I’m Off

After spending the greater parts of the last couple of days learning about CSS script and cutting and pasting code I have managed to get my blog transferred over to my domain all in good order.  You may find it here.

Additionally, hosting the blog at my own domain enables me to customize the blog template I have been using so the appearance may change over time.

Be sure to change your bookmark, unless, that is, you’re happy to be rid of me.  I will be learning how to put together web pages and posting them as I go.

Saturday morning, early, I am off on my non-stop flight to  a month in Playa Baracoa.  I will be taking video and hope to post video reports.

Hasta la vitoria siempre

You’re So Right Chronicles - Part III

UPDATE: Since You’re So Right has indicated that his chronicles make themselves up and flow unexpectantly from the ether into his consciousness, I have created a
You’re So Right Chronicles page which one may access by clicking on You’re So Right Chronicles just above the header photo.  Unfortunately, at this point, I must post the Chronicles in one text box.

Yesterday I rented server space from a web hosting company and will be moving things to my own domain, as soon as I figure out how.   I’ll keep you five informed.

You’re So Right

• June 24th, 2007 at 1:17 pm · Edit

  Part III – Avian Passion Aside: No Means No

  “You, sir, are an anachronism. A stereotype. A figment of someone else’s imagination.”

  With real satisfaction I noted that, like clockwork, the mood change had come just as he drained his second box of Cabernet Classique. He wiped his chin with a tamale husk and turned to consider me more closely. This only redoubled my concentration on a point beyond the horizon.

  “You would be intensely annoying, if it were not for the fact that you don’t exist.” In leaning over to jab my chest with this thumb he kicked the shoeshine boy in the nose. The pathetic figure continued to buff while trying to stanch the flow from a nostril with a polish applicator. My companion tossed a coin in the street and pushed him roughly away. “That’s enough, get lost.”

  He was winding up for a four-alarm rant. I could scarcely conceal my delight. We had been at our usual table on the plaza for most of the afternoon. He had had me shift my chair several times to position my blistered pate between him and the sun and now it was beginning to drop behind the tiled rooftop of the Hotel Central.

  “I suppose it was the pigeon remark that brought this on.” I had to tread lightly, no sense goading him into using the ring.

  “I suppose it was the pigeon remark that brought this on.” He twisted his face into a nasty grimace and raised his voice to a squeal as he did a horrid impersonation of my newly acquired speech impediment. He belched loudly and called for another large box of red wine. “And I want it fresh. None of that old stuff.” He shouted after the retreating waiter.

  “I simply said that the males seem unusually aggressive. In light of the fact that the females are clearly not interested. They should take the hint.”

  “They should take the hint.” Again with the voice.

  “These are not your effete, politically correct, ‘By your leave, missy’ gringo birds!” I tried to imagine the smell of Listerine and failed.

  “These are unspoiled, hot-blooded, revolutionary LATIN pigeons. They see what they want and they take it! They part the feathers and have at it. Your pathetic rules of permissible behavior don’t apply here, Heloise!”

  “No need to get so upset. I only meant that in a civilized, sophisticated, democratic society…”

  “Oh? And where might that be?” You’re referring of course to that little banana republic just north of the border?” He cleared the table with broad sweep of his arm, held the wine over his head and made like a shopvac straight from the spigot.

  “That little republic, for all its shortcomings, is based on the rule of law…”

  “The law! That’s rich! You mean like the ‘law’ in Guantanamo? The Bay of Pigs ‘law’? The ‘law’ that contracted the Kennedy assassination? The ‘law’…

  “Oh, please. Not that Kennedy thing again.” This was going beautifully.

  “Yes, that Kennedy thing again. Do you deny that Kennedy was assassinated by Texas oil businesspersons concerned that he planned to end the Oil Depletion Allowance because he was acting to deneuter the Federal System, through issuance of Executive Order 11110?”

  “OK. So you have a problem with the current administration. The system is designed to deal with that. Checks and balances. How about some of the Democratic candidates? How about Hilary?”

  “Hilary? Don’t make me laugh. Hilary Clinton has gone through so many contortions trying to explain away her vote to authorize Bush’s Iraqi adventure and enunciate her current positions on the war I’m surprised she’s not in permanent traction. She will pander to just about any constituency to fulfill her desire to be president. Which in my book, qualifies her for immediate disqualification.”

  I resumed my serene consideration of the horizon.

  “Bahhhh. To hell with you. I gotta shit.” He threw up his hands in exasperation and started for the facilities. I glanced at the clock on the tower of the Bacilica Paris Hiltona Cathedral and noted it was exactly 5:19 pm. Say what you will about the man, he’s as regular as an atomic clock. Must be all that fresh fruit.

  The entire cantina staff arose and hustled to assist with robes and headdress as their benefactor shambled toward the WC, beads rattling, feathers wafting. My chance had come at last.

