Please join us for the presentation on Friday, May 30, 2008 from 3-4 p.m., in Room 319, Alden Library for a lively talk on the liveliest art. Light refreshments will be served.

For a preview of pre-selected dances, checkout the streaming media at:
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/archives/dance/movingimage/streamed.html

!!! 

Patti "in live" à la Fondation Cartier le 27 mars !

Salon de cuir comme chez elle dit-elle, pour rentrer encore plus dans l'intime. Son intimité. Et tout autour des photos prises par son fameux Land 250 qui ne la quitte jamais. Comme son look. Inébranlable. Egérie. Figure emblématique en jean chemise blanche et gilet d'homme.  Elle bouge dans tous les sens. Ne s'assoit jamais. Laisse ses cheveux lui cacher le visage. On la croyait chanteuse ! Et elle est bien plus ! Cette fille de Chicago, passionnée par Rimbaud et la culture française, s’installe en 1969 au Chelsea Hotel avec le non moins célèbre photographe Robert Mapplethorpe, son amour de jeunesse. Elle s’abreuve alors de poésie et de rock’n’ roll. Presque tout le monde connaît ou devrait connaître son album « Horses » qui reçu le grand prix du disque en 1975. Elle devient alors l'éffigie féminine de la scène rock. 1977 est une mauvaise année. Avec un grave accident de voiture. Patti se plonge dans l’écriture et le dessin. Deux ans plus tard le bonheur revient avec son mariage avec le musicien Fred Sonic Smith. A sa mort en 1995, l’artiste reprend l’appareil photo qui lui procure un « sentiment de libération ». Ses sujets ? Des choses et des êtres chers à son cœur. Les pantoufles de Mapplethorpe, le lit de Virginia Wolf ou les couverts d’Arthur Rimbaud.

Et tout à côté, des dessins frôlent ses travaux photographiques. Comme un murmure. Un chant doux et mélodieux. Fins, raffinés, calligraphiques. Décidemment, on se laisse aller sur sa voix vibrante qui ne cesse de nous envahir pendant la visite de cette oeuvre foisonnante et intense, en regardant une vie remplie de trésor et réalisant des trésors. Pour transmettre de toutes part et sous toutes ses formes sa passion des mots.

Ne ratez pas les soirées nomades avec Patti en personne !

« Patti Smith, Land 250 », Fondation Cartier, 261, boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris. Tél. : 01 42 18 56 50. Du 28/03 au 22/06. Voir www.fondation.cartier.comCourtesy Patti Smith.

A voir : "Patti Smith : Dream of life", de Steven Sebring (2008). sur Arte le 25 mars à 23 heures : un portrait intime de Patti Smith. Magique !

A lire : catalogue "Land 250", édition Fondation Cartier, 300 pages, 40 euros. Edition limité signée, 200 euros.

Signature de son livre à la Fondation Cartier le 8 avril de 18h30 à 20h30. 

I need to install the unrar package available in Synaptic packages.

Method 1: Terminal

This is the easiest and quickest for me.

1. Open Terminal: Application -> Accessories -> Terminal
2. Type in sudo apt-get install unrar
3. Type in your password (nothing will appear when you enter your pass, only after you hit enter)
4. Done

Method 2: Graphic

This is the longer way. Make sure you enable Multiverse repositories through synaptic.

1. Open Synaptic by selecting System -> Administrator -> Synaptic Package Manager
2. Enter your admin password when requested
3. When Synaptic window is launched, hit Ctrl-F, or click on the binocular icon to search
4. Search for unrar
5. Mark installation on unrar or unrar-free or both

Wait for installations and then you can close synaptic and open any .rar files.

Enable Multiverse Repositories

1. Open Synaptic by selecting System -> Administrator -> Synaptic Package Manager
2. Enter your admin password when requested
3. When Synaptic window is launched, on the menu bar, chose Settings -> Repositories
4. Check Software restricted by copyright and legal issues (multiverse)
5. Close.

And you have enabled Multivese Repositories. In my experience, it's best to enable everything there is in the Repositories window just in case you need something latter and never have to enable anything again.

Happy Unrar.

The ownership of Mpumalanga's R1-billion 2010 soccer stadium and 118ha of neighbouring land will be probed by a new board of trustees who were appointed by the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.

Members of the Matsafeni farm worker community, who were originally granted the land in terms of a land claims settlement in 2003, spontaneously cheered and clapped hands following the ruling.

The stadium is being built on agricultural land originally ceded to them. Developers plan to use the stadium as the centrepiece for a new sport, entertainment and upmarket residential precinct in Nelspruit.

The government, however, illegally took the land in 2007 when it "bought" it for R1 without any of the necessary approvals from the Matsafeni beneficiaries or other interested parties.

The court on Tuesday heard this land was extremely valuable as it was productive farm land.

The Bombela Stadium - one of the 2010 soccer stadiums - is being built on a part of the land.

Following the "purchase" of the land, the government tried to forcibly relocate the residents to a spot about 25km outside town.

The deal had been declared irregular by an independent forensic audit commissioned by the Mbombela Local Municipality.

Human rights lawyer Richard Spoor was appointed by the 883 members of the Matsafeni community to take on their plight and on Tuesday he applied to the court to remove the current trustees.

It was claimed that the trustees had fraudulently amended the trust deed.

It was further claimed that they utilised the trust assets for their own advantage and that they appeared to have misappropriated funds belonging to the trust for personal advantage.

Spoor said the trustees earlier entered into a sale of land agreement with the Mbombela municipality in which they "sold" 43ha for the purchase consideration of R1. "This is less than what one pays for a daily newspaper," he said.

He also accused the trust of failing to have financial statements prepared and of refusing to allow access to the books of account.

Carlos da Silva SC, acting on behalf of the community, told Judge Roger Claassen on Tuesday that "someone had to take charge of this mess". The judge agreed.

The parties agreed that the former trustees would be removed from the board and that three new trustees with special powers would be appointed. They will take control of all the assets of the trust.

They will investigate the management of the trust and look at all the agreements concluded in the past, including the R1 deal. They will be able to make new agreements and look after the interests of the Matsafeni community.

This order was met by jubilation in the courtroom, which was full of members of the aggrieved farming community

STOP THE XENOPHOBIC ATTACKS IN ALEXANDRA & ELSEWHERE!

DON’T BLAME THE POOR FROM OTHER COUNTRIES FOR THE POVERTY AND JOBLESSNESS IN SOUTH AFRICA - BLAME, AND ACT AGAINST, THOSE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE!

The Anti-Privatisation Forum and its affiliate, the Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee, unreservedly condemn the recent violent, xenophobic attacks in extension 6 and extension 10. These violent attacks are aimed at people from other countries who are living and working in Alex and have been fed by baseless allegations that have fed other xenophobic attacks in poor communities across our country (e.g. Diepsloot, Atteridgeville, Mamelodi, Sebokeng, North-West, Khayelitsha etc).

It is a tragedy that such attacks are happening in poor working class communities, where the poor are fighting the poor. But there is a clear reason for this. Many in our communities are made to believe that unemployment is caused by foreigners who take jobs in the country – this is simply untrue. Forty percent (40%) of all South African citizens are unemployed and this has been the case for many years. This is not the result of immigrants from other countries coming to South Africa but rather, the result of the anti-poor, profit-seeking policies of the government and the behaviour of the capitalist class. Such massive and sustained unemployment is a structural problem of a capitalist system that cares little about the poor, wherever they are from/live.

In turn, this has contributed to a situation wherein poor immigrants (most especially those from other African countries) have become increasingly seen (and treated) as criminals and ‘undesirables’ by government authorities. This, combined with the government’s failure of service delivery in those poor communities where most immigrants live, has placed poor immigrants and poor South Africans in constructed ‘competition’ with each other. It is out of this situation that the scourge of xenophobia has arisen.

Blaming foreigners and launching violent attacks on those living in South Africa will benefit no one except those who feed off the desperation and poverty of the poor. Let us not forget that it is South African corporate capital – through the framework of NEPAD – that has, over the last decade, moved into other African countries, most often causing many local, smaller businesses to close down and thus contributing to a situation in which many poor people have lost their jobs. Likewise, the South African government’s approach to the crisis in Zimbabwe has further contributed to the mass migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa. The poor, wherever they are, are being exploited and oppressed by the same capitalist class.

