Playing stupid coin tricks with Shirdi Sai Baba

A few weeks ago Sai Baba 'appeared' to me in his Sathya form. Under ordinary conditions I would have found this visitation remarkable because the last time it had happened was a few days before his death in 2011 and before that it had been about ten years. But I was so upset at the moment that if he'd given me time to speak I think my only reaction to his appearance would have been an impatient, "Yes??"

But he wasn't there to chit-chat. He said with quiet concern, "Think of me" then the vision vanished.

The expression on his face had matched the concern in his voice. Never when I'd known him had he looked at me with concern and never before had he asked me to think of him.

It didn't take much reflection to understand the cause for his concern. I'd been increasingly upset as I'd learned more about my government's role in the Syrian tragedy. Part of the upset was just an erratic sleep schedule for months on end; I was living on Syria time half the time and the other half on Washington, DC time. But the revelations about what was really going on in Syria were the final straw for me after Afghanistan, Libya, and Ukraine. How many more countries did the American government intend to reduce to ruins in this decade? 

Without realizing it I was drifting toward hatred. 

Okay, think of Sathya Sai Baba. But it was like the reverse of trying not to think of a pink elephant. The harder I tried to think about him, the more my thoughts scattered in a hundred directions. 

Finally I went to YouTube and watched a couple of his lectures but my attention kept flagging. Then I tried listening to a few of his bhajan songs and singing along. Then I tried chanting along with a video of him chanting the Gayatri mantra. But I couldn't concentrate on the mantra, much less Sai Baba. All I wanted to do was get back to Syrian war reports.

I returned to clicking at random through bhajan videos. Then I spied a video on the YouTube sidebar about a vaunted miracle filmed by some devotees of Shirdi Sai Baba. 

(Sathya Sai Baba had always claimed that Shirdi Baba, who'd died in 1918, was his previous incarnation, although many devotees of Shirdi Baba, who still has a large following among both Hindus and Muslims, disputed the claim. I myself believe that Shirdi Baba was indeed the previous emanation of the Sathya Sai form.)  

I quickly discovered that there was an entire genre of Shirdi Sai Baba 'miracle' films on YouTube; e.g., someone swore that an image of him had appeared on a wall, or that he'd been seen walking into a temple, and so on, and filmed the supposed miracle.

There was one video, taken by a security camera, of an empty darkened room in a Shirdi Sai Baba temple, obviously at night, which was illuminated only by two tall oil lamps. The supposed miracle was a little blob of bright light appearing a few times and jerking around part of the room.

One commenter at YouTube wrote in exasperation that the 'miracle' was actually an insect walking across the CCTV lens. Another snapped, "It's a rat." 

Another viewer wrote that the only miracle was that he'd actually sat through the entire video.

My interest piqued, I looked at the video, which went on and on, with the changing time stamp on the CCTV footage the only thing to relieve the boredom. Finally a little bright blob appeared and jerked around, then jerked out of camera range. Then, more of watching nothing but the time stamp. 

I began cheating -- fast-forwarding through the video, trying to get another sight of the blob. Then I reversed, trying to find the first appearance of the blob.

Suddenly I blurted, "Wait a minute. One of the lamps is extinguished. When did that happen?"

There could have been a reasonable explanation for the lamp going out. Maybe the temple caretaker hadn't added enough oil to the receptacle before he left for the night. Or maybe a strong breeze had extinguished the flame.  

But what was completely clear is that I'd been so busy looking for the little blob that initially I'd completely missed what was a rather mysterious event. The other viewers at YouTube were in the same boat, from their comments. We'd been focused on the blob, and assumed its appearance was the vaunted miracle.
     

By then I was hooked. I went looking for more Shirdi Baba miracle videos. That was how I ended up studying an 11:50 minute video at YouTube titled Coin miracles at [Shirdi] Sai Baba Mandir at Unn, (Navsari, Gujarat, India) - 2nd June 2011 posted by Travels in India, London & the UK. The poster's comment:

"Having seen this several times on previous visits I was really hoping that I would see this happen whilst videoing - the video I took is in one take & unedited. Pilgrims having said their prayers at the front of the statue of Sai Baba then walk round to the rear of the statue & make a wish or prayer, and if it's done with real heartfelt intention then the coin they place at Sai Baba's back will stick to the wall."

Several of the responses to the coin miracle footage were quite negative. One of the YouTube viewers complained that he'd spent 11:50 minutes watching [expletive deleted]. 

Another viewer proposed an obvious explanation for the miracle:

"bubble gum???????????/ lol idiots"

Then there were the magnet theorists:

"Law of Magnetism! One rupee and many coins are attracted with magnetic force. Try it and observe it... They placed a huge electromagnet right behind the wall. You can clearly see that the wall was broken into to place the high power electromagnet, which is operated by the Pujari [temple caretaker]."

And the wall-paint theorists:

"If I press a coin into the paint on any of the walls of my apartment, it will stick. Did any of these believers notice that the coin would not stick to the part of the wall that had no paint. And the reason that part of the wall had no paint is because credulous people have stuck coins to it and when whoever designed this petty racket relocates the coins to his greedy pockets, the paint comes with them. How could ANYONE think THIS is a violation of natural laws?

"don't wish 2 insult your superstitious blind-sided faith as I respect Sai Baba; but here is no miracle. I myself stuck coins on walls when I was a kid; it's due to the "wrinkled paint wall." apparently you need 2 stick coin on the smoother plain cemented wall which eventually no one was able to do. So they stuck coin on the painted wall which had cracks and uneven surface. Or even a mere spit on the coin can do the trick.

For miracle I prefer stuck coin on smooth cemented wall not on edges."

I noted that the coin miracles video was like the darkened temple video in that it went on and on while the viewer waited for something to happen. In this case one waited for a person to walk by and try his luck with a coin.

It reminded me of what life was like at Sathya Sai Baba's ashram. It was mostly waiting around for something to happen, such as Sai Baba putting in an appearance. But if you fogged out while waiting, often that was when something did happen (such as Sai Baba making a brief unannounced appearance) and you'd missed it, as you learned from others who'd been paying attention.

