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USA Today.com
Page 1A
September 4, 2001
Vigilantes take up arms, vow to expel 'Muslim filth'
By Jack Kelley
HEBRON, West Bank -- After a quick prayer, Avi Shapiro and 12 other Jewish settlers put on their religious skullcaps, grabbed their semiautomatic rifles and headed toward Highway 60.
There, they pushed boulders, stretched barbed wire and set tires afire to form a barricade that, they said, would stop even the biggest of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for a vehicle to arrive.
As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro, the leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi, ''open fire'' and kill as many of the ''blood-sucking Arab'' passengers as possible.
''We are doing what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon promised but has failed to do: drive these sons of Arab whores from the Land of Israel,'' said Shapiro, 42, who moved here with his wife and four children 3 years ago from Brooklyn. ''If he won't get rid of the Muslim filth, then we will.''
Claiming they have been abandoned by Israel's government and determined to rid the West Bank of Arabs, vigilante Jewish settlers are shooting and beating Palestinians, stealing and destroying their property and poisoning and diverting their water supplies, Israeli and Palestinian officials say.
Though Jewish extremists have lashed out before -- most notoriously in 1994 when a U.S. settler, Baruch Goldstein, gunned down 29 Arabs in a nearby mosque -- never before have they struck with such frequency, Israeli officials say. And nowhere has the violence been as intense as in this disputed city, believed to be the burial place of the Biblical prophet Abraham.
Nearly 450 right-wing Jews, all of whom are armed and claim a Biblical right to the land, live here among 120,000 Palestinians. Many, like Shapiro and his colleagues, are ready to strike at any time.
Israeli and U.S. officials have warned Sharon that if the violence against Palestinian civilians increases, it could enflame already high emotions and lead the entire region into war.
''It only takes a spark to light a very big fire here,'' says Yossi Sarid, a left-wing Israeli opposition leader. ''This is a city that is cursed.''
'A time bomb'
Since the start of the latest surge of violence in Israel a year ago this month, at least 119 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that has been critical of both sides. Hundreds have been hospitalized, it says.
During the same time, at least 30 settlers have been killed by Palestinian gunmen.
In July, Jewish vigilantes killed three Palestinians, including a 3-month-old boy, in Nablus. The State Department condemned the attack as a ''barbaric act'' of ''unconscionable vigilantism.'' No one has been charged in the attack.
''These people are a time bomb,'' says Hanna Nasser, Palestinian mayor of the West Bank city of Bethlehem. ''No one is safe.''
The almost daily attacks have been condemned by nearly all Israelis, including most settlers. Politicians, who fear the extremists will spoil Israel's attempt to portray itself as the victim rather than the aggressor in this conflict, have been the most vocal.
''These Jewish terrorists are criminals,'' Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres says. ''They've gone too far.''
Yet, the attacks are expected to increase, Israeli officials say. A group of Jewish vigilantes who possess bomb-making materials has formed in Hebron, the officials say.
The group, which claimed responsibility for three recent Palestinian deaths, has been distributing fliers in the West Bank that read: ''Revenge is holy. It should be up to the government to do it, but unfortunately, the government does not care about the murder of Jews. There are people whose patience has run out.''
Security officials also say they fear that the extremists are widening their targets to include Israeli police and soldiers sent to protect the settlers, as well as Western diplomats and European peace monitors. All have recently been attacked. The settlers accuse them of not doing enough to protect them or of favoring the Palestinians.
On Aug. 21, 85 European Community monitors who had patrolled Hebron since 1994 withdrew after complaining of weeks of verbal and physical abuse by the settlers. ''Every day, we were kicked, dragged and beaten by the settlers,'' says Karl-Henrik Sjursen of Norway, chief of the observer mission. ''They made life impossible for us.''
Shots at a taxi
On a recent Sunday, Shapiro and the 12 other extremists spotted their first target: a white Palestinian taxi that had turned the corner and begun to rumble toward them. From a hill 50 yards away, the Jewish men could be seen removing the safety locks from the weapons. Their wives were grabbing extra ammunition clips. Their children, all of them younger than 12, were picking up rocks.
But the Palestinian driver, upon seeing the settlers, brought his Mercedes stretch taxi to a sudden stop 50 yards from the checkpoint. He quickly turned the car around. Cursing aloud, Shapiro ordered the men to open fire. The shooting lasted for 10 seconds.
At least two bullets hit the car. One shattered its back window. Several women wearing white Islamic headscarves could be heard screaming and seen ducking. It wasn't known whether anyone was injured.
''We'll keep this up until we eliminate all the Muslim filth,'' Shapiro said before the confrontation. ''We have to: It's our Jewish duty.''
'God's land given to us'
Analysts such as Elisha Efrat of Tel Aviv University estimate that 10% of the 177,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza are extremists, people who are willing to die before giving up their land.
Many of them live behind 25-foot tall stone fences and bulletproof windows in Hebron. The 450 settlers here, and the 7,000 others who live down the road in Israeli-controlled territory, see themselves as the guardians of Hebron, which is considered Judaism's second holiest city after Jerusalem. All are protected by several thousand Israeli soldiers and police.
''This is God's land given to us, the Israeli people,'' says settler Ariel Fischer, 38, citing Biblical passages that support Israel's claim of the land. Like most of the extremists, he's Israeli-born. ''If you don't wear a yarmulke (skullcap), get out.''
Hebron is also home to 120,000 Palestinians, many of whom live in the hilltop area of Abu Sneineh.
For centuries, Arabs and Jews coexisted peacefully in Hebron. Then a riot in 1929 resulted in the deaths of more than 60 Jews. The British, who governed what was then Palestine, resettled the remaining Jews elsewhere.
In 1967, after Israel captured the West Bank of the Jordan River, some Jews returned. But those who came were the most ideologically extreme of Israelis. Backed by government policies that encouraged them to move into the West Bank, the Israelis claimed a Biblical right to the city and demanded that the Arabs leave.
Then in 1997, the Israeli army, which had controlled Hebron since the war 30 years ago, withdrew from 80% of the city and ceded control to the Palestinian Authority.
The remaining 20% was left for the settlers.
That was a recipe for disaster, settlers say. Almost daily since last September, there have been shots fired into their settlement by Palestinian snipers. In response, Israel put 30,000 Palestinians, whose homes surround the settlement, under a 24-hour curfew. It prohibits them from leaving their homes, even to go to a doctor or attend school, and jails them if they do. Twice a week, the curfew is lifted for a few hours to allow the residents to shop. The rest of the time, they are in their homes.
Last week, hundreds of Israeli troops, backed by dozens of tanks and bulldozers, swept into Hebron for several hours to destroy buildings they say had been used by Palestinian snipers. Settlers want Israel to reestablish control of the area by permanently reoccupying all of Hebron. Until that happens, settlers say, they're forced to take ''pre-emptive actions'' to stop the Palestinian gunfire.
''People here are extremely upset,'' says David Wilder, a spokesman for Jewish settlers here. ''We're upset by the daily shooting, killings and harassment by Palestinians. People feel abandoned (by Israel's government) and so some people are going to take up guns.'' Says another settler spokesman Noam Federman, ''If we don't take up guns, we'll be ducks in a shooting range.''
But Israeli officials say the settlers often provoke the violence. Unlike the Palestinians, the settlers are free to leave their homes at will. They regularly attack Palestinian shops while the Palestinians, who are forced to stay indoors because of the curfew, can only watch, according to human rights groups.
Ahmad Abu Neni, 55, is blind and a Palestinian. His small kiosk of cleaning supplies has been ransacked three times since last September by settlers, human rights officials say. He also has been beaten in the back with a brick and punched repeatedly, they add.
Neni says Israeli soldiers tried to break up one of the attacks by firing a concussion grenade at the attackers, only to set his clothes on fire. He suffered third-degree burns. His shop now closed, he survives on handouts of food and money. ''If I had money and could see, I would leave,'' Neni says. ''It's just a matter of time before they beat me again.''
Nearby, Nafez Bani Jaber, 45, was burying all 123 of his sheep. He says they were poisoned last week after 10 Jewish extremists chased him off his fields. Israeli police say they have found needles dipped in poison that they believe the settlers used on the sheep. Police say poison also was dumped down a nearby well that Palestinians use.
''First they poisoned the sheep. Next will be the children,'' Jaber says. ''These are war crimes.''
Often, the violence directed at the Palestinians is aimed at their Muslim faith. Settlers have spray painted graffiti reading ''Mohammed is a homosexual,'' referring to the Islamic prophet, and painted Jewish Stars of David on the walls of the local Arab market. They also have surrounded Muslim women and tried to rip off their Islamic headscarves and body veils, human rights groups say.
Samar Abdul-Shafti, 36, a Palestinian mother of two, was photographed last month trying to escape several settlers who were beating her as they tried to remove her headscarf. It has happened two other times since then, she says, revealing bruises on her arms, legs and forehead.
''The Jews are trying to do to us what was done to them during the Holocaust,'' Shafti says. ''They must not be allowed to drive us from our homes. Someone must help.''
'Ashamed to be a Jew'
Palestinian police say they don't have the means to defend the Arab residents.
Israeli soldiers seem unwilling or unable to help. Noam Tivon, Israeli Defense Forces brigade commander for Hebron, says his soldiers are in Hebron to protect the settlers, not the Palestinians. Tivon says his soldiers and police officers often are ambushed by settlers whom he calls ''hooligans.''
The settlers accuse the police of failing to stop the Arab violence.
''They throw rocks at us, curse at us and vandalize our police cars,'' says Israeli policeman Shahar Mahsomi, 25. He suffered a concussion in March after a settler struck him on the head with a rock. Another settler tried to stab two police officers in the same scuttle. ''I never thought I'd be fighting Jews,'' Mahsomi says.
The situation is just as dangerous at the nearby settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina where nearly 7,000 settlers, many of whom are hard-liners, regularly attack neighboring Palestinians.
