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Believe it or not 1968 was worse

2018-07-04T01:24:21Z

TraceeHanley:

By Maurice Isserman July 12 (Reuters) - According to the Chinese Zodiac, 1968 and 2016 are both the Year of the Monkey. But maybe we should call [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] this the Year of the Ghost Monkey of 1968. From the presidential primaries to the convention platform battles to bloody mayhem in the streets, 1968 is the go-to, default metaphor for what we seem to be reliving. This year, like 1968, is certainly one of bitter conflict and wrenching change. And why is that a surprise? Some things don't change. A nation of several hundred million people, drawn from all over the world, can never exactly become a peaceable kingdom, a beloved community. Creeds differ, values clash; rival factions, communities and priorities compete. Harmony would be nice - and an end to bloodshed is a goal to which most Americans can subscribe. But bear in mind that it has always been through conflict that Americans have decided who they are as a nation, discarding old assumptions and redefining identity and mission. I've been thinking about one of my favorite 1960s writers, the remarkable Vietnam War correspondent Michael Herr, who died two weeks ago. He covered the Vietnam War for "Esquire" in 1967-68, and his book, "Dispatches," remains one of the greatest works about that troubled conflict. (Herr also contributed to the screenplays of two iconic Hollywood movies about the war, "Apocalypse Now" and "Full Metal Jacket.") "Dispatches" is more than a war memoir, however. It offers genuine insight into American history and the American character. "There was such a dense concentration of American energy there," Herr wrote of Vietnam in the late 1960s. "American and essentially adolescent, if that energy could have been channeled into anything more than waste and pain it would have lighted up Indochina for a thousand years." I can't think of any other American writer who has managed to pack into one sentence so much love for his country - and so much disdain for the folly in which, in that instance, it was engaged. Another passage in "Dispatches" also came to mind last week. Herr describes the first time he went on a mission with a company of Marines, and ended up caught in a fire-fight, hugging the ground for hours, "listening to it going on, the moaning and whining and the dull repetitions of whump whump whump and dit dit dit, listening to a boy who'd somehow broken his thumb sobbing and gagging, and thinking 'Oh my God, this f-ing thing is on a loop!...'" Here's last week's loop: Tuesday, "whump whump whump," black man in Louisiana pinned to the ground by police officers then shot to death. Wednesday, "dit dit dit," another black man, this time in Minnesota, shot and killed in the front seat of his car as, his girlfriend said, he tried to produce the driver's license demanded by a police officer -- she sat in the seat beside him, her young daughter in the back seat. Thursday night, "dit whump dit," five Dallas policemen targeted and murdered by a vengeful rooftop sniper, seven others wounded. Senseless death of innocent victims, brought home in disturbingly graphic detail via cable news and social media. Is it apocalypse now in the streets of America? And all this in the context of recent years of fervent protest over issues of racial injustice, in a nation beset by repeated acts of violence, both random and targeted, in the midst of a presidential campaign running off the tracks, with one candidate in particular displaying an ability to stir up as much rancor and discord as possible. If history is on a loop, are we back in the world of "Dispatches"? Is this 1968 redux? Do we really have to sit through this movie again? Not likely. Fifty years have indeed changed America. The country is more diverse, ethnically, racially and religiously. There is a far more substantial black middle class than in 1968. (While at the same time the problem of black poverty, and for that matter white poverty, seems more intractable than ever.) Although it's sometimes hard to remember with all the noise generated by polarizing politicians, the United States is more tolerant than it was a half century ago - when the idea that there would someday be a black president seemed impossibly remote, and the notion of gay marriage unimaginable. In 1968, the nation was still adjusting to the U.S. Supreme Court's wonderfully named decision "Loving v. Virginia," issued the previous June, which overturned laws that banned interracial marriage. Until then, nearly one-third of American states had such laws on their books. Today at least 12 percent of all new marriages in the United States unite interracial couples, and the trend is expected to expand as millennials, least concerned of all Americans about race, reach marriage age. Reminded by the Iraq invasion of the consequences of [http://Search.Huffingtonpost.com/search?q=national%20hubris&s_it=header_form_v1 national hubris] in international affairs, a lesson learned and then forgotten after Vietnam, Americans are again skeptical of "boots on the ground" scenarios for remaking the world in their own image. The fact that this skepticism, even in the absence of a draft, is shared across the generational spectrum - and is, to some extent, bipartisan - is another important difference between 1968 and today. Americans are also asking important questions about economic policies and decisions taken in Washington and corporate board rooms, that have increased income inequality to levels not seen since the 1920s. Americans as a people, many of them anyway, are more self-aware and thoughtful in this second decade of the 21st century than has been the case for some decades. It's true that the presumptive presidential candidate of the party of Abraham Lincoln wants to make America "great again" by turning back the clock to the imagined splendor of an era of racial and ethnic homogeneity. But come November, after all the shouting and posturing, there will come a great moment of clarity, when the diverse population of America votes. Speaking of clarifying moments in American history, in his first speech as president in March 1861, the first Republican president of the United States beseeched his fellow countrymen to listen to the "better angels of their nature" and avoid the looming Civil War. That did not, Lincoln assured Southerners, mean the end of slavery, at least in the short run. His appeal fell on deaf ears. But just two and a half years later, in a November 1863 address at Gettysburg, Lincoln proclaimed a "new birth of freedom," carrying on and transforming the meaning of the American experiment, in which there no longer was a place for human servitude. And, in doing so, changed the nation. History was not on a loop in the 1860s. Nor in the 1960s. In a Memphis church on April [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. reflected on the possibility of his own death. He had been nearly killed by a deranged assailant in [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] 1958, and he explained why he was glad to have survived - and not just because he loved life. "I wouldn't have been around here in 1960," King recalled, "when students all over the South started sitting in at lunch counters." What those students were doing, he said, was making America great again by setting out to challenge and change its injustices: "They were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution." Lincoln and King lived in difficult times, as we do. It is in just such eras that Americans have rediscovered and refashioned the best traditions bound up in our national experience. Can we resolve in the years that follow the tumultuous election year of 2016 to listen to the better angels of our nature, and turn the dense concentration of American energy away from waste and pain - and use it instead to light our world? (Maurice Isserman) Advertisement

