sexta-feira, março 31, 2006

Sem Teto, Sem Terra, Inmigrantes Ilegales

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No Roof, No Land, Illegal Immigrants


Monday, April 10, 2006

Click to Enlarge / Click para Aumentar"Hoy, marchamos; mañana, votamos." / "We are marching; tomorrow we vote."

For some reason, although the Washington march took place today there is very little press on the web about it - they seem to be playing coy; few estimates of the size of the crowd - looks like it might have been 1/4 of a million.

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Click to Enlarge / Click para Aumentar100,000 marching in Dallas - estimates that 40% of northern Texas' population is immigrants and about half 'illegal'.

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Some 4,000 African migrants have been caught trying to reach the archipelago so far this year — compared to 4,751 for all of 2005 and 8,519 in 2004. About 1,000 have died this year attempting the four- to five-day journey, according to the Red Cross in Mauritania. Landing at Fuerteventura this time. Reports as well of several boats lost with all hands drowned.

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Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarNo scale on that map ... 60 miles minimum distance to Morocco. They seem not to set off from Morocco though, but from Mauritania which is 500 miles - more control in Morocco possibly. The current is working against them too - 20 cm/sec, about 1/2 mile per hour, 10 miles per day, against them, weakest in the winter and spring, and coolish; then there are the trade winds, against them too, strongest April to September, 20 miles per hour (not sure about this); an uphill struggle that's for sure.

Canary Island ports:
El Hierro: La Restinga, Puerto de la Estaca
Fuerteventura: Corralejo, Morro Jable, Puerto Castillo, Puerto Rosario
Gran Canaria: Agaete, Amfi del Mar, Arguineguin, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Pasito Blanco, Puerto Rico, Puerto de Mogan
La Gomera: Playa Santiago, San Sebastian, Vueltas (Valle Gran Rey)
La Palma: Santa Cruz de la Palma, Tazacorte
Lanzarote: Arrecife, La Graciosa, Marina Rubicon, Playa Blanca, Puerto Calero, Puerto Carmen
Tenerife: Candelaria, Los Cristianos, Los Gigantes, Puerto Colon, Radazul, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Thursday, April 6, 2006

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarSpiegel: America's Illegals, A Nation of Immigrants Clashes over the Future (Archive), discussion.
Spiegel: Germany's School of Hard Knocks (Archive), discussion.
Spiegel: US Rips European Integration Failures (Archive), discussion.

Globe: Masking the truth: Concealment of the face is neither religiously necessary nor socially desirable

Look at the debate that America is engaged in around illegal immigrants. It is being carried on to a great extent in public - the illegal immigrants themselves are demonstrating in large numbers. Are they being photographed and stalked by secret police? Are they being dragged off to jail? No. This is not the Fascist state portrayed by America's many critics. Yes, some of the issues are selfish and corrupt - American business (and citizens) want cheap labour; but it is also about concern for individuals on many levels. Bush himself says: "Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande.", and "If you're a mother and father with hungry children, you are going to try to put food on the table. That's reality. That's called love." (reference?)

The road sign in the picture above; who put it there? I believe it was put there to warn drivers that they might run over someone in the darkness. Bad as I am I cannot come up with a cynical response to that sign.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Click to EnlargeI worked for a while in Angra dos Reis in Brasil and regularly drove back and forth to Rio. Not far from Angra there was an MST encampamento. I would have liked to go in and talk to them, but I didn't. What could be seen from the road was men women and children hanging out, increasingly solid shacks covered in the ubiquitous blue plastic tarps; pretty soon there were little gardens. Occasional violence was reported in the press - conflicts with the owners and their agents. This is not obvious hand-wringing stuff. In Brasil the sem terras and sem tetos get infiltrated with grileiros, and when the thing is settled, in the event that some land is given away, the grileiros wait for a while and then sell their portion, and move on to the next encampamento. A career of a sort. It is shades of gray of course. The grileiros are a small minority I think but it gives the middle and upper classes a means of discretiting the movement and so forth.

Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeMST is Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Movement of Rural Workers Without Land. MTST is Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto, Movement of Workers Without a Roof, which is the urban side - They took on Volkswagen in São Paulo.

