I was going through pictures of Cuba so I could find two that I have been meaning to publish on (e:strip). Also I need to find 3 of my best to submit for a photo contest. It isn't easy when you have 3,000 pics! I'll save the most intriguing for last. These aren't exactly what I think is the best, just something I had something to say about.

Here is some pics of Amanda aka mi amor! She is in Cuba right now. I miss her and need to write to her. She is a beautiful person and has amazing hair and eyes.





This one is the aftermath of one of the many hurricanes that passed by Cuba while I was there. I don't even remember which one. This entire area up to calle 23 was flooded when the sea penetrated the city.




This boy I was intrigued by. You could see him and his family passing the time on their porch from the "girls" room window. It was hard not to be seen taking photos.


I think this has to be the hottest pic I took. This was during a marathon my friend Megan and I went to see.



This is some plant at the convent where I stayed. It just seems pretty to me.


Another marathon shot.



This is Reinier. He was supposed to come and study at UB, but he never got in...his father is the embassador to North Korea. Sorry you lose. Oh he is posing next to the nuns bones from back in who knows which century. This is in the convents cript.




Finally! This is what I have been meaning to show you all. This shot was taken outside of the convent walls on calle luz.




Can you see that whitish fog in perfect form? It appears in both pictures and the dog is absolutely facinated with it.



The History of Havana is so rich, its beyond the capacity of my brain. The convent is said to still be occupied by the nuns who have long been dead. Many of the nuns were rejected family members hidden from society. Often times they brought with them a slave and depending upon the severity of their societal infraction were sometimes locked in their rooms. The slave trade actually occurred only a few blocks away in la Plaza Vieja. Infant bones have been found in most of the convents. Could these be illegitimate children?

One of the past UB students to live in the convent came face to face with one of these nuns. He was able to describe to profe to perfection a nun in the Habits that they wore at the time. He was so terrified that Profe had to secure his bed by blessing it with holy water.

Our compa�era Megan saw one praying over our other compa�era Melissa. Megan wouldn't lie, I know this. This was the only time our group saw a spirit.

I wanted to see one soo bad, but I never did. However, I have captured on camera what I believe is a spirit. In reality, I don't think I have the ability to see them. There has been only one time in my life where I sensed one, but this is the only time that I could see one with my own eyes. While our eyes can see, our brains at times don't.

Sorry (e:paul), I know you don't like youtube crap. I just can't help it because I want other people to see Cuba. These videos are much closer to reality than most of the videos filmed in this country.

Los Orishas come from a mix of African beliefs and Catholicism. It is interesting and entirely complex. This is called Santería. This mixture comes from when the slaves were forced under Spanish rule to accept Catholicism in their lives. I'm so far from being an expert on this topic. Animal sacrifices are common. Santeros are paid good money to preform ceremonies. They dress only in white for a determined length of time.

The videos of the Orishas do an excellent job of capturing both urban and country life in present day Cuba.

Cuban can be very hard to understand at times. S is almost completely dropped out of their speech pattern. In comparison Spain is much more restrictive in their Castellano.

This first video begins with some young Cubans walking through the street. These streets are the way they are in present day. Each one being an integral part of history. The party you see is in most likelihood not recreated. Sure, some parts are probably staged.
][/link]http://youtube.com/watch?v=M0foTPbJNAg

This second video is amazing. It starts with un camello or camel. Named so after its camel like shape. You wouldn't believe how many people can jam on this guagua or bus. Watch your pockets! Drums and los tambores or drums de La Habana.

I still don't know the secret to the whitest whites. They know.

Much rap about specific locations. Calle 23, el Malecón, el Prado, Miramar, etc.

Most of this I would say is not recreated.


]

The third is much more el campo, the country. It isn't like the country side here where you would think they are much more conservative. Se baila en todos los lugares. They dance everywhere.


The clouds are so beautiful. Always.

Libertad

Back to the railing from hell.

I got a lot done this weekend. Saturday I finished removing the paint and Sunday I painted. It went sooo fast with the roller instead of trying to paint the whole thing with a stupid brush. The paint that I am using is sooo much better than XO Rust, now I'm using Rustoleum. Yesterday I went to the house to get my drill cause I needed to attach a door sweep to my front door (Time to weather proof our old Buffalo homes). I had the opportunity to see my work. Everything had dried perfectly. Even the few spots that had drips dried nicely. None of it wrinkled up and got icky.

