Archive for
July 4th, 2006
Stories
Mexico's 2006 Elections
In what has already been a year of crucial and close elections throughout Latin America, one would think that Mexico's day at the polls would be treated by bloggers as just one more game in a long tournament to be followed by major political contests in Brazil, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. But, “just one more game” couldn't be further from an accurate description of the bombardment of online content surrounding Sunday's election, which so far has yet to produce an official incumbent. Bloggers throughout the region, but especially in Mexico, decided that they would play an instrumental part in documenting this year's tightly contested election (ES) and that is exactly what they have done.
Though Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) says that official results won't be made available until Wednesday, Erwin Cifuentes, like many, notes that conservative candidate Felipe Calderón holds a one percent lead over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) with 98% of the votes counted. Cifuentes, who wonders if the results would have differed had fourth place candidate Patricia Mercado not run, also takes a comprehensive look at English-language press and blog commentary on the elections. (Ana Maria Salazar, by the way, in a post titled “AMLO lost because of Patricia?” believes that “few of those voting for Patricia would have necessarily voted for AMLO.”
As I type, however, it appears that the one percent margin between Calderon and AMLO could be reduced to .64% as Eduardo Arcos explains:
Sounds of Africa
As you read this the World Cup is in it's Semi Final stages with Italy knocking the host Germany out. So far it has been a wonderful festival of football with heroes created and reborn. Ghana made it to the last 16 and made all of us proud. Other African countries, notably Ivory Coast, played good football. I can't remember a World Cup like this and we have to thank the Germans for their excellent hosting. South Africa 2010 bring it on. Welcome to my twelveth African music roundup where I examine and highlight some of the digital chatter about African Music.
Fox of FoxOnTheRun drops a post about a twenty-year old memory and a changing neighbourhood:
“The jerseys represent a who's who of international soccer and national colors. as dusk settles in - the social scene moves to the parking lot. ghana has made it through the group stage. the spirit is lively. an african summer party in the central ohio suburbs -where only the upper can afford to live. the alien music from the canal st kiosks re-appears. all the current sounds in african rap, dance hall, and reggae are represented. man this city has changed.”
Russia: State Duma Deputy's Journal
Yevgeniy Roizman, 43, is more than just a Russian State Duma deputy. He is also the founder of Russia's only privately-owned religious icon museum (called Nevyanskaya Ikona, 600 works); has been collecting works of Ural painters (2,000 so far) and is building a museum in Yekaterinburg to house them; is co-founder and ex-president of the City Without Drugs Fund (Gorod Bez Narkotikov); was involved in creating a support network for the regional orphanages that didn't rely on the state money; co-founded a successful jewelry business. He is also an athlete, father of three daughters, and the author of two poetry books. He is rumored to have been involved in criminal activities in the past. He has a website, in Russian. And a blog, also in Russian.
Below are translations of several entries from Roizman's blog, picked almost at random, dealing with his current work as the elected representative of Yekaterinburg region.
http://roizman.livejournal.com/185784.html
A woman we'd helped (arranged pension for her grandson) came by . She brought us pancakes and a can of strawberry jam.
***
http://roizman.livejournal.com/185245.html
Spent half a day working in Artyomovskoye. A neglected town. A few situations have touched me pretty forcefully.
A letter with 34 signatures. Radio plant workers, mainly women, salary around 2,500 [rubles a month; roughly $90). Paid irregularly.
[…]
A [young woman] lived with her husband, bought an apartment. Two small children. Husband's mother moved in. Fights began. At some point, beating occurred. She escaped with children. All sides had their wounds certified. After a year, husband and his mother filed a lawsuit against her. Lawyers recommended and she filed one, too. All three were tried simultaneously. Were plaintiffs and defendants at once. All three are now with criminal record. The girl lives in a dorm with the children. Earns 1,700 [rubles a month; roughly $60). Spends 1,000 [rubles a month; roughly $35] for kindergarten. Husband hasn't been paying alimony for two and a half years. We'll definitely help.
Pakistan: Blog-o-timewarp
I write to you this week from the future. This post which was due about three weeks back is actually being written on time, somewhere around the 2nd week of June. So please don't think this a lame excuse for my procrastination because I actually have discovered an internet based worm hole that time warps me between the future and the past.
I accidentally discovered this time-space orifice after consuming three cans of Red Bull, one litre bottle of Coke and 8 capsules of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. I found myself hurtling into cyberspace three weeks into the future, which is where I am now, which incidentally, happens to be your present. Have I lost anyone yet? Good, I'm glad you are coming with me on this one.
Now to business. This week's episode of my Pakistan update consists of links that I selected in hyper-speed (which happens to be another advantage of the time-travel phenomena but I digress).
