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Elections are coming up in Colombia, but Bloggombiano has gone all zen-like with the acquisition of a new virtual llama. So I gots me one too. You can feed him by clicking ‘more’. Pet him three times, and wish for Colombian president Alvaro Uribe to lose the election. Because he is an s.o.b who gave new political status to drug-trafficking, human rights-violating paramilitaries.

I’ve been in both Puerto Rico and Washington DC since my last post.

Update: Puerto Rican politics very messy right now. Shout out to my friend Laurent at Liberation, who has earned honorary membership to the Danish-Puerto Rican Society for bringing news from la isla to France. Merci.

DC was host to conference about democracy and islam. Update: Bad news is islamist parties only pretend to be democratic out of strategic interests, good news is they seem to become more democratic in the process. Also, the only people to use the word ‘terrorism’ at the conference were representatives of the American government. The schism between the concerns of democracy scholars, and USAID and MEPI were remarkable. Polite specialists on Middle East politics simply smiled as heads of both organisations told fairy tale accounts of US motivations for spreading democracy. Questions on Israel/Palestine were few, but awkward.

If you want to read more, you’ll have to keep an eye on oD. Update: Next stop on my global tour is Germany, for AnkCon. Ever wonder how to save the world from climate doom?

Ever wonder where such evil organisations as Greenpeace, AdBusters, and the Organic Consumers Association get their money from? A very attractive website called ActivistCash.com explains why these groups are so horrible and “anti-consumerist” and names and shames the celebrities and foundations who support them.

“Imagine a world without McDonald’s, Nike, or Kraft Foods. A world where the budget-conscious and time-strapped have nowhere to grab a quick bite, where almost no one drives a car, where television is extinct. Sound pretty bleak? This is the utopian vision of the Adbusters Media Foundation.”

Funny to see the same tactics employed by groups like Media Transparency, Follow the Money or Open Secrets for such a different cause. In a world without McDonald’s, not only would there be less fat kids and cats, the Republican Party would have been at least $283,000 poorer in 2004. Doesn’t sound so bad to me.

It’s tax time in America. Do you know what the money is being used for? War cookies.

This new proposed legislation on immigration in the United States is really scary. Thankfully, Republican politicians are now saying they may drop plans to criminalize 12 million illegal immigrants and any person who helps them get by in America, including their (often legal) children. The rest of the bill would still suck.

This week, openDemocracy has been linking to the online project I worked on with graduate journalism students from NYU: UndocumentedNYC.org. Lots of rich details there on immigration in New York. Have a browse.

Finally, my friends at Wooloo Productions in Berlin are packing their suitcases for New York, where they will be curating AsylumNYC from April 24-29. It’s a project where 10 artists from 10 different countries will apply for “creative asylum” at a gallery in SoHo. One lucky artist will get the opportunity to obtain a US visa. The whole thing is a comment on the plight of asylumseekers who are shuffled around inhumanely between detention centers worldwide. The artists will not be allowed to leave the gallery for a week, and will be asked to produce an art project using only whatever materials they can get gallery visitors to supply.

By the way, Puerto Ricans were recently denied (again) the right to vote in presidential elections by the US Supreme Court. They have US passports but do not live in a US state. The court ruled that in order for a “territory” to vote it must either become a state or the US constitution must be changed. These days, either of those options seem as unlikely as Puerto Rico becoming a country of its own. “Unfairly treated,” were the words of the attorney who filed the appeal. That’s easier to agree on than what to do next.

Thanks to James B. Martini for pointing out that the people who are trying to ban abortion in South Dakota are evil women-hating fucks. The ban steps into force in July. The moment that happens, it is likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court. With Bush’s new judges it doesn’t look good for women across America. But wait, there’s more. Ten more states have already proposed imposing bans – next one to make a decision is Mississippi. Spread the word via the Planned Parenthood website.

From OneWorld, on the criminalisation of a plant:

“Even the U.S. embassy in Bolivia recommends on its Web site that travelers consume coca tea to help alleviate altitude sickness”.

The Village Voice has a nice article on the recent FBI attacks on Puerto Rican independence activists, which towards the end points out how many activists were based in New York.

Landmarks of the movement to free Puerto Rico are here, too, if you know where to look. At 336 East 110th Street, a construction company now occupies the site where on December 11, 1974, a New York cop opened a door and was blinded by a booby-trap bomb apparently set by the FALN, a Puerto Rican radical group.

That wasn’t New York’s only link to either the peaceful or violent side of the independence struggle. The city was a base for the pioneering revolutionary Eugenio María de Hostos, as well as for the gunmen who tried to kill Harry Truman in 1950. In the ’70s and ’80s there were bombings here; in 2000 there was a peaceful occupation of the Statue of Liberty to protest U.S. target practice on Vieques.

Plus: openDemocracy published a tribute to Nuyorican musician Ray Barreto last week.

I live in Brooklyn, and as all good citizens should, I occasionally send emails to my congressman when organizations like Color of Change or freepress ask me to. Now, some congressmen doodle while they sit bored in congress waiting to vote. But my representative writes rap poems which he publishes on his website. Pretty hip, huh? Now if he will just help stop AT&T from buying Bell South…