Narrowing down a whole musical year to only ten albums is crazy hard (that’s what she said) but I tried. I feel like a leper being the only guy in America not putting Animal Collective on my list but I just didn’t feel them like everyone else. Here are ten that I am proud to stand up for though.

#10 AFI “ ” 

I hear their lyrics are deep and meaningful and stuff but I just know their songs sound great. You can hear the passion in Davey’s wail. Best played loud.

#9. The Avett Brothers  “ ” 

Acoustic rock in the folk tradition with stunning family harmony to boot. Magnificently produced by the great Rick Rubin too!

#8 Dengue Fever  “ ” 

A band that combines two of my favorite things: Asians and psychedelic music. Captivating.

#7  The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart ( ) 

If you weren’t around for My Bloody Valentine  in the 80s then here’s a fuzzier, poppier version of what you missed. Recommended if you like Silversun Pickups.

#6 Modest Mouse  “ ” 

This EP from the perpetually underrated band was “just” a grab bag of b-sides and songs that didn’t make the last two albums. Wow, have they got talent to burn then because this is 33 satisfying minutes.

#5 The Antlers “ ” 

Beautiful, atmospheric, haunting, emotional, fragile…if that’s your style, this is for you. Trust me.

#4 Jay-Z “ ” 

Pick any three songs off of here and they would be the best three songs on any other’s rapper’s album this year. Still the best in the game.

#3 Muse “ ” 

A sophisticated, adventurous, showstopper of a record. The only thing more astonishing about how far they’ve come in the last ten years is thinking about where they might go next.

#2 White Lies “ ” 

Big in Europe where they’ve always appreciated indie rock music you can dance to. If you’ve ever loved a Joy Division song, buy this now. Recommended if you like Interpol or Editors.

#1 Various Artists “ ” 

The record I listened to easily more than any other in 2009. It’s a compilation album with proceeds benefiting the fight against AIDS. That’s just the dessert; the meat is 20 (!) songs from some of the best artists out there, like Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Conor Oberst, Bon Iver, and Dirty Projectors. Please enjoy.

Happy New Year. Can’t wait to see what 2010 brings.

Public release date: 24-Dec-2009

Earlier this year, researchers showed that they could cut the lives of disease-carrying mosquitoes in half by infecting them with a bacterium they took from fruit flies. Now, a new report in the December 24th issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, suggests that their strategy might do one better: The Wolbachia bacteria also makes the mosquitoes more resistant to infection by viruses that are a growing threat to humans, including those responsible for dengue fever and Chikungunya.

Once infected with Wolbachia, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes also become less suitable as hosts for a form of malaria parasite that infects birds, said Scott O’Neill of The University of Queensland. (The mosquitoes under study aren’t natural carriers of human malaria.)

“This might be very powerful in reducing pathogen transmission by Aedes aegypti to humans, particularly for dengue and Chikungunya,” O’Neill said. “Together with the previously described life-shortening effects, the results suggest we might be able to have a major impact on disease.” That’s if it can be shown that the Wolbachia infection can invade natural mosquito populations, he added, a question his team is working on right now.

There is no vaccine or cure for dengue fever, which is a painful and debilitating disease suffered by some 50 million people worldwide every year. Dengue haemorrhagic fever, the more severe form of the disease, kills more than 40,000 people annually. Chikungunya usually isn’t fatal, but can cause symptoms similar to dengue. Human epidemics of Chikungunya have been cited in Africa, Asia and more recently in Europe, according to the CDC.

Wolbachia is already rampant in nature; the bacterium is estimated to infect up to 60 percent of all insect species. They are passed from mother insect to daughter or son through the insect egg and readily spread to high frequency in many species of mosquito. The species that are the major carriers of human disease don’t normally carry them, but that’s something O’Neill aims to change.

“We are currently conducting a series of experiments in contained outdoor greenhouse settings that are examining the ability of the Wolbachia infection to spread into natural mosquito populations,” he said. “If these prove successful, we hope to move to open field testing within the next one to two years.”

The idea would be to seed the natural mosquito population with Wolbachia by releasing mosquitoes that had been purposefully infected in the laboratory. Wolbachia bacteria have a good ‘trick’ to help ensure their spread, O’Neill explained. They are responsible for a developmental defect that makes the would-be offspring of pairings between infected male mosquitoes and uninfected females inviable. Since the bacteria is passed from mothers to their offspring, that means that infected females can actually have a reproductive advantage over uninfected ones, encouraging Wolbachia’s spread from one generation to the next.

