Taxes with Tea

There was nary a breeze in the well-paved over downtown of Stuart, Florida.  The temperature hovered over the registered 80, as the 90% humidity and heat waves bounced off of the asphalt and up at the Tea Party underway.  The streets in front of the US Post Office are lined from end to end and flowing onto Federal Highway 1 where the intended message of revolution would get better exposure.  News cameras were interviewing anyone who had something to say and lawn chairs started taking up prime curbside real estate.  There were hundreds of people pounding the pavement for governmental change, like fiscal responsibility and term limits in the congress.

The people have something to say and, via keen online organizational strategy that mimics Gov. Howard Deans in the 2004 election, have opted for an evolved Tea Party to exercise their first amendment rights.  The interesting thing about this well-publicized event is that it was not the grass-roots event as it was advertised, but instead a well-organized, cyber-based partisan push against the current administration.  When you have Strategic Activism, LLC organizing your events, Visual Enterprise Systems, Inc., designing your copyrighted ‘grass-roots’ campaign and one of the movement’s national organizers being the founder and director of “Top Conservatives on Twitter”, there is only one more way to show your partisan stripes: having Fox News host a live broadcast on this ‘American Tradition’.  Oh, they did that too.

Being April 15th, everyone is still buzzing from their annual tax shot, so the statements being made were even more poignant as individuals with slogan t-shirts walked around with home-made placards screaming everything from “No New Taxes, Cut Government Spending” to “Fire Congress” to “Freedom Not Tyranny”.  Tea-bags were pinned to hats, shirts and earrings, and for every voice of dissent there was a horn supporting it.  Horns for gun rights, horns for impeachment and horns for that really cute blonde girl with the ‘Freedom Not Tyranny’ sign.

The air was electric with revolutionary spirit and the South Florida Action Committee was out canvassing the youth to get them thinking about democracy and activism.  Standing behind their Gadsden flag handing out pamphlets to the fresh blood, it seemed like the youth were more energized by the social energy that accompanies upheaval and dissent.  The new sons and daughters of liberty were using loud angry voices paired up with the Gadsden flag and it’s defiant, “Don’t Tread On Me” motto, an exciting thing for any age.  The activist energy must have worn off, as the kids who were approached by Action Committee volunteer got impatient during her spiel and just asked how they could get one of those yellow shirts with a snake on it.

A gentleman who wanted to only go by Carl, was giving out leaflets on a corner where the surrounding people were in the midst of the chorus of “God Bless America”.  When asked if he had come up with the “I’ll Keep My Money-Guns-Freedom.  You Keep The Change” message, he said no.  Someone had seen his car all-dressed up for the event that they had asked him to give these out.  He insisted on giving me two.  One for me, and one for the friend that wasn’t with me.

Standing on the curb waving her American flag was another woman whom I asked why she was there.  She questioned me who I was reporting for and I replied that I was doing some citizen journalism for the Huffington Post.  She turned to me and from behind her big sunglasses said, “I have three kids.  One who just lost a job.  One who is on the fringe.  And one who is on the other side of the desk laying people off.  Stop taxing and stop spending.  And you can tell that to Adrianna!”.  Then she promptly turned around and started waving her flag again.

Passing cars were as much a part of the demonstration as the troops on the ground.  One old lady screamed from the comfortable front seat of her SUV, “Fire all of the Idiots!”, then smiled, waved and drove off.  A few photos later a man in mineral blue PT Cruiser comes through the big intersection making a left hand turn and yells, “You lost the election, get over it, Assholes!”, and proceeded to speed away before anyone threw a bottle through his window.  Cars were honking so loud that picketing parents had to take their children out of their strollers and hand them off to the other parent who could take them away from this ruffled feathers parade.

