The Horror in Harbin

Hello I’m in New Jersey… and actually i did not have a pleasant flight and it seems the entire airline industry is one big ball of nerves and Im seriously going to save some loot so I can take a container ship from Rotterdam next time. Flying is a torturous ordeal these days, it is as if air-travel has taken 100 steps backwards since the dawn of this fake-ass war on terrorism. But I’ll address that in my first US recorded podcast tomorrow.

fortunately I grabbed a Guardian on my way onto the plane, and poured over the stories coming out of China. Besides the fact that militia opened fire on demonstrators who didn’t want the government to put a polluting coal power plant in their town, I read alot more on Harbin, a city that has been poisoned by the Chinese government and the petrol industry there.

It’s incredibly sad to watch china grow at this crippling pace that leaves so many people cast aside, forgotten, killed, and poisoned. The push to be this supercapitalist, consumer state, seems like one big ball of destruction. and if you live in Harbin, all you know is you can’t drink the water because the tap has been turned off and even if it weren’t your water supply is toxic and your government knew this could happen, but doesn’t care, like so many governments out there.

The Smell of Travel in the Morn

KL 6 something something to Newark, leaving in 3 hours…. I love the smell of travel in the morning.

Its time for one last bowl of Special-K with Soymilk. A quick banana. Load up the i-river with enough podcasts to educate and entertain the world, including a certain travelling fat-bian.

My final thoughts from these last few days in the Amsterdam: I may not have family in this land, but I have some of the most wonderful friends I could ever want. That that’s nothing to shake a stick-at. Who shakes a stick at things anyway, that’s rude.

Oh and lastly, I don’t care what the red-cross-crescent-crystal changes its name to, I’ll be calling them the red-cross for the rest of my brief life… so feck their silly marketing powermove.

No links, Gotta fly.

bicyclemark86: The Malawi Show

The first ever skype call to the continent of Africa on my show, we speak with Jesse the LoungeChicken, blogger and global citizen, about the country where he lives: Malawi.

AudioCommunique #86(mp3)
43min+, 80kbps, 24Mb+

Discussed:

I have 24 hours left before its time to fly, so Im keeping notes to a minimum;
Robert Fisk on journalism opens
LoungeChicken.org – a fantastic blog that Jesse and co. write
How he got from New Jersey to Malawi
His house staff
The Famine in Malawi
Race and Class in Malawi
The Health System and Fight against Aids
Bloggers in Malawi
The future of vlogging and media

Music includes:
Zap Mama – African Sunset
Specials – Pressure Drop
Sweet Honey and the Rock – (i cant remember)
Ed Mecija – Beautiful Friend. (A great artist I met on myspace)
Stars – Elevator Love Song

Its true, I admire Chavez

I don’t like bullies. I don’t care for military things. I don’t even dig people who are full of themselves and constantly making things “about them.” But as ye dear readers probably know, I’m an admirer of Hugo Chavez. I don’t love everything he does, I don’t even trust him 100%, but still, he is the champion underdog on the international scene.

I’ll explain further. Over the past decades, plenty of Latin American presidents have come and gone, and during their tenure they’ve licked the boots of the United States governments, bending over and filling their pockets with the money of multinational corporations, while the masses have remained poor and in many cases, gotten poorer. Upon further reflection, it’s probably hard to go against the whims of the United States and those companies, if you piss them off you risk loosing their investment, their assistance… you lose that lifeline… it’s a big risk.

But in 1998, Hugo Chavez came along, in his red beret and military uniforms, and he swept into office. And since that day, the wealthy of Venezuela, the multinationals, and yes… a large segment of the middle class in Venezuela, have hated him. And I mean hate. HATE HATe. I’ve spoken to some who would take up arms against him, and well – some did a few years ago. They don’t like how he’s friendly to the hated leaders of the world, like Castro. Myself, I wish he wasn’t such a strong supporter of Zimbabwe’s president, but like I said, it’s not that I love all his decisions – but I love the spirit of defiance. And defy he continues to do.

So now there are elections, and as much as some powerful people would like to see the upper class take to the polls and vote him out. It hasn’t happened. Not to mention the fact that they boycotted the vote to begin with, with doesn’t help when you want to get elected. And they cry corruption, which hey – could be possible. But you know, with all those international observers saying the vote is legit, it becomes harder and harder to accuse the big guy of rigging the election.

Anyway I’m glad we’ve got a Chavez in this world. Later on, he might do some questionable stuff. I also fear he won’t step down once his term is up. But then again, that kind of stuff happens indirectly in most democracies anyway (you know, somehow staying in power forever). And I have to say, the Venezuelan governments initiatives to help poor communities of the united states by offering cheap heating oil is impressive. I’ve heard the reports that in the Bronx it’s already happening… if you work for the government of Newark or Detroit, or whatever city full of struggling people, call Citgo and get your community involved in this deal, it’s something the world could use a little more of — compassion.

