The Perfect Housekeeper

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Some years ago, I had the dubious distinction of appearing in "Granma", Cuba's Official State Newspaper. They reprinted a piece I'd written about wanting a robot housekeeper like the one in The Jetsons, so I'd never again have to deal with finding, hiring, and keeping human help. The Granma editors must've been mad with joy at this find- surely, an example of capitalism at its most decadent! Except that I didn't need a maid as a luxury,but to watch my child while I went out and earned a subsistence level salary. A housekeeper was my only option--I had no helpful relatives to pitch in. Okay, I thought. I'd just hire someone and we'd all be happy-- I had rosy memories of live-in help from pre-revolutionary Cuba. The women who helped raise me back on the island were sweet, loyal and affectionate, REALLY like "part of the family", as the invidious cliche goes. (They were probably also grateful to get three hots and a cot plus a monthly stipend in a country where you saw beggars in every street corner). I would later discover that housekeepers in the U.S. are a wholly different story. Before they ever reach our doorsteps, they save every penny to finance their way into uncertain destinies, they leave behind loved ones and familiar surroundings, they survive dictatorships,revolutions or hardscrabble societies, cross deserts, rivers and oceans, dodge searchlights, face down dangerous people. So generally speaking, the help here is tough. And resentful of anyone who has it easier than they do. Besides, "Nobody likes to clean up after anyone else", as my mother used to say. Pride is an ever-present factor. I have turned down countless women who claimed to have been rocket scientists or college professors back in their countries. But can they clean? is all that matters--I don't want to compete for status with the cleaning lady, thank you. Servants here walk around with a humongous chip on their shoulders,itching to cut whoever hires them down to size. Insubordination runs the gamut from merely slacking off, to insolence, larceny, and even child neglect or abuse. I've suffered it all; this is the flip side of the horror stories housekeepers like to tell about their bosses. In their minds, you --who are paying them -- are no better than they, because you are all immigrants. Never mind that YOU have a college education, a profession, and command of the English language, or that YOU, unlike them, don't have to work with your hands: class differences are a tricky proposition in this country. For class lines to be clearly defined in your favor,you must have the lifestyle and resources of a one percenter. Otherwise, you're just one more schmuck, vying for position with the rest of the unwashed. Haven't you ever met a plumber who makes more than you do? When hiring a housekeeper, that's the 800-lb. gorilla in the room. Then there's the matter of availability and price. Housekeepers will want to know beforehand if your place is large, or cluttered. They'll ask you to send photos, and if it looks like too much work, they'll either beg off, or they'll quote an impossibly high fee. Like, say, $400 for a two-bedroom apartment. The situation is so dire that "pre-cleaning " has nowadays become a thing. "Pre-cleaning" is tidying up the overtly dirty spots before your housekeeper gets there. Absurd? Agreed. Unfortunately, I NEED a housekeeper; I'm asthmatic; I choke on household dust and get winded easily. But even if I didn't, if I can pay to avoid housework, I will. So I keep searching for the perfect housekeeper; hope springs eternal-- despite the peremnial possibility of pie in the face. My last misadventure involved someone I really thought was ideal: a Russian woman. A European who would save me from having to countenance another Hispanic with egalitarian notions. She was inexpensive, and, if you can say this about a housekeeper, she was talented. She was fast, thorough and even enterprising, with attention to detail and a knack for organization. She was also pleasant and deferential. In return, I tried to be amenable: she asked me to pass along my discarded clothes and accessories, and I did, she asked to be referred to other potential clients and I got her a contact in my building, she even asked me to help her find a boyfriend, and I apologized profusely for being clueless in this department. Nevertheless, she appeared to be grateful. She even told me how pleased she was with our arrangement, and gave me a big hug. Things were going great, I couldn't believe my luck--until one day, it all changed. She began to mock me with her facial expressions, she started turning up her nose at the secondhand items she had solicited before, she suddenly demanded a $10-an-hour raise and I agreed. Her initial fee had been so low that the raise seemed only fair, but then she started angling to extract even more money. She asked for tips (normally given to agency workers, not independents like her). She proposed cleaning my closets for $200 extra. I turned her down on both counts. I'm thinking now, maybe she was just trying to get fired for whatever reason. One day, she just ghosted me; disappearing at the end of her shift without a word. I never heard from her again. I was floored. Hadn't I agreed to just about everything she wanted? If she wanted to leave for a more convenient situation, she could have just given me the courtesy of a notice. It was all so abrupt, that I suspected an extraneous fly in the ointment. Over the past few weeks, I'd noticed her murmuring in Russian into the phone while she worked --and she once texted me repeating something I had said, prefaced by a few words in Russian. It was obviously meant for someone else; she was communicating with The Outside. About me. Somebody had gotten to her and filled her Slavic brain with venom. I know that I can be hard to take, that I piss off some people without even trying, the bourgeois entitlement of my early Cuban upbringing is baked into my bones. Even now, weeks after the Great Russian Disappearing Act, I still have to tamp down a surge of indignation at the thought of being snubbed by the likes of this... creature. Calm down, no es pa'tanto, I tell myself. Maybe I just forgot how hardboiled Russians tend to be, coming, as they do, from such an unforgiving environment. Vladimir Putin, bombs from Ukraine, and But I thought this woman was different, so I let down my guard--even though our initial agreement was based on a betrayal. She offered to bypass the agency that had sent her to me, so I could pay her a lower amount directly and skip the middleman. And I went along. You could say it's kharma and it serves me right, but I still need a new housekeeper. Now I'm left wondering what to do differently NEXT time, so I can perhaps be spared a new source of aggravation.

Inflation Report: HANG ON TO YOUR RAGS

I'm a shopaholic; it's my only vice. What's more; shopping is good for my soul. There's nothing like the excitement of waiting to get my hands on something I've ordered online. If it disappoints upon receipt, that's okay. I'll get over it. On to the next package. I don't shop online because I'm lazy but because I'm large, and because I have specific preferences in fashion according to my age and body type. I like flowing garments that smooth over my middle, not the skimpy, revealing clothes that most stores offer nowadays. Brick and mortar shops consider the sizes and styles I wear as somewhat of a "specialty", and so they usually don't carry them. The large-size garments they do have are HORRENDOUS and positively geriatric-looking. Retailers

seem to have forgotten that the millions of Americans who got older and fatter still need clothes that fit and don't make them look like museum pieces or teenybopper wannabes. So, many of us have deserted brick and mortar for the web, a place of infinite choices where you just might find what you need. Of course, there are pitfalls. You'd better watch what you click on or you might end up with something you didn't order or want. When shopping online, you have to assume that everyone's out to rip you off because, to some extent, they all are. Give your personal information only to major websites and reputable merchants and you'll diminish the chances of identity theft. In particular, sidestep Chinese websites that carry shoddy goods and too-tiny Asian sizes. Or Chinese websites that are nonexistent and out to steal your information so they can empty your bank account. You can pick out these impostors because they'll advertise fancy designer goods for sale at improbably low prices, their writing reads like translated Chinese, their graphics are weird, their links dont work and their background information is nebulous or absent. Where are they based? How can you reach them? What are their policies? If you can't tell these things from a website, don't shop there; stick with the known sellers and you'll be (mostly) okay. As for me, I have so much of everything that I can go shopping in my own closets. I don't ever have to buy anything else again, unless I'm moved to reach for my wallet by some extraordinary piece of goods. I really don't need any more clothes, jewelry or shoes. And I'm grateful for that surplus; inflation threatens to turn online shopping into one of its many casualties. The price of everything has skyrocketed. These days, before I buy anything, I ask myself: Do I really WANT it? Do I really NEED it? But more importantly, do I already have two more like it in the closet? That's my new policy of austerity, motivated by the current economic situation. I can't tell you how often I see a pair of boots, jeans, or a dress, listed online or in a catalog at $30-$100 more than I paid last year for the very same item. Womens' sweaters made of cheap synthetics --NOT cotton or wool-- are going for $70-$90 a pop. Shoes and bags made of plastic are going for what used to be leather prices. Faux fur prices have been jacked up as though fake fur is the real thing,while authentic leather and fur are now unaffordable. Worse,sellers are making it increasingly difficult to return things, hoping that you'll give up and take the loss and let them keep your money. So I'm hanging on to my rags, and I recommend you do the same.And if I ever feel the overwhelming urge to shop, I'll just find some teeny-tiny item at a discount, buy it, and hope that it holds off my shopping addiction, at least for a while.

