Protesters sued

It’s about time. The wesboro “baptist church” has been out of control for quite some time. And I support the family who has chosen to sue them at this time.

Westboro has taken what it calls “love crusades” to military funerals across the country. The church was not protesting at the funeral because Ewens was gay, but because he died, in their view, serving a country that has incurred the wrath of God by accepting and tolerating homosexuality.

This so called “church” is filled with hate and judging eyes. What Bible they use is truly one they have altered. They represent nothing Christ like. And it’s a shame because they cannot and choose not to see the errors of their ways. It’s a family church which doesn’t help the cause any bit. Here in America we have such freedom when it comes to religion. A freedom we expect. And those like westboro choose to take advantage and abuse it. We can only pray for them. Because right now they cannot save themselves. They are too far down the road of destruction. Disguised as doing the Lord’s work. But anyone can clearly see, that the Lord would not be pleased.

For the first time since members of Westboro began protesting at military funerals, someone is using the courts to stop them. A distraught father has filed suit in Maryland against what he views as a gross violation of privacy and intentional emotional abuse.

Latisha Johnson-Wallace

Portuguese hip-hop

I listen to music almost everyday, and one of my favourite kinds of music is hip-hop. In Portugal, this is a relatively recent (more less fifteen years) and developing musical style, initiated by Da Weasel and Mind da Gap. The first ones are now, and after conquering the portuguese audience, a relative internationalization. Always acclaimed in portuguese music festivals, Da Weasel became famous after singles ‘Agora e para sempre (a paixão)’ and specially, years later, ‘Tás na boa’. After this rap/metal hit, Da Weasel released ‘Re-Definições’, their latest album, in which musics ‘Re-Tratamento’ and ‘Força (uma página de história)’ stand out.

Porto native Mind da Gap are a pure hip-hop group and therefore not as famous as Lisbon originated Da Weasel. Still they became popular after releasing ‘Todos gordos’ and ‘Dedicatória’. More recently ‘Bazamos ou ficamos?’ and ‘Não stresses’ carried on their great work. One of Mind da Gap members, Ace, has recently released his first single, ‘Cor de laranja’. Also from Porto are Dealema, a ten-year music group that isn’t still that successful nationwide. Still they’ve released very good songs like ‘Talento clandestino’ and ‘A cena toda’.

Rapper Boss AC has had a great increase in the last few years. After working with the famous american mixer Troy Hightower, Boss AC came and placed his mark on portuguese soil. After the relative successes ‘Baza baza’, ‘Quieres dinero’ and ‘Eu tou aqui’, his latest album, ‘R.A.P. (Ritmo, amor e palavras)’, has made him reach the national music top. Songs like ‘Hip-Hop (sou eu, és tu)’ and ‘Princesa (Beija-me outra vez)’ are huge successes in Portugal.

Somehow hidden in the national panorama are Sam The Kid, who’s recently released a new single, ‘Não percebes’ and Nel Assassin, the author of ‘O ideal’, among others. Now starting to appear are Angola rappers SP & Wilson, starting to gain fame with single ‘Arrebenta’. Also Guardiões do Subsolo appeared in the beginning of this year with a rap mix of the portuguese pop-rock band GNR. From them you can listen to ‘Popless’, their only single for the moment.

Rui Rocha

Russia’s Two Youths

Youth political activism in Russia is a tale of two youths. One stands in front of a line of police in riot gear in St. Petersburg, a black or red handkerchief over his nose and mouth to disguise his face. He is probably a member of Red Youth Vanguard (AKM), the National Bolshevik Party, an anarchist, or an environmentalist. He will most likely get beaten and then arrested. He will spend up to 10 days in jail or until the Russian authorities decide to release him.

In many ways he is lucky to get this far. Many activists protesting at the G8 Summit this past weekend, like St. Petersburg Natsbol leader Andrei Dmitriev and AKM leader Sergei Udal’tsov were victims of preemptive arrests. According to Kommersant, Udal’tsov was scooped up with several other AKMtsy and taken to Moscow, where they were then released. On June 13, Dmitriev was arrested and taken by bus to Tver Oblast, where he was kept incommunicado for more than a day. His relatives made a complaint to the Petersburg prosecutor arguing that his disappearance was “comparable to abductions in Chechnya.” Official charges against Dmitriev were never filed. He says that UPOB officers (the Department for the Struggle Against Organized Crime) told him that the leadership wanted him held until the end of the Summit. As of today the Russian State still holds 200 activists in prison without charges or for minor offenses of “disrupting the public order.” Such is the nature of youth political dissent in Russia.

