Marian's Blog

Shop Green: Earth Day 365 days/year

If you're in the U.S. or nearby, when you need to shop start using this site - Co-op America's National Green Pages.

Black Politics with Chris Owens, Saturdays, 11 a.m. eastern

Be sure to check today's radio show, Black Politics with Chris Owens. Starts 11AM U.S. Eastern time Saturdays. Executive Producers are Logan Nakyanzi Pollard and Stephen Davis. Chris composed the show's music. The show's produced in New York City. Listen at Air America via computer if you can't hear it by radio.

Michael Moore leaning toward John Edwards?

I got an email today with a very interesting "letter" (article) from Michael Moore in which he's definitely leaning toward John Edwards. Moore's article is entitled, "Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore." He writes:

"...  And then there's John Edwards. It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you do -- and recently I have chosen to try -- you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many.

A candidate who says things like this: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. ...

Then he writes:

"... For months I've been wanting to ask the question, "Where are you, Al Gore?"

And then Moore refers to the earlier Edwards quote.

"... On second thought, would you [Gore] even be willing to utter the words,
"I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy"?" 'Cause the candidate who understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace. ..."

Well, shut my mouth. We'll have to wait and see which way Michael goes next.

"Embedded" in Iraq

Recently GOP "maverick"(?) Colin Powell labelled the reality in Iraq a civil war. Knowledgeable journalists and others say what we see in the press does not begin to convey how bad it is. It's almost two years since my Jan 19, 2005 entry when I wrote about what to some of us already looked like a tragic, inexorable descent into hell. I contrasted it with George Bush's grand, lavish and self-congratulatory 2005 re-entry into the White House on the same day. Two years on I'm still trying to comprehend the U.S. media's "approach" to reporting Iraq and the kind of place it has become since Bush & Co.'s 2003 unilateral invasion.

This led me to search for the meaning of the term 'embedded' via Merriam Webster's dictionary online. As in "to have embedded virtually all journalistic coverage of Iraq inside the military". Here's what I found: "... to enclose closely in or as if in a matrix"; "to make something an integral part of"; "to prepare [a specimen] for sectioning by infiltrating with and enclosing in a supporting substance"; "to surround closely"; and the use of the intransitive verb: "to become embedded". How will journalists and historians chronicle this still-unfolding story of the way so many are covering Iraq?

WAR as "tax", only worse, & the U.S. 2006 elections

We're into the countdown to the 2006 U.S. mid-term elections. Tuesday, Nov 7, is election day, and if you're registered, I urge you to vote. On t.v. one of the usual political talking heads tries to "remind" us that "if Democrats win, they'll institute taxes."

What the heck?! Is that supposed to be an argument?

Isn't war a huge, bloody, tax???

No amount of taxes or other money that any of us pays will bring back one life lost in this war. Don't forget to add in billions going to some rather shadowy private corporations to "rebuild" the country where the war is. Then we hear not much really is being built. So we don't even know where the money has gone. "Your tax dollars at work." But in the Washington, DC metro area - mainly suburban Maryland and northern Virginia - you hear from reliable sources that so many of the people with money to buy big homes work (or do contracting) for Defense Department and "Homeland Security". So please don't talk to me about Democrats and "taxes". Let's vote.

Britain reports plot to blow up transatlantic flights from London

BBC and other media are reporting an alleged terror plot to blow up planes on transatlantic flights out of London. In the UK more than 20 persons have been arrested with searches continuing. Three U.S. airlines are said to have been targeted: United, Continental and American. London's Heathrow Airport appears virtually closed for the time being, with an international 'knock-on' or domino effect. UK authorities advise travelers to stay away from Heathrow as much as possible today. At present no hand luggage or liquids may be carried onto UK flights. Exceedingly long queues are reported along with flight cancellations and/or serious delays. A steady stream of news conferences is occurring in London, Washington and elsewhere.

