I know that I have not been in Argentina very long but I love this place. I am a man of primal urges who thinks a lot more with his stomach than with his penis. To put it another way, the road to my heart goes through my stomach. For this reason, Argentina has won my heart and then some. This is a country that truly enjoys food. I am very seriously thinking about moving here permanently, not right away but after I can save some more money back in Babylon.
Argentina may not have quite as much money as the United States or parts of Europe but I am convinced that the quality of life is better. I still can't believe it, but I ate a $2 T-bone steak last night. I have vivid memories of buying a T-bone steak from Whole Foods for no less than $16. A homeless man can sit down after a hard day of begging and eat a $2 T-bone and wash it down with a $2 bottle of wine that rivals the quality of more expensive bottles of wine in the U.S.
There are some things I don't like about Argentina. One thing I have noticed is that they commemorate their war against the indigenous of Patagonia on the back of their 100 peso note. This is pretty much the same thing as if the U.S. government had some glorified depiction of the Trail of Tears on the back of the Andrew Jackson-twenty dollar bill. Part of me thinks that would be appropriate since Jackson was a murderous thug but the other part of me thinks that no government should celebrate genocide.
In my previous post, I made a claim that Paraguay is the only country that borders Bolivia that might lose a war with it. I take that back. These two countries fought a war back in the 1930s and the then numerically and technologically superior Bolivian forces had their asses handed back to them. The Bolivian troops, who were mostly indigenous, quechua-speaking people from the highlands couldn't handle the weather in what is the hottest part of South America. Moreover, those fucking dumbasses didn't have the wherewithall to hire Guarani-speaking intelligence officers to intercept Paraguayan radio transmissions. As the recent coup in Honduras should prove, militaries are a much greater threat to democracy than they are its defenders. Anyway, enough of that. I am going to go eat a $2 T-bone.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Bienvenidos a Argentina
Bolivia is beautiful but I am so happy to be out of that country. I will miss the breathtaking scenery and the anything-goes lawlessness but beyond that I can't think of anything else that I will long for. I will not miss the sand-covered washboard dirt roads, the shitty cans of "tuna", and the complete lack of decent broadband network. There were so many times when I wandered into a town looking for food only to be disappointed by the selection of items. My typical conversation would go like this:
"Is there a comedor in town?"
" No."
"Is there internet?"
"No."
"Is there a even a store."
"Yes there is."
"What do they sell?"
"Cookies and soda."
"What kind of cookies do you have?"
"We have shit cookies with vomit cream filling."
"You don't have chocolate?"
"Nope."
"Well, thanks anyway, bye."
I am still pissed off that Bolivia even has a military since they would get the living shit kicked out of them by any one of their neighbors except maybe Paraguay. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil would defeat them in a matter of days while Peru might take a week. In my past post I said nationalism is obselete but I should have been more direct;it is fucking stupid. If I were in charge of Bolivia I would fire every last soldier and hire a bunch of construction workers to pave Bolivia's pitiful roads and lay broadband wires in all of the cities that don't have any internet access. Not only is a Bolivian military useless but they are potentially harmful as the recent coup d'etat in Honduras should prove my point.
A friend of mine,who has crossed the land border from Bolivia into Argentina, described crossing the border as "leaving Kansas for Oz." That description is not to far off. The difference is just about as stark as leaving the U.S. for Mexico. Actually the difference is more stark because Mexico has well-paved roads. Everything here cost more but the quality of what you are buying more than makes up for the difference in price. I have spent more on food but I have eaten some amazing meals. The sheer size of the barbeque platters here makes my eyes pop out. The pizzas, pasta, and wine is good, too. The way to my heart is through my stomach and Argentina has already won my heart. In fact, I think I like it better here than in U.S. I have even heard that they have free health care here. With the good food and free health care here I can say that I might not come back.
Speaking of health care in America, I can honestly say that not reforming health care at all would probably be better than the bill the Democrats have advanced in Congress. There are not enough curse words in the English language to thoroughly convey how fucking pissed off I am about the two-party monopoly on power in the United States. The thing that pisses me off about the bill so much is the health insurance mandate. I currently don't have health insurance and there is actually a reason for it. I have had it in the past and discovered that they were so unresponsive and unhelpful that I cancelled it. Once I went to the doctor for a regular check-up only for the insurance company to drag their feet so long in paying the claim that I started getting collection letters from the doctor's office in the mail. The insurance company claimed they never even received my claim which was an outright lie. At that point, I sent only certified mail to them so they couldn't lie through their teeth like that. It still took about six months for them to pay only about %60 of the claim. After this, I figured it was best to just not have insurance and gamble that I never get really sick or break a bone. If yall think insurance companies are unresponsive and unhelpful now, just wait until you are forced to purchase health insurance. A public plan probably wouldn't be any better since the government would probably just subcontract out to the health insurance industry anyway. I can not accept health care reform that doesn't cut these thieving bastards out of the loop. This doesn't absolve hospitals, doctors,or the pharmaceutical industry from their culpability but I think the insurance companies are the worst culprits. This is yet another reason I might not come back to the U.S.
On a happier note, I have recently discovered some wonderful music online. Now that I have access to broadband, I have actually been able to give a good listen to Vladimir Visotsky. All I can say is that I want to learn Russian and take up chain smoking so I can sing like him. A friend of mine also turned me on to the Plasmatics. I can't believe I had never listened to any of their music. When I listen to it I just want to torch a cop car and slit some pig's throat. If any of yall don't think that there is censorship and coercion in the U.S. all yall have to look at is a picture of Wendy O. Williams after Milwaukee police beat the shit out of her while arresting her for an obscenity charge. As one music critic in the United States said, "Conservatives in America had castration anxiety," when they saw her chainsaw televisions in half. I am convinced that there are still efforts to erase the history of the Plasmatics as it is still very difficult to find their music. Youtube even seems to mysteriously fail when I am trying to load their videos. This makes me even more determined to rip off the music industry. I hope all of them go down with the shit music they have been trying to force down my throat through there control of the distribution channels. I am so happy that I have alternate routes of music discovery now that we have the internet.
I was in Jujuy, Argentina when my friend told me that Farrah Fawcett died. My response was, "Who fucking cares." Then I came back with the news that Michael Jackson had died. To me he died about twenty years ago but that is a moot point. I can't remember the last time people were so freaked out about a single person's death. It is like a god died or something. I suppose his music touched a lot of people but I can't say I really care. I want to ask people if they expected him to live for ever. For me Michael Jackson is far down the list of musicians who I find inspirational. Most of us mere mortals will never achieve the immortality that he has achieved through his music.
"Is there a comedor in town?"
" No."
"Is there internet?"
"No."
"Is there a even a store."
"Yes there is."
"What do they sell?"
"Cookies and soda."
"What kind of cookies do you have?"
"We have shit cookies with vomit cream filling."
"You don't have chocolate?"
"Nope."
"Well, thanks anyway, bye."
