International News
Or, as Stephen Colbert might say, stuff you don't care about. But I find it interesting.
Riots in France. As the news keeps telling us, these riots are happening in largely North African immigrant neighborhoods. They're not really about the two boys' accidental deaths running from police - that was just the trigger. A lot of Americans think of France as a postcard place, when we're not busy being cranky at them for stupid reasons. I know I was startled, even in college French, to learn France has class and racial tensions, ghettos, and hip-hop music. We watched a movie, La Haine (pronounced lah ehn, meaning Hate) about young men in the Paris projects who viewed the police as persecutors and racists. They had few prospects or opportunities, and had to keep on guard against both police and skinheads. I can't say that I've kept up on what's been happening since that movie was made in 1995, but it casts a not-so-flattering light on the "zero tolerance" law and order crackdown that led to these kids dying. Depending on which story you read, they were running from police either because they'd committed a robbery, or because they'd left their identification papers at home and didn't want to be arrested. I'm not saying the rioters are in the right, but if they feel trapped, excluded, and ignored, and that the police are out to get them, it's not hard to imagine why.
Riots in Ethiopia. This was the first I'd seen of this. I don't know if their last election was rigged, but if cabbies were arrested for honking horns in support of peaceful protests? It's again not hard to see how that might piss people off.
The West isn't doing enough to help victims of the Pakistani quake. I don't think the disaster is bigger than the Bay of Bengal Tsunami, just comparing death tolls, but at 73,000 dead, it dwarfs Katrina. I know budgets are tight and disasters (man-made and otherwise) are rampant, but if a largely Muslim country feels abandoned and forgotten in their time of need because there aren't many foreigners there? Nothing good can come of it.
More outbreaks of bird flu in Asia. They are culling and vaccinating birds to try to reduce the threat... let's hope it works.
In lighter news...
They found Copernicus('s remains). I wasn't aware he was missing.
"Bush feels hand of God as ratings slump". Ok, it's not how I would've put it, but the very existence of that South African headline amuses me. Also, apparently Diego Maradonna (legendary soccer player) is using his powers for good, joining protesters against Bush. "I'm proud as an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human trash, George Bush." Whoah, dude.
And perhaps my favorite recent news item: unfortunately my NY Times link has stopped working, but it's a story about Bush's visit to South America, the trade summit, and how he's probably not going to get his Free Trade Area of the Americas. And it included this:
In a section on job creation, United States representatives have suggested taking note of "the 96 million people who live in extreme poverty" in Latin America and the Caribbean, subsisting on $1 a day or less. But Venezuela would agree to that statement, Latin American diplomats said, only if the following phrase were also included: "while in the United States there are 37 million poor."
Awesome. The Bush administration wants to use Latin American poverty as a reason to push through their FTAA, but acknowledging the poor here at home serves no purpose for them and makes them look bad. This may be the first time I've ever seen foreign officials throw our poverty problem in our face so directly. And for an aristocrat like Bush, who loves to adopt the pose of a benevolent lord, all noblesse oblige as he screws the poor, to include this phrase would be an humiliation. I'm all in favor of it.
Riots in France. As the news keeps telling us, these riots are happening in largely North African immigrant neighborhoods. They're not really about the two boys' accidental deaths running from police - that was just the trigger. A lot of Americans think of France as a postcard place, when we're not busy being cranky at them for stupid reasons. I know I was startled, even in college French, to learn France has class and racial tensions, ghettos, and hip-hop music. We watched a movie, La Haine (pronounced lah ehn, meaning Hate) about young men in the Paris projects who viewed the police as persecutors and racists. They had few prospects or opportunities, and had to keep on guard against both police and skinheads. I can't say that I've kept up on what's been happening since that movie was made in 1995, but it casts a not-so-flattering light on the "zero tolerance" law and order crackdown that led to these kids dying. Depending on which story you read, they were running from police either because they'd committed a robbery, or because they'd left their identification papers at home and didn't want to be arrested. I'm not saying the rioters are in the right, but if they feel trapped, excluded, and ignored, and that the police are out to get them, it's not hard to imagine why.
Riots in Ethiopia. This was the first I'd seen of this. I don't know if their last election was rigged, but if cabbies were arrested for honking horns in support of peaceful protests? It's again not hard to see how that might piss people off.
The West isn't doing enough to help victims of the Pakistani quake. I don't think the disaster is bigger than the Bay of Bengal Tsunami, just comparing death tolls, but at 73,000 dead, it dwarfs Katrina. I know budgets are tight and disasters (man-made and otherwise) are rampant, but if a largely Muslim country feels abandoned and forgotten in their time of need because there aren't many foreigners there? Nothing good can come of it.
More outbreaks of bird flu in Asia. They are culling and vaccinating birds to try to reduce the threat... let's hope it works.
In lighter news...
They found Copernicus('s remains). I wasn't aware he was missing.
"Bush feels hand of God as ratings slump". Ok, it's not how I would've put it, but the very existence of that South African headline amuses me. Also, apparently Diego Maradonna (legendary soccer player) is using his powers for good, joining protesters against Bush. "I'm proud as an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human trash, George Bush." Whoah, dude.
And perhaps my favorite recent news item: unfortunately my NY Times link has stopped working, but it's a story about Bush's visit to South America, the trade summit, and how he's probably not going to get his Free Trade Area of the Americas. And it included this:
In a section on job creation, United States representatives have suggested taking note of "the 96 million people who live in extreme poverty" in Latin America and the Caribbean, subsisting on $1 a day or less. But Venezuela would agree to that statement, Latin American diplomats said, only if the following phrase were also included: "while in the United States there are 37 million poor."
Awesome. The Bush administration wants to use Latin American poverty as a reason to push through their FTAA, but acknowledging the poor here at home serves no purpose for them and makes them look bad. This may be the first time I've ever seen foreign officials throw our poverty problem in our face so directly. And for an aristocrat like Bush, who loves to adopt the pose of a benevolent lord, all noblesse oblige as he screws the poor, to include this phrase would be an humiliation. I'm all in favor of it.