From a wedding to killing at Qana: Lebanese prime minister brought to tears at Arab summit

Today, Monday, BBC carried live coverage of the Arab foreign ministers' summit in Beirut.

I grew up learning about Jesus attending a wedding in "Cana" where he transformed water to wine. This is described in John, chapter 2, verses 1-11 of the Bible. As news filtered out last week of the killing of children and adults in a place called Qana, in Lebanon, I asked myself if this could possibly be the same place where Jesus was a wedding guest. It is.

A Bible lesson online describes the wedding feast at Qana as "the first of seven miracles described in the portion of John’s Gospel known ... as "the Book of Signs." It says in changing to wine water meant for Jewish purification, Jesus began "a pattern of transforming the institutions of Judaism into those of Christianity." Today, a couple thousand years later, Qana stands for war, carnage, terror and fear.

At the Arab foreign ministers' summit in Beirut, at a certain point there was silence in the room full of Arab male diplomats and politicians as Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora stopped speaking. He was in the middle of affirming Lebanon's character as an Arab country - saying it is not negotiable - when his voice cracked and he worked to catch his breath. He repeated his statement while wiping tears from his eyes. Pulled himself together and concluded. A BBC summary of his earlier remarks says he proclaimed there can be no ceasefire as long as Israel occupies Lebanon and that the permanent solution must include Israel's withdrawal beyond the so-called green line as well as creation of that long-awaited Palestinian state - with its capital in Jerusalem.

Among the men dominating all sides of this carnage, which man will take on accountability for the killings (by aerial bombing) in Qana and elsewhere? After nearly 30 years of inconsisent Middle East peace talks (that started under U.S. president Jimmy Carter) - what is going on here? Why are we still collectively allowing such constant, blatant and horrific breakdowns of our humanity? All of it is beyond being unspeakable. It is thoroughly repulsive.

Gaza, Haifa, Somalia, Colombia, Srebrenica: Nurit Elhanan's "Women" at the Euro Parliament

"Why does that streak of blood rip the petal of your cheek?"

Correction: Nine years have passed since I worked in eastern Bosnia in 1997. In July 1995 the mass killings took place there, in the town of Srebrenica. I also remember the quiet and private sheroism of two women whom I met there in early '97 in the course of my work. I want to thank those ladies. The first rushed up to us just outside Srebrenica's municipal building. She had the grace and courage to walk right over and personally welcome home the Bosnian Muslim man with us on his first return. I do not recall his name but he was the first Muslim member of Srebrenica's post-war municipal elections commission. Another member of our staff, a woman, had driven him over from Tuzla - across the IEBL. The IEBL is a boundary: the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, a border separating mostly Muslim parts of Bosnia from the eastern region's self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic - Republika Srpska. The second lady I met just before Orthodox Easter. I was walking in the center of Srebrenica when she intently crossed the main street to meet me. This wasn't far from the Dom Kultura (Cultural Center) building. She handed me a beautiful, hand-painted Easter egg, a real, edible egg, and I accepted it from her with a thank-you in her language and a smile. Srebrenica's a very small town. Yet even the whole world is small in many ways, especially once people begin to know each other. I was deeply touched by and will not forget the kindness at the root of these small yet expansive acts of willingness and courage shown by two women whose names I do not know; women I've yet to meet again.

Last March 8 (International Women's Day) in her speech to the European Parliament, Israeli educator Nurit Peled-Elhanan - mother of a 5 - correction: 13 year old daughter killed by a suicide bomber - posed a question made eternal by the writing of the late Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966; real name Anna Andreyevna Gorenko). "Why does that streak of blood rip the petal of your cheek?"

Nurit Elhanan's comments here about motherhood and the womb draw attention to this masculinist idea of 'womb as political demographic enemy', the verbal expression of which, sadly, I've witnessed in my international human rights work, often or usually expressed by men from their exclusively male positions of political and/or religious authority.

