Newcomers vs Locals

Still thinking about how newcomers change a local environment, I was reminded of my small town in New Hampshire. Temple, NH was a picture post card town. There was pretty much nothing there that didn't fit into a classic description of quaint, scenic, peaceful. The town had about 650 people. That was about the same number that was recorded on the sign on the Women and Children Cemetery during the Revolutionary war.

Even so, one of the great discussions at the annual town meeting was how to deal with the population growth. But, they clearly didn't mean population growth, they meant newcomers. I was one. Even after I held elected offices in Temple I was a newcomer. Even after I made the town famous with my story in Readers Digest, I was one.

I got a tax bill after I bought a house and I was shocked by it. The house was a little cabin on a little quarry in the middle of 32 acres of woods. The house was mostly a log cabin, but the not log cabin part was sided with bark. It was built around two pine trees, one of which was still alive. The house, in fact, was alive. Quite a lot of chewing going on in the wood by night.

So, I got this tax bill which kind of shocked me. It took me about two weeks to find the town clerk. She really didn't like to be bothered. I showed her the bill and kind of filled my face with a big question mark. She looked me over a while and then ripped it up. I asked her what the deal was and she allowed as how she would change the bill. I had been billed at the rate of rich summer folks and now that I lived there, it wouldn't be a problem any more.

As long as I lived there, however, it was called Frances Day's house. (the rich summer folk). But the new comer problem showed up in different ways. Some crusty old farmer who owned a property with a fine hill had rigged up a rope tow so the local kids could ski after school, right there, right in town. Some newcomers got all alarmed about safety and demanded that he improve different things. Then they thought he should carry some big liability insurance. Then he dismantled the thing and a fifty year old tradition ended.

We had cows out to pasture on the town commons. This had probably been going on since the 1,600s. This one feisty cow got loose every once in a while. The old timers just shooed her back. No big deal. The newcomers (myself most certainly excluded) called up the farmer all freaked out. A cow for God's sake! One Christmas morning when we lived in the old parsonage in the middle of town, we were relaxing by the fire before packing up to drive to Connecticut and we hear a gun shot right near the house. This is not a common thing in that town. The kids bundled up and went out in the two feet of snow to find the cow shot dead in the commons.

The poor thing had escaped once more and tried to eat some greenery on some newcomers yard and, well, we couldn't have that.

Mostly we got along very well. Our town paid for plowing every one's driveway. At least the first five hours of every town meeting were occupied by a discussion of this. You see, in the old days the roads went right in front of the houses and the barns were right next to the houses. This was because it was fucking freezing in the winter and because the purpose of a road was to get farm stuff to market. So, the meeting always started with someone saying that all the newcomers built their houses as far from each other as they could and why should the tax payers pay for such idiocy. I hid my face. My driveway was a mile and a half long, full of curves and hills and too narrow. A big pain for the tax burden. After about five hours and this being the first thing on the agenda, someone would get up and say,"We have always done this plowing and we are still going to do it so why don't we all shut up." And that, miraculously was the end of that.

I am experiencing a heavier push pull between the locals and the demands of the expats here. It should still be cheap and it should still have flavor, but it should also have all the conveniences of home. My friend Karen wrote her observations of the current scene here:

"I spent the last three weeks with my friend in Granada, a low key Spanish colonial style town, forty five minutes from the capital of Nicaragua, Managua. It lies a stone’s throw away from the mighty Lake Cocibolca, or Lake Nicaragua as it is called in English. It’s favored by Managuans and tourists alike for its cooling breezes. On weekends folks from the capital arrive in great numbers to sit by the lake and enjoy the local restaurants, many offering diverse cuisine that caters to visitors. These restaurants are mostly run by foreigners. 

Granada has increasingly become a haunt for expats from northern climates, notably Canada, for its warm and at times very hot, tropical weather and the still inexpensive cost of living. Many of these transplants have arrived via Costa Rica, which they feel has become too expensive, overrun by Americans and therefore not as Central American in character as they would like. Some get involved in bettering the lives of local children through after school tutoring, teaching circus and hammock making skills or providing free medical care in outlying villages and underserved areas of towns and cities. They learn Spanish and have Nicaraguan friends. Others stay rather separate and have a fundamentally untrusting attitude to the Nicaraguans, though they are quick to employ them for maid and garden services. Yet others I met come short term from southern U.S. states to “tell the people about Jesus” as one little Texan girl explained to me when I met her in one of the hotels that caters to large groups from abroad. Other Texan men –some ex CIA – sit around for morning coffee and complain about all the damage Obama has done to the homeland.

The local people I met, many of whom were known to my friend from her long term visits to Granada in the past, were warm and friendly and appreciated that I spoke Spanish. My friend has experienced much kindness from them in the past when she was at times in need of help. All advised us to watch our purses, take taxis at night and to lock up our houses well.  This we certainly did, but no more than in other countries I’ve visited in central and South America. When all is said and done, we do have so much more materially than do the local people, so how can we complain that some want to rob us?

The vegetation in the many beautiful interior courtyards of Granada and outside of town is very reminiscent of the plants I’m familiar with from Hawaii: banana trees, coconut and travelers palms, heliconias, wild ginger, bougainvillias and bromeliads; many of them magnified outdoor versions of familiar green houseplants. The architecture of grand establishments near the center of town is not revealed until you step inside the imposing tall wooden doors that face the street. Inside you enter extremely high ceilinged, tile floored, cloister-like walkways, open to a central courtyard that is filled with exuberant tropical greenery planted around a fountain or pool. The roofs are covered with red Mediterranean tiles; the ceilings are made of varnished cane stalks and supported by slender wooden columns. The kitchens and many of the living spaces are not closed off from the open patio, so the warm breezes waft in and out, assisted by many ceiling fans that keep the air circulating. The front door is usually covered by a wrought iron grill which allows the doors to be opened for still more air currents to enter. In our traditional building, only the bedrooms were walled off, their doors and windows opening into the interior.

A memorable sound in Granada is the clip clop of horses trotting along the straight and narrow streets. Near the central park, which lies in the shadow of a large mustard yellow cathedral and surrounded by arcaded hotels, lean and hardy little animals pull gaily decorated carriages which carry tourists around town. In addition, simple, two-wheeled horse-drawn carts transport everything from feed to furniture. Gas is much more expensive than in the U.S. so carts, bicycles, mopeds, public buses and collective taxis are the preferred means of transportation. Friends who rented a small car were thrilled by how empty the roads are, except of course when a herd of sleek and dreamy Brahmin cattle are being led on their way to or from pasture. They can certainly slow you down but what’s the rush!

Looming above the lake and south of Granada is Mombacho volcano, its head mostly in the clouds. One day we drove up its steep flanks in a noisy but efficient truck filled with rows of hard benches. Halfway up we stopped at a coffee plantation where we were treated to quite tasty shade grown coffee, grown mostly for export. Near the edge of the crater we walked in a thick mist on slippery wet paths around the vegetation filled crater. Just below the cloud cap we put our hands into steamy, warm fumaroles and enjoyed a great view north that took in Lake Managua and a cluster of islands just below us to the East. These Isletas supposedly were formed by an old eruption of Mombacho – a now greenery covered reminder of what the mountain is capable of when awakened. To the west of Granada, a crater lake called Laguna de Apoyo, was also visible. The following day we visited American friends who are renting a charming house low on the shady slope of that lagoon, close to the shore. After a lunch overlooking the crater, we spent enjoyable time swimming in the warm and mineral rich waters.

Early in my stay we took a boat ride out to the small Isletas near Granada. Many of them are owned by gringos and wealthy Nicaraguans with names associated with rum, sugar plantations and Nica politics.  There’s usually space for no more than one residence, a boathouse and servants quarters, though we did see one island that housed a restaurant. Some were for sale, so if you’re looking to buy an island . . . . .  All visitors are shown the famous Mono Island where a congress of monkeys swings among the trees and one or two cautiously approached our small boat for a banana or two. There are no fruit trees on the tiny island so the animals are fed by the local community. I learned they were rescued from somewhere and brought to what has now become their sanctuary. Luckily they looked well fed and healthy. Close to the monkey island, our pilot pointed out a large kingfisher on a rock who when given a small piece of bread used it as bait to attract the many small fish that immediately rushed to the surface. We also saw fish hawks, herons, egrets and cormorants drying their feathers, wings extended. Altogether, a very peaceful and pleasant outing.

