Moskitia on their minds

In Honduras, TLC doesn't stand for "tender loving care." It stands for "tratado de libre comercio," which is Spanish for "free-trade agreement." The Honduran Congress ratified its participation in the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA in English) on Thursday, despite bitter opposition from special interests (special interests are, by definition, everyone who's not part of the big-business "community"). So far there have been a few protests at the capitol, but the organized opposition has been decidedly weak. In part, the dearth of protesters at the capitol building owes to the fact that Congress snuck the vote past even some of its own members, who had been promised that next week would be used to debate the issue. My understanding is that, upon passing the TLC, Congress adjourned to give itself and civil society a few days to reflect on the solemn enormity of the accomplishment.

The apparently weak opposition also reflects spiritual fatigue and economic distress in the face of a continuous onslaught of neoliberal reforms that are overwhelming popular organizations' capacity to inform and mobilize folks. At the same time, groups that are speaking out and sticking up for themselves remain largely invisible to the national and international media because the process of implementing the substantive changes that constitute and complement the TLC and other investment-friendly international agreements is geographically diffuse. It's not just the TLC: it's the municipalization (and piecemeal privatization) of the country's water distribution system; it's the concession of subsurface mineral rights to an estimated 1/3 of the national territory in the past few years; it's the coordinated efforts of government and NGOs to make it easier for campesinos across the country to sell their land and become sweatshop workers; it's a legislative and marketing assault on indigenous and Garifuna territory to benefit the tourism industry; it's an extra-legal timber-industry cartel that's hauling off millions of board feet of unprocessed and minimally processed timber products from angry communities all over Honduras.

There's another part of the story of the TLC's passage. A narrative of inevitability about this and other unpopular reforms is unfolding. This is nothing new in itself; over the years, "TINA" (There Is No Alternative) has often been invoked by poor countries' goverments as a proxy for a more cogent defense of the implementation of the devastating structural-adjustment recipes cooked up by the IMF. But the reformers' audacity these days is off the charts. The Guatemalan president, Oscar Berger, was quoted last week saying that the TLC is going ahead, "Like it or not." Much the same rhetoric is going around in Honduras, too. The old line was, "There's nothing we can do about it." The new line is, "There's nothing you can do about it." And they're willing to back that up with the summary arrests of protest leaders and the expatriation of international solidarity workers. Know why? 9/11 has a whole lot to do with it.

The PATRIOT ACT didn't just gut US civil liberties; it emboldened a lot of other countries' governments to do the same. Honduras is one of many fledgling McDemocracies where the US assault on previously-accepted definitions of democracy is having a deleterious effect on citizens' rights. The leading presidential contender here, Pepe Lobo, is staking his claim to the throne on his open appeals to return to the halcyon days of the brutal fascist dictatorship of Tiburcio Carías, who ruled Honduras with an iron fist in the 1930s and 1940s. Pepe Lobo's campaign logo? An iron fist. As president of Congress, Lobo has lobbied for the implementation of the death penalty and overseen legislative tinkering to produce putatively anti-gang legislation that in fact allows the government to harry and jail just about any kind of group it doesn't like. Like land-reform activists on the north coast. Like defenders of communities' timber resources in Olancho. Like anyone. And in case "just jail" might not be enough anymore (though suspicious prison fires have burned to death a couple hundred suspected and convicted gang members in the past few years), Lobo is pushing for the creation of an ultra-tough penitentiary in the heart of the Honduran Moskitia (read: tropical Siberia).

Increasingly wild confabulations linking Honduran gangs, the Venezuelan and Cuban governments, and other subversive elements (next we may be hearing about the California nurses' union) to terrorist attacks on US soil make their rounds on US-government-approved "news organizations" (e.g. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42398) and give governments like Honduras's the paper-thin cover story they need to abridge the rights of anyone who criticizes their moves. (To briefly illustrate: a US friend of South-Asian descent was here last summer to work with COPINH, the Lenca-Indian thorn in the Honduran government's side. One day he was pulled off a Honduran bus by plain-clothes cops and detained for a few hours of questioning about his beard.) Pro-corporate economic policy is being underwritten by the international war on terror.

