I want you, in green

My first car looked exactly like this one.

Now look what they came up with.

I want it. In green.

Pictures from Texas

This was a few weeks back, when my friend Gaby came to visit from Houston. The Landing is an amazing Jazz restaurant/bar in San Antonio. Jim Cullum's band performs every Friday and Saturday evening, and NPR airs the performances on Saturday nights, the show is called "Live at The Landing". When you walk in here, you feel like stepping into 1960's New Orleans. I love this place.

The pictures below are from my Ashley and Ralph's visit to SA a while ago. We took them to the Alamo, and we also went to Austin on a day trip to the Capitol.

My Ecological Footprint = 12 Acres

Category / Acres
Food/5.2
Mobility/1
Shelter/2.5
Goods & Services/3.2

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 12

In comparison, the average ecological footprint in your country is 24 acres per person. Worldwide, there exist 4.5 biologically productive acres per person.

If everyone lived like you (Me, Juan Pablo Martinez), we would need 2.7 planets. Wow, and I thought I wasn't doing so bad.


FIND OUT HOW BIG IS YOUR FOOTPRINT HERE

"Aliens"

Excelent piece by Stanford linguist Geoffrey Numberg. If you don't feel like reading it, you may listen to it on NPR's "Fresh Air" here. It's only 6 minutes long, you'll enjoy it.

Aliens

Geoffrey Nunberg

"Fresh Air" commentary,
April 11, 2006

Back in 1920, The New Republic reported on an exercise in which the students at a New England college were asked to provide definitions of the word alien. Their answers were uniformly negative: "a person who is hostile to this country," "a person on the opposite side," "an enemy from a foreign land."

Commenting on those responses three years later in his book Public Opinion, Walter Lippman remarked on how odd it was that emotional meanings should attach to what was in fact an exact legal term. But by then, the word alien had been colored by decades of anti-immigrant sentiment, which reached its peak in the red scares of the years after World War I. "Fully 90 percent of communist and anarchist agitation is traceable to aliens," said the Attorney General and presidential hopeful A. Mitchell Palmer in 1920, by way of justifying the raids that rounded up and deported 10,000 suspected radicals whom he described as "aliens… of misshapen caste of mind and indecencies of character." Or as the American Legion Weekly put it, "aliens… are not of our sort."

That's a chronic feature of the language of immigration. The words refuse to be confined to their legal and economic senses; they swell with emotional meanings that reflect the fears and passions of the time. True, alien no longer conjures up images of wild-eyed, bomb-throwing anarchists. Not even the fiercest opponents of immigration reform claim that the Mexicans, Chinese, and Irish who enter the country illegally are seeking anything but economic opportunity.

But alien still suggests strangeness and difference -- people who are "not of our sort." That's partly due to the science-fiction writers who picked the word up in the 1930's to refer to extraterrestrial beings.[1] It's revealing that alien is far more likely to be used to describe Mexicans and Central Americans than Europeans. The tens of thousands of Irish and Poles who are in the country illegally are almost always referred to as "immigrants," not "aliens." And anti-immigrationists almost never use aliens to describe foreigners who are in the country legally -- on news broadcasts, "illegal aliens" outnumbers "legal aliens" by about 100 to 1. Whatever its legal meaning, when it comes to the crunch, alien means "brown people who snuck in."

Nowadays, those connotations have led the majority of the mainstream media to steer clear of the word aliens -- "illegal immigrants" tends to be the phrase of choice. But illegal has something more than a technical meaning, too. True, dictionaries define the word simply as "not according to law." But there are disparaging connotations to the negative prefix in illegal, which is actually just a variant of the prefix in-. Inhuman doesn't mean the same thing as "not human," and you don't become irreligious simply by not going to church. And you hear the same negative tone in words like insincere, inflexible, and illegitimate. So it isn't surprising that we reserve illegal for conveying strong disapproval. We may talk about illegal drugs, but we don't describe the Porsche 959 as an illegal car, even though it can't legally be driven in the US.

Then too, we don't usually describe law-breakers as being illegal in themselves. Jack Abramoff may have done illegal lobbying, but nobody has called him an illegal lobbyist. And whatever laws Bernie Ebbers and Martha Stewart may have broken, they weren't illegal CEO's.

It's only your immigration status that can qualify you as being an illegal person, or that can earn you the honor of being "an illegal" all by itself.[2] That use of illegal as a noun actually goes back a long ways. The British coined it in the 1930's to describe Jews who entered Palestine without official permission, and it has been used ever since as a way of reducing individuals to their infractions.

Where to find neutral language? Out of desperation, people turn to borrowing words from other languages, but that can have its pitfalls, too. "Guest worker" sounds a lot more precious than the German word Gastarbeiter it was based on -- in German, after all, Gast can mean simply visitor.

Then there's undocumented. That word was introduced in the 1970's as a version of the French phrase sans papiers, or "without papers," which is used in a number of other nations to refer to immigrants who have no legal status -- at the rallies across the country in recent days, Spanish speakers were using the equivalent sin papeles.

