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Opinion & AnalysisMedia Watch
A Case Study of Media Concentration and Power in Venezuela
Public access to media and diversity of voices have been usurped by private media moguls in Venezuela propagating their own political and economic aims. A review of U.S. media regulation and recent Venezuelan media history.
By Eva Golinger - Venezuelanalysis.com
Sep 25th 2004 at 7.49pm
I. Propaganda
Setting: Venevisión, one of
5 major private television channels in Venezuela, December 20, 2002.
The following is a transcription of a television advertisement played
on a Venezuelan private media channel during the December 2002
managerial stoppage. The commercial that follows was interspersed
amongst 10 back-to-back similar propagandas paid for by the Venezuelan
opposition movement. The ads were played during breaks from 24-hour
news coverage of opposition marches, speeches and interviews. During
the 64-day stoppage, approximately 700 similar, yet varied, ads were
broadcast daily.
A big "NO" appears in red letters. Smaller letters state "Don't be
deceived" and a male voice narrates the same. The same voice continues,
as the written words appear, "In this country, our country, there is
only one person responsible for so much abuse, impunity, anarchy and
lack of governance." [A fast paced music builds in the background]; A
women's voice narrates, as the written words appear over an image of
thousands of opposition marchers in the streets, "Venezuela, don't be
deceived." Return to male narrator, "The only one responsible for the
violation of the Constitution" [words pasted over scenes of national
guard repression and violence]; Return to female voice, "of financing
the circles of terror created in the shadow of his government" [scenes
of violence amongst people in the streets, tear gas in the air, people
running, members of Bolivarian Circles speaking and gesturing]; male
narrator, "to give away our petroleum" [image of PDVSA, the State-owned
oil company], woman's voice, "of the taking of our Marine Merchants by
mercenaries" [scenes of armed individuals mounting oil tankers]; male
voice, "of the torture of PDVSA" [image of violence in the streets,
tear gas, people screaming, running]; cut to woman's voice, "for
politicizing our armed forces" [image of armed forces in the streets,
violence]; cut to male voice, "disrespecting our institutions" [image
of armed forces firing teargas on civilians, chaos in the streets]; cut
to woman's voice, "for the stoppage in the nation" [scene of marches in
the streets, armed with sticks and rocks, yelling, fighting one
another]; cut to male voice, " for the division of Venezuela" [violent
street protestors yelling, fighting]; cut to female voice, " for the
hate amongst brothers" [continue fighting in the streets, violence
chaos]; cut to male voice, "Venezuela, don't be deceived" [image of a
giant Venezuelan flag held by opposition marchers]; cut to female
voice, "in this country, our country, there is only one person
responsible for so much horror" [image of opposition marchers in the
background yelling and signaling 'get out']; male voice "for so much
sadness" [image of Venezuelans carrying a coffin through a crowd];
female voice "for so much terror" [image of individual captured for
firing at opposition protestors, bloodied and half naked, carried by
police]; male voice, "for so much violence" [image in background of man
with a stick, swinging it violently in the street]; female voice, "for
so much intransigence" [scene of armed guards and police in the
streets, harassing civilians]; cut to male voice, "for so much
insensibility" [same scene of armed forces in the streets]; cut to
female voice, "You, who have been judged in five elections in two
years, what is the fear of being judged again?" [background image of
polling machines, voters voting, elections volunteers with ballots];
cut to image of animated map of Venezuela with a big "HERE" written on
it; male voice, "Here, there is only one responsible..."; cut to yellow
screen, the words appear as they are yelled by a chorus of angry
people, "Not one step back, OUT, GET OUT NOW." Ends with the Democratic
Coordinator logo.
The twenty-first century has
begun with the first media war in world history. Although tools of
propaganda and use of the mass media to further political aims have
been characteristic of previous conflicts, wars and political
strategies, the case of Venezuela evidences the first time that the
media, as a powerful, private actor, has waged war against the people
in order to advance its own agenda. Public access to media and
diversity of voices have been usurped by private media moguls in
Venezuela propagating their own political and economic aims. Precisely
those goals a democratic society and media seek to promote have been
turned upside down in Venezuela. In order to fully contextualize the
current media war in Venezuela, it is necessary to understand the
importance of the history and standards of media regulation, freedom of
expression and public access to media in U.S. law and in international
instruments of human rights law.
II. Public Access to Media and Diversity in U.S. Law
Diversity and public access
to media have been fundamental necessities of a true democracy
throughout the history of the United States. In 1927, the Radio Act
authorized an independent regulatory commission to decide who should
receive broadcast licenses and authorized programming regulation, yet
prohibited the government from censoring radio. The Radio Act of 1927
ensured that broadcast stations would be predominantly owned and
operated by private citizens rather than the government and established
the airwaves as a public resource that no person or business could
claim ownership of or claim rights of permanent usage. The Act also
required radio broadcasters to provide equal time to political
candidates, yet a provision to "permit equal opportunity for
presentation of both sides of public questions" was not included in the
final version of the Act.
The obligation of
broadcasters to air diverse views on public issues was declared a
policy of the newly established Federal Radio Commission ("FRC") in
1929, in Great Lakes Broadcasting. The FRC, which predated the
Federal Communications Commission, reasoned that because broadcast
frequencies were limited, broadcasters were subject to a standard of
"public interest, convenience and necessity" based on a duty to the
listening public. Great Lakes involved New York and Chicago
radio stations owned by labor organizations that had applied for
increases in power but were turned down by the FRC on the ground that
the stations had been used almost exclusively as propaganda outlets for
labor interests. The FRC stated that "the public interest requires
ample play for the free and fair competition of opposing views...[T]his
principle applies...to all discussion of importance to the public."
Furthermore, in KFKB Broadcasting Association v. FRC, a federal
appeals court ruled that the FRC could refuse to renew a broadcast
station's license if its programming did not serve the public interest.
A few years later, Congress
passed the Communications Act of 1934, which replaced the Radio Act.
Section 315 of the Communications Act required equal access to
broadcast outlets by candidates for public office and Section 312(a)(7)
created a right of reasonable access to facilities for federal
candidates. Yet neither of these equal opportunities provisions
incorporated language mandating citizen access to media. It took the
Commission almost two decades to fully develop a fairness principle
that would ensure public access to media and a diversity of opinions
portrayed in broadcasting.
In Mayflower Broadcasting
(1941), the Commission ruled that a license renewal could only be
granted to a licensee that agrees not to editorialize and further
stated that, "radio can serve as an instrument of democracy only when
devoted to the communication of information and exchange of ideas
fairly and objectively presented." Yet this doctrine only lasted for
eight years, and soon commercial television began to challenge the
dominance of radio. A Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") report
in 1949 reversed the Commission's previous position and permitted
licensees to editorialize, with the exception that the editorials must
be "fair" and that programming in general must be "balanced." Moreover,
this report required broadcasters to "devote a reasonable amount of
broadcasting time to the discussion of public issues of interest in the
community served by their stations."
Therefore, after nearly two
decades of confusion about the application of the developing fairness
principle, in 1949, the FCC established the twofold duty of
broadcasters that became known as the Fairness Doctrine. The FCC
explained that, "the needs and interest of the general public for new
and diverse opinions could only be satisfied by making available to the
public varying and conflicting views held by responsible members of the
community." As part of the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC required
broadcasters (1) to devote a reasonable percentage of airtime to the
discussion of public issues and (2) to present contrasting views in the
case of controversial issues of public importance.
The Fairness Doctrine,
widely applauded by media reformists, judges and scholars yet highly
criticized by broadcasters and First Amendment purists, imposed a
general obligation on broadcasters to ensure that diverse ideas were
presented. Broadcasters reserved the right to determine which views or
issues were to be presented and by whom, yet they had to ensure a
balanced account was aired. In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in
Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, that key provisions of the Fairness Doctrine were constitutional.
involved the broadcast of a personal attack by right-wing preacher
Billy James Hargis to author Fred J. Cook, who had written a book
critical of Republic presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. WGCB radio
station, in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, aired the attack on their station.
The station refused to grant Mr. Cook's request to reply to the attack,
unless he found a paying sponsor. Subsequently, Cook filed a complaint
with the FCC, which held that WGCB's failure to grant Cook's right to
reply was in violation of the personal attack provision of the Fairness
Doctrine. Red Lion Broadcasting, the owner of the station, challenged
the "right to reply" requirement as an unconstitutional infringement on
the radio station's First Amendment right to Freedom of expression.
Upon appeal, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality
of the Fairness Doctrine. In that landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme
Court held that the Fairness Doctrine served to enhance, rather than
abridge the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First
Amendment. They further proclaimed that, "It is the right of the
viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is
paramount." This language has characterized the foundations of the
media reform movement today, which seeks a more diversified, accessible
communications media.
Four years later, in CBS v. Democratic National Committee,
the Supreme Court refrained from expanding the public right of access
designated in the Fairness Doctrine by holding that the First Amendment
does not require broadcast licensees to provide airtime to specific
individuals or groups who want to present a point of view on public
issues. This decision combined two cases: one involving the Business
Executives' Move for Vietnam Peace (BEM), an organization of business
people opposed to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam who wished to
purchase airtime to express their opposition to the Vietnam War; and
another involved a petition by the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
to the FCC to declare that no broadcaster could refuse to run paid
editorial advertisements. In the original decisions brought before the
FCC, the Commission had ruled that broadcasters could refuse to sell
time for comment on public issues, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit reversed the commission. The Court said a flat ban on
paid public issue announcements was a violation of the First Amendment
right of the public to receive information. However, in CBS v. DNC, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court and supported the FCC's original decision, in a five-four split decision.
