Archive for May 21st, 2009
Mexico City Tells Swine Flu ‘Adios’
4:52 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Health|Latin America|mexico|society · Comments Off
21 May 2009
While the swine flu might have claimed its latest victims stateside, Mexico City – plagued by the stigma of the disease for weeks now — is officially declaring the illness to be yesterday’s news. The city has lowered the alert level as the Mayor, Marcel Ebrard, tells citizens it to take a chill pill, since the megapolis has reached a milestone in its fight against the flu: one full week with no new cases. The AP reports:
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said the change means the risk of contagion is low, the situation is under control and the images of countless people wearing blue surgical masks in cars, sidewalks, restaurants and theaters can be consigned to history.“There’s no longer any need” to wear masks, Ebrard said. “Now you can come to the city without any risk.”
City Health Secretary Armando Ahued said nobody has been hospitalized with respiratory infections in the last three days, and no swine flu cases have been confirmed since May 14. “We are seeing a 96.1 percent drop in cases, and that’s why we are dropping the alert level to green today,” Ahued said.
The flu has meant a sharp dip in tourism to the city and indeed to the entire country, so I assume that as small as this milestone might be, the capital is anxious to milk it for all its worth in an effort to get tourists back to the Mexican capital with a quickness.
Via / AP
Image via xaminmo on Flickr
Abuse in Irish Catholic Orphanages
9:05 am By la Macha · children|Controversia|crime|Religion|Violence · 1 Comment
21 May 2009
The following article about abuse in Irish orphanages followed all too familiar patterns: colonized nation, defenseless kids with no family or little contact with family, Catholic church, sexual and physical violence. But even as we can make generalities about the patterns that inevitably present themselves in cases like this, there is no way to escape the horrible singularity of the pain and trauma survivors deal with on a daily basis:
Buckley, the daughter of an unwed mother, said the orphanage was closed to the outside world and the children inside lived a life of slave labor manufacturing rosaries. She said there was no way to escape the ritual humiliation, beatings and rape regardless of whether the children achieved their quota of producing 60 rosaries per day.
She didn’t track down her parents, an Irish mother and Nigerian father, until her 40s, when she became one of the first to demand justice for her stolen youth.
“I didn’t have a childhood,” said Buckley, who recalled being constantly cold, hungry and thirsty as the nuns denied children water to keep them from wetting their beds. She was severely beaten by a nun for trying to smuggle out a letter detailing the abuse.
The Catholic religious orders that ran 52 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s apologized after the report’s release, speaking of their shame and regret. Abuses also took place at 216 other church-run institutions for children, which included orphanages, hostels, regular schools and schools for the disabled.
Over and over stories of abuse come out–every where in the world it seems–Canada, the U.S., Australia, Europe. The only area where investigations never seem to quite follow through is Latin America. Are we to believe that violence and sexual abuse ran rampant in church run facilities throughout the entire world, with the exception of Latin America?
How is Latin@ history intertwined with church sanctioned sexual abuse?
Houston Police Chief Opposes Immigration Enforcement Policy
8:57 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia|houston|Immigration|Politics|society · 2 Comments
21 May 2009
Yesterday, Maegan told us about a controversial government policy that would check the immigration status of every person currently being held in U.S. jails. While that in itself is already ruffling a lot of feathers, a similar program, 287(g), is being instated throughout the country, this one more worrisome due to the the other dimension it appears to be taking: local enforcement of immigration laws by police. The Police Chief of one of the cities participating in 287(g), my hometown of Houston, says while his force is signed up for the jail revision part, he is “worried” about the element of local law enforcement checking out the immigration status of everyone it comes in contact with:
Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt was in Washington on Wednesday, supporting a study criticizing the controversial immigration program known as 287(g), in which his department is planning to participate.Hurtt said the department has applied for 287(g) training for Houston police to use federal immigration databases but only to check on those booked into the city’s two jails.
He said he favors that portion of the program but is opposed to the street-level phase of the federal immigration law, allowing local and state police to make immigration arrests and process offenders for deportation.
The yearlong study of 287(g) by the nonpartisan Police Foundation was critical of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, concluding it erodes law enforcement’s public safety mission, diverts scarce resources, increases exposure to liability to charges of racial profiling, and heightens fear in communities.
“Immigration enforcement by local police is counterproductive to community policing efforts. It undermines the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities, could lead to charges of racial profiling, and increases our response time to urgent calls for service,” Hurtt said during a Capitol Hill press event in Washington.
Yes, folks, the police chief of a city with millions of immigrants doesn’t even feel right about this. What does that tell us?
Hurtt says that Houston’s signing up with the jail revision element of 287(g) wasn’t his idea either, but rather Houston Mayor Bill White, who adopted the action after a police officer was shot by an undocumented immigrant.
Hurtt is apparently quite disturbed by the turn this is taking for Houston, and the Houston Chronicle reports he is considering job offers from other cities, including San Francisco.
Via / Chron.com
Torture Sqads in Gitmo
8:18 am By la Macha · Controversia|Cuba|military|military interventions|Myanmar|Obama|Uncategorized|Violence|Washington DC · Comments Off
21 May 2009Several things have amused me (in a horribly ironic way) in the recent discussions about “Where will the Gitmo Detainees Stay? Not in My Back Yard!“–not the least of which includes the assumption that Cubans really want a bunch of detainees that hate the U.S. in *their* backyards.
But finding out about the torture thug group, The Immediate Reaction Force, has really topped everything. Democracy Now! has an excellent report up about the IRF’s–including descriptions of how these forces have gang beaten men for infractions like having two Styrofoam cups in their cells instead of one.
And while much of the focus has been on the tactical use of torture at Guantanamo, almost no attention had been paid to a parallel force that was torturing prisoners in a variety of ways, including waterboarding them, and that is this riot squad of sorts that you referred to called the Immediate Reaction Force. The prisoners and their lawyers at Guantanamo call it the “Extreme Repression Force.” Read more…
The DREAM Goes Ivy League : Harvard Pres Supports DREAM Act
8:02 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · boston|Education|Immigration · Comments Off
21 May 2009
If Harvard supports the DREAM Act, why aren’t you?
Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust yesterday backed federal legislation that would clear the way for illegal immigrant students to apply for legal residency, an endorsement that stunned students and drew criticism for a president who has largely steered clear of fierce debates.
Many organizers on the ground at Harvard deserve much props for their work around this issue, especially Sanctuary editor Kyle , who got his own shout out in the Boston Globe. Harvard now, Congress mañana?
Via / Citizen Orange
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