MikeLigalig.com

Gallows humour

There are accounts of a funny man in ancient Rome who performed impressions of the deceased â€" at their own funerals. The archimimus was allowed to offend even mourning family members. Lucius M Sargent recounts how Suetonius, in his Life of Tiberius, described one at the funeral for the emperor Vespasian. “It was his business to imitate the voice, manner and gestures of the defunct,” writes Sargent. “The fellow openly cracks his jokes on the absurd expense of the funeral.”


Jester figures attended ancient Roman funerals, as this image of a procession in Pompeii circa 50 AD shows (Credit: Alamy)

The archimimus of Rome took liberties in the same way as the court jesters of medieval European royalty. “The court jester was given licence to say things that might be rude or impolitic or socially unacceptable â€" even about the king,” says Benjamin Radford, author of Bad Clowns. “He could make fun of a king’s weight or how young his concubines were, and not be put to death for it because of the clown’s role as a truthsayer.

It was at the turn of the 19th Century when the British pantomime star Grimaldi honed his alter-ego Joey, a character that was the forerunner to the clown we know today â€" currently terrorising people around the world in a spiralling ‘clown-demic’. Reports of clowns attempting to lure children into woods in the US state of South Carolina first emerged in August. Since then, there have been sightings of clowns behaving in menacing ways around the world: the social panic has led to a backlash, with arrests, school lockdowns and local officials banning clown costumes at Halloween. McDonald’s has limited Ronald McDonald’s public appearances and a ‘Clown Lives Matter’ march scheduled in Arizona had to be cancelled after organisers received death threats.

The craze has been condemned by professional clowns, who claim it might threaten their livelihood and “risks permanently damaging the reputation of the artform”. Yet clowns have not always been unthreatening children’s entertainers: when Grimaldi transformed himself into Joey, he was tapping into a tradition that stretched back thousands of years.

A surprising history of the creepy clown

As the panic about evil clowns continues to build, Fiona Macdonald finds that the dark side of the modern circus entertainer goes back to ancient Rome.

By Fiona Macdonald
19 October 2016

“Day after day he sat before the mirror, brush in hand, marking his features, wiping them clean, and starting again, until finally a face emerged from the candlelight that bore a grin so incendiary it refused to be erased,” writes Andrew McConnell Stott in his acclaimed biography The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi.

“It began with a thick foundation of greasepaint, applied to every exposed inch of face, neck and chest… He fixed it with a cloud of powder, then painted a blood-red wound, a mile-wide smear of jam, to form the gaping, gluttonous cavern of a mouth. The eyes, wide and rolling, were arched by thick brows… each cheek received a red chevron that conveyed insolently rude health while being simultaneously suggestive of some exotic beast of Hindu demonology.”

As a description of a mask, it is disturbing. As a description of the modern clown, it is insightful: when these purveyors of mayhem moved from the stage to the circus ring, they continued to be as unsettling as they were amusing.


Joseph Grimaldi is seen as the forerunner to the modern clown â€" an annual ‘clown’s service’ is held at a church in London in his honour (Credit: Alamy)

Given its ghostly allure and spectral charm, one might have thought that the moonbow was an ideal subject for artists keen to avoid slipping into rainbow kitsch. A comment by the English landscape painter John Constable, who characterised the lunar bow as “that most beautiful and rare occurrence”, suggests that artists have indeed been well aware of its appeal. So it is surprising to discover that, apart from a notable canvas by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, the moonbow has by and large escaped the eternalising alchemy of art.

In Friedrich’s Mountain Landscape with Rainbow (1809-10) â€" sometimes given the subtitle Landschaft mit dem Mondregenbogen or Landscape with Moonbow â€" a resplendent arc cuts through the lustrous darkness in which a weary wanderer has paused, as if weaving a protective dome over him. In a time of terror and ever-refracting global uncertainties, it is not surprising that real-time echoes of Friedrich’s consoling vision, captured by contemporary photographers, are once again causing a soulful stir.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/

Two hundred and seventeen years after Cole’s encounter, fresh sightings of the strange lunar bow (sometimes referred to by meteorologists as a ‘moonbow’) are once again in the news. A pair of ethereal photos captured recently in Yorkshire and in Northumberland have projected their luminous magic across social media this week, introducing Twitter and Facebook followers around the world to a heavenly phenomenon that many had previously never heard of, let alone seen.

Generated in the same way that its more common cousin, the rainbow, is produced, a lunar bow occurs when light (this time reflected from the moon, rather than shining directly from the sun) is refracted through rain or mist suspended in the dimming atmosphere. Much more delicate in its fleeting projection than a rainbow, the lunar bow rarely conjures the full spectrum of colours and typically appears an icy white.


Caspar David Friedrich’s Mountain Landscape with Rainbow hangs in the Folkwang Museum in Essen (Credit: Wikipedia)

The rare phenomenon of the 'moonbow'

After recent sightings of a lunar rainbow, Kelly Grovier looks at how its magic has been captured by artists of the past.

By Kelly Grovier
21 October 2016

On an evening walk in the autumn of 1799, William Cole, a now forgotten English poet, was suddenly stopped in his tracks by a sublime appearance in the darkening Norfolk sky above him â€" a vision so extraordinary he was moved to record its aerial rhythms in rhyme: “The atmosphere with humid vapours flow,/And the pale moon displays her lunar bow.”

Aware that readers of his poem would probably be mystified by the atmospheric event he described, Cole appended a footnote, directing readers to an article in a local newspaper corroborating what he’d witnessed: “See the Norfolk Chronicle of Nov. 17, 1799”.


