Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for July 2007

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What’s for breakfast?, and other morning questions

Blueberry pancakes, that’s what!

Did Gonzo Lie?

From Maria,
Back to the Future in the Middle East?

Past presidents and statesmen as diverse as Madeleine Albright, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Brent Scowcroft have weighed in with various remedies to our supposed blunders in the Middle East since September 11.

Apparently, Americans are supposed to forget these supposedly brilliant strategists’ dismal records of dealing with Middle East terrorism, Islamic radicalism and murderous dictators. However, their three decades of bipartisan failure helped bring us to the present post-9/11 world.

So before the United States abandons its present policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should at least recall the past record – which may be best summed up as the ying of Democratic appeasement and the yang of Republican cynicism.

From Larwyn,
An Intent to Misinform?

So, You Want to Join al-Qaeda?

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More dead from heat in government-controlled healthcare, this time in Hungary

The universal healthcare system in Hungary (PDF file) is financed through income tax and social-insurance taxes.

Maria just sent this: Hungary heatwave kills hundreds

Up to 500 people have died in the past week from a heatwave in Hungary, a top health official has said.
…
The daily mean temperature in the past week had reached 30C, she said.

In the southern city of Kiskunhalas, the temperature reached a record high of 41.9C.

Here in the USA, the elderly and frail move to Arizona and Florida, where they swim in cooled swimming pools and a 30C day (86oF) in the Summer is an invitation to have dinner on the veranda.

In 2003 15,000 elderly and frail people died during a heat wave in France. Many died in the emergency rooms waiting for someone to bring them water.

For more on socialized healthcare disasters, Socialized Healthcare has plenty.

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Remember those Cuban doctors Fidel sent to Venezuela?

Via Mike’s America,
Growing numbers of Cuban doctors sent overseas to work are defecting to the USA

A large number of the defectors have fled from Venezuela, which has received some 14 000 Cuban medical professionals, more than the rest of the world combined. Currently, dozens have sought refuge in neighbouring Colombia, often living in precarious conditions, while they await permission to enter the USA.

Andres paid a price to get to Colombia. He and his wife had been assigned to the city of Punto Fijo on the northwestern coast of Venezuela, not far from the border. Their escape went smoothly until they reached the frontier, where Venezuelan guards refused to permit them to cross because the visas on their passports were valid only for travel within Venezuela. Only after Andres bribed the agents with nearly all their possessions did the guards let them leave Venezuela. “We gave them all the money we had, cellular phones, watches, and they let us cross”, he said. “We were in Colombia and we had reached freedom. We felt free.”

Andres and his wife were fortunate because not all defecting Cubans get across the border but are, instead, arrested and shipped back home. Once across the border, however, Andres and his wife found themselves stranded in north east Colombia’s harsh Guajira desert without contacts or money to continue travel. Eventually, however, they were given a lift by truckers, who carried them to the capital, Bogota.

In Bogota, Andres has lived with two other defectors in an unused storage room provided by a church group. They have also received assistance from the UN High Commission for Refugees. But, as they wait for their US visas, many of the Cubans are fearful because of their uncertain legal status in Colombia, whose government has given few of them refugee status.

The working conditions are those of slave labor:

Several Cuban defectors interviewed in Bogota said that they fled not only because of oppression in their own nation, but also because of unreasonably poor and demanding work conditions in Venezuela. Andres said that he could not stand the conditions in Venezuela, where he lived in a crowded house with a leaky straw roof which he shared with fifteen other Cuban doctors waiting to be put to work.
…
The doctors also said that in Venezuela, Cuban minders monitored their movements, prohibiting non-work contact with Venezuelans. When not at work, the Cubans were required to be at home after 6 pm. One couple said that after they pointed out some problems with the programme, officials threatened to send them back to Cuba in retaliation.

The Cubans said that the programme they worked in, called “Inside the Barrio”, was also plagued with mismanagement and inefficiency. Although many clinics were severely understaffed, newly-arrived medics sometimes sat for months waiting for assignment to a post, they said, and often conditions in the clinics were rudimentary lacking even basic medicines.

