My Beauty Best Teacher

In the FT:

Portugal, struggling to comply with the terms of a €78bn financial rescue package, is encouraging oil-rich Angola to invest in its debt-stricken economy, highlighting a reversal of roles with few parallels among European countries and their former African colonies...“A post-colonial role reversal on this scale is unprecedented,” said Paulo Gorjão, director of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security. “The challenge is to make it mutually beneficial for both countries.”

Peter Lewis reviews 'The Fate Of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to The Heart of Despair; A History of fifty Years of Independence' in his article 'Many hands sowed seeds of Africa's failure' "...With precious few exceptions, postcolonial African countries tanked: sometimes politically, sometimes economically, sometimes socially, sometimes - - horribly and spectacularly -- all three at once. Not only did the center fail to hold, but the windows blew out, the walls caved in, and the roof collapsed... Africa was not the healthiest. Its ground had not been nourished but mauled by the colonial powers that staked their claim to the continent at the end of the 19th century. Areas of interest were demarcated without regard to the diverse and independent groups of Africans living there. People with no common history, customs, language or religion were forced into colonial units. Antagonisms and latent hostilities between groups were ignored...he period of decolonization was far from clean. Meredith describes how European powers sought at the very least to keep a foot in the door to maintain vested interests, like Britain, or left only after being pushed out, screaming and kicking, like Portugal. Whichever, the imprint they left behind was of authoritarian regimes that came on the heels of the feudal power exercised by earlier, local chiefs. "Traditions of autocratic governance, paternalism and dirigism were embedded in the institutions the new leaders inherited."The result was the emergence of one-party states, and even more to the point, of Big Men. The Big Man will be the bugbear Meredith finds squatting upon every rotting African country, and he has plenty of material to back his assertion that "Africa has suffered grievously at the hands of its big men and its ruling elites. Their preoccupation, above all, has been to hold power for the purpose of self-enrichment..."

Via FriendsofEthiopia

Edward B. Rackley writes in 3quarksdaily:

The nature of governance in these ex-colonies attests to the abiding power of the self-serving instinct and immediate gain, over and against the long-term goal of national progress. Such is the confounding irony of Africa’s entire post-colonial era in nations previously occupied by France, Britain, Portugal and Belgium alike: why is the colonial, predatory model of governance so faithfully re-enacted by ruling African elites? It’s as if all that negative conditioning only succeeded in instilling a predatory instinct in the new ruling class. Why are Mandela-style visions for collective prosperity not more common, given the shared experience of subjugation and occupation across the continent?

In one of the most hotly anticipated sequels in memory, J.K. Rowling takes up where she left with Harry's second year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Old friends and new torments abound, including a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girl's bathroom, an outrageously conceited professor, Gilderoy Lockheart, and a mysterious force that turns Hogwarts students to stone.

Editorial Reviews

It's hard to fall in love with an earnest, appealing young hero like Harry Potter and then to watch helplessly as he steps into terrible danger! And in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the much anticipated sequel to the award-winning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, he is in terrible danger indeed. As if it's not bad enough that after a long summer with the horrid Dursleys he is thwarted in his attempts to hop the train to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his second year. But when his only transportation option is a magical flying car, it is just his luck to crash into a valuable (but clearly vexed) Whomping Willow. Still, all this seems like a day in the park compared to what happens that fall within the haunted halls of Hogwarts.
Chilling, malevolent voices whisper from the walls only to Harry, and it seems certain that his classmate Draco Malfoy is out to get him. Soon it's not just Harry who is worried about survival, as dreadful things begin to happen at Hogwarts. The mysteriously gleaming, foot-high words on the wall proclaim, "The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware." But what exactly does it mean? Harry, Hermione, and Ron do everything that is wizardly possible--including risking their own lives--to solve this 50-year-old, seemingly deadly mystery. This deliciously suspenseful novel is every bit as gripping, imaginative, and creepy as the first; familiar student concerns--fierce rivalry, blush-inducing crushes, pedantic professors--seamlessly intertwine with the bizarre, horrific, fantastical, or just plain funny. Once again, Rowling writes with a combination of wit, whimsy, and a touch of the macabre that will leave readers young and old desperate for the next installment. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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