A Fowl Story

One of the rituals at holiday family gatherings invariably involves the “do you remember the time that…?” It was in this context that my father-in-law raised a European trip we took in the early 80’s. We met up in Rome and traveled to Yugoslavia. Even as we argued about the city: was it Split? Srebenica? Zadar? I knew where he was heading.

“Yes,” I replied. It was Split, I think. We arrived in the city, and there was literally no room at the inn. A visit to the local tourist bureau procured us lodgings in private homes. My father-in-law drew the 50’s vintage ranch house on the outskirts of the city. My husband, sister-in-law, and I found ourselves in front of the massive wooden door to a townhouse in the starigrad, or old city, read that medieval walled city. I swear that door swung, whisper silent, of its own accord. Standing there awaiting us, beckoning us in with a red manicured digit was a tall, spare, austere-looking, middle-aged woman who spoke English hesitantly and with an accent like that of a female Boris Karloff. Her jet black hair was drawn back in a bun; her thin lips, outlined in bright red. There was something terribly witchlike about her.

Despite our initial misgivings, she turned out to be a very nice, if unnerving, woman. We were renting a room in her apartment which consisted of the top floor of the building and a rooftop/garret/pigeon coop. At some point during our brief stay, she told me, “This was all ours once. It was one house. It belonged to my father. But they took it away and left me with this,” indicating the flat crammed with family heirlooms. This I understood. Suddenly, I had visions of that scene in Doctor Zhivago when Omar Sharif returns to find the rabble inhabiting the old homestead and his family barricaded in a few rooms.

“She got that back, now, you know.” My father-in-law interrupted. “They all got that back.” Apparently, the property that had been appropriated by the government was returned when Yugoslavia broke up and the resulting Republic opted for democracy. How wonderful, I thought. The balance of that woman’s universe had been restored. It made me sad, too, because I couldn’t foresee such an ending for Cuba. It’s not about property, as much as it’s about the acknowledgement that a wrong had been committed, a patrimony stolen. As Anita Snow revels in her opinion that Obama is free to collaborate with the Havana Dons, I wonder whether it's an acknowledgment we’ll ever get or whether we are expected to collude in the denial of our own reality.

Not Quite Sunday Not Quite Information

Storing it. A long, long time ago when I was in college, I was taught a few things like the answer to energy needs was nuclear fusion which was just around the corner in the next twenty years. That's what they're still saying. Ditto for batteries. The discussion of the limitations of same in this Newsweek article by Keith Naughton seem awfully familiar. Lots of "green" technologies depend on batteries- from alternative fuel cars to solar collection. Good news, they're working on it.

Selling it. For the first time ever, online shopping seems primed to drop this holiday season, according to this Wall Street Journal article. If online business follows the brick and mortar variety, I suspicion it may yet show a resurgence. Call me an optimist.

Stealing it. From Silicon.com comes "The Spam Report" in which Will Sturgeon answers the perennial question of what would happen if it you bit into one of those Nigerian-come-into-money scams. The story of his correspondence with Mr. Madu Frank is an amusing one. Not amusing are the poor unfortunates who fall for it. Read it here.

Losing it. The emasculation of our society may be more than figurative. Came across an article, which I lost, that the number of males is declining. Suspected are toxins in the environment. Seems the Canadians are going to run a documentary on "The Disappearing Male" this month. The rest of us will have to wait with bated breath for more info.

Leaving it. Burt Prelutsky waxes eloquent on the topic of public libraries, singling out Andrew Carnegie for endowing them. Given that the guy was not only a philanthropist but saved the economy on at least one occasion, he must've been a pretty nice guy for a robber baron. As to libraries, Prelutsky mentions his own experience as a boy; Colin Powell has shared his. There are numerous testimonials to their value. So why are they the first cut when budget shortfalls threaten?

Road Trip! Road Trip!

Haven't been posting much, getting ready for one of my favorite undertakings. Unfortunately, two things have been getting in the way. I'm tired. Blame it all on Ms. Calabaza, or maybe some of it, for posting an absolutely beautiful picture of a Pumpkin Flan. "A Pumpkin Flan?" I asked myself. Somewhere in the dim mists of time, I had a vague recollection that such a thing existed. What a great metaphor for the joining of my Cuban roots and my American life, I thought. But why stop there? Seized by an paroxysm of domesticity, I decided to make...Pecan Tassies. Yes, the sinful, ever tasty tassies. Mine are like little Pecan Pies, although I confess that they are the only good cookies I know how to make.

So I enlist Mama's aid in making four dozen dough cups for the filling, although I miscalculate and wind up with three dozen, a third of them rather fat. Still they pass the taste test. Not content to rest upon my laurels, I take on the Pumpkin Flan. By the way, the recipe is divine, kinda like a spice cake with a flan consistency. Of course, never having made a flan in my life, I had a syrup malfunction.

Next came the mad scramble for laundry, ironing, packing, and liberation. After 30 years of marriage, I forced the hubster to get his own clothes ready. That's right, that's right. The man had to decide what he was going to wear for the next few days and set it aside. In the interests of sartorial safety, I did the packing. My clothes are in there, too.

So as I set off for work to be followed by a marathon drive, I'll wish you all a happy holiday in case. If I'm lucky, there will be some tassies left and I'll remember to pull the flan out of the fridge. But only if I'm lucky.

In-friggin-credible Expanded and Expounded Twice

This abomination, ostensibly a statue of a mime pretending to be Che, is in New York's Central Park. Can you imagine a statue of Hitler, or Stalin, or even a Grand Wizard of the KKK in the same location? Of course not. Yet this statue to a racist, homophobic, mass murderer is gracing New York's signature park. Babalu has contact information here.

H/T Maggie at PatDollard.com

Updates: There will be more.

Thanks to Jack Kemp, not the politician, on The American Thinker for what is inscribed on the base of the idol:

The base of the Che statue has some interesting things written on 3 sides. One side has a website address www.elchevive.org ("the Che lives" in Spanish) which is no longer accessible via the internet. Another side says "viva la re-revolution," i.e., long live the re (or new) revolution, in Spanish. The third side says "Seamos Realistes Exijamos Lo impossible." This translates as "We are realistic. We demand the impossible."

As he points out, the two other statues in the exhibit bear no such legends.

Then Jose Reyes over at Cubanology has responded via an essay which includes a chilling video. Watch it and see if it sounds familiar. Thank you, Jose.

And at the American Thinker, Humberto Fontova points out that had it been up to their immortalized idol, Central Park would now be working on its half life, devoid of any of the human kind.

Sunday Hobby Horses and More

Roly Poly. From Coop's Corner, an article about Rupert Murdoch's take on the news biz. Basically, he says that the days of a handful of editors deciding what was news from their perch on high are gone. He is still optimistic about newspapers, though, as long as readers feel that it is news they can "trust." Personally, I think he overrates the intelligence of the public.

Red Light, Green Light. On Fox Business, Neil Cavuto raises the big problem with the bailouts, past and proposed: "we neither demanded banks lend, nor auto companies account." It's more business as usual, including the screwing of the taxpayer.

Old Maid. Living in an nanny state is no fun at all. Gregory Katz in a My Way article informs us Britain is contemplating doing away with happy hour. Too many stiff upper lips and diseased livers. Poor blighters can't smoke, eat, and now drink. Look in the mirror, oh, my brothers.

