Boss: Wal-Mart Deal a Mistake

On Jan. 13 a $10 collection of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Greatest Hits” — 11 songs from a 1995 hits anthology, as well as “Radio Nowhere” from “Magic” — went on sale exclusively at Wal-Mart. Since Wal-Mart has been accused of anti-union practices by Human Rights Watch, among others, and has paid large fines for violating labor laws, the announcement prompted online criticisms like the one from asroma on the fan site backstreets.com: “Bruce is doing biz with Wal-Mart? Kind of goes against everything he stands for.”

In an interview with Billboard, Mr. Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, defended the release, saying Mr. Springsteen’s albums were already in Wal-Mart, which accounts for 15 percent of his sales. He also said: “We’re not doing any advertising for Wal-Mart. We haven’t endorsed Wal-Mart or anybody else. We’re letting Sony do its job.”

But Mr. Springsteen said the decision was made too hastily. “We were in the middle of doing a lot of things, it kind of came down and, really, we didn’t vet it the way we usually do,” he said. “We just dropped the ball on it.” Instead of offering the exclusive collection to Wal-Mart, “given its labor history, it was something that if we’d thought about it a little longer, we’d have done something different.” He added, “It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be.”

Full New York Times story here.

Time On My Hands

Limited edition, Gallery Sarawan $2,500. I got expenses.

Eviction Day at Drey Krahorm

Steve at Your Phnom Penh Pal has an extraordinary story about eviction day at Dey Krahorm. Please read it.

Winter in Connecticut: An Icy Road

I'm spending a week with my sister and her family in Colchester, Connecticut, a small town between New London and Hartford. It's a pretty little place, with foxes (the bushy tailed kind) right across the street in the woods, but a Starbucks down the road when the Stumptown (thanks Mike) runs out. We've had just one day of bad weather thus far (a night of snow followed by a day of sleet), but otherwise it's been in the 20's and 30's and not unpleasant. But the roads are icy and traveling not such a good idea. Today will be another day to eat brother-in-law Michael's great Mexican cooking and rip tunes. Tomorrow we're off to New London to see Jorma Kaukonen (formerly Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna), then of course it's Super Bowl sunday. Back to California on Monday, back in Cambodia the ninth after a night in Singapore.

This great photo is by my brother-in-law Michael Bruno.

Just Another Day

Phnom Penh Post Police Blotter: 29 Jan 2009

Written by Chrann Chamroeun

Thursday, 29 January 2009

AUSTRALIAN RIPS OFF SEX WORKER An Australian man and a Cambodian sex worker were brought into Chroy Changvar commune police station after an argument about not paying enough for buying sex for two nights. The woman said she could not accept US$70 because the man had had sex with her several times during the two nights. The argument surprised neighbours who brought them to the police station. The man was ordered to pay the woman $30 more and $80 to have their names left off the report. KAMPUCHEA THMEY BOY HIT ON HEAD WITH SOY SAUCE BOTTLE A 17-year-old boy was being treated at hospital for head injuries while another two boys were being detained by police after allegedly seriously injuring a boy with a bottle of soy sauce at a bread shop Monday in Chamkamorn district, Phnom Penh. Police said that two groups of several gangsters were eating bread on the sidewalk and, while eating, began a verbal dispute. KAMPUCHEA THMEY MEN ARRESTED FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING Two men were arrested Monday for allegedly preparing to send 10 boys across the Thai border to be sold as fishermens' labourers. The 10 boys confirmed before the police that they decided to go along with the two men as they had talked with their parents about working in Thailand for high salaries. KOH SANTEPHEAP DRUNKEN MAN HITS WIFE, FATHER A drunken man was arrested after seriously wounding his father on the head with a piece of wood Saturday in Kandal province. Police said the man, Chok Vanna, 29, returned home drunk and started to curse his wife, Toeuy Toan, 22. He then asked for a divorce at the commune office, but when they went, the commune chief asked them to reconcile. When they came home, he hit his wife and his father for trying to stop him hitting his wife. KOH SANTEPHEAP KILLER OF ‘DRUNK' WOMAN UNKNOWN Police say they have not yet found the killer of a 52-year-old woman in Kampong Cham province who was found dead Tuesday with wounds to the face. Tbong Khmum police said that according to neighbours, the woman was always drunk and verbally abusive. The police said they will try to catch the perpetrator. KOH SANTEPHEAP