In this image released on 18 October 2016, a moonbow is visible in the night sky above a field in the Coquet Valley in Northumberland, England (Credit: Ian Glendinning/AP)

The intention of China’s aid to Africa is benign but not altruistic. China does not seek to use aid to influence the domestic politics of African countries or dictate policies. Instead, it truly hopes to help Africa achieve better development while avoiding meddling with the internal affairs of African countries through conditional aid. But on the other hand, China is not helping Africa in exchange for nothing. Chinese projects create access to Africa’s natural resources and local markets, business opportunities for Chinese companies and employment for Chinese labors. When Chinese officials emphasize that China also provides aid to countries that are not rich in natural resources to defuse international criticisms, they often forget to mention that China may have its eyes on other things which these countries can deliver, such as their support of Beijing’s “one China” policy, of China’s agenda at multilateral forums, and of China as a “responsible stakeholder.”  In this sense, China’s comprehensive, multi-dimensional agenda of its aid to Africa defies any simplistic categorization.



https://www.brookings.edu/


The author, Yun Sun, is a Nonresident Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Africa Growth Initiative

This practice is problematic in that many of the resource-rich African countries with which China works also suffer from serious political problems, such as authoritarianism, poor governance, and corruption. When the Ministry of Commerce pursues economic gains and associates aid projects with resource extraction, it uses aid packages to promote business relations. This directly contributes to the negative perception that China is pouring aid, funding, and infrastructure projects to prop up corrupt governments in exchange for natural resources. As many Chinese analysts observe, the Foreign Ministry in recent years has been fighting fiercely for the authority to manage China’s foreign aid projects, which are currently under the purview of the Ministry of Commerce.

However, trade promoters such as the Ministry of Commerce have rather opposite perspective. In their view, foreign aid serves China’s overall national priority, which by definition is economic growth. Therefore, all aspects of aid decisions should reflect broad economic considerations. Under this logic, the inclination is to allocate the aid budget to countries that offer China the greatest number of commercial opportunities and benefits. Since China’s top economic interest is Africa’s natural resources, aid decisions are inevitably skewed toward resource-rich countries while others receive less favorable consideration.

There is also an ongoing debate inside China about the goal and management of Chinese aid to Africa. For the foreign policy bureaucrats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, foreign aid is essentially a political instrument for China to strengthen bilateral ties and facilitate the development of African countries. In their view, political considerations should be the most important criteria in aid decision-making. Economic benefits associated with aid projects, such as profitability, resource extraction, or the acquisition service contracts for Chinese vendors, should only be secondary.

This polarization reveals the two sides of the same coin. On the positive side, China’s aid and development financing fills a void left by the West and promotes the development of African countries. Many Chinese projects require large investment and long pay-back terms that traditional donors are reluctant to provide.  On the other hand, however, these short-term benefits should not form a cover-up for the potential long-term negative consequences associated with neglecting issues of governance, fairness and sustainability. For example, when the “tied aid” is linked to the profitability of Chinese companies, it becomes questionable whether China would prioritize Africa’s interests or its own.

How to understand Chinese aid to Africa?

With a few exceptions, there is a strong tendency among observers to assert moral judgments in the assessment of Chinese aid and development finance to Africa: China’s activities are either “evil” because they represent China’s selfish quest for natural resources and damage Africa’s fragile efforts to improve governance and build a sustainable future; or they are “virtuous” because they contribute to a foundation for long-term economic development, through infrastructure projects and revenue creation.

In addition to securing Africa’s natural resources, China’s capital flows into Africa also create business opportunities for Chinese service contractors, such as construction companies. According to Chinese analysts, Africa is China’s second-largest supplier of service contracts, and “when we provide Africa assistance of RMB 1 billion, we will get service contracts worth USD 1 billion (RMB 6 billion) from Africa.” In exchange for most Chinese financial aid to Africa, Beijing requires that infrastructure construction and other contracts favor Chinese service providers: 70 percent of them go to “approved,” mostly state-owned, Chinese companies, and the rest are open to local firms, many of which are also joint ventures with Chinese groups. In this sense, China’s financing to Africa, including aid, creates business for Chinese companies and employment opportunities for Chinese laborers, a critical goal of Beijing’s Going Out strategy.

Though commodity-backed loans were not created by China â€" leading Western banks were making such loans to African countries, including Angola and Ghana, before China Eximbank and Angola completed their first oil-backed loan in March 2004 â€" but the Chinese built the model to scale and applied it using a systematic approach. In Angola in 2006, USD 4 billion in such loans probably helped Chinese oil companies win the exploitation rights to multiple oil blocks. In 2010, Sinopec’s acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Block 18 coincided with the disbursement of the first tranche of Eximbank funding, and in 2005, Sinopec’s acquisition of rights to Block 3/80 coincided with the announcement of a new USD 2 billion loan from China Eximbank to the Angolan government. In 2008, the China Railway Group used the same model to secure the mining rights to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s copper and cobalt mines under the slogan “(Infrastructure) projects for resources.” According to Debra Brautigam, a top expert on China-Africa relations, between 2004 and 2011, China reached similar unprecedented deals with at least seven resource-rich African countries, with a total volume of nearly USD 14 billion.


The Mali Hospital, built with Chinese aid, officially opened in September 2011, where China's medical aid team conducted the first heart operation in Mali. PHOTO/XINHUA

Much Chinese financing to Africa is associated with securing the continent’s natural resources. Using what is sometimes characterized as the “Angola Model,” Chinas frequently provides low-interest loans to nations who rely on commodities, such as oil or mineral resources, as collateral. In these cases, the recipient nations usually suffer from low credit ratings and have great difficulty obtaining funding from the international financial market; China makes financing relatively availableâ€"with certain conditions.


As the largest airport in Mozambique, Maputo Airport was upgraded with concessionary loans from the Chinese government. The project includes two parts: the international terminal completed in 2010, and the domestic terminal in 2012. PHOTO/XINHUA

Since the beginning of China’s reform and opening up, especially after 2000, Africa has become an increasingly important economic partner for China. Africa enjoys rich natural resources and market potential, and urgently needs infrastructure and development finance to stimulate economic growth. Chinese development finance, combined with the aid, aims at not only benefiting the local recipient countries, but also China itself. For example, China’s “tied aid” for infrastructure usually favors Chinese companies (especially state-owned enterprises), while its loans are in many cases backed by African natural resources.


The Addis Ababa - Adama expressway, built at a cost of more than $709 million, will reduce average travel time of the 84km route from the current three hours to less than one hour. The sixlane highway is designed in accordance with Chinese standards, and the Chinese government provided concessionary loans. PHOTO/XINHUA

12. Make your own laundry sorting station.


I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have accidentally washed one of my whites with a whole load of my dark clothes. To avoid this headache, try setting up a little sorting station next to your washer and dryer. Every time you go to put away dirty clothes, get in the habit of automatically sorting them.


