yonmei

12:17 am: Definitely, not ever, not even once, passing through the US
Tonight, as I parted from my parents outside Chimei, I repeated my firm advice to my mother to book her flight via a travel agent and make sure she didn't even transit through a US airport on her way to Canada in September.

Got home and discovered via Sideshow that, yeah, if you can possibly avoid it non-USians should go nowhere near the US for the foreseeable future.

Emily Feder writes (18th August 2008):

We got to an enclosed holding area in the arrivals section of the airport. He shoved the folder into my hand and gestured toward four sets of Homeland Security guards sitting at large desks. Attached to each desk were metal poles capped with red, white and blue siren lights. I approached two guards carrying weapons and wearing uniforms similar to New York City police officers, but they shook their heads, laughed and said, "Over there," pointing in the direction of four overflowing holding pens. I approached different desks until I found an official who nodded and shoved my green folder in a crowded metal file holder. When I asked him why I was there, he glared at me, took a sip from his water bottle, bit into a sandwich, and began to dig between his molars with his forefinger.

Why was she there? Well, the Department of Homeland Security wanted to ask her some questions about Hezbollah, because she was returning to the US from Syria. Of course so were many other people on the same flight, so why they picked on Ms Feder is anyone's guess.

No one who had been detained knew precisely why they were there. A few people were led into private rooms; others were questioned out in the open at desks a few feet from the crowd and then allowed to pass through customs. Some were sent to another section of the holding area with large computer screens and cameras, and then brought back. The uninformed consensus among the detainees was that some people would be fingerprinted, have their irises scanned and be sent back to the countries from which they had disembarked, regardless of citizenship status; others would be fingerprinted and allowed to stay; and the unlucky ones would be detained indefinitely and moved to a more permanent facility.

Many of the people held in this extra-judicial detention area were US citizens:

...Omar looked scared. He rubbed his hands and rocked softly in his seat. He had been waiting for hours already, and, as he pointed out, a number of people -- some sick, elderly, pregnant or holding sobbing babies -- had too. There were approximately 70 people detained in our cordoned-off section: All were Arab (with the exception of me and the friend I traveled with), and almost all had arrived from Dubai, Amman or Damascus. Many were U.S. citizens.

One British citizen detained among the rest:

There was one British tourist in the group. Paul (also not his real name) was traveling with three friends who had passed through customs soon after their plane landed and were waiting for him on the other side of the metal barrier; he suspected he had been detained because of his dark skin. When he asked if he could go to the bathroom, one of the guards said, "I wouldn't." "What if someone has to?" I asked. "They will just have to hold it," the guard responded with a smile. Paul began to cry.

My mum is over seventy: white-haired, British-with-a-trace-of-Canadian accent (mostly English - Scots shows up only in her word-choice at times). She's overweight, and lame. She seldom goes anywhere she can't go by train or bus, and certainly has never been to Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East. I think: well, she wouldn't really likely be picked on/detained. But even an hour's detention like this would be physically painful for her - and Emily Feder's account says that four hours is just the start (she got "processed" after four because she was white and American-born and had the certainty she was not going to be sent back to Syria or on to Bagram Airbase, no matter what she said to the Homeland Security men):

After four hours, I finally demanded to speak to the guards' supervisor, and he was called down. I asked if the detainees could file a formal complaint. He said there were complaint forms (which, in English and Spanish, direct one to the Department of Homeland Security's Web site, where one must enter extensive personal information in order to file a "Trip Summary") but initially refused to hand them out or to give me his telephone number. "The Department of Homeland Security is understaffed, underfunded, and I have men here who are doing 14-hour days." He tried to intimidate me when I wrote down his name -- "So, you're writing down our names. Well, we have more on you" -- and asked me questions about my address and my profession in front of the rest of the people detained. I pointed out a few of the families who had missed their flights and had been waiting seven hours. His voice barely controlled, his lip curled into a smirk, he explained slowly, condescendingly, that they need only go to the ticket counter at Jet Blue and reschedule so they could fly out in an hour. One mother responded with what he must have already known: Jet Blue goes to most destinations only once or twice a day and her whole family would have to sleep in the airport.

A large crowd began to gather. Everyone wanted to voice complaints. I explained to the supervisor that his guards had been making people afraid. He flipped through the green files, tossing the American passports to the front of the pile. "You should have gone first, before these people. American citizens first -- that's how it should be." In the face of dozens of requests and questions, he turned and left.

