A tribute to my cousin Wendy

As we come to the end of the month of February we remember my cousin Wendy, and we just need to stop and reflect how precious life is. We can think of this time as a somber, sad time or we can celebrate her life and be thankful that she gave us her love and she enriched our lives, and in the process made them better.
So we give thanks to God for having chosen us to be blessed by Wendy's life. God is our creator, our father and our comforter; he brings us peace even in the middle of the storm.
To know what kind of a person Wendy was we can look at her two “kids” and what kind of a parent she was, that's where we can say the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
We say at times her life was cut too short. I believe that in God's eyes her life was neither short nor long, but just the exact length, and I believe that we all serve a greater purpose than ourselves, and therefore Wendy fulfilled that purpose, she blessed her parents, she touched the lives of many people, through her work and friendship, and she was the older sister to my cousin Ian.
In our short paths in this world we cross and share other people's paths, sometime for a longer period than in others, but that doesn’t mean than by being shorter the sharing is less fulfilling.
When I met Wendy for the first time in 1978 she came across as a shy and fragile person, she was a teenager then. It was in 1979 that we truly developed a close relationship, including a visit just the two of us to London on the boat that goes from Embankment to Greenwich. The last time Emma, our kids and I visited Leavesden was in 1998, she was a mature woman then, but still fragile, vulnerable and somewhat shy. I guess that was what made Wendy somebody you could love. She had a little bit of a hard time at the beginning but she would open her heart to people, and end giving the best of herself in every relationship. Most people don’t have that asset.
So now, again, I like to thank God for allowing us to share Wendy’s path, and in doing so we were blessed with her existence.
When she went home to God four years ago I wrote, with his inspiration, a eulogy for her, and I will finish this tribute to her here just like I did then with the words of the book of Numbers that say:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Obession with guns and other weapons

We seem to live in a country obsessed with guns. The NRA and lots of fanatics across country hide behind the 2nd amendment to the Constitution.
The 2nd amendment reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
People who say “it’s my God given right” should still be required to register any arms, whatever type, just like we are required to register driving vehicles, licenses should be required, just like we are required to have a driver's license, and seller's should also be required licenses so that they can sell, we should also have a waiting period when buying a gun, where backgrounds checks are performed.
Shows, where many of these weapons change hands do not fulfill any of these requirements. You can have a felon with a past longer than his arm, and he would out of that show with whatever weapon he wants. The NRA defends these shows, and says that the rights of law abiding citizens should not be taken away.
What a crock. That is absolutely a joke. What we have is chaos. This country has the highest amount of people behind bars in the world, the highest gun shooting in the world, deaths caused by gun, but we still believe, like in many states, that we should be able to walk in the street with a gun, that we should go to work with a gun, go to church with a gun. When is enough enough?
What it comes down to is the idea of bullying people, I am stronger or bigger than you, I have no brains but I have guns. It the same way that we behave in the international arena, invading or attacking countries.
We say that people kill people. Another joke. Guns kill people. Ask the people in Columbine, or in Virginia Tech, or today in Ohio who kills people.
I think that we should draw a line between is necessary such as a hunting rifle, and an m14 or a Smith & Wesson 45, or a Magnum 357. These are weapons to kill people.
A friend of mine once asked me if I consider moving to Texas. I said that I was not interested for two reasons, the first one The Death Penalty, something that I not only disagree with but also don’t believe in, and second, Gun possession.
Some states seem to believe that they are still in the Wild West. It’s the 21st Century. Wake up.
I live in a state that abolished the Death Penalty, and that has tight gun controls, and I like it that way.
I am not naïve to believe that we are an island, people buy them in other states with flex laws and then come here with them, but at least I know that we have big penalties for people who break the law.

