You can be forgiven for thinking this the receiving line at the Vampires Ball. There’s more corruption in this photo than even Beelzebub can fathom. Hell hath no pit hole deep enough to contain their stinking corpses. Ugly isn’t a necessary part of aging but when your life mission is shilling US militarism, nature does not play kind with you. It’s a variation on the theme of Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray.”

These troll-like creatures are former US Secretaries of State Kissinger, Baker, Albright, Powell, & Clinton at the ceremonial groundbreaking of the US Diplomacy Center in Washington DC. When finished the center will be a museum & education center–which in DC-speak means a place where they clean up historical reality & peddle barbarism as heroic.

We wish they had all chosen to “go quietly into that dark night” but they still all earn big bucks on the corporate speaking circuit & in teaching, advising, & business. Kissinger has a book due out this month on the ‘new world order”. The trailer for the book floated in several media outlets makes it look as lyrical as insurance actuary tables. So much for his vaunted genius which has only ever been manifest in barbarity.

Clinton of course, is running for POTUS but even her own party thinks she may be too corrupt & are priming Elizabeth Warren to challenge her with Clinton representing the extreme right-wing of the Democrats (DP) & Warren the moderates. There is no left-wing in the DP & never has been. That’s an illusion fostered to rake in union campaign dough & the support of corrupt Black, Latino, & feminist leaders. It takes so little illusion to deceive & that is the folly of US politics.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Media reports a military coup in Lesotho, Africa that has sent the prime minister into exile in South Africa. Apparently Letsie Seeiso, the “king”, can sit tight because similar to Betty Windsor, his duties are ceremonial while he feeds at the public trough. As usual, no media source has found it necessary to explain the politics behind this coup but there are plenty of issues facing the working people of Lesotho that warrant popular rebellion. This is a slightly edited version of a post from October 2013 describing a little of the integration of Lesotho’s economy into neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism:
——————-

This photo seems to capture an endearing shyness in these young herd boys from Lesotho, Africa. The caption says they’re going to the opening ceremony of the Mateanong Herd Boy School built by the charity Sentebale in the village of Mokhotlong. You want to believe this photo is about the bucolic rather than the barbarous but you have to ask what this herd boy school is all about–especially since Sentebale was founded in 2006 by Harry Windsor from the British moochocracy & Seeiso, the brother of Lesotho’s “king”.

Lesotho is a mountainous kingdom of just over two million completely surrounded by South Africa. Its economy is based on agriculture, livestock, sweatshop manufacturing for the US garment market, diamond mining, & remittances from workers who work in South African mining. Nearly 50% of the population live below the USD $38.00 a month established by the World Bank as the international poverty level (based on the 9,000 B.C.E. economy).

Lesotho has the third highest HIV rate in the world (23% of the population), partly explaining its orphan population of over 350,000 children. But HIV is not the only health issue. Child & infant mortality is high (hospitals are reported to have roach-infested maternity wards) & life expectancy for both men & women is only 42 years. That may be because there are only five doctors per 100,000 people. The Gates Foundation is involved in health care primarily around the issue of HIV & has been sharply criticized for devastating health care by diverting staff from basic care & focusing on vaccinations rather than providing essential healthcare & food to a malnourished population. Many HIV patients reportedly have so little food they vomit their free pills.

Child labor is widespread, including an estimated 35,000 boys who work as shepherds in the mountains. Little boys, some as young as 5-years-old, leave their families for months & sometimes years at a time to herd cattle & sheep. In freezing temperatures they have to fend off feral dogs, snakes, & other predators, including armed livestock rustlers; they are deprived of all education; they are forced to endure long periods of complete isolation. Their pay for one years work is one cow or several smaller livestock like sheep.

It is reported the herd boys often become hostile & antisocial & are known for their shyness since they have no idea how to live within a community. One UNICEF worker said, “I’ve worked with child soldiers & seen the look in their eyes, but it’s not as lonely as the look in a herd boy’s eyes because at least child soldiers run in groups.”

The Lesotho government & Sentebale have established a few herd boy night schools to teach reading, writing, & basic arithmetic but to attend the boys often must walk 15 to 20 miles round-trip on unlit mountain paths from the cattle post to the school. This charitable largesse is likely more about public relations for Harry Windsor than beneficial to the young herd boys.

(Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

In the past two weeks, there have been two catastrophic oil spills in Mexico–one in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico & one in the northern state of Nuevo Leon not far from the Mexican border with Texas. Oil spills are constant in Mexico which Mexican officials always attribute to oil thieves tapping into pipelines; a variation on that theme is drug cartels diversifying business & pirating oil from illegal taps. That story only flies because being a reporter in Mexico is a dangerous profession so no thorough investigations can be done without getting in harm’s way. But even on the surface, the story stinks to high heaven.

The oil industry in Mexico was nationalized in 1938 when the Mexican government booted predatory oil companies from the UK & US & took over the industry. The government-owned oil company is called PEMEX. Despite corruption originating in the government & not nationalization, PEMEX provided affordable energy for Mexican working people. The corruption entailed theft by officials in place of investing profits to maintain the infrastructure & develop energy technology. But being an outdated system isn’t why it’s susceptible to illegal tapping.

