Marian's Blog

Chit chat, pitter patter - US News

Sometimes, as I attempt to watch most US televised news broadcasts, I get the impression some of the personality newsreaders either have been sniffing glue or smoking something (possibly even tobacco as it too can have a certain effect). So often those US newsreaders are just so... grinning and giddy. On a consistent basis they have little or nothing on their teleprompters about Darfur or Congo or Somalia or the new woman president of Liberia, or the uranium mining being planned in Zimbabwe or the state of race & ethnic relations in France and western Europe or aftermath of hurricanes and mudslides in Central and South America, or earthquake survivors in Pakistan.

US, UK, and Iraq's Oil

Common Dreams has posted Philip Thornton's article, Iraq's Oil: The Spoils of War. In the mainstream media (MSM) who is reporting about something called 'production sharing agreements' - or PSAs - currently being negotiated over Iraqi oil? Thornton claims PSAs were "proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted [post-invasion] by the Coalition Provisional Authority. ... The current government is fast-tracking the process." (Emphasis added.) From the top of the article: "Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control. ..." The article goes on to say that with 115 billion barrels of known reserves Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves and "plans to seek foreign investment to exploit its oil reserves after the general election" being held in December. Thornton also writes about claims of "high-level pressure from the US and UK governments on Iraq to look to foreign companies to rebuild its oil industry." It's all there.

BBC: 'Rollercoasters can stop hearts' - American Heart Association

A BBC article reports cardiologists' findings: "people with weak hearts should avoid riding roller-coasters as they could be risking their lives" - i.e., riding a roller coaster can stop your heart. I already knew this. In my heart. The report adds that rollercoaster riding should not affect 'healthy' people. Does this mean you should go ahead and ride to find out just how healthy you really are? Stress - emotional stress - seems to be a risk factor.

Sometimes Typepad is Absolute Crap...

I had written an entry on the death of American Indian author and activist Vine Deloria, former head of NCAI and author of "Custer Died for Your Sins," but my blog entry was totally destroyed by a minor error I made while using Typepad. This is sickening. Who has time to repeat/rewrite entries??

Bush does not squeak by in Virginia and New Jersey elections

It looks like Virginia Democrat and current lieutenant governor Tim Kaine has defeated Republican Jerry Kilgore in the state's governor's race. So much for Mr. Bush's political support on the heels of his Summit of the Americas junket (and street protests) in Mar del Plata, Argentina. In New York City Republican incumbent billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg has been elected to another term, defeating challenger Fernando Ferrer. By late October Bloomberg's campaign had spent nearly 67 million dollars on his mayoral campaign. In New Jersey voters have selected US Democratic Senator Jon Corzine to be New Jersey's new governor over challenger Douglas Forrester. With a three hour time difference separating California from the East Coast US, not much news has arrived yet from out there. More later.

Elections in NY, CA, VA, NJ - Can Bush squeak past "referenda" on himself and the GOP?

Americans in New York City, Virginia, California and New Jersey have had the opportunity, privilege and responsibility to get out and vote today. In general numbers, most of the US has really lousy voter turnout although some of us definitely do not take voting for granted. Today there are state and local elections in Virginia, California, New York and New Jersey. Last night Bush 'fils' ("son") stopped through the state of Virginia (bordering Wash, DC) after the rousing 'welcome' Bush received in the streets of Mar del Plata, Argentina, at the Summit of the Americas. "W" stopped in Virginia to try and "help" GOP candidate Jerry Kilgore in his governor campaign against current Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Tim Kaine. In New York City it's the mayor's race between Democratic challenger Fernando Ferrer and billionaire Republican incumbent Michael Bloomberg.  New Jersey voters also are electing a new governor with a menu offering two more wealthy white guys - Republican Douglas Forrester and Democratic US Senator Jon Corzine. California voters are choosing whether to slap down or support Republican "governator" Arnold Schwarzenegger. We hear his gubernatorial behaviour isn't all that funny. "Aahnold" is using ballot initiatives to try to give himself more power over the state budget, over public teacher jobs, and over shaping California legislative districts and imposing political contribution limits on trade unions (Governor Schwarzenegger's political opponents). More later!

