Last weekend, visited the house in suburban Alexandria, Va., purchased recently by my Honduran friend Gilberto “Betio” Flores. Some readers will recall that he was an environmental activist whose life had been threatened in his rural province of Olancho. I helped him obtain political asylum in the US and bring his wife and seven minor children here. (Two daughters over age 21 were ineligible to come and remain in Honduras.) Somehow, this large, tight-knit family managed to purchase a four-bedroom house with two bathrooms and a fireplace located in a quiet neighborhood on a large lot with many trees. The elementary school, which several of the children attend, is within walking distance. The children are now bilingual and doing well in school.
Their new home is certainly a cut above the tiny two-bedroom, one-bath apartment this family of nine occupied before. Both Betio (who is now 50) and his oldest son have learned to work in construction, although the family had been subsistence farmers in Honduras. The hours are long and the work is hard, but they are grateful to have it, enjoying the advantage of being legal residents and also union members. The oldest son and daughter have both learned to drive and have licenses and second-hand cars. Betio says he has not had time to learn, what working six days a week. I’m so happy and proud of this family’s success in making a new life, despite obstacles. They still miss Honduras, but it would be too dangerous for Betio to return, as several colleagues in his environmental movement have been murdered.
Last time, I mentioned a rare interpretation client appealing a denial of unemployment benefits whose daughters were angry about my services because it was evident that their mother was probably not going to have that denial reversed. This week, an employer appealing the unemployment benefits granted to his separated employee (for whom I was interpreting), became angry during the hearing because it was fairly evident that he was going to lose and that the former employee was going to continue to receive benefits. (Of course, it can never be said with certainty what an administrative hearing judge will decide, as they always send their decision later in writing to avoid clashes in the hearing room.) The employer stood up, looking red in the face, admitting that he was getting pretty hot under the collar, and saying that the former employee did not need an interpreter. My client, who had a fairly rare skill, had announced his plan to retire at the end of the year. His employer then began looking for a replacement because it was hard to find someone with that skill and, when he found one in September, he terminated my interpretation client. The client would have done well not to announce his retirement so far in advance.
After working for years with my local Amnesty International group to free Win Htein, an associate of Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this year, now, I salute the freeing of the lady herself, done strategically only after her country’s elections. She seems to be trying to strike a conciliatory note now with Myanmar’s junta.
Speaking of Amnesty, will be attending a regional meeting of that organization in Pittsburgh next weekend, reporting back after my return.
The following item caught my eye because the first half of a radio show where I was interviewed (podcast at 2BoomerBabes.com, Oct. 9, 2010) had to do with The Villages, a senior community near Orlando with a Disney-theme-type layout. Former President GW Bush has also been quoted as saying that people didn’t believe he could read, much less write, a book (no doubt with a lot of help). You have to feel kind of sorry for an intellectually challenged guy like GWB, who was way out of his depth in the presidency. Maybe so many people voted for him because he was on their same level. Obama, in contrast, is much smarter than most Americans, which some of them may resent.
Bush on post-presidency: 'I miss being pampered'
AP, Sat Nov 13, 2010
THE VILLAGES, Fla. – Former President George W. Bush says he doesn't miss much about the White House, just the pampering. Bush told more than 3,000 people at a sprawling central Florida retirement community on Saturday that he misses the convenience of Air Force One and never waiting in traffic jams. The 43rd president said, most of all, he misses being commander in chief of the U.S. military. In his 30-minute speech, he talked about what it was like to return the salute of men and women.
The Villages retirement community is heavily Republican. Many in the crowd waved American flags and wore hats noting their military service. Bush is on a national tour promoting his new memoir, "Decision Points."
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In this posting, I’m straying far from Honduras and Peace Corps to recommend reading the following four items in full, shown in brief below. Following those are two recent articles on developments in Cuba.
Government breaks promise by keeping three "Black Spring" journalists in prisonInternational Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) - 8 November 2010, http://www.ifex.org/cuba/2010/11/10/refusing _exile/
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Excerpt from NY Times, Editorial, November 12, 2010
Politics Over Peace
What Mr. Netanyahu does not seem to realize is that a peace deal with the Palestinians is not a favor to President Obama. It is vital to Israel’s long-term security. If he squanders this moment, the only ones who can celebrate are the extremists.
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Joseph Wilson, in an item in the Huffington Post (Nov. 9, 2010) entitled “George Bush’s Deception Points,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/decision-points-george-bu_b_781244.html, takes apart Bush’s rationales both for his mention of “yellow cake” in his State of the Union address as a reason for going to war against Iraq and his commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence.
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The Economist
Reform in Cuba
Trying to make the sums add up
Raúl Castro unveils his plan for an economy of powerful, more efficient state companies and the legalisation of small businesses
Nov 11th 2010 | Havana
---------------------------------------------------
Here are the two full Cuba articles.
Castro Tells Cuban Labor Union to Accept Layoffs for Revolution's Survival
By Blake Schmidt - Nov 1, 2010, Bloomberg.net
Cuban President Raul Castro told unionists to accept layoffs and reforms that open the way for private enterprise as necessary for the survival of socialism.
“To defend and explain these measures, the working class must learn and be convinced of their importance for the survival of the revolution,” Castro said in an address to the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, the only union recognized by the Communist Party. “Otherwise we will fall off the cliff.”
Castro’s speech was published in the party newspaper Granma as Cuba prepares to dismiss 500,000 state workers by March, affecting 10 percent of the workforce. The dismissed workers are being encouraged to go into business for themselves, and Granma said the central bank may offer micro-credits to new entrepreneurs as the island faces its worst economic slump since the former Soviet Union ended support in the 1990s. Economy Minister Marino Murillo said workers aren’t productive enough to merit their salaries and Cubans are consuming faster than they produce, according to Granma. The average worker earns $20 a month in addition to free rationed food staples and health care, and nearly free housing and transportation.
Castro, 79, has initiated measures to open the economy, including loosening of property laws and controls prohibiting private enterprise such as taxi and mobile phone companies, since his brother Fidel began handing over power in 2006. The state still controls 90 percent of the economy. In August the government eased controls that prohibited Cubans from selling their own fruit and vegetables. It also extended lease periods to 99 years from 50 years for foreign investors in an effort to build up tourism infrastructure and draw more visitors to the Caribbean island of 11.4 million people.
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Cuban authorities cracked down on a march Sunday to pray at the tomb of a dissident whose death became a rallying cry for human rights activists.BY JUAN O. TAMAYO, Nov. 2, 2010
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban security agents beat and detained about 40 dissidents after the mother of the late political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo and her supporters prayed at his tomb, activists reported Monday. The mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, said she was repeatedly hit on the head, thrown to the ground and gagged with a smelly rag that left her breathless as she shouted anti-government slogans. Security officers also kicked several handcuffed young men during the incident Sunday, added Marlon Martorell, a dissident who took part in the protest.
Tamayo and most of the 40 others detained were released later Sunday or early Monday but some remained unaccounted for Monday afternoon, including one of Tamayo's sons, Martorell reported. The detentions appeared to be one of the harshest crackdowns yet on supporters of Tamayo, whose son's death in February after a lengthy hunger strike became a rallying cry for dissidents in Cuba and abroad.
Tamayo and Martorell said about 40 supporters joined the regular Sunday march from her home in the eastern town of Banes to Mass at a local Catholic church and to the cemetery where her son is buried. The mother said groups of government supporters harassed them on the way from church to the cemetery, and one man "authorized by the state security" threw rocks at the marchers, hitting at least three.
Martorell also reported that a "security agent in civilian clothes" shouted epithets and threw rocks at the marchers. Some of the marchers threw rocks back, he said by phone from Banes, but kept walking toward the cemetery.
Scores of police and state security officers ringed the cemetery by the time the marchers had finished praying at Zapata's tomb, Tamayo and Martorell said. "They attacked when I set foot outside the gates to the cemetery," Tamayo told the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate. "They threw me to the ground and dealt blows and kicks to all the brothers."
Martorell said agents carried out the crackdown "with a lot of violence, with beatings for all."
Tamayo, who is Afro-Cuban, said she was forced into a police vehicle and as she shouted "Down with Fidel!" one officer shouted at her, "Shut up, you lousy black." She was then gagged with a rag smelling of gasoline that nearly asphyxiated her, the mother added.
Police threw the protesters into two waiting buses, Martorell said, and he later heard Tamayo shouting "Down with Fidel" and "Zapata Lives!" while they were held in a Banes lockup.
"Once again, there's proof that they are a bunch of murderers," Tamayo added.
"Let them kill me, but I will die with honor, dignity and valor."
The Miami-based group Cuba Independent and Democratic reported Monday that one of its members in Banes, Daniel Mesa, suffered an injury to his hand during the detentions. The cell phones of Tamayo and those of several other supporters involved in the incident appeared to have been blocked Sunday afternoon and much of Monday.
State Security agents initially blocked Tamayo's marches to the church and cemetery, sometimes with mass detentions like Sunday's. But they had been allowing the protests since mid-August, when Catholic church officials intervened on her behalf. Church officials told Tamayo last month that she and her immediate family had government permission to leave for the United States, but she replied that she would not leave unless she was allowed to take her son's remains.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
DC: No Taxation without Representation, Election Central, at Eastern Market, Interpretation Observations, Honduras Happenings, Cuba’s Catholic Church
While the Stewart-Colbert rally was being held on the national mall and election fever was sweeping the nation, we here in DC were mostly onlookers since we are disenfranchised, something most other citizens are unaware of. They take for granted their votes for governors, congresspeople, and senators, not realizing or caring that a jurisdiction about the size of some small states doesn’t enjoy that same right. Specifically, Dick Cheney’s home state of Wyoming, with two senators and a congressman, has a smaller population than the nation’s capital. Alaska, home of the vaunted Sarah Palin, boast’s a population barely larger than DC’s and Delaware’s is only slightly larger still. However, since more than 90% of Washington voters are registered Democrats, Republicans have blocked any attempt to provide our city with even a single voting congressional delegate. That’s why DC license plates sport the motto “No taxation without representation,” more of a protest than a fact.
As for the mid-term elections, I would recommend an article on the tea party movement (“Confounding Fathers,” The New Yorker, Oct. 18, 2010) written beforehand. Not to oversimplify, the article compares the tea party to historical extremist precedents and notes that Republican Party pragmatists have always tried to buck that fringe trend. Now, there seems no trusted conservative pragmatist with sufficient influence to counteract the tea partiers, although Karl Rove (who would have thought him to be a voice of reason?) has tried. While more than 70% of Republicans supported the tea party going into this year’s elections and while the scope of their current influence goes beyond that of past extremists, the article speculates they may soon wane. “Candidates like O’Donnell may prove too eccentric to prevail, or voters may simply become disillusioned by politicians who campaign on their hatred of government.” Let’s hope so.
I spent election night at a nearby residence with a group of folks watching a huge flat-screen plasma TV. I don’t have a television set, so it was really a revelation to see the crisp, bright images shown there. Everything moved so fast on the blue and red states filling in the national map—instant counts and communication, projected winners sometimes declared at the very moment the polls closed. So different from my election observer experience where ballots have been hand-counted throughout the night.
On NPR post-election, a tea party activist in Texas talked about lowering taxes, reducing government spending and intrusion, and--in the same breath--berated the failure of her state to complete an interstate highway extension in her region (!). So, does the tea party mean everyone clamoring for what they personally think public priorities should be and to heck with representative government? How does that work in practice? I don't think it does. The tea party folks talk in clichés and generalities (i.e. constitutional government, small government), but avoid specifics, or they pick and choose specifics according to their personal preferences. I’ve heard that the typical tea partier is an older white male with a high school or less education (an Archie Bunker guy, a demographic hard hit by the recession). Since tea partiers are older than average, they may be going to their heavenly reward in the next few years, leaving room for a different viewpoint to replace theirs. But, the country faces gridlock in the near term, given that Republicans have vowed publicly to obstruct the “Obama agenda” to make sure he’s a one-term president—something that sounds rather harsh, but maybe not to tea party stalwarts and to Republicans in general. Of course, the problem is the economy and that’s not likely to recover fast enough for voters. Tea partiers—and almost everyone else—is frustrated and upset over the state of the economy. Yet, I don’t expect any recovery to reach the earlier peak during my lifetime, whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge.
The health care reform measure, with all its faults and concessions, was an effort by the Obama administration to actually reign in that ever-growing portion of the economy and government spending. Rolling it back, which isn’t going to happen anyway, would certainly not help economic recovery. Improving it, with bipartisan cooperation, might help, but bipartisan cooperation may be an impossible dream. Obama may be talking compromise, but the electorate and Congress are completely polarized.
It has been pointed out that Franklin Roosevelt became president three years after the Great Depression started, after things had kept going downhill, and so, in no way, was he blamed. But Obama had the misfortune of coming into office while the Great Recession was still underway and so he is blamed, as it continued on his watch, even though he did not cause it. I do believe that the actions of this administration kept it from being worse, but obviously did not restore the status quo ante. And while the Republicans complain about the deficit, they are unwilling to let the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy expire. Is that a logical position? There is actually very little trickle-down from the super-rich, whose share of the national income has kept growing and who can only spend so much, tending to hoard, increase, and pass along their wealth from one generation to the next.
At times, it seems that voting and democracy do not provide the optimal form of government because, let’s face it, most people don’t know or understand their own interests. That is, they seem unable to anticipate consequences, only to acknowledge them after-the-fact. When I see tea party folks getting all fired up right now, I think about the adoring crowds who initially greeted Hitler, Mao, and Fidel Castro. Or, more recently, the Greeks rioting over unavoidable austerity measures, or the French striking over the increase in the retirement age, when it’s fairly obvious that if they are living longer, it’s a financial necessity.
On another topic, most interpretation clients are grateful for my help, one reason why this job is so satisfying. But one day last week, I experienced a rare reversal of that stance. It was an unemployment denial appeal made by a frail older woman who rested her head on the desk during the proceedings and had to be prodded gently by me to reply to questions, as she seemed to be falling asleep. She was also hard-of-hearing, so I had to shout, while she spoke in barely audible tones. One of her daughters was allowed into the hearing room and, afterward, as I was leaving, berated me for not interpreting word-for-word in the order spoken exactly what her mother had said. First of all, the mother’s answers were rather garbled, so I tried to make sense out of them. Second, interpretation, because of differing grammatical rules, is never a matter of putting one word in front of the other in the order spoken in the first language. The result would be unintelligible. But I did not want to argue with the daughter. Her anger, I believe, resulted from the realization that the appeal would be lost, since a key requirement for receiving unemployment benefits is that the person be able to work and be actively seeking employment. This woman said she was ill and could not possibly work, so I advised her as I was leaving to apply for disability benefits instead, but she said she had already tried and it was too complicated. So, I guess she had thought she’d give unemployment benefits another shot by appealing their denial.
Had another recent interpretation assignment that exemplified what happens when many Central American immigrants—usually undocumented—leave their children behind and finally are able to send for them later. This was a typical case of a mother (no father in the picture) who managed to take her older daughter with her when she crossed the border years ago, but left her son, only eight at the time, behind with her parents. Now the son, age 15, has arrived, but he is already a teenager, resentful that his mother took his sister with her and not him. Also, he never went to school after his mother left, so not only does he not know English, but cannot read and write, even in Spanish. However, he has been placed in 9th grade and, no surprise, cannot do the work and has been truant and getting into trouble playing hooky from school while the mother works. The court has ordered him to attend classes, but he is resisting. The family lives in Maryland where school attendance is compulsory until age 16. The mother, who, with considerable effort and expense, has been reunited with her son, is finding that it has not been the happy homecoming both had anticipated.
My efforts at book-selling last Sunday faltered because of high winds. I spent most of the time shouting over the gale and trying to hold down Peace Corps pamphlets and supporting documents, including copies of my Beacon article and a notice of my 2BoomerBabes podcast. No books were sold. However, a dark-haired young woman stopped by, who, like my younger son, Jonathan, was adopted from Colombia. It so happens that I know her parents and knew all about her, but had not actually seen her since she was a baby. She once served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua, where she became fluent in Spanish and met her Nicaraguan husband. She introduced me to him and also to their little daughter, so that was all quite a thrill. Therefore, I didn’t consider my market foray that day a total loss, as I also managed to talk to a few people about Peace Corps service, at least to plant the seed.
In the Nov. 1 Washington Post, was an item about 14 people being slain in a sports stadium in Honduras in an apparent gang attack. Later, the local Hispanic press showed a grisly photo. On Nov. 2, there was a report in the Post that five men had stolen a small plane from a Honduran military base.
A correspondent sent me a declaration from Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/21-0) regarding the efforts of what is called the Honduran Resistance to the 2009 “coup” against President Manuel Zelaya and its continuing protests against the administration of President Porfirio Lobo. The statement alleges that at least ten Honduran journalists have been killed so far in 2010 and other violence has been waged against activists, but erroneously blamed on gangs. It laments Secretary Clinton’s efforts to have Honduras re-admitted to the OAS.
