Category Archives: Digressions

I have seen the movie Syriana twice, and although I did not love it, I did appreciate the film. I thought that it did a good job of portraying the complicated and intricate interrelations amongst various political and economic interests that make up the U.S. Middle Eastern policies (as well as the local politics).

Nevertheless, I was recently talking about this film with a friend and learned that, unforntunately, it is just another Hollywood sell-out, and an example of tinseltown’s hypocracy. Let me explain. Continue reading →

Last night I had quite a strange dream where I took off my shirt to find a big red tattoo with the words “Sex Machine” written across my chest. Maybe somewhere in my subconscious I think that I hide some sort alter ego who is a true sex machine.

But today after eating three ice cream bars, I recalled one summer in my early high school years when I was rather fascinated by ice cream sandwiches. I think that my record was eating ten in one day. Of course, at the time, I was working as a soccer coach in a summer camp and would then play two hours of soccer each evening, so it was not such an unhealthy existence as you’d think. While finishing my third ice cream today and recalling my childhood binges, I contemplated how I really loved sandwiches and cookies and occasionally ice cream.

That’s when I considered going down to the Chinese convenience store below my apartment and combining the three to get myself one big ice cream cookie sandwich. When I gave it more thought, though, I decided against the whole sweet idea. I don’t want to wake up one morning after having a dream about being labeled a sex machine to find a real life tattoo of an enormous ice cream sandwich on my belly.

The news today was covered with the story about Bush commuting Libby’s sentence (who he still may pardon), and many people that I know in Spain were ranting about how this was just another sign of Bush’s evilness. My simple answer was that the U.S. president is granted in the Constitution the express power to pardon (which also includes the power to grant commutations and amnesties). The Clinton’s were notorious for their pardon scandals, and almost all presidents have used the same power to grant pardons to all sorts of political scapegoats and amigos (even Ford pardoned Nixon). This power is seen as being part of the Separation of Powers in the U.S. Constitution, and the basic concept of forgiveness is considered one of the pillars of Christianity.

Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that forgiveness is almost always necessarily unjust. Continue reading →

“Forget it, Juan, I’m not going to fall for that one again.”

“Kiss my nose”.

Gracias, Hysidro!

Now this is just a thought, and I haven’t fully developed it or decided exactly where I stand. But, I think that the common sayings about the importance of history – “we must remember”, “we must never forget”, “people must know where they come from to know where they are going”, or as Marcus Garvey said, “a people without a knowledge of their past and culture is like a tree without roots” – is actually overstated, possibly even misguided, and ultimately destructive.

I have always had the suspicion that our traditions and cultures are only one or two generation’s old, even if they are links in an ongoing chain of traditions a thousand years old. History is more part of our collective imagination than it is an intrinsic reality. Thus, when we think we act or behave in a certain way, it is not because we belong to a culture that has been acting this way for centuries, but because we have been trained to do so by our present surroundings. But this is probably something for a different post.

What I am actually trying to ask is whether the need to “remember” history does not in fact simply renew old hatreds, bind us to the legacy of something that we in fact did not cause or establish, and thus limit our abilities to be unique and autonomous. Just as sons should not be forced to pay for the sins of their fathers, what is the real benefit in knowing history? To avoid the pitfalls of the past, or to force us to relive them generation after generation? We are born clean slates, so why shouldn’t we be allowed to live in a clean, new world. It seems to me that the baggage of history too often predetermines our fate. So, if I didn’t know where I came from, I would be truly free to decide where I wanted to go. Maybe I don’t want to remember the Alamo.

As I have eluded to in the past, the problem with people talking, or conversation in general, is that it can be very distracting and get in the way of my own thoughts.