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San Jose Jazz Fall concert series

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

Saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa presents the music of Bird Calls, his critically acclaimed Charlie Parker-inspired CD of the same name. Few musicians have remained as influential to so many generations of players and fans as Charlie Parker, and few contemporary saxophonists are more cutting edge than Mahanthappa.
His stellar quintet of forward-thinking musicians features some long-time collaborators as well as Latin GRAMMY® nominee and trumpet prodigy Adam O’Farrill, Joshua White on piano, Thomson Kneeland on bass and Dan Weiss on drums.

Sunday, Oct. 16 at 7 p.m., at Cafe Stritch 374 South First Street, San Jose, tickets $20 SJZ Members / $25 General Admission

Mariachi Flor de Toloache

Latin GRAMMY® nominated Mariachi Flor de Toloache continue to win the hearts of music and mariachi fans alike through their distinct vision and enlightened interpretation of traditional instruments. The band’s diverse ethnicities and musical backgrounds are transcending culture and gender by forging new paths for mariachi music, showcased in an NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert. Like the legendary Toloache flower used in Mexico today as a love potion, the ladies of Flor de Toloache cast a spell over their audiences with soaring vocals and physical elegance. 

The New York City-based band and first all-women Mariachi is led by co-directors

Mireya I. Ramos (founder) on violin and Shae Fiol (original member) on vihuela, with Julie Acosta on trumpet and Eunice Aparicio on guitarron. 
Sunday, Oct. 30 @ 4:30 p.m. SJZ Boom Box Stage at La Ultima Parada San Jose Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose.
FREE Admission to Concert.

Admission $5 to La Ultima Parada, a Celebration of Life on the Day of the Dead

Fusion of Latin and Reggae music with Rúckatan

Rúckatan Latin Tribe is composed of seven players who have all contributed to the local Latin Rock scene in the Bay Area and internationally with various Latin, Reggae and Rock acts.

Rúckatan is a fusion of Latin and Reggae. Members hailing from three different continents infuse their culture and love of their roots.

The music is very dance oriented with many Latin, Caribbean and World flavors. On Saturday, Nov. 5, 7pm doors / 8pm show, at Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. Tickets $15 adv / $20 door. For more info call 650-369-7770.

6th Annual Yerba Buena Nights Festival
Grupo LA GENTE are happy to announce we will be performing at the 6th Annual Yerba Buena Night Festival. We hit the main stage at 8 p.m. Check out the Yerba Buena Nights website for the full lineup of over 40 acts! Nos vemos!

Saturday Oct. 15, AT Jessie Square, 220 Stevenson St, San Francisco.

Founder of Sonora Ponceña band, Mr. Quique Lucca, dies

by the El Reportero’s news services

The legendary founder of the Sonora Ponceña, Mr. Enrique ‘Quique’ Lucca Caraballo, died last week in Ponce, at the age of 103 years.
According to an insider confirmed family, Don Quique died at the Ladies Hospital, where he was recovering from surgery after fracturing a hip last Sept. 15.
Meanwhile, Zulma Lucca told La Perla del Sur his father died in the company of children and friends.
Lucca Caraballo founded the Sonora Ponceña in 1954. It is directed by his son, the virtuoso pianist Enrique ‘Papo’ Lucca.
The Sonora has released more than 20 albums, among which include Fire in the 23 ( 1969), Creole Christmas (1971), Some of madness (1971) and from Puerto Rico to New York (1972), Warring (1992), Soul of Puerto Rico (1993), Gritting (1995),0 Pure flavor (2000) and Another Creole Christmas (2008).
Among his most successful songs include Bear mountain, Yambeque , Bomba Carambomba, the tweet Boranda, Until we break the leather, Song of love, Moreno am, My cute Yambú, Remembrance and Second thought. (Reported by Jason Rodriguez Grafal).

Mexican musical project to perform in Cuba

Excited for offering the pleasant Mexican music to the Cuban public, the Harmony & Melody music project will perform today at Casa de las Americas in Havana.
Invited to the 5th edition of the Meeting of Popular Voices, the young members of the group will hold a dialogue with the public for promoting music as an extraordinary means of communication.

