A few nice free legal help online images I found:

Banksy in Boston: Detail of the NO LOITRIN piece on Essex St in Central Square, Cambridge


Image by Chris Devers
Interestingly, both of the Boston area Banksy pieces are on Essex St:

• F̶O̶L̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶Y̶O̶U̶R̶ ̶D̶R̶E̶A̶M̶S̶ CANCELLED (aka chimney sweep) in Chinatown, Boston
• NO LOITRIN in Central Square, Cambridge.

Does that mean anything? It looks like he favors Essex named streets & roads when he can. In 2008, he did another notable Essex work in London, for example, and posters on the Banksy Forums picked up & discussed on the Essex link as well.

Is there an Essex Street in any of the other nearby towns? It looks like there are several: Brookline, Charlestown, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lynn, Medford, Melrose, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Swampscott, and Waltham. Most of these seem improbable to me, other than maybe Brookline, or maybe Somerville or Charlestown. But they start getting pretty suburban after that.

But, again, why "Essex"? In a comment on this photo, Birbeck helps clarify:

I can only surmise that he’s having a ‘dig’ at Essex UK, especially with the misspelling of ‘Loitering’. Here, the general view of the urban districts in Essex: working class but with right wing views; that they’re not the most intellectual bunch; rather obsessed with fashion (well, their idea of it); their place of worship is the shopping mall; enjoy rowdy nights out; girls are thought of as being dumb, fake blonde hair/tans and promiscuous; and guys are good at the ‘chit chat’, and swagger around showing off their dosh (money).

It was also the region that once had Europe’s largest Ford motor factory. In its heyday, 1 in 3 British cars were made in Dagenham, Essex. Pay was good for such unskilled labour, generations worked mind-numbing routines on assembly lines for 80 years. In 2002 the recession ended the dream.

• • • • •

Banksy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Banksy
• Birth name
Unknown

• Born
1974 or 1975 (1974 or 1975), Bristol, UK[1]

• Nationality
British

• Field
Graffiti
Street Art
Bristol underground scene
Sculpture

• Movement
Anti-Totalitarianism
Anti-capitalism
Pacifism
Anti-War
Anarchism
Atheism
Anti-Fascism

• Works
Naked Man Image
One Nation Under CCTV
Anarchist Rat
Ozone’s Angel
Pulp Fiction

Banksy is a pseudonymous[2][3][4] British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol[2] and to have been born in 1974,[5] but his identity is unknown.[6] According to Tristan Manco[who?], Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[7] His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world.[8] Banksy’s work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.

Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti.[9] Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[10]

Banksy’s first film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, billed as "the world’s first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[11] The film was released in the UK on March 5.[12]

Contents

• 1 Career
•• 1.1 2000
•• 1.2 2002
•• 1.3 2003
•• 1.4 2004
•• 1.5 2005
•• 1.6 2006
•• 1.7 2007
•• 1.8 2008
•• 1.9 2009
•• 1.10 2010
• 2 Notable art pieces
• 3 Technique
• 4 Identity
• 5 Controversy
• 6 Bibliography
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Career

Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994[14] as one of Bristol’s DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[15] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[14] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16]

Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in central Bristol – (wider view). The image of Death is based on a 19th century etching illustrating the pestilence of The Great Stink.[17]

Banksy’s stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.

In late 2001, on a trip to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, he met up with the Gen-X pastellist, visual activist, and recluse James DeWeaver in Byron Bay[clarification needed], where he stencilled a parachuting rat with a clothes peg on its nose above a toilet at the Arts Factory Lodge. This stencil can no longer be located. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur’s 2003 album Think Tank.

2000

The album cover for Monk & Canatella‘s Do Community Service was conceived and illustrated by Banksy, based on his contribution to the "Walls on fire" event in Bristol 1998.[18][citation needed]

2002

On 19 July 2002, Banksy’s first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a small Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.[19]

2003

In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[20] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet‘s Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper‘s Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[21]

2004

In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen’s head with Princess Diana‘s head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa’s Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.

2005

In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on Israel’s highly controversial West Bank barrier. He reportedly said "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km—the distance from London to Zurich. "[22]

2006

• Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern.[23]
• After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[24] on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby’s London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy’s work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol‘s Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[25]
• In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy Effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy’s success.[26]

2007

• On 21 February 2007, Sotheby’s auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[27] The following day’s auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[28] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can’t Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[6]
• In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural which comes with a house attached.[29]
• In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy’s iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[30] Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone, who was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London, along with fellow artist Wants, on 12 January 2007.[31] The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest, holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website, saying:

The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote ‘If it’s better next time I’ll leave it’ in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone – rest in peace.[citation needed]

Ozone’s Angel

• On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy’s work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US6,000), around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[32]
• On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art’s Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award, and continued with his notoriously anonymous status.
• On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy’s The Drinker had been stolen.[33][34]
• In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[35]

• Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[36] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy’s Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell’s graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.[37] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Phillips’ "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."
• A small number of Banksy’s works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
• In the 2007 film Shoot ‘Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy’s tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film’s credits.
• Banksy, who deals mostly with Lazarides Gallery in London, claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.[38]

2008

• In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[39]
• Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it didn’t cover anyone else’s.[40] Artists included Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Aérosol, Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth.[citation needed]
• In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[41]
• A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[42]
• His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[43]
• The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art". [44] The work was painted over in April 2009.
• In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was vandalised. The image was protected by a sheet of clear perspex, however silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely destroyed.[45].

2009

• May 2009, parts company with agent Steve Lazarides. Announces Pest Control [46] the handling service who act on his behalf will be the only point of sale for new works.
• On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[47][48] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[49] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition has been visited over 300,000 times.[50]
• In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[51]
• In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don’t believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.[52]

2010

• The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[53]
• In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction.[54] The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[55]
• In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008 Vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other “famous or significant artworks” in the city.[56]
• In April 2010 to coincide with the premier of Exit through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, 5 of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city.[57] Banksy reportedly paid a Chinatown building owner for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[58]
• In May 2010 to coincide with the release of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in Chicago, one piece appeared in the city.

Notable art pieces

In addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following:

• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We’re bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.[59]
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message ‘I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.’ in the elephant enclosure.[60]
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[61]
• He put up a subverted painting in London’s Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy’s version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection.[62]

Near Bethlehem – 2005

• Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[22][63][64][65]

See also: Other Banksy works on the Israeli West Bank barrier

• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT’s transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."[66]
• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[67] After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[67] The mural was later defaced with paint.[67]
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton‘s debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog’s head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up".[68][69][70]
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[71][72]

Technique

Asked about his technique, Banksy said:

“I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl’s face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.[73]”

Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy’s work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.

He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.

Identity

Banksy’s real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.[74][75][76] His year of birth has been given as 1974.[62]

Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring".[77] In the same interview, Banksy revealed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.[77]

In May 2007, an extensive article written by Lauren Collins of the New Yorker re-opened the Banksy-identity controversy citing a 2004 photograph of the artist that was taken in Jamaica during the Two-Culture Clash project and later published in the Evening Standard in 2004.[6]

In October 2007, a story on the BBC website featured a photo allegedly taken by a passer-by in Bethnal Green, London, purporting to show Banksy at work with an assistant, scaffolding and a truck. The story confirms that Tower Hamlets Council in London has decided to treat all Banksy works as vandalism and remove them.[78]

In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy’s real name is Robin Gunningham.[3][79] His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.

In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London.[80] This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times[81] and the Evening Standard.

Banksy, himself, states on his website:

“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being ‘good at drawing’ doesn’t sound like Banksy to me.[82]”

Controversy

In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face. Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as "shortcuts". He is quoted as saying:

“To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It’s a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.[83]”

Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy’s work is simple vandalism,[84] and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy’s street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".[6]

In June 2007 Banksy created a circle of plastic portable toilets, said to resemble Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. As this was in the same field as the "sacred circle" it was felt by many to be inappropriate and his installation was itself vandalized before the festival even opened. However, the intention had always been for people to climb on and interact with it.[citation needed] The installation was nicknamed "Portaloo Sunset" and "Bog Henge" by Festival goers. Michael Eavis admitted he wasn’t fond of it, and the portaloos were removed before the 2008 festival.

In 2010, an artistic feud developed between Banksy and his rival King Robbo after Banksy painted over a 24-year old Robbo piece on the banks of London’s Regent Canal. In retaliation several Banksy pieces in London have been painted over by ‘Team Robbo’.[85][86]

Also in 2010, government workers accidentally painted over a Banksy art piece, a famed "parachuting-rat" stencil, in Australia’s Melbourne CBD. [87]

Bibliography

Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings:

• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2
• Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3

Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[16]

Two books authored by others on his work were published in 2006 & 2007:

• Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 – with new editions in 2007 and 2008) ISBN 978-0-95547120-9.
• Steve Wright, Banksy’s Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-1906477004

External links

• Official website
• Banksy street work photos

Check out these free legal help online images:

In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional…


Image by tapperboy
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This image is available for purchase from here as a blank greeting card, matted print, laminated print, mounted print, canvas print or as a framed print.

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Note for first time readers…

This may start off as being a bit of a tough read but if you stick with it you’ll see things do improve, there may be something in reading this that might prove helpful to you or to someone you know. (updates may be added from time to time).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the beginning…… (sortof)

Click here to listen to an interview of Australian Comedian Judith Lucy by Richard Fidler (lasts approx 52 minutes)
Well worth the listen An emotional bouillabaisse – Judith Lucy

Reading a one page Judith Lucy interview in a sunday paper her talking about the falling out between her father and his two children shortly before his death was the catalyst, some years back, for my ringing to try and re-engage with my parents one more time.
I feel now a nice connection with Judith more so after listening to this interview. Judith Lucy like another Judith I know really rock as being people

November 6th, 2008

My Father died from cancer 31st October, 2008, just 39 kilometers from where I live. I rang my Aunt, his sister, on the morning he died but she withheld the news of his death from me. His funeral took place yesterday, Nov, 5, 2008. He lived 80 years on the earth. I was not invited into sharing in his life for the last 12 years hence…

I was not told about his passing until today (Nov 6, 2008) when My Aunt rang me back to tell me his funeral ceremony had been held the previous day. Consequently, I was not involved in any process in any way although I had asked to be considered for inclusion in some manner to be most simply, matter-of-factly re-instigated into the family as it was at that time which was when I was told he was in some way unwell, that was just a few weeks ago. I had no idea he was about to die after a not so brief period of time living/fighting against cancer.

Believing my siblings may have been on the receiving end of somewhat similar exclusionary treatment at the time I was let know that he was in someway unwell, I made an effort to deliver to them both the news.
I wanted that they should know if they did not already and that I now knew things were happening around him. To inform them that if they had a mind to, they should act quickly to involve themselves in the process that I believed was now in motion.

I have been estranged from my siblings around similar periods of time so I left no return contact phone number for them to reach me. I knew they both had the option to contact me, should they really desire to do so, through our Aunt who they know I have been in recent (last few years) contact with.

I have not had any word back from either sibling since passing along what I had come to learn, but they were in attendance at the funeral I now know.

I have been estranged from my parents (especially) since changing my name as one part of my first determined effort to get along with my life. This was after my writing both of them each a "personal" letter in 1997 asking each of them for some answers*1 to some very specific questions about the time we shared together while I lived and was raised under their roof. Questions asking after situations and events related to in those letters related primarily to their methods of raising of me and my siblings, notably, questions that only they could answer.

