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    15.2.07
    Ben Kweller. Ecstasy through Music



    It was at the end of 2005, a year plenty of problems, struggles and disillusionments for me -just before coming to the U.S.-, when I received as a present from a friend the music of Ben Kweller. I did not know anything about him, but his music took me to another level since I heard his song "I need you back", while we were enjoying the only great time of that period. Those moments were short, but they saved my year, saved me, and made every pain worthwhile. Now they are one of my life treasures and Kweller's music is part of my life B.S.O. (Photo: Ben Kweller and I at MO JO'S)



    His songs were not just sounding as a background, they were corroborating every feeling and action, completing the scene, becoming the artistic vehicle that made my craziness and freedom travel from the inside to the outside. He carries this kind of adiction that makes you play again and again his music, sing it even when you are sleeping. The world is plenty of music, but there are just a few who can give this to another life, and make the difference between a singer and a musical artist. (Photo: Ben Kweller's last album)



    One year later, after another meeting with the friend who gave me Kweller's music, and another intense moment, and another goodbye, I arrive here to Columbia with "On my way" cd in my hands, and I find by chance that Ben Kweller is in concert at MO JO'S. I love when destiny plays this game of making a union with special people and situations. And now I can say without any doubt he is an artist. The value it is not in his ability to play any instrument he wants or for having the gift of a nice voice. It is in his creativity, his capacity to transform his own world in music, composing and writing lyrics who communicate something special about a real life. In addition, he can do, in a naturally way, what my teachers in music used to tell me is the act that make music something finished and with feeling: the shades or variations in the expression. All of this comes in union with his natural movements on the stage, and I could feel his energy of being in an ecstasy with life through music.


    With this concert at MO JO'S in Columbia, I had the chance of meeting him, know his last album, and have this sensation of buying music for $12 and feel like you had received much more, because it is something that last forever telling you: Life can be hard, life can be sad, but there are these great moments, even short like a 3 minutes song, that make everything worthy. (Photo: Ben Kweller in concert at MO JO'S. Columbia, February 10, 2007)

    PENNY ON THE TRAIN TRACK (Ben Kweller Album)

    I NEED YOU BACK (On my Way Album)

    *I took some videos in the concert, but the quality isn't good because I had a photo camera, so I've decided to post these that somebody took in Atlanta. Both concerts were quite similar.

    ** The first video goes for my friend, for the next great moments.

    posted by Laura R. C. @ 14:39   2 comments
    8.2.07
    Witness in Palestine
    I reopen my blog this year with the purpose to share, one more time, a story from a person who gave me the opportunity to raise a better understanding of the situation in Palestine during the last year. If you read it before, you will know who I am talking about. She is Anna Baltzer, a Jewish-American activist in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who works for peace in nonviolent resistance, and this is her latest report from on the ground in the West Bank.
    (Photo: courtesy from Anna Baltzer)

    Several days ago while attending an embroidery workshop for local women, we received a frantic call from the north about a killing. We called around to see if any other human rights groups had internationals in Jenin, but it seemed everyone had headed south to document settler violence around Hebron. The next day, we traveled to Rumani, a village on the northwestern edge of the West Bank. We brought along our friend Ashraf translate for us, a soft-spoken Palestinian nonviolent activist studying at the American University in Jenin. When we arrived in the village, we were told that the family we'd be visiting was very religious, so Ashraf would have to stay with the men while we took the report from the victim's wife, the only adult witness. My colleagues and I were guided into a room full of women from the village, sitting with somber faces around the victim's mother and wife. I realized this was the Palestinian equivalent of "sitting Shiva" in the Jewish tradition, when family and friends gather right after a death to mourn and comfort the next of kin.