It's tough for me to try to write cogently on this subject in this itty-bitty blog format, especially as I'm doing so from an internet cafe and working without benefit of notes and documents to give more substantiation and credence to this outburst. So I'll end for now. But I just want to appeal to you: the next time you read a mainstream article about Central Americans' hopeful embrace of free trade (you know, the kind of thing Thomas Friedmann loves to write), remember that the sweatshop worker you read about, the one who speaks with such pathos about her cautious optimism, might just have the Moskitia on her mind.

Erratica

Sorry Folks,

When I wrote in the last post that John Kerry had been "labasted" for throwing some medals over a fence, I mistyped. I meant to write, "lamb basted." Or was it "a lame basta'd"? Years hence, as they puzzle over my oeuvre, my posteriors may never know what I actually intended. Sorry, People of the Future!

traumatic post stress disorder: mea maxima culpa

I think some of my (two) loyal blog-readers may be suffering from TPSD: traumatic post stress disorder. In response to the post that I titled something like, "Don't believe this post," both L. and J. commented that I should not under any circumstances be allowed to edit my posts after the initial posting. I had broached the subject in that post, indicating that the ease of editing my posts had occasioned some thinking about digital-age journalistic ethics. I promised to disclose any future post edits and encouraged readers to demand a similar standard from their mainstream and alternative online news and information sources. Somehow, though, instead of being hailed for my pioneering spirit and towering ethical stature, I became the strawman in a series of shockingly vicious attacks from L. and J. In their comments in response to my post, neither of them said word one about the scurrilous reporting and editing practices of the online editions of such "real" news sites such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or The Onion, at least three of which I have personally observed to change wording and/or other, more substantive content in their news stories with nary a disclaimer. Now I know how John Kerry felt when he was labasted for maybe throwing some medals over the White House fence.

Ever the good martyr, though, I will comply with the results of my informal readers' poll and refrain from touching my posts once they're posted. But please, now that you have cut your political teeth on my piddling little site, demand the same of your e-news site(s) of choice. (Really. I'm serious. Why would you gore me and then let the New York Times slide when it inserts or deletes facts after initial publishing?)

"When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at his finger."
--Me. Or Confucius. I forget. And the stupid browser at this internet cafe is currently configured so that I can't open a new window to find out who that quote is from, or to check and see if I spelled Confucius right. Since I can't do a little checking and then edit the post, the Qe (elegance quotient) of this post goes right down the friggin' tubes. I hope you finger-lookers are happy.

The anti-Christo and the mark of the beets

Ever poop red after eating beets and get scared for a second? That happened to me on Saturday.

In the same "escatalogical" vein, we have a New York Times article that profiles the anti-Christo (if you're not familiar with Christo, see my earlier post, "The difference between ambling and sauntering,"). Surely the (rear) end times are upon us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/arts/design/19gate.html?incamp=article_popular_5

Hunter S. Thompson, 1939-2005
R.I.P.

Responding to the critic's critics

Hi Bloglodytes,

I have gone through and read the comments from my first three posts. Lisa of New York left comments for me for both "Don't believe this post" and "The difference between ambling and sauntering." Read her comments yourselves, but apropos of the journalistic-ethics post, Lisa opines that I should not be permitted to edit my posts after initial publication, and she invites other readers to pipe up to petition against my committing this fraud. I am waiting to hear more opinions. At this point, it seems to me that my proposal--that is, to indicate any changes I make to my posts--to be a reasonable one, as long as I'm disclosing what was there before. I propose to do this by placing an editor's note in brackets to indicate where I've made a change. I may, from time to time, also post an "Errata" message to acknowledge bigger errors. In the interest of disclosure, in that Gates post, here are the changes I made: I erased a repeated reference to Olmsted and Vaux; I changed "very" to "VERY"; and I added the word "(especially)." There might have been one other change of a single word or a short phrase, but I can't remember what it was.