Bombed and looted ancient Cambodian city poised for rebirth

2018-07-03T01:11:53Z

TraceeHanley:

Sambor Prei Kuk, which means 'the temple in the richness of the forest', boasts nearly 300 brick temples and heaps of ruins across a 25 square kilometre (nine square mile) compound It has survived centuries of monsoon rains, a US bombing campaign and rampant looting. Now the ancient temple city of Sambor Prei Kuk in Cambodia is finally ready for a renaissance -- and is teasing tourists to its forest-cocooned ruins. Cloistered by trees and linked by winding dirt trails, the site has played second fiddle to its much bigger cousin to the west -- Angkor Wat -- Cambodia's top tourist destination. But in July it gained a listing by the UNESCO World Heritage, promising a tourist bonanza that could breathe new life into a once-thriving 6th and 7th century metropolis. "We have already seen more and more local and foreign tourists flocking to visit our site," said Hang Than, an official who manages the compound, as he strolled towards one of several temples spectacularly wrapped in tree roots. For now the tourist infrastructure is basic. The ancient city in central Kampong Thom province lies down a pot-holed road where a few food hawkers cluster beneath umbrellas in the dusty parking lot. Several tour guides lounge around a small booth servicing a growing fleet of tour buses that arrive, for [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] now, mainly on weekends. "We are very happy and we were so surprised that this site has been listed," said 45-year-old Mao Sambath, who has been making the hour-long motorcycle ride to sell a spread of tropical fruits to backpackers and Chinese [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] groups. "Today we have even more vendors than yesterday." - Trees and looters - Sambor Prei Kuk, which means "the temple in the richness of the forest", boasts nearly 300 brick temples and heaps of ruins across a 25 square kilometre (nine square mile) compound. The temples of Sambor Prei Kuk were rediscovered by French scholars [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] in the 1880s and it took decades to pare back tree roots and lumps of earth that had consumed the monuments over the centuries The city, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Phnom Penh, was once the seat of the Chenla kingdom that flourished in the 6th and 7th centuries before the height of the Khmer Empire that raised the mega-city of Angkor. The temples were rediscovered by French scholars in the 1880s when Cambodia was part of France's Indochina empire. It took decades to pare back tree roots and lumps of earth that had consumed the monuments over the centuries. "At first they only found 16 temples, but then they started to clean the sites," explained Hang Than, an archaeologist by training. But the excavation halted as Cambodia fell into war, with a hailstorm of US bombs hitting the area during the Vietnam War in the 1970s, leaving behind hundreds of craters. [http://Www.purevolume.com/search?keyword=Destruction%20continued Destruction continued] under Cambodia's ruthless Khmer Rouge regime, whose soldiers still held the area into the 1980s as looters ransacked heirlooms from the site. After the violence subsided in the late 1990s, restoration efforts were rebooted. With help of Japanese partners, conservationists spent decades hacking back trees and stabilising the structures. The painstaking work was rewarded with the UNESCO listing, which carries fresh funds to preserve the temples and manage the impact of tourism. "It was very different when I first started to work in this area," said Lay Alex, a baby-faced 24-year-old who began leading tours a decade ago. "I don't think seven guides is going to be enough anymore," he said with a smile. Advertisement

