The Eagle Landed Safely in Madrid, Spain

Back again to Spain for my annual vacation. Here is a short note to let you know that I had a smooth flight and landed safely in Madrid at 9am, (3am in the US).

I started off in Madison around noon October 6, 2010, flew up to Minneapolis, then from Minneapolis to Atlanta, and took off from Atlanta straight to Madrid at 7pm, arriving Madrid at 9am October 7, 2010 (which is actually Atlanta´s 3am). It was a great flight though the food sucked.

As usual, no hassles at the airport, it took me less than  10 minutes to get my luggage, clear customs and passport control and got out into town. My Wisconsin Maple Syrup I brought with me did not burst in my luggage. (Yes, it seems like pancakes and syrup are so foreign to Spaniards, some of my friends asked that I bring them some. You can´t even find them in any store as its not part of the regular breakfast diet)

Resting up a bit before combing through Madrid and Toledo later today. Over the weekend I should be heading up to Zaragoza in the Aragon Region, them Valencia, Alicante, Murcia etc. Valencia and Alicante are in the Valencia region, rough equivalent of US state and Murcia is also in Murcia region, all these are on the east coast of Spain facing the sea. Some refer to it as the Spanish Riviera. I will send updates whgen I visit various monuments there.

Hasta manana!

Fighting Bob: The Flame Still Burns Bright In Wisconsin

September 11 now has a special historical significance in our nation given the events perpetrated by extremist Muslim fundamentalist that thought the best way to make their point was to fly airplanes into the symbol of America’s economic and political power. Life has not been the same for everyone since that cowardly and dastardly act.

Thom Hartman addressing the crowd

However, this September 11, 2010…while honoring those who lost their lives and saluting their families for soldering on, Wisconsinites also took time to gather to address societal issues and advance progressive direction for the benefit of all.

Fighting Bob fest is a feature of southern Wisconsin, precisely in the Sauk County Fairgrounds in Baraboo, about 45 miles north of Madison. The political festival carries on the tradition of Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, who was a very liberal Wisconsin Governor and also a US Senator. The fest is a rally for progressive ideas on issues facing Wisconsin and the nation. This year’s event and attendance was surely a sharp rebuke to the Tea Party movement that we have grown tired of hearing about their lies and racist tactics. US Representative Gwen Moore, aptly demonstrated that the Tea being served by these folks was just as lethal as the Kool-Aid served at the Jonestown.

According to the organizers, ‘Freedom and justice are defended through education, and the exchange of ideas, promotes solidarity among progressives. To this end, Fighting Bob Fest strives to provide citizens with a forum for democratic participation where frustrations with current policies can be constructively molded into calls to action”; a sentiment I endorse intoto.

Progressives paying attention

It was a leisurely drive up to Baraboo, as it was always fun driving up and through the Baraboo Hills that often looked insurmountable on approach from a distance. Arriving the fairgrounds about noon, the huge stadium-sized crowd showed right away that a lot more people attended this year than the previous years that I have always attended. Nothing could be as exciting as beholding a sea of progressives talk shopping, discussing issues at break-out sessions, gathering petition signatures, drawing attention to various causes while also reviewing and questioning various candidates running for political offices for the up coming primaries on September 14.


I spent my first hour staffing my Amnesty International local group’s table collecting signatures on petitions for various human rights defenders and prisoner of conscious individuals that have been locked away from the freedom most of us have to go about our business without fear or deprivation.

Wisconsin Progressives listening intently

 

 

On ending my shift, I went over the larger open field area to enjoy the progressive choir of the Raging Grannies, which satirize various political events or lack thereof in biting songs that are at once entertaining as well as doling out hardnosed progressive political messages. They are an all-women social justice activist group who dress up in clothers that mock stereotypes of older women and use their songs to protest or draw attendtion to various causes.

Their very well received performance was followed by various key speakers and lined up for the afternoon. With Thom Hartmann, a well known national radio personality heard 3 hours every day on Mic 92.1 around southern Wisconsin. There were such well known speakers as Jim Hightower, Congressman Dave Obey, Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, Reverend David Couper, Reverend Jesse Jackson who also received a lifetime achievement award, among many other speakers.


The enthusiasm of the progressive forces that gathered at the Fighting Bob Fest gives a lie to the media panic about America turning away from the changes that are occurring for the benefit of all in these troubling times.

It was indeed a great afternoon well spent.

Glory Bound in Janesville

It was a perfect summer evening in Southern Wisconsin. The sky was crispy blue with streaks of incandescent rays of the soft evening sunlight. The temperature moderated well in my nicely air-conditioned car as I cruised Highway 14 towards Janesville.