One of the less fierce protesters was 6 year old Philip who was dressed in a t-shirt that read, “No More Zer000,000,000,000s”.  Little Philip was an entrepreneur with his parent’s help, running a lemonade stand.  All proceeds from the lemonade and snack sales were going to be sent right to Washington.  I sat back and thought where they were going to send this to.  Maybe to President Obama or maybe to the congress.  What type of note would they include?  Here is all of our six year old’s money, take it now and don’t bill him for it later.  All I knew is that it was still a hot day and people were moving away from the Post Office where people were still driving through and dropping off their taxes in the drop box.  So I decided to donate a couple bucks to Philip’s mission and cool myself off at the same time.  As I handed the cash over, Philip’s dad turns to me and says, “That is the most expensive glass of lemonade you’re ever going to buy.”  He was probably right.

If anything comes from this retro-revolution it just may be that Lipton’s second quarter revenue is going to outpace prior estimates, otherwise it may just be another whopping success in proving the power the internet can play in amassing momentum for a cause.  As an exercise in flexing one’s first amendment might, it was quite visible that people care in this little Florida town, where home foreclosures are through the roof and unemployment is growing by the day.  It seems there was a voice for every issue on the table.  Voices for the left, voices for the right, and voices that just want someone to look out for the people on Main Street.   Many of the voices came from pensioners that found this to be a great time to bond with their kids and their grandkids, especially seeing how everyone is affected by the downturn.  This little tea party might just end up being that really fun day after Easter where the family all got together, made patriotic banners and got loud on the town like it was July 4th all over again.

USA, Your Door Is Now Ajar…

Can a better future be seen, even from the top floor?

We collectively exhale one of many held breaths as President Obama is living up to another part of the campaign promises.  This time it is the one to facilitate a more humanitarian relationship with Cuba. What exactly does that mean? Does that mean that we can all travel unhindered between Cuba and the US, take bike tours of the Vinales valley and do an oooh-aaah tour of Guantanamo’s military prison after some breathtaking peak-bagging in the Sierra Madres? No, think again. Like every valuable coin there are two sides that one must pay attention to. One side with a smiling face on it and the other side with the symbols, numbers and gritty language.

While our currency always states on it’s emblematic seal, E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one) it should probably state the converse, Ex Uno Plura (out of one, many), because as we are now a singular nation, we are more so a body of voices that all want to be heard individually and are willing to say what they should not just to be heard. Obama made promises, or declarations, and is now, in the face of quite intense abnormal forces, aiming to be a man of his word. Though these actions rarely affect one person, but instead hordes who all hold different beliefs on the subject matter. For every person who believes that we need to loosen our policy against Cuba, there is another person who will tell you the difference will be made when the other side takes its own actions. Undoubtedly will relief be felt from the reduced travel restrictions and by empowering people to do more for their family that remains in Cuba then they were able to before the changes. However, giving cell phone flexibility and greater mail parcel value will not change Cuba. This is where the flame gets its heat.

Many devotees to the Cuban cause believe that actions such as these only assist in propping up a communist regime that truly keeps its people under its thumb. Until the Cuban government stops its biast and archaic practices, the Cuban people will never be free. Yes, they will have quick and free access to healthcare and everyone will know how to read, but the Cuban people will never be free.It is impossible to feel free when your government can throw you in jail for not-supporting the system.  By this I do not mean revolting and being outspoken, but more so as by not following the recommendations to the letter.  There is a reason that Cuba boasts that there are nothing but criminals in  Cuban prison, becuase from dissenters to artists, anyone expressing counter-communist beliefs are deemed criminals.

There have been numerous cases where charges such as peligrosidad, dangerousness, has been cited as the chief complaint. Peligrosidad is an article defined as behavior or action that contradicts socialist morality, thus the offending individual has a special proclivity to commit crimes. Thus peligrosidad, under the penal code, can be used as a security measure to sentence someone up to four years in prison. In the past peligrosidad has been used to send punk rockers to jail, gays to jail and, now, rock climbers. However, as per the latter, it is not because of the activity itself, it is because the activity puts Cubans in contact with foreigners on a regular basis thus possibly altering the individual’s belief in their government’s system.