The guards processed me then, ignoring the order of arrivals, if there ever had been one. They refused to distribute more complaint forms or call the supervisor back down at the request of Arab families. One officer threatened, "I'm talking politely to you now. If you don't sit down, I won't be talking politely to you anymore." One announced that because "the American girl" had gotten angry, the families would have to wait a few more hours. "The supervisor is not coming back."

"Between 2000 and 2007, overseas travel to the U.S. fell 8% - approximately 2 million travelers - even though overseas travel around the world grew by 28% - or 35 million travelers." - The Power of Travel - Key Issues - a website which does not mention the charming ways of Department of Homeland Security as one of those key issues.

Montreal for the Worldcon in 2009 is still something I hope to do. If I can afford the cheapest flight I can get that does not involve going through the US...

Tags: evil american politics, family stuff, montreal, travel, worldcon

11:47 am: Stupid Things To Say
Senator Linda Gray of Arizona, after explaining why she thinks her religion justifies legally preventing her colleague Senator Paula Aboud from marrying her partner of 8 years: "I don't see it as divisive ... I don't think it has to be hateful at all." Arizona Republic

Lillian Ladele of Islington, after explaining why she thinks her religion justifies her refusal to perform civil partnership ceremonies for same-sex couples: "As a Christian, I loved being able to help people, to talk to them when they needed advice – it’s what my religion is all about and I think I have a lot of empathy." Pink News

As it happens (I've read the tribunal's judgement) I now think Ladele was treated very badly - even considering her behaviour. She could show the tribunal that her manager was hostile to her before she refused to perform civil partnership ceremonies, and her manager did nothing to prevent or discourage the open discussion of her refusal and may even have abetted it. But the kind of ignorant arrogance that says "Hey, I want to deny you basic civil rights, but don't you dare act hostile towards me!" comes through in that comment from her, just as the blithe arrogance of blind privilege comes through in Gray's comment.

Of course the other difference between them is that Linda Gray is a powerful white woman actively working to ensure that the LGBT people whom she's paid to represent have fewer civil rights than straight people in Arizona. And Lillian Ladele is a black, Nigerian-born civil servant who just wanted to avoid having to treat LGBT people like anyone else when it became part of her job to do so. Both inspired by a particular homophobic interpretation of Christianity, both actively supported by the Christian right.

You don't know how much it sickens me to guess that the Ladele case probably got as far as it did because (I think) Ladele's manager was a racist asshole who treated her badly from the word go and was glad to have an excuse to harass her.

Tags: ***** this fir a kerry oan, evil american politics, howls of rage

01:44 pm: No, not just sour grapes
I have a Youtube account: every video uploaded to it is my own copyrighted material.

I use Youtube to watch vids: primarily, I use it to watch Johnny Cash sing. (Occasionally, Willie Nelson.)

As of last Tuesday, Viacom gets to know exactly what my viewing patterns are. And yours. And everyone's.

"To build its case, Viacom asked for a list of all the login IDs belonging to YouTube's users, along with the company's log of which videos they watched, when, and from which IP (Internet Protocol) address. With that logging database, it hopes to show that its copyright content is of more interest to YouTube's users than video created by the users themselves." - link

So an American judge got to make an order that handed over identifying data about people living outside the US to an American corporation which is minded to really, really, annoy the people who used to be its customer base. Well, if you're still on Livejournal, you should be used to that. To quote someone else: "Now every part of the world is subject to US law. Except Guantanamo Bay."

"That data includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from Youtube for any reason (DMCA notices or user-initiated deletions). Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely 'speculative.'" - link

Simon Davies does a big I Told You So: "Governments and organisations are realising that companies like Google have a warehouse full of data. And while that data is stored it is under threat of being used and putting privacy in danger." link

I was recommended to the Tor Project to improve your privacy online.

I was interested to see if Organisation for Transformative Works had anything to say about this, but they don't.

Tags: bloody bloody bloody, cool things people do with software, evil american politics, fannishness, youtube videos

02:19 pm: Travelling to the US: two news stories
Center for Constitutional Rights, 30th June 2008:

Today, the majority in a federal Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against Center for Constitutional Rights client Maher Arar’s case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year under the extraordinary rendition program.

The majority ruled that Mr. Arar’s constitutional claims that it was a violation of due process to lock him up for two weeks, obstruct his access to a lawyer and a court, and then to ship him to Syria for the purpose of having him interrogated under torture could not be heard in federal court for two reasons. It concluded that adjudicating the claims would interfere with sensitive matters of foreign policy and national security, and that Arar, as a foreigner who had not been formally admitted to the U.S., had no constitutional due process rights with respect to the government's interference with his access to a lawyer and the decision to send him to Syria to be tortured.

