Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Let me be the first to wish Bill O'Reilly a Happy Winter Solstice
Howdy folks!
Mickey, why wish Bill O’Reilly a winter solstice? Regrettably I don’t get Fox (to which I attribute my sanity), so has the gorgeous skinned, eminently seductive hack been trying to shoot Pagans or something? Or are you proking our narrow minded Christian friend into foaming indignation that someone may not share his disbeliefs?
On a happier subject, please check this out. Apparently some genius has worked out that marijuana makes neurons grow! Cool! So folks, if you like a smoke at least you know you’re being productive!
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 07:19 AMG’morning, Chris. This might help answer your O’Reilly query: http://tinyurl.com/bbgnw.
Thanks for the link. More neurons, less morons...I always say.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 07:23 AMhello everyone.
there was way too much yesterday to go thru but i noticed you were talking about the panama deception?
whole thing available here for free download....
and as for the canada thing on satire wire - i was once sent htis. don’t know if its apocryphal or true......
This is an actual radio conversation between a United States Navy aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. (This radio conversation was reportedly released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95 as authorized by the Freedom of Information Act)
CANADIANS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
CANADIANS: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
AMERICANS: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
CANADIANS: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
AMERICANS: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES ATLANTIC FLEET.WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS.I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH...I SAY AGAIN… THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH… OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
CANADIANS: THIS IS A LIGHTHOUSE. YOUR CALL
Posted by michael on from scotland 12/21 at 08:19 AMGood morning, Michael. As much as I’d love to believe that anecdote to be true, it’s not: http://tinyurl.com/3kn5d
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 08:24 AMfair enough.
i didn’t think it was true but as you say its the sort of thing you wish was.
Posted by michael on from scotland 12/21 at 08:26 AMJust the fact that we can so easily accept it as potentially true is a telling indictment.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 08:30 AMHappy Solstice !
Mickey, Chris, Michael...good morning to you.
“Lot“‘s of Canada talk here today. I’m glad it’s not more about the US ambassador inserting himself further into our election process, I was mightily fumed about that and I’m quite glad the dust seems to have settled on that front.
Frank looks like a very content character - must be the reading material James provides him with.
I’m glad that our Buy Nothing day here didn’t end up like Santarchy in NZ; nice idea that took a wrong turn?
How disturbing it must be for all of you who are Americans to see PETA and the like being surveilled with hard earned tax dollars by the blundering DHS & FBI(’morning to you too). Perhaps the short list is being provided by Bill O’Lielly.
Posted by Amelopsis on from neuron rich canada 12/21 at 09:16 AMHappy trails, campers!
MZ: The lurkers are probably here, but have long since determined we’re not terror threats, just frustrated anti-conservatives. I don’t mind being watched in this sense, it keeps the fools out of real mischief to watch a boring, middle-aged, disabled white guy.
Ho Chris, what’s shakin’?
James, from last night: “But tell me once and for all-- do you like cats, or not.”
Not.
“If not, you sure seem to understand them better than many who do like them… much appreciated either way!”
I claim no authorship to this piece, which I failed to say as I slapped it onto the board in my emotional exhasution. My friend in Florida, CatLady, sent it to me...in our nightly chat, she read it to me, and I collapsed laughing. I figured it would be a nice addition to the board.But you’re welcome! And re: Hamsun, merely letting you know I haven’t forgotten. This isn’t a test.
Joe: My responses to Brokeback Mountain are rooted in a sense of fellow-feeling, a kind of shared anguish that this relationship in all its passion and love falls down because of one unambiguous but unverbalized conversation:
“Why am I not enough?”
“Because I’m scared.”Most of us who are adults can relate to this. It’s more heart-wrenching for me than for many, quite possibly, because I lost a child and a love to alcohol addiction’s horrors when I was 21; our failures were due to our fears, and those cost a human being his life. As well, I lost a lover to AIDS on 5/5/92, just shy of his 35th birthday (7/15)...we knew he had AIDS when we met, and I lost so much (non-sexual, ABOVE the waist, lurkers) intimacy to my terror of the inevitable loss. I failed to fling myself over the cliff and land in whatever place that is we land in, so he, in his last years, had 3/4 of a love.
I didn’t make the decision alone, he was as scared of leaving me as I was of being left; we spoke about it only once, early on, and he asked me please not to fall in love with him because he’d have to desert me. When I said it was too late, he shrugged, we smooched, the subject never came up again.
I remind myself daily that, unlike so many, I have a misspent youth to look back on. I just did it, and I’m glad. But it makes the things I didn’t do all the more...tectonic.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 09:37 AMSpeaking of tectonic, Mudge, if I may get light-hearted here: How ‘bout them Yanks signing Johnny Damon?
Good morning, Amelopsis. In case I haven’t said it before, I’m very glad you’ve chosen to spend time here. I promise to add a link to your blog on this page ASAP.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 10:22 AMMay Damon’s hair do them some good. Lead them to a 55-98 season, f/ex.
That Santarchy thing is a riot (metaphorically speaking). Dunno where you got your Santa image but it’s on the money!
All the Panama stuff leads me to ask: Did y’all know the reason Earth’s been plagued by ever-longer Ice Ages (our interglacial period would likely have ended except we burn a lot of fossil fuels and so keep the place warmer than it would otherwise be) is that Panama arose during a gargantuan earthquake about 5 million years ago? Completely disrupted the ocean currents that conveyed warm water to the North Atlantic and caused one of the 100,000-year cold snaps we’re prone to get.
Other big offender in this is India banging into Asia 40MM yrs ago, which threw the Himalayas up from sea level and disrupted air currents that swept warmth northward. Not to mention created the high, cold Tibetan plains and valleys, which caused radiational cooling of the planet to speed up (lots of territory up high = colder planet overall).
