Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Sunday's Washington Post carried an article decrying the irregularities in Nicaragua's municipal elections last week and recommending that the United States government withhold aid funds to put pressure on President Daniel Ortega. The opposition candidate for mayor of Managua, Eduardo Montealegre, lost by a small margin and his supporters have demanded a recount and investigations into alleged ballot box stuffing by Ortega's FSLN party. National prominence as mayor would make the popular Montealegre a likely challenger to Ortega in the next presidential race. A major demonstration threatens to bring the capital to a standstill today in an effort to force the government to allow the potentially embarrassing examination of possible fraud. At the moment, it appears that any irregularities were scattered, ad hoc and insufficient to have altered the result.

The Post article gives an account of recent Nicaraguan history that is a mockery of responsible journalism, referring to the Sandinista government that won a fair election in 1984 as a dictatorship, among other disinformation. Ortega lost the 1990 vote as stated, but there is no mention that he would have won had it not been for US interference and that the supposed dictator submitted to the decision and peacefully ceded power. Likewise, the political alliance Ortega formed with corrupt former president Arnaldo Aleman is described while ommitting that Aleman originally won power only with generous campaign financing from the White House. Recounting Ortega's attempts to circumvent the constitution to stay in power, the Post is not satisfied with reporting the deplorable facts, but feels the need to embellish. One can imagine how Americans would react to another nation loudly proclaiming its presumed right to interfere with the internal affairs of the United States in response to a stolen election and a president's blatant contempt for the law and democratic process.

The people of Nicaragua have suffered enough at the hands of the United States; invasion, occupation, repressive dictatorship, revolution, terrorist war, ongoing economic warfare and persistent political meddling. The US government long ago forfeited even the pretense of morality in its dealings with this impoverished nation struggling to build its own democracy. It should address its own problems and leave them be.

Washington Post
Nicaragua's Spoiled Ballot
President Daniel Ortega moves to construct another dictatorship.
Sunday, November 16, 2008; Page B06
THROUGH MUCH of the 1980s, the United States waged a proxy war to prevent Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party from consolidating a dictatorship in Nicaragua. In 1990, Mr. Ortega finally agreed to hold a presidential election, which he lost; since then Central America's poorest country has struggled to build a functioning democracy. Now Mr. Ortega is back and once again is seeking autocratic power. This time, however, neither the United States nor other outside powers are doing much to stop him.

Mr. Ortega regained the president's office in 2006, thanks to a corrupt alliance with a right-wing leader and a constitutional amendment that allowed him to claim power with 38 percent of the vote. Since then eight of 10 Nicaraguans have turned against the president, according to independent polls -- yet Mr. Ortega's campaign to dismantle the political system has accelerated. He has banned two opposition parties, brought criminal charges against independent journalists and nongovernmental organizations, and built bullying "citizens power councils" with funding from Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.

The opposition hoped to block what several former Sandinista leaders have called an emerging dictatorship by winning local elections last Sunday. Mr. Ortega responded by barring international election observers for the first time since 1990 and organizing what the opposition and Nicaraguan election observers say was a massive fraud. Opposition leader Eduardo Montealegre, who was favored to win the race for mayor of Managua, was declared the loser by a government-controlled electoral council. Mr. Montealegre's own count, compiled by collecting results from individual polling stations, showed him winning decisively. In the country's second-largest city, León, thousands of ballots were found in the municipal dump, most of them marked with votes for Mr. Montealegre's Liberal party. Now violence is mounting in Managua's streets between opposition supporters and groups of Sandinista thugs, who wield machetes and guns.

Outraged by Mr. Ortega's behavior, European governments are moving to cut off funding equal to a third of the government's budget. But the Bush administration's reaction has been laconic. The State Department issued a statement last week deploring the "irregularities"; on Thursday the U.S. ambassador said he was concerned. The United States has considerable economic leverage it can employ -- there is no need for another contra army. Among other things, Nicaragua is currently the beneficiary of a $175 million aid program from the Millennium Challenge Corp., which is supposed to condition grants on the government's respect for political rights and the rule of law. It seems pretty obvious that Mr. Ortega has flunked those tests.

Technorati Tags: Nicaragua,politics,American,United States,Washington Post,elections

Insecurity Conscious

Security is a constant concern in Nicaragua, even though this country is reported to have the lowest crime rate in Latin America. The huge disparity between rich and poor makes petty crime a chronic problem, and as a result houses are typically constructed with iron bars on windows and doors. Those who can afford to do so surround their homes with high walls topped by jagged glass shards or razor ribbon. Anything of value has an armed guard watching it twenty-four hours a day, making private security companies a huge industry. Property owners have no choice. Policemen are poorly paid, barely trained and ill-equipped, so their response to incidents of crime is half-hearted at best. A local resident recently had his home robbed and when he called the police they demanded gas money to drive out to his house. Walking past the local police station, I noticed that the on-duty officers park their motorcycles inside the building to prevent theft, a practice that hardly instills confidence.

Lack of security has a more subtle effect on a society than simple street crime. As one example, some tourists note the low standard of local building construction. Those who have visited Greece, for instance, recall the solidly built stone houses that have been there for centuries and make the towns so picturesque. The typical Nicaraguan house is a rather ugly rectangle of stuccoed cinder block, topped with a corrugated tin roof. The wars, revolutions, repressive dictatorships and natural disasters that Nicaraguans have suffered through have created a mentality of low expectation. Why build, work or invest for the long term when it can all be taken away from you tomorrow?

In places like Iraq, Afghanistan and the Congo, security is obviously a far more critical issue than it is in Nicaragua. Whereas it is an impediment to development here, in those countries no significant improvement of any kind will be seen until security problems have been addressed and people are no longer living in fear. Canadians, western Europeans and other citizens of the first world can take security largely for granted, but for the rest of humanity it is a factor that to some degree circumscribes their lives. Even in the United States, violent crime is so common that a large part of every major city is a 'no go' zone, particularly after dark.

Honest, effective police, a court system that works and transparent government would make an enormous difference to the quality of life for Nicaraguans. These things are a fundamental requirement for economic and social development, but few nations outside the rich countries enjoy their benefits. Training programmes for police and judiciary personnel are part of the foreign aid package for Afghanistan and Iraq, but are missing from assistance to the rest of the developing world. More attention to such basic foundations of civil society would pay disproportionately large dividends.

Lateral Thinking

Here are a few ideas for President Elect Obama to consider that he may not hear from his advisors.

1. The United States defense establishment is arguably twice, and more likely three or four times the size that any rational assessment of national security needs can justify. Even the US Navy brass said that they had no real use for their newest aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, built at a cost of some five billion dollars. It was a white elephant pushed on them by greedy Congressmen. Having sufficient firepower to annihilate all life on Earth several times over may help Dick Cheney sleep better, but it has not made America more secure. Get out of Iraq, promote collective security, close some of those seven hundred foreign bases, practice a less belligerent foreign policy and it would be possible to issue a peace dividend that would pay to renew the country's deplorably neglected school system or provide health care to those fifty million people currently without access. A major reassessment of priorities is in order.

1b. It is not possible to have a War on Terror. Terrorism is a tactic. Protecting the country from terrorist acts is the job of intelligence and police services. Ending terrorism is the work of politicians and diplomats who must address the injustices and frustration that drive people to use terrorist tactics. Historically, military responses to terrorism have proven ineffective and ultimately futile; ie. Northern Ireland. Terrorism against the United States is a reaction to predatory foreign policies. Treat the disease, not the symptom.

2. During the election campaign, I heard both sides claim that the United States is the last great hope of the world. This is a pathetically common delusion among Americans, but worrying to hear from national leaders who should know better. In truth, the vast majority of the world's people perceive the US as a rapacious, malevolent force and in the Third World it is widely considered the primary cause of violence, oppression and poverty. This is why the World Trade Center fell, it is why Hugo Chavez is pissed and why every US Embassy must be an armed fortress. The president needs to acknowledge this reality and make the public realize it if there is to be any change.

