New Year = new blog address, blog design and new post. Go on over and tell us what you think.

Find us at www.blipsterfarianlogic.com .

WordPress‘ excellent end of year analytical email contained a Blog-Health-o-Meter™ which rated my blog health as ‘Wow.’ Not sure how they came up with that, but I’ll take it!

The Big 5 of 2010

These are the posts that got the most views in 2010. A good mix of social commentary and coverage of important events.

There’s Something About Glenn Beck August 2010
Glenn Beck’s attempt to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King made me angry. And I was even more incensed by the lack of appropriate response from civil rights organizations and leaders interested in minority issues.

The One Where the Blipsterfarian Goes to the #Jptweetup September 2010
The Jamaica Pegasus’ engagement of social media is not simply a big deal for those interested in social media. It is significant watershed in the ways that Jamaican businesses do business.

The #Haiti Aid Effort: Five Unasked Questions November 2010
I have a special interest in Haiti. All Caribbean people should. It is the first truly free republic in the new world. The way in which the international community is managing the reconstruction of the country makes one wonder who is it being reconstructed for and why.

Flashback & Flashforward: On Burma November 2010
Certain international issues seem to recur. The interminable transition to democracy in Burma is one of those issues.

‘Better Mus Come’ Will Be Huge September 2010
So happy Jamaicans are making movies of social and political import again.

By the Numbers

In 2010, there were 38 new posts and 41 pictures uploaded. That’s about 3 pictures per month. The busiest day of the year was August 31st with 70 views. The most popular post that day was There’s Something About Glenn Beck. There are a few hundred hits every week and the aggregate number of hits is just under 3000.

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter, Stumble Upon, facebook, YardEdge and Barbados Free Press. Many thanks to those who retweet and share my thoughts! Visitors came searching for passa passa, Betty Ann Blaine, and the Jolly Boys.

I called this part 1 of my review. In part 2, I will list the events I wanted to cover, or wrote about but due to my obsessive nature did not post.

There are two pillars of a Jamaican Christmas: food and family. It is a time when family members return from all over the globe to celebrate with their loved ones in Jamaica. Everyone looks forward to the heavy Christmas cake, the ham done in the oven, Christmas morning breakfast, sorrel and much, much more.

Happy holidays to all my readers. Have memorable moments with your loved ones. That’s what makes life worth living.

Blipsterfarian Logic returns in early January.

…

What is going on in Burma is really disheartening. It looks like the despotic government, at least at the present, is getting the better of people who are striving for freedom. I have heard people exiled from the country say that fear of the government is deeply entrenched in the culture. In this context, the monks are extremely brave. Imagine a government which could be so callous as the shoot at a monk carrying, not a gun, but a banner which extols the virtues of peace.

I am not optimistic about a drastic change there unless there is a coup by more moderate generals or the people start some kind of mass uprising. China does not want to place too much pressure on the regime as it is more interested in stability and prosperity rather than democracy. This is not surprising since Tiananmen Square happened not long after the last major uprising in Burma. It would set a dangerous precedent for external intervention. Moreover, many countries in the region are fearful of what the Chinese economic ascendancy means for their security. Not only does the US have bigger problems to manage (read IRAQ), but the US’s diplomatic machinery seems to be adrift under a Ms. Rice who has thoroughly disappointed.

How should the West respond? Sanctions? Those only hurt the poor people and prop up the regime. Can you say Cuba or North Korea? When you have a paranoid state, cutting average people off from the outside world, just strengthens the regime. Mr. Bush, Mr. Brown and Mr. David Miliband sound tough, but how will their statements translate to actions that help to dislodge the Burmese government? The vast majority of the generals do not want to go to Britain or the US anyway. They are free to go all over Asia including China to conduct business and take holidays. Much of the sanctions that will be ‘tightened’ have been in place for nearly 2 decades and do not seem to have any perceptible effect.

