Christmas in Prague

Prague is one of the best cities in which to have Christmas nowadays. It's starting to compete with the Western craze of Christmas-y things starting sometime in October. Besides the nice little lights and trees that are scattered in the cubbies of the city, there are also various outdoor markets that sell, among other things, hot apple wine (which I had today and it was yum yum in the tum tum), grog, trdelnik, EVERY KIND OF CHEESE EVER INVENTED EVER, sausages, potato chips on a stick, pork on a spit, coffee, homemade ornaments, fluffy wool slippers and gloves, souvenirs, beer, honey products, shiny things, table cloths and doilies, and other stuff. 

I went exploring today in the market in the Old Town square. Here are the photos. 

The Hostel Chronicles, Episode 4: Am I Drunk or Are You Really That Drunk?

So, drunks.

Yeah. They turn me into a sad panda. Or more like a passive-aggressive panda.

Working day shift at a hostel, I don't have to see too much of this interesting species. Most of the crazy shit (literally, real shit on real things) happens at night. Unfortunately, I do have to deal with the day-after drunks. The ones who had so much the night before that they remain soused throughout the following afternoon.

It's like trying to speak to a toddler who is just learning to speak. They bite their lips, hang their head, chuckle to themselves, slap their palms on the desk every so often as though it were a proper mode of communication, say "hey" every two words, talk so softly you mistake them for a pigeon, and lastly, THEY NEVER LEAVE RECEPTION. They just stand there, leaning just enough so that their vodka breath hovers right into your face, and they have no idea who they are or what they really want from you. Yet they seem to have some sort of mission. Something inside them is telling them they need to talk to me, they need to ask me where I'm from, what I'm doing here, where I'm from, am I addicted to cakes, because cakes are like crack, damn cakes are goooooooood.

At first it's kind of funny. You just smile to yourself and thank your lucky stars you're not so stupid as to ever become THAT inebriated. In fact, these drunks seem to be your entertainment. Haha! Look at that one fail miserably to climb the stairs! I can see him stumble and hit his face on the security camera! Haha! I can see drunken naked butts on the camera too! And they don't even realize it! Ha ha ha ha! ha... ha... heh..... ahem.... eh.

Yeah, not so funny, actually. Not when it happens over and over and over and over again. Naked butts on the cameras--no matter how muscular--lose their appeal fast. You get to a point when you just want to slap them all back into reality. *Slap* You cannot act like this on a regular basis! *slap* Why do you do this? You sleep all day and see nothing of the beautiful, magical city! *slap* You smell! *slap* For the hundredth time my hair color is natural and I'm from America and I do like cakes but not that much!

A Dash of Chekhov, Che, and Murakami

So...I'm a nerd. When I read books, I like to underline quotes and passages that affect me in some way. Then I usually scribble in the margins a word or two to describe my feelings, which are usually "wtf," "blatant sexism," or "this is greatest thing I've ever read."

I could write a thousand posts about the former two reactions, but I think today I'll go for the latter. I'm just going to leave the interpretation up to you, the reader. Here are some quotes that I found particularly effective, and hopefully so will you.

A ponderous Chekhov, pondering
life's ponderous points

This is from Anton Chekhov's short story Gooseberries. The character Ivan Ivanych (so original...) went off on a social commentary as Chekhov's character are wont to do from time to time:

"[...] Just take a look at this life of ours and you will see the arrogance and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak. Everywhere there's unspeakable poverty, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy and stupid lies . . . And yet peace and quiet reign in every house and street. Out of fifty thousand people you won't find one who is prepared to shout out loud and make a strong protest. We see people buying food in the market, eating during the day, sleeping at night-time, talking nonsense, marrying, growing old and then contentedly carting their dead off to the cemetery. But we don't hear or see those who suffer: the real tragedies of life are enacted somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is calm and peaceful and the only protest comes from statistics--and they can't talk. Figures show that so many went mad, so many bottles of vodka were emptied, so many children died from malnutrition. And clearly this kind of system is what people need. It's obvious that the happy man feels contented only because the unhappy ones bear their burden without saying a word: if it weren't for their silence, happiness would be quite impossible. It's a kind of mass hypnosis. Someone ought to stand with a hammer at the door of every happy contented man, continually banging on it to remind him that there are unhappy people around and that however happy he may be at the time, sooner or later life will show him its claws and disaster will overtake him in the form of illness, poverty, bereavement and there will be no one to hear or see him. But there isn't anyone holding a hammer, so our happy man goes his own sweet way and is only gently ruffled by life's trivial cares, as an aspen is ruffled by the breeze. All's well as far as he's concerned."

