The name’s Tamino

You’d think that nine lives would be quite enough, thank you very much, even for an adventurous cat like me. I don’t think I have many left, however, if any… With luck, what’s left will last me until ripe old age, now that I’ve found my home. It wasn’t easy, though — but let me tell you:

I don’t remember much of my early days, and this story begins with the time when I found myself in prison.  No idea how I got there, and not so bad as far as prisons are concerned — decent food at regular hours, and fairly clean, all things considered — but prison, nonetheless. I was locked in a cage, and could hear lots of other four-legged furries, locked up as well. Sometimes, a fur-less two-legged creature would pay some ransom money and walk away with one of the prisoners.  So, when I heard a human creature ask for a barn cat, I swallowed my pride and prayed he’d take me…

Sure enough, next thing I knew I was taken out of my cage and put into an even smaller box, which was made out of some stuff that reminded me of paper and seemed less sturdy than my former prison. As soon as I felt the box put down, I set to work and clawed and scratched and ripped and scraped until I made a hole. The box was shaking and wobbling all the time which freaked me out, but I kept going and after a while I was able to squeeze through the hole. Oh boy. I found myself on the open back of a pick-up truck, going so fast that the side of the road was a total blur. Later, I heard one of my new Moms say that this was one of the most dangerous highways in the country, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I took one of my lives in my paws, closed my eyes and jumped. I hit the ground hard and tumbled around like a rag doll, but apart from some bruises I landed on my feet all in one piece. And started what I now call the endless death march. The smell of too many dangerous creatures was all around me, trucks and cars were zooming past at breathtaking speed, the merciless sun made me desperately thirsty, and still I kept trudging along, one paw in front of the other. Where to? I had no idea. Just had to keep going.

After what seemed like an eternity but was actually 8.3 miles as I learned later, something seemed to lift up my head and my spirits. I saw a tall, sturdy, long chain-link fence, and I don’t know what compelled me to climb across it — some sense of security, safety, even belonging, I guess.

Was I ever wrong, it seemed at first. Right after I found some shady spot underneath some bushes, I was being attacked by two vicious monsters and I thought my last hour had surely come. They bared their huge fangs and confused me with deafening barks so I couldn’t even get my claws out. One caught me between her teeth and was going to break my neck when I heard a human voice screaming and felt the nasty brute being pulled off me — in the nick of time. I couldn’t move and was hurting badly, my heart was racing, and then a soft blanket was wrapped around me and somebody picked me up and gently carried me to safety.

The next few days are a hazy blur. I have vague memories of an animal hospital, a bill of over $700, and of being called an unsocial critter because I hissed at somebody — what did they expect, with me being in pain and badly shaken? In the picture up there, you can see the fur growing back, but they were serious wounds, let me tell you.

Well, my luck finally turned and whatever is left of my nine lives should be enough. My rescuer saw beneath my ill-deserved reputation and adopted me. I have two wonderful moms now who adore me, and there are some other furry creatures who welcomed me and want to be friends. I totally hit the jackpot — how many cats do you know with a hot-tub? So far, I only use it with the cover on, but one of these days…

Why isn’t this considered torture?

I’ve written several times here about the case of Troy Davis. I believe the first time was in 2007, when a date for his execution had been set and his supporters and advocates worked hard to stop this. I read extensively about his alleged crime: the murder of a Savannah police officer in 1989 who was shot when he tried to help a homeless man. Nobody was arrested at the crime scene, but the following day somebody told the police that Troy Davis had been the shooter. The police procured a number of witnesses (nine) who testified that they had seen Davis, and at the following trial the jury convicted him of murder, and sentenced him to death. There was no physical evidence, no murder weapon that could link Davis to the crime, and yet — the witness accounts convinced the jury that he was guilty beyond a doubt.

After three dates for his execution had been overturned at the very last minute, the U.S.Supreme Court declined to hear Davis’s appeals on March 28, 2011 — setting the stage for the fourth try to execute him. All but two of the initial witnesses had recanted or altered their earlier testimonies. Many have confirmed in sworn affidavits that they had been coerced and pressured by the police to incriminate Davis. One of the two witnesses who adamantly sticks to his original story is Sylvester “Redd” Coles, the man who first implicated Davis and who has been identified as main alternative suspect by a number of witnesses.

