The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 16th of February Edition

EDITORIAL

This is been a very tough week for Venezuela, my country. That is why the news section is entirely devoted to try to explain the situation and sharing links of photos, articles and videos. In our Culture & Entertainment section everything is House of Cards and lovely Ellen Page. In the Design, Business & Innovation you can see a list of the top 10 most innovative companies in advertising via Fast Company. In the Science section an interesting article about how the human brain has adapted to react to emoticons in the same way it would to expressions on real human faces. And finally In Dog We Trust share some good news about Sochi's dogs and introduce us to the lovely Hashi.

Happy weekend, happy reading, and my brave Venezuelans, keep fighting!


NEWS

Photo: Carlos García Rawlins (Reuters) via El País.

Photo Leo Ramirez (AFP) via El País.

Photo: Jorge Silva (Reuters) via El País.

This past 12 of February there was a demonstration, mainly composed by students and young Venezuelans asking for fellow students who had been jailed after earlier protests to be freed, and also protesting against massive shortages in food and medicines, ravaged economy and one of the highest murder rates in the world. Armed groups supported by the government called "colectivos" fired their arms against the students killing two of them and leaving more than 20 injured. Security forces, police and military, instead of helping the civilians, fired tear gas, used water cannons and used extreme violence against the students, and the protestors in general. See some of the videos in YouTube here, here, here, here, here, here, here (yesterday afternoon Saturday 15), and watch how they even used a tank here.

The murder of one of the students, Bassil Da Costa, by the government supporters was recorded for at least three different point of views by different people using their cell phones. The proof is undeniable. Nevertheless the government did not say anything about these videos, instead they proceed to put dozens of students in jail and tortured them.

After 15 years of "Revolution", the Venezuelan media (with the exception of some newspapers and radio stations) belongs to the government, directly or indirectly. No TV channel reported the clashes instead they were forced to transmit a military parade, and the only channel NTN24 from Colombia that was covering the demonstrations live was taken out of the cable during that day and their website was also blocked. Graphic reporters from international agencies were attacked and robbed during the protests, but some images managed to reach the international media that very same day. Now the government is blaming the French agency AFP of conspiracy.

Venezuelans only count with social media, powered by a non casually slow and intermittent Internet to keep themselves informed and to share what is happening. They use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and open platforms like 9Gag. But the government is trying to block that too. Twitter Inc. confirmed on Friday that the Venezuelan government blocked users' online images as opposition groups marched through Caracas for a third day. Venezuela’s main telecommunications company, CANTV, is government-run and handles the overwhelming majority of internet traffic.

As the protest continues, the coverage in international media has increased. More people are now fully aware of the strong censorship imposed by the government to the local media that offered a very limited and biased coverage, as Venezuela’s government dominates the country’s airwaves.

Nobel peace prize and ex-president of Costa Rica, Óscar Arias, expressed his concern about the current situation and said that "Venezuela can do all sort of narrative efforts to sell the idea that is a true democracy, but with every violation of Human Rights committed, that claim is denied in practice because it represses criticism and dissent. Every government that respect Human Rights should respect the right of its people to demonstrate peacefully, the use of violence is unacceptable. Let's remember Gandhi's words: and eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."  Sadly, other Latin American leaders remained silent, or even worst expressed support to Maduro's repressive and anti-democratic regime. The power of cheap oil and "petro-dolars" cannot be underestimated.

What I've tried to do here is the only thing I can do as a Venezuelan living abroad, trying to make other people understand what is happening in my country. Despite the repressive efforts made by the Venezuelan government we are not voiceless due to the work of a lot of people that is trying to send our reality, our message, our pain, our indignation across.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for not being indifferent to injustice, repression and tyranny. And thanks for sharing, if you do it, the efforts made by the brave people holding their cell phones would not have been in vain.

There are links along this paragraphs, supporting my claims and my words, that even though are not neutral (how can they be?) they are supported by facts. Below there are other links, updated daily in case you want to know how the news are unfolding, and share, of course.


English:

YouTube: Armed "Colectivos" (paramilitar groups supported by the government) kidnap a student in Maracay.  (Added Wednesday #19F)

Quartz: The pictures the Venezuelan government doesn't want people to see. (Added Wednesday #19F)

The Guardian: Venezuela: raid on Leopoldo López headquarters as Maduro cracks down. (Added Tuesday #18F). People then recorded this in a mall where the police chase down activists.

