Bob Dylan – Must Be Santa Music Video — Bob Dylan: Christmas in the Heart —New chapter in the mystery of Lorca — The evidence dividing the [Lorca] families — The Catalan nationalists hold a “referendum” — Miranda Lambert “White Liar” Music Video — The Pirate Party in the collision of Europe — Beatty? Small town has no official boundaries but life goes on — Getting flashed by your laptop is no fun — Global Warming Causes More Sex Video — Jimmy Carter: Abuse of Women? Blame the Catholics and Southern Baptists — Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core Music Video —Spanish fan calls police over saxophone band who were just not jazzy enough — Johnny Depp is Pancho Villa
“Andalucian Clouds” Photo by Alan Stopher
Bob Dylan: Christmas in the Heart
Bob Dylan and carols is a cocktail that really shouldn’t work – especially not in Latin. But Richard Williams finds himself seduced by a punk-Dickensian Santa
Guardian – Richard Williams
There used to be a civilised convention among reviewers – perhaps there still is, in some sectors of the arts – that performances given for the benefit of charity were exempt from the normal process of criticism. They could be reported, and admired when appropriate, but not dissected or evaluated in the usual way. Since the proceeds from the sales of Bob Dylan‘s Christmas album will be devoted to feeding homeless people in every territory in which it is released, the critic is clearly not entitled to consider beginning his review with the celebrated single-line exclamation employed by Greil Marcus to open his Rolling Stone review of Dylan’s Self Portrait back in 1970: “What is this shit?”
A similar reaction might be the normal, unthinking reponse to the news that the author of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll has chosen to offer for public enjoyment his versions of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, The First Noel, O Little Town of Bethlehem and Adeste Fideles/O Come, All Ye Faithful, its first verse sung in Latin, with characteristic inflections: “Ven-EE-tay ador-ay-MOOSE.” Yet here they are, along with their secular equivalents such as The Little Drummer Boy, Winter Wonderland and Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song (“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at your nose …”), in arrangements calculated not to disturb the seasonal family gathering.
Getting on for half a century ago, no one painstakingly learning the chords to the young troubadour’s anti-establishment broadsides could have imagined such an outcome. But ever since the abrupt move back to a simpler method of musical presentation with John Wesley Harding in 1968, Dylan’s erratic progress has invited his listeners to poke away behind the surfaces of his apparently enigmatic behaviour. Perhaps the clue here is that “Jack Frost” has been the alias used in the production credits of his studio albums for the past dozen years, since Time Out of Mind. Or perhaps not. This time, perhaps enigmas and clues are beside the point.
Using his own excellent band and a group of singers whose mellifluous responses to his own rheumy growl hark back to the sounds of the Andrews Sisters, Dylan finds an appropriate setting for each of these Christmas chestnuts, from the reverent to the jovial. The blend of idioms is familiar from Love and Theft and Modern Times, in which he brought together elements of country, bluegrass and a sort of genteel salon music to provide a background to his renewed fondness for old-fashioned crooning.
The result is polished without being glib, and a sympathetic listener may find it addictive. The musicians Dylan brought to Britain earlier this year, augmented by David Hildalgo of Los Lobos on accordion, mandolin, violin and guitar, and the great Chicago session guitarist Phil Upchurch, whose earliest successes predate Dylan’s own, distinguish themselves on even the most unpromising material. According to Hildalgo, quoted in the current issue of Uncut magazine, the sessions were both impromptu and highly concentrated: Dylan and the musicians listened to various recordings of each of the selections, and then decided on the best approach. It seems safe to say, however, that no one has ever tackled O Come All Ye Faithful quite like this.
