Spain on The Huffington Post

N.J. woman sentenced to 14 years in prison for illegally taking daughter to Spain

2009-12-23T15:07:12Z

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS -- A woman has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for taking her daughter to Spain and refusing to return her to Hasbrouck Heights, where the child's custodial father lived, according to a report by NorthJersey.com. Maria...

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Michael Jones: Los Abrazos Rotos : Pedro Almodavar's New Movie

2009-12-21T17:15:29Z

I once sat in a pintxo bar in San Sebastian with Joseba Elizando, Miguel 'the Handsomest Man in the World' Miranda, and Wayne Kruer, an American ex-pat professional basketball player. Wayne was drafted by the Celtics, cut in training camp and had played in the Spanish pro leagues for a few seasons. He chained smoked Ducados and spat out Spanish and English in a voice only a million cigarettes could create. 'Michael,' he rasped, 'tell the waitress that you love her when she comes back and you want to take her to America.' Why would I want to do that, I asked. 'Because she is beautiful, she's over twenty and not married, and when you don't take her with you tomorrow I will console her.'

Joseba, well known at the bar, part gypsy, began to clap his hands and sing a flamenco ballad. Some song of love and loss, his booming deep voice silencing the bar, causing the little children to stop running beneath the hams hanging from the ceiling. Miguel played the twelve-string guitar a wealthy older man in Washington, DC gave him the summer he lived with my brother.

There is a rich light in Spanish bars, a perpetual golden late summer's afternoon light. It illuminated the strong faces all around us, faces full of character, showing their lives and years, striking and memorable. The conversations, stopped for a while as Joseba's song reminded everyone of the injustice of love, resumed in a basso undertone. A woman stood and shouted for more wine. The waiter took her in a passionate embrace when he brought it and kissed her as if he was leaving for the front. A man at her table looked down helplessly, his fists so tightly clenched the knuckles were pure white with tension. The perfectly dressed and made up ladies of a certain age near the door eyed Miguel with some knowledge. Who are they I asked him? Carrothas, he replied, broken down old wagons. Do you know them? Once.

I write this because it has been my experience that there is something unique about that country. A story in every face. The blood of La Guerra Civil just there outside the window or behind the door. The Reconquista never forgotten. Its art, literature, music, and movies unmistakably Spanish.

As is Pedro Almodovar.

It has been a long drought movie wise over the last weeks. Little to see, and those seen, forgettable or worse. Until today and Pedro Almodovar's Los Abrazos Rotos, translated as Broken Embraces.

I speak only bar Spanish, but Los Abrazos Rotos seems more complicated and weighty than Broken Embraces, just as 'je t'embrasse tres tendrement', means more than hugs! I texted a bilingual friend, who confirmed the translation, but this is a friend who is notoriously didactic.

Los Abrazos Rotos sounds so much more romantic, and reflects better, to this non-Spanish speaker, the complicated, weighty story that this movie tells than the prosaic: Broken Embraces. It is the latest Pedro Almodovar movie. One of a string of great movies he has made. His is a unique style, unmistakably Spanish, unmistakably Pedro Almodovar. Two minutes into it, I was hooked. Almodovar can tell a story with a simple set up and a few lines of dialogue. His art direction is perfect, his camera sense always engaging, his stable of deep voiced Spanish actors and actresses, riveting.

I remember a teacher telling me of the genius of Balzac, his pitch perfect stories of the human condition. Almodovar is like that: pitch perfect modern stories of love, jealousy, family, pain, daily life, living, and death. Generations from now I would bet that students will watch his movies to get some sense of what life was like over the last twenty years.

His movies demand attention. They are not frenetic, they move languorously, but attention must be paid as various plots unfold within bigger plots. Or more accurately, lives are described among other lives and you find yourself in Pedro's pintxo bar with Joseba, Miguel, the beautiful waitress, and the old ladies at the door. Much of the pleasure of watching comes from listening to the stories within stories that play out in front of the camera. Abrazos begins with a seduction. It ends with a movie within a movie. We are seduced from beginning to end. Seduced by the acting, the art direction, the complete originality of the directors vision and story telling. By those expressive Spanish faces, their deep voices, and slurred quick melodic language.

A blind writer has changed his name, his life, his career, and the movie tells us why. The why is the pleasure of any story and there have been few directors who can tell stories so effortlessly. A poster for a blood drive becomes a five-minute aside in the movie. The five minutes completely involving as imagination transforms the poster into a movie script that I would pay to see.