The Supreme Court and the effects of Citizens United

Many times Republicans like to brag about the fact that everything should be either handled by the states or even locally.
Not necessarily when it favors their interests.
They always talk about how justices in the Supreme Court should not legislate from the bench.
We are now living with one of the most overreaching supreme courts in a generation.
This started with the election of Bush/Gore and their decision to choose a winner, by stopping the recount, probably because they feared that Bush could end up being the looser.
In 2010 they overturned a decision that was over 100 years old with Citizens United to allow unlimited corporate money in elections, with no disclosures, no traces. Republicans like to say that corporations are people. I don't know where in the Constitution it says that. And because of that they should be able to spend unlimited amounts of money to decide elections.
A few days ago they blocked the state of Montana from being able to enforce their own legislation that does not allow corporations to fund elections. Here we go with the overreaching.
They had already legislated from the bench in the Citizens United case, so that the 1% of the population have more saying in the election than the other 99%.
It is wonderful to see the Republican Candidates how they are now “suffering” the consequences of this wrong decision from this Supreme Court, with negative adds that have only turned off people in the states where primaries are being conducted.
2010 saw many states being hijacked by neo-conservatives with the help of Citizens United, and I say hijacked because Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, Michigan, and Florida, to name a few are being run down to the ground by the few at the expense of the many, with legislation that they never disclosed they would pass once in office. In Wisconsin and Ohio union busting and the elimination of negotiation, in Michigan of the governor disallowing local elections by appointing viceroys of his choosing, in Florida by destroying education, and in Virginia by trying to pass legislation that would force women who would want to terminate a pregnancy to be do a trans-vaginal ultrasound with a probe.
Talk about lets reduce government in our lives. Republicans in power are overreaching in all aspects, they want to know what you do in your bedroom, with whom, and when. They want to legislate people’s every moves. We cannot forget either that their goal is always to cut taxes, not for the average Joe but for the friends who financed their campaigns, same thing with regulations, and then we end up in a total meltdown like the one we suffered in 2008. Governor Christie in NJ wants to reduce taxes, he says. To the average family it will probably represent a few hundred dollars a year. What he should focus on is in how to give property tax relief to the families of this state, not benefit the 1% of the population. That will not revive the economy, if that is his "supposedly" goal.
Republicans always say that the government should not choose winners and losers. Ironic because that's what they have been doing in every place where they can get their hands on. They believe in corporate welfare, at the expense of everybody else, they say that we should lower taxes and broaden the base, in lame English it means lower the taxes for the wealthy and start taxing low income people to make up for the loss in revenue, so that people like my daughter who work for minimum wage pay income taxes as well. Their policies for the last 30 years have caused the near annihilation of the middle class. And when the rest of us say we need assistance they always say that there isn’t any money.