Source: booknerds.net

http://shareably.net/

11. Cork boards can also radically change your jewelry organization game.

If you’re tired of untangling all of your necklaces, you might want to look into getting a cork board to replace your jewelry box. Not only does this put all of you amazing blind out on display for you to admire, but it also keeps everything perfectly tangle-free.


Source: cortinsession.com

10. Clear jars are everything you need to keep your kitchen looking perfect.

If you find tbat your pantry is getting a little cramped, try moving things like sugar, flour, and coffee into clear containers that can be stored out on your countertops. Not only will these work as cool decoration for your home, but they also have a great function too!


Source: wfrcdn.com

9. Don’t leave that space behind your doors empty.

Vertical storage is quite possibly the most undervalued of  household storage. Just adding a hanging bath caddy to your bathroom door can wind up making things so much neater for you and your home.


Source: ikea.com

8. Get hooked on key hooks!

Keys are probably the single most difficult item to find when you need them. Getting used to hanging your keys up right when you get home will save you trouble in the long run, especially if you’re trying to leave in a hurry.


antiquefarmhouse.com

7. Maximize your storage options.

There’s space to store household items everywhere, whether it’s under your bed or in your garage. Make sure to find these hidden spots and create their own little storage unit. Your home will thank you.


Source: bensonsforbeds.co.uk

6. Magnets are the best tool in your bathroom arsenal.

Bobby pins, nail clippers, tweezers â€" the list of lost bathroom items goes on. These little guys are easy to misplace and take forever to find. Instead of rummaging through your stuff, try installing a bar magnet in your bathroom. Trust me, you will never lose anything again.


Source: ghk.h-cdn.co

5. Get your own plastic bag dispenser.


Nothing bothers me more than a huge wad of plastic bags shoved in a cabinet. While it’s a great idea to reuse grocery bags, don’t let them eat up valuable space in your home. Give them their own dispenser, and you’ll be saving yourself a future headache.


Source: etsystatic.com

4. Can’t stress the importance of chore charts enough.

The biggest part of being organized is staying organized. If you never put anything back in its place, you’ll never get used to your new system. Cleaning regularly can help get you into the habit of picking up after yourself and tidying up little by little.


Source: alittleabandon.wordpress.com

3. Try building your own PVC shoe rack!

I know that this one takes DIY to the extreme, but it’s actually easier than you’re think. Literally, all you need are some cut plastic pipes and a tacky/hot glue. Pro-tip: Paint your new shoe rack to disguise the PVC!


Source: thehomesteadsurvival.com

2. Drawer organizers are everything you need and more.

If you have several drawers full of junk that you can’t figure out if you actually use it or not, you’re not alone. Drawer compartments keep everything exactly where they need to be when you need them. Plus, organizing your drawers will help you think about what you actually realistically use and need in your household.


Source: tipsbulletin.com

Friends raved at how neat and tidy her house was. Mom shares her top 12 tips

Emma Smizer
October 20th, 2016

It’s no secret that keeping your home clean is possibly one of the most impossible tasks ever â€" especially when you share that space with other people. But keeping your home organized can actually be surprisingly easy! Once you put some of the space-saving, mess-deterring solutions in place, you might just find your home a happier, cleaner place.

Let’s break it down.


1. Color coding is your friend.


It turns out that your living room color scheme is more than just for artistic purposes â€" it’s also incredibly useful when it comes to organization. Get some matching bins of different colors and decide what goes where, based on color.


Source: architectureartdesigns.com

lorenz, afir!

These efforts were enhanced during the Cultural Revolution under the influence of a radical revolutionary ideology, motivating China to provide large amounts of foreign aid to Africa despite its own domestic economic difficulties. One famous example was the Tanzania-Zambia Railway built between 1970 and 1975, for which China provided a zero-interest loan of RMB 980 million. By the mid-1980s, China’s generous assistance had opened the door to diplomatic recognition with 44 African countries.


The Grand Theatre in Dakar was constructed from 2008-2011 by China National Complete Plant Import Export Corporation as a gift. The six-story, 1800 seat theatre was built at a cost of 16 billion CFA francs ($34 million), of which China paid 14 billion CFA francs and Senegal contributed the rest. PHOTO/XINHUA

During the Cold War, foreign aid an important political tool that China used to gain Africa’s diplomatic recognition and to compete with the United States and the Soviet Union for Africa’s support. Between 1963 and 1964, Zhou Enlai visited 10 African countries and announced the well-known “Eight Principles of Foreign Economic and Technological Assistance.”[10] These aid principles were designed to compete simultaneously with the “imperialists” (the United States) and the “revisionists” (the Soviet Union) for Africa’s approval and support.


The Zimpeto Stadium is a multi-use stadium in Zimpeto, Mozambique, which was inaugurated on April 23, 2011. It is mainly used for soccer and was the main stadium for the 2011 All-Africa Games. It has a capacity of 42,000 spectators. The stadium was built with funds from the Chinese government. PHOTO/XINHUA

Who does China’s aid serve?

Despite Chinese leaders’ claim that China’s assistance to Africa is totally selfless and altruistic, the reality is far more complex.[9] China’s policy toward Africa is pragmatic, and aid has been a useful policy instrument since the early days of People’s Republic of China.


Located in northern Sudan on the Nile River, the Merowe Dam is the largest contemporary hydropower project in Africa, which contains a reservoir of 20 percent of the Nile's annual flow. It is largest foreign project the Chinese industry has ever participated in, and construction was finished in 2009. PHOTO/XINHUA

China’s own policy actively contributes to the confusion between development finance and aid. The Chinese government encourages its agencies and commercial entities to “closely mix and combine foreign aid, direct investment, service contracts, labor cooperation, foreign trade and export.” The goal is to maximize feasibility and flexibility of Chinese projects to meet local realities in the recipient country, but it also makes it difficult to capture which portion of the financing is â€" or should be â€" categorized as aid. One rather convincing theory is that the Chinese government in effect pays for the difference between the interest rates of concessional loans provided to Africa and comparable commercial loans. Therefore, only the small difference in interest rates could qualify as Chinese aid.