Penelope Cruz, more beautiful now than in her youth, mesmerizing on the big screen. Her character so sympathetic, her life so complicated, her acting so believable that she is not Penelope Cruz but a woman who, as she says, of all things, wants a man to love her and she to love him. As if that is too much to ask. But Almodovar knows that in such simplicity is impossibility. Who doesn't want to truly love and be truly loved in return? And, how many find that person?

Love, lust, blackmail, violence, a beautiful woman, ambiguity, red tomatoes sliced as hearts are sliced open by unrequited love or an unfaithful lover. Treachery, truths told, secrets revealed, fathers and sons, and suddenly, the movie was over.

It can't be that this movie's title can be translated merely into Broken Embraces. Los Abrazos Rotos must be Spanish for 'The Best Movie of The Season.' Or, con amor, it should be translated: 'Why We Love to go to Movies.'

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Pre-Genocidal Hate: How the Internet Supersized a Medieval Big Lie

2009-12-21T12:05:25Z

Whenever Simon Wiesenthal, the late great Nazi hunter and iconic human rights advocate, would speak to college students, inevitably this question would be posed: Could the Holocaust happen again? His answer: "The history of humankind is the history of crime. The only difference between the Nazi Genocide and the Inquisition was technology. Had modern technology been available, no Jew had survived in Spain; no Catholic in England, no Protestant in France." He would add this warning: "Hate+Crisis+Technology can set the stage for a new genocide."

Mr. Wiesenthal knew first-hand of what he spoke. He lost 89 members of his family among the 6 million Jews mass murdered by the ultra-efficient Nazi death machine that recast old hatreds in modern outlets of the 1930s-- utilizing radio, posters, children's games, and colorful books to dehumanize "the enemy" and setting the stage for bureaucratized 'extermination' in the 1940s.

Mr. Wiesenthal outlived most of his tormentors, passing at the age of 96, at the dawn of the Internet Era.

Were he alive today, he would be worried, very worried. For today, old hatreds are being repackaged and supersized in a way that would have made Josef Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Hate, drool with envy. In our time, the drumbeat of hatred -- like yesterday's precursors to genocide--is fueled by the 'Big Lies' that--that a generation ago served as the ignition key for the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction." The only difference between past and present is the speed of transmission. It used to be said that that lies, by means of newspaper or radio, could travel halfway round the world before truth has time to put on its trousers. Now, digital data and satellite dishes can bounce the lie to Mars and back almost before you can blink an eye.

Just look at the global transmission belt that has transformed the libel that Jews drink the blood of their Passover victims from a medieval libel to a post-modern Cyberspace "truth":

The updated libel started small in the 1990s with ludicrous reports from the Palestinian territories, that Israeli soldiers were harvesting t organs of Palestinian civilians.

It next was given currency in the Muslim world in 2004 by Iranian Sahar 1 TV which serialized in both Persian and Arabic "Zara Blue Eyes"--the tale of how a Jewish doctor, modeled on Auschwitz's Dr. Mengele, poses as a UN official to target a particularly pretty young Palestinian, saying: " [Take] this one! Her eyes remind me of my wife."

Next it achieved orbital velocity over Scandinavia in the form of a story in Sweden's leading newspaper, Aftonbladet, under a headline in which grieving Palestinian parents scream: "They Plunder the Organs of Our Sons!" No matter that the reporter, Donald Bostrom, admitted that "whether it's true or not--I have no idea, I have no clue," while one Palestinian family quoted denied subsequently ever having made the accusation.

Now it's metastasized to Eastern Europe, where in Kiev a panel of intellectuals supported an anti-Semitic presidential candidate who accuses Israeli families who adopted Ukrainian orphans of being part of an international black market ring to harvest their organs for sale. Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that Professor Vyacheslav Gudin told the 300 attendees a detailed story about a Ukrainian man's fruitless search for 15 children who had been adopted in Israel. The children, Gudin charged, had clearly been taken by Israeli medical centers, where they were used for "spare parts."

Horrible enough that anti-Semitism has emerged as a factor in Ukraine's democratic elections--but this pig has wings. Iran's PressTV headline touts: "Ukrainian kids, new victims of Israeli 'organ theft'". "Alternative" media and a few other Middle Eastern sites quickly picked up the PressTV report as a real news--more than 300 outlets in 24 hours! There's small comfort that one online "white Nationalist" actually did the math, adding up the number of alleged Arab kids to the 25 thousand supposed victimized Ukrainian children. "I guess every person in Israel has had multiple organ transplants by now" -- was his comment.

