545 PEOPLE

This old newspaper column was first written about 1985, by a man named Charlie Reese. It has been edited from time to time since then, to keep parts of it relevant, and I am reprinting part of it here, since it now circulates freely via the internet. Charlie, who recently retired, by the way, was a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel:

 

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them..

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

 

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

 

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

 

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but PRIVATE, central bank.

 

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits..... The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who was the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She was the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red ..

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. (Editor's Note: this is not exactly true. Members of Congress do pay into social security just like everybody else, since about the time this column was first written).

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power..

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Editor's Note: Funny thing is that we thought that they had been voted out of office, first in 2008, but not much changed. So, then, just a few months ago, another sweep was conducted, remember? I don't know about you all, but I'm still looking for some significant change……….

Brother, can you spare a……..dollar? (adjusted for inflation).

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. - George Bernard Shaw

You know the economy really sucks, and has been in the doldrums for a good little while now. And, no matter what anybody has said or done, it is not exactly all better yet, now is it? All the bail outs have come and gone, and I guess some of them may have helped, but I'm not sure who was helped, are you? I know that the reports are that Ford and GM are both doing better now, but I really don't know that. I know that there seem to be fewer banks, fewer big companies in general, fewer mom & pop establishments, and ever bigger conglomerates (as in, monopolies) than there used to be. I can't see that as a good sign, though, for the life of me. For there to be bigger companies with less competition does not fit my idea of good. Not for the consumer, anyway.

We moved here to Costa Rica because we became convinced that we could not afford to live in Texas on our little pensions. That has turned out to be a questionable decision, since we hit major inflation here, and the first year here, we saw the dollar lose a serious amount of value against the local currency. You see, the dollar was running as high as ¢590 (Colones) to the dollar just a couple of months after our arrival here last year, and now is averaging less than ¢500. That means that just for our mortgage payment alone we are paying $170 a month more than we were a year and a half ago. Add to that what we pay for everything else (gasoline somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.50 per gallon), and, you might get an idea of what we are facing.

Something else that is costly, and I don't know why, is tires for the car. I put a set of new tires on our 2005 Suzuki Grand Vitara XL-7 in February of 2010. I already had to replace two of them late last year, when one had a blow out. The two that are left from that full set already show serious wear. We cannot have put that many miles on the tires, because nothing is really that far away from us! I have no choice but to conclude that this is a combination of poor quality tires (for way too much money) and really bad roads.

So, back to the economy: what is it going to take to fix it? I would certainly hope not another war. Not any kind of increase in foreign aid, surely. Not more expenditures for pork barrel programs, and stupid government programs. No more bailouts, please. No more subsidies for big oil, big energy, big coal, or any other big anything (all of which pretty much suggest to my mind nothing more than friends of the GOP, and/or huge lobbies).

And this brings us to one logical fix, suggested by a reader of the St. Petersburg (FL) Times, just over a year ago, in response to a request by the newspaper for ideas:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance with no taxes due on it, for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new AMERICAN Car. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of Congress pay their taxes.

There was a bit more to the idea, but that is the gist of it, and I – for one – think it would be a good place to start. I would, of course, like to see them extend this offer to some of us who were forced into early retirement through loss of our jobs, as far back as, say, 2008. Speaking only for myself, I'd say it was not at all pleasant to lose not only my job, but our home, and two cars, simply because we could not keep up with the payments on my very small (at that time) pension. And, I would be delighted to promise to go out and buy a house and a car. So, how about it? Any lobbyists out there interested in taking on a good cause for a change? How about just a PAC? Anybody?

Physician, heal somebody else…………… please!

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. - - Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)

A recent online report from NPR got me to thinking. The report had to do with an international effort, over the course of one weekend, for people all over the world to deliberately consume mega-doses of homeopathic remedies, to demonstrate that not only are these so-called medicines quite harmless, but they are apparently anything but effective. One aspect of the report had to do with people who took massive quantities of whatever it is that homeopathy recommends for sleep, with not only no one falling asleep, but with no visible effect whatsoever. The report certainly piqued my interest in this subject, one which I must admit I had never paid much attention to, so I did some research, which led me to the following (this was taken from: http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/ )

About homeopathy:
Homeopathy is a system of medicine which involves treating the individual with highly diluted substances, given mainly in tablet form, with the aim of triggering the body's natural system of healing. Based on their individual symptoms, a homeopath will match the most appropriate medicine to each patient.
The idea of treating 'like with like'
Homeopathy is based on the principle that you can treat 'like with like; i.e. a substance which causes symptoms when taken in large doses, can be used in small amounts to treat those same symptoms.