Like Choking on Cotton Balls

I used to work for a senior editor whose appearance reminded me of a rabbit: whitish hair, pale skin, lashless eyes, thin lips, blank stare. Her managing style was equally bland, but very precise, and in her sweet, muted way, she admitted no deviation from her editorial mandates--no flash, no passion, no fancy flights of style in the magazine pages we produced. I did learn many useful writing and editing techniques from her, but keeping in lockstep with such creative absolutism exacted a spiritual price.

It was, a coworker once grumbled, like "choking on cotton balls". That is sort of how I would describe what's happening today, as far as the propaganda being cranked out by the Old Guard press and politicians in the mainstream Democratic apparatus and aimed at what they hope is an otherwise uninformed public. They want the rest of us to choke on

cotton balls. The faked sweetness of their message conceals barbs of treason. They're saying: Let's all, Republicans and Democrats, unite for the good of our country. Let's turn our backs on the Left Wing "extremism" and "identity politics" that only exacerbate divisions. Let's, maybe, shift politically more to the center and accommodate conservatives a little more. And above all, let's donate to the Democratic Party. Give us your money and we'll achieve great things for you, we promise. And we will all be happier.

. These are all deliberate lies. What they're really hoping is to consolidate their own grip, trying to head off any shifts to the Left

caused by discontent in their constituencies. It's not only that they don't want to get off their asses and work honestly for the liberal values they are supposed to represent. It's worse. It's more like, they don't want us to push for our rights because our rights are in direct opposition to the objectives of mainstream Democrats and their Big Donors-- staying rich and in charge. So these Democrats will not admit they're putting up a veritable wall of cloying bullshit misinformation, like a dense barrier of cotton balls, to blind and seduce the public. That's why Old Guard Democrats won't admit there can be no partnering with Republicans intent on cannibalizing the whole system, that edging out Left Wing "extremism" equals trying to eliminate free expression and alternative viewpoints within the Democratic Party, that there's no sense in donating to a Party who ignores the electorate and won't give it a voice in return for its funds, that any references to "identity politics" as the Party's possible downfall are really a dog whistle against Democrats who are not white or straight, and that "shifting politically to the center" really means shifting politically to the RIGHT (which they've been doing in increments, starting with Bill Clinton, followed by Obama, now with Biden as the latest installment. Kamala Harris? Sorry, from here she smells like more of the same: a corporate Democrat masquerading as a progressive to gain votes.) Yes, times have changed since presidents like FDR and LBJ championed a more liberal social climate in the United States. But times haven't changed that much as far as our ongoing need for justice in civil rights, in the economy and in preservation of the environment. My suggestion? If you want an honest appraisal of the current situation, don't listen to Old Guard Democrats and their media cronies; start tuning in to any of the kickass leftie podcasters on YouTube. Oh, and join the Working Families Party.

Oh. Well.

We Cubans say that "Más vale caer en gracia que ser gracioso" (It's worth more to be liked than to be likeable). That must certainly be true of Donald Trump, a brazen, dangerous, repulsive "fantoche" (charlatan) who inexplicably enjoys substantial popular support. It just won him a presidential reelection in the United States. And it was no glitch, this heinous creature won comfortably-- the popular AND the electoral vote. But why? How? You could wave it off as

simply the result of a backlash from all the white, uneducated redneck bigots in our middle and southern states. But then, what about all the Latinos who voted for Trump? Gone now is the assumption that US Hispanics are knee-jerk liberal champions for the downtrodden by virtue of being downtrodden ourselves. In truth, we don't see things that way, and I recently began to suspect as much. I had been chatting with cab drivers and other NYC working class Latinos before the elections and listening to their complaints about a bad economy and about Latino newcomers as criminal liabilities who profit unfairly from public largesse (while more established Latino immigrants struggle to survive). When I was a journalist, I learned that if you hear the same opinion from two or three random individuals, then that's what La Calle ("The Street") is generally saying. It's public opinion. Too bad Democrats haven't been listening and so Latino voters--by 54%-- switched to the GOP during this election. Didn't seem to bother us that Trump has stated Latinos are rapists and criminals who are bringing the country down and polluting its bloodstream and cultural heritage. We (mistakenly) believe he is talking about those OTHER latinos, not us, not the ones whose kids were born here, who work and pay taxes. Unfortunately, Trump is a racist who imperils all of our destinies, and we need to face it. Years ago, when I first travelled out West, I met Mexicans who cautioned me to always carry my legal documents and watch out for La Migra (US Immigration) checkpoints along the roads. Otherwise, I might get sent back to Mexico, never mind that I'm Cuban. Being also from New York, I was bewildered; such atrocities were unheard of back East. Now the threat is ubiquitous. I'm already hearing fearful whispers about the possibility of naturalized US citizens being deported to strange countries,right along with the illegals. Alas, we all look the same to our would-be deporters. But we are not all illegals, nor do we want a tsunami of newcomers washing over urban areas and competing for our jobs and educational slots, driving up crime rates and giving the rest of us a bad name, depleting resources with the money WE pay into the public coffers. Why should those misgivings surprise anyone? And why should other minorities criticize us? When it came to choosing a president in 2024, many black males refused to vote for a black female. Machismo is in their DNA. It's in ours, in fact. You can't deny that Latinos of both genders love Trump's macho swagger. It has the feel of protective reassurance, or at least its promise. It's familiar. It conforms to the old caudillo (chieftain) notions of leadership; to Latinos, Trump is the much-needed "strong man" who will restore order to the mess that Democrats left behind, Latinos seem to have forgotten the harm a succession of "strong" men did to their own countries and they don't appear cognizant of the ominous fascist outlines of Trump's intended policies. But we're not the only group who ever favored personality cults over rational politics and Latino political discontent is obviously not the sole catalyst behind the virulent resurrection of Trumpism. The unvarnished truth may be that most Americans are stupid and lazy, that most don't analyze or even pay attention to the news,that most would rather facilitate a takeover of fascism than, say,fork out $1 more for a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk. Or maybe we're just looking at things the wrong way. Perhaps we are voting Republican not out of some newly developed affinity for rightwing ideology, but because we have noplace else to go. The Democratic Party Leadership has been bought out by large money interests. The Democratic Party has been consolidating its power not by fighting conservatives, but by muting progressives. The Democratic Party has been paying lip service to liberal causes while supporting the runaway capitalism status quo. The Democratic Party is now a Caucasian gerontocracy of the affluent who uses younger, colored puppets such as New York Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Richie Torres as fronts to blame the "Far Left" for their woes. This infuriates me; the only thing about it that brings schadenfreude to my soul is how divided the old troupers really are. While Kamala Harris shakes her fist at the fates that brought her electoral ignominy, Joe Biden appears positively joyful that she lost. His tacit message is "See? I could have WON, COCKSUCKERS, but you made me step aside!" (Which is exactly what he said when the party nominated Hilary Clinton over him in 2016. And lost. No wonder Old Joe appears to hate women, too.) Now he's announced "plans" to finish out his incumbency by mulling happily over his achievements. And yes, there WERE some-- largely tentative, watered-down half-measures, overshadowed by all the catastrophes that would accumulate in the end. We should have suspected as much at the beginning, when he fucked up the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, causing chaos and deaths among civilians and troops alike. We couldn't know this was just the start of a stream of failed domestic and foreign initiatives, of weak excuses for not getting things done, of not standing up to enemies and not supporting friends. So WHAT has been Biden's "legacy"? Runaway inflation? A lousy job market? Wholesale genocide in the Middle East? A nonexistent immigration policy? Failure to prosecute criminal insurrectionists? The lies intended to cover up all these disasters? Let's just say that his legacy is all-inclusive; he's become emblematic of everything wrong with the Democrats today. So folks, stick a fork in the Democratic Party; it's done. Let's all of the like-minded band together and create other avenues of thought and action. And let's hope that the rest of the country wakes up after one or two years of Trump.