As the headquarters of the African Union, the AU Conference Center cost $200 million and was totally funded by the Chinese government. It is the largest aid project by China in Africa since the TAZARA railway. The main building is 99.9 meters tall and is the tallest building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. PHOTO/XINHUA

The TAZARA Railway links the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. The railway is 1,860 km in length and was built as a turnkey project financed and executed by China. Construction began in 1970 and was completed in 1975. Construction costs were about $500 million. RICHARD STUPART / FOR CHINA DAILY

The billions of dollars that China commits to Africa are repayable, long-term loans. From 2009 to 2012, China provided USD 10 billion in financing to Africa in the form of “concessional loans.”[5] During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first overseas trip to Africa in March 2013, he doubled this commitment to USD 20 billion from 2013 to 2015.[6] The head sovereign risk analyst of Export-Import Bank of China announced in November 2013 that by 2025, China will have provided Africa with USD 1 trillion in financing, including direct investment, soft loans and commercial loans.

Official development assistance is defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as concessional funding given to developing countries and to multilateral institutions primarily for the purpose of promoting welfare and economic development in the recipient country. China is not a member of OECD and does not follow its definition or practice on development aid. The bulk of Chinese financing in Africa falls under the category of development finance, but not aid. This fact is privately acknowledged by Chinese government analysts, although Chinese literature constantly blurs the distinction between the two categories.

What constitutes China’s aid?

Officially, China provides eight types of foreign aid: complete projects, goods and materials, technical cooperation, human resource development cooperation, medical assistance, emergency humanitarian aid, volunteer programs, and debt relief. China’s aid to Africa covers a wide array of fields, such as agriculture, education, transportation, energy, communications, and health. According to Chinese scholars, since 1956, China has provided almost 900 aid projects to African countries, including assistance supporting textile factories, hydropower stations, stadiums, hospitals, and schools.

OP-ED

China’s Aid to Africa: Monster or Messiah?

Yun Sun
February 7, 2014

In recent years, China’s economic presence in Africa has led to a heated debate, some of it well-informed and some of it not, about the nature of Chinese involvement and its implications for the continent.  The debate is partially motivated by the rapid growth of China’s economic presence in Africa: for example, Chinese investment in Africa grew from USD 210 million in 2000 to 3.17 billion in 2011. Aid is an important policy instrument for China among its various engagements with Africa, and indeed Africa has been a top recipient of Chinese aid:  by the end of 2009 it had received 45.7 percent of the RMB 256.29 billion cumulative foreign aid of China. This aid to Africa has raised many questions, such as its composition, its goal and nature.

Testbed for Chinese influence: Angola

Angola, a focus for Chinese investment in Africa, was subject to Portuguese power after the 16th-century founding of Luanda (left). It became a Portuguese colony from 1655 and an overseas province from 1951. Anti-colonial insurgency began in 1961, and independence came in 1975. But almost 30 years of sporadic civil war between the ruling MPLA and its UNITA-FNLA rivals killed more than a million and displaced a third of the population. It ended with rebel leader Jonas Savimbi's death in 2002.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

The author concludes that China's embrace of Africa is strategic, long-term and still evolving â€" and that it is up to Africa's leaders to shape the relationship to serve their own ends. The West, she says, should admit the shortcomings of its own approach and learn from the way the Chinese use investment, trade and technology as levers for development. There is little doubt that while the dragon's gifts are cloaked in ambiguity, we would do well to stop believing in myths and start engaging with the reality of a rapidly-changing world order.

Others concerns are less clear-cut: for example, she points to research in Ethiopia which found that, following trade liberalisation, Chinese firms seized 80 per cent of the shoe market and put local firms out of business. Several years later, however, the leather sector was booming and surviving shoe firms had sharpened up and were competing effectively.

Brautigam also makes a strong case that, while there are worries over the number of Chinese working in Africa, especially at more senior levels, Chinese staff levels decrease over time and local employment is boosted.

Over the past decade, the links between China and Africa have solidified, with considerable political capital invested on both sides. But with perhaps 750,000 Chinese moving to Africa in this time, tensions have grown, with local politicians whipping up resentment.

Some concerns are justified â€" there is clear evidence of Chinese companies importing the low standards common in their homeland, of violating minimum wage laws and destroying the environment. And even this author has qualms over Chinese firms taking over large tracts of agricultural land, although she is too forgiving of China in other areas, such as its support for Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

The template was set with the first involvement in Africa, which came in Guinea after the French were told to leave in 1959. An interest-free loan led to the building of factories, paddy fields, a plantation, a cinema and a conference centre. Seven years later, there were an estimated 3,000 Chinese aid workers, including 34 medical experts. Unlike Western aid workers, they live in similar style to the locals. "How can you reduce poverty but live in a five-star hotel?" asks one Chinese expert pointedly.

By the late 1980s, as Western companies pulled out of what was being branded as "the failed continent" and aid for infrastructure dried up, Beijing saw only a land of opportunity. The West failed to notice the Chinese teams managing state-owned factories, building bridges and repairing irrigation systems. Markets across the continent began selling textiles and metal bowls made in China. Their methods were rigorous. When Liberia asked China to rehabilitate a sugar-cane factory and plantation, it expected a rapid and positive response. Instead, a 50-man unit was sent over for a feasibility study, concluding that the project would need an annual £2m subsidy and telling Liberia to find better projects.

Secondly, there is fascinating insight into the way China methodically evolves its policies, moulding them to experiences, listening to criticism and never scared to experiment in the pursuit of its long-term goals. As Deng Xiaoping said in his dig at Mao's great leap, if you are crossing a river it is best to keep your feet on the bottom and feel the stones.

Brautigam says the Chinese strategy, based upon models tested at home during its own phenomenal growth, was designed to meet three challenges. First, to tap into Africa's natural wealth since Chinese growth was outpacing its own resources. Second, to reassure other developing nations that while China was a rising power, it was a responsible power â€" while also heading off the challenge of Taiwan. And third, to create new markets for its fledgling multinational companies.

The Chinese involvement in Angola counters claims they are just plundering Africa's wealth, only building infrastructure in order to ferry out natural resources. Angola's oil is deep offshore, but China has built hospitals, schools, irrigation systems and roads inland. Indeed, unlike Western donors, who tend to have their favoured nations, China has given aid to every country in sub-Saharan Africa - except those nations supporting Taiwan, with whom it has engaged in something of a bidding war across the continent.

