Gunshot kiss

Who is blasting Fela Kuti's Confussion Breaks Bones?

Not even the whistling of the guerrilla shots hushes the woofers.

Azur sees the mouths of the screaming, the mothers with stretched arms crying at a pile of rocks, just out of the window.
Yuvia hears the childrens names : Ramon, Teresita, mi nino, mi nina.
hears the 4x4 cars, and the breaking door.

Azur sees the walls tatooed with bullet holes. The boots of Sargento Marco, and the gun at his head.

Yuvia beside him, holding his hand, asks: who is there?

Azur couldn't see the lips behind Marco's mask. He turns to Yuvia, looks at her yellow eyes, an kisses her softly. Their dirty hands grasping each other.

Suddenly a silence.

The mothers out of the window raised there head towards the sound of a lonesome gunshoot.

-Apolinar Chavez

Pool Tables and Perceiving women II

I beleive that an extentension of loving my neighbor as my self is definately seen in the relationship with ones children. I know that at first I felt uncomfortable with the idea of having a daughter, especially because I was raised in a family with mostly men, and I have no example on how to raise a young girl. I do have my mom as an example of a great woman, but the process is critical. Anyways, I want to mention it because I would love my daughter to be considered beautiful, but most of all I want her to be respected and taken seriously. what I certainly don´t want is her being part of the typical conversation between hormonal teenagers where the woman´s beauty is just meat to be enjoyed. I do not want that for her, and hence I do not want to do that to the women I see. I encourage my guy friends to be concious on where you place your minds and jokes. It is great to enjoy the beauty of a lady you just meet on the bus, but respect her now just how you wished she would be respected by others if after a couple of dates she sticks with you.

Pool tables and perceiving women

The twenty seven pool tables in Ralphs pool place bring out the quirkiest facial expressions out of the players. The bald american with yellow glasses always openes his mouth right before hittin the cue ball. The punk nineteen year old girl with the skulls drawn on her nails, always touches her nose when she missies a shot. The skinny pachuco with his jazzy hat, keeps the cigarrette on his mouth even if unlighted until the game is finally over and he lights a new one. The pool experts or show offs with their colorful silky gloves. The techno music sounding hard, but unable to drown the laugher, the cursing, the humid kissing and the screams for more beer.
We go there with the guys from work. They order Bavarias and I a mango drink. We really suck at it, but from time to time we have our glorious momments worthy of ESPN. Today Josue brought along his " Cien Anos de Soledad", reminding us that the life in the city implies a lot od dead time that can be turned usefull.
Some strong green eyes on a tica had greeted us earlier at Wendy's with smiles that helped everyone enjoy their salad better, and eventhough I did enjoy them I did not find it comfortable to carry the thought anywhere further and went back to the mandarines in my Salad. Later at the pool tables a yellow shirt caught the attention of evvryone at my table. Indeed a beautiful woman. "We are stripes!" "Ok, but this time we will beat you." "Jamiroqui! great stuff." I moved my buttocks to the rythm of the music and actually got some nice moves on the pool table. Four in a row, not bas for someone who sucks at it. "Your turn."
I could see that my friends would make their play and then stood with their faces in the direction of the lady with the yellow shirt. I looked at the pool table. I have one reason why I know I didn't feel comfortable joining my friends in the appreciation, but yet I have another one aside from that very personal one. I was sad of that diplay typical of the latino culture were I think women are irrespected by being looked at and taken to a sensual ride in the minds of the expectators. I believe that ones beauty in a woman has been perceived, because of respect the man has to cpnciously avoid letting the mind fly away and carry her where she doesnot wan to go.