Erika Alcazar (soprano), Coral Díaz (mezzosoprano), Rubén Mondragón (cello), Christian Velasco (guitar) and Samuel López (guest pianist) are the members of the musical project and all together endorse the goal of the event, which is to strengthen cultural ties. Harmony & Melody has carried out numerous concerts on stages of the Mexican capital, and auditoriums of the Autonomous University of Mexico, the José Luís Cuevas Museum, and the Hermilo Novelo hall at the Cultural Center Ollin Yoliztli, among others.

The Meeting of Popular Voices will conclude on Oct. 9. It was organized by the eponymous foundation that promotes Cuban singer and teacher Argelia Fragoso.

The Dirty Game film on the Chevron case in Ecuador

The filme The Dirty Game will soon be screened in Ecuador about the mechanisms used by the U.S. oil company Chevron-Texaco in this country to evade responsibility in the pollution caused by that corporation.

The premiere will take place at the Anthropological Museum of Contemporary Art (MAAC), located in the city of Guayaquil, next Wednesday Oct. 12, indicated a note of the institution.

The film shows the story of a U.S. journalist, hired to travel to Ecuador and round-up the alleged frauds committed in the South American nation against the oil company, during the trial that took place in the Provincial Court of Sucumbios.

Paulo Coelho wins the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016

Latin America reached a new Nobel Prize for Literature, and to everyone’s surprise, from the hand of the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho de Souza (Rio de Janeiro, 1947), which outperformed other renowned authors of the caliber of the Syrian Adonis, the American Philip Roth and Italy’s Claudio Magris, who loomed as favorites to win the award.

Thus, Paulo Coelho will become the seventh Latin American writer to receive this award and the first Brazilian-born along with Mario Vargas Llosa (2010), Octavio Paz (1990), Gabriel García Márquez (1982), Pablo Neruda (1971) Miguel Angel Asturias (1967) and Gabriela Mistral (1945).

2016 – The year America realized the inevitable result of constantly choosing the “lesser of two evils”