Myanmar restricts used car imports

2018-07-02T21:44:48Z

TraceeHanley:

Myanmar has restricted imports of right-hand drive used cars in a bid to boost local production, draw foreign investment -- and phase out notoriously chaotic driving habits. Almost all of the cars on Myanmar's road are second-hand, 90 percent of them from Japan, even though the two nations drive on different sides of the road. Used car imports surged after the [https://Www.herfeed.com/?s=government%20liberalised government liberalised] restrictions in 2012, the year after breaking from half a century of isolationist military rule. Almost all of the cars on Myanmar's road are second-hand, 90 percent of them from Japan, even though the two nations drive on [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] different sides of the road �Soe Than WIN (AFP/File) But until recently Western trade sanctions blocked imports of left-hand drive cars from Europe and the US, forcing motorists to turn to Japanese vehicles. As a result horn-beeping drivers routinely veer into the centre of the road to guage whether it is safe to overtake and buses unload passengers into the middle of busy streets. But that is set to change after the government banned imports of right-hand drive cars from this month. The move aims to boost local manufacturing and attract much-needed foreign investment, top priorities for Myanmar's newly elected government. Foreign automakers are now eyeing the largely untapped market of some 55 million consumers as a potential bright spot at a time of lacklustre sales in Southeast Asia. Only seven out of 1,000 people own cars in Myanmar, compared to 200 in neighbouring Thailand, said Nissan regional senior vice president Yutaka Sanada. "Out of the ASEAN countries, Myanmar, in terms of the opportunity, is bigger than our neighbours," he told AFP on Wednesday at the launch of the Japanese giant's first locally manufactured car. Ang Bon Beng, senior regional director [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] of Indochina at Nissan's partner Tan Chong Group, predicted annual sales would grow 5-10 percent in the next few years. "If you look at the current market of Myanmar, 95 percent are used cars," he said. "But this country has decided it wants to liberalise" Myanmar has been the top market for Japanese second-hand car exports for the past three years, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation. Safety campaigners say the ban on imports of used right-hand drive cars will save lives and mean rickety old bangers are taken off the streets. Others hope it will ease the daily gridlock that chokes the streets of the commercial capital Yangon, home to most of the country's cars. But many locals complain the ban has simply driven up the cost of second-hand cars and they cannot afford to buy new. Prices have risen 20-30 percent since it was announced in November and U Soe Tun, chair of industry body MAMDA, said they could double this year. "If I'm buying a car, I want to buy a car imported form Japan like Toyota and Nissan," said rice shop owner Soe Nyut Aung. "I have a limited budget and second-hand cars are cheap." Advertisement

Thursday April 21

2018-06-27T01:04:15Z

TraceeHanley:

Today is Thursday, April 21, the 112th day of 2014. There are 255 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1526 - Babur, an Uzbek prince, defeats Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at the Battle of Panipat north of Delhi, [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] leading to Mughal rule over India. 1572 - Britain and France sign defensive treaty. 1649 - The Maryland assembly passes the Maryland Toleration Act, which provides for freedom of worship for all Christians. 1789 - John Adams is sworn in as the first U.S. vice president. 1856 - Australia adopts eight-hour working day. 1898 - United States recognizes independence of Cuba. 1918 - German air ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, is shot down and killed over the Western Front during a dogfight with Capt. Arthur Roy Brown of Canada. 1928 - France's Aristide Briand submits his draft treaty for outlawing war. It is later signed as the Kellogg-Briand Pact by most of the world's countries. 1947 - Crown Prince Frederik is acclaimed King Frederik IX of Denmark by thousands of Danes on parliament square. 1954 - United States flies French battalion to Indochina to defend Dien Bien Phu, which is overrun by Vietnamese forces three weeks later. 1956 - Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen sign military alliance at Jedda. 1960 - Brazil moves its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, a modern city built from scratch on the central high plains. 1967 - Army officers led by Col. Georgios Papadopoulos seize power in Greece. The junta rules the country for seven years. 1972 - Two U.S. Apollo 16 astronauts spend seven hours exploring highlands of the Moon. 1975 - South Vietnam's President Nguyen van Thieu resigns, denounces United States as untrustworthy, and names successor to seek negotiations with Communist forces sweeping across country. 1977 - Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto assumes emergency powers and imposes martial law on three major cities in crackdown on opponents trying to force his resignation; the musical "Annie" opens on Broadway. 1980 - Rosie Ruiz is the first woman to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon, but she is disqualified when officials discover she jumped into the race about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the finish. 1986 - Soldiers attack rebel camp in Philippines, and 41 people are killed; a vault in Chicago's Lexington Hotel linked to Al Capone is opened during a live TV special hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Except for a few bottles and a sign, the vault is empty. 1987 - Suspected Tamil Tiger separatists explode powerful bomb at height of rush hour near main bus station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing as many as 150 people. 1989 - Thousands of students, shouting for democracy and human rights, march from campuses to converge on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. 1990 - Moscow expands its energy embargo of Lithuania to include shipments of food, metal [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] and industrial parts, in effort to get the republic to revoke declaration of independence. 1991 - Soviet hard-liners launch a petition drive for a Parliament session to impose a national state of emergency and take President Mikhail Gorbachev to task over worsening ethnic and economic troubles. 1993 - The Supreme Court in La Paz, Bolivia, sentences former dictator Luis Garcia Meza to 30 years in jail without parole for murder, theft, fraud and violating the constitution. 1994 - Bosnian Serb artillery bombards the Muslim enclave of Gorazde in the heaviest assault of a three-week offensive. 1995 - Iran lines up with Egypt and Syria to try to link the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to a dismantling of Israel's reported nuclear arsenal. 1996 - Rebels in a military complex in Monrovia, Liberia, release more foreigners while African peacekeeping troops fan out in the capital to police a truce. 1997 - The first Chinese Army soldiers march into Hong Kong in preparation for the handover of the British colony to China on July 1. 1998 - South Korea drops efforts to get compensation from Japan for women held as sex slaves during World War II, and says it will pay surviving women. 2001 - Leaders at the 34-nation Americas summit debate whether to criticize Haitian elections that restored President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power last year and mired the hemisphere's poorest and most unstable nation in another political morass. 2002 - Bombings in the southern Philippines, [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] where [http://Www.buzznet.com/?s=Muslim%20rebel Muslim rebel] groups are fighting for a separate homeland, kill 14 people and wound 55 others. 2005 - A blast kills at least 51 people as it rips through an explosives manufacturing plant at a mine in the heart of Zambia's copper belt. 2006 - Haitians vote in a legislative election billed as the final step in the often-delayed process to bring back democracy to the poorest nation in the Americas. 2007 - Thousands of Bhutanese practice for democracy in mock elections, lining up at polling stations to select dummy political parties in the latest step toward shedding nearly 100 years of absolute monarchy in the secluded Himalayan country. 2008 - Pakistan orders the release of pro-Taliban leader Sufi Muhammad from six years in custody in return for an agreement from his group to renounce violence. Muhammad had sent thousands to battle the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. 2009 - European researchers say they not only found the smallest planet ever, Gliese 5810 e, but also realize that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habital zone for potential life. 2010 - An explosion rocks a BP offshore oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and eventually leading to the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. 2011 - Japan seals off a wide area around a radiation-spewing nuclear power plant to prevent tens of thousands of residents from sneaking back to the homes they quickly evacuated, some with little more than a credit card and the clothes on their backs. 2012 - An infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars will give the International Monetary Fund a badly needed boost to tackle Europe's prolonged debt crisis. But global finance officials send a strong message that struggling governments must speed reforms. 2013 - Serbia's ruling parties pledge to support a landmark agreement to normalize relations with former province Kosovo that could end years of tensions and put both states on a path to European Union membership. Today's Birthdays: Charlotte Bronte, English novelist (1816-1855); Anthony Quinn, Mexican-born actor (1915-2001); Queen Elizabeth II of England (1926--); Elaine May, U.S. entertainer-writer (1932--); Omotoso Kole, Nigerian writer (1943--); Iggy Pop, English punk singer (1947--); Patti LuPone, U.S. actress/singer (1949--); James McAvoy, actor (1979--); Michael Franti, U.S. singer/rapper (1966--). Thought For Today: I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it - Stephen Leacock, Canadian economist and humorist (1869-1944). Advertisement

User:TraceeHanley

2018-06-27T01:04:08Z

TraceeHanley: Created page with "My name is Tracee and I am studying Political Science and Business at Kobenhavn K / Denmark. my web page ... [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-d..."

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