'Today, communism appears to many as a historic stupidity and, without a shadow of a doubt, capitalism has victoriously emerged as the dominant paradigm.' However, this view is 'too short-sighted and conditioned by the recent demise of communism', as such a simplistic view neglects 'at least two points.

'First, the realisation of any theory always differs from the theoretic model which, at any rate, captures only part of societal organsation. History and the distribution of social and political values interfere with the economic model. For example, only under very restrictive assumptions could it be claimed that, say, colonial capitalism was superior to Soviet communism.

'Second, because the working class suffered from unbearable misery during the take-off phase of the now successfully developed capitalist countries - a misery during still prevalent throughout the developing world - the Marxist vision gave hope to large fractions of society of both developed and developing countries, a hope that capitalism was unable to provide.' (emphasise added)

- D. Gros and A. Steinherr

It's all Greek to me...

The English people say 'It's Greek to me!' when they are totally an idoit at something. E.g. 'Maths is all Greek to me!'... Greek has largely remained unchanged from its ancient origin, which represents the linguistic 'mystery' of Ancient Greek (similarly, Hebrew, Chinese and the oriental others, whilst Latin has been 'modernized' and produces various offsprings.) In this sense, Greek means 'foreign' to the English. Could easily tell from the Greek alphabet.

The other day Yvonne came and Dave (who is trying hard to catch me up in Greek) asked her, 'Do you speak Greek?'
And Yvonne the English literature PhD responded, 'No. Greek is GREEK to me!'
Dave: 'And English is ENGLISH to you!'
LoL...

The reason the English don't say it French or Spanish is that they understand these language very well! Languages from the Latin family are very much close to each other, and are easily linked to each other or to Latin. Once you speak English, you know some words of one another from the family; if you grow in the English culture, you can never escape the Latin context which is mixed with all other languages; if you are educated, you know Latin, thus not at all an absolute beginner of any other family member; and -- if you are well educated, you must be a multi-language speaker.

Latin and Ancient Greek are the two major ancient literal tongue that nurture the Western culture. But the Greek language is not as widely spread as Latin. It is now only spoken in Greece and Cyprus. Nevertheless, Greek do 'lend' terms to the Latin family, especially in maths and science. So Dave the maths teacher is best at remembering the numbers. His university notes are Greek fomula, Arabic numbers and English parameters -- decide which culture makes the huge contribution to human wisdom: the Greek! (check your own maths notes, if you are advanced in maths...)

Not many people in the U.K. studying (research, in terms of academy) Greek, comparing to the Latin languages, since it is relatively less 'useful' in the modern world. Evidence: flows of research on French, German, etc etc etc but hard to find otherwise. People should be aware of this... I don't worry that Ancient Greek die soon since it won't; what I am afraid of is that everything is judged by its usfulness.




Put in the USA, I heard people in LA say, 'Oh no, it's Chinese to me!' LoL...

How do we say this in China? Well, we say 'It's Niao-yu (birds' language)', which means 'it's non-Chinese'!!!

How Important This Is

VoicesssssssssssssssssSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS to be heard.

The Mellow Songs

The Mellow Songs is the album for our Valentine's Day homeparty seafood dinner. On 13th Feb Dave and I spent the whole night on it...

This is Dave's xxth album. His albums include Days of the Week, Happy Birthday Max, Max Mix, Dave's Favourites, and a lot others.

Played at meal, the album was loved by our guests! This wide range of songs (of our taste) is just right for the Valentine's Day mood and at the same time suitable for a party - not very boring. On selection, we also imagined the party rundown and ordered the tracks accordingly. Ohhhh, we also played a little humour on the contents...(you will see, if you are familiar with the songs:P) Okay here are the tracks:

1. Mellow Doubt
2. Rust
3. When I'm Thinking about You
4. Lucky
5. Eskimo Lament
6. Leave This City
7. Leizah
8. Olympian
9. Monochrome
10. My Sundown
11. It Doesn't Matter
12. Cover From the Sky
13. Still in the Mood
14. Speak to Me Someone
15. Lines of Light
16. She Sun
17. Here You Me
18. Homeward
19. Paid to Smile
20. Never Fall in Love Again