by Claire Bernish
The Free Thought Project

Election after election, Americans sat idly by as decent candidates who challenged the status quo were shunned and dismissed by the media as unelectable. All the while, demagogues on power trips were continually thrust into the limelight as the only viable options. Well, the chickens are finally coming home to roost.
Exactly how nonsensical the 2016 presidential election could get — and how far mainstream media would go to distort facts and significance — received a resounding answer this week, thanks to Wikileaks first massive disclosure of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s hacked emails and the oh-so-convenient twin reminder from the DNC via the media that Trump said some awfully lewd and disgraceful shit some 12 years ago.
While the two campaigns are now lobbing barbs at one another over the supposed revelations (the sensible among us knew all along to be true), the corporate media presstitutes busied themselves condemning all things Trump — while pretending not to notice the ginormous implications of any number of eye-popping disclosures about Clinton found in the Podesta leak.
Let’s face it, America — we’re doing it wrong.
Perhaps this first installment of Julian Assange’s long-awaited October Surprise should have fallen in our laps in the nascent stages of Clinton’s bid for the White House. Perhaps the Washington Post — in virtual certain coordination with the DNC and/or Clinton campaign — should have let slip the repulsive Trump video when he first began to lead the field of GOP presidential hopefuls.
Perhaps Hillary’s perfect track record of fabrication, mendacity, near — if not outright — criminal behavior, and interminable list of scandals should have nullified any integrity for the presidency in the American public’s collective mind, if not landed her behind bars, years ago.
Perhaps Trump’s laughably false reputation as businessman extraordinaire, despite a history replete with scamming, conning, shortchanging, failing to pay, lawsuits, swindles, bankruptcies, and, oh yeah, those not-at-all worrisome underage rape allegations and the aforementioned statements, from his own mouth, about forcing himself on women against their will, should have prohibited any intimation of hopes for the White House before the thought ever crossed his mind.
Apparently none of these matters occurred to any of the players involved — or, maybe they did — and strategy dictated their timing less than a month prior to the national election because, at this point, it’s too late for America to reverse its idiotic, failed-from-jump-street course toward utter disaster.
We’re not only speeding toward the edge of a perilous cliff, but arguing over who should steer the wheel — leaving no one competent enough available to man the brakes.
It’s additionally entirely possible control of the wheel won’t matter, considering the current driver’s obstinance might first divert us into full-scale world — if not nuclear — war.
War, it should be noted, that will be funded through debt and with our tax dollars.
And several theaters of military operations — as war has not yet been officially and never will be declared in Syria, Yemen, and other sovereign nations — directly fuel this potentially decimating and longer-lasting theoretical World War III.
Wars having nothing to do with the betterment of humanity, the advancing of innovation, the freeing of enslaved peoples, the furthering of liberty, the enriching of anyone but the military-industrial machine, or even, necessarily, with the hegemonic taking of someone else’s natural resources.
Wars the imperialist government of the United States, which has incidentally gone rogue and no longer represents its people, undertook in the name of fighting both the terrorism and terrorists it created and continues to fund — again, with our tax dollars.
Wars which somehow made acceptable the bombing of hospitals and markets and schools and aid convoys and emergency workers and weddings — as well as militaries against which no official declaration of war, again, has ever been made.
And as if these altogether astronomically alarming points weren’t telling enough of 2016’s surreality, there’s actually so much more.
Americans not embroiled in vicious debate over which godawful candidate could be worse for our future posit inane theories about Kim Kardashian’s … whatever … or freak out about a nonexistent clown apocalypse or scold the dead victims of police violence for not being in complete compliance with laws governing nonviolent, noncriminal, victimless acts that should not exist in the first place or lambaste an athlete for protesting the wrong way and showing ostensible disrespect for a piece of cloth and a song symbolic of all of these problems.
Have we lost our fucking minds?
Much of the world seems to think so — and, given the evidence, how far off can they really be?
We’ve become a culture of victim-blamers, censors, politically-correct social justice warriors, hypocrites, race-baiters, xenophobes, instigators, whiners, tattletales, finger-pointers, perpetual victims, hyperbolic crybabies, narcissists — and generally experts in everyone else’s lives but our own.
On the other hand — though you might not realize, since these headlines don’t sell — we’ve also quietly innovated, organized peaceful resistance, come together despite differences, taken successful stands against callous policies and reckless industries, usurped the mainstream media’s forever-faulty narratives, subverted Big Government, spread awareness, helped save our planet’s flora and fauna from near ruin, and generally effected good works.
So, perhaps, hope does indeed spring eternal.
Perhaps someone cagey and powerful or loud enough might yet dive for the brakes. Perhaps absurdity’s epic proportions will prove to the public-at-large that — once and for all — our loyalty to the parcel of land on which we exist should not extend arbitrarily to the ideologues claiming to rule it.
Perhaps elections are distractions, war only lines a few wallets, and the end of the American empire will not only ultimately bring peace — but is far past due.

The Council of Foreign Relations

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers: As the Presidential Election goes on in high gear and many of us can see the obvious biases practiced by the mainstream media, I thought this article, written by James Perloff, could bring some light of who the power to be really and who really rule the US. THIS IS THE FIRST PART OF A SERIES.

What is, how it formed and who are the Council of Foreign Relations – PART ONE OF A SERIES.

by James Perloff

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama consistently promised Americans “change.” Such promises aren’t new to the voting public.

When Jimmy Carter ran for president, he said: “The people of this country know from bitter experience that we are not going to get … changes merely by shifting around the same group of insiders.” And top Carter aide Hamilton Jordan promised: “If, after the inauguration, you find a Cy Vance as Secretary of State and Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of National Security, then I would say we failed. And I’d quit.” Yet Carter selected Vance as Secretary of State and Brzezinski as National Security Adviser; the “same group of insiders” had been shifted around; and Jordan did not quit.

Carter’s administration was dominated by members of the Trilateral Commission, which had been founded by Brzezinski and David Rockefeller. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was campaigning against Carter, he protested:

I don’t believe that the Trilateral Commission is a conspiratorial group, but I do think its interests are devoted to international banking, multinational corporations, and so forth. I don’t think that any Administration of the U.S. Government should have the top nineteen positions filled by people from any one group or organization representing one viewpoint. No, I would go in a different direction.

Yet after his election, President Reagan picked 10 Trilateralists for his transition team, and included in his administration such Trilateralists as Vice President George Bush, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, U.S. Trade Representative William Brock, and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. Yet the entire North American membership of the Trilateral Commission has never numbered much over 100.

