If this copy is not entirely readable it can be read eventually clearly on :
www.fombrun.com
Wordcount : 3,984
CARL’S CORNER IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, SPANISH, AND HAITIAN CREOLE.
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 9.00 p.m. on ISLAND TV, Comcast channel 19 in Miami-Dade and channel 79 in Broward.
“Frankly Fombrun” every Tuesday at 9.00 p.m. on Haitian Television Network, HTN channel 689 Digital Box in Miami.
http://broadcast.sakapfetstore.com/
Every Sunday at 4.15 p.m on Antenna 88.9 FM, WDNA Miami.
Daily on the internet www.fombrun.com
English Francais Espanõl Kreyol
E N G L I S H
FROM Edouard F. Lafontant’s book, MASTER MOTIVATOR. 365 Days + 1. “Positive Thoughts to Reinvent Yourself.”
Every night when I go to sleep I die. Next morning, when I awake, I am born again.
Gandhi
“snail” mail RECEIVED FROM SAILOR FRIENDS:
JIM AND KATHY HOGAN
solomons, VIRGINIA.
A RELATIONSHIP OF MORE THAN 50 YEARS.
(some extracts)
Dear Carl,
The real cruising people (those that actually go somewhere on their vessels), opt for what’s practical and comfortable without regard to fashion. Then there are the long distance cruisers (I guess we’re in that number) who untie their boats with a few thousand miles in mind.
The morning meeting place for the cruising crowd (in the summer) has become a sidewalk bistro called “Woodburns”, an upscale market. A motley group of sailors meet there each morning to solve the world’s problems and disagree on almost everything.
There was even a plaque on the bar with the society’s name and motto, “Divided We Stand”, an apt description of the group. What do cruising sailors do? They go cruising and depart for different parts of the globe at the approach of winter.
This year, June 17, 2005 (two days after yours) I had my 70th birthday. Imagine 70 years of age. 70% of a century – 7% of milennium! Is not
that when people get old, or “sumpthin” ? And start sentences with “ Now when I was a young man…”, and answer questions with “huh?” This is the time when hearing ability gets suspicious. Walking along the beach with another Geezer on a breezy day, the conversation could go like this:
“Windy, isn’t it?
No, Thursday
OK, but just one cold one. I am driving today.”
It’s too cold to dive, besides, you don’t have any diving gear.”
We reminisce about our eccentrics (in private, we referred to them as “crazy”) old aunts and uncles. Were not they about 70 ? As they say, “What goes around, comes around” and, to quote one of my favorite philosophers, Pogo, by name “We have met the enemy and they are us”.
But, being 70 is much better than the alternative! And, due to this condition we call age, we are called on more and more to send condolences to families of departed friends.
Now, to a less morose theme. In September, I was invited to be a judge at the annual Classic Boat Festival in St. Michaels, Maryland. It was a fun event with some of the most outstanding yatchs I have been aboard. I had to go aboard and inspect every entry. (Oh have mercy!) in the show and most were so spectacular that it was difficult to pick a winner. We, Kathy and I, were wined and dined and had a wonderful time.
This year, we did not get to sail south, as usual, or do our annual trip to Ireland. I think that of two, I miss the trip to the olde sod more. Ireland has a pull on us from our ancestors, maybe a blood (genetic) memory, or possibly the charm of its people. We prefer the west of Eire, the area from the Dingle peninsula to the untamed coast of Connemara. This is the Gaeltech where Irish (Gaelic) is still spoken by some.
Even the countryside has a peculiar charm. On any day, wild dappled clouds race across the sky, brightening or darkening, veiling or revealing dim mountains in the distance. Green is everywhere and startling in its changing intensity. Above the pervasive green, weather in its capricious fancy, guilds the horizon with silver, or gray, or gold. The land varies from the midlands with emerald pastures studded with sheep, to the rocky magnificence of Clare and the Aran islands, to the mountains north of Galway feeling the streams and lakes that dot the countryside.
