"I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming," he tells a group of journalists who visited after a local TV report about him.Hobbling down a dirt path, Flores greets them with a raised arm, smiles and sits down on a rock to chat. His gums bulge with coca leaf, a mild stimulant that staves off hunger that, like most Bolivian highlands peasants, he has been chewing all his life.
Guinness World Records says the oldest living person verified by original proof of birth is Misao Okawa, a 115-year-old Japanese woman, while the oldest verified age on record was 122 years and 164 days: Jeanne Calment of France. She died in 1997.Flores' 27-year-old grandson Edwin said he was unfamiliar with the Guinness organization and the group's spokeman Jamie Panas said it wasn't aware of any claim being filed with it regarding Flores.
"I should be about 100 years old or more," Flores says.The director of Bolivia's civil registrar, Eugenio Condori, showed The Associated Press the registry that lists Carmelo Flores' birthdate as July 16, 1890.Condori said there is no birth certificate because they did not exist in Bolivia until 1940. Births previously were registered with Hands free access from the nearest Roman Catholic church, authenticated by two witnesses.
"For the state, the baptism certificate is valid because in those days priests provided them and they were literate," Condori said. He said he could not show Flores' baptism certificate to the AP because it is a private document.The grandson says the family showed the baptism certificate to the government so Flores could qualify for a monthly subsidy for the elderly.
The sight of emaciated horses on New Mexico tribal lands between Albuquerque and Santa Fe has stirred concern among animal advocates, some of whom have taken matters into their own hands.Members of a fledgling equine advocacy group have been feeding the horses hay daily for the last month, after photos of hungry-looking animals sparked a groundswell of Internet outrage and calls to boycott tribally owned casinos.
However, tribal leaders say the issue is more complicated than advocates portray it.Pueblo leaders say outsiders have made the problem worse by feeding the horses over fences that run along Interstate 25 and, in more extreme cases, cutting fences on tribal lands."Some of the people who feel like they're helping are actually exacerbating the situation," said Debra Haaland, a tribal administrator at San Felipe Pueblo.
The pueblo has sought to ensure the horses - roughly 100 animals that it claims are a mix of "wild horses" and those "dumped" on San Felipe tribal land - have access to water, but their efforts are hamstrung by recent federal budget cuts that have hit tribes hard, Haaland said.The situation, which is complicated by the fact that the tribes are sovereign nations generally not subject to state jurisdiction, reached its boiling point in July when tribal authorities say they received dozens of rude and irate phone calls.
Most of those reports focus on San Felipe and Santo Domingo pueblos, both located between Albuquerque and Santa Fe along the highly-traveled I-25 corridor. In some cases, advocates claim the horses appear to be near death.
Barbara Tellier of Albuquerque said she saw four or five rail-thin horses on Santo Domingo Pueblo land on a recent drive with a friend.After a flurry of phone calls to state officials generated little response, Tellier said she became increasingly frustrated.
"I'd bet you anything there are some skeletons out there," said Tellier, who noted she has owned or cared for horses most of her life.Similar experiences have prompted other advocates to discuss options ranging from fundraisers to benefit the horses to boycott casinos.
However, Empey said she's hopeful the recent dialogue between animal advocates and San Felipe tribal leaders might be replicated with other pueblo governments, leading to a less confrontational relationship between the two sides.
As for Santo Domingo Pueblo Governor Felix Tenorio Jr., he told the Journal the tribal government was dealing with real time Location system of at least one starving horse. "We're working on that one," Tenorio Jr. said. "We're trying to contact the owner to see what's going on."
Instead, she produced and narrated an audio tour called "Our Shameless Name Dropping Princeton Cell Phone Tour" for weekday visitors. It's almost as much fun as the two-hour, three-mile "Afternoon Princeton University Campus, Genius Neighborhood & Princeton Tycoon Walking Tour" that she leads on Saturday afternoons.
On that walk you'll see some of the campus and some of the town, including two houses that were literally split apart and reseated after their owners divorced. You'll see where Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer used to take tea while discussing development of the atomic bomb. You'll see where Toni Morrison lived and Thomas Mann wrote.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
No comments:
Post a Comment