For example, drinking too much coffee can cause sleeplessness, agitation and even palpitations, but when made into the homeopathic remedy Coffea it can be used to treat all these problems. You may already have come acress this concept in conventional medicine e.g. the stimulant Rilatin being used to treat ADHD, or small doses of allergens such as pollen being used to de-sensitise allergic patients. However one major difference in homeopathy is that substances are used in such tiny doses that they are completely non-toxic.

Scientifically it cannot yet be explained precisely how homeopathy works, but new theories in quantum physics are going some way towards shedding light on the process. What we do know is that a carefully selected homeopathic remedy acts as a trigger to the body's healing processes.

By the time I had reached this last paragraph I was confused. I asked myself, and now, I suppose I am asking anyone, how can we believe such a convoluted statement as one that first admits that something cannot be explained, and then suggests that quantum physics (a topic about which very few of us know anything) might possibly help us along the way to see how it works. Then, we are told, that even though no one can explain how this works, some collective 'we' do know that homeopathic remedies trigger the body's healing processes!? How can that be? If they can't explain how it works, how am I supposed to believe that it does work at all? And, exactly what kind of healing is involved in going to sleep, fa cryin' out loud!?

As for comparing their rationale to the use of a drug as controversial as Ritalin or to the use of pollen in attempts to treat allergies, please don't ask me to go there. Not only is the use of Ritalin highly questionable for any purpose (look at the history of law suits involving this drug), but so is its use in the also highly controversial area of ADHD, a so-called diagnosis that may finally be coming under some serious scrutiny. As for the use of pollen to treat allergies, the statement provided by these folks is, to say the least, just a bit disingenuous. When pollen is administered, as in immunotherapy provided by a Board Certified Allergy Specialist, it is not ingested by mouth, or in pill form, as are the homeopathic remedies. Instead, together with other allergens, it is injected, and not just once, but over a period of time, sometimes lasting for years, until the body has developed a higher tolerance to the specific allergens that have caused the patient's symptoms in the first place. (from NPR's report):

And, now there's a $1 million challenge on the table to makers of homeopathic remedies from magician and professional skeptic James Randi. If a rigorous double-blind, controlled study finds the remedies work better than plain water, Randi's educational foundation will fork over the money.

[Recently, earlier this month,] hundreds of skeptics in more than 25 countries took megadoses of the remedies to demonstrate they do nothing. It was the second annual event organized by the 10:23 Campaign. One bunch in West Virginia took 1 million times the recommended dose of a homeopathic sleep remedy and didn't die — or even fall asleep.

As the federal National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine put it in an overview:

Homeopathy is a controversial area ... because a number of its key concepts are not consistent with established laws of science (particularly chemistry and physics). Critics think it is implausible that a remedy containing a miniscule amount of an active ingredient (sometimes not a single molecule of the original compound) can have any biological effect—beneficial or otherwise. For these reasons, critics argue that continuing the scientific study of homeopathy is not worthwhile. Others point to observational and anecdotal evidence that homeopathy does work and argue that it should not be rejected just because science has not been able to explain it.

So, imho, we are left with more questions than answers about this fairly common method of health care. But, hey, if anybody out there thinks they can meet that million dollar challenge, I'd sure like to see their results. Ultimately, since there is no existing scientific proof of its efficacy, I'd say it would probably be best to avoid such 'therapy' altogether, and stay with methods that are known to work. Frankly, I think I'd sooner accept treatment from a good local curandero/a.

It Is Never Too Late, You Know…….

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
  - Ernest Benn

And, now, some more questions: What is wrong with us? The rest of the world is leaving us behind in so many important areas like education, health care, scientific development, industrial strength, and I suppose I could go on, but I hope you get the picture. We used to be so proud (at least we were when I was a boy) of our factories, and our work ethic (remember the American Work Ethic?), our inventiveness, our good-old-fashioned-that's-the-American-Way. Have you seen the acres and acres of abandoned factories that still exist in cities like St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Akron, or wherever (pick a city; pick a state)? One word fits these places: sad (well, a lot of other words fit, too, but I'm going with that one). How have we let this happen?

