Remix Hotel 2005 NYC + Haiti Update

Always so much going on in the naked city! This past weekend, Remix magazine's Remix Hotel held its 2005 three-day total immersion conference for DJs, professional and amateur musicians, and others interested in hands-on access to the latest in electronic music technology and equipment. The gathering included presentations and demos, workshops and master classes, panel discussions, live performances, and parties.

According to the heads up I got from Shocklee Entertainment, Remix Hotel 2005 NYC drew over a thousand attendees, including Chuck D, Prince Paul, Brand Nubian, Pete Rock, Tony Tone, Rich Medina, Needlz, Jeru the Damaja, Jae Millz, Cipha Sounds, Propellerhead, Lil' Cease, and Latasha Natasha Diggs. There are some photos of the event on the Remix Hotel 2005 pages, with more to come.

The next Remix Hotel is scheduled for August 5-7, 2005, in Los Angeles, and another one was originally scheduled for some time this year in Chicago, so if you have any interest, check out the site and register in advance.

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Have you written/called/faxed/blasted your Congressperson concerning the worsening situation in Haiti yet?

Back in March I posted about the ongoing problems there ("Sake pase nan Ayiti?"), so I won't rehash them, but keep in mind that although the mainstream media have aimed their focus on the W administration's nation-building (and destroying) activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have almost completely averted their gaze from the crisis the United States and France exacerbated in the oldest independent Black nation in our hemisphere.

Before the coup that exiled Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, we were told that he and his Lavalas Famn Party were the main obstacles to a functioning democracy; the intransigent opposition simply would not and could not work with him, and the creeping thuggery, which included murders, abductions, death threats, and so on, was laid at Aristide's doorstep. Yet since Aristide's departure, things have not improved. They have gotten worse. Despite the blandishments of the US's puppet, Gerard LaTortue, political and criminal killings continue unabated, the rebels have not fully disarmed, the UN troops, mostly from Brazil, have maintained only a tenuous peace in parts of the capital, and the majority of Haiti's more than 7 million people continue to suffer, politically and economically.

If this were not bad enough, Haiti's neighbor on Ayiti-Kiskeya, the Dominican Republic, is again expelling Haitian refugees from its territory of late (a state action that occurs periodically, especially when, as now, the DR is suffering its own severe economic downturn). And, according to a Reuters report today, the W administration just suggested that Haiti's illegitimate government buy more weapons to arm its police force, rather than working harder to reserve the political hurdles that have paralyzed the country's government and economy. This is another foreign mess this administration has stoked, and rather than let it continue to pass undiscussed by our own government, please contact your Congressperson and ask her or him to put it on the legislative docket. Millions of peoples' lives hang in the balance.