A New York Post infamy

By now, the New York Post is feeling the effects of having published a despicable political cartoon drawn by an equally despicable political cartoonist who goes by the name of Sean Delonas whose photo appears above, a resident of New Jersey well known as the Picasso of prejudice. In this cartoon, published on page 12 of the Wednesday paper of february 11th, Delonas depicts two white police officers who just shot and killed a chimpanzee, and one officer says: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”, in what appears to be a clear reference to President Barack Obama and to the racist stereotype of African Americans being portrayed as non-human apes:

As pointed out in The Huffington Post, at its most benign the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill signed into law by Barack Obama was so bad that rabid monkeys may as well have written it. However, many others believe the Delano's cartoon compared President Obama himself to a rabid chimp. On this issue, Reverend Al Sharpton stated: “Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?”

While it is true that the stimulus bill was not written by President Obama himself, that it was written by Democrat Congressman David Obey, a white man from Wisconsin, along with input from nine other Democrats who are white as well, the stimulus bill was in fact an initiative promised by Obama himself even before he took office. It was certainly not a Republican idea, and had it not been for Obama making good on his promise to push for an economic stimulus bill, such a bill would not be a reality today. It must be kept in mind that the stimulus bill itself was modified several times in order to gain bipartisan support, adding and deleting things not to Obama’s liking, and at the end of the day the Republicans puttting partisan politics above the interests of the nation decided to stay on the sidelines denying any kind of support for this economic relief package in spite of the modifications put into the bill in order to please them somehow. While Obama could have exercised his veto power, he went ahead anyway judging that a modified initiative was better than nothing at all.

Delonas already had a prior history of outraging some sectors of the American society. His cartoons have repeatedly been criticized as grotesque in their depiction of gays, lesbians, blacks and Democrats. Yet, despite these valid criticisms, media such as the New York Post have continued to patronize Sean Delonas as if his vile work was something worthy of preservation and admiration. That’s not the case from this side of the border.

Adding insult to injury, the New York Post, instead of breaking off all ties with Sean Delonas, actually defended the vile cartoon, and the editor-in-chief of the New York Post, Col Allan, stated: “The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.” A publicity opportunist? Whate about the tens of thousands of people of all races who were offended by Delonas's infamous work?

In publishing this repugnant cartoon, the New York Post did not seem to care that this is a time when the newspaper industry is drowning in red ink, and it recently took the second richest man in the world, a Mexican financier who goes by the name of Carlos Slim, to come to the rescue of The New York Times on january 20th with 250 million dollars to help keep it afloat. Had it not been for the help given by this Mexican financier, the New York Times would have had to declare bankruptcy and shut its doors. Perhaps the current owner of the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch, is not aware that a nationwide boycott against the New York Post can easily break the back of this newspaper besides severely tarnishing the reputation of Murdoch himself if he insists on continuing his support of the New York Post and Sean Delonas under a nationwide boycott.

In principle, a boycott against the New York Post should be precisely targeted at the right people, those who are responsible for the publication and mass circulation of a piece of worthless trash loaded with bigotry and prejudice, i.e. the editor-in-chief Col Allan, the editorial review board and Sean Delanos himself. However, there are those who call for the total shutdown of the New York Post. This seems to be the prevailing opinion of those who have formed and joined the Boycott the New York Post Group on Facebook who already have a partial list of advertisers that they are boycotting and will continue to boycott if they continue to sponsor the racist rag called The New York Post. They point out that the history of this newspaper has been incendiary and racist, and that this is the last straw, going beyond Sharpton's criticisms and President Obama himself, adding that the Delonas’ cartoon is a perpetuated insulting stereotypical image of black people and the police shooting them down in the street has always been a position that the New York Post has stood in justification of. They all agree that the fact that the stimulus bill was signed by a black man clearly shows the racial connotation of Delonas’ cartoon, and if one knows anything about the history of negative stereotypical images in the United States then one cannot help but immediately see the provocation here, and this being the last straw the New York Post can no longer be allowed to get away with this. They further warn that the boycott they are calling for is not a flash in the pan and is permanent, that they will not buy the New York Post again ever! They make it clear that they will no longer be sitting down idly while businesses like the New York Post continue to survive, ensuring a permanent boycott targeting the sponsors of this newspaper.