''I can't believe we are risking our lives to defend these fanatics,'' says Sgt. Avi Alamm, 28, as he watches a settler boy, dressed as the late Goldstein, walked by with an Israeli flag. Goldstein, who gunned down the 29 Muslims, is revered among some settlers as a prophet. They encourage their children to dress like him on occasion. ''The people make me ashamed to be a Jew,'' Alamm says.
Now, many Israelis are calling on the government to dismantle extremist settlements such as the one here.
''The Jewish settlement in Hebron is a major nuisance, and the lawless behavior by Jews there in recent days leads to one conclusion,'' the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz recently editorialized. ''Hebron must be evacuated.''
Further Reading:
F.·.W.·. Magazine || 9/11: The Archive - The 'Lighter' Side of the New World Order?


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Hi, Lois here today with a fun fold card. I have to admit that I'm not much of a camper. I do remember one summer when I was a kid, we went to the Pocono Mountains for a week; but "camped" in a cabin -- not a tent. With that said, I have a gatefold card for you today -- using several of the dies from the "Camping" release from CottageCutz.
Supplies for this card are:
Gold cardstock - 5 1/2" x 11" scored at 2 3/4" and 8 1/4"
White cardstock - 2 pieces 5 1/4" x 2 1/2", 1 piece 5 1/4" square
Various scrap pieces of colored cardstock - green, red, pale blue, green, silver, yellow, tan, orange
Distress ink - green, orange, brown
Patterned paper - grass, sky, sand, macadam
CottageCutz dies - Jeep, Camping Trailer, Camping Gear, Campfire Clothesline, Campfire Squirrel, Camping Phrases, Snowcapped Mountains, CampsiteDouble-sided tape and tape runner
I started by cutting out the pieces for the Jeep and Trailer and constructing each one. I used double sided tape for the smaller pieces to make it easier to adhere them to the base pieces.
Using several of the accessory dies in the Camping release, I created a fun campsite.
CottageCutz dies used on this card are:

subset: commoncrawl


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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Post-busy blah
We then went on to have a huge weekend with lots of kids parties, then I had to stay up till midnight to finish my semester's work. Today I felt a bit flat and blah, sitting at home listening to the rain, reading and loving Saving Francesca, and thinking about what I'm going to write next. We're vaguely househunting again and it really is a dispiriting experience.
So I am tired of me. Let's talk about you.
Tell me: what was your childhood home like? Did you move much or live in one place? What was the best hiding place? Did you live on a quiet street or a main road? What was the best place to play? Who lived next door? Did your neighbourhood have a haunted house?
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thesis Update
There's a recurring motif of creating in Coraline, the creations of the other mother, the story Coraline writes and the picture she attempts to draw at the beginning of the mist (eventually writing the word MIST in wobbly letters in one corner). There's also a strong recurring image of playing, in fact you could argue that the whole novel begins because Coraline wishes she had someone to play with, and because she wants to explore. The title comes from a conversation she has with the (very Cheshire-like) cat:
'Did she make this place then?' asked Coraline.Coming up with a title and narrowing my focus a little (ahem...okay, a lot) has definitely been the key to finding my structure. My thesis supervisor, Kevin Brophy, said this would happen and he was right. Phew. Also it's making my reading feel productive rather than scary and overwhelming because I have a specific question in my head. The question came about because I asked myself sternly why I was writing a thesis, as a creative writer, what's in it for me. So I'm going to write a bit about melancholy and a bit about the relationship between intertextuality and originality (has it all been done before? Is there value in the uncovering and arranging and rearranging of found objects, detritus, debris? Are writers kind of collectors?) and lots about creativity, plus I'm going to partake in a little self-indulgent pyschoanalysis because I find it kind of fun. I'm just nerdy like that.
'Made it, found it––what's the diffence?' asked the cat. 'Either way she's had it a very long time.'
I've also decided to do a creative component. But that bit's secret, too nebulous to talk about. If I describe it, it might frizzle up.
Book as enduring object
"I'm fascinated by the fact that bookbinding, far from being a gentle art, is actually quite a rough, energetic pasttime, and much of the terminology is very physical: we smoothed her down, trimmed her clean, knocked up her shoulder, rounded the headband, padded up her spine, wrestled with the bookcloth, boned her all over, blocked the case, cased her in."This is a post from last year, recently linked to on Sarsaparilla, about rebinding a hardback book (photos via flickr here). There is something about the book as object that I find eternally compelling. Although I believe books in bound form will always exist (if nothing else, the ones that already exist and are treasured will endure), I do think that the future is in some kind of cost-effective, resource sparing technology and that bound books will increasingly become for beauty's sake only, something closer to art and more of an ackowledgement of our desire to collect and collate, to invest ourselves in the objects we own, to surround ourselves with objects that say something about us. Perhaps in the future instead of shelves of books, we'll have a small few, displayed not spine out but like art, either front facing, or perhaps splayed open in a prominent part of the room, revealing the inner workings.
Ampersand Duck
The objectifying language of bookbinding above, its erotic undertones, reminds us what a fetish the possession of books can be.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Who am I describing? Mother or daughter? Frederique is so like me, sometimes I feel like I am having to find a way to parent myself. The shifting space between us, it never occurred to me before I had her that I would find the boundary between us so vague, so indistinct, the beginnings of ourselves so blurred. I don't have this with Una...is it because she was second? Or is it because Frederique is so like me and I can see great joy for her but a difficult road all the same?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
There's other stuff to do too, if you are in need of an obsession. You can vote on tees, you can comment on the designs of tees being voted on, you can send in photos of you wearing your tees, you can submit designs or text, you can look at sold out and retired tees and mourn their loss. Anyway, it's a fun site and some of the designs are really beautiful (I'm a v-neck girl, but I may yet go to the dark side...bummer that the interpretive dance one is sold out).
Monday, May 21, 2007
Melbourne Bloggers Meet Up
Come one come all.
If you're a blogger and in Melbourne on Sunday June 17, would you like to meet a few other bloggers? The (almost) no rule Meet Me in Melbourne bloggers gathering will be in the Flagstaff Gardens in the afternoon from 2pm onwards in the vicinity of the kids' playground, near the junction of Peel, William and Franklin Streets. You can come in any guise for as long or short a time as you like. BYO picnic paraphernalia if you so desire - perhaps some afternoon tea to share.
The only rule? A name tag with who you are and the name of your blog.
And no excuses, like you don't know anyone or are worried your type of blog won't fit in. It's the perfect opportunity to get in touch with some of your on-line acquaintances and plan to meet up. We all share the desire to connect to each other through our blogs, so I'm sure none of us are too scary in real life.
Of course being Melbourne, the weather is something of a lottery. Please check on the morning of the meet for latest details and weather contingency plans at any of the following blogs:
If you'd like to help us spread the word (even if you can't come in person) please copy and paste this post to your blog. We're also working hard to bring you one of those groovy badges so stay tuned.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Fred's story transcribed by mama*
"I don't want to have my bath. And I don't want to go to bed!"
"Why don't you want to have a bath and go to bed?' asked Mama.
"Because I want to stay and play," said Fred.
Mama was very cross and she said "Shut up."**
Frederique cried, "Daddy Daddy"
Daddy gave Frederique a cuddle and said, "I love you."
Frederique said, "I love you" and Frederique loved Daddy all afternoon.
Una held Fred's foot and sang "la di da di da di da."
Mama was cross with Daddy too, and she said "Shut up."
But when she was at night time she got very sick.
And Daddy came and said, "What's wrong"
And Mama said, "I'm not very well."
Daddy went out and jumped over the fence and just came back and then just went back over the fence again.
Frederique was grumpy and she banged herself on her bed.
Mummy had a piggy-tail.
And that's The End. Write The End.
*A work of fiction
**Fiction, I said.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
In Greece.
On an island.
In secret.
I wish I could share some photos but I only have ye olde kind.
But it was beautiful.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Classic Stages
I am going through what I am sure is one of several classic stages of any thesis writer. At the moment I feel overwhelmed by all the reading I've been doing. Every reading mentions another writer and I think well, I guess I better check him/her out. I feel wobbly in my academic general knowledge and unsure who thinks what in the psychoanalytic world. My primary texts (Coraline and Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman) are rapidly disappearing behind the vast sea of theory.
You know how there is always a point when you're making custard and you think it's not going to thicken. In fact it seems impossible that it could, all that terribly thin liquid sloshing around. I'm kind of at that point. And sometimes custard really doesn't thicken.
It seemed like such a good idea to do a 100% academic thesis. It seemed very sensible indeed. But now I am thinking longingly about the 100% creative option. Maybe I should take even odds and go 50/50. Ah me. Masters. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
A mother's day moan
It sucks to be a renter in Melbourne. It really does. It's actually horrifically depressing. Our rent has just gone up $80 a month. $80! Last time I had to deal with a rent hike was a few years ago and it was $5 a week. The thing that sucks most about $80 in one fell swoop is that it seriously cuts into what little we have that is play money. Unassigned, coffees out, a couple of videos, a bit of gratuitous chocolate money. What's more, the amount they want breaks down (if you do the whole multiply by 12 and divide by 52 thing to turn monthly rent into weekly rent) to $300.99. 99c! Just so they can squinkle an extra $50 a year out of us. THE BASTARDS.
And do we get any more value for our money? Of course not. We still have a hole in our kitchen window that we have asked, begged and pleaded with the landlord to fix. We have cracks in the wall (when people come to visit Frederique likes to give them the crack tour - she's a little worried the house is going to fall down in the middle of the night. Apparently the landlord doesn't share her concerns. This is because he doesn't think about us at all, except when he's making the decision to up the rent). We have crumbly plaster, missing sections of skirting board, and a grape vine that ate Paris that the landlord generously offered to have cut back for us (then promptly forgot to give a rat's arse about us). But they didn't put the rent up because the house is worth it. They put the rent up because there's not much we can do about it.
Moving is of course an option. We could move into a one bedroom flat (maybe if we're lucky a 2 bedroom tiny gardenless flat) in an area where Fred and Una could still go to the same creche and where we might get a place for Fred in 4yo kinder - if we move into another council our chances of a place for next year are slim. In fact, they're not even that great here, though luckily Fred can do 4yo kinder at the creche that it took us 2 years to get into. Our friends are in this area, most of them bought a house just before the market shot through the roof. Yeah, we didn't do that. Some of them are renting and at some point, like us, will be driven out of the area. If we move to a different area, the chances of us finding a place at creche for Fred and Una (let alone a place at a creche that we like) are almost nil.
