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By Mary Hannington
Here at VagabondGuru.com, we are keeping a close eye on Guru. He's been "gone" before, but this appears to be something altogether different. We know dear reader how much you crave his presence, but we think it's safer for EVERYONE that he remain, for the time being, caged.
By Mary Hannington
Can we talk about this reverse racism nonsense? AGAIN?
Obama says his grandmother was a “typical white woman.”
The cries of “White hater” go up. What the fuck? The guy IS half white and I think he loved his grandmother. Duh!
I don't think he meant it the way SO many men say "typical" woman either. I am NOT a typical woman, thank you very much! Jesus!
Sotomayor makes a comment to encourage young minorities and she is a white hater too!
White firefighters yelling racial discrimination. I can't get a job because I'm white?
What?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment for July of this year: Whites 8.6% Blacks 14.5%
Looks like you have a better chance to me.
Firefighter Ricci's ancestors may have had a rough voyage to get here, but the black firemen's ancestors most likely came here in chains and lived as someone's property.
There is a reason for anti-discrimination laws (see above statistics) people are racist, they discriminate!
We have had a black Harvard professor being mistaken as a burglar by white cops and when he gets MAD they arrest him.
Here it comes, my pigeon hole lecture.
I’ve got news for everyone. We are all mixed race. There is no Aryan brotherhood of blond blue-eyed pure specimens. Chances are, that no matter if you trace your ancestry to the Mayflower crowd or to Mother Africa, you still have a little sumptin’ sumptin’ in the old family tree.
Blondes aren't all stupid. Blacks aren't all lazy. Not all Mexicans like beans.
Humans have a need to categorize things and Linnaeus the father of biological taxonomy was the biggest pigeon holer of them all. He categorized all living things into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. Hey! That "Keep pulling cause our feet got stuck." thing still works! He placed Europeon whites in the category Homo sapiens europaeus and African blacks as Homo sapiens afer.
Unlike some of you out there, Linnaeus, you'll notice, believed that we were all Homo sapiens or Human.
Waaay back when while Adam and Eve were talking to dinosaurs (I won't even go there) and snakes, didn't they give birth to the human race? If you're an evolution guy or gal stayed tuned.
For centuries European and American scientists used science to justify slavery by attempting to show that blacks were more primitive than whites.
In the late 19th century Broca, working for the Anthropological Society in France, measured the location of the foramen magnum in blacks and whites. Despite the fact that this hole that allows the spinal chord to connect to the brain is more forward in humans than animals and tended to be even more forward in blacks than whites his conclusions were that blacks were more primitive rather than more advanced. That the location was farther forward was because of a smaller brain size.
Aha!
An American natural scientist, Samuel Morton, working in the same century had reported, after measuring the amount of filler a skull would hold, that Whites had a capacity of 87 in3 and Blacks 78 in3.
Aha!
BUT Stephen A. Gould, an American anthropologist, in re-examining Morton's experiments found that he had overpacked white skulls and underpacked the others in order to get the results that he WANTED.
Oops!
In this century scientists like Ruth Hubbard, Professor Emerita of Biology at Harvard, have long been critical of studies that show members of certain races are more at risk for certain diseases because they don't take into consideration environmental factors. She believes that race should play zero part in the study of biology.
One of the better classes I attended in college was "The Science of Racism". In fact I took it twice, the first professor was so demeaning to the students, calling anyone that asked questions "Stupid" or "Idiot Heads", that I skipped his lectures. Though I managed a B on the tests, he failed me for attendance and thought my appeal that I had done the work was "dumb".
In studying human genes, the point of the class, we learned that as humans we have far more in common than we have differences. And as Hubbard points out even though the gene for sickle cel anemia is more prevalent in people of sub-Saharan descent, the way the disease manifests in individuals is so various that genes tell scientists virtually nothing.
in 1972, Richard Lewontin wrote in a paper that much of the variation (80-85%) within human populations is found within local geographic groups. Those that could be attributed to traditional "race" groups are a minor part of human genetic variability (1-15%).
According to most geneticists today, genetic diversity holds the same similarities for all races and there are no real clear divisions for any group.
My point in all this is that we are all human beings, but even modern day scientist seek to pigeon hole us into races. They explore our differences rather than celebrate our similarities.
Hubbard's point is that no one pays attention to cultural differences and I think these should be celebrated too. Rather than pigeon holing and making assumptions let's see if we can't learn something from cultural diversity.
When everyone is able to do this and white elitists stop believing they rule the world, stop quaking in their wingtips over a president that doesn't look like them and we ALL stop saying "Mine, mine, mine!" and realize we share a world with those less fortunate we will never reach the point of being color blind.
You can let the hate groups know how you feel here by putting yourself on the Hate Map as a fighter:
www.StandStrongAgainstHate.org
We aren't ready to be color blind, but more green on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Map brings us closer.