Tempting as it may be to call for a massive boycott to force the New York Post to shut its doors for good, it must be kept in mind that there are other workers inside the New York Post who do not share Delonas's brand of bigotry and prejudice, and some of them have voiced their disagreement and disgust with the publishing of Delonas’ trash. The janitors certainly had nothing to do with this travesty of the freedom of the press. Nor did some of the other columnists who write on other columns and who feel unhappy and ashamed of the vile cartoon. These people who depend on the New York Post for their livelyhood should not be held responsible or accountable for what happened. If there is anybody to blame, it is the editor-in-chief Col Allan, the editorial review board, and Sean Delano himself. It is them who should be punished by whatever legal means possible. It is them who should be forced to resign from the New York Post, and any boycott should be targeted with that objective in mind. However, considering that the New York Post has not terminated its relationship with Delanos nor has it forced its prejudiced editorial staff into the ranks of the unemployed, unfortunately the whole team will have to bear the brunt of a boycott. It must be pointed out that Sandra Guzman, a hispanic and a Post's Associate Editor, sent out an email to other reporters distancing herself from the paper's cartoon and acknowledging that she had talked to management about her disapproval. The e-mail reads: “Thank you for your feedback,” reads the email. “Please know that I had nothing to do with the Sean Delonas cartoon. I neither commissioned or approved it. I saw it in the paper yesterday with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to management. --Sandra Guzman.” Considering that at present time the New York Post is akin to a sinking ship, perhaps Sandra Guzman could do herself a favor by abandoning the New York Post before its likely demise.

The very limited mind of Sean Delonas, obviously a Republican, has been unable to grasp the fact that Barack Obama came into office as President of the United States with a majority of the popular vote. He has been unable to grasp also that the dire economic conditions being faced at this very moment by many Americans (not just African Americans) who have lost their homes, their sources of income, their investments, their possibilities for a college education, their medical insurance and even their lives, after eight straight years of a Republican administration in office. It was a Republican who ran the White House during these last eight years, it was a Republican who plunged America into a very expensive foreign war using the now ridicule argument of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that never existed in Iraq to begin with. It has fallen upon the shoulders of President Obama to clean up the mess left by the Republicans, and he has not sugar coated the bleak fact that the current economic downturn is the greatest crisis faced by the United States since the Great Depression and it will take years to undo the devastation caused by this Republican tsunami. These things have not yet sunk into the mind of Sean Delonas. Perhaps if he joins the ranks of the unemployed and starts losing everything he owns, Delonas may get to see the immense suffering on the other side.

Eventhough I am not a US citizen nor a US resident, as a Mexican and as a world citizen (which is how I consider myself) I am outraged by this latest Delonas prank that many Mexicans like me consider vile and repugnant. From this side of the border we support those who in the USA are voicing their objections against the continued support from the New York Post given to this Picasso of Prejudice.

This is not an issue of simply being politically correct. I’m sure that if someone made a grotesque depiction of Sean Delonas’s mother portraying her as a vile drug addicted prostitute who delivered Sean Delona prior to attending a customer, and that depiction got published in a major newspaper, it is possible that Sean Delona would be outraged and would not sit idle doing nothing in response to such a depiction of his mother (or perhaps he would simply joke and laugh about it, given the low ethics and moral standards of Sean Delona).

In publishing his cartoons, the New York Post is giving Delonas a piece of valuable space in the printed newspaper which he most certainly does not deserve, a space that is denied to others. If someone wants to see his complaint against Delonas published in The New York Post, he will either have to pay several thousands of dollars (the cost of a full page or half a page) to The New York Post or he will have to send his comments to the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section where his point of view will face a strict limit in the number of words he can use, if his point of view gets published at all.