Che receiving a lei. (Omg that rhymed!)

This next quote is from an iconic yet rather debated figure, Che Guevara. (I highly recommend reading his
diaries of the Cuban Revolution.) He mentions something very close to my heart: learning the stories of El Pueblo. From August 20th, 1960:

"We must then begin to erase our old concepts and come ever closer and ever more critically to the people. Not in the way we got closer before, because all of you will say: 'No, I am a friend of the people. I enjoy talking with workers and peasants, and on Sundays I go to such and such a place to see such and such a thing.' Everybody has done that. But they have done it practicing charity, and what we have to practice today is solidarity. We should not draw closer to the people to say: 'Here we are. We come to give you the charity of our presence, to teach you with our science, to demonstrate your errors, your lack of refinement, your lack of elementary knowledge.' We should go with an investigative zeal and with a humble spirit, to learn from the great source of wisdom that is the people."

Murakami being Mura-kickass

These last quotes are from one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, in his novel Sputnik Sweetheart (I highly highly highly recommend this short yet life-altering book.) These passages relate back very closely to Chekhov's quote about silence and living without changing anything.

"So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives with way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness." (Page 225)

"Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly, lost. Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can disappear, melding together in a single, overlapping figure. And as we live our lives we discover--drawing towards us the thin threads attached to us--what has been lost. I closed my eyes and tried to bring to mind as many beautiful lost things as I could. Drawing them closer, holding on to them. Knowing all the while that their lives are fleeting." (Page 226)

Another Lewis Carroll Comic

"God Alice, why did I make
you such a dweeb?"

Most everyone knows Lewis Carroll was the 19th-century author who wrote the greatest children's novel ever written ever end of story thank you goodbye. (Alice in Wonderland, duh.)

But besides being a writer, he was also a mathematician and professor at Oxford, a notable photographer, and Anglican deacon. That's all well and good. So what makes him interesting?

Lewis Carroll, since an early age, suffered from a habitual stammer. This is not a stutter (where certain consonants are repeated) but a hesitation of speech. Via The Stuttering Foundation: One longtime friend, May Barber, described Carroll's speech, "Those stammering bouts were rather terrifying. It wasn't exactly a stammer because there was no noise, he just opened his mouth... When he was in the middle of telling a story....he suddenly stopped and you wondered if you had done anything wrong. Then you looked at him and you knew that you hadn't, it was all right. You got used to it after a bit. He fought it wonderfully."

Carroll developed a reputation as being a quiet and somewhat terribly boring mathematics professor at Oxford, and I'm sure the stammer didn't help.

This got me thinking. I wanted to make a comic about Carroll's stammer, because it's always better to turn tragedy into comedy, isn't it? So the following is my reasoning behind the stammer and what might've been REALLY going on there....

I Made A Website, And It's Called....

...The Alligator! A free online literary magazine!

This is The Alligator's mascot,
Al Dappergator

I can see your excited faces now, as you read this. Except your faces are not so excited as they are void of any emotional connection whatsoever to the line above.

That's ok!

The Alligator is this literary magazine that my friend Julia Morrison began last year. We've had guest writers publish their work along with our hardworking staff, whose work is always interesting, even when we have to squeeze it out of them two days before the publishing deadline.

