A GREAT MAN HAS PASSED
April 25, 2014
South America just finished 8 days of honoring the Author and news man Garcia Marques. Now seeing that most of what he has written is in Spanish Jeff really hasn’t read a lot of his writing he did however read a story written for Rolling Stone magazine in 1980. It was about post war Viet Nam and the effect the war had on the people we left behind. What amazed me the most about the death of Gabo as he’s affectionately called is the out pouring of sentiment for him? You won’t see anything like this in the US for any of our famous authors even if they do win a Nobel Prize. They might get a one hour special or coverage of their funeral but nothing like what went on in Colombia and he hasn’t even lived here for years, residing instead in Mexico City for the last many years. Great writers aren’t there anymore and you can thank the digital age for that and TV. There aren’t any great journalists setting in the shadows or Poe’s and Walden’s or Mark Twain’s waiting for their moment. Authors that are writing today do it for love and in some cases money. Journalists’ are on the list of dying jobs in the US. They call them bloggers now and finding an audience is not a simple thing. Print media is dying Jeff publishes on amazon Kindle and he does have paper book copies available as well but is the digital world where he thinks he might find success. I wish American authors could experience the same kind of adulation as the one down here. They get it not by having there bucks made into movies but by people reading them as they become a part of the history of Colombia. Garcia Marques is famous all over Latin America he’s friends with Fidel Castro and others. If you get a chance and you’re Spanish isn’t that good look for the article in Rolling Stone Magazine and read it. This Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.
WHEN IS IT TO MUCH
April 24, 2014
I’ve been watching Jeff when he’s writing and have seen him spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook and Twitter as well as other what are referred to as social media sites. At first I thought he was promoting his books or keeping tabs on friends and family in the US. But now I think he does it more as a addiction than anything else. But this morning he said to me Flounder this is getting ridicules I need to work on my book ad I’m spending time looking at dumb stuff. He has friends that are as bad if not worse than him posting all kinds of stuff like they have nothing else to do with their lives. Now most of this stuff is well intentioned for the most part and it helps Jeff stay up on what going on with his friends. Now Jeff says Twitter is how he promotes his books and keeps tabs on one of his nephews and I believe him I just think and he agrees he needs to back off of Facebook a little. He must spend an hour or more in the morning just going over what has been posted the night before. Anyhow this is what he says he going to do from now on he’ll post his album of the day and then he’ll just check once a day from now on and try to limit the amount of time he spends on the sight and spend more time on this blog with me and on writing we’ll see if he can do this. In the mean time this is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin
NEVER A DULL MOMENT
April 23, 2014
Well here goes Colombian politics again. They just reinstated for the second time the mayor of Bogota the second most powerful position in Colombia. He had been ousted for mismanagement which I guess is a nice way of saying corruption. His name is Gustavo Petro and he’s an ex member of M19 a gorilla group that disbanded and decide to be politicians instead (the money was better). This means that he committed violent acts against the government he now works for and by violent acts I mean he’s probably responsible for some fellow Colombians dying. This reinstatement took place after the president had just replaced his replacement. Man you cannot make this shit up. Now nobody knows what’s going to happen but one thing we know for sure is the political gamesmanship and corruption will continue and that means all us Bloggers down here will have plenty of material. This is flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia
DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S IN YOUR FOOD
April 22, 2014
I wrote about the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia before and how I thought it wasn’t the great idea everybody was talking about. It had a hidden agenda and speaking of hidden agendas look what the Koch brothers and their close friend Monsanto are trying to do know. They want Congress to pass a law so they don’t have to mark their products as containing GMOS (Genetically Modified Organisms) in other words when you go to the store you won’t know what you buying to put in your body. Now Jeff and I are far from being heath freaks or even just health conscience but if GMOs are so great why does Monsanto have to force countries to use them and then hide the fact that a food product contains them. I don’t know how many other trade agreements the US have with other countries where they require the farmers to use only Monsanto seeds. But I do know we are not altruistic country and that we don’t make deals where someone isn’t making a great deal of money from it. Some of my friends up in the US are going to a march in New York City on May 24 to try and stop this there are also online petitions from several groups everything from labeling to a complete a ban. I don’t know about a complete ban I will say this you should be able to choose. On the other side of the coin I know that something will eventually have to be done or the world will face over population and starvation. It won’t bother me and Jeff but it will bother Hari Jeff’s grandchild as well as your grand Children so know would be a good time to stop talking and star doing. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.
TO FRACK OR NOT TO FRACK
April 21, 2014
Well here it is as promised a post on Fracking. First I should try and explain what it is. It’s the process of injecting water and chemicals into shale rock containing for the most par small pockets of natural gas. The process causes small earthquakes which cause the gas to released from the Sale and then be accessible to the drill process. The information available about whither this is good or bad in most case comes from the people doing the Fracking or the ones against it. There is one notable exception and that would be Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson who in February came out against Fracking near his wife’s Texas home his concern seems to be about devaluation of the property rather than any human concerns. I for one have had a terrible time trying to get enough information to form a definitive opinion. It’s sort of looking at information on eggs one week there really bad for you and the next there OK. As I said with Fracking it depends on who you talk to. But I do have an opinion, for what it’s worth, that anytime you but chemicals into the ground and then cause earthquakes it’s not a good thing. Most of what I’ve read has said the process when done right is safe and an effective way to get to oil and gas that otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get too. but like anything else greed and time constraints make people take risks and unfortunately the consequences of these risks are never felt by those taking them or won’t be felt for years to come. If we’re to keep using the practices there has to be severe controls in place and they must be enforced no matter who or what, because what good is have all this oil and gas if there’s nobody around to buy it. Well this is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin.