3. Free trade in the conception of the United States government is the equivalent of removing the weight classes from boxing so the super heavyweight wins every bout and no one else has a chance. Globalization has bought an extra percentage point of GDP growth at harrowing human cost and the belief that everyone will eventually benefit from a trickle down economic effect has proven just as erroneous as it was in the US. The rest of the world wants fair trade. Adding labour and environmental standards to the World Trade Organization agreements might reduce the mark up on a pair of Nike running shoes from 2000% to a mere 1900%, but it would dramatically advance human development and be a major step forward in addressing points 1and 2. One plan proposes that each nation open their economy up unequivocally to free trade with nations poorer than themselves, allowing the less developed nations to protect their fragile economies from unrestricted competition with richer nations while accessing markets in wealthier countries. The ensuing economic boom in the Third World could drive world growth for the next half century.

4. Green is good. President Obama has an ambitious environmental agenda based primarily on pursuing new technology. Actually, changes in building construction and urban planning would make a far greater difference. Better city design and public transit would allow people to live near their work and not have to rely on their cars for every journey. That would do more for energy consumption and reducing pollution than a nationwide switch to hybrids. Houses and buildings are responsible for seventy percent of greenhouse gas emissions and a gradual shift to green design through new and renovated construction would produce more green for the greenback. The bonus here would be that better designed cities would be more livable and more environmentally friendly homes and buildings are healthier for their occupants.

5. Perhaps this one is too obvious. In its current economic situation, the United States can no longer afford to pay premium price for a malfunctioning health care system that produces poor results. Whatever its efficiencies in other sectors of the economy, the free market is incapable of compassion, an essential component for a system whose fundamental purpose is caring for people. A Canadian-style single payer system, as example, would cover everyone in the country, improve the overall quality of care and save the economy approximately $500 billion a year, as well as creating a variety of other economic and social benefits.

6. Even the DEA admits that the War on Drugs has been a dismal failure. Narcotics use is a social problem that cannot be addressed through police and military action. The $50 billion a year currently wasted on this programme would be more productively spent addressing the inequalities in American society that drive people to use drugs. The US government spends more billions of dollars each year fighting the foreign drug cartels that supply the narcotics and, ironically, also funded by the American public. The resulting carnage achieves little and adds enormously to the suffering of the people in Columbia, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere.

7. The United Nations could do a great deal more than it does for human development and the promotion of peaceful and productive coexistence among nations, if only the United States would let it. The US is the organization's most powerful member and largest single financial contributor. Its influence at the UN is enormous and has been persistently abused. Check the voting records of the Security Council. Peacekeeping has been kept ineffective so that it does not challenge the United States' self-appointed position as the world's policeman. Human development programmes are hampered by US farm subsidy and trade promotion policies. Some conflicts have been incited by the United States (Angola) and others exacerbated and prolonged (Iran-Iraq War) to serve misguided US priorities. Democracies have been overthrown (Chile, Guatemala, Iran, etc, etc) and autocrats preserved in power (Saudi Arabia, Zaire, Nicaragua, etc, etc, etc). International law is regularly flaunted by US actions (Iraq) and the sovereign rights of other nations dismissed (Grenada, Venezuela, Panama, etc, etc). American unilateralism implicitly declares the United Nations irrelevant. The entire world will benefit and become a more secure place for Americans when the United States finally decides to became a team player.

8. In the early 1980's the US automakers were reeling from the onslaught of cheap, well-designed and well-made Japanese imports. They could have rallied and made a big investment in improved technology, but chose instead to collectively spend $5 billion on a public relations campaign to convince the American public that four-wheel drive trucks are cool. At the same time, the Big Three twisted the arms of a good many Congressmen to get SUV's and pickup trucks exempted from the calculation of Corporate Average Fuel Economy by designating them as farm equipment. The SUV was an unsophisticated machine that the US car companies could build competitively because the Japanese simply didn't make them. It is dying out now, done in by high fuel prices, and will go to its grave unlamented. For a quarter of a century Detroit has profited mightily, sniggering at having smoked the yokels yet again, while the environment suffered and America's dependence on Middle-East oil grew. Unfortunately for the car makers, they have no second act. At least one and possibly all will likely disappear, abiding only as a classic case study in poor strategic management. It is time to close that embarrassing loophole in the CAFE regulations and force the US automobile industry, or whatever remains of it, to get serious about building better cars.

Technorati Tags: American,politics,Obama,policy

Only in America

A note from election night in the USA:

Watching the returns on television with some Americans and a mix of other nationalities, the CNN analyst came on screen with a breakdown of the popular vote, showing us brightly coloured pie charts labeled 'WHITE', 'BLACK' and 'HISPANIC'. None of the Americans present thought this in any way remarkable, of course, but a Canadian leaned towards me and cogently observed, "Only in America would voters be categorized by race."

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The rains are over. Yesterday, for the first time in several months, dawn broke upon a clear blue sky that remained unsullied by clouds throughout the day. Today saw a repeat performance. The rainy season is over and we can expect to see no precipitation whatsoever for six months.

There were those who warned about the depressive effect of constant rain lasting for weeks, but that all turned out to be morbid exaggeration. Perhaps three days out of the last half year did we have all day showers and my raincoat got, at most, six or seven uses in all.

Now we have six to eight weeks to enjoy the verdant green countryside under sunny skies before drought returns it to its leafless winter shades of brown. Throughout the year, temperatures have hardly varied at all. During the rains, daily highs were consistently about 30 degrees Centigrade. The coming dry season will send the mercury to 32 degrees virtually every day. I'm not complaining.

Obamanation

Election Day in the United States and pollsters give John McCain a less than two percent chance of winning the US presidency,  as it should be. The man has run an incompetent campaign, chosen a detestable running mate, shown a very ugly side of himself in his constant use of negative advertising based in falsehoods and offered very little to commend himself to the public, other than persistently referring to himself as a 'maverick' and assuring everyone that he intuitively knows how to run the country.

Originally, I felt pity for McCain, convinced that anyone foolish enough to accept the Republican nomination following Bush Jr's performance was a sacrificial lamb. Perhaps that was the reason he got it. His resume isn't that impressive. Fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis, he was a lousy pilot, an unexceptional military officer and a mediocre legislator. Even in his much referenced imprisonment in Viet Nam, he sang like a canary to get privileged treatment from his captures as the son of an admiral, rather than offer them only name, rank and serial number. Bad as his experience was, his conduct falls somewhat short of heroic. When his wife was disfigured in an accident, McCain dumped her to marry the heiress with whom he had been having an adulterous affair. Hardly the actions of a man of integrity.

I feel quite hopeful about Obama. Unlike his opponent, he rose from modest circumstances to become the editor of the Harvard Law Review and a professor of constitutional law. A large part of his adult life has been devoted to public service and  the people who surround him constitute an impressive brain trust. Like any president, he will be hemmed in by vested interests and the daunting task of cleaning up the mess Bush leaves behind will limit time and resources for constructive action. On the positive side, Obama can expect to have Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and a massive public mandate. As of tomorrow, the Republicans will likely be in full retreat. Having seen how much damage a truly bad president can do, is it too much to hope that an honorable leader with an exceptional intellect can do as much for the good?

A Healthy Debate

Recently, as the after dinner drinks were being served, talk turned to politics and then somehow segued onto health care. The American at the table who had brought up the subject stated flatly that he did not believe in socialized medicine and judged the US system superior. This got a rise from the Canadians present, but it was impossible to have a reasoned discussion. This was an American who, like so many others, has been told since childhood that anything produced by the world's greatest nation must be the best. That the World Health Organization ranks the US system 37th in the world did not faze him, he simply refused to accept it. Also, the Republican propaganda machine had done its work and he was convinced that doctors in Canada are government employees, among other delusions. I rolled my eyes, kept out of it and ordered another rum.

It is actually health insurance that is socialized in Canada, with doctors and hospitals operating as private businesses, much the same as in the US. And despite those line ups for elective surgery in Canada that have been so high publicized, waiting times for necessary procedures are actually shorter than in US hospitals. Canada's health care system is not perfect, but it provides a uniformly high standard of care for everyone in the country and does so for a far lower cost per person than the ludicrously expensive system in the United States requires to provide a highly variable quality of care to only those Americans who can afford it. The fundamental difference is that health care is considered a basic human right in the rest of the developed world and a commodity to be bought and sold like any other in the United States.

