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SUSSEX, UK - As I write, American forces are steadily taking control of Baghdad, marking the end of the second phase of the evolution of the Pax Americana. The first phase started with Pearl Harbour and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, a series of messy compromises, close shaves, stand-offs, reverses and disasters with apparently very little to show, but by 1990 the Soviet Union was neutered, the People's Republic of China was learning to come to grips with the reality of international capitalism, Latin America had gone off the boil and Europe was about to line up for an alliance to repel Saddam's intemperate invasion of Kuwait. Iran, Israel and patches of Africa might be troublesome but these, surely, were minor irritants.

The second phase started well with victory over Iraq, although the inability to resist the temptation of over elaboration led directly to the current conflict, but the route to hegemony was unwittingly opened up by the United Nations in three crucial ways: first, it failed to understand its changed role in a post cold war world, obsessed with messy compromise rather than being the pivot of a democratic axis against American dominance; secondly, its self imposed impotence in Bosnia was a televised scandal; and, thirdly, when it turned its back on the turmoil in Rwanda it showed it was not to be taken seriously.... MORE





by LUKE TAGG

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - South African website TashiTagg.co.za - described by its owners as "a behind-the-scenes view of life" - has been saved from closure by its readers. The site had been running for more than a year without any operating capital, and the bills finally became too great. The straw that broke the camel's back was a Telkom bill which was unmanageable, and had the site readers not stepped in to help the cause would have been lost, and the site would exist no more.

But as it happens TashiTagg.co.za is still very much alive, in what is a very unique piece of South African internet history.

The site began rather inauspiciously. Tashi Tagg - a Cape Town drama specialist who worked in the fields of acting, teaching and writing - was intrigued by the drama and human interest of "reality TV.".. MORE





by ROD AMIS

NEW ORLEANS - 9 April, 2003: For my birthday, my pal Matt brought me a copy of Henry Millers Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. It is a very tame book by the standards of Miller's early career, full of stories of walks in Nature, sunsets, raising children, serial children's tales, family. It is mellower Henry Miller than that one wandering Paris, though his financial circumstances have improved but little - though in the Big Sur days he had made a name for himself. Reading that book these two days has been a sort of Return for me. Listen:

... One has to establish, or re-establish, a unity which has been broken and which is felt just as keenly by the reader, who is a potential artist, as by the writer, who believes himself to be an artist. The theme of separation and isolation - "atomization", it's now called - has as many facets to it as there are unique individuals. And we are all unique. The longing to be reunited, with a common purpose and an all-embracing significance, is now universal. The writer who wants to communicate with his fellow-man, and thereby establish communion with him, has only to speak with sincerity and directness ...

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Hello to all my friends in America, from this outspoken little country on the foot of Africa. My friends, I remember you daily in my prayers, in which I bid the Lord that the war your country is waging with Iraq may reach a conclusion - enough pain and suffering has been inflicted on all involved. I remember too the families whose men are at war, and those who have lost husbands and sons, as well as the families of innocent parties who have died on either side. To me the great tragedy of war is that it is always innocent people who must pay the ultimate price.

One day last week (I think it was Friday) I was driving to work, as is my daily habit. The morning had already been stressful as my four year old has this week taken it upon himself to find and push every button that I may have (and some that just look like buttons but aren't really. I think that I look like a calculator to him, but that is another story!) Anyway, my kids had been dropped off at créche, and I was on my way to work, driving on that nightmare section of land we call the freeway, which is laughable, because when I go on it it is never, ever, free at all, but always clogged with more cars than, as a child, I thought existed in the entire world, let alone existed in a small segment of Johannesburg... MORE




by BOB POWERS

MARIETTA, OH, USA - I sometimes wonder why (and you can fill in the blanks, since sometimes we all wonder why). The question this week is why Arbors Jazz, one of the best record companies I've ever encountered, sometimes waits for years before releasing a new CD? That's the question with their new package, "Flip Phillips Celebrates His 80th Birthday at the March of Jazz 1995."

Phillips, a terrific tenor sax performer who was one of the mainstays of swing and jazz from the 1940s on. Phillips for many years toured the country as one of the principals on tenor sax for the popular "Jazz at the Philharmonic." JATP received little acclaim from the jazz critics of that era, but served to carve a new body of enthusiasts for the music. I was one of those lads in the 1950s who thought Flip Phillips was a god of the tenor sax... MORE

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NEW! DHAMAKA NEWS: Our News Partner from New Delhi, India, offers weekly stories of import. THIS WEEK'S FEATURES: Singapore Traces SARS 'Super Spreader' by STALIN MCNROE & Editorial: Proliferation Parody by A. H. AHSAN.

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