War. Well, the Brits got one thing right. According to a doctor who treated Herr Hitler for a WWI injury, der Furher was testicularly impaired, didn't have a matched set. Somehow that falls under TMI.

Go Fish. If you want to see a National Geographic video marking Cuba's selection by the World Wildlife Federation as an example of sustainable development click here. I kid you not. Anyway, the video is really pretty, as is the rosy picture they paint of a country where the overriding concern every morning is where to get your daily bread. I only wish such sustainable development on each and every one of these eco-idiots. Clueless.

Telephone. Amazingly, according to this, a movie with no sex, violence or stars had a massive opening. The movie in question is based of Lisa Meyers' bestselling Twilight, a pretty cool read better suited to adolescents. Based on the trailer, I don't have high hopes for the treatment. Besides, as I remember the book, there was violence galore. Night, night.

Meanderings: Spittin' Image

Whenever I'm feeling assailed as a Cuban American I think back to something that happened when I was 13 years old. My earlier years had been spent in working class South Brooklyn, where the very air breathed contempt for Hispanics. In that poor, working class neighborhood where men wore uniforms to work and swilled inordinate amounts of Schlitz, or Pabst, or even Seagram's Seven at home and let loose public diatribes on the failings of Spics, no one had ever uttered a mean word to me. Until I moved to suburban Staten Island, I had never met the monster discrimination face to face. It had never been directed at me personally.

Only in the more upscale Staten Island, the neighborhood boys began to stalk me, chanting "Mira, Mira" in unison as I walked by, following me down the street. They made my young life miserable. Once and only once, they even chanted it at the family car, which led to my father's taking an abrupt detour and their thinking better of it in the future. It was in this environment that I received my acceptance from Notre Dame High School. Perched on a tree covered hill with a long history of teaching intelligent young women, it was a refuge.

Every Wednesday, the entire school would stop, change clothes in the hallways and go on all sorts of outings, from Broadway to bicycling. One Wednesday early in my freshman year, I was on my way home from the bowling alley. A few stops down, the local hoodlums got on my bus. There were at least six or seven of them. I can remember cringing, attempting to meld into my seat, imploring all the saints that they not spot me. Almost immediately, it began. They began chanting, making a spectacle. All this time, I said not a word. Not a single adult, not the bus driver, no one stopped them. Finally, one of them spit on me.

I cannot convey the shame, the mortification of that public humiliation on a young teenage girl. Meek and mild-mannered, I had never ever done anything to them. I remember running down the block from the bus stop to my house hysterical. For once, I let loose, sobbing the story to my mother. That evening, when my father came home, he had barely put down his briefcase when he grabbed me by the arm, and we set off to the homes of the malefactors. At the first household, the father was most gracious and horrified by his son's behavior. And so it went. But when we got to the home of the spitter, we were greeted at the door by a rather mild-mannered, harried-looking man. From the hallway came the drunken tones of a woman. She came to the door in her jet black bouffant, demanding of my father what I had done to her misshapen son to cause him to spit upon me. Dad sized up the situation and said, "This time, I have come to see you. The next time, you will have to look for me because if your son ever goes near my daughter again, I am going to beat the shit out of him."

This was my father, the man who was afraid of the world out there even as he climbed up the rungs of its ladder; my father who had never stood up for me, instead leaving me to solve my own problems or at the very least endure. But when it really counted, he was there. And he would have kept his word, I'm sure. So were they. The wouldbe toughs never even looked in
my direction again. In time, they became the nothings they were.

And I? I learned two things that night. My mild-mannered, sometime explosive father, would protect me. I also learned that the only way to stop abuse is to stand up to it. Funny how these things stay with you.

"Tis the Season...

...for soupy heartwarming holiday shows. Here's a heads up. Both Monk and Psych will have their holiday episodes on Friday, November 28. I love the Christmas season. I try to follow the one movie a day for the 25 days of Christmas, myself.

To The Left of Civility: Corrected and Expanded

By now I'm used to Bush bashing, but I would think that having scored the trifecta, the left would give it a break. Alas, they can not be gracious, even in victory. I was stricken today when I saw the cover of the December Harper's magazine. The cover blared some new installment in the seeming endless parade, accompanied by a vile caricature of the President, made most rodentlike, peering through prison bars.

The article, written by their legal expert, envisions the prosecution of the President for a whole host of real and imagined human rights infractions. Whatever the legalities, the de facto effect of such an undertaking would be to send a chill through those entrusted with safeguarding the homeland from terrorists. It is exactly because the administration, despite its many failings, has managed to stave off further attacks that people like the author have the luxury of contemplating keel hauling its officials. If we extend the same zeal for legal proceedings that seems to typify our society, we can expect the same inhibition and paralysis. Remember the "Chinese wall"?

Beyond the immediate article is the editorial staff. Why did they feel the need, not only to publish this, but to make it their cover article? What it is about the President that evokes such a response from so many of the intelligentsia is fertile ground for research. Judging by the vitriol and the virulence, there is something pathological at work here. They cannot let it go, because they are angry people, and Bush is a convenient and politically correct scapegoat.

If nothing else, for the past eight years those in the chattering classes have demonstrated their immaturity, their willfulness, and their lack of respect for their profession, their readers, and their country. They have made shreds of their credibility, disrespected at least half of the population which does not agree with their politics, given away State secrets, and provided propaganda for terrorists. All in the name of what? A vendetta?

Instead of expanding horizons, provoking debate by providing differing view points, they choose to preach to the converted. I guess they only want card-carrying liberals to buy their magazine.

The article is subscription only, but the website has some relevant information here.

Congrats to the Emerging Cuban American Demographic

The purportedly 35% of Cuban Americans who voted for Mr. Obama should pat themselves on the back. Their choice has not only appointed Greg Craig, lawyer for Fidelite cause in the Elian case, as a Special Counsel; but word is that he has asked Eric Holder, implicated in the forcible seizure of Elian by armed agents as well as the infamous Marc Rich pardon, to be Attorney General. I'd hazard to say that Mr. Obama does not give a flying fig for the sensibilities of Cuban Americans.

To these I say "That's why we vote Republican."

The Horns of a Dilemma

The bailout du jour discussion centers on the automakers- not an easy call. Does the government let these companies founder and possibly go bankrupt with all of the ramifications doing so entails? It is sad, but these are perhaps the largest remnants of our industrial base, since we let the Japanese sink our electronics and the Chinese siphon off our textiles. The loss of American carmakers, in addition to the widespread devastation in unemployment and ancillary businesses, is a potential national security concern.

Still, it is very difficult to help an industry that will not help itself. The automakers earned a reprieve with the advent of the increased popularity of SUV's and trucks. They should have realized, even at the height of the craze, that the trend could not last. The handwriting was on the wall, yet they seem to have been caught unprepared.

Then there is the Union question. Can you explain to me what other industry pays an average wage of $72 dollars an hour? Include what they call the "legacy" costs. The nifty pensions. The health benefits for pensioners. Did you know that these last constitute $1500 dollars of the price of every GM car? Did you know that you can't quite lay off a worker? You have to pay him not to work. So how does the Union respond? Over the weekend, they made clear there'll be no concessions coming from them.

Of course, they are expecting to get paid back for their political support. Unfortunately that means asking, say, retail workers who make about a tenth of the salary, retirees who have to make do with Medicare, people the state of whose 401K's have put retirement off indefinitely to subsidize with their taxes what is an untenable system in the present reality.

