Category Archives: Text

A Peruvian Trap

You know how it goes when you’re a world citizen blogger. One day you’re talking about Poland, then Frisbee in Amsterdam, and before you know it, it’s time to talk Turkey. Or as we say in Portuguese “Peru” .

Not sure how much you know or the world’s media tells you, about Peruvian history and politics, but myself – I’ve been watching the events unfold for the last 6 years with great frustration. Let me catch you up:

From 1990 to 2000 there was a most terrible president by the name of Alberto Fujimori. A tyrant and dictator who used all kinds of violence and secret tactics to maintain power and oppress oppositional groups. But fortunately in 2000 his ass got chased out of Peru and back to Japan (where he is also a citizen). The country slowly started a process of investigating the crimes of the Fujimori administration, eventually arresting one of the major murderous assholes- Vladimiro Montesinos, who was the head of the secret police during that time, and was also very talented at profiting from drug smuggling. Unfortunately they still haven’t gotten their hands on Fujimori, because Japan refuses to hand him over.

So now there are elections coming up, and Fujimori – even while hiding in Japan – says he will run for president again. And having heard about this, I have a plan for Peru:

Being that it is necessary to deal with the past in order to face the future. And being that Alberto is responsible for a whole lot of human rights violations during his time as el presidente, I say he must be captured – in a clever way. Therefore – I say tell him he is running for president. Tell the whole country to “make pretend” .. and then pretend he wins.. and when he arrives at the airport with that smug “I killed lots of you the first time and youre stupid enough to elect me again” look on his face, ARREST HIM! YAY! Then comes the trial and people can throw tomatos and poof.. national reconciliation mixed with justice and even a bit of fun!

Cronyism Stinks

You do me a favor, I do you a favor; thants something I often heard growing up in New Jersey. It’s often a cliché reserved for mobsters, owing someone a favor, but the truth is that type of thinking and manner of relating with humans dominates our western society. Anywhere you look, at all levels, it is all about who you know, what you can get from them, and how you’ll eventually repay that favor. Sometimes it’s an honorable trade off used to reasonable means. But overall, I truely believe it’s alot of bullshit.

Think about it, you look at the whitehouse, and you see a sub-par lawyer get nominated to the supreme court by a sub-par president who has surrounded himself with unqualified people because they have been loyal to him. And he returns and rewards those favors, in oh so many ways.

But this isn’t purely political. You probably know a guy (more often a guy than a girl!) who has a sweet ass job, who is totally not qualified or simply does nothing. The thing is – he knew someone and maybe they owed him one. Cronies. Cronyism. I won’t bother looking it up in the dictionary, it’s all about giving people privledges simply because they have ingraciated themselves to you.

I can’t help but think if there were less of this in western culture, or generally, throughout the earth, the world would be a more fair and functional place.

Polish Doublemint Twins Take Election

Something should be said about the Polish elections, cause Poland is a big country, a new EU member, with a truely stubborn national spirit (I love stubborn populations!). I figure when you have such a violent and abused history as a nation, the effects will be felt for generations, in many different ways.

TwinsTrouble is, I’m not a Polish politics expert. Though I do keep an eye on Valesa’s son, who did get elected into parliament a few days ago, I had only read an article or two about the twins who are poised to become Prime Minister and President from the “law and justice” party. Can you just picture how the Bush family must be hard at work trying to get the same kind of deal. I mean they got the twins already.

I digress – Polish elections: They say its a shift to the “right” because the “left” is corrupt. They also say the L and J party will tackle unemployment and reforms. Myself I’m skeptical any party in Poland could properly handle problems that are deeply rooted traditions more then they are sudden crises. Or perhaps Im wrong, was the Polish social and economic scene doing well at some point? Communism, capitalism, fascism… my heart goes out to them cause regular Poles always seem to get skrewed.

Here’s one journalist who’s blog I should read more closely and covers the elections quite well. Of course you can also consult the Beeb. And lastly, I haven’t listened to it or checked it thoroughly, but this report looks nice and grassroots.

Message versus Presentation

I was having brunch in the presence of these sunflowers and lots of international friends reunited. During the passing of the salad and the eating of the croissants I mentioned the blog post of mine the other day about the world bank and the response it received. In case you don’t remember, one of the many WB people who read this blog (yes im serious) left a comment encouraging me to join the discussion at the official organization’s blog.

So I went over to the blog like a good internaut, and I left a paragraph about the state of the world and the questions I ask about the Bank’s objectives and methods. I guess within that paragraph i may have used a word like suck or shit, probably because it was the word that best fit the point I was making. I actually don’t remember if I used either, all I know is that I received a response from the webmaster saying that my comments could not be published because the language “does not meet publishing regulations“. To which I should have responded = Your Publishing Rules Suck Ass.

Someone at the table challenged my lunacy and said — “wouldn’t it be more practical to just take the curse word out and send your comments again so they can be heard?” To which I responded with my best childhood stubbornness…. NO. But he went to pose a great question for idealists and excessively proud people like myself — “If you show up to a meeting somewhere, to make a point about something you believe, but because you dress in shitty clothes, no one takes you seriously; wouldn’t it be better to dress nice, and then be able to have your point heard?” To which I quietly responded — NO.

I get that feeling this attitude could be a problem.

Cindy Harassed by New York’s Worst

If there’s one thing I dislike more than cops who think they can do whatever they like whenever they want – it’s cops who pick on mothers who’ve dedicated their lives to stopping war.

Amazingly no police in Texas, the alleged bastion of conservatism, took microphones away from the scores of people camped out at Crawford. No, they had to go to New York City, the alleged bastion of open minded thinking, where the police decide they need special permits to speak their grievences, and some of them claimed to have “never heard of her.” Never heard of Cindy Sheehan? Bullshit!

Anyway those of us raised or living in the NYC area know all about this situation. My university years often involved going to demostrations where the cops outnumbered the protesters and cornered us into tiny pens in obscure parts of the city where the tourists and businesspeople wouldn’t see us.

for homework, go listen to madge podcasting from my living room.