Some fifty thousand American families are driven into bankruptcy every year by medical bills. Forty-eight million people in the US have no access to health care and tens of millions more receive only the limited care for which their health management organization is willing to pay. As a result, many of the metrics for health care quality, like infant mortality, place the US on a par with third world countries. In addition, health insurance expenses have become a serious liability for American businesses and recently pushed General Motors to the verge of bankruptcy. In spite of all this, most Americans still unquestioningly believe that their health care system must rank among the world's best. Constructive change will only come when the cost of health care becomes a make or break issue for Corporate America and all of the politicians it finances in Congress and The White House are instructed to drop the disinformation campaign and design something better.

The Accidental President

A friend from Texas recently explained to me that the governorship of his state is largely a ceremonial position and quite ineffectual. The government's legislative agenda is run by the lieutenant governor and the state legislature meets for only one month every two years, so the governor really does little other than play golf and deny the occasional death row plea for clemency.

Eight years ago, the Republican party based the candidacy of George W. Bush for president exclusively on his experience as governor of Texas. He was an alcoholic, draft-dodging ne'er do well who had failed at every enterprise he had ever attempted and once admitted to having done nothing before the age of forty but party. The governorship of Texas was a sinecure bought for him by his undoubtedly disappointed father to keep the boy out of trouble and give him some stability.

To the surprise of all, George Jr. went on to become the most unaccomplished and under qualified candidate for president in US history. The results speak for themselves. The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice-president last week demonstrates that the Republicans see no need to raise the bar. The former major of a small town and governor of one of the least populous states in the union for less than two years, no one can credibly argue that she has the qualifications and experience to assume the presidency, should the need arise.

John McCain's campaign headquarters recently released his medical records covering the last eight years, a file running to some twelve-hundred pages. Combine this with McCain's advanced age and you face the disturbing probability that Sarah Palin would succeed him as president within his first term, should he be elected. That alone should be enough to put Barack Obama in office.

Observing American politics is like driving past the scene of a traffic accident; it's gut wrenching to look at, but you just can't turn away.

Technorati Tags: American,politics,Palin,Bush,election

The Big Picture

Recently, on another blog I read about a new charity that will raise funds to help the long suffering people of the war torn Darfur region of Sudan. A few years ago George Clooney and Don Cheedle went to Darfur to lend their celebrity to the cause of peace. Of course, in spite of these and many other admirable efforts, the dying continues.

China supports Sudan's genocidal government, with complete disregard for its human rights record, in exchange for a secure energy supply. The people in Darfur are being bombed by Chinese made planes and shot with Chinese made guns firing Chinese made bullets. The Chinese government is able to serenely ignore criticism of its actions from western nations, well aware that it is all hypocritical.

At the White House, administration spokesmen in the Press Gallery may emotionally and forcefully decry the violence in Sudan, but downstairs in the Situation Room, George and the boys are content to let the mayhem continue indefinitely. Egypt is a reliable ally in the Middle East and Libya could threaten its western border over simmering territorial disputes. As long as the Libyans are distracted by the violence in Sudan, they are unlikely to make trouble for the Egyptians, or so the logic goes. And the killing goes on

Anyone wishing to actually affect the tragedy of Darfur needs to address the politics. Charity to alleviate the suffering, while a fine thing in itself, without a effort to change the underlying motivations of the major players is like applying a band-aid to a gaping wound; it may make you feel better for having done something, but won't achieve anything of substance. If activists had managed to organize an international boycott of the Beijing Olympics to pressure the Chinese government and made the complicity of the United States in Darfur's torment an issue for the current presidential candidates, it would have done more to force a peaceful solution than any amount of energy biscuits and re-hydration salts ever could

Decline of the American Empire Confirmed

In a previous post I wrote about the Decline of the American Empire. Imagine my surprise that none other than the US intelligence establishment confirms my predictions, as reported by the Washington Post.

The boys from Foggy Bottom reiterated everything I had said and added some interesting detail. The report suggest that environmental degradation and climate change will be the greatest security threat to the United States in the future, something that the Pentagon has been saying for years. How ironic that Bush Jr has spent most of his presidency obsessively focused on the secondary threat of terrorism, which the CIA report mentions as a small and diminishing concern, while deliberately ignoring the far greater danger.

Bush Jr says that he is confident that the judgement of history with exonerate his actions. I suspect that he may need to go into hiding when all the chickens come home to roost. Barrack Obama has intimated the possibility of a criminal investigation into the Bush administration.

Technorati Tags: US,American,politics,history

Georgia on My Mind

Anyone who has been following the news lately cannot be unaware of the ridiculous calamity currently unfolding in Georgia. Oddly, no one has been asking the obvious question; why did the Georgians march into South Ossetia knowing that it was under tacit Russian protection? Having suffered centuries of Russian domination and brutality, didn't the Georgians know better than to antagonize their much more powerful neighbour?

The Georgian president is not actually the fool that current events make him appear. With a large US military base in their country and Washington pushing hard for Georgian membership in NATO, the government in Tiblisi must have felt confident of American backing in a confrontation with Moscow. Certainly, the White House was consulted long in advance of Georgia's action and gave their approval. But why would they assume that Moscow would not react?

For years, the Russian government has been warning the west that extending NATO into eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics was unacceptable and would have consequences. No one listened. After all, post-Soviet Russia was an impoverished and weakened state that needed western good will too much to rock the boat. So went the conventional wisdom among western nations, less so in Europe after Moscow turned off the energy tap a few years ago, but it still has currency in Washington.

This past week, Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement that will see US missles based in Poland, a stone's throw from the Russian border. Moscow has had enough. The Russian actions actually have very little to do with Georgia and everything to do with Russian-American relations. What we actually saw happening in Georgia was Vladimir Putin giving George Bush a hard slap in the face and telling him to back the hell off. It's a shame that the hapless Georgians had to suffer for the message to be delivered.

Life in Margaritaville

Having lived in many different parts of the world, my experience has been that interesting places attract interesting people and San Juan del Sur more than most. Misfits, oddballs and just plain characters abound here. One local compares it to living in a bad Jimmy Buffet novel, "Going down to Big Wave Dave's to see Three-Finger Bob play guitar while BJ, the Monkey Lady, dances on the bar." Some came looking for a life less ordinary, others hoping to put some misfortune behind them. A few, like myself, have a chronic case of wanderlust.

For the expats who live here, the power outages, dirt roads and many things that you simply cannot get form an invisible barrier keeping out the plastic wrapped, push button world that they came here to escape. It is a very open little community that does a good job of generating its own fun and everyone is invited. Last night there was the weekly poker game at someone's beach house and one of the beach bars showed a free movie, but we chose to join a group for a sunset yoga class, followed by supper, a salsa dance class and open mike night at a local club. The town's growing tourist influx adds a welcome liveliness to the town and sustains a modest nightlife, although no one is anxious to see Matthew McConaughey return, but the people who live here just hope that it doesn't change San Juan's funky, laid back, ragged at the edges personality too much.

The Return of XP

I have been a reluctant user of Microsoft products for years and was running Windows XP on my laptop until a few weeks ago, when I had a system crash that required a reinstall of my operating system. Unfortunately, when I pulled the XP install disc out of its case it was scratched beyond use, so I opted instead for Ubuntu Linux 8.04. Sadly, in spite of all the geek love that Linux receives on the Internet, I have never been able to make it work for me. Over the past several years I have installed several different flavours of Linux on various systems and always found myself returning to Windows due to insoluble problems. Linux has made huge strides over the years, but this time was no more successful than the others.

On my laptop, Linux would not go into Suspend Mode or shut down properly and there are a variety of other, lesser but still annoying issues. A month of Internet research and tweaking has not resolved the problems, so a friend is bringing me a new XP disc from the US this week and I will regretfully return to Windows, at least until Linux gets to the point that it is usable without the assistance of a full-blooded geek to fix all the glitches.

