Archive for July, 2008
Haiti: Act III, Scene 1? Check! Scene 2? Still in Development
The lower house of the Haitian Parliament voted by a landslide to approve Michele Pierre-Louis’ nomination as Prime Minister. The nomination had appeared destined for failure when questions about the non-profit leader’s moral core arose and became the subject of an intense political debate. Early supporters of the nominee abstained, fearing that their parties would be cast aside when time came to divide up the spoils of power.
Ira Gollobin: Mentor and Friend
Ira Gollobin was a remarkable lawyer, a brilliant strategist, and a superb mentor and teacher. He did it all with deep humility that arose, not from false modesty, but from a profound understanding of a lawyer’s role in the political arena.
DBR: The Haitian-American Music Sensation You Never Heard of
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a composer and violonist who seems determined to create new sounds and harmonies by mixing classical with hip hop and other musical genres, all heavily laced with Haitian rhythms. Interesting mix it is.
Unique Art Exhibit in Brooklyn, NY
Raphael Denis will be exhibiting on August 2 and 3 at Emma’s Gallery in Brooklyn. The exhibit will also feature works by one of his proteges, Jocelyne Telson.
Love is… just a feeling?
You and millions of others just like you have asked themselves this very question through the ages. No wonder, since some people are madly in love, others are obsessed with love, and still others are dying for love. The feeling, if that’s what it is, has inspired many to express themselves through the arts, be it plays, romance novels, dramas, music or poetry.
Haiti: Still No End to Act III
Fourteen days from today, Haitians will be commemorating the 93rd anniversary of the landing by American marines in Haiti ostensibly to restore order. The marines quickly took control of the affairs of the country, staying 19 years to remake Haiti in their own image. They left in 1934, after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided that… Read More ›
America Imported Torture Techniques from China?
According to the NY Times (July 2, 2008), the CIA and the Pentagon lifted their use of waterboarding and other interrogation methods, that altogether amount to torture, from Chinese techniques used on American soldiers taken prisoner during the clashes over North Korea to elicit confessions from them. Some of the American soldiers had confessed under duress to participating in such things as gem warfare, a claim which the United States strongly denied at the time.
A Weak Strategy Can Deal You a Bad Hand
In Act 3 of Haiti’s political crisis, Préval’s opponents have seized on the nomination of Michele Pierre-Louis to the post of Prime Minister to launch a full-scale assault on Pierre-Louis’ sexual orientation, moral core and fitness for the position. Her supporters have issued a petition which can fall on dead ears because it is addressed to no one in particular.
Lost in America
I’m African-American and my family moved to California almost a hundred years ago after a lynching took place outside their hometown in Kentucky. I’m also undocumented, or in the current anti-immigrant vernacular, “illegal.”
Haiti: Unintended Obama Faux Pas?
In a May 23, 2008 speech before the Cuban-American National Foundation, Senator Barak Obama vowed to pursue a Roosevelt-style aggressive policy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Wasn’t Franklin Delano Rosevelt Assistant-Secretary of the Navy when the US marines landed in Haiti in 1915? Did he not boast of rewriting the Haitian Constitution to fit US policy goals? Is this a faux pas that will dull Obama’s shine among Haitians and others?
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