Lisa also had a couple things to say about my slamming of The Gates. My post was not intended primarily as a comment on the aesthetics of The Gates, as I indicated toward the end of the post. It was more about conservative Newspeak, wherein words like "populist" and "socialist realism" are made to tell lies. Also, it was a reaction against the notion that art is more truly public if it's privately financed. Can art exist outside of social and historical context (Lisa asks)? Lisa says yes, unequivocally. I think that would make a nice college debate-team question. It seems to me that that the social and historical (and political-economic) context is what allows art to exist, and by this I mean several things: context informs the artist's vision, colors the viewers' reception, and provides (or denies) the material basis for the production and presentation of the work. Kimmelman celebrates not only the work but the process by which it came into being, so I think it's fair for me to comment on that.

What Kimmelman is celebrating, and part of what I'm critiquing, is this process by which millionaire artistes put a project on offer to the public and allow the common folk to give some sort of thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Kimmelman counterposes this system to Soviet socialism, where (admittedly tacky) art was evilly foisted upon the public without their say-so. (Kind of like the NEA.) What degree of consultative power was conceded to the public, Kimmelman doesn't say, nor does he tell us exactly who this public is. Lisa, were you consulted? Did you get to pick the color? Is this majority-rule art, or are we dealing here with the hollow kind of consultation that the World Bank conducts with indigenous communities just before flooding them with a massive hydroelectric project? It seems to me it doesn't matter much either way, because Kimmelman is subscribing to, if you'll forgive the pun, a watered-down definition of democracy: one that confuses consumer choice with more substantive rights of self-expression, human dignity, and survival. Kimmelman's within his rights to express his appreciation for the Gates project, but I bridle when he couches his praise in terms that are antithetical to what he's actually promoting. It's Orwellian, and it's way too common these days.

Also on the topic of The Gates, Jenny makes an interesting point, I think, in offering a perspective on Christo's intent in dreaming up The Gates 26 years ago. Maybe he wanted to build The Gates in part for people who were later deemed unwelcome in the park. That's part of why I went back to the final sentence of my post and added the word "especially" before Kimmelman's name to indicate he was the principal target of my diatribe.

As for Andrew's remarks about my prospects for getting filthy rich (re: "Next stop, Cave Junction"), he's absolutely right. He should buy me a beer.

Don't believe this post

Hi. I have edited and re-edited that last post, "The difference between ambling and sauntering," about four times now. Unless there's some psycho working at The Memory Hole (www.thememoryhole.com) --or, as is more likely the case, the FBI--who thinks my words are worth recording for posterity, no one's gonna be the wiser about it. I feel like I'm being sneaky by changing my words; it's the literary equivalent of Photoshop slimming. It's so easy to make these changes, to take advantage of 20/20 hindsight and the "edit post" button to make myself look better, sound smarter. There doesn't seem to be any built-in option with this blog-hosting site to publish brief "errata" announcements. Gee, I suppose I could bracket an in-text editorial comment to indicate to readers when I have changed the word "very" to "VERY," but that would break the flow of my prose, wouldn't it?

This experience gives me the opportunity to reflect briefly on the boons and pitfalls of digital-age journalism. On the one hand, we have unprecedented access to alternative voices, such as those of independent journalist Dahr Jamail in Iraq (www.dahrjamail.com) and Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org). On the other hand, it is easier than ever for the editors and contributors to the bigtime (and smalltime) media--and government agencies at various levels, and just about everyone else out there--to doctor the data they present, or to simply make it disappear when its availability is no longer convenient. There has always been the problem of news stories that never see the light of day; now we also have to deal with the problem of vanishing news. Gone are the days when newspapers publish their mea culpas in the following day's edition; in most cases I've observed, the electronic "news and information" websites just go back and edit or erase the offending material. Of course, it's not just errors they're fixing (perhaps after feeding a lie to untold thousands of readers); they're also erasing important stuff that may not gibe with the White House's media message of the week.

