NEW YORK CITY VISIT: Melting Pot Still

Just got back from New York City (NYC) where we visited our son and his wife who live and work there. They just got into their new apartment and wanted us to see it.

I will admit that life in NYC is very different from life in Canton, Michigan or any city in Michigan for that matter. I was happy to see that my son and his wife have acclimated very well to city life and astonishingly, seem just like everyone else in NYC and this after growing up in Michigan suburbs.

We went to Coney Island on the subway. It was 92 degrees and many New Yorkers were heading for the beach. Imagine heading for the beach on the subway; families with coolers, blankets and beach chairs – on the subway?

Once we got there the place was hoping. I have never been to Coney Island in NYC and was surprised to see a massive boardwalk made entirely of wooden boards. The beach was huge and you could not get a hot dog at Nathan’s Famous Coney Dog places because the lines were too long.

The one thing that stood out for me as I wandered around was the huge ethnic diversity of the crowd. I hardly heard any American being spoken; I did not hear any Polish either. I did hear a lot of Russian and other languages I could not identify. The families seemed happy while enjoying a day at the beach.

The scene probably mirrored the early 1900s or late 1800 when Europeans descended on New York by the thousands creating Little Italy, Little Poland, etc. Now the immigrants come from Asia, the Middle East, Russia and the Caribbean – so nothing has really changed.

I like to point out to those Americans that resent “foreigners” that we are, after all, all foreigners and the children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of immigrants who braved the dangers and uncertainties of travel and re-settlement to a different country, a country that held the promise of a better life for generations to come.

It makes you stop and think that America still holds that allure for so many after all these years. It also shows us that the people of the world still need an America; a land of opportunity for all, because many other countries of the world are still repressive and regressive with no hope for a better life in the near future.

I admire the courageous human spirit of past and present immigrants and believe that, that spirit is what makes us great and has made us great. I decry the attitude of “America for Americans” because it is an attitude of ignorance and arrogance; just look how many non-citizen immigrants are serving in the armed forces.

NYC is still expensive as hell to visit but I did get airline tickets to JFK for $109 round-trip and that is not bad.

CUBA: Common sense at last!

I have to admit that Obama is bringing a fresh breeze or sunshine or let us say, some semblance of sanity and common sense to our government. I may not agree with everything he is doing but certain of his actions are so refreshing it gives me goose bumps.

One of them concerns CUBA. I am a capitalist. I hate Communism and history has shown that Communism does not work – period. I will talk later about how our economic depression and for that matter, all economic depressions, bring the old Communists out of the woodwork to revive a theory that has never worked but somehow seems attractive to people suffering the effects of a bad economy – take from the rich, they don’t deserve it!

Anyway, when Cuba’s corrupt dictatorship was taken over by a Communist, corrupt dictatorship under Fidel Castro, the U.S. went bonkers. We all know the history (Cuban Missile Crisis under Kennedy) etc. and the fact that an embargo has existed for a very long time making Cuba and it’s people poorer than dirt.

China was and is a Communist country but we opened our borders to them (trade) and accepted their form of government and now China is the economic leader of the world, their people have climbed out of their abject poverty to a new level of prosperity not seen in many, many years – the future is bright as hell! I have always maintained that if you introduce capitalism into a country that did not have it, you will show the people what kind of life is possible and from that point onwards, they will never go back to the old, poor ways and that is what happened with China so to me, capitalism is the best weapon against Communism.

Why did we not respond to Cuba like we did to China? If we did, Cuba and Cubans could be basking in new found luxury just like the Chinese are today. So what is the difference?

I don’t pretend to know exactly what the differences are but a large Cuban-American population in Florida, hell-bent on revenge and punishment were a big factor. In fact, haters of Fidel wanting him to be proven wrong were actually punishing the people of Cuba instead. In fact, recently Raul Castro has admitted that they (Fidel & Communism) may have been wrong for Cuba – did you hear that?

Politics is also to blame for us not reaching out to Cuba. We so wanted Cuban Communism to fail that we forgot about our humanity and left common sense out of our feelings.

Fidel is no longer president. His brother Raul is and he already has made changes, relaxing some of the authoritarian Communist rules in place for so many years. With Obama reaching out a hand of peace, Raul has said that topics like human rights, freedom of the press, release of political prisoners, free travel – everything can be discussed. Obama had requested some reciprocal gestures by the Castro government to show they are really open to making some changes in exchange for normalizing relations between the two countries. Obviously the removal of the economic embargo is the big goal for Cuba. Like I said it could bring prosperity and freedom to Cuba in no time at all.

Like I said, a fresh breeze is blowing across the country – the Obama breeze.

