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Dr. Deepak Chopra, I could not let this moment pass without commenting this very beautiful ''Teaser-Trailer'', by just saying how generous you are for sharing with us your poetry daily. Again and again, thank you.

On Friday, Russia drew the kind of fire from the Iranian President that he usually reserves for the worst of the kafirs in the United States. As reported today by Iran's Fars news agency, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his Russian counterpart had joined the show “written and directed by the United States.” He also grouped Russia with other “liars and cowards” who questioned the intent of Iran's nuclear program.

The attack was aimed specifically at Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has positioned himself opposite Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on this issue. Medvedev's support for the new UN sanctions against Iran on June 9 served as a prelude to his adorable meeting with President Barack Obama two weeks later, when the two presidents shared an order of fries at Ray's Hell Burger outside Washington. Then on July 12 Medvedev became the first Russian leader to echo the West's insistence that Iran is close to building a bomb. Russia, he said a few days later, “could not be indifferent” to this.

But as Putin and his ministers have made clear, Russia is also not indifferent to angering the Islamic Republic. The two are historical allies and major trading partners, especially in the business of weapons, fuel and atomic energy. So in his rhetoric at least, Putin has kept up the appearance of loyalty.

The day before the U.N. Security Council voted on the sanctions, Putin met with Ahmadinejad in Istanbul and insisted that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful. “I'm of the opinion that the resolution should not be unnecessary, should not put Iran's leadership or the Iranian people into difficulty,” Putin said that day. It was nothing like the hugs and giggles Putin and Ahmadinejad shared in Tehran in 2007, but it was still a strong show of support.

Yet when it came time to vote the following day, Russia backed the sanctions, which have undoubtedly hurt both the leadership and the people of Iran. As a result, Putin's reputation took an unusually tough blow. He came away looking like either a weakling or a snake.

Since then, Russia's policy has tilted in the other direction as it tries to get Iran to forget about that whole sanctions thing and be friends again. On July 14, Putin's energy minister said Russia would continue selling fuel to Iran, a costly move, as it would violate the unilateral sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States. Russian fuel suppliers like Lukoil, which has thousands of gas stations in the US, including one a few miles from the White House, could thus be exposed to the US sanctions unless Obama issues a special waiver.

More worryingly for everyone involved, the head of Russia's arms trading monopoly said on July 15 that it might still sell Iran the S-300 missile system, which would immunize its nuclear program from any U.S. or Israeli airstrikes. Any decision to cancel this sale, the arms dealer said, could only be made by Medvedev.

All of this exemplifies the tag-team style of leadership that Putin and Medvedev have going. Medvedev has taken the role of the burger-eating, twitter-loving westernizer of the nation, while Putin provides the counter weight by remaining a hard-ass, skeptical of America's role in the world and friendly with the likes of Venezuela and Iran. None of this should be taken as proof of tensions between the two.

They have simply realized that, one, they need support and investment from the West to plug the leaks in Russia's economy, and two, Putin isn't the best man for that job. His reputation as an aggressive Russian nationalist (which works wonders for his popularity at home) has eroded his ability to make friends with the US and its closest allies. So Medvedev has stepped in (or been inserted) to do the job with his dopey, harmless-looking smile, and it seems to be working. American companies are signing on to the Russian Silicon Valley project, and just look at how neatly Medvedev and Obama made the whole spy scandal go away.

But the Iranian venom on Friday demonstrates that this duplicity will not always work. On some of the most important issues of global affairs, Russia will need to take sides, and unless it's friendship with the Americans starts paying serious dividends soon, it will be very reluctant to alienate its traditional allies any further.

Russia's weapons sales to Iran are alone worth about $500 million per year. And if Iran gets really annoyed, it can act as a spoiler for Russia in several ways. It can finance the Islamic insurgency in the North Caucasus; it can undercut Russia in the gas trade with Turkmenistan; and more broadly, it can begin acting as a rival to Russia's influence in Central Asia, where money talks, Islam is spreading, and old Soviet loyalties don't count for much anymore.

Iran, of course, is also deeply reliant on Russian fuel supplies, so it would not take lightly any move against the Kremlin. But as Ahmadinejad showed on Friday, it is ready to start bashing Russia for its perceived allegiance to the West, and Russia hates to be seen at home or abroad as an American stooge. It has gone along with the sanctions so far in exchange for a couple of concrete favors, most notably Obama's decision to pull the U.S. missile shield back away from Russia's border. But if that support is to continue, the U.S. will need to start dishing out more treats to keep Russia on its side against Iran.