I think that in addition to this back-end problem of instant revisionism, we've worsened a front-end problem of laziness or sloppiness in reporting. There's an unprecedented volume of information out there, and I'd wager there's a corresponding, growing proportion of that information that's crap. As in, "Ah, we can always fix it later, so let's publish this now even though it's full of crap." And the ease of access to this crap lends itself to its own rapid reproduction, with sometimes deadly effect: in poorly-researched master's theses, in State Department briefings used to justify "preventive wars"; from there to the various outlets of the Fox News division, to Ann Coulter/The Borg, and so on.

Thank goodness for all the e-nabled bloggers and media watchdogs out there monitoring and mirroring the big websites and keeping important information from falling, at a keystroke, into oblivion. At the same time, I think it would be well to for us to think individually and collectively about how both big-industry and cottage-industry journalists--and consumers, too--ought to handle these exquisitely manipulable words. Is there a politically feasible way of demanding greater disclosure from media sources? (Online memory being ever cheaper and more abundant, I really don't see any technical hurdles that couldn't be overcome. Hell, one company--Walmart--stores twice as much consumer-related data on its mainframe computers as all the information that currently exists on the world wide web.) I would like to see the development and implementation of a standard wherein media and government information websites would provide links to earlier drafts of their content. Prolly (hopefully) this question is being bounced around in college journalism classes, but I sure don't see that reflected in mainstream media and government practices so far.

The efficacy of whatever standards we develop will be limited by the degree of cynicism of the shapers and purveyors of our news, but something is better than nothing. I vote we begin demanding greater accountability, right away. I will start with myself: I promise not to erase my posts (at least as long as I am maintaining this account), and I promise to keep some sort of accounting of any future edits I make to my posts. Call me on it if you catch me doing otherwise, and (please) demand the same accountability from the other websites you frequent.

I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

The difference between ambling and sauntering

Let's talk about The Gates: the big new public arty thingy at Central Park: 7500 orange nylon sheets that snake along 23 miles of public pathways and erected for $20 million. A New York Times article ("In a Saffron Ribbon, a Billowy Gift to the City," by Michael Kimmelman, published February 13, 2005) takes pains to let us know that this project was a gift to the city, both in psychic and economic terms. The artist-benefactors, an aging couple named Christo and Jeanne-Claude, footed the bill, although we don't learn just where they got this kind of cash. Maybe they sold their last names. Mr. Kimmelman instructs readers of his article to appreciate the proletarian grandeur of this privately-financed gem. He calls The Gates, which look to me like nothing so much as an endless car wash for 18-wheelers, "a work of pure joy, a vast populist spectacle of good will and simple eloquence, the first great public art event of the 21st century. " It is, he says, the product of Christo's lifelong dedication to art for the Everyman, based in his dedication to the utopian ideals of Socialist Realism. Perhaps it is a nod to the evanescence of such utopias that this great Nylon Curtain will be swept away after 16 days.

So, what's my problem with this? Let me quote the article's author here for a moment: "It's useful to recall that Christo conceived of 'The Gates' 26 years ago, when Central Park was in abominable shape." That is as far as Mr. Kimmelman chooses to tread on that path, and I would suspect that's not by accident. Were he to reminisce about just what was wrong with Central Park (and the rest of New York) 26 years ago, it might have led to a close brush with one or more unsavory reminders of the days when populism implied, at the VERY least, a well-practiced tolerance and sympathy for the smelly human casualties of an inegalitarian economic system. Today, terms such as populism and even socialist realism have been denatured--rendered safe for public consumption through an intricate filtering process, strained through the pages of the New York Times to preserve their blue-state tint even as they're stripped of all economic content. The industrial orange color of The Gates might recall the nobility of such blue-collar activities as garbage collection and road construction, but it is important to recall that Central Park was made safe for The Gates by a distinctly anti-populist, anti-socialist campaign waged against the city's poorest and most vulnerable citizens.*