They had refused to answer anything other than cursory stuff when I had previously put to them some of the questions I later asked in the letters. At the time of face to face, I was pushing them to answer with openness with a view to get something sorted between us all. They pointedly stymied the process and there began leveling upon me personal insult, aspersion and denigration of character in tones and words chose mostly from my Mother, that was early in 1996.

My father quickly held up a newspaper calling the whole process finished, totally clamming up when he realised the answers I was seeking after to the questions I was asking.

My Mother waxed lyrical moments later about there really being no need to ask such questions, further telling me, there was simply no need for them to be answered either!

I believed that I still had somehow some remaining right to seek the answers I sought and a chance yet at getting them, if not by face to face contact then by some other means.
I sought out help to deal with the situation, I was directed to a Psychologist, we met and I spoke about what had happened recently and in the past, I was directed to read Toxic Parents*1.

I read the book, it rang true for me.

I acted as suggested by the book. I wrote to them both seeking answers still and enabling them both to be able to respond to them by using the one option remaining, the written word, to pointedly pass along to them both a statement and an account of my concerns, my truth.

I wrote to them each separate letters as I had different issues I wanted to discuss with each. I held the belief they might, singly or together, think on things I wrote about and decide to actively engage back with me. All I got in return was a of continuance of avoidance. Those letters are now in the keeping of my Sister?

I ended each letter with a stipulation that, considering their behaviour up till that point in time, I had taken some steps to make it sure and legal that if they had any thoughts to intrude into my personal relationship, were I to become unwell and unable to fend for myself, their approaches would be met with legal opposition from my partner as was my wish and that he would hold the decision to let them approach or not.

I believed that with it went unstated but assumed and understood by them that if they carried no negative intent at such a juncture then there’d be no need for my partner to proceed enacting my wishes.

Wisdom tells me now that assumptions are not worth the paper they’re written on.

Each letter was sealed and hand delivered into their separate hands addressed separately, they were Confidential Letters that is… for their eyes only.

I realised after sending them their letters that they were my loudest and turns out the most final cry for basic familial recognition and general acceptance.
I had ended both letters with the same statement essentially that I was going to be getting on with my life without them as that was what my understanding of their attitudes towards me was it was therefore the only apparent way to proceed, they of course always had a choice remaining,to engage or not after that point.

They chose the easy road, to move completely out of my life at that point, I got no reply back other than that. Neither of them ever spoke to me nor I to them again after that point. Not what I had hoped after but what was for each their answer never the less. Nothing else I could fathom to do to change that situation.

My Mother died suddenly a couple of years later. I found out she had died around two years after that. It was when I bit that blasted bullet again and rang them to talk over the phone, to try, not for the first time but, for what turned out to be the last time, to seek engagement from them directly, to somehow, work through our differences.

No one from the family, in the two years since her passing, had taken the time to find out if I even knew she had died.

My Fathers new wife answered the phone and a short time later she came to the task of informing me of my Mother’s passing. She and I arranged to meet, to talk, in two days time, she never kept the appointment, we have not spoken since not for my want of trying.

After she failed to materialise I tried ringing her but each time my Father answered her mobile, I was naturally somewhat reticent at that point to talk to him, I just hung up without speaking a word..

A week after my initial call I got a brief note in the mail, my father, saying he had no idea why I had phoned, that I had made my Mother’s last few years a living hell but then went on then to wish me all the best with my future!

So, he’s passed away now and this time around my name has been purposefully left off the funeral announcement and as I’m now aware nor is my name included in any Notices of Appreciation in any of the local or wider flung newspapers either.
No one closely or not so closely related to me from my immediate or not so immediate family considered going against his wishes to reach out to inform me, in a timely manner, of his passing. Nor of the impending funeral, nor to take the time or make any effort to contact me, to offer me at least the opportunity to attend the funeral.

Yes, I will be working hard at gaining a deeper understand of how that’s OK behaviour from folks who, although we have had our differences, seem to see themselves as upstanding people, a family even? Beats the heck out of my concept for what constituents loving family behaviour!

Since finding out about my Mother’s passing some two years after the event I have spent time, rightly so, coming to terms with my grief and loss and the treatment*2 mettered out to me by my Parents and siblings and their families. So, tonight I find I’m a lot better at handling this latest turn of events.

I’ve toasted his passing with a glass of Cab Sav shared with my partner of 22 years and a longtime friend after making them dinner of Vietnamese Stir-Fry Bok Choy followed with home-made Gramma Pie and Ice Cream.

I will put this here for now publicly as I feel such a need, my understanding as to why I need to I am not fully conversant with at this time so I will, conversely, take it down if I feel there’s the a further need, as is _my_ choice.

For the moment, I will not sit quietly and wear such insult as I believe that it is that I am supposed to but still, without good reason. I have fought too hard for too long to gain my self respect.

My meditation*8 tomorrow will be directed to inviting understanding, acceptance and dealing with unfinished business…

For those who comment with support, while this image holds as public viewing.
I deeply appreciate your presence of mind in doing so.

Nov 17, 2008

I was told by a woman who attended the funeral that my brother mentioned my name in a speech he gave during the service. I thank him for this concession.*4

My father is cremated. I don’t know what will be done with the ashes.

I have made contact via the Salvation Army Officers who are connected with my Fathers wife, who were instrumental in some large way with his funeral service, to represent me to her, in good time to ask her to arrange a copy of my Fathers will into my hands. I understand by Australian Law that I have the legal right as a child of the deceased, no matter the personal circumstances between us at the time of death, to be given a copy of any existing will. How I will be at the moment I read what it contains I have no idea. I feel the need to see it to be able to move on in some way. If I’m disinherited then I’ll deal with that then and won’t truly know how I will respond until I read what is written.

On the day that my Father was being buried I found myself thinking about how things were at the time. I did not know he had already died. I found out the following day I had been purposefully kept uninformed about that family business by the one lone relative I had sought re-engagement with these last few years. They had told me only very recently that they would keep me informed of any news and changes. It was they who would the next day come to inform me of the funeral having been carried out the day before despite their previous undertaking to share information. Not knowing he’d already died I was thinking about my fathers impending demise and what that would mean to me in the future. I came to an understanding.

I had still more grieving yet to do, further unfinished business to work through and as it was tending towards being that no one from my family was looking to be there positively in league with me throughout the process then I’d have to do as I’ve always done, survive it by taking up the challenge without their support, despite my perception of the situation’s continued measure of unfairness.

I’d seen a short article in the local press a few days earlier calling people to attention of an upcoming two day seminar, a Facing Death from the Buddhist Perspective, Embracing Life Workshop.

I thought the timing was perfect. I enrolled and now have a space reserved for me.

Facing Death Workshop*3 (Text copied from pdf attached to confirmation email I received)

"To inspire a quiet revolution in the whole way we look at death and the care for the dying, and the whole way we look at life and the care for the living.” (Sogyal Rinpoche)
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Facing Death
from the Buddhist Perspective
Embracing Life
Two Day Seminar with Judy Arpana

Long-term student of Sogyal Rinpoche (author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)
This ‘life changing’ seminar will challenge attitudes to loss, death and dying and compel you to live your life more fully.

Reflect on the difficulties of your life’s journey and address any unfinished business.
Explore the importance of funerals and rituals (particularly practical aspects).
Gain insight into how Tibetan Buddhism can help you face death and dying. Increase your capacity for joy and forgiveness.

Judy Arpana has been a counsellor for over 20 years, specialising in grief and loss. She has extensive experience in conducting training workshops for staff and volunteers in hospitals, community settings, aged care facilities and hospices throughout Australia and Europe. Judy has been a student of Buddhism for 25 years and has studied with many Buddhist masters. Her workshops explore the meaning of life and death, and she brings to these challenging themes the gift of ‘extraordinary ordinariness’.

Topics that will be discussed

Motivation, Grief & Loss, Practical Advice re Wills & Funerals, Impermanence & Change, Transforming Suffering, Spiritual Preparation for Death, Dying Process, Basic Meditation, Reflective Practices, Reflective Practices, Unfinished Business & Forgiveness.

November 23rd, 2008

Home from attending the workshop/Seminar *3 "Facing Death from the Buddhist Perspective, Embracing Life".

Huge thanks to Judy Arpana and the Byron Bay Buddhists who made this weekend come into being and also to the people who attended there and shared their inspiring realities, their pains and joys.

What can I say? The whole weekend, the whole experience was amply delivering.

Awareness aided by meditation I’m happy to adopt as a means to a better now.

Live each day as if it was your last.

Help is out there.*4

Yeah!

Nov 29, 2008

Click here to listen to an interview of Australian Comedian Judith Lucy by Richard Fidler
Well worth the listen
Reading about the falling out between her and her father shortly before his death was the catalyst some years back for my ringing to try and re-engage with my parents again.
I feel now a definite connection with Judith more so after listening to this interview. Judith Lucy like another Judith I know really rock as people

Dec 2, 2008

Yesterday I again rang the Salvation Army Captain who played a large part in the funeral of my father and found out they had approached my Fathers wife at my request a couple of weeks ago asking if she and I could be in some sort of communication. They had not rung me so I assumed they may not have managed contact with my fathers wife.

I found out she’d been contacted and that she was apparently ok for contact of some sort to occur.

Having been held away as I have been in one way or another I was wondering now what, if anything awaited me next thinking the only immediate process left to conclude now would be the witnessing and acting upon a will if there was one.

In the beginning, shortly after finding out he’d died and his funeral ceremony having been carried out. I was consumed with ‘getting’ something anything, after the shock of finding out about such playing out of the situation.

I found myself thinking that ‘a few lousy bucks’ would satisfy that need. Things change though and it emerged to me that my anger was doing the talking.

I seek still what I’ve always sought and financially, although I have a need it is other than money that I seek help with obtaining.*4 I seek help towards putting right so many wrongs is more the truth. I decided to push on with things then to hasten the process as time is short for being unhappy when the few remaining things that are needing my attention are declining in number. So I seek to lessen them to none. To get to the other side of the process, my forgiving of others, asking it from them even without approaching them to ask them if it’s potentially upsetting to do so and from myself and also giving it to myself

I had found out I should expect to have a copy of any will forwarded to me and had asked that be passed along to my fathers wife believing her the be the executor asking that it be made to happen soon as possible if no one had already set to with the process. I wanted to have things finished sooner than later having dragged on for so many years.
With both my parents dead and no family coming forward weeks after the funeral I felt there was going to be little chance of any heartening family experiences coming into being.

I wanted, I guess, to see if there was anything in it for me, not so much financially in it but more as a hope of reading or hearing a final explanation from my father for the way things went so far as he was concerned, my being shunned as it is and why he might have been unable to concede an inch of ground to me no matter how much I tried for it to happen.

That his widowed wife had been contacted on my behalf a notable time before but had not contacted me since spoke in no way positively of what I might expect or hope to hear from her.
I rang and as no one answered left a phone message with a number to contact me on.

I was rung this morning, December 2, 2008.

The distance between us became huge as she made it clear to me that she and I were not family in the first instance.

