The Heart Of The Day

 My favorite paper media for years has was the Christian Science Monitor which sadly from here on out is only going to be a weekly. Since I started traveling I have been subscribing to the online edition which will continue. This article appears in their last daily edition.

 There’s a big difference between what we say and what they hear.

from the March 28, 2009 edition

“In the course of my travels – from the Middle East to Central Asia to Southeast Asia – it has been my great privilege to meet and become friends with many devout Muslims. These friendships are defined by frank respect as we listen to each other; understand and agree on the what, why, and how of our disagreements, political and theological; and, most of all, deepen our points of commonality as a result.

I have learned much from my Muslim friends, foremost this: Political disagreements come and go, but genuine respect for each other, rooted in our respective faith traditions, does not. If there is no respect, there is no relationship, merely a transactional encounter that serves no one in the long term.

As President Obama considers his first speech in a Muslim majority country (he visits Turkey April 6-7), and as the US national security establishment reviews its foreign policy and public diplomacy, I want to share the advice given to me from dear Muslim friends worldwide regarding words and concepts that are not useful in building relationships with them. Obviously, we are not going to throw out all of these terms, nor should we. But we do need to be very careful about how we use them, and in what context.

1. “The Clash of Civilizations.” Invariably, this kind of discussion ends up with us as the good guy and them as the bad guy. There is no clash of civilizations, only a clash between those who are for civilization, and those who are against it. Civilization has many characteristics but two are foundational: 1) It has no place for those who encourage, invite, and/or commit the murder of innocent civilians; and 2) It is defined by institutions that protect and promote both the minority and the transparent rule of law.

2. “Secular.” The Muslim ear tends to hear “godless” with the pronunciation of this word. And a godless society is simply inconceivable to the vast majority of Muslims worldwide. Pluralism – which encourages those with (and those without) a God-based worldview to have a welcomed and equal place in the public square – is a much better word.

3. “Assimilation.” This word suggests that the minority Muslim groups in North America and Europe need to look like the majority, Christian culture. Integration, on the other hand, suggests that all views, majority and minority, deserve equal respect as long as each is willing to be civil with one another amid the public square of a shared society.

4. “Reformation.” Muslims know quite well, and have an opinion about, the battle taking place within Islam and what it means to be an orthodox and devout Muslim. They don’t need to be insulted by suggesting they follow the Christian example of Martin Luther. Instead, ask how Muslims understand ijtihad, or reinterpretation, within their faith traditions and cultural communities.

5. “Jihadi.” The jihad is an internal struggle first, a process of improving one’s spiritual self-discipline and getting closer to God. The lesser jihad is external, validating “just war” when necessary. By calling the groups we are fighting “jihadis,” we confirm their own – and the worldwide Muslim public’s – perception that they are religious. They are not. They are terrorists, hirabists, who consistently violate the most fundamental teachings of the Holy Koran and mainstream Islamic scholars and imams.

6. “Moderate.” This ubiquitous term is meant politically but can be received theologically. If someone called me a “moderate Christian,” I would be deeply offended. I believe in an Absolute who also commands me to love my neighbor. Similarly, it is not an oxymoron to be a mainstream Muslim who believes in an Absolute. A robust and civil pluralism must make room for the devout of all faiths, and none.

7. “Interfaith.” This term conjures up images of watered-down, lowest common denominator statements that avoid the tough issues and are consequently irrelevant. “Multifaith” suggests that we name our deep and irreconcilable theological differences in order to work across them for practical effect – according to the very best of our faith traditions, much of which are values we share.

8. “Freedom.” Unfortunately, “freedom,” as expressed in American foreign policy, does not always seek to engage how the local community and culture understands it. Absent such an understanding, freedom can imply an unbound licentiousness. The balance between the freedom to something (liberty) and the freedom from something (security) is best understood in a conversation with the local context and, in particular, with the Muslims who live there. “Freedom” is best framed in the context of how they understand such things as peace, justice, honor, mercy, and compassion.

9. “Religious Freedom.” Sadly, this term too often conveys the perception that American foreign policy is only worried about the freedom of Protestant evangelicals to proselytize and convert, disrupting the local culture and indigenous Christians. Although not true, I have found it better to define religious freedom as the promotion of respect and reconciliation with the other at the intersection of culture and the rule of law – sensitive to the former and consistent with the latter.

10. “Tolerance.” Tolerance is not enough. Allowing for someone’s existence, or behavior, doesn’t build the necessary relationships of trust – across faiths and cultures – needed to tackle the complex and global challenges that our civilization faces. We need to be honest with and respect one another enough to name our differences and commonalities, according to the inherent dignity we each have as fellow creations of God called to walk together in peace and justice, mercy and compassion.

The above words and phrases will differ and change over the years, according to the cultural and ethnic context, and the (mis)perceptions that Muslims and non-Muslims have of one another. While that is to be expected, what counts most is the idea that we are earnestly trying to listen to and understand each other better; demonstrating respect as a result.”

• Chris Seiple is the president of the Institute for Global Engagement, a “think tank with legs” that promotes sustainable environments for religious freedom worldwide.

I joined Couchsurfing.com with a million members last year while I was traveling in Asia.  Couchsurfing is a world-wide social and cultural program run mostly by volunteers to foster cultural understanding…much like Hospitality Club (which I also belong to) or Servas.

For CS you are asked to set up a personal profile with your picture and fill in the answers to questions that explain your interests, personal philosophy of life, experiences with CS, travel experiences etc. You describe your guest facilities and whatever preferences you have such as preferred age groups or male, female or either etc. You are asked to verify your identity by giving a small donation by credit card and then they send a code number to your address which you then return to your profile and fill in. This verifies that you are who you say you are and that you live where you say you live. Then you can do a search for a particular city or country you want to visit and send a message through the secure CS messaging service to request a stay…or even just a request for a coffee or drink. At this time you can give your phone number and/or email address and discuss prospective visits. In addition, there are hundreds of forum discussion groups (I am a member of some of these like “International Politics”) and you end up getting to know and make friends with people there. Often these people will meet for a social evening in whatever city and country they are in and make their “couches” available to others from other cities/countries wanting to attend.

Then after being a guest or hosting or just “surfing” with (exchanging messages) you can leave a reference and/or a request to be a “friend” which will show up on the profiles of each party.

So when I returned to my home for a few months in Salem Oregon, I made my “couch” available but ended up not hosting anyone. However, now that I am living in Oaxaca I am getting requests almost daily…mostly from young women, although I did host a young French guy who has been living in Mexico City for three years. He is setting up a web-based Spanish-language radio program and is on the look-out for interesting stories. My first CSer was a young Iranian-American woman who had grown up in Berkeley. She was lovely and we had a great time together!  A couple nights ago I couldn’t host a woman from Oakland but she came to my apartment for a mescal…bringing a hand-full of lovely roses for me.  She appreciates that I make my “couch” available, she says.  A young Zoologist and his significant other from the Oregon State University faculty came one evening for fresh-squeezed orange juice and good conversation. In April I have two women from Estonia who are ecologists coming for a few days. And there are others.

In the meantime, I am hosting Belle and her young daughter, Yoli, from Austin Texas, who lived in my other apartment house with me in 2006-7. Belle has been to and lived in Oaxaca many times and tomorrow a Oaxaquena friend of hers is coming to my apartment to teach us how to make Chili Coloradito and get me back into learning Spanish.

Articles about Mexico appeared at least twice in the LA Times this morning.

On her first official trip to Mexico beginning today, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will confront a range of bilateral issues.  The LA Times this morning asked experts on both sides of the border to discuss issues that are likely to come up. Comments I found interesting:

Mayor of Rosarito, Mexico, and owner of the Rosarito Beach Hotel:

“People in Mexico love President Obama, even if he doesn’t know anything about Mexico. He’s never been in Mexico, even as a tourist. We also like Hillary, but she doesn’t really understand either. Mexico is going to be disappointed.

Certain elements in the U.S. government have reacted very quickly in telling people not to come to Mexico, talking only about the problems we have and that we have a lot of narcos. We do, but you have more over there. Our criminals sell the drugs wholesale, you distribute them retail, and the amount of money handled by U.S. distributors is probably 10 times as much.

For our city in particular, the travel warning is a big problem. We have had lots of killings. But 96% of the killings in our area were between traffickers. That also happens in New Orleans and Baltimore and other cities with high crime rates. But all of a sudden, there is a campaign to stay away from Mexico. We haven’t had any tourist or visitor caught in a crossfire in 20 years. We have 20 million visitors a year in Baja California, so really the risk is not there for a tourist. Yet in Rosarito, we have lost about 70% of tourists since the middle of last year”

Jose Reyes Ferriz Mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

“The problem right now is organized crime. The major problem we have is the sale of guns in the United States without regard to the fact that those guns are going to be illegally smuggled into Mexico. This needs to be investigated by the United States.

The second point that needs to be addressed is money. The activities by organized crime in Mexico are financed with drug money coming in from the United States. Money-laundering investigations need to be stepped up so the flow of money into those illegal activities stops”

These statements are all true but it is hilarious that they are coming from persons most probably on the cartel payroll! That or they would be dead by now!

Best article yet on the financial crisis.  Tells it like it all came down…in great detail.  I can see it all now.

Rollingstone.com

The Big Takeover

The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

MATT TAIBBI

Posted Mar 19, 2009 12:49 PM

“As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren’t hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future.

There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. [Italics mine]

In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Here’s one of the reasons we desperately need campaign finance reform:

When I was hitch-hiking in Europe in 1965, I came across the bidet…couldn’t figure it out.  Somebody had to explain it to me. It’s an extra “toilet” in the bathroom that looks like a toilet except that it has no water in it and has a little jigger in the bottom that, when you push a button, sprays water upwards and cleans your bottom after you have defecated in the “real” toilet and then you flush.  Many people over the world think Americans and people in the UK are unhygienic because they use paper.

Salon.com: Actually, we’re pretty disgusting, and we just don’t realize it.

We are kind of disgusting. I’m being polite about it. In water cultures like India, where you see all these people going to do their business with a little cup of water, they think we’re extremely dirty. They can’t believe it. Muslims, who have to be scrupulously clean according to the laws of the Quran, also think it’s kind of weird that we have this habit of using paper, and imagining we’re clean. We’re not.

Another thing. When traveling in developing countries, Americans come home wailing about the squat toilet. And actually, using toilets in the first place is physiologically” kind of impeding our normal bodily processes. You actually don’t want to be seated high up on the toilet. That’s not helping your evacuation processes,” says Salon. Read  Salon.com on this most untalked about issue.

And just think of all those trees not to even mention the most polluting of all processes…the making of toilet paper out of virgin wood which is another long subject entirely.

My son lives in Thailand and when he married his Thai wife he introduced her to toilet paper. But she would wind it around her hand a dozen times and they were going through toilet paper like, well, water, as they say. Toilet paper is expensive in Thailand.  I tried to show her how you use less paper if you bunch it up…not wind it…but she still used bushels of it. So now my son refuses to buy toilet paper.  They have a bucket of water that they fill when waiting for the shower to get warm. Then they have a little plastic bowl they dip into the water in the bucket and use that with their fingers to clean themselves…like all the other Thais do who are not as turned off about their body processes as we are.  Of course washing their hands well afterward…like we should all be doing anyway. In India, they only use their left hands…which is why they never eat with the left hand.

Think of it.  Women use about six times the paper that men do. Another reason (I don’t want to gross anybody out) but the best reason for using water to clean is that a lot of urinary tract infections in women are caused by wiping back to front.  This I was told by a urologist in Bangkok. ;- And afterward people put the paper in a basket because the sewer systems here in Mexico can’t handle all that paper.

And another thing about water.  It is the dry season here now and people in the city’s colonias don’t have water.  They have to buy 5 gallon jugs of bottled water for drinking and cooking from a guy who yells “AGUAaaaa” as he pulls his water cart down the street. My apartment has a cistern and water is delivered by truck.  When the “tinaca” (tank) runs out on the roof, it is refilled by pumping water from the cistern under the apartment house  up to the tinaca.  Also, to save water, we only flush every 2-3 times after urination.  As most everyone here says, “If it’s Yellow let it Mellow.  If it’s Brown Flush it Down.