Mr. Kimmelman states that Christo and Jeanne-Claude keep faith with the park's architects by highlighting "the ingenious and whimsical curves, dips and loops that Olmsted and Vaux devised as antidotes to the rigid grid plan of the surrounding city streets and, by extension, to the general hardships of urban life." He also revels in the observation that whereas Central Park pedestrians used to amble, now they can saunter. I think it's important to keep in mind whose "general hardships of urban life" are being cured by whimsical paths and 23 miles of fluttering plastic, and whose mere presence has been criminalized. Who ambles, who saunters? Not having witnessed The Gates myself, I shouldn't really critique it for its aesthetic qualities, but I am pissed off by Christo's, Jeanne-Claude's, and (especially) Mr. Kimmelman's collusion in the counterfeiting of an egalitarian vision.

*Here's a perspective on former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's anti-homeless-people crusade, written by a Greenwich Village artist: http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyhl.html

Next stop, Cave Junction

Hi, Blogland Faithful.

If you're reading this because you suffer from acute insomnia, Congratulations! Sidle up and grab a pillow. I'll have you drooling on yourself in no time.

If, on the other hand, you live in The Future and have scoured the web to find dirt on me because you fear my bid for the presidency threatens you and your kind, I welcome you to tremble as you come to realize, with dawning horror, just what you're really up against.

Maybe like me, you're wondering why I've chosen to title my blog, "Snarling Bengal Tigers." Well, this whole blogging thing was kind of an impulse buy. I saw a blog that was posted by an old high school acquaintance. (A lengthy side note [get used to 'em]: Referring to this high-school acquaintance, I'd say "friend," but that would be presumptuous. Our only real contact came from the fact we were both enjoying our respective student-government sinecures at the same time. The main things I remember about her were her careful teeth and her free trip to Israel to hang out with people who seemed to my mind to have an inordinate fondness for embroidered pockets on their blue jeans. I may provide a link to this person's blog at a later date, but for the moment I am protecting her identity because it might hurt her street cred considerably if it were to get out that she once haunted the halls of high school student government.) I saw that her blog host made it easy to post blogs, so I up and clicked the button to do that. Five minute later, Voila! I'm published!

Anyway, signing up on the spot as I was, I didn't get much of a chance to think up a clever name for my blog, so I decided a good placeholder name would be Under the Sun, because that's what I'd write about: just about anything and everything that might occur to me. But guess what? We bloggers are sheep. Someone had already come up with that one. Baaa! So I went with Snarling Bengal Tigers and crossed my fingers. The inspiration for this comes from an article on page two of an early-80s issue of the Weekly World News. This was an issue that I decided to flip through while waiting in line at a grocery store with my stepmom. I think it's most likely that I was about 12 years old at the time, but I can't be sure (there's a complicated calculus to this). The article related a drug bust that had recently taken place in the outskirts of the small, southern Oregon town of Cave Junction, where I had spent several years of my childhood. The upshot of the article was that federal drug agents had difficulty making their bust because the place they were busting was guarded by a pair of snarling bengal tigers. Lately I've been revisiting Cave Junction in my mind--or it might be fair to say that Cave Junction has been visiting me. I have begun writing notes for a memoir project, and Snarling Bengal Tigers is a working title for that project.

It's pretty likely I'll be using this blog in part as a journaling forum as I continue to work out details of some of those really funky years of my childhood. At the same time, I'll try to keep things spicy by foisting my political opinions, movie reviews, and other mental spume upon you. So hang on, Blogland Faithful; we're in for a wild ride! And to all you fellow bloggers that tried to register Under the Sun as your blog name, watch out, because I'm pretty sure tigers eat sheep.

P.S. Happy birthday to my friend, Lance Dunn, who, for the record, owes me $1 million when he has reached the $10 million benchmark we set for ourselves at Antelope Lake, California, in 1985. Unless, of course, I get to $10 million first, in which case I owe him $1M. Yeah.