This is the season for remembering and keeping in contact with old friends with whom we have shared experiences, or by whom we were influenced. Some changed the course of our lives, and others were simply there to enjoy.
We’ll leave you with a thought for the day.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One
Is as though nothing is a miracle. The other
As though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
May the miracles be with you.
Jim and Kathy Hogan, Solomons, Virginia December 2005.
RECEIVED FROM DR. ROGER QUALO, NEW YORK
Hello Carl,
How are you? And your world?
From May 19 to December 31 of this year, the Schomburg Research Library in Black and Culture presented an exhibit on Malcom X. In the autobiography of our big brother we can read:
“The black man in the ghettoes, for instance, has to start self-correcting his own material, moral, and spiritual defects and evils. The black man needs to start his own program to get rid of drunkenness, drug addiction, prostitution. The black man in America has to lift up his own sense of values.”
— The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
And I do agree with him because if the black man wants to escape misery he has to find his own way, not the one dictated by others, and take in his hands his own destiny.
In the Haiti Observateur of last week, it has been written that political candidate Rene Préval has been running his electoral campaign upon money gained from the illegal traffic of drugs toward the United States and that the F.B.I was looking at his records. Personnally, I do not think that father Aristide (neither his close associate) has mastered the drug business but he might have been trapped; in any case he was too laxist a leader, the one I call an anarchist and the country almost fell into total anarchy at the hands of his government. It is also why Mr. Préval would not be a good choice for the people of Haiti. It is my first argument and my last one also.
Finally we shall call to the attention of all Haitians that they should know that anarchy begets dictatorship and vice versa. They are like your right and left hands, God and the Devil, night and day. It is why they have to choose for good democracy, the first solution to their long run problems.
Sincerely,
Roger
Big Brother Bush Is Listening By Marjorie Cohn t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 26 December 2005
“Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order.”
-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004, Buffalo, New York.
In an assertion of executive power that rivals the excesses of the McCarthy era of the late 1940's and 1950's, and the dreaded COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) of the 1950's and 1960's, George W. Bush's National Security Agency has been secretly spying on United States citizens without warrants for the last three years.
George Orwell's book "1984" was first published during the heyday of McCarthyism in 1949. In the society Orwell described, everyone was under surveillance by the authorities. The people were constantly reminded of this by the phrase, "Big Brother is watching you."
During the McCarthy period, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting."
Although Orwell's allegory was aimed at communism, it was the United States government that initiated COINTELPRO, designed by its own terms to "disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize" political and activist groups. In the 1960s, for example, the FBI targeted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a program called "Racial Matters." King's campaign to register African-American voters in the South raised the hackles of the FBI, which disingenuously claimed King's organization was being infiltrated by communists.
In fact, the FBI was really concerned that King's civil rights campaign, and particularly his opposition to the Vietnam War, "represented a clear threat to the established order of the US." The FBI went after King with a vengeance, wiretapping his telephones and securing very personal information which it used to try to drive him to divorce and suicide, and to discredit him.
In response to the excesses of COINTELPRO, a congressional committee chaired by Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, conducted an investigation of activities of the domestic intelligence agencies in the 1950's, 1960's and early 1970's. Congress established guidelines to regulate FBI activity in foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering.
Reacting against President Richard Nixon's assertion of unchecked presidential power, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978, to regulate electronic surveillance, while at the same time protecting national security.
FISA established a secret court to consider applications by the government for wiretap orders. It specifically created only one exception for the president to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant. For that exception to apply, the Attorney General must certify under oath that the communications to be monitored will be exclusively between foreign powers, and that there is no substantial likelihood that a United States person will be overheard.
FISA allows the Attorney General to engage in wiretapping in emergency situations without a prior judicial order provided he or she applies for one within 72 hours after initiating the surveillance. And FISA specifically covers warrantless wiretaps during wartime; it limits them to the first 15 days after war is declared. Since 1978, the court has granted about 19,000 warrants and only turned down five.
Nevertheless, in spite of FISA's streamlined procedure for allowing lawful surveillance, Bush has sidelined the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In 2002, he signed an executive order that authorizes the National Security Agency to wiretap people within the United States with no judicial review.
