west africa is where it's at

Listening to Tinariwen with Dad the other day, he pointed out the obvious: that even after listening to just part of one song, those musicians listen to lots of blues and blues-rock from the U.S., and how that music in its turn came from the traditional music of West Africa. It's all one big circle, albeit one filled with a lot of pain and suffering in the form of slavery and racism and imperialism. But having just started to discover bluesier artists like Amadou et Mariam, Ali Farka Touré, Boubacar Traoré and Tinariwen, and really just starting to discover Afrobeat and Afrofunk, well, the current stopping point of that circle has produced some kick-ass music over the past 30 or 40 years. Here's a song by Fela Kuti, "Sorrow Tears and Blood." Forgive the still image, even YouTube has limits to its selection. I suggest closing your eyes and paying no attention to your body. If it doesn't start moving of its own accord, you're probably quadriplegic.

acantilado

That means "cliff" in Spanish and it's the closest I could think of to "drop-off," even though the connotation "decrease in production" doesn't translate very well except in a complex metaphor. Whatever, I've been experiencing a drop-off in posting and I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose mostly because I've been busy (couldn't you tell from my last post?) and without the energy needed to blog. Still, I should do it more and perhaps expect myself to write more than I have been. In lieu of writing right now, though, because it's 2 a.m. and I seem to have gotten up to my old trick of reading a really good book in bed, which is a terrible strategy for going to sleep, I'll just post a song, a freaking great cheer-up track that I got by accident from somebody who'd grouped it with "Buena Vista Social Club." Which it is, kind of; it's "Pa Mayte" by Carlos Vives featuring BVSC. Hope you like it.

i think blogger is confused

It says my most recent post was on Monday but that's not possible and also doesn't make sense from the context of what I wrote. Anyhow, today is Friday, and it seems that I'll be painting once again. Painting sucks, especially by yourself, and I'm not sure whether I'll actually do any today. I've worked plenty of hours now for the amount Lincoln said he'd pay me to help out. But we'll see.

Yesterday was the most eventful day in a while. I painted most of the ceiling over at the Fulham-Cohens' (the job today would be to finish it). Then Linc, Mom and I went to the Phillips for the ColorField (the only art movement ever to come out of DC) show there. It was cool for the location aspect and some of the pieces were nice but this was not a big or particularly influential movement. The real show is upstairs in the permanent collection, which has some really tight pieces by the heavy hitters of the past 150 years: Cezanne, Picasso, Renoir, Miro, Klee, etc. Plus some excellent less-well-known stuff. Right after that I went and met up with Robin (!) and her friend Boris to go to a one-man show at Busboys and Poets about the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was neat, he used beat-boxing and singing plus a whole host of characters to illustrate some tired but important themes about the similarities between the people on either side of the walls there and about the dehumanization of each side by the other. But it cost a lot of money and Busboys and Poets isn't cheap, either. In the end I spent 20 bucks on it, which would have been unheard of in Chile for the same show. Oh well, guess I've gotta choose more carefully down here. It was great to see Robin, though, she's such a cool girl. And I liked Boris.

A couple of other notes: I've taught Lincoln and Jack carioca, although we haven't played a complete game yet because it required a real time commitment and we're all busy and on totally independent schedules. But Jack and I did play a game of Scrabble, which, to my surprise, I won 403-315. Not bad after a year with not a single game in English! Also I found --bless you, Dad, the only THINGS you obtain are books and music and 90% of the time they're great-- an album in the kitchen by a guy named Boubacar Traoré. Well the album's great, and I did some snooping around on YouTube to try and find something to put up here and, well, I got to clicking and discovered a couple of other awesome musicians: Ali Farka Toure, Salif Keita, Corey Harris. It seems Mali produces a lot of great music: Amadou et Mariam, Tinariwen, Traoré, Keita, Toure. Sheesh. It's really interesting to cruise through YouTube, though, and hear just how much of a continuum there is between the traditional African sounds and American blues. Awesome. So the song I settled on ended up being Taj Mahal and Corey Harris playing "Sittin' on top of the world." Enjoy!

summary

This is what has happened since last Thursday:
1) Finished school with final assignment turned in three minutes before the deadline due to extensive editing.
2) Went to Algarrobo with Vale, watched sunset over the Pacific, probably my last for a while. Spent the night at a nice but very cold hostel (no heater in the room), Residencial Vera. Next day went to El Tabo, walked on the beach, ate shockingly overpriced lunch (we saw the menu and thought, wow, cheap! and then it turned out the cheapness was directly related to the quantity and quality of the food...go figure). Really nice time except Saturday night I got very frustrated trying to learn a new card game.
3) Said good bye to Jesse Z and Leslie on Sunday night, to the tune of "Wet Hot American Summer," which I hadn't seen since senior year of high school and which was even more hilarious than I remembered. Great movie. Jesse's planning to visit Ann Arbor in January.
4) Last night Vale and I went out to Zanzibar for dinner, which provoked an avalanche of feelings in me that had nothing to do with leaving or going home, which I'm certain I will feel again in the future and which I will address then. They're important.
5) Talked to Mom Dad and Linc last night before dinner. Jack is in El Salvador. It sounds like things are going smoothly at the moment and that stress is low, which is great news. Hopefully that atmosphere holds until I get home, coming home to simmering clashes wouldn't really help with the whole transition thing, which is going to be hard enough as it is.