  Next Installment
  Part IV – The Condi Man Can

In Case You’ve Missed Them

In case any of my five readers have missed the chronicles of “You’re So Right”, the master of Iconoflatulence, here are Parts I and II. I am eagerly awaiting Part III.

You’re So Right

Part I: I Can’t Place the Face, but the Odor is Familiar

As the shards of my shattered consciousness began to reassemble themselves, against my better judgment, like astigmatic quilt-makers on crack, I realized that it was pronounced “ha” as in hah not “ixla” as in Xalapa.

My vision cleared in brief bursts. Slowly, like one of those fifties movies where they played with the focus of the camera to simulate…well, someone’s vision clearing in brief bursts. When I finally came to, I really wished I hadn’t. Before me, squinting through clouds of acrid tobacco smoke at a wheezing laptop, muttering and chuckling as he hunted and pecked, sat a vision from hell. Not just any hell but a really bad hell, like living in the suburbs of a major American city . Or maybe having to sit through 24 hours of C-Span. Bad hell.

Hunt, peck. Peck, mutter, hunt. “Welcome back, sailor.”

With what, I am proud to say, considerable clinical detachment, I did a quick visual assessment of the abomination before me. Small, thin, dark as Cuban maduro with stringy matted hair the color of, say, the bilge from some steamer in Vera Cruz harbor. Arms like armadillos, feet covered in patent leather penny loafers. Awful. But the head. The head. So strangely distended under the massive pressure of a large granite boulder held in place by hemp and burlap. Sloping quickly back from the wrinkled forehead to form a shelf over the grizzled neck.

“I said welcome back, Kitty.” I realized he was talking to me.

“Where am I? Shit!” This is what I would like to have said. But, since I was incapable of speech just then, what I actually whined was “Whffffffarrach! Shisssht!”

I was unable to localize the pain with any certainty. It was mostly between my shoulders and my scalp, I knew that. It was like driving a 1972 Volkswagen behind a truck hauling sheep manure up a hill. You can’t go around it and you can’t stand the smell. Eventually, I realized that something had gone really wrong with my teeth.

“What’s the matter, not feeling so great?” The horrific demon before me continued hunched over the computer and distractedly worked at his left nostril with a mini-whisk, clearly vexed with some elusive turn of phrase on the screen before him.

“Whachadotobe?, you sonabamick!” I moaned.

“Oh, not much. Just a little pre-Columbian dental work. Thought I’d take care of it while you were still in dreamland.” He pulled luxuriously at his pulpy roach as the blue of the monitor reflected off his filthy, holographic My-Little-Pony shades. “Want to have a look?” I detected more than a little pride in his remark.

He lifted a hand mirror and held it before my face, tilting and zooming until he was sure I could see myself clearly. “Go ahead, say ahhhh.”

I barely recognized my own visage. My hairline, which I had always considered one of my best features, had somehow receded to about mid-crown; the sixties surfer bob replaced by a series of short tufts. Pig-tails actually; densely knotted and slathered with a tarry substance which held them a various angles away from my head. My face was bright red. Ape’s-ass red, except in the rivulets of dried tears which revealed the pallid skin beneath.

With great care, I drew my lips back from my throbbing choppers. I gazed in horror at the intricately chiseled and perforated designs that covered the formerly off-white glories with which my sainted parents had worked so hard to provide me. Each incisor was now adorned with three vertical grooves bordered by a sort of crescent moon chipped out along the midline; the designs on one side perfectly symmetrical with those on the opposite side of my mouth. Festooned as they were with tiny constellations of holes and imbedded chips of semi-precious stones, I couldn’t help but admire the artistry on some depraved level.

“What the thuck?” This last accompanied by a convulsive wince and fresh torrents of tears brought on instantly by the pressure of front teeth against lower lip. “Whath have you done to be, you badman!”

“Mad?” He snapped his head back so quickly that he slightly lost his footing, balancing as he was some 60 or 80 pounds of stone on his scrawny neck. “Mad you say?”

Whether it was the cackle of fetid laughter fouling what remained of the breathable air in that dank space, or the crude bludgeon brought down sharply on my stubbled pate, I know not, but the resultant return to incoherence was welcome beyond words. As I slipped into that satiny abyss, I realized that I was in the presence the very person I had come so many miles and spent so many years in search of. Once again the Shepherd of Satsop was within my grasp!

Next Installment
Part II – Do These Shackles Make Me Look Fat?

You’re So Right Part II – Do These Shackles Make Me Look Fat?

“OK, Let’s try this again. Muy rrrrrobusto, RRRRRRoberto!”

“Muy robusto, Roberto. ARGGGGGH!” The sensation was a lot like having one’s small intestines fed into a blender straight through the abdominal wall. As with all the times before, I had to look down and confirm, to my amazement, that there was nothing attached to or boring into my wretched gut.