A Letter to the Post

The grand theft of Dey Krahorm

Written by David Pred

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Dear Editor, It is remarkable that Municipality representatives have stated that the wholesale destruction of the Dey Krahorm community was not an eviction [Phnom Penh Post, January 24, 2009]. I agree, however, that "eviction" is not the best way to describe Saturday morning's events. A more accurate description would be grand theft. The 7NG company grabbed 3.6 hectares of prime city-centre real estate, valued at US$44 million, with the assistance of police and other armed government forces. The homes and many of the personal belongings of community residents were demolished by company bulldozers and looted by those carrying out the demolitions. It is not surprising that this process began in the dead of night and that the area was sealed off by the authorities in an apparent attempt to hide this flagrant crime from the watchful eyes of journalists and human rights workers. Media not telling full story What is most unfortunate is that the media has not only failed to tell the full story of this gross and criminal violation of human rights and Cambodian law, but it has adopted the language of the perpetrators in describing the victims. Words like "squatters", "slum" and "controversial neighbourhood", which have been used to describe Dey Krahorm, give false credence to the justifications used by those responsible for this crime and deny victims' rights. Let's set the record straight. The land that was grabbed on Saturday morning rightfully belongs to more than 150 poor families who have refused to sell their homes to 7NG for the pittance that was offered to them. Most of these families have the documentation to prove their possession rights under the 2001 Land Law. Moreover, these families were beneficiaries of the Social Land Concession granted to the entire community by the Council of Ministers in 2003, and the Development Plan, which called for a land-sharing arrangement with a private company in exchange for onsite upgrading. To justify their claims over the land, the 7NG company relies on a dubious agreement signed with former community representatives to exchange the villagers' homes for flats at the Damnak Treyoeng site outside Phnom Penh. This agreement was immediately rejected by most Dey Krahorm families, who dismissed their former "representatives" and filed a civil complaint against them for breach of trust, along with a separate complaint to cancel the contract. Law on their side Article 66 of the 2001 Land Law states: "A person with Khmer nationality and with capacity to enter into a contract may sell or purchase immovable property." Yet, the following persons may not sell: "A person who is not the owner of the property offered for sale." The so-called former representatives had no legal capacity to sell the villagers' land. 7NG's agreement is, therefore, null and void under the law. An unbiased investigation into the facts will reveal that the Dey Krahorm families have legal rights that have been consistently denied by the competent authorities. The families are under no legal obligation to accept the company's compensation offer. They have every right to reject it and remain on their land and in their homes. This is not a case of expropriation of land for public interest purposes. It is a case of a private company using armed force to acquire other people's private property for their personal profit. Company representatives are on record stating that they do not even know how they intend to develop the site. Therefore, if they want this land, they need to offer the residents a price that they are willing to accept. However, instead of offering a mutually agreed price for the land, the company and the authorities forcibly removed the families and demolished their homes and property. This action was illegal. Article 253 of the Land Law states: "Any person who uses violence against a possessor in good faith of an immovable property, whether or not his title has been established or it is disputed, shall be fined from 1,500,000 riels to 25,000,000 riels and/or imprisoned from six (6) months to two (2) years irrespective of the penalty for violence against a person. In addition to the above penalty, the violator shall be liable for civil damages that were caused by his violent acts. If the violence was ordered by a person other than the perpetrator, who did not personally participate in the commission of such violence, he shall be subject to the same penalties as the perpetrators of the violence." The company also employed hundreds of private contractors to help carry out the home demolitions, and they are caught on film using weapons and tear gas against the villagers, many of whom sustained injuries as a result. This was also illegal. Article 254 of the Land Law states: "Under no circumstances shall the use of private force be authorised in order to protect a person's title to property or to enforce a court order for the expulsion or forced removal of an occupant. Any person who uses private force for the above purposes shall be fined from three million (3,000,000) riels to twenty five million (25,000,000) riels and/or imprisoned from (6) six months to two (2) years." Nothing for evictees The displaced residents of Dey Krahorm are now homeless, traumatised and reliant on the good will of humanitarian organisations to meet their basic needs. The Government of Cambodia is solely responsible, under the international law obligations to which it is bound, for addressing the humanitarian situation that it has created. The government is also legally responsible to ensure that the land and property that was taken or destroyed is restored to its lawful possessors, or that they receive just and fair compensation for their losses. Any failure to do so should result in condemnation and sanctions by the UN and Cambodia's donor community. The forced eviction of Dey Krahorm is unique only in that it occurred in the heart of the capital city and that it has, therefore, attracted a great deal of media attention. However, there are hundreds of communities across the country whose land is being stolen with impunity by powerful elites. This epidemic of land theft in the absence of the rule of law flies in the face of poverty-reduction efforts promoted by the government and its benefactors. It is high time that international donors ­­- who have poured billions of dollars into development assistance in Cambodia - acknowledge that if the government continues to refuse to enforce the law and end land-grabbing, no sustainable progress can be made toward poverty alleviation, and taxpayers' money is being squandered. David Pred Director, Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Phnom Penh

You Can Call Me Al Pastor: The Lebanese Connection

You who know me and my culinary preferences know that a late night burrito al pastor is among my two favorite late night activities. With the wife 8,000 miles away, it was at 2am last evening I found myself at my beloved taco truck at Western and Lexington, and the burrito al pastor snarfed in the parking lot did not disappoint. It was not the best I've had there, but that still puts it way ahead of anything else I'd like to be eating at 2am in a taxi repair garage parking lot.

You may recall I mused on the origins of pastrami a while back in the context of a discussion of the purported Jewish origins of Angkor Wat. Try as I might, I can't find any references which trace al pastor to Jews of Khazarian origins, but there is strong evidence of a middle eastern origin nonetheless, specifically Lebanese Christian.

Here's the story:

In the years between 1880 and 1910, the first wave of Lebanese immigrants, mostly Christians, arrived in Mexico, driven from their native land by the oppression of the Islamic Ottoman regime, rife with religious tensions and political instability. These immigrants arrived on Mexico's eastern shores and settled in the Yucatán peninsula, as well as in the Gulf coast ports of Veracruz and Tampico.

During World War I, the Ottomans sealed off the entire mountain range that runs through central Lebanon, creating severe conditions of famine. Many of those who were able to escape came to Mexico and became providers of food and arms during the Mexican Revolution. During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands more Lebanese arrived, and Mexico's oil boom of the 1930s witnessed most of them settling on the Gulf coast. Some continued into central Mexico in the same decades, but it was not until the 1940s, with the influx of World War II refugees and the reunification of many Lebanese Mexican families, that large numbers of them migrated to Mexico City and Puebla. However, the largest group of Mexicans of Lebanese descent still lives in Mérida, Yucatán.

The Lebanese quickly assimilated in their new land, becoming productive contributors to the local culture and economy. In an atmosphere tolerant of their ancient customs, they succeeded in conserving a large part of their traditions, including their culinary heritage.

Fortuitously, many of the ingredients they used on a daily basis had arrived with those early Spaniards some 400 years earlier. Therefore, a trip to the local market produced virtually all the essential ingredients needed to prepare favorite dishes. Tabbuleh, for example, could be concocted with very few problems. The original recipe calling for wheat semolina with olive oil and citrus juice, parsley, tomato, salt and pepper was only lacking fresh spearmint. Some Yucatecan and Campechano recipes called for the addition of cucumber, onion and juice of the ubiquitous naranja agria (Seville or sour orange). The acceptance of this salad in the peninsula was overwhelming; in fact, this recipe is frequently an important feature of antique regional cookbooks in which it is identified as ensalada árabe (Arabic salad). Similarly, fattoush – a salad devised to employ stale pita bread – includes the same ingredients as tabbouleh as well as garbanzos or eggplant, and any other vegetable that may be in season.