Not such difficult conservation adjustments we can learn from the rest of the world. I feel like a sanitation officer for the CDC after writing this post…or a urologist. 🙂

 I used to make fun of Rick Steves.  No more!

Here are a few gems from a Salon.com interview just in case you don’t want to read to the end:

Salon: “Steves wants Americans to get over themselves. He wants us to please shed our geographic ego. Everybody should travel before they vote,” he has written.”

So if McCain and Palin had won, what would we have seen abroad?”

Steves: “More and more Americans wearing Canadian flags”

LOL.  During 7 years of near constant travel, I used to say I was from Canada.  My husband used to say he was from Iceland.  I always said I wanted a T-shirt that said in 6 languages: “I didn’t vote for Bush.”  Election night there were parties all over Mexico. Now they are watching us.

Steves: “As a travel writer, I get to be the provocateur, the medieval jester. I go out there and learn what it’s like and come home and tell people truth to their face. Sometimes they don’t like it. But it’s healthy and good for our country to have a better appreciation of what motivates other people. The flip side of fear is understanding. And you gain that through travel.”

What’s the most important thing people can learn from traveling?

Steves: “A broader perspective. They can see themselves as part of a family of humankind. It’s just quite an adjustment to find out that the people who sit on toilets on this planet are the odd ones. Most people squat. You’re raised thinking this is the civilized way to go to the bathroom. But it’s not. It’s the Western way to go to the bathroom. But it’s not more civilized than somebody who squats. A man in Afghanistan once told me that a third of this planet eats with spoons and forks, and a third of the planet eats with chopsticks, and a third eats with their fingers. And they’re all just as civilized as one another.”

The “ugly American” thing is associated with how big your country is. There are not just ugly Americans, there are ugly Germans, ugly Japanese, ugly Russians. Big countries tend to be ethnocentric. Americans say the British drive on the “wrong” side of the road. No, they just drive on the other side of the road. That’s indicative of somebody who’s ethnocentric. But it doesn’t stop with Americans. Certain people, if they don’t have the opportunity to travel, always think they’re the norm. I mean, you can’t be Bulgarian and think you’re the norm.

It’s interesting: A lot of Americans comfort themselves thinking, “Well, everybody wants to be in America because we’re the best.” But you find that’s not true in countries like Norway, Belgium or Bulgaria. I remember a long time ago, I was impressed that my friends in Bulgaria, who lived a bleak existence, wanted to stay there. They wanted their life to be better but they didn’t want to abandon their country. That’s a very powerful Eureka! moment when you’re traveling: to realize that people don’t have the American dream. They’ve got their own dream. And that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing.

That is certainly true of many people I have talked to around the world and most people I talk to in Mexico who have migrated to the north. The fruit seller speaks a little English. I ask if he has ever worked in the north. Yes, he and others say. Three years. Six years. Ten years, the guy in the tiny mountain village 7 hours from the nearest town in Guatemala says. The guy on the corner of my block whose wife sells tamales worked in the U.S. 30 years. But eventually they usually come back. If given an economic choice they would choose to stay in their own country where they can enjoy their own language, their own culture…and their families. One of my eureka moments. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a cleaning lady come to my apartment twice a month to mop up the polvo (diesel dust and pollen) from my floors and shake the rugs. She also will give me a cooking lesson for a few extra pesos. Last week she showed me how to make this:

Costillas de Puerco con Salsa Verde (Pork Ribs with Green Sauce)
Ingredients:
Several pounds pork ribs 2-3 inches long
Couple pounds tomatillos
Lots of chopped onion & garlic
Salt to taste
Jalepeno peppers to taste (3-4 for a large batch depending on how hot they are and whether they are deveined and de-seeded)
Bunch of fresh cilantro

Boil ribs in pot of water until tender (about 2 hours) Chop up other ingredientes and put in blender with some of the rib broth. Strain blender ingredients to get out tomatillo seeds. Saute blender ingredients in pan with a little olive oil. Add rest of rib broth to ingredients in pan and simmer down. Add ribs and simmer again for half hour or more. Amounts depend on how many ribs you have. I had a 3-4 kilos or more of ribs and couple kilos of tomatillos, one onion, head of garlic. Sauce is kind of soupy but you can simmer it down. Better 1-2 days after cooking. Will serve several people. Sorry amounts are loosy goosey…

You can make it with red sauce the same way only using Italian red tomatoes instead of the green tomatillos. Next time she will go the little market up on the hill with me and we’ll make Caldo de Res (beef soup).

My friends at home in the U.S. ask me “What do you do every day?” We expats find that a difficult question to answer.

Well, last week I walked all over town to find a rice cooker. I know, I’m spoiled. Wish I had the one that is packed away in my house in Salem…along with all the other stuff. I picked up my art pieces that I had framed and hung them. The apartment is really coming along. Everything is so nice…especially in the evening with Buddah Bar music coming from my iPod powered by the living room speakers and dimmers turned down on the recessed lights that provide a soft glow against the orange and yellow walls.  (Recessed lights are a luxury in Mexico…not to even mention dimmers! Most lights are just bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.)  Bright blue and purple pillows made from hand-woven Guatemalan huipiles (women’s tops) fill my white suede leather soiree couch. White woven Italian lawn chairs and a Mexican Rustica coffee table sit on big hand-woven earth-colored Guatemalan rugs in the middle of the living room facing the couch.  Against the opposite wall is my rustica brown leather covered round table for telephone with big comfy Mexican Rustica reading chair and light next to it.  On the end wall is a huge Rustica shelf unit with my metal Buddah head on the top shelf wisely overlooking all. Huge floor to ceiling windows face the veranda and park.  Found a huge ceramic flower vase with a big wide mouth for all the lovely flowers found in local markets. Being in a globalized world, it is made in Viet Nam. It is sitting in the middle of a beautiful dining room table that I found in a local woodworking cooperative waiting for flowers that I will buy in the Friday Market in Llano Park. Now I just have to find a small funky table for my long covered veranda overlooking Conzati Park. Conzati was an Italian botanist and teacher who contributed greatly to the city.  He catalogued the flora in the park that used to be much more forested than it is now and there is a monument to him there.

My friend Max is giving me, today, a rose bush and some other plants…and I will plant a local vegetable (the Chayote)  that will sprout into huge long vines and by the end of the summer will block the sun from the southern exposure.  And provide me with mucho chayotes that are good in soup.  So I will have to take a bus out to this gigantic earthen pot factory and bring home pots in a taxi. Max’s roommates, Budd and Sandy are back from the states and it will be fun to see them again. Budd worked on a documentary of the fall of the Soviet Union for the BBC and was the photographer who took the famous picture of Yeltsen on the tank in Russia during the coup. He has circled the globe on a motorcyle and they are in the business now of buying motorcyles instead of a car to get around on in Oaxaca. She is 70ish and he is in his 80’s…with 9 marriages between them! Expats can be an interesting lot.

One of the five “neighbors” in my apartment building, Carlos, showed me his new purchase yesterday. He is the curator of the Oaxaca Contemporary Art Museum so I was interested in seeing what he had…maybe something from one of the world-famous Oaxacan painters? No. To my surprise he showed me what looked like a huge antique Chinese urn…made by a Mexican artist up north…and found in an antique shop in Mexico City! I laughed! Serves the Chinese right, I said! In China today, I told him, you can see a pleasure park with all manner of copied Mayan, Zapotec and Aztec ruins and pyramids all jumbled up in one big mess! He sighed in dismay. Actually, I like it (the urn), I told him. It’s kind of funky…made by a Mexican and displayed in a art aficionado’s apartment in Oaxaca. “I like funky too,” he said as he smiled ironically. Then I trotted him over to my apartment where I showed him my big purchase that morning. A beautifully matted black and white lithograph made by a relatively unknown Zapotec artist that lives a block up from me…up a tiny cobbled alley-way. His stark but tasteful adobe one-room home/studio leads out the back to a huge garden with trees, plants and flowers. But he is very poor and I wanted to support his work. You know…the starving artist. The galleries take about half the money of an artist’s sale and makes the pieces unaffordable for me.  Now I will enjoy many hours trying to figure out the meaning of this really interesting  piece! Actually, there is a story to how I met him. When I was in Kunming several years ago, I met a lovely 35 year old British woman in an internet cafe at the Camellia Hotel and have kept in touch with her since. After leaving China she traveled up South and Central America and stopped in Oaxaca for a month. She is an artist and wanted to soak up the huge local art scene. She hung out here with a local guy, she said, and there on her web page was this gorgeous Zapotec guy…not too tall…about 50 plus…with the typical big Zapotec nose, long flowing black hair and dressed all in white. OMG, I told her…he is beautiful! Then a couple years later I was walking down a street in Oaxaca and passed by this guy. I stopped him and asked if he was Heather’s friend. Yes, he said. Small world, as they say. Sigh…if I were only 20 years younger…

Incidentally, my other apartment neighbors are: a high-priced prostitute who works in the Oaxaca judiciary,  keeps her co-workers happy and travels a lot. (This chisme… gossip… is from my funny gay apartment manager from NYC who lives downstairs with his young Mexican consort in a gorgeous apartment he remodeled at his own expense). She is very nice, he says. Then there is a young couple on one  side of me…a Mexican woman and her British boyfriend, and a divorced Mexican woman who lives with her daughter downstairs and whose ex-husband uses my unused parking spot with out telling me…much to the consternation of the manager.

I won’t even try describing the trip to the mountain Mescal factory with Max, my friend Paula who is here teaching English, and Francisco and his new consort…Joan.  Max, an old sot, got more than slightly inebriated, along with the driver, and Paula, Joan and I threatened to get out of the pick-up and hail down a collectivo taxi.  Anyway, Paula and I ended up leaving Max in Tlacalula with Francisco and Joan. It’s sad to see this very intelligent articulate witty man this way.  He is very ill and shouldn’t drink but he doesn’t care since he’s really on his way out anyway. Incidentally, the driver picked up a young Mexican along the way.  He had been going to high school in the states…illegally of course.  His English was perfect so he obviously had been living there most of his life.  The police picked him up off the street and threw him in jail for 6 months without charging him and then deported him.  I asked him how many others were there like him in jail in the states.  “Thousands,” he said.  I am furious that tax-payers are paying for jail time for immigrants who instead should just be deported.

All last week I hosted, through couchsurfing.com, a beautiful and gracious young Iranian-American woman who was born in Austria but raised in Berkeley. She speaks Farsi and Spanish (she majored in Spanish/linguistics) and and is now traveling after teaching Spanish in Guadalajara for the last 6 months. Her love is salsa dance and danzon…a beautiful dance from Cuba with choreographed steps…which she had a chance to enjoy in the lit-up zocalo the other night. Afterward, we ran into Willy…my Swiss friend…in a zocalo outdoor cafe and who I treated to beer and mescal…much to his dismay. Willy is such a gentleman and never lets me buy drinks…which he can ill-afford…living on the local economy. Nearby, the nightly marimba band accompanied a few dancers who just couldn’t keep still. One night we joined my friend Judie, who teaches English here in the Lending Library,  to listen to her Mexican boyfriend play a wailing sax with his great 3 piece band in a tiny smoke-filled venue. But we wished the rude Chilangos (from Mexico City) would have kept quiet. There is no love lost between the Oaxacans and the slumming Chilangos who are generally considered by the Oaxacan Indios to be rude, demanding and arrogant. But I had a great time with Sepi and miss her…but alas she is not mine to keep.

Yesterday I was supposed to host a French journalist who has lived in Spain many years and is now in Mexico City developing a Spanish language radio web site. But guess he found more interesting ground to till. And the two German girls didn’t show. Ended up in a hostel with other young travelers. Next wednesday my friend Belle, who lived in the last apartment with me in 2006-7 will visit me with her husband and adopted Guatemalan daughter. She recently found her daughter’s birth family by traveling in two buses and on a donkey up to a Guatemalan mountain village. It will be interesting to hear about the visit…her daughter is about eight now. Next month two women ecologists from Estonia will stay with me several days.