The "Muslim womb" is hardly the only perceived enemy. On a personal tip, the same attitude's been in the U.S. and the Americas since Columbus arrived in 1492, followed by his son's arrival a short time later with his first cargo to the Americas of captured Africans. In recent United States' experience the hostility toward "other wombs" and the fertility of "others" - both female and male - has included forced sterilisation and sterilisation under vastly uninformed consent. A nurse in Pennsylvania once asked whether I wished to be sterilised. At that moment I was in active labour no less, and thank goodness with no drugs by choice. My immediate, unfiltered and exact reply was "HELL NO."

I received Elhanan's remarks as forwarded by Paola Manduca from Sami Ramadani of London. Paola shared them on an email list in preparation for last spring's Women's assembly of the 2006 European Social Forum in Atena (Athens, Greece). In the same vein we ask your support and signature on this online petition for the Kampala Resolution on Women, Peace and Conflict. Thank you. Peace.

                                                 Women

                             Nurit Peled-Elhanan

"Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always
an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you (at the
European Parliament).

However, I must admit I believe you should have
invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the
women who suffer most from violence in my country are
the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate
my speech to Miriam Raban and her husband Kamal,
from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza strip, whose five small children
were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries
at the family's strawberry field. No one will ever stand
trial for this murder. [continued below]

Hi tech?! Enough already

Cheese and crackers! Between one thing and another we've been offline... how long? Bummer. Darn cookies and computers... Anyway, we're back. It's Easter weekend already. Good Friday. Passover began yesterday and continues till Thurs the 20th. Rummie is still US defense secretary (for the moment); Euro Social Forum kicks off in Athens in May - including Women's Assembly. Sudan's DC embassy proclaims its displeasure over an annoying (to them) yet growing snowball of divestment. Chad just cut dip. relations with Khartoum while CNN's US domestic service says nothing about most of this instead reporting the disturbing news of a New York shopkeeper whose cat may be trapped forever inside a wall. I kid you not. Plus ca change plus c'est toujours news American style. The more things change the more it's still news American style! Peace.

Impostor: Richard Nixon, George Bush - What's the difference?

Now for a history moment. What's the difference between George Bush and Richard Nixon? In my book - Nixon was impeached. In November 1973 Nixon spoke to a large group of Associated Press editors in Florida, stating, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook...." He added he was "not a crook." The American public disagreed. In 2006 it would seem reasonable that US citizens have a civic responsibility to be interested in knowing not only whether their president is a 'crook' but also whether he is competent. US citizens need to know whether our legislative branch (Congress) and the judicial branch (Supreme Court) of government are even exercising their check and balance functions. We're supposed to know who actually is running the US government, and whether or not those actions truly represent the will of the American people. If the answer to any of those things is no, we're in it deep. In October 1973 the Nixon administration appointed special prosecutor Archibald Cox to investigate the break-in at Democratic Party national headquarters then located in Washington's Watergate complex. (The late Frank Wills was the security guard who discovered the break-in.) Within days Nixon had decided to fire Cox. This led to October 20, 1973's "Saturday Night Massacre." The firing was temporarily halted by US Attorney General Elliot Richardson and deputy AG William Ruckelshaus as both chose to resign rather than obey the order to fire Cox. These days who would have that much integrity? Let's not mention courage. Enter Robert Bork, Nixon's Solicitor General in 1973. Later as Supreme Court candidate he was "borked."  After the demission of Richardson and Ruckelshaus, Bork voluntarily carried out the order to fire Cox. That was then and this is now, as another conservative by the name of Bruce Bartlett has published a rousing book titled Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. I have absolutely no nostalgia for Mr. Reagan or his "legacy", but unfortunately before long more of us probably will agree with the first part of Bartlett's premise. - "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." - Archibald Cox

Chris Owens for Congress - New York 11th district

(Another lost blog entry thanks to one small typing glitch.) 2006 election season is on y'all. There's a major Chris Owens for Congress fundraiser, Tuesday, 21 Feb at Magnetic Field - 97 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, between Henry and Hicks streets. Bring your checkbook and a friend. And if you can't make that event you can still send Chris a little somethin' somethin'. The FEC (Federal Elections Commission) ID is H6NY11109, and his campaign office is 328 Flatbush Ave #333, Brooklyn 11238. Details on Tuesday's fundraiser are on DailyGotham, which I found via Liza Sabater's terribly hiply fabulously informational CultureKitchen. Grazie Liza! More on all this later. Same channel.