As the APF and the AVCC, we call on all those responsible for the recent xenophobic attacks to immediately stop engaging in such senseless and reactionary acts – you are maiming and killing your own brothers and sisters. Anger and resentment at the levels of poverty and joblessness (in South Africa and elsewhere) must be directed at those who are responsible, not the victims. It is the capitalist class and the ANC government that have joined together to implement neo-liberal policies over the past 14 years that have devastated poor communities and that have now created the conditions where the poor attack the poor. In Alex for example, the housing crisis must be blamed on our corrupt and profit-hungry housing officials and those who illegally lease the houses for their own personal gain.

The APF and the AVCC will continue to denounce and actively campaign against these violent xenophobic attacks in our community. We demand that the police apprehend those responsible for encouraging and engaging in these attacks. In the next few days, we will distribute pamphlets and engage the larger Alex community in organised mass meetings.

For more comment/information please contact:
Fredah Dlamini of the AVCC on 074 352 0141 or Silumko Radebe of the APF on 072 1737 268

Motala Heights Crisis Deepens as Violent Intimidation Against the Strong Poor Continues

Gangster Landlord Continues Campaign of Intimidation with the Support of the Pinetown Police; James Pillay arrested on trumped up charges

James Pillay, 'Meeting of the Poor Against the Rich', 17 November 2007

The community of Motala Heights, set on the edge of Pinetown between the factories and the hill that runs up to Kloof, dates back to the early years of the last century and has a rich history. For the last three years it has been under sustained and violent attack from a local gangster businessman who seems to be able to direct the local state, including the police and the Municipality's Housing Department, at will.

The community is now made up of a wealthy suburb with the big, new mostly face brick houses of the rich in the centre. Behind them are hidden the old tin houses of the poor families and, amongst the gumtrees up on the hill leading up to Kloof, a shack settlement. For some time local businessman and known gangster Ricky Govender has been buying up land and using intimidatory tactics to illegally evict the poor. His attempts to illegally drive out the mostly Indian families from the tin houses, most of whom were born and have lived their whole lives in the community, dates back to at least 2005. He has also been directly implicated in the violent and illegal attempts by the eThekwini Municipality to evict the mostly African shack dwellers which date back to 2006.

The first attackon the shack settlement was launched over the youth day weekend on 2006. Ward Councillor Derek Dimba arrived at the Motala Heights settlement with municipal officials and 5 car loads of municipal security guards to mark out shacks that would then be destroyed by the highly militarised and clearly, in it terms of its stated purpose and day to day actions, criminal armed wing of the Municipality – its notorious Land Invasions Unit. On the following Monday the then Motala Heights Development Committee (affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo) won an urgent meeting with Geoff Nightingale from the the Pinetown office of the eThekwini Municipality. He told them that they would have to accept eviction as “The Municipality won't build houses in Motala because Ricky Govender wants to develop the area himself”. As people are being evicted from the land on which they were born and grew up Govender is using it to develop factories and private housing projects for the rich.

On Women's Day that year Cllr Dimba returned to the settlement with pistol holstered to each hip and flanked by his usual cohort of armed men. He summoned the community to a meeting where he began by gesturing to his weapons and promised to ‘chase away’ named individuals on the democratically elected committee. Dimba is often seen in Govender's mansion and when he has been told that the poor will not accept forced removal and eviction and want houses to be built in Motala Heights he has often said that “the only person that will build houses in Motala Heights is Ricky Govender” and, in the exact language of apartheid, that the shack dwellers must “go back where they came from”. The Municipality began to evict people from the shack settlement on 28 October 2006 and returned on four occasions to continue the attack. On each occasion the evictions were accompanied by violence. They were carried out without a court order and were therefore illegal and in fact criminal acts. Members of the Land Invasions Unit and the Pinetown SAPS were seen openly eating bunnychows and drinking beer in Ricky Govender's bar before they came up the hill to demolish the shacks. On 31 October the then Chairperson of the Motala Heights Development Committee, Bheki Ngcobo, presented to the Land Invasions Unit a copy of a lawyers' letter addressed to Mayor Obed Mlaba and City Manager Mike Sutcliffe instructing them to immediately cease these criminal acts. The Land Invasions Unit responded by pepper spraying Ngcobo at point blank range and viciously kicking him after he fell to the ground. The SAPS then fired shots at the crowd that rushed to support Ngcobo and told Ngcobo that “Ricky Govender is the mayor here.”

Since then the Pinetown SAPS have on many occasions blatantly refused to open cases against Govender or his staff and have simply referred people with complaints directly to Govender. People have even been told to take problems that have nothing to do with Govender, such as as domestic violence, to Govender. The Pinetown SAPS behave as if they are under Govender's authority and as if he is above the law. For many years his bar was co-owned with a senior officer in the Pinetown SAPS (he passed away very recently). The Municipality act in the same way. They refer all local complaints and queries, even applications for a trading licence, to Govender as if he has sole and total authority over all aspects of life in Motala Heights.

The Municipality's criminal attacks on the shack settlement were eventually stopped on 29 November 2006 when Abahlali baseMjondolo went to court and won a court order interdicting the Municipality from carrying out illegal evictions. Since then there have been various kinds of intimidation and Dimba, most recently on 24 February 2008, has repeated that the poor will have to leave Motala Heights as “only Govender will be building houses here.” However despite all these threats the shack still stand and under the interdict they remain protected from unlawful demolition by the Municipality.

Govender's attempt to drive out the residents of the tin houses came to a head in August 2007 when he personally promised to bulldoze the house in which elderly couple James and Gonum Pillay had been living for 25 years. They were subject to all kinds of intimidation including violence from Govender and on 7 October 2007 they went to court and were awarded an interdict preventing Govender from unlawfully evicting them or from intimidating them in anyway or using his employees or associates to intimidate them in any way.

Since then they have not been evicted but they have been subject to constant intimidation by Govenders' employees and family members. These intimidatory acts are in clear violation of the law and the interdict. There are witnesses to each of these instances and they have all been carefully recorded. They include threats of violence and arson, a number of instances of violence, insults of the most crude kind, parking a car across the Pillay's driveway preventing their visitors from leaving, the discovery of 4 petrol bombs with a long fuse placed outside the house and more. The Pillay's have also been threatened by gangsters from Chatsworth who came to their house, told them to leave, and said that they could do nothing because 'we are not Ricky'.

Other Abahlali activists in Motala Heights Heights have also been threatened and assaulted by Govender and his associates including Shamita Naidoo, the Chairperson of the Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch and Louisa Motha, the treasurer on the Abahlali baseMjondolo secretariat. Two activists have also received threats of murder and arson via telephone calls from a man claiming to be the nephew of Councillor Derick Dimba. However Dimba has denied responsibility for these calls and it is believe that Govender is behind them. Indian activists have often been warned 'not to stand with the blacks' and told that 'the blacks will be made to go here from here, Ricky doesn't want them here'. The husbands of women Abahlali members have often been warned and told that 'they must control their wives'. Govender has also threatened to have local Abahlali members charged with trespassing if they step on to any of his land to meet with his tenants. Moreover Govender has also been openly and illegally dumping huge piles of toxic industrial waste from his factories right outside peoples' front doors in an attempt to force them out.

When The Mercury newspaper went to Motala Heights to cover the story on 31 August 2007 photographer Steven Naidoo was personally accosted by Govender and two other men who detained him against his will, took the memory stick out of his camera and threatened to have him killed. The photographer was only released after the armed intervention of the eThekwini Metropolitan Police.

The ongoing intimidation of the Pillays came to a head on Tuesday last week when Leon Govender arrived at the Pillay's house with his family and others to threaten them. A teenage girl threw a knife across the fence at Mrs Pillay, an elderly woman, and threatened to assault her. Leon Govender's brother-in-law, Peter Singarum, had a panga in each hand and threatened to kill James Pillay.

James Pillay called Bheki Ngcobo, the Deputy Chair of the Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch, for help. As Ngcobo arrived at the house Singarum tried to attack him with the pangas. Ngcobo called for further help. A large group of Abahlali members arrived. In response to an attempted attack with a panga a stone was thrown hitting one of the attackers at which point they all fled. That was the extent of the defensive violence and it was not committed by James Pillay.