This TIME article from July 2007 provides a good summary of the legal technicalities and financial difficulties that posed grave hurdles for Troy’s lawyers. Another strike against Davis is the fact that his many supporters (amongst them former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu) are pictured as people ideologically opposed to the death penalty, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused. And it is tragically ironic that his appeals have been thrown out because the (now recanting) witnesses are considered to be unreliable — but not the first time they made their statements in court; oh no, at that time they were sufficiently reliable for a man to be sentenced to death.

Nobody should be executed as long as there’s some doubt about guilt. I happen to be one of those “radical liberals” who feel strongly that there shouldn’t be any executions, period. But apart from this, I find it deeply shocking that somebody can be given a date for his execution, again and again. Just think about it for a moment: you’re being given the exact date when you’ll die. Not a comfortable thought, is it. No matter whether you’re an agnostic or atheist, no matter what religion you believe in, death and its finality isn’t something to be brushed aside easily. So you go through who-knows-what deep emotions and ups and downs, and then: “We changed our minds. It’s been postponed — for the time being”. And this happens not once, not twice, but THREE times — and I sincerely hope this will happen once more. But this time, given the mental anguish Troy Davis has been put through repeatedly, he should be granted clemency — even if he should be guilty.

Breakfast on Pluto

Imagine an infant born to an unwed mother in a small, provincial town in Ireland, in the early 1950s. Imagine the tiny baby being left at the doorsteps of the Parish priest who finds a dutiful, but hardly loving foster family to raise the child. Imagine this child, around the age of eight or nine, discovering his predilection for girls’ clothes and make-up — and it wouldn’t surprise you to find a deeply troubled, depressed, distrustful, and confused boy. Not so our foundling Patrick Braden, who prefers to be called Kitten. He, or rather she — that’s how Kitten feels and thinks about herself — accepts that she is different, doesn’t try to fit in with the ordinary crowd, and stays true to herself even when this results in more difficult, rather than easier, circumstances.

Kitten stubbornly refuses to get bogged down by the seriousness of the “real world”. However, she’s not a mindless party-girl with a head full of fluff, not at all. She’s more like a wise Chinese sage, smiling detachedly at the follies everywhere around, while at the same time fearlessly jumping right into the thick of it. Or she is like a saint; early on, she warns us: “Not many people can take the tale of Patrick Braden, aka St. Kitten, who strutted the catwalks, face lit by a halo of flashbulbs as ‘oh!’ she shrieks, ‘I told you, from my best side darlings.’ “

If you can take his/her tale, you’ll follow Kitten’s many adventures, both dangerous and funny, as she travels to London on the search for her mother. I’ll mention just one: she gets picked up by a distinguished-looking gentleman in a Mercedes who turns out to be a psychopathic murderer trying to strangle her (Brian Ferry in a cameo role). But she gets away. She always does.

If I had anything to do with Oscars, Cillian Murphy most certainly would have won one for his portrayal of Patrick/Kitten Brady. He is simply terrific, looking very feminine and glamorous while maintaining an awkward innocence that makes Kitten so unique. Murphy is quickly turning into one of my most highly regarded contemporary actors. We just saw him in Perrier’s Bounty, another excellent Irish movie with a superb cast.

A quick tip: unless you’re quite familiar with the Irish dialect, you might want to have the subtitles running. English isn’t my native language, and without the subtitles, I’d be seriously lost.

Just before the end of the day…

BBC News has come up with the most hilarious April Fool hoaxes. Remember the Spaghetti Tree?

And how about flying penguins?

It’s April Fool’s Day…

Do you need a job? Maybe you can try out as a Google autocompleter…

Zookeepers have been scratching their heads about keeping gorillas stimulated and happy. Answer to their prayers: Give them iPads!