    The mother was expecting us and made room on both sides of her for
    us to sit down, spreading her blanket across us when we did. Not
    knowing what to do, I whispered "thank you" and sat with the women
    in silence for a while. Eventually I cleared my throat and explained
    who we were and why we'd come. Several women smiled weakly and
    thanked us. One who was holding a baby stood up and brought the baby
    over to me to hold. It was a tiny 30-day-old girl who breathed
    deeply as she slept in my arms. The victim's brother Saber, who had
    just arrived to translate, motioned to his brother's wife before
    speaking up: "This is their first, and last, child."

    Saber invited us to move next door to get the report from his sister-
    in-law in private. There she began to tell her story, which Saber
    translated:

    "Three nights ago William and I were walking home from this house
    after visiting with family. Since there is no electricity in the
    village, we could not see that there were people hiding in the
    bushes outside our home. When we got to our door, three men in
    civilian clothes jumped out and demanded to see William's ID. He
    showed it to them and they took out a gun and shot him in the chest.
    He fell to the ground and then they shot him twice more in the head.
    Then they took our child from my arms and lay her next to William's
    body. They took off my headscarf and pulled me by my hair away from
    my child. They told me that if I cried out they would kill me and my
    baby too. Then they walked away and I could see the Army jeeps on
    the main road turn on their headlights to light the way through the
    forest that surrounds our house. I was so scared that I did not
    scream."

    I asked Saber if they knew why William was targeted. Saber explained
    that their brother, Ra'ad, had been arrested exactly one year before
    for his support of Islamic Jihad. William had been accused of having
    hid his brother when the Israeli Army came to capture him. They had
    tried everything—undercover salespeople, women visitors in civilian
    clothes, etc—and blamed William for making Ra'ad's capture so
    difficult. Saber said there could be only one explanation for his
    brother's assassination: "Revenge."

    We asked the family if they had contacted a lawyer and they said
    they were afraid it would only make things worse. Ra'ad had a
    lawyer, and felt that the more publicity his case received, the
    worse his treatment became in jail. He was tortured until he
    couldn't see straight, and has continued to suffer from health
    problems after spending more than four months in interrogation.
    Saber said they move Ra'ad around to different jails constantly so
    he's unable to develop or maintain friendships.

    Since stories like Ra'ad's are so common I hardly took note. My
    colleagues and I call this the "Bizarro World Syndrome," where
    outrageous policies suddenly become perfectly acceptable. How has
    anyone come to see as normal assassinating a man accused of
    protecting his brother? Even if he were guilty of harboring a
    threat, or even if he were a threat himself, since when is it
    acceptable to hunt a suspect down and murder him in cold blood? If a
    suspect in the US were planning an attack against civilians, would
    we advocate someone going to his home and shooting him dead? Or
    should he be arrested, and put on trial to determine whether or not
    he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? But "innocent until proven
    guilty" does not exist for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories
    under Israeli law. Even if spared assassination, Palestinian
    prisoners are rarely given a trial, and even more rarely a fair one.
    (Sound like somewhere south of Florida you know?)

    Israeli-occupied Palestine is a bizarro world indeed. Since when—
    outside of Guantanamo, lest we forget—is it normal to torture
    prisoners, many of them never even told what they are being held
    for? How can the world stand by as a foreign Army kidnaps a third of
    the democratically-elected parliament? What would we do if Iran's
    army came in and captured a third of our government, claiming—
    rightfully, perhaps—that our representatives were a threat to their
    safety? (Don't say celebrate, lefties—that's not how democracy
    works!) The parallel of course assumes that Hamas is in the midst of
    plotting an attack on Israelis, hard to argue given that the party
    has held to an almost unwavering unilateral ceasefire for two years.
    Let us also not forget that according to the Israeli military orders
    that govern the West Bank and Gaza, it's actually illegal to be a
    member of ANY political party, including Hamas, Fatah, the PFLP (the
    Marxist-Leninist Communist Party), and others. So really anyone who
    adopts an opinion on the political issues that govern their lives
    can be a target for assassination, arrest, or even home
    demolition...

