On The Last Day....

It is the last day on the Gregorian calendar (I think that's what it's called). I'm always a bit weepy as I watch the morning news shows put the last 365 into convenient two minute bites of video and sound. Lots went on in Twenty-O-Seven. 

More deaths in Afganistan, Iraq, and every other country in the world, over politics and religion and oil. It never stops. Killing in the name of everything holy, and unholy. 

People are still starving to death on the African continent. Ethnic cleansing along tribal lines is alive in well in places like Chad and Darfur. 

People all over the world finally woke up and smelled the greenhouse gases ruining the climate on the big blue marble know as Earth. What took the rest of you so long? My "people" have been trying to do the right thing since the seventies. Where where you then? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not a new mantra, but it sure seems like it. I bought my first compact fluorescent bulb in 1990. They cost a bunch more then, $8 apiece, but they were worth it. 

Wages still don't keep up with inflation, poverty still exists in the US, I still can't afford to buy my own health insurance, and the combustion engine is still being made even though gas costs as much a six-pack of cheap beer.

I guess as Twenty-o-seven ends and Twenty-o-eight begins, there isn't much to be thankful for, but I do have hope. I hope that someday soon I will wake up and in my fantasy world there will be no hunger, no wars, no ethnic cleansing, and no more assault on the atmosphere. 

  

 

Ramblings on LOVE

I'm a sentimental old fool. I believe in love, and I think, that at 51, I may believe in forever. I want to think that I can love differently. Love with more passion, and more honesty, and more commitment to doing it the right way.

So, I guess if I made resolutions at the New Year, this would be mine for 2008. 

GITMO Is The United States' Hanoi Hilton

During the Vietnam Conflict, it was never officially called a war, the President, members of Congress, and military leaders called the torture being done to American POWs in North Vietnam horrid violations of the Geneva Convention. The arm bending, rib breaking, and bamboo shoots under the finger nails of American soldiers and sailors. Would those same leaders come to the defense of the men being held at GITMO? The men who are being isolated, nearly drown, and put through hell for what they might know. And, the fact that all of this torture takes place on the island of Cuba makes the hair on the back of neck stand on end. This government hates Castro, yet we commit crimes against the Geneva convention in his back yard. 

Anyway, back to my point.... this book, Eight O'Clock Ferry To The Windward Side, written by Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of a British human rights watch, tells the story of what happens at GITMO through the eyes of an outsider. Well, not really an outsider as Smith represents 40 of the 300 men being held there. According to the Times, the book fills in the blind spots that US journalists miss when telling the stories of the abuse, torture, and "scripted tribunals" that take place behind the razor wire. The stories we don't see on the evening news, or on the pages of the paper that published the review of the book.

I can't, for the life of me, understand or condone the methods used by the United States government to obtain information from the detainees. I can't understand what happened at Abu Grab. I wonder why there isn't more written by US journalists about our own violations of Geneva Convention rules. I wonder why we violate the rules at all. I probably won't buy the book, but I am glad that it was written, I am glad that people in other nations don't turn a blind eye to what this government does in the name of democracy and freedom. Without them, the truth would be whitewashed. I like what England's Vanessa Redgrave had to say about the place, " it is a concentration camp and it should be demolished".

I fear what will happen in the future if the people in this "great" country don't demand that their leaders act according to the principles of a document this country agreed to. I fear for the future because I don't believe any democrat or republican will change the status quo enough to change the way humans are treated on the island of Cuba. They are men after all, not robots or mindless soldiers. They fight because they believe, just as bush believes, they are doing the right thing.   

I am embarrassed to be a citizen of a country that talks big shit about being on the side of right. The President, as leader, talks out of one side of his mouth and acts out of the other.  We, the people, sit in our warm living rooms and watch our big TVs, and eat a diet rich in everything and let the men who run this country take us down a dark road. In the end, there will be more attacks on this country, and we won't be able to stop them all. Civilians will die, we will express outrage, and then sit back on our overstuffed couches and let the men do the deeds that put civilians in harms way. 

Go figure.... you reap what you sow.... so don't be surprised when the acts of the few effect the many.

Why Israel and not Natives in America?

Jews believe that the west bank, and most all of what they call Judea or Samaria, was given to them by god and it says so in the old testament. The united states government supports Israel's right to exist, and therefore support the belief that god gave them the land. So, why is it that this same government won't support sovereign rights of Indian nations in this country and their right to do as they damn will please. And, for that matter, why don't they give it back and go somewhere else and screw that up too? Oh, wait, no place left to go. The Imperial Storm Trooper George Bush is making sure of that.

And, it seems to me that the Palestinians are the new Sioux or Cheyenne or Cherokee for that matter. Keep them in ghettos, kill them if they fight being marginalized, and lock them away on land that won't feed them or give them room to grow. Sounds very similar to the policies adopted by the US government concerning Indians in the 1800s. 

I agree that Jews need a homeland, but do they have to have it at the expense of a people who claim the land as theirs as well? Seems like old lessons have yet to be learned and jihad will be alive and well until there is some equitable settlement of this age old question. Who came first, the Jews, or the Palestinians... and does it really matter who came first at this late stage of history?  

When Life Gives You Lemons

go south for the winter and learn how to cook chicken and everything else. Low country, creole, Cajun, and barbecue. My life took a major financial change recently and I've decided to put my money to work continuing my culinary education, but not in a traditional classroom. Used to be that you learned from the pot room up. Toiling until they let you near a stove. No fancy schools, just a killer apprentice program meant to weed out the ones who couldn't cut the mustard, or a decent baton of carrot. I've earned the right to call myself a culinary artist. I have the burn scars to prove it. But, there is much I don't know about the culinary palate in this country. I've always been intrigued by the mix of cultures that make up the southern recipe book. French, American Indian, and African for sure. Did collards greens end up on the table because the slaves were hungry for more? That's the story I've heard. I want to find out if it's true. I want to learn Paula Deen's chicken recipe, the way it's done in her restaurant. I want to eat at a shack on a bayou somewhere in Cajun country. Savor fresh fish from the gulf and grilled oysters too. I want to eat as much corn bread and as many ribs and fried green tomatoes as I can wrap my lips around. I want to submerse myself in red beans and rice, red eye gravy, and gumbo. Travel from New Orleans to Savannah to Charleston to who knows were in search of a true Southern culinary adventure. Now, to find the best place to start...... Wish me luck folks.