So the government has concocted the idea that Cuban climbers are growing marijuana on the mogotes, the picturesque limestone mountains, that have made the Pinar del Rio province famous. The authorities have stated that using heat-sensitive photography they have evidence of such activity, though they have never shown anyone accused or restricted from climbing, or anyone else really, these pertinent photos. Anyone indigenous to the area knows the error in the argument. The only thing that climbing has in common with drugs is that climbing is like a drug. Once you start there is a probability of addiction. Once addicted you just need to climb all of the time.

The problem with climbing often is that it makes you not want to work more and it exposes you to all sorts of worldly people as well as nurturing one’s instinctive analytical nature to question and test boundaries. This does not sit well with the Cuban government. However, returning to the original argument, no matter the energy that the US throws into the Cuban issue, it will not relieve the situation for Cubans, and thus only slightly for Cuban-Americans. The only thing that can be done is to place multi-lateral pressure on the Castro Regime to free it’s people.

Individual voices have been selected throughout time to express the happiness of the Cubans, and I am not here to debunk this. For some Cubans the life they have is all they could ever want. Unfortunately there are many Cubans who want a lot more. Here is a link to a post by a Cuban with a perfect record to wishes to exercise their will to travel, as it has been affirmed by the president of the Writers and Artists Union of Cuba (UNEAC), “that all Cubans can travel, except those who have a debt to the justice system.” This is not the truth and it is unfortunate that misleading information makes its way into the popular media without the appropriate filters or counter-voices.

So, in as much as I applaud our new president for his actions and courage to make the touch decisions that his predecessors could not, I say it will not be enough. It will not be enough until a second revolution originates from the same limestone caves and dark corners that the first revolution did. It will not be enough until Cubans have the right to travel, to earn respectable wages based on their own ambition or to pursue their own dreams as life has bestowed unto them. It will not be enough until the Castro Regime turns the government over to the populous from the greedy hands of a highly-centralized and imbalanced control of power. If the sentiments and declarations of the revolution that just celebrated its 50th anniversary had been universally followed then it might actually have been enough.

Seeing Our Shadow

Be afraid! Be very, very afraid!

So it’s Groundhog Day again.  The alarm clock goes off and we wake up to another morning of dismal economic news, partisan punditry and some kind of music that will remain in our head for the entire day.  The good news is that Punxsutawney Phil, the seer of seers, the prognosticator of prognosticators is here to lift us out the monday morning doldrums.  Or so we hope.

This is the 123rd prediction of the whistlepig rodent, a tradition that started while President Grover Cleveland was in office in 1886. Now we have another strong democrat in office who also wants to be known as a great reformer.  So, 123 years later, what similarities do we see between Groundhog Day ritual and our government.  An Inner Circle at Gobbler’s Knob that consists of 22 old white men in top hats and tuxedos, pulling the rodent out of his hole and waving him, a den dwelling creature who hates heights, high aloft a crowd of thousands (people are curious why he has seen his shadow 96 times).  Sounds like a lot of pomp and no relative circumstance.

These men have titles that sound more like Sesame Street pseudonyms for current politicians.  Names like thunder conductor, storm chaser, sun beamer, fair weatherman, big wind maker, and fog spinner should come at the bottom of some type of decal-oriented trading card.  What will be next?  Hi kids, Hillary Clinton, the Thunder Conductor, has a special announcement, after which your handlers can bring you to the toddler changing area because she is sure to make you soil yourself.  It would be too much fun to keep playing that name game, which would be more like an elementary roast.

This year’s Groundhog Day is supposed to have brought record numbers, thousands upon thousands of people.  Well, if hundreds of thousands of people still had their jobs, they wouldn’t be standing in the frickin’ cold hills of Pennsylvania watching a tormented rodent shiver so hard he cannot bite his handlers.  Then his predictions are supposed to be heeded to when old Phil has a 60% accuracy rate.  There are a few other JV team groundhogs who boast better stats too.  Though the National Climate Data Center reports that the overall groundhog prediction accuracy rating is closer to 39%.  What does this say about a nation that looks to rodents as prognosticators of weather.  At least that number is better than our last president’s outgoing approval rating.