The reason that presidential candidates’ promises of “change” go largely unfulfilled once in office: they draw their top personnel from the same establishment groups — of which the Trilateral Commission is only one.

Chief among these groups is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most visible manifestation of what some have called the American establishment. Members of the council have dominated the administrations of every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the cabinet and sub-cabinet level. It does not matter whether the president is a Democrat or Republican. As we will later see, Barack Obama is no exception to CFR influence.

Power Behind the Throne

In theory, America’s government is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, for the people.” While this concept rang true in early America, and many individuals still trust in it, the last century has seen the reality of power increasingly shift from the people to an establishment rooted in banking, Wall Street, and powerful multinational corporations. Syndicated columnist Edith Kermit Roosevelt, granddaughter of Teddy Roosevelt, explained:

The word “Establishment” is a general term for the power elite in international finance, business, the professions and government, largely from the northeast, who wield most of the power regardless of who is in the White House. Most people are unaware of the existence of this “legitimate Mafia.” Yet the power of the Establishment makes itself felt from the professor who seeks a foundation grant, to the candidate for a cabinet post or State Department job. It affects the nation’s policies in almost every area.

Roosevelt added that this group’s goal is “a One World Socialist state governed by ‘experts’ like themselves.”

David Rockefeller, the longtime chairman (and now chairman emeritus) of the CFR, acknowledged the role of the establishment in trying to lead America in the one-world direction in his 2002 book Memoirs:

For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as “internationalists” and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

Two major means the establishment employs for controlling government policy: (1) through its influence within the two major parties and the mass media, it can usually assure that both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates will be its own hand-picked men; (2) by stacking presidential cabinets with CFR members at key positions — especially those involving defense, finance, foreign policy, and national security — it can assure that America will move in the direction it wants. Since the council’s founding in 1921, 21 secretaries of defense or war, 19 secretaries of the treasury, 17 secretaries of state, and 15 CIA directors have hailed from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Background

Prior to the CFR’s founding, what Congressman Charles Lindbergh, Sr. (the father of the famous aviator) called the “Money Trust” — a cabal of international bankers including the houses of Rockefeller, Morgan, and Rothschild — conspired to create the Federal Reserve System. Their agents, such as Paul Warburg and Benjamin Strong, who had secretly planned the Fed at a nine-day meeting on Jekyll Island, were then put in charge of the system itself. This gave them control of American interest rates, and, by virtue of this, control of the stock market, as well as the capacity to have the U.S. government spend without limit by having the Fed create money from nothing. The result has been decades of inflation and skyrocketing national debt. (For full details, see the April 13, 2009 New American or Our Monetary Mayhem Began With the Fed.).

Not just an accumulation of wealth, but a consolidation of political power was involved. The Money Trust had backed Woodrow Wilson in the presidential elections, and then controlled him through their front man, Edward Mandell House, who lived in the White House. The trust recognized how the power of government could be used to advance their own interests.

Wilson, surrounded by the bankers, traveled to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which was settling the aftermath of World War I. His chief proposal there, of course, was the League of Nations — a first step toward world government. However, although the League was established by the Versailles Treaty, the United States did not join because the Senate refused to ratify the treaty.

In response to this rejection, the bankers’ circle, still in Paris, held a series of meetings and proposed to establish a new organization in the United States, whose purpose would be to lead America into the League. This organization was incorporated in New York City two years later as the Council on Foreign Relations.
IT WILL CONTINUE NEXT WEEK.

Shrimp and lobsters have powerful anti- inflamatory properties

a lobster with sea in background

by Ben Fuchs
Critical Health News

Shrimp and lobsters make their own anti-inflammatory molecules, and that has scientists very excited. In a press release posted last week by the College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University, officials announced that they had received a $380,000 National Institute of Health grant to investigate just how the marine medicine could be used to eliminate inflammatory diseases in humans.

The crabby chemical that is the center of attention is called a chitin, and it’s a key constituent of the shells of various oceans animals including crayfish, shrimp, krill, and barnacles, and is one of the most abundant molecules in all of nature, second only to cellulose. And, as it turns out, in addition to being abundant (and cheap), chitin has powerful anti -inflammatory properties. Properties that are so impressive, that the natural molecule found in so many crust critters is being studied in hope of finding a pharmaceutical treatment for inflammatory diseases including Irritable Bowel Syndrome, arthritis, and heart disease.
And it’s not just shellfish that contain this fascinating medicinal molecule. You can find chitin in the hard shells of insects as well as in the cell walls of most fungi and algae.