A Black History Month 2006 Plan of Action

"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development" - Aristotle. I have three priorities for BHM 2006 - BHM being Black (or African American) history month. One is preparing for next year's 2007 quadricentennial (400th) anniversary of the founding of Virginia - or more precisely, founding of the Jamestown colony by subjects of the King of England, and eventual founding of the English Virginia colony, predecessor of what became the US state (including what today is Kentucky). Priority #2 is May 10th - le 10 mai 2006 - France's new national day to publicly, officially remember France's involvement in African slavery. Internationally it's fairly obvious that when it comes to modern world history's long era of slavery many or most of our societies long ago chose amnesia rather than historical accuracy and responsibility. (Read Alan Rice - "British Selective Amnesia and the Political Imperative to Conserve Black Atlantic Memory" in Revisiting slave narratives , ed. Judith Misrahi-Barak.) Yet even as Americans go on dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 10 May is central to France's other former territory, la Louisiane, and to the history and evolution of its people and descendants. As children in Baton Rouge, Louisiana we studied Longfellow's 1847 epic poem, Evangeline, about the Acadians' migration to Louisiana from what is now Canada. But no one ever mentioned a massive migration to New Orleans around 1803 to about 1812 from the French part of the island Saint Domingue in the Caribbean - the part of the island that now is Haiti. Somewhere someone must have written a story or poem about this. New Orleans' native Anne Rice's book, The Feast of All Saints, for example. Decades after reading Evangeline in Louisiana I want to know how Louisiane and Nouvelle France (New France) relate to each other. This leads me to my third priority, an affirmation of events 2 and 1 which are related to each other in the context of European expansion: the need for other European nations besides France to 'come out of the closet' about their own roles in the interconnected international slave trade. These nations will do well to follow France's example: Britain, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Norway - the old amalgamated Denmark-Norway. The annual May 10th commemoration would not be happening were it not for member of French Parliament Christiane Taubira (Guyane francaise), as well as the French parliament which in 2001 passed her Taubira Law, and president Chirac and others who now have formally acknowledged France's slavery and slave trade role. We also thank France for its eventual role in the abolition of same, as well as for its contribution as the first country to declare slavery a crime against humanity. "... On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town..." - continued below, Chapter 3, The Slaves' New Year's Day, Harriet Jacobs' 1860 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

A 'french style revolution' in the USA??

After reading my earlier blog entry which poses the question, "Does Schwarzenegger even know?" (re a campaign to close a California "youth correctional facility" [prison] known as "Chad"), reader Randy in the UK shared his thoughts, stating, "Schwarzenegger IS a bully who is succesful [sic], this is proof the world is wrong, and that we need a french style revolution, in america." Thanks, Randy, for the feedback. It's just that I'd love to know exactly what a "french style revolution" in the US would be like. The last time France had a revolution was the 18th century. That's been awhile. The world's changed quite a bit since then though from the evidence I'd wager most men's "approach" to 'social change' - fighting - has not.

