Donegal Descendant's Open Salon Blog

Carlos Fuentes, 1928-2012

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:05:42 -0400

Mexico’s most acclaimed writer, Carlos Fuentes, died today at age 83. He was a classic “man of letters,” producing distinguished novels, short stories, literary essays, political essays, newspaper columns, and plays. Like many of Latin America’s most distinguished writers, he also had a career as a diplomat, serving as Mexico’s ambassador to Britain and later to France.

He played a major role in stimulating “el boom” in worldwide acclaim for a generation of Latin American writers that included Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Jorge Amado, Alejo Carpentier and dozens of others who found their work being translated into twenty or thirty languages and gaining a worldwide readership.Unlike Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa, Fuentes never won the Nobel Prize for Literautre, but he won every conceivable literary award within the Spanish-speaking world.

Like many Latin American writers, he seamlessly united art and politics in his writings, especially in such inventive novels as The Death of Artemio Cruz. I didn’t read all his works but that one made an impression on that I’ve never forgotten. So did the short, haunting Aura and The Old Gringo, which I think was a much better novel than a movie. (The movie drained the character based on Ambrose Bierce of all his savage wit and sardonic irony, and left him just a soured cynic, I thought. I say that as someone usually a fan of Gregory Peck).

I saw and heard Carlos Fuentes once. It was in Albuquerque, perhaps in December 1979, probably on the UNM campus—I only clearly remember the two friends I went with that evening. I had never seen a photo of him and was surprised to see this tall, very urbane-looking professor of Spanish Literature with trimmed mustache, blue blazer, regimental tie, and grey slacks. He had the distinguished touch of grey about the temples and those oversized horn-rimmed glasses favored by middle-class Latin American men. Somehow I’d expected some shaggy, beret’d bohemian. His massive work Terra Nostra, which I’ve never dared tackle, was his most recent work and he discussed La Celestina, Quixote, and Hamlet as “interpenetrating archetypes” that were endlessly reinterpreted and revised as cultures evolved and interacted.

His political observations on the U.S.-created and funded Contra War in Nicaragua was a refreshing and enlightening change from the opacity of the U.S. mainstream media. His reflections on Mexican relations with the U.S. were never dogmatic or predictable, but always insightful and revealing of the complexities and contradictions of that troubled but inescapable linkage between the two countries and cultures. He always seemed to be calling attention to significant aspects others ignored.

He seemed to me to be the kind of Man of Letters rarely seen in the world anymore. It is our loss. In his words he always used a rapier not a sledgehammer--elegant and stylish, but sharp and penetrating in his analyses and reflections. I shall miss him. I think the world will miss him. Fortunately we have his legacy in the works he created and has now left behind.

Que descansa en paz.

Zombie Lies about Social Security

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:04:43 -0400

That's what Paul Krugman aptly calls them. Do they ever stop coming back? No, because powerful people hope to profit by reviving them over and over again, no matter how many times they have been thoroughly debunked and refuted. Here are a few:

“Social Security is bankrupt!”

“It’s a Ponzi scheme!”

“We’ve got to slash benefits to control the deficit!”

“It’s adding to the national debt!”

“Baby Boomers are draining it dry! No one saw this coming!”

“It’s a milk cow with 310 million tits!”

“People are living longer so we need to rise the retirement age!”

"We must destroy Social Security in order to save it!"

Falsehoods every one fo them. Some have appeared on Open Salon recently.

*In fact, Social Security is an insurance pool entirely self-funded by payroll taxes on wages and salaries. Since its inception in 1935 it has collected $4.2 trillion more than it needs to completely meet all its obligations through 2037 if it continues on its present course. By law, it cannot borrow money, acquire debt, or be funded by Congress. Since it is not part of the federal budget in any way, it has not and cannot contribute even one penny to the deficit or to the national debt. If you don’t understand these basic facts, stop reading now and go educate yourself, then come back. If Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” then so is every public and private insurance fund, every retirement fund in existence. The same "logic" could actually be applied to your deposits in banks and credit unions.

*The demographics of the post-WWII generation (the so-called "baby boomers”) were well-known and their future impact on Social Security anticipated decades in advance. That’s why the 1983 Greenspan Commission (headed by the darling of conservatives and devotee of Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan) made significant adjustments to the Social Security system, endorsed by Conservative Saint Ronald Reagan. Their revision assured solvency through the late 21^st century.