“I don’t think you are really trying, you Gringo swine.” He reached once again for his Teletubbies ring.

“No, no. Please! I can do it.” He eased his hand away from the ring and gazed down at the notes before him on the podium. There was no way I could do it.

“RRRRRamon! Que pasa, hombrrrre?”

“Ramon, que…..ARGGGGH!”

“You imbecile! Where did you learn to speak Spanish, the phone directory?” His eyes were bulging so far out of his head they smudged the back of his glasses. “You’ve got to roll your R’s. RRRRRRRRoll your R’s!” The viscous spittle against my forehead sounded like hail on the roof of a ’57 Chevy.

“I don’t speak Spanish.”

“You certainly fucking don’t!” He took off the mortarboard, shuffled back over to the couch and fell into its fetid recesses. With childlike joy, I realized that today’s session was over.

As he lit up another dark dogend he glared at me in utter exasperation. “How in the name of all that is holy do you expect to be ready at this rate? Your coming out is just a few days away. You are going to ruin everything!”

“I…I’m sorry. Can we try German?” Big mistake.

“German? Did you say German, you pea-brained frat boy?” He reached for his pinky.

When I came around again he seemed to have regained his composure somewhat. “Ausgeseitnicht! Sie sind jetzt hier. Wie gehts?”

“Good, thanks. Sorry about the German remark. I’m just not myself, I suppose.” I attempted a smile through my cracked and bloody lips. “That’s an interesting trick. How do you do that?”, nodding toward his hand.

“Oh this little thing?” He held out his mottled ham and smiled coquettishly as he cocked his head to each side and admired the ring like a newly betrothed farm girl.

“Just something I worked out in my spare time. In case I had surprise guests. A little nanotechnology for the tum-tum. You swallowed it with that hamburger helper at lunch a few days ago. Works great don’t you think?”

“Absolutely. Feels like I’ve got a roto-rooter in my guts. “

“Just what I’d hoped. Here, check it out.” He swiveled the laptop around so that I could look over his shoulder as he clicked through the diagrams and spec sheets. As near as I could gather, the thing, which looked a little like a miniature molly-bolt, was designed to lodge itself into the lining of the small intestine where, upon activation from the remote control, it would continue to drill and tear its way through the digestive system. Talk about Montezuma’s revenge.

“How long ‘til I shit it out?”

“I’m not exactly sure, weeks…months. You’re the first, you see. Look upon it as your little contribution to science.”

“This is truly flattering. All to motivate me to learn Spanish. Sort of gives new meaning to the term ‘total immersion’.”

He had to grab the sides of the stones to support the head-shaping machine as he exploded into paroxysms of laughter. Stomping the floor, he rocked uncontrollably as his howls were gradually replaced with gasping for air. When the coughing had stopped, he regarded me with a sidelong glance and what I thought was a possibly a glimmer of respect…or was it some new recalculation of how much more it would take?

“That’s very droll. Very good. Did they teach you that at the academy?”

“Academy? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I would have shit myself if that were possible in my condition.

“Very well. Have your little games. Ready to get back to work?” He crushed out the roach on the back of my hand. The duct tape might as well have been monel metal.

“If we must. Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Not at all, fire away.”

“Are you planning to kill me?”

He turned to face me and raised his arms slowly in a gesture of evangelical sincerity. Out of the corner of my eye, I might have seen something scuttle across the room. “Kitty, you cut me to the cuticle.”

“In seven days, you and I will sitting at a table on El Gastrointerologico Square sipping a cold Bohemian and watching the pigeons mate. This I promise you.”

“Now try this: Rrrrrrruiz, mi amigo! Dos Tequila, Porrrrrrrrrrrrrrfavor!”

Next Installment
Part III – Avian Passion Aside: No Means No

Los Amigos Del Taconazo

I have found that local bars are good places to practice Spanish, as the patrons and proprietors are generally friendly and ready to strike up conversation.

You may remember my periodic reports from Jose’s cantina in Merida, which I would visit a couple of times each week. Jose’s is what I would call a very funky place, others would probably think it seedy, and still others disgusting; and I couldn’t honestly argue with either point of view. After all, it rained almost as hard in the bathroom as it did outdoors and Jose was often exceedingly drunk. One night, in fact, he was so drunk that he walked around his place apparently unaware that he had pissed his pants. Shortly thereafter he took one of his periodic rides on the wagon.

I have been visiting the bars in my neighborhood here in Xalapa and have found a few that I enjoy. The other day, however, I hit the jackpot just a couple blocks from my apartment, when I stumbled upon Cantina La Negrita. Stumbled upon, because, like many of the bars in town, from the outside La Negrita carries no indication that there’s a bar inside. The other day as I walked pass I heard accordion music emanating from the doorway so walked in.