Damn it! We led the world in just about everything! Now, take a look, if your ethnocentric-ly brainwashed mind can allow you to do so, at the rest of the world! First, most of those countries we grew up feeling sorry for have surpassed us in many of the more significant areas usually referred to as 'quality of life.' And, we are now pretty much a joke among those who used to be our friends and allies. If that is not bad enough, we are universally considered to be stupid, rash, brash, overbearing, aggressive, uninformed, uneducated, and, incompetent (OK, it is nothing new to be thought of as rash, overbearing, aggressive, uninformed, etc., for Americans, but it is so much worse today, and we all know it). While we have been distracted by what amounts to so much BS (the senseless wars on Terror, Drugs, Poverty, et al), our educational system has gone to pot ('no child left behind, my A$$'!), and that means that our ability to create, to discover, to invent, and therefore to exceed, has gone with it.

And, you know one aspect of all this that really gets me is this: should I dare to suggest that maybe right about now, we need to take a very close look at who and what we are, and maybe, just maybe, we as a nation might need to consider that some of the old educational methods were not so bad, I will be jumped on as reactionary, resistant to change, obstructionist, and all kinds of other 'bad' things. I know that it is always thought to be 'bad form' to ever think about reverting to something old, you know, anti-progressive, old-fashioned (as if that is a dirty word), etc. But, you know what? If a thing works, why does it need fixing? If our generation received a good public education, and if the greatest generation (that would be our parents' generation) received a good public education, why did our generation have to start trying to change everything? I mean, it was our parent's generation that developed so many marvelous things (have you seen that list of things that are commonplace today, but did not exist along about 1950? It is mind boggling!) that simply did not exist when they were born. And, they did this while surviving the Great Depression and fighting the biggest war in the history of the world.

People from all over the world wanted to attend an American University, and while many still do, what is the quality of the education that they receive today, compared to just thirty years ago? Pretty lousy, from everything I've read and seen. Today's high school graduate is physically retarded as well, and barely literate, and why? Let me count the ways……..no discipline in the schools, or at home; no manners taught to anyone; no concept of etiquette; no physical exercise; no real content taught in any school; no abilities or talents developed (due to limited or nonexistent budgets) for any arts, or for that matter, anything requiring the use of the hands (as in no metal shop, no wood shop, no drafting); kids no longer learn anything by rote, because that is too taxing on their poor little psyches, or some damn thing.

You know what? I'm tired of it! I say, it is indeed time for change. Let me go farther. It is a time to ask some hard questions, and face some hard facts. I know that it has for too long been common in the U. S., when confronted by a problem, to simply throw money at it. What a waste! Or, the politicians' other (stalling tactic?) answer: maybe we need to appoint a committee to study the situation. Bull Shit! Or, worse, let's hire a 'professional' consultant to look at the situation, and offer us some 'professional' recommendations for improvement. Isn't professional just another word for whore? Who needs that sort of consultation or the recommendations of a whore? Not us. As I said, look at what worked, or what works. Consider reverting to some of those methods, if whatever crap we're stuck with now is not working.

One small suggestion here, by the way: maybe instead of pouring all those billions of dollars "overseas" (foreign aid), we should end all those handouts to others, and keep some of our money at home, to help ourselves. Now, I know that some folks will say that the amount of our dollars that goes to foreign aid is only 1% of the overall national budget, but I would ask them to consider this: 1% of how many Trillions of Dollars has to add up to a significant amount of cash, now, doesn't it? Just a thought, you know……….? After all, we damn well got ourselves into this fix, and we damn well cannot count on anyone else in the whole wide world to help us get out of it. All we have to do is start.

I’m just sayin’………..

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. - Thomas Jefferson

You know, it was pretty bad when a certain ex-president was able to lead us all down a fear-ridden garden path by lying to us. And, it was pretty bad that millions of fools chose to believe him and to follow him to the point that they re-elected the man to a second term, even after he had been proven wrong. It was actually worse that these same millions were so quick to turn on their fellow citizens whenever the existence of certain fictitious WMDs was questioned labeling the questioners as traitors. And, of course, it is really bad that we are still embroiled in a larger and (by far) worse quagmire than ever before in our history. It is downright sad that after adequate numbers were able to elect a new President, with a promise of change, that those other voices have become louder than before, and now have turned on that new President and any who support him or his efforts to bring about that promised change.

