A Letter From Cuba. Second Take.

About two years ago I came across this letter from a young Cuban. Of course, it was sent out anonymously and in Spanish. It hit me very hard, where it counts. Having nephews and other family still in Cuba, I know these situations are real. Specially when this young man talks about the inability to express his thoughts if against the government. 

I translated it with only one comment inserted, and this to explain a term of common usage in today’s Cuba. It expresses what many Cubans go through on a day to day basis while the communist/socialist elite and their children live a very capitalistic, opulent life, studying and often vacationing in Europe's best places at the expense of the people. Despite the so called opening by Obama's visit, the control of everyday living is oppressive, it has not changed one bit for the street citizen. I thought it was worth a second view.

 It says:

“I was born in Cuba, but a foreigner has more rights than I here; I am free, but I cannot talk about what I want, or express my dreams.

I'm told I live in a democracy, but throughout my life I have only known one (political) party, one viewpoint, one government. I can vote in elections, but there is only one candidate.

My education was free, but I had to work as a volunteer in the back country schools so I would not be thrown out of the free schools; my education was free but I had no choice in what I could study. I have a university degree but I work in a “paladar” (Note: private, semi clandestine mini restaurants catering mainly to foreigners, a way to earn some badly needed “hard” currency); officially these do not exist nor can they be advertised because they will be closed by authorities.

Officially we have nothing because of the American blockade, but for the tourists and foreigners the blockade does not exist; for them, there is everything. My mother used to tell me that before this government, when there was little to eat, they would eat flour cookies … by the way … What is flour? 

My health care is free but at the clinic there are no medicines and the doctor who is supposed to take care of us in this area is too busy driving a taxi; the nurse is making do as a prostitute and, as this keeps her awake all night, we cannot call on her during the day

I have a TV, but there are only two channels and we see the same face on both. I have an electric fan, but often we have no electricity. I like to bathe, but often there is no water in my neighborhood.

When I have a toothbrush, there is no toothpaste; when I have toothpaste there is no toothbrush … I have a pencil but no paper and, when I have pencil and paper,  I then remember that I cannot write what I think.

They say that you only live once … obviously, whoever wrote this was not in Cuba. Here, you don’t live life … you observe it. “

Think about communism and socialism and what it really brings to the people next time someone tells you these are the panacea. They are not. As systems, these two have been an abject failure in every country where they have been put in practice. 

Remember that those who push these flawed systems will be the ones who will benefit for they are the people who will be in control.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

·   Pray for those who are fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and counts!!

·       Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora

·       Any comments please send to rjalcazar@gmail.comComments to

Falling in Love all Over Again

There are places and there are places. In the end, people make those places…

- “Avere un buon viaggio di ritorno, tornare al piu presto!!”

 - “Have a good trip home, come back soon!!”

It was 4am on Sunday in the small city of Lido, Venice. Actually, an island city where we had ended during the last three days of our vacation by luck, sheer good luck. We and our suitcases were at a local dock waiting for our airport taxi (yes, dock … this was a water taxi); many late night-early morn revelers were on their way back home and as they saw us there waiting, either shouted while passing nearby or came to us to say the above in one of several versions…

View from our balcony

This capped a three day stay in this small city. A city I only knew from mentions over the years and from knowing that in the 50’s-70’s it was considered a prime vacation spot for many wealthy Italians and tourists.

I mentally compare it to the much more renowned port-o-calls visited during the cruise we enjoyed in the preceding days. All well-known and deserving to be called beautiful tourist bastions like Crete, Mikonos, Santorini, Athens and Ephesus, Turkey (we were there just three days prior to the attempted coup-d’etat). We were prepared to end our cruise time in Venice, but were not meat to do so. The owner of the small apt we had arranged for through AIRBNB did not respond and these folk were helpful in giving us options. We saw a nice apt. in Lido, looked at the map and said  -“Oh, it’s only one island away, easy to and fro”.  So the decision was made.

 

A canal in Lido

Suffice it to say we went to Venice only the first morning, did what we needed to do, and went back to Lido as quickly as possible. We didn’t know it yet, but had already been charmed by this town and its people.

If I was asked for one word impressions on this town, my answers would be: Beautiful, Clean, Restful, Friendly, Open. Reasonable (price wise).

A Lido Home

On main street, all the restaurants, shops, etc. you could want. Then, off side street trattorias and coffee shops; beautiful homes, apartments and buildings everywhere we looked, flowers in full bloom and yes, canals and more canals. Although there are cars, since there is a ferry connection to the mainland, most people get around in bikes, small Vespas and on foot. Just take an outside chair at any coffee shop, have a coffee or a glass of wine and watch the world go by. With more that many who would pass by offering a cheery - “Ciao” as they walked past.