We actually got this house without looking at it. There was so much competition for houses, it was a week of insane heat, Frederique vomited from sitting in the back of our hot car driving around in the heat of the day looking at houses. So we went to a nice air conditioned real estate office and applied for everything on their books that we could afford (which you aren't allowed to do). We signed the lease sight unseen. No one had seen it. That's why we got it. The market is still insane. Prices are rising. Investors are buying again because rents are going up, so the prices to buy are rising too.
There's things about this house I love. Sitting in the alcove at night watching the tellie, the high ceilings on one side, aeroplanes in the sky outside. The backyard, the size of the girl's bedroom, the funny internal window between the girl's room and the lounge room that they climb through (and through which we can hear them giggling at night). Bad things include having to write in the living room and the lack of space for more babies (should one happen upon us) and the stupid micro bath that is up a big step (bad for pregnant ladies, should one want to shower there - and no I am not pregnant, but one day I might like to be.). And the fact that the house is possibly going to crack in two and all the other things I already whinged about. Realistically though, our days here are numbered. The rent will continue to rise and it seems mad to start Fred at a school when our chances of continuing to rent in this area (let alone buy - don't make me laugh...and cry) are minimal, to say the least.
The thing about moving further out (besides the creche/kinder issue) is that then we greatly reduce our access to all the free stuff that makes our lifestyle possible. No more riding to the museum, walking to Ceres or Kate C.'s place or to see Zoe and Dan. Depending on where we move to, less time with family like Martin's parents, Mart's sister and Fred and Una's cousins.
Plus we tried living in the suburbs and it made me seriously unhappy. I am sorry to people who live in suburbs and like it, maybe we just picked the wrong suburb. But I need people to live on the streets, not behind their front door. I need to feel like there's a buzz in the air, that people live in their area, not get into their car in their remote controlled LUG (that's garage in real estate speak) and drive somewhere else to live their lives. I didn't move to Melbourne to live miles away from it. I moved to Melbourne for the CBD, the inner suburbs. I want pedestrian culture, bike tracks, museums, schools that serve lattes at their school fairs. I want to shop on a street - I hate shopping centres. I hate them. I HATE THEM. (Did I mention I hate them?) I want air. I want light. I want a FREAKING house.
There are suburbs we could afford a 3 bedroom house, maybe even we could afford to buy one (I don't particularly want to buy a house, except that it sucks to be a renter in Melbourne). I have nothing against these suburbs or the people that live there. It's just that I don't want to live there. I want to live here. Or here-ish. I want to keep our childcare centre, Fred's ballet school, our place in the queue for kinder. Our friends close by, family a decent-ish drive away). But I want all this and a 3 bedroom house with walls. Apparently this is being fussy and demanding. Thus a long ranty post filled with impotent rage. If you came this far, you're very kind. Thanks for listening.
Happy mother's day me. I got things and lunch out of the deal. And to my mother, Fran. And to all the mothers I know. You're all doing a marvellous job.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Beautiful Thinking
"To understand poetry one must be able to put on the soul of a child, like a magic cloak, and to prefer the child's wisdom to that of an adult."
J. Huizinga
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Una, by Fred
Fred took a series of photos of Una in the bathroom (yes, not only do we have a pink kitchen, we have much pink in the bathroom too. Daggy eighties pink).
Anyway, I love these shots. To me they have a tenderness about them, I can see how fascinating Fred finds Una. Fred's curiosity about her self and the world definitely extends to Una. It reminds me of a Toni Morrison quote I found once (I'm not sure where it's from): "A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double."
Sunday, May 06, 2007
This is why we call it The Cake
Even though Fred's birthday was, like, ages ago, our postponed par-tay happened on Saturday night. We had 6 kid-friends (all girls, except one boy, Quinn, who was permitted due to his status as baby) running wild around the house while the grown ups (parents, plus Zoe and Dan) quaffed champy and ate stuff (I forgot to put half the food out though!) and talked and it was lovely to be socialising when it was dark outside. Fred was so deliciously tired at the end of it all, eating sausage rolls in her pyjamas because she forgot to have dinner during the party. Afterwards she had to check with Martin, 'Am I still four?' Someone at the party asked her how her actual birthday was and she said, 'It was very stylish.' Riiight. As you will see from these photos our kitchen is not at all (stylish). They called it a country kitchen in the ad. Is that the exposed brick? Or the mushroom pink laminated benchtops?
These teeny little cupcakes were actually strawberry, raspberry and white chocolate muffins witha funny old made up cream cheese icing and were extra delicious. And how much do I love silicone bakeware patty pans?
Kitty Cake
But wait, there's more. Cake that is. Aunty AJ and Uncle Ben were away in Byron Bay sunning themselves for her birthday, so we had a final cake with them today, plus a birthday lunch fit for a queen (that is if the queen is into eating sausages with her hands). This morning she requested not to have more cupcakes (dang, I so wanted to use the silicone patty pans again), and found a picture in the cake book of an elaborate cat cake. To be honest, I was pretty impressed with myself for coming up with a cat cake at all at the eleventh hour (it really was 11 too, 11am that is.) I stole the idea for this cake from Jo, she made something similar (but I think less goofy) for her Lulu Plum last year, but though I searched flickr and her blog, I couldn't find the pic - she must have emailed it to me (which means I still have it as I never delete emails, much to Martin's distress at my cluttered inbox).
Ballet Girl
The other thing that has happened in Fred's life since she turned four is ballet. Every Saturday at 1pm a group of outrageously cute girls dressed in navy blue get together to do secret girl's business - no parent's allowed. The first lesson was as exciting for me as it was for Fred as this was something she initiated. There was a beautiful moment when she arrived for her first lesson (we got there early to get the last bits of her uniform) where she was peeking in through the keyhole at the bigger girls having a class. It was such a heightened moment, such a potent image reminding us that we can't see what she sees, that her eye is connected to a private internal life. Not being able to stay at ballet to watch is both excruciating and exciting. There is a concert at the end of the year. I am so proud of how brave Fred is in new environments, when the first class started she ran inside and didn't look back. She doesn't like talking about it much, but once she had her ballet clothes on again this week, her eyes filled with stars.
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Comfort of Breasts
peering and staring
what they don't know is
the breast stares straight back
interested as a reporter
some love them
and invest them with glamour
but like life they are not glamourous
merely dangerous
Kate Llewllyn, 'Breasts'
Headlines when it comes to sexual assault are often terrible. This one though, Breast Accused Gives Up...what does that even mean? First of all grammatically it is completely misleading. It sounds like the Breast is the Accused. (My Breasts are often rampantly criminal, operating entirely with a will of their own.) Or that the Breast is Accusing someone called Gives Up. It also implies that any sexual assault that took place was against the breast itself and not a woman. It uses language appallingly, to dismember and disfigure, an assault in itself.
The (real) story, about a man who approached a woman breastfeeding in a private cubicle in a shopping centre, asked sensitive questions and then touched her exposed breast, is a particularly sensitive one. It taps into all sorts of moral panic and preconceived notions about breasts, breastfeeding, sexuality, exposure, voyeurism (though this was NOT a case of voyeurism, as touching was involved) and private and public spaces. I must admit that once I learned to feed without cushions, props and having to wave my nipples around like I was conducting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, I always preferred doing it completely in public, outside if possible. I always found those feeding rooms in shopping centres kind of creepy. Initially Martin was quite uneasy (far more so than me) about my boobs, which had always been a part of our private domain, being, well, out there, in Public World. Personally my worries were more about how my relationship with my breasts would change in Private World, which as it turns out were fairly legitimate worries as it has changed a lot, though of course not all for the bad - I'm far more impressed by them now than I used to be.
I think my main problem with the language of this headline is that both breastfeeding and sexual imagery can encourage, accidently or deliberately, this sense of separation, this sense that breasts belongs more to something else, or someone else, than they do to you. Navigating the truly bizarre divide between sexual identity and maternal identity is never more potent than when you are contemplating your own breasts. Even when you're not having to worry about 'sexual' predators. I use quote marks because you have to wonder how truly sexual an act like this is. It doesn't seem to stem from desire, but from somewhere else, from a deeply twisted confusion about what sexuality - and perhaps maternity - really is.
The thing that makes me sad about this story is that it will probably turn people off breastfeeding in public (and frankly if you can't breastfeed in public then your chances of breastfeeding successfully must be reduced - and besides one of the biggest benefits of breastfeeding is that wherever you are you have an immediate, free, safe, sanitary, and basically unlimited supply of perfect food for your baby, that needs no preparation). The woman who was attacked was feeding her one week old son. Her breastfeeding experience will always be tainted, perhaps even spoiled, by this encounter. For me breastfeeding was one of the most intimate and immediate connections I experienced with Frederique and Una. Even though they no longer produce milk, both girls still have a close and special relationship with my breasts. They seek them out, as pillows or for comfort, plunging a hand absent-mindedly down my top. Although my breasts might have lost some of their sexual mystique (for me at least), the new power and status they have is more than compensation for this loss.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
the case of the disappearing lesbians
(Yes, that's right, the way to cure gayness is PRETEND IT DOESN'T EXIST. Anyone who thinks such attitudes are going to lead to marginalised, disenfranchised and confused adolescents is clearly a sissy. I met a lesbian once and I completely ignored her and she like, fully vanished, right before my eyes. It's as easy as that. Of course this means we'll lose about 2 in 10 girls in high schools (and a lot more if we count the ones who experiment or experience moments of confusion about their sexual identity). But what sort of life were they going to have anyway?)
In all seriousness, I wrote these people a letter and you can do that too. The email addresses are available here. Because book banning is disgraceful. I am going to put my email in the comments so it doesn't end up all big and diatribe like in this post (one day I am going to have to learn how to hide some of the post, so posts aren't so scary long.)
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
An abundance of katherines
And so does his brother.