So for all you aspiring artists out there, whether you're a writer, a painter, a musician who has a slew of self-recorded songs just sitting around in your hard drive, a drawer of comics, just a drawer, or any other sort of artist, let it be known that your work is desired at The Alligator. We can't guarantee work will be published, but we guarantee personal feedback for everything you submit.

Right now our editor (me) is looking for new work for Volume Two. Please go to www.alligatormagazine.com to find out how to submit and also to read this month's volume!

The Hostel Chronicles, Episode 3: Meanies

The highlight of working at a hostel and being a writer at the same time is that I get a ton of ideas for characters. Each person you meet in a day has the potential to spark a new life--albeit a fictional life. You have your magnetic travel mongers, your shy, questioning first-timers, your easy-going sight-seers, your logical planners, etc. And within these categories come multitudinous layers of being and personality. As a hostel worker, I get to witness all the niceness and warmth of humanity like a gentle coastal wave.

Then, you get the meanies.

Visual approximation of a meanie

Oh, do they exist, and they come at you like swinging pendulums of doom, like car crashes and bad milk. They rot your day into a tiny piece of sidewalk chewing gum and you don't recover until that night or even the next morning (preferably after a couple glasses of wine). 

Most of the time it happens because people are not aware of what a hostel is and how it works. Yesterday I had a group of 8 dudes from Amsterdam, and two came waltzing in (never a good sign when someone waltzes into reception, especially not if they're wearing neon yellow reflector vests). They shot questions at me about the amenities: breakfast, towels, internet, etc. I answered them congenially. Then... they asked about parking. Alas, there is none at the hostel that's private. Nowhere in the entire city is there private parking for businesses. It's all on the street. Old city with crazily winding roads and alleyways = driver's nightmare. So I explained to the young men the situation, apologizing for the confusion. They were having none of it and glared at me as though I were some hired stripper who refused to take her clothes off. Yeah. That bad.

These boys continued to screech at me, demanding discounts and what have you, and of course I couldn't offer them that. They made me call my poor manager (who was in the middle of getting her hair cut) and bother her. On and on it went, they threatened me with "horrible reviews" the likes of which I'd never seen before.... Just all-around meanies, ya know?

"And they were as mean
as sun-dazzled bats..."

So, since there was nothing I could do or say to console them, I took a good mental picture of the leaders of the group, and decided to add them to my list of future story villains and antagonists. Oh yes. You know that t-shirt that says, "Watch out, you might end up in my novel"? Well, it's factual. And I'm not afraid to use names, either. Everyone will know who the villains are and what they did!

Anyway, like I said, the meanies are people who refuse to let things go and are handling a situation in an irrational manner that hurts everybody involved. Even if you're upset, if you're dealing with someone who is being kind and trying to help you through it, you don't treat them like trash still. You just don't. That's not the warmth of humanity, that's the cloud of meanness that shows how afraid you are of the world deep down inside your mean little soul. That's my humble opinion. (And those guys WILL end up in my novel. And they will be sorry.)

Besides... why drive when you can go by Segway?

Oooooh, mama.

The Hostel Chronicles, Episode 2: The Icelandic Elves

I met an Icelandic man the other day at work. He made a big impression on me as a person, but even more so with his stories of home....

With hair as fair as a silver mountain top, he glowed like a Chinese lantern in the night. Eyes a distilled water blue, and skin pasty yet not underexposed. I could tell he'd seen many winter days--or nights, rather. Iceland's winters come with impenetrable darkness, usually about 20 hours a day of it. For 4 hours you may see a bit of sunlight, but the rest of the time... I couldn't imagine it. No wonder he looked nocturnal, with cavernous irises like a Slow Loris. His demeanor was also slow, but not without energy. A gentle soul, that Icelandic Man.

Iceland's terrain. Yep, I'd totally live there.

And in the summer? Well, daylight nonstop. At one in the morning, it may look the way six in the morning looks to us here in Prague. They have to use black curtains and eye masks to get to sleep. The sun never goes away. I thought, too much sun is just as bad as too little sun. How could someone stand it? But if you've lived there your whole life, I suppose there's nothing strange about it.

