Friday, April 27, 2007
Rumblings...
I haven't gone out anywhere new lately. I do have to post some reviews about a couple of restaurants that I've been to in the past couple of months. Hopefully, I'll get those posts up next week. I have two papers I am working on for school and I actually have plans to go out next weekend...so...until then, happy drinking, eating, adventuring!
Cuban dissident Luis Garcia Perez freed after 17 years
Here is the article from Taipei Times (original source here).
AP, HAVANA
Wednesday, Apr 25, 2007, Page 7
Cuban dissident leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who wrote a book about prison conditions on the island while behind bars, was freed after serving his full 17-year sentence, human-rights groups said.
Garcia Perez, widely known as "Antunez," was released on Sunday, the opposition human-rights group Bitacora Cubana said on Monday.
He was arrested for enemy propaganda and attempted sabotage in 1990. Pope John Paul II petitioned for his early release before his historic visit in 1998. Cuba freed 14 others as a goodwill gesture tied to the pope's visit, but left Garcia Perez in prison.
PRISON JOURNAL
While serving out his sentence he wrote Boitel Lives, a book about prison conditions that was published outside Cuba.
The book is named after Pedro Luis Boitel who died in 1972 in a Cuban prison after 53 days on hunger strike.
The Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, a which represents anti-Castro exiles, congratulated Garcia Perez for his "consistency of principles."
While Garcia Perez got out, two other dissidents have been imprisoned this month after secret trials, according to a Havana-based rights group.
NEW TRIALS
A lawyer, Rolando Jimenez Posada, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for painting graffiti and distributing pamphlets with an anti-government message.
He was tried over the weekend without a defense attorney or family members present, and convicted of disrespect for authority and revealing state secrets, said Elizardo Sanchez, a spokesman for the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday about these cases.
Sanchez said Jimenez Posada was brought to Havana for the trial from Isla de la Juventud, where he has been jailed since his arrest in early 2003. It was unclear if the time already spent in jail would count toward the 12-year sentence.
According to Sanchez, Jimenez Posada's relatives say his request to represent himself in court was denied and that after he protested, he was not allowed to attend his own trial.
The rights commission also criticized the proceedings against journalist Oscar Sanchez Madan, who wrote about dissident groups and the hardships of island life.
He was arrested April 13 and tried in secret that day, the commission said. Found guilty of "social dangerousness," he was sentenced to four years in jail.
AP, HAVANA
Wednesday, Apr 25, 2007, Page 7
Cuban dissident leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who wrote a book about prison conditions on the island while behind bars, was freed after serving his full 17-year sentence, human-rights groups said.
Garcia Perez, widely known as "Antunez," was released on Sunday, the opposition human-rights group Bitacora Cubana said on Monday.
He was arrested for enemy propaganda and attempted sabotage in 1990. Pope John Paul II petitioned for his early release before his historic visit in 1998. Cuba freed 14 others as a goodwill gesture tied to the pope's visit, but left Garcia Perez in prison.
PRISON JOURNAL
While serving out his sentence he wrote Boitel Lives, a book about prison conditions that was published outside Cuba.
The book is named after Pedro Luis Boitel who died in 1972 in a Cuban prison after 53 days on hunger strike.
The Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, a which represents anti-Castro exiles, congratulated Garcia Perez for his "consistency of principles."
While Garcia Perez got out, two other dissidents have been imprisoned this month after secret trials, according to a Havana-based rights group.
NEW TRIALS
A lawyer, Rolando Jimenez Posada, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for painting graffiti and distributing pamphlets with an anti-government message.
He was tried over the weekend without a defense attorney or family members present, and convicted of disrespect for authority and revealing state secrets, said Elizardo Sanchez, a spokesman for the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday about these cases.
Sanchez said Jimenez Posada was brought to Havana for the trial from Isla de la Juventud, where he has been jailed since his arrest in early 2003. It was unclear if the time already spent in jail would count toward the 12-year sentence.
According to Sanchez, Jimenez Posada's relatives say his request to represent himself in court was denied and that after he protested, he was not allowed to attend his own trial.
The rights commission also criticized the proceedings against journalist Oscar Sanchez Madan, who wrote about dissident groups and the hardships of island life.