Here is what I found.  You can certainly tell that I’m a videography neophyte.

Los Amigos Del Taconazo play Norteno music, which features a diatonic (meaning a different note results from a pull on the bellows than from a push) button accordion (in this case a Hohner Corona) and usually a guitar and bass. The bass in the video is 90 years old, and really, really looks it. Los Amigos, who have been playing together for twelve years and play every afternoon at La Negrita, told me they dream of going to the USA to play.

Another serendipitous occurrence in Mexico.

My Homemade Double Biquad Antenna

As I have mentioned I have become interested in antennas with which to received WiFi signals. A while back I posted a photo of my kitchen sieve antenna that slightly improved my reception of the signal from my apartment building owner’s wireless internet router three floors above my apartment.

A few days ago I mentioned that I had decided to build a Double Biquad antenna and that I had been scouring the City for some copper sheet to serves as an antenna reflector. I was inspired in my antenna plans by the information on this web page and this page.

Alas, I have failed in my search for sheet copper and have had to settle for an aluminum kitchen pan for a reflector, despite the corrosion problems associated with joining aluminum and copper.

I drilled a hole in the center of the pan and inserted a 1/2″ male copper plumbing fitting, which I soldered to the pan. Inserted in the male plumbing fitting is a short length of copper pipe to which I will solder the “biquad” element as soon as I receive the coaxial cable I ordered.

At the rear of the pan I will attach a female 1/2″ copper plumbing fitting, to which I will attach a yet to be designed system for attaching the antenna to some structure on the roof, assuming that my landlord doesn’t object. Having shown him my kitchen sieve antenna, I’m sure he believes, correctly I admit, that I am a bit of a whacko.

Further reports and photos will follow.

Plaza Xalapenos Ilustres

Having researched options for extending the range of WiFi receivers and broadcasters I ran across lots of designs for home made antennas, some with ranges of many miles. My curiosity piqued I decided to build a very long range “double bi-quad” antenna.

I needed a piece of scrap 12 or 14 gauge household wiring, a short piece of half inch copper pipe, a piece of sheet copper about 5″ x 9″, and some low loss coaxial cable. So off I went scrounging.

I was able to get the scrap wire and copper pipe with no problems from a scrap dealer up the street not to far and ordered 15 meters of the right type of coaxial cable and necessary connectors from a vendor on Mercado Libre, Latin America’s eBay affiliated online market place. Finding a piece of copper sheet, however, has been difficult.

I have checked in every hardware, electrical supply, and kitchen equipment store in Centro and in the area of the Mercado Los Sauces with no luck in finding copper sheet. A couple of days ago, though, I asked in a local plumbing supply store and the nice proprietors directed me to a metal dealer just off Avenida Lazaro Cardenas, a good ways North from my apartment.

So yesterday morning off I went to locate the metal dealer. Being Sunday I knew it would probably not be open for business, but I need the exercise and it was a beautiful sunny morning for an urban trek, up and down through the hills of Xalapa.

My map of the city doesn’t include a scale so I don’t know for sure how far I walked before locating the metal dealer in a very nice Colonia Rafael Lucio part of town, but I had been walking for an hour and a half. It was another hour and half to return. I plan to go again this morning.

The real treat of my long walk was encountering the Plaza Xalapenos Ilustres, a tree lined pedestrian plaza which separates the to and from lanes of Avenida Xalapa and which stretches from block upon block from the Avenida Presidente (Lazaro Cardenas) to Avendia Americas. The stretch of Avenida Xalapa passes the Pantheon Xalapeno (a large cemetery), a large sports school, and the famous Museo Antropologia.

The plaza, according to an informational sign, contains 1733 trees, predominately Sweetgums, Mexican Sycamores and Shamel Ash.

Sunnergy Dealer in Xalapa

There was an informational booth in Parque Juarez yesterday for a local Sunnergy dealer, Grupo Hersa, located in Col. Ferrer Guardia, 8-42-92-64  hersa_1@yahoo.com.

Presently the company is selling only vacuum tube, gravity feed, batch type hot water heater systems with the integrated tank of stainless steel.  The smallest system, with a 132 liter tank is selling for $8,700 pesos.  The systems include a mounting rack.  The company eventually plans to also sell photovoltaic systems.

Sunnergy is a company n Guadalajara whose website may be found here. 

 

Judge Whalton Waxes Sarcastic in Granting Libby Friends’ Amici Brief

Apparently attorneys for I. Scooter Libby have filed a motion with his trial Judge, Reggie Whalton, that Libby be granted bail while his appeal of his 30 month jail sentence is adjudicated.

The Next Hurrah reports that Robert Bork, Alan (torture is OK) Dershowitz, and ten other prominent and equally presumptuous attorneys, filed a motion with Judge Whalton “for leave to file brief as Amici Curiae and brief of law” on behalf of Libby’s motion for bail. (Bork, you will remember, was Nixon’s whoreson Solicitor General, who eagerly fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, after the more honorable Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned in protest rather than fire Cox.)

