Me? Frankly, I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner. Once the turncoat had sold his soul, why shouldn't he go the whole way and pick up a few extra shillings chancing his remaining scruples on the stock market? I know we columnists tend to pay a bit more attention to world events than your average homme moyen Norm, but am I the only one who knows what this born-again conservative's been getting up to? These days Noam Chomsky's about as radical as Alan Greenspan. Correction: Greenspan's part of the noble neocon mission to spread democracy worldwide. Chomsky's happier sitting at home, reviewing the fruits of his - sorry, Mrs Chomsky's - share portfolio.

…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1634855,00.html

Free radical

Yes, this appeaser was once my hero

Norman Johnson

Saturday November 5, 2005

The Guardian

Me? Frankly, I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner. Once the turncoat had sold his soul, why shouldn't he go the whole way and pick up a few extra shillings chancing his remaining scruples on the stock market? I know we columnists tend to pay a bit more attention to world events than your average homme moyen Norm, but am I the only one who knows what this born-again conservative's been getting up to? These days Noam Chomsky's about as radical as Alan Greenspan. Correction: Greenspan's part of the noble neocon mission to spread democracy worldwide. Chomsky's happier sitting at home, reviewing the fruits of his - sorry, Mrs Chomsky's - share portfolio.

Granted, the Chomsky family's personal-finance ventures, highlighted in an interview by my lovely, leggy and, I'd go so far as to say, very promising young colleague Emma Brockes, must have come as a nasty shock to Prospect magazine's constituency of stoppers, root-causists and not-in-my-namers. Without this ancient reactionary, how will they know what to think?

But, believe me, I feel their pain. It wasn't easy for me, either, when I realised the brilliant academic whose linguistics lectures had once held me spellbound, that the political theorist I'd revered for his unsentimental computation of Mao Zedong's balance sheet, and firm evaluation of Pol Pot's achievement in creating modern Cambodia, had morphed into an unfeeling appeaser to whom the murder of Milosevic's victims could be assessed with an amoral sophistry that might have been lifted, with barely an adjustment, from the speeches of Douglas Hurd.

Was it possible that this do-nothing conservative, who presumed, from his armchair, to mete out death sentences to Balkan peasants (let alone his request that Saddam Hussein be offered a visiting professorship at MIT and, I gather, a suggestion that David Cameron contribute to a Festschrift in honour of Robin Cook) was the same far-sighted but, above all, warm-hearted intellectual, who'd written by return when, as an idealistic student, I sent him an account of my first impressions of the Soviet Union, "in the footsteps of Sidney and Beatrice"? How did my former hero, who spent his life fighting ignorance and tyranny, turn into the wannabe-seer who now spends all his time - when not checking online share prices - coming with up the baddest names he can think of (Stalin, Hitler, Bluebeard, Saddam, Lord Voldemort), then denouncing George Bush as the equivalent, or worse. Put it this way: when it comes to mental agility, the great intellectual Chomsky makes Bush look like Christopher Hitchens.

OK, I'm there before you. Just because some of us have been on an arduous political journey since the early 70s doesn't mean we no longer recognise a shameless lurch to the right when we see one. What takes over academic fellow travellers when they get old? Moral Alzheimer's? And how come it's not swivel-eyed al-Qaida groupies who get vilified or thrown out of office, but decent people trying to defend democracy from Islamo-fascism? If Bush is no better than Hitler, and Beria a lot more appealing than Dick Cheney, how does Chomsky compare with David Blunkett, the latest good man to fall victim to a pancetta-class pogrom?

Sure, David made stupid mistakes. Knocking up Kimberley. He should have known that the Spectator's pro-life. Plus, no one goes to Annabel's any more. But just because Pol Pot never fast-tracked a nanny's visa doesn't make Blunkett guiltier than Bin Laden. My tip for David, now he's back in the wilderness? Keep the DNA shares. Mrs Johnson says they're red hot.

norman.johnson@guardian.co.uk

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Esto es típico anglosajón. Todo debe ser puro, prístino. Lo platiqué horas y horas con la semita y su “posmodernismo”, “post-estructuralismo” y demás. Según entendí, está en la naturaleza humana, y pus tarde o temprano todos caemos. Así que, al cesto, en el mejor de los casos, el discurso de Chávez en la ONU, que encendió las ventas del libro de Chomsky.