By Red Sox Steve
As we progressed through the alleyways, we passed by barbershops, butchershops, bakeries, single room homes and small churches and eventually stopped at an art studio. As you can see from clicking the link, the artists who work there depict the favela in numerous oil paintings of various sizes as well as putting together a number of politically oriented pieces. From there, we continued to a daycare run by an Italian Non-Governmental Organization ("NGO") as well as a local bakery where hungry tourists were implored to purchase a variety of sweets by the proprietor. We saw local kids beating on overturned buckets working together to produce a samba beat as well as local proprietors selling jewelry like wire bracelets and necklaces.
Our winding journey continued around corners, down steps, under homes extending from the hillside. Daniel stopped occasionally to point out different aspects of life in the favela and gave our group the opportunity to take pictures. He's done this before - along the way, whenever he had the opportunity, he made sure to acknowledge people that he knew, and also to greet people he didn't. It is their home after all; it's their community, and we are just guests. Part of Daniel's efforts - because he was well known to some of the people we passed - were in making sure the group was safe. Far better to acknowledge the presence of our hosts and show our group's gratitude for being able to go into the favela than acting as if we are in someway entitled - and they are in some way obligated - to allow this to take place.
This is especially true because of what happened near the end of our tour...
As we were descending down a set of stairs, in a grassy area off to our left (sorry I don't have any pics of this, but we were under pretty strict instructions - based on our surroundings and lack of understanding of the favela, we had to trust and obey Daniel's instructions), we saw a man holding a two-way radio and an automatic rifle of some sort. Just prior to this occurrence, we came across this photo:
ADA is a graffiti tag that represents the gang "Amigo dos Amigos" (in Portuguese, "friend of friends"). The ADA is the drug gang that controls Rocinha. They use communication systems like two-way radios, fireworks, and even kites to send signals around the favela - they know who goes in and who goes out, and even prior to seeing this particular guy I was under no illusions: the ADA was watching our group. Not wanting my future article on the favela to become an action story, I took note of the guy taking note of our group and kept walking.
Drug lords have a great deal of power in Latin America - undoubtedly, cocaine and marijuana are cash crops for the nations that produce them, and for the gangs it means political influence is purchased with some of the funds. For some young police officers, it means that bribe money and extortion can make up a significant portion of their income - to be sure, a civil servant, especially one early in his or her career makes very little money, resulting in a stranglehold of the authorities by the drug dealers.
Another contributing factor to all this? Geography. The same economic principles that cause rural dwellers to migrate to cheap urban locations to be close to jobs in wealthy neighborhoods also govern the relationship between the drugs coming from the favela going to nearby communities. In other words, drugs can go door to door - a kilo of cocaine can leave the favela and be at a customer's door in Ipanema in minutes. In addition, the gangs are very well armed. According to Daniel, the ADA has AK-47s, M-16s and even anti-aircraft weapons... all superior to police issued weaponry. All this, however, doesn't stop the police from trying to stem the drug trade. The police have launched numerous early morning raids on the favelas, resulting in shoot outs that can last all day... they take place as many residents are on their way to work.
According to Daniel, out of the entire population of Rocinha, there are about 1,000 ADA gang members. The drug lords, however, seem to exercise a benign influence over Rocinha. In other words, as Daniel mentioned, the ADA doesn't allow crack cocaine to be sold inside Rocinha, primarily because they are concerned the drug will disintegrate and weaken the community that exists there as it does in every other community. Of course, though, there is little government control over the events of the favela, which means that anything the ADA wants to accomplish inside the favela will go unchecked by the residents - let's keep in mind, however, that "might makes right" has no place in a democracy. The number of people residing in the favelas makes it a huge social and economic problem for Brazil that eventually must be addressed by the government on a much larger scale.
There is no way to capture the entirety of life inside the favela during a single afternoon tour, however it was also hard to ignore the gritty and turbulent reality that the residents of Rocinha have to deal with on a daily basis. As Daniel said along the tour, "the same guy who shakes your hand in the favela will mug you on Ipanema beach." In addition, what is unique to many countries in the developing world is that wealthy and poor live so close to one another - opportunities, both legal and illegal, quickly result from this proximity. The favela is a small city within a larger city, teeming with life, run by those whose welfare has little to do with that of the community they live in, and also the only choice for poor rural dwellers eager to take advantage of the financial opportunities that urban life offers. TW and I were both grateful that we got to learn a little more about favelas and a side of Rio we would not have been exposed to had we not gone on this tour.
By Matthew Storey
'Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise. To interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them.'
Voltaire
'How bad do you want it? Not bad enough'
Don Henley
Guru is the sort of fellow who looks at History with a eye to what 'works' (and can be proven) and what does NOT (and can be shown). For this reason, there is little room for absolutism in my world-view as it pertains to left-right identifications or party-affiliation. This is not meant to be disingenuous, obviously I am generally 'Progressive' in my views towards much of life, but simply to say those views are composed on a CASE by CASE basis. I am a Progressive because that can be shown to be the approach that WORKS for the greatest majority of citizens and to have moved forward the aims of humanity throughout history. I oppose Conservatives, because from Pompey to the Dark Ages to Islam, the Vatican, Louis XIV, George III to be on the Conservative side of history is to be on the WRONG side of the discussion, what Bill Clinton calls 'the wrong side of history'.
