Senin, 27 Februari 2012
The following two headlines appeared on Wednesday February 22, on Bloomberg News, one below the other:Is anyone paying attention there at Bloomies? It is just like the daily ponderings on why the market is doing what it is doing:Market moves up on Greek Blah Blah Blah!Later in the day: Market moves down on Greek Blah Blah Blah!So-called financial experts around the world follow Bloomberg’s every hiccup, yet they never have any in-depth analysis about what is really going on. It’s just attention getting headlines.Greek Debt Downgraded Because We Said We Might Consider Downgrading Greek DebtDow Jones Surges the Most in Two Days Before Falling BackStocks Close Lower after Economic ReportStocks Close Higher after Jobs ReportDuring the hours the New York Stock Exchange is open, there are so many headlines that contradict each other, it makes you wonder why you pay for this so called premium service. One thing is for sure: the talking heads at Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week and all the other financial news services really don’t know any more than anyone else that follows Reuters, The Guardian, the Telegraph, Der Spiegel, and the assortment of Asian Business publications that routinely beat the US and Central European sources by a few hours, just simply because they have an advantage of several hours in the morning, as well as several hours to digest what happened in London and New York.As expats, we are pretty much at the mercy of those who manipulate currencies and commodities, like what is happening to oil at this very moment, yet we are completely powerless to do anything about it. There is no one to complain to. Of course you could always write to your congressman, (insert sound of boisterous laughter) maybe have a prayer session with your favorite clergy, a very iffy proposition, because you cannot petition the Lord with prayer for financial gain. (Some may disagree with me on that.)Here are a couple of other actual headlines from Ash Wednesday:Distressed Properties Help Boost Home SalesCooperman Says Investing in Treasuries ‘Makes no Sense’The Top Ten: Today’s Most Important StocksIn spite of the shiny forecast of those who would sell you gold, the yellow metal never did hit the speculative barrier predicted, $2000 per ounce by the end of the year, in fact it is sitting right about where it should be, somewhat below $1800. We have an almost daily humorous exchange in our editorial offices based on the perma-headline at KITCO.com, where this evening it boldly asks: “Did Gold Really Go Down $0.20?”On a much less humorous note, today, Wednesday February 22, 2012 was another demonstration of how Argentina’s, and in particular, Buenos Aires’ crumbling infrastructure led to another horrific disaster, when a train arriving at Once station failed to stop at the end of the line and crashed into a concrete barrier, creating such carnage that first responders had to be attended to for shock after witnessing the scene. 49 people were killed and at least 500 injured. When surveying that crumpled mess, one cannot help but be left speechless when realizing that the rolling stock looks like 1950’s commuter trains from the USA. The cars were packed with over 2000 commuters, on this, the first day back to work for porte?os after the four day carnaval holiday. Our sincere condolences go out to all those affected by this latest transportation massacre to hit Buenos Aires.I encourage you to write to me, jamie@expatdailynews.com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel related business. My advice is based on my own experiences, and is free of charge. (Donations accepted). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure. You can also contact Jamie at jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com
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I am not a violent man, and I detest violence of all kind. However, I do make an exception for just one day each year in the Canary Islands - Dia de Los Indianos (Day of the Indians).As many Canary Islander residents and visitors already know, Carnival is celebrated with a passion in every major town in each of the seven main Canary Islands, with the main celebrations taking place in the capital cities of the islands. These celebrations take place between January and April each year with the actual dates changing according to when Easter is celebrated; this is most annoying for holidaymakers, but take that issue up with the Vatican! The forty days before Easter, known as Lent, have always been marked by the Catholic practice of giving up meat. So the fiesta of Carnival that takes place just before Lent begins on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival means ‘goodbye to flesh’ in Latin and became a time for a wild party, and yes, I do mean wild!