However the next day the Pinetown SAPS arrived at the Pillay's house with Leon Govender and Peter Singarum and informed James Pillay that he would be arrested but could not specify a charge. The police returned the following day and called for Ricky Govender. Shag Govender, a relative and employee of Ricky Govender's who has been systematically intimidating the Pillay's since they won the interdict against Ricky Govender, came down instead and told the police that the Pillays had no right to the house and that they must tear it down and leave. He said that the interdict preventing Govender from unlawfully evicting them was 'just paper' and that they must go. Officer Viljoen of the SAPS told James Pillay that “You are not the owner of this land. You have disobeyed the landowner. You must break everything down now.” James Pillay was then arrested on charges of assault and malicious damage to property (it was alleged that he had damaged Leon Govender's car – however there are no visible signs of damage). After his arrest Viljoen told him that “The blacks will be removed from the jondolos one by one what ever you people say. I'll make your life very difficult.” Although she and the other officer had openly taken direction from Shag Govender she refused to speak to Bheki Ngcobo, the Deputy Chair of Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch saying “He has no rights to speak to me.”

James Pillay was held in the Pinetown police station for 47 hours and 45 minutes without the option of bail on the obviously spurious grounds that bail could not be awarded as they were waiting for witnesses to come forward. His arrest was entirely groundless and a blatant attempt at intimidation on behalf of Ricky Govender. However he was not assaulted while in custody. Abahlali baseMjondolo is currently discussing a strategy to ensure that, at the very least, Ricky Govender is compelled to obey the law and the state is compelled to stop taking orders from Govender as if he is a power above the law. In the meantime:

1. All the Abahlali baseMjondolo members in the area will stand together to support each other and to try and ensure each other's safety against Ricky Govender and his thugs in and out of the uniform of the South African Police Services.
2. Abahlali baseMjondolo will hold Ricky Govender personally responsible should there be any assault on any Abahlali member or if any one's house is burnt down.
3. Abahlali baseMjondolo will sue the police for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution of James Pillay.
4. Abahlali baseMjondolo will seek the arrest of anyone trying to illegally evict any of its members from a tin house or shack in Motala Heights whether they are in the pay of the state or Ricky Govender or both.

The Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch issues the following demands:

1. The Pinetown SAPS must explain the nature of its relationship with Ricky Govender and this relationship must be subject to an independent and credible investigation.
2. The eThekwini Municipality, and in particular the Housing Department, must explain the nature of its relationship with Ricky Govender and this relationship must be subject to an independent and credible investigation. There needs to be particular attention to the decision to evict the poor from their homes in order to allow Govender to develop Motala Heights for his personal profit. Cogi Pather must personally come to Motala Heights and explain to the people what is going on.
3. All evictions of the poor from Motala Heights must cease immediately and permanently.
4. The Municipality must make a clear statement on the right of the poor, Indian and African, to live and to be housed in Motala Heights.
5. Negotiations between Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Municipality must begin with a view to building houses for the poor, Indian and African, in Motala Heights
6. The Municipality must immediately instruct Ricky Govender to remove the toxic waste that he has dumped outside people's homes and to cover all medical expenses of people that have fallen ill as a result of the toxic waste.

There are two incompatible visions for the future of Motala Heights. Ricky Govender, Cllr. Dimba and the eThekwini Housing Department want all of the poor people to be chased out of the area so that it can be developed for the rich. Abahlali baseMjondolo, which represents the poor in Motala Heights, wants housing to be built for the poor in the area. Abahlali baseMjondolo calls on all the churches, trade unions and community organisations to take a clear stand against the anti-poor vision and for the pro-poor vision. As Bishop Rubin Phillip said in his UnFreedom Day speech “For too long our city and our country and our world have put the poor last on the list of concerns. It is time for the last to be first.” Development must be with the poor for the poor – not with the rich against the poor.

For comment and up to the minute information contact:

Shamita Naidoo, Chairperson Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch 0743157962
Bheki Bgcobo, Deputy Chairperson Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch 0785346007
Mashumi Figlan, Deputy President, Abahlali baseMjondolo 0795843995
Mnikelo Ndabankulu, PRO, Abahlali baseMjondolo 0797450653

For a fuller background to the struggle in Motala Heights including press releases, newspaper articles and photographs visit: http://abahlali.org/node/2377

That has to be one of my favorite all-time quotes about Brad Ausmus.  Lance Berkman was joking around about the catcher after he got one of his rare homeruns Wednesday night to give the Astros a 2-run buffer in a 6-3 win against the Giants.

After his homerun, the Astros dugout played an appropriate practical joke on Ausmus to give him a piece of his own medicine.  All of the players sat on the bench and didn't even acknowledge his first HR of the season.  A few minutes later, they clapped him on the back as he was putting on his catcher's gear.

It's playfulness like this that makes me think the Astros are going to be okay.  If you have a losing record, you don't joke around.  But the Astros have been playing so well lately that they are happy and it shows.  There's a zing in their step as they approach home plate.

And don't look now, but Brian Moehler pitched another solid game.  He's not an ace and he never will be, but he sure has filled in nicely in a pinch.

I still feel like we are walking on eggshells.  Even though we are 1.5 games out of first place, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.  They can't possibly keep playing like this all season.  We can't keep pulling good starts out of the bullpen. 

I would feel so much more comfortable if we had another starter, but I don't know if I want to mess with the chemistry on the offense.  They seem to be having so much fun, you'd hate to see that change.  Plus, I wouldn't want to gouge the minor league teams either.  They are just starting to recover from the last time we traded them away.

I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that the Astros can keep opening some eyes around the league.

NOTE:  Early game today at 2:45 pm, so get your Gameday Audio ready to roll.

"I ask your indulgence if I close on a personal, existential note. We live in a time when we are flooded with information in every field of endeavor, a deluge from which Freud scholarship is not exempt. It has has become a veritable industry over which it is difficult to maintain even bibliographical control. The amount of sheer information increases incessantly. I confess that I have reached an age when I am haunted by the question of when information becomes knowledge. What I have presented here is only a special instance of that larger Angst. I am perhaps not yet old enough to seek the further line where knowledge becomes wisdom (Yerushalmi Series Z 1997)."

Flynn-Burhoe. 2000. 'Memory - The Question of Archives' Review of Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. 1997. Series Z: An Archival Fantasy' Journal of European Psychoanalysis - Number 3-4 1997

Derrida's presentation Archive Fever at the 1994 conference "Memory: The Question of Archives" was dedicated to Yerushalmi whose book Freud's Moses had moved him. The conference was hosted by the Freud Museum and the Société Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychanalyse, London, June 3-5, 1994 and organized by Elisabeth Roudinesco. [Y.H.Y.]

Yerushalmi began his text with a Kakfaesque description of the archives' doorkeeper. It is a thinly disquised reproach for the exclusivity of access to Freud's archives, particularly to series Z. Yerushalmi was dismayed to find that access to Series Z, Freud's archives in Washington, was severely limited to a group of insider scholars.

Yerushalmi notes the unique published citation by Freud where he used the term 'archives,' in an early paper (1898) on "The Psychical Mechanism of Forgetfulness" (Zum Psychischen Mechanismus der Vergesslichkeit). He writes:

Thus the function of memory, which we like to imagine as an archive open to any who is curious, is in this way subjected to restriction by a trend of the will...

Yerushalmi chose to focus his discussion only on archives. An archive is not a memory bank nor are the documents in an archive part of memory; "...if they were, we should have no need to retrieve them; once retrieved, they are often at odds with memory."

Although Yerushami, the historian, has done research in archives in Lisbon, Madrid, Valladolid, Salamanca, Venice, Verona and Jerusalem but rarely in the Freud Archives.

Yerushalmi illustrated the persistence and continuity of the archivist as gatekeeper through the 1909 case of Robert Ross. Ross presented Oscar Wilde's original manuscript of De Profundis to the British Museum on condition that it be sealed for sixty years to prevent it from falling into the hands of Lord Alfred Douglas, the agent of Wilde's ruin. Through a 1913 libel suit Douglas, received a copy which he intended to publish. Ross speedily had his own copy published in New York which secured copyright. In 1949 Wilde's son published the full and correct text but the British Museum respected Ross' agreement and access is still denied.

Yerushalmi questions the logic behind restricting or forbidding access to certain documents well into the 21st century! He was not alone. Janet Malcolm's 1984 publication "In the Freud Archives" made the inaccessibility une cause celebre.