O’Neill said his team is working on computational models to determine just how many infected mosquitoes would need to be released for the infection to take hold in the wild.

The researchers don’t yet know exactly how Wolbachia protects the insects from human disease-causing viruses. They have some evidence to suggest that the bacterial symbiont primes the insects’ immune system. Wolbachia may also outcompete the virus by limiting resources such as fatty acids inside the mosquitoes.

Even if the strategy works in a natural setting, there’s a chance the mosquitoes or the viruses could become resistant to Wolbachia’s influence over time.

” We can predict from evolutionary theory that selection will push the system in the direction of resistance, but we do not know the speed with which this might occur,” O’Neill said. “Even if it was effective for a few decades it might have a major impact on human disease.”

National  12/18/09  medicalnewstoday.com:  Researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology will take aim at several of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases – tuberculosis, malaria, and dengue virus — in a five-year, $18.8 million federally-funded set of projects seeking to make new inroads toward vaccines against the disorders.  The Institute received four project awards totaling $18.8 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to fund the study. The study also includes a component on smallpox, a deadly infectious disease eradicated worldwide, which remains a focus due to bioterrorism concerns.

National  12/12/09  starbulletin.com:  Hawaii Biotech Inc., a privately held biotechnology company based in Aiea, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday. In 2008 Hawaii Biotech conducted its first human clinical trials with a West Nile virus vaccine, followed by a dengue virus vaccine candidate in August of this year being conducted at St. Louis University.  Jerrold Guben, attorney for Hawaii Biotech, says many of the pre-petition equity investors are still willing to finance the company but will become debt investors. Next week the company will file motions to assume all its clinical trial contracts,. Hawaii Biotech, founded in 1982, recently completed a Phase 1 clinical trial of its West Nile vaccine in healthy human subjects. It is currently in Phase 1 clinical studies with a dengue vaccine candidate, and is in pre-clinical development with a vaccine for tick-borne encephalitis. Hawaii Biotech is also working on vaccine candidates for malaria and influenza.

The lab results are out.

No dengue fever or UTI!!!

My platelets are normal. My urine bacterial count is normal. Actually, everything is normal! Except for the leucocyte count which is a little above the upper limit. So I have an infection. Sore throat? Most likely. I had a mild sore throat this morning and last night, and during this day although I barely felt it since I was really bothered by the fever.

Anyway, my temperature is now down to 100.2°F.

Name it. Name all possible synonyms. Combine all of them and you will arrive at exactly what I’m feeling right now. I have never been admitted in a hospital before, and I don’t have plans of being so. But this fever just won’t go away! My co-intern who is a medical doctor just told me to go downstairs and get a CBC. She’s suspecting that I have dengue fever. Oh no. No way, please! I’ll be flying home this Saturday. No way I would be confined here! I’m certain I don’t have dengue fever. Five days of clinical internship have no power to bring me down! I’ll be well tonight! Nada es imposible!

VIA Evil Monito Magazine. DF’s latest will hit the streets January 12. As the album cover art suggests, Electric Cambodia is not an LP of Dengue Fever music, but 14 original tracks from the 60s. Which 14 is anybody’s guess, though, ’cause Dengue Fever ain’t sayin’. At least not yet.

1. Give Me One Kiss  – Dara Chom Chan
2. Don’t Speak – Pan Ron
3. Jombang Jet – Pan Ron
4. Flowers In the Pond – Ros Sereysothea
5. Shave Your Beard – Ros Sereysothea
6. I Will Marry You – Pan Ron
7. I Want To Shout – Ros Sereysothea
8. Jasmine Girl – Pan Ron / Sinn Sisamouth
9. I Want To Be Your Lover – Pan Ron
10. Hope To Meet You
11. Snaeha – Pan Ron
12. I Will Starve Myself To Death – Ros Sereysothea
13. [Untitled] – Pan Ron
14. Cold Sky – Ros Sereysothea

Song samples are available from FYE. Amazon is taking pre-orders. Proceeds from the album go to Cambodian Living Arts.

UPDATE: In comments, GM passes on the link to FYE, which lists the songs on the album and provides short audio samples. The post has been updated accordingly.

