The New Republic article on Betancourt marrige: makes sense

Updated : 7/16/08 Go to article noted below on Clara Rojas partly answers my question: What was relationship between Rojas and Betancourt? According to article I read from Le Monde news service, Rojas and Betancourt had had no contact with each other for the past 3 years. When they were together in the jungle, Betancourt made baby cothes for Rojas newborn. I was wrong to assume something was wrong there or so I believe.

go to http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:8XwtmU-JRa8J:www.educweb.org/webnews/ColNews-Jan08/English/Articles/ClaraRojasestsansnouvelle.html+clara+rojas+and+ingrid+betancourt&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

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7/15/2008

Update above by pic. Betancourt receives Legion Medal of Honor from France's President Sarkozy. She deserves it but the one who gives it to her is a right wing conservative-strange" bedfellows". Should we trust where all this is going? Or will it just be a good book and blockbuster movie and who knows what else.

7/10/08 This Just In: Six Years of Torture Take Toll on Marriage
Ingrid Betancourt's release from FARC rebels on July 2 marked the end of a six-year nightmare. In addition to the constant feeling of bugs crawling all over her body, the mental torture of being screamed at incessantly, and the near starvation she faced every day, there are still some horrors she can't yet discuss. According to CNN.com, in an interview with Larry King, "Betancourt also would not detail the punishment she endured after a failed escape attempt. 'Oh, that was horrible,' she said before telling King that she was 'not ready for that.'" Nor would she talk about the circumstances of a child born to another hostage in captivity. What Betancourt is doing is shining more of a global light than we've seen in many years on a intolerably sadistic rebel group. Which is why it is galling to see the following headline accompanying a CNN story about Betancourt: "Betancourt's Husband Admits Icy Reunion." Apparently, she wasn't as warm to husband Juan Carlos Lecompte as, well, as what? As a survivor of six years of torture should be? It seems that before leaving for France without him--no!--she "greeted him coldly." Well, I guess he is the real victim here after all. Thanks CNN, for bringing us all angles of the story.

--Sacha Zimmerman

U.S. Media Coverage of Betancourt & Other Hostages: A Critique

Read blog entry below the pics of Betancourt.


"Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt touches her husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, as she arrives at a military base in Bogota, Colombia, July 2 after being rescued from years in captivity. Many said she greeted him coldly. Lecompte said their marriage may be over." (Below) Dressed in black jacket with hands clasped looking very well but also very tired (exhausted) Betancourt is interviewed in a Paris hotel a week after her release. updates since 7/7/08go to http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2008/07/10/would-your-marriage-survive-a-six-year-separation.aspx



(PIC) Re: Betancourt is pictured at the time she was running on her third party ticket Oxygen in Columbia back in 2002

U.S. Media Coverage of Betancourt & Other Hostages: A Critique 7/7/08

"When Ingrid Betancourt was released a few days ago from her jungle "prison" in Columbia along with 3 american hostages, I was surprised to learn Betancourt had been a Columbian Senator and was abducted by the militant revolutionary group known as FARC 6 years ago while running for the Presidency of Columbia for a third party she had created called Oxygen Green Party. This was news to me. What a story people around the world have been following closely especially in France where she grew up and married her first husband, a French diplomat, and of course, in Columbia but in many other countries in the world except for the U.S. which only focused on hostage releases but not the background story on political parties in Columbia and Betancourt's fight against corruption and her quest for democracy in that country. According to Betancourt and her supporters, the main parties, Conservative and Liberal are corrupt and totally bought off by the drug cartels that rule Columbia. Perhaps, if I read Spanish newspapers I would have known about these events but that doesn't excuse the mediiocrity and lack of depth or lack of background information on the mainstream U.S. news reports both in print and on the air. I suppose public radio news covered the politics behind these events which I am embarassed to say I do not listen to often enough. I need to make it a point to tune in to Amy Goodman and others on Democracy Now on KPFK every morning. Also should have tuned in to public stations focusing on Latin American stories.

Finally, after CNN Anderson Cooper started dropping bits and pieces of her fascinating life story, a detailed documentary was released about the events leading up to Betencourt and her Vice-Presidential nominee's Clara Rojas's abduction in 2002. Rojas story also seems remarkable and the pieces have not come together via U.S. media on Rojas's viccitudes in the jungle though it appears she was released from captivity in January of 2008 ahead of Betancourt. The only piece of information I could glean on Rojas came from Wikipedia stating that she had a baby in the jungle ( the father was a Farc member) that she cared for until the baby was taken away and raised by a peasant family and then very recently returned to Rojas through the wonders of the DNA process, another remarkable story. Well now we have part of the story but from my point of view it comes too late. I wonder if the fact that Betancourt and her supporters are left of liberal has anything to do with the lack of coverage in the U.S.?

interesting additional comments at http://phoenixwoman.wordpress.com/ under The Hostages Speak

also go to http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/8/as_freed_us_contractors_speak_out

P.S. I researched past reports on situation in Columbia by Democracy Now and it appeared there was not much coverage of the Betancourt story there as I expected. Two articles but none really gave background at least not in the last 2 years same as mainstream media.