France's New National Remembrance Day for Slavery - African/Black History in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia

Two years ago, in November 2003, with the Alliance of People of African Descent in Europe, I participated in the European Social Forum held in France - in Saint Denis and next-door Paris. We had a lot of discussion of France's history of Black enslavement, especially in and with Haiti. This was on the eve of Haiti's 2004 bi-centennial (which was greatly under-observed internationally). Early 2004 witnessed the "mysterious" 'removal' of elected Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide. What role if any did France have in that?? The 2003 ESF experience in Paris could be the subject of at least one other blog entry. In any case, I would be very grateful if someone reading this might share this with Jacques Chirac and with anyone else thinking, or who needs to think, about public policy and public responsibility, and paucity of both, toward the historic global trafficking of African people. Today (actually yesterday) from Paris Associated Press reports: "France will introduce a national day of remembrance for slavery, an issue that still wounds "a large number of our fellow citizens," President Jacques Chirac said Wednesday." [4 Jan 2006.] Note to M. Chirac - this extends far beyond France. Not only is such a decision unbelievably overdue, these "wounds" of which Jacques Chirac speaks are found among and well beyond his "fellow" and sister French citizens. (This entry continues below!)

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

Nigergate: Blaming "Africa" & the 'Coalition of the Willing' - Berlusconi Meets Bush in DC

What's happening to the 'coalition of the willing'?? We hear Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi meets George Bush today - to discuss a possible pull-out of Italian troops from Iraq. - Or it seems more likely Berlusconi is showing up in DC in person to re-assure George (& the Italian and global 'MSM' -mainstream media) that in spite of CIAgate/NIGERgate an Italian pull-out will not happen. - "Berlusco" must've flown out of Rome just after me. Is his trip just kind of a nod to a hostile Italian public & angry anti-war movement? Meanwhile, Italian daily La Repubblica just ran a three-part series - in Italian, Oct 24, 25, 26, 2005- charging that the US and UK were aided by the Italian intelligence agency SISMI in obtaining or allegedly even falsifying documents that were used by George Bush and his "Vulcans" to 'prove' that the tiny West African country Niger was prepared to provide nuclear material to Saddam Hussein. La Repubblica even says an Italian sometime-spy Rocco Martino broke into the Embassy of Niger in Rome to steal official Government of Niger stationery for someone to forge letters describing the alleged nuclear loot allegedly headed for Iraq. Non e possibile... If all this is true Italians again allow themselves to do the dirty work for interests far North and West of Rome, using Italians' geo-cultural proximity to Africa to help set up a situation. Water-carrying for Washington?? Why wouldn't someone right there in Washington break and enter Niger's embassy in DC? Not that they should. A truly pitiful mess. In Italia what I call GOPGate is being called Nigergate. Check the story in English here. ...Or the original Repubblica series in italiano - linked above. So far, apart from certain US daily newspapers we haven't yet heard a peep of this from US television "news" media!

Bush, Inc: GOPgate - Haven't We Had Enough Already??

Mr. Bush - there's a lot more than 'background noise' going on over your head! Those two words are from yet another "brilliant" (...snicker...) George Bush performance to stonewall a journalist. This one occurred just yesterday in DC. I don't have the original question but Bush replied: "There's some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining. But the American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to." Maybe there really are still one or two Americans out there actually waiting for Mr. Bush to start. His job that is. Bush may be meeting certain expectations of his self-described "base" - the "haves and have mores" - but alot of us are sure he is not working on behalf of "the American people." If you happen to be an American - do you consider yourself better off today than you were five years ago? Yesterday I was reading a blog which alleges George and Jeb (Bush) are waiting for Wilma - the latest mega-storm bearing down on the southern US - to strike, presumably in Florida, in order to further distract the American public from the (constitutional?) crisis metastasizing in Washington. I was calling this Whitehousegate but it goes deeper so I'll call it GOP-gate. Much of the so-called 'Republican revolution' was engineered over the past three, even four decades, but it ramped up big time once Newt Gingrich jumped into the saddle with the 1994 Republican Contract with On America. The Grand Old Party doesn't seem to need to speak of that one anymore. Today's citizen anger inside the US is not only about Iraq nor just about the leak of classified information - i.e., the name of a US intelligence agent - and evidently by sources right there inside the White House, no less. This is not just about government-sponsored perversity at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib nor just Commander in Chief Bush's time-delayed response to a storm called Katrina. It's also not just war-making so elegantly combined with massive contracts gifted to political cronies, nor is it just the related hemorraging of the United States budget. It's not even just those fishy outcomes of two - count 'em 1, 2 - US elections. The problem is all these and more. Haven't Americans had enough of the dullard 'press conferences' combined with the lying, smirking, self-serving arrogance? And why has the outrage about this - overall - been far stronger in societies and countries other than our own??? Answer me that one. I'm checking a site, After Downing Street, where someone posted Bernard Weiner's fascinating piece, "Arguments for an Impeachment Resolution." Weiner has a site called The Crisis Papers. And I particularly like Jane Hamsher's quote at Huffington Post from one of her recent articles on investigator Patrick Fitzgerald where she remarks that Fitzgerald "... sees into the ugly, greedy, oozing heart of the NeoCon kleptocracy, its mafia-like structure and the all-too-cozy overlap between the war party and the profiteers..." Like I asked, haven't enough of us had quite enough of all this yet??