My longest trip beyond Granada took me overnight to a much larger island called Ometepe, nahuatl for “two mountains”, and situated a 45 minute drive south of Granada. Two large volcanoes, one active, the other dormant, formed the dumbbell shaped island centuries ago.  Archaeological finds there date as far back as 3000 B.C.  From the mainland port of San Jorge we had to take a colorful and rather alarmingly full ferry to reach Moyogalpa on the western side of the island. It was the fully loaded 18 wheeler on the car deck that made us wonder before deciding to proceed. The ferry agents assured us that the waves that were crashing onshore when we arrived were nothing compared to days on which ferry crossings are suspended, so we proceeded with our travel, setting aside any doubts we might have harbored. Although the choppy water lengthened the usually hour and a quarter crossing to two hours, we all travelled without incident or motion sickness to the other side. There we stayed in a tranquil inland eco retreat for $11 a night with splendid views of cloud shrouded Concepcion volcano and of the still animated lake a short distance away.
 Before retiring for the night we visited the much mentioned Ojo de Agua, a large pool constructed of lava rocks through which flowed pale blue water from within the Madera volcano. (That’s the dormant one.) When we paid our admission fee we were assured with a smile that bathing in these mineral rich waters would take 10 years off our age and sooth any aches and pains we had brought with us. Indeed, we did feel both refreshed and healed by the soft, clean water.
 Livestock and plantains seemed to be the main products of the island. The islanders live simply in dwellings constructed of thatch and wooden slats, a hammock swinging from the roof and a pig tethered by a rope out front.  Others were of an upgraded but less picturesque type made of concrete, which at night were lit by one central light bulb. Apparently electricity for the first light bulb is provided by the power company for free. Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America and this is quite visible in the countryside. No doubt also in the outskirts of Managua and Granada, though we did not visit those areas, since they are not safe unless you are there at the invitation of one of the many organizations involved in those communities. There are many of these from overseas, from Scandinavia to Saudi Arabia, working to improve conditions for the population.
Daniel Ortega, the former Sandinista leader, is still in power. Locals refer to him as simply Daniel. Many I spoke to feel he hasn’t done enough to improve the lot of most Nicaraguans and are skeptical about how he is serving the country. This includes how they feel about his plans for a trans Nicaragua canal which would potentially provide much employment as well as an additional means for ships to cross the continent now that the Panama canal does not suffice. It is to be financed by a Chinese investor who has a reputation for never finishing projects that he starts.
Considering the very difficult history that the Nicaraguans have lived through in recent years and the slow recovery from this, people in Granada at least seemed cheerful enough on the surface and want to move on beyond the bad memories of war. It seems some Granada citizens have benefited from the growing influx of tourists. I hope that influx will continue to be of help rather than only of benefit to some foreigners in the end. If I lived there longer, I’d certainly want to be involved in an activity that would in some way compensate for the warm hospitality extended by the friendly Nicaraguans. I’d also like to get to know them and their country better sometime in the future."

How other countries must envy our enlightened country.

I want to mention once again a brilliant talk I attended given by a rabbi. I can't remember his name. His discourse was on one of the traditional questions in Judaism. "Which is the most important commandment?" His argument was that it was "Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." is the most powerful.

His point was that to do evil and call it God's work or Christ's will is the greatest sin of all. We can all think of historical examples of this. We can also see many current examples. Is this the inevitable result of fundamentalism? Is fundamentalism a result of fear of losing control?

The following from The Daily Kos

 here's a fascinating -- and by fascinating, I mean appalling -- case that the ACLU is filing on behalf of a local family, against a Louisiana school district and several officials/teachers. The family suffered a tremendous litany of unconstitutional behaviors directed against them, but they are perhaps best represented by the words of plaintiff Scott Lane, husband of plaintiff Sharon Lane, father of plaintiffs S.L and M.L, and stepfather of plaintiff C.C. He gives examples of some of the issues his Buddhist stepson encountered, and the disregard for constitutional separation of church and state is simply staggering:

   On a science test, their teacher had included a fill-in-the-blank question: "ISN'T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" When my stepson didn't know the answer ("Lord"), she belittled him in front of the entire class. When he wrote in "Lord Buddha" on another exam, she marked it wrong. As she was returning that exam to students, one student proclaimed aloud that "people are stupid if they think God is not real." In response, my stepson's teacher agreed, telling the class, "Yes! That is right! I had a student miss that on his test." The entire class broke out in laughter at my stepson.
    The same teacher also told our children that the Bible is "100 percent true," that the Earth was created by God 6,000 years ago, and that evolution is "impossible" and a "stupid theory made up by stupid people who don't want to believe in God." She's also told the class that Buddhism is "stupid." (emphasis added)

While this particular teacher, Rita Roark, was especially problematic, Lane gives a number of other examples of the general atmosphere of the school, including that of defendant and school superintendent Sara Ebarb:

       When we went to the school to meet with the principal, we saw a large picture of Jesus over the school's main doors, a Bible verse on the school's electronic marquee, and numerous religious posters and pictures on the walls. Religious images and messages are displayed throughout the school, in fact.
        We learned from our children that official prayers, typically led by the principal or teachers, are routinely incorporated into class and school events like assemblies, and sporting events. The school even requires students to attend "See You at the Pole" each year, where they must take part in prayer and worship.
        We discovered that school officials were distributing religious literature to students. For example, one of our other son's teachers passed out copies of a book from the "Truth For Youth" program, a revivalist ministry. The book included the entire New Testament of the Bible as well as cartoons that denounce evolution and trumpet the evils of birth control, premarital sex, rock music, alcohol, pornography, homosexuality, sorcery, and witchcraft. (emphasis added)

Supporting evidence is provided. But the embrace of religiosity and disregard for constitutional protections goes much higher than teachers and event coordinators. When the Lanes took their complaints to the school superintendent, she told them

   that “[t]his is the Bible Belt” and that they would simply have to accept that teachers would proselytize students. She also asked whether C.C. had to be raised as a Buddhist and whether he could “change” his faith, and she suggested that C.C. transfer to another district school – more than 25 miles away where, in her words, “there are more Asians.” The day after meeting with the Lanes, the Superintendent sent a letter to Negreet Principal Gene Wright stating that she approved of Negreet’s official religious practices. Wright read the letter to the entire Negreet student body over the school’s public address system. (emphasis added)

The superintendent's complete lack of comprehension of religious freedom is made more clear in the complaint, which details how she told the Lanes

   that “[t]eachers have religious freedom.” She further stated that “if they were in a different country,” Plaintiffs would see “that country’s religion everywhere,” and that, therefore, they “shouldn’t be offended” to “see God here.” Purporting to illustrate her point further, she noted that, because she did not find it offensive that “the lady who cuts [her] toenails has a statue of Buddha,” Plaintiffs should not be bothered by Roark’s in-class proselytization.

In her mind, "freedom" is not a freedom to hold a belief, but a freedom to force others to hold that belief. The illogicality of such a position is made apparent when one considers what happens when you have people who hold different beliefs exercising this "freedom". Furthermore, Erbarb's response to the family -- that C.C. should go elsewhere, because he was in the Bible belt -- illustrates that her view of religious freedom is entirely one sided. It is not freedom, and it extends only to Christians. It is worth noting that, while C.C. did transfer, he is still subject to much of the same religious harassment. Even if that were not the case, it should go without saying that no child, and no family, should have to go half an hour out of their way each morning simply to avoid being harassed and intimidated -- much less by authority figures -- for praying to Lord Buddha (or not praying at all) rather than Lord Jesus.
And while C.C.'s troubles are not over, neither are those of his siblings (one of whom is a Christian):

   Plaintiffs S.L. and M.L. are minor children and brothers to C.C. They are both enrolled at Negreet High School, where they are subject to the customs, policies, and practices of Defendants Sabine Parish School Board, Superintendent Ebarb, and Principal Wright. Although M.L. attends church, he believes that faith is a personal matter. He believes that he should be able to decide, with the guidance of his parents and religious leaders, which beliefs he will follow and when, as well as how to express those beliefs, without pressure from his teachers and school officials. S.L. is a non-believer who does not subscribe to the religious beliefs promoted by schools officials.

It's simply mind boggling that adults would think that doing this to children was in any way appropriate, much less legal. Originally posted at Rachel's Hobbit Hole

Originally posted to Rachels Hobbit Hole (on Daily Kos) on Sun Jan 26, 2014 at 10:40 AM PST.

Question! What does it mean to be an anthroposophist?

I have taught in a Waldorf school. I have studied Rudolf Steiner a bit at Emerson College, Sussex, England and some at the Waldorf Institute. But, I was asking myself what it would mean to call myself an anthroposophist. I call myself a Buddhist. For me that means I make my attempts to live with as much loving kindness as I can muster and I am so happy to hear words attributed to the Buddha. It is a path.

I was born a Catholic and have had some cool mystical experiences stimulated, I think, by my childhood teachings. I once called myself a Democrat but am no longer wishing to be that. I can not in good conscience be part of any war party.

The only card I have ever carried was as a member of Veterans for Peace. I am not a Vet, but they let me join. I really like what they stand for.

But would being an anthroposophist mean being a follower of Rudolf Steiner or a student of his words or would it mean being a spiritual scientist? Would that translate as "inspired by the example of RS?" or does one simple believe what he wrote? Is it a path or a religion or a club?

This is a real question. I am interested in your thoughts.

Found it!

Wow! I am certain that this story has happened so very many times throughout history, but it is still a bit of a shock to be watching it unfold. So, finally Nicaragua is a known tourist and expat destination. This is no wonder because at the moment it is one of the relatively safe places with relatively great weather and is relatively inexpensive. And Granada and San Juan del Sur are the hot spots. And they are developing very fast. New hotels and restaurants are opening all the time. This is a very good year for tourism here.

The big conversation around town is about how expensive it is getting. This is most certainly relative. But what does anyone expect? People bring in the tourist dollars, expect everything they can get in a developed country and create a dual economy and then think they are getting ripped off when they have to pay for it.

It seems to be accepted wisdom that tourism is good for a poor country, but I wonder. Do most of the tourist dollars end up going back to the countries of origin? Higher prices for gringos translate into higher prices for locals when Nicaraguans can’t afford to buy houses in Granada anymore. This must be how these gringolandias happen. San Miguel de Allende, Antigua, Guatemala, locals are priced out. Of course this happens everywhere. Think Nantucket, MA. Think of pretty much any beach town anywhere.

Here it is so just happening right at this very moment, one can’t help but remark on it. Soon the Nica folks will be a cute show for the tourists instead of a living culture. Oh, I am not really afraid of this happening but I probably should be. When you hear gringos remark “Oh, it was so nice at the concert, a lot of Nicas were there.” it sets my teeth on edge. Ten years ago at the same concert, it was only Nicaraguans.

I am not complaining about the expense because I know I can go to any other town in the country and get everything for ¼ of the price. I also know that this place is beautiful and fun and I like it here. I like to have internet, I like to have good drinking water, I like the people of Nicaragua. I’m only complaining about the complaining. I think I need a consultation with the good Lamas in Thailand again. I never did get the email addresses of any Thai Lamas.

Speaking of Thai Lamas, I was talking to an expat who is a developer here. I told her I had been in Thailand. She said, and I quote, “I am so over Thailand, the tourists have ruined it” She said this with no sense of irony. Life is great. And I am rid of my amoebas.

Frustration

I wrote what I thought was a fine blog tonite. I wrote it on Word because I can't get internet in my room at the lovely Hotel Limon in Granada, Nica. I don't know how to copy the document to the blog page. I feel so stupid. But the real thing is there is this woman in the living area where the internet works who has been on Skype for the last 14 hours and every day in the past days. I can not write while she is complaining to her friends in South Africa about the "natives" of Nicaragua.

I am certain that somehow this is a gift from God. But I can't see that yet.

I will either figure this out or move to a new house. I miss my blog and I miss you.

Morning/Mourning

I love the morning sounds here in Nica. Footsteps start along the road. The vegetable lady starts hawking her stuff, the birds, the rooster, the wind in the palm trees and a few cars racing past all signal the start of the new day. The fountain is still dripping and the sky, soundless except for the wind, screams blue. Another gorgeous day.

The Buddhist teachers tell us to start the day with the death meditation. Sounds morbid, but it is so not. "It is a new day. I am alive. I am grateful to be alive. I could die at any moment. This could be my last day of life. How do I want to live my last day? I want to be kind and loving to all sentient beings. I want to bring happiness to someone. I want to clear up anything that I don't want to carry over into my next life. I want to see beauty"

The death meditation fully understands that everything could disappear in an instant. Everyone we love could go away. We can't waste a precious moment on ugliness or creating pain for ourselves and others. This is show time. Now. Today.

My brother John is a Lutheran, but he seems to be a perfect Buddhist. He has Down's Syndrome. He remembers a lot, but he doesn't seem to put an emotional depth charge on memories. He begins each day with a smile. He seems very happy with whatever the day brings. When he misses our father, You can see the missing pass fleetingly over his face and then the smile when he says "Father is in Heaven." All is well.

Living in the present is always a huge challenge for everyone I know. We carry around great loads of old crap, more than any donkey could carry all day. While we must certainly grieve and mourn our losses, we also have the choice to be good Buddhists, or good Brother Johns and start each morning crowing like the rooster with our greeting to the new day and all the potential it carries.

Once again, I will share the image that Lama Marut gives of us running around holding hot coals in our hands yelling "ouch, ouch" to anyone who will listen. "How about", he asks, "dropping the coals and letting go of the pain?" Loss is painful. Loss of a loved one is hard. Loss of a friend for any reason is hard, but the night gives way to the morning and we can carpe diem all over again.

Freedom from is differrent from freedom to. Our choice.

What does it mean to be able to count on a friend or family member? One way we know each other is knowing how the other person will react in a given situation. One measure of this is morality. I don't mean judgmental Old Testament morality based on punitive ideas like "An eye for an eye" kind of thinking. I guess I mean moral fiber. A friend is true to themselves.

If a person is dedicated to loving kindness, then that shows through all their deeds and words. If a person is loyal, they are first loyal to their own truth. One of the worst experiences we can endure is betrayal. In my experience, I can work on forgiveness (Forgiveness is for me. Forgiveness set me free), but I have lines that can not be crossed in my relationships with others.

My friends are extremely diverse, but the keepers are those whom I can trust to be solidly who they are. Making a mistake in a friendship can really hurt. Sometimes this happens in moments of infatuation. I was with a guy who had been involved with someone new before he broke off his current relationship three times before we got together. Guess what happened to us? He was consistent. I was blind.

I have been around people who have gotten into friendships pretty heavily when one or the other partner was an addict (or both were ) and then been deeply hurt when one partner has gotten healthy and the other has not. This has to happen and it has to hurt.When people are fucked up, they do fucked up things. There is a lot of hurt and a lot of betrayal. It is in the nature of things.

Our choice is in our understanding of what works for us. From my highly evolved heights, I now chose not to be with people who hurt me or others. Not to imply that people can't change, but to say that I have a choice in these matters. We can't be of service to the world if we are filled with anger and resentment. We can't bring joy when we can't find it in ourselves.

For me, it is a great blessing and a gift when another person sets me free by crossing my moral line in the sand. I can then focus on situations in which friends can be there for each other and bring out the best in each other during good times and difficult times.

My annual Nicaragua rap.

It seems that each year I have to get this off my chest. Already this is a fucked up blog today because whenever someone says "I just have to say this", you  know that something unpleasant is coming. This is it: My country has done everything in its power to destroy Nicaragua for a very long time. Now I trip over nonprofits and church groups and NGO trying to teach the Nicaraguans how to do everything better. That pretty much means making things as much as possible like the shining light on the hill, America. The thing is that my feeling is that until we solve our problems at home, who are we to instruct others?

We have disastrous health care, massive underemployment, a gigantic jail problem, schools where the teachers can hardly read, nightmares of pollution, expensive wasteful fuel, horrible response to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and corrupt politicians, loss of the middle class, foreign policy fiascoes, shall I go on? What is it that makes us think that we have much to teach those who's country we have raped of natural resources, imported GMOs, mined the harbors, supported repression?

I do not doubt the motives of many who come here. Something in the warmth and the solidity of the Nicaraguan people inspires many. But sometimes I just love the slowness of life here. I love the vegetable lady coming every morning rather than a drive to the market. I love the flexible prices. I love the fact that the vegetable lady can tell me whether this mango was picked yesterday or today and whether this avocado will still be good tomorrow. I like the slow life. I like having time to sit around and schmooze without everyone running off to appointments all the time. I don't think that my life in the USA is better or worse than life here. I respect that many Nicaraguans are not shop-o-holics.

Sometimes I have the sense that we could come here in humility and learn a lot about making life more sustainable and simple. There are big fancy hospitals and that is good, but if you cut your foot, almost anyone can grind a little something or get a little honey or clay and fix you up. I admire the independence from experts.

I do see the problems. I am not stupid. I have no desire to go native, but in most situations, I see teachers everywhere I look.

New Bad Karma

Trying not to make any new bad karma sometimes makes me look like a softy. The deal seems to be about keeping eyes of compassion at all time.When I hear racist remarks, I feel angry. When I look at the racist, I often see fear and jealousy and a need to be better than others. Those are things I don't often experience. So, I can transmute my reaction into compassion. It must be terrible to feel fearful. When chief Joseph said "We will fight no more, forever." some thought he had caved in. I read that statement as he had a new powerful determination based on an understanding that fighting wasn't getting the result he desired.

The sense of superiority of North Americans when they scoff at the bribery system here (which is changing because of anti-corruption laws) completely ignores the colossally advanced system in the USA led by corporations, lobbyists, and the military industrial complex. The great crime of Edward Snowden was shining light on what is going on. We must make him the criminal, not the people he exposed.

