I love that movie. My name's Forrest, Forrest Gump, lol. Well, my life has been filled with fortuitous circumstances and adventures just like Forrest. And I have met some characters.
One is my best friend, he voted for Goldwater, but now he is a total nutcase. He's got BDS along with more serious disease now. He belives in global warming so strongly that he thinks people should not live in the desert. I tried to tell him about Mesopotamia but he wouldn't hear of it.
Now one I have got to tell you about is my wife' friends' boyfriend. He is sort of an enigma, but he has got the most interesting tales.
I just asked my wife how her girlfriend is doing. Well, fine, yesterday, her and her boyfriend drove down to this little Gold Mining Town, to have a look around. It's only one hundred and eleven miles EACH WAY.
Well, I am telling you this because we had them over for dinner two nights ago, and my wife happened to mention: "What do you think of Al Gore standing to make money off these carbon credits?" Her friend said, "How can you be so cruel to Al Gore?" Well, that ended that line of questioning. I kept my mouth shut. Later, my wife told me that Al Gore is her boyfriend's hero.
Didn't Al Gore say ride your bicycle? Or do I confuse him with someone else?
Do you know who I really admire? Ed Begley, Jr. He's an environmentalist, what you call the "Real Deal". Last time I went to California, just as I crossed the line, I saw a nice car with the license plate, REALDL. I tried to catch him but I couldn't.
NOW GET THIS:
At dinner, my wife also says, "What do you think about Russia invading Georgia?"
Well, BOTH of the them said in UNISON, "They were provoked by the United States of America!" I was dumbfounded. I looked at my wife, she looked at me. I asked, "How's that?" They said Georgia was trying to get into NATO. I said, thats right and Ukraine too. (I forgot about the Serbia, Kosovo stuff that pissed off Russia too, I have to admit I am a little slow, but you knew that.) They agreed about Ukraine and also USA is putting missiles into Poland, that's a big provocation plus USA is dissing RUssia big time like it's not the superpower it used or should be. Well, my wife says those were Defensive Missles (like that's supposed to make it different!). I got where they coming from so I says "They got a point, Russia is just trying to get back some of the grandeur they had back in the Cold War, they had lot's of satellite states and they was the USSR. They just hankering for the good old days. Nevermind some of these boys like in the Ukraine ain't hankering at all for the good old days.
He told me that Abkhazia and So. Ossetia are mostly Russian and they had gotten Russian Passports in advance of US provoking Russia, just in case, you know. So being Russian anyway, they ought to be part of Russia. I said well, you got a good case there, only thing is, I think it's like 80% Russian in those there places, so you know what that means, 20% got to go, you know like curtains! He said, No, all you got to do is separation and migration. That got me to thinking, well, they tried that in Pakistan and India, I said you know about that, and they still fighting there. I said it's not like America, over there them folks sometimes, they just can't get along.
Well his girlfriend pipes up ands says "know about formation of Pakistan, heck he lived it!"
So, I swear, he's telling me how the Japanese was coming into Nanking, and his father come and packed up the family and it took THREE months in this truck to relocate to central China , Chung King, and this truck was charcoal powered , with a spark plug compression engine, NOT THE STEAM kind, and the family was having to like sit outside the truck as it was running down the road , turning these CRANKS which powered FANS which heated the charcoal. I asked if it was like METHANE gas or what that was generated. I just found this part intriguing, it was like the Beverly Hillbillies or something. He was asking about if we had seen "The Last Emperor", that was kinda what it was like. If anybody has a link to a spark powered truck powered by charcoal with fans I would like to know.
Well, we got into the Revolution, I asked if his father was on Mao's side or the other guy, He mentioned Chiang Kai Shek I believe. I asked about if they ever considered Taiwan. Well, he said, his father became disillusioned with the Nationalists as he found out the corruption that existed there. So he went to Kolkuta to work with Montgomery. I think it was Montgomery. He says he used to bounce him on his knee. (Just to make conversation, I told him bout this Korean War Vet, I sorta know who says he was captured and put in a bamboo cage and dunked in the water, cage and all, and when he was brought up, these little Korean dudes would poke at him with sharp bamboo sticks and thats how he lost little pieces of his fingers. He said he still has nitemares of that.)