Hurricane WILMA Roaring toward Yucatan and South Florida

The US national hurricane center - based in Miami - is one of the best places I know to get latest info on hurricanes present and past. Only two days ago I warned weather scientists were tracking a new tropical depression in the Caribbean. I think it was #24 of the season. Now it's been named Wilma. Hurricane Wilma. Between then and today Wilma went from a depression to a tropical storm, and then overnight since yesterday from a Cat. 1 hurricane to the biggest, baddest Category 5 storm in tracking history. Haiti and Jamaica have already been hit. Central America seems about to be. This storm is currently on track to come aground somewhere along Mexico's Yucatan peninsula near Cozumel and over the coming weekend it may consume South Florida. That information and the course of this storm could change, which is why we need to pay attention and share information. If you have details to share about this storm and what's happening currently, please add them here as a comment. Between natural disasters and everything else going on all over this planet, around the world populations most likely to be affected need as many of their own people as possible - children, adults, women as well as men - to have the most appropriate and well-conducted disaster training and preparation that can be made available. I don't know all the parties out there responsible for things like this. But I do believe someone reading this does.

Shirkat Gah women's NGO earthquake relief

Pakistani women's resource centre Shirkat Gah is another NGO involved in earthquake relief and will appreciate your help. They are also associated with the JAC joint committee group mentioned in my last blog entry, and this info is from the same item on the website of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Shirkat Gah is based in Lahore (Pakistan) and the centre coordinator is Ms Farida Shaheed. Ms Shaheed advises that "Gulnar" at Shirkat Gah is the contact person or "focal point" for quake relief and she can answer questions. My advice before contacting them: keep in mind how swamped these folks must be. Gulnar's contact is: gulnar at sgah.org (dot) pk. Shirkat Gah has some good strategic advice on how to collect and send humanitarian assistance funds. This would apply to sending almost any donation. "If you are sending [relief assistance] money to Shirkat Gah, please email Gulnar to inform her of the amount, date and reference number of the remittance, so that we can email you to acknowledge receipt. We will send you updates whenever possible... bank transfer is best, rather than sending bank drafts and international cheques which take too long to clear. It would also be better for one person or group to collect money from friends or family to send in one go, rather send small individual transfers since the bank deducts too much money per transaction. Some Pakistani banks with overseas branch[e]s may agree to transfer the money without bank charges. At least some are doing so in the United Arab Emirates. Shirkat Gah's office in Peshawar is working with others in that area to deliver direct assistance to one particular village. If you want to support that effort, then please inform us." Send contributions to:

Account name: Shirkat Gah Women's Resource Centre
Account No. 3582-050996-001
SWIFT code: SCBLUS33, ABA CHIPS UID 057048
Standard Chartered Bank
1 Evertrust Plaza, Suite 1101 (11th floor)

