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(11/30/09 3:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Cutting free more than 1,000 symbols of love, city workers bore bolt cutters and garbage bags while clearing “Love Padlocks” from the wrought iron railing of the Isabel II Bridge in Seville, Spain, last week.The Love Padlocks have been placed on the bridge’s railing since the early 1980s by both local and international couples to signify their love, but the City Hall passed a motion in late September requiring all the locks be removed from the bridge every 15 days. Their reasoning: The Love Padlocks destroy the aesthetics of the bridge. Visiting and local couples make a point to visit the Isabel II Bridge with a padlock in hand. After writing their names on the padlock and maybe a small memo, the couples attach it to the bridge and throw the key into the river below as a symbol of their devotion to each other. The tradition of placing Love Padlocks for the world to see began in the center of the southern Hungarian city of Pécs, where lovers locked padlocks to a wrought iron fence on a small street off the city’s main square. The tradition caught on so quickly that the fence was soon completely filled with Love Padlocks, and locks began appearing elsewhere in the city. Local authorities then put up another fence in front of the original for future lovers to place their symbols of love.Other areas around the world have started traditions of Love Padlocks as well, including Turin, Florence and Rome in Italy, Guam, Tokyo and Stockholm. These special spots attract traveling couples from around the world seeking to leave their mark. However, Seville City Hall council members have decided that the Love Padlocks are a defacement of a national landmark.Although locals are divided on the issue, the bridge is cleared of locks every 15 days. This action by City Hall, however, does little to deter the love-struck couples that visit the site of the romantic tradition. Within hours of the workers removing the locks from the iron spindles of the bridge, more locks appear.The Love Padlocks present an ongoing struggle between the hopelessly romantic and the unrelentingly pragmatic, and lovers will continue to place their locks on the bridge with the hopes that within the next 15 days, their love will not be broken in the blades of a bolt cutter and the hands of a reflector vest-clad city official.
(11/16/09 4:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Amsterdam is known for its liberal views on otherwise taboo topics such as marijuana and prostitution. It is important to note that marijuana is, contrary to common belief, technically not legal in Amsterdam, but is merely tolerated. Prostitution, on the other hand, is legal within Amsterdam city limits. The “red-light district” of Amsterdam is the area where the most sex trafficking occurs, grossing more than $100 million each year, and although it is considered the most affluent tourist attraction of the Netherlands, city officials are trying to squelch the sex trafficking along with the drug tolerance. Amsterdam residents who are against the movement to shut down the district believe that it is a tolerant community where freedom is highly valued, and that it should remain as such. The sex-saturated red-light district dates back to the 14th century when sailors arrived in need of some “special” female companionship. It contains fantasy stores, sex shops, peep shows and sex shows, but it is most well known for its “windows” in an area called the “allies.” There are now about 250 (down about 50 percent since previous years) windows – actually glass doors – each displaying a scantily clad girl (or sometimes two) dressed in lingerie or a fantasy costume. It is a goal of the district to provide options for all sorts of fantasies: You need only a hand to knock and a wallet to pay. It’s like window shopping during the holidays, but in Amsterdam, it’s Christmas every day – and the dolls on display play back.A visitor to Amsterdam can walk into a coffee shop, buy a brownie with hashish in it, and then walk across the street and buy half an hour with a prostitute behind closed curtains and come out only about 50 euros in the hole. Why would anyone try to crush the dreams of every man alive? Mayor Job Cohen, sided by Deputy Mayor and advocate for the Dutch Labour Party Lodewijk Asscher, drove the movement to shut down the district as of Feb. 8, 2008. Since the beginning of the movement, more than 109 windows have been shut down in the district, and more are on their way.If the plan goes through, the neon lights and sexy girls will give way to high-end real estate, galleries and expensive furniture stores. Coffee shops and restaurants will no longer offer hash tea and “space cakes” (chocolate cakes with marijuana baked into them), but instead meals of 15 to 20 euros a plate and swanky drinks. No more neon signs advertising every possible form of sexual indulgence or mind-altering state. Many of the residents of Amsterdam are bitter about the transformation and believe that an Amsterdam with no red-light district and no marijuana-selling coffee shops is like a “Paris with no Eiffel Tower” and are convinced that shutting down the district will only serve to hurt the economy. Many more residents, however, are excited for the change and look forward to delivering their hometown from “sleaze” and “dirty money.” Fears of a sexless Amsterdam not bringing in as much tourist money run deep through both sides of the argument, and many people argue that it is wrong for the government to shut down a legal and legitimate business like those in the red-light district. Because of these fears, the process to shut down the district has been slow, and in the meantime, girls are cutting prices to help deal with the economic times and working extra hard to keep shoppers happy and coming back.
(10/05/09 3:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>SEVILLE, Spain - Two weeks ago, Marta Ortega of Asaja Sevilla sent an e-mail to more than 40 of her top employees calling for a day of protest and purpose.Asaja Sevilla is a long-standing olive harvesting company in Seville, Spain. The next day brought 3,000 harvesters, 45,000 laborers and more than 1,000 workers from the other cooperative companies and industries in from the fields and onto the streets to demand equal rights. The olive farmers were protesting the stagnant price of olives and olive oil in contrast to rising production costs. The production cost of olives is 16.6 percent higher than the selling price, and olive farms are starting to collapse because of the unequal trade. Despite numerous and repeated requests for help from the Board of Sevilla and the Agriculture Ministry, not a single response has been given to the crumbling farms. Seville is the top world producer of table olives and produces 60 percent of the total olives in Spain. Of the 105 municipals in Spain, 80 depend on this production, and the industry provides at least 1.5 million jobs, but the jobs are diminishing because fewer and fewer companies can afford to have so many employees with production costs so high. “We aren’t being treated fairly, and we are the ones providing the country with its most used product: olive oil,” Quiliana Jaraiz of Asaja Sevilla said. Harvesters like Jaraiz stood in the streets for at least eight hours that day waving signs, blowing on Kazoos and chanting. They flooded the streets with olives, smashing them and even burning them, declaring that they would not supply anymore olives until something was done for equity in sales and production. “The production costs of olives have increased by 70 percent in the last 15 years,” Marta Martin of Asajas said. “But home prices have remained unchanged.” In an attempt to rectify the situation, the table olive industry called for interest-free loans for farmers, cooperatives and other production organizations to address the collection and storage issue of the product, as well as fiscal and social security. “This is only a small step in the right direction, in my opinion,” Martín said. “Only a band-aid for a cut that keeps getting bigger. We even fear that if the stores do start to raise their prices we will only see a fraction of the increase.”Marta was one of the protesters, holding a sign that read “my job can’t feed my family, but I’m still feeding yours” and blowing an Asaja kazoo. “My feet were killing me at the end of the day,” Martin said. “I had been standing for close to nine hours, but I would do it again, and I would tell my feet to shut up, just like I did for this protest. We need rights because this job is what supports my family.”