A Musical Backdrop

Sometimes I feel like there should be a "musical backdrop" to life.  You know, like in the movies, where each dramatic scene is punctuated by a musical theme.  But in reality, the music isn't there....or is it?  I am sometimes deeply moved by a church service where the music is really good.  But take way the music and what do you have left?  Would the "spirit" still be stirring the folks, or would the dead silence serve to kill the mood?  We seem to be creatures created with an innate need for melody.  Of course, those melodies differ widely from one to another, now don't they?  I was watching one of my favorite all-time movies this morning, Mr. Holland's Opus, starring Richard Dreyfuss.  It is one of those movies that always "gets me" no matter how many times I see it.  The concluding scene is one of the most inspirational moments of any movie that I have seen in my lifetime.  And what is so stirring about it?  The music.  Mr. Holland taught a deep appreciation of music to his students and it changed their lives in dramatic ways.  His most famous symphony was the one he composed in the lives of his students over his 30 years of teaching music.  The pragmatic things that we need to know to "get by" in this life serve to satisfy our needs, like a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs.  But they are insufficient to satisfy the needs that reside in our hearts.  We need music, among other non-pragmatic things, for that.  I guess we really do need a musical backdrop to our lives.  One that changes melody to suite the current situation.  I am sure you have heard the philosophical question posed that if a tree falls in the woods with no one present, does it make a sound?  I will pose an even deeper question, in a world without music, is there life?  I guess it all depends on how you define that word..."life"....now doesn't it?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I am going to suggest something particularly outlandish in this post.  And that is, maybe that part of the Declaration of Independence that is so often quoted, you know the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" part, is a little off.  Maybe missing from that list is another thing we humans are endowed with, or at least should be, respect.  If you think about it, most of the bad stuff that happens in the world comes from either a flagrant disrespect of people, their property, or the planet.  A group of high school kids use Internet social network sites to bully a classmate to the point where the latter take his or her life....disrespect.  We drill holes in the bottom of the ocean too far down to deal with the consequences should something go awry....disrespect.  A husband decides to cheat on his wife of eighteen years and the mother of his children and the person who has given him the better part of her life....disrespect.  One nation decides to dredge a border river and cast the resulting sludge onto an environmentally sensitive and protected area of their neighbor country....disrespect.  It seems this whole "pursuit of happiness" thing has become nothing more than an excuse to disrespect.  The pursuit of happiness has been reduced to a supposed "right" to be wealthy, to live the "American dream," the "good life."  So, the arguably "smartest" among us  flock to Wall Street in order to figure out ways to "rig the system" and get obscenely wealthy in the process....at the expense of an entire economy and millions of jobs.....disrespect.  Sure  I could go on and on.   Maybe what the world needs is a healthy dose of respect.  Respect these days has become something we are told we have to "earn."  Or, something we have to "pay."  To "pay one's respects" connotes a zero-sum game whereby I have to give up something myself in order to give you the respect you deserve.  However, quite the contrary, respect is reciprocal....that is, in order to get it, you gotta give it.  Aretha Franklin demanded it, maybe you and I should to....Life, Liberty and Respect....now there's a declaration worth fighting for.

Constituenza

It appears that maybe the main reason for Daniel Ortega's initial obstinence in face of mounting pressure to remove troops from Costa Rican soil was because he had stumbled upon a way to rapidly and widely boost his popularity ratings.  I guess it wouldn't be the first time that happened, now would it?  I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that a politician used war or threat of war as a way to increase power and popularity.  It seems as if power carries with it a disease I will call "constituenza"  That is, a clamoring for popularity among one's constituents that often impedes the politician's ability to think or act rationally, or to do what it is they are empowered to do....help people.  Take the Republicans, for instance (now don't get your undies in a wad, I will pick on the Democrats in a moment).  Doesn't it at least seem that at election time there is an awful lot of pandering to the "middle class" and then after the election, it is those "special interests" that seem to all of a sudden capture most of their attention.  You know the ones with the fancy dinner invitations, big political party donations or, worse, under the table handouts.  The middle class seems to be left fairly under-represented in that crowd.  And are the Democrats any better?  Well not really.  They willfully accept money and perks from that same special interest crowd and then after the elections turn on them by raising their taxes (thereby engaging in a little Robin-hood style larceny).  Does anyone ever just do the right thing?  I guess that is why I am so fond of Jimmy Stewart's character in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  He was there not to pander or politic, but only to pay homage to the power invested in him by doing something good for those he served (and that did not include primarily himself).  Ortega now has backed off his hard-line stance, but the pandering continues as he claims that in no way is he doing this out of fear of the Costa Ricans.  I mean for a Nicaraguan to be afraid of a Costa Rican...that would be like claiming that Juan Santamaria once whipped Sandino in a fist-fight!  Wars get started over stupid idiotic pride and a lust for power that clouds the minds of dim-witted politicos like Daniel Ortega, who would rather be polemic than prescient.