Is he sincere? Does he mean it? Is this an ageing entertainer’s Christmas gift to his grandchildren, or he is winding us up, knowing that at some time in the future he will repudiate it, as he did Self Portrait? When he sings with a perfectly straight face about the nativity (“Where meek souls will receive him/ Still the dear Christ enters in,” for example), is it the product of a resurgence of his interest in Christianity, or simply intended to reflect a generic sense of holidaytime goodwill? You can only chuckle at his ability to keep us guessing when you turn past the conventional cover painting of a horse-drawn carriage speeding through snowdrifts to find a photograph of Bettie Page, the famous cheesecake model, dressed up in a Santa outfit complete with suspenders and bulging bra…]
“ Portuguese Rocks” Photo by Richard Bown
New chapter in the mystery of Lorca
Book reveals more information about the circumstances of the Spanish poet’s death
The men who carried out burials in Vizmar. Manolillo El comunista (sitting, second from left) told Hispanist Ian Gibson he buried Lorca’s body.
El Pais – FERNANDO VALVERDE, Granada
Early in the morning of August 18, 1936, Federico García Lorca was executed near an olive tree along the road that joins Víznar and Alfacar, in Granada province. It was the end of a story full of political rivalries in a place that, according to the poet and playwright, was home to “the worst of Spain’s bourgeoisie.”
The scholar Gabriel Pozo has shed new light on the events that surround the poet’s execution in Lorca, el último paseo (or Lorca, the last walk), which will hit bookshops next week.
The book contains revelations from a key witness, Ramón Ruiz Alonso, who had kept silent until shortly before his death in 1977 (save for the occasional interview ranted to historians). Most researchers believe that Ruiz Alonso, a right-wing politician, was responsible for the arrest and execution of the acclaimed author of The House of Bernarda Alba and Blood Wedding. A few days after Franco’s death in 1975, Ruiz Alonso moved to the United States, but not before telling his oldest daughter, the actress Emma Penella, his version of events.
Pozo’s new book includes statements from Penella, who died in August 2007. She asked that her account, which raises new questions about Lorca’s murder, be published posthumously.
“My father wanted me to know the whole truth before he died,” said Penella, who first found out about her father’s past at a party, when someone embarrassed her in public by yelling out: “She’s the daughter of García Lorca’s killer!”
“When the war broke out, the situation was very confusing,” explained the actress. “Queipo de Llano [a lieutenant general who helped organize the uprising against the Second Republic] knew what was going on with Lorca. He phoned Granada after receiving a call from higher authorities and ordered them to scare Lorca into confessing everything he knew about [Socialist minister] Fernando de los Ríos and make him sign an accusation against him,” said Penella.
Her account suggests Lorca’s arrest was a last-ditch attempt by the right-wing rebels who controlled Granada to get their hands on Fernando de los Ríos, who had been sent to France as an ambassador at the onset of the war.
So how did they know that the poet was hiding out at the home of his friend, the poet Luis Rosales? The official version of events says Lorca’s sister broke down during a house search of the family’s country home, Huerta de San Vicente, and revealed Lorca’s location in an attempt to save their father. But Ruiz Alonso’s version, as reported by his daughter, is quite different. “The eldest of the Rosales brothers told my father during a Falangist parade that Lorca was at his place. He said that he was unhappy about having him as a guest and tried not to go to the house much himself, because he wanted Lorca to leave,” said Penella.
Following this conversation, Ruiz Alonso informed the leadership of CEDA, an alliance of rightwing Catholic parties. It was decided that “Fernando de los Ríos’ pampered boy must be taught a lesson.”
Penella’s story also differs significantly from the official version when it comes to the arrest. The actress says that there was no large display of armed men, as was previously believed.
“My father did not take Lorca out of the Rosales home — he was taken away to the Civil Government headquarters without handcuffs or anything,” she said. Penella blames the subsequent execution of the poet on a power struggle between CEDA and the Falange, of which the Rosales were leading members. According to Penella, the CEDA tried to illegitimize the Rosales family by killing the poet.
“García Lorca was simply the spoils that two rabid dogs were fighting over,” writes Pozo. But when the rebel uprising triumphed and Franco took power, the praise that Ruiz Alonso had received for eliminating the artist turned into vicious rumors.
“My father signed the accusation along with many others, but he never concealed what he had done — he was a brave man. The accusation claimed that Lorca was secretary to Fernando de los Ríos and that he was a red.”