I straightened up, restarted the video, and this time I stayed focused. That was when I noticed a possible challenge to all the theories: Actually, only a few coins stick to the wall.

[smiling]

And so the 'meta-message' I got from Sai Baba's remark to think of him turned out to be a reminder. A problem with strong emotions such as hatred is that they can divert our attention from what is happening right in front of us. 

To be human is to fall prey to distracting emotions, but with a little determination we can at least remember once in a while to muster focus.  

********

NATO & Russia After the Brussels Attack, plus Mordor sees Trump as the Anti-Christ

"[EU leaders] spend the morning talking to Washington and the evening talking to Moscow."

-- Just one of the many zingers from John Batchelor's discussion last night with Stephen F. Cohen, EastWestAccord.com, Professor Emeritus New York and Princeton universities. John's remark pretty much sums the EC/NATO approach to dealing with the threat to the European continent from Terror, Inc. 

They also discussed The Washington Post's interview with Donald Trump about his foreign policy/national security views. Steve said that based on what Trump told WaPo his approach looks the best one out of all the contenders for the White House, and he explained in detail why. 

I think Steve is correct on every point he brought up, but that plus 50 cents. He observed wryly that Washington's "bipartisan foreign policy establishment" -- which I think has had everything to do with running U.S. national security policy into the ground -- is looking at Trump as the Anti-Christ. That's indeed close to how they see him. His views on NATO and Russia would certainly bring their way of life to an end if he made it into the White House, a possibility which at this time looks remote.  

SST's Col. Pat Lang terms Washington's foreign policy establishment the Borg. I term it Mordor. 

Here is the link to the Washington Post interview (A transcript of Donald Trump’s meeting with The Washington Post editorial board; March 21) and here is the podcast of the March 22 Batchelor-Cohen discussion.

********  

Syria's Jaafari: Why call them moderate rebels in our country but terrorists in yours?

Bashar Jaafari, Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations,

speaking truth to rascals 

March 21, 2016

Geneva, SANA – The head of the Syrian Arab Republic delegation to the intra-Syrian dialogue in Geneva, Bashar al-Jaafari, said that the session held by the delegation on Monday with UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura discussed in an in-depth manner issues that constitute priorities for Syria and the whole world, like the issue of combating terrorism.

In a statement to journalists following the talks session, al-Jaafari said that the delegation explained to de Mistura the dangers that arise from the actions of certain states, some of them members of the Security Council, who support and train terrorism and export to Syria through Turkey under various nomenclatures.

Al-Jaafari asserted that the nomenclatures used to identify active terrorist groups do not change the fact that they are all terrorist groups, wondering “how come there aren’t armed moderate opposition groups active on French, British, and US soil that are sponsored by other states? Why this discrimination against the Syrian people?”

“When terrorism is active in Syria against Syrians, they call it moderate opposition or jihadists and so on, and they don’t call them terrorists, but when they return to the states from which they came, they become terrorists. ” he added.

Al-Jaafari also said that the delegation explained to de Mistura the threat posed by the Wahabism which is source of the extremist Takfiri mentality that threatens the whole world, noting that Al Qaeda’s ideology is based on the Wahabi ideology.

The head of the delegation added that they haven’t received any response so far from the other sides on the “political solution for the crisis” document which was presented to de Mistura, who promised that the response would be available on Wednesday or Thursday.

“What the Saudi delegation says in statements or leaks about the presidency position isn’t worthy of a response, because this matter is not up for discussion and wasn’t included in any paper or the documents related to this dialogue,” he stressed, adding that the delegation hasn’t received from de Mistura any official document or paper from any side involved in the intra-Syrian dialogue.

Al-Jaafari also voiced surprise over the irresponsible discourse of some sides regarding the legislative elections in which Syrians elect their representatives at the People’s Assembly.

“We don’t know until now how is representing the opposition delegation and who is the expert and who is the consultant, and this is a big obstacle for dialogue,” he said.

“We are looking forward for the dialogue to be serious, which is why we presented from the start a group of basic elements for resolving the crisis,” al-Jaafari stated.

Asked about the presence of terrorists in one of the oppositions’ delegations and the agreement with De Mistura on a list of terrorist organizations, al-Jaafari said: “It is not our problem, nor is it De Mistura’s that the Riyadh opposition delegation has terrorists in it…It is the problem of the International Syria Support Group that claims to be a group for supporting Syria, but in fact it isn’t.”

“Preparing a unified list of the terrorist organizations is a highly important matter that was assigned to Jordan by the participants in Vienna conference, but Jordan failed to do it.”

When asked to assess the talks, al-Jaafari said “it is too early” but promised a final assessment at the end of the round of talks. He spoke of a “good atmosphere” dominating talks with the Special Envoy as he lamented the lack of “genuine engagement” by other sides.
Al-Jaafari affirmed that the Syrian state is defending its sovereignty, people and constitution and is bent on preventing a repetition of the Libyan, Iraqi and Somali models.

“Based on the concept of sovereignty, it is any government’s right to enlist the help of its allies, which is a constitutional right, to confront international terrorism. The state and terrorist organizations cannot be placed on an equal footing.” “Had it not been for Hezbullah’s defense of Lebanon’s borders with Syria, Qaeda and takfiris would have permeated Lebanon.”

Answering a question about an upcoming meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry, al-Jaafari described it as important. “It is undoubtedly an important meeting, but this is supposed to be a Syrian-Syrian dialogue without foreign interference…If the Saudi delegation is waiting to take orders after the meeting, it is up to them anyway but this is deemed a violation of the Geneva meeting references that reject any form of foreign interference,” he said.

Al-Jaafari said Syria’s delegation has “a moral and political obligation” to end bloodshed. “But we cannot do this alone…There are countries involved in supporting terrorism…All of you know what is happening on the Syrian-Turkish borders and in Golan, and the way Israel is tending to the injured Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists and treating them in its hospitals, with Qatar paying the bill.”

For his part, UN Special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said in a press statement “We exchanged ideas on finding “a common ground” among sides,” adding that “the frame work is what we discuss now and we talked about terrorism and defining the terrorist organizations.”