The other Russian youth is currently at Lake Seliger in Tver Oblast at the second annual Nashi summer camp. Last year this time, 3,000 Nashi commissars met for festivities and training. This year the camp holds 5,000 Nashi members from over 50 cities. If last year’s camp more resembled the Soviet Pioneers, with Soviet songs drifting through the camp grounds and youths meeting with important officials from Putin’s government, this year’s Camp Seliger has taken more pages from the Soviet Komsomol rather than its younger charges. The youth at this Nashi Camp was treated to lectures in “Putin’s Domestic Policies” and the “Ideology of Vladimir Putin”. Putin has enjoyed a personality cult among the Nashisty from its inception. Adulations to Putin aside, the main focus of this years camp was much more nationalistic and militaristic. The main theme of the camp revolved around its new program called “Our Army,” which was adopted at Nashi’s Congress in April. Like the Komsomol before it, “Our Army” specifically looks to encourage youths to join the army. They even get a taste of army life at the summer camp. “We must explain to the entire generation that the question of whether to serve in the army or not does not have a right to exist,” says then Nashi leader Vasilii Yakemenko.

Providing paramilitary training to Nashi members immediately raises the systemic problem of dedovshchina. I won’t belabor this issue again since I’ve written about it several times before. It also can’t help Nashi’s cause when two more brutal cases of dedovshchina came to light this week. The Kremlin has done nothing but give lip service to the problem, and it seems that, according to the St. Petersburg Times, the trial of Private Sychyov assailants has hit a roadblock because on the prosecutions “star witnesses,” one Artyom Nikitin, has recanted his testimony. Sychyov was severely beaten six months ago to the point where his legs had to be amputated because they developed gangrene.

Still, the fear of dedovshchina among Nashisty is probably fairly low. You can’t sway the converted. For them, the culture of hazing in the Russian military is the result of a few bad apples and not a systemic culture that has been born, bred and tolerated, if not encouraged, but the authorities. Good, well trained and dedicated Nashisty, like their Komsomol forefathers, will simply solve the problem by their sheer presence in the armed forces. After all, members of “Our Army” being trained at Segiler are addressing the question of hazing so that “it will not occur.” After all, like in Soviet times, if the Party says “Надо!,” the Komsomol replies, “Есть!”

So there you have it, two youths. One anti-Putin to the core. The other ready and willing to act as his shield and dagger. There is a middle ground between them that is occupied by more moderate, and liberal forces. And like always, a mass of politically neutral, if not apathetic, Russian youth surrounding them all. We should not forget that even to Nashi’s right there are the skinheads and other anti-immigrant and racist youth groups like the Eurasian Youth League. These only help Nashi appear like they occupy the center and gave their antifascist slogans sincerity. In reality, they have more in common with these political undesirables than with the radical left.

While Nashi may conjure illusions to the Komsomol, the far left is not antithetical to the League’s history. Not all Komsomol members kowtowed to the Party. In fact, post-revolutionary militancy found a home in the organization. During the doldrums of the New Economic Policy in the 1920s, many Komsomols felt that the Revolution entered a Thermidor, as they were told to “learn” communism rather than fight for it; and to tolerate class enemies rather than liquidate them and throw their remains into the dustbin of History. The Bolshevik Party appeared moribund and conservative, and after Lenin died in 1924, many Komsomol youth felt it was them and not the Party that carried the true banner of Leninism. These were the youths often took to Trotsky’s message of anti-bureaucratism and the destruction of NEP. That is, until he was exiled and they were expelled in a wave of Komsomol purges in late 1920s. Ironically, these “bratishki” as they were called because of their adherence to Civil War methods, found solace when Stalin called on them to “liquidate the kulak as a class” and root out class enemies in his Revolution from Above. One gets the impression that if the tables were turned, and the Natsbols or the AKM were in the same position of power as Nashi, the Civil War myth of the bratishka would find a new audience.

Some may point to the fact that the present youth movement in Russia is marginal. Even Nashi has small numbers in relation to population. Enthusiasm, belief and will backed with power, however, can overcome most numerical deficiencies. The Komsomol was only 2 million in 1928 and it moved social, political, economic, and cultural mountains. Putin’s camp as well as Limonov’s seems to understand this.