Friendship in the US/Amistad en EEUU

In 2001 my father in law while visiting us asked me if I could tell him what I felt the pros and cons of living in the US were.
A little over ten years has passed since that visit, and I still believe the same thing that I did then.
I can come up with many pros of the US.
On the other hand, the con that I told my in laws during that visit is still the same, and that is that people in the US have no concept of friendship.
A very good friend of mine who now lives in Virginia, back then used to live in the area where I live, the northeast of the country, said that I was stereotyping the whole country. I admit that I was doing that. So I can probably say that the northeast, that the New York area, is that way.
But whatever the region I may live in, the bottom line is that people who live here have no real idea what friendship is all about.
It is not casual B.S., talking about the weather, to go to a church, to go to a funeral to say goodbye to somebody.
It is deeper than that. They are very supportive. But there is a difference.
I used to work with a gentleman who was from Spain and we used to joke that you could be working for a few years in a company and when you would resign, on your last day co-workers would usually through a goodbye party. This probably would fall on a Friday. You would then call on the following Monday and the same people who through the party for you would not know you any longer. It was like they never knew you.
I can safely say that I have truly a few friends with whom I have deep friendships. Most live in Argentina.
Some people who read this may say I have a lot of friends. I’m happy for you. I ask: How many times have you been to their house? When was the last time you were invited to their house? How often do you talk to them? Are you the one who always calls?
If you’re honest with yourself you know the answer.
I find people in the US to be superficial; you just get to see a what they want to share with you. They don’t plant deep roots so that they can uproot them and move somewhere else. They are not into commitments, because it takes energy to maintain a commitment, and friendships are commitments.
One can ask how do they build relationships that can lead to marriages. There are several answers, one, you have couples that are high school sweethearts, others meet in college, church can also be a place to build relationships as well, at work, although a little bit harder.
I used to work in an office with a woman who was younger than me, she was a back stabber, competitive, and she would say that she considered me a friend. With friends like that who needs enemies. After I left she kept on calling me for quite some time until she came to the conclusion that I was not interested in her friendship. She once said that she came to work to make friends. That’s pretty sad.
When one has something to compare with it makes it easier to see the difference.
A lot of what they call friendships where I come from people would call acquaintances.
I have one friend in Argentina that I have known since 1970, we went to 8th grade together.
I have another friend in Argentina that we went to 12th grade together, and I consider him the brother I never had. Many times when we are together it seems like we don’t have to say anything and the other one knows what the other one is thinking or feeling.
I have some very good friends that, although we have lived over 26 years in the US, call us for our birthdays every year. With the exception of people in my office that know my birthday nobody else in the US knows or cares about it.
I’ve also rejoined with a few other friends that I hadn’t seen in many years, and we try to get together every year now.
And last but not least my former school mates. I left for the end because 3 years ago when I agreed to be a Facebook member the first thing that came to my mind was “I’d like to know what happened, what had become of the people from my past, and primarily of my youth.. I tried finding people from my elementary school, from the club I was member of, and primarily my high schoolmates. I graduated in a school where we were the first class to graduate, as it was a new school. We were twelve in the class, 6 girls and 6 guys. I knew that one of the guys had passed away a few years, and one I’ve been in contact for some time, so my goal was to find the other nine. So with the help of Facebook, Sonico, and Google I got in touch with one, then she put me in contact with others, and so on. In 1995 or 1996 we had had a school reunion and I had already seen some of them, but that did not last. So I felt that this time I was not going to let them slip through the cracks, so I started calling, bugging, and so on, so that when I traveled to Argentina we could have a reunion. We get together every year ever since. Some of them who don’t live in Buenos Aires even make the effort of traveling so that we can get together as many as possible. We created a blog where we can say whatever is on our mind. This keeps us together. I don’t think that I did anything less that any friend would do for another.
Friendship requires work, but is extremely rewarding. Friendship requires giving without expecting anything back, and accepting your friends with all their shortcomings and all their flaws. You love them for who they are, not what you would like them to be. And you should not change your friends because your income status changes.
There is a song in Spanish written by an Argentinian that says “Cuando un amigo se va, deja un espacio vacio, que no lo puede llenar la llegada de otro amigo”, When a friend departs he/she leaves an open space, that cannot be filled by the arrival of another or a new friend.
I think that it may be safe to say that the people in the US that I have come in contact with (this to please my friend with no stereotypes), maybe with a few exceptions, have no clue what that means, it is so foreign to them as to how poor the majority of the world is.
Many Christians who pad themselves in the back should read closely what Jesus told his disciples: There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.