Why care if the lunatic fringe picks up on such garbage? Think again. There's this development from Israel's senior peace partner in the Middle East. Dr. Hamdi Al-Sayed, chief of Egypt's Medical Syndicate has banned Israeli doctors from attending a medical conference in Cairo, declaring, "We have no regard or respect for the Israeli doctors . . . due to their participation in the torture of Palestinian prisoners", adding, "Israeli doctors are also guilty of stealing the organs of Palestinian prisoners."

What's been done to combat the Big Lie? So far, nothing! Sweden, currently rotating president of the European Union has ignored its moral obligation to condemn its country's leading newspaper for reviving the medieval blood libel by hiding behind a flimsy press freedom defense. The Jewish Forum of Ukraine is urging that the bigoted presidential candidate Ratushnyak be indicted under Ukraine's Criminal Code for inciting ethnic hatred. But the nation's paralyzed political and judicial systems seem incapable of preventing the January elections from being hijacked by a hatemonger.

U.S. Supreme Court Louis D. Brandies once said, "Truth is the best disinfectant." Given the cynicism and apathy in face of the re-birthed and digitized blood libel, don't expect the stench of this Internet-validated Big Lie to disappear anytime soon. Failure to act does guarantee that more pre-genocidal and terror-spawning "Big Lies" are on the way.

Think it can't bite us? Think again. Reacting to the arrest of 5 young American Jihadi-terrorist wannabees arrested in Pakistan, President Obama declared: "We have to constantly be mindful that some of these twisted ideologies are available over the Internet."

Dr. Harold Brackman, a historian who is a consultant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center contributed to this essay.

Lea Lane: For a Bargain: A Repositioning Transatlantic Crossing

2009-12-21T10:32:32Z

I'm writing this watching waves fold to the horizon under a cloud dabbled gray-blue sky in the middle of the Atlantic. I'm on the Azamara Journey, the same small ship I took almost two years ago when I traveled solo to Antarctica. This time I'm not solo, and I'm in far warmer climes, on a a ship repositioning from Europe to the Caribbean.

Avoiding hurricane season, ships cross in the spring from the Caribbean to Europe and in late fall, cross back the other way. If you're lucky and savvy you can take advantage of this bargain adventure as the crew paints and otherwise spiffs up the ship around you.

Our cruise started along the Mediterranean -from Barcelona to Alicante Spain to Gibraltar to the Portuguese island of Madeira. Our last landfall was La Palma, in the Canary islands off the African coast, before turning west heading six days into the ocean and on to the Bahamas and Miami.

This wonderful trip is a holiday gift from my new beau - and a way to make sure we can spend a couple of weeks together in a small cabin and remain smitten. (In previous testings with other fellas, one of us usually failed).

Columbus sailed from the Canary islands as the last known land mass on his way to discover a route to India on an uncharted sea, and he was busy! We were too. In fact, you might be interested in a synopsis of the options of a typical day at sea -Thursday, December 10. I doubt the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria had slots and shows and virtual bowling (well, maybe a Spanish crossword puzzle: "Hmmm... four down... what we hope the earth is not ....")

A Day in the Middle of the Ocean

Up early, at 7:30. Not sure what I'll choose to do today. I decide not to "walk a mile" along the jogging track. I'll walk later. I could join the sunrise and stretch or sudoku and crossword at 8, but instead breakfast in the cabin. I usually have juice, a bagel and coffee, trying desperately to minimize the 7-pound weight gain of most passengers.

At 9 am there's a service club get-together, or a special interest trivia ("All About Aviation") at 9:30 shuffleboard, and at 9:45, visual trivia ("Flags of the World"). I pass on all. Shuffleboard is a cliché for elders and I'm not up on flags except for stars and stripes.

By 10 am most passengers are up and about and can choose from an Adobe Photoshop lesson in the computer room, a bridge players lecture, a Smithsonian lecture on the Poles, by the institution's director for marine science. Not into lectures -I'm thinking arts and crafts: Santa's underwear. Sounds more interesting than shuffleboard but do I really care whether Santa chooses briefs or boxers, or even goes commando? No. I'm bi-polar myself (as in "having traveled to Greenland and Antarctica") but the Smithsonian lecture will later be shown on my in-room TV, so can catch it later.

