Prime Minister elect Yukio Hatoyama. Photo: World Economic Forum

You know, the wacky game show hosts humiliating their guests; super-high-tech robots about to usher in a new dawn of pampering; or geisha girls, earthquakes, and tea ceremonies typifying the “otherworldliness” of the Land of the Rising Sun. Maybe, just maybe, for a fleeting moment the world caught a glimpse of the real Japan last Sunday.

That would be the Japan that just voted out of office the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which apart from an eight-month period, has been in power continuously since 1955.

Is this a revolutionary change? Or just cosmetic?

The numbers speak of an electoral earthquake: In the 480 seat lower house of the Japanese parliament, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took 308 for themselves, leaving the former party of government with a rump 119 seats and less than a third of the popular vote.

Ah, this is all about change. True, that was a strong element of the election. Talk to just about any Japanese person and they will tell you they are proud of finally changing the party in power. But there’s more to it than aping Obama or just rejecting what went before. In the next breath, that same voter will tell you, “But you know, in Japan, the bureaucrats run everything.”

And this was the key issue identified by the DPJ and went a long way to explaining its victory. But a war on bureaucracy doesn’t mean the perfunctory criticism of public sector budgets and cliched cries of “Cut the red tape!” common to elections throughout the West.

In Japan, the bureaucrats really do run the show. The ministries keep their ministers under tight rein and keep the private sector beholden to the bureaucrats, who can make or break companies by awarding lucrative contracts or revoking a key license. The diligent bureaucrat then gets a nice retirement with a cushy job in a company that he (and it’s always a he) was supposed to be regulating. This is standard operating procedure, for a recent example click here.

That incestuous relationship is ignored as an unwelcome but bearable fact of life when the economy is growing, but with years of economic stagnation and (official) unemployment rates at a postwar high of 5.9 percent, voters had a right to feel old ways just didn’t work anymore.

Did that mean voters turned their back on the free market and the right? You might have read throwaway lines about the DPJ being a hodgepodge party of the left – the unions back the party after all. Does this mean the country has veered away from the US and into the arms of China, as conservative commentators in the US fear?

Well, left and right tags aren’t that helpful. The man who will become Prime Minister on September 16, Yukio Hatoyama, has some powerful relatives. He is the grandson of a former PM and is married to the heiress of the Bridgestone fortune. In short, he’s no Red, and neither are the senior members of his party, many of whom started their careers with the LDP.

Sure, the victors offered voters nanny state payouts – more cash for farmers; a higher minimum wage; $250 for each child, every month; slashing school fees; and axing freeway tolls (there is a toll on every freeway). But what they didn’t offer was the massive dam projects, the concreting of local scenic spots, or the bridges to nowhere that are the beloved policy tools of the LDP and the bureaucrats to stimulate the economy. Already, the future’s looking bleak for the cement mixers.

If the election meant anything lasting, it was this: the interests of the consumer won out against the interests of the producers for the first time in living memory in Japan.

There’s just one catch. To pay for all the promises, the DPJ is banking on reining in the bureaucrats. And they may have other ideas.

Community Connection:

Get your fill of Japan content by checking out the Japan section of Matador’s archives.

Photo: Andrea Fregnani

The past

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon, I went to nearby Recife armed with my camera. I wanted to catch a demonstration organized against Senator José Sarney and, perhaps, write about it. I left after a few minutes, taking no pictures and interviewing no one: the protest was small and the impact was null.

I was disappointed then, but the movement has slowly been gaining force, with demonstrations being held every Saturday afternoon in every major Brazilian city. Some Brazilians are speaking of how this grassroots movement resembles the protests that forced the resignation of former President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992. Sarney has simply refused to resign, and so far his supporters in Brasilia have managed to get all charges against him dismissed.

But in a country plagued with corruption, some wonder why Sarney and not others are dogged by criticism. The answer is simple: Sarney is the current president of the Senate and a former president of Brazil. While he was president he was accused of corruption, and now, as senator, he’s facing a similar charge. He’s practically a sitting duck, ready to be made an example.

There are a lot of protest movements springing up around Brazil (and cyberspace), some serious and some not so serious, but all of them agree about the end result: no more Sarney. The highlight of the not-so-serious ones is the “moustache strike”, which was picked up by The Guardian recently.

Photo: Mayra F.

Twitter has been a great source of up-to-date news; simply search for #forasarney. Finally, Orkut (a social network that is more popular than Facebook in Brazil) has seen the birth of a number of communities, the largest one nearing a modest 40,000 members.

Criticism against Sarney and his family has been so strong that it’s ended with censorship. Though it’s (apparently) an isolated incident in Brazil’s recent history, The New York Times wastes no time in drawing comparisons to Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.

Will Sarney be removed from office? It looks doubtful. The current president and his coalition have backed Sarney, and the opposition is small and powerless in Brasilia. The question many are asking is whether this crisis will affect the Worker’s Party in the 2010 elections. Under Brazilian law, President Lula cannot be reelected for a third term, so he has named a successor, Dilma Rouseff, the current Secretary of State, as his pick.

But Dilma is not the female politician who has grabbed the spotlight as of late…

The future

Senator Marina Silva, profiled by The New York Times this past Saturday, left President Lula’s Worker’s Party to join Brazil’s Green Party. Silva served as Environment Minister under President Lula from 2003 to 2008, but quit when Lula’s economic ambitions clashed with her environmentalist ideas.

She’s not the first one to abandon ship: Heloisa Helena (who later placed third in the 2006 presidential elections) was kicked out of Lula’s Worker’s Party in 2003 and started the Socialist and Freedom Party.

Shortly after Silva’s defection, rumors started flying about a potential Green Party candidacy for the presidency in 2010 with musician Gilberto Gil as a running mate. Gil is yet another former member of Lula’s cabinet, having been Minister of Culture from 2003 to 2008, but (unlike others) left amicably.

Early polls show Silva far behind other candidates, but she could play spoiler by drawing votes away from the Worker’s Party. Of course, because she is a black woman, the comparisons with Barack Obama have not taken long to arise. The obvious joke is that, while Democrats in the US had to select between an African American and a woman, Brazilians can get both in Silva.

Photo: Luri Fernandes

President Lula was at one point seen by many on the left as the one who would change Brazil. He inherited strong economic policies from his predecessor and cemented the might of the Worker’s Party. Lula’s poor upbringing, his lack of education, his time as a metalworker and his socialist ideas kept him as a bridesmaid in the presidential races for over a decade before being elected for consecutive terms. But in the process he created a “coalition” government alongside former enemies, and alienated many who formerly supported him.

He tried to change Brazil, but more noticeable is the fact that the presidency has changed Lula. He is now allied with Sarney and Collor and others who have tainted political records. And many on the left hope Silva or Helena can step in where Lula fell flat, such as environmental issues.

The 2010 presidential elections may come down to these three women: the one who is still by Lula’s side, the one who left voluntarily, and the one who got kicked out.

In typical Brazilian fashion, it will be quite a soap opera.

Community Connection:

Matador’s managing editor, Julie Schwietert, spotted presidential candidate Dilma Rouseff on a February 2009 visit to Brazil. Read about the experience here.

Planning your own trip to Brazil? Be sure to read Ernesto’s 10 Tips to Improve Any Trip to Brazil.

An inked finger is evidence that this woman has voted. Photos courtesy of author.

Bachelet will not run for re-election, as Chilean law prevents presidents from campaigning for a consecutive term after their first four year term has lapsed.

As the next election cycle gets underway, the question on everyone’s lips is, will the centrist-socialists (Concertación) pull off the vote again for a fifth consecutive win, or will the political right (Alianza) be swept in on an upset?

Chilean law requires that the president must win with more than 50% of the popular vote, and the 2005 election results had no clear majority, so the country held runoff elections. Bachelet (Concertación) won 53.49% of the runoff vote, and left Sebastian Piñera (Alianza) in second place, with four years to fortify his position for the December 13, 2009 elections.

The presidential palace.

Since the dictator Augusto Pinochet left power and democracy was restored to Chile in 1989, the nation has held four presidential elections, each of which has resulted in a win by the centrist-socialist Concertación group.

This year’s election sees six candidates gearing up for their campaigns: Sebastián Piñera, Eduardo Frei, Marco Enríquez-Ominami, Jorge Arrate, Alejandro Navarro, and Adolfo Zaldívar, with Piñera, Frei and Ominami as the frontrunners.

Of these candidates, first-round interviews of the public conducted by national newspaper La Tercera in late April indicated that Piñera (Alianza), the economist and investor who is responsible for bringing credit cards to Chile, is in the lead, with 30% of voters planning to cast their vote for him.

Frei (Concertación), who recently claimed himself to be heir to Bachelet’s presidency and said the Concertación always wins because it promotes progress for the nation and its people (reported on Radio Biobio, August 23, 2009), is in second place with 25%.

Dark horse Ominami (Concertación) who comes further from the left, has already garnered 21% of the intended vote according to the survey. He’s the son of the leader of Chile’s Leftist Revolutionary Movement (MIR) is just 36 years old.

Campaigining in Chile will not begin in earnest until one month before the election, when flag-waving, sandwich-boards, bulletins and telephone campaigns are legally permitted. Chile has universal suffrage, and voting is compulsory for registered voters (with some exceptions), who are subject to fines if they do not comply.

Approximately 8.2 million Chileans were eligible to vote in last year’s election, and those having reached the age of majority may register to vote this year by September 13. The election will be held December 13.

Community Connection:

Interested in learning more about Chile? Check out these articles from our archives:

*7 Reasons to Learn Spanish in Chile

*10 Reasons to Base Your Study Abroad Experience in Chile

Photo: openDemocracy

No matter where he lodges when he visits New York to speak at the United Nations in September, Libya’s leader Muammar el-Qaddafi isn’t likely to receive a warm welcome, particularly after the jubilant homecoming his government orchestrated for the freed Lockerbie airline bomber last week.

But el-Qaddafi isn’t planning to join other world leaders at swanky, upscale hotels like the Waldorf Astoria.

Instead, he has made a request to pitch a tent in Central Park.

City officials were reported to have rejected el-Qaddafi’s request this afternoon.

He won’t be left without a bed, though: the Libyan mission to the United Nations is said to own a spacious mansion in nearby Englewood, New Jersey, where el-Qaddafi will be hosted.

Community Connection:

Looking for some unusual lodgings yourself? Check out “The World’s 10 Weirdest Hotels.”

Colombian singer Juanes, in concert; Photo: Julio Enriquez

Artistically speaking, it’s been a banner year for Cubans.

In July, the Royal Ballet of London came to Havana for a joint performance with the Cuban National Ballet, appearing before a crowd so enormous that the Cuban government was forced to set up outdoor screens so the performance could be seen by those who hadn’t been lucky enough to snag a ticket.

The same week, the New York Philharmonic announced its intentions to perform in Havana this October.

But before then, the wildly popular Colombian pop singer Juanes is scheduled to play in a “Peace Without Borders” concert alongside beloved Cuban folk musician, Silvio Rodriguez, and the perennially popular Los Van Van.

He’s even met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to seek her support, asking her to permit U.S. musicians to visit the island to take part in the event (they’d be the first to do so since Audioslave’s 2005 concert, which drew more than 60,000 Cuban fans).

The concert, scheduled to almost coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, is the latest stop on Juanes’s Peace Without Borders tour, the first leg of which kicked off on the Venezuelan/Colombian border in March, 2008.

Juanes, like his fellow Colombian superstar musician, Shakira, has been actively involved in using his music as a means of supporting causes he cares about– he’s also started a foundation to help survivors of land mine explosions. But not everyone–especially certain sectors of the Cuban American community–view Juanes’s Peace Without Borders tour as an act to celebrate.

The singer, who lives in Miami, has been the target of outspoken criticism. Some Miami Cubans have been reported to be burning his CDs in the streets there. Even his wife, who is eight months pregnant, has been threatened.

In the Spanish language newspaper El Pais, Juanes responded to the criticism that he’s being insensitive to Cuban exiles’ concerns. Some highlights from the interview, translated by this writer:

“I am convinced that art plays an important role in the construction of peace.”

“I’m not interested in the government of Cuba. I’m interested in people, in the youth….”

“I’m fed up with us asking one another whether we’re Muslim, gay, Cuban, or Venezuelan.”

“Why can I go to Spain and no one asks me if I’m singing to the president, but if I go to Cuba, [everyone thinks] I’m singing to Castro?…. Just let us sing!”

The concert is still scheduled for September 20.

If you’re not familiar with Juanes’s music, here’s a clip from the Venezuela/Colombia “Peace Without Borders” concert:

Community Connection:

To learn more about the New York Philharmonic’s scheduled performance, read “New York Philharmonic to Perform in Cuba?”

Detainee cells. Photos: Julie Schwietert

Even before his inauguration, President Obama was working on making good on a campaign promise: closing the detention facility located on the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The original plan was to shutter the detention facility by January 2010–eight full years after the U.S. started housing alleged Al-Qaeda and Taliban loyalists there–but recent reports have indicated that the administration is concerned it will not be able to meet that deadline.

The sticking point–as I predicted after my visit to the base and detention facility last November–has been figuring out what to do with all of the detainees who have been cleared for release but who have no place to go.

Slowly, though, nations are beginning to express their support for closing Guantanamo by agreeing to take in detainees who are eligible for release but are unable to return home.

Last month, Ireland agreed to take two people currently being detained at the facility. This week, Portugal agreed to offer special visas to two Syrians being held at Guantanamo. And the agreement between the U.S. and Palau that was forged a couple months ago finally seems to be taking shape: the tiny island nation will take between four and 13 Uighurs eligible for release.

Still, there are more than 200 detainees who–for various reasons–are unable to return to their home countries and who need a third country to take them in. Read more about the issue in this article.

Community Connection:

What do you know about Guantanamo? Here are 5 Things You Should Know About Guantanamo.

Photo: Finbarr O’Reilly/Reuters

The last seven days have seen an unprecedented power struggle in the northern states of Nigeria between Muslim fundamentalists and police forces. The fighting started in the northeastern town of Maiduguri (1.2 million residents) when militants attacked the Nigerian government and police squads with civilians caught in the cross-fire.

According to CNN, upwards of 700 people – a mix of militants, civilians, and policemen – have lost their lives with another 3,500 displaced in the latest clash to hit Africa’s most populous nation of 140 million inhabitants.

Known more for its money-laundering and Internet scams as well as its volatile oil-producing Delta region, Nigeria has seen its fair share of religious uprising.

In 2008, over 200 people died in the span of two days in Northern Nigeria due to post-election violence. In May 2004, over 600 Muslims died from sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians primarily resulting from an attack by Christian militia.

And each year spanning these two events has brought some sort of unrest with churches and mosques regularly razed during these battles in the north.

To Nigerians, the actual cause behind the fighting (opposition against perceived Western ideals and the push to make Sharia law the mandate) may not have come as a surprise but what makes last week’s revolt more disturbing was how quickly it escalated with hundreds of deaths in just a few days.

This has definitely gotten the international community on edge.

Religious clashes have been waging on for centuries now in various parts of the world – from the Middle East to Asia. Usually these battles tend to be one-sided with fundamentalists of the dominant religion wielding the most power.

What makes Nigeria unique is the ratio of its Christians to Muslims within the country. A near 50-50 split, each with a solid stronghold.

This division is also uniquely split by geography – along the rivers Niger and Benue – resulting in a predominantly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.

While more of the revolts have been spurred by militants in the North, the potential for a never-ending battle remains ever-looming in the back of many minds if Christian fundamentalists decided to retaliate.

Another point of concern is the staggering numbers killed during each episode; usually in the hundreds and in some cases, thousands over short durations of time. These massive killings aren’t always limited to religious battles. In a 2007 crackdown by police on armed robbers, 785 suspects were killed in just 90 days.

These numbers are certainly high “enough” to make human-rights organizations scream “bloody murder”, but is the country’s population of 140 million people reducing these killings to insignificant percentages?

What are your thoughts on the recent religious violence in Nigeria? Please share below.

Photo: divya_

First, some background.

The United States’ diplomatic presence in Cuba (if that’s not entirely a contradiction) is not to be found in an embassy or a consulate, but in a pseudo-consulate semantically distinguished as the “United States Interest Section Havana.”

Occupying some choice real estate along Havana’s ocean front, the Interest Section’s professional purview is a bit different from that of your typical embassy or consulate (you can read all about what they do–and what they don’t do–here). For one thing, the building itself became a tool for communicating US propaganda to Cuban people during the Bush administration.

Three Januaries ago, the Interest Section installed some snazzy new technology: an electronic ticker board, much like the electronic news spools you see in Times Square. The board was inaugurated on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, broadcasting the message: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up” (a rather crude appropriation of King’s message, if you ask me).

The message was changed periodically, and though the Interests Section says the billboard’s purpose was to display “news and information,” critics–notably, El Comandante himself–pointed out that the line between news and rhetoric was a little bit blurry.

In fact, the messages were so annoying to Castro that he had an installation art work erected to obscure the billboard from the public eye. The flag poles in the photo above– all 138 of them–prevented passersby from glimpsing the US’s messages. Castro even had competing billboards (not electronic–after all, 2006 was the Year of Energy in Cuba) put up, protesting US involvement in Cuban affairs.

Anyhow, earlier today, the Financial Times reported that the US quietly turned off the ticker recently, with little fanfare from either side. The fact that the US didn’t announce the ticker’s demise and that Cuba didn’t gloat about the dimmed electronic billboard clearly signals a detente, according to journalist Marc Frank.

Citing a “Western diplomat,” Frank wrote:

“’That they turned off the ticker is important – and that nobody has noticed is significant, too…. The Cubans could have howled victory – but [they] said nothing, indicating they are serious about improving relations.’ The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some local contact may have resumed already. Easing of travel restrictions for US and Cuban diplomats in each other’s capitals was expected soon.

It appears the standoff about the US mission – an attraction for tourists and a symbol of relations with the Bush administration – is winding down. The Cuban government took the billboards down soon after Barack Obama took office. There have been no marches past the building since Raul Castro took over from his ailing brother Fidel in February last year.”

Many individuals and advocacy groups who hoped for a speedier thaw in US-Cuba relations have criticized President Obama for what seems to be a deliberate pacing in bilateral negotiations. But it’s steps like these–which seem so little–that will ultimately lead to change in the decades long freeze between the US and Cuba.

Photo: Oscalito

The status of Puerto Rico is one of the most complicated, confusing, and fascinating political arrangements in the world.

Puerto Rico, formerly a Spanish colony, was ceded to the United States in 1898 as a consequence of the Spanish American War. For several decades afterward, the status and identity of the island were in limbo as the United States and islanders attempted to arrive at a viable political arrangement that would satisfy the interests of both parties.

The result was a strange compromise in which Puerto Rico became a commonwealth, or “free associated state,” of the US. The status granted some–but not all–of the benefits of US citizenship and left many Puerto Ricans wondering what, exactly, being a commonwealth meant.

