Doesn’t the U.S. have just the coolest prez ever! The recent “beer summit” proves that once and for all. I posted the other day about the incident involving the “black” Harvard professor being arrested by the “white” cop for breaking into his own home. Obama just couldn’t help himself and chimed in with a “the police acted stupidly” comment. That got the whole nation into an uproar. Obama’s solution…..invite the cop and the prof to the White House, for, you guessed it, beers! The event, dubbed “the beer summit,” was carried by every major news program in the country. Some even had count down clocks. We were giving a complete rundown of the history of momentous meetings on the White House lawn. Each participant was allowed to order his favorite beer. I believe Obama drank Bud Light (lightweight!), while the prof imbibed with Samuel Adams Light and the cop, Blue Moon. Guess which one drank the beer with the highest alcohol content? It was the police officer, Sergeant Crowley, whose Blue Moon comes in at a hefty 5.4%. I thought he appeared a little tipsy at the news conference after the event. What gave it away is when he referred to Obama as his “newest best bud” and “a really super-cool dude.” But the surprising thing was that the VP, Joe Biden, showed up too. Biden is never one to miss a free beer. In fact, I believe he was the only one who actually asked for another round. I guess good-old Joe forgot that he was drinking with a cop….hope someone took the keys away from him. Well so now we know that the President of the U.S., a Harvard educated lawyer, is a beer drinker, well at least a “light” beer drinker. All you southern red-necks out there can take some solace in that. Now we must endure the endless opinions of commentators, some who want to use the event to poke fun at Obama, others to praise him. For me, it just seemed like a regular guy’s reaction to screwing up. After Obama let loose with the “stupid” comment, his reaction was, okay okay I may have blown it there a bit, but you know what, let’s just all get together and have a beer. I do that. I can identify with that. I am feeling you brother. There is nothing like a cold brew to ease the tension and pave the way for a better and brighter future. It is good to know that we have someone in the White House who recognizes the highly strategic uses of beer to cure the ills of the world. In fact, writing about all this has made me a bit thirsty.

Despite the obvious fact that my blood runneth one hundred percent gringo, often I feel that there is a Latino inside of me just waiting to burst out. I am frequently reminded of the differences, however. Especially by those closest to me. We gringos just aren’t as warm and fuzzy as Latinos. We are more prone to give the cold shoulder. We are not as familiar, or family oriented. We are not as open and inviting. We are impatient. And so the list goes. But if I had to boil it all down to a single trait that distinguishes the two, I would describe it like this….we gringos are infinitely more “hung-up” than Latinos. What exactly does that mean? It just seems that we have these ideas of the way things ought to be and if they aren’t it makes our blood boil…..I’ll call them “hang-ups.” Case in point is the way Latinos, specifically Costa Ricans, view “risk” compared to gringos. For instance, a Costa Rican would not think twice about riding down a busy road on a bicycle with a kid sitting in his lap…..without a helmet. You see things like this all the time here. Sometimes if I am transporting a group of gringo tourists and they view such a site, all will express in unison their outrage, scorn and derision about the “bad parent” risking the life of that poor child. But to the tico, it is just a way to get from point A to point B. What’s the big deal? There are countless other areas I could mention where we gringos tend to be hung-up about things, whereas the ticos will take a more relaxed live and let live attitude. Does that make “us” right and “them” wrong, or vice-versa? No, not at all. But being hung-up does imply a tendency to maybe too quickly impose our sense of justice and fair play onto the rest of the world. It is just not right for women to dress like that. It is just not right for children to behave that way. It is just not right for people to hold those view points. And our airwaves are inundated with Rush Limbaughs, who are more than ready to express outrage about how “those people” are so off track. This is “America” and we don’t do it that way. As a by-product of growing up in a hung-up society, I am sometimes quick to judge someone as being in the wrong when they take a different approach than what I might deem appropriate to the situation. That happens a lot here in a business context, as well as in the area of personal relationships. It’s the notion of “I just can’t get over how they……” Well, get over it. Being “right” or being “wrong” just isn’t as big a deal here in Costa Rica as just, well, “being.” Hang-ups tend to rob you of your enjoyment of life because you are always so busy being aghast at the behavior of other people. But if you want to get “latinized” (which is a good idea if you plan to live here) you really need to let loose of the hang-ups and take a more relaxed approach to life. Pura Vida!

