[PHOTO] Old City Hall, New City Hall

Old City Hall, New City Hall
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

Located on Queen Street West and separated only by Bay Street, Toronto's two city halls still exist. The Old City Hall, a handsome Romanesque Revival building, was home to Toronto City Council from 1899 on, but after the Second World War proved too small to house the city's growing bureaucracy. Visible to the left of the Old City Hall is the current Toronto City Hall, a futuristic modernist building designed by Viljo Revell that opened in 1965. Thankfully, the Old City Hall wasn't razed, and is now used as a provincial court.

The City of Toronto (Old City Hall, New City Hall) has more information on the saga of the twin city halls.

[BRIEF NOTE] How Facebook finally caught up to Livejournal

The "25 Things" meme that has been propagating throughout Facebook and the world, and has been receiving its fair share of comment. Salon's Robert Lanham confessed how, after finding "25 Things" inane, on closer examination he found many: funny, touching, insightful, while the title of the article of Time's Claire Suddath ("25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You") pretty much says it all. More neutrally, Amy Harmon at the New York Times blog The Lede touched on the difficulties surrounding this meme.

Some Facebook critics condemn the activity--or even commenting on it--as an exercise in narcissism. Others say the Facebook-fueled disclosures draw far-flung friends closer than they ever would be otherwise and, sometimes, make for a good laugh.

It does seem to beat sending each other pretend cocktails (another preoccupation of Facebook’s 150 million users). But most everyone agrees it is taking up an inordinate amount of time. "People,’’ said Dr. Fogg, "are thinking very carefully about their lists."

The more popular your Facebook persona, the logic goes, the more you will be able to get your Facebook friends to read your blog or buy your book or support your cause. But crafting one is a delicate process, especially condensed in list-form.

How to exalt your achievements while appearing humble? How to convey your essential originality while coming off as reassuringly familiar? How to illuminate without oversharing?

Harmon then goes on to kindly provide a template for people who'd like to take part in "25 Things" but aren't quite sure how to be original.

One particularly insightful observation came from Joe. My. God, who noted that this sort of meme was quite common in the blogosphere years ago--it might have been a list of 100 things, but blogs clearly have the drop on Facebook. Back before this blog became what it was, back when it was much more a journal than a blog, I myself was an enthusiastic participant in these memes, back in 2004, 2003, 2002 even. So was everyone else I knew on Livejournal.

Wow. I'm a first adopter. That makes me feel special.

[BRIEF NOTE] M.I.A. and Sri Lanka's Tamils

After the Grammies, it was probably only a matter time before claims and statements like the ones made in the New York Times article "The Dissonant Undertones of M.I.A" against M.I.A. were aired to a wide audience.

To many Americans, Maya Arulpragasam, known as M.I.A., is the very pregnant rapper who gyrated across the stage at Sunday’s Grammy Awards.

Yet in Sri Lanka, where she spent her childhood years, M.I.A. remains virtually unknown. And some who do know her work say she is an apologist for the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels fighting in the country’s long-running civil war.

M.I.A. — who has been nominated for an Oscar for the song she co-wrote for the hit film “Slumdog Millionaire” — has branded herself through music videos and interviews as the voice of the country’s Tamil minority. In the video for her song “Bird Flu,” for instance, children dance in front of what looks like the rebels’ logo: a roaring tiger.

“Being the only Tamil in the Western media, I have a really great opportunity to sort of bring forward what’s going on in Sri Lanka,” she said in an interview on the PBS program “Tavis Smiley” last month. “There’s a genocide going on.”

But her political views rankle some people at a time when most Sri Lankans are clutching to the hope that the rebels, branded by the United States and European nations as a terrorist group, are on the verge of military defeat by government troops.

“Frankly, she’s very lucky to get away with supporting, even indirectly, perhaps the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world,” said Suresh Jayawickrama, a songwriter based in Colombo.

Mr. Jayawickrama is from the country’s majority Sinhalese ethnic group, and his reaction is similar to that of many Sri Lankans who know M.I.A.’s music. But he also said that M.I.A. deserved credit for her artistry and the fame she had achieved. “She really should have a little more recognition in this country,” he said.

[. . .]

Sri Lankans who have seen her videos say they interpret some parts as showing support for the Tigers, or at the very least glorifying their cause. But for those not familiar with the conflict, they might come across as generic third-world scenes.

“I kind of want to leave it ambiguous for my fans,” she said in the PBS interview, referring to the lyrics of her song “Paper Planes,” which was nominated for record of the year at the Grammys but did not win.

“Paper Planes,” which compares international drug dealing with selling records, drew a reaction from DeLon, a Sinhalese rapper based in Los Angeles, who made a video remix in which he interspersed images of people being blown up by Tamil Tiger bombs and subtitles about M.I.A. being a terrorist.

M.I.A. responded that she did not support terrorism.

I'm unimpressed by the claims against her. Has it been established that M.I.A. is actually a member or supporter of the Tamil Tigers? Wikipedia suggests that she was politicized by her time in Sri Lanka, and she certainly identifies herself as a Tamil and is critical of the War on Terror, but none of those things a Tamil Tiger make, even combined.

