Skies on fire and a season for loving

I visited a week ago one of my favorite spots near Mikkeli in eastern Finland. While the lake water looks tempting, it’s pretty cold to take a dip. Water temperatures in this part of the world reach their zenith (about 75F/24C) in end-July/early August and then begin to drop abruptly to temperatures where you’re flirting with hypothermia.

For those of you who have got to know me through this weblog, understand that I love this time of the season. It’s just like that famous song by the Zombies:

It’s the time of the season
When the love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy
And let me try
With pleasured hands

To take you and the sun to
Promised lands
To show you every one
It’s the time of the season for loving…

In fall skies are restless and on fire.

Down with the loonies ruling Myanmar

The reaction of the military regime in Myanmar against tens of thousands of protesters in the capital Yangon shows how much blood the government has on its hands.

Already nine protesters have been killed and some 11 wounded. One of the pastimes of the regime has been beating monks, arresting over 100 and raiding monasteries.

If anyone has ever had the chance to watch Myanmar TV understands how out of touch with the world the de facto government is. On the main news program, the announcer will throw in a cooking recipe before reading the main headlines, which are nothing more than a pile of propaganda.

Here’s some more stuff they write about on their website:

BLA BLA BLA Member of Mawlamyine Township Women’s Affairs Organization Daw San San Win said Myanmar Women Affairs Federation was set up in 2003 to ward off the groundless accusations of some countries and organizations against Myanmar. ILO, some western counties, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also accused Myanmar of forced labour and human rights violations. At the same time, some big nations are putting pressure on the government for the puppet government to come to power. They used ILO to interfere in the internal affairs of Myanmar. AND BLA BLA BLA BLA.

If there is a regime that lives in a political bubble it’s from Myanmar. I for one hope the people in that troubled nation succeed at overthrowing and putting behind bars their despots.

Yellow Foot mushrooms anyone?

I went mushroom picking Saturday just outside of Mikkeli in eastern Finland. I ran into some really good mushrooms like the Yellow Foot (Cantharellus lutescens). It belongs to the same family like the tasty Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) and Horn of Plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides).

While most mushrooms die when there’s frost, the Yellow Foot is very resistant. It disappears when it gets buried under snow.

These mushrooms are not like the deadly Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa).

Two pictures of the Yellow Foot mushroom. Don’t pick wild mushrooms
based on pictures. Go with a person who has picked them before so you’ll
learn to recognize them in the wild.

Yellow Foots grow in groups.

Argentina: A dirty war that was filthy

If I recall, a reporter had once asked an Argentinean general to describe the war it had waged against its enemies during one of Latin America’s most repressive dictatorships during 1976-83.

The general answered by stating it was “a dirty war.” That’s how the name of Argentina’s civil war was baptized.

During the dirty war, over 30,000 Argentineans and non-Argentineans were abducted and murdered. Not only did they lose their lives but sometimes even their property like apartments were confiscated by their captors.

It was back then when I wrote the first sentences that had some meaning to me. I was a conscript in the Argentinean army but refused to kill anyone.

During those times I’d stay up at nights in front of my typewriter and try to write everything I’d hear about the dirty war. We didn’t torture at our base but it was a commonly known and widespread practice.

Here’s one of the hitherto unknown and unpublished stories I heard from a major in 1977.

“Sometimes we shot innocent victims like the time when we were driving a military truck full of soldiers on the street. The site of the truck made some drivers behind us nervous. If a person acted suspiciously we’d shoot first and ask questions later. One driver reached for an object next to his seat and we shot him dead. We found out later that it was a comb.”

What is most incredible about this account thirty years on is that it was a “normal” conversation at the base. The major said that the soldiers hadn’t done anything wrong in killing the man because it was a time of war. You shot anyone suspicious first and asked question later.

The name “dirty war” is a too clean word to describe the atrocities that happened back then. Possibly “filthy war” is a better term.

Diving into fall’s mystery

Is fall so candid because it has an unwanted job, namely getting ready for winter the full-bloom landscapes that summer worked so hard at building? The mysticism you’ll find in the sub-arctic is therefore the only present that autumn offers to those that watch as it toils.So fall’s mystery can be summed up by its chilly full-moon nights timidly exposing sleepy rolling pastures and woods accompanied by Northern Lights dancing in the vast sky. When pitch-darkness leaves the moon and Northern Lights temporarily unemployed, darkness is so thick that you can almost lean against it.