Listen to the Helen Hunt song.
Found via Justine's blog. Her latest post is about using spreadsheets for her novels. I don't do this. But then I don't sort my socks from my underpants (or from Martin's socks or his underpants - they all live in one basket, we don't pair the socks either) and every morning when I go to get socks and underpants, I wish I did sort my socks and underpants, but then the day starts and one thing leads to another and I don't and then it's another day and I am fishing through the basket again. So in short, I think spreadsheets sound bloody sensible. I did intend to start keeping character sheets (and haven't) in which I record physical details as I write (eye colour, hair colour, background stuff) because when I was writing Drift I was never sure if I'd mentioned, say, Grunt's eye colour and though I have a reasonably clear picture in my head, it's possible my picture of him has evolved as his character evolved.
Did you know Grunt has a sister? She's mentioned in Breathe. I tried to write her into all three books and she got cropped out of each one at an early stage of the writing process. Her name is Isobel.


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How much is Kanye West worth? The dapper Chicago rapper is always sporting nice threads and fly chains, and according to Forbes, Kanye's net worth is $70 million. Some websites suggest Kanye's wealth totals $101,329,500, while others list his fortune at $70 or $90 million. In any case, Kanye West placed 45th on Forbes' 2012 list of the Most Powerful Celebrities. Kanye's income in the previous year is listed as $35 million—a sum that, amazingly, only lands him at No. 53 when the list is sorted by pay.
MUST READ: 7 Fashion Trends Kanye West Hates
Musicians who made more than Kanye include Rihanna ($53 million), Lady Gaga ($52 million), and Britney Spears ($58 million). But Kanye shouldn't feel too bad. In his song "Gold Digger," when he rapped, "He's got that ambition, baby," he might have been talking about himself. Even if his net worth is only $70 million—pocket change compared to, say, Diddy's $550 million fortune—West is a musician, producer, fashion designer, and record label boss.
MUST READ: Did Kanye West Give Kim Kardashian A Promise Ring?
Kanye has plenty of earning potential, and since he's involved with Kim Kardashian, he'll need it. Amid rumors she and West are planning to get married, Kim recently put her Beverly Hills home on the market for $5 million. Ever since getting divorced form Kris Humphries, she's been shacking up at a $40,000-per-month rental, so we know she's got money to burn. (Last year, Forbes tells us, she pulled in a cool $18 million.) When it comes to Kanye and Kim, neither is a gold digger—they're both loaded.
Keep up with the latest Kanye West news by liking TheUrbanDaily on Facebook!
Check out other rappers who like to flaunt their dough…
DIRTY DOZEN: Uncle Ruckus' Most Racist Moments
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Eclipse is a global community. It is in everyone's interest to ensure that Eclipse is available and translated in as many locales as possible. Babel will be a set of tools to make the job of globalizing Eclipse projects easier. We also want to provide ways for people world wide, who are interested, to contribute translations in their language of choice.
Babel Plug-ins
Babel / Message Bundle Editor These plug-ins can be installed in the IDE to aid developers with the maintenance of the resource bundle property files.
Babel / Runtime Translation Editor This plug-in can be installed as part of an RCP application and allows the application's users to provide translations within the context of the application.
Babel Documents
Babel / Server Tool Specification
Babel / Server Tool Project Plan
Babel / Server Tool Development Process
Babel / Building and Releasing Language Packs
Babel / Installing Language Packs
Babel / Large Contribution Import Process
Babel / Server Tool Extension API
Babel Development Status Meetings
Babel / Development Status Meetings


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Dr. Livingston is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada and has served congregations in Seattle, Scotland, Vancouver, Cambridge, and most recently, the historic Knox Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Passionate about the integration of pastoral ministry and theological education, he previously served as adjunct professor at McMaster Divinity College and Tyndale Seminary. He is committed to scholarship in the service of the church and has contributed to a Festshcrift for David Bosch, Mission in Creative Tension, edited by W. A. Saayman and J. N. J. Kritzinger (South African Missiological Society, 1990) and has published articles in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Missionalia and Channels. His research interests are in the ministry of preaching and the renewal of the church. Dr. Livingston serves on the Board of Directors of the Latin America Mission and several committees of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Listen Online
Speaker: Dr. Kevin Livingston
Chapel Date: Tuesday March 30, 2010
Download MP3 File of Community Chapel - Dr. Kevin Livingston
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Accredited NGOs located in this country
The list of accredited NGOs is presented below, along with corresponding accreditation forms. You can search the list using the criteria provided on the right.
|2 organizations or institutions match your query.
|Name, address and source
|Activities related to ICH
World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS) - WFCMS [en]
World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies
Room 505, Building A, Wealth Garden
No. 19 Xiaoying Street, Chaoyang District
Beijing 100101
Tel.: 0086-01-58650240
Next report due 2025
Year of creation: 2003
- knowledge and practices concerning
nature and the universe
- identification, documentation,
research (including inventory-making)
China, France, Germany, Netherlands, South AfricaObjectives:
The objectives of WFCMS are to promote the exchange and cooperation among the Chinese Medicine societies as well as the collaboration between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and other medicines worldwide, to strengthen international academic exchanges of TCM, to improve the professional level of TCM personnel, to inherit and develop TCM, to accelerate the process of its modernization and globalization, and to push it forward into the mainstream of medical and health care systems in various countries so as to make greater contribution to the health of mankind.
1. WFCMS actively takes part in the research work for the protection of TCM culture. For instance, WFCMS has been participating in a project named Research on the Academic Thinking and Medical Experience of Eminent TCM Senior Doctors for inheritance, which documents and preserves clinical experience of more than 200 TCM doctors; a bunch of bilingual basic nomenclatures of TCM, including Chinese-English, Chinese-French, Chinese-Spanish and Chinese-Portuguese, have been published (or are to be published) containing more than 6000 terms. Part of them use Chinese pinyin as their terms, which better facilitates the preservation of TCM culture and further promotes its continuance and development. Since 2004, the annually held World Congress of Chinese Medicine is an influential event of WFCMS. TCM practitioners and experts who show great interests in TCM culture gather together to exchange ideas on inheriting and developing effective therapies, preserving tratidional medicine theories such as acupunture theory, and human-nature harmony theory etc, to name a few.
2. We have set up the specialty committees that are related to the preservation of TCM culture including the Specialty committee of Acupotomology, the Specialty Committee of TCM Pharmaceutics, the Specialty Committee of Chinese Characteristic Diagnosis and Treatment and Specialty Committee of Pulse Manifestation. The establishment of those specialty committees provides platforms for professionals in relevant fields to safeguard, and improve TCM culture. Members of the special committees are recruited with strict selection criteria covering their degree, professional title, and clinical experience etc. Therefore, WFCMS's capability to inherit and preserve TCM culture is enhanced.
3. Member societies of WFCMS are actively involved in preservation and transmission of TCM culture. Currently, there are 201 WFCMS member societies from 58 countries and regions. They are dedicated to providing TCM health services to the public and spreading TCM culture to people all around the world. For instance, the documentary named "Traditional Chinese Medecine across the World" sponsored by WFCMS and filmed by China Central Television International, gained great supports from the member societies of WFCMS all over the world, which made it a successful program.
In the course of the study of the Bilingual (including Chinese-English, Chinese-French, Chinese-Spanish and chinese-Portugese) basic nomenclature of TCM, WFCMS collaborates with the experts from more than 100 NGOs in more than 90 countries to accomplish the study. Moreover, it annually collaborates with NGOs from different countries or regions to hold world conference of TCM in different part of the world. It also cooperates with NGOs to undertake international training workshops and examination in the field of TCM, and to publish multilingual journal of World Chinese Medicine.
China Folklore Society (CFS) - CFS [en]
Beijing Normal University
No. 19 Xinjiekou Waidajie
Beijing 100875
URL: http://www.chinafolklore.org/
URL: http://www.chinesefolklore.org.cn/
Tel.: +86-10-65513620
Next report due 2025
Year of creation: 1983
- oral traditions and expressions
- identification, documentation,
research (including inventory-making)
China, Finland, Japan, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Viet NamObjectives:
New accreditation request:
The general objectives of CFS (under the Article 3 of the Bylaws of CFS) aim at uniting with and organizing folklorists and folklore fellows throughout the country, to investigate, collect, collate, and study folklore and folk cultural phenomenon among the people of all ethnic groups of the country, to facilitate scholarly exchanges and cooperation with its counterparts both at home and abroad, to gather, disseminate, and share academic information and resources, and to further the discipline of folklore studies.
The professional objectives of CFS are (under the Article 6 of the Bylaws of CFS):
(1) to collect and collate folklore materials from multiform literatures and field investigations, and then gradually build up an information resource database for preserving China's folklore and cultural traditions;
(2) to stimulate studies on basic theories and conduct specific research projects in folkloristics with an emphasis on encouraging and organizing fieldwork in folklore in all its aspects;
(3) to compile and publish folkloristic books, field study reports and periodicals, and at the same time to enhance translations from and reviews of overseas works in folkloristics.
(4) to train talents and discover qualified personnel by all the means, such as holding workshops, launching online forums, and carrying out field study practices, as well as facilitating other appropriate channels;
(5) to organize and participate in domestic and international conferences in order to reinforce scholarly discourses and academic exchanges;
(6) to participate in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage with professional spirit and initiative;
(7) to strengthen the website construction of the China Folklore Network, keep it up to date and well maintained, and make it become a home for all the folklore fellows and folk culture amateurs.
Over the past three decades, CFS has been fostering a comprehensive understanding of folklore and traditional culture that conceptualize the core notion of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH). With the implementation of the Convention, the society's professional practices and various activities provide a solid basis for further achieving the above integrated goals that are consistent with the spirit of the Convention.
Old accreditation request:
(A) to collect, sort out and study Chinese folklore; (B) to strengthen the studies on theoretical folklore and applied folklore in order to realize the social function of this discipline; (C) to edit and publish books, journals, picture collections and resources, to translate, introduce and comment the foreign folklore works; (D) to cultivate the folklore research fellows by holding training class and proceeding fieldwork; (E) to accumulate the folklore materials and hold folklore exhibitions; (F) to proceed the scholarly exchange with foreign scholars and attend folklore activities worldwide.
