The Great Security State

History Lesson Baby Steps

Sep 30, 2016 | 0 comments

In the San Francisco Convent Museo are a series of paintings that chronicle Nicaraguan history.

The paintings start with aboriginal peoples who first inhabit lands before they are claimed by anyone but God. Then paintings move, in book style, through discovery and founding, colonization, building and commerce, fights for independence, reconstruction and modernization. These paintings wait for the arrival of a brand new brother or sister. Maybe the next painting born will be of a new Panama Canal, through Nicaragua? Maybe the next will show the country moving from Socialist/Marxist group ideology to free market small business capitalism, the way the United States used to be before it lost it’s way. People all over the world these days seem weary of their leaders. People following their own drummer seems a healthier recipe than falling in step with someone else’s twenty year plan.

Playing with mud Historical District- Granada

Sep 26, 2016 | 0 comments

There was a time in the 1960’s when urban renewal in the United States was all the craze. Urban renewal caused structures that had been built hundreds of years ago to be razed, and, in their place, modern buildings went up with modern materials and modern ideas about what people were supposed to live in. In Granada, in the Historical District, there are strict rules against changing old. Any modifications have to be approved, and the outsides of all buildings must remain intact and true to the century they were built. Many of these buildings have walls of adobe, one of man’s oldest construction materials. Walking the Historical District, old homes, warehouses and businesses are being gutted, repaired, and brought into our century. Piles of sand and bags of cement are close at hand as day laborers mix and fill wheelbarrows with plaster for men with trowels and hawks. Adobe walls are repaired when they can be. In this district of Granada, things seem to look as they always have, because the codes say that it will be so. Old, with our help, doesn’t have to go gently into the good night. Since Adam was created out of mud, and it was good enough for our Maker, why would we want to tear down mud buildings made out of the same stuff as we are?

Electrical Shutdown A day job

Sep 24, 2016 | 0 comments

Early morning, city crews are closing traffic on Calle Libertidad and an intersecting residential street. An old fashioned wood electrical pole is going to be replaced by a newer fiberglass model,and new electrical lines are being strung to provide more service to a nearby house under construction, a house directly across the street from us spectators. This old wood pole sticks up through the roof overhang of a home that was here before the road ever thought about coming this way. The city crew starts around eight and right after lunch power is cut so linemen can scramble up poles and reattach new lines in place of old ones. The men in hardhats, overseen by their supervisors, do their tasks in an orderly fashion. Onlookers sit on front stoops and watch the men work, traffic finds other ways to bypass the scene,and pedestrians lift yellow tape and squeeze underneath to get to their casa’s on this little side street off the main thoroughfare downtown. When power is restored there are sighs of relief and the new pole doesn’t touch the old house though there is still a hole in its roof that someone will have to patch. Civilization, these days, still goes only as far as roads and electricity. We are all hooked up to all kinds of grids even if we only see a few of them. Electric is civilization’s lifeblood. Unplugging, for some, is a death sentence.

Independence Day Ceremony Parades in the Plaza

Sep 16, 2016 | 0 comments

Like most countries in Central and South America, Nicaragua’s independence was won from Spain. In some countries Spain held the field till the bitter end and there were fierce battles. In other countries, like Costa Rica, their power and control was more gently transferred. On the net, BBC lays out a timeline of Nicaragua’s history, a country that has been meddled with by Spain, Britain, and the United States from its inception. There has been a succession of dictators and strong men here,but,at the moment, revolutionary Daniel Ortega, American President Ronald Reagan’s nemesis, remains in power, duly elected, true to his Marxist theology. This birthday finds Nicaragua moving forward,but escaping your reputation is daunting. The people in this celebration audience are attentive and polite as political speeches come rolling out of political mouths. There are probably some in the crowd that wish Nicaragua still belonged to Spain, but they don’t have the microphone. Consensus is nearly impossible to achieve, these days, on just about any issue. Leaders wish us to obey, but what they really do, their entire elected term, is try to herd us cats where we don’t want to go.

Mario’s History Lesson From the 1500's

Sep 12, 2016 | 0 comments

Abdallah Tours is on Calle Calzada. They offer tours at the same price most other tour companies do but having an English speaking guide is always desirable. Mario, our guide for the Granada Islands tour, knows his subjects and studies while we sight see. Enroute, he tells us about an old Spanish Fort that protected Granada from pirates and invaders, protected cargo going back to Spain in the 1500’s when Spain was not part of a European Union and had its own colonization programs in the New World. This fort is a relic in a new world knotted together like a family of bickering kids. It has value as an example of old history abandoned by the side of the road as new history marches past.

Iglesia La Merced from the tower you can see the city

Sep 9, 2016 | 0 comments

Taking a different way to the Plaza, there appears another Catholic church, one of fifteen in Granada. This place of worship is unique for its grizzled exterior that looks older than history, and people are standing way up in a church bell tower taking photos of the city at dusk. It is evening and Mass is in progress. I have been told by a tour guide that the black stained exterior is not mold but comes from a fire built by an American, William Walker, who invaded and tried to take control of Nicaragua in the 1800’s to extend Southern slavery. He was trying to burn out defenders of the city who were holed up inside the massive walls of this church. Walker was eventually captured and executed in Honduras but American interventionism has never stopped anywhere. Church’s try to do God’s work, but men keep putting their foot in the door. American’s have been visiting Nicaragua a long time, and good has not always been on their mind, no matter what their mouths said.

