November 10, 2007
Shaving the Heads of State
In a country that’s nutty about gossip, veteran barbers Cesar Larios and Manuel Rodriguez run the engine room of the national rumor mill — Managua’s landmark Imperial Barbershop. Since this modest three-chair barbershop opened its doors 35 years ago, Rodriguez and Larios have seated, aproned and lathered some of Nicaragua’s most important politicians, bankers and powerbrokers. Right-wing former president Arnoldo Alemin and ex-communist guerrilla leader Henry “Modesto” Ruiz are both on the client list. His Eminence, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the country’s top religious authority, has been getting the same haircut here for 30 years. Managua’s Sandinista Mayor, Nicho Marenco, comes in for a trim every month, as do the publishers of the two leading opposition dailies, and a flurry of politicians, businessmen and financial leaders.
Once seated comfortably in the red-cushioned barber’s chair, even the most powerful member of the elite becomes just another guy in need of grooming. And it’s a common-man experience whose relaxed intimacy most of them seem to relish. “They come in and gossip and joke around,” says the 61-year-old Rodriguez, as he deftly moves a straight blade around the ears of a lesser-known patron. “The politicians want to know what other people say about them, and what they say about others.”
The politicians, of course, also do some politicking of their own.
“The Liberals says bad things about the Sandinistas, and the Sandinistas say bad things about the Liberals — it’s a crossfire,” says Larios, 56, the barbershop’s founder and owner. “When they are sitting in chairs next to each other, they hug and act like friends. But as soon as one of them leaves, the other starts to say bad things again.”
The Imperial may simply be the elite’s answer to the village barbershop, which has a time-honored role in Nicaraguan society as a place where ideas are exchanged, jokes are tested, names are smeared and rumors are born. All subject matter is open to discussion off the mirror, from politics and sports, to women and weather.
Walking into a Nicaraguan barbershop is a bit like stepping back into the colonial era, and some of the equipment in use is not that much newer. My neighborhood barber gives me a straight-blade shave, proceeded by several rounds of ointments and creams, and then a full facial and head massages with some sort of ancient vibrating contraption that looks like a Thomas Edison prototype. I don’t know what that thing is, but it keeps me going back.
And just as the scuttlebutt at the Imperial is a window into Nicaragua’s corridors of power, my local barbershop is the best place to take the pulse of the street. Here, news rolls easily off the tongues of those who know what they’re talking about, and those who don’t. Sometimes, the barbershop itself becomes part of the news: When legendary newspaper publisher and opposition leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro was gunned down by unknown shooters in January 1978, the leading suspect — one of Larios’ clients — told the police he had been getting a haircut at the Imperial Barbershop at the time of the murder. Larios later had to testify that the suspect had not in fact been in his chair that day.
Unless served a summons, however, Larios and Rodriguez prefer to respect barber-client privilege, especially with their bigger clients — the ones who have outgrown the chair, so to speak. Arnoldo Alemin, the portly former president convicted on embezzlement charges, now sends a car and driver to fetch Rodriguez to do a home haircut, for which the barber charges double, or $9. Miguel Obando y Bravo, who used to come into the shop when he was just Archbishop of Managua, started sending the car after the Pope named him cardinal in 1985.
“You build up a confidence with the clients,” Rodriguez says, politely declining to discuss any of the really juicy tidbits that have been entrusted to him from the barber’s chair over the years. “You hear so much, it’s hard to remember everything they say,” he adds diplomatically, with a revealing twinkle in his eye. In fact, the reason his clients feel so free to express themselves may be that the whatever they say is carefully swept up with the hair clippings and discarded at the end of the day.
King Sparks Pink Shirt Fever in Thailand
Thailand is turning pink.
Some people in the Southeast Asian country have begun donning pink shirts as a tribute to their beloved 79-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The trend started when he checked out of a hospital Wednesday wearing a pale pink collar-less shirt and pink blazer.
For about two years, Thais have shown their respect for the monarch by wearing yellow — the color that in Buddhist tradition symbolizes Monday, the weekday he was born. That fashion statement began during the 2006 celebrations of Bhumibol’s 60th anniversary on the throne.
But it looks like pink is becoming the new yellow for Thais.
There was already a trend toward pink because astrologers had declared it an auspicious color for the king’s 80th year. A royal emblem, using pink among other colors, was specially designed for his birthday.
But Bhumibol’s appearance in pink attire has spurred interest in the new color.
The Commerce Ministry is preparing to produce 30,000 pink shirts in coming weeks to meet rising demand, said Yanyong Phuangrat, chief of the agency’s domestic trade department.
“There is a high demand for pink T-shirts because it’s an auspicious color for the king,” Yanyong said.