It is thought that a variant of these mixtures possibly gave birth to x’nipek, the recipe for which is really quite similar to tabbuleh: finely chopped tomato, onion, cilantro, salt and sour orange juice and a purely local ingredient – the chile habanero – which was slowly included in certain other Lebanese dishes as well.
For the first immigrants, it was also relatively easy to find or make things like jocoque (a fresh cheese made of drained cow’s milk yogurt), sharmula or chermula (a sauce and marinade comprised of parsley, cilantro, garlic, cumin, olive oil, pepper and vinegar) and sweets based on almonds and sugar, such marzipan and its many variations. (And the exchange works both ways: local Mayan women have adapted the traditional recipe for marzipan and substitute pumpkin seeds for the almonds – a treat found in every street stall.) And favored dishes such as fish in tahini (a sauce composed of sesame seeds and sometimes olive oil) could be prepared without missing a beat. In the decade of the 1950s, pita bread – known here as pan árabe – was prepared artisanally by Mérida’s Lebanese families and delivered door to door wrapped in brown paper. Nowadays all of these foods are widely available in Yucatecan supermarkets, produced by small companies and global conglomerates alike.

In this way, many of the Lebanese ancestral recipes were preserved intact. However, some essential ingredients were less readily available, if at all: grape leaves, olives, lamb, as well as certain condiments. In these cases Lebanese cooks were left with no choice but to borrow elements from their new land.

The incorporation of new ingredients into old recipes resulted in a hybrid cuisine that is now legendary in the region. For example, the kibbeh or kibi – which in the ancestral homeland was always made from lamb in its diverse preparations, whether raw, fried or baked – now had to be prepared with beef, deer, fish or potatoes. This adaptation therefore secured the place of kibis as a favorite among Yucatecan Lebanese families, and further, naturalized it as a real Yucatecan dish. To such an extent have kibis been adapted to Yucatecan tastes that they have become a street delicacy that today are still offered in cities like Mérida and Campeche by roving vendors. Another local touch is that they are served with pico de gallo or x’nipek instead of yogurt or hummus.

Other typical Lebanese meat dishes also replaced lamb – uncommon in the Mayan world – with pork. The famous mideast finger food featuring chopped lamb and rice wrapped in grape leaves had to be almost totally Mexicanized, if not to say “Yucatecanized”: the grape leaves were replaced with chard or even chaya in the Mayan world, while the lamb was replaced with beef or pork. And the traditional spit-roasted meat called shawarma – generally comprised of layers of seasoned lamb on a vertical skewer that rotates in front of a flame – evolved locally with the substitution of pork marinated in achiote with a pineapple balanced on top. Thin pieces of pork and pineapple are shaved off of the skewer and onto a fresh tortilla. The now-Mexicanized name of this dish – tacos al pastor, or shepherd’s taco – reveals its ancient mideastern roots and belies its principal ingredient, which would no doubt be viewed as a scandalous twist in the land of its origin. Again, this taco is finished – and localized – by the diner’s own addition of chile tamulado, x’nipek, lime juice or other typical condiments.

Today, Mexico's Lebanese, who number about 400,000 in a country of 100 million, have become proud Mexicans, and many of them are prominent members of the society. Carlos Slim, the business magnate and Latin America’s wealthiest man, is the son of a Lebanese immigrant father. In Mérida, the Chedraui and Chapur families are successful merchants, owning empires of supermarkets and department stores, respectively. And Alberto Salum, whose grandparents were part of the great surge of refugees to Yucatán at the turn of the century, is owner of the famed Alberto’s Continental – part restaurant, part social center, part cultural icon – for almost 40 years a meeting place of Mérida’s Lebanese families and still a place to load up a plate with kibis and hummus, and savor the faraway flavors of Lebanon.

Source

Why I Need A Bar

And this would be my new friend and Christmas present to myself. It's a Western Digital Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive ($115 from your local US internet mega-retailer, I bought mine from Buy.com). My 750 GB drive is now completely full so an upgrade was essential in order to accomodate the growing music collection and have a proper back-up. Going over to FLAC format for my music has meant that I'm using up disk space like nobody's bidness. But I figure it's worth the trouble and disk space, after all $115 for a terrabyte of data is pretty darn cheap (internal 1TB drives can now be had for just under $100).

I chose this Western Digital drive carefully. My previous drive was a Maxtor and that has peformed ok, though a bit noisy and it runs quite warm. The Western Digital is reviewed as being reliable, cool and quiet, and it's rubberized exterior is comforting. Had there been a reliable, small form factor 1.5 TB drive that would have made more sense, but unfortuanately the one you'll see at a reasonable price is one made by Seagate which they are having terrible realiability problems with, and that's an awful lot of data to lose.

With all this music --- 100,000 tracks (that's like 8,000 albums), 800 or so albums in FLAC format -- I really need a place to share this with you all. I hope it won't be too long. Where else are you going to hear the soundtrack from the Endless Summer or the legendary Masked Marauders LP? And you need to.

The State of the Union

My friend Justin is complaining that this blog is becoming too much a cut and paste thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I love what Details are Sketchy does with her news blog...but I did used to post a bit more personal stuff here. Much of that personal stuff (family photos and such) is now going onto my Facebook site, which, if you're a fan of this blog and haven't yet joined I hope you will.

What am I up to these days? Well I'll tell you. The little bar I had hoped to open near the Russian Market hasn't come together -- I lost a great location by dragging my feet in negotiating the rent, it's now a wedding tailor shop, and I haven't found anything else suitable. Also, money's tight as things haven't yet come together with ABT to the extent that any income is coming my way, so I'm looking for work, hopefully the bar will happen later. If you're with an international NGO and are willing to pay me a $2k plus per month salary to advise you on housing development or finance or, more preferably, program your music library, I'm there for you.

For now I'm spending three weeks with the folks in the States, probably with a visit to Connecticut to see my sister. Of course with access to high speed internet I'm adding to the music collection and having a grand time ripping more vinyl, about which I'll share some musings here.