So the ritual here is translated as this: it is a sunny day and you step out of your house and see your shadow and get freaked out the weather will worsen.  Otherwise, you step out on a cloudy and possibly downright stormy day, see no shadow, and this is supposed to mean that spring is on it’s way.  What a load of crap.  To nitpick some more, what is with the name ground hog, there is no relevance to a hog.  And the synonym of woodchuck, the thing eats leaves and berries and never touches wood.  Let alone that woodchuck does not even stem from American etymology, but perhaps borrowed (because we have never stolen from the Native Americans) from the Algonquian name for the animal (possibly Narragansett), wuchak.

So what is this day all about.  The ’seeing’ process is as such: the ground hog is waved in the air like a foam finger at a sport’s event  and then place on a mown over stump (no doubt sold for some extra cash) in front of two scrolls.  The varmit points to the scroll that holds the future in its text, though his handlers say that despite the message, you cannot blame the messenger.  At least he has a choice, because if it were solely on the shadow that would be bass-ackwards, as shown in the last paragraph.  Nevertheless old Phil, on this 2nd of February in the year 2009 pointed to the scroll that read:

As I look around me a bright sky I see
And a shadow beside me
Six more weeks of winter it will be

Really the scroll should have read:
As I look around me a group of morons do I see
Put me back and leave me be
Go back to your world and leave this idiocy
Solve why the icebergs are melting into the sea

So far in 2009, 6 of 14 groundhogs predict an early spring, the other 8 swing the other way, and there are probably a few more that will arise from rural reporting.  What type of impact has this had?  The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its shadow too, opening down about %1 and has continued to drop with poor earnings data kept arriving.  The Nasdaq did not see its shadow and is seeing a tech-induced rise.

In this type of an economy it is hard to want to stifle an event that has had more of an economic stimulus than any government program since the beginning of this recession.  Though a proposition that could be made, and guaranteed to spur economic growth, is to create a pharmaceutical product that alters the sensitivity of rods and cones in these famed creatures so that they no longer see shadows, but, instead, a disco ball of color and light.  Maybe LSD or cannabis sativa would just do the trick, I hear the government has some research on their effects.

The Locomotion of Change

The change has already begun.  Right from the beginning, the new administration is keeping its promises, whatever those may be.  Many people balked at the Obama campaign before the election for the lack of details on a few topics.  A campaign that touted change for the better is not a new thing around these parts was the competition’s retort.  Truthfully, politics, DC and false promises go together like Larry, Moe and Curly.  What is different about the show these days, is that people are not laughing at the cliche any more, but getting critical instead.  Movements and decisions with the national welfare in mind are already being made and it seems that there will be plenty more.  Now the people are going from doubting to nods of assent.

For a while many people have been worried about the future of print in daily news delivery, there may be a solution now: there will be news to print.  If the headlines of war mongering and death to poor grammar and even worse critical thinking skills will be replaced.  It seems the new headlines actually have news.  There are no glam photo sessions of this president, just tag-lines and newspaper content.  In two days there has been a tidal change in the quality and moral direction of the subject matter .

Tim Geithner’s name emerges from text that tells the story of the administrations stance on Chinese currency manipulation.  Our trade deficit with them is substance enough, yet since stances were not being taken (cowtowing is more like it), such an important topic did not get the proper media.  Can you hear the crickets (not the whining)?  After a 60-34 senate confirmation no one is talking about back taxes or domestic help.  Ahh…just as it should be.

There are stories about the closing of the Guantanamo military base to curtail or reallocate current Defense spending.  This is an opportunity in many ways.  Communications with Cuba can be opened, the trade embargo can go to the wayside and more peace can exist in the world.  A smear on American integrity equal to Abu Graib and a vestige of the cold war era will be swept away to make room for better relations.  There are so many positive aspects about opening up relations with Cuba, the majors being: a new market for American goods; a travel destination (chaching!) that combines old world culture with UNESCO protected countryside; a new source for importing raw materials like sugar and cobalt.  So Cuban exports may not solve our current economic dilemma, but it cannot hurt.