Meanwhile, attacks against psychoanalysis, fused with assaults against the personal integrity of Freud himself, have by now reached an unprecedented crescendo of vilification. One result is a widespread belief that the real truth, for better or worse, is in the Archives, and that once they are fully accessible the truth will out. What both attackers and defenders of Freud have in common is a faith in the facticity of archives, in the archival document as somehow the ultimate arbiter of historical truth.

Yerushalmi traced the cult of the archive to the 1830's and especially after 1860, when national governments eager to protect their collective histories, opened their archives to research. Lord Acton put the reason succinctly:

"To keep one's archives barred against the historians was tantamount to leaving one's history to one's enemies." Lord Acton

"The historians came, the writing of history (at least political history) was put on a firmer basis than ever before. It was the heyday of scientific history, full of optimism. The crisis of historicism was not yet on the horizon and the archival document seemed to herald a historiographical millennium. Paleography became a science and the archivist a professional, nowhere more superbly trained than at the École des Chartes, established in Paris in 1821. By the end of the century one spoke somewhat bemusedly in France of la fureur de l'inédit, the furor to publish the unpublished document."

In "Monologue with Freud" Yerushalmi calls Freud's archivists "zealous epigoni [who] have stationed themselves, like gnostic archons, to bar the way to the hidden knowledge." (FM 1991:81)

By the late 20th century historians were more sophisticated; recognized the limitations of archival documents. And at that time series Z is unlocked. leading to anothfureur de l'inédit'. Yerushalmi questioned what that will change.

He described the ideal archival material:

1. It should be naive, created for other purposes than research: the production, storage and maintenance of personal correspondence, tax records, contracts, deeds.
2. It should be dusty from lack of handling. Half a century after the French Revolution a Prussian historian finally opened the dust-laden papers regarding the Reign of Terror, a proof of their legitimacy.
3. The researcher recognizes that all archives are incomplete: not all documents are collected, archived and/or preserved. And any document requires contextualization by data both in and outside the archives and even the field of study.
4. The "...archive is not a repository of the past, only of certain artifacts that have survived from the past, and we encounter them in the present. The contents of archival documents are not historical facts except on the most primitive level dates, names, places. The truly vital data in these documents do not become historical until, filtered through the mind and the imagination of the historian, they are interpreted and articulated."

The zealous guardians of The Freud Archives including Anna Freud, Freud's devoted daughter protected Freud's reputation in the creation and maintenance of the archives. Yerushalmi compares these documents to "... André Gide's journals, where one senses that as he writes one eye is gazing at posterity." This contrasts with Kafka's diaries, whose publication he never dreamed.

Freud's papers have been handled regularly. Yerushalmi cites examples of discrepancies between Freud's correspondance with Fliess and actual publications in which passages were excluded. "The most significant and irremediable gap in the Freud Archives is the result of Freud's own doing. On two occasions [in 1885 and 1907], Ernest Jones observed, he completely destroyed all his correspondence, notes, diaries and manuscripts. The letter of April 28, 1885 to Martha, announcing his determination to thereby frustrate his future biographers, is too well-known to be quoted yet again."

Yerushalmi concludes that "[n]othing in the Freud Collection nor in any other archive can possibly decide any of the major scientific or philosophical issues that have arisen in the ongoing controversies over Freud. No document can prove or disprove the validity of Freudian psychoanalytic theory nor the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapy. Infantile sexuality, the existence of the unconscious, the mechanisms of repression, and other central tenets of Freudian theory, are not subject to archival arbitration."

"What do we really want to know, and how can the Archives be of help? My own order of priority would be: To understand Freud's teaching; to understand the history of the psychoanalytic movement; to understand Freud's life insofar as it relates to the first two goals." "...[I]t entails coming as close as possible to his own intentions. This, as I have argued elsewhere must take pride of place. At least in his published works Freud was consciously trying to communicate various ideas to his readers. That these works, like all texts, also contain latent meanings of which he was unaware, that they can be approached with a variety of hermeneutic strategies, does not absolve us from rigorously seeking their conscious intentionality which, alone, can keep us from flying off the deep end. For that, not only is the value of a correct text self-evident, but any information relevant to its evolution, whether through variants or revisions, or through letters in which Freud discusses work in progress. It is in this sense that the letters in Series Z may make their most important contribution. But even then the archives are only an aid. Ultimately the student must bring to an understanding of Freud's work his or her philological, literary, and historical instincts, and an entire culture derived from other fields. Philip Rieff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959) remains, in my opinion, one of the most penetrating explorations of Freud's thought. And Rieff never even consulted an archive. "

The history of the psychoanalytic movement (I have in mind only Freudian psychoanalysis). Here, surely, our men and women from many countries will have reaped abundant harvests. But how much wheat and how much chaff? Any history of the psychoanalytic movement cannot ignore the archives, but it must also transcend them. Once again all depends on how we conceptualize the problem. If we have in mind a historical narrative of its leading personalities, its congresses and schisms, its dispersal after the German catastrophe of 1933 and the Austrian of 1938, then certainly these and many other aspects will have been fleshed out by Series Z. But this kind of history remains business as usual. I shall take as an instance Phyllis Grosskurth's The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis published three years ago to considerable acclaim. Assuredly the book contains new and sometimes vivid details Ms. Grosskurth had spent time in several archives, including the Rank papers at my own university, and she writes well. For me, however, the book, like so many others in the genre, represents yet another missed opportunity. That Freud's secret entourage, the Committee was racked by dissentions, backbiting, competition for Freud's imperious favor, was essentially known. The issue that is never addressed, is how this group of quite imperfect and in many ways incompatible men were able to sustain and propogate not only a therapy, but a teaching that became a vital component of Modernism around the globe. And, in a larger sense, is this not the issue for any history of the psychoanalytic movement worthy of itself not merely to describe its inner workings or proselytizing activities, but to ask what prior spiritual or cultural needs did Freud's teaching fulfill that enabled it to spread from a small group of Jews meeting in 1902 at Berggasse 19, to become what W.H. Auden called after Freud's death a whole climate of opinion?"
I come finally to the vexing question of Freud's biography and here I am prepared to abandon my parable. I am only certain that the men and women from many countries will not find anything of significance about Freud's childhood and adolescence. That stumbling block to biographers, especially those who are psychoanalytically oriented, will remain. Some information about Freud's parents may perhaps yet be found in Moravian and Viennese archives. As for Freud's mature life, for reasons already given I doubt that very much of a sensational nature will be found in Series Z, though of course one cannot be sure. Once again, however, I feel that the really important issues extend beyond the archives.

"The other issue is so vital and so complex as to require a conference of its own. I have in mind the relation between biography and a person's achievement. How much of the former do we need to know in order to understand the latter?[...] How much about Freud's life must we know in order to interpret The Interpretation of Dreams? Or would our interpretation simply be different, with less ferreting for biographical links and more concentration on what he was trying to teach us? [...]Ironically, it may have been Freud himself who first opened this Pandora's Box, but let's not hold this against him. Rather, let us ask must we really know whether Freud slept with Minna? Those who want to discover that he really did, are gripped by an unstated and faulty syllogism: a) Freud presented a public image of a devoted husband; b) Freud comitted incest with his sister-in-law; ergo Freud is not to be trusted, and so neither should his work... "

"I ask your indulgence if I close on a personal, existential note. We live in a time when we are flooded with information in every field of endeavor, a deluge from which Freud scholarship is not exempt. It has has become a veritable industry over which it is difficult to maintain even bibliographical control. The amount of sheer information increases incessantly. I confess that I have reached an age when I am haunted by the question of when information becomes knowledge. What I have presented here is only a special instance of that larger Angst. I am perhaps not yet old enough to seek the further line where knowledge becomes wisdom."

Contact � Maureen Flynn-Burhoe 2000 for comments, corrections and copyright concerns.