Chitin is made up of repeating pieces of sugar to which it owes its interesting medicinal properties. Actually the sugar isn’t any old glucose. It’s a “specialty” glucose that scientists call a “proteo-glycan” (protein-sugar) because it has a little chunk of amino acid attached to it. The little proteanaceous piece turns the ordinarily “one trick pony” glucose, which is basically only good as a source of energy, into glucose-amine, a sort of “super” glucose that provides structure and support for everything from bones to butterfly wings and has therapeutic properties to boot. Arthritis sufferers, in particular, have exploited the healing powers of glucosamine for decades.

The glucosamine pieces that make up chitin are a type of glucosamine called NA-glucosamine (NAG). The NA component makes this type of glucosamine especially effective at healing and soothing. This is really what has scientists and drug companies so excited. In addition to NAG’s calming and quenching qualities, it contains the precursors for hyaluronic acid, one of the most important of all growth and repair and anti-inflammatory molecules in the body. NAG is especially effective at helping to take the edge off of intestinal pain and discomfort associated with various digestive ailments.

If you don’t to wait for some drug company to patent a molecule and sell it to you for 20 dollars a dose to enjoy the benefits of crustacean chitin, use glucosamine supplements. If you’re looking to heal the gut get some NAG. They’re available in health food stores or on the internet, very inexpensive, and both are completely non-toxic.

Food can be an especially good source of NAG, especially homemade chicken soup. The knobby cartilage on chicken bones is a great source of NAG as well as other substances like amino acids, chondroitin, and collagen that can all contribute joint health benefits. You can save shrimp shells and throw put in a tea ball and let them steep in the soup. Make sure you throw in some lime or lemon; a little acid is required to dissolve the NAG into the soup. Aloe is also a good source of NAG, as is Noni. Algaes, a great source of everything good and healthy, also contain appreciable amounts of NAG.

8 myths and atrocidies Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day

by Vincent Schilling

On the second Monday of October each year, Native Americans cringe at the thought of honoring a man who committed atrocities against Indigenous Peoples

Columbus Day was conceived by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic Fraternal organization, in the 1930s because they wanted a Catholic hero. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the day into law as a federal holiday in 1937, the rest has been history.

In an attempt to further thwart the celebration of this “holiday,” we at ICTMN have outlined eight misnomers and bloody, greedy, sexually perverse and horrendous atrocities committed by Columbus and his men.

On the way—Columbus stole a sailor’s reward

After obtaining funding for his explorations to reach Asia from the seizure and sale of properties from Spanish Jews and Muslims by order of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Columbus headed out to explore a new world with money and ships.

Brimming with the excitement of discovering new land, Columbus offered a reward of 10,000 maravedis or about $540 (a sailor’s yearly salary) for the first person to discover such land. Though another sailor saw the land in October 1492, Columbus retracted the reward he had previously offered because he claimed he had seen a dim light in the west.

Columbus never landed on american soil—not in 1492, not ever

We’re not talking about the Leif Ericson Viking explorer story. We mean Columbus didn’t land on the higher 48—ever. Columbus quite literally landed in what is now known as the Bahamas and later Hispaniola, present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Upon arrival, Columbus and his expedition of weapon laden Spaniards met the Arawaks, Tainos and Lucayans—all friendly, according to Columbus’ writings. Soon after arriving, Columbus wrecked the Santa Maria and the Arawaks worked for hours to save the crew and cargo.

Impressed with the friendliness of the native people, Columbus seized control of the land in the name of Spain. He also helped himself to some locals. In his journal he wrote:
“As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.”

Columbus painted a horrible picture of peaceful Natives

When Columbus first saw the Native Arawaks that came to greet him and his crew he spoke with a peaceful and admiring tone.

“They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things… They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

After several months in the Caribbean, on January 13, 1493 two Natives were murdered during trading. Columbus, who had otherwise described the Natives as gentle people wrote “(they are) evil and I believe they are from the island of Caribe, and that they eat men.” He also described them as “savage cannibals, with dog-like noses that drink the blood of their victims.”