Hi Amelopsis! Michael, good Scotsman, come home...all is forgiven.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 10:39 AMGot my numbers wron in my haste to curse the Yank-mes: 64-98. Lawsy law, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on tight.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 10:43 AMHi all-- Frank appreciates the attention again and the well-wishes from before. Yes, Mudge, that’s as I thought, but just that you thought to post those instructions says how much you understand those-whom-you-don’t-like-too-much. More later, still trying to find out if there’s a job out there for me to ride my bike to…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 12/21 at 10:44 AMHello James.
Mudge, I love info like that. I often contemplate how fossils from the ocean floor now reside at the highest peaks of the Himalayas. Where would the intelligent design crowd “stand” on that?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 11:04 AMMudge, are you saying we should start slamming land masses into each other to cool things off? I’m game. You grab one end of Cuba and I’ll grab the other. I think we can pull it 100 North, don’t you?
Surveil that!
Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 12/21 at 11:07 AMHey Cart, every time I see Cuba mentioned, I ponder how the most demonized man in the hemisphere plays host to a U.S. military base that oppresses human rights. Isn’t it ironic? (as Alannis might howl)
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 11:15 AMHello again everyone
It’s very surprising to think of countries banging into each other. It suggests a very polite conversation along the lines of “Hello India, how’re you doing these days?” “Oh, can’t complain. Hope the British don’t find us anytime soon” etc etc. Reminds me also (no idea why) of a very funny sketch based on Clash of the Titans, which had the cleaning lady gods hovering Mount Olympus and squashing mortals who left a terrible mess etc.
Mudge: loss is a truly dreadful thing, as is alcohol abuse. My dad was an alcoholic, and it wrecked my mum’s health and carried on doing so long after they divorced (after 24 years of ... shit, really). When she died, & he was still going strong, I felt like so much eternal sand had slipped through my fingers and I had no idea how to face things. Without the people round me, I think I’d have curled up and shrivelled.
A bizarre thing. The morning after my mother died I ate breakfast with my sister’s family - her youngest son was eating toast and managing to spit crumbs out of his nose (an amazing talent! I trust he develops this & manages to fight crime or something with it later in life). It was just impossible to plumb the depths of feeling - at that moment - watching this strange & wonderful sight; a two year old totally lost in the wonders of breakfast.
I have no idea what that means, but it does mean something.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 11:16 AMMZ, the existence of sea-floor fossils in the Alps was what gave Charles Lyell, the Ur-Geologist, the idea that rocks aren’t permanently placed when they’re created, and that over time, repeated land-shifts took place. This discovery was also the thing that gave rise to the concept of dating the Earth by following the rock strata around the world and matching up the life-forms contained in them.
What amazes me is how extremely recent all this intellectual ferment is...the intelligent design crowd should check their history of science. No one, religious or otherwise, took the idea of a literal creation in 4004BCE seriously until the American Great Awakening of the 1830s, when they fastened on this arcane and pooh-poohed factoid a British wingnut calculated in the 18th century, to his church’s smothered snickers. No one anywhere before had taken the idea the Earth was anything but very ancient seriously. It’s just that no one had any idea HOW ancient, and no one had thoguht up a way (that could work, there was a oceanic-salinity change proposal that was ingenious but waaaaay hard to prove) to measure that age.
Oh dear, on the soapbox again. Never mind.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 11:17 AMSympathy for the strikers and all that, but I sure wish could get a bus now, not a cab-- off to vet, he’s not doing well. Doesn’t seem to be peeing, etc. That auto-free kitty thing only happens once…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 12/21 at 11:19 AMCart has a splendid idea, but why Cuba? I think we should get some of those small clusters of islands and play marbles with them.
Re: O’Reilly - now I get it!
“The anti-Christmas forces are retreating.”
I suppose he thinks he’s defeated the powers of evil every time he flushes the toilet and “the waters of evil back away, quaking & gurgling ...” Ah me!
& wishing people the wrong kind of happiness (eg “happy holidays") - what the #### is that about? The wrong kind of happiness - like “may you be inappropriately aroused during a serious conversation”? Hey, at least that means we’re doing better (be hard not to, really) & can make more sense saying nothing. I like that!
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 11:19 AMBest wishes to Frank the cat…
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 11:26 AMJames #12: I don’t like cats, but have you never heard the phrase “know thy enemy?” It’s the reason I know catly ways...so as to foil them with my nasal crumb-spitting! (ref. Chris #16)
Good fortune attend you on your biking matters.
Cart #14: Smack Cuba into Florida? And screw the Everglades up further? Nay nay! How about we depress the Gulf of Mexico’s floor a few miles more, and make the oil and gas less available?
MZ #15: Like Castro would still be in power if we didn’t find it convenient? Like Castro doesn’t rely on the US to prop him up? >snort<
Chris #16: Loss sucks. Love hurts. Welcome to reality. And yet we rail and wail and look for exceptions to the rule. Silly primates.
Your nephew, all unknowing, had exactly the right idea...carry on! I derive no comfort from the idea that reincarnation is true, since I still miss my dead...but I do have peace from it, because nothing is ever really over.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 11:30 AMJames: Many cats are again meditating for Frank. I hope you’re getting the right advice from the vet about all this - So many things to learn when our animal companions have health trouble. Mine have both undergone ultrasound in the treatment of heart murmurs but that’s altogether different than the immediate problems encountered with UTI. I’ll happily do some research for you if you need any assistance with it.
Every few years the topic of Canada taking Curacao under it’s wing comes up. Lightheartedly, I like the idea. Hey Mudge, you could move to Canada then - hot sunny Curacao! Wouldn’t mind that myself.
Any"ways", on Cuba: I so very much dread the day that the US lifts its embargo. It’s such a beautiful country and I am pretty certain it’s charms will be lost in the flurry to embrace a wider range of consumer habits as soon as they’re able. Not to mention the avaricious appetite for development that will be flooding in from the west.