It is beyond me why Sean Delona has been patronized for so long in major circulation newspapers as a political cartoonist after being so crude and so insensitive to the feelings of others, given the fact that there are many (and I underline the word many) other cartoonists in the USA who are far better drawers and have far more talent and ingenuity than Delonas. Delonas can be fired at this very moment by his employers and his all contracts terminated with no problems whatsoever, since a replacemente can be quickly found in these hard economic times by merely giving a chance to some of those other extremely talented political cartoonists who are still out there waiting to be accepted by the mainstream media. Delonas is certainly not indispensable, and as a matter of fact, if he were to die today, the world would not lose anything worthy of remembrance.

It is imperative that the American society as a whole teach Sean Delona a lesson in civility he will not forget for the rest of his worthless life. All legal means must be used to bring his career as a political cartoonist to an end. Delonas has crossed the line, and those who were offended by him have every right to make him learn his lesson. Herein, and speaking on behalf of many Mexicans who are outraged and offended by the racist, I offer my sympathies and moral support to the actions taken in order to keep The New York Post from going into this type of scandals again. I and other Mexicans offer our support in extending the proposed boycott against Sean Delonas and the New York Post outside the USA, to last until the editor-in-chief and the review board have been fired and sent to the ranks of the unemployed, and until the career of Sean Delonas as a political cartoonist has been terminated once and for good. If Sean Delonas wants to see his trash published in the future, he should pay the insertion of his trash with his own money in those newspapers and magazines who otherwise would not publish his materials for free, much less pay him a single cent for such trash.

I am sure that Delonas, given his unmistakable prejudice and his extreme conservatism filled with hatred towards African Americans and gays and lesbians and Democrats which borders on extremism, will find ample space in other media symphatetic to whatever is left of the KKK. I am sure he will find ample sympathy and support there. That’s were he should be.

Las paradojas del agua

El agua es algo tan común y tan necesario para nuestra existencia y la existencia de todos los seres vivos que pocas veces nos ponemos a pensar en algunas de las peculiaridades de la misma.

El agua es nuestro estándard de referencia para poder graduar nuestros termómetros con los que medimos las temperaturas. El punto de congelación del agua (cuando el agua se transforma en hielo) es exactamente 0 °C (cero grados centígrados), así se define este punto de referencia. Por otro lado, el punto de ebullición del agua (cuando el agua empieza a hervir) es exactamente 100 °C (cien grados centígrados), así se define este punto de referencia. Pero una cosa que no se les enseña bien a los estudiantes de las escuelas es que el agua hierve exactamente a los 100 grados centígrados al nivel del mar, en donde la presión atmosférica es la presión estándard de una atmósfera de presión (1 atm.) o una altura de 760 milímetros en una columna de mercurio. El punto de ebullición no sólo del agua sino de cualquier otro líquido depende directamente no sólo de la temperatura sino también de la presión atmosférica, , y como todos sabemos la presión atmosférica va disminuyendo conforme vamos escalando a alturas cada vez mayores en las montañas a medida que la densidad del aire se va enrareciendo con la altura (en el espacio exterior la presión atmosférica es prácticamente cero). Esta es la razón por la cual los aviones jet de pasajeros que vuelan a gran altura tienen cabinas presurizadas para los pasajeros, para que puedan respirar normalmente, y si por alguna razón se pierde la presión interior de la cabina (por ejemplo como resultado de un boquete en una de las ventanas del avión) las mascarillas de emergencia puestas encima de cada pasajero caen automáticamente para que los pasajeros puedan respirar oxígeno suficiente a través de las mismas y no tengan dificultades por la baja densidad del aire a dicha altura. Esta es la razón también por la cual los pilotos que vuelan aviones jet de combate siempre viajan con una mascarilla puesta en su cara. La Ciudad de México está situada a una altura considerable sobre el nivel del mar, y esta altura fue incluso un factor de preocupación cuando se celebraron las Olimpiadas en 1968 porque a tal altura los atletas llegados de otros países se tendrían que esforzar un poco más para inhalar más oxígeno (respirando con mayor rapidez) y ello se creía que podía afectar en forma adversa su desempeño en las competencias. Afortunadamente, tal cosa no ocurrió de forma tan marcada como creían que ocurriría.