*“The main reason the program’s finances have deteriorated relative to the projected path is that wage growth has not kept pace.” [cepr, below]. Since Social Security withholding are a percentage of wages and salaries below $110,100, fewer dollars earned means fewer dollars collected- the current SS tax rate for employees is only 4.2% The mean wage of US wage-earners in 2009 was $37 less than in 2000. Fewer employees also means fewer 6.2% contribution from employers. Raising either rate by a fraction of a percentage point would make a substantial difference, but of course more jobs and better paying jobs is the real answer.

*Meanwhile, the number of people with incomes above $50 million a year dropped from 131 to only 74 but those 74 saw their average income rise from $91 million in 2008 to $519 million in 2009. That’s a “raise” of 570% in one year. Just for giggles and grins, how much was your raise from 2008 to 2009? Not that much? Then you must’ve not have been a really “hard worker” or a “job creator” like those folks! Of course, since only income from wages and salaries below $110,100 are subject to SSA withholding, the rich pay nothing on capital gains, corporate profits, stock options, that form their income.

*Another big factor: “Much more wage incomes now go to people above the taxable cap [$110,100 for 2012]. In 1983 only 10% of wage income rose above the cap. Now it’s 18%. So SSA is now financed by only 82% of wage earners rather than 90%. The average wage of the bottom 90% of the US population (adjusted for inflation) has increased only $303 in the last 28 years, 1980-2008. That is an average increase of about $11 a year.

* Increasing the cap to make the first $175,000 (or more) taxable would reflect the real-world change in income distribution and assure solvency through the late 21^st century and possibly beyond.

*The plan was for wage earners to pay excessively for the next 30 years, creating a Trust Fund purchase of government bonds, in effect a long-term loan to the federal government, allowing the fiscal conservatives to keep taxes low by drawing on the Social Security surplus. After 30 years, the repayment would ensure solvency despite the increased number of retirees. Now the borrowers simply “don’t ‘want to pay the money back,” because it’s politically inconvenient for them. So they invent lying excuses about how they shouldn’t have to repay it, or why they don’t “really” owe it, or that repayment is a “giveaway”, a “gift” or an “entitlement” rather than honoring a contractual debt agreed to 30 years ago.

*Only the wealthy have seen their life expectancy increase in the past 30 years. Working class and poor people have not. People who don’t need Social Security in their old age are living longer, but poor people who do need it are not.

*The mean income of Americans 65 or older is $18,000 a year. For 60% of seniors, Social Security is most of their income. So much for the myth of rich, fat-cat “boomers.” Poverty, like malnutrition and suicide, is more common among the old than among the young in America.

*Inventing and using stupid and misleading labels for supposed “generations” of Americans like “boomers” or “Gen X” or whatever the latest senseless fad is a distraction from the brutal reality of class divisions within America which are much more real and much more significant.

*To the extent that Social Security has problems, the nature of the problems, the obvious solutions, and the source of obstacles to implementing sensible solutions should be pretty obvious now.

A few sources:

David Cay Johnston, at www.tax.com

Digby, “An Express Scam Drains Dollars”, www.digbysblog.blogspot.com 4/20/12

Center for Economic & Policy Research (cepr) “The Primary Cause of Social Security’s Bleak Outlook is Upward Redistribution” www.cepr.net

Update: the sources for the statement that the richest 74 individuals saw their inocme soar from $91 million on average to $519 in one year are:

David Cay Johnston, "Scary New Wage Data" at www.tax.com posted Oct. 25, 2010 and Sam Gustin, "Top U.S. Incomes Grew Five-Fold in 2009 to a $519 Million Average" at www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26 Both writers base themselves on data released by the SSA on Oct. 15, 2010.