“What we need today is a common understanding, and this is the principle of dialogue,” de Mistura said.

He added “We talked to the civil society even though it had no political role, but we want to listen to the Syrian people… we met today 25 persons and there was a very strong message about how to improve the situation and reach a solution to the crisis.”

Whether De Mistura has any evaluation on the vision of al-Jaafari about “the political transition” or not, he said “the time now is early and unavailable for that, It is important to start presenting a good understanding for all, neither Security Council nor International Syria Support Group can impose that.”

If De Mistura has any concern about the slowness of Geneva talks in comparison with the acceleration of events in Syria and the world, De Mistura said “Yes, we are worried about this point as the hostilities continue and as the same as, more or less, in relation to the humanitarian tasks.”

He expressed complete support to the US-Russian talks to push the political process in Syria forwards, adding “The operation Center that has been fulfilled is a good thing to realize interaction and contain the crisis.”

[END REPORT]

Pata Pata! It's party time at Pundita blog!

Where did they get that dress? Off a rag pile? Do you see the backside? But neither bad wardrobe nor klutzy backup dancers could faze Senegal's gap-toothed pop diva Coumba Gawlo, as she rocked a Parisian venue in 1998 with her rendition of Miriam Makeba's exuberant dance tune Pata Pata. The French and Belgians went crazy for her rendition; it was, according to Wikipedia, "a platinum single which was number 1 for two weeks in Belgium and sold 50,000 copies in one day in France in 1998."

A grumpy YouTube viewer slammed the performance: 

TOTAL DISRESPECT FOR OUR NATIONAL HERITAGE, AS A SOUTH AFRICAN MUSICIAN, I FEEL VERY INSULTED THAT YOU CAN INTERPRET THIS SONG LIKE THIS. RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S CULTURAL HERITAGE. DON'T BE LIKE THIS, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SINGING YOUR OWN SONGS, AND DOING THEM WELL. AND THERE IS EVERYTHING WRONG WITH DOING OTHER PEOPLE'S SONGS AND TAKING THEM COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT.     

This brought forth a good-natured riposite from another viewer: 

you're just jealous. She was speaking Wolof what do you want Chinese interpretation

But Gawlo interprets the 1957 song exactly as conceived and sung by Makeba: It's time to party and forget everything else. Here's the English translation of the lyrics:

Pata Pata (Touch Touch)

So we grooved and said: "Check it out!"
This is the Pata Pata...
So we grooved and said: "Check it out!"
This is the Pata Pata...

That’s it, lady!
This is the Pata Pata…
That’s it, lady!
This is the Pata Pata…

Pata Pata is the name of the dance
We do down Johannesburg way
And everybody starts to move
As soon as Pata Pata starts to play
So we grooved and said: "Check it out!"

This is the Pata Pata...
So we grooved and said: "Check it out!"

This is the Pata Pata...
That’s it, lady!
This is the Pata Pata…
That’s it, lady!
This is the Pata Pata…

Every Friday and Saturday Night
It’s Pata Pata time!
The dance keeps going all night long
Til’ the morning sun begins to shine!
So we grooved and said: "Check it out!"

This is the Pata Pata...
[etc etc] 

********

Roasted Turkey, European Toast

'What have we done?'

The common logic of Chancellor Hitler and President Erdoğan is based on the unification of  'race' and the cleansing of the population. Hitler wanted to unite the populations of  'German race' and cleanse them of  'foreign elements' (the Jews and the gypsies), while Erdoğan wants to unite the populations of 'Turkish race' and cleanse them of  'foreign elements' (the Kurds and the Christians).

In 1938, the European elites believed in the friendship of Chancellor Hitler, today they believe in the friendship of President Erdoğan.

The above is closing remarks from Thierry Meyssan's dire warning today to EU leaders,
Facing Turkey, Europe chooses suicide. I have explained before that in my view Thierry is crazy only half the time, the problem being that one has to know as much history as he does about a country to figure out when it's not silly time at Voltaire Network.

That caveat out of the way, I think enough is correct in his assessment to make it worthwhile reading. He brings out aspects about Turkish President Erdogan's views that are not widely known, and seem to have been overlooked by the Obama Administration and Congress. 

The oversights add up to Erdogan and his political party being more dangerous than Washington bargained for. Everybody in Washington knows that he wants to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire but this has made him more a laughing stock in Washington's view than a serious threat. Thierry warns that Erodgan is not just another Muslim leader trying to start a caliphate; he's managed to get much of an entire continent -- Europe -- over a barrel.  And while Thierry doesn't dwell on this point, Erdogan got tremendous help in this from EU leaders themselves.

How? Because the leaders told so many lies about Bashar al-Assad that it's now almost impossible to publicly walk them back -- although President Obama did try in a recent interview when he said that it was never certain that a chemical attack in Syria was the work of Assad's regime. Thus, the moral to the tale of how Erdogan managed to get the upper hand with the European Commission. Liars will see the consequences of their lies returned to them many fold. 

The character lecture is no help at this point to the EC, which had to decide between making peace with Assad's government and accepting the deal Erdogan offered them to tamp down the refugee crisis in Europe. They came down on the side of the deal. But as the caption Thierry supplied to the above photo indicates, they know they're toast if Erdogan doesn't hold up his end.

What's to stop him from laughing in their faces? Nothing, Thierry warns. To top it off:

By signing an agreement with Turkey to slow the influx of refugees – which happens to be illegal in international law – the leaders of the European Union have taken a step further in their pact with the devil. A large part of the 3 billion Euros annually allotted to Ankara [to deal with refugees] will serve to finance support for the jihadists, and as a result will increase the number of migrants who are fleeing the war.

Above all, by repealing the visa regulations with Turkey in the next few months, the Europeans are establishing free circulation between the Al-Qaïda camps in Turkey and Brussels. By crushing the Iraqi and Syrian people under the pressure of the jihadists whom they are indirectly financing, and abandoning the Turkish people to the dictatorship of President Erdoğan, they are preparing the foundations for a vast confrontation of which they will themselves be the victims.