Icelandic Man told me about the snowy mountains, the greenery to rival Ireland's, the capes and forests and beautiful rock formations... If you love the beauty of nature, go to Iceland. But besides Reykjavik, there isn't much as far as towns go. He said they don't like to call them villages, but towns. That's very important. Villages is a word reserved for a different kind of habitation, that of the elves.

An elvish village, complete will little water well.
Yep, I'd totally live there. 

Yes, elves. Trolls as well, but he didn't get into those as much. In a voice as serious as a box of explosives, he described how elves live in the forests and mountainsides, in mysterious little stone houses with grass roofs, and how roads and buildings are built around these sites in respect for the elves' territories. Elves are sly little creatures who--when they have any excuse--will disarm and betray you. That's how they get their kicks. "They're certainly not like Lord of the Rings elves," said Icelandic Man. "Our elves are small and grim. They're ugly little tricksters." For instance, if a car driving by an elvish village doesn't stop by the side of the road to leave a gift, the rest of the journey might be cursed... If a hiker wants to pass by an elvish village safely, he must bring along either a poem to recite to the elves, or, even better, a piece of silver.

Small and grim? How 'bout compact and broodingly sexy?

So if you're planning on visiting Iceland, remember to pack your grandmother's silver cutlery, or your old silver costume jewelry, or maybe even a nice silver goblet. If you want to pay respects to the elves (and trust me, you want to) then you must have gifts. Icelanders take their non-human creatures very seriously, almost religiously. It was a whole other cultural phenomenon I'd never encountered. What could be more magical?

Next stop for me, the ever-whimsical traveler: Iceland. 

The Hostel Chronicles, Episode 1: To Pee, Or Not To Pee?

When you're living in a foreign country and can (basically) only speak English (I mean, I can cough up some German here and there, maybe discuss the weather: "Das Wetter ist schlimm, es hat den ganzen Tag geregnet!"...not exactly helpful for the German-speaking guest who just asked me if they can pay in Euros), there are two jobs available to you: teach English to foreigners (blech!) or work in a hostel as a receptionist (blarg?). I chose the latter.

Little did I know that each day at work would bring something different, no day like any other, and that the sheer amount of people I meet within the span of my 12-hour shifts would make for VERY interesting stories and, as you will soon discover, blog entries.

I've decided to create weekly episodes dedicated to my job as a hostel bitch receptionist, and illustrate for my readers the good, bad, and the ugly parts of dealing with so many diverse peoples. (Not to mention my bosses, who offer their own story plots dramatic enough for best-selling paperback novels.)

Note: All names shall be changed to protect to anonymity--plus I just can't remember all the guests' names, otherwise my brain's 8.32 Gigs of memory space would overflow. 

During my shifts, I sometimes have time to scribble some words down in an e-mail to myself diary-style, which later gives me a good overview of my day, and of any potentially blog-worthy experiences with guests. This episode is about my paranoia about going to pee during my shift. You see, the hostel I work in has a locked main door that is only accessible with a key-code, so guests coming to check-in have to press a call button; upon pressing said call button, a piercing, screeching, panic-inducing ring issues from a phone at my desk, alerting me to the present luggage-burdened danger guests outside the door. When I'm at the desk, it's simple: I pick up the receiver, ask blithely, "Hostel reception, hello?" And the guest answers with either a cheerful "Hi, I have a room booked for tonight" or a stiff "Can you let me in?" No big deal, not at all.

But. Sometimes, just sometimes, I have to leave the desk. You know, to pee. Or, chase down the cleaning ladies. Or, search out the source of the obnoxiously loud dub-step (usually on third floor, and we don't have an elevator). 

Here, ladies and gentleman, is a first-hand account of this dilemma that plagues me each time I work: To pee, or not to pee?   