It’s an issue that remains the focal point of politics on the island, with referenda being held every few years to determine what islanders want their status to be. There are those who favor statehood, others who favor complete independence, and still others who would be content to let the commonwealth continue as is.

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that the US House of Representatives approved the island’s proposal to allow Puerto Ricans to hold a new referendum to vote on the island’s political future. Under the proposal, titled the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2009,

“[v]oters would choose between keeping the island’s commonwealth status, adopted in 1952, or to opt for something different. In the latter case, a second plebiscite would let them decide whether they wanted statehood, independence or independence with a loose association to the United States.”

Though no date has been scheduled for a vote, anxiety about the potential referendum is already high. The last referendum was held in 1998.

Photo: YamilGonzales

What’s happening in Honduras?

Good question.

In the US, at least, we’ve moved on, captivated by the Sotomayor Supreme Court confirmation hearings, former Liberian president Charles Taylor’s insistence of his purity and innocence in the war crimes case being heard against him at The Hague, and the rumblings that US Attorney General Eric Holder may appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s CIA interrogation practices.

Oh, and then there was that early week bit about the CIA’s naughty habit of lying to Congress (repeatedly. Since 2001… at least).

So excuse us if we’ve forgotten about Honduras (and Iran… but we’ll get to that later).

But we shouldn’t be so quick to put the Central American situation out of our minds.

According to the Latin America Working Group, “The situation in Honduras has only escalated since last week.” Remarking on the military’s role in the current political standoff, LAWG continued:

“Civilians in the streets of Tegucigalpa and throughout the country side continue to face brutal repression by military officials. Civil liberties remain gravely affected, including freedom of the press.”

Meanwhile, the Americas Society reported that “an inch, but not a mile” has been gained in the executive branch, thanks to negotiations between the elected Zelaya administration and the imposed Micheletti administration, which are being mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. The organization indicated that curfews have been lifted and the threat to imprison Zelaya has been reconsidered if the deposed president returns, as he has said he intends to do.

To continue following developments in the country, visit the Americas Society’s Resource Guide to the Crisis in Honduras, which provides links to primary sources, news, and multimedia, produced both in the country and outside it.

Community Connection:

Clueless about what occurred in Honduras? Check out these articles from our archives:

Honduran President Ousted in Military Coup

Photo Essay: Honduras After the Coup

To Coup or Not to Coup?

Honduran President Attempts to Return to Country; Military Prevents Plane from Landing

Photo: Foxtongue

Five years ago, Portugal decided to do something bold about its drug problems: pass a full-on decriminalization act, making the possession and use of even hard-core illicit drugs–including cocaine and heroin–a public health problem rather than a legal/criminal justice issue.

While drug dealing and trafficking still carried criminal penalties, possession and use resulted in diversion to treatment and intervention, rather than imprisonment, in most circumstances.

Decriminalization is a drug policy tactic that has been considered by other governments, but remains deeply divisive in the United States.

Portuguese officials, however, offer evidence that the legalization strategy might just be the best means of addressing at least three social problems–drug use, prison overcrowding, and poor public health– simultaneously.

In this article, published in Scientific American, a US think-tank analyzed Portuguese public health drug-related data since the decriminalization act was passed and reported the following:

“Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006….”

Beyond the benefits to public health, a US criminologist also quoted in the article noted that the decriminalization act did not–as some critics expected– cause Lisbon to become a magnet for drug-seeking tourists.

So is decriminalization a viable policy where you live? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Community Connection:

Read about other decriminalization movements in this article, Latin America Changes War on Drugs Strategy: Legalize!

Photo: freegazaorg

Israel issued a statement saying that the boat had attempted to break the blockade of Gaza and therefore seized it after the crew ignored a radio warning to stay out of Gaza waters. Israel’s purpose was to stop the ship because of “security risks in the area.” It views the group’s campaign as propaganda against Israel.

Israel seized the boat, its cargo, and the crew’s cell phones, then imprisoned the crew in Israel. On board the ship were citizens from many countries, including Britain, Ireland, Bahrain, and the United States. Former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire, a Palestinian-American lawyer, and many journalists were among the crew. In total 21 people are being detained in a prison in Ramla, Israel. Ironically, the crew has been charged with illegally entering Israel when they had no intention of entering Israel.

“They simply kidnapped the passengers,” Free Gaza Movement founding member Greta Berlin told Ynet news, an online publication based in Israel. “I call on the Israeli occupation forces to release our people immediately. It’s funny. What are they going to do? Deport us? The last place we wanted to reach was Israel.”

All detainees were unarmed civilians.

They were carrying food, medicine, olive trees, and children’s toys for people in Gaza.

This was the eighth journey of the Free Gaza Movement and it is not their first encounter with the Israeli Navy. When their ship attempted to deliver medical aid following Israel’s 22-day attack on Gaza this last winter, Israeli gunboats rammed it and wrecked the ship.

Gaza has been subjected to a crippling blockade for two years. The movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza has been severely restricted. Since last winter’s assault by Israel, the people of Gaza face even more severe shortages of medicine, food, and materials that are necessary for rebuilding schools and homes.

During his recent speech in Cairo, President Obama stated that the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unacceptable, that it devastates families and does not serve Israel’s security.

Reuters reported on Thursday that Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the seizure of the ship and crew was part of Israel’s “cruel blockade of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza” in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting any form of collective punishment against “an occupied people.” Such a pattern of continuing blockade under these conditions amounts to such a serious violation of the Geneva Convention as to constitute a continuing crime against humanity.

This event will perhaps shine a spotlight on the situation in Gaza. It also raises the questions of how other humanitarian missions will be received. As I wrote last month on MatadorChange, the Viva Palestina convoy departs on July 4 for Egypt to bring much needed aid and supplies to the people of Gaza.

We will be closely following the story of the detained crew of Spirit of Humanity and the Viva Palestina convoy throughout July.

Community Connection:

Graffiti reads: Get out, transnationals.

Grafitti reads: Mel [Zelaya's nickname], the people are with you until the end.”

Community Connection:

To learn more about the coup and events currently unfolding in Honduras, please visit Global Voices Online’s Honduras page.

Photo: rbreve

Early Sunday morning the soldiers of the Honduran army arrested and exiled President Jose Manuel Zelaya.

The context for the arrests is the conflict surrounding a national referendum that was to take place Sunday on the presidential term limit. Following the lead of other leftist leaders in Latin America, Zelaya and his supporters sought the referendum in order to extend his administration for another term. The Honduras Supreme Court earlier ruled the referendum was unconstitutional.

One of the coup leaders is allegedly School of the Americas graduate and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, whom Zelaya had dismissed after he refused to cooperate with the national referendum. Zelaya was reportedly arrested in his pajamas and then taken to an airbase outside the capital to be flown to Costa Rica.

While events are unfolding, several heads of state and organizations from around the world have already condemned the coup, calling for a restoration of democracy and the return of President Zelaya. Many Latin American countries–including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, and Ecuador–have issued strongly worded statements.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry said it “will not recognize any government that is not that of President Manuel Zelaya.” Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has put his military on alert.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has said, “What is currently happening in Honduras is an adventure of a group of the military who have assaulted democracy.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has also weighed in, condemning the coup:

“The action taken against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and thus should be condemned by all. We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue.”

Europe has also been watching closely. The French Foreign Ministry said, “France firmly condemns the coup that has just taken place in Honduras. The arrests and expulsions of diplomatic envoys are a grave breach of the Vienna convention. They are unacceptable.”

Honduras is a member of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which is an alliance of leftist countries in Latin America. The alliance’s mission is to build an economic and social alternative to what member nations see as unfair free-trade agreements dominated by the interests of the United States and multinational corporations.

Zelaya is now in Costa Rica, where he calls for peaceful resistance to the military coup. The government of Costa Rica also calls on the international community to condemn the coup.

Community Connection:

To learn about other recent political developments in Latin America, read “El Salvador Leans to the Left.”

Photo via: misterarasmus

By now, she’s a household name.

Neda Agha-Soltan, who was killed by a sniper over the weekend, became a media sensation overnight, thanks, in part, to the circulation of the video which documented her death as it was occurring.

But for all the focus on Agha-Soltan–who was not actually participating in a protest–there are thousands more Iranian women who have taken to the streets, risking social, political, and religious condemnation, as well as their very lives.

Here are images of some of them:

Photo via: misterarasmus

Photo via: .faramarz

Photo via: .faramarz

Photo via: .faramarz

Did you know that 1/3 of Greenland’s population is comprised of indigenous groups? Photo: nick russill

Greenland: it’s one of those places that’s hardly ever in the news.

But this week, amidst the bigger headlines about post-election protests in Iran and French President Sarkozy’s comment about burqas as a symbol of enslavement, Greenland had its own moment on the world stage.

As The New York Times reported, Greenland, which has been ruled by Denmark since 1721, celebrated a step toward independence this weekend in response to a 2008 referendum, in which 76 percent of citizens voted for self-rule.

The article noted:

“Many of the changes are deeply symbolic. Kalaallisut, a traditional Inuit dialect, is now the country’s official language, and Greenlanders are now recognized under international law as a separate people from Danes.

[Also] the Greenlandic government now gets to call itself by its Inuit name, Naalakkersuisut — the first time in history, officials said, that the word has been used in a Danish government document.”

Many more logistics will need to be worked out before Greenland secures full autonomy; however, the symbolic gestures made in this weekend’s ceremony seem to be an important first step.

Community Connection:

Have you been to Greenland? Have you lived there? Matador’s looking for a Greenland expert; click here to see if you qualify.

A protest in support of conscientious objectors, held in Toronto; Photo: picturenarrative

The stories of men who have crossed the US-Canada border as a statement against war are many, and they go back several decades. According to a recent article in Newsweek, about 50,000 men fled to Canada during the Vietnam War era in order to avoid the draft, many adjusting to life in their adopted country and settling there permanently.

Although the draft no longer exists in the United States, many war-weary soldiers who have done enough duty in Afghanistan and Iraq to question America’s motives for being there have returned from their deployments as conscientious objectors, refusing to accept redeployment orders. Many of them have crossed the border to seek asylum in Canada.

Increasingly, however, the Canadian government is taking active measures to deport these individuals back to the United States to face desertion charges. According to Newsweek, while three in five Canadians support the granting of permanent residency to conscientious objectors, the conservative government has been stepping up deportation activity since this time last year.

To learn more about the men and women who have served in the current wars and who now question America’s actions abroad, visit Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Photo: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi

The future of incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at stake in tomorrow’s election. Ahmadinejad, often described as a hard-line traditionalist, is being challenged for the country’s top political seat by former prime minister, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The two candidates couldn’t be more different, but that’s not the main issue galvanizing many Iranian voters and outside observers.

Instead, it’s Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a former university chancellor, who has captivated the country’s attention as the final hours of campaigning approach.

In an article in Der Spiegel, journalist Ulrike Putz explained Rahnavard’s appeal and influence:

“Since the revolution in 1979 no other political spouse has been so much in the public eye. Rahnavard is even featured in her husband’s election posters: she stands next to him, holding his hand. In Iran’s strict Muslim society this alone is nothing short of spectacular. She wears her black chador loosely and instead of a plain scarf, hers is printed with a colorful floral pattern….

For weeks Rahnavard has been travelling around Iran — with and without her husband — trying to drum up support for the conservative reformer. She talks about providing women with more rights before family courts, better education opportunities and more jobs. That is not only appealing to the female half of the estimated 46 million eligible voters — many of their fathers, brothers and husbands also think this the right way forward.

While Rahnavard is certainly the most visible example of women increasingly defining and claiming a space for themselves in Iranian politics and social life, she’s not the only one. Throughout Iran and neighboring countries, women are openly addressing larger audiences, talking about traditionally taboo topics and asserting their right to define their own roles in society.

For another example of the ways women are articulating and exercising their rights, check out this excerpt from the PBS Wide Angle documentary, “Dishing Democracy,” which features popular TV hosts Fawzia Salama, Rania Barghout, Muna AbuSulayman, and Farah Besiso talking about their Cairo-based program, “Kalam Nawaem.”

If you’re interested in seeing the full documentary, you can access the video segments here.

Community Connection:

Interested in politics outside the West? Be sure to read Sarah Stuteville’s dispatch from Pakistan, “Pakistani Politics: Why Women’s Voices Matter.”

Photos: Ed-meister

Thursday, June 4 is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

During the early summer of 1989, university students gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest and voice their demands for a more democratic government. After seven weeks of protesting, the government had enough, sending in the military. Troops manning tanks arrived in force, killing hundreds of students and wounding thousands more.

In the years since, China has made numerous efforts to insist to the rest of the world that its human rights record has improved. Perhaps the most obvious example was its hosting of last year’s Olympic Games.

But 20 years later, how much has really changed?

Protest and democracy movements are happening not on the street, but online, conveyed and mediated through technology.

And the government is responding just as strongly as it did in 1989. It’s not with tanks this time, but with error messages. In the past few days, Chinese users of popular social media sites like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and various e-mail services, including Hotmail, have found that all of these sites have been blocked.

Though the government has blocked these forms of communication, it will not effectively be able to silence Chinese bloggers and activists, who aren’t likely to forget about Tiananmen or the conversation about democracy when the rest of the world moves on after commemorating Tiananmen tomorrow. They’ll wait until the tech blackout is over.

And then they’ll get back to work.

Malay women take a stroll in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: Vin Crosbie

The latest news comes from Kuwait.

Last weekend, Al-Jazeera reported that of 16 women who had run for national office, Kuwait had elected its first four female members to Parliament. One of the women was also named Kuwait’s first female cabinet minister.

The women share more than their gender in common. All four espouse liberal political views and were educated in the United States. All hold doctoral degrees, ranging from political science and economics to education.

The newly elected Parliament members also stressed their differences, asserting that they represent a wide range of constituents, noting:

“Yes, all of us are educated, but we also have a woman who won who is married to a non-Kuwaiti, one who is divorced, one who is not yet married, one whose mother is Lebanese…. We represent different social strata.”

The achievement of the candidates is particularly significant considering that Kuwaiti women were only granted the right to vote in 2006.

Yet as one observer has noted, the Kuwaiti women’s win is significant for another reason: it provokes Western feminists to finally confront the question:

“[W]hy… have [you] been so slow to get behind those women in the world’s all too numerous tyrannies who have to risk their lives to say anything [?]“

That observer–British writer Clive James– asks a question that’s increasingly pertinent as women in the so-called “developing” world make political strides that Western feminists have talked about within ivory towers for years but have taken little tangible, non-academic action to support outside their own countries. As James wrote for the BBC, these Western feminist pundits are just arguing rhetorically; meanwhile, their sisters abroad are “in the thick of a real battle”… feminist theory in action.

“Why their bravery doesn’t shame more of our feminist pundits I hesitate to say. It certainly shames me,” he concludes.

As a feminist and someone who holds a degree in Women’s Studies, I have to agree.

Community Connection:

What do you think? Are social justice movements in the West increasingly irrelevant because they’re largely theoretical? How do you view the political and social gains women are making, especially in the “developing” world? Share your thoughts below.

ScottGregoryPhotography

“A record 220 women are running in Malawi’s presidential and parliamentary polls on Tuesday [today!], representing about 20% of all candidates for the 193 seats. Women are also at the top of the ticket for the first time: Loveness Gondwe is Malawi’s first female presidential candidate, [and] incumbent President Bingu wa Mutharika has tapped foreign minister Joyce Banda as his running mate.”

To learn more about the elections, check this site.

Lithuania’s Presidential Palace, Photo: markhillary

Lithuania’s gotten a lot of international press lately.

Once one of the EU’s most overlooked countries, Lithaunia’s star suddenly seems to be rising. In addition to being on all the travel magazines’ 2009 “must visit” lists, it was announced today that Dalia Grybauskaite was elected as the country’s first female president.

Grybauskaite, who has been serving as the EU’s Budget Commissioner, ran as an independent and earned 68% of the electorate’s votes, edging out seven other candidates.

She will be inaugurated on July 12.

m00by

Is it that American students aren’t interested in studying abroad or that they encounter too many obstacles–including financial challenges–that prevent them from doing so?

Whatever the reason, US Congress took a big step toward improving study abroad opportunities for American students yesterday when it introduced the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act as part of the House Foreign Relations Authorization Act.

The purpose of the act is to establish public-private partnerships that will achieve four broad goals:

1. Increase American students’ participation in quality study abroad programs;
2. Encourage diversity in student participation in study abroad;
3. Diversify study abroad sites, especially in developing countries;
4. Make study abroad an integral part of the American higher education experience.

The bill was actually introduced last year and enjoyed bipartisan support in the House and Senate, but the Congressional session expired before the bill could be passed.

Full information about the bill can be found here.

If you’d like to support the bill, you can join the Movement for Study Abroad on Facebook.

Community Connection:

Do you know about Matador’s study and live abroad blog, Matador Abroad? Whether you live in the US or elsewhere, you can find a rich archive of articles on study abroad subjects there!

Photo by publik15

On the eve of his big speech in Cairo – capital of a vibrant Arab democracy where the government never tortures – President Obama is worried that more U.S. detainee torture photos will cause an uproar in the Arab world.

Although Mr. Obama is right to worry about an uproar, he is dead wrong about releasing the photos.

Here’s Why

When the U.S. government tries to cover things up, horrible things happen.  Just look at the Secret War in Laos or the illicit bombing of Cambodia that set the stage for the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Granted, the photos Mr. Obama doesn’t want us to see do not represent normal behavior by the U.S. military.  But the truth is that war is messy, and no government should be able to get away with covering up the ugliness.

Sanitized Warfare?

Moreover, even “good” U.S. military action in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan is often counter-productive and morally disturbing.

There is something cowardly, sanitized and wrong about techie soldiers in Nevada firing missiles from Predator drones at groups of “enemy combatants” in rural Afghanistan.

Likewise, the American practice of ambushing ethnic minority Afghan fighters who oppose the corrupt and flaccid government of Harmid Karzai is deeply misguided and disturbing.

Finally, the fact that Obama is trying to keep the photos secret raises suspicions about how bad they must be.  I mean, are we talking a little nudity, some mild water-boarding or something worse than Abu Ghraib?

Pulling A Cheney

Please don’t pull a Cheney and try to hide the ugly bits, Mr. President.  And think long and hard about how much money and blood you want to spend in The Graveyard of Empires.

Read more:  Obama Tries To Block Release Of Detainee Photos

Feature Photo: Takomabibelot

Photo: John O’Hara

Michael Tomasky provided a little background in the Guardian, writing that Savage was a San Franciscan with a Jewish father and Italian mother who hung out with Beat poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg until later claiming to have been turned right-wing by political correctness.

The news of Savage’s exclusion order may have passed without causing a furor, but his announcement that he was going to sue the British government for defamation ensured that it hit all the British headlines. Savage also called Smith a lunatic and derided Britain and British people.

