Thursday 15 November 2012

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Live Harvard Stadium Boston 1979

Bonus:

India's increasing population via night illumination

TGEU Press Release: TDOR 2012

Again increasing figures: Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project reveals 265 killings of trans people in the last 12 months

In total, since January 2008 the murders of 1083 trans people have been reported

The 14th International Transgender Day of Remembrance is being held on November 20th 2012: Since 1999, the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), on which those trans people who have been victims of homicide are remembered, takes place every November. The TDOR raises public awareness of hate crimes against trans people, provides a space for public mourning and honours the lives of those trans people who might otherwise be forgotten. Started in the USA, the TDOR is now held in many parts of the world. In the past, the TDOR took place in more than 180 cities in more than 20 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

Sadly, this year there are 265 trans persons to be added to the list to be remembered, mourned and honoured as an update of the results of Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project reveals.

The Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) project started in April 2009 and systematically monitors, collects and analyses reports of homicides of trans people worldwide. Updates of the preliminary results, which have been presented in July 2009 for the first time, are published on the website of the "Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide" project two to three times a year in form of tables, name lists, and maps:

http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/tvt-project/tmm-results.htm

Every year in November, Transgender Europe provides a special update of the TMM results for the International Transgender Day of Remembrance so as to assist activists worldwide in raising public awareness of hate crimes against trans people.

The TDOR 2012 update has revealed a total of 265 cases of reported killings of trans people from November 15th 2011 to November 14th 2012:

http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/tvt-project/tmm-results/tdor2012.htm

In comparison to the TDOR updates of the last years (162 reports 2009, 179 reports in 2010, 221 reports in 2011), we are witnessing a significant increase, which points to the extreme level of violence many trans people continue to be exposed to. However, this increase may also reflect the TvT project’s intensified cooperation and data exchange with trans and LGBT organizations, which document murders of LGBT or trans people in local and national contexts such as Grupo Gay da Bahia (Brazil), Observatorio Ciudadano Trans (Cali, Colombia), Pembe Hayat (Turkey), or TVMEX – Travestis México.

The update shows reports of murdered or killed trans people in 29 countries in the last 12 months, with the majority from Brazil (126), Mexico (48), and the USA (15), followed by Venezuela (9), Honduras (8), Colombia (6), Uruguay (6) and Guatemala (5). In Asia most reported cases have been found in India (6), Pakistan (5) and the Philippines (4), and in Europe in Turkey (5).

As in the previous years, most reported cases were from Central and South America, which account for 80 % of the globally reported homicides of trans people since January 2008. In Central and South America, in 2008, 94 killings were reported in 13 countries, in 2009, 165 killings in 16 countries, in 2010, 181 killings in 13 countries, in 2011, 208 killings in 16 countries. In 2012, so far 224 killings were reported in 19 Central and South American countries. The starkest increase in reports is also to be found in Central and South America, e.g. in Brazil (2008: 57, 2009: 68, 2010: 99, 2011: 105, 2012: 111 so far) and Mexico (2008: 4, 2009: 9, 2010: 14, 2011: 33, 2012: 43 so far). In Asia most reports have been found in the Philippines (28), India (21), and Pakistan (19). Regarding Europe the data also show a continuing elevated number of reported murders in Turkey in the previous years (2008: 4, 2009: 7, 2010: 7, 2011: 6, 2012: 5) adding up to a total number of 29 reported murders since January 2008.

In total, the preliminary results show 1083 reports of murdered trans people in 56 countries since January 2008.

The new result update reveals that in the last 58 months, 98 homicides of trans people were reported in Asia (2008: 15, 2009: 17, 2010: 29, 2011: 24, 2012: 13 so far), 69 in North America (2008: Canada: 1, USA: 18, 2009: USA: 13, 2010: USA: 9, 2011: USA: 16, 2012: Canada: 1, USA: 11 so far), 64 in Europe (2008: 13, 2009: 19, 2010: 10, 2011: 14, 2012: 8 so far), and 6 in Africa (2008: 2, 2009: 1, 2011: 1, 2012: 2) as well as 4 in Oceania (2008: 3, 2009: 1).

The TDOR update of the preliminary results also reveals that since January 2008 64 killings of trans people have been reported in 11 European countries (Albania: 1, France: 2, Germany: 2, Italy: 15, Poland: 1, Portugal: 1, Russia: 2, Serbia: 1, Spain: 5, Turkey: 29 and, UK: 5). In Asia, since January 2008 99 killings of trans people have been reported in 14 countries (Afghanistan: 1, Azerbaijan: 2, Bangladesh: 1, China: 6, India: 21, Indonesia: 4, Iran 1, Iraq: 3, Malaysia: 6, Pakistan: 19, Philippines: 28, Republic of Korea: 1, Singapore: 1, and Thailand: 4). In Africa, 6 killings have been reported since 2008 (Algeria: 1, Mauritius: 1, South Africa: 3, and Uganda: 1), and in Oceania 4 (Australia: 1, Fiji: 1, New Caledonia: 1, and New Zealand: 1).

