The Pamplemousse will not run in the Kentucky Derby next month, although his racing career is not over.
The Pamplemousse was scratched because of a tendon problem hours before Saturday’s $750,000 Santa Anita Derby in Arcadia, Calif. He was the 9-5 morning-line favorite. Pioneerof the Nile went on to win by a length.
A pre-race examination showed a problem in The Pamplemousse’s front left tendon.
Alex Solis II, whose father, Alex, rides The Pamplemousse, said the colt would run again.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
As the first pirate attack of a U.S. ship in 200 years comes to a climax, I’m re-posting an essay I solicited and received several weeks ago from K’naan, a Somali-Canadian singer and activist. A video of a performance by K’naan that I filmed at the All Points West music festival last summer appears below. — Michael Vazquez
Why We Don’t Condemn Our Pirates
by K’naan
Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery?
Well, in Somalia, the answer is: it’s complicated.
The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast with such
lop-sided journalism, that it’s lucky they’re not on a ship themselves. It’s true that the constant hijacking of vessels in the Gulf of Aden is a major threat to the vibrant trade route between Asia and Europe. It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective.
But according to so many Somalis, the disruption of Europe’s darling of a trade route, is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don’t believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.
Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991. And although its failures, like many other toddler governments in Africa, sprung from the wells of post-colonial independence, bad governance and development loan sharks, the specific problem of piracy was put in motion in 1992.
After the overthrow of Siyad Barre, our charmless dictator of twenty-some-odd years, two major forces of the Hawiye Clan came to power. At the time, Ali Mahdi, and General Mohamed Farah Aidid, the two leaders of the Hawiye rebels, were largely considered liberators. But the unity of the two men and their respective sub-clans was very short-lived. It’s as if they were dumbstruck at the advent of ousting the dictator, or that they just forgot to discuss who will be the leader of the country once they defeated their common foe.
A disagreement of who will upgrade from militia leader to Mr. President broke up their honeymoon. It’s because of this disagreement that we’ve seen one of the most decomposing wars in Somalia’s history, leading to millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead.
But war is expensive and militias need food for their families, and Jaad (an amphetamine-based stimulant) to stay awake for the fighting. Therefore, a good clan -based Warlord must look out for his own fighters. Aidid’s men turned to robbing aid trucks carrying food to the starving masses, and re-selling it to continue their war. But Ali Mahdi had his sights set on a larger and more unexploited resource, namely: the Indian Ocean.
K’NAAN – Somalia
Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard.
But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Achair Parterns, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they were to dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, whereas to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.
In 2004, after a tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including “Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, Cadmium, Mercury and chemical waste.” But this wasn’t just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters. The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. It was months after those initial reports that local fishermen mobilized themselves, along with street militias, to go into the waters and deter the Westerners from having a free pass at completely destroying Somalia’s aquatic life. Now years later, the deterring has become less noble, and the ex-fishermen with their militias have begun to develop a taste for ransom at sea. This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first began to burry our nation’s death trap.
The toxic truth
Now Somalia has upped the world’s pirate attacks by over 21 percent in one year, and while NATO and the EU are both sending forces to the Somali coast to try and slow down the attacks, Blackwater and all kinds of private security firms are intent on cashing in. But while Europeans are well in their right to protect their trade interest in the region, our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali, if getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western Vessels, and the producing of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.
It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is truly a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice.
As is apparent these days, one man’s pirate is another man’s coast guard.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
A rampant desire to accumulate wealth pulses through Ilakaka’s streets. There is no bank, yet it is home to businesses worth millions of dollars.
It was back in 1998 that the discovery of major sapphire deposits in the hot and rocky plains of Madagascar’s southern interior sparked an extraordinary scramble for wealth.
So abundant were sapphires that they could simply be sifted from the river bed or picked up from the hot dusty earth. Fifty per cent of the world’s sapphires are said to come from this lawless region.
Over time people have been forced to dig deeper in their searches. Mineshafts wide enough for one man to descend are dotted around like lunar craters.
