Tuesday, January 19, 2010

“O'Brien: Haiti's cultural core suffers, too - CNN” plus 4 more

“O'Brien: Haiti's cultural core suffers, too - CNN” plus 4 more

O'Brien: Haiti's cultural core suffers, too - CNN

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 08:14 PM PST

Jacmel, Haiti (CNN) -- Much was lost in the town of Jacmel, Haiti's cultural center.

The nation's only film school has lost two buildings. The huge, colorful paper mache floats for carnaval, just 10 days away, are crushed. The mountains of sheet music for the classes at Ecole Musique are scattered in the rubble of a street named La Berenthe, the labyrinth. It's estimated 10 percent of the town's residents have perished.

And with them they took a country's film festival, its music studios, the paintings and masks that draw tourists and Haitians to this seaside town of 40,000.

Left behind are crushed limbs and brain injuries, nursed in an open-air hospital that replaced the real one. Cuban doctors had been working with Haitians when the earthquake hit, and they have continued their collaboration outside.

"Where there is life, there is hope," says Dr. Silda Del Torro of Cuba while standing over a 4-year-old girl who has drifted in and out of consciousness.

iReport: Looking for loved ones

Del Torro says the head injuries are very hard to treat under these conditions, and she worries they will be left with crippling injuries, or worse. The doctors working in the open air also fear they have reached the limits of their abilities. They aren't orthopedists or anesthesiologists, and some patients with crushed limbs are developing gangrene. There are surgeries that need to be done.

This seaside town is just over an hour's drive from the epicenter of the earthquake. It has an airport and a port that bring in tourists. But much of the growing international relief effort has been focused on Port-au-Prince until now.

The residents dug out trapped neighbors largely on their own for days. But intrepid Jacmel residents got out word they needed help through the Internet, texts, Facebook and YouTube.

Latest updates | Twitter | Full coverage

The Cine Institute was left homeless, but its young filmmakers pulled their equipment from the rocks and moved into a building next to the airport. They set up generators, powered up laptops and started moving visual images across oceans in a cry for help.

"We just got the information out. Our filmmakers just went out and started shooting and sent it away even as their own families were being affected, their homes being lost," said David Belle, institute director.

Their plea was heard, and Colombia rescue workers arrived just in time to pull a child from the rubble. The Chileans sent doctors. Sri Lanka sent security. The French assembled a clinic where parents had dug for a trapped child unsuccessfully for days. Canada brought in the big guns -- a Navy ship and Army helicopter with engineers and supplies.

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"We brought in light engineering equipment, drills, the jaws of life, anything that can be carried portably," said Robert Brown, a naval commander from Halifax, Canada.

The United States joined the effort Tuesday, announcing they will fly in C130s with supplies that will assist the Canadians in making Jacmel's airport the center of the rescue efforts to southern provinces not touched by the aid sent to Port-au-Prince.

High-resolution images of damage

But this town needs so much more than just immediate relief. The days without aid wore down their psyche and hampered relief efforts.

"We could have saved so many more people with these guys," remarked a film student as he watched the French set up tents and begin treating a growing line of wounded.

Yards away, a teenager music student searches for his flute in the remains of his flattened house. So many of the colorful buildings are crushed and damaged. So much of the artistry that made Jacmel special is gone.

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Feature: - Joy Online

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 08:28 PM PST

It has been recognized the world over that the youth constitute the most important human resource that can contribute significantly to the overall development of a nation. There is seemingly little being done to harness this tremendous potential which will determine our strength and resilience in pursuing our social, economic and political goals. The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity as aptly captured by a former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

Since 1948 till 1999 the youth organizations have undergone diverse metamorphism with frequent change of names without any meaningful forward marching in the political, social, economical and cultural advancement of the state of the Ghanaian youth. A draft policy document went through various levels of consideration before being approved by cabinet and subsequently launched on 21st of July, 1999. In 2001, a youth empowerment committee set up by the government recommended among other things, the review of the 1999 youth policy. The document has since undergone a review until now.