The British Metro Reporter has a story about the discovery of the remains of a unicorn at the Tower of London, and they offer a chewable version of today’s newspaper.

Happy April Fool’s!

Great Irish films

Actually, this will review only two of the many outstanding Irish movies of the last decade, two that I watched recently.

First, there’s Disco Pigs, a deeply touching tale reminiscent of classic Greek tragedies. Two babies, a boy and a girl, born almost the same minute in the same hospital, grow up next door to each other, separated only by a thin wall with a possibly imaginary hole through which they can hold hands when falling asleep at night. Both have parents/families with their own problems, and the two children form a bond so deep, so exclusive, that it sets them apart from the outside world, from other people, from what commonly is considered reality. They’re always together, make up a language of their own, call each other Pig and Runt (their real names are Darren and Sinead), and develop an almost psychic awareness for the other.

As strongly as they’re tuned into each other’s feelings, as little sensitivity do they demonstrate when it comes to other people. They are each other’s world, complete, without anything missing. Other people are like objects, easily manipulated, and irrelevant at best.

When they become teenagers, Pig in particular develops a predilection for violence which Runt goes along with and finds amusing. It’s almost as if every single shred of feeling he’s capable of is reserved for her; his love and devotion and affection for her is so absolute that there’s nothing left for others.

Shortly before their 17th birthday the innocence of their relationship shifts. Pig experiences a new kind of attraction to Runt that she’s not quite ready for. A small crack becomes noticeable in their bond allowing a twisted darkness to enter, a slight tremor at first which inexorably grows into a full-blown earthquake, relentlessly pushing them towards a tragic outcome. And yet, they’re still one in the end.

Words can’t really bring this film to life. If this is an unforgettable masterpiece, it is so first and foremost because of the stellar performances by the two lead actors, Cillian Murphy (Pig/Darren) and Elaine Cassidy (Runt/Sinead). Pig’s vulnerability and loneliness, his destructive violence, his almost desperate devotion to Runt and his boundless, painfully excessive, love for her become a multi-faceted and many-dimensional character because of Cillian Murphy’s nuanced and powerful performance. I’d count him among one of the best, easily outshining most of the current Hollywood celebrities. Elaine Cassidy beautifully complements him with her quiet radiance, giving a subtle strength and a budding independence to her character which helps build the tension and trajectory of the storyline. Add to this an exceptional director — Kirsten Sheridan’s feature debut –, stunning cinematography, and a fantastic soundtrack, and one gets a truly memorable, albeit haunting, experience.

The next review (Breakfast on Pluto) will have to wait a few days…

WikiLeaks support

An interesting YouTube video:

Here is the link to WL Central, “An unofficial WikiLeaks information resource”. They list the dates and locations for numerous support rallies being planned all over the world. Also, they constantly update their “news” page with the latest interviews, articles, comments from a vast pool of media sources. There is mention f.e. of Brazilian President Inácio Lula da Silva who expressed solidarity with Julian Assange, and of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who said, on Thursday, that the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange showed the West was hypocritical in its criticism of Russia’s record on democracy, according to Reuters.

What I didn’t see is any information about Julian Assange’s whereabouts and well-being. He’s locked up in some prison, which conjures up sinister images of the Tower of London, infamous for torture and executions. While it’s unlikely that he’s incarcerated there, one wonders: does he have access to his lawyers? Can he receive visitors? And — is he being treated reasonably well?

Justice? What justice?

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks who has been on Interpol’s Most Wanted list after Sweden officially authorized this, went to a central London police station this Tuesday by prior agreement with the authorities. After he stated that he would resist extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning in connection with alleged sex offenses, he was refused bail by a court in London. He’ll have to remain in custody until a hearing next week, although several people, including journalist John Pilger, film director Ken Loach and Jemima Khan, the sister of Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, stood up in court offering to put up sureties.

One would think he eats babies for breakfast, or at least is suspected of murder. While the media often refer to rape in connection with the accusations against Assange, the official charges do not include rape but state sexual misconduct. Offenses that conventionally result in an international man-hunt? Hardly so.

