Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalPic of Cubans at dominoes in Irma floodwaters sparks debate
Michael Weissenstein and Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press
Updated 1:36 pm, Friday, September 15, 2017
HAVANA (AP) — As Hurricane Irma flooded the working-class neighborhoods behind Havana's seaside Malecon, a photographer for the Cuban Communist Party newspaper watched two men pulling broken furniture out of the calf-high water.
Nearby four others sat on plastic chairs playing dominoes in the filthy water, which reached halfway up their legs to a makeshift wooden table balanced on their knees. Juvenal Balan snapped a photo and posted it online with a comment declaring it "incredible" that the four were playing while "others work together to mitigate the damage."
Then, something unexpected happened. The photo went viral and ignited a furious and complicated debate about the state of Cuban society.
Many on the island and in Cuba's sprawling international diaspora saw Sunday's scene as a textbook example of "social indiscipline," a commonly heard phrase in the country that's used to bemoan the flouting of prized civic values like cleanliness, politeness and helping one's neighbors. But for others the photo symbolized another, equally Cuban quality: good-humored resilience in the face of difficulty, even disaster.
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Pic-of-Cubans-at-dominoes-in-Irma-floodwaters-12200699.php
Trump quietly extends Cuba trading with the enemy embargo just as Irma pummels island
TOM BOGGIONI
09 SEP 2017 AT 09:20 ET
In a late Friday news dump, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum announcing the extension of the trade embargo against Cuba for another year just as Hurricane Irma was headed to pummel the island nation.
The White House issued the presidential memorandum Friday, under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Cuba, extending it until September 14, 2018.
More:
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/trump-quietly-extends-cuba-trading-with-the-enemy-embargo-just-as-irma-pummels-island/
Colombias transitional justice system possibly bribed by paramilitary chiefs
written by Stephen Gill September 11, 2017
Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office is investigating suspicions that demobilized paramilitary commanders bribed the transitional justice system that was supposed to try their crimes, newspaper El Tiempo reported.
According to the daily, paramilitary commanders “El Mellizo” and “Diego Vecino” had received judicial benefits that could’ve been the result of bribery.
The country’s top prosecution office began investigations into the country’s justice system after receiving audio in which its own top anti-corruption chief appeared to be conspiring with Supreme Court judges to fix rulings.
. . .
One of the prosecutors investigating the suspicions told El Tiempo that the possible compromise of the transitional justice system was “serious” and could amplify to include other court decisions that ended up favoring paramilitary war lords.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-transitional-justice-system-possibly-bribed-paramilitary-chiefs/
Uribes 1st intelligence chief convicted for setting up illegal wiretap operation
written by Adriaan Alsema September 12, 2017
Colombia’s Supreme Court on Monday convicted former President Alvaro Uribe‘s initial intelligence chief for setting up an illegal spy unit that would eventually wiretap the court, journalists and human rights defenders.
The court additionally ordered the investigation of the former president, who has seen three of his four former intelligence chiefs disappear behind bars because of the illegal spying practices by now-defunct intelligence agency DAS.
The first of Uribe’s intelligence chiefs, Jorge Noguera, is already serving a 25-year prison sentence for other crimes, but was called to trial again for spying on now-House Representative Alirio Uribe and journalist Claudia Duque.
. . .
Both Noguera and Narvaez at the time made the connection between the Uribe administration and the AUC, the paramilitary umbrella group Uribe allegedly colluded with.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/uribes-1st-intelligence-chief-convicted-setting-illegal-wiretap-operation/
Forgotten El Salvador, Again
By RUBEN E. REYES JR., CRIMSON OPINION WRITERan hour ago
If you go to the room on the second floor of The Crimson, fondly called the Sanctum, you’ll find our archives. Decades worth of the daily print version of the newspaper line the walls of the room. Critical moments in which Americans learned to understand themselves are immortalized in its pages: South African divestment, the Vietnam War, the invasion of Iraq. But among the pages and pages of thin newspaper paper, one story has been remembered in the archives and forgotten by American memory.
Last week, I opened one of these bound books to find a story from December 14, 1981. It spread across an entire page of the paper, included two photographs, and had the glaring headline: Forgotten El Salvador. It rebuked the American public for ignoring the escalating state violence against Salvadoran citizens, even though Americans had just held protests in response to the killing of an American missionary and three American nuns by the Salvadoran National Guard just a year before. As the article claims, “It is an old axiom that only the threat of American deaths will arouse American concern; El Salvador seems a case in point.”