The development of the youth pre and post independence in retrospect shows how committed the government of Ghana is towards the youth. It becomes incontrovertible therefore to say that government needs the political will to be able to face the challenges militating against the youth after 53 years of independence.

The Youth, which is defined as young women and men who fall within the age bracket of 15 - 35 years. This group constitutes about 33% as a heterogeneous segment of Ghana's population according to the 2000 Ghana Housing and Population Census. This segment of the population constitutes the human resource potential which demands effective harnessing and mobilization to accelerate the rate of development of the country.

The youth in totality can be holistically categorized as rural and urban, disabled and able-bodies, educated and uneducated, employed and unemployed, in-school and out-of-school, organized and unorganized, professional and highly technical youth. The breakdown of the youth has varied characteristics, needs and aspirations as well as diverse opportunities and constrains.

There are however many major challenges facing the Ghanaian youth who seem incapacitated in attaining their dreams and aspirations which are not farfetched. Some factors affecting the development of the youth include: lack of educational, unemployment and underemployment; urbanization and modernization; growing incidences of conflicts and increasing juvenile crime; erosion of social support systems for young persons and the changing roles of the family leading to 'streetism'; high vulnerability to hunger, malnutrition and disease; high incidence of drug and substance abuse; inadequate recreational and counseling facilities; inadequate mentoring structures for inculcating morals and values in the youth; high vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and inadequate opportunities for youth participation in decision making.

The youth wing of all political parties must synergize their energies in the implementation of the national youth policy. It is important to note that any atom of partisan politics directed towards the national youth policy, especially by any youth or group of youth, must be thrown into the dungeon. When the youth do not desist from pursuing their parochial interest, political ideologies and idiosyncrasies, we shall soon carry calabash on our heads parading the corridors of our pensioner grandee in cacophony for leftover food.

Our members of parliament who are the communication link between their constituents and government have played some roles in facilitating youth independence. However much is desired of our MPs since through their parliamentary actions that issues concerning the youth can be addressed. This write-up seeks to humbly engage our honourable MPs to add their voices and help pass the National Youth Policy. It is worth noting that Ghana is the only member of the Commonwealth that has not implemented a National Youth Policy despite the fact that it has ratified many international treaties. The media is as well encouraged to highlight issues of interest to the youth.

The purpose of this policy document is to establish the identity and status of the Ghanaian youth within the framework of government policy and to provide a direction for youth activities and involvement in national development.

For the nation to derive maximum benefit from this major resource, the youth, in my opinion, will need to be imbued with high societal values or qualities such as a high sense of responsibility, duty and service, truthfulness, integrity, courage, dexterity and loyalty. These qualities are highly esteemed and are crucial to the building of a healthy and progressive nation.

The concept of youth empowerment is derived from the need to enable young people to have a say in decisions which affect them. Commonwealth Youth Ministers in a Communiqué issued at the end of their conference in Trinidad and Tobago in 1995 noted that pursuing the objective of youth empowerment gave young people the maximum opportunity to contribute to the economic, social and cultural advancement of their families and countries and to gain self-fulfillment.

It is my cherished hope that with the implementation of the National Youth Policy, the desired environment will be created to enable the young women and men of this country to realize their full potential to contribute meaningfully to the overall development of the nation.


Credit: Maxwell Klu
Student Activist
University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa
Maxckenzy2001@yahoo.co.uk 0249554990

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Tough Love Needed for Haiti - Article.nationalreview.com

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 08:57 PM PST

The images from Haiti are, if anything, only getting worse. What was left of an already fragile society is starting to break down, as violence and chaos take over. Despite the heroic efforts of aid workers and the battered Haitian government, it looks as if Haiti's problems will persist well into the 21st century, long after the debris is cleared and the houses are rebuilt.

While the scope of the tragedy in Haiti is nearly impossible to exaggerate, it's important to remember that last week's earthquake was so deadly because Haiti is Haiti.

If a similarly powerful earthquake were to hit much more densely populated San Francisco or Los Angeles, the death toll would be much lower. That's an amazing thing when you consider that American cities are crammed with skyscrapers while Port-au-Prince's skyline was, for the most part, one story high. Indeed, as others have noted, when a 7.1 earthquake hit the Bay Area two decades ago, 67 people were killed. Meanwhile, the Haitian death toll is almost unknowable, but almost certainly over 100,000 and climbing.







It's hardly news that poverty makes people vulnerable to the full arsenal of Mother Nature's fury. The closer you are to living in a state of nature, the crueler nature will be — which is one reason why people who romanticize tribal or pre-capitalist life (that would be you, James Cameron) tend to do so from a safe, air-conditioned distance and with easy access to flushing toilets, antibiotics, dentistry, and Chinese takeout.

The sad truth about Haiti isn't simply that it is poor, but that it has a poverty culture. Yes, it has had awful luck. Absolutely, it has been exploited, abused, and betrayed ever since its days as a slave colony. So, if it alleviates Western guilt to say that Haiti's poverty stems entirely from a legacy of racism and colonialism, fine. But Haiti has been independent and the poorest country in the hemisphere for a long time.

Even if blame lies everywhere except among the victims themselves, it doesn't change the fact that Haiti will never get out of grinding poverty until it abandons much of its culture.

When Haitians leave Haiti for the U.S. they get richer almost overnight. This isn't simply because wages are higher here or welfare payments more generous. Coming to America is a cultural leap of faith, physically and psychologically. Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz note in their phenomenal new book, From Poverty to Prosperity, that low-skilled Mexican laborers become 10 to 20 times more productive simply by crossing the border into the United States. William Lewis, former director of the McKinsey Global Institute, found that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican agricultural laborers in the U.S. were four times more productive than the same sorts of laborers in Brazil.

Why? Because American culture not only expects hard work, but teaches the unskilled how to work hard.

It's true that Haiti has few natural resources, but neither does Japan or Switzerland. What those countries do have are what Kling and Schulz call valuable "intangible assets" — the skills, rules, laws, education, knowledge, customs, expectations, etc. that drive a prosperous society to generate prosperity. That is where the real wealth of nations is to be found — not in factories, oil deposits, and gold mines, but in our heads and in the habits of our hearts. Indeed, a recent World Bank study found that 82 percent of America's wealth could be found in our intangible assets.

Haiti's poverty stems from its lack of intangible capital. It shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and yet the Dominicans have six times the GDP (and are far better stewards of their environment).

Collectively, Haiti depends on the kindness of strangers much more than on itself. Before the earthquake, Haiti had 10,000 non-governmental organizations working there, the highest rate per capita in the world. In 2007, notes Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, it had ten times as much foreign aid as investment. If people are determined to blame Haiti's problems on someone other than the Haitians, perhaps they could start by looking at the damage done by the foreign-aid industry.

I admit that I have a soft spot for Haiti, in part because the country is such an incredible underdog, and because I've always admired the Haitian-Americans I've known. I also have Haitians in my family — my brother is married to a Haitian immigrant.

So I say this with the best of intentions. Once the dead are buried, the wounded and sick healed, and the rubble cleared, it's time for some tough love. Otherwise, Americans will just be back to clear the debris after the next disaster.

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Google books opponents propose public guardian - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 08:57 PM PST

In a letter to members of Congress, the Open Book Alliance suggests a neutral system that provides greater access to books, respects the rights of authors and publishers, and doesn't grant undue power to any single company. The coalition, whose members include Google rivals Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com and Yahoo Inc., called on the Mountain View Internet giant to halt its plan.

The proposal comes as the clock is ticking down on the Google Books legal deal, which has drawn objections from library groups, academics, competitors and the Department of Justice over privacy issues, the fate of unclaimed works and the amount of control handed to a private corporation. The final hearing in federal court is on Feb. 18.

Peter Brantley, co-founder of the Open Book Alliance, said the group wanted to ensure that digital books are available in forms other than the one Google is pushing forward.

"Let's say no, let's take a step back and let's all work together in the way that copyright law should be amended," he said.