I am still pissed off that Bolivia even has a military since they would get the living shit kicked out of them by any one of their neighbors except maybe Paraguay. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil would defeat them in a matter of days while Peru might take a week. In my past post I said nationalism is obselete but I should have been more direct;it is fucking stupid. If I were in charge of Bolivia I would fire every last soldier and hire a bunch of construction workers to pave Bolivia's pitiful roads and lay broadband wires in all of the cities that don't have any internet access. Not only is a Bolivian military useless but they are potentially harmful as the recent coup d'etat in Honduras should prove my point.
A friend of mine,who has crossed the land border from Bolivia into Argentina, described crossing the border as "leaving Kansas for Oz." That description is not to far off. The difference is just about as stark as leaving the U.S. for Mexico. Actually the difference is more stark because Mexico has well-paved roads. Everything here cost more but the quality of what you are buying more than makes up for the difference in price. I have spent more on food but I have eaten some amazing meals. The sheer size of the barbeque platters here makes my eyes pop out. The pizzas, pasta, and wine is good, too. The way to my heart is through my stomach and Argentina has already won my heart. In fact, I think I like it better here than in U.S. I have even heard that they have free health care here. With the good food and free health care here I can say that I might not come back.
Speaking of health care in America, I can honestly say that not reforming health care at all would probably be better than the bill the Democrats have advanced in Congress. There are not enough curse words in the English language to thoroughly convey how fucking pissed off I am about the two-party monopoly on power in the United States. The thing that pisses me off about the bill so much is the health insurance mandate. I currently don't have health insurance and there is actually a reason for it. I have had it in the past and discovered that they were so unresponsive and unhelpful that I cancelled it. Once I went to the doctor for a regular check-up only for the insurance company to drag their feet so long in paying the claim that I started getting collection letters from the doctor's office in the mail. The insurance company claimed they never even received my claim which was an outright lie. At that point, I sent only certified mail to them so they couldn't lie through their teeth like that. It still took about six months for them to pay only about %60 of the claim. After this, I figured it was best to just not have insurance and gamble that I never get really sick or break a bone. If yall think insurance companies are unresponsive and unhelpful now, just wait until you are forced to purchase health insurance. A public plan probably wouldn't be any better since the government would probably just subcontract out to the health insurance industry anyway. I can not accept health care reform that doesn't cut these thieving bastards out of the loop. This doesn't absolve hospitals, doctors,or the pharmaceutical industry from their culpability but I think the insurance companies are the worst culprits. This is yet another reason I might not come back to the U.S.
On a happier note, I have recently discovered some wonderful music online. Now that I have access to broadband, I have actually been able to give a good listen to Vladimir Visotsky. All I can say is that I want to learn Russian and take up chain smoking so I can sing like him. A friend of mine also turned me on to the Plasmatics. I can't believe I had never listened to any of their music. When I listen to it I just want to torch a cop car and slit some pig's throat. If any of yall don't think that there is censorship and coercion in the U.S. all yall have to look at is a picture of Wendy O. Williams after Milwaukee police beat the shit out of her while arresting her for an obscenity charge. As one music critic in the United States said, "Conservatives in America had castration anxiety," when they saw her chainsaw televisions in half. I am convinced that there are still efforts to erase the history of the Plasmatics as it is still very difficult to find their music. Youtube even seems to mysteriously fail when I am trying to load their videos. This makes me even more determined to rip off the music industry. I hope all of them go down with the shit music they have been trying to force down my throat through there control of the distribution channels. I am so happy that I have alternate routes of music discovery now that we have the internet.
I was in Jujuy, Argentina when my friend told me that Farrah Fawcett died. My response was, "Who fucking cares." Then I came back with the news that Michael Jackson had died. To me he died about twenty years ago but that is a moot point. I can't remember the last time people were so freaked out about a single person's death. It is like a god died or something. I suppose his music touched a lot of people but I can't say I really care. I want to ask people if they expected him to live for ever. For me Michael Jackson is far down the list of musicians who I find inspirational. Most of us mere mortals will never achieve the immortality that he has achieved through his music.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Argentina Bound
After 5 days and 4 flats between Uyuni and Tupiza, I am ready to get out of this country. Don't get me wrong. Bolivia is an incredibly beautiful country, a geologists wet dream where every other hill is a different color, but I am tired of the shitty roads and the cold, I repeat COLD, nights. One morning, recently, I camped in a valley that was still above 13,000 feet. This was problematic because it takes longer for the sunshine to reach every corner of the valley and, hence, stays cold longer. It was so cold that the small streams in the valley froze solid. I tested the hardness of the ice by smashing rocks the size of my head to pieces on it. I was so happy to finally reach civilization again that I am staying in Tupiza for three days before I ride the final two or three days to the Argentinian border.
I am looking forward to riding on paved roads again in Argentina as I have recently discovered a couple of cracks in my third rear rim. I am also looking forward to the Argentinian barbeques as I have recently been partially starving myself as there are no places to buy food. I go to sleep at night salivating and fantasizing about food I want to cook and eat. The parrilladas await me. Sorry vegetarians, I am going to eat so much meat that yall might as well put me on a cholesterol I.V. drip. I already have friends and parrilladas waiting for me.
On a manliness scale of 1 to 10, a bike trip is probably somewhere between a 9 and 10 so I am not afraid to say that I love ballet. It is so funny how one's perspective can completely change over time. I remember when I was 9 and my mom tried to put me in ballet lessons. This experiment didn't last long as I steadfastly remained in the corner of the studio and refused to participate. I also remember my mom dragging me to see Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikof in the movie White Nights. As a kid this pissed me off but I had the unusual priviledge of seeing the movie for a second time last night. Dance movies are one of my guilty pleasures and I have a serious man-crush on Baryshnikof. His dancing seems to defy the laws of physics. Gregory Hines was no slouch but Baryshnikof is fucking spectacular. Most of the music in the movie is shit since it comes from the 80s (Yeah I know, it was the golden era of heavy metal and punk but the rest of the music is shit) but I was turned on to the music of Vladimir Vysotsky which is worth checking out. This is another reason I can't wait to get out of Bolivia. I need to indulge my high-speed broadband addiction and watch as many videos of Vysotsky and Baryshnikov as possible.
I am looking forward to riding on paved roads again in Argentina as I have recently discovered a couple of cracks in my third rear rim. I am also looking forward to the Argentinian barbeques as I have recently been partially starving myself as there are no places to buy food. I go to sleep at night salivating and fantasizing about food I want to cook and eat. The parrilladas await me. Sorry vegetarians, I am going to eat so much meat that yall might as well put me on a cholesterol I.V. drip. I already have friends and parrilladas waiting for me.