One would expect behind-the-scenes CIA involvement and government coercion, and dismiss the allegations as complete fabrications that were invented in order to silence an individual who many government officials and politicians (not only from the U.S.) would like to brand as a to-be-assassinated terrorist. However, behind the allegations that led to Julian’s arrest lies a peculiar composite of events and personalities colored by hurt feelings rather than sinister conspiracies. In addition, some pro-feminist Swedish laws give strong consideration to issues of consent when it comes to sexual activity — including even the issue of whether a condom was used. According to an AOL News report from December 2, his lawyer claimed that “Assange is wanted not for allegations of rape, as previously reported, but for something called “sex by surprise,” which he said involves a fine of 5,000 kronor or about $715.”

Two women filed criminal charges against Julian Assange. When he gave some talks in Stockholm on August 13 and 14, he accepted the invitation of the first one, a Christian socialist named Anna Ardin, to stay at her apartment. They had sex, and, according to an intrepid cyber sleuth, Anna posted some comments on her Twitter account that don’t have the slightest indication of any bad feelings towards him, on the contrary. About a week later she goes to the police with claims of sexual molestation etc., and the Twitter comments disappear. What happened? Well, Assange had been approached by another female eager to make his acquaintance, Sofia Wilén, and they had sex. When both women find out about each other they take revenge. Back in January, Anna had published a step-by-step guide about “How to Get Legal Revenge”, and it looks like she put her theories to the test. The legal dispute has to do with unprotected sex — which CAN involve criminal charges in Sweden, even when it was consensual (the “sex-by-surprise” mentioned above).

If this would have involved an ordinary, unknown person, I doubt that he would have ended up on Interpol’s “Most Wanted” list. The founder of WikiLeaks on the other hand remains in custody without bail, for an offense which (if found guilty) carries a fine of $715. I call this a despicable double-standard.

Why WikiLeaks deserves protection, not threats and attacks, is best explained by Assange himself, in an article he wrote for The Australian: Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths. Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and other proponents of the truth concur. In fact, Chomsky signed an open letter asking Australian prime minister Julia Gillard to support Mr Assange following his arrest. The letter has been signed by scores of high-profile Australians, including Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown.

In the meantime, all sorts of sinister forces try to shut down or compromise WikiLeaks, so far without success. As of today, it is mirrored on more than 1000 sites.

Boycott Amazon!

As Glenn Greenwald noted in salon.com, censorship is a fact of life in China, and access to the WikiLeaks site with its recently published US diplomatic cables is simply blocked. The United States, on the other hand, proudly claims to uphold various kinds of freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of information, etc. At least, on paper. Enter Joe Lieberman, chairman of the U.S.Senate Committee on Homeland Security, who ordered amazon.com to stop hosting the WikiLeaks website, because — well, because Julian Assange and his ilk are criminal terrorists. No, they’re endangering people’s lives. No, they’re endangering  our security. In any case, the American public can’t be exposed to this kind of information. They might start to think independent thoughts, heaven forbid!

The funny thing is, of course, that so far there have been very few hitherto unknown revelations. Embarrassing gossip, yes; but manipulative and coercive tactics, like Hillary Clinton ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations — well that’s entirely possible and shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

The arrogant attitude which is exposed with the cables and which also characterizes the reaction of top American officials is simply appalling.  No attempt to explain their embarassing content so far; only indignant condemnation of the fact that the cables were released. Which encourages dimwits like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin to ask for Julian Assange’s head (she calls him an “…anti-American operative with blood on his hands”). In the meantime, Interpol put him on the “Most Wanted” list and is trying to arrest him for alleged sex crimes that he denied. A good friend of mine was raped a few years ago; she identified the perpetrator but is still waiting for any kind of justice. The guy has never been arrested, there was no trial, nothing. The operative double standards want me to throw up.

I hope that many people will refrain from ordering from amazon.com. They issued a rather disingenuous statement explaining why they took the WikiLeaks site down, but the bottom line is that they’re chicken shits who don’t want to endanger their profits.  No backbone.