"How does information become transformed into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom? (Yerushalmi 1994)? This commitment to rereading history from papyrus to hypertext parallels the commitment to philosophy from a cosmopolitical point of view. It is not merely theory for theory's sake. Gatekeepers of the archives (and collective memory) wield power. Access to information is more than a legal right: it becomes an indicator by which effective democracies can be measured. (Derrida 1996a: 4). The mapping of archives of the infosphere needs to be concerned with uncompromised inclusivity as constitutive of a renewed, unbound, effective democracy in which plurality can co-exist with social cohesion. It requires a consistent and constant vigilance against complicity and complacence. It involves nurturing and encouraging diverse ways of seeing, knowing and remembering. The architecture of deconstruction facilitates the round-tables of discussions which invite, welcome and propel rather than discourage, exclude, dismiss and prevent convergences of divergent thoughts. The sparks of discord can illuminate the ashes and dust of the (missing) archives (Flynn-Burhoe 2000).

This is a blog version of a html webpage entitled "Mapping Memory: from Papyrus to Digitization: The Great Flood and the Arkh". In 2000 (?) it was presented to a small eclectic group of dazzling student super-geeks and hackers brought together by a shared interest in the virtual and Carleton University star professor Rob Shields.

Abstract: This paper and webpage examines intersections between Jacques Derrida's Archives Fever and texts, objects and events that informed Archive Fever: Plato's Phaedrus, Freud's Moses and Monotheism and Yerushalmi Freud's Moses. (How) Is the authority of the archonte transformed by the digitization of archives? How can conceptual tools developed by Jacques Derrida enhance understanding of the concept of archives in this period of transformation? (How) can the structure of the archives allow for the co-existence of social cohesion and pluralism? To what extent is archival meaning co-determined by the structure of the archives? (Derrida 1996a: 16) To what extent is our access to knowledge, to collective memories barred by inadequate maps and ideological obstacles?

Keywords: archives, anarchives, digitization, cartography, pharmakon, plurality, democracy

With the digitization of data, archives have been inundated with a tidal wave of information. The great flood of the archives is both cause and effect of an expanding collective electronic memory and an enlarging field of inquirers and inquiries. Cultural groups resisting the homogenous mass culture of globalization, an increasingly informed citizenry insisting on accountability in governance and grass roots movements involved in risk management excavate the archives to legitimize claims and trace memories (Wallot 1996: 23).

In this complex infosphere of '...shifting nationhood, evolving governance, mutating organizations, and changing forms of records' archivists attempt to maintain a creative tension and complementarity between their hybrid roles as gatekeepers of evidence and map-makers of society's '...long-term memory, identity and values formation and transmission' (Wallot 1996: 23). This involves nothing less than a re-examination of the theoretical roots and conceptual framework of the professional roles of archivists (Wallot 1996: 24).

In 1994 an international conference in London, organized by the Freud Museum and the Société Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychanalyse, focussed on 'Memory: The Question of Archives.' Derrida's presentation Archives Fever which lasted over three hours was dedicated to Jewish historian, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi whose 'handsome' book Freud's Moses provided a catalyst for his own. Yerushalmi's frustrated attempts at accessing certain exclusive archives while conducting his research on Freud, led to his paper ''Series Z: : An Archival Fantasy' presented at the same conference.

Derrida juxtaposes reflections on memory and archives with Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud's archives in Freud's Museum, London and in the Library of Congress consist of thousand of items collected and stored under protective guardianship. Yet the archons of the corpus of the most-quoted man of the twentieth century seem to break all the rules of archival practice: the archived items are neither innocent, accessible nor dusty. Freud's archives were not naive: they were self-conscious, wary of censorship therefore self-censored and incomplete. Freud's own secrecy rivalled that of Goethe who was a '... great self-revealer, but also in the abundance of autobiographical records, a careful concealer' (Freud 1930: 212). But then all archives are incomplete repositories, containing only those objects and artifacts that have survived the past (Yerushalmi 1994).

Even with the best archival practice the archival documents cannot be historical facts. Vital archival objects are articulated or constructed as historical in an interpretive process through the mind and imagination of the historian. History is constructed from documents retrieved from archival storage. And archival material can be constructed to contradict memory (Yerushalmi 1994).

'Psychoanalysis aspires to be a general science of the archive, of everything that can happen to the economy of meaning and to [...] its traces.' The science (or art) of psychoanalysis depends on memory as data. Freud's human subject achieved freedom from neurosis through memory management. In the economy of psychoanalysis memories can be called up, evoked, transmitted, named, categorized and relativized.

What is the nature of transmission of memories? Freud suggested ways of remembering that were relevant to psychoanalysis and inaccessible to ordinary histories. But he only once used the term 'archives' as a metaphor for memory. In 1898 he imagined memory as an open, accessible archive that was subjected to the will. He discarded the inadequate metaphor: memories can be stored but not all can be retrieved. (Yerushalmi 1991 Freud [1898]) Yerushalmi concluded that Freud abandoned the term 'archives' as a metaphor for memory since they have '...nothing in common. Memory is not an archive, nor is archive a memory bank' (Yerushalmi 1994).

Archives, even Freud's official Archives were not 'the ultimate arbitrar of historical truth' about Freud as it was widely believed by both his defenders and his attackers (Yerushalmi 1994). In spite of the sophistication of contemporary historians who recognize the limitations of archival documents, the unlocking of Freud's most secretive archives, Series Z, led to a 'fureur de l'inédit.' This fury to publish previously unpublished archival documents was reminiscent of the 19th century heyday of scientific history informed by the cult of the archives. In the 1830s through the 1860s national governments opened their archives to research in an effort to protect their collective histories. Lord Acton proclaimed, 'To keep one's archives barred against the historians was tantamount to leaving one's history to one's enemies' (Yerushalmi 1994).

Like an archaeologist, Derrida excavates the concepts of archives and memory. These pharmakon-like concepts contain both the cure and the poison. This homeopathy of thinking describes 'archive' as open, visible, accessible and undivided. Archives become an indicator, evidence, witness, a way of rewriting history, a return to origins, a return to the archaic, a search for lost time, scar-like traces on the surfaces of the body and an archeology of the surface. But archives are also dormant, lost, dissimulated, forbidden, censored, destroyed and incinerated. Through the secret archives or anarchives Derrida raises questions of transmission in the economy of memory. (1996a)

Derrida's impressions of l'actualit� have left their mark around the globe. Situating himself as one who lives between two worlds, a world citizen who is Jewish-French but also Algerian he argues for a philosophy from a cosmopolitico view point where transmission and alterité become the centre. In international conferences spanning three decades with diverse groups: arabo-islamic intellectuals, UNESCO, the Société Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychanalyse or at John Hopkins University, he challenges complacency and complicity. He reveals how philosophy is not shackled by an exclusive, solitary memory or language: it is stereoscopic, polyglot, multi-linear even bastardized, crossbred and spliced. He calls for a new role for philosophy, one in which a rereading of Plato, for example, becomes as urgent a task as new scientific results (Derrida 1996b). He adds a third space to columns of binary opposites: a space of tension, of sparks generated from divergent viewpoints (1981:73).

Derrida cites and questions Plato's separation of live memory mneme from hypomneme. Archives are hypomneme along with inventories, citations, copies, lists and genealogies (1981:107). The archives are an extension of writing, commodified by power brokers, the sophists. Socrates' words written by Plato, upheld the 'art of memory.' Writing was imperfect memory or even forgetfulness, dependent on signs; it was nonknowledge (1981:105). The recital of 25,000 lines of Homeric verse over several days was a manifestation of the living word, of knowledge, of the promise of limitless memory. But Socrates, "he who does not write" was written. When Derrida came upon a 14th century Italian print from the Bodleian Library, reproduced mechanically as a postcard he was enchanted. It became a visual metaphor for the archival object: in the scriptorium Socrates is writing with Plato standing behind him. By examining the relationship between the two fathers of meaning in Western thought, Derrida opened a space for a rethinking of transgenerational patriarchal transmission. He brought Freud's ghost, his archives and his historian into the discussion. He reveals how secret archives and powerful archons dissimulate.

Derrida speaks and writes in a 'scriptless' hypertext, where intertextualitity can either enrich or confuse. Derrida's reflections on Plato, Freud, Yerushalmi are constructed into complex layers of texts that defy a linear structure such as this paper. Its content is better adapted to the nonlinear format of the webpage. Fascinating and thought-provoking connections can be extrapolated following Derrida's lead from papyrus to digitization. Both Plato and Freud circuitously lead us to the Black Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton who introduced a form of monotheistic religion c. 1379 - 1362 BCE with Aton the god of the universe subsuming both Thoth the moon god and Amon-re or Amen the sun god. Plato as scribe for Socrates used a myth to discredit myth over logos. In Socrates' version of the myth Thamus disparaged Theuth (Thoth) for inventing writing along with alchemy, geometry, astronomy and calculations. Theuth not only writes and represents Amon-Ra; he effectively replaced the god himself.

