Where Are the Nutcrackers? Where Have all the Hippies Gone?

Where are the Nutcrackers?  Clara wants her Nutcracker!

Clara is cold and lonely without her Nutcracker!

Seriously, I kind of miss the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker March they’ve had the last two years, where they deposit giant nutcrackers designed by artists at random intersections, malls and parks around downtown.  See their website for last years, or my Flickr album.

As I started taking pictures of them around town, the nutcrackers kind of grew on me last year, and I was looking forward to taking pictures of all of them this year.  Alas, they didn’t create any new ones this year.

I did find some of the Nutcrackers from the last two years hanging out at Pacific Place while debating walking home through the snow Tuesday night.

I also found out online that some of the other Nutcrackers are hanging out at Salty’s. Still, it’s not the same.  No more hanging out on street corners, the Nutcrackers have gone uptown!

As was the case last year, our Jimi Hendrix nutcracker seems a little put upon, being forced to hang out at the corporate Pacific Place digs.

Fear not, corporate America had co-opted more of the 60’s at Pacific Place, perhaps so Jimi won’t feel so alone.

Yes, that’s right, Barneys of New York wishes you a Hippie Holiday!

On not just one, but two floors of Pacific Place!

To add to the  irony, this quote from Janis Joplin was in the downstairs display window:

Corporate America sells the anti-corporate hippie culture of the 60’s.  To steal a quote from Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Who won?”

I can’t tell you how much I look forward to the Barneys of New York display windows on the 40th Anniversary of the WTO Protests.  Buy your chic, sweat shop made, Anarchist garb here, and pepper spray body wash!  Harken back to those mad days of the 90’s when people thought they could make a difference against corporate America! 

Maybe they’ll even smash some of their own windows for the effect!

This is just satire.  I hope.  Or are we going to party like it’s 1999? (OK, maybe that’s not quite what Prince had in mind.)

Tags: Seattle, Nutcracker+March, Jimi+Hendrix, Pacific+Place, Barneys+of+New+York, hippies, WTO, anarchists

Seattle’s Crazy Snow Daze

Weather in Seattle is currently hovering between freezing rain and snow for Christmas, which should add to the crazy mess left after our week long (or maybe longer) snow storm as depicted in Horsey’s Christmas cartoon in today’s PI.

For once in my life, I’m glad I don’t have to go anywhere in it, at least by bus (I may venture out for a walk around the neighborhood).  I’m normally not a weather wimp, and always laugh at people who take the day off from work in Seattle at the least little dusting of snow.  Given the policies of the city, county and Metro transit, however, commuting became enough of a nightmare for even me and I finally took a snow day off yesterday.

I find myself agreeing with Joel Connelly’s column in the Dec. 23 PI:

ANY COMPETENTLY RUN city would have plowed out and sanded Seattle’s 34th Avenue by midday on Tuesday, since it is a major escape route into the city for Madrona and Mount Baker neighborhood residents.

As both the PI and Times note, Seattle does not use salt for environmental reasons, and, according to the Times article:

Instead of clearing major roads, Seattle aims to create a “hard-packed” snow surface suitable for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, and front-wheel-drive vehicles with chains. The packed snow is then sprinkled with sand and sprayed with de-icer.

I’m also not sure how many plows we have. I do recall hearing a few years back we had fewer plows than Portland (which is further south and has fewer people than Seattle), and it doesn’t sound like anything has changed. Portland also rarely gets snow and it can be difficult at first, but they did plow all the major streets when I lived there and when buses got stuck, it was on hills, real hills, not slight inclines like the Ave (as we call University Way).

In spite of occasionally getting stuck, Metro buses used to be pretty reliable to get around on in the snow.  It always made perfect sense that they’d tell drivers to leave their cars at home and take Metro.  At least it did before this snow storm.  At this point, it might be better for them to take their chances driving. 

As Mr. Connelly notes, he could not get a previously reliable Route 3 downtown from his neighborhood.  He waited 45 minutes and it never came.  Hopefully someone has told him by now that it is one of the buses Metro decided not to run (and is still off line today, Christmas day, according to Metro’s Ice & Snow page).

In fact, as both the PI and Times reported, Metro shut down over 100 routes Thursday, the day of the first storm, stranding people like my co-worker who lives out in Burien. Service just kept getting worse and worse on the rest of the routes, and by Tuesday night I was ready to walk all the way home from Pioneer Square to the U District (finally squeezing onto a bus just north of the Fred Hutchinson complex on Eastlake, more in a minute). 

No doubt part of the problem was due to the city and county’s policies of not properly maintaining their streets, but I recall an announcement, that now seems to be down, on the Metro site patting themselves on the back for cutting back service and getting people safely and soundly to their destinations (well, if and when they were running there, or anywhere near there).

Part of the problem is Seattle really counts on snowy weather only lasting a day or two.  The first day, last Thursday, was typical, and while it took longer than usual to get downtown via Eastlake not the freeway, and I had to walk in because of a traffic jam from the Greyhound depot across downtown to my job near Pioneer Square, I had no real concerns.

