A Day In Pictures

Here are some fascinating images I've been sent over the past few days. First one is from Richard von Erlac, who plucked this from a TV guide. Note that the guide equates marriage to torture:


Next is from Nasty Nicky B, who was surprised to find this from a so-called "Conservative" magazine:


Next, I guess this is what California voters were foolishly afraid of when they struck down that state's gay marriage law:



Not sure where this comes from, but it makes me giggle:



On a similar note:



Lastly, I wrote a while back for The Globe and Mail that true validation and acceptance of a race manifests as an option in a government form. Well, I proud to announce that a recent Loblaws online customer poll actually listed "Guyanese" as an ethnicity option! See here:

Murder in Mumbai

Image from CBC.ca
Anyone who's visited the mind-blowing financial, crime and movie capital of India, Mumbai, knows it to be a transforming and transformative place that tells of centuries of multicultural layering, a miracle of urban concentration well past imaginable limits of popular saturation, and a global leader in all manner of spectacle.

That its latest spectacle is one of terrorism on a dramatic --almost cinematic-- scale is a sad realization that baptism into the corridors of world leadership sometimes means acceptance of the plagues of affluence. On the verge of becoming one of the wealthiest nations in the world, India --always a hotbed of terrorism-- is now a more seductive target than ever.

This week, armed gunmen brazenly killed more than a hundred random citizens and have taken hostages --mostly foreigners-- in some of the city's top hotels. The most recent news is that the Taj Hotel was "liberated" by Indian security forces, killing a few of the gunmen in the process.

The Taj has its own fascinating history. Its founder was once, due to his skin colour, denied lodging in a British hotel in Mumbai whose name escapes my memory. So he vowed to one day build the grandest hotel in the country to outshine that of the British. He succeeded. It was a small taste of the grandeur that would be modern India's financial future. And so it's a tad ironic and even more tragic that the Taj would serve as the site of modern India's first urban bloodbath on the world stage.

The world media is focusing on the gunmen's targeting of foreigners, mostly American and British. But, as in all such stories, it's the local small people who bear the brunt of the villainy. The gunmen opened fire on a crowded commuter train. These trains are not like subway trains in the West; they are so jam-packed that bodies sometimes hang outside the doors. They are the arteries, not for the wealthy and foreign, but for the poor and working class. Mumbai, you must remember, is held aloft by oceans of destitute poor, many of whom sleep and work on the sidewalks.

This is, of course, a horrible, foul series of crimes. But in a few months, when these bodies have been cremated and the relatives have slouched off to try to rebuild their lives, a new thing will arise. Terror and murder in India is a circular event. As sure as night follows day, this act of terror will be answered by an equally horrid attack by Hindu extremists on Muslim neighbourhoods somewhere in India. It won't make the world news because men in suits won't be affected; but more lives are sure to be destroyed.

There is strong evidence that this week's events were spurred by foreign meddling, possibly from immediately north of India. But India has enough of its own home-grown nuts and murderers and would-be village Napoleans that domestic organized violence will continue to be its weak underbelly for at least another generation.

Yes, they can build a nuclear weapon and put a spacecraft on the Moon. How about showing me some real advancement? How about showing me that they can keep their people safe?

Aside... unsurprisingly, the gunmen also targeted Mumbai's Jewish centre, one run by the Chabad Lubavitch. If indeed Pakistan is found to be complicit in this event, I'll be curious to see how Israel responds.

Farking Around

It's been a long time since I've had the time to peruse one of my favourite sites, Fark.com. Here are some gems I found there today, and some of the comments posted aftward.

Item 1 - Ann Coulter breaks her jaw and has to have it wired shut. Seriously. Fark comment: Unfortunately, this won't stop her from talking out of her ass.

Item 2 - The Telegraph's Top 20 Optical Illusions. Fark addition:



If you watch long enough, it appears as if the dancer starts turning the other direction. Additional Fark comment: "just to see the nips in the profile view."

Item 3 - DC is going to kill off my favourite comic book hero, Batman. We'll see how long that lasts. Fark comment: Good. Batman keeps drawing obscene cartoons and sending them to me:



That is all.

Morning of Blogs

8:AM and migraine free! In my neverending quest to delay going to the gym, I'm doing an early morning blog post today. I'm still catching up on my hundreds of emails that accrued while I was away, so if I owe you a reply, keep your panties on. I'll get to you.

Here are some random links that showed up while I was in Guyana...

A link on how to write a good resume.

Check it out: India landed a probe on the moon! Curry's on me!

Check out this enormous private library.

Good news: a civilian successfully sues his former employer for unlawfully firing him due to his blog posts. Bad news: it was in Sweden.

Lastly, here's a photo of Deonandia favourite, Eric Margolis, in his Halloween costume this year:


The Other Ray sends us this Dr Who related comic. Similarly, Sean M. sends us this link of the Top 10 Dr. Who Episodes of all time. Poignant now that David Tenant has decided to step down as The Doctor :-(

Lastly, Darth Vadum sends us this real radio commercial from a few years ago:



Reminds me of one in Toronto, the content of which was: "Do it Greek style at Christina's!" It was an add for a Greek restaurant, not the ...um... other thing.

That is all. Off to the gym. Maybe.

Ugh

Back in Ottawa, just in time for a big snowfall. Hurrah. Sigh.

