As bad as the economy is, I feel one can tell the gravity of it by whether people's standard of living will remain the same.  Sitting at the dinner table with my mom and stepdad, we talked about the hospital, and how an uninsured person that can't pay is a secret blessing to the hospital, even while being publicly frowned upon.  And knowing the person is unable to pay, the hospital can then charge whatever they want and so collect a great deal more during their tax write-offs.  

This is an issue that seems very apparent to me:  efficiency.  To say it another way, to do more with what we already have.  Just like the hospital in the example above, it's not that health care is expensive that is the problem, but that the incentives are in the wrong place to make it affordable.  A person hears about how we need to revolutionize the energy system in the US, and it seems like such a giant chore until you discover that 50% of all energy created dissipates on the way to people's homes.  So knowing that, you discover there is such vast potential if we focus our fight in the right way:  why work so hard to convert 10% into renewable energy when you can make such greater gains by cutting the waste in half, quickly, while working in the long term to put in a cleaner energy source.  Similarly, our economy is based on growth, or creating more, which I have had a hard time understanding.  Why must it be this way?  Must we really sell more iPods next year just for the economy to be healthy?

But now I realize that much could be made for the better if, like changing the incentives in energy to focus on using more of the energy before it is wasted, we were to make efficiency of the economy the guiding principle.  In other words, you don't consume more resources, but you do more with them.  And the businesses that learn to do the most with the least is the victor for our money.

It seems like that is what is happening as it is, but it's still discouraging to read about Kinko's, and how they are internally telling their own people to forgo needless copying and printing, while they still desire to make the rest of the world do even more of it.  It seems a little bit schizophrenic.

How does that relate to Bolivia and Morocco?

It's everything to do with Bolivia and Morocco.  It's astonishing how adaptible people are, and that deserves our most optimistic attention.  One of my favorite quotes I've come across, this time in my book on the Arab-Israeli conflict is: "Is this the way the world is?  No, this is just how we've made it."

An exciting day! I posted my first Youtube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR1ZOqcOUgc

Please, be kind.  I didn't give the piece a title on the site, but I suppose I'll call it : la Fiebre de la kabaña *Cabin fever*.

On television I saw a Gwen Ifen interview (she is the lady that hosted the vice presidential debate). Her book is about racial politics post-Obama, and she said how her favorite headline after the election was: "Black man given the worst job in the world", by the Onion. Just like all the times before. But, that is exactly what I think makes the election even more special. It's one thing for the country to elect an African american when things are fine, and they are wary of how he might do. But this was a situation where the national challenges ahead are the most grave in 70 years, or even further back. And millions upon millions entrusted the guidance of the nation not with the elder white man and the extensive resume, but to the young black guy. So it basically means the same thing as the Onion article, but seen in a serious light it is something quite remarkable.

::::::

I read this online:

Were I to die, no one would say,

“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full

Of promise — depths unplumbable!”

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes

Will greet my overdue demise;

The wide response will be, I know,

“I thought he died a while ago.”

For life’s a shabby subterfuge,

And death is real, and dark, and huge.

The shock of it will register

Nowhere but where it will occur.

— JOHN UPDIKE

This poem is taken from John Updike’s forthcoming collection, “Endpoint and Other Poems.”

I wanted to share this because it highlights what my goals for the next 8 months will be: to capitalize on what I've seen before in preparation for what is coming later. I have an academic background in languages strong enough in the exploration of the cultures of the Americas to provide me a sturdy launching point. For four years in school, I recalibrated my trajectory until I was confident that I'd land with the right impact and the least friction. In other words, I made myself into a passable PC volunteer, with the right experience to land the interview. And so before long I found myself in Bolivia. As quickly as that came to a close, my flight path cut short when all of us were sent in an escape pod back to the US (a C30 military plane, I believe).

But I see now that in the 5 months I've been home, I've left out a crucial step: I've only reflected in an emotional sense. Not in the academic one. So happily, I'm aware now that the stack of college textbooks deserve a second glance if I fully wish to understand the people among which I once lived, ate, cooked, laughed. Because I was close enough for their pain to resonate with me, though admittedly I lived still far better than they, even if I was never quite as happy as some were.