I’m unable to judge what is behind the killing of journalists and opposition activists—it’s probably a combination of bona fide political repression (not sure by whom) and random crime. I certainly would favor the readmission of Honduras to the OAS because keeping it out helps neither Zelaya’s supporters or opponents, nor the majority of Hondurans. However, I would agree with the writers of this declaration that “Honduras has one of the highest poverty rates and gaps between rich and poor in the Americas,” an issue that has not been adequately addressed, though we in the Peace Corps, as well as USAID and many other bodies have been constantly working on it. I believe that poor Hondurans, the majority in that country, were energized and inspired by Zelaya, and were angry and disappointed over his ouster. However, in my recent observations on the ground, most seem to have accepted that he won’t be coming back and, either out of resignation or realism, have “moved on.”
Someone else sent me another document, this one in Spanish, called Compromiso Con Honduras (CCH), Commitment With Honduras, but I’m not sure who created or has subscribed to it. It looks like a fairly promising statement, though lacking in specifics. It seems to attempt to build on the spirit that Zelaya inspired and to bridge the gap between his dispirited and still-loyal followers and the rest of Hondurans—also to influence the holdouts in Latin America who still want to punish Honduras for Zelaya’s ouster. Unity, consensus, citizen participation, reduction of inequality, economic growth, attacking corruption, developing sustainable natural resources, encouraging a common national identity—these are some of the stated goals and principles. Sounds quite laudable, but I don’t have enough context to guess whether anything might actually come of it.
Cuba has been reported to be inaugurating its first seminary in over 50 years, another example of how church and state have become more cooperative there. Critics of the Castro government have criticized the Catholic church for being too acquiescent, but the church’s stance has not only won the release of a number of political prisoners, but, now, allowed a new seminary to open. Is there a lesson here for Democrats and Republicans in our own country? Surely there could have been no deeper divide than that between the Cuban communist government and the Catholic church in Cuba.
As for the mid-term elections, I would recommend an article on the tea party movement (“Confounding Fathers,” The New Yorker, Oct. 18, 2010) written beforehand. Not to oversimplify, the article compares the tea party to historical extremist precedents and notes that Republican Party pragmatists have always tried to buck that fringe trend. Now, there seems no trusted conservative pragmatist with sufficient influence to counteract the tea partiers, although Karl Rove (who would have thought him to be a voice of reason?) has tried. While more than 70% of Republicans supported the tea party going into this year’s elections and while the scope of their current influence goes beyond that of past extremists, the article speculates they may soon wane. “Candidates like O’Donnell may prove too eccentric to prevail, or voters may simply become disillusioned by politicians who campaign on their hatred of government.” Let’s hope so.
I spent election night at a nearby residence with a group of folks watching a huge flat-screen plasma TV. I don’t have a television set, so it was really a revelation to see the crisp, bright images shown there. Everything moved so fast on the blue and red states filling in the national map—instant counts and communication, projected winners sometimes declared at the very moment the polls closed. So different from my election observer experience where ballots have been hand-counted throughout the night.
On NPR post-election, a tea party activist in Texas talked about lowering taxes, reducing government spending and intrusion, and--in the same breath--berated the failure of her state to complete an interstate highway extension in her region (!). So, does the tea party mean everyone clamoring for what they personally think public priorities should be and to heck with representative government? How does that work in practice? I don't think it does. The tea party folks talk in clichés and generalities (i.e. constitutional government, small government), but avoid specifics, or they pick and choose specifics according to their personal preferences. I’ve heard that the typical tea partier is an older white male with a high school or less education (an Archie Bunker guy, a demographic hard hit by the recession). Since tea partiers are older than average, they may be going to their heavenly reward in the next few years, leaving room for a different viewpoint to replace theirs. But, the country faces gridlock in the near term, given that Republicans have vowed publicly to obstruct the “Obama agenda” to make sure he’s a one-term president—something that sounds rather harsh, but maybe not to tea party stalwarts and to Republicans in general. Of course, the problem is the economy and that’s not likely to recover fast enough for voters. Tea partiers—and almost everyone else—is frustrated and upset over the state of the economy. Yet, I don’t expect any recovery to reach the earlier peak during my lifetime, whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge.
The health care reform measure, with all its faults and concessions, was an effort by the Obama administration to actually reign in that ever-growing portion of the economy and government spending. Rolling it back, which isn’t going to happen anyway, would certainly not help economic recovery. Improving it, with bipartisan cooperation, might help, but bipartisan cooperation may be an impossible dream. Obama may be talking compromise, but the electorate and Congress are completely polarized.
It has been pointed out that Franklin Roosevelt became president three years after the Great Depression started, after things had kept going downhill, and so, in no way, was he blamed. But Obama had the misfortune of coming into office while the Great Recession was still underway and so he is blamed, as it continued on his watch, even though he did not cause it. I do believe that the actions of this administration kept it from being worse, but obviously did not restore the status quo ante. And while the Republicans complain about the deficit, they are unwilling to let the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy expire. Is that a logical position? There is actually very little trickle-down from the super-rich, whose share of the national income has kept growing and who can only spend so much, tending to hoard, increase, and pass along their wealth from one generation to the next.
At times, it seems that voting and democracy do not provide the optimal form of government because, let’s face it, most people don’t know or understand their own interests. That is, they seem unable to anticipate consequences, only to acknowledge them after-the-fact. When I see tea party folks getting all fired up right now, I think about the adoring crowds who initially greeted Hitler, Mao, and Fidel Castro. Or, more recently, the Greeks rioting over unavoidable austerity measures, or the French striking over the increase in the retirement age, when it’s fairly obvious that if they are living longer, it’s a financial necessity.
On another topic, most interpretation clients are grateful for my help, one reason why this job is so satisfying. But one day last week, I experienced a rare reversal of that stance. It was an unemployment denial appeal made by a frail older woman who rested her head on the desk during the proceedings and had to be prodded gently by me to reply to questions, as she seemed to be falling asleep. She was also hard-of-hearing, so I had to shout, while she spoke in barely audible tones. One of her daughters was allowed into the hearing room and, afterward, as I was leaving, berated me for not interpreting word-for-word in the order spoken exactly what her mother had said. First of all, the mother’s answers were rather garbled, so I tried to make sense out of them. Second, interpretation, because of differing grammatical rules, is never a matter of putting one word in front of the other in the order spoken in the first language. The result would be unintelligible. But I did not want to argue with the daughter. Her anger, I believe, resulted from the realization that the appeal would be lost, since a key requirement for receiving unemployment benefits is that the person be able to work and be actively seeking employment. This woman said she was ill and could not possibly work, so I advised her as I was leaving to apply for disability benefits instead, but she said she had already tried and it was too complicated. So, I guess she had thought she’d give unemployment benefits another shot by appealing their denial.
Had another recent interpretation assignment that exemplified what happens when many Central American immigrants—usually undocumented—leave their children behind and finally are able to send for them later. This was a typical case of a mother (no father in the picture) who managed to take her older daughter with her when she crossed the border years ago, but left her son, only eight at the time, behind with her parents. Now the son, age 15, has arrived, but he is already a teenager, resentful that his mother took his sister with her and not him. Also, he never went to school after his mother left, so not only does he not know English, but cannot read and write, even in Spanish. However, he has been placed in 9th grade and, no surprise, cannot do the work and has been truant and getting into trouble playing hooky from school while the mother works. The court has ordered him to attend classes, but he is resisting. The family lives in Maryland where school attendance is compulsory until age 16. The mother, who, with considerable effort and expense, has been reunited with her son, is finding that it has not been the happy homecoming both had anticipated.
My efforts at book-selling last Sunday faltered because of high winds. I spent most of the time shouting over the gale and trying to hold down Peace Corps pamphlets and supporting documents, including copies of my Beacon article and a notice of my 2BoomerBabes podcast. No books were sold. However, a dark-haired young woman stopped by, who, like my younger son, Jonathan, was adopted from Colombia. It so happens that I know her parents and knew all about her, but had not actually seen her since she was a baby. She once served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua, where she became fluent in Spanish and met her Nicaraguan husband. She introduced me to him and also to their little daughter, so that was all quite a thrill. Therefore, I didn’t consider my market foray that day a total loss, as I also managed to talk to a few people about Peace Corps service, at least to plant the seed.
In the Nov. 1 Washington Post, was an item about 14 people being slain in a sports stadium in Honduras in an apparent gang attack. Later, the local Hispanic press showed a grisly photo. On Nov. 2, there was a report in the Post that five men had stolen a small plane from a Honduran military base.
A correspondent sent me a declaration from Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/21-0) regarding the efforts of what is called the Honduran Resistance to the 2009 “coup” against President Manuel Zelaya and its continuing protests against the administration of President Porfirio Lobo. The statement alleges that at least ten Honduran journalists have been killed so far in 2010 and other violence has been waged against activists, but erroneously blamed on gangs. It laments Secretary Clinton’s efforts to have Honduras re-admitted to the OAS.
I’m unable to judge what is behind the killing of journalists and opposition activists—it’s probably a combination of bona fide political repression (not sure by whom) and random crime. I certainly would favor the readmission of Honduras to the OAS because keeping it out helps neither Zelaya’s supporters or opponents, nor the majority of Hondurans. However, I would agree with the writers of this declaration that “Honduras has one of the highest poverty rates and gaps between rich and poor in the Americas,” an issue that has not been adequately addressed, though we in the Peace Corps, as well as USAID and many other bodies have been constantly working on it. I believe that poor Hondurans, the majority in that country, were energized and inspired by Zelaya, and were angry and disappointed over his ouster. However, in my recent observations on the ground, most seem to have accepted that he won’t be coming back and, either out of resignation or realism, have “moved on.”
Someone else sent me another document, this one in Spanish, called Compromiso Con Honduras (CCH), Commitment With Honduras, but I’m not sure who created or has subscribed to it. It looks like a fairly promising statement, though lacking in specifics. It seems to attempt to build on the spirit that Zelaya inspired and to bridge the gap between his dispirited and still-loyal followers and the rest of Hondurans—also to influence the holdouts in Latin America who still want to punish Honduras for Zelaya’s ouster. Unity, consensus, citizen participation, reduction of inequality, economic growth, attacking corruption, developing sustainable natural resources, encouraging a common national identity—these are some of the stated goals and principles. Sounds quite laudable, but I don’t have enough context to guess whether anything might actually come of it.
Cuba has been reported to be inaugurating its first seminary in over 50 years, another example of how church and state have become more cooperative there. Critics of the Castro government have criticized the Catholic church for being too acquiescent, but the church’s stance has not only won the release of a number of political prisoners, but, now, allowed a new seminary to open. Is there a lesson here for Democrats and Republicans in our own country? Surely there could have been no deeper divide than that between the Cuban communist government and the Catholic church in Cuba.
Friday, October 29, 2010
My profile in next April’s Woman’s Day? Thomas-Hill, BoomerBabes podcast, Blacksburg, Facebook Breaches, Cuba Layoffs
Had problems accessing my blog recently because my daughter Stephanie had originally set it up, using her e-mail address, which changed recently without my knowledge and somehow automatically affected my access. When I tried to find out the problem from the blog administrators, they wouldn’t answer me, because I wasn’t the designated person.
Was interviewed the other day for an article featuring "late bloomers" by a Woman's Day freelance contributor for an article scheduled for publication on April 1, 2011 (!)--so don't hold your breath. Will keep you posted nearer to the actual time.
Meanwhile, what's all this about Virginia Thomas calling up Anita Hill and asking her to apologize? How about Clarence apologizing to Anita Hill for harassing her and for lying under oath at his confirmation hearing? And now I understand that other women have come forward. I don't know whether Mrs. Thomas called Hill with her husband's knowledge, but she has certainly opened a can of worms that can’t be good for Clarence's reputation. She is also raising a lot of money for the Tea Party, but, of course, the Supreme Ct. ruled that donors don't have to be disclosed. It's very discouraging that nut cases like Virginia and Clarence Thomas have so much influence and that so many voters are also nut cases (a nut case is someone who disagrees with me, of course). I saw a number of bumper stickers in Blacksburg saying merely "Palin"--not McCain-Palin. Is Sarah Palin running for something already? Really, if she should be elected president, I would think seriously about moving back to Honduras.
Speaking of Blacksburg, I had a disappointing turnout for my talks at Va. Tech and the public library and only sold two books, hardly worth the expense of renting a car and driving all that way. Still, it was a beautiful drive during mild fall weather when many leaves had turned and I also got to see old friends. Also, maybe I planted a Peace Corps seed among members of my audience?
When I was in Blacksburg, an old friend opined that the CIA manipulates Peace Corps volunteers and they don’t even know it. Well, if we don’t know it, it’s hard to refute. In my observation, the Peace Corps bends over backwards to avoid any association with intelligence services, to the point that anyone who has ever worked in intelligence is not eligible to join. Occasionally, while I was in service, the PC was accused of having CIA ties, but we used to laugh about it, as it seemed so absurd. Here we were, daily trying to do very basic, hands-on work under challenging physical conditions among unsophisticated rural people in a manner totally unrelated to security or secrets. If I was giving a talk on AIDS prevention, taking kids to a surgical brigade, or helping deliver a baby, I’m not sure how the CIA would figure in that.
I mentioned this issue via e-mail to a friend who is a veteran volunteer and in the PC right now. He responded: The CIA hasn´t anything to gain from volunteers. What could they get that they don´t already have in the way of information? I have found the CIA to be very professional and respectful of Peace Corps... But people will believe what they want to believe. What information would the CIA want that a volunteer has...what?
Finally heard my interview on the podcast for Oct. 9 on the Baltimore NPR program 2BoomerBabes (www.2boomerbabes.com). It’s an hour-long program and the first half was with a guy who investigated and wrote a book about the Villages, an enormous retirement community near Orlando with a Disney World-type design. It was actually pretty interesting, but if you don’t want to hear that, I don’t know how you can skip to my part, the second half hour. My daughter Stephanie says you can fast-forward, but I couldn’t figure that out. I think I did OK, you be the judge. A swirling pattern of colors is the only visual shown.
Glad Facebook is correcting its security breaches, as I had two ads put on my Facebook messages without my knowledge or consent. The first time, I changed my password, but don’t want to have to keep doing that, as my memory for constantly changing passwords is not the best.
Glad also that Haiti seems to have cholera under control, more or less. Having visited Haiti a few times and come to appreciate the people here, I have a lot of sympathy for all the recent travails of Haitians. It seems that one calamity just leads to another. If I knew Creole and wasn’t so committed to Honduras, I would turn my sights there.
In the local Spanish-language press, I note that Bolivian congress, where President Evo Morales’ party holds sway, recently passed a law setting the age of consent for sex at 12, provided that relations are consensual and there is no big difference in ages. Still, that seems rather young and, at the very least, would expose very immature kids to the risk of pregnancy and STDs. In another article, Judy Gross, a resident of MD, pleads for the release of her husband, Alan Gross, asking that he be forgiven for bringing in cell phones and electronic equipment to give to Cuba’s tiny Jewish community. He was arrested last December and has been said to have lost 80 lbs. in captivity. She said that Alan loves the Cuban people and only wanted to help and that their daughter has cancer and needs to have her father by her side.
A recent issue of The Economist displays the per capita income in Latin American countries (except the Caribbean) and the rate of growth for 2000-2009. Different indices, from the World Bank to the IMF to the CIA, all give slightly different estimates of per capita income in different countries. Luxemburg seems to come out on top, at over $100,000 per year, and Burundi on the bottom, with less than $200. The US per capita in 2009 was around $47,000. That seems like a lot from my vantage point, but, of course, it’s an average of a few very rich folks and lots of not-so-rich ones. But back to The Economist’s Latin American rankings, Honduras is among the poorest countries with annual GDP below $4,000. Others in that category are Nicaragua and French Guiana. The next tier, $4,000-$7,000, is occupied by Bolivia, El Salvador, Guyana, and Paraguay. Then comes $7,000 to $10,000, with Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Peru. In the $10,000 to $13,000 rank are Brazil, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. At over $13,000 are Argentina, Chile, Suriname, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay, with Panama at the very top with $15,300 per capita and a growth rate of 5.8% from 2000-2009, the highest in Latin America. That does not surprise me after my visit to Panama last Feb. and seeing its relative prosperity. Yet, the Peace Corps is still working there. Honduras’s growth rate during the same period was not bad, 4.4%, according to The Economist.
In the same issue of The Economist, mainly focused on Latin America, some really horrendous murder statistics are shown. El Salvador is the worst, with almost 60 per 100,000 population in 2006. In my interpretation experience, asylum applicants here often cite gang violence directed at them as reasons why they fled El Salvador. Going down the list, next highest murder rate is in Venezuela, followed by Guatemala, then Honduras, with about 42 per 100,000. Mexico has only 11—or had in 2006; it’s probably gone up. From the chart shown, it looks like the US comes in at about 5 per 100,000, with a slightly lower rate in Argentina and Bolivia. The mother country, Spain, by comparison, looks like it had only about 1 per 100,000. Probably there are stricter gun control laws there.
You’ve already probably already seen the story, so I won’t run it again, just the headline (Oct. 1, 2010) about hunger striker Guillermo Farinas: Cuba dissident Farinas awarded Sakharov Prize by EU. ----------------------------
Czechs grant asylum to Cuban political prisoner
Associated Press, Oct 26, 2010
PRAGUE – Officials say the Czech Republic has become the second European Union country after Spain to grant asylum to a Cuban political prisoner. The Foreign Ministry says Rolando Jimenez Posada arrived in Prague on Tuesday. He's one of dozens political prisoners Cuba's communist government agreed to free on condition they leave the island.