Jerry Oscarson and Deb Grenzow could not have chosen a better evening for the Dinner and Concert they hosted among adoring fans, friends and lovers of contemporary inspirational music.

They appropriately described the experience folks will take away from the concert as inspirational, Christian, upbeat, touching, heart warming, uplifting, easy listening and encouraging, and indeed no one left unfulfilled as they lived up to the billing all through the evening.

 

Jerry and Deb were quite a pair whose musical collaboration is infused with Christian charity, love, respect for each other and abiding faith in the power of the divine spirit, have been making inspirational music for several years both within their church community at First Christian church in Janesville and around different venues in southern Wisconsin. They have also cut a great album titled 'Glory Bound' that is out there for purchase if you want that uplifting feeling smoothing out your worries and calming your frayed nerves or self-doubt.

The venue of the concert was the VFW hall perched atop a hill by the Rock River, with an unmistakable presence in the neighborhood given the majestic air force plane mounted in the front yards.

Chuck Philyaw their accompanying keyboardist must have grown up as a musical wiz kid as he learnt playing the keyboard and piano with no musical training and yet could pick up any key or note and accompany any musical rendition as a pro that he definitely was that night.

Living up to the theme of the evening, Bob Maciulis, the compeer for the evening wove aspects of his own life story as he guided the audience through the program. His story demonstrated the love, Christian charity and hope that Jerry and Deb sang about. Bob was not just the master of ceremony but also pulled his family human resources together including his daughters, nieces and close friends to help cater and serve the dinner for the evening.

The audience packed the hall to its maximum capacity, men, women, young adults and some members of First Christian Church. I did attend with a bunch of karaoke and country western dancing friends from Madison.

While the main event was at one end of the hall, the Dessert Extravaganza was laid out in an island separating the two large halls. Was that heavenly? The desserts basically pulled you in right after dinner and begged that you heap your plates so high. You would think it was the first meal of the evening as everyone had plateful of assorted colored yummy mounds of the tasty treat. Jerry had earlier warned everyone who was on diet to suspend it for the evening.

The dessert was not the only treat for the audience. Gary stepped in there after to hand out door prizes through an instant lottery. The infectiously hilarious Gary did not disappoint, as he ran commentaries on the gift items and had good suggestions on how the lucky winners could use them. Oh, he was also the brain behind the ‘killer’ dessert extravaganza.

It was indeed a great night of charity and fundraiser and everyone that attended felt it was very well worth it. We were indeed glory bound in Janesville.

Cows Come Calling: We are Cheeseheads for a reason!

The Wisconsin state capital received a herd of cows with open arms on its capital terrace in Madison in an annual tradition billed Cows on the Course. It is a signature event that showcases Wisconsin heritage as one of the largest dairy producers in the United States and indeed the state that grosses most from a local product. The Cows on the Concourse is an integral event in the usually busy Saturday morning that features the farmers market that encircles the ornate and imposing State capital building. It is a very family oriented event and also a way for the Dairy industry to bring their craft and profession to the consumers of their product. As the children petted the animals and participate in the various games lined up by the organizers in what is a very festive atmosphere, the adults learn a lot about the inner works of the dairy industry, dairy production and what type of cows are bread for what kind of milk or cheese. Some of us got a chance to learn the differences among Holstein, Guernsey, Jersey, Shorthorn milking cow and so on. I definitely would not have known that the Holsteins give the most milk and command a huge percentage of the milk market, while Guernsey are beloved for the protein content of their milk. The Moo experts were extremely informative and definitely knew their craft. Though I am not sure I want to wake up at 6 in the morning to milk cows. I guess that’s why I did not go into Dairy farming. Besides the cow show, there were lots of dairy related events, vendors and food that kept the crowd pleased. Adding organized sound to the event was an incredibly good band that played a mix of jazz, rock and country tunes to the delight of everyone. The organizers summarized the event as follows: “Cows on the Concourse is a Madison tradition celebrating Wisconsin's dairy industry, which contributes over $26 billion to our state's economy. Wisconsin's dairy farmers have a strong heritage of quality, pride and craftsmanship in all that they do. Wisconsin has always been "America's Dairyland," so what better way to celebrate that tradition than to visit Cows on the Concourse and meet some of our hard working dairy producers with their cows? “