Suddenly yesterday the Hotel Granada swimming pool was full of young people. Karen asked some kids what they were doing here, "We are teaching these people about Jesus." Funny concept in a Catholic country where everyone has a strong relationship to the Church. They are here to teach that the Catholic Church is evil, worships statues, that Christ was a blond blue eyed white bread, jello mold eating kind of guy who hates Muslims, and thinks everyone should carry a gun and so on. The Nicaraguans call it "The Third Conquest" First the Spanish, then the USA, then the Evangelicals.

Chauvez is dead. The price of fuel has gone up. The new pope is awakening many to new thought. The under the radar activities like human traffic sales are coming into the light. Things are changing and changing fast.

In Thailand, I was let down my hair and felt very free. It is fun to be anonymous. It is fun to have shining peaceful Buddhas everywhere to remind one of the possible perfection of man. The glorious, joyful images of inner peace were uplifting

It is an adjustment to see images of Christ suffering on the cross everywhere. It is uplifting to see the Holy Mother who is so beloved here. It is weird to see the evangelicals trying to do away with the lovely statues. I grew up Catholic and never worshiped a statue. I love statues of Buddha but do not worship the statue and I even understand that The Buddha statue is not the God.

Here it is confusing. And it is very unclear who is funding these kids. Very likely the Koch brothers. The motivations are buried. We need an Eduard Snowden right here right now.

I am practicing the practice of loving the sinner and detesting the sin and not getting involved in much of anything. All this being said, I am content here now and each time I come back, The standard of living seems to be improving for all. Can we say this about our own country?  Have we whipped the pollution problem? Have we whipped the food problems? I, once again, think we first need to clean our own house before we 'instruct' others on how to live.

What you see is what you get...

At least that is my conceit. I think of myself as sort of a blunt, not very subtle woman. If I don't like something, I say so. Some of you may recollect my relationship with my backpack when I was walking the Camino. I hated it and rarely missed an opportunity to say so. If I really like a person, I am apt to say, "I like you so much! You are wonderful."

But life is teaching me that things aren't always as they appear. 41 years ago for some very odd reasons that I won't go into, we ended up living in Battleground, Indiana,  USA. We were big old post hippie hippies. We rented with a friend. The straight laced yokels in the town thought we had something 'strange' going on because we had two men, one woman, and children. It was hard to find a rental because of our 'bizarre' arrangement. When we did finally rent the most prominent house in town at the top of the fancy street, I heard whispers.

The local redneck, right wing, born again people probably accepted us more than we did them. The biggest festival in Battleground was celebrating the Indian Massacre that happened there. I thought it was all pretty sick. But as these God fearing, jello making, Bible thumping church folks started accepting these grazed hippies, my husband started getting invited to basement booze and poker games where the crowning feature was showing and trading pornographic movies.

I was shocked. They probably would have shot me if I pulled out a joint, but guns, and prostitutes, and porn and Big Bibles were all fine. The KKK was still happy there then. The thing is that going to Southeast Asia and then to Nicaragua brings this all back...and more. Everywhere I have traveled people first try to figure out whether I have a connection with the CIA. Poor people in other countries know much more about the CIA than almost any US citizen unless that citizen has worked for the military or the 'secret agencies" or been a mercenary.

The stuff going on in Okinawa today with the residents trying to get the US military bases out of their Island brings this to light. We killed about 200,000 civilians in order to pacify Okinawa and we have had military bases there since WW11. The people who survived seem to be tired of the violence, rapes, murders, drugs, prostitution that we have imported for all this time. How can this be?

Daily in Nica, we hear whispers of troubles all the time. The whispers I hear are not about Nica problems but expat stuff. Tomorrow I'll tell you some of the stories that have me  befuddled. Right now I have to put my instinct to fairly heavy use to keep my feet on the ground. My natural instinct is to trust that people are who they say they are. What I am learning is take that with a grain of salt.

This prayer thing.

My friend Sonja is a few hours away from having surgery for colon cancer. All her wonderful friends are sending prayers for her. What else can we offer? But Sonja and I were picturing the prayers like the Tower of Babel. Some people are praying for her recovery, some for her to to avoid pain, some for her to go peacefully, some for courage, some for themselves, and some for God's will to be done.

If you believe in God, won't God's will be done no matter what you pray for? Is the switchboard getting clogged up there? Are the prayers just to help us feel better in a situation that is already in the play? I like praying. I like praying some of the oldies but goodies. I love the "Hail Mary", I like the "Lord's Prayer". I like  the Buddhist "Gate, gate....". I like the 23 Psalm. Mostly, I like them because I feel the positive spirits coming near me when I turn towards the light.

I will be one of the folks praying for Sonja this morning. I have decided just to try and connect my heart to her big generous heart. She is planning on reciting the 23rd Psalm on her way into the operating theater. I will join her in that. I have no idea what the best outcome would be. But wherever she is, I hope she feels bathed in the good will of all of us. When you get down to it, I agree with myself that it is the intention that counts in our spiritual endeavors, not the form.

Gaining Merit

One corner of Buddhist practice that has me fascinated is the action of gaining merit. I am only understanding this at a beginners level. I really 'get' the Catholic deal of Heaven and Hell and confession and the redeeming power of the sacraments. If I commit a sin, go to confession, do a penance and experience forgiveness, the slate is wiped clean. So, I try to obey then Ten Commandments. I try to walk the strait and narrow because of fear of eternal damnation. There are a few heavy stumbling blocks. We are born with original sin and have to get that fixed up right away.

In my cosmology, original sin isn't too far away from karmic debt. We incarnate carrying into this life our karma from previous lives. I can't imagine not having had the experience of feeling "I know this person." when meeting someone new or "I've been here before" when visiting a new place. I've had these experiences frequently. I call them my "here we go again' experiences. These can be either joyful or miserable. Believe me, you can be born with great karma as well as crappy karma.

Everyone reading this blog has a bunch of good karma. You have education. You can read. You have food or you wouldn't have the leisure to be sitting around reading. You have access to technology and electricity. You get my drift. You are better off than almost everyone on the planet.

But this idea of gaining merit towards your next life. This was of great interest to me in my recent travels. I asked a monk at a "Monk Chat" session to tell me something about this. He said that I would gain no merit by taking care of my kids, feeding my old parents, those were my duties, the ordinary stuff of life. However, random acts of kindness, feeding or caring for strangers was very meritorious. I asked about the spiritual welfare of the young prostitutes who come to the cities. He said that if they turn to that work to provide food for the family and village back home they are gaining merit from their work. They are piling up good karma by sacrificing their own lives for the greater good.

It seems like a healthy cycle. You help yourself by helping others. I didn't run into any cynical practitioners in my brief visit. But I suppose that if someone killed a man and then bought a new statue for the temple, it wouldn't be much different from Catholics gaining their money through Mafia activities and then building a new church. But, I suspect that both heaven and hell and karma can't be so easily fooled.

In terms of a social order I think there is something simple and elegant here. If you want to be happy, make someone else happy. If you want to be wealthy, give money to others, if you want enough food, feed others. Reminds one of Saint Francis.  Not all karma is about ten lives from now. Some deeds of gaining merit can offer instant results. This is one of the principles of AA. The people in meetings get healthy by helping others get healthy.

Another merit deal that I have personally experienced is the benefits and release from offering my suffering up to alleviate the suffering of others. Try it. When I remember to do this, I feel an instant updraft.

This blog is not meant to be preachy, I am a humble bumbler on the path of life. Poco a poco, paso a paso y dia por dia. Hasta la victoria siempre!

More about forgiveness.

One thing that was inspiring from my brief visit to Cambodia was the prevalent attitude of everyone I spoke with that while they will remember the horrors of the past, they will not engage in the destructive reliving and rehearsing of the nightmare. With amazing energy and determination they are building the life they want. Sadly, I think this is a rare attitude. There is probably no nation or culture which hasn't experienced some kind of repression or oppression from someone in their past. The Cambodian holocaust is quite recent in the big scheme of things.

I did not experience hatred or resentment toward me as an American for what we did to Cambodia, although our landmines are still causing constant pain. I don't know how this has happened or how we can learn from them. At some point in the past, I wrote about the slogan "Forgiveness is for me. Forgiveness sets me free." I practice this and have experienced the amazing lifting from the heaviness of carrying around old shit. And I have experienced the brutal power of old stuff that wants to keep finding a new way to creep back in. The ego is so devious. Reprogramming takes some real effort.

I guess what it comes down to is that my happiness is my responsibility and the only thing I have any ability to control is now. I can't change the past and I can't determine the future. This sounds like a vapid self-help book. I don't mean to. What I am pondering is how a whole country seems to be moving forward and creating a fresh hopeful life, a society where young people, no matter how poor, are grabbing every bit of education everywhere they can get it. Nelson Mandela left a legacy of inspiration for forging ahead into the impossible.