That's his opening remarks; between the first and last words in the article he lays out just what kind of people the EC have made a deal with. Several of the details he supplies would be a surprise to Americans and possibly the majority of readers in Europe.

This noted, I do have a dispute with one of Thierry's remarks. He wrote:

We have already analysed the way in which the United States wanted to use the events in the Near East in order to weaken the European Union.  

I doubt the US has wanted to weaken the EU. I do think the Obama Administration was alarmed by clear signs of a historic warming of relations between Chancellor Merkel's Administration and the Russian one, which at the time (2010 if my memory serves) was headed by Dmitry Medvedev while Putin was serving as prime minister. From this I speculate that the Obama Administration has sought to weaken Angela Merkel's leadership. 

Because I couldn't back up the speculation with any specific sources, I didn't mention it on my blog, and mention it now only because I'm recommending Thierry Meyssan's article.

As to whether I think Thierry's concerns about Erodgan's designs on Europe are overblown, I'd guess that depends on whether the regime is actually desperate.  
Last week Gregory Copley (Defense & Foreign Affairs/GIS) told John Batchelor that Turkey was in far worse economic condition than the mainstream media had reported. I don't have the link to the podcast of the discussion so I can't refresh my memory about all the details he provided. But I clearly recall that he said FDI in the country had dried up.

So I'd have ask about the extent to which Turkey's government has been depending on profits from clandestine oil smuggling. From what the Russian government revealed about Turkey's oil smuggling network, it's possible it was set up as early as the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime. Also probable that the network handled not only clandestine shipments for Iraq's regime but also Iran's while that country's oil exports were under sanctions.

Such a scenario might explain not only Turkey's good economic reports for years but also Erdogan's badly soured relations with the Kurds -- if Kurds were in competition with his regime to handle smuggled oil for Hussein's regime. And it could explain how Erdogan's political party got so much power over the Turkey's military, which has always been a mystery to me.  

Again, I am speculating about all this but the point is that the smuggling network would have taken a huge hit. Oil export sanctions on both Iraq and Iran are lifted, and Islamic State's smuggling of stolen Syrian (and Iraqi) oil has been slowed to a trickle by relentless bombing raids. So if Turkey's economy was greatly dependent on oil smuggling, Erdogan could be getting desperate right about now. 

But today Sputnik plopped out with an observation at the very end of their report, Turkey Is 'One Step Away' From Dictatorial Powers for Erdogan:

The current opposition, however, could not be counted on "to put Erdogan in his place," according to Erdem, as the chief opposition parties have lost the trust of the populace.

So he might not be all that desperate, which could translate into his being a little less dangerous than Thierry fears in his roast of Erdogan's regime.  

[flipping a pen in the air] I'm going to cook supper now. No, not turkey.  

******** 

Um, where are most of the world's oppressed females oppressed the most?

Implementation of Sharia included banning of music, with groups showing up randomly in villages, armed with weaponry, to burn musical instruments and musical items. One guitarist was threatened that his fingers would be chopped off if he ever showed his face in one [N. Mali] town again.

The most oppressed of the oppressed females are in Muslim majority countries. So Western and UN programs to raise up downtrodden females aren't just emptying the ocean with a sieve; they're actually making the ocean bigger. Now how do they manage that? Because the more they spend in Muslim countries to help oppressed females, the more the Saudis spend to finance Wahhabist takeovers or expansion in those countries.

So don't even try to imagine how much hard currency taxpayers and private charities have thrown down the toilet in their attempts to help downtrodden females. All right, Pundita, let's not start the week with a tantrum.

Now where are we in space and time? Mali. [squinting at a map of Africa] Where is Mali? Never mind. Just take a look at the first three minutes of this video, which shows the Malian singer Oumou Sangaré helping depressed-looking girls and women cast off their obligatory black head coverings.  

  

Those scenes are not just theater for the video. Oumou is a real scrapper; she sang her way out of poverty and rose to become Mali's greatest singer and a huge favorite with West European audiences. But it was her fierce dedication to helping oppressed females that made her a superstar in the International Community and at the United Nations. From Wikipedia's article about her:

Oumou Sangaré (born February 25, 1968 in Bamako, Mali) is a Grammy Award-winning Malian Wassoulou musician, sometimes referred to as "The Songbird of Wassoulou". Wassoulou is a historic region south of the Niger River, where the music descends from age-old traditional and cultural songs, which is accompanied by a calabash.
[...]
Many of Sangaré's songs concern love and marriage, especially freedom of choice in marriage. Her 1989 album Moussoulou was an unprecedented West African hit.
[...]
Sangaré supports the cause of women throughout the world. She was named an ambassador of the FAO in 2003 and won the UNESCO Prize in 2001 and was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of France in 1998.
[...]
Oumou Sangaré is an advocate for women's rights, opposing child marriage and polygamy.

[...] 

So you can guess how popular she is in the more conservative areas of Mali. Doesn't faze her; she just puts on war paint and sings in person to the retrogrades. There's a really strange video clip of her doing that; it's on the same YouTube video I posted above starting at the 9:15 mark and maybe interrupted by a Japan Airlines five second ad.

Now back to Wikipedia, to look at religion in Mali:

An estimated 90 percent of Malians are Muslim, mostly Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence influenced with Sufism. Ahmadiyya and Shia minorities are also present.[2] Approximately 5 percent are Christian (about two-thirds Roman Catholic and one-third Protestant denominations); the remaining 5 percent of Malians adhere to indigenous or traditional animist beliefs.[3] Atheism and agnosticism are believed to be rare among Malians, most of whom practice their religion on a daily basis, although some are Deist.[4]

According to the 2005 U.S. Department of State’s annual report on religious freedom, Islam as traditionally practiced in Mali was characterized as moderate, tolerant, and adapted to local conditions.[4] Women were allowed to participate in social economical and political activities and generally do not wear veils.[4]

According to the 2012 Pew Forum study The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity, 94% of Muslim in Mali surveyed believe that religion very important in their lives, and 71% believe there is "only one true way to understand Islam’s teachings" (24% believing that multiple interpretations of Islam are possible).[2]