On a manliness scale of 1 to 10, a bike trip is probably somewhere between a 9 and 10 so I am not afraid to say that I love ballet. It is so funny how one's perspective can completely change over time. I remember when I was 9 and my mom tried to put me in ballet lessons. This experiment didn't last long as I steadfastly remained in the corner of the studio and refused to participate. I also remember my mom dragging me to see Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikof in the movie White Nights. As a kid this pissed me off but I had the unusual priviledge of seeing the movie for a second time last night. Dance movies are one of my guilty pleasures and I have a serious man-crush on Baryshnikof. His dancing seems to defy the laws of physics. Gregory Hines was no slouch but Baryshnikof is fucking spectacular. Most of the music in the movie is shit since it comes from the 80s (Yeah I know, it was the golden era of heavy metal and punk but the rest of the music is shit) but I was turned on to the music of Vladimir Vysotsky which is worth checking out. This is another reason I can't wait to get out of Bolivia. I need to indulge my high-speed broadband addiction and watch as many videos of Vysotsky and Baryshnikov as possible.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Cold Nights, Oppressive Pigfuckers, Saint Bill Hicks, and International Unity
The highlands of Southwestern Bolivia are unbelievably cold. I have read that the temperatures drop to -25º C. which is close to -10º F. for those of yall that are afraid of conversion. I actually had to go to the trouble of buying a new blanket which is about 2 centimeters thick. It goes on top of my sleeping bag while I sleep inside with 4 pairs of socks, three pants, 3 shirts, a sweater, and 3 wool hats. Don't feel sorry for me because I sleep comfortably. Without the blanket, though, I was freezing my ass off at night. I don't carry a thermometer with me but I can assure yall this is the coldest weather that this Texas boy has ever experienced. Anecdotally, I have camped next to ponds which freeze so thouroughly that I can put my entire weight on the edge without breaking the ice and no less than a softball-sized rock thrown at an upward angle breaks the surface. The water in my camelbak tube freezes and I have to insulate all of the water I am carrying so it doesn't freeze solid.
My tent no longer zips shut but this isn't too much of a problem right now as it is too cold for any insects or other critters to intrude upon my space while I sleep. I already wrote a letter to R.E.I. that was persuasive enough for them to refund my money for the tent and I have ordered and sent a new one to my friend who lives in Buenos Aires where I plan to stop on my way towards Brazil.
Braving the cold is not without its rewards. This part of Bolivia is beautiful. If the southern coast of Peru is a martian landscape the Salar de Uyuni is a venetian landscape, beautiful in its stark white infinity. I had to wear my sunglasses the whole time because it is more than sufficiently bright and reflective to cause snowblindness. I rode out to the Isla de Pescado or Isla de Inkahuasi if yall prefer. The cacti on this island are incredible, reaching up to 12 meters and living for hundreds of years. Most of them are massive, moreso than the same variety in other parts of Bolivia. The trip to the Inkahuasi was definitely worth the trouble.
I have previously mentioned that the Salar de Uyuni holds over half the world's lithium carbonate deposits. This metal is essential for both laptop batteries and for the batteries in electric cars as it is the lightest compound from which batteries can be manufactured. So far these supplies continue unexploited, as I hope the Evo Morales administration is driving a hard bargain to any company which wishes to access these deposits. The developing world has long suffered economically from the exportation of raw materials and the importation of manufactured goods leading to trade deficits which always benefit the more advanced economies. Evo Morales should offer access to these deposits for no less than having the multinationals build battery manufacturing plants for laptops and electric cars. In fact, he should hold out until the companies offer to build laptop and electric car factories in Bolivia. Until then, I hope the natural beauty of the salar remains untouched.
I finally encountered a road which caused me to hitchhike out of a situation without experiencing mechanical problems. Heading south from the salar, which has wonderful, hard, and flat surface, the roads can only be described as a washboard covered with 3 inches of sand. After moving maybe 10 kilometers in about 5 hours I hitchhiked the fuck out of there at the first chance I got. The road from Uyuni to Tupiza isn't a whole lot better but I doubt it will drive me to the fits of rage that I was experiencing on this glorified sand pit. Bolivia is beautiful but it has the worst roads I have experienced by far. I can't wait to get to Argentina where I already have friends waiting to share barbeque with me.
If anyone wonders why I don't like cops the case of a a 72-year-old Austin woman who got tazed by a trigger-happy cop should illustrate why. I actually read about this in the B.B.C. so the rest of the world is learning how brutal these Texas pigfuckers are. Ever since the vast majority of American police departments were equipped with these "non-lethal" tazers, the incidences of abuses have steadily risen every year. Because they are "non-lethal" police use them much more excessively than they would ever dare use a gun. You mouth off to a cop, you get tazed. You move suddenly, you get tazed. You have dark skin, you get tazed. The federal government should make very strict guidelines for when a police officer should be allowed to use his/her tazer. I would suggest that they only be allowed to use their tazers when the "suspect" is exhibiting violent behavior.
I had a dream last night that was so vivid that, dare I say, I think it was a vision. Many saints have visions of bleeding Jesi or weeping virgins but the late, great Bill Hicks appeared to me in my vision. In the dream, I had gone to a KKKristian church for the sole purpose of mocking them and laughing at them. After making loud fart noises and laughing hysterically at the verbal flatulence coming out of the pastor's mouth, a raging redneck dragged me out into the church lobby and threatened to pummel me when a plastered Bill Hicks showed up, shooed the redneck away, put his arm around my shoulder, and told me to, "Keep up the good work." I have interpreted this as an endorsement of the Ganjobiclatholic church. In my authority as the Grand Supreme High Archbishop of Austin, I have decided to mark this miraculous vision by canonizing Bill Hicks. He will, from now on, be referred to as Saint Bill Hicks by all Ganjobiclatholic practitioners. It has been decreed.
On a more serious note, I have been trying to form a new political manifesto that best represents my beliefs. I have fulminated many times on this blog about my objection to the drug war, racism towards immigrants, the bloated military budget, etc... but I have never tried to formulate an overreaching political agenda. My main objection to national politics is that they are so myopic. The problems that face the world face us all and not just each individual nation. We need solutions that encompass the whole world and not a patchwork of solutions for each nation. Nationalism replaced the obsolete system of feudalism but it has become obsolete itself. We need to form a political party with an international perspective to confront the problems that our world faces today.
I believe that every human being has a fundamental right to education, health care, access to clean water, access to nutritious food, access to shelter, and access to all job markets. The right to make money is subordinate to these rights. I was tempted to include security on this list but I fear that this has too much potential to be abused and misinterpreted by this world's governments. I will now elaborate on these rights.
Education is the great equalizer. It is the only thing that can enable someone to rise from poverty and improve their lot in life. There have been studies that have shown that birth rates decline when women have real educational and economic opportunities. I would define the minimum standards of education as being trilingual (not bilingual) with emphasis on the use of technology and access to higher education for all. I prefer trilingual education for several reasons: there are already children who grow up bilingual and it would allow the entire world to have a common language without forcing the extinction of less commonly spoken languages. For example, a Peruvian kid could learn Spanish, English, and Quechua, an Israeli kid could learn Hebrew, English, and Arabic, and a Chinese kid could learn Chinese, English, and some other Asian language depending on what region they live in. Not only would this give everyone on the planet a common language with which we could resolve our differences but it would allow us to open up our perspectives to better understand the cultures of others.