Riding High: Concrete steps for high speed train hub in Madison shaping up

One of the most relaxing aspects of my trips to Europe is the ridership on their intra-city metro trains and the intercity and international high-speed trains. The mass movement of people in ways that are more ecologically friendly, in a relaxed friendly environment is a winner in my books any day. The sweet irony in my last trip was being served crappy food on a major airline I flew to Spain, only to be wined and dined gourmet quality food as I disembarked and boarded a high speed train traveling from Madrid to Cordoba. I could not believe the main course and array of side dishes spread in front of me with as much beverage as I cared to consume. And this was all within the span of the two hour trip, which would be considered a very short distance compared to the distances among US major cities. The service, the purr of the train snaking and catapulting through the central Spanish landscape and the hassle-free experiences of high speed rails in Europe made me hooked on them, which now turns to be my first preference in a country with such network. So, you may now relate to those of us who enjoy the cultural offerings of mega cities but hate the traffic clutter and parking nightmare and are excited as it appears that help is on the way. The Obama administration as an integral part of his clean energy stance and boosting economic recovery announced the initiation of high speed train extension across the country; a system analogous to what obtains in most of Europe today and other big industrial centers around the world. The upper Midwest arm of the federal plan would link up Chicago in Illinois to Minneapolis in Minnesota with Madison and Milwaukee, the major population centers in Wisconsin being integral hubs in the chain. Wisconsin was awarded $823 million in the federal stimulus grant for the Wisconsin portion of the project. Passing through from the south eastern end to the northwestern end of the state, the high speed train will have major stops in Milwaukee, Brookfield, Watertown, Oconomowoc and Madison.. While construction begins this year, the line is scheduled to become operational in 2013. The Madison stop will be centrally located right downtown in Monona Terrace facing one of our two beautiful downtown lakes, within the city hall mall and a block from the huge state capital domed edifice. The location is also ground zero dividing Madison into east and west on both flanks. Our Governor, Jim Doyle who just announced the choice of downtown Madison for the rail stop made the point that he settled on this location after balancing cost, ridership and demand. The other three options examined were at the airport, near downtown on the East Side and the Kohl Center on the University of Wisconsin campus. To alleviate some concerns about parking, the Madison mayor, Dave Cieslewicz confirmed that the city will kick up plans for a 1,200-car parking ramp and bike parking structure. Yes, Madison is indeed a big biking city; bicycles, that is. While one is not sure yet the exact speed the trains would travel within Wisconsin, but even at the initial estimated speed of 110 miles per hour, trips to the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul to our northwest would be cut down to perhaps less than two hours instead of the current four. Chicago will be an easy breeze of about an hour train ride. Coincidentally, Wisconsin has awarded Talgo, a Spanish train company a $47 million contract to build the trains that will ply the Wisconsin route. The company in a gesture that would boost the Wisconsin economy announced that they will build the trains at a Wisconsin plant. The pleasures of train travel allows one to savor the beauty of the vast expanse of the country in which you are traveling and taking in sights that you would otherwise not be able to see. Given the vast distances between cities in America, you are always focused on the road if you were driving without as much casting a glance sideways to magical geographic feature a couple yards away, or the cluster of beautifully decorated houses in a lonesome looking town within eye distance from the railway. Such beauty that translate to a piece of cultural information met my gaze when my train crossed the state of Castilla La Mancha in central Spain into the state of Andalucia.. It was memorable to see the earth toned colored houses and villages give way to purely white painted houses that clustered into villages or towns and cities. My curiosity about the uniformity and lack of vibrant colors that would express the vibrancy of life in Andalucia was assuaged when I heard that the hottest parts of Spain as temperatures soar in the 90s and beyond, houses where painted white to deflect searing hit from the houses and entire villages. Even within the towns, houses are further crowded to shade the pathways from direct heat bearing rays of the sun. Well, I look forward to enjoying the serene beauty of western Wisconsin and soaking in the essence of those quaint towns snaking along the Mississippi river valley that was once the fur trading Mecca of the old world in the upper Midwest as I leisurely cruise to the twin cities. This definitely is my own stimulus from the government that is trying to bring us back from the brinks of economic collapse.