This is an insignificant example, but it is mine. I have never been any good at yoga but after I broke my hip, I went to a few yoga classes and couldn't do much of anything. So, I decided it was a waste of money and effort to continue. My yoga days were over. In Thailand, I had a strong urge to take a yoga class. Then day after day, I couldn't manage to get to the class which was at nine in the morning, a time when I was usually busy smoking and drinking coffee.

When I finally went to the class, I tried to tell the teacher that I was handicapped. She told me to get over it. I flipped a mental switch and decided that all I could possible hurt were dumb old muscles and what the hell? I did an extremely strenuous class and felt like a million dollars after the class. I was a bit sore, but nothing a massage couldn't take care of. I assume you get my drift. It was my mind not my body that was in my way. It was past pain that was keeping me from moving forward. It was fear that kept me down. It was risk aversion that kept me from accomplishment. It was a gift from the good gods that let me have my little break through.

I don't know what it is, the spirit that I saw moving through the young people in Cambodia, but I wish it would be an infectious epidemic and spread around the planet.

Good Morning Vietnaaaaaaaam!

Only kidding. I am in Nicaragua, again. I am spaced out. For me, this is a rather serious condition because in my most normal state I am not all that grounded. I am doing my groundation exercises, clicking my heels three times in my red shoes and thinking of Kansas, or rather asking the wizard where exactly I am and where I wish to be going.

I am here. I am now. My etheric body is somewhere over the horizon and I am waiting for it to catch up with this physical body. I have been enjoying a warm reception from friends here in Nica, am a bit shell shocked by menus, still looking for Thai dishes, peeking into the cathedral hoping to see a new Buddha. I am shocked anew by images of Christ on the cross bleeding from his hands and feet. I miss the gentle Thai people but am glad to be at my winter home.

In the various airports coming from Thailand to Nicaragua, I found myself looking up new places to visit. I looked hard at Morocco, and a lot at Laos and a little bit at Sri Lanka and again at Ireland. I'll let you know when I know. But really, I haven't even seen the Grand Canyon or Calgary or Los Angeles. So much to do.

I apparently forgot to mention that I put a good bunch of pictures and little travel moments on FB while I was on the road. Friend me if you would like to see my meanderings. I missed you all when I wasn't writing and am happy to be in communication again.

Guru Danger

It seems to me that there are real dangers in following a teacher who is dead. It seems to me that there are real dangers in following a teacher (guru) who is alive. The mitigating factor in either scenario must be a sound moral compass. That has to be the deal.

The case against dead teachers is self evident. A follower can go way off the track and there is no one to bring her back to center. The words handed down can be mistranslated or badly distorted or actually lied about or manipulated by self serving followers. I shouldn't insult your intelligence with familiar examples, but I will. I recently heard a preacher on a Jesus radio station extorting his flock to get revenge about something. He said, "In the holy words of Jesus Christ himself, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' Shit ya. People are following this follower and there is no Jesus Christ around to say, "Wait a minute, fellow".

And you see followers on incredibly strict religious diets drinking Coka Cola because Coke wasn't invented when the rules were written. These are dumb examples, but you can expand them to the big stuff like The Inquisition, the massacres of infidels that are still going on in the name of peace. This is going to happen to MLK and Mandela, just watch. Either their radical revolutionary ideas are going to be watered down to pap or their words are going to be twisted. That is one reason the death of someone like Mandela is so deep. Whether he was active or not in the past few years, his very presence on this earth kept some people on the strait and narrow.

The great masters who walked this earth had unbending moral compasses. They didn't say, Thou Shall Not Kill unless someone is trying to steal your toaster oven. They didn't say Love Your Neighbor As Yourself  unless she is wearing a head scarf. The teachers (masters, gurus) of non-violence didn't say Use non-violence, but it is OK to whack your wife around. Sometimes we need live teachers.

On the other hand... We read often enough of live teachers who have done dastardly things to their followers. James Jones comes to mind, of course. People have been led to criminal acts by leaders who seem very evolved, or very appealing or very enlightened. Too many examples to count. My conclusion is that honing our personal moral compass and following only when it passes every inner test you can come up with, can we put ourselves at the feet of a teacher.

There is so much we have to learn. Let's go out and learn, but let us not lose our balance in the process.

Some well meaning questions and some pissy answers.

I have given you fair warning. I am pretty much against American exceptionalism and our ridiculous notion that we are the center of the universe and therefore the center of enlightenment. I mean, think about what was going on in the USA when the Renaissance was happening in Europe. And that is just one of many examples. Think about our contributions to the world right now; wars, weapons, shitty GMO seeds and chemical foods, pollution and exploitation of natural resources at rates that were unsustainable years ago, guns, bombs, landmines, drones, war, terrible labor practices, global warming, plastics, floating islands of plastic, racism, unhappy religions and so on.

So, that being said, nice innocent questions come my way about whether the people in Thailand know how to take care of the elephants and whether people here know that brown rice and organic foods are good for them. And the implication is that we are the enlightened ones who could teach others to live better.

This is where I fall off the rails. Who are we to talk about things that we are worse at than any other country on the planet (maybe excepting China) I am sure that most of the world laughs when Hillary Clinton wags her finger at China and lectures about human rights. Everyone knows about Guatanamo and Abu Ghraib and all of our human rights stories.People know. What are we thinking? Other countries fight successfully against GMO seeds and crops contaminating them forever and they know enough that we are the proponents of such evil stuff.

Maybe instead of asking about the care of animals in other countries we should ask what we can learn about the care of animals. How can a country that allows the crimes that happen 24 hours a day in feed lots growing chickens and pigs and cattle in America claim to care for animals? Look at some pictures and think about how we are seen from afar. It is so disgusting as to be nearly unthinkable.

We set a fine example of animal husbandry during the eradication of the buffalo. From tens of millions to 2,000 in twenty years. 

The Near Annihilation of America's Buffalo in Pictures

Photo: Unknow  These are buffalo skulls waiting to be ground into fertilizer and shipped east. Tip of the iceberg.

In the journals of Lewis and Clark, not so very long ago, they wrote about having to stop the caravan in its westward movement after they crossed the Missouri River because there was such an abundance of wild life that they couldn't pass through it all. They, of course, had a ready solution. They shot and killed as much as they could to such a degree that they were held up further waiting for more ammunition to be brought from the East.

I think we need to stop thinking we have answers until we clean up our own act. Then people in other countries will look to us for guidance.

Same story for food. We are not a booming success in setting any standards around the world for dietary excellence. The world knows this.

I would like to see us look to others and see where they were successful and learn from them and learn fast. We have a long way to go and not much time to do it in.

I am a weird tourist.

My BLOG is not a travel blog but people have been asking questions about what I am doing, eating,and so forth. I feel like the little old ladies in English novels who went to a hotel in a nice place and stayed for the duration. There are several differences, however. The other people at my hotel mostly don't stay very long. This is a good thing and a bad thing for me. Several people who have come through I would have enjoyed spending more time with. With most a little bit was plenty. Most of the guests at the Come Chiang Mai Lanna Boutique Guest House are Asian. Couples mostly do couple things unless one person is an extrovert. Families spill over. I like that. Most often the mothers look tired and like to have someone admire their kids. I do that. Singles talk if the dining room is not crowded. These are my observations.

I found this place, CCMLBGH, on the interrnet on the AGODA website which has very good descriptions, deep discounts. I have left a bunch of times to take little trips and several times including tonite when I forgot to tell them I was staying and they booked full. When this has happened, they found me a good place, carried my bags over and came to be sure I was well settled in. Amazing , really.

I am happy with this place. It is small, clean, appealing to the eye, comfortable, great food, very nice people. Good walking neighborhood. So, I have done some real travel, but mostly I have plunked and made a good routine. I usually swim everyday. Here, not. I found pools that were nice, but the water tends to be a bit cold and the sun is very hot and the shade is quite cool. So, I end up moving and adjusting myself all the time, so I have given up on that. After all, I soon will be at the beach and then in Nicaragua so- nothing lost.

Food takes up a lot of my time. I like to eat small meals frequently. Actually don't have much choice after I was so sick last year. Thais also seem to be eating pretty much all the time and there is great GREAT food everywhere, all the time and very inexpensive (except for the small fortune I spend on cappuccinos). Sweet things are extremely sweet and hot is very hot and salty is very salty, so I am on a perpetual grazing party compelled by the experience that one extreme sets off a craving for the other. I have only once eaten an American thing and that was a grilled cheese sandwich which was quite remarkable but in no way resembled anything we might associate with said item.