That is one of several reasons why this poem by Updike resonated so strongly with me: For life’s a shabby subterfuge, /And death is real, and dark, and huge. /The shock of it will register/ Nowhere but where it will occur.

Being so far away, even now it is easy to tune out and forget what it was that I experienced first-hand. It is quite easy to outrun large-scale suffering when you are guaranteed a seat in coach on the way home and a new passport stamp to show your family. But I was there, and need some help now by the professional minds to help make sense of what I saw.

One of the books I am hoping to read is called: Death Without Weeping, the violence of everyday life in Brazil. Living in Bolivia when one of the 200 people in my town died, spending hours with the families in the cementary above our town, now reading such a book will no doubt resonate more fully. I have faces to apply to the nameless case studies. And I would hate for the one experience to be so rich, yet not return to it in with an analytical point of view and an evaluative mindset, to mine the depths like they still do at Potosi in Bolivia. Just today I read about the mines of Potosi--single most lucrative place in the world for it--and how several centuries of the Spanish kingdom's reliance on coinage from there allowed their economy to stagnate in terms of its resilience and development. Reading the same book in school--The Ascent of Money by the Glaswegian author Niall Ferguson, I would have thought about that place for a second and moved on. But reading it now, I can remember our forthcoming plans to visit that city, ruined by our diplomatic Troubles (we were not allowed to hop around to other cities until after living in our sites for 3 months). Reading the passage aloud to my mother, I said:

-In Icla, Chris' site, the nearby river was one of the most polluted in the world.  And it's because we're 5 to 8 thousand feet directly below it down the mountain from the mines at Potosi.  And for five hundred years, they've had the runoff going straight to us. 

The same book said they'd mix the ore with mercury, then burn the mercury off to purify the silver. And mercury would destroy each person. The same author quoted an old letter, written several hundred years ago how 'each peso was created at the cost of 10 lives of the miners' .

Having been, I see now that there are so many gaps still, questions I never would have thought to ask when I was sitting in a desk and receiving this passively. While I learned how to say, 'I'm going to go walk, we will eat later at your house' in Quechua, I still lack a basis for which to understand the significance of the people behind the periodic troubles, why our roads were blockaded and what each side hoped to accomplish.

Other books I hope to revisit from school are the books of poetry, short stories in Spanish and essays.  Plus, I have John Updike on my list to read now, as well.

Refugee Status

This is the best I've read about being kicked out of Bolivia:

 Now this volunteer is in The Gambia

http://tammytruong.blogspot.com/

Refugee Status

Mi Amor,

Do you know what you are doing to me? You break up with me. We get back together. You break up again. I take you back. You promise to be good. You promise it will be better. I believe it. I put my heart and soul into it and convince myself that it will work out. Things go great for a few weeks. Life has never been better!

Then you break up with me again. And again. And again. And now it’s for good. 

How do I know? I’m sitting in a hotel in Lima, Peru, with a broken heart and broken spirit, picking at food, tossing about instead of sleeping, unable to believe how my life got to this point. I feel like I need to cry but I can’t make sense of any of the feelings I have.

You’re killing me, Bolivia. What do I do now???

With the saddest of goodbyes, and the fondest of memories, I wish you the best of luck.

Tammy


Word came in on Wednesday that Ambassador Goldberg was out. Thursday I get a call in the evening about emergency consolidation and the next morning I am out of Samaipata. I say bye to the few people I can as they are picking up their guns to go protest. Twelve frantic hours in a 4x4 with nine people driving the back roads in order to avoid the tanks, military, and unnecessary confrontations with protestors in the streets, I arrive in Cochabambaba, tired, confused, and sad.

Our sites told us to get out before the Indians kill us. Counterparts called Peace Corps and told them their volunteers were not safe. We watch as friends in our communities respond to the calls to take up arms and we don’t know what we should do. Is it that serious? It must be this time. I usually tell people Peace Corps is consolidating, and they respond with a wave of the hand and a “No pasa nada…” Nothing will happen. This time they respond with tears. Tears for their people, tears for their country, as they process feelings of total bewilderment and despair. After all, where will they go? They have no consolidation point, no evacuation plans.