Week before last, on Ash Wednesday, found me with my Mexican friends, Mica and Bardo, in Huayapam at the annual Ash Wednesday Fair. Celebrants leaving church were greeted with miniature plastic cups of Mescal. Only in Mexico we often say. The whole town participates. The crowded food stands were great. Mica sold her roasted coffee beans and her mother served up the traditional frothy Zapotec Tajate drink.  I enjoyed three chili roja (red sauce) tomales…and the banda music and fireworks.

This is the Lenten season. Every day there have been processions and music all over town. Here is the best to come:

Friday, March 20th – Good Samaritan Day – businesses and homes set up booths and give free drinks to passers-by, thereby, becoming Good Samaritans. Question is…are these soft drinks or Mescal? My bet is on Mescal. 🙂

Thursday, April 9th – Day of Our Lady of the Sorrows – traditionally Oaxacans visit seven churches that day where altars are set up with chía seeds sprouting green out of clay animals (symbolizing the Resurrection) and flowers and Maguey plants. A beautiful one is constructed in the Privada de Alcalá on the Alcalá south of Niños Heroes de Chapultapec.

Good Friday, April 10th – Procession of Silence from the Church of the Sacred Blood of Christ up the Alcalá and returning to the church via García Vigil. Easter Week will find Oaxaca full of tourists enjoying the daily processions and music.

And that is not all…by a long shot. Yesterday my son, Greg, sent me, via UPS, a new iPod Touch for my birthday so now I have a new toy to play with.

Now you know…sort of…what I do every day in Oaxaca…when I am not reading, on my computer, sitting on the veranda…or taking a siesta.

Greenwald, in Salon.com, describes how the Obama administration has passed the loyalty test when it allowed Charles W. Freeman Jr. to  step away Tuesday from an appointment to chair the National Intelligence Council — which oversees the production of reports that represent the view of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies.     Grrrrrrr!

Says Greenwald: “In the U.S., you can advocate torture, illegal spying, and completely optional though murderous wars and be appointed to the highest positions.  But you can’t, apparently, criticize Israeli actions too much or question whether America’s blind support for Israel should be re-examined.”

Freeman later said in an email, referring to what he called “the Israel Lobby:” “The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views.” One result of this, he said, is “the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics.”

Iran: The Enemy That Almost Isn’t
Posted: 23 Feb 2009 02:00 PM PST

Crooks And Liars.com

“One of the things that I’ve found most disconcerting about American news coverage of Iran is the complete disconnect between what our own (and international) intelligence reports say and the almost rapturous assurance by the media and public officials that Iran is heading full bore towards our nuclear annihilation. Sean Paul Kelly @ The Agonist:

The Financial Times is reporting today that Iran has enough uranium for a bomb! Oh dear. Except their reporting is very, very lacking in the physics and engineering department.

Here’s what El Baradei recently said about Iran and the bomb:

SZ: In your report it says that Iran is gaining an ever greater mastery of uranium enrichment. Can the USA and Israel accept the fact that Iran is on the threshold of becoming a virtual nuclear power?

ELBARADEI: The question is, what can they do? What are the alternatives to direct negotiations? As long as we are monitoring their facilities, they cannot develop nuclear weapons. And they still do not have the ingredients to make a bomb overnight.

How hard is it to google this sh*t?

Update: As Paul Kerr, from Total WonKerr, just wrote to me in an email: “Here’s the number of weapons you can make with LEU: zero.” Any questions?

Hurts your “Oooh…be scared of the bogeyman” fear-mongering when you inject actual facts and science into it, doesn’t it? Whirled View and my buddy Cernig look further.

Douglas Saunders at The Globe and Mail looks at how the way we view Iran affects our attitude towards them:

What if the world’s biggest threat, instead of growing in size and menace, simply vanished?

Imagine if Iran, after years of extremism, found itself led by a president who had been elected on a platform of women’s rights, a free press, foreign investment and closer relations with the United States and other Western countries.

Imagine if, in response, the U.S. government made a public, formal apology for the 1953 Central Intelligence Agency overthrow of Iran’s elected government, the act that had sent the country on the path to extremism in the first place.

Imagine if the Iranian people then began holding pro-U.S. demonstrations.

And imagine if that moderate Iranian leader offered to accept peace with Israel, to permanently halt funding of Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and to submit fully to inspections as it abandons any nuclear-weapons programs in exchange for better relations with America.

Ah, imagine. It could never be so easy. But wait. Don’t I recall something from my pile of newspaper clippings? Ah yes, here it is, and not even yellowed. Amazing how fast we forget things.

Mohammad Khatami, the pro-Western reformist, was elected in 1997.

Madeleine Albright, the U.S. secretary of state, issued the big apology to Iran in March of 2000. “Certainly, in our view, there are no obstacles that wise and competent leadership cannot remove,” she said. “As some Iranians have pointed out, the United States has cordial relations with a number of countries that are less democratic than Iran.”

The pro-American demonstrations, by all reports genuine (and unpunished), took place over several days in 2003. In that spring, Mr. Khatami sent a Swiss official to Washington to make the peace offer. In exchange for recognizing Israel, cutting off Hamas and proving it had abolished any nuclear-weapons plans, Iran wanted an end to sanctions, normal diplomatic relations with the U.S. and recognition of its role in the region.

So what happened? Well, nothing. George W. Bush was president, the Iraq war was just approaching the “mission accomplished” phase, and nobody in the White House thought it would look good to make peace with Iran, a country that only the year before had been made a rhetorical component in Mr. Bush’s “axis of evil.”

As one State Department official directly involved with the Iranian offer told me, “It was like we missed the biggest Middle East peace opportunity of the decade, just so we could keep saying ‘axis of evil.’”[..]

It was physicist Werner Heisenberg who found that the act of observing can affect the nature of the thing being observed. It is likely that simply by looking at Iran as a threat, we’ve made it one. Look again, and it might change.

Maybe it’s time to start looking at Iran a different way.”

My friend Charlie and I visited Tony this week at his Casa Raab estate, about 30 minutes north of Oaxaca City, where he has built a traditional Zapoteco mescal distillery.

From the Casa Raab website:

“Mezcal is the traditional local distilled liquor. It is made, like tequilla, from cooked agave hearts. Mezcal making in Oaxaca is still a rather primitive process, and the excellent quality illustrates the difference between a careful hand made product and an industrial one. Drinking mezcal in Oaxaca is a bit like drinking wine in France; the varieties are amazing, and the quality can’t be found anywhere else.”

Casa Raab has been collecting hand made mezcal directly from the remote stills in the mountains for over ten years. We also grow maguey (agave) plants by the thousands. We have a medium size pottery still on the property where we process hand picked “pinas” that come from our fields. Once or twice a year we do a “run”, and try to produce some of the best mezcal in the world. Visiting during a distilling period is great fun, and really educational.”

Tony is also growing the rare Tovala agave which makes a more flavorful mescal. I bought 1.5 liters which I will age in glass bottles. Charlie, however, loaded up with about 5 gallons of regular 2008 mescal which he will leave in Oaxaca to age until he returns from Canada next year…providing no one gets into it first! 🙂

On the Casa Raab web site you will also see lovely pictures of Tony’s estate where they provide beautiful Zapoteco style lodging, tours and other activities. I guarantee Tony, levitating with help below, would show you a good time!

A man sleeps every night on a wrought iron bench in the park across the street from my apartment in Oaxaca Mexico.  At 6 o’clock,  he wakes and prepares for the day. He is dressed in slacks and a sweater over a white shirt. From my veranda I watch as he meticulously folds up a big black sheet of plastic that he sleeps under…carefully shaking it out after each fold…matching the corners perfectly.  He has two small backpacks that carefully hold his belongings.  He washes his face and hands from a bottle of water and then picks up several pieces of cardboard that he sleeps on and puts them under one arm.  He puts on a pair of glasses. Then he picks up a short white “stick” and unfolds it into full length.  The tip of the walking stick is red. He walks down the street toward LLano Park.   I wonder, what does a blind man do for work in Mexico…”

These stories, as Obama has said, “tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres…”

Their resolve is our inspiration.

An explosion has taken place in the ancient area of Al Hussein-Cairo, Egypt, the number of killed and wounded is still unsettled.  How the bomb was exploded is not exactly specified.   It’s the most glorified and valued area for Egyptian and every Muslim; for both Sunni Muslim and Shiite Muslim this place is highly sacred. It’s the place where prayer is practiced every day, and it’s the place where Al Hussein (Prophet grand son) is believed to be buried.  It is also the place of an important market and center of business where hundreds of Egyptians make a living on selling goods and offering services to visitors.   It is well known that the place is a preferred spot for Egyptians and foreigners to spend an evening, says one Egyptian.

The news agencies are saying it was a militant Islamic group.

“Muslims usually comes to this place seeking spiritual calmness and peace of soul, not it’s ridiculous to claim that a cowered act like this would be made by a Muslim or some one who understand and believe what Islam is,” says this Muslim. He believes it was Mossad, the intelligence arm of the Israeli government.

But consider this.  If it was done by an Islamic group why would an Islamic do such a thing?  Here is one answer.

I know next to nothing about Islam but it just so happens that I just finished reading Bernard Lewis’ 2002 book “What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity In the Middle East.”  He takes 105 pages to itemize, often from journals and diaries, the gradual contacts of Islamics with the West, from the beginning of Islam, and the resulting modernizing influences of the West over the centuries on the Middle East. (This book was written for the Western reader so my apologies for copying much of what may already be known.) Then he goes on to say: Read the rest of this entry »

In Oaxaca, Geographers Deny Surveillance Charges

Narco News Bulletin
By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
February 21, 2009

Amid a storm of accusations, defenses, campus condemnation, public pronouncements and news articles, the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) has condemned the mapping project called Mexico Indigena, a sub-project of Bowman Expeditions. The founder and director of UNOSJO, Aldo Gonzalez, launched a campaign to alert indigenous communities of Mexico and the world to the risks involved in giving access to Bowman Expeditions under whatever name.

What is the true reason for a geographic survey of the Sierra Juarez paid for by both the US and Mexican governments? Many possible reasons come to mind, such as theft or purchase of forest timber, locating natural resources like minerals or water, narcotics activities, bio-piracy, counter-insurgency, geo-piracy, and preparing for privatization of communal land. UNOSJO’s press release discusses several possibilities.

The American Geographical Society (AGS) director, Jerome Dobson, asserts that academics commonly accept US Army funding, and hand over their results with no qualms. AGS sponsors Bowman Expeditions in places like Columbia and Jordan. Gonzalez advises other communities not to permit such mapping projects. “You’ll be sorry,” he asserts. It is not yet clear what the Mexico Indígena project sought in the Sierra Juarez.

Aldo Gonzalez showing map D.R. 2009

In a formal press conference held on Thursday, February 19, Gonzalez disclosed UNOSJO’s charges against the Mexico Indígena Project, and Bowman Expeditions, claiming geo-piracy and lack of ethical conduct in the communities of the Sierra Juarez. Two communities among nine spread over a geographical mountain area of perhaps 10,000 hectares agreed to continue the project after UNOSJO objected, and cooperated by supplying investigators detailed information.

Gonzalez claims the investigation in the Sierra Juarez failed to inform the population regarding two aspects of its funding: the US military; and Radiance Technologies, a weapons business.

Although the Mexican government clearly participated and partially funded the project through its two agencies, Semarnat and PROCEDE, it has thus far made no statement in the face of accusations launched against the Mexico Indígena Project.

Gonzalez claims a possible violation of national sovereignty and violation of the autonomy of indigenous peoples. For all that, he has refrained from asserting as if it were proved, that the Mexico Indígena team was spying.