Halloween a la criolla: un cuento cubano

Antes de que nos mudáramos a Estados Unidos, mis padres intentaron establecer la tradición de Halloween en nuestro barrio habanero. Recuerdo que nos llevaron en grupo de niños a tocar puertas y pedir golosinas, y había que explicar a los confundidos vecinos de qué se trataba. Entonces, nos daban barras de dulce de guayaba y puñados de kilos (centavos) prietos. Recuerdo que por aquel entonces, alguien compuso una guaracha dedicada a Halloween. Ya comenzaba la fecha (10/31) a figurar en el Calendario Nacional de Parrandas Oficiales (invento mío), cuando llegó la Revolución y acabó con todo lo que oliera a propaganda Yanqui. Eliminaron Halloween, pero nos dejaron a los fantasmas-- siempre que fueran fantasmas CUBANOS, claro, o al menos importados de Latinoamérica. Nada de Jinetes Sin Cabeza en el Valle Hudson. No sé por qué en Cuba, tantos cuentos de fantasmas--al menos, los que conozco--tienen lugar en el campo. Difícil comprender como esos paisajes soleados y verdes, bordados de lomas y palmeras, esos cielos tan azules, pudieran inspirar temor a nadie-- y es que de noche, el ambiente cambia y se vuelve más bien tétrico. ¿Será la falta de luz eléctrica? El caso es que nadie quiere que le agarre la noche dando tumbos en la oscuridad de los bosques y quizàs toparse con el fantasma cuyos chiflidos presagian muerte,o con la que llora a gritos por los hijos que mató, o con La Luz de Yara, alma en pena del Cacique Hatuey que flota por los campos de Guantànamo. Nadie quiere anochecer atravesando a caballo una llanura donde la luna lo perfila todo en plateado y negro y no se escucha màs que el silbido lúgubre del sijú (buho nativo). Nunca me encontré en semejantes circunstancias; mi familia sólo salía de la Habana para visitar a mis abuelos maternos en la provincia contigua de Pinar del Río. Entre las promesas que mi padre no cumplió fue la de llevarnos algún día de paseo por toda Cuba --partimos para Miami antes de que eso pudiera ocurrir. Debí conformarme con las historias que mi hermano mayor traía de sus excursiones escolares a las provincias, cuando los estudiantes acampaban en centrales (haciendas azucareras) abandonados. Mi hermano tejía cuentos de murciélagos revoloteando entre los tinajones,cuentos de campanas que tañían a media noche en ausencia de un ser humano que las hiciera sonar, cuentos de sombras extrañas en la oscuridad. Pero el cuento campestre que más me impresionó fue uno que hacía mi padre, de cuando aún era soltero y visitaba la finca de unos amigos. Alguna noche calurosa salieron a cabalgar en grupo, a modo de paseo y para tomar el fresco. Ya se habían alejado de la casa por varias millas cuando a lo lejos divisaron un bohío (vivienda campesina) todo iluminado y hacia allá los impulsó la curiosidad. A medida que se acercaban, podían escuchar los acordes de un guateque (fiesta campesina) en progreso. No anunciaron su llegada para no interrumpir la fiesta; más bien, se limitaron a mirar por las ventanas. Era una boda. Adentro, músicos con maracas, guitarra y un tres (guitarra de tres cuerdas dobles) animaban el ambiente. Los hombres lucían guayaberas blancas; las mujeres, vestidos de algodón a colorines. Todos bailaban. "Las guajiras sin compañero bailaban con otras guajiras", contaba mi padre, a quien por algún motivo le hizo mucha gracia ese detalle. Al centro de la estancia se veía una mesa larga, cargada de manjares típicos: yuca con mojo, tostones, arroz congrí --y un enorme lechón (puerco) que sin duda habían asado al aire libre por el día. Se acercaba la media noche y tras debatir si entrar a la fiesta,o no, el grupo de jinetes optó por marcharse. Al día siguiente contaron su aventura al dueño de la finca, quien pareció sorprenderse y les informó que por allí no había otra vivienda en millas a la redonda-- y que el bonío en cuestión estaba abandonado desde hacía muchos años ya. Incrédulos, reiteraron lo que habían visto, y el hombre ofreció acompañarlos al mismo lugar, para demostrar que era él quien tenía razón. Todos se encaminaron, ahora de día, hacia el bohío en controversia. Al llegar, vieron, no la alegre vivienda de la noche anterior, sino una casucha despintada, con puertas y ventanas tapiadas por tablas de madera. Un bohío abandonado por largo tiempo, al parecer. Para mí lo extraordinario de este cuento es que lo narraba mi padre, un hombre serio e incapaz de recurrir a la charlatanería para entretener a nadie. Y que lo hacía en una voz normal y serena, cual si estuviera describiendo un día de lluvia, y no una noche de fantasmas.