But being a Progressive, in the American historical context is not necessarily to find oneself on the Progressive side of CURRENT debate - the Progressive movement of the Founders and the Roosevelt's is not that of Eugene McCarthy and the Anti-War movement, indeed, progressives were in power for almost ALL of America's Wars - the Revolution was a radical excursion against Conservative order, the Civil War, a bloody suppression of Conservative views on Private Property and race executed by progressive Abraham Lincoln, the War of 1812 waged by Progressive James Madison, the Spanish-American war conducted with the impetus of progressive Teddy Roosevelt, WW1 under Democrat/Princeton academic, Woodrow Wilson, WW11 under FDR...These men were champions of free enterprise and capitalism who believed it has to be built upon fairness and offer opportunity to all to be genuine and that it's excesses must be corrected with laws, taxes and restraint of oligarchic impulses against which, this Republic sprang forth - NOT by those who sought to denigrate enterprise and insure state control. The modern hybrid of Socialist/Capitalist state echoes these views by making a distinction between that which is PURELY the province of 'Free Enterprise' (Baseball, Entertainment, Finance, Widget sales) and that which, by definition, cannot be left to the profit incentive, less it be allowed to IMPEDE progress for all (Garbage collection, Defense, Education, Health Care!).
My identification with Progressive values in governance is built upon a lifetime study of its champions - Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR - in the context of their OWN lifetimes and in our own. Each of these men has had their lives coopted and corrupted by future generations seeking to place their arguments on one side or another of some modern context, but such twists and turns are negated by reading WHAT THEY WROTE (try it!).
It is the height of absurdity to listen to modern progressives denigrate Jefferson, one of history's most eloquent debunkers of slavery as having his moral authority undone by being a slaveowner, his own words and an understanding of the time he lived in explain the conundrum and the dilemma of the black slave in late 18th, early 19th Century America. His slaves were part of his household, and their lives were not to be helped by emancipation into a society that had not a place for them - his attempts at eliminating their bondage in the Virginia Colony and the nascent United States of America were not to be doable in his own lifetime, not through any failure of his effort, but in the context of the momentous changes already being wrought. He went to his grave assured that the issue would be undone at some point, and wishing he had seen it so during his life. Like him, we dream of a better world that will be beyond the reach of our own lifetimes, let us all wish to do a FRACTION as much to insure that happens as he did in his time.
'...up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.'
Grover Norquist - Anti-Tax crusader, describing the America he wants to see...
Similarly, it is nothing short of a travesty to listen to modern Conservatives, the very opposite of Teddy Roosevelt in his lifetime and in their views, hold him up as some sort of Conservative ideal. Teddy was the arch-enemy of the landed aristocracy (which Norquist GETS) from which he hailed and who considered the GOP their privately owned organ prior to his Presidency. Roosevelt was both a thinker AND a doer. When his family money waned, he took to his pen and wrote books to support himself, worked as a Cowboy, a Cop, a Police Commissioner, as Secretary of the Navy...he was a naturalist who wrote more books before he was thirty than the recently departed President has read in his lifetime. He was tapped to be a VP candidate by the Karl Rove of his day, Mark Hanna, who imagined he could utilize the great man's celebrity and universal appeal to hammer home Conservative themes for a generation.
Roosevelt detested Hanna and used the 'Bully Pulpit' to champion the needs of the common man, eviscerate monopolistic practices in business, build in employee protections, outlaw child labor abuses, champion the inheritance tax (see second item below), raise America's profile in the world, welcome unprecedented waves of immigrants and encourage them to become Americans and contribute to an American mindset rather than expat-champions of their former homes. In his lifetime, the Conservative backlash retook the GOP under his succesor, WIlliam Howard Taft and Teddy responded by running in 1912 as the first 'Progressive' candidate in USA history, a candidacy that put him in contest with three other eloquent spokesman for varying places on the American Political spectrum, the conservative Taft, the moderate Democrat, Woodrow Wilson and the Socialist (that's right Antonin Scalia, we've had them here for more than a Century and they've served us with distinction, thank you) Eugene Debs.
Want to understand the reality of the Progressive era and take a look at an American election that was conducted through a vigorous and fair-minded exchange of ideas? Read '1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs, The Election that changed the Country', by James Chace.
In this vein, the issue with Capital Punishment is NOT one of 'state killing' but of the state killing INNOCENTS, an argument can be made (and I would concur) that the Chinese approach of putting to death those who have utilized public office to enrich themselves at the expense of the populace is both just and effective and is one Guru heartily endorses - if Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff and Rod Blagojevich pulled their Halliburton, Indian Tribe or Senate-seat-for-sale scams in China, they'd have swung from the nearest pole.