Woke up this morning with a crippling migraine. I popped a Benadryl (thanks, Rondi) and 800mg of Ibuprofen, to no avail. I had a chiropractic adjustment and a nap... to no avail. So I popped another Benadryl and two pills of Naproxen... to no avail. So I iced my head and took another nap... to no avail.

Fourteen hours later, after several litres of green tea, a mountain of codeine and yet another fitful nap, I am finally pain free.

For those of you who've never had a migraine: thank the gods, you lucky shits.

In other news, here's some random bit of info...

As some of you are aware, in a previous life I was part of the so-called "internet wrestling community", or ICW, that flourished in the late 1990s and very early 21st century. This was a global phenomenon of fans of professional wrestling that was likely hundreds of thousands strong, and gave birth to a weird cadre of unlikely 'Net celebrities. As a columnist for 411 mania, I shared space with some of the legends of the ICW: Hyatte prime among them.

In a pain-filled fit of random internet research, today I found out what happened to another ICW mini-celebrity, "The Scotsman". He used to host a very popular and hilarious site called Scotsmanality, which no longer exists, but which has mutated into a forum called "No Pants Provided." Today, The Scotsman is a professional poker player and the owner of a series of very lucrative sites, listed here.

I know none of you cares about this, but I found it interesting. To quote Jeff Jarrett, who was likely quoting someone else, "for those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not understand, no explanation is sufficient."

That's all for today... except for a link to a very good column by the great Eric Margolis. And one more thing: the Death Star canteen:

Et Tu, Canada?

Greetings from the Porter lounge at the Island airport in Toronto. I'm grabbing the first flight out to Ottawa in order to make my class today. (So if any of my students are reading this, you'd better show up!)

When I was living in the USA in the aftermath of 911, one of the unique perspectives granted me was the blatant discriminatory treatment given to travelers of my skin colour. It was a relief to return to Canada where such practices are rarer, or at least not as obvious.

Indeed, it's a mantra among many of we hued folk never to take a flight through the USA if we can avoid it, in fear of the humiliating disrespect shown by customs and immigration troglodytes.

Yesterday's return to Toronto, via Trinidad, from Guyana was a bit eye-opening and disappointing. During our 20 minute layover in Trinidad, I and my 5 White compatriots had to walk from one section of the airport to another. Within a span of less than 5 minutes of this walk, I (and only I) was singled out for a "random" security search TWICE.

Once at the gate, there was a youngish Black woman screaming at the top of her lungs, complaining about her multiple "random" searches, as well.

Well, that was Trinidad, right? Maybe some dude matched my description. Or maybe someone was having a little fun. Who knows. Surely, a more serious and advanced nation like Canada would be fairer.

Hmmm. During our departure from Toronto 2 weeks ago, I (and only I) was singled out for another "random" search. At that time, I actually complained, and miraculously the security dude (another abashed brown guy) apologized to me and, in a moment of fascinating brown solidarity, decided to take the next man in line instead. He happened to be a member of our
party, a white dude. But had I not voiced my displeasure, it would have been me... again.

Upon arrival to Toronto last night, we were met by an extra barrage of passport control officers right off the plane. (I think the Trinidad flight is known as a drug gateway). My White compatriots were waved through without incident. But I, holding up my Canadian passport, was stopped and was asked, "Are you Canadian? What are you doing here?"

Because, as we all know, only White people can be Canadian, and only Canadians are White. Maybe she assumed my passport was a forgery.

After we passed customs, we went to wait for our bags. There was another line of thugs in uniform there. Again, my White friends walked right through, but I was taken aside and interrogated.

"Where do you live?"
"What do you do?"
"What are you doing here?"

You would think the Canadian passport and the answer, "I'm a professor at the University of Ottawa. I teach global health and epidemiology and I'm returning from a huminatarian medical mission in Guyana with my colleagues, those fine looking young doctors and nurses over there", would warrant a pass. But no, more menial and frankly irrelevant questions like, "Where were you born? " arose.

Miraculously, I was not selected for a deeper search of my possessions. But I had already identified and set aside my bags from the group possesions, in full preparation for that eventuality.

Sadly, this is not my first enounter with what appears to be racial profiling at Canadian airports. The practice appears to be accelerating.

I have lived in this country since I was 2 years old and have been a citizen for 3 decades. I have paid a shitload of tax dollars to this country. I speak idiomatic, accent-free Canadian English, demonstrably better than many native-born Canadians, and am functional in our other official language. I am a 41 year old University professor who does not dress outlandishly. I have no criminal record. I sit on several corporate Boards of Directors and am a visible, active member of Canadian democratic society. Through my business activities, I have employed fellow Canadians and have contributed to the growth and health of our economy. I have proudly worn the maple leaf as a representative of my country abroad, as a participant in official Canadian projects and as an honoured guest of foreign nations. In the media of Guyana, the nation of my birth, I am referred to as "Canadian", not "Guyanese". I have given much to this country, arguably more than others of my generation, and I have been vocally grateful for the bounty that this country has given me.

Moreover, yesterday I was returning from a humanitarian mission in the name of Canada, an activity that brings further distinction and honour to this nation.

What more must I do to be recognized as Canadian? And what of those non-White Canadians less publicly active than me? What must they do?

Yes, customs agents are universally dickish, and I suspect they are selected for their dour personas. But I suspect more that they are indoctrinated into their paranoia by an official training programme. I would really love to observe that programme sometime.