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1. so the point determining quality of the story is the way that story is told, isn't it?

   ^_^

   Posted by: hokya |
   July 4, 2010 5:56 PM

2. I'm wondering if you'll be ok with a re-post of this article, and perhaps a short five min. interview for my blog “Tales from Here and There”.
   Would you let me know?
   Thank you.

   René ~stillmind~

   Posted by: rene |
   July 4, 2010 9:53 PM

3. Unfortunately I beleive this is a horrible way to present marketing. Marketers are not all liers, and yes, I know many many very wealthy people who hold the same principle of telling the truth.

   The way to a great story is to be honest and hit a cord that your customers will be able to connect with. That is what good marketing is about, not lying but promoting the core values that are key influencers for your clients.

   I teach people to be honest. Being dishonest may bring short term gain, but is no way to build a long term business.

   Posted by: Dee Kumar |
   July 5, 2010 2:46 AM

4. You story should be understandable by VC's, Angels, bankers.
   If not you will be wasting much time.

   15 years ago, explaining mobile data using mobile phone technology was an uphill battle as mobile phones were still exclusive and voice only. SMS / Texting was not yet popular.

   Posted by: Alan Green |
   July 5, 2010 6:06 AM

5. I wish I had a great story for my company, but the simple truth is that it has been a lot of hard work for many years, and we're not solving hunger or cancer (even worse; we're not solving a pain at all, we're only helping people become more efficient, and not everybody *wants* that).

   Most companies work hard to solve a tiny little problem for some people, and if you want a great story then you need to make one up. I strongly agree with the previous poster that you should be honest even if it hurts you in the short term !

   Posted by: Atle Iversen |
   July 5, 2010 9:05 AM

6. “Have a good time, ALL the time.” – that spinal tap keyboard guy

   Posted by: Srini Kumar |
   July 5, 2010 8:32 PM

7. You forgot a few things:
   1) Be part of a silly meme that every major tech blog covers (check).
   2) Be part of a network of venture capital, angle investors or similar that all give you inbound leads based on pre-existing arrangements to get a boost in your visibility from day #1.
   3) If you self fund in a category that gets crowded, it doesn't matter how unique the story, blogs like ReadWriteWeb, Gigaom, etc, will ignore you, while the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal still do some investigative reporting and will in fact, quote you.

   So the story goes…if you're not helping the rich get richer, your story won't be shared, b/c nobody likes to gossip about the guy in his garage

   Posted by: Jeremy |
   July 6, 2010 4:01 AM

8. Good post.

   Believe a start up's communications should revolve around the third bullet:

   “Your story should be memorable.”

   In short, make an impression.

   Which isn't easy given the noise level and the number of new ventures vying for attention. There simply isn't enough “oxygen” to go around.

   The same storytelling techniques associated with fiction can help elevate a start up above the fray. This Slideshare deck http://www.slideshare.net/thehoffmanagency/aligning-pr-with-storytelling-by-the-hoffman-agency-4478327 highlights such techniques.

   Posted by: Lou Hoffman |
   July 6, 2010 7:52 AM

9. INC did a 16 page report called “Bring on the Entrepreneurs” We agree, so stand up and be counted at Startups Across America

   http://lnkd.in/szZ6vG

    Posted by: Startupsmap |
   July 8, 2010 8:18 PM

As I wrote a few days ago, I was informed that alleged Russian spy Mikhail Semenko had my business card. Turns out I had his information as well in my personal lap top and had hoped to meet him before my next trip to China — as his blog on the Chinese economy interested me.

There are rumors that Semenko applied for jobs at both the New America Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I've checked with New America's director of human resources, and there is no application — so I can't confirm that he applied. He may have wanted to; New America is a cool place for youngish policy wonks.

But I met Semenko at a meeting I chaired with global strategic risk guru Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, who was speaking about his best-selling new book, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?.

The fundamental thesis of Bremmer's fascinating book is that the biggest, most significant new feature of the global economy is the emergence of “state capitalism”. Bremmer argues that his state capitalism — as manifested in its most potent form in China — threatens both firms and states that practice more traditional laissez-faire market capitalism.

This debate on Chinese vs. American approaches to capitalism is what the handsome alleged Russian agent Mikhail Semenko came to learn about when he visited the New America Foundation on May 27, 2010. Fascinating.

