Connect 4

Yes I re-discovered connect 4 last night and I must say it's a fun game, especially when crown royal is involved. I remember summer camps when I was in my early teens where we'd have connect 4 tournaments. Believe it! Alongside checkers and chess... I think I did fairly well back then. Yup, before video games made board games "obsolete". But who doesn't love spending money wildly at monopoly or drawing stick figures during pictionary? Really.

On another note, this morning I ran my yearly credit check and got really annoyed with the process. Federal law allows everyone to get a free annual credit report, yet the consumer reporting companies require you to enter a credit card number in order to obtain it. You get your free credit report, but if you don't cancel your new membership within a few days they charge your card. Sounds familiar doesn't it... I'm so sick and tired of this crap; companies out to screw people however they can. We're in an awfully rough economic situation where the government, media and all other supposed responsible entities tell us to show solidarity for struggling corporations (banks, auto makers, etc). Why is it always the people who are supposed to make up for mismanaged catastrophes? How about the higher political or corporate worlds act as role models for once?! We have to suffer the consequences and pick up the pieces every time. Remember a few months after the war in Iraq started when Bush told the American people to go spend their money to support the fragile economy? Wow, that sure did a lot of good in the long run, didn't it... And after Katrina rolled in, FEMA was completely incompetent dealing with the problems while Bush took forever to even react. Who ended up paying dearly? The thousands of people who to this day don't have the aid that was promised to them and have had to figure out alternate ways to survive, sometimes relying on others' help and generosity. Gotta give it to the American people for their resilience, courage and solidarity.
Isn't "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people" a common definition of democracy? So based on that, is this country really a democracy? There's way too much hypocrisy in our society. If ideas were actually carried out the way they're sold to us, then consumer reporting companies would be the first ones to encourage people to use their free annual credit report and not try to sneak people's money into their pockets. Times are tough and businesses need to make money to stay afloat and keep offering jobs. I'm fully aware of that. However it does not justify unethical behavior. We're all in it together. There are always those using times like these to make money off of others' miseries. I believe Obama will bring much good to this country but until something is done to tame the overly capitalist nature of this society people will always end up suffering the consequences of big business mismanagement.

But to end on a positive note, my credit report came back real good and I kicked ass at connect 4 last night!

Home travels and ethnic imbalance

One thing I was reminded of while traveling is that it’s important to see your own country. In the last few weeks I’ve seen amazing places. From Connecticut to Massachusetts and from South Dakota (The Badlands pictured here) to Wyoming, I was fortunate to see some amazing sights. This country has so much diversity. It’s a real privilege to have the opportunity to live here and discover these wonders.
While in South Africa earlier this year I came across travelers from all around the world. I also came across many locals wandering around their own country. To them it made more sense discovering their own backyard than traveling abroad. More than the fact that the South African rand doesn’t get one as far as the American dollar, they are truly interested in getting to know their own heritage, one that has been disputed since the first European settlers disembarked on the southern shores of the African continent. As much as I agree with their philosophy, I do think it’s just as important to see what else this world has to offer, provided you’re fortunate enough to do so. I’m finding out that traveling abroad has made me that much more sensitive to the great things I’m discovering here in the United States.

South Africa has a lot in common with the US but what stands out is an incredible diversity in landscapes and ethnicities. This is a land that has seen much ethnic inequality and injustice. After the end of apartheid the world saw something extraordinary happen in Nelson Mandela becoming the first “man of color” elected to the presidency. An era of oppression had finally come to an end. But the antagonism between blacks and whites did not end there. I found that even if this country has come a long way in less than twenty years, it will be many more decades before any resentment is forgotten and a sense of equality settles in.
In the US we just took a big step in electing a non-white to the presidency for the first time. A wave of hope swept through the world showing how important this election was to more than just the American people. But as we all know the wounds of the past are not quite healed and we still have a long way to go before a real sense of mutual respect sets in. Having experienced this election in a very republican part of the country, I am that much more aware of it. It didn’t take more than a couple days before I started hearing some highly distasteful racial “jokes” on Obama. A lot of people here still use the “n” word and talk about blacks as savages. The civil rights act is more than four decades old yet around here it sometimes feels like that notion is inexistent. As much excitement I get from looking forward to january 20th, I realize that we have a very long way to go, not just to fix the economy but to reach a true sense of equality.

Change

“I believe in America.”

The opening words of “The Godfather” capture best what I feel today.

I choose this day to start publishing my blog because no other day have I felt so inspired. I have been thinking and wanting to write for quite a while now as this year has been a very special and different one for me. But it is on this day that I find the greatest inspiration to begin recounting the tales of the past months.

Change is what I needed and on dec. 4th of last year I embarked on a journey that I knew was going to be extraordinary without possibly imagining the outcome. Around that same time Barack Obama was speaking to people about change and his vision for a better America in the first stages of the presidential primaries.

Ever since he announced his run for the presidency, I have firmly believed and never doubted he would be our next president. He stole the show at the 2004 democratic national convention and sparked my hopes for something great to happen in this country. At that time of course I was hoping for a different outcome and when John Kerry lost I began losing hope again. Four years prior to that we’d seen a very divided America elect George W. Bush after a process that made me realize that with all its promises, this country isn’t the democracy it claims to be. How a candidate can win more votes than his opponent and still lose blows my mind. The electoral college system needs to be revised. It isn’t fair and I don’t understand how we went through this very controversial 2000 election and didn’t think to ourselves: “lets make some changes.”

On this day I can finally say my hopes are back and I am excited to start believing in this country again. What a good feeling. Because I do love this place so much for so many reasons, but have been so discouraged and frustrated over the years that I caught myself being angry more than anything else. I have spent this past year in many different countries and have heard many bad things about the US. Often times I didn’t feel safe saying I was American and found myself pretending to be from Canada... What a shame. I want to be proud of the passport I carry. And now I can be again as the world now knows that we Americans are ready to head into a new direction and get back on track.

Ironically I spent this election day in Wyoming, a hardcore republican state. I wore my Obama t-shirt proudly even though the dry cold forced me to put some layers over it... The minute CNN was announcing Obama as the president elect on the radio, I was entering a coal mine where I was taken on a night tour and showed the very impressive heavy machinery and coal mining process. I even got to drive a 240 ton capacity 2700 horsepower haul truck! And I thought I was the man when I drove a 600 hp Lamborghini a few years back...

I would’ve preferred being in Chicago or on Times Square of course, but at the same time it was quite an experience to feel completely isolated from the world in a science-fiction setting watching people working as if it was just another day, reminding me that although we have many reasons to celebrate, we also need to keep working hard towards better days.