Special announcement: I’m an uncle. On May 13th, around 8pm, Alexander Marsh Rendeiro was born in New Brunswick, NJ, USA. Out of respect for the privacy of my nephew, photos are only available upon request for now. From what I gather, the family is good, just very, very exhausted.
Back to the Ironbound Age
A combination of the prospect of a new baby in my family and a recent blog about the Ironbound by TPB, Esq, has had me thinking of my childhood back there in Newark, NJ. While he talks about the courthouses; where I spent quite a few of my days collecting facts and leads as a happy slave at the Village Voice, as a child I never went near those courthouses. My world was the Ironbound, Ferry St., to be exact, was the center of my universe. The wonderful mix of Portuguese and a plethora of other nationalities that made up that neighborhood.
Of course to me this was Newark. After the train station was the end of the earth and my world was flat. My biggest priorities back then were, “Will I go all the way around the block today.” For a trip of that length meant I could stop at the fruit market, or more importantly, the candy store. At least I thought it was a candystore, a better definition would have been a blue-collar lunchonette which always seemed to reek of cigarettes and fried meat smell. The most important days were when dad or mom would walk me to the bakery where one of those pointy cupcakes with green or red sprinkles could be had. Of course, on those same days, I would have to endure the stench of the fish market, and the sight of dead sea dwellers like squid, octopus, swordfish, and of course- bacalhau. I think the octopus struck the most fear in me, those suction cups seemed deadly.
Ahh the Ironbound… Great years.
While I don’t have the desire to speak much about the horrendous prisoner torture scandal today, I do have several articles that might deserve attention. The first is by former dem. president candidate Wesley Clark, basically his analysis of how Bush is handling things. I got bored half way through and started playing along to BDB. The other is one of those uncomfortable network TV interviews, this one with the Pfc. England and her take on what happened-creepy. The final recommendation is perhaps the most important one, an LA Times story about rape in military prisons. (you’ll have to do the sign-in thing)
Today’s Music: Badly Drawn Boy – Hour of..
Pull the Wool
Good blog news to follow my frustrated statements on the issue of the day:
I now fear that people will grow weary of the Iraq Prisoner Abuse issue. I’m worried that the horrific scale of these crimes will cause people to look away in disbelief. This is sooooo not the time to look away. This goes way beyond a few bad soldiers misbehaving, Rumsfeld himself alluded to that, in all his stumbling and fumbling. There is an absolute DO NOT MISS article by Seymour Hersh in the latest New Yorker Magazine. In it, he takes inventory of the mountain of evidence that is emerging about crimes committed by the military, including:
unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.” (NBC quoting military officials)
Bush and other officials have offered half-hearted apologies, saying “This is not America.” Yet if we look at it, two soldiers being charged, are prison guards in the US! These criminals have jobs back in the US, where they use the same sick practices and values. Furthermore, when you think back to recent American history, Abner Louima (assaulted with a plunger), Mental hospital guards sexually abusing patients, etc, etc.. are you sure this is not America? I know there are plenty of people out there who do their jobs well and respect others, that’s America. But we should never forget the dark and shameful traditions of disrespecting and humiliating those who are considered different or inferior… that too is America. (for more on this, listen to this radio program)
Note: I’m pulling Salaam Pax’s blog “Where is Raed,” I used to love it, but like so many now-famous bloggers, he never posts, so off my blogroll he goes.
Also:Great news for the blog: IT WORKS! My RSS feed works! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read closely. RSS (really simple syndication) is a format for websites that makes them easy to grab and read using RSS feed reading programs. I myself use Feedreader, which is free and opensource. Also, it’s a small program. Using it, I have an enormous world of news available to me, just by clicking on a subject like “Technology News,” “Mexico News,” or “New York City News”.. the list is endless. My blog is now available via this service, just cut and paste my RSS feed into any of these programs, and bam – all my posts will appear automatically in that program. (the icon appears just below my archives on my menu)If you want news from all over the internet/world, try RSS!
