12.24.2004

bringing the war (closer to) home

Yesterday's Boston Metro (mysteriously not in the Metro PDF archives) induced a smile - not a rare feat for the 24 hours in 24 seconds rag. For those unfamiliar with the Metro corporation, it publishes daily papers in cities across the globe. It's popularity and high circulation are largely due to the fact that it is free, staff are hired to hand out copies to people boarding the T, and the format is a tiny tabloid that has tons of two-inch stories. It's a paper full of wire briefs, and you can read the thing cover to cover on a short train or bus ride.

Today, the lead headline said "20 killed in inside job," referring to the bombing at a army mess tent in Mosul, Iraq. It's not that I'm a sadist, but the only way the U.S. occupation is going to end is by force, and if people on the inside choose the side of the oppressed and occupied peoples, or if infiltrators do the job (or both), then it's going to bring about the end of this clusterfuck sooner. U.S. soldiers should have never invaded Iraq in the first place.

For people who think the U.S. needs to kick some ass and take names and can't understand why people in places such as Fallujah are fighting back, let me try to put it into perspective: If France decided the U.S. (or whatever country you live in) was a threat to its security, and tomorrow French soldiers parachuted into your hometown, rolled in the tanks and started patrolling, setting up checkpoints and generally denying you access to necessary resources, how would you react? If groups of men who speak only another tongue came in with guns, searched you at every major intersection, interrogated you with the assumption you were a terrorist; if they stole your food and bombed your power and water supplies and hospitals (and your home, which was "within range" of the blast [read: an unadmitted target]), would you smile and let them do it? Or would you fight back for the ability to control your own destiny and keep control of your neighborhood? Perhaps you would flee for safety in a neighboring country or state, hoping one day to return to life as you knew it. But even then you probably would know that life as you knew it was being annihilated.

12.23.2004

just deserts

Some corporate whores finally might get what's coming.

I'm not holding my breath, of course, but the case is being handled outside the United States, so it stands more a chance than the usual comical theatrics of "charging" U.S. corporations for their crimes.

The Associated Press reported today that U.S. mining company Newmont Mining Corp. admitted that it released tons of mercury in Indonesia. That's 17 tons of mercury into the air and 16 tons into the water over a period of five years.

Internal reports obtained by the New York Times indicated that the company didn't abide by public claims that it was adhering to U.S. environmental standards. But the company still denies that its toxic dumping had any effect on the health of the people.

Five corporate whores face trial next month in Indonesia for the pollution - an American, an Australian and three Indonesians. A guilty charge carries up to 15 years in jail.

Meanwhile, villagers filed a $543 million lawsuit against the company. I hope they get their money, but money really is no compensation for the destruction of their health and their land.

It's interesting, too, because recently there has been coverage of a study on herbal remedies imported from South Asia (full study published in JAMA). The study found toxic levels of lead and mercury in the medicines. I wonder what this Indonesian village does to survive in the international capitalist market. It really wouldn't be surprising at all if traditional medicines were becoming toxic because of the polluting U.S. corporations that moved in next door...

12.21.2004

unaffordable housing

The U.S. dollar has lost a lot of buying power over the years; the value of wages has declined, and still we have nowhere to look but at a continuing downward spiral.

One piece of this ever-widening wealth gap is housing. "Affordable" housing is not really affordable if you're a family (or an individual, for that matter) supported by someone working full time at minimum wage. This is self-evident if you use the federal standard: Using more than 30 percent of your income toward rent and utilities is considered unaffordable. But of course this "standard" is meaningless in the context of other federal standards: the poverty line, food stamp eligibility, welfare eligibility, the minimum wage, et cetera, et cetera. These figures are all based on national averages, not on calculations of the cost of living in the particular place where a person is living.

Also, housing can be deemed "affordable" when it is affordable (by the 30 percent standard) for people who earn 80 percent of the median income in that particular area, which completely excludes the people who have the most need for genuinely affordable housing.

This may all seem pretty obvious to anyone who cares to think about it, but of course people in positions of power either don't think about it, don't do anything about it or know that they have to keep people in poverty to retain their power and wealth.

In today's Boston Globe, there was an article about a study on the cost of living across the United States. In Massachusetts, a wage slave needs to earn $21.24 an hour at a full-time job to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment and pay utilities there (based on the 30 percent standard, of course). The minimum wage in Massachusetts is $6.75.

12.18.2004

at peace

Despite the fact that I cannot stand some people's inflated sense of of self-importance, in spite of the fact that it's cold as hell and daylight ends at 4pm, irregardless of the fact that I'm broke as ever, even if I'm spending the holidays in dreary New England, in spite of everything, I'm in particularly high spirits for no obvious reason.

This season of frigid air and quiet, dark mornings, hot chocolate and feeling restless and out of shape - this season usually makes me feel discontented. But right now, for some reason, everything feels right.

