Yesterday was the weekly open-air market. It can be fun after you’ve been here a while. The “seed and nut ladies” who enjoyed my account of puppy Mocha’s first encounter with the wood stove some time ago (“Heat! Ooh, I like this!) immediately pointed out that they had unsalted cashews, which they hadn’t last week. I talked briefly with a girl I’ve never seen before selling loofahs (for bath sponges) that her grandfather grows. When I mentioned that my attempts to grow them had less than stellar results (wow, it’s been over five years!), she offered an explanation I didn’t really get, concluding with a smile that it’s “medio complicado.” Fair ’nuff. I bought some cheese from a young couple who are new to the feria, telling the customer in front of me whose dog had just caused an uproar, that the owner of the (many) “uproar” dogs told me that her dogs never bark. Got a good laugh with that.
I’m reminded that before the feria, returning from a few small chores in the campo, I stopped at the carnicería (butcher). Only Javier, the proprietor, was there, busily getting things ready. He didn’t have what I needed for the dogs – will have all tomorrow! – but found a couple kilos of bones, cut them on the band saw to a size I asked, threw them in a bag and handed them to me – see you tomorrow! No charge.
This has happened before. Nice.
On my return, I notice a large display of toys – haven’t seen this before. However, what really struck me was this:
toy guns. Which reminded me of a photo-op I missed a few weeks ago. A couple of kids, maybe 10 years old, passed me twice in the feria with one of the more realistic imitation guns. The second time, the kid pointed it at me again. I smiled. The thought to take a photo pf them came slowly and by then the moment had passed.
In many (most?) parts of the Untied Snakes, it would be extremely dangerous to even be near this kid. There, overzealous cops don’t have to pay for their own ammunition (as they do here, apparently!), and think nothing of firing dozens and dozens of bullets in the direction of such a grave “threat.”
When I was his age, my best friend and I, saturated with World War II movies featuring glorious American soldiers saving the world, had a contest to see who could do the best “death” from atop a pile of dirt on a construction site. Neither mother was too pleased with the cleanup that episode required. So what is a 10-year-old boy with a toy gun thinking about now? Maybe movies, but more likely his mind is orders of magnitude more saturated with first-person shooter video games.
Great.
Nice article….
Thanks!
My Cuban wife still enjoys watching Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, which are still the only cartoons available on Cuban national tv. She is still watching the 50’s Disney cartoons because in her own word they are funny… unlike today’s much more sophisticated U.S. produced children addressed videos games which are all about shooting, killing and war. Did we not used to call the old cartoons FUNNIES? There is nothing funny about the new children games. Sorry to witness that the U.S. warring mentality is spreading to peaceful Uruguay. It was just a matter of time especially when the bully, “You’re Fired Trump”, is giving the American lead.
America has been extremely warlike long, long before Trump ever took office. I don’t want to make Doug’s blog into a flame fest, so all I’m gonna say is to look around. Some supposedly peace-loving administrations have delivered a whole lot of death and destruction-far more than the one currently in power.
Thanks AJ. I agree that this runs deeper (or over the head of) any president. Best I know Obama did vastly more drone attacks than Baby Bush, and under Trump I understand they have increased dramatically beyond Obama. I am generally as loathe to recommend the New York Times as Snopes.com, but they recently did an excellent and insightful into the damage done to soldiers (especially drone operators) as they become murderers instead of warriors. The fact is, there are simply more and more drones, and each drone attack recruits more “freedom fighters” (oh sorry, they’re not on “our” side, so they’re terrorists) who hate the USA, and by extension the West in general.
To you or me it seems pointless, even – no, definitely – demented. But as Ike implied in 1961, every missile fired needs to be replaced, and that is a very profitable business.
For the most part, the whole “war on terror” looks like corporate welfare for the MIC/police/security/surveillance complex. If you want more of something, subsidize it, or have the US government declare war upon it.
If I had such a selection back in the early ´50s, I´d have wet my pants in excitement. And no, the RCMP did not pull their guns on kids with toy guns. And no, I did not grow up to kill or wound anyone with a gun in spite of hours of play with toy guns. And no, I do not own or want to own a gun.
When I was a kid back in the ’70s and ’80s, we had all kinds of very realistic toy guns. We also, as kids under 16, could buy BBs, C02 cartridges, arrows, butterfly knives, fireworks, motorcycles, gasoline, black powder, etc. Our fathers gave us pellet guns, wrist rockets, bows to shoot our arrows from, pocket knives, .22s; and a swift kick right in the ass for any misuse.
School shootings were virtually unknown back then. And violence between kids was typically a short fisticuffs that ended with the combatants later becoming friends out of respect.
Something has changed here over the last 30 years or so, and it isn’t that we have too much liberty or toys that are too cool.
There is a very high correlation between antidepressant use and the patsy “shooters.” I use that term because virtually every mass shooting, upon investigation — by which I mean independent of the ever-changing “official narrative” and the lapdog media — quickly reveals serious anomalies. In almost all cases, those anomalies unravel the “official narrative” rather quickly. But does it matter? The hapless consumers of mainstream media rubbish are hustled along – with maybe a little pause for celebrity gossip — to be slammed nonstop with the next fear event.
Very true about the mass-shootings. All of the stories have pretty big holes in them.
The extent to which people in this country are brainwashed by the mainstream media, whether they call themselves conservative or liberal, is absolutely maddening. How can liberty endure in an environment where the people are so willing to be spoon-fed their beliefs?
I totally understand why you bailed and went to South America. If I had money, I might be looking for an exit myself.
Actually this current collective brainwashed insanity wasn’t an issue shortly after 9/11, when I started to look for attractive ways to get assets and asses out of Dodge (we finally moved to Mexico in January 2007). And it wasn’t all negative. I spent much of my 20s living in Europe, and the challenges and opportunities of living in a foreign culture still appealed. Also, since I had not become remotely competent in French (school) or German (I lived in Germany, but worked with Americans), it’s been a treat to become remotely competent in Spanish 😉
It’s been over about the last 8-9 years that it has been really going stupid, and especially the last four or five that it has really gone bonkers.
The onset of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is real, and its effects are surreal. Whatever vestige of intellectual honesty that there might have been left in the MSM has completely departed.
There are zero journalists now in mainstream media, only political operatives.
Well, look at the bright side. Before the last few years, few of us outside of California had been exposed to comedy of Maxine Waters.
I forgot to mention in my previous post, and couldn’t edit, but outside of the very large urban areas, America is every bit as peaceful as any country in Europe that you would care to name. Typically, these peaceful areas have about a 100% gun ownership rate.
The county I live in, in southwest Washington state, has a population of around 100000. This county has a very, very high rate of gun ownership. Even the liberals and democrats own guns here.
We have, on average, maybe two murders a year. Nearly always drug related. Probably more like 1.5. The last murder commited with a firearm here was in the 90s.
Draw your own conclusions.