kudos for juno diaz and oscar wao: and rickydoc gon pass on racine, i consider this beneath me

hello world, i been off the grid
lets do some quick catch uo why dont we

1st: nytimes photo from the west indian
day parade in brooklyn - aint she pretty

2nd, junos novel is out - and getting good reviews
the brief and wondrous life of oscar wao

this is good news and bad, good because he did it
bad because juno got his novel out before me

we both been dug in working on longgame novels
and now that junos is out and getting good reviews

im feeling the pressure, yall

juno got his done, juno came thru
this what time magazine had to say

"In 1996 a young Dominican - American writer named Junot Díaz published a slender book of short stories called Drown. It was tender and tough and heartbreaking and all a first book of short stories is supposed to be, and he was hailed as the next great hope of American literature. Then Díaz more or less disappeared for 11 years, long enough for most readers to assume that, like most next great hopes of American literature, he wasn't coming back.

Now he has, and with a book so astoundingly great that in a fall crowded with heavyweights--Richard Russo, Philip Roth--Díaz is a good bet to run away with the field."

it can be done
you go boy

let me see, had a couple other points
seems the mambo racine thing controversy in 2nd gear

went by the rootworkers list the other day
hadnt checked it for a year or so because it

had become a mambo racine all the time fistfight

apparently the parents of the incarcerated skull diggers put out an appeal
for money not to go to racine op but to lawyers hired by the family

they say racine using the money otherwise or something like this
i dont know the details, i was just scanning and i didnt read back thru

but i did notice that my previous post was being used as a indictment on her

and ive since gotten a couple of emails from folk asking me
to join in the hunt but ima pass on that, aint got time for that

i dont want to spend my little limited energies getting
caught up in that dogfight

im retired from frontline organizing - im a busy man
i got to catch up with brother wao

i was moved though when whoever referenced my post
referred to me as the 'respected commentator doc flowers'

i be thinking nobody listening

speaking of skulls i dont know what to say about this article i ran across
in the la times recently, obviously i dont approve of graveyard activity

but i know some paleros who would probably be offended by the tone of this piece
i dont know enuf to comment on this articles claims so i will just put it on here whole

it was the politics of santeria in south america i found most fascinating
and it appear to me that its atr ascendency that they really find frightening

the bulk of the accusations i assume to be political, the breathless tone

of the article sound like a very conventional atr (african traditional religion) as evil presentation
very oldschool catholic defense playbook

in my efforts to be a prophetic voice in african traditional religion
some things i would like to say wont fly, graveyard work being one of them

a lot of what we do keeps us on defense
latimes is a signup op so i will put both link and the article here

again, i do not testify, in fact i consider this article suspect
but it does raise some very interesting issues doesnt it

----------------------------

The Dead Dont Rest in Venezuela

A ghoulish crime wave in the Venezuelan capital supplies a black magic cult whose popularity is fueled by faith and politics.

By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 5, 2007

CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- Skulking in the dead of night in the remote and overgrown Las Pavas section of the Southern Municipal Cemetery, robbers armed with crowbars and sledgehammers first shattered the tomb's concrete vault and the granite marker that read, "To our dear wife and mother in heaven, Maria de la Cruz Aguero."

Then they lifted the coffin lid and stole leg bones and the skull of the woman, who had died Sept. 9, 1993. They sold the bones for $20 each, the skull for as much as $300, said Father Atilio Gonzalez, the cemetery's resident Roman Catholic priest.

Sometimes entire skeletons, particularly those of children, are stolen from crypts in this final resting place of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including three former presidents.

"These unscrupulous people are insulting God and committing a mortal sin," said Gonzalez. He said that graves in the city's largest cemetery are robbed every night, and it's getting worse. "They have perfect liberty to desecrate the tombs because the government does nothing to stop it."

The desecration of the woman's tomb was part of a ghoulish crime wave, including assaults, rapes and dope deals, that has made the cemetery so dangerous that funeral home workers say they carry weapons whenever they have to go there. Parts of the vast cemetery, particularly the remote hillside sections reserved for the poor, are in ruins and choked with weeds, providing perfect cover for thugs and the homeless.

In the past when graves were robbed, the primary objective was to steal personal effects such as jewelry or gold dental fillings, said Odalys Caldera, an investigator in the city's judicial police. Today, thieves are pillaging the graves for darker reasons.

The buyers of the bones are paleros, the practitioners of a black magic cult related to Santeria whose rise in popularity here is fueled by a strange brew of faith and politics.