Sometime after the war ended, Ruiz Alonso received a phone call. “There was a growing clamor from abroad about Lorca’s fate, and it was irritating Franco. He wanted to know what had happened so he called my father.”
The matter was never talked about again. All the evidence was destroyed, including anything that might shed light on the killing. “It is quite possible that the police had him under surveillance, and perhaps he was afraid that they would do something to him if he talked. He took the blame for everybody, and suffered for nearly 40 lonely years,” said his daughter.
Gabriel Pozo has added other new pieces to this incomplete jigsaw puzzle. One is a previously unpublished photograph showing the group of undertakers who worked at Víznar. The picture was taken just a few meters from the ravine where García Lorca spent his last hours. One photo shows a man sitting on his heels and holding a child in his arms. This is Manolillo El Comunista, the person who took the historian and Lorca scholar Ian Gibson to the spot where he allegedly buried Lorca with his own hands.
“Manuel Castilla pointed out a mass grave in the location that is now being searched, but he later confessed to others that he was not there on the day of the assassination, and that he took Gibson to the first place that came to mind,” says Pozo, in reference to the ongoing exhumation process to identify the remains of other men who were buried in the same spot. Lorca’s family, which has long opposed the exhumation of the site, has reserved the right to have the poet’s body identified.
Pozo is convinced that Lorca’s body will not be found there at all, because he says that Franco’s decision to eliminate anything related to the assassination was taken to its ultimate extreme.
Pozo refers to notes by scholar Agustín Penón, who investigated Lorca’s death in the 1950s, of a conversation with Antonio Gallego y Burín, the Francoist mayor of Granada during the Civil War.
“Authorities changed the location of the grave in Víznar for fear of repercussions and concealed the evidence to prevent it from becoming a valuable propaganda tool for the Republican side,” he says.
———————
The evidence dividing the families
El Pais – F. V., Madrid
The revelations made in Lorca, el último paseo have elicited direct responses from the families involved.
Laura García Lorca, Federico’s niece and the family’s spokeswoman, has spoken up for Emma Penella. “I admire her loyalty, dignity and the brave, generous spirit with which she bore her tragedy,” she said, adding that Penella’s testimony will also help clear the name of Lorca’s sister Concha, who is charged in the official version with giving away the poet’s hiding place.
But Luis Rosales Fouz, the nephew of Miguel Rosales who is named in Penella’s testimony as the true discloser of Lorca’s location, has rejected Penella’s version.
“For my uncle to suddenly be implicated comes as quite a surprise,” he said. “I cannot deny that there were many different viewpoints in the family. But they all risked their lives to try to help García Lorca. If they had thought his life was in danger, they would not have taken him to the home of my grandmother, whose behavior was exemplary. The only people who did everything they could to save Lorca were the Rosales, and in return they were destroyed and their reputations ruined.”
“Fish Supper ” Photo by Ed Farrell
Posters for the consultation of 13 December for the independence of Catalonia, in Vilafranca del Penedes. REUTERS / Gustau Nacarino
The Catalan nationalists hold a “referendum”
Le Monde – by Jean-Jacques Bozonnet (English Translation)
In a Roman temple booth, that is changing classrooms or of Appendices mayor. The magnificent ancient relic in the center of the medieval city, is one of nine polling stations placed at the disposal of 25 000 voters Vic invited Sunday, December 13, as residents of 168 other places in Catalonia, a referendum unlike any other.
In the canton of Osona, where only one vote in all municipalities (34), 126 offices are at the disposal of 118 000 registered voters. They voted in local unions and associations, in church halls and theaters. A Manlleu, the second city of Canton, the imam had even offered his mosque, and later retracted. “Under pressure from Madrid,” assured one, without any evidence in the cafes around.
It is true that local referendums organized by citizens’ platforms have anything to displease the central government. “Are you positive that Catalonia is a sovereign state, social democratic and integrated into the European Union? “That is the question posed by this consultation no legal value, but all parties fear the political fallout.
The yes will win, no doubt.
This is the figure of participation that scrutinize the staffs of the parties. For the intellectual Julià de Jodar, who came to Vic to attend a public meeting in favor of “yes”, “the result will give a good radiograph of the consciousness of most Catalans determined.