Caracas Chronicles: Torture, Rape and Ransom. (Added Monday #17F)

The Daily Beast: Is this the end of Huga Chavez's Venezuela. (Added Monday #17F)

Al-Jazeera: Venezuelan protest leader calls new rally. (Added Monday #17F)

The Huffington Post: Pictures: Venezuela See Two Students killed.

The Washington Post: Photos: Violence erupts amid anti-government protests in Venezuela.

BBC. Venezuela student protest ends in deadly violence.

USA Today: Twitter reports image blocking in Venezuela.

Bloomberg: Venezuelans blocked on Twitter as opposition protests mount.

US News: Venezuela's opposition braces for crackdown as blame traded for deadly protests.

News Australia: Tanks, tear gas used by security forces to break Venezuela protest.

Reuters: Anti-Maduro protestspersist in Venezuela, dozens jailed.

Al-Jazeera: Police fire tear gas at Caracas protesters. 

Español:

Últimas Noticias: Murió Génesis Carmona, modelo herida durante las protestas en Carabobo. (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

Venenews: Mensaje de Leopoldo López antes de entregarse. (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

YouTube: Colectivos armados secuestran estudiante en Maracay  (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

El Mundo: "Los militares me violaron con el cañón de un fusil." (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

El País: La Policía Política pone en aprietos a Maduro. (Agregado Martes #18F)

El Nacional: Comunicado de Unasur no es el mismo que leyó Jaua. (Agregado Martes #18F)

NTN24: Víctima de abuso de la GNB relata las violaciones a los DDHH a las que fue sometido. (Agregado Lunes #17F)

RTVE: Video: Capriles convoca una marcha por la paz. (Agregado Lunes #17F)

Últimas Noticias: Video Análisis de los disparos en la Candelaria el 12F. (Agregado Dom #16F. Excelente periodismo de investigación ¡Hay que verlo!)

 El País. Fotogalería de imágenes del #12F.

El País: La soledad de Venezuela. América Latina da la espalda a la violencia política, la censura y la criminalización de la protesta que se ha agudizado en el país.

Julio Jiménez Gelden: #BetaPolítico #ElInicio #12F. (Este análisis de la situación es de los más sensatos que he escuchado hasta ahora, must see!)

CNN: Elías Jaua en CNN Conclusiones.

BBC Mundo: En fotos: Jornada de marchas en contra y a favor del gobierno en Venezuela.

Roberto Mata Instagram: Corto testimonio del padre de Roberto Redman.

Français:

AFP: Venezuela: les étudiants toujours mobilisés, avant les partisans du pouvoir samedi.

Le Nouvel Observateur. Les manifestations continuent au Venezuela.

Les Voix Du Monde. Venezuela: silence médiatique au pays de la révolution bolivarienne.

Deutsch:

Spiegel Online. Tote bei Protesten in Caracas.

DW: Drei Toten bei Krawallen in Venezuela.


***LATEST UPDATE***

The night of the 19th of February was the most violent one that had happened in my country in decades. The military, the police and the paramilitary ("colectivos") went out to the streets to persecute, assassinate, and intimidate the Venezuelans. As the blog Caracas Chronicles says (first link) "this is no war zone: in a war zone you have two sides shooting at each other. Tonight one side is doing all the shooting, the other side is doing all the being shot at."


Have a look for yourselves, more recent articles are on top and with an asterisk the articles and videos you really really should read/watch:

English:

The Independent: The left has a blid spot on Venezuela. When will it acknowledge that Chavez's socialist dream has turned into a nightmare

Channel 4: Is Venezuela burning while the world watches Ukraine? 

USA Today: Voices: where are the diplomats to help Latin America? Unlike in Ukraine, there's little hope Venezuela's neighbors will intercede in an effort to quell violence.

Motherboard / Vice: Not satisfied with blocking Twitter and TV, Venezuela shut off the Internet.

ABC: Internet a crucial Venezuela battleground 

BBC: Venezuela revokes 'acreditations and visas' of CNN journalists 

BBC: Venezuela threatens to expel CNN over protest coverage

Caracas Chronicles (must read!) 19F The night Venezuela finally imploded

Slate: Venezuela Erupts in Violence. The Venezuelan president appears to have ordered a national crackdown on protesters.

