As every news story about the world’s fascination with the 2008 US election race has reminded us, US politics have an effect that reaches far beyond that country’s borders. That’s something, however, of which we in the Caribbean region—where remittances from the US-based diaspora form a significant percentage of several territories’ GDP and skyrocketing crime rates are attributed (partly) to deportees from US prisons—need few reminders.

One web site I’ve been checking regularly for information on this year’s US election race is Voices without Votes. I checked in at the site after After Barack Obama announced his choice of Joe Biden as a running mate and also after Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be keeping an eye on Voices without Votes to get the buzz on the speeches by Hillary and Bill Clinton, and next week I’ll be following the commentary there about the Republican National Convention. And yes, I, too, was wondering what had got into reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, so was interested to hear what his compatriots thought about his endorsement of John McCain.

Commissioned by Thomson Reuters, one of Global Voices‘ long-standing sponsors, and run by a team of Global Voices contributors and friends headed by Bahraini Amira Al-Hussaini, Voices without Votes tracks what bloggers the world over (including the Caribbean) are saying about this election race that has so transfixed the world, providing a critical counterpoint to the reporting in the mainstream media.

Visit Voices without Votes at http://voiceswithoutvotes.org/.

• In The Diaspora : Stabroek News
  Nikipedia questions the relevance of Carifesta in its current form: ". . . what might have seemed a radical effort to shape and understand our cultural identity in 1972 has become, thirty-six years later, a vehicle for perpetuating bureaucratic control of the arts, and a no longer relevant notion of `national culture’. "
  (tags: caribbean culture arts carifesta guyana)

In this long overdue show, which was recorded way back in June, I interview Lisa Allen-Agostini, co-editor, with Jeanne Mason, of Trinidad Noir, the latest in the Noir series published by Akashic Books.

 

 CFR #49 - Trinidad Noir [17:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lisa Allen-Agostini, writer and co-editor of Trinidad Noir

As promised, here’s an update on Trinidadian photographer Jeffrey Chock’s condition.

As luck would have it, Jeffrey left two messages today on the Friends of Jeffrey Chock Facebook group page, so this info is from the horse’s mouth:

“Thanks to all of you for caring enough to ask after my health after looking at the Reaper in his face. Here is what happened.

I flew to Toronto to give a paper and photographic presentation at the conference concerning Carnival held in connection with Caribana at York University. Instead, upon arrival I got very sick and had to be carried to a hospital emergency room. It was revealed that I had a case of internal bleeding caused by a stomach ulcer. The situation seemed at first fairly straightforward to treat. However, a few hours after being diagnosed I was struck down by a massive heart attack while still in the hospital. It was later also found that my kidneys were functioning at only 20% capacity. This complicated matters dramatically. All together I spend seven days in the hospital. I have been told that going home was out of the question before they perform an angiogram to locate the blockage in my arteries, and that in all likelihood I would have to undergo an angioplasty.”

and

“Since I have no insurance, the onus is on me to pay the anticipated costs of the procedures upfront. We don’t yet have the exact figures but what we do know is that the amount will be significant and that this has to be done as soon as possible in order to avert the risk of another attack. Besides the angiogram and angioplasty I also have to deal with the seven days hospital bill ($2500 CAN. a day, not including doctors’ fees and tests).

I am at present recovering at a friend’s home in Chicago where I was driven by car. I will return to Toronto as soon as the doctors have made the final decision about when the procedure can be performed safely and when we have resolved the financial complications. In the meantime, I am happy to report that I am reasonably stable (give or take the occasional chest pain) and comfortable, thanks to my friend’s hospitality and to your good wishes.”

So far the following people have contributed towards the cost of Jeffrey’s surgery:

- Gabriella Dimitrov
- Wendy Warnick
- Justin Benn
- Candice Rodriguez
- Sandy Stoll
- yours truly

Many, many thanks to you all, and thanks in advance to those of you who plan on donating. We’ve raised US$800 so far (not $980 as the ChipIn widget says—see explanation below), and I know we can raise much more.

(Note also that the ChipIn widget is showing 9 contributors, which is a miscount. For an accurate listing of contributors, please check the “Contributors” tab on the Facebook widget page. I have written to ChipIn about the problem).

If you’re unsure about how to use ChipIn, please feel free to email me (replacing the words “at” and “dot” with the relevant punctuation marks). And yes, ChipIn and PayPal do accept Trinidad and Tobago credit cards. Just so you know, PayPal skims 3.2% off each donation, and a small fee is charged for actually accessing the funds.

If you would prefer not to make your donation online and live in Trinidad, please drop me a line and I’ll arrange to get it from you. I myself plan on making another larger donation when I pass the money over to Jeffery. Offline donations will also be listed in the ChipIn contributors list.