Access to health care, clean water, nutritious food, and shelter are really one and the same problem. Take away any one of these and the others fail. A child without proper shelter can't really defend against mosquito-born malaria just as a child without access to clean water really can't defend against typhoid. We all know that lack of access to proper nutrition can lead to a number of ailments. The reason why the right to make money has to be subordinate to these rights is to prevent companies from hoarding water for industrial purposes. Water intensive industries such as nuclear power production has to be subordinate to agriculture which, in turn, has to be subordinate to the right of everyone to have access to clean water. I should mention that health care should emphasize preventative care rather than reactionary care.
Access to all job markets means that all borders should be open everywhere. This would allow people to leave areas that, due to drought, famine, poverty, government corruption, or anything else that might disadvantage these populations, in search of jobs elsewhere. The only legitimate use of a border, in my opinion, is for epidemic control. An American has no inherent right to jobs over people from any other part of the world and vice versa. Borders only serve to lock poverty in to certain regions while other regions benefit from pseudo-slave labor of their poorer neighbors. Remittences sent home from immigrants to their home countries are ten times as much as all foreign assistance and do more to alleviate poverty than anything else. Moreover, there are people from the developed world, such as myself, who prefer the cultures and the climates of the developing world.
I admit that I am an idealist but I am also pragmatic enough to know that this vision will probably never be complete within my lifetime. In response to this, I would say that I am on a hundred-year plan. I am doing my part by learning new languages and living and working in parts of the world other than the United States. This international political party would have a difficult time establishing a foothold in the United States since the two-party monopoly has a stranglehold on power but could be a force to reckoned with in parliamentary systems where governments have to create coalitions. Some of these plans are expensive but could easily be paid for if we collectively cut our military budgets. Even countries like Bolivia waste money on their militaries. I have passed by way too many military bases in this country. The fact is that Bolivia would get their asses handed to them in a conventional war with any one of their neighbors except maybe Paraguay. I am not so naive to think that world would function in the absence of security forces but I think that these security forces should be international in nature and should only be used in the face of humanitarian crises. In future blog posts, I will try to focus on ideas I have for implementing these changes to our world political structure.
My tent no longer zips shut but this isn't too much of a problem right now as it is too cold for any insects or other critters to intrude upon my space while I sleep. I already wrote a letter to R.E.I. that was persuasive enough for them to refund my money for the tent and I have ordered and sent a new one to my friend who lives in Buenos Aires where I plan to stop on my way towards Brazil.
Braving the cold is not without its rewards. This part of Bolivia is beautiful. If the southern coast of Peru is a martian landscape the Salar de Uyuni is a venetian landscape, beautiful in its stark white infinity. I had to wear my sunglasses the whole time because it is more than sufficiently bright and reflective to cause snowblindness. I rode out to the Isla de Pescado or Isla de Inkahuasi if yall prefer. The cacti on this island are incredible, reaching up to 12 meters and living for hundreds of years. Most of them are massive, moreso than the same variety in other parts of Bolivia. The trip to the Inkahuasi was definitely worth the trouble.
I have previously mentioned that the Salar de Uyuni holds over half the world's lithium carbonate deposits. This metal is essential for both laptop batteries and for the batteries in electric cars as it is the lightest compound from which batteries can be manufactured. So far these supplies continue unexploited, as I hope the Evo Morales administration is driving a hard bargain to any company which wishes to access these deposits. The developing world has long suffered economically from the exportation of raw materials and the importation of manufactured goods leading to trade deficits which always benefit the more advanced economies. Evo Morales should offer access to these deposits for no less than having the multinationals build battery manufacturing plants for laptops and electric cars. In fact, he should hold out until the companies offer to build laptop and electric car factories in Bolivia. Until then, I hope the natural beauty of the salar remains untouched.
I finally encountered a road which caused me to hitchhike out of a situation without experiencing mechanical problems. Heading south from the salar, which has wonderful, hard, and flat surface, the roads can only be described as a washboard covered with 3 inches of sand. After moving maybe 10 kilometers in about 5 hours I hitchhiked the fuck out of there at the first chance I got. The road from Uyuni to Tupiza isn't a whole lot better but I doubt it will drive me to the fits of rage that I was experiencing on this glorified sand pit. Bolivia is beautiful but it has the worst roads I have experienced by far. I can't wait to get to Argentina where I already have friends waiting to share barbeque with me.
If anyone wonders why I don't like cops the case of a a 72-year-old Austin woman who got tazed by a trigger-happy cop should illustrate why. I actually read about this in the B.B.C. so the rest of the world is learning how brutal these Texas pigfuckers are. Ever since the vast majority of American police departments were equipped with these "non-lethal" tazers, the incidences of abuses have steadily risen every year. Because they are "non-lethal" police use them much more excessively than they would ever dare use a gun. You mouth off to a cop, you get tazed. You move suddenly, you get tazed. You have dark skin, you get tazed. The federal government should make very strict guidelines for when a police officer should be allowed to use his/her tazer. I would suggest that they only be allowed to use their tazers when the "suspect" is exhibiting violent behavior.
I had a dream last night that was so vivid that, dare I say, I think it was a vision. Many saints have visions of bleeding Jesi or weeping virgins but the late, great Bill Hicks appeared to me in my vision. In the dream, I had gone to a KKKristian church for the sole purpose of mocking them and laughing at them. After making loud fart noises and laughing hysterically at the verbal flatulence coming out of the pastor's mouth, a raging redneck dragged me out into the church lobby and threatened to pummel me when a plastered Bill Hicks showed up, shooed the redneck away, put his arm around my shoulder, and told me to, "Keep up the good work." I have interpreted this as an endorsement of the Ganjobiclatholic church. In my authority as the Grand Supreme High Archbishop of Austin, I have decided to mark this miraculous vision by canonizing Bill Hicks. He will, from now on, be referred to as Saint Bill Hicks by all Ganjobiclatholic practitioners. It has been decreed.
On a more serious note, I have been trying to form a new political manifesto that best represents my beliefs. I have fulminated many times on this blog about my objection to the drug war, racism towards immigrants, the bloated military budget, etc... but I have never tried to formulate an overreaching political agenda. My main objection to national politics is that they are so myopic. The problems that face the world face us all and not just each individual nation. We need solutions that encompass the whole world and not a patchwork of solutions for each nation. Nationalism replaced the obsolete system of feudalism but it has become obsolete itself. We need to form a political party with an international perspective to confront the problems that our world faces today.
I believe that every human being has a fundamental right to education, health care, access to clean water, access to nutritious food, access to shelter, and access to all job markets. The right to make money is subordinate to these rights. I was tempted to include security on this list but I fear that this has too much potential to be abused and misinterpreted by this world's governments. I will now elaborate on these rights.
Education is the great equalizer. It is the only thing that can enable someone to rise from poverty and improve their lot in life. There have been studies that have shown that birth rates decline when women have real educational and economic opportunities. I would define the minimum standards of education as being trilingual (not bilingual) with emphasis on the use of technology and access to higher education for all. I prefer trilingual education for several reasons: there are already children who grow up bilingual and it would allow the entire world to have a common language without forcing the extinction of less commonly spoken languages. For example, a Peruvian kid could learn Spanish, English, and Quechua, an Israeli kid could learn Hebrew, English, and Arabic, and a Chinese kid could learn Chinese, English, and some other Asian language depending on what region they live in. Not only would this give everyone on the planet a common language with which we could resolve our differences but it would allow us to open up our perspectives to better understand the cultures of others.