I realize that it is easy to be fooled by my suave and sophisticated posting that maybe I am some kind of international man of mystery, like Jethro Bodine’s “double naught spy” alter image. But the truth is that my neck is redder than the Alabama Crimson Tide. Of course, I am a salsa dancing, environmentalist propagandizing red neck, but a red neck none the less. One thing I really miss down here in Costa Rica is really good country music. Save the Corn Islands of Nicaragua, where, mysteriously, country music, and I mean the pure George Jones kind of stuff, is all the rage, country is pretty much nonexistent in these parts. That’s a shame because like my daddy once told me, “you can take the boy out of the country, but you’ll never take the country out of the boy.” So this post is dedicated to a former love of mine, lost in the midst of exotic tropical rhythms, but still lurking in the recesses of my temporal lobes, and that is country music. And I’m not talking about that new age sissy stuff that passes for country music these days. No I am talking about Merle Haggard, George Jones, and yes, even Conway Twitty. Wow this is almost embarrassing, a “coming out of the closet” of sorts. I was raised up on this stuff and once it gets into your blood, you’re infected for life. There is something ruggedly authentic about this kind of music, so simple and sad. When Jones sings “he stopped loving her today” you really can feel his pain. I have to admit that since living in Costa Rica I have immersed myself with the popular music of Latin America, salsa, merengue, cumbia, rancheras and even, to a lesser extent, reggaeton. I believe one should learn to appreciate the divine quality in all forms of music, because those humans beings who are so talented as to deliver it to us really have been gifted from above. There is value in all forms of music even though you may have a hard time identifying with the genre. So here I sit this morning longing for the past and all those twangy country songs that I used to love so much. Stuff that would make the average tico cringe, maybe even feel a little queasy. But to me the melodies are as sweet as the pecan pie my grandmother used to make every thanksgiving. So here’s to country music and my love of it. Wow, that was a liberating confession.

Now here’s a “real” country song…..

You’re either somebody, or you’re nobody. Growing up I always had visions of grandeur dancing in my head. I wanted to be someone important, or do something significant. This seems to be a prevailing mentality in the U.S., as if it were bred into us. The rise of media power in our everyday lives only fuels that desire. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame. But if you stop and reflect for a moment, really great and significant things have come from the smallest acts of the most inconspicuous among us. The decision of Rosa Parks not to sit at the back of the bus comes to mind. There are countless others, most not so famous, but significant and life changing nonetheless. At 48 the desire to be or do something “big” has lost some of its former flame. It helps to be living in a country that relishes in the small. I mean the ticos even get their name from their inclination to diminish things in everyday life, often adding the suffix “tico,” or “tito” to common nouns. Why? Because small is “in” in Costa Rica. The ticos live in small houses and consume far less than the average person in the U.S. could even imagine. In short, the ticos view a small life as a happy life. So my question is this…is this insatiable desire for greatness that tends to consume us gringos really a good thing? In a society so focused on fame everything tends to become politicized. This occurs because influencing public opinion is the fastest path towards stardom. If I can make others love me then I can reach the pinnacle of fame and fortune. I can only do this if I play the political game of appealing to everyone, while really mattering to no one. Or, at least I have to develop my “base” of supporters and pander to them at all costs, even my own truthfulness and integrity. Countless numbers of people pass from life to death unnoticed by the rest of us every day. What a frightening thought….to die without recognition. I can’t let that happen. I have to matter. But in the struggle to make ourselves matter we run the risk of losing what really does matter, our souls. In the desire to do and be “big” many have sold their soul at a discounted price. I believe we have to put more value on the truth that lies within us, in our souls. Compared to the mass of humanity, we are small and we will always be small. The only thing that makes some seem larger than life is that they have been able to manipulate public opinion into elevating them to that level. But it is a fiction….they are flesh and blood just like the rest of us. Rather than living the rest of my life seeking elevation, or adulation, I would prefer to live it with the realization that I am no better than the beggar on the street corner, or the kid sleeping on the sidewalk exposed to the elements and to the scorn and derision of the countless hordes that walk blindly by or over him. In remembering how small I truthfully am, I set myself up for doing something limitlessly large in the eyes of my maker, to reach out to another equal, but not for what they can do for me. As long as my every waking moment is consumed with my search for popularity, every action I take will be geared towards a “prid pro quo.” Maybe I will reach some level of the greatness that I seek. Maybe not. But in the end where will I be? A man without a soul? A man who started big, but finished small.