RELIGION: The Vatican Fights Back?

I would like to follow-up on a blog I did ridiculing Pope Benedict for saying that condoms cannot prevent AIDS. It appears that many have taken umbrage at the Pope’s remarks as well as some medical associations and a few governments.

Belgians were so angered at the Pope’s “dangerous” remarks that they passed a legislative action denouncing the Pope’s remarks and ordering their ambassador to the Vatican to deliver a message of protest.

Well, the Vatican is not sitting still for these attacks; they are counter-attacking. Obviously they cannot defend the Pope’s idiotic statement that condoms cannot prevent AIDS. The scientific fact is that if everyone in Africa wore a condom during sex, AIDS would be totally controlled if not eradicated.

So what can the Vatican say in the Pope’s defense? Well they can say that the “Pope will not be intimidated by those wishing to silence him” That his words were taken out of context? How about that what the Pope was really saying is that sexual responsibility through abstinence and monogamy is the only way to fight AIDS.

This reminds me of Sarah Palin advocating sexual abstinence for teenagers while her daughter was screwing her boyfriend right in the governor’s mansion. The boyfriend said Palin knew about it and the daughter said that abstinence does not work and never will; so much for that right-wing bullshit and hypocrisy.

Same goes for the Vatican. If you are so smart and speak for your god, why is he and obviously you, so goddamn dumb that you don’t understand human nature and a specific country’s cultural nature and continue to spout idealistic ideas and concepts that really have nothing to do with earthly reality.

If you really gave a shit about the welfare of people you should do something that may have a chance at actually helping them. Africans have had a certain respect for the “white father” from Rome but after hearing what the Pope said, they just laughed – bye- bye any credibility the Pope may have had.

The Vatican’s anti-condom position for any reason is a very bizarre position. Originally, I think the position was basically against birth-control of any kind and the reason for that was that the Church needs more new Catholics to keep the money flowing so don’t you dare limit your offspring. In the old days you could always tell which family was Catholic; the one with the ten (10) kids. Obviously, Catholics in America got wise and just took the pronouncements from the Vatican with a grain of salt.

My mother, the ultimate Catholic, said abortion is none of the Pope’s goddamn business.

What makes the Vatican’s anti-condom position so bizarre is that if they know how AIDS is spread (we have to assume they do) and the fact that AIDS kills not only adults but children and entire families and knowing that sexual abstinence and monogamy are totally unrealistic and unworkable concepts, why would they not take the path that would undeniably save lives?

This is where the Vatican and for that matter, the formal Catholic religion as lead by the Vatican, is so far removed from humanity and the way the world functions that they are, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant as leaders and teachers of the peoples of this earth.

IRAQ: I told you so...

I have been busy with an FDA inspection of my facilities and so had no time to do my thing, but hopefully things can come back to normal relatively quickly.

I wanted to touch on IRAQ because I have not mentioned it for some time but feel the need to do the I TOLD YOU SO thing again. I am not the only one saying this and all of us who argued for a partition plan for Iraq can be vindicated – unfortunately many people will die because the plan was not adopted.

Bush had only one plan in mind and that was to originate a democracy in the Middle East and hopefully set a pattern for the rest of the region. Well, the plan was arrogant and totally ignorant from the start and now many more people will pay the ultimate price including all those American soldiers already dead and their relatives now knowing they had died for NOTHING! Don’t take out your frustrations on me – talk to your buddy BUSH and his band of idiots!

Yes, you are hearing that AMERICAN deaths are way down – and they are. We are leaving the mess to the Iraqis. If you pay any attention to the news from the region, you will notice that there are steady, daily suicide attacks killing anywhere from 10 to 30 or 40 people. You don’t usually here much about these because they don’t concern Americans, but they are facts.

We trained the Iraqi army to keep the peace. The Iraqi army is all Shiites. We also trained the tribal, paramilitary squads to fight and keep the peace; these are all Sunni.

Recently, these two (2) American trained groups started killing each other – as planned from the start. Remember I told you that a civil war is the only logical next step. They are not even waiting for the U.S. forces to leave because they know Obama has other things on his mind and will not re-visit the Iraq problem and allow more Americans to die.

The Kurds in the North are building up their military strength for the inevitable attack by the Shiite army. It is only a matter of time.

May I say that this just pisses me off and I know others feel the same. This problem could have been handled and bloodshed avoided if the partition plan proposed by sane, knowledgeable people was at least considered – it was not and now someone needs to be slapped and kicked in the ass for their arrogant stupidity.

Bush is too stupid to recognize what he has done and his cohorts will always just blame it on others – FRUSTRATION!!!