Above is a short clip of my exchange with Ian Bremer on that day — and this is a link to the longer program. It would be interesting to see (I haven't had the chance to check) whether Semenko lodges any questions during the Q&A session.

The Washington Post is reporting that all or most of the alleged Russian spies are going to plead guilty and be deported to Russia as early as tomorrow. I sort of hope that Mikhail Semenko keeps up his blog from Russia — because “agent of influence” or not — his interest in key questions on how the world organizes itself is something we should all be thinking about.

– Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons

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The New Yorker:

The habit of list-making can seem arbitrary or absurd, leaving the list-makers endlessly open to second-guessing (although to encourage such second-guessing is perhaps the best reason to make lists). Good writing speaks for itself, and it speaks over time; the best writers at work today are the ones our grandchildren and their grandchildren will read. Yet the lure of the list is deeply ingrained.

Read the whole story: The New Yorker

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Today in the poetry section; two new poems by Timothy Donnelly.

His Future as Attila the Hun

But when I try to envision what it might be like to live
          detached from the circuitry that suffers me to crave

what I know I’ll never need, or what I need but have
          in abundance already, I feel the cloud of food-court

breakfast loosen its embrace, I feel the shopping center
          drop as its escalator tenders me up to the story

intended for conference space. I feel my doubt diminish, my debt
          diminish; I feel a snow that falls on public statuary

doesn’t do so sadly because it does so without profit.
          I feel less toxic. I feel the thought my only prospect

lies under a train for the coverage stop. Don’t think I never
          thought that way because I have and do, all through

blank October a dollar in my pocket back and forth
          to university. Let the record not not show. I have

deserted me for what I lack and am not worth. All of this
          unfolds through episodes that pale as fast as others

gain from my inertia: I have watched, I’ll keep watching
          out from under blankets as the days trip over the

days before out cold on the gold linoleum behind them
           where we make the others rich with sick persistence.

But when I try to envision what it might be like to change,
          I see three doors in front of me, and by implication

opportunity, rooms full of it as the mind itself is full
          thinking of a time before time was, or of the infinite

couch from which none part, and while the first two doors
          have their appeal, it’s the third I like best, the one

behind which opens a meadow, vast, and in it, grazing
          on buttercups, an errant heifer with a wounded foot,

its bloody hoofprints followed by a curious shepherd back
          to something sharp in the grass, the point of a long

sword which, unearthed, the shepherd now polishes with
          his rodent-skin tunic, letting the Eurasian sun play

upon it for effect, a gift for me, a task, an instrument to lay
          waste to the empire now placed before me at my feet.

Antepenultimate Conflict with Self

1
The times the thought of being pulled apart from
you comes as a relief have come now to outnumber
those it startles me like light from a hurricane
lamp left burning unattended dangerously near
the curtains of the theater we both attend and are.

The fire of it spasms up the tall glass chimney
like little air pockets we’ve watched trudge down
loops in hospital tubing—disarmed, but quietly.
When I have made in our manhood some large noise
to spook off harm, harm has only found us faster.

Saying one should distract it as the other escapes
to an agreed-on spot where we can reconnoiter
after, like under the alder where the jackdaw builds
its nest of surplus playbills. They shred them up
like that as a matter of procedure. They intend no

particular disrespect to you or your production.
None taken. Glad to hear it. Because I thought I saw
a darkness drift across your face that I associate
with umbrage. Not even close. If I were you I wouldn’t
flatter myself. And yet, turning things around, this

darkness you speak of, it must have drifted across
your own face at least as much as mine. Admittedly, yes.
So why not leave me out of it? I’ve been trying to do
just that. Looks to me like you haven’t been going
about it right. That makes two of us, then. Not quite.

Leaving the burning theater behind one begins to
ease into a new perspective. The stairway leads to
a doorway, the doorway to an alleyway, the alleyway
to another door, more stairs, another amber room
where one can forget again, its window overlooking

a car lot emptied of its cars. The stark lines recall
what was and will be there, but isn’t now or anymore.
The scent of juniper or cat piss. A knock at the door.
A look around the room before opening to confirm this
isn’t the one we’ve been, only half in fear, dreaming.