The kicker, to round off this trio of current domestic news items with international twists, is the permission for stem-cell research to be performed on humans.  So this is not exactly a treasure chest of federal monies, but it is an astral leap compared to the last administration.  Federal monies are better served in other federal programs right now, ones that will give a more immediate jolt towards stopping this slow churning locomotive of economic depression.  Once we stop that steam breathing demon we can all get aboard and go for a much, much better ride.

This thread is just the beginning.  This is change.  It is only the first week, but already there is a renewed spirit matched with action.  Up markets, up people and a feeling that good things are on their way up too; this bodes for a better future.  This new well-spring of news is the tapping of an aquifer that has always known to be there, as it has been tapped a few times in the past, yet for some reason became an El Dorado.  Now the national GPS has put a way-point on it and will keep going back, so as to keep this new engine of change a’going.

A Trilogy of Current Events

hopefully the message to his friends will not get lost in translation

As the NYTimes.com homepage loads, the first visual display is a plane four-fifths submerged in an urban waterway, gray buildings turning gold in the receding sun. Dozens of people are in yellow rubber life-vests, huddled arm in arm out on the wing of a commercial jet that rests on the Hudson River’s surface. The other side, even more swamped, holds just as many of the passengers of flight 1549 as it lists into it’s first full aquatic immersion, where wet feet seem to be the least of the worries. Faces are calm despite the reality that the groups are being ushered into inflatable lifeboats that are latched to the grab handles positioned by the rear door. Normally seeing those yellow and gray boats sticking out in two-dimension from the safety card neatly stowed the seat back in front of you never seemed such a luxury.

Do not fret, the mouse will be explained later.

One hundred and fifty five people got a taste of how good it is to be alive, as it could so easily have been the contrary. It is rare in the life of a normal individual to have a true scare, where survival is not immediately evident. Luckily all of the passengers that spent their sunset on the Hudson, and the bystanders as well, were able to witness a great show of emergency service organization. And as the location could not be any more easily observed then the shore banks nearby, there will be plenty of great photos to share in the end.

The most pivotal point of the unravelling sequence was deftly handled by swift acting human intelligence: a pilot who knew how to do his job. Warning the passengers to brace for the impact, Captain C.B. Sullenberger had as clear of a concern for the people under his watch as he did the technical nature necessitated by the landing. After all the passengers had been cleared of his airship, the captain still went up and down the aisles twice to ensure that no one had been left behind. This begs the in-obvious question: did aisle emergency lights remain lit under the water that had flooded into the cabin?

At the moment of truth, people who do the jobs that matter, did they job they were entrusted to do. The ferry service, the fire department and the coast guard all had vessels out and facilitating a well executed rescue as they had undoubtedly prepared for so many times in the past. Even the NY Water Taxi put boats out to assist however they could, though the municipal rescue effort proved to be more than capable. With the plane not sinking completely there will be less of a headache in the future, but a logistical hangover will still be present in the extraction. Really though, kudos to everyone involved in rescue that seems to be the product of a couple of ten pound birds taking down a 47 ton commercial jetliner.

Oddly enough this has not been the only jet to go down in the last few days. Earlier this week a financial advisor from Indiana faked his own death by making a phony distress call and abandoning his personal jet while in mid-flight over Florida. Marcus Schrenker parachuted from the plane, leaving it to travel another 200 miles and land wherever it may. Fate must have felt for anyone nearby, as the plane finally went down in an uninhabited wooded area. Is this how we deal with having been recently served with divorce papers as well as being investigated for securities fraud? A child in a man’s body could be the only explanation for such irreverence of life and the permanence and impact of such a reckless and unthought out action.

