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[Readingroom] News on Burma - 3/9/10
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News on Burma
- Myanmar's cyber generation boots up for first-time vote
- 'Generation Wave' youths challenge Burmese junta
- Irrawaddy people agree with poll boycott
- Kachin army cements 'unwavering stance'
- Burma's tax system corrupt, activists say
- Farce of the Burma vote
- The hidden impact of Burma's arbitrary and corrupt taxation
- Myanmar media confirm junta chief retains power
- Myanmar's pro-junta parties field army of candidates
- Generals in reshuffle buying diamonds, gold
- KIO demands federal union before surrendering weapons
- Delhi notes China's Indian Ocean 'interest'
- Poverty in Burma is appalling
- Political transition: a chance for progress?
- Democracy groups struggle to challenge Myanmar's junta
- Burma's vote to nowhere
- Burma poll will only entrench those in power
- Junta's strategic election moves
- Three political parties enter into alliance
- Border Guard Force accepts children from DKBA
- Burma's generals act to ensure there are few witnesses to election
- How the CIA bedded down in Burma
- Myanmar opposition in disarray as polls approach
- China to build 3 pipelines to deliver Myanmar oil-report
- Tay Za launches broadband service in Rangoon
Myanmar's cyber generation boots up for first-time vote
Agence France Presse: Wed 1 Sep 2010
Yangon – One of Myanmar's self-described "pioneer bloggers" proudly opens his popular website — officially banned by the military rulers — and scrolls to his updates on the approaching election. Tin San has been carefully researching the candidates running in Myanmar's first polls in two decades, and for his next post he is busy reading up on the electoral regulations.
"Most people in Myanmar are not familiar with voting. We need to have resources and information to vote how we like," says the 30-year-old. Like all those in the country aged under 38, he has never voted before.
The November 7 election has been widely criticised by activists and the West as a sham orchestrated by the ruling generals to shore up their rule. Some favour a boycott by voters, many of whom are disillusioned with the process.
But Tin San, whose name AFP has changed for his protection, is among a group of optimists who advocate participation and online debate of the polls, despite some of the world's most repressive Internet controls.
"I have quite a lot of influence on my readers so I want them just to think about the information," he says.
"As far as I know, most young people are not interested in the election, even though they want change. But this is the beginning of change — it's a stepping stone."
Judging by the busy cyber cafes across the main city Yangon, the web offers a way to tap the city's youth, despite slow connections, frequent power cuts and huge risks over online activity that the regime deems subversive.
Google users look up South Korean celebrities — in line with the current Asia-wide craze — while other cafe-goers read world news stories on the BBC website. Several are chattering on Google Talk or browsing Facebook.
Staff are quick to help clients find proxy servers to bypass blocks on certain websites, even though they are strictly forbidden to do so on threat of closure, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
The rights group describes Myanmar's legislation on Internet use, the Electronic Act, as "one of the most liberticidal laws in the world", with dissident netizens facing lengthy prison terms.
Tin San, who has about 2,000 Facebook friends and thousands more blog followers, says he holds informal gatherings across Yangon to discuss the Internet's uses — and how to dodge the junta's restrictions.
"Political websites are banned but you can still read them, for example through (web aggregator) Google Reader," is one of his tips. He also offers advice about privacy settings on social networking sites.
During the "Saffron Revolution" monk-led protests in 2007, Myanmar's citizens used the web to leak extensive accounts and video to the outside world, sparking a total Internet ban by the iron-fisted regime.
Connections have also been slowed down on politically significant dates such as August 8, the anniversary of a mass political uprising in 1988.
"I think the government is quite afraid of blogs and bloggers," says Tin San, one of nearly 1,500 members of the online Myanmar Blogger Society.
Controls are expected to be tightened again during the election, but for now many are fearlessly talking politics online while they still can.
"I receive 10 to 20 emails from my friends each day about the things the government does in Myanmar," says 28-year-old Win Oo, who lives in Yangon and whose name has also been changed.
He says a friend recently sent him a cartoon of the junta chief Than Shwe looking like a clown. Prominent blogger Nay Phone Latt was jailed in 2008 for 20 years, later reduced to 12, for allegedly storing such an image on email, among other offences.
"If I want to look at things like that, I sit in the corner of the Internet cafe, not in the middle, because we never know about the other users or the owner," says Win Oo, who also intends to vote this year.
For those who can dodge the firewalls and take the risks, the Internet offers more freedom to discuss the election than print journals, which face rigid censorship over their reports.
Yet few political parties have taken their campaign online. Two that have attempted it — the Myanmar Democracy Congress party and the Peace and Diversity Party — have had their websites banned.
Even if their sites were allowed, the web's reach outside the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay is severely limited.
Just one in every 455 of Myanmar's inhabitants were Internet users in 2009, based on statistics from the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency in Geneva.
About two thirds of the population, estimated at about 50 million, live in the countryside and have limited access to information about the election, the main parties and the issues at stake.
"It's quite ok for urban youths who have Internet access but what about youths in rural areas, small town people and farmers? How do we help them?" asks a business editor in Yangon.
Web-savvy city dwellers still hope their online activity, however restricted, will help to spread political awareness across the country.
"The Internet can help to change the outcome of an election, maybe not this one but the next," says a 26-year-old student of Yangon-based civil society group Myanmar Egress, which has promoted participation in the polls.
"We are already in a transition period so we have to concentrate on sharing things, updating news, doing more," he says. "We can eat the fruit in 10 years — it will not happen immediately".
'Generation Wave' youths challenge Burmese junta
France24: Wed 1 Sep 2010
The Burmese opposition is gearing up ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections in November. A Young Burmese man told us how he and other activists are expressing their dissatisfaction with the ruling junta through rap music and street art. The Burmese people will head to the polls on November 7th, more than 21 years after Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition LND party won a legislative election ignored by the ruling junta. Although the vote has not yet taken place, international observers have already emitted serious doubts on its credibility.
According to Burma's electoral laws, a quarter of existing seats in regional and national parliaments are reserved for members of the military, and more than 70 high ranking officers have recently left the army to run for office. Meanwhile, most opposition candidates were threatened and pressured into opting out of the race, or deterred by the exorbitant participation fee demanded by the electoral commission.
Three years after the "Saffron Revolution" of 2007, during which hundreds of thousands of opponents, led by Bhuddist monks, took to the streets, the junta still has a tight grip on the country. Some opponents have joined clandestine movements like Generation Wave, despite the risk of being arrested. The movement is made up of around 50 Burmese youths, aged 15 to 25, that have been staging multiple symbolic actions across the country. Although they describe themselves as an apolitical movement, they firmly support Aung San Suu Kyi.
Bo Bo is 22. He is a member of the clandestine group Generation Wave.
I was forced to flee my country two years ago, because my ideas didn't go down so well with the military secret service. I was used to discussing my political views with friends and family, denouncing how the junta violates the human rights of its citizens. But in Burma, it's dangerous to express one's views too openly. One day, the police came to my parent's house to try to arrest me. I was forced to flee the country with other militants of Generation Wave, and cross the border illegally to Thailand.
"Young Burmese opponents cross the border illegally by groups of 5 or 10 to attend our training sessions in Thailand"
Since then, we have tried to organise Burmese youths into opposition movements. We hold secret training sessions in a house right by the Burmese border. Most young Burmese don't know what their rights are, what democracy and human rights are – we try to inform them. They will only feel the urge to fight for regime change once they are aware of what is going on in their country. The young Burmese who come to our training sessions cross the border illegally by groups of 5 or 10. They run the risk of being arrested at any time.
"We write activist songs to inform people"
We also use music and poetry to raise awareness in the country. High-school students and college students are naturally attracted to rap and hip hop, so we compose rap songs that denounce the regime, to inform people of the situation. We have a studio in Thailand where we record our songs onto CDs that are sold on the Burmese black market. The money we make allows us to record more CDs.
Graffiti and stickers are another way of raising awareness. Most members of Generation Wave are in Burma – they paint on walls, by day or by night, depending on the level of security, so as not to get caught. Sometimes I cross the border to help them.
"22 members of our movement are in prison"
As an activist, I have no future. I have no passport, no legal papers. Things are made even harder by the fact that I have to remain in hiding and can't move freely. Sometimes, I can talk to my family over the phone, but I have to be careful because we are closely watched. 22 members of our movement are in prison right now.
I think that one day, we will succeed in overthrowing the military regime, and our country will be rid of its dictatorship. As the 2010 elections approach, we hope there will be more protests like those of 2007. I don't know if it will happen, but I hope so. We're ready for new non-violent action. Our goal is to inform people that the upcoming elections are neither free nor fair, and to convince them not to go vote."
Irrawaddy people agree with poll boycott: NLD – Ko Wild
Mizzima News: Wed 1 Sep 2010
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Many Irrawaddy residents and party members have agreed to boycott Burma's first elections in 20 years on November 7, according to National League for Democracy party vice-chairman Tin Oo. "The people would like to boycott the election. They said they would like to cast their votes for the NLD but as the NLD had decided to boycott the election, so they also should boycott the forthcoming election. They [said they] have no option but to boycott the election", Tin Oo said.
