What Blooms Where You’re Planted?

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I was recently talking with a friend in Silver City, New Mexico who volunteers at the city’s visitors’ center. He relayed a story told him by a visiting tourist: that she had asked the clerk at a local convenience store what there is to do in Silver City and the clerk told her “There’s nothing to do here.”  Imagine the horror and frustration for someone who knows about the Billy the Kid house, the Gila National Forest, Silver City’s old town and gallery scene, every festival and event, and – well- all kinds of things.

It made me wonder why so many of us neglect our own back yards.  I grew up just two hours outside New York City but didn’t visit the Statue of Liberty until I was middle aged.  I appreciate my current home town of Silver City and have gotten involved in a number of events, but I have neighbors who don’t recognize the name of the main street through old town. (No, it’s not “Main Street”.  Come visit and find out. lol)

I guess part of the problem is that your local town is generally where you work, so for fun you go away.  Consider that, no matter where you live, there are likely to be people who come to your town to ‘get away’.

Every town has pluses and minuses, and it can be easy to be disheartened by traffic problems or a boarded-up store and focus on the negative.  Remember that it is still a beautiful world.  I hope you will visit their your own local attractions.  If I may paraphrase a quote I like, see what blooms where you’re planted.

Paradox of Iran

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Ayatollah Begs to DifferThe Ayatollah Begs to Differ
By Hooman Majd

On this blog, we have been making an effort to understand the Islamic world.  Majd says “my hope is that this book, through a combination of stories, history, and personal reflection, will provide the reader a glimpse of Iran and Iranians” and reveal paradoxes of the Iranian character that baffle Americans.  He succeeds.

Majd is the son of an Iranian diplomat raised in the West, and seems well situated to bridge the gap between the two peoples.

Iranians are Persians, not Arabs, and are 90% Shia, not Sunni, Muslim.  Shia believe in the twelfth Imam, who is not dead but hidden, and who will return as the Messiah in a way that reminds me of Christians’ faith in the return of Jesus Christ.  I’m not sure if this similarity will make the two peoples more or less sympathetic to each other, since discussing religion is dangerous outside of trusting relationships.

“Persia” had been “Iran” to Iranians since 226 CE; “Persia” came from the French.  In 1935 a Shah who embraced the Third Reich and fascism decreed that the nation should be called “Iran” which means “land of the Aryans”.  I found it alarming that today Farsi translations of Hitler’s Mein Kampf are prominent in book stores, though some Americans may appreciate that Marx and Communist are loathed by the theocracy.

Many Iranians (especially expats) view the word “Persian” as connoting their glorious past and they are annoyed that Westerners are ignorant of Iran’s history.  Iran was the equal of ancient Egypt, Rome, or Athens.  Westerners admire Alexander the Great, while Iranians view him as a barbarian for burning magnificent Iranian libraries.

“The Shia sense of the world [is] a dark and oppressive place” of “estrangement and woe”, “under a perpetual dark cloud” where “death and martyrdom are pillars of Shia Islam.”  The nation’s recent history reinforces this gloomy outlook: Muslims have suffered “five hundred years of Western hegemony,” and “for two or three hundred years Iran had been [under] Western powers – specifically Britain and then the United States when it took over the mantle of empire after World War II.” Continue reading →

Costa Rica Fishing

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There have been three previous commentaries about Costa Rica, and this is the final of that series. Our grandson and I offered that we would be willing to share the $475 cost of a four hour Pacific Ocean costal fishing trip with another party. No one agreed to that offer, so I told Grace at the resort diver’s shop that the two of us would pay the full price for the fishing trip. It was a wonderful decision!  (I hope I have provided the correct link. Go to the Hilton Papagayo dive shop and ask for Grace or Auxi, and they will schedule your fishing trip.)

“Nacho” and “Marvin” pulled the “Vahia” in close to the resort shore and grandson and I waded the short distance to get on board. We cruised out to some reefs to do some bottom fishing, but had limited success. We did manage to catch a few fish in an hour and a half. Our grandson was pleased that he caught a poisonous lion fish (or scorpion fish). I was more impressed that he caught a “keeper” grouper that was eventually cooked by the resort for our dinner. Continue reading →

Tyranny of the Status Quo

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bookcvr_status_quoI was looking for a different book by Milton Friedman, but this was the only one available at the library. This book lists both Milton & Rose Friedman as the authors, and I initially thought it would probably be too out of date to be of much interest since it was written in the latter part of Ronald Reagan’s first term as President. I plunged ahead and was rewarded. The book is perhaps even more appropriate to discussing government-caused problems than when first published. The message I want to emphasize is that the Friedman’s warn that politicians often campaign against raising taxes but then engage in deficit spending. They explain that a deficit is a “…hidden tax whether it is financed by pieces  of paper or bookkeeping entries called money or…notes or bills or bonds.” We are liable for the deficit, although it might be our children or grandchildren who will eventually have to actually pay the bill. That is a thought that should be frightening to anyone watching what has happened to the federal deficit in the last decade.

I had never read a Friedman book, although I’ve always admired his many Libertarian-based quotes. My favorite, and I don’t have the exact quote in front of me, is “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in six years we would have a shortage of sand.” I was disappointed that I found only one such pithy quote in the book, but more about that later in the review. Continue reading →

All the Marbles

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I’m going to break with my tradition of attempting to summarize the origin of expressions, because the explanation at mentafloss is far too interesting to summarize! I’ll list some history I found interesting, but encourage you to read the full description. No one knows where marbles originated, but “…they’ve been found in the ashes of Pompeii and the tombs of ancient Egyptians, and they were played by Native American tribes…”  The link provides numerous names for the various kinds of marbles, and I wonder whether the sack of marbles from my childhood might contain some of the incredibly valuable types. Smaller marbles called “mibs” or “ducks” “…can run from anywhere from $10 dollars to a few hundred dollars.”  “Shooters” start at $50 and go up from there to more than $10,000 for a “peacock Lutx onionskin (whatever that is?) or an “…amber glass Swirl for $10,800.” I suppose I should have the sack of marbles evaluated more closely, although I only thought of them as fun parts of a child’s game!

Costa Rica Travel

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Two previous commentaries referred to our vacation to the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica in the northwest part of the country bordering on Nicaragua the North and the Pacific Ocean on the West. Our vacation only allowed us to see and experience a small sample of what is available in Costa Rica or even in the Guanacaste province. However, we have to say we completely enjoyed our trip and are pleased to recommend it to others. We travelled with our oldest grandson, and part of the enjoyment was how appreciative he was of the trip.

We planned our visit based on recommendations of a friend who has had two trips to Costa Rica. We settled on an Apple Vacation with Broadlands Travel that included a chartered direct flight on Frontier to Liberia, Costa Rica.  Our resort, the Hilton Papagayo, was about thirty minutes away from the airport on a cove on the Pacific Ocean. We were very pleased with everything, although we had trouble finding our transportation at the airport. An entrepreneur earned a well-deserved tip by leading us to the Swiss Travel agent wearing a distinctive orange shirt. Swiss Travel arranged our transport to and from the airport and the tours we took while at the resort. Don’t be confused by the “Swiss Travel” name, because it is a Costa Rican company. They have an extensive web site for travel and many activities in the country. Continue reading →