In 1987, after a series of
federal cases slowly chipped away at the Fairness Doctrine, the
Reagan-era FCC implemented its deregulatory philosophy by striking down
key provisions, claiming they conflicted with the public interest and
the First Amendment. Specifically, the Commission argued that its
intrusion into the editorial judgments of broadcasters was no longer
necessary to ensure the airing of diverse views on important public
issues because there had been an "explosive growth" in the number and
variety of information outlets since Red Lion upheld the Fairness Doctrine in 1969. Although the Commission recognized the validity of Red Lion,
it nevertheless stated: "Were the balance ours alone to strike, the
Fairness Doctrine would thus fall short of promoting those interests
necessary to uphold its constitutionality."
Yet the Supreme Court of the United States has not ventured to overturn its landmark decision in Red Lion,
which remains good law today. Additionally, the FCC has maintained
Fairness Doctrine-related policies, including the personal attack and
political editorializing rules, and the Zapple Rule, which
holds that supporters of opposing candidates must be given the same
amount of airtime during election campaigns. These policies echo the
general view that operations of broadcasters should be carried out in
the public interest. Furthermore, the FCC sets strict regulations
governing children's programming and viewing hours, as well as
guidelines for the broadcasts of political viewpoints and issues. This
class of regulations intends to prevent the mass media from
broadcasting just one viewpoint and becoming a concentrated political
power, such as in the case of Venezuela.
Principles of balance,
access, diversity and fairness still reign in the courts and federal
regulations with respect to telecommunications in the United States and
internationally. In addition to the historical development and demise
of the Fairness Doctrine, those inclined towards democratizing the
media in the United States have continued to rely on the First
Amendment as the fundamental source of these rights. The ultimate role
of the First Amendment's declaration that "Congress shall make no
law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" is to secure the
diversity of information and viewpoints necessary for the people's
self-governance. In Associated Press v. U.S., the Court
recognized the role of the First Amendment in securing the diversity
necessary to a democratic system, by declaring:
[The
First] Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible
dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is
essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a
condition of a free society. Surely a command that the government
itself shall not impede the free flow of ideas does not afford
non-governmental combinations a refuge if they impose restraints upon
constitutionally guaranteed freedom. Freedom to publish means freedom
for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the
Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is
not. Freedom of the press from governmental interference under the
First Amendment does not sanction repression of that freedom by private
Furthermore, in 1994, the Court's decision in Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC reinforced the critical notion of regulation as a tool of promoting wider access and diversity:
First Amendment's command that government not impede the freedom of
speech does not disable the government from taking steps to ensure that
private interests not restrict, through physical control of a critical
pathway of communication, the free flow of information and ideas.
Therefore, despite the FCC's
deregulatory actions that repealed the Fairness Doctrine in the late
1980s, the Courts have continued to uphold concepts of fairness,
balance and access in broadcasting. At the same time, the United States
has not ventured to incorporate rights of public access and to a
diverse, objective and balanced media as extensively as those set forth
in international instruments of human rights, despite the unprecedented
growth of media conglomerates and monopolies and the ever-decreasing
spectrum of voices represented on U.S. media. However, the media
concentration in the U.S. has not yet reached the point of exclusive
control, as the case in Venezuela. It is therefore critical to analyze
the situation of media concentration in Venezuela as precisely the
outcome that proponents of media reform seek to avoid.
III. International Instruments of Law
Before addressing in detail
the media war in Venezuela, it is necessary to set forth international
standards of public access to media and diversity of opinions in order
to demonstrate the unlawful and unbalanced situation created by the
media monopoly on information in Venezuela. International human rights
instruments and modern concepts of freedom of expression generally
state that freedom of expression is guaranteed under a nation's
Constitution or laws. Article 13 (1) of The American Convention on
Human Rights declares, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought and expression. This right includes freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds..." (emphasis added). The American Convention, Article 13 (3) further states, "The right of expression may not be restricted by indirect methods or means, such as the abuse of government or private
controls over newsprint, radio broadcasting frequencies or equipment
used in the dissemination of information, or by any other means tending
to impede the communication and circulation of ideas and opinions." (emphasis added).
Additionally, several
articles in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
("ICCPR") guarantee the right to freedom of thought, the right to hold
opinions without interference and the prohibition of war propaganda.
The General Comments to Article 19 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights reinforce the notion that "...little
attention has been given to the fact that, because of the development
of modern mass media, effective measures are necessary to prevent such
control of the media as would interfere with the right of everyone to
freedom of expression..." As such, the Covenant is recognizing the
potential of media conglomerates to infringe on the rights and freedoms
of expression and access to information of citizens guaranteed by U.S.
courts and international law.
The Declaration of
Principles on Freedom of Expression by the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights during its 108th Regular Session stated that, "Freedom of expression in all its forms and manifestations is a fundamental and inalienable right of all individuals," (emphasis added) and that "All
people should be afforded equal opportunities to receive, seek and
impart information by any means of communication without discrimination
for reasons of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinions, national or social origin, economic status, birth or any
other social condition." Furthermore, The Principles on Freedom of
Expression by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have
clearly stated that monopolies or oligopolies in the ownership and
control of communications media "...conspire against democracy by
limiting the plurality and diversity which ensure the full exercise of
people's right to information."
Therefore, it is evident
that international instruments of human rights plainly recognize the
threat of media concentration to freedom of expression and public
access to media. But, at what point do the rights of the media to a
free press conflict with the rights of individuals to freedom of
expression and access, and whose rights are more valued? The General
Comments to Article 19 of the ICCPR put forth that "...little
freedom of expression..." Particularly in a society where mass media
is privatized and owned by multinational corporations with economic
interests and motives other than providing "true and accurate
information", it is essential to have laws ensuring the democratization
of the media that protect the rights of citizens. Without such laws and
regulations, media conglomerates threaten democracy by maintaining
control over access to information and the capacity to advance
political agendas through propaganda campaigns and thought control. The
recent developments in Venezuela are evidence to the point and
constitute the most extreme case of media exercise of power in history.
IV. Case Study - Venezuela
The first media coup d'etat ever occurred on April 11, 2002 in Venezuela against a democratically elected and popular president.
"Disinformation,
flashing negative imagery, fear and stress induction techniques,
quasi-hypnotic suggestion, excessive repetition and falsification and
forgery are just but a few of the mindshock techniques deliberately
being used, not just in overtly political spots but also in regular
programming...Numbing repetition, relentless slandering and demonizing of
Chávez supporters. Exaggeration, negative spinning and saturation
coverage of any minor fact or event that can remotely make the Chávez
government look bad. Loud, rapid-fire, invariably negative interviews.
Excessive use of panic-inducing words ("Castro-Communism" is a favorite
of Venevisión, along with "mobs", routinely used to describe Chávez
supporters). Deliberate use of loaded terms like "crimes against
humanity" or "genocide" in the wrong contexts, to describe current
events in Venezuela. Exploitation of children in interviews to stir up
anti-Chávez sentiment...Venezuelans are being subject to a massive
Chávez-aversion therapy program, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
month after month, ad nauseam. People wake up and go to sleep with it..."
In Venezuela, five major
private television networks control at least 90% of the market and
smaller private stations control another 5%. This 95% of the broadcast
market began to outwardly express its opposition to President Chávez's
administration as early as 1999, soon after Chávez began his first term
in office. After President Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main
privately owned television channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión,
Televen and CMT - and nine out of the ten major national newspapers,
including El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo
PaÌs and El Mundo, took over the role of the traditional political
parties, Acción Demcrática (AD) and COPEI, which had lost power
after Chávez won the presidential election. The investigations,
interviews, reports and commentaries of these mass media have all
pursued the same objective for the past four years: to undermine the
legitimacy of the government and to severely damage the president's
popular support.
President Hugo Chávez FrÌas
won the election in 1998 by an overwhelming majority of votes. It was
the first time in Venezuela's young democracy that a candidate outside
the two traditional political parties, AD and COPEI, had won the
presidency, and by a landslide. Part of his virtue was his capacity to
relate to the average citizen, his master communication skills, and his
background; mixed Indian-Black Venezuelan and working class. Once in
office, Chávez immediately began implementing his primary campaign
platforms, including the rewriting of the Venezuelan Constitution of
1961 to include a more diverse spectrum of social, economic, cultural,
political and civil rights, and to integrate the armed forces into the
economic and social life of the country through a program titled "Plan
Bolivar 2000". In an unprecedented move, a popular referendum was held
to elect qualified citizens to comprise a Constituent Assembly, which
would draft the new constitution. Subsequently, the draft constitution
was ratified in another popular referendum, receiving 71% of voter
affirmation.
The 1999 Constitution of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela contained articles granting new rights
to Venezuelans, such as indigenous rights, education rights, health
care rights, job and salary rights, political participation rights and
many others that have made the new Venezuelan Constitution one of the
most progressive in the world in the area of human rights. Articles 57
and 58 of the Constitution guarantee the right to true and objective
information, incorporating international standards of freedom of
expression and public access to a diverse, democratic media. Article 58
of the Venezuelan Constitution specifically states, "Communication
is free and plural and must adhere to the obligations and
responsibilities under the law. Every person has the right to
objective, true and impartial information, without censorship..." Furthermore,
Article 108 of the Constitution clarifies that all communications
media, public and private, must contribute to the social development of
citizens. This same article guarantees public access to radio,
television, library networks and information networks, in order to
permit universal access to information. Public access channels and
community-based media were new rights ensured under this Constitution.
additionally required the restructuring of Venezuela's oil industry,
the fourth largest in the world, in order to provide a more equal
distribution of resources and wealth to the Venezuelan people. The
implementation of these rights and policies through Congressional
legislation was not well received by those economic and political
forces that had traditionally held power in Venezuela. The private
media were resistant to the growth of independent and community media
outlets. As a result of the collapse of the traditional political
parties, the private media became the leading voice of opposition to
the Chávez administration, because its ownership rests in the hands of
Venezuela's most powerful businessmen and corporations.
