What's so bad about polygamy?

With the recent arrest of Warren Jeffs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Jeffs), the "Prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FCJCLDS) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter_Day_Saints) , one of America's 10 most wanted has been taken off of the list. It's incredibly big news, or at least the media is treating it that way, especially because he wasn't apprehended because of his standing as a wanted man, but from an asshole cop who pulled him over because he had temporary plates in his windshield. Funny how a man could elude the authorities for years only to be caught because he didn't put his temporary plate on the outside of his car...I can (somewhat) relate: after driving at an average speed of about 120 MPH from New Orleans to Redwood City, I got pulled over and given a ($1000, if my sister didn't work for the MVPD) ticket for having Louisiana plates (and a license, and registration, and insurance...wonder why I hate cops?) when I was just 10 miles from my destination. You'd think I'd get pulled over for doing 135 on the I-10, but instead I get a ticket because I live in another state. So back to the polygamist...Jeffs had up to 75 wives, which is something I really do not envy. Most men complain about having 1 wife, let alone 75!


So the main reason why this man was originally targeted by the government was not for the child brides that his church is famous for, but simply becuase he's a polygamist. What is so wrong about having multiple wives if they consent to the marriage? It would be one thing if he had been kidnapping girls from their homes and forcing them into marriage, but that simply wasn't the case. In fact, many of his wives had once been his father's wives...Oedipus, eat your heart out. Most of the members of the FCJCLDS follow his doctrines fanatically. If his wives were victims, wouldn't they have helped in his capture? So why is polygamy such a horrible crime to us? Is it because it favors the strong? If every man was allowed to have multiple wives, do you think that there'd suddenly be a shortage of women? And even if there was, wouldn't the men who were able to get a woman be more deserving of them? What if it went both ways and women could have a harem of men too? Why would people have a problem with that?


Just like with drugs, I believe that sex should NEVER be regulated when taking place between consenting adults, yet this country has laws against many sexual acts, including some pretty pedestrian ones. Homosexuality is seen as a huge evil, when men should actually ENCOURAGE homosexuality to decrease competition. If there are 100 men and 50 are homosexual, that leaves the remaining 50 men to make their choice of all the available women. The same goes for polygamy, if men and women can have multiple spouses that would let the weak latch onto a large harem while the strong would have their own. We look at Jeffs as this huge pervert and evil man, while Hugh Hefner is one of the most respected men in America. How is he different? He lives in a house of hedonism with multiple (right now he has 3, but he had 7 a couple years ago) girlfriends that are 50-60 years younger than him and is celebrated for it.


Is it because Jeffs did it in the name of religion? Maybe it's just me, but this nation was founded on the principal that people should be able to worship as they choose and his people chose to be members of a fundamentalist polygamist church. Why can't we let him and his followers live in their little community with their giant church? I'd rather we let those people live in peace and we attack the real problems facing us. Focus on the cities and not the rural areas. Focus on problems of morality (like stealing from someone, or assaulting them or killing them) instead of these moral problems. I may not agree with how they do things in their little polygamist community, but I don't see why this man would be on our 10 most wanted list.


Okay, so he's not an angel, probably more of a devil. But this man was born into this society and so were most of his wives. The girl he "raped" was a girl who had been arranged to marry someone else and he facilitated it. Their society is not one that would fly in the city, so they have their own little isolated community as to keep from encroaching on anyone else. If they don't attack cities, why bother with them? I personally don't believe that monogamy is a natural state for the human mind. Men by their nature desire to spread their seed as much as possible and polygamy is a much safer way to do it than the way we go about it in the cities. Why not track down the one-night-stand bandits? They spread disease, cause emotional problems with their many partners and have as little morality as the members of the FCJCLDS, possibly even less. If Jeffs lived in the Middle East, there wouldn't be any problems with what he did, but here in the US he's one of America's most wanted. I'm not saying that he's a good man or that I agree with him, but aren't there a lot more dangerous and evil people still out there?

Mandatory Minimum Sentences

So with the "shocking" news about the discovery of JonBenet's murderer already disproven, what has it taught us? John Mark Karr will forever be remembered as the man who wished that he had killed JonBenet, as a pedophile who was only capable of murdering that little girl in his own mind. But to me the main reason why this is such an interesting case is not that some little white girl was killed (cause who really cares abuot a 6-year old other than her family?) but because the media made THIS their main story before any facts were even in. So we had all this coverage of some random pedophile's business class travel from Thailand to LA simply because CNN, MSNBC, Fox and the others were too lazy to do any actual reporting and REPORT NEWS. Even if the DNA evidence had come out as a 100% match for John Mark Karr, it wouldn't have changed anything, other than the fact that we IMPORTED A PEDOPHILE FROM THAILAND!!! Why extradite him when he was to face some kind of justice in Thailand for his pedophile ways? We have enough perverts and murderers here in the US, we don't need to import them once they've left our nation. Isn't homeland security about keeping undesirables outside of our borders? In the past week or so we've imported the most powerful drug lord in Northern Mexico (Arellano-Felix) and the man suspected in one of the most publicized murder cases ever, yet we can't even police our own cities.


I write about our laws pretty frequently, but today I decided to use Jimmy Carter's words to express my opinion: “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.” -President Jimmy Carter: Message to Congress, August 2, 1977. In a word, justice, is what law should be about. Someone smoking weed is not causing harm, nor is someone selling it, so where's the justice in ruining someone's life simply because they choose weed over alcohol? How is August Busch III not considered a drug dealer when he's peddling alcohol to every drunk-driving redneck and overweight American out there? His company has directly contributed to the deaths of thousands, but the Busch family is still considered royalty in St Louis. Ditto for Phillip Morris, cigarettes kill more people than basically anything other than heart disease (thank you McDonalds, Busch and TV) in this country, yet we don't see our jail overcrowding with men who own smoke shops. When you have a criminal justice system that makes it more of a crime to sell a product that you manufactured from a seedling (like marijuana, hashish and kief) to a marketable product than breaking into someone's home and steal their baseball card collection, there's something wrong.


If you ever listened to the Fugees or Wyclef Jean's work from the mid-90s, you've heard a man named John Forte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fort%C3%A9) in the background. What most of you don't know is that he's currently serving 14 years at Fort Dix for possession of 31 pounds of liquid cocaine with intent to distribute. The messed up part of this case is that Forte wasn't even the one who was profitting from this deal, he was just the delivery man and had thought he was delivering cash to facilitate a deal for his friend. So this incredibly talented man was put into jail for his first transgression from the law (ever, he'd never had as much of a misdemeanor) for a minimum of 14 years because of a pointless law that takes the judgement away from the judge and states that certain drug crimes should have mandatory minimums. Dealing ecstasy can put you in jail for 30-life, messed up for a drug that high schoolers and college students will risk death just to have that night-long party that ecstasy provides. When there is no mandatory minimum, there can be discretion in the case. Some drug dealers belong in jail, like the ones who kill rivals and steal to move up in the business, but most dealers are just people trying to support themselves, or in the case of most weed dealers, to support their habit. A perfect example of why a minimum sentence is rediculous: In 1995, Joann Zedler called police to her home on a domestic violence call about her husband, who then fled. As police searched for him, they found a crop of marijuana growing on the property, along with several guns. Joann was arrested and had to forfeit the family's property to the government. For residing in a place with drugs, she received a mandatory sentence of 10 years. When her husband was caught, he too was arrested and sentenced to 10 years. This is what the judge said when sentencing Joann, who had no prior offenses: "When I read the pre-sentence report, I thought to myself this just doesn’t seem right. On the other hand, it’s the law. There’s absolutely no question in my mind that these are severe mandatory minimums. Ten years is a long time."


If we repealed those pointless laws requiring drug offenders to be locked away longer than murderers, child molesters (10 years for molesting a child, 14 years for possessing a suitcase with cocaine that many people REALLY WANT) and thieves, we'd see our criminal justice system with so much extra space in our prisons and so much more time that they'd actually be able to put CRIMINALS away instead of entrepeneurs. If you're from the ghetto and you can only find a job working 40 hours a week for less money than you'd need to live comfortably, shouldn't you do what it takes to earn more? After all, if that man makes $350 a week working and an additional $500 selling drugs, he's able to contribute $2000 more a month to the economy. Just because money is earned on the black market doesn't mean it wont be spent in the mainstream market. Look at all of the companies that sprang up in the gangta-rap era of the last decade, you think those 24" rims and in-dash DVD players were being sold to stock brokers? They were popularized by ghetto-ass gangsta rappers like Ludacris who has come straight out and said that he dealt cocaine. I definitely don't agree with laws regulating morality and consumption; why do we let someone else tell us what we can and can't put in our body? If Bush tried to implement a law tomorrow that made Chocolate (after all, eating too much can kill you) illegal there would be riots, so why do we let them tell us we can't risk death by taking drugs?


So bringing this back to the beginning, why do we let our government set laws that are more harmful than the "crime" itself? While John Forte, a brilliant, talented and kind (met him at homecoming my senior year, before he was in jail) graduate of Phillips Exeter and NYU, is in jail for the next dozen+ years, an admitted pedophile is flown from Thailand on the taxpayer's dollar in business class. So Karr didn't kill JonBenet, big surprise, but where does that leave us? Well, he may go to jail for his child porn case in Petaluma, but it wont be for 14+ years, and this is a man who thought he'd be capable of raping and killing a 6 year old girl! If we are to have jails and a criminal justice system, shouldn't there be justice? Shouldn't we let those 17 year old small-time coke dealers have another chance before they're turned into criminals by 14 years in our ineffective prisons? Shouldn't we just lock up molesters and counsel them until there's absolutely no signs of their dirty desires? Shouldn't we have the punishment fit the crime? I seem to recall a document our nation was founded on called the bill of rights and I think there was something in there about not being subjected to cruel punishment for a lesser crime. How is 14 years of being raped and beaten and subjected to sadistic guards not cruel punishment for delivering a suitcase filled with drugs or for supporting your young son by selling cocaine? Give me an explanation, I dare you.

The end of Freedom of the Press

aPeople seem to forget how important the press is to our freedom. "The Liberal Media" is pretty much the only protection we have from our government operating in secret. Without the free press, there is no doubt in my mind that we'd be living in an authoritarian dictatorship. Since Bush took office, there has been an assault on the free press and the "USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 ) ACT" (see how they used an acronym to make it seem like voting for it would be anti-American?) was used as a tool for curbing our rights to the free press and other rights to speech, privacy and freedom that most people take for granted. Using fear to tighten control over the people is a key component of fascism and we're definitely going down that road.


Every empire in history has fallen. What makes Americans so arrogant to think that the American experiment will last forever? The secrecy of this administration is unconstitutional and incredibly dangerous. Not only are they taking rights away (as well as RE-classifying documents that had once been DE-classified), but they are beginning to treat journalists in a way that smacks of totalitarian regimes. The Valerie Plame affair showed that the government is in an adversarial relationship with the press, and the BALCO scandal is even more of an indication. The authors of "Game of Shadows", the book that broke the BALCO (the steroid lab that supplied Jason Giambi among others) scandal aren't being praised for their role in bringing this information to the public. They are actually being targeted by the government for leaking the information to the American public.


So why is bringing down Barry Bonds so much worse than Richard Nixon? Woodward and Bernstein didn't face jail time for revealing the Watergate scandal to the public, and they were certainly not forced (by threatening jail time) to reveal their source (Mark Felt). One of the authors of Game of Shadows, Lance Williams said it best: "As far as the government coming after us, the world has changed since this story was published. In the days of Woodward and Bernstein, the government was not going around the country subpoenaing reporters. This is a very new development. It's really an innovation of the current Attorney General, as far as I can tell. But the number of reporters subpoenaed in the past decade is not very great. And the number subpoenaed recently is a large proportion of the number subpoenaed in the past 20 to 25 years. We didn't know we were risking jail, we thought the government would try to find out the sources, but we really did not anticipate that it would get to this point. Because as a matter of practice, that wasn't what they were doing in those days." Obviously we'd be better off had Ashcroft and Gonzales never been attorney general.


So what can we do? The more the government attacks reporters, the less bold they're going to be. Nixon wouldn't have gotten exposed had it not been for aggressive reporters and a brave man willing to risk everything to release important information to the people. Not only will the prosecution of reporters hurt our free press, but the forced revealing of sources will dry up leaks. The anti-whistle-blowing sentiment can only hurt us. After all, Enron would have been able to fraud people out of billions more had Sherron Watkins not leaked the fraud to the public. People always cover their ass if they are purposefully doing something wrong, so it is the duty of the press to reveal those wrongdoings to the people.


The simple fact that Americans get their news from TV means they are already missing most of the news. CNN, MSNBC and (god help us) Fox News prefer to take the easy way out, only reporting on the headlines that are everywhere else. They don't want to be the only station not talking about JonBenet Ramsay, even though it's completely meaningless news, just simply because they worry that they'll lose out on the ratings battle. If our government actually cared about being free of corruption and hidden agendas, they'd support the members of the press, not attack them. I believe that the people should employ public reporters in a similar to how a public defender is employed. The press is basically a public defender, they work tirelessly to expose problems and to inform the public and that keeps us safe. So why not have a "public exposer" program where we pay taxes to employ reporters who have the sole purpose of investigating our government and its practices. If the government supported this program, then we could be sure that they're working in our best interests and not their own.

A Quarter Century Looming...

With my 25th birthday fast approaching (tomorrow), I have been thinking more and more about life lately. About a year ago I took a job in finance as a stopgap because I was sick of looking for teaching jobs and needed to earn a little bit of money. I was with the "Office Space"-like company LPL for 3 months before I started with my current company. While I have always pictured myself working for a company just like this: top of a high rise in a modern downtown, crunching numbers and talking about investing. However, I never really pictured myself being a processor, I only saw myself being in an office solving problems and coming up with ideas. So now that I'm nearly 25, I feel like I am no longer "still young" and that I need to be taking a step forward if I am to ever reach the point I feel I should be at.


If I had grown up in the 1950s, I'd be a junior executive living in a 3-bedroom house with a homemaker wife and a kid or two already. I'd also be making enough money to support that lifestyle. Instead, I was born in 1981 into a changing society, women (and minorities) have doubled the size of the workforce while the path to becoming an executive has become much longer and more difficult. But then again, so has the path to starting a family. I'm 25 now (well...not yet) and I'm still at least a couple of years away from starting a family. My problem is that I always look at things way down the line. When I make a choice, I think to myself "how will this affect my retirement?" instead of "how will this affect me?". I am so concerned with having a long retirement where I could make my own choices and live by my standards that I sacrifice my current happiness in exchange for the chance that I'll move up just that much faster and inch that much closer to retirement. If I could retire tomorrow, I would.


So what would I do if I retired tomorrow? First, I would use my wealth and time to make a difference, rather than wasting away in an office processing financial documents. Second, I would travel the world. Third, I would write, write, write and hopefully finish one of the 6 or so novels I have started on in the past 5 years. Finally, I would raise a family, spending as much time with my kids as they could stand (and probably more). I wouldn't just want to waste away my retirement sitting on the porch yelling at kids to stay off of my lawn. And I certainly wouldn't want to spend my retirement living in a senior citizen's community waiting for my kids and grandkids to contact me.


If I was to dedicate myself to philanthropy, I'd definitely spend most of my time helping out kids from tough backgrounds, but I'd also dedicate myself to some more abstract charity. I have a homeless friend named Brian (he's the Pacific Beach Bum I know best...he spends most of his time at the rec center) who once told me that he "stopped getting laid about 5 years ago" meaning that he had actually gotten laid after he was on the street, but not once he was really a true homeless guy. So I would start a program to get homeless guys laid. I'd take them shopping for a nice outfit, get them cleaned up and buy them a prostitute. In essence I'd be helping out two people for every homeless guy I helped, and it'd be good for the economy too. Think about it: the homeless guy is getting clean, a new outfit, and sex; the prostitute is getting extra business (as the homeless guy wasn't a potential client until I helped him) and money to spend and the economy is benefitting from the contribution of someone who had previously not contributed anything to the economy.


Life never goes how you'd expect. If it did, I'd be living in a cul-de-sac with Cam Loughlin, Beto Peliks, Graham Norwood, David Kaufman, Matt DiFonso (sp?) and the rest of the "crazy boys" of Nueva, all of us raising our kids (who are all the exact same age) to play on the same little league team. In reality, even though I always plan things out, I really have no idea what's coming. Because I think the way I do, it makes it harder for me to enjoy myself when I don't really live in the moment. I tend to always be lost in my thoughts, analyzing things or getting antsy to get to something new. While I would love to change myself and "live for today" and ignore the future, that's just not me. Now that I'm a quarter century old, my priorities remain the same, but who knows what could happen next? After all, I'd never been to San Diego (that I could remember) until 3 years ago, now I live here. Hell, a month ago, I would have told you I'd be teaching now, so I have no idea what will happen next. All I know is that I need to roll with the punches and hopefully the next quarter-century will see me achieve all of my goals. Either that, or I could just retire today...

Now I can finally have Closure!

So we are living in a world of terrorism, religious conflict, corporate greed and killer diseases, yet the #1 most talked about news story right now isn't about government or even the Arab-Israeli conflict...nope, it's Jonbenet Ramsey and her suspected killer, a pedophile named John Mark Karr. It's amazing to me how these news stations are so willing to give us all kinds of mundane details (as in the dinner of Pate, green salad with walnut dressing, fried king prawns...all while sitting in business class for a flight from Thailand to the US.) about a man accused for a crime that happened 10 years ago. Yes, it was sad that a little girl was killed, but there are so many unsolved murders of young children and teenagers in every inner city and we NEVER hear anything on CNN about a murder in the projects. But when a little rich white girl is killed in Boulder, we're forced to hear about it for a decade!


What bothers me most about this is the fact that it's basically the same as Natalee Holloway. Not the case itself, but the sensationalized media coverage and insane number of minutes dedicated to updating this "breaking story". Obviously I am not a huge fan of the cable news media, as it has done nothing to inform or inspire (as NPR does) me...well, except for the inspiration to go on rants about how horrible the cable news media is, but seriously guys, a 10-year old case? The little 6 year old girl who was murdered would be 16 today. Why can't this be a more private matter, only for those who really follow this case to find out? I don't see why this wasn't just included on the news ticker, you know, like they do for coups in Africa or major developments in congress or the Supreme Court. And I especially didn't need to know about how nice John Mark Karr's flight from Thailand to LA was.


So all this talk about his luxurious flight from Thailand makes me want to get arrested for a child's murder. Then I could have business class accomodations and a few glasses of wine for free, or at least that's what I now believe thanks to the media coverage. So if this ends up being true, which is not really 100% certain yet, what will we learn from this? First, Karr has not murdered her...at least not officially yet, so don't call him a murderer yet. That's the main thing that bothers me about these kinds of cases. In this case, the life of this guy isn't being ruined simply for being accused (his life already sucked), but what about the Van Der Sloot boys in the Halloway case?


Once you're accused of a murder, you're always a suspected killer. Karr doesn't have much to fall back on either; he has a long history of erratic behavior, interest in young girls and was rumored to be in Thailand to change his sex. So this isn't exactly a valued member of society with some great life, but he is obvioulsly not someone who can be fully trusted/believed when he's making claims. People confess to crimes that they had nothing to do with all the time. Sometimes because they actually believe that they were involved, sometimes for attention, sometimes because they're simply deranged. Now I am not saying he's innocent, but let's wait for the evidence to come back and for the trial to complete before we convict this guy.


I just don't get CNN or any of those other cable news networks. They spend hours talking about "Broken Borders" (Lou Dobbs) and Natalee Holloway/JonBenet Ramsey while nobody even mentions 99% of what goes on in the rest of the world, and very little of what goes on here. While the Daily Show did mention John Mark Karr, it was more about lampooning the news than it was to inform us. However, I do learn about developments in healthcare reform and voter districting, which is much more important. Because honestly, who cares if JonBenet's murder is solved other than her family? It affects very few people especially because of her young age. In fact, the only people who feel relief about this arrest are those who were suspected 10 years ago (parents, older brother) and the cops who took 10 years to solve a murder. So while there are spree killers in Seattle and Phoenix, most people don't know about it because a pedophile got to fly business class from Thailand to LA.


I'm just so glad that they finally solved JonBenet's murder because I've not slept a wink since Christmas of 1996 worrying about it. Maybe now I'll be able to get 8 hours sleep in a night.

Socialistic Capitalism

I was originally going to respond to Joseph's blog comment, but I ended up coming up with way too much for just a response, so I'm just making this one a blog. I used to believe in the Steve Forbes flat tax, but then I went to Norway and I learned about how Socialism works in a functional society. Because our main examples of "socialism" were actually dicatorships using the concept of "socialism" to gain support from the masses even when the authorities aren't acting in their best interests. When we think of "socialism" we are reminded of Cuba, China and the USSR, and we tend to forget Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. The latter 4 are perfect examples of why socialism is not the failure that we're taught to think it is.


Though Norway has basically an identical per capita income as we do, it's Gini index (Income inequality metrics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality ) ranks 6th behind Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Belgium and the Czech Republic. All of those nations are prosperous, educated and peaceful societies. Their crime rates are miniscule and opportunities great. Compare that to the US (92nd place, behind Cameroon, China, Bolivia and Costa Rica and just ahead of The Dominican Republic, Madagascar and Venezuela) where people can make 10% of what their superior makes for nearly the same work. The fact that we're so rich should mean that would would be easier for us than anyone else in history to socialize.


Would it really hurt Alex Rodriguez to make "just" $5,000,000 this year? Because if we had 80% taxes, that's what he'd make. But that $20,000,000 that was taken from him could easily pay for new schools, medical benefits or even infrastructure. He'd still be a rich bastard, getting paid millions to play a game, but he'd actually be benefiting society more just by simply earning his keep. Since so many people make just $20,000 or so, I would set a income basement of $10,000 to ensure everyone is able to live even without the redistribution of wealth. Bill Gates would have just $10,000,000,000 to his name and the other $40,000,000,000 would be used to pay for schools and the other societal necessities. Once again, he'd still be a rich bastard, able to live like a king off of interest, but he'd be less rich and everyone else better off.


In the future, the only companies able to compete will be major corporations or the high-end ones that cater to the rich. How many computer stores or video stores can you think of that are not chains? Now go back to 1995 and ask the same question. For us to combat companies like Wal-Mart from taking over the world, we need to make the move now before it's too hard. Bentonville, Arkansas is the home to the world's largest retailer, yet 10% of the population is living in poverty. How could company where the top 6 people are worth a combined $100,000,000,000 or so be based in a town where the economy is so downtrodden? Imagine if the Waltons were required to give back a portion of their profits to the people who made them those profits, wouldn't Bentonville be better off?


The fundamental flaw of Capitalism is the prevalence and acceptance of greed. People are encouraged in this country to strive to be the next Donald Trump or Michael Dell, but not the next (my HS freshman year history teacher) Mr Gehre or (my Bantam hockey coach) Coach Nader. We are so focused on wealth that we have completely lost focus on what greed really is. Isn't wanting more than what others have being greedy? I certainly think so, and even though I want more like everyone else, I still consider that being greedy. We talk so much about being a nation and protecting our borders, yet we don't actually want to be a nation. We just want to be individuals living for ourselves and not for the greater good. While it would be fine for us to want everyone to be prosperous, it's just greedy to want that even just for your family.


In our nation people are lead to believe that if you work really hard, you'll earn that million and retire in luxury. Unfortunately that's a lie. Some people work pretty hard through their lives, and some people don't and their prosperity has little to do with ethic. Opportunity is all that really matters. The best pitcher who ever lived may be playing his HS ball in some rural town in South Dakota, but that decent player from San Diego is going to get more scholarship offers because he's had exposure. The same goes for education. The smartest student at a school in Kansas will likely end up at KU an okay state school, but the worst student at Exeter will get a scholarship (wonder who this is supposed to represent...) to Tulane in addition to acceptances at other desirable schools. If this is a land of "equal opportunity" where is it? Because if it really was, Paris Hilton wouldn't have made $7,000,000 last year from partying, blowing guys and being ignorant...she'd be living in a group rehab center for recovering crack whores. I'd much rather be in a world where Paris was a crack whore (well, and not an heirress at the same time) instead of someone who makes 200 times what the average American will make in the next year. If nothing else, wouldn't you like to take $5,600,000

The Tragedy of the Ghetto

Last night I watched the immaculate film "Tsotsi", 2005's Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film and it got me thinking about how people live and the way we see others. In the film we are introduced to this young thug called "Tsotsi" (the patois of that Johannesburg neighborhood word for thug) who has no conscience and murders a man in broad daylight in a crowded subway car. But when he jacks a BMW with a baby in the back seat his life is changed. The young thug (probably about 16 years old) finds himself unable to abandon the baby in the back seat of the stolen car he leaves on the side of the road, so he takes the child into his own home. Instead of becoming a burden on Tsotsi, the child ends up touching him enough to convince him that there is a difference between right and wrong. So where is my point? Other than gushing about the best film I've seen this year (and probably in years...it's better than Cidade de Deus), it also brought up enough questions about society, poverty and conscience.


The woman that Tsotsi carjacks is very wealthy, even by American standards. She and her husband live in a gorgeous mini-mansion and have a Mercedes and a BMW and all kinds of jewelry and artwork. Tsotsi., on the other hand, lives in a shack without a bathroom, running water and his electricity comes from a stolen car battery. When he needs to feed the child, he holds up a young mother at gunpoint to breastfeed the baby. Tsotsi has no other means of income other than the hustle and armed robbery. He's 16 and has never been to school, has no parents and limitless psychological damage. This is not just a fictional story about a kid in South Africa, it's also a true story about a kid in East Saint Louis, or from the Cabrini-Green projects, or from South Central LA or the Lower 9th Ward. It rings true for all of them.


The problem with our system (everywhere, save a few enlightened Scandanavian or Benelux nations) is that we expect the poor to be able to rise from the ashes and emerge from the ghetto. Most of the time someone is born poor, they die poor. The success stories like my father, who emerged from a poor background in inner city Brooklyn and a murdered father, are success stories for a reason: they aren't that common. When you're born into poverty and abuse, it's hard to know anything else. $100 seems like a lot of money to someone who grew up in the Lower 9th because they only have a 70% chance of having a job, but that will only sustain them for a short while. When you have no education, no references and no experience, it's pretty much impossible to make a living legally. So what do men resort to (because women can live off of others a lot easier than men) for survival? Illegal activities like selling drugs, robbery, pimping and violence for hire become the only way to make it out of the ghetto without being an actor, rapper, model or athlete.


The question is, why do we let this continue? Is it really better for us if a portion of the society is marginalized and forced to subsist off of 1/10th of the average wage? It certainly doesn't help us live in a peaceful and secure society. We force violence into the ghettos because we make certain activities illegal while disregarding the simple needs of man. While we have some people with 6000 square foot mansions with a pool and an acre of land worth $5,000,000+ that they don't even live in (a personal example...), there are people still without a home in New Orleans after almost a year. I don't think that everyone should have a perfectly equal share, but some people just never have the chance to even get into the game. By the time they're 8, they've already fallen so far behind their peers that their only option in live is to live a life of crime or minimum wage. Would you rather sell cocaine for huge profits and little work, or work yourself to death to live a life of pigs feet and used clothing? The choice is easy, and for some, there is no choice. They live with thugs, they only know that life and it's impossible to break free.


So I always talk about how we should institute a highly socialistic tax policy with 80% taxes on everyone and everything where we'd pay for medical expenses and housing/energy costs out of the population's pool of funds. I just don't feel right when I drive in my Mercedes by the ghetto and I see the poor people without any opportunities to have what I have. I may be smart, but I'd be a failure if I was any less than what I am now based on where I came from. I believe everyone should have an equal opportunity from birth...but that's probably just a pipe dream.

Terrorism and Privacy

Yesterday (this was started yesterday...) in London they discovered a major terrorist plot. The intent of the terrorists (according to the authorities) was to blow up about a dozen planes en route to the US simultaneously. This is a very tangible threat and probably the most significant threat the US has faced since 9/11. However, the threat might not be as serious to us as it was to the Brits. In reality, the threat of damage from planes taking off from London is much less than if they had taken off from Boston, as the fuel load will be far lighter and the likelyhood of a building strike is far less. The most likely scenario for the attack would have been for the planes to have blown up over the Atlantic, killing 2000+ people. That would have been devastating, but how directly would that affect us here in the US?


The #1 issue I have with making "The War on Terror" a priority is that we ignore the fact that terrorism is a very small problem in our day-to-day lives. Simply by focusing on the terrorists we're giving them what they want: attention. I've spoken before about how the deaths related to Terrorism are so minute when compared to many other things: AIDS, Malaria, Car Accidents, Starvation, Gun Violence, Tobacco and Alcohol to name a few. If we spent the billions we spend on thwarting 3,000-5,000 deaths a year (which would be sad and all, but not exactly that big of an impact when you think about it) on feeding the poor or on the fight against AIDS we'd be saving a lot more lives. It's not that I think terrorism isn't a problem, it is. I know firsthand what a terrorist event looks like because I've seen two. I've also had my life saved by a snowstorm that kept me from being in Atocha Station on March 11th, 2004 at 8:02am for the train to Barcelona. But I also know that the impact of terrorists on San Francisco or Houston has been nil.


What annoys me about the "homeland security" obsession is that the ones fighting for this most are from middle America. Not exactly a hotbed of radical Islamic terrorists. Who the hell would bother attacking South Dakota? Yet, South Dakotans list fighting terrorism as one of their top priorities as if Osama Bin Laden actually knows where the Mitchell Corn Palace is. If you spend all of your time working on your physique without paying attention to your nutrition, you'll still keel over from a heart attack. It's the same for protecting our borders. If we concentrate so much on our external enemies, we'll neglect the Timothy McVeighs out there. In fact, the department of Homeland Security listed Indiana as the state with the most terrorist targets with over 8,000! California, by comparison, was somewhere near 3,000...and that is why Indianapolis inexplicably gets more funding from DHS than San Diego. They named, among 8,000 other non-targets, a petting zoo and truck stops as some of the major targets in Indiana. I'm sure Muqtada Al-Sadr has been planning his attack on the Gary, Indiana rest stop for years...


So what will happen next? London is already making its way towards 1984-style big brotherism. They have cameras basically in every major public area and will only increase surveillance as a result of this event. On MSNBC just now, I saw the headline "Your privacy or your life" as if our lives will be in danger if we continue have privacy. Sad thing to me is that many people actually believe this to be true. The reason why the PATRIOT Act and all of the NSA spying programs are still allowed to exist is simply because congress believes that privacy isn't a right and the people aren't outraged enough to fight back. I know it's a stretch to compare us to the Weimar Republic ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_republic ) , but the Weimar was a fine democracy that collapsed and became the Nazi regime within 14 years. The people of Germany ELECTED Hitler and continued to support the government till they eroded every one of the people's civil rights. They used their failing economy as a way to shift public opinion far to the right and to create scapegoats out of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and the handicapped and we all know what happened next.


Americans are arrogant. They think that we're above everyone else and that we would never commit atrocities like the Germans (or Spanish, or Italians, French, Russians, Chinese, Rwandan...I could go on for days...) but we forget about the concentration camps we created in WWII for the Japanese. Sure, WWII was 60 years ago, but not much has really changed. We're demonizing Arabs while ignoring our own problems. How many attacks have occurred in the US that were committed by Arabs from within our borders? I can't think of any (9/11 was done by foreign terrorists), but I can certainly think of many white-Christian Americans who've murdered 10-500 people. But I bet that keeping a parent of a 7 year old from bringing apple juice on the plane will keep us all safe. After all, there have been a whole 4 American planes attacked by terrorists since 2000, so obviously we're having an epidemic of terrorism within our borders. The saddest thing to me is that we're talking it up as if it's our victory against the terrorists...it's not! It's the Brit's victory!


Finally, I propose that we all just travel naked now. If we're not allowed to bring liquids, electronics or anything else on the plane, why not just have everyone in the airport walk around completely nude? That would really speed up the security checkpoints, would make us all feel safer if we could be sure that nobody was hiding anything under their clothes and, as an added bonus, would serve as an incentive for Americans to get into shape when travelling anywhere. After all, who'd want to walk around naked in an airport looking like crap? Either that, or we can spend 3 hours in the airport to take that 45 minute flight to San Francisco...

Say it ain't so, Joe!

What ever happened to losing gracefully? Yesterday Senator Joe Lieberman lost in his Democratic senate primary in the state of Connecticut and almost immediately announced that he was still going to run for senate as an independent. When will these politicians learn? Running as an independent basically serves the opposition party that district on a silver platter. Didn't Lieberman learn the lesson that Ross Perot taught everyone? When Perot ran in 2002, Bush was struggling, but he still had a conservative nation supporting him. Perot somehow got 18.9% of the vote and singlehandedly won Bill Clinton the presidency. Among the "red" states that went Democrat simply because Perot split the vote were: New Hampshire, Montana, Arkansas (this one was a given because Clinton was from there...though Gore somehow lost his "home state" of TN in 2000), Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. The current situation with this country dictates that we NEED all the liberal people we can get in the Senate and splitting up the Liberal vote in a powerful "blue" state would be devastating.


Lieberman isn't exactly a liberal icon, even if he was nominated for Vice President. His support for Bush and the war is what killed his canidacy and probably his political career. But instead of going the classy route and bringing attention to real issues while conceiting defeat, he decided that he still hadn't lost yet, even though his own party has backed off from supporting him and placed their support in the hands of Lamont. Lamont is not exactly the kind of guy I would vote for. He's a sleazy businessman from Greenwich CT (THE home of the white, old-blood, WASPY money types) who was educated at the finest schools in the world (including my alma matter, Phillips Exeter) and comes from old (the library at Harvard is named for his great-grandfather) money. His campaign tactic was basically to show "the kiss" to everyone in the state to get all of the anti-war and anti-Bush voters to swing his way...it worked.


For those of you who don't know, "the kiss" is a perfect capture of Bush and Lieberman looking like they're about to make out and it's a real picture! Lieberman has stood behind Bush from day one and was the main voice of opposition for the Democratic party in their effort to end the war. Lieberman may have been a Democrat in name, but he had been more Republican in policy for the past few years. The simple fact that he has never wavered in his support for Bush and has taken numerous photos while holding Bush's hand made him a sitting duck in the election. Lieberman either has a huge ego, or he's working with the Republican party to destroy the Democrats. Why else would he risk splitting the liberal vote down the middle when his party is already facing an uphill battle? You don't see Dwane Wade guard Shaq after he grabs an offensive rebound from a Wade miss, so why is Lieberman putting the press on Lamont? I thought the reason why you affiliated with a political party was because you wanted to be a part of a team. Otherwise you'd be in your own party, or 100% independent.


What will the ramifications be if he does run? Connecticut will elect a Republican senator who will further throw the balance of power towards the right-wing. There are a lot of rich white people in Connecticut, and they usually vote for Republicans. But what is the real impact of this election? Is it going to change anything if Lamont wins? The Democrats haven't really been behind Lieberman ever since he expressed his love for Bush, so his influence was basically non-existent. His support for the war made him, in essence, a Republican in the Iraq debate. Lamont, at least, seems to have liberal Democrat values: he's against the Iraq war and the PATRIOT ACT, supports gay marriage and universal health care, and seems to believe that the government shouldn't reach into personal lives. He also was (supposedly, politicians can't ever be 100% trusted) against the nomination of Samuel Alito (I think the #1 worst thing so far done by Bush), which is a direct opposition to Lieberman who refused to go against the Alito nomination.


Lieberman is basically a politician who made a lot of wrong choices, alienated his voter base and his party and he lost because of it. His loss was not a surprise to anyone because he deserved to lose. It's great to see a powerful incumbent take a fall like that because it shows that sometimes the voters actually pay attention. However, running as an independent is going to do nothing to help his legacy. If he had accepted the loss gracefully and used his connections and former influence, he could become a very important person, like Al Gore or Jimmy Carter. But instead he is going to get in the way of his own party, whine and cry about losing when he really set himself up for a fall and solidify his legacy as a loser. I never really supported him, even when he was Gore's running mate, but it's always sad to see how these great men fall. If 18 years in senate isn't enough to teach him that he needs to support his own party and be a voice of opposition, it's definitely time for a change.

Can we find peace (solution)

I went to a hippie elementary school. We had a daily assembly called "morning sing" where we'd all sit on the floor of the ballroom and sing along to hippie songs like "Moonshadow" and the all-time Nueva classic "Let there be Peace on Earth" and it was supposed to instill the idea that we can be responsible for global peace. Unfortunately, all it did for me is show me that we're working for a peace that can't really be attained without wholesale global changes. Hatred is rampant in the world and the added technological advances only hasten the eventual destruction of our planet. As we see so many places descend into anarchy, conflict and chaos it is only natural to consider what kinds of possiblities we will have for peace. What will it take for this world to realize that we are all one and the same, we just live in different environments and speak different versions of the same language?


The epitome of this struggle for peace is obviously in the Middle East. Here is a region that has control over the most (economically) valuable resource to ever exist on this planet, yet the majority of the people live in squalor without any prospects. Meanwhile, Israel is this wealthy nation without any real natural resources and it breeds jealousy and hatred. The clerics use this discrepancy to engender resentment towards those who do not hold the same beliefs. Historical anti-semitism aside, there ARE reasons for everyone in the Middle East to hate Israel, but most of them are based in jealousy and revenge for military embarrassments. Israel is not a welcomed resident of the Middle East, but it's a resident nevertheless. In reality, Israel is just a REALLY easy scapegoat for all of the region's problems. Jews make great scapegoats because there aren't too many of them, and they are generally far smarter and more successful than basically any other ethno-religious group. Even though per capita income has fallen from $25,000 in 1980 to $8,000 in 2003, Saudi Arabia holds 24% of the world's Oil in reserve and there are bilionaires living as royalty. Why the people are willing to let their leaders grow so incredibly wealthy while their economic power is shrinking is beyond me. Instead of blaming King Abdullah for their problems and instituting a constitutional democracy with sharing of the vast oil wealth, the people live in a highly structured theocracy without any real say in the workings of the government, law or economy.


So why talk about Saudi Arabia when it's probably the least problematic nation in the region? Because the economic, natural and geographic resources are strong enough to engage in more symbiotic relationships with neighbors and to step in and be a regional voice of reason. Instead, they let Iranian president Amandinejad go wild with his megalomania and threaten Israel and the rest of the world. They let Hezbollah threaten regional safety without doing much of anything to help stop the growing conflict. When Jews are fighting Muslims, Sunnis are fighting Shi'ites and everyone is fighting peace, a voice of reason from within the region must step forward. The Arab street is very important in politics, and the street is calling for Israel to be wiped off of the map. What can be done to change public opinion? Simple, the leaders of the masses MUST step forward. They must say that all violence is wrong; that Sunnis, Shi'ites, Catholics and Jews are all basically the same and should be friends, not enemies; that killing innocent civilians in a suicide attack is NOT a martyr, but mass murder and is not a ticket to paradise.


But organized religion is simply not designed to foster peace and compassion for all people. If it was, we wouldn't have had endless conflict (resulting in the deaths of millions and millions) from the beginning of religion. Sunnis and Shi'ites are basically the same as Catholics and Protestants. They both follow the exact same religion, prophet and god as their counterpart, yet they feel this eternal hatred towards each other because one side chose to follow one leader while the other side went another direction. But their beliefs are the same basically, very few differences are present. Muslims and Jews have an unending hatred for each other, but they both follow the teachings of Abraham. Wouldn't it be better for everyone if we just realized this?


Religion blinds people. They use it as a crutch to make life easier. Without religion, people wouldn't sit in a church praying for rain to make their crops grow, they'd be out in the field figuring out ways to maximize their output. Religion may not have been the direct cause of the renewed fighting (a bold move by Hezbollah is), but theocratic regimes, clerics with too much power and centuries old religious hatred are all major factors. All religion does is divide people into groups when true morailty would have everyone included in the same group. Shouldn't we all believe in goodwill towards man, charity, love, honor and devotion? Why do we need some right-wing cleric (or pastor, priest, rabbi) to tell us how to think? Do people really need the pope to tell them how to think about abortion? Do they need a leader to tell them how to think about Israel? Global Peace is nothing but a pipe-dream when we cannot even have peace in our own cities. But the first step towards global harmony would have to be the elimination of organized religions and the supremacy it holds over the masses. Then we'd have to eliminate borders so we could eliminate the destructive -isms patriotism and nationalism. Only then will people realize that there are very few differences between people and that we really should be of one nation, one religion: Mankind.

Teenage drinking and the age of Maturity

As a coach of 12-15 year olds I know about the pressures of drinking on teenagers. Kids are exposed to so much more these days, especially when Hollywood starlets like Lindsay Lohan are queens of the bar scene at age 18 ( http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-07-29-lohan_x.htm ). Kids want to appear as grown up and with all of the exposure to social drinking it is hard for kids to notice the negatives of drinking. Part of the reason why drinking is so prevalent amongst the youth these days is because it is a way to rebel. Sometimes kids just want to break rules simply to rebel and getting drunk with friends is a fun and relatively consequence-free (in their minds) way to do so. Parents are VERY relaxed these days, basically giving their kids free reign over their own lives at age 12. Of the kids I coach at the rec center, only 3 or 4 of the 20+ have ever had their parents around at a game or practice for me to meet them. It is also a case of peer pressure, not in the terms of “everyone else is doing it, you’d better if you want to look cool”, but more in the terms of “I got a case of beer, come over and hang out while we drink them”.


I myself began binge drinking at age 12 and stopped by my 21st birthday due to the problems that drinking can cause (health, social, intellectual and financial) and its lack of benefits. Now I am basically a weirdo (especially since I work at an office that serves alcohol to employees every Friday at 4 and at every special event) because I don't drink much anymore. It has become so socially acceptable that people forget how much opposition there used to be against legal drinking. We learned that making drinking illegal did nothing to stop the flow of alcohol, so what about that drinking age? The main problem with the 21 drinking age is that those who are under 21 do it in unsafe settings. Case-in-point: I learned how to speak Spanish because of my desire to drink and be a cool kid in 7th and 8th grades. I’d go to the day laborers in at the hardware store in East San Mateo and say “Hola señor, mi y mis amigos queremos cerveza y vodka" and I’d hold out a $20 and we’d have at least 3 or 4 men willing to help us get alcohol. As I got older, I just had my cuter female friends charm men into buying us bottles of Vodka until I was able to (through the help of my mother, of all people) get a fake ID. Then I attended college in New Orleans, a city where it’s basically legal to drink at age 18. Being legally able to drink made it far less exciting and I was pretty much done with drinking within a year of legality.


The drinking age in this country is laughable. Why is it that a soldier could feasibly fire the shot that wins us a war, but when he comes home he’d get in trouble for drinking a glass of champagne to celebrate saving our country? We should set 18 as the age for EVERYTHING: driving, drinking, smoking, to purchase all drugs (which should also be legal and taxed), to have one’s own bank and credit card accounts and status as an adult. But in reality, some kids are ready at age 15 and some aren’t until age 24. What we really need to do is educate kids about alcohol from a very young age, long before they have any considerations of use. Just like sex, it is better to implant the ideas and the knowledge before the kids have any experience because once the kids start, they’ll rarely listen to anything an adult has to say about it. Once a teenage girl starts dating, there is almost nothing you can say that will change her opinion of who she dates until after he breaks her heart. The same goes for at-risk behavior like drinking, drugs, reckless driving, poor diet and lack of exercise.


Modern society has accelerated the amount of exposure to illicit activities that kids face without accelerating the rate at which kids mature. In fact, today's society has made achieving maturity something that usually doesn't happen until about age 30. Most people my age are still wasting their time working dead-end jobs (like bartending, waiting tables or other non-professional pursuits) and going out 3-4 nights a week. When my parents were my age, I'd be considered strange for still being single so close to my 25th birthday but times have changed. The only people my age who are married are considered unusual, ditto for those with 9-5 M-F careers. A lot of this is because of the way that parenting and childhood have shifted focus. It used to be that one would raise a child to be successful in society, now it is to raise a happy child. Parents are afraid to dictate how their children act and they lose control of them before they are teenagers. Hell, I have kids at the rec center who are always messing around by themselves and they're not even 10. Instead of parents establishing themselves as authorities, they establish themselves as financiers. Kids see their parents as obligated to buy them clothes, video games, cable television, fast food, sports equipment and everything else they want without rules. Obviously this is not how to raise a successful child, but that's how it's being done these days. Since these children cannot even see their parents as authority figures, how can they see their teachers, coaches or even law enforcers as authorities? That is why they all thumb their noses at the laws and rules, because they've been taught that they can do anything they want as long as it makes them happy.


To me the #1 dumbest thing about the drinking age being 21 is the fact that college students aren't legally allowed to drink. Isn't college the absolute best time and place to experiment with drugs, alcohol and sex? After all, college is the time when you're old enough to be on your own but still young enough to not have any real responsibilities. Go to any college campus (well, not BYU, Liberty University or other similar places) and tell me how many freshmen, sophomores and juniors you see at frat parties and other events where kegs, jungle juice and bottles of Jim Beam contribute to the inebriation of the crowd. Even before I was a college student I was able to drink on a college campus: I was 14 and visiting my sister at Penn, I drank some Schlitz and hit on some sorority girls at a frat partty. Basically, like every other prohibition (whether total or partial, partial being those that specify age or Rx) the drinking age is that way because some bad parents got upset when their failure as a parent came to light because their child drank themself to death. Anyone who has an OD on anything should blame their parents because they failed to instill the concept of moderation in their mind. Not everyone is as thoughtful as I am, (I stopped drinking because of the effects on my body and health long-term, not because of the short term effects) and cannot be trusted to be able to figure these things out before they get hurt. It shouldn't take that one night (or dozen nights) to realize the damage that alcohol can do to you. But shouldn't kids learn how to drink responsibly BEFORE they have that license to drive? I think so, and until we drop that rediculous drinking age of 21, we'll always see teenagers die from binge drinking.

Is this the end for Fidel?

With his 80th birthday looming, Fidel Castro is stressed out. His nation has lost basically all of its allies and social elite and she is facing a major shift of power. Fidel has fallen ill (reportedly due to stress) and his younger (still 75 years old) brother has taken control of the socialist nation. Many people have speculated for years that the end of Fidel would be the end of Socialist Cuba, but that simply wont be the case. Like with Communist Russia or China, while the hard-line may only last for the life of the first leader, it takes a few more regimes before regulations are more relaxed. After the Soviet Union had Lenin, Stalin and Brehznev followed. China is just now emerging from hard-line Socialism despite the fact that Mao has been dead for 30 years. In a government like USSR, PROC or Cuba, there is just too much power in the hands of the elite for them to relinquish it.


The mere fact that Fidel officially passed his power on is enough to fuel the speculation that he's incapacitated in a way similar to Ariel Sharon. Sharon was not officially out of power until he'd already been in a coma for a couple of days, so it's possible that Castro is in a similar state. Article 94 of the Cuban Constitution which states "In cases of the absence, illness or death of the president of the Council of State, the first vice president assumes the president’s duties" would leave us to believe that Castro is officially out of power and his reign has come to an end. I for one, am not 100% convinced that this means an end to the Cuban embargo and the Communist spectre that sits 90 miles from Miami. Generally when power is passed from one family member to the other, there is little change in the makeup of the regime. However, Raul is at odds with the hardliners with his more liberal economic ideals and his secrecy. It has been said that Raul is even more secretive than Fidel, and that would not really bode well for the future of democracy in Cuba.


I have long believed that Cuba is the "sleeping giant" of the Western Hemisphere. There is no nation in a better position to explode onto the internation scene than Cuba. Unlike other nations with similar economic conditions (in terms of total GDP, the nations around Cuba are Uruguay, El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Oman, Nepal, North Korea, Cambodia and Cameroon) Cuba has the location, natural beauty, cultural similarity and an educated populace more able to adapt to modern Democratic society. Cuba is capable of becoming an economic power, possibly the superpower of the Caribbean, with the ability to serve as the jumping off point for cruises, international flights and tourism. Imagine if Cuban rum, cigars and baseball players were allowed to be exported to the US while sending their profits home to Cuba. Cuba already has some of the best education and medicine in the world, the added economic activity would only serve as a catalyst for progress.


Cuba is also going to become the premier tourist destination of the Caribbean if Castro's death (or whatever...) brings about the political change most people expect. Cuba is not going to descend into anarchy like other nations might (with a dictator relinquishing power after almost 50 years of rule) because of the Cuban people and their intellectual prosperity. Though the average Cuban only has $3,000 a year in which to live off of, they are all provided with education from age 6 through college. Cuba could easily become a Caribbean Portugal in terms of prosperity and cultural significance. With all the Cubans in Miami, there will be a ton of travel between Havana and Miami once the embargo is lifted, not only for travel, but for business and commuting. If people fly from San Diego to LA almost every day for business, I can't imagine people wouldn't be doing the same between Cuba and Miami. It would only take a decade before Havana became the premier upscale Caribbean vacation city and the country would make billions from the tourism and added economic opportunities.


But what if Fidel is only resting or there is an even more hard-line successor waiting in the wings. Wouldn't it be in the best interest of the US to immediately open up trade to Cuba to destabilize the Socialist regime? I believe that the people wouldn't allow themselves to be dominated if they were able to see the effects of the embargo and how much better life will be without trade being blocked. American government (and the UN) still has this moronic belief that embargos cause dictators to fail, when in reality the dictators are actually helped greatly by an embargo. Think about it: Dictators thrive in closed societies that stifle creative thought and outside influences and that's exactly what an embargo does. It also causes the people to get poorer and poorer and sends what little money is made in the nation right to those in power. It is also used in propaganda to create an enemy of the nation (or organization) that heads up the embargo. Cuba is an amazing nation (though I've never been, I've had a roommate who spent 1 week there and my mother went and even saw Castro speak) with limitless potential and I cannot wait to see our government come to its senses and lift the embargo. Hopefully when Castro is officially done in Cuba, the American government will open up a dialogue with the new leader in the hopes of creating a gradual capitalization similiar to the way that the Chinese coast has emerged from strict Communist regulations. Cuba is looking like it could emerge from Castro's regime with great prosperity, but all it will take for Cuba to continue being our enemy 90 miles away is for us to continue what we're doing. It's not Castro that has caused problems for the people, it's our government that has made Castro's regime more strict and authoritarian. If Cuba was swimming in the wealth they could easily achieve, it could be more like Socialist Norway than Communist Russia. They don't need to end socialism to join the global community, they just need to be allowed in. Castro or no, it doesn't matter. Either that, or we can destabilize Cuba like we did in Iraq and watch as it becomes a breeding ground for terrorism and extremism.