Beneath the surface men dig in tiny cramped caves, labouring in subterranean heat, the hope of finding sapphires tempered by the constant threat of a collapsed shaft. Desperation and greed mean many are killed or die in the pursuit of the precious gems.
People & Power takes a look at the extraordinary story of Ilakaka and the ‘sapphire rush’ through the eyes of those effected; gem dealers, mine owners, police chiefs and miners, those who risk their lives on a daily basis in search of that one stone that they hope will transform their impoverished lives.
What is life like in Ilakaka amidst the whirlwind pursuit of profit?
But think twice about buying them for your wack girlfriend.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.
Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.
But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.
Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Be very wary of Western Media. My best college Professor told our class: “Half of what you read in the Newspaper is a lie”. Too which I said, “Well, then why don’t you read half the paper?”. Which in turn made everyone in the class laugh, including a fly girl that became a San Diego Charger Cheerleader. I swooped her. But that’s neither dope Champagna nor Tony Montana.
Anyways, the point I am trying to make is don’t believe everything our country is telling you about the Somali “Pirates” and how horrible they are.
Following the collapse of the Somali regime in 1991 The “International Community” (Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and many others.) has been illegally poaching and destroying the Somali Marine Resources.
This Illegal, Unregulated and Unlicensed fishing is destroying fish stock, marine life, and the habitats.
Illegal, Unregulated and Unlicensed fishing are using trawlers in even the inshore areas of reserved for artisanal fishing.
These illegally caught fish are “laundered” with legitimately caught fish.
Since Somalia has not had a functioning “Coast Guard”, the rest of the world has taken advantage of the situation as they have vastly over fished their own seas.
Many Somali fisherman have been killed by trawlers and had their fishing nets destroyed over the last 18 years.
In 2005 there were over 800 illegal fishing vessels At One Time in Somali waters.
Over $450 Million in fish annually, have been taken illegally from Somali waters with out paying tax or royalties to the Somali People. And since it is unregulated, they have not paid attention to conservation or the environment.
A bunch of other complicated license scams have been run, which I can’t explain because even I think the shit is confusing.
The Somali’s have complained to the UN at least three times. No one listened.
Shyne – That’s Gangsta
Industrial, Nuclear and Toxic waste have been dumped in Somali waters. The waste has caused deformed babies and killed many people.
Somali fishermen in various regions of the country also complained to the international community about the illegal foreign fishing, stealing the livelihoods of poor fishermen, waste dumping and other ecological disasters, including the indiscriminate use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift nets, under water explosives, killing all “endangered species” like sea-turtles, orca, sharks, baby whales, etc. as well as destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea.
Now, who are the “Pirates”?
So what do you expect the Somali Fisherman to do?
Lay down?
Imagine what would happen if you fished illegally and dumped waste off the coast of San Diego?
Ill tell you, you would have every San Diego Fisherman and Surfer blowing up your boats.
Try dumping toxic waste on The North Shore. Or try dumping chemical waste on Maroubra Beach and see what The Bra Boys do.
If nuclear waste was dumped on your beach you’d grab a cutlass, too.
And you would stop him in his tracks and show him you are Ruthless.
A couple more points to bring up:
Piracy is the result of one thing: Rebellion to unjust activity.
Sure the Pirates are living it up, smoking hashish, boozing, swooping mad girls, and chowing down stimulants. Who can blame them? I would too. In fact, they sound like some cool cats to roll with.
Now that we killed a few Somali “Pirates”, the Somali people are completely backing the Pirates. So are the Islamic Militants.
The Hornet’s Nest has been stirred.
And we cannot fight another war on another front (See The Art of War).
Remember one thing: What did America do, in the days of George Washington, before we had a Coast Guard?
We used Pirates.
The Somali Pirates: The Most Radical Revolutionaries of our Generation.
Let’s make peace in Somalia. Then we can go over and swoop Fly Somalian Girls.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