The majority also rejected Mr. Arar’s claim that U.S. officials are liable under the Torture Victim Protection Act, for conspiring with Syria to subject Mr. Arar to torture under color of foreign law. The TVPA creates liability for torture inflicted under color of foreign law, and courts have held that it applies not only to the torturer himself, but also to those who aid or abet in the torture. Arar alleged that U.S. officials aided and abetted in his torture at Syrian hands, but the majority ruled that the federal officials could not be held responsible for their conspiracy with the Syrians because they were federal officials exercising federal authority.

Financial Times, 2nd July 2008:

The US government will on Wednesday launch a tourism charm offensive in the UK, to persuade holidaymakers to take advantage of sterling’s strength against the dollar and make the US their next holiday destination.

Travel industry leaders, backed by Washington, will kick-start a tourism drive with DiscoverAmerica.com, the first dedicated national website selling the US to British and other international tourists.

( The letter I wrote )

Write to DiscoverAmerica

Tags: evil american politics, hitting something very hard, howls of rage, writing complaining letters

05:39 pm: Memorial Day: Kaija Seifert
I'm just reminded: today's a day to remember Kaija Seifert, a US soldier who was killed in Iraq.

"Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service." - www.usmemorialday.org.

This month a federal appeals court has reinstated the legal challenge made by Margaret Witt (formerly of the USAF) to the constitutionality of the U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Too late for Kaija Seifert, and for others who died in the closet. But a hopeful sign, nonetheless.

Tags: evil american politics, howls of rage, kaija seifert, powerful speech vs. powerless silence, war

02:40 pm: To Americans: Please, remember who your REAL enemy is...
Years ago, when I was guest speaker at an LGBT TUC meeting on repealing Section 28 in England and Wales, one of the delegates got up and fulminated about how "We must remember - our real enemy is the Labour Party!"

I am not a Labour Party member. I am not a safe Labour Party voter. I dislike many of the things the Labour Government have done. But in this particular instance, repealing Section 28 was something the Labour Party wanted to do, and it was their opponents - Conservatives in the House of Lords - who were stopping them.

Which I pointed out, next time I got the microphone.

I just saw a post on my friends-list by someone saying how if the "wrong candidate" won the nomination she was going to vote for a third party, and spouting a whole load of media BS why the "wrong candidate" was wrong. It is of course entirely possible that she lives somewhere where her vote won't matter: protest votes are valid.

But no matter what the media has been saying about Hillary Clinton - and, since 1992 at least, they've been saying a hell of a lot and all of it bad: she has 16 years of misogynistic anti-Hillary and anti-Clinton campaigning against her - she is not the enemy. Nor is Barack Obama, though since public misogyny is more acceptable than public racism, the attacks on him for being black have seemed more subtle than the attacks on Clinton for being a woman.

The past eight years have been bad enough. I want the Democratic nominee to win by a landslide, because past experience has shown that this is the only way round the Republicans vote-rigging the elections.

The thought of waking up to another 8 years of Republican disaster because enough Americans were conned into thinking they couldn't stand Clinton or couldn't stand Obama so they'll help to get McCain in?

You do not know how much that makes me feel like the kind of dreary exhaustion you feel after vomiting for an hour and there's nothing left to come up but your stomach is still roiling.

So if you support the other Democratic nominee, and are making sickening noises about how you're not going to vote for the other one? Unless you live in an absolutely secure Democratic state where you know your vote will make no difference, kindly think of the rest of the world which will be stuck with your country's President for another eight years.

You want another eight years? I may vomit.

Tags: evil american politics, gah

09:46 am: I wish that everyone who supported the war with Iraq could be made to do this
I'll meet you round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...:

Two months ago, the suitcases were packed. My lone, large suitcase sat in my bedroom for nearly six weeks, so full of clothes and personal items, that it took me, E. and our six year old neighbor to zip it closed.

Packing that suitcase was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do. It was Mission Impossible: Your mission, R., should you choose to accept it is to go through the items you’ve accumulated over nearly three decades and decide which ones you cannot do without. The difficulty of your mission, R., is that you must contain these items in a space totaling 1 m by 0.7 m by 0.4 m. This, of course, includes the clothes you will be wearing for the next months, as well as any personal memorabilia- photos, diaries, stuffed animals, CDs and the like.

I packed and unpacked it four times. Each time I unpacked it, I swore I’d eliminate some of the items that were not absolutely necessary. Each time I packed it again, I would add more ‘stuff’ than the time before. E. finally came in a month and a half later and insisted we zip up the bag so I wouldn’t be tempted to update its contents constantly.