Access to health care, clean water, nutritious food, and shelter are really one and the same problem. Take away any one of these and the others fail. A child without proper shelter can't really defend against mosquito-born malaria just as a child without access to clean water really can't defend against typhoid. We all know that lack of access to proper nutrition can lead to a number of ailments. The reason why the right to make money has to be subordinate to these rights is to prevent companies from hoarding water for industrial purposes. Water intensive industries such as nuclear power production has to be subordinate to agriculture which, in turn, has to be subordinate to the right of everyone to have access to clean water. I should mention that health care should emphasize preventative care rather than reactionary care.
Access to all job markets means that all borders should be open everywhere. This would allow people to leave areas that, due to drought, famine, poverty, government corruption, or anything else that might disadvantage these populations, in search of jobs elsewhere. The only legitimate use of a border, in my opinion, is for epidemic control. An American has no inherent right to jobs over people from any other part of the world and vice versa. Borders only serve to lock poverty in to certain regions while other regions benefit from pseudo-slave labor of their poorer neighbors. Remittences sent home from immigrants to their home countries are ten times as much as all foreign assistance and do more to alleviate poverty than anything else. Moreover, there are people from the developed world, such as myself, who prefer the cultures and the climates of the developing world.
I admit that I am an idealist but I am also pragmatic enough to know that this vision will probably never be complete within my lifetime. In response to this, I would say that I am on a hundred-year plan. I am doing my part by learning new languages and living and working in parts of the world other than the United States. This international political party would have a difficult time establishing a foothold in the United States since the two-party monopoly has a stranglehold on power but could be a force to reckoned with in parliamentary systems where governments have to create coalitions. Some of these plans are expensive but could easily be paid for if we collectively cut our military budgets. Even countries like Bolivia waste money on their militaries. I have passed by way too many military bases in this country. The fact is that Bolivia would get their asses handed to them in a conventional war with any one of their neighbors except maybe Paraguay. I am not so naive to think that world would function in the absence of security forces but I think that these security forces should be international in nature and should only be used in the face of humanitarian crises. In future blog posts, I will try to focus on ideas I have for implementing these changes to our world political structure.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Potosì
My timing for being in Sucre couldn't have been any more serendipitous. The city celebrated its bicentenial of independence for the entire month of May. There have been free concerts and parades all over the city. I got to see the Bolivian supergroup Kjarkas play a free concert. Noticably absent from the festivities is the Bolivian president Evo Morales who, despite his nation-wide popularity, is persona non grata in Sucre. The reason for this is that Sucre is, constitutionally, the capital of Bolivia but La Paz is where the center of the executive and legislative branches are. As anyone who has power is loath to let go of it, Sucre has been the site of various protests against Evo Morales, even blockading the airport runway and preventing his plane from landing in Sucre on one occasion. You can see signs scrawled in graffiti that say, "Sucre capital of Bolivia." I think Evo Morales knows that even showing up in Sucre would piss a lot of people off.
I ended up lingering in Sucre longer than I expected, partially because I am lazy and partially because I had an accident between myself and a car on the day I was leaving. I left the accident with only bruises to my pride and my body but my bicycle required a new wheel and I needed to get a new part machined for my saddlebags. I take at least partial blame for the accident as I was being a little too aggressive in challenging a yellow light. What I forgot was that, while the light changes from green to yellow and then to red, the other light changes from red to yellow and then to green. As these are old colonial streets, I thought I could easily beat the yellow light as I only had to cross a one-lane street. What I didn't anticipate, though, was that any driver a distance away from the intersection might try to anticipate the green light by accelerating on their yellow. This led to me slamming into the side of their car as I didn't see the car coming or have enough time to react in order to avoid the collision. I could tell the driver felt a little bit guilty himself for ,even though he stopped to check and see if I was alright, he was quickly gone. I am sure that I probably left a good sized dent in the side of his car as two hundred pounds of flesh, bones, steel, and rubber hurling into anything is sure to leave a mark. I might have even perforated the steel as my metal-spiked helmet impacted with the car first. I am now almost completely healed and my bike is in optimal condition. It didn't even cost me that much to buy a new wheel and machine a new part.
I am in Potosì now, site of the greatest theft of mineral wealth in the history of mankind. I have read before that Potosì supplied half of the worlds silver for over two centuries. The Spanish, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty during most of this time, mostly squandered this wealth on wars and luxury goods and were in decline by the end of the seventeenth century. The Cerro Rico, or rich hill, which looms over the south of the city has also swallowed literally millions of lives. Most of the estimates I have seen range from 4 to 8 million deaths. To put that in perspective the current population of Bolivia is around 9.1 million.
To be a miner in Potosì pretty much guaranteed, and still does guarantee, an early death. There are numerous ways that you can die in a mine: a tunnel can collapse, you can stumble upon noxious or explosive gas, you are exposed to many different toxins, and, if none of that kills you, than you will probably die from silicosis which is caused by the constant inhalation of microparticulate matter. Back when the mercury amalgamation technique for purifying silver was discovered, those who worked in refining the silver would mix the mercury and impure silver with their bare feet. They almost inevitably died from mercury poisoning afterwards. By the time Bolivia gained its independence from Spain, the silver in the mines had mostly run out. People still work, and die, in the mines of el Cerro Rico today, only they mine more tin and zinc instead of silver. This is a sad world we live in where people risk their lives for a pittance to feed the avaricious appetites of people on the other side of the world. If people ever wonder why I don't buy silver, gold, or any other kind of jewelery and I never will, this is why.
I ended up lingering in Sucre longer than I expected, partially because I am lazy and partially because I had an accident between myself and a car on the day I was leaving. I left the accident with only bruises to my pride and my body but my bicycle required a new wheel and I needed to get a new part machined for my saddlebags. I take at least partial blame for the accident as I was being a little too aggressive in challenging a yellow light. What I forgot was that, while the light changes from green to yellow and then to red, the other light changes from red to yellow and then to green. As these are old colonial streets, I thought I could easily beat the yellow light as I only had to cross a one-lane street. What I didn't anticipate, though, was that any driver a distance away from the intersection might try to anticipate the green light by accelerating on their yellow. This led to me slamming into the side of their car as I didn't see the car coming or have enough time to react in order to avoid the collision. I could tell the driver felt a little bit guilty himself for ,even though he stopped to check and see if I was alright, he was quickly gone. I am sure that I probably left a good sized dent in the side of his car as two hundred pounds of flesh, bones, steel, and rubber hurling into anything is sure to leave a mark. I might have even perforated the steel as my metal-spiked helmet impacted with the car first. I am now almost completely healed and my bike is in optimal condition. It didn't even cost me that much to buy a new wheel and machine a new part.
