Marian's Blog

The colour of sub-prime, & trans-Atlantic cash

We're back from the wilds of day-to-day reality! And today we're blogging from a handheld device. Chatted with 'techie guru' Jason, who also blogs. He had us both cracking up laughing as simultaneously we realised there's so much absurdity now going on daily that for some of us it's almost impossible to pick what to write about. How about "trans-Atlanticism in the 'hood", as France's largest bank, BNP Paribas, temporarily shut down investor access to three BNP private-investor funds linked to U.S. so-called 'sub-prime' mortgage lending. (Pretty obviously, just like decent health care and access to quality public education, home ownership is yet another part of the "American dream" fable never really intended for nor widely available to certain Americans.) Here's a tip: look for the zillions of local stories behind the "subprime" story. This is about scores of Black American families and neighborhoods, in particular, scandalously ill-served and thoroughly exploited in this disaster. We are so far from "forty acres and a mule", it's not even funny. (Little discussed today, 40 acres and 1 mule were proposed to be awarded by the U.S. government to our finally liberated, formerly enslaved Black American ancestors. Ultimately a U.S. president rejected even this gesture.)

Hope somewhere in our humanity: Hermann Hesse to Teilhard de Chardin

We're off to an outdoor concert of jazz - "Black classical music" (my term since my 1975 Penn State radio show). In the midst of what I witness and write about in this blog, each day I'm on my own search for 'what helps us' - me especially - to become more fully human. Among the people, thinkers, writers, etc. I admire, whose actions, utterances and writings have influenced me, is the late French writer - Teilhard de Chardin. I came across an archived article at WIRED (Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg, June 1995) on de Chardin and development of a "Net-based" global consciousness and how even 51 years after his death in 1955 de Chardin's thoughts connect to and continue to develop with this consciousness that's making itself real, as we Black Americans might say.

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.

Google smacked by Virus??

Has Gmail been slapped by another virus?? I was just reading Internet reports they were hit last week. Now I keep getting a 502 server error. Earlier today a family member in a different time zone emailed to say "they" could not access gmail and I was replying this was strange since mine was ok. Well now it's not. Tech definitely is a trip: great when it works, "puzzling" (at best) when it doesn't, and critical to always have backup. Wish I could remember all those folks from Google whom I met at Blogher. As if they could do anything (smile)...

Niger - Donate to World Food Programme: Easy as sending an SMS

I just sent an SMS that donates 100% of my contribution to the WFP. Here's just about all the info you need to donate directly to the World Food Programme.  Niger is one of the world's regions we know is most in need right this moment of immediate financial aid to provide food -- that plus some serious-as-a-heart-attack guards to stop those men in refugee & feeding camps who beat and bully women and children in order to grab emergency food supplies. I think direct grassroots contributions like this are faster and more reliable than the endless cycle of fighting, convincing, and/or working with our governments to share resources with starving people. We need to do both, but people - especially infants, children, nursing mothers and the elderly - need to eat at least one decent portion of food every day. The WFP is based at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - known as "the F-A-O" or "faow" - in Rome, Italia. This info is right here on the WFP website: "The fastest way to help WFP's fight against hunger is an online donation by credit card. You can also donate in the following ways. Please note that, for now, only contributions by US taxpayers are tax-deductible. CHEQUES AND POSTAL ORDERS - ... are welcome in any major currency and should be made out to the World Food Programme. Please send with the printed version of the coupon available online by clicking here [the 'click here' only works directly from the WFP website. The info given & requested is: "I would like to give to WFP operations in (fill in the blank). NAME: ... ADDRESS: ... City: ... Country: ... Postal Code: ... - [WFP] Resources and Mobilization Service: TEL: +39 06 6513 2411 FAX: +39 06 6513 2810 or +39 06 6513 2071; resourcesnospam@wfp.org "] "or include a piece of paper with the same information. Depending on where you live, the cheque and coupon should be sent to:

United States US Friends of the WFP PO Box 11856 Washington , D.C. 20008 Japan Japan Association of WFP Minatomirai 1-1-1, Nishi-ku Yokohama 220-0012 Japan Rest of the world Director, FDP Resources Division WFP - Via Cesare Giulio Viola, 68/70 00148 Rome - Italy

BANK/POSTAL TRANSFER

WFP has accounts in three countries – depending on where you live, please use one of the following options for national/international transfers.