Savage objected to being included on a list alongside Russian skinheads and Islamic terrorists, claiming that he was only giving opinions on his “Savage Nation” radio show in order to court controversy and attract large audiences. Mark Stephens, of the London law firm, Finers, Stephens, Innocent, was quoted on the Times Online website as saying that Savage “would seem to have a very good case. The people on the list who have been banned are supposed to be advocating extreme violence and so to put him into that category is clearly defamatory.”

Savage apparently had no plans to visit the UK, so there are questions about why he was included on the list. He’s hardly a prominent threat to security.

Smith said the list was released to show others what behavior Britain would not tolerate, and she accused Savage of fomenting hatred on his radio show. Savage has verbally attacked just about everybody outside his nationalist conservatism political circle on the show, from charity workers to foreigners, and has even questioned whether the majority of child dyslexia cases are genuine.

This controversy has probably been most welcome to him, and raised his profile no end.

There was speculation in the Guardian comment section that Savage was included in the British ‘least wanted’ list to balance it politically, as several Muslims are included. Some called Savage’s listing as another dent in British freedom on the day that identity cards for UK nationals were introduced into circulation, albeit on a voluntary basis. Others supported the action, and condemned Savage’s views after hearing them for the first time.

Also writing in the Guardian, Michael White considered the banning of Savage worthwhile just to see someone with such vehemently right-wing views get a taste of his own medicine.

An online Guardian poll on the evening of the list’s publication had 44% agreeing with the decision to ban Savage and 56% disagreeing.

Community Connection:

What’s your opinion? Should Savage be on Britain’s “Do Not Enter” list? And should countries even have such lists for people who clearly pose no true security threat? Share your opinions below.

Sales are down and readers who love the feel of words in their hands worry about the impact the Kindle and other electronic readers may have on traditional books.

Photo: Daniel Zanini H

But there was a flicker of hope last week in the unlikely exchange of a gift between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and US President Barack Obama.

When the two presidents met at the Summit of the Americas, President Chavez gave President Obama a book, Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina, by Uruguayan writer and scholar, Eduardo Galeano:

Though the book was in Spanish–and Obama’s press secretary was reported as saying that Obama would be unlikely to read it for that reason–Chavez’s gift spurred a book buying surge… English and Spanish readers around the world caused Galeano’s book, which was published almost 40 years ago, to rocket to the top of bestseller lists after spending decades in the relative insularity of academic and activist circles.

According to the Guardian:

As footage of the encounter appeared on news bulletins, the book rocketed up the US paperback sales chart of the online bookseller Amazon, soaring from number 54,295 to sixth place within 24 hours.

At present, the book ranks #1 in three Amazon categories.

Could Chavez save publishing? Should the “Oprah effect” be renamed the “Chavez effect”?

Even if the impact of the gift only served to buoy the publishing industry temporarily, Chavez’s gesture helped to resuscitate a Latin American classic. You can read more about the book and its significance here.

Photo: Brayan Collazo

There’s been a lot of talk about changing US policy toward Cuba, and since President Obama took office it’s clear the administration has been taking steps to re-establish some formal diplomatic ties with Cuba.

Today, those steps became tangible as the Obama administration announced that it has officially reversed the travel and money remittance policies that were strengthened by the Bush administration.

Cuban Americans can now visit Cuba as often as they’d like and will be allowed to send more than $300 every three months, which was the previous limit.

In addition to these changes, which were expected, President Obama indicated that the US government will provide licenses to American telecommunications companies in order to extend cell phone and Internet service on the island. Cuban Americans will be able to purchase service for their family members on the island once the basic infrastructure has been improved and expanded.

Now that this part of the arcane US foreign policy has been reversed, perhaps it’s just a matter of time before the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act–which proposes permitting all Americans to travel to Cuba–is passed.

Community Connection:

Regular Matador contributor Audrey Scott just published a thoughtful article on why it makes sense to travel to “rogue states” like Cuba over on Brave New Traveler. Check it out and join the conversation!

Photo: Brayan Collazo

The U.S. embargo against Cuba–quite possibly the most comprehensive and punitive piece of foreign policy legislation in modern U.S. memory– may be marching toward history.

Just a few weeks ago, a significant change in US foreign policy towards Cuba was made by the US Treasury Department. Negating a decision enacted by the Bush administration five years ago, the Treasury Department, which is charged with the responsibility of overseeing and enforcing a considerable portion of US-Cuba policy, announced that effective immediately, Cuban Americans will be allowed to travel to Cuba to visit family once a year (as opposed to once every three years) and no time restrictions will be imposed on these visits.

Though it received fairly limited press, Matador’s own contributing editor, Christine Garvin, gave the policy change some thoughtful coverage on Brave New Traveler.

Now, there’s evidence that still more of the travel-related laws prohibiting Americans’ travel to Cuba are being chipped away at.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act is a bipartisan bill introduced yesterday. It is co-sponsored by 118 members of the House (House Bill H.R. 874) and 20 Senators (Senate Bill S. 428) from both parties. The bill is intended to extend the right to travel to Cuba to all Americans… for the first time in decades.

The bill is being supported by special interest groups as diverse as the US dairy, wheat, and rice industries, as well the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

Though similar bills were proposed with regularity during the Bush administration, they quickly died before being passed.

Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, articulated my own feelings, which I expressed in this article, when she said:

“…the constitutional right to travel belongs to all Americans no matter what their ethnic background or national origin might be.

Under George Bush, we had ‘travel for nearly none’; under Barack Obama, we have progressed to ‘travel for some’; and under this legislation we can realize the goal of ‘travel for all’.

All of our goals – for U.S.-Cuba policy, for regional diplomacy, for boosting the U.S. economy, and for advancing our values and remaking our nation’s image-are best served by replacing our policy of isolation with engagement starting with ‘travel for all’.”

Though the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, if passed and signed into legislation, is not expected to completely dismantle the trade embargo, the continued efforts to revise US foreign policy toward Cuba signal an important–and exciting–new chapter in the complicated history of US-Cuba relations.

As someone married to a Cuban American, and as a traveler who has visited Cuba many times (that’s me in this article’s feature photo, clowning around with my husband and my mother-in-law at her apartment in Centro Habana), I’m interested to see if the bill passes this go round.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

If you’re an American interested in traveling to Cuba off-the-radar before any policy changes take effect, check out two of my articles full of first-hand advice here and here. Find out how to prepare for your trip by watching some of my favorite films or reading some of the best books about Cuba; you can find the list here. Wondering what to do once you get there? Check out my nightlife recommendations.

Have you been to Cuba? Share your experiences! Would you love to visit Cuba? Share your thoughts about the Freedom to Travel Act below.

Photo: RichieC

US Vice-President Joe Biden, not one known for circumspect speech, has just returned from a trip to Latin America.

The veep, whose trip was a goodwill move intended to pave the way for President Obama’s participation in the Summit of the Americas later this month, attended the Progressive Governance Conference along with the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, and the Prime Ministers of Norway and the UK.

Biden brought his administration’s message of hope and change to the region, noting that the Americas need to work together more closely on the economy, education, and health care, among other common issues.

“[T]he good news,” Biden said in his formal remarks, “is that we’re willing to, and want to collaborate.”

Biden delivered the “bad news” in this punchline:

“The bad news is that you don’t have the last administration to use as an excuse.”

The veep’s remarks- delivered in his closing statement- were received with laughter and applause.

Community Connection:

To learn about other foreign policy initiatives in the Americas, check out this article from our archives.

Over in Slate, in a piece titled Terrorists, Dissidents and Copy Editors, Christopher Hitchens tracks the shifting language used by journalists to describe the perpetrators of violence in both Iraq and Northern Ireland.

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (AQM), he notes, is now being referred to simply as a “a largely homegrown terrorist group,” when it was once known as “a largely homegrown terrorist group that American intelligence says is foreign-led.”

There is some debate as to whether AQM is a spontaneous local response to the American occupation, or a more calculated, opportunistic group with ties to Al-Qaeda proper — and, as Hitch writes, “at least this ponderous formulation expressed the ambiguity.”

Dropping that ambiguity, he argues, lends the group greater legitimacy.

Similarly, the perpetrators of the recent attacks in Northern Ireland, splinter groups of the IRA who refuse to participate in the peace process, are now being referred to as “dissidents” — a term which, Hitch writes, “describes only attitudes and not actions, and it is most famously associated with the intellectual opposition to Soviet totalitarianism.”

He goes on: “Plainly, something has been lost when such a historic term of honor and respect is loosely applied to homicidal thugs who shoot a Catholic policeman in the head and use pizza delivery workers as human shields.”

…If you want a quick definition of euphemism, this would do: It consists of inventing nice terms for nasty things (perhaps to make them seem less nasty) and soft words for frightening things (perhaps to make them seem less scary). We should have learned by now that this form of dishonesty is also a form of cowardice, by which some of the enemy’s work is done for him.

Fine points, all, and I’m glad to see someone is carrying on Orwell’s mission to monitor the use of language, and its enormous consequences.

But I’d be a lot more convinced that Hitchens really means what he says, if he didn’t refer to the US-led invasion of Iraq as “the coalition intervention” throughout the article.

What was that about “inventing nice terms for nasty things,” again?

Photo by ItzaFineDay (Creative Commons)

The Dalai Lama has been denied a visa for a major international peace conference to be held in Johannesburg this week.

A spokesman for the President claimed the move was intended to prevent any distractions in the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup, being held on the African continent for the first time next year — but the truth behind the move came out when he added that South Africa has benefited greatly from a strong trading relationship with China.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, famed anti-Apartheid activist and — like the Dalai Lama — a Nobel Prize recipient, has announced that he will boycott the conference in response.

Former President F.W. de Klerk, another Nobel laureate for his role in releasing Nelson Mandela and ending the Apartheid era, joined Tutu in condemning the move and vowing to boycott. From his statement:

The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity. South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory – regardless of the power and influence of the country.

There’s been no response as of yet from Mandela, yet another Nobel Prize recipient who’d been slated to attend.

I’d be curious to hear his thoughts, though — after all, while he spent decades in prison, many of his fellow leaders in the anti-Apartheid resistance were in exile overseas, trying to raise awareness and stir up support for their cause.

I think I know what he would have said, then, about any country that bowed to the Apartheid state’s demands to deny them visas.

Photo by reurinkjan (Creative Commons)

Lately it seems everywhere you look — in print or online — you’ll find someone sermonizing about the death of print and the inexorable, irresistible rise of the internets.

The funny thing is, a lot of these articles seem to view the two sides as completely distinct, when the reality is a lot of hard-bitten, old school news reporters are embracing new technology to help them do their jobs.

For instance, in the last week Twitter has helped me re-connect with some of my favorite Canadian foreign correspondents, who I’d largely lost track of when I stopped keeping a Canadian residence (and the newspaper subscription that came with it).

Here they are; if you’re interested in global news, they’re all worth keeping an eye on:

Mark MacKinnon

Mark MacKinnon is the Globe and Mail’s current Beijing chief, former Moscow bureau chief, and former Middle East correspondent. He’s as “serious news reporter” as you get — having won national newspaper awards and filed stories from war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, and Lebanon — and yet, here he is on Twitter, writing St. Paddy’s Day haikus and talking hockey.

His blog, Points East, complements his more formal dispatches from across East Asia.

Stephanie Nolen

I know, I know — I never shut up about Stephanie Nolen.

But in her five years as the Globe and Mail’s Africa correspondent, she was a must-read from the continent. Now, as the Globe’s new Delhi-based South Asia correspondent, she’s filing in-depth stories from the world’s rising superpower. Here’s her latest, explaining the cultural nuances behind the seemingly intractable problem of infant malnutrition.

She twitters @snolen. And she’s keeping a blog, too: check out Subcontinental.

Doug Saunders

Okay, so my bias is showing — but yes, Saunders is yet another G&M trooper, the European bureau chief. Apart from being a bright and thoughtful political columnist, he’s also a foodie and culture-watcher — and I’ve blogged about his travel essays more than once, too.

Here’s his latest dispatch, on Britain’s curry crisis, and here he is on Twitter, too.

Who are your favorite reporters worldwide? And where can we find them online?

Photo by Praziquantel (Creative Commons)

Stocks keep tanking, credit is as structurally sound as Swiss cheese, and our nation pretty much owes 100% of our GDP. State and federal head honchos are starting to seriously consider flipping sofa cushions for the fleeting satisfaction of finding a few lost coins.

No one believes legalizing ganja is going to erase our deficit completely, but at this point, slowing the money hemorrhaging out of our already tapped out arteries might be nice for a change, no?

All moral debating aside, Matador has decided to look at this issue from a numbers standpoint.

$35 billion – The estimated value of total marijuana crops grown in the U.S. each year.

$2.4 billion – The estimated potential tax revenue earned if the U.S. taxed marijuana like all other consumer goods.

$6.2 billion – The estimated potential annual tax revenue earned if the U.S. taxed and regulated marijuana like alcohol.

$11 billion – The estimated cost to U.S. taxpayers for total annual marijuana arrests.

over $100 million – The estimated amount the U.S. government spends each year for the National Drug Control Strategy (of which marijuana is the primary target).

Of course, readers must take these numbers with a grain of salt. Economists can only provide broad estimations for a crop that remains essentially illegal and therefore, difficult to track financially. That being said, since these types of formal studies have been released, over here.

Photo: Revolution or death

NACLA–North American Congress on Latin America–reported the following about the outcome of the country’s presidential election:

“The FMLN’s [Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front Party] Mauricio Funes declared victory at 9:30 [Sunday night]. His challenger from the incumbent, far-right ARENA party conceded defeat a few hours later, bringing an end to 20 years of one-party rule. Funes will become El Salvador’s first leftist head of state in the country’s history.The essence of Funes’ campaign slogan, ‘Hope is born,’ could be felt throughout the country yesterday, with massive voter turnout reported from the metropolis of San Salvador to rural villages in the outlying departments.”

Funes, an investigative journalist, ran for the presidency because he felt that he would only be able to help his country recover from years of conflict and unrest by exerting political authority. “The problems here are so powerful that I can’t continue working as a journalist,” Funes said in an interview with a Nicaraguan publication. “Journalism has allowed me to know the realities of El Salvador– especially the reality of poverty. But journalism doesn’t allow me to change that reality.”

Though the previous US presidential administration had expressed deep concern about the liberalization of Latin America, Funes and his party have articulated a set of 10 goals that seem to warrant hope, not worry:

1. Improve job prospects for the unemployed.
2. Explore and accelerate possibilities for responsible use of natural resources.
3. Combat organized crime.
4. Reduce the digital divide that exists between Salvadorans and the citizens of other countries.
5. Initiate an era of fiscal reform at the federal and regional government levels.
6. Respond to the global economic crisis and minimize effects on the country.
7. Unify divided communities.
8. Reaffirm the principles and values of democracy.
9. Restore legal standards to protect people seeking protection and justice.
10. Explore new opportunities for economic, social, and political alliances in Latin America.

Funes and the FMLN have their work cut out for them, for sure. But let’s hope that El Salvador can begin to enjoy some hope and change of their own.

Photo: ginnerobot

Perhaps you missed the story that was a mere footnote to many newscasts the week of March 6.

During British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit to the U.S., President Obama presented the PM with a rather untraditional gift: a set of 25 DVDs representing the best of America’s film culture. The set included “The Wizard of Oz,” “Schindler’s List,” “Citizen Kane,” and “Psycho.”

Typically, Presidents’ gifts to other sitting heads of state are more symbolic, often with historical or cultural value reaffirming the ties between the two countries.

The HotAir blog called Obama a cheapskate; the U.K.’s Daily Mail was a bit more circumspect, observing that even if PM Brown was a known movie buff, the DVD gift set would have been hopelessly gauche compared to the thoughtful gifts Brown presented to the President, including “an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.”

President Obama and his wife were also criticized for the gifts they selected for the Prime Minister’s children: two models of the presidential helicopter. The Browns, meanwhile, presented the President’s daughters with books and outfits.

One British journalist argued that the DVD box set was just one symbol of Obama’s brush-off of Brown, kvetching that Obama failed to hold a traditional joint press conference, as is customary during a British PM’s visit. “Obama really just didn’t like having the Brits in town,” the journalist said.

Community Connection:

What do you think? Was the DVD box set a bad gift? And does it even really matter?

Two weeks ago we blogged about the assassination of Guinea-Bissau’s President, Joao Bernando Vieira, by members of the army.

Details in the media have been scarce, so we asked Kota Tabuchi, a Matador member and Africa Program Director for Mountain Travel Sobek, to shed some light on the killing and its aftermath.

Guinea Bissau has all but vanished from the news since the word that the President had been killed. Any idea of who’s in charge? Is there a Vice-President who’s taken over? Is the Army running the show?

Former Parliamentary Speaker and lawyer, Raimundo Pereira, is currently serving as the Interim President of Guinea Bissau. He’s been urged by the international community to organize a free and fair election to return the country to constitutional democracy; a country that has been historically, and still is, plagued with corruption, famine, disease etc.

Also keep in mind that this wasn’t the first attempt at the President’s life. Back in November 2008 (quite recently), an attempt was made at his life at the Presidential residence.

Government instability is nothing new to Guinea Bissau, it seems. Do you get a sense of how people reacted to the President’s death? Was there shock and fear, or was it closer to “business as usual”?

Without having been on the ground myself, much of what I’m about to report is what I’ve heard from my partners on the ground and a bit of speculation. Coming from the Western world, I think it’s difficult for us to put ourselves in their shoes and see the world through their lens.

This is a country plagued with corruption, poverty, drug trafficking (yes, one of the major drug routes to Europe) with life expectancy below 45.

In addition, much of the population lives outside the city of Bissau in remote areas with no access to news etc. In particular, Bijagos Archipelago, off the western coast, is an area detached from the mainland and makes up a good % of the country’s land mass.

The arms of the government simply don’t have a strong enough grasp on these remote islands (kind of like how some of the remote inhabited islands of the Philippines / Indonesia aren’t affected by mainland politics and poorly managed etc.).

With that said, the situation on the ground is reportedly calm, borders remain open, and nobody is fleeing the country. According to my sources, most citizens are not overly concerned, in shock or living in fear. This incident is a result of a power struggle within the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), not of civil unrest.

However, I wouldn’t go as far to say that this is “business as usual”. I’d speculate, based on my experience in Africa, that incidents such as what happened in Bissau definitely have at least a slight impact on the country and its morale; simply not to the extent of what we’d feel here in the US.

At the end of the day, they’ve got bigger fish to fry like getting food and surviving.

Two weeks on, is there a tangible impact on the streets? Or have people’s lives more or less gone back to normal?

Normal is such a relative term and I hesitate to say that life is ever ‘normal’ in Bissau.