The suggestion I could contact a particular solicitor for a copy of my fathers will was not avoided and I was given a name and a number to ring.
I’d rather have had other stuff to talk over with her but when attempting to I was, as has long been my treatment, met with a resistance or what could maybe be called an apparent lack of knowledge or a lack of awareness or concern even about most anything I seemed to ask after and a reluctance to discuss with me just about anything else besides. I was told it was my fathers wish I be held away for his dying and basics about the funeral. The only thing of consequence was that my Father had instructed I not be told anything about his dying and I was not to be told about the funeral process either.

That he is dead could now offer out new opportunities for new beginnings, fresh starts, but not everyone may see things that way now, or ever.

It has always come to me at such times as this that there emerges this uncomfortable awareness of a process happening without me where it seems, to me, that it is somehow ok with family and others to withhold discussing with me or supplying to me certain information yet at the same time it seems obvious that they and the rest of my family have easily enough managed to effect such communications between themselves.

edit: Upon reflection*5 I know more now about why this is and how I and all my family members came to "unwittingly" play their roles in setting this process into place. It’s was a survivalist but dysfunctional response to a traumatic childhood event. edit ends

My calls to be heard, to be given answers to the questions I asked over the years has only set me apart from them all in a most dramatic way. Me getting angry at such treatment has not helped either but anger I feel is an understandable emotion to surface considering the number of attempts I’ve made asking for communion with little or no return.

She (my stepmother) was clearly very uncomfortable with conversing over the phone and only stayed on the phone for as long as I tried to engage with her in conversation. I realised she was grieving too but that I might also be seemed of little consequence to her other than for touching upon it momentarily but, with a small token of compassion, for which I was happy, another small concession.

During the conversation I spoke to her about my sister. About how she and I as teenagers and as adults have ‘never’ been able to progress passed a point in our repeated comings together to reach a common acceptance of our differences. Why they might exist. Why when her anger rises at such times I find that all I am able to do is ask her repeatedly to take a moment to reconsider that anger in that moment but when that consideration is not forthcoming I find I’ve never been able to do more than to just warn of my intent to then carry it out by walking away from the situation. At those time and in the days following the situation turns, for me, towards being a huge sadness and huge frustration for her no doubt and for me a certain feeling of loss at my total inability to supply her any answers to the questions she asks me.

I feel she seeks similar answers to me and I hold that those answers should always have been forthcoming from our parents. I did not raise my sister.

I am 18 months older but that she is pained so is the best indication that our shared pain and suffering sets it out there that there has long been a case to be answered.

So, as I was not wanting to engage with her still as I understood that she remains out of sorts towards me, still. That my feeling about what might be her present situation had largely been confirmed to me as the present truth by the suggestions coming from others who could make such an informed assessment. I stated my desire to stay disengaged from her at this time.

I had recently learned that my sister and my fathers new wife had formed a close association and it was indeed acknowledged next in the conversation. I felt that as a relief. I sense my sister needs a mother as much in a way as I still need to have known both my parents as parents that she has someone similar in that regard can only be good for her.
I wished them both well with their connection accordingly and hoped it would deliver them both continuing good the more time that went by.

I left her with the suggestion she may wish to keep my phone number instead of destroying it as we’d discussed and as she said was going to do as I’d said I did not want it passed about freely right at this time.
I asked her to consider keeping it now in the hope that one day she might feel the desire to be back in touch with me, stranger things have happened.

The one thing she suggested I might do was to build a bridge to my Brother as a starting point.
I’d estranged myself from him and his wife some years ago when I had realised they’d had some two years to try contacting me about informing me of my mother’s passing and had not done so.

Asking them for an explanation I became angry and dramatically left off communications with them. Lose my contact details and stop praying for me too, it hasn’t done a bit of good to date, I told him as I hung up the phone. They conceded to my wishes.

Next, I rang the Solicitor whose name and phone number I had been given and there again met that familiar unsettling blankness on the other end of the phone?

Hard to not get riled when you speak into a phone and the other end returns silence, especially, from someone who you’ve never met!

Communication from him was hard won by me. I had to drag every word from his lips when I know he could have eased me through the task at hand him being, or should have been, aware that I was not outside any current law asking what I was asking but fairly within it.

In the end I had to seek from him that he at least understood that what I was saying that it was my understanding that I had some legal right to be given a copy of my fathers will and that I was not asking for anything that I was not legally entitled to.
That he might be representing the executor of the estate (no idea who that is) he might now need to clarify to them that it was a process they need to follow and was not about personalities and personal differences but simply acting upon a request I’d made governed by a legal right I had.

I stressed I was not wishing to upset others but found myself flabbergasted that again I was having to push for every inch of ground that others were so at ease to hold back from me.

I believe he understood what I was saying in the end so I expect a copy of my Fathers will to arrive here sooner than later now.

Reading what is written in it will be a decisive moment for me I have no doubt, having survived a number of them in my life before this I will no doubt survive this one.

I rang my Brother tonight. He spoke but not with much enthusiasm in his voice, he hung up twice when he made it known he felt the conversation was not going where he felt it should go.

We have things needing discussion it is obvious but it appears that I, for the lack of being present and knowing and understanding*5 much stuff which has previously been barely explained to me that we were simply unable to get anywhere with the conversation.
Anger did not enter the process but clearly he and I are not seeing things in the same way right now.

I was in the throes of asking him to consider that change is probably what we could begin to talk upon that it is happening all the time and that people can sometimes work change to themselves when he hung up the second time. His suggestion just before hanging up was for me to write a letter. This journal may very well be that letter has since occurred to me as I am writing this.

If anyone reading this thinks boy Oh boy, is he ever pushing it then I would have to agree.

For me, 50 years about of me trying for some unconditional love from those who I would wish I should not have needed to ask for it from is long enough. They’re both dead. I need to move on and I am pushing as I can to make that happen by concluding what can be concluded instead of waiting for the impossible*5 to happen at the whim of the universe.

I’m through waiting for the phone to ring, a letter to arrive, a hug, a kiss whatever. There’s life over the crest with or without my family and I’m determined to have it with or without them if that’s ultimately the case.

Dec 3, 2008

I phoned back the Salvation Army bloke and made him aware of the basics of my communication with my Father’s widow. I thanked him for being part of the process to enable me to make that communication.

I felt he was saddened to hear the communication between she and I had begun with a statement from her outlining that I was (to her) not seen to be family but as it’s said sometimes shit happens and there’s not much we can do about it! I said I would like to stop by and thank he and his partner for their kindnesses personally not right now but at some time in the near future. He said he’d be happy for that to happen

Dec 10, 2008

Letter arrived from the Solicitors offices I rang on December 1.

They write they have been instructed by the executrix of the estate to provide me with a copy of my Father’s will on the basis of the information I supplied them over the phone that I am the deceased’s son.

I have to stop into their office to collect it. I have to produce photo ID ie a Current Drivers Licence or passport.

I’ll do that tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what it has to say to me.

I continue asking for clarity whenever I find myself falling into the self pity/why am I suffering this still, mode. It works, not straight away but these days I don’t set out expecting it to appear on the spot rather I just ask for it and leave off the worry and waiting for it to arrive. Life continues

Dec 11, 2008

No surprises, simply there’s no mention of me in the will, I do not exist in that regard.

I felt it best to not become upset but to do something positive straight away so I bought a pack of chocolate coated peanuts and we had a swim in the surf at Kirra Breach and am happy to state we enjoyed both.
I will have to get some legal advice now I guess to see what, if anything I could consider to do in response to this latest turn of events. Not in a hurry to do anything right away.

The will is recent, set down as at 23 Oct 2008, one week before my Father died.

Dec 12, 2008

I had a talk to a lovely woman last night. she left me with this…

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an act, not a feeling.
Though it may generate feelings, forgiveness is an exercise of the will. When we forgive, we refuse to be further damaged by the wrongdoing of others.
A refusal to forgive is called resentment. And the victim of resentment is always the one who carries it.
The people we refuse to forgive may neither know nor care about our resentment.
To hang on to a resentment is to harbour a thief in the heart. By the minute and the hour, resentment steals the joy we could treasure now and remember forever.
We victimise ourselves when we withhold forgiveness.

I’m working on it*

*recalling to mind now something I learned at the Facing Death Workshop

In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional.

edit: I decided not to waste any more time leaving undone things I could move along with doing.edit ends

I went and chanced an impromptu meeting with the Salvation Army officers concerned with my father’s funeral.Guess what! They were both there, present as well as another woman who I had been worrying over, her being owed a face to face thank you from me for hearing me out recently over the phone.

I thanked them all for their actions towards my Father, his Wife, my Siblings and towards me as well. They gave me a book.*6

It was during this conversation that I looked again at the will and with great happiness I found I was written in there! The ink is white, the paper is white but I’m in there, there is no doubt

edit: I realised this morning (Dec 14, 2008) that the immediately above paragraph might need some clarifying for some folks so here goes…

My Father died resenting me and to that end he left me out of his will. I’ve long been looking for a tangible sign that my parents together or separately loved me and I hoped his will would hold a sign that this was the truth.

I now believe that for his resentment to exist it had to begin its life as his love.

When the understanding of forgiveness not given turning towards resentment came, I had my answer in that instant.

Tears came shortly thereafter, relief, awareness, sadness, release.

I realise that anything is possible now

Dec 13, 2008

A great start to the morning

Rang my Aunt, had a wonderful conversation with her. She is now relieved of some anxieties I knew she would have been holding and much sooner now than she’d have expected to be.

A small step in the right direction

Letters of forgiveness to my siblings and Stepmother are next on the list of things to make happen

Dec 28, 2008

The letters are finally printed out. Amazing how little text they contain. I had started writing them and they’d very quickly assumed epic proportions, I sat with them and now the finished articles hold hardly more than a couple of sentences each. I’ll sign them and get each of them in the post and away tomorrow. I’m adding a postcard size photo of the pink waterlily above with each letter.

note: This forgiveness business is pretty good stuff

Dec 29, 2008

They’re in the mail

Now we are off to the beach to have a swim in the sea.

Breathing freely now *7

Jan 30, 2009

Replies received, one negative, another not so but somewhere in between, the last one definitely tending towards the positive, I’m very happy with this result.

Since receiving the first two replies I’ve attended a 10 day Buddhist retreat, my first ever retreat. The whole retreat was on Meditation, high end teachings for that type of Tibetan Buddhism, fantastic experience.

These days I can meditate with my eyes open, half open that is. No need for a focal point either is what we were taught, it’s harder without a focus but better if we can otherwise one step back down the process is to use a focal point, an object, your thoughts even or an emotion, a feeling, a sound/s any sensation, pain you’re feeling for example, make the distraction the focus of the meditation is what we were taught, neat stuff!

Grateful While there an opportunity arose so I added both my parents names to a prayer list to be taken across the planet to France then to various Buddhist Monasteries in India to be prayed over by monks, ultimately I understand to reside I somewhere inside a statue of the Buddha.

Finally I feel I’ve honored them. Awareness that they did _their_ best in their own particular ways has allowed me to set them free and me at the same time. I no longer need to visit that past to ponder and anguish over what happened back there. Now beginning reading*9

Feb 9, 2009

There’s been terrible bushfires here in Australia, many many people have died, many have lost their homes, it’s extremely saddening and upsetting to realise

What’s happened for me thinking after these things is it’s helped me to coalesce my thoughts about my family business…

I’ve been struggling. It’s too much for me the unfinished family business. I’ve been sitting with the response letters trying to figure how to proceed and I’ve realised that there really is no one that’s even remotely there for me. So why should I continue with my angsting over what to write back to the one letter (my brothers) that did show some direction tending towards the positive?