"It's that time of day when you don't know whether you should risk running to the bathroom or hold it as long as possible, because 3 different guests should be coming at 2pm, and it's already 2:48, so by logic they should all be swarming here at the same time, in about fifteen minutes. If logic goes the way it does in hostels, which is that everyone shows up at once, whoever didn't show up at the correct time. And one is a group of six. FML. oh well. I guess they'll be nice. But anyway, as I was saying, you're always thinking to yourself, should I go lock and door and run to the bathroom, or will they come to the door during those ten minutes I'm away from the desk? What if someone calls? I won't be able to help them. They'll be standing at the door wondering wtf is going on. And so I hold it, thinking ok, they'll show up any minute, and I'd rather be here at the desk when they do, than hear the buzzer going off inside the bathroom with my pants at my ankles and unable to move...and I'd worry about washing my hands, and if I should go for it and feel clean, or just flush and run and touch the pens and papers that the guests also touch.Then, feeling the liquidy pressure on my bladder, I think, I'll shout "Just a minute!" but of course they wouldn't hear me, and they'd probably get increasingly frustrated waiting outside the door, not knowing how to get in. They'd probably walk away, or start busting down the door! Omg, what do I do? I've drunk three bottles of water in the past two hours! Fuck! The bathroom's five yards away, I can do it--no, no, I can't! It's Murphey's Law! As soon as I stand up--Brriiiiinngggg!!! Oh, why do simple bodily functions get tried in court when you work at reception???!! It should be an easy answer! Go! Go pee!!!! But, but that ringing...that ringing is like, Satan laughing at a kitten dying from feline AIDs.... okay, I'll hold it."

Guantanamo Must Go...Cont.

If you haven't read my earlier post regarding the evil that is Guantanamo Bay Prison, do so here.

This situation has gotten increasingly worse for not only the inmates but for the American people, who ultimately are affected negatively by the bad reputation this slight on human rights has caused around the globe. Whether you know it or not, you are affected by Guantanamo in multiple ways: millions of your tax dollars are being spent to run the prison as well as the useless, private military tribunals taking place; America's reputation as a country that fights for human rights and fights against torture is being warped by the double standard of Guantanamo, leaving other countries a reason to excuse their own use of torture and illegal imprisonment (i.e. why can't we do it? the U.S. is doing it!); Guantanamo impedes on our supposed moral standing and creates hostile environments around the world even more hostile for U.S. citizens.

Not to mention the elephant in the room that no one in government or elsewhere seems to be addressing
, which is that the Cuban people themselves DO NOT want this prison on their soil any longer. While the prison may be out of sight, out of mind for us, it isn't for the people who live near it or even work there for a living and have to witness the injustice that occurs daily.

Obama made us a promise in 2009 that he would make efforts to shut down the prison. Congress hindered the efforts along the way, for years and years, making the situation for the inmates more and more hopeless as they continued to linger in illegal limbo. 80 prisoners have been cleared for release, yet they have yet to be let go. To me, this is just plain negligence. Something must be done.

My petition to Congress to shut down Guantanamo has reached 78 signatures so far. The word continues to spread, all over the U.S., and even in other countries like Germany, Mexico, Canada, and Czech Republic. The whole world cares about this, and we as Americans should care, too.

Sign the petition here and help put an end to this illegal and unconstitutional madness.

Random Portrait #2: Brahms and Chopin

Thanks for tuning in for another addition of "Random Portrait"! This month's entry is a double, featuring two of my favorite composers, Johannes Brahms and Frederic Chopin.

"Hey. Trying to write symphonies after Beethoven made me go half crazy, so I went the absolutism route and wrote music without meaning. Not so sure it worked. Plus I was totally into Clara Schumann who was already married to another crazy man. So I got fat and grew an epic beard. Damn you, Beethoven!"

"Hey. My gf was a writer and tended to dress like a man. I had bad lungs and was weak most of my life, but dude did I write a crap ton of great music, including my famous 24 preludes. I'll bet you've heard Prelude No. 4 at least a thousand times. I made piano music cool in the mid-1800s. Yeah, I'm legendary."

These portraits were done by pencil by me, Marika. Feel free to share them, print them out, hang them on your bedroom wall so you can stare at them on sleepless nights... you know the drill.