Since Thursday, more than 4 000 Vic voters have already voted early. If this high participation is confirmed, Sunday evening, in all towns and villages concerned, it would devote the significant rise of separatist sentiment over the last few years.
For Alfons López Tena, in charge of the platform Osona Decideix, who organized the ballot in 34 municipalities in the canton of Vic, success will await you if participation is in the range of 35% to 50% the reference value since the referendum for the European Constitution which had not attracted more than 45% of voters. Danjoma, a Ghanaian of 37 years, Vic installed since 2001, said in a Catalan impeccable he will vote, his “yes” will be resounding as his laughter when he said he felt “Afro-Catalan”. For his community, he bet on the future: “If we can vote today, that means we have the right to vote in an independent Catalonia.”
The frenzy of referendums on independence, all funded and organized structures from civil society, was born after the popular success of an initiative of this type Arenys de Munt, a town of 8 000 inhabitants near Barcelona September 13.
Other waves of consultations are planned for early 2010, including one in Girona, and another may be in Barcelona. Spontaneous generation that has “surprised and overwhelmed the parties,” admits Joan Ridao of Esquerra Republicana Catalana (ERC), the Catalan training yet openly separatist.
“There was an explosion at the base. The fundamental reason is the frustration of a people,” said Alfons López Tena. Everyone has his reasons for going to the polls, but all speak of “disrespect” or the “humiliation” suffered Catalonia. Of course, there is the new status, replacing that of 1979, would expand the autonomy of the Generalitat, particularly in terms of tax policy. The Catalans ahead since 2003. Proposed by the regional parliament, with some restrictions voted by Parliament in Madrid, and then ratified by referendum by the Catalans in 2006, the text is nearly four years in dry dock at the Constitutional Council.
Should he be retoque, or just planed in the coming days, as suggested by leaks in the press, he should expect a radical politics in Catalonia, analyze most observers. In a joint editorial titled “The dignity of Catalonia, Catalan twelve newspapers denounced, November 26,” the crescent ras-le-bol having to bear the angry gaze of those who continue to perceive the Catalan identity as a defect preventing the manufacture of Spain to reach an impossible dream and uniformity.
For independence affirmed as Julià de Jodar, “status, it is something he is politically dead.” But for the majority, its rejection would add to the disaffection of the Catalan society to its politicians, accused harm the interests of Catalonia despoiled by the rest of Spain: recent clippings giant power or chaos network of regional trains have rebooted the thesis of a backward region in terms of infrastructure, so it pays to the other autonomous communities.
The sense of injustice began to win the Catalan media more moderate: “Perhaps history will lead us to aggressively seek independence when that was not at all our intention to start”, s’ asked the writer Alex Susanna, manager of the famous Pedrera – building the best known of Antoni Gaudi – Barcelona.
What Cortacans Xavier Pujol, the young bookseller Vic, summarizes a more abrupt: “Over the Madrid government mistreats us, we feel more independence.”
On the same subject
Hey white liar
the truth comes out a little at a time
and it spreads just like a fire
slips off of your tongue like turpentine
and I don´t know why
“An Offering of food ” Photo by Howard Marsh
The Pirate Party in the collision of Europe
Le Monde – Yves Eudes (English Translation)
In summer 2009, a by-election is brewing in the 10th district of Yvelines (Rambouillet). Huit candidats se présentent, dont Maxime Rouquet, 23 ans, ingénieur informatique travaillant dans le jeu vidéo. Eight candidates are running, including Maxime Rouquet, 23, a computer engineer working in video games. It is the official candidate of the Party Pirate, small group unknown to the general public but famous among young Internet users in revolt against the płot, which punishes illegal Internet downloads. The election of Yvelines is timely because “Hadopi 2″ comes again before the Parliament.
Mr. Rouquet is a novice in politics: In the spring, trying to find out more, he went to attend Parliamentary debates: “I was appalled by the absence of Deputies, and their subservience. Many do not know what they were voting. I realized that the only way to effectively intervene was the direct political means .