Nel. ¿Apoco los que lograron la independencia de los USA eran santitos? ¿Qué no le entraba el George (Washington) a la Cannabis? ?O no se conoce que el Jefferson tuvo un affaire con una de sus sirvientas mulatas? Ejem. ¿Y la revolución Francesa? Mmmm. Voltaire, Robespierre, ciertamente no están para ponerlos en un altar. Más, ¿eso descalifica sus argumentos, los escritos, pues?

No lo creo. Es otra de la trampas de las derechas para siquiera desprenderse de poco. Caridades, fundaciones, limosnas, etc., etc., etc., son parte del su sistema de creación de riqueza, y van a tratar de convencerlos compas de ello, y de que se olviden de sus sueños guajiros. Se lo dije a “alguien” hace no mucho tiempo. Mira, tal vez yo hasta sea más capitalista que tú, lo que sí sé es que el capitalismo salvaje no funciona, no tengo la respuesta, sin embargo, estoy convencido que hay que desmantelar este sistema y traer a los “expertos” que tienen soluciones más apegadas a lo que somos, humanistas pues. ‘Tonz, vamos pa’ adelante, olvídense de estos que intentan convencerlos de que todo es gatopardismo. En algo falla mi paisa Rafa Guillén, si es cierto que el Ché era su ídolo, luego les traigo un par de artículos del milenio seminal. El Argentino nunca titubeó al luchar por sus ideales,fueran estos perfectos o no, aún cuando se topó con pared varias veces, tal como terminó en la sierra Boliviana. El postergar no era una característica de su personalidad.

Las libertades de las que gozamos costaron sangre a muchos de nuestros ancestros, nos toca a nosotros la siguiente batalla. Pacífica, please. Por enésima vez, parenle al encono.

El Recinto Fiscal, la plaza de armas, tortas de la barda, el mercado Juárez, zacahuil, pemoles, huapilla, el triángulo, el cascajal, la melody, chispita, el muelle de metales, el río Pánuco, el canal de la cortadura, la avenida Hidalgo, la herradura, las dunas,la escollera, las matatenas, unos rancheritos con salsa, una palapa, semana santa, el navegante, el cachirul Lira, madero invicto, el golfo, la Gpe. Victoria, pan de la luna, jamón endiablado, saladitas con bufalo, el Alfonso de Ligorio, la madre Crispina, Esvetlana, lupe la loca, el malhecho, la 2 de Enero, la calle Alameda, el globito, el kiosco, la laguna, el boulevard, unos churros, el pasaje Obregón, la Sevillana, la Francisco Sarabia, el Tec, la planta catalítica, la carretera nueva a la playa, Tampico de noche, la Unidad Deportiva, el macalito, el Olimpo, Chuy-Hen, el Castor, Plaza Palmas, Carnitas Orta, el Chacal, Avenida Ejército NACIONAL, faja de oro, alta vista, Tamós, El Moralillo, El sanatorio Alijadores, Gerardo Gómez Castillo, Pepito Terrestre, el tanque Miloc, el negro Da Silva, el dinamita Alderete, Carlos Revetria, Jacinto Leopoldo Luque, el Benja, el pato Corbo, el chima Ruíz, el chanclotas, Edgardo "El cerebral", Pimienta, el arabe despatriado, el Urko, el Valecoco, los gemelos '70, Purata, la 8a. zona, el Recreativo, las canchas del Chavo, la Formosa, Casa Anita, el "coreano" Rivera, los Azcarraga, los Fleishman, Mauricio Garcés, Rockdrigo, Rafael Guillén, Memo Ríos, Gurría, el Gallinazo, el Libanés, Los Cedros, el Meme, el Lauro Aguirre, Sandrita, una chamarra celeste, un palco petrolero, Bandido, una perrilla en el ojo, el Quinadome, una moto islo, cubetitas, una vuelta olímpica, unos parientes chilangos, la naútica, el "abuelo" Azuara, la bocana, el Chairel, el Higo, el canal 9, el canal 7, Foro, el club de los chupadedos, la moto Marón, Eduardo Moses, un ropero a medias, nuestras primeras porterías, el camarón, la canícula, el hotel Montecarlo, las Malenas, el peine, Carretero, el Boniek, Doña Lety, un incendio en '78, unas guayabas traicioneras, una caída del voladizo, pavimentada con chapo, una playa contaminada, una agua mala, juegos no tan infantiles, aceite de pescado, unos charales, pistaches al comal, un cascanueces de ardilla, una camiseta de Hugo, un vidrio roto, un barandal metálico, una grabadora Fischer, unos patines, el Memo Tivas, unas asesorías en Termodinámica, el Tibu, el servicio militar, un carro de ruta, Elvira, María Elena, unas clases de inglés sabatinas, el tesorero desfalcado, Tacos Plau Plau, Héctor Espino, el Chalán, el puente Tampico, Sandino, la Refinería Madero, los Kawagi, el carnaval, las fiestas de Abril, el Diego, Andonegui, árbol grande, "la perrita" Guzmán, el primo, una sola vez campeones, una especialidad en Portuaria, la comadre, un coronet '70, una caribe hecha polvo, una cirrosis hepática, unas flautas, un refresco negado, un esquis de hierro, un titán, un delaware punch, una torta de huevo con tocino, Toñita, Andy Panda, un bazookazo en la Unidad Nacional, un museo de la Huasteca, una planicie costera, el colegio de árbitros, Muerte en el Golfo, lugar de nutrias, el primer vuelo nacional, La Jaiba Brava, carne a la Tampiqueña, una torta árabe, los king dogs, una calle inundada, el Huracán Hilda, una barrida con Albahaca, un pabellón, un piso de mármol, un trolelote, un yuki, la mafia preparó la elección en 2do., Liliana, ... un portafolios de cartón azul.

