We are Haitians. We are Like People Like Anybody Else | CommonDreams.org

by Lenore Daniels

"The past is never dead-it's not even past."
-- William Faulkner

From the ground, people hear the sound of helicopters above. Twenty Black Hawk helicopters circling the airport!

Water! Food! Medical supplies!

The people wait as the helicopters of the 82nd Airborne division land and hundreds of U.S. paratroopers become visible. But the paratroopers are in combat gear and armed with automatic machine guns.

We are Haitians. We are Like People Like Anybody Else | CommonDreams.org

China Is Leading the Race to Make Renewable Energy - NYTimes.com

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

China Is Leading the Race to Make Renewable Energy - NYTimes.com

Haiti and the Dominican Republic: One Island, Two Worlds

y Jared Diamond | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Haiti and the Dominican Republic may share one island but their histories unfolded quite differently. In “Collapse,” this week’s Globalist Bookshelf selection, Jared Diamond gives insight into the vast economic, political and ecological differences between these two Caribbean countries.

Why did the political, economic and ecological histories of these two countries — the Dominican Republic and Haiti — sharing the same island unfold so differently?

The Globalist | Global Environment -- Haiti and the Dominican Republic: One Island, Two Worlds

The Kidnapping of Haiti

Image via Wikipedia

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the "swift and crude" appropriation of earthquake-ravaged Haiti by the militarised Obama administration. With George W. Bush attending to the "relief effort" and Bill Clinton the UN's man, The Comedians, Graham Greene's dark novel about exploted Haiti comes to mind.

"The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured “formal approval” from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to “secure” roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in an American naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training...."

The Kidnapping of Haiti

good luck amerika

Occupation in Humanitarian Clothing | CommonDreams.org

by Jesse Hagopian

Everything you need to know about the U.S. aid effort to assist Haiti in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake can be summed up by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's touchdown in Port-Au-Prince last Saturday: they shut down the airport for three hours surrounding her arrival for "security" reasons, which meant that no aid flights could come in during those critical hours.

If there was one day when the Haitian people needed aid to flow all day long, last Saturday was it because the people trapped under the rubble on Tuesday evening couldn't survive beyond that without water.

Defenders of Clinton will say that her disimpassioned, monotone, photo-op speech was needed in Haiti to draw attention to the plight of the Haitians. But no one north of hell can defend her next move: according to airport personnel that I spoke to during my recent evacuation from Haiti, she paralyzed the airport later that same day to have a new outfit flown in from the Dominican Republic.




Occupation in Humanitarian Clothing | CommonDreams.org

Canada's Haiti: The Dirty Past and the Dirty Future - Vive

by Robin Mathews

It’s all Shock Doctrine. All. Political shock. Military shock. Earthquake shock. And now Aftershock of all those kinds. But where is Naomi Klein who coined the phrase ‘the shock doctrine”? We wait breathlessly for her analysis of the Rape of Haiti.

Canada's Haiti: The Dirty Past and the Dirty Future - Vive

No 'Hope for Haiti' Without Justice

But there can be no hope for Haiti without justice, and no justice without an honest appraisal of the centuries-long history that set the country up for such a devastating political and social collapse in the wake of the earthquake.

No 'Hope for Haiti' Without Justice

Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux

President Obama's response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment, and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working--saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.

Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux

Only in Canada: Harper's prorogation is a Canadian thing

Take a look around the world.

Go searching for the last time a Westminster-style parliament was shut down to free its leaders from unwanted censure or scrutiny — and you'll end right back in Canada, where you started.

It turns out, no other English-speaking nation with a system of government like ours — not Britain, Australia or New Zealand — has ever had its parliament prorogued in modern times, so that its ruling party could avoid an investigation, or a vote of confidence, by other elected legislators.

Only three times has this happened, all in Canada — first in 1873, when Sir John A. Macdonald asked the governor general to prorogue Parliament, in order to halt a House of Commons probe into the Pacific Scandal. Lord Dufferin gave in to the demand, but when Parliament reconvened Macdonald was forced to resign.

Only in Canada: Harper's prorogation is a Canadian thing

344 Cuban Medics Treat Earthquake Victims

3

There are 344 Cuban medics working in Haiti today, they have two improvised hospitals where they are providing services to the earthquake victims. Only two of them were injured in the earthquake, both of whom have received treatment for minor injuries and remain there to assist the disaster victims.

Cuban doctors are working in all 10 "departments" (administrative regions) of Haiti. They are assisted by approximately 400 Haitian medical interns who have completed medical degrees on full scholarships in Cuba.

Cuba has provided free public health care to the poor of Haiti since 1989 - the only public medicine available in that country. During the recent coup and subsequent US/French/Canadian invasion which deposed the Aristide presidency, Cuban doctors continued to provide medical care when other hospitals closed down and other doctors fled the country.