There’s certainly nothing wrong in being a Sri Lankan Tamil representative in the wider world critical of Sri Lankan government policies, especially in the context of historic injustices like discriminatory education quotas and the 1983 pogroms which killed three thousand Tamils in the capital of Colombo, and the ongoing pacification campaign of conquered Tamil-populated areas which include mass disappearances and the resettlement of Sinhalese peasants. My favourite explanation of the war is an article that explained that the Tamils of Sri Lanka were fighting their war of independence because they were vicious racists who refused to recognize the superiority of Sinhalese language and culture and the Buddhist religion. Why not make politicized music about this catastrophic collapse of human relations? M.I.A. certainly does a good job about it.

[BRIEF NOTE] It’s really, really tough to be a Rohingya in Burma

While we’re on the topic of horrible interethnic and state-minority relations on the littoral of the Bay of Bengal, let’s turn to a rather depressing and horrifying note I’ve seen posted at Normblog on the Rohingya. Residing in the north of the west-coast Burmese state of Rakhine (formerly Arakan) near the Bangladeshi border, the Rohingya are a Muslim people who speak a language similar to Bengali who have been resident in the territory of modern Burma for centuries. In independent Burma, the Rohingya have shared the lot of other unhappy ethnic minorities under military rule of General Ne Win--indeed, as members of a conspicuous religious minority, they’ve arguably fared worse than others.

When General Ne Win swept to power on a wave of nationalism in 1962, the status of Muslims changed for the worse. Muslims were expelled from the army and were rapidly marginalized. Burma has a Buddhist majority. Muslims are stereotyped in the society as "cattle killers" (referring to the cattle sacrifice festival of Eid Al Adha in Islam). The generic racist slur of "kala" (black) used against perceived "foreigners" has especially negative connotations when referring to Burmese Muslims. The more pious Muslim communities who segregate themselves from the Buddhist majority face greater difficulties than those who integrate more at the cost of observance to Islamic personal laws.

Muslims in Burma are affected by the actions of Islamic extremism in other countries. Violence in Indonesia perpetrated by Islamists is used as a pretext to commit violence against Muslim minorities in Burma. The anti-Buddhist actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan (the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan) was also used as a pretext to commit violence against Muslims in Burma by Buddhist mobs. Human Rights Watch reports that there was mounting tension between the Buddhist and Muslim communities in Taungoo for weeks before it erupted into violence in the middle of May 2001. Buddhist monks demanded that the Hantha Mosque in Taungoo be destroyed in "retaliation" for the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Mobs of Buddhists, led by monks, vandalized Muslim-owned businesses and property and attacked and killed Muslims in Muslim communities. This was followed by retaliation by Muslims against Buddhists.

The dictatorial government, which operates a pervasive internal security apparatus, generally infiltrates or monitors the meetings and activities of virtually all organizations, including religious organizations. Religious freedom for Muslims is reduced. Monitoring and control of Islam undermines the free exchange of thoughts and ideas associated with religious activities. Accusations of "terrorism" are made against Muslim organizations such as the All Burma Muslim Union.

In 1993, a wave of more than a quarter-million Rohingya sought refugee in Bangladesh in response to a wave of state terror that included the destruction of Rohingya villages, forced conscription and labour, and systematic rape campaigns. The Rohingya have recently entered the international media in response to the Thai military’s shipping of hundreds of Rohingya refugees to the high seas. Indonesia has criticized the Thai action, and may become a destination for the limited resettlement of Rohingya refugees. All this prompted Hong Kong-based academic Ian Holliday to write an article in the South China Morning Post criticizing the terrible treatment of the Rohingya and calling for international action on their behalf.

And the Burmese consul-general’s response?

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to inform you that you might have read some news about "Rohingya Scandal" in recent papers. Some journalists expressed that as if Rohingya are Myanmarese (We do not have Myanmarese. We have only Myanmar People) and tried to seek a better place to stay or to look for a better jobs etc. And an academician Ian Holliday wrote an article by expressing that "Rohingya crisis a part of Myanmar's ethnic strife" and he mixed his article with other internal affairs which can be confused for innocent readers, because of his lack of knowledge of back ground history.

In reality, Rohingya are neither "Myanmar People" nor Myanmar's ethnic group. You will see in the photos that their complexion is "dark brown". The complexion of Myanmar people is fair and soft, good looking as well. (My complexion is a typical genuine one of a Myanmar gentleman and you will accept that how handsome your colleague Mr. Ye is.) It is quite different from what you have seen and read in the papers. (They are as ugly as ogres.)

Therefore I would like to enclose two pieces of paper from the New Light of Myanmar Daily Newspaper, concerned with the recent Rohingya Scandal among various media, for your information. Thank you.

Kong hey fat choi!

Yours Sincerely,

Ye Myint Aung

Consul-General
The Consulate General of The Union of Myanmar
Hong Kong & Macau SAR

!

[PHOTO] Cavendish Beach via Google Earth

Cavendish Beach via Google Earth
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

If there was any doubt, be assured that this image isn't one I took, but something that I extracted from Google Earth during my recuperation time. Annoyingly enough, the beach resort community of Cavendish is divided between low- and high-resolution images--Green Gables House falls into the second category, amazingly--but there's still enough to work with.

This image is of a slice of Cavendish Beach, likely the most trafficked beach of the Prince Edward Island National Park, located almost squarely in the middle of the great half-circle coastline that separates the Island from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

High-altitude though it is, the image captures most of the beaches' featuring, with the parking lots next to the Parks Canada interpretive centres which feed into the wooden boardwalks that extend over the marram grass-laced dunes to the beach of white sand and sandstone rocks, with the white-capped waves breaking off-shore.

Would you believe that at one time I thought all beaches were like that, more or less?