In fact, I took pictures.

 

Of course, there were articulated buses jack-knifed. All the articulated buses still being run were, as Joel Connelly notes in his Dec. 21 article, part of the trouble.  I suspect Seattle just doesn’t have enough of the regular buses.

I even froze my fingers off (well, not literally) taking pictures in Pioneer Square in 20 degree weather on my lunch break.

I went to a meeting with a couple of my Amnesty International friends at the Espresso Vivace near REI, and caught a bus home right afterward around 8 pm, which was very packed for that time of night. One of my co-workers from Burien spent the night, though, as the routes weren’t running out there.

On Friday morning, 5 buses went by going the opposite direction before we finally got one going downtown, which took the freeway; and I caught a bus immediately going home. While the people waiting at the bus stop, unable to get to West Seattle the previous day, were getting surly and the buses were too packed; my co-worker from Burien did make it home, after a long walk, by catching one later in the evening.

It started snowing lovely, powdery snow on last Saturday night.  Continued on Sunday.  I took pictures of kids (and grown ups) sledding in Cowen Park.

And of the University of Washington campus:

When the bus driver said Eastlake (our usual snow route) was closed Monday morning was the first time I worried a little.  Although he just turned us around and took us back to 45^th to get on the freeway’s non-express lanes.

Our building management had brought in an espresso cart and was offering free coffee and pastries Monday morning.  As very few people in the building made it in, there were a lot of pastries left.  When I heard they were going to toss what we didn’t take, I thought it would be a good deed to take some to Nickelsville, the tent city in the U District (now in the church parking lot on 45^th and 15^th Ave.) Especially as I’ve been too broke myself to help out much.

I took 3 boxes of assorted pastries with me down to the bus tunnel, for what ended up being a long wait.  When the first 70 series bus came, a half hour later, it was standing room only without enough room for everyone, so with my boxes, I waited.  Finally we at least saw a couple coming the other way, then one more came through going toward the U District.  It was pretty packed already, but I managed to get a seat near the front, and squeeze my way off at 45^th and the Ave. for the block walk to Nickelsville, without dropping any of them (no small feat). I was home about an hour late.  No big deal.

Although, I was a little concerned when the driver said he had been driving since 4 am and state (or maybe federal) regulations said he had to get off work by 8:30 pm.  I do think the Metro drivers are the heroes of the whole situation, and it can’t be easy driving packed buses of people (with more waiting you can’t get on) on barely maintained icy and snowy streets can’t be easy.

Tuesday was really slow going down Eastlake (and the kind hearted driver kept picking up people waiting for the 70, even though we were supposed to be the express bus).  One of my co-workers said our boss, who couldn’t make it in herself, said we should all go home early, before it got bad.  Actually two of my co-workers decided to spend the night, but I figured I’d be fine, waiting until the usual time.

The tunnel was already packed.  We waited a half hour with no 71s, 72s, or 73s coming through from either direction.  A Metro employee who called to check thought we’d be better off going up to the street and catching a 66 or 70.  I did wait a little while longer, hoping eventually one would come through the other way to the end of the line one station down, and finally went up to the street. 

A lot of people there who had been waiting a long time.  Buses passing us by thoroughly packed.  I thought of going to the end of the line, but which line, and what if that route’s buses weren’t running.  I decided this might well be the night I walk all the way home, and started walking. 

I did take it easy, and stopped at the Westlake food court first for dinner, then Pacific Place as I heard a rumor some of last year’s Nutcrackers ended up there (more in my next entry on those).  I did check the tunnel at Westlake, which was packed with people waiting and no sign of buses as well.  Then each time I was near a bus stop and a bus was coming, always too packed.

I walked up Fairview after a 70 passed me up.  Past the Seattle Times office.

 

A packed 66 passed by while I was walking as well.  Then a 72 or 73 (as it was after 7 pm by then, when they stop going Express) near Fairview and Eastlake.  I was ready to walk all the way, if I needed to (and planned on stopping for coffee once or twice on the way).  Just as I got passed the Fred Hutchinson complex (which I hadn’t realized had grown so much), I was near a stop when I saw a packed 66 coming.  I figured it wouldn’t stop, but thought I’d wait and see.  Someone got off, making room for me to hop on.  As we got further along, approaching the bridge to the University District, the ride started getting bumpy as the slush was re-freezing over to ice. Just as we approached 45^th, where I had decided to get off in search of an ATM (wanting cash in case I was stranded and needed coffee somewhere during the next morning or evening’s commute), the bus slid a little and was stuck for a couple minutes, as conditions were deteriorating.

It started snowing more before bed, and when I got up yesterday morning, I was feeling like I was about to come down with something, and with that on top of wondering if I was going to be stranded and need to walk all the way home (which I didn’t feel up to at that point, and maybe especially on Christmas eve), I wimped out and called in for a snow day.