He comes into contact with the Pirate Party of France – a community of hundreds of young passionate, lively on the Internet but little exists in the real world. This time, activists decide to support the initiative of Mr. Rouquet and his running mate Laurent Le Besnerais, an unemployed computer scientist of 34 years. The two men engage in the battle of Rambouillet with a handful of activists. They are especially Internet campaign, because it’s free. The only real expense, ballots, they pay out of pocket.
In the first round, September 17, Mr. Rouquet gets 472 votes or 2% of the votes. But polls indicate that for the second round, the outgoing Jean-Frédéric Poisson (UMP) candidate and environmentalist Anny Poursinoff are equal. Immediately, the Greens just remind Mr Rouquet they have always opposed the web laws, but Mr. Fish-cons attack by stating that he too did not support this law, and that n did not vote. Suddenly, the pirates do not give voting instructions to the second round. Mr. Fish won with five votes ahead. To Mr. Rouquet, the record is clear: “If I had abandoned in favor of the Greens, they have probably won. The Pirate Party has proven that it can influence events.”
While independent, the Pirate Party of France sees itself as the French section of the Pirate Party International (PPI), present in about thirty countries in Europe. The undisputed leaders are the Swedish, who established the movement in 2006. A year earlier, the Swedish government, after years of laissez faire, had passed a law banning file sharing on peer to peer networks – including the sharing site The Pirate Bay, one of the most active world. Now this law, then the proceedings against The Pirate Bay triggered a revolt deep within the Swedish youth.
Within months, the spontaneous movement leads to the creation of a true political party, who, in defiance, took the name “cracker”. He quickly sets up throughout Sweden and is developing an ambitious agenda, based on the defense of individual liberties and the free flow of Internet culture. End of 2009, it has more than 50 000 members, making it the third largest party by number of Swedish members, ahead of the Greens. It also has a youth association, approved and funded by the state. In the European elections of June 2009, he won 7.1% of the vote. The head of the list, Christian Engström, a computer 49, an SME and a former member of the Liberal Party (center right) is elected.
Since July, Mr. Engstrom is installed in an anonymous office building of the great European Parliament in Brussels. Only distinctive sign, hung on the wall the proud banner of his party on bright purple background, a black sailing ship, like pirates of old. On the issue of downloads, Mr. Engstrom is very subtle: “As an elected official, I’m not allowed to incite people to commit an illegal act, but I rejoice to see that everywhere in Europe we continue to freely share cultural works on the Internet. I checked in my country, rejoicing, it’s legal, it is not encouraging. “
Mr. Engstrom is on the committee of conciliation between the Council and Parliament in charge of finalizing the great directive on telecoms. He said in its latest version, the text makes European French law Hadopi inoperative: “It requires that every accused is brought before a judge who will hear. This will significantly slow the process, probably paralyze.” More generally, Mr. Engstrom is fighting to establish legal and technical measures to protect the privacy and anonymity of Internet users in Europe.
He is already imagining a major reform of laws on intellectual property aimed at dismantling a system considered obsolete and unjust. It recognizes the value of copyrights on works in the cultural context of trade, provided that their duration does not exceed five to ten years. In contrast, for non-commercial exchange, including sharing on the Net, he advocated the outright abolition of copyright. As for the copyright to the French, he expects to see it disappear in the near future: “Europe needs a single market and harmonized legislation in the cultural sector as in others.”