Pavla Holcova of the People In Need human rights organization says Jimenez Posada, a lawyer, was arrested in 2003 and received a 12-year prison term three years later for subversion. Holcova said Posada arrived with his wife, brother, son and niece.
The Czech Republic is one of the strongest critics in the EU of Cuba's human rights record. The ministry says the country is ready to take 10 Cuban political prisoners.
It’s too long to reproduce here, but I refer you to an article about the proposed Cuban economic changes and one million state worker layoff by José Azel, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/04/cubas_pre_existing_condition (See also article below)
Cuba's creeping anxietyBy Nick Miroff
October 22, 2010
Jobs are disappearing and Fidel Castro is warning of nuclear war. It's an uneasy time in Cuba.
HAVANA, Cuba — For all its revolutionary slogans and radical politics, this island is actually a rather conservative place, at least in the classic definition of the word. Things tend to change slowly, if at all, as many Cubans have had the same jobs, neighbors, and of course, political leaders, for their entire lives.
Which is why recent developments have shaken this country's people and given rise to a creeping sense of insecurity.
The government has announced it will dismiss 500,000 employees from their state jobs over the next six months in a massive downsizing move that would likely spark street protests anywhere else. Another 500,000 or more workers will be laid off after that, as Raul Castro’s government attempts to shift 20 percent of the labor force off public payrolls, steering them toward more productive activities such as farming and construction.
Elsewhere too the government is trimming its social safety net, warning Cubans that the country’s cradle-to-grave entitlements — from free education to health care to subsidized electricity — can’t be sustained by current levels of economic output. Even the island’s ration book, a keystone of Cuban socialism, is being winnowed away amid rumors it may be eliminated altogether.
If such cutbacks weren’t already worrisome enough, Fidel Castro has re-emerged in recent months to spook Cubans with apocalyptic visions of nuclear war [6], warning that American tensions with Iran have put the world on track to atomic destruction.
The communist government has tried to sooth Cubans’ anxieties with promises such as “no one will be abandoned.” But many have been waiting expectantly for guidelines from the government on new employment opportunities or small business licenses, and the information has yet to materialize. Instead, official newscasts devote hours to reading Castro’s essays on world affairs or excerpts he’s selected from Bob Woodward’s "Obama’s Wars."
“There’s been a lot of talk and rumors, but nothing concrete. We’re still waiting,” said Alberto Ruiz, an employee at a state-owned restaurant who’s heard speculation that the establishment could be converted into a worker-run cooperative. Ruiz said he’s eager to find out more, but like many here, he’s in a state of suspense, aware that the country’s economy is poised for changes but not sure how the crisis might translate into new opportunities.
The government has said it will issue 250,000 new self-employment licenses in the coming months, allowing Cubans to hire themselves out as carpenters, accountants, birthday clowns and other occupations. But critical information about the new licenses — especially regarding taxes — has yet to be published, leaving many would-be entrepreneurs in the lurch.
The growing impatience has even surfaced in the pages of the communist party newspaper, Granma. “There’s a lot of interest in this new process, but we’re missing some important details, as well as phone numbers, addresses and other places where we can go for information, since the people aren’t prepared for these new changes, and they need to know — me included,” read one recent letter to the editor, signed by HM Alvarez.
Some of Cuba’s most skilled workers will likely benefit from the modest liberalization measures. But thousands of other Cubans lack the wherewithal to strike out on their own, even if their state jobs pay meager salaries that only average about $20 a month. Many laid-off workers will be offered alternative employment, but others will be encouraged to make a go of it in Cuba’s incipient private sector.
Losing a $20-a-month job can be more of a financial blow than it might seem. Often the true value of a job is determined by the opportunities it presents for theft and other scams, whether pilfering gasoline, stealing food or selling ill-gotten construction materials on Cuba’s sprawling black market. Eliminating state jobs, then, is also an unspoken government strategy for curbing workplace theft, as well as waste and redundancy. At one emergency medical service center highlighted in Cuba’s state media, 30 employees were assigned to a garage with a single ambulance. Other accounts describe similar workplaces, overflowing with useless custodians, technicians and assistants.
Meanwhile, businesses that earn hard currency, like Cubana, the national airline, or Cubacel, the mobile phone service provider, often seem to lack enough employees to answer the phones promptly or provide customer service. Raul Castro’s government aims to have at least 80 percent of state employees engaged in some productive activity. But that also means that thousands of Cubans face the possibility of long-term unemployment, bringing fears of rising crime.
The government does appear to be preparing for that possibility, too. Some 23,000 Cuban security guards are being laid off, according to Reuters, but many are being offered new jobs in the prison system and as police officers.
Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/cuba/101020/cuban-people-jobs-economy
Was interviewed the other day for an article featuring "late bloomers" by a Woman's Day freelance contributor for an article scheduled for publication on April 1, 2011 (!)--so don't hold your breath. Will keep you posted nearer to the actual time.
Meanwhile, what's all this about Virginia Thomas calling up Anita Hill and asking her to apologize? How about Clarence apologizing to Anita Hill for harassing her and for lying under oath at his confirmation hearing? And now I understand that other women have come forward. I don't know whether Mrs. Thomas called Hill with her husband's knowledge, but she has certainly opened a can of worms that can’t be good for Clarence's reputation. She is also raising a lot of money for the Tea Party, but, of course, the Supreme Ct. ruled that donors don't have to be disclosed. It's very discouraging that nut cases like Virginia and Clarence Thomas have so much influence and that so many voters are also nut cases (a nut case is someone who disagrees with me, of course). I saw a number of bumper stickers in Blacksburg saying merely "Palin"--not McCain-Palin. Is Sarah Palin running for something already? Really, if she should be elected president, I would think seriously about moving back to Honduras.
Speaking of Blacksburg, I had a disappointing turnout for my talks at Va. Tech and the public library and only sold two books, hardly worth the expense of renting a car and driving all that way. Still, it was a beautiful drive during mild fall weather when many leaves had turned and I also got to see old friends. Also, maybe I planted a Peace Corps seed among members of my audience?
When I was in Blacksburg, an old friend opined that the CIA manipulates Peace Corps volunteers and they don’t even know it. Well, if we don’t know it, it’s hard to refute. In my observation, the Peace Corps bends over backwards to avoid any association with intelligence services, to the point that anyone who has ever worked in intelligence is not eligible to join. Occasionally, while I was in service, the PC was accused of having CIA ties, but we used to laugh about it, as it seemed so absurd. Here we were, daily trying to do very basic, hands-on work under challenging physical conditions among unsophisticated rural people in a manner totally unrelated to security or secrets. If I was giving a talk on AIDS prevention, taking kids to a surgical brigade, or helping deliver a baby, I’m not sure how the CIA would figure in that.
I mentioned this issue via e-mail to a friend who is a veteran volunteer and in the PC right now. He responded: The CIA hasn´t anything to gain from volunteers. What could they get that they don´t already have in the way of information? I have found the CIA to be very professional and respectful of Peace Corps... But people will believe what they want to believe. What information would the CIA want that a volunteer has...what?
Finally heard my interview on the podcast for Oct. 9 on the Baltimore NPR program 2BoomerBabes (www.2boomerbabes.com). It’s an hour-long program and the first half was with a guy who investigated and wrote a book about the Villages, an enormous retirement community near Orlando with a Disney World-type design. It was actually pretty interesting, but if you don’t want to hear that, I don’t know how you can skip to my part, the second half hour. My daughter Stephanie says you can fast-forward, but I couldn’t figure that out. I think I did OK, you be the judge. A swirling pattern of colors is the only visual shown.
Glad Facebook is correcting its security breaches, as I had two ads put on my Facebook messages without my knowledge or consent. The first time, I changed my password, but don’t want to have to keep doing that, as my memory for constantly changing passwords is not the best.
Glad also that Haiti seems to have cholera under control, more or less. Having visited Haiti a few times and come to appreciate the people here, I have a lot of sympathy for all the recent travails of Haitians. It seems that one calamity just leads to another. If I knew Creole and wasn’t so committed to Honduras, I would turn my sights there.
In the local Spanish-language press, I note that Bolivian congress, where President Evo Morales’ party holds sway, recently passed a law setting the age of consent for sex at 12, provided that relations are consensual and there is no big difference in ages. Still, that seems rather young and, at the very least, would expose very immature kids to the risk of pregnancy and STDs. In another article, Judy Gross, a resident of MD, pleads for the release of her husband, Alan Gross, asking that he be forgiven for bringing in cell phones and electronic equipment to give to Cuba’s tiny Jewish community. He was arrested last December and has been said to have lost 80 lbs. in captivity. She said that Alan loves the Cuban people and only wanted to help and that their daughter has cancer and needs to have her father by her side.
A recent issue of The Economist displays the per capita income in Latin American countries (except the Caribbean) and the rate of growth for 2000-2009. Different indices, from the World Bank to the IMF to the CIA, all give slightly different estimates of per capita income in different countries. Luxemburg seems to come out on top, at over $100,000 per year, and Burundi on the bottom, with less than $200. The US per capita in 2009 was around $47,000. That seems like a lot from my vantage point, but, of course, it’s an average of a few very rich folks and lots of not-so-rich ones. But back to The Economist’s Latin American rankings, Honduras is among the poorest countries with annual GDP below $4,000. Others in that category are Nicaragua and French Guiana. The next tier, $4,000-$7,000, is occupied by Bolivia, El Salvador, Guyana, and Paraguay. Then comes $7,000 to $10,000, with Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Peru. In the $10,000 to $13,000 rank are Brazil, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. At over $13,000 are Argentina, Chile, Suriname, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay, with Panama at the very top with $15,300 per capita and a growth rate of 5.8% from 2000-2009, the highest in Latin America. That does not surprise me after my visit to Panama last Feb. and seeing its relative prosperity. Yet, the Peace Corps is still working there. Honduras’s growth rate during the same period was not bad, 4.4%, according to The Economist.
In the same issue of The Economist, mainly focused on Latin America, some really horrendous murder statistics are shown. El Salvador is the worst, with almost 60 per 100,000 population in 2006. In my interpretation experience, asylum applicants here often cite gang violence directed at them as reasons why they fled El Salvador. Going down the list, next highest murder rate is in Venezuela, followed by Guatemala, then Honduras, with about 42 per 100,000. Mexico has only 11—or had in 2006; it’s probably gone up. From the chart shown, it looks like the US comes in at about 5 per 100,000, with a slightly lower rate in Argentina and Bolivia. The mother country, Spain, by comparison, looks like it had only about 1 per 100,000. Probably there are stricter gun control laws there.
You’ve already probably already seen the story, so I won’t run it again, just the headline (Oct. 1, 2010) about hunger striker Guillermo Farinas: Cuba dissident Farinas awarded Sakharov Prize by EU. ----------------------------
Czechs grant asylum to Cuban political prisoner
Associated Press, Oct 26, 2010
PRAGUE – Officials say the Czech Republic has become the second European Union country after Spain to grant asylum to a Cuban political prisoner. The Foreign Ministry says Rolando Jimenez Posada arrived in Prague on Tuesday. He's one of dozens political prisoners Cuba's communist government agreed to free on condition they leave the island.
Pavla Holcova of the People In Need human rights organization says Jimenez Posada, a lawyer, was arrested in 2003 and received a 12-year prison term three years later for subversion. Holcova said Posada arrived with his wife, brother, son and niece.
The Czech Republic is one of the strongest critics in the EU of Cuba's human rights record. The ministry says the country is ready to take 10 Cuban political prisoners.
It’s too long to reproduce here, but I refer you to an article about the proposed Cuban economic changes and one million state worker layoff by José Azel, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/04/cubas_pre_existing_condition (See also article below)
Cuba's creeping anxietyBy Nick Miroff
October 22, 2010
Jobs are disappearing and Fidel Castro is warning of nuclear war. It's an uneasy time in Cuba.
HAVANA, Cuba — For all its revolutionary slogans and radical politics, this island is actually a rather conservative place, at least in the classic definition of the word. Things tend to change slowly, if at all, as many Cubans have had the same jobs, neighbors, and of course, political leaders, for their entire lives.
Which is why recent developments have shaken this country's people and given rise to a creeping sense of insecurity.
The government has announced it will dismiss 500,000 employees from their state jobs over the next six months in a massive downsizing move that would likely spark street protests anywhere else. Another 500,000 or more workers will be laid off after that, as Raul Castro’s government attempts to shift 20 percent of the labor force off public payrolls, steering them toward more productive activities such as farming and construction.
Elsewhere too the government is trimming its social safety net, warning Cubans that the country’s cradle-to-grave entitlements — from free education to health care to subsidized electricity — can’t be sustained by current levels of economic output. Even the island’s ration book, a keystone of Cuban socialism, is being winnowed away amid rumors it may be eliminated altogether.
If such cutbacks weren’t already worrisome enough, Fidel Castro has re-emerged in recent months to spook Cubans with apocalyptic visions of nuclear war [6], warning that American tensions with Iran have put the world on track to atomic destruction.
The communist government has tried to sooth Cubans’ anxieties with promises such as “no one will be abandoned.” But many have been waiting expectantly for guidelines from the government on new employment opportunities or small business licenses, and the information has yet to materialize. Instead, official newscasts devote hours to reading Castro’s essays on world affairs or excerpts he’s selected from Bob Woodward’s "Obama’s Wars."
“There’s been a lot of talk and rumors, but nothing concrete. We’re still waiting,” said Alberto Ruiz, an employee at a state-owned restaurant who’s heard speculation that the establishment could be converted into a worker-run cooperative. Ruiz said he’s eager to find out more, but like many here, he’s in a state of suspense, aware that the country’s economy is poised for changes but not sure how the crisis might translate into new opportunities.
The government has said it will issue 250,000 new self-employment licenses in the coming months, allowing Cubans to hire themselves out as carpenters, accountants, birthday clowns and other occupations. But critical information about the new licenses — especially regarding taxes — has yet to be published, leaving many would-be entrepreneurs in the lurch.
The growing impatience has even surfaced in the pages of the communist party newspaper, Granma. “There’s a lot of interest in this new process, but we’re missing some important details, as well as phone numbers, addresses and other places where we can go for information, since the people aren’t prepared for these new changes, and they need to know — me included,” read one recent letter to the editor, signed by HM Alvarez.
Some of Cuba’s most skilled workers will likely benefit from the modest liberalization measures. But thousands of other Cubans lack the wherewithal to strike out on their own, even if their state jobs pay meager salaries that only average about $20 a month. Many laid-off workers will be offered alternative employment, but others will be encouraged to make a go of it in Cuba’s incipient private sector.
Losing a $20-a-month job can be more of a financial blow than it might seem. Often the true value of a job is determined by the opportunities it presents for theft and other scams, whether pilfering gasoline, stealing food or selling ill-gotten construction materials on Cuba’s sprawling black market. Eliminating state jobs, then, is also an unspoken government strategy for curbing workplace theft, as well as waste and redundancy. At one emergency medical service center highlighted in Cuba’s state media, 30 employees were assigned to a garage with a single ambulance. Other accounts describe similar workplaces, overflowing with useless custodians, technicians and assistants.
Meanwhile, businesses that earn hard currency, like Cubana, the national airline, or Cubacel, the mobile phone service provider, often seem to lack enough employees to answer the phones promptly or provide customer service. Raul Castro’s government aims to have at least 80 percent of state employees engaged in some productive activity. But that also means that thousands of Cubans face the possibility of long-term unemployment, bringing fears of rising crime.
The government does appear to be preparing for that possibility, too. Some 23,000 Cuban security guards are being laid off, according to Reuters, but many are being offered new jobs in the prison system and as police officers.
Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/cuba/101020/cuban-people-jobs-economy
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Egads! Forgot Work Assignment, Bereavement Panel, Bedbugs, Blacksburg, Cuba, Honduras, Sudan
Must be losing it or am just too overloaded. I forgot to check my calendar. So, for the first time on the 6 years that I've been doing interpreting, I FORGOT to go to an assignment! When I realized it, it was too late to get there! Not only did I forfeit what I (and my agency) would have earned, but it was a black mark on my record. I hope that agency (one of two I work for) won't avoid calling me again. I’ve never missed before, never even been late, despite snow, sleet, and dark of night--or of early morning--and having to go everywhere by public transportation, though if I need to take a taxi because of a missed bus connection, I will.
Last Tuesday, I was part of a panel on bereavement for a course for Howard University nursing students. The students will be confronting dying and death in their work, also in their personal lives. The professor for this course is a member of our support group for parents who have lost children, The Compassionate Friends. Other panel members were another professor of nursing originally from Egypt who had lost her brother and a young Howard University student who had lost her mother recently to breast cancer. Every type of loss and experience of loss is different and cultural factors also affect grieving styles and rituals.
The latest explanation I’ve heard for the recent bedbug infestation round the country is not that the critters have been brought in by folks from Latin America, as was suggested to me, but rather are arriving on linens and clothing manufactured in China and Indonesia, where bedbugs are common. So buyers might be advised to thoroughly wash new items manufactured elsewhere before using them.
Readers of this blog are captives of whatever is of interest to the writer, and that includes bedbugs, Cuba, and Sudan, the latter two countries because I’ve been there as well as to Honduras, though Honduras will always be first in my heart. Regarding the 2011 Sudan referendum (see below), which Bashir is trying to wriggle out of, it was clear to me in 2006 when I was in southern Sudan that support for secession from the north was near 100%. Bereavement, however, is not an interest I would have particularly chosen—it chose me.
