Peligro, Peligro

At about 4:30am this morning. I heard a knock on our apartment door and then a whistle blowing. It took me a while to realize people outside were trying to get our attention. When I opened the door this middle aged woman came running up to the door yelling ¨Peligro,...words in fast spansih that went over my head... Vecino..Peligro¨ Peligro of course is danger, and Vecino is neighbor. I mangaged to ask ¿Necisita Ayudar? Do you need help. She said NO.. and then again Peligro Peligro. Then went away. There were people collecting outside the next apartment. But only out of the one building.

Because there were others outside, I abandonded the idea that this woman was just stark raving mad. Dawn finally volunteered to go outside and check it out. She figured out that it had something having to do with an electrical box. We figured it was nothing to mess around with. So all went outside. About 15 people were standing outside this building waiting for who knows what. What we deduced was that it had to be an electrical short that they were worried would cause a fire or an explosion. The weird thing was that there were no emergency vehicles, and everyone was relying on this one woman who didn´t seem exactly calm to judge how long to stand outside at 5 in the morning.

After about 10 minutes, when we saw nobody else from our building outside, we decided to go back in. Dawn yelled to the folks outside ¨Si fuego, dormimos¨and motioned to knock, intending to mean.. if theres a fire knock on our door, we might be sleeping. Later we laughed thinking of what she said, something like.. if theres a fire, then we sleep- or if theres a fire, it can sleep with us. Needless to say we haven´t figured out what the 911 protocol is in Venezuela. Don´t know if theres a centralized system for reporting emergencies.


On the Political Front,
If folks are reading and hearing alot about Chavez radical actions in the last month, remember to check the lens through which your viewing things. Chavez has accelerated the move towards a socialism for the 21st century through his moves to nationalize water, electic, communications, and petroleum activities. He has been granted the ability to pass laws by decree withing certain legisilative areas for a specified time period. And his communications minister has said one of the main opposition TV stations (RCTV) would not have its broadcast license renewed. These are reported by much of the US press on a negative light. Of course. Take a look at Venezuelanalysis.com for a look at some of the background to each of the decisions and why they are part of the very positive trend towards a popular socialism that fosters grassroots power and economic democracy.

More US War Criminals Spouting Lies about Chavez and Venezuela

John Negroponte, former ambassador to occupied Iraq, and party to horrendous human rights violations in Honduras and Nicaragua, is spouting crap about Chavez and Venezuela again.
From Democacy Now!
¨Back in Washington, Chavez has come under new criticism from National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. On Tuesday, Negroponte said Chavez is a threat to democracy who exports “radical populism.” Negroponte was speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is considering his nomination to become deputy secretary of state.¨

Wasn´t Negroponte implicated in shit having to do with Iran Contra? This is the problem with not having a real opposition party in Washington, we can´t rely on democrats to remove war criminals from power. (indeed in many cases the democrats are war criminals) Now Negroponte actually has a platform where he can use the word Democracy. What a perversion. I shouldn´t act so surprised, this keeps happening over and over.....