The U.S., Arabs, and 9/11: General Sherman Remembered

As I write this, Israel, with help from the US, is waging war on Arabs, and Arabs are retaliating. And some of us who remember the bad old times are waiting for the other shoe to drop--how will we have to pay for THIS? Years ago, shortly after Arabic terrorists crashed two jet airplanes into the twin towers in lower Manhattan, I happened upon a collection of New York Times Magazine essays about the tragedy. The authors all sounded quite shaken by the rawness, newness, and atrociousness of the thing. Their horrified voices reminded me of a poem my grandfather taught me: "Vinieron los Sarracenos, y nos molieron a palos, que Dios está con los malos, cuando son más que los buenos." It was about how Arabs expelled Visigoths from Spain in 711 by grinding them to a pulp, because "God is with the bad guys when they outnumber the good". Although its authorship is in question, some scholars say Visigoth King Roderick wrote it. The New York Times essays had that same plaintive tone, same theme of Arabs grinding good guys to a pulp. But one particular essay stood out to me. It was by a Southerner, or maybe a longtime transplant to the South, comparing 9/11-- not to the conquest of early Spain by the Moors--but to one particularly egregious episode of the American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea. In different parts of the United States, people feel differently about what matters. Maybe that's why 23 years later, I've been unable to retrieve the author's name from the annals of New York Times history online. Has he been forgotten? Maybe. This writer was a Southerner spinning a tale of regional angst-- so do New York Times readers really care, 23 years later? I'm probably one of the few who does. Because I'd spent considerable amounts of time down South--specifically, Georgia--visiting relatives, bunking with them--and absorbing local perceptions of Southern culture and history. Salient in their thinking was that Northern Army General William Tecumseh Sherman Lives On (and On, and On), well over 100 years after his violent conquest of Georgia during the American Civil War. And that in their eyes, he was still a villain of the first order. It's true that Atlanta has changed in the two decades since I read that NY Times essay. The city is now 47% Black, and Blacks don't talk about Sherman. He didn't burn down THEIR property because,as you'll recall, they had none back then. But the 43% of whites who huddle in nearby commuter towns and in the leafy neighborhoods that ring downtown Atlanta are still talking about what happened to their forebears. Then there's the rest of Georgia, where Whites outnumber blacks by nearly 20%, and those Whites will remind you that in 1864, Sherman cut a 60-mile wide swath of death and destruction, from Atlanta in Northern Georgia, to Savannah, 285 miles South, by the Atlantic Ocean. Sherman's infamous March to the Sea lasted a month; his goal, to demoralize and eliminate any support for Southern Armies opposing him in the region. Which he did. Southern property was destroyed and white civilians butchered or abused along the way. Southern tombs were desecrated at the end of the road, in Savannah. The North won the war and President Abraham Lincoln won reelection. Revisionist historians now try to whitewash the sheer brutality of Sherman's March to the Sea by calling it "cruel but necessary." White Southerners, however,continue to see Sherman through the collective memory of their victimized ancestors. People still talk about which towns were razed or left standing, whose great-great granddaddy's barn got burned to the ground, which mansions were totaled and which merely raided by Northern invaders.Then there's the (unverified) assertion that even now, 160 years later, you can see physical traces of the catastrophe from the air. And way above that, above the folk tales of woe, above the smoldering embers of incinerated "legacies", the lament still floats: "why did this happen to us?" Southerners seldom mention that between 17,000 and 25,000 enslaved blacks were freed by Sherman during the March to the Sea. Southerners may want to forget that they held slaves, that they habitually owned, bought, sold, mistreated and even killed, other human beings,that they kept them dispossesed and in abject ignorance. They may want to forget, but others remember. What's more, my New York Times writer suggests that the Advent of Sherman was some sort of biblical vengeance wrought upon Southerners by a God outraged by slavery--and by the blind arrogance of those who still don't understand what their people did to "deserve" the March to the Sea. And here's where my essay writer's comparison to 9/11 comes in. He writes that Americans wring their hands and search for karmic justification to September 11, 2001, when Arabic terrorists crashed four planes into American soil, killing thousands of innocent civilians in Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington DC. We lament: "Why us? Must be because those Arabs hate our freedom and our Democracy". Yet grieving patriots seldom acknowledge how the US has traditionally interfered with Arabic countries stealing their resources, manipulating their governments, battling their religion, supporting their enemies. Does any of that ring a bell? Antebellum Southerners were enslavers of black people; modern Americans have shared in the attempted colonization of brown people.Thus, 9/11 and the March to the Sea could be interpreted as forms of karmic payback. Of course, that would justify neither. One kind of barbarism doesn't absolve another; all who suffered and died during both 9/11 and the March to the Sea are at least worthy of compassion-- no matter what they, their ancestors or their relatives may have done. The point is not to assign blame, but to try to see the nature of a tragedy, its sources, its whys and wherefores,so we may be better equipped to countenance despair and temper it with understanding.

Cognitive Dissonance

This is NOT a pro-Trump MAGA diatribe. Far from it. Trump and most Republicans, with their fascist politics and shameful grandstanding, aren't even an option for sane voters in the USA Presidential Elections in November 2024. We won't discuss them here because they're beyond the pale, beyond the realm of possibility for functional governance. Trouble is, Democrats aren't too far behind. They'll tell you something but you'll be seeing something else. Is the Democratic Party trying to gaslight you for your vote? You know that things aren't as great as Biden claims when large corporations are doing massive layoffs. And nobody, least of all the corporate Democrats who are now running things, objects to this. After all, that's the way of capitalism: a downsized corporation becomes more profitable, the stock price goes up, stockholders get happier, richer, fatter. But Wall Street and Main Street are not the same thing, stockholders are a comparatively small elite. What about the many wretches who lost their jobs in the downsize? Where do they go? Where's the wide open labor market Democrats keep extolling? Where are the many jobs that the economy has supposedly added? Whatever jobs ARE available--do they offer decent pay and benefits? Nope. But nobody will tell you that, nobody will admit that steady employment is fast being replaced by minimum wage gigs or three-month contracts with temp agencies. And that even

those minimum wage gigs are hard to come by; I invite you to apply for a job online. If you seek a position walking dogs, you'll have to compete with 150 other applicants for the privilege of scraping dog shit off the sidewalk. You'll soon discover that major employers want college degrees from schleps who will be required to stack shelves or bag groceries. Worse, you'll need two of these lousy jobs because the pay won't go very far, now that prices are soaring. That's another example of cognitive dissonance: if as Democrats claim, inflation is abating, why are we always broke? There's evidence of this kind of doubletalk and deception everywhere. If the US is the "good guy" in foreign policy issues, why are we contributing to the genocide of millions of Palestinians? Or why has Biden been ignoring the mess at our Southern border? Or the disruptions provoked by masses of immigrants streaming into our cities unsupervised, unfunded, unvetted? These people are draining our resources and making our streets more dangerous, while Biden just lets the problem build up and Progressive Democrats advocate for leniency at the border. None of this represents our opinions or serves our needs as USA Latino voters: We don't want our lives overrun by these strangers, we need border control and financial aid to our cities, but nobody is listening to us. Because Biden wants to ignore the true nature of his base: it is largely composed of brown people-- Latinos, Arabs-- and educated white kids. And let's not forget the black voters who revived his anemic bid for the Democratic primary in 2020. Unfortunately, Biden craves voters who are white old men like him, but those are already taken. Trump has got them, and they ain't going nowhere, as far as anyone can tell, though this doesn't seem to discourage Biden. It will take more than that bit of reality to dent his determination to remain on the throne. Biden, you see, is a guy who feels outdone by the young black upstart who managed to get to the presidency before he did, a geezer who just wants to be President once more before he drops dead, and fuck everything else. Despite his folksy charm, his famous gift for compassion born from personal suffering, he strikes me as an arrogant old coot. Efforts to make him look warm and cuddly fall flat, licking ice cream during photo ops won't make him a nicer person; his nasty nature slips out when he interacts with rank-and-file journalists. Biden has managed to squelch all divergence of opinion within his party to make himself the only choice for the presidency in 2024. Additionally, it's not customary or easy to primary an incumbent, and a progressive third party candidate might split the vote in favor of the GOP. What to do? Biden is IT and he plays on this, because he knows that Trump shouldn't even be an option with non-crazy voters. So I guess we will have to vote in Uncle Joe, the lesser evil, while refusing to believe his bullshit and working to force a more righteous conscience onto his second term.