The case of Angola demonstrates two themes that emerge clearly from this important book. First, the endless hypocrisy of the West as it watches the long march of the Chinese through Africa. The critics, often woefully ill-informed, ignore the West's own history of exploitation, encouraging corruption and supporting unsavoury regimes. Even after 60 years of Western aid, there remains a reluctance to accept its failure to promote development or tackle poverty.

The reality is more prosaic. China offered a low-interest loan, not aid, with payment guaranteed from oil revenues. And the money had to be spent rebuilding a shattered nation that had seen 300 bridges bombed and fields littered with landmines. It was a risky deal, but it offered hope that some of Angola's riches might be translated into development for the first time.

Sure enough, roads were rebuilt and schools erected. Meanwhile, Western banks gave loans without demanding transparency, charged higher interest rates and even exported Angolan oil, ensuring that cash continued to flow into politicians' coffers.

Take Angola, which as Brautigam writes is one of the prime exhibits in the chorus of condemnation against China. Cursed with natural resources, it was crippled for more than 40 years as a proxy battleground for the Cold War, emerging with wrecked infrastructure, huge debts and a deeply corrupt government. The International Monetary Fund demanded that it clean up its act and start accounting for swelling oil revenues, when the Chinese supposedly muscled in with a massive no-strings-attached aid deal, defeating the fight for transparency and provoking international outrage.

This is the picture of rampant neo-colonialism taken as gospel by many in the West. But the truth is rather different, which explains why some of Africa's more visionary leaders embrace the Chinese advances. Now comes a timely book by American academic Deborah Brautigam, an observer of Africa and Asia for three decades, which uses personal experiences combined with powerful research to puncture myths and fears that cloud understanding of one of the most important geopolitical shifts since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Dragon's Gift, By Deborah Brautigam

Reviewed by Ian Birrell
   
The Chinese invasion of Africa is, for many people, a simple morality tale with an obvious villain. For the past decade, Beijing has poured money into the continent, doing deals with despots, dictators and democrats alike in its quest to plunder natural resources to fuel relentless growth. Human rights concerns are brushed aside, the environment wrecked, local businesses crushed, and corruption is endemic. And in the process China has propped up some of the world's most loathsome regimes and fanned some of the bloodiest conflicts.

http://www.heroviral.com/

They Left Their Cat Alone At Home. But What They Caught Her Doing In The Living Room?


Ballet is an intense form of dancing. People study for years, even decades, to perfect the moves that are associated with ballet. This form of dancing takes dedication, developed skills, and natural born talent.

Think about it, you’re supporting all your weight on your toes and leaping through the air. To dance ballet you have to be incredibly strong and unbelievably flexible. Basically, if you’re a ballet dancer, then you are a freaking super hero. I guess that means that this cat is in need of a cape.

i compared the photos of my own passports (a total of four, including my current one), and compared the photos of my first and third one, covering 10 years thus. i won't blame those immigration guys in foreign airports if they'd conclude that i may not be the person that the passport says i am had my previous passport held a validity of 10 years.   

i believe the 5-year validity has reasons, and i imagine one of these is based on one's physical changes which may be tolerable in a 5-year span.   

fine. it's convenient for everyone, dfa workers included.

my only doubt about its advisability (barring cayetano's usual politicking) is over passport photos. much can change about a person's looks in 10 years, much more so in some than in others.

consider a 10-year-old girl's passport that he can still use when she's already 19... or a 30-year-old guy who had lost all his hair by the time he turned 39. he may not like wearing a wig like aguirre.

On the Hilter comparison

WHAT HE DID: Mention Adolf Hitler on how he plans to deal with criminals

Arriving in Davao City from an official visit to Vietnam, Duterte appeared to draw a parallel between his campaign to wipe out illegal drugs and the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there are three million drug addicts... I'd be happy to slaughter them," he said.

"At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have... You know my victims, I would like to be, all criminals, to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition," Duterte said.

Duterte made the remarks as he once again addressed the criticisms he had been getting from the United States and the European Union for killings attributed to his war on drugs.

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: President "addressing negative comparison that people made between him and Hitler."

Malacañang responded to criticisms over the statement the following day, saying Duterte was merely addressing "negative comparison" people have made between him and Hitler.

"Hitler murdered three million innocent civilians whereas Duterte was referencing his 'willingness to kill' three million criminal drug dealers - to save the future of the next generation and the country," Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella explained in a statement, adding that "[t]hose are two entirely different things."

Abella also said that the Philippines was cognizant of the deep significance of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, and the Philippine government did not wish to diminish the profound loss of 6 million Jews.

"The President's reference to the slaughter was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer, a Hitler, a label he rejects," Abella said.

Duterte would later apologize for the pronouncement, saying "there was never an intention on my part to derogate the memory of six million Jews murdered by the Germans."

He visited the synagogue of the Jewish Association of the Philippines in Makati City and repeated his apology.

from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/584222/news/nation/officials-clarifying-duterte-s-off-the-cuff-statements-and-the-other-way-around

On Mary Jane Veloso

WHAT REPORTS SAID: Duterte gave 'green light' to Veloso execution

A report on Jakarta Post last September 12 quoted Indonesian President Joko Widodo as saying that Duterte had given the "go-ahead" to execute Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina who is in death row for drug trafficking, quoting Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

Adam Harvey, the ABC Indonesia correspondent, said Duterte made the statement during his meeting with Widodo days before.

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: "There was no endorsement."

Later in the day, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Duterte had no categorical statement on the execution.

Abella quoted Duterte as saying "Follow your own laws. I will not interfere."

"There was no endorsement. He simply said, 'Follow your own laws," he said.

The DFA tagged the Jakarta Post headline as "erroneous."

Days later, a report on Channel News Asia quoted Widodo as saying that Duterte told him to "go ahead with the process in line with the law in Indonesia."

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: Duterte to sit with Obama, UN secretary general

After the White House cancelled the bilateral meeting between Duterte and US President Barack Obama, Malacañang's communication team announced they would be seated together at the ASEAN gala dinner.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon would be Duterte's other seatmate, it added.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Duterte was seated away from Obama, Ban

Contrary to the communication team's announcement, Duterte did not sit beside Obama and Ban at the gala dinner.