Everyone is just aghast at Barack Obama’s comment that the Cambridge (Mass.) police acted “stupidly” in arresting his friend and Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates, for “breaking into” his own home. Seems that Gates had lost his keys and he and a friend were trying to “jimmy” open the front door when a neighbor called the police. Gates later was confronted inside the home and asked to show an identification. He apparently became belligerent at the idea of having to prove he was entitled to be in his own home, and the police officer arrested him for disorderly conduct. A bit bizarre to say the least. So why in the name of Jesus would the president of the U.S. even take the time to react to such an exclusively local incident? Because he was asked by a reporter at the end of the press conference a question about it. Should Obama have simply said “no comment?” Absolutely. But he didn’t and now the media is having a feeding frenzy about the whole affair. Obama is being accused of attacking police officers everywhere. And of course, the whole event has a decidedly racial undertone. The guy was Obama’s friend and if you think for a second that Barack Obama, the first black man to ever be elected president of the U.S., is not sensitive to racial issues, you are living on a different planet. His reaction was unusually visceral for a man who normally is more than reserved and calculated with his comments. But obviously the episode that involved a friend of his struck a chord and thus the reporter who asked the “gotcha” question really did “get him.” But the fact remains, and remains despite any way you can evaluate this series of events factually, that the policeman did absolutely and unequivocally act stupidly with a capital “S!” The whole thing should have been over as soon as Gates told the guy “hey man this is my house.” Was there a racial motivation? Who knows and we never will know, but it certainly does smell a bit. Best thing to do about the whole affair, drop it and move on. There are much bigger fish to fry. The fact that Fox News just won’t let it go only proves that their true motivation is to bring Obama down at any possible cost. Is that “fair and balanced” journalism? I’ll just report…..you decide. Obama, who has admitted to his poor choice of words, has invited both Gates and the police officer to the White House for beers! How cool is that?

