I just wrote and lost a large piece, so here’s a skinnier version:

Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau, recently stated his concern for the possibility of weaponizing space, claiming the US government may have aims at shooting down UFOs.

He states:

UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head. I’m so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something. The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop.

The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide.

read more here

Last week in Tunis thousands of activists, academics, development workers, and, of course, politicians gathered to discuss the future of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and human development. The World Summit on the Information Society 2nd phase meeting, a UN-sponsored event, was organized as a forum for public discussion of such issues as the digital divide, and internet governance. All of this, of course, under the banner of the UN's human rights agenda--everyone has the right to communicate, etc.

Funny thing that this event would take place in Tunis.

Human Rights Watch released a report to coincide with the event:

The 144-page report, “False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa,” documents online censorship and cases in which Internet users have been detained for their online activities in countries across the region, including Tunisia, Iran, Syria and Egypt. These attempts to control the flow of information online contradict governments’ national and international legal commitments to freedom of opinion and expression and the summit’s own Declaration of Principles.

Repression and overt censorship by way of police force prevented many human rights activists from speaking out at this year’s event.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/15/mena12011.htm

Once a Day Haiku

that once a day
is not as good as this one;
well it’s different

it also is not
updated every day
actually…hmm

it’s a photoblog
this is not; it ends in “spot”
while we end in “some”

philipino/a
we like your photos a lot
sorry for biting

love,
http://onceaday.blogsome.com

As Americans begin digesting overstuffed, and hopefully bird-flu-free Thanksgiving meals, a national obesity conference to be held later this week sets its sights on fighting the kind of overindulgence and inactivity that often characteristizes the holiday.

A national obesity group is pressing for government and industry to make 2010 the deadline for turning back the rise in the number of overweight children. It wants tougher policies, including a ban on junk food sales at schools and the introduction of “fat kills”-style advertising.

The National Obesity Forum, representing food industry, health, advertising and consumer groups, will this Friday seek to set the goal of stemming the obesity “epidemic” in five years, then moving to halve obesity numbers by 2015

The good news: the AMA is behind the effort, as it has linked obesity to a growing decline in life expectancy, and is expected to call for the removal of soda/snack machines from schools.
The bad news: that AMA is the “Australian Medical Association” and the aforementioned national forum will take place at least 7000 miles short of U.S. soil.

There are now 1.5 million overweight or obese children in Australia and the incidence, driven by high fat and sugar diets and lack of exercise, has doubled in the past decade. The call for the target is being led by the forum chairman, the Liberal MP Guy Barnett, who says this generation of children may end up living shorter lives than their parents, because excess weight increases the risk for many diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer. ‘Many people don’t realise, but unless we act now, our children are not going to live as long as their parents. Do we want to leave that legacy?’ Senator Barnett said.

Now, hats off to Australia, whose proportion of obese people in its population ranks second in the world (tied with the UK). This is a significant contingent of future-focused players, including (get your grain of salt ready) the McDonald’s-Australia CEO, which has come together to stem the tide of obesity in their country. They have moved past the head-shaking news reports and ensuing health debate, and towards a policy shift at the federal level to improve the lives of children (and the eventual adults they’ll grow into).

As for the U.S., as usual, we’re number one.

But you already knew that. And so did your Surgeon General. And your Center for Disease Control. And a host of others, including our Big Mac-lovin’ ex-President.

So while we yet again wait and see what another developed nation does to protect their youngest citizens from harm, remember that children typically develop their eating habits/preferences in the first five years of life, by the examples they observe around them. If you’re at all involved in the lives of children, of any age, try to keep that in mind.

Below is an email I recieved from an acquaintance I met at Bluestockings Bookstore in Manhattan. She recently went to New Orleans, and when she came back she wrote and wrote and wrote and eventually sent out one extremely long informative note. I’m presenting an edited version below. Since it was written franticly, quickly and emotionally, you might notice some spelling and other grammatical errors: I’m reproducing it as it was written. I apologize for the length, but I have already edited so much out of it, I didn’t want to continue. - Lucy

I just arrived back from the Occupied Territory in the
West Bank of New Orleans (Algiers, Louisiana) a couple
weeks ago.

