VENEZUELA: I have a business stake there...

I have been following the situation in VENEZUELA for many years now.

I have been doing business with a gentleman there for many years and he has done very well selling my products there and has built up a good reputation for his company and our products.

I have visited Venezuela once and that was mainly in the Caracas area and found it to be pretty modern but with a huge disparity between the rich and the poor with the poor living in cardboard boxes adjacent to a mountain range.

My business there was complicated by the antics of their crazy-ass president Hugo Chavez. He would make currency exchange (Bolivars into US dollars) illegal and my dealer there was forced to purchase US dollars on the black market.

When we heard Chavez was sick, we rejoiced and when he finally died, we cheered…very bad human behavior on our part, I know but he was no good for the country or my business.

There will be a new election held on April 12^th but I am worried because the country’s constitution has already been violated with the appointment of Chavez’s vice president Nicolas Maduro as the interim president; constitutionally the speaker of the house should have been appointed interim president.

Also the elections should be held 30 days after the death of the president and obviously that is not being followed which leads me to believe that Chavez’s political party will not honor the constitution and will basically act as they please. Maduro has already started blaming the U.S. for the death of Chavez who died of cancer which indicates that he may declare a national emergency and assume dictatorial powers.

The man facing Maduro in the April elections is one HENRIQUE CAPRILES RADONSKI.

You may be surprised by the Polish surname but I have found that many Poles emigrated to South America after WWII and so you will encounter quite a few Polish surnames there. I also found that many Nazi officials emigrated or escaped to South America.

It seems that Radonski’s maternal grandfather came to Venezuela from Poland in 1947 and was involved in cinema. His maternal grandmother was in the Warsaw Ghetto during the war but managed to escape.

On his paternal side the ancestry is Polish Jewish; Radonski is a Catholic and was raised a Catholic.

It is a small world after all and I really hope that Venezuelans will vote to finally get the country on the right track but that will be hard to do as Chavez and now Maduro have great support from the poor who really do not benefit from having Chavez or now Maduro as presidents who have painted the opposition party as rich, white aristocrats who don’t care about the poor.

This should be interesting…

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MAYOR BING: Cut the BS...

I have to give a shout out to Detroit mayor DAVE BING.

Breaking ranks with all the idiots on the city council (except GARY BROWN) screaming racist remarks against the appointment of a sorely needed emergency financial manager, he came out and said let’s quit bullshitting ourselves and face the facts; an EFM will come…enough drama…let’s get together to help Detroit get out of this mess.

Now there is a real man that actually cares about Detroit and not just his own ass!!!

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NEWS ABOUT DETROIT: Very Hard to Watch!

It has become unpleasant to watch the local news report in my house because I become so livid watching Detroit political and religious leaders make total asses out of themselves, their city and the people that live in the city.

I think what drives me insane is their total arrogance in the face of their remarkable stupidity and hypocrisy. 

They detest the appointment of an emergency manager as an affront to their civil rights yet are absolutely incapable of running the city.

Their main concern is their own jobs since they have no other skills to support themselves with and the best way to keep your job is by playing the race card for all its worth.

Detroit’s pastors are threatening civil disobedience and even rioting if the emergency manager is installed and you may ask why as I have on many occasions. The only answer must be that somehow their livelihood will be impacted if an EM is in charge and that must mean money and power.

The arrogance is overwhelming in the face of practically unanimous agreement by all people with any semblance of brain power and common sense that an emergency manager is absolutely necessary to keep the city from going into bankruptcy which I think should definitely have been allowed to happen to once and for all, shut all those idiots up.

Our governor is a little too kind in trying to help Detroit while being constantly spit on and called all sorts of racist names…he absolutely is a saint and I cannot understand how he keeps his composure.

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THE TESTAMENT OF MARY: Colm Toibin

Since religion is such a hot topic currently, at least the Catholic Religion is, I was interested in an article written by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times titled: HOW MARY FEELS ABOUT BEING A VIRGIN.

It has to do with Irish author COLM TOIBIN who writes a lot about the Catholic faith and experience and has recently adapted his novel THE TESTAMENT OF MARY into a Broadway one-woman show. I downloaded his book into my Kindle and can’t wait to start reading it.