NLD leaders discussed electoral issues, youth culture and women's affairs with party members, residents and villagers, he said.
"Our tour was aimed at educating and motivating people to do what they should. We helped them understand the current political conditions and advised that they need to carry out suitable actions peacefully," he told Mizzima.
Tin Oo, 83, said that although he had not visited his hometown Pathein for a long time, he had no intention of visiting relatives, but that the objective of the tour was to reorganise NLD members and colleagues and talk to local residents.
He and his colleagues saluted the statue of national independence hero General Aung San, the father of detained NLD general secretary Aung San Suu Kyi, near Titekyi Monastery in Pathein, and vowed that they too would continue to fight for freedom.
Also on the roadshow were NLD central executive committee member Hla Pe, party members Win Myint and Kyi Win from Irrawaddy Division, and party women's and youth leaders. They also visited Kyonpyaw, Pantanaw, Maubin, Bogalay and Dedaye townships.
A legal scholar, Tin Oo entered politics in 1988. In September that year he became the party's vice-chairman and in December, chairman.
In 1989, he was imprisoned for seven years. Then in 2003 he was arrested again after in the "Depayin Massacre" and was sentenced to nine months in Katha Prison before being put under house arrest in 2004. He was released on February 13 this year.
The NLD have been conducting such roadshows around the country since June, visiting around 200 townships in Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, Tenasserim, Pegu, and Irrawaddy divisions and Shan, Mon, Kachin and Arakan states.
Registrations for 42 political parties have been approved by the junta's electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission, and 32 have submitted lists of members to the commission according to the junta's electoral laws, state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported on Tuesday. Among the parties, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and the National Unity Party (NUP) have the maximum numbers of candidates, which junta rules make costly to submit.
The international community including the United Nations has demanded that the election process be credible and inclusive. However, many countries including the United States, Britain, Australia and those of the European Union, have condemned the junta's apparent stage-management ahead of the polls in favour of parties it supports and the exclusion of opposition leader Suu Kyi and her NLD party from the process as among many of the signs that the elections would be neither free nor fair.
Kachin army cements 'unwavering stance' – Aye Nai
Democratic Voice of Burma: Wed 1 Sep 2010
One of Burma's most prominent armed ethnic groups has made a final deadline day decision to reject the junta's request to transform into a Border Guard Force. The country's ruling generals set 1 September as the day that all ceasefire armies make the transformation, which would bring them under control of Naypyidaw and see their lower-ranking troops assimilated into the Burmese army.
Many have however rejected, and in response the generals have threatened war in Burma's volatile border regions where the majority of ethnic minority groups are located.
Deputy-general of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Wawhkyung Sin Wa, said that it was the group's "unwavering stance" to see a federal union emerge in Burma with autonomy for ethnic minorities.
But the controversial 2008 constitution that set the ball rolling for elections this year makes it clear that the future of Burma lies as "one nation, one army", while senior Burmese army official Win Thein in June told the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Burma's largest ceasefire group, that "there shouldn't be various armed groups in one country", meaning transformation was inevitable.
Wawhkyung Sin Wa said that the KIA would now look to achieve its goals of a federal state "via peaceful negotiations and a dialogue". Asked what would happen if Burmese troops launched an attack, he remained coy.
"It depends on what the government will do to us. For us, we are taking a stable stance on maintaining peace and looking for dialogue."
There are also reports that the New Mon State Party (NMSP) has officially rejected the Border Guard Force proposal, although this has not been confirmed.
Burma's tax system corrupt, activists say – Ron Corben
Voice of America: Wed 1 Sep 2010
Bangkok – A new report on Burma's tax system says it lacks transparency and accountability, and many taxes are paid to corrupt officials. Burma rights activists say arbitrary taxation adds another layer to the economic burdens and rights abuses many Burmese suffer. The report, released in Bangkok, from a network of human-rights organizations said Burma's military has transformed taxation "into extortion and a tool of repression." The government and the military arbitrarily collect taxes in the form of cash, land, goods and labor, said the report, based on interviews with more than 340 people during the past two years.
In addition, people said they are charged arbitrary fees at checkpoints, and forced to pay donations for festivals, school buildings, school registration and equipment.
Economist Alison Vicary from Macquarie University's Burma Economic Watch said Burma's tax system is oppressive and illegitimate.
"The agencies collecting taxes are actively involved in the control and suppression of the population," Vicary said. "That much of the taxation that actually collected at the local level is going to the incomes of local officials rather than to the central government."
According to rights activists, military-backed organizations have been extorting funds from communities ahead of the November 7th general elections.
Vicary said the abusive tax system has contributed to Burma's economic deterioration. And she believes little will change after the balloting.
The lack of accountability makes life in Burma harder for much of the population, said Cheery Zahau, a human rights coordinator with the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma
"It added to the problems to the basic survival, they [Burmese people] cannot save money, they cannot, in many cases, send their children to school," Zahau said. "They do not have enough money for hospitals, for health care anymore. So it makes the whole social welfare collapse for the people; it becomes a burden for the people."
The report also said the tax system's denies most Burmese the right to an adequate standard of living, health care, housing, food, and education. It recommends that international donors, such as development banks, should only give Burma aid when governance standards and human-rights protections have improved.
Farce of the Burma vote – Editorial
Bangkok Post: Wed 1 Sep 2010
There can be no more cynical regime in Southeast Asia than that of Burma's military junta. The generals and colonels who have controlled that poor country since 1962 have looted the economy, mistreated citizens and made Burma a worldwide synonym for tyranny. It is going to be difficult to top their current cynical move. The generals are about to bring to fruition a manipulated election that will endorse a rigged constitution to give the military control of the country forever. And all this is being passed off as an exercise in democracy.
The breathtaking military "reshuffle" last week is a case in point. No one is sure of the details because the junta has never felt the need to announce its important moves, let alone explain or justify them. But it appears that around six dozen senior officers were moved.
To call this a reshuffle is to demean the word. Thailand has reshuffles, where officers retire and move within the very public, designated chain of command. Burma's military movements had quite a different cast – and sinister at that.
The November elections are pre-arranged to be neither fair nor free. For starters, the military is guaranteed 25% of the 498 seats in the legislature.
The opaque musical chairs orchestrated by the ruling generals last week put certain officers in military positions to claim those 125 seats. Others were released from active service to run for many of the other seats supposedly meant for non-military civilians.
Ironically, the Burmese junta actually ran a free election. Back in 1990, a fair vote was held countrywide wherein the people rejected the military and its puppet political parties, and overwhelmingly elected pro-democracy civilians, the majority of whom were loyal to the banned leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
But because they got a result they did not want, the ruling generals simply ignored the election outcome and spent the next 20 years in a campaign of arrests, intimidation, imprisonment and torture of democratic Burmese.
This time, the election will reflect the wishes of the military dictatorship. The junta is openly backing several political parties, including with monetary funding. Voters from Rangoon to the smallest village have been instructed on what is expected of them on election day.
The largest group of democrats is the National Democratic Force. Some 200 candidates have raised the fees required to run for about 1,200 national and regional seats.
Ms Suu Kyi is the only Burmese with credentials as a national political leader. She has been banned, again, from the entire election process. In the first place, she is under house arrest on various trumped-up charges that would be laughed out of any court except the ones controlled by the Burmese military. She also is the widow of a foreigner, an offence so serious to the junta that it also disqualifies her from any political participation in her country.
The result of this political tragedy is a foregone conclusion. The military-written constitution will govern a military-run election where almost all candidates have been officially and ostentatiously military-approved. Mrs Suu Kyi has rightly called for a boycott. There is no reward for voting in a pre-determined election.
Outsiders may be helpless to alter the course of this shameless power grab by the junta, but they can expose it. It is most important that the Thai government and all other governments in the region refrain from endorsing this political charade.
We have to give them so much that our stomachs are empty of food: The hidden impact of Burma's arbitrary and corrupt taxation
Network for Human Rights Documentation: Wed 1 Sep 2010
"On average, villagers have to provide military government organizations with more than 10,000 kyat a month. Even though villagers have no food to eat they still have to pay them. At the hands of the SPDC the villagers have to work harder but they still have not enough food for their families. "Burma's military regime has transformed taxation from a routine and legitimate function of government into extortion and a tool of repression. ND-Burma's report highlights that the state of Burma is implementing a system of corrupt taxation which fails to comply with any accepted norms, fails to stop the diversion of government revenues into private pockets, and contributes to the ongoing and systematic violation of their most basic human rights: the right to an adequate standard of living, to housing, to education and the right to be free from forced labor.
While the majority of Burma's people live in abject poverty, the military regime and its cronies spend more than 50% of the national budget on the military and less than 1.3% on health and education combined. ND Burma's research revealed that people are forced to hand over large proportions of their income and property in official and unofficial taxes leaving more and more people struggling to survive.