M@RCATALITICO

Norwich, G(ran) B(olsa de Valores)

24/3/07

P.D. Recuerden que siempre existe la "no-tecnología", la misma que derrotó al IMPERIO en el corazón de la antigua Babilonia.

P.D.1. ¡Ten cuidado! Eres como tu abuela, muy confiado, a las primeras de cambio ya estás soltando la sopa.

P.D.2. Oigan, falta Cuernavaca. ¿Algún ajuste de cuentas en Morelos? ¿'onde quedó el helicóptero del amor?

P.D.3. Por cierto el post que mencionaba era este:

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/12/03/index.php?section=opinion&article=024a1pol

Hablar irresponsablemente de que López Obrador a lo mejor ya vendió la CND, ahora, es creer que quienes lo apoyan son borregos, incapaces de pensar y de querer; es separarse, no de AMLO, sino de las masas que lo siguen. Decir que hay que comprender lo que motiva a éstas es justo, pero entonces hay que estar junto a esos sectores en sus reivindicaciones, aunque no en sus ilusiones sobre su dirección transitoria, y no hay que centrar toda la crítica y la atención en los aspectos peores del clásico caudillismo mexicano (sin pretender similitudes entre gente de muy diverso calibre, ¿Zapata y Villa eran impolutas monjitas?, ¿Lázaro Cárdenas era acaso un político suizo?).

Tache. No tienen punto extra. A volver a “leer” un libro sobre historia de México. Los de Bassols Batalla están wenos.

... Aburto 2.0

Seven-year-old Saud Bugti's father was picked up by secret police on a street corner in Karachi last November. No one has heard from him since. He has joined the ranks of Pakistan's 'disappeared' - victims of the country's brutal attempts to wage war on both al-Qaida and those who fail to support the government. But how many innocent people are being caught up in this? And what is America's connection to the barbaric torture of suspects? Declan Walsh reports

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2035351,00.html

Without a trace

Seven-year-old Saud Bugti's father was picked up by secret police on a street corner in Karachi last November. No one has heard from him since. He has joined the ranks of Pakistan's 'disappeared' - victims of the country's brutal attempts to wage war on both al-Qaida and those who fail to support the government. But how many innocent people are being caught up in this? And what is America's connection to the barbaric torture of suspects? Declan Walsh reports

Friday March 16, 2007

The Guardian

They vanish quietly and quickly. Some are dragged from their beds in front of their terrified families. Others are hustled off the streets into a waiting van, or yanked from a bus at a lonely desert junction. A windowless world of sweat and fear awaits. In dark cells, nameless men bark questions. The men brandish rubber whips, clenched fists, whirring electric drills, pictures of Osama bin Laden. The ordeal can last weeks, months or years.