I think it's about time they started selecting their targets based on behaviour, rather than skin colour.

Last Night In Guyana

Reclining in the Tower hotel, digesting rum and Chinese food, watching CNN and blogging on my phone.

Today we zipped out to Kaieteur Falls near the Brazilian border. It was my second time, but no less fun. Kaieteur really is a natural wonder of the world.

I just realized that Venezuela is going to the polls soon, as Hugo Chavez bids for an end to term limits and gives credence to American charges of dictatorship. I am reminded of a drunken Amerindian we encountered in Kamarang a few days ago. He was ranting about Chavez's virtues,
particulary of how Chavez is, in his opinion, the champion of the the oppressed against the Americans and the "white people".

The big news today, however, is a follow-up from yesterday's farce. The transportation of the two patients, resulting in a car crash, made page 2 of the newspaper this morning. The article reported that "there were no injuries", completely missing the point that these two Amerindians, flown in from the bush for medical care, have been doubly traumatized in a world they do not understand.

When one of our number, Bekkie, went to see them at the hospital, she found a pathetic, tiny woman with a bruise on her face and a pain in her chest and no one tending to her needs. Her husband with the hip issue had been more-or-less cared for, but she had been admitted with minimal care.

In fact, she had not been fed in a day, and no one had offered her clothes or a towel. It seems the hospital only feeds you if you have your own plate. So Bekkie bought her a new nighty, a cup and plate, and a towel.

These people are impoverished, traumatized and have no one to care for them. In many ways, it would have been better for them to have stayed in the interior and suffered with their illnesses. As the Amerindians say, people come to the city hospital to die.

I am sadly reminded of the snake bite woman who was flown here and who died of the bite. Her final hours must have been horrific, spent alone and terrified in an unfriendly, dirty and alien place. It would have been better to leave her to die in her village, surrounded by love and care.

This place needs advocates for the poor and remote. Soon.

Return to Georgetown

Greetings from the lobby of the Hotel Tower in Georgetown, Guyana, where I am miraculously able to access free wifi (while mosquitos eat me alive).

What a day.

Last night, I craved rain. So a local taught me a rain summoning chant: "Mike mike musawa!" I repeated it three timesd and the heavens split open to crap down a river of unending rain. In the morning, I washed in the raised and blackened river, as nameless flotsam floated by.

I presented my snake boots to our boat captain as a gift, and was immediately beset with personal requests for more boots from everyone else in the vicinity. One 10 year old girl, who claims she wants to be a scientist, implored me, "You must remember us!"

We left Waramadong on schedule at 7:30 am on an emormous bark canoe. But this time we took with us an old man with a broken hip, who had to be lifted on in a sling, his wife, a woman with a broken arm, another abused woman with human bite marks on her arm, her baby, another woman and her baby who suffers from a strange flaccid paralysis, and a random selection of rivergoers.

Arriving in Karamang at 9:30, we were abashed to find the weather disfavourable for an aerial pickup. We lingered for hours before our two bush planes could land. Most of us, and our bags, left for Georgetown in the first plane. But two (thankfully not me) stayed behind to carry the man with the broken hip into the second plane.

You need to understand that these are remote river folk. None of them had ever been in a car, let alone an airplane, before. And now they were being compelled to fly to the nation's only city at a time of great medical distress.

Well, most of us arrived in good order and headed to the hotel to wash up. The second plane, however, was delayed 2 hours. Upon arrival, no ambulance was available to take the man with the broken hip to the hospital. Instead a station wagon was found for him and his wife, while the others went on to the hotel in another taxi.

Both vehicles took the same route. But the hotel bound vehicle was stopped because of an accident up ahead... the station wagon had crashed! The man with the broken hip was thrown forward. His wife crashed through the windshield, earning an enormous hematoma on her face. A miscreant from the crowd then attempted to steal their meager belongings. The taxi, too, was totalled, removing the sole source of income for the driver. (There is no real insurance here.) In one brief moment, three lives were altered, possibly permanently.

You also need to understand what a nightmare Georgetown public hospital is. People will attend to your basic medical needs. But no one will ask about your emotional disposition or if you understand the system or if youu have a place to go. There is plenty of tragedy to go around.

Last Day In The Interior

Once more I am huddled in my tent in Waramadong village on the Kamarang river, a distant stone's throw from the Venezuelan border, frantically squishing monstrous and nameless jungle bugs like the big sissy that I am. Outside, a torrential downpour is sending the river into frenzies as gorgeous sheet lightning frames the otherworldly flat mountains near the Venezuelan border.

Today was our last working day in Guyana. Tomorrow morning we are scheduled to pack up our tents and take a motorized canoe downriver to Kamarang, whence a bush plane will fly us the two hours to the capital city Georgetown.

But what an eventful day it has been.

While we are indeed cut off from phones, tv, most radio and all internet, news still travels astonishingly fast. Remember the poor woman who was bitten by a snake? The one whom a colleague and I had to carry up 30 feet of stairs from her canoe to the clinic? She was flown to Georgetown with her worried husband a few days ago. Today we learned that she died there.

My heart goes out to her and her family. The government pays for aboriginals to be flown out for medical care, but not for their return. The impoverished husband is now all alone in the "big" city without people who speak his dialect, facing enormous amounts of racism, and possibly without any way to get himself or his wife's corpse back home.