The cannibal story is taught as fact in some of today’s schools.

Columbus’ men were rapists and murderers

On Columbus’s first trip to the Caribbean, he later returned to Spain and left behind 39 men who went ahead and helped themselves to Native women. Upon his return the men were all dead.With 1,200 more soldiers at his disposal, rape and pillaging became rampant as well as tolerated by Columbus.

This is supported by a reported close friend of Columbus, Michele de Cuneo who wrote the first disturbing account of a relation between himself and a Native female gift given to him by Columbus.

Columbus enslaved the native people for gold

Because Columbus reported a plethora of Natives for slaves, rivers of gold and fertile pastures to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Columbus was given 17 ships and more than 1,200 men on his next expedition. However, Columbus had to deliver. In the next few years, Columbus was desperate to fulfill those promises—hundreds of Native slaves died on their way back to Spain and gold was not as bountiful as expected.

Columbus forced the Natives to work in gold mines until exhaustion.

Those who did not fulfill their obligation had their hands cut off, which were tied around their necks while they bled to death—some 10,000 died handless.

In two years’ time, approximately 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead. Many deaths included mass suicides or intentional poisonings or mothers killing their babies to avoid persecution.

According to Columbus, in a few years before his death, “Gold is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in the world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.”

Columbus provided native sex slaves to his men

In addition to putting the Natives to work as slaves in his gold mines, Columbus also sold sex slaves to his men—some as young as 9. Columbus and his men also raided villages for sex and sport.

In the year 1500, Columbus wrote: “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”

Columbus’ men used native people as dog food

In the early years of Columbus’ conquests there were butcher shops throughout the Caribbean where Indian bodies were sold as dog food. There was also a practice known as the montería infernal, the infernal chase, or manhunt, in which Indians were hunted by war-dogs.

Columbus returned to Spain in shackles—but was pardoned

After a multitude of complaints against Columbus about his mismanagement of the island of Hispaniola, a royal commissioner arrested Columbus in 1500 and brought him back to Spain in chains.

Though he was stripped of his governor title, he was pardoned by King Ferdinand, who then subsidized a fourth voyage.

15 facts about US poverty the government hides

by Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield

On Tuesday, the Census Bureau released its annual poverty report declaring that 43.1 million Americans lived in poverty in 2015.

We should be concerned about any American living in real material hardship, but much of what the Census reports about poverty is misleading.

Here are 15 facts about poverty in America that may surprise you.(All statistics are taken from U.S. government surveys.)
• Poor households routinely report spending $2.40 for every $1 of income the Census says they have.
• The average poor American lives in a house or apartment that is in good repair and has more living space than the average non-poor person in France, Germany, or England.
• Eighty-five percent of poor households have air conditioning.
• Nearly three-fourths of poor households have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
• Nearly two-thirds of poor households have cable or satellite TV.
• Half have a personal computer; 43 percent have internet access.
• Two-thirds have at least one DVD player
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
• One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.

(The above data on electronic appliances owned by poor households come from a 2009 government survey so the ownership rates among the poor today are most likely higher.)

Poverty and Hunger

Activist groups spread alarming stories about widespread hunger in the nation, but in reality, most of the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:
• Only 4 percent of poor parents reported that their children were hungry even once during the prior year because they could not afford food.
• Some 18 percent of poor adults reported they were hungry even once in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
Poverty and Housing
The following are facts about the housing conditions of the poor.
• Poverty and homelessness are sometimes confused. Over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become homeless (usually a temporary condition).
• Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers; the rest live in apartments or houses.
• Forty percent of the poor own their own homes, typically, a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths that is in good repair.
Facts About Extreme Poverty
• The left claims that one in 25 families with children live in “extreme poverty” on less than $2 per person per day. Government surveys of self-reported spending by families show the actual number is one in 4,469, not one in 25.The typical family allegedly in “extreme poverty” reports spending $25 for every $1 of income the left claims they have.

In calculating poverty, Census ignores the almost entire welfare state

Why does the Census identify so many individuals as “poor” who do not appear to be poor in any normal sense of the term?The answer lies in the misleading way the Census measures “poverty.” The Census defines a family as poor if its income falls below a specified income threshold. (For example, the poverty threshold for a family of four in 2015 was $24,036.) But in counting “income,” the Census excludes nearly all welfare benefits.