Posted by Amelopsis on from neuron rich canada 12/21 at 11:34 AMAmelopsis: that’s a brilliant way of looking at things. I mean, why should a country benefit from US interference? Seems highly unlikely.
James: all the best to Frank.
Mudge, I agree my nephew had exactly the right idea. And I’m still wondering how he managed to fire bits of toast out of his nose (wish he’d show me).
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 11:38 AMJames #18: Frank’s good health snd speedy recovery will be my morning healing meditation in 23 minutes.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 11:39 AMMudge, I agree nothing is every really over, at least not where love is involved. Where it goes - no idea, but it does stick around - I’d bet the ranch on that.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 11:42 AMYes, Mickey, I still haven’t figured out what exactly Castro did to the US to cause him to be reviled so. I mean, there was that whole training an army of expatriate Americans and using them in a failed invasion of the US. And, of course, there was the leaflet dropping, crop poisoning, and other persistant covert operations to destabilize our government. Ok, sorry, Castro is a dick and that’s that.
More news in the region: Don’t worry folks, it wasn’t as bad as you thought!
Thank god!
Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 12/21 at 11:42 AMAmelopsis #22: Canada taking Curacao?!? ROFL Are you serious?! Someone somewhere imagines a Canadian Empire?! ROFLMGAO
Seriously, if I could find a nice Canadian man I’d marry him and relocate in a heartbeat. Rougher winters be damned. Uh oh, more science stuff bursting forth: Ice ages aren’t caused by bad winters, but ciik summers like the one in 1816 that caused such privation and misery, or the one in the 570s that caused the final collapse of Western urban civilization after Rome’s fall. >must...stop...pontificating...<
The capitalist world is already screwing with Cuba, Amelopsis. It’s just US companies that can’t directly and efficiently rape the place.
Thank God.
Chris #23: a) Chew toast vigorously.
b) Laugh at idiot grown-ups with your mouth closed so your mother won’t yell at you.
c) spatter crumbs on depressed uncle, become famous on Internet.There! Now you know how it’s done!
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 11:50 AMChris #25: You can safely place that bet. Where’s your ranch?
Cart #26: Add “Hurricane deniers” to the list of idiots in Murrica.
I love my country, flaws and all, but I really despair of learning how to love her people.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 11:57 AMCart, I think Castro’s problem was in being well liked and apparently assassination proof. Most distressing for all those exploding cigar inventors, no doubt.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 12:11 PMMudge re 28 - I think Bill Hicks talked about hating people but loving individuals. Possibly a good approach when faced with mass inanity.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 12:12 PMI think it’s safe to say that the Americans posting here love our country. That’s why we post here! Love hurts, right?
Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 12/21 at 12:14 PMCart - good point. I still love England despite:
a) our historical record
b) soccer
c) cancelling Benny HillPosted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 12:16 PMHi everyone....we are supposed to hate Cuba because Cuba has free education including grad/medical school, free universal health care, universal literacy, a better infant mortality rate than the USA, etc. Cuba has offered the USA aid not only after hurricane Katrina but even before that. Castro has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his humanitarian pursuits........... Reports are that my Congressman has recently requested aid for us from Venezuela.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/21 at 12:16 PMRMJ - a new perspective for me! US politicians requesting aid from overseas - well well! Any more details, perchance?
All Castro’s humanitarian work & the free health and education must surely go to demonstrate how deeply flawed left wing thinking is. All those poor people being cured & educated - what a terrible thing!
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 12:20 PMHello again...welcome back, RMJ. A quick link of mine, about Cuba (and more): http://tinyurl.com/bng47
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 12:27 PMMudge you’re the cat-recovery meditatin’ Man… and hey, all the G-Men reading, if you could fund Frank’s recovery with some secret CIA weapons deal that would be fine with me. More later… about Cuba, is there free pet care down there? If so, I might be moving…
Posted by James on from NYC 12/21 at 12:34 PMThanks for the link, Mickey. You mentioned the Maine deception. Still so many believe that myth. Sometimes, in Maine, I have seen “Remember the Maine” posters and bumper stickers.....though one of my favorite places to eat is The Maine Diner.
Chris, it was reported last week that our Congressman Bernie Sanders had requested cheap oil from Chavez. Things are not good up here. My house is often below 50 degrees. Every winter I worry about frozen pipes and extensive/expensive damage if the pipes burst. Massachusetts is getting some heating oil at reduced prices because some politicians there requested it from Chavez. If the USA could get more oil from Chavez, and medical aid from Castro, a lot of people would be helped.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/21 at 12:54 PMRMJ - woof, that’s cold. It’s a great shame so much hardship can’t be avoided by having a more democractic democractic process, but then the central stupidity wouldn’t work that way, I guess. We have numerous examples of England & the EU which, while not so massive, do make you wonder what the hell is going on in these idiots’ minds.
The Maine incident - is that cited in “Spins?” I’ve heard about that before, & recently.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 01:02 PMTookie’s funeral: http://tinyurl.com/c5zag
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 02:07 PMSurely a bit perjorative to describe him as a “murderer” when he protested his innocence to the last? I take it that his case now dies with him, to be forgotten & we’ll never know the full story.
Mudge re 28 - sorry, been looking for over an hour and have misplaced said ranch. Will two bottles of wine and a CD do instead?
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 02:22 PMHi everyone,
Wow—blink twice, get some work behind me, and there’s 40 messages at Cool Observer. Explosions of expressions. I hope our NSA supervisor is enjoying the banter. Come over to the Light Side!
Cart said: I still haven’t figured out what exactly Castro did to the US to cause him to be reviled so.
Not to oversimplify, but one word always pops into my mind when this subject comes up:
Casinos.