These are Pakistan's disappeared - men and women who have been abducted, imprisoned and in some cases tortured by the country's all-powerful intelligence agencies. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has counted 400 cases since 2002; it estimates hundreds more people may have been snatched. The phenomenon started with the great sweeps for al-Qaida suspects after September 11, but has dramatically increased in recent years, and now those who disappear include homegrown "enemies of the state" - poets, doctors, housewives and nuclear scientists, accused of terrorism, treason and murder. Guilty or innocent, it's hard to know, because not one has appeared before a court.

An angry Pakistani public wants to know why. The disappearances are increasingly perceived as Pakistan's Guantánamo Bay - a malignant outgrowth of the "war on terror". This week, the issue moved centre stage with the showdown between President Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Many believe the judge is being victimised for championing the cases of the disappeared. "These are Gestapo tactics," says Iqbal Haider, a former minister. "The more we protest, the more innocent people are being hurt. And what frightening stories they tell."

For Abid Zaidi it started with a phone call one afternoon last April. The softly spoken 26-year-old was at work at Karachi University's department of zoology in a cavernous room of stuffed animals, sagging skeletons and yellowing name tags. The voice on the phone instructed him to report to Sadder police station in the city centre. There, a handful of men were waiting for him: he believes they belonged to Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the army's powerful spy agency. They clapped cuffs on his wrists, wrapped a band around his eyes and drove him to a cell. Then, he says, the torture started.

The men beat him, he says, with a chain, until he collapsed. He was brought to a military hospital; there doctors brushed off his pleas for help. Then he was flown to another detention centre, where he was shown graphic images of torture. "People's skin was being removed with knives and blades and they were being drilled," he says. "It was really terrible." Then they hung him upside down from a butcher's hook, his face dipping into a pool of sewage water.

The interrogators wanted Zaidi to admit his supposed part in the Nishtar Park bombings. In early April, a suicide bomber had killed 50 people at a Sunni religious gathering in central Karachi. The officials accused Zaidi, a prominent young Shia, of orchestrating the massacre. Zaidi tried to explain he was more interested in zoology than zealotry. They did not believe him.

In July, an official told him he had been sentenced to hang. Zaidi wrote a will. "I felt at peace because I knew God was with me," he says. But it was a ruse. At 4am on the morning of the "execution", having refused to admit his guilt, a dramatic reprieve was announced. Shortly afterwards, he underwent a lie detector test and on August 18 he was flown to Karachi. The blindfold was lifted. Zaidi was driven through the city. The car stopped, a man handed him 200 rupees (£1.80) and pushed the car door open. "He said, 'Don't open your eyes,'" says Zaidi. When the engine noise had receded, he found himself standing at a bus stop near Karachi University. He got down on his knees and prayed. Then he phoned his brother to take him home.

Zaidi's account cannot be verified because, officially speaking, he was never in government custody. However a senior police officer familiar with the case describes it as a major embarrassment. "That boy was picked up by a young officer," says the official, who asks not to be named. "[The police] knew it was the wrong guy. But they refused to listen."

The ISI is the most powerful arm of Pakistan's intelligence establishment, commonly referred to as "the agencies". Founded by a British army officer in 1948 and headquartered at an anonymous concrete block in Islamabad, the ISI is famed and feared in equal part. Its influence soared during the 1980s, when it smuggled vast amounts of American-funded weapons to mujahideen guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. More recently, it has organised guerrilla groups fighting Indian troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The other major agencies in Pakistan are Military Intelligence and the civilian Intelligence Bureau, and all three of these major agencies have variously been accused of rigging elections, extra-judicial assassinations and other dirty tricks.