United States Bank/Stock Transfers For transfers, either send an e-mail to info@friendsofwfp.org or call +1 202 530 1694 Japan Bank Transfers For transfers, call +81 45 2212510 Italy and Rest of the World : Bank/Stock Transfers For transfers, either send an e-mail to resources at wfp.org or call +39 06 6513 2316 Note: we would very much like to thank you for your donations, so please send an e-mail to resources @ wfp dot org with the donation amount and your current contact information (name, address, e-mail address). Alternatively you can send a letter to the Italy address in the option above.

OTHER WAYS TO DONATE

SMS: in selected countries, you can also donate by SMS. This list is constantly growing so please check back regularly to see new countries have been added. And spread the word!

Australia: text the word DONATE to 19932222. You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged AU$5.00 South Africa : text the word DONATE to 31009. You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged R5 UK: text the word DONATE to 81333 - You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged £1.50 United States: text the word DONATE to 33133 - You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged US$1.99

Free-dial Japan number : please use our free dial number 0120-496-810

For more information: please contact one of the following depending on where you live:

United States
info -at- friendsofwfp.org
Tel: +1 202 530 1694
Fax: +1 202 530 1698
www.friendsofwfp.org

Japan
Tel: +81 45 2212510
Fax: +81 45 2212511
www.jawfp.org

Italy
resources -at- wfp.org
Tel: +39 06 6513 2316
Fax: +39 06 6513 2810
http://www.wfp.org/

Samsung's New 7-Megapix Cameraphone

English-language news website Yonhapnews based in Korea says here Samsung is scheduled to debut a new 7 megapixel camera phone at the CeBIT conference happening this week in Hannover, Germany. I'm impressed, but most of us don't have a clue what price they'll be charging us when it finally comes to local shops. If anyone knows please give us a holler.

Skype & Motorola Meet Up

Skype Partners With Motorola

(Via Mobiledia) Mon 14 Feb 2005, 2:43pm: "Motorola and Skype Technologies, the Global Internet Telephony Company, today announced their intention to work together on a co-marketing collaboration that will provide greater connectivity options and access for Skype's more than 25 million registered worldwide users. ..." Read all about it.

p.s. - About the cell phone

In my comparison of phone offerings in the U.S. vs. Europe I didn't mean to confuse anyone. I bought a motorola cell phone [as part of t-mobile service "package"] yesterday in the USA... Actually in Washington [DC].

Just to make things perfectly opaque.

Cell phones, & The doctor is In: the Democrats' new Chair

Face it, I am waaaay behind in uploading more photos to my albums. Other than that right now I'm on-the-road with all that that entails.

Now for my cellular phone aside: due to an emergency, yesterday I had to get myself a new cell phone. I temporarily broke with our Nokia family tradition and conceded to T-Mobile's Motorola pressure. It's been eons since we had a Motorola in the house. So ok it's a cute little phone. (Fluff: Aside from the telephony I wanna see what kind of photos it takes. My first phonecam - should I be ashamed for finally giving in?)

Getting a cell phone in Europe is not like in the U.S. (Thank goodness.)

In Europe you may buy/borrow your cell phone separate from your phone service plan. Sorry folks but in the U.S. I fail to notice the democracy. There is virtually no choice - either you opt for one of the cell phones/phone-PDAs sold by your service provider or you end up with no phone.

Now to Howard Dean. I like what pinko feminist hellcat has to say so I'm linking her. I just hope Dean meets and actually learns something from some of us Black Democrats - and not just one time while running to another event. I hope he also pays attention to all the Dems' constituencies and to all Americans, and also to other folks in and outside the U.S. of A.

Feedmarker - some say like del.icio.us + bloglines

I found out about Feedmarker from Hashim Warren's list at 43 Things. It's free and it "lets you bookmark items from the Web and read RSS and Atom feeds. It also lets you organize all your stuff (feeds and marks) using an open tagging system." Hashim says it's like del.icio.us + bloglines. Go for it.