Buzzfeed: CNN journalist robbed at gunpoint in Venezuela

NPR: In Venezuela, Another Beauty Queen's Death Adds To Anger 

Buzzfeed: 29 disheartening imagesabout what's happening in Venezuela 


Español:

YouTube: Comunicado del Movimiento Estudiantil (2014)

NTN24 (Colombia): Video: Así se enfrenta la GNB con gases lacrimógenos y tanquetas a los manifestantes en San Diego  

DW (Alemania): DW es también obstaculizada en su labor periodística

Clarín (Argentina): Los días en que la calle pisoteó el carisma

El Nacional (Vzla): Una operación para el horror.

El País (España): El gobierno de Venezuela militariza el Estado Táchira.


And these are the videos recorded by people on the streets:

You Tube: Video aficionado: Altamira 8:30pm 19F

You Tube: Tupamaros en El Marqués (video)  ("Tupamaros" paramilitary in El Marqués neighborhood).

You Tube: Caracas 19F GNB dispara a civil en La Candelaria (Military shot dead a man in La Candelaria, Caracas city centre).

You Tube: Violencia en Chacao (video) (Violence in Chacao)

You Tube: Guardias Nacionales matan a joven en Avenida Panteón (video) (Military kill a man in Av. Panteón)

You Tube: Guardia Nacional arremente contra la comunidad de Los Ruices (video)  (Military attacks Los Ruices neighborhood).

You Tube: Momento en el que secuestran a estudiante (5:41) - Maracay

SCIENCE

Image via The Independent.

The human brain has adapted to react to emoticons in the same way we would to expressions on real human faces, new research suggests. Having first appeared in the 1980s, the pattern of brain activity triggered by looking at an emoticon smiley face is now the same as when someone sees a real smiling human face, scientists from the school of psychology at Australia's Flinders University in Adelaide said.Read full article in The Independent. E.T.P. 3'

Photo via The Independent.

Belgium has become the first country in the world to allow euthanasia for any age group, after its parliament backed amendments to the existing law which would in very rare cases permit doctors to help end the life of a terminally ill child. Read full article in The Independent. E.T.P. 4'

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Image:Flickr user Dan DeLuca via Fast Company.

Fast Company published a list with the world's top 10 most innovative companies in advertising. Among them is GoPro, Volvo Trucks, and Samsung. According to FC by having a look at their strategies you can have a pretty good idea of how the future of advertising will look like. Read list in Fast Company. E.T.P. 6'

Photos La Muralla Roja via Fubiz.

Have a look at this amazing, colorful and very original architectonic project in Spain made by Ricardo Bofill in La Manzanera, Spain. The complex is called La Muralla Roja. More photos and info in Fubiz. E.T.P. 4'

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

Photo House of Cards via The Atlantic.

And one of the most awaited shows on this new sort of TV that is not aired on TV, House of Cards just started last Friday on Netflix. Spencer Hornhaber in The Atlantic is watching and reviewing all episodes. At the moment of writing this he's already in episode 08. Have a look at his reflexions in The Atlantic. E.T.P. unknown as the article is still being updated. Christopher Hooton also talks about HoC "ferocious return" and its "malignant first episode" in The Independent. E.T.P. 4' (Major spoilers in both articles, of course).

Photo: Ellen Page via The Guardian.

Lovely Ellen Page, has announced that she is gay. "Speaking in Las Vegas on Friday, at a Human Rights Campaign-organised Time to Thrive conference of counsellors who work with teenagers who identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual or queer, she said: “I’m here today because I’m gay, and because maybe I can make a difference.” Read full article in The Guardian. E.T.P. (with video) 12'

Stranger by the Lake still via BFI.

10 great French gay films. As acclaimed thriller Stranger by the Lake is released in cinemas nationwide and on the BFI Player, we look back at the best of French gay cinema. See the list in the BFI website. E.T.P. 6'

IN DOG WE TRUST

Photo Hashi via Instagram.

Hello dog lover! Hope you're having a wonderful Sunday! 

Here are some links for you:

Olympic skier rescues and plans to adopt Sochi strays. Bravo!

Did you know that raising children with dogs can help protect them from asthma?

Really funny. Hilarious guy recreates famous movie scenes with a dog.