Judge Whalton, in granting the Amici Curiae motion, included a footnote in which he delivered some richly earned sarcasm, expressing his expectation that the “twelve prominent and distinguished” attorneys would provide similar assistance to his court in future cases involving less well-heeled defendants.

“It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.”

Another Guantanamo Dismissal

Raw Story links to a Guardian report that charges against a second Guantanamo prisoner have been dismissed. Charges against “Yasser Ahmed Hamdan, the man accused of being Osama bin Laden’s driver” were dropped for the same reason charges against “Omar Khadr, who has been held since he was 15-years-old” were dropped. Like all of the other prisoners in Bush’s gulag, Hamdan and Khadr had been designated by the Bush brain trust as “enemy combatants” not “unlawful enemy combatants” as required by the “Military Commissions Act adopted by the US Congress in 2006″.

Congress, you will remember, adopted the act to legitimize the Bush administration’s efforts to deny due process and habeas corpus rights to the Guantanamo prisoners after the Supreme Court ruled that the Guantanamo Bay military compound was in effect a part of the USA and, thus, the prisoners there are subject to the Constitutional due process guarantee.

The military judges in both cases dismissed the charges ruling that “the military tribunals did not have jurisdiction over detainees on the island”.

A Victory at Guantanamo

Lauran Rozen, in her excellent blog War and Piece, passes on a report from the Guardian of the dismissal by a military judge of charges against a Guantanamo prisoner because the prisoner had been designated an “enemy combatant” not an “unlawful enemy combatant” as required by the “the Military Commissions Act adopted by the US Congress in 2006.” I should note the dismissal was “without prejudice, so I believe prosecutors are at liberty to try again.

I find the comment from one of Ms. Rozen’s readers, an Air Force Veteran, to be particularly interesting. He reads the dismissal as a sing of a revolt amongst the professional military against the illegal actions of the Bush administration.

Neonatal Mortality - We’re Number 5

Here is a list of countries with lower neonatal mortality rates than has the USA. I copied the information from the excellent World Health Organization web site, where all sorts of health care statisics may be sorted.

The neonatal mortality rate is the number of deaths during the first 28 completed days* of life per 1000 live births in a given year or period.

Here is a list of countries with lower neonatal mortality rates than has the USA.  I copied the information from the excellent World Health Organization web site, where all sorts of health care statistics may be sorted.

The neonatal mortality rate is the number of deaths during the first 28 completed days of life per 1000 live births in a given year or period.

Singapore            1
Czech Republic        2
Finland            2
Iceland            2
Japan            2
San Marino        2
Sweden            2
Australia            3
Austria            3
Belgium            3
France            3
Germany            3
Italy            3
Monaco            3
Norway            3
Portugal            3
Republic of Korea        3
Spain            3
Switzerland        3
Andorra            4
Brunei Darussalam        4
Canada            4
Cuba            4
Cyprus            4
Denmark            4
Greece            4
Ireland            4
Israel            4
Luxembourg        4
Netherlands        4
New Zealand        4
Slovenia            4
United Kingdom        4

And here are the countries tied for fifth.  Did you notice Cuba is at a rate of 4?

Belarus            5
Croatia            5
Lithuania            5
Malaysia            5
Malta            5
Qatar            5
Slovakia            5
United Arab Emirates    5
United States of America    5

Cheny/Bush Torturers Used “Evil Empire” Techniques

Think Progress reports on a Pentagon Inspector General’s report that indicates the torture techniques used at Guantanamo and in Iraq were those the Pentagon believed to be  techniques used by the erstwhile Soviet Union.

No wonder the Cheney administration refused to have the “land of the free, home of the brave” sign on to the treaty creating the International Criminal Court.   Perhaps Nuremberg will host a new round of war crimes trials.

Sgt. Kokesh Goes to K. C.

Sgt. Adam Kokesh has exhibited great courage in telling the Marine Corps brass attempting to impinge his free speech rights to go fuck themselves.

Sgt. Adam Kokesh has been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after his “second activation as a reservist” and service in Iraq. It seems that his work with the Iraq Veterans Against the War has irritated the Marine Corps brass, which is now attempting to discharge Kokesh again, this time dishonorably.

Kokesh isn’t rolling over.

I think it’s a great story.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques = Verschärfte Vernehmung

Andrew Sullivan, in his excellent blog The Daily Dish, reports that the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by Bush administration to describe its torturing techniques is equivalent to the German phrase “Verschärfte Vernehmung”, “concocted” by the Nazis. Not only are the phrases used to describe the techniques the same, but many of the actual “techniques” employed are the same.

