The Devil’s Weight-Loss Routine
This is my first attempt at making a music video. I put together the music in Garage Band. There are still Peeps on my tripod I haven’t been able to scrub off…
Families of Colombia’s Political Prisoners Speak Out
This is a video I made from some interviews I did with the families of political prisoners during a recent trip to Colombia.
Another victim of the Border Patrol
On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 Border Patrol agents shot 16-year old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez to death. His body was found in Nogales, Mexico just across the street from the border fence, below a 10 foot vertical drop. One Mexican government official, speaking anonymously because an official investigation is still pending, said the boy was shot seven times in the back. As you can see, when I passed by on Saturday his blood stains were still dried on the sidewalk where they found him.
It’s not clear yet what took place, and news account are full of that vague, empty official-speak that follows every time an event like this inevitably occurs. According to the Border Patrol, the boy was part of a crowd that was throwing rocks at agents that went to investigate a drug package on the U.S. side. just look up at the fence, however, you’ll see how unlikely it is that anyone could throw a rock through it in any way that would be a threat to anyone on our side of the fence. All an agent would have to do is take a few steps back and he would be out of throwing distance.
And even if he was throwing rocks, is this something that warrants capital punishment now? After all, this is the fifth case since 2010 of Border Patrol agents opening fire on rock throwing teenagers from the Mexican side, and back in January 2011 they shot and killed another teenager. You would think that the Border Patrol is getting training from the Israelis on how to deal with the “threat” of rocks.
The FBI and the Mexican government are carrying out their own parallel investigations into what happened. As usual, the Mexican government timidly expresses its outrage, and yet continues to play the role of the lap-dog of the American government, carrying out a war on drugs that is drowning the country in blood at the request of the Obama administration.
Expect more hand-wringing, more stern words of disapproval, and more cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico as they high-five over the border fence and continue to pump more money in militarizing the border. Or maybe the U.S. will smooth over the situation by selling more guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Either way, expect a similar shooting to follow in the near future. As long as these teenagers have the decency to die quietly on the other side of the fence it’s not our responsibility any more.
Here’s a lil’ audio slide show I did about a local director here in Tucson…
“Perhaps the end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck.” -Neil Gaiman
Feeding time at the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary
It’s just after 6am and the sound of hundreds of pot bellied pigs clamoring for breakfast is rolling across the saguaros and Palo Verde Trees of the Sonoran Desert. Tim Mcavoy is going about the morning pig feeding at Ironwood Pig Sanctuary in Marana, Arizona.
The shelter is home to nearly 600 pot-bellied pigs that have been rescued from owners who can no longer afford to care for them. While they might look like an endless sea of wrinkled tails and bristly snouts to the casual bystander, Mcavoy says he knows each pig by name, calling out to them as he gives them their morning package of Fig Newtons.
“We all get to name them here, so there’s a pig out here named after each of our grandmothers, and then we start taking turns,” he says.
Mcavoy adds that the foreclosure crisis, combined with the fact that many families severely underestimate the amount of care a pot bellied pig needs, has resulted in a spike in the number of pigs taken in by the sanctuary. Ironwood, which was founded by Mary Schanz and Ben Watkins, now fosters abused and neglected pigs across the desert from Tucson to Phoenix and is supported through the donations of animal lovers across the country.
For more information about the organization, go to http://www.ironwoodpigsanctuary.org.
There is a War Between the Ones That Say There is a War and the Ones That Say There Isn't 
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