    This morning we received a call from the Israeli Committee Against
    House Demolitions (ICAHD) that two Palestinian homes were being
    destroyed in East Jerusalem. We were too far to make it in time, but
    it's not hard to guess the reason—either the family did not have a
    building permit (permits are given out freely to Jewish families but
    almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain), or the demolition was
    punitive. Two years ago the Army declared it would halt punitive
    demolitions since they are ineffective at deterring attacks (other
    good reasons could have included that they are illegal and a form of
    collective punishment), but they continue in Gaza so I can only
    assume that goes for the West Bank as well.

    One such demolition attempt in Gaza recently received widespread
    media attention: a man, after hearing that the Army would demolish
    his home in ten minutes, ran and gathered friends and family to
    flood his home so that demolishing the home would mean running over
    hundreds of people as well. Their organized direct action was
    successful and the bulldozers eventually retreated—who says
    nonviolent resistance is not alive and thriving in Palestine?

    Hearing the story, some people sympathized with Israel. Apparently,
    the man was involved in shooting Qassam rockets at Israeli towns,
    threatening Israeli civilians. Bizarro World Syndrome. Yes, any
    country has a right to defend its own citizens. But since when does
    this right extend to bulldozing people's homes? Israel's punitive
    demolitions aren't just the homes of suspects or confirmed criminals
    themselves; it's also the homes of their families. After the
    Oklahoma City bombing, did the FBI bulldoze Timothy McVeigh's home?
    Did they bulldoze the home of his parents, and his siblings, and his
    cousins? Should they have? It's astounding the way Israeli security
    hysteria—some, but not all, of it justified, in my opinion—has
    warped many people's sense of what is okay and what isn't. It
    doesn't take more than switching the names and ethnicities around to
    expose the underlying inconsistencies.

    The settlements complete the bizarro world. I think my colleague Amy
    articulated it best in her blog (www.travelingamy.blogspot.com):

    "Pretend are Canadian and you went to Sweden. Maybe you bought some
    land there and built some houses and sold them to your other
    Canadian friends. Maybe you even built a little fence around your
    compound. But is it okay to raise the Canadian flag, impose
    immigrant restrictions, have the Canadian military protect you, and
    announce it to be part of Canada? The same thing is happening here
    and some people think it's just fine."

    The parallel assumes that settlers are even buying land in the West
    Bank and Gaza, which they are not, at least not from the land's
    rightful owners. They are stealing it, or more accurately, their
    government is stealing it and encouraging citizens to move onto it.
    The irony is that although Israeli flags, soldiers, and families are
    ubiquitous in the West Bank, Israel is careful not to officially
    claim the West Bank to be a part of Israel, because then it would
    have to extend rights to the people living there. Giving
    Palestinians in the coveted West Bank equal rights to the people who
    live all around them in Jewish-only towns and cities would
    eventually render Palestinians a majority in Israel, and Jews a
    minority. If it wanted to be a democracy, Israel would have to
    evolve from being the state only of the Jews to being a state of its
    citizens and occupants. But this remains a radical idea for many.

    Occupation is not transitional stage; it's a strategic limbo between
    annexation and withdrawel in which the occupier reaps the benefits
    of controlling territory (in this case land, water, and other
    resources) without having to grant inhabitants equal rights and
    freedoms. But although the economics of the Occupation are
    sustainable, the injustice is not; oppressed people will always
    resist. Territorially, it is not in Israel's interest to end the
    Occupation, but for security and basic decency, I believe, it is.
    Time will tell which interest will prevail.

    In struggle,

    Anna
    posted by Laura R. C. @ 11:42   0 comments
    Quién es Yo?

    This is a bilingual -Spanish and English- space to set free creativeness and uphold communication. It is the negation of the maxim that recommends people to be conformist and quiet: "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". See, hear and speak with me! Laura R. C. Columbia MO (USA).
    Para curiosos/Glance at

    mirada objetivada
    el bolso de Poppins
    salgamos a pasear
    interesting columbia