Lula clearly sympathizes - when MST showed up in Brasilia shortly after his election he went out to greet them personally and accepted one of their caps; then the next morning the press whipped him for it and eventually he weaseled out of being so chummy with them, but I thought it was clear where his heart was.
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Gwynne Dyer: The "Unstoppable" Wave.

The following photos are of people fleeing the sub-sahara from Mauritania by boat trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands, usually the largest one apparently -Tenerife. From the distances on the maps and looking at these boats I can see that it has to be at least a week. How desperate are people who flee into a dark ocean in small boats - and with no Moses to part it for them?
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Then there are the Mexicans trying to make it to America. From the size of the demonstrations recently in Los Angeles and San Diego it seems that there are a lot of people who feel that the clandestinos should be given amnesty, legalized, whatever - brought into the fold. The crosses marked 'no identificado' are more testament to the level of desperation that motivates these people.

A country in which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants can get together and demonstrate can't be all bad eh?
Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeClick to EnlargeClick to Enlarge

There is more than this. There would have been no Danish Cartoon fiasco without numbers of Muslims living in Denmark; nor almost continuous rioting in France for the last three months without an under-class made up largely of immigrants, legal and otherwise.

Way back in 1978 or so it was the Vietnamese Boat People. Some 2,000 of them ended up in Ottawa where I was working at the time. One morning that spring I was waiting in line at a streetcorner for a bus - a miserable morning, mild enough to generate lots of slush, raining. In front of me in the line was a Vietnamese man holding his child. The child was all done up in a snowsuit, mitts and hat, but when I looked down I saw that he was standing in slush up to his ankles wearing only a pair of low-cut shoes and no socks.

I guess part of the resistance to making a place for desperate people comes from fear, justified or not.
Manu Chao

solo voy con mi pena
sola va mi condena
correr es mi destino
para burlar la ley
perdido en el corazon
de la grande babylon
me dicen el clandestino
por no llevar papel
pa una ciudad del norte
yo me fui a trabajar
mi vida la deje
entre Ceuta y Gibraltar
soy una raya en el mar
fantasma en la ciudad
mi vida va prohibida
dice la autoridad

solo voy con mi pena
sola va mi condena
correr es mi destino
por no llevar papel
perdido en el corazon
de la grande Babylon
me dicen el clandestino
yo soy el quiebra ley

mano negra clandestina
peruano clandestino
africano clandestino
marijuana ilegal

solo voy con mi pena
sola ca mi condena
correr es mi destino
para burlar la ley
perdido en el corazon
de la grande Babylon
me dicen el clandestino
por no llevar papel

Click to Enlarge
Clandestino

alone I go with my sorrow
alone goes my sentence
to run is my destiny
to escape the law
lost in the heart
of the great Babylon
they call me clandestine
for not having any papers
to a city of the north
I went to work
I left my life
between Ceuta and Gibraltar
I’m a line in the sea
a ghost in the city
my life is forbidden
so says the authority

alone I go with my sorrow
alone goes my sentence
to run is my destiny
for having no papers
lost in the heart
of the great Babylon
they call me clandestine
I’m the lawbreaker

mano negra (?) clandestine
peruan (?) clandestine
african clandestine
marihuana illegal

alone I go with my sorrow
alone goes my sentence
to run is my destiny
to escape the law
lost in the heart
of the great Babylon
they call me clandestine
for not having any papers

Click to Enlarge

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domingo, março 26, 2006

Earthlights

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: A River Runs Through It, Thread Back: Baby Seals (again, again, again).

Initially it is a thrill to see this picture - the earth lit up; a triumph of technology; from the macro to the micro - the means to light it and the means to present the image. There are some patterns to be seen - one that comes to mind is Tim Flannery's statistic that some large percentage of humankind live by the sea, an atavistic hearkening back to our evolutionary roots in the oceans. Other patterns too - dark Africa, lit northern hemisphere, and so forth.

If you download the picture and open it with a viewer you can zoom in surprisingly far, to smaller and smaller points of light.

So ... why light the earth at night? Security? Mostly false. Fear of darkness, fear of death? Ultimately no effect. Vanity and the associated greed, stupidity, show-off thoughtlessness? Mostly. Hubris!

Click to EnlargeHush, little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's going to buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird don't sing,
Mama's going to buy you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's going to buy you a looking glass.
And if that looking glass gets broke,
Mama's going to buy you a billy goat.

