Cherry Time

On a little island in the South China Seas, fresh cherries have been on sale for a couple of weeks at HK$32.00 a pound. Today, they were on sale at HK$28.00. Penny careful, pound foolish; Mister B bought two generous handfuls of big, dark red, juicy cherries (HK$17.00).

They are delicious. But who knows where they come from? Each cherry is packed with water, but where grew the cherry tree whose roots sucked up the earth's moisture that filled that cherry? Haven't a clue. No idea. Isn't that sad, not knowing? Must ask the lady at the fruit and veg.

Meantime, Mister B will hum the well-known left-wing chanson Le Temps des Cerises (The Time of Cherries), by Jean-Baptiste Clément (1836-1903).

The song was dedicated to Louise, a communarde ambulance woman killed during the bloody right-wing destruction of the Paris Commune (1871). During World War II, Le Temps des Cerises became the signature rallying point during the Nazi occupation for the French Communist Party's resistance fighters: Le Temps des Cerises

Mp3 (scroll down page): Le Temps des Cerises
Paroles: Le Temps des Cerises

Thanks, Nelson (and Miles)

An unexpected visitor knocked on Mister B's door on Friday evening, what followed was a weekend of some tumult and turbulence. Now Mister B admits his life has a certain comfortable and solitary tameness, and that a good shake up is, in all probability, more than necessary. Welcome, even. But there is turbulence and then there is turbulence.

Fortunately, this weekend Mister B kept in mind Nelson Algren's Advice to Young Man. While Mister B no longer qualifies as a young man, he thinks Algren's advice has some merit. For young or old, man or woman.

You will recall that Algren was a journalist and author. He is probably most well known for The Man with the Golden Arm, later made into a film starring Frank Sinatra. Less well known is that Algren was the on/off lover of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre's life-long partner. Evidently, Algren was Old School. Years later, Algren was mortified when he read in de Beauvoir's autobiography that he (Algren) had given her her first orgasm; Nelson believed such intimate details should have remained private.

More about Nelson Algren: Wikipedia

Nelson Algren's Advice to a Young Man:

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

So what's with the Miles Davis Ascenseur for l'échafaud? The music is cool and spare, a useful antitdote for what had gone before it.

Oh, here is the American trailer for the Louis Malle film: youtube

Israeli assault on Lebanon

CNN has an online vote on whether you agree Israel is justified in attacking Lebanon: CNN vote
Thanks, Nick G!






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Source: Aggression on Lebanon updates

Bed sharing 'drains men's brains'

Le rêve, Pierre Puvis de Chavanne (1824-98)

Voulez-vouz coucher avec moi, ce soir? Actually, if it has got to that stage you should be tutoi-ing: Tu veux coucher avec moi ce soir?

Elsewhere, the pros and cons of bed sharing.
BBC News: Health
Discuss.

A Critical History of 20th-Century Art

(click on painting to enlarge)

Built by General Dynamics, the F-111 was a strategic bomber, reconnaissance and tactical strike plane. F-111, an artwork (1965) by James Rosenquist, is painted on aluminium panels, the same material as was used for the outer skin of the F-111. Rosenquist's F-111 is an enormous eighty-six by ten feet and celebrates (?) or satirises (?) a consumer society underpinned by a military-industrial complex.

A Critical History of 20th-Century Art, by Donald Kuspit: artnet magazine

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

The adage that the first casualty of war is truth is evident listening to various reporters, commentators and smooth-talking spinmeisters featured on the radio airwaves via the BBC Worldservice.

For some clarity that pierces the fog of war, try this chronology of the latest Middle East crisis, by Sharat G Lin: counterpunch

Hong Kong: more weather

(click to enlarge)
Source: Hong Kong Observatory Very Hot Weather

Yes, I know, more weather pron. . . those are the maximum temperatures reached on Monday, 24 July 2006. Since when the local thermometer has, thankfully, dropped to a pleasant daytime temp of 26.1C

Hong Kong: shelter from the storm

Re-write of a Hong Kong Airport Authority press release in today's SCMP about possible, occasional, short duration luggage delays during the summer at Hong Kong International Airport at Chep Lap Kok. Ordinarily, luggage retrieval at the airport is mighty quick. But during inclement weather there may be delays, the result of all human activities on airfield apron and ramp coming to a necessary halt during lightning storms.

The airport opened in 1998 and lightning safety measures have been in place since 2003. These include a sophisticated lightning warning system as well as lightning shelters in remote and exposed parts of the airport. No mention of it in the press release, but the SCMP quotes an Air Authority spokesperson as saying that until 2003 eighteen airport workers had been hit by lightning or "injured in lightning-related incidents": press release.