Freud investigated Egyptian monotheism as possible source of Moses' monotheism. To these layers I would suggest another, accessible through archives that are still underused by western inquirers. Questions of intellectual genealogy and inheritance can be enriched (although not answered) by accessing Islamic archives. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Ptolmeac corpus influenced Islamic thought. Islamic law was informed by Solomon's judicial system. Further in these archives monotheism is traced to the Patriarch common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Abraham. How would Socrates hypothetical journeys to Palestine and Syria and the possible influence of Hebrew sages on Socrates himself impact on the concept of bastardized, hybridized and spliced philosophies? Answers as evidence are not the issue. The answers to Freud's question 'Was Moses Egyptian?' like Yerushalmi's 'Is psychoanalysis a Jewish science?' take second place to the open-ended questions themselves.

Derrida's papyrus and postcard connection led to the Bodleian Library. While reading my library copy of Postcards, the ghostlike presence of the postcard became so tangible, I almost expected 'a missing letter' scratched on the back of Plato and Socrates to fall out from between the pages. Following Derrida's trail electronically I accessed the Bodleian Library's medieval print section. The Bodleian Library seemed elusive, even exclusive: it is the main research library of the University of Oxford used by scholars from around the world. However, a number of their collections of medieval manuscripts are now available around the globe on-line. The mechanical reproduced images that appeared on my screen leaving their impressions were from Dante's Divine Commedia. In a northern Italian 14th century illustration Dante and Virgil observe Mohammed and Ptolemy, both condemned to inferno for their heresies. The same medieval censorship that suppressed Ptolemy's Geographia, and denied the monotheism of Islam, had also misread Socrates and Plato.

Was Artaud referring to Ptolemy when he proclaimed: 'The library at Alexandria can be burnt down. There are forces above and beyond papyrus: we may temporarily be deprived of our ability to discover these forces, but their energy will not be suppressed' (1981: 53). Instead the secret archives becomes a spectre, a ghost, a phantom protecting itself from detection, repression, censorship and destruction.

An entire corpus of Greek knowledge was rejected by early Christians fearful that the spherical globe violated their fundamental religious beliefs. Navigation and cartography are inextricably interwoven. Yet the historiography of cartography of our biosphere is one of ransacked, missing, secret and recovered archives. In 391 AD Christians mobs sacked the Alexandrian library including Ptolemy's research. As Librarian of the Alexandrian, he had inherited centuries of Greek scholarship which he published in the Geographia. Arabo-Islamic scholars, unbridled by Christian fear of 'Greek science' translated and developed Ptolemaic maps for their journeys to India, Tibet and China. In 1154 Al-Idrisi, Arabo-Islamic geographer in a Sicilian court created a world map influenced by Ptolemy. The European period of world-wide expansion took place only after Medieval maps were replaced by Ptolemy's science. McLuhan suggested that without maps as a means of communication "the world of modern science and technology would hardly exist" (McLuhan 1964: 157-8). What will be the suppressed memories, the missing links on the maps of the infosphere, on the maps of the archives? Who decides the grid and the structure?

Digitized, indexed and linked image, stills and motion, sound and text can be mapped by one author then unwrapped and re-mapped by an active reader. Virtual objects seem to float dislocated from space and time connected only by links, those 'arrows frozen in time' (Shields 2000). Once reproduced electronically, an urn, an 11th century map, a postcard letter or the Bodleian's 14th century version of Dante's Commedia are wrenched from the structure, context and content. John le Carré stated, 'Nothing exists without a context.' Descriptions and explanations can be lost leaving 'vast holes in memory.' Or the opposite can occur: Navigational tools, maps and charts can reintegrate structure to context and content (Wallot 1996: 14). Through electronic embedding, for example, virtual images of Inuit sculptures, those silent ambassadors of a dynamic living culture, can hyperlink context and content in rich layers of information.

Concept maps are not innocent; they become tools for data interpretation and ways of assigning value and meaning. Maps are not draped over reality; they exclude. They are like Derrida's archontes, the archivists who wield authority (and power) over data, its interpretation, its storage and its accessibility. The archontes of electronic archives decide what is collected, described and classified or ignored, destroyed or virtually left hanging, unmapped and disconnected. What happens to the 'other' in cyber archives? If categories are not created, do they no longer exist? If there are no pointers, can they be found? Could the holocaust have happened in the age of electronic mail? Would there have been electronic traces of the crematoria?

"But of the secret itself, there can be no archive, by definition. The secret is the very ash of the archive. . ." Derrida's concept of archives bridges the technical, political, ethical and judicial with poetry and ghosts. In Feu le cendre the holocaust ashes of the crematoriums contain traces of memories, names, letters, photos, personal objects and even keys. The ashes become the pharmakon. They are both cure and poison; they remain but are gone. They are the incomplete archives, traces of the disappeared, traces that speak of that 'other' memory.

The censorship of psychoanalysis, 'a Jewish science' led to an ethos of protective secrecy about Freud's archives which continued throughout the 20th century. In 1885 and again in 1907 Freud completely destroyed all his correspondence, notes, diaries and manuscripts (Yerushalmi 1994). He wrote Moses and Monotheism, his only work specifically on a Jewish theme on the eve of Nazi occupation of Austria. Shortly after Freud's forced exile to England and the completion of his manuscript, Freud died. His inquiry into the history of monotheism was a questioning of the role of religion itself. Was it possible to trace suppressed memories of a people as one can with individuals? Would such a project reduce religion to that of a social neurosis caused by deeply embedded and suppressed transgenerational memories? Freud wrote his first manuscripts knowing that censorship would prevent it from being read, at least in his lifetime. Catholic authorities were critical of psychoanalysis: this manuscript would provoke even greater antagonism. After his death any literature on psychoanalysis uncovered by the Nazis was incinerated as 'Jewish literature.' But Freud's psychoanalysis of Jewish history and Judaism also sent a shock wave through the Jewish community. He hypothesized like Otto Rank in 1909, that Moses was born to a Egyptian princess not to a Hebrew woman. Freud suggesting that Moses' monotheistic religion was actually based on an existing Egyptian monotheistic religion, Aten. Further he sought out clues to Moses' murder. In effect Freud was dismantling the Jewish claim to uniqueness. Freud died before the manuscript was published, without ever knowing the holocaust. He wrote for a secret archives, knowing readers were not ready, nor would they be until sometime in the future. Derrida describes the writing that seeks dissimulation as anarchives, the 'other' archives, the secret archives hidden from the flames of repression.

Yerushalmi's book Freud's Moses became an appeal to the spectre of Freud to reveal the contents of the secret archives, to provide answers that the archives did not hold. How did Freud's personal life relate to his teaching or to the history of the psychoanalytic movement? In the final dramatic, audacious chapter entitled 'Monologue with Freud,' Yerushalmi addresses Professor Freud's spectre in a 'fiction which [he] somehow do[es] not feel to be fictitious' (Yerushalmi 1991:81). Yerushalmi implores Freud to reveal to him "When your daughter [Anna in 1977 declared that psychoanalysis was a Jewish science] conveyed those words to the congress in Jerusalem, was she speaking in your name?"

Was Freud being loyal to Judaism, through disloyality? Was he recognizing its weaknesses without rejecting it outright? Was he refusing alienation and victimization? Was he protecting his own true subjective freedom by refusing to accept in its entirety an inherited ethnicity, religion, culture or nationality (Derrida 1996c)?

Yerushalmi did not expect the archives to provide evidence of Freud's relationship to Judaism. But did he perhaps hope that Freud's collection of antiquities would reveal some specifically Jewish objects? None were exhibited in a travelling exhibition of Freud's antiquities in 1989. However, a year later exhibition curator Dr. Gamwell informed Yerushalmi, after he had sent off his manuscript, that at the Freud Museum in London, objects had been found "which are related to Freud's Jewishness." Included in the list of items was a Hanukkah Menorah which was in Freud's study during his lifetime and a 1913 postcard to Karl Abraham which shows the arch of Titus. On the image depicting the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE with soldiers removing the Menorah from the Temple, Freud wrote, "The Jew survives it!" (Yerushalmi 1991)

Freud used his vast collection of antiquities from Greece, Rome and Egypt to illustrate his remarks during his therapy sessions. He compared the relatively unchanging nature of the unconscious to the antique objects in the study which had been entombed and preserved, then uncovered, unchanged.