And if that billy goat won't pull,
Mama's going to buy you a cart and bull.
And if that cart and bull turn over,
Mama's going to buy you a dog named Rover.
And if that dog named Rover won't bark,
Mama's going to buy you a horse and cart.
And if that horse and cart fall down,
You're still the sweetest little baby in town.

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sexta-feira, março 24, 2006

Basque Peace - Alec Reid

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Up, Down, Thread Up: Yad Vashem, Thread Down: Talking to Terrorists, Robin Soans.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

There have been rumbles over the year, now it looks like back to war:
06/06/07, Graham Keeley, Eta ends ceasefire and pledges terrorist campaign 'on all fronts', Source.

Sunday, April 9, 2006

A man regarded as a key figure in possible negotiations between the Spanish government and armed Basque separatists has been freed from jail. Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the banned Basque party Batasuna (political arm of ETA), was released with two others after they posted more than 650,000 euros (£450,000) in bail.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Click to EnlargeTimes: The Irish priest who brought ETA killers to peace

Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeETA - Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna / Basque Fatherland and Liberty.

ETA's motto is Bietan Jarrai / Keep up on both, referring to the two figures in the ETA symbol, the snake, symbolizing secrecy and astuteness, wrapped around an axe, symbolizing strength.

Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeFather Alec Reid: "The only way you can solve such conflicts is through dialogue between all participants."

Click to EnlargeCartoon by Chappatte: OK, does anyone still remember how to play football?

The banner reads, "Nobody without rights in Basque Country."
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Down, Thread Down: Talking to Terrorists, Robin Soans.

quinta-feira, março 23, 2006

Queen of the North sunk in Wright Sound

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: Queen of the North update, Thread Back: None.

Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeMany and many the trip I took on this ship when I lived in Ocean Falls, and many the time Mike and I tied her up at the wharf; in freezing snow and wind and rain, all hours of the night and day. She used to take on water too sometimes.

And now they have gone and sunk her - ai ai ai.

Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeClick to EnlargeAll hands safe but two: Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette. B.C. Ferries vessel Queen of the North, southbound from Prince Rupert under Captain Colin Henthorne, failed to make the turn from Grenville Channel into Wright Sound at Sainty Point, struck the shore of Juan Point at full speed and fetched up on Gil Rock just after 12:30AM on Wednesday March 22 off Gil Island in Wright Sound, rapidly took on water, began listing, slipped off the rock and sank within the hour. Fishermen and members of the Gitk'a'ata in Hartley Bay, alerted to the disaster by radio phone, jumped into their boats and pushed off into the dark stormy waters - blowing a gale, 40 knots or so (75 kilometres, 45 miles). Capt. Mark Taylor of the icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier heard the call and sent a fast boat and arrived himself about 2AM.

Click to EnlargeClick to Enlarge"We heard there was trouble and we went out."

First there were: Karl Fisher and his mother, Marty Dudoward, Danny & Mona Danes, Eddie, Marven Robinson, Jessel Bolton, Helen Clifton, Suzanne Johnston, Karen Clifton, Ernie Westgarth and his wife's mother, Nicole Robinson, Wally Bolton, Shelby Robinson, Chris Bolton, Clare Hill, Belle Eaton, and all of the people of Hartley Bay; and then there was the nameless Coast Guard numpty who said, "wait till we get there."

"They just all got together, they organized this thing without one person in charge," said Ernie Westgarth - there is a lesson in that. They didn't listen to the Coast Guard either, they did what they had to do and took the survivors in out of the cold and wet.

Click to EnlargeClick to EnlargeClick to EnlargeNow people are saying, "Oh, I'm so proud to be a Canadian." I am proud of these people alright, name the replacement ferry after them, call it the Queen of Hartley Bay or the Spirit of Hartley Bay, they deserve to be honoured; but I hope nobody gets sucked into thinking that being Canadian had anything to do with it. Canadians can look at them and see what they, the Canadians, have lost, given up; and the people of Hartley Bay can laugh since the ferry never stopped there anyway, never served them. And Canada? Canada took their land and resources and squandered them, remember?

B.C. Ferries site with many photgraphs of the scene: Queen of the North Sinking

Collection of photographs of the Queen of the North in better days: Stena Danica - Queen of Surrey - Queen of the North

Maps above copied from: BC Fishing Resorts & Outfitters Association, Encarta, and Google Earth.