National  12/09/09  fda.gov:  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing a public workshop entitled “Emerging Arboviruses: Risk Assessment for Blood, Cell, Tissue and Organ Safety.”  The purpose of the public workshop is to assess the risk and discuss approaches to minimize the incidence of transmission of arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses) via transfusion, infusion, implantation or transplantation in the United States (U.S.). 

Arboviruses are a large group of viruses that are spread by certain invertebrate animals, most commonly blood-sucking insects. Arboviruses are found throughout the world, including the U.S.  Arboviruses such as Dengue virus, Japanese Encephalitis virus (JE), tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBE) and West Nile virus (WNV) are becoming increasingly widespread.  Transmission of WNV and Dengue virus through blood transfusion has been well documented.  Transfusion transmission of the Colorado tick fever (CTF) virus, a tick-borne agent present in the U.S., also has been reported.  Other arboviruses, including JE, TBE, and St. Louis Encephalitis are of concern to blood, cell, tissue and organ safety because of the possibility of viremia in asymptomatic human infections.  Dengue outbreaks have recently occurred in Texas, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Dengue virus, as well as TBE and JE, have the potential to become endemic in certain regions of the U.S. 

The public workshop will facilitate a scientific discussion on approaches to reduce the risk of transmission of arboviruses via transfusion, infusion, implantation or transplantation in the U.S.  The workshop will be held at the Natcher Conference Center, Main Auditorium, Building 45, National Institutes of Health, 8800 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD  20894, on Dec 14 and 15, 2009.

For further details see: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/NewsEvents/WorkshopsMeetingsConferences/ucm187986.htm

Dengue fever is creeping northward into the United States. A recent outbreak in southern Texas, claimed the life of one girl and sickened more than 50 others, but epidemiologists are not yet convinced that dengue is now endemic in the United States.  Dengue is still very much an August-to-December disease in southern Texas, according to Gary Clark, Ph.D., chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s dengue branch in San Juan, P.R. The causative arbovirus depends for its transmission on the Aedes aegypti, a household mosquito that feeds during the day and does not travel more than a few hundred feet from where it hatches, Dengue is also transmitted by another species, A. aldopictus, which is also prevalent in the southern United States, but is not as effective a vector.

Since 1980, the Texas border area has experienced several small outbreaks, all associated with outbreaks in adjacent Mexico, where the disease is endemic. In 1980 came the first appearance of dengue in Texas in more than 30 years; there were 63 cases including 23 locally acquired ones. In 1986 there were 17 cases, 8 locally acquired. An outbreak in 1995 involved 29 cases, 7 of which were locally acquired and were confined to two border counties.  A dengue outbreak in the Brownsville, Texas, area in 2005 involved 25 hospital cases, 16 of which were classified as dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF).

According to a report by the CDC*, “Entomologic, serologic and virologic conditions are now such that locally acquired DHF can occur in south Texas.” Two mosquito species that spread the virus, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopticus, are well established there.  The report adds, “The finding that 38% of surveyed Brownsville residents have IgG antibodies to dengue indicates that a substantial proportion of the city population has been infected with the dengue virus and might be more susceptible to DHF if they receive a second infection” with a different serotype. Clinicians and the public in southern Texas should be aware of the risk of dengue and DHF, the CDC advises. “Early recognition and diagnosis of DHF and careful fluid management can reduce the case-fatality rate in cases with shock to less than 1%,” the report states.

• CDC. Dengue hemorrhagic fever—U.S.-Mexico border, 2005. MMWR 2007 Aug 10;56(31):785-9 [Full text]

Dengue (den-gee) also (DENG-gay) is a disease that is endemic in most of the world including at least 100 countries in Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and the Caribbean.  The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 50 to 100 million infections occur yearly, including 500,000 of the more severe dengue hemorraghic fever (DHF) cases and 22,000 deaths, mostly among children.

Origin:  The four dengue viruses (DENV 1, DENV 2, DENV 3, or DENV 4) originated in monkeys and independently jumped to humans in Africa or Southeast Asia between 100 and 800 years ago.  Dengue remained a relatively minor, geographically restricted disease until the middle of the 20th century.  The disruption of the second world war – in particular the coincidental transport of Aedes mosquitoes around the world in cargo –  are thought to have played a crucial role in the dissemination of the viruses.  DHF was first documented only in the 1950s during epidemics in the Philippines and Thailand.  It was not until 1981 that large numbers of DHF cases began to appear in the Carribean and Latin America.