At 10:15 there's Tic Tac Toe Putt, which sounds like golf for dummies. At 10:30 more hard choices, including a fitness seminar on detox for weight loss, or pictionarions (who names these crazy sounding things in the daily bulletin?). Being a nice Jewish girl, I'm tempted by a latke cookoff. But who needs the calories and heartburn, I'm already eating for three.

A cha-cha lesson is given at 11 by Maryanne and Jeff, master dancers; but beau and I already had a mambo lesson and I have cha-chaed since I was a teen in Miami Beach, so no need. At 11:15 I could attend a tanzanite seminar given by the nice man in the jewelry shop who no doubt wants to tempt us to buy a bauble but I had bought myself one of those purplish-blue stones as a special gift to myself in Tanzania, shortly after my husband died eight years ago. Pass.

11:30 it's Team Trivia. Games are overheated and loud, so I skip that and also the Spot the Fake raffle draw. I think I'm already pretty good at spotting fakes, like the Salahis.

So it's lunch. And up to now I've done nothing but eat breakfast. Reading about all those activities has worn me out. I think I'll nap by the pool, after checking out the buffet, where I especially like the Indian specialities and sushi.

After lunchtime, the activities continue. If passengers are into gambling, the casino features Texas Hold 'Em tournaments through the afternoon and evening, and $500 Mega Bingo and a poker slots qualifying round. As my dad was a pro gambler, I'm inoculated from these surefire ways of losing money.

Throughout the early afternoon there's an Improv Acting Class, an art preview and live art auction. We can sign up for the talent show, play duplicate and social bridge, or take a Broadway dance class. Or we can join the Azamara High Seas Choir, or play a Virtual Home Run Derby.

I finally do something social! At 2:15 I play Battle of the Sexes. Men and women vying for points throughout the cruise, answering trivia questions. As I was long ago on Jeopardy!, general knowledge is my thing and I make some contributions ("The Statue of Liberty was modeled after the sculptor's mother" ... "The three longest rivers are the Nile, the Amazon and the Yangtze ....")

After the exhausting rigors of that game I decide to indulge in teeth whitening next day day in the spa (hope it's a calm day or I'll wind up with bleached lips), while Beau will get a haircut. I'll skip acupuncture or the cellulite reduction program. I can't imagine needles placed in my body on rough seas. Bleached lips would be bad enough.

3:30 to 4:30 is time for "Elegant Tea" up in the fancy restaurant on the top floor, with harp music and scones and such. I'm still full of sushi, so pass. For harder drinkers there will be a later cocktail party and a martini tasting and (not surprisingly) a "Friends of Bill W" meeting. These discreet meetings are offered daily on most ships where alcoholic temptations abound.

Before the sun sets on the high seas there's another late-afternoon computer class, and photo op with Santa with or without his underwear (see above if you are skimming!). And all kinds of dancing, music and cabaret entertainment long into the night. Tonight's featured performer was a backup singer for Barbara Steisand. Last night there was a comedian-magician and the night before a young guy who played a xylophone-synthesizer. Okay, it isn't Vegas, but it's a small ship, remember -- only 500 or so onboard.

For dinner we have a choice of two fancy restaurants on the top deck, plus the buffet restaurant, and the main dining room. We choose the dining room and sit with two other couples who seem to have participated in most of the activities. They look tired. Tomorrow night we are invited to dine at the captain's table with our big Greek master of the ship. The poor man has to host table after table of us throughout the crossing.

Santa arrived before bedtime, offering cookies and punch in the ship's library. Some passengers wrote him a letter hoping to win another contest. I just sat on his knee.

I hope you get an idea of the options of a repositioning cruise, even if you don't opt for them. Days are as active or as sedentary as you wish, and because we cross the ocean in iffy conditions, at bargain rates.

And I did accomplish a few independent things. I wrote this post. I read a bit of The Last Chinese Chef. I checked my emails. I walked up and down stairs, and a couple of miles on the jogging track. I watched Obama accept the Nobel Peace Prize as our satellite reception faded away. And before bed, as our ship headed further west on swelling Atlantic waves, I perused tomorrow's completely new list of activities, placed on our pillow along with a chocolate.