A number of Nazis were sentenced to death by post-WW II war crimes tribunals for employing such “techniques” on non-uniformed enemy combatants.

“The phrase ‘Verschärfte Vernehmung’ is German for ‘enhanced interrogation’. Other translations include ‘intensified interrogation’ or ’sharpened interrogation’. It’s a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.”

Sullivan completes his report with:

“Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I’m not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn’t-somehow-torture - ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.”

War criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, and their legal advisers, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, who justified “enhanced interrogation techniques”, in part arguing that the “enemy combatants” were non-uniformed, will unfortunately likely never suffer the justice visited upon the Nazis war criminals.

Sullivan’s report is well worth a read.

U of Mass Students and Faculty “Dis-Card”

Raw Story has posted this  report and video of students and faculty of the University of Massachusetts, including some guests on stage, expressing their disapproval of bestowing an honorary degree upon Andrew Card, Bush’s former chief of staff who did his share of lying to sell the criminal war in Iraq.

The scene, for me,  is reminiscent of the ’60s.

Card and Gonzales, it was revealed last week, raced Ashcroft’s Deputy Attorney General to Ashcroft’s hospital bed to ask him to sign off on the administration’s illegal domestic spying. Ashcroft, to his credit, refused.

No Honor for Andrew Card

Kennedy Assasination

OK, I imagine after reading the header you’re sighing heavily and asking yourself “what is that whacko Brown getting to now”.

Yesterday I was talking to my gringo neighbor, Steve, who relies on short wave radio for news and information. I am as completely unfamiliar with short wave radio as Steve is with computers and the internet, but he reports that he listens a lot to BBC and Radio Netherlands and that the networks carry shows hosted by conspiracy theorists, I supposed one could call them.

Steve reported that he had heard on one of the programs speculation that President Kennedy was assassinated by Texas oil businesspersons concerned that Kennedy planned to end the Oil Depletion Allowance and that Kennedy was acting to deneuter the Federal System, through issuance of Executive Order 11110, and he asked me to research the claims through the internet.

During the conversation Steve asked who I believe killed President Kennedy. I responded that of course I don’t know; but my guess is that he was killed by organized crime interests and Cuban exiles who had been trained by the CIA for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, otherwise known as UCLAs, Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets.

Rolling my eyes, I returned to my apartment and searched the internet for information related to the two matters of which he had questions. Predictably, I concluded that both speculations are absolute crap.

Serendipitously, today, as I regularly do, I checked the Granma news website and discovered an article referencing the recently released book “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” by David Talbot, the founder of Salon, the online magazine. With further searching I came upon this Salon report of the book.

I will leave it to you to read the Salon article if you’re interested; but Talbot reports that almost immediately upon being informed of President Kennedy’s assassination by J. Edgar Hoover, “almost with pleasure, thought Bobby”, Robert Kennedy’s suspicions focused on the mafia, Cuban UCLAs, and the CIA.

Robert Kennedy had been dogging organized crime for almost a decade; the Cuban exile oligarchs were angry with President Kennedy for his failure to provide air support to the Bay of Pigs invasion and for not invading Cuba in response to the Cuban Missile Crises; and the CIA (with George Bush Sr. playing a prominent role in the CIA’s Miami operations, second in magnitude only to CIA headquarters) had developed a close relationship with Cuban UCLAs which it had trained for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

As an aside the Cuban UCLAs later played a role in the Watergate break in, Iran-Contra, and who knows what other nefarious, criminal operations.

I think it’s all worth a read if you’re so inclined.

Spectacular Thunder Storm

We are having a spectacular thunder storm here this afternoon (it is about 4:25), which so far has included the loudest thunderclap I have ever experienced.   It shook me.

My Trip to Guanajuato

Nestled in a bowl amongst the semi-arid hills of, what I think is considered, the Central Mexican Highlands is the lovely city of Guanajuato. The very tidy, vibrant city is rich in history, architecture, museums, theaters, universities, and references to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and his Quijote de Mancha.

I traveled to Guanjauto early last week by intercity bus, taking the ADO line from Xalapa to Mexico City and the ETN line to Guanajuato. Thanks to my sister-in-law; I’ve not seen in twenty five years; and my wonderfully grounded niece, I’ve not seen in ten, for the invitation to join them in their visit.

The Mexican intercity bus system, like its intracity systems with which I am familiar, is comprehensive and economical. The luxurious ADO GL bus I took for the four and a half hour trip to Mexico City was $246 pesos; and included a very comfortable seat, a refreshment, and a movie. The even more luxurious ETN bus I took for the four hour trip to Guanajuato was $350, had only three seats across the cabin, padded leg rests, and included a sandwich, refreshment, and movie. There are, I learned, less expensive carriers which I did not find online but of which I learned at the stations.