New accreditation request:
Created in 1983, CFS has registered 1695 members thus far across the country; the vast majority of them have either folkloristic professional backgrounds, or come from other relevant disciplines, e.g. cultural anthropology, sociology, ethnology, history, literature and art, and the like.
CFS's governance is implemented by its Executive Board, Professional Committees and by its Secretariat, primarily through organizing conferences, publications, training, promoting folkloristics from theories to practices, enhancing multilateral cooperation, strengthening capacity-building, all of which ensure that CFS maintains a recognized competence in specialization,
CFS possesses a consultative status to both the public and governments at all levels, Since 2003, a number of CFS senior experts, as deputy directors or active members in the National Expert Committee for Safeguarding ICH, have been commissioned to provide consultation services, formulate safeguarding measures, instruct training workshops, develop projects, programmes and activities, as well as inspect the implantation of the Convention as requested; meanwhile, many CFS scholars have participated in a series of fundamental tasks in cooperation with other stakeholders. The CFS Secretariat, in conjunction with its 6 Professional Committees and 5 Field Study Bases, and with the active experts and members, has carried out a series of activities for safeguarding ICH in China and beyond. The main practices are summarized in the following aspects.
(1) Participation in developing ICH-related policy, regulations and legislation:
2003-04: the drafting and formulation of the Provisionary Measures on Nomination and Evaluation of National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, including the Guidelines for Submitting Candidatures.
2004-08: two surveys on Chinese traditional festivals and national legal holidays, contributing to the Decision of the State Council on Amending the Regulation on Public Holidays for National Annual Festivals and Memorial Days, which enabled Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon-boat Festival and Mid-autumn Festival to be added to the new scheme.
2004-11: the legislation on safeguarding China's ICH-Law of the People's Republic of China on Intangible Cultural Heritage, which entered into force on June 1, 2011.
(2) Playing a visible role in key projects and programmes at national and local levels:
2003-13: participating in the National Project for Safeguarding Folk and Ethnic Cultures;
2005-09: instructing the First Nationwide General Investigation of ICH;
Since 2006: aiding the establishment of the Four-level Inventory System of China's ICH;
Since 2006: identifying the Representatives of Traditional Bearers and Practitioners of National ICH Elements;
2007-11: selecting and monitoring 11 Pilot Areas for National Eco-cultural Reserves;
Since 2008: making assessment for locating Pilot Bases for Safeguarding Traditional Handicrafts y Means of Continuity-in-Productivity;
Since 2009: advising the establishment of ICH theme museums, folklore museums and ICH raining and transmitting centers;
2008-11: assisting in preparing nomination files to the Lists and Register of the Convention.
(3) Carrying out theoretical study and developing methodologies for ICH research
CFS and its members have been active in related areas of safeguarding ICH, from perspectives in scientific research and cultural policy-making, primarily through providing expertise in folklore and specialized advices, establishing ethical codes, conducting field survey and case studies, undertaking key projects, training graduate students, mobilizing formal and non-formal educational programmes, publishing monographs, field reports, and paper collections, delivering keynote speeches, lectures and seminars, accepting media interviews, developing ICH columns on CFN and disseminating information through its influence worldwide. CFS's commitment to ICH research has been reflected in the thematic panels of its National Conferences in 2006 in Beijing and in 2010 in Taiyuan, Shanxi, as well as in every session of CFS Annual Meeting since 2008; not to mention, the society has organized or co-sponsored various symposia and multiform events regarding current ICH topics.
(4) Conducting professional practices at regional and international levels
CFS has extended its long-standing efforts for developing international cooperation and exchange. It has stable professional relationships with renowned folklorists, academics and institutions in Japan, South Korea, Viet Nam, India, USA, Germany, Finland, Russia, and Tunisia. In particular, the Society has been engaged in specific partnerships with Folklore Society of Japan (since 1989) and American Folklore Society (since 2007), with a intention to strengthen regional and international cooperation.
CFS also benefits effectively from the opportunities and mechanisms created by the Convention. As active members of the Expert Group for Chinese governmental delegation, CFS Board members deepened their understanding of the Convention via attending Sessions, Assemblies and working group meetings of the Committee since 2006; Dr. Gejin Chao participated in the examination of nomination files for inscription in 2009; our scholars as ad hoc observers were involved in the whole process of the first workshop devoted to 'training of trainers' in January 2011 in Beijing.
Old accreditation request:
Since CFS was set up, it has published 11 issues of The Newsletter of CFS, an periodic journal for exchanging information about folklore researches and activities of intangible cultural heritage safeguarding, and hosted 6 sessions of national folklore congress. From 1997, it began to publish the CFS Yearly Book, on which there are papers on folklore theories, methods and fieldwork. It organized cooperations with scholars from Japan, South Korea, United States, Finland and Vietnam.
New accreditation request:
CFS has since its inception developed an ethical code of practice to adhere to the PRINCIPAL OF MUTUAL RESPECT in close collaboration with tradition-bearers, community members, native scholars and local organizations concerned, always practicing 'STANDING ON COMMON GROUND WITH FOLK,' which enables scholarship to be always community-based.
CFS has established 5 community-based field study bases. As a result, a series of fieldwork projects covering a wide range of ICH topics have been conducted, bringing forth a number of ethnographic writings, which in turn not only provides local communities with constructive consultations for safeguarding and transmitting their ICH, but deepens mutual understanding between CFS and its partners-in-knowledge.
CFS encourages and supports long-term targeting co-research with individuals, groups and communities concerned. Jiang Fan, an executive director, has been studying Tan Zhenshan, the late master storyteller in Liaoning Province, for more than 20 years; Director Yongchao Chen has the female master Guiying Lu's name as copyright-owner printed on their co-textualized book from her oral performance; some CFS scholars have their follow-up case studies located in villages or in ethnic tribes with the aid of communities. Such examples abound.
CFS functions as a bridge to link traditional practitioners with higher educational institutions and universities, introducing ICH-bearers into classrooms to share their knowledge, skills and Iifehistory with the faculties and the young; and in the meantime, taking teachers and students into the situated contexts, to experience, collect, record, and study ICH in its living life-world with a stress on 'PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST.'
CFS provides diversified intellectual support for the sustainable development of local communities. For instance, we implemented an ethnographical investigation of the life-style of Han immigrants and indigenous Mongolian herdsmen in Alshan, Inner Mongolia (supported by SEE in Alshan) in 2005. This study in general provides folkloristic solutions to handling grassland desertification in western China.
CFS also makes its own contribution to rural cultural life by developing ICH readings. For instance, the Series of Chinese Folkloric Cultures, 50 volumes in all, has entered into thousands of 'Farmers' Reading Rooms' in the countryside, and received an award from the government for its substantial efforts.
Old accreditation request:
CFS played a key role in the national survey of folklore and publication of its results as three series of books in the early 1980's, and its members took part in local programs of folklore collections. Since 2001, Professor Liu Kuili, the president of CFS has been leading the projects of ICH safeguarding organized by the Ministry of Culture of China, and its members have been very active in establishing national and provincial entries of ICH, working on a list of national representative ICH items.


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A capacity crowd in St Peter's Basilica gave Pope Benedict a thunderous standing ovation on Wednesday night at an emotional last public Mass before he stands down at the end of the month.
"Thank you. Now, let's return to prayer," the 85-year-old pontiff said, bringing an end to several minutes of applause that clearly moved him.
In an unusual gesture, bishops took off their distinctive hats in a sign of respect and a few of them wept.
Earlier Wednesday, the pope explained that he had reached his decision to resign after prayer led him to conclude it would be for the best for the Catholic Church.
"I have done this in full freedom for the good of the church, after much prayer and having examined my conscience before God," Benedict said at his weekly general audience speech, according to an English transcript from the Holy See press office at the Vatican.
On Monday, when he revealed the news publicly, Benedict, 85, said that the papacy required "strength of mind and body," and that his health had deteriorated.
Later, the Vatican revealed that the pope had a pacemaker installed 10 years ago.
In Wednesday's remarks ahead of the Mass, the pontiff said he felt uplifted by the outpouring of support that followed his surprising resignation announcement.
"Thank all of you for the love and for the prayers with which you have accompanied me," he told the packed general audience hall. "In these days, which have not been easy for me, I have felt almost physically the power of prayer -- your prayers."
Benedict also said he had made his decision "knowing full well the seriousness of this act, but also realizing that I am no longer able to carry out the Petrine ministry with the strength which it demands."
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told Reuters that on the pope's last day in office, Feb. 28, Benedict would receive cardinals in a farewell meeting. Afterward, his ring of office, used to seal official documents, will be destroyed, as is traditionally done when a pope dies.
'A very quiet' role
The pope is to live in a four-story building attached to the Mater Ecclesiae monastery inside the Vatican, something that the church's senior communications adviser, Greg Burke, told The Associated Press was significant.
"It is something that he has wanted to do for a while," Burke said. "But I think it also suggests that his role is going to be a very quiet one, and that is important so you don't have a situation of ... two different popes at the same time, and one influencing the other. I think the obvious thing is when he says retirement, it really means retiring."
As for the soon-to-be ex-pope's new name, Burke told the AP that Benedict would most likely be referred to as "Bishop of Rome, emeritus" as opposed to "Pope Emeritus."
Other Vatican officials said it would probably be up to the next pope to decide Benedict's new title, and wouldn't exclude that he might still be called "Your Holiness" as a courtesy, much as retired presidents are often referred to as "President," the AP reported.
It is unclear if he will keep the name Benedict, which he took on becoming pope, or return to being Joseph Ratzinger again.
Immediately after his resignation, Benedict will spend some time at the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, overlooking Lake Albano in the hills south of Rome, where he has spent his summer vacations reading and writing, the AP said.
Afterward, he will return to the building in the Vatican's grounds, which was built in 1992 on the site of a former residence for the its gardeners, the AP reported. The building, which was occupied by an order of nuns until October, has a garden, where the nuns would tend to the lemon and orange trees as well as the roses.