Castro didn’t get the memo that the mob is high up in American politics, and must not be crossed. Not only did he eliminate Havanah as a plush resort destination for fat-cat Americans, but he added several levels of complexity to the importation of illicit drugs. The idea that poor Cubans could get a first-rate education for free, receive some of the world’s best medical care and spread the (albeit embargo-deprived) wealth across class lines… is just too much for the slave-owning mentality of the American elite.
What is the deal with Guantanamo? Maybe I should study up on it and write something… “when” I have more time....
Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 12/21 at 02:51 PMFrank’s back at the vet, will stay overnight, now reobstructed, if not better soon, then surgery. Likely offline all day. Cool post and comments wish had more time. Riding bike to work now. Thanks again, all.
JPLPosted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 12/21 at 02:55 PMThanks Hawk. I forgot to mention that Cuba does what it does for its people in spite of the USA Blockade. About Guantanamo, I have said and written many times that ALL USA military bases and prisons outside of the USA should be shut down. Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, ALL OF THEM. I hope that the NSA is watching this today. Maybe it will give them an education in Real World 101.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/21 at 03:09 PMMickey, I heard on the news that water taxis were being used to take people to Manhattan this morning.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/21 at 03:11 PMHello all...welcome Hawk. RMJ: I just heard Bloomberg on the radio. I think he broke the record for use of the word “illegal.” Our local Fox News station has an icon for the event that bears the words “Illegal Transit Strike.” I urge folks to read the links I provided at the top of today’s post and the paragraph from Mitchell Cohen in yesterday’s post...for a little balance.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 03:15 PMAnd, of course, good luck to Frank the Cat. Perhaps we Expendables can raise a few bucks to help James with the medical cost?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 03:16 PMYeah, Rosemarie, it’s amazing that an island country packed with people has gotten by—and actually thrived in many ways—despite the global ostracization created by the Blockade. It’s a big, fat middle finger pointed directly at Washington, D.C.—and Miami, of course. What’s happening right now in Latin America is the result of the blatant hypocrisy that has orgasmed through the Bush White House—we want “democracy,” but only if it benefits a few rich families, and only if it guarantees un-hindered access/ownership of Latin American natural resources. In the Information Age, even the most remote, backwater scrub farmer can catch the wave of change—Castro has obviously won the war over hearts and minds. Poetic justice—until, of course, the perpetual World War turns its weapons south, intead of east. (Hopefully, the weapons will not be “nuclear”.)
Message to Frank: get well, dude!
Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 12/21 at 03:33 PMHi back atcha, Mickey....
Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 12/21 at 03:33 PMWhen the Sierra Maestra guerileros took power, Cuba’s destiny was still tied to sugar prices. “A people that entrusts its subsistence to one product alone commits suicide,” the national hero Jose Marti had prophesied. When sugar stood at $.22 a pound in 1920, Cuba beat the world record in per capita export-even surpassing England-and had Latin America’s highest per capita income. But in December of that year the price fell to $.04 and a crisis of hurricane force descended in 1921: many sugarmills went bankrupt-to be bought up by United States interest-as did all the Cuban and Spanish banks, including the Banco Nacional itself. Only the branches of U.S. banks survived. The 1921 disaster had been brought on by the fall in sugar prices on the U.S. market, and from the United States came a prompt credit of $50 million. On the heels of the credit came General Enoch Crowder who, under the pretext of controlling the use of the funds, became Cuba’s de facto governor. Thanks to his good offices the Machado dictatorship came to power in 1924, but the great depression of the 1930s lay ahead for this bloody regime, with Cuba paralyzed by a general strike. The United States crisis of 1929 could not have a fierce impact on so dependent and vulnerable an economy as Cuba’s: the price of sugar sank well below $.01 by 1932, and in three years the value of exports fell by 75 percent. At that time the unemployment index would have been hard to match in any country.
What happened to prices was repeated in volume of exports. The United States lowered import duties on Cuban sugar in exchange for similar privileges for U.S. exports to Cuba, but such “favors” only consolidated Cuba’s dependence. By 1948 Cuba had recovered its quota to the point of supplying one-third of the U.S. subar market, at prices lower than U.S. producers received but higher and more stable than those in the international market. Sugar production was arbitrarily limited by Washington’s needs. The 1925 level of some five million tons remained the average through the 1950s: dictator Fulgencio Batista took power in 1952 on the heels of the biggest in Cuban history-over seven million tons-with the mission of tightening the screws, and in the following year production, obedient to the demand of the north, fell to four million tons. (The director of the United States Department of Agriculture’s sugar program declared soon after the Revolution: “Since Cuba has left the scene, we cannot count on that country, the world’s biggest exporter, which always had enough reserves to supply our market when need arose.")When Batista fell in 1959, Cuba was selling almost all its sugar to the United States. As Marti said and Che Guevara quoted at the OAS Punta del Ested conference in 1961, “The nation that buys commands, the nation that sells serves; it is necessary to balance trade in order to ensure freedom; the country that wants to die sells only to one country, and the country that wants to survive sells to more than one.”
