This conversation couldn't really happen, but maybe it should. Pretty funny for us who've been there.
Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent: The Way Cocktail Parties Should Really Go
2010/05/03
2010/05/01
The Real Reason Why Arizona Passed Such Harsh Immigration Laws
This argument by Greg Palast (link below) makes a lot of sense. Of course, an alternative policy for Republicans panicked by the growing Hispanic vote would be to give them some reason to vote for their party instead of the Democrats. Like, including their voices and their concerns in their platform. Republicans have learned to do that in Florida; why not Arizona? (I think I know why: there are more rich Cubans than rich Mexican Americans; Cubans have, after a long hard struggle, bought their way into the GOP in Florida.)
The Real Reason Why Arizona Passed Such Harsh Immigration Laws | | AlterNet
The Real Reason Why Arizona Passed Such Harsh Immigration Laws | | AlterNet
2010/04/30
Bearish on Spain
Simon White of "Variant Perception" is worried by Spain's private debt. Just to let you know. Me, like a lot of people in this country, I'm more worried about Barça right now (fútbol is a new passion of mine -- first time I've cared much for a team in any professional sport). And about the enormous confusion and political paralysis caused by the dysfunctional justice system, but private debt maybe should go on the list as 3rd priority. Here you can hear and see Simon White on the Business News Network (of the CTV of Canada's Globe and Mail).
Market Morning : April 29, 2010 : Bearish on Spain [04-29-10 11:05 AM]
Variant Perception
Market Morning : April 29, 2010 : Bearish on Spain [04-29-10 11:05 AM]
Variant Perception
2010/04/27
Cartoons Banned By Apple: A Gallery - Apple - Gawker
More proof that the Internet is really frustrating to censors. They're not great cartoons, but interesting precisely because they were censored -- and thus tell us something about what Apple thinks it's doing.
Cartoons Banned By Apple: A Gallery - Apple - Gawker
Cartoons Banned By Apple: A Gallery - Apple - Gawker
Gypsy and shadows
2010/04/26
Some odd partners for liberty (Spain)
On Friday we adult "Personas Libro" joined with Carboneras school kids to recite verses of Miguel Hernández, a Communist poet in the civil war whose work was suppressed during the Franco regime. His poems from just before and during the war are often rousing and combative, those he wrote to his starving family from prison are gentler and moving, and while not all of it is great poetry, some of it is, and it is almost always intense. The grade school and high school kids took it all very seriously, and some of them -- even a couple of the littlest ones -- were superb orators. When it came the adults' turn, Susana recited Hernández famous "Para la libertad," which became an anthem for rebels everywhere. And I chose the shorter, evocative "Canción última."
This year is the centennial of Miguel Hernández birth, but another reason we are remembering his poems is that one of Spain's best-loved troubadors, Joan Manuel Serrat, has again recorded them. When he first sang them on a record in 1972, it was an audacious defiance of the regime and the first time most Spaniards heard them. Today, it is still a provocative gesture, a way to upset those who want to forget about Franco's prisons and disappeared and are willing to take extreme measures to silence the one judge who wanted to find out just what happened.
On our way out of the act commemorating the Communist poet Miguel Hernández, we each received a book by the Falangista poet Luis Rosales, who -- like Hernández -- was born in 1910. But these labels, though true, are unfair. Hernández was more than a Communist, and Rosales much more than a Falangista. Both were poets. If they had happened to meet, they may even have liked one another. Rosales, from a very conservative, very Catholic family, did join the Falange at the beginning of the war. But he was also associated with a magazine published by Pablo Neruda, and was a personal friend of Federico García Lorca. And it was to his house that Federico García Lorca ran to avoid arrest when the Falange and the rebel generals seized Granada, in 1936, and it was in that house that Lorca was arrested, very soon after to be killed by the Falange -- despite Luis Rosales attempts to save him.
Rosales lived to 1992, and outgrew his Falangismo. And if his later protestations are to be believed, his understanding when he joined was that the movement was respectful of human life and dignity, and made a serious mistake in assuming that the generals who rose against the Republic would be also.