After the debacle of the mortgage bailout, which became a bank bailout, which is morphing into an auto bailout with cities and states like New York, San Francisco, California next in line with hands and hats extended in order to fund services that many other solvent places can not offer, it is not surprising that there is little confidence in oversight and little enthusiasm to bail out a seemingly endless queue of supplicants.

It's a good thing President Elect Obama is the "One." He's going to need some Solomonic wisdom to split this baby.

*Hood Ornament in picture is available at ElPasoRugs.com. A truly excellent book about Detroit and SUV's is High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV by Keith Bradsher.

Struck a Chord

From the Nichols' column (see below):

...Election Day 2008 was not only an historic event from the perspective of race relations in America, but also a shocking affirmation that a new generation of power-hungry socialists have surfaced from within that Trojan Horse called the The Democratic Party. These neo-socialists have already begun the process of turning this country into a nation of hand-out seekers, Wall Street whiners and corporate derrière smoochers seeking bail from the very people who contributed to their economic imprisonment

Only on Sunday Mournings

Damn the torpedos. In the political corner this week is this column from Nick Nichols on Townhall which portrays the election as the triumph of the neo socialists who "emerged from the Trojan Horse" of the Democratic party. Coming in for a lambasting are socially conscious CEO's who according to the author inadvertently fed the monster. I do agree with him on one point. Crazy as it sounds, I really do sense an intelligent design, and it's not God's. On a lighter political note, Calvin posts this marvelous Italianate Opera sure to delight conservatives and mavens alike. You gotta read the rise and travails of Barraco. Have a chuckle. We're going to need it.

No more mashed potatoes. You can read our future in this Ben Quinn article in the Christian Science Monitor. In a new roll on Big Brother, Manchester residents and those in other towns will be carrying chips that track their exercise. Coupons and even days off will be awarded to the virtuous, all in the name of reducing obesity. It is part Britain's response to a soon-to-be obesity "epidemic."

Enough to make Jesus weep. Picture Israeli policemen intervening in a brawl between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks and you've got the outlines of what happened at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It's not the first time either. Read the article which includes some of the past pettinesses. Amazing.

Too late to seek a newer world. It's official, NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars has died. The story of its life is, however, fascinating. Done in by a dust storm and winter, the lander exceeded its anticipated life span by years, if I remember correctly from a documentary I recently watched. Article here.

Come back, Shane. John Barry in an essay at Newswe[a]k pleads for the return of Ian Fleming's Bond. As a Fleming fan who long ago gave up looking for traces of his agent in the movies, I feel his pain. A few years ago I started rereading the novels, only to find them dated, racist, and sexist, yet still magical. I suspect that the new Bond mirrors our times, when refinement is frowned upon and affectation is the province of the young attempting to imitate gangsta rappers.

Mind-Boggling

What were people thinking? I've already seen that people were mad about the economy, so they elected someone most likely to trash it. The best, however, is this little tidbit I ran across. This poor family from Bangladesh exercised their first vote to vote for Obama, because he will "restore the American Dream." I guess that depends on what you construe the American Dream to be. But since they are here and the son is studying, one would have to assume that said dream is alive and well. The other day, I heard a pundit on the radio ask why anyone would who comes to the United States would want to turn it into the country they felt forced to leave.

What's striking about the article is how Obama is all things to all people. Shortly after the family is a woman talking about Obama and social programs. What exactly an Obama presidency will entail remains to be seen. What is easily discernible is the thought processes of the electorate. Mayhap, I shouldn't be so harsh. After all, my first vote went to McGovern.

More Sherwood Anderson

There is a haunting lyrical quality to Anderson when at his best. Try some of these from Winesburg, Ohio. If I remember rightly, he wrote most of it in a single burst of creative zeal. Perhaps that accounts for it. They are many more I could have chosen, yet they are more easily understood in context. I think, though, there is enough here to give a taste.

from "Paper Pills"-
The story of Doctor Reefy and his courtship of the tall dark girl who became his wife and left her money to him is a very curious story. It is delicious, like the twisted little apples that grow in the orchards of Winesburg. In the fall one walks in the orchards and the ground is hard with frost underfoot. The apples have been taken from the trees by the pickers. They have been put in barrels and shipped to the cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with books, magazines, furniture, and people. On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.

from "Tandy"-
The stranger became silent and seemed overcome with sadness, but another blast from the whistle of the passenger engine aroused him. "I have not lost faith. I proclaim that. I have only been brought to the place where I know my faith will not be realized," he declared hoarsely. He looked hard at the child and began to address her, paying no more attention to the father. "There is a woman coming," he said, and his voice was now sharp and earnest. "I have missed her, you see. She did not come in my time. You may be the woman. It would be like fate to let me stand in her presence once, on such an evening as this, when I have destroyed myself with drink and she is as yet only a child."

from "Departure"-
The young man's mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams. One looking at him would not have thought him particularly sharp. With the recollection of little things occupying his mind he closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.

Literary Interlude: from "Sophistication"

I've been ruminating about growing older lately, and the Sherwood Anderson story popped into my mind. It's about growing up, and I'm growing old.

There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is tom open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun. He shivers and looks eagerly about. The eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he prefers that the other be a woman, that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.

Yes, there is a difference. More about that later. The short story in its entirety is available here.

"Boogeymen" and Bias

They don't have too much of an agenda at ABC News. In their article about the GMA interview with superannuated radical William Ayers, they repeatedly use the term "boogeyman." I would have written "bogeyman," that is if my intent was to convey that the gentleman in question, no threat to anyone, was used to scare people. The impression is heightened by the assertion in the article that the "distinguished" professor was used as a "political piñata" by McCain and Palin during the campaign. See, there's nothing threatening here, the article implies. It was only those nasty, fear-mongering Republicans.

Unfortunately, the unrepentant Ayers is actually more of a danger now than he ever was playing with his chemistry set. Firmly ensconced in academia, training the teachers of tomorrow, his influence is more pervasive and insidious. Worse, people like Ayers are hypocrites. Living the good life, calling the police to protect him from O'Reilly's people, and preaching revolution. Just who is playing with a piñata? Read it and barf. How many times do I find myself writing "words matter."

Meanderings: Feeling Bookish

It was a documentary that started it off. Yesterday, attempting some culinary concoction involving heavy cream and sherry, I caught the word Krakatoa coming from the television in the other room. Immediately, the thought of a book I've been meaning to read came to mind- Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27 1883. The last volcanic eruption-themed book I read was in installments in the The National Enquirer way back when.

The Enquirer of my youth was a black and white publication, more given to headlines like the one I spotted on the way down the steps to the candy store next to Sam's on Court Street, the name of which eludes me. It was on the back cover which someone had left exposed: "Woman Bites Off Son's Tongue." Apparently, Momma was enraged when Junior informed his father of her infidelity and took out her displeasure by biting off a huge chunk of the offending organ. How that haunted me! That single action- because in my youthful niaivete I believed it- threw into doubt my hitherto unwavering belief in the goodness of mothers. Could my loving but tempermental mother turn on me one day and strike out in the same fashion? Perhaps I was primed to worry by the couple who were my sometime babysitters. They seemed to joy in remarking that my "tongue was long," another way of denoting that I had a habit of saying unfortunate things, usually followed by the threat of having the same reduced to ground beef. I always found these interactions distasteful. Thankfully, my parents were not given to such lingual observations.