Even if groups like Nashi and the Natsbols are hatched from the same historical ilk, they are as reconcilable as Cain and Abel. The Komsomol had to squash its opposition on both the left and the right, and I would imagine that Nashi will try to do the same. There is already some indication that they are already making an attempt, if last August’s attack on a meeting of radical left youths near Avtozavodskaya is any indication. One would also suspect that the far right will be gradually assimilated. Skins and Eurasian Youths are not a contradiction to Nashi’s ultimate goals; only their rhetoric is misguided.

As of now our two archetypical political youth are more standing face to face rather than fist to face. But opposing mass movements can’t withstand detente for long. Leftwing youth promise to push forward during the 2008 Presidential election. Nashi plans to push back and prevent any disruption of a smooth transition to Putin’s handpicked successor. As for the Russian security forces, they got to test out a variety of repressive methods this past weekend. In two years we just might see Nashisty next to them, cuffing and dragging away a Natsbol for a stint in the black hole of incommunicado.

Photos: Kommersant and Reuters.

Sean Guillory

Gender labor discrimination

Portugal lived in a fascist dictatorship for nearly five decades (1926-1974) and during that period the majority of women were simply relegated to domestic tasks, while men would work to provide for the family. After the April 25 “coup d’état”, discrimination-ending measures were taken and females could finally be a significant part in the now industrialized country. Legislation established their right to an equal access to work and salary in relation to men, but, more than twenty years later, the practical side still shows a not-slight discrimination in the portuguese society.

In 2002, 52% of the portuguese women between 20-24 years finished the secondary school education, against 35,4% of men. However, in 2005, only 61,7% of women were employed (against 73,4% of men), and only 3-5% integrated executive places in leading public companies. [...] Also they received less 15-20% of men wages. Still they spend per week an average 26 hours in domestic tasks (men only spend 7 hours), also having to take care of the children, of the sick and the elderly on their responsibility».

I believe this discrimination happens mostly because of pregnancy lack of legislation in my country. Portugal doesn’t have a pregnancy women protecting policy; frequently they are expelled from their job because someone (and men are preferred) can do it and therefore the firm has no costs…

Rui Rocha

Blasts in Bombay (Again, Dammit!)

My personal reaction as a Bombayite to the blasts.

Seven bombs on seven different commuter trains on the Western Railways went off within minutes of each other on Tuesday (7/11) evening. Apparently all in first-class compartments. Officially, there are hundreds of casualties. Unofficially, there are probably thousands – each compartment holds somewhere in the range of at least two hundred people when full. And it was rush hour, so the compartments were full. These bombers were no fools. No one has taken credit and the government and has once again shown its incompetence with crisis management.

Bombayites are rallying in this time of crisis to help each other and it is their tight social fabric that has saved the day. We are no strangers to bomb blasts. We are at our best in our darkest hour. Life will move on despite this. We WILL prevail.

It’s hard to know what to say or do sitting thousands of miles away. Should I skip my workout? It seems frivolous to be exercising for recreation when people are dying. I’ve been on those trains countless times. Even during the evening rush hour. For all you know, I may even have been standing next to one of those who died in the blasts, at some point. Scary as it sounds though, life must go on. Yes, I should workout. My life was not directly affected. And even in Bombay, everyone not directly affected by the blasts (and even some who were directly affected) will be going on with their usual lives as far as is possible. Some have no choice – it’s their livelhood at stake. Others have a choice and still go on. In ‘93, after the Stock Exchange was bombed, it reopened two days later and over the two days following that, stocks gained ten percent. That’s the indomitable Bombay spirit.

And then the usual non-resident Indian identity issues start to surface. I haven’t lived in the city for over a decade. My friends consider me “Americanized.” I am guilty of eating breakfast on the go, of attending (and enjoying) barbeques and even attending a yoga class taught by an American (that was a weird experience). Am I entitled to call myself a Bombayite? Well, this one’s easy. The answer’s yes. As trite as it may sound, you can take the man out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the man. It’s a cliche, I agree, but it is one only because it’s true. The city lives inside me and despite the geographical distance, I like to think that a piece travels around with me. A Western suburb of Bombay exists in a one-foot diameter around me. Call it Lower GreatGanesha-pokli. Ahhh, humor. The ultimate refuge in a time of crisis. It never lets you down.