I stayed in a place called tent city. Tent city was
set up for contracted workers, mostly people working
for water and sewage companies. It is an open field
with dozens of 15’X20’ tents lined up in rows. It is
completely surrounded by National Guard. I stayed in a
tent with other volunteers. Tent city is located
exactly 7 blocks from the health clinic that I worked
at. Every night we were stopped and or harassed by the
NOPD. In fact, what I learned very quickly is that the
National Guard’s greatest roll (for our use anyway),
was to protect volunteers (and if they cared,
residents) from the NOPD. Everyone is scared shitless
of the NOPD, even some National Guardsmen that I met.

The NOPD surrounded our clinic every night.
Threatening. Harassing. Arresting, Detaining, Ruling
the streets.

I met a man who went to rescue his dead, 15 year old
son’s body during the floods. As he picked up his son
in his arms, he was arrested and put in jail for
looting. He was not able to find his son’s body again.

The first week I was there I met another group of
volunteers working at Mama D’s, a remarkable community
organizer and former Black Panther located in the 7th
Ward (She refused to evacuate, knowing full-well she
would not have been allowed to return), were arrested
for criminal trespassing while helping clean out a
resident’s apartment. They were 3 white men and 1
black man. They were all arrested. The black man was
beaten. They were all released the next day with a
fine and community service. I laugh. They were
arrested for doing community service! All of them gave
up their lives to move down to NOLA just to do that
for which they were arrested.

I worked with a group called Common Ground. Common
Ground has two parts; the collective and the free
health care clinic. I worked mostly with the clinic. I
also worked to mobilize clinics in other areas. We
were stationed in Algiers, across the river. Algiers
had no flooding, just rain and wind damage. However,
everyone was still forced to evacuate. Algiers had and
still has shelter that could hold approximately 40,000
displaced persons. It is currently holding ZERO. The
state won’t allow any building to occupy anyone. ‘It
is not safe for anyone’. Well, it is ‘safe enough’ for
FEMA. Algiers has never had available health care
before the Common Ground Clinic. Malik Rahim donated
our clinic space. Malik is a long time community
organizer, Green Party candidate and former Black
Panther. The Common Ground Collective is a mass
distribution center operating out of his home. Seven
blocks away is our health clinic, in his donated a
Mosque. We literally have bed sheets hanging from
found pvs piping dividing some kind of doctor’s
spaces. We have four spaces blanketed off and about
8-10 stations made up of dumpster-dived chairs. The
Common Ground Free Health Clinic has served over
16,000 people in New Orleans since the levy’s broke (2
weeks out dated). The collective has done this with
zero aid from any major relief agency.
In this small space, complete with recycled
furnishings, has seen more patients per day and kept
more accurate records than ANY hospital or health
clinic in ALL of New Orleans AND surrounding towns.
And it is the ONLY one that stayed open during Rita.
And this, my people, is what anarchism looks like!

I met countless people trapped or forced in their cars
for 2-4 days. And countless people that were hit by
Rita after fleeing Katrina.

Another couple, an elderly couple, was stuck in the
same parking lot. The woman tried desperately to get
help from someone, anyone because her husband was on
an oxygen tank. They were purposely denied aid. He
died. And she sat in the car with his body.

There was another group of 5 Black men who were
looters. The news called them looters. They looted 1
boat, risked their lives, and rescued over 350 people.
They took turns allowing only 1 of them in the boat at
a time, so that the other 4 could be saving people and
so there would be more room in the boat. Keep in mind
the extremely contaminated water. 350 PEOPLE! They are
america’s heros! And they were interviewed by only one
leftist organization (A.N.S.W.E.R.)

I met many people who looted boats and refrigerators
(they took off the doors and motors and used them as
boats) to save people’s lives. Many hundreds and
hundreds of people’s lives.

Another huge group of heros: the Soul Patrol. They are
the eyes and ears and hearts of the 7th Ward. They
know who is coming back, who is being forced out, and
who is being arrested. They claim to have heard the
bombing of the levees. I will leave you with that
thought. Well, I may come back to it later. I digress.
The Soul Patrol is also responsible for hundreds and
hundreds of lives being saved.

The Cracker Squad. The cracker squad is made up of Klu
Klux Klansman (and, you know, some NOPD and
firefighters). During the days of the flooding, these
were the gun wars you heard about-its just not how you
heard about them. The hunt was on. The cracker squad
hunted, shot at, and killed the Soul Patrol and anyone
else they saw who is black. The week I came back to
NYC, I heard they had found a pile of 50 black men
shot in the head. The cracker squad. The NOPD. The
city. The state. The federal government. Everyone had
a smoking barrel.

