What I Have Been Up To...

What I have been reading from mid-January till now...? A lot but none is finished...shame...

Frazer, The Golden Bough: A study in magic and religion (Abridged Edn). The religious life has never been so much exposed and so touchable to me. Descriptive and rich, it is to me a state-of-the-art anthropology reading. Although at the meantime I went to talks brought by the Christian Society, this reading is yet to have much connection with the speeches.

Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experience with Truth. A very striking work - yet he tells his story in a most modest manner. It is not the words but something behind them are inspiring. '...there's no other God than Truth.'

McMahon, The Pursuit of Happiness: A History from the Greeks to the Present. We all long for certain kind of happiness, but do we? We think the pursuit of happiness is human instinct, but is it so ever since? From McMahon's book you start to realize how happiness has become our desire - it is a late awareness of the human being. This book is rather psycor than history, to me.

Coyle & Morrow, The Philosophical Foundations of Environmental Law: Property, Rights and Nature. It focuses on an interesting question of the relationship environmental law is governing. As a (very) contemporary division of law, environmental law or the law concerning the environment does not seek to home itself to a philosophical theory, since it appears always policy-driven. The authors argue that it concerns the relationship between human and nature, in adjusting the ownership and the use of (nature as) 'property'.

Bahn (Ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology. An account of archaeological exploration and research. With maps, charts, index and a wide range of other visual support, it illustrates the history of the subject of archaeology. Sooooo interesting.



Besides, I got really good bargin on 7 new books from DSU. (They sell really good stock/used stuff at DSU. e.g. the weekly CD stall where I got 1950s old movies and high quality Eagles CDs for Mo.) Books are priced from £2 to £4, and the vendor sold me some items for £1 or for free, since I am his big customer:P Books I got are:

Tolstoy, War and Peace
Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experience with Truth
>>p.s. was reading the copy from library, and saw it sold for £3.5 today...
Barrow, The Romans
Kitto, The Greeks
Brondsted, The Vikings
>>p.s. this series of history from the 'Pelican Original' is so good...am fan of Penguin Books
Slovo, Red Dust (novel about truth and lie, and uncertainty...)
Szpilman, The Pianist (novel of a Jewish pianist...is now a film)

The Greek Tongue Twister

Greek is always like tongue twister. Pick any sentence, say,

Εισαι εδω για δουλεια;
Eeseh edo yeea duleea?

...which means Are you here for work?

Yesterday Tom and I came across a sentence, and we made a real challenge to your tongue! Read:

Η Αννα ειναι ενα. Η Ελλη ειναι εννια.
Ee arna eeneh ena. Ee eli eeneh enia.

...which means, Anna is 1 year old, Elly is 9 years old!

Don't be Mean

This morning all IEL students received an e-mail. Quite in a sudden and surprise, it is only the second time we received a letter from a student representative.

It reads:

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of a chinese student named YYY, I would like to ask you who chose topic 2 for your 2nd essay to help each other with searching relevant materials since she announced me she could not find any.

De facto, I do not choose that topic so I cannot see any difficuties in the step of "search and research for materails" for that. I wish that you could help yourselves with the problem.

As student rep. my suggestion has been forwarded to the PGSSCC that more legal research skill seminars/lectures should be given, anyway we can unite to make it out for the immediate issue.

Best regards,

Shocked. Could anybody tell me what is the point posting such a 'show-off' notice to the rest of the class when someone else has asked for your help? Ok I understand how same 'shocked' our rep was when he came across YYY's inquery. I, too, couldn't believe that she is unable to reach access to ANY relevant material in the literature-aboundant DS topic at THIS TIME almost deadline and asked FOR A PEP'S HELP who is supposed to deal with student-department complaints. And yes today students were talking about how much they were amazed by the matter. But the rep is worse in this case in sense of being illauthorised, unhelpful and mean.

I think firstly, you authority as a rep confines in representing students in front of the department. You are right in, as you see in this matter it is the insufficient research trainings provided by the department should be blamed, requesting more training opportunities for us. When you are willing to help her in the next instance, it is personal. I don't mind receiving a letter from you asking for help for others, and would be happy to help. And THE UTMOST issue is that (- even if you are using your authority wrong) if you act in a manner of HELPING out, we actually don't care that much. But are you really helping her, or are you just showing off that you are 'helping' your students as a rep? (If you are not a rep you won't write a letter like this and it won't be sent. In this sense you are using the authority to do this.)

Read through the letter, nothing is actually helpful to solve the present problem. You 'would like to ask us...to help each other' is nonsence. 1) What is the problem? Not practical at all by saying 'relevant material' - Shall we send her my essay which is much less troublesome? is one of my classmate's response. 2) How do we help? Call her in the middle of the night and talk to her? Who do we get in touch with? - I know, you don't want to bother yourself by asking students to help her through you. 3) 'I wish that you could help yourselves with the problem.' Where is this from?!!? I was terribly amazed seeing this. So why you send us the letter??! Are you kindly reminding YYY to help herself? Are you warning us not to bother you anymore? Oh obviously you are showing off that 'I write this letter, but I don't care.' Alright alright, when look back to your 'I cannot see any difficuties...' we know you are distinguished in class already.

Need not to continue...I feel very uncomfortable reading it. I do think YYY might be weak at research (if the rep's statement is true), but I do not make a rushed judgment that this is unforgivable. I have experienced a similar situation before, I try every effort to make up my essay and was not able to till deadline. I don't find myself any excuse on that but I myself know what's going on and desperately need understanding and relieve. I would say she is in a difficult situation which may happen for a reason. 'What is real is rational' by Hegel is, though not a perfect scenario here, rational. We are too often impose our sided thoughts to others. Even in common sense, there are exceptions; even there's much evidence, there are missing ones. The rep exposed what he might think rediculous to us, and I knew from people's discussion today that they all think this is so rediculous.

I believe there's always truth somewhere, and there's always good and bad, right and wrong, proper and stupid. You have plenty of evidence to attact this belief but I insist. - this has nothing to do with imposing values, it is something bottom-lined. (Otherwise there is no moral good in the world.) However, 'not to be mean' is a virtue, even though you see things fake, bad, wrong and stupid. I am talking about an attitude not a motto. I can be critical and be 'nice'. While 'nice' is a higher standard and does not fit everyone, I never hope someone to be nice when he refuse to. (Plus sometimes nice is just harmful because it never kill the darkside.)

p.s. by saying 'Don't be Mean' I was thinking of the Chinese phase 'be hou-dao', which does not equal 'nice', 'honest' nor 'kind'. To me it is somehow a line of being humanity same as 'don't be mean'...well there's no word I can find in English express this 'bottom-line virtue'?

Last word, if it is YYY that ask you to write this way, Mr.rep, Sorry to you and no one should be blamed...only the tide of nao-can (the brain-damaged.)

Never cease to doubt it

Political affairs are not something rules can lead. This is why public international law and the so-called international economic law (as is different from rules governing international commercial transactions and disputes) keep disappointing me. At this point, I realise that law actually can solve NOTHING in such power-determined arena, and there's no such thing as international 'law'. As long as there are states, there is no way for an international, universal, rule.

Steinberg's article is just a trigger. -- he titled it as Power and Cooperation in International Environmental Law, funny. When he says it is rather political than others, it means the 'documents' are NOT LAW! I insist.

No one should call a multipal-standard and lack-of-accepted-doctrine rule, law.