Grief in Honduras after Fort Lauderdale slaying

MiamiHerald.com | 08/20/2006 | Grief in Honduras after Fort Lauderdale slaying: "Grief in Honduras after Fort Lauderdale slaying
BY MELISSA SANCHEZ
mesanchez@MiamiHerald.com

JUTICALPA, Honduras - The men left their young families behind in this poor city next to the mountains and settled in a strange place called Fort Lauderdale.

There, they found lawns that needed mowing, cars that needed washing, sheetrock that needed hanging -- and people willing to pay decent wages for such work.

The money that Oscar Castro and José Alfredo Sánchez sent home to their wives and children bought a refrigerator, furniture, private schools and food. It even afforded them a taste of middle-class Americana: buying on credit.

All the while, of course, the men were breaking the law. Castro and Sánchez had entered the United States illegally, like an estimated 10.5 million others who have since become the subject of the nation's emotional debate over undocumented immigrants.

To see another side of the issue, The Miami Herald went to Juticalpa this summer, to visit the parents, the children and the wives Castro and Sánchez had left behind.

The men went back as well. They were in coffins."

Teaching Crisis in Honduras - Prensa Latina

My fellow teachers in Honduran schools make just over 3$ an hour. That is at least 1/4 what a first year foreign hire teacher makes at EIS. These teachers deserve our help and support. Without them, the future of this country is dire.

Teaching Crisis in Honduras - Prensa Latina: "Teaching Crisis in Honduras

Tegucigalpa, Ago 8 (Prensa Latina) Honduras was under an apparent calm after the government and teacher s unions discussed about an eventual solution to the crisis of the national educational system.

Around 2.5 million children and teenagers are without classes since the Teaching Organization Federations of that Central American nation began a strike in demand of salary improvements last August...

Among demands is the payment of $3.07 an hour and an increase of $1.16 per lesson starting next year, but president Manuel Zelaya only has offered them an increase of ten cents per hour."

Fire Rainbow

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Fire Rainbow: "THIS IS A FIRE RAINBOW — THE RAREST OF ALL NATURALLY OCCURING ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA.

THE PICTURE WAS CAPTURED ON THE IDAHO/WASHINGTON BORDER. THE EVENT LASTED ABOUT 1 HOUR.

CLOUDS HAVE TO BE CIRRUS, AT LEAST 20K FEET IN THE AIR, WITH JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF ICE CRYSTALS AND THE SUN HAS TO HIT THE CLOUDS AT PRCEISELY 58 DEGREES.



Fire rainbow"

Garifuna Community Leader in Honduras Threatened with Death

Read Article: "2006-07-13 | An Afro-descendent community leader in Honduras, Jessica Garcia, was forced at gunpoint to sign a document surrendering land and rights to a powerful real estate company. After refusing to accept a bribe to endorse the document, a representative of the company threatened to kill Ms. Garcia, the leader of the San Juan Tela Patronato, which represents the interests of the San Juan Garifuna community, and to murder her children.

This incident is only the most recent in a series of mounting threats and violent attacks faced by the Garifuna community and their leaders over the last several years. Powerful business interests, who seek to benefit from developing Garifuna territory into major tourism projects, engage in intimidation and violence, with virtual impunity."

Death Row Millionaires? Nah.

Cecil has all the answers:
The Straight Dope: Have any millionaires ever been executed in the United States?: "Prosecutors often don't even pursue the death penalty against the rich--think O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, and John du Pont (of the chemical du Ponts). You needn't hire a Johnnie Cochran or a Clarence Darrow to get the treatment. An analysis of Georgia cases showed that prosecutors were almost twice as likely to ask for the death penalty when the defendant couldn't afford a lawyer. Nationwide an estimated 90-plus percent of those arrested for capital crimes are too poor to retain experienced private counsel. In Kentucky, a quarter of death row inmates were defended by lawyers who were later disbarred (or resigned to avoid disbarment); other states are similar. A few states have offices dedicated to providing a proper defense for capital defendants, but a Texas jurist summed up the attitude elsewhere: 'The Constitution does not say that the lawyer has to be awake.' So is it cynical to oppose the death penalty on such grounds? Nah. Just realistic."

What Effect Reading Has on Our Minds - MSN Encarta

What Effect Reading Has on Our Minds - MSN Encarta: "Here are two facts that probably won't surprise you: Reading makes you smarter, and the more reading you do, the better.

Why this is so and how the magic happens, though, is quite interesting.

In a paper called What Reading Does for the Mind, Anne E. Cunningham, associate professor of cognition and development at the University of California, Berkeley, makes the case that reading:

* increases vocabulary more than talking or direct teaching;

* substantially boosts general knowledge while decreasing the likelihood that misinformation will be absorbed; and

* helps keep our memory and reasoning abilities intact as we age."

CNN report on Al-Zarqawi death

General Caldwell sounds convinced but apparently he does not know that Muslims are prohibitted from having tattoos.

CNN.com - 'Painstaking' operation led to strike on al-Zarqawi - Jun 8, 2006: "Al-Zarqawi's body was taken to a secure location, visually identified by 'scars and tattoos consistent with what had been reported and what we knew about him,' and by fingerprints, Caldwell said. 'We have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house. It was 100 percent identification.'"

CNN report on Al-Zarqawi death

General Caldwell sounds convinced but apparently he does not know that Muslims are prohibitted from having tattoos.

CNN.com - 'Painstaking' operation led to strike on al-Zarqawi - Jun 8, 2006: "Al-Zarqawi's body was taken to a secure location, visually identified by 'scars and tattoos consistent with what had been reported and what we knew about him,' and by fingerprints, Caldwell said. 'We have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house. It was 100 percent identification.'"

Honduras has 9.5 Times the Murder Rate of NYC

Dominican Today: "Violent deaths in Honduras up by 14.7 percent so far this year

Tegucigalpa.– The violent death rate in Honduras was up by 14.7 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period in 2005, according to a study released Tuesday in this capital.

In the year's first quarter, police reported 1,308 violent deaths, 168 more than in the first three months of 2005, said the study prepared by the Observatorio de la Violencia in Honduras.

The study says that men between 15 and 24 years of age are the main victims of violence in this country.

Honduras has a population of 7 million people, about the same as New York City, which had fewer than 550 murders last year. Much of the violence here is blamed on youth gangs."

Leader of Honduras Gang Escapes From Jail

Leader of Honduras Gang Escapes From Jail: "Leader of Honduras Gang Escapes From Jail

By FREDDY CUEVAS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 6, 2006; 11:59 PM

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A leader of a violent kidnapping gang that abducted and killed the son of a former Honduran president was among four inmates who escaped from a prison outside the capital on Tuesday.

The prisoners used makeshift saws to cut through the bars of their cells at the National Penitentiary outside Tegucigalpa. A rainstorm muffled the sound of the escape, but guards may also have been involved, prison director Rafael Castro told reporters"