If you want to add your signature to a petition that asks amazon.com to reinstate WikiLeaks, go to change.org.

Here’s Assange on TEDTalks.

Fear and hate

I was wearing purple yesterday, in honor of the teenagers and young adults who committed suicide recently because they were gay — or thought to be gay. Their lives had become unbearable; relentless bullying, merciless humiliation at high school and college drove them into such overwhelming despair that they saw no way out. Two were only 13 years old. Another young man took his life after he attended a City Hall meeting were members of the town where he lived argued about whether or not to declare October as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. The bigoted hostility he encountered there, in particular from bible-thumping conservative “Christians” who know for a fact that being gay is a sin, led him to the conclusion that he’d never be an accepted member of the community. And so he left, in the most tragic manner.

Clearly, both educators and religious leaders need to take some serious steps towards addressing stereotypical prejudices. It seems so mind-bogglingly asinine: individuals can’t freely follow their sexual persuasion, they can’t marry, they have trouble adopting children, they’re banned from joining the army (which they shouldn’t do anyway, but that’s another story). There are no rational arguments to defend any of this, and that’s why it is almost impossible to talk sense to homophobic people. Kids need to be exposed to and educated about tolerance from early on, before they can form hardened attitudes. Dr. Michael LaSala, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University (a freshman of the same institution killed himself earlier this month after his dorm roommate secretly taped him having sex with another man, and then published it on YouTube), wrote that schools with a gay and lesbian friendly curriculum experienced significantly less bullying. And while I’m convinced that society would be better off without organized religions, it’s good to know that there are progressive Christians such as Eric Reitan, philosophy teacher at Oklahoma State University, who demands that Christians practice an ethic of love and compassion and that the real sin is not homosexuality but its hateful condemnation.

But I think there’s more. AlterNet reported yesterday that violence against homeless people has gone up at an alarming rate over the last year. I see a relationship here. Both the school bullies and the perpetrators of crimes against the homeless are convinced that they belong to the “in” crowd and that it is OK to punish, ridicule, and persecute those who are different, weak, a minority, not “normal” (how I hate this word). It’s the same old group- or pack-mentality that was responsible for countless racist crimes and ultimately for the Holocaust. I accept and internalize a set of moral standards handed down to me by my elders, my culture, my church. I don’t question the set because that’s “bad” — surely, they know better than me. I learn to follow and be obedient. When times get rough economically and financially, so much so that even kids know that bad stuff can happen, this existential fear combines with all the other mixed-up and unexamined internal emotions, and people have to act it out. The inner fear turns into hate directed at anything different and weak. “Foreigners”, people who talk weird, those with mental problems, different skin color, sexual orientation, social status become easy targets for the us-versus-them mentality.

I know this is awfully simplified. But I was born and grew up in Germany after the war and the Nazi time. I grew up with many questions and few answers, and I learned to think for myself. Before the Nazis came to power, the German economy was in shambles and people were afraid for their safety and well-being. And for many, that fear turned into hate. So, when I read about crimes against the weak, the poor, the different being on the rise, all my internal warning-flags go up…

Memorable food

When I lived in Nagano/Japan, friends took me to a restaurant on the compound of Zenko-ji, a majestic and famous Buddhist temple from the 7th century. The food being served there was prepared and cooked in the style of Zen monks, known as shojin ryori, a vegan/vegetarian cuisine characterized not only by its list of ingredients, but also by the humble and reverent attitude of the cook, by beauty and and devotion.

In general,  Japanese meals are presented in such an esthetically pleasing manner that one barely wants to eat it out of  fear of destroying the balance of color and shape on one’s plate. This was particularly true here: numerous small or tiny dishes arranged to offer a feast for the eyes as well. Somehow, the care and attention that so obviously went into the preparation of the various components of the repast was almost palatable.