Most dengue cases in U.S. citizens occur in those inhabitants of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Samoa and Guam, which are endemic for the virus.  Dengue and DHF have been a particular challenge in Puerto Rico where outbreaks have been reported since 1915 and large island-wide epidemics have been documented since the late 1960s. The most recent island-wide epidemic occurred in 2007, when more than 10,000 cases were diagnosed. In Puerto Rico, and most of the Caribbean Basin, the principle dengue vectors are abundant year-round. Dengue transmission in the Puerto Rico follows a seasonal pattern. Low transmission season begins in March and lasts until June, and high transmission begins in August until November. (See CDC maps below.)

In 1934, there was an outbreak of dengue in Florida and 25,000 people fell ill with the disease.  Now, more than 75 years later, 20 new cases have been confirmed in Key West, Florida, this year.

Symptoms:  The principal symptoms of dengue fever (DF) are high fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising). Generally, younger children and those with their first dengue infection have a milder illness than older children and adults.

Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) is characterized by a fever that lasts from 2 to 7 days, with general signs and symptoms consistent with dengue fever. When the fever declines, symptoms including persistent vomiting, severe abdominal pain, and difficulty breathing, may develop. This marks the beginning of a 24- to 48-hour period when the smallest blood vessels (capillaries) become excessively permeable (“leaky”), allowing the fluid component to escape from the blood vessels into the peritoneum (causing ascites) and pleural cavity (leading to pleural effusions). This may lead to failure of the circulatory system and shock, followed by death, if circulatory failure is not corrected. In addition, the patient with DHF has a low platelet count and hemorrhagic manifestations, tendency to bruise easily or other types of skin hemorrhages, bleeding nose or gums, and possibly internal bleeding.

Transmission:  Dengue is transmitted between people by the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, which are found throughout the world. 

Incubation:  Symptoms of infection usually begin 4 – 7 days after the mosquito bite and typically last 3 – 10 days.  In order for transmission to occur the mosquito must feed on a person during a 5- day period when large amounts of virus are in the blood; this period usually begins a little before the person become symptomatic.  Some people never have significant symptoms but can still infect mosquitoes.  After entering the mosquito in the blood meal, the virus will require an additional 8-12 days incubation before it can then be transmitted to another human. The mosquito remains infected for the remainder of its life, which might be days or a few weeks.

In rare cases dengue can be transmitted in organ transplants or blood transfusions from infected donors, and there is evidence of transmission from an infected pregnant mother to her fetus.  But in the vast majority of infections, a mosquito bite is responsible.

Treatment:  There is no specific medication for treatment of a dengue infection. Persons who think they have dengue should use analgesics (pain relievers) with acetaminophen and avoid those containing aspirin. They should also rest, drink plenty of fluids, and consult a physician. If they feel worse (e.g., develop vomiting and severe abdominal pain) in the first 24 hours after the fever declines, they should go immediately to the hospital for evaluation.

Prevention:  There is no vaccine for preventing dengue. The best preventive measure is to eliminate the places where the mosquito lays her eggs, primarily artificial containers that hold water. And proper application of mosquito repellents containing 20% to 30% DEET as the active ingredient on exposed skin and clothing decreases the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes.

Distribution of dengue, Western Hemisphere as of August 2009

Distribution of dengue, Eastern Hemisphere as of August 2009

I am a self confessed sugar addict. While my friends are drooling over a bowl of salt and vinegar chips, trying their hardest not to succumb to the delectable block of brie cheese and wafer thin crackers and scorning the host who plated the cream cheese and sweet chilli sauce dip, I am beside the bowl of pick and mix lollies, grazing to my hearts content. No chocolate for me, I can take it or leave it. Chippies, cheese and chorizo? Maybe later. But sugar jubes, coconut ice and anything frosted is irresistible to me.  Not allowed sugar? May as well try to give up crack.

Sweet, sweet, delicious sugar...

2009 was not the best year for me health wise. A bout of dengue fever has envoked adrenal fatigue and subsequent ailments through out the year. So while I have never looked after my body as well as I have this year, I have also never been so tired, nauseous and frustrated. The illness has helped me in many ways, giving me more liability over my body, making sure I don’t over stress it, feed it properly and generally take good care of myself. Now while I have always considered myself fairly healthy and as the owner of a 23kg labrador, I walk for an hour most days and do a few pilates classes a week so I am reasonably fit but while I was sick I had to cut right down on the exercise to thirty minutes gentle strolling and totally overhaul my diet.

