Kasztanka, Polish Marshal Józef Piłsudski's favorite combat mare, was stuffed upon her death in 1927 and after World War II was destroyed, allegedly on the orders of Piłsudski's enemy, Marshal Michał Rola-Żymierski.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
the real news: US military enforces attacks on Haitian unions
TheRealNews — May 01, 2010 — Didier Dominique : Haitian elite want to go back to cheap textile labor and destroying national food production
I will admit I haven't been following the situation in Haiti very much, so I don't know how to intelligently comment on what Dominique says. Having said that, I don't doubt that Haiti's so-called elite want to hold on to a corrupt status quo, and that historically the US has had a pretty messed-up relationship with Haiti. Dominique's organization is at www.batayouvriye.org.
"I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking," Carlos Castillo said he told the group's leader, Laura Silsby, during a meeting Friday.
Four hours later, Silsby and nine other Americans were turned back from the border. They were arrested and taken to a jail in Port-au-Prince.
"This woman knew what she was trying to do was not legal," Castillo said.
A CNN reporter attempted to get reaction to Castillo's comment from the jailed Americans, but they would not discuss the matter, responding to questions by singing "Amazing Grace" and praying.
Innocents abroad, sneaking across the Dominican border edition
OK, what's with all these damn quotation marks? Even the BBC and Raw Story? And is it really the fault of the (undoubtedly vile) interpreters? Who says so, and why doesn't the CNN headline read,
And, from Global Saskatoon, Parents reclaim children in Haiti adoptions,(Reuters, sans quotes. It's also the only story listed here that discusses the issue of psychological trauma the children may be experiencing, unless the AFP stories are truncated, as wire stories often are.)
In the Montreal Gazette story, the writer observes
Haiti's police said some of them were handed over voluntarily by their parents. A woman at police headquarters who said she was the mother of five of the children said a local pastor acting as an intermediary told her they would have a better life if they went with the missionaries.
That may well be true, but a decent person must realize that duress is a factor here. Even if, as the story goes on to state, the Americans thought they were doing 'God's work', you'd think God would encourage them to wait a few months and realize that "asking" to give the children an "opportunity" for a better life under the present circumstances amounts to preying on the families while they are in an exceptionally vulnerable state.
The above video is from the summer of 2007, when undoubtedly many people shared Lori Harfenist's sentiment that a magical political solution to all that ails us was around the corner. While it seems to me we've run out of magic I imagine for many, more corners are around the corner.
As you may know Howard Zinn died this past week. Avedon Carol notes that his Peoples' History of the US is available online, here.
One of Zinn's last public writings was a brief essay, published recently in The Nation, about the first year of the Obama administration:
"I've been searching hard for a highlight," he wrote, adding that he wasn't disappointed because he never expected a lot from Obama.
"I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president - which means, in our time, a dangerous president - unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction."
If Zinn were alive I wonder if he would be troubled by the rush to adopt Haitian kids. Undoubtedly many of them have become orphaned, but surely securing everybody's safety and health is more important right now, and fit prospective parents aren't the sort who will get bored waiting to see if infant x is really orphaned, and decide not to adopt and get new kitchen appliances instead. It's as if small children are Haiti's last natural resource to be appropriated by Americans looking to make a buck.
Sam Smith of The Progressive Review is not a new writer, but he's new to me. Here's an essay seemingly calculated to give Bob from Pacifica vertigo: "Friends in High Places: Obama and the American Oligarchy" Longish but worthwhile.
TV reporter/newsreader Melissa Francis of MSNBC says she's "all for small government"(video, 1:45-1:47) in this odd exchange [video link] with Judd Gregg. I thought reporters weren't supposed to weigh in like that, but I guess with Obama praising Reagan at every opportunity and generally kneeling before conservative bromides wherever they are offered, it's OK to say things like that now, and they are no longer "political."