Still, going back to the city, county and Metro’s response, I think we could do better.  Granted, we would need to spend a bit more money for snow plows and make some decisions weighing environmental costs on the salt vs extra expense maybe for a reliable alternative; but the current policy is based on people just being able to take the time off and stay home for a snow day or two.  Tough luck if it lasts longer. 

Of course, cities where it regularly snows have to work out something.  You can’t just shut down the city for the winter!  Microsoft’s Fargo Campus (who knew?) sent out a mock emergency alert, reposted on the PI’s blog, after finding out how soft their Seattle co-workers had it, where they posted suggestions (in an alert running from Dec. 18 to the end of April) like:

Please exercise normal caution driving and walking on campus as you are more likely to be attacked by a bunny than slip and fall on the ice.

and

Connectivity: You shouldn’t have any connectivity issues because you’re expected to be at work. We only had 10″ of snow and 40mph wind.
Area Roads: In light of the continuing snowfall and icy road conditions, most local roads are snow-covered and slippery and will remain that way until March. For information on current road conditions, please look out the window.

 

Some of the PI readers claimed it was no fair, as Fargo had no hills. True enough, but it occurs to me there are cities back east where it snows that do.  I remember staying on a very steep hill at a hostel in Pittsburgh when I went there for Amnesty International’s Annual General Meeting in 2002.  Granted, it was spring, but somehow I think cars and maybe trucks get around Pittsburgh in the winter (and hopefully without the amount of slipping and sliding in Seattle, as it was a long way down).

 

We could do better.  This is getting just a little ridiculous.

 

 

Tags: Seattle, snow, Metro, Joel+Connelly, Nickelsville

Music as Torture

Also on December 10, the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the British human rights organization, Reprieve, which, according to the Telegraph, represents 33 clients at Guantanamo Bay, launched the Zero dB initiative to end the use of music as torture.

The campaign urges supporters to help bring to an end the “brutal practice of music torture”. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals while a petition will call on governments and the UN to uphold their obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture.

America’s use of torture in the “war on terror” is outrageous, horrifying and disgusting in all it’s forms.  It’s particularly outrageous that the torturers can just co-opt an artist’s music for their sick game. Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of is one of the songs that has been used, and Tom Morello has been speaking out on the issue for some time, as noted by Andy Worthington in the Huffington Post:

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine has been particularly outspoken in denouncing the use of music as torture. In 2006, he also spoke to Spin magazine, and explained, “The fact that our music has been co-opted in this barbaric way is really disgusting. If you’re at all familiar with ideological teachings of the band and its support for human rights, that’s really hard to stand.”

David Gray, who’s song Babylon has been used in torture has also been in the forefront against the use of music as torture, saying in the Telegraph:

“What we’re talking about here is people in a darkened room, physically inhibited by handcuffs, bags over their heads and music blaring at them,” singer-songwriter David Gray has said of the practice.

“That is torture. That is nothing but torture. It doesn’t matter what the music is – it could be Tchaikovsky’s finest or it could be Barney the Dinosaur. It really doesn’t matter, it’s going to drive you completely nuts.”

In fact, the theme from Barney has been used to torture, as well as the theme from Sesame Street.

Christopher Cerf, who wrote music for Sesame Street, told the Associated Press he was horrified to learn songs from the children’s show were used in interrogations. “I wouldn’t want my music to be a party to that.”

Trent Reznor has also spoken out on the Nine Inch Nails blog:

It’s difficult for me to imagine anything more profoundly insulting, demeaning and enraging than discovering music you’ve put your heart and soul into creating has been used for purposes of torture.
If there are any legal options that can be realistically taken they will be aggressively pursued, with any potential monetary gains donated to human rights charities.
Thank GOD this country has appeared to side with reason and we can put the Bush administration’s reign of power, greed, lawlessness and madness behind us.

Trent Reznor

There have been a few musicians, including Steve Asheim of Deicide, Stevie Benton of Drowning Pool and Jamie Hetfeld of Metallica who actually approve of the use of their music in torture; and too much apathy from the rest.

I think there are two problems that contribute to the lack of outcry from some, and outright approval or acquiescence of other musicians, whose music is being used to break people.  One, that music’s use as torture is viewed as “torture light.” The other, the belief that all, or at least most, of those locked up at places like Guantanamo are guilty and “the worse of the worse.”

Neither is true, and what our government is doing in our name is far more sinister than some people are willing to believe (which is why we need a thorough, independent, investigation once President Obama puts an end to all of this, with those responsible at the top of the Bush administration being held accountable, as Amnesty International is calling for)

As noted in a June 19 Guardian article, “the creator of Barney’s song I Love You, Bob Singleton, admits he ‘just laughed’ when he heard it was being used by interrogators”.