From the Cambodia Daily

The guardian of wooden houses

Written by Kyle Sherer

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

SIEM REAP A Siem Reap architect is waging a battle for wood as concrete takes over as building material of choice.

SIEM Reap designer and architectural researcher Hok Sokol has had a passion for old wooden Cambodian homes for almost nine years. He has studied them, documented them, filed them as case studies ... and seen many of them destroyed in favour of bland concrete buildings.

This motivated him to create a development company of his own - one that not only preserved old buildings, but also constructed new old buildings.

His firm, HHH Co, builds traditional Khmer wooden houses using the same designs and materials used in Cambodia for centuries.

As widespread urban development continues to change Siem Reap at a furious pace, Hok Sokol hopes his initiative will ensure that the emerging city maintains its personality of authentic Khmer culture.

Hok Sokal told Prime Location that wooden houses are "more impressive, more remarkable than concrete structures. They are an important part of Siem Reap's character that we cannot afford to lose".

Siem Reap is home to two of his new wooden houses, built in 2004 and 2008 near the Rolous temples on the outskirts of Siem Reap.

He also moved a 90-year-old wooden house from Kampong Cham province to a new location 300 metres south of Wat Damnak, with modifications to the bathroom and kitchen.

To build a new old wooden house, Hok Sokol explains he needs to synergise three elusive elements. "We need to find the right carpenter, the right wood and the right client," he said.

Hok Sokol's background in academia ensures that his houses are extremely authentic - from the layout of the rooms to the type of lumber used. "We use the same wood that was used in construction of the traditional houses," he said. "When I start a new project, I spend a great deal of effort locating the right wood. I use up to six types of wood in a house, including sokrom, kokoh, koki, sroloas and beng."

The meticulous sourcing of traditional timber isn't merely pedantic - it gives the houses a strength and durability that Hok Sokol says could rival their concrete competitors.

"It is remarkable that houses built in this style are still in good condition up to 100 years after their construction," he said.

Not for everyone
Even with a stock of the correct materials, Hok Sokol is still faced with finding the right client. "We need people who really love and understand wooden architecture," he said. "Most of my clients are well-educated, with a high degree of knowledge about Khmer art and culture. Some are Cambodians who have been educated outside the country, some are foreigners who have studied Khmer culture."

One trait that is necessarily shared by Hok Sokol's clients is patience - the construction of a single wooden house takes an entire year.
However, construction is an area where modernity is definitely an ally. "With modern technology, carpentry and equipment we can build wooden
houses in half the time it took our ancestors," he said.

HHH Co's team consists of two architects, an engineer, a plumber, an electrician, five carpenters and 10 workmen. Other work, like tiling and concreting, is subcontracted, and the construction methods used vary from house to house.

"Depending on the project, we use a combination of traditional and modern methods. One hundred years ago, our ancestors could not build houses in certain areas - but with electricity and modern equipment we are not as restricted."

Hok Sokol says Siem Reap has great potential for traditional wooden-house development. In particular, he indicates the banks of the Siem Reap River as an example of where wooden restoration and construction work could be achieved with great effect.

However, he is unsure of whether his efforts are enough to ensure the continuity of the wooden house style. "It is hard for wooden houses to compete with concrete houses when there is less and less wood available, and more and more concrete. People are attracted to wooden houses, but sometimes will use the concrete style for convenience.

We need people who really love and understand wooden architecture.

"There are 100 concrete houses for every wooden house, and concrete houses are simpler to build. But the design and quality of wooden houses are better."

Holly

Guy Moshe's film "Holly",which has been making the festival circuit rounds for a long time -- to mostly good reviews -- is finally set for DVD release January 27. Ron Livingston, Thuy Nguyen, the late Chris Penn, Virginie Ledoyen, and Udo Kier star. The film website describes the film thus:

Ron Livingston delivers a powerful breakout performance as a 'comfortably numb' American gambler, immersed in a dangerous and shocking culture of corruption, slaver and deceit. Disgusted and inspired, he finds true menaing in his life as he frantically searches through both the beautiful and sordid faces of Cambodia, risking everything in a desperate attempt to save the life of one girl. Stars Chris Penn in his final role, with a chilling performance by Udo Kier. HOLLY is not just one girl. She is the voice of millions of children who are exploited and violated every year with no rights or protection.

Some expats will not be happy that the film portrays a slice of Cambodia which no longer exists in the same fashion -- the brothel area known as K11 -- but most will acknowledge the problem of sexual trafficking has gone underground rather than disappeared.

I've placed my order from Deepdiscountdvd.com. You'll find the trailer for Holly here.

William Zantzinger: Dead at 69

From the New York Times:

By Douglas Martin / January 9, 2009

William Devereux Zantzinger, whose six-month sentence in the fatal caning of a black barmaid named Hattie Carroll at a Baltimore charity ball moved Bob Dylan to write a dramatic, almost journalistic song in 1963 that became a classic of modern American folk music, died on Jan. 3. He was 69.

His death was confirmed by an employee of the Brinsfield-Echols Funeral Home, who said Mr. Zantzinger’s family had prohibited the release of more details.

Mr. Dylan took some liberties with the truth in the song, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” though there is disagreement over just how many. He recorded it in 1964 for the Columbia album “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” for some reason dropping the letter “t” from Mr. Zantzinger’s name. It begins:

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll

With a cane he twirled around his diamond ring finger

At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’.

The incident occurred on Feb. 8, 1963. Mr. Zantzinger, a 24-year-old Maryland tobacco farmer, and his wife, Jane, had stopped with friends at a restaurant on their way to Baltimore’s annual Spinsters’ Ball, a white-tie affair.

Mr. Zantzinger was wearing a top hat and carrying a toy cane he had picked up at a farm fair. At the restaurant, he became disorderly, hitting employees with the cane, then left with his group after they were refused more drinks.

The party moved on to the ball, at the Emerson Hotel. A recapitulation of the evening in The Washington Post Magazine in 1991 said Mr. Zantzinger had entered bellowing: “I just flew in from Texas! Gimme a drink!”