Thank you all!

• Bolt Breaks World Record and Wins Gold Again - Readers' Comments - The New York Times
  "To everybody who disapproves of Bolt's "showboating": when we in the Caribbean want to show the world how strong we are, we don't mobilise armies. We sing (Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, the Mighty Sparrow, Rihanna), we write poems (Derek Walcott, St.-John Perse)…"
  (tags: caribbean jamaica olympics)

I learned a few days ago that Trinidadian photographer Jeffrey Chock has fallen seriously ill on a trip to Canada, and is in urgent need of surgery. The estimated cost of that surgery, from what I have heard, is around TT$300,000 (US$48,000). The information I have about Jeffrey’s medical condition is third-hand, so I hesitate to repeat it here (very un-Trinidadian of me, I know!), but I’ll update this post with the details when I’m sure what I have is accurate. What I do know is that Jeffrey’s surgery needs to be paid for, which is why I’ve created the donation widget below.

Jeffrey Chock and I are not close friends, but I’ve known him for years and have the deepest admiration for his work (which I once photographed him doing). As dancer Dave Williams said to me recently, “The man understands dance. I doh let anybody else photograph my shows!” And I know you’d hear local maspeople, thespians and pannists express similar sentiments.

I also know that, were I ever to be in a similar position, I’d be tremendously grateful to anyone who would do the same for me.

I originally created this donation widget for use on the “Friends of Jeffrey Chock” Facebook group, but as ChipIn campaigns must be connected to a PayPal account, and as the PayPal account to which this one is connected is mine, I decided to reduce the target figure to US$12,000 and make it a personal campaign as well. (I’ve already made a small donation, and I’ll even throw in more funds if you do!) There may also be other fundraising efforts in progress, in which case I promise to hand over the funds I raise to whoever ends up being the central collector.

So I would be extremely grateful if you would help Jeffrey pay for his surgery by donating via the widget below, and/or embedding it or linking to it on your own website, Facebook page etc. Thank you!

UPDATE:
For those wishing to purchase Jeffrey’s book Trinidad Carnival, there are a few copies available at Paper Based bookstore at the Hotel Normandie, St. Ann’s.

Pictured above is the South African visa as it looked in 1998 (top), and as it looks today, ten years later (bottom). To acquire one back in ‘98, I had to route my flight through New York and pay a visit to the South African consulate on E 38th Street. To get one for an upcoming trip in September, I was instructed to send my passport to the South African High Commission in Kingston, Jamaica, along with a prepaid Fedex form. The process took 11 days and cost me about US$140. I can travel freely in and out of South Africa until November 11, 2008. Spontaneous travel, the kind where you wake up one morning and say “Damn, I just need to see a giraffe” or even “My cholera-combatting skills would come in really handy in cyclone-ravaged _____” , hop on the internet, buy yourself a ticket, pack a bag and dash off to the airport, is clearly not for the likes of me.

By visa acquisition standards, however, the South African process is a breeze. To apply for a visa to travel to North American and most European countries people like me need to visit the embassy or consulate in person, armed with bank statement/s (preferably showing a positive balance); hotel reservations or other proof that you won’t end up sleeping in a subway or public park; health insurance; evidence of return travel to home country; names, addresses, telephone numbers and astrological signs of sponsors in receiving country; umbrella or sun hat (to protect yourself from the elements as you stand for hours in a line outside the building); reading matter (to entertain yourself as you stand for hours in a line outside the building–cell phones, radios, iPods etc are prohibited by many embassies); and picnic basket (to prevent yourself from starving as you stand for hours in a line outside the building). If you’re young, or poor, the embassy may ask you to demonstrate that you have sufficiently strong ties in your home country, like a spouse, so it may be advisable to bring along a wedding album, preferably your own.

The country I plan on founding one day (working title: “Gapland”; “Georgia”, sadly, being already taken) will issue visitors’ visas on arrival at the airport (as some countries already do). These will take the form of adhesive stickers so gorgeous as to be coveted by discerning travellers the world over. Just as well, as every visitor will require them, regardless of nationality (though you’ll have the option of affixing them either to a page in your passport or the lid of your laptop). For a few extra GPDs (Gapland dollars), visitors will be able to receive their visas in the form of a tattoo.