2
After calculation, I’ve let you in. Seated at the table
in cold beneath the window, we try to remember each
example of the condition we’re after, namely that of
a multitude at work in unison. You say alder branches
blown in the wind. I say the warp and weft of waves

on an open bay. You say activity near beehives. I say
heavy snowfall. You say a flock of birds tilting mid-flight
and I say some performances we turn to long enough
to forget what we can never have, not without shedding
either or both of us. As if one had to clear out room

for a discovery that doesn’t come so much as splinter
into the shag. We are down on our hands and knees
trawling gold acrylic pile. We are old here already.
To have rehearsed this almost infinitely hasn’t helped
move things along. On the contrary. The whole idea

of perfection, evidently our aim, seems to have done
less to guide us away from missteps than to make them
even sharper, more palpable, and in several respects
downright impossible to avoid. (All the pressing in of
what we’ll never have reminds us of how thoroughly

bereft we are, even of a hope of one day not wanting.)
You ought to put an end to this. (What pierces my hand
pierces yours, stops us into focus strong enough only
to drive off gauzy voices urging more harm for the quiet
that comes after.) You ought to have put an end to it

first. Shown a little courtesy. (Light dim as light can be
and still be thought light flosses the cleft between poorly
drawn curtains.) You shouldn’t have followed me here.
You made it impossible not to. Took you long enough
to say it though. Some things go without. Without? Without

saying altogether. They sit unsaid in a lost auditorium,
muttering into night. I think they should be heard. I think
I can hear them now. As from behind a wall, or within it.
We have that gift. Yes, and each other. Also sticktoitiveness.
But it’s gifts like these that always get one into trouble.

Timothy Donnelly’s first book of poems, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebensziet, was published by Grove Press in 2003, and his second, The Cloud Corporation, will be published by Wave Books this fall. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Fence, Gulf Coast, Harper’s, The Iowa Review, jubilat, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He is a poetry editor for Boston Review and teaches in the Writing Program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Are you a poet? Do you feel overwhelmed by negativity? Feel like there's no hope for a poet in this world? Especially a female poet? Well don't despair. Spend some time with Amy King. She's the author of Slaves to Do These Things (Blazevox), and, with Ana Bozicevic, she co-curates the Brooklyn-based reading series, The Stain of Poetry, and, maybe most importantly, she has ideas. Over the past few weeks we've been emailing back and forth about her ideas of what it means to be a poet today. Here's a few slices of the force for your perusal. Enjoy.

Do you think it's a good time to be a female poet in America?

Poetry remains one of the most undervalued arts because it brings neither fame nor fortune. To boot, women have historically resided in the realm of the undervalued or “behind the scenes,” where everything from child-rearing to minding the minute details necessary for a society's survival takes place. There's a freedom in those positions though; one may escape popular notions of success, and instead, interrogate the origins of such notions right on through a host of other personal, cultural, philosophical and moral considerations.

The “undervalued” tag disguises another truth; poetry consistently spearheads the most transformative force every cultural history attests to: the power of the word. Children of the Baby Boomers, now in their 30s and 40s, are hitting their writing strides and, thanks to the women's movement, daughters especially are benefitting from their foremothers' efforts to identify and break the machinery that kept women working quietly in the domestic world of letters and diaries. We need only look to the work of so many innovative female poets for inspiration and incentive –models such as Kathy Acker, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Harryette Mullen, Alice Notley, Leslie Scalapino, Anne Waldman, Rosmarie Waldrop, and more– to understand why younger female poets are experiencing a “Feminaissance,” to borrow the title of a recently-published anthology focused on women's poetry and poetics.

These women are thrilling readers, male and female alike, by expanding definitions of just what poetry can do, broadening the scope of how poetry interrogates and, ultimately, challenging the way things are. I'm motivated by new books and anthologies of younger women hitting the shelves these days; their voices stand firmly on the liberating permission of our foremothers' work and are daring in ways largely unprecedented. The potential I feel in my own writing resonates with a larger chorus that confidently and publicly explores what has either been buried or unspoken. No doubt: it's exciting to be a female poet today because the sense of possibility, and the transformative power in that possibility, is palpable. The catch, of course, is to sustain the momentum by getting more of these poetries into the world despite relatively low distribution due, in part, to poetry's marginalized position in the capitalist value system. Poetry also wants to change that system, so poetry's peripheral position is no accident. Only safer, “tamed” poetry is marketed by the big machines today.

Do you think the traditional publishing industry still dictates what poetry does (and does not) get read?