As the evening progressed, he hit several hotel employees with the cane and used racial epithets. Time magazine said he pushed his wife to the floor. He later strode to the bar and ordered a drink from Mrs. Carroll, 51. But she was too slow, he said, and began criticizing her. Then he repeatedly struck her with the cane. Fleeing to the kitchen, she told co-workers that she felt “deathly ill.” An ambulance was called.

Mr. Zantzinger was charged with disorderly conduct and released on $600 bail. But on the morning of Feb. 9, Mrs. Carroll died of a stroke. Now Mr. Zantzinger was charged with murder.

In the trial, Mr. Zantzinger testified that he could not remember hitting anyone. His lawyers said Mrs. Carroll’s stroke could have been caused by the hypertension she was known to have. A three-judge court agreed that the caning alone could not have caused the death and reduced the charge to manslaughter.

Mr. Zantzinger was convicted in June, and in August he was sentenced to six months in prison.

On Aug. 29, The New York Times published a dispatch by United Press International, reporting on the sentencing. A friend of Mr. Dylan showed the singer the article. Some accounts say he wrote the song at an all-night coffee shop on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, others that he wrote it at the singer Joan Baez’s house in Carmel, Calif.

The literary critic Christopher B. Ricks wrote a chapter about the song in his book, “Dylan’s Visions of Sin” (2004), praising Mr. Dylan’s “exact control of each word.”

Clinton Heylin, in his book “Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited” (2001), countered that the song “verges on the libelous” because of “its tenuous grasp of the facts of the case.” One criticism was that Mr. Zantzinger’s “high office relations,” as Mr. Dylan called them, were overstated: his father had been a one-term state legislator and a member of the Maryland planning commission.

The song did not mention that Mrs. Carroll was black, although listeners made that correct assumption. It also did not refer to the reduced charge of manslaughter, only the six-month sentence.

One error of fact in the song was that Mrs. Carroll had 10 children; she had 11. Critics suggested that 11 did not fit the meter.

Time magazine called Mr. Zantzinger “a rural aristocrat,” who enjoyed fox-hunting. He attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington and the University of Maryland. The magazine Mother Jones reported in 2004 that he had worked alongside his farm employees, including blacks.

After prison, Mr. Zantzinger left the farm and went into real estate. He sold antiques, became an auctioneer and owned a night club.

In 1991, The Maryland Independent disclosed that Mr. Zantzinger had been collecting rent from black families living in shanties that he no longer owned; Charles County, Md., had foreclosed on them for unpaid taxes. The shanties lacked running water, toilets or outhouses. Not only had Mr. Zantzinger collected rent for properties he did not own, he also went to court to demand past-due rent, and won.

He pleaded guilty to 50 misdemeanor counts of deceptive trade practices, paid $62,000 in penalties and, under an 18-month sentence, spent only nights in jail.

Information on Mr. Zantzinger’s survivors was unavailable. Though he long refused interviews, he did speak to the author Howard Sounes for his book “Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan” (2001), telling him of his scorn for Mr. Dylan.

“I should have sued him and put him in jail,” he said.

Time Magazine's contemporary report of the sentencing went like this:

Time Magazine
Friday, Sep. 06, 1963

Early this year, William Devereux Zantzinger, 24, a prosperous tobacco farmer in southern Maryland, went on a bender with his wife, ended the evening charged with homicide (TIME, Feb. 22). At a restaurant, Zantzinger whacked two employees with a cane. Later that evening, at a white-tie dance in a Baltimore hotel, he used the cane again on a Negro bellhop and a Negro waitress. Then he scolded a Negro barmaid, Mrs. Hattie Carroll, 51. "What's the matter with you, you black son of a bitch," he snarled, "serving my drinks so slow?" With that, he beat the woman with his cane. She collapsed and was taken off in an ambulance. Eight hours later Mrs. Carroll, mother of eleven children, died of a brain hemorrhage. She had had high blood pressure and an enlarged heart.

In June, after Zantzinger's phalanx of five topflight attorneys won a change of venue to a court in Hagerstown, a three-judge panel reduced the murder charge to manslaughter. Following a three-day trial, Zantzinger was found guilty.

Last week the judges announced sentence. For the assault on the hotel employees: a fine of $125. For the death of Hattie Carroll: six months in jail and a fine of $500. The judges considerately deferred the start of the jail sentence until Sept. 15, to give Zantzinger time to harvest his tobacco crop.

Historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, it's one of Dylan's most beautifully crafted story songs (Percy's Song being another).

Ecstasy threatens Cambodia’s jungles

Larry Jagan, Foreign Correspondent, The National
Last Updated: January 15. 2009 1:46AM UAE / January 14. 2009 9:46PM GMT

PHNOM PENH // The illegal drugs trade is causing significant environmental damage to parts of Cambodia, according to an international aid agency.

In south-west Cambodia the production of sassafras oil, which is used when making the recreational drug ecstasy, is destroying trees, the local inhabitants’ livelihoods and wreaking untold ecological damage, according to David Bradfield, an adviser to the Wildlife Sanctuaries Project of Fauna and Flora International, who is based in the area.

The sassafras oil comes from the Cardamom Mountain area, one of the last forest wildernesses in mainland South East Asia.

“The illicit distilling of sassafras oil in these mountains is slowly but surely killing the forests and wildlife,” Mr Bradfield said. “The production of sassafras oil is a huge operation, which affects not only the area where the distilleries are actually located, but ripples outward, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake.”

The livelihoods of more than 15,000 people who depend on hunting and gathering to survive in the wildlife sanctuary are at risk from the sassafras production operations, which pollute water and kill wildlife.

Cambodian sassafras oil is highly sought as it is of the highest quality – more than 90 per cent pure, according to the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Cambodia, Lars Pedersen. It is a major precursor drug used in the production of ecstasy.

“Massive amounts of sassafras oil are smuggled every year into Vietnam and Thailand from Cambodia,” he said.

