Hasta La Gadget!

Putin and Raul Castro together on Cuban television. (14ymedio)

“These are the last sweets!” The cry could be the simple proclamation of a candy seller, but I heard it 23 years ago at my high school in the countryside and it was the first evidence I had of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The person shouting was Olga, a student who resold what the wives of the Russian technicians in Alamar gave her. She was the bridge between our Cuban money, worth less every day, and a series of products such as candy and canned goods “Made in USSR.” I remember this teenager, who warned us of the coming of shortages, like a blind Tiresias, alerting us to the adiós of the “bowling pins” (as we called the Russians).

The old relationship with the Kremlin comes to mind now, with Vladimir Putin’s visit to Cuba. We have seen the official delegation on national television with its businesslike demeanor in suits and ties, no longer speaking of Marxism-Leninism or the dictatorship of the proletariat. They look different, but so much the same. The same glance from above they once had when they knew our island was just a small domino in the game of power. They come looking for alliances, to define the contours of those blocks they are reassembling — right before our eyes — in a new return of the Cold War. We are one step away from returning to our old status as a satellite, diminished before Moscow’s power, its oil, the debt relief it just granted us.

Not a single official commentator has hinted at the dangers entailed in this approach, nor to the Russian government’s need to use Latin America as a diplomatic “launching pad” against its old enemy, the United States. In the midst of this renewed confrontation among the great powers, we are trapped as a disposable and negotiable part, as the case may be. The risk is such that I again remember Olga and the last Soviet candies she offered us in that dorm. Those sweets in extinction predicted an end, the goodies being announced today, like a new airport and possible Russian investment in the Port of Mariel project, compromise our future. You don’t have to be blind, nor Tiresias, to realize it.

Click here for selected English Translations from Yoani Sanchez’s newly launched newspaper, 14ymedio.

New Zealand’s second-largest political party has proposed a radical change for the criminal justice system concerning rape cases — and we could not be more into it. The opposition party, should it come into power this September, wants to reverse the burden of proof in rape cases, making the defendants prove they had consent when they acted. And get this! They want to do it to reduce the trauma and suffering of the rape victims. What a novel idea!

In a statement so sane and so on point — and uttered by a male politician, no less — NZ Labor Party’s justice spokesman Andrew Little said: “The reason why many victims either don’t lay a complaint or don’t go through with one is fear of the court process and the likelihood of humiliation and re-victimization.” We’re almost tearing up. He gets it. He really gets it.

So why are we freaking out over just the mere idea of adjusting the criminal justice system in New Zealand? Come along with us for a little walk down U.S. sexual assault “justice” lane and we think you’ll understand…

For starters, there’s the Georgia judge who overturned a rape conviction because he didn’t believe the victim in the case “behaved like a victim.” Appeals Court Judge Christopher McFadden literally wrote the following words in his decision: “At no time prior to her outcry … did [the victim] behave like a victim.” We’re sorry. Was there a PSA somewhere that lays out exactly how a victim should behave? It seems like pretty pertinent information if rape convictions are going to be overturned because of it.

But wait, the judge wasn’t even done there. He goes on: “Nor did [William Jeffrey] Dumas behave like someone who had recently perpetrated a series of violent crimes against her.” Gotcha. So the convicted rapist seemed like a nice dude so there’s no way he could have actually raped someone who failed to fit the profile of “victim.” Especially because as McFadden points out, the victim — who, by the way, has down syndrome — showed no signs of “visible distress.” Noted.

Continuing our stroll down what-is-this-egregious-insanity lane, is Texas judge Jeanine Howard, who sentenced 2- year-old Sir Young — who admitted to and then was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl — to 45 days in prison. Newsflash: Young was convicted of sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony, which can carry a 20-year prison sentence. What factored into the judge’s sentencing decision? Judge Howard told a newspaper that the victim “wasn’t the victim she claimed to be” because, according to medical records, the girl had had three sexual partners and had given birth. And we all know that if you’re “promiscuous” you can’t be a victim of sexual assault.

But not only did the judge slut-shame a barely teenaged girl and factor her past behavior into her decision (not uncommon in these cases where eviscerating a plaintiff’s character is a go-to strategy for the defense — Hillary Clinton just made headlines for doing that very thing in back in the day), she said that Young, who we’ll reemphasize admitted to the rape, given his academic success in school, was “not your typical sex offender.” It gets worse. In addition to his 45-day prison sentence, Judge Howard sentenced Young to 250 hours of community service — in a rape crisis center. Head, meet table.

This all may seem totally insane-crazy, but such stories are par for the course. Turns out 97 percent of rapists never spend a day in jail in this country. Most rapes never even get reported. And given the “justice” just described, is that even a little surprising? Especially when we have people like columnist George Will running around actually saying that sexual assault confers special privileges on victims (for a real peek into the kind of “privileges” survivors face, check out the devastating #survivorprivilege trend on Twitter). And that whole rampant-false-rape-accusation phenomenon that hideous dinosaurs like the Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto drone on and on about? Yeah, not so much a thing — studies show false rape accusations only occur between 2 percent and 8 percent of the time. Probably because, we dunno, most victims are endlessly re-traumatized the second they open their mouths about their attacks by the media, courts, universities?