But until 9/11, disappearances were rare. Then, in late 2001, as al-Qaida fugitives fled from Afghanistan into Pakistan, Musharraf ordered that the agencies show full cooperation to the FBI, CIA and other US security agencies. In return, the Americans would give them equipment, expertise and money.

Suddenly, Pakistan's agencies had sophisticated devices to trace mobile phones, bug houses and telephone calls, and monitor large volumes of email traffic. "Whatever it took to improve the Pakistanis' technical ability to find al-Qaida fighters, we were there to help them," says Michael Scheuer, a former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit. An official with an American organisation says he once received a startling demonstration of the ISI's new capabilities. Driving down a street inside a van with ISI operatives, he could monitor phone conversations taking place in every house they passed. "It was very impressive, and really quite spooky," he says.

The al-Qaida hunt became a matter of considerable pride for President Bush's close friend, the president of Pakistan. "We have captured 672 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totalling millions of dollars," wrote Musharraf in his autobiography last year. (The boast sparked outrage at home in Pakistan and was scrubbed from later Urdu-language versions of his book.) Prize captures included the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, who has apparently confessed to a string of terror plots after four years as a captive, and Abu Faraj al Libbi, another alleged bin Laden lieutenant. But certain innocents were also swept up in the dragnet.

Brothers Zain and Kashan Afzal, for example, were detained and beaten many times over eight months by Pakistani agents convinced they belonged to al-Qaida. Zain, now 25, remembers that, in between the thrashings, the "FBI wallahs" - a woman and two men - would come to visit. "They showed me a picture of Osama and asked if I knew him," he says at his home in Karachi. "I told them I had only seen him on television." As American citizens - the brothers were born in the US, where their father lives - they might have expected better treatment. Instead, they got threats. "The Americans said if we did not tell them everything, they would send us to Guantánamo Bay," says Zain.

Like many of the disappeared, the Afzals had a colourful past that drew the attention of the agencies. According to a well-informed source, their names appeared on a list of potential recruits found on a laptop belonging to Naeem Noor Khan, an al-Qaida computer expert arrested weeks earlier, in July 2004. They were also questioned about a visit they had made to the lawless tribal belt of Waziristan. But whatever they had done, it was clearly not enough to warrant prosecution by either Pakistan or the US. In April 2005, they were brought to Lahore airport, handed a pair of airplane tickets in other people's names, and set free.

The physical damage has healed - Zain suffered a burst eardrum - but the mental scars remain. "He hears voices in the night coming to take him away again," says his wife Sara. The couple agreed to meet the Guardian and give their first newspaper interview in an attempt to press their case for a new American passport. Despite numerous entreaties, the US consulate in Karachi has stonewalled requests to re-issue their passports, which were confiscated during their arrest. "I am scared because of what has happened," says Sara. "Pakistan is not a reliable country, you know." A US embassy spokeswoman in Islamabad declines to comment on their case.

The truth is that the American government still quietly supports the disappearances of al-Qaida suspects, says Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, which has documented many cases. "The abuse has become even more brazen because of US complicity," he says. He claims that American officials are regular visitors to ISI safehouses in Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi where torture has occurred. They have supervised interrogations from behind one-way mirrors, he says. In FBI internal documents, he says, torture is referred to as "locally acceptable forms of interrogation".

For some detainees the safehouses are the back door to the mysterious world of CIA "black sites" - secret prisons in Afghanistan, eastern Europe and across the Arab world where torture is allegedly rife. Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who was picked up in 2004, recently gave an extraordinarily detailed account of life in this system. After being tortured by ISI agents in Lahore - they strapped a rubber band around his penis - he said he was moved to a "villa" in Islamabad where he was questioned by US officials. "It seemed to me that this place was controlled by Americans. They were in charge," he told Human Rights Watch. "They would say: 'If you cooperate, we'll let you sleep.'" A female official told him in Arabic, "Fuck Allah in the ass." One of four fellow Pakistani detainees bore the marks of severe torture. "You can't imagine how much they were hurting him," said Jabour, who was released last summer.

In its annual human rights report published last Tuesday, the US State Department acknowledged the disappearances but skated around the US's own role. "The country experienced an increase in disappearances of provincial activists and political opponents," it noted.