The pivotal object however was the rebound bible which Freud's father had presented to Freud on his thirty-fifth birthday in May, 1891. Yerushalmi became the first guardian, reader, doctor and the only legitimate archon (Derrida 1995:22) of Jacob Freud's Hebrew dedication, which Derrida himself analysed in detail. Derrida described the law makers who create and maintain the archives: Freud's father, Freud, Yerushalmi and the "arch-archiving of the family Bible of the arch-patriarch of psychoanalysis in the arca, cupboard, prison cell, cistern, reservoir." (Derrida 1995:23) Using this specifically Jewish artifact Derrida ties together strands that had been threading through Dissemination, Feu le cendres, Postcards and Archives Fever. The impression is left by the Jewish father on his son. The one who writes is written by the father in the presocratic language. The new skin of the Bible is covered with scar-like traces as reminders, as ways of remembering. The Bible as gift to the son continues to be the gift to Yerushalmi who yearned for the spectral presence of Freud.

The archives provide a deluge of information. But haunting questions remain: how does information become transformed into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom? (Yerushalmi 1994)? This commitment to rereading history from papyrus to hypertext parallels the commitment to philosophy from a cosmopolitical point of view. It is not merely theory for theory's sake. Gatekeepers of the archives (and collective memory) wield power. Access to information is more than a legal right: it becomes an indicator by which effective democracies can be measured. (Derrida 1996a: 4). The mapping of archives of the infosphere needs to be concerned with uncompromised inclusivity as constitutive of a renewed, unbound, effective democracy in which plurality can co-exist with social cohesion. It requires a consistent and constant vigilance against complicity and complacence. It involves nurturing and encouraging diverse ways of seeing, knowing and remembering. The architecture of deconstruction facilitates the round-tables of discussions which invite, welcome and propel rather than discourage, exclude, dismiss and prevent convergences of divergent thoughts. The sparks of discord can illuminate the ashes and dust of the (missing) archives.

Contact � Maureen Flynn-Burhoe 2000 for comments, corrections and copyright concerns.

We gave up another homerun to a pitcher last night: Matt Cain.  Who?  He's the guy who not only scored a run, but also pitched 8 solid innings against the Astros and gave them their second loss in eleven games.

And Hunter Pence continues to have problems communicating with his teammates on the field.  Last night, he collided with Kaz Matsui and both players were on the ground for a little while.

I don't know if he just isn't loud enough or if he isn't willing to let anybody else have the ball.  Being an aggressive player is all fine and dandy, but being a good teammate is required as well.  Jose Cruz needs to take Hunter aside and have a long talk with him about cooperation.

Brandon Backe had a decent game, but when you start the night off giving up a triple, it's going to be tough.  And we had some sloppy play on the field as well.

All in all, it wasn't an impressive game for the Astros.  I am hopeful that they will look better tonight as Brian Moehler has his second start against Patrick Misch who has a 0-0 record with a 5.63 ERA.

I'm looking forward to getting out of Pacific time and back to a time when I can actually stay up long enough to watch the game.

I've got nothing interesting to write about JTV today. I spent hours with my head buried in some video and chat archives and that's it. Video archiving has been around since the beginning, but this chat archiving is new and it appears to date back to October. I think that's when JTV moved from Beta to general release. I noticed today that each channel has a chat history that anyone can access and it They sure do have a ton of data and video archives now, don't they?

I took the opportunity to not be on my feet and to see if I could get myself rested up to start another long week. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do much of anything. I did watch some daytime television. Something I simply have not done in a year. It was refreshing. And the sun finally did come out today! After days of horrible weather, that big yellow ball in the sky made a beautiful appearance.

Just like Annie sang, there's always tomorrow. Rather than write a detailed post tonight I am going to attempt to rid myself of the monster headache that's plaguing me before my head falls off my shoulders. But first, below are a couple of photos of the DEElicious matzoh ball soup that was part of tonight's dinner.

It was the best part of my day. Just what the doctor ordered. It's "Kosher penicillin," and it works! :) This soup always has incredible healing powers. I'd like to bottle it for the world to cure what's ailing it.

I really kind of love my job.

I'm only two days in an I know this is going to be the best summer job I have ever had. I'm treated like an adult and a professional as opposed to a lowly student and I get to hover between the archives and the museum, helping both the archivist and curators with their various administrative tasks. I've been given the opportunity to immerse myself in the daily and ongoing operations, by the end of the summer I'll know what it takes to be in cultural management. It's amazing just how much energy and attention goes into these properties, not to mention pure affection.

I've learned more local history in the last two days than I have in my entire life of living in Port Colborne and the conversations I have on the job are just as stimulating and enlightening as any seminar I ever had in university.

And the people I work with are stunning. Every day at 3pm, without fail, we stop the work we are doing (Today it was publishing and packaging the thrice yearly newsletter.) to sit down, drink tea, and talk about culture, history and the beautiful things that make life worth living.

This is incredible.

Even Bagwell in 1994 didn't have a better start to a season than this.  Heck, most players don't have a start to a season like this.

I figure since it is the Astros, we (and Lance) will come back to earth every night, but they keep proving me wrong.  With the problems that Zito has had this year, it was fate that he would pitch a no-hitter last night.  He didn't pitch badly, but the Astros still beat him.  (Thank goodness.  We always seem to be the key to opening the lock on a struggling pitcher.)

So I am just going to enjoy the ride of watching an historical month and start to a season for a player that just happens to be the first baseman for my favorite team.

And get this... he's playing hurt.  Not real hurt, but he tweaked his knee again.  If he gets healthy, will he be even better?

And when are the opposing pitchers going to start intentionally walking him?  It has to be soon.  To tell you the truth, I am surprised they are still pitching to him.  He is even hitting pitches that are low and outside.

Enjoy it.  Relish in it.  Celebrate it.  It really is impressive and something we probably won't see again.

Tomorrow (the 13th of May, 2008), all 300 families of the Delft-Symphony Anti-Eviction Campaign will be going tomorrow to the Cape Town Civic Centre. The pavement dwellers will be coming to Town with the purpose of personally delivering handwritten letters indicating our wishes to Mayor Helen Zille.

We are upset because our opinions and needs are being ignored by the city. The letters will, amongst other things, demand a change in the way the city treats its poor. We demand to be treated as citizens of this country and to be respected as equal human beings by city officials.

We invite the press to join us at the Civic Centre tomorrow morning to find out the details of our grievances and support us in holding the city accountable to the South African Constitution.

For comment, please call Auntie Jane at 078-403-1302 and Jerome at 083-541-6622.

Housing delivery has ground to a halt in certain parts of South Africa — all because of a bitter tug-of-war over municipal land.

Despite a massive housing backlog of more than two million units, municipalities are holding on to millions of hectares of prime commonage land — which is supposed to be used to assist local residents — or have already sold it to private developers despite a countrywide moratorium on such land sales, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has told Business Times in an exclusive interview.

Sisulu said that tens of thousands of hectares suitable for affordable housing may have been lost this way, a problem caused largely by a combination of soaring land values and dwindling council revenues. And in many cases the municipalities are selling the land under dubious circumstances.

Huge tracts of land in rural municipalities are also lying idle due to unresolved land claims, she said.

The situation has prompted urgent talks between the departments of housing, land affairs, public works and the Treasury, with several key legislative changes in the pipeline to stop the municipal land grab — and to bring maverick officials into line. “Somehow the state has tied itself up into so many binds that it is unable to move with the speed with which it should move,” Sisulu said.

Commonage land was granted to municipalities decades ago free of charge subject to stringent title-deed conditions for use for local residents.

In a frank appraisal of national housing delivery, Sisulu listed several other major obstacles which include:

# There is still no complete public land asset register, which means the three spheres of government do not know how much land they have and may be available for housing or land reform;

# Housing costs have rocketed due to the high price of cement and steel caused by the ongoing construction of the country’s 2010 World Cup soccer stadiums;

# Massive areas of municipal commonage in Limpopo are tied up in land claims now before the Land Claims Commission; and

# Parastatals such as Transnet are sitting on vast tracts of land that cannot be transferred to the housing department because of legal complications.