Good Hair and the Bio-economic Health of Black America

My book club does like mixing up our reading with other information and entertainment media, like Movies, Documentaries, Theater and Band performances and other forms of literary art. This past week, we settled on Chris Rock’s documentary ‘Good Hair’, which explores the African American storied interest in Hair. It was at once a satire, comedy, economic rebuke and a commentary on self-identity and internalized ‘foreign’ normative value programmed in the consumers of hair-image products. No wonder there was a bit of controversy that the documentary generated in some quarters. As light-hearted as Mr. Rock attempted to make the documentary, it successfully peeled off a veneer, which made some accuse him of exposing the secret that should best, be kept within the black community. The secret was essentially the notion that the black hair in its natural state is coarse and therefore considered ugly, and should not be seen in public without being dressed up. Nobody would argue that basic hygiene requires everyone to wash, comb or neatly keep their hair to look presentable in public like any other part of our normally exposed body. This cuts across all racial groups and all societies. Bad hair day is a bad hair day irrespective of race, phenotype or culture. The problem though arises not from having a neat well coiffed hair but chemically altering the hair not necessarily to aid in being neat but in imitating some other genetic other that is considered the norm for how a beautiful or acceptable persons should be. Some professional black women featured in the documentary horrifyingly said that if they were on an interview panel, they would not be inclined to hire a black woman candidate that does not chemically alter her hair. The reasoning for this was that nobody will take her seriously in professional company as her hairstyle will distract others from discussing the weighty issues at hand. Sadly, this is not an isolated thought and indeed I am aware of black women that have had issues in their workplace because their hairstyle choice does not fit the “normative” style that is expected of black women. The chemical damage inflicted on the body, as shown in the documentary when a scientist demonstrated the corrosive damage the chemical used in relaxing hair did to a metal beverage can was no less matched by the psychosocial import of not significantly altering ones hair to fit in. The brunt of this social conditioning is overwhelmingly born by black women. The documentary had hair salon proprietors confirming that the age of their female clientele has steadily declined to the point that they now have girls as young as 3 come in for perms and other chemical work to straighten their hair. Indeed, a 6-year-old girl featured as she was having her hair done considered the procedure normal and routine for a girl. Perhaps a less biologically harmful but perhaps more expensive alternative now is the weave and other hair extension. In its infancy, it was the extension of the natural hair with synthetic hair-like strands to give a longer and fuller body of hair to accentuate the beauty of the woman. However, that has now been taken further to using actual human hair. Demonstrating the new industry the preference for human hair has created, the documentary moved to India to show case a Hindu temple where women devotees as a symbol of piety and sacrifice shave off their very long nurtured hair at the temple. The temple officials gather the shaved off hair and sell them in bales to a businessman that created a cottage industry to ‘clean’ up the hair and package them for shipment to America and perhaps other overseas destinations. Another set of industry insiders on the US end buy the bales and bundles of hair to re-sell to Hair Salon proprietors and other hair marketing shops. In the end, the Indian hair find home on several black women’s heads. Creepy as it sounds, it evokes all kinds of emotion when you hear one of the salon beauticians pointing out the women in her salon and telling how much each of their hair costs, which all ranged from $1,000 to $3,500. With this multimillion-dollar industry in the black community, you would think that a majority of the fortune made in hair and hair care products would circulate a while in the black community before migrating elsewhere. Nope, the wealth goes straight into the hands of the Korean and Chinese businessmen and women that have cornered the lucrative market, as any hardworking businessperson should. Ironically when Mr. Rock gathered black hair from black barbershops and satirically went around to market the hair to the Asian hair care shops that carry “black hair” extensions and products, they did not just dismiss him out of hand but made sure they pointed out how ugly black hair was and how undesirable it was even to black people. That was quite telling. The extravagant production of the semi-annual Bronner Brothers convention, the largest hair convention, I dare say in the world, with hundreds of vendors has just a handful of black vendors in such a world gathering on Black Hair. Some of the black men featured in the documentary now make dating and relationship decisions about black women based on whether they could afford the care and maintenance of the hair-do their potential lover spots. A father bemoaned that he did not only have to care for his wife, but also for his daughter, leaving him with little to no pocket change. Of course majority of the women care for their hair themselves and do not need any support but even those women attest to the inordinate amount their hair products and styles consume of their budget that they would rather spend on other things if they had a choice. At the end of the day, this is not an either/or type of argument. While some people see a problem in the biological, psychosocial and economic burden inflicted on women based on an internalized formative value that may have been foreign to them, others see it as a matter of choice and the cardinal pillar of living in a free society where we can all legitimately move in and out of cultures, permeate barriers and indeed, create our own sense of identity that is uniquely ours with or without antecedent history. Both appear to be right.