There are four major intercity bus stations in Mexico City. I changed buses at the Mexico Norte station on the way to Guanjuato and on the way back took a $75 pesos taxi trip from the Norte station to the TAPO station in the East part of the City. The TAPO station was quite nice and convenient, constructed in a circle with the various terminals radiating from the circle; and with restaurants and an internet café at the center.

I had a tasty, authentic breakfast at the Norte station served by a friendly fellow who speaks English quite well. He explained that he had lived for a time in Salt Lake City where he operated a stucco business which employed six folks and where his wife and child continue to reside. He had been expelled from the USA by the immigration service and his wife is now processing the paperwork necessary for his return, a process, he said, would take three months to a year.

I arrived in Guanajuato about midday last Monday and, after a $50 peso cab ride, checked into my room at El Castillo de Santa Ceclia, a sprawling castle complex of stone and brick, complete with arches, towers, surrounding defensive walls, and suits of armor standing guard in the common spaces. One could even ascend a tower, via a spiral staircase, to the top of the entrance gate and enjoy a panorama of the city below.

Santa Cecilia, I have since read, is the patron saint of musicians and of the blind.

There is in the hotel courtyard a bronze statue of Quijote de Mancha, which, the accompanying sign explained, was symbol of liberty. I later learned that the city hosts an annual Cervantes festival and encountered references to Cervantes and Don Quixote statues throughout the Centro area.

I should also note that the hotel provides wireless internet service which one can access while sitting on the patio around the pool enjoying a morning cup of coffee from the Extra store around the corner. The hotel restaurant offered coffee that was tepid and a bit insubstantial for my taste at $20 pesos per cup, thus the morning trip to Extra.

The hotel was at about only 20 % occupancy, as it is now the off season. I was told that the hotel is full during August and September, as well as during Semana Santa and Christmas.

When I again visit Guanajuato I will seek out more economical accommodations in one of the many older Centro hotels, but a stay at the rather pricey El Castillo ($120 USA per night) is well worth the experience.

Guanajuato and the nearby pueblo of Dolores Hidalog figured prominently in the revolutionary war that ultimately ended Spanish colonial rule. The Alhondiga de Granadies (granary), now a museum in the city, was the scene of the opening battle of the Mexican revolution, a couple of weeks after Father Miguel Hidalgo issued his famous El Grito, or call to arms, from a balcony in Dolores Hidalgo on September 10, 1810.

Towering over the city is a huge, cantera stone statue of El Pipila, Juan Jose de los Reyes Martinez, who on September 28, 1810 set fire to the gates of the Alhondiga de Granadies, where Spanish soldiers were stationed, enabling rebel forces to enter the granary and to win the first battle of the revolutionary war.

There are at least three major theaters (below is the El Teatro Juarez) in Guanajuato, many museums, and the University of Guanajuato, all contributing to a rich art and musical atmosphere. The buildings housing the theaters, museums and university feature locally quarried beautiful pink and green caltera stone, as are the opulent churches in both Guanajuato and Dolores Hidalgo.

Cantera stone, a well as brick, was used also to construct the deep, arched beams that support the streets and building above Calle Hidalgo, a subterranean, serpentine roadway network constructed in 1965 through a river bed under the city, with the aim of relieving traffic congestion on Centro streets.

City buses ply the tunnels taking on and discharging passengers waiting at the many underground bus stops accessed by periodic stone stairways to the surface. It is a quite stunning engineering, construction, and artistic feat.

There are a number of well tended plazas and parks in Centro Guanajuato, surrounded by cafes with outdoor seating, pubs, and shops. Particularly in the evenings these public areas are filled with families, university students, diners and shoppers. The parks and plazas also provide a location for some of the public art that pervades the city.

Fronting on the Jardin Union, the largest downtown park, we encountered a pub which featured beer and 100% blue agave tequila brewed and distilled in a nearby city. The pub offered four beers, one which included tequila and lime, one which included coffee and chocolate, and more conventional dark and light beers. The street side entry way of the beautiful colonial building housing the pub contained a sales room for a variety of fine 100% blue agave tequila and gifts, and in the rear was a beautiful antique bar in which was an old copper still and a stained glass ceiling. It was all very well and very beautifully done.

Amongst Guanajauto’s many museums is the four story home of famed Mexican artist Diego Rivera, where there is on display many, many of Rivera’s works, as well as some of those of his wife Frida Kahlo and three of his students. Rivera moved with his family when fairly young to Mexico City, where he entered art school at the age of eleven. He was officially shunned for many years because of his communistic sympathies but is now recognized for the exceptional artist he was. The museum is well worth a visit.

I also visited the Museo de las Momias, the famous mummy museum. There seem to be various explanations as to why the bodies were disinterred but the bodies were apparently naturally mummified as the crypts in which they were buried were sealed such that oxygen was not present to enable the growth of agents of decomposition.