But maybe England is doing better than we are! Oh wait. Definitely no. Just this past weekend a British man was sentenced to five years in prison for raping an unconscious woman. Yes, he got a prison sentence, but check out what Judge Michael Mettyear added during the sentencing:

I do not regard you as a classic rapist. I do not think you are a general danger to strangers. You are not the type who goes searching for a woman to rape. This was a case where you just lost control of normal restraint. She was a pretty girl who you fancied. You simply could not resist.

He’s actually empathizing with the rapist. Can you imagine if this were, say, a robbery case? Theoretical judge man: “Sir, you were just surrounded by a lot of super nice electronics. You couldn’t help yourself! I feel for you.” Would never happen. Ah, rape culture.

Further, the judge’s “classic rapist” jab captures everything that’s wrong with our understanding of rape. Who’s a “classic rapist”!? Somewhere between 73 percent and 90 percent of rape survivors know their attackers — and nearly 40 percent of those rapists are friends or acquaintances. Classic rapist? Very much not a thing. But thanks for the effort, England.

Enter dear, precious, sweet New Zealand opposition party. In his continuing nailing-it-ness, Andrew Little told local newspapers that the fact that only 1 percent of sexual violence cases result in a conviction points to “something wrong” in the criminal justice system and that “the circumstances may well justify doing something radically different.” OMG ALL THE SANITY. CANNOT DEAL. BRAIN EXPLODING.

And so concludes our little jaunt through sexual assault justice land. We gotta go fill out visas to move to New Zealand (prevalence of sheep be damned), where we at least have a shot at living within a more just, rational legal system. And while we’re there, we can dump George Will into Mordor. A veritable win-win!

This story by Kelley Calkins first appeared on Ravishly.com, an alternative news+culture site for women.

In a 9-2 vote on Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved Laura’s Law, which allows judges to order involuntary outpatient treatment, including forced medication, for certain patients with a history of psychiatric illness. While adopted in 2002, Laura’s Law requires authorization by local jurisdictions, so this vote made San Francisco the third jurisdiction and first major city in California to approve it. Los Angeles County is slated to decide on full implementation in the coming week.

Currently 45 states have so-called assisted outpatient treatment (or AOT) laws on the books, with varying degrees of implementation and enforcement. Some insist that such legislation is a wonderful way to “assist” people living with serious mental illnesses who refuse treatment because they lack insight into the severity of their circumstances. Others insist that such laws infringe on civil rights and further criminalize mental illness in a country where jails and prisons already serve as the largest mental health facilities.

As someone living with a serious mental illness who has been hospitalized in the past, not to mention as an attorney with a Masters in public health policy, I find these laws even more troubling for other reasons. In fact, I’d be willing to step back a bit on civil rights if such legislation truly helped people who otherwise would have sought treatment were they of sound mind. But I’m not convinced that it would. Given the current state of psychiatric medicine, such laws could very well cause more harm than good.

While the past century has brought revolutionary advances in the treatment of serious mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, when it comes to medication there is still no magic bullet, and finding the right cocktail can take years. Unlike insulin for diabetics, for example, there is no single medication that will work for every patient with a given psychiatric diagnosis. Far from it.

We still know very little about how and why certain psychopharmaceuticals work for certain individuals, and given the fact that clinical psychopharmacology is still far more art than science, forcibly medicating someone could easily worsen their condition. This is especially true given the fact that that some of the medications used to treat these illnesses can actually cause the same symptoms they’re intended to remedy.

Furthermore, misdiagnosis is a serious problem with psychiatric disorders, which are still generally arrived at by talking with patients, without any other physiological tests to confirm. I know this firsthand.

Like many with bipolar disorder, I was misdiagnosed for years, and as a result, I was prescribed medications that actually exacerbated my condition. As a mental health advocate, I have met countless others with similar stories, and studies confirm our experiences.

This danger, more than any other, accounts for my opposition to so-called AOT statutes like Laura’s Law. It’s one thing when your doctor misdiagnoses you and prescribes a medication that aggravates your condition, but it’s quite another when your government forces you to comply with that doctor’s misguided orders.

In addition to concerns surrounding possible civil rights violations and the potential to discourage people from seeking help voluntarily (lest that qualify them for court-ordered outpatient treatment down the line), we must also take the high risk of misdiagnosis and bad medicine into account when considering legislation that would forcibly medicate innocent individuals who represent no immediate threat to themselves or others.

Beginnings matter. Questions about culpability and responsibility, about the narrow cynicism that defines so much of life in the Gaza Strip, sequence and motive — they all go to beginnings. Why are Israeli men and women battering and gnashing lives and livelihoods in that prison camp? How did it start? Why are they killing? What are they after? How will it end? The answers are embedded in our crusty beginnings.