Sassafras Oil is made from the roots of the rare Mreah Prew Phnom tree – also known as Cinnamomum parathenoxylon. The roots are first chopped into small blocks of wood and shredded into fibre consistency. This is then put into large metal vats two metres high and about three metres wide. It is distilled over a wood-driven fire for at least five days before the gas is cooled and the oil created.

Apart from depleting the Mreah Prew Phnom, large numbers of surrounding trees are felled to maintain the fires, undermining the area’s biodiversity. At the current rate, Mr Bradfield said, the Mreah Prew Phnom and other species would become extinct in the near future.

Animal life is also threatened. Deep in the jungle, the factories, which have two or three distilling pots each, are heavily guarded and require dozens workers to maintain the stills. These workers live on the surrounding wildlife in the area, with many involved in the commercial poaching of such rare animals as tigers, pangolins, peacocks, pythons, wild cats and wild fowls.

Streams and rivers are being polluted too by the effluent from the oil production. “There are frequently dead fish and frogs floating in the streams near these distilleries,” Mr Bradfield said.

The contaminated water from this area flows down into the rest of Cambodia through the Mekong and Ton Le Sap rivers and, said Mr Bradfield, poses a threat to populations downstream who rely on the rivers for drinking water. “Water tests in the area need to be carried out as a matter of urgency,” he said.

Four years ago the Cambodian government made the production of sassafras oil illegal in an effort to protect the Mreah Prew Phnom tree. Since then the authorities have tried to eliminate the illicit production factories in the Cardamom Mountains with the help of international organisations.

“Law enforcement is the key to suppressing the illegal trade in sassafras oil,” said Mr Pedersen, the Cambodia UNODC chief. “It’s a very lucrative trade, worth millions and millions of dollars.”

About 50 rangers from the forestry ministry, with the support of independent conservation groups and the UN, are currently policing the area; Mr Bradfield refers to them as “the foot soldiers protecting the forests”.

The rangers spend half the month patrolling the dense, leech-infested jungle of the Cardamom Mountains for a meagre salary, Mr Bradfield said, and face the threat of the machine-gun-carrying mercenaries who guard the factories. Many of the factories are also surrounded by anti-personnel mines.

Flora and Fauna International has supported the rangers for years, providing them with uniforms, equipment and training. They assist in building ranger stations and provide technical advice. The UN Development Fund also supported the project between 2004 and 2006.

The rangers’ task is made all the more difficult because of the potential profits smugglers can make from the trade and the lengths they will go to protect their product.

A year ago the Thai authorities seized more than 50 tonnes of sassafras oil near the Cambodian border on its way to China and the US, according to western anti-narcotics agents who declined to be identified, reported to be worth US$150,000 (Dh550,000).

Had it found its destination, where it would have been used to make ecstasy – it would have produced 7.5 million tablets worth more than $150 million, a western anti-narcotics agent said.

ljagan@thenational.ae

Housing the Correct People

The Phnom Penh Post contains a wonderful juxtaposition of articles this week. On the one hand, the show is apparently over for the Renakse Hotel with municipal officials seizing the hotel and stripping it in anticipation of it's forthcoming demolition one imagines, the site to be used for housing government officials.

And on the other, an article on the low income housing policies, or lack thereof in the city of Phnom Penh:

Low-income housing plan lacking as capital grows
Written by Thomas Gam Nielsen
Wednesday, 07 January 2009

As urbanisation proceeds in Phnom Penh, experts worry that the housing needs of the city’s poorest residents are being ignored in the development plan

Housing advocates are urging the government to make a long-term political commitment to low-cost housing and develop a comprehensive plan to house Phnom Penh's rapidly growing population.

In most need of support are the urban poor who need to live in central locations if they are to make an income, said Din Somethearith, program manager for UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlement Program.

"They work at markets and street-food vendors and they cannot afford living too far outside of the city centre," he said, adding that these are the same areas where land prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

Din Somethearith said the government needed to develop a comprehensive urban plan for Phnom Penh with guidelines for low-income housing to accommodate urban growth. According to UN projections, the population of Phnom Penh will swell by around one million people to nearly 2.5 million by 2020.

French-chartered architect, urbanist and architecture historian Helen Grant Ross, who has lived in Phnom Penh since 1997, said the dense shop-house developments currently cropping up in the capital were not the answer.

"It seems that this is the only kind of low-cost housing being produced at present, and it is too expensive for the poor, who are forced out of town more and more."

Planning lacking

Even for those who could afford them, the developments did not appear to be part of a citywide plan, lacking public facilities such as schools, health centres, public space, green space and infrastructure.

The government needed to take responsibility for guiding developers and ensuring housing for the poor, Grant Ross said, although she was not hopeful it would happen.

"Providing housing for a population where demography has one of the highest birth rates in the world, and where the rural population is continually seeking to move to the towns, is challenging in any country," she said.

"It requires political commitment and long-term planning. In one that has such a high record of nepotism and corruption as Cambodia's where there doesn't seem to be any public commitment to this issue, it's true that the only solution is private initiative.

"[But], if a miracle happened and there was a public commitment to providing housing for the urban poor who live on less than a $1 dollar a day, the most important thing is to provide the basic infrastructure, such as drains, water supply and electricity."

The most important thing is to provide the basic infrastructure.

Meagre beginnings

Phnom Penh Municipality has taken its first steps towards developing a comprehensive plan for the city, and the so-called Master Plan of Phnom Penh by 2020 document does pay consideration to urban housing.

It talks of the need for a larger private rental market with affordable housing and of a need to upgrade the many informal settlements that still can be found around the city.

Many of these ideas have found support among local and international housing advocates who say that they are willing to work with the municipal government and other relevant government bodies.

But the 2020 Master Plan is still languishing at the Council of Ministers, where it has been awaiting approval for more than a year.

In the meantime, a number of NGOs and the Urban Poor Development Fund (UPDF), which was established in 1998 as a joint venture between the Solidarity and Urban Poor Federation (SUPF) and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), have provided a variety of solutions.