The technology of even old pipelines means it’s unlikely the thousands of illegal siphons are by fellows from the nearby town driving up with barrels in the back of a pickup to fill & resell on street corners, as media & oil industry publications claim. Pipelines shipping volatile & flammable oil & gas are under extreme pressure monitored by PEMEX; a leak along the line can be detected within minutes & maintenance crews dispatched for repair. The pressure & volatility make it prone to fires & explosions & extremely dangerous for untrained petty thieves who try to tap a line. Even the drug cartels would have to hire specially trained mechanics to siphon without blowing themselves up. Yet there are over a thousand illegal taps reported every year in Mexico.

The story might not be of as much interest were it not that oil piracy is a major issue in other oil-producing countries, most notably Nigeria–& the story coming out of Nigeria bears a striking resemblance to that in Mexico: Nigerian pirates, militant groups, & criminal gangs are killing their own economy, sabotaging their government, threatening the very foundations of Nigeria’s petroleum industry by illegal siphons. But after 58 years of oil exploration in Nigeria, the government neither meters nor monitors the volume of oil production by Shell & other oil companies, has no functioning regulatory agencies, & doesn’t have a clue what is produced & loaded on to tankers. After bribing corrupt government officials, foreign oil companies simply loot thousands of barrels. A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks exposed the collaboration between Nigerian politicians & military officials. They’re the ones responsible for the majority of oil thefts, not militants or small time operators, because they can commandeer & control access to barges & tankers to help oil companies loot thousands of barrels a day.

Speculation you say to assume the same might be happening in Mexico? There was already a court case brought by PEMEX in a US court in 2011 where the head of a Texas refinery was convicted of selling stolen Mexican fuel & another case accuses 12 US oil & gas companies of dealing in stolen fuel. Shell & ConocoPhillips are both accused of handling the contraband. Most of these oil companies are headquartered in Texas.

There is indeed massive fuel theft in Mexico facilitated by the present government which opened PEMEX to neoliberal privatization in December 2013. The Mexican government did not invest PEMEX profits in development & instead for years relied on subcontracting to firms like Halliburton & other oil service companies. Halliburton (which earned ignominy in Iraq) & one of the other companies provided technology to the Deepwater Horizon rig which caused the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year Halliburton pleaded guilty to destroying evidence needed by BP in litigation over that spill.

So when millions of gallons of PEMEX oil & gas are being siphoned, the likelihood is these operators are involved up to their eyeballs because they have the resources to bribe officials to look the other way when they drive tankers up to siphon & to clear customs when they drive them across the US border. It is probably not at all coincidental the oil spills in Mexico are exactly where Halliburton & other companies have set up operations & facilities. If the Mexican government really wanted to stop illegal tapping, it could send some of the 45,000 soldiers now deployed ostensibly & so ineffectively against drug trafficking to guard the pipelines.

The spill on Rio Hondo in Veracruz is in the Gulf of Mexico aquifir system previously hit by oil spills & contaminates the water supply for millions of people. The mid-August oil spill in Nueveo Leon is on the Rio San Juan which supplies water to the city of Monterey & is a tributary to the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo in Mexico) on the US-Mexican border–which is the fourth largest river basin in North America. PEMEX claims 90% of the oil spill in Rio San Juan is cleaned up. Meanwhile residents are on an emergency drive to provide clean water because they know full well it will be years, if it is ever cleaned up.

Multinational oil companies view Mexico as a Wild West for profiteering & promise billions to develop the industry. They’ve already laid out entire maps for fracking Mexico. If we want to see what kind of development they plan for Mexico we only need look at the Niger Delta. That environmental catastrophe awaits Mexico.

Photo is a dead bird floating in the Rio Hondo in Veracruz after the gas pipeline spill on August 27th.

(Photo by Feliz Marquez/AP)

I have great admiration for photojournalism & am particularly smitten with those who focus on people & the human face. Enough already with the scenery! I wouldn’t say I’m a groupie but I’m fortunate to have several photojournalist friends. World travel & danger seem to be part of their lives, along with a remarkable interest in people.

This photo is by Umesh Solanki who documents people from the Dalit, Adivasi, & Other Backward Classes in India. The image needs no commentary. The little girl really speaks for herself.

(Photo by Umesh  Solanki)

“The face is the mirror of the mind, & eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.” (St. Jerome)

Photo is from the Faces of Tibet album by Steve McCurry, a renowned photojournalist most famous for the “Afghan Girl”, featured on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic Magazine. He has photographed in many war zones including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Cambodia, the Philippines, Pakistan, & Afghanistan. He was featured in a 2003 documentary titled, “The Face of the Human Condition”.

His artistic eye is obsessed with human faces & he has captured their beauty as few others. Muhammed Muheisen, who photographs children in war zones & as refugees, is another whose photographs have that remarkable character. Surely they must have influenced the wonderful new trend started by “Humans of New York” (HONY). Unlike HONY who quotes something endearing about the subjects, McCurry doesn’t tell us much about his subjects. He lets the faces speak for themselves. “If you wait,” he said, “people will forget your camera & the soul will drift up into view.”