I had shrimp with hot cooked basil in a chile sauce, rice and cold water for lunch. $1.30. Still starving, I went and had a carrot, apple and ginger juice thing. Now, I am plaotting where I will stop for my afternoon coffee and dessert. I have a pretty good idea.

I am taking yoga classes when I can get to them. This is pretty much an all day deal because after the class, I have to take a shower because the mats are really smelly and then I have to have lunch because I am starving and then I have to have an 1 1/2 hour massage because I ache and can't walk, then I go to my favorite temple and meditate and mostly give thanks for the beauty, the time, the health, the money, the spirit that guides me to be in a temple in Chiang Mai giving thanks. It is one big circle.

So, all in all I would say that my life is simple, easy, and pleasant. Once or twice I have felt lonesome, but that is why God gave us the gift of SKYPE. In my walking and boat rides and elephant rides, I have met (Invented) the character that will be in my novel if I write one. I just love her. We'll see where that goes.

And next week Gretchen and Eric come and we will do some hammering travel and meet up with dear friend Rhys. That is the story. You can perhaps see why I am not a travel writer. I assume that all of you have either been here or have a pretty good picture of the peaceable kingdom in Southeast Asia and, as I find everything lovely and meet kind generous people...not so much to report.

One thing does stand out and it is not in anyway unique to Asia. Everyone is always on their iphones. Everyone. Everywhere. Or taking pictures  (same thing). The human disconnect is staggering in its scope. Absolutely staggering.

We Have to Judge!

A comment on a recent blog of mine has me fretting. I said something about Jehovah Witness people proselytizing in a country that has a rich and rewarding belief system that has worked marvelously for a very long time. Why would anyone want to screw with someone else's good thing? The comment was "Don't judge."

That kind of got me stewing. I do judge. We all judge. In some cases judging can be a very good thing. In the instance about the Jo Ho people I wasn't so much judging as making a slightly ironic point. Kind of in the line of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

If millions of people hadn't judged that apartheid was evil in the USA and finally in the 1960s made enough noise and great leadership emerged, we still would have "Whites Only" signs all over the south. If Nelson Mandela and the ANC hadn't judged that apartheid in South Africa was evil, we wouldn't be celebrating Mandela's remarkable life today.

We have to judge. Leaving aside all the thousands of years of astute theological arguments (which we all know) about the existence of evil, I have to weigh in on the side of simple minded belief that sometimes there are bad things afoot. And if we can't make judgements about them, we can't do anything to stop them.

And, I am compelled to admit that I like irony and a bit of fun with ideas and seeing the humor in things. I know from experience that this is more of an east coast thing that west coast. I also like to be provocative. It gets the juices flowing. And not to single out the Witnesses in particular, if you think about it there has been a lot of weird shit forever everywhere in the name of religion. Don't get me going.

I am grateful for the comment. It got me thinking.

Deus Absconditus

Concealed God. Oh, all those years of the dreaded Latin lessons! And now it is fun when some phrase rears its head. Who knew?

Who knew? Was there some little corner in my being that knew, even then, that there was something for me that would someday delight in words, reading, talking, my God, talking! and telling stories? I don't remember talking all that much except there is some family myth that I used to follow my brother around as he terrorized our little planet. My mother says he climbed to the top of the fridge, up the front, when he was 8 months old. He also started walking then and hasn't slowed down since, except when he had that bad back thing and that was agony for him. Apparently I followed him everywhere, talking a blue streak and interspersing my monologue every few sentences with a "Huh Bill?" To which he would give some fleeting nod and go about his business. (Sounds like a lot of men.)

Then there was the fact that I made, wrote, created puppet shows and plays. I was the boss of it all. I was the one with the stories to tell, except when my Irish uncles came and then I sat at the foot of masters. Not to put a too fine point on it, when I wrote one play in 4th grade, everyone had to bow to the ground in front of me and my line was "I am Jupiter, dare not defy me!" I was a princess who had been stolen by those people who called themselves my parents. I joined the circus many times in my telling of how things were. I forced my brother and sister to rehearse endlessly with me. Our act was called "The Flying Zeros."

All this stuff came from my imagination. All the stimulus was from books. We had no TV and I hadn't yet seen a movie. Pig Latin was my first foreign language. My grandparents had the first foreign accents I ever heard. Grandma Braucher-German, and the Caffreys could put on the Irish.

Was some part of what would become so important in my life already there?  Was my hidden deity bursting out through my childhood play? Did reading the wars of Julius Caesar expand my horizons? I connect with words. I shape my reality with words. I am not a court reporter. My interest is in the spirit of an event as it hit my perception. And, in a certain way, all our stories are exactly the same. The god within is trying to find expression through the life we live.

So What Happened to Falling in Love?

I know that I have probably hit on this subject before but it came up today when I saw a couple together who were obviously, hopelessly, madly in love with each other. So cool. His eyes followed her every move , enraptured by her every gesture. She looked at him adoringly, couldn't keep from smiling. It sounds like a two- bit romance. It was actually gorgeous.

It made me realize how long it has been since I have heard someone say that they were "in love'. In Love. I mostly hear people talking about relationships. "Working on their relationship" is even more common. "Evaluating their relationship." Shit, I have a 'relationship' with my phone company. I have a 'relationship' with the food I eat. I don't want to have a 'relationship' with a guy I go out with. I am a romantic. I have had that kind of love where your heart pounds, where you can't catch your breath, where your brain turns to mush. I like that feeling. I am sad for those who haven't had it. It is not only about mating kinds of experiences. It can happen when you meet your new baby, when a child looks into your eyes and gives you her soul, when you meet the Dalai Lama. Pure, crazy, knock your socks off love.

And it is crazy and it is scary and you can get hurt big time. And so what? If we spend our lives not getting hurt, are we missing the big gold ring at the merry-go-round? You understand, of course, that I am not talking about perversions of this: "I love you, you're mine." kind of stuff. I am talking about opening the heart and 'seeing' someone else. It is fun. Try it again if you have forgotten what it feels like. I was inspired by that couple this morning. yes, I was.

Overheard tonight in a restaurant, a man making bad karma.

If what goes around comes around, if every action has a cause and a result, if we reap what we sow, then this guy I overheard tonite is going to have some tough times ahead.

I think he was American. He was on the older side, kind of good looking, maybe a little of the less seedy former CIA types that one runs into all over the world, especially where women go for cheap. He was talking to a young guy who was nodding, but not paying too much attention. The guy was bragging a bit about how he had set himself up here in Thailand. He was actually bragging a lot. He had a place in town and a something in the rural area. He had gotten it all for cheap. He was making his dream. No problem there.

Then his voice got louder and louder and he got more and more excited. There had developed a fatal flaw in his perfection. He had a neighbor who had a shop in the next house. The neighbor made furniture in his house. His work and his tools make a lot of noise. Big loud imitations of power tool noises! And now the guy was practically screaming and so pissed off..He had no tranquility in his home and the fucking neighbor wouldn't stop and the fucking police don't give a shit and there are no fucking laws in this fucking country to make the neighbor stop making noise that is disturbing this guys tranquility.

Aside from the fact that this guys companion looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole, aside from the fact that no one else eating there could possibly have another thought than this guys disturbed tranquility, aside from all that, there is the Buddhist thing.That is that if you want something you have to be it. In this case, if the guy wants to not be irritated by noises that he doesn't like, he has to stop making unpleasant noises himself. I am willing to bed the farm on the fact that this guy has no concept that he is actively (very actively) creating exactly that which he is railing against.

I know I should have approached him humbly told him that I have all the answers, but, you know, I didn't want to create the karma for that happening to me next time I am being an ass hole.

Toyota or Honda?

Every car here is a Toyota. Nearly ever moto or motorcycle is a Honda. I am taking hoards of these things. Yesterday I stopped in a Honda sales place and found out that a new Honda bike can be bought for about $500. I am not in the market, but I was wondering how people with a little fruit stand could afford one. I assume that used ones can be gotten for as little as $50. So, that led me to the question of why I can't buy one of these things and take it home at enormous savings. When I was young, everyone was going to Europe and buying a VW on the cheap and bringing it home.

This, of course, led me to make an attempt at understanding the concept of Free Trade. Everything I read about this subject added to my confusion. It is a good idea, but bad in practice. It is a bad idea but has some good parts. It is a way of further enslaving have-nots and stacking the deck for the haves. It doesn't exist and can't exist. The WTO and GATT and NAFTA are living examples of how these so called free trade deals screw everyone except the powerful.

Who decides what? We subsidize farmers in the USA so they can dump corn in Central America at prices that put farmers there out of business and then what do we gain? More hungry people needing to work in the USA so they can send remittances home so that their families can buy expensive corn so that we can pay taxes to make this happen? Too many questions. I do not understand what is my net gain. Nothing, I suspect. What is WalMart, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs net gain? Huge amounts. I would wager.