Remember, this is one of the world’s poorest nations and they’ve just gone through a massive cholera outbreak several months ago as well as their key political figures being assassinated.

Hardships like this occur in places like Bissau all too often. They deal, cope and move on.

Are people in Guinea Bissau aware of how little international media attention their country receives, and if so, how do they feel about it?

I don’t think international media is even on their radar. Entirely speculation.

And finally, any sense of what comes next in Guinea-Bissau?

Guinea Bissau is a failed State in every sense of the definition. Massive government corruption, extreme poverty, poor infrastructure, lack of education, disease/sanitation, access to clean water, low life expectancy and so on…

I hope for a fair and honest democratic election of the country’s next President. I fear that reality will be much different. Look at what has happened in Kenya (a ‘model’ for African democracy) last year and more recently in Zimbabwe. Many of these States, unfortunately, are doomed for failure and will take a long and involved process to ever get out of the hole.

Am I optimistic of Bissau’s future? Absolutely not.

With the lack of foreign interest or investment, I don’t think the country is headed in a good direction. For example, how many Americans can locate Guinea Bissau on a map, let alone have heard of it? And after the initial blast in the few news sources, how much more have we heard about Bissau (as you mentioned above, things have gone ‘silent’).

Hard times ahead for the people of Guinea Bissau…

Top photo by Pedronchi (Creative Commons)

Bottom photo by Pedronchi (Creative Commons)

Is the decade-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo “Africa’s invisible war”?

Some fascinating number-crunching from Social Design Notes compares the numbers of fatalities in Darfur and the Congo — roughly 500,000 and 5.5 million, respectively — and then notes the enormous disparity in the media coverage of the two.

In the last 10 years, the New York Times has averaged 13.5 stories on the DRC’s war annually. Darfur, on the other hand, averages 151.6 stories in the pages of the Times each year.

An accompanying graphic starkly illustrated the gap. But what’s behind it? Blogger John writes:

Do the Arab Muslim bad guys in Sudan make a more convenient target for Western Islamophobes? Are China’s competing industrial interests in Sudan easier to finger than US corporate interests in DR Congo?

Are the deserts of Darfur simply more accessible than the forests of Northeastern Congo?

Or is Darfur a simpler story with clearer victims and perpetrators? A story closer to Western ideas of genocide than Congo’s messier regional war?

And in a thoughtful follow-up, a Human Rights Watch rep has the following response:

I fear that the Congo conflict receives less coverage because many outsiders have bought into the preconception that Congo is the ‘heart of darkness’ as characterized by Joseph Conrad’s book by the same title.

The book has often been used to refer to Congo’s plight today, as if the country is somehow predisposed to dark atrocities and violence, and hence there is nothing new to report.

Yet many have misunderstood the real message of Conrad’s book. It is not Congolese barbarism but rather the greed of outsiders that have plagued this country’s history.

Of course, none of this is intended to belittle the suffering in Darfur or to suggest that its ugly conflict should receive less coverage — only to point out the disparity, and wonder why the largest violent loss of life since the Second World War is being so thoroughly ignored?

(Via Scarlett Lion)

Photo by Ana_Cotta (Creative Commons)

Could Iran have a shot at some change we can believe in, too?

High-profile pro-reform politician Mohammed Khatami, who served as President of Iran from 1997 to 2005 — when power passed to the more belligerent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad — has announced that he will run again in the country’s upcoming elections.

(Iran’s presidents are permitted to serve two consecutive four-year terms before stepping down, but they are free to run again in future.)

Khatami’s candidacy leaves Iran’s reformers, and much of the West, eyeing the tantalizing possibility of the country adopting a more conciliatory tone at the very moment that President Obama is doing the same.

The result? Maybe, just maybe, a new era in US-Iran relations.

During his last turn in office, Khatami worked to increase both political and social freedoms — though many of his efforts, including an attempt to loosen press restrictions, were blocked by hardliners. His supporters hope that the last four years of tension have fueled the desire for change.

Said one close ally:

People feel the need for change because of Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy and economic policies. Therefore we think people will vote for Khatami, for change… With Khatami running, the election will be polarized.

Of course, nothing is certain: Ahmadinejad retains a great deal of support, especially among the more hardline clerics and in rural areas, while Khatami’s failure to deliver on past promises led some reformers to give up on him.

The Iranian election is slated for June.

Photo by Please! Don’t Smile. (Creative Commons)

In all the discussion about President Obama’s planned closure of Guantanamo Bay and other special prisons, one order has gone largely unnoticed: the one that preserves the practice of extraordinary rendition.

According to the Portland Independent Media Center, Obama opted to sign an order retaining rendition — in which terror suspects are detained without charge and then deported to a third party nation for interrogation, keeping US hands (technically) clean — while simultaneously shutting down the CIA’s secret prisons, restoring the ban on torture, and of course closing Gitmo.

Said one anonymous administration official:

Obviously you need to preserve some tools — you still have to go after the bad guys. The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.

Since rendition’s best known as a back-door method of allowing suspects to be tortured, it’s hard to see what those parameters might be — or how it squares with the new administration’s stance on torture by American hands.

Interestingly, though, Human Rights Watch is on board with the new order, noting that there’s room for rendition “within limited circumstances.”

Interesting. I do genuinely have faith in President Obama’s scruples on this issue, so I’ll keep an open mind for now — but I’ll be keeping a wide open eye on the news, too.

(Via the HumanRightsNews Twitter feed, which you should most definitely subscribe to if you want to get beyond the MSM on things like Darfur, Gaza, Sri Lanka, and other hotspots.)

Photo by nyghtowl (Creative Commons)

“Se acabo el colonialismo (Colonialism is over),” declared President Evo Morales as his country voted to adopt a controversial new constitution last Sunday. A powerful sentiment, intensely meaningful for many here in South America’s poorest, most indigenous nation.

For Morales, the passage of the constitution marked the long-awaited fulfillment of a campaign promise that aided his election as Bolivia’s first indigenous president three years ago.

That promise was to redefine how the country viewed its native majority, to erase the privilege bequeathed to the descendants of European conquerors, to create a Bolivia where equal rights for all was a legally enshrined doctrine.

Between then and now, the path to Sunday’s vote had, at times, seemed to slip away. Following political clashes over the drafting of the constitutional document and violent confrontations in the streets that claimed dozens of lives, the referendum was postponed on three separate occasions.

Many feared January 25 would bring more of the same.

Not this time. The vote went off smoothly, praised by both international monitoring agencies and neighboring Latin American leaders happy to witness a peaceful display of Bolivian democracy.

In fact, the entire campaign was marked by a peculiar absence of emotion on the ground. Here in the central highland capital of Cochabamba, a few late rallies, a fair amount of graffiti, and the odd loudspeaker truck kept focus on the issue, but there was none of the passionate collective action that characterizes Bolivian political campaigning, particularly in the age of Evo.

Perhaps everyone was ready for a conclusion.

A tremendous calm settled over the city on Sunday—notably enhanced by the ban on vehicle traffic and alcohol sales—as citizens carried out the solemn obligation of casting a ballot. True to predictions, the “si” contingency won the day with roughly 60% of the vote.

But such tranquility is deceiving.

A closer look at the numbers details a nation starkly divided between the indigenous Andean provinces of the west, which backed the referendum by a ratio of 3 to 1, and the wealthier lowland regions to the east that handed Morales a 2 to 1 reprimand.

And what the campaign lacked in grassroots activity was made up for on the airwaves, ablaze with inflammatory and often utterly irrational rhetoric.

Opposition ads claimed, for instance, that the constitution would abolish Christianity, promote abortion and homosexuality, divvy up all current land holdings, and otherwise transform Bolivia into a rabidly pagan, socialist state.

The truth is that many of the articles originally proposed were so watered down over the months of heated negotiation and political maneuvering that they drew equal criticism from left and right. A rundown of major changes actually included in the document can be found here.

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to suggest that the vote was as much a referendum on Morales himself as the adoption of a new constitution… on his beliefs that the country’s indigenous peoples should be given a greater voice, that the government should exercise greater control over natural resources, that the majority of Bolivians have toiled too long under the yoke of oppression.

Yes, the constitution passed.

The sad reality is this means relatively little. Before anything changes in the day-to-day lives of the people here, before Bolivia can be “decolonized,” Congress must undertake the tedious process of crafting new laws to concretize the principles advocated in the document.

And, with the division between rich and poor, European and native, “no” and “si” unmitigated, that task is going to be as difficult as ever.

Photos: Hal Amen

Photo: stuartpilbrow

The blogosphere and mainstream media have been abuzz with praise and criticism about President Obama’s Cabinet picks, as well as other key appointments.

Observers and analysts have noted that the President has striven to create a balanced administration, one in which non-traditional appointees with limited government experience are given equal input alongside seasoned politicians who possess solid government credentials.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Obama administration, however, is the number of 20-somethings assuming posts of importance and responsibility.

Here’s a look at Obama’s young guns– the 20-somethings we’re likely to see and hear from a lot in the next four years:

Jon Favreau, 27

Obama’s speechwriter coined the “Yes We Can” motto that became the rallying cry of Obama supporters during the campaign. Favreau actually began his career, though, as a freshly minted college grad hired by John Kerry during his presidential bid in 2004.

Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Favreau met President Obama backstage during the 2004 Democratic convention just before Obama gave the electrifying speech that effectively launched his national political career. Favreau impressed Obama when he boldly interrupted the senator– who was practicing his speech– to suggest a line rewrite.

While Favreau has had his less shining moments–most notably a mini-scandal in which a photo of him groping a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton surfaced on Facebook– Favreau’s speeches have been so moving and effective that such immature indiscretions have been largely overlooked.

Eugene Kang, 24

Kang, a first-generation Korean American whose title is “Special Assistant to the President,” got an early start to his own political career. Before joining the Obama administration, he ran for Ann Arbor, Michigan City Council while still a senior at the University of Michigan. Though he lost by just 90 votes, Kang sharpened his political acumen and proved his mettle, earning him a place in the Obama White House.

Even before the inauguration, though, Kang was a key player in the Obama campaign, charged with the responsibility of enhancing Obama’s presence and connection within Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. He is credited with creating Obama’s website for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Eugene Kang, foreground; Reggie Love, background; Photo: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Reggie Love, 26

Love has been appointed the President’s Personal Aide, a promotion he received in 2008 after serving as a staff assistant to the President in 2007. Love is a graduate of Duke University, holding a degree in political science. While at Duke, he played basketball, and is Team Obama’s #1 baller.

While it may seem demeaning to fetch the President’s coffee (but hey, it’s a job I’d be pretty happy to have), Love showed that he’s capable of influencing Obama: he’s credited with teaching Obama the fist-bump… and introducing him to Jay-Z. The men worked out together each morning during the campaign.

Love may also be Obama’s closest competitor for a nomination as the administration’s most handsome man. People Magazine named him one of America’s most eligible bachelors, and Vanity Fair concurred that Love is a hot item.

Katie Johnson, 27

Photo: Boston Globe

Johnson has been selected to serve as President Obama’s personal secretary. A graduate of Wellesley (like Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton), Johnson has been described by others in the administration as “highly qualified” for her post.

During the campaign, she was a key aide to Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, proving herself to be an organized and invaluable team player.

Johnson has a BA in political science. While at Wellesley, she interned for Hillary Clinton. She has since worked as a campaign field organizer at the state level and gained legal experience as a paralegal for a New York City firm.

Johnson is accustomed to being cool under pressure: before accepting her current position, she not only worked with the calm and affable Plouffe; she also worked with the explosive Rahm Emanuel for two years during Emanuel’s tenure as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

It’s hard to know what to say, exactly, when the history of the region is so complicated and so politicized that just to try to talk about the situation stirs passions and tends to prevent rational conversation.

But Bill Moyers, my favorite American journalist, found just the right words, and he said them on his weekly news show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” which aired January 9.

It’s hard to elaborate on anything Moyers says, so I’ll just ask that you take the time to watch the segment and then, share your thoughts below:

Besides the obvious fact that Obama will be the first US president of color, the inauguration week activities announced thus far are unprecedented in their inclusiveness.

Private citizens, businesses, and public interest groups are also making the inauguration their own.

The online book publisher WeBook is inviting writers to document their experiences of the inauguration as part of a “community-sourced history” project. Fifty to seventy-five of the best essays (250-500 words each) will be selected for inclusion in an anthology called Jan. 20 2009: True Stories, Real People, One Day.

The deadline for submissions is midnight (EST) on January 21. Selection of essays will begin immediately, and publication of the book is scheduled to occur within two weeks of the inauguration. The books will be sold for $9.99 USD on Amazon and on WeBook’s own website.

And what’s really cool?

All proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to 826 National, a non-profit literacy organization helping kids between the ages of six and eighteen.

You can find out more about the WeBook project here.

And if you want to learn about some other “firsts” in inaugural history, check out this video:

I hate to be a Debbie Downer on Christmas Day, but I woke up this morning thinking about people who can’t spend the holiday with their loved ones. I woke up thinking about wars.

War doesn’t take a holiday.

And both those fighting it and those directly affected by it are unable to enjoy the most important gift of all: peace.

If you’d like to let people affected by war know that you remember them today, here are three simple actions you can still take:

1. Send a soldier a song: Now through December 31, you can send a soldier a voucher for two free song downloads through a program sponsored by Billboard Magazine. Sending the voucher–along with holiday wishes–takes less than one minute of your time. Information about the program can be found here.

2. Put together a New Year’s care package: Make the holiday last longer with a New Year’s care package. You can see a list of commonly requested items and full instructions for sending military care packages here.

3. Remember victims and survivors of war: CIVIC (The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict) offers numerous ways for concerned citizens of any country to get involved in supporting their campaign for rights of victims of war. One thing you can do today is sign an electronic petition asking President-elect Obama to support important policies that will help victims of war if Afghanistan and Iraq.

Photo: Army.mil (Flickr creative commons)

You probably don’t need me to tell you that President Bush has less than a month left in office.

But it just feels so good to say it!

Before we all heave one big collective sigh of relief, let’s enjoy a few more laughs and groans as we review eight years’ worth of Bush’s finer–yet less remembered–moments as he exercised statesmanship at home and around the world.

1. Reflection on America’s enemies:

2. Trying to talk like the locals… and remember what meeting he’s attending:

3. Some thoughts about immigration…

4. Tribal wha?

5. Take care of yourself, New Orleans… ‘cuz that’s what I’m gonna do:

6. And finally…

Photo: faeryboots (Flickr creative commons)

A US pre-trial hearing for a Canadian child soldier (sorry, make that child “enemy combatant”) who’s been held in Guantanamo for six years will go ahead after all — just one day before Barack Obama becomes President.

Omar Khadr is currently scheduled to appear in one of Guantanamo’s much-maligned military commissions on January 19 (Martin Luther King Day, for those keeping track), the day before Obama — who has pledged to close the prison camp at Gitmo — takes office.

Said Khadr’s Pentagon-assigned lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler:

These people are so desperate to get the train moving in some form or fashion that they’re going to start this case on Martin Luther King Day and continue through the inauguration day…

It shows desperation and you can almost interpret it as a thumb in the eye of the incoming Obama camp.

Khadr was just 15 years old when he was captured after a firefight in Afghanistan, and has been imprisoned ever since, waiting to face charges of “war crimes” and “murder”, based on allegations that he threw a hand grenade (in said firefight) that killed a US soldier.

(Incidentally, the soldiers that captured Khadr initially found him unarmed and wounded, and shot him in the back. They only took him into custody when he survived the bullets — but they have yet to face charges of attempted murder. In fact, they’ll be among the chief witnesses for the prosecution.)

The Khadr family is extremely controversial up here in Canada.

Omar’s father (who was killed in Afghanistan) was a well-known fundraiser for Al Qaeda, said to know Osama Bin Laden personally, while the mother has frequently been in the news in recent years, complaining about the Canadian government’s inadequacies while publicly supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But all of that — far from making me believe Omar is getting what he deserves, as some do — only makes me feel the injustice of his case more strongly.

This is a boy who was sent to Afghanistan by his parents for terrorist training before he’d hit puberty — truly a case of child abuse if ever I’ve heard one.

And yet, instead of trying to protect or rehabilitate him (and even the staff at Gitmo believe he is a perfect candidate for rehab), the Canadian and US governments have responded by stripping him of his rights, torturing him, and putting him on trial for “murder”, a bizarre charge to level at someone in a war zone where (as his captors made clear when they tried to finish him off) it was kill or be killed.

Why are child soldiers from Sierra Leone or Uganda viewed as victims, but Omar Khadr is instead treated as a war criminal?

And why are US prosecutors so intent on seeing his case through, even as a new President arrives who’s made it clear he wants no part of the mockery made of justice in the last 8 years?

The answers to both questions are the same: as with Abu Ghraib, third-party rendition, and everything else, too many high-level US administrators have become so intent on “winning” the War on Terror, that they’ve lost all sight of what they are supposed to be fighting to protect.

Namely: liberty, democracy and justice.

Barack Obama’s inauguration day really can’t come soon enough.

Unfortunately for Omar Khadr, it may come one day too late.

Photo by art makes me smile (Creative Commons)

According to a Spanish language article in the newspaper, El Pais, the Pentagon has announced that it has (finally) begun to develop a proposal for closing the military detention facility at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where approximately 250 men continue to be held as enemy combatants in the U.S.’s War on Terror.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates indicated that he has charged his staff with the task of drafting a report about what resources and strategies would be required to close the detention facility.

And fortunately, it seems that the plan is–quite sensibly–taking into account what will become of the men being held in indefinite legal limbo there.

While that part of the close Guantanamo plan seems logical enough, all earlier calls to close the facility have largely overlooked this critical factor, as I noted in a recent blog about Guantanamo.

Though no specific date for the implementation of any closure plan was indicated, Defense officials stated that closing Guantanamo is one of President-elect Obama’s top priorities.

Photo: Julie Schwietert Collazo

I don’t think Keith actually pauses for breath in this spectacular rant on what he views as Dubya’s true legacy:

Feature photo by tanakawho (Creative Commons)

Travelers who have visited Cuba tend to describe the island as a time capsule or a freeze frame 1950s-era photo.

In some ways, that’s true. My husband’s family, for instance, still owns the tank-sized Frigidaire they bought before the triumph of the Revolution. (And yes, it still works).

Travelers who haven’t yet been to Cuba but who have long been hoping to get their own glimpse into the time warp might want to hurry up and do so: rumblings in the U.S. and on the island suggest that the travel ban, trade embargo, and decades-long diplomatic freeze imposed by the U.S. may start to be dismantled soon.

During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama made waves by assertively stating that he was open to sitting down with world leaders the U.S. considers hostile, including Castro.

Since elected for the office, Obama has offered additional insights into his plans for normalizing relations with Cuba, indicating that he is considering lifting the current remittance and travel limits that have impacted Cubans and Cuban Americans negatively during the eight years of the Bush administration.