Can any argue that would have had a chilling effect upon succeeding generations of wannabe Vice Presidents, Lobbyists and Governors?
Similarly, the United States allows a de facto segregation of its prison population amongst races that is 'policed' by inmate gangs. Huh? Would a policy of zero-tolerance for gang activity and racial segregation actually work?
Only if it was enforced by Capital Punishment.
“Supporters of capital punishment bear a special responsibility to ensure the fairness of this irreversible punishment.” - Bill Clinton
Inmates want to live, for the most part. If violence against other inmates resulted in capital punishment for the second offense, things would change. If violence against Guards resulted in capital punishment for the FIRST offense, those attacks would plummet. But that means thousands of inmates would be put to death annually.
I'm cool with that.
Especially if it meant those who cannot function within the rules of a society in which they spend most of each day alone behind bars will not return to a society where they move about freely. We don't need more jails, we don't need larger power centers associated with prison guards, we need concrete standards and reliable behavioral standards, enforced by honest application of the law. Recidivism IS a social ill. We cannot correct it by ignoring its causes and that does NOT mean we adopt racist, murder-by-decree forms of punishment - what it DOES mean? If government officials know their bacon is on the line and they are answerable, ultimately for their conduct - they will work within the law. If inmates know their lives are on the line, they won't cross it.
If either can't work with that? Let 'em swing!
Which is NOT to say these laws should be strengthened to support Private Property, they should not. Capital Punishment is effective and in some cases justified in response to Violence and in prevention of further violence by those who have PROVEN, by their repeated conduct, they are incapable of avoiding resorting to its application and by those who appropriate PUBLIC property for their private benefit, an offense that is levied against society.
American law has been allowed to be co-opted by the Private interests for the better part of a century and a half, despite the noble efforts of previously mentioned progressives - Capital Punishment and its application cannot be allowed to drift towards those aims, nor can a cynical disposition that claims we cannot justly apply the law or be counted upon to control those forces. We CAN and we MUST if we are to lay claim to justice and we cannot fail to search for and move towards both the just and the fair and call ourselves 'Americans'.
Put aside your cynicism AND remove the blinders from your eyes. A people who could defeat the English Empire and crush the Confederates can do anything it sets its mind to, but, as then, the price of liberty and progress is not insubstantial. America can't be fixed (nor can anything else) by the 'Wish Theory', just ask Howard Dean or Sarah Palin.
'The Death Tax is unfair, inefficient, economically unsound and, frankly, immoral'
Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), speaking of inheritance taxes.
"I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in . . . a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, . . . increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." Theodore Roosevelt
'There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose goods after their death' - Adam Smith, Father of Modern Economics, Author of 'Wealth of Nations'.
"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard." Alexander Hamilton, Architect of the American Economic System
Thomas Jefferson, the author of 'The Declaration of Independence' and Thomas Paine, author of 'Common Sense' and 'The RIghts of Man', looked at English Liberty not as the blueprint for their new country but as a flawed example of common ideals, and they identified the differences in three principle areas:
1.) Elimination of inherited power, position and wealth.
Paine (and Alexander Hamilton) who came from nothing, rose on the strength of his ideas when he landed in America after being ignored in England. Jefferson, who came from an Aristocratic lineage, understood only too well that it was his intellect that mattered and not his name and that a system based solely upon lineage, as the English system was, left him and his unlettered, uncurious fellow descendants of wealth on equal and undeserved footing - it was this truth that led him to the concept of a 'Natural Aristocracy'.
2.) Separation of Church and State.
Every person of European descent knows the reality of an alliance between the State and the Church, European and Middle Eastern history are filled with millennia of examples of what this wreaks.
3.) A country of LAWS not of MEN.
This Lincoln phrase, not spoken, was instrumental in everything the progressive founders did (notably opposed by Adams, the conservative). Washington limiting his own powers, refusing grand, monarchal title and limiting his tenure voluntarily to two terms...landed gentry advocating laws limiting their OWN positions and putting lives of vast wealth and property under the English colonial system on the line for an IDEA (try and imagine the Bush and Cheney lines putting theirs on the line!).
Men like Adam Smith, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have spoken far more eloquently and effectively for the Inheritance Tax than yours truly will attempt. It is a fundamental conception of the founders and stands in direct opposition to the conservative view of 'Blood and Soil' that IS based upon English Empire conceptions.
As for the Tory claims on both sides of the pond that American laws are merely derivative of the English, let Thomas Jefferson 'take us out'....
'It is very important to unlearn the lessons we have learnt under our former Government, to discard the maxims which were the bulwark of that, but would be the ruin of the one we have erected'
That, my friends, is indisputable.