The Cuban Revolt Against the Structure of Impotence
Geographical proximity and the advent of beet sugar production in France and Germany during the Napoleanic wars made the United States the chief customer for Antillean sugar. By 1850 the United States was absorbing one-third of all Cuban trade, selling it more and buying more from it than Spain, whose colony it was; the Stars and Stripes fluttered from more than half the ships arriving at the island. A Spanish traveler found U.S. made seing machines in remote Cuban villages in 1859. The main streets of Havana were paved with New England granite.At the dawn of the twentieth century one could read in the Louisiana Planter: “Little by little the whole island of Cuba is passing into the hands of U.S. citizens, which is the simplest and safest way to obtain annexation to the United States.” there was already talk in the Senate of a new star in the flag; with Spain’s defeat, general Leonard Wood governed the island. At the same time the Philippines and Puerto Rico dropped into the United States’ lap. “They have been conferred upon us by the war,” said President Mckinley, including Cuba in his remarks, “and with God’s help and in the name of the progress of humanity and civilization, it is our duty to respond to the great trust.” In 1902 Tomas Estrada Palma had to renounce the U.S. citizenship he had acquired while living there in exile, the U.S. occupation forces made him the first president of Cuba. In 1960 the former U.S. ambassador to Cuba Earl Smith, told a Senate subcommittee: “Until Castro came to power, the United States had such an irresistible influence in Cuba that the U.S. ambassador was the country’s second personage, sometimes even more important than the Cuban President.” (from Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano pgs. 82-84)
Posted by tm on from in a grove 12/21 at 03:44 PMoops! that should be guerrilleros not guerileros
Morales calls Bush a ‘terrorist’ http://tinyurl.com/dqsz8
Posted by tm on from in a grove 12/21 at 03:49 PMThanks for another great post, Mickey! And I will nominate you for a Koufax award, that’s for sure ...
Yesterday was the longest day in Australia - because everything is upside down down under ..
Bill O’Reilly silenced - one can always dream!
Lastly, I laughed at the NZ Santa.And hello, all you MZ’ers/expendables!
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 12/21 at 04:17 PMHello Humans -
James, I’m very sorry to hear that Frank is back in the hospital. I’m sending you both all the good vibes I can muster… Perhaps I’ll get stoned so I can think of other ways we might be helpful…Mudge, your stories of past loves and past mistakes were quite poignant for me. Thanks for having the courage to share such experiences with us. You’re not alone, my friend; for every such foolish mistake you’ve made, I’ve probably made a dozen or more. My life might just as accurately be called: “A History of Errors, called joe.”
Hawk, very insightful view of Cuba.
Much of what I know about the history of that little Isle comes from my investigations into the Kennedy assassination… Cuba, Cuban Ex-Pats in the American South, Carlos Marcello and the Mob, the CIA, Kennedy’s murder - one big package…TM! - great mini-study of Cuban - American History. Thanks much. Yeah, I always forget agriculture, ( and the United Fruit Company, and their lot… ) which has been responsible for many of our most savage manipulations of Central America, as well… Wonderful stuff, TM…
And, of course, there’s the problem of “The Good Example.” Cuba is a country in which the ordinary people got rid of the murderous thugs, rapists and looters who called themselves “The Cuban Government,” and then set about trying to make their land a better place for everyone. ( To the extent that they could, of course, with the world’s most powerful nation just 50 miles away, and desperately trying to destroy them from without and within… )
The US absolutely LOATHES the existence of human societies not based entirely on greed, violence and rigid class distinctions, and has relentlessly destroyed any and every such manifestation it’s encountered, almost since the ink on the “Constitution” was still damp…
Even our systematic extermination of the Indians was motivated, to a great extent, by our need to eliminate examples of alternative modes of living and relating to one another…Mickey, I’ll read your CounterPunch piece later this afternoon - ( rubs hands in delighted anticipation. ) Thanks for the link, and for your work, which constantly amazes me.
All this stuff about the “illegal” strike really makes our situation clear, don’t you think? i.e. - the elites establish a huge and complex web of crime and corruption and control, then set the resulting “disease” into stone, by making illegal all activities which might seek to re-establish some forms of “health,” or fairness or justice or honesty…
They control the very foundations of the system…
The system itself MUST go.Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 04:41 PMMickey Z. dissed:
http://willdo.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/mickey_z/
Posted by The Infanta on from 12/21 at 04:54 PMReminds me of several scenes from “Cuckoo’s Nest.”
The relevant quotes, from Christopher Lloyd:“I’m tired… I’m tired… I’m tired...”
Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 05:23 PMJoe, what a coincidence-- Frank’s probably stoned, too right now… a little different, though. Thanks again everyone! Finally got to work, rode/walked over a jam-packed Bkln Bridge.
Would rather be at “home”.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 12/21 at 05:40 PMDon’t thank me Joe thank Eduardo Galeano I extracted it from his book Open Veins of Latin America. He also explains how sugar destroyed the forests and fertile soil of Cuba.
another excerpt:
Sugar Castles on Cuba’s Scorched Earth
The British had taken Havana briefly in 1762. The island’s rural economy was then based on small tobacco plantations and on cattle ranching; Havana, a military bastion, had craftsmen with advanced skills, an important foundry manufacturing cannon, and Latin America’s first shipyard for building merchant and war ships on a big scale. Eleven months sufficed for the British occupiers to introduce as many slaves as would otherwise have entered in fifteen years, and from that time on the Cuban economy was shaped by the foreign need for sugar: slaves produced it for the world market and its bounteous surplus value was enjoyed by the local oligarchy and py imperialist interests.Cuban sugar historian Manuel Moreno Fraginals describes with eloquent data the headlong advance of sugar in the years following the British occupation. Spain’s commercial monoply had in fact been blown apart, and all brakes on the entry of slaves had been removed. The sugarmills absorbed everything, man and land. To the mills went shipyard and foundry workers and the countless small artisans who had contributed decisively to the development of industry. Small peasants growing tobacco in the vegas or fruit in the orchards, victims now of the canefields’ brutally destructive advance, also turned to sugar production. Extensive planting relentlessly reduced the soil’s fertility; sugarmill towers multiplied in the Cuban countryside and each one needed more and more land. Fire devoured tobacco vegas, forests, and pasturelands. Dried meat, a Cuban export a few years earlier, was by 1792 arriving in large quantities from abroad and was an import from then on. The sipyard and foundry languished, tobacco production plummeted; the slaves of sugar put in a workday of up to twenty hours. On smoking lands the “sugarocracy” consolidated its power. In the late eighteenth-century euphoria of sky-high international prices, speculation, ran riot: land prices went up twenty time in Guines; in Havana, eight times the leagal rate of interest was paid, and throughout Cuba the fees for baptisms, burials, and mass rose in proportion to the soaring prices of blacks and oxen.
