Have you guys heard LA's super cool band "Los Abandoned"? Lady P & her mates punk it up w/ Latin Flava. Well they have this tune called "Me quieren en Chile" - and is the first thing I thought about when I saw this morning pictures of the protests in Chile, during the inauguration of the new president, Michelle Bachelet - the first ever woman president in Chile's history. The protestors are pissed because Condoleeza Rice showed up to congratulate Michelle on the new gig. I wonder if Condoleeza is going to meet with Fidel, Hugo and Evo who are also suposed to be there for the inaugurations :-D - I bet, not.
So a "Condy" no la quieren en Chile.. I wonder why?
so this a bit interesting to me.. The Latino Loop - an online, email-zine (did I just make that word up, I do that so much jaja) which usually sends out music & entertainement news for the Latin Alternative / Sanish rock (et al) community - had this massive amount of political news today.. miren abajo. Seems like someone on the other side of the keyboard & screen had a heavy dose of political education.. ? Readers (me) are not complaining. Maybe is because the office that puts it together is now sponsoring the Latin American tour of radical artist Manu Chao, and is being influenced by his politics & ideas..? Well - that would be..erhm.. pretty cool.
From the loop: In a landmark case for women’s rights in Mexico, a judge will award a rape victim a settlement for not being allowed an abortion. The law allows an abortion only in the case of rape or women whose lives are at risk, but various obstacles and red-tape usually prevent the abortion. The rape took place six years ago when the victim was just 13 years old. She will be awarded $40,000 and will receive a government stipend for her child’s education.
Manu Chao performed last week in Havana as part of his first Latin American tour in six years. He played to a crowd of tens of thousands of Cuban fans at the Jose Marti Anti-Imperialist Tribune and in response to Chao’s openly anti-Bush, anti-imperialist perspective, the U.S. American Interests building flashed messages on an electronic billboard. One message played off of the lyrics to his song “Mentira” flashing the message, “Welcome to Cuba Manu Chao! Everything in this world is a lie and for that reason many Cubans are waiting for the last wave.”
Leonida Zurita Vargas, a Bolivian coca farm organizer who was scheduled as the keynote speaker for the “Winds of Change Conference” last Sunday in Vermont, found out that her visa was revoked due to alleged terrorist ties as she prepared to board a plane for the U.S. Back in 2003, Zurita was accused of being a terrorist by then president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and spent some time in a Cochabamba jail before she was eventually released for lack of evidence. Conference organizers were working to get her visa renewed, but if that failed Zurita was prepared to participate via telephone.
The National Council of La Raza reported last week that the federal government and the American Red Cross are unprepared to serve the needs of Latinos in the event of a disaster. Of the 230,000 Latinos affected by Hurricane Katrina, many were unable to get to shelters, including U.S. residents who were mistaken for undocumented immigrants and therefore denied FEMA assistance. Some undocumented immigrants were slated for deportation when they sought aid.
The U.S. Military has focused its recruiting efforts heavily on Latino youth with Hispanic enlistments on the rise, while enlistment among other ethnicities has dropped in recent years. Bilingual recruiters have a strong presence in high schools and counter-recruitment movements like the Aztec Warrior Project for Peace have begun popping up to educate Hispanic youth on the risks of military service.
So it doesn't really feel like there is a women's movement alive today. At least it is not ovbious to me, and if I have to look so deep to find it, then there is a problem. Ever feel like women (specially the women of color of the world) have way too many things to fight for, to be so quiet, darn it!?
I was listening yesterday to this speech by Lydia Sargent, from my friend Jon's awesome awesome page - check it out, and listen to these speeches, I do it while cleaning, is great - http://capedmaskedandarmed.com/intelligence/talks.html - and I was just feeling that all the evils she described are things that I experience every single day of my life. It made me angry and I guess that is a good thing.
About the stupid flyer - I got this on email today. Anyone who takes their kid to see this needs to just be smacked. Hard. (I'm being kind). "Barbie, Live!"? Barbie can't be alive because she is a fake plastic construction of a creature that could not walk straight if she were alive, because the weight of her chest is so big and disproportionate, and her legs would be so long and skinny and weak - that she would have no balance and just fall forward, and her waist wuld be so tiny it would crack. Remember the days when you wanted to be a barbie doll? I do. But who cares about that - there is a Barbie show that will be poisoning the heads of lots of Boston little girls, coming to town. Someone is going to make money. Right? Ladies, We have a lot of work to do! RU.