It is estimated that the NSA has eavesdropped on thousands of private conversations in the last three years. Additionally, the NSA has combed through large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States. It has thus collected vast personal information that has nothing to do with national security.
In the wake of the outcry after the New York Times broke the story of Bush's secret surveillance, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited Congress's authorization of the use of force the day after the September 11 terrorist attacks as justification for the program. But the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) only permits the president to use "necessary and appropriate force" against "nations, organizations, or persons" that "planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the 9/11 attacks, or that "harbored such persons."
That license to use appropriate force does not authorize the government to spy on people in the United States without a warrant. Indeed, several congresspersons who voted for the AUMF say they only intended to grant the president authority to invade Afghanistan, not to conduct unbridled electronic surveillance of people in the United States.
Tom Daschle, a former Democratic senator from South Dakota, was Senate majority leader when Congress passed AUMF. He helped negotiate the law with the White House counsel's office. "I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up," Dashcle said. "I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance."
In fact, Daschle revealed that Congress turned down White House proposals both to authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States," and to authorize the use of appropriate force "in the United States."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., described Bush's spying program as an "arrogant usurpation of power." He said, "The president is not above the law; he is not King George." Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wis., agreed: "He is the president, not a king," Feingold noted.
Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said such behavior by the executive branch "can't be condoned." He declared on the Senate floor, "That's wrong, clearly and categorically wrong. This will be a matter for oversight by the Judiciary committee as soon as we can get to it in the new year - a very, very high priority item."
The spying revelation also influenced the Senate vote on the renewal of the USA Patriot Act. It swayed New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer's decision. "Today's revelation that the government listened in on thousands of phone conversations without getting a warrant is shocking and has greatly influenced my vote," Schumer said. "Today's revelation makes it very clear that we have to be very careful - very careful."
In a stunning blow against Bush, who had hoped several provisions of the Patriot Act would be made permanent, Congress extended the Patriot Act for only five weeks just before it recessed for the holidays.
It is not just congresspersons who are outraged at Bush's secret surveillance. US District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the FISA court, has resigned. Robertson, selected by former Chief Justice William Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, reportedly expressed deep concern that Bush's program is legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work, according to the Washington Post.
Besides the NSA program, the American Civil Liberties Union has discovered through a Freedom of Information request that counter-terrorism agents at the FBI have conducted extensive surveillance of such groups as the Vegan Community Project, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and a Catholic Workers group the FBI accuses of having a "semi-communist ideology." Red-baiting is once again alive and well in America.
In 1975, Senator Frank Church said of the NSA, "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide." Church worried about the capacity of "this agency and all agencies that possess this technology" to "make tyranny total in America."
George W. Bush has fulfilled the prophesies of both George Orwell and Frank Church - with a vengeance. But neither Orwell nor Church could have foreseen the technological developments that enable Bush's large ears to penetrate our most intimate conversations.
The real motivation underlying Bush's unprecedented assertion of executive power was revealed by Dick Cheney: "Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the 1970's, served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area. The President of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired."
Bush has gone far beyond what the Constitution authorizes, however. Only Congress has the power to make laws. Congress has not authorized the president to suspend the law. And FISA makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, for the executive to conduct a wiretap without statutory authorization.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, President-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. She writes a weekly column for t r u t h o u t.
RECEIVED FROM CACEC (Center for Cultural Events in the Community,) Miami,Fl.
Hello Carl !
The Executive Board of CACEC takes this opportunity to express its warmest thanks to you for your support and your contribution to its development and success. The Committee is pleased to wish you all the best during the holiday season and throughout all the years to come. Merry Christmas and Happy new Year !
Marcel Alexis, President
F R A N C A I S
F R A N C A I S
CARL FOMBRUN : Chaque Mardi et Jeudi à 9 heures du soir sur ISLAND TV , chaîne Comcast canal 19 à Miami Dade et canal 79 à Broward.