So the Enquirer of yesteryear was more of a Ripley's of print. At one point, they ran a serialization of a book on the eruption of Mt. Pelée on the island of Martinque in 1902. It was really fascinating. Ever since, I've been hooked on natural disasters. For a while there, we had a good run. Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm was followed by Eric Larson's Isaac's Storm about the Galveston hurricane and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air which detailed the deadly storm on Mt. Everest. Later there was Hemingway's Hurricane by Phil Scott based on the deadly storm which hit the Florida Keys in 1935.

Since then, it's been slim pickings, although I do have to point out Candice Millard's River of Doubt which follows the journey of an expedition, including ex President Theodore Roosevelt, to map the unknown reaches of an Amazon river.

At that point in my mental meanderings, the sauce thickened, so I missed the documentary. They will inevitably rerun it. It's cable, after all.

Updates:
Some titles newly on or soon to hit the shelves-
Coming in December is Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta. No info as to plot at this juncture.
On November 25, we have the 20th Dirk Pitt adventure from Clive Cussler, along with someone suspiciously named Dirk Cussler, Arctic Drift. His son, I believe.
The Camel Club returns in Divine Justice by David Baldacci which hit the shelves recently.
Dean Koontz rounds out the offerings on November 25 with Your Heart Belongs to Me. The plot reminds me of another novel, just can't remember. They made a movie of it with Clint Eastwood.
Forgot, Michael Connelly's Brass Verdict which is just out. Amazingly the 14th in the Harry Bosch series. I once used the 2 minutes I got to speak to Connelly to ask him how to pronounce Harry's first name. Unfortunately, the fog of voices and Merlot left me no more knowledgeable. I know he answered; I just can't remember what. Go figure. Boy, do I miss the reading festival.

Rime of the Ancient Comandante

The Associated Press picked up the latest picture of Fidel Castro. The picture originally appeared on a Russian Orthodox website, and Babalu posted it days ago. Even the AP, sometime cheerleading section for the malevolent despot, had to acknowledge how "frail" he looked.

Something about the picture evokes Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and its tale of retribution, most notably this:


Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold :
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.....

....Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea !
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm,

The many men, so beautiful !
And they all dead did lie :
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on ; and so did I.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away ;I
looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray ;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat ;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

Why not reread the whole thing? It kinda grows on you.

Dying by degrees is a terrible thing and, levity aside, not something to be relished. But in the end, inhumanity is all too human.

A Wind of "Change" and a Noxious Air

According to this article, the Obama transition team is exploring using their donor list as a mailing list of sorts to marshal support for his policies. Take a look at this example:

"Just imagine what happens when a congressman comes back to his district and 500 people are lined up for his town hall meeting because they got an e-mail from Obama urging them to attend," said Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital which designed Obama's campaign Web site and change.gov.

It's a brave new world indeed. Of course, there is something about this that is causing just the veriest frisson of fear along the back of my neck. It is interesting to note that by law the donor list must be kept separate from the White House. Call me crazy, but there must be a reason for that. So is there a fine line between the workings of democracy and the rule of the mob? Obama's shock troops? Shades of red shirts, here.

H/T Ziva

Bin Laden Purportedly Planning Attack?

Mom mentioned it. She was freaked out that they would try something at the inauguration. Despite being McCain supporters, we are Americans first. Anyway, all I could find was this report which surfaced in Australia. It's noticeably absent on on the main media websites, perhaps because of credibility, so take it with a huge grain of salt. Despite being a friend of a friend type account, in the past when they start making noises, they've struck. Particularly scary is the claim that it will exceed 9/11. Reminds me of some sports thing, like "the best defense is a good offense." God watch over us all. And if you see something suspicious, it doesn't hurt to let someone know. At worst, they'll think you're politically incorrect or demented or both. Meantime, don't give the suckers the satisfaction.

Cuba, Da: Embargo, Nyet!

In an interesting bit of international pantomime during the visit to Moscow by the "Cuban Foreign Minister" Felipe Perez Roque, both parties for reasons of their own made all sorts of conciliatory noises. The headlines emerging include Cuba "inviting" Russia to drill for oil here, Russia extending a $20 million dollar credit to Cuba here, and the best- both announcing that "President" Raul Castro will be visiting Moscow next year here. Of course, there are the usual demands that the US obey the rest of the world and lift the embargo. Something I find a tad presumptuous at best. There is if nothing else the question of uncompensated seizures of American property. Guess it's easy to give away other people's money. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days. Then the Russians know all about the lack of remuneration, as the Cuban misrulers owe the old Soviet Union about $26 billion in unpaid debts.

Sure it's all meant to scare the US into submission. The Cuban regime wants money, money, money- There must be more money!- as it rattles its tin cup menacingly, saying, "See, if you aren't nice to us, we'll cozy up to the Russians." In the end, what they want is credit, as they've burned just about every other country in the world community. Okay, maybe they also want access to American markets and American tourists. It all adds up to filthy lucre, little of which is going to seep down to the population. The Russians want to sell arms to Latin America, I hear. They already have the cover of being miffed with some reason over the placement of missiles in Eastern Europe, which by the way we have handled in a ham-handed fashion.

It seems a bit of political theater, because Russia cannot afford to carry the economic black hole that is the island. Similarly, the Cuban regime has learned that it cannot depend the Russians to carry their economy. Although not averse to a suckle or two at the Russian teat, they are in search of a benefactor, waiting for the "One." Frankly, there are enough bailouts going around. It is past time to deal with the Russians in a respectful, if critical, manner. They are giving us a taste of our own medicine. As to the Lords of Misrule in the Caribbean...that's fodder for another time.

Quoted on Sunday

"Hold and Die." These were the orders given to the 600 or so South Vietnamese soldiers whom Captain John W Ripley was "advising" on April 2, 1972 in Vietnam. Facing a juggernaut of 20,ooo regular Northern troops during the "Easter Offensive," Ripley single-handedly placed the charges and blew the Dong Ha Bridge. The story surfaced this week in conjunction with the passing of the now Col. Ripley. Read both here and here for the inspiring story of a true American hero.

"None at All." The response of a worried wife when asked if she had hope of her husband's survival of the latest Russian naval catastrophe. An accident involving the inadvertent release of freon in the fire suppression system of a nuclear sub claimed at least twenty lives. Unclear is why personal breathing apparatus was not used. This latest joins a growing list of Russian nuclear submarine disasters that have claimed the lives of many: K-19, Kursk, as well as others. Article here.

"It was Bizarre." So said a lifelong Boothbay Harbor, Maine resident of the 12 foot waves that materialized in the harbor. The cause is unknown. In the Boston Globe article, Megan Woolhouse discusses the phenomenon which has been documented in other locations including Daytona Beach, Florida.

"I've never met an axolotl..." for the end of the witticism by Ogden Nash, read this Fox News report about the endangered axolotl, or "Mexican Walking Fish," a monstrous looking salamander inhabiting the region of Xochimilco in Mexico. The victim of urban sprawl, farm run-off, and non native species incursions, the axolotl faces extinction.

"There is a slightly creepy cult of personality about all this." according to Evan Thomas of Newsweek. Now he says it. Don't bother. Check out the Rose exchange, posted on the Rush Limbaugh site here. While we're on the topic of the election, check out this most excellent article in Forbes. Claudia Rossett exhorts us that it is "time to restore liberty." Pretty nifty.