By Red Sox Steve
During my recent trip to Brazil and Argentina, my friend (I'll call her Travel Woman - TW - here because I don't have permission to use her name) and I journeyed from Buenos Aires all the way to Rio de Janeiro, hitting a number of towns in between. Travel Woman and I are adventurers - we enjoyed seeing the sites in different cities, relying on our trusty Lonely Planet to guide us on our journey. We stopped in Posadas, St. Ignacio and Puerto Iguazu during the Argentinean portion of our journey; we then crossed into Brazil (make sure you get that visa in advance, Americans!) going from Foz do Iguazu to Paraty via the Sao Paolo bus station. From Paraty, we went to Rio de Janeiro, the final destination on my journey - with a pseudonym like "Travel Woman", I'm guessing you won't be surprised to hear that she spent TWICE AS LONG in South America on this trip as I did - I was there for 3 weeks, she for 6!
That's a general overview of the trip - a journey which I hope will provide me with a number of columns in the future, but that's not what we're going to talk about today. Today, I want to discuss one experience on one tour that I had in Rio. No doubt, when I got to Rio, I was in awe at the beaches, the "beautiful people" enjoying the sand and surf blocks away from an urban environment. The way the mountains sprout up throughout the entire city, literally defining and delineating sections of Rio in a way that only nature can (entire rivers separate the Bronx from Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn from Manhattan, and Staten Island is, well, an island...!). Rio, when seen from one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, the Cristo Redentor ("Christ the Redeemer"), is a picturesque landscape combining a densely packed urban location and an unforgiving mountainous terrain - a beautiful city.
So, after getting a feel for Rio by taking public buses to and from the Cristo, and seeing the sandy beaches and muted airplane traffic from so high up, TW and I decided to go on a tour of one of the most intense urban settings in Latin America, a place that in my view is a step up from a shanty town, certainly NOT a squatter's village, has been depicted in numerous movies and, when taken together, a place where 1.4 million of Rio's 7 million residents reside - a favela.
We were given the opportunity, through the Be A Local Tour Group, to take a tour of what some say is the largest favela in all of Latin America, Rocinha (pronounced ho-SEEN-yuh). TW and I looked at each other and first gave it some thought. What are the implications of a tour through a neighborhood, especially an impoverished one? Is there something morally void about wanting to photograph the disadvantaged way of life that exists in the favela, treating it as some sort of zoo where we are so curious about the "wildlife" there that we feel the need to objectify it through touring? On the other hand, we are, after all, explorers of the globe humanity occupies. We had both seen films centered around life in the favelas, such as City of God, City of Men (sequel to City of God) and Favela Rising, and we want to build our awareness about life in Rio - not just a sun-kissed, samba dancing Rio, but the more earthy, gritty, urban experience which is replicated in large cities throughout Latin America in some form or another. This article would end right here if we chose the former - the bus picked us up at our hostel in Copacabana and we were on our way.
Rocinha is in the southern part of Rio, just west of a section of the city called Gavea. It is nestled between two small mountains and faces Praia Barra ("Barra beach"). We started our tour at the base of the favela, and no, we weren't in Kansas anymore... just before the tour bus reached the dropoff point, Daniel, who did an excellent job throughout the tour, gave us the skinny:
1) No pictures without permission - the favela is run by drug gangs and we are just tourists. The gangs certainly don't want any attention and they don't want to be photographed.
2) Stay together and pay attention - we are going to do a lot of walking and don't want anyone to stray from the group.
3) Jump on a mototaxi which will take you to the top of the favela.
I get 1 and 2, but was he kidding about us having to ride motorcycles to get where we were going? This mototaxi trip was no joke. We started at the bottom of the hill, and the mototaxis were there, seemingly waiting for the tour bus to arrive. It was an "eeney-meeney-miney-mo" moment. Was I choosing my preferred vehicle of death, playing the Brazilian version of Russian roulette, or would we actually make it, knowing there is no way for me to communicate with the driver seeing as how I speak zero Portuguese and he speaks zero english? I'm here, so you know the answer, but the ride up to the top was pretty scary.
How do you say, "the best defense is a good offense" in Portuguese? My driver was aggressively dodging and weaving through vehicles and pedestrians during our trip up the single, windy road. I made sure to hold on tight enough to stay alive, but not so tight that I didn't strangle the guy... I don't want the American consulate to have to call my parents telling them my brains were splattered all over the road, and there were many other reasons to make sure I safely got where I was going.
On the way up, it was hard to pay attention to anything besides my personal safety, but once we were all off the motorcycles, our surroundings were immediately noticeable. Daniel pointed out a few things - first, the population of Rocinha was 200,000 people (approximately the size of Providence, RI). More importantly, there was only a small post office and a small health center which served the entire population - if you wanted mail, it wasn't delivered to you, you had to go to the post office to pick it up yourself. In addition, the water ran every 3 hours for 30 minutes, which means that people had to make sure to collect some water and do their best to be hooked up to the piping system in the favela. Furthermore, electricity usage was unregulated - in other words, people plugged directly into the current coming off a utility pole, producing the very dangerous web of interconnected and unmonitored wires that you see in the picture below.
