fyl's blog

Juano's post in http://www.nicaliving.com/node/21192 inspired this editorializing. I expect less people will understand why I am saying this than understood why I see the Rios Montt trial as being so important to Nicaragua and, possibly more on target, why I am the war of one here.

I have always wanted to understand "why" rather than, well, be popular. I want to connect the dots. And in probably 95% of my working life, I have had a job I wanted to do. That, in itself, is pretty unpopular from what I have seen.

Inspired by Juano's question in my previous blog post, I decided to do a separate post about choices of where to move to in Latin America. This is far from complete and is just my opinion but I decided to toss it out. Note that order is not significant.

Nicaragua -- Clearly, I see this as a good option and I think that is pretty well covered here. :-)

The soap opera is documented in http://www.nicaliving.com/node/21137 and it really has been a soap opera. Is it all over, probably not but a lot of important things happened. What remains is:

• How this trial plugs into the other judge saying it couldn't happen.
• Reparations to the victims -- I believe the court date for that is 13 May.
• Reading the final verdict with all the details -- 17 May at 1500.

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health is a book a friend recommened. I was skeptical but decided to get it/read it. I'm impressed with what I read.

I will spare you the facts as they are just not that interesting and involve flying zinc and such but, in any case, I am without a dedicated Internet connection again. The reality is that I have managed to concentrate on some specific stuff rather than the continue stream of "interesting stuff" (also known as distractions) that I normally see. More when I know more but, for now, I will just "visit" here when I get a chance.

For those with what is called ADD, I am thinking there no such thing. You just need to move to the middle of nowhere and not have an Internet connection.

I just created a mailing list for "Venezuela news" as there will be a lot of it, particularly with the presidential election coming up on 14 April. The purpose of the list is not discussion but to post links to press articles and information. Having a convenient place with all sorts of links means we are all more likely to see the issues from different sides.

If you have watched Thrive or listened to the words of Foster Gamble, you have probably heard "follow the money" quite a few times. Whether the issue is greed or just how Capitalism is supposed to work, he is right. Seldom do you see something done in this world just because it is right. You see people (and, remember, corporations are people in the US) doing things because they benefit.

There is an article in DarkerNet about how CISPA is about to become law. If you don't know what CISPA is, you should probably read up on it. It is pretty scary. But, the article talks about some software that may be of interest.

I grew up in Los Angeles California during the public transit is getting destroyed era. The trend was that all families had two cars and as soon as junior was 16, he got one as well. While it was clearly a stretch to afford it, our family was no exception.

I confess I am in Panajachel Guatemala, not Nicaragua right now but the fireworks here remind me of Nicaragua on steroids. Last night there were lots around 10PM and an amazing amount starting at about 11:50PM for almost an hour. Apparently, due to enough hangovers, they did not start until some time after 7AM today. But, it is now dark and apparently it is time to use up the leftovers.

Like Nicaragua, saving for a rainy day, namely 31 December, seems to not be in the script. Thus, if I am still here, I expect the same thing to happen on the 31st.

Once again, a wacko in the US kills a bunch of kids in a school. It seems like it is starting to become the new American tradition. But, the responses are equally wacko. All over the spectrum but none actually make any sense.

They go from the ban all guns approach to the arm all teachers approach. The only thing I haven't heard suggested is that we stop searching school kids for weapons so that at least some of the students would be armed -- something I consider no dumber and clearly less expensive than all the serious ideas.

While I have been told express buses don't stop at the airport but I have caught one to Estelí there. I have also followed local instructions on how to get an Estelí to Managua express to stop at the empalme for San Nicolas. But today was a whole different thing.

This post is inspired by the comment at http://www.nicaliving.com/node/20737#comment-116151 which, right or wrong, illustrates an issue worthy of discussion.

John suggests that Marxists don't like Carlos Pellas. It may be true categorically or it may be more like the assumption "lesbians don't like men". Let's start with the common ground.

Sometimes I become aware that I am not ready to be Nicaraguan. The past few days has made me very aware once again. Don't think of this as a complaint -- just a reality check.

Abbott Joseph Liebling is probably most famous for his quote "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." but possibly more important was "People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news." He was, of course, in the US but I think about these quotes often.