Early chroniclers told of traveling across all of Cuba in the shade of giant palms and through leafy forests abounding in mahagony, cedar, and ebony. Cuba’s precious woods may still be admired in the tables and windowframes of the Escorial and in the doors of the royal palace of Madrid, but in Cuba the sugarcane invasion sent the best virgin forests up in smoke. In the same years it was desroying its own timberlands, Cuba became the chief purchaser of United States timber. The extensive plunder-culture of sugarcane meant not only the death of the forest but also, in the long run, the death of the island’s fabulous fertility. With forests surrendered to the flames, erosion soon did its work on the defenseless soil and thousands of streams dried up. (Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano pgs. 79-81)
The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/d9mhwPosted by tm on from in a grove 12/21 at 06:11 PMEvening All,
I missed all the afternoon’s discourse and will have to check out all the links a little “later”.
Just quickly, I second Joe’s sentiments (#52) so he’s pretty much summed it up for me as time is too short for me to catch up with everything here right now.
Wanted to say Thanks MickeyZ - I neglected that yesterday for your warm welcome to the board of this: the Cool Observer. I’m glad to be here and heartened at the welcome I’ve received from everyone. I should clear up my mention a few days ago just so no one’s worrying about my sense of self worth ;)- when I said I was not as well read as many here, I find that there are often references to authors or persons with whom I’m not so familiar. I find it quite invaluable to be able to share and learn in an environment such as this. It’s always interesting conversation and whenever there’s something about which I know little there is always a link or a willing person to whom to pose a question.
Fantastic.I hope everyone has a moment today to enjoy the Solstice today, and my last thoughts for the day here must go to Frank.
I like Mickey’s idea of trying to help out. (please email me if you have a plan?)Posted by Amelopsis on from canada where it's snowing again 12/21 at 06:12 PMI go away to finish up a book, and look what happens...too many poeple and ideas to greet by name. Ain’t that the bee’s knees?
TM #56: I tried to get interest going for an alternate-history line in which beet-sugar production was introduced into pre-Revolutionary France and had two interesting results: Bourbons on the French throne and Cuban financial participation in the American Revolution as a French colony. The USENET folks yawned. I still think it’s interesting. (Of course, they also snorted and pooh-poohed the Scottish Anschluss of 1383, so fooey on them.)
Joe #52: If my screw-ups are to have any value, keeping them a Shameful Secret is not the way to achieve it. Thanks for the praise, but I am honestly just working to make what I’ve learned available. I think that’s less laudable than responsible on my part.
JPL #42: Suckage. Serious meditative mojo for Frank the cat forthcoming. Have fun stormin’ the castle at work tonight.
Hawk #41: Castro wouldn’t still be where he is if it didn’t suit Murrican interests. Far too easy to swat. We got a lot of money out of Cuba over the years. Some interests (Big Sugar, f/ex) wanted something (competing product stopped from entering our market) so prices could be made as completely stable as possible. Which they have been, and note the rise of --->corn syrup<--- as the commercial sweetener of choice in crap food. What could be more Murrican? And whose Congressional delegations fought for this?
Cui bono?
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 06:46 PMMudge, my problem is that I’m used to fighting a whole team of men; the logistics are different when fighting just one… ah, RIP Andre from Princess Bride.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 12/21 at 07:09 PMJames #59: Check your gmail.
Amelopsis #57: yeah, being in this crowd will humble a smart person fast...so many threads and strands of knowledge knitted up into sweet little mittens for our intellectual warmth. Rosemarie and the Diego Garcia thing...! Who knew that little rock existed, still less was inhabited, and far less by people evicted for a military base?! Come to Cool Observer and learn, learn, learn!
I love the idea of MZ on stage as a talk show host for Lefty guesties. Cultural outsiders. People whose existence most of Murrica is asleep to, and they shouldn’t be. I cherish an image of MZ and Dennis Cooper discussing boy prostitution.
Say, MZ, any thoughts from Sander about the Skoll proposal? Time to yodel for Chris’s Mancunian thoroughness?
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 07:41 PMHi Mudge,
To the extent that Castro presents a convenient bogeyman, so that the U.S. has an excuse for intervention throughout the hemisphere as it has for the past 40 years, I agree with you.
“Swat,” however, is not the word that comes to mind when I imagine a U.S. invasion of Cuba. “Quagmire” and “Guerilla warfare” are words that pop up for me. Castro has always been willing to die for the struggle, and is thus representative of a country that will fight back—to the death—if its gigantic neighbor to the north ever invades. The U.S., being the bully that it is, does not want to fight countries that fight back. It likes the Grenadas and Panamas of the world. Vietnam and Iraq are test cases for what would happen if the war against Cuba “ever” goes hot. Short of wiping out the entire population with nukes or otherwise weapons of mass destruction, I don’t think there’ll be any swatting going on down there.
Of course, if the neocons somehow manage to solidify their coup, I could be proven wrong within a few years.
Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, Co 12/21 at 07:45 PMAmelopsis, you’re a wonderful addition to this wacky grouping. Besides, you have a beautiful name, and you’re from Canada, where it’s snowing again, I see.
I learn a great deal here, as, I hope, we all do. Lots of very bright, thoughtful folks wandering in and out throughout the day. It’s one of the world’s best cafes, and here, at least, no one yells at me when I smoke.Mudge -
It’s laudable, dammit! Don’t make me come over there!