He was instead seated beside Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Obama was seated beside Brunei's King Hassanal Bolkiah and Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuân Phúc. Ban, meanwhile, was with his wife, Yoo Soon-taek.

At the ASEAN Summit

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: President missed ASEAN-US meet because "he wasn't feeling well."

Government officials who were with Duterte at the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos said he skipped two meetings, including the ASEAN-US meeting with President Barack Obama, last September 8 because he was not feeling well.

Communication Secretary Martin Andanar said the President had a migraine attack.

The previous night, Duterte and Obama spoke briefly before the ASEAN summit gala dinner.

These all happened after Duterte launched a profanity-laced rant when asked about the possibility of discussing human rights concerns with Obama. This led to White House cancelling their supposed formal meeting at the sidelines of the summit.

WHAT HE SAID: I skipped ASEAN-US meet on purpose.

Days later, Duterte revealed he didn't attend the ASEAN Summit with the US on purpose.

"I purposedly did not attend the bilateral meeting between the ASEAN and the US. Talaga ini-skip ko 'yan. The reason is not that I am anti-West... It is simply a matter of principle," he said in a speech.

However, Foreign Affairs Sec. Perfecto Yasay Jr. contradicted Duterte's revelation, insisting that the President missed the event because he wasn't feeling well.

On state of lawless violence

WHAT HE SAID: "I just might declare a state of lawless violence in this country."

An explosion ripped through the Roxas Night Market in Davao City last September 3, killing 14 and hurting 67 others.

After meeting with security officials near the area, the President said: "There seems to be an environment of lawlessness. I just might declare a state of lawless violence in this country."

The declaration is rooted on Article VII, Section 18 of the Constitution, which tags the President as commander-in-chief of all armed forces of the country and under such capacity may tap the forces "to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion."

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: It applies only to Mindanao... No, it applies to the entire country.

There seemed to have been some confusion among the President's men over the scope of the said declaration.

The Palace clarified later in the day that the state of lawless violence covers "not only Mindanao, but also the rest of the nation."

The signed declaration covering the entire country was released days later.

WHAT HE SAID: Pangasinan solon, ex-provincial admin part of drug trade

The President released a drug matrix last August 25, one which supposedly shows the structure of the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

The matrix involved several former and current government officials, notably Sen. Leila de Lima. Her supposed lover, former driver Ronnie Dayan, is also in it.

Also part of this were former Pangasinan governor and now Pangasinan Rep. Amado Espino Jr., former Justice Undersecretary Francisco "Toti" Baraan III, his brother Pangasinan provincial administrator Rafael "Raffy" Baraan, retired Gen. Franklin Bucayo, and Pangasinan board member Raul Sison.

WHAT HE LATER SAID: To Espino, Sison, Baraan, "I am very sorry."

About a month after releasing the matrix, the President apologized to Espino, Raffy Baraan, and Sison after finding certain "gaps" in information that linked the three to the drug trade.

"In so far as the drugs, I think that somehow we were negligent in counter-checking the first report. So kay Espino and even to Sison and to Baraan... I would like to apologize to you publicly," Duterte said. "I am very sorry."

On leaving the UN

WHAT HE SAID: Maybe we'll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations.

The President made the threat early Sunday, August 21, after UN special rapporteurs Agnes Callamard and Dainius Puras in a statement called on the Philippine government to stop the extrajudicial killings linked to the administration's anti-drug war.

"Eh kung ganiyan kayo kabastos eh pâ€" ina, umalis na kami diyan sa inyo," he said. "When were you here the last time? Never. Except to criticize... When have you done a good deed to my country?"

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: We're staying in the UN.

Foreign Affairs Sec. Perfecto Yasay Jr. and Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella clarified the next day that the Philippines was staying as a member-state of the UN.

Yasay said the President's pronouncement was "a statement expressing profound disappointment and frustration."

Abella pointed out that the UN "as a formal institution should have made formal representations" on the matter.

President Duterte says something and palace officials explain what he really means...

 
On declaring martial law

WHAT HE SAID: Would you rather I declare martial law?

In another speech before government troops, this time in Cagayan de Oro City last August 9, Duterte raised the possibility of declaring martial law if the judiciary will get in the way of his administration's anti-drug drive.

This was in response to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who wrote him regarding the seven magistrates that Duterte named in his list of alleged coddlers of drug dealers.

"Ikaw ang kingpin sa judiciary. Ako, presidente. Ako may trabaho, ikaw wala. Walang mga judges na nagpa-patrol ng daan. Walang mga sheriff ninyo na naghuhuli," he said. "'Yan ang mabigat na problema ko... Hindi ako gago. If this continues, pigilan mo ako, o 'di sige... Or would you rather that I declare martial law?"

WHAT HIS MEN SAID: It was a rhetorical question.

The next day, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar issued a statement to clarify the matter, saying the President "merely asked a rhetorical question."

He said Duterte made the remarks "under the context that his anti-drug campaign cannot wait for the slow wheels of justice-[Philippines] style."

Andanar said that the President knew "fully well the limits" of executive powers.

whew! salud, sarte!

In recent years China has been positioning itself to be able to exert more control over the South China Sea, for instance by building militarized islands atop reefs. For Tokyo the waterway represents the cheapest, most direct way for importing energy supplies from the Persian Gulf, and other commodities from elsewhere. As a nation with few natural resources, Japan has a clear interest in keeping sea routes openâ€"and little interest in seeing the sea become a “Chinese lake,” as some analysts warn of happening.

Japan has every reason, in other words, to keep Duterte on its side, despite the snub. Indeed the Philippine leader looks set to win a bonanza in aid and loans from Tokyo this week, especially for the economic development of Mindanao, the large southern island where he served as mayor of Davao City for many years.

Whatever Japan gives him, though, his romance with China will likely intensify. In recent days he invited Chinese president Xi Jinping to visit the Philippines “at a convenient time.” Xi readily accepted the invitation.

http://qz.com/

The prospect of Beijing gaining more influence over Manila no doubt unsettles Tokyo, with maritime tension between Japan and China running high. In recent years the Philippines has led the charge against China’s growing aggression at sea. In 2013 the Philippines opened a case in an international tribunal in the Hague, after China seized a strategic reef off its coast and prevented it from exploring for oil within its own exclusive economic zone. But by the time the Philippines won that case in a ruling issued in mid-July, Duterte was about 45 days into power.