The constitution establishes a secular state and provides for freedom of religion, and the government largely respects this right.[4] Relations between Muslims and practitioners of minority religious faiths are generally amicable, and foreign missionary groups (both Muslim and non-Muslim) are tolerated.[4]

Because of the 2012 imposition of Sharia rule in northern parts of the country however, Mali was listed high (#7) in the Christian persecution index published by Open Doors which described the persecution in the north as severe.[5][6]  In spite of this, a 2015 study estimated some 8,000 believers in Christ from a Muslim background in the country.[7]

Implementation of Sharia included banning of music, with groups showing up randomly in villages, armed with weaponry, to burn musical instruments and musical items. One guitarist was threatened that his fingers would be chopped off if he ever showed his face in one town again.[8] Other rules such as cutting off hands or feet of thieves, stoning of adulterers and public whipping of smokers, alcohol drinkers and women who are not properly dressed were also implemented. [8]

However, the occupation and Sharia law were both short-lived, cut short by a French and Chadian military intervention that began in January 2013. See Northern Mali Conflict.

Short-lived, huh? Instead of looking at the Wikipedia article on the conflict how about seeing what Reuters has to report? Wait; first to Long War Journal on March 5:

Ansar Dine, a Tuareg jihadist front for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has claimed four recent attacks in Mali. Most of the attacks occurred in the northern part of the West African nation, but one occurred in the more secure Segou region in central Mali.

Ansar Dine claimed the attacks in one of the first statements released by their new propaganda outfit – Al Rimaah Media – which were later obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

In the northern region of Kidal, Ansar Dine claimed to detonate improvised explosive devices on three UN vehicles near Aguelhok, Tesslitnear and Kidal. The jihadist group also claimed to target a UN camp in Kidal with rockets.

[...]


Reuters
Wed Mar 9, 2016 - 11:46am EST
Exclusive: African Union considers Mali counter-terrorism force
By EMMA FARGE

(DAKAR, SENEGAL) The African Union will send a mission to northern Mali in the next few weeks to look into setting up a counter-terrorism force to support vulnerable U.N. peacekeepers, sources familiar with the matter said.

The Bamako government, as well as some officials of the U.N. force in Mali, MINUSMA, have called for more help in fighting al Qaeda-linked insurgents, who have become increasingly active despite the efforts of French, Malian and U.N. troops.

French forces drove the jihadists out of northern Malian cities in 2013 but they have regrouped, and in November al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attacked a luxury hotel in Bamako, killing 20 people in a demonstration of their ability to strike beyond their desert bases.

Critics say the 10,000-strong U.N. force's ability to bring peace to Mali is hamstrung by its lack of an aggressive counter-terrorism mandate, meaning it cannot hunt down militants and is vulnerable to attack.

At least 20 Malian and U.N. troops from Africa have been killed this year, according to Reuters estimates.

While an expansion of the U.N. mandate was discussed during a Security Council visit to Mali last week, some permanent members such as France say it is already sufficiently robust, although they back additional resources for the force.

The AU initiative is being floated as an alternative route to improved security, the sources say.

"There is an (AU) mission to assess the security threats in northern Mali in the next few weeks," said one security source familiar with the visit who is not authorized to speak publicly.

"This will allow the development of a plan for an international force in the fight against terrorism," he added, saying the AU planned to seek U.N. and Malian backing.

A Western diplomat said the force's remit would be similar to an existing AU regional task force set up last year to fight jihadist group Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin.

Planning is at an early stage and details of troop numbers and financing have not yet been determined, the sources said.

AU officials at the continental body's headquarters in Addis Ababa could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the Malian defense ministry declined to comment.

Army spokesman Colonel Souleymane Maiga said: "I know that there have been recent meetings on a possible rapid intervention force but the form this force will take has not yet been decided as far as I know."

FRANCE OVERSTRETCHED?

Besides funding, one of the difficulties might be harmonizing security initiatives in a region where neighbors have a history of vying for influence, the sources added.

The Group of Five Sahel (G5 Sahel) -- Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania -- have also agreed to create EU-backed regional rapid reaction forces to counter Islamist militants.

G5 Sahel permanent secretary Najim Elhadj Mohamed said he had not been informed of the AU initiative and it was not clear if the two bodies would cooperate.

Mali's northern neighbor Algeria set up a joint military operations center for Sahel countries in 2010 but there have been few signs of progress on the ground.

Some security experts say more support is needed to fight jihadists in Mali since France's 3,500-strong Barkhane force is overstretched. The Chad-based force was set up to combat Islamists across West Africa's vast Sahel region.

"A bigger contribution from African forces could take the pressure off the French, who could focus more on securing borders and on ISIS (Islamic State) in Libya," said Rida Lyammouri, an independent consultant focused on the Sahel and north Africa.

"But to succeed (the AU force) would have to match the violent extremist organizations in terms of their outreach to local communities in Mali," he added.

---
(Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa and Adama Diarra in Bamako; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Related: WORLD, AFRICA, MALI

[END REPORT]

Pain Boulette!!! (Bread Dumpling!!!) Hanging onto our humanity, Part 5

In 2008 I was asked by an American professor who knew a great deal about William Ayers -- a retired professor, mentor to Barack Obama, and former Weatherman terrorist -- why I had once referred to Ayers on my blog as "Sahib."

The question reminded me of one I posed in the early 1970s to a computer scientist who was working to computerize the phone company in New York City: Can you explain to me in one sentence what you do for a living?

So I didn't reply. But one of Sahib Ayers' projects was to fan racial hatred in the United States -- to turn Americans against each other as much as he could by claiming that whites had what he called "skin privilege;" i.e., the state of having white skin accorded a person privileges in society that a darker-skinned person didn't share.

Which is exactly why an American of Tamil Indian ethnic heritage and skin color is CEO of Google and a man with black skin is President of the United States. But Ayers' circle of far-left academics loved the White Skin Privilege meme, as did black American students who were trying to get scholarships to top American universities. And so the meme spread from one university to another in the USA.

I thought of Ayers the other night when the guys at Red Eye Radio played a nearly unintelligible clip from YouTube of someone at a debate at Harvard saying that to better the human race white people should kill themselves. The student would probably be happy to know that many white Americans are killing themselves; suicide among white middle-aged Americans has skyrocketed.  