The pope's older brother, Georg Ratzinger, confirmed that Benedict has no intention of returning to live in his native Bavaria. "You don't transplant an old tree," Ratzinger said.
Ratzinger said Tuesday that, in addition to his health issues, Benedict had been troubled by episodes such as the "Vatileaks" scandal in which a butler leaked secret documents. He also brought up "the relationship to the Pius Brotherhood" as a problem that troubled the pope.
That organization, formally known as the Society of St. Pius X, fell into a harsh public spotlight in December when its leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay, said Jews were "the enemies of the church." His comment drew criticism from all corners of the church and from the public in general.
Ratzinger said he thought his brother had handled those problems well, but that they had taken their toll.
On Wednesday, the pope asked for continued support for him and the church.
"Continue to pray for me, for the church and for the future pope," he said. "The Lord will guide us."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Pope's abdication could thwart Silvio Berlusconi's political comeback
Vatican history of 'cover-ups and disarray' will challenge new pope
Why the buzz over St. Malachy's 'last pope' prophecy outdoes 2012 hype


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The Grace Factor
Price: $12.94
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To become a CMC *Supporting Member* click here
Subtitle: Opening the Door o Infinite Love
While you have been told about the many factors determining why you can't have what you want, the one factor that outweighs them all has been sorely overlooked and even hidden: the grace factor. In this bold progression of liberating essays, Alan Cohen brings to center stage the truth that you deserve far more than you have been settling for. Rather than hardship, you are heir to boundless love, forgiveness, prosperity, and healing. Alan's down-to-earth approach offers a wealth of compelling practical examples of how grace is trying to reach you and most important how to let it work on your behalf. Open now to receive what has been offered you. The good that has seemed beyond your reach is now yours for the asking.
"This is the book that can move you from struggle to freedom. Everything you need to know to come home to love is here." — Ram Dass, Author of Be Here NowBy Alan Cohen


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Gastrointestinal diseases refer to diseases involving the gastrointestinal tract, namely the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine and rectum, and the accessory organs of digestions, the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas.
Even though anatomically part of the GI tract, diseases of the mouth are often not considered alongside other ...
Gastrointestinal diseases refer to diseases involving the gastrointestinal tract, namely the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine and rectum, and the accessory organs of digestions, the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas.
Even though anatomically part of the GI tract, diseases of the mouth are often not considered alongside other gastrointestinal diseases. By far the most common oral conditions are plaque-induced diseases (e.g. gingivitis, periodontitis, dental caries). Some diseases which involve other parts of the GI tract can manifest in the mouth, alone or in combination, including:
Oesophageal diseases include a spectrum of disorders affecting the oesophagus. The most common condition of the oesophagus in Western countries is gastroesophageal reflux disease,[2] which in chronic forms is thought to result in changes to the epithelium of the oesophagus, known as Barrett's oesophagus.[3]:863–865
Acute disease might include infections such as oesophagitis, trauma caused ingestion of corrosive substances, or rupture of veins such as oesophageal varices, Boerhaave syndrome or Mallory-Weiss tears. Chronic diseases might include congenital diseases such as Zenker's diverticulum and esophageal webbing, and oesophageal motility disorders including the Nutcracker oesophagus, achalasia, diffuse oesophageal spasm, and oesophageal stricture.[3]:853, 863–868
Oesophageal disease may result in a sore throat, throwing up blood, difficulty swallowing or vomiting. Chronic or congenital diseases might be investigated using Barium swallows, endoscopy and biopsy, whereas acute diseases such as reflux may be investigated and diagnosed based on symptoms and a medical history alone.[3]:863–867
Stomach diseases refer to diseases affecting the stomach. Inflammation of the stomach by infection from any cause is called gastritis, and when including other parts of the gastrointestinal tract called gastroenteritis. When gastritis is persists in a chronic state, it is associated with several diseases, including atrophic gastritis, pyloric stenosis, and gastric cancer. Another common condition is gastric ulceration, causing peptic ulcers. Ulceration erodes the gastric mucosa, which protects the tissue of the stomach from the stomach acids. Peptic ulcers are most commonly caused by a bacterial Helicobacter pylori infection.[3] :870–871
As well as peptic ulcers, vomiting blood may result from abnormal arteries or veins that have ruptured, including Dieulafoy's lesion and Gastric antral vascular ectasia. Congenital disorders of the stomach include pernicious anaemia, in which a targeted immune response against parietal cells results in an inability to absorb vitamin B12. Other common symptoms that stomach disease might cause include indigestion or dyspepsia, vomiting, and in chronic disease, digestive problems leading to forms of malnutrition.[3] :850–853 In addition to routine tests, an endoscopy might be used to examine or take a biopsy from the stomach.[3] :848
The small and large intestines may be affected by infectious, autoimmune, and physiological states. Inflammation of the intestines is called enterocolitis, which may lead to diarrhoea.
Acute conditions affecting the bowels include infectious diarrhoea and mesenteric ischaemia. Causes of constipation may include faecal impaction and bowel obstruction, which may in turn be caused by ileus, intussusception, volvulus. Inflammatory bowel disease is a condition of unknown aetiology, classified as either Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, that can affect the intestines and other parts of the gastrointestinal tract. Other causes of illness include intestinal pseudoobstruction, and necrotizing enterocolitis.[3]:850–862,895–903
Diseases of the intestine may cause vomiting, diarrhoea or constipation, and altered stool, such as with blood in stool. Colonoscopy may be used to examine the large intestine, and a person's stool may be sent for culture and microscopy. Infectious disease may be treated with targeted antibiotics, and inflammatory bowel disease with immunosuppression. Surgery may also be used to treat some causes of bowel obstruction.[3]:850–862
The small intestine consists of the duodenum, jejunum and ileum. Inflammation of the small intestine is called enteritis, which if localised to just part is called duodenitis, jejunitis and ileitis, respectively. Peptic ulcers are also common in the duodenum.[3]:879–884
Chronic diseases of malabsorption may affect the small intestine, including the autoimmune coeliac disease, infective Tropical sprue, and congenital or surgical short bowel syndrome. Other rarer diseases affecting the small intestine include Curling's ulcer, Blind loop syndrome, Milroy disease and Whipple's disease. Tumours of the small intestine include gastrointestinal stromal tumours, lipomas, hamartomas and carcinoid syndromes [3]:879–887
Diseases of the small intestine may present with symptoms such as diarrhoea, malnutrition, fatigue and weight loss. Investigations pursued may include blood tests to monitor nutrition, such as iron levels, folate and calcium, endoscopy and biopsy of the duodenum, and barium swallow. Treatments may include renutrition, and antibiotics for infections.[3]:879–887
Diseases that affect the large intestine may affect it in whole or in part. Appendicitis is one such disease, caused by inflammation of the appendix. Generalised inflammation of the large intestine is referred to as colitis, which when caused be the bacteria Clostridium difficile is referred to as Pseudomembranous colitis. Diverticulitis is a common cause of abdominal pain resulting from outpouchings that particularly affects the colon. Functional colonic diseases refer to disorders without a known cause, and include irritable bowel syndrome and Intestinal pseudoobstruction. Constipation may result from lifestyle factors, impaction of a rigid stool in the rectum, or in neonates, Hirschprung's disease.[3]:913–915
Diseases affecting the large intestine may cause to be passed with stool, may cause constipation, or may result in abdominal pain or a fever. Tests that specifically examine the function of the large intestine include barium swallows, abdominal x-rays, and colonoscopy.[3]:913–915
Diseases affecting the rectum and anus are extremely common, especially in older adults. Hemorrhoids, vascular outpouchings of skin, are very common, as is pruritis ani, referring to anal itchiness. Other conditions, such as anal cancer may be associated with ulcerative colitis or with sexually transmitted infections such as HIV. Inflammation of the rectum is known as proctitis, one cause of which is radiation damage associated with radiotherapy to other sites such as the prostate. Faecal incontinence can result from mechanical and neurological problems, and when associated with a lack of voluntary voiding ability is described as encopresis. Pain on passing stool may result from anal abscesses, small inflammed nodules, anal fissures, and anal fistulas.[3] :915–916
Rectal and anal disease may be asymptomatic, or may present with pain when passing stools, fresh blood in stool, a feeling of incomplete emptying, or pencil-thin stools. In addition to regular tests, medical tests used to investigate the anus and rectum include the digital rectal exam and proctoscopy.
Hepatic diseases refers to those affecting the liver. Hepatitis refers to inflammation of liver tissue, and may be acute or chronic. Infectious viral hepatitis, such as Hepatitis A, B and C, affect in excess of (X) million people worldwide. Liver disease may also be a result of lifestyle factors, such as Fatty liver and NASH. Alcoholic liver disease may also develop as a result of chronic alcohol use, which may also cause Alcoholic hepatitis. Cirrhosis may develop as a result of chronic hepatic fibrosis in a chronically inflammed liver, such as one affected by alcohol or viral hepatitis.[3]:947–958
Liver abscesses are often acute conditions, with common causes being pyogenic and amoebic. Chronic liver disease, such as cirrhosis, may be a cause of liver failure, a state where the liver is unable to compensate for chronic damage, and unable to meet the metabolic demands of the body. In the acute setting, this may be a cause of hepatic encephalopathy and hepatorenal syndrome. Other causes of chronic liver disease are genetic or autoimmune disease, such as Hemochromatosis, Wilson's Disease, autoimmune hepatitis, and primary biliary cirrhosis.[3]:959–963,971
Acute liver disease rarely results in pain, but may result in jaundice. Infectious liver disease may cause a fever. Chronic liver disease may result in a buildup of fluid in the abdomen, yellowing of the skin or eyes, easy bruising, immunosuppression, and feminsation. Portal hypertension is often present, and this may lead to the development of prominent veins in many parts of the body, such as oesophageal varices, and haemorrhoids.[3]:959–963,971–973
In order to investigate liver disease, a medical history, including regarding a person's family history, travel to risk-prone areas, alcohol use and food consumption, may be taken. A medical examination may be conducted to investigate for symptoms of liver disease. Blood tests may be used, particularly liver function tests, and other blood tests may be used to investigate the presence of the Hepatitis viruses in the blood, and ultrasound used. If ascites is present, abdominal fluid may be tested for protein levels.[3]:921,926–927
Pancreatic diseases that affect digestion refers to disorders affecting the exocrine pancreas, which is a part of the pancreas involved in digestion.