I would argue even the fact that Tom Morello can say repeatedly on stage, as quoted in the Huffington Post article and others, ”I suggest that they level Guantánamo Bay, but they keep one small cell and they put Bush in there … and they blast some Rage Against the Machine,” highlights the problem.  Not that I probably didn’t laugh myself if he said it at the Get Out the Vote concert, and not that I haven’t heard similar from friends or people coming up to our Amnesty table (when I’ll say, of course as a member of AI, I oppose torture, or the death penalty, in all cases. . .). 

I do think the reason Tom’s fans, including, probably me, so easily laugh, however, is because we’re not taking seriously the idea that playing Rage Against the Machine music at a loud volume, non-stop would, in fact, torture and break President Bush. I also question, what would happen if Tom were to use some other suggestion of torture repeatedly each night, say of water boarding Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.  In spite of the fact water boarding is also claimed to be “torture light,” I suspect the FBI might pay Tom a little visit (and frankly, would worry we may eventually need to file a habeas corpus petition for Tom).

Even for some of us who get that heavy metal or rap played loud all day and night could drive someone mad, the idea that something mellow like David Gray’s Babylon (or the Sesame Street or Barney themes) could have the same effect may sound crazy, or can it really drive you crazy?

Yet, as described in Vanity Fair, and quoted in the Dec. 26, 2005 (Dec. 7 online) edition of The Nation:

In a gripping Vanity Fair article, Donovan Webster searched for and found “the man in the hood” from the macabre Abu Ghraib photos. Haj Ali told Webster of being hooded, stripped, handcuffed to his cell and bombarded with a looped sample of David Gray’s “Babylon.” It was so loud, he said, “I thought my head would burst.” Webster then cued up “Babylon” on his iPod and played it for Haj Ali to confirm the song. Ali ripped the earphones off his head, and started crying. “He didn’t just well up with tears,” Webster later told me. “He broke down sobbing.”

Released former Guantanamo detainee Rahul Ahmed, whose case is documented in the film The Road to Guantanamo. talks about the use of music in torture in this clip from Reprieve:

Consider this comment in the Huffington Post by Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed:

Speaking to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, Mohamed, like Ruhal Ahmed, explained how psychological torture was worse than the physical torture he endured in Morocco, where the CIA’s proxy torturers regularly cut his penis with a razorblade. “Imagine you are given a choice,” he said. “Lose your sight or lose your mind.”

Of course, breaking down prisoners and causing them to lose their mind is exactly what these psychological techniques developed by the CIA were meant to do, as chronicled by Alfred W. McCoy on numerous occasions, including a May 29, 2004 edition of CounterPunch.

As the Dec. 2005 Nation article points out, the British also used loud noise against Irish detainees in the early 1970’s. “This was one of the so-called Five Techniques, scientifically developed interrogation practices that also included wall-standing, hooding, sleep deprivation and withholding of food and drink.”

 In his book Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People, John Conroy describes the “absolute” and “unceasing” noise that the Irishmen who were first subjected to the Five Techniques endured. While the other four techniques were clearly terrifying, the noise was “an assault of such ferocity that many of the men now recall it as the worst part of the ordeal.”

The Nation article continues the parallel:

Ex-interrogators at Guantánamo’s Camp Delta described their methods to the New York Times. These included shackling detainees to the floor, cranking up the air-conditioning and forcing them to endure strobe lights with rock and rap music playing at mind-numbing volumes for unbearably long sessions. “It fried them,” one said. Another admitted that detainees returned “very wobbly. They came back to their cells and were just completely out of it.”

This is when the mind begins its rebellion against the body. After you end up “wobbly” or “fried,” a severe post-traumatic stress disorder commonly results. Patrick Shivers, one of the Irish victims of the Five Techniques, developed a lasting and severe hypersensitivity to noise to the point where he was “disturbed by the sound of a comb placed on a shelf in his bathroom.”

Ah, but these techniques are only being used against terrorists, the worse of the worse, and certainly not Americans, right?  While it still would not be OK, or effective, the fact is – wrong.  The Huffington Post cites “Donald Vance, a U.S. military contractor in Iraq, who was subjected to music torture for 76 days in 2006”:

Vance’s story demonstrates not only that the practice of using music as torture was being used as recently as 2006, but also that it was used on Americans. When his story first broke in December 2006, the New York Times reported that he “wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the FBI about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked,” but that “when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer.”

Speaking to the Associated Press last week, Vance, who was held at Camp Cropper, said that the use of music as torture “can make innocent men go mad,” and explained that during his imprisonment the music “was almost constant, mostly hard rock. There was a lot of Nine Inch Nails, including ‘March of the Pigs.’ I couldn’t tell you how many times I heard Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You.’” He added that the experience “sort of removes you from you. You can no longer formulate your own thoughts when you’re in an environment like that.”

Worse of the worse?  Some statistics from Amnesty International’s fact sheet on Guantanamo:  55% of the detainees are not determined to have committed hostile acts against the United States, 44% of the detainees have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda, 18% have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, with only 8% (typo corrected) being characterized as al Qaeda fighters.  Prisoners are bought, with the US offering large bounties for suspected terrorists: 66% of detainees were captured by Pakistani authorities and turned over to U.S. control, 20% were captured by Northern Alliance/Afghan authorities and turned over to U.S. control, with only 8% being captured by U.S. authorities and 3% by other coalition forces.

