I came across an article on B.C. Binning, a Canadian artist who died in 1976, and the reference to the exhibition of his art work this morning in the Vancouver Sun.  I had never heard of him but will go to VAG to see the show as I like the pictures of his work.  He also did several mosaics in Vancouver that I would like to see:

- B.C. Electric Building (now called The Electra) at the corner of Burrard and Nelson;

- a mosaic mural in the former Imperial Bank of Commerce (at the corner of Granville and Dunsmuir), now a Shoppers Drug Mart.

Mazel tov!  What a great guy.

TPL - this is for you!

at http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/povmap/downloads/maps/atlas/cover_front_matter.pdf

During my catch up on counterpunch.org I came across the name Susan George.  As I recalled, I read her work in the late 80s so I did a google.  The books she authored at this time that I read were:

George, Susan (1990): Ill Fares the Land, Penguin

George, Susan (1987): A Fate Worse than Debt, Penguin

She is now

"the author of a dozen books translated into many languages. She is vice-president of the French anti-globalisation movement, Attac, and board chairperson of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam"  (quote from http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/susan_george/profile.html).

I’ll have to read her more recent work.

There are other writers/thinkers that I read in the late 1980s/early 1990s that I would like to re-read or read what they are writing about now.  This includes a female writer who wrote about the evangelical Christian movement in Latin America and I forget her name (it will come to me eventually!)

I saw a reference on counterpunch.org to a Noam Chomsky interview on Democracy Now on January 1st/07 where he talks about politics in Latin America … I will have to look this up.

After reading the articles on Oaxaca it makes me want to go back there!  I do want to see my niece in Guadalajara which is about at an 8 hour bus ride from Mexico City in the completely opposite direction.  If I visit Guadalajara and Oaxaca, it would mean 16 hours on the bus from Mexico City to Guadalajara and back … then another six hour bus ride to Oaxaca.  Can I bear this?  I have done these maniac trips through Mexico on the bus in the past but as I get older it is more difficult.  I still have a week to figure this out - I have two Mexico travel guides out from the wonderful Squamish library and close to three weeks vacation!  I leave Squamish next Saturday.

January 4, 2007

Will There be "Huesos?"

Report from Oaxaca

By KATHY RENTENBACH

"Oaxaca had been roiling for months. The Teachers’ strike in May. The attack by the military police at 4:30 AM. in June. The APPO. The new people’s government. Megamarches. Snipers. Deaths. Torture. Arbitrary arrests. Constant military presence. Tanks. The military invasions in November. Oaxaca, beautiful tourist city. Destination for many Americans. World heritage site."

continued at http://counterpunch.org/rentenbach01042007.html

January 9, 2007

Thirty Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct

When the Truth Doesn’t Matter

By LEONARD PELTIER

"Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."

U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

"For over 30 years I have sought justice from the United States Courts which have failed to provide me with any relief despite acknowledging numerous acts of Government misconduct. For example, after my trial, my lawyers issued Freedom of Information Act Requests ("FOIA") and discovered that the Government fabricated the ballistics evidence which it used at trial to argue that I shot the agents in cold blood. Once we revealed this egregious misconduct, the Government has had to admit on several occasions in open Court and before the Parole Commission that it could not prove I shot the agents and that it could not prove who shot the agents."

continued at http://counterpunch.org/peltier01092007.html

January 10, 2007

A Twelfth Night Tale

A Walk in Oaxaca

By PETER LINEBAUGH

"This is the story of how we took a walk in Oaxaca and went to the zócalo, or city square, for a shoe shine.

We were there for Christmas with friends and a winter holiday. Flying from the Ann Arbor ‘peace movement’ with its silent [sic] vigils and its Zionist virus we were aching for a change of scene, weather, and political outlook. There were three of us, and we were bearing gifts: Michaela, my partner, carrying medicines, Riley, a sophomore in high school, our daughter, bringing an abundance of expectancy, and me, historian, bringing a copy of my study of the commons and Magna Carta. We wanted somehow to step into another possible world, healthy, hopeful, and chartered."

continued at http://counterpunch.org/linebaugh01102007.html

Weekend Edition
January 12 / 14, 2007

The Zapatista Year Begins Again

Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas

By JOHN ROSS

Oventik, Chiapas.

"The unmistakable reedy voice of Subcomandante Marcos floated eerily over craggy peaks and deep hollows illuminated by a full moon that had opportunistically parted the ghostly mountain mists just an hour after midnight this past New Year’s Eve. Speaking entirely in Tzotzil, the language of the People of the Bat ("Tzotz") or highland Maya, the Zapatistas leader reviewed the pluses and minuses of the past year to thousands of Indians and outlanders gathered at this "caracol" or political/cultural center in Los Altos of Chiapas, on the 13th anniversary of this unique indigenous uprising."

continued at http://counterpunch.org/ross01122007.html

January 17, 2007

Oaxaca’s Rising

Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls

By JOHN ROSS     

Oaxaca

"The walls of this city of painters have been freshly whitewashed on orders from a much-lampooned governor, the whiteout financed by transnational tourist moguls to promote the illusion that peace has returned to Oaxaca.  Neat squares of blankness cancel out the visual rebellion that exploded on the streets of this colonial city, once declared the patrimony of humanity by the United Nations. There were seven months of dramatic confrontations between striking teachers and their allies in the Oaxaca Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO) and security forces backing the despotic governor Ulisis Ruiz whose removal from office the insurgents demand. Over 200 prisoners were taken during the skirmishing and another 60 are listed as disappeared. 19 dissidents have been gunned down by Ruiz’s death squads."

continued at http://counterpunch.org/ross01172007.html