We had another snake bite victim right here in Waramadong. But thankfully, after spending a night in the health post (where we have cast our tents), this morning he walked home on his own power.

When I get home, I really must look into some way to get antivenin made and stored locally here.

We also made our final --and biggest-- presentation today, this time to 400 high school students. Once again, I pretty much winged it, but it went well. Half way through our condom demonstration, however, we were ordered to move on to another topic!

Which brings us to today's real drama. In the wee hours, the local principal came knocking with 2 women in tow: one a mother, the other her 13 year old daughter who had been impregnated by an older man. For some weird reason, the mother ran out to fetch the purported father, and a whole little Maury Povich show erupted in our little camp. My kingdom for a paternity kit!

I'm not sure what was resolved, if anything. But the lesson here is that these communities need counselors, community organizers (Gobama!), condoms and a greater intervention by the law.

To bed.

Another One?

Today was our first full day in Waramadong village, a remote riverbound Amerindian community notable for its gorgeous boarding school of 300-400 high school students who have been shipped in from around the region.

Guess what? We have another snake bite victim: a middle aged man with three fer-de-lance (labarria) bites on his leg. He's resting in the adjacent room right now.

There's something idyllic about a place where everyone, young and old, says good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and where children --at least outwardly-- are content to be children.

Problem is that there's a little epidemic of teen sex going on here, which is where we are targeting our message. Enter the great bugaboo of this kind of development work: the community is very religious (Seventh Day Adventists) and are forbidding us from giving out condoms because, "condoms encourage them to have sex."

People, they're already having sex! Let's at least stop them from getting diseases and babies!

Today was punctuated by a surreal meeting with the headmaster and the entire faculty, which lasted well into the blackness of the unlit night, wherein all of their frustrations with the "White man's world" and development strategies to date came to light. I found myself giving them strange advice: to take control of their situation, to start their own epidemiology projects in order to sue for government support with real data, and to take the initiative in documenting their own heritage, particularly dwindling knowledge around medicinal plants.

But we must acquiesce to their wishes. So tomorrow I will speak to 300 high school kids about condoms... While not providing any.

Up The River Without A... Toilet?

Greetings from Waramadong (hope I spelled it right.) I am encased in a tent inside the health centre as a bat and all manner of bizarre insect crash against my thin tent wall, and outside a much needed tropical rain finally begins.

This is a community 2 hours upriver from Kamarang, populated entirely by Amerindians, and serviced only by the bark canoes that laze up and down the Mazaruni and Kamarang rivers. There is no electricity or running water here, so I suspect I may have to crap in the woods. Sigh.

The snake bite woman was evacuated from Karamarang to Georgetown this morning as I gave my outdoor talk to adorable school kids. I hope she will be all right.

We are in poisonous snake endemic zone right now and I have decided to donate my boots to the community when I leave.

To bed.

What? No Ghost?

Well, it turns out my fellow travellers are not very observant. There really was someone else on the plane with us-- our cook. So no, there was no ghost.

I do have a more serious story to tell, though. This evening, well after sundown, word came that an Amerindian had arrived with a snake bite. Three of us rushed to the landing where we carried a tiny aboriginal woman from a bark canoe up 30 feet of steep steps to the clinic.

She had been bitten by a labaria --fer de lance-- 24 hours earlier. Standard bush medicine had been applied: advil and an antibiotic. That's pretty much given for everything.

She's presently lyng in bed across the way from us while her worried husband sits by her side. All our doctors could do for her was to give her steroids and antihistamines and hope for the best. We'll know in the morning.

Ghost On A Plane

Greetings from Kamarang, a community of 350 people, mostly aboriginal, set up explicitly to service the mining industry. The only contact with the outside world is via satellite phone (yes, I called my mother yesterday), so I am storing these blog posts on my phone/pda and will upload when we return to "civilization" on Friday.

To get here, we took a speedboat from Bartica to an airstrip further down the Essequibo, then flew in two 8-seater airplanes, for about an hour, toward the southwest and the Venezuelan border.

This town is essentially an airstrip, which functions as its main street, with a police station, school, hospital, general store, two guest houses and a series of bars and houses lined up along the airstrip.

We are close to the middle of nowhere. From here, one can see Mt Roraima less than a hundred miles away. The Roraima region is among the rawest, untamed jungle in the world. Its geography dates back to the origins of the world and its flora are pehistoric. The place is so untamed that Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired by the plateau to write The Lost World.

There is raw physical beauty here, enhanced by its remoteness. The general store sees visitors speaking English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, as the mining rush sees all sorts of characters sift into the region.

There was a moment of Zen as a few of us slipped away to swim in the river. There we were, soaking in an Amazon tributary in the outskirts of the rainforest as a jungle storm rolled upon us. Later, safe in our hovel, lightning and thunder bore down upon us, and the weird and wonderful sounds of the forest berated us from all directions. This aint Kansas anymore.

The funny thing is that on the flight here, I would glance occasionally to the rear of the plane where a Black dude in a red baseball cap would wave at me. At one point, he commented how much he hates flying.

What's so funny about that? Well, it turns out that no such person was on the flight. Either I was hallucinating or saw a ghost.

Tomorrow morning I will speak to the local high school about basic biology and sex education. Wish me luck!

Last Day in Bartica

Thank the gods, it rained all morning today and our session in Batavia was cancelled. Instead we planned, packed, recouped and feasted.