The State of a Nation

I read an article in the latest issue of The Tico Times regarding the growing inequality between the rich and the poor in Costa Rica.  Highlighted in the piece is the painting to the left by national artist, Héctor Gamboa.  The scene pictures children playing amongst "tugurios" (or tin-roofed shacks that riddle Costa Rica's poorest barrios) by the river, while looming large along the high-grounds are evidences of Costa Rica's surge towards development.  Tico's at the top of the economic scale certainly have more opportunity to benefit from foreign investment spawned development than those on the lowest tier.  That is no surprise.  I would imagine that to be a consequence of any nation rising from third-world to developed status.  Costa Rica does do a fair job of at least trying to give all its citizens the tools to take part in advancement, tools like education and good health.  But it seems this article is leaving out the vast majority of ticos that do not reside in either the uppermost or lowest tiers, the ticos who live in neat little homes located in tranquil communities like San Ramon, Grecia or Sarchi and countless other picturesque pueblos in every corner of the country.  This is the middle class of Costa Rica and as far as I can see, it is thriving fairly well.  To me these are the folks that make Costa Rica what it is, a place where happiness doesn't depend on the size of one's paycheck or how much "stuff" one can accumulate over the course of a lifetime.  These people are happy just to be alive and get to experience for free each waking day the beauty of their homeland and the "pura vida" spirit of family and friends.  That is not to downplay the problem of poverty and the social unrest it engenders.  Costa Rica does have such a problem.  But it is also not true to paint the picture of Costa Rica as a place where there are the "haves" and the "have-nots" and nothing in between, when in reality the vast majority of ticos are squarely "in between."  Let's call them the happy "have-lesses." I probably should not be so presumptive as to speak for them, but I would at least venture a guess to say that they are quite content with having less than those at the top.  The high ranking of Costa Rica on certain "happiness" indices in recent years is no doubt a direct result of that happy have-less crowd.  For the truth is, the more we have to have to be happy, the harder we make it on ourselves to actually experience that coveted emotional state.

The World from 264,000 Feet

I have been reading more with curiosity, rather than any degree of alarm, about the apparent Nicaraguan "invasion" of Costa Rica.  What is actually  occurring is, in my humble opinion, a bit less than described by recent inflammatory rhetoric by Costa Rica's Presidenta, Laura Chinchilla.  She claims that Costa Rica has been invaded, pure and simple, and the world better take notice.  But a few rag-tag troops having been spotted traipsing around a finca (or farm) on Isla Calerero, located on the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in the extreme Northeast corner of the country, doesn't seem to arise to the level of invasion.  Nicaragua has control of the Rio San Juan that serves as the boundary line between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.  There have long been disputes between fisherman and residents along both sides of the border.  Nicaragua claims that the soldiers are doing the work of warding off the narcos.  Chinchilla calls that BS.  But really, why would Nicaragua "invade" Costa Rica and line itself against the U.S.?  Not that Daniel Ortega is any fan of "America."  But Nicaragua has in recent years tried in vain to catch up to its southern neighbor in terms of tourism and foreign investment, both of which will largely come from North America.  Invading Costa Rica I don't believe is the proper way to encourage either of these benefits that a peaceful Nicaragua could potentially grow to enjoy. All this tough talk could potentially escalate into something no one wants to see.  But the whole affair has me thinking about the "border" thing.  What are borders anyway?  You certainly can't detect them from space.  From up there it all looks fairly contiguous.  These arbitrary man-made constructs sure do seem to wreak a lot of havoc upon ourselves.  An "open-border" policy....hmmmm....sounds a bit idealistic, doesn't it?  I wonder if it could really work?  I believe this whole idea of national pride seems all too often to pit "us against them" and that can lead to some seriously nasty consequences.  Maybe Laura Chinchilla should just chill out a bit on this one.  Possibly a meeting with Daniel and an understanding of exactly what Nicaragua hopes to gain from these deployments is a better way to handle it than screaming "invasion" at the top of her lungs.

I Had a Nightmare

Martin Luther King may have "had a dream," but right now I am betting for Barack Obama, our nation's first black President, he might just feel like waking up.  And the recent elections were just that, a loud and obnoxious wake-up call.  Obama's dream of creating an "America" that is a more level playing field for all people of every socio-economic strata has turned into Obama's worst nightmare.  Why?  Well, in the immortal words of Chester James Carville, Jr., "it's the economy, stupid."  Americans are demanding their piece of the cake and some would say, they want to "eat it too."  Problem is the cake is getting a little old, stale and crumbly. Also, there just ain't much icing left these days.  We have been all too eager to lick that right off in our rush to experience all the gain, but endure no pain.  Well now it hurts and the election this week, if it showed anything, demonstrated the depth of hurt being felt out there in the U.S. populace.  Who gives a crap about things like universal health care and the environment when folks don't have jobs?  After all, we were bred to consume and by gosh we want to do so with the same voracity as our forefathers.  Anyone who even hints of getting in the way of us doing that, well, they just get what they deserve at the ballott box and Obama and the rest of his followers got nothing less than that proverbial "boot."  Well, the jury is certainly out for a while at least on whether this tea-partying crowd can create the miracle of jobs in an economy where most of what we consume is produced elsewhere by folks who have learned to get by with a lot less than us.  That is a tall order, but, what the hey, they promised to do it, so let's give'em a try.  We can always "kick those bums out" another two years down the road, now can't we?  That's democracy folks.  At the same time, those non-important issues that threaten our planet and very survival can just wait on the backburner while we get that consumption engine cranking at full throttle again!