If you are planning a trip to Costa Rica to see the spectacular eruptions and night time glowing lava flows of the Arenal Volcano, you had better hurry up. The geological event is scheduled to close in October of 2010. I know, that was 16 months ago, but to the average Tico tour operator, that means nothing. They are still selling tours to see the spectacular night time lava flows.The volcano is still there and the gullible Gringo tourists are still coming. It did have a good run though, from July of 1968 it played along nicely for 42 years, after initially killing scores of residents of the area with its unexpected outburst after a 500 year rest period. That exceeds the period of continuous eruption for its distant cousin on the Big Island of Hawaii, Kilauea’s Puu O’o, but the Hawaii volcano has created almost one square mile of new land, while destroying several towns in its path. The area surrounding the national park in Costa Rica, however, is a sight to behold, and since the eruption first normalized, many modern facilities have been created by clever entrepreneurs taking advantage of the tourism opportunities, offering everything from thermal baths to first class gourmet restaurants.A little farther north, Nicaragua’s Environmental Protection Minister is concerned that Ticos are buying Nicaraguan land along the common border to use it for illicit purposes, such as logging, poaching, and other evils. He probably meant drug smuggling, which is probably Costa Rica’s number one source of income along with internet gambling. Fortunately the Minister contained himself, and never brought up the tens of thousands of Nicaraguans living illegally in Costa Rica, willingly doing the crappy chores that are done by similar Central American and Mexican refugees in the USA. Besides doing the dirty work for little compensation and being victimized by human traffickers, they also get blamed for most of the crimes committed in Costa Rica. (To be fair, they do make a healthy contribution to Costa Rica’s crime statistics.)Heading south, Panama has just given exile to some of the journalists and newspaper owners being persecuted in Ecuador for having had the gall to publish articles, derogatory yet true, about President Rafael Correa. His handpicked Supreme Court just upheld the three-year prison terms against the trio as well as a 40 million dollar fine, intended to break the newspaper, whose capitalized value is only 30 million dollars.The original ruling last year sentenced columnist Emilio Palacio and three publishers at El Universo over a column criticizing the way he handled the police revolt in 2010.It was Emilio Palacio’s 2011 opinion columns titled “No to lies”, where he referred to Correa as a dictator, and he rightly claimed that the President had ordered troops to open fire without warning on innocent civilians at a local hospital.The hearing lasted 14 hours and was attended by the President and many of his supporters, who passed the time ripping up copies of El Universo. The mere fact that the President attended the Supreme Court hearing created a more farcical atmosphere to the whole circus imperious.The truly amusing part is the fact that Panama granted exile to the accused immediately. It must be recognized that Panama, like Ecuador, is supremely corrupt, with both Supremos having installed their own judges on the supreme and other courts, having changed the constitutions of their countries to be in power for as long as they want, sort of like being “President for Life!” Panama however does have a reputation of granting exile to almost anyone. Just remember Mohammad Rez? Sh?h Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran passed some of his last months there in exile before finding his final home in Egypt, after causing a storm over his coming to the US for cancer treatment, a situation which eventually led to the Iran Hostage Crisis.It remains to be seen yet what the toxic politics of both of those long suffering nations will come to mean for all the expats living there.[image: Arenal Volcano National Park, Costa Rica, via Wikipedia]I encourage you to write to me, jamie@expatdailynews.com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel related business. My advice is based on my own experiences, and is free of charge. (Donations accepted). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.To read more of Jamie’s opinion articles, see Voices From Exile. You can also contact Jamie at jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com