On Cutting Off Your Nose...

I was going to include this one earlier, but it just got too unwieldy.

I've spent the few days after the election walking around in shock, mentally demanding of the dimwits around me "What have you done!" Surprisingly, it isn't about my candidate losing, or even my fears of Obama's leanings. The way I figure it, the people have spoken, and too many of us are watching. It's the economy, stupid.

I confess I had not thought the economic ramifications would be so dramatic. For days after the election, the market kept tanking. One corporation after another announced lay-offs and closings. Coincidental, you say, perhaps. It is possible, however, that it was a no confidence vote, a signal of what is to come from the corporations who see a whole ream of taxes and other charges ahead and investors who see a lot more risk for a lot less reward.

In any case, those suffering most in this situation: California and New York. Apparently, these liberal bastions, epicenters of hope and change, depend on those evil, selfish corporations and investors. New York City in particular has been hard hit. As an expat, I feel their pain. In addition to losing the 400 dollar rebate from the inordinate property taxes they pay on their astronomically priced homes and possibly gaining a 15 percent tax increase, New Yorkers may now be paying tolls on bridges that have been free for decades, proceeds to go to subsidize mass transit which costs near 2 dollars a ride. To give you an idea how punishing the costs are.... Tolls presently on inner bridges range from 5 to 10 (round trip) dollars a crossing. In the late nineties, a 40 thousand a year income with two dependents necessitated paying roughly a 25 percent of that amount in federal, state, and local taxes. Those are just the basics. For some California info visit the Bookworm Room.

It's a timely reminder, although a day too late and a dollar short, that there is a symbiosis of sorts between the very places that lean so liberally and the villains of the piece. It is expensive to run these enlightened places with a myriad of services. Scrooge aside, sometimes it's not a good idea to sit down to a repast of cooked goose.

As for me, I fervently hope that the Obama show on Friday helped calm the markets and that acceptance of the inevitable is well on the way. There is something to be said for the law of unintended consequences.

Special Saturday Election Perimortem Edition

We ain't finished dying yet!

Closing the Barn Door. Here's a Cal Thomas column which highlights the Washington Post Ombudswoman's acknowledgement that the paper favored Obama in their coverage and neglected to vet him properly. Additional tidbits include the role of journalistic arrogance and the repercussions of same for the industry.

Cherchez L'Argent. For a time I couldn't figure out why the Press dominoes were falling in line for Obama, almost like a conspiracy. I put aside stray thoughts like "one world government," the mark of the beast (campaign signs), and the lottery 666 in Chicago day after the election. I even turned my back on the sneaking suspicion that this is was somehow orchestrated by a fifth column of Alinskyite leftists. But even well-known journalistic leanings could not account for the blatant stupidity of trashing their already threadbare credibility. It was then that I started to suspect other forces at work in the media, namely the zeal to preside over the historicity of the election of the first black president. Then I came across this juicy morsel. Follow the money, as they say.

Auld Lang Syne. Some of the best analysis this season has come from outside the country, particularly Canada. Conrad Black provides a pre election recap from this perspective here. While we're on the subject of election analysis, try this interesting read by Shelby Steele in the LA Times which posits that race did play a factor.

Red Dawn Morn. Here's an interesting development. The Obama win has set off a gun buying frenzy. According to Reuters, potential gun buyers have been spurred by the thought of gun control. Personally, I think some far sighted people are just getting ready in case the revolution comes. Maybe, they don't intend to go quietly into that good night. Don't think so, read the current Obama website where service is going to be mandated. Collectivism?

*Pending future developments, I do reserve the right to pick up any of these conspiracy theories .

La Paloma Approaches

As I write this, Hurricane Paloma approaches landfall, which is expected in the wee hours of Sunday morning, in Cuba. The third hurricane in 60 days, it seems that this storm will also target the family homestead, which heavily damaged in the last one was still standing. The question is whether the money we sent was already used to repair the structure, in which case the storm could again damage it; or whether the money has not made it there and can be used to repair the home apres storm. However, maybe the structure won't make it through this one without fortification. These are the considerations that plague those of us with relatives held hostage in the Castrian gulag.

If we needed further proof as to what pieces of excrement run the government, in this article the cagalistroso Castro again reiterates that the island will accept no humanitarian aid from the US unless the embargo is lifted. You can bet he will have a roof over his head when it is all over... although he might want to be cautious, as it is well known that doves do have an affinity for his person.

Michael Crichton RIP

It seems that every month or so, I find myself lamenting the passing of one or other of my favorite authors. This month is no different. On Tuesday, the death of Michael Crichton was overshadowed by the electoral goings on. Today, I'd like to take a moment to mark his passing and acknowledge his contributions, which were many ranging from The Andromeda Strain to the screenplay for The Great Train Robbery to the television series ER. When Crichton was "on," there was no one who could match his intelligent, well-plotted and suspenseful novels. What set his work apart was the real world basis on his stories. I found myself learning about the topic du jour- from dinosaurs to nanobots- while being entertained. Can't ask much more than that.

As a teacher, I found that many of my charges had never discovered the "fun" of reading. Either they had never been exposed to it or their natural appreciation had been deadened by the stuff we feed middle schoolers. I made it my mission to have them read approachable, interesting books over the summer. The choice of Jurassic Park was easy. It was a hit with them before it became a movie. As a matter of fact, I got a few years out of the title before they put it up on the big screen. That's how engrossing his novels were.

I extend my condolences to his family for their loss. And I rue the loss of an interesting, enlightening, and entertaining voice in fiction. He will be missed.

In Which I Uphold the Honor of the New Media: Updated

We received a very nice and informative comment from the author of the original poster of the teacher story. It was followed by a clarification of sorts. The writer could not refrain from the anonymous editorial comment. I started to reply, when I decided it was something that needed to be said publicly. Here's the comment:

Diatha Harris is not a teacher in Asheville, NC. She has not been for 4 years. And the film's producer misspelled her first name. That's what I love about bloggers and the “new media.” They are so damn accurate.Thanks a bunch KGS.

My Reply:

Since you did not leave your name, I have no way of knowing the source of your info. Fine, I'm not sure, however, what the implication is here. The documentary was obviously not completed four years ago, as in the nominees were not named. I can only surmise that you meant to communicate that she did not work for the Asheville schools at the time in question. Fair enough. That she worked somewhere is a pretty good bet, unless we are to believe the whole thing was a stage set, something belied by Diatha's CYA job in the interview.

As to your dig at the accuracy of the new media and bloggers. It is in some measure earned. However, such errors merely reflect the laxity that has crept into our culture, exacerbated by the necessity to earn a living, since those who get paid mighty well to inform the public abnegated that responsibility during this whole election season. It is the "new" assortment of media with all of its warts- including the guy blogging in undershorts in the basement- that presented information the American Public should have known. Are there excesses, inaccuracies? You betcha! You'll find them in both old and new these days.

It would, of course, have been better if the name and the venue had been properly documented. What you miss in quibbling about which school system and what spelling is the gist of the documentary excerpt and the post, namely that a teacher was using her position of power in the classroom to point her charges in the direction of her own political leanings. You may take exception to the messenger, but the message is accurate.