Chaque Mardi à 9 heures du soir sur la Haitian Television Network canal 689 Digital Box à Miami.
Et sur l’internet http://broadcast.sakapfetstore.com/
Chaque dimanche à 4 heures 15 p.m. sur l’Antenne 88.9 FM, WDNA Miami, (excepté le 25 Décembre 2005 et le 8 Janvier 2006) et journellement sur l’internet www.fombrun.com
Les gens heureux n’ont pas d’histoires…Les gens heureux ils font l’histoire. La ballade des gens heureux sur LE COIN DE CARL parlant de tout et de rien continue. Le temps poursuit sa marche et avec lui avance le monde.
Bonjour Miami, ses alentours et les "internôtres" qui écoutent et nous lisent à travers le monde. CHAQUE JOUR EST À LUI SEUL UNE VIE. Dieu, le travail et la liberté. Et bonjour, bonjour la vie, bonjour l’amour, pourquoi pas? Moi’j vais bien et’j m’habitue.
LA PENSÉE DU JOUR du livre
D’ÉDOUARD F. LAFONTANT.
PENSÉES POSITIVES POUR SE RÉINVENTER, 365 jours + 1.
Je suis un petit crayon dans la main d’un Dieu qui écrit une lettre à l’humanité.
RECU DE RAY SCHMITT DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE
Cher Carl,
Mon dernier courrier était la réaction sur votre bel article de voyage notament à Pétionville, que je connais très bien par ma femme Haïtienne. Aujourd'hui encore vous me touchez beaucoup avec ce très beau texte sur la "Femme mûre", et par votre rappel oh combien obligatoire, sur le vrai, le faux, l'un est l'autre et les deux se confondent ; j'appelle tout cela "la sagesse". merci Carl.
Ray Schmitt (France)
Que nous reste-t-il ?
(par Yolaine S. Cabrol)
Cher Carl,
A mesure que nous cheminons dans la grande avenue, sens unique du temps, nous laissons derrière nous une portion de bien-être, une part de sécurité, un fragment de bonheur. De la clarté à la pénombre, de la pénombre à l'obscurité, de l'obscurité à la noirceur, nous allons, conscients ou inconscients vers un pôle d'attraction pré-établi. Voudrions-nous faire un détour ou nous ressaisir ou nous interroger sur notre itinéraire ? mais non... il n'y a d'autre issue que de poursuivre son chemin, d'aller tout droit vers un horizon immuable.
Le monde te presse, le temps te bouscule, la vie te pousse le dos. Tant pis pour toi si tu trébuches ou tombes. Si tu te relèves, tu n'as pas le choix, tu dois avancer toujours, car la course dans le calendrier du temps n' est pas achevée ici-bas.
Tu te dis: Mon Dieu! comme il est sombre autour de moi ! Je suis épuisé...Quand verrai-je enfin la lumière, la lumière qui éclaire tout ce qui engendre l'espoir ?
Que nous reste-t-il de ce moinde qui s'enfuie en se dérobant sous nos pas chaque jour davantage, nous laissant ahurris, insécures, débousseolés ?
Que nous reste-t-il de ce labyrhinte oû l'on se perd, oû tout est à l'envers, en contre façon, de travers, sans dessus-dessous, avec sa vie menacée et son âme déchirée ?
Que nous reste-t-il des valeurs, des normes, des standards de cette vie oû tout est bousculé ? La réponse est qu' il nous reste bien peu de tout cela sinon rien.
Quand tout est ténèbres, l'on soupire, n’est-ce-pas, après la lumière, ainsi nait l'espoir et son corollaire la foi, générateurs de force et d'énergie pour arriver à l'infini, le but ultime de notre itinéraire sur cette terre...c'est le trait d'union entre Dieu et nous et c'est la ligne de rupture entre les ténèbres et l'éblouissante lumière dont la source est notre Créateur, notre Sauveur, notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ dans l'unité avec son Père et le Saint Esprit.