Yes, my friends, it's true. After 5 months of failing vegetarianisn, tonight my protein starved body once more feasted on Brazilian churasceria -- all you can east barbecued steak. Oh, my Hindu ancestors are all spazzing out in their cremation urns!

Daily battle with the roaches is made possible only by the nightly sponsorship of our friend El Dorado rum, which keeps me numb and clueless.

Tomorrow morning we take a small bush plane into the interior to offer our weird little missionary health education show to remote Amerindian communities. I'm packing now for what will be several hours of rain-soaked slogging by plane, boat and foot. Luckily my little Asus Eepc fits into a standard ziplock bag, so it might yet survive this trip.

A week ago, a similarly sized plane, also carrying Canadians, vanished in this region. British special forces are here now, as part of their regular jungle training, to help in the search.

Hopefully WE won't be the first ones to find out where they went!

Okay, off to bed.

Day 5 In Guyana - Death to All Roaches

Want to know how tired I am? (Okay, replace "tired" with "drunk"). I can't remember the name of the village we visited today. I think it was called Karao.

This was a community of about 200 people, developed 30 years ago in the wake of the mining boom. Getting there, I finally had a chance to field test my snake boots. Yes, everyone, they really are completely waterproof, as I waded knee-deep in the river and emerged perfectly dry. I proceeded with complete confidence in areas possibly filled with snakes and chiggers.

And yes, I continued to look like a complete idiot wearing the bloody things. But I'm a complete idiot with dry feet, no fear of snakes, and a funny accessory to brandish.

Today's educational intervention was very well received. I'm impressed by how smart the women of these villages are; they are more knowledgable about certain health topics than many of my university students! One recurring theme that is both surprising and suggestive for my other work is the seeming high prevalence of infertility among this population. This is something I need to give some thought to in the future.

Well, my belly continues to grow and my muscles continue to shrink. I am a shadow of my former self. I'm afraid meat has come back onto the diet (as expected). Now I must slowly slip weight training back onto the slate and beat my body back into shape. It's pretty embarrassing here to be advocating for a healthy lifestyle while sucking in my disgusting gut. I did manage to join 2 other team members on a challenging jog through Bartica yesterday; I could barely keep up!

We met a couple of fellows from Georgetown today who have put together a street theatre performance to teach locals about HIV/AIDS. They are an impressive duo, both goodlooking young Black men with advanced degrees in economics and development studies, but have chosen to forego immediate financial reward in lieu of preparing this national traveling "health soap opera." Unfortunately, we won't be able to see their show tomorrow, since we will be in Batavia doing our own show.

Speaking of all things Guyanese, this week is the 30th anniversary of the massacre of Jonestown. No one here is talking about it.

Off to bed.... or rather off to battle the cockroaches. Two fucking ENORMOUS roaches invaded my room --SHIT! One of them just buzzed my head! It's a flying beast!-- and I was up for hours hunting them down. I managed to kill one, but many more remain. These fuckers are bigger than my hand. Aieee....

Day 4 (What Happened to Day 3?) in Guyana

Closing in on midnight in Bartica. I'm typing this on Bekkie's borrowed laptop, so I don't get charged a fortune for blogging on my phone. Yes, Karan, they have internetz in Guyana now. Do tell your granny. It moves like molasses, though. And speaking of molasses --or at least the thing it turns into-- yes, Karan, you may also search for the leading brands in the USA. Do tell me if you find them: El Dorado and D'Aguiar.

Well, the team managed two live TV call-in shows, last night and this evening. Thankfully, I was not a part of it. (Especially tonight, since I'd started on the rum a bit early, and was in no condition to be placed in front of a live mic.) They did splendidly, fielding some very telling questions. My favourite phone-in question today was: why do some men ejaculate earlier than others? The way it was phrased, I wasn't sure if this was a concern over premature ejaculation or someone worried about his impending threesome.

Today was definitely a highlight of the mission. We went to the river-based community of Kartabo, population 200 or so. There, the doctors gave clinical care, and we useless members (i.e., me) engaged in some public education exercises. This really is the heart of the intervention. Of course, I had to preface our shtick with stupid jokes and finger tricks. (Those who know me know what I'm talking about.)

Nothing makes friends faster in a remote Third World community than the ability to simulate bird noises and to look like a complete buffoon. Apparently, I'm well skilled in the latter. This allowed us to talk to these women about very intimate topics, including sexual health and pregnancy planning.

In the process, I attracted the attention of about 30 adorable primary school children. At one point, all 30 --just heart breaking in their little school outfits-- gave me a tour of their village, stopping frequently to demand another riddle or a magic trick. Rarely have I seen such astoundingly beautiful children, and I can't help but worry for their futures in a community where 30 year olds look like 60, and where preventable maladies like Typhoid, HIV and TB run rampant.

Tomorrow we are off to another river community. And Sunday, we enter the thick interior, where the more physically challenging segment of this mission begins.

Day 2 In Guyana

Finally got my long awaited taste of Guyanese rum. I've missed it so.

Today we stumbled through a test case of our evolving educational intervention. While most of the clinicians actually saw patients at Bartica hospital, the rest of us attempted to engage patients waiting for care.

The lovely and forthcoming women at the prenatal clinic were my first mission. I am always impressed by how well Guyanese rural women carry themselves.