Another title to this post might have been “On Becoming Crotchety.” Pablo looked at me the other day (Pablo is my office manager and all-around “right-hand man”) and called me “cascarrabias.” In Spanish that basically means “crotchety old man.” Pablo is twenty-two, so the accusation was offensive on many different levels. Nevertheless, I hate to say that in some ways he is right. It seems these days it has become easier to slip into ill-tempered-ness. Is this just a by-product of growing older, or is it the symptom of some other infirmity? I am not sure, but I do know that waking up on the wrong side of the bed seems to be an all too frequent occurrence. I guess blaming it on the economy would be the most convenient out. But the truth is I don’t want to be defined that way….as being a miserable middle-aged man. There are far too many of those here in Costa Rica already. They are mostly gringos who came here expecting it to be paradise, but then quickly discovered that it isn’t. Problems tend to have a way of following us wherever we might roam. Drinking doesn’t seem to do the trick these days, because in the immortal words of Hank Williams, Jr., “the hangovers [really do] hurt more than they used to.” No the ebb and flow of life constantly brings problems and solutions…. moments of happiness followed by moments of heartbreak. The truth is (in my humble opinion) that becoming crotchety, or cascarrabias, has a lot to do with trying to go against that ebb and flow. It is like swimming against the current. People who are always demanding that the traffic be clear for them are just setting themselves up for disappointment, distress and ultimately disillusion. And when disillusion sets in you quickly will find yourself becoming more and more of what you said you never would, a miserable person. Going with the flow means accepting life’s challenges with a shrug and a smile and a strongly-held belief that whatever comes your way, you can handle it. I have often said that Murphy’s Law had to have been discovered in Costa Rica. Here things never seem to go the way you envisioned. There is always that obstacle that tries its best to hinder your progress. It could come in the form of seemingly endless traffic congestion, bureaucratic boneheads, rain that falls down, up and sideways, or your own stupidity in thinking that the ticos would be so stunned by your sagacity as to just lay down their culture and attitudes and do things your way. One thing that ticos do know how do to is go with the flow. They seem to take life as it presents itself to them and to always maintain that pura vida spirit. I am learning more each day how to do that and I have Pablo to bring me around whenever I slip into being a cascarrabias.

Ode to All Cascarrabias

Bill O’Reilly, smartest man in the U.S., or maybe on the planet. And now we finally know why. After Obama’s press conference last night, O’Reilly announced the secret to the world…..a master’s degree from Harvard for which he paid (bite the pinkie, Bill, ala Dr. Evil)…..THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS (that’s thirty with a thousand). Geez, I thought Harvard was more expensive than that (giving away your age there, huh, Bill?). I guess the masters degree must have been in, you guessed it, bloviating, since that is what Mr. Bill seems to be really really good at. You know I watch O’Reilly and he is generally a somewhat “fair and balanced” guy. He even “believes in” (as if it were some kind of new age religion) global warming. But don’t dare ever disagree with him, or the full force of that $30,000 Harvard master’s degree will come crashing down upon you. Mr. O’Reilly (to give the man all due respect since I believe he pulls down around $10 million from his show The Factor) was up in arms last night over Obama’s inability to adequately and thoroughly explain to the U.S. citizenry how he plans to deliver health care to everyone without adding to the deficit. That is a great question, but one better asked to Congress since they are actually drafting the plan in the first place. Obama knows in theory what he wants and that is that every U.S. citizen have the right to health care….period. How you arrive at that he is leaving up to the best and brightest in Congress. He has made it clear that he wants a “public option,” which I understand to mean a health care plan that is administered by the federal government and that citizens can opt into, or not. Obviously since that plan will basically be “free” to consumers of it (an entitlement), it will have to be administered at the lowest possible cost, thereby also bringing down costs throughout all aspects of the health care system in the U.S., something that is sorely needed in order for it to remain viable into the future. I don’t believe it is fair to expect Obama to fully explain the “plan” in a thirty minute press conference. I believe the current draft plan in Congress now is around 1,000 pages. I mean Obama would have to be at least half as smart as O’Reilly to do that. So what O’Reilly was doing last night in announcing that he, with the master’s degree and all, could not decipher exactly what, how and where Obama would cure all health care ills once and for all, was what he does best…bloviating. Hell, he practically invented the word! O’Reilly has racked up quite a following with his show (me included) and as smart as he is he probably realizes that he might have to shell out some of that $10 million to help pay for all this. So, he is obviously concerned and has the power to influence others to be concerned as well. That’s a good thing and it is what his show is all about….shedding light on issues that should concern us all and doing it in an entertaining way. But make no bones about it, last night Bill the Bloviator was at his best!