Shopping, the Hard Way

In some areas, Nicaragua remains far behind the first world and, sadly, customer service is one of them. In Managua the other day, I walked into in a kitchenware store to buy a few utensils. A sales clerk immediately attached herself to me and shadowed me around the store as I picked out the items I wanted, taking each one from my hands and placing them at the check out desk.

Within a few minutes I was finished and stood in front of the cashier with my cash in hand. Then I watched as my purchases were examined, an invoice created on a computer and printed in triplicate, my items were checked against the invoice by the cashier, who then handed the invoice to another staff member who checked each of my items against the invoice before carefully wrapping them and placing them in a bag, while another cashier went to find the cash box so that they could make change for me. By the time I finally got out the door, paying for my purchases had eaten up twenty minutes. I was the only customer in the store at the time. God only knows what happens when they are busy.

Canada vs The World

Back on July 1st, a ball hockey game was organized by a couple of local bars to celebrate Canada Day in San Juan del Sur, with some expat Canadians taking on a team recruited from the various other nationalities in town. A basketball court was the venue and the game was hard fought, although chaotic since no one really knew the rules, occasionally lapsing into slapstick comedy. The outcome was a predictable walkover for Team Canada, but the internationals demanded a re-match and this week, in the spirit of the Olympics, the second game in this historic series was held.

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As the teams lined up for the face off, I was wondering who would be the referee, but it was obviously the barefoot, bikini clad girl at centre ice, who has never seen a hockey game in her life. Dropping the ball, she sprinted for the sidelines as sticks flailed.


The first period ended with a 4-1 lead for team Canada and both teams retired to the barbecue for beer. Periods were shortened to fifteen minutes for this game, since it was unlikely the most of the players could last a full twenty. In the end, the internationals suffered a 10-7 loss to the Canadians' superior skills.


The teams lined up for the traditional handshake and then returned to the barbecue for burgers and more beer, later moving to the bar sponsoring the winning side for in depth post game analysis.

A Home in the Sky

The absence of new posts here for the past several weeks is the result of a virus that had me bed ridden on and off for a couple of weeks and then by too many things happening at once, leaving too little time for writing. In spite of my usually robust good health, occassional lapses come with the territory in places like Central America. I am told that parasites are a common problem that should be tested for regularly. Something to which I can look forward.



A new home is the biggest recent change, moving from my tiny apartment on a hill overlooking the town to a slightly larger cottage on another hill with a fabulous view of the bay. The old place was fine for one person with very basic needs, but a bit cramped and uncomfortable now that we are two of us plus a dog. The new place makes me feel more settled, like I really live here rather than just being on an extended vacation.



Pretty, fully equipped and well maintained, the new house is everything we could want and comes with twice weekly maid service, too. The wraparound terrace, shaded by overhanging trees, is naturally where I find myself spending most of my time and gives me a clear line of sight to the wireless modem down the hill for work. Birds and brilliantly coloured butterflies flit about the place in the day. At night fireflies wander among the trees and all that can be heard is the surf far below. The only negative to living up here is the heart bursting climb from the town, but now four wheel drive has solved that problem.

XP is Dead, Long Live XP

Microsoft announced this week that it will no longer offer Windows XP for sale and is ending support in 2009, although it will continue partial support, whatever that means, for another five years. Vista has been generally deemed a ignominious bust for the giant of Redmond and now Windows 7, the next iteration, is due out next year. By making XP a dead end, the marketing boys are hoping that everyone who chose not to 'upgrade' to Vista will be compelled to buy the new version. 

The announcement produced a flurry of blog posts about where you can still buy XP install discs and how to keep the system running on your machine indefinitely. Personally, I'll be going Apple with my next system if the price is right. Alternatively, Ubuntu Linux has developed to the point that it offers a viable option for the average user and it's free. Windows no longer has to be the default choice. If you are a contented XP user, it should be possible to avoid giving it up for several years to come.

In the meantime, here are a few suggestions to keep your XP system looking sharp and getting the job done.

Objectdock by Stardock

The free version of this software operates much like the application dock in the Mac OS, opening files and launching programmes. Faster and easier to use than the Windows Start menu, it also looks mega cool when the dock icons along the edge of the screen expand as you mouse over them. Put the cursor over a file icon and a submenu is displayed that allows you to open a specific file or folder directly. Get rid of all those icons cluttering up your desktop and still have one-click access to everything on you machine. Download from Stardock.

Evernote

 

A couple of years ago I came across this note taking application and was not overly impressed, but the new version 3 is a whole different animal. It is a single repository for all my text files, easily organized and searchable. The interface is an endless scrolling tape that you can type text into, drag and drop documents onto or with one click clip anything from almost any source, even handwriting. You can also send it e-mail or pictures from your cell phone.

Evernote time stamps and titles each entry, then a small pop up box allows you to apply tags to the item. Find items by selecting tags or using the search feature. Entries are automatically saved and your database is regularly backed up to free, secured storage space on the Evernote website. Close the application window and it runs in the background, ready to reappear instantaneously when needed. I have tried various wikis and file databases, but for organization, research, note taking, to do lists and just about everything else, nothing is as easy and complete as Evernote. Free to download for PC or Mac from Evernote.

Truecrypt

 

The financial information, passwords, etc. that you have on your hard drive is information that you would prefer not to share with crackers or identity thieves, but text files on a computer connected to the Internet or in an online backup site can never be absolutely secure. Truecrypt creates a file of any size you designate on your hard drive and turns it into an encrypted information vault that only you can access. Files can be added, edited or deleted as with any other folder, but close the Truecrypt volume and it disappears, accessible only with your password. Backup your Truecrypt volume to online storage or a USB thumb drive and never worry whether your files are secure. The encryption algorithm used is the same one employed by the United States government for Top Secret documents, so it should be good enough for you. Free to download for all operating systems.

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Living Simultaneously

It is easy to envy those fortunate people who divide their year between winters in the tropics and summers in North America, but what I find more intriguing is the several people I have encountered here in Nicaragua who manage to live in two places at the same time.

Jennifer, for example, is an American engineer who works for a large company in San Francisco, where she owns a house. Yet for at least half of every month she lives here in San Juan del Sur, telecommuting to her job in the States, surfing and enjoying the funky, laid-back vibe. A week from now she will be back in the US, enjoying all of the amenities and conveniences of big city living, but later in the month she will return to San Juan and be making an appearance at poker night.

Her friends assume that Jennifer's lifestyle must be extremely expensive, but she insists that this is not the case. The moment she lands in Nicaragua her cost of living drops dramatically, enough to more than pay for her airfares. An evening at a restaurant that would cost $120 in San Francisco is less than $20 here. She is actually able to live in two places simultaneously for less than it would cost her to live full time in California.

Jennifer has a home, friends and business relationships in both locations, maintaining all of the social and practical aspects of her life in Nicaragua and the United States. Her situation is not unique. Inexpensive, ubiquitous telecommunications and the Internet combined with cheap, infinitely flexible travel options are making it possible for people to reshape how they live in remarkable ways. The best part is that you don't have to be a movie star, trust fund kid or dot com billionaire to be able to do it.

Getting Things Done - 3rd World Edition

Dave Allen's best selling book, Getting Things Done, has revolutionized personal productivity for many people overburdened by the complexity and hectic pace of modern day life. However, his system presumes that you live in a first world society in which everything happens to schedule, basic services always work and overnight delivery is readily available as an extra cost option.

In places like Nicaragua a completely different set of rules apply. Things happens slowly here, unexpected delays are the norm and the layers of bureaucracy exist to create badly needed employment rather than to supply efficient services. This reality was brought home to me the first time I went into the city of Rivas to register my motorcycle at the main police station and discovered that their personnel had just gone home for lunch. All of them.

Fortunately, the more sclerotic the system, the more likely it is that shortcuts have evolved. Ask a few locals and you will quickly discover the name of the fixer who will, for a reasonable fee, bypass all of the paper shuffling and queuing normally required to do just about anything. For example, it is necessary for expatriate residents here to leave the country for 48 hours every three months in order to renew their visa upon re-entry. However, call a certain phone number and it is possible to send your passport for a weekend vacation to Costa Rica without you, returning stamped with your new visa.

