My Uncle Survived the Tsunami and Other Reasons Why I Do Not Like the Beach

The Sri Lanka Tsunami haunts me.

Violence against women and children is a horrible worldwide scourge, but there is no evidence of it in our country (or the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Reports on the 61st UN Commission on Human Rights, April 7, 8, 2005)

On April 7 and 8 the Commission continued discussing Item 12 on the Integration of the human rights of women and the gender perspective: a) Violence against women, and judging by the interventions made by both Member and Observer States, although violence against women is widespread and horrific, it doesn’t seem to happen in any… Continue reading Violence against women and children is a horrible worldwide scourge, but there is no evidence of it in our country (or the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Reports on the 61st UN Commission on Human Rights, April 7, 8, 2005)

Discussion today continued on Item 11, Civil and political rights, including the questions of: a) Torture and detention, b) Disappearances and summary executions, c) Freedom of expression, d) Independence of the judiciary, administration of justice, impunity, e) Religious intolerance, f) States of emergency, g) Conscientious objection to military service, with some of the most disturbing… Continue reading A cattle prod showers sparks in Room 17 as government delegates watch on laughing (or the Fourteenth Report on the 61st UN Commission on Human Rights, April 5, 2005)

From their vantage point of everywhere and nowhere, the Spirits watched on closely as the human beings gibbered and jabbered away like their primate cousins. For the Spirits, talking is one of the human activities that interest them the least (unless, of course, the Spirits are being invoked), but these particular weeks of talking are… Continue reading The View from Above (or the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Reports on the 61st UN Commission on Human Rights, March 31, April 1, April 4 2005)