Coal is Clean?

Clean?

This outfit's  name (Colombian Clean Power) and goal (to sell coal) speaks for themselves. Their goal appears to be to mine coal, which is about the dirtiest, most CO2-intensive fossil fuel known. And they've got the nerve to call themselves 'clean coal.'

Coal - unfortunately - is very abundant and cheap. Tragically, nobody, no place on Earth exploits it in a clean way. Why do these people imagine that they'll be any different?

The best thing one can say for them, as you can see on their website, is that they're not at all ambitious environmentally-speaking.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Todos los Santos/ All Saints Day

In Colombia, as in many Catholic nations, Todos los Santos or All Saints Day is the time to visit cemeteries and pay homage to the dead. Naturally, Bogotá's Central Cemetery was crowded and colorful.

Saint Peter overlooks the cemetery's main entrance. 

 Visitors light candles for the dead.

 Many bogotanos believe that this elaborate tomb near the cemetery's entrance holds spirits with magical powers. 

 Distributing flowers on tombs. 

 One of the most famous tombs is that of Luis Carlos Galan , a presidential candidate assassinated in 1989 by cocaine king Pablo Escobar.

Leo Siegfried Kopp, founder of the Bavaria beer brewery, was good to his workers, and many Colombians consider him a saint (even though he was Jewish). On All Saints Day, dozens lined up to whisper in his ear and ask Sr. Kopp for favors. 

Many of the tombs in niches on the cemetery's wall are actually rented, and only for four or five years!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Is This Justice?

Paras arrested and perhaps on their way to the States for trial for drug trafficking. But doesn't anybody remember their murders back home?

Colombia has extradited more of its citizens to face trial in the United States for drug trafficking than has just about any other country. Those extraditees have included leaders of the FARC guerrillas and paramilitary groups, as well as straight-out narcotraffickers.

Few of those people have returned to walk Colombian soil again. An exception is Julio César Parga Rivas, a military official arrested in 2008 for allegedly working with paramilitary organizations, who, among other things, exported cocaine.

But U.S. prosecutors didn't succeed in convicting Rivas for drug trafficking, which could have meant a 30-year term in a U.S. prison. That makes sense for those who believe that buying and selling certain hallucinogenic substances should be a crime.

Except for this detail....

Rivas is also wanted in Colombia for some 70 murders, including the recruitment of young men who were then murdered and presented as guerrillas killed in battle. That was part of the notorious 'False positives' scandal, in which more than a thousand people were murdered by the military and then reported as guerrillas killed in battle.

The failure in logic and justice here is glaring: a man who allegedly has has the blood of dozens on his hands is to be tried first for trafficking substances that people want to buy? How about all of those guys doing time for drug trafficking in U.S. prisons, whose murders remain unpunished?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

Bogotá's Children's Day Parade

A few scenes from today's children's parade.

However, along the way, thes indigenous woman and infant were sitting on the sidewalk, begging. In Colombia, 5,000 children die each year from problems caused by malnutrition. 12 percent of Colombian children suffer from chronic malnutrition. And many of those children will suffer reduced lifetime mental development, all according to a recent UNICEF report.

Written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Defend La Ciclovía de la Septima!

Seventh Ave. Ciclovia - are its days numbered?

La Ciclovía is a Bogotá tradition and has been imitated (but never matched) by many cities across North and South America. Of the hundreds of kilometers of streets which are closed to cars on Sundays and holidays, Seventh Ave. is by far the most important because of its popularity with users and because it passes many of the capital's most important historical and political landmarks, as well as parks and neighborhoods.

However, this most important section of La Ciclovia is now endangered by plans to expand the city's Transmilenio express bus system along Seventh. Already, the Ciclovia line on 26th Street disappeared a year ago when the city began work on a TM line along that avenue.

We don't object to TM expansion - today Seventh Ave. is chaotic and polluted. But we don't want to see this Bogotá tradition mortally wounded. Disappearance of the Seventh Ave. Ciclovia would not only hurt businesses like Bogotá Bike Tours, it would also deprive many thousands of bogotanos of their Sunday recreation and deal a severe economic blow to the hundreds of mainly low-income people who sell food and repair bicycles along La Ciclovía's route.

We defenders of La Ciclovía are demanding that officials designate an alternate route during construction and that La Ciclovía return to its most important corridor once construction is completed.

La Ciclovía's defenders are planning a big march Nov. 14, Day of the Bicycle, from the National Park to Bolivar Square, demanding that La Ciclovía de la Septima be saved!!! Read more at: www.lacicloviaserespeta.com

Aristobulo, and friends, who fix bikes near the National Park, show off invitations to the march!

Yolanda, who cooks and sells food along La Ciclovia with her skateboarder friends go all out in defense of La Ciclovia!

Yolanda's flyer calling for participation in the march to save La Ciclovia!

Cemetery Revival

Visitors look at slides illustrating the life and work of Julio Garavito, an astronomer who is on the 20,000 peso bill.

These days, in celebration of both Halloween and Colombia's bicentennial, Bogotá's Central Cemetery is holding a 'revival,' although the dead have not yet clawed their way out of their tombs.

The Central Cemetery has some 22,000 tombs, including the graves of some of the most important people of Colombia's history, including many ex-presidents, at least one ex-dictator, the founder of Bogotá and leaders of the revolution against Spain.

The grave of Dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.

Several of the buried here have also gained almost saintly status. The most famous is that of Leo Siegfried Kopp, a Jewish-German immigrant who founded the Bavaria Beer Company. Believers sometimes line up a dozen strong to whisper in Sr. Kopp's ear and ask him for favors.

Blog written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The cemetery exhibition was designed and staffed by Urbe .

Corruption Worsens?

Colombia dropped three places, from 75th to 78th place, out of 178 ranked nations, in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index. Colombia's corruption does not rival that of some of its neighbors, such as Bolivia, Paraguay and Venezuela, where I lived and could tell stories...(Venezuela came in dead last in Latin America, behind even perpetual basket cases Paraguay and Haiti. I suspect that Venezuela has not sunk below those nations, but that its drop from functionality to disfunctionality and populism has

But Colombia's corruption levels - and more importantly its corruption perception - have been damaged by the scandals and corruption accusations around Bogota's express bus expansion projects, which are wildly over budget and way behind schedule.

By Mike Ceaser of Bogota Bike Tours