How It Started

In the beginning, Zionists invaded Palestine. They expelled the Palestinians and Gaza, an ancient place that hosted Ramses II, Alexander the Great, and Salahuddin, became a tent city — a wasteland for the dejected and destitute.

It didn’t take long for Palestinians in Gaza to begin to fight to reclaim their homes from the Ashkenazis that displaced them. The Fedayeen — refugee militiamen — commenced with overnight raids as soon as the shock of their ignominious defeat began to wear.

The first Israeli massacre in Gaza occurred in 1956. My father was a small boy at the time, but he remembers how the men were rounded up and shot. Today, his grand-nephews and -nieces, also refugees, also born in camps, cower in terror as the third generation of Ashkenazis in Palestine shows them their place. Life in the shadows, balanced precariously on obsidian with fire on either side — that’s their inheritance.

The Latest Round

Among Israeli elites, Gaza is everything to everyone. Israeli politicians attack Gaza to enhance their electoral appeal. They use it to muzzle the opposition, to preserve a coalition or to distract from a domestic scandal. Israeli generals like to invade to provide troops with “battle” training or to test new wares, and to debut new formations and tactics; Hamas is not Hezbollah, after all.

Jewish-Israeli scientists, meanwhile, coordinate with the army to use the territory as a convenient testing ground for advanced, experimental technologies. Corporate Israel later repackages those technologies for global export. Those are the relationships — the status quo.

The recent move towards Palestinian reconciliation undertaken by the Hamas and PLO leaderships, threatened to end the political — if not material — isolation of Gaza. It posed a risk to the current state of things by providing Hamas, a political movement which came to power through elections, with a means for re-entering the realm of international legitimacy.

Once the Americans and Europeans agreed to recognize the new caretaker government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to seek a way out of his new, uncomfortable isolation. He could not attack the Palestinians solely for their political reconciliation — the Americans would admonish him for that. Nor, to his great consternation, could he convince world powers to repeal their endorsement of the new government. Desperately, he sought a way out.

Restoring Netanyahu’s Balance

It came in the form of tragedy. When the three Jewish-Israeli settler teenagers disappeared in the West Bank, the Israeli leadership claimed that they were still alive. Through its prerogative as the enforcement vehicle of Israeli apartheid, the army spent three weeks smashing into hundreds of homes and terrorizing their occupants in the search for the three youths.

More than 500 Palestinian men were rounded up and imprisoned as Netanyahu clamored for the teenagers’ return and inveighed against Hamas, the group he claimed kidnapped the youths. No evidence was offered. Only bluster, bombast and fatalistic conviction delivered in a sonorous tone of voice.

As Max Blumenthal has documented, it was all a shameful and cynical political show. The Israeli leadership knew within the first day of their disappearance that the youths were dead; bullet holes, blood samples and a telephone recording provided evidence of what happened. But the ever-receptive Jewish-Israeli public demanded revenge and by the time the extent of the sham was revealed, the Israelis had killed nine people in the West Bank and three more in the Gaza Strip through missiles they fired in “retaliation” for the West Bank murders.

Naturally, the Palestinians availed themselves of their right to self-defense. They used crude, unguided workshop missiles to reclaim the balance of fear that existed — thereby providing the Israeli leadership with more material for international consumption. It is now claimed that the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza ghetto had nothing to do with the murders of the three Jewish-Israeli youths. Instead, Israel is merely “responding” to Hamas’ nihilistic provocations.

More than a month after the reconciliation, it appears that Netanyahu has succeeded — his balance has been restored. Israelis are free to indulge in a grand delusion of self-righteousness. “No normal country could tolerate terrorists firing missiles into its urban centers,” they say.

“No normal country practices the crime of apartheid.”

“No normal country demolishes the homes of suspects…

or punishes millions of people…

or seeks vengeance and vengeance and vengeance in a fit of bloody wrath,” we might wearily reply.

A version of this article appeared at Aljazeera.com.

Don’t forget to look up.

Sometimes you find the real treasures when looking at things from a different perspective. While plenty of churches have beautiful stained glass windows, fascinating gargoyles, and stunning works of art to distract your eye, simply raising your gaze heavenward can provide the most stunning view of all. The crick in your neck will be totally worth it.

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France

St. Michaels Church, Olomouc, Czech Republic

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Church of the Saviour of Spilled Blood, Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath, England

San Vitale Basilica, Ravenna, Italy

St. Mary’s Basilica, Krakow, Poland

Salzburg Cathedral, Salzburg, Austria

Segovia Cathedral, Segovia, Spain

St. Stephens Cathedral, Budapest, Hungary

St. Andrea della Valle, Rome, Italy

Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, Lyon, France

Saint Vincent de Paul, Marseille, France

Aachen Cathedral, Aachen, Germany

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

Albi Cathedral, Albi, France

York Minster Chapter House, York, England

Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta, Soncino, Italy

Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, England

Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona, Rome, Italy