Announcements

Audio CD By Visually Impaired
From: "George Pinto" <georgejpinto@yahoo.com>
"Tanzanite Goans" <goans_tanzanite@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 2:48 AM

Julio D'Cunha a visually impaired person has come out with his third audio CD 'Juzu Ievcho Zala' a devotional songs album. It was released on the World Disabled Day in Panjim and the CDs are now available in our office.

It is a truly remarkable CD as Julio being visually impaired has composed the lyrics and sung the songs on the CD. Best of all he has received the grace to praise God in spite of his disability and is inspiring others to do the same. The music is by well known musician
Chris Corriea. It is price at Rs. 100/- only.

A truly inspirational album showing the talents and capabilities of the disabled.
Please promote it and collect your copy from our office at only Rs.
100/-.

Regards, Avelino de Sa, President
DISABILITY RIGHTS ASSOCIATION OF GOA
C/o Star Investments
Opp. Head Post Office
Panjim, Goa - 403 001.
Telefax: 0832 - 2427160
Email: dragoa@rediffmail.com
http://www.disabilitygoa.com

Help To Promote Goan Authors
From: Judy Luis-Watson JLuisW@aol.com
To: Romero Dias romero.dias04@sympatico.ca

I'm writing to you at the suggestion of my father and your friend, Jerry Luis. He spoke highly of you as a kind person who gets things done and who is well-connected in the Goan community. I have had the good fortune of reading several books by Goan and other writers who have written about life in Goa and East Africa. My husband and I as well as my father have not only enjoyed reading their work but, in the process, also gained a deeper understanding of Goan and East African cultural history.

It would be great if you could help to get the word out to the Goan community so more folks may have access to the books. Who knows, they might even want to invite the writers to do readings or lead workshops at special events but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

To avoid being in the middle of things, I would like to ask three writers to contact you directly with their information - Ben Antao lives in Toronto, Lino Leitao lives in Montreal, and Peter Nazareth lives in Iowa. Please let me know if this would be okay with you.

Thank you very much,
Judy Luis-Watson Bowie, Maryland, USA

PS When you get a chance, please visit the website that my husband and I created for our music group: www.bluesworksband.biz
 

People Places and Things
 

On the Excess of Power
From Article on Lionel Gelber Prize Nominations

The Lionel Gelber Prize was founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber. The Gelber Prize honours the excellence of those who think and write about the local and global forces of change in international relations.

See: http://www.utoronto.ca/mcis/gelber/

Excerpts from Toronto Star Article May 5, 2006 by Olivia Ward

Like the Americans at Abu Ghraib, the British administrators repressed their prisoners, the Kikuyu, with a brutal hand because they believed it was right.

“You have to construct the world so it justifies what you are doing.” Elkins observes. “The Mau-Mau (rebels) did some terrible things, but at the end of the day, only 32 settles died. The violence was extraordinarily disproportionate. But for many in the colonial office, it was part of a civilizing mission.”

The word "Imperialism" has had a nasty ring for many decades now, as visions of Queen Victoria's portrait suspended over the subjugated but grateful mases of the "dark" continents recede into the dust of history.

The lessons of history, both distant and modern, have been lost on America today, says Benjamin.

Among other things, the international outery against torture and brutality by American forces in Iraq, as well as at Guantanamo Bay, has been dismissed by Bush as an attack on his right to protect the U.S from terrorism.

But the violence carried out by the “civilized” against the “uncivilized” throughout history has deep roots even in Britain, which prides itself as a standard bearer of enlightenment.

In Kenya between 1952 and 1960, hundreds of thousands of independence-seeking Kikuyu people were detained and systematically terrorized, humiliated, tortured and starved as a way of breaking the spirit of those the British authorities defined as “savages.”

In Imperial Reckoning, Caroline Elkins massive combination of research and oral history, the Harvard historian fills in the blanks conveniently left by those who wrote Kenya’s history at the twilight of colonialism. The grim testimony of the survivors shows that absolutely power does corrupt absolutely, even when it is exercised on a small patch of the globe by those who claim to be democrats.

Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt)

Painstakingly researched and detailed, this historical investigation offers a shocking portrait of the scope and savagery of colonial counterinsurgency against Kenya's Mau Mau terrorism, which displaced more than a million people and cost tens of thousands, if not more, of Kikuyu lives.

 

Elkins is an assistant professor of history at Harvard University. Her research on the colonial period in Africa has won numerous awards, including the Fulbright, Andrew W. Mellon and Advanced Study at Radcliffe Institute fellowships. Conversant in Swahili and Kikuyu, she spent nearly a decade travelling and working in rural Africa.
 

Outsider Art From Radio Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/stories/s1586067.htm

Saturday 11 March 2006 For some individuals living with psychosis art-making becomes an act of necessity, a way to bring coherence to experiences that threaten to overwhelm. We meet an artist whose hallucinatory episodes serve as inspiration for paintings and drawings as we learn about the fascinating history of 'Outsider Art'.

Images courtesy of the artist, Anthony Mannix.

The term Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut (which literally translates as "Raw Art" or "Rough Art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates.

While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world and they often employ unique materials or fabrication techniques. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

Outsider Art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992); thus the term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the "art world" mainstream, regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Note: www.goanvoice.ca invites readers to submit their own work of “Outsider Art” for display. Contact: inf
 

Conversion of Waste Plastic to Gasoline
From: "CARMO DCRUZ" <cadcruz@msn.com>
To: <joel3@sancharnet.in>
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 12:02 PM

Big Foot's awareness drive on plastics
PANJIM: The considerable increase in tourist inflow and picnic groups from academic institutions, at "Ancestral Goa", Loutulim, the Big Foot Trust at the newly instituted 'Sanksriti Kendra', organised a 3-day  drive on the theme "How to reduce garbage and the increasing danger of excessive use of plastic". (GT)

Hi Joel,

I read with interest of Big Foot's awareness drive in Goa on plastics in the Goacom.com Goa News of Mar 7, 2006.

Well, I am happy to tell you that thanks to Indian ingenuity, a friend of mine Dr. S. Ramesh of Michigan has developed a process for converting waste plastic to ultra-pure Regular Grade gasoline.

According to Dr. Ramesh's proprietary process, 10 lbs of waste plastic will yield approx. 1 gallon of Regular Grade gasoline at a cost of $1.1.

We are currently in the process of commercializing this WASTE PLASTIC  TO GASOLINE process to reduce garbage in an economically profitable manner.

Best Regards,

Dr. Carmo D'Cruz,
Associate Professor,
Dept. of Engineering Systems,
Florida Tech,
Melbourne, Florida 32901