But the bulk of my morning was spent teaching basic health science concepts to people awaiting care at the diabetes and hypertension clinic. It was rewarding to meet with such receptive minds who were clearly thirsting for knowledge about their own bodies.

This evening our group was supposed to host a call-in tv show. But in true Guyanese fashion, we arrived at the studio to discover that we had been bumped for a cricket match.

Only one solution.... Hence the rum.

First Dispatch from Guyana

Greetings from the Lion's club in Bartica, Guyana. Everytime I come to Guyana, the infrastructure improves a modicum more. Thanks to the arrival of Digicell, I can now access email on my GSM smartphone! Mind you, it's costing me a fortune, so recognize how expensive this blog post -sent from my phone- is.

The original plan was to head straight into the interior to meet with remote communities. But since our irreplaceable local contact, my old friend Bekkie, has malaria, that has been postponed till next week.

Instead, this week we will deal with river-based communities within boating distance of Bartica.

I haven't had a chance to field test the snake boots yet, but rest assured it's a priority.

The trip started with a bang as we arrived in Parika to load up our boat for an hour long trek to Bartica. A smaller boat had just floated in from the interior on its own. Its sole occupant: a dead man.

No, I did not photograph the corpse. Even I have some decorum. On the plus side, this is still an unusual enough of an event to be gossip worthy. On the minus side, it's not so unusual as to warrant any gasps or flash crowds. Just another dead guy in a boat.

Off To Guyana

In an hour I head to the airport for yet another 2 week stint in Guyana. This time, however, instead of being attached to a CIDA mission, I'm joining an expedition from the Toronto-based group Veahavta.

Quite honestly, I don't know what to expect, since we're going to a region I'm unfamiliar with. But I've got snake-proof boots, a raincoat, a compass, a world phone and a very a sharp knife. So if I trip on my clumsy snake boots and land on my knife, shattering my compass in the process, I can at least rest on my raincoat and phone the city to send a dude in a boat. That's how it works, right?

Right? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyway.... I will try to blog while I'm away, but you never know what kind of electricity options will be present. So maybe you won't hear from me for 2 weeks!

The Bush Legacy

It's no secret that I detest the Bush II administration. I had the great fortune of living in Washington, DC, during the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for the start of both Bush wars, the anthrax attacks and the Beltway sniper. I remember quite well the palpable fear of the times; many believed --quite rationally-- that a dirty nuclear bomb was about to be detonated in the nation's capital. Our wills and passports were updated, and everyone seemed to have a one-way ticket out of the city in his back pocket; and the family car was stocked and fueled at all times. There was a run on the antibiotic Cipro, the most accessible defence against anthrax. Israeli nuclear/biological/gas masks were sold out for months. Everyone was preparing for the worst. Seriously, that was the tone of the time. And we all --everyone of us, even we "liberals" who disliked the man-- looked to the President to calm the distress, defend the put upon, and quell the fear, not stoke it.

But he squandered every opportunity with head-slapping regularity. How should we protect the union? Shop. Seriously, he told us to shop. When rednecks were beating up brown people because they resembled Al Qaeda, Bush went on TV and said that that behaviour was sending the wrong message. Sending the wrong message? What about defending the rights of all Americans, not just the white Christian ones? Instead of a leader of a nation, we got an ideological partisan intent on pushing an agenda crafted by PNAC nearly a decade earlier, regardless of the globo-political realities that were essentially contraindications.

But, of course, Bush's greatest failing was the insulting, criminal invasion of Iraq. I spoke out and wrote about my objections to this act early on, and got death threats for my efforts. Today, it is common for the mainstream to talk about how they were lied to about weapons of mass destruction, and had they known of such duplicity, they never would have supported the war.

I call bullshit. To many of us, the duplicity was obvious. Most famously, weapons inspector Scott Ritter appealed to anyone who would listen that the evidence was shoddy. His reward was to be demonized by all the media, not just Faux News. Months later, the new weapons inspector, Hans Blix, would suffer the same fate.

In this sense, at least, Bush was not alone in his crime. His society's institutions, particularly the spineless media, were complicit. Those who voiced dissenting opinions were quickly demonized and denied platforms: Bill Maher lost his TV show for suggesting that suicide bombers were not cowardly; the Dixie Chicks lost shows and sponsors for decrying Bush policies. But extreme racist and militaristic voices, like Anne Coulter, who called for the invasion of Muslim countries and their forced conversion to Christianity, retained their pulpits and saw their audiences and contracts grow fatter.

Bush's policies in support of torture were clearly illegal according to laws under which the USA was a signatory. The internment of prisoners without charge and trial, wiretapping without warrants, the denial of counsel and aid for detainees... all of these are acts worthy of criminal investigation. Consider the following:

"George W. Bush's speech on September 6 amounted to a public confession to criminal violations of the 1996 War Crimes Act. He implicitly admitted authorizing disappearances, extrajudicial imprisonment, torture, transporting prisoners between countries and denying the International Committee of the Red Cross access to prisoners.

"These are all serious violations of the Geneva Conventions. The War Crimes Act makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and all violations of Common Article 3 punishable by fines, imprisonment or, if death results to the victim, the death penalty."

I would add that the fomenting of an unnecessary war of aggression, based on deliberately enhanced data, that resulted in tens --if not hundreds-- of thousands of deaths of innocents, is a monstrous war crime that I believe stains the hands of George Bush.