Yet, we know, even these high numbers are only a fraction of the real figures; the truth is much worse.

These are only the reported cases, which could be found through internet research. In most countries, data on murdered trans people are not systematically produced and it is impossible to estimate the numbers of unreported cases. Another finding of these updates is that while Brazil has received special attention due to the elevated number of killings, the number of killings in other South and Central American countries like Colombia and Venezuela, and in particular Honduras and Guatemala is equally or even more worrying in view of the much smaller population sizes of these countries.

While the documentation of homicides against trans people is indispensable for demonstrating the shocking extent of human rights violations committed against trans people on a global scale, there is also a need for in-depth research of various other aspects related to the human rights situation of trans people. Therefore, Transgender Europe developed the Trans Murder Monitoring project into the ‘Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide’ (TvT) research project. TvT is a comparative, ongoing qualitative-quantitative research project, which provides an overview of the human rights situation of trans persons in different parts of the world and develops useful data and advocacy tools for international institutions, human rights organizations, the trans movement and the general public. A research team from Transgender Europe is coordinating the project, which is funded by the Open Society Foundations, the ARCUS Foundation, and partly by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The TvT research team is assisted by an Advisory Board, composed of more than 20 international LGBT, trans and human rights activists and academics from Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, and Oceania. It furthermore cooperates with 17 partner organizations in these six world regions.

In December 2012, Transgender Europe’s TvT research team together with its partners in the Global South and East will publish a comprehensive research report in which the TMM data is comparatively analyzed and contextualized.

Mike Hart: Raise A Glass On The 10th Anniversary Of His Passing

You are not forgotten my friend

Friends of the much missed Mike Hart of Compendium and, briefly, Murder One, will be gathering at the Spread Eagle on Parkway in Camden Town,tonight (Thursday, Nov 15th) from 8pm, to raise a glass on the 10th anniversary of his passing. All welcome.

Stewart Home on Mike

A BIG thanx to Richard Thomas for organising this and keeping Mike's memory alive and well. I shall be there in spirit and raising my cup of coffee to Mike here in Melbourne. As an aside reading Stewart's piece where he talks about Kerouac, I do remember Mike telling me that Robert Fripp had come into Compendium one day to buy as many books as he could find on Kerouac (which of course ended up as source material for that fugn awful King Crimson elpee Heartbeat, an album that I KNOW Mike would have hated as much as I do) and Mike took great delight in finding the worst books about Kerouac that he could find in the shop to sell to him!

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Girlz with Gunz #59393

Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985)

UK Reggae (Aquarius 1976)

Pity that the last part of the programme is missing...
Bonus:

Penny Reel: Late Night Blues

One hears much these days from various and often not entirely disinterested parties of the great and significant advances made in the field of reggae music in recent years; of its pervasive influence on much of the contemporary dance scene and of its ever growing universal appeal.
Evidence is cited to support this contention that on the face of it presents a very convincing case.
We learn for example that the ubiquitous urban rap with the hip hop beat has its antecedents in reggae toasting of the early school, even though it might equally be said that U Roy, Count Matchuki, King Stitt and the rest originally lift many of their own catchphrases verbatim from US radio jocks broadcasting in the Fifties, or even that performers such as the Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron portray their bleak visions of the American ghettoes in its own explicit language a good while before these Jamaican preachers make their presence felt in any way.
We are told too of the weird and mostly wondrous effect that dub techniques first pioneered in four track Kingston studios now have on defining the technological New Age enlightenment in all its ambient manifestations of inner space, while on the flip side of the same roots reggae coin is the sudden emergence of any number of dubious record labels busily collating onto compact disc scratchy vinyl recordings of newly discovered reggae legends for their expanding Eastern European and Far East markets, though with little visible benefit to the artists concerned as far as can be ascertained.
Closely aligned to all this is the roots and culture movement centred on Jah Shaka sound system and his many imitators, attracting audiences of different races in a not altogether unlikely alliance of dreadlock and crustie, while at the other end of the social scale we witness an entertainer like veteran Jamaican jazz guitarist and ska pioneer Ernest Ranglin playing Ronnie Scott to a polite and musically sophisticated yet almost exclusively European crowd.
I could reiterate at length other examples that apparently prove this same assimilative process. Clearly, it would seem, a hitherto much maligned music has finally succeeded in broaching all barriers and is now accepted on its own terms by the world at large, much as the pundits claim..!

Continue reading

HERE

Pirate’s Choice#362: Penny Reel Selection

Esteemed reggae journalist Penny Reel plays a selection of his favourite sides
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Right click/save as: 41:07 — 18.9MB)
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