Since then, Duterte has shown little interest in leveraging the victory against China (by rallying international pressure to abide by it, for instance). Indeed last week he suggested the ruling was nothing more than a “piece of paper with four corners,” and he announced his “separation” from the United States, all the while acting like a perfect statesman as China rolled out the red carpet for him.

Japan is the largest source of foreign direct investment into the Philippines, which has overtaken Thailand and Vietnam as the investment destination of choice among Japanese companies deploying a “China plus one” strategy to cope with rising labor costs in China. Japan is also the largest export market for the Philippines.

But Japan’s pleasure turned sour when Duterte later scheduled a trip to Beijing ahead of the one to Japan. That was a “huge disappointment for the Japanese,” said Heydarian, and left them feeling “a little bit snubbed.”

“The very fact that he chose China ahead of the US, and bogged down a scheduled visit to Tokyo in favor of Beijing, that says a lot about the pecking order of his strategic priorities,” said Heydarian. “The symbolics, the optics are astonishing.”

STILL PALS?

Rodrigo Duterte began his first state visit to Japan, the Philippines’ top investor, by snubbing the host


Do come visit. (Rene Lumawag/PPD via AP)

Steve Mollman
October 24, 2016

Last week Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte broke with tradition by making a state visit to China before making one to the United States. He also managed to snub Japan with the trip.

Though he’s visiting Japan this week, from Oct. 25 to 27, originally Duterte had scheduled Tokyo to be his first state visit to a major country. The Japanese “were really glad that they were considered as the first outside-ASEAN visit,” noted Richard Javad Heydarian, a political scientist at De La Salle University in Manila.

the author is one of the great american actors that i admire.

hinaot makalili ani si lorenz. paging, lorenz!

ON THE WEST PHILIPPINE SEA*


"I will ride a jet ski while bringing the Philippine flag."


"This is ours. Do what you want with me."


*pre-China visit

ON HIS WOMANIZING


“I was separated from my wife. I’m not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up.”

TO THE POPE


“I wanted to call him: ‘Pope, son of a whore, go home. Do not visit us again.’”

WARNING TO CHIEF JUSTICE MARIA LOURDES SERENO


“Please don’t order me around. … Or would you rather that I declare martial law?”

ON INVASION


“But I am sure and I guarantee to them that if they invade us, it will be bloody and we will not give it to them easily. It will be the bones of our soldiers, you can include mine.”


“We will not raise hell now because of the judgement but there will come a time that we will have to do some reckoning about this.”


http://www.news.com.au/; with AFP, AP

ON AUSSIE MISSIONARY DEATH


“There was this Australian lay minister ... I saw her face and I thought: Son of a bitch. What a pity ... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first.”

ON RELIGION


“I once considered being a priest. It’s good I didn’t join the priesthood or else now I would be a homosexual.”

ON HIS CRITICS


“There are others who have the mental capacity of dogs who lap at the ass of the Americans.”


“I don’t give a s*** about anybody observing my behavior.”

ON U.S. PRESIDENT BARRACK OBAMA


“You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a wh*re, I will curse you in that forum. We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me.”


“Instead of helping us, the first to hit was the State Department. So you can go to hell, Mr. Obama, you can go to hell.”

UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson

http://www.brianmicklethwait.com/

ON HIS WAR ON DRUGS


"Forget the laws on human rights. If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings, you better go out. Because I'd kill you. I'll dump all of you into Manila Bay, and fatten all the fish there."

“Do your duty, and if in the process you kill 1000 persons because you were doing your duty, I will protect you.”


“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.”


“More people will be killed, plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets. Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed, we will continue and I will continue.”


"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there is three million, there’s a three million drug addict. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have you know, my victims, I would like to be, all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

QuoteThese factors are not only cultural; they are also structural.  No single individual, not even the willful Mr. Duterte, can hope to overturn them in the short span of six years by a mere shift in rhetoric. Moreover, I also believe that no form of mendicancy can be good for our country.

our honorable president had said that we are not beggars (http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/10/06/1630967/duterte-dares-us-eu-pull-out-aid-philippines). so it must be that he did not beg china as well for those bruited about funding. he must have demanded it.

It could be a clever strategy, but, to the extent that it entails burning longstanding bridges, it is one filled with incalculable risk for the nation as a whole. It fails to reckon with the enduring American influence that, whether we like it or not, resides in our people’s consciousness and is built into our institutions. In like manner, it overestimates the capacity of Filipinos to rise overnight above deeply rooted racial prejudices and take a purely pragmatic view of the country’s relationship with China.

These factors are not only cultural; they are also structural.  No single individual, not even the willful Mr. Duterte, can hope to overturn them in the short span of six years by a mere shift in rhetoric. Moreover, I also believe that no form of mendicancy can be good for our country.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/

But China is a different matter.  First of all, it is known that Mr. Duterte is keen to set himself apart from the pro-West elite that had ruled the Philippines for so long. The pivot to China is an eloquent expression of that wish. Secondly, by appearing to break with the West, he is telling China that he is not just another American stooge who speaks with a forked tongue.

What might he hope to gain from this dramatic turn to China?  Two things perhaps: One, he needs China’s presence to neutralize America’s power in the country and the rest of the Asian region. Two, he hopes to get China to jump-start the country’s own long-term agenda for self-propelling economic growth.

None of this is certain.  Much depends on what public opinion encourages him to do, and, so far, his approval and trust ratings remain high.  I think the surveys indicate that Filipinos want him to succeed, and while they may be wary about where he’s taking the nation, they are giving him the benefit of the doubt.  So, let us assume for a moment that there is method in this madness.

Mr. Duterte would have thought that, because of his shady human rights record as Davao City mayor, he would never have been America’s preferred candidate for the Philippine presidency. He would have known that anything he did in his war on drugs would be subjected to the human rights and rule of law test by which America and the Western world put Third World autocrats on the defensive.  In short, he would have known he had nothing to gain from trying to please the United States or the European Union or the United Nations. Thus, he decided he did not need their approval. Perhaps he even believed that the only way he might earn their grudging respect is by antagonizing them.