Update: The whole brouhaha has hit the media. You can follow it on Drudge, Fox, the Bookworm room. We were there first.

The Oracle of Delaware

Our Vice President Elect created quite a stir when he prophesied that Obama would be tested soon after his presidency. For the first and only time in his political life, he was prescient. Six months? The Russians didn't wait six minutes! Read here and here. The Iranians were not far behind. Read here and here.

Is He or Isn't He?

I was going to be gracious. I really was. Last night I heard the President-elect say:

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

Foolish me, I thought he might actually mean it. Nah. Then I find out that among those being considered for national security advisor, etc. is Greg Craig. Cuban Americans of the intransigent kind will know the name, as Mr. Craig putatively represented Juan Miguel, the father of Elian Gonzalez. I write "putatively" because we don't need a "weatherman" to tell us who he was really representing.

So despite my best intentions, as well as my desire to support my African American brethren who are walking on air at the moment, I have to wonder. If President-elect Obama who has already demonstrated the post partisan style of his leadership by tapping uberpartisan Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff truly meant what he said, he will keep Craig around but under wraps. Stuff him in a closet if he has to. Otherwise, Cuban Americans are going to recognize it for what it is. See picture above.

Good Night, America

I feel duty bound to note the impending loss. Tomorrow is another day. Do you think those militias take Cubans?

Teacher Trash Talk?

Came across this link at Fausta's blog. It supposedly shows Asheville NC teacher Diantha Harris proselytizing for Obama and browbeating a student for supporting McCain. The incident is part of a Swedish documentary, so I can't vouch for it. There is one video portion embedded which shows the "teacher" coyly maintaining the right to different points of view, even as she tells a poor little girl that her father could be in the military for one hundred years. Watch it and see what you think. We can look on the bright side. At least she didn't ask the children to close their eyes and ask, f, oh, Obama for candy.

Must Read for Today

David Limbaugh tells it like it is. He feels my pain. Try:

The prospect of a Barack Obama presidency makes me very nervous.

Obama's entire campaign has been based on the need for radical, transformational change, which implies there is something very wrong with America.

It's hardly surprising, then, that he has painted the bleakest picture of America instead of acknowledging, as a starting point, that we are still the greatest nation in the world.

and

With all respect, almost everything about Obama's campaign is fraudulent. He masquerades as a uniter while dividing, polarizing and alienating us. He denies he's liberal, when objective sources score him as the most liberal senator. He says he barely knows militants and radicals with whom he has spent his lifetime cavorting and whose worldviews -- horrifyingly -- he shares. He brazenly disguises welfare redistributions as tax cuts. He and his surrogates keep changing his tax plan.

With his ideas about spreading the wealth, entrepreneurial selfishness, the ongoing "original sin" in our Constitution, the inherent evil of corporations, nationalized health care, and the civil rights movement not doing enough to bring about "economic justice" -- a euphemism for "Marxism" used by radicals, such as Bill Ayers, who still hate America -- are you not concerned at just how far Obama might go if he's got a nearly veto-proof Democratic majority at his back?

Food for thought. Read the whole thing here.

Election Eve Reflections

I voted yesterday. It took two trips and two hours, but we did it. I had my elderly and infirm mother who had refused an absentee ballot, because voting had never been a test of physical endurance before, along. When we pulled up to the polling place on Saturday, the wait was 45 minutes. We tried the line for a while but then decided to try on Sunday. On Sunday we, along with hundreds of others, opened up the polling place. This time, however, we were prepared. With the expedient of a folding seat cane, she weathered the crowd, the heat, and the multi hour wait. After it was all over, she pulled me aside and said, "You know why I did this? Because it was so close. Otherwise I wouldn't have waited." I don't think I could have been prouder of her.

The hubster, of course, was another story. Decades ago, as nearly newlyweds, we took a grand tour of Europe. We started out in London, then took a train to Folkstone where we boarded a ferry to Calais. Obviously, this was before the Chunnel. All was fine, except that there was nowhere to stow our bags under lock and key, necessitating that we, as New Yorkers, keep our eyes on the luggage. Using one excuse or another, the hub managed to find a pretext to leave. Thus, I spent the whole trip chained to one spot. Little did I know at the time, but I have been minding the luggage ever since. So yesterday, true to form, he kept ducking off the line to have a cigarette, leaving me immured in that wall of humanity. I forgave him, because he is pathologically sensitive to crowds, but only just.

So as I was inching along, husband flown, mother semi-conscious, I had ample opportunity to entertain myself by watching the masses. First, I played "the who are they voting for" game. Some were obvious New College hippie types. As my daughter once described it, "Mom, they don't wear shoes there!" Obvious Obama voters. But after that, it was hard to tell. Except that as the wait dragged on, by dint of eavesdropping on their whispered conversation, I gleaned that the two separate voters in front of me were in the McCain camp. There was a sense of urgency to their desire to vote, as if like the candidate they did not believe all was lost. One confided to the other that many of her Democrat friend were voting for McCain. That is anecdotal. Other than that I could not tell.

No one discussed politics. No one jostled in line. Other people's children were indulged; other people's elderly, cosseted. It's as if we all understood that although we might differ mightily on politics, we respected the right of each and every one of us to our own perspective. We were united as Americans in an orderly, venerable tradition of expressing our wishes via the ballot box. America, great country! So if Obama wins tomorrow, I will give him a fair shot. We always seem to get the leader we need. And as my brave mother says, "No hay mal, que por bien no venga." There is no evil that does not result in good, indeed!

Children's Reading Day in Sarasota: A Public Service Announcement

This comment was left on a post about the Sarasota Reading Festival. The Friends of the Selby Library and The Children's Garden has put together a reading fest for children!

To all those Sarasota folks, our Children's Garden is taking charge of a Children's Reading Day! Free admission, illustrators, authors, vendors, etc. Nov. 23 10a-5p. www.childrensreadingday.org

You, go!

Don't Say We Weren't Warned

Melek makes a reasoned and empassioned plea in Cubanology, asking the most basic of questions: "What has happened to our standards for Commander in Chief?" Not long ago, Dick Morris made the point that because of his associations, Obama were he not the elected official would not pass an FBI investigation to serve in the White House. But all of that is prelude.

On Tuesday, the American people may well elect a candidate because they desire a change in the policies of the past 8 years and instead get a president who has sworn to "fundamentally change" the United States. How many know that with a Democrat supermajority in congress, they are offerring a "carte blanche" to a transformation of government as we know it? When the inevitable rude awakening comes, they can not pretend they were not warned. Obama, although cloaked in the language of moderation and wearing the breastplate of media collusion, has provided enough clues to his vision of America.

Obama's America is not a nation where even the poor are considerably better off than they are almost anywhere else on Earth, where it is possible by dint of ability, hard work, and a little help to go from Chicago's South Side to its Hyde Park. It is a nation replete with misery and suffering. A nation crying out for economic redistribution, where wealth is going to "trickle up."

It gets worse. The Constitution is a "flawed" document. This I can partially understand, as this same qualified a slave as three fifths of a man. But the framers of this document were prescient enough to produce what has served as the backbone of a free and prosperous people for centuries. (How many Republics did it take France?) Messr. Obama complains that the founding fathers concentrated on negative liberties. Well, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but as a Cuban American, it seems to me that there is something to be said for limiting the powers of government, any government, be it ever so well intentioned.