Thanks, Columbus, for leading the way. And thanks, Beau for inviting me on the same voyage path over 500 years later. (I now admit, some cruise activities omitted here. Let's just say I save my energy for the things that count, Atlantic crossings or not.)

Spain: We'll strive for a Palestinian state in 2010

2009-12-18T13:31:04Z

The Spanish Foreign Minister said on Friday that Spain, as the next European Union president, intends on working towards a Palestinian state in 2010.
...

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A Taste of Spain at Ondo's

2009-12-14T12:37:47Z

If there's a tapas dish that best sums up the Spanish experience, it has to be patatas bravas.

Read more: Spain, Home News

Bond Traders Push Indebted European Nations To Trim Budget Deficits

2009-12-14T09:49:54Z

LONDON -- The bond vigilantes are back.

But this time they are roaming mostly through Europe rather than the United States -- at least for now. Their mission: to force governments to cut budget deficits that have ballooned in the wake of the financial crisis.

Francisco Franco Monument Used As Set For Spanish Porno

2009-12-11T09:26:59Z

Anita Brooks, The Independent

The valley of the Fallen, an immense monument built by the dictator Francisco Franco as a mausoleum for himself and tens of thousands of the war dead, has long stoked passionate debate in Spain. The artificial granite ridge outside Madrid was carved by political prisoners on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War. For many Spaniards today, the surging 500ft cross which tops it is the most flagrant symbol of Franco-era repression.

But now this sombre site has aroused controversy for an unlikely reason: its use as a location in the filming of a satirical pornographic movie, Antonio Ramirez, the Fascist, set in 1960s Spain.

The plot revolves around a visit by the protagonist Antonio, his wife, his daughter, a maid and their "red" neighbour, to Franco's mausoleum, where thousands of Civil War victims are buried - often, in the case of the losing Republicans, against their families' will.

Read more at The Independent

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Porn film stars frolic on Franco's big monument

2009-12-10T19:15:33Z

The valley of the Fallen, an immense monument built by the dictator Francisco Franco as a mausoleum for himself and tens of thousands of the war dead, has long stoked passionate debate in Spain. The artificial granite ridge outside Madrid was carved by political prisoners on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War. For many Spaniards today, the surging 500ft cross which tops it is the most flagrant symbol of Franco-era repression.

Spanish Royal Academy Reveals New Spanish Grammar Guidelines

2009-12-10T13:25:39Z

MADRID — Can a Barcelona truck driver be expected to speak like a Buenos Aires banker? Can rules be imposed on a language spoken by 400 million people stretching from Madrid to Manila?

The academic overseers of the language of Cervantes have taken an ambitious stab at it, unveiling their first Spanish grammar guidelines in nearly 80 years.

Tom & Katie Enjoy Soccer, Beer (PHOTOS)

2009-12-10T10:54:39Z

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes took in some local culture in Spain on Wednesday.

The pair enjoyed soccer and what appeared to be a beer at the Champions League match between Sevilla and Rangers at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium in Seville, Spain.

Cruise is currently filming "Knight and Day" in Spain with Cameron Diaz.

PHOTOS:

Spanish town celebrates Rutgers University ocean glider's trip across the Atlantic

2009-12-09T13:46:20Z

After finishing its pioneering trip across the Atlantic Ocean last Friday, a robotic ocean glider piloted by Rutgers University took a festive victory lap today through the streets of Baiona, Spain. A White House policy analyst, Spain's minister of development...

Manuel Zelaya Should Be Returned To Power, Say Latin American Leaders

2009-12-01T15:13:41Z

ESTORIL, Portugal — Honduras should return ousted President Manuel Zelaya to power, leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal said at a summit Tuesday.

Calling the June coup that forced Zelaya out "unacceptable," they said reinstating him was "a fundamental step" the Central American country needed to take to return to constitutional normality.

Rutgers University ocean glider on verge of completing cross-Atlantic voyage

2009-11-27T20:16:00Z

Hoping trek fills in key gaps in climate data, scientists and students nervously await Scarlet's arrival in Spain

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Princess Letizia's Gowns: Gaudy Or Gorgeous? (PHOTOS, POLL)

2009-11-19T08:29:32Z

After Princess Letizia pulled off a floor-length skirt with aplomb at a Spanish royal dinner on Monday night, we started thinking about the sartorial challenge of looking stylish and sexy in a long dress. And Letizia typically knows how to swing it with a closet full of gowns, skirts and dresses made from numerous fabrics, hues and cuts. Which of her outfits are absolutely gorgeous? And which might be a tad bit gaudy?