While standing in the (short) queue leading up to the visa distribution kiosk, arriving visitors will be plied with local delicacies, including organic fruit juices and wines from the national vineyards. Massages will be available on request. Visas will be issued to anyone of reasonably sound mind who is not a convicted felon or war criminal and who is revealed, via a Google search and detailed scan of personal blog and Facebook/MySpace accounts, to be free of intent to harm others or use Gapland as a base for nefarious activities. Along with their visas, visitors will receive a Gaplandese phrasebook, a copy of the most recent Gapland Book Prize-winning volume, and a Gapland-developed and manufactured wifi-enabled mini-computer/mobile phone filled with Gaplandish music, including the country’s ultra-cool national anthem (chorus sung by indigenous animals!) and GPD$100 in airtime.

At certain times of year (Gapland Carnival, the week of my birthday, mango season, the Zaboca Festival, Pothound Appreciation Week etc) Gapland will issue specially designed limited edition visas (designs to be solicited via competition from students of the Gapland Art Academy and other talented locals). Sophisticated travelers will make pilgrimages to the country just to have the pages of their passports graced by one of these beauties.

The Gapland visa will usher in the era of the visa as collectible. From a passport page-hogging stigma signifying “our country deems people from your country deeply suspect and liable to violate immigration laws”, the visa will evolve into a badge of well-travelledness and sophistication. Americans and Europeans will rush to get them. People (more than likely the same ones who choose wines according to the label) will choose the countries they travel to on the basis on the attractiveness of their visas. Visa geeks will travel just to amass visas, sheath them in plastic and show them off at conventions, wearing the national dress of their favourite visa-producing country. Entrepreneurs will travel in order to collect visas to sell on eBay. Visas from countries which receive few visitors will become rare and valuable commodities, perhaps prompting more powerful countries to resort to dastardly artificial methods of increasing the numbers of visitor arrivals in those countries in order to drive down the value of their visas.

I never said it would be all good.

A Tropical Mockingbird (mimus gilvus), underfeathers ruffled by the wind, just before this morning’s rainstorm.

• Rakoto's rants: the malagasy dwarf hippo.: Number of Facebook users in the non-western world
  Lova charts the popularity of Facebook in the global south. Trinidad and Tobago, perhaps not surprisingly, comes in third in the "Central America" region.
  (tags: facebook socialnetworking)

• RConversation: Silicon Valley’s benevolent dictatorship
  Sobering, clear-eyed assessment by Rebecca MacKinnon of the values and world view of the global information and communications system, and why those things may not favour users.
  (tags: internet telecommunications internetgovernance technology business capitalism)

• IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A CARIBBEAN IDENTITY? : Kaieteur News
  Guyana’s Kaieteur News runs an extract from Nikipedia’s 2006 Arts Journal article.
  (tags: caribbean guyana culture)

• iCommons.org - Translating the Commons: Negotiating Openness and Difference
  Chris Salzberg takes open culture to task.
  (tags: openculture opensource translation commons)

• Moving Back to Jamaica: Being Connected
  Thoughtful post by Francis Wade on the value of living in a small island where interconnectedness, in all its varied forms, is a given.
  (tags: caribbean jamaica)

• Rising Voices » One Blogger’s Determination to Help Baby Kamba in Madagascar
  Ultra-inspiring story about key role played by a blogger from Malagasy Rising Voices project FOKO in getting a baby a life-saving operation.
  (tags: risingvoices globalvoices madagascar blogging citizenmedia africa)
• Global Voices Offline
  Alternative blog begun by a group of Global Voices editors and authors. Will be interesting to see what develops here.
  (tags: globalvoices)

• Ping - Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto? - NYTimes.com
  IN the republic of innovation, life is unfair. A relatively small number of places — all in wealthy countries or in China and India — create nearly every important technological advance. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Google has mapped Nai
  (tags: africa kenya google socialmedia technology mobile)

• Caribbean Hurricane Network - stormCARIB.com - Local Reports on Tropical Systems threatening the Caribbean Islands
  (tags: caribbean weather)

• Far Eastern Economic Review | China’s Guerrilla War for the Web
  “By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as 280,000 members nationwide, and they show just how serious China’s leaders are about the political challenges posed by the Web…” (via Isaac Mao)
  (tags: china internet censorship)

• In the Diaspora : Stabroek News “Homophobia and the Caribbean state”
  “Caribbean people could take this to mean that one of their ethical obligations to a global community is a commitment to supporting the quests for full human citizenship from all marginalized groups…” (Via Nikipedia)
  (tags: caribbean homosexuality homophobia)

• El Oso » Archive » [Challenge] Hackers for Cuba
  “The question for hackers around the world is: Is there anything we can do to help get our Cuban friends online before [2010]?”
  (tags: cuba caribbean technology internet)

• solanasaurus » Blog Archive » Dreams of Global Voices
  From Solana, yet another thoughtful set of reflections on the Global Voices Summit ‘08.
  (tags: gvsummit08 globalvoices citizenmedia)