At Eastern Market, when I’m out trying to chat up the Peace Corps (and my book), I avoid reaching out to people with small children or pregnant women, those who appearing very attached to their dogs (as they seem less willing to leave them behind than spouses or significant others), extremely overweight folks (PC won’t take them), and those with beards, nose rings, and lots of tattoos. Of course, beards and nose rings can be temporarily forgone for the sake of Peace Corps, which does not allow them, and tattoos can be covered (because of their gang connotations), but most people I’ve talked with these attributes have not been willing to consider giving them up, even temporarily.
Reminder: as mentioned before, I’ll be in Blacksburg, Va., Oct. 22-25 for a couple of talks on my book and Peace Corps, so you won’t hear from me again until after that.
According to Cuba’s official newspaper, Granma, Yusimi Campos, Director of Welfare, Cuba’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security, has said: "It will be necessary to rectify the policy of providing those benefits [health and education] equally to all people. We should assess the situation of the family to assume total or partial payment of such services, according to their abilities. "
Another way of getting relatives abroad to send money? I’ve already heard that Cuban-Americans visiting sick relatives in Cuba have gotten better care and obtained scarce medications by paying dollars directly to nurses and doctors. Do the latter pocket the money themselves or is this new policy, already in effect?
Someone shot a bullet into the chair in his study usually occupied by Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, but, fortunately, he was out of the country at the time. Apparently, whoever made the shot didn’t know his travel schedule.
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This is hurricane season in Central America. Hurricane Paula caused considerable damage in northern Honduras.
Hurricane Paula forms, heads to Yucatan PeninsulaBy FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press, Oct. 12, 2010
Hurricane Paula smashed homes and forced schools to close in Honduras on Tuesday as it headed toward Mexico's resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula. Paula formed Monday off the coast of Honduras and quickly intensified into a hurricane early Tuesday, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Heavy rains and high winds destroyed 19 homes in northeastern Honduras, said Lisandro Rosales, head of Honduras' emergency agency. Officials closed schools along the country's Atlantic coast and some airports were reported closed. Around dawn Tuesday, it had winds of 75 mph (120 kph) and was centered about 190 miles (310 kilometers) south-southeast of the resort island of Cozumel in Mexico.
Paula was moving toward the northwest at nearly 10 mph (17 kph), bringing it near the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula Tuesday night. The forecast track would have the storm a little offshore of Cancun, Cozumel and Isla Mujeres near the tip of the Peninsula late Wednesday night. The Hurricane Center said the storm was likely to gain force, though it was not expected to become a major hurricane.
Paula was expected to dump from 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of Honduras, northern Belize, eastern portions of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and parts of western and central Cuba. The government of Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the country's Caribbean coast from Punta Gruesa north to Cabo Catoche, including the island of Cozumel. Warnings are issued when hurricane conditions are almost certain to occur.
Forecasters warned of possible flooding and landslides and suggested residents avoid fishing trips or water sports. Forecasters said the storm would produce heavy rains that could cause flash floods and mudslides, especially in the mountains of Nicaragua and Honduras. It said isolated, mountainous areas in Honduras could get as many as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain. Coastal flooding from heavy waves was also expected along the eastern coast of the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula.
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Dead Cuban Hunger Striker's Kin Can EmigrateThursday, 14 Oct 2010, (Agence France Presse)
Cuba has authorized the family of dissident Orlando Zapata, who died in February after an 85-day hunger strike, to emigrate directly to the United States, Zapata's mother told AFP Thursday.
"They told me that the government had authorized the departure of the whole family and that we are going directly to the United States, but I'm not going until they give me my son's ashes," said Reina Tamayo, the dissident's mother.
In a related development Thursday, opposition leaders said five other dissidents had been granted approval to go the United States.
Tamayo said the government's offer was communicated to her October 11 by Roman Catholic Bishop Emilio Aranguren of the eastern province of Holguin, where she lives. Aranguren was traveling and unavailable for comment, while officials at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana had no immediate comment. Tamayo said she had received no information from the U.S. Interest Section. Tamayo, 62, was in Havana Thursday to meet with officials in the office of Cardinal Jaime Ortega to learn of the details of the offer. Ortega held a high-level meeting with President Raul Castro in May that resulted in the government agreeing to release 52 of the 75 political prisoners it jailed in a widespread 2003 crackdown.
Tamayo's four adult children -- three sons and a daughter -- along with their families were also authorized to travel to the United States. Church officials agree that they should leave "because we are being harassed, we cannot live here," Tamayo said.
The slow process of releasing Cuba's political prisoners is supported by Spain, which has welcomed 38 prisoners of the released prisoners and their families. One ex-prisoner traveled to Chile, and another traveled to the United States.
Orlando Zapata, a 42 year-old laborer who was single and had no children, died on February 23 after an 85 day-long hunger strike. His death unleashed a wave of criticism in the United States and European Union.
Cuba denies it holds any political prisoners and calls dissidents "mercenaries" funded by the United States and a conservative Cuban-American "mafia."
Meanwhile, Elizardo Sanchez, a key leader of the Cuban opposition, said five other dissidents who had been released from prison in recent years from the same group had been granted permission to go to the United States. He said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Jorge Olivera, Carmelo Diaz, Roberto de Miranda and Margarito Broche, who were released from prison for health reasons, were contacted because "apparently there is a tendency by the authorities to permit the emigration of those released." Espinosa and Olivera reportedly rejected the offer, while Diaz, Miranda and Broche accepted.
-------------------------------------------
October 15, 2010, NY Times (Editorial)
Sudan’s Threatened Peace Deal
Time is running out on efforts to avert another civil war in Sudan. A United States-backed deal in 2005 ended two decades of fighting between the Arab Muslim north and the largely Christian south that killed two million people. That deal is now in danger of unraveling if two referendums set for early January do not go forward.
After neglecting the problem for far too long, President Obama and his top aides are pushing both sides to fulfill their commitments to ensure a credible vote and to accept the results. We hope it is not too late.
Voters in the south, which produces most of the country’s oil, are expected to choose to become independent. In the second referendum, voters in the border district of Abyei must decide whether to ally with the north or the south.
Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has dragged his feet on election preparations. Voter registration is months late. Election officials still must be trained and ballots printed and distributed. The two sides must put up their share of the election costs and resolve an impasse over who gets to vote in Abyei. Other critical issues remain unresolved. South Sudan also has to get serious about creating the structures of a new state.
Mr. Obama and his team vowed to end Mr. Bashir’s rampage in Darfur and to do all they could to ensure peace between north and south Sudan. The president quickly appointed a peace envoy and replaced a punishment-heavy strategy with one that leaned more toward incentives. When Mr. Bashir showed little interest, the policy was allowed to drift.
With activists warning of impending disaster, the administration finally beefed up its diplomatic mission in south Sudan and named a veteran diplomat to help mediate talks that ended without a deal this week and are supposed to resume later this month. President Obama headlined a United Nations meeting last month in which all the major players committed to respecting the “outcome of credible” referendums and holding them on Jan. 9. But a senior official with the Sudanese government said on Thursday that the Abyei referendum would either have to be delayed or the issue decided in negotiations rather than a vote. This reneges on the 2005 peace agreement and is unacceptable.
The Sudanese government should be able to make a deal with south Sudan — including on sharing oil revenues — that both sides can live with. What it can’t afford is another civil war or more international opprobrium if it is found stealing or stymieing this vote. Mr. Obama has offered more explicit incentives if Sudan lives up to its commitments — including help with food production, increased trade and eventually an end to all economic sanctions. He and his aides have also threatened more punishments if Sudan does not.
Mr. Bashir has thumbed his nose at an International Criminal Court indictment for war crimes in Darfur. We are not sure what will change his behavior. We are sure that China and the African Union, which have enabled Mr. Bashir for years, need to press a lot harder.
Last Tuesday, I was part of a panel on bereavement for a course for Howard University nursing students. The students will be confronting dying and death in their work, also in their personal lives. The professor for this course is a member of our support group for parents who have lost children, The Compassionate Friends. Other panel members were another professor of nursing originally from Egypt who had lost her brother and a young Howard University student who had lost her mother recently to breast cancer. Every type of loss and experience of loss is different and cultural factors also affect grieving styles and rituals.
The latest explanation I’ve heard for the recent bedbug infestation round the country is not that the critters have been brought in by folks from Latin America, as was suggested to me, but rather are arriving on linens and clothing manufactured in China and Indonesia, where bedbugs are common. So buyers might be advised to thoroughly wash new items manufactured elsewhere before using them.
Readers of this blog are captives of whatever is of interest to the writer, and that includes bedbugs, Cuba, and Sudan, the latter two countries because I’ve been there as well as to Honduras, though Honduras will always be first in my heart. Regarding the 2011 Sudan referendum (see below), which Bashir is trying to wriggle out of, it was clear to me in 2006 when I was in southern Sudan that support for secession from the north was near 100%. Bereavement, however, is not an interest I would have particularly chosen—it chose me.
At Eastern Market, when I’m out trying to chat up the Peace Corps (and my book), I avoid reaching out to people with small children or pregnant women, those who appearing very attached to their dogs (as they seem less willing to leave them behind than spouses or significant others), extremely overweight folks (PC won’t take them), and those with beards, nose rings, and lots of tattoos. Of course, beards and nose rings can be temporarily forgone for the sake of Peace Corps, which does not allow them, and tattoos can be covered (because of their gang connotations), but most people I’ve talked with these attributes have not been willing to consider giving them up, even temporarily.
Reminder: as mentioned before, I’ll be in Blacksburg, Va., Oct. 22-25 for a couple of talks on my book and Peace Corps, so you won’t hear from me again until after that.
According to Cuba’s official newspaper, Granma, Yusimi Campos, Director of Welfare, Cuba’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security, has said: "It will be necessary to rectify the policy of providing those benefits [health and education] equally to all people. We should assess the situation of the family to assume total or partial payment of such services, according to their abilities. "
Another way of getting relatives abroad to send money? I’ve already heard that Cuban-Americans visiting sick relatives in Cuba have gotten better care and obtained scarce medications by paying dollars directly to nurses and doctors. Do the latter pocket the money themselves or is this new policy, already in effect?
Someone shot a bullet into the chair in his study usually occupied by Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, but, fortunately, he was out of the country at the time. Apparently, whoever made the shot didn’t know his travel schedule.
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This is hurricane season in Central America. Hurricane Paula caused considerable damage in northern Honduras.
Hurricane Paula forms, heads to Yucatan PeninsulaBy FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press, Oct. 12, 2010
Hurricane Paula smashed homes and forced schools to close in Honduras on Tuesday as it headed toward Mexico's resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula. Paula formed Monday off the coast of Honduras and quickly intensified into a hurricane early Tuesday, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Heavy rains and high winds destroyed 19 homes in northeastern Honduras, said Lisandro Rosales, head of Honduras' emergency agency. Officials closed schools along the country's Atlantic coast and some airports were reported closed. Around dawn Tuesday, it had winds of 75 mph (120 kph) and was centered about 190 miles (310 kilometers) south-southeast of the resort island of Cozumel in Mexico.
Paula was moving toward the northwest at nearly 10 mph (17 kph), bringing it near the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula Tuesday night. The forecast track would have the storm a little offshore of Cancun, Cozumel and Isla Mujeres near the tip of the Peninsula late Wednesday night. The Hurricane Center said the storm was likely to gain force, though it was not expected to become a major hurricane.
Paula was expected to dump from 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of Honduras, northern Belize, eastern portions of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and parts of western and central Cuba. The government of Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the country's Caribbean coast from Punta Gruesa north to Cabo Catoche, including the island of Cozumel. Warnings are issued when hurricane conditions are almost certain to occur.
Forecasters warned of possible flooding and landslides and suggested residents avoid fishing trips or water sports. Forecasters said the storm would produce heavy rains that could cause flash floods and mudslides, especially in the mountains of Nicaragua and Honduras. It said isolated, mountainous areas in Honduras could get as many as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain. Coastal flooding from heavy waves was also expected along the eastern coast of the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula.
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Dead Cuban Hunger Striker's Kin Can EmigrateThursday, 14 Oct 2010, (Agence France Presse)
Cuba has authorized the family of dissident Orlando Zapata, who died in February after an 85-day hunger strike, to emigrate directly to the United States, Zapata's mother told AFP Thursday.
"They told me that the government had authorized the departure of the whole family and that we are going directly to the United States, but I'm not going until they give me my son's ashes," said Reina Tamayo, the dissident's mother.
In a related development Thursday, opposition leaders said five other dissidents had been granted approval to go the United States.
Tamayo said the government's offer was communicated to her October 11 by Roman Catholic Bishop Emilio Aranguren of the eastern province of Holguin, where she lives. Aranguren was traveling and unavailable for comment, while officials at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana had no immediate comment. Tamayo said she had received no information from the U.S. Interest Section. Tamayo, 62, was in Havana Thursday to meet with officials in the office of Cardinal Jaime Ortega to learn of the details of the offer. Ortega held a high-level meeting with President Raul Castro in May that resulted in the government agreeing to release 52 of the 75 political prisoners it jailed in a widespread 2003 crackdown.
Tamayo's four adult children -- three sons and a daughter -- along with their families were also authorized to travel to the United States. Church officials agree that they should leave "because we are being harassed, we cannot live here," Tamayo said.
The slow process of releasing Cuba's political prisoners is supported by Spain, which has welcomed 38 prisoners of the released prisoners and their families. One ex-prisoner traveled to Chile, and another traveled to the United States.
Orlando Zapata, a 42 year-old laborer who was single and had no children, died on February 23 after an 85 day-long hunger strike. His death unleashed a wave of criticism in the United States and European Union.
Cuba denies it holds any political prisoners and calls dissidents "mercenaries" funded by the United States and a conservative Cuban-American "mafia."
Meanwhile, Elizardo Sanchez, a key leader of the Cuban opposition, said five other dissidents who had been released from prison in recent years from the same group had been granted permission to go to the United States. He said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Jorge Olivera, Carmelo Diaz, Roberto de Miranda and Margarito Broche, who were released from prison for health reasons, were contacted because "apparently there is a tendency by the authorities to permit the emigration of those released." Espinosa and Olivera reportedly rejected the offer, while Diaz, Miranda and Broche accepted.
-------------------------------------------
October 15, 2010, NY Times (Editorial)
Sudan’s Threatened Peace Deal
Time is running out on efforts to avert another civil war in Sudan. A United States-backed deal in 2005 ended two decades of fighting between the Arab Muslim north and the largely Christian south that killed two million people. That deal is now in danger of unraveling if two referendums set for early January do not go forward.
After neglecting the problem for far too long, President Obama and his top aides are pushing both sides to fulfill their commitments to ensure a credible vote and to accept the results. We hope it is not too late.
Voters in the south, which produces most of the country’s oil, are expected to choose to become independent. In the second referendum, voters in the border district of Abyei must decide whether to ally with the north or the south.
Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has dragged his feet on election preparations. Voter registration is months late. Election officials still must be trained and ballots printed and distributed. The two sides must put up their share of the election costs and resolve an impasse over who gets to vote in Abyei. Other critical issues remain unresolved. South Sudan also has to get serious about creating the structures of a new state.
Mr. Obama and his team vowed to end Mr. Bashir’s rampage in Darfur and to do all they could to ensure peace between north and south Sudan. The president quickly appointed a peace envoy and replaced a punishment-heavy strategy with one that leaned more toward incentives. When Mr. Bashir showed little interest, the policy was allowed to drift.
With activists warning of impending disaster, the administration finally beefed up its diplomatic mission in south Sudan and named a veteran diplomat to help mediate talks that ended without a deal this week and are supposed to resume later this month. President Obama headlined a United Nations meeting last month in which all the major players committed to respecting the “outcome of credible” referendums and holding them on Jan. 9. But a senior official with the Sudanese government said on Thursday that the Abyei referendum would either have to be delayed or the issue decided in negotiations rather than a vote. This reneges on the 2005 peace agreement and is unacceptable.
The Sudanese government should be able to make a deal with south Sudan — including on sharing oil revenues — that both sides can live with. What it can’t afford is another civil war or more international opprobrium if it is found stealing or stymieing this vote. Mr. Obama has offered more explicit incentives if Sudan lives up to its commitments — including help with food production, increased trade and eventually an end to all economic sanctions. He and his aides have also threatened more punishments if Sudan does not.
Mr. Bashir has thumbed his nose at an International Criminal Court indictment for war crimes in Darfur. We are not sure what will change his behavior. We are sure that China and the African Union, which have enabled Mr. Bashir for years, need to press a lot harder.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Radio Show, Va. Tech, Interpreting’s Horizons, Cuba Again
OK, just heard from the Boomer Babes, who interviewed me for their radio show, that they’ve scheduled that program for 11 am on Sat. Oct. 9. Unfortunately, the two stations where it will run, WSCL 89.5 FM and WSCL 90.7 FM, reach only Baltimore, but not Washington, DC, where I live.
Believe I already mentioned that I’m appearing on a Peace Corps panel at Virginia Tech’s Squires Hall on Thurs. Oct. 21, 6 pm, and at a book talk at the Blacksburg public library the next day, Friday, Oct. 22, at 11 am. If any reader lives in the area, please join us.