In fact, most recent disappearances have nothing to do with al-Qaida. To quell an insurgency in Baluchistan - a vast western province with massive oil and gas reserves - the agencies, in particular Military Intelligence, have rounded up hundreds of suspected rebels in the past two years. Of the 99 abductions registered by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last year, 73 were from Baluchistan. Officials believe many more have gone unreported. Shamsa Toon, a 70-year-old woman, crouches on the pavement outside Karachi's Press Club clutching a giant photograph of her son, Gohram Saleh. He has been missing since August 8 2004, she says; this was the 166th day of her vigil. Her 13-year-old granddaughter is threatening to commit suicide if there was no news. "He's just a cab driver, not any rebel," she says, tears streaming down her face. "His only crime is that he is a Baluch."

Musharraf's officials swat the issue away with blunt denials. "I can say with authority that these people are not with any agency or government department," says Brigadier Iqbal Cheema, head of the "crisis management cell", which spearheads anti-terror operations, at the Interior Ministry. "Most of these people creating a hue and cry belong to the militant organisations and have jihadi backgrounds. They are involved in these activities themselves." But the current confrontation with the chief justice has brought a renewed focus. Western diplomats are queasy about such obvious abuses from an ally they claim is "moving towards democracy". And the death of Hayatullah Khan, a tribal journalist who was found dead last June after seven months apparently in the custody of the agencies, has further fuelled the outrage.

Last November, Chaudhry, the chief justice, ordered the agencies to "find" 41 people who had gone missing. Subsequently, half were quietly released. But the court actions have mostly just underlined the impotence of the civilian institutions in the face of a powerful military machine. When ISI lawyers plead that they "cannot locate" certain detainees, the judges can only fume and bang their benches.

Meanwhile, tearful relatives are left grasping for even a shred of news. Qazim Bugti, the mayor of Dera Bugti, a small town in Baluchistan, was picked up last November. His wife Asmat, left behind to look after their five children, weeps when she talks of her husband's disappearance. "Does President Musharraf not have children of his own? Would he like to see them treated like this?" she says in the family's Karachi apartment. She agrees to speak despite whispered phone warnings to keep quiet: the agencies do not appreciate publicity.

Several relatives say they have been instructed not to contact the media or human rights groups. Khalid Khawaja, who led a pressure group on behalf of some detainees, himself went missing last month. He was reportedly taken to Attock Fort, a notorious military prison. But the most audacious disappearance, perhaps, is that of Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost.

During his three years of captivity in Guantánamo Bay, Dost, 37, became known as the "poet of Guantánamo" for his sharp verse. After his release, he wrote The Broken Shackles of Guantánamo, and it was published in the Pashto language last September; it became an instant hit in Peshawar's bookstalls, selling more than 10,000 copies. It also contained stinging criticism of the ISI. Weeks later, policemen in a van abducted Dost as he walked from his local mosque after Friday prayers. His brother, Badruzzaman Badr - also a former Guantánamo detainee - says, "The book is the reason behind this. They are angry about what we have written. They claim to have democracy and freedom of expression in this country, but it is not real."

When Dost's case came before a local court for the third time in January, the judges again asked the ISI to produce the missing man. Again there was no answer. Now Badruzzaman, who has abandoned his gemstone business and no longer sleeps at home, fears he will be next. "I do not feel safe, they could arrest me any time. But where can I go?" he says.

Abid Zaidi, the zoology student from Karachi, has also learned the price of going public. In late October, he travelled to Islamabad to describe his ordeal before a press conference organised by Amnesty International. Shortly afterwards he was picked up again, this time by men in uniform. Zaidi says they were flushed with anger. "They told me: 'Next time, we will not pick you up. We will kill you'".

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

San Andrés Larrainzar, Ocosingo, Las Margaritas, La Garrucha, Marcelo, Judith, José Luis, una bolsa de dulces, una arquitecta, un módulo dental, un baño en la selva, una casa de campaña, un fut rebelde, Juan Pérez Jolote, el FZLN, Los Caracoles, Muertos incomodos, Elías, 9/02/95, un pasamontañas prestado, la coloreteada, la geometría imposible, el guerrillero inexistente, indígena, mujer, anciana, Violeta Parra, de la cintura pa' abajo, la sexta declaración, San Cristobal, la pensión Chamula, un zapatour, un escudo humano, una masacre inmisericorde, una canana al pecho, dos horarios distintos, un Aguascalientes selvático, el brazo armado del perredismo, un zapatismo insulso, una retórica envolvente, un pasamontañas agujerado, el hermetismo indígena, un templario Lacandón, … continuará.