Faisons de notre course ici-bas une épopée à la recherche et à la conquête de cette source lumineuse dont Jésus est l'aliment. Puisons-y l'abondance, l' énergie, le courage, la foi et l'espoir dont nous avons tant besoin. A la conquête de cet infini d'apothéose et de splendeur je vous invite, chers internautes, à l'aurée de cette année nouvelle à prendre part dans cette grande aventure en lisant et adoptant mon recueil de poèmes:" Expressions de Foi" qui vous entrainera vers ce cite de lumière et de rêves que vous convoitez tous, par le chemin de la foi, de l'amour et de l'espoir d'une vie meilleure.
A vous Carl, à votre famille et à vos lecteurs je souhaite une année toute resplendissante d'espoir et de lumière.
Yolaine S. Cabrol
REMARQUES DE CARL
Yolaine S. Cabrol, bien qu’aveugle, contribue souvent littérairement au “Coin de Carl.” L’affection que nous avons l’un pour l’autre est sans limite. Le dernier livre de Yolaine « EXPRESSIONS DE FOI » qui vient à peine de paraître, est un petit chef d’oeuvre.
Pour tous renseignements prière d’appeler le 786.242.1806 ou l’Association CACEC au 305.233.7215.
E S P A Ñ O L
PENSAMIENTOS POSITIVOS PARA REINVENTARSE 365 + 1 dias
POR ÉDOUARD F. LAFONTANT.
Cada noche cuando voy a dormir, me muero. Y al dia siguiente cuando me desperto, nazco de nuevo.
Gandhi
A tu lado donde nacen las lágrimas...
...Y el iris refleja brillos olvidados. Donde un suspiro se desvanece en el viento y una piel gastada se convierte en el árbol delas uñas. Donde los tiempos pierden todas las medidas porque nadie supo encasillar tus parpados.
Cerca, muy cerca de ti donde la piel abre sus puertas al deseo y el instinto brota húmedo para que surque sus lechos, donde surgen terciopelos de esperanza y el aliento empaña los espejos en la primavera desatada de tu boca.
Cerca, mucho más cerca, en el cabello atrapado entre tus lábios y mi anhelo... Donde el mar se abrasa al dormirse el sol y la vida vibra en el despertar inquieto de tus pasos. Donde una gaviota pone su primera pincelada al día.
Siempre a tu lado, donde los petalos guardan brillos y esencias de agua, donde el hielo de mis manos se hace mar en tus ebntrañas,
donde años, se hicieron instantes, donde un siglo se hizo un latido pero un latido de amor que solo tiene sentido...
Autor de la Poesia: Paco Casaña
K R E Y O L
MEN YON LOT MOSO TI-JAN
Yo trete’n tankou avadra.
An nou gade yon lot bagay
Ki kapab devlope lakay.
Moun nan prowens vin Pòtoprens
Moun Pòtoprens al nan prowens
Si chak kamyon ou byen oto
Menm bisiklèt ou byen moto
Ka peye chak jou pou taks woutyè
Yon kraze pou janbe baryè
Kès leta ta va gen lajan.
Yo ta foure men ladan
Non pa pou you foure nan pòch
Ni pou ba gwo pèp la yon tòch
Men pou kapab ranje tout wout
Yon fason ti gout pa ti gout.
Mete bon kanalizasyon
Pou gen sèvis transpòtasyon
Treètman dlo yo trè necesè
Pou maladi volè gagè.
Yo ta manyè bati lekol
Pou avadra san pwotokòl
Abitan ta plante latè
Olye pou yo pran kanntè
Yo ta manyè plante pye bwa
Ki kapab vin fè tè a swa.
Lè sa a tout flè kapab jèmen
Woz kou choublak, wont kou jasmen
Peyi’n ta ka repran bote’l
E fèt ta ka ranpli tete’l
Li va tounen yon jèn ti fanm
Pou li ta tounen kanpe janm
Tankou sik rouk nan te jenjanm
Nou fè sitou nan mwa desanm.
MEZANMI, se la map rete pou jodi’a. Na pale demen si Granmèt la vle.