Keep laughing, fellow Bombayites! No bomb blast is going to stop us.

Take a look here at Pajamas Media for a constantly updated collection of links on the media coverage. DesiPundit has done a good job of compiling peoples’ blog-posts on the subject. And click here at the Mumbai Help blog if you can help in any way. Go there anyway to see how Bombayites support each other in times of need. It never ceases to amaze me.

[Note: This was cross-posted on my blog. Apologies if you have already read it.]

The Great Ganesha

Great Future Ahead For Paralysed People

Scientists have successfully implanted a sensor in a paralysed man’s brain which enable him to open e-mail, play computer games, and pinch a prosthetic hand’s fingers just by thoughts.

These projects are very important, because there is real potential for helping people that have had severe neural disabilities.
The US team behind the sensor hopes its technology can one day be incorporated into the body to restore the movement of paralysed limbs themselves.

Other developments regarding this matter:

• 31 March, 2005 – A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind.

• 7 December, 2004 – Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes.

• 24 March, 2004 – A video game in which the character is controlled directly from a player’s brain without the need for wires has been developed by researchers.

Sources: BBC news

Andreas Evers

Train Blasts in India

A Wall Street Journal Reporter writes her first-hand account:

I left The Wall Street Journal office about five minutes before 6 p.m. local time and boarded a train at Church Gate station, heading home to my apartment in a western suburb of Mumbai. I went to the ladies’ compartment and stood among other passengers, waiting for a seat to open.

Binny Sabharwal

Just before Mahim station, I found one and sat down.

Moments later, I heard a huge explosion from another train passing on the next track. Our train shook violently. We came to a sudden halt and then I watched a thick cloud of smoke appear. A couple of girls standing near the doors said they saw the other train’s roof blown off. Debris floated everywhere. Then I heard a middle-age woman say, “Thank God, it wasn’t our train.” We all knew it was a bomb, but nobody knew that a series of blasts were erupting in trains across the city, killing at least 147 people. We all began calling on our mobile phones, jamming up cellular networks.

More at the International Herald Tribune.

Curtis Schweitzer

Plane crash in Pakistan: All passengers dead

A PIA Fokker plane crashed in Pakistan today killing all 45 people on board. According to a CNN report:

Eye witnesses said the 27-year-old plane spiraled in the air as it plummeted to the ground on the outskirts of Multan, about three kilometers (two miles) from the city’s airport, two or three minutes after take-off from the eastern city of Lahore. “There was a huge explosion after the plane hit the ground,” said Mohammed Nadeem who lives near the crash site. A nearby power line also caught fire. There were no survivors … and a female flight attendant who was pulled alive from the plane’s wreckage died later in hospital.

Although, at this point, the crash is being blamed on technical sources, there is an ominous history to planes flying out of Multan and blowing up in the sky–that is how the then military rules of the country, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, had been killed in 1988. Some are, therefore, raising eyebrows on the fact that, according to Gulf Daily News, “the passengers included two high court judges, a university vice chancellor and two military brigadiers.”

However, the more likely cause is that these are really old–and often rickety–planes. The Associated Press is already reporting the brewing controversy:

Khalid Hamza, the president of the Pakistan Airline Pilots Association, claimed the Fokkers in the PIA fleet — mostly used on less busy domestic routes — were aging and should be grounded. “I think these planes should have been grounded four, five years ago but perhaps the airline was waiting for such an accident,” [APP] quoted the airline’s deputy managing director Farooq Shah as saying that all of the planes — including the one that crashed — were airworthy, and that none of the remaining six had been grounded. Chaudhry Bashir, a PIA spokesman, said the crashed plane was inducted into the airline’s fleet in 1979. It had flown for 79,000 hours and was due to be grounded on completing 90,000 hours, he said. “No PIA plane can come on the runway before it has had a full maintenance,” he said.

The crash could put PIA’s safety record under close scrutiny. The airline has reported a number of emergency landings in recent years and in December 2004, several passengers on a domestic flight were injured when one of its jets suddenly dipped, fearing a mid-air collision with another plane. In August 1989, another PIA Fokker, with 54 people on board, went down in Pakistan’s Himalayan north on a domestic flight. The plane’s wreckage was never found.

More on this at Adil Najam’s blog ‘All Things Pakistan’ .All pictures from BBC.