Sometimes I address multiple subjects in my daily repertoire. At times you may wonder what they have to do with being an expat, but being an expat means that one has to be aware of changing situations where you live or where you might be planning to migrate to. So let me assure you, the references to the Falkland Islands and Sean Penn as well as Jim Sensenbrenner are here just as opinion pieces. I doubt to many of you want to migrate to those forsaken islands in the South Atlantic. I merely want to showcase what grand standers these two examples of the United States of America gone bad are. Please follow the link on Sensenbrenner to find out what a wonderful member of the Republican Party he is!Recently, Sean Penn, a wanna be Bono, showed up in Buenos Aires in support of Presidenta Cristina’s provocative stance on the Malvinas i.e. the Falkland Islands, pretending he was somebody and preaching to the world that this silly colonialism’s time had come and gone, while he lives on land in Malibu that was for all practical purposes stolen from the Mexicans. No debate necessary here, with the former actor who adores Hugo Ch?vez, visited with Saddam Hussein (who had to be reminded several times who his visitor was), and then positioned himself between the victims of the Haitian earthquake and the press in order to get as much exposure for himself as was possible. Now the latest to throw his hat into the fray about the Falklands, at an untold cost to the U.S. taxpayer, is none other than U.S. Representative F. Jim Sensenbrenner, who as a Republican, has done as much as he could to escalate the toxic atmosphere currently existing in the United States Congress. Having first been elected to that hollowed out body in 1978, he has accumulated quite a dreckord record, his most recent class act being a declaration about the First Lady’s ample derriere, when he was deriding her healthy food initiative during a cell phone call at Washington’s Reagan Airport. The good congressman was heard loudly complaining to the party at the other end that “Obama lectures us on eating right while she has a big ass herself!” This coming from a man who is at least 70 pounds overweight, and it has nothing to do with his genetic body shape.Now just what kind of a junket this is baffles me. He is not on any committee that deals with the Falklands issue, yet he throws his considerable 270 pounds into it, flying there with his staff and press corps to meet with expats living in the Falklands and the Governor General thereof, take some strolls around, and revel in his self-importance. Hello New York Times, Washington post: should you not send along some correspondents to try to make sense of Sensenbrenner’s intentions? Meanwhile expats worldwide are in limbo about what to do financially. With every passing day the certainty of uncertainty about the €uro, Italy, Greece, and Spain becomes a little more confusing. The Iron Maiden, Chancellor Angela Merkel has managed to ram her agenda through, while French President Sarkozy has started the fight of his life for re-election against a rejuvenated socialist party that had to do nothing but sit on the sidelines while he became Angela’s little lap doggie. The self destruction of the most viable candidate the French socialists had, Dominique Strauss Kahn, or DSK for short, actually opened the door for better qualified candidates coming from the French left.With a little over two month to go, the campaigning in France has just begun. Why could the U.S. not adopt a similar model instead of the four-year campaign cycle, which is just designed to get the media moguls wealthier? The first elections are slated to be held on April 22 2012, with a possible runoff on May 6 2012. Frankly, things do not look very pretty for Fifi, the French president who has allowed his nation to be used as a surrogate for the German dominated €uro restructuring. There is blood in the water and the Euro-Socialist sharks can smell it. France has spent its reserves, unemployment is up, and the Gaullist pride is deeply injured. The country recently underwent a humiliating ratings agency downgrade, and Sarkozy is trailing badly in every poll. A large majority of French voters now just want a change. Sarkozy’s face with his unfortunate Flipper-like permasmile is not what the voters desire anymore, supermodel wife and baby included. It is a given that if not in the first round election, he will be trounced by his opponent François Hollande in the runoff. In the eyes of the voters, Sarkozy represents everything that is and will go wrong with the nation. But one of the most injurious things in the eyes of the Gaullist public is his subjugating France to German domination all over again. The national psyche still aches from two steam rollerings suffered during the previous century at the hands of their now good neighbors. He just simply failed to stand up for his people and act presidential.When first elected, he was pursuing the Anglo Saxon model of neo liberalism, trying to dismantle excessive workers rights, the 35 hour work week, that month of summer vacation, and going after the well oiled state enterprises that contributed heavily to the booming economy. One of the major problems he inherited through generations of colonialism of course were the millions of colonial subjects coming home to suck off the motherland’s teat. The burden on the social fabric proved to be too much for many of the larger cities, where severe riots broke out, mainly caused by the unacceptable social conditions created for the immigrant youth who for the most part were prevented from participating in society’s growing wealth, because of a lack of jobs and training available.Simply put, the nation was overwhelmed by its internal wave of expats, who, after generations of exploitation, came “home” to roost. And they too are voters! Guess who they will vote for? For a large