I’ve learned about a few things I never knew before and entered new worlds just by being a Spanish interpreter, such as inside juvenile lock-up, traffic and divorce court, organ transplantation, MRI scans, and even training for supermarket openings, among others. I also travel the length and breadth of the metropolitan area, from inner city to outer suburbs by public transportation. For example, last week, I first learned about chains of private schools dedicated exclusively to difficult or special-needs kids from surrounding public jurisdictions, schools located far from population centers. Buses pick up the students from their homes, wherever located. Some kids, I was told, are picked up at 5 or 6am and return home 12 hours later.
At parental interpretation assignments I had last week at three different outlying schools of this type, in no case did the parent show up for a school consultation, either cancelling at the last minute or, in one case, participating from her home via speaker phone. I can see why, because to reach that latter school, I had to travel to end of the metro’s blue line in Springfield, Va., take a winding bus ride, and walk the last 5 blocks in torrential rain. Could I have done it by phone myself?
Traveling to another such school from a different outlying metro station (Morgan Blvd. near Lanham, Md.), I noticed a day care center located only yards away from the metro entrance. So you park your car in the lot, drop your kid off at the day care center, then take the metro into your job in the city. Very efficient.
It does seem that the “developing world” is actually developing now, forging ahead economically, while the US and Europe are just creeping. I’m thinking Brazil, China, India, and several sub-Saharan African countries.
See Cuba items below.
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Cuban hunger striker who sewed lips shut hospitalized
The Cuban dissident who sewed his mouth shut to prove he was on a hunger strike fainted amid spasms, according to a report.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO, Miami Herald, September 23, 2010
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/23/1837817/hunger-striker-who-sewed-lips.html#ixzz10vkV7pUd
A Cuban dissident who sewed his lips shut after doctors made fun of his hunger strike was taken to a hospital Wednesday suffering from convulsions and blackouts, an independent journalist reported. Vladimir Alejo Miranda, 47, stopped eating 62 days ago, sewed his mouth Sept. 5 and stopped drinking water Tuesday, journalist Heriberto Liranza Romero told El Nuevo Herald by phone from Havana.
Alejo's wife, Rita Montes de Oca, joined his hunger strike and also sewed her lips Sept. 12 with regular sewing thread and a needle, the journalist said. Alejo was taken to a hospital in the Havana municipality of Guanabacoa on Wednesday after he blacked out and went into convulsions, Liranza added. No independent confirmation was immediately available.
He was receiving intravenous fluids and could be sent home or transferred to a larger hospital depending on his condition, Liranza said. Alejo and his wife also suffer from infections around the lips.
About 15 Cubans sewed their lips together in recent memory to protest against the communist government, said Ricardo Bofill, a founder of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights now living in Miami.``It's a kind of extreme sacrifice, very rare although it has been done on a few occasions,'' Bofill said.
Próspero Gaínza Agüero, arrested in the 2003 crackdown on 75 dissidents known as Cuba's Black Spring and sentenced to 25 years, sewed his lips for several days in 2004 to protest prison conditions. Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, arrested in the same roundup and sentenced to 20 years, did the same in 2008 to demand his transfer to a prison closer to his home in eastern Guantánamo province. Both were freed and sent to Spain in recent weeks as part of a Cuban government promise in July to release 52 political prisoners, the last of the 75 still jailed. About two dozen were freed for health reasons.
Alejo, a former political prisoner, is president of the Human Rights Movement Miguel Valdés Tamayo, named after a dissident who was jailed in the 2003 crackdown, was released in 2004 because of ill health and died in 2007.
Jobless because of his political activism, Alejo went on a hunger strike to demand the right to work, the right to receive assistance from abroad and live ``like a human being, not an animal,'' Liranza said. He's been taken to hospitals several times since he stopped eating, the journalist added, and has received about 30 bags of intravenous liquids but never before suffered convulsions.
Alejo sewed his lips together after doctors made fun of his hunger strike during one of the hospital visits, telling him that a good meal could fix whatever was ailing him, Liranza added. "I call on the international community to raise the alarm for the condition of Vladimir Alejo Miranda and his wife," Liranza told the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate, which supports dissidents on the island.
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Wall St. Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady (Sept. 27, 2010), has criticized Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg for letting Fidel Castro “use” him and for apparently not asking about Alan Gross, a Jewish American held on trumped up charges since last December.
I asked my Cuban commentator friend what he thought of her column. Here are excerpts of his reply: Of course Fidel Castro is using Jeffrey Goldberg to transmit a favorable public relations message to the Jews not only in the US but throughout the whole world and Jeffrey Goldberg is letting himself be used. But Jeffrey Goldberg in turn is using Fidel Castro because he is a reporter and whatever opinion anyone has about FC, there is one thing that cannot be denied and that is that Fidel Castro whatever he says or whatever he does is news!
This means that any true reporter would be willing to give his right arm to be able just to interview him for a few hours and FC spent several days with him and gave him unfettered access, even invited him to his home to have supper with him and his family. Who could pass up on an opportunity like that?
Maria Anastasia, in my opinion, is being unjust. She could also be a little envious because JG got an interview that she would have liked for herself!
As a public relations activity the interview was a complete success. Having Fidel Castro state to the world that he is no anti-Semite and that he understands and sympathizes with the Jews for all the persecutions that they have suffered and that he believes that the state of Israel has a right to exist struck a particularly sensitive spot on the Jewish people and the State of Israel who are so used to being disliked and marginalized by the world.
The problem is that realpolitik has its own rules that allow politicians to often contradict themselves in an opportunistic manner in accordance with the different problems they face in specific situations they find themselves in. Castro once called Mao a senile doddering old man and vowed that he would never try to hold onto office when he approached old age and today he does all that and manages to eat out of the same dish with the Chinese and the Chinese go along with it. He also backed the Arabs and today he cozies up to the Israelis.
If newspapermen could not criticize politicians, how could they earn their living? If politicians could not reverse their positions and contradict themselves, how could they try to solve their problems?
Another blog reader also commented on that Wall St. Journal column:
Re Mary Anastasia's report on the Goldberg interview with Fidel, the guy is truly amazing -- virtually an invalid, presiding de facto over a country in shambles, and yet he finds an influential useful idiot to bolster his image, and makes sure the effort attracts widespread attention by casually dropping that little remark about the Cuban model no longer working. I mean, I mean, . . . You gotta hand it to him!
Believe I already mentioned that I’m appearing on a Peace Corps panel at Virginia Tech’s Squires Hall on Thurs. Oct. 21, 6 pm, and at a book talk at the Blacksburg public library the next day, Friday, Oct. 22, at 11 am. If any reader lives in the area, please join us.
I’ve learned about a few things I never knew before and entered new worlds just by being a Spanish interpreter, such as inside juvenile lock-up, traffic and divorce court, organ transplantation, MRI scans, and even training for supermarket openings, among others. I also travel the length and breadth of the metropolitan area, from inner city to outer suburbs by public transportation. For example, last week, I first learned about chains of private schools dedicated exclusively to difficult or special-needs kids from surrounding public jurisdictions, schools located far from population centers. Buses pick up the students from their homes, wherever located. Some kids, I was told, are picked up at 5 or 6am and return home 12 hours later.
At parental interpretation assignments I had last week at three different outlying schools of this type, in no case did the parent show up for a school consultation, either cancelling at the last minute or, in one case, participating from her home via speaker phone. I can see why, because to reach that latter school, I had to travel to end of the metro’s blue line in Springfield, Va., take a winding bus ride, and walk the last 5 blocks in torrential rain. Could I have done it by phone myself?
Traveling to another such school from a different outlying metro station (Morgan Blvd. near Lanham, Md.), I noticed a day care center located only yards away from the metro entrance. So you park your car in the lot, drop your kid off at the day care center, then take the metro into your job in the city. Very efficient.
It does seem that the “developing world” is actually developing now, forging ahead economically, while the US and Europe are just creeping. I’m thinking Brazil, China, India, and several sub-Saharan African countries.
See Cuba items below.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Cuban hunger striker who sewed lips shut hospitalized
The Cuban dissident who sewed his mouth shut to prove he was on a hunger strike fainted amid spasms, according to a report.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO, Miami Herald, September 23, 2010
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/23/1837817/hunger-striker-who-sewed-lips.html#ixzz10vkV7pUd
A Cuban dissident who sewed his lips shut after doctors made fun of his hunger strike was taken to a hospital Wednesday suffering from convulsions and blackouts, an independent journalist reported. Vladimir Alejo Miranda, 47, stopped eating 62 days ago, sewed his mouth Sept. 5 and stopped drinking water Tuesday, journalist Heriberto Liranza Romero told El Nuevo Herald by phone from Havana.
Alejo's wife, Rita Montes de Oca, joined his hunger strike and also sewed her lips Sept. 12 with regular sewing thread and a needle, the journalist said. Alejo was taken to a hospital in the Havana municipality of Guanabacoa on Wednesday after he blacked out and went into convulsions, Liranza added. No independent confirmation was immediately available.
He was receiving intravenous fluids and could be sent home or transferred to a larger hospital depending on his condition, Liranza said. Alejo and his wife also suffer from infections around the lips.
About 15 Cubans sewed their lips together in recent memory to protest against the communist government, said Ricardo Bofill, a founder of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights now living in Miami.``It's a kind of extreme sacrifice, very rare although it has been done on a few occasions,'' Bofill said.
Próspero Gaínza Agüero, arrested in the 2003 crackdown on 75 dissidents known as Cuba's Black Spring and sentenced to 25 years, sewed his lips for several days in 2004 to protest prison conditions. Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, arrested in the same roundup and sentenced to 20 years, did the same in 2008 to demand his transfer to a prison closer to his home in eastern Guantánamo province. Both were freed and sent to Spain in recent weeks as part of a Cuban government promise in July to release 52 political prisoners, the last of the 75 still jailed. About two dozen were freed for health reasons.
Alejo, a former political prisoner, is president of the Human Rights Movement Miguel Valdés Tamayo, named after a dissident who was jailed in the 2003 crackdown, was released in 2004 because of ill health and died in 2007.
Jobless because of his political activism, Alejo went on a hunger strike to demand the right to work, the right to receive assistance from abroad and live ``like a human being, not an animal,'' Liranza said. He's been taken to hospitals several times since he stopped eating, the journalist added, and has received about 30 bags of intravenous liquids but never before suffered convulsions.
Alejo sewed his lips together after doctors made fun of his hunger strike during one of the hospital visits, telling him that a good meal could fix whatever was ailing him, Liranza added. "I call on the international community to raise the alarm for the condition of Vladimir Alejo Miranda and his wife," Liranza told the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate, which supports dissidents on the island.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wall St. Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady (Sept. 27, 2010), has criticized Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg for letting Fidel Castro “use” him and for apparently not asking about Alan Gross, a Jewish American held on trumped up charges since last December.
I asked my Cuban commentator friend what he thought of her column. Here are excerpts of his reply: Of course Fidel Castro is using Jeffrey Goldberg to transmit a favorable public relations message to the Jews not only in the US but throughout the whole world and Jeffrey Goldberg is letting himself be used. But Jeffrey Goldberg in turn is using Fidel Castro because he is a reporter and whatever opinion anyone has about FC, there is one thing that cannot be denied and that is that Fidel Castro whatever he says or whatever he does is news!
This means that any true reporter would be willing to give his right arm to be able just to interview him for a few hours and FC spent several days with him and gave him unfettered access, even invited him to his home to have supper with him and his family. Who could pass up on an opportunity like that?
Maria Anastasia, in my opinion, is being unjust. She could also be a little envious because JG got an interview that she would have liked for herself!
As a public relations activity the interview was a complete success. Having Fidel Castro state to the world that he is no anti-Semite and that he understands and sympathizes with the Jews for all the persecutions that they have suffered and that he believes that the state of Israel has a right to exist struck a particularly sensitive spot on the Jewish people and the State of Israel who are so used to being disliked and marginalized by the world.
The problem is that realpolitik has its own rules that allow politicians to often contradict themselves in an opportunistic manner in accordance with the different problems they face in specific situations they find themselves in. Castro once called Mao a senile doddering old man and vowed that he would never try to hold onto office when he approached old age and today he does all that and manages to eat out of the same dish with the Chinese and the Chinese go along with it. He also backed the Arabs and today he cozies up to the Israelis.
If newspapermen could not criticize politicians, how could they earn their living? If politicians could not reverse their positions and contradict themselves, how could they try to solve their problems?
Another blog reader also commented on that Wall St. Journal column:
Re Mary Anastasia's report on the Goldberg interview with Fidel, the guy is truly amazing -- virtually an invalid, presiding de facto over a country in shambles, and yet he finds an influential useful idiot to bolster his image, and makes sure the effort attracts widespread attention by casually dropping that little remark about the Cuban model no longer working. I mean, I mean, . . . You gotta hand it to him!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Spell-Check, Radio Interview, Eastern Market Travails, Che’s Nephew on Fidel, Stratfor on Cuba/Venezuela, Sudan Referendum
Mea culpa, I misspelled Michelle Rhee’s last name last time, why? Because a former sister-in-law, also of Korean descent, has the last name “Rie.” Spellings of similarly pronounced names can vary, just like my own Korean last name, Joe, which could’ve as easily been Cho if my late father-in-law had decided to spell it that way
On Sept. 21, participated in an interview for a program broadcast on a public radio station out of Baltimore (2boomerbabes), unfortunately, not accessible in DC. But when I get a notice of when it will air, will post it here in case any reader is within range.
Got my comeuppance at Eastern Market last weekend, trying to talk up the Peace Corps and sell my book to a middle-aged couple. “No thank you,” the wife said emphatically, “our daughter was in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria, went into kidney failure and had to have a kidney transplant.” “Oh dear,” I exclaimed, “was it from anything that she ate or drank or was exposed to there?” They said no, that no one knew why it had happened, but it understandably made them wary of the Peace Corps. I guess so, even though the corps was probably not at fault.
That same morning, a current Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica, assigned to environmental protection, was on medevac in Washington for kidney stones, one of which he had passed just the night before, he said. In that case, again, the Peace Corps experience was not to blame, since such stones do take a while to form.
Another man in his 60s, who also declined to buy a book, nonetheless gave me quite an earful. He had asked to be sent to Bulgaria, but instead was offered Ukraine, which he refused. After that, he was not offered any other assignments. I promised to inquire, although I know that Peace Corps usually doesn’t approve of applicants who request a particular country, suspecting that they have some hidden agenda or are demonstrating an inflexibility counterproductive in a PC volunteer.
Still another non-buyer stopped to give me an earful about how Hondurans and other Central Americans are bringing bedbugs into this country, another reason to keep out immigrants from that part of the world. Yes, there are bedbugs in Honduras and other critters too, but I’m not sure that is the reason for reported infestations in this country. It’s interesting to talk with a cross-section of America, including visitors from out-of-town, at my sale table. I did sell three books that morning, but not to any of those mentioned.
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I’ve often held that progressives, among which I usually count myself, are too often apologists for Fidel Castro, believing his propaganda about the glories of the Cuban revolution and perhaps also influenced by a desire to bash the United States. As Che Guevara’s nephew, Martin Guevara (Miami Herald, September 19, 2010) who lived for years as an exile in Cuba, has put it: When Orlando Zapata, a Cuban dissident, died in a Cuban prison on March 9 after going on a hunger strike, many of the intellectuals who had spent their lives defending or ignoring the brutality of the Castro government said, “Enough.” They could no longer give Fidel the benefit of the doubt just because he had declared himself a champion of the poor of the world.
This must have bothered Fidel, because throughout his life he has been able to behave badly without risking the disapproval of the progressive intellectuals of the world. Their declarations against his treatment of Zapata must have been worrisome for his government's image. In this day of instant communication, image is of the essence to a government that wishes to also become a family dynasty.
Why is it so difficult for us to condemn any excess, crime, violent act or abuse committed by self-proclaimed leftists, revolutionaries or communists? What part of our brain falters or becomes anesthetized when the time comes to protest against these injustices?
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A reader has sent me a link to a report from STRATFOR, a self-described geopolitical analysis organization, that has posted a provocative report on the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100920_change_course_cuba_and_venezuela
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Clinton pushes Sudan on referendum
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
NEW YORK -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is urging Sudanese authorities to make up for lost time in preparing for an independence referendum early next year for the Southern Sudan.
On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Clinton met Tuesday with Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Taha to impress upon him the need for a well-organized and peaceful vote in January. With just over 100 days until the referendum, preparations are far behind schedule. There are also fears that a vote splitting the south and north will re-ignite a bloody civil war that ended in 2005.
Clinton's talks with Taha come ahead of a high-level U.N. session on Sudan that President Barack Obama will attend on Friday. Taha and the President of southern Sudan Salva Kiir will also participate in the meeting.
In the meeting with Taha, Clinton "reinforced steps Sudan needs to take" on implementing the peace deal that ended the war, including holding the referendum, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. He said taking those steps "could lead to better relations" between Sudan and the U.S. Sudan is currently designated a "state sponsor of terrorism" and subject to U.S. sanctions.
Crowley said Clinton also raised the Sudan issue in meetings on Tuesday with Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Kosa and the Emir of Qatar.
Sudan activists have warned that urgent international diplomatic intervention is the only way to prevent renewed civil war.
Underscoring the concern, Clinton and the foreign ministers of Britain and Norway released a letter Tuesday that they sent to Taha and Kiir last week appealing to them "to take swift action to ensure" a peaceful vote that recognizes the will of the people.