For some strange reason, hate and fear are now given a more prominent place from which to shout their terrible slogans, and hate has joined fear to provide a continual distraction, which takes the attention of the American electorate away from the real issues that face our once great and proud nation, and away from the very real threats to our freedom, and the very ideals of our democracy. The wool is firmly in place over the eyes of the majority of Americans, and we Americans now spend too much of our precious time and energy arguing among ourselves, while the tail has begun to wag the dog. Does anyone remember Dwight D. Eisenhower's very timely words of warning, from January of 1961, regarding The Military Industrial Complex?

One of the biggest distractions involves the screaming, irrational voices that clamor for the current sitting U. S. President to show them his "long-form" Birth Certificate, to prove to them that he is indeed a citizen of the U. S., and born on U. S. soil. These fools totally ignore that their candidate was born in Panama (John McCain; look it up). They ignore and shout down any attempt to ask them to stop and use logic or any kind of rational thought in seeking the answer that they want to their demand. Even those few moderate Republicans who initially hoped that this might be a real issue long ago abandoned this pursuit when they realized that it is a dry hole. No amount of reason will penetrate these people's minds, because they tune in daily to get their reinforcing 'shots' of hate and fear and lies and untruths from the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and just about anyone who works on air for FOX 'News.' (Note: the word, news, when used with FOX, is italicized and in quotes because this is not a real news network. It is one of the World's largest and worst examples of a propaganda machine. It does Joseph Goebbels proud.)

Most recently, this evil man, Glenn Beck, has incited his listeners to some truly hateful threats of physical violence against one person, that person being 78 year-old Frances Fox Piven, an American Sociologist, formerly on faculty at Columbia University, and today, still on faculty at New York's City University. (see this link for a full report: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349723/Widow-78-receives-death-threats-Glenn-Beck-attacks-economic-views.html). Mr. Beck spent some seven minutes of his Jan. 5 'program' on FOX ranting against her for a paper she co-wrote with her now deceased husband, in 1966, a short two years after this idiot (Beck) was born! This rant, during which he said things like her 55-year-old article was a call to 'overwhelm the system and bring about the fall of capitalism' was of course swallowed hook, line, and sinker by his fanatic listeners. Reportedly, his temper had flared over a more recent article she wrote for The Nation praising the demonstrations and civil disobedience that took place in Britain and in Greece over the last few months of 2010.  'Is that not inciting violence?' he asked. He slammed her as an 'enemy of the Constitution'. She has received multiple death threats, and despite formal requests to FOX to curb Mr. Beck's enthusiasm, FOX 'News' refuses to control his rhetoric because, in their words, he has "quoted her accurately," and because Mr. Beck has never threatened her.

Let's put this in context of the also recent shooting in Tucson (Jan. 8, just a few days after this particular rant). No, no, no. I am not trying to directly link these two separate events. But I am saying that rants of this nature are bound to lead to actual physical violence because all too often these radical, right wing so-called 'conservatives' resort to threats of physical violence when they find that their arguments (which usually lack all sense of logic or reason since they are so often based on fear and hate mongering) are falling on deaf ears. That has to inevitably lead to real violence, and one wonders what can be done to curb some of this.

Granted, I have done little more than suggest something here. But, to go back to my original concern, having to do with that entity Mr. Eisenhower warned us against, all those years ago, let me ask you some questions:

Who benefits from war and other acts of aggression? (Hint, the initials are M-I-C).

Who has one of the more powerful lobbies working for them in Washington, D. C.? (M-I-C) (This may well be the single largest and most powerful lobby, if you include some areas that are normally listed as being representative of other interests, such as Misc. Business, Communications/Electronics, Transportation, Other, Construction.)

Who has very strong influence over most Representatives and Senators (as in, 'in their pocket'), maybe the strongest? (M-I-C)

Who was really behind our 'incursion' into Iraq, not only the first time, 1991, but more recently, in 2003? (M-I-C)

Who really controls the Pentagon? (that's right, M-I-C; or, 'you betcha,' as one tea party-er might say)

In what field did Dick Cheney work prior to becoming Vice-President-In-Charge-Of-Evil? (M-I-C)

 

I'm just sayin'………..

Does this make me a reactionary?

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.   - Euripides

I remember when I was young, and some of you do, too (remember when YOU were young, that is), that just about every liquid that one wanted to buy came in a glass container, upon which a deposit was paid. With this simple ploy, people easily learned to take care of glass containers, and they were recycled in a manner much simpler than any recycle program of today. The same containers were taken back by the bottler (whether that might be of soda pop, beer, milk, juice, or whatever), washed, and used over and over. Even motor oil was more economically dispensed (in bulk, actually) at the local service station in glass containers that were kept on the premises, so that they could be used and re-used over and over. For greater quantity, depending on the liquid, one gallon glass 'jugs' were common, as well. Granted, not all glass containers were in fact recycled, but we all know today that glass is easily recycled, right?

