before coming to the White House, Ralston served as executive assistant to Abramoff. In her letter, dated Thursday but released to the media towards the end of the day today, Ralston wrote that "the time has come for me to pursue other opportunities."
As the report indicates, Ralston worked under Abramoff, before going over to work for Rove.
In fact Susan Bonzon Ralston had been Abramoff's:
executive assistant at Preston Gates and Ellis and later at the Greenberg Traurig law and lobbying firm, where "she served as the assistant director of governmental affairs. Before moving to the nation’s capital, she was an office administrator for M&J Wilkow, Ltd., a commercial real estate firm in Chicago, Illinois." [1] (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_18.php#006598)[2] (http://www.asianfortune.com/aug04/Articles/PROFILE%20Susan%20RALSTON.htm)
The SourceWatch profile written a year or so, ago goes on to say:
"Ms. Ralston assists Mr. Rove in overseeing the strategic planning, political affairs, public liaison, and intergovernmental affairs efforts of the White House." [3] (http://www.philippinefestival.org/pfc2003ma12.html)
Ralston is cited as being the highest ranking Filipino-American in the Bush White House. The Philippine News Online reported (http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=3e0c4851a55bc3720463f093929c619d) September 22, 2004, that "Ralston, who was promoted special assistant to the president last July, is also actively involved in courting the Asian American vote."
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Well, now that she's got all this free time on her hands, maybe she can be more actively involved in the Filipino American Republicans of Virginia (FARV).
She's already on their advisory council.
Elsewhere on FARV's website, one can access a copy of last winters newsletter. On the front page, there's a picture of Sen. Geo. Allen doing the tinikling in his cowboy boots. (Priceless! Who says white men can't dance?)
Come to think of it, maybe Ralston can devote some of her free time to rescuing the self-destructing Allen, before he ends up in political Boot Hill.
She oughta take him to see the smooth-talking, Pinoy funnyman, Rex Navarette ,
who just happens to be playing Lisner Auditorium in DC, tonight!
'Tis the season for book festivals. Last weekend, there were ones in Baltimore and Washington, DC. The biggest one in the world has just kicked off again in Frankfurt, Germany.
This year, the featured country is India (a repeat from the fair of '86).
One of the authors mentioned in a Deutsche Welle website article is Vikram Chandra, who I heard years ago when he was in residence at GWU in DC. (I thought, at the time, that his writing was very evocative, but his delivery was sorta monotonous.)
Here's an excerpt:
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As India takes center stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair, it's not the Salman Rushdies, Arundhati Roys and Vikram Seths, but a new generation of authors writing in English who are making waves...
Many have moved beyond the traditional Anglophone market to enter European territory, as publishers from France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have trickled into India in recent years in search of the next literary sensation.
"The Empire writes back"
Ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair, German publishers in particular have been scrambling to buy Indian rights and have undertaken a wave of translations.
More than 25 translated works of fiction have emerged in the German market alone this year. They include books by Altaf Tyrewala, Samit Basu, Suketu Mehta, Vikram Chandra, Kiran Nagarkar, Thrity Umrigar, Shobha De and Raj Kamal Jha.
“Indian writing in English has become a bit of a trend,” said Shashi Tharoor, author and Indian candidate for the post of the next UN secretary general, speaking at a recent press conference in Berlin. Tharoor, whose books “Show Business” and “Nehru: The Invention of India” were translated into German this year, compared the boom to the flowering of Latin American writers in the 1970s and '80s. “In a way it’s like the Empire writing back,” he said.
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I guess you could call it postcolonial revenge.
Meanwhile, I imagine that the producers of the Indian Vibes radio show in Frankfurt are taking advantage of the Indian focus and writers at the bookfair.
When I first visited Frankfurt, back in '99, I went to the community radio station, Radio X (91.8 fm), and tried to interview the station manager, Petra Klaus. She's also coproducer of a show specialising in UK Indian stuff (Talvin Singh, asian dub foundation, cornershop, etc.) Unfortunately, my minidisc reocorder went kaput, so I gave up. (She also didn't have much time to spare, that day.)
The thing that was never clear to me, at the time, was to what degree the show was essentializing or, perhaps, stereotyping indian culture and British indian culture. But, after doing the show for 7 or 8 years, I certainly expect by now, the producers (Klaus and DJ Kurian) have got a feel for the music and musicians and other creative people they've covered (filmmakers, visual artists, etc.).
It can be tricky to figure out racial attitudes (and attitudes toward foreigners) in another country, when you're just visiting. The typical tourist lacks historical and social context, and has to rely on their own biased filters. But that's what travel is all about, soaking in new environments.
a bit of computer history --
I got an email announcement, today, that it was 51 years ago, on this very day, that ENIAC was shut down at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
According to the Wikipedia entry,
"ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems, although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ENIAC was designed and built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory. The first problems run on the ENIAC however, were related to the design of the hydrogen bomb."
It was built at the Univ. of Penn., and moved from Philly to Aberdeen Proving Grd. in 1947.
"It contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 feet (2.4 m) by 3 feet (0.9 m) by 100 feet (30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power. Input was possible from an IBM card reader, while an IBM card punch was used for output."
(Unfortunately, the Wikipedia entry forgot to mention that ENIAC was powered by a coal-fed steam engine. j/k)