Frantz Fanon and France's Wretched of the Earth

I'm remembering the brother of a friend of mine from the Maghreb - northern Africa. Yes - Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algeria and several other countries beyond are in and are part of Africa. My friend's older brother was killed some years ago - murdered it seems - in a small town in France; a town I visited. To my knowledge up to now no one has ever been arrested, let alone tried for this young man's tragic and unnatural death. I don't even have any idea whether French local authorities investigated the circumstances of his death. Last year in 2004, in spite of our collective efforts and dialogue at the 2003 European Social Forum (ESF/FSE) right there in France, in St. Denis and in Paris, there was precious little global recognition of France's history and responsibilities in Haiti during the 2004 bicentennaire - bicentennial - of the entire world's first modern Black republic. In spite of all this I maintain my love of France, though certainly not uncritically. I have lived and worked, struggled, learned and shared in France. Now national authorities have activated a state of emergency - un etat d'urgence - for the first time since Algeria's war of independence against France as European colonial occupier. There's a huge gap of both time and politics from 1955 to now. Yet not nearly enough has changed it seems. Coincidentally, the Bandung Conference in Indonesia also took place in 1955. Two of my blog categories are "Bandung+50" and "Wretched of the Earth?" I was very much influenced in choosing these themes by a person, a Black Frenchman and an historical cousin - another person of African descent from the Americas - named Frantz Fanon. Fanon authored two seminal works of "anti-colonial revolutionary thought, Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961), works which have made Fanon a prominent contributor to postcolonial studies." Fanon died of cancer in Washington, DC on 6 Dec. 1961. In 1964, after his death, his third book appeared in English as Toward the African Revolution. Black Skin, White Masks originally was titled, "An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks." The above quote is from Prof. Deepika Bahri's informative Fanon website. Bahri, from India, is associate prof of English and director of Asian Studies at Emory University in the US. Her site also notes British director Isaac Julien's 1996 film on Fanon - Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask, available from California Newsreel. Read more of this post below...

FRANTZ FANON, MD (1925-1961):

Native of MARTINIQUE, Caribbean Americas

Hesse's "The European": France, Europe and Populations who do not know "their place"

In the midst of France's continuing social upheavals even Sweden's press is sitting up and taking notice, bringing some stark truths to the conscious level. Part of the problem is we don't know how long Europeans will let themselves publicly examine those truths. Victor Simpson's Associated Press article from Rome says political leaders and others in Europe are wringing their hands over the riots and fires in France. Yet Simpson also quotes an editorial translated from the Swedish newspaper Expressen. The last part of the quote is as clear as the first part is ambiguous. "We have difficulties accepting that people come to us from far away" [my emphasis added] ... "It is like the humble staff at a luxury hotel would suddenly take up quarters with their richest habitues. They should know their places, a dark undercurrent in the collective European consciousness says." Only major social unrest and, sadly, at least one death have now brought international attention to the permanently marginalised and invisible condition of many people of colour and immigrants in France. At the same time, this problem and this attitude in "the collective European consciousness" is not just in France and not only in Europe. Were he alive today what would German pacifist and author Hermann Hesse think of all this? His early 20th century essay, "The European", seems a logical and likely place to start. Hesse's essay is online here. [I've substituted my own link for the other that changed. - 24 may 2006]

Paramount Pictures' "Get rich or die tryin'?" - REMOVE THE ADS - along with Cigarette and Liquor ads, too