November 9, 2007
Seven Eleven
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
Hi. I’m not home right now. But if you want to leave a
message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.
Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you
coming home?
Hello? Is anybody home? Well, you don’t know me,
but I know you.
And I’ve got a message to give to you.
Here come the planes.
So you better get ready. Ready to go. You can come
as you are, but pay as you go. Pay as you go.
And I said: OK. Who is this really? And the voice said:
This is the hand, the hand that takes. This is the
hand, the hand that takes.
This is the hand, the hand that takes.
Here come the planes.
They’re American planes. Made in America.
Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom
of night shall stay these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds.
‘Cause when love is gone, there’s always justice.
And when justive is gone, there’s always force.
And when force is gone, there’s always Mom. Hi Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. So hold me,
Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.
Guano Islands Act
The Guano Islands Act (48 U.S.C. ch.8 §§ 1411-1419) is federal legislation passed by the U.S. Congress, on August 18, 1856, which enables citizens of the U.S. to take possession of islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and not within the jurisdiction of other governments. It also empowers the President of the United States to use the military to protect such interests, and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States.
“Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other Government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.”
—first section of Guano Islands Act
Background
In the early 19th century, guano came to be prized as an agricultural fertilizer. In 1855, the U.S. learned of rich guano deposits on islands in the Pacific Ocean. Congress passed the Guano Islands Act to take advantage of these deposits.
The act specifically allows the islands to be considered a possession of the U.S., but it also provided that the U.S. was not obliged to retain possession after the guano was exhausted. However, it did not specify what the status of the territory was after it was abandoned by private U.S. interests.
This is the beginning of the concept of insular areas in U.S. territories. Up to this time, any territory acquired by the U.S. was considered to have become an integral part of the country unless changed by treaty, and to eventually have the opportunity to become a state of the Union. With insular areas, land could be held by the federal government without the prospect of it ever becoming a state in the Union.
The provision of the Act establishing U.S. criminal jurisdiction over such islands was considered and ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202 (1890).
Claims
More than 100 islands have been claimed. Some of those remaining under U.S. control are Baker Island, Jarvis Island, Howland Island, Kingman Reef, Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Midway Atoll. Others are no longer considered United States territory. In the Caribbean, Navassa Island is claimed by both the United States and Haiti. An even more complicated case deals with Serranilla Bank and the Bajo Nuevo Bank, where multiple countries claim ownership. In 1971, the U.S. and Honduras signed a treaty recognizing Honduran sovereignty over the Swan Islands. The island of Navassa between Haiti and Jamaica, long recognized as Haitian, was occupied and has never been returned, along with
the Swan Islands between Honduras and Cayman, and a large number of islands in
the Pacific that rightfully belong to their historical owners: the people of
Kiribati, Samoa, and other states. France and Britain similarly occupy
numerous uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean, most notoriously the
Chagos Archipelago of Mauritius. In effect, uninhabited islands have been
treated with might makes right, and possession is nine tenths of the law.
On the other hand, the issue of new or artificial islands is very interesting
– one that is undefined legally. The technology now exists to build and grow
such islands where there were none, to expand existing ones, and to create
tethered or free-ranging floating islands. Such islands may offer numerous
possibilities: for instance, they can play a key role in protecting coastlines
from global sea-level rise, in compensating low lying island nations that will
be drowned, and in greatly enhancing fisheries in coastal and open ocean
waters.
November 8, 2007
Bangladesh’s software piracy rate 4th highest in the world
DHAKA, Nov. 7 — Bangladesh has been found to have a software piracy rate of 92 percent, which is number one in the Asian Pacific region and the fourth highest in the world, local newspaper The Daily Star reported Wednesday.
A report, Global Software Piracy Study 2006, conducted by IDC, the IT industry’s leading global market research and forecasting firm, warned that the software piracy in Bangladesh is crippling the local industry and costing local retailers 90 million U.S. dollars a year.
The report shows that 92 percent of software used on personal computers in Bangladesh had been pirated in 2006. This means that for every dollar worth of software purchased legitimately, nine dollars worth was obtained illegally.
The high software piracy rate has resulted in 90 million dollars in retail revenue losses to the local Bangladesh software economy.
However the report says that the broader economic impact of software piracy is significantly greater.
“Among the many negative consequences of software piracy is the crippling of local software industries because of competition with pirated software, lost tax revenues and decreased business productivity from using unwarranted software,” the report said.
Bangladesh has a Copyright Act, under which piracy is a punishable with imprisonment for a term, which may be extended to five years and may be imposed a penalty of 500,000 taka (about 7,143 dollars)
The IDC global software piracy study covers piracy of all packaged software that runs on personal computers, including desktops, laptops and ultra-portables. This includes operating system, system software, business applications and consumers applications.