He was arrested April 13 and tried in secret that day, the commission said. Found guilty of "social dangerousness," he was sentenced to four years in jail.
Vagina Dentata Materialized!
It's not just a male fear/fantasy anymore!
Here is the New York Times article "Anti-Rape Condom" by Christopher Shea. (See original source here.)
There are obvious problems with this device. Using this may give women a false sense of security. Men who rape are violent and rape is a violent act. Causing this type of injury to men will not debilitate them, they can still use their hands, arms, legs, body weight, etc. to hold women down and inflict even more vengeful violence onto them. The website's claim that it will give women a chance to get away is idiotic.
Also, this device will enable women to commit violent acts towards men. An unsuspecting boyfriend can be seriously injured by this device. Unfortunately, many women use rape in order to seek criminal charges against men. When false rape charges are brought against men, the only result is further invalidation of women whose real claims of rape are disbelieved and questioned. This putts them in danger and allows perpetrators to get away unpunished.
Here is the New York Times article "Anti-Rape Condom" by Christopher Shea. (See original source here.)
The vagina dentata - a vagina with literal or figurative teeth - is a potent trope in South Asian mythology, urban legend, Freudian rumination and speculative fiction (the novel "Snow Crash," by Neal Stephenson, for example). But it took a step toward reality this August with the unveiling of the Rapex, a female "condom" lined with rows of plastic spikes on its inner surface.
The Rapex is the brainchild of Sonette Ehlers, a retired blood technician in South Africa who was moved by the country's outlandish rape rate, which is among the highest in the world. The device is designed to be inserted any time a woman feels she is in danger of sexual assault. Its spikes are fashioned to end an assault immediately by affixing the Rapex to the assaulter's penis, but also to cause only superficial damage. The Rapex would create physical evidence of the attack as well and, as Ehlers laid out a course of events for reporters at a news conference, send the offender to a hospital, where he would be promptly arrested.
Ehlers estimates that each Rapex would cost 50 to 60 cents - a pricey proposition in Africa for a nonreusable item. On a Web site, www.rapestop.net, she answers other frequently asked questions: How is it inserted and removed? In each case, with an applicator. Do you hate men? No. Won't it get some users killed? Many rapists kill anyway; you stand a better chance against a temporarily disabled man. (On this last point, some may find Ehlers a little blithe about the prospect of an enraged rapist.) In a phone interview, she said that she has found the Rapex prototype to be more comfortable than a tampon. But Chantel Cooper, director of the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, remains unimpressed. The Rapex, she said in an e-mail message, sends the retrograde message "that women should be responsible for their own safety."
There are obvious problems with this device. Using this may give women a false sense of security. Men who rape are violent and rape is a violent act. Causing this type of injury to men will not debilitate them, they can still use their hands, arms, legs, body weight, etc. to hold women down and inflict even more vengeful violence onto them. The website's claim that it will give women a chance to get away is idiotic. Also, this device will enable women to commit violent acts towards men. An unsuspecting boyfriend can be seriously injured by this device. Unfortunately, many women use rape in order to seek criminal charges against men. When false rape charges are brought against men, the only result is further invalidation of women whose real claims of rape are disbelieved and questioned. This putts them in danger and allows perpetrators to get away unpunished.
Are You Thorney?
Recently I filled out a survey for the American Family Association (AFA). A friend on MySpace posted the following bulletin:
Well, needless to say I did. However, the APA took my e-mail address when I confirmed my vote (which goes against their philosophy) and just sent me a propaganda e-mail telling me to boycott Ford. However, that's not really what interests me... What does interest me is an advertisement (obviously from a company that they endorse and which financially supports the APA's political agenda). Here is the ad:
What a beautiful, heartfelt idea. Let's give our mothers a crown of thorns to wear around their necks! Metaphorically it does represent the constant struggle, discrimination, and suffrage of working women with families and the blatant pressure placed on them by society and organizations like this one, which endorse the "nuclear" (see Jane Caputi for her discussion on this topic) family.
The AFA (American Family Association) is expecting an overwhelming majority of respondents to say that they would be 'less likely' to do business with a company if they knew it supported the "homosexual agenda" - whatever that is. So far, they are getting the results they seek. Of course, they are only sending it where they will get the expected results. Let's change the outcome by completing the 1-question survey and sending it to everyone we know who is tired of this archaic and hateful way of thinking. Follow the link to take action on this important issue.