Change is an inevitable phenomenon of life. Things just never remain the same. They always change. Sometimes for the better. Other times for the worse. But one thing you can always count on for certain is that change will happen. It seems these days that change is in the air more than usual. Here in Costa Rica things have changed quite a bit since I first arrived in October of 2001. Things certainly have changed for me, personally, in a dramatic way since then. I can’t say all for the better, but I certainly have learned a lot. When I first came here the country was in the process of electing a president, Abel Pacheco. He did not prove to be that “able” or capable, however. The country basically endured four years without a whole lot of progress. The tourism industry and the attraction of Costa Rica as a location for foreign investment, nevertheless grew in those years, despite a deteriorating infrastructure. During the ensuing four years under the watch of Oscar Arias, Costa Rica has undergone significant transformation in the way of improvements to its infrastructure. Even so, crime has increased alarmingly. The country is currently, like the rest of the world, in economic turmoil, but somehow improvements continue to take place. Viewed from a contemporaneous perspective it seems that all this change just happens randomly. Each day brings about new events that shape the future. These days, it seems you can’t really count on or predict with any reasonable degree of accuracy what the next day will bring. But when you step back for a moment and take a “bird’s eye view” there does seem to be pattern or some degree of thoughtfulness to all the change that envelops our lives day to day. It is as if some hand is guiding these events towards a predetermined end. Wouldn’t it be nice to possess a “crystal ball” that enabled us to see exactly how the future will unfold. Some claim to have these prescient powers, but I am skeptical. I know I don’t. I haven’t the foggiest idea of what will happen from one day to the next, but viewed retrospectively, things always seem somehow to work out. I am a Christian and believe in the idea of “reaping and sowing.” That is you reap what you sow….sow good works and you will reap a bountiful harvest. Sow bad stuff and, well, you get what’s coming to you. In eastern religions, they refer to this concept as “karma.” More recently we have heard a lot about a “law of attraction” that espouses that we can actually attract into our lives what we focus on the most intently. All these metaphysical concepts seem to have a common vain and that is that there is an invisible hand guiding the course of events. And that hand has a conscience…..a will. It seems that God wants us to participate with him in shaping the future. How? By our actions today. That is, if we observe the “golden rule” today, it seems that God has better things in store for us tomorrow. I know from my own personal experience that if I am wallowing in self-indulgence or self-pity, or any of the other myriad of ways I can be completely self-focused, the future doesn’t usually work out that well for me. Much of the pain that I have experienced in my lifetime I can easily see as being the direct result of selfishness. However, if I turn outward and forget about me for even a moment, it seems that somehow, almost miraculously, things begin to change for the better. I have developed a habit of always giving to the beggars that approach you here in Costa Rica at almost all busy traffic intersections. Others always chide me and tell me “don’t you know what they will do with that money?” My reply is no, I don’t. Perhaps they will buy drugs, but perhaps they are hungry and will buy something to eat. It is not for me to judge. Because the truth is “there but for the grace of God go I.” If I have some spare change, I will always gladly give because in that small act of giving change really does take place, in my heart, potentially in theirs and in the way God allows the future to unfold.