And what's Letizia wearing underneath? Check out her sky-high stilettos.

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Somali Pirate Claims $3.3M Ransom Paid To Free 36 Hostages On Ship

2009-11-17T09:59:32Z

MOGADISHU, Somalia — As a Spanish warship looked on, a $3.3 million ransom was delivered by boat Tuesday and Somali pirates freed a Spanish trawler and its 36 crew members.

Spain's prime minister did little to deny paying off the hijackers – one reason the lucrative attacks are on the rise.

Spanish "Self Love" Lessons Cause Masturbation Controversy

2009-11-13T10:39:58Z

A Spanish region's new approach to sex education has provoked anger by suggesting children be taught "self-exploration and self-pleasure".

Renault to Produce Electric Fluence In Bursa, Turkey

2009-11-13T09:00:30Z

Production plans for electric vehicles by French automakers continue to roll out, as sites in Turkey and Spain have been selected for their production: MAPLE CROSS, UNITED KINGDOM November 13, 2009: Following the announcement last week of the production site for the future electric, zero-emission Kangoo Van, Renault has now announced that the...

Pirates Threaten To Kill Spanish Captives

2009-11-06T16:03:08Z

MADRID Pirates on Friday threatened to kill three crew members of a Spanish fishing ship they seized over a month ago if two suspected pirates being held in Spain were not freed, according to news agencies who quoted the captain of the vessel.

Think Tank's Advice To Europe: Stop 'Fetishizing' American Relationship

2009-11-03T17:20:53Z

The council released a study on Monday called "Toward a Post-American Europe," based on wide-ranging interviews and research conducted in the 27 EU member states. In it, the authors make a clear appeal to European leaders: This "fetishization" of the trans-Atlantic relationship must stop, write Jeremy Shapiro and Nick Witney. It is high time that Europe declare a new, "post-American" age and do away with old myths about the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Barak cancels Spain trip amid UNIFIL leadership crisis

2009-10-30T11:47:37Z

Defense Minister Ehud Barak cancelled his scheduled visit to Madrid on Friday as tension grows between the two countries due to a disagreement over the command of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
...

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Stararchitects: A Who's Who Guide

2009-10-29T13:02:16Z

As iconic new buildings shoot up on the world's skylines every year, their architect creators have joined the celebrity pantheon. ASW looks at the some of the starriest builders of our time.

Left: Richard Meier's Getty Center, L.A.

Right: Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

Richard Meier

Fake Viagra: Organized Crime's New Goods

2009-10-28T12:26:27Z

Police in Spain have reportedly recovered over 160,000 fake Viagra pills, says Typically Spanish.

The report is the latest in a line of international reports that suggest fake Viagra may be a growing industry.

These fakes are not contained by region either. The Miami Herald reported that customs officers at Miami International Airport intercepted 21,600 pills earlier this month. The pills were in a shipment from India.

Presumably the drugs are not being sold from respectable outlets, instead being traded on the black market for those either too embarrassed to admit to their erectile problems, seeking to use the drug for recreational purposes, or perhaps hoping to get the drug cheaper.

What is worrying, however, are the health risks. GlobalPost recently ran an story on the fake drug trade in Bangkok. As one part stated:

"It might contain the correct active ingredient, but the wrong dose. Or it might contain nothing at all," said Clemence Gautier, consultant at the Bangkok-based law firm Tilleke & Gibbins. The firm specializes in prosecuting counterfeiters for clients that include pharmaceutical firms Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.

The worry is even more potent for other types of drug, such as malaria medication.

The GlobalPost article goes on to say that around 77 percent of these fake meds are thought to be produced in China, and that the U.S. government is helping the fight against these drugs.

So, if you needed another reason to not buy cheap Viagra off of a man standing on a street corner, you probably just found it.

Making immigrants feel at home in their new countries

2009-10-27T14:30:05Z

A young Muslim girl in Spain. Photo: Flickr user GregRobbins

Tonight’s show takes a broader look at relations between Muslims and other groups in Europe, where the Muslim community makes up five percent of the population - 38 million people.

The debate continues about whether immigrants or host governments should try harder to achieve better integration.