segment of society that has been screwed for as long as they can remember, the only future lies in change, and that is obviously a radical change of government.For Sarkozy, never having been a member of the French elite, his climb to the top has been amazing to watch. The son of Hungarian aristocrats, living in wealth and comfort in Paris, he became a lawyer, and during the 1968 leftist student riots in Paris opted to join the right wing counter protestors and street fighters. He groomed himself to succeed in politics, and to his credit, he did so marvelously, but like that bright shooting star, he burnt out of his own volition. Get ready to say President Hollande![image: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, via Wikipedia]I encourage you to write to me, jamie@expatdailynews.com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel related business. My advice is based on my own experiences, and is free of charge. (Donations accepted). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure. You can also contact Jamie at jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com
Today being Ash Wednesday, the excesses of Carnival have come to an end, and forty days (not counting Sundays) of Lenten penitence that lead up to Easter are being observed by millions of people throughout Latin America.Of course, the Sambadrome of Rio de Janeiro is one of the most famous faces of Carnival in Latin America, the home of lavish pageantry and the center of the city’s famed, wild celebrations. But the Samba is only one of many, many musical forms used to express the exuberance of the season. The Samba is a tradition specific to the southern Brazilian cities of Rio and S?o Paulo, which also has a magnificent Sambadrome.In the city of Salvador, Bahia, mobile sound stages with massive speaker systems emit the sounds of the local Axé rhythm-based musical genre, or perhaps the sounds of Samba-reggae or Arrocha, which derives from popular regional musical dance styles of Seresta and Brega. The African-derived Condomblé religion has strongly influenced the music of this region.In Recife, in northeastern Brazil, frevo music is accompanied by a distinctive, fast-paced, acrobatic style of dance that evolved from the fighting style of capoeira, while maracatu groups put on performances involving impressive drumming, a singing chorus, dancers, stock characters that include the king and queen, the African traditional calunga doll, Afro-Brazilian Condomblé, and mockery of the Baroque Portuguese royal court.Moving yet further north into the Caribbean, the sounds that ring out during Carnival are of Afro-Caribbean melodious steel drumming, along with its descendant, soca, which combines many newer sounds such as reggae, R&B, and DJ. It is interesting to note that it was the outlawing of stick fighting and African percussion that brought about the melodic steel drum sounds that are such familiar icons of The Islands today. The slaves who were brought over by the French were also originally banned from participating in Carnival, so they created their own festival called Canboulay, which later became part of the distinctive celebration that has spread throughout the Caribbean.
These themes of breaking prohibitions and turning social customs upside down are a big part of what Carnival is all about, and they play an important role in the histories of all Latin American countries, whether it was Black Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves or indigenous people who were forced to accept the status quo of European Colonialism that enslaved them to impoverishment. The Carnival season has offered a welcomed opportunity to these communities to use satire and burlesque performance to express dissent in an explosion of mischievousness and mockery while celebrating cultural heritage that has often been undermined and discouraged by the colonial powers and the social structures that replaced them. Moving from the Caribbean westward to Mexico and Central America, Carnival represents a celebration of regional cultural pride. Heading further south, the issue of social status again rises up in a playful way in Colombia, where Carnaval de Negros y Blancos celebrates one day of people painting their faces black and on the next, white cream and talc paint everyone in the crowd white, so that in the end, blacks and whites are really brothers and sisters in one big human family. Distinctively Colombian music and dance styles include garabato, torito folk dancing, and sultry cumbia. Comparsas are musical performance groups that are specifically associated with Latin American Carnival celebrations that get back once again to African roots, and include the famous Cuban conga lines. In Uruguay, the comparsas de negros y lubulos again pick up on the theme of reversal of traditional social positions, as whites paint their faces black and join in the candombe drumming and dancing street parades that have their roots in Africa.Murgas, Humoristas, Parodistas, and Revistas are musical theater traditions that are very popular in Uruguay during Carnival season as well as appearing in Carnival celebrations in other South American locations such as Argentina and Colombia.