Politics raped by economic interests

A dear friend asked me: "Do you believe in the existence of a just leader?"
In my uninformed and unexperienced mind I basically answered that political action was only an extension for economic intentions. I was not quite right, in the sense that my reply stripped leadership from a real entity or original purpose. I read a nesweek article where an statistic was given on the 1000% increase in lobbyist representing economic interests in places where legislation is made. The author made a distinction in that to ask a company to have a social agenda is counter the nature of a company which is a bottom line structure with smiles placed to meet the bottom line : profit. Social responsibility relies on the individuals themselves, and consequently on the ruling structures that they decide on living by. It is government responsibility to ensure the arena for competition is designed fairly, with marked limitations that are separate from the "make profit" maxima. Governments (the thinking/feeling people) can and should be the ones making the laws and not the profit maxima.
I understand that nowadays companies have more economic power thatn certain countries, perhaps even more critical access to resources than some countries do, yet that is why just leaders are need. I believe those leaders have moments of hard calls, where by putting the stability of their people first crushing others is unavoidable, yet that is what a leader is there for, to look over and protect his/her people.
Will their be an awakening that will bring forth a system that will be fairer and stronger than democratic capitalism/socialsm? I believe we have definately the fairest system in the history of social man but as history has proven man gets tired of dealing with the accumulated problems from a point of view and imagines/executes something new. Note though that I believe that if something like that is to come, it cannot be based on some naive concept of inherent essential good in humans, but out of an understanding of the binary potential of good and evil, progress and selfdestruction in every human. I have no optimistic perspective because the Bible (which I believe in) says it will only get worse (with a happy ending though), but that is not a reason not to try to be just and if possible be a just leader in the provided area of influence.
Perhaps more violence is needed, perhaps less. Friends, look arround the world. Not CNN 24/7 coverage of the middle east, but Africa, or Kosovo, or South America. In Tegucigalpa Honduras the daily rate of violent deaths is 2.8, and it is not in war, no opressor, just Homo Homini Lupus (el hombre es el lobo del hombre). Where in the hell is intervention! Why does the world cares about some an not about others? They only say: we didn't know. We werent sure. But if a present interest was jeopardized, they would intervene. If a future interest was jeopardized they would care to find out what they say they don't know. It is like a latin american soccers game, where the crowd insults the referee if their team is faulted rigth/unrightfuly and remain quiet when the the whole estadium acknowledged the fault by their team except the referee. In a banal thing like that one can see what the human is really made out of.

Scientific Hypocresy

My friend Caleb took me to a book store in Portland. Blue room, Pink room, Yellow room, Red Room, etc, each representing different sections : physics, cook books, theology, manga, 16th century lit, equiptian riddles, and so on. It is a place of pilgrimage for any avid reader. It surprised me how such a business could exist. Some people really want to learn and understand the world arround them. I thought it was only a small group that cared to find real truth but it is truly something that the human can't escape wanting it truly at least one time in their lives. I believe it is the residue of being made in the image of God.
I got books from Doris Lessing, Rushdie, Kierkegaard, Luther, and as I was about to pay I saw the books on sale and grabbed : " the Fabric of the Cosmos" by Green. I read superstring threory on it and decided in a split second that it was going to be an exciting thing. One of my young loves was theoretical physics so i dug into it with the awakened senses of a familiar scent. But it tasted quite different. I could visualize the progression between the classical deterministic conception (containing shades of absolutes), to the probablisitic weirdness  (full of existential overtones), to big band theory, to inflationary theory, and notice the forced epistemological presupositions that the scientists made. None of them coherent to be sustained through time, and mere showing the quest for understanding reality apart from the senses, through the senses of mathematics and experimentation, to be response of despair for the necesity of meaning. Even the claim to have a unified theory that will govern the atomic and astronomic world with clean fits to experimental results and/or collected data, relies on the acceptance of existence of extra dimensions (which in my Christian standpoint have perfect fit) in which new measurements and data could as well prove that the unified theory is only unified to our perceived logical results. What I truly felt insulted by was by the stablishing of primary presupositions from theoretical assumptions taken by law.
For example, the big band theory left several loose ends, then came inflationary theory where someone said that there was a moment of impulsive massive expansion, like a sudden spike in the curve, and that fixed it. What type of neatly fit system are they trying to put together, when it seems that reality becomes trying to fit measures data and the assumption that if it fits that data it is true? By the way i am a creationists, and that does have scientific support.

My point is that scientists have become infatuated with what they have been able to control and forget how small that is in the total of reality. It is only a few where you can read a sincere evaluation of what the human has done with the nice tool of a scientific method and mathematics. I do believe that human can attain truth through reason. Reason that observes and compares causes with effects, yet a scientist living in synthesis and phrophecing only thesis/anthitesis in the lab is a lier.