Captain Tobias Hume

(click on image to enlarge)

Short notice, I know, but Mister B only just got the email. My pal Dean Ferrell (see above) is performing at the Kárahnúkur protest camp (28 July), Bechtel (!) Village (29 July), and at the Egilsbúð in Neskaupstaður (also 28 July).

We are talking about places at the extreme east end of Iceland. Neskaupstaður looks really neat: Neskaupstaður

A long time resident of Rekyjavik, Dean is a fine double-bass player, and has developed a one-man show based on the life and times of Tobias Hume (1569?-1645). Hume lived an interesting life as a soldier, mercenary, musician, composer and prankster: Wikipedia

I guess the performances are linked with the protests about dam building which, when completed, will serve to produce hydro-electric power for a yet to be completed ALCOA aluminium smelter. The dams are being built by war profiteers Bechtel. More info: saving iceland

Listless and languid

(click on table to enlarge)
source: Hong Kong Observatory

Thunderstorms and squally showers are on their way.

We: Arundhati Roy on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

Youtube? With each passing day, meandering around leads to all manner of new satisfactions:


Isn't that something? What do you think of that 1937 Winston Churchill quote? That little kid with a white flag trying to negotiate a crossroad? Make that a cross road.

Fast paced, with a music soundtrack that includes Nine Inch Nails, Amon Tobin, Massive Attack, the documentary is based on a speech Arundhati Roy gave in 2002. Since when nothing she describes has got any better, got any different.

May I be as bold as to suggest that this is a 'must see' documentary. In its entirety, it's sixty-four minutes long. It will need your time, but it doesn't require your money to watch. Why? It's free. Took Mister B eighteen minutes to download. Hey! Download in the background while you do something else.

Details: We, the documentary

Lebanon: spontaneous destruction?

No, not if this report is correct:

More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified.

San Francisco Chronicle

Bob Dynal: Th*m* T*m* R*d** H**r

Despite receipt of a Cease and Desist which caused a temporary hiccup, WMS is now back in business. That is Good.

Mister B can heartily recommends Baseball, Summer, and the latest one, Cars. Each show comes as archive or complete. If you are interested, Mister B likes the complete.

In any case, one or t'other may require some patience and tolerance as well as cookies enabled to download. If you have any problems read WMS and accompanying comments. Big thanks, WMS: White Man Stew

Midday report

Glorious morning. Fine. Hot. Light Winds. Southerly. 31.2C.
Hong Kong Observatory: webcams

Lebanon: offensive has mainly targetted civilians

Marc J. Sirois, managing editor of Lebanon's The Daily Star:

As of Wednesday evening, Israeli attacks had killed at least 292 civilians in Lebanon, while Hizbullah rockets had killed 13 noncombatants in the Jewish state. Lebanon has approximately 3.5 million people. On a per-capita basis, that means that as of Wednesday, the rough equivalent of 9/11 has happened every day here for eight days.

Western media has dropped the ball by failing to tell the real story in Lebanon: The Daily Star

Lebanon: the child lies like a rag doll

Robert Fisk:

Why, for example, did the Israelis attack and destroy the headquarters of the Liban-Lait company in the Bekaa Valley, the largest milk factory in Lebanon? Why did they bomb out the factory of the main importer for Proctor and Gamble products in Lebanon, based in Bchmoun? Why did they destroy a paper box factory outside Beirut? And why did Israeli planes attack a convoy of new ambulances being brought into Lebanon from Syria yesterday, vehicles which were the gift of the medical authorities of the United Arab Emirates? The ambulances were clearly marked as a relief aid convoy, according to an Emirates official. Were all these "terrorist" targets? Was the little girl in the field at Tel Harfa a "terrorist" target?

Full article, UK newspaper Independent, via information clearing house

International Red Cross and Red Crescent

(click on Pieter Brueghel [about 1562] to enlarge)

For Lebanon, make a donation

Time after time

Incoming email! This one from Sue R, a past resident of a little island in the South China Sea. Thanks, Sue! For both the reception and content. Plus yr email signature at the end:

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginnng and the end.
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Not any more of heaven or hell than there is now.
(Whitman)

For Leaves of Grass, Bartleby is yr friend
(section 14, line 31): bartleby
For Whitman, a good start is: Wikipedia

(Mister B: And now, for all those children who have been smitten and smote during the past week in Lebanon, they will never grow any older.)

Ray of sunshine

Amid all the current chaos and mayhem:
a thin beam of light
Thanks, Gavin!

Dragon fruit

Not the kind with an inside composed of those small black seeds embedded in that boringly tasteless whitish grey stuff, oh no. This one, when you cut it open, has those same small black seeds, but amid a beetroot red and juicy flesh. Really sweet and tasty. The lady at my fruit and veg says the red-inside ones are only available in the summer, and come from Malaysia.

Retail? Six Hong Kong dollars on a little island in the South China Sea. Menu plan: eat half for dessert, eat the other half as part of breakfast.