What the Crimson editor who wrote 35 years before me might have guessed, but couldn’t have known for sure, is that America would continue to forget El Salvador. The Reagan Administration continued funneling hundreds of millions of dollars towards a repressive El Salvadoran government that killed over 1,000 peasants in a single day in 1981, a fact that the Salvadoran Ambassador in Washington then falsely denied.
The final death toll of the conflict was over 750,000 Salvadoran men, women, and children and millions more displaced. Despite its heavy involvement in the Salvadoran Civil War, the United States government has not apologized for training murderers, and the American public has largely forgotten its repulsive involvement in the Salvadoran Civil War.
More:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/9/12/reyes-forgotten-el-salvador-again/
No question: my Virginia town's 'slave block' should be removed from our sight
Mia Mullane
In Fredericksburg, Virginia, there sits a pre-civil war slave auction block. It’s upsetting to black and white residents – and it should be in a museum
Saturday 9 September 2017 08.00 EDT
As hurricanes ravage large parts of the US, another kind of tempest continues in my hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia, over whether to move a pre-civil war slave auction block from a prominent historic district corner to be housed at the local museum.
I signed the petition to remove the now infamous slave auction block and was surprised to see the local political controversy elevated to the world stage in last week’s article, penned by fellow Fredericksburg native David Caprara. To put it frankly, I believe Caprara buried the lede.
The crux of this issue is that tourists perform mock slave auctions atop this block, or otherwise disrespect it by sitting on it, standing on it, and taking smiling pictures of their family with it. It’s upsetting – to black and white residents alike. In the words of Chuck Frye Jr, Fredericksburg’s only black city councilman and a strong proponent of the auction block’s removal: “If it weren’t there, this wouldn’t be happening. It’s that simple.”
One solution might be to cordon off the block to visitors while providing more contextual signage – the current sign says nothing of the slave families who were brutally ripped apart there. However, it’s the block’s location – mock auctions or not – that many find distressing. Several friends have told me they’d like to feel free to take their families out for pizza, or just go for a walk to the corner coffee shop, without being confronted with a visual reminder of the atrocities committed against their ancestors. At a recent city council meeting, Faith Childress said she has friends who avoid William Street altogether.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/09/fredericksburg-virginia-slave-block-city-museum
Sonic Attack on the U.S. Embassy Likely Psychological
Claims of an ‘acoustic wave’ attack by Cuba, sound fishy
Posted Sep 05, 2017
Be very skeptical over claims of a mysterious ‘sonic wave’ attack on U.S. Embassy personnel in Havana. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and so far, the American government has failed to provide any concrete evidence. Cuba has vehemently denied engaging in any such attack, calling it baseless and ridiculous. Based on the scant information that has been disclosed thus far, it is very possible that the symptoms are psychogenic in nature, as most of the complaints are headaches and dizziness. The claims do not make logical sense. For instance, an acoustical device generating inaudible sounds, cannot damage a person’s hearing. The most serious case is described as “mild traumatic brain injury” and could be entirely unrelated. Furthermore, what exactly does this diagnosis mean? It is very, very vague.
There have been many documented cases in the mass hysteria literature of so-called ‘sick buildings’ that have supposedly caused outbreaks of illness, that turn out to be psychological. The human mind can play tricks on itself, especially in the wake of rumors and conspiracy claims. For instance, shortly after the anthrax mail attacks attributed to possible terrorists during the fall of 2001, the U.S. Postal Service began to irradiate mail to kill any biological agents sent through the mail. Soon dozens of workers at the irradiation centers reported feeling unwell and blaming their symptoms on the machines. Yet the irradiation of medical supplies had been going on for over a decade, without any reports of adverse effects. Irradiating mail produces no residual radiation, but the perception was that it was radioactive.
More recently, some schools have removed Wi-Fi after complaints by parents that it was generating symptoms like headaches, dizziness and fatigue. Wind turbines have been blamed for everything from dizziness to headaches and tinnitus. Hearing problems, headaches and lightheadedness have been associated with many cases of mass psychogenic illness.
The likelihood of mass hysteria is certainly in possible. If it is the culprit, what could have triggered such an outbreak? There is a long Cold War history of Cuban agents harassing American Embassy personnel in Havana. Many of these stories have been exaggerated and become part of American military folklore. This could have given rise to the expectation that similar shenanigans are happening again now that the U.S. has re-opened diplomatic relations with Cuba. It is also worth noting that the symptoms were not officially noticed until February 2017, after the Trump administration took office – an administration that is prone to creating conspiracy theories with little supporting evidence, such as the recent announcement by the Justice Department which said that claims Barack Obama had ordered wiretaps of Trump Tower, were unfounded.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/its-catching/201709/sonic-attack-the-us-embassy-likely-psychological
Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016192675
How Regime Change Wars Led to Korea Crisis
September 4, 2017
Exclusive: The U.S.-led aggressions against Iraq and Libya are two war crimes that keep on costing, with their grim examples of what happens to leaders who get rid of WMDs driving the scary showdown with North Korea, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
It is a popular meme in the U.S. media to say that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “crazy” as he undertakes to develop a nuclear bomb and a missile capacity to deliver it, but he is actually working from a cold logic dictated by the U.S. government’s aggressive wars and lack of integrity.
