Maps of world languages

Pretty cool!

Chicken Boy

of New Zealand

FIJI - The misshapen and quiet figure of Sujit Kumar is not a likely poster boy for international co-operation.

But Sujit, the "chicken boy" of Fiji whose discovery captured headlines around the world in 2003, is about to move into a beautiful colonial home in Suva restored last month by an international working-bee including New Zealanders.

He will join 19 other boys, abandoned, orphaned or abused, in a new boys home, a joint project between Suva Rotary and the Fiji Government.

Sujit is now spending his days in the grand old house immersed in a pre-school type of developmental programme, which the Herald was invited to observe.

The "toddler man", as his foster mother, Elizabeth Clayton, refers to him, turned 34 on October 4 last year.

"Thirty-four going on four," she says.

The woman who rescued him from an old people's home in Suva where he was tied to a bed for 22 years oozes affection for him and excitement at his progress. Sujit had been tied to a bed because he was considered unmanageable. As a boy he had been forced to live in a chicken coop, deprived of human care, from age 1 to 8.

His parents dead, his grandfather had left him to fend for himself with the chooks. Welfare officers took him to the old folks home.

The superintendent of the old people's home told Ms Clayton that when he was found, he would hop around like a chicken, peck at his food on the ground, perch and make a noise like the calling of a chicken. He preferred to roost than sleep in a bed.

When we arrive at the home, Sujit is sitting at a table playing with blocks. His face is actually almost completely unexpressive. Then Ms Clayton arrives and he breaks out in a big toothless smile. He lunges at her for a hug. There is affectionate touching of his cheek and joshing of him by her.

He began therapy in July 2003 and Ms Clayton, a former behavioural psychologist, lists his advances.

He laughs and cries now and never used to. He walks up steps when he used to crawl. He didn't used to have favourite foods and now he does.

"He likes eggs but he doesn't like carrots, which is great because he is deciding between things.

"One thing I love is he is starting to experience pain and touch. You can tickle the bottom of his feet now and he responds whereas before he never responded. His sensitivity is coming back whereas before there was so much pain in his early life he probably didn't recognise what pain is."

He doesn't talk but sometimes he makes the sound "oy, oy".

He loves the new house, a sprawling residence with mahogany floors and double-doors opening to the outdoors. Formerly dilapidated, it is a Government-owned property that was the residence of the widow of a stately Ratu, Sir Lala Sukuna.

"The work done there by New Zealanders was just overwhelming," Ms Clayton says.

About 300 or 400 volunteers took part in the "extreme makeover" of the house, including the tactical police force, the military and the Fiji sevens team.

Ms Clayton, an expat Australian who moved to Fiji in 1989, is moving Sujit into the home because "I'm getting older and there's got to be a time when someone beyond me takes him."

Ms Clayton, a former Suva Rotary president, credits New Zealand Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier as being one of the driving forces behind the new home. While working in Fiji two years ago, he and the local chief magistrate, Balram, alerted Rotary to the poor condition of the Government boys centre.

Suva Rotary, which runs the Sujit Foundation to help to rehabilitate Sujit, last year took up the project for a new boys home. New Zealanders and companies such as Laminex, Pak'N Save, Ezibuy, Wet'N Forget and Sunshine Books became involved through Auckland Rotary.

"I know you've got your problems in New Zealand," Ms Clayton says, "but it's just wonderful that your colleagues are willing to look at an international project as well."

Evolution of Dance

very entertaining dance video!

Stepan Kezirian

moves home!
Good Luck-Step!

Bar-owners will bring Soulard to Belleville

A group of guys with links to a pair of Soulard bars plan to follow in the footsteps of Big Daddy's 618 and set up shop in downtown Belleville.

They see the city as the next entertainment hot spot.

Luke Reynolds, who owns Molly's in the popular south St. Louis bar district, Brian Besse and Stephan Kezirian, who own Lafayette's, along with real estate investor Ted Quinn have bought the former Good Times bar and restaurant at 7 S. High St.

"Brian and I had been talking about doing something in the Belleville area for a while," Reynolds said. "We went to the auction when Good Times went up for sale and we were lucky enough to get it. Literally, an hour after we laid eyes on the place, we owned it."

Reynolds said the group plans to turn the place into a "high-end lounge" where professionals can relax and have a drink in the evening. They also hope to continue the successful lunch business Good Times built up over the years.