But even if we grant him the point, on what ground does he presume to attempt an end run around a document that most Americans consider sacrosanct? Is it only his own vision that he relies on? And what informs that vision? Here is where the these influences and associations become particularly troublesome. With the lack of any real record, it is difficult to say what exactly inhabits his dreams. Therein lies the crux of the problem.

So what can be gleaned from the subtext of all that he has said? He wants to "spread the wealth" and "fundamentally change" the country and the world. He would meet as equals with the most despised of totalitarian rulers, and Jesse Jackson assures us disregard the "Zionists." Regime officials in Cuba are already bruiting it about that the embargo will be lifted. Doubtless, in each instance, it will all seem terribly reasonable. Despite the rationale behind the prohibition of using the armed forces in the country, he proposes a civilian armed force within its borders. He pins energy policy on what are at the moment pipe dreams, technology that will take decades to mature and would destroy whole industries, seemingly without a qualm; seeks to raise taxes in the midst of a major economic downturn, characterizing as "selfish" those who would like to keep more than thirty percent of what they earn (factor in payroll, state, and local taxes); and looks down upon those who "cling" to their guns and their God; a man who punishes the few intrepid souls in the media who have the audacity to ask difficult questions or endorse the other candidate and mocks the dreams of a humble plumber for the same.

Make no mistake about it: this is a fight over the soul of America. I cannot help but think that a vote for Obama is a vote to change those values of independence, self-reliance, and self-determination that made this country and its people great. Now unlike my more liberal brethren, I believe that you are entitled to your own opinions. I further believe that two people may differ for valid reasons. I also acknowledge that I may be wrong. A President Obama may go down in the annals of history as another Lincoln. I hope I am. I do know, however, that in Greek tragedy, the Gods always punish hubris. I pray that we may not wind up as the chorus, witness and victim to the downfall of greatness.

Sunday Seasons Pass

Cross Currents. Should the seemingly unthinkable occur and the Grand Obamameister go down flaming in defeat, there will be many to ascribe it to the "Bradley Effect." However, as Wynton Hall reminds us here, there is such a thing as the "Spiral of Silence." Basically, people just want to be cool, making the secret Union ballot all the more important.

***

Escaping Gas. Read this in a variety of places, but this article lays it out clearly. Scientists are somewhat baffled by the seemingly spontaneous generation of methane. Upshot, while there is no denying that man's activities must have an impact, there are natural processes at work here. Speaking of which, snow in October?

H/T George

***

Melting Ice. Iceland, that is. In the midst of our own financial chaos and election year hubbub, the story of Iceland's near collapse has gone little noticed. I was curious, however. This entry from The Weekly Standard delves into how one government's response nearly brought down a country and became a self-perpetuating rationale for a government takeover. Food for thought.

***

Trembling Earth. From Fox News, we have the possible discovery of King Solomon's mines, the real ones. Forget Stewart Granger and Patrick Swayze. The mines, located in Jordan, were also a source of copper, not gold and diamonds. Another wonderful myth bites the dust.

***

Falling Temperatures. Six months after being launched, the Hard Rock Park, a rock-roll themed amusement venue is for sale. They ain't bringin' in the bucks. Management blames the economy, I like to think nobody but the boomers think them all that "groovy," and the boomers at their advanced age risk whiplash riding the "Life in the Fast Lane" roller coaster. Story here.

Thought for the Day: A Query

How many of those voting for Obama realize that they are voting to "fundamentally transform" America?

I'll let Hugh Hewitt comment:

When Obama declared last night that it was five days until he "fundamentally transformed" America, he let slip just as candid a moment as when he told Joe about his plans to "spread the wealth," and as when Joe Biden told us to "Mark my words."

Meanderings: Spare My Feelings, Please

I'm standing on line for coffee at me local bookstore, when I hear the velvet tones of the "One" issuing from a cell phone behind me. It wasn't difficult to figure out the story, as OB had been in town the previous day. Apparently, Mom and/or Deb had been at the rally with the trusty cell phone and were now in the midst of reviewing their cinematography. They were so thrilled that it did not occur to them that someone, me, standing within earshot might not feel the same way. I turned and took in the duo, both tall, blond and somewhat horsey. From Mom's striped tailored shirt to her pressed khakis to her modish loafers, her appearance spoke money. A**, I thought to my self, you're the one that's gonna pay not me. Enjoy it. I couldn't decide if it was real money, in which case she could afford to donate to her favorite politician in the form of increased taxes. I suspected it was wannabe. Wonder how she's gonna feel in a few years.

Henry over at Babalu has been quoted as saying that he has been interested in politics since he was five. Some have mocked him. I understand. In Cuban American households, politics is the mother's milk of discussion. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my father's lap with the Daily News in front of us. I just focused on the pictures, as I did the evening my uncle was forcefully kidnapped from Anguilla Cay, causing an international incident.

The point is that as a voracious reader and watcher of news, I find myself at loose ends. To describe the loathsome transformation that has overtaken the media as bias is the mother of all understatements. There is no limit to the scurrilous, the mean, the petty when it comes to this election. I've been giving Newsweek and Time a wide berth for some time now. Just reading the table of contents is repulsive. I don't read the tabloids. And I made the mistake of picking up Harper's the other day, figuring I would read the nonpolitical stories. I never made it past the editor's letter in which the most civil description of John McCain was that he was "senile."

I have been reduced to watching Fox and only Fox News these days. Their evening line up has been incredible recently. On the web, I float between Babalu and Drudge with the occasional visit to Townhall or NRO. Although reassured that there are still those who have not become pod people, I am saddened. This is not what I want.

I don't read or watch to have my opinions reinforced; I read and watch to learn about people, events, places to which I have no access. I learn to form my own judgements. And I am old enough to remember a time when I was a loyal subscriber of Newsweek, when I could even read the New York Times, the paper with a record at this point. Although to be perfectly frank, I only read the Sunday edition. The layout has always sucked. They no longer write for me. By becoming shills for the Obama campaign, they have lost a reader. Maybe, they don't care. Maybe they only want Democrat readers. Have the business brains given a thought to the effect on diminishing circulation? As it is, some of them already look like circulars.

I have been so turned off by the flouting of journalistic ethics, the patronizing ethos that I am so stupid that I must be instructed by those who never broke a sweat in their lives on whom to vote for president. It is beyond repulsive. I don't know who will win this election. However, it is the press that has lost; and in losing the press, the country has lost. How the mass of citizenry is to make educated decisions is beyond me.

Today's Quote

Goes to the Governator:

"John McCain served longer in a POW camp than his opponent has in the United States Senate"

In the Cuba News: All Embargo All the Time

As we all know the yearly ritual of the UN vote against the embargo ended in the same result. This year, though, Perez Roque was particularly impassioned as he waxed eloquent, pointing out that the embargo is older than Obama. Also older than Obama is the oppression of the Cuban people by the Cuban Capos not mentioned by the same Perez Roque nor condemned by the UN. But that's nothing new.

Today's headlines, however, present an interesting proposition. Not content with the UN results, the "Latin American Leaders" at the IberoAmerican Summit in San Salvador on Friday also urged the repeal of the embargo because it hurts the Cuban people. Frankly, their concern for the wellbeing of the Cuban people has been less inspiring than conspiring.