UPDF has from the beginning been chaired by Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Mann Chhoeun, who is in charge of poverty reduction in the municipality. It helps communities that have been evicted from their homes and relocated to other areas, as well as families still living in informal settlements in the city centre, by giving housing loan and providing grants and technical support for settlement upgrades.

According to UPDF communication officer and architect Sok Visal, more than 14,000 families in Phnom Penh have received loans and grants, and 123 communities have been assisted through initiatives including new walkways, drains, wells and the building of community centres.

At its 10th anniversary last year, UPDF prepared an exhibition of low-income houses that it said would cost between $500 and $2,000 to build. "The types were based on typical Khmer traditions such as wooden houses on stilts," Sok Visal said.

Empowering people and communities through schemes such as this would also encourage people to make improvements in their own lives, he added. "This is a way for the people to improve their own houses and share knowledge about building techniques."

Past precedent
Consideration for the poor in urban planning is not without precedent in Cambodia. As Grant Ross documented in her book Building Cambodia: New Khmer Architecture 1953-1970, which she co-authored with Darryl Collins, Norodom Sihanouk presided over a period of great experimentation in mass housing development.

During the period, housing was systematically incorporated into university, health and industrial developments, including the Royal University of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian-Russian Friendship hospital and the SKD Brewery.

The National Bank of Cambodia built housing for its staff in Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh and also developed what became known as the 100 Houses development. It was an experiment in private ownership for low income groups and was designed by renowned Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann.

"Between 1953 and 1970 the population of Phnom Penh tripled yet there was adequate housing for all," Grant Ross said. "Private investment was also encouraged as Phnom Penh Municipality developed land with roads, drainage water and electricity, and sold plots to private developers.

"The latter had to use the plans provided by the municipality that ensured a certain standard of construction and hygiene. Hence the whole of Phnom Penh west of Monivong was developed."

Meas Sokheng, an architect at housing rights group Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, said a similar approach could be used today.

"[Houses] could be built in cooperation with the private sector, if there was a clear policy that when they develop, a certain number of apartments should be [set aside] for low-income people," he said.

He added that the government or municipality could also build houses for poor people, with buyers paying the money back in monthly rates or on a lease-to-buy basis.

However, Din Somethearith from UN-Habitat said the city should concentrate on improving the many informal settlements around the city and only build new developments where necessary to accommodate the growing population.

"Rich countries like Singapore or Taiwan can build social housing for the urban poor," he said. "But poor countries cannot only rely on this."

He referred to Thailand as the best regional example of how the two approaches could be combined. The country has both a National Housing Authority, which builds low-rent houses in the big cities, and the government also runs an upgrade scheme in cooperation with the Community Organizations Development Institute in which communities in city-networks can apply for grants and loans to build according to their own needs and desires.

"The poor cannot catch up with the market," Din Somethearith said.
"That is why we need a social housing scheme to have some places for the poor to live."

The Gupta Chronicles

I am not a particular fan of either Sanjay Gupta or Michael Moore, though I certainly share much of Moore's political outlook. But with a lot of people getting all gooey with the prospect CNN's Gupta writing cigarette pack copy I thought it might be good to recall the exchange between Gupta and Moore over the latter's documentary on the American health system. I'm not saying I'd rather have Moore as Surgeon General but Gupta's performance in this dispute did not particularly impress. From Huffington Post, July 2007:

Live Chatting With Michael Moore: Apparently The Only Way He Can Get A Word In Edgewise

Rachel Sklar
July 11, 2007

Does it compromise my journalistic objectivity to say that Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a dick? Probably, but it was my strong and continuous impression during last night's "discussion" with Michael Moore on Larry King Live regarding Gupta's allegations that Moore "fudged the facts" in his documentary, Sicko. Perhaps I was biased because I had just seen Sicko, and was still reeling from its terrible tales of HMOs withholding urgent medical care, bankrupting families with heavy co-pays and deductibles, and institutionalizing the practice of cutting costs through active denial of health care. Or perhaps it was because Gupta ran a report impugning Moore's fact that had one glaring factual error that he grudgingly acknowledged as an "error of transcription" — two weeks after the report ran and re-ran on CNN, uncorrected — despite the fact that CNN had been emailed the correct facts by Moore's team prior to the original broadcast.

But wait, Wolf Blitzer assures us that Gupta "is not only a doctor and neurosurgeon, but he's also an excellent, excellent journalist" — I'm probably not being fair. So let's just say that, in the case of a doctor and neurosurgeon who is also an excellent, excellent journalist but happens to impugn the credibility and accuracy of someone else with a report that is itself factually incorrect and otherwise fudged in various respects and fails to acknowledge that and then, when asked to respond to Moore's assertion that the correct fact had been sent to Gupta's team and that the fact as run was incorrect, responds "Well, you know, look, we try and look for some of the best sources that we can possibly find, because we think we owe that to our viewers" — well, I'm just going to delicately suggest that a word to describe such behavior might be "dickish."

Here's the ludicrous part: The match-up was supposed to address Moore's complaint about Gupta's "hit piece," as Moore calls it, giving the two the opportunity to square off on the facts. Instead, Moore found himself in the rare position of being shouted down, with King cutting him off to give Gupta the floor the event turned into a two-on-one wherein Larry King would interrupt Moore to give the floor to Gupta and then Gupta would refuse to let Moore break in (Moore: "That's not true." Gupta: "Give me one second, Michael. Let me just finish"). King also gave Gupta the floor after the two commercial breaks. If you read the transcript or watch the vids, you'll see: Moore cites his source for every statistic offered (and, indeed, those cites are available in detail on his website), yet Gupta ignores it, all of it, including Moore restating, again, that all of this was available in this email from June 28, 2007. See this, for example:

GUPTA: Just because you say they're wrong, I mean it doesn't make it so, Michael. I mean we try and do what you do. We try and get the best available data --

MOORE: I'm not the one saying it's wrong. President Bush says you're wrong.

KING: Michael, don't interrupt. Don't interrupt.

MOORE: (LAUGHTER).