Torture is also not effective and puts our own troops at risk, as noted in the Washington Post by Matthew Alexander, the Air Force interrogator who tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, by building a rapport with the Guantanamo suspects and refusing to take part in torture.

That music has been, and maybe still is, being used as a torture method by the U.S. government is deeply disturbing.  Musicians whose work is being used in this twisted way should be outraged and speak out against it ever happening again.

Not in our name!  I hear this “Well, but what can we do?” from people when it finally starts to dawn on them what we’re doing.  Is this still America?  Is this still a democracy?  We speak out! Amnesty International, and the prisoners of conscience we defend, have made it a point of speaking out even in countries that are not alleged democracies.

Yes, I have hope now that we have elected President Obama that this will all soon end.  There must be accountability, too; along with building a consensus in America that this will never happen again.  I think those of us who believe in justice will have to push to make this happen, as moderate Democrats tend to want to not make waves.  This is too important to let pass and sweep under the rug.

America should stand for justice. It’s precisely because I love America that I find this all so appalling. 

 

Tags: Reprieve, Zero+dB, human+rights, torture, Tom+Morello, David+Gray, Nine+Inch+Nails, Trent+Reznor, Amnesty+Inernational, Bush+administration, Guantanamo, Rahul+Ahmed, Binyam+Mohamed, Haj+Ali, Alfred+W.+McCoy, John+Conroy, Patrick+Shivers, Donald+Vance, Rage+Against+the+Machine

How Seattle Celebrated Human Rights Day/Week

This being Seattle, we couldn’t just hold one event to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  I attended four last week, and missed at least three others.

One I missed, that I found out about at the last minute, was the showing of Amnesty International’s new video, The Price of Silence at the Experience Music Project on December 10 (during daytime hours, so I couldn’t make it, but I would have liked to have posted it to our AI Group 4 website).

The Price of Silence video (below)starts with a poem read by Laurence Fishbourne and brings together musicians from around the world including Stephen Marley, Natalie Merchant, Angelique Kidjo and Hugh Masekela, performing before the United Nation’s General Assembly. Wow!

I did make Seattle’s 60th Anniversary of the UDHR Concert at Neumos, a benefit for Amnesty International. I was one of our local group’s volunteer tablers, collecting names on human rights petitions and giving out literature all night.

Gina Sala, a Hindu Indian singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice, and a new addition to their line up since I posted it before the show, opened the night.  The video below will give you some idea.

Most of the evening alternated between jazz (Barrett Martin and the Wayward Shamans, featuring Dave Carter; Tuatara) and world music (Gina Sala; Rahim Alhaj, a Grammy nominated Iraqi musician; Thione Diop and Yeke Yeke, Senagalese Wolof Drummers), with The Minus 5 closing out the night with a rocking set.

Thione Diop did indeed get a Seattle crowd to dance (as shown in the video I used for the preview), and Rahim Alhaj got us to keep time with his music clapping (well, whether he actually got us to keep time is another matter, but he was gracious about it).

As for our local Amnesty International group, we sold one t-shirt and got a few donations (the door went to AIUSA, as you would expect for a major concert); and. . .collected 215 signatures on petitions for human rights cases including freeing Shi Tao in China, Ma Khin Khin Leh in Myanamar/Burma, Petros Solomon in Eritrea, Muhammad el Gharani from Guantanamo, a number of monks and nuns from Drapchi Prison in Tibet, and justice for Barbara Italia Mendez in Mexico.

We also gathered more letters for AI to send to President Obama when he’s in office for the 100 days campaign, calling for the closure of Guantanamo, end of torture and accountability by those in charge in the U.S. government who perpetrated the abuses.

Special thanks to Barrett Martin for putting the concert together and letting us use up so much table space, crowding their cd sales!

So, the next night I should be relaxing, right?  Well, unfortunately I did relax a bit too much (or actually, answered to much Amnesty e-mail) and got to the city’s Seattle Human Rights Day event at Town Hall late and missed most of the awards ceremony.  Even more embarrassing, talking to Merri Ann from our AI group (who’s also a Seattle Human Rights Commissioner) afterwards, it turned out our name was read as a runner up for an award, and neither I nor anyone else was there to stand up for AI Group 4!

Dr. Robert Bullard, author of Confronting Environmental Racism, was the guest speaker for the city’s Human Rights Day event.  That so many  poor and minority communities are near sources of pollution is no surprise, but the extent of it is, and especially what the children have to deal with.  Also, even controlling for other factors like income and education, race comes up as the leading factor for the location of environmental toxins (like a park built over a sewage treatment plant in a mostly black middle class neighborhood).

Where do the children play? 

