Too Much Information

First, my apologies for a week-long absence. Internet Explorer, my default browser, somehow stopped being compatible with Blogger and I was unable to log on all of last week. With work being a bit hectic as well, I didn't have much time to troubleshoot either. Thanks to Alejandra, though, all is normal now and I am gracing the blogosphere yet again thanks to Mozilla.

But enough about me (and the fact that two weeks into my resolution to post daily I failed miserably) and on to the news, or rather, the excess thereof...

I process the news in the context of fear. I don't expect to read about chirping birds in Central Park or pillow fights between members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the front page of CNN or the New York Times. Instead, I have come to expect death tolls and an update on how far Beyonce has come in her 25 years on this earth versus me. And I'm OK with that.



However, journalists seem to operate under a different construct. They neither compare themselves to Beyonce and they fear nothing.


Otherwise they wouldn't go around pouring itching powder into the conflicts that plague our little planet. And neither would the victims of these conflicts, as these people seem especially inclined to just shoot their mouths off at any microphone shoved in their faces.


In reading the news today, I was shocked and annoyed that the Times of London would publish an article listing the ingredients used in the terrorist attacks of 2005. Now, I know the media has done stupid stuff like that in the past, but in the midst of a war that is showing no signs of relenting, is it wise to inform the public, and the wackos in their midst, on how to assemble mini weapons of mass destruction? In an article titled "How high street ingredients 'could become weapons for mass murder'" reporter Sean O'Neill writes:

The ingredients of the July 21 bombs were acquired in the high street and required little more than a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry to make up. The shopping list of the alleged bombers included hydrogen peroxide — widely used in hairdressing — chapati flour, nail polish remover (acetone), sulphuric acid, batteries, torch bulbs, electrical wires, cardboard and half a dozen food storage tubs, Woolwich Crown Court was told yesterday.

Am I overreacting or is this too much information? Who cares what the ingredients used were? The problem isn't how available they are it's how many people know that a combination of certain household items can cause some major damage?

Reports from the war-zone are no better. No sooner are we processing the less than humane execution of Saddam Hussein (I'm against the death penalty but what else could you do with a monster like that? My issue is with the treatment of a man already sentenced to death by his executioners...verbal taunting, slapping...) and we're getting reports that his older brother's head snapped off during the execution.

Wha?? How is the world better off for knowing this bit of information?

Things are no better in Colombia, where the kidnapping of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt still goes unsolved. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Colombia's interior minister said Monday that kidnapped former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was in good health, reopening a national debate over freeing thousands being held captive by mostly leftist rebels. [...]

Betancourt's mother, however, said she feared the government was planning a military rescue of her daughter - a move that in the past has led leftist rebels to immediately kill hostages.

"What terrifies me is that the government may know where Ingrid is and will launch a rescue mission," Yolanda Pulecio said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Umm, why is this woman's mother trying to sabotage any attempt by the government to rescue her daughter? Shouldn't her misgivings be addressed in private with the president of her country and the people who will execute any rescue operation? What the hell is the AP going to do about saving her daughter?

And finally, just when I was rejoicing over the much-deserved victory of one Miss Jennifer Hudson at the Golden Globes, I caught a commercial for the Today Show announcing an interview with the parents of one of the two kidnapped boys found in Missouri yesterday.

If recounting the horror of such an ordeal with friends and family won't be of help to me, and I feel like reaching out to a disinterested media personality, I'd try to call Beyonce and tell her all about how my son was kidnapped and holed up with some dude for five days. She won't care any more than Meredith Viera, but hey, she's Beyonce. But then, who would cover the story? BET? I'm not black...

So what am I getting at here?

The news is full of too much fluff and fear mongering and there are way too many people who think national television is an appropriate vehicle through which families can process trauma. Editors are becoming increasingly unethical and scandalous in what they peddle as news -- telling people how to create bombs is the equivalent of screaming fire (or, if you were Beyonce, Ring the Alarm) in a crowded movie theatre.

Colombia Hostages Freed; End of FARC Near

I never thought I'd get to write this post.