I think that pretty much covers the highlights. Cori gets into town from Bolivia tonight and she's here through Thursday morning (I think) before heading back to the states. I've got just over a week left and I'm not even sure where to begin trying to write about that at the moment, so I'll leave it for another day. Before I get back to The Tipping Point, which I'm finding better than Blink but still kind of disappointing, here's a great song by Chile's answer to the Clash, Los Prisioneros. It's title (and chorus) means, "Latin American is a village to the south of the United States." I suspect that most of the people who read this blog (all four of you) don't speak Spanish, but that's okay. Los Prisioneros were really influential in Latin America and their anger and resentment of US hegemony represent a lot of people down here.

happy fourth of july

On this day, I will post two things. First, the national anthem in the most beautiful form I've ever heard it, the one I woke up to this morning: Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game.



And second, the transcript of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment last night, which I didn't get to watch for obvious reasons. But the transcript gave me goosebumps all the same. Keep kicking ass, Keith. (H/t Salon.com)

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on what is, in everything but name, George Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby.

"I didn't vote for him," an American once said, "But he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." That -- on this eve of the Fourth of July -- is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The man who said those 17 words -- improbably enough -- was the actor John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them when he learned of the hair's-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon, in 1960.

"I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier. But there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne's voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgment that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our commander in chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.

We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president's partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world, but merely that we may function.

But just as essential to the 17 words of John Wayne is an implicit trust, a sacred trust: that the president for whom so many did not vote can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire republic.

Our generation's willingness to state "We didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a good job" was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most.

And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us. We enveloped our president in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected -- indeed those who did not believe he had been elected -- willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of nonpartisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and reconfigured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete. Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice. Did so despite what James Madison -- at the Constitutional Convention -- said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes "advised by" that president.

Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told, "Break the law however you wish -- the president will keep you out of prison"?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens, the ones who did not cast votes for you.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the president of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the president of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.

And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander in chief who puts party over nation. This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of "a permanent Republican majority," as if such a thing -- or a permanent Democratic majority -- is not antithetical to that upon which rests our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

Yet our democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain into a massive oil spill.

The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment.

The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.

The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws.

The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice, this president decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient. I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors. I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this republic over to a vice president who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that vice president, carte blanche to Mr. Libby to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to grand juries and special counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously.

"Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and, ultimately, the American people."

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people. It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters, and the labyrinthine effort to cover up that break-in and the related crimes.

And in one night, Nixon transformed it. Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a simpler issue: a president overruling the inexorable march of the law, insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood -- that he was the law.

Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the courts. Just him. Just, Mr. Bush, as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plamegate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee" of prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy, these are complex and often painful to follow and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.

But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush, and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal, the average citizen understands that, Sir.

It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the prearranged lottery all rolled into one, and it stinks.

And they know it.

Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment. It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of nonpartisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to "base," but to country, echoes loudly into history.

Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign. Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant. But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July Fourth, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a king who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them -- or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them -- we would force our independence and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time -- and our leaders in Congress, of both parties -- must now live up to those standards which echo through our history. Pressure, negotiate, impeach: get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our democracy, away from its helm.

And for you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

And give us someone -- anyone -- about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

holy smokes

It's July 1. Took me until 1:30 p.m. to realize it, but I'm officially going home this month. Weird, I got one of those funny heart things that I think is what people mean when they say your heart "skips a beat." Note to self: Come up with a better way to explain that sensation. Speaking of which, this song comes to mind.

visibility was 50 feet

Before anything else, I found a new really kickass blog that won the Koufax Award last year for basically "blog that should get more love." It's called Echidne of the Snakes. It's written by a self-styled "recovering economist" named J. Goodrich; formally a feminist-only blog, now merely feminism-focused but also full of links and interesting commentary about all kinds of modern social and political issues (she recently wrote a piece for The American Prospect. Also I'm finally adding Salon's "Broadsheet" after having read it for about a month now without comment here. It's kind of a feminist review; lots of summaries/commentaries about feminist issues as they come along, but it's full of links to more detailed blogs and it's a good way to keep aware of the countless and continuously evolving ways we still put women down as a society. Also the writers are good. I slipped a link to The American Prospect in there in case you didn't notice. That's going with the links, too.