… Sorry, there is nothing PURE in this WORLD,

Hidalgo, Juárez, Madero, Zapata, Villa, Obregón, Carranza, Cárdenas, Heberto Castillo, … AMLO.

No va por ahí. No están hechos de oropel los movimientos libertarios, quisieramos, pero no es verdad. Sin embargo, de acuerdo a mi teoría de la balanza y a Almeyra, por ahí debe estar el post, hay coyunturas en las que vamos con una causa sea esta o no impoluta.Cuando perdemos esto de vista, perdemos tiempo precioso de lograr avances. No tengo tiempo de extenderme, tengo que corregir 100 páginas de mi tesis. Espero poder postear por lo menos un par que tengo en “cola” de espera.

M@rcorreteado,

Norwich, U(na) (A)K(laración)

22/03/07

P.D. Engels.

... it's almost James Bondish.

... y los que llegaron en las casas navegantes de los conquistadores que hundieron en la angustia al Tlatoani, obligándolo a pedir que cesara la furia del dios del espejo humeante, el mal parado Tezcatlipoca.


http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/03/18/sem-bazar.html

Hugo Gutiérrez Vega
UN CORAZÓN CHILANGO

Hay, en estos tiempos descoyuntados, chilangos del sur, del norte, del oriente y del poniente; chilangos de los asentamientos y pueblos devorados por el monstruo tentacular y algunos, muy pocos, chilangos de verdad: me refiero a los que viven, gozan los misterios y consejas, las delicias gastronómicas y las glorias arquitectónicas del centro histórico de esta ciudad que han descrito y cantado don Bernardo de Balbuena, Cervantes de Salazar, don Artemio, Gutiérrez Nájera, Facundo, Micrós, Salvador Novo, León Portilla, Guillermo Tovar y Carlos Monsiváis, entre otros muchos centrochilangos.

"De la famosa México el asiento". Así comienza la Grandeza mexicana, de don Bernardo de Balbuena. Ángeles González Gamio, filomexicana desde hace varias generaciones, nos entrega en este libro una especie de tercera grandeza mexicana. El título nos lleva a terrenos contrastados: "Ay, eres mala y traicionera, tienes corazón de piedra", dice el bolero. Sí, mala y traicionera, sobrepoblada y violenta, sujeta a los horrores del tráfico y a las torpezas y contubernios de muchas de sus autoridades, pero entrañable, dueña de una historia riquísima en hechos y anécdotas y con una gigantesca carga de vida. En fin, que en el corazón de la ciudad hay hermosos latidos que revitalizan la piedra de las calles, los edificios y, a veces, a las conciencias y al espíritu de solidaridad de sus habitantes (recordemos la epopeya social que floreció en los días del terremoto del ’85).

Ángeles González Gamio, en este hermoso libro y con su elegante y directa prosa, nos descubre muchos momentos y lugares de la ahora interminable ciudad. La veo caminando por el centro, entrando a los palacios, algunos ruinosos, de épocas pasadas, y registrando los cambios y daños, pero sobre todo lo permanente en la capital de los aztecas y del Virreinato de la Nueva España.

Tenemos en las manos un libro de historia y de lo que José Luis González llamaba microhistoria. El personaje es la ciudad, sus fantasmas y sus actuales habitantes, la gastronomía y las tradiciones, las fiestas ("ocasiones de contento", decía don Bernardo) y los lutos, las reconstrucciones y las bárbaras demoliciones. Todo esto queda registrado en un libro ya indispensable para conocer esta moderna y antigua, opulenta y miserable, benévola y cruel corte de los milagros que es y seguirá siendo el México-Tenochtitlán que las aztecas sentían como eterno y triunfador sobre todos sus enemigos, los de dentro y los que llegaron en las casas navegantes de los conquistadores que hundieron en la angustia al Tlatoani, obligándolo a pedir que cesara la furia del dios del espejo humeante, el mal parado Tezcatlipoca.