Jersey City, New Jersey 07302 USA

With instructions for onward telex / swift remittance to:
Standard Chartered Bank
Karachi, Pakistan
Account No. 3582-050996-001 SWIFT CODE: SCBLPKKX
For further credit to:
Shirkat Gah
US$ Account No. 05-5307597-79
Standard Chartered Bank
New Garden Town
Lahore, Pakistan

NGO Sungi - Sending Help to South Asia Quake Survivors

Uh, note to Typepad admin: I have no idea where my earlier draft went but this is the second and final time I'm writing this entry... Obviously 2005 has been a helluva year for natural & "other" disasters. My "other" category includes certain disasters that arguably are largely 'masculine-made' yet which could not be executed without varying levels of indifference, tolerance &/or support from some women. In the Americas right this moment meteorologists are monitoring "tropical depression #24" of the 2005 hurricane season; #24 is potentially another future tropical storm &/or hurricane currently dumping tons of rain on Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. I'm checking the Women Living Under Muslim Laws website for a variety of other issues, including their take on sending aid to South Asia quake survivors. (Whether Darfur, Malawi, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guatemala, the Gulf Coast or Kashmir, I prefer to think of people as survivors and not just victims, and those who sadly have not survived are now sheltered in the hand of God.) WLUML's website advises: "... Pakistani human rights organisations in the Joint Action Committee for Citizens Rights (JAC) have banded together for the relief work, with the NGO [nongovernmental (non-profit/non-lucrative) organisation] Sungi in the lead. Sungi has previous experience with relief work since they started with a flood relief programme some decades ago. The organizations in the JAC have long worked with local communities in the region of the earthquake and are thus able to access remote villages through social networks that are not available to the military and large donor organizations. ..." Makes sense to me; so, alongside other options you have, you may want to consider contributing to the JAC combined relief effort directly by sending funds to the Sungi NGO:

Sungi Development Foundation

www.sungi.org
US Dollar account no. 412-2
Branch Code: 0585
MCB Start Branch Abbotabad
Swift Code: MUCBPKKAA

Sir Seek's Search Engine for Crises & Assistance

A kind and inventive reader has devised what "he" calls a "customized EMERGENCY-type search engine that links only to crisis situation type websites (like relief aide, evacuation planning layouts, crisis management setup and others relating to disasters caused by terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, disease and man-made war)..." The site is Crisis Search.com. Reader Sir Seek says he developed this project after Hurricane Katrina to assist in other disasters. He invites you to "... add related crisis blogs and websites to the database ..." More than a thousand sites have already been registered by their 'meta data' ("... meta tags for description, title and keywords..."). "Sir" also has external links "at the bottom of every search page" and a "... 'Suggestion Bot' that tries to suggest similar terms to use in further queries... Blogs/forums are on the way (... so people can find more personalized one-on-one advice/help) for people to post missing friends, family, pets or post about volunteering or ... strategies for emergency planning for current crisises or clean-up plans for past disasters." Thanks!

Bush: "Very important" to learn relationships between federal, state, local US Governments

George Bush says he "wants to learn" or understand the relationships between US federal, state and local governments as they pertain to national emergencies. He might have benefitted from a few US civics lessons and some neighborhood volunteer work (not including self-interested glad-handing to win some office for himself or one of his brothers or his dad). This issue is not just about national emergencies; and there is not much left of federal-state-local 'relationships' that once existed, after 30 years of political and financial attack, neglect & general dissing and destruction of progressive public policies. Oh. And not to mention a few assassinations of various national and local political leaders in the USA. Sad to say but in 2005, education, jobs, poverty, hunger, housing, and medical care have all long since become national emergencies themselves. Surprise, surprise. I fully realise this may be new and unfamiliar information to Mr Bush, even as he and his GOP Congress prepare to repeal the estate tax to help the "haves and have mores" - Bush's self-proclaimed base; while closing off bankruptcy options from the middle and working classes along with the poor.