This man had recently posted a video on tube of him performing a double bridge fly under in a high performance single seat plane. Traveling at 270 mph, Schrenker passed under two bridges in the Bahamas filming himself in a stunt that is claimed to have been permitted by the Bahaman government. And he thinks that people will believe that he lost control of his plane over Florida and died in a wreckage that had no body and no blood. In his SOS, Mr. Schrenker claimed that the windshield had been shattered and he was bleeding everywhere. Upon first inspection it was obvious to anyone on site that the windshield was intact and there was no blood. John Stewart said it best on the Daily Show, everyone staging a death in the manner knows to go and get a body from the morgue to burn-up unidentifiably in the wreckage.

There are so many aspects of this self-centered, perilous, brainlessness that point to the many levels of stupidity upon which this man operated. From the estranged phone call to a neighbor, the story given that he was in a canoeing accident while still carrying his oddly-aeronautical looking gear and googles, and the video of him checking into a motel after having paid in cash, this moron might be able to be classified unfit to stand trail. What kind of an imbecile plans his own ‘elaborate’ suicide with the amount of thought an eight year old gives to running away: i.e throwing a few juice boxes, cheese sticks and a change of underwear into his knapsack before riding off on his BMX into the hinterlands of suburbia. There should be surprise that they he was not found walking the railroad tracks with a stick over his shoulder, a small bundle tied up on the end. That’s it, no more silly talk of shenanigous activity.

What does still trouble is that incidents of a certain influence often happen in threes. One example of note was in the fall of 1997 when Princess Diana, Mother Theresa and John Denver all died in the six weeks spanning August 31 to October 12; all significant individuals in their own light and all looked upon with favor. In this trinity of sorts, each particular peson was known for their positive effects on society and those who came into contact with them. It was a dark day and another that could share some homage as the day the music died. We can only guess what can be the third in today’s world.

Perhaps this analysis is flawed though. Maybe Flight 1549 was just an aberration and the fact that two planes went down in a week with nary but a few cuts and bruises is purely coincidental. This botched suicide could have been the third, the american component if you wish, in the financial industry suicides linked to the gross loss of material wealth, status and reputation. Or really, the triad linked by the common thread of shame and self-murder could be but a stretch of the imagination.

However you look at it, our social-sphere is coming to mimic the atmosphere, a large field that is undergoing shifts resulting in terrific instances that one by one shake up reality as we know it. Just as the storms and climatological phenomena that affect our world have increased in number, intensity and consequence, so have the social and emotional impacts on human existence. These days one is almost unsurprised by the maelstrom of bad news that streams through modern media, each blow delivered in an unbiased order.

Today Russian weight is being thrown around the natural gas supply line that runs from Eastern Europe into Southern Europe as a vestigial flex of might at democracy and western thought. Who cares about those freezing at the other end of the pipe, just as long as Yushchenko cannot warm his pock marked face. How did it get that way again? Strategy like this is truly going to motivate the Ukrainian people to dismiss future ties to NATO and re-embrace mother Russia.

The rockets of Hamas passing Israeli rockets mid flight over the Gaza Strip in a conflict over… wait, what is that over again. Have people not warmed up to the idea of a two-state solution already? Must another filled school, another old-age home and a UN building get destroyed…by accident? Someone here missed out on some good Star-trek, like the whole ‘live long and prosper’ thing. According to basic English, the translation is not exterminate and prosper… or is it?

To complete this trilogy, the cupboard below my sink is under attack by mice who have begun to kamikaze the peanut butter nestled into the Decon snap traps. At least these beady eyed, furry insurgents are getting what they deserve. The swift blow of justice can be primitive in it’s execution, yet the end result surely justifies the means. Too bad society cannot find an equally effective method of sorting the destructive exhibitions of force into black and white, then dealing with them accordingly to keep the global kitchen free of the smirch and grime that will one day erase the human out of humanity.

(The next breath would otherwise be spent on Steve Jobs absence from Apple, Bernie Madoff and President Bush’s exit interviews.)