Magazine

Back to Sopdown home page, click here

Magazine .............June, 2003. Except for the first article under Contents, articles and department pieces here were posted months ago. We are trying to get it together so we can post new articles every week. We leave these posted for now as an example of the kind of reporting we wish to feature in a weekly magazine. We would like to add a chess column and other features.

The articles rendered here are sometimes abbreviated.


	President Toledo of Peru signs paternity statement acknowledging 14 year old Zarai as his child.		In Malawi, Africa, rumors of vampires being recruited to obtain human blood for aid agencies is causing turmoil and reprisals.		In Punta Arenas, Chile, the Ozone comes and goes. The people take cover.

Contents ....click on red title to go to articles

recent article

California parole administration -- an "insane" process.

Baboon troop in Kenya Aggressive males died from disease contracted at trash dump where only aggressive males foraged. Troop became more peaceful and cooperative as a result, and has remained so for twenty years as males joining from other troops have adopted non-combative ways.

Articles below are at least a month old, and will be retired to files, but we leave them for now as examples of the kind of articles this magazine will post weekly beginning in May or June this year.

Honeybee navigation Scientists move feed station bees have flown to, and observe that bees take a memorized path back, failing to return to the hive.

The 101st Airborne takes a people-friendly approach to its role as an occupying force in Iraq. General David Petraeus is winning the peace in the Northwest of Iraq by involving local people in shaping their new government.

Liberia (Africa); As peace appears possible after 20 years of mayhem, a look at the tragic history of a nation founded by freed American slaves.

Insurance shell companies are created to dodge tens of millions in taxes If premiums are kept below $350,000, the company can invest any amount of assets, assets having nothing to do with company operations, and investment profits are tax exempt. The I.R.S. is approving applications for this scam at an increasing rate, and does not audit these companies. The exemption was created in the 1950's to help small insurers, not to help the rich as is happening.

Motherhood and the Law, U.S..............A first degree murder sentence reversed for a woman convicted in the death of her child because she failed to recognize her boyfriend's abuse of her children before he committed the murder.

The state of California has spent $13 million, so far, defending itself in a suit seeking to improve conditions in public schools. ............. Some contend the state should spend the money on the schools instead of on lawyers.

Peru: Zarai Toledo......14 year old daughter of Peruvian president prevails after long campaign to be recognized as his child.

Argentina ....Elisa Carrio, reformer who professes clean politics and a life of simplicity, candidate in the April, '03 election for president of Argentina. This article is now outdated, the election is over. Ms. Carrio did not win. But we are leaving this posted as an example of the kind of personality pieces we would like to post.

Malawi........Vigilantes target government officials, priests and foreign aid workers for conspiring with vampires.

India.......The Association of the Dead does battle with fraudulent death notices, arranged by bribery to steal property.

Chile...... The ozone layer comes and goes above Punta Arenas, as the people run for cover.

Media Snapshots........ Afghan refugee children in Pakistan....... Bantu people scorned in Somalia, headed for U.S. scroll down

Items from the media (also on home page) scroll down

Departments .... scroll down

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Items from the media: Thomas Coleman, the Tulia, Texas policeman who put one tenth of the town's African American population in jail on phony drug charges, received the "Lawman of the Year award" from the state of Texas not long after he made the arrest (NY Times March, '03).............. At the U.S. Air Force academy, where rape of female cadets by men and suppression of charges brought by raped women has become national news, some officers from the last class without women (1979) wear caps with "LCWB" printed on them. (Last Class Without B....) N.Y. Times March, 16 '03. This practiced may have stopped this year inasmuch as disciplinary proceedings have begun. ............. Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent who publicized the failure of bureau chiefs in Washington to heed warnings by regional FBI agents before 9-11 that such a terror strike was being planned, has sent a letter to headquarters asserting that U.S. law enforcement is not prepared for the wave of terror which is likely to follow the war in Iraq (NY Times, March, 03)....... In a recent interview, B.B. King spoke of anger he still feels at seeing German prisoners of war, during World War II, given afternoon breaks from their work on Southern U.S. plantations, while African American workers were ordered to work straight through. (NY Times, March 2, 2003)

Departments

No joke department:

Sweden: Violent end for intoxicated Elk. ... The police shot dead a drunken bull elk that attacked a young boy while intoxicated on fermented apples, the newspaper Aftonbladet reported. The Elk attacked an eight year old as he played in the garden of his home in the town of Karlskoga in central Sweden. The youngster was badly shaken but escaped serious injury, suffering only a bruised neck. Elks, common in sparsely populated Sweden, are normally shy but can become aggressive when they eat rotten apples, a favorite winter snack that can make them drunk. (Reuters 12-31-02)

Quickie I.Q. test (get this question right and you are a genius.) Why don't Eskimos eat penguins? Scroll to bottom of this page for answer.

Weather report:.........Rain -- violent torrents of it, rain like fetid water from a God-sized pot of pasta strained through a sky-wide colander, rain as Noah knew it, flaying the shuddering trees, whipping the white-capped waters, violating the sodden firmament, purging purity and filth alike from the land, rain without mercy, without surcease, incontinent rain, turning to intermittent showers overnight with partial clearing Tuesday. (weather report by David Hirsch)

International News Snapshots

These Afghan refugee children work scavenging in Karachi (Pakistan) garbage dumps. Most have no family and are abused by their employers, others are abused by their family, beaten if they don't find enough recyclables. An alternative to this life is the madrasas, religious schools in which children memorize the Koran in Arabic, a language they and many of their teachers don't understand.
See N.Y. Times 3/7/03	photo by Shamyl Khurho, for the New York Times (3/7/03)

In the dump the children must ward off wild dogs as they work by day, and at night devise sleeping platforms so the rats will not bite them. The children in the dump have the same opinion of Americans as the children in the madrasas: it is a good thing to kill Americans. America attacked their homeland, Afghanistan. A documentary about these children was shown on the DiscoveryTimes channel on March 25, '03.

About 12,000 Bantu from Somalia, brought there by Arab slave traders two centuries ago, persecuted and exploited still, are being flown to the U.S. from refugee camps in Kenya where they were driven by civil war in the early 1990's. Denied jobs, education and political representation in Somalia, they are mostly illiterate and almost completely untouched by modern life. At the refugee camp a classroom is equipped with a refrigerator, sink, toilet and other trappings of modern life, as part of instruction, including English, to prepare them for life in the U.S. (New York Times 3/10/03, article by Rachel Swarns.)

Tanzania and Mozambique, the Bantu's ancestral homelands, agreed to take the tribe but then claimed they could not afford their resettlement. Looking forward life in the U.S., a 20 year old refugee, Fatuma Abdekadir, said, "I don't think Somalia is my country, because we Somali Bantus have seen our people treated like donkeys. I think my country is where I am going. There, there is peace. Nobody can treat you badly. Nobody can come into your house and beat you." Poverty, racism and religious discrimination they may suffer in the U.S. will not deter them from emigrating. Even in the refugee camps the Bantu are called Mushunguli, or slave people, and as they wait to leave children die of malnutrition.


photos by Joao Silva for New York Times.		Lessons in modern plumbing at refugee camp in Kenya.

Why don't Eskimos eat penguins?

Answer: Penguins live towards the South Pole, Eskimos close to the North Pole.