Monday, January 17, 2011

Walking with Sarah

Glenn and I were at Oasis this morning, touching on multiple topics. I brought up Shining Path and Dr. Guzman, having seen a 1900s documentary recently, courtesy of Laughing Horse entitled You Must Tell the World... by the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr. Abimael Guzman.

Not unlike in this Ann Sang Suu Kyi bio I've been reading recently, the voice of the narrator has a hard time staying in the past tense as we approach the then present (late 1990s).

But by now it's over ten years later and Peruvian president Fujimori himself has been confined to quarters, after having his own TV show and being a popular leader. Mandela has been a head of state. Revolution keeps happening.

Sarah is a member of the BH household, is of the canine species. She's literally a bitch, which is not a put down, and in fox world translates to "vixen", which even some humans will cop to being (proud as they are). I grew up thinking humans looked goofy in my early years, but gradually grew to be OK with this species.

The Laughing Horse documentary is valuable in that it provides a collation that's willing to side with Dr. Guzman and his Maoist views (including some Kurds, Filipinos, various human rights activists familiar with the Peruvian government's brutality), even though he's credited with 20K deaths. That's a small number compared to what the opposition will admit, but he doesn't embrace it. Besides, even China has turned on Mao, much as the USSR was turning on Stalin as it cracked apart (actually, it had turned awhile before that).

Navigating a revolution in terms of retired philosophers is a risky business. You forget why it's all about some dead chino and/or white guy euro-anglo or whatever the hell. At least Bob doesn't age, and/or at least he has a long half-life (esoteric insider allusion).

I'm sorry Portland doesn't appreciate Laughing Horse more, and it's astounding video collection. Talk about hard to find! It's all very well to make fun of this place on Portlandia, but how about paying attention to the heritage? I doubt PSU has anything like it. If I were a professor, we'd be mining this goldmine, that's for sure.