Google has consistently said that its plan doesn't preclude other libraries of digital works, and that authors and publishers who don't want to participate have the right to opt out.

"The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent it," a Google spokesperson said.

Groups representing students, minorities and the disabled have expressed support for the settlement, saying it will bring unparalleled information access to communities often cut off from it.

Brantley's letter to members of Congress argues that only a "neutral, civic, not-for-profit organization," such as the Library of Congress, can deliver the full public benefit of a digital library and ensure maximum participation.

In a similar approach, France's national library administers a database of French works, called Gallica. The country's culture minister announced plans this month to use it as the basis for a larger online library.

Google reached a proposed settlement with writers, the Authors Guild and members of the Association of American Publishers in October 2008, two years after the parties filed suit against the company claiming copyright infringement for publishing samples of scanned books online. Under the deal, Google will pay $125 million and establish a Books Rights Registry to identify and compensate rights holders. Recent amendments narrowed the class to authors and publishers of works in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, among other changes.

Brantley declined to say whether any legislators have offered to introduce a bill on this matter. Congress has attempted unsuccessfully to tackle some of these issues in the past.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, co-authored a bill that would have addressed the thorny topic of unclaimed or orphaned works, but it died in committee.

"We are here today because somebody in the private sector decided to seek forgiveness rather than permission," she said in reference to Google Books at a September hearing. "That, in a way, is what this settlement is. It's a resolution of the rights that Congress could not accomplish."

No Android phones for China

Google Inc. has postponed the release in China of two wireless phones that would use the company's software in a reaction against efforts to hack its internal networks.

The phones, which use Google's Android software, were manufactured by Motorola Inc. and Samsung. They were to be sold by China Unicom starting today.

Last week, Google said it might pull out of China after a series of cyber attacks that the company said resulted in the theft of intellectual property.

Source: MarketWatch

E-mail James Temple at jtemple@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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'Art event' or problem party? Creative soul, city butt heads - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 07:38 PM PST

Kingman and his lawyers, and the city and its lawyers, have squabbled over his monthly events for five years. He's been fined, cited and infiltrated by the undercover Buzzkill Police. Kingman says he's spent thousands of dollars trying to comply with city codes that govern occasional events. He even hires off-duty police officers to do security, and maintains a strict guest list, which he says makes his events private, and thus not beholden to city law.

Muhannah S. Kakish has been to many of Kingman's events. "The city is making a big mistake," Kakish said. "He makes you feel wanted. Artists, lawyers, doctors and regular people get to experience a part of his soul."

But the city that has hung banners for blocks around Kingman's neighborhood proclaiming it an art-friendly district says the soul experience is over.

Kingman's studio is a jumbled fantasy-scape of sculptures, lumber, junk and contraptions made from garbage. A large board studded with plastic water bottles stuffed with colored lights flashes near a large image of Superman made from crushed Coke and Miller Lite cans. Several sitting areas are scattered around the warehouse, including one with an Alice in Wonderland theme. There is a giant Jesse Ventura bobblehead. Outside, a bronze sculpture of a reclining man with a flower growing out of him is also a fire pit, so that when lit, it appears the man is burning.

"There is just something about the human figure on fire," Kingman said.

Ricardo Cervantes, deputy director of licenses for the city, certainly agrees with that. He said Kingman's working studio is simply not safe for large gatherings as it contains flammable materials and welding tanks.

It would be tempting to paint Cervantes as the leader of the devious Fun Police, but he quickly volunteered that "I'm an art lover. It's one of the areas in school that I kind of excelled at," he said. "I know about throwing a pot and painting."

But Cervantes is also pragmatic. On vacations, he said, the first thing he does is check the doors and staircases of his hotel. "When you can meld art and entertainment safely, wonderful," he said.

While Cervantes takes his vision from the rules, Kingman's came to him in a Mexican dream, now becoming unfulfilled, that he had while in Chichen Itza. Kingman dreamed a cabin boy whispered in his ear, telling him how to push his work to a "higher power" by changing his focus from the individual to "community."

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