Now, my internet friend Rondi linked to this article, which argues that we are all judging Bush too harshly. Well, I must disagree. I think history will judge him with increasing incredulity that our society allowed him to transgress as much as he did. It's amazing that the US constitution survived the Bush Presidency, and I'm convinced that one more large scale terror incident on US soil would have fully unleashed the beast, and put the final nails in the coffin of the American empire and civil liberty.

A commenter on the Western Standard blog summarized well Bush's biggest blunders:

Bush should have:

1. Stayed in Afghanistan and caught bin Laden rather than starting a second war.

2. Appointed people based on merit rather than cronyism. This isn't an ideological complaint. Harriet Miers for SCOTUS? Come on.

3. Come out unequivocally against torture. Sometimes the good guy needs to fight with one hand tied. It's not fair, but it's what makes him the good guy.

4. Got warrants for surveillance. FISA allowed immediate wiretapping with retroactive approval, with no warrant requirement at all when the targets weren't US persons. Where's the need for unauthorized wiretapping?

5. Recognized that the separation of powers is as essential today as it was when the Constitution was drafted.

I believe that hisory will record that George Bush, Jr, presided over the decline of the American empire from a global military and economic power to fragile and nearly hollow democracy on the verge of becoming a have-not nation. And, if all our hopes are realized, President Obama may preside over the transition of that former empire into a simple, stable republic that once more values the profound ideals of its genius founders.

Where Were You When President Obama Was Elected?

It's 11:oopm Nov 4th, 2008, and Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States. Welcome back to the world, my American friends. You have one fewer reason to hang your heads. You elected George Bush twice, convincing us that you had all lost your minds. But now you turn around 180 degrees and show the world a remarkably new and encouraging, sane and rational face.

I find that a certain wet substance is blurring my vision at this historic moment. Four decades ago, Martin Luther King was killed for advocating for basic civil rights for Black Americans. There are Blacks who voted today who were not allowed to vote when they were younger. There are graves visited regularly where are buried selfless heroes who were murdered for registering Black voters in the 60s. There are Black Americans who voted today who, as youths, were not permitted to go to school, not permitted to use public bathrooms or drink from public water fountains, and not permitted to ride in the front of the city buses.

Not so long ago, Black Americans were property. They were legally considered three fifths of a human being. Debate even raged over whether they possessed souls. It is truly a heavenly wonder that this same nation has elected a Black man as its leader, within living memory of some of those dark days.

It does not matter that this particular Black man does not have a family history of slavery, having as his origins a direct Kenyan lineage that bypassed the American slave trade. The truth is that any non-White person living in the USA inherits the legacy of slavery. A Black man in America is a Black man in America, regardless of his actual origins.

Much has been made of Obama's biracial nature, of how he has supposedly chosen to be considered Black for political reasons; he is, after all, equally White. But the truth is that historically American law has decreed anyone with more than one eighth African heritage to be Black; that's how they decided who had to sit in the back of the bus. And the further truth is that, due to generations of the rape of slaves, every Black person in America has some White blood in him.

Regardless of your political stripes, you must be moved by the ascension of a Black man to the Oval office. Forever more, Black children in the USA will have as their role models not just singers and athletes, but now the President of the United States. The image of what it means to be American will be profoundly changed, as the First Family will now be comprised of Michele Obama and her two Black daughters. Take a moment to visualize that.

Why is this important? Well, when I lived in Washington, DC, seven years ago, I was dismayed to find on local dating sites White women whose profiles said they were only looking for White men (which is their right) because --and here's the catch-- they prefer to date "all American men". These were not cartoonish redneck racists, but average women working in offices in the nation's capital. The lesson was that so many of the White mainstream unconsciously and reflexively equate "all American" with "White". The same is true among a lot of people in Canada, too.

This is the hurdle that all visible minorities deal with: convincing the mainstream to change its iconography, language and symbolism to be inclusive of our identities. Yes, it's important. To see a Black First Family will be a transformative, revelatory experience in both the USA and Canada. Today's decision has essentially modified what it means to be American.

And what of John McCain? His very generous concession speech was a taste of the old McCain, a man who would have made an excellent President. It's his bad luck to have been saddled with the regressive figure of Sarah Palin and to have been forced to run against the epic, historic character.

We should all remember where we were at 11pm on November 4th. I was in my parent's living room in Toronto, watching the BBC. I chose to be alone lest others see my sissy tears. Where were you?

This Is It

Only a few hours till the polls open for what is feeling like the most important federal election in modern US history. All signs point to an easy Obama victory, but anything can (and usually does) happen.

I'm stopping the Deonandia poll right now. You will recall that the question was, "Who do you think will win the US election?" From 35 respondents, 62.9% called it for Obama/Biden, while 35.7% think McCain/Palin will pull it off. Four miscreants chose "Other". Bless their twisted little hearts, since I am assuming they're clinging to my 8 year of prediction of a Gore presidency in 2009.

Further to all things electoral, The Other Ray sends us 20 Things You Didn't Know About Elections. But the more touching story is that Barack Obama's grandmother, the woman who raised him, died one day before possibly seeing her grandson make history as the first Black man to be President of the USA. But you know what? That lovely lady managed to vote in the advance polls. A more apt Hollywood ending I could not imagine.