My Date with a Girl: A Valentine’s Day Tale

I divorced twice, back in the days when nice little Latinas didn't move out on their parents unless they were safely married. To do otherwise was disreputable, so I married both times to get away from my parents--specifically, my mother, a creature straight out of Joan Crawford's meanest maternal exploits (Read "Mami, dearest", April 2021). So, I never really enjoyed one of those idyllic, Hallmark relationships of mutual adoration so celebrated in song and poetry. I've had the dubious privilege of having my heart broken, of feeling that sort of temporaty insanity that typically washes over the lovestruck, and that has to be enough for me. Because mostly, I've loved men who didn't love me back and vice versa. I suspect that many other women are in the same boat though they would never confess it, because all these years after "spinster" became an outdated term to describe a single lady, it's still shameful for a woman not to be someone's object of desire. Like it or not, a woman's value is still largely measured by whether some man wants her, so we tend to choose loveless liaisons rather than being alone. I've seen gorgeous, accomplished women marry wretches just so they can be married. It's been said that if you can't get what you like, you better like what you can get, but I say it's more dignified to be alone than to hook up with some freak. Yes, it's always possible for just about anyone to scrape the bottom of the barrel and come up with some reject to marry. (And if calling undesirable men "wretches", "rejects" and "freaks" seems cruel, remember how cruel men can be when discussing females among themselves). I'm reminded of the stories about women sitting outside prison gates, waiting to take home newly-freed strangers. Likewise, if I wanted a partner badly enough, I could head over to Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel and pick out a new arrival from the stream of indigents crossing the border. Or I could pair off with my adoring roommate, a dwarf with a yarmulka and a leer. Or with one of the psychos who board at the local hospital (I once had a suitor like that). Or I could try to steal my ugly neighbor's handsome artist boyfriend (he's willing)--and support him, like she gladly does. But I'd rather hold out for someone who doesn't look like Quasimodo, is in reasonable mental and physical health, unattached, straight, respectful and solvent. Age is no problem--I don't mind younger guys and they don't seem to mind me (the love of my life is 18 years younger). And anyway, I'm approaching the time when men my age or older start dropping like flies. My requirements may seem like a low bar for older single women, but they're really a tall order in today's seller's market of mature dudes, also pursued by younger women looking for sugar daddies. So I'm still waiting for my prince. Point being, anyone can get a guy if she's willing to pay any

price. Even knowing this, Valentine's Day is still my most hated holiday besides New Year's Eve (which I call "Compulsory Be Happy Night"). Valentine's still depresses me, making me feel like a loser, as though I'm missing out on something vital, as though I've been excluded from some important club. On this note, I have to wonder why merchants never bothered to expand the concept of Valentine's Day beyond sexual love into all kinds of affection, say, love for your siblings, or your favorite old teacher, or the unfortunates you help when you do volunteer work. That would be more lucrative for the economy and more pallatable for people who are not coupled off. But back to me. I have found a way around my anemic romantic history, I may not have the memory of a great forever love to my credit, but I do have the memory of some single, magical evenings with wonderful people I never saw again. By "people", I mean men, of course. A friend once said that becoming a lesbian is like "giving up". Anyway, I'm not attracted to women and have never been with one, which is what makes this next Valentine's Day Tale so weird. It was a Friday or Saturday evening, and I was drinking alone in a semi-seedy bar accross from the Roosevelt Island Tramway station on 2nd Avenue. Two stools away from me was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, with straight, shoulder length black hair and a navy blue business suit. Her voice was low and smooth, her demeanor poised and intense-- I don't remember her smiling once during the whole evening. And I don't remember what we talked about, but at some point, she said something along the lines of "let's get out of here", and I accepted. We drove to Greenwich Village, to a little blues club much in vogue at the time. We sat at the bar and she slid her arm accross the back of my seat, without touching me. She was paying for everything and I let her. I realized that she had adopted the role of the man, though there was nothing masculine about her. It was more like like play-acting; I don't think she was gay, and there were no sexual overtones to her attitude. She was just being a gentleman and I felt strangely comfortable with that. Eventually, my mystery woman drove us back to the place where we had first met; our goodbyes were brief and curt, no mention was made of ever meeting again. But if she had proposed it, to this day I really don't know what I would have said.

Is it “Me, too”, or “He, too”?

One day, during the weeks leading up to my retirement from Manhattan Criminal Court, I was leaving the building when I noticed a clusterfuck of sorts in a hallway, off to one side. A ring of court officers was blocking someone in their midst from public view, and I craned my neck to see who it was, before the court officers shooed me away. Despite the rudeness of these glorified mall cops, the best thing about working at the fabled 100 Centre Street address is that you get to witness a veritable parade of disgraced celebrities file by, on their way to jail or exoneration. This particular celebrity straightened out, as though sniffing the air, locked eyes with me, then gave me the once -over. It was Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul of multiple- sexual-harassment-accusations fame. I was amazed not only that someone in such deep shit, someone literally ringed by his captors, could still be spirited enough to feel like checking out strange women at the very site where his infamy was being trumpeted, but also that he'd be staring at someone like me, someone way past the age when men stop ogling women, and way below the beauty standards of the Hollywood babes he supposedly harassed. In the end, he was found guilty of a total of five felonies in California and New York,and sentenced to serve a total of 39 years in both places. After our little encounter in Manhattan Criminal Court, I have to suspect this guy's a dog and probably guilty as charged. I'm assuming not all men are like that, but the species still poses a mystery for me. I find men amusing, I love their company, but I've never been able to sustain a long-term relationship with one-- I think they demand too much and give back too little. I even have difficulty getting along with my own brother. Being a woman, I do know more about women, which makes me question the wholesale legitimacy of the "me, too" movement. Successful men too often fall prey to ambitious women who feel they are owed privileges in exchange for sex. And when these women are not rewarded for putting out, they accuse the guys of sexual harrassment. Also, women often cry sexual harassment to escape blame mostly in situations where they have screwed up and are about to suffer the consequences. This gives feminism a bad name, but it happens because the social pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. As a society, we are now more than willing to see women --ALL women--as helpless victims and ALL men as ruthless predators. Sexual harassment has become the ultimate no-no. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo committed all kinds of misdeeds, yet it was his sexual harassment of female underlings that finally got him driven from office. These days, it's easier to get away with murder than with grabbing someone's ass, because when it comes down to he-said versus she-said, we automatically believe the woman's version of events. Fortunately, some awareness of this venomous trend is beginning to emerge; one female lawyer with offices in San Francisco and New York has made a career of defending men wrongly accused of sexual harrassment by women. I know about this because I tried to hire her (but she was too busy). My son had been falsely accused by some bitch who was nasty, incompetent, and about to get fired, and who tried to smear him as a way to save her own job. She claimed he had touched her inappropiately when nobody was looking. The truth is that she'd been trying to pressure my son onto picking up her slack at work, she was doing it in a disparaging, hateful manner, and he complained about it to the Human Resources Department. So she accused him of sexual harassment. Meanwhile, for whoever thinks I'm making this up, know that there are written reports of her nastiness on file somewhere. Before attacking my son, she'd accumulated an official track record as a problem employee, the kind who, in government agencies, gets transferred from place to place before finally being let go. This is standard government practice,it takes a lot to get fired from public employment of any kind, but now her agency was finally giving up after affording her countless opportunities to straighten out. Her latest supervisor had been readying the paperwork to fire her for incompetence, laziness,and general goofing off when she accused my son of sexual harassment. Her timing was deliberate. Firing her after she'd launched a sexual harassment complaint would have been seen as retaliatory, so the termination process was halted pending an internal investigation. We lived through tense moments between the start and end of this inquiry; we realized that a false accusation could stay on my son's record and ruin the rest of his life, and that all too often, reality has nothing to do with the truth. It's more the luck of the draw, like: are the work site investigators male or female? If female, are they predisposed against men? Are they more interested in being fair than in collecting male scalps for their own careers? Will they find it easier and safer to decide against one man than to buck the overall trend of the times, which heavily favors women? "Just be yourself during the interview", recommended my brother the lawyer."Once they get a measure of your character, they'll realize that the accusations ar made up". Truer words were never spoken; my son was victimized not only because he'd spoken up for himself against a woman, but because he was an easy target. He is kind and guileless; I have never seen him be snarky or disrespectful to ANYONE. I've never heard him say anything even mildly teasing or suggestive to a woman. Even if all that were false, I wouldn't care. To me, my son is not just a man; he is a person I carried for 9 months and took 12 hours to bring into the world. Forget "me, too", there can be no stronger allegiance, and most Latinas will agree. I notice that most "me tooers" are white women. Conversely, most Latinos are mama's boys. They place mom on a pedestal and she returns the favor by staying fiercely loyal. I'm happy to report that in the end, the truth did set my son free, and that most of his coworkers--of both sexes--rushed to testify as character witnesses in his defense. Best of all, his accuser was fired, and as long as that episode remains on her record, as long as she can't obtain job references in order to move on and wreak havoc someplace else, she'll have been neutralized. And she'll be unable to victimize another poor, unwitting man, at least for some time to come.