Hernández died in prison of tuberculosis, in 1942. Had he lived, he might also have come to question his earlier political faith. Or perhaps, as did many Spaniards, he would have remained a loyal Communist, I'd like to think to the Communist party that adapted to new conditions under Santiago Carrillo and become one of the artificers, in an odd partnership with the ex-Falangista Adolfo Suárez, of a Spanish constitutional democracy that resembles neither Stalinist Communism nor Francoist military Falangism. But that democracy was nevertheless built from pieces assembled from those two movements, along with contributions of the Socialists and -- perhaps even more surprisingly -- the king.
The equilibrium of that oddly built structure was so extremely delicate in its early years of "the Transition" -- from Franco to democracy -- that it nearly collapsed before a coup in 1981. It survived, thanks to timely intervention by the young king as well as courageous stances by Carrillo and Suárez and others, even military men, eager to avoid a new civil war. It is stabler now than in 1981, much stabler, but still can be shaken when one of those old supporting institutions wants to pull out to see if it can bring the whole thing down. Like Manos Limpias or the Falange-JONS.
But enough about Baltasar Garzón. The papers and 'net and TV are full of coverage of the campaign against him and the massive demonstrations of support for him, not just in Madrid, but all around the world. If the intention of his accusers, Manos Limpias and the Falange-JONS, was to suppress investigation of the crimes of the Franco era, they really goofed. Now, thanks to this surprising case, people around the world are newly awakened to the issue and demanding investigation. Spain's most famous defender of human rights about to be removed from the bench because he applied to Spain the same criterion he had used against Pinochet, the Argentine junta, those responsible for the abuses at Guantánamo, etc. -- that is, he regarded Spain's 1977 amnesty as superceded by international law. Astounding.
This year is the centennial of Miguel Hernández birth, but another reason we are remembering his poems is that one of Spain's best-loved troubadors, Joan Manuel Serrat, has again recorded them. When he first sang them on a record in 1972, it was an audacious defiance of the regime and the first time most Spaniards heard them. Today, it is still a provocative gesture, a way to upset those who want to forget about Franco's prisons and disappeared and are willing to take extreme measures to silence the one judge who wanted to find out just what happened.
On our way out of the act commemorating the Communist poet Miguel Hernández, we each received a book by the Falangista poet Luis Rosales, who -- like Hernández -- was born in 1910. But these labels, though true, are unfair. Hernández was more than a Communist, and Rosales much more than a Falangista. Both were poets. If they had happened to meet, they may even have liked one another. Rosales, from a very conservative, very Catholic family, did join the Falange at the beginning of the war. But he was also associated with a magazine published by Pablo Neruda, and was a personal friend of Federico García Lorca. And it was to his house that Federico García Lorca ran to avoid arrest when the Falange and the rebel generals seized Granada, in 1936, and it was in that house that Lorca was arrested, very soon after to be killed by the Falange -- despite Luis Rosales attempts to save him.
Rosales lived to 1992, and outgrew his Falangismo. And if his later protestations are to be believed, his understanding when he joined was that the movement was respectful of human life and dignity, and made a serious mistake in assuming that the generals who rose against the Republic would be also.
Hernández died in prison of tuberculosis, in 1942. Had he lived, he might also have come to question his earlier political faith. Or perhaps, as did many Spaniards, he would have remained a loyal Communist, I'd like to think to the Communist party that adapted to new conditions under Santiago Carrillo and become one of the artificers, in an odd partnership with the ex-Falangista Adolfo Suárez, of a Spanish constitutional democracy that resembles neither Stalinist Communism nor Francoist military Falangism. But that democracy was nevertheless built from pieces assembled from those two movements, along with contributions of the Socialists and -- perhaps even more surprisingly -- the king.
The equilibrium of that oddly built structure was so extremely delicate in its early years of "the Transition" -- from Franco to democracy -- that it nearly collapsed before a coup in 1981. It survived, thanks to timely intervention by the young king as well as courageous stances by Carrillo and Suárez and others, even military men, eager to avoid a new civil war. It is stabler now than in 1981, much stabler, but still can be shaken when one of those old supporting institutions wants to pull out to see if it can bring the whole thing down. Like Manos Limpias or the Falange-JONS.
