La Plaza Central

So on an afternoon like today in Lincoln, Nebraska, when it’s 74 degress (24 degrees Celsius) outside, and you are like me and stuck in the office then you must look for solace wherever possible.  And today I find it in Reciva Internet Radio.  This isn’t an ad, and I’m sure people already know about last.fm, Launchcast and the like, but I’m a fan of Reciva, and I’ll tell you why.  I like listening to radio in Spanish a lot of the time while I work.  And Reciva offers a ginormous list of radio stations all over the globe separated by country and genre.  One only has to click on the Latin American country of their choosing, and they’ll see a list of radio stations.  You can listen to radio from Costa Rica one day and Argentina the next.  If, say, a country recently held big elections and you want news straight from the source, just find it in the list (Hint: El Salvador).  Mexico alone has 200 stations.  If you just want Latin Hits then there’s a genre search for that too.  Off the soap box and back to the phones.

I know we’ve talked about diabetes in the Latino community many times on this blog, but as it is certainly a major health issue and one of our primary programs here at El Centro, I thought this article merited a look.  And I promise the two bilingual recipe videos will be worth it.  I’ve made the avocado tacos before, and they’re delicious.

The article mentions two cultural factors that deserve some attention.  The first is how obesity, a major harbinger of diabetes, is viewed in the Latino community.  As quoted from the article,

“In the past, being overweight in the Latin community was a sign of affluence.’If your kid is skinny his mom can’t cook or his dad doesn’t make enough money,’ said [Martin] Nava.”

There are exceptions, as always, but in many countries in Latin America obesity is almost a sign of success when many people don’t get enough to eat every day.  Where I lived in Nicaragua, “el gordo” (fat man) does not carry any of the same negative connotation that it does here in the U.S.

The second involves access, or lack thereof, to healthy food in Latino communities.

“Hispanic health concerns stem from cultural and language barriers, lack of access to preventive care and lack of health insurance. According to Nava, there are also socio-economic barriers because unhealthy food is more accessible and cheaper. ‘It’s hard to combat the ‘finish your plate’ mentality,’ he said.”

There are several organizations working on this in the U.S., like the Center for Food and Justice which found in a study of several states that predominantly white communities had about twice as many grocery stores per capita as Latino communities.  Another is Active Living by Design.  There is even a blog, called Civil Eats, for people concerned about this issue and others.  I searched for any organization working locally in Nebraska, but didn’t come up with anything.  I’d love to hear about it, if anyone knows of one.

Wine, Chocolate and Tango 2009 was an incredible success Saturday night.  It was bigger, better, and hopefully more profitable for El Centro, than last year.  Thanks to Meier’s Cork N Bottle, Zola Chocolates, Daises & Frogs Photography, and the Lincoln Tango Club for all of they did.  Also a big thanks to all of the people who donated items for the live auction.  Photos coming mañana.

Jorge Drexler – Todo Se Transforma

Farlex clipart collection

I don’t know if it has been mentioned here, but we recently had the idea of setting up a small computer lab for our clients.  Nothing much, just a handful of older, refurbished computers with a full suite of programs and internet.  So many of our computer students mention they would like a place to practice what they learn, but they rarely have computers in the home and feel uncomfortable going to the libraries.  Right off the bat we made the decision that we couldn’t afford old licenses for Microsoft Windows XP or Office, so we planned to install Ubuntu Linux with OpenOffice.  There are actually skins out there that can make Ubuntu look very similar to XP, so our users would probably notice that something was amiss, but would still be able to do what they wanted.  And as a pobre non-profit we wouldn’t have to spring for licenses.

So far so good.  Donated to us were three desktop systems and one laptop.  One was an actual Packard Bell loaded with actual Windows 98.  So needless to say not enough CPU or RAM to run any recent operating system.  It was recycled.  The other two systems are on the precipice of being usable, but they only have 256 MB of RAM.  The minimum to run an OS these days is 512 MB.  And nobody sells 256 MB chips for less than like $20.  Not that $20 is outrageously expensive, by any means, but when you consider what you’re getting for that amount, and that new computers come standard with at least two to three GB of RAM, then it’s a little off-putting.  $20 is about that the entire computer would be worth on the open market.