Cuba's "Henry Reeve Contingent", a volunteer contingent of 1,000 medics, fully equipped and entirely self sustaining for 30 days, can land on any airstrip in the world at 72 hours notice. Haiti is 32 miles from Cuba – members of the Henry Reeve Contingent could be there within hours of a request.

35,000 Cuban medics currently provide healthcare in 78 countries around the world, more than the World Health Organisation and Medecins sans Frontiers put together.

4 Cuban Medics Treat Earthquake Victims

US to Costa Rica: you want sugar markets? We want maximal copyright Boing Boing

same old shit...my way or the highway.

Michael Geist sez, "Reports from Costa Rica indicate that final approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States is languishing in the Legislative Assembly due to concerns over the copyright provisions. The CAFTA copyright provisions are similar to those found in the other major U.S. trade agreements concluded in recent years: DMCA-style protections, ISP liability, and copyright term extension are all part of the package.

...The response from the U.S. is important as well. It is delaying market access to sugar from the developing country until the copyright reforms are in place. Until that time, Costa Rican sugar producers will not be able to sell their product in the U.S."


US to Costa Rica: you want sugar markets? We want maximal copyright Boing Boing

Driving The Porcelain Bus: The Harper Attack on Canadian Democracy Documented

Driving The Porcelain Bus: The Harper Attack on Canadian Democracy Documented

The Harper Attack on Canadian Democracy Documented | Facebook

Somebody's done a lot of the heavy lifting here. Impressive.

The Harper Attack on Canadian Democracy Documented | Facebook

Burroughs: The Movie

Some fresh Burroughs loot was just added to the mountain of treasure that is Ubu: the entirety of Howard Brookner’s Burroughs: The Movie. Previously available on VHS only (a used copy on Amazon runs you 40 bucks), Burroughs: The Movie was released in ‘85 by poet, Warhol associate, and dial-a-poem instigator, John Giorno, through his Giorno Poetry Systems.


Dangerous Minds | Burroughs: The Movie

The Holocaust We Will Not See By George Monbiot

Avatar, James Cameron’s blockbusting 3-D film, is both profoundly silly and profound. It’s profound because, like most films about aliens, it is a metaphor for contact between different human cultures. But in this case the metaphor is conscious and precise: this is the story of European engagement with the native peoples of the Americas.


The Holocaust We Will Not See By George Monbiot

| How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties & Ushered in a New Age

Tantalizing short excerpt from The Harvard Psychedelic Club over at The Daily Beast. Don Lattin’s new book looks at the moment in time when Dr. TImothy Leary, Dr. Richard Alpert (AKA Ram Dass), Huston Smith, and lifestyle guru Andrew Weil (then a student) crossed paths at Harvard in the early 1960s setting off a revolution in consciousness that is still felt today.


Dangerous Minds | How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties & Ushered in a New Age

We don't need no education

Thanks Dr. Dawg!

http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2010/01/we-dont-need-no-education.html
...but thought control is another matter.

Having barely recovered from being patronized by Stephen Harper the other night, as he patted Canadians collectively on the head and told them not to fuss about grown-up things like Afghan detainees and proroguing, I read yesterday that he's cutting off funds to yet another world-class organization, the Canadian Council on Learning.

The CCL's offence? Apparently, speaking too plainly about the state of formal education in Canada, and our ludicrously poor metrics for determining how we stack up against other countries. The Globe & Mail's perceptive Gary Mason writes:

Here's the truth: Ottawa didn't like the CCL leading the call for national standards for our postsecondary system. Didn't appreciate, either, hearing the council plead for more accountability around how billions of dollars being poured into our universities are being spent. For more information about our universities in general.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development had noted in various reports on postsecondary education that when it came to Canada it was unable to report figures for two-thirds of the information gathered by the other 39 countries covered in the survey. That would include basic information such as participation, enrolment and graduation numbers in our colleges. We don't even have complete information on dropout rates. "We are the laughingstock of the OECD," Paul Cappon, president of the CCL, said a year ago.

The OECD, in fact, took the time to write to Stephen Harper last year, praising the CCL. "It is a pleasure to pledge my personal support to CCL in its on-going work," said OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria.

And so Canada's international reputation, for everything from peacekeeping to climate change to democracy to human rights, continues to circle the drain. CCL now joins other Canadian organizations wounded by the axe of far-right ideology: KAIROS, cultural programs and producers, gay rights groups...the list of casualties is growing by the day.

Education, culture, charity, human rights: like facts, these all have an unfortunate left-wing bias. Harper prefers to give the people bread and circuses instead--even if, these days, those classic political pacifiers are better-known as tax credits, the Calgary Stampede and the Vancouver Olympics.

posted by Dr.Dawg at 11:34 AM