What the world needs to do encourage is the children of Burmese people to come, study and see how diverse democracies, as imperfect as they are, constitute the best way for organizing our affairs that humanity as yet devised. Think E. M. Forster, ‘So two cheers for democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.’

Related Articles

• Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese Sanctions (kristof.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Brown plans to visit Burma democacy leader (news.theage.com.au)
• Behind The Wall: Progress, but little change in Myanmar (behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com)
• Aung San Suu Kyi: The generals think they have sidelined her. They are wrong (guardian.co.uk)
• Betwa Sharma: India and China Greedy in Burma; Obama Scolds (huffingtonpost.com)

The coverage of Haiti’s problems in the last few weeks left me both disturbed and annoyed. The coverage of the cholera outbreak and the run up to Hurricane Tomas’ passing over the country has been not only very uncritical, but insulting to the Haitian people and overseas viewers alike. The poster boys for this type of coverage has been, quelle surprise, the BBC and CNN. But, when Jamaican news outlets such as TVJ and CVM-TV parrot or rebroadcast this material without pause, I am doubly upset.

The same stale questions were asked and all the questions that should have been asked were not. When they asked the members of the international humanitarian effort what they were doing, the main course was ‘we are trying to educate Haitians on proper hygiene.’ There was also a side of ‘Hurricane Tomas is coming and people don’t want to move.’ Really?!? And none of the interviewers interrogated those pronouncements. 

Do they really think Haitians don’t know that the water is contaminated? The video above was done at about the half year mark. We are coming up on a year after the earthquake, and the situation remains largely the same. So the question is why after all this time, Haitians have no access to clean water? Why is most of the rubble in the same place where it fell after the earthquake in January? When you are desperately poor, and others are too and living in a devastated country, can you just pick up your family and flee? To where? I guess no lessons were learned about this after Hurricane Katrina.

Earthquake in Haiti uploaded by IFRC.

For those of you who have not had many interactions with the ‘development set’, these ignorant, far-removed views might be surprising. I have had many interesting discussions with these people. They mean so well, but too many of them lack genuine sympathy, discipline, and the practical skills to really do something about the problems they have identified.

On one occasion, a large gathering of these people reached the conclusion that we need to improve education for poor people. Thank you for informing us of the sublimely obvious. The question is how? They look at me blank. I thank them for their time and leave. Where Haiti is concerned, this scenario is compounded by allowing these people to express their cluelessness to reporters who do not know enough about anything to be able to ask probing questions. So lets ask the questions in this space.

Unasked Questions About the Haiti Aid Effort

1. Where is all the money? At the Haiti Aid Conference in March, over 5 billion was pledged, but up to June only 2% of that has been delivered. Why have governments been so slow to fulfill their pledges and what percentage of the aid has been delivered at this point? We also need to interrogate how organizations such as the Red Cross have spent, or perhaps more accurately, not spent, the money given them to help Haitians. There certainly is a dearth of credible information. Look at one eye opening attempt to match pledges to actual aid here.

2. Why did Haiti have its first cholera outbreak in almost 100 years now?

3. What are donor countries going to do to better organise their aid contributions? What impact have their actions had on the ability of a weak government to devise and implement a strategy to get Haiti out of its present quagmire? To what extent, and in what ways, have international development partners involved Haitians in their planning processes?

4. How representative are the views of Haitians that are featured in the news coverage? A great many of the people interviewed for news articles or news clips detail the horror of the aftermath of the earthquake and now the hurricane. Some even express disappointment of the aid effort. But what is not reported is that the agenda and legitimacy of the NGOs is being questioned. Yet, the graffiti that covers many of the ruined buildings does just this. Quite a disparity in outlook, isn’t it?

5. Why is the coverage of the role of westerners so celebratory, while the heroic actions of everyday Haitians to help themselves remain invisible? For the life of me I can’t comprehend why Sean Penn is now the go-to guy on all issues Haitian. WTH? And then there is Bill Clinton as fundraiser-in-chief. But what is Clinton’s prior record in Haiti?

