Reflections on a Return

warning: A political rant follows. For those with a weak stomach for reality and opinion, skip to past postings.

I am in Cordoba, Argentina, my third time to this city. Returning to the United States in nine days is heavy on my mind. We will shoot the last part of the Folklore documentary (Alex playing a song at the Folklore bar) in Buenos Aires and then I plan to escape to Uruguay for four or five days before heading back stateside. I really look forward to seeing my family in St. Louis for my mothers/nephew’s birthdays and Christmas.

For the first time in close to four months, I have ample time to read the news. Seems change has finally come. Since the Republican party’s giant electoral defeat in November, three of the most prominent hawks from Bush’s gang have resigned: John Bolton, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone, the Pentagon’s top intelligence official. Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates, despite having a shadowy Iran-contra past, seems half sane, admitting we are ‘not winning [the] conflict in Iraq.’ The killing continues on a grand scale in the war torn country of Iraq, with over 60 Iraqis being killed just yesterday and the US soldier death count quickly approaching 3,000 (at least 13 US soldiers died in the last 5 days). United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is saying the situation in Iraq is now much worse than a civil war (for those of you who disagree with Annan I ask, “do you really think you know more about this situation than the Secretary General of the UN?”). To add to the instability in the Middle East, Lebanon seems to be on the brink of a civil war.

I chuckled to read that one of Bush’s archenemies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, won a landslide re-election with 63% of the vote, something Bush did not come close to doing two years ago; ah, democracy. I think to myself, despite the instability in the East, the large number of innocent civilians killed in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon by the US and our allies and the world-wide hatred against my country because of the actions of my elected officials carried out with my tax money in the last six years, the pendulum might have actually reversed. The feeling of hope is a good feeling as I return.

Here is a feeling I had yesterday, waiting for a friend (from my journal): I sit at a sidewalk table at el Ruedo cafe in Plaza San Martin, Cordoba, living my dream: drinking a beer, reading a week old Newsweek (only English language rag I can find here), watching some of the most beautiful women in the world walk by while I write. And I am not on vacation. This is my life. How may American's can say they are living their dream? American Dream. Ironic.

Three photos from Alex's camera of Alex, Andrew and I in Bariloche, Patagonia, Agentina. My camera broke, which for those of you who know me well, is devistating. If there are any major gift giving holidays around the corner, I hear the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1K is a great point-n-shoot for only $215 at Butterfly Photo.