It is proven. I´m a died in the wool activist.
Yesterday I was in a meeting with some close colleagues of mine from various Mexican human rights NGOS. We were analyzing and discussing constitutional reform on human rights in Mexico, and how we were going to respond, as well as an extremely concerning package of reforms in Congress that could allow for further military involvement in public security and a lack of civil controls on executive power.
After 2 hours of discussion in the meeting, something burst out from inside of me and I made the following pronouncement:
"WE ARE 0.005% OF THE POPULATION IN MEXICO WHO KNOWS ABOUT THIS FOR GOODNESS SAKE!! CAN WE PLEASE STOP BEING LAWYERS AND BE ACTIVISTS FOR A MOMENT!"
I then continued to propose a whole variety of international and media strategies. Maybe my reaction was exaggerated, but it was fun, and I made a point and had colleagues nodding. Here´s hoping we can carry the ideas through.
It was a funny moment for myself and my colleagues, and I was happy to know that it was a meeting where we could all debate and just get things off our chest.
Legal analysis for me is of course extremely important and I rely on it daily, however if things don´t MOVE socially, I get frustrated.
I have been wondering for a while if I am a jurist or an activist. Yesterday´s sponteanous and unconscious reaction just gave me my answer.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
things calming down in the biggest city in the world...I think...
Did Mexico over-react on swine flu?
As tests suggest the swine flu virus in Mexico may be less virulent than first feared, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City looks at whether the response was an over-reaction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8031132.stm
As tests suggest the swine flu virus in Mexico may be less virulent than first feared, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City looks at whether the response was an over-reaction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8031132.stm
2 de mayo de 2009
In the end, all colours come from nature. How would we know how to create such tones if we hadn´t seen them in the natural world? Magenta, ochre, verdant green, cool grey?
How would art know where to start, if not from nature? In many ways, can we say that visual forms, by their very being, are natural?
Is art really an unconscious exercise of trying to catch something natural in a represented form, so that the creation itself takes on something of nature?
In the end, all colour comes from nature.
How would art know where to start, if not from nature? In many ways, can we say that visual forms, by their very being, are natural?
Is art really an unconscious exercise of trying to catch something natural in a represented form, so that the creation itself takes on something of nature?
In the end, all colour comes from nature.
El sol (the sun) and other Shakespearean insights
“Send the governess to warmer climes and rid her of
this heavy pestilance”, one would say.
I feel like a tightly bound Elizabethan governess in an oppressively thick smock, that has just been let out of a cage and sent to a summary escape in Spain to strip off my garters and lie in a field of sunflowers.
I´m sitting in full sun next to a pool, one and half hours south of Mexico City, 10 days into this Swine Flu outbreak. Aaah.
Let´s just say that Mexico City knows how to do a crisis. It puts on a good drama:
Act I Scene I is the week-long water cut during Easter which sees millions of people without running water and steeped in desperate conditions.
Act I Scene II introduces the villian: a naughty and unknown bug is suddenly in newspapers. No one thinks much of it, and continues along as normal until,
Act I Scene III arrives with a national broadcast announcement cancelling all classes the next day ( at the timely hour of 11pm the eve before, in a population where no one rests....)
Act II and things get more sinister, and more confused. As the chracters of the play try to diffuse their worry over a laughter-filled weekend, Act II Scene II arrives with a clambering reprisal for their folly and a 5.7 richter scale earthquake.
Act II Scene II is the crux of the drama: the protagonist´s colleague comes down with a high fever and her body starts rejecting every substance that goes into it. The medication prescribed is doubted by the lead character. She sends word to her father in a far flung land who responds with common sense and sound antipodean medical advice. Missives from her beloved father come flooding through, remedies and counsels to confront the epidemic.
However, the situation does not improve.
Act II Scene III is a frantic dash for rescue by all the main characters. The colleague´s symptoms are increasingly dire and her alarmed family calls for her to flee to Connecticut, with haste. The protagonist frets by the side of her dear friend Juan next to a Human Rights Watch press conference as she communicates with her colleague´s escort on route to the airport. Two kind Jesuit priests carry the colleague to safe transport, and within a few hours she is in Texas. She is isolated like a leper, locked away for 14 hours with medicine. The characters pray through the evening and try to send her healing light from the other side of the border (the condemned side).