A alturas mayores como en la Ciudad de México, en donde la presión atmosférica es menor, el agua hierve no a los 100 grados centígrados sino a una temperatura menor. Esto lo saben muy bien los cocineros que viven en lugares situados a gran altura y que tienen que ajustar el tiempo de coción de los alimentos con respecto al tiempo de coción de los mismos alimentos al nivel del mar. Al disminuír el punto de ebullición del agua conforme estamos situados a una altura cada vez mayor, puesto que el agua hierve a una temperatura menor (digamos unos 90 grados centígrados) se requiere de más tiempo para cocinar pasta de spaghetti en la Ciudad de México que en la ciudad portuaria de Veracruz. Así diez minutos en Querétaro pueden bastar para hacer una buena sopa blanda al gusto mientras que en la Ciudad de México unos fideos cocidos en el mismo tiempo seguirán crujientes. Y la gente que vive a grandes alturas como los monjes de los monasterios del Tíbet pueden beber té hirviente sin quemarse. Y en el vacío del espacio exterior, el agua hierve a cualquier temperatura (por ejemplo a menos 50 grados centígrados) porque no hay suficiente presión atmosférica para mantenerla en estado líquido por bastante tiempo.

El agua “evapora” por así decirlo muchas de las reglas más elementales de la química como la regla de que los compuestos se van volviendo más densos conforme pasan del estado líquido al estado sólido al bajar la temperatura con los átomos o las moléculas apilándose en forma ordenada formando una estructura cristalina. Pero el agua desafía esta regla, ya que si el agua la obedeciera el hielo que ponemos en nuestros vasos con refresco se hundiría al fondo en lugar de flotar, y lo mismo ocurriría con los enormes icebergs y las capas polares de hielo en los polos de la Tierra. El agua se expande al congelarse y pasar del estado líquido al estado sólido, formando estructuras con muchos huecos entre sus intersticios.

Si comprimimos un trozo de cualquier sólido entre las paredes de una prensa manual con las cuales lo apretamos a manera de torniquete, el pedazo se volverá más sólido o terminará quebrándose. Sin embargo, si hacemos lo mismo con un pedazo de hielo, oprimiéndolo entre las paredes de una prensa, el pedazo de hielo se volverá más denso convirtiéndose en líquido. Si aflojamos la presión de la prensa el agua dejará de convertirse en líquido y volverá a convertirse en hielo. Este es el mismo principio que opera en el movimiento de los glaciares: el peso de un glaciar crea una capa líquida en la parte inferior del glaciar que le permite deslizarse de un lado a otro siguiendo las corrientes que lo van empujando.

Otra anomalía muy característica del agua es que tiene un punto de ebullición mayor que otras substancias, lo cual en los hechos es algo muy bueno porque de no ser así y si el agua tuviera un punto de ebullición menor entonces los océanos ya se habrían evaporado desde hace mucho tiempo hacia la atmósfera exterior y nuestro planeta se parecería más al planeta Venus.

La explicación para los comportamientos aparentemente anómalos del agua radica en algo que se conoce como los enlaces de hidrógeno. Estos enlaces permiten que alrededor de una molécula de agua se apilen cuatro moléculas de agua circundantes, con cada uno de los dos átomos de hidrógeno de los que consta una molécula de agua jalando un par de electrones de otras moléculas cercanas de agua como nos lo muestra el siguiente dibujo:

Por un milagro de la Naturaleza o por un diseño superior estos enlaces de hidrógeno tienen justo el grado de “pegajosidad” requerido. Si los enlaces de hidrógeno fueran más débiles entonces la unión entre un enjambre de moléculas de agua se rompería y el efecto sería inútil. Y si los enlaces de hidrógeno fueran más fuertes, el agua no tendría la capacidad de poder “correr como el agua” de un lado a otro (por así decirlo) como si fuese un lubricante. De hecho el agua es el lubricante que hace posible la vida en la Tierra y que por sus características anómalas nos ha dado los océanos, los ríos, los lagos y las nubes. Y todo esto se lo debemos a los enlaces de hidrógeno. Algo para recordar la próxima vez que nos presentemos a un examen de química.