Packing up the pack. Moving tips for when the time comes to relocate with your dog.

Do you share your bed with your dog? Here's some expert advice on bed sharing.

Video of the week: Baby laughing at dog eating popcorn.

Enjoy your Sunday! And follow Hashi on Instagram.

-

In Dog We Trust is curated by: Carola Melguizo from La Guía del Perro.

The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 9th of February Edition

EDITORIAL

This week Sochi Winter Olympics has been a great excuse to put Russia and Vladimir Putin under close scrutiny. From the 'titanic budget' to the Olympic Rings fail in the opening ceremony, the photos of journalists and athletes arriving at half-done facilities, and of course the biggest of all: Russian anti-gay laws.
The Design & Business section highlights articles about Twitter and about Destination Branding. Some J.R.R. Tolkien and antimatter for the Science section. In our Culture & Entertainment we have a must-see list and "selfies" from the Berlinale, and more controversy as the Allen-Farrow neverending story keeps unfolding. Will this issue affect the already highly influenced opinion of the Academy in the upcoming awards ceremony? Finally don't miss out on what Carola and Andreína prepared for their lovely sections In Dog We Trust and Photoautomat.

Happy Sunday, happy reading and follow us in Twitter!


NEWS

Friday 06 of February Google Doodle. Screenshot.

Sochi 2014 began and happily a lot of important organizations took the opportunity to expressed their opinion about Russia's Anti-Gay laws. Channel 4 changed its logo to a more fully gay-colored one and wished good luck to athletes with its peculiar Gay Mountain video. The influential giant Google decided to used its emblematic Google Doodle and in the name of the Olympic spirit advocate for the right of every individual to practice sports without discrimination of any kind. Soon after other media like The Independent and The Huffington Post joined by changing their Twitter avatars. And finally in Canada, the Toronto-based Canadian Institute for Diversity and Inclusion, an organization that according to its CEO Michael Bash works to create “inclusive work environments … focused on the broad spectrum of diversity”, made a great video hoping the games remained -as they always have been- a little gay. Well done everyone! (If you have some more good examples, please share them with us in the comments section).

Photo: Antonio Pardo, bailando en Sochi via People Magazine.

If you have the Sochi fever, here are some Olympic related news:

Sochi: snow, skis and scandals - an idiot's guide to the Winter Olympic. Read full article in The Guardian. E.T.P.  8'

Journalists at Sochi are live tweeting their hilarious and gross hotel experiences. Read in The Washington Post. E.T.P. 6'

The lighting of the Olympic flame by two of Russia's famous Olympians, Irina Rodnina and Vladislav Tretiak, was also not without controversy — but this time over discrimination of a different variety. Read in The Huffington Post. E.T.P. 3'

Sochi hotel guests complain about topless portraits of Putin in rooms. The Borowitz Report, of course. Read in The New Yorker. E.T.P. 2'

An my personal favorite: Venezuela's lone athlete, alpine skier Antonio Pardo (photo above), who enthusiastically danced his way around the stadium. Read in People. E.T.P. 2' and in the Toronto Star E.T.P. 3'

Photo: Jim Merithew via WIRED

NSA Style. "The latest Snowden-related revelation is that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) proactively targeted the communications infrastructure used by the online activist collective known as Anonymous. Specifically, they implemented distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the internet relay chat (IRC) rooms used by Anonymous. They also implanted malware to out the personal identity details of specific participants. . .Whether you agree with the activities of Anonymous or not . . . the salient point is that democratic governments now seem to be using their very tactics against them. The key difference, however, is that while those involved in Anonymous can and have faced their day in court for those tactics, the British government has not. When Anonymous engages in lawbreaking, they are always taking a huge risk in doing so. But with unlimited resources and no oversight, organizations like the GCHQ (and theoretically the NSA) can do as they please. And it’s this power differential that makes all the difference". Read Gabriella Coleman's full article in Wired. E.T.P. 8'

SCIENCE

Photos via Fast Company.

In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, British author J.R.R. Tolkien created a fantasy world called Middle-Earth for his dragons, elves, dwarves, and wizards to inhabit, but he only ever rendered it in text. Now, a team of Danish programmers is taking Tolkien’s descriptions of Middle-Earth and rendering it on computers, on a truly planetary scale. Read full article and watch more photos in Fast Company. E.T.P. 5'

                                               St. John’s College, Cambridge, where Dirac discovered his famous equation.                    Image: Andrew Dunn via Science Museum's Blog.