A glass milk bottle looked much like this, but I don't remember foil closure.  What I remember was a paper, or card stock lid.


Also, paper and cardboard were much more widely used for packaging and for transport, from the manufacturer, to the wholesaler, to the retailer, even to the consumer carrying his grocery purchases home in the cardboard boxes that the store had accumulated during the shelf stocking process. Some of you remember that when buying groceries, the 'box boy' put our purchases into boxes (the same boxes that the merchandise was in when it was delivered to the store; what a concept), and this made it easy to carry the stuff to the car, or even all the way home by whatever means we had at our disposal (the basket over the front wheel of a bike?). There were also paper sacks, of different sizes and material, depending on whether you were bagging groceries or hot nuts (yes, you could also buy cashews, peanuts, just about any variety of salted nuts, that were kept warm, under a heat lamp in a display case (most commonly in the drug store, but some other places offered them as well), or bulk candy, or a loaf of bread, or whatever. And, of course, the 'box boy' did become a 'bag boy' for a time, before the use of plastic bags become more widely spread.

And, of course container manufacturers also discovered that heavy paper, or light card-stock could be coated, first with wax, and then, later on, some kind of plastic. This coating then allowed containers of paper to be used to hold at least non-carbonated beverages. So, we had milk cartons (I guess we still have them, in smaller sizes), and juice cartons. But, the world – not just the U. S. – has gotten lazy, and has found it more convenient to ignore the possible cost savings that are available with just a bit of effort.

So, we are overwhelmed with crappy plastic bags that won't last through very many re-uses, we cannot find cardboard boxes at the supermarket because they have cut a deal with somebody to recycle them. Milk and juice and soda pop, and even beer is now being put into plastic containers that just take up room in landfills, with little chance that they will ever contribute anything else to the environment. And, as if aluminum cans aren't bad enough, have you noticed that some brewers are now trying to force aluminum bottles on their suckers, er, um…..customers?! Coors & Bud, I believe……..

For those of you who live in the U. S., maybe you are not aware that much of Latin America still uses glass bottles for Coca Cola, and other soft drinks, and for beer. When you want to buy these products, you must first pay (yes, this is an initial added cost) a deposit on however many full containers you want to buy. But, once that deposit has been paid, from then on, all that has to be done is to take the empties to whatever store you choose, and exchange the empties for full, paying only the cost of the actual product. Over time, this should reduce production costs since the manufacturer should not have to pay for an ongoing demand for new containers. At worst, a portion of the containers will obviously be lost to breakage or other loss, but at best, this will be a fraction of the current replacement cost for all new containers. This does – in a manner of speaking – force people to recycle, but it also saves so much money, while helping preserve our environment. This obviously means less litter along the sides of the roads, and less trash to be picked up with the rest of the garbage. Isn't that a good thing?

And, speaking of packaging in general, does anybody remember how things like Lincoln Logs, or Tinker Toys were packaged? The package in which these toys were sold was a cardboard tube, with a metal bottom and a screw-on metal top (made of tin, I believe), right? Now, what is wrong with that kind of packaging? If it got damaged, or worn out, or in some other way became trash, it would degrade naturally, a lot quicker than any plastic container/package you can think of. Anybody remember Cellophane? Cellulose? Celluloid? These were plastic like materials, made from wood, or cotton, or (little irony here, no?) Hemp. No oil! What a concept!

So, here's my contribution to a new world order, a cleaner environment, prevention of global warming, less trash in the oceans and landfills, lower packaging costs, more bang for the buck, and that warm, fuzzy feeling we all want so bad: Let's take a step back, instead of all the time thinking we have to go forward. Instead of more oil demand, let's decrease that demand, and find ways to meet at least one need the old fashioned way, by using organic materials for packaging!

You say wasted time; I say grist for the mill….

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't. - - W. Somerset Maugham

I just realized (and, I know what you're saying: What took me so long?) that no one bothers to read what others post on any of these forums! Someone asked a really stupid question over on CRL on a Sunday morning not too long ago, along the lines of "what do you all think of 'our' bull fights?"

First, of course, I was confused as to just who the poster considers 'us' to be, because her post was also advertising for a bilingual receptionist for some place I never heard of, likely in the Central Valley. So, I first thought that maybe this place that needs a bilingual receptionist also puts on bull fights, and she's looking for some feedback from wannabe receptionist type persons.