Da la impresión de que Ángeles sabe todo lo que hay que saber sobre esta ciudad. Busca en medio de las ruinas y de los desfiguros las perlas escondidas, las saca a la luz, las limpia cuidadosamente con su enorme y siempre discreta erudición y nos las entrega con todos sus resplandores. Viene a mi memoria su elogio del rebozo, esa prenda milenaria que es cuna, canasta, monedero y mortaja ("en el hoy y el mañana y ayer junto pañales y mortaja", decía Quevedo). En este hermoso artículo no se limita a hablar de los rebozos de museo sino de los de todos los días, de los que cubren todavía a las mujeres de nuestros pueblos indígenas y de las habitantes de las barriadas. Este es un buen ejemplo de la función que cumple este libro lleno de información y de, como decían los cronistas del xix, de "cosa curiosas y de hechos extraordinarios" que tenemos frente a nuestros ojos y que no siempre registramos. Se necesita que una cronista ejemplar como Ángeles nos hable de ellos y nos haga verlas mejor y, sobre todo gozarlas. Por eso el libro Corazón de piedra está lleno de gozos de todos los sentidos.

Váyamos con Ángeles al viejo Zócalo en el que se concentran la protesta civil y el entusiasmo por las causas políticas. En su fondo late ese corazón de piedra que perdurará como lo querían los fundadores de México-Tenochtitlán.

jornadasem@jornada.com.mx


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Un bastión azul en el extranjero, se va a creer todo, borderline, el nuevo mundo, la miseria humana, de 4 a 1, una alegoría incomprensible, un envío transatlántico, la ironía fina, evadiendo la confrontación directa, un dictador apreciado, una compañía gélida, un sabelotodo incauto, una desconfianza infinita, una fiesta de despedida, una pasión malsana, una olla presto, una pirámide invertida, una frase incoherente, un homofobo cobarde, un callejón sin salida político, Tom Lasorda, Etchohuaquila, un ciclo centenario, una plática decembrina, San Pascual bailón, Atocha, un lote lunar, los senos de Sabá, transparencia total es la clave, nunca a plena luz del día, la oncena titular, la musa inconclusa, berliner-philharmoniker, Seven Samurai, el pueblo unido, un goya sincero, un Picasso taurino, una lengua viperina, voces de ultratumba, los murmullos, el padrón electoral, el Oaxaco y tú, la única invasión a Gringolandia, PCA, NWS, Fogs of war, perlas a los chanchos, un silencio exasperante, a freir neuronas, napalm death, mesa verde, the inspiration point, Noviembre del '99, el "magic" Johnson, el gancho "espacial", indios verdes - Universidad, fotos recicladas, un burro blanco de acople.


Trivia : Para los "lectores". ¿Cuál de todas estas musas realmente existió?

a) Dulcínea,
b) Beatriz
c) Susana San Juan,
d) Ninguna


M@rcorazón de León,
Norwich, U(n) K(orazón),
18/3/07


P.D. Se lo había adelantado a la semita. Tengo esa extraña virtud de la "premonición". Miralos bien, todos esos mediocres van a gobernar al país.

... un mural de Rivera.

... Vamos a andar
Para llegar
A la vida



http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/439167.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMXclM8KBi0

Category: Lyrics
Artist: SILVIO RODRIGUEZ

Song Name: Vamos A Andar



Vamos a andar
En verso y vida tintos
Levantando el recinto
Del pan y la verdad

Vamos a andar
Matando el egoísmo
Para que por lo mismo
Reviva la amistad

Vamos a andar
Hundiendo al poderoso
Alzando al perezoso
Sumando a los demás

Vamos a andar
Con todas las banderas
Trenzadas de manera
Que no haya soledad

Vamos a andar
Para llegar
A la vida


M@rcompartido,

Norwich, U(na) K(ausa)

18/3/07

P.D. La Expropiación petrolera. ¿Un totole pa' la causa?

... Analfabetos emocionales.