Act III Scene I presents a jubilant face. The colleague has miraculously recovered, and appears to not have been smited with the notorious ill, but rather some other ailment that is less contagious. The characters rejoice with relief, and the protagonist reflects on how much she loves her friend and dear colleague. She bathes in a glow of humanity and gives thanks for good fortune.
While there is a cooling hush over the scale of the emergency however, the plot thickens.
Act III Scene II presents the laughing fool in the face of the drama: Mariachis uncharacteristically appear in the street below the protagonists´s house with full trumpets in the dark of the early morning, as if to cackle to the hopeless humanity of the continuing epidemic. The protagonist loses sleep and wonders at the surreal beast of a city that can allow for such carnavale in the midst of melancholy.
Act III Scene III provides a pause. The protagonist takes respite with her two best friends and recovers after the shocks of the times.
The populous of men and other characters lick their wounds and try and gather for any coming storms. Trouble brews in the west: folk of Acapulco threaten to throw stones [literally] at metropolitan residents who come to holiday for the weekend.
I don´t know how many acts this drama will entail. Will this be like Henry VIII or will it be a less tortured drama? All I know is, I am taking gallons of human learning and trying to grasp the real and the poignant in all of this.
this heavy pestilance”, one would say.
I feel like a tightly bound Elizabethan governess in an oppressively thick smock, that has just been let out of a cage and sent to a summary escape in Spain to strip off my garters and lie in a field of sunflowers.
I´m sitting in full sun next to a pool, one and half hours south of Mexico City, 10 days into this Swine Flu outbreak. Aaah.
Let´s just say that Mexico City knows how to do a crisis. It puts on a good drama:
Act I Scene I is the week-long water cut during Easter which sees millions of people without running water and steeped in desperate conditions.
Act I Scene II introduces the villian: a naughty and unknown bug is suddenly in newspapers. No one thinks much of it, and continues along as normal until,
Act I Scene III arrives with a national broadcast announcement cancelling all classes the next day ( at the timely hour of 11pm the eve before, in a population where no one rests....)
Act II and things get more sinister, and more confused. As the chracters of the play try to diffuse their worry over a laughter-filled weekend, Act II Scene II arrives with a clambering reprisal for their folly and a 5.7 richter scale earthquake.
Act II Scene II is the crux of the drama: the protagonist´s colleague comes down with a high fever and her body starts rejecting every substance that goes into it. The medication prescribed is doubted by the lead character. She sends word to her father in a far flung land who responds with common sense and sound antipodean medical advice. Missives from her beloved father come flooding through, remedies and counsels to confront the epidemic.
However, the situation does not improve.
Act II Scene III is a frantic dash for rescue by all the main characters. The colleague´s symptoms are increasingly dire and her alarmed family calls for her to flee to Connecticut, with haste. The protagonist frets by the side of her dear friend Juan next to a Human Rights Watch press conference as she communicates with her colleague´s escort on route to the airport. Two kind Jesuit priests carry the colleague to safe transport, and within a few hours she is in Texas. She is isolated like a leper, locked away for 14 hours with medicine. The characters pray through the evening and try to send her healing light from the other side of the border (the condemned side).
Act III Scene I presents a jubilant face. The colleague has miraculously recovered, and appears to not have been smited with the notorious ill, but rather some other ailment that is less contagious. The characters rejoice with relief, and the protagonist reflects on how much she loves her friend and dear colleague. She bathes in a glow of humanity and gives thanks for good fortune.
While there is a cooling hush over the scale of the emergency however, the plot thickens.
Act III Scene II presents the laughing fool in the face of the drama: Mariachis uncharacteristically appear in the street below the protagonists´s house with full trumpets in the dark of the early morning, as if to cackle to the hopeless humanity of the continuing epidemic. The protagonist loses sleep and wonders at the surreal beast of a city that can allow for such carnavale in the midst of melancholy.
Act III Scene III provides a pause. The protagonist takes respite with her two best friends and recovers after the shocks of the times.
The populous of men and other characters lick their wounds and try and gather for any coming storms. Trouble brews in the west: folk of Acapulco threaten to throw stones [literally] at metropolitan residents who come to holiday for the weekend.
