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© Merle Harton, Jr. | About | XML/RSS Friday, April 18, 2008
Dollars and Commas"If I listen to your lies would you say / I'm a man without conviction / I'm a man who doesn't know / How to sell a contradiction / You come and go / You come and go" - Culture Club (Karma Chameleon) It was about two years ago when President Bush said casually that "when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma."1 Well, experts who once sided with the Bushevik's $3-trillion folly, or perhaps sulked in the shadows, are now coming forth, and what they say ain't pretty. "Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle," is the opening line in a major new report by the National Defense University.2 Add to this the many voices charging that the whole supplementary war funding process is effectively weakening "Congress's ability to provide the type of oversight absolutely necessary for fostering DOD accountability."3 1. "The Situation Room: Interview With President Bush," CNN, September 20, 2006; watch the video segment. Sunday, April 13, 2008
Homage to the Bride of PeaceThe story of Italian artist Giuseppina Pasqualino, also known as Pippa Bacca, is not likely to get much news coverage in the US, but the story, which is very sad, is making headlines in Europe. With traveling companion Silvia Moro, the two, dressed in bridal costumes, embarked on a project (Brides on Tour) to demonstrate the power and reality of peace, starting in Milan, Italy, and culminating in Jerusalem: Our dream is to hitch-hike across the war-torn areas of the Balkans and the Mediterraneandressed as brides. That's the only dress we'll carry alongwith all stains accumulated during the journey. We'll visit artists and craftsmen along the way and stop at museums, foundations, cultural centres and youth clubs for the daily pacifist ritual/performance of personal hygiene and then interaction with the place, people, and their crafts. The goal is to explore and collect photographic and video evidences on the common Mediterranean culture. The expected route is through North-Eastern Italy, Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Syria. At the end of the journey the dresses shall be exposed together with other evidences of the journey.1 Pippa Bacca never got the chance to finish the project. The two started on March 8 and together hitchhiked through eight of the fourteen planned stations before she and Moro separated in Istanbul, expecting to reunite in Beirut. Bacca was missing since March 31 after she hitched a ride with the driver of a black van. On Friday, her naked body was found in bushes in a wooded area near Gebze in northwest Turkey. She had been raped and strangled to death.2 1. See the itinerary and photos at their website Brides on Tour. |
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