Voting Recommendations

Some listeners to my radio show have asked me to post my voting choices on California) propositions. Here they are, below.

Note 1: My radio show, “Facts Matter,” is Sundays 11 am to 1pm on KSCO Santa Cruz 1080 AM. It’s available through the internet but only while it’s going on.

Note: To my readers from abroad: Citizens of he State of California have the option to initiate legislation by-passing both the the legislature and the executive (Governor). “Propositions” are the means used to achieve this.

Prop 19 YES

Prop 20 YES

Prop 21 NO

Prop 22 YES

Prop 23 YES

Prop 24 NO

Prop 25 NO, NO and NO

Prop 26 YES

Prop 27 NO

Measure H (Santa Cruz City) ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? NO!

Weather

I have not been very active on this blog because I am a little under the weather. It’s possible that God is presenting me the bill for what I did in my youth. I don’t want to be more specific because it would make some of you hate me under the instigation of the Green Dragon.

I will be back soon. In the meantime, you might want to read some of my old technical postings

Juan Williams and Left-Fascism

National Public Radio will lose its tax-based government subsidy, if not tomorrow, after January. No big deal. It’s not much of its budget anyway. It will also lose whatever tax exemption it has. That may be bigger but still not much.

The big deal is what the firing of Juan Williams shows: fascism. Juan Williams has always acted the part of the old-fashioned moderate liberal, definitely liberal, who does not mind talking with the other side. Not good enough for NPR’s totalitarians. There must be no fissure in the wall we present to the world. We are right and the other side is not only wrong but also absolutely evil. There must be no commerce with it at all. Juan Williams is a traitor. We can’t shoot him but we can fire him.

Those people are so cut-off from ordinary Americans that they had not idea what a storm their firing one of their own would unleash.

Soon, things will be clearer: National Public Radio will be called National Leftist Radio. It will operate under its own power but not by becoming a successful commercial enterprise. That’s not going to happen. Leftists are stingy. Remember the fate of Air America that was going to shrink Rush Limbaugh to size? National Leftist Radio will operate with a permanent Soros grant plus a dole from some other from extreme left-wing billionaires.
On one side, the millions of working Americans, all a little dumb, not clear at all about where their real interests lie. On the other side, the enlightened ex-NPR intellectual elite that will be more than ever excused from any contact with the real world.

Nevertheless. Vivian Schiller, the CEO who fired Juan Williams and assigned him to his psychiatrist will be fired. I mean that she will resign for drawing attention to NPR through her silly artlessness.

And, of course, whosoever is in charge of NPR in the meantime will hire a black person post-haste, any black person. The fact is that after the firing, the NPR on-air crew is as lily-white as the membership of an Alabama country-club in 1950.

The Fat Women and Bill O’Reilly

I was going to leave behind that storm in the tea-cup but it won’t go away. It’s there, on the TV, in front of me every time I go to the gym. Besides, it may have a cultural meaning, or several meanings, after all. So, here it goes:

Last week, the television host Bill O’Reilly got into a tangle on “The View.” It’s a morning show for women. (More below.) What happened is that two of the three fat women show hosts walked out on him because of something he said. They walked off their own show, like that!

First, O’Reilly. He has an evening television program that’s very popular, one of the most popular in the nation, and his simple-minded books are bestsellers. He is a blow-hard, not very well-informed, a little obtuse, and stubborn. His English is uncertain although he obviously spends his morning coffee time reading the dictionary. He is also clearly an Irish-Catholic prude of the worst kind. With all this, O’Reilly is very effective when he decides to right a scandalous situation nation-wide. Several times, he has put the fear of God in lazy, or malevolent, or dishonest state legislatures and forced them to do the obvious or the obviously needed. He used forthright terror in each case and named names.

Now, “The View.” As I said, it’s a women’s show. It comes on a ten on the Pacific Coast. (That’s why I catch it a the gym and only there and then.) It’s designed by women for women. The hostesses are five women. One is Barbara Walter, an old journalist who has been over-rated all her life. Yet, she is a reasonable women although lacking in general culture. She has had the immense good sense to invest her large media earnings into her continued good appearance. She looks nearly as good as she did twenty years ago. I respect that. Barbara is a classical moderate DC liberal. The second hostess is a fairly foxy blonde who plays the token conservative very well although her lack of bulk is probably a handicap. The three other hostesses, one white, two black, are fat. They are not “somewhat overweight” like most of us, they are frankly fat. None of the three could buy her clothes in a department story if she had to. One is a brassy New-York-sounding woman whose name escapes me, and it does not matter. She wears maternity clothes year-around. The other is a black woman with a pretty and sweet face and a sweet disposition most of the time. She often displays common sense. The last member is Whoopi Goldberg, a very large black woman who used to be a good actress. She became a media person years ago by making shocking statements no one expected from a black person. She learned to be an African-American white upper-middle-class oral radical with little ghetto on her.

The show consists of these five women giving their opinions and discussing them among themselves, mostly about events on the front page of USA Today and in the evening news. There is a formula to the show, I think: Four parts of “same young actress arrested for DUI, and male celebrity beating up live-in girl-friend for the nth time;” one part political happening. They are not well-informed on anything they discuss; their opinions are without interest; their conversations are superficial to the point where it’s painful. The show is quite successful as I said. It’s Lifetime Channel masquerading as information.

I realize this all sounds bitchy. It’s bitchy, fairly so, but not especially condescending to those who watch The View, or O’Reilly for that matter. I too watch trash, almost every day in fact.

O’Reilly, known to be a fairly abrupt guy, was discussing the planned “Islamic Center” near Ground Zero with the women, who had invited him. At some point, he said, “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” That’s what caused two of the three fat women to walk off their own show for a few minutes. Here is a logically parallel statement:

“A dog bit me.”

Apparently, we are not supposed to make this kind of simple declarative utterance anymore. Instead, we are expected to say something like this, “A mean dog- that is not representative of dogs in general – bit me.”

See the ridiculousness. Of course, we should let not such bullshit pass, ever. Rational people must not submit. They must piss on political correctness wherever they encounter it in daily life. I do my bit every morning, right downtown of the People’s Socialist Republic of Santa Cruz. The girls at the coffee shop ask me discreetly, “The usual?” “Yes – I confirm- give me an Americano in a non-recyclable paper cup. Make sure it’s not fair-trade coffee. I like my coffee beans grown by scrawny, sickly little indigenous farmers.” I feel that, with this bit of satisfying childishness, I contribute to collective sanity.

The View is so successful because it performs an important social function many smell but no one talks about. The bulk of its attraction is its bulky women. Let me explain.

Most American women have trouble with the Green Dragon. Who would not? The media they watch, their movies, the women’s magazine they have to look at at the hairdresser ( or at the “spa”) overflow with young women, and with other not so young, displaying impossible body geometries. Many actresses are so improbably designed, they would not fly if they were airplanes. Things were not always like this: Take a good look at pictures of Marylin Monroe in her glory days and you will see a woman of modest proportions whose flesh hinted slightly at flab. There was no trace of muscle on that woman. Had she not died so unfortunately, she would have entered shortly into her physical decline. She was very attractive, I think but she was an attractive flash in the pan by today’s standards. Why,today, the epidemic of female pulchritude on our screens is ever spreading! Even television journalists with a law degree and a former career would have won the bikini part of the beauty contest in 1960. It does not seem fair!

The main thing to remember is that feminism has failed utterly in its overt message: Women want to be sex objects, not less so, more so than before because of the progress of leisure time. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at any Virgina’s Secret product and ask yourself if the company is successful.

So, if you want to have a morning program, and therefore, one squarely aimed at women, you face a severe dilemma. On the one hand, you have to provide many stories about the usually loopy behavior of highly sculptured media and movie female stars. In addition, you must talk about the villainous conduct of even more finely sculptured male stars. The first one procures a chance to say, ” tsu, tsu, tsu.” The second gives women opportunities to enjoy the sensuous pleasure of indignation: “What an absolute pig!” That’s a sure recipe. It’s been followed forever by (morning) soaps, the Life Time Channel, and all American general women’s magazines but one (Vanity Fair.)

On the other hand, the constant exhibit of supernatural beauty leaves ordinary women high and dry and it puts a bad taste in their mouths. As we know, women in America are often harried by too many different tasks and most are overweight, and increasingly so. And those I would not consider overweight in my limited, silly male vision consider themselves overweight anyway. So, what to do: You administer a drug that is habit-forming but that makes the users unhappy in the long run?

The answer given by The View is original. It stages fat women doing the right thing during the short segments of the show that deal with serious issues. You chose fat women who will invariably disapprove of what’s wrong, who support what’s right, who are always on the side of common liberal decency. You chose loud women, like Whoopi Goldberg (who is also articulate). You chose them mostly black as a mute but strong demonstration of the inherent open-mindedness of the show. It’s not that their corpulence is tolerated or ignored. Rather, your spokeswomen for all that is right and against all that is wrong have to be fat.

The View gives fat women everywhere gravitas in lieu of the stunning, ravishing, man-annihilating fantasies they would probably prefer.

An Intellectual Snob Who is no Intellectual

Forwarded by my friend Larry M.

A Snob, but Not Really an Intellectual
Posted By Jennifer Rubin On October 19, 2010 (8:36 AM) In Contentions

Michael Gerson writes of Obama’s last temper tantrum:

Obama clearly believes that his brand of politics represents “facts and science and argument.” His opponents, in disturbing contrast, are using the more fearful, primitive portion of their brains. Obama views himself as the neocortical leader — the defender, not just of the stimulus package and health-care reform but also of cognitive reasoning. His critics rely on their lizard brains — the location of reptilian ritual and aggression. Some, presumably Democrats, rise above their evolutionary hard-wiring in times of social stress; others, sadly, do not.

Though there is plenty of competition, these are some of the most arrogant words ever uttered by an American president.

From this, Gerson concludes that Obama is “an intellectual snob” and, alas, that snobs “don’t make very good politicians.” But there is another problem here: in no sense is Obama an intellectual. His understanding of free markets, international affairs, war strategy, and domestic policy evidences no originality. To the contrary, his vision is supported by myths and inaccuracies. (Recall the serial misstatements about history during the campaign.) It is not, then, the public that lacks reasoning skills; it is the president, whose rigid ideology prevents him from taking in new data, analyzing it dispassionately, and rendering decisions based on the facts before him.

He displays contempt for Americans who don’t agree with his flawed policies, in effect instructing them to shut up. But his arrogance is both unwise (these people vote!) and undeserved. Had he not spent trillions on a flawed Keynesian economics, had he not botched the Middle East peace talks, had he not misread the mullahs, had he not mistaken appeasement for “reset” with Russia, and had he not hired ill-prepared senior advisers (who now must be cast off), his self-satisfaction might be warranted. But to put it bluntly, where does a garden-variety leftist with a track record as bad as his get off telling the voters that they lack adequate reasoning skills?

Obama’s self-image is as distorted and unreliable as his political and policy judgments. Next time, perhaps the voters should select someone for the White House who has not merely been told he is an intellectual marvel but who actually has demonstrated that he deserves such praise.

Article taken from Commentary – http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs
URL to article: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/374816
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Forward

Scattered Thoughts: A Bribe; Rush Limbaugh caught; Women’s Continued Inferiority; Global Warming Consensus at Last.

I am getting back, one month at a time, a little of the money the federal government confiscated from me throughout my working life. I am talking about Social Security, of course. This year, like last year, there will be no SS cost of living raise. Frankly, I don’t see why there should be. Nevertheless, the President and the senior Democrat leadership want to send me $250 as a compensation for not giving me a raise.

The decision to “adjust” or not is made yearly based on a specific way to to measure inflation, in place for many years. You don’t throw away the tape measure because you don’t like the measurement. It’s this kind of self-indulgent thinking that put us in the trou de caca ( French) we are in. Second, who else gets automatic income inflation adjustment except for a few union members who need to get a life anyway? Third, if you think about it, it’s hard to find an economic category less affected by the current crisis than “seniors.” Most of them are out of mortgage trouble. They don’t have children in school to suffer reductions (if any) in educational expenditures, except for a handful of Hollywood actors on speed. A handful of seniors get laid, as I said, but most seniors can’t get laid off since they are already retired.

President Obama and the Democrat losers want to give me a $250 bribe to buy my November vote. Pathetic! If it passes, I vow to spend the money entirely on tea-party Republican candidates. If the money comes to late for that, I will just send it to Sarah (Palin).

The other day, around 10/10/10, I caught Rush Limbaugh making a big geopolitical mistake on air. It’s a rare event; Limbaugh is usually very well informed. He confused South Sudan, which is about to split from Sudan after a referendum, with Darfur in the west of the country. The slow genocide continues in Darfur. Here is the summary: The Islamist National Congress, in power in the capital, believes it can enslave the southerners because they are not Muslims. It thinks it can enslave the people of the west because they are not Arabs (though Muslim).

Men have more upper body strength than women, almost everyone agrees and they run faster. Often, when you make comparisons between well-defined categories, it’s more useful to look at extremes than at averages. For one thing, there are always real people at the extremes while the “average woman,” for example may not exist; she is just an arithmetic calculation.

The Wall Street Journal has a feature on 10/14/1 about women who run marathons. As a rule, they are given 30 minute handicap over men. This means that the first woman who arrives 30mn after he (invariably male) winner is considered an equal. It also means, in theory, that if a woman arrives 25 minutes after the first man, she should logically be declared the winner. The piece in the WSJ points out that in many recent marathons, the fastest woman was only 15 minutes or so behind the fastest man. And the gap is closing

This, to my mind, is a better measure how much faster than women men are. For one thing, the fastest woman and the fastest man are comparable on other, tacit but nevertheless important, dimensions such as dedication to the sport. Female marathon runners who are in the middle of their pack might be less devoted, or more devoted than men who are in the middle of their pack. Fast women are like fast men: They want to get there first. (I am only referring here to women who run fast, not to the other kind of fast women, another topic altogether.)

All this brings me back to a question I have raised before: Why are there very few female bridge Grand Masters when it is likely that more women play bridge, world-wide, than men? The feminists among you, if any, might get cheap thrills at my expense by showing me either that there are many female Grand Masters or that fewer women than men play bridge. Rough figures will be fine.

And, of course, I have to ask why women and men still play professional chess in different categories. Is it possible that the best women have less than the best men of whatever it takes to succeed at bridge or at chess? One thing I am certain of is that it’s not upper-body strength.

Some questions have become forbidden, many in academia, for sure. Rationalists must hit political correctness in its disdainful and pious mouth wherever and whenever the occasion presents itself. It clouds judgment in every way.

Global warming upon us: the consensus. Below, a formulation I plagiarize from the current issue of Skeptic magazine (vol 16-1. Irwin Silverman, PhD). I hate myself for not having thought about it first.

Hardly anyone had used the term “climatologist” before the current controversy. And the term covers a variety of realities, in terms of training. Those who give themselves the title are linked mostly by ideology, an apocalyptic ideology. To say that 99% of climatologists agree that there is dangerous, man-made global warming is analogous to stating that 99% of Christian ministers believe in God. No shit!

Atrocities: Municipal, State, and Zionist

The City Council of Santa Cruz, California is going to spend $200,000 to decorate, embellish, create a planned turnabout in an important touristy location. I am not sure we need a turnabout at all. It confuses Americans. If we need one, I don’t know why it has to have artistic qualities as judged by the philistines on the city council. The location itself is quite beautiful. Is the council determined to compete with Mother Nature? I guess there is no economic crisis after all. (The council is dominated by leftists.)

To make things worse, the commission goes to an artist from Rhode Island, clear across the continent. The local paper, an objective ally of the council, does not say how the awardee was selected. Santa Cruz has thousands of artists. Sometimes, it seems that everyone who is not a therapist, an acupuncturist, a herbalist, or a teacher is an artist. Some residents combine two or more of the above avocations, as you might expect. The fiscal irresponsibility has reached the point where I am going to say “no” to any expenditure, I don’t care how justified the cause would seem to me if I understood it. I don’t want to know. It’s “No.” In the current context, this expenditure is an obscenity and a small atrocity.

I listened to the debate yesterday between the two California candidates for the beleaguered office of governor of this failing state. I am going to vote for Meg Whitman, of course, the former CEO of E-Bay. The main reason is that she is not Jerry Brown, a charlatan I have known all my adult life and a proven failure at every political office he has tried. He has tried most of them, incidentally, including Governor, twice, in the late seventies and early eighties.

It’s not that I am passionate about Whitman. She sounds like somebody’s mom. Mostly, she does not go far enough. Mildly challenged by Tom Brokaw during the debate about how to fix the State of California’s broken financial situation, she responds the usual way: Chase down fraud and waste. Given the financial condition of the state, that’s a kind of intellectual atrocity although a small one, I would agree.

As I have said before on this blog, that’s not good enough. Every politician promises to solve every fiscal problem by reducing fraud and waste. Whatever can be done has probably been done in this respect. What’s left is not worth doing or not sufficient to make a difference. Or else, it cannot be done. I wanted the Republican candidate to say:

Those are tough times for everyone. We have to reduce expenditures everywhere, no exception, We will have to cut all services, yes including fire and police. And of course, we will have to reduce educational expenditures since education eats more than half of the state budget.

As a start, as a way of limbering up for things to come. Whitman could call for across- the-board cuts of 5%, everywhere, no exception. Think about it: How many of you could not reduce their expenditures by 5% without suffering much? Think of turning off the lights, denying yourself that cookie that’s not good for you anyway, drinking (tap) water with dinner once a week, switching from double latte (that did not exist for your parents anyway). And some of you ladies: How about foregoing this absurdly expensive pair of shoes you were probably going to crumble for. (Sorry for the stereotype but there is a reason they exist at all.)

After such a cut, we would be in a better mental frame of mind to begin real cutting. Here is a mental experiment: How badly off do you think we would be if 1/3 of all state employees not directly engaged with the public were laid off suddenly? Think of the instantaneous savings.

As for the next-to-near future, it’s simple: Any politician who does not announce big spending cuts clearly and loudly is going to raise taxes and further discourage economic growth. Thus, Whitman may be a political stepping stone to a more radical retrenchment. Or, she may surprise me and do what’s right and brave. One thing is sure: Brown will not.

The most astounding news for today come from the French Le Figaro, a reasonably good centrist newspaper. It put up an article on-line about Israel’s contingency plans in the unlikely case there is a peace treaty with the Palestinian authority. As you might guess, the Israeli civil authorities expect that some Jewish West Bank settlers will riot on the news that they have to move. And, of course, Hamas will try a coup to seize the West Bank from the Palestinian Authority because Hamas wants war with Israel, not peace. (It’s in the Hamas Charter, linked to this blog.)

The real news, is that Israel also anticipates massive riots from its Arab citizens in case of a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. It’s easy to guess that such a accord would lead to an exchange of territories. Israel would insist on retaining large segments of the West Bank it has annexed, for practical purposes, currently occupied by hundreds of thousands of Jews. In return, it would agree to give the PA probably a thin corridor linking the West Bank to Gaza. That would not be enough, however. Israel would also cede some of its current territory, squarely within the borders of Israel proper for fifty years. Areas heavily populated by Arabs would be natural candidates for a cession as such an operation would minimize the displacement of Jewish citizens.

Now, pay attention because you may have missed the irony: The people who would be affected are Palestinians by any definition. You can bet there has not been any immigration into Israel of Arabic-speaking Muslims or Christians. Anyone currently living within the 1949 borders of Israel who is a native speaker of Arabic and not Jewish is a Palestinian. So, Israel is predicting that Palestinian Muslims (with a sprinkling of Palestinian Christians) will riot to avoid having to live under the rule of Palestinian Muslims. If that is not the final verdict on comparative humanity and civilization, what is?

If the preparations for the riots are all Israeli propaganda, it’s masterful propaganda. I don’t think so because, in the past, when right-wing Israeli politicians spoke of expelling Arabs with Israeli citizenship, there were loud protests immediately. And by the way, the Israeli government’s recent trial balloon about an oath of loyalty is probably related. Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed that all Israeli citizens should swear an oath to Israel “as a Jewish state.” Such an oath would enrage the surprisingly large number of Orthodox Jewish Israeli citizens who insist that Israel has not right to exist (for scriptural reasons), it’s true. It would also serve the purpose of sorting the goats from the sheep among Arab citizens. Interesting; worth following.

Of course, I am expecting comments about the feared Israeli Arabs’ riots from several quarters. I can’t wait to hear what the Arab Leagues has to say about this problem. And I am looking forward to the expressions of commiseration of countless, Western, “humanitarian” anti-Zionist organizations. They may have to deal with yet another Zionist atrocity: The merciless clubbing by the brutal Israeli police of Arab demonstrators demanding to be left within the reach of Zionist atrocities.

I am not holding my breath about comments. As I keep telling you: Pay attention to what does not happen. It says a lot about reality.

You may have noticed I don’t blog much about the Obama administration anymore. I think it would be unsporting. It’s a rout, economic, political and moral. The President now looks pathetic. I might cover him again if I find anything at all he has done right. I don’t mean right by my lights only. I mean anything he has accomplished according to any constituency.

The Rationality of Anti-Antisemitism; The Currency Issue Made Simple

The most interesting thing I have read in years about anti-Semitism is in the Wall Street Journal today. (10/12/10, James Kirchick: “Europe the Intolerant.”) A poll in Europe indicates that 50% of Spaniards have a somewhat unfavorable, or a very unfavorable impression of Jews. The percentage in Germany is 25, in France it’s 20, in the UK, it’s 10. There are large number so Jews in France and in the UK.

What makes Spanish anti-Antisemitism interesting is that there are no Jews to speak off in Spain. All Spanish Jews were expelled from the country in 1492. The bulk of those who did not die in the expulsion went to the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire were they were welcomed by the Sultan. Others scattered around Muslim North Africa and Italy. Until WWII, many Turkish and Balkans Jews spoke 15thcentury Spanish. I knew a Spanish-speaking Turkish Jew at Stanford in the sixties myself. His last name was Cardona.

Between 1939 and the 1970s, the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco promoted a brand of Catholicism that was unfriendly to Jews, as “Christ killers.”For most of the intervening period the Inquisition promised to make life miserable enough for Jews that they did not come back.

So, here you go: The ultimate judgment on the rationality of anti-Antisemitism: The less the chance that you ever met a Jew, the more likely you dislike Jews. At least, that’s true in Europe.

And left-wing anti-Semites, in their growing numbers, are in the company they deserve: with Fascists of all breeds and varieties.

PS No, I am not Jewish, never have been, probably never will be: I fear the moel’s cold blade!

You may have heard echoes of the brewing “currency issue” in the media. It’s complicated and boring but fairly important. Here is all or most of what you need to know for the time being:

If a country’s currency, such as the US dollar, or a set of countries’ currency, such as the Euro, loses some of its value relative to others, the exports from the relevant country or countries will surge. At the same time, imports into that county or countries will decrease. This will happen fairly quickly.

Evey developed country, and the central bank that manages the Euro, have the capability to cause their currencies to lose or gain value. (Don’t worry about how it’s done; take my word for it.) If a country lowers the value of its currency, there will be a fairly rapid rise in employment (more exports, fewer imports). It will make the government of the relevant country look good for a while. President Obama needs to look good, right now, I don’t need to tell you. Even a little bit of lipstick would help at this point.

Two problems with this little trick: First, other countries can and will usually do the same. Such devaluations make the world economy unstable. They make it difficult for economic actors, such as businesses, to engage in the rational calculations on which the efficient functioning of the market depends. Moreover, devaluations cancel each other out quickly and prices re-adjust, erasing initial gains in employment.

Second, if the currency I use, the US dollar, in this case, loses some of its value, I am poorer, of course. I can then buy less of everything.

You may have overheard that the Obama administration, as the Bush administration was before it, is engaged in an epic struggle to convince Communist China to re-evaluate is currency. This means what you think: They want the Chinese currency to cost more in dollars.

Think that one through: According to the administration, the Chinese are guilty of selling stuff to me too cheaply. The bastards!

Women: What’s to Love? (A Story of Adventure and Passion)

12/18/10

Here is a small secular Christmas present, a story you might have missed.

For Rad, in Singapore.

Women are annoying, interfering, bossy, and petty. (How many guys do you know who can nurse a small slight for ten or fifteen years?) Men who don’t believe these simple truths are rubes and patsies. By the way, those universal objectionable female features are why Mother Nature invented the poison testosterone. Women who don’t believe these self-evident truths have never had a sister, or a mother, or a roommate. Or else, they live in a mental 1970s feminist time-warp when women were such superior beings that they did not even need bras to combat the natural force of gravity. But, but, that’s not the whole story, fortunately. There is much to love in the creatures, if, if only you pay attention. Here is an illustration, rolled up in a tiny true story.

It’s a long time ago on the Caribbean coast of Yucatán. Cancún, the sprawling rowdy resort, is not even yet a greedy light in a developer’s eye. Only a few foreign skin-divers and a handful of itinerant pot-heads make it as far as that wild shore. My then-future-ex-wife (henceforth “TFEW,” pronounced as it is spelled) and I are driving slowly on a gravel road miles into the interior in our cool but sturdy convertible VW. We are not looking for anything in particular, just yielding to my constant exo-tropism, the tendency idly to look for something unknown in unfamiliar places. My companion is used to rough travel with no special purpose. She does not mind it as long as I am leading the way to nowhere. We both know Spanish, at least we are pretty sure we do.

We notice a hamlet in the middle of the dry jungle on one side of the road. It’s not much. A half dozen light thatched structures with no walls, colorful cotton hammocks strung between their supporting posts, more hammocks outside between coconut trees, a smoking fire with a big cauldron on it. It’s summer, the weather is good, not much more is needed. There are chicken pecking around indicating that this is more than a temporary camp. We are in a Mexican federal territory, not a proper state, so it could be the beginnings of a homestead, I think. A woman waves at us in a friendly manner. We might just as well stop. Besides, it’s late afternoon and I am ready for a glass of Nescafé.

The woman appears to be in her mid-fifties because her hair is all steel-gray and her face wrinkled. With constant exposure to the tropical sun, she might be younger than she looks, perhaps in her late forties. Although she wears the white embroidered frock, the huipíl, of Maya women, the color of her hair and that of her skin, even tanned, as well as her large body size, mark her as a non-Maya, as someone from the interior of Mexico. Excitedly, she invites us to sit down in some of the hammocks. It turns out, she had the water on already and she has Nescafé. Alright, I think! Life is good!

The gray-haired lady is cordial with both of us but she is talking mostly to the TFEW, as you would expect. She asks her questions about her, and me, and us. She babbles like a talkative woman who has not had anyone to talk to in days, or weeks. Evidently, we are the most interesting humans to cross her path in quite a while. Several times, she mentions how she regrets the absence of her old man, her “viejo.” who is working in the forest. I am sorry too. I wish he were here to complete the tableau; my camera finger is itching.

This is a pleasant way to laze away the afternoon. The Nescafé tastes as fine as instant coffee with lots of sugar and no milk ever does. There seems to be enough food to share with us in the lady’s big cauldron. I first, I think it’s chicken, or maybe parrot with onions; actually, there is good chance it’s iguana, a big iguana. Well, we will be hungry pretty soon and I am sure the lady could use a modest infusion of cash. We are beginning to think about asking for permission to hang our own hammocks for the night.

At some point, I become aware that the conversation has changed in tenor. This woman wants something but I will be damned if I know what. It’s not money, evidently. She is not vulgar; Mexicans seldom are. In its own way, Mexico is, or used to be, a well-ordered society: Beggars beg; that’s their job. Others don’t beg, period. Then, the TFEW reaches into her big, carry-all purse next to her for something or other. She catches the woman looking inside the purse sideways with a searching eye.

“What are you looking for,” asks the TFEW with curiosity.
“Well, forgive me, I was wondering if you had, you know, something, you know, to soften the skin.” As she says this, the gray-haired lady makes a motion of rubbing something into the inner sides of her thighs. That’s what I think I see at any rate but I can be prudish sometimes.

We are on our way home to California, and, before that to the big Mexican cities of the interior where there are stores. The TFWEW gives the gray-haired lady the last of her tubes of Nivea. The woman beams and kisses her on both cheeks.

Seconds later, there is a shout from the forest. “ Mi viejo, my old man is back,” exclaims the woman with evident satisfaction. And there emerges, machete in hand, a handsome, short stalwart Mayan man. He has broad shoulders and his calves look hard beneath the knew-length pants. His skin is a smooth chocolate brown, his thick head of hair is jet-black. He puts me in mind of a strong horse whose exterior shine tell of its radiant health. As he approaches, I notice his large, powerful hands. He looks to be twenty-two or twenty-three, twenty-five on the outside. Her “viejo,” no kidding!

I told, you, there was something to love about women in spite of everything. It’s their tenaciousness, their will never to give up, ever, even against all odds finally to win victory where it matters most!

© Jacques Delacroix 2010

Contempt as Opinion Making

A Washington Post lady columnist was on one of the cable channel news yesterday. She is famous but, unfortunately, I am having a senor moment and I can’ recall her name. This senior American media opinion maker was queried about the quick fall of President Obama is the polls. Here is what she said, not word for word but very close.

What do you expect, 20% of Americans believe the President is a Muslim. They don’t even know what that means. And also:

He is black and they think that blacks are Muslims because they believe the President is Muslim.

This is the most visible part of our intellectual elite, folks!

The woman was dripping with contempt. I wish there were a way to vote those contemptuous and contemptible people off their perches. Maybe, there is. using the Internet. I would like her retired to sip white wine with her refeeeened friends without harming the Washington Post although its editorial team lacks judgment.

I have been lazy about writing on this blog. The weather is too good, sunny all day and cool at night. I would rather go on my boat. Nevertheless, I have been adding new touches to my memoirs: “I Used to Be French: An Immature Autobiography.”

I still don’t have an editor. I have not worked on it much, to tell the truth. I am pretty sure one will materialize out of nowhere. Perhaps, there is one among the readers of Liberty. I have another story in the November issues of that libertarian publication: “Slippery Slope.” It’s out now.

Remember my radio show tomorrow Sunday at 11, until 1 pm. It’s “Facts Matter,” on KSCO Santa Cruz, 1080 AM. You can catch on-line but only while it’s going on.