On the very same page is a story about the Cuban regime owing Sherritt $393 million. Prospect of repayment looks shaky, although the debt will be "restructured." Sure is a lot of that restructuring going around. Sherritt is a familiar name here. As the story indicates in something of an understatement, Sherritt International is one of the "pioneers of foreign investment" in the country. Recently, they were in the headlines when they pulled out of a deal to develop Cuba's purportedly boundless offshore oil deposits.

Connect the dots. As at least one presidential candidate knows, it sure is easy to give away other people's money.

Thought for the Day: A Query

LAPD Commissioner Bratton has endorsed Obama. When I worked for the government, we were not allowed to publicly support any candidate, even to the extent of bumper stickers, although the liberals invariably flouted that one. I used to joke about our lack of rights. So how come he gets to endorse Obama? I am presuming that the people who pay his salary include Republicans among their number.

The Barackomercial

I confess I watched the beginning. The hubster- with the fascination of the train wreck- insisted. I on the other hand make it a policy not to place myself in the sway of the Chicago Svengali, preferring to read his pronouncements, lest I get infected. Anyhow, I made it through the beginning in the heartland deco study and the first two stories before an impending fit of apoplexy made me race to the computer and the solace of the Babalu radio show.

Now, I don't want to seem heartless, but I am always suspicious of these hard luck cases. To wit, I'm thinking to myself that the first family whose distress was touted was maybe in no position to buy a suburban home. "But they have four children," the hubster remonstrates. "Yeah, and...," I reply. He was speaking to someone whose bed was the sofa of a three room rental apartment until we could actually afford the house in the suburbs. "And what about the vehicle?" I ask. Something tells me that's a 30 something thousand Ford SUV or mini van. I mean no disrespect, but life is full of hard choices.

Then there were the poor old folks who had their home paid off and were struggling to pay her medical bills. Now with an elderly and infirm geriatric relative in the family, this is something I know much of. I know how prescription drug costs can kill an entire lifetime's worth of work. I also know other things. For instance, joining a Medicare HMO or PPO basically renders most medicine free or cheap and cushions the donut hole. By the way, please remember that the Democrats voted against the Medicare prescription bill because it wasn't Good Enough! In the meantime, senior citizens watched their resources dwindle or had to decide between food or medicine. Back to the infomercial, even if these nice folk live in an area where one is not available, they can contact the drug companies who have very good programs for the economically challenged patient. Remember those commercials? Well, they're true. And if all you have is your home, there is always Medicaid. I hope that other than make hay of their distress, the Obama camp put these nice people in touch with resources. There is much that needs reform, but programs to help these people exist.

By that point, I took off, so I didn't see the others. I had expected to see people starving because they didn't have the resources, people trapped in areas with failing schools. What I saw were people who had other choices to improve their lives, whether they knew about them or not.

Over Hill and Tale

The ending of this article which posits San Juan Hill as emblematic of US-Cuba relations could have been written by the regime. Oh, wait, it probably was, at least indirectly. I'll dispense with the usual explanations, except to say that the comparison is oversimiplified and not quite accurate. Still, there is truth there, particularly the notion that the perspective of American History is different than that of even preCastro Cuba.

Like many of my generation, the Cuban history I know is a mix of American textbooks, familial retelling, and research. That's why the earliest chapters of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause by Tom Gjelten which focus on the family and its ties to Santiago proves valuable. Mr. Gjelten attempts to convey the Cuban view of the American intervention and its results within the context of telling the story of los Bacardi. Doubtless a delight for students of history and Bacardiphiles, I've been unable to finish it in the one week time frame decreed by my local public library, even with fines. Still from what I've managed to read in the interim, it strikes me as an important book.

Translation: I can't vouch for his treatment of the brothers Castro. I leave you with this excerpt from the author's website:

Over many tellings, the Cuba story has hardened around a few stale themes—Havana in its debauched heyday or Fidel Castro and his dour revolution—and it has lost much of its vitality and wholeness. This book originated in my search for a new narrative, with new Cuban characters and a plot that does justice to this island that produced the conga line and “Guantanamera” as well as Che Guevara’s five-year-plans. I have tried to give a nuanced view of the nation’s experience over the last century and a half. Cuban history was not preordained. There were choices made and paths not taken, and the men and women who were excluded and then exiled deserve to have their contributions recognized, if only to understand why so many became so angry. The Bacardi saga serves all these purposes.


The New York Times reviewed it here.

Tony Hillerman: RIP

For me, the best writers are not necessarily those who make profound statements about the nature of life. I've lived long enough to forgo any instruction on the topic. The most enjoyable writers are those who create a microcosm, their own small world in addition to vibrant characters.


Tony Hillerman was just such an author. It was Hillerman who introduced me to the Four Corners region in the Southwest. What little I know of Navajo customs, crafts, and politics, I learned from his mysteries. Over the years, I have followed the career of his Joe Leaphorn through his wife's illness and death, through retirement, and any number of solved cases; as I have followed Jim Chee, a young man wrestling with his identity, torn between his heritage and the modern world.

Invariably Hillerman's books were well-plotted; his characters rich; and his setting, alive. If you like mysteries and haven't read one, treat yourself one Friday afternoon. As for me, I have lost some friends. Rest in Peace.

Thought for the Day

Brent Crude hit $59.00 a barrel today. Does that mean global oil consumption has fallen to less than half? So much for speculators not being a major driver of meteoric oil prices.

Today's Absolutely Must Read

If you have not listened to the audio of the quote below, you really must do it. Just click on the headline at Drudge. It's not just one quote. I have repeatedly maintained that there is a difference between reform and reformation, and I don't think Americans are signing on for juryrigging the Constitution. In this column, Bill Whittle zeroes in on what is so terribly wrong in this election in three "circles of shame," each with at least one quotable quote:

On Obama's philosophy as explained in the audio-
We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

On the discovery of the audio by a citizen-
I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now.

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation.

On the repercussions of the audio-
This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.

What will be left of my friend, and my friend’s family, I wonder, when the press is finished with them?

Quote of the Day: This is What They are about to Elect

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Barack Obama in a 2001 radio call-in interview. Boldface mine.
Borrowed from post on MichelleMalkin.com

Sunday Through the Ages

Over the Hill. On Foxnews, we learn that middle-aged white women are driving up the suicide rate. Cause is as yet unknown. I have an idea that it may have to do with our appearance-driven, youth-venerating society compounding hormonal changes. But, heck, what do I know? Article here.

At the Top. On a brighter note, Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker builds an examination of late bloomers around the story of writer Ben Fountain. A "late bloomer," his recognition came at age 48 after 18 years of trying. With repeated references to Cezanne as well as Fountain, Gladwell makes the point that late bloomers rely heavily for funds and support on those around them. So that's it. He says a lot more, so read it if you're in a New Yorker mood.

Out of the Past. A biologist at the Grand Canyon has lost his life to plague, apparently the same one that wiped out a goodly portion of the European population in the Middle Ages. The means of transmission is thought to be from rodent to mountain lion to biologist, who seems to have contracted the disease while autopsying the cat. Just in case you thought the plague was eradicated. Read all about it here.

By the Numbers. In honor of our financial meltdown, I offer, courtesy of Fox Business News, what not do with the "10 Dumbest Ways to Go into Debt." And finally, to finish off on a high note, I present the RealClearSports' "10 Most Infamous World Series Moments." Go, Rays, go! (They are still playing, aren't they?)