A small group of businessmen
own fifteen television stations in Venezuela. Only six of these
stations are national, and the rest are local channels. Three of the
local stations, Televisora Andina de Mérida, Canal de los Niños
Cantores del Zulia and Vale TV belong to the Catholic Church. There is
only one public television station with a national broadcasting
frequency, Venezolana de Televisión (or Channel 8), and growing
community media stations, such as Catia TVe and Bocon have an extremely
limited range. During several decades, commercial television in
Venezuela has belonged to an oligopoly of two families, the Cisneros,
who own Venevisión, and the Bottome & Granier Group, which owns
Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) and Radio Caracas Radio. Against the
determined opposition of these two families, Televen, Globovisión, CMT
and La Tele were able to enter the private media market, although the
latter two only have VHF frequency, with limited reach.
This same small group of
media owners are not just the proprietors of broadcast circuits but
also own advertising and public relations agencies that operate for the
benefit of the stations, as well as record labels and other cultural
industries that produce material to be promoted, released and broadcast
on the stations. Furthermore, the Cisneros family also owns, in
addition to Venevisión, the largest station in Venezuela, over 70 media
outlets in 39 countries, including DirecTV Latin America, AOL Latin
America, Caracol Television (Colombia), the Univisión Network in the
U.S., Galavisión, and Playboy Latin America, as well as beverage and
food product distribution (Coca Cola bottling, Regional Beer, Pizza Hut
in Venezuela, etc.) and cultural entities such as Los Leones Baseball
team of Caracas and the Miss Venezuela Pageant. These are precisely the
types of monopolies that developed nations seek to prohibit. These
media monopolies broadcast to more than four million television screens
in Venezuela, reaching millions upon millions of ordinary Venezuelans.
Statistics show that Venezuelan children watch an average of five hours
per day of television.
Print media are similarly
concentrated in the hands of just a few wealthy families. For example,
the six largest dailies are owned by specific family groups. There are
two hundred magazines and fifty daily papers circulating in Venezuela.
Owners of tabloids are also proprietors of magazines, dailies and
public relations agencies. One of the original opposition leaders
against President Chávez, Teodoro Petkoff, was the editor of El Mundo,
an evening newspaper published by the Capriles group that became the
first print medium to take an outspoken position against Chávez.
Petkoff utilized El Mundo to propagate his own political position against Chávez and later founded the daily Tal Cual, another print mechanism of opposition propaganda that has played a key role in the media war against Chávez.
The Media Coup
In response to a change by
the Chávez administration in the executive board of Petroleros de
Venezuela (PDVSA) in early 2002, the State-owned oil company, the
opposition convened a march to the PDVSA headquarters in Caracas, on
April 11, 2002. The march was promoted and summoned via print media,
radio and television. On April 11th, The Daily Journal, an English-language daily newspaper in Caracas, headlined "State of Agony Stunts Government", on its front page. Another national daily paper, El Nacional, released a special edition that day, headlining, "The Final Battle Will Be in Miraflores." Before any incidents had occurred, the media was fully briefed of the outcome.
In the days before the April
11, 2002 coup, Venevisión, RCTV, Globovisión and Televen replaced
regular television programming with anti-Chávez speeches and propaganda
calling for viewers to take to the streets. Some of the ads clamored "Ni un paso atr·s!" ("Not one step backwards") or "Venezuelans,
take to the streets on Thursday, April 11 at 10am. Bring your flags.
For freedom and democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will
defeat us." In fact, the propaganda on the private television
channels became so threatening and clearly intending to instigate
violence and an overthrow of the Chávez administration, that the
government applied Article 192 of the telecommunications law on more
than thirty occasions during the days proceeding and on the day of the
coup. This provision requires the government be allotted 15-20 minutes
of airtime to broadcast its views and position. However, even though
the stations were forced to comply with this regulation, they
circumvented it by dividing the television screen in half and
continuing to broadcast opposition propaganda and violent images on one
half of the screen while the President spoke on the other half.
On April 10, 2002, the
private media broadcast a dissident general, Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez,
claiming that the high military command demanded President Chávez step
down, or they would rebel and force him to resign. The journalists
present asked the General if he was planning a coup, to which he
responded only with a malicious smirk. It was later revealed on
Venevisión, the day after the coup, that this interview with General
Gonzalez Gonzalez was an integral part of the coup plot and was aired
to prevent Chávez from flying out that same day to an Organization of
American States General Assembly meeting in Costa Rica. The coup plan
required that Chávez remain in Venezuela, and the General's statements
were made with that purpose. The private media effectuated this part of
the plan by broadcasting the General's statements over and over again.
Chávez never went to Costa Rica.
On April 11, 2002, although
the opposition march had been directed towards the PDVSA headquarters,
the leaders, Carlos Ortega of the Central de Trabajadores de Venezuela
and Pedro Carmona of FEDECAMARAS called for a change in route: to
Miraflores, the presidential palace, despite the lack of a legal permit
to take that direction. Immediately, the private media stations
broadcast the calls "To Miraflores" and superimposed them over the
government's appeals to not seek a confrontation with pro-government
supporters rallying outside Miraflores that same day. The private
channels were strategically positioned near the Chávez supporters when
the gunfire rang out and the pro-government protesters began to fall.
The shots were hitting them in the head and frenzied demonstrators were
ducking down, trying to find cover from the deadly bullets. They were
being shot at by snipers and Metropolitan Police officers, who support
the opposition.
Soon after, the private
stations began broadcasting a video showing Chávez supporters firing
from a bridge near the presidential palace, Puente Llaguno, at an
unseen recipient. The video included a voiceover that stated, "Look at
that Chávez supporter...see how he unloads his gun at the peaceful
opposition march below..." What the video didn't show viewers, was how it
manipulated the setting and failed to include the wider angle of the
scene, which evidenced an empty street below and Metropolitan Police
hiding behind vehicles and buildings, taking shots at the Chávez
supporters on the bridge. The opposition march had never taken the
route that would have led them to Puente Llaguno. The video was a
The author of the video,
Luis Alfonso Fernández of Venevisión, who won the top journalism prize
in Spain (Premio Rey 2003) for that same news video, later admitted to
the newspaper Panorama (8-31-2003) that "in reality, that day
he did not see the Chávez supporters firing at the opposition march."
Furthermore, journalist Ricardo Márquez of Últimas Noticias
wrote that Luis Alfonso Fern·ndez stated he could not see whom the
Chávez supporters were firing at and that the voiceover on the video
was added after the events. Also, another journalist from a private
channel, Del Valle Canelón of Globovisión, initially affirmed that in
the video, the group of civilians were seen firing, but against the
Metropolitan Police.
However, during those
tumultuous moments, the truth about the video remained hidden, and the
world was witness to the makings of the first media coup d'etat in
history. The private channels attributed the violence to Chávez
supporters and hence, the Chávez government, claiming the government
had armed the aggressors. They failed to reveal that the majority of
fallen victims were, in fact, pro-government protestors and refused to
admit the two groups had never clashed at Puente Llaguno. After the
nonstop airing of the Puente Llaguno video, private channels broadcast
in unison another carefully prepared image: A group of dissident
generals declaring that due to the deaths caused by the government,
they would no longer recognize Chávez as the legitimate president of
Sometime after the failed
coup, the truth about this video also surfaced. CNN correspondent Otto
Neustaldt, participating in a forum entitled "Journalism in Times of
Crisis" at the Bicentennial University of Aragua in Venezuela, revealed
that "On the 10th at night they called me on the telephone and said,
Otto, tomorrow the 11th there will be a video of Chávez, the march will
go towards the presidential palace, there will be deaths and then 20
military officials of high rank will appear and pronounce themselves
against the government of Chávez, and will request his resignation.
They told me this on the 10th at night." Once again, the evidence
demonstrated the media's pivotal role in the events that unfolded on
the days of April 10-14. The media's involvement in the coup had
clearly been premeditated. It was no longer curious as to why the print
media had prophetic headlines predicting the "Final Battle" at the
presidential palace or the government's "Agony" before anything had
even occurred. The video of the dissident generals, broadcast as
planned on April 11th, after the Chávez supporters had been shot by
snipers, facilitated the final goal: declaration and justification of
the kidnapping of Chávez and the coup d'etat.
The day after the coup, the
private media provided detailed insight into their involvement in the
events of the preceding day. On the morning of April 12th, a Venevisión
program with television personality Napoleon Bravo hosted some of the
military and civilian coup leaders. During this extraordinary
television moment, the guests thanked the private media channels for
their integral role in making the coup happen and explained in detail
the plans leading up to the coup. They specifically underlined the key
role of the private media in broadcasting the images that would justify
the coup. Furthermore, on that same program, in an interview with
Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo and Victor Manuel Garcia, director of the
Institute of Statistics, television presenter Napoleón Bravo of
Venevisión confessed to having facilitated in his own house the
recording of a call to military rebellion by General González González
on April 10th.
magazine further revealed that coup leaders Pedro Carmona from
Fedec·maras (who later became the de facto president) and others had
utilized the Venevisión offices as a "bunker" and were seen coming from
the station offices as they headed towards the presidential palace to
take control. All the private media owners were present in the palace
cheering on as the coup leaders assumed power and dissembled
Venezuela's democratic institutions. Furthermore, the media owners had
expressed their wish to recommend the names of individuals who would
assume control of the communications sector in the de facto government.
