News and Reviews
2008
Older news and reviews prepared for this website are listed on the News and Reviews 2004-2005 page, the 2006 page, and the 2007 page. News and reviews from 2008 are listed below. All stories are also listed in the News and Reviews Subject Listing. They are also listed and linked at the bottom of each society entry in the Encyclopedia of Selected Peaceful Societies, after the heading: Updates: News and Reviews. News and reviews about peacefulness in general are referred to from the bottom of the Facts page, while news stories about this website are linked from the About This Website page. News and Reviews can also be found with the Google search bar.
Current News and Reviews
May 8, 2008. News and Reviews Feature to be Suspended for a Few Weeks
The News and Reviews feature in the Peaceful Societies website will not be updated for the next several weeks. The webmaster and author of these stories is scheduled for back surgery on Tuesday, May 13. The neurosurgeon is 95 percent confident that the surgery will be successful, but he predicts three to four days in the hospital and a recovery period of about six weeks. We hope to restart the News and Reviews quickly. Please check back for updates by early June.
May 8, 2008. Hazards of Amish Buggies
Several Amish people have had severe problems with “English” motorists while driving their buggies along rural Pennsylvania roads recently.
On Monday, May 5, Evan Byler, a 22 year old Amish man, was the victim of a hit-and-run accident on a rural highway east of Greenville, in Mercer County, the northwestern corner of the state. When his buggy was hit from behind by an unknown vehicle, he was thrown 50 feet, and his horse was killed. Mr. Byler was flown to the intensive care unit of the St. Elizabeth Trauma Center in Youngstown, Ohio, where he was scheduled for surgery on Tuesday to treat his injuries.
The driver of the vehicle that hit the buggy fled the scene, but police are asking anyone in the area who sees a car with extensive damage to its front and possibly its side to contact them.
A week earlier, on Monday, April 28, in the southeastern corner of the state, an Amish man from eastern Lancaster County was operating his buggy on a rural road west of the town of Gap when three men jumped out of a car and attempted to rob him. Police did not indicate what if anything they stole from Reuben Stolzfus, the victim of the attack, or if he was injured. The police did say that the robbers were driving a black, sporty-looking sedan and that one of them wore a ski mask. The masked robber held a gun.
The previous Friday, April 25, Lancaster County judge Jeffrey Wright sentenced a young man to prison for assisting in two earlier robberies of some Amish people while they were driving their buggies along rural roads. When he sentenced the defendant, Charles Lewis of Rising Sun, Maryland, he gave the 19-year-old a tongue lashing. “You knew they wouldn't fight back. You're not just a thief, you are a cowardly thief,” the judge said.
May 8, 2008. Inuit Landscape Art Exhibition Opens in Winnipeg
The Winnipeg Art Gallery announced last week that an exhibition of Inuit landscape art will be on display beginning on May 10, 2008.
Inuit artists started producing art work for sale to markets in the south after the late 1940s, when they moved off the land and into permanent settlements. They needed to find sources of cash income. While many of their works have presented the landscape as background for other subjects, some artists are exploring relationships with the land itself through their art. Those explorations are the theme of this exhibit.
The community of Cape Dorset pioneered in limited-edition prints in 1957, and the first publication of prints there was in 1959. Using stonecut techniques, the artists produced prints of black figures, like silhouettes on white backgrounds. The tradition of rolling ink onto flat white surfaces may have encouraged their focus on animal and human subjects. The artists began making copper engravings in 1962, though still retaining a primary focus on animal and human subjects.
By the mid 1970s, Inuit artists began using lithography to produce more colorful prints, based on drawings the artists usually made with colored pencils. Artists from Baker Lake such as Janet Kigusiuq and Simon Tookoome produced semi-abstract drawings, some of which are reminiscent of bird’s eye views of the landscape, with high, undulating perspectives of the land and animals.
Another artist from Baker Lake, Ruth Qaulluaryuk, produces personal interpretations of the tundra. Her work may show the snow and sky of winter, tiny spring wildflowers, and the colorful mosses and lichens covering the rocks of summer.
The exhibition announcement indicates that younger artists today are increasingly viewing the landscape as a fit subject in its own right for interpretation, in contrast to artists of the previous generation who saw the land primarily as a source of food. For instance, Shuvinai Ashoona, a Cape Dorset artist, does not necessarily see the land only as nature. She portrays it in surreal ways that reflect her imagination and her own perspectives.
These evolving interpretations will be on view in the gallery through September 1, 2008.
May 2008
May 1, 2008. Indian Politicians Make Promises for Yanadi Votes
May 1, 2008. Tourists in Botswana Get Water, but G/wi Do Not
April 24, 2008. Ladakh Protests Olympic Torch
April 24, 2008. Faces of the Buid Added to Flickr
April 17, 2008. Birhor Knowledge of Natural Resources
April 17, 2008. Chewong Village Must Make Way for Progress and Money [video review]
April 10, 2008. Shooting Death at a Hutterite Colony
April 10, 2008. Zapotec Discrimination Against Women
April 3, 2008. Nubian Conference Gains a Promise of a New Homeland
April 3, 2008. Tristan Islanders Have a New Generator and a Rebuilt Harbor
March 27, 2008. Wildlife and Ladakhis Need to Coexist
March 27, 2008. Is Peace Really Possible, or Is Warfare Inevitable? [magazine article review]
March 20, 2008. Lepcha Hunger Strike Resumes
March 20, 2008. Supporters Protest Once Again the Treatment of the G/wi
March 13, 2008. Media Focus on the Batek and the Endicotts
March 13, 2008. Piaroa Agroforestry [journal article review]
March 6, 2008. Divisions of Ladakh Still Cause Traumas
March 6, 2008. Kerala Set to Begin Dam Construction
February 28, 2008. Problems with Orang Asli Education
February 28, 2008. Inuit Views of Climate Change [journal article review]
February 21, 2008. Zapotec Woman Demands Right to Vote
February 21, 2008. Major Disaster on Tristan da Cunha
February 14, 2008. Traditional Nubian Culture Featured in New Film
February 14, 2008. A Towering Achievement for Rural Thailand [journal article review]
February 7, 2008. Rebuilding the Harbor of Tristan da Cunha
February 7, 2008. “English” Attitudes Toward Old Order Amish [journal article review]
January 31, 2008. Hutterite Children Take Photos of their Colonies
January 31, 2008. Controls on Logging and Warfare May Help the Mbuti
January 24, 2008. Lepcha Language Accepted into Unicode
January 24, 2008. Studies of the Ju/’hoansi and Other Foraging Societies [journal article review]
January 17, 2008. Andrés Henestrosa, Prominent Zapotec Author, Dies
January 17, 2007 . Developing a Culture of Peace in Ladakh [journal article review]
January 10, 2008. New Blog Includes Notes on the Batek
January 10, 2008. Mbuti Bark Cloth Art [magazine article review]
January 3, 2008. Montana Hutterites May Lose Cell Phone Services
January 3, 2008. Bush Fever [journal article review]