Collider exhibition curator Dr. Harry Cliff writes a post in the Science Museum blog on Dirac’s discoveries and anticipating antimatter. "It was 86 years ago on Saturday that one of the most important scientific papers of the 20^th century appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Written by the young British physicist Paul Dirac, it was simply titled A Quantum Theory of the Electron, and was nothing short of a theoretical triumph." Read full article in the Science Museum's Blog. E.T.P. (if you already understand Dirac's equation) 8' / (if you don't, but you want to) 2 years.

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Photo via Wired.

"Twitter is sharing its massive trove of data with the academic world — for free. The social networking outfit has long sold access to its enormous collection of tweets — a record of what the people of the world are doing and saying — hooking companies like Google and Yahoo into the “Twitter fire hose.” But now, through a new grant program, it wants to make it easier for social scientists and other academics to explore its tweet archive, which stretches back to 2006 . . . 'It will be biased towards people who are on the internet, says Devin Gaffney — a developer who holds a master’s degree in Social Science of the Internet from Oxford University — but it’s still better than before. Plus, it’s less work. You don’t have to talk to 10,000 people. You just write some code to do it for you.' " Well done Twitter! Read full article by Klint Finley in Wired. E.T.P. 4'

Photo: Museumsplein via This is not advertising.

There are very successful and absolutely iconic city emblems like “I NY” and “I amsterdam,” that is why Paul Hiebert explores in his article in The New Yorker if a logo can change a city’s reputation, and this relatively new trend called destination branding, "which aims to package cities, regions, and countries as marketable products to lure potential tourists and investors". Read full article in The New Yorker. E.T.P. 8'

Todo sobre mi madre Achiset by Federico Babina via Dezeen.

This is absolutely fabulous, lovely example of meaningful procrastination: "Famous film set designs are translated into detailed cross sections that resemble the insides of dolls' houses in this series of illustrations by architect and illustrator Federico Babina." Have a look in Dezeen. E.T.P. 5'

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

Grand Budapest Hotel still via Dazed Digital.

Dazed Magazine share with us its must-see list for the Berlinale: "The Berlin Film Festival kicks off next week. From the director’s cut of Lars Von Trier’s sex addict epic Nymphomanic to the on-form latests from Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson, here’s what not to miss if you can make it to Potsdamer Platz to soak up the goodness". Read full article and watch some cool trailers in Dazed Digital. E.T.P. 15'

Michel Gondry selfie at The Berlinale via Télérama

Also in the Berlinale mood Michel Gondry decided to document the beginning of the festival with his phone and share some selfies with the world. Silly but cute. Have a look in Télérama. E.T.P. 2'

Mia Farrow, Woody Allen, and their children Dylan and Ronan, January 1988. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images via The New York Times.

Finally, I don't know if this article belongs to the Culture & Entertainment section, but due to a better section to be placed is here. Woody Allen responded in a letter published by The New York Times to the revived accusations made by her daughter Dylan Farrow in a letter published recently also in the NYT. This whole Farrow-Allen thing makes me think of the term 'character', but in a sort of legal way (as portrayed in TV). When someone is testifying in court (in TV court, that is), sometimes the lawyers share with the jury facts about that witness' life to help them see his 'character', because ultimately what he is saying and what he considers the truth will be filtered by its morality and his beliefs. Perception can be more powerful than facts.
By reading the comment section on every article published about this whole thing you can tell that most of the people commenting already made their minds long before the article was published, the section was just an opportunity to air their opinions. Maybe because it was an old issue, or because these are very public figures, but one thing is clear: they listen what they want to listen and ignore or disregard the rest. I'm not saying that there is no one out there that on the light of these new letters being exchanged, changed his or her mind about Woody or Mia (Dylan, unfortunately is a victim no matter what), I'm just saying that I haven't seen one single comment that doesn't seem to come from a person who already though that Farrow was a lying snake or Allen was an old perv.
Sometimes manipulating people seems to be the easiest thing on earth, sometimes changing one person's mind proves to be an impossible task. I am, of course, one of the persons that already have an opinion and probably won't change it. What about you? What do you think? Read Woody Allen's letter in The New York Times. E.T.P. 6'