And they’re fleeing from Bolivia, too.

Read the article. Earlier this year the WaPo had

You should also bear in mind that Cuba’s suffering shortages of healthcare workers because one-fifth of Cuba’s health care labor supply – some 14,000 doctors and 6,000 health workers – has been contracted out to work in Venezuela. In return for these medical services, Cuba receives 90,000 barrels of discounted oil per day.

Chew on that the next time you read/hear about the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelans/Cubans/Bolivians, and every time you hear about the excellent Cuban healthcare and other myths.

Too bad the folks who have been playing SICKO at the downtown movie theater for the past 5 weeks, and the folks who watch the movie don’t care much about reality.

Update
Slide show: Cuban Healthcare in Decline (h/t The Real Cuba).

Update, Friday 27 July
More on the Sicko Propanganda.

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Criticize Hugo and get thrown out of the country


Red State and Gateway Pundit post about this:
Chavez: Critical Foreigners to Get Boot (emphasis added)

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting Venezuela will be expelled from the country.

Chavez ordered officials to closely monitor statements made by international figures during their visits to Venezuela – and deport any outspoken critics.

In addition from the obvious where he’s made clear that no one is allowed to criticize him, what this means is that he’s continuing the crackdown on the media. Rest assured that by doing this, Hugo’s reading the riot act to all foreign correspondents.

Of course, he’s doing it for the sake of “national dignity.”

“National dignity,” indeed, as Hugo’s not shy about criticizing and abusing others; for instance:
Venezuela’s Chavez calls Honduran cardinal ‘imperialist clown’ for criticizing him

President Hugo Chavez called a cardinal from Honduras an “imperialist clown” after the Roman Catholic prelate warned of increasing authoritarianism under the Venezuelan president.

“Another parrot of imperialism appeared, this time dressed as a cardinal. That’s to say, another imperialist clown,” Chavez was quoted as saying in a bulletin posted Tuesday on the state-run news agency’s Web site.

While Political clashes shake Venezuela’s strained oil industry, Hugo continues to use oil proceeds towards his arms race: Belarus plans to sign several deals to supply more than $1 billion worth of arms to Venezuela, a Belarusian official said Monday.

And now for irony:
From the same Guardian article,

He said Cuba’s 80-year-old “Maximum Leader” gave him a copy of former CIA Director George Tenet’s recently published memoir and told him: “‘Read it, Chavez, because that is the most perfect killing machine ever invented and I’m a survivor … I survived more than 600 (assassination) attempts.'”

The “most perfect killing machine”, indeed.

As far as “legitimately elected”, Hugo’s made clear that the law providing for unlimited re-election applies to him only (link in Spanish), and no one else. The Beeb is happy to chime in in support

Mr Chavez was re-elected to a third term last year with support from the millions of impoverished Venezuelans who back his social development policies.

even as they state that

The assembly consists solely of politicians who back the president.

No matter how you cut it, It’s all about Chavez.

More: Am I not welcome back to Venezuela?

Update:
Obama would meet without precondition with leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela and Iran. Just watch what you say when you’re in Caracas, Obama.

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The New Republic lies, and a few other items

Fact or Fiction?
The New Republic’s “Shock Troops”: Fact or Fiction? Looking more and more like fiction
Scott Thomas, Franklin Foer & The New Republic- Beatdowns all around
Doubting Thomas: Simple Questions for the New Republic
They Don’t Really Support the Troops: The latest from the New Republic and the Nation

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Former Gitmo Prisoner In Suicide Bombing

The US has released hundreds of detainees from its Guantanamo Bay prison under pressure from human-rights groups, demanding an end to the detention of suspected terrorists captured mainly in Afghanistan. The US has warned that releasing these prisoners will result in their return to terrorism, creating more danger for civilians and for the military still working to bring an end to the Taliban and their allies, al-Qaeda. More than a few have been captured a second time or killed in battle with Western forces.

This time, the terrorist committed suicide by grenade rather than get captured alive in an attempt to take a couple of his enemies with him

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I didn’t watch the YouTube “debate: but Captain Ed and Stephen did.

James didn’t watch, either.