Adil Najam

The biggest heart on Earth

The people only asked for the quarter-finals. They didn’t demand it. But the team became forth in the World. Fairly? I believe so, although the matches against England and France could perfectly have had a different result…

The portuguese participation in the World Cup is mostly characterized by an outstanding attitude from its players; moreover, the team has been awarded ‘The Most Entertaining Team’ for “racing more than any other team”. The squad summoned by Scolari, besides practically the same of the Euro 2004, isn’t so uniformly qualitative as some of this World Cup participants: the winner Italy, the disappointing Brazil and the spectacular Argentina. But our coach, certainly not the best in the World, is a great psychologist (somehow similar to the portuguese José Mourinho), and instills in his players a different feeling and a willingness to win that strengthen their performance in the field. This amazes specially who saw Miguel staring in a mediocre season, Maniche having two disastrous years, Costinha not having game rhythm since four months ago and Figo appearing to have lost pace at Inter Milan. In Germany, they all seemed two years younger, as if their careers didn’t have decreased since the european tournament in Portugal.

The portuguese squad was criticized for the alleged “dives” made by Cristiano Ronaldo and Maniche, mostly. This seems to be, unfortunately, one of today’s latin football characteristics, and may have costed to the winger winning the “Best Young Player” award. But not only the portuguese players should have been ‘crucified’; also Italian playmaker Totti exaggerated.

After the loss against Germany, an ultra-effective team in their last game, no less than 10.000 portuguese awaited the national heroes. Some in the airport, other in the National Stadium, where the team went afterwards, but all singing and agitating thousands of green and red flags, in an ambiance that just, as you can see, couldn’t make Scolari indifferent.

Rui Rocha

Perspectives on Gaza

This being one of the most diverse blogs I’ve ever participated in, let alone read, I thought that I could start a lively discussion on people’s thoughts and perspectives regarding the recent Israeli incursions into the Gaza strip. This being one of the most explosive and politically charged issues of the day, I can imagine that there is a wide gamut of opinions on the matter, and I think that it is precisely the sort of issue that this blog was created to foster discussion about.

Recent news in the region indicates that Israel has continued to put real military pressure on the Gaza residents as well as the political leadership of Hamas:

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel launched rapid-fire air strikes against Palestinian militants across the Gaza Strip on Sunday after rebuffing a proposed ceasefire by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Israel is threatening to expand its offensive unless militants release Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted in a cross-border raid on June 25, and halt rocket fire on Israeli cities.

At least three militants were injured in an early morning air strike near the Karni commercial crossing, Palestinian medics and police said.

I’ve written my thoughts about the matter before, and I would say that my prevailing attitude- which is a cautious support for curbing militant actions in the region- remains the same. Though I am sympathetic to the real humanitarian problems with the incursion, I have to admit that the blame seems to fall squarely on Hamas, who, believing that Israel will be forced to cease putting pressure on Hamas due to the outcry over the humanitarian crisis fostered by their incursion. Hamas realizes that the more the Israeli action harms the civilian population, the more likely they are to be pressured by various international groups to cease their attempt to recapture their soldier- a conflict that is a mere pretense for the larger war between Hamas and Israel that has been brewing for some time.

At the same time, Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilian targets- namely, the power plant and the infrastructure for water and other desperately needed resources- seems both inadvisable and ethically problematic. Although such actions no doubt ratchet up the pressure on the Hamas government, they do so not while avoiding collateral damage but by causing it. The legitimacy of these targets is certainly in question, and in a region where the civilian population has already been forced to undergo so much hardship, it seems like this sort of action is precisely the kind of thing Israel should carefully avoid.

There is a real danger in analyzing this conflict to adopt a view that does not recognize the complexities and failings of both parties. Those of my own political persuasion often times refuse to look at the real injustices the Israelis have visited upon the Palestinian population, but often in respose, those of differing views come close to painting Hamas as saints- or at the very least, acknowledging their crimes not in any real, honest way, but as a disclaimer that attempts to justify unfair demonization of Israel. Both paths, I think, are clearly no representative of the actual situation and the complexities inherent in it, but also merely fuel in the fire, feeding the conflict rather than working toward a real solution.

I would very much like to hear the opinions of other bloggers on this site, and I hope that we can have a calm, civil, and rational discussion on the matter.

Curtis Schweitzer