But don’t be fooled: not everything in the woods appear as what they seem…

Or better they’re like something that Anaïs Niin once said: We don’t see thing as they are. We see things as we are.

Ragged Ass Road

This may sound like a joke but it’s not. I visited two years Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories in Canada, and discovered by chance that there is a street called Ragged Ass Road, which means “dirt poor.”

On a map of the city you’ll find the street in what Yellowknifers call the Old Town, located on a peninsula. Just follow 50th Avenue until you reach the corner of Hamilton Drive, where you turn right drive two blocks and presto!

I asked a taxi driver from Ghana to drive me to Ragged Ass Road so I could take a picture of the famous street sign. My comment made him suspicious.

“There’s no such place in Yellowknife.”

“But there is,” I responded.

“I’ll take you there if you show me where it is on the map.”

I showed it to him on the map.

“Wow,” he said, “you learn something new every day.”

Abajo con la pastera de Botnia en el Uruguay

La compañía finlandesa Botnia está construyendo una pastera de $1,2 mil millones en las orillas de del río de Uruguay en frente de la ciudad argentina de Gualeguaychú. La planta será inaugurada a principios de septiembre.

Cada país, como Uruguay, tiene ciertamente el derecho de atraer inversión extranjera para incrementar el desarrollo económico y crear más puestos de trabajo. Si fuera uruguayo, estaría furioso por el comportamiento argentino de mezclarse en los asuntos internos del país.

Tomando en cuenta que es una compañía finlandesa que está construyendo la pastera, esto asegura por lo menos que la tecnología que se usará en la planta es la más moderna. Estaría realmente preocupado si una empresa chilena, brasileña o argentina estaría construyendo la planta. Es un hecho, sin embargo, que todas las pasteras contaminan. La planta de Botnia cerca de Fray Bentos en Uruguay no es ninguna excepción.

La pastera es un buen ejemplo de cómo no manejar las relaciones públicas. Botnia mantiene que el conflicto es por causas “políticas.” Este argumento es un insulto a los argentinos quienes han logrado a través de sufrir vivir debajo gobiernos de facto a expresar su derecho inalienable de opinar.

La construcción de la pastera justo en frente de Gualeguaychú fue otro error grave de Botnia. Demuestra una falta total de consideración causado por ignorancia y prepotencia.

Si intentamos encontrar a culpables, uno de ellos sería sin duda el ex presidente Jorge Batlle de Uruguay.

Él dijo una vez, sin darse cuenta que el periodista no había apagado su grabador, que todos los argentinos son una manga de chorros.

¿La solución? Botnia, Uruguay y la Argentina deben encontrar un acuerdo sobre el conflicto. Ese acuerdo tiene que tomar en cuenta una compensación a los residentes de Gualeguaychú y a la provincia de Entre Ríos por las pérdidas económicas que impondrá la pastera.

Thumbs down to the Botnia pulp mill in Uruguay

The Finnish company Botnia is building a $1.2 billion pulp mill on the shores of the Uruguay River right across the Argentinean city of Gualeguaychú. The plant will be inaugurated in early September.

Certainly each country like Uruguay has the right to lure foreign investment and thereby boost economic growth and create more jobs. Moreover, if I were an Uruguayan, I’d be pretty pissed off at Argentina for meddling in the internal affairs of the country.

Considering that it’s a Finnish company that’s building the pulp mill assures that the technology used at the plant is the best that money can buy. I’d be truly worried if a Chilean, Brazilian or Argentinean forest company would be building the plant. It is a fact, however, that all pulp mills pollute. The Botnia plant near Fray Bentos in Uruguay is no exception.

The project is a good example of how not to handle public relations. The company cites “politics” as the main reason for the row. This is an insult to the Argentineans taking into account how hard they have had to fight to gain their inalienable right to free speech under previous military dictatorships.

Building the plant right across Gualeguaychú was another big mistake by Botnia. It shows a total lack of consideration brought on by a mix of ignorance of the region and hubris.

If we try to find culprits, certainly former Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle is one. He once stated off the record that all Argentineans are a bunch of crooks.

The solution? Botnia, Uruguay and Argentina must find an agreement. Just compensation will have to be given to the residents of Gualeguaychú and the province of Entre Ríos for losses that the pulp mill will cause to their economic livelihood.