I am in Potosì now, site of the greatest theft of mineral wealth in the history of mankind. I have read before that Potosì supplied half of the worlds silver for over two centuries. The Spanish, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty during most of this time, mostly squandered this wealth on wars and luxury goods and were in decline by the end of the seventeenth century. The Cerro Rico, or rich hill, which looms over the south of the city has also swallowed literally millions of lives. Most of the estimates I have seen range from 4 to 8 million deaths. To put that in perspective the current population of Bolivia is around 9.1 million.
To be a miner in Potosì pretty much guaranteed, and still does guarantee, an early death. There are numerous ways that you can die in a mine: a tunnel can collapse, you can stumble upon noxious or explosive gas, you are exposed to many different toxins, and, if none of that kills you, than you will probably die from silicosis which is caused by the constant inhalation of microparticulate matter. Back when the mercury amalgamation technique for purifying silver was discovered, those who worked in refining the silver would mix the mercury and impure silver with their bare feet. They almost inevitably died from mercury poisoning afterwards. By the time Bolivia gained its independence from Spain, the silver in the mines had mostly run out. People still work, and die, in the mines of el Cerro Rico today, only they mine more tin and zinc instead of silver. This is a sad world we live in where people risk their lives for a pittance to feed the avaricious appetites of people on the other side of the world. If people ever wonder why I don't buy silver, gold, or any other kind of jewelery and I never will, this is why.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Leaving the Road of My Worst Nightmares
I am now resting in Sucre, Bolivia after riding on what was probably the worst dirt road that I have ever ridden on in my life. I will probably have nightmares about this road 20 years from now. There are many parts of the road with rocky, 30 degree inclines, some of which go on for miles at a time. Pretty much all of the switchbacks were at these inclines and also had loose dirt which added yet another layer of difficulty to this road. Sisyphus has it easy. The strange thing is that I actually preferred ascending over descending because I was afraid of damaging my bike. I have no doubt that this road has snapped car axles in half and destroyed transmissions. If I was lucky enough to ride on a flat part of the road I was pretty much guaranteed to be riding through a glorified sand pit. If there was a creek or river there was probably not a bridge. I suspect that the road is impassable during the rainy season. There was very little traffic and only a few towns where I could stock up on food and water and eat prepared meals. Most of the people who go from Oruro to Sucre take the longer, paved route via Potosì but I did not heed the warnings of those who told me that it was a bad road because I did not want to backtrack. I ended up needing just over a week to ride the 320 kilometers of dirt road between the town of Huanuni and Sucre.
The upside to riding on this road was that it was, indeed, beautiful. The mountains seem to painted every color that you can imagine a mountain would be. They are jagged and steep. I rode on many a mountain ridge with 1,000 foot dropoffs. The views were stunning. One night, when I was camping on the side of the road, I even got snowed on. The flurry only lasted about 30 or 40 minutes but left a pretty healthy blanket of snow on my bicyle, tent, and my surroundings. Despite the beauty of this part of Bolivia, I was happy to make it out of the wilderness as the road was definitely testing my morale. My bicycle is happy to be done with that road too and is due for a tune-up.
One casualty of the road was my G.P.S. device. I had already noticed that my G.P.S. wasn't accurately recording elevation gains when I was in Peru but I could live with that. I had also noticed that it would automatically shut off when I was going to down long descents. It took me a while to realize what was causing this problem. I would usually hit some kind of bump or pothole which would jolt the batteries loose for a microsecond and break the circuit therefore shutting it off. This was a manageable problem before but this road was so rocky that I decided it would be better to just turn it off and use it more sparingly. This means that I am no longer recording my total ascent or kilometers logged but I am saving a lot of batteries this way.
I was lucky or unlucky enough to witness something that few gringos ever get to see while passing through the towns on this road. I happened to pass through these towns during the festival called Tinku. Apparently, the townsfolk all get together and beat the shit out of each other but I didn't witness any of that. What I saw was everyone getting dressed up in traditional clothing and parading around town, rhythmically stomping their feet, and playing charangoes and sanpoñas. I was even awakened during the night one night while camping by people stomping through the countryside with their charangoes where I was camping.
The downside of Tinku is that it is pretty much an excuse, like most holidays in Latin America, for the men to get ridiculously drunk. In most of the towns I passed through, at least half of the male population was falling down drunk before noon. This created a volatile situation for me as I had to deal with pushy drunks trying to get me to drink with them in every town. In one town, a group of them even surrounded me when I was going up a hill and tried to get me to drink with them. I am damn near a teetotaler and particularly despise drunks so I politely declined to drink with them telling them that I was allergic to alcohol but they were unswayed by this argument and annoyingly persisted in trying to get me to drink. One of them was particularly belligerent and stole the sunglasses off of my bike before I was able to ride off. I then got off of my bike and politely but insistently asked for him to give me my glasses back. I knew that it was wise to pursue a diplomatic solution to this standoff rather than stab 5 or 6 drunk guys in the throat over sunglasses so I maintained this strategy until one of the more reasonable drunks intervened on my behalf. At this point I rode off and put as much distance between myself and the drunks as possible because I knew that once I was out of sight they would forget that I had even passed through.
One consequence of riding through the Incan nation, as I like to call the Bolivian, Ecuadoran, and Peruvian Andes, is that the iconic image of the masculine cowboy on a horse herding his cattle has now been indelibly replaced with that of an indigenous woman, wearing a bowler hat, following her cows around and cursing at them in Quechua when they don't move across the road fast enough. I have a similar image now for shepherds as well. When I hear, "The lord is my shepherd." I can't help but think of the little Incan lady cursing and throwing rocks at her sheep. I occasionally see a man with his cows or sheep but it is almost always a woman. God only knows where the men are. After Tinku, I am starting to think that they are off drinking somewhere.
I was cut off from the rest of the world during my week on the nightmare road because there was no internet access in most of the towns I passed through. When I finally got to Sucre, I wasn't shocked but I was nonetheless pissed off to find out that the scandal involving the Colombian army's deceiving and murdering of indigent people to pad the numbers of rebel kills they have has only grown. According to the B.B.C. there are now over a thousand cases pending against the army for these unspeakable human rights violations. The Colombian government, of course, claims that most of these cases were actually rebels but I think they are lying. I am so angry about this that I actually going to write a letter to my Congressmen and Senators urging them to end Plan Colombia and demand an international investigation with prosecutions of all those involved. I don't think that this will actually do anything but I don't want to feel powerless in light of these crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of the holy drug war.
The upside to riding on this road was that it was, indeed, beautiful. The mountains seem to painted every color that you can imagine a mountain would be. They are jagged and steep. I rode on many a mountain ridge with 1,000 foot dropoffs. The views were stunning. One night, when I was camping on the side of the road, I even got snowed on. The flurry only lasted about 30 or 40 minutes but left a pretty healthy blanket of snow on my bicyle, tent, and my surroundings. Despite the beauty of this part of Bolivia, I was happy to make it out of the wilderness as the road was definitely testing my morale. My bicycle is happy to be done with that road too and is due for a tune-up.
