Latest border boondoggle

Note from Ricardo: I took this picture last summer just south of Arivaca, Arizona. These things weren't working then and - read on below - they ain't working now.



This is from Engadget.com, of all places and was published today.

Border virtual fence project delayed again until at least 2011

Remember Project 28? That Boeing / DHS system to put a 28 mile stretch of sensor-tower laden virtual fencing along the US / Mexico border in Arizona? Well, the government swiped the contract back from Boeing last week for lack of, well, working, and is apparently going at it alone with plans to delay it three or more years to get the job done right. Well, you know, right as total failures and wastes of taxpayer dollars get, ultimately.

Tobacco, murder, genocide

How many people ever talk about the moral and justice issue of tobacco?

The World Health Organization has done a comprehensive study of tobacco in 179 countries. The NY Times ran an editorial on the study on the 19th of this month: Tobacco "will kill more people this year than tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria combined, (and) unless governments do more to slow the epidemic, tobacco could kill a billion people by the end of the century, the vast majority in poor and middle-income countries."

The recommended (and proven) strategies: very high taxes on tobacco products; a total ban on all advertising and promotion; a ban on smoking in all public places and workplaces; large, scary warning pictures on packs; and strong programs to help people quit.

The editorial reports that "not a single country fully implements all of the measures, and not one of the recommended steps covers more than about five percent of the global population. The tobacco companies’ vigor to sell is unflagging."

Here is how the Times describes two of the latest tricks in a long and rotten history: "As part of a strategy to ramp up its sales in the developing world, Philip Morris International is being spun off from the Altria Group so that it can escape the threat of litigation and government regulation in the United States. The international company is also planning a slew of new products aimed at particular countries, including sweet-smelling cigarettes that have more tar and nicotine."

I have to ask why on earth this is called anything else but homicide? Or even genocide, which is defined as "the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation"? Why?

The global food crisis

The BBC reports today that the UN may ration food aid to the world's poor "because of rising prices and a shortage of funds." Last year alone, prices rose 40%.

One of the countries most in need is Afghanistan (where of course money continues to pour in for guns and bombs to fight the Taleban.)

This year Africa's bill to import cereals is expected to rise by 49%.

The UN is calling for "urgent action to provide farmers in poor countries with improved access to seeds and fertiliser to increase crop production."

The director of the UN's World Food Program says the people "hardest hit so far were people in developing countries who were living on 50 US cents a day, 80-90% of which was already being spent on food." She added that in "some of these developing countries, prices have gone up 80% for staple food. When you see those kinds of increases, they are simply priced out of the food markets."

The WFP director warns that even middle-class, urban people in countries such as Indonesia, Yemen and Mexico are increasingly being priced out of the food market or forced to sacrifice education and healthcare. She reports that Egypt has just widened food rationing after two decades and Pakistan has reintroduced ration cards after many years.

The BBC points out that the US remains the world's largest donor of food aid, Obviously that has not stopped a global crisis. But imagine what we could do if we spent a further $275 million a day on food and farm aid instead of on Bush's Iraq war and occupation. (As I type these words, the total is $497,397,551,681.)

And imagine how that would change world politics.

The train of death

For an 11-minute video on the terrible suffering and amazing determination of young migrants moving north through Mexico, copy and paste this URL into your browser.

http://www.marianavanzeller.com/2005/11/mexico-train-of-death.html

Fidel Castro's retirement

I did a lot of driving today so I heard a lot about the "retirement" of Cuba's 81-year-old Comandante En Jefe, Fidel Castro.

The commentators went on and on -- about Castro's half-century of dictatorship and how he thoroughly frustrated Washington year in and year out. Of course the regime's prisoners of conscience were at the top of the list .

I heard absolutely nothing about the brutal, US-friendly, "casino" dictator Fulgencio Batista, who murdered about 20,000 Cubans and was eventually overthrown by Castro and his allies a half century ago. Not a word about Cuba's great achievements in literacy, education and medicine since then. Plenty about the US embargo that has made so many Cubans suffer, and a little about how other countries have engaged with Cuba.

Most of the commentary was about Castro's dictatorship. In the meantime, not a word recalling US support in the 1980s for the murderous Salvadoran and Guatemalan regimes or for the Contras that brutalized Nicaragua. And not a word about how our government has continued to support dictatorships like Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

I should have switched to a music station today.