I asked, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, I said, well, if your father was like, going to be killed by the communists if he had stayed in China, well, I am sure he had a MAJOR dislike of them, so, given that, how does that fact influence your thinking as regards socialism, etc.
He says: When I was young, I used to sort of agree with my father and harbor some resentment to these folks, but as I got older, I began to take a more global diversified viewpoints. He says if you can look at it from the Communists point of view, it is a completely different story.
I told him yeah, I am just a country bumpkin, but I been reading on the Wiki about stuff like Ukraine and collectivization of farms, and forced migrations to Siberia, and lots of starvation and such. And it's a little hard for me to grasp, you know.
I tell you I done a little traveling, I never been to the camps in Germany, but I been to the killing fields in Cambodia, saw this glass thing filled with human bones dug up out of a field out back, and our tour guide , well, he's doing great now, but he was eating termites and the inside of bark from trees and grass too, and when he says, he lost his mother father, five sisters and brothers, bunch of cousins aunts uncles, etc. and he's the only one left cause he hid out saved by a Buddhist monk and he's hung over cause he got drunk last night at a birthday party, and slept outside, cause he forgot his key and got eaten alive by the skeeters, Cambodian skeeters. I got a picture of a poor child paddling in a washtub too and a little hard working future sailor.
I told him I seen Ho Chi Minh in person, inside a glass cage, and could you get into to see Mao, well, turns out the line (queue) is too long for that.
GET THIS:
I asked him since he used to go to Tulane, if the Cane was going to come after anybody he knew like last time. Well, he said his sister was already gone to Atlanta. I mentioned that Cane got a hold of Cuba. Well, he says, he has been asked to open a School of Medicine in Cuba. Well, I says, I heard Cuba has a good health care system. Most excellent he says. I says, I hear they got a very low infant mortality rate, Yes, he says, but here's something not everybody knows , Cuba also is an international leader in Biotech. I was unawares of that I let him know.
He also mentioned that Dubai has asked him to open a Medical School there too. Well, go for it I said. He said his staff don't want to go. I said I never been there but I hear it's real nice, Roger Federer lives there. He said his staff don't want to go through wearing the clothes, etc, the hassle involved.
Then he asked me how to get into Wimbledon cause he couldn't get tickets last time. Well, you queue, I told him. He said he went down there and the queue was 2 1/2 hours long. so he took the bus back to Oxford where he was invited to speak, that was a two hour ride. Only the next day I remembered I had heard that before and he missed the greatest tennis game of all.
He also told me a friend of his was given about 400MM dollars to open an Engineering School by this Pharmaceutical Company. And they was just going to build it from scratch. And the plan was to give $135,000 for each student to cover tuition, etc. That sounded like a lot to me, but he said books and all add up.
This reminds me the other day this guy I met says: "Sometimes democracy is not the best form of government." This was kind of out of the blue. I said "I don't know, I been looking into some these places like Ukraine, etc" Then he says, "Especially when it's forced upon you."
Then I realized he just pulling my chain talking about Iraq. Like it's so much better with Uday and Usay, that's a pair!
I asked where's he from, and its Reston, VA , which I interpretted as govt worker.
I find the question intriguing. Do you know another place even different time where they run a nice country and all and it was not democracy? If you give a straight answer to this question, well, can you or anybody think of one? There may be a bunch , nothing comes to mind, I may be prejudiced on this question too. You know I disagreed with the original idea of trying to convert Iraq into democracy. I thought we should just have sent a real strong signal to this OBL dude. One that said to him "Oops! maybe it wasn't a great idea after all" one where the rest of the world said, "You don't mess with Texas" But I know this is not kosher and is a bad thought to have, I'm glad President Bush didn't do that. Most folks say you can't do this cause it would just rile them up.
I got another friend just got back from Tajikistan, and he said he went up and gave "the finger" to a statue of Lenin. And he complained about going through customs in Moscow, it took them too long to transfer the bags. Well, he is a Democrat and a Jew and Russian parents too. I asked him about Ahmadinejad. Well, he is very forgiving towards him, his wife too, but the reasoning she gave was the best reason I have heard. And that is that they are Buddhists and well, they believe in non-violence, real deal! Which is OK with me. |