But enough about Baltasar Garzón. The papers and 'net and TV are full of coverage of the campaign against him and the massive demonstrations of support for him, not just in Madrid, but all around the world. If the intention of his accusers, Manos Limpias and the Falange-JONS, was to suppress investigation of the crimes of the Franco era, they really goofed. Now, thanks to this surprising case, people around the world are newly awakened to the issue and demanding investigation. Spain's most famous defender of human rights about to be removed from the bench because he applied to Spain the same criterion he had used against Pinochet, the Argentine junta, those responsible for the abuses at Guantánamo, etc. -- that is, he regarded Spain's 1977 amnesty as superceded by international law. Astounding.
2010/04/19
Schomburg Center’s Director, Howard Dodson, to Retire - NYTimes.com
A very smart, reasonable man with a sharp sense of humor -- I'm pleased to say I got to know him, at least a little, in New York and also on a trip to Cuba. We wish him well in his retirement.
Schomburg Center’s Director, Howard Dodson, to Retire - NYTimes.com
Schomburg Center’s Director, Howard Dodson, to Retire - NYTimes.com
2010/04/17
"The Perfect Fox" by Beate Sigriddaughter — Fictionaut
This delighted me, and not just for the dedication (for which I thank the author). Check out Beate's other stories in Fictionaut, too.
"The Perfect Fox" by Beate Sigriddaughter — Fictionaut
"The Perfect Fox" by Beate Sigriddaughter — Fictionaut
2010/04/14
The Price of Assassination - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com
I agree -- it doesn't work and sets a very bad example. Just look at Israel, which has insisted on this self-defeating tactic longer than anybody. Or Russia, in Chechenia. And now the U.S., in Afghanistan. Very dangerous.
The Price of Assassination - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com
The Price of Assassination - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com
2010/04/13
Spanish "justice" -- once again
[Apologies: I wrote this on Sunday but somehow neglected to post it until now. Since I wrote it, an association of victims of Franco in Spain has brought suit against Luciano Varela, the judge who is charging Garzón, and organizations of human rights activists in Argentina have filed another suit, charging Varela with precisely the offense he has accused Garzón of: "prevaricación", which in Spanish law means knowingly exceeding (abusing) one's authority.]
I've long admired Judge Baltasar Garzón. My alter ego, Baltasar Lotroyo, even took his name when he sprang into existence 5 years ago. I have on my desk a biography I bought, oh, probably in 2003 or '04 (Garzón: El hombre que veía amanecer, by Pilar Urbano. Plaza & Janés, 2000.) When he organized public round-tables with international jurists and other experts on human rights, at New York University, we attended (we were still living in New York City in 2005), and I was thrilled to run into him one night outside a supermarket and shake his hand -- he seemed pleased and surprised to be recognized.
I admire him the same way and for the same reasons I admire certain other courageous judges, professionals who are dedicated to the law and are willing to take professional and even physical risks to go after the powerful when they have done grievous wrong. There are many, fortunately (though they remain a minority in the profession). I'm thinking especially of Julio César Strassera, the Argentinian judge in the case against the military junta that had directed the "dirty war." I had the privilege of interviewing him when I was preparing my book on Argentina. As he made clear to me, and says again in this more recent interview, he had not sought this case, but it simply fell to him as the most experienced judge on deck when it came up. He was not a radical, had no known sympathy for the politics of the presumed leftists the military had been murdering and "disappearing," but he carried on, striving to do his duty in the face of threats against his life and with a public still cowed by the years of terror.
I'm also thinking of Juan Guzmán in Chile. And Carla Ponti, and many others.