Obama is different

There is so much being endlessly broadcast about the US primaries that I've avoided the subject on this blog. Till now, that is. The following is an excerpt from "Unstoppable Obama" by Barbara Ehrenreich, published Feb. 14, 2008 in Huffington Post:

" ...Let's take seriously what (Obama) offers, which is 'change' The promise of 'change' is what drives the Obama juggernaut, and 'change' means wanting out of wherever you are now...
"Consider our present situation. Thanks to Iraq and waterboarding, Abu Ghraib and the 'rendering' of terror suspects, we've achieved the moral status of a pariah nation. The seas are rising. The dollar is sinking. A growing proportion of Americans have no access to health care; an estimated 18,000 die every year for lack of health insurance. Now, as the economy staggers into recession, the financial analysts are wondering only whether the rest of the world is sufficiently 'de-coupled' from the US economy to survive our demise....
"Obama is different, really different, and that in itself represents 'change.' A Kenyan-Kansan with roots in Indonesia and multiracial Hawaii, he seems to be the perfect answer to the bumper sticker that says, 'I love you America, but isn't it time to start seeing other people?' As conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has written, Obama's election could mean the re-branding of America. An anti-war black president with an Arab-sounding name: See, we're not so bad after all, world!
"So yes, there's a powerful emotional component to Obama-mania, and not just because he's a far more inspiring speaker than his rival. We, perhaps white people especially, look to him for atonement and redemption. All of us, of whatever race, want a fresh start. That's what 'change' means right now: Get us out of here!"

Simply, starkly put

I just received this note from folks in Michigan as they prepare local events to mark the fifth anniversary of Bush and Cheney's invasion and occupation of Iraq. A good reminder, I believe, for all of us around the country to do whatever we can to end this wretched madness and bring the troops home. As of Monday, the number of US troops killed in Iraq was 3,960. Two respected research groups put the number of Iraqi deaths at over 1.1 million.

Here is the Michigan note:

"March 19th will be the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the beginning of the 6th year of war and occupation, the 6th year of senseless death and massive destruction. Five years is five years too many. We hope many of you will be involved in the many events both local and national that will occur around the anniversary date."

Here come the Saudi Virtue Police

Saudi Arabia's "Muslim Kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" is doing its annual Valentine's Day shtick again. CNN reports that commission officials are again hitting the florists and gift shops with orders "to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears." The reason, according to a local scholar: The day "encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women."

Gosh, I didn't know that in the 1940's when we kids in Catholic grade school scooted around the classroom giving out little cards for St. Valentine's Day.

CNN adds that the "virtue and vice squad is a police force of several thousand charged with, among other things, enforcing dress codes and segregating the sexes. Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, punishes unrelated women and men who mingle in public."

I'm sure glad these virtue-and-vice cops weren't around in those old school days of ours. And no need to worry now, since Wahhabism surely must recognize a statute of limitations.

Catholics & Jews - a step backwards

I am more than old enough to remember in detail the liturgy of my church before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Some of it was cumbersome, some of it very repetitive, and very few people could understand the Latin they were hearing. But there was an ageless beauty to it that younger Catholics do not experience today. (Perhaps an exception is the widespread appreciation of Gregorian Chant among classical music lovers.)

Despite the centuries-old love of the beauty of the old rite, the "new Mass" that came out of Vatican II was widely appreciated across the Catholic world. I still remember the excitement of the pre-Christmas "First Sunday of Advent" in 1964. That is when major parts of the Latin Rite Mass were said or sung for the first time in centuries in people's own languages.( I had been ordained five months earlier and I remember how exuberant I was that day.)

With the language changes came a thorough reform of the whole rite, words as well as actions. And the worst of the past was removed. The "surgery" included a prayer chanted every Good Friday -- in between a prayer for "heretics and schismatics" and one for "pagans" -- that began with these words: "Oremus pro perfidis Judaeis... Let us pray for the perfidious Jews..." It went on to ask God to remove the Jews' "blindness" and "remove the veil from their hearts."

With the sea change in Catholic-Jewish relations that came out of Vatican II, things got better and better.