After my arrival Friday night in Cochabamba, I sleep and wait. The longest hours of life. Waiting, without any idea with what might happen, without explanations. Saturday we move hotels. Sunday we get the message that we are indeed evacuating to a neighboring country. We are not told where. Then we move again. It’s for our safety, they say. Anti-American sentiment is high and no one can know where we are going or that we have even consolidated. We’ve only told our communities that we have to meet up for a minute and that we should be back. Yeah right. 

Monday we are scheduled to get out of the country. It is an interminable wait. Half of the volunteers have already been evacuated to Peru. My group is still in Bolivia. No one is allowed to say anything to friends or family for fear that the military cargo plane that had to jump hoops to get clearance for a bunch of Americans to get into Peru will run into problems and that we will have no way out. American airlines has cancelled flights in and out of Bolivia til the end of the month. Private chartered planes have waiting lists of 20+ organizations and hundreds of Americans are waiting for a chance to get out.

During the eight hour wait in the airport for our military jet to get there, we receive more news. We are not going to just wait it out in Peru for things to get better. The decision has already been made that the Bolivia program is suspended. No returning there. Do you now want to close service early and go back to the U.S., or would you like to take another run at it in a different country?

It’s just too much to take in. Our minds are numb. There is a cloud hanging over us that makes for a subdued, depressed atmosphere. Not only did we leave our communities, now we will be leaving each other. That’s just something we can’t process yet, something that I will not allow myself to think about. 

We jump on our military aircraft, strap ourselves in, and several bumpy, airsick hours later we arrive in Peru. The back hatch of the plane opens up and five or six men in suits walk towards us to greet us. It’s just like the movies. We walk out, a group of scraggly, tired, sleep-deprived volunteers and shake hands with the Embassy reps, the Peruvian Peace Corps director, and members of the U.S. Air Force who were responsible for our safe evacuation.

Minutes after my group lands on Peruvian soil, the press release goes out letting the world know that Peace Corps has suspended the program. Up til then, no one in Bolivia, minus the people involved in flying clearances, knew that we were on our way out.

I now feel like a refugee in wait. Waiting to see if Bolivia continues to blow up. Waiting to speak to people I care about. Waiting for that inevitable moment when things catch up to me and I fall apart. And waiting, and wondering, of what the future holds. This sucks. It all sucks.

It´s a strange world, only more so as time passes. And I see now how I am the strangest person I know, something I´ve cultivated in protest to when I found I was very normal way back when.

Watching the Golden Globers right now, glad to see Tina Fey tell so many of her detractors to suck it. So I´d like to reiterate what I wrote in passing midway through my first post on this blog. And that is something that deserves much hot air, saying it again and again to myself and others:

**Rule #1 for the American Sophisticate: don´t presume to matter, no matter how much money has been spent on you in your 20-40-60 years of life**

It´s precedence comes over the other, still-unlisted rules because the question of identity is so much more entrenched and bleeding awful in our society today than I wish it were. To identify, you need qualifiers. When you self-identify, then hopefully you end up with the same good qualifiers that you desired for yourself. When you ultimately see the list of the rules for being a fellow Sophisticate, you´ll find them to all start with the phrase : ¨don´t presume to...¨ and then you´ll find one of those desired qualifiers that people hope to have for their selves. And really, if sophistication is at heart about knowing the nuances for what those things mean, then it takes a great deal of introspection to discover if you so qualify. It´s the difference between knowing the virtues, the vices, and embodying them, exuding them, expelling them from your pores and lacing them into your words. And it´s also about sharing them. You might be a greater person yet lives... less. Does less, leaves less, loves less, and, so being, wastes more.
One anecdote: speaking to my father about how I was working on a few different novels in French and Spanish from Nobel prize winners, he thought it would be an exercise in torture, hitting my head repeatedly and sharply against the language barrier wall. But I see clearly that the greatest writers are not the ones with the largest, most confusing vocabulary. Rather they are often the ones with the greatest economy of words. A word is not wasted. Except for somebody like Beckett, where all of them are. But then, too, it´s great.