Should immigrants do more to fit into their new countries? Or should host countries do more to make immigrants feel welcomed?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Tonight’s show takes a broader look at relations between Muslims and other groups in Europe, where the Muslim community makes up five percent of the population - 38 million people. Should immigrants do more to fit into their new countries? Or should host countries do more to make immigrants feel welcomed?
http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/10/th_spain_immigrant.jpg

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Kirsten Dirksen: Can DIY Become Tradition or is Canning Just the New Sewing?

2009-10-26T17:27:16Z

My mother-in-law stands a good chance of surviving a natural disaster. Be it nuclear war or a climate change catastrophe, she has the skills to survive: she plants her own food, bakes her own bread with homegrown yeast, forages for wild seasonal vegetables, has raised her own meat, helped build her childhood home, cultured her own yogurt, cured her own cheese, and I'm sure much more I don't know yet.

I, on the other hand, if faced with any type of isolation from modern conveniences, wouldn't know where to begin. Until recently, everything I ate, drank, cooked, lived in, rode in and wore was bought or made far from my consciousness. And I'm not sure I'm so different from most other Americans of my generation.

What can you make?

I spent most of my life blissfully unaware of just how disconnected I was from the things I used everyday. I suppose the first inkling of my ignorance hit me about a decade ago while reading Don Delillo's White Noise.

Here we are ... knowing all these great things after centuries of progress but what can we do...? Can we make a refrigerator? Can we even explain how it works? What is electricity? What is light?... Name one thing you could make.

Name one thing I could make... at that point I could operate a camera and editing software, but if my camera or computer broke down I was stuck. I could boil rice and fry a quesadilla, but forget about making food grow from the ground. In fact, ten years ago, I didn't know many people who even tried to grow their own.

When Victory Gardens are the rage in suburbia

Of course, much of that has changed. Last month I was walking through my parents' very suburban subdivision and saw two different neighbors digging up their lawns to plant food. And more telling than their efforts was the fact that one of them actually used the term Victory Garden to describe his work. (See Swapping lawn for fruit: "because you can't eat grass")

This self awareness seems to be the point. Most of us are not growing our own food, making- or remaking - our own clothing, taking our gas guzzlers electric and even building our own homes (I recently talked to a guy of my generation who built his own house and is designing plans for others to do the same. More on this in another post) simply to save money, or to save the world one tomato at a time, but because we want to actually do more on our own.

What iaia knows (* iaia is a Catalan nickname for grandma)

I first became aware that there was another way to live, not through a Michael Pollen tome or a Naked Chef episode, but through visits to my in-laws' suburban Spanish home. It was here I realized I didn't know how broccoli grew. It was here I discovered that chickens can be scary. It was here I watched my daughter harvest lettuce and carrots and realized she'd never know what it was like to think all food was always in season.

My father-in-law remakes old furniture new again and is about to build his own greenhouse, but it is my mother-in-law, Candela, whose knowledge continues to surprise me. This winter we experienced a wind storm in Northern Spain/Southern France that was killing people with falling debris so my in-laws bunkered down in their home. Afraid to leave for even the local bakery, Candela made her own bread with a homemade yeast she'd fermented herself.

The other day my husband showed his mother an article about a modern passive house and its advanced insulation. Candela wasn't impressed and explained that any home will be well-insulated if you build the walls the thickness they're supposed to be in her town, and she cited that number in centimeters (75 cm, or 2 and a half feet).

Every time I bring up some new discovery I've made about a greener way of doing something, she one-ups me. On a walk in her rural hometown last summer, I explained how most commercial air fresheners are bad for your health and how people are now switching to eco-friendly brands. She proceeded to yank leaves off a nearby bush and explain how the woman in town used to dry it to make their homes and closets smell great (see video Foraging for organic).

When I described to her the trend to ferment your own yogurt (see video Making your own yogurt and avoiding all those plastic containers), she explained how she used to do it for her kids. And that foraging trend? She has always collected her own snails (it's not only a culinary treat in France), mushrooms (video Hunting wild mushrooms in Western Spain) and wild asparagus (video Hunting wild asparagus outside Barcelona).

Canning is the new knitting

The other day a friend and I were talking about whether all the excitement for growing your own will be a passing phase.

"People always need something new," she argued. "I hear canning is the new knitting".

For Candela, there's nothing new about bottling up all her excess backyard crop. She's been collecting glass jars from us since I met her and in return every Sunday we go home with bottles of tomato sauce, red peppers, olives, jam, etc.

