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| 25 Jul 2009 09:57:38 pm |
 ¿Qué pensabas tu? |
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What was Moctezuma thinking? He knew Cortés was coming. But when the Conquistadores finally arrived he greeted them at the gate. Los espanoles wound up living in his palace for several months. Moctezuma was host at the beginning, and captive towards the end of their stay. They finally wore out their welcome with the Aztecs , though, who stoned Moctezuma to death and chased los espanoles out of Tenōchtitlan on La Noche Triste.
It’s easy to look back on the fools of history and laugh. But what about us? What have we let into our house that’s come to take us captive? I saw an article on los gorditos that said nearly three times as many people in the U.S. are now fat, 34%, as were thirty years ago. The article (in Science) went on to link obesity to all sorts of health problems: coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, polycystic ovary syndrome, asthma, some cancers, and even Alzheimer's disease. Big Mac came into these people’s lives along with his buddies, Quarter Pounder, Whataburger, and Super Size. A rock hit Moctezuma on the head. A stroke will hit some of these folks on the head. Same outcome for the subject, either way. Same outcome for the winners, too. Corporations like McDonalds are doing fine, thank you. Now it looks like Obama’s henchmen are fixing to rig health care. As if it weren’t already rigged enough.
Los Conquistadores got the loot in Cortés’ day. What should we call the ones getting the loot today, Corporations? Naw, that’s too facile. How about “rich” ? Por lo menos, es verdad. We’re being farmed like a bunch of fat turkeys and it’s almost Thanksgiving. First it was the eggs on the way up, stock market boom, housing boom – a handsome Christmas bonus for the bankers, a $5,000 bottle of wine dinner to celebrate, a handsome new yacht next to the waterfront mansion. Now it’s feathers on the way down – bailouts, guarantees, troubled asset relief. Next will come the meat. That’s when the traditional turkey dinner really starts.
Será la noche triste for those who survive. That would be the conquistadors, of course – those ones who are now taking our money, jobs, and pensions. ¿Qué debiéramos llamar ellos? |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra |  Comments[26] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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| 19 Jul 2009 04:45:59 am |
| Tu y yo |
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The Aztecs arrived in Mexico Valley about 1200, built an empire, then three hundred years later, right on schedule, Hernán Cortés and his merry band of conquistadors arrived. This Hispanic state is now past maturity and is coming apart before us. Strong central control of the nation state is an aberration of our time. Human nature is to divide into tribal and family groups. We saw how this worked in the former Yugoslavia when the central iron grip failed. Now we’re watching it again in Mexico. La familia de Michoacán is a good example. The local cops and politicians know where the power lies despite Felipe Calderón’s occasional spankings. Calderón, for his part, is rapidly becoming el alcalde del Distrito Federal. The relationship between la Ciudad de México and los narcotraficantes is starting to look more and more like the relationship between Rome and Alaric, King of the Visigoths. México, unlike us, doesn’t print up the world’s reserve currency and use it to pay for a thousand garrisons in every corner of the world. But all this means, de veras, is that the bigger we are, the harder we fall.
Early signs of Yugoslavia in America? Lately California has started printing its own money. Although the banks that were happy to take taxpayer IOUs are not so forthcoming with California’s. But already a secondary market in California IOUs is developing just as a secondary market in dollars thrives throughout the world. Not worth a Continental or not worth a Californian? We already know where the lines will be drawn. San Francisco, for example, has more in common with Portland and Seattle than it does with Sacramento. The panhandle of Nebraska fits well with eastern Wyoming, not Omaha. Los Angeles, San Diego, and Tijuana all fit together. I’m thinking this province might extend all the way to Las Vegas before it runs up against the Mormons. Here in Newberry Springs we’re on the northern hinterlands of the Sonoran province and the southern hinterlands of the Great Basin. Once Washington no longer has the iron or the will to continue the farcical War on Drugs, los crimen organizados will have to find another business. Mr. Obama, tear down this wall. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra | Comments[27] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 14 Jul 2009 02:35:23 am |
| Un mundo sin mañana |
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We’ve grown accustomed to thinking of the world as ours. The U.S. Geological Survey has even gone so far as to declare this era the Anthropocene. Personally, I prefer the Obscene myself. Shoes from China, beef from Argentina, tomatoes from Mexico, steel from China, plastic geegaws from China, and oil from Saudi Arabia. Us Americans live on the cup of a gangster financial Ponzi scheme. But alas the wave has passed. Americans are fast becoming closer to “third worlders” and it’s us Americans who are moving. Backwards. Oh and how the rednecks howl. Bay like hounds they do. I heard a few complaining in a white bread restaurant in Sidney, Nebraska a few days ago across the street from Cabela’s. If there is ever another populist uprising in America it would be white conservatives. But they’re all too old now, far too fat, and too far in debt.
So the world breaks up, balkanizes as they say. Each region comes to live with it’s own arrogant delusions, on it’s own garden-grown salads and backyard hens, clinging to tarnished symbols of freedom and oil plenty. St. George, Utah, was the next place to happen. The beautiful pine tree mountains were going to be the new Pine Tree Mountains subdivision. Rich folks halfway up the mountain and trailer trash crowded down by Interstate 15, as God intended it. All that was needed was a pipeline to Lake Powell. I followed the Colorado River down from Rocky Mountain National Park to where it dives into canyons west of Grand Junction, Colorado. It could grow a south Salt Lake City mirror image if it weren’t for Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, and all the others. It’s the minimum resource that ultimately limits population demography.
The locals are still getting ready for the boom, driving contractor’s trucks with contractor’s license numbers, waiting, twitching, for the next big thing. Racks of landscape crawling off road vehicles lashed to a trailer behind the macho big tire machine; past bulldozed land, growing over with weeds; monolith construction water tanks standing like monuments to exuberance past. Yes, it’s over, and all the former down winders have to show for it is a few relics rusting outside the prefab shack down wind from freshly bulldozed and ruined land for sale.
Que tristes van a vivir los niños en este país. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra | Comments[29] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 04 Jul 2009 01:15:29 am |
| Cuatro del Julio |
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| Many things happen on their own characteristic time. Ice ages during the Pleistocene, for instance, cycled on a time scale of about 10,000 to 100,000 years. Anthropogenic climate change, on the other hand, will be fully upon us in 50 to 100 years. The energy crises, first noticed in the 1970s, is fully upon us now and will come to misery in 5 to 10 years. The political time frame, at least in the US, is about four years. Lots of pseudo economists like to imagine various business cycles but people who look closely at stock market data can’t find temporal correlations beyond a second. Empires, apparently, rise and fall on a cycle of a few hundred years. As we can see, that of the US is coming to a fall. As it comes down a theory with quite a lot of predictive power is that it’s owned by gangsters. The gangsters fix things so no matter what, wealth moves from the many to the few – them. A recent piece in Rolling Stone showed how Goldman Sachs is gangster central. Look at the resumes of many in power and you’ll see their Goldman credentials. Stacked up against us then, first is a gangster run economic gangbang. Next is the end of surplus energy. After that are drought, floods, crop failures, and starvation. In the meantime the wolves are busy fleecing the sheep. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s lucrative. Besides, there are plenty of sheep. Feliz cumpleaños, tío Sanovio. ¿Cuantos años mas? |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra | Comments[25] | Trackbacks [0] |
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