I did get to relax a little Friday (after buying supplies for our write-a-thon) before our double bill on Saturday – a march and the write-a-thon.  We gathered outside the Convention Center for the International Human Rights Day march on a rather cold day (when everyone was panicking, as they still are, that we may have a few snow flakes).  At least it wasn’t just Don and I holding the Amnesty banner this time.  Well, actually it was, but we had a small contingent from the Bush School AI group who marched with one of our other banners.  Where was everyone who thought having the march and write-a-thon on the same day was a good idea?

Oh, well.  It was a good march, going right through Pike Place Market, though a little tricky for going under the AI banner as most of the chants were generic anti-war or other issues AI does not have a stance on, with little specific on human rights.    The rally did cover more, though, from the Philippines, to gay rights, to a GI coffeehouse at Fort Lewis set up by the Iraq Veterans Against the War, to Nickelsville. There was folk music, rap and poetry as well.

There was just enough time after the rally to get to the Victrola Roastery for the write-a-thon and to get warmed up with some well deserved coffee.  We wrote letters by hand on cases from around the world, some of them the same ones I had petitions out for the concert.  Writing by hand and figuring out what to say, however, leaves you really thinking about the cases in a way you don’t when you just sign a petition. It brings it back to the reality and importance of what we’re trying to do – freeing political prisoners, stopping torture and executions, calling for justice for those who have undergone abuse.

You think of the whole idea of Amnesty International, how it started, the idea that a bunch of people writing letters to free prisoners of conscience would somehow work, let alone grow into an organization of over 2.2 million members in 150 countries worldwide. All working to try to make the rights enumerated in the UDHR 60 years ago reality.  What a concept, and what a great organization to be part of.

Tags: human+rights, UDHR, Amnesty+International, Price+of+Silence, Experience+Music+Project, United+Nations, Gina+Sala, Barrett+Martin, Dave+Carter, Tuatara, The+Minus+5, Thione+Diop, Rahim+Alhaj, Town+Hall, Seattle+Human+Rights+Commission, Dr.+Robert+Bullard, write-a-thon

Mike McCready – One More Time, for the Kids

So, one night before my marathon Human Rights Day/Week marathon, when I should be resting, what did I do? Yes, I went to see Mike McCready’s Hendrix tribute band Shadow ‘86 again, this time at the Tractor Tavern as a fundraiser for Treehouse for Kids (a charity for foster children). 

I actually did try to catch up on all some of my Amnesty International work and was a little late getting there.  They took my toy and gave me a drink voucher for it at the door and checked my name off the list.  I walk into the smallest venue yet to see a major rock star in, and there’s Mike McCready singing the Rolling Stones’ Dead Flowers for a warm up set.

Star Anna was on next, the only one of his opening acts I hadn’t seen before. She was good, and her music tended toward country. Here’s a clip from a past show at the Tractor:

Continuing the country trend, Kristen Ward was next. She’s definitely been working on her stage presence, adding to her songwriting and sultry voice.  Mike McCready came out to play on With You Again (as he does on her album).  I liked how she just casually mentions hanging out at Nancy Wilson’s (of Heart) to write her new song.

Sometime in the middle of Kristen’s set I first heard the ongoing weirdness of the evening, a guy drunkenly shouting out “green sweatpants!”  She couldn’t quite figure out what that was all about, either. 

Kim Virant came out next, continuing the sultry, and heading the music to rock (see clip below from finale). Mike came out on here set as well. I moved in closer, and was actually close to the “green sweatpants” guy during the stage change.

Mike McCready and Shadow ‘86 tore into the Hendrix songs once again, and it was really intense in such a small club.  Mike playing Voodoo Child behind his back again. An intense Machine Gun, All Along the Watchtower. . . Kim Virant came out for Little Wing and Mike ended the main set with the Star Spangled Banner.  Encore included Run Run Rudolph (below) and then the guy who was mc’ing, Larry Steiner, according to the Pearl Jam message board, did a wild lead vocal and stage show for The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog, tearing off his shirt to show his tattoos on his back and leaping all over the place. Mike closed it out with a Yellow Ledbetter sing-a-long (the song that everybody loves, but no one, except Ed, maybe, knows the lyrics and Mike wrote the music to).

I had hoped the “green sweatpants” guy would be drowned out once Mike started playing, but alas, we could hear him during Mike’s solos.  Reminds me of the old guy on the bus from Greenwood who wouldn’t stop smoking or drinking and was finally put off the bus who periodically shouted “Norway!”  Years from now I’ll be riding Metro and hearing “green sweatpants!”

Run Run Rudolph:

I know I’m lucky to be living in a city where I can hear Mike McCready play his Hendrix tribute four times in the past year (mostly at incredibly low prices for charity).  Yet. . . in recent years, Pearl Jam never plays Seattle.  I’m only half joking that I should move to Boston or Chicago to see them.  The Gorge is not Seattle, especially not if you don’t have a car.