I don’t remember anything in particular of what I ate; after all, this was over 30 years ago. Except for one item: a small amount of a paste-like substance, two tablespoon-fulls at most, shaped like a ball. It had a pleasant, nut-like taste and almost melted in your mouth. Trying to find out what it was posed some challenge: neither I nor my friends spoke more than rudimentary Japanese. Something like a mushroom or fungus maybe, and it grows on rocks — must be some lichen, although I had never heard that this was edible.

Hiroshige, Iwatake gathering at Kumano in Kishū

What made this dish so unforgettable wasn’t so much the taste but is effects. All through the next day I wasn’t hungry at all, didn’t eat, and yet had plenty of energy. It seemed like the ideal food for hiking trips or any other occasions where it would be useful to have little weight and bulk combined with high energy output. However, it was impossible to identify what I had eaten, and I left Japan with a strong, but vague memory.

Well, Google finally came to the rescue. I often told friends about this mysterious stuff probably made from lichen, and I finally decided to look it up. Lo and behold, I found out what it is: iwatake in Japanese, meaning rock mushroom, is a lichen that’s being harvested from dangerously high cliff faces and is valued for its associations with longevity. In addition, I discovered several websites — here is one — with scientific studies about the anti-cancer and anti-tumor qualities of lichen, iwatake being among them.

One other misconception got cleared up: due to my relatively poor language skills, I had understood that whatever I was eating had to be preserved for almost 100 years in order to fully develop its taste and qualities. Not so; what the restaurant staff tried to explain was that the lichen had to be almost 100 years old before it was big enough to be harvested…

Here are two more pictures:

Resurgence

After a lengthy hiatus, I’m finally back at the keyboard. The plan was to focus on a few topics, or even just one — photography, for example. But there’s no way I can pull this off, I’m interested in too much stuff. So, I’ll continue with the themes I’ve been writing about earlier; art, environmental issues, thoughts about politics, movie reviews, vegan recipes, and photography of course — or rather, photographs; from hikes and travels, my surroundings, pets, and whatever else catches my attention.

The new banner comes from a photo from Chaco Canyon, or, as it’s officially called, Chaco Culture National Historical Park — one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. Situated in a remote corner of northwestern New Mexico, it was a busy trading center and cultural hub from about 850 to 1250 AD. Its massive stone buildings remained the largest structures in North America until the 19th century. A continuous drought which lasted over 50 years is thought to have been responsible for the eventual abandonment of the site.

Here are some photos:

A for Avoid

I had wanted to vent my feelings about this particularly annoying movie subcategory for a while now, but never got around to it. However, after watching Hard Candy a few nights ago, I’ve had it. Enough is enough.

I group this one together with a number of other movies, some highly successful, some less known, which all have the glorification of vengeance in common. In an irritatingly simplistic and formulaic manner, we have the equivalent of a poor victim on the one hand, the equivalent of an evil monster on the other, and then we have the avenging angel, the vigilante, who takes justice in their own hands to set things right. Moral: one is justified to kill people because one has unfailing and conclusive knowledge of every pertinent fact. The perpetrator’s guilt leaves no doubt, so he/she/they deserve to die.

V for Vendetta and Inglorious Basterds fall into this category, and it is interesting that both rank within the top 250 movies at IMDB. Both won numerous awards, including an Oscar. Both follow a one-dimensional cops-and-robbers formula, just like classic American westerns. Both have a plot line that defies simple logic and insults half-ways intelligent viewers. Both manipulate their audience into accepting that the end justifies the means; that violence, brutality, and vicious cruelty are fine as long as it’s used by the “good” guys to punish the “bad”.

Hard Candy is by far the worst of this category, in my view. It has the additional twist that a pedophile in his thirties comes across as way more sympathetic than his 14-year-old “victim” who is a perverted sadist herself. The girl displays a clever cunning and almost super-human strength that seem utterly implausible given the fact that she’s only 14, but we have to accept it because she declares several times that she’s an honor student. So, we feel sorry for her poor helpless victim whom she cruelly tortures and who happens to be a pedophile. And she executes him in the name of all the poor helpless 14-year-old girls who are — well, not at all like her, that’s for sure.