A few days earlier I came across a report about the launch of a 'Whiteness History Month' at the largest college in Oregon. The focus of the project seemed to be urging the white students to raise their consciousness about the unfair advantages their white skin privilege bestowed on them.

And I have just learned that a black American rap/hip-hop entertainer and entrepreneur named Kanye West tweeted last month that "white" publications should stop commenting on "black" music because whites couldn't possibly understand what the music means to black American descendents of slaves.

Oh I think West has done a pretty good job of conveying to people of any color just how he feels. By default I ended up at a video titled "BLKKK SKKKN HEAD" when I tried to watch a West video at YouTube that didn't make me sit through an advertisement before I could view it. The video shows West repeatedly transforming into an automaton.

I'd say he's trying to tell us he feels dehumanized. But from my cram course a few minutes ago on West and his wife Kim Kardashian I'd say these otherwise untalented people have made very profitable careers by appealing to Americans of all skin colors who feel dehumanized.

I've noticed there are many such people in today's USA. What's the cure? Clues are found in Souleymane Faye's music video "Pain Boulette!!!" from the 1970s. One doesn't have to be familiar with Senegal to see that Faye is poking fun at black African snobbery about whites (they can't dance, they have no rhythm) and Being African (at the rate he's getting his hair braided one of the characters will clearly be in his 90s by the time it's finished). But I suspect that the more one knows about Dakar society in those days the funnier the video. (Was "fabulous" the over-used word of the day?)

Towering over the social commentary is exuberant silliness: the music fan who's an even bigger fan of stuffing herself with pain boulette; Faye trying to get an expressionless singer to loosen up by butting her hip with his head.

And the music. One commenter at YouTube noted that Faye, who's also called Jules, was ahead of his time. Well, what you're hearing in "Pain Boulette!!!" is the beginnings of the (dare I say fabulous?) syncretic music called mbalax, which drew (and still draws) from so many sources it's easier to say it didn't draw from Mozart but give them more time.

Mbalax ("rhythm" in Senegal's Wolof language) is a kind of lab for dance rhythms. Musicians from musical genres all over the world, many rooted from centuries ago in African drumming, have contributed to it, but Jules was among the earliest mbalax pioneers. And if someone ever gets around to writing an encyclopedia article about him we might find that he's considered the pioneer. In any case mbalax had its birth in Dakar, in just the kind of music clubs featured in the 1970s-era video.

The irony about mbalax is that at just the time it was being born in Senegal, over in New York City American blacks and Puerto Ricans who lived in the same neighborhoods were engaged in boombox wars because they couldn't stand each others' music. The warring parties would turn their portable stereos louder and louder to drown out the other music. This routinely led to riots, then the NYPD had to be called in -- at taxpayer expense of course -- to break it up.

Yet mbalax eventually integrated both musical styles and without a drop of blood shed or an eardrum shattered. More to the point the musicians, singers, poets, and dancers who built mbalax did so without the intervention of police, courts of law, or political battles costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

The law and politics and even war have their place, but when blindly invoked as routine approaches to settling differences the price is a feeling of being dehumanized. That's too high a price for anyone to pay.

SAA coalition fighters reach Palmyra Highlands; Russian airstrikes continue on IS and al Qaeda

"The Russian Air Force makes an average of 20-25 sorties per day lending support to the operation aimed at liberating Palmyra, the spokesman said, stressing that Russia will continue to carry out airstrikes targeting IS and Al Nusra Front in Syria." - from March 18 RT, third report below

From AMN March 19:

The Syrian Arab Army’s “Tiger Forces” – backed by Hezbollah, Liwaa Imam ‘Ali (Iraqi paramilitary), the Desert Hawks Brigade, and the Syrian Marines – launched a late-night assault in western Palmyra on Friday, striking the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham’s (ISIS) positions at the southeastern slopes of Jabal Hayyal.

According to a report from a field correspondent in the Palmyra countryside, the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies broke-through ISIS’ front-lines and advanced as far east as the Palmyra Highlands that overlook the Qatari Royal Villa. 

The Palmyra Highlands begin at the southeastern ridge of Jabal Hayyal and end at the ancient city’s gates.

[END REPORT]

From FARS March 18:

TEHRAN (FNA)- Syrian and Russian fighter jets kept on pounding ISIL terrorists' positions around the ancient city of Palmyra (Tadmur) on Friday as army troops pressed on their ground advance against the terrorists, military sources said.

"Russian and Syrian warplanes are bombarding ISIL positions and their lines of communication near Palmyra," said a battlefield source.

"These strikes facilitated the advance of the Syrian ground troops towards Palmyra as they keep cutting their distance to the ancient city," the source added.

Reports said fierce battles are underway between pro-government forces and ISIL militants around Palmyra and Quaryatayn, as the Army has managed to establish control over more points near Mahasa village.

Meanwhile, Syrian warplanes have been conducting airstrikes on ISIL positions in the city of Palmyra and around Hayal Mountain.

The ISIL seized Palmyra in Eastern Syria last May, which is among UNESCO World Heritage Sites known as the "Pearl of the Desert", however Syrian Army troops now seem to be committed to liberate the city from the grip of the terrorist group.

Earlier on Friday, the ISIL terrorist group lost one of its top Saudi commanders during clashes in Eastern suburb Plamyra (Tadmur) city in Homs province, on Thursday, in a development seen as a major breakthrough for the Syrian army.

The senior ISIL militant, Sultan bin Abdul Rahman, was a Saudi national who joined the terrorist group in 2014.

He was killed when the Syrian army forces as a part of their large-scale operation to take back the city of Tadmur raided ISIL fortifications in the Eastern areas just outside the city.

Abdul Rahman occupied several positions in ISIL and al-Qaeda and had fought with al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechenya and Algeria before going to Syria.

[END REPORT]

From RT March 18

All conditions are in place to surround and defeat Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) in Palmyra, Syria, Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the main operations department of the Russian General Staff, told reporters.