Today's video is "Natty Dread" by Bob Marley and the Wailers, which has long been one of my favorite Marley songs.


To switch gears completely: Cori left for Bolivia last night, but spent the night before at Vale's and then today, after taking it verrry easy in the morning/early afternoon we took a walk ISO some presents for various people. Cori bought some stuff in Bellavista and then we got hungry and each ate an entire pizza at Amadeus (she had cheese, I had cheese with roquefort and salame). Then we headed up to El Mundo del Vino, where she bought cardboard boxes with wine in them for the various families she'll be staying with in Bolivia. It was great to pass the day with her, we had a good and very relaxing time. She got stressed about buying presents but not too much and the rest of the time was just beautiful day, nice walk, good pizza. Also I had a beer with lunch called Erdinger that I really liked. And it came with cacho de cabra, which is a kind of spicy dried pepper flakes! Strange but, well, mmmmmmm...

We said goodbye at around 6 so last night Vale and I were left to our own devices. Vale wanted to take a walk, so out we went. A short walk turned into a medium-long walk as we wound through streets over by Bellas Artes and Parque Forestal, past buildings I'd never seen or noticed before. It was a pretty night, if a little chilly. We ended up at a little bar called Navetierra, where we got a couple of really good pisco sours and some camembert with crackers and soaked in the ambience (very artsy/political with a slightly overwhelming dash of second-hand smoke). The conversations about me leaving are getting harder; we both know it's inevitable but neither of us wants to separate. And as the time draws closer we both get a little sadder. But we can't really do anything but try not to be sad and to enjoy the time we have left together.

Emily B gets in tomorrow from Sao Paolo around 1, which will be fun. But it means that I've gotta finish this blankety-blank Armed Conflict final today, pretty much. So off I go to do that. Citizens as targets in internal conflicts and the friction between the principle of imparciality/neutrality and needing to do the utmost to protect victims. Cheerful stuff.

yesterday i was really sick

The worst possible timing: I had a paper due yesterday and I have an exam tomorrow, but starting Monday evening, well, let's just say it was comin' out both ends. Plus I had a fever, plus the kind of energy-destroying pain in all my joints that fits in the category "flu-like symptoms," so much so that I didn't even have enough energy to watch TV. Oh and sharp pain right below my belly button. Aaaand I basically didn't sleep on Monday night cause I was getting up every half hour to go to the bathroom.

So I emailed my prof basically saying, "Sorry, I couldn't finish, please don't penalize me, I'll turn it in tomorrow," and my hunch is that he'll be okay with it. He's a super nice guy. Vale took really good care of me yesterday, brought me juice and ginger ale and made some chicken soup and white rice and even (holy crap!) home-made apple sauce that she just kind of whipped up in the kitchen. And today I'm feeling all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I'm about to get cracking and finish up that final. Worse comes to worse I get a few points knocked off, which is okay because all I have to do is pass and I'm not in danger of failing. The paper isn't great by any means but it doesn't completely suck. In other news, I found another great video, again thanks to Crooks and Liars, this time of a guy named Andy McKee who apparently has spent a lot of time practicing on his guitar. Sweet.



Add that album ("Dreamcatcher") to my wish list.

Also, for anyone who pays attention to this kind of thing, I always knew Digby was a woman. Everyone always called her "he" (even me once or twice, I think), but that always felt wrong to me. Seriously. Speaking of which, congratulations, progressive blogosphere, winners of the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award. Suck it, Lindsey.

And now, breakfast.

some brief friday notes

My two desert-island albums, I have realized conclusively (by "conclusively" I mean "because they have remained an unchanged pair for several years") are London Calling by the Clash and, of course, as anyone who knows me knows, the greatest album of all time, Graceland, by Paul Simon. The one a furious, musically and lyrically brilliant assault against the establishment and the other the product of a songwriter grappling beautifully with the onset of middle age and a painful divorce. The first, of course, is Graceland, the second, London Calling. Just kidding.

The rain in Santiago is paradoxical and cruel, I think whatever god reigns over Santiago weather has Bush's Iraq planners advising on winter weather patterns. A cap of cold air traps smog in Santiago (our presence in Iraq, which provokes massive violence there), rain comes in every once in a while to briefly clean things up ("surges"), but that same rain makes the air colder, meaning more air gets trapped (surges repress violence for a couple of days and then people just get more pissed and more violent). Then again, if it didn't rain, the smog would keep getting worse with no relief. And here I see the problem in my metaphor: The surges don't actually provide any relief at all except to the demented, divorced-from-reality people in charge. The rain does. Also the rain dramatically improves the view: The Andes are gorgeous again. So, an imperfect metaphor. Still, the vicious-cycle parallels are interesting.