I’m thinking there has to be literally thousands of tech companies out there with multitudes of RAM chips of all sizes that they no longer need.  How can we put them in touch with me?  There must be place for donating all that slightly used hardware, but I have yet to find it.  I’ve checked out TechSoup, and they’re good for some things, but not this, it seems.  I’m still searching…

And as the title of the post indicates, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.  The computer donations were great.  We just have a little more to do before they will work.  Adelante, compañeros.

As anyone who has visited this page in the last month knows, that applet off to the right has been counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until our annual Wine, Chocolate and Tango fundraiser.  I simply wanted to mention it one more time before this Saturday when the event happens and the countdown applet probably disappears from the blog unless we can think of a forthcoming event that merits similar treatment.  So one more time from the top, the details…

March 14, 2009

7:30 pm – 10:00 pm

Nebraska Champions Club

707 Stadium Drive

Business Casual Requested

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by calling 474-3950 or in El Centro’s office at 2032 U Street.

And there is a new twist.  The Lincoln Tango Club will be present at the Nebraska Champions Club at 4:30 to give a free tango lesson to all those with tickets to the event.  And seriously, who doesn’t want to learn how to do this?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wH3Gw9H_eY

-Watch for the spin 1:24 into the video.

This afternoon in my basic computing class for adults at Everett Elementary, there happened a magical little moment. In our second class using the internet and the second time 7/8ths of the adults have ever used the internet, I had students search topics that interested them. ‘Home’ was a common theme. One student searched an annual festival in her hometown and found a page profiling it with a picture slideshow. In the slideshow appeared her uncle, a designer and builder of marble tables and floors. I could tell it made her day, because let’s assume she hasn’t seen him for a while. Sometimes that ol’ internet is all right.

Last week in the gym I listened to some tween-ager boys discussing which gang wears navy blue and which thugs are red-clad. Yesterday, when admiring from our window a few minutes of an extra hour’s daylight I saw four little kids on the playground attacking each other, paired off into punch-outs.  Today on the news, I watched defensive pundit A whine about what derisive pundit B said.

Stepping back to make some inkling of sense between these race relations, societal bouts, what have you, ad infinitum, it seems immaturity is a common denominator. I don’t mean to put myself above these scenarios because I’m immature sometimes, like everyone. Nor am I making any innovative leap in interpersonal theory, I only wanted people to start thinking about how easily and commonly these occur. How to solve it? Well, I’m not sure we can, but I got you thinking about it…now read this Daily Herald article about a fantastic mentoring program in Chicago that is doing an excellent job and certainly gets at my point better than I have.

See, we’re not the only ones talking about health and diabetes in the Latino community.  I wish we could add some live music to our classes.

A mayoral race with only Latino candidates?  In Massachusetts?  I think that impending demographic shifts probably indicate more Hispanic candidates for office are on the way.

The upcoming Summit of the Americas that will be held in Trinidad and Tobago next month should be very interesting.  I’m sure that the violence on the Mexican-U.S. border, U.S. policy towards Cuba, and several former Latin American presidents calling for decriminalizing marijuana will only be a few of the topics.  My advice for Obama would be to not listen to Otto Reich’s advice.

I don’t know if anyone has followed the World Baseball Classic, but last night one of the favorites and the self-proclaimed Republica de Beisbol went down when the Dominican Republic was upset by the Netherlands 2-1 in 11 innings.  As if that wasn’t enough, it was the second time in four days that the Netherlands, a team with no major leaguers save for Sidney Ponson and Randall Simon, beat the DR, a team full of upper tier major league talent.

Everett Literacy Program Daycare

New photos are up from our second round of literacy and computer skills classes at Everett Elementary.  Enjoy!