I can't help but think that Obama is still a young man in his 40s, yet he is now without both parents and the grandparents who raised him. As one whose adoration of his own parents has inspired him in all his ventures, I have a hard time imagining the void Obama would face when achieving this most exultant of accomplishments without any of his elder inspirations present. Indeed, I am ever impressed by the calm with which he has faced such shortfalls. If a lengthy and trying campaign is an apt test of a candidate's temperament for the Oval Office, no man has impressed me as much as Obama has these past months.

No, he was not perfect. He said a few dumb things. He kowtowed to traditional US electoral gods, like the Israel lobby. And he has not been the transformational messianic figure of a Kennedy or Roosevelt. But he has been the needed man for his time: very smart, globally bred, multi-everything, calm and reasoned, difficult to anger, and eminently responsible.

And no, upon his ascension to Office --if all goes as foreseen-- America's problems will not vanish in a haze of divine splendour. Rather, quite the opposite will happen, as the fomenting problems of the world, exacerbated beyond all reason by the criminal reign of the Bushies, descend upon Obama, who will have to bear it all without the condescending swagger of his predecessors to hide behind, and with the eyes of a still very racist nation watching for even the smallest of missteps to mar the tenure of the first Black man to aspire to national leadership.

An old mentor put to me best: "the best defence against racism is excellence." Obama has embraced that edict. But anything less that perfection will be seen by his detractors as failure for him, his party, his supporters and indeed his entire race.

It's all such a shame. In so many ways, America --still seen by many as the leading nation of the world-- is far behind everyone else; in the arena race relations, in particular.

As one commenter once put it, this is America's last chance. If voters fail to usher in to office the one candidate who is universally globally acclaimed, yet who also brandishes the intellectual might to actually face the harder issues, then the Empire will not only have crumbled (for that is obviously inevitable), but she will fall rapidly without the cushioning empathy and support of the community of nations.

The drama unfolds in six hours. Tears will flow, both in joy and in defeat. How best to note this occasion? Why, with an SNL clip about Mark Wahlberg talking to animals, of course:

My Friend The F@cker

Happy Hallowe'en, Diwali and Eid Mubarak everyone. And thanks to the students of the Faculty of Health Sciences who graciously invited me to their big Hallowe'en bash last night. (I only stayed for an hour, so did not manage to jeopardize my career, for those of you who are curious.)

I also want to congratulate resident Deonandia villain Matthew "Darth" Vadum for his enormously popular segment on the Daily Show this past Thursday. If you watch it, you'll understand today's subject heading. Here's the clip:



Now, Matt and I go back 25 years, but have have never agreed on anything political. Indeed, we have had more than one heated argument over things social, economic and political over the years, and have taken that opposition to our various blogs and online personas. Despite all that, I still consider him a good friend, and have watched with pride as he has risen the media ranks in the USA. So I will make no disparaging comments about his segment, even though the Interwebs are just ringing with discussion over it. Just Google "daily show vadum" and see all the hits! I will, however, offer a link to Matt's response to some of the criticism he has received here.

Knowing Matt the way I do, I can assure you all that none of the criticism or any of the mean comments faze him in any way. So I'm sure he'll enjoy your comments, as well.

What's it all about? Why, Barack Obama, of course. If all goes as planned, Obama will be ordained as the first non-white President of the United States. Anything can happen in the next 48 hours, though, most notably an assassination attempt, at least one of which has already been foiled. But failing that possibility, Barack Obama will be the first Black man to hold the station of Abraham Lincoln, the President who is given historical credit for having made this all possible.

I don't think the importance of this fact has been adequately portrayed in the mainstream media. Centuries of the legacy of slavery have finally led us to this momentous event, the ascension of a self-identified Black man (though he is actually biracial) to the highest office in the land, within one generation of segregation. It really does bring tears to my eyes. There was a story of an ancient Black grandmother who voted for the first time ever, at the age of 95, then collapsed in tears afterward. It seems that she never expected to live long enough to be able to vote for a Black President.

But why must it happen now, when the American star is in decline? As one writer put it, what America is electing now is a Janitor-in-Chief, to clean up the mess of the past 8 years. And as another person put, "Right when the thing is about to go under, they hand it over to the black man."

Barack Obama, love him or hate him, is at least a man of his time, and it's hard not to cheer for him because of it. He's the son of an African immigrant and white American woman, who came together in love despite the social barriers of their time. He was raised in poverty, then taken to Indonesia to be raised by a Muslim Indonesian stepfather, gaining a biracial half-sister. Orphaned as a young man, he was then raised by his white American grandparents, again quite poor. By the force of his intellect and will alone, he garnered scholarships that permitted him to attend the finest schools in the world. And as an older brother, he took care of his orphaned sister, allowing her to earn a PhD and become a scholar at his level.

How dare the GOP depict this brave man, who lifted himself from hardship, as an "elite" simply because he embodied the American dream? If anything, he resembles the Randian Libertarian ideal of a man, whose strength of character and self belief transcended temporal barriers and marshaled the resources and opportunities around him. Unlike John McCain and George Bush, Barack Obama was not born into wealth, power and influence, nor did he marry into it. If anything, he was born into a world of barriers to wealth, power and influence --like many Black Americans-- and yet overcame them all with grace and civility.

If/when he wins the election on Tuesday, a new chapter will open in the Book of America, and indeed in the Book of the World. What remains to be seen is whether this chapter will be one of pain or one of redemption.