Personal productivity in the third world has less to do with maintaining an empty IN box than with accepting the intrinsic difficulties with good humour and ingenuity, as well as having the right phone numbers on speed dial.

Technorati Tags: Nicaragua,GTD,productivity

The Life List

Almost sixty years ago, a thoughtful teenager named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table on a rainy afternoon and began to write a list of all of the things he would like to accomplish in his life. Some of his goals were prosaic (type 50 wpm), some were fanciful (appear in a Tarzan movie), some were predictable (climb Mount Everest) and some were profound (study native medicines to discover useful ones). Today, at the age of 74, Goddard has achieved 109 out of the 127 goals from his original list and lived an extraordinary life in doing it.

Goddard's purpose was not to circumscribe his future by focusing solely on his list, but to define the kind of person he sought to become. Being the type of man who would map the length of the Nile River was more important than the journey itself.

Depending on our age, a life list can have can have different meaning for each of us. Goddard had his whole adult life before him when he compiled his list. For those with more years behind than ahead, a list can be a tool for assessment and redefining what is truly important in our lives. It is an exercise worth attempting. You may discover that many goals that you assumed were unattainable are actually within reach.

Have you always wanted to build your own house? For less than the cost of a winter beach vacation, there is a school in Vermont that will provide you with all the basic skills in two weeks. Ever wanted to ride in a rodeo? A former world champion bull rider offers a weekend course for $328. He just puts beginners on the less belligerent livestock. Do you dream of sailing the ocean? There is a party in San Diego every autumn where yacht owners and people looking for crew births mingle and match up to sail south for the winter. Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Workweek, was able to live cheap in Buenos Aires for six months and hire one of the top dancers in Argentina for $8/hr to teach him tango. He made it to the semi-finals in the world championship.

Take out a clean sheet of paper and sharpen a pencil, then open up your imagination and see what comes out. You may surprise yourself.

300 Workout

When I saw the film 300, based on the historic Battle of Thermopylae, one of my first thoughts was that the actors must have spent six months in the gym, full time, to achieve the kind of musculature they displayed. I recently came upon a video that demonstrates what they went through to look like the greatest warriors of all time.

The programme is similar to the CrossFit system described here in an earlier post; high intensity, compound movements and constantly changing routines. The results speak for themselves.

Technorati Tags: 300,fitness,workout,exercise

History Lesson II

While talking politics with an American resident of San Juan del Sur, also named John, we agreed that the US military will be in Iraq for many years to come regardless of who becomes the next president. I pointed out that Britain had tried to subdue Iraq for forty years and failed, finally withdrawing in 1954.

To my tremendous surprise, John attributed the British failure in Iraq to their historic lack of martial prowess. How could he believe a country that conquered the largest empire in human history and maintained itself as the world's pre-eminent superpower for over two centuries was a military lightweight? In answer to my question, John admitted that his history tuition had come mainly from movies and was very likely inaccurate.

Out of curiosity, I asked John if he perceived his own country as having exceptional war fighting skill. "I would think so", he replied, "except for Viet Nam, the US has won every fight in its history." I told him that his assertion was somewhat mistaken and John asked me to explain, so I quickly walked him through a reverse chronology.

The wars that the United States has fought in the past thirty years have been embarrassingly one-sided; Grenada, Panama and even Iraq. In each case it was like watching Mike Tyson beat up a five year old. Viet Nam was the last real war and resulted in a humiliating defeat to a far weaker, but very determined, opponent. In the Korean War, the US held on by its fingernails and managed to pull out a draw.

Contrary to Hollywood mythology, America's military cannot take much credit for the outcome of the Second World War. The US didn't become involved in the European conflict until it was already half over, but did render some belated assistance to the Soviet Union in its final victory over Germany. General Eisenhower said the liberation of Europe cost America 80,000 lives. The USSR suffered 24 million dead. In the Far East, the United States required almost four years to defeat Japan in an unequal contest that the Japanese knew they had lost even before it started. Both the Germans and the Japanese held a low opinion of American fighting ability.

The First World War was a similar story. The United States army showed up in the last year of that struggle when it had already been decided, in time to witness the final collapse of an exhausted German Army. In the early years of the twentieth century there were several incursions into Latin America, essentially punitive expeditions to assert American dominance over the region.

The Spanish-American War in 1898 was a opportunistic land grab taking Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from a hapless, crumbling Spanish Empire unable to offer more than token resistance. The Americans didn't have it all their own way, though. A few thousand Filipino guerillas tied down a US army of 100,000 men for several years in a fight for independence and were never defeated on the battlefield.

The American Civil War is not relevant here, so the next previous conflict with a foreign power was the Mexican-American War of 1846, another one-sided fight which the United States took advantage of to seize vast territories from Mexico, later formed into several new states. Prior to that was the War of 1812, in which the Americans attempted to invade Canada to force concessions from Britain and were thoroughly repulsed, twice.

In summary then, the United States military has failed in every conflict in which it faced an opponent with the capability and determination to defend itself, succeeding only when the result has been a foregone conclusion against a much weaker adversary.

Although it may not seem so, I actually like Americans and admire many things about their country, but their uninformed, unquestioning belief that the USA is and has been a great benevolent force in the world often makes them difficult people with whom to have a conversation. John now says that he wants to learn more about the history I described and will have to revise his thinking about the United States' self-image as a great warrior nation. If more Americans had a realistic view of their poor fighting record, it might have been more difficult to convince them to send troops into Iraq in the first place.

Technorati Tags: history,military,american,war

Back Road to Rivas

Trips to the regional capital of Rivas are an occasional necessity for things not available in my very small town. The bone shaking highway from San Juan del Sur has been described in a previous post, but there is also a winding dirt track through the countryside, rough in patches and muddy at this time of year, that will get you there just as quickly. With no traffic or construction and a relatively smooth surface, it's a far more enjoyable alternative.

As soon as I turned my motorcycle onto the Chocolata Road, I stopped briefly to remove my helmet and stow it in my backpack. No police bother watching this route, so no chance of a ticket. Of course, I wouldn't ride without a helmet in North America. The roads are much faster and you never know when a police car will appear. It's one of the little things that I enjoy about living in a place where the rules and regulations are in practice more like suggestions and rarely enforced.

The forty kilometres to Rivas turned out to be a unexpectedly entertaining ride, all the more so without the sweat and restricted peripheral vision caused by protective head gear. Was it foolhardy of me to ride that slippery road without a helmet? A little, perhaps, but I consider it a worthwhile risk.

Puddles had formed after the recent rains, some the size of swimming pools, that had to be waded through with my feet on the handlebars, but after a few kilometres they became fewer and small enough to be easily avoided. In some places I was forced to slow for a rut in the track or where a portion of the road had washed away. A couple of rambunctious young bulls were rough housing in the middle of the road at one point and I was content to pull over, waiting with the engine quietly idling for them to tire of the game and move on. As their play continued, one of the beasts put its horns into the other's side and started to push. In a moment a ton of beef was five metres away and careening towards me as I stamped the gear lever down into first and twisted the throttle open. The Yamaha leaped forward as the two animals surged past, still tussling, and a flailing hoof struck the rim of my rear wheel with a loud clang as I accelerated.

As the houses and pedestrians became more numerous, I knew that I was in the outskirts of Rivas and slipped my helmet back on. No need to give the local cops an opportunity to make a some extra income. My business in town only took an hour and I pulled off my helmet again as soon as I was back on the Chocolata. A few kilometres along the road I saw a young girl, arms straining with the weight of shopping bags, put her thumb out. She looked so exhausted I had to stop and offer her a ride. Christa had gone into town to do the grocery shopping for her family and was now making the four hour walk home. As she was explaining this, a movement caught my eye and I noticed a baby grey squirrel pop its head out of her purse. The tiny creature scurried onto her arm and surveyed me curiously as I laughed in surprise. A few minutes of trial and error were required before I had Christa and her bags arranged precariously on the motorcycle. As we moved off, her pet squirrel climbed up onto my shoulder and she began singing softly in a lilting soprano. Without my helmet to deafen me, I could hear every note.