Like most people outside of Spain, I first heard of Garzón when he ordered the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet for violations of human rights -- a bold action for a Spanish judge, because it was a first use of such powers in this way and because Pinochet had important allies, within and beyond Spain. And many judges would have been, and in fact were, too intimidated to prosecute powerful politicians. Garzón's initiative provided crucial support to courageous Chilean judges who had been stymied in attempts to bring Pinochet to trial for horrendous abuses, and encouraged other judges to prosecute human rights violators beyond their borders when local judges were unable or unwilling to do so. (See Universal jurisdiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
What is going on in Spain now in the trial of Garzón is a campaign by judges of the other kind, those who see themselves as the minions and executive servants of the powerful, to suffocate those jurists like Garzón who would dare use the law to unmask the corruption and crimes of their patrons. We shouldn't be surprised. We've known at least since Marx laid it out for us, 150 years and more ago, that the laws are made to protect those with power and property, and they consider judges to be there to protect them -- declarations of "equality before the law" and so forth notwithstanding.
Ridiculous and contorted as is the case against him, it looks like Garzón may lose this battle and his position on the court -- which would be a victory not only for the ideological heirs of Franco, but all those politicians (concentrated in the Partido Popular) who can't keep their hands out of the till. Spain's most famous judge (Garzón is surely the only Spanish judge most people outside the country have even heard of) will no doubt find dignified employment somewhere, maybe teaching, maybe in an international court, but Spanish justice will be deeply wounded. And Garzón's example will continued to inspire at least a few new jurists.
I've long admired Judge Baltasar Garzón. My alter ego, Baltasar Lotroyo, even took his name when he sprang into existence 5 years ago. I have on my desk a biography I bought, oh, probably in 2003 or '04 (Garzón: El hombre que veía amanecer, by Pilar Urbano. Plaza & Janés, 2000.) When he organized public round-tables with international jurists and other experts on human rights, at New York University, we attended (we were still living in New York City in 2005), and I was thrilled to run into him one night outside a supermarket and shake his hand -- he seemed pleased and surprised to be recognized.
I admire him the same way and for the same reasons I admire certain other courageous judges, professionals who are dedicated to the law and are willing to take professional and even physical risks to go after the powerful when they have done grievous wrong. There are many, fortunately (though they remain a minority in the profession). I'm thinking especially of Julio César Strassera, the Argentinian judge in the case against the military junta that had directed the "dirty war." I had the privilege of interviewing him when I was preparing my book on Argentina. As he made clear to me, and says again in this more recent interview, he had not sought this case, but it simply fell to him as the most experienced judge on deck when it came up. He was not a radical, had no known sympathy for the politics of the presumed leftists the military had been murdering and "disappearing," but he carried on, striving to do his duty in the face of threats against his life and with a public still cowed by the years of terror.
I'm also thinking of Juan Guzmán in Chile. And Carla Ponti, and many others.
Like most people outside of Spain, I first heard of Garzón when he ordered the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet for violations of human rights -- a bold action for a Spanish judge, because it was a first use of such powers in this way and because Pinochet had important allies, within and beyond Spain. And many judges would have been, and in fact were, too intimidated to prosecute powerful politicians. Garzón's initiative provided crucial support to courageous Chilean judges who had been stymied in attempts to bring Pinochet to trial for horrendous abuses, and encouraged other judges to prosecute human rights violators beyond their borders when local judges were unable or unwilling to do so. (See Universal jurisdiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
What is going on in Spain now in the trial of Garzón is a campaign by judges of the other kind, those who see themselves as the minions and executive servants of the powerful, to suffocate those jurists like Garzón who would dare use the law to unmask the corruption and crimes of their patrons. We shouldn't be surprised. We've known at least since Marx laid it out for us, 150 years and more ago, that the laws are made to protect those with power and property, and they consider judges to be there to protect them -- declarations of "equality before the law" and so forth notwithstanding.
Ridiculous and contorted as is the case against him, it looks like Garzón may lose this battle and his position on the court -- which would be a victory not only for the ideological heirs of Franco, but all those politicians (concentrated in the Partido Popular) who can't keep their hands out of the till. Spain's most famous judge (Garzón is surely the only Spanish judge most people outside the country have even heard of) will no doubt find dignified employment somewhere, maybe teaching, maybe in an international court, but Spanish justice will be deeply wounded. And Garzón's example will continued to inspire at least a few new jurists.
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