December, 2005

Stories from December, 2005

Cayman Islands: The Blue Dragon Trail

  28 December 2005

OddBlog announces the arrival of the Blue Dragon Trail, a series of 15 giant iguana sculptures “released” throughout Grand Cayman to raise awareness of the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme. The Grand Cayman Blue Iguana is the most endangered iguana in the world — it's estimated that there are as few...

Armenia: Linux in Armenia

  28 December 2005

Onnik Krikorian has more on localized Linux in the Caucasus, noting that open source software often ends up costing more in developing countries than does proprietary software because of piracy (with a nod to our very own Ethan Zuckerman).

Mexico: The Zapatista Podcast

  28 December 2005

Anarchogeek notes that “everybody's favorite revolutionary social movement,” the Zapatistas of Southern Mexico, now have their own podcast. Also noted: “It's a good radio program to learn from because the speakers don't rush through their words like most latino commercial radio, but speak slowly, deliberately, focusing on their words because...

Venezuela: Media Cover Up?

  28 December 2005

Following up on Alex Beech's post on anti-Semitism in Venzuela, Miguel Octavio wonders why he had such a difficult time finding the quote from Chavez. Checking Google's cache, he finally dug it up in a page from El Nacional, which had been deleted.

Latin America: Pan-American Literary Blog

  28 December 2005

El Boomeran(g) (ES) is a new group blog by eight critics and writers spread across Latin America and Spain. Sponsored by media conglomerate Grupo PRISA (owners of Spain's largest daily El Pais), the site is divided by: 1.) novels in progress 2.) criticism 3.) the “chronicle” and 4.) a forum.

Argentina: Novelist Manuel Puig

  28 December 2005

Jeff Barry celebrates what would have been Argentinean novelist, Manuel Puig's 73rd birthday by picking up his most well-known novel, The Kiss of the Spider Woman. Barry also notes that Puig‘s translator, Suzanne Jill Levine is one of the best and that Puig himself wrote a novel in English which...

About blogging in Morocco

  28 December 2005

Although blogging in Morocco is a new “fashion”, it is spreading with a high speed among Moroccans from all ages and different activities. You have the Doctor , the politic , the student, the antropologist,..etc. And if in other Arab countries blogging is mostly in Arabic, Morrocan bloggers happen to...

Travels in the Kurdish Blogosphere

  28 December 2005

Happy Holidays from the Kurdish section of the blogosphere! The Kurdistan Bloggers Union writes about security cameras being installed in the Southeast of Turkey to monitor the Kurdish population there. There is also an interesting post (and comment dialouge) about hyphenated-ethnicity and a posted book review of a new book...

Caribbean: R.I.P. Kerry Packer

  28 December 2005

Ryan Naraine and Richard Jobity remember Kerry Packer, the Australian media baron whose controversial World Series Cricket tournament was a key factor in the development of West Indies cricket. Packer, who died on December 27, was also the inspiration for a famous calypso by the Mighty Sparrow.