You know, I’ve often wondered how Castro could have survived, all these years. There’s certainly someting to what you theorize. All I can think of is that he serves as a constant “threat,” which could help pull in some additional funding from here and there.
It’s a very interesting question…TM - thanks for more!
I read some of E.G., some time ago, at Thrid World Traveler… A very impressive guy, and one of the most knowledgable, articulate - and genuinely angry Leftist writers in the world.
The guy is a real gem, and I usually forget about him, entirely… Duh!What he says about sugar and natural resources, in Cuba, is the essential story almost everywhere in the third world. Capitalism has raped & looted the entire fucking planet… we’re all just squatters on Capital’s vast piles of waste…
He said, of Latin America: “It is a region that manufactures poor people - and outlaws poverty.”
The word “region” could be replaced with the word “planet.”Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 08:01 PMHi Hawk -
That’s another good point, of course - we have to invade or somehow intervene in almost every 3rd world country which deals with Cuba… after all, they’re commie bastards and are plotting to take over the hemisphere.
Fidel is an “all-purpose” monster…Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 08:07 PMHello Expendables. I come bearing gifts of Galeano. First, short gem: “We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.”
Another EG favorite: “I don’t feel there is anyone who is voiceless. Everybody has something to say, something that deserves to be heard by others. So I never shared this attitude of becoming the voice of the voiceless. The problem is that just a few have the privilege of being heard. I’m not a martyr, not a hero. We all have the right to know and to express ourselves, which is nowadays very difficult as long as we are obeying the orders of an invisible dictatorship. It is the dictatorship of the single word, the single image, the single tune, and perhaps it’s more dangerous than other dictatorships because it acts on a world scale. It’s an international structure of power which is imposing universal values that center on consumption and violence. It means that you are what you have. If you don’t have, you are not. The right to be depends on your ability to buy things. You are defined by the things you have. It’s like you are driven by your car. You are bought by your supermarket. You are seen by your TV screen. You are programmed by your computer. We have all become tools of our tools.”
Mudge: No word from Sander yet.
I’ll be back soon…
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 08:11 PMHi folks - re post 53 - the bastards have disconnected something because posts don’t seem to attach.
Sorry but I don’t know much about the Cuba thing. Is it a different example of foreign policy & I haven’t got the order clear in my head yet.
Hawk, re 61 - that makes very good sense. Regrettably, I’m sure the planners of wars always recognise good sense. Sure you’ve all heard of the simulation regarding Iraq where the Pentagon staff were beaten in a computer game & cheated beacuse all their chaps had been wiped out ... I have a sneaking suspicion the minds that deal with this shit don’t do rational very well.
Amelopsis re 57 - I have often bypassed posts relating to close detailed literary references that have passed me by. That’s a necessary, I think - otherwise we’d all be weighted down by reading lists before saying anything, and that would slow us all down.
Mudge re 60, Sander & Skoll - who be Dennis Cooper? & you can garner the forces of Mancunian thoroughness easily enough, but please tell me who Sander & Skoll are.
MZ re 64 - where do you get this great stuff from?
Best to Frank.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 08:44 PMChris, re: 65: I make it all up.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 08:45 PMMZ re 66: Fair enough. Just checking! I had horrible visions of your torturing librarians with a whip and yelling “profundity is all! Search, you vermin!” Glad it’s all on the up & up.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 12/21 at 08:51 PMTorturing librarians? Wouldn’t that be redundant? Nancy? Your thoguhts?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 08:53 PMMZ #64: This is chilling.
“You are defined by the things you have. It’s like you are driven by your car. You are bought by your supermarket. You are seen by your TV screen. You are programmed by your computer. We have all become tools of our tools.”Sander’s always in over his head in terms of things to do, so I’m not surprised he’s taking a while to respond. I was only hoping.
Hawk #61: I’m afraid I’m a cynic about this, too. The reason these wars we start aren’t over sooner is that then we’d have insufficient test data proving or disproving the reliability of our new weapons systems. A Cuban invasion that resulted in a razed island would be just peachy with our military-industrial masters because just IMAGINE the money to be made rebuilding the place, and the chances to test WMDs...! I can feel the NSA guy monitoring this getting a woodie. Again, cui bono?
Joe #62: Okay, I should learn to shut up when being complimented and simply say “Thank you.” So:
Thank you, kind sir.
Alec Wilkinson wrote a book called Big Sugar about the conditions in the cane fields of Florida. It was worse in Cuba. During WWII Jamaicans were imported from the colonial government there by the US Sugar company at the behest of the War Food Administration. At the risk of being shot by the MPs guarding them, they refused to work under the appalling conditions and were shipped home. They were then replaced by Barbadian men (one of them later became the father of my late lover, mentioned above) supplied by the British colonial government there. They just worked slowly. US Sugar promised to make conditions better, and back came the Jamaicans.
All so Murricans could get hooked and cause an epidemic of diabetes.
Y’know, it’s all the brain’s fault. It’s our brain that uses up the sugar at alarming rates. The damn thing uses 20% of all the food energy you can produce, and it only wants one thing: Sucrose. All sucrose, all the time. Gimme sucrose, wails the brian, and the body toddles around finding whatever sugars are closest to sucrose in its environment. Along comes refined sugar, molasses, piloncillo, whatever, and the brain has its brainly orgasms then demands moremoremoremore. (I felt the same way after my first time, didn’t you?) Why do ya think babies have to be induced to eat solid foods...unless they have sugar in ‘em? Why do ya think places that DON’T drink booze-o-hol eat so very much sweet crap? SUGAR! GIMMEGIMME! Evolution needs to knock that one out and give the brain a fat fetish.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 08:56 PMMudge, ( he said, sensing his advantage, and pressing ahead… )
I’m afraid that will not be good enough. I’ll be soothed
( quickly, dammit… think, you fool… what do you, Ah )
by flowers. Roses, I think. British roses, but from the Argentine, will do fine,
( OK, lad, now be soothing, smooth things out… )
and - thanks so very much for your thoughtfulness.Mickey - Mr. Mudge has it - “chilling” stuff.