The decision that we would each take one suitcase was made by my father. He took one look at the box of assorted memories we were beginning to prepare and it was final: Four large identical suitcases were purchased- one for each member of the family...

I especially wish Tony Blair could be forced to do this: one suitcase for himself and one for each of his family, pack everything, lose the rest. Hard on his children, yes: but at least they wouldn't then have to run for their lives.

(Bush? Bush is beyond saving and always was. What bugs me about Blair is that I'm certain he Meant Well.)

Tags: ***** this fir a kerry oan, evil american politics, war

11:51 am: "Justice for all"
Yousuf Yee, Muslim army chaplain at Guantanamo Bay/Camp X-Ray, was arrested on 10th September and imprisoned. He's being held in Charleston, South Carolina, along with two other American "detainees", Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla. You may notice something that Yee, Hamdi, and Padilla all have in common: they none of them have the same skin colour as John Walker Lindh, who received a legal, if not exactly fair, trial, and is now protected by the US justice system. (Unlike, for example, the victims of mass arrests who weren't even American citizens. - or the other detainees of Guantanamo Bay.)

Tags: evil american politics

07:07 am: 11 Septembers
On 11 September 1609, Henry Hudson landed on the island of Manhattan.

On 11 September 1714, Barcelona capitulated to Philip V, and Catalonia ceased to be an independent state.

On September 11, 1973 a CIA-sponsored coup attacked the Presidential palace and murdered President Salvador Allende, placing Augusto Pinochet in power and ending democracy in Chile for 25 years.

On 11 September 1998 there was a fictional war in the cinemas and blowjobs in the newspapers.

On 11 September, 1999 Janet Adam Smith, mountaineer, biographer, and literary editor of The Listener and The New Statesman, died aged 93.

In September, 2001, eight children and 54 adults were killed by an occupying army funded by the US. ( Read more... )

On 11 September 2001, Thabo Mbeki ordered his health minister to consider a cut in the AIDS budget for South Africa.

On September 11, 2001 the WTC and the Pentagon were attacked by hijackers who turned 4 transcontinental planes into flying bombs. This event is commemorated in song and story.

On 11 September 2002, Tony Blair recalled Parliament to debate Iraq. (And on 10 September 2002, Feroz Abbasi's mother took the government of the UK to court for failing to intervene on her son's behalf.)

What will happen today?

( Note )

Tags: evil american politics, september 11

12:23 am: Oh dear God.
Not a prayer. Just... horror.
[Edit: Interesting debate on debate about this issue - recommended.]

It's true that nothing material lasts forever. We are, as a species, perhaps 200,000 years old. Our history is measured in thousands of years, not hundreds of thousands, because nothing material lasts forever.

At the centre of the city in which I live is a massive rock left behind by a glacier in a previous ice age: the city in which I live exists because of that rock, it grew up on the rock and around it and over it and in it. People have been building on the rock for 3000 years at least. I love this city. It's my home, the place where I have put down roots.

I would not kill for it. I would not want any one to die for it: any life to be ended prematurely for the survival of the rock and the stones of my city. Human life is worth more than stones. Any human life.

But if my city were destroyed, even if no human died in its destruction, I would grieve. Even for the stones. For the history destroyed.

So and no otherwise - so and no otherwise - am I grieving for the loss of the museum of Mesopotamia. The stored history of the place where, as far as we know, humans first set down words, pressed symbols into clay and created the thing that does not die: the written word. What have we lost in the past three days?

The looting appeared to have its heaviest impact on a security guard at the museum, Abdul Rahman, 57, who said he had tried to stop the first band of looters breaking through to steel gates at the rear of the compound on Thursday morning. He said he gave up when the looters started firing in the air with pistols and rifles. "They were shouting, `There's no government, there's no state, and we will do what we like. We will take anything we want.' They said `Open up, open up, there's no more Saddam so we can do what we like.'" Mr. Rahman said he returned to his room and remained there for two days, hiding and heartbroken. (From The New York Times)

Tags: evil american politics, iraq, war

08:14 pm: WAR! Gonnie No Dae That!
It was big. The police estimate 61 000: the organisers estimated more like 90 000. Whichever number is more correct, it was certainly the biggest political demonstration in Scotland that I've ever seen (someone said, the biggest one in more than a century).

( what happened at the rally in Glasgow: a steward's eye view )

A long day, but a good one.

Propped against the wall to remind me: How did our oil get under their sand?

Tags: evil american politics, evil british politics, iraq, war