I’ve been running around the North of Portugal, cities full of history, pride, tradition, and granite!
Somewhere in Portugal
Lisbon over 40C
The thermometer of the attic apartment reads 40.3C. The act of reading the temperature of the tiny digital display no doubt causes more drops of sweat to roll down my forehead. Its almost August in Lisbon and with temperatures like this when no one dares to move too quickly as a matter of health, it is no wonder the entire nation is always several steps behind much of the European Union.
Hours later, when the merciless sun has finally passed behind one of the city’s seven hills, I make my way to the cozy restaurant with wifi, where I always hold court when I am in town. I’m greeted by one of Lisbon’s busiest and kindest restaurant owner-entrepeneurs, my good friend David. He reminds me to make myself at home and I ask how is business, with my best “businesslike” tone. “Really really good actually”, he tells me with an air of satisfaction, “It has already been a great summer business wise.” David looks up motioning towards the upper floors of the building which he rents to tourists for several years now. He clears a few tables and chit-chats with various costumers in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, before he finally pulls up a chair to ask me about my journeys and get up to speed with my offline life.
Outside the night air is still hot and people move slowly through the beloved streets of the Bairro Alto. They love to talk about how bad the economy is here, they being my fellow Portuguese citizens. Yet when I look around, I see people everywhere, walking, eating, photographing, talking business on the phone, opening up another bizarre pseudo-clothing shop-bar-club.
Alas I love Lisbon and I was once an urban anthropologist in this town, my hours of study were between 11pm and 6am. But now I am an outsider, observing and enjoying still, but out of touch with what is what for the people of this proud city. Then again, I was probably always an outsider.
ctrp344 The Effects of the World Cup on South Africa
After all the glamour and hoopla surround the World Cup in South Africa, what about the actual costs and benefits of such an event for South Africa. The construction of massive new stadiums, the infrastructure projects, the tourism… was it everything people hoped? Was it everything FIFA promised? Where did the money come from? And do the benefits outweigh the costs?
Chris Bolsmann, Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Aston (UK) has been following the topic since before SA got the world cup. He has been speaking and writing about the real costs of such a tournament for the nation. He joins me on the program from South Africa.
ctrp343 The Haitian Recovery
Laura Stek went to Haiti to focus on the work of a famous photographer. But going to Haiti quickly became about more than the person taking photographs, as she observed and experienced what is and isn’t going on in terms of the Haitian post earthquake recovery.
Laura’s audio as part of the NOS Haiti file
Vishwas Satgar on The World Cup
Amidst my recent rush to dig for information about what effect world cups and high profile soccer tournaments have on nations, I almost missed a very valuable voice on a recent edition of Radio Open Source.
Who is Vishwas Satgar, I’ll use Chris’s description over at ROS:
Vishwas Satgar is a labor lawyer and leftwing activist, an insurgent ex-Secretary of the South African Communist Party who’s way out of alliance with the ANC on the uplift politics of the World Cup.
In this interesting interview, Satgar talks about the democratic deficit of this World Cup for his country. He gets into the struggles that have intensified in the time leading up to the tournament, by social movements demanding the state meet long promised needs. Specifically he talks about marches for Quality of Education, HIV-AIDS, and anti-privatization – among others, all which have held demonstrations during this high profile event.
Apparently at this very moment there is a national newspaper in South Africa that has gone to court to demand the government be transparent about the total cost of the World Cup. The total might turn out, when the information is finally released, to be around 5 billion dollars. Beyond that, many cities including Johannesburg went way over budget and have spent themselves into massive debt.
There is much more to talk about and be heard in this interview, I recommend you give it a listen of you’re at all concerned about this topic of what does this tournament DO to or for a country.
ctrp342 Elected and Still Waiting
Amelia Andersdotter was elected to European Parliament in 2009. More than 6 months since the elections, she finds herself living in Brussels but still not allowed to do her job. How can an elected member of paliament be kept from taking her seat? In this podcast this dynamic young representative from the Swedish Pirate Party explains how it happened. She also tells the story of the campaign that got her into office, and the issues and concerns she has once she is finally allowed to get to work.