I decided there’s a mountain in the way and I cannot move it so with tears in my eyes…

I just rang and left a somewhat bitter (yep still suffering) message on the answer machine of my stepmother thanking her for her letter and letting her know I’m finished with it all.

Said far as I can work out the "family" has never been there for me in the way I’ve needed them to be and those that remain clearly never will be.

I’ve instructed her that she’s now at liberty to pass along to them all that I’m done with them, and this family business. I remember I said I’d never felt more alone than I did when I found myself thinking about them especially their attitudes towards me.

So what now?

I’m off with whatever life has in store for me without them, they will not be called upon by me in any way after this point in time.

I’m filing the letters and all other paperwork next then I’ll be off to make a start with living the rest of my life without them as a part of it.

edit
Sent a more elaborate email to my Aunt. She has all she might need to send to the others should she want to or should they ever ask.

Different realities!

That is the end to it and to them all.

In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional…

Feb 11, 2009
Interesting reading, (local press) not that I usually put much store in what the stars say.

Interesting also that I actually know the person who writes them, us, having met unexpectedly, only recently.

Here they are for Tuesday, 10 February 2009…

ARIES: Present energies bring a fabulous chance to heal an old pattern that’s been operating for most of your life. To realize how different things are now that you’re the one in charge of your feelings – to forgive the past, drop the burden and move forward free at last.

Special Edit: Wed 11 Feb, 2009

This evening I had a chance to meet and talk with the woman who writes the stars for the paper and to tell her how very apt were this week’s stars happened to be for me especially in relation to my current situation

Mar 27, 2009

A friend just emailed me that they’d read through this again, they were happy to see how things had developed, they passed along to me the following…

LETTING GO TAKES LOVE

To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off,
it’s the realisation I can’t control another.
To let go is not to enable,
but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it’s to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
it’s to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticise or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more
Remember: The time to love is short —— author unknown

April 2, 2009

More recently helping with the healing*10 is taking time to listen to some of what’s on offer from Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. His Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (audiobook) initially released as a book only and the same for his Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
Being given access to the Body Scan Meditation from his
Series 1 Guided Mindfulness Meditation Practice Program (4 CD set) has been very rewarding also. I’m seeking out presently the full complement of the Series 1 disks now to have them to hand and easily within reach

June 3, 2009

Beating a dead horse!

It’s a tough one this getting along, moving on, becoming whatever one thinks to call it. I am no different to anyone else in that regard so I don’t blame myself for any steps taken backward especially in light of the most recent turn of events

Yes, I regressed, I got angry at the lack of contact , at all that has transpired not just the recent past but with my entire history of interactions, or lack of, with my family.

I contacted the Salvation Army officer again and asked him to ask my ?stepmother? why she was punishing me, what had I done to or against her that allowed her to conduct herself with regard to me in the way she has done. I also have looked into making a legal claim on my father’s estate.

I relayed to him to share with her that I was researching into the possibility and to pass that along to her together with a proviso that I’d rather I had no need to go in such directions but that so long as I remain isolated and left hanging by ?family? then….

In all this there has been in my mind that there was one distant family member who had never had any issue with me.
They had experienced and interacted my immediate family directly and had always approached and dealt with those family members in a fair, open and non-judgmental manner.

We had not communicated since the late 90′s. I had thought they’d been misdirected about things and so it was I felt I had to contact them and ask one question which had been haunting me, about events we experienced together when last we were in each others company.

I rang them…

They shrieked with delight when they realised who was calling.

The amazing thing is..

I

now

have

family

who

are

there

for

me

If I never hear back from the Salvation Army fellow… edit no word still, June 13, 2009 edit ends

If I never hear back from my stepmother… edit Ultimately I had to force a meet between us on June 7, 2009 edit ends

If I never see a single cent of inheritance it should no longer worry me as it has… edit. It IS still worrying me as at June 13, 2009 edit ends

What’s defining for me is to actually know that you’re part of a family even if by only one family member, as has been my quest for most of my life, is the best thing to me.

Truth is I look forward to my future now and for the first time in many many years.

June 7, 2009

Moving along…

I forced a meeting with my stepmother into being today. I simply turned up at her church.

The meeting went well enough considering. We saw each other’s pain but such is life that even when one sees another’s pain it does not mean they will do what they might to offer up all available remedies.

Found out today, finally, that there will be no inheritance coming to me. What portion of my fathers estate my stepmother holds under her control presently she says she will be willing after her passing to my siblings, after his wishes.

Doesn’t make it any easier to understand why she intends to hold with that process as she acknowledged to my face that I was not cared for by my parents as I should have been. That I had been treated shamefully by them in life and in death too and I should not be enduring any such punishment/s?

I feel good probably because I have finally made myself seen and heard to one person at least from "within" the family. A person who has to a degree played along with the processes directed to dis-empowering me who today has acknowledged me as a person and not a receptacle for prejudice.

Will things change further after this? I think they will but I won’t be torn emotionally as I have been from here on in. I know I will sleep well tonight.

June 14th, 2009

I don’t wish to come across ungrateful but I’m, right at this moment, staying with believing I’m a long way from being finished with this process.

How do I sound then when I say I feel I should be extended my share of inheritance and that those who have been given it should be asking themselves how it is that they are able to take a financial gain under the circumstances and have no trouble sleeping at night after the various shared histories we all have between us.

Am I simply being a child that’s still hurting without being given any just cause or reason for it or are they being children themselves acting on some self perceived impunity to punish simply because they believe they have some given right to do so?

If it’s me acting out then I’m calling poor show by them by their actions being they are, unlike me, all parents of children themselves.

If they don’t know my "whole" story then they should be showing interest now to know before leveling their punishment. If they are acting on my Fathers wishes I would put to them that he is now dead but I still draw breath.

I wrote my truth to my parents in 1997, I took the time to do so as the only remaining way to get my truth made known to them despite their efforts to silence me.
They never took it upon themselves to reach back to me as I now believe a parent who loved their child would.

To be let go by them as they choose to, to be treated so by other family now after they have both passed on?

June 14th, 2009
note: The following response is copied from comments

"Dear Glenn,

My take on "inheritance" is so different from what that word generally brings to mind that I think I am not going to be helpful to you in resolving this Glenn.

For me, what I have is my own to gift to whomever I wish.

I personally wish to do that in ways that make sense to me and to trust that it makes sense to all of those who might reasonably have expected a share.

Even as I write that though, I resent the words "expected".

I cannot explain it beyond to say that that is how my parents raised me.

we children did not all ever get similar gifts for Christmases when we were young children and /or birthdays and sometimes nothing at all.

O paternal grandparents died and there were huge discrepancies in how they chose to disperse their estate among their children. My parents were at great pains, though NOT included, to stress to us (their children) that it was their parents right to choose, that their parents had earned every cent and it was theirs to do with as they wished.

I know this will be blunt, but it is how I see it, and am glad to have had that as part of my upbringing and am in the process of making sure that my own childrne understand these words even if they find it hard.
I can only wish you well as you struggle with it, but I believe anything gained as a result of obtaining "rights" is likely to be a pyrrhic victory.

Fond Regards …

I

Judith"

June 15th, 2009

Thanks Judith, I had nothing but tears after reading what you wrote I think most probably towards this bit…

"and am in the process of making sure that my own childrne understand these words even if they find it hard."

It epitomizes most eloquently what my life’s quest has been after up till today. That is me simply seeking someone from my family, preferably to have been one or both of my parents, to come forward and explain to me so many of what I think of as "ordinary things, ordinary situations" to me. Me, who has longed to have had them explained in the first instance better even with care and support until I gained for myself a firm understanding of what was and why.

I’d like to thank you for making it plain(er) to me why my trying to get some reconciliation even if only monetary has always been a lost cause.

It was put to me very recently the following…

"If it were a "game", (wrestling/betting), you have been made to loose, your hand was dealt a long time ago and this way anyone else but you wins. You cannot compete with that mentality, you will always loose…"

I think I understand now how poor a hand I was dealt.

edit June 15th, 2009 Evening, after sitting and thinking over the day.

I have fought hard and long just to survive, to let things go now as they are is a tough thing to consider doing.

The injustices I have encountered are clearly not going to be ones that I can set to right no matter what I do.

Letting them go now is finally coming to be the obvious answer.

I was hoping this might have become a standout example where wrongs magically came to be righted, people stepped forward to seek forgiveness and admit their own human frailties but maybe that’s just in Hollywood movies and not what happens for most folks in their day to day lives.

Shit happens! Time to take that revelation to heart.

A good time is now for me to listen, again, to Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence*11 (audiobook edition). It probably will have to be the way of things for me from now on that I simply go over listening and reading again such resources as I have till I become ok with things.

I need to find the space I was engaging with a few months ago to be in it again. edit ends

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Refs.

*1 Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life – Susan Forward ISBN: 9780553381405

*2 Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child – John Bradshaw ISBN: 9780553057935

*3 Facing Death Workshop click here to learn more.

*4 Forgiveness

*5 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, This Wikipedia page about CBT will clarify to some degree how the use of CBT has been able to assist me with resolving some aspects of my makeup especially my previous somewhat lacking sense of awareness.

*6 Soul Cravings : An Exploration of the Human Spirit – Erwin Raphael McManus ISBN: 9780785214946 (EXTRA SPECIAL NOTE) I tried to get into reading this book but the God Absolute Aspect loomed too much too early and that alone turned me away from completing reading it, it sits in the "maybe I will read it oneday" pile for now. edit: April 1, 2009 I returned the book to the Salvation Army. I figured it would do more good there than sitting around here. I can always get hold of another copy should I feel the need to return to reading it.

*7 Some things that have helped me to get here.
Seeking out a counselor these last few years who I was able to engage with in a free and open manner.
Becoming open to the prospects of change.
Taking up Meditation.
Being Mindful. I’d suggest searching for information about mindfulness as a beginning.
Breathing.

*8 The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation (Double Audio CD) by Joan Z. Borysenko, Ph.D.
Publisher – Hay House
Publication Date – January 2006
ISBN 1-4019-0664-8

I borrowed this from a local library and it’s helped get me started learning to meditate. It is available to buy here. There are plenty of such assists out there, this was the one that just happened to fall into my lap when I decided to start looking

*9 The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Sogyal Rinpoche ISBN: 9780062508348

*10 Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. His Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (audiobook) initially released as a book only and the same for his Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
Being given access to the Body Scan Meditation from his
Series 1 Guided Mindfulness Meditation Practice Program (4 CD set) has been very rewarding also. I’m seeking out presently the full complement of the Series 1 disks now to have them to hand and easily within reach.

