Archive for
August 1st, 2006
Stories
Cuba: FidelWatch
The Miami Herald's RSS feed is buzzing today with reports of Miami's Cuban community and their anticipation of the death of Fidel Castro, in light of Castro's announcement yesterday that he was temporarily ceding presidential power to his brother Raúl “due to ‘an intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding' that required ‘complicated surgery'.” Martin at Blogbat posts photos of Cubans in Miami waving flags and placards from the windows of cars. Scores of bloggers throughout the world, of all political persuasions, are posting about Castro, of course; but of the Cuba-based bloggers on my blogroll, only Zenia of regalado.blogia.com, a journalist based in Pinar del Rio, notes the incident, writing (ES) early this morning that:
A proclamation from Fidel bearing his signature was just read on national television, saying that the Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, Raúl Castro, would be taking over his duties on a provisional basis, due to his convalescence from intestinal surgery.
The document was read at 9:15pm and left additional instructions about the principal programs of health and education, to name a few.
Mácrom habita… El Árbol Hueco posts a copy of the proclamation (ES), along with some get well wishes and expressions of solidarity (and here's an English-language translation of the proclamation from Cuban newspaper Granma).
Solana Larsen, a “Danish-Puerto Rican journalist/activist” based in New York, manages to catch an interview with the president of the Cuban parliament on a visit this morning to a hardware store, and notes that:
Reportedly, no one in Cuba seems [to think] he will die yet (80th birthday celebration postponed until December) but the international media is awash with speculations he might croak. . . .
As unhappy as some Cubans are about the political situation, I have yet to meet anyone in Cuba who think the United States holds the solution to their problems. More common (if unlikely) were fears that the US would somehow turn Havana into the next Baghdad when Castro dies.
Considering the beleaguered history between these two countries, it’s simply impossible to believe the US truly has the best interests of Cubans at heart. Even the guy at the hardware store shook his head and muttered, “The US trades with China, Eastern Europe, with everyone. But they just let those people in Cuba suffer.”
“As you can imagine, rumors are rampant right now within circles of the Cuban-American community,” writes Cuban-American blogger Babalu , who has been posting regular updates with links to other blogs and news sources, including one from Redstate indicating that yesterday's statement by the Cuban government may have been made after the surgery and not before. “This,” says Babalu, “is an interesting development indeed.”
Jeremy Taylor, writing from Trinidad, offers a Caribbean's-eye-view perspective:
The coming transition in Cuba is going to be very significant for the Caribbean. With 11 million people, the island has twice the population of all the English-speaking Caribbean states put together. A de-revolutionised Cuba would present an enormous new market and give every tourism operation in the region some very serious competition. And if the US invoked a military option to reverse more than fifty years of Castroism, well . . . who knows what turmoil the Caribbean could find itself in?
American Dictionary
There is a persistent myth which says that, save Brazil and a few indigenous communities, Latin America speaks a singular, uniform language. In fact, the Castilian Spanish carried over by explorers, colonialists, missionaries, and migrant workers throughout the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries was diverse in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Independence struggles, 20th century nationalism, and contemporary influxes of Italian, Japanese, Arab, Chinese, Jewish, and German immigrants further individuated each country's own variety of what was once “Cervantes' language.”
Furthermore, Latin Americans are as unified in their love of idiomatic and colloquial speech as they are divided over what those slang words and expressions should refer to. In Mexico, ask for cajeta and you're in for a lovely treat. In Argentina and Uruguay you'll likely get a slap in the face. Inversely, pendejo is a harmless word in Argentina, referring to a young kid who knows no better. But in Mexico the word could potentially evoke a fist fight.
Blogging, more often than not, is a vernacular literature and, as such, regional expressions sometimes act as a dividing wall between what would otherwise be an international (or at least continental) audience.
María Pastora, a Chilean blogger and OhmyNews citizen reporter, has long been aware that not all of her readers understood the local slang words, or “modismos,” that would often pepper her blog posts.
Quizás algunos conocían un blog que creé llamado Diccionario Chilensis, donde enlazaba el significado de aquellas palabras que los extranjeros no entenderían.
The lexicon in blog format served as a useful resource for non-native Chileans wanting to learn local words and expressions without being overwhelmed all at once. But why limit the concept to just Chilean speech?
Un buen día mi amigo Bruno Ortiz me pregunta si puede replicar la idea, pero para palabras de origen peruano… y automáticamente pensé: ¿por qué no hacer un diccionario conjunto?
La idea piloto se llamó Diccionario Chilensis-Peruanus, pero después yo seguí con mis ideas locas y le propuse de que sumáramos a otros latinoamericanos con esta motivación: Fernando Marino-Aguirre (Argentina), Erich Moncada y María José “Pepé” Enríquez (ambos de México). Hay otra persona que está por entrar, de Perú y esperamos que de otros países quieran cooperar con esta idea descabellada.
The pilot idea was called Chilenese-Peruanuse Dictionary, but afterwards I continued with my crazy idea and proposed to him that we get other Latin Americans to join the initiative: Fernando Marino-Aguirre (Argentina), Erich Moncada and María José “Pepé” Enríquez (both from México). There is another person who is about to enlist, from Peru, and we hope that other countries will want to cooperate on this crazy idea.
Since Pastora's introductory post, Brazilian cyber-journalist and lecturer Ana María Brambilla has also joined the team.
