blog.marcwiesner.com

Nothing says world democracy and human rights like a night time assassination by the FBI in a foreign country. The an FBI sniper shot Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in his home and let him bleed to death over the ensuing hours. Apparently hundreds of Feds and 20 snipers were part of the task force needed to keep the 72-year old Ríos from acquiring medical aid after he was shot. Ríos was wanted by the FBI for robbing a bank more than 20 years ago but in Puerto Rico Ríos was famed for leading the underground People’s Army and for resisting US-colonial efforts in that country.

Put it in perspective. These snipers are not hobbiests. These are government trained snipers. Army snipers are shooting enimy combatents in foreign contries. FBI snipers work in urban settings. They work in in US borders (most of the time) and around civilians. Do you think they would be more accurate or more sloppy than the Army snipers. I’m banking on more accurate. And how are snipers trained? One shot, one kill. I’m sure they’ll try to make excuses for why they missed a clean shot - “the shot was through glass,” “the target was moving” - BS like that but don’t believe that the FBI is going to take a team of 20 snipers into a foreign country and have none of them who’s had training shooting a moving target trough glass. There were no accidents, Sr. Ríos bled to death because the FBI wanted him to.

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Pictures of the Memorial
photo copyright Mr. Zereno

Sunday was the 6th Annual World Vegetarian Day in San Francisco. There were food venders from all over the Bay Area selling or giving away froom and lectures from nutritionists, economists, and environmentalists. Attendies ranged in age from children and teenagers to young-professionals, to silver-haired men and women and displayed an equaly varried ethnic spectrum. [cpg_imagenormal:6,P1070110_filtered_resize.jpg] [cpg_album:6]

I’m amazed that someone so religious as our Crusading President cannot wrap his mind around the idea of martyrdom. Cindy Sheehan was arrested yesterday while sitting with some of her cohorts on the side walk outside of the White House after they were refused, again, a meeting with Bush. The great charge that was levied against her? Apparently they were “protesting without a permit.” Outside of the White House. Yeah, and if you’re eating a burrito while walking across Pennsylvania Avenue you’ll be shot on the spot. Someone tell me, if the White House guards (are they secret service?) violates the Constitution who gets sued?

I was doing some thinking in the shower when the following poem came to me:

When the stick drops, it bounces
When the stick snaps, there are two
The stick is your Master, follow it
This is the way

From what I’ve been hearing today I FEMA’s already planning on slipping. There was a FEMA spokeswoman on the radio, NPR I think, talking about how since Katrina hit they’ve been in “action mode” and won’t be able to come down and really take any lessons away from the hurricane for at least two weeks. That’s about 13 days too many for anyone who will be run over by Hurricane Rita. Thanks for the heads-up, FEMA.

One more day before Rita is expected to make landfall in Texas. Already leaving at-risk areas is difficult with freeways being clogged up and lives have been lost following the explosion of a bus full of elderly people. The question will be asked repeatedly, how much have we learned from Rita? While the Department of Transportation has, reportedly, provided busses for fleeing Texans to use reports from the area are suggesting that the busing programs are poorly communicated to residents. Much of FEMA’s efforts have been centering around preparing for the fallout, taking steps to minimize its devastation.

I would imagine that Bush have mixed feeling about Rita. While more destructions would mean more contracts to Haliburton, the destruction would occur in Bush’s home state. Given the migratory nature of the Bush Clan though, I doubt any mixed feeling will last very long. The role of the Federal Government, FEMA, and Haliburton in the coming days, weeks, months, and possibly years given the degree of devastation and the time needed to rebuild, will be import in determining what happens to the displaced poor following the Gulf Coast Hurricanes.

This is what I can’t stand about mainstream news. Did anyone from the major news networks blink away from jetBlue Flight 292? Now I wasn’t watching the whole time, but if I believe the newscasters (and I’m very hesitant to do so) they spent about three hours covering the plane circling LAX. Yes, it’s a dire situation but we don’t even get one hours coverage of the unconstitutional war in Iraq. With war and genocide in the world, with the degradation of the environment, with critical junction of the supreme court, the elections in Germany we are suffering the effects of the networks sensationalism when we tolerate a news channel that lets real news pass by while one story sits stagnant on the airwaves. The same sensationalism that led the news networks to spread panic and superstition more than information and insight following the 9/11 attacks. When we allow ourselves to be fooled by entertainment that masquerades as news we allow ourselves to live under under from of censorship that is made unknowable more harmful by its subtlety.

I shouldn’t be surprised. Apparently Santa Clara managed to overlook an entire quarter from my Foothill transcript. I had called up the advising center to ask why a particular course, CAST70D, which is very similar to a course I’m taking now, didn’t fulfil the CORE requirement the same way SCU’s course would. The response I got was “what CAST70?” The portion of my transcript from Fall 2002 was missing from my official record. So now I’m in the process of hunting down a copy of the sylabus from a course I took three years ago. A lesson to students: be in charge of your records. Own them. On a positive note it doesn’t look like I’ll have to spend any time at SCU after this academic year.

First day back at Santa Clara. 8am classes and cold commutes down 280 (second one’s probabially my fault for not having hair. SCU, in their typical ‘let’s fuck with the studnet’s’ fassion has left me with a five-unit vaccum that should have been filled by a class that was listed in the catalogue but which never found faculty to teach and was thus canceled. I’m hoping to be able to fill up that slot with a studio arts course that would take care of one of my core requirements. If I can’t fill it I may have to take the course over summer or even next fall, I’m sure SCU won’t lose any sleep over it; it’s more money in their coffers.

Last night we celebrated my brother’s 21st birthday. He chose to go out to BJ’s Brewery for dinner. If you’ve never been there think Chilies plus. It was quite the episode trying to order vegan dishes from their menu. I didn’t realize it, but I guess people thought I was being harsh towards our waitress. I really couldn’t see her as being “near tears” as was claimed though. She eventually brought the manager out to talk to us. CL and I ended up with a baked potato with veggies and nachos respectivly. We all sampled one of the local brews (vegan, of course); even CL tried a sip though the Captain and I were the principle consumers. I guess the witress was happy to put a beer infront of me to calm me down.

After dinner we retired to Manchester for cake (a princess cake for the non-vegans and a healthy dairy and sugar-free vegan alternative that our loving mother made), presents, and a movie. Even AJ showed up. It was quite a night.

Birthday Picture Gallery