HE ARADO EN EL MAR

June 1, 2009

“HE ARADO EN EL MAR”

Remembering that the sight gag – a red button given to the Russian Ambassador that was supposed to have said “recharge” but actually said “overcharge” – went over as well as a fart in church I’ll translate the above. Simon Bolivar said it.

“I HAVE PLOWED IN THE SEA”

I read your article, “Critical Moment for the Hemisphere”, in this morning’s Miami Herald. If there is a shibboleth that was left out I can’t think of it.

“In our region, the income gap continues to widen; too few girls
and boys finish their educations; women, rural farmers, Afro
descendants and indigenous people and indigenous people
remain trapped on the bottom rung of economic and social
ladders with too few opportunities to move up.”

[If you mean the drop out rate in the public school system in Washington, D.C. I would say that the time to have raised that issue would have been when you enrolled your daughter in it. You didn’t and you so advised the Obamas to do likewise. There is no sense in being a modern American Liberal unless buy the whole package. You would sooner spend the night in a sleeping bag with a pair of rutting wolverines rather than send your daughter to a public school in Washington. You mention “rural farmers” so as to distinguish them from “suburban farmers” or “urban farmers”. Could you tell me where I can find the last two groups?]

How about a high school dropout Apache woman with an African grandfather who wants to raise endive and arugula? If we could retroactively abort her wouldn’t we all be better off? Certainly she would be.

“The nations of our region are connected by geography, history,
culture, politics and economics. And while that interconnectedness
has produced prosperity for some of us – including the United States –
we are keenly aware that our hemisphere’s economic progress will
stall if the poor get poorer and the middle class shrinks, or if
historically disenfranchised groups remain isolated from national,
regional, and hemispheric markets.”

How has the “culture and history” of the Altiplano contributed to the prosperity of the United States? [I recall a lunch with some people from Lima. They were telling me of the glories of the Incan engineering. I agreed and mentioned how much more it could have been if they were able to use wheels.] When was the last time a major scientific breakthrough or a minor scientific breakthrough or any breakthrough has been announced from Asuncion? If, as you say, uneducated female mulatto farmers have fallen below the radar screen, how has that made this country prosperous? Argentina, a land truly blessed by God, has been a failure for almost 2 centuries. It canonizes hookers – Evita – and thumbs its nose at international agreements. The only permanent contribution it has made to the Western Canon is the tango. It must be noted that they stole that from the Italians. Venezuela wants to adopt the hugely successful Cuban model of government: thugs running a country for their own benefit. 50 years into the enlightened rule of ladrones Castro Cuba still has 3 overwhelming problems. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It must seem as difficult as going to the moon, and returning, was to us.

Since you speak of “shared prosperity” I must tell you that you of a 3122 mile trip I just completed. My big SUV did it without one drop of CITGO gasoline. Didn’t boycotts play a big role in getting the Dutchies out of South Africa? Chavez can beat up his own people without my help.

“Foreign language training is an especially powerful
tool that opens doors and ties people together
across borders and markets.”

At last! Some common sense has snuck in. When can I expect your public endorsement of English as the official language of the United States? When an international flight asks for landing instructions from Valparaiso flight control guess what language the pilot uses? Guess what language the controller uses?

“And we can make investments in clean energy that
offer the prospect of new jobs and new opportunities
throughout the region, just as they do at home.”

Why should Ecuador think about windmills when it sits on oceans and oceans of natural gas? Why should Brazil have onerous CAFÉ standards when they just discovered the equivalent of 2 Prudhoe Bays? Why should Venezuela do anything except prosper form this country’s stupidity in not exploiting our natural resources?

Pray tell, dear lady, exactly where and how many new jobs have been “created” from this balderdash about “clean energy”? The tie breaker question is simple. Take all the scams about “clean energy”, including borborygymous bovines and cutting back on Carbon Dioxide emissions by holding our collective breaths for an hour each day, and tell me how many fewer barrels of oil are we importing each day because of them.

You mention “shared prosperity and progress”. Then you enjoin us [to] “join together and get to work”.

I have a name for that.

Cuando yo estaba un Voluntario en el Cuerpo de Paz

it was called the

ALIANZA PARA PROGRESSO.

The first one worked so well, like the New Deal, that we should do it again.

Meanwhile, I’m going to Key West. My friend, the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, restaurateur and sportsman and now a noted political sage, used to proclaim “What a country! That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba!”

If I see anybody swimming south for some “shared prosperity and progress” I’ll let you know.


PS – Did you ever wonder why people from disasters posing as countries are successful when they get here? Do you think it may have something to do with liberty?