Toibin’s Mary disdains the disciples’ drive for power after the death of her son, by hiding the truth to protect the institution they are building. Very interesting coming at this time when cardinals are meeting in Rome to deal with the Vatican’s scandals, old and new sexual abuse revelations and who knows what else.

He has also written a collection of short stories called MOTHERS AND SONS and one of the stories deals with an Irish mother whose son is a priest and is being charged with sexual abuse.

I find it heartening to see that authors are using the medium of novels, short stories and plays to tackle very sensitive issues that are currently being discussed and also to offer alternative views of what may have really happened; the Gospels are not history but someone’s views of what they may have wanted to happen but have no idea what really happened.

TOIBIN who is a gay Irish Catholic says that the church must have tolerance (gay people, like all other people, are made in God’s image) and its leaders have lost any sense of how sanctimonious denunciations clash with their scandal and imagery, causing nothing but pain.

I have just read on the news that the Vatican is clamping down on “leaks” and will not allow, mostly American cardinals to have press conferences with the media because as everyone knows, Americans want transparency and the Vatican is all about secrecy forever and ever and ever…really a great time for a change.

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THE BIBLE: History Channel Series

We started watching THE BIBLE on the HISTORY CHANNEL because my wife just loves religious movies, especially at Easter time but the movies were always the same old ones done years and years ago. 

Now we have the digital age which can show Moses parting the Red Sea and make it look real…well actually they did not do such a good job at making it look real.

I too like these movies or TV dramas but I am more interested in how the writers, producers and directors interpret Biblical tales.

My only concern is that this series is being produced by and shown on THE HISTORY CHANNEL which, at least in name, purports to be involved with real history and The Bible is anything but real history.

I am concerned that impressionable people including children will come away after viewing the series with the belief that the scenes portrayed actually happened.

Most movies disavow any resemblance to real events and people in the preface (unless they are documentaries) and maybe this should happen here.

We will enjoy watching this new, digital portrayal of Biblical stories; but my wife will still watch Charleston Heston as Moses or Ben Hur and who can ever be a better Jesus than Jeffrey Hunter.

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REPUBLICANS BACK GAY MARRIAGE?

There is a case pending before the Supreme Court about gay marriage or more specifically if California’s Proposal 8 blocking the legalization of gay marriage was constitutional.

There are a couple of interesting points to this case and one is that when Proposal 8 was voted in as an amendment to California’s constitution in 2008, a majority of Californians obviously felt that gay marriage is a no-no. Here we are in 2013 and a majority of Californians now feel it is a constitutional right…what a difference 5 years makes.

What happened?

Also interesting is that over 100 prominent Republicans including Jon Huntsman (our next president) and Clint Eastwood of all people, have signed a petition that was sent to the Supreme Court, in favor of legalizing gay marriage.

Actually, Republicans who favor small government and always preach that government should not interfere in people’s lives have always been quite hypocritical with their stance on abortion and gay marriage; so what has changed?

Well nothing has changed as far as the far right Republicans are concerned. Those religious nuts will always wear their religion on their sleeves and try to cram their beliefs and values down everybody’s throats but losing the last election has many younger and smarter Republicans thinking that a change is needed if they are to get power back.

I have read a number of opinions that state that if Republicans give up their Neanderthal ideas about social issues or at least allow society to handle them instead of trying to legislate them; they would be in power permanently because then they would be true LIBERTARIANS.

Americans are fiscally conservative and feel Republicans could handle economic issues better than tax and spend Democrats but they are also or are becoming also, social liberals or at least moderates (live and let live) and more and more feel that social issues are not political issues…any more.

After the last Republican primary where Romney had to make himself into a dumb-ass religious kook to win the primary but lose the national election; many Republicans now probably feel that they don’t have to convince the religious right that they are true religious nuts like they are but start playing to the wider American audience which desires a moderate in all respects.

Californians changed dramatically in 5 years as far as their feelings about legalizing gay marriage and I suspect the whole nation has also.