Why is it that the powers that be in the U.S. are so afraid of losing even a little bit of their grip on the machinery of capitalistic wealth and excess throughout the world? The legends of U.S. intervention in the affairs of Latin American countries stands as a testament to that fact. These interventions were almost without exception reactions to revolutionary uprisings against oppressive dictators. And almost without exception the U.S. threw its support in the direction of the dictator. Why? Because those dictators were in the pockets of the captains of U.S. capitalism. Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber that he just wanted to “spread the wealth around” a little bit. Throughout Latin American history there has been the all too common phenomenon of massive wealth resting in the hands of a small minority of land owners, who were able to dictate policy for the masses. Did they acquire this wealth by hard work and sacrifice? Generally no. They inherited it, or simply stole it. In the U.S. as well there is the all too common phenomenon of oligarchic classes that dictate policy for the rest of us. They control things behind the scenes. All too often this happens in this day and age according to who controls the media, whether it’s a conservative like Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, or a liberal like Ted Turner, owner of CNN. The result is to dispose more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Then along comes Obama with his “socialistic” notions of “spread the wealth.” And boy does that have the right-wing power brokers in an uproar. What is it that they fear? That a little bit of their power and wealth might be transferred to those who have none. Rather than tell Joe the Plumber that his idea was to spread the wealth, Obama should have said he wanted to “spread the power.” And who will do that if it is not a government by the people and for the people? Can we rely on the Donald Trumps of the world to relinquish even the slightest trace of power, wealth, position or prestige in order to help out the less fortunate? I doubt it. Oh sure, they will give a little here and there in order to show how magnanimous they are, but ask them to relinquish real power….forget about it! It ain’t gonna happen. So the government has to step in and make that decision for them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world without greed, where people with advantage or fortune or even (rare as it may be) extra-ordinary talent actually did the right thing, instead of using what they have to reap a lavish lifestyle for themselves? Yes it would be nice, but it is also unrealistic to expect that to ever occur in this fallen world. What is occurring right now is that the excesses that the government winked at during the Bush years are now being turned back and people are being asked to pay. The people being asked have more than enough to do so, but nevertheless they will squeal like pigs going to the slaughter at the very notion. I am not a socialist, but I do believe in social justice. There is an old saying that “bears make money….bulls make money….but pigs get slaughtered.” Right now there is a whole lot of slaughtering that needs to take place.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, so the saying goes. But in a democratic society, like the U.S., the poor exact their revenge at the ballot box. At the present moment, the “poor,” using that word to represent all “working-class stiffs,” have won at the polls and their champion, Barack Obama, is at the helm, steering the great ship of state through progressively more turbulent waters. Now comes the torment of health care reform and the whole debate is kicking up waves of social class polarization the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades. The rich are sounding the warning that the boat will soon be capsized by the rogue wave of a “public option” that will guarantee health care coverage to the poorest, or even for those of a higher economic class who opt for it. That is what “option” signifies. It is an alternative to the status quo…to a capitalism based health care system with costs that are rising to levels that are fast making it completely inaccessible to millions. Insurance companies will go out of business. They just can’t compete with Uncle Sam, is what we are hearing. The rich will be in jeopardy of losing their platinum coverage care and their capability to pick the best hospitals and doctors. The lawyers won’t be able to sue as often and drive up the exorbitant cost of needless procedures ordered in pursuit of cover your ass policies. And alas, the doctors will make less money and therefore the best and brightest minds will be dis-incentivized from choosing the medical profession. In short, it will be the end of health care as we have known it in the U.S. The government spending and corresponding tax hikes on the rich needed to support the “public option” will be the wave that inundates the ship once and for all sending all of us into dark and chaotic waters where we as a society will surely be doomed. Such are the dire warnings the rich are sounding if Obama is the least bit successful in his efforts to reform health care in the U.S. So here’s my question. Why is it that societal class extortion is always the game that is played, by either side, when some one’s ox is about to be gored in the U.S.?  Websters defines the word “extort” as “to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power.”  The “rich” are more than willing to use their power to exact what they want, which is no public option.  They are telling us that if you raise our taxes we will fire everyone and throw the economy into a tailspin. But in reality, what is wrong with private health care having to face the competition of a pubic option? We have that here in Costa Rica and it works quite well. It is telling that medical tourism is red-hot in Costa Rica as folks from the U.S. flock here to have medical procedures performed in private hospitals at one-third of the cost of those same procedures in the U.S. But 80% of the folks in the U.S. are “satisfied” with their coverage, is what you hear from many. What does that imply?….who gives a rat’s @$% about the other 20%? From an outsider looking in it appears by all accounts that the foundations of the capitalist based health care system in the U.S. are crumbling under the weight of increasing costs driven by a run away legal system and greedy insurance companies. Something needs to be done and what Obama is proposing is a viable solution, even if the rich have to shoulder the majority of the burden of paying for it. I seriously doubt that it will translate into too heavy a shock to their life-styles. So stop trying to play this societal class extortion game. We all know you are just bluffing.