Fountainhead as always writes about what most don't dare address; Jaded presents her wonderful travelogue of Spain (be sure to read the later entries); Windmills highlights the cure for all maladies; Suspect Paki discusses American Ethics (be cautioned that this is an R-rated rant, so children and G.W.Bush must be accompanied by an adult while reading this post); Sami Shah (Karachi's very own actual stand-up comedian) presents the real reasons behind the current works of Karachi Municipality; Glasshouse presents some interesting titbits from Pakistani newspapers (I think he might have meant ‘Tidbits' but considering that he is highlighting politics, it might actually be titbits); I present my Neoconic revised version of the American national anthem; and finally I would also like to highlight my recent photoblog adventures as evidence of some semblance of my sanity.
I think the above links are sufficient for this week's perusal of Pakistani blog wares. I shall return again with an exciting post very soon. I will now experiment with the time warp (with the aid of large polo mallet) and travel back in time and do a post for GV, in which case you don't have to look forward to it as you probably have already read it.
Polish Blogosphere Update
With missionary zeal The Poland Pulse blogs about the latest English camps coming to Poland. By no means clandestine, the camp project to convert Catholic women to a less formalistic Christianity hopes to demonstrate that:
…following Christ is much more than going to church and paying homage to a religious icon.
Now if that ain't taking a swipe at Polish Catholicism (watch out Radio Maria!).
Swipes aside, kicking is king (sorry Jesus) for some Catholics, and boo describes the familial ambivalence of watcing (from a Catholic country) her Protestant team loose to a(nother) Catholic country. Perhaps sympathetic to her World Cup woes, gs says in the comments section:
One fundamental problem with the way the World Cup is organised is that there are many more teams that get eliminated compared to the number of teams who end up winning (1).
But hey, defeat is part of life isn't it? In fact, according to The Real Warsaw, the little (or, little-ish) failure inside each of us needs to rear its head in order for success to be possible at all. So go ahead, awaken the failure within…
That is… unless you live in Poland, in which case failure seems to be mainlined directly into political culture. And looking like failure on steriods, lawmaker Renata Beger was convicted of forging her electoral petition list. Like it was stated, a little failure can prompt positive results, as the beatroot has launched the tongue-in-cheek Polish Pro-Corruption Party with Ms. Beger as its leader. An appropriate motto: “Nothing succeeds like failure.”
That’s the Poland blogopshere update! Until next time - Do widzenia y po widzenia!
Manila flip-flops on sex education
Education officials of the Philippines decided to pull-out modules on sex education after the powerful Catholic Church opposed the teaching of sex in schools.
The Philippines has a high population growth rate. Studies from the academe also point out that teens are becoming sexually active at earlier years. The Philippines is also the only Catholic-dominated country in Asia.
Despite the resistance from Church hierarchy, education officials want to continue distributing sex education modules in public schools this year. They agree to temporarily remove the modules to consult more people, including religious leaders, on how to teach the delicate subject to students.
Meanwhile, Senator Pia Cayetano defended the teaching of reproductive health in schools saying this promotes the “general well-being and health of the people.”
Buwahyahman described the Church opposition to sex education as “a kind of medieval thinking that promotes ignorance rather than enlightenment.”
Bishop Oscar Cruz in his blog, Viewpoints, recommended the following:
“Sex education especially with its human dimension and moral consideration are better left to the parents of the students—the father and the mother themselves giving formational sex education to their boy and girl children respectively.”
Sex education is also a topic in the government’s forum section in its official website.
Links for Tue, 2006-07
David Weber from Japundit blogs about the Kamogawa Odori which is a geisha dance performance presented in the late spring in the Pontocho district of Kyoto (with many photos).
A citizen reporter from Taiwan blogs about his experience on the July 1st demonstration this year in InMediaHK. The writer has joined the July 1st rally for three years hoping to find out what is the meaning of citizen movement in Hong Kong and the substance of local social movement apart from universal suffrage. He observes that the demonstrators had strong sentiment against the bureaucratic government but the “anti-” stand may result in an “dis-identification” process (zh).
In a post tiltled “I am a dad again” the blogger at Notes from the Peanut Gallery talks about how he got hooked into Tamagotchi world after taking care of his daughter's creature for a while.
Cambodia is mobilising gay men to help raise awareness about AIDS. Cambodia has one of the highest infection rate in South East Asia. Vutha in Cambodia has more details.
ESWN blogs a series of striking photos from BBS wenxue city on the pollution of the long river, also known as Chang Jiang and Yangtse River.
Yesterday (July 4) an earthquake (5.1 Richter scale) occurred in Hebei region. Zhang blogs about his 2 seconds earthquake experience and wonders why China earthquake administration did not forecast it (zh).
Makzhou in Human-error processor blogs about his experience in body check, his package was 275 yuan (around USD35) and there was a long queue. During his body check, he found out that the hospital only received 10% of its revenue from the government (zh).
Andrés Duque has a thorough summary of pride parades from around Latin America, including a disturbed observation of the use of blackface imagery in Colombia.
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