It’s likely the travel industry will hold Obama to his word. Just yesterday, the American Society of Travel Agents released a press statement in which they urged President-Elect Obama to also make the bolder move of lifting the current ban that prohibits American citizens and residents from traveling to Cuba.

In a passionate letter to the President-Elect, the ASTA wrote:

“ASTA has long supported the principle that Americans ought to be allowed to travel across the globe without restriction…. [T]o use travel freedom as an instrument of foreign policy manipulation ultimately does harm to the very citizens it purports to protect.”

They continued:

“Were the American people allowed to travel to Havana, as they currently are allowed to travel to Pyongyang, Tehran, Khartoum, and other cities whose nations’ leaders are publicly opposed to American interests, they could serve as ambassadors of freedom and American values to the Cuban people.”

It’s an opinion I share, and which I wrote about earlier this year in an article: Why Travel is the Most Patriotic Act You Can Do.

But it’s also an opinion that the majority of Americans seem to share.

According to a September 2008 opinion poll conducted by Zogby:

60% of likely voters believe the U.S. should revise its policies toward Cuba – even more believe all U.S. citizens should be allowed to travel to Cuba (68%) and that U.S. companies should be allowed to trade with Cuba (62%).

In an earlier Zogby poll, “slightly more than half (56%) of Americans said the U.S. should remove travel restrictions and end the embargo on trade to Cuba.”

It’s a call that hasn’t gone unnoticed in Cuba. In a recent interview with Sean Penn, acting head of state, Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, indicated he would be willing to sit down for talks with Obama, too. And just today, Fidel Castro announced that Cuba should engage in talks with the U.S. once Obama takes office.

Even initiating a real dialogue about the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba is a step that is both profound and promising. And once the embargo ends, Cuba is likely to resume its former allure as a top travel destination for Americans, given its proximity to the States and the fact that it’s been all but off-limits for the past 50 years.

So if you’re a traveler who was hoping to peer inside the time warp, you’d better get moving.

Photos: Brayan Collazo Alonso

Photo by dearbarbie (Creative Commons)

Yup, it’s Zimbabwe Day again here at Pulse.

A few months back, I noted that Botswana’s government had broken ranks with the other African nations by refusing to recognize Robert Mugabe’s “victory” in the latest round of Zimbabwean elections.

This week, we have the latest sign that some African leaders have had enough of Mugabe and his destructive governance:

Kenya’s Prime Minister speaking out in the harshest language yet by a leader from the continent.

“It’s time for African governments… to push him out of power,” the BBC quoted Prime Minister Raila Odinga as saying, in response to the ongoing political turmoil in the country.

“Power-sharing is dead in Zimbabwe and will not work with a dictator who does not really believe in power-sharing.”

Odinga, who apparently also held talks with ANC President Jacob Zuma, emphasized South Africa’s role in forcing a solution in Zimbabwe:

“I do believe strongly that if the leadership in South Africa took a firm stand and told Mugabe to quit he will have no choice but to do so.”

Meanwhile, a major cholera outbreak is also sweeping Zimbabwe.

Sports events can be a great way to connect with local culture when you travel.

And now, they can be a great way to learn about recession politics, too.

In New York City, two council members are proposing that the Mets’ new stadium, CitiField, be re-named Citi/Taxpayer Field – in reference to CitiGroup’s latest federal bailout.

Said one of the councilmen:

Perhaps a name change is in order, since it will be the taxpayers of the country who will foot the bill for not only part of stadium, but for the company itself,” Mr. Ignizio said. “The taxpayers are spending billions for this company to maintain its operations and deserve the recognition for their largess.

Seems fair to me. While we’re at it, why not change a few other names, too?

CitiGroup itself could become Citi-TaxpayerGroup. Bear Stearns could become Bear “Taxpayer” Stearns. Heck, Wall Street could become Taxpayer-Milking Street.

But then again, if every major financial corporation to get a piece of the bailout changed their named to Taxpayer, that’d get really confusing, wouldn’t it?

Photo by Bob Jagendorf (Creative Commons)

President-Elect Barack Obama is scheduled to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

The excitement surrounding the event has spurred a flurry of New Year travel plans with D.C. as the main destination.

So you’re not among the lucky few who have already secured D.C. accommodations?

If you’re still looking for a place to celebrate the inauguration, consider one of the following places to ring in the new year and the new president:

* Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA:

The local NBC affiliate in Chicago reported that more than half a million people showed up for the election night party at Grant Park in Obama’s adopted hometown of Chicago.

Although no official inauguration night plans have been announced by the city, stay tuned: Chicagoans who can’t make it to the inauguration aren’t likely to sit quietly at home on January 20. Expect big parties all around town.

*Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, USA:

On election night, Ebenezer was “filled to bursting” with 2,000 people celebrating the Obama-Biden victory.

Ebenezer, the home church of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., has long been a magnet for travelers.

But on January 20, 2009, Ebenezer is likely to be filled to fire code capacity again, as locals and visitors celebrate the inauguration of the first Black President of the United States in the historic Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia.

*Honolulu, Hawaii, USA:

President-elect Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 and has maintained close ties to the oft-overlooked U.S. state, visiting as recently as late October, 2008.

While Hawaii’s inaugural ball (which is actually being held in Washington, D.C.) is already sold out, don’t expect outside the Beltway Hawaiians to be restrained in their festivities.

Though it’s far from Washington, Hawaii might just be THE place to be to celebrate the inauguration. Besides… what other location on this list is likely to offer bone-warming temps instead of bone-chilling temps on January 20?

*Kogelo, Kenya:

Obama’s father was from Kenya and Obama himself maintains contact with distant relatives who still live there in the western village of Kogelo.

Celebrating the inauguration in Kogelo will require a long-haul journey on your part, but you can be pretty sure that the celebration will be worth the trip: on election night, the Obama relatives camped out overnight in the pouring rain to watch election returns broadcast on a big screen.

Once the election was called in Obama’s favor, villagers broke out in song and dance. And the next day, government officials got rolling on some local infrastructure projects… just in time for you to show up.

*Obama, Japan:

I wrote about Obama, Japan a few weeks before the election, when the future of the town’s tourism was still somewhat uncertain.

Now that Obama has won, there’s no better time than January 20 to catch an international flight and celebrate the inauguration of Obama in the town of Obama while eating an Obama burger and buying your Obama in Obama souvenirs.

Where will YOU be spending inauguration night? Share your inauguration night plans below!

Photo credits (in order of appearance):
realjameso16
gingerbydesign
Old Shoe Woman
bobster1985
oceandeetoiles
showbizsuperstar

Quick follow-up to yesterday’s post about the Proposition 8 protests in California and across the States this weekend:

Meg Massie over at Gadling reports that at least one gay rights activist, John Aravosis, is calling for travelers to boycott Utah this ski season.

Utah, of course, is home to the headquarters of the Mormon Church, which reportedly poured tens of millions of dollars into a campaign in favour of California’s Prop 8.

Meg wrote: “[Aravosis is] calling for skiers to choose anywhere but Utah this winter, and he’s even urging Hollywood to back out of the annual Sundance Film Festival, which makes up a huge part of Utah’s $6 billion annual tourism income.”

It’s an interesting idea – I have no idea whether it will take hold, but it’s worth noting that the passage of Proposition 8 seems to have awakened a new spirit of protest in the gay rights movement, with a feistier edge to it than I can recall seeing in recent years.

Case in point: another blog post I came across just a few minutes after Gadling’s:

“I strongly support civility in this struggle,” the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan wrote in a post titled The Mormon War on Gay People. “Religious services and practices should be scrupulously respected.”

But when a church, like the Mormon church, makes a concerted effort to enter the public square and strip a small minority of basic civil rights, it is simply preposterous for them then to argue that the Mormon church cannot be criticized and protested because they are a religion.

I have never done anything – nor would I do anything – to impede or restrict the civil rights of Mormons. I respect their right to freedom of conscience and religion. In fact, it is one of my strongest convictions. But when they use their money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then they have started a war.

And I am not a pacifist.

Hmm. Like I was saying. Them’s fighting words. This issue isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Photo by msn678 (Creative Commons)

Tens of thousands took to the streets last Saturday in an unprecedented showing of support of the LGBT community and their right to the freedom of marriage.

From Los Angeles to Boston, Prop 8 protesters made it apparent that the fight for gay civil liberties is anything but a closed discussion. It also proved to be a tipping point in the public conscious.

For the demonstrations weren’t instigated by the usual gay advocacy organizations, but by a bottom-to-top effort from individuals on the internet, spurred by a website that called for a national day of protest, Join the Impact.

A 26-year old blogger in Seattle, outraged over the results of the election, created the site during her lunch break on Nov 7th.

The site quickly became a catalyst for person-to-person rallying, receiving more than 10,000 hits in the first few hours alone.

Facebook pages went up; people twittered, blogged, used their IM status messages, and made sure the message was passed along in perhaps one of the most inspiringly altruistic uses of social networking media.

The sense of community fostered on the web continued into the peaceful protests on November 15th as leaders from diverse religions, creeds, ethnicities, and sexual orientations declaimed to the crowds that the struggle over same-sex marriage is not an a question of traditional values but of tolerance.

The road to equality will only be won by reaching across the aisle, so to speak.

Reverend Amos Brown’s speech at the San Francisco rally illustrated the narrowing gap as he spoke frankly about the intersection of his faith and his ethics: “Though I’m a Baptist, I refuse to be a bigot.”

In the face of the struggles humanity has overcome and the struggles humanity has yet to surmount, the reactionaries’ last stand in the culture war seems so unbelievably petty and mean-spirited. Out of all the tribulations to address, they chose to fritter away tens of millions of dollars to strip away the rights of a distinct segment of the American population.

To reference Keith Olbermann, why does it matter who loves whom in an increasingly uncertain world?

If Barack Obama’s election proves anything, it’s that the impetus of the world is moving towards cooperation – like the unity of the grass roots organizations that pulled together for these historical protests across the nation.

If humanity is going to solve the crises that beset our survival as a civil and peaceful species, drawing battle lines over the definition of love doesn’t even begin to make sense.

Join The Impact isn’t done yet: they’re calling for supporters to “call in gay” on December 10th.

Photos by Robyn Johnson

Feature photo by T U R K A I R O. Photo above by racoles.

I hate to be a downer. But as many people around the world celebrate the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, it’s worth remembering that there are still many countries badly in need of a little hope and some change they can believe in.

We’ve come a long way, and we have reason to celebrate.

But there’s also a long way still to go.

Here, as a grim reminder in this happy post-election honeymoon, are five of the world’s worst leaders.

The Big Five

Photo by garybembridge.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe

Accusations of vote-rigging. Opposition leaders beaten and arrested. Farms seized by gangs of roving “war veterans” who kill owners and workers. Oh, and did I mention that what was once one of the strongest economies in Africa is now among the worst in the entire world?

Robert Mugabe has a lot to answer for in Zimbabwe. His betrayal of his people is all the more bitter because he was once a hero, revered for his part in the country’s fight for independence.

To read more about Mugabe’s descent from hero to villain, check out Robert Mugabe and the Death of Zimbabwe.

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan

There aren’t many sitting leaders today who can claim to have supervised a genocide among their own citizens. Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir is one of them.

In fact, he achieved a sort of milestone of notoriety this past summer, when the lead prosecutor at the International Criminal Court called for his arrest and prosecution on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the first time the court had called for the prosecution of still-sitting head of state.

Congrats, Omar. You’re in the record books.

Photo by SouthbankSteve.

Than Shwe, Burma / Myanmar

Than Shwe is reported to be the lead general in Burma’s ruling military junta. That means we have him to thank for the ongoing imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s continuous crackdown on information and dissent, the violent dispersal of protesting monks last year, and the blocking of aid to the desperately needy in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

Kim Jong-Il, North Korea

North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is notorious for living lavishly while his nation starves. He’s also known for his aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons, and his threatening behaviour towards South Korea and Japan, among others.

In his younger days, he was the head of North Korea’s special forces, and as such has been linked to several large-scale bombings of civilian targets.

Jong-Il presides over one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Freedom of movement, an independent press, and the right to protest are all unknown.

King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia

Photo by André Gustavo.

Saudi Arabia often gets a free pass from the West because its government tends to cooperate with US and NATO aims. But in truth, there aren’t many places on earth that I’d be less inclined to call home.

The dismal state of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia is well known: women are not permitted to interact socially with men, rape victims are punished while their rapists run free, and the country only recently permitted women the simple freedom of driving a car.

Less well-known are the country’s other human rights abuses – the treatment of vast numbers of imported workers, largely from poor Asian countries, and its frequent use of the death penalty – including beheading and crucifixion – which Amnesty International has found is used disproportionately against the country’s poor, and against those same foreign workers.

Dishonorable Mentions

Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus

Thanks to Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus has become known as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’. He’s been accused of rigging elections, harassing or imprisoning some of his opposition, and perhaps even being responsible for the disappearances of others. In the most recent election this September, Lukashenko’s party took every seat in a vote that was widely viewed as corrupt.

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

Since a 2002 coup briefly took him from power, Hugo Chavez has steadily undermined Venezuela’s democratic checks and balances: namely, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, and the rights of workers to organize themselves.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran

Photo by HerbaZ.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad likes to stir the pot – and has a high international profile as a result. He’s best-known for his inflammatory statements about Israel and the Holocaust. His domestic abuses – accusations of torture, repression of opposition activists, restraints on the freedom of the press, and a sky-high execution rate, including the execution of juveniles – are less well-known, but equally repugnant.

Note: Somalia would be on this list if there were any clear leader to blame for the hardships that country (or rather, failed state) continues to face. Take your pick of a range of warring factions.

Similarly, the Democratic Republic of Congo certainly deserves a mention – again, if only I could figure out who to blame. The “official” leadership of the DRC, the Congolose rebels, Ugandan rebel forces, and the governments of Burundi and Rwanda (just for a start) can all take a share of the guilt for the largest loss of life since the Second World War.

Oh, and did I mention the international firms that are hounding for this shattered country’s vast natural resources?

Sadly, there’s no shortage of bad leaders in the world. In this list, I’ve focused largely on those who abuse their own people, rather than their neighbors.

Let me know who I missed in the comments!

Community Connection:

For more opinions on the countries and leaders covered in this article, check out Hidden Kingdom: Understanding Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia, A Common Language: Discovering Baseball in Iran, or Tales from the Road: Focus on Burma.

There’s no doubt that social media exerted a profound impact over this election.

Here are 5 of the best election night tweets, funny and deep:

1. “Girl in front of us will obviously sleep with someone tonight, but that guy should know the orgasm is Obama’s.”-joeschmitt, written from Grant Park rally in Chicago.

2. “President Obama. President Obama. Love the sound of it!!!!” -dianakuan, written from a bar in Beijing

3. “kids born from this day forward will never know a world when a black man hadn’t been President. That’s awesome.” JDArtist

4. “”The first election the internet won”- blogislam, blogging live from NPR HQ in DC

5. “Today is a great day for the global family. I am SO delighted about the presidential election results! Fantastic!”- BongoBloggs

It couldn’t have been easy.

The man who has served his country since he was 17 conceded the presidency as soon as the writing on the wall was clear.

Of all the speeches McCain gave during the course of this long campaign, his concession speech was the best.

Here are 6 reasons why:

1. McCain took the high road. McCain avoided mudslinging and encouraged his booing supporters to redirect their energies and unite as Americans.

2. He kept the use of “My friends” to a minimum. Enough said.

3. He acknowledged the death of Obama’s grandmother and said she’d be proud.

4. He renewed his own commitment to public service. Despite the bitter disappointment of his loss, McCain clearly articulated his ongoing commitment to continue serving his country. He could easily retire and retain Americans’ respect for all he has done. But he obviously has no plans to do so, and he appears poised to renew his admirable history of reaching across the aisle.

5. He maintained his composure and expected others to do the same. He could have played the pity card (and alluded on SNL last weekend that undecided voters should feel sorry for him because his age meant this was his last chance to pursue a presidential run), but he didn’t. You’ve got to admire that.

6. He called for American unity. McCain modeled the behavior Americans need to adopt. He acknowledged the ideological and political differences between himself and Obama, but he underscored the need to unite and do the hard work that lies ahead.

Photo: Imageeditor (Flickr creative commons)

CNN hasn’t called it.

MSNBC hasn’t called it.

FOX News hasn’t called it.

NPR hasn’t called it.

We may be jumping the gun, but Matador is projecting that Senator Barack Obama will wake up tomorrow morning with a new title: President-Elect.

The chatter inside the NPR news room is that the official call of an Obama win in California will be the final domino.

The current Electoral College count is:

Obama: 207/270
McCain: 129/270

We’ll bet all our chips on Obama. You can tell the world you heard it here first.

Photo: canonsnapper (Flickr creative commons)

Two weeks ago we spent an evening with a woman from Argentina. When we asked her how she ended up in Spartanburg she gave us that “Who the hell knows!?!” kind of shrug of the shoulders and shake of the head. When we asked her if the decision to move here had been a good one she responded that she would have to get back to us on that one, pending the outcome of the elections today. And then she added that she had been volunteering hours of her time for the last several months helping local people in this community to register to vote. She, herself, is not eligible to vote today. She is a professional woman, in this country legally, contributing to the health and welfare of this quirky little town, and though she cannot cast a ballot today, she has ensured that hundreds of other people will.

Last week my father went to try to vote. He had clearance to vote early this year. He left work each day, one day in the morning, another day in the afternoon, and another day in the evening to try to cast his ballot. My father takes voting very seriously. He fully believes in his right make his opinion known and expects for it to count. And each day, at the one designated polling place open for early voters, he walked away because the line was so long that he was not going to be able to wait it out.

He finally voted on Friday. He stood in line for 3 hours. He said he enjoyed it. My father hates to wait. And he said he didn’t mind a single minute of it.

This morning we got up well before the sun was up. Well before the polls opened at 7am. We rolled out of bed, grabbed warm clothes, comfortable shoes, a couple of magazines, a granola bar and a water bottle. We joked that maybe we were going a little overboard in our preparations. This little town is not exactly known for the healthiest of turnouts. Before we could see the church where we were assigned to vote we could see the cars. Everywhere. (I felt sorry for the surrounding small business owners who did not stand a chance of getting into their parking lots today). We chuckled some more, but this time with a little bit of awe, with a little bit of appreciation, with a little bit of hope, and quietly murmured “Amen.”

I stood in line for 2 ½ hours this morning. As the sun rose. In the cool, damp morning. And as people introduced themselves, and shared the paper, and bemoaned the cup of coffee that they were wishing they had brought with them, I couldn’t keep from smiling.

Photo: Barack Obama (Flickr creative commons)

I’m currently blogging live from NPR HQ in Washington, D.C., along with 20 other bloggers from around the country.

I’ll be posting here on Pulse and on my own blog, CollazoProjects. I’ll also be microblogging on Twitter (@collazoprojects) and Facebook (Julie Schwietert Collazo).