Who will be the next Random Portrait? Probably whoever Marika is obsessed with by next month's addition! (My attention span is grossly limited.)

Ed Asner's Political Short Tickles My Political Fancy

Yes, I have strong opinions about politics. Who doesn't, really? It's like saying, "Confession: I have a tongue. Let me proceed to shock you with it."

Anyway, one of my political opinions is simply that absolute truth should be the absolute goal when informing the people about the state of our still fat-cheeked-burping-and-slurping-baby union. (Imagine the 50 States with a diaper covering Texas, a bow on baby-fuzz-head Alaska, and a bottle nipple stuck in the rut of Manhattan. Yerp, preeetty infantile.)

I've often thought about how exactly our country ended up on the verge of that horrifying "fiscal cliff"; or, as the anti-climax of the new year came and went, the "fiscal hill."

How, I wondered, is the gap between rich and poor getting bigger and Bigger and BIGGER? How come the formerly sturdy middle class is getting siphoned down a drain of unfortunate economic circumstances and joining the discontented ranks of the dirt poor?

And,

HOW COME NO ONE'S POINTING TO THE EVER-RICHER RICH PEOPLE WITH THEIR TOILET PAPER MADE FROM THOSE SILLY FIVE DOLLAR BILLS? I MEAN, WHO USES THOSE ANYMORE? THEY'RE PRACTICALLY LIKE THE PENNY.

Ed Asner, being the epic, sonorous-voiced man that he is, created this cartoon short about how exactly our little goo-goo-ga-ga country got to where it is. At just under 8 minutes long, it's definitely worth your time to watch. It doesn't matter if your views are right-winged or left-winged. Nobody can fly. No, this is about money and power, and what happens to those who have too much of it.

Watch:

Good Guy Richard III: Found At Last

Yes, it is time for another addition of Interesting Historical Folk. This month's feature is Richard III, King of All England for About 24 Months Before His Brutal Slaying in 1485.

Shakespeare demonized this young king in his plays, and it was commonly accepted that Richard had killed his two boy nephews to usurp the throne. Since then this guy's been portrayed in movies and books as sly, devious, and selfish, but hopefully that's going to change since the big news.

THE BIG NEWS: After almost 600 years, Richard's bones have been excavated from underneath a Leicester car park.

Wow. And I thought Waldo was winning the hiding game.

Besides the mtDNA testing that proved positive for Richard III, evidence in the bones of severe scoliosis helped solidify the archaeologists' discovery. Poor Richard had to toil through life with this ailment that set in during adolescence. According to Philippa Langley, a screenwriter and producer who has a special thing for this deceased monarch, the scoliosis just proves that Richard was adept and didn't let his imperfections get in the way of doing his duty:

Dem bones showing spine curvature.

"The scientists say you can't see character in bones--but for me, you kind of can. We have Richard III's itinerary. He had an incredibly powerful, strong work ethic. This man never stopped. He was on a horse every day, fighting skirmishes, doing everything they had to do. I've spoken to scoliosis experts and they say acute scoliosis like that was painful. So we know that he was working through the pain barrier every day just to do his job. That tells me about his character." Source here.

Maybe the usurping, child-murdering, evil-cackling king can yet be redeemed by this find, with some more historically correct study of his life. He implemented some great reforms once he became king that benefited the average working man, including the Court of Requests, where poor people who couldn't afford a lawyer could apply for their grievances to be heard; bail to protect suspected criminals before their trials; banned restrictions on the printing and sale of books (spread ALL the literature!); and he ordered the written laws to be translated from French to English so even the serf could understand them. Source here.

I hearby appoint Richard III as Good Guy Richard III, to be referred to hence.

BUT WAIT--THERE'S MORE!

Yes, you can't stop reading this post until you've seen the best part: the reconstruction of Good Guy Richard III's face using CT scans of his skull bones! Fascinating! I love how technology and science party together to give dead people back their faces.