The military's corrupt practices violate their signature of the UN Convention on Corruption and their signatures of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Convention on the Rights of the Child. They cause longterm damage to the economy and destroys the viability of subsistence and medium scale farming and enterprises, i.e. the economic activities that that sustain most of the civilian population. A subsistence farmer in Burma could be forced to pay more than 50% of his or her livelihood in so-called taxes. This report documents the range of corrupt acts that occur under the guise of taxation including; farmers being forced to grow certain crops and sell them at low price to the army, goods being confiscated and not returned until a payment is given, Tatmadaw and government officials forcing people to pay arbitrary high payments at checkpoints, forced "donations" for festivals, school buildings, etc, forced labour, and the loss of earnings and health or fees incurred in order to avoid these burdens.
The regime's attacks on the civilian population take the form of murder, torture, and sexual violence, and this report demonstrates that those attacks also entail imposing severe economic hardship on the population in violation of their human rights.
"The people of Burma are poor but the regime that oppresses them is not."
Sean Turnell, Burma Economic Watch.
Myanmar media confirm junta chief retains power
Associated Press: Tue 31 Aug 2010
Yangon, Myanmar — A message from Myanmar's junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe appeared in state media Tuesday, dispelling reports that he had stepped down from the army as part of a major military reshuffle ahead of elections. The message was a typical note of congratulations to Malaysia on its Independence Day and made no reference to the military reshuffle — the largest in more than a decade. But it was carried on the front page of the country's three official newspapers and the subtext was clear: Than Shwe is still in charge.
The military reshuffle that occurred Friday retired more than a dozen senior leaders, though it has yet to be officially announced by the highly secretive junta. It was an apparent move to prepare for Nov. 7 national elections, the first in two decades.
Than Shwe has ruled the country since 1992. The rumors of his retirement, along with that of his second-in-command Maung Aye, suggested they were being groomed for roles as president and vice president in the new government after elections.
Since military reshuffles are often never formally announced, when rumors of such shifts spread through Myanmar society, citizens carefully follow television and news reports to see if leaders are referred to with new titles.
"Senior General Than Shwe, chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, has sent a message of felicitations" to the king of Malaysia to mark the country's Independence Day, the New Light of Myanmar and other newspapers reported.
The message referred both to Than Shwe's military rank and his title as head of the ruling junta's government, known as the SPDC, effectively putting to rest reports by several media outlets that had reported his resignation last week.
The elections are portrayed by the regime as a key step to shifting to civilian rule after five decades of military domination, but critics call them a sham and say the military shows little sign of relinquishing control.
Friday's reshuffle included about two dozen officials, notably the junta's third- and fourth-ranking generals, Thura Shwe Mann, who served as Joint Chief of Staff, and Tin Aung Myint Oo, who was the army's Quartermaster General, according to officials who are close to the military but could not be named because the reshuffle was not formally announced.
It was the second since April, when 27 senior officials, including Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, retired from the military.
Under the country's new constitution, 25 percent of the seats in Parliament will go to military representatives. If retiring generals run for Parliament they would not be counted in the military's quota although they are likely to enhance the army's influence.
The polls will take place without the country's leading opposition party, headed by detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which says the elections are unfair and is boycotting them.
Myanmar's pro-junta parties field army of candidates
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Tue 31 Aug 2010
Yangon – Myanmar's two pro-junta parties have submitted large candidate lists for the country's November 7 general election, dwarfing the number of pro-democracy candidates, party sources said Tuesday. Parties had to submit their candidate lists to the Election Commission on Monday to qualify for the November 7 polls, Myanmar's first in two decades.
The pro-junta Union Solidarity Development Party, whose membership is packed with retired military men, will field 1,163 candidates, enough to fight all contested seats in the lower, upper and regional houses of parliament.
Another pro-government party, the National Unity Party, has registered 994 candidates, the party's executive committee member Han Shwe said.
Myanmar's two main pro-democracy parties, the National Democratic Force and Democratic Party Myanmar (DPM), have only registered 160 and 49 candidates, respectively.
"We could only register 49 candidates because of a lack of money," DPM chief general secretary Than Than Nu told the German Press Agency
Generals in reshuffle buying diamonds, gold
Irrawaddy: Tue 31 Aug 2010
Rangoon—Family members of recently retired top military officers and government ministers in Burma have been collecting diamonds, gold jewelry and solid gold, according to business sources. Diamond and gold traders in Rangoon said family members and relatives of those who have been recently removed from their top military posts and who will have to resign ministerial posts after the election, appear to be transforming their property into diamonds and gold.
"Ministers and generals don't keep money in cash," said a businessman in Rangoon. "They have converted it into strong and valuable items such as diamonds and gold. They don't need to buy land and cars anymore because they already have as much they want. Those things are not as valuable and as movable as diamonds and gold that they can carry along with their families wherever they go."
A number of jewelery dealers told The Irrawaddy that the generals' family members did not come to the market to buy diamonds and gold, but instead send their close business associates and brokers to take care of it for them.
The current price of solid gold is 652,500 kyat [US $665] for one kyat-thar [approximately 0.015 kg].
A gold trader close to the regime's top generals said gold bars and gold have been purchased in visses [one viss is approximately equivalent to one kilogram].
"It is really difficult to estimate the amount of gold they have," said a gold trader. "For many years they have bought it, and they are still buying it."
Family members of the generals are reportedly buying more diamonds than the ministers themselves.
"Diamonds are everyone's fancy and can be worth millions or billions. Although it is small, it is a treasure that makes the possession stronger and more valuable. Families of top generals are particularly buying expensive diamonds," said a diamond shop owner in Rangoon.
According to military sources in Naypyidaw, Snr-Gen Than Shwe is well known as the richest of the generals followed by the family of his deputy, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye.
Ministers Aung Thaung of the Ministry of Industry No. 1 and Htay Oo of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation are said to be the wealthiest among government ministers.
Almost all the important positions in the army have recently been filled with a new generation of army officers. The state-run media has been silent on the reported resignations of top military officials in the Burmese leadership structure.
KIO demands federal union before surrendering weapons
Kachin News Group: Tue 31 Aug 2010
Burma's ethnic Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has put its foot down and in a statement today has reiterated that it will not transform its armed-wing the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) till a genuine federal union comes about and lasting peace is restored in Burma. If the ruling junta restores lasting peace through protracted dialogue with the KIO and implements the goals and aims set forth in the 1947 Panglong Agreement, which was signed by Kachin and other ethnic leaders for a multi-ethnic union with equal rights, the KIO will transform its armed-wing and other departments, the KIO statement released on August 30 said.
The statement made it clear that the KIO's stance and goal are based on democracy (existing sovereignty of the people) in a peaceful and developed country.
Wawhkyung Sin Wa, Deputy General Secretary of KIO said, the statement will be important and meaningful for any group or organization related to the KIO as well as the Kachin people.
For the first time in its over 16 year ceasefire period, the KIO was ordered on August 22 to surrender weapons from September 1 by the junta.
The surrender order came in the wake of the junta and KIO meeting over 15 times on the contentious Border Guard Force issue, where the regime demanded transformation of the KIA.
The junta has repeatedly rejected the KIO's proposal for a political dialogue before the armed-wing issue is addressed, said KIO officials.
On the junta's controversial November 7 elections, the KIO has, however, stated that it would like it to be "free and fair".
In order to inform pro-democracy groups, the statement pointed out that the KIO will cooperate with whoever works towards a consolidated and genuine federal union of Burma.
The KIO had signed a ceasefire agreement with the junta hoping for a meaningful political dialogue. It also approved the new junta-centric 2008 constitution despite severe opposition from the Kachin people and pro-democracy outfits.
As an offshoot of its rejecting the junta's BGF proposal, the KIO is regaining the support of the Kachin people and pro-democracy organizations, who had been alienated because of the KIO's proximity to the junta.
The statement on KIO's new policy was the result of two meetings — the meeting between KIO officials and Kachin public representatives on August 14 to 16 and the first Party Congress for KIO members on August 27 to 29 in Laiza, said Deputy General Secretary Sin Wa.
Delhi notes China's Indian Ocean 'interest'
Agence France Presse: Tue 31 Aug 2010
New Delhi – India on Tuesday said China was demonstrating "more than normal interest" in the Indian Ocean as two Chinese warships made a rare visit to military-ruled Myanmar. India is watchful of China's growing presence in the region, including its major investments in ports being built in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
The Chinese ships docked in Yangon on Sunday afternoon and were set to launch a series of exchanges with Myanmar's navy, Xinhua news agency reported.
"India has come to realise that China has been showing more than the normal interest in the Indian Ocean affairs. So we are closely monitoring the Chinese intentions," Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told parliament.
He did not make direct reference to the Chinese ships, but China is a key ally and trading partner of the junta that has ruled Myanmar since 1962.
China buys teak and gems from Myanmar and has shielded it from UN sanctions over rights abuses as a veto-wielding, permanent member of the Security Council.
India also looks to Myanmar for potential oil and gas imports and was criticised by rights monitors for hosting reclusive junta leader Than Shwe on a state visit to New Delhi in June.
Despite growing trade between China and India, ties between the emerging giants are wracked by mistrust.
Border disputes in Kashmir and the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a short war in 1962 and the presence of Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in India all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion.