12.14.2004

nyc library: just a type, point and click away

Some years down the road, anyone with an internet hookup will be able to go to the New York Public Library, the Harvard library - or maybe you'd rather peruse Stanford or Michigan University's offerings. Hell, you'll even be able to go to England's Oxford University library.

Last night Google announced that is embarking on a crazy journey, scanning the stacks at these libraries for its search engine. Google Print results already have been popping up in my online research. The project has amazing potential, if only those damn copyright laws weren't in the way. According to the Associated Press, the NYC library is letting Google scan "a small portion" of its books no longer covered by copyright; Oxford wants all its holdings published before 1901 in the system, while Harvard is limiting its participation to 40,000 books and waiting to see how well the process works. Otherwise, copyrighted results in Google Print return the cover, pubishing info, and the first few pages of the actual text.

Of course, this isn't terribly different from the exisiting Gutenberg Project, which already has amassed a decent collection (of e-books (13,000) through a lot of work with people who have a more open-source, collaborative attitude, including the volunteers who proofread GP e-books, Distributed Proofreaders.

Uber-mainstream Google may have the funding and resources GP does not, and thus will probably get a lot more books online a lot faster. But that just means better access to information for folks across the world, and PG can focus its efforts on texts other than the collections at the libraries Google is working with. Hooray for accessible information!

12.08.2004

marriage vows to be only means to healthcare

Domestic partner benefits were pioneered in Massachusetts; it's a natural progression that Massachusetts also is the home of the first state-sanctioned gay marriages (in this country, anyway).

But "state-santioned" is the operative phrase here - and the problem.

In today's Boston Globe was a story about the inevitable fallout of gay marriage: namely the loss of healthcare benefits for unmarried partners. Because both gay couples and straight couples in Massachusetts now can be married, companies are cutting the ability for employees to share health insurance with unmarried partners. They say this is a move to re-level the playing field.

It's a move in the wrong direction, but it was the inevitable side effect of gay marriage. Unfortunately in this society, marriages are sanctioned by the state (and often a church), and with the state's blessing come privileges.

At this point in history, it was a more reasonable goal to move toward equality by allowing gay couples to participate in existing establishments rather than to try to dismantle those establishments. But it ends up being a "one step forward and two steps back" situation. On the surface gay marriage appears incredibly progressive, even radical. But it means we give up some benefits gained by unmarried people. Regardless of whether those benefits were initiated for people who could not legally marry, they also served those people who consciously chose not to marry, including polyamorous people (who also can't legally marry); atheists and pagans who see marriage as a function of the church, historically sexist and patriarchal; and people who don't think the government has any business sanctioning their relationships.

People shouldn't have to be married to get heathcare benefits, hospitial and jail visitation rights, rights to court-protected privacy in conversation (wife/husband conversations are treated like doctor/patient and lawyer/client conversations - they are confidential and the court normally cannot make you discose such conversations), tax benefits, pension benefits (if the receiving member dies, pensions almost never would go to a homosexual partner of the deceased, let alone an unmarried heterosexual partner, and of course not any combination of partners) ... the list goes on.

The privileges are an obvious incentive to get married, and the government has an obvious interest in offering privileges to people to maintain the expected and "desireable" societal norm. So if you were wondering what that second step back was, this is it. So long as people feel they are being accomodated and that the government isn't preventing them from doing this thing that is normal in society, so long as their life is comfortable enough (and probably insular) that they don't have to see society's ills, they will remain complacent and the structures of power and domination will remain. We can't break the chains if people are under the illusion that there are no chains.

12.04.2004

eracing spilled ink

Journalists always used to report race in crime stories. To put it more accurately, they always reported when the accused was black, but made no such specification for whites. The trouble was (and is) that people made associations in their mind - black:thief, black:murderer, black:rapist, black:drugs, et cetera. For the writers, race always was assumed to be that of the dominant culture, and if that wasn't true, they pointed it out because it was different to them. The problem being that when race wasn't specified in crime stories, many people just assumed it was another black criminal.

Media stereotypes hit us in the face years after origination. Polls have shown that people are more afraid of black folks. Meanwhile, crime statistics showed more white male criminals than black, and violent crimes were being committed by people the victims knew. But the fear factor was an indicator that the messengers were doing something wrong.

Nowadays, professionals and educators - including the Poynter Institute, a respected organization that sets a lot of standards - have reached consensus: Race
generally shouldn't be mentioned in stories unless it it crucial to the story (race relations, redistricting, hate crimes et cetera). In crime stories, the race of the perpetrator should not be mentioned unless it is a keystone to the crime (hate crimes) or unless there is a description of the perpetrator so complete that anyone could identify the person walking down the street. Thus, a "black man in his 30s, about 5'8" and 200 pounds" describes too many people to be able to clearly identify him. But a "white man in his 30s, about 5'8" and 200 pounds with brown hair, a mustache, a large, diagonal scar across his left cheek and a tattoo of a black heart on his right upper arm" would be specific enough to recognize the guy on the street.