I had a rather high opinion of Ellen Page before I saw this one. While I didn’t like Juno — too cutesy and unrealistic for my taste — I totally loved her in The Tracey Fragments. Again, she plays a disturbed teenager, but here her character is more vulnerable and she demonstrates more nuance. In Hard Candy, her precocious rambling, her cold and calculating movements soon became predictable, even monotonous. Sure, she had to follow the script, but I hold it against her that she’d be part of such a monstrous, ultimately tasteless movie.

In Mouth to Mouth, another dumb movie, Ellen plays yet another troubled teen. In fact, her roles in the films I’ve seen are all somewhat similar. With the exception of The Tracey Fragments, they can all be avoided — no big loss. Hard Candy, on the other hand, better be avoided by all means. Don’t become the victim and be tortured by this movie.

Underwater video of gushing oil leak

From YouTube:
ROBERT, La. — Oil and gas stream from the riser of the Deepwater Horizon well May 11, 2010. This video is from the larger of two existing leaks on the riser. This leak is located approximately 460 feet from the top of the blowout preventer and rests on the sea floor at a depth of about 5,000 feet. (Courtesy video)

It leaks an estimated 26000 barrels per day (official version: 5000). People’s attention span is usually dismally short and hops from one disaster in the news to the next. How about looking at the bigger picture: global financial melt-down, gigantic environmental disasters like this one, while rich corporations and their rich CEOs get ever richer and manipulate politics and the government via an all-powerful lobbying industry.

A chance for Troy Davis

Can you imagine to be in prison for over 18 years, for a crime you didn’t commit? Facing a definitive date of execution not once, but three times, only to be granted a last-minute stay allowing your lawyers to file yet another appeal?

Davis was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a police officer at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia. There was no physical evidence against him, the murder weapon was never found, most of the witnesses who had incriminated him at his trial have since then recanted their testimony, and yet, he has been consistently denied the chance for a new appeal.

Finally, a federal judge in Savannah granted a hearing where Davis and his lawyers will be able to bring new testimony and evidence into a court of law. Whether he’ll be able to clearly demonstrate his innocence remains to be seen; the prejudice he’s facing is formidable. But so is the international outpouring of solidarity for Troy.

Amnesty International is creating a giant photo mosaic of Troy’s face, consisting of the faces of thousands of his supporters from all over the world. You can order T-shirts with the slogan “I AM TROY”. A Global Day of Solidarity is tentatively set for June 29, the day before the hearing. Vigils, teach-ins and gatherings highlight the fact  that the justice system will finally provide a fair process where testimony that has not yet been examined in a court of law will be properly heard.

Also today, the Innocence Project managed to free a man who was wrongfully convicted of a 1988 murder. DNA evidence finally exonerated him. It leaves a bitter taste to say this man was lucky, and yet, one hopes that Troy Davis will meet a similar “good fortune”.

My Butoh friend

In the mid- to late eighties I worked at Moon Basket, a futon store in Berkeley. The owner was a Japanese ex-patriot named Fu who combined creative ingenuity with solid common sense, which guaranteed the success of her store. Besides customers, Moon Basket attracted an eclectic mix of talented actors, performance artists, dancers, singers, fashion designers and musicians who worked and played together. There was Reiko, bass guitarist and lead vocalist of a punk band. Ruthie (or Lucy, in Japanese), a flamboyant chanteuse and dancer from Canada. And adorable Sakura who usually had several guys swooning at her feet — to her chagrin, they never had any money. But my favorite co-worker was Hiroko. She turned ordinary activities such as cooking lunch or selling a futon into exquisite performance art. Her movements were graceful and funny, fluid and quirky, reminding me of Marcel Marceau. It made total sense when I learned that she was a professional dancer.

Hiroko and her husband Koichi Tamano had been disciples of Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of a dance- and performance style that came to be known as Ankoku Butoh. Grotesque and dark, it attempts to capture the essence, the innermost truth of being through an almost shattering intensity. The focus and concentration of the dancer become so point-like, so red hot, that it feels like a piercing bolt of lightning. One almost forgets to breathe as one experiences the immense energy flowing from the performer.