The Minister’s comments coincide with this week’s tabling in Parliament of the Housing Development Agency Bill, which paves the way for a government housing body to buy, sell, hold and expropriate land for housing development. The agency would, in conjunction with the provinces, also monitor municipalities and sanction those selling land to the private sector without the housing minister’s permission, Sisulu said.

She said this had become necessary due to the failure of a 2005 voluntary moratorium on the sale of municipal land: “They (the municipalities) just haven’t responded (to the moratorium),” Sisulu said, adding that land sales had in fact peaked shortly after the moratorium was put in place.

“We’ve lost out a number of times on this, which is why we’ve decided to take a very aggressive stand, because it’s a short-term gain that municipalities have and a long-term spatial disaster that we’re sitting with.”

An additional problem was the rate at which housing beneficiaries were selling their new homes and moving back into informal shacks, thereby adding to the delivery backlog: “It’s like putting water into a bucket and not plugging the leak,” Sisulu said, adding that new legislation would address the problem.

Sisulu’s comments follow several controversies involving commonage land in municipalities including Hermanus, George, Stellenbosch and Ekurhuleni.

The Stellenbosch council recently ordered the continuation of a far-reaching audit into the status of 1700ha of commonage land, believed to be worth almost R2-billion, some of which was sold to developers to create luxury golf resorts and dished out to white commercial farmers on 50-year leases.

Housing experts this week said municipal commonage should be ceded to the housing department free of charge, because the Constitution said that the “history of acquisition” should determine the amount of financial compensation.

The same principle applied to parastatal land, experts said.

Kobus Pienaar, spokesman for the Legal Resources Centre, said: “In cases where land was granted free of charge to municipalities, it doesn’t make sense that they should sell it off for the purposes of more golf courses.”

He said that land granted free of charge for the benefit of the community should also not be subject to land claims.

“The municipality should be making this land available for the benefit of its residents while retaining ownership. Once you transfer a piece of the commonage off, you effectively wave it goodbye,” Pienaar said.

Sisulu said that, in future, housing officials would work closely with land affairs to speed up land acquisition for housing.

Once suitable land was secured, the new Housing Agency could more effectively initiate and monitor public- private partnerships.

A case in point was the transfer of municipal land from the Cape Town Council for the development of the N2 Gateway project outside the city. “It took a year for the city to transfer the land to us, a year in which the principle developer, First National Bank, could not move forward,” Sisulu said.

The biggest problem was the ‘‘tedious processes” that people had to go through to get land. This could take up to three years, she said.

To inspire people.

To create as many different stories and ways to relate to items as possible.

A cultural memory - built by their users.

Stay open and be interesting.

Takes the community out of the immediate environment and into a more inspirational and aspirational place.

The dissemination of information.

To give people the opportunity to learn and to reflect their lives.

To offer people a different view of the world and to challenge their preconceptions about the world.

A comfortable and neutral place to relax.

Bringing all interested parties together under one roof in a creative space in which to explore issues of identity, politics and the community that we live in.

It's about changing people's lives.

These are the answers, so what is the question? 

This is the question:

My question is could these answers not more or less relate to all three professions?  Wouldn't all of them claim to be about learning, about identity, about challenging people's perceptions and engaging with them in a relaxing and neutral space?  Aren't we all essentially trying to do the same thing?

The answer?  Probaly not.  But everytime I try to predict a game on this blog, they prove me wrong, so I don't know what to think anymore.

They have a first baseman who is starting to match some 50-year-old records in offense.  They have a starting pitcher who tied a 46-year-old record yesterday by going 8 starts with no decision.  They have an infield that speaks 3 different languages, yet still manages to make outs.  The have a team that has gone 18-9 in the last 27 games.  And they have a starting pitching staff where one could argue that the ace should be the #5 pitcher and vice-versa.

It's been a crazy year and that's what has made it so much fun.  It's getting to the point where you can't turn off the game in the 8th inning if the Astros are down by a couple of runs.  Just take your heart medicine and keep watching.  Odds are they are going to pull out a come from behind win and that means that they keep gaining confidence and the next come from behind win is going to be even easier.

Lance Berkman
Yesterday, Vin Scully, one of the most knowledgeable minds in the game, was heaping praise on Lance Berkman like you wouldn't believe.  He was pulling out statistics that nobody else had found and they were impressive.  Lance is impressive this year.  He should be the starter in the All-Star Game (but won't because he plays in Houston and his last name doesn't start with a P.)  If he can keep this up, (a BIG if), then he will win MVP.  Nobody will be able to touch him.  Everybody keeps talking about how great Chase Utley is playing in Philadelphia and Chipper looks like he drank from the fountain of youth.  Here is a comparison of their numbers. 

Utley is first in one category (homeruns) and Lance is 1 behind.  Jones is first in two categories and one of those is a tie with Lance (hits).  Lance is ahead of the other two in the remaining five categories.  If the season ended now and they gave the MVP to Utley or Jones, it would be a travesty.

Kaz Matsui
I've had my doubts about Kaz, but he is coming around and Erin Hogan on 1530 AM ESPN Austin this morning reminded me of something.  Kaz missed most of Spring Training and the beginning of the season so Kaz is about a month behind everyone.  At the moment, we are seeing him after a full month of Spring Training.  Keep that in mind as the season progresses.  He's just starting to come around.  I do enjoy watching him on the field.  He is a quiet player who lets his glove do the talking and he looks like the kind of guy who works hard off the field and berates himself if he makes a mistake.

Hunter Pence
How many teams would have Hunter hitting #6 in the lineup?  The kid looks great at the plate and solid in the outfield.  The opposing pitcher can't take a breather when they get through the killer BLT.  They have the predator to face next.  Scully was mentioning how the Astros have the best 3, 4, 5 hitters in the game.  I will go one step further and mention that they have the best 3, 4, 5, 6 hitters in the game.

The Defense
Lately, this has become my one concern.  In the first month of the season, the Astros had the best defense in the league.  As of late, they have had a questionable performance on the field.  Tejada made a boneheaded play Saturday by calling off Carlos Lee on a pop-up in left field.  Carlos had the better angle.  I know he struggles on defense, but that was his ball.  If we start making excuses for him, then you go down a slippery slope and guys are going to start making mistakes.  Tejada should not have called off Lee.  He missed it and they looked like idiots on the field. 

The Astros seem to be making pretty idiotic fielding mistakes.  This needs to stop now.  They aren't going to always recover from them and they are unnecessary.  My guess is that Cooper is not too happy with these errors.  The one caveat to this is Michael Bourn.  He made a play on Sunday that was phenomenal.  That guy can straight fly.

Preview
Today should be interesting.  Roy Oswalt (who is not having a typical year) is facing Barry Zito (who might go down in history as the worst signing of all time).  My worry is that Zito will use the Astros to finally get back into form and bounce back from his terrible start. 

Hopefully my prediction will be wrong again.

MOMS: We hope you had a great day yesterday. You are vital every day!

PRAISE: Sebring Blue Streaks baseball team - we're proud of you! Keep your heads up. Today is a new day.

MONDAY'S SEBRING AREA FORECAST: It will be a little cooler today because it will be partly cloudy, high of 89, but a rain chance of only 10%.

If you want more information or want to discover the current condition throughout the day, click on the following link:

http://www.weather.com/weather/local/33870?from=tenDay_topnav_undeclared

WHAT'S UP FOR TODAY: Coming are, well, a list of coming events, a photo shoot with a couple of kids who did something for mom on her day, a Speed Racer movie review, and, of course, the box office report - all by noon!

MOVIE SHOWTIMES: Go to the right sidebar and we have movie times for several theaters, most importantly the Carmike Cinema and the Fairmount Cinema right here in our own neck of the woods. The Yahoo! listing covers both theaters plus some others. And in case you're headed out of town, we list a couple of super theaters. Make your moviegoing the best!

PAST STUFF: You can search this weblog - and comment at any time - through use of the Search feature at the top of the left sidebar. Read the articles on baseball or softball, including the Lady Blue Streaks videos, the movie reviews or anything. You can also go directly to the Archives. Enjoy!

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