Finally, the FARC, Colombia's leftist insurgent group, showed signs of its eminent demise with the release of 15 hostages, including 3 Americans and Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The Colombian government infiltrated the rebel group and seized their most valued hostages with no gunfire and all have returned home safely.

This is a day that most Colombians never imagined would come. We've seen too much in the cartel years and the guerillas dashed all our hopes when they took to killing hostages during negotiations. Even after yesterday's release, the FARC still has over 700 hostages and one has to wonder what sort of desperate, deadly maneuvering those animals are going to come up with.

For me, however, this is a lesson in the power of government, cross-border cooperation, and the will of the people. For years Colombians have been standing up to the FARC, denouncing their tactics, calling for their end - the climax of this being an international manifestation of solidarity for peace and a call for the release of all hostages in Colombia in February of this year. Thanks to the visionary leadership of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, the days of FARC rule are now numbered.

Of course, this didn't happen on its own as the U.S. has been Colombia's biggest ally in the fight against the FARC and France has lent financial and spiritual support to the cause as well. In fact, the movement for hostage release in Colombia was especially strong in France, which is where I first came to learn about Ingrid Betancourt during my semester abroad in 2001.

But you know me, I still gotta hate....

The importance of the hostage release has been felt around the world - except by Telemundo and Univision, the only national Spanish-language channels in the U.S. with correspondents all over Latin America, who decided to keep their regular programming of a novela called "Without Breasts there is no Paradise," and "Don Francisco Presenta," instead of providing live coverage of the events in Colombia and the 10pm address by President Uribe welcoming the hostages back to society. The address included a chat between the President and Ingrid.

It's shameful that these two outlets continue to fail the public when it comes to covering major world events. This is one of the most important stories in Latin American history and the only Latin American channels in the U.S. sat on the story.

Disgusting.

Don't Forget...

...while the political situation in Colombia has improved by leaps and bounds, the country's Revolutionary Armed Forces (Spanish acronym FARC) still have many hostages in their grip, including American defense contractors and former Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

In a statement issued on June 27th by the FARC, Ms. Betancourt, who has dual French-Colombian citizenship, is doing well, as are the American hostages. It appears that the kindappers are willing to negotiate their release. Keep in mind, Betancourt has been held hostage for FOUR YEARS now.

While living in Paris, Betancourt published one of the most informative accounts on the Colombian conflict, a civil-war that has taken many forms since the 1950s as a political, religious, and narco-terrorist assault on the country. Her book, "Rabia en el Corazon" (Anger in the Heart) was released shortly before her kidnapping. To get an idea of what her ordeal must be like, check out my favorite book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping.

After writing about Cuba last night, I got to thinking about the impact Marxism has had on Colombia. In their fight for an egalitarian society, the rebels have dashed so much of Colombia's potential to be a leader, a beacon, in Latin America. The drug cartels, while proponents of the worst wave of violence ever seen in the country, ironically created the country's middle class, who are now the targets of insurgent groups. So in thinking about Marxism, victimization and Colombia, I thought of Ingrid Betancourt.

I read an interview with her in Paris Match when I was a student in Paris, and my hope was that I would get the chance to meet her while I was there. While that didn't happen, I was inspired by her story, I thought that perhaps she would spearhead a movement that would put Colombia back on the right course.

It's hard not to get angry and combative when you're discussing issues like this. While we're discussing politics and pontificating from our blogs, people are dying and living the conflicts we're milling over.

Uh-oh, what if Chavez turns out to be useful?

Hugo Chavez is in Colombia to broker negotiations between the country's pro-US government and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces.

It's a great PR stunt, but it makes me think of the question that cracked egg over Obama's face -- how much can a government entertain the likes of Chavez before it becomes complicit in the dictator's self-aggrandizement?


And the same can be said of the FARC who have entertained other Colombian presidents and have pretended to make overtures at peace. In the end, though, the kidnappings don't stop and hostages like Ingrid Betancourt have yet to be released.