*11 Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

An excellent online resource for locating new and secondhand books such as those I’ve mentioned and indeed any other book or books you might be interested in obtaining.

www.abebooks.com/

Last but not least don’t forget there’s Libraries, make good use of them

In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional has been blogged
here, here here here here and here.

tribune Chávez & monarch of Spain indict each other of default ►media coverage◄


Image by quapan
Six subtitled captures: Cumbre Iberoamericana XVII: Santiago de Chile: Nov.10, 2007
1-2 The Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez replies to the Spanish President Zapatero : "Podra ser español, el presidente Aznar, pero es un fascista, y eso es una falta de respeto." ("Maybe he is spanish, the president Aznar, but he is a fascist, and that’s a default(er) of respect.")
3 Spanish subtitle: "Dígale a el que respete la dignidad de nuestro pueblo." – Chávez had just interrupted the lecture which Zapatero was giving him by the subtitled english words: "Tell him {Aznar} that he shall respect the dignity of our people." – Having heard this tribulation the monarch abruptly bows forward to put his arm out shaking his fist showing his index-finger pointing a(gains)t Chávez while exclaiming the brusque admonition: “¡Tú!” – ("And you ! " … as well are in default on respecting the dignity of the spanish people …—> confer: Caesar’s last words: "Et tu, Brute!" (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) / "καὶ σὺ τέκνον"}
4 In excess of ten seconds later the monarch is flaring up again phrasing his famed exclamation: “¡¡por qué no te callas!!”. (Dubbed by the spanish TV with: "Why don’t you shut up ?" Conjectured by me: To that five-word-sentence was given an incorrect punctuation by our European Media Outlets: It is not meant interrogative, – not even rhetorically. Therefore it must not have any question marks. It sounds like a last admonition. Indeed it is an exclamatory imperative: "Shut up eventually !!")
5 With an irate face the monarch turns to arise. English subtitle: "It was at that point when King Juan Carlos rose from his seat and left the meeting."
6 English subtitle: "Even after the incident the criticism against the spanish government continued."
I have captured and collated each of the six images with their multicoloured, bilingual subtitles from a footage provided by TVCi "Televisió de Catalunya".
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▐► V O C A B U L A R Y ◄▌ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
|_ … ὁρῶν ὅτι_|_τραχὺς μόναρχος οὐδ’ ὑπεύθυνος κρατεῖ_|
|_… viendo que_|_áspero monarca como si a ningún responsable tiene poder_|
{Prometeo encadenado de Esquilo, 325|6}.
For publically declaring the monarch to be a tyrant {|_τὸν τοῦ τυράννου τοῦ νέου διάκονον_| (942)} Prometheus gets imprisoned in the Hades for 30.000 years.
During the Great times of Greek Tragedy (temporarily halted in -432.) and French Revolution (temporarily halted in +1815.) some words that possess nowadays different meanings, were apparently applied absolutely synonymously. For instance: monarch and tyrant had just a stylistic difference, – but the connotations released by the twin-words were equally horrendous at those times. More specimens of this history-induced linguistic phenomenon:
│monarch.≡.tyrant│god.≡.demon│word.≡.myth│imitation.≡.counterfeit│
│μόναρχος.≡.τύραννος│θεός.≡.δαίμων│λόγος.≡.μῦθος│μίμησις.≡.ὑπόκρισις│
monarch a sovereign head of state, especially a king, queen or emperor ORIGIN late Middle English; from Greek μόναρχος ‘sole ruler’, gr:μόναρχος=dictator:lt,confer: Plutarchus in Camillus v18.
monarchism: support for the principle of having monarchs. ORIGIN: mid 19th cent.: from french monarchisme
tribune: noun (also tribune of the people) an official in ancient Rome chosen by the plebeians to protect their interests. also military tribune: a Roman legionary colonel. figurative: a popular leader; a champion of the people. DERIVATES: tribunate, tribuneship. ORIGIN: Latin tribûnus, literally ‘head of tribe’. In ancient Rome there were 4 city-tribes (‘urbanae tribûs’), and 26 rural tribes (‘rusticae tribûs’). These numbers (4, 26: 4×26 = 8×13 = 104) remind of mexican arithmology: Tenochtitlan was divided into four districts. The number 13 divided the age groups (13,26,52,104).
default: failure to fulfil an obligation, especially to repay a loan or appear in a law court.
borborygmus: noun: a rumbling or gurgling noise by the movement of fluid and gas in the intestines. DERIVATES: borborygmic ORIGIN: Early 18th cent. modern Latin, from Greek borborygmós: intestinal rumbling (Hippocrates Prognostikón II); belching (Suidas Lexicographus).
frame-up informal, a conspiracy to falsely incriminate someone
——————————– M E D I A – C O V E R A G E ————————————————–
Chávez gives olé to Mr.King and gets «brusquement» lectured & heckled on Ibero-American Summit XVII.
►Nov 9,10,11, …◄
"… el Rey será Rey, pero no me puede hacer callar"
Chavez acusa Espanya de "genocidio" a Llatinomèrica
"El Rey es tan jefe de Estado como yo, con la diferencia de que yo soy electo. He sido electo tres veces, con el 63%; son tan jefes de Estado el índio Evo Morales como el rey Juan Carlos de Borbón", ha deixat clar Chávez. El president veneçolà ha deixat clar que "la verdad la diré delante de reyes, de imperialistas, de Bush. Allá los que se molesten".
"creo que se debe revisar la participación del rey" Alejandro Navarro (PS)
SANTIAGO, noviembre 13.- Navarro desestimó que haya sido Hugo Chávez el que incomodó a la Presidenta Bachelet, como moderadora de la sesión plenaria de mandatarios en Espacio Riesco, donde una acalorada discusión con el jefe del gobierno español, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, terminó sacando de quicio al rey, quien le espetó al presidente venezolano un airado “¡por qué no te callas!”.
Al respecto, el senador PS estimó que “el exabrupto lo ha cometido el rey de España, es él el que ha increpado a un jefe de Estado y lo ha hecho callar. Quien conducía la reunión era la Presidenta Bachelet y lo que hace el rey Juan Carlos es pasar por encima de la Presidenta”.
"… es un verdadero fascista" EFE. 09.11.2007 – 19:33h
El mandatario venezolano citó a Aznar al denunciar el ALCA, el aérea de Libre Comercio impulsada por Estados Unidos. Le tildó de "fascista, es un verdadero fascista".
Chávez, tras calificar de "proyecto imperialista" esta iniciativa, señaló que fue en una "cumbre de esas, la primera" a la que asistió, hace casi 10 años, en que se presentaron las tesis en reuniones iberoamericanas de entonces que llamó de "canto general al neoliberalismo".
Público.es: "Aznar es un fascista a toda carta" Atlas 2007-11-10
El presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, calificó tres veces de "fascista" al ex presidente del Gobierno español, José María Aznar, en el discurso que pronunció en la Cumbre Iberoamericana en Santiago de Chile. Chávez dijo: "El entonces presidente de España, que es un fascista a toda carta," era quien "venía a vendernos aquí aquellas tesis".El presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, calificó tres veces de "fascista" al ex presidente del Gobierno español, José María Aznar, en el discurso que pronunció en la Cumbre Iberoamericana en Santiago de Chile. Chávez dijo: "El entonces presidente de España, que es un fascista a toda carta," era quien "venía a vendernos aquí aquellas tesis". (menos)

SRIPPS-News has a translation (2002): "A snake is more human than a fascist or a racist; a tiger is more human than a fascist or a racist."
el país – 10/11/2007 Desvelando algunas conversaciones que tuvo con él en la visita de Aznar a Venezuela en 2002, Chávez ha rematado su discurso diciendo que "una serpiente es más humana que un fascista o un racista; un tigre es más humano que un fascista o un racista".

ESCAMBRAY Digital, Periódico de la provincia de Sancti Spíritus.
Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe
El silencio de Aznar
Le pido al señor Aznar que diga si es o no cierto que aconsejó al presidente Clinton el 13 de abril de 1999 bombardear la radio y la televisión serbias. 29 de septiembre del 2007
La respuesta de Milosevic
Hubo en realidad dos guerras, una de las cuales no ha concluido, y dos fatídicos encuentros de Aznar, uno con Clinton y otro con Bush. Dos recorridos idénticos del primero vía Ciudad México-Washington y vía Ciudad México-Texas con el mismo objetivo e igual falta de principios éticos, en los que Aznar se autoasigna el papel de coordinador bélico de los mutables presidentes de Estados Unidos. 2 de octubre del 2007

REUTERS-Madrid: Spanish king visits troops in Afghanistan Dec 31, 2007.
Spain’s King Juan Carlos paid a surprise New Year’s Eve visit to Spanish troops based in Afghanistan on Monday. The monarch, who will turn 70 on Saturday, posed with soldiers in his military uniform and was set to stay for lunch at the base in Herat in western Afghanistan, which he visited along with Defence Minister Jose Antonio Alonso, a spokeswoman for the royal household said.
The king, …. , spoke by radio from the base to troops who were elsewhere in the country: "I only want to wish you all the best for the New Year and I’m sorry I can’t greet you," said Juan Carlos, who was due to return to Spain after his meal.
The king, …. , also paid a similar visit to Spanish troops in Bosnia around the date of his 60th birthday. Spain has around 700 troops based in Afghanistan, where at least 23 have been killed.

BBC: Chavez says: Spain’s king is arrogant, impotent and imprudent
" disrespected me, and he was laid bare before the world in his arrogance and also his impotence," Mr Chavez told a news conference on Tuesday … 14 Nov 2007
BBC: Chavez refuses to be silenced By Martin Murphy BBC Americas analyst
For a president whose role model is the Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar it was particularly ignominious that a Spanish king treated him like a schoolboy.
Not only has Mr Chavez now told the king to shut up in return, he
suggested that perhaps he knew about the 2002 coup that briefly toppled him – the same accusation he threw at Mr Aznar.
In 2006, more than 50% of the foreign investment in Venezuela came from Spanish firms.

Summit on Track to Protect Migrants’ Social Rights
The Multilateral Convention on Social Security, to be signed at the 17th Ibero-American Summit in Chile, is an important step toward improving the quality of life of poor people in this community of nations, according to its governments.
Chávez was singing a "ranchera" song as he arrived, with lyrics saying that, unlike a gold coin, he would not be liked by everyone.

Chávez “leveled devastating criticisms at Europe” Fidel Castro broke two weeks of silence to applaud his close friend Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for having “leveled devastating criticisms at Europe” during a summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal. In a brief essay published yesterday on the front pages of state newspapers, he also praised speeches by the leftist presidents of Nicaragua of Bolivia during the Ibero-American summit. Castro blasted conservative leaders at the meeting, singling out El Salvador’s President Tony Saca, a U.S. ally.

"If President Hugo Chavez says Aznar is a fascist, I’m with him all the way!" by Oscar Heck, Nov 13, 2007
Chavez had called Aznar a fascist, which Chavez says is true.
I don’t know much about Aznar … but I know that he did openly support the USA in its criminal invasion of Iraq … and later, the Spanish people suffered attacks on their transport system which left lots of people dead and injured … and, then Aznar had to basically step down from power.
However, having listened to Chavez speak many times, if he says that Aznar is a fascist, I’m with him all the way!
Now Chavez is saying, paraphrased, "Wait a minute. What I said about Aznar is true … and they tell me to shut up? Why? What … are we now going to stop talking against Hitler, because the German people might want us to shut up?" Chavez continues, reiterating that he has great respect for Zapatero and that he hopes this incident will not cause some kind of diplomatic or political dilemma.
Paraphrased: "There was a debate between Heads of State … and the King stepped in to tell me to shut up … but I did not hear him. We have to remind the King that we are free to speak, we are free, we are no longer under domination by Spain. Him telling me to shut up was certainly a show of frustration and desperation … because we are free."
I just looked up Aznar and found the following: "Aznar’s government posthumously granted a medal of Civil Merit to Meliton Manzanas, the head of the secret police in San Sebastian and the first high-profile member of the Franco-ist government killed by ETA in 1968. He was widely considered a torturer, and Amnesty International condemned the awarding … After the 2004 elections it was revealed that Aznar and his government secretly channeled public funds to a US legal firm to lobby for the bestowment of the Congressional Gold Medal on Aznar … Aznar also announced the sale early in 1997 of the nation’s remaining minority stake (golden shares) in the Telefonica telecommunications company and the petroleum group Repsol. These golden shares in Telefonica and Repsol YPF, as well as in Endesa, Argentaria and Tabacalera, all presided over by people close to Aznar, have since been declared illegal by the European Union. This marked the beginning of a period of privatizations after the previous PSOE government had nationalized parts of the economy."
Chavez says that, even in college and university debates, when people are debating, someone doesn’t just butt in to tell someone else to shut up … but that is what the King did.