The project gained an unexpected boost when it was mentioned by A-list blogger José Luis Orihuela (ES) in eCuaderno. Orihuela also reminds (ES) readers of Jergas de Habla Hispana, a database of Spanish slang maintained by Roxana Fitch. Jergas de Habla Hispana appears to be a more thorough resource while Diccionario Americano would likely appeal to readers hoping to learn just a few words each day.
Trinidad & Tobago: Replant the land
Attillah Springer has been an active and vocal participant in the movement protesting the establishment of an aluminium smelter in a community in southern Trinidad. Here, from her Flickr page, is an image taken during a tree-planting exercise undertaken in the area back in June:
A Union villager looks on at part of the 1000 acres of land that was cleared over a year ago to make way for the Union Industrial Estate. Dust from the cleared land caused serious respiratory problems for residents. Villagers and other anti-smelter protestors staged a direct action tree planting on June 15, Corpus Christi, the traditional first day of planting in Trinidad and Tobago.
International Military Tattoo 2006
By now, most of us living in Brunei has seen the International Military Tattoo 2006 either live from the Stadium Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah or on national tv station RTB. However, for those who missed it, here is an excellent review of the wondrous occasion, well equipped with pictures, written by our very own Miss Monkeyfruit, fresh off the monkey tree!
Lebanon: Qana II on the Third Week of Israeli War on Lebanon
The war Israel is waging on Lebanon continues to be the focal point of most bloggers in the Lebanese blogosphere. For the third week the posts cover topics such as experiences, expectations and reflections on this situation. This week culminated with the tragic bombing of a shelter in Qana by the Israelis. This incident caused indignation by most bloggers that was reflected in their posts.
Amal as usual expresses her anger and sorrow about the calamity that befell Qana in the following drawing:
Sophie asks in one of her posts: Are Qana's children screams as they are dying Rice's “Pangs of Birth” of her New Middle East?
Pierre Tristam writes an article titled: Massacres at Qana, When “Never Again” Needn’t Apply to Lebanon, in which he brings to our attention the massacre at Qana, ten years ago, by the Israelis before giving his analysis of the one that occurred this week.
Dr. Victorino reflected on the incident saying:
Today, in the early hours of the morning, Tzahal’s noble knights rode over Qana in their shining US-made, US-equipped, and US-paid fighter jets.
It was Sunday, the day of worship in gentile Christian culture.
And Qana is the place where this “weird Jesus cult” started when the beloved King Herod ruled over Israel.
Poland's Pulse in the Blogosphere
Gushers of cool at the local Mall in Warsaw - by Embe, WarsawDaily
Poland is a hotspot in a few ways this week. While the heatwave is starting to take its toll on fan stocks (Warsaw seems to be sold out of them), Blog from Poland reports on the annual outdoor rock concert called “Woodstock Stop”. Touted as the largest European music festival, The Woodstock Stop (repeat that 5 times fast!) will attract an estimated 400,000 people — I suppose this is where all the “fans” went?
The Woodstock Stop (Poland)
Far from the peace, love, and piwo, but no less the hotspot, As the Warsaw Crow Flies blogs about a live re-enactment of the Warsaw Uprising:
My inside man tells me the battle begins at 4pm with 'some' fighting expected in the streets near the Fort Legionów.
And while the ‘real-deal' fighting continues in Lebanon, Our Man in Gdansk, identifies some “uncritical acceptance” of the Israeli strategy by Poland's largest newspaper:
“Lebanese Children want to be Martyrs” is the surprising headline in Friday's Gazeta Wyborcza. The subhead: “Thousands of children are the victims of Hezbollah's war with Israel [not Israel's war on the Lebanon]. In photographs from the Lebanon one sees mostly the dead or those injured after the explosion of bombs. But most of them are those with sick souls.” I don't recall such sickly moralising accompanying the same newspaper's publication of a photograph of Israeli children writing messages on the bombs used to kill their Lebanese neighbours.
Links for Tue, 2006-08
Williamlong reports that feedburner website is finally blocked in China after technocrati (zh).
Neema from One Billion Users reports a provincial government sponsored project, “Zhejiang Province Farmer's Mailbox”, which allow farmers to send free p2p SMS and e-mails.
ESWN translates an article written by Li Datong, the former editor of the Freezing Point supplement in China Youth Daily, about the erosion of precondition of media control in China.
On the basis of “information received directly from Cuba,” Fort Worth, Texas-based Dr. Eloy González identifies the location where Fidel Castro is said to be hospitalised.
Zenia reports from Cuba (ES) that “a message from Fidel was read at 645pm — Cuba time — during the information round table on Televisión Cubana, in which he made it known that known that in due course the Cuban people would be given details of the progress of his convalescence, as was the case the time he fractured his knee. . . . “
“Those rejoicing in the streets of Miami could do well to rethink their jubilation,” says Curzon as he posts an excerpt from a profile of Raúl Castro, the brother of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, to whom the latter temporarily passed presidential power on Monday night. According to Curzon's profile, Raúl is “regarded as more hardline than his brother”.
“As the hemisphere’s worst-ever dictator slides into death’s embrace, the mainstream media sweetly qualifies the Monster of Havana, one of the century’s worst tyrants, as a ‘maverick’ and other crap,” writes A. M. Mora y Leon in the opening paragraph of a post which includes several links to commentary on the Fidel Castro situation and gives special mention to the coverage by Babalu Blog.
Nick Tay has photos of The Scorpions' free concert in Ulaanbaatar's Sukhbaatar Square.
James discusses the growing involvement of Tajik women in Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an Islamist organization in which they were earlier only peripherally involved.
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