Special thanks to Larwyn.

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Dear Ada Brunstein, and other matters

DEAR ADA BRUNSTEIN,
I was reading the NYT this morning looking for blogging material while on the road and came across your article in the NY Times Styles Modern Love section, The House of No Personal Pronouns.

We have never met and will probably never meet, but it’s time someone took you by the hand and gave you some sound advice. I normally don’t give advice to strangers but recently I have come across a number of people (men and women) in situations comparable to yours. Two have confided in me. Believe me, you are not alone in your dilemma. There are many Adas out there.

Let me start by pointing out that you are in a long-term relationship. You may refer to your lover as “boyfriend” but after a year of this, recognize the fact that you are in a long-term relationship. Call him boyfriend, lover, paramour or whatever else.

The short version of my advice is this:
Leave him right now, cold turkey, permanently, and don’t ever go back to him.

That means getting up, walking away, throwing away the key to his house and changing the key to your place (maybe even moving to a new place of your own). Erase his phone number off your phones and block his calls.

Here is why:
In your article you mention how

“in the past my jealousies have gotten the better of me”.

Allow me a small digression from your current dilemma to explain that it is not wise to engage in prolonged arguments with your man as to whether you would be OK with him sleeping with Uma Thurman, be it in theory or in practice. The appropriate response on your part would be to state in abruptly clear unambiguous terms that of course it would not be OK with you. If he protests, complains, or doesn’t acknowledge that you’re not putting up with any of that, it’s time to break up.

If you expect an exclusive, monogamous relationship, you must make it absolutely clear.

But back to your current dilemma:
You entered into this relationship for the purpose of proving a point:

“This was going to be the new me. A stronger, cooler, nothing-fazes-me sort of girlfriend who would prove I’ve outgrown the formerly jealous me. I would be unconventional, brave, hip and oh-so-bohemian in my nonchalance.”

Congratulations; you have proved your point. You are cool, nonchalant, bohemian, brave, and everything you set out to demonstrate. And you have done so in spades.

And here’s the rub: While relationships with divorced men are very difficult because a great many men still love their ex-wives, you are in the middle of an even greater mess because he’s not a divorced man.

Two questions:
Is he still married?
Is he still living in the same house as his wife, sharing living quarters?

Of course, the answer to these two questions is yes. While you would like to think that there has been a separation, that they have moved on and moved out, the physical fact remains that neither of them have. They both remain exactly where they choose to be: smack in the middle of each other’s lives and living together under the same jointly-owned roof.

And now for the skinny, from two points of view:
First the cynical, since I’m not above cynicism:

A great deal of satisfaction in life comes from being able to ‘play your game’. You are ‘playing your game’ when you are in control of your circumstances. The situation you describe where you have to ask, “does she mean to lay claim to her place while putting me in mine?” is a situation where you are playing her game. And legally it is her place.

Make no mistake: you will be playing her game for as long as you are attached to her man.

Yes, he is her man.

And the second point of view,
From the point of view of love:
Nowhere in the article did you mention the word love.

I have to assume that, since you are a writer, this is not a mere lapse.

Love is not an easy thing. Poets, philosopher, and psychologists have spent whole lives trying to decipher, explain, and understand it. All of them would probably agree that love means commitment.

This man has shown absolutely no commitment to you. In addition, by remaining in a relationship with him, you are denying yourself the opportunity to find someone who would love you , who would commit to you.

Ask yourself, Are you so afraid of love that you must remain with this man?

Give yourself a chance at love and leave this situation, where you are allowing a marriage to drag you into their very dysfunctional and downright perverse “whirlwind of ifs and thens“, to use your phrase, and leave him.

You have already wasted a year. Don’t waste a minute more.

I realize that the odds are that you will not read my advice, and that even if you read it you won’t follow it, but you have been told. You can’t use “nobody told me” as an excuse.

Update, Monday 23 July
Welcome, Dr Helen readers. You’ll probably enjoy this post, too.

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In other insanities, it’s time for the Carnival

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I’ll be on the road for the greater part of tomorrow so there won’t be a podcast, but you can listen to the Gerard and Siggy show.

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