Houston to Managua on the road again

Sep 4, 2016 | 1 comment

Airport security is what it always is; intrusive, obnoxious, unproductive, insulting. From standing in front of the x ray scanner with your hands above your head, to a quick pat down by a uniformed government servant, it is hard to ever feel this is for my own good. Once I clear scrutiny, I eventually end at my proper gate where i wait more, finally board my latest jet and fly for my sixth travel ring in the belly of a gussied up tin can. Houston to Managua is a boring three hours in the air and standing in Managua, going through Customs, travelers who have been here before share their travel adventures in loud voices you can’t escape. ” Last time down we shot a hell of a lot of ducks, ” a middle aged man with a Hemingway beard and a protruding stomach tells me. ” I’m staying at the Hotel Alhambra. My friends and me come down here three or four times a year. ” Customs goes quickly and paying a $10 entry fee to get into Nicaragua I smile for a camera mounted on the Custom officer’s booth window as he stamps my passport. Martine, my pre-arranged shuttle driver, is waiting for me outside the terminal, holding a sign with my name on it. It is night and he is paid to get me to my lodgings. ” Welcome to Nicaragua, ” he says, in English, with a smile. The United States is behind me, Nicaragua is in front of me. Why so many people leave the U.S. looking for paradise is a Graduate student’s dissertation I would pay to read and actually read. In the middle of the night, on our way to Granada, I can’t see anything of what I have gotten myself into, only know that another place on a world map is about to unfold for me. I’m glad, as Martine navigates the dark narrow roads, that I’m not a duck.

Sea Turtle Rescue Center South Padre Island Drive

Feb 1, 2016 | 0 comments

Sea turtles can grow to five hundred pounds and range widely over the world’s oceans. They mysteriously return to lay eggs on the same beach where they were born and man has been one of their biggest enemies since their meat is tasty, their shells can be fashioned into ornaments, their body parts dried and ground into Oriental medicine. A sea turtle rescue center operates on South Padre Island’s Gulf Shores Drive. Volunteers staff it, donations keep it alive, and injured or sick turtles inhabit a series of lined swimming pool tanks inside the rehabilitation center. Some turtles have been victims of boat propellers, some were injured in fishing nets, some lost a limb to sharks. Life as a turtle has dangers but when the turtles are recovered from their setbacks, they are released back into the Gulf, tagged, monitored, and celebrated. Allison is a current resident turtle with a prothesis. Losing her tail, she has been fitted with a new rubber one that lets her glide in her small tank like a Gulf War veteran with new robotic legs. Victims of carelessness, malice, chance, turtles are easy to love and people support the turtle cause by buying turtle memorabilia in the gift shop. Man too has his own tragedies to overcome. Our safety tanks take the form of halfway houses, hospitals, psych wards, jails, and churches. There are plenty of days we aren’t ready to be released into the world again, either.

Going to the Dogs South Padre Island beach

Jan 29, 2016 | 0 comments

People love dogs. Dogs behave as we humans should behave. They are loyal, patient, love unconditionally, and show affection. Many retirees who pull their Rv’s to the Isla Blanca Park in South Padre Island, Texas do so because they don’t want to leave their dogs home with strangers or alone in a kennel with other dogs where they pick up a lot of bad habits. It makes economic and moral sense to take your dogs on vacation with you because dogs are family from the first day they adopt you. This morning two adults walk two dogs. Even though leashes bind animals to their masters, one senses the leashes could be released, the dogs would scamper, but ultimately return to their masters sides where they belong. This morning humans wouldn’t think about letting their best friends run away from their side.There is a $2000 fine if dogs are found running loose and the beach is patrolled by uniformed men in official trucks. People love dogs more than money, but not by much.

Artist words Andres Arizaga Cordero

Dec 29, 2015 | 4 comments

This exhibit is in a Cuenca city government supported gallery, Salon del Pueblo, next to the Don Colon Restaurant, across from the New Cathedral. The artist is a teacher of art locally. He was born in Cuenca. His art is stark and grotesque but his drawing technique is exquisite. Here are the artist’s own words : ” The grotesque in my imagery is essential. I use it to unveil the present time situation where reality is shaped by deformation. I portray a dominant culture that imposes its perspectives in order to maintain its power. Its main instrument is media because it easily spreads ideas about the ‘others.’ Television is a good example to understand how economic and political powers try to shape our lives. They sell and impose on people their goals and dreams; they deceive us to defend their economic interest. Those ideals are false, illusion,and, therefore, there is an effect of distortion. Mass media consumers are filled with ready to consume ideas presented in spectacle formats…… The grotesque in the Spanish culture is also known as ” esperpento”, an aesthetic term coined by the writer Ramon del Valle-Inclan. He used it to describe his time as obscure and ruled by the power of the monarchy and the Catholic Church in Spain…… In my view, the idea of ” esperpento” is still a means to criticize power. I use it to understand a society where consumerism and entertainment shape the way people see their future, themselves, and others. To see life through a TV screen is to see it, distorted….. ” ” To sum up, the grotesque in my work is the way to represent the journey in a contradictory system that sells dreams for a very high price. ”