“Everything necessary has been provided for the encirclement and definitive defeat of IS armed groups in Palmyra,” Rudskoy said, adding that the Syrian Army had already taken control over all dominant heights and major roads around the city. The terrorists’ logistical support has also been cut off.

The Syrian army and patriotic opposition fighters, backed by the Russian Air Force, are conducting a large-scale operation to liberate the city.

The Russian Air Force makes an average of 20-25 sorties per day lending support to the operation aimed at liberating Palmyra, the spokesman said, stressing that Russia will continue to carry out airstrikes targeting IS and Al Nusra Front in Syria.

Last week, Syrian government forces and people’s militia groups backed by Russian airstrikes managed to come close to the city. On Thursday, they reportedly entered the Palmyra museum complex.

Russia is withdrawing most of its forces from Syria and ending its five-month anti-terror operation launched on September 30, 2015. The decision was taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 14, who said that the operation’s objectives have been largely achieved.

Russia’s backing allowed Syrian forces to free 400 populated areas and over 10,000 square kilometers [3,860 square miles], Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said when he reported to Putin on March 14, adding that terrorists had been forced out of Latakia and Aleppo provinces while Palmyra was "blocked."

Russia also continues to monitor observance of the ceasefire with more than 70 drones. The Russian Defense Ministry reiterated there had been a sustained decrease in the number of ceasefire violations adding that Russia’s ceasefire monitoring center recorded only five such cases over the last 24 hours in comparison to “dozens of violations” recorded earlier.

On Thursday, Putin said Russia could deploy its forces back to Syria within a matter of hours if necessary, although he stressed that Moscow would not want to see such a development. With regards to Palmyra, Putin said that he hoped for the city to be returned to the Syrian people.

Following up on the president's comment, the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov clarified that Russian forces are not involved in a military operation surrounding the ancient city.

“The offensive is conducted by Syrian armed forces. What the president said was that the campaign has significantly strengthened the Syrian armed forces, which are now able to independently continue the offensive,” Peskov told reporters.

[END REPORT]

"Startling" number of young U.S.children diagnosed with psychological disorders: Hanging onto our humanity, Part 4

One in seven American schoolchildren between the ages of two and eight, to be exact, from a newly published study -- although the headline in the CBS news report about the study doesn't mention they're American.

And the report entirely avoids discussing whether even the youngest children in the study are in school. You can bet that most if not all the toddlers in the study are indeed enrolled in a 'preschool' program, which is now actually a school program.  One 'tell' is the city where the highest number of mentally disturbed American children in the study are found: Washington, DC, which has a large federally-sponsored preschool system. Another tell is simply that the researchers must have studied data provided by schools receiving federal funds to draw their conclusions.

But again, CBS goes nowhere near raising the question of whether the study subjects are in school. Instead, CBS quotes 'experts' who blame everything except the school system for the "startling" findings. Yet there's nothing startling about it, if you read the Washington Post report I featured and the other WaPo reports on the same theme that I linked to in part 3 of this series.

And CBS does not ask whether the children in the study who seem to be better adjusted in states such as California were already diagnosed with psychological disorders and on prescription drugs. 

You really need to understand the horror of the situation outlined in the Washington Post reports. Even very young American children are being forced into a system of schooling that robs them of normal physical and mental development. Then school authorities notice that the children are displaying behavioral disabilities. Then the children are placed on prescription drugs to 'normalize' their behavior.

As to what to do about this -- a year ago I would've suggested that American parents of young school-age children remove their children from the school system and form collectives to babysit their toddlers for each other.

Today, I am about 15 minutes away from recommending that American parents get their small children out of the United States at least during the school year, if it's at all possible for those parents to find temporary employment outside the USA -- even if this means lowering their standard of living.

Barring that, relocate to a very rural part of the USA that doesn't have a highly developed school system [at this point], and where the local government doesn't force toddlers into federally-overseen preschool school programs.  

The children can recover from having fewer creature comforts and limited public education; they cannot recover from being Stepfordized.

Make no mistake: the objective of the present American public school system isn't to produce truly educated graduates. It's to produce graduates that can comprehend written instructions in the modern corporate workplace.  

Startling number of kids diagnosed with psychological disorders

By STEVEN REINBERG 

March 18, 2016, 12:47 PM

CBS News

One in seven American children aged 2 to 8 suffers from a mental, behavioral or developmental problem, federal health officials report.

Researchers analyzed data supplied by parents in the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health, looking for reported speech and language problems, learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, anxiety and more.

"Based on the number of kids affected, this is something we need to pay attention to," said lead researcher Jennifer Kaminski, team leader for child development studies at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The researchers found that young children with mental, behavioral or developmental disorders were less likely than others to have access to medical care that was family-centered, continuous, comprehensive, coordinated, compassionate and culturally effective.

Parental mental health problems and child-care problems were also commonly associated with mental, behavioral and developmental disorders in young children, the researchers said.

Incidence of disorders varied widely by state, "which suggests that there are things states can do to improve the health of these kids," Kaminski said.

Prevalence of disorders was lowest in California -- at 10.6 percent -- and about double that in Arkansas and Kentucky, the findings showed.

Fair or poor parental mental health was highest in Washington, D.C., and lowest in Kansas, according to the study.

[...]

Now here's one of the Washington Post reports I linked to in Part 3; if you're a parent of a small child please read it as if your child's life depended on it.

A very scary headline about kindergartners

By Valerie Strauss

February 6, 2014

The Washington Post

Rob Saxton is Oregon’s deputy superintendent of public instruction. Jada Rupley is the early learning system director within the state Department of Education. Together they wrote an op-ed in The Oregonian that was published online with this headline:

Kindergarten test results a ‘sobering snapshot’

What could possibly be sobering about test results from kindergartners? What kind of tests are they giving to kindergartners anyway?

It turns out that every public school kindergartner in Oregon was given a kindergarten readiness test last September to see how many numbers, letters and sounds they knew. The Oregonian reported that kids on average entered kindergarten knowing 19 capital and lower-case letters and seven letter sounds of at least 100 possible correct answers.

Kindergarten readiness tests are nothing new. What is is the ever-increasing focus on turning kindergarten, and now preschool, into academic environments with the aim of ensuring that children can read by the time they are in first grade. In fact, kindergarten is the new first grade when it comes to academics.