Having learned so much from all the news sources I peruse every day to bring you what I hope are interesting tidbits, analysis, and opinionated opinions, I figure that since today is already the 5th of January, we should have a quick gander back at the year that passed into history and herstory! So here we go in my abbreviated version: For many of us it kind of sucked. Period.Now for the coming year, the flames of hope of course are always lit. But unfortunately they have caught the scenery and stage on fire. There are many hands busy trying to keep the whole shebang from going up, and I do sincerely hope that they are successful! There are however two very weird struggles going on in the world (actually more than two, but I only have so much space).For purposes of illustration, I will blatantly steal a quote from one of Latin America’s leading lights (no, he is not on fire), Peruvian Nobel Prize Laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa: He said that there was “a choice between AIDS and terminal cancer” when referring to the two finalist in a runoff election in his country, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the imprisoned former president, and Ollanta Humala, a former military officer who was being painted into a Bolivarian/Chلvezian corner by the right wing ultra conservatives wanting to keep a hold on the power and money this mineral rich country has in abundance.As most of us know, Ollanta Humala won that contest, and has since led his nation in a very good direction. Socialism, as the right feared, did not sweep the nation, but social justice is slowly establishing itself in the Andean nation, with amazing results but still meeting a few bumps in the road.Now, the United States of America has just had a meaningless beauty contest where in reality all the contestants should have been eliminated for one reason or another, and when all the votes were counted, it turned out to be an almost dead heat between AIDS and terminal cancer.On the one side, we have the evangelical rural Iowans who picked the “Anyone But the Mormon” candidate, the booted out of office former Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, with 30,007 meaningless votes. On the other side we have Mitt “The Mormon” Romney, with 30,015 votes, followed by Rep. Ron Paul with 26,219 votes. The other candidates are either delusional or plum stupid, but I think both. At least Michelle Bachman had the decency to finally declare the horse dead, and hopefully she will return to Congress. She was missed!So an astounding 0.00039% of the nation went to the caucus places and got the national media in a frenzy; an absolutely meaningless frenzy. While I really like Ron Paul as one likes their Grandpa, I would like someone with experience in foreign policy to lead “the World’s Policeman!” Some of his ideas sound really good, but one has to have solutions to the problems confronting the U.S., not just catch phrases. He would like to do away with the Federal Reserve Bank, as would many, and go back on the Gold Standard. I am soooo sorry! The Titanic has sailed. The current U.S. reserves would only cover a fraction of the currency in circulation. It’s time to think up something new and revolutionary. Maybe the Silver Standard?So at the close of this debacle, they are all heading to New Hampshire, which is the ninth least populous state and suffers from extensive poverty, where the kissing of babies and having breakfast at the mandatory diners will go on and on and on. So I did mention at the beginning that there were two weird struggles going on. This one is even stranger than U.S. election politics. In Israel, home of our best friend in the region, the only “democracy” in the Middle East, there is a life and death struggle going on between the ultra orthodox Jews and the regular orthodox Jews. It seems that in the ultra orthodox faction, women have to ride in the back of the bus, cover up, and be subservient to the male of the species. This in a country where both sexes are required to report for mandatory military service, except for the Haredi ultra orthodox sect, which is excused from military service as long as they study in yeshivas. Apparently it is there that they are instructed in the proper ways to treat their fellow humans, as last week there were serious disruptions when several orthodox woman were spat on by Haredis and a female member of the Israeli Defense Force was intimidated and physically assaulted when she refused to go to the rear of the bus. Anyone remember 1955 Montgomery, Alabama and Ms. Rosa Parks? The member of the IDF stood her ground and is now referred to as Israel’s Rosa Parks. Shalom Sabra!Question to my readers: Who is AIDS, who is terminal Cancer, and who is the Plague? Please feel free to make stuff up. All the candidates do![image: Rosa Parks, arrested for not moving from the center of the bus to the back to make room for more white passengers in Montgomery, Alabama, via Wikipedia]I encourage you to write to me, jamie@expatdailynews.com with any questions or suggestions you may have, and if necessary, we can establish a voice communication via Skype. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel related business. My advice is based on my own experiences, and is free of charge. (Donations accepted). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.Jamie Douglas is an Adventurer, Writer and Photographer with an amazing array of Nikon equipment, and a lifetime of experience traveling and documenting. To contact him for assignments, email: jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.comSee more expat articles by Jamie at