The front page of one of the two largest national daily newspapers, El Universal, headlined, "A Step in the Right Direction!" on the days after the coup. The media were clearly in complicity with the illegal usurpation of government power.
The print media and the
broadcast stations reiterated over and over again that Chávez
supporters were responsible for the violence, the death and the
injured, despite knowledge to the contrary. It is apt to note that on
the evening of April 11th, as the coup leaders were surrounding the
presidential palace with tanks, threatening to bomb the building should
the Chávez government officials and Chávez himself remain on the
premises, the state-run Channel 8 was cut. The only access
pro-government supporters and officials had to broadcast their version
of events was eliminated. The private media now had the absolute
monopoly on information.
The private media not only
played an active role in promoting, justifying and executing the coup,
but also intentionally kept breaking news and critical information
concealed from the Venezuelan viewing public. On April 12th, after the
coup leaders had taken power, Chávez's Attorney General gave a press
conference prior in which he had made the private stations believe he
was going to announce his resignation, when in fact, he began to
condemn the coup and reveal that Chávez had not resigned, only to be
abruptly taken off the air. AndrÈs Izarra, former Managing Producer of
"El Observador" a news program on the private station RCTV, testified
to the Venezuelan National Assembly and others that he received clear
instructions from the station owner at RCTV on the day of the coup and
the following day to air: "No information on Chávez, his followers, his ministers, and all others that could in anyway be related to him."
Furthermore, Izarra confirmed that on the day of the coup, RCTV had a
report from a U.S. affiliate that Chávez had not resigned, but had been
kidnapped and jailed, yet the station refused to report the story. In
fact, all the private channels disseminated the news that President
Chávez had resigned, despite their knowledge to the contrary. This was
an intentional distortion of news and censorship of the truth about a
situation of critical importance to Venezuelan citizens and the
international community.
The immediate days after the
coup, the blackout on information intensified. On April 13th, as Chávez
supporters poured into the streets to demand the return of their
elected president, the private channels broadcast old movies and
cartoons. Even as the presidential guard retook the palace and the
Chávez cabinet members returned, the private media refused to report
these facts to the Venezuelan public. Journalist Luis Britto Garcia
characterizes the media's power in Venezuela as the capacity to create
a reality or make an existent reality disappear: "As the private
channels made a reality that did not exist appear - they inflated
opposition demonstrations, converted a partial bosses' strike into a
general strike, invented the resignation of a President who never
resigned - they also made an existent reality disappear." Robert
McChesney and John Nichols framed the censorship as a news stoppage:
"As the protests grew, the media simply stopped covering the news.
Newspapers ceased to publish, the state television station was pulled
off the air, and privately owned stations started showing a steady
stream of soap operas. Only when the protestors took over the state
television station did Venezuelans begin to receive news of what was
happening in their country."
As the majority of the world
condemned the coup and refused to recognize the de facto government in
Venezuela, the private media only reported on the support expressed by
the United States, Spain and Colombia. Furthermore, they went so far as
to broadcast a news anchor interviewing de facto president Pedro
Carmona about the normalization of events, claiming he was still in
control of the palace, even after the Chávez presidential guard and
cabinet members had retaken the grounds and Carmona had been removed
from power. Only after the Chávez government regained control of
Channel 8 was the Venezuelan public made aware of the true development
of events. Even after Chávez was rescued from his kidnappers and
returned to power, the state-run channel was the only station to
broadcast live his arrival at the palace. The intentional censorship of
information was a clear attempt to deny Venezuelan citizens access to
true, objective and timely information, violating their constitutional
rights and those rights garnered to them under international human
rights instruments.
U.S. media was also complacent in the media disinformation campaign surrounding the events of the April 2002 coup. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post
all ran editorials in favor of the coup and accepted the opposition's
version of events as accurate. Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting
issued a Media Advisory on April 18, 2002 entitled, "U.S. Papers Hail
Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy Move", explaining that papers such as The New York
Times triumphantly declared that "Chávez's 'resignation' meant that
'Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.'"
The New York Times went so far as to blindly write that Chávez
'stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a
respected business leader.' After Chávez was returned to power on April
13-14, The New York Times ran a second editorial on April 16,
2002, seemingly apologizing for their April 13th celebratory tone,
which stated: ""In his three years in office, Mr. Chavez has been such
a divisive and demagogic leader that his forced departure last week
drew applause at home and in Washington. That reaction, which we
shared, overlooked the undemocratic manner in which he was removed.
Forcibly unseating a democratically elected leader, no matter how badly
he has performed, is never something to cheer."
Due to the misinformation
provided by U.S. media, much of which was fed from Venezuelan private
stations, the international community remained unaware of the actual
occurrences during the April 2002 coup, as did many Venezuelan citizens
whose only source of information was Venezuelan television. In fact, it
wasn't until the release of the documentary film, "The Revolution Will
Not Be Televised" in April 2003, one year after the coup, that the true
facts were revealed. The documentary, filmed by Irish directors Kim
Bartley and Donnacha O'Brian, contains on-scene footage of the Puente
Llaguno firefight, the takeover of the presidential palace, the
people's rebellion, Chávez's return to power and the massive media
distortion of events. It is a testimony of the media war occurring in
Venezuela, in which often, an outsider's eyes are the only ones able to
reveal the truth.
The success of the media
coup in April 2002 gave the private media stations in Venezuela a
renewed sense of power. Despite the condemnation of their lack of
objectivity and accuracy in reporting by international watchdog groups
such as Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and
Amnesty International, the private media continued to engage in an
information war against the Venezuelan people. In December 2002, they
unleashed an all-out attack against the Chávez administration. As the
opposition declared a "general" strike, the media ensured its
implementation. Despite the fact that the strike was a lockout,
originating and imposed by bosses, owners and managers, rather than
workers, the private channels portrayed it as a massive general
worker's strike. This news was picked up around the world, and
perceived, although mistakenly, as an oil industry worker's strike,
supported by laborers and business owners throughout the nation. In
reality, high level managers and executives in the oil industry
sabotaged equipment, changed access codes and locked workers out of
computer information systems, halting production. Workers were forced
off jobs, business closed. The sabotage in the oil industry led to the
most severe gas shortage in Venezuelan history, crippling the economy
and destabilizing the nation for more than two months.
As millions of Venezuelans
were unable to work and had no gas to travel, they were forced to
remain at home and engage in the one free-of-cost activity still
available to them, watching television. The private media snatched up
the opportunity to launch the most massive information war ever
experienced in modern times. The four primary stations suspended all
regular programming throughout the duration of the 64-day strike: no
product commercials, no soap operas, no movies, no cartoons, no
sitcoms. They broadcast an average of 700 pro-opposition advertisements
each day, paid for by the stations themselves and by the opposition
umbrella group, Democratic Coordinator. Luis Britto Garcia reports
that, "No less than four television channels (to not bring in radio and
print media) joined together 24 hours a day in December 2002 and
January 2003, and broadcast 17,600 propaganda announcements against the
government, dedicating all of their programming, without a second of
rest, to denigrate the government through yellow journalism, to cause
all classes of alarm and rumors to invoke terror, precisely."
The situation was so severe
during those 64 days that Venezuelan citizens did not know which
information source to rely on; the private channels, or the government.
On the state-run Channel 8, the Minister of Education would state in a
press conference that all public universities and schools were open and
functioning normally, while the private media would broadcast
announcements claiming all public universities and schools were on
strike and closed down. In the end, Venezuelans were left with a
government denied access to media and a private media functioning as a
de facto government.
Perhaps most damaging was
the broadcast of violent images and opposition propaganda by all the
private stations during children's viewing hours, in explicit violation
of Venezuelan law. One Venezuelan testified how dramatically the media
war had affected his child: "Last night I made the mistake of not
checking if my six-year old was watching TV. He woke up in the middle
of the night in a cold sweat, hyperventilating, unable to breath. He
pleaded to be allowed to sleep with his mother and me. He was afraid
the "Chavistas" would come in the middle of the night and kill him."
This testimony is just one amongst thousands who fell victim to the
media's aggressive campaign to incite a climate of violence that would
induce either the resignation or ouster of President Chávez. Yet, the
media war in Venezuela may be directed against the government, but its
victims all along have been innocent citizens and children whose rights
to a socially responsible, accurate and objective media have been
consistently denied by the privately owned channels.
The Media Reform Movement and The Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television: A Solution?
After the fallout, where
does Venezuela go from here? As the media war wages on in Venezuela,
the government is struggling to find democratic solutions.
Interestingly, Venezuela's current media battle contains striking
parallels to the current media reform movement in the United States,
which claims ever-expanding corporate media conglomerates are
threatening democratic order. Venezuela could precisely be the
worst-case scenario of this media reform movement; the case in point of
what can happen when media monopolies control all information sources
and impose their own agendas on the public.