In 2014, government spent over $1 trillion on means-tested welfare for poor and low-income people. (This figure does not include Social Security or Medicare.) Welfare spending on cash, food, and housing was $342 billion.

The cash, food, and housing spending alone was 150 percent of the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S. But the Census ignored more than four-fifths of these benefits for purposes of measuring poverty. Effectively, the Census counts poverty in the U.S. by ignoring almost the entire welfare state.

Poverty and self-sufficiency

Do the higher living standards of families receiving welfare mean the welfare state is successful? The answer is no. The real aim of welfare should be to make families self-sufficient: capable of supporting themselves above the poverty income threshold without reliance on government welfare aid.

Despite having spent over $25 trillion on means-tested welfare since the beginning of the War on Poverty under President Lyndon Johnson, many Americans are less capable of self-sufficiency today than when the War on Poverty began.

The pathways to self-sufficiency are work and marriage. We should reform the welfare state to promote these. Able-bodied recipients should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of getting aid. Penalties against marriage in welfare programs should be removed.

Let’s make welfare a hand-up, not a handout.

Concern at UN for slow probe into Berta Cáceres asesination

by the El Reportero’s wire servises

UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human-rights activists, Michel Forst, expressed concern today about the little progress in the investigations into the assassination of Honduran leader Berta Cáceres.

In a communique, the expert reacted to the recent announcement of the disappearance of the original file of the case of the activist of the environment, the rights of indigenous people and countryside workers, assassinated in March, this year, in the Central American country.

The theft of the file is a proof of the vulnerability of the Honduran legal system and in that reference, shows the problem of law that perpetuates impunity in Honduras: incapacity or lack of will from the authorities to investigate and punish for serious violations of human rights, he warned.

Russia strengthens trade ties with Latin America

Despite the economic crisis due to the fall of the raw materials prices, including oil, Russia conducts a gradual strengthening of trade links with Latin America.
Sergei Nosov, deputy director of the Asia, Africa and Latin America Office at the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, said that Russia expects a rise in commercial links with Latin America in 2017.

Sergei Nosov stated that in 2015 began a fall in prices due to the effects of the crisis, after reaching USD 70 billion in trade in 2013.

Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina and Paraguay represent 74 percent of the total volume of trade between Russia and Latin America, Nosov said.

At the same time, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador are the Latin American countries with higher imports from Russia, while again Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile record the highest number of exports to Russia.

The main Russian exports to Latin America include fertilizers (39 percent) and metals (17), while the main imports from Latin America include meat products (28 percent) and fruits (17).

Colombian president wins the Nobel peace prize

The Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, has won the Nobel peace prize for his work on a peace deal that was voted down in a referendum this week.

Santos and the leader of the Farc rebel group, Rodrigo Londoño, known as Timochenko, were both considered leading contenders for the prize after signing the peace deal last month to end 52 years of war.

But their chances seemed to have been dealt a fatal blow by the referendum last Sunday in which a narrow majority of 50.2 to 49.8 – a difference of fewer than 54,000 votes out of almost 13m cast – rejected the plan.

The Norwegian Nobel committee said it hoped the prize would encourage all parties to continue working towards peace.

Green Party came to SF to campaign and to support District 11 candidate Francisco Herrera

Compiled by El Reportero’s staff

The Green Party President candidate Jill Stein came to SF to support candidacy for Francisco Herrera for Supervisor for District 11. The event took take place at The Chapel 777 Valencia, SF, on Oct. 6.

ZOPPÉ – an Italian Family Circus

The Zoppé Circus brings an all new show for its 9th year to Redwood City, called  “Ricominciare” (ree-koh-min-CHAR-ay) meaning recommence, begin again and restart. This fresh new show will host an amazing lineup of performers featuring La Tarumba Equestrians who fuse Circus with Theatre, Music and the Equestrian arts.

Additionally, 5th Generation Circus performer Denisse Santos from Mexico brings an exciting flying trapeze show to the tent, while Ring Master Raoul Gomiero from Italy pulls the audience into the emotions of the show for an exciting new wild ride this year while juggler Liam Halstead wows the audience with his amazing feats.