"Zapatero is wrong trying to denigrate Chavez for speaking the truth" Commentary by Oscar Heck, Nov 13, 2007
If Aznar did back the coup against Chavez … or if he did openly back any attempt at ousting Chavez from power, Chavez should also be allowed to speak his mind against someone who so openly promoted his ousting … without the opinion of the Spanish King … and especially without the King telling Chavez to "shut up." What business is it of the King to tell someone to shut up because another (Chavez) says something that he (the King) doesn’t like to hear? Like the truth! Who is this King anyway? What gives him the right to be superior to others? Is it because he is a King? A descendant of the same kingdom that invaded Latin America, killed, plundered, raped and enslaved millions of innocent people? Does that make him superior and more important that Chavez … more important than the hundreds of millions of Latin Americans who have suffered mass abuses and exploitation at the hands of the Kings and Queens of Spain … genocide? Sorry … the King is wrong. Zapatero is wrong in trying to denigrate Chavez for speaking the truth. Chavez should not shut up because these Spaniards want him to … Chavez speaks the truth … something the Spaniards do not want the world to know. Genocide. Do we want to know the truth … or lies and disinformation? Chavez speaks the truth. Aznar did support all efforts to oust Chavez from power. The Spaniards did in fact invade Latin America (like the USA is invading Iraq) and they did in fact plunder and rape and kill and enslave millions of innocent people. These are facts that can no longer be hidden behind false history books, diplomacy or royalty. The time has come to set things straight … and only few world leaders, like Chavez, have the courage to speak up. I wonder if the King of Spain smells like cotton candy or fine wine when he sits at the toilet to do number two?

►Nov 15◄
The Monarchy’s clash with Socialism by Pablo Ouziel
This scene from the Ibero-American Summit has now travelled the globe through every mainstream news media channel, however it has been used once again as an opportunity to attack Hugo Chavez for his rudeness and out of line commentary, when in fact not only is it a fairly accurate statement, but it also should be used as an opportunity by political analysts worldwide to bring out the extent to which fascist factions are still very much alive in Spain’s political reality.
Already earlier this year, Chavez called Aznar "a fascist who supported the coup (of April 2002) and who is of the same kind as Adolf Hitler, a disgusting and despicable person who you feel sorry for, a true servant of George W. Bush". This statement was made shortly after Aznar made a call "on the United States, Europe and the Latin American democracies, to close ranks and defeat Hugo Chavez’s 21st century socialism."
In order for the whole incident to be put into perspective, it is also important to understand, first, Aznar’s background as a supporter of fascism and second, the fact that the King only has his crown thanks to the father of fascism in Spain, Francisco Franco.

The winner in this controversy is NOT the King of Spain! Commentarist Kenneth T. Tellis writes:
If criticism of former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar by Hugo Chavez Frias, President of Venezuela, evoked such anger from Spanish king Juan Carlos at the Ibero-American Summit on November 9, 2007, what would have happened if the criticism had been of some other Spaniard?
One can only imagine what would have happened if someone had condemned Spain’s Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada, Hernan Cortez, King Ferdinand or Queen Isabella of Spain?
If the King was so foolish to let the world in on his weaknesses, then we must treat him like a court jester. If King Juan Carlos apologizes, then he may make up for his indiscretion at the XVII Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile.
On the other hand if the King did this to ingratiate him to US president George W. Bush, by attempting to publicly humiliate President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela, then no attempt of coaxing him will make a bit of difference now.
We must fully understand the power behind these attempts to humiliate President Hugo Chavez Frias, is not in Spain but in North America.
The King of Spain has made himself a patsy in carrying out this assignment, to make himself popular with the US and its allies, but given the North American press something to gloat about, which is not worth a damn.
Yes! It may be something that the US press wanted to make a big story out of, but it has now fizzled and there is egg spattered all over their own faces.
The winner in this controversy is NOT the King of Spain … or the US-controlled world press.

Hugo Chavez lets off steam by Jose de la Isla, author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power," Writer of a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service.
In 2003, Chavez had deemed Aznar imperious for saying Chavez ought to not duplicate Cuba’s experience in Venezuela.
Then in May 2005, Aznar, who was out of office and visiting Brazil, criticized Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba. Chavez compared Aznar to Hitler and called him a fascist and an "imbecile."
Two years ago, because of the Venezuelan’s close association with Castro, Aznar called Chavez a threat to democracy in Latin America. He also attributed Chavez’s brashness to domestic failures softened by -a-barrel oil revenues padding Venezuela’s coffers.
In October 2006, Aznar again called Chavez-brand populism and radicalism a threat to Latin America. In April of this year, Chavez remarked that it’s better to have nothing to do with people like Aznar, telling a group of students that Aznar had supported the attempted coup against him in 2002 and supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Throughout the 1990s and to the present, Spanish corporations have been the leading European investors in Latin America. So much so their commercial interests are sometimes referred to as the re-conquest.
While he was at it, Chavez included Mexico’s Vicente Fox and Peru’s Alejandro Toledo as "lackeys and puppy dogs of the empire."
While Chavez was making his final remarks at the closing ceremony at the National Stadium in Santiago, Lage handed him his cell phone. Castro was calling.
Castro, Chavez told the audience, was remembering the Chilean combat volunteers who died fighting Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Chavez called on the crowd to send out a cheer to Castro. "Fidel, Fidel! What is it he has the imperialists can’t handle."
Maybe it was their last hoorah.
But the multitudes — the nerve endings of economic statistics and commercial strategies, the consumers and workers talked about at forums — they are the ones just now finding a voice and who won’t shut up.

Can Venezuela’s elite and the CIA contain their fury over Chavez, asks ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Castro saw the Spanish king’s intervention as an instant when the ‘hearts of all Latin America quivered’.
Chavez is trying to level the playing field in Venezuela, long dominated by a small, corrupt elite. So long as the Central Bank enjoyed independence, Venezuela’s sovereignty was leased out to the international money markets.
Now ex-Minister of Defence Raul Baduel has launched a violent attack on the referendum, on Chavez and the Congress. Back in 2002, Baduel, an army general, refused the invitation to launch a Pinochet-type bloodbath. But he is a right-winger and at a press conference on November 5 he appeared to favour a military coup.
The Venezuelan elites and the US government see the next few weeks as the last opportunity they may have to reverse the tide. We may see a ‘strategy of tension’ script unwind, as it has done in the past with coups in which the CIA has had a role: bombs in public places, assassinations, dramatic marches. On the other hand, Chavez is popular, canny and a survivor. The stakes are very high.

Chavez seeks apology from Spanish king Copyright EL PAÍS, SL. 2007
"The king blew his top and the least he should do is to offer an apology and tell the world the truth," Chavez said Wednesday in an interview with a radio station in the southwestern city of Barquisimeto.
Exasperated by Chavez’s attacks on a former Spanish premier during Saturday’s final session of the meeting, King Juan Carlos at one point told Chavez to "shut up," though the latter said he did not hear the king shout.
The Venezuelan president accused the international press for "motivated" reporting on the incident and denounced "the existence of a campaign on the world level … to make it appear that I was the aggressor, when I didn’t say anything to him (the king)."
Chávez to take "hard look" at ties with Spain
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced Wednesday that he plans to "take a hard look at" relations with Spain and will also watch more closely the activities of Spanish businesses in his country.
"They’re going to be called to account and I’m going to watch them to find out what they’re doing here," Chávez warned.

Spain hopes spat with Venezuela will blow over Reuters Thursday Nov 15 2007, By Jason Webb.
"I think we have already made our point with great force, thanks to the head of state, which is what irritated the president of Venezuela," Moratinos said.
"Unless something else happens which forces us to revise our position, our attitude at the moment is to keep diplomatic channels open," he said.
The incident comes as Chavez campaigns for a referendum on Dec. 2, which he hopes will expand his powers and end presidential term limits.
Under Zapatero, a socialist, ties between Madrid and Caracas have been friendly. In 2006, Washington forced Madrid to call off a multi-million sale of military aircraft to Venezuela after banning a Spanish aerospace firm from using U.S. components.

US Ambassador hails Spain attitude before Chávez
US Ambassador to Spain Eduardo Aguirre Thursday hailed Spanish King Juan Carlos I’s and the head of the Spanish government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s attitude during a verbal clash with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the Ibero-American Summit in Chile, DPA reported.
The diplomat -whose country is a usual target of Chávez’s criticisms- said "Spain has covered itself with glory in this issue," given its firm reply to the Venezuelan ruler’s attacks.
"Spain has a de luxe king and a president who, in this case, was speaking up for Spanish institutions, including José María Aznar, who is also magnificent former president and had the courtesy of thanking Rodríguez Zapatero for his comments," said Aguirre following a meeting the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Ángel Moratinos held Thursday with some 60 diplomats in Madrid.

Negotiating over Betancourt
Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian-French citizen and former Colombian presidential candidate held hostage by the Colombian rebel group FARC for more than five years, will dominate a meeting between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday.
The irrepressible Chavez, who wants play a major international role at a moment when his country is facing tensions due to constitutional reform, meets with Sarkozy as part of a "rapid but productive" tour, including the OPEC heads of state summit in Saudi Arabia at the weekend, Iran and Portugal.
On November 8, it was reported that Chavez had held the first of what may be a series of meetings with representatives of the FARC, after offering to mediate in order to gain the release of hostages. The FARC delegation involved in the talks may also meet a representative of Sarkozy. Chavez has said that, before arriving in Paris next week, he hopes to have evidence that Betancourt is alive — something that has been promised by FARC ‘foreign minister’ Rodrigo Granda.

►Nov 16◄
Reuters | Friday, 16 November 2007
‘Hurricane Hugo’ Chavez won’t shut up on tour Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will not keep quiet on a tour this week of the Middle East and Europe despite being deep into a diplomatic dispute with Spain after his diatribes against the ex-colonial power. "Nobody can expect us not to say who we are, not to say what we feel and not to say what we want," Chavez said. Chavez’s hero is Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan who ejected Spain from South America in the 19th century. A socialist who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, Chavez sees himself as a modern-day liberator ridding the region and beyond of "imperialism" and capitalism. Political analysts say his bark is worse than his bite.
"Mixing bilateral political issues with the local operations of private companies. . . establishes a very negative precedent," Alberto Ramos of Goldman Sachs said. "This contributes to deteriorate even further the already-challenging business environment," he added.