The diet I could handle somewhat; no caffeine, while it was hard for the first few days after the initial shock I was happy to order a decaf. No white wine. Ugh but again manageable and to the delight of my man, we now drink an assortment of reds. No dairy, no big deal. However having to minimise my sugar intake just about killed me. No honey. Fruit before breakfast only. No white sugar. No corn syrup. No Chocolattes. No fun whatsoever. The cravings were so intense and so physical that I can only liken them to having to give up smoking. I would pine for something sweet. I would obsess about the tasty little morsels I had to give up and when I would ‘accidentally’ eat something sweet, the endorphins and adrenaline would give me such a high and energy boost that I would instantly crave more. Bad, bad sugar.

Beautiful cupcakes from the amazingly talented Bakerella

The big issue with sugar and your immune system is that your cells want to absorb glucose before they absorb any goodies like vitamin C that is needed by your body to work efficiently and stay healthy, this is turn raises your insulin levels and then inhibit the production of hormones.  But it just tastes so good!

So when I get sick and tired, the first thing I crave is some sweet, sweet sugary goodness. As the silly season gets nearer and my stress levels keep rising, I finding myself craving more and more sweet foods. So it is time to minimise the sugar, again. How do you deal with your sugar cravings? Or having to cut out certain foods due to a dietary requirement? I’m not talking becoming vegetarian because you think it will make you lose weight or drinking only lemons and salty water to ‘detox’, but having to cut out a food you love because your body just cant tolerate it?

Attention all music and documentary lovers….You can watch “Sleepwalking Through The Mekong” the full documentary about dengue fever’s trip
to Cambodia on Link TV tomorrow 12/02 @ 9:00am (pacific time) or visit their website
to check your listing: http://www.linktv.org/programs/sleepwalking

Sleepwalking Through the Mekong follows Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever on their recent journey to Cambodia to perform classic 60s and 70s Cambodian rock n’ roll in the country where it was created, made popular, and very nearly destroyed. The odyssey is a homecoming for singer Chhom Nimol, and a transformation for the rest of the band as they perform with master musicians and record new songs along the way. More than a rockumentary, the film serves up a portrait of modern Cambodia as the band tours through Phnom Penh and beyond, crossing a great cultural chasm with the same spirit of Cambodia’s original rock pioneers.
Cambodia is often synonymous with the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that left millions dead and scattered refugees around the globe. This tragedy overshadows the story of Cambodia’s music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Cambodian musicians reinvented Western rock n’ roll with a distinctly Khmer flavor to create a sound that is at once familiar and completely original. Sleepwalking Through the Mekong celebrates this vibrant but long-overlooked music and reveals the power of music to weave a common thread between extremely different cultures.

Map of Dengue Fever...red area indicates epidemic stage...notice Mexico???

Ever heard of Dengue Fever? Well, get used to hearing its name (pronounced “den-jee”) a lot more. According to the World Health Organization, it is now found in 50-100 million people a year, and is responsible for 22,000 deaths annually. Unfortunately, the deaths are mostly children.  The W.H.O. states that 2/5ths of the planet (2.5 billion people) are at risk for the disease.

So just what is Dengue fever, or Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF)? It’s a virus-based disease spread mostly by mosquitoes, but also helped along by infected blood products, like blood transfusions, plasma and platelets. It is also known as break-bone fever, mostly due to one of its symptoms -severe muscle and joint pain. Other symptoms include high fever, rash, severe headache and pain behind the eyes. Dengue virus belongs to the family Flaviviridae, which includes the hepatitis C virus, West Nile and Yellow fever viruses among others.

The disease usually lasts up to 10 days, but complete recovery can take up to a month. There is presently no tested or approved vaccine. Primary prevention currently consists of mosquito control (and we all know how well that doesn’t work). Thai researchers are now testing a vaccine on humans that showed promise on small animals, and some other vaccine candidates are entering phase 1 or 2 testing.