I think the President has become so used to being applauded for his folksy verbal gamesâ€"such as when he trails off with barely audible expletives to communicate mocking exasperationâ€"that he has felt confident to bring his signature performance to audiences abroad. What this really amounts to is nothing more than a particular way of being irreverent and funny by mining the hypocritical side of a speech culture.

If he were not president, he would probably have made an outstanding Filipino version of Lenny Bruce or George Carlin.  One can imagine these American stand-up artists having a field day satirizing the world of diplomacy and governance to which they are outsiders.  But what a disaster it would be if President Duterte, or any head of state for that matter, plays such games within the system into which he has been thrust.

The least that could happen is that he would be misunderstood. People would not know when he is articulating policy or merely verbalizing a personal angst.  Without the benefit of clear policy statements, his administration could be plunged into chaos. If he persists in ignoring the procedural norms of the institutional system over which he presides, he could lose credibility, and, before long, the authority to speak for it.

For example, I don’t think he is supposed to be taken literally when, during his recent visit to Beijing, he told his predominantly Filipino audience that he was inclined to form a triumvirate with China and Russiaâ€"“against the world.”  That sounds more like a line from the 1974 song “You and Me Against the World,” than a serious foreign policy statement.

Anyone who proposes anything like that must be out of his mind, or is patently ignorant of the complex relationship between China and Russia, or completely misunderstands the nature of the contemporary world. Mr. Duterte could be any of these. But, I prefer to think he’s just joking. Perhaps he may even be only half-joking. Because of its barefaced absurdity, the statement retains its plausible deniability.

“When people talk,” observes the psycholinguist Steven Pinker, “they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role-playing, sidestep, shilly-shally, and engage in other forms of vagueness and innuendo.  We all do this, and we expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for plain speaking, for people to get to the point and say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal.”

OPINION

Method in the madness?

By: Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 23, 2016

In his public appearances here and abroad, President Duterte has been using a form of speech that may be likened to a dialect. He is not talking the way most heads of state talk. Too often, he has employed taboo language not usually heard in public discourse.

That is why his official spokespersonsâ€"people designated to explain what he’s sayingâ€"are having a hard time interpreting his speeches. They can’t say for sure what he means, or if he means at all everything that he says.

Yet, since he’s the president, they must assume that he does.  The problem is compounded by the fact that the President also likes to speak extemporaneously in English, of whose idioms he clearly has no command. This makes his speeches seemingly accessible to foreigners, though in fact they are not.

Well, then, it seems that Dylan was the only one of his era to have been able to embody fully the musicality that is essential to great poetry, the second voice that haunts every poet, but which he generally delegates to those who recite or read him, the power of song that is his ultimate and secret truth, and that some have gone madâ€"literally and tragically madâ€"trying to pull from cage into canto.

Bard and rhapsodist both. A poetico-musical revolution in one man and one body of work. I like to think that it was this tour de forceâ€"this prolonged stroke of genius that is forever youngâ€"that the Nobel committee was recognizing in its selection. Project Syndicate

Bernard-Henri Lévy is one of the founders of the “Nouveaux Philosophes” (New Philosophers) movement. His books include “Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism,” “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” and the forthcoming “Spirit of Judaism.”

http://opinion.inquirer.net/

Dylan is a Kerouac who can sing. He’s a Burroughs who put to music the great parade of the Beat generation, with its wild parties and naked lunches. He is what Allen Ginsberg said in describing his shock upon first hearing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in 1963, a song in which the accents and pacing, the abrupt changes in emphasis, the voyage to the very heart of words and the imagination all echo the best literature of the timeâ€"but with music as well!

Are we going to hold that against Dylan, charge him with the sin of having grafted the rhythms of the blues, soul, and country music onto those of the Bible, William Blake, and Walt Whitman? Why should we withhold from the trouper of the Never Ending Tour (more than 2,000 performances!) the dignity accorded without hesitation to the author of “On the Road”?

It was Louis Aragon, I think, who said that setting a poem to music was like moving from black and white to color. Aragon, the poet sung by Léo Ferré and others, believed that a poem unsung was half dead.

Or consider the familiar distinction between scribes, who make instrumental use of language, and writers, who spin it into silk. Wasn’t Dylan alluding to something similar when, after years of struggle for civil rights, resistance to the war in Vietnam, and support for the feminist revolution, he titled one of his most beautiful songs “I’m Not There,” as in, I’m not here anymore, no longer your servant, goodbye to all that, so long?

But the true question lies elsewhere. The most conclusive exercise would be to compare apples with apples and the author of “Blonde on Blonde” with those who were and remain his key contemporaries.

Of course, it’s wrong to respond priggishly to priggishness. But, confronted with those who have been shouting, “That’s not literature! It’s just not!” one is tempted to side with Francis Ponge who, citing Lautréamont, defined the poet (he would say “proet”) as a bard or troubadour who, by expressing the “voice of things,” becomes “the most useful citizen of his tribe.” And to whom does that definition apply better than to the author of “Chimes of Freedom” or “Long and Wasted Years,” which bring to life and to music what the critic Greil Marcus has called the “invisible republic” of American culture?

One is tempted to side also with Mallarmé, who urged us, in more or less the same terms, to “give a purer meaning to the words of the tribe.” Again, who better than this collage artist, this chameleon of citation and intertextuality, this laconic lyricist, this verbal alchemist who spent his life reinventing others’ words and his own, uncovering the embers of the era beneath the ashes of the day’s defeats, and transmuting into gold the lead he heard on the radio?

The truth, however unpleasant it may be for the fuddy-duddies, is that awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to an author who has written just one book is no more surprising than giving it to Dario Fo or Winston Churchill, neither of whom wrote many more.

And here’s the even greater truth: to bestow it on one of our last popular poets, the distant relative of Rutebeuf, Villon, and all the minstrels and songsters of solitude and dereliction; to consecrate a troubadour, a bard of the brotherhood of lonely and lost souls; to crown the author of ballads that have been, to borrow André Suarès’ phrase about Rimbaud, “a moment in the life” of so many people in the 20th and 21st centuries makes a lot more sense than pulling out of a hat the obscure Rudolf Christoph Eucken or picking poor old Sully Prudhomme instead of Tolstoy.