Saxton and Rupley wrote in their piece that the results of the testing of the kindergartners in Oregon “provide a sobering snapshot of the skills our children possess as they enter kindergarten.”

A working paper called “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade? The Changing Nature of Kindergarten in the Age of Accountability,” by Daphna Bassok and Anna Rorem of the University of Virginia’s EdPolicyWorks, a center on education policy and competitiveness, notes that kindergarten has been transformed over the last decade, with academic skill-being taking center stage.

For some kids, learning to read in kindergarten is just fine. For many others, it isn’t. They just aren’t ready. In years gone by, kids were given time to develop and learn to read in the early grades without being seen as failures. Even kids who took time learning how to read were able to excel.

Today kids aren’t given time and space to learn at their own speed.

Writer Alfie Kohn wrote in this post about concerns he has about the new calls for universal early childhood education. Why? Because when people talk about “high-quality programs,” they often mean academic programs, meaning the academic focus is being pushed down to younger and younger kids.

Very few people are talking about the kind of education that would be offered — other than declaring it should be “high quality.” And that phrase is often interpreted to mean “high intensity”: an accelerated version of skills-based teaching that most early-childhood experts regard as terrible. Poor children, as usual, tend to get the worst of this….

… The top-down, test-driven regimen of Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiatives in K-12 education is now in the process of being nationalized with those Common Core standards championed by the [New York] Times — an enterprise largely funded, and relentlessly promoted, by corporate groups. That same version of school reform, driven by an emphasis on global competitiveness and a determination to teach future workers as much as possible as soon as possible, would now be expanded to children who are barely out of diapers. 

That doesn’t leave much time for play. But even to the extent we want to promote meaningful learning in young children, the methods are likely to be counterproductive, featuring an emphasis on the direct instruction of skills and rote rehearsal of facts. This is the legacy of behaviorism: Children are treated as passive receptacles of knowledge, with few opportunities to investigate topics and pose questions that they find intriguing. In place of discovery and exploration, tots are trained to sit still and listen, to memorize lists of letters, numbers, and colors. Their success or failure is relentlessly monitored and quantified, and they’re “reinforced” with stickers or praise for producing right answers and being compliant.

This dreary version of early-childhood education isn’t just disrespectful of children; decades of research show it simply doesn’t work well — and may even be damaging.

Bassok, one of the authors of the research paper mentioned above, noted that while there are fun and engaging ways to teach young kids academic material, she worries that so much emphasis will be put on learning to read that other things, like play and social interactions, will be lost.

It’s already been happening for years, and it appears to be getting worse. The end result will be kids who hate school even earlier than they do now.

Kids like to play. Kids learn from play. Why it doesn’t make sense to just let them play is beyond me.
—
Here’s a position paper on the testing of young children by Defending the Early Years, a non – profit project of the Survival Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) tax – exempt educational organization based in Watertown, Massachusetts. (Find more information at deyproject.org or write to geralynbywater@gmail.com.)

 What is the problem?

Today, the majority of classrooms for preschool, kindergarten and primary age children are required to address content standards that prescribe what children are expected to learn. These standards are intended to insure that worthwhile subject matter is taught. Performance standards have been developed to find out if children have learned the prescribed content.

While standards are helpful for identifying valuable content, they can also have a negative impact on children and programs. Some of the problems with standards are that they are not always based on knowledge of how children grow and learn, and often do not take into account children’s needs, capacities, cultures, and unique characteristics. Standards can lead to teaching of skills in ways that are not effective or meaningful, to the narrowing of the curriculum, and to less time for play and hands-on learning experiences that are important foundations for later school success.

It is useful to find out if children have learned the prescribed content, but the way this is most often done is through testing – which also can have a negative impact on children and programs. One of the major problems with the tests is that they are often not based on knowledge of child development and are therefore not suited to the developmental abilities of young children. Another problem is that tests can only measure a narrow range of knowledge and skills, so they often miss important objectives of early childhood education like creativity, problem-solving, and social and emotional development. Teachers who want children to do well on tests may eliminate worthwhile learning experiences, introduce skills too early, or narrow the curriculum in order to “teach to the test”.

search shows that children learn best when they have hands-on learning experiences, engage in structured play, experience facts within meaningful contexts, invent their own problems to explore and solve, and share their own solutions. The current emphasis on standards and testing has led many schools to over-focus on assessment at the expense of meeting children’s developmental needs and teaching meaningful content. Play and activity-based learning have been disappearing from many early childhood classrooms, and – along with them – children’s natural motivation and love of learning.

What could be done to address this problem?

Program practices:

1. Promote programs that are based on current research on how young children learn best.

2. Promote meaningful, hands-on learning experiences in classrooms for young children.

3. Work to ensure that teachers provide well-thought out educational experiences that demonstrate knowledge and respect for each child.

4. Work to ensure that children have literacy experiences that include storytelling, quality children’s literature, and acting out stories rather than activities that isolate and drill discrete skills.

5. Help teachers skillfully build curriculum from what children can do and understand instead of direct teaching skills that are disconnected from children’s understanding.

6. Encourage schools to respect the language and culture of children and their families, to encourage families to take ownership and to make sure that their history and experiences are included and valued.

7. Encourage schools to design schedules that provide ample time for families and school personnel to meet and work together.

8. Work to ensure that teachers who have specialized training in early childhood education are placed in classrooms for young children.

 Assessment practices:

1. Encourage policies that protect children from undue pressure and stress and from judgments that will have a negative impact on their lives in the present and in the future.

2. Promote the use of assessments that are based on observations of children, their development and learning.

3. Work to ensure that classroom assessments are used for the purpose of improving instruction.

4. Support efforts to eliminate testing of young children that is not intended to improve classroom practice.

5. Eliminate labeling and ranking of children based on standardized tests.

 What family members can do at home

1. Provide young children with space and time to play at home and in the neighborhood.

2. Read good quality children’s books and limit screen time.

3. Resist reinforcing the school’s agenda — drilling for skills — and replace it with opportunities for meaningful learning

[END REPORT]