The Swedish Pirate Party also advocates for the gradual disappearance of industrial patents, charged with curbing the spread of knowledge, stifle innovation, and serve primarily to preserve and enrich monopolies law firms. From Brussels, he will support countries like India, which supplies a third-world medicines at affordable prices, without always respect the patents of Western pharmaceutical companies: “If rich countries are able to block these deliveries, millions of poor patients will die. We are all guilty of mass murder. “
With the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, Sweden has since December, two additional seats in Parliament. One is for the head of the youth association of the Pirate Party, Andersdotter Amelia, who was second on the list for European elections. When she said it is unknown MEP, nobody believes: “It has yet to happen with a Swiss customs and a producer for the BBC,” says she in a burst of laughter. Unbelievers have excuses, because in 22 years, Ms. Andersdotter retains the look and wardrobe with a playful and carefree schoolgirl: “I was not even volunteer my candidacy was proposed by friends . My life will change. “
Miss Andersdotter takes his new job seriously. She interrupted her studies in mathematics and plans to move to Brussels. She has already chosen its priority issues: restrictions of copyright, but also stricter rules for police files, better transfer of green technologies to the Third World: “In addressing information policies in the broadest sense, is touched almost all areas.” MissAndersdotter thinking about the Swedish election in September 2010. Elle sait que son rôle sera déterminant : She knows that her role will be crucial: “If, by then, the Pirate Party proves that it is effective within the European institutions, we will win a lot of votes.”
The Swedish example has inspired young people across Northern Europe, starting with Germany. In Berlin and Hamburg, the terrain was favorable political clubs such as computer Chaos Computer Club and the “hacker spaces” (spaces and creation of digital research open to all) have a storefront for years. Today, with nearly 12 000 members, the German Pirate Party is the second in Europe. In several cities, experienced executives in the Green Party resigned to join this new avant-garde. German hackers are now preparing for regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in May 2010. They expect to make a good score, because in this region, young people can vote from the age of 16.
In France, progress is more modest, but the election of Yvelines has changed all that. In October, the Pirate Party has filed its constitution, to finally have a legal existence. The Treasurer, Valentin Villenave, a music teacher of 25 years, said the hardest part was to open a bank account: “In France, with a name like ours, it is not welcomed with open arms bankers. It had to involve the Bank of France. “memberships are open, but as a first step, officials have decided to screen candidates. Mr. Villenave explains that caution is necessary: “We have been victims of several attempts to seize control of party activists from left and right. In a sense, this is proof that we have become a real issue but we are still fragile, we must protect ourselves. “
Despite the lack of manpower, the French pirates trying to organize for the regional in March 2010 and hope to mount lists including Burgundy and Ile de France. They will perhaps receive some help from abroad, because the European activists decided to hold a congress in Brussels in February 2010, the PPI to give a legal existence, and make it a permanent coordinating body. Together they dream of creating the first truly pan-European party.
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“The Bahai Temple In Haifa” Photo by Benjamin Brown
A pug named Trever sits on a chair Wednesday at Reverts 24-Hour Tire in Beatty, or at least what people have thought of as Beatty. Photo by John Locher
Beatty? Small town has no official boundaries but life goes on
“A Sister’s Kidney For A brother’s Life” Photo by Jennie Jewitt-Harris
Getting flashed by your laptop is no fun
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER – By GREG HARDESTYStacy Gore was on the phone with a computer technician in India who had remotely accessed her computer to help repair it when an image flashed across her laptop screen, shocking her. It was a snapshot of her bare breasts.
Gore had forgotten about the picture, which was tucked away in a file on her computer.
“It creeped me out,” says Gore, 45.
She had logged into Dell’s network through its DellConnect service and had gotten connected to the IT specialist overseas, who identified himself as Jack Neos.
He spent 2 ½ hours on the phone and online with Gore, trying to fix a virus, but his behavior extended well beyond professional boundaries, according to the police report Gore filed this week in Orange.
Gore, a real estate agent, alleges that Neos activated her built-in laptop camera while he was working and snapped photos of her and displayed them on her computer screen, making her feel uncomfortable, she says.
He also found and flashed the photos of her breasts.
Then, two days later, when she signed onto her laptop for the first time since connecting with the technician in India, the picture of her breasts appeared as her screen wallpaper, she says.
“Look, I’m a pretty mellow person,” Gore says. “If some guy wants to look at a nude picture of some 45-year-old chick who was hot 20 years ago, then I say go ahead – that’s fine with me.
“What concerns me is that other women and minors everywhere are probably using this DellConnect service, and this guy could be a predator.”
Gore said the photo of her breasts was shot from her phone and e-mailed to an old friend several months ago.
She says the image got copied to her laptop when she downloaded information from her phone, and that she had forgotten about it until it popped up on her screen.