Poverty in Burma is appalling – Lars Birgebard
Democratic Voice of Burma: Tue 31 Aug 2010
Poverty in Burma is widespread and appalling. The failure or disinterest of the government to provide a policy framework conducive to development and to direct resources to other needs than security largely explains the hard conditions under which so many people in Burma live. With support of different donors, UN Development Programme (UNDP) has gradually developed a major programme since 1993 attempting to address rural poverty. Presently this programme, the Human Development Initiative, reaches some 6,500 villages predominantly in border areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. This has been achieved in an extraordinarily hostile development policy and security context.
The complexity and difficulties in operating the programme have been further compounded by restrictions imposed by the UNDP Board on UNDP activities in Burma as a consequence of the US policy stand on the country and its influence in UNDP. Hence, in executing the HDI, UNDP has not been permitted to cooperate with government institutions or channel any funds through such institutions. For instance, it has not been possible to cooperate with the government structures at local level in the fields of agriculture, health, education, and so on, in order to coordinate activities and draw upon their technical staff resources. Therefore, UNDP has been forced to develop what has become a gigantic NGO-type organization. This arrangement has both reduced implementation capacity and undermined the prospects for sustainability of services delivered and benefits.
As the conditions under which the HDI is implemented by necessity reduce the prospects for impact and sustainability of achievements, expectations should be adjusted accordingly. A further consideration is that whatever impact achieved is of great importance given the deplorable living conditions of millions and millions in Burma.
The UNDP Board requires that an Independent Assessment Mission annually determines whether the UNDP Country Office implements the HDI within the mandate given to it by the Board. It is the Mission report for 2010 which is the basis for the article UN aid has 'limited impact' in Burma in DVB on 25 August. This Mission concludes that two of the three main projects in the HDI have had limited impact on poverty, as elaborated in the DVB article. This conclusion is based on impact evaluations undertaken by the programme itself.
However, the Mission does not find the entire programme deficient. It gives unreserved credit to the micro-finance project, which is the third main project in the programme. This project is outstanding and counts among the 20 most successful large micro-finance projects in the world. It proves that properly designed and well managed significant development gains for the benefit of poor people can be made also in Burma. Furthermore, the two remaining (small) projects in HDI – the HIV/AIDS project and the Household Survey project – are also found to be satisfactory.
The Mission expresses concern about two main projects in HDI and argues that the primary reason for their limited impact is to be found in the design. The Mission points out what it considers to be the design flaws. Doing so begs an answer to the question of what a modified design with better prospects for a greater impact could be. The Mission provided a tentative proposal on principles and a strategic approach for a revised design. However, given the terms of reference for the Mission and instructions from UNDP New York, this discussion is not included in the report, which is now made public, but in a separate report submitted to the UNDP-Myanmar Country Office. This may leave the unfortunate impression to the readers of the official report that provision of development support for poverty alleviation in Burma, at least through UNDP, is unsuccessful and has no prospects. End of story.
This is factually incorrect and not the conclusion of the Mission. Firstly, one of the three main projects in the programme, the micro-finance project, is a resounding success and two smaller projects are satisfactory as already noted. Secondly, the Mission is firmly of the opinion that modifications of the design of the two less successful main projects can significantly enhance impact on poverty. This opinion is not mere speculations; it is evidenced by concrete suggestions based on experience. The fact that the report containing this discussion is not made public prevents any further elaboration here.
The current programme comes to an end in 2011. This provides a golden opportunity for UNDP to elaborate a revised programme building on the viable elements of the present programme. The prospects for something better is clearly within reach. The potential of this programme is unique in Burma given its outreach and coverage. The staggering levels of poverty strongly call for attention. There is no reason and justification for "donor fatigue". However, there are reasons for reflection and reconsideration.
* Lars Birgegard is team leader of the UNDP's 2010 Independent Assessment Mission of the Human Development Initiative in Burma. He writes this piece partly in response to UN aid has 'limited impact' in Burma, published in DVB on 25 August.
Political transition: a chance for progress? – Noeleen Heyzer
Bangkok Post: Tue 31 Aug 2010
The government of Burma has announced it will hold a general election on Nov 7, the first to be held since 1990. This may provide an opportunity for Burma's military-led government to improve the country's political governance. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the government to honour its publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections, noting that any transition to democracy should also include the release of all political prisoners without delay.
In addition to a possible move toward a civilian-led government, it is also likely that improvements in political governance will present significant opportunities for economic and social advancement for the country, for an emerging middle class, and especially for the estimated one-third of Burma's 50 million people currently living in poverty.
Cease-fire agreements keep a tenuous peace in Burma today, between the central government and most of the dozens of ethnic groups along border areas where decades of conflict had left hundreds of thousands of villagers displaced in previous years. New transport routes and the gradual lifting of government restrictions on travel have increased economic and trade connections and opened social integration between the better-off central region and the more remote ethnic communities in the border highlands to an extent never seen before.
Over the past five years, the United Nations has significantly increased its humanitarian aid within the country, working closely with the government and with international non-governmental organisations to provide food, medicine and relief aid to more than 5 million people in need, and over a larger part of the country. But access remains uneven and still severely restricted in areas where the threat of conflict remains.
International donors including the United States and European countries have welcomed this opening of the humanitarian space, doubling the funding of critical relief available to Burma, where sanctions maintained by the very same countries restrict trade, economic activity and direct bilateral assistance to Burma. While there is much work to be done, the increased humanitarian aid has paid off, with clear progress shown in meeting several of the UN's Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma's agriculturally-rich Ayeyarwady Delta region in 2008, taking more than 140,000 lives and destroying hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice paddy, is still exacting a heavy cost on Burma, as affected villagers and farmers struggle to recover their livelihoods.
The tragedy of Nargis also led to an opening for the international community, with Burma's government allowing the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and others to provide direct aid to the affected Delta areas and to other areas of need in Burma.
Alongside my UN colleagues and Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of Asean, I worked closely with Burma's government to increase and target international aid in the immediate aftermath of Nargis.
Recognising that major economic structural changes were also needed, I urged the government to look abroad for help, and offered the assistance of the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) in suggesting needed technical and policy assistance to the government.
Ultimately, Escap brought Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz to Burma's capital on Dec 15 last year to offer his advice on how best to bring about development and poverty reduction.
Despite the sanctions of the United States and Europe, Burma's neighbours, India and China, and other countries are making investments and constructing gas pipelines, deepwater ports, and roads, and engaging in business activities sparking significant economic growth in Burma. The next government, whatever its make-up, will face critical economic and development choices, and in weighing these they have the opportunity to make a real difference in the country's future:
- Investment or lost windfall? The continuing development of Burma's large offshore natural gas holdings means that the new government will soon benefit from substantial increased export earnings, revenue that could fund economic and social investment – or become a squandered windfall, as has happened in all too many developing nations.
- Opening up the economy to those on the bottom. Closing the development gap is critical to achieving social and economic security and is most rapidly achieved through the active participation of the poor. Improving the assets and skills of the working poor, and the public services available to them, directly promotes growth and stability for the economy as a whole. Countries grow faster when the bottom half is participating and contributing productively.
- Strategic and structural economic reform. A new government may possess a unique opportunity to determine the path of development and economic growth for the country, especially by promoting and supporting the emergence of a middle class. Making the economy more inclusive, investing in rural and social infrastructure and encouraging competition and small business enterprises are badly needed reforms that a new government can take on, if Burma is to move forward.
- Helping small farmers and traders. Strategic investments in agriculture and the rural economy has multiple benefits, by addressing food security and rural livelihood issues, and sparking significant economic and development benefits in the rural communities, where Burma's poorest people live. Rural incomes will increase when farmers receive a higher price for their produce and when their costs of production are reduced. A recent government decree reforming the
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text:
A totally synthetic explosion sound that could be the firing of a large gun instead of a bomb exploding. This is similar in intent to ArtilleryFireSynthetic.wav and ArtilleryFireSynthetic2.wav, but takes a different approach. The end result has more of an effect like what you might expect from a tank firing its big gun. Created in Cool Edit Pro. Listen also to the sounds named like ExplosionBombBlastAmbient3.wav or some other number besides 3 (from nothing or 2 up through whatever -- 6 is the top, at the time of this writing, but check as more may have been added).
perfect :D i lik it.
so epic!!
Perfect !!!
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sometimes I find it relaxing to put on some nice chill music and pour myself a little bit of scotch right before going to bed. It's all fine and dandy until when I'll have to then run back down to the bathroom and brush my teeth again... the trip downstairs, the teeth-brushing, the cool minty toothpaste all adds to killing that pleasant pre-sleep buzz.
So caring deeply about my dental heath, I'd really like to know whether it's necessary to brush your teeth again after consuming a bit of liquor. Thoughts?


text:
Recorded April 18, 1975 by Mrs. Elva R. Adams, Museum Director, Warren County Historical Society Museum.
Mrs. Adams.Ā Mr. Crosley, we are most happy to have you with us today. Could you tell us something of your background in Warren County?
Mr. Crosley. Well, Mrs. Adams, I'll be very happy to try to remember the stories that my father often told about this early life in Warren County.