Undocumented may be the most decent word that's available to us, but something was lost in that translation, too. It isn't just that undocumented adds a bureaucratic note, but that it focuses on the government's records rather than the immigrants themselves. Visitors who overstay their visas may not be undocumented in the strict sense of the term, which is why the INS ultimately decided to stay with "illegal."[3] But those people are still without papers in the more suggestive European sense, people who have to live without any official status in the shadow of a modern state.

Aliens, illegals, even undocumented -- over the past hundred years, it has been in the nature of the language of immigration to suppress the human side of the story. Yet language can't wholly obscure those realities. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote in 1965 about the European experience with immigration, "We called for a labor force, but it was human beings that came."[4]


[1] The earliest recorded use of the noun alien in science fiction is from a short story by P. Barashovsky called "One Prehistoric Night," published in Wonder Stories in 1934. (There's a prefiguring of this usage in Carlyle, who wrote in 1820, "I am like a being thrown from another planet on this dark terrestrial ball, an alien, a pilgrim among its possessors," but alien would have been understood in that context simply as "foreigner.") Return

[2] In an effort to seem evenhanded, some of the "close the border" types have tried to use "illegal employers" to refer to those who employ undocumented workers. But it's an unnatural-sounding phrase, and it's no wonder it's outnumbered on the Web by "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" by better than 1,000 to 1. Return

[3] In effect, undocumented is ambiguous: it can mean either "possessing no documents" or "not documented in official records."

[4] "Man hat Arbeitskraefte gerufen, und es kamen Menschen."

The original text was published in Dr. Nunberg's blog.

18,000

I marched, along with 18,000 others in San Antonio. It was a great experience, the crowd was festive and I did not witness any incidents. The evening news reported three arrests, but it was an otherwise peaceful protest. News coverage was (not surprisingly) twice as long in Spanish-speaking stations, and the local newspaper reported the march with a somewhat negative slant.

I think more accurate reports will emerge later today from all over the nation; as of right now, the larger cities reported crowds in the tens of thousands, with a record-high of half a million in Dallas this sunday. We made some signs and gave them out at the march, I think the winner was my "Siganme los Buenos", for which I was stoped by several people and asked to pose for pictures with them. I'm with my friend Shelley, a Sociology student on the picture you see here. Click to see all of My Pictures from yesterday.

Other signs we made were:

- Maria raises your kids. Is she legal?
-Yo Hablo Ingles, How's your Spanish?
-Ay!pod. (my favorite)
-Aliens R U.S.
-How did YOU get here?
-Yeh Haw! is NOT domestic policy.
-From Mexico to Palestine: NO WALLS

As I was driving home back from the march I thought of the perfect sign that I wish I had come up with earlier in the day:
"It's San Antonio, NOT St. Anthony, FOR A REASON". Need I add that it applies to Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, El Paso, Amarillo, Monterrey, Santa Barbara...

Tiktaalik for the Creationists

Hopefuly those fools running school boards all over the nation will come to their senses some day and stop the stupidity of wanting to teach intelligent design in the classroom. In the mean time, for all of the religious creationsts out there, the scientific journal Nature has a nice surprise in its latest issue.
Read about Tiktaalik Roseae, the 375 million year-old transitional fish fossil that finally provides a link between sea and land animals. Yes fools, we came out of the water, not out of dirt and spit.

Iran Report

Insightful report on what would happen if the US decides to attack Iran.

Read Full Report Here

THE OXFORD RESEARCH GROUP, UK

This briefing paper, written by our Global Security Consultant, Professor Paul Rogers, provides a comprehensive analysis of the likely nature of US or Israeli military action that would be intended to disable Iran's nuclear capabilities. It outlines both the immediate consequences in terms of loss of human life, facilities and infrastructure, and also the likely Iranian responses, which would be extensive.

An attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would signal the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably grow to involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, as well as the USA and Iran. The report concludes that a military response to the current crisis in relations with Iran is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further.

Alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be.

Message To R

My friend Vera suggested a while ago to start a discussion group with some of her friends. We've been corresponding over the past few months on different issues, but Iraq has been the hot topic in most of our messages. This is my response to R's comments, though I can't post his message (or name) because he is active military in Iraq and it might get him in trouble. We disagree on many things, but it's always challenging to get their responses and hear what each has to say about it. If anyone cares to comment please go ahead and do so.

This is part of the message:

Hello again all,

This is a message I started writing a couple of weeks back while I was out of town and never got a chance to send it. I'm in no way trying to pick fights, but I guess R and I are on opposing sides of the spectrum in some of our opinions. It's healthy, exciting, and challenging to have an open debate on these issues. I understand that the perspective from the ground in Iraq has to be different. All the news we get here (regardless of how hard we try to get alternative news sources) will always be somewhat skewed. I question how "free" our press is, and how even the most objective reports invariably have implicit criticism towards one policy or another. Anyways, this is what I have to say:

Interesting comments. I agree with R. on the slowness and inefficiency of the UN to respond to humanitarian intervention. Darfur is a specially shameful case. On the other hand, the Iraq situation is significantly different, and here is why:

1. The vast majority of UN personnel are civilians, either diplomats, or activists concerned with a number of different issues ranging from Education to Poverty to Human Rights, among others. What little authority they have is given to them by the recognition and legitimacy of the governments of the world by means of passing resolutions and implementing them.