If any of you can explain to me what is going on, I would appreciate it very much. I hate being ignorant. I trust my gut feelings that there is perverse manipulation afoot. And I feel quite certain that the USA doesn't need more cheap junk to fill up our storage units. But, the concept of a level playing field has some appeal to me.

This is so true. Some important words from Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky: America hates its poor

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Chris Steele

Excerpt from Occupy (Second edition), Zucotti Park Press

Salon, December 1, 2013

Q: An article that recently came out in Rolling Stone, titled "Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail," by Matt Taibbi, asserts that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, such as those running HSBC. Taibbi says that there's "an arrestable class and an unarrestable class." What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?
A: Well, there's always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscious -- they're constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.
We don't use the term "working class" here because it's a taboo term. You're supposed to say "middle class," because it helps diminish the understanding that there's a class war going on.
It's true that there was a one-sided class war, and that's because the other side hadn't chosen to participate, so the union leadership had for years pursued a policy of making a compact with the corporations, in which their workers, say the autoworkers -- would get certain benefits like fairly decent wages, health benefits and so on. But it wouldn't engage the general class structure. In fact, that's one of the reasons why Canada has a national health program and the United States doesn't. The same unions on the other side of the border were calling for health care for everybody. Here they were calling for health care for themselves and they got it. Of course, it's a compact with corporations that the corporations can break anytime they want, and by the 1970s they were planning to break it and we've seen what has happened since.
This is just one part of a long and continuing class war against working people and the poor. It's a war that is conducted by a highly class-conscious business leadership, and it's one of the reasons for the unusual history of the U.S. labor movement. In the U.S., organized labor has been repeatedly and extensively crushed, and has endured a very violent history as compared with other countries.
In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It's hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce. It became a huge movement that spread over major farming areas.
The Farmers' Alliance did try to link up with the Knights of Labor, which would have been a major class-based organization if it had succeeded. But the Knights of Labor were crushed by violence, and the Farmers' Alliance was dismantled in other ways. As a result, one of the major popular democratic forces in American history was essentially dismantled. There are a lot of reasons for it, one of which was that the Civil War has never really ended. One effect of the Civil War was that the political parties that came out of it were sectarian parties, so the slogan was, "You vote where you shoot," and that remains the case.
Take a look at the red states and the blue states in the last election: It's the Civil War. They've changed party labels, but other than that, it's the same: sectarian parties that are not class-based because divisions are along different lines. There are a lot of reasons for it.
The enormous benefits given to the very wealthy, the privileges for the very wealthy here, are way beyond those of other comparable societies and are part of the ongoing class war. Take a look at CEO salaries. CEOs are no more productive or brilliant here than they are in Europe, but the pay, bonuses, and enormous power they get here are out of sight. They're probably a drain on the economy, and they become even more powerful when they are able to gain control of policy decisions.
That's why we have a sequester over the deficit and not over jobs, which is what really matters to the population. But it doesn't matter to the banks, so the heck with it. It also illustrates the consider- able shredding of the whole system of democracy. So, by now, they rank people by income level or wages roughly the same: The bottom 70 percent or so are virtually disenfranchised; they have almost no influence on policy, and as you move up the scale you get more influence. At the very top, you basically run the show.
A good topic to research, if possible, would be "why people don't vote." Nonvoting is very high, roughly 50 percent, even in presidential elections -- much higher in others. The attitudes of people who don't vote are studied. First of all, they mostly identify themselves as Democrats. And if you look at their attitudes, they are mostly Social Democratic. They want jobs, they want benefits, they want the government to be involved in social services and so on, but they don't vote, partly, I suppose, because of the impediments to voting. It's not a big secret. Republicans try really hard to prevent people from voting, because the more that people vote, the more trouble they are in. There are other reasons why people don't vote. I suspect, but don't know how to prove, that part of the reason people don't vote is they just know their votes don't make any difference, so why make the effort? So you end up with a kind of plutocracy in which the public opinion doesn't matter much. It is not unlike other countries in this respect, but more extreme. All along, it's more extreme. So yes, there is a constant class war going on.
The case of labor is crucial, because it is the base of organization of any popular opposition to the rule of capital, and so it has to be dismantled. There's a tax on labor all the time. During the 1920s, the labor movement was virtually smashed by Wilson's Red Scare and other things. In the 1930s, it reconstituted and was the driving force of the New Deal, with the CIO organizing and so on. By the late 1930s, the business classes were organizing to try to react to this. They began, but couldn't do much during the war, because things were on hold, but immediately after the war it picked up with the Taft-Hartley Act and huge propaganda campaigns, which had massive effect. Over the years, the effort to undermine the unions and labor generally succeeded. By now, private-sector unionization is very low, partly because, since Reagan, government has pretty much told employers, "You know you can violate the laws, and we're not going to do anything about it." Under Clinton, NAFTA offered a method for employers to illegally undermine labor organizing by threatening to move enterprises to Mexico. A number of illegal operations by employers shot up at that time. What's left are private-sector unions, and they're under bipartisan attack.
They've been protected somewhat because the federal laws did function for the public-sector unions, but now they're under bipartisan attack. When Obama declares a pay freeze for federal workers, that's actually a tax on federal workers. It comes to the same thing, and, of course, this is right at the time we say that we can't raise taxes on the very rich. Take the last tax agreement where the Republicans claimed, "We already gave up tax increases." Take a look at what happened. Raising the payroll tax, which is a tax on working people, is much more of a tax increase than raising taxes on the super-rich, but that passed quietly because we don't look at those things.
The same is happening across the board. There are major efforts being made to dismantle Social Security, the public schools, the post office -- anything that benefits the population has to be dismantled. Efforts against the U.S. Postal Service are particularly surreal. I'm old enough to remember the Great Depression, a time when the country was quite poor but there were still postal deliveries. Today, post offices, Social Security, and public schools all have to be dismantled because they are seen as being based on a principle that is regarded as extremely dangerous.
If you care about other people, that's now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don't care whether other people's kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that's called "libertarian" for some wild reason. I mean, it's actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public.
That's why unions had the slogan, "solidarity," even though they may not have lived up to it. And that's what really counts: solidarity, mutual aid, care for one another and so on. And it's really important for power systems to undermine that ideologically, so huge efforts go into it. Even trying to stimulate consumerism is an effort to undermine it. Having a market society automatically carries with it an undermining of solidarity. For example, in the market system you have a choice: You can buy a Toyota or you can buy a Ford, but you can't buy a subway because that's not offered. Market systems don't offer common goods; they offer private consumption. If you want a subway, you're going to have to get together with other people and make a collective decision. Otherwise, it's simply not an option within the market system, and as democracy is increasingly undermined, it's less and less of an option within the public system. All of these things converge, and they're all part of general class war.
Q: Can you give some insight on how the labor movement could rebuild in the United States?
A: Well, it's been done before. Each time labor has been attacked -- and as I said, in the 1920s the labor movement was practically destroyed -- popular efforts were able to reconstitute it. That can happen again. It's not going to be easy. There are institutional barriers, ideological barriers, cultural barriers. One big problem is that the white working class has been pretty much abandoned by the political system. The Democrats don't even try to organize them anymore. The Republicans claim to do it; they get most of the vote, but they do it on non-economic issues, on non-labor issues. They often try to mobilize them on the grounds of issues steeped in racism and sexism and so on, and here the liberal policies of the 1960s had a harmful effect because of some of the ways in which they were carried out. There are some pretty good studies of this. Take busing to integrate schools. In principle, it made some sense, if you wanted to try to overcome segregated schools. Obviously, it didn't work. Schools are probably more segregated now for all kinds of reasons, but the way it was originally done undermined class solidarity.
For example, in Boston there was a program for integrating the schools through busing, but the way it worked was restricted to urban Boston, downtown Boston. So black kids were sent to the Irish neighborhoods and conversely, but the suburbs were left out. The suburbs are more affluent, professional and so on, so they were kind of out of it. Well, what happens when you send black kids into an Irish neighborhood? What happens when some Irish telephone linemen who have worked all their lives finally got enough money to buy small houses in a neighborhood where they want to send their kids to the local school and cheer for the local football team and have a community, and so on? All of a sudden, some of their kids are being sent out, and black kids are coming in. How do you think at least some of these guys will feel? At least some end up being racists. The suburbs are out of it, so they can cluck their tongues about how racist everyone is elsewhere, and that kind of pattern was carried out all over the country.
The same has been true of women's rights. But when you have a working class that's under real pressure, you know, people are going to say that rights are being undermined, that jobs are being under- mined. Maybe the one thing that the white working man can hang onto is that he runs his home? Now that that's being taken away and nothing is being offered, he's not part of the program of advancing women's rights. That's fine for college professors, but it has a different effect in working-class areas. It doesn't have to be that way. It depends on how it's done, and it was done in a way that simply undermined natural solidarity. There are a lot of factors that play into it, but by this point it's going to be pretty hard to organize the working class on the grounds that should really concern them: common solidarity, common welfare.