Nicaragua Supports Obama

Hillary Clinton has just dropped out of the Democratic primaries for the United States presidential race and it will be Barak Obama facing John McCain in the November election. The primaries have been front page news in the Latin American press, followed with obsessive detail that visitors to the region might find surprising, but Latinos are very aware of the influence that the U.S. wields over their counties and their lives.

Even though none of the candidates has addressed America's relationship with Latin America and foreign policy discussion has focused exclusively on the Middle East, people in this part of the world hope for a U.S. leadership that is not as aggressive or reactionary as previous administrations. Less sabre rattling from Washington towards Venezuela and a more conciliatory tone in its relationships with Latin America's populist governments would be a welcome start towards assuaging popular resentment for America's history of harsh rule in the region.

During the Cold War, a political dissident in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe could have expected to be harassed and possibly jailed for their activities. In America's sphere of influence, Latin America dissidents feared being abducted by a CIA-trained death squad, not to reappear until their body was found horribly tortured, shot in the back of the head and dumped at a landfill site.

In 1968, when a new liberal government in Czechoslovakia began enacting policies of which Moscow did not approve, the Soviets executed a military coup d'etat, arrested the government leaders and imposed a repressive regime that curtailed recently acquired freedoms. A few years later, when a new liberal government in Chile began enacting policies of which Washington did not approve, the U.S. executed a military coup d'etat, had the government leaders killed and imposed a repressive regime that murdered an estimated 136,000 people. Latin Americans might reasonably question which superpower more deserved to be called 'The Evil Empire'.

President Richard Nixon was once quoted as saying, "Latin America doesn't matter. ... People don't give one damn about Latin America", and little appears to have changed around the Whitehouse in the decades since. In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination, Barak Obama stated his ambition to, "...restore our image as the last, best hope on Earth." Understandably, Latinos view such statements with bitter irony, but they still hope that a day will come when the United States will stand for ideals like democracy and freedom, as it has always proudly claimed it does.

Personal Organization Redux

Living on a beach in Nicaragua allows me a somewhat detached perspective on life in North America and from here personal organization websites and blogs like 43 Folders appear almost comical. There is endless advice offered on the minutiae of how better to structure your time and information, to the point of fetishism. Should you carry a Blackberry or a personal digital assistant to keep your days on track? How about the low tech Hipster PDA version using a stack of index cards bound with a bull clip? You can e-mail notes to your computer from your cell phone, or leave voice messages that will be automatically transcribed into text and sent to your e-mail inbox.

What's all the fuss? The incredibly complex ways people find to do simple things are astounding. Some years ago I was in an office supply store and came across a flip top cover that holds a standard 3 inch by 5 inch note pad. In black microfibre with kidskin leather over the hinge, this item from the Cambridge 'City' series by Meade is a handsome, pocket-sized organizational solution that costs a mere $9 and looks just as appropriate in a classroom or in a boardroom. I have never considered using anything else since. Pockets on the outside and inside of the front flap are the perfect size to hold 3 inch by 5 inch cards with my schedule and other quick reference information. A loop beside the pad holds a pen always conveniently ready for use.

As a page of the notepad is filled, I turn up the right hand bottom corner until the bottom edge of the page is aligned with its left-hand edge. When the next page is complete, the left-hand bottom corner is turned up to align the bottom edge with its right-hand edge. This practice is continued as the notepad fills up. The folded pages reveal the lower part of the next unused page, so that opening the cover and placing your thumb on the next page allows all of the filled pages to be flipped back, out of the way. Well structured notes make it easy to refer back among the folded pages. It's a note taking method common among police and military personnel.

If you follow David Allen's popular Getting Things Done programme, the notepad becomes your Inbox and a few cards serve to hold your categorized Next Actions list and Waiting For items. Project pages and Reference materials belong on your computer and your Contacts are already in your cell phone's memory. Updating your computer files from each days notes takes only a few minutes and requires you to review and organize your information. If your days are so hectic that you need more than this to run your life, then a PDA isn't the answer. Hire an assistant, or perhaps a virtual assistant

After years of being carried in my pocket the City notepad cover still looks like new. The compact pen that came with it was too small for my hand, but an excellent replacement that fits the pen loop perfectly is the Pilot G2 Mini gel pen. It's push button design allows for one-handed use and many online reviewers have praised the smooth writing G2 as their favourite writing instrument. If you want something more elegant and are willing to spend the money, the Porsche Design P3140 pen is an alternative.

Leave the Blackberry at home. Organizational experts warn that e-mail is a distraction and should only be checked twice a day anyway. A wad of index cards makes you look like a chump. Expensive high-tech gadgetry isn't necessary to keep yourself organized. All anyone really needs to carry with them is some basic reference information, a clean sheet of paper and a pen. Of course, if you want to radically improve your productivity, you could try "The Four Hour Work Week"

Technorati Tags: 43Folders. organization,PDA,HipsterPDA,GTD

The Well Traveled Home

A house by the ocean is a popular dream and the real estate developers in San Juan del Sur are happy to encourage it with promises to build your own white stucco hacienda with clay tiled roof for about $100,000. If your budget doesn't go that far and your esthetic sense cries out for something different, an intriguing solution is being offered under the term cargotecture, architecture that employs standard shipping containers as modular building components.

Due to China's trade surplus, empty shipping containers are piling up in dockyards around the world simply because they are cheaper to replace than to ship back empty. Currently, over four million more containers arrive in the United States each year than are shipped out and the resulting surplus has driven prices down to as little as $1,000. Constructed to precise international standards, containers are strong enough to be stacked nine high while fully loaded and some imaginative architects are seeing a world of possibilities in these sturdy 40'x8'x8' boxes.

Its steel frame is the container's load bearing component, so the corrugated steel panels that make up the sides can be cut away partially to install windows and doors, or entirely to combine two or more containers together, without weakening the structure. Virtually any configuration is possible. Once it is lined with sprayed foam insulation, installing wiring, plumbing, interior surfaces and fixtures can make a container ready for habitation at a price of about $75 per square foot in North America. Compared with the $200 per square foot cost of on site house construction, cargotecture starts to make sense.

Pour a concrete pad as a foundation and the finished containers can be trucked to the site, put in place with a crane and bolted into position. A structure of two containers side by side has 640 square feet of interior floor space, more than sufficient for a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living area. Extending the roof creates an additional outdoor living space, usable year round in Nicaragua's climate.

Perhaps not ideal for urban applications, cargotecture can deliver a cottage or beach house faster, far cheaper and with lower environmental impact than traditional building. With the addition of a well, composting toilet and wind powered electrical generator, you can step off the grid with only the lightest of ecological footprints.

The Big Blow

It seemed like just another rainstorm last night, until my little house started to shake and water streamed across the floor. Later I learned that the first major event of the storm season, Hurricane Alma, had passed close by on its way to landfall near the city of Leon, 200 kilometres to the north. San Juan del Sur suffered only high winds and heavy rain, but in the area hit hardest roofs were torn off homes and there has been severe flooding. A reported 25,000 people had to be evacuated as a safety measure.

This morning brought bright sunshine and a chance to survey the wreckage. The beach is completely strewn with driftwood washed up by two metre waves that pounded the usually tranquil bay and will take time to clear. A fishing boat that was torn from its moorings and thrown ashore sits forlornly within a few metres of the waterfront restaurants. Alma was only a Category I storm, with winds of 100 kph by the time it struck Leon and its strength is quickly dissipating as it moves inland, but it is early yet in the season and over the next few months we can expect more opportunities to throw a hurricane party.

Active Retirement

After being in San Juan del Sur for a while, it becomes easy to recognize the other foreigners who live here, with their deep tans and locally licensed vehicles, who turn up regularly at local bars for Happy Hour.