His mother and father started housekeeping apparently on a small farm near Springboro of about 26 acres and their principal crop was tobacco. But going back to his earliest days that I recall, he told about living in a log cabin with three sides. That story was not too convincing with me - I could not see how they could build a house with three sides.Ā But I believe it was built originally around a large fireplace; the fireplace had to be in such a position in connection with the house that a log and firewood could be brought in with a horse.Ā My father told of the fact that when he was very small, perhaps about a year old, his father was holding him on his lap in front of the fireĀ and my father's oldest brother, Marion Crosley, was then somewhere around 15 or 16 years old and he drove a horse into the house dragging a log. My father's father, my grandfather, attempted to reach forward to push the log into the fire and my father fell forward into the fireplace, into the live coals, with his hands and fingers spread out like this. Until he died, his hands, the palm of his hands, showed scars from this fire so he must have been burned pretty badly for a little guy that size.
My father told many stories about the life, remember they were out in the country by themselves - with neighbors, of course. Their principal crop was tobacco and he often said that his back ached some because they'd plant tobacco and carry these plants down a row and wouldn't raise up until he got to the end of the row. He often told other stories, for example I know that they told the same stories over and over again. (In the early days of radio, we found that the early comedians did the same thing. They did not come up with new stories every time; they told what people laughed at so they told the same stories over again.)
I know one of the stories he told was that the blacksmith wanted a helper but did not know how to pay the helper for he had very little money. So he said he would pay the helper one horseshoe nail the first day and two the second and four the third and eight the fourth and he did not realize that by the end of the month he was up to one million or two million horseŁshoe nails. He told that many, many times. He often told the story about the farmer who had a milk cow and he worried about feeding the cow so he thought he would put a little sawdust in with the feed for the milk cow. The first day he put a small handful in and the next day a little more and a little more until finally the cow was eating nothing but sawdust; but she died. Those are the kinds of stories they told repeatedly. They just laughed at them and thought it was fun. Then they played games, particularly checkers. He was a marvelous checker player. You couldn't beat him but he had an enormous amount of practice playing checkers. So their life was, of course, very primitive.
My father must have been very bright because he was raised and educated in a one room schoolhouse. When he was about 1? or 18 years old, I don't know just what grade it was at the time, maybe through high school, he was given the job of schoolteacher. He taught school for a number of years until, I think, he was about 25. I know had had his problems. He said he was short and not too tall, about five, ten; he wasn't as tall as my brother. I was over six; both of us were over six. At any rate, he had trouble with the boys - so one of these boys he invited up and thrashed him right in front of the rest of the boys, and the rest of the school and they had no more trouble. He grew a mustache and a goatee to make himself look older. He apparently tired of this teaching job so he decided he wanted to be a lawyer. He went up to Ann Arbor, MichiganĀ and took the law course. Of course, he was about 25 or 26 when he entered law school. He was older than the other boys were and he did very well.
Then he went to Cincinnati and worked in the office of and was a law partner of Senator Butterworth which was quite a thing for a young man.
Mrs. Adams. About what year would that be, Mr. Crosley?
Mr. Crosley.Ā Well, I would say that dad was born in '49 and it was, well about 28 years later; it would be '49, '59, '69, '79, that would be in the late 70's. I know that at the time when they burned the courthouse in Cincinnati, he was a young lawyer. At the time they burned the courthouse, he slept through the riot and didn't see anything of the riot. That was quite an affair and they had to bring in the militia to stop it. They had some murderers in a jail back of the courthouse. As I remember the story, many people in town were afraid these fellows were going to get off and so they were going to get them. They broke into the courthouse and set the courthouse on fire. They didn't do anything for the prisoners, I don't believe, but they had a pretty good riot going and they had to bring in some soldiers and put a stop to it.
My father was a lawyer all his life and we thought that he was a very good one. He made money in his early life and then we had depressions. I know that he had owned some oil wells and gas wells up in the state and I know when they struck oil in different parts of the country, he went up in the northern states.
My brother was, let's get to my brother for a few moments if you don't mind.Ā We were raised in the days when the automobile was just getting started. There was a tremendous amount of fascination in the whole country about automobiles. There were many makes and many people built automobiles, and assembled them, and contests were held as to naming automobiles. My brother was very much fascinated. In fact, he wanted to build an automobile when we were teenagers and we did. My father said he tried to discourage us a little bit.Ā He said I do not think you can do that but if you run it down the block and back which was about a mile altogether, I'll give you $10.00. With the help of the blacksmith and mostly my brother's ingenuity, and at the time it was my money, we built an automobile powered by a small electric motor and battery and we earned the $10.00. My brother could never get over the idea of building an automobile. In fact, he had some as he was growing up and as a young businessman, he assembled a car and, I think, they called it the Marathon VI or something like that. But it takes a lot of money to get into the automobile business and it does not go far. So in 1916 my brother, Powel, was the representative, salesman, for an advertising agency in Cincinnati. In school he was not a good student but he was a good writer. He could write short stories and his English work was excellent and he was a good reader. He'd have a client and he would write the copy for his clients. One of his clients was in the rubber business and in those days the tires on automobiles had a very short life. They were fabric with rubber on the outside and they had a life of about 3,000 miles. So people bought reliners and blowout patches and things like that and one of the big sellers was a reliner. My brother thought, well, I would like to start a mail order business so he made arrangements with this company to supply him with some material on a credit basis, limited credit, and he employed a girl and had a desk and he started the American Accessories Company with one girl and no money in 1916. It grew rather rapidly and he moved out from town, Cincinnati, out to Northside and rented a room out there. At that time I was an employee in civil engineering work with the Engineer Corps on river work, mostly on the Ohio River. I was employed by the Cincinnati office. It was in 1917 that my brother wanted me to go with him.Ā I had a reserve commission in the Engineer Corps and I said, well, I had to see this thing through, the war I mean, and if I get through and come out of it, I'll be glad to come see you. So after the war in 1919, I went to him. The Engineer Corps wanted me because I had beenĀ on all-around assignment - I. was their all-around man. Wisely, I chose to go with my brother which I never regretted.
The business by that time had grown to over 100 people. He still had the idea that he wanted to build an automobile; but if he did, he was going to finance it with his own money. So about that time, I 'm talking about the 20's, we could see the handwriting on the wall because the cord tire was introduced and the mileage of the tires immediately jumped from about 3,000 or 3,500 miles to 14,000 or 15,000 miles and that made a big difference and that stopped the reliner business. These reliners were called "inside tires." We sold them, of course, to anyone who would buy them. In that business, I'll go back a minute, we had aĀ woodworking plant because we sold phonographs. We built the phonograph cabinets and bought the mechanism. Seeing that there was a limit to this reliner business, we had to look and search for other businesses.
We had a soap business that was called the United States Soap Company.Ā We had a business of developing films and plate by mail order.Ā These were all mail order businesses.
We had worked several things and the radio was one of them and radio broke very, very rapidly in 1920, '21, and '22.Ā We started broadcasting WLW in 1922.Ā Our business grew so rapidly it was fantastic and we acquired property from time to time.Ā In the late 20's the radio business became a tough business;Ā became very competitive.Ā The broadcasting business in the meantime kept growing because we increased the power from time to time.Ā We were really the leaders in increasing power.Ā In the late 20's we felt that the manufacturing business in radio was very seasonable.Ā It would slack off in the spring and summer.Ā The radio actually seemed to be better in those days in the fall and winter than it was when the static conditions of summer were very great.Ā So we played with the idea of refrigeration and we had different engineers come in on an experimental basis.Ā One man came from Canada and he said, "You know, I can build a nonautomatic refrigerator."Ā In those days household refrigerators were complicated things.Ā The people would buy and icebox like a Monroe icebox, a real nice icebox and put it in their kitchen or serving pantry and then the unit would be put in the basement because it was a belt and pulley job and made a great deal of noise.Ā The brass tubing would be brought up to the evaporator which would be in the ice compartment, so instead of a block of ice, you would have an evaporator in there.Ā Kelvinator and Frigidare, the principal makers of refrigeration in those days, would sell these units to the installer and his job would be to install it. This chap by the name of Keith came in and he said, "You know, I can build a nonautomatic refrigerator." So to make a long story short, he built them in production. We built thousands of refrigerators that were called "Icy Balls." You would cook this unit, just like a big dumbbell. We would supply a cabinet and a stove, a little burner and a big tub that you put water in and you would have to heat this gadget every day, once a day. It had a tube in it for an ice tray. You'd be surprised how many we sold. They had wider distribution to islands in Africa and everywhere than anything we ever built. We got up to a production of about 400 or 450 a day. I think we built nearly 100,000 Icy Balls before the modern electric refrigerator appeared. Then people wouldn't bother with all this monkey business of handling an Icy Ball. We went from the Icy Ball to a more modern refrigerator completely encased in a cabinet like they are today. The first year we built, I think, about 15 or 18 thousand. We wanted something to supplement the radio business which, as I said, was seasonable. The winter after we started building (this was in the early 30's), the first year of refrigeration, an engineer came from Detroit. He was an engineer with the Kelvinator Company and his name was West. He had a patent on a refrigerator door with shelves in the door. He had been around to see all the different manufacturers and refrigerators and they had all turned him down. He offered it to us and I remember the conversation in my brother's office. He had been in before and sold us a patent on a running seal which was used before the hermetically sealed units were built and manufacturers were mindful of hermetic units where the motor and everything is encased in the unit. This patent which he sold us, I think for about $10, 000, did not prove out practically so when he came back with another patent, he wanted $25,000 for this patent. It was in the name of his wife, Constant Lane West. She had come up with an idea and they had it patented in her name. So my brother said, "Offer him so much a unit," but he said, "No, I want just so much money and that is it." So my brother said, "I bought a patent from you for $10,000 and it's no good so we'll just take the $10,000 off the S25,000 and give you $15,000 for this one." We started working on our production. That just turned the refrigerator business around. The thing was that they were used to a flat door, you know, and here we had a concave door and shelves in that door.Ā The first year we had our tooling all started on the next year's model [unreadable] you [unreadable] we'd bring out a new model every year.Ā At that time all we could do was to dish out the door and it was a little bit of thing with some shelves in it.Ā We jumped from 15,000 or 18,000 to 65,000 units in just one year.Ā We stirred them all up with these doors. The next year we had shelves in the door that really worked and that was a big boom to our refrigeration business.
