Traveling Man

Remembering Catalina

Some economists argue that Hoover and his protectionist Congress helped to provoke the Great Depression, and that some of Roosevelt's policies helped prolong it. Lyndon Johnson broke our economy for a generation and accomplished little, other than making this country into a parody of its finest ideals. Then there was the first Bush's Voodoo Economics. People forget that under Republican idol Reagan, unemployment climbed to 11%. (The sky didn't fall, btw.) It recovered to 7% and he was reelected in a 49-state landslide. He wasn't responsible for the slide, but might be credited with aspects of the economic improvement--mainly because he backed off and let the marketplace work. (Cracking the Russian spine didn't hurt, either; that left us the only superpower.)

But Reagan made mistakes; greed exists and more controls were needed, not less. Clinton made the economy worse at first and was heading for a Carter-like tragedy (Clinton's healthcare reform would have wrecked us, had it passed); but in his second term, working with a new Republican majority, Clinton improved the economy tremendously, created jobs, and left a huge surplus in our treasury.

Those halycon days were followed by the 8-year Bush-Cheney-Paulson debacle that squandered that surplus, and broke our economy, to boot. Those anti-halycon days were followed by the much-heralded Obama ascension. His incredible attempt to prove that we can spend our way out of apocalypse-level debt and reclaim our economic throne is just more government economics. It uses Monopoly money. It's truly unbelievable that anyone buys this nonsense. Nor do we understand that these policies are dragging us down to a level where the Chinese--who have been exporting to us for decades and using our money to buy natural resources across the globe--can supplant us on economic and other levels. Get ready. You won't like it, either.

Government economics--and it has no ideology or party affiliation--is bullshit. It's greed, stupidity and ego, and often coalesces into a mindless juggernaut. It can cause great damage, but has little chance to improve our economy, except through correcting the original government excesses. Fat chance of that. The worst excesses are sitting on their butts in Congress, greased by lobbyists and reelected over and over again to districts who only want their share. “Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?”

I know, it's not exciting stuff; it happens behind doors, under the table, off-record. And the world will always be with us. But occasionally it's a bit too much, even for me.
 

The most famous poster in the world

I've written a lot about Che Guevara, virtually all of it fiction, although I try mightly to approach the man's spirit.  I was barely out of high school in Texas when Che was killed in Bolivia.  That was 1967 and Che was high-regarded in our culture.  He was, of course, just as widely feared; and more significantly, hated.  The feeling that the world would become (in his words) "many Vietnams" fed that fear of men like Guevara.

It's a great irony that such a sensitive and caring physician became such a violent and ruthless man; and that he accomplished with his cruel death what he could not bring forth in life - the beginnings of world revolution.  (It's an ongoing, back-and-forth struggle where technology, as where as the players, goals, and rules change constantly.   Let's go with this, for now.)

In Feb-Mar of 1960 (about a month's visit, in all), Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir traveled through Cuba and talked with people.  This was about a year after Castro has taken power, and the French philosophers and politicos were asked not to describe Cuba as an emerging socialist society; Castro had not (as it was later described) yet "discovered" he was a Communist: that came in a vision, after the Bay of Pigs and the U.S. economic boycott, which forced Castro to turn to the U.S.S.R. for aid.  (Makes you wonder why our government never seems to be able to recognize a potential friend, or is so quick to make eternal enemies?)

The philosophers spoke extensively with Che, who was fluent in French.  Later Sartre, an accomplished critic, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and existentialist philosopher, called Che "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our era."

While I admire Che very much, I'm going to ponder that statement for while.  We'll talk later.  I once traveled to Paraguay and Bolivia on a medical mission, but took time to explore some Che issues myself.

Anyway, here's Che, with a video and song I really enjoyed.

No milk today

While I was living in Houston, I attended a rambling but energetic lecture given by Ray Bradbury.  Ray had been visiting a friend of his in town and had agreed to speak at his friend's church.

Many of the people in the church were (quite naturally) church members, and weren't specifically there to see Ray, so after he signed a few things, he kicked back and I got to chat with the great man.  Ray had lots of L.A. anecdotes and shared them freely, as well as giving me a little writing advice (mostly, he said, 'Do the work.')  I also remember something he railed powerfully against: listening to the local news.  They're idiots, he said.  (I'm paraphrasing that.)

That was in the 1990s.  Today, there are no havens, no Cronkites (although I like Mark Helprin), and only small pools of sanity; idiocy has oozed into every facet of the media. 

I turned on the morning news and watched for five minutes.  It's a gut check, and it's always the same - some incredibly vapid, wrongheaded, or simply misleading segment.  This morning it was Britany Spear's latest meltdown.  I've never bought her music (or listened to it on purpose), or followed her exploits from channel-to-channel.  Still, I could hardly live in America and own a television and be oblivious to Britany's ongoing howl against the moon.  But listening to the commentators comment on actions reported by  paparazzi (levels on levels), I didn't switch the channel right away.  Nor did I feel smug, or want to mock her, or laugh at her frailties.  I just wanted to give her a hug.

I know, I'm pathetic.