via al jazeera.net - i feel like more people should be talking about this…

US forces pull out of Iraq’s cities

Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq.

US troops began withdrawing from the country’s major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed on Tuesday for troops to hand over security to Iraqi forces.

“The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities, after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security,” Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said.

He told the Associated Press news agency on Tuesday that Iraq is “now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty”. The Pentagon did not comment.

Al-Maliki described the US withdrawal as a “turning point” for the country and declared Tuesday the country’s National Sovereignty Day and a public holiday.
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School of Americas graduate is coup leader

A military coup has taken place in Honduras this morning (Sunday, June 28), led by SOA graduate Romeo Vasquez. In the early hours of the day, members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.

A national vote had been scheduled to take place today in Honduras to consult the electorate on a proposal of holding a Constitutional Assembly in November. General Vasquez had refused to comply with this vote and was deposed by the president, only to later be reinstated by the Congress and Supreme Court.

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. Government institutions were taken over by the military. While the traditional political parties, Catholic church and military have not issued any statements, the people of Honduras are going into the streets, in spite of the fact that the streets are militarized. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

While the European Union and several Latin American governments just came out in support of President Zelaya and spoke out against the coup, a statement that was just issued by Barack Obama fell short of calling for the reinstatement of Zelaya as the legitimate president.
Call the State Department and the White House
Demand that they call for the immediate reinstatement of Honduran President Zelaya.

State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
White House: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414

and

Chaos erupts after Honduras coup
By Mica Rosenberg Mica Rosenberg
Mon Jun 29, 1:50 am ET

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – Shots were fired near the presidential palace in Honduras where protests erupted after the army ousted and exiled leftist President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday in Central America’s first military coup since the Cold War.

Hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters, some masked and wielding sticks, set up barricades of chain link fences and downed billboards in the center of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and blocked roads to the presidential palace.

Reuters witnesses heard shots outside the presidential palace that apparently came after a truck arrived at the protest, and an ambulance also appeared. It was not clear who fired the shots. One witness said shots were fired only in the air and there were no initial reports of injuries.

In neighboring Nicaragua, leftist leaders from the region led by Zelaya’s ally Venezuelan Hugo Chavez gathered in the capital Managua for late night talks on the crisis.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was ousted in a dawn coup after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, who announced a curfew for Sunday and Monday nights. The country’s Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

The coup was strongly condemned by Chavez — who has long championed the left in Latin America. Chavez put his army on alert on Sunday in case Honduran troops moved against his embassy or envoy there.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, the European Union and a string of other foreign governments also voiced backing for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica.

The Organization of American States demanded Zelaya’s immediate and unconditional return to office.

Honduras, an impoverished coffee, textile and banana exporter with a population of 7 million, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s.

But Zelaya has moved the country further left since taking power and struck up a close alliance with Chavez, upsetting the army and the traditionally conservative rich elite.

In central Tegucigalpa, groups of men, some holding metal pipes and chains and their faces covered with T-shirts, threw rocks at cars trying to enter the area late on Sunday. Remnants of burned tires and a charred newsstand selling papers seen supporting the coup lay smoldering in the street.

Troops in full fatigues with automatic weapons lined the inside of the fenced-off presidential palace, some covering their faces with riot gear shields as protesters taunted them.

“For the country to have peace in the future, there will have to be deaths, injuries. We are willing to fight to the death,” said Cristhian Rodriguez, a 24-year-old plumber, who had set up an improvised tent in front of the palace.

Honduras is a big coffee producer but there was no immediate sign the unrest would affect output.

Honduras torn between ousted leader, replacement
By WILL WEISSERT and FREDDY CUEVAS

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Honduras is now torn between two presidents: one legally recognized by world bodies after he was deposed and forced from the country by his own soldiers, and another supported by the Central American nation’s congress, courts and military.

Presidents from around Latin America were gathering in Nicaragua for meetings Monday to resolve the first military overthrow of a Central American government in 16 years, and once again Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took center stage, casting the dispute as a rebellion by the region’s poor.