One of the most common conditions of the exocrine pancreas is acute pancreatitis, which in the majority of cases relates to gallstones that have impacted in the pancreatic part of the biliary tree, or due to acute or chronic alcohol abuse or as a side-effect of ERCP. Other forms of pancreatitis include chronic and hereditary forms. Chronic pancreatitis may predispose to pancreatic cancer and is strongly linked to alcohol use. Other rarer diseases affecting the pancreas may include pancreatic pseudocysts, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, and pancreatic fistulas.[3]:888–891
Pancreatic disease may present with or without symptoms. When symptoms occur, such as in acute pancreatitis, a person may suffer from acute-onset, severe mid-abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. In severe cases, pancreatitis may lead to rapid blood loss and systemic inflammatory response syndrome. When the pancreas is unable to secrete digestive enzymes, such as with a pancreatic cancer occluding the pancreatic duct, result in jaundice. Pancreatic disease might be investigated using abdominal x-rays, MRCP or ERCP, CT scans, and through blood tests such as measurement of the amylase and lipase enzymes.[3]:888–894
Diseases of the hepatobiliary system affect the biliary tract (also known as the biliary tree), which secretes bile in order to aid digestion of fats. Diseases of the gallbladder and bile ducts are commonly diet-related, and may include the formation of gallstones that impact in the gallbladder (Cholecystolithiasis) or in the common bile duct (Choledocholithiasis).[3]:977–978
Gallstones are a common cause of inflammation of the gallbladder, called Cholecystitis. Inflammation of the biliary duct is called Cholangitis, which may be associated with autoimmune disease, such as primary sclerosing cholangitis, or a result of bacterial infection, such as ascending cholangitis.[3]:977–978,963–968
Disease of the biliary tree may cause pain in the upper right abdomen, particularly when pressed. Disease might be investigated using ultrasound or ERCP, and might be treated with drugs such as antibiotics or UDCA, or by the surgical removal of the gallbladder.
What is Aciphex? Aciphex is used to treat symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and other conditions involving excessive stomach acid such as Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. It is also used to promote healing of erosive esophagitis (damage to your esophagus caused by stomach acid).
Nexium Generic Name: esomeprazole (ee so MEP ra zol)Brand Names: Esomeprazole Strontium, NexIUM, Nexium 24HRNexium as known as: Alenia, Alton, Asector, Axagon, Axiago, Ceso, Cronopep, Emep, Esmolac, Esofag, Esofag-d, Esomac, Esomep, Esomeprazol, Esomeprazolum, Esomezol, Esonix, Esopra, Esopral, Esopran, Esoprax, Esoprazol, Esoral, Esorest, Esotac,
Sovaldi (Sofosbuvir) is a breakthrough treatment for Hepatitis C infections. Its mechanism of action involves inhibiting the enzyme which is necessary for the virus if it is to multiply Active Ingredients : Sofosbuvir


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Butterworth filter design
[ designs
a lowpass, highpass, bandpass, or bandstop Butterworth filter, depending
on the value of
b,a] = butter(
ftype and the number of elements
Wn. The resulting bandpass and bandstop designs
are of order 2
Note: See Limitations for information about numerical issues that affect forming the transfer function.
[ designs
a lowpass, highpass, bandpass, or bandstop digital Butterworth filter
and returns its zeros, poles, and gain. This syntax can include any
of the input arguments in previous syntaxes.
z,p,k] = butter(___)
Lowpass Butterworth Transfer Function
Design a 6th-order lowpass Butterworth filter with a cutoff frequency of 300 Hz, which, for data sampled at 1000 Hz, corresponds to rad/sample. Plot its magnitude and phase responses. Use it to filter a 1000-sample random signal.
fc = 300; fs = 1000; [b,a] = butter(6,fc/(fs/2)); freqz(b,a,[],fs) subplot(2,1,1) ylim([-100 20])
dataIn = randn(1000,1); dataOut = filter(b,a,dataIn);
Bandstop Butterworth Filter
Design a 6th-order Butterworth bandstop filter with normalized edge frequencies of and rad/sample. Plot its magnitude and phase responses. Use it to filter random data.
[b,a] = butter(3,[0.2 0.6],'stop');
dataIn = randn(1000,1); dataOut = filter(b,a,dataIn);
Highpass Butterworth Filter
Design a 9th-order highpass Butterworth filter. Specify a cutoff frequency of 300 Hz, which, for data sampled at 1000 Hz, corresponds to rad/sample. Plot the magnitude and phase responses. Convert the zeros, poles, and gain to second-order sections. Display the frequency response of the filter.
[z,p,k] = butter(9,300/500,"high");
sos = zp2sos(z,p,k);
Bandpass Butterworth Filter
Design a 20th-order Butterworth bandpass filter with a lower cutoff frequency of 500 Hz and a higher cutoff frequency of 560 Hz. Specify a sample rate of 1500 Hz. Use the state-space representation. Design an identical filter using
fs = 1500; [A,B,C,D] = butter(10,[500 560]/(fs/2)); d = designfilt("bandpassiir",FilterOrder=20, ... HalfPowerFrequency1=500,HalfPowerFrequency2=560, ... SampleRate=fs);
Convert the state-space representation to second-order sections. Visualize the frequency responses.
sos = ss2sos(A,B,C,D); fvt = fvtool(sos,d,Fs=fs); legend(fvt,["butter" "designfilt"])
Comparison of Analog IIR Lowpass Filters
Design a 5th-order analog Butterworth lowpass filter with a cutoff frequency of 2 GHz. Multiply by to convert the frequency to radians per second. Compute the frequency response of the filter at 4096 points.
n = 5;
fc = 2e9;
[zb,pb,kb] = butter(n,2*pi*fc,"s");
[bb,ab] = zp2tf(zb,pb,kb);
[hb,wb] = freqs(bb,ab,4096);
Design a 5th-order Chebyshev Type I filter with the same edge frequency and 3 dB of passband ripple. Compute its frequency response.
[z1,p1,k1] = cheby1(n,3,2*pi*fc,"s");
[b1,a1] = zp2tf(z1,p1,k1);
[h1,w1] = freqs(b1,a1,4096);
Design a 5th-order Chebyshev Type II filter with the same edge frequency and 30 dB of stopband attenuation. Compute its frequency response.
[z2,p2,k2] = cheby2(n,30,2*pi*fc,"s");
[b2,a2] = zp2tf(z2,p2,k2);
[h2,w2] = freqs(b2,a2,4096);
Design a 5th-order elliptic filter with the same edge frequency, 3 dB of passband ripple, and 30 dB of stopband attenuation. Compute its frequency response.
[ze,pe,ke] = ellip(n,3,30,2*pi*fc,"s");
[be,ae] = zp2tf(ze,pe,ke);
[he,we] = freqs(be,ae,4096);
Design a 5th-order Bessel filter with the same edge frequency. Compute its frequency response.
[zf,pf,kf] = besself(n,2*pi*fc); [bf,af] = zp2tf(zf,pf,kf); [hf,wf] = freqs(bf,af,4096);
Plot the attenuation in decibels. Express the frequency in gigahertz. Compare the filters.
plot([wb w1 w2 we wf]/(2e9*pi), ... mag2db(abs([hb h1 h2 he hf]))) axis([0 5 -45 5]) grid xlabel("Frequency (GHz)") ylabel("Attenuation (dB)") legend(["butter" "cheby1" "cheby2" "ellip" "besself"])
The Butterworth and Chebyshev Type II filters have flat passbands and wide transition bands. The Chebyshev Type I and elliptic filters roll off faster but have passband ripple. The frequency input to the Chebyshev Type II design function sets the beginning of the stopband rather than the end of the passband. The Bessel filter has approximately constant group delay along the passband.
Input Arguments
Wn — Cutoff frequency
scalar | two-element vector
Cutoff frequency, specified as a scalar or a two-element vector. The cutoff frequency is the frequency at which the magnitude response of the filter is 1 / √2.
Wnis scalar, then
butterdesigns a lowpass or highpass filter with cutoff frequency
Wnis the two-element vector
[w1 w2], where
w2, then
butterdesigns a bandpass or bandstop filter with lower cutoff frequency
w1and higher cutoff frequency
For digital filters, the cutoff frequencies must lie between 0 and 1, where 1 corresponds to the Nyquist rate—half the sample rate or π rad/sample.
For analog filters, the cutoff frequencies must be expressed in radians per second and can take on any positive value.
Data Types:
ftype — Filter type
'low' |
'bandpass' |
'high' |
Filter type, specified as one of the following:
'low'specifies a lowpass filter with cutoff frequency
'low'is the default for scalar
'high'specifies a highpass filter with cutoff frequency
'bandpass'specifies a bandpass filter of order 2
Wnis a two-element vector.
'bandpass'is the default when
Wnhas two elements.
'stop'specifies a bandstop filter of order 2
Wnis a two-element vector.
Output Arguments
More About
Numerical Instability of Transfer Function Syntax
In general, use the
[z,p,k] syntax to design IIR filters. To analyze or implement your filter, you can then use the
[z,p,k] output with
zp2sos. If you design the filter using the
[b,a] syntax, you might encounter numerical problems. These problems are due to round-off errors and can occur for
n as low as 4. The following example illustrates this limitation.
n = 6; Wn = [2.5e6 29e6]/500e6; ftype = 'bandpass'; % Transfer Function design [b,a] = butter(n,Wn,ftype); % This is an unstable filter % Zero-Pole-Gain design [z,p,k] = butter(n,Wn,ftype); sos = zp2sos(z,p,k); % Display and compare results hfvt = fvtool(b,a,sos,'FrequencyScale','log'); legend(hfvt,'TF Design','ZPK Design')
Butterworth filters have a magnitude response that is maximally flat in the passband and monotonic overall. This smoothness comes at the price of decreased rolloff steepness. Elliptic and Chebyshev filters generally provide steeper rolloff for a given filter order.
butter uses a five-step algorithm:
It finds the lowpass analog prototype poles, zeros, and gain using the function
It converts the poles, zeros, and gain into state-space form.