Spying? Bowman Expeditions has been in Iraq and Afghanistan with “embedded” sociologists, psychologists, and geographers. These teams gather terrain and cultural intelligence to make easier the task of the military, who can use information regarding the culture, family relations and psychology of the local people, as well as close details of streets and passages. According to Wikileaks, posted on December 11, 2008, a 122 page handbook dated September 2008 presents the US military’s controversial anthropology based counter-insurgency techniques. Formally titled “Human Terrain Team Handbook” the document comes out of the US Army’s $190 Million “Human Terrain System” [HTS] program. According to the handbook, Human Terrain Teams are 5-9 person intelligence teams made up of serving military, contractors and “academicians”. The teams are designed to assist a commander’s irregular warfare operations by using anthropological and intelligence techniques to exploit cultural, political and family relationships in a region. The material is unclassified, but has not been publicly released though official channels.

So is Mexico Indígena a Human Terrain System (HTS) project? Both use human participation. Geographers and academics are in the area to gather on-the-ground information with local input. Most important: they have the same parent origin and funding source. UNOSJO soon discovered that Mexico Indígena is a Bowman Expedition, like those carried out in San Luis Potosi, México; the Antilles; Colombia, and Jordan; all are sponsored and financed by the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) of the US Army, among others. FMSO prepares a world data base which is an integral part of the HTS used for counterinsurgency by the US Army, and which could be used against indigenous pueblos or anyone else involved governments choose.

The history of the controversy: Read the rest of this entry »

This documentary shows how a “modern” articulate and caring non-practicing Muslim woman tries to come to terms with her childhood religion.  I could have substituted myself in the film, with the exception of the catalyst of 9/11, replacing the word “Islam” with the word “Catholic.”  Do we ever have a free choice of religion as an adult when we have had religion inculcated in us as a child by loving nurturing grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and the culture around us?   Where does religion stop and personhood begin. Or do they become one and the same?  Are we ever “there” in our personal “jihad” or struggle to know who we are.  What is our truth which is neither an overreactive denial of nor a blind identification with…our childhood religion?

I’ll bet anything this recipe came from an Irish sheep camp much like my father’s. The recipe’s originator, Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery in New York ought to give you a hint.

The easiest bread recipe ever

February 18, 2009 edition Christian Science Monitor

Every so often a recipe crosses my path that is too good to keep to myself. If it’s straightforward to prepare and success follows, I spread the word to food-loving friends from Boston to California. Which is exactly what happened recently after I tasted a memorable rustic bread at my sister-in-law Ruth’s home in Wisconsin. With just four ingredients – flour, water, salt, and a measly 1/4 teaspoon of yeast – it could certainly be classified as basic. But it was also remarkable for its flavor, textures, and the unusual method used to make it. Moist and chewy inside with a crisp crust that shattered when I bit into it, the bread reminded me of the best Italian and French loaves I’ve bought from big-city bakeries. Only this creation came from my sister-in-law’s oven, her Dutch oven to be precise.

No-Knead bread

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon granular yeast

1-3/4 teaspoons salt

1-1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons water

Cornmeal for sprinkling

Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in water till the mixture is blended. The dough will be loose and wet. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at room temperature 12 to 19 hours– the longer the better.

Flour a work surface and turnout the dough on it. Flour your hands and sprinkle the top of the dough lightly with flour. Turn the dough over on itself a couple times and then let it rest 15 minutes. Form the dough into a ball using as little flour as possible. The dough will seem somewhat fluid but it will form a ball. (It’s tempting to use a lot of flour here but don’t. The dough should stay moist.)

Place the dough seam-side down on a smooth-surfaced towel sprinkled with cornmeal. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour or cornmeal, then cover it. Let the dough rise till doubled (about 2 or 3 hours).

At least a half hour before the dough has finished rising, place a Dutch oven with a lid in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Remove the pot from the oven and carefully turn over the dough and place it in the Dutch oven. Then shake the pot to distribute the dough evenly. Replace the lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 10 to 15 minutes or until the top is golden and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

– Adapted from The New York Times

Cont from Christian Science Monitor:

When Ruth was ready to make this loaf, I kept her company in the kitchen as she measured the ingredients into a bowl. Then I watched as she mixed them all together to form a shaggy mass that did not appear to have a promising future. Unlike most bread doughs, which are kneaded till satiny, this dough was neither smooth to the touch nor kneaded. In fact, it was stickier than any dough either of us had ever handled.

Although tempted to add more flour and yeast, we resisted the urge to obey years of bread-baking instincts and faithfully followed the remaining directions. We let the dough rise overnight as instructed. Then we formed it into a ball, waited while it rose again, and baked it inside a steaming-hot Dutch oven.

When we lifted the lid 30 minutes later, we were amazed to see a gorgeous, golden round loaf sporting professional looking splits across the crown. In another 10 minutes, we pulled the boule from the oven and listened to the crust crackle as it cooled on the counter. Read the rest of this entry »

“On Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, the astonished leadership of the U.S. Congress was told in a private session by the chairman of the Federal Reserve that the American economy was in grave danger of a complete meltdown within a matter of days. “There was literally a pause in that room where the oxygen left,” says Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). (more »)

Last night PBS Frontline aired “Inside The Meltdown”  for those of us who lost half of our retirement and would like to know what happened.

Watch and weep.

On any day, in the park across from my apartment, young people, away from the prying eyes of parents and grandparents, can be seen  laughing and playing with each other affectionately…though the kissing never seems X rated. People walking past them pay them no attention…as if they weren’t there…giving silent assent.  I have seen this in other Mexican cities. This morning I came across this LA Times article describing an uproar in Guanajuato.

“A town famous for an Alley of the Kiss passes a law against public displays of affection, sparking a passionate outcry.

By Ken Ellingwood
February 14, 2009

Reporting from Guanajuato, Mexico — Once upon a time, there was a city where people came from far and wide to kiss.

The place was blessed with gold and silver, but its kissing legend, passed down like an heirloom, made it rich beyond measure. It tells of a fair maid named Ana who fell in love with Carlos, a poor miner who lived across a narrow alley. The young lovers met on their balconies, stretching across the tiny gap to kiss in the moonlight.

But their love was star-crossed: Ana’s father forbade the romance and threatened to kill his daughter if he discovered the lovers together again. The next night, he caught them and, true to his warning, stabbed Ana with a dagger. Dying, Ana reached out and Carlos kissed her hand — the couple’s final kiss.

The children of this city have learned this lovers’ saga by heart and told it over and over to the hopeless romantics who come to see the spot, known as the Alley of the Kiss, and to share a good-luck kiss there.

So it came as a terrible shock to people here last month when word spread that the city’s leaders had issued an edict: Kissing in public was forbidden. Violators would be punished.
The news set off a storm over smooching that, weeks later, still has tongues wagging in picturesque Guanajuato, a mining town in central Mexico — and reveals a lot about the ways of Mexico, where you don’t need to get a room to express your love for each other. Like any good Valentine’s Day story, this one ends with a kiss.

The affair blew up in January, when Guanajuato’s City Council, led by the socially conservative National Action Party, or PAN, approved an ordinance on public behavior to replace a 32-year-old law. The ordinance tackled problems such as unlicensed street vendors and jaywalking. But it also targeted offensive language and “obscene touching.”

The mayor, Eduardo Romero Hicks, was asked what sort of public act would be punishable. He said the law would ban agarrones de olimpiada, which translates roughly as “Olympic fondling.” (In an interview later, he explained that this meant “fondling far beyond the norm . . . extreme eroticism in public places.”)

Garden-variety kissing, the mayor said, was never the target.

But leftist opponents depicted Romero and his PAN colleagues as latter-day inquisitors bent on imposing strict morals on the rest of Guanajuato, a tranquil town with cobblestone streets and hillside homes painted in eye-popping hues of orange, pink and electric blue.

The outcry was swift. Protesters gathered in front of City Hall to kiss en masse. The news media got into the act, and pretty soon Romero and his city were at the center of an unflattering national controversy. A satirical video posted on YouTube played a familiar cumbiacumbia-style tune with reworked lyrics and depicted Romero in a priest’s collar. One editorial cartoon showed a couple kissing in a bird cage suspended by a fixture shaped to spell “PAN.”

It mattered little that the mayor announced within days that the measure would be suspended. All of Mexico seemed ready to take to the ramparts in defense of a treasured institution: the kiss.

“The attitude toward kissing is a good thermometer of the tolerance of a society,” columnist Federico Reyes Heroles wrote in the Reforma newspaper. He said trying to limit public kissing was like outlawing miniskirts — the stuff of totalitarian countries. “Eros is part of life,” he wrote.

In liberal Mexico City, officials have rallied to the cause of the kiss by summoning residents to a massive Valentine’s Day kiss-in on the main plaza. Organizers are hoping for thousands of kissers at today’s event, perhaps enough to land a spot in the Guinness World Records book.

In unveiling the kiss-athon, the city’s tourism secretary, Alejandro Rojas Diaz Duran, appeared to toss a dart in Guanajuato’s direction by pointing out that PAN members were welcome to join in. He said Mexico City “has always been the example of what Mexican society’s values should be.”

If so, public kissing would be high on the list. Compared with the United States, Mexico is a very smoochy place. Mexicans of all stripes kiss each other on the cheek when saying hello and goodbye. Children and parents slobber over each other with abandon. Even strangers merit a kiss; Americans might be taken aback by the Mexican custom of kissing someone on the cheek when being introduced.

Take a walk through many public parks in Mexico City and it can feel as though you’ve stumbled onto Lovers’ Lane, with couples in tight embrace on wrought-iron benches or entwined on the grass beneath shade trees. The capital’s vast and woodsy Chapultepec Park is so well known as a make-out zone that it has a racy nickname: Chapul-tetrepo, tetrepo, the last part of which can be translated as, “I climb you,” as one would a tree.

It’s not only teens locking lips on the street; middle-aged couples also are given to public displays, sometimes with surprising urgency. Making out in the park avoids the prying eyes of siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who form the typical extended Mexican family. And there is an overall expressiveness that sets Mexicans apart from the northern neighbors.

“We’re more romantic. We show our feelings,” said Dulce Nancy Gonzalez, a 25-year-old doctor who on a recent day accompanied her boyfriend to the steps of the Alley of the Kiss for a lucky smooch. Tradition holds that kissing on the third step brings 15 years of good luck.

“It’s not hard for us to show our feelings,” Gonzalez said after she and her boyfriend of three weeks shared several kisses of the sort you’d never plant on grandma. “For us, it’s harder to hide them.”

In that spirit, Guanajuato’s leaders are adopting an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach. Having shelved the controversial ordinance for more review, Romero has gone all the way, declaring his city the “Capital of the Kiss.”

Officials are hanging banners and printing postcards that celebrate various flavors of kissing (all G-rated and mostly showing family situations). Merchants are reportedly working on the recipe for a margarita-type drink that would be called the beso, Spanish for “kiss.”

Guanajuato’s residents have come to view the noisy affair as a cautionary tale about the futility of trying to lasso romance. Or the silliness of politicians. Or both.

On a recent day, Jorge Garcia and Vanessa Atzmuller, teens in matching white hoodies, stretched across the table of a sidewalk cafe near City Hall. They met halfway, touching lips softly, the way Ana and Carlos might have.

This time, they all lived happily ever after.”

I’ll bet you anything in the world it was complaints by norteno tourists who sparked the attempted shut-down of the kiss. LOL  For me, watching these playful carefree kids is much more uplifting than reading the daily headlines.

Who are we really?

One of the reasons I like indigenous people is the humility with which they harmonize with their surroundings and environments…but progress and modernity upset this natural equilibrium.  Which is what I think we are witnessing in the world today. Have just finished  Martin Prechtel’s (half native American from New Mexico who became a shaman in a Mayan village in Guatemala. And just started reading Bernard Lewis’s last book “What Went Wrong?” The clash between Islam and modernity in the middle east.  But that’s another conversation.