But, then it occurred to me that maybe she was referring to the National Sport of Costa Rica (which is nothing more than simple Bull Riding, where some drunks are allowed to get into the ring where the 'rides' take place, before, during, and immediately after each ride). For some reason that I have yet to fathom, a number of misinformed gringos seem to think that this sport is equivalent to Bull Fighting, which is, of course, a 'bull' of another color, or maybe just so much Bull Puckey.

So, I posted pretty much that. I mean, I asked if her business was putting on bull fights, and then asked if she might not mean instead of bull fights, bull riding. I attempted to explain that the sport is properly bull riding (maybe because the main attraction appears to be that young men get up on the backs of the bulls in question), and not fighting (likely because there are no gloves, no swords, no knives, or guns involved), and that for me, personally, it is not very interesting. The next time I looked, there must have been a half dozen other posts (OK, maybe three – but that's half of half a dozen, and by today's standards, that's pretty close, isn't it?), all referring to Bull Fighting, and ignoring reality. So, they're off and running, all reinforcing one another's misinformation, compounding the error of the Original Poster (incidentally, this is shortened to simply 'OP' when posting to a forum, which is an insider term, for frequent users of online forums).

Eventually, though, somebody did notice my post, and then a couple of the other members decided that I was wrong, with one guy even going so far as to say that what takes place in Costa Rica is a corrida de toros, when what happens here (where I live) is called competicion de monte, which is competition of mounting (riding? Hello?), not bull fighting. He also said that he had found a lot of pictures online by googling corrida de toros that depict bulls with "swords sticking out of their withers." What he didn't say was that the pictures that pop up all link to Spanish bull fighting, not Costa Rican bull fighting. He then corrected my Spanish, saying that it has be competencia, because competicion is a gringoized (spanglish) word, and that his google of corrido de toros resulted in tons of hits, and implied that those hits all had to do with Costa Rica.

Now, the correct word may well be competencia, I don't know. I just remember the other, and that is the one that I use when talking with local Ticos. Another member of that forum, female this time, criticized me for not getting out enough, because she has personally seen 'clips' of all kinds of bull fighting, and never once did anyone intentionally try to get on top of a bull.

I really don't know how I am going to break this news to Tulio (our builder and friend). You see, he is the one who has educated me about bull riding, and he himself is a former champion bull rider. He has showed me the televised competitions, and even taken me to more than one redondel (that I could have sworn he called a rondel) to see a local level competition. I mean, what do I tell him? "Tulio, I don't know how to tell you this, but you see……..well, it's that…….I mean……oh, hell! You don't exist! That's because there is no such thing as bull riding competition here in Costa Rica. It's all about a bunch of idiots who tease a bull right up to the point of total frustration." Yeah, I can see that working very well. Actually, the events that I have attended, with Tulio, began with the introduction of the young men who are competing. Then, just like in an American Rodeo, they take turns riding bulls against the clock. When their individual rides are ended (usually with the young man being thrown), the idiots (who are already in the ring) then distract the bull by teasing it mercilessly. From my perspective, these idiots take the place of the Rodeo Clown, common to the American Style Rodeo. So, I figure the Tico event organizers save money this way.

Not a very clear image, but this is from a competition of bull riding, taken in 2002, at Playa Puerta Soley.


Well, another day has come, and the moderator of said forum has closed the thread, and admonished yours truly, saying that the event as witnessed by her, and all the others does NOT involve bull riding, only what I would call bull-baiting. She also took umbrage at my characterization of the Central Valley as the center of the known universe (I suppose I did get a bit sarcastic in my references to the CV), reminding me that she doesn't "believe it is fair to blame people for living in the CV for your error," whatever that means. My point was, and still is, that just because they have seen one event does not make it whatever they call it. You see, they persist in saying that the sport they are talking about is bull fighting, but I have never heard the term corrida de toros used here by any Ticos, and I have never seen any matador, or picador, or capes in use.

So, it has been brought home to me once again that I really HAVE been wasting my time on these forums. I know that I always referred to having wasted my time, but I'm finally realizing that I really was wasting my time. Really! A lot! Big waste! I mean, who cares, right? But, then, wait a minute. Think of it this way……..it all serves as grist for the mill of my Blog, now doesn't it? So, I guess I'm not going to give up the time-wasting forums, just yet, after all. Stay tuned.