To follow along:

1. Hit your fresh button a lot.

2. Stay awake! I’ll be blogging until the election is called and possibly beyond. NPR staff will let us stay here until 4 AM.

3. Call me! You can call 917-536-3753 or catch me on Skype (novoarte OR fcollazo8.5). I want to know what you’re doing– are you partying? Warding off nausea? Reflecting on your day? Share your experiences!

Photo: NCinDC (Flickr creative commons)

I know, I know.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

There are still hours of nail-biting waiting to come.

But, in the possible (probable?) event of Barack Obama declaring victory in the Presidential election tonight, The Root offers some humorous etiquette tips for black and white folks alike:

Five Things Black People Shouldn’t Do If Obama Wins

Five Things White People Shouldn’t Do If Obama Wins

My favourite? The #1 thing white people shouldn’t do:

1. Don’t personally congratulate all your black friends.

Black people are not a sports team, and Obama did not win the Super Bowl.

Here’s hoping I get the chance to apply these tips tomorrow…

Photo by bobster1985 (Creative Commons)

Photo by stricklin_family (Creative Commons)

There’s more televised election coverage airing tonight than you can shake a stick at – but not all networks are equal.

A recent study attempted to track the American public’s knowledge of current affairs, and to find out whether there was any correlation between the average citizen’s level of knowledge and their preferred news source.

The study’s results?

Well, they may surprise you.

Regular viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report – yes, the fake news shows – clocked in at the top of the findings, with 54% of the audience falling into the “high level of knowledge” category.

National Public Radio’s audience hit the 51% mark, while CNN can claim 41% of viewers with a “high level” of public affairs knowledge.

As for Fox News?

The network landed second from the bottom, with 35% of viewers qualifying for a high level of knowledge. The only news source with a worse record than Fox: network morning shows. Ouch.

Of course, there’s no causation implied here. Stewart and Colbert’s faithful viewers don’t necessarily gain their greater knowledge by watching the two shows; they may simply have good taste as well as a solid grasp of current affairs.

Nonetheless, whether they’re learning from the shows or not, America’s most well-informed citizens are watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Says something about the state of mainstream media when that core audience of engaged viewers are turning to satire instead, doesn’t it?

For those of you who might be interested: Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 election special airs tonight at 10pm Pacific Time.

For everyone else: Who are you watching tonight, and why? How do you choose which network gets your “vote”?

(Har har.)

Happy election day, everybody!

Political analysts and forecasters expect a record turnout in tomorrow’s US election. The wait to vote could be several hours long.

Ward off the temptation to jump out of line by preparing yourself for the wait. Here are 6 things you can do to make that wait go faster:

1. Catch up on your reading. If you have a stack of books or magazines that you haven’t gotten around to reading, throw a couple in your bag and spend some time catching up.

2. Start a conversation. It’s rare to have a captive audience. You don’t have to talk politics–in fact, you may want to avoid the topic–but take the time you have in line to talk with the folks around you. Everyone loves to tell a story.

3. Get a jump start on your new year’s resolutions. 2009 is just around the corner, and regardless of who wins the election, we’ll be ushering in a new year with a new president. Think about what you’d like to experience and achieve in 2009 and make your list of resolutions while waiting to make your impact on the future.

4. Plan an inauguration day road trip. Inauguration day is January 20, 2009. Make those minutes (or hours) in line pass more quickly by planning a trip to be in the US capital on the day that the new president is sworn into office.

5. Document your experiences. If you’ve got a cell phone with text message capabilities, keep your friends and the world apprised of what’s unfolding around you. Twitter about your polling precinct or make notes for a blog entry.

6. Write a letter. You’re taking part in an historic election at a critical moment in US history. Write a letter–to your future child, to the next generation, to yourself 10 years from now–about what it’s like to be waiting in line to vote in this election.

How will YOU make the voting line wait pass more quickly? Share your ideas below!

Photo: boxercab (Flickr creative commons)

Whether you’re a US citizen or not, the outcome of tomorrow’s presidential election promises to be significant for all of us.

Beyond just getting out and braving the long lines to vote, there are other things we can all do to encourage Americans’ full participation in the democratic process tomorrow:

1. Plan a last-minute election night party. The plan can be simple, but the party could be profound. Wherever you are in the world, getting together with friends to watch the election night returns and root for your candidate is a fantastic way to keep up the levels of excitement and momentum that have characterized this entire election cycle. You can potluck it, order food in, or throw an all out dinner party, but being with others on election night is important.

2. Plan an after-election party. Maybe you’re sick of the elections or maybe, like me, your stomach is knotted with anxiety, hardly able to wait for the election outcome. If you can’t handle the idea of scrambling together a party by tomorrow night, start planning an after-election party. Whether it’s a consolation and group therapy party or a celebratory affair, processing this historic election will help you move on.

3. Get centered. There’s lots of hype surrounding tomorrow’s election: will it rain? Will there be mass fraud? Will you have to miss work or miss voting because the lines are too long? Tomorrow morning, before you head out to vote, take 5 minutes to get yourself centered. Commit to stay in that voting line as long as it takes. Consider calling in sick for democracy. Whatever your party affiliation, watch the “Yes We Can” video again and ask yourself why this election has engaged you and made you hopeful, why it’s made you feel that your vote really does matter.

4. Be a concerned voter. If you experience any difficulties at your voting site or in the voting booth, or if you witness any questionable activity, report it immediately. Call your local board of elections to report the problem or use your cell phone to participate in the largest voter fraud monitoring process ever.

5. Create a carpool. Maybe your friends intend to vote, but they’re the type of peeople who find a million distractions along the way. Set up a get to the vote party. Offer to carpool to the local voting precinct. If you’re walking or taking public transport, check with your friends and neighbors to see if they’d like to be accompanied to the polling place. There’s strength in numbers!

6. Make some post-election plans. You’ve felt more engaged in the political process than ever. That feeling doesn’t have to end tomorrow night. Start doing some serious thinking about how you can continue to participate in the democratic process beyond election day.

7. Thank people who have made a difference. Maybe you intended to get more involved in the political process but didn’t. Instead of feeling bad, reach out to friends and family who have been canvassing, registering voters, or doing other campaign related volunteer work to thank them for their efforts.

8. Exercise your influence. If you can’t vote, if you already have, if you’re not a US citizen, or if you live abroad, reach out to voting-eligible friends and family and remind them to vote. Share a personal reason why you believe voting is so important. Even if you can’t vote, like my friend, Emon, tell people why you think they should.

9. Stay tuned to Pulse tomorrow night. I’ll be blogging about the election returns live from the headquarters of National Public Radio.

Photo: lakelandlocal (Flickr creative commons)

Feature photo by SFAntti. Photo above by capitan-patata.

Within a week of each other, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain swooped into the quiet Wisconsin town of La Crosse. Both presidential candidates seem bent upon taking their message to “Main Street” and working for “Joe”—whether the “six pack”, “plumber”, or “Schmoe” variety.

La Crosse is a swing town in a swing county in a swing state. None of the politics here are cut-and-dry. The 2004 election results showed only 53.38% of the populace of La Crosse County voting in favor of Kerry—neighboring Monroe County gave 53.06% to Bush. Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes would ultimately fall to Kerry by a margin of less than 1%.

It certainly doesn’t help that this relatively small city of 58,000 gets injected with over 18,000 students reporting to class at three different post-secondary institutions; meanwhile in the public schools, “Rifle Deer Hunting” is considered an excusable absence.

The initial impression is that capturing these hearts and minds is an uphill battle in both directions.

Photo by themarkpike.

A Line Drawn in the Topsoil

The journey to either rally is itself a metaphor in the great divide. Amongst the hills and coulees, cows and horses graze alongside signs of ardent support for a Republican President. Some couldn’t even wait for a proper sign from the Republican Party headquarters—“McCain – Palin” is stenciled onto a blue-painted piece of plywood.

In the smaller outlying cities, the waters are muddier. In the quiet town of West Salem, the lawn signs alternate with almost perfect one-to-one regularity.

By the time you reach the peoples Co-Op in downtown La Crosse, the Dodge Rams have turned to Subaru Outbacks, the bucolic has turned modern, and the politics seem to have taken a decidedly sharp turn left.

And this is only 20 miles. One can only imagine how many times the landscape changes in the 200 miles from La Crosse to Milwaukee.

Main Street, LaCrosse

I asked the Chairs of the local Democrat and Republican parties what was important to the area voter and how each candidate addressed those issues in their respective rallies. The Republican Party Chairman Tom Lynch was the only one to attempt an answer.

“McCain addressed the National Security issues and the Energy Independence issues,” says Lynch, “Obama failed to assure the rural voter on either issue.”

It’s difficult to say whether such an assessment is a careful statistical analysis, an educated guess, or simple partisan rhetoric. It’s even harder to get a clean answer from a very politically guarded local populace.

Photo by Jacob Bielanski.

The local press doesn’t help. The comment section after the articles that announcing the candidates’ arrivals in the La Crosse Tribune reads like a truck stop bathroom wall gone political.

“You won’t be able to buy a gun if Obama gets into office!” says a man identifying himself only as “GoodListener.”

A man calling himself “PrivateSectorDoesItBetter” quotes revelations 1:8, after accusing democrats of being inflexible in their destructive views of “…their messiah, Obama.”

The Sparta Herald, the newspaper of a nearby town of over 8,000, recently featured two heated letters to the editor regarding Obama and his stance on gun control. On the evening news, a local political science professor suggested that Obama failed to touch upon farm subsidies, an issue of importance to Wisconsinites.

A block away from the site of both rallies is the actual road labeled “Main Street” in La Crosse. In addition to the Post office, the street is home to an upscale fashion boutique, the 6-story U.S. Bank building, the headquarters of the local radio station, a Japanese steak house, and a gay bar; as eclectic a mix as any you’ll find on, say, Wall Street.

It’s certainly not the image of gun-toting farmers that is often conjured when we think of the Midwest.

I’m hoping that by attending these rallies and listening to how the candidates attempt to make their case to the public that I can gain some kind of insight into what the generalized “Main Street American” truly represents.

Photo by VictoryNH: Protect Our Primary.

McCain and Main Street

Unfortunately, the McCain event was a sold out affair. His rally required that free tickets be picked up at the Republican Headquarters. By the time I got myself over there, less than two days after the announcement, they were gone.

A volunteer offers me some Republican wit for the road, “You got a shirt for the kid? One that says ‘I survived Roe v. Wade,’” He laughs, indicating towards my daughter—a planned pregnancy, thank you.

The event seemed to draw such a furor as to warrant the opening up of the city’s modest convention center. News reports showed crews shifting movable walls up to the very moment that John McCain himself took the stage in order to accommodate the immense response.

McCain, it seems, sees two sides to the problem. “They” are the bloated fat cats of Washington, tarrying about in their top hats and monocles purchased with the very blood of the American taxpayer.

“We” are ”Joe,” a American who simply wants to make enough in his small business to buy a hovel we can call our own—and maybe a hybrid Cadillac Escalade to go into the attached 3-car garage.

“We must go to the heart of the problem, and right now that problem is the housing crisis.” McCain says in his speech, “…you have to realize the American dream … the American dream of owning a home.”

He goes on to accuse his opponent of being in bed with the mortgage companies, “…his most notable involvement with the housing issue was to be taking money from executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very people who were causing the problem.”

Photo by Jacob Bielanski.

Obama and Main Street

An unprecedented 15,000 Wisconsinites crammed into La Crosse’s historic downtown. The rally started with an eerie prayer and crescendos with increasingly charismatic speakers.

The final speaker is a local La Crosse woman who delineates point-by-point how Obama’s plans will help her family keep from defaulting on a second mortgage they took out on their small business—all this, while her child suffers from a rare kidney disease.

Obama took the stage, engaging in cute banter about the local Oktoberfest celebrations. After getting the local college students to scream violently, he then launches into a 20-minute tirade about his stance on the economic bailout package.

Obama is almost too articulate. He goes into great, intimate details about changes to the economic bailout legislation to largely quiet responses. His greatest cheers involve money—tax breaks to everyone who makes less than $250,000, tuition credits to college students, and even a taxpayer return on the investment of the bailout package. In fact, the only thing Obama fails to articulate with incredible detail is how these tax breaks, programs and handouts will be funded.

Obama articulates two sides to this fight. “They”, are the “Wall Streeters”, a malicious, money-hungry creature who all but break into our homes and steals our money for their nefarious get-rich-quick schemes. “We” are the poor innocent masses, who never once wanted anything more than to get crusts of bread and clean water for us and our children—and maybe a Samsung 42” Plasma.

“So let me be very clear: when I am President, financial institutions will do their part and pay their share, and American taxpayers will never again have to put their money on the line to pay for the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street.”

Smile, Main Street. You’re on Camera!

While eating a sandwich at the local food co-op following the Obama rally, an older, stately looking woman notices my souvenir sign. “How do you think he did?” she asks, excitedly.

I hadn’t realized it was a performance.

Photo by Jacob Bielanski.

I had gotten my sign by asking a young, nervous looking Democratic party volunteer. “Uh, where are you standing?” he asks. I indicate towards my nosebleed section of concrete in the middle of Pearl Street.

“Uh, ok…but you have to hold the sign up real high,” He says as I take the cardboard “Obama – Biden” sign. I’m beginning to wonder why my support needs to be so visible. Is Mr. Obama really that self conscious or are these signs simply that expensive?

But it’s not just Obama. “Could I ask our veterans who are here to raise their hands so we can all recognize them and thank them for their service to our country?” McCain would ask—to rousing applause and vigorous hand-raising—at the end of his rally. I imagine his signs were also handed out with the same careful attention to visibility.

I stare at the Secret Service snipers perched atop the surrounding buildings and as my gaze moves downward, the answer becomes clearer. In two separate bleachers positioned in front and to the side of Obama, the best seats are reserved. Packed within those bleachers are countless glass eyes—still photographs, video cameras and vigorous note-takers.

Of course we have to our signs up high and raise our hands. How else would the two candidates be able to portray the love they have of the Main Street American?

I suddenly feel embarrassed for myself and my surrounding countrymen. We, along with people in small towns throughout Ohio, Michigan and other swings states, are the image of that “Main Street” American that’s plastered on the TV.

“We” apparently need economic bailouts; “we” apparently need our mortgages subsidized; “we” need strengthened national security; “we” have become the image of simple folk who can’t take care of themselves.

Barack Obama didn’t need a government program to become a litigator, but “we” need subsidies just to pay our bills. John McCain didn’t need a financial incentive to serve his country, but “we” need help just staying in our homes.

Here I thought we were all just curious to see what our potential new president had to say.

Pictures Do Lie

In the days following, I’m sitting in a bar deep in the rural country outside of the small town of Warrens with my brother-in-law. A young looking man wearing full Realtree™ hunting regalia approaches me. “Man, there ain’t nothin’ like bow huntin’, man,” he says, “it’s almost better’n smokin’ weed.”

He would finish by launching into a tirade about the area’s female population—and their disinclination to dating him.

What’s most important about these rallies is not what we can learn about the main street American, but about the political process for rural voters. We don’t need to travel many miles to have a politician tell us about the complex social issues affecting our neighbors.

Photo by Jacob Bielanski.

Our issues are like a political vinaigrette, mixing conservative views on abortion with liberal views on health care; beliefs that invading Iraq was a good idea, but that marijuana should be legalized; veterans who think the embargo on Cuba should be sustained, but that the government should further subsidize biofuels.

We’re everything from the jobless drunks who demand the impossible of the tax dollars, to money-obsessed go-getters who think fire fighting should be a pay-per-use service.

Individually our stances on federal politics are incapable of labels, but once we’re coagulated into that raucous mob, we are anything they want us to be. I frankly refuse to be a non-journalistic part of any rally until politicians stop talking to the cameras and start talking to me—a Main Street American.

Alas, Main Street is yet another catch phrase with enough ambiguity to both encompass our friends and alienate our enemies. Like “terrorism” or “patriotism”, our perception of small town America begins to coagulate us into to disparate, hate-filled groups. We become divided by our beliefs.

When the election is done, there will no longer be “Main Street Americans” here in La Crosse. From the ivory towers to the wide open farm fields, we’ll all go back to fending for ourselves, our political usefulness spent.

Our separate, unique voices will be too disparate to rally a united front when our new President doesn’t do what they promised. The same as it was for the last eight years and the eight years before that.

We’ll stop being democrats and republicans.We’ll stop being pro-life and pro-choice. We’ll stop being “Main Street” and “Wall Street” Americans. After the election, we’ll simply return to being “Americans”.

I don’t think we could ask for much more.

With all the election chatter about Joe the Plumber and Wasilla, Alaska, I guess the news out of Obama, Japan got lost amidst the white noise.

Yes, there’s a town in Japan called Obama.

And guess who they want you to vote for?

Since at least March, the 32,000 residents of Obama, Japan have been eagerly following the US elections. After Obama’s primary losses in Ohio and Texas, Obamians got together at their local town hall to sing and dance to cheer Obama up.

They’ve since made a video:

The sleepy town has found the US elections to be a big boost for business. Obama burgers and Obama sushi are reported to be big sellers. It’s not just Americans’ economic future that hangs in the balance this election season. Obamians will be glued to the TV for election night returns hoping that their man wins.

Photo: oceandesetoiles (Flickr creative commons)

Think how surprised I was to see this news clip land in my inbox:

Or to learn that voting McCain is kind of like the new drunk driving:

And finally, I never liked those Wassup guys, but even they don’t deserve this fate:

Seen any other funny political ads lately, for either side? Drop a link in the comments!

The countdown to Election Day in the US is seriously on now.

Though it’s been hard for me to understand who could be on the fence in this election, I know that some people still feel unconvinced or uninformed about the candidates and their respective platforms on key issues.

Here at Matador, we’ve already endorsed Barack Obama as the candidate who makes the most sense for Americans and the world.

As passionate travelers who care about the US’s relationship with the world, we have a unique perspective about why Obama is our preferred candidate.

Here are four reasons why Obama’s foreign policy is important for the US…and the world:

1. Because we need to strengthen US relationships with Latin America:

The US has long had a record of either exploiting or ignoring Latin America. As the Obama campaign notes, “As the Americas have changed, we have sat on the sideline, offering no compelling vision and creating a vacuum….”

From strengthening import-export relationships to managing oil diplomacy, and articulating a new vision for countries with which the US has historically maintained either aggressive or laissez-faire relations, the Obama campaign has laid out specific plans for improving relations with our neighbors to the south.

2. Because we need a diplomacy surge… not a troop surge:

Whoever is sworn into office in January 2009, the new President will inherit an abominable war that has done tremendous damage to Iraqis, Afghans, and American and allied troops. While the realities of withdrawal must be addressed, the Obama campaign has articulated a visionary initiative that is missing from Republican plans: a diplomacy surge. What does that mean? Obama writes:

[The diplomacy surge] will aim to secure Iraq’s borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq’s sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq’s reconstruction and development.