But now this: Pope Benedict XVI (who as Cardinal Ratzinger had lamented the Vatican II decision that had the priest face the people at Mass) has been trying to make the "old" Latin Mass more available to traditionalists. (The new Vatican II rite--the norm for over 40 years now--can still be done in Latin anywhere, but traditionalists want the old rite exactly as it was fixed by Pope Pius V back in 1570.)

The prayer for "the perfidious Jews" remains buried, thank God, but Pope Benedict has approved a new version of the prayer that says: "“Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

I cannot imagine a Jew who would not be upset, Conservative Judaism’s international assembly of rabbis will be gathering in Washington this week. There they will vote on a resolution saying they are “dismayed and deeply disturbed to learn that Pope Benedict XVI has revised the 1962 text of the Latin Mass, retaining the rubric, ‘For the Conversion of The Jews.’ ” The group is also in contact with leaders from the Reform and Reconstructionist movements about making a joint statement on the issue.

Allow me a final bit of Latin, an incisive saying of old :" Ecclesia semper reformanda -- the church is always in need of reform." I am convinced that Rabbi Jesus would agree.

Women's "liberation" in Iraq

So George Bush and company keep reminding us that they have "liberated" Iraq. With the Surge having greatly reduced the violence in Baghdad, we are being told it is truly a new day. Well, not quite truly, not quite new. While this quasi-country continues to be ruled from the Green Zone, millions of Iraqis are still external or internal refugees. And with the Shia ruling the roost, some areas might as well be run by the Taleban.

Today CNN online reported that women in Iraq's south are facing mutilation and death for failing to follow fundamentalist Shia rules. "The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion--some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture."

Basra's police chief says: ""When I came to Basra a year ago, two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."

Outside Basra's main downtown market, a sign painted in red says: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."

What else has this White House wrought?

(For the whole article, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/08/iraq.women/index.html)

Drowned out by the primaries

While TV news seems to be almost totally absorbed by today's primaries, here is a report that few will hear. (For the full story by Jeremy Scahill--who wrote "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army"--go to http://www.alternet.org/rights/75244)

Last October in North Carolina. about 50 activists gathered to protest the slaughter of 17 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of more than 20 others by Blackwater mercenaries last September in Baghdad's Nisour Square.

For carrying out a nonviolent protest at the gates of Blackwater's 7,000-acre private military base--reenactomg the slaughter and putting red hand prints on a Blackwater welcome sign--seven of the activists spent five days in jail.

The first judge had a fit and carried out the trial in secrecy, clearing the courtroom of all but officials and one person from Blackwater. The defendants appealed and were back in court Jan. 24 before another judge who was much more open. Part of the testimony he allowed: "Mohammed Hafiz was driving four children when Blackwater mercenaries riddled the car with bullets. His ten-year-old son Ali was shot in the head. Mohammed had to gather up pieces of the child's skull and brains for the burial. During one point in the massacre, Blackwater operatives concentrated fire on a passenger bus. A small boy fled the bus in terror and was shot down as was his mother who ran after him."

This judge sentenced the activists to time already served. And Blackwater? While this trial was going on, the Bush people were again working to preserve immunity for Blackwater and other mercenaries in Iraq.

The McCain Myth

Almost everyone knows about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's courage in the face of torture in Vietnam, his present stand against all torture and his apology for denying global warming. But probably very few know his other side. Here are a few points about that, gleaned from a Jan. 24 article in The Independent (UK), entitled The Myth of John McCain.

* McCain has written about his youth: "At the smallest provocation I would go off into a mad frenzy, and then suddenly crash to the floor unconscious. When I got angry I held my breath until I blacked out."

* He still defends the Vietnam war--which killed three million Vietnamese--as "noble" and "winnable."

* He says North Korea should be threatened with "extinction."

* He says he would be happy for US troops to remain in Iraq for 100 years.

Finally, one has to ask how much he has been influenced by his forebears:

* His grandfather Slew was part of a mission in the Philippine wars 100 years ago to force the population from their homes at gunpoint into protection zones and shoot those who were found outside the zones.

* His father John led the US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 to ensure that the forces loyal to Juan Bosch were crushed.( Bosch was the democratically elected president who was committed to land redistribution and helping the poor.)