Biological Anthropologists bring their craft to Madison

The African Diaspora and the Atlantic Research Circle, is an academic cluster within the University of Wisconsin, Madison focused on exploring the dispersion of African peoples within Africa and across the ‘new’ world and brings together multidisciplinary scholars interested in Africa to share ideas and research interests. According to the Cluster, they “… provide a global context to the study of African peoples. It looks at different historical waves of dispersal and studies their catalytic factors and directions of movement. It explores how the connections between the African and African diasporic communities reflect the dynamics of their forced or voluntary migration; their interactions and relations with other societies and/or among each other; and the adaptation, reproduction and transformation of African cultural, social institutions and expressive forms. Last Friday, March 12, 2010, the Cluster hosted a very informative symposium on Africa, African Diaspora, Genetics and Genealogy at the Red Gym on UW Madison campus. Three key presenters, all African American scholars critically dissected and in some cases strongly affirmed the place of DNA testing that is gaining ground within the African American community in piecing together a genealogical history for medical, historical, social and biological reasons. The traumatic uprooting of African people and their journey through the middle passage effectively cut the enslaved people from their traceable roots in Africa except for the indelible record of the DNA evidence which naturally survive generations in spite of the admixture in the new world. Those were the challenges these biological anthropologists, Michael Campbell, Fatimah Jackson and Shormaka Omar Y. Keita tackled and broke down for even the non-academic audience members to comprehend. There were also further presentations by Joan Fujimura and James Sweet. Their program and personal introductions as excerpted below signaled that we were in for some satiation of our individual curiosities about subjects one rarely studies outside academic contexts, and the explanation for the burgeoning interest in African genealogy. Dr. Fatimah Jackson who received her PhD from Cornell is an expert on the biohistory of African peoples and their descendants in the diaspora. During the 1990s, she was coordinator for genetics research on the African Burial Ground Project in New York City. In 2002, she co-founded the first human DNA bank in Africa (based at the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon) with the aim of changing the way that anthropological genetic research is done on the African continent by enhancing local infrastructure and expertise, and dramatically improving the potential for scientific understanding of the interactions of genotypes and environmental factors in producing specific phenotypes. She created a local context for data analysis and interpretation. Her objective was to upgrade the quality of genetic data on Africans by placing the molecular information within a sophisticated anthropological context. Jackson has published more than 30 articles in a variety of refereed journals including Human Biology, American Anthropologist, Annual Review of Anthropology, Journal of Black Studies, American Journal of Human Biology, Seton Hall Law Review, and the British Medical Bulletin. Most recently, she appeared in the BBC documentary, “Motherland: A Genetic Journey,” chronicling the search by three African Americans in their search for their genetic roots in Africa. Dr Michael Campbell a PhD in Biological Anthropology from Columbia University was self explanatory in his focus and interest which he describes as follows: “Across broad geographic scales, human populations have shown clear differences in levels of genetic diversity. Particularly, sub-Saharan Africans are found to possess the largest total number of alleles, as well as the largest number of unique alleles compared to non-African populations. Also, Africans have lower levels of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between alleles and more divergent patterns of LD than non-African populations. These patterns of diversity in non-Africans are consistent with the expansion of modern humans from Africa within the last 100,000 years. However, a continued challenge in evolutionary studies has been to characterize genetic variation among ethnically diverse human populations within continental regions, particularly in Africa. Given the central role of African populations in human evolution, understanding their patterns of genetic diversity and LD is crucial for reconstructing human prehistory. I am interested in studying the levels and patterns of African diversity to expand current knowledge concerning relationships among African populations, demographic history and modern human origins. Additionally, I am interested in identifying functionally significant variants involved in complex traits/complex disease using association studies to better understand genotype/phenotype correlations in populations of African descent.” Dr Shormaka Keita, the most critical of the avid focus on genotype in piecing together African diasporic historical roots is a biological anthropologist and physician who has long been interested in human variation, especially in Africa, as well as multidisciplinary approaches to the past. His research has focused on the areas of craniofacial variation, paleopathology, ancient Egyptian skeletal biology, the syntheses of biology, linguistics, and archaeology in order to study African population history, and the history of ideas about "race" and human variation in Africa. Recently Dr. Keita has developed an interest in the issue of building capacity to produce endogenous knowledge in Africa and the diaspora as a need for development. He has authored or coauthored publications in peer reviewed science and humanities journals including the American Journal of Human Biology, Science, American Anthropologist, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Nature Genetics, and History in Africa. He received the doctorate in medicine from Howard University, a masters in general anthropology from SUNY-Binghamton, and the Master of Science and doctorate in biological anthropology from Oxford University The scholars acquitted themselves creditably and it was impressive to see the divergence of opinions even with a common concurrence that ultimately there is a place for DNA testing in the exploration of African peoples migration within the continent and across the oceans. Dining with them afterward and informally continuing their presentations showcased their passion for the work they do and the perceptible feeling that they are not pursuing solo careers but are committed quilters in our collective fabric as people of African descent.