Israel and the US vs. Palestine: Latinos, call it for what it is

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SCAM LIKELY

I never dreamed that my relationship with the telephone would become so complicated.But it has, and as a result, I barely use my phone anymore. It's partially my own fault. I hate the tyranny of service contracts of any kind, the unwelcome surprise of extra charges, the cutting of service if I don't pay by a certain date. So I have a pay-as-you go arrangement, which I've managed, tenaciously, almost desperately, to retain through the various mergers and acquisitions of the company that issued it. Of course, the corporate world hates this type of freewheeling arrangement, they want to hold you by the short hairs in every possible aspect of your life. Thus, they "grandfather" in the older, more liberal agreements for their original users while eliminating them as an option for more recent subscribers. Meaning that only if you've had pay-as-you-go for some time can you continue to use it--albeit, with new limitations. In my case, they took away my caller ID, and that's how I found out that nowadays, people generally avoid unidentified callers. If they can't see a name on the little screen,they just don't answer their phones. So if I want to talk to a human being, not a recording, I can't use my no-name cell phone. I must resort to my landline, which features,not my real name, but one of my more ridiculous screen names as caller ID. Don't ask. I don't know how it got there or how to change it, and as long as it functions as caller ID, I don't care. I can resign myself to the situation because I'm also on its receiving end--as are millions of telephone users, at least in the United States. These days, I mostly use my phone for texting, not speaking, because it allows for more time control and filtering of unwanted calls. I don't answer my phone unless the caller ID reveals a person or a company I recognize. As far as I'm concerned,all else can go fuck themselves because these days, nobody calls to help you or give you anything. On the contrary,it seems everyone has their hand out. But God forbid you should call anywhere for aid or information on some service or item you've acquired --you probably won't get a human being on the line, and the proffered websites will be next to useless. Narrow in scope, some won't even include spaces for written complaints or online chats with LIVE customer reps. In general, you'll only experience "live" calls if they are intended to make you part with your money. Everybody who calls you wants something, and the sales schemes are as aggressive as they are ingenious. The caller ID often shows what looks like a "real" person's name, intended to make you wonder if it's somebody you know but maybe forgot about--and trick you into answering the phone. Pitches come under the guise of offering you something useful "for free"-- but only, as it turns out, if you'll buy this or that. I once had a caller promise me valuable news about my labor union's new, improved benefits. She was a fast talker and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She roped me into scheduling a phone video conference with a "specialist", while deflecting all my questions about who she was and what she represented. It was only after receiving a text confirmation that I detected, in small print, a company name I didn't recognize, and I looked it up online. It was a supplemental insurance company--they wanted to sell me INSURANCE, using my labor union for cover! (I'd like to know who, in my labor union, approved such a scam.) Of course, I cancelled the video conference. I've also received pirate phone calls in Chinese (again, don't ask) and some rapacious calls even come from people I know, or know about. Dentists and audiologists call to corral me into appointments I do not need. Bank "advisors" call to sell me new credit cards or investment schemes. A physician's office once called me to propose a "concierge" service, whereby I'd pay them a monthly amount whether I saw the doctor or not.Most recently, I got a phone call urging me to reschedule a doctor's appointment that I never made to get checked for a mysterious progressive ailment I didn't know I had. Thankfully, my caller ID labels some of these annoying phone calls as "Scam Likely", so I can head them off at the pass. I hope that's one service that won't ever get lost in the shuffle. My advice: Save your breath. Don't answer your phone if there's no caller ID or if you don't recognize the name it presents.

A Rarity in this Country

Many months have gone by since the Murdaugh murder trial sent shivers of schadenfreude through the United States' collective spine. Murdaugh lost that one bigtime, and it should be noted that nowadays, his lawyers are asking for a new trial, hoping to get their notorious client off on the second go-round. Maybe they will, it remains to be seen, and I'll be sure to disseminate the information in this space when I find out. But I really doubt that a second trial,if it ever happens, will be as sensational as the first. That one kept me glued to my TV screen, hoping the rare thrill of watching an American oligarch called to account would never end. My attorney brother and I, a retiree from the criminal justice system, armchair-quarterbacked thr whole process, texting joyfully back and forth. It was better than the Superbowl! For those of you who have been living abroad, or under a rock, I recount: Last winter, South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted of killing his wife Maggie and their 22-year-old son Paul on June 7,2021. Both were slaughtered in the darkness of their hunting lodge stables,with multiple gunshots to their head,chests and wrists. The patriarch claimed to have "found" their mutilated bodies-- until cell phone data placed him at the crime scene the very instant before their horrible deaths. However,his motive was hard to formulate, because... who in his right mind would butcher his own family? Prosecutors alleged that his business-related woes made him crazy (he'd been fired by his law firm for embezzlement). But I suspect that's just part of it: the guy stood, as they say down in Florida, up to his ass in alligators. His wife and son had become inconvenient. His wife was contemplating a costly divorce and little Paul had stirred up serious trouble by causing a female friend's death in a boating accident (he'd been drunk while steering the ill-fated boat). Now the boy was under indictment and facing a civil trial for wrongful death. Initially, Dad tried to smokescreen the mess by attempting to manipulate others involved in the tragedy, but the community reacted with indignation. No doubt this came as a surprise to him; generations of political and legal dominance in South Carolina had empowered his family to get away with just about anything. However, little Paul was still indulging in the type of behavior that had gotten him into serious trouble to begin with. Still drinking and boating with his buddies--his father must've felt he was impossible to control. Easier to kill him. At that time, the Murdaughs were also suspect in two other murders: that of their longtime housekeeper,who'd stumbled upon evidence of Alex Murdaugh's opioid drug addiction, and a gay male villager rumored to be "dating" Buster, the Murdaugh's older, allegedly straight son. Both of these unfortunate individuals had damning information on the Murdaughs, so it 's believed that the Murdaughs did something about it--even though both of these murders remain unsolved. Good thing that on March 2,2023, the dynasty got nailed on OTHER charges: Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of four counts of murder and weapons possession and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole. The judge closed by telling Murdaugh that the ghosts of his murdered wife and son would visit him every night in jail. The prosecution wasted no time singing its own praises. They paraded their staff before the cameras. They congratulated each other before the microphones. This was a big deal, indeed. "This is how it's done right here in South Carolina,y'all", they intoned. "Here,justice will prevail no matter who you are or what you have, or what yo' daddy's last name wuz". Too bad it took about a century for South Carolina justice to catch up to this family, who once exercised almost Gothic control of the area. But let's not dwell on that. Let's just celebrate that it was finally done,and that those betting Alex Murdaugh would get off scott free lost their bets. The Murdaugh conviction was nothing short of a miracle; it's easy to become cynical in this country, where justice applied effectively to the rich and powerful is a rarity. Take Donald Trump, another wealthy white patriarch repeatedly accused of crimes, not against individuals, but against the ENTIRE United States. Yet, despite the bipartisan uproar, the public indignation and even all the recently uncovered evidence of his wrongdoing (some of it from his own mouth) Trump still walks free--and one has to ask, for how long?