Here is tomorrow's weather forecast from weather.com. Partly cloudy high of 69 with 20% chance of rain. Maybe just maybe I can finish the damn thing. I have one class tomorrow at 1pm. That is right smack in the middle of the day. I don't want to miss the class, especially since we are going to correct in class my essay and discuss Carlos Fuentes "La Familia". If I don't finish painting tomorrow (likely), I'm not sure when I can finish it. Weather.com forecasts shitty weather for the weekend. Maybe I should go before and after class to paint.

When I'm finished I get to go to a restaurant of my choosing. Any suggestions (keeping in mind I still am not eating any animals)?

I'm going to my monthly district Buddhist meeting on Friday at 7pm. (Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism) There are some people here that may have some interest so I didn't want to leave them out. Let me know via something.

libertad

p.s. sorry the Dalai Lama (Not sure if I spelled that right) will not be able to attend.

Here is my sarcasm cause so many think that we all follow him. No disrespect to anyone, its just like saying all Christians follow the Pope.

This is a pic I took of the billboard in front of the US Interest section in Cuba.




This is what is there now.

(e:joshua), I'm not sure where your confusion comes from about me calling you a liar. I made references to it here
here
and here

You say I am being vague about why I call you a liar, but I have three links asking you why you did lie. I don't include links unless I feel they are important. Please look at them. How could you possibly think that my reference to you lying is about the billboards along the Malecón in Havana Cuba. I posted the pics in the chatter, not even in a journal. All I remember saying is that I'm glad that they decided to change their billboards. Since I walked past these billboards in front of the US interest section on a continuous basis for four months, I know exactly what the billboards say. You are right, I do know how the people of Cuba live. You have not seen what I have seen. I spent twelve days traveling Cuba and the rest living in Havana (4 months) Don't call me naive. I know exactly how the Cuban people are living. I didn't live in a resort. I lived with the Cuban people.

I don't rememember saying that I love abortion. In fact I don't remember ever saying anything about abortion.

Just remember, I am talking about issues not politics.

As you said "I will NOT be supressed because I'm a loud-mouthed voice of disagreement and dissent here. " That is exactly why you lied. It is because you want to be the dissent. You want to be the opposing view, regardless of the truth.

Please everyone, refer to me as (e:libertad) on the site. If you have my birth name on any of your journals please change it to (e:libertad). That is my pen name here and that is how I would like to be referred to on (e:strip). You can use either one when referring to me in person. This is not directed at anyone in particular, but I hope everyone can respect my wishes. Thank you.

I seriously need to do some digital pic maintaining. Pics everywhere and I'm nervous many could be lost due to a faulty burner...

So I just saw all the messages I have had since the end of July (as in private estrip messages). For some reason I didn't see them. Thanks for all the messages peeps. (e:paul) is requesting I categorize my postings. I'll try and get into that, but I'm not so good at organizing anything.

This post is about how I will soon become one of the many in this country that can't afford to have an internet connection. It is quite an awakening to not be able to afford something that I have prioritized over many things in life especially the cable. I don't give two shits about cable, but I want my high-speed internet.

Since my life at the moment requires I have a cell phone, connection through dial up is not an option. DSL also not an option. Road Runner aka Power Link is not an option. I'm not going to spend $60/mo on this. It can't possibly be budgeted. Here I am, a student trying to finish my education and I am being pushed away from internet access. Why? Because we have no freaking choice anymore. EVERYTHING is becoming larger and larger to the point that just a hand full of companies own all of our sources of information, products and services. The poor of course, are the first to feel these effects, because it hits us the hardest. Yes I am poor. I'm not afraid to say that anymore, cause it is the truth. It is hard to belive that when I graduate, that things will be any different.

I'm including a transcript of the dialogue between Amy Goodman from Democracy Now and the FCC Comissioner Michael Copps. You can watch it here... http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/13/1331236

Take notice in the lack of the liberal conservative talk bullshit. The dialogue is about the issue, not about some stupid division that we are supposed to adhere by. Not everything fits into some label as if we were able to categorize everything said into some imaginary filling cabinet. I highlighted things i found particularly important, but I believe the transcript in its entirety deserves to be read.