Counting Down to New Jersey

Scuse me while I don’t blog about world affairs today:

4 more days and I’ll say to hell with all these little jobs I’ve taken over the past 5 months that have completely kicked my ass and left with a constant feeling of “you should be working on that job right now.” It’s 1AM and I just finished some thing for Hine-A-Ken. I mention them by name cause they never told me not to blog about it and it ain’t anything anyone would be interested in, I promise. But hey… hooray for beer I guess. – For all those who dream of going into exile, I still say do it, but never forget that earning the Euros is tricky.

As I read the wonderful knitting-extraordinaire, Ashbloem, today, she spoke of snow, amongst other things. They have snow in Boston. And then in correspondance with Brain of J, I learned Jersey is expecting some snow storm thingy. Now I’m not turning into a blog that talks about the weather or what I ate for breakfast, but I do love when the snow reaches the East Coast, especially in bitter cold yet never-cold-nuff Amsterdam, where we never get enough snow, for my taste.

Fortunately for me I’m headed to New Jersey, THIS FRIDAY, the 9th of December. Where I’ll be spending time with la familia, especially the A-Ren. I’ll also be visiting with all of YOU, for those who are my east coast readers. There will be a Bicyclemark meetup in the East Village, St. Mark’s Place at the St. Mark’s Ale House, right next to Cooper Square and my former love – the village voice. I’m not sure of the day and time yet, but since we’ve got the comment box, leave a comment as to your preferred day and time, anyday before xmas would be best.

Speaking of the Village Voice, those hipsters have finally completely embraced blogging for their staff. Only trouble is, they censor their comments like it’s Tunesia over there. either that or they just don’t want any from a former slave of theirs. I tried to comment on the NYU graduate assistant strike post by the great Tom Robbins (the journalist not the writer.. er.. wait.. yeah), but they’re not having it. Jerks.

Oh and the great 26th birthdate is this Saturday… the amazon wishlist is here if that’s your thing. Ignore the fancy electronic devices. Hopefully they deliver the stuff to New Jersey and not AMS. Alternatively you can leave me a tip in the paypal jar located to the left. And of course you can simply not give me anything, cause if you think about it, your presence here is already a gift.

Unexpected Inner Tour

Travel with me back in recent time: Saturday night and Toronto’s finest Chef in exile calls me, “Yo man, Stars at Paradiso tonight, I put you on the guest list as bicyclemark +1.” I thanked my good buddy, as he always goes above and beyond for me, especially when his longtime friends the Stars are in town. Normally I would call on a lovely Amsterdam feminina to be my +1 for such a great night, unfortunately my potential to land a date is pretty shitty these days, so instead I call my local mindcaster, who’s always up for adventure.

We head over to the former church-turned-nightclub, and as I park my bike I can already hear “One More Night” pouring out one of the stained-glass windows. But as we approach the bouncer-lady and tell her we’re bicyclemark+1, she informs us there’s no such name on the grand list, not even variations of my legal name. I text the man and inform him something went wrong, we wave to him from beyond the glass and he looks apologetic and concerned for us. But in fact, there was a reason for this rejection — we were meant to experience something far great on this december night.

Mindcaster knows as well as I do that the IDFA documentary film festival is still going on, and we could still catch whatever isn’t sold out. We head over to the box office and choose from among the few films showing. I think it was our second or third choice, we ask for tickets to “Inner Tour”, and although it sounds like a generic title, the description tells of a documentary from 2000 where a group of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza are taken on a bus to tour Israel for 3 days. – We bought some heinekens and wandered over to the fairly busy theater.

What follows was one of the most gut wrenching, uplifting, thought provocating, and emotional film watching I think either of us had experienced in some time. Documentaries are typically depressing and dark, probably reflecting the sad state of the world. But this was not one of those, this had bright moments, moments shared between an old Palestinian man remembering the home he grew up in, now in ruins, and uncovering the grave of his father, in the middle of what seems like nowhere. And it wasn’t a film about blaming one side or the other, it was about the unfathomable situation people go through in that region, visiting a place you consider your homeland, but everything is different, and its no longer your homeland, but you wish it would once again be so but you wonder if it ever was.

There were too many scenes to adequately tell you of the beauty and power. But for me, my heart raced as a Palestinian man from Ramallah got into a cab in Tel Aviv and said to the driver “Take me to where they killed your prime minister.” And then the driver asks what the man meant to him, and he tells an amazing story of being imprisoned during the intifada and how the prime minister (Rabin) visited the prison, and came to talk with him, to find a way to make peace. For his part, I think Mindcaster was floored when a young Palestinian who’s family was scattered throughout the world, meets his mother at the Lebanese border, where they can only stare at each other through a terrible fence, and throw care packages over to each other, filled with photos and a video taped message he had recorded during the journey.

The film made me think of how far I live from my family. And how different this world is from the one I’m surrounded with. And how all these things take place while I sit here surfin the net and writing emails about who-knows-what. It’s a cruel irony… those who live in comfort and those who live in pain. Those who go to concerts versus those who simply try to cross checkpoints to find work.

What started out as an unexpected night for music and dancing, turned out to be a true Inner Tour, in more ways the one.