Amongst the other museums in the city, which I did not visit, are the Alhondiga de Granadias; Casa de las Leyendas, a museum of legends I’m told is fun; the nearby Mina de Valenciana, a still active mining operation; a couple of haciendas; and the Museo Iconografico del Cervatnes.

Guanajuato annually celebrates Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the author of Don Quixote. I was told by a taxi driver that 30 or so years ago some university students conducted some sort of Cervantes celebration and that some time later the city adopted the cause. Today the city contains many references to Cervantes and a number of statues of Quijote de Mancha. I guess I will now have to read the book.

A visit to Guanajuato, I think, would not be complete without a bus ride to the nearby historic pueblo of Dolores Hidalgo, famous not only for Hidalgo’s El Grito but also for its brightly painted talavera ceramics. The bus may be boarded along the Avenida de Valenciana. Look for a bus with Hildalgo noted on the front window.

Colonial centro Hidalgo includes a beautiful, tidy central plaza across the street from a truly magnificent cathedral (and, given the grand cathedrals in every Mexican city and pueblo, that’s really saying something). The church is constructed entirely of pink cantera stone, with the stone around the entry way intricately carved.

Hidalgo has shop after shop vending talavera ceramic bowls, planters, dishware, shot glasses, ashtrays, and etc., etc., etc. One shop had an entire talavera bathroom set, including a toilet, basin, and towel and toilet paper racks. Should I ever build a house here, I will definitely go to Dolores Hidalgo and fill my little pickup with tiles and household furnishing.

I don’t know what else to report, except that I will certainly return to Guanajuato for further explorations, as I like it very much. Even better, though, than exploring the city was spending time with and getting to know my sister-in-law and niece.

Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS)

IMSS is the Mexican national health insurance agency.

As I think I reported here a couple of months ago I accompanied my gringo neighbor, Steve, to the local IMSS office to provide translation services for the renewal of his IMSS enrollment. While there I inquired as to what is required for me to enroll.

A few weeks ago I took copies of all of the documents I thought were necessary to apply for enrollment. As it turned out I was told that I must have my birth certificate translated into Spanish and was informed that I could have it translated down the street at the Centro de Idiomas (language school) of the University of Veracruz. So off I went.

The teacher with whom I met at the Centro de Imiomas indicated I could return the next day to pick up the translated document. When I returned she informed me that there were a couple items she wasn’t able to read from the 1970 photocopy of my birth certificate and asked me to make corrections. I corrected three items, such as my father’s middle name and the name of the street where my family lived at the time of my birth, the teacher promptly made the corrections, had the office director certify the translation, I paid $250 pesos, and I was on my way.

Today I returned to the IMSS office with copies of my passport and FM 3 visa, the translated birth certificate, 2 frontal head shot photos, and copies of my cable TV bill. Within 10 minutes after entering the office the fellow helping me had completed the necessary paperwork and escorted me to the outer office where I would receive the premium invoice, which I would take to and pay at the bank next door. Generally fees for governmental services here are paid at a bank. I waited in line, with my service number in hand, for about fifteen minutes when I was beckoned to the service counter where the invoices are produced. Within five minutes I had the invoice in hand and was off to the bank next door.

I waited in line at the bank for about 10 minutes, paid the $1,930.44 peso fee ($180. USA) for one year of health insurance coverage, received my receipt, went across the street to obtain two copies of the payment receipt, and crossed back across the street to the IMSS office.

I provided a copy of the receipt to the outer office service counter, went back to the office of the fellow who had completed the initial paperwork and gave him the other copy of the receipt, and within 10 minutes he handed me my enrollment card, upon which visits for medical attention are recorded, and my copies of the paperwork. That was it. All-in-all, it took about an hour or so.
As of June 1 I will be enrolled in the IMSS health insurance system. Next May I must renew my coverage and pay the annual fee, which, incidentally, is now $2,905 pesos for those over the age of 60.

As with my experiences with the immigration offices here and in Merida, the folks who attended to my IMSS application were uniformly very pleasant and efficient.

My Homemade WiFi Antenna

I know I’m supposed to be writing up reports of my visit to Guanajuato, but I just couldn’t resist posting this.

My landlord recently installed wireless internet service through Telmex (my current service is through MegaCable) but neither of my laptops have been able to detect the network. Consequently I have been doing a bit of internet research on extending the reach of my laptops WiFi antennas.

I ran across a plan for this home made antenna and put it together in about five minutes. I am now able to detect the apartment building network. The antenna consists of a USB WiFi antenna mounted in the center of a six inch kitchen sieve and connected through a USB cable to the laptop. I plan to try a larger sieve as the six inch model is very particular as to its placement.

The USB WiFi dongle was $400 pesos, the sieve $6.60 pesos, and the cable $85. pesos. So the whole set up was about $45. USA.