"We really liked the location," Reynolds said. "We think it's going to take off. It has been a huge influence to see how well Big Daddy's has done."

Big Daddy's 618 co-owner Scott Schmelzel said people laughed at him when he told them a couple of years ago that he hoped to open a bar in downtown Belleville.

"They said it would never work here," Schmelzel said. "But I knew that this area was going to become the place to be. I think there are going to be even more people coming over here."

Schmelzel predicted downtown Belleville will soon be an entertainment destination like Soulard and the Central West End.

"The only thing that surprises me is that this didn't happen faster," Schmelzel said.

During the remodeling process at Good Times, the new owners found a trio of art deco lamps above a pair of drop ceilings that were installed over the years. They pulled the cords and the lamps still worked.

Quinn said he hoped to polish them up and hang them over the bar.

"We also found a menu from back when the place was called the Hob-Nobber, probably back in the 1950s," Reynolds said. "You could get a T-bone with salad and a baked potato for $3 or French toast for a quarter."

They also found a coupon book from the IGA grocery store that offered 7 cents off vegetable oil. Even if the grocery store were still in existence, the coupons wouldn't have done them much good. They expired Feb. 21, 1966.

The owners haven't decided what to call the place, although they kicked around either reviving the Hob-Nobber name or the bar's previous moniker, the Clover Club. They also are considering a new name based on the establishment's location, the 7 High Lounge.

Reynolds said he hopes to have the name pinned down by the end of July, his target date for opening.

27 reasons for war

By the US administration
Read the thesis here.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.

The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In addition to what it says about the shifting sands of rationales and the unsteady path to war in Iraq, what is remarkable about the 212-page study is that its author is a student.

The study, “Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002,” is the senior honors thesis of Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study is the first of its kind.

For her analysis of all available public statements the Bush administration and selected members of Congress made pertaining to war with Iraq, Largio not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration’s shift in interest from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media’s response to that shift.

“The rationales that were used to justify the war with Iraq have been a major issue in the news since last year, and Devon’s study provides an especially thorough and wide-ranging analysis of it,” Althaus, a professor of political science, said.

“It is not the last word on the subject, but I believe it is the first to document systematically the case that the administration made for going to war during critical periods of the public debate.

“It is first-rate research,” Althaus said, “the best senior thesis I have ever seen – thoroughly documented and elaborately detailed. Her methodology is first-rate.”

Largio mapped the road to war over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq.

She drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and stories.

The rationales Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners – war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s “because Saddam Hussein hates us,” Colin Powell’s “because it’s a violation of international law,” and Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.”

With regard to the administration’s shift from bin Laden to Saddam, Largio found that Iraq was “part of the plan for the war on terror early in the game.”

For example, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, President Bush declared that Iraq was part of the war against terrorism because it supported terrorists and continued to “flaunt its hostility toward America.” He also claimed that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors into the country and then threw them out, “fueling the belief that the nation did in fact plan to develop weapons of mass destruction,” Largio wrote.

In the same speech, the president called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil,” a phrase that would “ignite much criticism” and add “to the sense that the U.S. would embark on a war with the Hussein state,” Largio wrote.

“So, from February of 2002 on,” Largio said, “Iraq gets more hits than Osama bin Laden. For President Bush the switch occurs there and the gap grows over time.”

Largio also discovered that it was the media that initiated discussions about Iraq, introducing ideas before the administration and congressional leaders did about the intentions of that country and its leader. The media also “brought the idea that Iraq may be connected to the 9-11 incident to the forefront, asking questions of the officials on the topic and printing articles about the possibility.”

The media “seemed to offer a lot of opinion and speculation, as there had been no formal indication that Iraq would be a target in the war on terror,” Largio wrote. Oddly, though, the media didn’t switch its focus to Iraq and Saddam until July of 2002.

Yet, “Overall, the media was in tune with the major arguments of the administration and Congress, but not with every detail that emerged from the official sources.”

“As always, hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Largio wrote in the conclusion to her thesis. “However, there are questions surrounding nearly every major rationale for the war.

“People may wonder, why are our men and women over there? Why did we go to war? Were we misled? In this election year, these questions deserve answers. And though this paper cannot answer these questions definitively, it can provide some insight into the thinking of the powers-that-be during the earliest stages of war preparation and give the American people a chance to answer these questions for themselves.”