I notice Eddie didn’t play Seattle for his solo tour, either.  Oh, well, maybe when his solo ukulele album comes out.  Just kidding (though not about the album, which Ernest Jasmin mentioned in a Tacoma News Tribune article). . .

Mike did mention “his other band” is working on a new album near the end of the show.  : )

Tags: Mike+McCready, Shadow+’86, Tractor+Tavern, Treehouse, Star+Anna, Kristen+Ward, Kim+Virant

Seattle’s 60th UDHR Human Rights Day/Week Extravaganza

So, I’m going for the triathlon of Human Rights Day events this week as Seattle celebrates the 6Oth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have music (including 2 side bands of REM members), awards, a march and rally, and a write-a-thon (following the march). . .

First up, Seattle’s 60th Anniversary of the UDHR Concert at Neumos on the day itself, Weds. Dec. 10, doors at 7, tickets $15 at TicketsWest, benefiting Amnesty International, featuring The Minus 5, Tuatara (both featuring Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of REM);Grammy-nominated Iraqi musician Rahim Alhaj, Barrett Martin and the Wayward Shamans (featuring Dave Carter, trumpet; and Aiko Shimada, vocals) and Thione Diope and his Senegalese Wolof Drummers.

Here’s a little preview.  First The Minus 5:

Rahim Alhaj:

Thione Diop:

Note: this clip is from Seattle and Thione Diop’s group performs the unheard of miracle of making Seattleites dance!

Our local Amnesty International group (AIUSA Group 4, Seattle) will be on hand collecting signatures on human rights petitions, handing out literature, selling t-shirts and we can even sign you up as a member!

Next up, the one event our group is not officially involved with, but certainly many of us attending, Seattle’s Human Rights Day, Thurs, Dec. 11, 7 – 9 pm at Town Hall.  Dr. Robert Bullard is the guest speaker (and will also be speaking on Weds. Dec. 10, 11:30 am – 1 pm at Seattle City Hall’s Bertha Landes Room), with awards Thurs. night going to Somali Community Services of Seattle, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, YWCA GirlsFirst and Michael Neguse.

Amnesty International Group 4, Seattle is a proud co-sponsor of Seattle’s March for Human Rights on Saturday, Dec. 13, starting at 1 pm at 7^th & Pike near the Washington State Convention Center and ends with a rally at Westlake Plaza.

Featured speakers include representatives of Real Change and the Philippine-U.S. Solidarity Organization. Musicians include Jim Page and Blue Scholars.

Have I mentioned I’m the new Group Coordinator for Amnesty International Group 4 (4th group in the US, not Seattle)?  I had my hesitancy taking over such a hyperactive group, but Aaron Tovo, our former Group Coordinator was moving back to Minneapolis.  What could I do?

Due to our November meeting being delayed as the regular night would have been on election night, we had only 5 members there, including Aaron who was leaving.  So, after not much response posting to our listserv, I finally got a chance to ask our about 15 member gathering Tuesday night whether we should take part in the march (yes!) and Amnesty International’s Global Write-a-Thon (sometime between Dec. 4–15), certainly, I thought, not on the same day. . . which everyone else thought was just perfect, in fact, the only time for it.

So, following the march and rally, join our Seattle group for Amnesty International’s Global Write-a-Thon on December 13 from 3:30 – 5 pm at the Victrola Coffee at 310 E Pike St. We’ll provide case sheets and letter writing supplies. Also writing guidelines for those who are new to AI letter writing.

Our write-a-thon is the one time of year, for most of us, where we go old school and hand write our letters asking for the release of prisoners of conscience, ending human rights violations and bringing the perpetrators to justice. To date, 187,828 letters pledged, just on the Amnesty International USA website alone.  Amnesty International groups around the world are taking part.

After that, I think a nice long nap. . .zzzz

No, wait, we have the Seattle Human Rights Film Festival coming up Feb. 4 – 8. . .

Tags: Amnesty+International, human+rights, human+rights+day, UDHR, Neumos, The+Minus+5, Tuatara, Peter+Buck, Scott+McCaughey, REM, Rahim+alHaj, Barrett+Martin, Wayward+Shamans, Dave+Carter, Aiko+Shimada, Thione+Diope, Seattle+Human+Rights+Day, Town+Hall, Dr.+Robert+Bullard, Somali+Community+Services+of+Seattle, Northwest+Immigrant+Rights+Project, YWCA+GirlsFirst, Michael+Neguse, write-a-thon, Seattle+Human+Rights+Film+Festival

100 Days – Closing Guantanamo and Ending Torture

Amnesty International has launched it’s 100 Days campaign, calling on President-elect Barack Obama to make human rights a priority and undo the damage done by President Bush in the name of anti-terrorism.

In the first 100 days, Amnesty International is calling on the new administration to:

• announce a plan and date to close Guantanamo;

• issue an executive order to ban torture and other ill-treatment, as defined under international law;

• ensure that an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the U.S. government in its “war on terror” is set up.