"There remains an enormous amount to be done and work must be accelerated to make up for lost time," they said in the letter.
Southern Sudan, which is predominantly animist and Christian, is scheduled to vote on independence Jan. 9. But the group charged with organizing the vote has not yet set a date for voter registration. The Obama administration has said it is "inevitable" the south will declare independence. Given the south's substantial known oil resources, many worry that the predominantly Muslim north will find it difficult to accept an independent south.
On Sept. 21, participated in an interview for a program broadcast on a public radio station out of Baltimore (2boomerbabes), unfortunately, not accessible in DC. But when I get a notice of when it will air, will post it here in case any reader is within range.
Got my comeuppance at Eastern Market last weekend, trying to talk up the Peace Corps and sell my book to a middle-aged couple. “No thank you,” the wife said emphatically, “our daughter was in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria, went into kidney failure and had to have a kidney transplant.” “Oh dear,” I exclaimed, “was it from anything that she ate or drank or was exposed to there?” They said no, that no one knew why it had happened, but it understandably made them wary of the Peace Corps. I guess so, even though the corps was probably not at fault.
That same morning, a current Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica, assigned to environmental protection, was on medevac in Washington for kidney stones, one of which he had passed just the night before, he said. In that case, again, the Peace Corps experience was not to blame, since such stones do take a while to form.
Another man in his 60s, who also declined to buy a book, nonetheless gave me quite an earful. He had asked to be sent to Bulgaria, but instead was offered Ukraine, which he refused. After that, he was not offered any other assignments. I promised to inquire, although I know that Peace Corps usually doesn’t approve of applicants who request a particular country, suspecting that they have some hidden agenda or are demonstrating an inflexibility counterproductive in a PC volunteer.
Still another non-buyer stopped to give me an earful about how Hondurans and other Central Americans are bringing bedbugs into this country, another reason to keep out immigrants from that part of the world. Yes, there are bedbugs in Honduras and other critters too, but I’m not sure that is the reason for reported infestations in this country. It’s interesting to talk with a cross-section of America, including visitors from out-of-town, at my sale table. I did sell three books that morning, but not to any of those mentioned.
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I’ve often held that progressives, among which I usually count myself, are too often apologists for Fidel Castro, believing his propaganda about the glories of the Cuban revolution and perhaps also influenced by a desire to bash the United States. As Che Guevara’s nephew, Martin Guevara (Miami Herald, September 19, 2010) who lived for years as an exile in Cuba, has put it: When Orlando Zapata, a Cuban dissident, died in a Cuban prison on March 9 after going on a hunger strike, many of the intellectuals who had spent their lives defending or ignoring the brutality of the Castro government said, “Enough.” They could no longer give Fidel the benefit of the doubt just because he had declared himself a champion of the poor of the world.
This must have bothered Fidel, because throughout his life he has been able to behave badly without risking the disapproval of the progressive intellectuals of the world. Their declarations against his treatment of Zapata must have been worrisome for his government's image. In this day of instant communication, image is of the essence to a government that wishes to also become a family dynasty.
Why is it so difficult for us to condemn any excess, crime, violent act or abuse committed by self-proclaimed leftists, revolutionaries or communists? What part of our brain falters or becomes anesthetized when the time comes to protest against these injustices?
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A reader has sent me a link to a report from STRATFOR, a self-described geopolitical analysis organization, that has posted a provocative report on the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100920_change_course_cuba_and_venezuela
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Clinton pushes Sudan on referendum
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
NEW YORK -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is urging Sudanese authorities to make up for lost time in preparing for an independence referendum early next year for the Southern Sudan.
On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Clinton met Tuesday with Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Taha to impress upon him the need for a well-organized and peaceful vote in January. With just over 100 days until the referendum, preparations are far behind schedule. There are also fears that a vote splitting the south and north will re-ignite a bloody civil war that ended in 2005.
Clinton's talks with Taha come ahead of a high-level U.N. session on Sudan that President Barack Obama will attend on Friday. Taha and the President of southern Sudan Salva Kiir will also participate in the meeting.
In the meeting with Taha, Clinton "reinforced steps Sudan needs to take" on implementing the peace deal that ended the war, including holding the referendum, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. He said taking those steps "could lead to better relations" between Sudan and the U.S. Sudan is currently designated a "state sponsor of terrorism" and subject to U.S. sanctions.
Crowley said Clinton also raised the Sudan issue in meetings on Tuesday with Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Kosa and the Emir of Qatar.
Sudan activists have warned that urgent international diplomatic intervention is the only way to prevent renewed civil war.
Underscoring the concern, Clinton and the foreign ministers of Britain and Norway released a letter Tuesday that they sent to Taha and Kiir last week appealing to them "to take swift action to ensure" a peaceful vote that recognizes the will of the people.
"There remains an enormous amount to be done and work must be accelerated to make up for lost time," they said in the letter.
Southern Sudan, which is predominantly animist and Christian, is scheduled to vote on independence Jan. 9. But the group charged with organizing the vote has not yet set a date for voter registration. The Obama administration has said it is "inevitable" the south will declare independence. Given the south's substantial known oil resources, many worry that the predominantly Muslim north will find it difficult to accept an independent south.
Friday, September 17, 2010
DC Mayoral Primary, Facebook, Obama Keeps Cuba Embargo, Fidel’s Surprise, Cuban Doctors
We’ve had our Democratic mayoral primary in DC, after which the November election is usually just a formality, since well over 90% of DC voters are registered Democrats. Unfortunately (in my opinion), incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty lost to City Council Chair Vincent Gray. Fenty was a no-nonsense guy who plowed ahead, usually without consulting others, but a reformer who got a lot a done. He was of bi-racial heritage, like Obama, and appointed many non-blacks to high positions, including a white woman as chief of police and, the most controversial and nationally well-known, an Asian woman, Michelle Rie, as education chancellor. Rie dared to get rid of non-performing or even harmful teachers. Gray, a long-time council member, is a pretty traditional political type who had the backing of most African American voters, still a majority in the city, though a slightly shrinking percentage; the vote was pretty much divided along racial lines. I think it’s a step backward to have elected Gray, a sign of the anti-incumbent fever or fervor sweeping much of the nation in the wake of the economic recession. People seem to be thinking: let’s go back to the way things were; it was better then. An ironic wrinkle in the mayoral primary is that among the miniscule number of registered Republicans who voted, Fenty won as a write-in candidate, so, theoretically, he could run as a Republican to challenge Gray, a risky strategy that could well backfire and forever ex-communicate him from the Democratic Party.
Someone told me about a Peace Corps volunteer in her 60s working in Africa more than 20 years ago who was murdered by a radio thief. It happened in Zimbabwe, no longer a PC country, but something like that, regrettably, could happen elsewhere. I can’t help remembering with a shudder the robber who came in through my roof in La Esperanza while I was sleeping and planned to steal my radio, among the loot he’d assembled on the floor before I woke up screaming and scared him away.
Not surprised to read in the Washington Post (Sept. 13, 2010) an article headlined “South Sudan sovereignty at risk.” Sounds like Khartoum is trying to raise issues about the dividing line between north and south in order to delay (and undermine) the vote, since it’s obvious that southerners will want to secede.
Facebook can be a fun way to connect with friends old and new, but I got a jolt recently when someone posted a message, supposedly from me, saying that I had gotten a coupon for a free laptop from some promotion or other and they should do the same. Well, I never posted that message and never got a free laptop. How was my system invaded? Who knows? I reported it to Facebook, changed my password, and dumped a few iffy names from my “friends” list. Still, I was shaken, as my previous password was rather esoteric. However, these invaders apparently can read keystrokes, so no matter how convoluted the password, they can copy it. Kind of scary. Electronic communication is a two-edged sword, so easy to use, so easy to have your privacy invaded and your system hijacked.
You may already know that Obama signed a renewal of the Trading with the Enemy Act regarding Cuba, despite our best efforts in Amnesty International. Apparently in this mid-term election year and with all the other problems, that was an issue he wasn't willing to tackle. However, HR4645, to effectively lift the full US travel ban to Cuba, is still in play and probably would not be vetoed by the president.
Below from AP, Sept. 8, 2010, is a remark heard round the world.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
What did Castro mean? He said later that he was misunderstood, that he meant that capitalism doesn’t work anymore. Is the guy senile, sending a signal, or what?
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HAVANA TIMES, Sept. 9 — At least 10 of the political prisoners out of the odd 20 still in prison refuse to accept traveling to Spain because they wish to remain in the island or want to go to the United States, Elizardo Sánchez, president of the opposition’s Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, affirmed. That group forms part of the 52 dissidents included in the agreement between the Catholic Church, Madrid and the Cuban government, reported IPS.
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Cuba's Cash-for-Doctors Program
Thousands of its health-care missionaries flee mistreatment.
Wall Street Journal, AUGUST 16, 2010
By MARIA C. WERLAU
For decades, Cuba has "exported" doctors, nurses and health technicians to earn diplomatic influence in poor countries and hard cash for its floundering economy. According to Cuba's official media, an estimated 38,544 Cuban health professionals were serving abroad in 2008, 17,697 of them doctors. (Cuba reports having 70,000 doctors in all.)
These "missionaries of the revolution" are well-received in host countries from Algeria to South Africa to Venezuela. Yet those who hail Cuba's generosity overlook the uglier aspects of Cuba's health diplomacy.
The regime stands accused of violating various international agreements such as the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and ILO Convention on the Protection of Wages because of the way these health-care providers are treated. In February, for example, seven Cuban doctors who formerly served in Venezuela and later defected filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court against Cuba, Venezuela and the Venezuelan state oil company for holding them in conditions akin to "modern slavery."
They claim the Cuban regime held the funds Venezuela remitted for their services and then paid them—an arrangement they say is a form of "debt bondage." They also say they were forced to work extremely long hours in dangerous areas, including urban zones with high crime rates and the jungle. (The Venezuelan government and its oil company are challenging the court's jurisdiction to hear the case; Cuba hasn't responded.)
Starting in 2002, Hugo Chávez agreed to pay—mostly with subsidized, cheap Venezuelan oil—for Cuba to provide health care to marginalized populations in Venezuela at no cost to patients. But in the past several years he has expanded the effort to other countries, helping to build support for his regional Marxist agenda while keeping the Cuban economy afloat.
Cuba won't release its agreements with host countries, but details have emerged in open sources, including in Cuba's official media. These show that typically the host country pays Cuba hard currency for each health worker and provides accommodations, food and a monthly stipend generally between $150 and $350. Cuba covers airfare and logistical support, and it pays salaries to the health-care workers out of the funds it holds.
Cuba's global health projects also receive support from the developed world. In 2005, at least $27 million was donated to Cuba's Haiti mission, including from France and Japan. International goodwill also translates into direct aid. In 2008, Cuba received $127 million from OECD countries. These transfers explain the recent rise in Cuba's export of services, to $8.6 billion in 2008 from $2.8 billion in 2003. Representing 75% of GDP, they generate far more income than any other industry.
Cuban doctors go abroad because at home they earn a scant $22-$25 a month. When they work in other countries, they typically get a small stipend in local currency while their families back home receive their usual salary plus a payment in hard currency—from $50 to $325 per month.
But with the state as sole employer and the citizens forbidden from leaving the country without permission, the system is tailor-made for exploitation. Several Cuban doctors who have served abroad tell me that in addition to very long hours they may not drive a car, leave their dwellings after a certain hour, or speak to the media. In some countries they are only allowed to associate with "revolutionaries." Thousands of Cuban health professionals have deserted world-wide. Almost 1,500 have made it to the U.S. alone since 2006, according to a Department of Homeland Security report in March.
Cuba's profitable global business has ramifications for its own health-care system. It's been extensively reported, by Cuba's independent journalists as well as by the occasional Westerner who ends up in a hospital for the common people, that Cubans face a chronic shortage of doctors and dilapidated health facilities. Patients or their families must even bring their own food and linens to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the mass production of Cuban doctors for export has led medical associations in host countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Portugal to question their experience and credentials. Some Venezuelan doctors have complained of being fired and replaced by Cuban missionary physicians. And a few years ago the Bolivian press reported that the country's medical association was complaining about thousands of unemployed health professionals who were earning considerably less than what Mr. Chávez was paying for Cubans.
Humanitarianism cannot be selective. Cuba's health workers deserve full protection of local and international laws, its citizens deserve access to adequate health care, and patients everywhere deserve accountability from their health-care providers.
Ms. Werlau is executive director of nonprofit Cuba Archive, a human rights organization
Someone told me about a Peace Corps volunteer in her 60s working in Africa more than 20 years ago who was murdered by a radio thief. It happened in Zimbabwe, no longer a PC country, but something like that, regrettably, could happen elsewhere. I can’t help remembering with a shudder the robber who came in through my roof in La Esperanza while I was sleeping and planned to steal my radio, among the loot he’d assembled on the floor before I woke up screaming and scared him away.
Not surprised to read in the Washington Post (Sept. 13, 2010) an article headlined “South Sudan sovereignty at risk.” Sounds like Khartoum is trying to raise issues about the dividing line between north and south in order to delay (and undermine) the vote, since it’s obvious that southerners will want to secede.
Facebook can be a fun way to connect with friends old and new, but I got a jolt recently when someone posted a message, supposedly from me, saying that I had gotten a coupon for a free laptop from some promotion or other and they should do the same. Well, I never posted that message and never got a free laptop. How was my system invaded? Who knows? I reported it to Facebook, changed my password, and dumped a few iffy names from my “friends” list. Still, I was shaken, as my previous password was rather esoteric. However, these invaders apparently can read keystrokes, so no matter how convoluted the password, they can copy it. Kind of scary. Electronic communication is a two-edged sword, so easy to use, so easy to have your privacy invaded and your system hijacked.
You may already know that Obama signed a renewal of the Trading with the Enemy Act regarding Cuba, despite our best efforts in Amnesty International. Apparently in this mid-term election year and with all the other problems, that was an issue he wasn't willing to tackle. However, HR4645, to effectively lift the full US travel ban to Cuba, is still in play and probably would not be vetoed by the president.
Below from AP, Sept. 8, 2010, is a remark heard round the world.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
What did Castro mean? He said later that he was misunderstood, that he meant that capitalism doesn’t work anymore. Is the guy senile, sending a signal, or what?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HAVANA TIMES, Sept. 9 — At least 10 of the political prisoners out of the odd 20 still in prison refuse to accept traveling to Spain because they wish to remain in the island or want to go to the United States, Elizardo Sánchez, president of the opposition’s Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, affirmed. That group forms part of the 52 dissidents included in the agreement between the Catholic Church, Madrid and the Cuban government, reported IPS.
--------------------------------------------------
Cuba's Cash-for-Doctors Program
Thousands of its health-care missionaries flee mistreatment.
Wall Street Journal, AUGUST 16, 2010
By MARIA C. WERLAU
For decades, Cuba has "exported" doctors, nurses and health technicians to earn diplomatic influence in poor countries and hard cash for its floundering economy. According to Cuba's official media, an estimated 38,544 Cuban health professionals were serving abroad in 2008, 17,697 of them doctors. (Cuba reports having 70,000 doctors in all.)
These "missionaries of the revolution" are well-received in host countries from Algeria to South Africa to Venezuela. Yet those who hail Cuba's generosity overlook the uglier aspects of Cuba's health diplomacy.
The regime stands accused of violating various international agreements such as the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and ILO Convention on the Protection of Wages because of the way these health-care providers are treated. In February, for example, seven Cuban doctors who formerly served in Venezuela and later defected filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court against Cuba, Venezuela and the Venezuelan state oil company for holding them in conditions akin to "modern slavery."
They claim the Cuban regime held the funds Venezuela remitted for their services and then paid them—an arrangement they say is a form of "debt bondage." They also say they were forced to work extremely long hours in dangerous areas, including urban zones with high crime rates and the jungle. (The Venezuelan government and its oil company are challenging the court's jurisdiction to hear the case; Cuba hasn't responded.)
Starting in 2002, Hugo Chávez agreed to pay—mostly with subsidized, cheap Venezuelan oil—for Cuba to provide health care to marginalized populations in Venezuela at no cost to patients. But in the past several years he has expanded the effort to other countries, helping to build support for his regional Marxist agenda while keeping the Cuban economy afloat.
Cuba won't release its agreements with host countries, but details have emerged in open sources, including in Cuba's official media. These show that typically the host country pays Cuba hard currency for each health worker and provides accommodations, food and a monthly stipend generally between $150 and $350. Cuba covers airfare and logistical support, and it pays salaries to the health-care workers out of the funds it holds.
Cuba's global health projects also receive support from the developed world. In 2005, at least $27 million was donated to Cuba's Haiti mission, including from France and Japan. International goodwill also translates into direct aid. In 2008, Cuba received $127 million from OECD countries. These transfers explain the recent rise in Cuba's export of services, to $8.6 billion in 2008 from $2.8 billion in 2003. Representing 75% of GDP, they generate far more income than any other industry.
Cuban doctors go abroad because at home they earn a scant $22-$25 a month. When they work in other countries, they typically get a small stipend in local currency while their families back home receive their usual salary plus a payment in hard currency—from $50 to $325 per month.