3. Because we need engagement, not isolation:

China. Iran. Russia. Venezuela. Bolivia. It’s clear that the Bush administration has preferred to demonize countries rather than engage them.

Far from being unrealistic about problems such as nuclear weapons, illicit drugs, and religious extremism, viewing the challenges and dangers other countries may pose as opportunities provides American politicians with a far more sophisticated source of intelligence than isolationism could ever hope to develop.

Check out Obama’s plan to engage China for just one example about how engagement might work.

4. Because Africa matters:

A meaningful US political presence in Africa has largely been absent throughout the Bush administration, relegated to the power and purses of celebrities instead of policy interventions.

Obama has expressed a specific plan for addressing genocide in Darfur, providing measures for debt relief and cancellation, and establishing mechanisms for microcredit and larger scale funding that will provide Africans with the resources they need to alleviate continental poverty.

To learn more about Obama’s foreign policy platform, click here.

The McCain ticket does not specifically dedicate a section of its platform to foreign policy. However, you can read his ideas about immigration and Iraq.

Photo: tofuart (Flickr creative commons)

A man in London is reporting that he was shot three times while attempting to flee a threatening gunman — and all because he was wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt.

The gunman had previously approached the victim, Dube Egwuatu, and shouted racial slurs in relation to the t-shirt. After Egwuatu walked away, the man followed him to his car and opened fire.

From the UPI story:

“I couldn’t believe it was happening — and just because I was wearing an Obama T-shirt. He was trying to make me walk somewhere quieter, saying: ‘I’ve got something for you,’ and ‘I’m going to kill you.’”

Egwuatu was able to drive away while being fired on, and is in stable condition.

Photo by luckywhitegirl (Creative Commons)

A friend recently pointed me to this fascinating online electoral project: VoteForEnvironment.ca.

The site’s basic premise is that, regardless of their differences, all four Canadian Opposition parties (the Liberal, New Democratic, Bloc Quebecois and Green parties) view the environment as a serious issue that is worthy of their attention.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the incumbent Conservative Party, on the other hand, are viewed as a threat to the environment.

From the site:

We believe that the Harper Government’s collusion with the Bush White House to obstruct progress on climate change at recent international summits does not reflect how Canadians want their leaders to behave on the world stage…

All the other major Parties have programs that seriously address our critical climate concerns and are talking about them in this election. If those of us who care about the environment don’t work together across party lines, the pro-environment vote will be split as it was in the last election and Harper will be re-elected.

It’s basically an “ABC” position: Anybody But Conservatives.

The idea is nothing new in Canada, where the center and center-left parties have been agonizing over how or whether to split its vote for years, with all sides accusing the others of watering down the large moderate vote and allowing the Conservatives to take power with only minority support.

But VoteForEnvironment does more than just spread the standard anti-Harper rhetoric: it actually helps voters decide where their vote will count most.

The site offers up-to-date riding-by-riding predictions of which candidates have the best shot at toppling a Conservative front-runner.

That way, environmentally-minded voters in a given constituency can pool their votes together behind the strongest challenger.

In ridings where one candidate (whether Conservative or not) is considered a shoo-in, the site lets voters know they’re safe to vote their conscience.

There’s also a “vote-swap” system to ease voters’ worries about crossing party lines.

For example – an NDP supporter who votes Liberal where necessary can be matched up online with a Liberal supporter who voted NDP, and both can feel as though their preferences (beyond “ABC”) were served.

Intrigued?

Be sure to check out the site and find your riding, and don’t forget to tell your friends!

Environmentally-minded Americans: you can help, too! Spread word of the site to any and all Canadians you might know.

This is a crucial election. But with the help of VoteForEnvironment.ca, every vote really can make a difference.

For more on the Canadian election, which takes place October 14th, check out my blog post over in the Matador community: The OTHER Election.

Photo of Lake Louise, Banff, by AlphaTangoBrave / Adam Baker (Creative Commons)

Photo of young moose by jhoc (Creative Commons)

In an organized action, the pastors endorsed Senator John McCain during their sermons and urged their congregants not to vote for Barack Obama.

By doing so, they broke a law that prohibits tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, from actively engaging in US politics.

The IRS is investigating. Here’s video:

A few years ago, a controversy erupted in Canada over the church’s role in our debate over same-sex marriage. Our Prime Minister at the time was a Catholic – as were a large number of our elected representatives in Parliament – and a number of Roman Catholic officials suggested that those officials wouldn’t be true Catholics if they approved a law legalizing same-sex marriage.

Given that a majority of Canadians approved of gay marriage at the time, the hubbub begged the question:

Do politicians owe allegiance to their religious authorities of choice, or to the citizens who elect them?

It’s a complicated question. Where does freedom of religion end, and obligation begin, for public figures, and – in this case with the pastors – where does the separation of church and state end, and freedom of expression begin?

I’m not sure, but I do know one thing: the Bible doesn’t say a word about voting for John McCain over Barack Obama.

If these pastors want to express their own views, that’s one thing. But suggesting that God himself endorses John McCain? Well, that’s something else — charlatanism.

No American political campaign in my lifetime has stirred up as much passion as Barack Obama’s race for the White House.

From Hollywood celebrities to anonymous bloggers or callers on phone-in talk shows, it seems that everyone is looking to share their views, change some minds, make a statement.

America’s artists are no exception.

Whether using digital photo editing techniques or a plain old can of spray paint, they’ve been making their voices heard – or rather, their images seen.

Here are a few stand-out selections from across the country:

Yes We Can: Bushwick, Brooklyn

Photo by EricaJoy

We are the people we’ve been waiting for.

Photo by springhill2008

08′AMA in Charlottesville, Virginia

Photo by cornexo

Suburban yard art: Whoever said Obama can’t connect with Middle America?

Photo by bradthedesigner

Obama has a posse in Los Angeles, CA.

Photo by Lord Jim

Simple yet powerful.

Photo by nakano.photography

Spotted in Los Angeles: Abraham Obama

Photo by Lord Jim

Barack Obama is speaking to America. Get it?

Photo by whorange

Even the arts’n'crafty types on Etsy are feeling the change.

Photo by whorange

Hope in Houston.

Photo by jetheriot

Obama fans take to the streets in Mission Dolores, San Francisco.

Photo by benchun

Top photo by [nati]

Shortly after candidate John McCain announced that his running mate would be someone most Americans had never heard of, I wrote a brief article about the fact VP pick Palin didn’t have a passport–ever–until 2007.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only person in America who wondered why Palin waited until she was 43 years old to get a passport.

The nagging thought occurred to Katie Couric, too, and Couric got to Palin before I did (she isn’t scheduling a whole lot of interviews, you know).

Couric unraveled the Palin passport mystery:

Couric: “a lot of our viewers … and Internet users wanted to know why you did not get a passport until last year. And they wondered if that indicated a lack of interest and curiosity in the world.”

Palin: “I’m not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. No, I’ve worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world.”

Palin’s response is offensive because it assumes, falsely in my opinion, that:

1. Travel is only for members of the upper class.

2. The only purpose of travel is leisure… travelers are part of some “culture” that’s separate from the mainstream.

3. A parent can’t travel… and definitely can’t take their kids along for the ride.

4. The only way to become educated about the world is through a book (or some “medium” that provides “a lot of perspective”).

All of which Matador members are proving wrong every day.

Take, for example, Matador editor Tim Patterson’s article “How to Travel the World for Free”. Or Rigo Lara’s moving article, “Changed Forever,” an account of his experience of traveling abroad for the first time.

Read blogs by Matador dads David Miller and Jacob Bielanski. Or visit Matador member MST’s blog, Big Sweet Tooth, to see what a non college educated woman can learn about the world… and what she can do with what she learns.

I wasn’t the only person who thought this was one of Palin’s biggest “Doh!” moments.

As Matador member planetbagel blogged earlier today:

Yeah – because it happens just like that for everyone. Every backpacker you find today had parents that handed them a passport, gear and ticket abroad by as soon as they got out of college (with no debt and never having had to balance work and courses, for sure). That’s how backpackers get to travel…. right?

What do YOU think about Palin’s passport delay excuse? Share your comments below!

Photo: Buddhakiwi (Flickr creative commons)

Why have we devoted time and space to the presidential race when we’re a travel blog?

If you’ve asked yourself that as you’ve read Pulse over the past couple weeks, take a minute and a half to watch this video:

‘Nuff said.

As we’ve noted before here on Pulse, the world is watching the ongoing American election campaign very closely.

And now, all of us interested outsiders get a chance to have our say!

The Economist has created a worldwide poll – the Global Electoral College – to see whether the citizens of other nations would choose Obama or McCain on November 4th.

From the mag’s publisher, Ben Edwards:

Votes are cast on a country-wide level. Each country is assigned a number of votes according to the size of its population (we call these “electoral-college votes” on the model of America’s actual electoral-college system).

Then all the countries’ votes are tallied, to determine each candidate’s worldwide total. You can see at a glance which countries are pro-Obama or pro-McCain, along with their respective vote percentages. The candidate with the most electoral-college votes will win the worldwide election.

Think of it like that model election project you did in high school, but on a global scale.

Fun, right?!

I’m gonna go ahead and predict that Obama will stomp McCain in Europe, for a start. But it should be interesting to see how other countries will land.

Who will Pakistan vote for? Canada? Vietnam??

Stay tuned to find out, and don’t forget to vote, too!

A recent opinion poll conducted by the BBC indicated that “people in 22 countries would prefer Obama as president by a margin of 4 to 1 over Republican rival John McCain.”

We decided to reach out to 50 bloggers around the world and ask: Where do you live? Are you following the elections? Who would you prefer to win? What is the importance of this election for your country?

This article is the first installment in a series leading up to the election in which bloggers abroad share their opinions:

Francis Wade of Kingston, Jamaica: “I am following the elections. I’m for Obama! [The election is] critical. The outcome affects the entire world and the way the US is perceived. Bush has done much to ruin that country’s leadership role in the world, most notably by invading Iraq for no good reason.

The Republicans are very unpopular in Jamaica as a result, and connect easily with Obama’s view of the world.”

Juan Arellano Valdivia of Peru: Juan is following the elections and says he’d vote for Obama “without a doubt.” While he doesn’t think that the Peruvian economy would be profoundly affected by a McCain or Obama win because of the existing free trade agreement between the two countries, he does think that immigrants are likely to be affected negatively if McCain wins.

Rodrigo Ergueta of Bolivia: Though he abstains from sharing his opinion about who he’d vote for, Rodrigo is following the race closely and says he believes that Obama has a clear advantage over McCain because of the “constant loss of support that Republicans have been experiencing recently due to the deteriorating economy.”

What concerns him in the event of a McCain or Obama win is whether the next US president will attempt to maintain and improve bilateral relations between the US and Bolivia, particularly considering the recent expulsion of the US Ambassador from the country by the Bolivian President, Evo Morales.

Guillermo, an Argentinean expat living in Canada, says he “sincerely wishes” he didn’t care about the US elections, but finds it hard not to follow them. He wouldn’t vote for Obama OR McCain, but thinks if McCain-Palin win, they’ll make Bush “look like an innocent baby compared to them!”

Gabriela Garcia Calderon Orbe of Peru predicts McCain will win, but says she’d vote for Obama, because she believes he’s capable of bringing needed change to the White House.

Obama can chalk up another vote: Carolina Botero of Colombia says she’s in his corner, and hopes that his win would dilute some of the neoliberal policies her country’s government has adopted in recent years in conjunction with US economic and military support.

Moving across the pond, Nicholas Starling of Norfolk, England writes that he’s also an Obama supporter. Why? Because “It’s time for America to have a real change… and to regain its position as a friend of freedom and a beacon of hope. Another Republican and a creationist VP who thinks that being able to see Russia from an Alaskan island means she has foreign affairs experience is not the answer.”

Where are YOU from? And what do you think about the elections? Do you agree with the Matador editors’ endorsement of Obama? Share your policial opinions below!

Feature Photo & Photo: Ann Althouse (Flickr creative commons)

How do you like them apples, Mrs. Palin?

It’s been interesting to watch (and, heck, participate in) the ratcheting up of tension and hostility in this campaign since the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate.

Before Palin joined the team, I think many folks on the Democratic side of things had a grudging respect for McCain. I certainly thought of him as the least dangerous of the potential Republican candidates; I especially appreciated his stance on torture, in its stark contrast to the present administration, and was pleased when he clinched the nomination.

McCain was, for a lot of people, a sort of best-case scenario for the worst-case scenario. But with the addition of Palin, a real element of fear has entered the campaign. Not just fear that Barack Obama might lose, but fear of the consequences if he does.

For people on the left side of the political divide, the stakes just got a LOT higher.

Republicans can dismiss it as sexism all they want, but I think it’s that element of fear (and fear, of course, translates easily to anger) that explains most of the attacks on Sarah Palin.

Oh, and Matt Damon, if you’re reading this: You had me at hello!

Taxpayers would take the fall for a problem Wall St created.

Millions of US taxpayers should not be held responsible for the catastrophe created by foolish (and greedy) bankers. This financial crisis did not materialize out of thin air. It is the result of years of reckless investments, careless government and already-wealthy bankers trying to get even richer.

Why should struggling US taxpayers take on this massive economic burden?

Is this $700B really going to protect ordinary people?

The people and institutions who have proposed this deal are trying to paint it as a last-resort to save thousands of ordinary people’s 401K’s, life savings, and IRA’s. No doubt, there will be pain felt by ordinary Americans if the bailout package is rejected by Congress, but this proposed $700B isn’t going to help the individuals hardest hit by the crisis — it’s going to help the shareholders and leaders of these companies.

If it’s really the ordinary Americans we’re concerned about helping, why don’t we let the banks fail and create a (much smaller) fund to support the hardest-hit American families?

$700B? Try $839B!

Although the cost of this bailout could not exceed $700B without further legislation, It would bring the total cost of this crisis to a staggering $839 billion!

Bush and the other proponents of this package neglect to remind us that this $700B will be added to the $85 billion agreement to bail out AIG, the $29 billion our government has pledged to support the merger between Bear Sterns and JPMorgan Chase and the government’s commitment to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the Congressional Budget Office is saying will cost at least $25 billion.

Cheating the market is dangerous.

This bailout would represents us literally ‘cheating’ the market and it would only delay greater economic catastrophe down the road. Bush and Paulson act as if we (the taxpayers) take on the pain of paying the $700B, then everything will be fine in the future.

Many economists would argue this is not so. We are throwing up a “hail Mary” here. There are no guarantees of a full recovery, and many would argue that this bailout will only prolong and exacerbate an economic meltdown in the future.

The US dollar has already lost a tremendous amount of value over the last 5 years. What will happen to its value as we make the ultimate bad investment by buying worthless securities that are virtually un-tradable as the Fed continues to print billions more, diluting our currency even further?

The answer is that our dollar, the value of which Americans have always taken for granted, might lose (a lot ) more of its value over the next 10 years, making every single person in this country poorer.

Global economic recession?

There has also been talk that rejecting the bailout package would cause damage to the global economic system, since these worthless mortgage-backed securities have been divided into thousands of pieces and re-traded all over the globe.

But there is an even greater risk to the global financial system if we go forward with the bailout. As the US dollar loses more and more value, what will happen to the dozens of international currencies pegged to the dollar? The dollar’s demise would represent the ultimate global financial meltdown.

What if it’s not enough?

What do we do if the American taxpayer makes this tremendous sacrifice and it’s simply not enough? George W. Bush said the war in Iraq was going to cost $50 billion.

Did we pack up and come home when that threshold had been crossed? Of course not — we just asked Congress for more to keep fighting the war! As the real-time clock below shows us, we are now nearing $600B spent in Iraq. Once the US has invested $839B+ in this bailout mess, we are “all in” — there is no turning back and it shouldn’t surprise anyone if this turns out to only be the first installment.

###
Iraq War Cost

The American tax payer is already fighting hard enough times.

Can American taxpayers even handle another burden on our finances? How much longer will we allow the federal government to drag us into economic despair and use our hard-earned money as their piggy bank, to bail out bad foreign policy and massive economic fumbles?

Imagine what our country would look like if we instead invested the almost 2 trillion dollars from the bailout and the war combined, on everything else we need? Imaging injecting those funds into our education system or health care. What kind of return on investment would that bring, in comparison to some now-worthless assets that might become slightly less-worthless in the future?

A leap towards Socialism.

We have built the most powerful country in the world using a system of free market capitalism. We use regulation to prevent things like monopolies that could harm the system and eliminate competition, but capitalism has worked so well because the golden rule is ’survival of the fittest’.

Companies that make bad decisions and grow fat with debt are eliminated and make room for new ones who are more innovative and intelligent in their approach to doing business.

Buying up $700 billion worth of toxic securities is something a socialist government would do. Many have called for the end of government farm subsidies whereby the US government buys dead crops simply to keep our farmers in business. What we’re considering doing here, is buying almost a trillion dollars worth of dead crops!

Where is the pain for wealthy bankers?

There is nothing in this bailout plan that ensures the bankers and investors behind this mess would bear any burden. We should demand a guarantee that the people whose greed and recklessness caused this crisis lose their money first and are hit the hardest.

The current package has no limits for executive compensation for firms receiving funds from this package. If the current proposal goes through, these guys will have gotten away with financial mass-murder.

What example would it set for reckless financial institutions?

In the absence of responsibility that firms would have to take for their actions, Wall St would likely feel a sense of comfort that the federal government now had their back. This would only encourage more corporate policy that fosters insane risk-taking even when the potential fallout might maim the savings of thousands of hard-working Americans.

George W. Bush is urging Congress to take quick action.

What’s your first reaction when a sleazy salesman tries to force you into buying something quickly? How about when that salesman is George W. Bush and he’s just said, with a condescending smile on his face, “It’s a big price tag, because it’s a big problem.”

Since George Bush is not only the salesman, but also the administrator of this program, I for one would want to read the fine print to see what kind of other bullshit lies within the package’s language.

Surprise, surprise! Section 8 reads:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

This little tidbit basically concentrates all power in the administration of this package in the Executive Branch and makes it illegal for the decisions made or money allocated to come under any scrutiny from any court or oversight committee within the US government.

Knowing what we know about George W. Bush, would you say he’ll be tough on the high-powered corporate interests as he distributes these funds? Will he stand up for the American taxpayer?

Would you feel comfortable giving Bush full reign of the implementation of these funds — allowing him to hire any non-governmental agent he sees fit?

If the bailout package is approved as is, it will be the final turn of the knife in the average working American’s gut — a crime we won’t be able to ever hold George Bush accountable for.

We urge you to write and email your congressional representative to make sure he/she knows you are watching for his/her vote on this issue. Please send this article to everyone you know, as the mainstream media is only perpetuating the fear spewed into the airwaves by the Bush Administration, all in a rush to get this through Congress before anyone can speak up about its lunacy.