Proponents of media reform
claim that the current media system operating in the U.S. fails to
provide basic support for citizens and fails to protect or promulgate
the public interest. Scholars such as Noam Chomsky theorize that the
media today serve and propagandize on behalf of powerful societal
interests that control and finance them. Chomsky explains this
phenomenon by viewing major media as corporations "selling" privileged
audiences to other business. The picture of the world presented by the
media reflects the perspectives and interests of the sellers, buyers
and the product. The structure of media in the U.S. is dominated by
about ten transnational corporations including, Disney, AOL Time
Warner, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi Universal, Sony, Liberty,
Bertelsmann, AT&T-Comcast and General Electric (NBC). Similar to
the situation in Venezuela, many of these media outlets also have
holdings in numerous other media-related sectors outside
telecommunications, including film production, recorded music,
television production, book publishing, magazine publishing and
Internet service provision.
In the United States, as
Noam Chomsky articulates, concentration of ownership of the media is
high and increasing, and often those in managerial positions in the
media belong to the same privileged elites as the corporate owners.
Their attitudes and objectives are often the same, and journalists
entering the system are forced to conform to these ideological
pressures or be excluded from the commercial media industry. In
Venezuela, media owners, managers and journalists all tend to be on the
same side, projecting the same voice, even at the expense of journalism
ethics, objectivity and balance. The orders may come down from above,
but the journalists are willing to execute them, despite the explicit
abandonment of their own professional codes.
Media reformists call for
tighter regulatory standards and more public access to media in order
to avoid this corporate control on information and wayward journalism.
In essence, a return to the Fairness Doctrine or parallel standard that
promulgates balance, diversity and public interest in media. U.S.
journalist Bill Moyers warns that, "It's a reality: democracy can't
exist without an informed public...So I say without qualification that
it's not simply the cause of journalism that's at stake today, but the
cause of American liberty itself." These words ring true in Venezuela
today. While the Venezuelan public has lost all confidence, credibility
and trust in journalists, even worse has been the loss of liberty and
basic rights that have been denied to Venezuelans during the media coup
and ongoing media war.
Venezuela's response to the
media war has been the creation of its own version of the Fairness
Doctrine. The Venezuelan National Assembly is presently debating the
enactment of the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television
("LSRRT"), which proposes to guarantee public access to media and
ensure broadcasting during children's viewing hours abides by socially
responsible guidelines. The LSRRT was already approved by the National
Assembly Commission on Science, Technology and Social Communications
Media in May 2003 and should enter into final debate for passage by
Venezuela's general National Assembly before the end of the 2004 term.
Despite its objective of
balance and diversity in media, the LSRRT has come under heightened
scrutiny and attack by international journalism organizations,
including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without
Borders and watchdog groups such as Human Rights Watch, who have been
quick to declare the proposed law jeopardizes the vast freedom of
expression enjoyed by Venezuelan journalists and citizens alike by
attempting to regulate content. Yet the LSRRT does not contain any
provisions that endeavor to control the content of programming on
private media stations, rather, it proposes to enforce regulations
concerning appropriate broadcasts during children's viewing hours and
to support independent media outlets, democratization of radio and
television and public access to and participation in communications
Despite the outcry by
private media outlets in Venezuela and groups such as Human Rights
Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, many of the provisions
and basic ideas behind the LSRRT are familiar to proponents of media
reform and those aware of the legal history of communications law in
the United States. Venezuela's current debate over the LSRRT is decades
old in the United States. While the FCC has recently leaned toward
deregulation, these underlying concepts of fairness, public access and
equal airtime continue to prevail in U.S. policy and lawmaking, as
evidenced in Section II of this paper.
Today, it is the broadcast
media that serve to disseminate ideas to the populace. With the growth
of media conglomerates owned by the influential and profit-oriented,
these broadcasters influence the public in a manner inconceivable to
the authors of the U.S. Constitution. Nowadays, instead of promoting a
diversity of viewpoints, broadcast media merely perpetuate a monopoly
of ideas from the political and sociological mainstream. As has been
demonstrated in the case of Venezuela, media is used to advance
political agendas, often at the expense of ethics and constitutional
order. In order to put an end to the media war in Venezuela and prevent
such similar information wars in the U.S. and other nations struggling
against ever-expanding media conglomerates, it is necessary to open a
space for people's voices in the media. To create a media that serves
the public and advances the goals of democratic nations, self-governed
by the people and for the people.
Eduardo Galeano cleverly
proposes, "Do people watch the game or do they play it? When a
democracy is real, shouldn't people be on the field? Is democracy
exercised only every four, five or six years, when you cast your vote?
Or is it exercised every day of every year?" The people's defense in
Venezuela and the U.S. against media conglomerates is to stop watching
and start playing - to be given voice, to be seen and heard. Only then
will true democracy prevail.
This work is licensed under a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Creative Commons license
Feb 1st 2013
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
sylvanelite's Review
50 of 50 episodes seen
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (Anime) add (All reviews)
sylvanelite (All reviews)
Enjoyment 3
SEED had the makings to be a gundam classic, instead it became the epitome of why people dislike the gundam series.
From a personal viewpoint, I am a huge gundam fan, I've seen every series, and usually enjoy them. This was not the case with SEED.
To fans of SEED, I apologise for writing a mostly negative review. To people who may be thinking about converting to the Mecha genre, or to people who have grown up watching gundam, take SEED with a grain of salt, you may want to shop around before setting your sights on this series.
The story of SEED is almost identical to that of original gundam, with many recurring themes, mecha and unfortunately plot holes. The first gundam series was released in 1979, making it one of the oldest mecha shows to exits. As such, it had a rather lacklustre plot, however, it could be excused because it invented the term "real robot". SEED has no such excuse. After nearly 25 years, the plot features little improvement. The recurring theme of "Coordinators vs Naturals" is about the only plot device the series entails, and proceeds to extrapolate every aspect of this concept far beyond what would be logical or reasonable. The idea is a good premise, that I want to make clear. But the execution is what drags the series down. The series is plagued with flashbacks, and re-telling of events so many times that it looses any significant value it may have started with. Surely if the war was so important, there would be more than 1 event to flashback? Apparently not. The series uses plot devices that border on the ridiculous. Due to giving away spoilers, and there being too many to list, I'll refrain from the details (some may mark my review down because of this, I'm wiling to live with that...)
The main drive behind SEED is the artwork. Googling gundad seed will result in many high-definition shiny CGI models of the main mecha in the show. Unfortunately, this is about all the series amounts to. Most of the mecha are rendered in such a way, that still images are used to perform almost any action sequence. Most of the main mecha have around 3 different animation patters, and the 50 episodes are made up of these attacks played back on different backgrounds. Additionally, there is a substantial drop in quality between still, and live footage. When a mecha shows up for the first time, it will be rendered with a nice and brilliant shine. However, when the mecha moves, the view will be disappointed to see the shine is now gone, replaced with blobs of blue white and red. Other aspects of the artwork include many battle inconsistencies, such as firing dozens of missiles, and only showing three hitting their mark/being shot down. Other aspects of the fight include lasers coming out at 30, 40 degrees from the gun nozzle. This is a prime example of the animators using recycled frames to try and fill a battle, the gundam may be facing straight-on, but it will be firing at enemies above and to the left, without turning the gun.
The sound, and background music in particular, is very good. I can find little fault with them in this regard. The sound effects also suit the mecha. The voice acting is a little dry, but compared to the other shortcomings of the series, I'm willing to let these aspects go, and say the sound track is very good.
This was an extremely disappointing aspect of the show. Some characters were much too unbelievable to be considered "real robot" pilots. The battles were not won through skill from the main cast, more it was won through complete lack of skill by the minor cast. Almost every mecha pilot, who is not in a gundam, has trouble keeping the robot upright. This makes some of the fights seem like dancing around totem poles, waiting for the poles to randomly fall over trying to watch you dance. Good mehca battles should be fair battles, not overly trivialised cumbersome ones. Piloting skills aside, the rest of the cast borders on annoying. If the viewer can get past the "why are 15 year-olds piloting the best mecha/battleship we own" factor, they are met with conflicting emotions, that run so deep characters can be hugging one minute, stabbing each other the next, and be hugging again in five minutes time. Most of the cast seem to poddle along like a learner driver, trying to figure which gear they need to be in, stalling when the get it wrong, restarting, then doing it all over again. It tried to make characters "real" but served to make them anything but "real".
Enjoyment:
I'm normally someone to say "enjoy it for what it is", and I can get through watching the worst of the worst that way. But SEED just featured too many flashbacks, too many recycled frames, and enough plot holes to make swiss cheese jealous. Watching this on DVD, it is clear to see what the company tried to do, they provide 4 episodes per DVD, 3 of these serve as filler, and the 4th serves to have a cliff-hanger to rope people into buying the next DVD... only to have them faced with another 3 episodes of filler. The series also managed to fail at meeting most gundam standards, with the mecha dropping many real robot traits.
SEED serves as good homage material, showing the infamous "Zaku" to many gundam fans for the first time. But with enormous amounts of filler, the plot, battles and animation quickly become repetitive and dry. Perhaps SEED would have made a good OVA, or 8 episode series. But it was much too long, and suffered from very unbelievable situations to rope together the little plot that didn't have holes in it.