2. Being civilians (in spite of their political appointments) they have little place in a country still at war until-or-unless a multi-national UN force of blue helmets is sent to Iraq.

3. Even without such force, the UN was in Iraq, until its headquarters were bombed and 14 of its workers were killed, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN high commissioner for human rights. A heavy toll that I believe demonstrated UN efforts to do something about the country. Perhaps it is not excusable, but it is understandable that they pulled out.

Anticipating the argument that by retreating they let the terrorists win, I think that the same standard to measure the commitment of the US military (trained and well equipped soldiers), cannot be applied to UN workers, as it is clear that they are more vulnerable to attacks. The lives of soldiers are no less valuable when it comes to loss of life during war, but the reality is that this is was soldiers do, they train to fight and defend, to kill or get killed in war. That standard cannot be applied to UN employees.

4. Blue Helmets will never be in Iraq for two reasons: First, it would mean legitimizing the invasion, which the UN clearly opposed from the beginning. Second, it would mean picking up the tab for expenses for the remaining of the reconstruction, a toll that the US rightly deserves to pay for having decided to go it alone against recommendations of the UN.

5. Lastly, I don't see why it is unacceptable to criticize US policies on how it handles Iraq. America singlehandedly decided to invade (I really don't buy the "coalition of the willing argument") and deserves to bear full responsibly for its actions. If it continues screwing up, it is still responsible for the mess it created, intended or unintended consequences alike. The credible threat argument makes perfect sense. Still, I don't think it applies to Iraq. Humanitarian intervention was not the primary mission when the country was invaded.

On the comments of where the reporters and the NGO's have been, it might be worth pointing out that according to Reporters Sans Frontiers, 86 Journalists have been killed in Iraq since the conflict began. According to Reuters 54 foreigners (the majority being NGO activists) were killed between 2004 and 2005, more than 200 have been abducted, and abductions of Iraqi nationals working for NGOs are numbered in the thousands.
So it is a bit harsh to ask "where the fuck are they", it looks like we know where some of them are, 140 are dead, and several hundreds of them have been abducted.

Finally, (I am adding the following paragraphs today, April 2nd) If the UN is not doing anything is simply because the US has rendered it irrelevant, not because of pique or cowardice. It's rather ironic to brush aside criticism when the entire world (represented in the General Assembly) was against the invasion and the US went in anyway (to find the WMD's Knowing that they didn't exist). Now, the American Government finds itself in a mess...they had bureaucrats doing the job that Military Personnel were more qualified to do and they realized it a little too late (Paul Brehmer had no clue of what he was doing); they planned for a swift victory but not for the aftermath, hence the entire country's infrastructure was wiped out, ransacked and looted in the weeks of chaos following the invasion (but not the oil wells, oh no, they, as well as the Oil ministry where heavily guarded from day one). It's too little, too late to turn to the UN for help, I really believe that this is a US-made mess, and it's up to our brilliant leaders to get us out of it ON THEIR OWN, the same way the got us into it because they knew better than the rest of the world.

I heard a talk of former US Ambassador Edward Peck the other day, he pointed out that it took this country seven years to write its constitution, and we asked the newly elected iraqi government to get theirs done during a weekend retreat. Iraq doesn't move at the speed of US opinion polls, and that is one major mistake that this administration is making. Right now it's all about PR, not about doing things right, but about doing them fast. Even if those fast fixes won't hold, all the government wants is to make people focus elsewhere, if only for a few months until mid-term elections are over. Then they'll have about another year before getting ready for the 2008 campaign.

Today's Financial Times reports that Condoleeza Rice went to Baghdad on Sunday to ask the Iraqis to form a coalition government FAST, yet, just a few days ago, several newspapers worldwide reported that Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador "told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting to pass on a "personal message from President Bush" to the interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari...that Mr. Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. al-Jaafari to be the next prime minister". (I'm quoting from the Dallas Morning News, though it was not the only paper that ran this story)

Of course the US denies these accusations... the double standard seems pretty evident to me.

Anyhow, I better stop or nobody is going to care to read all the stuff I'm saying. R, let me reiterate that I respect our troops, but I see as my obligation to question the way in which our government has handled the war. There is too much secrecy and intrigue, and one diplomatic mistake follows another in a never ending cycle. Our soldiers are there putting their lives on the line, betting that our bureaucrats have gotten it right. Even if they haven't, the Military has no choice but to follow the orders from above. I am only glad I am outside of that mess, if I were there yielding a rifle there would be little I could do other than to shoot or hold my fire when I'm told. From the outside, all I can do is interpret what I hear and see, and express my concerns, worries and opinions, which are as valid as yours or Vera's, or anyone else's for that matter. To both of you, (and to Dillon, of whom we haven't heard for a while), let's keep the writing flowing. Keep up the good spirits and take care of yourself man, believe me, when people out here complain about this war, the top thing in their minds is that you guys are out there fighting in our name. That's why we question our government, above all, those against all this think all of you should be home with your families, not following orders to fight a war over threats that did not exist.

Later,

JP