DELL’S RESPONSE
A spokeswoman at Dell’s corporate headquarters in Texas said the company will look into Gore’s complaint, but at this stage Dell could not comment on her allegations or the employee who Gore said acted inappropriately.
“Of course, if the police contact us, we’re going to cooperate fully with them,” said Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden.
Computer security experts say Gore’s experience sounds highly unusual.
“I’ve been working in computer network security for 10 years and this is the first time I’ve heard of something this extreme,” said Bob Gaines, an engineer and security expert at All Covered, a Redwood City-based company that provides IT support for small businesses.
Gaines said that typically, such sessions are monitored.
“And most employees know that when Big Brother is watching, they have to change their behavior,” he said.
Still, consumers need to stay alert when someone is remotely accessing their computer, Gaines said.
“People have a tendency to say, ‘Do your thing, I’m going to go out and walk the dog,” he said. “They walk away from their computers.
“It’s important to watch what’s going on on the screen.”
Gore provided to the Register a screen shot of her computer that shows a blown-up picture of her naked breasts as the wallpaper, as well as an e-mail Neos allegedly wrote to her after their 2½-hour computer and phone session. The e-mail came from an Indian address.
In the Nov. 24 e-mail, which is riddled with misspellings and grammatical mistakes, Neos asks Gore how she is doing and whether she is having any issues with her computer.
He admits to finding a nude picture of her while trying to set up wallpaper for her laptop. He wrote:
“I saw ur NUDE pics i m really sry I couldn’t say that over the phone that is y I m saying it now.
“N u look very very very very cute…it boosted me up and hope to have a good, sweet, cute, adorable, friend like U : )”
In the letter, Neos makes a reference to Gore’s daughter – even though she doesn’t have one. Gore believes this reference indicates that Neos may sending similar letters to other women by cutting and pasting portions of them.
“I bet I’m not the only one,” she says.
A few days after the two spoke, Gore received a “friend request” from Neos on her Facebook account. She didn’t respond.
According to his Facebook profile, Neos is 21 and attends Mumbai University.
Neos didn’t respond to the Register’s attempt to contact him at the e-mail address he used to contact Gore.
VIRUS
Gore’s laptop and desktop computer got infected with a virus known as About: Blank, a malware program that redirects a user to a web page that has several links on it.
Gore tried to get rid of the virus using her own software, but when she couldn’t she logged onto DellConnect, which allows technicians to access to a person’s computer from a remote site.
Gore says she made small talk with the technician over the phone as he tried to sort out the problem, but did not encourage his alleged behavior.
“I knew he was doing stuff that was inappropriate,” Gore says.
She called Dell to complain. After speaking to a third Dell official, all of them in India or Malaysia, she says, the woman offered to access her computer and get rid of the wallpaper showing her breasts, as well as four e-mails Neos had sent her.
That Dell official, Gore says, told her that Neos was “one of our best” technicians, and that someone at the company would be speaking to him about his interactions with Gore.
Now, more than two weeks later, Gore said her computer still is acting up – despite having purchased, at Neos’ recommendation, $450 worth of anti-virus software.
Gore says she isn’t expecting the police to be able to do anything, but she hopes that going public will make people cautious about what they keep on their computers and who they allow to access such information.
“How hard is Dell really looking into this?” Gore asks. “I think they need to.”
“Namibian Sunset” Photo by Olaf Schuelke
“Liquid Gold In Cornwall” Photo by Sarah Lay
Jimmy Carter: Abuse of Women? Blame the Catholics and Southern Baptists
By John-Henry Westen
MELBOURNE, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an address to a gathering sponsored by the World Parliament of Religions (PWR) last Friday, former US President Jimmy Carter has once again blamed traditional religion, particularly Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics, for “creating an environment where violations against women are justified.”
It is a theme that Carter has successfully used to garner media attention for several years.
Although in a July column in The Observer Carter admits to “not having training in religion or theology,” in his address to the PWR Carter appeals to his authority as someone who has “taught Bible lessons for more than 65 years.”