One casualty of the road was my G.P.S. device. I had already noticed that my G.P.S. wasn't accurately recording elevation gains when I was in Peru but I could live with that. I had also noticed that it would automatically shut off when I was going to down long descents. It took me a while to realize what was causing this problem. I would usually hit some kind of bump or pothole which would jolt the batteries loose for a microsecond and break the circuit therefore shutting it off. This was a manageable problem before but this road was so rocky that I decided it would be better to just turn it off and use it more sparingly. This means that I am no longer recording my total ascent or kilometers logged but I am saving a lot of batteries this way.
I was lucky or unlucky enough to witness something that few gringos ever get to see while passing through the towns on this road. I happened to pass through these towns during the festival called Tinku. Apparently, the townsfolk all get together and beat the shit out of each other but I didn't witness any of that. What I saw was everyone getting dressed up in traditional clothing and parading around town, rhythmically stomping their feet, and playing charangoes and sanpoñas. I was even awakened during the night one night while camping by people stomping through the countryside with their charangoes where I was camping.
The downside of Tinku is that it is pretty much an excuse, like most holidays in Latin America, for the men to get ridiculously drunk. In most of the towns I passed through, at least half of the male population was falling down drunk before noon. This created a volatile situation for me as I had to deal with pushy drunks trying to get me to drink with them in every town. In one town, a group of them even surrounded me when I was going up a hill and tried to get me to drink with them. I am damn near a teetotaler and particularly despise drunks so I politely declined to drink with them telling them that I was allergic to alcohol but they were unswayed by this argument and annoyingly persisted in trying to get me to drink. One of them was particularly belligerent and stole the sunglasses off of my bike before I was able to ride off. I then got off of my bike and politely but insistently asked for him to give me my glasses back. I knew that it was wise to pursue a diplomatic solution to this standoff rather than stab 5 or 6 drunk guys in the throat over sunglasses so I maintained this strategy until one of the more reasonable drunks intervened on my behalf. At this point I rode off and put as much distance between myself and the drunks as possible because I knew that once I was out of sight they would forget that I had even passed through.
One consequence of riding through the Incan nation, as I like to call the Bolivian, Ecuadoran, and Peruvian Andes, is that the iconic image of the masculine cowboy on a horse herding his cattle has now been indelibly replaced with that of an indigenous woman, wearing a bowler hat, following her cows around and cursing at them in Quechua when they don't move across the road fast enough. I have a similar image now for shepherds as well. When I hear, "The lord is my shepherd." I can't help but think of the little Incan lady cursing and throwing rocks at her sheep. I occasionally see a man with his cows or sheep but it is almost always a woman. God only knows where the men are. After Tinku, I am starting to think that they are off drinking somewhere.
I was cut off from the rest of the world during my week on the nightmare road because there was no internet access in most of the towns I passed through. When I finally got to Sucre, I wasn't shocked but I was nonetheless pissed off to find out that the scandal involving the Colombian army's deceiving and murdering of indigent people to pad the numbers of rebel kills they have has only grown. According to the B.B.C. there are now over a thousand cases pending against the army for these unspeakable human rights violations. The Colombian government, of course, claims that most of these cases were actually rebels but I think they are lying. I am so angry about this that I actually going to write a letter to my Congressmen and Senators urging them to end Plan Colombia and demand an international investigation with prosecutions of all those involved. I don't think that this will actually do anything but I don't want to feel powerless in light of these crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of the holy drug war.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Moving Through Bolivia
I spent a week in La Paz. There is something I like about big, massive, congested cities. La Paz has its charming idiosyncracies that make it an interesting place to stay as well. My favorite thing about La Paz is that they have zebras directing traffic. Yes, zebras. Other cities have traffic cops--and there are some of those-- but the local government decided that people dressed in zebra suits would be more effective at directing traffic for some reason.
What did I do in La Paz? Not much. I pretty much just enjoyed eating good food for good prices and indulged in my newfound capuccino addiction. I never drank coffee until I passed through Colombia and then I got spoiled by the good stuff. A cup of cafe con leche with a little bit of sugar there is a cup of heaven as far as I am concerned. After you leave Colombia, you can only find good coffee in the big cities, everywhere else you can only find that powdered, instantaneous shit. Capuccino is the closest I have come to recreating that perfect cup of cafe con leche. Knowing that, as soon as I left the city, I was going to have to endure freezing temperatures and monotonous food, it was easy to stay a week.
I did do one touristy thing while I was in La Paz. I road on El Camino de la Muerte or Deathroad if you like. Back in the day, it used to serve as a highway between La Paz and Coroico to the east. With 100+ fatalities every year it earned the moniker El Camino de la Muerte after a U.N. study determined that it was the world's most dangerous highway at the time. The Bolivian government has since built a new highway and the Deathroad has become nothing more than a high-falutin mountain bike trail. Apparently there are still some fools who die on the mountain bike tour but I was not one of them. We were babysat a little too much by the tour guides to my liking but I compensated by smoking copious amounts of marijuana during the 10,000 foot descent. Even though we had our nannies with us, the tour was still fun. It was nice being able to hurl down the side of a mountain without carrying half of my body weight in gear. I consistently stayed at the front and only had to ask the tour guide in front to move faster once.
After studying a map of Bolivia, I have decided on a rough course of where I want to go in Bolivia. I am in Oruro right now and I plan to traverse Sucre, Potosì, el Salar de Uyuni, and Tarija in that order. Once I get close to the Salar de Uyuni, I will be in a very remote part of the country so I am mentally preparing myself for the monotony of eating nothing but cans of tuna and cookies and riding on dirt roads for days on end. It should all be worth it, though, as the Salar de Uyuni is best described as an extraterrestrial, altiplano desert. If I play my cards right, I should be able to pass through the town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed on the way to Argentina. I had back-to-back one hundred kilometer days on the way to Oruro from La Paz so there is a possibility that I will complete my tour of Bolivia in less than a month.
George Bush really opened up a can of worms with his excessive use of the word terrorist to describe pretty much anyone that disagrees with the dominant imperialist agenda whether it be religiously fanatic Muslim suicide bombers in the Middle East, left-wing narco-rebels in Colombia, or, now, animal rights activists. What the hell does terrorist mean anyway. If the definition of terrorist is someone who terrifies in order to coerce change or adherence to the status quo than I propose that the U.S. government qualifies. We are, afterall, the only country to ever detonate a nuclear bomb on a civilian target. The government of Evo Morales has taken a cue from the Bush school of rhetoric. He blithely calls the supposed international assassins, that his government filled with bullets, terrorists. I usually support Evo Morales's actions but this goes too far. Even if the government has incontrovertible proof that these men intended to assassinate the president, these men should have been arrested and not killed while sleeping during a S.W.A.T. style raid. The pictures of the so-called "terrorist" ringleader naked and bloody in his bed belie the governments case that they were planning actions. If the government really had proof of their intentions they should have tried much harder to arrest these people and bring them to justice. Extrajudicial assassinations of terrorist subjects set a bad precedent but I can only say that the Bolivians are learning from us.