Economics of Saturday Afternoon
What was a lazy afternoon of running errands such as my regular Saturday weekly newspaper run and soup at Soup Enzo, led to an intriguing gathering of the minds at the CREA cafe. As I sat drinking my apple juice and chatting with my favorite cafe employee, three great minds (and friends of mine) walked in and invited me to join them for some socializing. Eventually I did join them at the table, diving head-first into a multi-layered discussion of global economics, society, multi-culturalism, and the internet. A chance to really flex those brain muscles, and listen to some brilliant minds. This was definitely one of those unexpected Saturday afternoon occurances that I cherish about this city. Nevermind the outcome of the discussion, we somehow failed to make a plan to save the world.
If there’s something in the world that gets my attention, it is elections in India. Campaigning ended Saturday night, and on Monday the second round of elections will take place. Whether it is a perfect system or not, there’s something awe-inspiring about millions of people mobilized to choose from among 2000+ candidates. Plus, this year the entire nation is using electronic voting machines. It’s really something worth watching, a unique situation in the world. The US and other western nations might want to take notes. (especially certain sunny states)
As I have been listening to Prince’s Musicology so often this past week, I found this Voice article on the artist and his music fairly interesting. I didn’t know Prince was a Johova’s witness. I am also not sure how to spell “Johova’s”, time to hit the spell check button for a change.
Today’s Music: The Veils – The Run Away Found
Hippies to Puritans
A chance to sit down and interview the dean of the international school today, proved extra fun and interesting. It usually does whenever he and I get time to really chat. We were discussing the old buildings around Amsterdam which the school used to occupy. This was for an article I’m writing for my forthcoming first edition of the ISHSS Alumni Magazine. His tales of creative and crazy experiences in the various buildings pointed to one major conclusion: we’ve gone from free-spirited, rebelious, and exciting in the past, to regulation-fearing, uptight, blandness. I think it’s true for alot of things in this world. Like comparing te 60’s to the 90’s and 00’s…. from rule breakers to excessively obsessed with rules. I’d say he seemed nostalgic for those days, I know I was just listening to him.
Today I thought I’d provide a link to the so-called “investigation” of the prisoner abuse by American soldiers in Iraq. I read through the report, highly recommended for those with insomnia. When I awoke from reading this, I noted two conclusions:
1- They visited a prison.
2 – That between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320thMilitary Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF).
What baffles me even more is the International Red Cross’s position of “neutrality.” Apparently, they say they’ve known about the abuses for a long time, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to make noise about it. How is it being neutral mean keeping silent about humans being abused?
There is some good news out there, Three Bed Two Bath blog helped me discover Metro Blog maps! You see, they’re metro/subway maps of different cities, listing the blogs that originate at each station. YES! There’s a NYC, DC, Chicago, and I’m looking for more. Maybe I can put myself on a Netherlands or Europe blog map. I’ll start looking tomorrow.
Today’s Music: Gil-Scott Heron – Ghetto Style
Memorial and Liberation
Rememberence Day and Liberation Day, back to back here in the Netherlands. I think I didnt pay enough attention to it last year, however this year I was very aware of it. I made sure to tune into the broadcast of the ceremonies and the two minutes of silence at 20h CET. I was also capitivated by Amsterdam’s cable channel AT5 which showed old film reels from the 1940’s. It is really mindboggling what went on here. What haunts me even more is that I see, in the reels, those same streets and houses i walk by everyday. What haunts me even more is that 60 years later, there are still occupations taking place, mass killing, hatred, intolerance…. seems like much of the world hasn’t learned much at all. History seems to repeat itself… like Marx said.. ( was it him?) first as a tragedy, second as a farce. I see alot of farces among our world leaders.
A Canadian citizen has come forward in the scandal involving prisoner abuse by coalition soldiers. There are multiple photos involving multiple instances, something is definately going on. The pentagon said that soldiers were reprimanded for alleged abuses. If they’re being reprimanded, than I guess they aren’t alleged abuses are they? They’re quite real.
I was reading a poem on a great blog from an EMT in London. It’s about his boots, which have seen so much, from day-to-day. I thought it fitting to read on this a day with so much rememberence and reflection involving hatred, violence, life, death, pain, love and the overall grey history of the world.
Today’s Music: Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros – Streetcore