(Español)
En el 2001 mi suegro me preguntó durante su visita si le podia decir cuales eran los pros y contras de vivir en EEUU.
Han pasado un poco mas de una decada desde aquella visita pero mi forma de pensar no ha cambiado desde entonces. Puedo dar una larga lista de pros de EEUU.
Por otro lado el contra que le dije a mi suegro durante su visita no ha cambiado, y es que la gente en EEUU no tiene ni idea lo que es Amistad.
Un muy buen amigo que ahora vive en Virginia, y que en el pasado vivia en nuestra zona, el noreste del pais, me dijo que estaba generalizando a todo el pais. Admito que estaba hacienda eso. Tal vez pueda decir que el noreste, que la zona de Nueva York, es asi.
Miremos como lo miremos, el tema es que la gente que vive aca no tiene idea de lo que es amistad.
No es conversacion superficial, hablar del tiempo, ir a la iglesia, ir a un funeral a decir adios a alguien.
Es mucho mas profundo que eso. Son muy solidarios. Pero no es lo mismo.
Hace un tiempo atras cuando trabajaba con un señor que habia nacido en España nos reimos de que cuando muchas veces cuando uno trabaja por un tiempo en una empresa el ultimo dia de trabajo los compañeros le tiran un fiesta de despedida, esto normalmente es un viernes. Cuando uno llama el lunes, esa misma gente se comportan como si nunca lo hubieran conocido.
Puedo decir que tengo unos pocos amigos con los cuales tengo una real amistad. La gran mayoria vive en Argentina.
Mucha gente que lea esto puede llegar a decir que tiene muchos amigos. Me alegro por ellos. Yo le pregunto: Cuantas veces has estado en sus casas? Cuando fue la ultima vez que fuiste invitado a sus casas? Que seguido hablas con ellos? Sos vos el que siempre llamas?
Si sos honesto con vos mismo sabes la contestacion.
Yo siento que la gente en EEUU es superficial, te dejan ver unicamente lo que le interesa que veas. No plantan reaices profundas dado que eso le permite plantarlas en otro lugar sin dificultad. No tienen interes in compromisos porque se requiere energia para mantener un compromiso, y amistades son compromisos.
Uno puede preguntarse como comienzan relaciones que puedan convertirse en matrimonios. Hay muchas contestaciones, parejas que se conocieron en la secundaria, o en la Universidad, la iglesia es un lugar donde se crean amistades, en el trabajo, a pesar de que no es facil.
Yo trabajaba con un mujer mas joven que yo, y era competitive, traicionera, y decia que me consideraba un amigo. Con amigos como ella no hace falta tener enemigos. Cuando me fui de ese trabajo me siguio llamando durante varios años, hasta que finalmente se dió que no me interesaba su “amistad”. En una oportunidad recuerdo que me dijo que venia a trabajar para hacer amigos. Eso realmente es lamentable.
Cuando uno tiene con que comparer ahi es donde ve la diferencia.
Muchos de los que ellos llaman amistades de donde vengo yo le diriamos conocidos.
Yo tengo un amigo en Argentina que conozco desde el año ’70, fuimos juntos a primer año de la secundaria.
Tengo otro amigo con el que fui solamente en quinto año de la secundaria, al cual consider el hermano que nunca tuve. Muchas veces cuando estamos juntos da la impression de que no tenemos necesidad de decir algo y el otro sabe que uno esta pensando o sintiendo.
Tengo muy Buenos amigos que, a pesar de nosotros estar viviendo desde hace 26 años en EEUU, nos llaman para cada cumpleaños. Sacando a la gente con la cual trabajo que sabe mi cumpleaños nadie mas en EEUU sabe o le interesa.
Tambien me he vuelto a encontrar con algunos otros amigos, y nos tratamos de reunir todos los años cuando voy.
Ultimo pero no por eso mucho menos mi ex-compañeros. Lo deje para le final porque hace 3 años atras cuando finalmente acepte ser miembro de Facebook, (o como le dice un ex-compañero de la primaria cara-libro), lo primero que me vino a la mente fue “que fue de la vida de la gente de mi pasado, y primoridialmente, de mi juventud. Trate de encontrar gente de la primaria, del club era socio, y primoridialmente mis ex-companeros de la secundaria. Me gradué en un colegio donde eramos los primeros egresados dado que era un colegio nuevo. Eramos doce, 6 chicas y 6 tipos. Sabia que uno de los muchachos habia fallecido hace unos años, y con otro ya estaba en contacto desde hace un tiempo, asi que me quedaban 9.
Gracias a la ayuda de Facebook,Sonico y Google encontré a una, ella me puso en contacto con otros, y de ahi en más. En 1995 o 1996 habiamos tenido una reunion del colegio y ya habia visto a algunos de ellos, pero no duró. Esta vuelta no iba a dejar que sucediera lo mismo, entonces empecé a llamar, a jorobar, y asi cuando viajase pudieramos tener una reencuentro. Hemos tenido un encuentro todos los años desde esa oportunidad. Algunos de ellos que no viven en Buenos Aires hacen un gran esfuerzo y viajan desde lugares del interior, de esa manera podemos juntarnos la mayor cantidad possible. Creamos un blog para que podamos expresar lo que querramos. Esto nos mantiene unidos. Yo no creo que hice nada que otro amigo no hubiese hecho.
La amistad requiere trabajo, pero es muy gratificante. La amistad requiere dar sin esperar recibir nada a cambio, aceptando a los amigos con todos sus defectos. Uno los quiere por quien son, y no quien nos gustaria que fueran. Y no deberiamos cambiar nuestras amistades porque ha cambiado nuestro posicion economica.
En castellano hay una cancion compuesta por un argentine que dice “Cuando un amigo se va, deja un espacio vacio, que no lo puede llenar la llegada de otro amigo”.
Creo que puedo decir con cierta certeza de que la gente que en EEUU con la cual yo he tenido contacto (y digo esto para que mi amigo este content que no estoy generalizando), con muy pocas excepciones, no tiene ni la mas remota idea lo que eso significa, es tan foraneo para ellos como lo hes que la gran mayoria del mundo es pobre.
Muchos Cristianos los cuales les gusta dares una palmada en la espalda deberian leer lo que le dijo Cristo a sus discipulos: Nadie tiene mayor amor que este, que uno ponga su vida por sus amigos.