Mrs. Adams. This would be about the same time that General Electric was making refrigerators with the monitor on the top?
Mr. Crosley.Ā They were bragging about their unit on top: they came out with a hermetically sealed unit. Everybody else had a belt and pulley job and then they had a running seal. In those days when you'd go off on a vacation, you'd have to turn all these valves off or you would lose all your charge while you were gone because it would work while it was running; but when it stopped, you would lose your seal, you'd lose your charge.
So as the radio business got tough, we had refrigeration to help us out and then our broadcasting business with the high power was a tremendous thing. We had one of the finest broadcasting businesses in the United States in the late 20's and the 30's with WLW with the high power, with 500,000 watts - we had the only station in the country with 500,000 watts.Ā We were pioneers and we built up a tremendous marketing business. We had live talent. Most of the radio stations you listen to today don't have live talent like we had in those days. We had audition teams in New York and Chicago picking up talent and sending them in. We weren't playing canned music such as they do now, nothing like that. So our business was held together when people like Atwater Kent went out of business because they stuck to the radio and they couldn't make money on it.
My brother was thinking of new things all the time. Somewhere along about 1939, he started building Crosley cars. He still wanted to build an automobile. He thought if he could build new refrigeration and we could build radios, we can bring out new models all the time so why not bring out an automobile. We had a factory big enough to do it so we got an engineering department going in a little building that he owned and we developed a car. We bought many of the parts for it. We bought the engine from Waukesha, a little two cylinder cool engine and most of the elements. It was largely an assembled car but we put the body together. We had the stampings come in and so on. We set up the line at our plant in Richmond, down the side of our plant. We built about 30 cars a day until we got into World War II and then we had to phase out all the activities such as radios, refrigerators and automobiles. We were given a date, five or six months time, to clean out our commitments and our pipeline of parts and convert over to war work. I 'd been in government service, as I said, for several years and I thought l knew & little about it, at least I could talk to them. So at that time I spent a whole lot of my time going to Wright Field where the Air Force did most of its purchasing and other purchasing locations such as the Quartermaster Corps down at Jeffersonville Barracks, across the river from Louisville. Then we had the Ordinance Department in Cincinnati and we had some departments in Washington. We had other people we called on for subcontracts. So during that period of converting over to war work, we actually picked up volume for the Armed Forces and we got a lot of credit for doing it.
Mrs. Adams. Did they dictate what you should manufacture?
Mr. Crosley. Oh, yes. We bid on most of these jobs and we were a volume producer; we sliced the prices that we bid on. At Wright Field, for example, I remember a bomber release mechanism that they had been buying for about $28.00 a piece and we started out with them at a price of $9.00. They thought we had lost our minds. But of course, we had production methods that the small people that they had been dealing with in Dayton did not know about.Ā As a consequence, we went backĀ with the next order and shaved our price. This was before renegotiation contracts came in. If we'd make 30 or 40 percent, which we often did, we would submit a ship to shore cost and 10 percent profit and give them a check backĀ which was unheard of in those days. Even then we cut the price so low because of the methods we used. These units not only had to be built to specifications, but they had to work. The trigger mechanisms and all those things were very tricky things to build.Ā So we could build quality into our products that they weren't used to. We also picked up a lot of default orders. They'd place an order with some firm and in 90 days they'd find they hadn't even started. They'd frantically get hold of us and I'd say, well, I'll start giving them to you in a week and put them in the tool room. They could not understand how we could work so fast.
We built several products that were fantastic in my opinion. 'We built two items that revolutionized the manufacture of shells so they shut down shell plants all over the country on account of the work that we did. We built what was called a Mark XIV sight for the Navy that had gyros in it and it was so set that all they had to do was aim this gun or maybe four guns at a plane. The plane would be going across like this and automatically the gun would be firing out this way and the plane would be going this way and the shells would meet the plane and the plane would come down - instead of just shooting all around and wondering where they were going to hit it.
We built something else right on schedule and, I think, when we got the order, MIT had developed this idea on a breadĀ board. Now people know that Atwater Kent started building radio sets on a bread board. They just put the different parts on a bread board and wired them up instead of having them in a box like you are familiar with. They were just laid out on a board and you'd put the various parts that go in a radio set and wire them up and that would be your radio set. So this thing came to us in a bread board model and we had to put it in production. I think, it was either 60 or 90 days we had to turn out the first 30 we had to turn out 60 the next 30 days. They said there wasn't any company in the country that could do it. We had nearly all the watch manufacturers and repair men and oculists in Cincinnati working for us. We had 10,000 people working for us. Of course, we ran the plant seven days a week, 24 hours a day. That was the Mark XIV sight, the proximity fuse was a theory that they'd have fuses and they' d have to estimate where the plane was, how high the plane was, maybe 10,000 feet, with range finders. Then they'd have to set a fuse and then fire and by that time that plane wouldn't be anywhere near.Ā They'd just guess at it.Ā This proximity fuse was the idea that you'd have a radio, this would all be in a fuse now, the inside not much bigger than my finger. The radio would send out a signal and if the signal hit the plane, the signal would bounce back and fire the shell. It's an antiaircraft and had a tremendous impact in firing. It's not like a howitzer when they just lob things over. You just shoot up there four or five miles in the air and it takes a lot of push. It took us a year, I think, before we had one that would work. Everyone that was tested was taken out with live Marines all the time. Finally we had them approved, you see, they had batteries in them, they had electric tubes in them and all sorts of things. The battery wouldn't go to work until it was fired because you had them on shipboard. You had them on shipboard rolling around and they had to stand all the tests of any shells on shipboard because, you know, they don't want these shells to roll around and explode on a ship. So we got up to l6,500 a day of these shells, made them all, machined the parts and everything ourselves. It was absolutely fantastic! The girls and fellows didn't know what they were working on; they were all divided up in little rooms. So we built a lot of fine things - no automobiles during the war, of course, no radios except for the government.
Mrs. Adams. Was this done mostly in Cincinnati?
Mr. Crosley. In Cincinnati and at Richmond; we had a big plant in Richmond.
We took, as I said, some subcontract work. The job that lasted the longest - we built half-tracks. We machined and supplied the metal parts for half-tracks and they're tough. That lasted longer than anything that we had; I mean a lot more months, more tons or more anything you want. We made them for B. F. Goodrich, I think, subcontract.
Mrs. Adams. What's a half-track?
Mr. Crosley. A half-track is a gadget. You know what a caterpillar tractor is - it lays its track. A half-track has wheels in front and in the back part is a track. There are lots of vehicles like that. They could go over the sand and mud and go through water and everything better than an entirely wheeled vehicle and it had more power, you see, and a lot more pep. They had to have metal parts; they were very tough to stand this thing and they had to have rubber on top of these. We built them for a rubber company - they supplied the rubber and we supplied the metal parts.
So during the period when we were struggling, I'd say the late 20's and the early 30's, we lost money on radios; but the broadcasting was so fantastic and the refrigeration was so good that we kept going. The broadcasting was particularly good because we had the power and then we had a very fine merchandising setup. You have heard of Ralph Corbett in Cincinnati with his philanthropic work? Well, he was with us and he did contract work with us on merchandising. He did a fantastic job and that is where he got his start. We brought him to Cincinnati, We had a meager of the broadcasting department by the name of John Clark who did a fantastic job and he introduced a lot of things in the way of talent and the way of merchandising all that. It was a huge department. We had, I think, three arrangers in the music department. We had more musicians than anybody in Cincinnati, more actors than anything in Cincinnati. We really had an open session.
Mrs. Adams.Ā How did you compare with Pittsburgh?