So, after a brief introduction and being given permission to take pictures, we were on foot, meandering through the labrynthine alleys of the favela. Daniel took our group to a rooftop so we could see the entire favela, as well as Barra beach just beyond its borders. The views were amazing, as you can see from the photos below:
At this point, we learned some interesting information about the history of the favela. This type of living situation started to emerge in Rio in the 1920s. At that time, more and more people started to migrate into the cities in order to secure employment and income. Jobs in rural areas were scarce and Rio had already been an economic center and the capital of Brazil for over 150 years. Rocinha sprouted up because wealthy people lived around it - Ipanema, Gavea and Copacabana have been wealthy neighborhoods for at least the entire 20th century. In order to secure service-type jobs in those communities, it became economical for people to live close to them, causing the formation of Rocinha. Although there isn't very much that is safe about life in the favela, the people who live there do so very cheaply - they can rent rooms or apartments for anywhere from US$100 to US$200 a month, giving themselves access to Brazil's wealthiest city in the process.
One of the problems in Rocinha today is that the population is quickly expanding. Because there is little vertical construction taking place, residents are continuing to spread the favela farther and farther into the forest areas located at the base of the surrounding mountains. Because this becomes an issue of convenient settlement for new residents at the cost of environmental destruction, the government is taking measures to prevent the continued cutting down of trees. As I understood Daniel, he mentioned that residents found a way to circumvent this, enabling new construction and pushing the perimeter of the favela even further.
(to be continued...)
By Mary Hannington
Sung by Native American-Susan Aglukark (Inuit)
Grace.
Amazing Grace.
The song, heard at funerals for friends long gone, always brings tears.
We have all of us felt what it is like to be wretched. Stoned. Maybe Drunk. In so much pain you can’t move.
Can’t function.
Hearts ripped out, but unable to cry.
Numbed. Deadened. Alone, no one to reach out to, no one that understands.
We have all known grace. Peace. Found oneness with the world. Hoped.
I’m a white woman. Can’t help it, that’s how I came out.
Born to a successful Republican father and duty-bound by marriage, a Republican mother. Ms. 91 is an Obamite now and I knew in my heart she saw the world the way I did. I live with a Republican. Slouchy voted for W and an eight-year argument began.
I watched Cheney line his coffers, while the conservatives around me called him smart. Worse, Bush proclaiming that he was sent by God to make war in Iraq.
Really?
Are you so fucking privileged that God picked you, an idiot, fed with silver spoons to save all our asses?
Sorry if there is a God she's smarter than that!
I’m a woman, therefore a minority and because of where I live I’m in a sense a different kind of minority. Detroit is 81% percent African-American, 12% White and 5% Hispanic. When I feel wretched I can take a walk and in 15 minutes I will see and interact with people more wretched than me.
Everyday I am reminded how lucky I am.
Yet, the white conservatives here see the same people, who in using the welfare system to get a leg up are costing them money. Without thinking of the alternative. By all means let’s do away with food stamps and just let these poor folks and their children die of starvation! Of course there is abuse, but there is abuse of any system. Does your accountant find ways for you to get away with paying fewer taxes? You betcha!
The Supreme Court's decision, reversing the one by nominee Sonia Sotomayor, that white firefighters were indeed discriminated against may have a huge impact on Detroit.
A civil rights leader here, Rev. Horace Sheffield had this to say.
"It's not surprising because we've had a growing momentum against race-related redress. It's amazing that people who have had 300 years of advantage at the expense of the brown and black and red people feel that they're the ones who are being discriminated against."
And here we go!
Last month, four EMS workers who are white filed suit against the City of Detroit saying they were discriminated against because of their race.
The New York Times reported that unemployment levels for blacks (14.7%) was increasing at four times the rate of whites in New York city. Hispanics have also been hit hard. Given the percent of the black population in Detroit, the fact that stimulus money is NOT being spent in cities, but in exurban areas, the Supreme Court’s decision is the last thing we need.
Clarence Thomas, who was once an Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education in 1981 and Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1982 serving for eight years and whose family is descendent from American slaves, who most certainly has benefited by affirmative action has instead been a vocal critic and his decision should come as no surprise.
Though I agree with Bruce Crawley, a Philadelphia suppler of diversity consulting services, who said “Please, somebody, buy Clarence Thomas a mirror.”
To go with the Coke and the pubic hair.
Judge Roberts, who like Thomas, uses the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to make the point that the constitution is color blind therefore preferential treatment such as affirmative action is wrong, has said "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
How is that working out?
Then there is Ricci the white firefighter in the case, who feeling vindicated, said to the media "If you work hard, you CAN succeed in America.
And perhaps he should have added, “…if you look like me.”
I’d like Mr. Ricci to see the new crowds of black men fishing the Detroit River 9-5:00PM for their families dinner or Brian, who has made handmade business cards cut from an old box then neatly lettered and is offering transportation services and will give you the price up front.