This year, Barnes and Noble poetry shelves shrank from half an aisle to a few shelves. Trade publishers print fewer poetry books, and while the traditional model retains a slipping foothold on what uninitiated readers may encounter, interest in poetry is a running wildfire, likely to turn up in your neighborhood next. Evidence the exponential increase of MFA programs, local poetry readings, online journals, Facebook reviews, Twitter challenges, and the like. Poets are full of ingenuity, embracing it with an eye towards the shapes language takes. We see the changes in literacies, the technologies altering how people read and receive texts, and we react. With the advent of POD (print-on-demand) and the proliferation of E-books, small presses are springing from the giant's loins and poets are doing it for themselves. From numerous niches, Whitman is stirring beneath our boot soles.

No mainstream publishing industry exists anymore for poets than does a single readership – for example, the dwellers of a small town who we in the city might imagine only access what's offered in the mall B&N could just as well be tapping into a lively poetry circuit, which might range from the county laureate to experimental eccentric to local academic to nature poet mom to open-mike Mike to talented country songstress, all with access to blogs and YouTube and POD. How people read & how they publish is a wholly new Borgesian beast in the 21st century, and I think this is cause to celebrate.

A few from the old guard characterize this growing multiplicity as “chaotic” and the “watering down” of poesy, as though mediocre poems never fell from industry presses, as though we might breach a mythological stalwart horizon and create too much. Really though, they fear losing the power to dictate the canonical and omit the peripheral, a fear that opposes asking exactly how we determine value and engage with texts, now that literature is opening to more democratic vistas reflective of our ever-changing population. That power speaks mountains about sustaining status-quo-think and keeping specific people “in their places.”

While traditionalists may sit safely in stasis amid old tomes keeping others out, they will miss this evolving engagement, this poetry that refuses to stay still and reflect only what has passed. James Baldwin wrote, “A language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what the language must convey.” For better or worse, the means by which people exchange ideas are rapidly changing, and poetry, if it is to have a say, must adapt and innovate. We have never needed and hoped so much of poetry as we do today. Poets across the food chain have a chance to be heard in unrestricted ways, or as Susan Howe wrote in The Midnight, “Where philosophy stops, poetry is impelled to begin,” and, in these new formats, become the vehicle for what and how we might imagine.

How do you think the means of publication for poetry and poetry itself are related?

If you have the freedom to publish online or through a small press and reach a good number of people, you will likely feel more comfortable writing exactly what you want. If a small press accepts even the outré or controversial work you do, you'll feel less pressured to conform to what a big publisher might deign to shill in the local B&N. In short, alternative means of publication=creative freedom, the mother's milk of experimental and progressive writing.

This raises the question, “What does it mean to 'sell out?'” The range of writing might be simplified on a scale from that which simply entertains to that which calls attention to the unusual and discomforts. Popular literature puts readers at ease, providing the familiar and comfortable. The latter challenges a lot such as what we expect and is expected of us, what else can stimulate and charge us, what peculiar and unjust matters have we suppressed, etc. Big publishers steer clear of the latter because those issues tend to be political, complex and encourage us to think in ways that seem odd or unpermitted.

For example, I'm often told that I have an occasional beautiful line or image but my poetry sometimes doesn't “make sense.” I'm told to “move on” from poetry and write a memoir because I relay great anecdotes. These encouragements are grounded in the notion that reading should please rather than challenging what people know, thus asking them to step beyond that comfort zone. For them, there is a progress from poetry to memoir that is, in fact, a move towards ease and comfort, rather than opening up and exploring what else our minds are able to conceptualize. It's the equivalent of my students asking me, “Why do we have to analyze these texts? Why can't we just enjoy them?” As though analysis disallows pleasure–try telling the teenager who is suddenly fascinated by cars not to analyze why he likes them, what goes on under the hood, or which tires work best on what surfaces; tell him instead to just to sit back and enjoy how graceful the cars are as they speed by.

Experimental poetry, and writing in general, challenges the “natural” order of things, the surface of “what's real” or the status quo mentality. Such poetry, by default, requires unusual methods of distribution to enable “difficult” or challenging literature to unseat the mainstream model and the politics of our prescribed co-existence (via religion, gov't law, social mores, etc), or else writers will “sell out” and remove those elements, reducing literature to mere popular entertainment. My students learn that literature can usually be boiled down and characterized as doing one of two things: you can simply write what everyone sees and reflect the culture you live in or you can change it by giving shape to new ideas, concepts, and voices silenced or ignored.