My Petty Crime: Arrested by Colombian Soldiers

Mon, 9 Apr 2012 11:04:21 -0400

[Originally posted in February 2011. Reposted in respnse to Open Call: Arrested for a Petty Crime]

Colombia had a system of national identity cards, called cedulas (which an accent over the ’e' I don’t know how to place with this keyboard that I’m using) which everyone 14 years of age and older was required to carry. When I obtained a visa ordinaria, allowing me to live and work in Colombia for one year, I was issued a cedula de extranjeria, a foreigner’s identity card. It was a small (2″x2″) thin booklet with pasteboard covers that contained my photo and fingerprints, and taught me I was 1.73 metros de altura, had eyes of cafe, a nose recta, and castano colored hair (castano has a tilde over the ‘n’ and means ‘walnut’). I preferred to carry it rather than my US passport, because it was more compact than my passport, which in those days was larger and longer than US passports of today, designed to fit the inside breast pocket of a suit. I didn’t have a suit and my jackets had no inside pockets. If you stuck it in your hip pocket, it extended out, inviting theft or loss. If I put it in my front pants pocket, it crumpled every time I sat down. So I left the passport at home and carried the more compact cedula. Once in a rare while I would forget my cedula and would be paranoid the whole day, ducking into coffees shops if I saw a cop or crossing the street when I saw soldiers.

The Republic of Colombia was technically a constitutional democracy with an elected president and a legislature, However, Article 121 of the Constitution allowed the president to declare a state of siege at any time for any length of time, suspending habeas corpus, imposing a curfew, and allowing military tribunals to try civilians Not coincidentally, the police and military forces received double pay during the estado de sitio. Combat-ready troops routinely patrolled the streets of Bogotá and other large cities. So there was a wee bit of a gap between the theory and the practice.

Life in Bogotá quickly enlarged my limited Spanish vocabulary with such terms as estado de sitio (state of siege), toque de queda (curfew), and esculcar (the verb ‘to frisk’). CONTRA LA DESORDEN bellowed the bold black headlines of El Tiempo, the most respectable newspaper in the country: Against the Disorder. Once a bomb exploded in the doorway of the offices of El Tiempo and the next day the streets of downtown Bogotá were flooded with troops, zipping around in jeeps with machine guns mounted on the rear, and foot soldiers stopping and frisking pedestrians at random. That seemed a little irrational to me: why would the bombers be among pedestrians strolling the streets the next day? Suppose they didn’t revisit the scene of the crime–or only drove by in cars? And would you know them because they wouldn’t have proper identification on them? The show of force was understandable, I suppose, but it seemed like locking the barn door after the horse was gone. One evening after concluding my last class at 8:00 PM, I walked about six blocks to meet my girlfriend whose last class at another language school ended at 9:00. I was repeatedly confronted by small groups of soldiers with automatic weapons leveled at my midsection, to stop and show my hands, then my papers. Fortunately, my “papers were in order” and I was allowed to walk another 75-100 yards before the routine was repeated. In all, I was stopped and frisked at least 6 times in six blocks.

I liked the fact that Colombia was a Catholic country because all the major religious holidays were national holidays. They had 18 to 20 national holidays every year. Corpus Christi, Feast Day of St. Peter & St. Paul, Day of the Annunciation, Day of the Ascension, Day of the Assumption, and Day of the Sacred Heart, and more, were all national holidays. Damn those Anglo-Saxon puritans and their killjoy Protestant work ethic! My students also taught me that when holidays fell on a Tuesday or a Thursday, no one came to work or to class on the adjoining Monday or Friday, because that day was the “puente” (bridge) that created a four-day weekend.

I looked forward to the week-long vacation Holy Week offered, a chance to get out of hectic big-city Bogotá (a city as big and as gritty as Chicago--imagine being plunked down in Chicago while it was under martial law) and to some tranquil sunny small town in the countryside. My girlfriend (let’s call her Sandra) and I took a long-distance bus some 10 or 12 hours to San Agustin , site of a major archeological park southwest of Bogotá. The site has now been declared a World Heritage Center but it wasn’t as well-known in those days. San Agustin had unpaved dirt streets. It was still part of the Colombian Andes, steep green mountains covered in shrubby brush, with a low overcast, high humidity, and cloudy skies. It was more tranquil, closer to nature, warmer and sunnier than Bogotá, more relaxed and slower-paced. We explored the ruins on foot, taking notice of varied, massive statuary reportedly dating from 1000-1200 AD . One memorable one was of an owl devouring a snake held in its beak, very reminiscent of the ancient Azteca symbol of an eagle perched ona cactus with a snake it its beak. Another was of a pan-pipe playing priest with a woven headband. The baths were decorative channels carved into the riverbed, an artistic expression that elaborated on nature without cutting the umbilical cord, so to speak. The carvings were still an integral part of the riverbed and the flow of the water. My only disappointment was the lack of printed information about the ruins. No brochures, handouts, booklets and books about the culture of the ancient people s who created these wonders.