So who's using who here? And what does the U.S. stand to lose if someone like Chavez can trump the billions of dollars we've spent in Colombia by talking sense into the guerrilla group?

The latter just won't happen. After all, the FARC became a narco-terrorist group a long time ago and their new goal is to run the country's drug trade. None of those creeps is out for socialism anymore.

In the meantime, as the group makes weak attempts at legitimacy, neither Chavez nor the guerrillas stand to gain much from these very well publicized meetings.

Unfortunately, there are countless people's who's pain is only dragged out further. I suspect, though, that the families of the hostages, and the Colombian people in general, see right through this budget version of diplomacy.

Colombia Hostage Release at a Standstill...

Foto: El Pais, Colombia

...until tomorrow. In the meantime, Venezuelan armed forces and the International Red Cross are holding out hope that before 6pm Sunday, three hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces will be released. Ingrid Betancourt, a presidential candidate who was kidnapped in 2001 and whom I've written about frequently, is not among the hostages slated for release.

Still, for people like Clara Gonzalez, the mother of Clara Rojas, who was kidnapped along with Betancourt, the anguish may soon be over. Soon she'll get to see her daughter, and meet her new grandson, Emmanuel, who was born after Rojas' kidnapping.

But anything is possible. Chavez' good will toward Colombia is a way for him to spread his influence across Latin America. Worming his way into one of the most volatile diplomatic situations in the western hemisphere has made him, unfortunately, an integral part of the peace-building process in Colombia.

So, three hostages may be released tomorrow, or they may be held for another three years. In the meantime it is abundantly clear that Chavez himself is a terrorist - his influence over the FARC makes him complicit in the group's crimes against the people of Colombia. Once the hostages are released, let's pray for the prompt elimination of both the FARC and their spiritual leader, Hugo Chavez.

Happy Birthday, GCL!

GCL turns 3 today! Feel free to roll your eyes but I'm gonna celebrate. For the past 36 months I've been tapping away at this laptop trying to make sense of my life, politics, and pop culture. I've made some enemies, I've caused trouble, I've said some incendiary things - in short, I've had an amazing time.

When I started this blog I was just getting smart to this whole "digital revolution" and what it meant for a PR underling like myself who was trying to get ahead in the world. The goal was, and still is, to share a screen with Larry King or Anderson Cooper - but in the meantime, being a relentlessly gay conservative liberal has brought me tremendous satisfaction and even professional gain. I never articulated this thought until now, but I'm proud of this blog.

Over the past three years I've been able to write about some pretty exciting stories, most notably the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of our country. That was without a doubt the most exciting time for me as a blogger. I know I ticked off a lot of people with my skepticism about his candidacy(yep, I called him the Antichrist), but I stand by what I said then - we were on the cusp of a monumental election, it wasn't the time for blind allegiance, it was a time to ask questions, it was a time to make demands from democrats who had lost two elections to the worst President in our nation's history. I was also glad to write about the situation in Colombia, my mom's homeland, both from a political and personal perspective - the release of the U.S. hostages along with Ingrid Betancourt, whose story was one of the first I ever followed on this blog, was a thrilling moment for me. It was equally thrilling, though in a different way, to make the trip to see my grandma in Colombia, in spite of our differences about my "lifestyle," and enjoy the city and home that had been such an important part of my childhood. Speaking of my lifestyle, I've delved into my own issues with gay life through this blog; it's been an exploration that has found me expanding on my faith and the place it occupies in my life. Some people have found this insightful, others have found it preachy, self-hating and backwards. Quite simply, it's an on-going dialogue that will likely never be resolved for this Jehovah's Witness kid from Brooklyn.

So what's ahead? Let me tell you, it's been hard for me to keep up with this blog these days. And it's not for lack of material - what with Prop 8, DOMA, Iran and my crazy family, I could spend all day writing. This anniversary is the kick in the pants I needed to rev up my posts - there's a lot going on in the world and I firmly believe that someone, a gay conservative liberal perhaps, should be out there talking and getting people to think, or at the very least, get them pissed off.