How does book distribution and online publication tie into a project like Poets for Living Waters?

Poets for Living Waters, as an action and project, would be next to impossible without the Internet: from two separate states, Heidi Lynn Staples and I were able to create the site, post a call, and begin publishing poems in the face of a national tragedy–all within a week of conception. We are only two weeks in now, and the site's audience grows daily. We have helped organize readings across the U.S. for World Oceans Day, and video and audio from these will be posted on the site. Everything has been done at no cost, except our time, and with the support and desire of so many. The fact that submissions and comments come from a range of “established” and unknown poets is testament that we really are entering a time when the Internet is just as, if not more, relevant to the poetry community than print. Eventually, we may edit an anthology from this project, and I know of several small presses that would likely be interested, or we could publish it ourselves; the stamp of “print” adds yet another facet to the project's reach. The measures of “legitimacy” are inevitably and presently changing.

A few folks have asked me what this project will “do” in the face of such a tragedy, as if responding with words is not an action or won't have an effect. Of course, donating money, time, and energy to clean up the BP oil spill is a direct address, but why can't we, as poets, speak directly to this experience as it unfolds? Must we all sit, in the media age, watching the saga play out on screen via television programs that leave us feeling impotent and removed? One of the roles of poetry is to raise awareness and broaden our own understanding at the same time. Besides feeling angry and impotent, what else can we feel? How are we to proceed in the future? What else can we do as clean up progresses and later damages appear? How will we address the aftermath and how must we change our lifestyles? This “queer” questioning is something I was getting at in my essay, “The What Else of Queer Poetry” – what can we learn, through poetic dialogue and exploration, that the media and our limited awareness can't teach us? This “we” includes those willing to step outside of the “normal” mediums that process information for us, the mainstream media and publishing companies, swallow our trepidation and venture into uncertain territory where we become actors in the world, speaking and listening through the poetic, words carefully chosen and shared in an effort to respond and act, however cacophonous our symphony, instead of being told exactly what is and how it will be by those in charge of the big distribution machines. The Internet provides us with the tools to respond, and we're doing just that.

Material from:zoozz.ru

In my years back home in the American South, I have
grown increasingly unsurprised at the tendency of evangelicals,
nativists, and "true patriots," to read Frost in an unserious manner.
 We need not make a conclusion if the poem is definitely of the opinion
that walls separate neighbors or instead create useful boundaries.  At
the very least, it is a poem that begs us to question the premise —
something which Palin et al. clearly don't understand.  Much like a
kitschy framed needlepoint "I took the one less traveled by, / And that
has made all the difference," a superficial reading of Frost may seem
nice — but it is still kitschy.  Nothing in "The Road Not Taken"
actually allows us to determine which road is, in fact, the one less
traveled by, or whether the difference made was a positive one or not.
 It simply says that we make choices not knowing the future, must make
our own decisions, and we cannot know what the alternate future could
have been.  It is a short poem, easily read as a statement of
individuality and independence, but it is fraught with doubt and
possible regret.

On February 27, 2009, Tapey, a Kirti monk, set himself on fire after a religious ceremony was cancelled by the Chinese authorities at his monastery in Tibet. He survived but may still be imprisoned. His protest followed a year of crackdown after major protests by monks.

Just before he was detained, well-known Tibetan essayist and editor Shogdung had visited his family outside Xining in Qinghai province where he lives. While there, he went into the mountains to make a traditional Tibetan offering, throwing 'windhorses' – prayers printed on small scraps of paper – into the sky. It was a ritual that Shogdung, a 47-year old civil servant who works for the Qinghai Nationalities Publishing House, would previously have opposed, on the grounds that such traditions are ultimately damaging to Tibetan efforts at modernizing their culture.

But that was before March, 2008, and the 'Spring protests' against the Chinese government that swept across the entire Tibetan plateau, involving every sector of society, from nomads, farmers and businesspeople to schoolchildren, teachers, and artists.

Shogdung, whose views were previously seen by many Tibetans as being close to those of the Communist Party, came to believe that this upsurge in dissent and solidarity is a new awakening for the Tibetan people and a rediscovery of pride in their identity as Tibetans. His writings about the 'peaceful revolution' since March, 2008 are among the most far-reaching indictments of Chinese policy in Tibet for 50 years. They are also likely to have been the reason why Chinese security police descended on his office on April 23, seized his books and two computers, and took him to prison.