In the most remote Mayan mountain village we visited, at 13,000 feet and 7 hours from the nearest city, I met a man, looking like he was in his 40’s and dressed norteno (brown leather jacket and levis) who had spent the last 9 years working all over the States.  He was hungry for conversation. I looked at the villagers and at him, seeming so out of place, but knowing he was still essentially Mayan, and  wondered how he feels about his place in his village now.  I wondered about the younger ones too…having abandoned the traditional dress and the huipiles worn now only by the old women…huipiles that soon will only be seen in museums.

We all think about identity and the essential questions.  There are no black and white answers. Martin Prechtel was the son of a Canadian indigenous woman who taught on their Pueblo reservation in New Mexico and a Swiss paleontologist.  He felt lost but found a place and his identity in a traditional Mayan community. Then Guatemala’s generals (with the help of powerful interests including the United States) declared a brutal war on it’s own people that lasted for years and years until Prechtel’s village became paved over with tourists and false incantations for a fee.  Prechtel carried the “Village Heart” back to the “land of the dead” and wrote three books at the request of his Mayan shaman teacher who could see that the traditional world view was being destroyed from without…due to the encroachment of Christianity in cahoots with big business and progress…and guns.

“Shamans say the Village Heart can grow a brand new World House if it is well-dressed in the layered clothing of each indigenous soul’s magic sound,  ancestral songs and indigenous ingenuity. The wrecked landscape of our World House could sprout a renewed world, but a new language has to be found.  We can’t make the old world come alive again, but from it’s old seeds, the next layer could sprout.  This new language would have to grow from the indigenous hearts we all have hidden [within us.]”

Martin Prechtel, writer, teacher, speaker, musician and healer,  in “Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar.”

On the way back to Oaxaca from Guatemala we stopped in San Cristobal for four days. You may remember San Cristobal from the 1994 demands of the Zapatista rebels led by the mask-wearing Maros.  Well, a lot of other people must have heard about it to because the town was filled to the hilt with European tourists.  Restaurants of all kinds galore.  Rude Italian backpackers…well…a lot of other backpackers are rude too though.  Clean, no stop signs or lights and cars take turns…and stop for pedestrians!  All in all a big surprise!

The overnight bus to Oaxaca not bad but slept most of that day and the next. When we took our baggage to the check-in the guy looked at us…looked at the baggage…looked at the tickets…tapping his finger on them.  I knew what was coming. “Money for coffee,” he said!

After a lovely visit with my son in Las Vegas, I thought I would have an uneventful Mexicana flight back to Oaxaca.  But of course not.  Changed planes in Mexico City and was told to sit at a certain gate.  About 10 minutes before boarding time I noticed that “Oaxaca” was not posted on the board.  I asked some folks sitting near me if they were going to Oaxaca too.  So asked at the desk again.  Oh, the gate has been changed, they said!  So we all ran. At least I thankfully got the green light in Oaxaca and didn’t have to have all six bags searched. Then heard about the AeroMexico flight that was diverted to Portland because of fog in Seattle…travelers sitting on the plane for four hours at which time the plane flew back to Mexico City and then back to Seattle again.  Don’t think I’m taking a Mexican plane again anytime soon.

Barely had a week to unpack when I joined two friends for a trip to Guatemala to visit small Mayan mountain village markets in the north for two weeks.  Our base was Quetzaltenango (Xela the locals call it, and the 2nd largest city in Guatemala) and took crowded chicken buses and overflowing “collectivo” vans to outlying villages each day…the longest a 7 hour ride to San Mateo Ixtatlan (at 13,000 feet) where older women still wore the “sunburst” huipil.  Half the population of Guatemala is still rural…houses crawling up the mountainsides with no visible roads.  Breathlessly snaking along S curves, with only mountain tops and a dozen volcanos poking through the clouds,  it felt as if we were looking out the window of a plane. Each village still has it’s own language, dress and culture…the most beautiful was the “red and purple village” where men and women both still wore elaborate hand-woven clothing in the traditonal way signifying whether single, married, status etc.

My unexpected Christmas “Mass” occurred last night in Las Vegas of all places: Out of the dregs of post WWII Liverpool bubbled brilliant words and revolutionary music…channeling truth and prophecy even they were probably not completely aware of. Helped along no doubt by the Maharishi and the magic mushrooms of Hautla Mexico. Listening as if for the first time to the voices of a generation looking for love.

Imagination. Beauty. Fantasy. Originality. Hope. Transformation. Multisensory and Whole Brain Inspiration. Lifting…transporting…touching peace and love. Brought to us by unbelievable modern technology and the Sufi dancers of the “infidel.” Thanks to the souls of the multicultural priests of Cirque du Soleil…and the Beatles. “Love.”

Gooey overstatement? I risk cynicism. Who is to say the experience was not as transcendent as meditation? Hadn’t I just been studying Aristotle’s metaphysics of Potency and Actuality before that 1962 Beatles Tour?  Maybe last night just evoked the feeling of Possibility…of True Revolution that was born in that 18 year old new soul.

Thanks for the gift, Greg, and for the legacy of the Beatles.

Peace and love to you all in the new year!

Had a heck of a time getting out on the plane in the worst storm in the NW in 40 years! After a two hour trip from Salem to the Portland airport over icy washboard Highway 99 because the freeway was plugged with snow plows, the HUT Shuttle driver kindly unloaded my 6 duffels and 2 carry-ons and then helped pile them all onto a cart at the airport. Then, hitting a bump, I dumped the whole load in the middle of the street in front of a block long line of cars! Thanks to the generosity of two young guys who refused a tip, (it’s for our good karma, they said) I made it into the airport! A nice gentleman helped me lift my carry-on into the compartment above on the plane! Now my 42 year old son and his girlfriend are heaping loads of love and care onto me!

May you all enjoy similar care from complete strangers as well as family!

It was supposed to be a simple trip from Oaxaca to Portland Oregon on December 17th to get stuff for my apartment in Oaxaca.  In the first place the plane was an hour late out of Oaxaca.  So I missed the connection in Mexico City to Los Angeles. About a half hour into the flight we hear a message from the pilot: “This is an emergency! Take one of the oxygen maska and place it on your face!”  But no oxygen masks come down from the ceiling.  A few minutes later we get the same message.  Again nothing happens.  The stewardess is on the phone. Then an announcement in spanish from the stewardess,  that,  I gathered, was that all was a false alarm.  Tranquilo, she says.

Then in Mexico city they rerouted those of us who missed connections to LAX us through Las Vegas.  Three hours out of Mexico City (and almost to Las Vegas) the plane turned back and I ended up where I started…Mexico City.  No more planes out that night so I slept in the airport…the alternative was the Hilton Hotel at the airport for $200 a night!  Next morning finally took a plane out of Mex City to LAX where I waited for a 7:30pm flight.  A half hour wait on the tarmac because the plane door wouldn’t shut.  Finally slid into PDX about 8:30pm on the 18th.  Spent an hour filing a missing baggage report and narrowly got on the HUT for Salem after which I took a taxi to Lyn’s.  So here I am in Salem in the middle of the worst snow and ice in the last 30 years.  But the Toyota started right up and I spent the day today running errands.  Got a phone call late today that my bag turned up at PDX so they will deliver it to the house in Salem. Tomorrow I will pack some duffels full of kitchen and other stuff to take back to Oaxaca.

So for inquiring minds, this is how I got from Oaxaca, Mexico to Salem, Oregon.

On the way back to Oaxaca I’ll stop in Las Vegas to spend Christmas with Greg, my first-born son. Maybe.

In the [small] town of Santiago Lachivia the fed-up residents surrounded and put into prison the military group who had been harassing them and arbitrarily breaking into homes which they then robbed. An elderly woman was allegedly robbed of 5,000 pesos…Two soldiers were jailed and 50 others were surrounded and restrained. Nobody was injured, the townspeople had no weapons.

From The Noticias…Oaxaca newpaper

…………..I shall watch with keenness the work of your Research Organization in evolving banking practices compatible with Islamic ideas of social and economic life. The economic system of the West has created almost insoluble problems for humanity and to many of us it appears that only a miracle can save it from disaster that is facing the world. It has failed to do justice between man and man and to eradicate friction from the international field. On the contrary, it was largely responsible for the two world wars in the last half century. The Western world, in spite of its advantages, of mechanization and industrial efficiency is today in a worse mess than ever before in history. The adoption of Western economic theory and practice will not help us in achieving our goal of creating a happy and contented people. We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind.

May the Sate Bank of Pakistan prosper and fulfil the high ideals which have been set as its goal.

In the end I thank you, Mr. Governor, for the warm welcome given to me by you and your colleagues, and the distinguished guests who have graced this occasion as a mark of their good wishes and the honour your have done me in inviting me to perform this historic opening ceremony of the State Bank which I feel will develop into one of our greatest national institutions and play its part fully throughout the world.”

Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah
1st July, 1948

I  wonder, if he could have looked into the future, if he would have advocated for the partitioning.

 Sent to me by a friend:

Ford has spent the last thirty years moving its factories out of the US, claiming it can’t make money paying American wages.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads, collecting bonuses, and wanting a bail-out.

Extracted from a Washington Post article:

On Dec. 9, 1531, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared in a vision to an Indian peasant, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, on a hill north of the ruined Aztec capital, where the basilica stands today. According to accounts, the apparition spoke to Juan Diego in Nahuatl, an Indian language still used in parts of Mexico. When the Spanish bishop asked for proof of the encounter, Juan Diego gathered roses on the hill. As he presented them to the bishop, the image of the Virgin miraculously appeared on his tilma, a kind of traditional cloak fastened at the shoulder with a knot.

The novelist Carlos Fuentes said, “You cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe.”

Nobel laureate Octavio Paz wrote that if the macho in Mexican society is represented by the conquistador, then the Virgin “is the consolation of the poor, the shield of the weak, the help of the oppressed.”

At a time when the tremors of global recession are spreading from the United States to Mexico, where workers in assembly plants and farm fields provide auto parts and winter tomatoes for American consumption, many of the 5 million people who stood in line for hours to enter the basilica in Mexico City said they would ask the Virgin of Guadalupe to watch over their wallets and keep them filled with pesos, even these weaker pesos.

There were not nearly as many people who lined up in Oaxaca, but Llano Park, across the street from the Virgin of Guadalupe Church was filled with revelers yesterday waiting their turn to kiss the feet of the statue of the virgin…their little children dressed up like Juan Diego begging for treats from the many stalls and rides at the carnival in the street. Nuns were selling homemade Rompopo, a kind of eggnoggy  drink made with eggs and rum that is also popular in Honduras and Guatemala at Christmas time. I am told that locally ground almonds, or almond cream is added here in Oaxaca. Rockets and fireworks have been going off continuously day and night.  The Zocalo is lit up with white Christmas lights.  This is Mexico.

Camille Paglia, in Salon.com  today, can not be accused of political correctness in her article bashing Dick Cavett for his piece on Sarah Palin.  I love it. But what she does not mention is that it might have been the content of the Palin repetoire that everyone was objecting to.  Nonetheless, I like Camille here and her poke in the eye. I happen to like frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run on sentences too…much easier to set a tone than “veddy veddy proper English.”

Camille Paglia:

“Once the Republican ticket was defeated, the time had passed for ad feminam attacks on Palin. Hence my surprise and dismay at Dick Cavett’s Nov. 14 blog in the New York Times, “The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla,” which made a big splash and topped the paper’s most-read list for nearly a week. I have enormous respect for Cavett: His TV interviews with major celebrities, which are now available on DVD, set a high-water mark for sheer intelligence in that medium that will surely never be surpassed.

However, Cavett’s piece on Sarah Palin was insufferably supercilious. With dripping disdain, he sniffed at her “frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences.” He called her “the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High,” “one who seems to have no first language.” I will pass over Cavett’s sniggering dismissal of “soccer moms” as lightweights who should stay far, far away from government.I was so outraged when I read Cavett’s column that I felt like taking to the air like a Valkyrie and dropping on him at his ocean retreat in Montauk in the chichi Hamptons.

How can it be that so many highly educated Americans have so little historical and cultural consciousness that they identify their own native patois as an eternal mark of intelligence, talent and political aptitude.  In sonorous real life, Cavett’s slow, measured, self-interrupting and clause-ridden syntax is 50 years out of date. Guess what: There has been a revolution in English — registered in the 1950s in the street slang, colloquial locutions and assertive rhythms of both Beat poetry and rock ‘n’ roll and now spread far and wide on the Web in the standard jazziness of blogspeak.

Does Cavett really mean to offer himself as a linguistic gatekeeper for political achievers in this country? Yes, that is the lordly Yale that formed Dick Cavett’s linguistic and cultural assumptions and that has alarmingly resurfaced in the contempt that he showed for the self-made Sarah Palin in “The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla.” I am very sorry that he, and so many other members of the educational elite, cannot take pleasure as I do in the quick, sometimes jagged, but always exuberant way that Palin speaks — which is closer to street rapping than to the smug bourgeois cadences of the affluent professional class.

English has evolved, and the world has moved on. There is no necessary connection between bourgeois syntax and practical achievement. I have never had the slightest problem with understanding Sarah Palin’s meaning at any time. Since when do free Americans subscribe to a stuffy British code of veddy, veddy proper English? We don’t live in a stultified class system. In the U.K., in fact, many literary leftists make a big, obnoxious point about retaining their working-class accents. Too many American liberals claim to be defenders of the working class and then run like squealing mice from working-class manners and mores (including moose hunting and wolf control). What smirky, sheltered hypocrites. Get the broom!”

It is Sunday and quiet as usual except for a rally in Llano Park about a block away.  The sound of the speeches bounces off the walls of my courtyard but thankfully it has stopped.

It is dusk now and the park across the street from my apartment is nearly empty except for about a dozen well dressed people gathered for something…maybe a wedding celebration. From my veranda I listen to a band playing. A singer dressed in white and big red Mexican hat sings Viva Mexico; Viva America.  A young girl sits by herself nearby.  An old man further back.  An old lady comes and puts her bags down and listens too. The band plays some more.  A lone couple dances by themselves off by the side. Another couple dances on the sidewalk. The old woman leaves.  A young boy comes and joins the young girl.  Maybe she has been waiting for him. Venus and Jupiter are still conjunct in the clear cool sky overhead.

This is Mexico!

The days of Las Posadas commemorate Mary and Joseph’s long and difficult trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  Rock bands are playing, marching bands with people carrying lights, dancing calendas with a giant Joseph and Mary carried atop the shoulders of a young guy, fireworks, rockets, church bells. The markets are selling Christmas decorations and all manner of  related junk.

Last night a calenda with accompanying band, and local neighborhood people,  walked quietly  with their lights in the street under my veranda and around the park.

All signifying that Christmas is coming.

Here are some criteria offered by the LA Times by which to judge how Hillary, under Obama, will be doing in the next 4 years.  After reading “Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins,  however, I can think of a lot of others.

George Shultz, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell offer their views.

Hillary Rodham Clinton will have no shortage of issues to take on as secretary of State. She steps into the job amid a global economic meltdown and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On top of that, she must address the rising tensions between India and Pakistan, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while managing complex relations with Russia and China. And there are the perennial issues of hunger and disease in Africa, drugs in Latin America and the nuclear threat worldwide. How can one person manage it all?

Times editorial writer Marjorie Miller asked five former secretaries of State what advice they had for Clinton in her new job. What follows are edited transcripts of their counsel.

A study of the relationships of nearly 5,000 people tracked for decades in the Framingham Heart Study shows that good cheer spreads through social networks of nearby family, friends and neighbors.

By Karen Kaplan
December 5, 2008
LA Times

They say misery loves company, but the same may be even more true of happiness.

In a study published online today by the British Medical Journal, scientists from Harvard University and UC San Diego showed that happiness spreads readily through social networks of family members, friends and neighbors.

Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself, the study found. A happy friend of a friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor’s sister’s friend can give you a 5.6% boost.

“Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on actions and choices of other people, many of which you don’t even know,” said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and medical sociologist at Harvard who co-wrote the study.

The research is part of a growing trend to measure well-being as a crucial component of public health. Scientists have documented that people who describe themselves as happy are likely to live longer, even if they have a chronic illness.

The new study “has serious implications for our understanding of the determinants of health and for the design of policies and interventions,” wrote psychologist Andrew Steptoe of University College London and epidemiologist Ana Diez Roux of the University of Michigan in an accompanying editorial. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m in my apartment and Tonee, the previous tenant who is moving into his new house on the road to Huayapam, is moving out slowly.  In the meantime I am enjoying his furniture…and his cat!

Last weekend I went to a small jazz venue with a friend to listen to her bf blow the sax with his bassist, drummer and guitarist.  About 2/3 of the way through, a short slow moving guy with long hair, dressed in jeans and a tweed jacket, obviously Indio, came in drunk and hugged all the band players…while they were playing.  Two different waitresses asked politely for him to leave but he ignored them until the older matriarch of the cafe came in… in which case he left immediately without a word.  However, he returned shortly, took off his desert boots and began to play one of them to the delight of the clubbers!  We later found out he was a local artist…where else but in Mexico…LOL

But wish someone would have ushered out three young girls, eurotrash,  who were carrying on a loud screechy conversation in spite of all the faces we made…never did figure out what language they were speaking…where else but Mexico…well, maybe some other places too.

Tonight, in my apartment at my computer, I heard classical music coming from the park that my apartment looks over.  I walked out onto the veranda to find a young guy with two girls and a boom box sitting on a park bench.  Always music coming from some direction! Where else but in Mexico.  I love it.

The indicted exiled ex prime minister, Thaksin, committing the ultimate hubris…refuses to fall descrubed here in the International Tribune.

Protesters have taken over the International airport and a smaller domestic airport in Bangkok and are demanding the Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, resign, which he has refused to do even after months of demonstrations and violence in Bangkok. Protesters are refusing to negotiate with the government and have promised to stay until the “final battle.”

“A state of emergency has been declared at both Suvarnabhumi and the smaller, domestic Don Mueang airport, which the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have taken over.”

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7756050.stm

The previous corrupt Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 and replaced with a “proxy” government. Thaksin has been indicted for massive corruption and last I heard he was in exile in China because the UK wouldn’t accept him.

What the BBC doesn’t say is that the new PM, Somchai, is Thaksin’s brother-in-law. He is holed up in Chiang Mai which is the Thaksin family home town and where he has a base of support because Thaksin doled out a few baht when he was PM to small farmers who now think he is wonderful.

However, the “elite” in Bangkok, who know what is going on, doesn’t think he is wonderful. The BBC says: “The PAD is a loose grouping of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class opposed to Mr Thaksin.” Well, this is not a very good description. It also includes respected statesmen, university professors and students. And if the truth were known…probably the revered King who everyone thinks “whispered” his support of the 2006 coup.

“The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Bangkok says that Mr Somchai has already lost the confidence of his army chief, Gen Anupong Paochinda, and rumours of (another) coup are circling in the capital.” The head of Thailand’s powerful army has called for a dissolution of Parliament and new elections.

What the BBC doesn’t say is that the army is refusing to move against the protesters.

The chief of police has been demoted, the BBC says, “to what officials said was an “inactive post” in the prime minister’s office. No official reason was given for Gen Patcharawat Wongsuwanbut’s demotion, but government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar suggested to Thai TV that it was in connection with the protest crisis.”

Come on, I don’t think it would have been difficult to fact check why the police chief was demoted. Everyone knows anyway. So much for the BBC.

My husband, who lives in Thailand says: “Politically hot in Thailand. Nobody in charge. The PM (Thaksin ‘s brother-in-law) attempting to mobilize police and army to open the airport but they refuse to intervene. Can you imagine a head-of-state directing his armies to action and they refuse???? Big comment on the base of power.”

We Thailand watchers (my son and his Thai wife live on Koh Samui in the south) are fervently hoping this doesn’t end in bloodshed like the October 14, 1973 Uprising and the October 6, 1976 Massacre.

When I was in high school we had to read the newspaper every week and take a quiz on it. In grade school we read the Gettysburg Address, parts of the Constitution, the 14 Amendments and memorize the Declaration of Independence. So much for “No Child Left Behind.”

November 29, 2008
WASHINGTON —

So much for the wisdom of The People.

A new report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute on the nation’s civic literacy finds that most Americans are too ignorant to vote.

Out of 2,500 American quiz-takers, including college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked a 33-question test on basic civics. In fact, elected officials scored slightly lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent compared with 49 percent.

Only 0.8 percent of all test-takers scored an “A.”

The multiple-choice ISI quiz wouldn’t deepen the creases in most brains, but the questions do require a basic knowledge of how the U.S. government works. Think fast: In what document do the words “government of the people, by the people, for the people” appear? More than twice as many people (56 percent) knew that Paula Abdul was a judge on “American Idol” than knew that those words come from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (21 percent).

In good news, more than 80 percent of college graduates gave correct answers about Susan B. Anthony, the identity of the commander in chief of the U.S. military and the content of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

But don’t pop the cork yet. Only 17 percent of college grads understood the difference between free markets and centralized planning.

Then again, we can’t blame the children for what they haven’t been taught. Civics courses, once a staple of junior and high school education, are no longer considered important in our quantitative, leave-no-child-behind world. And college adds little civic knowledge, the ISI study found. The average grade for those holding a bachelor’s degree was 57 percent — only 13 points higher than the average score of those with only a high school diploma.

Most bracing: Only 27 percent of elected officeholders in the survey could identify a right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. Forty-three percent didn’t know what the Electoral College does. And 46 percent didn’t know that the Constitution gives Congress power to declare war.

What’s behind the dumbing down of America?

The ISI found that passive activities, such as watching television (including TV news) and talking on the phone, diminish civic literacy. Actively pursuing information through print media and participating in high-level conversations makes one smarter.

The ISI insists that higher-education reforms aimed at civic literacy are urgently needed. Who could argue otherwise? But historian Rick Shenkman, the author of “Just How Stupid Are We?” thinks reform needs to start in high school. His strategy: Require students to read newspapers and give college freshman weekly quizzes on current events.

In his book, Shenkman, the founder of George Mason University’s History News Network, is tough on everyday Americans. Why, he asks, do we value polls when The People don’t know enough to make a reasoned judgment?

Both Shenkman and the ISI pose a bedeviling question, as crucial as any to the nation’s health: Who will govern a free nation if no one understands the mechanics and instruments of that freedom?

Answer: Maybe one day, a demagogue.

Kathleen Parker writes for the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071. Send e-mail to kparker@kparker.com.

One of my favorite people, Deepak Chopra, explains the “war on terror” in the most lucid way I have heard yet.

Description of an altercation between a communist group (FPR) and the anarchists after the march commemorating the November 25th 2006 repression by police. When I saw that these groups, among many others, were lining up behind the teachers during the strike of 2006, I knew there was going to be trouble because they all have their own agendas.

from an expat on the Oaxaca Study Action Group Internet Forum:

“I get the sense that no one is happy with what happened at the march. The good things were the turnout and return of Dra. Bertha.  The bad were the disagreements regarding tactics that led to physical encounters and the FPR vs anarchists nonsense in the zocalo.  I firmly believe that based on my experiences here, the vast majority of the libertarian punks are not paid government agents.  I think it’s dangerous to propose that they are, given the seriousness of the charge, because: unless they read NarcoNews or OSAG they’re unaware of the charges being leveled against them, and, how does one disprove the claim that they’re a government agent?  David Venegas, even after spending a year in jail, is still accused of that.  Black blocs, graffiti and property destruction are common features of most mass movements all over the world.  Of course the capitalist press and fascist government are going to raise hackles about it, that’s their job.

This is not, however, to say that there weren’t infiltrators yesterday. Yet, they’re easy to spot based on their dress, the fact that no one knows them, their actions (for example, yesterday they were smoking weed during the march and one of them painted “David is my leader”, which no anarchist would write and plays right into the gov’t’s and press’s line).  As well, the locations targeted – Comex, PRI offices, state gov’t offices, and Chedraui – are all viable targets if one is an anti-capitalist.  Working class people’s homes and business didn’t get messed with.

The scene at [the new] Chedraui Market [during their open house] was particularly disappointing. The teachers’ “protest police” lined up in front of Chedraui, trying to keep it from being damaged. It reminded me of “pacifists” lining up to protect Nike and Starbucks in the US during the WTO protest in Seattle 1999. This led to pushing and shoving between teachers and anarchists, and between anarchist and photographers (who were screaming at the anarkos: “We’re going to find out who you are! We’re going to get you!” One friend was randomly assaulted by a photographer out of nowhere).

As far as I know, the teachers’ leadership and the FPR bilaterally declared there would be no graffiti, masks, or property destruction.  How they feel they have the right to state that and undemocratically determine the tactics of a broad movement, and try to undemocratically enforce them (by guarding Chedraui of all places for crissakes!) is beyond me.  While Chepi may be better than those before, the teachers still don’t seem to me to be doing much, nor do I put much hope in them. They only come out in force when instructed to, probably mainly because they take attendance at these things.  Other teachers not marching with Section 22 got on the sound systems behind Section 22 and denounced them for betraying the movement that arose initially to defend them and for their complacency.

I did not see the fight between the FPR and anarchists in the zocalo.  My understanding as related to me (admittedly by only one side on the issue), was the David was being heckled while he spoke, while others were shouting to let him speak. An FPR man hit an libertarian woman on the head with one of the sticks they have their flags on, then punched her in the face. Then libertarians got hold of an FPR flag and lit it on fire. Then mayhem broke out.  At least one libertarian had to be taken to the hospital after being hit in the head with a flag stick.

All the media and even Radio Planton, blamed it all on David. At least the teachers, though condemning everything that happened, declined to condemn any particular group.  Regardless, as I said, no one is happy with what happened. Well, perhaps the FPR is.  I think it shows that the next APPO congress really needs to happen and really needs to be democratic.  Many of the speakers in the zocalo at least mentioned the former, though groups such as the FPR and some in the teachers leadership are more interested in excluding VOCAL and other libertarian tendencies in the APPO congress than creating a real movement.”

My three cents from my frustrated, biased perspective,

and “Here’s VOCAL’s communique regarding yesterday. In brief, it states that the disunity has been caused by the FPR – primarily for running Zenen Bravo for congress and their meddling in Section 22.  It states they had nothing to do with the property destruction but they understand it. It states that FPR started the fight after David was not permitted to speak and a libertarian woman told an FPR man to be quiet and be respectful. And that Section 22 has the responsibility and duty to convene a democratic assembly to plan for the second APPO congress.”

My Mexican-American friend moved to Mexico a few years ago while working on her husband’s papers to legalize him to work in the States…which is taking a lot of time.  This was her recent email:

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL, Vol. VII

Now, I know Why They Jump The Wall…I Wanna Jump The Wall
And  –  Yes  –  We  –  Are  –  Still  –  Here

I was just telling a friend, back in the States, how waking up here I will sometimes think to myself, as I take in my surroundings, “shit, I’m still here.”  You know those mornings, where as soon as you open your eyes, you say to yourself, “man, it sucks to be me.”  Well, yesterday was definitely one of those days.  And, unfortunately not just for myself, but also for quite a number of people in my husband’s family, namely my mom-in-law.

My husband’s brother called us about 10 a.m.  He was frantic.  Evidently, Josefina had just gotten a phone call stating that my husband had been kidnapped and they were demanding a ransom of $50,000 Pesos, or they were going to kill him!  They put some guy on the phone who told my mother-in-law he was her son.  She asked him, “son, where are you?”  This same fucking bastard responded, SOBBING, “Mother, I can’t tell you because I’m bound and they have my eyes covered.”  The so-called kidnapper got back on the phone, and she informed him that she didn’t have $50,000 Pesos.  The caller told her that if she didn’t pay the money they would murder her son.  She simply stated that would be on his conscience, and that she didn’t have that kind of money and there was nothing she could do.  He asked her again if she were going to pay the ransom.  She repeated her response to his demand.  He finally yelled at her that she was a fucking bitch and hung up!

In her hysteria she couldn’t recall our phone numbers.  She ended up calling her eldest son.  He spoke with his mother and calmed her down as best he could.

My husband is the youngest of three sons.  He has been back home here in Mexico for almost three years after an absence of almost 11.  When we first got here, in February 2006, the first thing his mother said was that she couldn’t believe her eyes that her baby was home.  She said that she never expected to see him again.  They speak or see one another on a daily basis.

My mother-in-law is 75-years-old, in failing health, and lives alone.  We live minutes from her house, but she had no idea that this was not true at that moment in time.  Put yourself in her place.  Can you even imagine getting such a phone call about a loved one, and all that you would feel, think, experience?  I can’t imagine.  I don’t even want to.

My husband spoke with the police and they say that it is a local and national epidemic: Secuestros Telefonicos.  Translation:  Telephone Kidnappings.  They usually originate in prisons in the neighboring state of Mexico, in and around Mexico City.  Our very own landlord’s mother just two weeks ago received a phone call from someone stating that they had kidnapped one of her sons.  All of her children are adults living on their own.  She deposited $15,000 Pesos in ransom money into a bank account that she was directed to, which of course was under a phony name.  Thankfully all of her children were eventually accounted for and found to be safe, and the kidnapping to be bogus.  We’re told that she and one of her daughters are showing signs of extreme mental trauma. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, you never know what life will bring you.  I am now looking for an apartment in Oaxaca once again and since the house is rented out it looks like I’ll be here for awhile.

November 21 was Revolution Day which passed quietly with the Governor appearing in an upper window of the Palacio.  Rumor has it that there will be a large mega-march on November 25 to commemorate the rout of the teacher strike out of the city by the Riot Control Police in 2007. The city will be covered with police this time too that is for sure.

But on the whole I feel quite safe here.  Just have to use common sense as in any other big city.

After living for a year in Oaxaca in 2006-7, I have returned here for a couple months before going on to Central and South America.  Now I…

Remember the Alcala, the ancient cobblestone pedestrian street: the way your feet tip on the edges of the stones…almost unbalancing you as you walk.

Remember eating chile relleno tortas while listening to the marimba band at Cafe Jardin in the Zocalo late at night: sometimes an older couple dancing alone…the two of them…giving in to the rhythm.

Remember church bells ringing at 6:30 in the morning: a town spiritual alarm.

Remember Noche de Luz (Night of Light):  fireworks, calendas, children playing, the National Band; crowds of young people wait to get into ear deafening clubs  till 4am and you don’t sleep.

Remember warm love of friends: Max the aging-before-his-time anarchist over mescal and his housemates Sandy…and her 80 year old husband Budd…the BBC filmmaker who jumped onto the Yeltsin tank and took the picture that went around the world…and my friend Sharon who I met on the plane when we first arrived in Oaxaca. Bardo and Mica and daughter Angelita recovering from foot surgery and her brother Pavel named after some revolutionary Russian.

Remember five peso ice cream: doble please…

Remember familiar Trique vendors in long red dresses with horizontal stipes: Jorge in the Zocalo until 10:30pm when he takes the hour long bus back to his home and family in Mitla.

Remember the familiar beggars: the tiny girl on Alcala plays an accomplished tiny accordian. But avoid the old women with two apartment houses.

Remember colorful angry graffiti on ancient stone walls: the only voice of a repressed people.

Remember the taste of an Amarillo tamale made by an old woman in the market washed down with grey foamy tajate: the Zapotec drink of the gods.

Remember drinking beer with Gerardo: sexy Zapotec hustler here after 10 years on the streets of LA and Las Vegas.

Remember sweet smiles from strangers on the street: hola amiga!   Hasta Luego!

Remember hot Mexican chocolate and a free pan dulce on the street at 7am: the little man running from one side of the cart to the other in a hurry to serve his morning customers.

Remember eating in comida corridas: an omelette swimming in red sauce…sweet cafe olla made sheepherder style.

Remember made-up over-dressed Chilangos from Mexico city: slumming it on Sundays in Oaxaca…holding themselves with stuffy privilege…they gawk at the indigenous dark ones and don’t buy much.

Remember friendly courtyard apartment owners:  checking up on me…in and out. The younger sister speaking English after 4 years as a nanny in LA while leaving her two children here with her ex husband…saving her money and building a new house in which she rents out the extra bedrooms.

Remember to visit Adelina (the maid in the apartment where I lived in 2006 who works 12 hours a day for practically nothing) and living in a one-room tin-roofed shack which barely holds a double bed for her and her bright daughter Fernanda: surprised to see  the six year old at the English Lending Library taking part in story time…seemed so much more grown up now…shiny hair curled and turned under…paying a pittance for her schooling…the little girl I never had.

Remember the long drive to Oaxaca from the Columbia Friendship Crossing near Laredo Texas with my son Greg’s best friend who stayed with me for a month: lingering for hours with friends in the cafes in the Zocalo.

Remember the chapulines (dried grasshoppers): if you eat them here the legend says you will return.

Remember the invitation from a Mexican friend to go to Hautla with him and eat magic mushrooms: you were chicken and never did.

Remember thoughts of moving here…

For those who haven’t seen Obama’s victory speech in Chicago go here.

I am so relieved! I am in Mexico now and didn’t have TV but I got a text message from Barack at midnight (you could sign up for text messages on his web site) that said “We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Thanks. Barack.”

Lovely.

“In this election, the Americans not only chose a president, but also their identity,” said Dominique Moïsi, a French political analyst. “And now we have to think, too, about our identity in France — it’s the most challenging election ever. We realize we are late, and America has regained the torch of a moral revolution.”  This from France!

I am active on some couchsurfing.com forums. This morning I was greeted with many happy posts from around the world so I will cross-post some of them here:

From Germany: “I’m happy to see that after being the punching bag of the world for 8 years you’ve now made it so clear that you intent to restore some reputation now. Especially since I don’t have to excuse my liking for you weirdos when I’m with my European friends and you can’t just accuse me of typical European Anti Americanism when I criticize you flaw or make fun of them or you! HA-HAAA;-D
(Can I put back my “Abulf Gayb” picture now???)  Take care! / Maat et joot!

Belgium:  Congrats to all of you!
this is a great way to wake up in Europe and hear this news. I am SO happy!!! Wish I were still there but already here I feel the vibe of this news in my heart and in the air. YAAY!!

Congratulations from France. 😉  I raise my glass of wine to your new president.
I don’t have much more to say, but I think it’s enough.

Belgium:  I can’t believe the news today
I don’t wanna close my eyes
Don’t make it go away!
How long, how long have we sung this song?
CONGRATULATIONS! Still can’t believe it…
This is just wonderful!
Love you all!
Lieke, Peter and kids, Belgium – Europe

Turkey:  Congratulations to all of you.. You are all silent I
guess you are all partying.. we watch all those
celebrations and excitement in America.. and very
happy for you and for the World.. Obama made an
excellent speech after winning, I know everything will
not be perfect just because he won, but at least we
have ‘hope’ that it will..it is amazing that America elected its first black
president, it is amazing that America elected someone
born from a Muslim father as a president, American
people destroyed all taboos and I am very proud of
them and very thankful to them.. I think American
people took a huge step to correct America’s bad image
created by the Bush Administration.
Congratulations again and thank you..
I hope Obama administration will bring peace to the
World and wealth/welfare to the US.
I am happy:) all the best

Belgium:  Well, I am hoping for a bit more sensible US policies. The focus will ofc still be on US interests but maybe the next administration will understand that what the current administration did pretty much went against those interests. We’ll see what he wants to do and what he can do with a massive deficit, recession and the composition of the houses.