Oct. 7-23, 2016, Matinee & Evening Showtimes, at the beautiful Red Morton Park in Redwood City. Tickets and info at: http://www.redwoodcity.org/zoppe

East Oakland organization shines spotlight on multigenerational leadership

Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ) is pleased to announce the winners of the first ever Courage Awards. The Courage Awards honors leaders in the community that have made vital contributions towards justice for systems impacted youth and their families. The four awards are named in honor of elders and ancestors who have left behind a legacy of movement building and healing in their field.

2016 Courage Award Winners

Robert Castro to receive the Jimmy Simmons & Chuy Ortiz Spiritual Warrior Award in recognition of his commitment to healing individuals and communities who have experienced the most harm and offering spiritual leadership as guidance in movement building.

Dignidad Rebelde to receive the Piri Thomas & Suzie Dod Thomas Cultural Activist Award in recognition of their commitment to using their art towards cultural activism and movement building.

Mireya Smith-Mojica and Juan “Oso” Cervantes to receive the Betita Martinez Young Warrior Rising Award in recognition of their personal accomplishments and their leadership and determination to inspire their peers and surrounding community to fight for the rights of young people.
 
Arthur “Tha” League to receive the Ronald Elder Freeman Freedom Award in recognition of his life-long commitment to movement building in the Black Liberation struggle and the empowerment of formerly incarcerated people.

The Courage Awards will be held on Oct. 13, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. in the Snow Building, at the Oakland Zoo. Tickets are available online or by calling Tamaya Garcia at (510) 842-9365 x709.

Heritage from Chinese province of Guizhou exhibited in Mexico

by the El Reportero’s news services

Embroidered dresses, silver jewelry, wooden masks and designs on paper cut will be enjoyed in the exhibition Memorias de las Manos. Esplendor y colorido del patrimonio from Guizhou, opened today in Mexico City.

The exhibition gathers more than 100 objects from the Guizhou province, located on the plateau of Yunnan-Guizhou, in southwestern China, where 17 out of the 55 ethnic minorities are settled, including the Miao, Dong, Yi, Shui and Bouyei.

Curator Silvia Seligson said that the exhibition seeks to show the treasures of the work done by these communities that work with skillful hands and create artworks full of symbols, instead of sole crafts.

This exhibition is included in the celebrations for the Year of Cultural Exchange China-Latin America and the Caribbean.

As it is such a large collection the exhibition will be split and two months later the artworks will be changed.

There will be another exhibition at the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, called Obras maestras del Museo Nacional de Arte de China.

Juan Gabriel will be honored by big-name artists en los “Latin American Music Awards

Ecuador will host in October the 3rd Meeting of Historians of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA) on the historic role of Afrodescendants in the construction of American States as a central topic.

In the event, to be held in this capital under the slogan: Diaspore, Culture and Conformation of the American States from the Africanity, will be attended by representatives of 24 countries, 12 in quality of official delegates and the same number as guests, indicated a press release published by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.

The meeting will promote spaces of international dialogue on the importance of afrodescendants and the institutionalization of the International Decade of Afrodescendants 2015-2024 in Latin America.

According to the information, the objective of the forum is to contribute to generate public policies of affirmative action for the recognition, justice and development.

The Third Meeting of ALBA Historians in Quito as a commitment of the Ecuadorian government assumed during the 6th Meeting of High Authorities of Culture of ALBA countries, held in September 2015 in Havana.

In that meeting, the Minister of Culture and Heritage of Ecuador also proposed the topic of the Afrodescendants Decade as center of the exchange.

The agenda of the meeting consists in eight worktables about the topics: public policies, social indicators, construction of national states and intercultural relations, Afrodescendant women and panAfricanism.

Locos por Juana premiers new Se Fue La Luz

Locos por Juana premieres the official video for their new single Se Fue La Luz (The Light’s Went Out) featuring ChocQuibTown on Billboard.

The video, directed by French Produccion (ChocQuibTown, Zion y Lenox, Rakim, Arcange), one of the most respected video directors in the Latin industry, reflects the strengths and cultural influences of both groups. It was filmed in a historic neighborhood of Baranquilla called El Barrio Abajo, famous for being the main attraction for visitors and the cultural Mecca for partying. Today it has been somewhat forgotten and the video pays respect to its rich history.

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