---

AMY GOODMAN: I'm joined now by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. Welcome to Democracy Now!

MICHAEL COPPS: Thank you for having me here this morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to be with you. Let's talk about this report that is criticizing the FCC and Congress around broadband, saying that the United States is far behind, remains 16th in the world in broadband penetration. 14 other countries saw higher overall net growth in broadband options. The U.S. has the fourth highest level of students who have never used a computer, among these nations, exceeded only by Turkey, Slovakia and Mexico, and that population density is not a significant determinant of broadband penetration. The most important factors explaining the digital divide are household income and poverty.

MICHAEL COPPS: That's a startling indictment, isn't it? It bears a lot of what I have been saying, and it's worse than that, really. The ITU, International Telecommunications Union, is the international body that ranked us as number 16. They now have a newer study out even that's somewhat more nuanced, that goes into cell phones and home computers and everything. And you know where we are on that list? 21, right behind Slovenia and Estonia.

The reason is that we do not have a national strategy to get broadband out to our people. I think we're probably the only industrialized country on the face of the earth that lacks a coherent national strategy to build this infrastructure, and it's damaging for all Americans. It's damaging for small businesses who are unable to compete, and most of all, it's damaging for minorities and diversity communities, people who live in the inner cities and people who live in rural America, where the market, I don't think, is just going to automatically take all of this infrastructure.

AMY GOODMAN: So what is the FCC doing about this?

MICHAEL COPPS: Not enough. We continue to analyze this in old-fashioned ways. We're still talking about broadband as 200 kilobits. We satisfy ourselves that broadband is being reasonably deployed around the country by looking at a zip code, and if there's one business that subscribes to broadband in that zip code, we say, "Whoopee, everything is fine and dandy. Broadband is being deployed." So we have to start looking at it and learning what other countries are doing, who are cleaning our clock on this.

We have to look what some of our own communities are doing when the market doesn't get there. They're going in and building their own broadband networks to get this out to their people, because they understand in this digital age if the kid living on the farm or the inner city does not have access to high-speed broadband, he's going to be left behind, and we're going to end up with a digital gap in this new century of 21st century technology that's going to be worse than the digital gap we had in the 20th century in the days of plain old telephone service.

AMY GOODMAN: And the corporations that are fighting this and fighting net neutrality, fighting community internet, saying even if they don't wire a community -- this happened in Pennsylvania -- that you can't have the free wireless internet.

MICHAEL COPPS: This is not how we built America. If you look at every infrastructure we've had since the beginning, whether it's getting settlers on the land or getting produce to markets, business and government, with an active role for government, built turnpikes and roads and river and harbor improvements. After the Civil War, when we became a transcontinental country, we built the transcontinental railroad. We had even the highway system under Eisenhower in the 1950s. All of these things, you had a partnership between private sector and public sector and a national strategy and a national goal, and we got it done.

Now, here we are in the 21st century, this is our new infrastructure challenge, getting all the Americans on the information highway. And we're just going into it without a strategy and without that kind of cooperative partnership that built the United States of America.

AMY GOODMAN: What about this issue of net neutrality and corporations -- many people feel the telecoms writing the legislation?

MICHAEL COPPS: We need an explicit principle of nondiscrimination. We made some progress. I pushed very hard last summer to get a statement of internet principles and net neutrality at the FCC. It wasn't everything I would have liked. It's not really enforceable. We need to go beyond that now and make an explicit statement that we're not going to tolerate discrimination on the internet and then make the Federal Communications Commission the honest umpire in all of this, to handle complaints and give it the authority to do so. Some people don't want to do that. They want to just let all of this continue with a happy notion that the marketplace is going to solve everything.

The genius of this internet was its openness. You had the dumb pipes and the intelligence on the edges. What some of the network owners are trying to do now is to put the control and the intelligence in the pipes and make us all dumb at each edge. Basically that's what it comes down to. And that's just a denial of everything that the internet is supposed to be. This is a wonderful dynamic, open, pro-democracy infrastructure that we need to sustain, and we need to nourish it, and we're not getting it done.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do people enter the debate up against these massive extremely well-financed corporate campaigns?