The Tamanos studied for over ten years with Hijikata who eventually sent them to the United States to bring Butoh to the West. In the late seventies, they settled in the San Francisco/Bay Area where they founded their dance company Harupin Ha, a name that Hijikata chose for them. They bought a big old house in Berkeley that served as living space, studio, crash pad for transitory guests, meeting hall, and dance floor. They started teaching people, and gradually turned into living legends — Japan’s emperor declared Koichi a national treasure, and in 2005 Hiroko and Koichi received the Isadora Duncan Award. They have performed throughout Japan, France, Germany, Mexico and the United States. Their grandson must be around 15 by now, Koichi celebrated his 60th birthday a while ago, but their energy hasn’t diminished — they’re still performing and teaching. Gambatte, my friends.

Business as usual

WikiLeaks, the whistleblower site, does what one would expect from any serious news source: expose cover-ups and lies, dig for the truth. In the days of CNN and Fox News, however, this has become so extraordinary and uncommon that the people who work for WikiLeaks are being harrassed by the CIA, and called a radical leftist group which severely damages the image of the United States abroad.

What did they do? They released a video showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad. It is deeply disturbing, and I hesitated at first whether to include the link here. I decided to do so because from the point of view of Pentagon officials, this is a completely ordinary incident. Similar events take place in Afghanistan, maybe every day. It’s war, baby, what do you expect. Sure, the soldiers involved sound like they’re having fun, as if they were playing a video game, but that’s the least we should grant our heroes, isn’t it.

So, please be prepared to view and listen to something truly awful. Or, if you know all this, you can skip it. I thought I knew, and yet, I was seriously shocked.

This particular event got some attention because it involved a Reuters journalist. However, even Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger couldn’t solicit any admission of wrongdoing from Defense Secretary Robert Gates in an interview with the ABC News “This Week” program. The U.S. forces were simply mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Happens every day.

Time Warp

Do you remember the movie Groundhog Day? Bill Murray wakes up to the same morning of the same day, again and again. Time doesn’t move forward, the calendar doesn’t change, he’s stuck and has to live through February 2 over and over and over.  That’s how this strange winter here in northern New Mexico makes me feel, although it’s almost worse: the date DOES change, the days DO move along, but there’s no end to the snow.  Maybe winter will go on forever.

October 28, 2009

November 15, 2009

December 8, 2009

January 22, 2010

February 22. 2010

March 10, 2010

Coda: It snowed again today, Sunday, March 14. After a nice, sunny day yesterday with temperatures in the lower 50s, spring has second thoughts once more…

Partners in Health

“Somewhere in my heart, it’s the end of the world.”
Régine Chassagne, daughter of Haitian refugees who escaped the country during the brutal years of the Papa Doc regime and who is  now, together with her husband Win Butler, a leader of the Canadian rock band Arcade Fire, wrote a moving personal response to the earthquake for the British paper The Guardian UK.   She mentions and highly recommends an organization called Partners in Health which  has worked in Haiti for nearly 25 years already, and that is dedicated to the long-term improvement of  living conditions and human rights for the people there. They need help with their efforts to bring relief to the countless wounded, homeless, thirsty and hungry beings.

Haiti Earthquake

Please donate any money you can. It is a terribly chaotic situation. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams already working on medical projects in Haiti have treated hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities. Paul McPhun, MSFs operations manager for Haiti, described the current situation for MSF teams on the ground during a press conference on January 13.

Please give to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières; all three of their primary medical centers have collapsed, but they have already set up temporary shelters and are offering emergency care on the ground.

Also, please sign the petition asking President Obama to grant “Temporary Protected Status” for Haitian refugees, something that’s offered to victims of war or disaster from countries including El Salvador, Honduras, Somalia and Sudan. The White House just announced that it was “pausing” the deportation of Haitian refugees, but this doesn’t grant them the legal protections needed to shield them from indefinite detention and forcible deportation. To refuse to give them Temporary Protected Status in the wake of the present disaster would be irresponsible and immoral.