I don´t know how many acts this drama will entail. Will this be like Henry VIII or will it be a less tortured drama? All I know is, I am taking gallons of human learning and trying to grasp the real and the poignant in all of this.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
the Decameron
After a few days of Flu provoked hermit-like practices: working in a near empty office, coming home and staying home only to make a few quick dashes to the supermarket for essentials...
here is a little ode to the book that I have just started reading, and which is serving as a nice tonic at the end of days at the moment which are turning out to be riddled with bits of worry, strong winds, and, oh, just an eathquake here and there for good measure:
"The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie. Talk about escaping to another world, to another time!! adventures and emperors and all sorts of wonders of story telling!
Perhaps not unlike the marvels of "The Decameron" written by Giovanni Boccaccio en 1351, at the time of the Black Plague - a book of 100 short tales that kept a group of young Italian people happily entertained while being cooped up indoors and warding off the plague... chuckling away at the smutty tales of the Decameron.
here is to chuckling and good humour in bleak times!!
here is a little ode to the book that I have just started reading, and which is serving as a nice tonic at the end of days at the moment which are turning out to be riddled with bits of worry, strong winds, and, oh, just an eathquake here and there for good measure:
"The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie. Talk about escaping to another world, to another time!! adventures and emperors and all sorts of wonders of story telling!
Perhaps not unlike the marvels of "The Decameron" written by Giovanni Boccaccio en 1351, at the time of the Black Plague - a book of 100 short tales that kept a group of young Italian people happily entertained while being cooped up indoors and warding off the plague... chuckling away at the smutty tales of the Decameron.
here is to chuckling and good humour in bleak times!!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
salsa salsa salsa
This is what I would like to be doing this weekend. However we have a flu epidemic.
Here is a little salsa video that I particularly like. It is from a movie about a famous Puerto Rican salsa singer. I never knew that Marc Anthony could sing like this, I just thought he was J-Lo´s boyfriend.
This is a great video clip and very pumped, and of course la J-Lo looks nice in her red dress and with her salsa shoes. hehe.
A bit of harmless fun:
I would have to say that for me, salsa dancing is one of my most favourite things to do. There is nothing like going for a whirl on the dance floor and getting your legs and hips moving in time with a good dance partner. I can dance for hours with salsa - my tolerance for staying on the dance floor with salsa music far surpasses that of other genres. For me it is total diversion from everyday thoughts and it is just such wonderful, symmetrical, good clean fun!
Here is a little salsa video that I particularly like. It is from a movie about a famous Puerto Rican salsa singer. I never knew that Marc Anthony could sing like this, I just thought he was J-Lo´s boyfriend.
This is a great video clip and very pumped, and of course la J-Lo looks nice in her red dress and with her salsa shoes. hehe.
A bit of harmless fun:
I would have to say that for me, salsa dancing is one of my most favourite things to do. There is nothing like going for a whirl on the dance floor and getting your legs and hips moving in time with a good dance partner. I can dance for hours with salsa - my tolerance for staying on the dance floor with salsa music far surpasses that of other genres. For me it is total diversion from everyday thoughts and it is just such wonderful, symmetrical, good clean fun!
Sisters´ visit and feeling inquieta
My sisters Mem and Hannah left Mexico 10 days ago now.
The trip was magnificent. Luck was on our side so we saw some stand-out cultural gems and we coincided with surreal Easter festivities.
We were also really fortunate to spend some great time with my friends here in Mexico. On their last night, I threw a party at my house. Being a thursday night I thought it would be a pretty chilled affair, but heaps of people turned up and it rocked on until 2am. We also visited my friend Melina in her small community high up in the mountains of Oaxaca, which was very special.
Sure, we had the usual travel things with a bit of tummy upsets and sick stuff for my sisters at some points ("Moctezuma´s revenge" as they say here), lots of movement and plans and such, as trips normally involve!
I have to say, in all the excitement and emotion that their trip provoked in me, I am left feeling afterwards in a little dip of energy. I feel that myself and Hannah and Mem are such headstrong, bold, complex women, that 2 weeks seemed like a short amount of time to be with them after such a long stretch without constant contact (besides my trip in December). I get sad when I think about our relationship at distances and the fact that we live in 3 different cities and know less about each other than when we used to live in the same house, share the same room, eat dinner together.
I wish I could grab all the fun moments we had in these two short weeks together in Mexico and keep them inside me:
Watching crazy fireworks being ignited off the heads of dancing women in Oaxaca; laughing with my sisters and mates on the boats in Xochimilco; even getting through car-sickness on a very windy road through the mountains. All of this. I don´t want these memories to just dissipate..