“If the oligarchies break the rules of the game as they have done, the people have the right to resistance and combat, and we are with them,” Chavez said in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.

There is a deep rift between the outside world - which is clamoring for the return of democratically elected, but largely unpopular and soon-to-leave-office President Manuel Zelaya - and congressionally designated successor Roberto Micheletti.

Micheletti rejected any outside interference and declared a two-night curfew, while Chavez vowed that “we will overthrow (Micheletti).”

Zelaya was seized by soldiers and hustled aboard a plane to Costa Rica early Sunday, just hours before a rogue referendum Zelaya had called in defiance of the courts and Congress, and which his opponents said was an attempt to remain in power after his term ends Jan. 27.

The Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single 4-year term, and Zelaya’s opponents feared he would use the referendum results to try to run again, just as Chavez reformed his country’s constitution to be able to seek re-election repeatedly.

Micheletti said the army acted on orders from the courts, and the ouster was carried out “to defend respect for the law and the principles of democracy.” But he threatened to jail Zelaya and put him on trial if he returned. Micheletti also hit back at Chavez, saying “nobody, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has any right to threaten this country.”

Earlier, Obama said in a statement he was “deeply concerned” about the events, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Zelaya’s arrest should be condemned.

“I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Obama’s statement read.

For those conditions to be met, Zelaya must be returned to power, U.S. officials said.

Two senior Obama administration officials told reporters that U.S. diplomats were working to ensure Zelaya’s safe return.

The officials said the Obama administration in recent days had warned Honduran power players, including the armed forces, that the U.S. would not support a coup, but Honduran military leaders stopped taking their calls.

Zelaya said soldiers seized him in his pajamas at gunpoint in what he called a “coup” and a “kidnapping.” The United Nations, the Organization of American States and governments throughout Latin America called for Zelaya to be allowed to resume office.

click here to read the rest of the article

Michael Jackson died.

Since I’m in shock, I’ll do this:

and one of my favorite videos of all time:

Thanks to Renee for passing on this article from The Brooklyn Rail. She knows that I’m a huge fan of Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. Joel played Disc 1 for me at some point last spring, and I drifted off to sleep listening/loving Loops 1.1, giddy about writing to it in the future. I also published a piece with The New Yinzer about this particular track. So yes, a love. And a very interesting read about art and decay.

a picture of Basinski conducting Alter Ego as they play Disintegration Loops 1.1

The Music Was Dying
by Brandon Kreitler

“Sound and image flakes falling like luminous grey snow—falling softly from demagnetized patterns into blue silence.”—William S. Burroughs, The Ticket that Exploded

In 2003, American composer William Basinski released a four-disc set entitled The Disintegration Loops. The music on these discs was not initially intended for release, nor was it even really composed music at all. In August and September of 2001, Basinski discovered some loops of mostly orchestral music that he had recorded on then-standard magnetic tape in the early 80s. Because magnetic tape degrades over time, and because its use is becoming increasingly rare in the digital age, Basinski set out to transfer the music to digital form to preserve it. However, as the twenty or so-year-old tape passed over the reader, tiny bits of the tape were scratched or flaked off, sometimes to land in other places on the reel. The tape had begun to disintegrate in its long storage. The process of this degradation was slow and not initially noticeable to Basinski, who let the tapes roll. The music on the tapes underwent a long decay and endless reconfigurations during the digital transfer, which captured the results.

The individual loops last anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes. The listening experience, while initially languid and somber, becomes enthralling and disorienting as each piece progresses. The music begins as repetitive and transparent, over time revealing the infinite complexity and depth in even a short clip of audio information. The music becomes a ghost of itself. In a remarkable coincidence, as Basinski was listening to his loops destroy themselves in his Brooklyn apartment, two planes flew into the World Trade Center towers across the East River in downtown Manhattan. He and a few friends watched smoke and the haze of destruction cover the skyline across the river. Could there be a music more analogous?