In some ways, it shouldn't be too hard, because these attitudes are really prized by most of the population. If you look at Tea Party members, the kind that say, "Get the government off my back, I want a small government" and so on, when their attitudes are studied, it turns out that they're mostly social democratic. You know, people are human after all. So yes, you want more money for health, for help, for people who need it and so on and so forth, but "I don't want the government, get that off my back" and related attitudes are tricky to overcome.
Some polls are pretty amazing. There was one conducted in the South right before the presidential elections. Just Southern whites, I think, were asked about the economic plans of the two candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Southern whites said they preferred Romney's plan, but when asked about its particular components, they opposed every one. Well, that's the effect of good propaganda: getting people not to think in terms of their own interests, let alone the interest of communities and the class they're part of. Overcoming that takes a lot of work. I don't think it's impossible, but it's not going to happen easily.
Q: In a recent article about the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, you discuss Henry Vane, who was beheaded for drafting a petition that called the people's power "the original from whence all just power arises." Would you agree the coordinated repression of Occupy was like the beheading of Vane?
A: Occupy hasn't been treated nicely, but we shouldn't exaggerate. Compared with the kind of repression that usually goes on, it wasn't that severe. Just ask people who were part of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, in the South, let's say. It was incomparably worse, as was just showing up at anti-war demonstrations where people were getting maced and beaten and so on. Activist groups get repressed. Power systems don't pat them on the head. Occupy was treated badly, but not off the spectrum -- in fact, in some ways not as bad as others. I wouldn't draw exaggerated comparisons. It's not like beheading somebody who says, "Let's have popular power."
Q: How does the Charter of the Forest relate to environmental and indigenous resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline?
A: A lot. The Charter of the Forest, which was half the Magna Carta, has more or less been forgotten. The forest didn't just mean the woods. It meant common property, the source of food, fuel. It was a common possession, so it was cared for. The forests were cultivated in common and kept functioning, because they were part of people's common possessions, their source of livelihood, and even a source of dignity. That slowly collapsed in England under the enclosure movements, the state efforts to shift to private ownership and control. In the United States it happened differently, but the privatization is similar. What you end up with is the widely held belief, now standard doctrine, that's called "the tragedy of the commons" in Garrett Hardin's phrase. According to this view, if things are held in common and aren't privately owned, they're going to be destroyed. History shows the exact opposite: When things were held in common, they were preserved and maintained. But, according to the capitalist ethic, if things aren't privately owned, they're going to be ruined, and that's "the tragedy of the commons." So, therefore, you have to put everything under private control and take it away from the public, because the public is just going to destroy it.
Now, how does that relate to the environmental problem? Very significantly: the commons are the environment. When they're a common possession -- not owned, but everybody holds them together in a community -- they're preserved, sustained and cultivated for the next generation. If they're privately owned, they're going to be destroyed for profit; that's what private owner- ship is, and that's exactly what's happening today.
What you say about the indigenous population is very striking. There's a major problem that the whole species is facing. A likelihood of serious disaster may be not far off. We are approaching a kind of tipping point, where climate change becomes irreversible. It could be a couple of decades, maybe less, but the predictions are constantly being shown to be too conservative. It is a very serious danger; no sane person can doubt it. The whole species is facing a real threat for the first time in its history of serious disaster, and there are some people trying to do some- thing about it and there are others trying to make it worse. Who are they? Well, the ones who are trying to make it better are the pre-industrial societies, the pre-technological societies, the indigenous societies, the First Nations. All around the world, these are the communities that are trying to preserve the rights of nature.
The rich societies, like the United States and Canada, are acting in ways to bring about disaster as quickly as possible. That's what it means, for example, when both political parties and the press talk enthusiastically about "a century of energy independence." "Energy independence" doesn't mean a damn thing, but put that aside. A century of "energy independence" means that we make sure that every bit of Earth's fossil fuels comes out of the ground and we burn it. In societies that have large indigenous populations, like, for example, Ecuador, an oil producer, people are trying to get support for keeping the oil in the ground. They want funding so as to keep the oil where it ought to be. We, however, have to get everything out of the ground, including tar sands, then burn it, which makes things as bad as possible as quickly as possible. So you have this odd situation where the educated, "advanced" civilized people are trying to cut everyone's throats as quickly as possible and the indigenous, less educated, poorer populations are trying to prevent the disaster. If somebody was watching this from Mars, they'd think this species was insane.
Q: As far as a free, democracy-centered society, self-organization seems possible on small scales. Do you think it is possible on a larger scale and with human rights and quality of life as a standard, and if so, what community have you visited that seems closest to an example to what is possible?
A: Well, there are a lot of things that are possible. I have visited some examples that are pretty large scale, in fact, very large scale. Take Spain, which is in a huge economic crisis. But one part of Spain is doing okay -- that's the Mondragón collective. It's a big conglomerate involving banks, industry, housing, all sorts of things. It's worker owned, not worker managed, so partial industrial democracy, but it exists in a capitalist economy, so it's doing all kinds of ugly things like exploiting foreign labor and so on. But economically and socially, it's flourishing as compared with the rest of the society and other societies. It is very large, and that can be done anywhere. It certainly can be done here. In fact, there are tentative explorations of contacts between the Mondragón and the United Steelworkers, one of the more progressive unions, to think about developing comparable structures here, and it's being done to an extent.
The one person who has written very well about this is Gar Alperovitz, who is involved in organizing work around enterprises in parts of the old Rust Belt, which are pretty successful and could be spread just as a cooperative could be spread. There are really no limits to it other than willingness to participate, and that is, as always, the problem. If you're willing to adhere to the task and gauge yourself, there's no limit.
Actually, there's a famous sort of paradox posed by David Hume centuries ago. Hume is one of the founders of classical liberalism. He's an important philosopher and a political philosopher. He said that if you take a look at societies around the world -- any of them -- power is in the hands of the governed, those who are being ruled. Hume asked, why don't they use that power and overthrow the masters and take control? He says, the answer has to be that, in all societies, the most brutal, the most free, the governed can be controlled by control of opinion. If you can control their attitudes and beliefs and separate them from one another and so on, then they won't rise up and overthrow you.
That does require a qualification. In the more brutal and repressive societies, controlling opinion is less important, because you can beat people with a stick. But as societies become more free, it becomes more of a problem, and we see that historically. The societies that develop the most expansive propaganda systems are also the most free societies.
The most extensive propaganda system in the world is the public relations industry, which developed in Britain and the United States. A century ago, dominant sectors recognized that enough freedom had been won by the population. They reasoned that it's hard to control people by force, so they had to do it by turning the attitudes and opinions of the population with propaganda and other devices of separation and marginalization, and so on. Western powers have become highly skilled in this.
In the United States, the advertising and public relations industry is huge. Back in the more honest days, they called it propaganda. Now the term doesn't sound nice, so it's not used anymore, but it's basically a huge propaganda system which is designed very extensively for quite specific purposes.
First of all, it has to undermine markets by trying to create irrational, uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices. That's what advertising is about, the opposite of what a market is supposed to be, and anybody who turns on a television set can see that for themselves. It has to do with monopolization and product differentiation, all sorts of things, but the point is that you have to drive the population to irrational consumption, which does separate them from one another.
As I said, consumption is individual, so it's not done as an act of solidarity -- so you don't have ads on television saying, "Let's get together and build a mass transportation system." Who's going to fund that? The other thing they need to do is undermine democracy the same way, so they run campaigns, political campaigns mostly run by PR agents. It's very clear what they have to do. They have to create uninformed voters who will make irrational decisions, and that's what the campaigns are about. Billions of dollars go into it, and the idea is to shred democracy, restrict markets to service the rich, and make sure the power gets concentrated, that capital gets concentrated and the people are driven to irrational and self-destructive behavior. And it is self-destructive, often dramatically so. For example, one of the first achievements of the U.S. public relations system back in the 1920s was led, incidentally, by a figure honored by Wilson, Roosevelt and Kennedy -- liberal progressive Edward Bernays.
His first great success was to induce women to smoke. In the 1920s, women didn't smoke. So here's this big population which was not buying cigarettes, so he paid young models to march down New York City's Fifth Avenue holding cigarettes. His message to women was, "You want to be cool like a model? You should smoke a cigarette." How many millions of corpses did that create? I'd hate to calculate it. But it was considered an enormous success. The same is true of the murderous character of corporate propaganda with tobacco, asbestos, lead, chemicals, vinyl chloride, across the board. It is just shocking, but PR is a very honored profession, and it does control people and undermine their options of working together. And so that's Hume's paradox, but people don't have to submit to it. You can see through it and struggle against it.