For the first time since the Cultural Revolution, writers, intellectuals, singers and artists in Tibet are being systematically targeted for their work, and almost every expression of Tibetan identity can be accused of being 'reactionary' or 'splittist'. A popular singer from Amdo (now Qinghai), Tashi Dhondup, is in a labor camp as a result of singing songs referring to Tibetans' grief at the killings in March, 2008. The founder of a Tibetan website promoting Tibetan culture, Kunchok Tsephel, was sentenced in November to 15 years in prison. Bloggers, artists and other intellectuals, including an artist who taught the Tibetan language to nomad children, have 'disappeared'. A Tibetan author who interviewed elders about their experiences in the 1950s has lost his mind after torture in detention.

Despite, and also because of, the severity of the clampdown since the protests began, dissent continues to be expressed, particularly through the written word. As Tibet's best-known writer and poet Woeser says, Tibetans are attempting to transcend the terror by writing about it. They are daring to refute China's official narrative, presenting a more complex challenge to the Communist Party than before.

Shogdung is one of a new generation of educated Tibetans at the forefront of a literary and cultural resurgence in Tibet. This new bicultural, bilingual generation is fluent in Chinese as well as Tibetan, and familiar with digital technology. Although less well-known outside than high-profile Chinese dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo and Hu Jia, Shogdung and other Tibetan writers and bloggers detained over the past two years are famous among Tibetans, and their concerns about repression and restrictions by the state mirror those of their Chinese counterparts. This is a development of immeasurable significance to Tibet's future – and as educated Chinese build new alliances with their Tibetan counterparts – to China's.

While loyalty to the Dalai Lama remains undiminished, often this new generation of Tibetan intellectuals is secular in background and politically moderate. Many support the Dalai Lama's 'Middle Way' approach for a genuine autonomy under Chinese sovereignty. In one collection of writings, Eastern Snow Mountain – banned as soon as it was published in Tibet in 2008 – essayists from Amdo in eastern Tibet demonstrate extensive knowledge of Chinese and Tibetan law and policy, and discuss the sufferings of ordinary Chinese people as well as their own struggles against the state.

Tashi Rabten, one of the editors of the magazine, a thoughtful, determined young student at Northwest Nationalities University in Lanzhou, was detained on April 7, his room ransacked, and his current whereabouts is unknown. In Eastern Snow Mountain, he writes that the essays were published “as a sketch of history written in the blood of a generation.” (English translation in A Great Mountain Burned by Fire: China's Crackdown in Tibet)

Since March 2008, the Chinese government has engaged in a systematic attempt to block news of the arrests, torture, disappearances and killings that have taken place across Tibet. As part of this rigorous approach, the Chinese authorities launched a campaign in Tibet not only against 'spreading rumors' – a term typically used to refer to dissenting views and sentiment in the PRC – but also against listening to them. One Tibetan woman, Norzin Wangmo, is serving a five-year sentence simply for talking about the situation in Tibet on the phone.

Beijing has also tightened control of the internet. In an announcement typical in its opacity, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang said recently: “The Chinese Government manages the Internet according to the law. As for what you can and cannot watch, watch what you can watch, and don't watch what you cannot watch.”

In China, as one writer observed, there is a red line between what can be said and what cannot. But you do not know where the line is until you've crossed it.

Tibetan writer Shogdung, the most high-profile writer to be detained in the current crackdown, knew he had crossed the line when he published his book, The Line between Sky and Earth. That's why he went to visit his elderly father and to pray in the mountains. His family does not know where he is, and no one knows how long he will be held. But his book, published without an ISBN number, is now a word of mouth bestseller, circulating underground, his written words about the 'peaceful revolution' now reaching Tibetans in exile all well as across Tibet.

Details of more than 50 writers, artists and intellectuals who have been imprisoned, 'disappeared' or suffered harassment for their work at: http://http://www.savetibet.org/

High Peaks, Pure Earth: translations from Tibetan blogs and new writing http://highpeakspureearth.com

Like Gold that Fears no Fire: New Writing from Tibet http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/gold-fears-no-fire-new-writing-tibet

Disney/Marvel has already announced that it plans to mine its properties for some lesser-known characters to adapt to film. Over at Warners/DC, with Superman and Batman projects already in the works, it looks like The Flash might their next major superhero project. Although The Flash has had several aborted starts in the past, Berlanti was recently rumored to be one of the front-runners for the director’s chair.

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