I was fascinated last evening by a program on PBS about Cuba. I couldn't help but think how f*#$ed our foreign policy is. Follow this logic:
We don"t have diplomatic relations with "communist" countries. Cuba is a "communist" country.
China is a "communist" country,too. Nonetheless, every Regional Distribution Center in the United States of America is bulging at the seams with manufactured goods from China......but not Cuba.
Go figure.
A clue may be in the reality that our government is for sale, the finest government money can buy. No cost/benefit analysis is required. No sane person needs a light to see through this for it's all about the money.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Please pardon me if I sound........pissed.
I've just returned from my brother John's funeral. He passed on Wednesday, 19March2008 at the VA Hospital in Newark(?), NJ. He was 67 years old and a life-long smoker, Winston, I believe.
John died of lung cancer which was in the advanced stages. He suffered but as suffering goes it wasn't long or protracted. He died as he had lived, with a certain amount of class. I'll miss him.
John died, as our mother had, and as many of our uncles and aunts had, of an uncontrolled addiction to cigarettes. They were all from "Tobbaco Country" having been born and raised in North Carolina. There, Tobbaco was the undisputed "King" of all cash crops. I've seen children as young as eight, nine, ten years old "chewing, dipping or smoking" tobbaco. I could understand it. When the Tobbaco season was in full stride, when it had been "primed", "roped or strung", hung high in the Tobbaco barns to be "cured", and literally roasted to perfection, why the aroma is akin to that of a bakery making fresh bread in the still of the night. Most everyone was, in one way or another, hooked.
But oh the harm it does! And this thought occurred to me looking at John in his casket: If a foreign enemy inflicted the death and illness on the American people that tobbaco does, would we look the other way ? Would we reward it ? Encourage it ? Consider the enormous cost to the whole society of heart and lung disorders directly attributable to tobbaco misuse. Shall we look the other way ?
As aggregious as the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon was, compared to the death and destruction caused by tobbaco, there's no comparison. Ah, but consider the response ! To the one: war and over 4,000 deaths and counting. To the other: we look the other way. To the one: untold trillions of dollars spent and spending. To the other: something tantamount to theater where the actors are great pretenders, making believe a change has been made when, in fact, it's business as usual.
On balance I can only be so pissed. After all, all of my loved ones chose to use tobbaco. Many, like my wife, knew all the risks. Some of us, however, are no match for Phillip Morris, who knows that this addiction.........is perfectly legal because it's taxed. No smoker is any match to the folks who benefit most from this carnage. Often what we think is a choice is .................no choice at all.
Often free, is very, very expensive.
John died of lung cancer which was in the advanced stages. He suffered but as suffering goes it wasn't long or protracted. He died as he had lived, with a certain amount of class. I'll miss him.
John died, as our mother had, and as many of our uncles and aunts had, of an uncontrolled addiction to cigarettes. They were all from "Tobbaco Country" having been born and raised in North Carolina. There, Tobbaco was the undisputed "King" of all cash crops. I've seen children as young as eight, nine, ten years old "chewing, dipping or smoking" tobbaco. I could understand it. When the Tobbaco season was in full stride, when it had been "primed", "roped or strung", hung high in the Tobbaco barns to be "cured", and literally roasted to perfection, why the aroma is akin to that of a bakery making fresh bread in the still of the night. Most everyone was, in one way or another, hooked.
But oh the harm it does! And this thought occurred to me looking at John in his casket: If a foreign enemy inflicted the death and illness on the American people that tobbaco does, would we look the other way ? Would we reward it ? Encourage it ? Consider the enormous cost to the whole society of heart and lung disorders directly attributable to tobbaco misuse. Shall we look the other way ?
As aggregious as the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon was, compared to the death and destruction caused by tobbaco, there's no comparison. Ah, but consider the response ! To the one: war and over 4,000 deaths and counting. To the other: we look the other way. To the one: untold trillions of dollars spent and spending. To the other: something tantamount to theater where the actors are great pretenders, making believe a change has been made when, in fact, it's business as usual.
On balance I can only be so pissed. After all, all of my loved ones chose to use tobbaco. Many, like my wife, knew all the risks. Some of us, however, are no match for Phillip Morris, who knows that this addiction.........is perfectly legal because it's taxed. No smoker is any match to the folks who benefit most from this carnage. Often what we think is a choice is .................no choice at all.
Often free, is very, very expensive.
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