The town hosts one of the largest expatriate communities in Nicaragua, many of them retirees, and its popularity is easy to understand. Beautiful beaches, a rock bottom cost of living and friendly local people, along with all the amenities offered by a burgeoning tourism industry, make the place a great alternative to a condo in Florida. That is not to say that San Juan does not present its own issues; blackouts, water shortages, spine rattling roads and access to a much smaller range of goods and services that the average big city dweller is used to expecting.

Some of the immigrants are looking for somewhere more exotic than Fort Lauderdale to retire where their dollars go further, others are travelers who simply fell in love with the place and never moved on. With perseverance, many have been able to create businesses for themselves.

In fact, some of the people who supposedly came here to retire are among the most active, with property holdings, development projects and service businesses. With salable assets at home and pension income, retirees have resources. They are the ones typically seen talking on a cell phone as they walk, with a sheaf of papers under their arm. The younger crowd is divided between the go-getters who have come to make their fortune in real estate speculation and others who spend most of their time surfing and work merely to pay their bar tab.

Then, there are the grey-haired expat men often seen escorting their attractive, twenty-something Nicaraguan girlfriends. They are in a separate category of their own and tend to keep to themselves.

Pyrrhic Victory

Political activism is Nicaragua's national pastime, with rallies and protests a regular part of daily life. Even by these standards, the past two weeks have been especially busy. Yesterday, a twelve day nationwide transportation strike came to an end when the central government agreed to provide a fuel subsidy equal to CDN$1.30 per gallon to taxis, busses and transport trucks, bringing an end to roadblocks and sporadic violence by strikers. Recent increases in fuel prices had made it impossible for transport operators to survive on the low, regulated fees they are allowed to charge.

The questions being asked now are about where the money is going to come from to pay the subsidy. Venezuela provides Nicaragua with financial aid and discounted oil, but none of this is publicly accounted for and it is estimated that some $800 million has gone into the private holdings of president Daniel Ortega.

For its oil Venezuela receives 60% of the current world price two years after delivery, with the rest, plus interest, payable after ten years. This should be a great boon for Nicaraguans, but the worst kept secret in the country is that large amounts of this oil is being shipped directly to Honduras and El Salvador, where it can be sold at higher prices. Ortega has a stake in the privately owned company that imports the oil and he refuses to open the books to auditors or the government's revenue ministry, even though the law dictates he must.

The immediate result of the subsidy has been taxis filling their tanks with subsidized fuel and then selling it at just below pump prices, a process they can repeat several times a day. It is difficult to blame the taxi drivers. After all, they can make more money this way than they could carrying fares.

The Anti-Procrastination Workout

Self-motivation can be the biggest obstacle to maintaining your fitness. Stress, other demands on your time, boredom or just pure laziness can make a visit to the gym as appealing as a trip to the dentist. Working out with a partner is one solution, but if that is not possible, Crossfit may be the answer. Created by a gymnast, Crossfit started as an Internet phenomenon and is now infiltrating weight rooms everywhere. Its regimen of high-octane, twenty-minute workouts against the clock employs a combination of body weight exercises, running, free-weights and gymnastic moves that emphasize full range of motion and perfect form.

At www.crossfit.com and you will find all the information that you need to get started, along with the Workout of the Day, each one a new combination of exercises, with instructions and video demonstrations of proper form. Check out the video of an exercise called 'The Bear'. Just to give the guys a little competitive incentive, the demonstrator is a girl. You will be out of the gym in half an hour and a fresh challenge every day will have you looking forward to your next workout.

Among its enthusiastic adherents are many policemen, soldiers and firefighters who swear by the programme. Crossfit gyms are sprouting all across North America and personal trainers by the thousands are taking the certification course in Crossfit techniques. It's fun, it's fast and it works. What more could you ask?

The Decline of the American Empire

A recent post here reviewed Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, that documents the United States' systematic pillaging of dozens of national economies around the world over the past thirty-five years. The ease with which the US achieved this and the inability of the targeted nations to defend themselves makes for a depressing read, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I believe that the end of the American Empire is in sight.

Back in 1914 Britain was the world's unquestioned superpower, although historians now recognize that year as the beginning of the end for Britain's supremacy. Few in England at the time would have even entertained the idea that their empire on which the sun never set was on the verge of decline. The First World War shattered the economy and the faith of the public in its leaders. The Depression, followed by the Second World War, bankrupted the country and left it without the power to hold onto its colonies.

When historians look back fifty years from now, they will probably point to 1989 as a similar turning point for the United States. By that time, the appalling mismanagement of the Reagan years had already taken the US from the world's biggest creditor nation to its greatest debtor. Education and social programmes were being decimated, huge government budget deficits paid for a massive military buildup and deregulation of various industries had transformed the US into a casino economy. The collapse of the Soviet Union left the United States without a excuse for its aggressive actions and the Cold War was shown to have been based on wildly exaggerated CIA estimates of the largely fictional Soviet threat.

Today, the United States has a standard of living surpassed by several western European nations and the European Union has displaced it as the world's largest economy. China will soon push it out of second place. Washington has forsaken even the pretense of leadership in the world by invading Iraq over the protests of virtually the entire world community. The mounting human and economic costs of occupying Iraq, a conflict that the American people now realize they were duped into, will eventually bring about a national political crisis and demands from the public for reform. Opinion polls already show that eight out of ten Americans feel their country is on the wrong course and trust in government has fallen beneath the previous lows that followed Watergate.

The Project for a New American Century is the ideological blueprint that Bush Jr and company expect to ensure global US dominance for the next hundred years, but it is out of step with current realities. At the end of the Second World War, the United States was the only major power that had not been devastated and it assumed a position of supremacy almost by default. The US represented half of the entire world economy in 1945, but today it is less than a quarter and the growth of China, a resurgent Russia and Europe will continue to diminish its importance. Twenty years ago, the American market was essential to all of the other trading nations, today it is of minor significance and in twenty more years it will give Washington little leverage at all. America will need friends and allies. Unilateralism will no longer be an option.

Contrary to claims that we have reached the end of history, the international power structure continues to evolve. The election of social-democratic, nationalist governments throughout Latin American precedes a coming revolt against the Monroe Doctrine that, for almost two hundred years, has presumed a US right to interfere in the internal affairs of any country in the Western Hemisphere to enforce its economic interests. Japan, Korea and the other East Asian trading nations are turning away from the US and towards China. Europe, excepting Britain, is also disengaging itself and moving to a more arms length relationship with the United Sates.

As economic power shifts from the US to other nations and groups of nations, the day comes closer when the United States will attempt to coerce other countries and fail utterly, suddenly encountering the foreshortened limits of its influence. The Suez Crisis of 1956 was such a humiliating moment for Britain and sounded the final death knell for its empire.

This change will happen because other nations, like China with its current $1.5 trillion in US dollar currency reserves and Japan with its massive holdings of US government securities, will tell Washington to go pound sand. It will be a watershed that profoundly alters the perception of the United States among the world's nations. The US government may find itself under tremendous economic pressure to reduce its military spending and withdraw from many of its hundreds of foreign bases to help balance the books at home. Strong arm tactics will no longer be acceptable. American leaders will need to develop new skills in diplomacy and consensus building.

When that time comes, the people of the United States will have to adjust their own perceptions, just as the British were forced to do. American exceptionalism will be exposed for what it is, a myth. The US is just another country, better than some and worse than others, that has enjoyed an historically brief period of extraordinary success through a combination of larceny and luck. The big question is: what kind of new power alignment will follow the inevitable decline of the American empire?

Hand-me-down World

Yesterday, a middle-aged local woman walked through the market in San Juan del Sur carrying an infant and wearing a t-shirt with the words "VOTE FOR PEDRO" printed on the front in large red letters. It is fairly certain that she has never seen, or heard of, the film Napoleon Dynamite and likely believes that Pedro is just a candidate in the upcoming civic elections.

You may never have wondered where the extra t-shirts went that were printed for the charity event you attended, or what happened to the horrible plaid shirt you never wore and eventually gave to Goodwill, but it is very likely that they were bought by a jobber, bundled into a huge bail of similar items and shipped to Nicaragua, or somewhere much like it.