Brother Michael, who will shovel my walk in winter for 5 dollars when I’m short the ten I usually pay him and always does a little extra like cleaning up the alley snow. He comes by AFTER working 9:00-5:00PM when he can’t scrape up enough money for his family’s dinner.
Or the man I pass on Vernor Road who is out every single day selling chilled bottled water out of a cooler.
They're all trying to survive any way they can and not all of them do.
Unfortunately, to these kids from the suburbs the dead man was just another "bum", like the ones they likely have run across "exploring" other abandoned buildings in the city.
There is another definition of grace and that is "courteous goodwill".
Something that seems to be lacking in conservatives like Slouchy, who no matter how many times I have said it is wrong-headed, pauses before pulling away in the car when a stranger passes and sees only someone who may be out to rob the house.
Giving the latest news with Dr. Gates, these perceptions haven't changed.
Amazing!
Sung by Aaron Neville
There are two kinds of blogs. The first is blogging to an event which happened. It’s isolated and about that one thing. The other is more of a commentary, and sometimes these brew for a very long time until a certain confluence of events causes it to rise to the surface and spill itself out into an entry. There’s been a blog brewing in me since I started blogging and that has to do with the whole notion of “balance” in political reporting, how this is different from intellectual honesty, and how much and how desperately we need much less of the former, and much more of the latter.
The way that political reporting is done now is that there are two talking heads that come on, one representing the “Republican” side and the other representing the “Democratic” side of things. Ergo everything that happens is seen in this prism. Objectivity then becomes defined as what lies in the middle, what is in between those two sentiments. Truth is not the goal, the center is. If we are searching for intellectual honesty though, truth matters, not the middle because truth and the middle might not always be the same. Much concerning the events of Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin in recent days demonstrate the difference here.
With Sarah Palin the “balanced” story that is beginning to take shape is that she was harangued by a host of meritless ethics charges that forced her to spend so much money on defending herself that she simply had to step down as governor in order to go on speaking engagements that would allow her to make the money to pay her legal bills. This has the semblance of neutrality in appearance, diminishing her fault in quitting. It also amplifies the effect of some of the more frivolous ethics charges. Additionally it lets slide a certain suggestion that the ethics charges and investigations are all the fault of the Democrats. Finally, by extension it provides that all of the “attacks” on Palin are unfair. Palin is being rendered a victim who is being forced into doing the only thing that she can.
As to the ethics charges the fact is that the laws are the reason that she has had so many of them filed against her. Certainly the majority of them are frivolous—and cheap to defend. I don’t know exactly how she’s spending her money on her legal team, but I don’t think that wearing the Arctic Cat logo is what cost her half a million dollars. The major allegation for which she has been investigated and not cleared of is the Troopergate scandal, where she was found guilty of breaking the law to unduly use her position to get a man fired for personal reasons. She launched her own investigation of herself and surprise, found herself innocent but she didn’t need to spend money to defend herself against her own investigation. So here’s the bottom line on this and the line that you aren’t getting from the mainstream media, the ethics violation she spent the majority of that money defending herself against was true! There’s no “balance” there, no middle ground, only truth. The truth is she acted unethically, got investigated for it and convicted for it, and now she has to pay for it. That’s the intellectually honest position here. It might be “biased” in the sense that it paints her in a bad light, but truth and bias can go together.
Furthermore the “unbiased” version has the media “unfairly attacking” her. Precisely which “attack” is “unfair” is hard to say. Often Katie Couric’s “hard-hitting” interview is cited as an example. Again though, we have to distinguish between truth and intellectual honesty here. One of the favorite tactics of the right is to question, “What if Obama….” Well, let me poise this question then, “What if Obama weren’t able to cite a single Supreme Court case other than Roe vs. Wade?” Would the Republican talking heads be all over that? (Being fair to Katie Couric, her question wasn’t “Can you name another Supreme Court case, it was “What other (than Roe v. Wade) Supreme Cases do you disagree with?” It never occurred to her that Palin wouldn’t be able to name any. She asked the same question to Biden, who answered it). It’s incredible to me that from the conservative crowd Couric took more heat for asking Palin the question than Palin took for not being able to answer it. It wasn’t a “Gotcha!” question, it was a legitimate question, and the outrage over again demonstrates that there is a difference between balanced and honest. Incredibly, the right wing spin machine is encompassing this, and other valid questions regarding her qualifications which arose during the campaign in with the unfair ethics violations. In essence what has become the middle ground is that any and all criticism of Sarah Palin is unfair. The truth is that the vast majority of the criticism of her is valid, but since that validity paints her in a bad light, it’s perceived as bias, and in order to remove the bias the msm has to remove the accusations.