The fact that some are so uncomfortable with these questions reveals so much. Let us ask them of our political leaders, our journalists, the U.N., humanitarian workers and ourselves.

Related Articles

• “Haiti still waiting for post-earthquake aid” and related posts (crofsblogs.typepad.com)
• Finally, a Lucky Break for Haiti (cbsnews.com)
• Haitians Reflect: Should U.S. Continue Aid? (huffingtonpost.com)

Blipsterfarian Logic has also been quieter than I would like. So much is going on though. I have really been liking some FX shows, especially the new Sons of Anarchy season. AMC is also hot: Rubicon and Mad Men has great season finales and I loved the premiere of The Walking Dead. 

Gregory Isaacs in 1985. Photo: Sipa/Rex Features.

I would have loved to big up the man, who was in my opinion, the Coolest Ruler, Gregory Isaacs. Now I am reading that Norma Shirley has passed too. Farewell to two great icons of our culture.

On to the tech woes. Ok, so its not quite the flashing folder of death (see above), but my BlackBook’s heat sink and fan are toast.  It may take three weeks to get fixed. What I don’t understand is why it will take so long? Can’t an authroised dealer get parts from Apple more quickly then that?

Until normalcy is restored, I will be working on less efficient machines until it is fixed. Makes me realise how much I customised my settings and programs to enhance my workflow. My music library is also the machine, so I am really hurting even if I can access the rest of my files on one of my external hard drives.

The technology failure which really disturbed me is the death of my BlackBerry Bold. What really got me was not that it died (stuff happens, so I back up everything!). It is the way it is being handled by Digicel. I gave the phone to Digicel in mid September. It is now November and I am yet to know what can be done about it and how much it will cost.

What I cannot understand is the abysmal manner in which the Digicel representative has managed the issue. During this period, she has been almost impossible to contact. Got used to talking to voicemail. And all this was before she went on vacation! During her holidays, I received no updates. When enquires were made, I was told that they could not locate the phone.

The rep returned to work on Nov 1 and she said the people who she gave the phone to did not contact her, so she did not contact them. I kid you not! And in the meantime, what does the customer do? I am sure that a firm as large and diverse as Digicel has service standards which govern this process. How does this episode stack up against those standards? I am so disappointed and shocked to be treated this way by a company I held in such high regard.

It has been nearly a week since Delhi’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games 2010 has concluded. It was a revealing exercise. Yet, very little of the revelations were about actual sport. It is a tale of mismangement, corruption and disenfranchisement.

Before the realities started to emerge, the media brimmed with the notion that, similar to the hosting of the Olympics by Beijing in 2008, this was supposed to be India’s ‘I’ve arrived’ moment. This was an extremely odd assertion, since it seems that Indians themselves were not happy with the way the games were being delivered, and the Commonwealth Games are not exactly in the top tier of global sporting events (see the Olympics and World Cup).

Then the pictures of the filthy accommodation started being spread through social networks and the wider media like a Californian wildfire. It would have been good if a little soap and disinfectant were all that was required, but there were many other problems:

• Many athletes cancelled their appearance, while others waited until the last minute to arrive.
• The footbride to the Nehru stadium collapsed.
• Less than 24 hours before the start of the athletics competition, the opening ceremony damaged the track! Jonathan Edwards was not a happy man.
• Badminton, table tennis, gymnastics, netball all took place in huge stadiums with practically no spectators.
• The first few boxing weigh-ins were cancelled as the scale was messed up. The scale!
• Mounting concerns that the pool was making swimmer sick.

There are a number of lessons to be learned and questions to be asked. A friend of mine commented that ‘If yuh place nuh ready, nuh invite people in deh.’ I’ll take it a step further. Countries and cities do not make money from these large events. They are marketing platforms to reshape how the globe thinks about certain places. So if you are gonna engage in such an exercise, it is best to avoid shooting yourself in the foot.