►Nov 19◄
‘Shut up’ ringtone a hit in Spain Associate Press
About half a million people have downloaded a cellphone ringtone featuring the phrase "Por que no te callas?" or "Why don’t you shut up?" leading Madrid daily El Pais reported on its Web site Monday.
T-shirts and mugs featuring the words are also becoming a profitable business, and videos of the confrontation have been a hit on YouTube.
Chavez’s opponents in Venezuela are no less obsessed. Pirated copies of the quote have been popping up in the South American country. In Venezuela, T-shirts with the slogan in Spanish have the "NO" in uppercase — a call for voting against constitutional reforms that would significantly expand Chavez’s power. The Venezuelan leader says the changes would empower neighborhood-based assemblies and advance the country’s transition to socialism.
"The king said what Venezuelans have wanted to say to Chavez’s face for a long time," said Jenny Romero, 21, a student sporting one of the T-shirts in Caracas. "I’m wearing this T-shirt to protest everything bad that has happened in the country."

Kenya: There And About – Chavez’s Insults Know No Bounds The Nation (Nairobi), Chege Mbitiru Nairobi, Posted to the web 19 November 2007
Mr Chavez’s insults of leaders are legendary. Some examples: In Mr Chavez’s language, Mr Bush mutates – the Devil, terrorist, unholy, drunk, Hitler, ignoramus, coward, liar, immoral, Mr Danger, a donkey – ironically a very useful animal – et cetera.
Really, other words to describe Mr Bush and his policies accurately, convincingly and persuasively, exist. Similarly, Mexican President Vicente Fox deserves a more apt description than a US "puppy." Calling US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a "little girl," even contemptuously, is silly; so is labelling the Organisation of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza "a true idiot."
Mr Chavez reserves best attributes to himself and friends. He has compared himself with Christ, referring to the latter’s speech in the Book of Luke. If he stops talking, he has said, "All stones in South America would cry." He considers himself a latter day Simon Bolivar, a liberator of South Americans and beyond. He bestowed the honour to his friend, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, presumably for Africa. Luckily, Mr Mugabe’s language benefits from occasional linguistic laundry.
The Venezuelan has some good ideas. He validly stands up to the United States and wealthy nations. At the summit, he hated its theme. He also suggested South American nations stop investing heavily in US Treasury bonds and put that cash in a proposed Bank of the South.
Mid-week, he said he planned to ask members of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries, OPEC, to sell oil at reduced prices to poverty-stricken countries, which would help.

►Nov 20◄
Latin America Does Not Shut Up Madrid, Nov 20 (Prensa Latina)
About 2,500 intellectuals from Latin America and Europe added their support to the campaign Latin America Does Not Shut Up, in defense of the sovereignty of the region, a support that grows at a constant rhythm.
Among new adhesion of intellectuals are the Brazilian poet, Thiago de Mello, the writer and journalist, Stella Calloni, the singer, Piero and lawyer, Beinusz Szmukler from Argentina as well as the Paraguayan Martin Almada and Spanish academic Carlos Fernandez Liria.
Released on November 15, the text criticizes the position of King Juan Carlos of Spain against Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez during the recent Ibero American Summit in Santiago de Chile.
What happened there, the text points out, is proof that times have changed in Latin America. The Indians, the oppressed and forgotten have definitively entered the political scenario of Ibero America and neither monarchs or neo liberals cloaked as left wingers will shut them up.
The organizers of the campaign noted how the Summit intended to claim that poverty, exclusion and marginalization of the majority in Latin America are not the responsibility of the old colonial metropolises, nor of the continuity of that domination through European and US transnationals.
Personalities such as the Brazilians Fernando Morais and Emir Sadir, the Chilean Manuel Cabieses, the Venezuelan Andres Bizarra, Colombians Hernando Calvo Ospina and Fernando Rendon, the Ecuadorian Pablo Guayasamin and Puerto Rican Danny Rivera came out in support of the document.
The document critiques representatives of petty interests of bankers and stock holders and not the honor of the Spaniards.
It deplores that the leader of a party called "socialist and worker" and a non-elected monarch shared "in the defense of the war criminal, Jose Maria Aznar."

►Nov 22◄
FACTBOX:Venezuela Chavez’s loose lips spark diplomatic spats
* In 2005, Venezuela and Mexico withdrew their ambassadors after Chavez called Mexico’s then president, Vicente Fox, a "lap dog of the empire," in reference to the conservative president’s close ties to the Bush administration. The two countries only sent ambassadors back to each other’s capitals earlier this year.
* Colombia’s government on Wednesday ended Chavez’s role as a mediator with leftist rebels aimed at freeing hostages after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe complained the Venezuelan overstepped his mandate. Colombia said Chavez had talked by telephone with a military chief about the hostages despite an agreement with Uribe not to do so. The Uribe government also said Chavez had publicly disclosed information he had learned in private conversations.
Comment by niko1605, Nov 22, 2007 2:56 PM
Colombia’s president Uribe accusations against Chavez are probably under George Bush’s request to undercut Chavez’s political influence in Latin America. Uribe is Bush’s close ally, and Colombia gets about 10 billion a year from the U.S., so Uribe is in a bind to oblige.
Chavez’s calling the former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, a "fascist" was justified. He used the Spanish navy to stop and inspect a foreign ship in the Arabian Sea on behalf of the U.S., and the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela was with the military officers who overthrew Chavez. And the commander of the Armored Division who refused to join the coup, send helicopters with commandos to free Chavez and restore him to power, told CBS "60 minutes" that he was offered a huge bribe to join the plotters – but he refused. There should be no doubt that the bribe was U.S. money, and the Spanish ambassador and the Spanish banks in Venezuela were probably the disbursing agents.
The current Spanish prime minister’s, Louis Zapatero, argument that Jose Maria Aznar was an elected leader and deserved "respect" [not a "fascist" slur], was hypocritical. Mr. Chavez was elected by 63% of Venezuelans, and he deserved "respect" to serve his people. Hitler and Mussolini were proud fascists, and all they did was overthrowing governments and establishing puppet regimes.
As for King Juan Carlos, he was a hapless aristocratic youth until the Spanish fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, decided at his death-bed to make him a King of Spain and thus assure that Spain stays with a right wing government – no chance for Socialism, and no more "international brigades" supporting socialist causes around the globe.
There is no precedent in history in which any king told another head of state publicly to "shut up." It was certainly a bonanza for the comedians, and it will probably hurt more Juan Carlos than Chavez… – Nikos Retsos

►Nov 23◄
France urges Colombia to reconsider on Chávez Hilversum, Friday 23 Nov 2007 11:34 UTC
Paris – France has urged Colombia to reconsider its decision to end Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s efforts to negotiate with the FARC rebel movement. French president Nicolas Sarkozy said he believes President Chávez is the best man to secure the release of hostages being held by FARC. They include French-Colombian politician Ingrid Bétancourt, who was kidnapped over five years ago.
Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe withdrew his support for the Venezuelan president after he contacted a Colombian general in spite of agreements not to. President Chávez also revealed details about the progress of negotiations with the FARC, which focused on the exchange of rebel prisoners for FARC hostages.
The family of Ingrid Bétancourt is upset by the news. They say President Chávez had made a lot of progress. The Venezuelan president says he accepts Colombia’s decision and has called on FARC to show that the hostages are still alive.

Keith Olberman’s Jaundiced Rant, Trashing Chavez By CLIFTON ROSS
———————-> Clifton Ross represented the U.S. in Venezuela’s World Poetry Festival in 2005. From 2005-2006 he reported from Mérida, Venezuela. His movie, "Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out" is now available from www.freedomvoices.org and www.progressivefilms.org. He is the co-editor of Voice of Fire: Communiques and Interviews of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (1994, New Earth Publications) and his book, Fables for an Open Field (1994, Trombone Press, New Earth Publications), has just been released in Spanish by La Casa Tomada of Venezuela. His forthcoming book of poems in translation, Traducir el Silencio, will be published later this year by Venezuela´s Ministry of Culture editorial, Perro y Rana. Ross teaches English at Berkeley City College, Berkeley, California. He can be reached at clifross1_at_yahoo.com

Whose Waterloo is it? The Washington Times, Nov 23, 2007, By Barry Casselman
The biggest political story recently in the Spanish-speaking world has been a recent confrontation in Chile between the king of Spain and President Hugo Chavez, a democratically-elected Venezuelan demagogue who will soon try to circumvent his country’s constitution to become dictator for life.
Mr. Chavez also has become the mouthpiece of a small axis of Latin American leaders, including President Fidel Castro of Cuba and President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who advocate Marxist socialism and virulent anti-Americanism.
..
Fidel Castro issued a dictum … , praising Mr. Chavez, criticizing Mr. Zapatero and declaring the incident a "Waterloo ideology" moment of triumph for the far left.
Juan Carlos defended Spanish democracy when his Spanish right-wing staged a coup in Madrid in 1981, trying to restore a falangist dictatorship in the style of the late dictator Francisco Franco and since that time has remained a steadfast champion of his nation’s new democracy. Has helped Spain restore itself not only in Europe but also among its former colonies in South and Central America.
There is no dispute that Spain and Juan Carlos’ Bourbon and Hapsburgo forbears were brutal colonial overlords in the New World up to more than 100 years ago. This is another irony of this incident. As Spain has prospered during the past 30 years and become an important part of the European Union, it has also reached out to its former colonies with vital investment and other economic assistance.
.. Usually Mr. Castro turns our history upside-down: What the terp calls "Waterloo" is the famous battlefield in which Mumbo-Jumbo I. spent 20 years bringing war and death over the incontinents. Mr. Chavez is a pretty dictator who has faced and lived through much worse …
The Juan Carlos-Chavez Spat Royal Incident Signals Arrival of Latin America’s ‘Underdog’ Class. By Marcela Sanchez, Special to washingtonpost.com, November 23, 2007
Chile´s Bachelet Says Bothered by Chavez Meddling November 23, 2007 16:00h
In an interview with local television late on Thursday, Bachelet said she was bothered by Chavez’s statements at the summit in Santiago, when he backed Bolivia’s demands for sea access through Chilean territory.
Bolivia lost its maritime ties in a sea war with Chile more than a century ago, and the issue has dominated and stressed relations between the two countries ever since.
"I indicated to him that the Bolivia issue was a bilateral one and, as such, his comments were not appropriate and I asked him not to make further statements along those lines, and he didn’t," Bachelet told Channel 13 television.

Is money more important than any of Mr. Sanz’ principles? Carlos M. Pietri
Although, VHeadline.com readers are probably not familiar with Spanish singers, I’ll share with you two situations created by Spanish singers, who have involved themselves in the domestic political affairs of my country and its repercussions on some "Venezuelans." …. .

Chavez on track to win referendum Reuters
Love him or loathe him — on Dec. 2 Hugo Chavez is expected to win a national referendum that could launch a full-fledged socialist state.
Venezuelans will vote on a raft of constitutional changes. If passed, the workday will be slashed to six hours. The country will be reorganized into "communal cities". And President Chavez could be re-elected for the rest of his life.