Well, needless to say I did. However, the APA took my e-mail address when I confirmed my vote (which goes against their philosophy) and just sent me a propaganda e-mail telling me to boycott Ford. However, that's not really what interests me... What does interest me is an advertisement (obviously from a company that they endorse and which financially supports the APA's political agenda). Here is the ad:
Mother's Day
May 13th
Whether it's a Crown of Thorns necklace or something else for Mom, Samaritan Arts has hundreds of Christian jewelry ideas. For that gift they will always remember...
What a beautiful, heartfelt idea. Let's give our mothers a crown of thorns to wear around their necks! Metaphorically it does represent the constant struggle, discrimination, and suffrage of working women with families and the blatant pressure placed on them by society and organizations like this one, which endorse the "nuclear" (see Jane Caputi for her discussion on this topic) family.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Seven Cuban dissidents freed
HAVANA - The Cuban government has released seven dissidents from prison, including a 42-year-old man who had been behind bars for 17 years, dissident sources said on Tuesday.
Six dissidents were released Tuesday after spending two years in prison for “public disorder,” ”posing a danger” and “insolence,” the sources said.
Their release came two days after another prominent dissident, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, 42, was freed after spending 17 years and 37 days in prison on charges of “verbal enemy propaganda,” ”attempted sabotage” and failing to respect Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Perez, known as Antunez, was arrested for speaking out against Castro, who leads the Americas’ only one-party communist regime, on March 15, 1990.
Dissidents did not see the prisoners’ release as a goodwill gesture from the government, saying recent summary and secretive trials show that the government repression persists.
“We don’t see anything special in this,” Elizardo Sanchez, who leads the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told AFP.
“We are happy for (Perez’s) release, but he is coming into the streets of a country under a government that doesn’t respect any civil, political and economic rights,” Sanchez said.
“He has come out only to be exposed to an atmosphere of intolerance and political persecution,” he said.
While Cuba insists it hold no political prisoners, dissidents say almost 300 are behind bars.
Sanchez also announced the releases of Manuel Perez Soria, 55; Lazaro Alonso Roman, 32; and Emilio Leyva, 42.
Another dissident group, the outlawed National Coordinator for Past and Current Political Prisoners, said three other dissidents were released: Duylian Ramirez, Elio Chavez and Jose Diaz Silva. There ages were not immediately given.
One of the newly freed dissidents reiterated his opposition to Castro’s regime.
“I am an opponent of this government and my life is fully dedicated to this, because I am on the right side,” Perez Soria told AFP. “This country is screaming for economic, political and social changes.”
Original Link: Khaleej Times Online
Six dissidents were released Tuesday after spending two years in prison for “public disorder,” ”posing a danger” and “insolence,” the sources said.
Their release came two days after another prominent dissident, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, 42, was freed after spending 17 years and 37 days in prison on charges of “verbal enemy propaganda,” ”attempted sabotage” and failing to respect Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Perez, known as Antunez, was arrested for speaking out against Castro, who leads the Americas’ only one-party communist regime, on March 15, 1990.
Dissidents did not see the prisoners’ release as a goodwill gesture from the government, saying recent summary and secretive trials show that the government repression persists.
“We don’t see anything special in this,” Elizardo Sanchez, who leads the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told AFP.
“We are happy for (Perez’s) release, but he is coming into the streets of a country under a government that doesn’t respect any civil, political and economic rights,” Sanchez said.
“He has come out only to be exposed to an atmosphere of intolerance and political persecution,” he said.
While Cuba insists it hold no political prisoners, dissidents say almost 300 are behind bars.
Sanchez also announced the releases of Manuel Perez Soria, 55; Lazaro Alonso Roman, 32; and Emilio Leyva, 42.
Another dissident group, the outlawed National Coordinator for Past and Current Political Prisoners, said three other dissidents were released: Duylian Ramirez, Elio Chavez and Jose Diaz Silva. There ages were not immediately given.
One of the newly freed dissidents reiterated his opposition to Castro’s regime.
“I am an opponent of this government and my life is fully dedicated to this, because I am on the right side,” Perez Soria told AFP. “This country is screaming for economic, political and social changes.”
Original Link: Khaleej Times Online
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