Mr. Crosley. Well, I don't think they were anywhere near us. They were a little earlier than we were - they got started a little earlier. But you got back to that sort of thing. In the early days of radio, I'm talking about the early days when we first started, circuits were simple.Ā We employed an engineering student by the name ofĀ Dorman Israel, he was a cooperative engineering student at the University of Cincinnati; he was a specialist in radio circuits. He came with us and he designed our radio sets for us. I'm talking about the early days way back in the 1920's. My brother wanted to broadcast and so he hired a chap by the name of Ham Fordyce. There were little radio stores that made their own radios in Cincinnati and I suppose in other places in those days. Radios were not commercially built like they are today.>
Mrs. Adams. Did they call those crystal sets?
Mr. Crosley. Well, the very first were and the first set we built was a crystal set. You are going back a ways now - do you remember that?
Mrs. Adams. I was a little girl.
Mr. Crosley. We had this woodworking plant. We built phonographs, as I said. A chap came to my brother, he lived right in the neighborhood with my brother, and said, "I have an idea." He had written something he brought out on a piece of paper. MyĀ brother called in our patent attorneys. We made it and designed it - what he called a "Go-Bye-Bye." My brother was a great namer of things; if he got out a product, he had to put a name on it, you know. So this was a little gadget with a couple of wheels and a little axle in back and a ring, a little seat for a child to sit on and a couple of casters in the front and a little ring. You'd put a child that could not walk into this thing. We had two girls, the other daughter younger than this one - they were ten years apart. She was on this thing kicking herself all over the floor at five months old. She could do anything; she was a little redhead; she just didn't want to stop. We built those things out of scrap in the woodworking plant, largely scrap and we sold them, We'd have a mail order business and like these people do, we'd get lists of mothers, you know. When the kid was five months or six months, we'd circularize her and sell her a Bye-Bye. We built a lot of them and sold them. Well, there was a fellow that we knew a friend of ours, he thought, "I'm a salesman, a salesman for the Jackson Box Company." They were way back then; they made boxes. This fellow cleaned out his coal bin in the cellar and started a mail order business and he bought things from us and sold them. So he bought these things and after a year or so, he thought, "Heck, I'll make those myself.Ā So he brought out the Taylor Tot. Do you remember the Taylor Tot?
Mrs. Adams. I do.
Mr. Crosley. You do remember the Taylor Tot. We had to sue him because he was infringing on our business; he was infringing on our patents. He lost the suit; he had to either quit or buy us out. So he bought us out, bought our patents and quit making Bye-bye
We sold the phonographs by mail - $5.00 down or $1.00 a week or something like that and had quite a business going. Then we started in this radio thing and in the building that we built the phonographs, we built these crystal sets. They were little things about this long. That was the first set and we called them "Harko Juniors." Then we started making one tube sets and so on. First thing you know these sets all began coming back on us because in the wintertime you could get KDKA and all those different stations, you know, Detroit, WWJ, and Atlanta, Georgia and all the rest of them. So we were worried, this was about '22 or '23. My sister got married and her new husband's brother, they were all friends of ours in college, you know; he said to Powel, "I think you can buy the Precision Equipment Company." That was a company in Cincinnati that owned WMH - now that's the station as early or earlier than KDKA and that was earlier than we were.Ā It was over at Perrle's Corner. You know where Perrlate corner was in Cincinnati.Ā They were manufacturing radio sets, making them by hand. You know, three or four guys sitting at a bench making sets by hand. You could buy a act but it was pretty expensive. They had this radio station going; they had a few people working there - 15 or 20 people. So to make a long story short, they had one of the original 17 Armstrong licenses. Now that was a radio circuit patent that had to do with regeneration and when they regenerated a circuit, it made it much more sensitive. So they had something we didn't have. You couldn't go buy an Armstrong license - that was ahead of RCA licenses and Hazeltine and all that stuff. So my brother bought this company. We had WLW; this was before commercial broadcasting and it was costing us money every month to run the station. So we just shut WMH down. I went over there and moved what we wanted, all the stuff over to our factory. I talked to the people and I took about half the people employed, about half of them. One of them was Grace Rains; she was the vocal coach in our broadcasting. She's the one who developed the Mills Brothers and all those others. You know, the Mills Brothers are still on. They were at our station. They were up here from Piqua. They sang out on the street as little kids with a tin cup, before we got them. Grace Rains was their coach. She coached a lot of them. We had a lot of them. We could sit here and name all or a few of them.
Mrs. Adams. You hired them on a steady basis?
Mr. Crosley. Oh, yes, they were right on our pay roll. We had Ramona and we had Salt and Peanuts - I don't know, you could just go down the line. We had a fantastic setup of talent and we had Ralph Corbett selling our stuff. We had a coffee company who wanted to get into Cincinnati and we'd find a distributor for them and line up their dealers and everything else - do all their selling for them. If you'd go in a drug store, you'd fall over all the products we put in that drug store. That's how Ralph got started.
When we got out of this thing and when he wanted to do something else, he was doing it as an outside contractor, Ralph was. He wasn't on our pay roll. He was working for us. He heard of NuTone, door chimes, you know. It was a little outfit with about three people working for them. He bought NuTone and built NuTone up to that fantastic thing and made all those millions. That's how smart he was. He was in business for himself.
Mrs. Adams. And how wisely he has used his money - beautifully.
Mr. Crosley. He was smart as a whip. He has given $18 million, that I know of, away. He probably has more money now than he knows what to do with.Ā He reinvested it in a lot of things.
Mrs. Adams. And his business is still as.
Mr. Crosley. No he sold his business and retired. But he has been a tremendous help to the Symphony.
Mrs. Adams. I should say he has.
Mr. Crosley. And a lot of things. And out there at the University. They've helped the University fantastically.
Mrs. Adams. I read in the paper just the other day that he had given, I think it was $52,000 to the Dayton Symphony also. This has been a wonderful hour. I hope you are not too tired.*Ā Thank you so very much.
Mr. Crosley was 89 when this interview took place.
Posted here with permission.
From the book "Oral History of Warren County,
Ohio, 1895 - 1950, pages 27 through 35.
Copied by Mary A. Crosley McGill in Lebanon Ohio Library, September 24, 1996.
Forwarded to J. Watson by P. Mann on 1/25/97.
Converted to digital format by Jim Watson on June 30,
|A Microsoft Word version (.doc) of this interview is available here.
|A Rich Text format (.rft) version of this interview is available here.
|A Plain Text (.txt) version of this interview is available here.
|Note: Easiest way to save one of these is to right-click on the link, and then choose "Save Target As."


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Welcome to Calling on the Angels! I've asked for people to share their stories, and this one came from my friend, Robin Wiggs of A Healing Art Massage. Here's Robin's story:
This was before I really embraced my psychic abilities. They were more for observation and learning for me than anything else.
I was working on a client and somewhere during the session I realized there was a man sitting in the chair in the corner of my small office. Big energy, making sure I knew he was there and he was watching me. Again, I see myself as an observer so that's what I was doing. Not freaked out, just observing. His presence continued to become stronger, not menacing just very present and almost forceful as far as protection for the client I was working on. I got the message this must be her father. He had been an avid runner and had had a heart attack a few years before while running around the lake which was the epicenter of all fitness in the town where I lived.
As I continued to observe I realized the entire room was filled with spirits. All kinds, young, old, male, female, all hanging around this client I was working on. All 4 walls were lined shoulder to shoulder with spirits. They were chatting, standing, lost, confused, all things an earthbound spirit might be experiencing. The epic number of them was a bit unsettling, especially if I tried to see each one individually (and that didn't feel safe for me) so I simply kept myself in the place of observer and didn't freak out. I also had the feeling there were many more that I couldn't see and didn't really want to. There were two young females in particular that wouldn't shut up, like teenagers chatting and whispering to each other.
At one point my guide (who had revealed herself to me previously in a dream) peaked out from behind a corner cabinet, looked at me, smiled and waved. My first thought was "are you kidding? All these souls in my space and you're hiding behind the cabinet?" What I realized afterwards is that she wasn't hiding, she was letting me know she was there with me while not letting the other spirits know she was there. She was protecting and guarding me and wanted to let me know without revealing herself to the others. I'm very thankful our Guides don't judge us for our human misunderstandings.
I had more than one spirit land in that chair while I was working there. After this experience I claimed the corner and the chair, added my own pillow to the chair and that seemed to help. Apparently that corner was a portal of some kind although the office itself always seemed to have lots of activity in the hallway and reception area.
My Guide is with me always. She protects my work space, she shows me when expansion is coming and or necessary. Sometimes I go for days without acknowledging her yet she is always there with me.


text:
Artist description:
HIME-J did the line art and I colored^^ Thanks for the awsome line art HIME!!
Java Draw Created Apr 16, 2011 338 x 470px Unless noted Copyright 2011 *CarissaSanford*.
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Really nice collab! I love the indigo colour for the hair and the details with the embroidery in the shirt and gloves and the other little bits of awesome you sprinled into this piece! :D Fullhearts!
Amazing coloured!!!
amazing collab the coloring is awesome especially her cloths amazing work 5/5 to you both
amazing collab!! i like how you color it :) 5/5 and collection
Awesome..great colouring and details 5/5
Amazing job you girls. :-) I like the effort put into this.