In opposition to the vast majority of authentic scholars and historians, Carter asserted: “It’s clear that during the early Christian era women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets.” He added: “It wasn’t until the 4th century or the 3rd at the earliest that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant position within the religious hierarchy.”
Contrary to the theorizing of Carter, Pope John Paul II taught, “The Lord Jesus chose men to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry.” He added: “the Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church; 1577)
Carter singled out the Southern Baptist Convention and Roman Catholic Church, claiming that they “view that the Almighty considers women to be inferior to men.” However, both Christian faiths hold to the Scriptural truth that God created men and women equal.
Carter suggests that only in permitting women to become priests and pastors could male religious leaders choose to interpret teachings to exalt rather than subjugate women. “They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter, subjugation,” he said.
“Their continuing choice provides a foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world,” said Carter. Carter goes on to list horrific violations against women such as rape, genital mutilation, abortion of female embryos and spousal battery.
Responding to Carter’s nearly identical points in July, John Paul Meenan, Professor of Theology at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay, Ontario characterized Carter’s points as “ridiculous,” noting that there was no evidence of the ordination of women in the early Church.
Moreover, Meenan stressed that historically Christianity ought to be credited for promoting the dignity of women. “It is the Church that invariably improved the lot of women in the lands that were converted and Christianized,” he said.
Video: President Jimmy Carter addresses the Parliament
Related Link (YID With LID): Jimmy Carter’s Dementia Is Showing
“Incognito In Greenwich” Photograph by Dan Allan
Spanish fan calls police over saxophone band who were just not jazzy enough
Festival-goer claims it was ‘psychologically inadvisable’ for him to hear Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core perform
Guardian – Giles Tremlett
Jazzman Larry Ochs has seen many things during 40 years playing his saxophone around the world but, until this week, nobody had ever called the police on him.
That changed on Monday night however, when’s Spain‘s pistol-carrying Civil Guard police force descended on the Sigüenza Jazz festival to investigate allegations that Ochs’s music was not, well, jazz.
Police decided to investigate after an angry jazz buff complained that the Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core group was on the wrong side of a line dividing jazz from contemporary music.
The jazz purist claimed his doctor had warned it was “psychologically inadvisable” for him to listen to anything that could be mistaken for mere contemporary music.
According to a report in El País newspaper yesterday, the khaki-clad police officers listened to the saxophone-playing and drumming coming from the festival stage before agreeing that the purist might, indeed, have a case.
His complaint against the organisers, who refused to return his money, was duly registered and will be passed on to a judge.
“The gentleman said this was not jazz and that he wanted his money back,” said the festival director, Ricardo Checa.
“He didn’t get his money. After all, he knew exactly what group he was going to see, as their names were on the festival programme.
He added: “The question of what constitutes jazz and what does not is obviously a subjective one, but not everything is New Orleans funeral music.
“Larry Ochs plays contemporary, creative jazz. He is a fine musician and very well-renowned.”
“I thought I had seen it all,” Ochs, who reportedly suffered a momentary identity crisis, told El País. “I was obviously mistaken.”
“After this I will at least have a story to tell my grandchildren,” the California-based saxophonist added.
Johnny Depp is Pancho Villa
U.S. actor Johnny Depp will play the role of Pancho Villa in a film about Mexican revolutionary that will begin shooting in early 2010 the Serbian director Emir Kusturica, the latter said to the Spanish daily El Mundo. The film, which will also count distribution in the Mexican actress Salma Hayek, will be filmed in Mexico, but also largely in Spain, near Granada.
Based on a book by James Carlos Blake, “The Friends of Pancho Villa”, the film will tell the story of the bandit and Mexican general “through the eyes of his friends and the woman he loved,” according Kusturica. According to trade circles, Kustirica double Palme d’Or at Cannes, including “Underground” has vacillated between Depp and Spanish actor Javier Bardem for the role of Villa (1878-1923).
Johnny Depp, 46, companion of the French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, was recently called “the sexiest man” of the world by People magazine.
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“Whittington Castle Swan” Photo by Peter Boardman
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