One thing that comes up a lot when meeting and talking to Chileans, especially those of the university variety, is about the domestic problems of the US. Here the greatest social problems are income equality and, more specifically but just as embarrassingly, centuries of abuse, repression and neglect of Chile's substantial Mapuche minority. The correlating deep, embarrassing and infuriating social problem in the US, I would (and do, frequently) argue, is racism. Recently I've started reading more about the immigration debate going on at home, and it's obvious to pretty much anyone with an ounce of sense that the underlying conflict is fear and hatred of "brown people." The xenophobia of everyone from Lou Dobbs to the "Minutemen" of Texas and Arizona to some of the residents of Hazletown, PA (h/t Orcinus, post "Hatin' on Immigrants") makes me shake with anger. I want to get on a roll here, but because I really should be working on my Electoral Systems final, I'm going to come full circle and end with the Clash's take on anger in "The Clampdown":

Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
Do you know that you can use it?

Amen.

P.S. A new blog is going up in the links: ImmigrationProf Blog, which is written by a trio of law professors at UC Davis. Represent.

P.P.S. ¡NINGÚN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL!

weekend in brief

First, everyone should check out this really cool video that Dad sent me by email. I highly suggest watching the whole thing:

500 YEARS OF WOMEN IN ART


Anyhow, highlights of the weekend include me driving for the first time in almost 11 months, yesterday. I made crab cakes for Vale and her aunt and uncle (the kids got tuna with mustard, which is apparently a house favorite), and Vale and I had to go to the grocery store to pick up some key ingredients, like crab meat. So I drove Rodrigo's car to Alto Las Condes and back. It was kind of nerve-wracking getting in, just because it had been so long, but as soon as we started going it was fun and easy. Helped that it was Sunday morning and the road's weren't exactly crowded. And then, on the way back, instead of going straight to Rodrigo and Cecilia's house, I drove past it a little ways and pulled into a little mini parking lot/lookout type place, and passed the keys to Vale. She's 28 years old and had never driven a car, not even in a parking lot. So she had her first driving experience; she wasn't bad for a first-timer although the whole staying-in-your-lane thing would have been a problem had there been any other cars around. Pays to live waaayyyy out there.

Also we watched "Goodbye Lenin," a very sweet German movie about a kid from East Germany growing up and coming of age during the fall of the USSR. I liked it a lot, and so did Vale, although she fell asleep for about the last 20 or 30 minutes. We watched with Spanish subtitles and I got everything except for a couple of words here and there (like maybe 8 total the whole movie), which was a good feeling.

Yesterday also was my first time back at frisbee after a two-week absence, and despite having eaten a crab cake sandwich and fries before playing, which caused a few issues towards the beginning, I played really well and had a great time. Afterwards of course included a trip to Tortilla Factory. Blackberry, raspberry, banana, apple and blueberry smoothie and a cup of coffee plus the house corn chips and salsa...perrrrfect. Vale wanted to go buy some tea after that at a hoity-toity tea store in Alto Las Condes, so we walked across the street. I also hadn't just kind of mosied and people-watched and window-shopped in a mall for a long time. Malls, love them or hate them, are interesting places. We went into a couple of book stores trying to find a copy of Intérprete de Emociones (Interpreter of Maladies) but the translated edition is apparently out of print and sold out everywhere. Vale also dragged me into various clothing stores and made me try on coats. If I had money to burn I'd like to buy a nice pea-coat-type thing, the ones I tried on were really comfortable and I like the way they look. But the cheapest one was like 150 bucks (which, I suppose, isn't that much in the long run, but it's too much for me right now), so my very nice parka and various sweatshirts and fleeces will suffice just fine for the time being.

We're reading right now, in European Political Economy, about the adjustments that OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development--basically Europe, North America, some Latin America, and E/SE Asia) countries have had to make over the last 30 years to their trade and monetary policy and also to their welfare states. I think the latter is what I'm going to write my final paper about for the class. How countries like Sweden and Denmark, which have powerful social-democratic welfare states that, to me, seem overwhelmingly fairer and more appealing than the residual welfare states (bascially, no help until you're screwed, and then not very much) of the Anglo countries or the corporatist, conservative welfare states of Germany and Austria (extremely compartmentalized and unevenly distributed help based on job category). The de-commodification of labor in the Norwegian countries is wonderful but they are the most vulnerable to collapse under current structural (globalization, general aging of the population) and institutional (the EU, weakening of labor organizations) changes. It sucks for them, and I think how they respond to those changes has been and is going to be really interesting and instructive. Can they make it without compromising their whole systems, and what are they doing to try?

Speaking of which, I should eat breakfast and then get reading. We've got class today for the first time in months because we missed a couple of Wednesdays and need to make them up. Hope you enjoyed the video.