When we started Matador, we never anticipated publishing much about American politics. After all, we’re a travel site. There are so many thousands of amazing places and cultures to write about without venturing into the political fray.

But as the primaries heated up, our readers asked for more political content. Since then, we’ve been calling it like we see it.

A Big Moment In History

Here in America we’re facing the most difficult economic times and the bleakest outlook that any of us has ever experienced. These are sentiments also echoed by our parents’ generation.

People who built successful businesses and who gave their productive lives to their communities are now struggling to pay the bills.

How has this happened?

How, with our resources, ingenuity, and work ethic, have we gotten to a point where two parents working full time still have trouble making ends meet? And what effect might this crisis have on the next generation?

These are very serious times, and we need a very serious leader. After much careful consideration of the issues, the Matador team emphatically endorses Barack Obama for President. Here’s why:

At Matador we believe passion is a virtue,

We believe in making the most of opportunities, but always giving back to the community.

John McCain graduated at the bottom of a class of 500 people. Barack Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude, first in his class at Harvard Law School, and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Afterward he returned to his community and taught Constitutional Law for over a decade.

At Matador our core values are rooted in respect for other cultures, lands, and peoples.

We recognize the importance of free and open dialogue and cultural exchange as a means to deeper understanding.

After graduating from college, Barack Obama spent two months traveling, connecting with local communities in Europe and Africa.

By contrast, McCain has no record of travel as a young man outside of his military career, and running-mate Sarah Palin never even held a passport until the middle of 2007.

At Matador we believe sustainability and transparency are the building blocks of communities, businesses, and government.

Barack Obama has laid out a clear and practical economic plan that will create 5 million new green jobs.

By stark contrast, McCain’s plan is a continuation of the very same nefarious practices and policies that have plunged our country into a time of historic economic losses.

One of McCain’s top advisers, the general co-chairman of his campaign, Phil Gramm, is directly responsible for deregulating the banking industry in the late 90s and lobbying Congress to roll back state restrictions on predatory and subprime mortgage lending practices.

Effectively, John McCain is being advised by people whose very actions precipitated the cataclysmic downturn of the US economy.

At Matador we’re concerned for the health and well being of our parents and extended families.

Barack Obama has a visionary plan to reduce healthcare costs as well as cut taxes on seniors while protecting and enhancing Social Security.

By contrast, John McCain wishes to privatize Social Security. His “plan” would funnel money straight out of senior’s pockets and into the coffers of multinational corporations.

At Matador we believe in being a good guest, a good ambassador.

On the stage of international politics, this translates into equanimity, diplomacy and smart foreign policy. We have cringed at McCain’s aggressive rhetoric on the prospect of bombing Iran, and his escalating animosity towards Russia.

And whereas Sarah Palin has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, Joe Biden is a long-time member and current chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

At Matador we believe in conserving the earth for future generations and understand the critical need for energy independence.

From our travels, we see how other countries are making real progress, harnessing solar and wind energy and being good stewards of the land. Barack Obama will implement an energy plan that makes America the leader in alternative energy technologies, whereas McCain’s plans for “energy independence” can be summed up with the RNC chant of “drill baby, drill!”

Looking Ahead

Over the next 4 years, the Matador team hopes to see the damage of George W. Bush’s calamitous presidency undone. We want less war and more education. We want less time in the office, and more time with our families. We want less terror, and more hope.

We want our next leader to put the interests of average American citizens before those of big oil companies and other multi-national corporations. We’d like to see a resurgence of the middle class.

While traveling abroad in the last year, we can’t help but notice that being American now carries a stigma. It’s not surprising. We believe that electing Barack Obama will help America earn back the trust of people in all corners of the world.

We will not be silent.

We will not be silent at this crucial moment in history. We believe in the power of the American people to make the right decision. We are proud to support Barack Obama, and we encourage you to do the same.

Call your friends! Call your family! Write letters! The future depends on our ability to rise to this moment.

We hope you will continue to help us build the most vibrant travel community on the Web. We appreciate all perspectives, regardless of political affiliation, but request that the discourse remain civil at all times.

Thank you!

Photo, top, by Joshua Wanyama (Creative Commons)

Photo, right, by springhill2008 (Creative Commons)

Hundreds of Alaskans rallied in Anchorage this week – but not, as you might think, to support their Governor in her Vice-Presidential bid.

Instead, participants in what was reportedly the largest protest gathering in Alaskan history took aim at McCain/Palin, and made it clear their governor does NOT speak for them.

Take a look:

Great to see “Hockey Mama For Obama” representin’ for the greatest (ahem) sport on Earth!

Amen, sister.

Polar bear moms speak out.

Up with community organizers and down with Exxon justice!

Now there’s an image for you…

Does the fact that this even needs to be pointed out scare anyone besides me?

I always love a good “bare/bear” pun.

McTrue.

Vote Issues, Not Gender.

‘Nuff said.

To see the full-size screenshot, plus “Obama’s” trash folder, click over to the Onion, truly America’s Finest News Source.

Are you a starving artist desperate to sell your work?

So is Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, apparently.

Or was.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that an auction house sold Chavez’s painting, “The Yare Moon” for US $255,000.

Chavez donated his masterpiece, which he painted while doing a prison bid in 1992, in order to raise funds for his Socialist party.

According to the report, three Venezuelan businessmen chipped in to make the winning bid, which was significantly higher than most people expected. Bidding opened at $14,000 and just kept on going.

“The painting ultimately fetched more cash than works by some of Venezuela’s top artists,” the AP noted.

So take a clue from Chavez. Join the military. Become an officer. Lead a coup. Become president. And then sell your painting.

Photo: Quecomunismo! (Flickr creative commons)
Feature photo: alittlefishy (Flickr creative commons)

Photo by Rocketace

In a growing number of states, including key swing states of New Jersey and Florida, Jewish voters are being targeted with telephone calls inviting them to take part in a survey. The questions begin by asking for their positions on various issues and then turn to personal questions about religion, specifically asking them “Are you Jewish?”

If the person called answers in the affirmative, the caller begins asking a series of questions based on false information, such as, “How would you vote if you knew Barack Obama gave money to the PLO?”

Known as “push-polling,” this is very same tactic used against John McCain in the 2000 primary. Tucker Eskew, a key figure in Bush’s South Carolina primary campaign, devised a push poll strategy where callers asked South Carolina voters “How would you vote if you knew that John McCain has an illegitimate black baby?”

Now, according to ABC News, Tucker Eskew was recently hired by the McCain campaign.

Is this the guy–someone who turns around and hires the very same people who smeared his family–you want running the country?

What will it take for people to understand that electing another win-at-all-costs puppet of big oil and corporations will only continue this country on its sharply downward trajectory?

Hey, I got an email from Barack Obama yesterday!

It was about the importance of getting out and voting – and, of course, the importance of registering to vote.

Since I’m not an American, I can’t vote in this US presidential election. But I sure wish I could.

For those of you who can: don’t waste this opportunity!

Obama’s campaign has put together a sort of one-stop-shop for all your voting registration needs – and that includes, for all you travelers out there, an application to vote as an absentee.

Here are the details, straight from Obama:

Photo by Philgarlic (Creative Commons

VoteforChange.com makes it easier than ever to register.

Barack

No, Barack, thank YOU!

C’mon, American voters. Get registered and get out there.

The whole world (or at the very least, this Canadian blogger) is counting on you.

Top photo by Tony the Misfit (Creative Commons)

September 11, 2001.

It’s one of those dates that is marked indelibly in the calendar of most people’s memories. You remember where you were when you heard about the attacks in New York, in Washington, D.C, in a town in Pennsylvania you’d never heard of before. You remember how incredibly blue the sky was. You remember the moment when everything seemed to change.

There’s another September 11.

September 11, 1973 was the day that the Chilean military staged a coup intended to overthrow President Salvador Allende. Prior to Allende’s alleged suicide, he gave a farewell speech in which he said “…[S]ocial processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.”

People make history.

The people behind the headlines. The people without a voice. Without money. Without power. Without authority. People whose only credential is the carefully considered and defend-to-the-death beliefs that are the only catalysts for true change.

People who know what they believe, but who are never afraid of other people’s opinions, who invite dialogues rather than diatribes, and who are mature enough to always seek more knowledge and curious enough to want to understand others.

As we reflect on past September 11ths, let’s keep in mind that WE are the ones making history.

What’s the history YOU want to make?

Feature photo: rosefirerising (Flickr creative commons)
Photo: Kanaka’s Paradise Life (Flickr creative commons)

Sure, Che’s handsome face emblazons t-shirts, belt buckles, bookbags, and tattooed arms and chests the world over, but what do you REALLY know about Che?

Check out these 11 facts to see how solid your knowledge of the man behind the iconic image is:

1) Che was not Cuban. He was born in the city of Rosario, Argentina and he never naturalized as a Cuban.

2) Che’s real name?. Ernesto Guevara Lynch.

3) Che was a dentist by trade. (Better looking than any dentist I’ve ever had!). Some sources contend, however, that Che never finished his degree.

4) Che did not have any official military training.

5) Che was introduced to Fidel Castro in Mexico in 1955. Che lived for awhile at 40 Napoles Street in Mexico City, which happens to be right around the corner from where I live.

6) Che Guevara has five children. While living at 40 Napoles, Che learned that his first wife, Hilda Gadea, was pregnant with their daughter, who was born in Mexico City on February 15, 1956. Che had four children with his second wife, the revolutionary Aleida March.

7) Che came to the U.S once to speak at the U.N in 1964. Here’s part of his speech:

8 ) The famous photograph of Che that would turn him into a revolutionary icon was taken by the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960. This photograph is the most widely reproduced picture in the world and in the history of photography.

9) Che led Cuba’s troops in African independence movements in the 1960s.

10) Che was wounded in combat in Bolivia and later killed in October 8, 1967.

11) Che’s famous photograph first appeared worldwide 7 years after his death. It wasn’t until 2000, however, that the image began to be reproduced at an unprecedented rate, appearing on t-shirts, coffee mugs, watches, hats, and even in snow globes.

Feature photo: Franco Folini (creative commons)
Postcard photo: Dr John2005 (creative commons)
Photo: bartpogoda (creative commons)

Sure, the Matador editors have been a little bit obsessed with Sarah Palin over the past couple of days.

We’ve poked fun at Palin’s patriotism (she took things WAY further than a lapel pin; how’d you like that American flag bikini and the confident trigger finger?).

We wondered aloud how she could permit oil drilling in her state.

Amongst ourselves, we’ve debated her foreign policy cred.

But we’re not done yet.

Governor Palin, could you please show us your passport?

According to a New York Times article published earlier this week, Palin has only held a passport since the middle of last year.

Her reason for applying? She needed a passport in order to visit troops in Kuwait.

Blogosphere speculation abounds, of course, as to whether there’s any other ink in her passport, but as one Salon.com blogger noted, Palin can’t “compete with…Biden…who has been to every war zone in recent memory and logged plenty of time in every time zone relevant to our national interest.”

While some bloggers argue that her lack of a passport makes her MORE likeable (this from a guy whose screen name is “strung out“), Matador editors and passionate travelers know that travel is, in fact, an important veep credential.

And Palin doesn’t have it.

Photos: asecondhandconjecture (Flickr creative commons)

5. The chant of the night was “Drill, Baby! Drill!”

Photo by Steve Deger

Just as I thought we’d have both candidates dedicating themselves to clean and sustainable energy, an entire night passed without even the mention of wind or solar power.

Instead, the entire stadium was blanketed in signs that say “Drill Now” and “Drill Alaska Now, Baby!”.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that most of these folks – and many watching at home (unless they all have a rich cousin in the oil biz?) – must truly think that drilling for oil in Alaska is going to bring the price of oil down at the pump.

Suddenly, clean energy apparently has nothing to do with “Reduce our Dependency on Foreign Oil.”

And that’s ludicrous.

4. Rudy Giuliani had nothing but disrespect for Barack Obama.

Everyone knows Rudy Giuliani thinks pretty highly of himself and is not afraid to speak his mind about others, but last night his disrespect and blatant personal attacks on Obama took his character to a new low.

“The first thing on his resume..” he began with his upper lip curled into a sneering smile, “was that he worked as a community organizer.” Then he laughed out loud, provoking the rest of the crowd to join in for a full minute.

Does the GOP think community isn’t a critical element in a successful, thriving society?

3. “Country First” is the new theme of the Republican campaign.

Although the slogan is harmless at first glance, as you begin to understand the rhetoric of this party, it becomes something else: completely isolationist from a social and economic perspective and completely unilateral from a military perspective.

Basically the idea is that we should be a state that is completely self-interested, and only engage in activities which benefit us. Less aid to developing countries unless it’s tied to a deal where we get to install a military base, only support free trade if it is to our advantage, and only engage our military if one of our close allies are at risk.

Translation? Let Darfur and the next genocide sort themselves out.

2. The GOP lacks even a shred respect for the Democratic nominees.

Photo by World Economic Forum

When Barack Obama speaks of John McCain, he begins with “John McCain is a great American” – and then proceeds to explain to the crowd why he disagrees with him on the issues that matter.

When Obama was asked about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, he replied that it was no one’s business but the family’s.

In the face of this respect and integrity, the GOP speakers spent all night mocking Barack Obama and his character, experience and worth.

1. McCain looked like he had aged 12 years in the last 12 days.

The guy is 72 years old. He’s an old person; a senior citizen — and aims to spend the next 4-8 years leading the free world.

You know, there are two kinds of old people: the really healthy, impressive kind who look like they could run a marathon – and then the kind who look like they could drop dead any second.

McCain is the latter, and that could leave us with the Governor of Alaska running the largest military and economy on the planet.

Feature photo by aflcio2008 (Creative Commons)

Alaska’s been on my lifelong must-see list since long before the state took center stage in the current Presidential election.

Here are just a few reasons why:

5. Jaw-dropping, snow-capped scenery.

Photo by Unhindered by Talent (Creative Commons)

4. Haunting coastline.

Photo by Steve Deger (Creative Commons)

3. Cedar-planked wild salmon. ‘Nuff said.

Photo by woodleywonderworks (Creative Commons)

2. Killer wildlife.

Photo by Paul Resh (Creative Commons)

1. The Northern Lights, of course!

Photo by zhengxu (Creative Commons)

Clearly, the state packs a powerful punch in terms of travel appeal.

So what could possibly throw me off?

Just one crazy lady: Sarah Palin.

As far as I can tell, the new Vice-Presidential candidate stands for guns, abstinence-only education (how’s that goin’ for ya?), overturning Roe v. Wade, hockey (okay, I’m with her on that one), drilling for oil in Alaska’s wilderness refuges – and, of course, being pretty.

Give that ex-beauty queen a new tiara and a sash: she takes the prize for Scariest Up-and-Coming Politician on the scene in ‘08.

Note: The above pic is photoshopped and is not legit.

But I’d bet it’s how “2nd Amendment Barbie” pictures herself in her dreams…

Photo courtesy of Abram Plaut at Yo! Japan.

Many analysts here and abroad agree it was a smart political move for the U.S. presidential nominee, but some argue it was just a drop in a substantial bucket of goodwill needed to improve international relations with America.

As President George W. Bush nears the end of a mostly disastrous eight-year term, he too should be given credit for public appearances overseas.

Traveling by air — er, compressed air, that is — and landing on everything from brick walls to telephone poles to the doors of trash chutes, Bush boasts a presence in just about every last nook in the world.

Curitiba, Brazil

Unlike Bush’s approval rating, attendance at Disney theme parks doesn’t seem to have taken a hit in America’s worsening economy.

Photo by mlbor

Granada, Spain

Bush’s Starbucks-colored tank creeps toward a McDonald’s logo.

Photo by juanti

Lisbon, Portugal

Photo by Graffiti Land

London, England

Painted on a wall facing East London’s members-only Shoreditch House is this poignant portrait.

Photo by nickburcher

Sofia, Bulgaria

Faded from foot traffic, the sidewalk mugshot reads: Wanted Dead: George W. Bush, for crimes against humanity and the planet.

Photo by kiki

Berlin, Germany

Bush faces off with Osama bin Laden outside a record store in Berlin. War is terror, the caption reads.

Senator Obama’s tour included a stop in Berlin, where he gave a speech to a crowd of more than 200,000. American blogger Fred Wilson responds: “This kind of worldwide popularity is something we need in the US right now.”

Photo by shawnbot

Colonia, Uruguay

This makeshift banner welcomed Bush to Uruguay in March of 2007, when Bush met with President Tabaré Vasquez.

Translated, the greeting reads: Your dead, hungry, unemployed, disappeared [illegally imprisoned], lying cronies salute you.

Photo by MichaelO’B

Durango, Mexico

Photo by OliverAlex

Wellington, New Zealand

Give Bush an inch, and he’ll bomb a country, one stencil remarks.

Bush’s critics argue he never should have sent troops to battle without Congressional approval. Legally, the power to declare war lies in the hands of the Congress, not the President.

Photo by glutnix

Gullbringusysla, Iceland

Flanked by missiles, could Bush be folding his hands in prayer?

Photo by choufiphone

San José, Costa Rica

Translation: Mentally ill in service of capital.

Photo by C-Monster

Rome, Italy

Photo by tracymadaj

Melbourne, Australia

Photo by Toots Fontaine

Rosario, Argentina

Joyfully riding a missile — gut protruding, cowboy hat waving — Bush’s embodiment of Texan stereotypes is as much the subject of this artist’s mockery as the President’s flippant attitude toward explosives.

Photo by pablodf

Mito, Japan

Prolific graffiti artist Og Akim shares his rich political artwork at the X-Color exhibit in Japan.

Photo by nattynattyboom

Johannesburg, South Africa

A donkey-eared Bush and his toy tank ponder their next move.

Photo by banter

Israel

Bush is pictured here with Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister when this photo was taken in 2006.

Photo by greenwonderland

Bangkok, Thailand

Photo by G4Glenno

Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine

Bush, a United Methodist, tries on some Devil horns in the city of Jesus’ birth.

On June 10, 2000, the President declared Jesus Day in Texas.

Photo by hazy jenius

Riga, Latvia

Photo by Patient Dinosaur

Victoria, BC, Canada

On a brick wall in Victoria, British Columbia, Bush discusses world domination with Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper. (The dialogue references a mid-90s animated television show, Animaniacs, which began airing in Canada late last year.)

What are we going to do tonight, George?
What we do every night, Steve. Try to take over the world.

Photo by ngawangchodron

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Lyrics to the United States national anthem take on a less hopeful meaning.

Photo by Jamie Rushell

Wrocław, Poland

Photo by ChrisJ.

Styria, Austria

Photo by newsrepublic

Zanzibar, Tanzania

Bush mzushi, loosely translated: Bush is a rumormonger.