On February 2, 2009, the BBC reported a Dengue fever outbreak in Bolivia. That outbreak had already killed 5 people, and infected more than 7,000 by then. Bolivia is facing an epidemic in its tropical lowlands and its strained health system appears unable cope. Authorities there have declared a health emergency. A number of Bolivian military facilities had been turned into temporary hospitals, and thousands of soldiers and medical workers were enlisted to help.

File this under “Way to go, Cesar”…

There was a serious outbreak in Rio De Juneiro in February 2002 affecting around one million people and killing sixteen. On March 20, 2008, the secretary of health of the state of Rio De Juneiro, Sérgio Côrtes, announced that 23,555 cases of dengue, including 30 deaths, had been recorded in the state in less than three months. Côrtes said, “I am treating this as an epidemic because the number of cases is extremely high.” Federal Minister of Health, José Gomes Temporão also announced that he was forming a panel to respond to the situation. CESAR MAIA, mayor of the city of RioDe Juneiro, DENIED that there was serious cause for concern, saying that the incidence of cases was in fact declining from a peak at the beginning of February. By April 3, 2008, the number of deaths reported rose to 55. Nice call, jackass…

The map (courtesy of the W.H.O.) to the right shows the spread of Dengue, with the red areas having reached epidemic proportions. Makes that Mexican vacation a bit more interesting, eh?

Cambodian pop musicians, Dengue Fever, are no strangers to the world scene and to the film industry. Having been the subject of a new film documenting lead singer’s, Chhom Nimol, visit back to her home country of Cambodia. “Sleeping Through the Mekong” showed them the spectacular musical scene of Cambodia and helped them hone in their musical sound.

Now, having descended upon the Houston’s Cinema Arts Festival, which featured indie films and indie stars, they lent their musical prowess to a showing of the original “Lost World.” Having left with a full heart and full take on Houston, members Senon Williams, Zac Holtzman and Paul Smith were kind enough to offer their insight into their world of music, their new film and what they enjoyed about Houston’s scene and people.

First off, I know that you guys have been to Houston before. How do
you like the scene here? The fans that see your shows?

Senon Williams: We have only been to Houston twice. Both have been unique gigs. One was at the orange show; I have told Houstoners about this place and they say, where?…what? We played in a dried out water fountain and the crowd sat on tractor seats and danced on painted walls.

The last show a few days ago was a live performance of our score to The Lost World, a 1925 silent film during the Cinema Arts Festival. Very cool performance but not the usual rock show. We have yet to play a show somewhat normal in Houston.

I can say I enjoyed some bar hopping with some locals….fancy mixed drinks and a couple scrungy dives….sleep was hard to find.

What influences of music have you guys come across that you have added to your repertoire? I know that there is ‘60s pop, Cambodian pop and psychedelic rock.

Senon Williams: We have always been fans of Mulatu Astatque. Fela Kuti and afro beat have been seeping into what we do. Fuzz guitar and Delay are heavy influences. I feel like these techie people who design all the effects and crazy sounds don’t get enough credit for what they inspire in musicians. There is a lot of electronic music that is starting to effect me…simplicity through beat and melody…I’ve been digging Secret Circuit and Rainbow Arabia a lot.

I was reading an old interview you guys did with the Houston Press saying that you’re just a “danceable rock band.” How has this brought exposure to your sound? What kind of connections have you been able to make to other musical movements both abroad and in the U.S.?

Senon Williams: We’ve been able to stay busy for going on five years now all over the world playing and recording. I think people like the familiarity of what we do and not being able to place it at the same time. I think we are part of a movement that links different cultures together naturally and honestly.

You played the Cinema Arts Festival here, what attracted you to partake in this indie-loving film festival? Especially providing the soundtrack to “The Lost World.”

Senon Williams: We are attracted to being able to bring different aspects of what we do to different audiences. We came to Houston because the organizers of the Cinema Arts Festival felt we could bring something special…I think we did. What they did was give us a great venue and a great crowd. The film has inspired more ideas for us to bring into new compositions in the future. We look forward to scoring more films.

Was it something you guys picked or were you approached to do the music for it?
Paul Smith: We were approached to do something for a silent film but we had a lot of choices and we rolled with Lost World. It just somehow felt like a good fit.

Was it going to be songs that you guys have already recorded or will there be something new?

Paul Smith: The majority of the songs are new but there’s a couple of old ones that were a natural fit in terms of the emotional tone. It was a good chance for us to sharpen our scoring skills and be ready for any other opportunities like this one.