This guy is great, eh?
“We are obeying the orders of an invisible dictatorship...”
Whew.
Keep `em coming, my friend…At the moment of my death, the Big Guy will enquire: “So, joe on from Oregon, what did you do with yourself?”
I’ll reply:
“Well, I did my best to feel constant, frothing rage toward unnamed oppressors.”
Big Guy: “Ah, yes… VERY good.”Chris -
We’re Americans. We make it ALL up - because we can.Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 09:13 PMChris #65:
Sander Hicks. He was MZ’s first book publisher. He’s bringing out the paper edition of MZ’s frist book five years late...but then again, Sander was busy being harassed by the US Government over his shameful publication of Fortunate Son by James Hatfield (who committed suicide over the fear and pressure he felt being heaped on him by the evil Bush machine). Sander survived, but lost his company to his partners. He’s got a new publishing company now, and that’s the one bringing MZ’s opus out.
Skoll is Jeffrey Skoll, the eBay zillionaire who financed Syriana, that we spoke of last week in connection with a proposal to fund a book tour for MZ.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 09:14 PMMore Galeano...coming up:
“The walls are the publishers of the poor”
“I am astonished each time I come to the U.S. by the ignorance of a high percentage of the population, which knows almost nothing about Latin America or about the world. It’s quite blind and deaf to anything that may happen outside the frontiers of the U.S.”
“Most of the news the world receives comes from and is directed at a minority of humanity - understandably so from the point of view of the commercial operations that sell news and collect the lion’s share of their revenues in Europe and the United States. It’s a monologue by the North....Other regions and countries get little or no attention except in the case of war or catastrophe, and then the journalists covering the story often don’t speak the language or have the least idea of local history or culture. The [global] South is condemned to look at itself through the eyes of those who scorn it.”
“In general, the words uttered by power are not meant to express its actions, but to disguise them.”
“Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces.”
“In the struggle of Good against Evil, it’s always the people who get killed.”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 09:19 PMJoe #70: One dozen cabbage roses wing their way to Medford, General Delivery, even as we speak. They’re all pearly white. Gratuity not required, mail’s supposed to deliver for free.
Frothing outrage. Ah, grasshopper, all is maya...waste no attachments to this material plane in anger alone.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 09:21 PMTo tie together the last few posts, I got a blurb for my first book (the one Mudge just mentioned) from David Barsamian of Alternative Radio in which he said my work was “...in the tradition of Zinn and Galeano.”
An exaggeration on his part, but of the “kind” I’ll never forget.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 09:21 PMWhat does a large cup of frothing outrage go for at Starbuck’s these days?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 09:22 PMMZ #74: you’re in the tradition of these men...aspire to Zinn’s clarity and Galeano’s insight, as should writers of all types of non-fiction.
You’ve surpassed Galeano on researched credibility and Zinn on fun.Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 09:39 PMOh good lord! Chris #65:
I forgot to tell you about Dennis Cooper! There’s really no point, he does a better job than I ever could:
http://www.denniscooper.net/
He writes about the seriously disenfranchised...mostly underage male hustlers, so you know where his evil little heart is. Some titles of his are, well, grim; but each is an example of excellent character writing, no “questrion.” Johnny Temple of Akashic Books has an agreement with Cooper to find bizarre and alienated writers for its “Little House on the Bowery” imprint.He is, in short, me with money and pwer.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin 12/21 at 10:03 PMJeez..."look" what time it is. Signing off at 10:26. Thanks, all.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/21 at 10:26 PMMore wonderful stuff, Mickey - another thank you.
He is wise, and he can write…
“Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces.”Mr. Mudge, cabbage roses will be fine, and I apologize for my impertinence. In fact, I’m filled with frothing embarrassment…
Mickey - $2.00. That’s up from the original price of $1.50 - because now they add white chocolate…
Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 10:34 PMGood Grief. I just realised that my #14 post has endangered all on this blog by injecting Cuba into this discussion. Given the current climate here in the US regarding domestic spying, I’m revising my post thusly:
Mudge, are you saying we should start slamming land masses into each other to cool things off? I’m game. You grab one end of Netherlands Antilles and I’ll grab the other. I think we can pull it in a random direction, don’t you.
Move along! There’s nothing to see here!
Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 12/21 at 11:04 PMAs a follow up, I found all of the discussion of the Netherlands Antilles to be very informative and delightfully robust! Do continue!
Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 12/21 at 11:07 PMHey, Cart -
Care for a frothing outrage with white chocolate?
Specialty of the house…See youz all tamara…
- Oleg
Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/21 at 11:35 PMWith the issues surrounding the chocolate industry and its abusive labor practices, you can now get a double frothing outrage but no bloody chocolate!
By the way Joe, thanks for the Bageant links. I was so busy thinking of a clever response that I failed to thank you. And if I remember correctly my response wasn’t that clever.
Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 12/22 at 12:28 AMHi again, Cart -
I shut everything down for the night, and set about some serious snack-making. As I putzed my way through the kitchen, I realized I’d just rudely brushed passed you, with narry a hello nor good night, in my haste toward the goodies…So -
I wish to say that it’s good to see you, and that I enjoyed our brief conversation last evening - thought of it, and our Mr. Bageant several times, today.You needn’t apologize for anything, my friend. Your positive remarks about Bageant were thanks enough - and, by the way, I believe your remarks were very clever, indeed.
Odd, isn’t it, that I have to remind myself to be human...?
Please have a good night and morning, Cart. I hope I’ll see you again, tomorrow.
Posted by joe on from Oregon 12/22 at 12:58 AM
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