Lest I get carried away with this train of thought though, my point here isn’t that Palin is an unqualified candidate, that she’s unlawfully used her position, or that she has all the curiosity of a 100 year old cat, it’s that there’s a different way of thinking that conservatives and liberals have, and we can see it in the Palin scenario. The conservatives begin with what they believe, then based on their belief, they form a thought process. Finally in order to support that thought process they utilize certain facts. For instance Palin quits. The right wing faithful “believe” that she is right. Therefore they need a thought process to vindicate her quitting. That thought process is that she was being unfairly attacked and she would do a better job of serving if she didn’t have to defend herself against these unfair attacks. Then, in order to qualify their thought process they point to some unfair attacks on Palin, and since some attacks are unfair, they all must be unfair. In their mind the only way to be fair is to be free of bias, even if that bias is steeped in fact.
Liberals on the other hand begin by establishing the fact, then based on the facts they form a thought process, and then based on that they form a belief. So here for instance, they begin with determining things about Sarah Palin. She isn’t able to answer basic questions about civics, she has been found guilty of using her position to get someone fired, and she quit her job Governor of Alaska in the middle of her first term. Putting those facts together (and they are facts) we form a thought process that suggests her interest is not in somehow bettering her state or the nation (as evidenced by a rudimentary knowledge or curiosity in civics) but rather in utilizing her position for gain (as evidenced by her history of doing so). Then based on all of this we form a belief or bias that her quitting is not due to her inability to adequately help her people out and pursue some higher calling as she suggests; rather it is base gain, again as her history suggests. This may be bias, but it is fair bias.
Taken from another perspective look at Obama’s recent trip to New York, and the cost it entailed. The Conservatives began with the belief that it was wrong, then they calculated the cost, and then they determined that Obama wasted that much tax payer money by going to New York. They don’t question their belief structure on this at all to determine whether their questions are fair or not. They don’t ask whether they (or for that matter the Democrats or anyone else) ever questioned Bush for doing similar things, when he took trips to Crawford ranch, or to Maine, or to anywhere else for that matter. They don’t question whether or not a sitting President should take a public airplane to get to New York, without any sort of security detail if he is on personal business, and they don’t question whether a sitting President should ever be allowed to go outside of DC for personal reasons. A new, bizarre and thoughtless standard is raised around a “belief” and only the facts that fit that belief are allowed to be considered.
Recently I was talking with an online friend about Palin quitting and in response he said that Obama had already spent more money than Bush. While this is so blatantly and completely untrue on so many different levels that it’s literally mind boggling that someone could believe it, people believe it. I Googled the argument just to see what would come up and sure enough, there’s all these “projections” of how much money Obama is going to spend verses Bush. How exactly these projections are targeted is beyond me, but somehow I don’t believe they are unbiased. What’s striking though is that these “projections” have turned into “already spent”. Now there’s one detail that is omitted in all of these things. Relatively speaking Obama hasn’t spent that much money, even considering the wars, the auto bailout and the stimulus package. The reason for this is that Obama has yet to pass a budget. The current fiscal budget was passed by Bush, so when I see these charts showing how much money Obama has spent, I note that it’s categorized as money spent “under” Obama. Yes, Obama is President, but that’s not his money he’s spending. Secondly, the higher the deficit goes, the greater the amount of money to pay off the interest on the debt goes. Ergo, Obama has less money to play with than Bush, but that’s on Bush, not Obama. Thirdly, more than 80 percent of the entire debt has come under Reagan or the Bushes. Now the Republicans want to make it out that they are these budget hawks, though they never were while Republicans were President. Again, their belief comes first, and the facts that don’t support their beliefs are not considered.
So then all of this ends up back to this whole middle ground argument, where the less curious voters say, “well you have you your talking points and they have their taking points.” The conclusion then is that since both have talking points, both sides must also have valid points. However, talking points are only valid if they are 1) true and 2) intellectually honest. Very often on the conservative side they are not—not because conservatives are stupid—but because they begin with belief. The ones making the points can either be deliberately deceptive (which I think is the case with the likes of Cheney and Rove) or ignorantly deceptive, such as with Bush and Palin. Either way though it is deceptive. Meanwhile, those like Obama, who go out of their way to be fair, to speak both sides, are portrayed as the other extreme. So the average, moderately informed voter sees that there is even truth and even deception in both sides, although one side is trying to deceive (or has been deceived and is honestly being deceptive) and the other side is trying to be honest. If you take the middle of that then you end up with something is unfair, and though it is midway, it is also biased in the sense that it paints the truth different than what it is, and this in turn has a more favorable representation to the deceiving party than the honest one.
The extreme right is dragging us down a path cloaked in fallacy and dishonesty and the MSM in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle seems eager to appease. Recalling the type of rhetoric that was used in Palin’s speeches, I hope that this gets curbed very soon. There’s only so much half truth the country can take. The media, not the blogosphere needs to be the place that checks the truth and reports it. They need to do so fairly, and without bias, and the best way to do that is to get away from talking heads and interpretations of the news, but to simply just get back to saying what the facts are. The truth may not be “balanced” but it is unbiased.
The Ice Flow's "Righties" column is coming soon!
