Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

There may be more than two sides to every question, in fact the number of sides from which a question may be viewed is only limited by our imagination, and we’d be a lot better off if we’d try to find 20 or 30 alternative sides, before jumping in on one or the other.
Because that is what we tend to do, and you can see that very clearly on Facebook. You’re either for or against the Dakota pipeline, for or against legalization of marijuana, for or against abortion, for or against guns, and it’s a damned shame because positions get hardened, there’s no room to back up or maneuver, both sides are massed at opposite ends of a high walled canyon, ready for a clash, and somebody’s going to get hurt.
The latest bifurcation is Castro. Some love him, some hate him, and there are not nearly enough people adding the almost necessary ‘but’ after that initial phrase, or looking beyond their initial viewpoint even a little bit. Someone could say “I love him but, on the other hand, throwing people in prison for being gay was a bit harsh,” or “I hate him but, yeah, health care and education.”
We can deal with this one, because he will still be dead two weeks from now, but everybody will have stopped talking about him.
The Cubans in Miami will go on hating him until they die, but they are never getting their villas back. And most people don’t really care that much.
One of the scarier comments I saw (and most people won’t see this as scary, some might see it as benevolent and well intended, some might see it just as obvious) was “Cuba deserves a better government.” Of course, the comment came from an American, as if we had any moral authority to lecture other countries on their leadership at this point in time.
Let Cuba decide what kind of government Cuba wants. We’ve tried to beat them down no for more than half a century, and it didn’t work. Just let it go. The Monroe Doctrine was a dumb, and arrogant doctrine.

Had to go to Pisek today, site of oldest stone bridge in the Czech Republic(very historical), for Isabel’s dance competition. We got them (Isabel and her friend) to the theater on time, and noted right away the advantage of this over going to Sam’s football games: this was indoor, in a theater, with comfortable seats, as opposed to outdoor with no bloody seats at all.
Still, Izzy’s team wasn’t scheduled to compete until 6 so we watched the first 3 or 4 acts and then went out for some lunch and a walk around the town. We crossed the bridge in a light mist, it was a beautiful view of the town and the river, just below the weir. But the perception of the beauty of mist is a tenuous thing, and dissipates with time, in this case about 5 minutes and I was anxious for something to eat and then it kind of actual rain, so we ducked into a passage to get out of the rain and at the other end of it, lo and behold,was a restaurant. Chicken and fries for me, Pork, dumplings and sauerkraut for Helena.
Then we went back to watch the rest.
I was kind of amazed at the talent, and I’m glad Isabel is involved with it. Competitive dance is a sport, it’s good exercise and teaches teamwork, and discipline, and sportsmanship, so that’s all good, but the music is all brash and aggressive and often has words I am quite certain the Czech audience doesn’t exactly understand, but they’ve got the gist, the angry, rebellious tone and all of the kids are doing scowly poses while flashing what looks a lot like gang signs, it’s a bunch of young white kids doing Hakas, which is bizarre, but what the heck, I’m not their art director.
On the way home we were listening to Lyse Doucette (not sure of the spelling, can’t be bothered to look it up)on the BBC, on the occasion of Castro’s death, and she said something like (not exact words but I’m not exaggerating) “Only time will tell if Castro is remembered as a significant world leader or an anomaly.” What an incredibly stupid thing to say. It’s very clear that history will regard him as a significant world leader. He had millions of American schoolchildren taking cover under their desks, he outlived and outlasted Ike, JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
You can argue good or bad, plenty of ammo on both sides there, but you can’t deny he was significant. That’s just silly.
Another thing that bothers me in the conversation about Castro is that they (they being mainstream Western media) always say is that the embargo was necessary because Castro was so horrible and one of the reasons he was horrible is because he wrecked the Cuban economy. No, he didn’t. The embargo wrecked their economy.
In any event, he is dead. At 92. Which is not a bad age at all.

When I got home today, about6:30, and dead tired from dealing with crazy little kids, I had two writing projects in mind, neither of which was difficult, and one of which was this blog, which I’m doing now.
Then I went out to the balcony and smoked a joint, because it’s Friday afternoon and I owe myself that, I have decided, and while I was out there H called and said to meet her at the Chinese for dinner. Isabel and I went, but Sam was out with friends so would meet us at the restaurant, which he did, but late enough that we just got his meal to go.
Then H laid a 3rd writing project on me, which is also not a biggie, but every couple of days I write a news article in simplified English, we swipe something off the internet, you know “Florida Man…” type stories. Florida Man Bites Head off Hamster, Florida Man Killed in Argument over Hot Sauce, and then we post them to some Swiss school’s website, we’ve been doing it for years, takes about 15 minutes, but longer when you’re stoned. Much, much longer.
The 3rd writing project was just to transcribe the 3 new stanzas I wrote today for my latest poem which is going to be a book “The Meaning of Life in Easy English,” which is kind of a schizophrenic thing and I’ve no idea what demographic this will appeal to because it kind of starts off sounding like a kid’s book, it’s inspired by flash card lessons which i do all the time, but then it very quickly turns into something different.
Oh, well. There’s the blog written anyway and I’m off to bed.

Had a brief moment of panic today, but it was all O.K. in the end. After my Gymnasium classes, I have almost an hour and a half to get to my last class of the day, a crew of 7, the youngest of whom is five or six, and the rest are about 3 years older than that. It takes about 10 minutes by bus, and it’s not too far to walk, certainly not given that amount of time, so off I went. On the way I noticed that there were some woods paralleling the street, so that the shops and houses formed a reverse idiot strip and I thought “Well, it is a lovely, misty day for a walk in the woods and it’s not going to take me out of my way at all.” Hah. By the time I made my way out of the woods, I had no clue where I was and not much more which direction I should be headed. Fortunately, I was near a bus stop and so looked at the schedule and found the stop I needed just one stop away, in the opposite direction of what I’d thought. So,I’d walked right past my destination, and may make that my regular route, weather permitting.
I called a guy a retard on Facebook today and don’t even regret it, to tell the truth. Birther. Yes, they still exist.
Just got home from a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s bar. Lots of variety in the food, and met some nice people, but was a bit surprised at how few people were there who I actually knew. The host and one other. We left the kids home to eat spaghetti because they insisted and, in the end, they were right. Nobody else brought kids and they would have been dead bored. Thankful they are old enough we could do that.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving at the end of an absolutely horrible year for the world, so I’m going to focus on the little things I’m thankful for, the stuff close to home, like that my wife makes a great apple pie; that I know somebody, here in Prague, who is hosting a Thanksgiving pot luck and it will be a great excuse to get together with some people I haven’t seen for a long time; that Sam, while I doubt he’s going to get mostly 1s on his report card, at least does not seem to be flunking or causing problems, that is to say we haven’t got any of “those” phone calls from the teacher so far this year; that Isabel is really enjoying her street dance classes and seems to be doing well at it (first public performance and competition – yeah, it’s a competitive thing – will be this weekend); that I’ve got a full schedule and really like most of the people I’m teaching this year even the little brats I taught today, definitely my worst class, they run around the room, they refuse to listen to me or do what I say, they hide under the tables, but still they are cute kids and make me laugh somtimes. Stuff like that.