But with the state as sole employer and the citizens forbidden from leaving the country without permission, the system is tailor-made for exploitation. Several Cuban doctors who have served abroad tell me that in addition to very long hours they may not drive a car, leave their dwellings after a certain hour, or speak to the media. In some countries they are only allowed to associate with "revolutionaries." Thousands of Cuban health professionals have deserted world-wide. Almost 1,500 have made it to the U.S. alone since 2006, according to a Department of Homeland Security report in March.
Cuba's profitable global business has ramifications for its own health-care system. It's been extensively reported, by Cuba's independent journalists as well as by the occasional Westerner who ends up in a hospital for the common people, that Cubans face a chronic shortage of doctors and dilapidated health facilities. Patients or their families must even bring their own food and linens to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the mass production of Cuban doctors for export has led medical associations in host countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Portugal to question their experience and credentials. Some Venezuelan doctors have complained of being fired and replaced by Cuban missionary physicians. And a few years ago the Bolivian press reported that the country's medical association was complaining about thousands of unemployed health professionals who were earning considerably less than what Mr. Chávez was paying for Cubans.
Humanitarianism cannot be selective. Cuba's health workers deserve full protection of local and international laws, its citizens deserve access to adequate health care, and patients everywhere deserve accountability from their health-care providers.
Ms. Werlau is executive director of nonprofit Cuba Archive, a human rights organization
Sunday, September 5, 2010
50 yrs of PC & AI in 2011, Bad Day at E. Mkt., Films, Fidel in Uniform, Dogs in Iran, Iktar, Son’s B’day, Reich on Economy, Chavez' Popularity, Palmer
Amnesty International and Peace Corps both will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2011, putting me a something of a time bind, as I’m involved in promoting both. I’ve been with Amnesty for 30 of those 50 years, but with the Peace Corps for only 11 years, first as a volunteer in 2000, then as an advocate. I know I’m juggling too many balls, but am reluctant to drop any of them.
Returned to my bookselling post at Eastern Market after a 3-week break, taken while the folks who have kindly supplied me with a table and umbrella were away. However, things did not go smoothly. First, they forgot the umbrella, which meant I was subjected to the blazing DC sun, 90+ temps, not only quite uncomfortable, but book covers started curling up. Furthermore, I only sold a single book in three hours. Someone who stopped by told me a story about an older woman volunteer in Zimbabwe 20 years ago (when Zimbabwe had PC volunteers) who was murdered by someone stealing her radio. I shuddered, remembering the would-be radio thief who came through my ceiling when I was sleeping in La Esperanza, Honduras, as my book readers know.
A middle-aged couple carrying small American flags stopped by, saying they were teabaggers from Colorado, in town for the Glenn Beck rally. Needless-to-say, though we chatted, they did not buy a book. Beck, as you know, had a sizable, largely white-folks rally at the Lincoln Memorial, while Al Sharpton presided over a smaller counter-rally of mostly black folks marking the anniversary of MLKing’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which I actually heard in person lo those many years ago.
The final blow to my bookselling efforts occurred during a conversation with another returned PC volunteer, also in her 60s, just back from Ethiopia, a country she had fallen in love with, much as I have with Honduras. She said she couldn’t buy my book because all her spare cash must go to Ethiopia. I understand completely. My donations to entities outside of Honduras are few and far between because I feel I must concentrate whatever resources I can, including book proceeds, to my projects there. While we were talking and comparing notes, her dog had a bout of diarrhea right in front of my table. Not only did that discourage any other customers, but it definitely led me to start packing things up for the day. The only saving grace was that a librarian working at the Library of Congress who has read my book passed by, saying she felt it really is an excellent book that a major publisher should pick up. A very nice sentiment, but there have been no major publishers knocking insistently on my door. I fear that the contents and style alone would not impress them. The only thing that might would be big sales on Amazon, provided they felt that an even bigger market was still out there. In these economic hard times, the bottom line has become ever more important. No more coddling of a promising new author by providing editing and advice—a book has to be ready to go with minimal staff investment.
Next time I tried selling at Eastern Market, the wind was so fierce that it almost blew me and my books away. I sat there, holding my books and pamphlets down; it was not possible to open up my umbrella. People were rushing by, holding onto their hats. I sold only 2 books before I gave up. One buyer was a carpenter from Choluteca, of all places, someone who has lived in the DC area 20 years. I promised to look up his mother next time I go there. A reader who had gotten my book previously came by and told me how much she’d liked it, “I couldn’t put it down—I read it straight through.” I’d never thought of it as page-turner, but it was nice that she did.
On August 30, we held a successful showing of a slightly updated version of the Cuba documentary, “Women in White,” at George Washington University. The timing was difficult because we had little advance notices and that was the first day of classes. However, we were taking advantage of the presence of Norwegian director Gry Winther, who was escorting her daughter to the university for her junior year. Nonetheless, we had a very good turnout and lively discussion afterward, moderated by Professor Antonio Gayoso of the Elliot School of International Affairs, himself of Cuban origin. I spoke about a couple of Urgent Actions on Cuba issued by Amnesty International, my meetings with a couple interviewed in the film, and answered questions. Winther told of how she had to enter Cuba as a tourist, with her cameraman carrying just a small tourist camera. She stayed only 5 days. The professor said he had it on good authority that over one million Cubans have visa petitions pending at the US Interests Section in Havana (out of a population of 11 million). Obviously, most will be rejected, but all have to be processed.
Later, someone sent me a video from the Human Rights Foundation, (212) 246.8486, info@thehrf.org of an interview with the Ladies in White declaring that they will continue protesting every Sunday until all of the Black Spring prisoners have been released. In the video, Laura Pollan, their spokeswoman, says the following (in translation): The government states that there's a lot of freedom in Cuba, that it's a paradise. I'd invite those people who believe that Cuba is free to come and live here; to come and live here like a regular citizen, without bringing dollars; to come to work, and make what a regular worker makes; to come and live in a humble house, buy their food with a ration book, and express themselves here as much as they do in their own countries against their governments and other individuals, so that they see what the outcome is in Cuba.
On the next day, Aug. 31, we held a showing at Freedom House of Winther’s second film her series on women activists, this time on women in Iran. She was in Teheran last year before and after the elections as a Norwegian news reporter and sandwiched her documentary filming in between that (as with Cuba, staying only 5 days), with election events providing a dramatic setting for her documentary, “Lion Women.” Both the Cuba and Iran documentaries have been seen in Europe, but no US distribution to date.
That same evening, at the local Amnesty office, we held a Muslim Iktar dinner, breaking the fast after sundown, first with a sweet date for each, then with food. We had a big crowd and a speaker who had just come back from an extended mission to Gaza. He showed us video footage and talked about the people's many deprivations, both of basic necessities and freedoms, as well as the deathly flotilla incident. Gaza, with about 1.5 million inhabitants, is restricted to a very small, narrow strip of land. But he did not let Hamas off either, saying their security forces also often brutalize people and that there is a lot of domestic violence against women within families. All in all, a very difficult and contentious existence.
I’ve received a clipping from the NYTimes, “A Failure to Communicate,” 8/29/10, from an alert reader. Apparently, an accent makes a speaker seem less trustworthy to listeners (and not speaking English at all must be even worse).
Again, Fidel Castro has appeared in public and given a foreign policy speech, but this time in full military dress. What does that mean? The guy has nine lives and is an unpredictable as a cat!
Here is what my anonymous Cuban-American commentator has to say: From today's front page news in the Miami Herald, [Castro in military uniform, giving a 35-minute speech] guess while Fidel remains alive it is foolhardy to bet on any development that threatens to make peace and better relations between Cuba and the US. That guy has the anti-Midas touch! Everything he touches he converts into dung! And he exercises this gift very skillfully!
I guess his double allusion to a coming prisoner swap [between US-jailed convicted spies “the Cuban Five” and American Alan Gross held in Cuba since December 2009] had the purpose of signaling the danger to his right-wing partners on the other side of the Florida Straits so that they could come out against it and embarrass the Obama administration just before the elections when they could least afford it. In this way he sabotaged the ongoing negotiations and undercut his brother's results in office without having to assume direct responsibility for it. He uses his enemies very skillfully to do his dirty work for him.
Actually the desire to avoid better relations between both countries is of common interest to him and his right-wing opponents and results in a de facto indirect alliance between both groups to keep US-Cuba relations in their present state. Fidel Castro knows that as long as the conflict persists he can count on Cuban nationalism to bolster his group's hold on power and the Miami right-wing is very aware that it can continue to count on US government financing while present conditions continue.
Given present developments, we can probably expect that Fidel and his under-the-table allies in Florida will find some new and innovative way to screw up whatever arrangements are planned once more, much to the chagrin of the prisoners to be exchanged, the innocent Cuban population, and Raul Castro who will once again find himself undercut and sabotaged by his own brother who always winds up controlling him directly or indirectly!
In another news item, the Mexican birthrate is falling and soon may even fall below the US rate. That will greatly reduce illegal immigration and probably leave the US without sufficient laborers at the lower end of the income scale. “Birth tourism,” which right-wingers rail against, is apparently uncommon. Out of 340,000 babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States in 2008, 85% of the parents had been in the country for more than a year, and more than half for at least five years. Furthermore, children cannot apply for residence for their parents until they reach age 21and then only through a lengthy process. I cannot imagine a Latino couple engaged in intimate relations telling each other, “Let’s try to make a baby so that in 25 years, maybe he or she can get us legal residence.”
The government of Iran, according to an NPR story, is now taking aim at dogs, imposing fines on people who take their dogs outside. Apparently, this push is based on the notion that the Koran considers dogs unclean. Yet, apparently many Iranians still have dogs. I recall once having a Muslim housemate, back when my kids were young, who avoided touching our dog, which made living with us rather awkward for him.
Probably teachers are well aware of this technique, but a recent school interpretation was when I first saw it demonstrated. The hearing-impaired child’s hearing aids are outfitted with special receivers while the teacher wears a microphone that goes only to that child’s ears, very ingenious, allowing the child to participate in class with normal-hearing students.
Last week, my MRI patient just could not tolerate being inside the tube (which is large and open at each end), so the test had to be halted. Despite having been given a tranquilizer beforehand, this person shook too much to allow clear images to be made. It was only the second time that a session had to be cancelled in my experience as an interpreter for MRI patients.
On Sept. 3, an NPR staff member, who had lost both his sons in an auto accident last year (didn't catch his name), commented on his profound loss, then reported on portions of the annual conference of The Compassionate Friends held in Crystal City in July and said how much TCF and the conference had helped him and his wife feel less alone and desolate. Part of the TCF "credo," recited at every local meeting, was repeated on the air. His commentary came just in time for me, as my late son’s birthday was the next day, Sept. 4. I got through that day pretty well. I’m always glad when it’s over. It’s strange how anniversaries have such significance, even though, of course, they are, in cosmic terms, just like any other day.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(The following article made sense to me.)
September 2, 2010
How to End the Great Recession
By ROBERT B. REICH, NYTimes
Berkeley, Calif.
THIS promises to be the worst Labor Day in the memory of most Americans. Organized labor is down to about 7 percent of the private work force. Members of non-organized labor — most of the rest of us — are unemployed, underemployed or underwater. The Labor Department reported on Friday that just 67,000 new private-sector jobs were created in August, while at least 125,000 are needed to keep up with the growth of the potential work force.
The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working: near-zero short-term interest rates from the Fed, almost record-low borrowing costs in the bond market, a giant stimulus package and tax credits for small businesses that hire the long-term unemployed have all failed to do enough.
That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services they produce as workers; for some time now, their means haven’t kept up with what the growing economy could and should have been able to provide them.
This crisis began decades ago when a new wave of technology — things like satellite communications, container ships, computers and eventually the Internet — made it cheaper for American employers to use low-wage labor abroad or labor-replacing software here at home than to continue paying the typical worker a middle-class wage. Even though the American economy kept growing, hourly wages flattened. The median male worker earns less today, adjusted for inflation, than he did 30 years ago.
But for years American families kept spending as if their incomes were keeping pace with overall economic growth. And their spending fueled continued growth. How did families manage this trick? First, women streamed into the paid work force. By the late 1990s, more than 60 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home (in 1966, only 24 percent did).
Second, everyone put in more hours. What families didn’t receive in wage increases they made up for in work increases. By the mid-2000s, the typical male worker was putting in roughly 100 hours more each year than two decades before, and the typical female worker about 200 hours more.
When American families couldn’t squeeze any more income out of these two coping mechanisms, they embarked on a third: going ever deeper into debt. This seemed painless — as long as home prices were soaring. From 2002 to 2007, American households extracted $2.3 trillion from their homes.
Eventually, of course, the debt bubble burst — and with it, the last coping mechanism. Now we’re left to deal with the underlying problem that we’ve avoided for decades. Even if nearly everyone was employed, the vast middle class still wouldn’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing.
Where have all the economic gains gone? Mostly to the top. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty examined tax returns from 1913 to 2008. They discovered an interesting pattern. In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income. It’s no coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928. I do not mean to suggest that such astonishing consolidations of income at the top directly cause sharp economic declines. The connection is more subtle. The rich spend a much smaller proportion of their incomes than the rest of us. So when they get a disproportionate share of total income, the economy is robbed of the demand it needs to keep growing and creating jobs.
What’s more, the rich don’t necessarily invest their earnings and savings in the American economy; they send them anywhere around the globe where they’ll summon the highest returns — sometimes that’s here, but often it’s the Cayman Islands, China or elsewhere. The rich also put their money into assets most likely to attract other big investors (commodities, stocks, dot-coms or real estate), which can become wildly inflated as a result.
Meanwhile, as the economy grows, the vast majority in the middle naturally want to
live better. Their consequent spending fuels continued growth and creates enough jobs for almost everyone, at least for a time. But because this situation can’t be sustained, at some point — 1929 and 2008 offer ready examples — the bill comes due. This time around, policymakers had knowledge their counterparts didn’t have in 1929; they knew they could avoid immediate financial calamity by flooding the economy with money. But, paradoxically, averting another Great Depression-like calamity removed political pressure for more fundamental reform. We’re left instead with a long and seemingly endless Great Jobs Recession.
THE Great Depression and its aftermath demonstrate that there is only one way back to full recovery: through more widely shared prosperity. In the 1930s, the American economy was completely restructured. New Deal measures — Social Security, a 40-hour work week with time-and-a-half overtime, unemployment insurance, the right to form unions and bargain collectively, the minimum wage — leveled the playing field.
In the decades after World War II, legislation like the G.I. Bill, a vast expansion of public higher education and civil rights and voting rights laws further reduced economic inequality. Much of this was paid for with a 70 percent to 90 percent marginal income tax on the highest incomes. And as America’s middle class shared more of the economy’s gains, it was able to buy more of the goods and services the economy could provide. The result: rapid growth and more jobs. By contrast, little has been done since 2008 to widen the circle of prosperity. Health-care reform is an important step forward but it’s not nearly enough.
What else could be done to raise wages and thereby spur the economy? We might consider, for example, extending the earned income tax credit all the way up through the middle class, and paying for it with a tax on carbon. Or exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes and paying for it with a payroll tax on incomes over $250,000.
In the longer term, Americans must be better prepared to succeed in the global, high-tech economy. Early childhood education should be more widely available, paid for by a small 0.5 percent fee on all financial transactions. Public universities should be free; in return, graduates would then be required to pay back 10 percent of their first 10 years of full-time income. Another step: workers who lose their jobs and have to settle for positions that pay less could qualify for “earnings insurance” that would pay half the salary difference for two years; such a program would probably prove less expensive than extended unemployment benefits. These measures would not enlarge the budget deficit because they would be paid for. In fact, such moves would help reduce the long-term deficits by getting more Americans back to work and the economy growing again. Policies that generate more widely shared prosperity lead to stronger and more sustainable economic growth — and that’s good for everyone. The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving. That’s the Labor Day lesson we learned decades ago; until we remember it again, we’ll be stuck in the Great Recession. Robert B. Reich, a secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the forthcoming “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chavez's popularity down in Venezuela, polls finds
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez's allies launched their campaigns Wednesday for crucial congressional elections that come just as recession, crime and inflation have pushed the socialist leader's popularity to a seven-year low.
A survey by the Venezuelan polling firm Consultores 21 indicates just 36 percent of Venezuelans approve of Chavez's performance, the lowest figure since 2003, when Chavez survived an opposition-led strike that devastated the economy, pollster Saul Cabrera said. The results suggest Chavez allies could face a difficult struggle to keep control of the National Assembly in the Sept. 26 election.
The survey of 1,500 people nationwide in late June and early July had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, said Cabrera, who is vice president of the polling firm. He said the poll was financed by a group of private businesses, which he declined to identify. Chavez's popularity has suffered a decline of 12 percentage points over the past year and a half, Cabrera told The Associated Press.
Critics accuse Chavez's government of severe incompetence and corruption, and many people are unhappy that Venezuela's oil-driven economy remains in a recession while all other South American countries are seeing growth. Venezuela's inflation rate, at more than 30 percent, is the highest in Latin America. Cabrera said other problems such as unchecked violence also are contributing to disenchantment with the government.
The new poll indicates Chavez is still popular among the poorest segment of Venezuelans, garnering about 60 percent support in that group, but he no longer has a majority in the other four income categories, Cabrera said. The pollster said that in spite of Chavez's low popularity level, the president remains a "formidable political competitor" against an opposition that - while it has made some gains - still has not shown sufficient strength to fully capitalize on the situation.