The official games website is quoting Mike Fennell, the Games Federation Chief, noting that Delhi has delivered an ‘exceptional’ games.  This may very well be the case. Yet, the obvious question that has to be asked is why weren’t the Games Federation monitoring the completion of the facilities? And after all the damaging off-track events, who is going to remember the sporting triumphs that did take place?

All these incidents, detracted in serious measure, from the actual sport. The actual sport, was the sideshow.

First it was Lou Dobbs (who has dissapeared from the public space like a sinking Titanic, but that’s another story), and now Rick Sanchez. CNN’s anchors seem to have a penchant for inserting their feet into their mouths, which eventually leaves them jobless.

This latest episode emerged when Sanchez accused Jon Stewart of being a bigot who is part of the Jewish community that runs the media. Sanchez was upset by Stewart’s occasional jibes. But why shouldn’t Stewart mock him given his clear lack of grasp of serious issues, or even basic geography. CNN is not the only media outlet to struggle with these difficulties, and Sanchez’s comments were much milder than those by Don Imus or Dr. Laura, I think they axed him for the wrong reason. Sanchez’s show was a train reck. And one you were subjected to daily. That is the reason CNN should have dumped him. 

Rick’s rant has an air of someone who feels like their insights are more greater than they really are. It is not because you are hispanic, Rick. It is that you are a thoughtless lightweight who has a history of being slapped around on air by even dumber guests, or needlessly abusing others. But in all this you need to realise that you are a previlidged Cuban American. Please stop whining.

In general, I would love if news presenters stuck to presenting the news, not making news.

Maybe someday I’ll get around to our own anchors. Perhaps, I’ll start by asking why TVJ can’t seem to have a news cast free from technical difficulties, much to Michael Sharpe’s clear irritation. Or why CVM’s Dwayne Berbick smiles so broadly after recognising that he mispronounced a word.

Image via Wikipedia

Now that the mid-term elections are almost upon the U.S., I thought I should reflect on just how we end up here. The sheen of the Obama Presidency has all but dissipated and it looks like the democrats are headed for a heavy defeat. But we need to go back to go forward. So let’s look at the run up to the ’08 election.

I often write pieces, but don’t publish them. Then I go back to them and see their worth. This flashback was originally written in April 2008, but not published.

. . .

There have been a number of things irritating me about the coverage of the race to the White House. Goddamn, its gonna be a long campaign. I am honestly sick of the coverage for these 5 reasons:

1. Why is it that white people think they have the right to decide who is black enough? It is just like a man talking about the pain of childbirth. Stop it. It is not cute. I also think the qualities some of them identity as black are quite revealing about what they think about black people in general.

2. Hilary was already President. It was during the Clinton years. Moreover, she has undertaken an incredible rightward drift since she began to be president de facto. You cannot change all the things that are going wrong in the US by being exactly like those who caused the problems you are supposedly trying to address. My only problem with Barack is that he needs to be more forceful on some of his ideas. Why is it that Hilary tries to do this I am a tough woman routine with reference to some of the international policy challenges that the US currently faces? Yes. I am talking about the ‘obliterate’ Iran outburst. If Kennedy did this ‘I am a tough Catholic’ routine we probably would have a had nuclear war! He picked up the phone and he talked to Khrushchev. He did not send is ineffectual Secretary of State who cant even make sure Americans get their passports on time so they can travel.

3. When people say America is not ready for a black president, what they mean is I am not ready for a black president. When exactly will you be ready?

4. Stop this garbage about who is more discriminated against women or black people. Do you really need to claim oppressed status so badly? Isn’t it obvious that even though women do face discrimination, Clinton still benefits from white privilege? Why are you being so dishonest? Having a black man as president would be a far greater shift than having a white, upper middle class woman.

5. America, your promise has been so tarnished by Mr. Bush. More of the same simply will not do. Why is it that Romney and Huckabee seem like even bigger wingnuts than Bush? And I hope the Christian right stops Giuliani.

A decisive change in course is needed!