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I went to the Pittsburgh peace vigil for Iran tonight. As the announcement stated:
As concerned Americans (and other nationalities involved with the planning) who acknowledge that Western governments must not overstep their boundaries in this matter, it is simply the intention of this
grassroots vigil to show support for the human right to peaceful assembly and to protest election
fraud worldwide.

People gathered in Market Square and handed out candles to light, green ribbons and bands to wear in support. Others brought signs, poetry, words. Some people sang the Iran national anthem, and I stood there holding my candle quietly, watching generations bring their voices together. At the end, one young man stepped forward and started singing again. Sometimes the peaceful things, our subtleties, are most intense. I want to write more, but I’m still wrapping my head around it. I know how helpless one can feel at times like this. I think it’s important that we find ways to show support, to be present, to acknowledge and listen to the people around us. Not just the people we see every day, and not just the people in our cities, our country. But people; humanity as a whole.

MLK’s papers to be basis of first rights course

By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vast personal collection of papers will be used for the first time to teach a college course on civil rights this fall.

Morehouse College in Atlanta said Tuesday it will use the library of about 10,000 documents, books and other papers that have been housed at the school since 2006.

The course called “Martin Luther King Jr. and the Modern Freedom Struggle” will be taught by Clayborne Carson, who was named executive director of the collection in January.

King graduated from historically black Morehouse with a degree in sociology in 1948.

Morehouse owns the collection, which was bought from the King estate for $32 million in June 2006 in a last-minute sale brokered by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to head off a planned public auction.

source

Iranian footballers punished for opposing Ahmadinejad

Members of the Iranian national football team who showed their support for protestors against the re-election of President Ahmadinejad have been penalised by the regime according to the latest reports.

In a World Cup qualifier last week against South Korea, members of the Iranian football team wore green wristbands to express their solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of people who were protesting against what many have condemned as a rigged election.

Their silent but very public protest was seen a show of support for rival candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, whose campaign colour was green. The players were told to remove the wristbands for the second half of the game.

According to reports from Balatarin the footballers in the protest have now had their passports confiscated and have been banned from giving media interviews. A number of state newspapers in Iran are also believed to be waging a public campaign pressuring the football authorities to force the players into early retirement.
source

Things that keep you going: Thinking about the best laugh you know. The line “I could be your cufflink.” Giving all the misconceptions a pair of wings. Not waiting up for them to return. Letting them bust through curfew. Watching the falcons flying with Renee. Scents that do not make my head hurt. Daydreaming about climbing trees for a living. A vertical career move. Thinking about the time I bought a coconut and bashed it around the kitchen with a hammer. When my roommate Jess brought her cats entire stalks of cat nip. The way she couldn’t look at a plant without stating the latin. A stranger telling me to “be careful now.” Seeing an unexpected Hemingway, Whitman, Woolf in class. Smiling like a fool to the visual. That instant, between leaving and turning around. When you could and you can’t but you want so you do. It is the gesture built by spit, ink, rib. You do it like a thousand times, like a hand on your chest that doesn’t belong to you and the beat on their calluses you can feel. You can feel. You pick up the pen.

Last night, I rented my favorite movie, The Guatemalan Handshake. I think I’ve mentioned it on here before but I am mentioning it again. I’ve had favorite movies before, and perhaps someday another bit of cinematic reflex will replace this one, but for now…oh sweet, sweet “for now,” this is my favorite. I think it will be for a very long time, to be honest. This one de-throned City of God on my list of favorites so yes. One could say I like it very, very much.

The colors are beautiful, the storyline is awkward and amazing. Not to mention the names of the characters: Turkeylegs, Stool, Mr. Turnupseed, Spank Williams, Ethel Firecracker, etc. Plus, all of the characters look like real people. They are quirky, not super-polished. I have a hard time watching mainstream, “big budget-ish” productions because I’m not into abundant gloss. I’m into quirks, awkwardness. You know, real people stuff.