text:
import os
from setuptools import setup, find_packages

def read(fname):
    return open(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), fname)).read()

setup(
    name = "mailserver",
    version = "0.1alpha1",
    url = 'http://github.com/telenieko/django-mailserver',
    license = 'BSD',
    description = "Create mail services in Django.",
    long_description = read('README'),
    author = 'Marc Fargas',
    author_email = 'telenieko@telenieko.com',
    packages = find_packages('src', exclude=('mailserver.testapp*', )),
    package_dir = {'': 'src'},
    install_requires = ['setuptools'],
    classifiers = [
        'Development Status :: 2 - Pre-Alpha',
        'Framework :: Django',
        'Intended Audience :: Developers',
        'License :: OSI Approved :: BSD License',
        'Operating System :: OS Independent',
        'Programming Language :: Python',
        'Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP',
    ]
)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


S had the opportunity to taste a new brand of chocolates some time ago and came home passionately describing it to me. I have had some issues with dark chocolate since the start of my last pregnancy (you wonder what this will mean for young David in the long run?) so haven't had much chocolate since as the echoes of nausea still lurks at the back of my mind when thinking about having some. Tonight he had bought some and insisted I'd try it.
It was Cocoa Farm Wine Chocolate Pinot Noir by Farm by Nature - yummy!
Anyway, they make this chocolate using a special technique where they infuse raisins with wine (Pinot Noir, Shiraz or Merlot) and cover them with chocolate (38% in this case). It is absolutely looovely.


The Gouves Villas is a complex of three independent 3-bedroom villas: MINOS, DOMINIKOS and VITSENTZOS, located in Kato Gouves on the north coast of Crete. They are stone structures built with the characteristics of Cretan architecture combined with intricate touches of modern design, thus creating a magical holiday environment. White and earth tones prevail, highlighting the sense of harmony and relaxation, offering a unique holiday experience.
Villa Angelika is a newly built villa situated on a hill in Gouves county about 1,5 km away from the sea. The area is peaceful and offers you a panoramic view over the sea and the mountains to the south. Every point of the garden that surrounds the villa has beautiful views. The seaside resort of Gouves has plenty of waterside activities, restaurants and cafes.
Villa Margarita is a newly built villa situated on a hill in Gouves county about 1,5 km away from the sea. The area is peaceful and offers you a panoramic view over the sea and the mountains to the south. Every point of the garden that surrounds the villa has beautiful views. The seaside resort of Gouves has plenty of waterside activities, restaurants and cafes.


text:
L'Informazione è stato un quotidiano nazionale italiano fondato a Roma da Mario Pendinelli, ex direttore del Messaggero, pubblicato dall'Editoriale Omnibus.

Storia
Il quotidiano nacque con una redazione centrale a Roma, in Piazza del Popolo 18, ed una a Milano in via dell'Orso 4 ed era stampato in quattro centri stampa, a Milano, Roma, Benevento e Catania. La linea editoriale era di area liberal-democratica. Il primo editoriale, a firma del direttore Mario Pendinelli, era intitolato "Per una rivoluzione liberale".
Il primo numero è uscito il 14 aprile 1994, alla vigilia dell'insediamento del nuovo Parlamento, in formato tabloid, con 48 pagine e una tiratura iniziale di  copie.

A collaborare con Pendinelli, vennero chiamati Enrico Cisnetto e Angelo Scelzo (poi diventato sottosegretario al Pontificio Consiglio delle Comunicazioni Sociali) come vicedirettori, Gaetano Giordano, ex del Giorno, come caporedattore centrale,
Ottorino Gurgo (ex direttore del quotidiano Roma) come capo del servizio politico e Roberto Napoletano (futuro direttore del Messaggero e del Sole 24 ORE) come capo del servizio economico.
Nella redazione erano presenti molti giornalisti che hanno poi avuto una brillante carriera nei media o nel campo della saggistica, come Mario Giordano, Paolo Trombin, Costanza Crescimbeni, Mario Avagliano, Paolo Biondi, Andrea Manzi, Stefano De Martis, Francesco Lo Sardo, Francesco De Core, Antonio Giordano, Gloria Piccioni, Nino Petrone, Andrea Scarpa.

Tra i collaboratori e gli editorialisti: lo scrittore Ruggero Guarini, il critico teatrale Franco Cordelli, il critico musicale Mario Bortolotto e i critici cinematografici Aldo Trionfera, Umberto Silva e lo storico Pier Franco Quaglieni.

Nel 1995 L'Informazione ha cessato le pubblicazioni.

Note

I
I
I
Pubblicazioni scomparse nel 1995

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
best japanese instant ramen 2019
I expected more from these Korean noodles. Every swallow of soup from the Penang Spicy Prawn is deep and briny and tastes like sucking the goopy marrow from the head of a shrimp. There's a great bite to the noodles themselves, not typically a hallmark of Sapporo Ichiban. Yow! But the cabbage- and fish-forward broth certainly isn't bad, if not entirely militaristic. Ramen, Japan's iconic noodle soup dish, doesn't only enjoy massive popularity in its home country but all around the world. Put on your stretchy pants, forget about the macros and tuck in to BK Best Eats 2019. Original review, Shio translates to salt, although shio ramen varieties aren't simply water flavored with salt. The most interesting aspect of eating Bowl Noodle Soup comes courtesy of Dami Lee, cartoonist and Food section contributor, via text message. Required fields are marked *. This is another dry noodle, like Indomie. And for capital-J Journalism. #1: Nissin Gyoretsu-no-Dekiru-Mise-no-Ramen (Shrimp Tantanmen. Hot water barely separates the noodle strands, and after several minutes you're left with a warm, starchy log lolling in what looks like laundry water after a particularly heavy gym week. Like the Indomie in our No. Nissin Donbei kitsune - Udon (vegetarian) This is an instant Udon, a type of thick wheat flour noodle. Made from high-quality rice, these traditional Japanese noodles are gluten-free, low fat, vegan and whole grain. Instant ramen is, for many people, one of the best Japanese inventions created! This cup of Jin brings an adequate noodle — reasonably bouncy and chewy. It was introduced into the West African nation in the '80s and became so popular that it opened a production plant there in 1995. Looking for Filipino food? Here are the best-selected cup ramen according to Japanese people! Does this ramen taste like an Asian person, or a carpet? The Ramen Rater's Top Ten Japanese Instant Noodles Of All Time 2019 Edition. There are three liquids (some oniony oil, a sweet kecap manis, a little chile sauce) and two dry sachets (the MSG-rich chicken powder and some fried shallots). A gnarled hand of a noodle clump greets the eater upon opening the container, and the addition of water is complicated by the fact that the water fill line is on the outside of the cup. The noodles aren't particularly strong, but it can be forgiven. The best part of this ramen, which comes with its own bowl, is the lid. Then there's the little crunchy topping and the other garnish they provide and this is just amazing stuff. Now more than 30 years later, after having sampled over 670 different noodle varieties, I, the Ramen Rater, have come up with a list of favorites.It changes from time to time as I discover new ones, but here's the current list of noodles from around the world. 1. best japanese instant noodlesRemove term: best japanese ramen, the ramen rater's top ten instant noodles of all time 2019 edition. Evident in the daily long queues formed by locals & tourists, Ichiran Ramen chain of restaurants is one of the most famous ramen chain in Japan. (Genesia Ting and Lucas Kwan Peterson / For The Times). I actually made a decent pot of adobo and it was FAST. The flavor is one that transports some of us back to after-school snacks and first cooking experiences or late-night college dorm hangouts. All the cooking instructions are in Japanese which I cannot understand. PLUS 3 more tasty instant ramen; 7 full-sized Japanese noodle bowls are included in your ZenPop Japanese Ramen subscription box. Hajime Syacho is a Japanese YouTuber who has the largest number of subscribers in Japan as of March 2019. Best Japanese Instant Ramen: Nissin RAOH Umami Soy Sauce Ramen Noodle; Best Chicken Flavor Instant Ramen: Maruchan Chicken Ramen Noodle Soup; Ultimate Instant Ramen Guide. Entomb me in a giant prawn and bury me at sea. ... combined ate more than 40 billion servings of instant noodles in 2019. Volcano chicken noodle isn't messing around with the heat — it's very spicy. In other words, the stuff most of us eat out, … … Excerpts and links may be used non-commercially, provided that full and clear credit is given to Hans Lienesch and The Ramen Rater with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Price: $30 a month plus free international shipping.. What's inside: With the Zenpop ramen pack, you'll get 7 full-sized bowls of authentic noodles like ramen, udon, soba, yakisoba, and more delivered straight to your door.Best of all, each month, you'll get a new theme of noodles! We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. ... Apr 12, 2019. This one was particularly interesting as it has a great amount of inclusions and an excellent noodle, along with a savory broth. Full product descriptions, cooking instructions and main allergens can be found inside your ZenPop Pack (in English). The instant ramen of the future is here. It emits onion essence. Best Ramen Restaurant in Manila - Menu, Photos, Ratings and Reviews of Restaurants serving Best Ramen in Manila. You can watch me cook and garnish everything as I sit at my stove. ga('send', 'pageview'); Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The strong bouillon-flavored soup and slurp of a few squiggled noodles is not great cuisine in any sense but appeals strongly to the heart, if not the stomach. "Oriental," incidentally, is used to describe rugs, not people, so I'll chalk this name change up to some sort of progress. I was reminded of the time I went to the Italian restaurant down the street from me and had to pour the calamari sauce into the minestrone soup I was having to give it some flavor. Like the kid in this Maggi noodles commercial, walking home from school friendless and kicking stones in the road, in a scene that closely resembles my life from ages 6 to 12. Uproxx. Lotus Foods Millet-Rice Ramen Noodles come in 10 individual packs that contain one packet of soup and a ramen cake. Crunchy fried shallots on top are a welcome touch. Imagine our excitement when Ichiran released its own brand of instant … Feb 28 Ramen Beast 2019: Tokyo's 20 Best Ramen Shops Ramen Beast The Tokyo ramen world is effectively endless — if you eat at a different shop every day, by the time you finish them all, you will just have to start over, because hundreds of new shops will have opened, and hundreds of others will have closed or changed their menus. Limited-Time A-Sha Dan Dan Noodle At Costco For Lunar New Year! These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. This ramen restaurant has no name, is one of the best hidden finds in Japan. Otofuku is a brand of yakisoba sauce that can be found almost anywhere, and it's inclusion in this one is just perfection. Although ramen noodles have been a staple of Japanese cuisine throughout history, the instant ramen only hit the shelves in the 1950s.As tasty as … The 8 Best Instant Ramen for a Tasty Instant Meal Read More Lee says many Koreans will use the lids of their ramen cooking pots to cool off the searing noodles before eating them — that the metal lid acts as a plate. I'll lick my arm later and get back to you. But not to worry because we have curated the top 7 best Japanese restaurants in Singapore just for you and your family! I don't count them in my reviewing – everything is reviewed prior to any additions I make. (6-Count) 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,037. 