One day Sandra and I got caught in a thunderstorm walking back to town. The rain was warm and refreshing. Returning to our low-budget hotel, she wanted to dry off and take a nap. I felt like changing into dry clothes and having a coffee at the coffee shop across the street. There I sat sipping my tinto doble. In Colombia, “cafe”means cafe con leche, coffee mixed with an equal amount of hot milk. If you want black coffee, you must order “tinto” traditionally served in a demi-tasse cup. If you want a full cup of black coffee, you ask for a tinto doble. There I was, minding my own business in this cafe with only about one-quarter of the seats occupied, when a dozen armed soldiers burst in with M-16 (or was it M-15s? Or Kalashnikovs? I don’t know) leveled. Up against the wall, everybody! I suddenly remembered the national elections were one week away. They lined all the men in the place against the back wall. They ignored the women. They frisked each of us men and demanded to see our cedulas. No problem, I thought . I had no contraband and my cedula was right here in my pocket…oh shit, no it wasn’t! Must’ve forgot it when I changed out of my wet clothes. The commanding officer said something to the effect of “you got it or you don’t” and six of us who didn’t were marched out to the main intersection of town where they didn’t have a paddy wagon but a dump truck parked in the middle fo the intersection surrounded by a a ring of soldiers facing outwards, standing at parade rest. We were made to climb up into the bed of the dump truck (I am not making this up). I was the only gringo among the 15 to 20 men corralled in the dump truck, a fact the other men thought very amusing "You too?? We thought this only happened to us!” A crowd had gathered to witness this and several of the men were calling (in Spanish) to people, "Hey! Tell Maria Victoria to bring my cedula! Third drawer on the right in the living room !” and “Go to my house! On top of the dresser in the bedroom! Tell Pilar to bring it !” So I decided that couldn’t hurt . Spotting two boys about 11 or 12, I pointed to the hotel a block away, and said "Esa hotel alla! Cuarto 14! Hay una gringa mona! Dile que me traiga la ceula, por favor!” They took off running.

Soon the hotel manager and Sandra came running with my cedula . The manager engaged the Commanding Officer in an animated dialogue I couldn’t overhear, but the upshot was the officer gestured to me to get down off the truck and go free. Whew! I wasn’t looking forward to a Colombian jail. I asked the hotel manager what happened to those men who weren’t lucky enough to have someone fetch their cedula on short notice. He said they were jailed overnight and released in the morning with a warning. At least they weren’t hauled to the dump on the dump truck. I felt bad for them, but others, Colombians, who had people fetch their cedulas were also turned loose. And I hadn’t invoked my gringo citizenship to get favored treatment (something, as a matter of principle, I vowed to never do in Latin America, ever). A quiet town, an archeological site, Holy Week, national elections, soldiers, a dump truck. What a combination. In Colombia in the 1970s you never quite knew what to expect next.

Cold Winter Day Near Moab

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:03:48 -0400

I took a little getaway to Moab on Presidents Day Weekend. I've done a lot of hiking, backpacking, & camping in southeastern Utah for almost 30 years now, but this February winter weekend was bitterly cold. Being a confirmed fair-weather outdoorsman, I bundled up, then huddled in the used bookstore and the adjoining coffee shop the first day. But when it lightly snowed overnight, I judged the light dusting would make some of the outlying areas more photogenic. so I drove around the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park, up Kane Creek, and out Highway 128, the river road that follows the Colorado River upstream from town. When I first experienced this wonderland years ago, I found it stark and forbidding but I have come to love it.

Above, a snowstorm along Highway 128 which runs right beside the Colorado River from the Dewey Bridge to Moab...

This is desert country, too blazing hot to enjoy in July or August, but a wonderful place to explore in the spring and fall. The whole southeastern quadrant of Utah is like a gigantic natural sculpture garden under immense and open skies.

Hoodie n the Forest

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:03:58 -0400

Scaring the deer.....