The history behind the Common Ground Collective:
Robert King Wilkerson is one of the Angola 3. For
those of you who do not know who the Angola 3 are,
they are 3 former Panther Party members, who have been
held in solitary confinement for 20 and 30 years for
wrongful convictions because of their activism during
the Civil Rights Movement. King was released in 2001.
King is 65 years old. After being in solitary
confinement for 20 years in the Angola Prison in
Louisiana, he was trapped in the 9th Ward. He called
upon 3 long-time friends and dedicated supporters.
Malik, Scott Crow, and Brian (I forget his last name,
my apologies). Brian and Scott (both white) ‘looted’ a
boat to go rescue King. They snuck into the 9th Ward
(since it was illegal to enter or leave. It still is
in the lower 9th). They became a part of multiple gun
wars. By cracker squads and residents who were
desperate to get the boat and get out. That is when
they decided they had to turn back. They did not want
to shoot at innocent people, who were just trying to
survive, just to save 1 person. As they were trying to
figure out what they were going to do, the National
Guard came upon them. The N.G. told them to get out.
They refused. The N.G. asked them if they were armed.
They lied and said no. The N.G. told them they better
get armed. They then told them that they had an
automatic pistol. The Guard said they better get a lot
more than that. After some confrontation, Brian jumped
in the water and told the National Guard that they
would have to watch him die if they did not help them
save their friend, King. Finally, after a long while,
they agreed. Thus began the momentum behind the
collective.

The day I was leaving 3 young men, were brought back
from the makeshift prison at the Grey Hound Bus
Station in the Central Business District (CBD), to the
free health clinic where I was volunteering. They came
home to their housing projects in the 9th ward to see
their home, see what they could salvage. They had
evacuated to Houston. The young men were 17, 18, & 18
years old. Two were cousins. When they were trying to
get into their home, the New Orleans Police Department
(NOPD) showed up and began harassing them about
trespassing. One of them tried to prove to the NOPD
that it was in fact his home and that his mom lived
right around the corner and that she could verify that
this is HIS HOME. The police would not listen. His
mother watched all of this from her window. She called
everyone she knew, any one that was in the area came
to tell the police that these boys do live here. And
also to bear witnesses. As soon as people started to
come, the NOPD threw the kids in the car and took them
to the Grey Hound prison. No, it is not a prison, it
is a cage. It is a hell. These 3 young men were
stripped searched and beaten, severely beaten. Beaten
in the face. They were beaten in the prison,
surrounded by armed guards. They had not once fought
back or struggled. As they were being escorted to
their cage (I say cage, because that is what the have
set up. It is an out door cage with no benches, no
chairs, no nothing. There was a port-a-potty set up
every 5-6 cages, so if you weren’t lucky enough to
have a port-a-potty…). As they were being escorted
to the cage, a police officer pulled out a shotgun.
One of the young men began running. Screaming. Crying,
for his life. The police officers opened fire and
shot, at point blank range with beanbag pellets. Then
they brought out the dogs. Just to scare them a bit
more. Then they were put in their cage. Beaten up and
now covered in welts. Their out door cage with nothing
to sleep on but the cement. They were given a public
defender. The public defender defended each cage. This
particular cage had 21 men and boys in it. The advice
he gave: plead guilty; at least you will be released
tomorrow with fine and community service. If you plead
not guilty you will be sent to Hunts Point for 21 days
without Bond. Every one pled guilty. Everyone feared
their lives. Everyone single person was in cage for
trespassing or violation of curfew.

It’s Tuesday and this is Johnny Palmetto. Despite the name, I’m no gunslinger, private eye, and I’m definitely not on an island off the coast of Beaufort, South Carolina. It’s cold and raining in Brooklyn… I’m not sure how the other ONCE-A-DAY-ERS are doing it, but I hope to use my space in the new agora to explore some things that have concerned me for a while now–and that I’m currently writing a dissertation about. I promise not to put you asleep, though.

My Tuesday topic: “communication” and, more specifically, “the human right to freely communicate.”

Is there such a thing as a “human right to freely communicate?” you ask.