Stinkbombs in the Piñata

Many years ago, when my son was a 4th grader, I decided to celebrate his birthday in school. It was easier, with a ready-made guest list (his classmates, a captive audience), plenty of space in the school gym, and no worries about cleaning. I only had to buy a cake and candles, and, for entertainment,throw in a piñata.At the time, he was attending private school in a serene enclave north of NYC. The invasion of Puerto Ricans from the Bronx hadn't started yet--so nobody in the school knew from Piñatas. They had never seen or heard of such an object. They marveled at the prospect, overcome with the joyous anticipation of breaking up the thing and getting showered by candy. It was up to me to stuff the Piñata with goodies, so I did. But while I wasn't looking, my son snuck in several stinkbombs. The following day, a general uproar ensued when unsuspecting kids got enveloped in a cloud of putrid smells. School administrators shuttered the gym for two days, and my son's teacher almost got fired. Thank God I wasn't there, and I must note that in the end, nothing of consequence happened. But such is life. Stinkbombs in a piñata. Sometimes, the nastiest things come in pretty wrappings.

This is the case with the United States Supreme Court, an august group of individuals in lofty black robes. They're supposed to spout wisdom from those distinguished mouths, be a beacon of justice and fairness while lesser institutions descend into mudslinging partisanship.Instead, this Court, where rabid conservatives reign Supreme, amuses itself throwing stinkbomb decisions at a population that mostly hates its rulings. Last year, the court practically outlawed abortion in large parts of the US. This year, it weakened gun control,refused to secure access to water for the Navajo Nation, weakened labor unions' right to strike, and promoted discrimination against gays. Most recently, the court outlawed affirmative action, the practice of using race as a determining criteria for minority students in college admissions. Now race will become only one of several factors in the process of judging candidates for admission. So, is that a bad thing? Depends on who you ask, and how. Personally, I believe there are some stinkbombs in the Affirmative Action piñata. Of course, liberal black and white activists-- I haven't seen or heard too many Latinos- have set up a prodigious howl. This move, they say, will surely eliminate impoverished minorities' access to higher education. But the American public is curiously faceted on the subject. According to surveys,the majority opposes the Supreme Court being able to rule on Affirmative Action, yet it disagrees with the concept of race as a determining factor in college admissions. Moreover,this whole thing has come about because another minority, Asian students,sued Harvard University, alleging that it had used Affirmative Action to discriminate against them and favor black and brown students. It has also been said that Affirmative action doesn't really help impoverished minorities, who cannot afford college anyway. Instead, it favors middle and upper class minorities, who really don't need it because they have the advantages of affluence. Maybe the real objection is to eliminating Affirmative Action as a quick and easy way to expand minority elites. Because,you see, this ruling affects only a handful of elite institutions, the Harvards,Yales and Princetons that privileged kids compete for in large numbers. You certainly don't need Affirmative Action to get into community college, or most state-funded universities, or even run-of-the-mill private schools. All you need is a decent grade point average and the means to pay for tuition that is usually too high, even at the humblest schools. We need tuition reform for everyone more than Affirmative Action for the few. Some steps in that direction have already been taken: the Federal Government issues undergraduate grants based not on race, but on income. And they're fairly easy to obtain (you can even get help filling out the application). Finally, as a former civil servant, I've witnessed the results of the kind of tacit Affirmative Action that's practiced in government offices. Through it, and the cronyism it engenders, too many unqualified individuals manage to gain supervisory positions. This, to the detriment and disillusion of genuinely qualified employees.

El Precio de Tu “Fama”

De nuevo me entristeces, Juan Guillermo. No me sé ningún tango que le cuadre a la situación, sólo me viene a la mente un antiguo pasodoble ("Donde estás corazoooooon, n'oigo tu palpitaaar, es tan grande el dolooooor, que no puedo llorar...". De hecho, "es tan grande el dolor", que debo expresarlo aquí en español, sin el filtro de lo aprendido). Alma mía, te quise a pesar de tus rabiosos conceptos políticos de extrema derecha, tan opuestos a los míos--idiotas y torcidas que somos las mujeres. ¿Y dónde estás, corazón? Me enteré que andas por otros planetas. Hace tiempo que te había perdido la pista pero tu imagen resurgió, ahora con la estridencia de algo feo y equivocado. Y digo "imagen" por que estos días, solamente te veo por televisión en las noticias--de pasada, entre otras caras. Pero ahí estás.Y si alguna vez te creíste demasiado importante para mí, esto ya te coloca decididamente fuera de mi alcance. Tengo, sin embargo, el amargo consuelo de mi despecho. Me alegra ver que estás metiendo la pata en grande...¡y en público! Me pregunto cómo te irá en el falso mundillo de Washington, donde hacen caso solamente a quienes puedan ofrecer algo a cambio. Y tú no tienes nada concreto que ofrecer-- ni dinero, ni posición, ni influencia. Vienes de Nueva York, donde bastan la simpatía y la buena pinta para abrir puertas, y las dos cosas te sobran, cariño. Pero eres demasiado directo para un ambiente de hipocresía, eres todo inocencia en bruto: peleas con los puños y no la cabeza, boconeas sin base, sin pensar, no disimulas tus ansias de llamar la atención, tu desesperación por ser famoso. Y me imagino que en Washington te creerán burdo, primitivo. El caso es que te has colocado de asesor de un político tan deshonesto, que varios miembros de su propio partido están pidiendo su renuncia. El tipo es un gordo prieto y afeminado, repulsivo, descarado. Logró ganar su elección a base de mentiras que se han descubierto desde su victoria: mentiras sobre quién es, donde estudió, donde trabajó, de dónde sacó tanto dinero para su campaña, cómo se convirtió en millonario de la noche a la mañana. Se dice que es aliado secreto de oligarcas rusos, y que es un estafador. Cuentan cómo se lanzó a recaudar fondos para costear la cura del perro enfermo de un soldado veterano. El gordo terminó robándose lo recaudado, y el pobre perro murió sin atención médica. El tipo también es un desfachatado de proporciones olímpicas. Cuando vivía en Brazil, se disfrazaba de mujer y participaba en bailes, cabarets y concursos para transformistas-- hay fotos que aparentan comprobarlo. Antes de hacerse congresista, aspiraba al título de Miss Brazil Marica (Miss Gay Brazil). Por ladrón, lo están investigando varias entidades gubernamentales (incluyendo el Gobierno de Brazil, donde alegan que se robó una chequera y gastó lo que no era suyo). Con todo, el tipo no quiere renunciar. Van a tener que acusarlo formalmente de algún crimen para sacarlo pataleando de la Cámara de Representantes de los E.U. Y mira tú, ESO es lo que estàs defendiendo ante el mundo, vida mía, sólo que no hay defensa posible, pues todo lo que dicen sobre tu estrafalario cliente està resultando cierto. Lo único que te queda es insultar a quienes lo acusan, y correrle detrás a ese gordo--uno más de su séquito de charlatanes--por los pasillos del Capitolio. ¿No te da vergüenza? ¿No te da asco? ¿No te preocupa tu reputación? Parece que no. Lástima que pese a tus esfuerzos, los medios informativos mayormente te ignoran, mencionándote sólo para burlarse. En las plataformas sociales del Internet, la gente se pregunta si en verdad existes, o si eres un invento más del gordo descarado. Ya ves, esa fama que buscas a cualquier precio de todo modos te elude. Y en algún momento, el gordo te abandonará, si puede rodearse de gente mejor conectada (de hecho, ya lo está haciendo). O si lo botan del Congreso. Ya ni te usa de vocero, pues prefiere acapararse el resplandor de la notoriedad. No creo que vaya a servir de vehículo para tu propia fama. Ahora estoy viendo que tú también estás gordísimo, tan bello que eras, y me pregunto si es por infelicidad, depresión o angustia. Si tuvieras algo de conciencia y mejor criterio, podría creerlo. Pero sabiendo lo que sé, lo tengo que dudar

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So, tell us… what race are we?