It may be habit for Candela, but will the rest of us really want to keep this up? I mean, what about all those people who sign up for a gym, but never go, will they really keep watering the carrots, or worse yet, bothering to replant? Aren't we a generation addicted to convenience?

The price of convenience

Lately, I've been thinking that we, those of us worried about the planet, need to refocus our reasoning for encouraging others to make changes in their lives. By telling people to do things for the good of the planet or their pocketbook, we're not telling the entire story. It seems there's another payoff we're ignoring.

Maybe re-learning to make things and grow things needs to be done for the acts themselves. Maybe we'd actually be happier being a bit more connected, even at the price of convenience.

This summer I was out walking in my parents' neighborhood with my cousin when we noticed a thirty-something man tearing up his lawn. Smelling a story, I had to ask what he was doing. "I'm putting in a Victory Garden," he replied, somehow sure I'd even know the term (although my parents' town is no Berkeley). "I'm using the leftover hops from the brewery where I work as fertilizer," he announced proudly.

Not just a Victory Gardener, but a composter. So people were doing some of these things I'd been writing and reading about, and even in towns without a big city or university within miles. But how long could this last?

I turned to my cousin, an avid gardener, and asked why she bothered to put so much time into growing fruits and veggies, wasn't it just cheaper to buy them? She laughed. "I enjoy it," adding "And I like to be able to give people something I've made."

Coming from someone addicted to giving, this was the highest compliment she could pay an activity. For her there was obviously value in the act of making something. And somewhere in the process of doing it herself, she found satisfaction.

Connected to what you sow

My mother-in-law doesn't tend to over-analyze her gardening, composting, canning ... It's her tradition. And until this summer, I would have said that was all it was. Then I had an antojo (Spanish for craving) for her baked artichokes (skins half cut off; covered with garlic, oil, pressed parsley and lemon) and I learned differently. I was 8 months pregnant, and in Spain, the antojos of pregnant women are obeyed or the kid might come out funny.

"This is a lot of waste," she said looking at all the leaves and stems she was removing from the artichokes. "It's a good thing we have chickens". This was the first time I realized that she was mindful of our impact on the planet.

The last time I'd broached the topic of one of her unconsciously-green activities she was showing me a rotten bag of composted yard waste. While filming her dump the gooey mess onto her tilled garden, I'd asked her why she did it. "My grandparents always did it like this. My parents as well," she had replied. But now I realize after years of living according to a tradition that respects the earth, her habits have made her somehow more connected to what we build, waste, reap, sow, sew, etc.

The psychology of DIY

A few weeks ago I was visiting an organic, off-the-grid, farm in North Carolina, talking to a twenty-something about Transition Towns (see video Living like it's 2050: Transition Farm in North Carolina) and I heard the same message from someone who had been raised without Candela's traditions. Margaret Krome-Lukens is the garden manager for the Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute who is still trying to overcome her modern upbringing.

"My grandmother knows how to can things. I haven't figured it out yet," she said sounding almost pissed off (at her parents? society? her grandma?). "It's on my to-do list."

For Margaret, trading a bit of convenience is a small price to pay for the psychological payoff of DIY. "There are ways that things used to be done that we don't even realize anymore because we were raised with all of this convenience, all this separation from where things come from. That's one of the big reasons I enjoy living here is because I have a very concrete understanding of where my food comes from, where my water comes from, where my electricity comes from. Even if it means having to take more of life or more of my mental energy to think about it, like, that's the way it should be."

The side effects of convenience

The way things should be. So it's a moral argument. Or a psychological one. However you phrase it, it's something bigger than just saving the planet.

Maybe it's time to take a second look at the side effects of all of our convenience. I was thinking about White Noise again and how DeLillo used a visit to the supermarket to evoke a feeling of disconnect.

Everything seemed to be in season, sprayed, burnished, bright... And over it all... a dull and unlocatable roar, as of some form of swarming life just outside the range of human apprehension.'

I'm still confused by how most food arrives at the supermarket. And while I am still not canning and only growing parsley and spinach on my terrace, I understand the satisfaction involved in doing more on my own.

I suggested to Margaret that maybe working harder doesn't have to be such a bad thing. She responded like my old tennis coach would have. "Look how much more you enjoy it when you know what you've put into it."

Eco-DIYs from faircompanies
How to ferment your own bread
How to build a backyard greenhouse
How to carbonate your own water
Growing a veggie garden in a small space
Making a full-size truck as efficient as the average car