Where you able to meld your music with a movie that is both intriguing and, yet, also kind of violent? It’s also a sort of commentary on the natives versus civilization.

Paul Smith: Both violence and intrigue make for good inspiration in terms of writing. Although this is a dated movie in terms of society’s overall outlook, we are still dealing with the same issues. Luckily, we’ve evolved quite a bit and this is a measuring stick in some ways.

What favorite movies do you guys have? Any being shown at the arts festival?

Paul Smith: Down by Law and The Shining are films we all agree on. I have no idea what movies are playing at the festival as of yet but I know I’m going to see The Lost World for sure

You were the basis of the documentary, “Sleepwalking Through theMekong.” I haven’t had the luck of seeing the movie, but what can youtell people about it?

Zac Holtzman: It was one of the craziest months of my life. We got to record with traditional master musicians and play a handful of shows, one of them on CTN (Cambodian Televion Network).

I know that it’s based on following your lead singer, Chhom Nimol, and going back to her roots in Cambodia and immersing yourself in theculture. What do you hope people get away from it?

Zac Holtzman: I hope people feel like they were there with us on our trip. Hearing the music, tasting the food, and drinking the warm beer on ice.

What did you get out of itI think we all came home with a deeper appreciation for Cambodian culture, and how important the songs that we are influenced by are to them.

Zac Holtzman: The music comes from a golden era of Cambodia at a time when Phnom Phenn was concidered the jewel of south east Asia.

The last album that you guys released, “Venus on Earth,” wasconsidered one of the world music best-selling iTunes albums of 2008. How surprised were you by that revelation? If at all.

Zac Holtzman: It’s great that we can play museums as a world band, and rock clubs as a rock and roll band. It makes touring fun.

Okay, last question. In three words, describe your shows? And describe “The Lost World” performance, or what you expect it will sound like in three words.

Zac Holtzman: Powerful as T-Rex!

Operation Marketing

Esteban N. Martínez for CubaDebate – (Español): Operación Marketing

Translation: Machetera

The interview President Barack Obama granted the “blogger” Yoani Sánchez is the culmination of a project I feel like calling Operation Marketing; aimed as it is at the promotion and visibility of a new counter-revolutionary figure in Cuba, in the face of the worn out and battered “dissidence,” fighting like a pack of wolves with fangs bared in search of their prey…money.

The promotion of Yoani Sánchez began some time ago, when Grupo PRISA granted her the Ortega y Gasset prize and another publication put her on their list of the “World’s  (100) Most Influential People,” although in her country she was completely unknown.

The torrent of prizes and recognition began to fall like “manna from heaven,” while press agencies, newspapers and websites, for the most part run by the rightwing, gave her the space to make her visible to the eyes of the world.

From the very beginning, Generación Y, the media platform designed for this digital project, counted on a broad architecture: German servers, replication in 18 languages and other technological means to set up the machinery, conceived outside Cuba and launched on the Internet under the duplicitous label of sourcing from Cuba.

Whoever has followed Yoani’s trajectory and those who sponsor her, know how the “blogger’s” positions have gone from a lukewarm criticism of the revolutionary Cuban project, to more openly aggressive ones, in search of a confrontation.

One of the first actions in this escalation had to do with the self-titled musician Gorki Águila, when the new “star” of citizen journalism launched a campaign in favor of the rocker, who’d starred in more than one scandal, but that story dissolved when the Cuban authorities only fined him.  According to Yoani they tried to sentence him to a long prison term and now he’s wandering about elsewhere.

The Havana Book Fair was the other stage chosen by those who pay Yoani Sánchez to make her presence felt.  At that event and to a miniscule audience, she was the star in another production staged on the outskirts of the main event dedicated to books and reading in Cuba.

Afterwards, there were other activities outside the Cuban capital. Yoani took her Ortega y Gasset prize to leave it at the shrine to the Virgin “Caridad del Cobre” in Santiago on the eastern end of the island, taking advantage of the trip to try to seek converts, manipulating and deceiving young people in order to try to get them to jump in her counter-revolutionary car, and then doing the same at the other end of the island, Pinar del Río, where she went with the same subversive intentions.

For “PRISA’s daughter” as she had now come to be known by certain media, she aligned herself increasingly with the enemies of the revolution, appearing frequently in articles and interviews with Radio Martí and Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, mouthpieces for the most retrograde positions and loudspeaker for the Cuban-American mafia located in Florida.