The big crisis of our time is over waste. Until the 1950´s, you had a small group of the elite that were given the ability to create extravagent amassments of waste. And for all of the illiberality of that era, one thing positive is that such a world as that was sustainable. The exceptions were small groups of people here and there, often made powerful with guns: those railworkers that nearly destroyed the buffalo species, or marauding gangs on a Crusade seeking to pillar, plunder and burn. After the ´50s, things were upended and suddenly everyone creates far more waste than they can even conceptualize. As Americans, the most talented at this, the most banal in our evil against the natural world, we have the stereotype of the ugly American with huge sums of money falling out of their pockets. I think it´s a pretty accurate image, though our shared existence is posh enough that we don´t notice the more vast amounts of garbage that fall out at the same time (though other people are quite aware of this). And until we became a service economy, each dollar when calculating our GDP each year used to have a piece of trash intimately attached to it, going to the landfill. For this, we were known as the throw-away economy. Waste! While climate change is more than an energy problem, it would be much less of one if we didn´t automatically waste half of our energy production by an unintelligent electric grid. A faulty economy can be traced to the same such with our neural kilowatts, the waste of brain power (a brain is quite similar to a hybrid car, it seems... our smarts help us go to find food, so some of that energy expended is recaptured, similarly to the kinetic energy caught by a car´s brakes, and the brain is fueled and able to fire more electricity, more neurons and push the body further along the journey). Bush could have been a wonderful president, the best we ever had. He had all of the political capital that Obama does, all of the resources and the crises. Yet he wasted gobs of it on meaningless brand loyalty over qualification and merit. Considering the confrontations before us, it´s a genuine tragedy to waste such opportunity.

What is the lesson of the great writer, mentioned above? What is to be taken from the example of who wins when one pits Breadth of Vocabulary vs. economy of Word?

It´s that quality doesn´t intrinsically costs more. The waste comes from inside our usage of the raw materials. To change the way they are used is thus the key to change what is wasted. Better results can be obtained without costing more of those things.

So the tragedy of tragedies is to misuse what is given us. The great life lesson learned in Bolivia is applicable, ´I do that which simplifies my life the most´, also ´I do that which complicates my life the least.´ The lesson learned from the Harvard positive psychology class is as well: better to do one something meaningful and fully enjoy it than to skim over a lifetime of endless experiences half-felt.

Something I remember from when I was more of an athlete was reading how a good marathoner had repeatedly beaten his greater competitor at Boston by just being more diligent and efficient in his form. Those seconds not wasted led him to victory. When it comes to identity and fashioning our person then, we can use such examples to highlight what works and doesn´t. The obvious part to start is style. And when it comes to identity, results are far less important than style.

With few exceptions, people do not pay attention to the successes of others. I keep my report card, and you keep yours. And that´s fine. But while I may not remember how many A´s you made, or care, I do remember the way you were nice to me when I felt bad. I remember what you deserved according to the way you acted, the way you worked. That you were sincere. I imagine many of those reading are aware that possible Obama Senate replacement Burgess has a mausoleum with his accomplishments etched in stone. But those such things are less valuable, less enduring than the maniere d´etre demonstrated behind the figures. Similarly, people think we´ve entered a new era with the election of Obama. But there is no amelioration of racial attitudes in the next years if he doesn´t´do a good job now that he´s there. The election I believe was more symbolic of the change that has already happened in the past twenty years, before Obama ever started his campaign. More important than him being elected a ¨president who happens to be black¨ is how he handled the American people with respect, honor and gracious deference to doing things the right way rather than the easy way. But as JFK said, we´re not doing it because it is easy, but rather because it is hard. Is that not one of the most astonishing qualifiers we hope to claim as our own (and one we meet but too rarely)? The American style is found in that small Kennedy quote: democracy isnt the easiest form of government by far. Every decision becomes more pained and bloodied before it is passed than under other regimes. But it´s what identifies us and sets us on a higher plane, even if some of the results are not as good.