MICHAEL COPPS: I'm convinced that everything that happens, and you know this better than me, is grassroots action on the part of democracy-inclined citizens across this country of ours. That's how we checked the media ownership rules that Chairman Powell tried to foist on us three years ago. That's how the citizens can have input into this debate now. Contact the FCC. Contact your representatives. Talk it up on talk radio. Write op-eds. Talk to your family. Talk to your neighbors. Make it that grassroots issue.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the biennial rule review, Commissioner Copps? And can you talk about media concentration overall?

MICHAEL COPPS: Well, they've changed it now to a quadrennial review so that every four years we're supposed to look at our media ownership rules and see if they are serving the public interest. We did this last in 2003, and Chairman Powell was adamant on pushing through -- and he did this with his majority against my opposition and Commissioner Adelstein's opposition -- to such an extent that one big company could own in some markets in this country three television stations, eight radio stations, the newspaper -- already a monopoly in most cities -- cable channels, cable network and the internet provider. How does that serve localism and diversity and competition? How does that nourish the creative genius of the United States of America? How does it serve the public interest?

The people own the airwaves. There's no broadcaster, no individual, no enterprise in this country that owns an airwave. You own the airwaves. Your listeners and viewers own the airwaves, and when people realize that and are reminded of that, they get very proprietary about them, and they see the localism and the diversity that's been sacrificed. No local entertainment, no creative genius, everything on the playlist and the homogenized entertainment, and more damaging still, what happens to the democratic debate. No political coverage, no teeing up of controversial issues. No clash of really give-and-take and antagonistic opinions. We've lost a lot. Our media are supposed to be serving democracy and encouraging democracy, and they're not.

AMY GOODMAN: Public comment period is open now for what? It's about to close.

MICHAEL COPPS: It's about to close on the media ownership on September 22nd, which is very close. And there's another 60 days for reply comments, but until we vote, we are open to receiving communications, emails, letters.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do people communicate with you?

MICHAEL COPPS: You can go to fcc.gov, to the home page of the FCC. It will tell you how to do it, but just write to the FCC or email fcc.gov or --

AMY GOODMAN: Matthew Lasar has an interesting website, lasarletter.com, where he posted that Clear Channel is asking for a lifting of the limits on what a radio -- what a communications company can own. They have now over 1,200 radio stations. How does that work? They appeal to you? They petition?

MICHAEL COPPS: Yes. If we change now, if we go through this new ownership proceeding that's up for grabs, and all these rules could be changed and we could lift the caps, and there will be another great wave of consolidation. I don't think anybody really anticipated in Congress in 1996 when they changed the law that we would go from a situation where the biggest -- the most stations that weren't company-owned was maybe 75 at that time, to where you've got 1,200 now. But there could be a lot more.

So we're getting into this situation, where we have distribution controlled by a very few companies, and now, very different from what it was 30 or 40 years ago, they own the content, too. And when you combine content and distribution, I believe John D. Rockefeller told us what that was, it was monopoly.

AMY GOODMAN: We have only ten seconds. I wanted to ask you about VNRs, when they're going to be identified as that, video news releases instead of news pieces and the paying off of journalists, governments paying journalists.

MICHAEL COPPS: Well, we have a proceeding going. I hope we put it on the front burner. We're struggling to get it on the front burner. When the American people see something that's not produced by a station, they ought to have full disclosure and it ought to be apparent to them that they know that this is being produced by somebody else. And if there's consideration being received for it, they certainly have to talk about that.

AMY GOODMAN: Big public hearing in Los Angeles, when?

MICHAEL COPPS: On October the 3rd in Los Angeles, media ownership, very important. It's going to be the first of a very few, probably half a dozen hearings that the chairman has agreed to hold on media ownership.

AMY GOODMAN: FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, thanks so much for being with us.

Blah. I feel like my brain is so full that I can't even think straight. I stopped having coherent thoughts at about 4pm then I had to go to one more class and think in another language. I was so lost. I tried to speak and it just couldn't get what I wanted to say out. I need more brain power. I'm so out of it right now. Tonight I have to write a two page composition about my classmates "en buen español". Not sure I can do it considering I can barely write this.

I'm still working on the "railing". (e:mk) and (e:mike) came to see me working. Mk said she thought it would be smaller. Do you know how long I have been removing all of the paint I had put on? I don't know either, but a long time! I hate the railing, I hate the railing, I hate the....