Still, Fox News and the Boston Herald repeatedly indentify race in crime stories with little to no other identifiers aside from gender. In most cases, it's black guys. In one Herald story I did see a suspect labeled as a white male, but that was just once.

Some might argue that with media ownership concentrated in the hands of so few, and those few having a vested interest in retaining power and structures that support their power, it is an intentional but subtle effort to divide the working class along race lines. Or some might argue it's as unintentional as it probably was for a lot of journalists 50 years ago - and that we simply have forgotten history. Neither collective amesia nor the corruption of power is a palatable option.

12.03.2004

pressing issues

In a country where free speech and freedom of the press are so praised, it's ironic how censored these freedoms are. All you have to do is read mainstream media, and it's evident something is missing in U.S. newspapers and news programs. But if you're curious to know what's really happening in the world, it is easy to seek out alternatives.

The U.S. government has a vested interest in keeping American journalists away from the action: Vietnam and Walter Cronkite are evidence of that. Media still have a powerful effect on public opinion. The truth of war ain't pretty, and the government's better off if people think everything's going according to plan and see a "clean" and "sterile" war.

The few owners of mainstream media have a vested interest in turning a profit. Entertainment is cheaper to produce than news and seems to hold people's attention in this ADD era (however, I would argue people only watch the crap because they a) still expect that networks deliver timely and important news and b) that's all that is available - they'd still watch the 10 o'clock news if there were actual news included). Sending reporters overseas or into dangerous situations are costly endeavors for a news organization. While there are plenty of journalists itching to go to Iraq, media owners instead rely on wire services (limiting a diversity of perpectives); they'd rather save (and make) money.

With U.S. journalists at home and unable to confirm firsthand information on the situation in Iraq, the government is all too willing to take advantage and "help" them report fallacies. Welcome back, PSYOPS. Then again, it's hard to take advantage of those already eager to help out.

Deceitful behavior is expected from the government. But people hold news organizations to a higher standard. If only the government and media monopolists would get out of the way.

12.02.2004

don't look!

Ah, the allure of a train wreck.

I know I won't like what I see, but I creep up to the scene as close as I can get.

At the end of the day, I return to see what remains. Over time, the damage is covered, the tracks rebuilt. The scars never disappear; these wounds draw me near again and again.

I've walked away whole, alive, but everything's changed. Some trains I still board. Others I view from afar and wonder what went so wrong. But still I return to look.

12.01.2004

torture this

Most of the time I can laugh at the Boston Herald's feckless opining. But today's editorial was over the top. The hack editorial team at the Herald has decided that there is not really any torture taking place at Guantanamo Bay, despite a report by the Red Cross.

The Herald smugly takes the soapbox to say that humiliation, solitary confinement, extreme temperatures and psychological mind games are just part of standard operating procedure, nothing to see here:

A photo accompanying the Times story even shows this nightmarish torture chamber: a solitary metal folding chair in a clean, white-walled room with a metal ring in the floor on which to attach a detainees' leg shackles. Oh no, not that!
It gets better with this non sequitur regarding healthcare workers:
The most damning allegation is that the facility's medical staff was feeding information to the interrogators about detainees' mental health and vulnerabilities. Hmmm. Who would you rather involve if you were being "tortured," Uday Hussein or a highly trained healthcare worker?
Nevermind that the healthcare worker in this instance is not looking out for the well being of the prisoner, but rather helping the screws exploit his weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Torture and fear are methods the state has, is, and will continue to use to extract information. Torture can be as simple as deprivation from basic needs - food, water, clothing, warmth - to playing psychological mind games to physically threatening behaviors to actual physical abuse. Different people have different breaking points.

If the Herald editorial writers were held incommunicado with limited (if any) access to basic needs; were kept in rooms without natural light, kept in rooms that were so cold that they had to hunch in a fetal position on the concrete floor to try to stay warm (the bare steel "beds" are too cold to sit on, let alone lie down on), rising only to stretch tense and tender limbs; if they were being examined by mental health experts watching for their breaking point, constantly being verbally and physically abused by guards, then would they see it as torture?

How about if they were held under such conditions as long - almost three years now - as prisoners have been held at Guantanamo Bay? It took me less than three days in jail to recognize torture techniques.

I guess you just had to be there.

11.30.2004

where it all began ...

Arbah is one of the six Sicmon Islands in the Hafmon Sea in the Pacific. The other five islands are Katie, Katin, Ta Fin, Quepol and Typ. You probably won't have heard of the islands - they're no more than specks of dust in standard atlases.