New clothes are too expensive for the vast majority of people here, so used clothing, discarded items, those that even the deepest discounts could not sell and factory seconds dress most Nicaraguans, an entire nation in first world hand-me-downs.

The Rain in Nicaragua Falls Mainly in the Summer

Rain fell last night for the first time in over four months, bringing an end to the dry season in Central America. For the past week heavy laden clouds had skimmed over the desiccated hills surrounding San Juan del Sur and distant lightning has lit up the nighttime skies, all without result until the showers last evening

Now begins months of ever increasing precipitation until the annual deluge in October, by which time the countryside will have recovered a lush green cover. Tourism slows down as humidity rises and the dampness penetrates everywhere.

The town will be much quieter, visited by just a few hard core surfistas who come for the summer waves that can reach ten metres. Then, in November the rains will come to an abrupt halt and the cycle begins again.

Oil Slick

I cannot say that I was surprised when I awoke this morning to find that there was no electricity. It is too common an event here to warrant more than a resigned sigh. I learned later that an oil shortage has necessitated gasoline rationing and power outages from 7 AM to 2 PM daily.

Nicaragua receives its oil through a treaty with Venezuela, but something appears to be amiss. The explanation that I am hearing comes from too many independent sources to ignore and alleges that a tanker of Venezuelan oil has gone missing, its contents sold in El Salvador and the enormous profit pocketed by none other than president Daniel Ortega. Unfortunately, this too warrants no more than a resigned sigh.

The Upside of Anger

If you have the gloomy feeling that humanity is uncontrollably spiraling down to disaster, Naomi Klein's book , The Shock Doctrine, will likely confirm your worst fears. However, knowledge is power and being informed is our best defense against the forces chipping away at the foundations of society.

The story begins with Chile in 1973, the overthrow of a popular, nationalist government and its replacement with the vicious dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Installed in power by the CIA, Pinochet undertook a radical. US designed economic programme that embodied the theories of Milton Friedman and his followers at the University of Chicago.

The public sector was eviscerated, publicly owned companies and public services were privatized, unions were broken and the economy was thrown open to foreign corporations. In just a few years, millions of middle class Chileans were cast into poverty, unemployment rose drastically and the country's resources were plundered by foreign multinationals. Those who dared to object were dragged off to Pinochet's torture chambers.

Argentina was the next target, followed by several other countries in the region. A financial crisis on Wall Street pushed interest rates to historic highs in 1980 and many developing countries, suddenly unable to finance their debts, found themselves at the mercy of the US controlled International Monetary Fund. As the price of providing desperately needed loans, the IMF demanded that countries accept Structural Adjustment Packages (SAP's) prescribing the same policies that had been so disastrous in South America.

In the following thirteen years, some seventy countries were stripped of resources and capital. These SAP's also fueled the East Asian financial crisis of 1997. As a Canadian former director of the World Bank described it, "Not since the conquistadors plundered Latin America has the world experienced such a flow in the direction we see today."

Astonishingly, the Reagan administration implemented a version of these policies in the United States. Corporations and wealthy individuals were given massive tax cuts while incomes for the majority stagnated or declined and the US went from being the world's biggest creditor nation to it biggest debtor. Emboldened by her post-Falklands War popularity, Margaret Thatcher imposed a similar policies in Britain. A newly free Poland was pressured into following such a plan in 1989.

The policies of what has become known as the 'Washington Consensus' are fundamentally anti-democratic, antithetical to the public welfare and would never be accepted by a democratic society. Ruthless and well prepared promoters at the White House and the IMF have only been able to impose them upon nations in a state of economic or political crisis.

The South American nations that first fell victim to this campaign have begun in recent years to recover themselves and are rejecting further extortion. They are once again embracing nationalist economic platforms with increasing investment in civic society.

The US government is responsible for immeasurable suffering as a result of what its adherents call "pure capitalism" and Americans themselves are are now seeing its more advanced stage, with the advent of the homeland security economy and a militarized society with a limited tolerance for civil rights, all justified by the War on Terror.

Don't think that you are safe because you live in a wealthy, democratic country with a strong liberal tradition. The sharp decline in recent years of government funding in Canada for health care, education and environmental protection has been the result of skillful campaigns waged by powerful, well-funded proponents with an aggressive agenda. Read this book. Get angry.

Sign Language

When I first saw it, the sign on the beach made me laugh, or more accurately, it was the tire tracks in the sand beside the sign prohibiting vehicles on the beach that I found humorous. Later in the day, though, I found myself thinking about those drivers' blithe disregard for local bylaws and what it represents. The tire tracks were laid down by the wealthy Nicaraguan politicians and expats who live in the enclave of big, razor-ribbon protected villas north of the town that can be seen in the picture's background. Not using the beach would mean a four kilometre drive along a dirt road for them, but leave the beach safer, cleaner and more attractive for residents and the tourists that the town's economy depends upon.

Nicaragua suffers from the same absurdly lopsided distribution of wealth that is common to most third world countries. A tiny local elite and a few wealth foreigners enjoy a lavish lifestyle with servants to care for their every need or want while the vast majority of people struggle to acquire the bare necessities of life. Unfortunately, this situation tends to breed in the well healed minority a sense of entitlement, as if their privileged lives are the result of some God given superiority rather than fortunate birth, or perhaps larceny.

Such delusions have consequences. The people with the resources and influence to bring constructive change to the country see themselves as detached from the majority of society and without responsibility, to pay taxes, respect the law or contribute to the betterment of their nation. They dismiss the situation of their less fortunate compatriots as inevitable and insoluble.

First world nations like Canada have a much more even distribution of income that Nicaragua, a gap between rich and poor that narrowed consistently in the first forty years after the Second World War. Over the past two decades, however, the neo-liberal agenda that has been gaining ground in Canadian politics resulted in a widening of that gap, as the rich have gained spectacularly while the rest of society have seen their incomes stagnate or decline, and shrinking social programmes have removed many of the supports that made life bearable for low income families. The people pushing for cuts in taxes and social spending are the same ones who benefit most from the former and don't use the latter. It is the kind of thinking that creates a 'Devil take the hindmost' society.

Rivas Road II

Passing the trudging oxcart was easy, but that maneuver put me onto a ten metre stretch of gravel in the middle of the road that had the little Yamaha's rear tire sliding out from under me. Backing off the throttle, I let the bike coast to the ten centimeter lip that led up onto the next section of asphalt. Giving the little 125cc engine a quick shot of gas and leaning back as it reached the blacktop to lighten the front wheel and soften the bump, I jammed the throttle closed. A rear wheel climbing up a ledge like that under power can launch itself into the air and catapult the rider over the handlebars. Grab a handful of clutch, blip the throttle to keep revs up, tap the gear lever down into second with the toe of my boot, let the clutch lever go and accelerate. Slipping around two potholes, I couldn't side step the third one and hit the brakes hard to lessen the impact, then needed a burst of speed to get onto the shoulder and out of the way of the oncoming pickup truck that was roaring towards me down the single lane of pavement in a flurry of dust and flying stones.

I have written before about the experience of traveling by taxi to Rivas on the crumbling, potholed road from San Juan. Now that I have a motorcycle, the trip has taken on a whole new dimension. Most of the pitfalls are committed to memory and my riding style has adjusted.

Maintaining a good average speed over this course requires a modified off-road style, standing up on the foot pegs over the unavoidable bumps and patches of sand, then steering with the knees to go around the rest, using body English instead of the handlebars to make quick, side to side moves.

Just to make things a bit more interesting, a project was started last month to resurface the entire twenty kilometre length of the road out to the Pan-American highway. Consensus opinion is that the six-month operation should take about a year and a half to complete.

In the meantime, the road is being torn up by heavy machinery, with sections hundreds of yards long left rutted and gravel strewn. Diversions take traffic around the areas currently under work. These can range from a brief detour into a roadside ditch to several hundred metres through the back yards of local farmers. Dodging errant livestock demands especially sharp eyes and quick reactions.

Safety men are placed at either end of these diversions to send traffic through in only one direction at a time, but they often seem to wave everyone through and sometimes I see them sitting by the roadside calmly watching the vehicles go by, oblivious to the honking horns.