PEACE
April 18, 2014
I had a post on Fracking ready for today then I remembered that most of my friends and some of my relatives would be celebrating Good Friday so I decided not to post anything except the message and I’ll be back Monday. Enjoy the Easter weekend this is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.
HE’S WRITING AGAIN
April 17, 2014
So Jeff finally got started on his new book tentatively titled A CHILD IS MISSING he’s not locked into that title yet but we’ll see this is going to be about young boys between 11 and 16 who are kidnapped and forced in to slavery by people you wouldn’t ordinarily suspect. I don’t want to give too much away not that I could because with fats you never know what’s going to come out of his head and appear on paper. He’s a little disappointed in his sales only 6 books, all in paperback, he would have thought that there would have been more digital sales. He does have a sale coming up on the 28th I believe I’ll keep you informed. His starting to write again means I have to do more of the blog posts by myself which should prove interesting I mean he wants me to do book reviews, rants and such which is really not my thing but we’ll see. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin.
I THINK
April 16, 2014
I’ve been listening to a lot of classic rock with Jeff lately and reading about this great band or that getting back together again but one stands out for its desire not to get back together. Led Zeppelin I’m sure you’ve heard of them they are considered one of if not the most successful Rock and Roll band ever. There reason for not getting back together again seems to me to be the ego of Robert Plant the rest of the band is willing but he’s not and I think not knowing the legal stuff that page and the rest give too much credit to him. I mean he can’t say he hates the music he plays it in concert with other bands such as Band of Joy. So what’s the problem well in Led Zeppelin it just Led Zeppelin in Band of Joy it’s Robert Plant and Band of Joy. I think he resents the fact that Jimmy Page started the group and not him. Nobody goes around and says gee I’d love to Robert Plant and the group play they say they’d love to see Led Zeppelin play. I’ve also heard Plants voice recently and unlike Roger Daltry his voice is not the same. So I think he’s afraid of being embarrassed by it if he went on tour with Zep. He can claim all he wants that he hates Stairway to Heaven and that’s probably because he has to share credit for it with Jimmy Page. I’ve see all the great egos in rock and I think his the worse. When you think they could go out and play 25 shows at the biggest venues in the world and make enough money to buy their own country its jus t stupid. Well this is Flounder, and I still love the Zep, saying CIAO from Medellin.
HEALTH INSURANCE AGAIN
April 15, 2014
Here we go again politicians are taking Obama care too court again and like I’ve said before I don’t understand health insurance. It seems that in the past when you go to use it is when you find out what it really covers. But I’ve also commented here if you don’t like Obama care what is your solution to a problem that I’ve been hearing about since I was a kid. Doctors charge too much and hospitals charge too much and insurance is too expensive. But the thing I find the most entertaining is once Obama care passed both house and was signed by the president people started screaming it was no good and needed to be changed. This was exactly what I heard for years when the old systems were in place. People blame the immigrants, law suits and mal practice insurance premiums for the high cost of health care. I think the parking lot full of BMW’s and Lexus’s might have something to do with it. I have met more doctors who have this feeling of entitlement because it took so much money to get there education or because the can and do have the power of life and death in their hands. There are a few million people who have signed up for Obama Care and seem relatively satisfied with it so now the politicians want to screw this up again. You do realize people in government don’t have to worry about health insurance theirs is covered only the people who vote for them and work for a living have to worry about it. This is Flounder, and my health insurance is named Jeff, saying CIAO from Medellin.
YOU DON’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU RIOT FOR
April 14, 2014
Jeff has been posting pictures of the most infamous riots in the US on Facebook Newark, Watts, and Kent state. Some of these were over the war in Viet Nam others were about race. While he was involved in this I decided to look at what happened after ward and what I found for the most part was that the motive might get results it usually doesn’t help the area where the riot took place. Newark might have been one of several riots to bring the inequality of the races into the political arena but the city itself was sent into recession that it is still trying to recover from. The same goes for the surrounding areas. Kent state suffered for a stigma for a few years but because most of the people involved were transient life has returned to normal after more than 40 years. Riots in Colombia by poor agricultural workers haven’t accomplished exactly what they wanted and probably never will. In neighboring Venezuela riots are being conducted by students and farmers but if they succeed, they aren’t the one s who will benefit it will be the aristocrats that do. I understand the desire to strike or protest to bring your problem to the forefront seeking some solace but as a rule they don’t accomplish their intended goal. Look at the hippie peace protesters and where they are now they didn’t accomplish peace that was accomplished by force of economics. In other words the war got too expensive. As for the majority of the hippies they sold out and went to work for corporate America and threw away their tie died t-shirts and but on Brooks brothers suits. I’m not saying people should not protest just be aware that the results won’t be quite what you expected. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin.
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