太田述正コラム#3431（2009.8.1）
＜過去・現在・未来（続ｘ16）＞
　記事の紹介です。
　イラン騒擾が鎮静化しないのは、ムサヴィ支持派があらゆる態様のガンディーばりの非暴力抵抗運動を展開し続けているからだ、という記事が出ていました。↓
　・・・The second phase plays out in a boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television. Just try buying a certain brand of dairy product, an Iranian human-rights activist told me, and the person behind you in line is likely to whisper, “Don’t buy that. It’s from an advertiser.” It includes calls to switch on every electric appliance in the house just before the evening TV news to trip up Tehran’s grid. It features quickie “blitz” street demonstrations, lasting just long enough to chant “Death to the dictator!” several times but short enough to evade security forces. It involves identifying paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the crackdown and putting marks in green — the opposition color — or pictures of protest victims in front of their homes. It is scribbled antiregime slogans on money. And it is defiant drivers honking horns, flashing headlights and waving V signs at security forces. ・・・
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912941,00.html
　そりゃ↑ちょっと違うよ、と言いたくなります。
　権力を握っている側が分裂しているため、徹底的な強硬手段に訴えられない、というだけのことでしょう。
　
　メタボのお友達に囲まれてると自分もメタボになるってよ。↓
　・・・Latest research from the US found a strong link between teenagers own weight and that of their closest peers. ・・・
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8172258.stm
　ポルポト時代以前の1960年代のカンボディアで、シアヌーク国王の庇護の下、隣国ベトナムの米軍の影響でカンボディア民俗音楽とロックがフュージョンを起こしてたんだって。↓
　Decades after Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge silenced the sound of Westernised music in Cambodia, the little-known 60s genre “Khmer rock” is finding new fans.・・・
　Today, the sounds of the old Phnom Penh are being revived in the West by the Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever, which is fronted by a Cambodian singer, Chhom Nimol, the daughter of musicians who played with the original Khmer rockers. ・・・
　Sinn Sisamouth, who became known as “the King of Khmer music” – were wiped out, killed by the Khmer Rouge. ・・・
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8167436.stm
　せっかくの機会なので、Chhom Nimol/Dengue Feverの一曲をお聴きください。
　Sleepwalking Through The Mekongです↓。何となくインド調だなあ。
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gty6a6_kO-0&feature=PlayList&p=062DD176B1F2256C&index=0&playnext=1　
　ついでに、恐らくはポルポト派に虐殺されたとされる、Ros Sereysotheaが歌うSra Mouy Keo（＝Glass of Wine）です↓。これは日本の民謡調だなあ。
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTU6CH1ZCrc
　モルドヴァでついに共産党支配が終焉へ？↓
　Ninety-two years after the Russian Revolution and 20 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe’s last Soviet-style government is finally on its way out. In Moldova this week, four months after popular upheaval, the Communist Party accepted defeat in a national election. Four pro-Western opposition parties must now scrabble together a coalition which they say will distance the country from Moscow, more fully embrace democracy and integrate with Europe. ・・・
　The future is by no means certain. Coalitions in the shaky former Soviet republics are rarely stable, as neighboring Ukraine has shown. Three of the four opposition parties are liberal and campaigned on a joint platform. But the fourth, the Democratic Party, is run by a former Communist who resigned in June and could yet change sides. ・・・
　 ・・・it has the sad distinction of being Europe’s poorest country. About a sixth of its population works abroad, largely in menial jobs on the streets of Western Europe.・・・
　Moldova was part of Romania until World War II, when a chunk of the country was given to the Soviets by the Nazis. Fears of unification kept previous Moldovan governments from building bilateral ties. And then there is the problem of Transnistria, a tiny Russian-speaking province backed by Moscow that wants to secede.・・・
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1914010,00.html
　近代の吸血鬼がフランケンシュタインの兄弟であったとは。↓
　・・・It was the “Year Without a Summer” of 1816, when ash from volcanic eruptions lowered temperatures around the globe, giving rise to widespread famine. A few friends gathered at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva and decided to engage in a small competition to see who could come up with the most terrifying tale — and the two great monsters of the modern age were born.
　One was created by Mary Godwin, soon to become Mary Shelley＜（コラム#71）＞, whose Dr. Frankenstein gave life to a desolate creature. The other monster was less created than fused. John William Polidori stitched together folklore, personal resentment and erotic anxieties into “The Vampyre（吸血鬼）,” a story that is the basis for vampires as they are understood today.
　With “The Vampyre,” Polidori gave birth to the two main branches of vampiric fiction: the vampire as romantic hero, and the vampire as undead monster. This ambivalence may reflect Polidori’s own, as it is widely accepted that Lord Ruthven, the titular creature, was based upon Lord Byron＜（コラム#3371、3373（以上未公開）、3394）。 — literary superstar of the era and another resident of the lakeside villa that fateful summer. Polidori tended to Byron day and night, both as his doctor and most devoted groupie. But Polidori resented him as well: Byron was dashing and brilliant, while the poor doctor had a rather drab talent and unremarkable physique.
　But this was just a new twist to a very old idea. The myth, established well before the invention of the word “vampire,” seems to cross every culture, language and era. The Indian Baital, the Ch’ing Shih（キョンシー） in China, and the Romanian Strigoi are but a few of its names. The creature seems to be as old as Babylonia and Sumer（シュメール）. Or even older.
　The vampire may originate from a repressed memory we had as primates. Perhaps at some point we were — out of necessity — cannibalistic. As soon as we became sedentary, agricultural tribes with social boundaries, one seminal myth might have featured our ancestors as primitive beasts who slept in the cold loam of the earth and fed off the salty blood of the living. ・・・
　・・・if Polidori remains the roots in the genealogy of our creature, the most widely known vampire was birthed by Bram Stoker in 1897. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/opinion/31deltoro.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
　吸血鬼伝説が世界各地にあるのは、人類が、狩猟採集時代どころか、ひょっとすると、類人猿として肉食していた時代の記憶を引きずっているためではないか、って説は面白いね。↑
　日本のカップルがイタリア旅行中にぼったくりにあった話とその後日談をガーディアンが取り上げています。↓
　・・・About 1 million Japanese are expected to visit Italy this year, less than half the 2.17 million recorded in 1997.In an open letter published last week, Brambilla＜イタリア観光相＞ apologised for the incidents and urged Japanese tourists to give her country a second chance.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/31/japanese-tourists-italy
　私自身、イタリアのレストランでこれほどの金額じゃないけどぼったくりにあったし、ロンドンで行きずりのイタリア人の２人組による「詐欺」に遭ったこともあります。
　皆さんもお気を付けて！
　トヨタのプリウス礼賛のコラムがガーディアンに載ってました！↓
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/31/toyota-prius-review
—————————————————————————
太田述正コラム#3432（2009.8.1）
＜欧州へのイスラム移民（その２）＞
→非公開