I admit that my creation of the Ganjobicicletholic is more in the spirit of Abbie Hoffman than of Martin Luther but I have been thinking a lot about morality and how it needs a serious updating. My objection to the major religions of the world is that their morality is obselete. I can see how homosexuality would be considered sinful in a patriarchal society. When the man is always in charge in a relationship, who is in charge in a relationship between two men? One uppity bottom challenges the entire patriarchal hegemony of power. When the vast majority of people tend the earth and the average life expectancy doesn't exceed 40, be fruitful and multiply makes a lot of sense. The problem is that when the earth becomes overpopulated, as it has, being fruitful and multiplying only fucks things up worse. Old-time religion also lets people off too easily for their profligate, consumer-whore ways. What is worse, a man stealing bread to feed his family or a man buying a $10,000 Rolex when there are people starving in the world. How about when a man buys a $1,000,000 Ferrari that gets less than 10 miles to the gallon when he could buy a much more practical car for much less or, even better, ride a bike. The religious leaders of the world stand in shocking silence, or worse enable this selfishness as our society celebrates these pompous asses. If this world were truly just, as those who believe in an omnipotent god would have us believe, the Ferrari driver would feel such a palpable sense of hatred anytime he left his house that he would not buy the Ferrari in the first place. For me there is nothing wrong with having money. It is the obscene displays of wealth that irk me. Religious leaders are too busy bickering about homosexuality and abortion to realize that we are destroying this planet we will soon send the human race to extinction if we don't drastically alter our behavior. For this reason, religion needs a serious updating.
As a quick note, the Supreme Court of the U.S. recently said it was okay for the F.C.C. to fine television networks even for the accidental airing of expletives. This decision pisses me off. What the fuck is wrong with cursing, goddamnit? Since the internet is, thus far, free from this censorship, which in my opinion is a direct violation of the First Ammendment, I have only one thing to say: fuck the skull of the rotting corpse of Jesus while fingering the Virgen Mary. I think I will silkscreen a shirt that says this and wear it to church.
What did I do in La Paz? Not much. I pretty much just enjoyed eating good food for good prices and indulged in my newfound capuccino addiction. I never drank coffee until I passed through Colombia and then I got spoiled by the good stuff. A cup of cafe con leche with a little bit of sugar there is a cup of heaven as far as I am concerned. After you leave Colombia, you can only find good coffee in the big cities, everywhere else you can only find that powdered, instantaneous shit. Capuccino is the closest I have come to recreating that perfect cup of cafe con leche. Knowing that, as soon as I left the city, I was going to have to endure freezing temperatures and monotonous food, it was easy to stay a week.
I did do one touristy thing while I was in La Paz. I road on El Camino de la Muerte or Deathroad if you like. Back in the day, it used to serve as a highway between La Paz and Coroico to the east. With 100+ fatalities every year it earned the moniker El Camino de la Muerte after a U.N. study determined that it was the world's most dangerous highway at the time. The Bolivian government has since built a new highway and the Deathroad has become nothing more than a high-falutin mountain bike trail. Apparently there are still some fools who die on the mountain bike tour but I was not one of them. We were babysat a little too much by the tour guides to my liking but I compensated by smoking copious amounts of marijuana during the 10,000 foot descent. Even though we had our nannies with us, the tour was still fun. It was nice being able to hurl down the side of a mountain without carrying half of my body weight in gear. I consistently stayed at the front and only had to ask the tour guide in front to move faster once.
After studying a map of Bolivia, I have decided on a rough course of where I want to go in Bolivia. I am in Oruro right now and I plan to traverse Sucre, Potosì, el Salar de Uyuni, and Tarija in that order. Once I get close to the Salar de Uyuni, I will be in a very remote part of the country so I am mentally preparing myself for the monotony of eating nothing but cans of tuna and cookies and riding on dirt roads for days on end. It should all be worth it, though, as the Salar de Uyuni is best described as an extraterrestrial, altiplano desert. If I play my cards right, I should be able to pass through the town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed on the way to Argentina. I had back-to-back one hundred kilometer days on the way to Oruro from La Paz so there is a possibility that I will complete my tour of Bolivia in less than a month.
George Bush really opened up a can of worms with his excessive use of the word terrorist to describe pretty much anyone that disagrees with the dominant imperialist agenda whether it be religiously fanatic Muslim suicide bombers in the Middle East, left-wing narco-rebels in Colombia, or, now, animal rights activists. What the hell does terrorist mean anyway. If the definition of terrorist is someone who terrifies in order to coerce change or adherence to the status quo than I propose that the U.S. government qualifies. We are, afterall, the only country to ever detonate a nuclear bomb on a civilian target. The government of Evo Morales has taken a cue from the Bush school of rhetoric. He blithely calls the supposed international assassins, that his government filled with bullets, terrorists. I usually support Evo Morales's actions but this goes too far. Even if the government has incontrovertible proof that these men intended to assassinate the president, these men should have been arrested and not killed while sleeping during a S.W.A.T. style raid. The pictures of the so-called "terrorist" ringleader naked and bloody in his bed belie the governments case that they were planning actions. If the government really had proof of their intentions they should have tried much harder to arrest these people and bring them to justice. Extrajudicial assassinations of terrorist subjects set a bad precedent but I can only say that the Bolivians are learning from us.
I admit that my creation of the Ganjobicicletholic is more in the spirit of Abbie Hoffman than of Martin Luther but I have been thinking a lot about morality and how it needs a serious updating. My objection to the major religions of the world is that their morality is obselete. I can see how homosexuality would be considered sinful in a patriarchal society. When the man is always in charge in a relationship, who is in charge in a relationship between two men? One uppity bottom challenges the entire patriarchal hegemony of power. When the vast majority of people tend the earth and the average life expectancy doesn't exceed 40, be fruitful and multiply makes a lot of sense. The problem is that when the earth becomes overpopulated, as it has, being fruitful and multiplying only fucks things up worse. Old-time religion also lets people off too easily for their profligate, consumer-whore ways. What is worse, a man stealing bread to feed his family or a man buying a $10,000 Rolex when there are people starving in the world. How about when a man buys a $1,000,000 Ferrari that gets less than 10 miles to the gallon when he could buy a much more practical car for much less or, even better, ride a bike. The religious leaders of the world stand in shocking silence, or worse enable this selfishness as our society celebrates these pompous asses. If this world were truly just, as those who believe in an omnipotent god would have us believe, the Ferrari driver would feel such a palpable sense of hatred anytime he left his house that he would not buy the Ferrari in the first place. For me there is nothing wrong with having money. It is the obscene displays of wealth that irk me. Religious leaders are too busy bickering about homosexuality and abortion to realize that we are destroying this planet we will soon send the human race to extinction if we don't drastically alter our behavior. For this reason, religion needs a serious updating.
As a quick note, the Supreme Court of the U.S. recently said it was okay for the F.C.C. to fine television networks even for the accidental airing of expletives. This decision pisses me off. What the fuck is wrong with cursing, goddamnit? Since the internet is, thus far, free from this censorship, which in my opinion is a direct violation of the First Ammendment, I have only one thing to say: fuck the skull of the rotting corpse of Jesus while fingering the Virgen Mary. I think I will silkscreen a shirt that says this and wear it to church.
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