I enjoyed the script of the Golden Globes tonight and how insightful the writers were when describing the movies and characters (a future post will deal with how much I value and hope to better my insight). This character is neurotic, that one is self-destructive, or winsome and gamy, thoughtless and ingratiating. While we all find ourselves exhibiting a little bit of nearly every character trait at one time or another, this is the point of what I´m hoping to hit. Given that we can manipulate somewhat our destiny--I´m not so sure we do, destiny in this instance defined as our trajectory based on the calculus of our inner momentum and pathologies--given that we in fact have some control, then the question is what should that filter allow in and keep out, what to allow out and keep in. What will we let define us. What is a good fit for us. What to reinforce, what to drown out. And how to do so.

The idea to write this entry comes from a long-used exercise of mine, that of imagining what will be left next to my name when I am long-gone. Going through school, it´s a torment to decide what comes first.

Is
¨Ben, engineer.¨

a better fit than

¨ Ben: poet. ¨
¨ Ben: professor ¨
or ¨Ben: drop-out ¨ ?

I was only able to relax on this when I found a cop-out. Rather than letting my chosen area of study define my profession, I´d choose to study foreign languages and come away with skills that could be applied to many careers. Little did I think then that instead I was rather just postponing this question until the time it came to choose a graduate school program that are even more specialized!

Now, the ideal version of me goes something like this:

Ben Andrés Rose (my nom de plume ; né Ben Andrew Pennington): statesman, writer, recording artist, peace activist & philanthropist, film producer & cinéaste, endurance athlete & polyglot man of letters, brother, son, husband uncle & grandfather. Tony award winner for Krapp´s Last Tape: The Musical! (with the hit song ´I am......... craaaaaap!´). Honorary Latino.

The truth may be far off the mark. But while those things are cherished by me enough to be worth the expense of my lifetime, I much prefer to define myself in the terms over which I have more control. So it would be something like this:

I am the one who went, who tried, who lived and who died. I cared when others were mute in their ignorance, I understood when others didn´t listen. I didn´t presume to matter, and so I found what mattered more. I thought a hybrid was worth buying in 2002, when gas was still $1/gallon (it now has 100,000 miles on it). I came to you in the middle of the night, even if I was tired. I went to Romania to see my friend´s home there, to Italy to discover my love. I gave money to those that didn´t have anything else, sponsoring four children in three nations when I had no income of my own. I thought twice before speaking. I also knew when to not overthink, and instead to take the chance. I enjoyed my things more because I was more grateful. I cared, and so I learned how important it is to unplug my TV from the wall every time I turn it off (¨vampire load¨). And I dont presume this is enough to make up for how much has been sacrificed for me to have and enjoy these opportunities. My ¨self-styled¨ style is that I hope to maybe cross that threshold--of not wasting potential--while creating more than was spent on me. And so I find myself hoping to again call myself Peace Corps volunteer, and to say it soon.

I don´t want this to be where I highlight accomplishments. ¨Yet those are declarative sentences, Ben!¨ Rather, I hope to illustrate the modus operandi behind the facts, the approach behind the madness. I tell people that the hardest part of finishing an Ironman triathlon is of just entertaining the thought for the first time before signing up! Its the difference between going to a place and being taken there unawares.

The people that won the awards at the Golden Globes were not the most talented. But they made the most of what they had. That is the identity I hope to style for myself.

Quote of the night: ¨Please wrap up? Omigod, you have no idea how much I am not going to wrap up!¨ Kate Winslet

Runner up: ¨If I don´t have to ask that question (will I be able to get away with this?), then that´s not a movie I´m going to make.¨ Steven Spielberg
**I imagine it is a more fun question with the addition of a word, ´how will i be able to get away with this?´**

I like putting this on paper, or online, because I´m tired of telling the story. At least, I´d rather make more stories to tell, different ones. As Steven Spielberg said at the Oscars just now, it´s such a greater place, one where you can be an enabler. Even if it is not limited to the sense of being a mentor, as he mentions, but in the broader sense of how my friend Dee is in the film business because of Spielberg. Reaching people to an extent you´ll never even realize. Like him, I look forward to a time when people come to me and say, I couldn´t have done this without you. It´s sad to think that for many, especially in the developing world, that is a very persistent truth. Hopefully there will be more of us breaking apart that antiquated inefficiency and retooling the machine for more torque, more horsepower baby!!! One that takes us further--faster--together.

A good story, one that says maybe I am not as weird as I think:
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/age-mass-intelligence?page=1