P.S. I do agree with some reports that there is something fishy about the mainstream reports that the Columbian military with the help of the American intelligence pulled this whole episode and rescue off without some kind of infiltation of the Farc or some kind of payment of ransom for the hostages. We may never know how this really happened. Betanacourt version of events sounds genuine but she also seems very guarded about much of the details, part of which is understandable. I am very curious about Betancourt's refusal to talk about Clara Rojas. I get the feeling Rojas did something to hurt the other hostages or to undermine their safety or else she is being protected from media curiosity by Betancourt, not clear which.

Gay Marriage Debate in California: Some Reactions

It appears that the future of the State Supreme Court decision declaring Gay Marriage constitutional in Calfornia will be decided by the voters of the State on November 4th. I don't understand why a decision that would affect thousands of minority members meaning Lesbians and Gays would be put up to the vote of the electorate when the final arbiter of laws having to do with marriage and family law does not and should not rest there. The polls show a majority of Californians against Gay Marriage though many of these support domestic partnership laws and other forms of protections for LGBT persons. It is not exactly clear what will happen in November given that the neither side in debate has fully stepped up its campaign strategies or slogans hoping for a slam dunk. This is the second time that many Gays and Lesbians have been allowed to apply for licenses to marry; The first time was in 2004 when Gavan Newsome directed The Registrar of Records in City Hall in San Francisco to start issuing licenses to Gay and Lesbian couples who applied. After about 5 months these licenses were declared null and void by the same justices who recently declared Gay marriages legal in California.

My partner and I were one of the several thousands who received a license in 2004 that was voided; We are one of the thousands now applying and receiving a license in 2008 (to be married in Aug.) hoping that those licenses granted before the November election will be declared valid even if the new ruling is overturned by the voters of California, although many legal experts think there is little legal grounds for allowing those marriages to remain valid except for the moral argument that it is wrong to build up expectations and then let them be exploded for what is in some instances a second time. It was after all not the fault of the people involved that they may have been misled by the highest court in the State. The bottom line unless I am missing something is that we have to change peoples minds and make sure all the pro Gay marriage people vote to affirm the right to equality in marriage. Vote No against the proposition that will try to take away our rights to marry.

Obama, Hillary Clinton to campaign together

Former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers

MSNBC dated 8:40 a.m. PT, Fri., June. 20, 2008
CHICAGO - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's campaign announced Friday that he will campaign with former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton next week, a step toward unifying a fractured Democratic Party after a bruising primary fight.

Obama's campaign said in a brief e-mail that the two senators and former opponents will campaign together for the first time on Friday, June 27, and more details would be forthcoming.

A day earlier, Obama and Clinton also plan to meet in Washington with some of her top contributors in an effort to calm donors who remain frustrated with Obama's presidential campaign. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers.

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Hundred of Gay Couples Wed in California 6/17/08

good positive upbeat article, nice pics
from NY times Jun 17th:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/us/17cnd-marriage.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Guantanamo

Supporters defending George W. Bush's decision to keep torturing prisoners despite the international rules of law and the recent U.S. Supreme Court's decision keep saying that somehow these prisoners do not deserve the right of habeas corpus or other basic rights to a trial that U.S. citizens automatically have because said prisoners are from foreign countries and because they are said to be (paraphrasing) "despicable monsters who support terrorism". What about the fact these prisoners are human beings who should have the right to fair trials which includes access to attorneys and the right to defend themselves? True, some must be guilty as charged but many appear to be hapless victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and are only guilty,perhaps, of being representative of a certain segment of Muslims sympathetic to Bin Laden and probably anti-American in their sentiments which by the way may be a sentiment held by more than a few billion or more people around the world. Even the likely guilty ones are humans who deserve a fair trial, Those in the know all seem to accept that Guantanamo is a place where prisoners are routinely tortured. This is the reason that so many of the incarcerated (43) have attempted suicide.

I heard Diane Feinstein ( 6/15/08) saying to her Senate colleagues that despite the fact that top of officials and former officials of the Bush establishment have gone on record saying Guantanamo should be closed and now the U.S. Supreme Court for the fourth time has gone on record against Bush, it does seem outrageous that nothing has changed. Let's face it, under Bush we are nothing but pawns of an awful tyranny that even the Democrats are unable or unwilling to bring to a conclusion, perhaps, out of fear of not looking patriotic enough or worse yet for crass political reasons which equate to make Bush look bad and they gain from this somehow during election season. History will have something to say about how politicians on both sides of the aisle lost their moral anchors and left the American rule of law and fairness denigrated and those Americans seeking a better image abroad and at home a kick in the pants.

New Thought: The more I think about it the more I wish the progressive and more liberal Democrats would leave the Democratic Party to start a new Progressive type Party or force the more conservative members out which is unlikely. The fact we only have two realistic choices is wrong. Of course, if this were to pass, it would weaken the Dems but perhaps, the same thing could happen to the Republicans with the more moderate and liberal types leaving the ultra conservatives and religious crazies to their own devices. In this case, we would have 4 major parties and might have to move to a parliamentary system where at least there would be more ideas floating around and the need for constant compromise and centralness of purpose and consensus less imperative. In this case, whoever was in charge might have to really think about what she or he was doing.
mmmmmmm? In all fairness, I must say the parliamentary system was no help to Toni Blair who acted same as Bush when it came to overruling the electorate.