Domingo, 10/7/2016: Tram education needed, Chevron claim disputed, Dirt from Lasso work, Jean Luc Godard film festival

Hola, Todos –

Pagina cultural –

Upcoming events –

Revista (magazine) – “El Guacamayo y la serpiente” (The macaw and the serpent), a magazine with essays on literary criticism from the CCE will be launched on 9/8.

Summer camp – El quinto Campamento Vacacional Estancia San José Senderos de Naturaleza 2016 (The 5th San José Estancia, Paths of Nature Camp 2016) is being organized.  The promoters offer living an experience surrounded by nature where you can reinforce your knowledge, abilities, skills and values.  Call 4213-613 or 098 703 4067 or go to General Torres 8-59 y Bolívar (Comisariato Moyano).  (I don’t know if this is for adults for kids, although this looks like something adults could benefit from.)

Colonia vacacional (Summer camp) – This camp for kids between 4 & 11 offers workshops in drawing, painting, sculpture, puppets, English, dance, traditional games and crafts.  Register at 096 750 6499 or at estudio14@hotmail.com, or go to Luis Cordero 11-83 y Sangurima.  (This sounds like summer camp without the canoeing and swimming.)  The camp will be from 11-29/7 from 9-12:00.

Articles about –

Blas Garzón Vera – The professor at the UPS (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana) was inducted into the Academia Nacional de Historia last Fri.

Cine independiente – The Centro Cultural República Sur started a film series Sunday featuring director Jean Luc Godard and current directors.  These are films that did not show at the movie houses.  (Of course, there’s going to be someone telling me they saw the film at the “Obscure Film Festival” in Potato Hills, Idaho.  But does that someone think that means it showed here?)  The schedule of films is:
10/7 – Vivir su vida – Godard
El Chico y la bestia – Mamoru Hosada – Japanese anime
17/7 – El desprecio – Godard
La patota – Santiago Mitre – Argentine film with strong, controversial themes
24/7 – Alphaville – Godard – science fiction
A bigger splash . Lua Guadagnin
31/7 – Nuestra Música – Godard
Las mil y una noches, Primera parte – Miguel Gomes.
Free, and there will be bar service.  (I’m not translating the titles since the result will probably be nothing like the original French titles.  French to Spanish to English would be like the “telephone” game.)

Otras cosas – 

Titular – Con vacaciones llega el tiempo de cometas (Kite season arrives with the vacations – cometas (kites) is your word for the day.)  You can buy kites on the streets from $1 to $12.  There are also all sorts of summer activities for kids.  (I’m not going to translate all the summer activity articles unless people tell me they’ve got kids interested in ______ and then I’ll look for those activities.  Reply to my real email address or CHL and not the hotmail address.)

Airport – Fernando Arteaga, Executive Director of CORPAC has submitted his resignation to the mayor due to disagreements with the board.  The mayor has not acted on the resignation and wants Arteaga to continue.

Spoils from O. Lasso – (Do I need to translate that even though it’s in English?  For you non construction readers, spoils is the dirt that’s taken out of an excavated area.) Spoils from the Ordóñez Lasso road widening were left near the río Tomebamba on a site 500 meters from the entrance to Río Amarillo.  EMAC (the sanitation dep’t) suspended operations at the “dump” because it’s in a flood zone and within the protected zone next to rivers.  Large projects are supposed to have a debris management plan and the location of the spoils was not authorized.  MTOP (transportation dep’t) will remediate the affected areas.  MAE (Environmental ministry) said the road work got an environmental permit which allowed fill to be placed at that site, but not spoils.  MAE has not responded to MTOP as to whether road work in that sector can continue. (More delays?)

Chevron – The government of Ecuador felt the June 6 award of $96 million to Chevron by the US Supreme Court was misguided. The court denied a motion for review (? – you lawyers can tell me if this means something beyond layman English. Like spoils means something different from food rotting.) from Ecuador and applied the 1997 Tratado Bilateral de Inversiones (Bilateral Investment Treaty) retroactively. The court allowed Chevron to be protected retroactively by the TBI.  (That’s convenient – if a corporation can do something and then get Congress to pass a law making it OK and then be protected by that law.)

Tranvía – Mayor Cabrera walked a section of the Tranvía and said that there needs to be a campaign to educate the citizenry and students since some of the sidewalks do not have a definite separation between the sidewalk, roadway and Tranvía platform. He said that this caused difficulties in European cities when they started their light rail systems.  (I can see people strolling along the Tranvía tracks as readily as they jaywalk and disrespect traffic signals.)

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne