Digest: On a Lighter Note

Marital Mystery. Try this one from FNC about behavioral TMI's in relationships. They missed one: never pick your nose in front of your partner.

Leviathan Lobster? Also at FoxNews is this cute large crustacean, newly discovered in the depths. At the risk of being flippant, wonder what it tastes like?

Lost Link? At last, the disappointment of my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History is righted. According to the Telegraph, the missing link may have been found in South Africa. I'm still trying to get over that genetic Eve. Oh,well, As long as it's not the Piltdown Man.

Meanderings: Of Books And Such

I've been thinking about books lately, not the stories but the actual physical things. With all these ereaders coming on the market, I fear the end of our long relationship is nigh. Mine has been a love affair. Aah. The physical heft, the dog-eared pages, that smell of paper and incipient mold...there is comfort.

For years I kept a collection of my favorite books, as well as the old standards every library should have- Bible, oversized dictionary, etc.... Course, I never had one of those wood paneled libraries to keep them in, and by the time I- in straitened circumstances- moved across the country to Florida, I came to the realization that there were no library ladders in my future, and I really didn't want to pay the freight, literally. So after donating my professional stuff to various libraries, I embarked on my new life, accompanied only by the books of my youth: The Happy Hollisters and Georgette Heyer romances.

To my surprise, I've survived quite nicely since then. Last year, I even sold the Heyer novels on Ebay, no problem. I've found that I feel lighter, the Feng Shui is better in my house. Those of us who live in Florida learn quickly that between the heat and the bugs nothing survives in sheds and garages, so books tend to become dust magnets. Fortunately we don't have basements, and attics are vestigial architectural appendages.

So part of me loves the idea of the ereader. No more searching the house at all hours of the night for something to read, hiring a private detective to locate an obscure author's early novels. Think of the convenience. They're fun. And who wants to be a dinosaur?

I comfort myself with the thought that the disembodied tale floating in cyberspace shares in the paperless state of the storytelling of old. Not so bad. But stories were told around a fire in the company of other human beings. The ereader seems a bit sad, a lonely, sterile undertaking.

Cuba: The Hunger

We are all familiar with the hunger which is the semi permanent state of Cubans, not because of the tattered embargo but because of a political system both inept and corrupt. But recent events point to another kind of hunger altogether. The death from a hunger strike compounded by malicious neglect on the part of his jailers- he was reportedly denied water for eighteen days- of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and the grave condition of Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas after a month on hunger strike in tandem with the hunger strike of activist Franklin Peregrino del Toro, as well as the news that Dr. Darsi Ferrer* has been on hunger strike for the past week lead to a thought.

Yes, we can say Cubans are hungry: hungry for food, hungry for change, hungry for freedom. But these brave men point to a deeper kind of hunger- to be acknowledged in the land of their birth as human beings with all the attendant dignity thereof and not as serfs, slaves, chattel. Deprived by the Stalinist regime of any semblance of self-determination, muzzled, abused, and subject to imprisonment in subhuman conditions at the whim of the current military junta, the hunger strike becomes the ultimate assertion of self, the last resort. They have taken away everything else, but it was Orlando, it is Coco and Franklin and Darsi who chose to exercise the ultimate power over their bodies. How wrong a system is it, when the only possibility of freedom is to dance with death, even that only allowed because it suits the regime?

*Recently Dr Ferrer, who is jailed for allegedly buying black market paint, I believe, and has never been tried, received an award from the US State Department and has subsequently seen the conditions of his incarceration decline. He has declared his hunger strike in response to his maltreatment in prison.

Thought for the Evening: Irony

After a day of listening to Democrats attempting to portray those who disagree with the administration's policies as racists, I am reminded of candidate Obama who wanted his presidency to be a transcendant one. It occurs that his policies have so horrified huge segments of the populace that their fears for the future of the country have transcended any consideration of skin color.

Ay mi Cuba

Unfortunately I could'nt get to a march, yet fasted this weekend instead. Next time I'm planning a march in North Carolina.

I smell it in the air.

Change is in the air. I feel it now more than ever. I wish my parents could be here with me to see it. After this weekend I realized it is only a matter of time. The Castro brothers can't fight the forward movement of time. They cant beat the internet and cell phone technology of the day. They will be less and less able to hide their atrocities. Although I was surprised of little mainstream media coverage it gets better and better all the time as does non cuban participation. This my friends is the beginning of the end. Libertad! Cuba Libre!!

Healthcare Surprise

Try this one. Budget Buster, yup.

You Have to Wonder...

...why the Drudge Report has seen fit to give nary a mention to the recent events with the ladies in white or even the demonstration of thousands of people in Miami at the same time they are spotlighting the maximum tyrant's approval of the healthcare bill, the arrival of a faux slave ship in Havana and the state of readiness of Cuban tourist infrastructure? Surely an oversight.

Speaking of Music...

My late father loved his music, had an extensive collection of "long plais" or LP's as most call them. Although we had widely differing tastes in music, we did agree on the music of his youth, the Cuban big band sound. He made tapes of the albums for me. Alas, time marches on, and even my tapes are going obsolete, not to mention stretching out. So I was thrilled to find one of my favorite albums was now on CD. I recommend it. Here's a tune.

Still looking for Javier Solis en Nueva York, or his Prisionero del Mar. I know, I know, Solis was Mexican. He was, however, extremely popular in the Cuba of the time.

The Day the Music Died

I am overwhelmed by sadness, not because of this bill...bills will come and go...but by what it represents. Already they are bruiting about all the wonderful things, like no pre-existing conditions, coverage until age 26, yada, yada, yada. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, folks. The government will now force you to have healthcare. The IRS will effectively decide what plan is acceptable, ergo the government will control the industry. A layer of government bureaucrats will be between the doctor, the insurers, and you. Scads of middle class people will be protected against catastrophic expenses on the backs of senior citizens, the segment of the population which can least afford to lose benefits. And the way this was passed... in direct contravention to the will of the people, its passage touted with the cynicism of a Hugo Chavez, or even a Fidel Castro, boggles the mind.

I sense that tonight is a turning point. That someday we will look back and see as in a Greek tragedy that this was the moment the idea of America died, although to me it started dying the day they imposed punitive taxation on one group, smokers, to openly transfer it to the children of others. Next comes the cap and trade and/or immigration. There is obviously not enough money to fund all these things. There is not enough now. So what will be the answer, a monumental tax increase?

Worse yet, by the time he and his henchpersons are finished, he will have fundamentally transformed the country as promised. I have to wonder if this was the "change" the independents wanted when they listened to the tripe being published in the media and elected a quasi socialist. Stupid, stupid, stupid. May God help America.

Overheard on the Airwaves

"The Dems believe history will prove them right" in reference to the healthcare bill. To my jaundiced ear, this morsel from a newscaster sounded very similar to the apocryphal statement attributed to Cuba's maximum leader that "History will absolve me." In either case, when political figures (and tyrants) lack present justification, it seems axiomatic that regardless whatever the lavish application of cosmetic, a pig is a pig is a pig, now and in the future.

Gulf Drilling Revived

No, not the US, silly. Russia is the latest country to announce it will partner with Cuba to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuba watchers have seen a progression of countries and corporations do the same without tangible results. In any case although, as this editorial indicates, the drilling will be in acknowledged Cuban territory, one has to wonder whether the waters of the gulf will respect national claims in the case of a spill. Kinda leaves the administration high and dry (pun intended) on the ecological moral high ground.

American Troika

After hearing Pelosi's comments from on high, I use the term deliberately. Despite the overwhelming rejection of the American people, we are to have this monster medical overhaul, courtesy of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. All that verbiage about the "consent of the governed" and the "will of the people" is apparently irrelevant. I mean I'll spot them the "consent of the governed," construing it as the result of the elections, but what is the function of Nancy Pelosi and any other elected official but to carry out the will of the people? And the people do not want this.

Does anyone at this point know what's in the thing? We started out with two differing bills, numbering in the thousands of pages. We have yet to see what's in the Frankenstein monster they're cobbling together behind closed doors. No one actually knows what the results of the sweeping changes will be. Think unintended consequences. Most critical, however, is the reasoning behind the political machinations to ram this bill through.

It's apparent that the public in the main wants no part of it, so why pass the thing? Do they suppose that Americans will forget by election time; that the public is so stupid it has been duped by the Right and that it is up to the Democrats to chase us down and make us swallow our medicine; or is it that the majority is immoral to cavil at the expense of yet another entitlement when we can't fund those entitlements already law and thus must be forced into virtue?

There are those who frame the current fight over healthcare as a battle for our Constitutional principles. It is not a big leap to that conclusion when we see the expedients to which Pelosi et al will resort to impose their views on an unwilling public. If nothing else, the passage of Obamacare will be the triumph of the Democrat will. How does this differ from others who rule by fiat?

Get the broom out, folks. November can't get here soon enough.

Healthcare: A Logical Inquiry

In all the discussions of the health care bill, no one has raised a question that's been bothering me. It is my understanding that benefits will not begin until the fifth year of the plan, while funding will begin from year one. It would seem that the last six years of said plan will eat up ten years of funds. If it takes ten years to pay for six, what does that portend for the second decade of Obamacare?

Meanderings: What Might Have Been

It all started with a bit of basic arithmetic. In reference to the aforementioned job.... I work eight and a half hours a day. Add in commuting, making it nine. Get home about five, exhausted, then have to go to bed about ten, which leaves me five hours for relaxing, television watching, reading, housework, and more meaningful pursuits. The conclusion is obviously that I spend the majority of my day at work. Now I'm not crying for myself-at least not too much- as this is the reality of everybody who works for a living. Some people work many more hours and/or have a much longer commute. But the brain fart did lead to a revelation of sorts.

Periodically, voices from the past surface, some who were fellow students, work colleagues, and the like. Invariably, they are now at the pinnacle of their careers. See, unlike me, they kept the faith. It is at moments like this that I confront a truckload of regret. We set out on the same starting line, but like that hare of lore, I who had all the advantages dallied under the nearest tree. Now they are successful, and I am not. Working my tush off in a job well below my earning power, skills, and education, I find myself occasionally partaking in a sizable serving of humble pie. My New Age friends would say that life puts you where you need to be, confronts you with the lessons you need to learn. In that case, a bit of humility would not come amiss, I guess.

The funny thing is that these friends often express their own regrets. At times, amazingly, they seem to envy me. So as I was doing my mental calculations, a fierce thought rose in me: I resent every single hour I have to take away from my life to earn a living. I know the delicious sensation of waking without a single, scheduled obligation, declaring my own Law and Order marathon; the warmth and happiness occasioned by the play of sunlight coming through the window in the middle of the day; the sense of achievement when caulking a window or just mowing my own lawn, working as yet another few hours of diversion. Of course that renders you less independent but makes for a very pleasant life. Camus has Meursault say that nothing, nothing but the sheer act of living has any importance. Perhaps that is the notion that has guided me, for good or ill.

There are other reasons, beyond my control, that I never achieved what I could have, never gone for that brass ring. My mother would say, Dios le da barba al que no tiene quijada. So it goes, whatever we think is an Andersonian lie. And, oh, by the way, I love my humble job.

*Although this is a very personal- and one might say, self-pitying- rumination, I offer it as one perspective. I find that the women of my generation, the first to take advantage of the achievements of women's movement, is at this point in their lives very ambivalent about the choices they have made, myself included.

Payback is a Female Dog

As a resident of Sarasota, Florida who has the misfortune to be addicted to nicotine, I have endured much at the hands of the local schoolmarms who run our government. I can not smoke on the mile wide beach. I can not work for the county government: smokers need not apply. My state legislators are no better, balancing their budget on my back. And my bete noire of the moment is Congressman Vern Buchanan, who giving into personal prejudice, violated Republican ideals and voted for the Democrat cigarette tax increase forcing me to pay for the healthcare of others as well as my own. Mel Martinez only escaped my wrath by retiring.

In effect, I am paying taxes, but no one is representing my interests. Does taxation without representation sound familiar? Now just about March 16th, the local school board is looking for voters to renew an additional school tax we habitually impose on ourselves. I have always been a faithful supporter of the measure. Guess what I'm doing this year? It ain't voting "yes." If my local government considers me less than human, I won't sully their hands with my nicotine-stained dollars. Heck, if I could figure out a way to avoid paying taxes to them at all, I would.

I'm just not on a soapbox here. The School District has been spending like drunken sailors on school construction, building opulent child warehouses, when smaller schools are more effective. All of which makes it easier to just say "no."

Denial and Reality: An Epiphany of Sorts

The virtual hemorrhage of federal money, the unchecked government spending, scares me, as it scares many of my fellow citizens. The situation is unconscionable, as well as untenable. If nothing else, what right do we have to saddle our progeny with our debts...and for what? Acorn?

The willful blindness afflicting our elected representatives is truly astounding. Since most of them have never worked up a bad, let alone good, sweat in their working careers, I offer them a test. Let's call it the sofa test. You see, the numbers these politicians wield are abstractions to them, bandied about with little recognition of just what those numbers represent. I would ask, "How many sofas should a mover carry on his back to fund pig smell studies in Iowa?" Picture a septic tank cleaner: "How many septic tanks must he pump to fund the National Endowment of the Arts?"

Seen in this light, you have to rethink the role of the federal government. Many of the recipient programs are laudable. They are nice things, but they are not in the rightful purview of government. After much thought, it seems to me that the federal government, just as a private family in straitened circumstances, needs to concentrate on its core obligations- in this case: national security, some sort of social safety net so that no one dies on the streets of hunger, and others.

As things stand, it seems that Congress is in the grip of a mass hysteria, playing a bit of Handel as the HMS State slowly submerges. The woods are burning, boys.

Apology

When I began this blog, I was not working. Later I started working part time. With the current state of the economy, I am now working full time. My situation has resulted in very little time to post. I miss blogging and am working out some scheme to continue. Still unsure how I am going to accomplish it.

Prisoner of Conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo Dies

It is with great sadness that I note the passing of yet another noble and brave soul in the Castrian Gulag. Zapata Tamayo's demise, the result of a hunger strike undertaken in protest of inhuman conditions compounded by those same conditions, has unleashed a new wave of repression on the island.

Springtime for Hitler Sarasota Style

There is a perhaps apocryphal but oft told story in Sarasota that in the days when the town was being developed, one nabob, concerned, inquired where their gardeners would live if real estate prices kept rising. The answer supplied by one of his confreres was "Bradenton," a neighboring town. Our local version of the "let them eat cake" scenario came to mind when I found out about this. Yes, folks, the great political minds and philanthropic hearts of the Sarasota Yacht Club really are holding a "Regatta" to Havana. Of course, the regatta is one way. If memory serves...and it doesn't always these days... Cubans aren't even allowed to fish. In any event, the notion is so ludicrous, absurd, that it brought all sorts splendid parallels to mind, ergo the title here.

The conclusion here is that those in power at the Yacht Club are either completely clueless or completely impervious to the misery of their fellow man, or both; else they would not lend countenance to a murderous, repressive regime or celebrate the "golden age of clubs" with those who destroyed them. The thought that these people can go down there in their nifty boats with their nifty clothes and their nifty food in their slightly over-sized bellies amid the hunger, misery and squalor being inflicted on the Cuban people by their hosts is mind-boggling. The moral equivalent to organizing a cross-country ski trip to Stalin's Siberia, it is a stain on the name of Sarasota. They might have been better served if they had consulted the former members of the Havana Yacht Club. Incredible.

H/T Ziva