France:    SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to share my joy and my hopes about the future of THE WORLD!!!!
OBAMA i’m with you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOVE for every american citizens!!!!!!!!!!
kreen 😉 😉 😉

In the meantime, we can say goodbye to Palin here:

Palin and some Republican surrogates are trying to equate liberalism and anti-Americanism. This week, Michelle Bachmann, newly elected Republican in Minnesota, called on the media to investigate the so-called “liberals” in Congress to determine if they were “Pro American” or  “Anti American.”  She “reasons”  that if people have negative views of the U.S. then they are anti-American.  Bachmann says “I’m very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views.” She calls on the media to launch a “penetrating expose and take a look … at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-American or anti-American.”  She adds: “I think people would love to see an expose like that.”

All my life I thought the essence of democracy was the freedom of an informed electorate to demand transparency and accountability of our elected officials and policy makers.  Never once in my life did I ever think I was being an America hater by working for a better America!  Must we turn a blind eye and stay silent if we think our precious country is being led in the wrong direction?  Like the good Germans did? Even McCain is calling for change.  Does that mean he is anti-America?  It seems to me that if I didn’t care for my country I would just sit on my butt and do nothing. For the life of me, I don’t understand where this nonsense is coming from! Some deep-seated visceral fear?  Of what?

Now we have McCain’s surrogates trying to link Obama with William Ayers and the Weathermen, a radical antiwar group during the Viet Nam war. The people who lived during that desperate and bewildering time and understood the anger toward the military industrial complex hell-bent on war are still around…many later voting for Nader which threw the win to Bush…or not voting at all which still helped Bush. Although the end did not justify the means, and the deaths that occurred were tragic, it did help stop the war. (watch “Fog Of War” an award-winning 2004 documentary interview of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.) I pray these folks vote pragmatically this time.

That was 40 years ago. This is now. Ayers, along with many of his generation, has discovered that patiently working within the system is a more efficacious way to encourage change. A person deserves a second chance and recognizing that a democracy depends on an enlightened electorate, he has made the most of it…becoming a respected university professor who happened to sit on the same education reform board chaired by Obama that was funded by the Republican Annenberg Foundation (whose purpose is to advance the public well-being through improved communication)and endorsed by Chicago Mayor Daley. Ayers could have become a depressive drug-addled destitute living on the streets along with the many other dissilusioned Viet Nam war vets. But he didn’t. He had the courage to face society, get off his butt, and become one of it’s good citizens. I for one am happy that he did not succumb to nihilism but instead channeled his passion and intelligence into long term benefit for our country.

Fortunately, Obama has been vetted by earnest peers, politicos, professionals, educators,  middle America and the street alike…and by the super delegates during the primaries. And for all it’s ills, by the media.  If Obama was such a risk, these folks would have stopped him long ago. His endorsement tally was at 55 and McCain’s at 16 as of Saturday with the LA Times endorsement. Other major endorsements for Obama include those of the Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the St Louis Post-Dispatch, the Toledo Blade, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Nashville Tennessean and the Spanish-language dailies La Opinion in Los Angeles and El Diario -La Prensa in New York.

His hometown newspaper the Chicago Tribune has endorsed a democrat for the first time in its 161-year history noting that it was breaking with a long tradition but justified the shift by citing what it called Mr. Obama’s “honor, grace and civility” under pressure and criticizing Mr. McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, which it described as a failure of judgment in which Mr. McCain put his campaign ahead of the country’s needs. “We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions,” the newspaper said of Mr. Obama. “He is ready.”

And I haven’t even mentioned magazines like the New Yorker who has only endorsed one other candidate in it’s 83 year old history or Esquire Magazine that has never endorsed a candidate in it’s 75 year history. Then there are luminaries like Colin Powell who endorsed Obama this morning on Meet The Press saying  that “I think he is a transformational figure. “I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance,” Powell said. “He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.” Powell noted that McCain has been a good friend for 25 years, but expressed disappointment in the negative tone of the GOP campaign, as well as in McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee.  And Christopher Buckley, who, after endorsing Obama, left the conservative “National Review” that William Buckley, the godfather of conservatism, founded saying that were he alive today his father would be dismayed with the Republican party…especially for it’s pick for VP. Even Christopher Hitchens has endorsed Obama.

Please excuse the pun, but they can’t all be “out in left field.”

McCain is desperate and has nothing left in his toolbox but to galvanize the ill-informed voter over ugly sideline distractions. I just hope people read. Our country depends on it.  It was Bernard Baruch, economic advisor to Wilson, who said, “If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right; if you don’t get all the facts, it can’t be right.”

I would like to recommend watching a speech by Naomi Klein, journalist and author of “Shock Doctrine,” at the University of Chicago, carried by Amy Goodman on the “Democracy Now” web site, and now posted on this web site:

zeemax-contrariancomment.blogspot.com/2008/10/ideas-have-con…

To deepen your understanding, I would also recommend that you read a bit about “economic developmentalism” on wikipedia here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmentalism

that explains what it means for a country to become developed, autonomous, and legitimate, particularly in Latin America and Asia. She mentions it several times in the speech but she is addressing economists and students and doesn’t explain it much. She gives a brief overview of the free-market system that the U.S. has exported to developing countries for years for it’s own benefit.

I have been aware for some time of the thesis of her book analyzing the Friedman school of free market economics that has led to the current crisis and have seen her on TV. But I just got around to watching this talk that was given just after the first bailout was voted down but before the final passage. The free-market system has been tested, she says, and it has failed. But it will come roaring back…and has already started.

I have to tell you, that she is one of those “best and brightest” that the USA has to offer…to us and to the world. The next president, she says, we will see a turning from a “yes you can” to “no you can’t” because there won’t be any money for health, green jobs, alternative energy. Obama’s health plan costs 85 billion. AIG just got 85 billion. They are using this crisis to shut down possibility, she says, and deepen the crisis…the “shock” that they will use (and Friedman predicted) to insist on continuing the free market and their own profits.

She calls on the brilliant young creative minds at the school: “We need your minds at work,” she says. “Don’t retreat into your sacred texts. Join us in the real world,” she says,…

as tears streamed down my face.

 March 12 update:  This, of course, was before the crash.

A conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft
Two former national security advisors look at how the world has changed.

September 28, 2008

This spring, two of the most respected figures in American foreign policy sat down to talk about the United States and its place in the world. Zbigniew Brzezinski served as national security advisor to President Carter. Brent Scowcroft was national security advisor to presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald R. Ford. Their conversation was moderated by David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post. The following are edited excerpts

* Ignatius: I want you to talk a bit more about the nature of American leadership in this very complicated world. First, is American leadership necessary?

Brzezinski: It can be a catalyst. Not for actions directed by the United States but for actions that the local community — maybe we can call them stakeholders in a global system — is prepared collectively to embrace. That kind of leadership is needed. But for that kind of leadership to emerge in America, we not only need very special people as leaders — and they do come up occasionally — but we need a far more enlightened society than we have.

I think Americans are curiously, paradoxically, simultaneously very well-educated and amazingly ignorant. We are a society that lives within itself. We’re not interested in the history of other countries.

Today we have a problem with Iran. How many Americans know anything about Iranian history? Do they know that it is a bifurcated history? There have been two Irans. And those two different periods, pre-Islamic and post-Islamic, dialectically define the tensions and the realities of Iran today. [Americans] know nothing about it.

Quite a few Americans entering college could not locate Great Britain on the map. They couldn’t locate Iraq on the map after five years of war. Thirty percent couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean. We don’t teach global history; we don’t teach global geography. I think most Americans don’t have the kind of sophistication that an America that inspires, and thereby leads, will have to have if it is to do what this 21st century really will demand of us.

Scowcroft: I could easily just say amen. But again, this is a part of who we are and from where we have arisen. For most of our history, we’ve been secure behind two oceans, with weak neighbors on each side. Americans don’t have to learn foreign languages. They can travel as widely as most of them want and never leave the United States. So most Americans instinctively just want to be left alone. I don’t think they want to mess with the problems of the world.

Brzezinski: They want to enjoy the good life.

Scowcroft: They want to enjoy the good life.

When one stops moving…constantly having one’s awareness being drawn outward when traveling…integration begins… and reflection.

I have been home since the middle of June after six months in Asia…losing myself in the mundane and thoughtless but pleasurable duties of house and home.  Pruning, raking, repairing, having things repaired and replaced, banking, filing, web surfing, visiting old friends…my son, home from Thailand for a month…for company.  But I have rented the house again and will be on my way again in November for Oaxaca, Guatemala and onward through Central and South America.  Then back to the wonderful northwest I call home…the best of all worlds I have seen so far. And in the fall onward to the Balkans and then Asia again where two of my sons live. But my feelings are conflicted…giving up this comfort.  It has taken three months this time for return culture shock to abate…and my nervous system…indeed my brain…to start operating again.

In talking about the current political climate a friend  got my wheels turning.  She mentioned transmutation.  And the masses.  For some reason I am thinking strongly of Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message.)

this from wiki:
The slogan, “the medium is the message”, may be better understood in light of Bernard Lonergan’s further articulation of related ideas: at the empirical level of consciousness, the medium is the message, whereas at the intelligent and rational levels of consciousness, the content is the message. This sentence uses Lonergan’s terminology from Insight: A Study of Human Understanding to clarify the meaning of McLuhan’s statement that “the medium is the message”; McLuhan read this when it was first published in 1957 and found “much sense” in it — in his letter of September 21, 1957, to his former student and friend, Walter J. Ong, S.J., McLuhan says, “Find much sense in Bern. Lonergan’s Insight” (Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987: 251). Lonergan’s Insight is an extended guide to “making the inward turn”: attending ever more carefully to one’s own consciousness, reflecting on it ever more carefully, and monitoring one’s articulations ever more carefully. When McLuhan declares that he is more interested in percepts than concepts, he is declaring in effect that he is more interested in what Lonergan refers to as the empirical level of consciousness than in what Lonergan refers to as the intelligent level of consciousness in which concepts are formed, which Lonergan distinguishes from the rational level of consciousness in which the adequacy of concepts and of predications is adjudicated. This inward turn to attending to percepts and to the cultural conditioning of the empirical level of consciousness through the effect of communication media sets him apart from more outward-oriented studies of sociological influences and the outward presentation of self

As I read this, I realize how deeply affected I was by my Jesuit education. Unfortunately, I am afraid that this time it has not worked to our advantage. In an interview a few years ago of Paul Newman, RIP,  Larry King asked how many good scripts came across his desk every year.  Paul sighed and replied: whereas there used to be 3-5 a year, now maybe there is one.  Larry asked why.  I think because they are all shooting for the lowest common denominator, he said.

There is a wonderful story on wiki about the title of McLuhan’s book:

According to McLuhan biographer W. Terrence Gordon, “by the time it appeared in 1967, McLuhan no doubt recognized that his original saying had become a cliché and welcomed the opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it. But the new title is more than McLuhan indulging his insatiable taste for puns, more than a clever fusion of self-mockery and self-rescue — the subtitle is ‘An Inventory of Effects,’ underscoring the lesson compressed into the original saying.” (Gordon, p. 175.) However, the FAQ section [1] on the website maintained by McLuhan’s estate says that this interpretation is incomplete and makes its own leap of logic as to why McLuhan left it as is. “Why is the title of the book The Medium is the Massage and not The Medium is the Message? Actually, the title was a mistake. When the book came back from the typesetter’s, it had on the cover ‘Massage’ as it still does. The title was supposed to have read The Medium is the Message but the typesetter had made an error. When McLuhan saw the typo he exclaimed, ‘Leave it alone! It’s great, and right on target!’ Now there are possible four readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: Message and Mess Age, Massage and Mass Age.”

Speaking of.

Finally…a non-threatening younger woman in high places. (sarcasm) Has anyone ever commented on Madeleine Albright’s clothes?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/26/AR2008092600859.html?wpisrc=newsletter

In contrast, I was particularly struck when Obama got out of that black limousine  in dark glasses and expensive dark suit, and walked with that confident Harvard stride to get on the plane for Biloxi Mississippi. There was something subliminally appealing (to me) with his clothes bag casually slung over his shoulder…hanging onto it with two fingers. Cosmopolitan.  But not Everyman. That shot will forever stick in my mind.