Chavez, who is up for re-election in 2012, has warned his supporters that opposition control of the National Assembly would undo some of the government's efforts toward socialism. The National Assembly has been predominantly pro-Chavez since the opposition boycotted legislative elections in 2005.
Opposition parties took to the streets along with Chavez supporters Wednesday as the election campaign officially began. Several opposition candidates campaigning near the National Assembly building in downtown Caracas were scattered by National Guard troops who fired tear gas at them for purportedly causing a public disturbance. There were no injures or arrests reported.
Larry Palmer, ambassador to Honduras during part of my Peace Corps service there, is still on the outs with Hugo Chavez, because he suggested that Chavez was supporting the Colombian guerrillas and predicted that “Cuba’s influence within the Venezuelan military will grow.” Chavez has asked the US to withdraw Palmer, but the State Dept. may prefer to just leave the position vacant. (See photo of me with Palmer on p. 92 of my book.)
Returned to my bookselling post at Eastern Market after a 3-week break, taken while the folks who have kindly supplied me with a table and umbrella were away. However, things did not go smoothly. First, they forgot the umbrella, which meant I was subjected to the blazing DC sun, 90+ temps, not only quite uncomfortable, but book covers started curling up. Furthermore, I only sold a single book in three hours. Someone who stopped by told me a story about an older woman volunteer in Zimbabwe 20 years ago (when Zimbabwe had PC volunteers) who was murdered by someone stealing her radio. I shuddered, remembering the would-be radio thief who came through my ceiling when I was sleeping in La Esperanza, Honduras, as my book readers know.
A middle-aged couple carrying small American flags stopped by, saying they were teabaggers from Colorado, in town for the Glenn Beck rally. Needless-to-say, though we chatted, they did not buy a book. Beck, as you know, had a sizable, largely white-folks rally at the Lincoln Memorial, while Al Sharpton presided over a smaller counter-rally of mostly black folks marking the anniversary of MLKing’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which I actually heard in person lo those many years ago.
The final blow to my bookselling efforts occurred during a conversation with another returned PC volunteer, also in her 60s, just back from Ethiopia, a country she had fallen in love with, much as I have with Honduras. She said she couldn’t buy my book because all her spare cash must go to Ethiopia. I understand completely. My donations to entities outside of Honduras are few and far between because I feel I must concentrate whatever resources I can, including book proceeds, to my projects there. While we were talking and comparing notes, her dog had a bout of diarrhea right in front of my table. Not only did that discourage any other customers, but it definitely led me to start packing things up for the day. The only saving grace was that a librarian working at the Library of Congress who has read my book passed by, saying she felt it really is an excellent book that a major publisher should pick up. A very nice sentiment, but there have been no major publishers knocking insistently on my door. I fear that the contents and style alone would not impress them. The only thing that might would be big sales on Amazon, provided they felt that an even bigger market was still out there. In these economic hard times, the bottom line has become ever more important. No more coddling of a promising new author by providing editing and advice—a book has to be ready to go with minimal staff investment.
Next time I tried selling at Eastern Market, the wind was so fierce that it almost blew me and my books away. I sat there, holding my books and pamphlets down; it was not possible to open up my umbrella. People were rushing by, holding onto their hats. I sold only 2 books before I gave up. One buyer was a carpenter from Choluteca, of all places, someone who has lived in the DC area 20 years. I promised to look up his mother next time I go there. A reader who had gotten my book previously came by and told me how much she’d liked it, “I couldn’t put it down—I read it straight through.” I’d never thought of it as page-turner, but it was nice that she did.
On August 30, we held a successful showing of a slightly updated version of the Cuba documentary, “Women in White,” at George Washington University. The timing was difficult because we had little advance notices and that was the first day of classes. However, we were taking advantage of the presence of Norwegian director Gry Winther, who was escorting her daughter to the university for her junior year. Nonetheless, we had a very good turnout and lively discussion afterward, moderated by Professor Antonio Gayoso of the Elliot School of International Affairs, himself of Cuban origin. I spoke about a couple of Urgent Actions on Cuba issued by Amnesty International, my meetings with a couple interviewed in the film, and answered questions. Winther told of how she had to enter Cuba as a tourist, with her cameraman carrying just a small tourist camera. She stayed only 5 days. The professor said he had it on good authority that over one million Cubans have visa petitions pending at the US Interests Section in Havana (out of a population of 11 million). Obviously, most will be rejected, but all have to be processed.
Later, someone sent me a video from the Human Rights Foundation, (212) 246.8486, info@thehrf.org of an interview with the Ladies in White declaring that they will continue protesting every Sunday until all of the Black Spring prisoners have been released. In the video, Laura Pollan, their spokeswoman, says the following (in translation): The government states that there's a lot of freedom in Cuba, that it's a paradise. I'd invite those people who believe that Cuba is free to come and live here; to come and live here like a regular citizen, without bringing dollars; to come to work, and make what a regular worker makes; to come and live in a humble house, buy their food with a ration book, and express themselves here as much as they do in their own countries against their governments and other individuals, so that they see what the outcome is in Cuba.
On the next day, Aug. 31, we held a showing at Freedom House of Winther’s second film her series on women activists, this time on women in Iran. She was in Teheran last year before and after the elections as a Norwegian news reporter and sandwiched her documentary filming in between that (as with Cuba, staying only 5 days), with election events providing a dramatic setting for her documentary, “Lion Women.” Both the Cuba and Iran documentaries have been seen in Europe, but no US distribution to date.
That same evening, at the local Amnesty office, we held a Muslim Iktar dinner, breaking the fast after sundown, first with a sweet date for each, then with food. We had a big crowd and a speaker who had just come back from an extended mission to Gaza. He showed us video footage and talked about the people's many deprivations, both of basic necessities and freedoms, as well as the deathly flotilla incident. Gaza, with about 1.5 million inhabitants, is restricted to a very small, narrow strip of land. But he did not let Hamas off either, saying their security forces also often brutalize people and that there is a lot of domestic violence against women within families. All in all, a very difficult and contentious existence.
I’ve received a clipping from the NYTimes, “A Failure to Communicate,” 8/29/10, from an alert reader. Apparently, an accent makes a speaker seem less trustworthy to listeners (and not speaking English at all must be even worse).
Again, Fidel Castro has appeared in public and given a foreign policy speech, but this time in full military dress. What does that mean? The guy has nine lives and is an unpredictable as a cat!
Here is what my anonymous Cuban-American commentator has to say: From today's front page news in the Miami Herald, [Castro in military uniform, giving a 35-minute speech] guess while Fidel remains alive it is foolhardy to bet on any development that threatens to make peace and better relations between Cuba and the US. That guy has the anti-Midas touch! Everything he touches he converts into dung! And he exercises this gift very skillfully!
I guess his double allusion to a coming prisoner swap [between US-jailed convicted spies “the Cuban Five” and American Alan Gross held in Cuba since December 2009] had the purpose of signaling the danger to his right-wing partners on the other side of the Florida Straits so that they could come out against it and embarrass the Obama administration just before the elections when they could least afford it. In this way he sabotaged the ongoing negotiations and undercut his brother's results in office without having to assume direct responsibility for it. He uses his enemies very skillfully to do his dirty work for him.
Actually the desire to avoid better relations between both countries is of common interest to him and his right-wing opponents and results in a de facto indirect alliance between both groups to keep US-Cuba relations in their present state. Fidel Castro knows that as long as the conflict persists he can count on Cuban nationalism to bolster his group's hold on power and the Miami right-wing is very aware that it can continue to count on US government financing while present conditions continue.
Given present developments, we can probably expect that Fidel and his under-the-table allies in Florida will find some new and innovative way to screw up whatever arrangements are planned once more, much to the chagrin of the prisoners to be exchanged, the innocent Cuban population, and Raul Castro who will once again find himself undercut and sabotaged by his own brother who always winds up controlling him directly or indirectly!
In another news item, the Mexican birthrate is falling and soon may even fall below the US rate. That will greatly reduce illegal immigration and probably leave the US without sufficient laborers at the lower end of the income scale. “Birth tourism,” which right-wingers rail against, is apparently uncommon. Out of 340,000 babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States in 2008, 85% of the parents had been in the country for more than a year, and more than half for at least five years. Furthermore, children cannot apply for residence for their parents until they reach age 21and then only through a lengthy process. I cannot imagine a Latino couple engaged in intimate relations telling each other, “Let’s try to make a baby so that in 25 years, maybe he or she can get us legal residence.”
The government of Iran, according to an NPR story, is now taking aim at dogs, imposing fines on people who take their dogs outside. Apparently, this push is based on the notion that the Koran considers dogs unclean. Yet, apparently many Iranians still have dogs. I recall once having a Muslim housemate, back when my kids were young, who avoided touching our dog, which made living with us rather awkward for him.
Probably teachers are well aware of this technique, but a recent school interpretation was when I first saw it demonstrated. The hearing-impaired child’s hearing aids are outfitted with special receivers while the teacher wears a microphone that goes only to that child’s ears, very ingenious, allowing the child to participate in class with normal-hearing students.
Last week, my MRI patient just could not tolerate being inside the tube (which is large and open at each end), so the test had to be halted. Despite having been given a tranquilizer beforehand, this person shook too much to allow clear images to be made. It was only the second time that a session had to be cancelled in my experience as an interpreter for MRI patients.
On Sept. 3, an NPR staff member, who had lost both his sons in an auto accident last year (didn't catch his name), commented on his profound loss, then reported on portions of the annual conference of The Compassionate Friends held in Crystal City in July and said how much TCF and the conference had helped him and his wife feel less alone and desolate. Part of the TCF "credo," recited at every local meeting, was repeated on the air. His commentary came just in time for me, as my late son’s birthday was the next day, Sept. 4. I got through that day pretty well. I’m always glad when it’s over. It’s strange how anniversaries have such significance, even though, of course, they are, in cosmic terms, just like any other day.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(The following article made sense to me.)
September 2, 2010
How to End the Great Recession
By ROBERT B. REICH, NYTimes
Berkeley, Calif.
THIS promises to be the worst Labor Day in the memory of most Americans. Organized labor is down to about 7 percent of the private work force. Members of non-organized labor — most of the rest of us — are unemployed, underemployed or underwater. The Labor Department reported on Friday that just 67,000 new private-sector jobs were created in August, while at least 125,000 are needed to keep up with the growth of the potential work force.
The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working: near-zero short-term interest rates from the Fed, almost record-low borrowing costs in the bond market, a giant stimulus package and tax credits for small businesses that hire the long-term unemployed have all failed to do enough.
That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services they produce as workers; for some time now, their means haven’t kept up with what the growing economy could and should have been able to provide them.
This crisis began decades ago when a new wave of technology — things like satellite communications, container ships, computers and eventually the Internet — made it cheaper for American employers to use low-wage labor abroad or labor-replacing software here at home than to continue paying the typical worker a middle-class wage. Even though the American economy kept growing, hourly wages flattened. The median male worker earns less today, adjusted for inflation, than he did 30 years ago.
But for years American families kept spending as if their incomes were keeping pace with overall economic growth. And their spending fueled continued growth. How did families manage this trick? First, women streamed into the paid work force. By the late 1990s, more than 60 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home (in 1966, only 24 percent did).
Second, everyone put in more hours. What families didn’t receive in wage increases they made up for in work increases. By the mid-2000s, the typical male worker was putting in roughly 100 hours more each year than two decades before, and the typical female worker about 200 hours more.
When American families couldn’t squeeze any more income out of these two coping mechanisms, they embarked on a third: going ever deeper into debt. This seemed painless — as long as home prices were soaring. From 2002 to 2007, American households extracted $2.3 trillion from their homes.
Eventually, of course, the debt bubble burst — and with it, the last coping mechanism. Now we’re left to deal with the underlying problem that we’ve avoided for decades. Even if nearly everyone was employed, the vast middle class still wouldn’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing.
Where have all the economic gains gone? Mostly to the top. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty examined tax returns from 1913 to 2008. They discovered an interesting pattern. In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income. It’s no coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928. I do not mean to suggest that such astonishing consolidations of income at the top directly cause sharp economic declines. The connection is more subtle. The rich spend a much smaller proportion of their incomes than the rest of us. So when they get a disproportionate share of total income, the economy is robbed of the demand it needs to keep growing and creating jobs.
What’s more, the rich don’t necessarily invest their earnings and savings in the American economy; they send them anywhere around the globe where they’ll summon the highest returns — sometimes that’s here, but often it’s the Cayman Islands, China or elsewhere. The rich also put their money into assets most likely to attract other big investors (commodities, stocks, dot-coms or real estate), which can become wildly inflated as a result.
Meanwhile, as the economy grows, the vast majority in the middle naturally want to
live better. Their consequent spending fuels continued growth and creates enough jobs for almost everyone, at least for a time. But because this situation can’t be sustained, at some point — 1929 and 2008 offer ready examples — the bill comes due. This time around, policymakers had knowledge their counterparts didn’t have in 1929; they knew they could avoid immediate financial calamity by flooding the economy with money. But, paradoxically, averting another Great Depression-like calamity removed political pressure for more fundamental reform. We’re left instead with a long and seemingly endless Great Jobs Recession.
THE Great Depression and its aftermath demonstrate that there is only one way back to full recovery: through more widely shared prosperity. In the 1930s, the American economy was completely restructured. New Deal measures — Social Security, a 40-hour work week with time-and-a-half overtime, unemployment insurance, the right to form unions and bargain collectively, the minimum wage — leveled the playing field.
In the decades after World War II, legislation like the G.I. Bill, a vast expansion of public higher education and civil rights and voting rights laws further reduced economic inequality. Much of this was paid for with a 70 percent to 90 percent marginal income tax on the highest incomes. And as America’s middle class shared more of the economy’s gains, it was able to buy more of the goods and services the economy could provide. The result: rapid growth and more jobs. By contrast, little has been done since 2008 to widen the circle of prosperity. Health-care reform is an important step forward but it’s not nearly enough.
What else could be done to raise wages and thereby spur the economy? We might consider, for example, extending the earned income tax credit all the way up through the middle class, and paying for it with a tax on carbon. Or exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes and paying for it with a payroll tax on incomes over $250,000.
In the longer term, Americans must be better prepared to succeed in the global, high-tech economy. Early childhood education should be more widely available, paid for by a small 0.5 percent fee on all financial transactions. Public universities should be free; in return, graduates would then be required to pay back 10 percent of their first 10 years of full-time income. Another step: workers who lose their jobs and have to settle for positions that pay less could qualify for “earnings insurance” that would pay half the salary difference for two years; such a program would probably prove less expensive than extended unemployment benefits. These measures would not enlarge the budget deficit because they would be paid for. In fact, such moves would help reduce the long-term deficits by getting more Americans back to work and the economy growing again. Policies that generate more widely shared prosperity lead to stronger and more sustainable economic growth — and that’s good for everyone. The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving. That’s the Labor Day lesson we learned decades ago; until we remember it again, we’ll be stuck in the Great Recession. Robert B. Reich, a secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the forthcoming “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chavez's popularity down in Venezuela, polls finds
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez's allies launched their campaigns Wednesday for crucial congressional elections that come just as recession, crime and inflation have pushed the socialist leader's popularity to a seven-year low.
A survey by the Venezuelan polling firm Consultores 21 indicates just 36 percent of Venezuelans approve of Chavez's performance, the lowest figure since 2003, when Chavez survived an opposition-led strike that devastated the economy, pollster Saul Cabrera said. The results suggest Chavez allies could face a difficult struggle to keep control of the National Assembly in the Sept. 26 election.
The survey of 1,500 people nationwide in late June and early July had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, said Cabrera, who is vice president of the polling firm. He said the poll was financed by a group of private businesses, which he declined to identify. Chavez's popularity has suffered a decline of 12 percentage points over the past year and a half, Cabrera told The Associated Press.
Critics accuse Chavez's government of severe incompetence and corruption, and many people are unhappy that Venezuela's oil-driven economy remains in a recession while all other South American countries are seeing growth. Venezuela's inflation rate, at more than 30 percent, is the highest in Latin America. Cabrera said other problems such as unchecked violence also are contributing to disenchantment with the government.
The new poll indicates Chavez is still popular among the poorest segment of Venezuelans, garnering about 60 percent support in that group, but he no longer has a majority in the other four income categories, Cabrera said. The pollster said that in spite of Chavez's low popularity level, the president remains a "formidable political competitor" against an opposition that - while it has made some gains - still has not shown sufficient strength to fully capitalize on the situation.
Chavez, who is up for re-election in 2012, has warned his supporters that opposition control of the National Assembly would undo some of the government's efforts toward socialism. The National Assembly has been predominantly pro-Chavez since the opposition boycotted legislative elections in 2005.
Opposition parties took to the streets along with Chavez supporters Wednesday as the election campaign officially began. Several opposition candidates campaigning near the National Assembly building in downtown Caracas were scattered by National Guard troops who fired tear gas at them for purportedly causing a public disturbance. There were no injures or arrests reported.
Larry Palmer, ambassador to Honduras during part of my Peace Corps service there, is still on the outs with Hugo Chavez, because he suggested that Chavez was supporting the Colombian guerrillas and predicted that “Cuba’s influence within the Venezuelan military will grow.” Chavez has asked the US to withdraw Palmer, but the State Dept. may prefer to just leave the position vacant. (See photo of me with Palmer on p. 92 of my book.)
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