Last night, the dolce far niente of my retirement was interrupted by a telephone pollster from the NYS Deparment of Health and the Siena College Research Institute. The guy said I'd been selected "randomly" for a survey, but was a little too vague about how the gathered information would be used.At first, I was sorely tempted to beg off, then decided that for 10 minutes of my time, I could be a good sport. And the interview unfolded pleasantly enough, covering my opinions on everything from the legal drinking age to breastfeeding in public. However, things came to a screeching halt when he asked me my race. I told him I really didn't know and I was not joking: you see, I'm whiter than some folks, not as white as others. My son (photo above) claims that, like critters in the bush, I have "protective coloring" because of my light hair, skin and eyes.He says I can almost "pass" for white; although of course, I'm not. My son subscribes to American absolutist notions of race because he grew up in the States, and because he cannot be mistaken for anything but brown. It's true that race is not totally a social construct--there are visual considerations as well. Some people are unmistakably white, black or Oriental. In between, there's a whole range of skin shades: race is a spectrum, a continuum from pale to tan and black. And to date, there aren't enough little boxes on paper to check off and identify everyone's place on that spectrum. But really,it should depend on the mirror: you are what you look like, end of story. At least, that's how most Latinos think. For us, a black woman can have white children and viceversa. Or you can be white and have black siblings. None of that one-drop rule that blacks in this country so fervently espouse. American blacks think that if you look white but your great-great grandmother came from Mozambique, you're black. Latinos believe that with time and intermarriage, families can "evolve" into whiteness--regardless of where their ancestors came from. "It's racism with an escape hatch!", exulted a black friend when I explained it to him. Another black friend views such notions of racial fluidity as insulting,heretical. She claims that on employment and government forms, the denomination "other" really means "other niggers". The issue is that in the US, determining race is not that simple. It is a process fraught with sociopolitical meaning, because assigned race is a form of currency that places top value on whiteness. So naturally, everyone wants to be white, and "established" whites become the arbiters of racial assignation. Whites decide who's white. It's a way of neutering competition from nonwhites trying to share in race-based social privilege. Race thus becomes a matter of perception: it depends on who you're talking to and what they think you are. Race in the US is also a matter of geography, where the racial goalposts keep moving according to where you're standing. For example, in Miami, (where my fellow Cubans adamantly insist on their whiteness) I' m definitely white, but in NYC, maybe not so much. So who's White in America? It's a matter of shifting opinions rooted in historical convenience. Greeks and Italians, for example, weren't considered white until late last century. Even so, their whiteness was assigned begrudgingly and given a separate status to appease WASPy sensitivities. Greeks and Italians became "ethnic" whites (a euphemism for "Inconclusively White", if you ask me). They stumbled upon that dubious distinction because at some point, whites decided to officially expand the notion of whiteness so they wouldn't be outnumbered by the surge of other races within the US. Of course, it's impossible to convey even half of all this during a 10-minute interview with a pollster. After all, these ideas are not my own, I adopted them because they make almost lyrical sense to me. They can be found in Critical Race Theory and in the book "Whiteness of a Different Color" by Matthew Frye Jacobson (Harvard Press). And though I swallowed that book whole, ideologically speaking, and though I do recommend it, I note it has been relegated to curiosity status by a literary establishment that likely prefers more familiar American notions of race and caste. But back to the survey: While I kept trying to dodge the issue of my own race, the pollster kept trying to wear me down, asking different versions of the same question: : "Well, so what are you?" I finally gave up and told him that I'm white--only because the survey didn't include any other options that might better accommodate reality. There was no "other" category, for example, and no "brown"--and "Hispanic", as we all should know, is not a race, but an ethnic denomination spanning people of many different colors who speak the same language and are culturally similar(NOT identical). And though I know that enlightening Americans (no pun intended) will take more than modifying sections on race within official paperwork, doing just that might be a good start towards expanding public consciousness about race over time.

In the Matrix

Too often,I think I live in a sort of matrix, enveloped by something alien that's trying to force-feed me its version of current events--while my common sense is telling me otherwise. In the United States, there are two big propaganda machines, each grinding out its own version of The Truth: the one promoted by rabid conservatives and the one favored by the Biden crowd. Their propaganda machines are the Mainstream Media, the pundits on TV, talk radio and the print outlets who widely disseminate views on either side. There's Fox on the extreme right, MSNBC (supposedly) on the left. There's the New York Post on the right and the New York Times on the left. And so on, down the line. Sane consumers reject rabid conservative Republican views, but find little comfort in modern Democratic attitudes. That's because both Republicans and Democrats are in the pockets of the rich. The Democrats in charge are really corporate conservatives, more interested in keeping their donors happy than in meeting the needs of the little people who voted them in. They'll say things that sound progressive, then do nothing to promote true liberal goals: affordable housing and education, decent laboral conditions, fair pricing, fair wages, reproductive choice, voting freedom, gun control and health care for all. Democrats in power say that they are "centrists", and that centrism is the only way to pacify Republicans and dissuade them from trying to destroy the Democratic Party. They claim "extreme" liberalism--or what's needed to right socioeconomic injustices in this country--will only frighten Republicans into further hostility. And so, their main struggle has been to foil progressives within the Democratic party, instead of battling the Republican thrust to take over this country. Except for senators Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (Massachussetts), the stars of the progressive movement are people of color, most notably, representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Ayana Pressley (Massachussetts) and Rashida Tlalib (Michigan). These women, known as The Squad, have been effectively silenced by centrist Democratic heavyweights the likes of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. So "Centrist" becomes just another word for "conservative", make no mistare. And when you hear the term "both sides", you are really listening to a camouflaged conservative argument because we all know that there's only one side, the side of truth and justice. And the truth is that there's no justice for average Americans struggling to survive on many fronts while the current Democratic leadership does nothing about it. There's no profit in it for our "leaders" ; it's been that way for decades, Clinton was Republican Lite, and Obama was all flash and no substance. And supposedly liberal mainstream media only parrots the corporate Democrat view, so forget THEM. If you want the truth unvarnished by politics, you have to resort to the independent YouTubers who freely voice their indignation at what's going on. And if you want solutions to the popular plight, don't look to Washington. Start building a liberal movement from the ground up. Start mobilizing to elect true liberals to state and local office. There's some indication it's already happening. In the recent primaries, true progressive candidates swept by corporate Democrats with much larger war chests. Of course, the mainstream media didn't mention it, but there are stirrings of a mass movement that's trying to break out of the informational matrix we've been dozing in for so long.Let's hope the trend continues.