The story of skirmishes and other incidents is a long one, as she began to seek at all costs to make herself visible; counting on the complacency of the major media, charged by shadowy forces with making people believe that there is a transcendent political figure in Cuba who is opposed to the project which sustains the Cuban people.

With this voluminous record, Yoani Sánchez and her sponsors began the real Operation Marketing in recent weeks, beginning with a ridiculous episode: the “blogger” showed up disguised as a German tourist at a debate sponsored by Temas magazine, where to her surprise she was recognized, despite her wig, colorful clothing and garish handbag.

Coming off badly in the eyes of the “Montagues and Capulets,” Generación Y’s queen began to weave a new story, where she reported to the four winds that she’d been “kidnapped,” and beaten by state security agents.

Without cross-checking the facts and without verifying anything, plenty of media ran with the story about the “kidnapping” and “beating” of the famous “blogger.”  Hundreds of articles circled the planet from one end to the other on that story, which Yoani herself could not back up, even with the BBC, when she could not present any proof of the blows she’d received.

But not everyone got on the boat of lies, and many have been questioning the script.  One skeptic was the La República newspaper, who went to look for the doctors who attended Yoani and found that none of them found the least physical evidence for the supposed aggression.

Certainly, in a country where even lost dogs are called for on the radio by their owners, it sounded odd, like a media fabrication; something that even “classic dissidents” could appreciate once they saw their dollars endangered, heading now toward the “competition.”  In a desperate attempt to call for attention, Martha Beatriz Roque and her acolytes put on their own “show,” complete with “hunger strike” and news of her “serious health problems,” but the climax was yet to come, and it came on Thursday with Obama’s answers to Yoani Sánchez’s questionnaire.

Doubting the legitimacy of the answers and wondering whether they were written by Obama or his advisers adds nothing to the debate.  What’s interesting are the questions and the head of the empire’s answers to them.

Yoani Sánchez’s questions were aimed at subjects that would allow the person being asked the ability to drive forward his points of view, trying to blame the Cuban side for not moving forward on a path to better relations on both sides of the Florida Straits.  Questions about essential subjects in the Cuba-United States dispute remained outside the journalistic realm of inquiry.

The economic and financial blockade by the world’s greatest power against the Cuban people was barely hinted at, left aside, without delving into the billions of dollars that this criminal policy has caused the Cuban economy and which constitutes the biggest drag on the island’s economy.  Nor were the effects or strategies of a blockade designed to “kill through hunger or disease” and which has caused so much suffering for the Cuban family and is today repudiated by the entire planet, touched upon.

Nor were the consequences of the biological war against Cuba promoted by previous administrations among the questions – a war which through the introduction of plagues and illnesses damaged crops, animals and caused the death of Cubans, including more than a hundred children, when murderous hands introduced the dengue virus during the 1980’s.

The inconsistent position of the North American government in the struggle against terrorism was off the table, whereby a confessed killer like Luís Posada Carriles struts around the streets of Miami along with other terrorists and not a finger is lifted to extradite him to Venezuela, where he is wanted for blowing up a civilian Cuban airliner with 73 people on board, while five anti-terrorist fighters are enduring long sentences following a dirty, rigged trial in Miami, the capital of terrorism against Cuba.

The consequences of the Cuban Adjustment Act, a legal monstrosity classified as a “murderous law” for its role in promoting and stimulating illegal departures from Cuba, the cause of a slew of incidents and a long list of deaths in the waters of the Florida Straits, and which today fosters an unscrupulous business in human trafficking involving the Miami mafia along with criminals from other countries – also off the table.

The presidential response to the questioner about military intentions against Cuba is contradicted by factual reality; a Fourth Fleet armed to the teeth is sailing throughout the region, the permanency of the illegal Guantánamo Naval Base on a portion of Cuban soil and the construction of seven North American military bases in Colombia tell a different tale and constitute a threat not only to Cuba but to the entire continent.

Beyond questions and answers, the intention of Yoani Sánchez and those who promote her is to gain greater global visibility in a Marketing Operation, a game which Barack Obama has joined, whether consciously or encouraged by his advisers, and one which leads to a well worn path where he will find that the firmness of the Cuban people is an insurmountable hurdle.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.