"Santeria, witchcraft and black magic are much more out in the open now. That's the reason," Caldera said. "Of course the state is aware of the robberies, but hasn't taken the necessary steps to impede them."

Santeria, which combines Catholicism and African and indigenous spiritualism, was brought to the New World by slaves from Africa centuries ago and still thrives, particularly in Cuba, Haiti, Brazil and, increasingly, Venezuela. It is also popular in regions of the United States with strong Caribbean immigrant communities, such as south Florida, Washington and Los Angeles,areas where hundreds of thousands are thought to practice it.

Although most Santeria followers steer clear of the use of human remains and Satanism, the paleros embrace them. They use bones in black magic rituals in which the objective is to cast evil spells on enemies: to induce bad luck for an unfaithful spouse, a car accident for unwanted in-laws, a serious illness for a business competitor, Gonzalez said.

Police, church officials and historians offer a variety of theories for the rise in Santeria generally and of black magic in particular in Venezuela. Some, including anthropologist Rafael Strauss, point to the vacuum left by the Roman Catholic Church, which, as in many other Latin American countries, has lost believers in Venezuela to evangelical and other Protestant religions. Church rolls also are suffering from a lack of interest among younger people.

"We are seeing a new syncretism that is uniting parts of different religions," said Strauss, a retired University of Central Venezuela professor. "It's how people make it easier to meet their spiritual needs."

Gonzalez acknowledged that the country is suffering a crisis in belief.

"People are losing faith," he said. "Instead of assuming responsibility to accomplish something good, they resort to witchcraft, which they see as the easy way."

But others see politics at work. Father Manuel Diaz is a parish priest in the El Hatillo suburb of Caracas where three Santeria babalaos, or shamans, have recently opened centers. He says the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez is encouraging the rise of Santeria to counter the authority of the Catholic Church, which Chavez has viewed as his enemy.

In a pastoral letter to his parishioners last month, Diaz said the government has a "concrete objective, to undermine the authority of the church and align its faithful with certain ideologies." In the letter, he wrote that leaders of the movement to discredit the church were coming from an unnamed "Caribbean country," presumably Cuba.

Although Santeria and other spiritualist religions have been present in Venezuela since Spanish colonial days, the rise of black magic, including that practiced by paleros, is relatively new, said Maria Garcia de Fleury, a comparative religions professor at New Sparta University in Caracas.

"We've always had a little witchcraft, but nothing like what has been unleashed recently," De Fleury said. "This is not Venezuelan."

Without offering hard evidence, De Fleury and some church officials blame the growing presence of Santeria on Cuba, which she says is exporting babalaos along with doctors, teachers and sports trainers to Venezuela as part of closer economic relations with Chavez.

"It's because the government is behind Santeria, promoting it, letting in Cuban babalaos who are proselytizing very actively," De Fleury said.

While not addressing Santeria, Chavez in a February 2003 broadcast of his "Alo Presidente" TV talk show denied that he was a believer in black magic. He is known to be a mystic of sorts, and some say that he believes he is the reincarnation of a 19th century Venezuelan leader, Ezequiel Zamora.

"President Chavez, who knows the mentality of Venezuelans, takes advantage of their magical religious imagery to further his popularity and his revolution," university professor Angelina Pollak-Eltz said in an essay shortly after Chavez took power in 1999.

Yarlin Mejia, a hotel worker who is also a babalao in the  Catia slum of Caracas, said the majority of Santeria believers stay away from witchcraft. "The paleros work for evil," Mejia said. "I do it differently. I work for positive things."

Half a dozen people come every Sunday to Mejia's house, where his ceremonies involve "white magic" -- rituals that aim to help believers attain specific goals, be it a new house, a better job or success at school. A chicken is usually sacrificed. Mejia says interest is growing and attributes it to the presence of Cubans.

"They're everywhere," Mejia said.

-----------------------------

let me take this post out on a good note
t shia asantes website, check it out

a multimodal experience, everybody on
the gun but me

rdoc

Comments

[sungoddess]

This is wonderful new about Junot Diaz. I bought that book Drown. It was one of the best collections of writings I had read at that age. Some of the imagery still stays with me. So to hear he's written another book is utterly thrilling! Thanks for sharing the news!

[Mambo Racine]

Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber, the two American Vodouisants arrested in Haiti, were represented by attorney Maitre Lamour. I have no idea why Mambo Lisa's step-mother chose to lie about who her lawyer was. But anyway Vodou Aid raised money and sent it to him.

vodouaid.org is our website, and we are now raising money for food assistance for Haitian survivors of Hurricane Noel.

Thank you,

Mambo Racine