Big Buddhist week in New York last week: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama were in town (see the Worst Horse tracking Gawker Stalker as HH rolls through the Village), and the Tricycle office had a little gathering attended by many fine readers from the area plus Sharon Salzberg and Lama Surya Das.
British PM Gordon Brown is working to put pressure on Burma. He will press for tough sanctions in the UK and the EU and asks those countries that trade most with Burma to cut ties.
The Irradwaddy tells the UN to get real and says Burma needs “tangible UN intervention” right now. What is the UN doing? Telling the junta to stop the arrests. And UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, in Bangkok, calls the situation in Burma “extremely disturbing.”
Irregular Times has ideas for what to do on Burma. Keyword: boycott! Here’s a list of “dirty companies” that do business with the regime, from the Burma Campaign UK. I’m right there with them on excoriating Chevron / Texaco, but I’m not so sure about Lonely Planet. More on Burma and its energy resources and other business-y stuff from the Online Journal. (Upshot: India loses, China gains.)
Refugee Resettlement Watch, citing an AP article, says Burmese refugees are straining the resources of US aid groups.
A much-blogged LA Times piece: Saving Burma the Right Way
And finally, an odd little item on left brain vs. right brain function I read about from Megan McArdle. Do you see the image of the dancer going clockwise or counter-clockwise? I seem to only be able to see her going clockwise. Maybe this is why I couldn’t do math once I hit algebra (or it hit me.)
– Philip Ryan, Web Editor
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