The Republican Candidates that are left

I am amazed at what is going on in the Republican Primary.
We are pretty much down to two candidates, or as Mitt Romney would say “it has always been about two candidates, him and the latest flavor”, in this case Rick Santorum.
Now let’s look at both and what they have said recently: with Romney it’s very simple, he will say and take any position that suits him at the time. The interesting thing is the pay attention to what he says when he’s not repeating his memorized lines. In his recent speech in Michigan he said that Michigan felt good, that the trees were the right height, the he loved lakes, not just the great lakes, but also the small lakes, that he loves cars. I am positive that if I give that speech to scrutinize to a teenager they would be in shock that a 50 or 60 year old man who’s running for president could say childish things like these. The scary thing is that he could be the next president of the United States. He has not been able to define himself as somebody who can move this country forward.
Rick Santorum on the other hand has said that he wants to ban not only abortions but contraception. Just that alone makes him totally unelectable. Now he has started to question President Obama’s faith.
He was also comparing the president to Adolf Hitler. This is appalling. He should be ashamed of himself.
And I will include Newt Gingrich, even though I don’t see him as a contender any longer. Mr. Gingrich said on Monday that: “Barack Obama is the most dangerous president in modern American history. This administration has intellectually disarmed, it is morally disarmed, it is incapable of describing what threatens us. The president wants to unilaterally weaken United States. He wants to cut the aid to Israel for its anti-ballistic missile defense; he refuses to take Iran seriously. We are in a world that is very dangerous, and I say this to those of you who represent the next generation because you are going to bear the consequences. We are really at risk some day in your lifetime of losing an American city”.
He is saying that in the campaign, he has said that on TV to Hannity. Not only is he showing desperation because he will never be the candidate, but he is smearing everybody. He’s done that to Romney, now he is trying to use fear mongering with the fringe of the Republican Party.
The Party is desperate to elect somebody who can win, and they will do and go to extremes for that. In Main they pulled off another fraud like they did in Florida in 2000 with the Bush-Gore election. In this case they disallowed votes of people of their own party so that they could give the vote to Mitt Romney, when in fact Ron Paul could have won his first state.
As an Obama supporter I like the president’s chances every day more, especially when women, who represent more than 50% of the electorate hear that one candidate wants to ban contraception, that another wants to start attacking another country after the high number of casualties of the adventure of Iraq, and another talks about the height of the trees in Michigan and its lakes.

Thank God that Obama is the president

Today we saw a clear comparison of the choices we'll have for the election of next November. On a one hand we hand an empty suit endorsing another empty suit in Las Vegas, Donald Trump, who in the past had ridiculed and belittled Mitt Romney, was endorsing him today. Now let us look at the other side, Obama was today at a breakfast in Washington recalling his experience when his family and he met Billy Graham at the evangelist’s house in North Carolina, and that after Mr. Graham praying for him he felt the desire to praying for this great man, but that he couldn't find the words. He also spoke about the poor and the urge for taking care of them, and how the bible talks about that. We know that Romney has been saying that he does not care for the poor, nor does he care for the wealthy, this last one being a farce, and that he cares for the middle class. We know that he cares for the middle class because he is willing to pay his “fair” share of taxes, less than 15% while the most of the middle class pays between 35, and because he hides his money in Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. If we pay attention to his speeches we know that he believes that corporations are people, and that he wants to reduce taxes even more for the top 1% of the income earners, the club he belongs to, that he says that he has felt many times that he was at risk of getting a pink slip, and that he is also unemployed. I don't know many people who file taxes showing an income of $20 million a year, and brag about being unemployed.
Romney should be ashamed of himself.
After a day like this I am glad that Obama is the president, and hopefully, comes November he will be re-elected.
If the opposite is the case this country will need all the help in the world. We can still remember what happened the last time a Republican was in office with George W. Bush, the U.S. was attacked on 09/11 because he was asleep at the helm, we got ourselves into an unnecessary war in Iraq, and to put the last nail in the coffin we had the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. A great resume to brag about.