10 Best Japanese Vegetarian Cookbooks. You can use other brands of instant noodles, but I recommend choosing a simple flavor that can complement with curry. Does the Hippocratic oath mean nothing? In a pot of salted boiling water, cook ramen, stirring with tongs or chopsticks until al dente, about 1 minute. Besides … Leftover/Freshly-Made Japanese Curry. For me, the slick chew of chicken Maruchan is one steeped in childhood memory, like tee-ball games, and crying. Ingenious! I'm not sure exactly what makes it Sichuan-inspired — it's creamy with some mild sesame flavor and fairly heavy on the soybean taste. The crustacean carnival begins the moment you open the seasoning packet — it gets into your nose immediately. $11.94$11.94 ($0.53/Ounce) Save more with Subscribe & Save. The dried seaweed, we bought in Japan in late 2019. This is the most accepting of noodle varieties. Although this product comes at a high price, you get what you pay for. Ramen originated in China, but has become one of Japan's best-loved foods . Best Japanese Restaurants In Singapore For Families in 2019 1. I'm not sure what exactly is happening in this commercial for Mama noodles, but it appears that a kindly old woman has brought some ramen into a DJ booth and the quality of the noodles is so excellent that it causes some kind of equipment malfunction. I like how the little freeze-dried corn and peas migrate to the top of the ramen block after you've added hot water, but this isn't a very good ramen. There's the spicy, creamy broth. And why not just say a half-cup, which would be so much easier to measure?) You're supposed to consume the thin, light broth separately from the noodles, which have a rich, very intense soybean flavor. It's a cut above the rest because of the way it gets ... 2. Whoa! Maybe they should have — and I'm not a professional flavor consultant or anything — used nonartificial pork? Finding a packet labeled "nondairy creamer" in with your instant noodle meal might alarm some, but not me, especially when it's from MyKuali, a Malaysian company that makes a number of excellent noodle products. Your talents lie elsewhere! Top 20 best Japanese instant ramen you should absolutely try! It works incredibly well. We have a nationwide preoccupation with heat. For the purposes of this rankings, I have eaten every variety of ramen in the known universe [Author's note: I have not done this] and have come up with an infallible ratings system to rank the 31 types listed below. The top of the Top Ten Japanese varieties Original review. To narrow the list down to 13, I bought 18 different types of spicy instant ramen. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. The broth is saucy and hearty with a cheese and light fish taste which is augmented with vegetables galore. Huffington Post. Maruchan Seimen Shoyu Ramen (マルちゃん正麺 醤油味) Maruchan Seimen stands apart in a league of its own. A good shoyu ramen is a thing of beauty — light, sweet, earthy, not too heavy — and it's not always easy to find. Instant ramen noodles are the food that got most of us through our college years, sports events, and many other instances in life where we … This is the Bangkok dining that ignores fancy restaurants and 10-course tasting menus and goes straight for the comfort food—steaming bowls of fat-rich ramen, triple-decker burgers, all-you-can-eat dim sum buffets with an extra helping of pork buns. The video showcasing The Ramen Rater's Top Ten Japanese Instant Noodles up to review #3058. A lot of us grew up eating instant ramen.It's inexpensive (like dirt cheap) and honestly can be pretty damn tasty. Sapporo Ichiban Shio Ramen (サッポロ一番 塩らーめん) 3. The soup is too one-note and salty. It suggests a cooking time of 3 minutes. No, that is NOT a typo. The Ramen Rater recommended these noodles, which have taken first place on his yearly lists of the best instant ramen for the past four … and subscribing to our brand-new baby bird YouTube channel. The shrimp flavor could be stronger but there's a notable lemongrass component and an Exxon Valdez-like oily sheen resting on the top. Ramen, Japan's iconic noodle soup dish, doesn't only enjoy massive popularity in its home country but all around the world. I'm proud to announce that www.thechocolatebreak.com is up and has rundowns of every single episode! Thanks for checking out our ramen box listing! Your email address will not be published. Home; Categories; Grocery & gourmet food; Pantry staples; Top 10 Instant Ramen; Top picks; Related reviews; Buying guide; Newsletter; Samyang . Original review, The noodles hydrated very well and have one seriously good chew to them. He is a part of the multi-channel network UUUM, created by Hikakin, another Japanese YouTuber. The sweet-spicy combo is done exceedingly well here; the sweetness is deep and caramelly, like brown sugar. 99 ($0.81/Ounce) 10 Best Instant Ramen in 2020 – Reviews In the West, ramen noodles have often been considered a cheap lunch that can be fed to the kids or a meal that's suitable for a struggling college student. We ordered instant noodles and ramen from Amazon, Ramen Place, 24/7 Japanese Candy and Asian Food Grocer. The rankings for the cup noodle best sellers of 2019 were unaffected, and remained the same as the previous year. Look, it's been a long two years for everyone. These are some nice bouncy noodles, very satisfying to chew. The soup tastes like sour socks and has an unpleasant grainy quality that hints at miso but doesn't quite get there. You can find out more by reading our ... With the busy Japanese lifestyle often leaving limited time to make delicious noodle dishes from scratch, instant noodles are something of a lifesaver. It is quite seaweed heavy, which throws off the balance, but you can definitely get a hint of the downtown Arts District aqua-rave happening in an abandoned warehouse. Nov 23, 2019 Whether you're in Tokyo for a week or for life, you'll barely make a dent in the city's ramen scene. Lee says she uses the Bowl Noodle Soup lid to create a paper cone and places the noodles inside, cooling off the noods and eating out of the cone as one would eat frites in Belgium. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. World Instant Noodles Association (WINA) was established in March 1997 as IRMA (International Ramen Manufacturers Association) with the purpose of improving the industry and enhancing people's diet around the world by improving the quality of instant noodles as well as increasing consumption. It's also very specific with instructions, like the hot chicken Samyang, asking you to boil the ramen before pouring out all but 7 tablespoons of the starchy water and stirring in the thick, peppery sauce, dried sesame seeds and seaweed. Talk about amazing. I was psyched to see this option at the store — budae jjigae, or Korean army stew, is a phenomenal kitchen-sink hodgepodge of a meal, ideal after a night of karaoke and swilling tall bottles of Hite. Get it as soon as Fri, Oct 2. In our never-ending quest to taste all the best ramen in Japan, we've eaten all sorts of unusual combinations ranging from mud ramen to noodles in blue broth and even strawberry sauce with white chocolate. True story: The first time I got drunk was freshman year of college. But the broth tastes of mushrooms and unconvincing beef, like the "fight" between Cardi B and Nicki Minaj. Check it out and let us know what you think! Most of us keep packet of instant ramen to hand as a tasty meal that is quick and easy to prepare as well as being very gentle on our cash flow. Most importantly, all of the instant ramen had to be easily accessible, either coming from H Mart or Amazon. As compared to other regular ramen soups, this one is prepared with non-GMO rice and contains 25% less sodium. In the last year, I've decided to start doing videos for each on of my reviews and as of April 3rd, I've done 295 episodes. The overall flavor is … spicy. The noodles have a really nice quality to them – not mushy or anything; they're just really good. You have twelve different kinds of ramen to choose from, but our personal favourite are those made with a shoyu broth. Hello friends, and welcome. It has revolutionized the food industry and has now taken over convenience stores in Japan and all over the world. There are so many different types of the fried noodle dish — Indonesian? The masala-flavored Maggi noodles are simple but very satisfying. However, instant noodles were first invented in Japan by a man named Momofuku Ando, who later went … This is extremely sparky. It really hits you over the head. Paldo gets a B for effort but ultimately doesn't come through. Place this code where you want an ad to appear. It's straightforward but very good. Contents. The packaging on this soy sauce-flavored ramen reads "same Oriental flavor." It wasn't that long ago that it was sold as Oriental-flavored Top Ramen, which got me thinking that at some point in the near recent past, some Nissin execs all got around a conference table and said, "So, Yoshi, what about about that word 'Oriental?' Problem?" "I dunno, Tomoyo, what do you think?" In the end, it appears that they officially got rid of the word to describe the ramen, but … also kept the word on the packaging. Your mouth will taste like the lining of a shrimp boat captain's gloves — in a good way, of course. While they're delicious and easy to … He has three channels on YouTube where he films experiments, hidden camera videos, Q&As, product reviews, lifestyle videos, and promotional videos. It's peppery and sweet, and not terrible, but it needs more shrimp, ham, depth, fashion sense, something. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. The soup is thick, rich and almost schmaltzy. Singaporean? Myojo Chukazanmai comes through with an impressive shoyu that balances saltiness and satisfying, fermented beaniness. It comes in numerous different varieties, flavors, and sizes, and is perhaps one of the easiest foods to have on the go.… Does the shrimp ramen taste like shrimp? Flavor-wise, I wouldn't spurn the invitation to the seafood party but might show up fashionably late. I tried curry noodles for the first time in Japan." I am happy — elated, even — to present to you the totally inarguable, airtight and utterly incontrovertible L.A. Times Instant Ramen Power Rankings. Ichiran Ramen is one of the best tonkotsu ramen in Japan. One-star Michelin ramen restaurant Nakiryu is famous for their 'dan dan mian' 担担面. ; China consumes the most instant ramen noodles in the world, approximately 40 billion servings per year. The Best Ramen in London for 2019 Kitcho Go for shoyu ramen (soy sauce broth) You'll find authentic Japanese dishes made with love and care at Kitcho in Greenwich. Its Penang white curry is one of the best — it has a deep seafood flavor, slightly sweet and almost coconutty. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. This one had very good noodles to start off. The good: This comes in a cute little bowl with its own fork and individually wrapped ramen block. The taste of the soup is delicious, and the noodles are chewy. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. It comes with a sachet full of pure sesame seeds. So my expectations weren't particularly high: How much can one earnestly rely on a gluten-free cookie or vegan cake to be delicious? We'll be using the seasoning that comes with the package. It's pretty amazing and quite delicious. Instant noodles reign supreme at 7-Eleven —spyrothedragon1991 (@oceanmineral) January 22, 2019. Original review, Talk about amazing. In fact I've been working hard on that. — that it's tough to say if this accurately represents the mean. I could not, obviously, include all ramens in this piece. Zomato is the best way to discover great places to eat in your city. Top 10 Instant Ramen . Get our weekly Tasting Notes newsletter for reviews, news and more from critics Bill Addison and Patricia Escárcega. Sapporo Ichiban Shio ramen noodles. The Cup Noodle Light+ series has really impressed me; amazing how much flavor you get out of a low-cal cup. The addition of tapioca starch to the flour mixture gives the noodles a satisfying, chewy spring. There is really no reason why ramen … Ramen is one of Japan's most important comfort foods and belongs on any Japanese food bucket list. 10 Best Japanese Grilling Cookbooks. Instant ramen, Japanese and Korean seasonings and condiments, and thinly sliced beef and pork (the kind used for hotpots and tabletop grills) were available, and we made the most of them. A bowl of the best ramen in Tokyo is a highlight for a lot of tourists, but the sheer abundance of shops and noodle soup varieties can make this endeavor harder than it seems. To that end, there's a sachet of powdered cheese mix, like you'd find in a package of Kraft macaroni and cheese, that gets added to the soup at the end. the grocery store that manages to make Whole Foods look cheap. The goal of this variety is to mimic the effect of melting a slice of American cheese into a hot bowl of ramen, providing some creaminess, texture and depth of flavor. and mix in the sauce packet. Our hero DJ eventually gets to eat the noodles, and everyone basks in the glow of Mama noodles and the kindly mama herself who prepared them. It's chef-crafted and can be cooked in the same time as a standard instant dry noodle pack. Dried veggies and crab bits leaned sweet but worked along with the salty broth. Regardless, the ramen does taste just like I remember it: It's salty with a hint of sweetness and just a tinge of spice to make it interesting, with notes of soy sauce and ginger. Original review, The noodles are thick and chewy – very premium. What is ramen? This instant miso ramen was made by my younger daughter, Alex, in March 2020. Woo boy, does this bring the onions. Share your food journey with the world, Checkin at … By Rebekah Ho. There's no meat in this, but it's so thick and beany that it tastes like there is. The chile sauce gives a tiny bit of heat, and the texture of the crunchy onions really puts it over the top. The Chocolate Break is where we try chocolate from around the world – and give our opinions on them. Now, on most of these bowls, you'll notice I've added my own garnishes. The broth is equally amazing – a purely elegant shoyu broth with a good oiliness and great flavor. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. ga('create', 'UA-104894911-1', 'auto'); Dr. McDougall, I implore you to stick to the practice of medicine! Win win? Little fake meat bits are a nice touch but don't make up for the fact that there's virtually no heat in this "spicy" offering. })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); The broth is made from a rich soy sauce that ... 2. On the OUTSIDE. And while I've previously decried the preposterousness of "Oriental" foods, Sutah comes across like a spicy Oriental-flavor ramen — soy sauce-heavy, slightly sweet and with a tiny, spicy kick. And while I'm usually suspicious of so blatantly cashing in your image, I have to say — Momosan came through, big time. Subscribe: Join HERE.. Last updated December 2019. Nissin Releases Instant Cup Noodles That Are More Nutritious for You A dream come true. Actual products may vary. This particular brand of ramen features the beaming, bespectacled face of Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Ramen; Top 3 Instant Cup Noodles at 7-Eleven in Japan - See Which Instant Ramen is Most Popular With Japanese People! It doesn't quite work — the flavor is artificial and powdery and doesn't grant the same satisfaction as actual industrial cheese. Add to that they are full of flavor and seem to bend the laws of nature but making this only 176 calories. Just top notch tonkotsu. What's more, the noodles are garnished with green laver (flaked seaweed) and a little mayonnaise packet! Broth had a very good thickness to it and a balanced creaminess and a little spiciness to compliment the pork bone flavor. The bad: It does not taste discernibly like XO. Ichiran Ramen. The soup, while not possessing an overly convincing crab flavor, nevertheless had good heat to it. The shrimp creamy tom yum flavor gives you what you expect in any good tom yum — a vegetal herbiness and a strong, sour bite. What began as something to try once has become a project my wife Kit and I do regularly. The story of how Indomie, an Indonesian noodle brand, came to become a household name in Nigeria is pretty interesting.
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Sweden Rejects Request By Orange for 3G Delay
Sept. 30, 2002 2:53 pm ET
STOCKHOLM -- Swedish regulators rejected a request from Orange SA for a three-year delay in the deadline for completion of its third-generation mobile network, saying the operator would have to abide by the original terms of its 3G license.
Sweden's Post and Telecoms Agency said Orange's argument for granting the delay had not been persuasive.
Orange had sought to push the deadline for finishing its network back to the end of 2006 from the end of 2003 and to reduce the number of people that the network is required to cover to 8.3 million from 8.86 million.
Orange had cited a number of reasons for its request in August, including delays in development of equipment and phones for the high-speed wireless networks, the continued weak demand for mobile data services and difficulties in acquiring sites for masts in the network.
Its petition came amid a wider series of moves by European operators to scale back their 3G plans, particularly in cases where they had planned to enter new markets. Orange is one of two new entrants to Sweden, along with Hi3G Access AB.


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Life at 7000 feet: A Fun-Filled Fourth!
A better title would be a fun-filled 3rd, 4th, and 5th since we celebrated ALL weekend long!
Small-town parade with dear friends | sun | more sun | candy | not enough sunscreen | red-white-and-blue EVERYWHERE | lunch on the patio at La Casa Fiesta | more friends | ice cream at the Rock House | playing with neighbors | rest | burgers | dinner with Deena | bedtime collapse.
This guy was dancing to the Village People's Y-MCA!
SUPER DUPER fun 4th of July block party | crafts for kids | slip 'n slide | water balloons | perfect weather | grills everywhere | so much food! | laughing kiddos | laughing adults | birthday candles, singing, and cake | adult water fight | NO PHOTOS!!! | love our neighbors | they've become dear friends | exhaustion | attempt(s) to nap | failure to nap | a trip to fireworks stand | excited kids | rain | thunder | lightning | hail | more rain | waiting | more rain | waiting | tornado warnings | crazy lightning | rain, rain, rain | hail, hail, hail | fireworks viewing plans cancelled | but fireworks shows NOT cancelled | one shocked mama | fireworks viewed from patio door while it poured | pretty much a bust | disappointed kids | disappointed mama | sparklers in the rain | not much fun | tucked sun-kissed kiddos in bed | everyone asleep within minutes | including parents.
Fun continues | John home from work | blueberry scones for breakfast | lazy morning | soaked up some (more) sun | rested a bit | drove to Castle Rock | Toy Story 3 | (tears) | (more tears) | Chick-Fil-A | home | visited outside with neighbors | impromptu street fireworks | happy kids | exhausted parents.
Looks like a GREAT weekend! Thanks for sharing.
What fun! I knew you'd cry in Toy Story 3:) Me too!
Is that your blue house in the picture? It's adorable! I love it.
Wow, your weekend sounds like ours, minus the rain...we just had very hot temps. Came across your blog and it's delightful! I saw Toy story 3 also and yes the tears were there too! What a great movie and what a message! Hope you have a wonderful week.
I got tired just reading that!!! Glad it was fun!
The 4th is grand. We didn't make it to any fireworks display this year but we did have two cookouts. Potato salad two days in a row is reason enough to celebrate.
Looks like you had a great weekend! Fun!!!
And I love the way you wrote all your happenings. It made me want to read them really fast...funny.
And toy story 3, I know! tears!!
Too bad you, Deena, & CPQ couldn't coordinate your meetings!
I love those tie die shirts the girls have on!