►Nov 26◄
Chavez to Freeze Relations With Colombia AP, Sandra Sierra
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday he is putting relations with Colombia "in the freezer" after its president ended the Venezuelan leader’s role mediating with leftist rebels in the neighboring country.
Chavez said economic relations will be hurt, blaming actions by Colombia’s U.S.-allied President Alvaro Uribe that he said were "a spit in the face."
"I declare before the world that I’m putting relations with Colombia in the freezer because I’ve completely lost confidence with everyone in the Colombian government," Chavez said during a televised speech.
Addressing Cabinet ministers and military officials, Chavez said: "Everyone should be alert in relation to Colombia — economic relations — the businesses Colombians have here and the businesses we have there. Commercial relations, all of that is going to be harmed. It’s lamentable."
Chavez was responding to Uribe’s decision to cancel his mediation with Colombian rebels, preliminary talks aimed at a prisoner swap that would free rebel-held hostages, including three Americans. Uribe’s spokesman said Chavez had defied the Colombian president by directly contacting his army chief to discuss the issue.
The Venezuelan leader said a statement issued by Uribe’s government giving its reasons for ending his mediation was "filled with lies."
"I really, truly believe that the Colombian government doesn’t want peace," Chavez said.
Chavez said he was particularly irked that Uribe had his officials issue statements instead of contacting the Venezuelan leader directly.
"Why don’t do you show your face?" Chavez said. "President Uribe is lying … in a shameless, horrible, ugly way. I think Colombia deserves another president, it deserves a better president."
Chavez in August joined Colombian lawmakers in a new push to free hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC. Prisoners include three U.S. military contractors and Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian seized in 2002 while campaigning for Colombia’s presidency.
….
Chavez said the situation with Colombia is similar.
"It’s like the case of Spain: Until the king of Spain apologizes, I’m freezing relations with Spain," he said.
Chavez and Uribe are polar opposites politically.
Since taking office in 2002, the conservative Uribe has fought to crush Colombia’s peasant-based rebel army with billion in U.S. military aid.
The socialist Chavez has meanwhile railed against U.S. involvement in the region and called for Uribe to negotiate peace with Colombian guerrillas.

Chavez orchestrating communism’s comeback Steve Chapman
Chávez calls on the people and armed forces to be alert Caracas
The changes to 69 of the Constitution’s 350 articles that voters will consider propose the granting of constitutional authority to community power and establish new political/administrative concepts to reinforce popular participation.
The president warned that there are attempts to manipulate surveys in order to create confusion among the Venezuelan people. He said that there are also plans, in the face of a “Yes” victory, to claim fraud and to take to the streets and generate violence and destabilization in the country, and that is why the people, armed forces and organized communities must be on the alert and very attentive.
Chávez accused bishops of participating in a plan to try to scare the population with statements like that of Cardinal Jorge Urosa, who said that with socialist-leaning reforms, religious freedoms would be eliminated. – Translated by Granma International

►Nov 28◄
Venezuela’s Chavez Remains Magnet for Controversy By Michael Bowman, Washington
Mr. Chavez went on to accuse his Colombian counterpart of being a pawn of U.S. imperialism.
"You, with your insults and lack of valid arguments, are hurting the dignity of the Venezuelans you represent," Mr. Uribe said. He said Colombia needs a mediator with terrorists, "not one who legitimizes terrorism.".
Mr. Uribe accused Mr. Chavez of manufacturing diplomatic rows for his own purposes, of labeling other leaders as agents of imperialism while pursuing his own expansionist policies through heavy-handed use of oil revenue.
Such highly-personalized attacks between heads of state are rare on the world stage, except where Mr. Chavez is concerned.
Analyst Michael Shifter says there is no doubt that Mr. Chavez’ influence in the region has grown.
"Most other governments in Latin America indulge Chavez because he has resources and he is prepared to spend them," he said.
Venezuelans flee Chavez Reuters
In a Cuban-style exodus, thousands of wealthy and middle class …
Venezuelan leader’s power play has echoes of Castro USA today

►Dec 12◄
Chavez Calls For a Battle of Ideas to Combat U.S. Interference in Latin America Kiraz Janicke
"They bombard us without clemency, the minds of children, young people, men and women to try to convert us into human beings without a past, disconnected from reality, and into people without a future."
However, he argued, "We have the right to a future, to have a homeland, to create the great homeland. I believe that the next 500 years will depend on what happens in these years, as the panorama of the Conquest changed our map, imposed on us a curse, as what happened 200 years ago marked the course of the last two centuries, now we are again in a definitive epoch."

►Dec 13◄
Chavez denies meeting Spain’s Prince Felipe (earthtimes.org)
‘I, in the first place, didn’t meet the Prince of Asturias,’ he said Tuesday, adding that he only waved to him at an official dinner at the San Martin Palace Sunday evening.
Chavez further said that Venezuela’s differences with Spain would deteriorate further if the monarch does not apologize for telling him to shut up during the final session of the Ibero-American Summit, held in November in Santiago.
‘I repeat, if the king of Spain does not apologize, we are not ready to turn the page. He has to apologize, in some way. I’m not going to ask the king to get down on his knees, no. We are human beings and I respect Juan Carlos,’ Chavez told reporters in Buenos Aires Tuesday.
‘We have nothing against Spain, we really don’t, we have good feelings with Spain,’ Chavez said.
Chavez had travelled to Buenos Aires to attend Monday’s inauguration of Cristina Fernandez as Argentina’s president and Sunday’s founding ceremony of the Bank of the South, conceived as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
An official Spanish source said earlier this week that Crown Prince Felipe and Chavez had greeted each other cordially at the gala dinner hosted by the Argentine government for dignitaries attending Fernandez’s inauguration and it was Chavez who approached the prince.

Spain advocates discrete response to Chávez’s criticism eluniversal
The Spanish Secretary of State for Ibero-America Trinidad Jiménez said to television network Telemadrid on Thursday that the Spanish government’s stance in this connection has been in compliance with "the canons of diplomacy," adding that at every time she has conveyed the messages she was supposed to convey, either messages "of respect" or messages that "this is not admissible."
"Some people want us to do this in a public manner, and the Spanish government believes the steps that are taken in a discrete manner and within the framework of diplomacy are much more efficient," she underscored, as quoted by Efe.

►Dec 14◄
Pancarta en el centro de Caracas
EL UNICO REY ES DIOS
EL UNICO LIDER ES CHAVEZ
VENEZUELA JAMAS SE CALLARA
Apareció poco después … (tomada el 12/12/07 … por una típica estudiante)

►Dec 22◄
Betancourt’s children appeal for Colombian leader’s help in securing mother’s release Associated Press
During a vigil Saturday outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Betancourt’s son Lorenzo asked Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to consider offering the release of imprisoned leftist guerrillas in exchange for his mother’s freedom.
Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, president of the Conference of Bishops in France, attended the vigil and urged church officials in Colombia to add their weight to the campaign, which has become an affair of state in France.

►Dec 27◄
Déclaration de M. David Martinon, Porte parole de l’Elysée sur la situation en Colombie FRANCE diplomatie
Le Président de la République réaffirme son espoir que la libération de ces trois otages sera suivie rapidement d’autres libérations. Dans la continuité de ce premier geste positif, il réitère son appel au chef des FARC, Manuel Marulanda, pour que soit désormais libérée Ingrid Betancourt et tout autre otage dont l’état de santé justifierait ce geste humanitaire immédiat.
Au-delà, le Président de la République estime que ces libérations créeront un contexte favorable pour agir sans délai en vue d’une solution humanitaire d’ensemble à la question des otages. Il demande ainsi à chacun de redoubler d’efforts, avec pour préoccupation première le sort des otages et pour objectif leur libération, en ne négligeant aucun concours utile.

►Dec 28◄
Colombia hostage rescue mission underway amid uncertainty AFP (~22:00 CET)
"I hope there will be good weather tomorrow, that we can fill in some small details that are missing and I hope that tomorrow we can complete the operation," he said.
He said FARC commander Ivan Marquez had reported US-made military surveillance planes flying over the area. "I hope this does not interfere," he said.
"If there were any problem finding the spot, for some military or weather reason, we would be ready to conduct ground operations, but for that we would need permission" from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, he said.
The handover could take place place anywhere within a 310,000-square-kilometer (120,000-square-mile) wilderness in central and eastern Colombia, where there are few roads but numerous landing strips used by drug traffickers. ..
The operation had earlier been put on hold after the Red Cross ruled out an after-dark handover due to security concerns.
Oliver Stone in Colombia hostage mission
IPSNEWS: Hostages Release Goes Far Beyond Personal Ordeal Ana Carrigan
Yet on Thursday night, the Colombian government, apparently without prior warning to the Venezuelan government, posted a communiqué on the website of the Colombian president’s office unilaterally setting a deadline for the complex rescue operation.
The statement said that Colombia’s permission for Venezuelan aircraft to operate within Colombian airspace was set to expire at 1900 local time on Sunday.
But on Friday, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe reportedly received a call from his counterpart in France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Apparently, the deadline had been lifted by Friday afternoon. ..
On Thursday, Brazilian delegate Marco Aurelio García, … on his arrival in Caracas. "We have firm hopes," he said, "that this will be the first step in a long process, aimed first at resolving the hostage crisis and secondly at finding a peaceful solution to the conflict that has gripped Colombia for more than 40 years."

►Jan 10◄
Chávez: Colombian Rebels Free Two Hostages Washington Post
The women are Clara Rojas, who was kidnapped in 2002 along with the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, and Consuelo González de Perdomo, a former Colombian member of congress taken hostage in 2001.
Two Venezuelan helicopters carrying Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín flew into a southern swath of jungle this morning after Chávez’s government received the exact coordinates from rebel commanders … The aircraft then flew back east toward Venezuela, where they were expected by mid-afternoon, Chávez said in a radio message broadcast across Latin America.
… at first denied that they had turned the boy over to a poor farmer, DNA tests last week showed that the boy is likely Rojas’s son. On Wednesday, Colombian authorities said that a second DNA analysis by the University of Compostela in Spain confirmed that the boy, who had been living in foster care in Bogota, was indeed Emmanuel.
►Jan 11◄
Freed hostages in Venezuela Two hostages freed by Colombian rebels have landed in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, where dozens of their friends and family carrying flowers clapped and embraced them.

▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
►Nov 4, 2005◄
BBC: Basque convicted for king insult
Arnaldo Otegi has been sentenced to a year in prison for saying the King of Spain was "in charge of torturers". The spokesman for the banned Basque nationalist party Batasuna, was charged with slandering King Juan Carlos during a 2003 news conference: … the King was "chief of the Spanish army, that’s to say, the person responsible for the torturers, who favour torture and impose his monarchic regime on our people through torture and violence".
►Oct 2, 2007◄
BBC: Spain’s king defends monarchy’s role
… the parliamentary monarchy was a pillar of Spain’s constitution that had given the nation its longest period of democratic stability since 1975.
The debate started after two Catalan separatists publicly burnt pictures of the king in September. It has now extended beyond the north-eastern region of Spain and on to the pages of national papers.
►April 2009◄
José Antonio Barroso En un acto de conmemoración del 77 aniversario de la Segunda República celebrado el pasado 14 de abril en la localidad gaditana de Los Barrios, Barroso, de Izquierda Unida, calificó a Juan Carlos I de "hijo de un crápula", "deleznable" y "de condición corrupta", entre otros términos, y aseguró que España no es aún un país democrático ya que el Rey no es imputable y se mostró dispuesto a dar nombres y apellidos para demostrar esa "naturaleza corrupta". El alcalde de Puerto Real en la Audiencia por injurias al Rey
JAQUE AL REY: EL PRINCIPIO DEL FIN – El Proyecto Matriz