Who are the brilliant Paramount execs who went with the print ad campaign for this movie? And how much longer must we Black Americans and other moviegoers and media-watchers endure a seemingly endless stream of films about "thug life on the street"? By now this is older than old. Millions of Black Americans do not live that way while others would give almost anything for their neighborhoods not to be abandoned to criminals and thugs. The other day on the news there was a Los Angeles resident - a Mother and Grandmother named Lita Herron - who most articulately outlined the worthlessness of such mediated images for our families and our family members and communities. The creative force behind "Get Rich or Die Tryin" is rapper Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent. This is the same Curtis Jackson defending George Bush against Kanye West's straight-up criticism ("George Bush doesn't care about Black people") in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans' Black community (particularly the 9th Ward). The Village Voice article linked above in red also raises speculation that some elements in the now-wealthy rap and hip-hop business could be turning Republican(!) Some folks seem to think perhaps Curtis Jackson may be one. The infinite ironies of going from poor to rich, then returning to the 'hood to flaunt elements of a violent lifestyle pretty well would complete the cycle of exploitation. I understand that Curtis's movie character turns from violence to rap, but there's got to be some other way to tell and market his life story. I've heard that when Curtis was a boy he lost his mother to violence. It seems a serious shame and a community disgrace that Jackson was somehow left to cope with his loss and anger through becoming a hoodlum (and later a rapper). But what thinking person would actually buy his apparent excuse that since other gangster movies advertise violence this makes his doing it ok, too - and anyway why are people and groups "picking" on him? Maybe someone could sit down with Curtis, now both wealthy and grown, and break down for him a more positive logic of giving back to the community. Moving along... Where are the American films about regular Black folk? The folk who work in hospitals, at the post office or at schools, colleges or universities? Where are the films on the life of intellectual and cultural hero & university professor WEB DuBois, or agricultural chemist George Washington Carver (@ 1864-Jan 1943), credited with inventing peanut agricultural sciences? Dr. Carver discovered a zillion properties of Arachis hypogaea (peanut), most of which probably have yet to be put to use in society. Stop trying to foist thuggishness, bad food, nicotine and alcohol consumption on us and our communities. Who is getting rich off these distortions? Even more basic, where have guns and drugs come from to arrive in American communities, and who's bringing them? Who moves guns and drugs into the USA? Is Curtis Jackson glorifying that too? You can believe I - and quite a few other people I don't even know - will not be among those spending even one thin dime to see a movie about some poor fool's half-cocked "life plan" to either "get rich" or give up on one's life. Get a real life.

Ethiopia: Civilians & protesters wounded or killed by military & police in Addis

Some A lot more of us in the international public need to be paying more attention to the killing going on in Ethiopia's capital. Many of us - rightfully - care what's going on in Washington and in the Senate and House of Representatives; a lot of us care about Argentina preparing for the Summit of the Americas and expected protests; some of us are also watching the terrible news of race riots in Paris. But what about Ethiopia? What is going on in Ethiopia? I googled "Addis Ababa" + "elections" + "violence" and I got one single article in The Scotsman. Thank you, Scotsman! I just wanted to try some sources in addition to AllAfrica.com. The end of The Scotsman article reads: "The violence erupted over protests of May 15 elections that had been seen as a test of Prime Minister Zenawi Meles' commitment to reform gave Meles' Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front control of nearly two-thirds of parliament. Opposition parties say the vote and counting were marred by fraud, intimidation and violence, and accuse the ruling party of rigging the elections." The top of the article begins: "Police shot and killed two people and wounded 12 others in Addis Ababa in the fourth day of protests against Ethiopia's disputed parliamentary elections, doctors said. The renewed violence came a day after police shot dead at least 29 people and wounded dozens more, according to doctors who said the previous death toll of 23 rose after six people died overnight in hospitals. The latest victims were shot at Old Airport, a wealthy neighbourhood where many foreign expatriates live, according to doctors at the Black Lion and Zewditu hospitals. Sporadic gunfire was heard near the French and Dutch embassies. Elsewhere in Addis Ababa, stone-throwing protesters had earlier defied a heavy military presence. ..." Read the rest at The Scotsman link - highlighted above.