Indeed, the current North Korea crisis, which could end up killing millions of people, can be viewed as a follow-on disaster to President George W. Bush’s Iraq War and President Barack Obama’s Libyan intervention. Those wars came after the leaders of Iraq and Libya had dismantled their dangerous weapons programs, leaving their countries virtually powerless when the U.S. government chose to invade.
In both cases, the U.S. government also exploited its power over global information to spread lies about the targeted regimes as justification for the invasions — and the world community failed to do anything to block the U.S. aggressions.
And, on a grim personal note, the two leaders, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, were then brutally murdered, Hussein by hanging and Gaddafi by a mob that first sodomized him with a knife.
More:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/04/how-regime-change-wars-led-to-korea-crisis/
Scientists harnessing power from Hawaiis waves
September 3, 2017 at 1:42 PM EDT
MEGAN THOMPSON: The east coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu is known for its breathtaking beaches and ocean vistas. But these beautiful waters aren’t just a draw for surfers and tourists. They are also a potential, untapped source of renewable energy – power generated from waves.
MEGAN THOMPSON: What’s the potential for wave energy?
PAT CROSS: It’s huge. The resource around the world is enormous.
MEGAN THOMPSON: Pat Cross is an oceanographer with a PhD in meteorology who manages the wave energy testing site off the Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Since launching two years ago, it’s been one of the few places in the world testing out different technologies to harness energy from waves.
On edit, change of links:
More:
http://www.thirteen.org/programs/pbs-newshour/scientists-harnessing-power-from-hawaii-s-waves-1504457076/
Not this one!
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/scientists-harnessing-power-hawaiis-waves/
More videos on this at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Scientists+harnessing+power+from+Hawaii%27s+waves
Mexicos pachucos keep zoot suits, defiance alive
Mexico’s ‘pachucos’ keep zoot suits, defiance alive
BY AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE · AUGUST 31ST, 2017 (10 HOURS AGO)
Decked out in baggy suits, their watch chains swinging to the mambo as feathers bop atop their wide-brimmed hats, Mexico’s “pachucos” are keeping alive the tradition of the zoot suit — and the defiance it represents.
Born in Mexican immigrant communities in the United States in the 1930s, pachuco culture started out as the gangsta style of its time — complete with criminal associations, baggy pants and bling.
It was a time of deep prejudice in the American south and west, where restaurants often posted signs reading “No dogs, negroes or Mexicans.”
In a show of defiance of the dominant white culture, young Mexicans joined urban blacks in sporting the zoot suit — long jackets, baggy pants tapering to a peg at the ankles, Oxford shoes, dangling watch fobs and splaying hats.
More:
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/lifestyle/2017/08/31/mexicos-pachucos-keep-zoot-suits-defiance-alive/
Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016192396
~ ~ ~
Combing the Zoot Suit Riots and the Murder At Sleepy Lagoon
By Brandon Diaz
March 09, 2016
Combing the Zoot Suit Riots and the Murder At Sleepy LagoonBy Brandon Diaz
March 09, 2016
It was 1940s Los Angeles. Orange groves hung strings of citrus just miles to the south. Houses were popping up in the San Fernando Valley to the east. A jaunt to the Pacific lay just a few miles west. Young couples swooned over one-another, necking on those beaches, sipping bottled Cokes and puffing Lucky Strikes under blistering Southern Cali suns.
Los Angeles was in a boom.
Its greater metro area had a population larger than that of 37 states. Some 2.8 million Angelenos planted their flags and seeded their roots. There were Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Armenians, Italians, Blacks, and Mexican-Americans weaving into the sprawl, all amongst one another. The depression was over, and industries offered jobs, good-paying jobs. The stability felt tactile. Some sense of the promise of America being delivered. Actual prosperity a few turns of a wrench away.
But with cultural richness blossoming, one specific tragedy would pour floodlights over over the city, illuminating a bigoted mirk that crawled the social undercurrent of 1940s LA:
More:
https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/combing-the-zoot-suit-riots-and-the-murder-at-sleepy-lagoon
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