Venice, seen from Lido

All in our small group came away with the conviction that we do have to come back to Lido, with more time to really enjoy all it has to offer. And we will.

“Ci torneremo”

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

·    Pray for those who are fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and counts!!

·       Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora

·       Any comments please send to rjalcazar@gmail.com

From Wally’s Pond... Again

It has been a while since I had a chance to sit by the water’s edge at

In my mind, This would
be Wally's Pond

this pond which only exists in my mind; a restful place which allows me to think (yes, think!) a bit… I thought a break was overdue.

My on-going promise to self has been that politics would be left out of my writings but… this becomes an impossible task as we march into an election year.

The pickings are bleak this time ‘round. On the one side, we have an older gentleman whose only card is the “gift card”. -“Elect me and most everything you get will be free”. I do not have a master in economics, except the one which might have been earned in the university of “Hard Knocks”: trying, failing and trying again. One well learned lesson is that no service or product is free. Everything has a cost factor and it has to be paid for the service or product to be available. Also, as shown by the present government’s gift giving structure, it is all too easy to get used to receiving goodies and giving nothing in return. I am still not sure as to how all the freebies will continue to be paid for. Let me see… perhaps higher taxes?

There are people who honestly need help and as citizens, they should have it. There are people who know well how to use the system to their advantage; they should be rooted out in order to preserve the very system for those who really need it.

The other candidate on this side? Personally I do not believe she should even be allowed to run freely, much less for POTUS. When someone blatantly believes him/herself above the law you and I have to abide by, that person becomes a menace to society. As President, she would become a menace to the nation.

How ‘bout the other side? Well… we have a self-proclaimed guru of government, constitution and rightful religion; one person who barely won his own home state and someone whose rhetoric has inflamed a large portion of the public into action. Many of whom had never bothered to participate before.

It has been a while since this piece got started… trips to my Wally’s Pond have been curtailed because of work and other issues…

Since last time I had a chance to write, I have learned how one side actually pays professional instigators to try and disrupt the person with whom they do not agree. Violence is not out of the question. Almost like watching Nazi Shock Troops go into action. What these fools don’t realize is that by their actions more and more people are being galvanized into the voting block and more than not, on behalf of the very candidate they want to stop. In his last speech, their choice target candidate had to take a tour of the countryside in order to get to his podium.

Maybe in some Utopian World, the ones who call themselves left liberals, will learn and accept that we ALL have the right to express what we think, whether it agrees with their thoughts or not. Your right is to shut me out, turn me off  – not shout me out or threaten me. I have stated it before and will again and again; “your rights END where mine BEGIN”.

On a different, yet related front, we go on borrowing more and more as a nation, spending more and more on the wrong issues and ignoring many that should receive support. Much of this in the name of PC (Lord, how I dislike that concept!!) and not based on reality. Our children and their grandchildren are being saddled with a debt they will be paying for generations and in the midst of the social disarray these debts are and will continue to create.

Someone -I don’t remember who- said in a moment of ethereal lucidity: “fear less the enemy without and more the enemy within for this one, if unchecked, will eventually destroy you”

How true, and how sad we as a nation are now at this juncture.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

·       Pray for those who are fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and counts!!

·       Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora

·       Any comments please send to rjalcazar@gmail.com

Without Getting Political

Well, not really. It is almost impossible to nowadays turn on any kind of media, be it social or paid, and not get bombarded with political mumbo-jumbo.

This coming election will be my 12^th voting opportunity in our political system. Over the years, since 1974 which was my first time, I have registered as an independent voter. By doing this, I forego the ability to vote in caucuses or primaries but tell myself this is a small price to pay to retain my mental independence. I don’t know how much truth there is in this.

As an independent, my votes have gone to both Democrats and Republicans. I have to admit that more Republicans than Democrats have received my much sought after nod over the years. But there has been a common denominator: usually I will go with a conservative, although not fanatically so. I do not believe in fanatical viewpoints of any kind, for this usually means that blinders are on.

During the last few terms, there has been a tendency which every day worries me more. We, as citizens of this country (whether born or naturalized, the responsibilities are the same) have forgotten what being so actually means. Our thinking process has been taken over by a marketing machinery that constantly imbues us with the idea that voting “as a block” is what should be done. Forget the wellbeing of the country and concentrate on the wellbeing of your interests, no matter how selfish and/or unreasonable they may be.