Yay! I was looking forward to seeing this! Beautiful! I love all of the curly designs on the dress and sleeved :D Wonderful job :D Thank you for making my fugly lineart look pretty~
Amazing drawing...I love it!! 5/5 ^_^
Cool collaboration!XD Sweet colloring! Nice line art Hime-j! 5/5hearts


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|The beautiful garden at Villa La Pietra, New York University, Florence
My holiday in Lucca is sadly coming to an end. I have had a wonderful week with some wonderful friends.
Today I was lucky enough to visit the foundry in Pietrasanta where Richard W Boardman's bronze sculpture is cast.
Richard brought a new sculpture to be cast - a duck named Quickquack. This is Ivo, the foundry owner taking down all the details.
Measuring the height from beak to table so that Quickquack can be finished at the correct angle when the feet are welded to the body.
And here we all are, Richard, Quickquack, Pietro, me and Ivo.
I got a great tour of the foundry and saw the casting process from start to finish. Ivo and Pietro are incredible artisans.
After that we took a trip to the coast and Forte dei Marmi where even the pavements are made of marble. The strange weather that's crossing Europe at the moment had made the sea unusually choppy, with huge waves crashing up the beach. This is Patrice and me standing on the pier.
What else did I get up to? Lots of things including...
Shopping in Florence (this is at the famous Farmacia Santa Maria Novella).
And falling in love with Italian cars!


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I though of cutting out that brush in his face but prudience being the better part of valor,,,,decided against it. This is after all, a wild Buffalo about 400 mi from a Dr that's been to doctor school!!!
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text: SIX prominent Irish artists short-listed to compete in the 2007 Irish American Arts Awards in New York have withdrawn their names from the competition. On Monday Noel Kelly, the director of Visual Artists Ireland in Dublin, stated that all six short-listed artists are no longer participating and are now seeking the return of their submissions.The six artists are Cecily Brennan, Noel Brennan, Mark Garry, Conor McFeely, Corban Walker and Lee Welch. Kelly stated that his organization, Visual Artists Ireland, is now committed to helping the artists who supplied the short-listed submissions to secure the return of their works.On Monday it was learned that not only do the six members seek the return of their submissions, they now wish to publicly disassociate themselves from the Irish American Arts Awards completely. All six artists were short listed for their entries in 2007. However they expected the final awards - which was to have included a top prize of $25,000 - to have been made by now and so they are requesting the works be returned without delay.The request for the return of the works is an unexpected development for the Irish American Arts Awards program, whose website includes banner sponsorship from companies and government agencies as well known as Samsung, Hennessy and Culture Ireland. Currently the website for the program also includes a strong message of support from the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese."The decision was taken by all six of the artists to withdraw. The artist simply lost confidence in the success of the awards and there have been significant delays between the announcement of the shortlist and the announcement of the winners, so the artists have chosen to remove themselves from it," said Kelly."The artists have been in communication trying to find out what the current situation is and if the awards are taking place. There is an undertaking that the awards will take place in the future, but the artists' willingness to wait had been stretched. They decided it was far better to disassociate themselves at this point."Simon Pereira Shorey, the main force behind the competition and the Arts Awards chief organizer, lists an impressive array of personal clients on the website that include British Gas, BP and the Duchy of Cornwall. He lists his current responsibilities as representing the family consultancy ZP & Associados throughout the U.S., for a group that is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Of Irish and Brazilian ancestry, Pereira Shorey, who lives in Jersey City, serves on the board of advisors of the Irish Business Organization (IBO) of New York, and on the board of the Northern Ireland's Women's Initiative and also on the New York board of Boys Hope, Girls Hope.On Tuesday Pereira Shorey told the Irish Voice, "That some individuals have been frustrated by delays caused by the funding shortfall is quite understandable. The tremendous volunteer team at the IAAA, that I have the honor to lead, all take time out of demanding careers to help Irish visual arts and they too have felt frustrations at times. "The art that was to be shipped to the U.S. by the currently short-listed artists never left Ireland and is being held by the shipper they decided to use to send it to the U.S. before the planned last event was postponed. There was some confusion about this but it is anticipated that it should be back in their hands very shortly."A source close to the awards stated that each of other Executive Board members listed on the Irish American Arts Awards website were acting in a voluntary capacity and that some of them had already requested their names and photographs to be taken off it, although this has not yet been done.The cash prize for the overall Irish American Arts Award winner was advertised as $25,000 and the second prize of $2,500 for the category winner. In 2006 the Irish artist Mary Kelly won the over 35-category prize of $2,500, although as noted in Ireland's arts magazine Circa, she has yet to be paid. Responding to this development Pereira Shorey said, "Mary Kelly too should soon be in receipt of her Award and we are most grateful to her in her patience for not pressing for it whilst the IAAA was reorganizing its funding."According to the Dublin based arts magazine Enrique Juncosa, director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and chairman of the Panel of Judges, has also withdrawn from the Irish American Arts Awards panel.Despite the controversies and dramatic setbacks Pereira Shorey was philosophical."The IAAA, whose necessity was articulated by Consul General Niall Burgess as the "If it didn't exist we would have to invent it", and was described as "a superb platform for artists of Irish heritage" by Mary McAleese the President of Ireland, has always been limited not by the enthusiasm and long hard work of the artists, gallerists, academics and others who support the IAAA, and the team at the IAAA, but by the financial recourses made available to it to continue its mission. "We have faith that such recourses will soon be available and ask all involved to redouble their support for Irish contemporary visual art. Art crosses cultural, ethnic and religious boundaries as few things can. Art matters. Art is important."


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There are a slew of traffic and road interruptions early next week in Genesee County.
In LeRoy, the Department of Transportation is beginning work on Route 5 from west of the village line to the Livingston County line beginning Monday.
In the area east of village, traffic will be reduced to a single alternating traffic pattern in each direction. Street parking in the business district is prohibited during the paving.
Crews will be preparing for road paving next week, which then begins the following week of the 28th.
DOT officials say the work should last three weeks. Officials say motorists should expect delays and allow extra time to travel. Access to residential and commercial driveways will be maintained throughout the project.
For other road closures coming up early next week in the City of Batavia, click here: http://bit.ly/1pkx1So


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Forest Hills RV & Golf Resort22931 185th St
Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
Phone: (218)439-6400Fax: (218)439-6471
This eighteen hole course offers a picturesque mixture of open prairies and cozy woods. The course, which was originally nine holes, has expanded to eighteen holes. The original nine has been completely renovated. The large, oval greens on the front nine are traditional in style while the greens on the back nine are smaller and offer an extensive variety of shapes. Water comes into play on ten holes, in the form of wildlife ponds. There is an abundance of deer, geese and ducks on the course. Ten of the holes are tightly lined with majestic oaks. Amenities on the course include a campground with a golf package, restaurant, bar, indoor pool, hot tub, fitness center, and amphitheater.
|Holes: 18
|Greens: Bent Grass
|Fairways: Bermuda Grass
|Greens Fees:
|$20 or Less
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|Apr 1 to Nov 1
|Guest Policy:
* Update this Course: Update/modify the details for this golf course's listing.
*All Greens Fees provided are subject to change. Please call the golf course to confirm the current fees.


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|If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was and always will be yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with. If, however, it just sits in your living room, messes up your stuff, eats your food, uses your t... Read more of If you love something at Free Jokes.ca
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Many of us probably wouldn't be here today, if it wasn't for the NRA.
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Julian Carter, seated left, eats pumpkin pie as he waits for his bus for his Thanksgiving trip to Savannah and Naples, Fla., at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, Wednesday.Richard Drew/AP
ATLANTA -- On the busiest travel day of the year, Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport was shuffling people through with few problems, but travelers on Georgia's highways didn't have such luck.
Highways leaving Atlanta started clogging before noon, and a tractor-trailer accident on Interstate 95 near Brunswick left traffic in south Georgia backed up for 10 miles Wednesday morning.
That accident caused only minor injuries, but it created a major headache for travelers headed to Florida for the holiday. Two of three lanes were blocked, and it took an hour to remove the three tractor-trailers from the road.
In Atlanta, state traffic engineers said highway traffic was bad by lunchtime. Looking up at the sprawling screen where more than 260 cameras feed traffic information, engineer Mark Demidovich pointed out a stall on Interstate 75-85.
''That just effectively destroyed the Downtown Connector,'' he joked, saying traffic on Atlanta's main thoroughfare was as heavy as any Friday rush hour. ''It's very, very heavy out there."
Atlanta airport spokeswoman Yolanda Clark reported no major delays at the airport, but the day was not without incident. One man was arrested Wednesday for trying to get through security with an empty .40-caliber handgun. The gun was empty, but the man had two ammunition clips in a carry-on bag.
Airport officials expected about 234,000 people would travel through Hartsfield on Wednesday, a lighter travel day than the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That day, more than 254,000 passengers are expected.
The Georgia State Patrol spent its day monitoring traffic accidents on Georgia roads and said the I-95 crash was the worst snarl. But congestion around all major cities thickened as the afternoon wore on.
The state patrol predicted 21 deaths during the holiday period from Wednesday at 6 p.m. through midnight Sunday. Last year, there were 17 fatalities during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, November 28, 2002.
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