But of course, and despite the fact that Bush was recently overheard telling the Chinese to reform, to clean up their human rights record, I believe human rights are still worth fighting for—they are the only legal means to pressure people and governments to allow humans to exist without fear of torture, persecution, and arbitrary arrests. My concern in this blog, though, will be on a positive right, the right to communicate, found in Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Broadly defined, Article 19 declares that human beings must be allowed the positive right to communicate freely with one another, to create their own narratives, to speak in first-person. Humans also have the right to share “information and ideas” by using all kinds of media, across and beyond all boundaries, both geographic and national.

Of course like much of The UDHR, this article sounds nice on paper but in reality it’s much more complicated. The right to communicate in this Information Age is much more complicated than pursuing free speech on behalf of all humankind—it’s also about supporting and enhancing communication networks that are above and below the radar of popular culture (like this blog…). Lastly, in order to support this right, human beings must be mindful of the structures of control that have popped up around and inside new media.

This week’s homework, find out what WSIS is all about.

And without a hint of irony. Talk about playing the straight man.

So what are we in for with this whole bird flu thing? Well first let’s understand a little about this avian influenza, and specifically the one making all the headlines right now, H5N1. The H’s and the N’s refer to where certain proteins are (the Spanish flu, discussed below, was caused by H1N1); effect on you? None. Just a name. So anyway this type of influenza virus (virus, not a bacteria) is carried by fowl. And it is infecting humans in some cases. In this limited sense, also not a big deal for most people of the world. So what’s the big deal? Right now people are only getting this stuff from birds so, well, stay away from birds and you’re cool. And that would be that if it weren’t for the ability of influenza viruses to undergo antigenic shifts, in which their characteristics can drastically change (the surface antigens are the H’s and N’s from above). So if (when) this happens, and the virus can spread from human to human, it’s like bullfrogs in Australia: the human immune system has no prior history with the invader so it doesn’t know what to do.
So when’s the last time this happened? There was the Asian Flu (H2N2) of 1957-1958 (between one and four million casualties), and related to that was the Hong Kong Flu (also H2N2) of 1968-1969 (between 750,000 and two million worldwide, including the US). But the big one, the granddaddy, was La Grippe, the Spanish Flu (H1N1), of 1918-1919. La Grippe killed between 25 and 50 million people worldwide. It started in Kansas but quickly shifted again to a more deadly version and spread to Brest, France, Boston, Massachusetts, and Freetown, Sierra Leone. It was commonly called the Spanish Flu partly because Spain had one of the worst initial outbreaks (around eight million dead) but probably more because Spain wasn’t involved in the other big news of the day, World War I. La Grippe killed more American soldiers during WWI than died in combat.

The strain was unusual in commonly killing many young and healthy victims, as opposed to more common influenzas which caused the bulk of their mortality among newborns and the old and infirm. People without symptoms could be struck suddenly and be rendered too feeble to walk within hours; many would die the next day. Symptoms included a blue tint to the face and coughing up blood caused by severe obstruction of the lungs. In further stages, the virus caused an uncontrollable haemorrhaging that filled the lungs, and patients would drown in their own body fluids.

But don’t worry. Maybe get a mask though.
Avian Flu: CDC, WHO, all else from the always wonderful Wiki.

My mom’s in Nigeria for the next couple weeks, as part of 16 person delegation from the grassroots organization Global Citizen Journey. Working with their African NGO counterpart, the Niger Delta Professionals for Development, they’ll be responding to a need local villagers had identified, building the Delta region’s first library and facilitating a reconciliation between previously warring tribes who share an interest in its construction.

“The villagers were very enthusiastic about it,” Wood said. “It was their idea.” But the unprecedented cooperation between former enemies has also attracted local attention, and a national Nigerian newspaper marked the groundbreaking with a headline that read, “Americans Break Wall of Jericho.”

This is a region of Nigeria, like so many African nations, that has seen huge profits exported from their land via multinational corporations, while local residents live in poverty. In Nigeria’s case, the resource is oil, which carries with it a host of other issues. For more on that, take a listen to this NPR series.

Articles about the trip here, here, and here. More Updates as they come.

Here’s the big idea:

In the year 2005 six friends banded together to get the people of
Earth to change the number of days in a week. Now none of them have
to go twice. This is their blog.

OR…as a special bonus to our readers: become the Seventh-Day Blogger.
Apply Within.