As a result of this tendency, well fed and maintained by the government, our society is more divided than ever. Racially, socially, economically, etc. Anything anyone on the public eye says is automatically checked with the “PoliCoMet” (politically-correctness-meter) and usually deemed as wanting. In the meantime, the smaller but louder groups get more and more undeserved attention.

I think it is time to revamp the voting process in this country. First, it should be an obligation to vote, not a “let’s see how I feel that day and if going over there is not too much hassle”. Civic education must be improved to have children understand what this process truly means and what a privilege this obligation is.

Each vote should count. One citizen, one vote. Enough with a system where sometimes a very small majority determines the number of overall voting delegates who will not truly and fully represent voters from a region. In order to vote, some sort of national identification should be required. After all, for most everything else I will be asked for a photo ID. Why not for voting?

Again, we go back to small, loud groups who determine it is not in their best interest to have this ID. And the majority keeps silent and allows this to happen because it is easier to do so, than to stand up and say “no more”.

Whom do we voting folks have as a choice? On the Dem side a couple of older, rich white folk who swear they “are the people”. One with a very checkered professional history whom I personally hope will not make it to the Presidency and one with a very checkered thinking process who wants to give the world away. On the other side there is an amalgam of personalities, all vying to out-conservative the other ones. Screams, accusations and, in the middle, our good Ol’ USA.

The pickings are slim, and this comes at a time when we, as a nation, need someone who will not be afraid to take the handles and steer with a defined direction. I have to trust the system and believe this system, which has served us well for over 200 years, will continue to withstand the concerted attacks and to stand tall.

After all, it is politics as usual indeed.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

·       Pray for those who are fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and counts!!

·       Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora

·       Any comments please send to rjalcazar@gmail.com

I Came Here to Work… Part II

I thought it would be better to try and finish off this entry today. There is no way to have a final answer nor a solution in 10 parragraphs. Yet, these are issues which affect us in our every day lives.

There is no easy answer to this issue. We need to respect, and stay within, the boundaries the existing laws allow. If these need change, this has to be done through due process, not executive order. This last is nothing but a devise used by a president incapable of negotiating an agreement on a given topic, and wanting to press his own agenda forward.

Borders have to be closely guarded while the system is revamped. Immigration is a privilege, not a right. Every country in the world chooses whom to allow into their borders and based on a quota basis. Why should this country be different? Yes, we offer hope as a society, but this hope has to be founded on a real possibility; when the system is broken down, that possibility begins to disappear. For those who come in as well as those who already live here. If you come into this country, you will be expected to assimilate into its system, not try to create your own. That, over the last two centuries, is what has allowed the dream to become a reality and to offer that hope of a better life.

And let’s be clear. When immigration is mentioned, I refer to all migrants, not just from Latin America. All have to be measured by the same stick. But, what about those who already live here, in the shadows of “illegality” as it were? They also should go through an internal vetting process. A real one, not a lip service one. Prior legal issues (not a minor driving issue or similar) should preclude their ability to stay. However, in many cases, there are families who have lived here for 6 – 10 – 20 years, raised families, often with children who have served in the US Armed Forces,  earned a living, paid taxes, and contributed to society.

These are not people who have come to try and change this country into something it isn’t. These are people who have come to work, relate to the US, and integrate into the system. Should they have an opportunity to reach their hoped for dream? I think they should. This would be a process which would take them through mandatory citizenship classes, language proficiency classes, etc.

In the end, they would continue to do what they have been doing and which would qualify them for this process: work, contribute, and help our country and society to continue to grow in diversity and flourish.

There is one final issue which we all have to be aware of. Those who already have the legal status and those who would be willing to sacrifice and work in order to get it: Immigration, residency and eventual citizenship in this USA is an earned privilege, not a right.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

·       Pray for those who are fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and counts!!

·       Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora

·       Any comments please send to rjalcazar@gmail.com

I Came Here to Work.

This entry has been a while in the making. Perhaps not consciously, but definitely subconsciously. Yet, it has grown in content so this is the first part, of two parts... will try to finish it soon...

We live in a society which demands that thoughts and ideas be brought out, be heard. Especially when we witness issues and trends that can be considered harmful to that society or this, the country where it is harbored. My allegiance is to this wonderful country where we have all received not just a second chance to make a life, but a third, fourth and oftentimes many more chances. There is no other country in the world, I believe, where this could have come to pass. And I have worked and/or lived in some 50 of these countries. In that allegiance, however, one cannot be totally blind or deaf to the fact that there are areas where improvements can, and should be made.

I come to the core of this posting. A heartfelt core which brings out a duality of feelings that are not easily managed. Our country has become what it is largely due to a willingness to receive immigrants from almost every corner of the world and allow each one to rise or fall according to his/her efforts. It has been that fruitful and generous. We grow and push forward because of the energy and ideas that everyone brings to the table and the equation.  

On the one hand, there is my Hispanic background and my daily contact with folks who sacrificed everything to come to this country hoping for a better life for themselves and their children, working their days away in the pursuit of that hope.

On the other hand, is the knowledge this country and society are based on a set of general rules and parameters which have served it well for over 200 years. We can’t throw those laws away for the benefit of the few and the detriment of the nation. Much less for the political convenience of some who see this exchange as a way to reach power positions in this country, to then systematically destroy that structure that allowed them to be in the first place. When we come to this country as migrants, whether for political, social or reasons of economics, we come because it is different and better; because here we have opportunities that in our own countries we don’t have.

Yet, many who now come do so not in the spirit of working hard in order to improve but to try and find an easy way to make money, to live well without any kind of sacrifice. This means that those of us who live her, work here and pay taxes here, bankroll their attitude. In other words, we come here to improve our lot and then try to convert this country into an extension of our old country. Guess what… it will not work. And in the process, we will manage to destroy most of, if not all, the qualities that made this country an attractive destiny. And this attitude, unfortunately, extends to a whole generation of people born and bred right here.

The worst problem? This attitude is being promulgated by a government which sees it as a means to extend its political hold over the country through a short and long term change in the basic makeup of the system. Not necessarily for its betterment, but for the outright opportunities and artificial staying power which this control and political dominion will bring to their party. They forget or -worse yet- choose to ignore the catastrophic consequences this selfish thinking will bring for our children and grandchildren.

So, what about the migration issue we have to contend with? Can, or should, we send everyone who is outside the law back? Should we close the borders to further migration? Should we become an isolationist country and destroy the very essence of what has made us a great country? What about the terrorist issue? This is a very real problem in today’s world and, especially, for our country.

Part I.... Part II to follow

A Ray of Hope

For a list of reasons, Latin America’s political climate has long favored populist governments. Now this tide may be finally turning.

I went to bed last night, but was unable to fall asleep. Yes, I watched some TV, and read some. But, what was keeping me awake were the constant “beeps” coming from the telephone, letting me know that a new tweet had come through. And being the late hour it was on a Sunday night –when these beeps usually quiet down to silence- this meant an update from the twitting community in Venezuela, regarding elections.

I am not Venezuelan. But I had the opportunity to visit –repeatedly- this beautiful country and came to care for it and for a people who openly received me as one of their own. Later, when Chavez won, I knew they were in for a rude awakening. With the help from the Castro govt., a new tyranny was born. And worse yet, a tyranny that had tons of petro-funds available for propagating and controlling. Thus, the systematic destruction of a country began.

Yesterday, in a massive turnout of voters (estimated at 76%, highest in history) the people raised a cry that said ENOUGH!! Social media was present and, perhaps, a main reason as to why electoral fraud was not completed, as had been done before. The Assembly is now in the hands of the opposition and it is in these hands that rest the responsibility for peacefully rebuilding a country that is naturally rich in people and assets.

This reversal is important. More than meets the eye. A few weeks ago, Argentina started this trend with a solid NO to the reelection of a Populist government that had ruled the country with an iron hand  for many years. Yesterday, Venezuela did what was thought impossible through, again, a massive turnout of voters. In Ecuador, over 400,000 people went to an anti-Correa rally in Quito, the capital city. And in Brasil, the socialist government has its days counted. These are all governments that have supported inimically and –more importantly- economically, the government of Cuba.

The so-called Cuban government, after sinking the country’s economy and infrastructure into an utter disaster and after milking these countries for all they can give, is now running out of economic options. Ironically, its best possibility now seems to be the “hated” enemy…  they are obliged to fully open the doors to American tourism for quick dollars. What sociopolitical changes this may bring, remain to be seen.

Now that all the so called people friendly “isms” have been tried and found to be sorely wanting, maybe the other “ism”, Capitalism, may be able to come to the rescue of these economies and countries. Most importantly, Latin America seems to be leading the way to a democratic reality, where people have learned they can –and do- have a say in what happens in their country and society.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

·       Pray for those who are fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and counts!!

·       Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora

·       Any comments please send to rjalcazar@gmail.com