Our local Amnesty International group has had the letters to soon to be President Obama out at local events (collecting them for AI to present to him at the right moment, maybe after January 20?).  Just joking, after Barack’s in office is obvious, although even AI can barely wait for Bush to leave, can they? 

You can also take action online at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/100days

How did it come to this? In America?

Amnesty International is not alone.  A group of retired generals and admirals are also calling for President Barack Obama to end torture “from the moment of his inauguration” according to Reuters.

“We need to remove the stain, and the stain is on us, as well as on our reputation overseas,” said retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, former Navy inspector general.

Gunn and about a dozen other retired generals and admirals, who are scheduled to meet Obama’s team in Washington, said they plan to offer a list of anti-torture principles, including some that could be implemented immediately.

They include making the Army Field Manual the single standard for all U.S. interrogators. The manual requires humane treatment and forbids practices such as waterboarding — a form of simulated drowning widely condemned as torture.

Other immediate steps Obama could take are revoking presidential orders allowing the CIA to use harsh treatment, giving the International Red Cross access to all prisoners held by intelligence agencies and declaring a moratorium on taking prisoners to a third country for harsh interrogations.

“If he’d just put a couple of sentences in his inaugural address, stating the new position, then everything would flow from that,” said retired Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes, whose regiment in World War Two raised the American flag on Iwo Jima.

Torture is not patriotic.  Torture is also not effective. 

Matthew Alexander, an interrogator in Iraq talks in the Washington Post about how he refused to “bend the rules” and use torture, instead going by the U.S Army Field Manual to get the information to capture Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. “We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work”, he wrote. 

Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money.

As Alexander notes, not only is torture against his moral fabric and inconsistent with American principles.  “Torture and abuse cost American lives.”

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.

So we should be free from torture and excuses for torture now that we’ll have a Democrat in office, right?  Well, actually I do hold a lot of hope for Obama on this one.  He’s been very consistent against torture. What’s disturbing, is that, as the New York Times and Salon report, Senators Feinstein and Wyden have shifted their previous strong stances against torture, to one of, umm, greater flexibility.

According to the Times:

[I]n an interview on Tuesday, Mrs. Feinstein indicated that extreme cases might call for flexibility. “I think that you have to use the noncoercive standard to the greatest extent possible,” she said, raising the possibility that an imminent terrorist threat might require special measures.

Afterward, however, Mrs. Feinstein issued a statement saying: “The law must reflect a single clear standard across the government, and right now, the best choice appears to be the Army Field Manual. I recognize that there are other views, and I am willing to work with the new administration to consider them.”

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, another top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said he would consult with the C.I.A. and approve interrogation techniques that went beyond the Army Field Manual as long as they were “legal, humane and noncoercive.” But Mr. Wyden declined to say whether C.I.A. techniques ought to be made public.

Salon reports clarifying statements from he Senators’ offices.  Ron Wyden’s office claims he is against torture, but the statement is actually quite wishy-washy.

As you may or may not be aware, under current law, the Army Field Manual can be revised by the Executive Branch without prior consent from Congress. This is to allow for the possibility of incorporating other legal, humane and noncoercive interrogation techniques that might be discovered to be effective in the future. Just because the Army Field Manual is currently the best available standard for interrogation does not mean we can’t do better.

Ah, so there are “legal, humane and noncoercive interrogation techniques” yet to be invented that the Army Field Manual somehow may not allow because they’ve banned torture or, err, “coercive techniques”, so we have to allow some wiggle room.

Feinstein’s clarification is even more disturbing.  According to Salon:

Sen. Feinstein has just now issued another statement, to Time’s Scherer, asserting — much like Wyden just did — “that she still wants a law that mandates the Field Manual as the sole interrogation standard, but that she may be willing to be talked back from that position by the Obama Administration, if it chooses to do so.”  

So, she’s willing to consider torture (or “coercive methods”) if President Obama says so?

While I would hope this will never be an issue, the correct answer, Senator, is “No.”  No torture.  Period.  Torture would still be wrong even if President Obama were to order it, or his administration were to order it.  Does Senator Feinstein really believe torture is not okay under a Republican administration, but it is under a Democratic one?!!

This is not the American I believe in.

The America I Believe In doesn’t torture people or use cruel, inhuman treatment. . .doesn’t hold people without charge, without fair trials, without hope, and without end. . .doesn’t kidnap people on the street and ship them to nations known for their brutality. . .doesn’t condone prisoner abuse and excuse high-ranking government of-cials from responsibility for that abuse. . .doesn’t justify the use of secret prisons. . . and does not rob people of their basic dignity.

I’m joining with Amnesty International USA to restore The America I Believe In.

The America I Believe In leads the world on human rights. 

 

 

Tags: 100+Days, torture, human+rights, Amnesty+International, Barack+Obama, President+Bush, Guantanamo, Army+Field+Manuel, al-Qaeda+in+Iraq, Abu+Musab+al-Zarqawi, Ron+Wyden, Dianne+Feinstein