If required, it uses a state-space transformation to convert the lowpass filter into a bandpass, highpass, or bandstop filter with the desired frequency constraints.
For digital filter design, it uses
bilinearto convert the analog filter into a digital filter through a bilinear transformation with frequency prewarping. Careful frequency adjustment enables the analog filters and the digital filters to have the same frequency response magnitude at
Wnor at
It converts the state-space filter back to its transfer function or zero-pole-gain form, as required.
Extended Capabilities
C/C++ Code Generation
Generate C and C++ code using MATLAB® Coder™.
Version History
Introduced before R2006a


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This essay was drawn from FPIF columnist Michael T. Klare's new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, published by Metropolitan Books
It was not supposed to turn out this way. When the Cold War ended in 1990, American policymakers generally assumed that the United States would henceforth enjoy a position of unchallenged preponderance. It would be secure in its "sole superpower" status by virtue of its unquestioned military superiority and the absence of credible competitors. Military prowess had always proved the determining factor in anointing global champions in the past and would—so the thinking went—continue to do so in the future. "For America, this is a time of unrivaled military power, economic promise, and cultural influence," then Texas governor George W. Bush declared in September 1999. Given our overpowering strength, he asserted, the United States had an extraordinary opportunity to extend its dominant position "into the far realm of the future." But once he assumed the mantle of the presidency and sought to employ this great strength in extending American power around the world, he discovered that military superiority does not constitute the decisive, or even necessarily the leading, determinant of global paramountcy in this troubled new era. Other factors have come to rival military power in importance, and one—energy—has acquired unexpectedly vast significance.
In this new, challenging political landscape, the possession of potent military arsenals can be upstaged by the ownership of mammoth reserves of oil, natural gas, and other sources of primary energy. Hence, Russia, which escaped from the Cold War era in a shattered, demoralized condition, has reemerged as a major actor in the international arena by virtue of its colossal energy resources. For all its military might, the United States has, in contrast, sometimes found itself reduced to cajoling its foreign oil suppliers—including long-term allies such as Saudi Arabia—to increase their petroleum output in order to slow the upward spiral in energy prices. The "sole superpower" has, in short, found itself scrambling—on the battlefield, on global trading floors, and in diplomatic back rooms—to somehow come to terms with what Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) has termed "petro-superpowers"—nations that wield disproportionate power in the international system by virtue of their superior energy reserves.
Other major energy-consuming nations have also been forced to adjust to this changing landscape. China, which enjoys enormous economic clout because of its enviable balance-of-payments position—in late 2007 its foreign currency reserves stood at a staggering $1.4 trillion—is nonetheless becoming ever more dependent on imported petroleum and so must scour the world for available supplies. Japan, with the world's second largest economy—yet even more dependent on imported energy supplies than China—has found itself locked in fierce competition with Beijing for access to some of the same overseas reserves.
On the other side of the ledger, energy-rich states like Kazakhstan and Nigeria have come to enjoy greater leverage in world affairs, attracting a constant stream of high-level visitors from energy-consuming nations—often bearing promises of investment financing, military aid, and other forms of largess. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocratic president of Kazakhstan, has been a much-lauded guest in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington, while his country has been showered with arms and other military equipment by all three—surely a rare feat in the annals of military diplomacy. Equally telling, the outspoken president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, has appeared immune to U.S. retaliation despite his frequent verbal attacks on the Bush administration and his close association with the leaders of "pariah" states such as Cuba, Iran, and Syria. (For all the invective hurled between the two countries, Venezuela continues to supply the United States with about 10 percent of its imported oil, some 1.4 million barrels per day.)
Why has energy come to play such a pivotal role in world affairs? To begin with, its continued availability—in great profusion—has never been as critical to the healthy operation of the global economy. Energy is required to keep the factories humming, power the cities and suburbs that house the world's rising population, and produce the crops that feed the planet. Most important, petroleum products are utterly essential to sustain the international sinews of globalization—the planes, trains, trucks, and ships that carry goods and people from one region of the planet to another. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), world energy output must increase by 57 percent over the next quarter century—from approximately 450 to 700 quadrillion British thermal units—in order to satisfy anticipated international demand. Without this additional energy, the world economy will fall into recession or depression, the globalization project will fail, and the planet could descend into chaos.
But the wheels of industry are not the only ones to slow without an abundant supply of energy; military forces are equally dependent on a copious infusion of critical fuels. For major powers like the United States that rely on airpower and mechanized ground forces to prevail in conflict, the need for petroleum products multiplies with each new advance in weapons technology. During World War II, the American military consumed one gallon of petroleum per soldier per day; during the first Gulf War of 1990–91, the rate rose to four gallons per soldier per day; in the Bush administration's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it leapt to sixteen gallons per soldier per day. Because the Pentagon is sure to increase its reliance on high-tech weaponry, and because other major powers, including China, Japan, Russia, and India, seek to emulate it in this regard, the already voracious military component of global energy demand can only grow.
At the same time, the competition for energy has never been so intense. Since World War II, the major industrialized powers—the United States, Japan, and the Western European countries—have jointly consumed the lion's share of the global energy supply. Because the energy industry was generally successful in boosting supplies to satisfy rising demand, the world was spared the cutthroat competition that had characterized the Eurasian energy race prior to World War II and helped launch the war in the Pacific in 1941. In the past few decades, however, a new class of contenders has entered the fray—rising economic dynamos like China, India, and Brazil—and it is not at all apparent, looking into the future, that the energy industry can satisfy both the surging needs of these new consumers and the already elevated requirements of the mature industrial powers. "Energy developments in China and India are transforming the global energy system by dint of their sheer size and their growing weight in international fossil-fuel trade," the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in its World Energy Outlook for 2007. Despite huge investment in new oil-production capacity additions, "it is very uncertain whether they will be sufficient to compensate for the decline in output at existing fields and keep pace with the projected increase in demand." Hence, an intense and sometimes brutal competition for untapped supplies has erupted.
Every nation with a significant need for imported energy is contributing to the intensity of this struggle, but there can be no ignoring the dramatic impact of China's soaring growth rates. As recently as 1990, China accounted for a mere 8 percent of global energy consumption while the United States was absorbing 24 percent of the available supply and the Western European nations 20 percent. But China's growth in the past decade and a half has been so vigorous that, by 2006, its net energy use had jumped to 16 percent of total world consumption. If its growth continues at this torrid pace, China will hit the 21 percent mark by 2030—exceeding all other countries, including the United States. The challenge for China, of course, will be to procure all that additional energy. To succeed, the Chinese leadership will have to oversee a substantial increase in the yield of its domestic energy production while obtaining staggering quantities of imported fuels, especially oil. By the nature of things, this can only happen at the expense of other energy-starved nations. No wonder the rise of China has produced such alarm among older industrial powers.
What makes all this even more anxiety provoking is another worrisome factor in the energy-squeeze equation: intimations of future scarcities of vital fuels, especially petroleum. An increasing body of evidence suggests that the era of "easy oil" is over and that we have entered a new period of "tough oil." Each new barrel added to global reserves, experts suggest, will prove harder and more costly to extract than the one before; it will be buried deeper underground, farther offshore, in more hazardous environments, or in more conflict-prone, hostile regions of the planet. A similar scenario is likely to play out when it comes to most other existing fuels, including coal, natural gas, and uranium. Given this, the future adequacy of global energy stocks is in serious doubt.
Ever since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, humans have succeeded in developing new sources of energy to supplement those already in use—first coal, then oil, and later natural gas and atomic fuel. The development of these fuels has made possible a stunning expansion of the global economy over the past century and a half, as well as a quadrupling of the human population. But all of these materials are finite in quantity, and the supply of most, if not all, is likely to be exhausted by the end of this century. Many experts believe that when it comes to petroleum, this process of exhaustion is already well under way.
Scientists are avidly seeking ways to develop a new spectrum of fuels to replace those now at risk of depletion while releasing far fewer or zero climate-altering "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere. But no major energy-consuming nation has yet devoted sufficient resources to this problem to ensure that these alternatives will be available on a large enough scale to replace existing energy sources in the foreseeable future. As a result, government and corporate officials alike continue to view fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) as the world's principal energy source for some time to come. According to the DoE, these fuels will still be satisfying an estimated 87 percent of global energy needs in 2030. With both old and new consumers reliant on these traditional fuels—and no practical, plentiful alternatives in sight—the struggle over them is certain to be fierce.
In this context, anxiety extends to the net supply of basic energy in general: the sum of all primary fuels, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, hydropower, renewables like wind and solar, and traditional fuels such as wood and charcoal. When pondering the adequacy of future reserves, however, the greatest dread is usually reserved for petroleum, which, for the last half century, has been—and remains—the world's most important source of energy. While oil accounted for approximately 40 percent of world energy use in 2006 (natural gas, the number two fuel, supplied only 25 percent) and is expected to remain number one in 2030, it is the energy source most likely to dwindle in the decades ahead. Although there is considerable controversy over the size of the remaining petroleum reserves, enough is known to conclude that global oil output will, at some not-too-distant moment, reach a maximum, or "peak," level and then commence an irreversible decline. The gradual disappearance of conventional liquid oil may, for a time, be offset by the development of synthetic fuels derived from "nonconventional" petroleum substances—Canadian tar sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy crude, Rocky Mountain oil shale—but the financial and environmental costs of using these materials are huge, and they are unlikely to rescue us, even briefly, from a dramatic and painful contraction in primary energy supplies.
As a result, the problem of "energy security"—as it is widely termed—has climbed toward the top rung of the international ladder of unease and concern. Not surprisingly, this has fundamentally changed the perception of what constitutes "power" and "influence" in a dramatically altered international system, forcing policymakers to view the global power equation in entirely new ways.


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