GUPTA: We -- you took issue with the ranking of the United States health care versus Cuba, 37 versus 39. We used World Health Organization data. We used the World Health Organization data for the numbers that you just heard in terms of per capita spending. We used the World Health Organization data for mortality rates, as well.

I mean you say that was flatly untrue in terms of -- of the mortality in Cuba versus the mortality in the United States. Michael, you just can't say things like that without backing it up.

But Moore does back it up, with World Health Organization statistics, on his website and in the email sent to Gupta's producer. Now, it's entirely legitimate for there to be different metrics and sources for this data — but where Moore makes a statement rooted in a specific and credible source, it is up to Gupta to explain why that source is incorrect if he is going to impugn Moore's facts. Nowhere does Gupta do this; and, indeed, in his original report, all the facts about other countries are made using vague and ill-defined criteria ("A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem" — fine, but what kind of medical problem? Urgent care, like the baby with the 104 fever who was turned away from a non-HMO affiliated hospital and subsequently died? And apparently in France, "Fifteen-to-20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government" — but what kind of services? Liposuction? Pyschotherapy? Again, anything urgent?). And meanwhile, Gupta keeps trying to insist that Moore is "fudging" when he says that in those countries, healthcare is free ("it's murky, Michael, at best"). I'm not sure if Gupta saw the same movie that I did, but in Sicko the Canadians, British and French all readily acknowledge that the money for healthcare comes from taxes — just like roads, the postal service and schools, as Moore plainly states in the film. "Free" is clearly defined in Sicko as not having to pay for health care because it is provided. If Gupta doesn't understand that, maybe he isn't a dick after all, maybe he's just a moron — or, maybe he just assumes everyone in his audience is. (Which makes him a dick.)

Fortunately, CNN isn't the only game in town — here at the Huffington Post, we welcomed Moore for a live chat following his appearance on Larry King Live — where he could answer questions free from interruption and provide all sorts of facts — backed up, of course, by links. Moore answered twelve questions from readers following the programme in real time, and the post already has 398 comments and counting. In the meantime, enjoy the screengrab to the right — it's of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's "transcription error" regarding the per capita cost of health care in Cuba, which ran numerous times on CNN, and which remains uncorrected on at least two transcripts from two different shows. Feh, what's a little fudging between friends?

Michael Moore: Exclusive HuffPost Live Chat [HuffPost]
E-Mail Shows CNN, Gupta Given The Right Facts Before Getting Them Wrong [HuffPost]
Michael Moore Takes on CNN, Mainstream Media [Newshounds]
SiCKO Factual Backup [MichaelMoore.com]

Tim Page in Phnom Penh

Photographer Tim Page returned to Cambodia to raise a bit of money and further his progress in sorting out the details of the disappearance of his friends Sean Flynn and Dana Stone at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. An exhibit of Page's photos is at Meta House (street 264 between 7 and 19) through the seventh of this month. They won't be showing it again at Meta House, but if you have a chance to see the "Danger at the Edge of Town" documentary about Page's quest I recommend it highly.

The Phnom Penh Post interview with Page can be found here.

As he usually does, Andy Brouwer scooped me on a review of the event last night -- I went for a bbq pork sandwich at Sharky's then crashed early instead of blogging -- and you'll find Andy's post here. Andy was lucky to get a front row seat. I think I got an awfully good photo of Page considering that it was taken from the very back of the dimly lit room, with the Nikon 18-200mm lens at maximum extension (that's a full-frame equivalent of 300mm), f5.6 and 1/30. Thank god for image stabilization. What a dandy of a lens.

The Cuban Revolution Turns 50

28 years ago today I was welcoming in the new year at the beach resort town of Guardalavaca, Cuba. It was a magical night for me, and I imagine not a bad one for any of us, Cubans, foreign workers and travelers from all over the world who celebrated with bottle after bottle of bad Bulgarian wine and fine Cuban rum. My traveling companions were all passionate supporters of the revolution, as was I, and our celebraton came three weeks before the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as president. For Cubans, it was a time of great trepidation. Banners warning the incoming president that he would not undo the revolution hung everywhere. During that three week trip I traveled from one end of the island to the other, saw the schools and hospitals of which the Cubans are so rightly proud, visited the apartment blocks and parks built by volunteer brigades, and experienced a genuine internationalist spirit which would move Cubans to tears when speaking of the plight of their brothers and sisters whose struggles they supported. I felt the presence of the Cuban intelligence apparatus often on the one hand, but enjoyed the seemingly boundless hospitality and generosity of the Cuban friends I made on the other. On that new year's eve we partied until any fear of the future with Ronald Reagan was far far away.

Of course, there was a girl -- I was 24 after all. Her name was Diana, Diana Ilcia Hernandez to be precise, she was student, a proud communist supporter of Fidel and the revolution, and having some Chinese heritage, "una china". God did we have a good time that night. Enjoying a holiday with her university friends in Guardalavaca, Diana lived with her family in Old Havana, so towards the end of the trip when I got back to Havana, I went to see her. Like all loyal revolutionaries, she did her duty with the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, and as I happened to visit on one of the nights she was assigned that duty, I stayed up until morning with her, talking about Cuba, my life in the US, politics, music, communicating as best we could given my high school Spanish. I was smitten. I hated to leave Diana, hated to leave Cuba.

The romance of those two evenings with Diana notwithstanding, the presence of Cuban Intelligence agents watching over my Cuban friends was a dark cloud which hung over that trip, and over the years I became less and less convinced of the excuses for Castro's dictatorial rule. When I finally did go back to Cuba after 20 years it was without any illusions about the disconnect between the ideals of the revolution and the practice of the Cuban state. I still enjoyed that second visit, but it was a different Cuba that I experienced.

Today Cuba celebrates 50 years since "los barbudos" rode into a Havana to a joyous, hopeful reception and I'll celebrate with a mojito or two tonight, in the hopes that with Obama and Raul in power that the next years will see better days for the Cubans who put their faith in Fidel and his revolution and deserve so much better.

My daughter would love Cuban music I'm sure. I hope it's that better Cuba when she's old enough that I can take her there.



More Cuba pics here.