And heeeeeeeeeeeere's the King! What a beauty!

I mean, just look at that chin. So formidable.

Another Source!

Random Portrait #1

Hello friends, because I dabble in sketching and like to draw random faces at random points in my day-to-day life, I've decided to create a segment of random posts called "Random Portraits."

Very random, indeed.

Sometimes a face just strikes me, whether from a magazine, off the street, a family member or friend, and I feel the need to capture their essence on paper.

So without further ado, I give you Random Portrait #1:

How random! It's Ian Somerhalder

Who will be Random Portrait #2? It's a mystery! Thanks for joining us, and see you next time on "Random Portraits"!

The Alligator: For the Suave Literary Gator in You

Dear Two and Three-Eighths People Who Read My Blog,

Have I got some great news for you! No, I didn't just win the lotto and decide to share my millions with you out of sheer gratitude. It's better!

I'd like to introduce you to my newest friend, Al Dappergator, official lord and mascot of the new literary magazine The Alligator, created by editorial genius friend Julia Morrison.

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, I'm sure."

Don't be fooled by his curling smirk or green-tinged, scaly flesh: Dappergator is a gentleman. AND his magazine is fresh, new, and full of amazing poems, stories, and soon to be other media such as original songs, drawings, comics, and essays. 

The Alligator seeks to be an all-inclusive creative outlet, and right now exhibits the talents of a small batch of contributors (of which I am a part). If you're looking for the literary experience but want a little extra, like laughter, befuddlement, tears, and all other kinds of emotions, visit www.alligatormagazine.com today and help Al Dappergator become the legendary gator of literature he's meant to be!

(Image is copyrighted to The Alligator, (c) 2013)

Guantanamo Must Go

Detainees hunker down inside the barbed wire fences
of Guantanamo

Perhaps you've heard something in the news about Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Perhaps you've heard about the controversies surrounding this place, one of the most notorious and expensive prisons in the world.

In September of 2012 it celebrated its eleventh birthday. It's growing up fast, but the situation is only growing bleaker for the 171 detainees still left in legal limbo behind the prison's high security bars.

During not one of Guantanamo's eleven years in business have human rights laws been followed. Prisoners were snatched off civilian streets when the terrorist craze after 9/11 hit the U.S. A 15-year old Canadian boy was captured and detained for 8 years without being formally charged, and was finally let go in 2009. An 89-year old Afghan man with senile dementia was captured and held. Out of a whopping 799 total detainees, only six have been convicted.

The rest wait in limbo as each day passes without hope for a fair trial. Many prisoners haven't been allowed to contact their families or lawyers. Torture techniques such as water-boarding, sleep deprivation, starvation, stress positions, thumb-screws, and drugs have all been used to draw out confessions or information that, ultimately, have proved useless due to the questionable ways in which they were gotten.

The U.S. Congress has not been helpful in getting Guantanamo closed. In fact, Congress recently signed a bill in mid December forbidding Obama to transfer detainees to U.S. prisons where they could receive more attention and rights. This is not progress. Obama has conveyed again and again his desire to close the prison, but Congress has thwarted his efforts along the way.

I wrote a detailed article about why Guantanamo should be closed, and it takes into account what I've explained here, but goes into even more atrocities that I don't have room for here. I'm planning on sending the article to a major newspaper. Next I developed a petition using change.org so that I could present Congress with a (hopefully) substantial list of people who also want Guantanamo shut down. Here is the link: http://www.change.org/petitions/u-s-congress-shut-down-guantanamo-bay-prison-once-and-for-all-2 

Please sign the petition and share it! This is a big problem that not only hurts the individual detainees, but also every American who must now suffer the consequences of a marred reputation due to their country's behavior. In this day and age, people like me shouldn't have to be fighting constantly for the human rights of others--rights are not privileges! They are automatic and indisputable. Help me remind Congress of that.


If you want some more information, go to Amnesty International's watch of the latest Guantanamo news: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/guant-namo-10-years-human-wrongs-2012-11-01

Thank you!