I have been feeling a little inquieta these days: Restless. It is almost May and I feel like the year is rolling along without me having changed my routine much. I promised myself last year that I would exercise more, do more creative things, stretch myself beyond purely work related things. In a sense, it has happened to some extent. I have started making earrings at times, learnt a bit of meditation and so on, as well as getting out of the city, which has always been an important part of my life. I am supposedly joining a basketball team, however with this bloody Influenza outbreak all sports activities are off!
I suppose in the end it is not my routine or work schedule or extra-curricular activities that are making me feel restless and in a bit of a funk. I think having my sisters here and then seeing them get on a plane and go back to Australia kind of gave me a gulp in my throat and made me realize how long I have been away from home, how far far away I am.
I could keep constructing great things in my life here in Mexico, and I am still learning a lot. There is my salsa to keep developing, my friendships here, my knowledge of mexican cooking could be enriched further, you name it. But there is also a whole life in Australia that is being put on stand by!
I miss the beach, I miss my dog Rudi, triple J on the radio, cricket on the TV, and the tranquility of Oz.
And I miss my parents, a lot!
I am cooped up in the house today with this flu alert going on and feeling a bit down, a bit alone, a bit deflated and out of motivation to be honest.
Oh well, here is a famous and spectacular song by Celia Cruz to lift the spirits:
"Life is a Carnaval, you´ve got to live it, and there are only bad moments, that all pass by"
"Everything can be overcome by singing"
If there were a hispanic salsa singing version of nina simone, celia cruz would be it. what a booming voice!!
The trip was magnificent. Luck was on our side so we saw some stand-out cultural gems and we coincided with surreal Easter festivities.
We were also really fortunate to spend some great time with my friends here in Mexico. On their last night, I threw a party at my house. Being a thursday night I thought it would be a pretty chilled affair, but heaps of people turned up and it rocked on until 2am. We also visited my friend Melina in her small community high up in the mountains of Oaxaca, which was very special.
Sure, we had the usual travel things with a bit of tummy upsets and sick stuff for my sisters at some points ("Moctezuma´s revenge" as they say here), lots of movement and plans and such, as trips normally involve!
I have to say, in all the excitement and emotion that their trip provoked in me, I am left feeling afterwards in a little dip of energy. I feel that myself and Hannah and Mem are such headstrong, bold, complex women, that 2 weeks seemed like a short amount of time to be with them after such a long stretch without constant contact (besides my trip in December). I get sad when I think about our relationship at distances and the fact that we live in 3 different cities and know less about each other than when we used to live in the same house, share the same room, eat dinner together.
I wish I could grab all the fun moments we had in these two short weeks together in Mexico and keep them inside me:
Watching crazy fireworks being ignited off the heads of dancing women in Oaxaca; laughing with my sisters and mates on the boats in Xochimilco; even getting through car-sickness on a very windy road through the mountains. All of this. I don´t want these memories to just dissipate..
I have been feeling a little inquieta these days: Restless. It is almost May and I feel like the year is rolling along without me having changed my routine much. I promised myself last year that I would exercise more, do more creative things, stretch myself beyond purely work related things. In a sense, it has happened to some extent. I have started making earrings at times, learnt a bit of meditation and so on, as well as getting out of the city, which has always been an important part of my life. I am supposedly joining a basketball team, however with this bloody Influenza outbreak all sports activities are off!
I suppose in the end it is not my routine or work schedule or extra-curricular activities that are making me feel restless and in a bit of a funk. I think having my sisters here and then seeing them get on a plane and go back to Australia kind of gave me a gulp in my throat and made me realize how long I have been away from home, how far far away I am.
I could keep constructing great things in my life here in Mexico, and I am still learning a lot. There is my salsa to keep developing, my friendships here, my knowledge of mexican cooking could be enriched further, you name it. But there is also a whole life in Australia that is being put on stand by!
I miss the beach, I miss my dog Rudi, triple J on the radio, cricket on the TV, and the tranquility of Oz.
And I miss my parents, a lot!
I am cooped up in the house today with this flu alert going on and feeling a bit down, a bit alone, a bit deflated and out of motivation to be honest.
Oh well, here is a famous and spectacular song by Celia Cruz to lift the spirits:
"Life is a Carnaval, you´ve got to live it, and there are only bad moments, that all pass by"
"Everything can be overcome by singing"
If there were a hispanic salsa singing version of nina simone, celia cruz would be it. what a booming voice!!
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