From Russia With LOVE!
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the cloudy, calm, cool and damp island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Friday, February 14th, 2014, Valentine’s Day… After the storm alien ‘Kpax’ passed us on by late last night here on the Cape, leaving hundreds of thousands from South Carolina to Maine without power–hope they turn the heat back on soon–we are left with the day set aside for LOVE, so I pray you take advantage of it and buy someone a box of chocolate or something to that effect. This is the Valentine’s Day card I wrote to all of my readers here at seacapecod.net, I hope you enjoy…
(written yesterday at three p.m. eastern) I took a good week off from politics, “…that’s a lie!” (credit Jimmy Stewart in the classic film, “It’s a Wonderful Life”), as I am a political junkie who was very pleased that Speaker John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell passed a clean, continuing resolution of the debt ceiling yesterday, much to the chagrin of Senator Ted Cruz, defacto leader of the ‘tea party’…, gosh darnit, there I go again, where was I? Sochi, Russia, ah yes, I have left my heart in that summer resort Russian President and CEO Vladamir Putin decided to hold the Olympics, yes sir I do remember now. I am sitting here watching a nasty nor’easter roll on up the east coast, locally Hyannis Harbor, while taking in teams Russia and Sweden (women’s hockey) who have skated to a 2-1 score, Russia in the lead. Immersing myself in the games and the coverage (keeping an eye on the coverage of the coverage, i.e. “The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart” or “Jimmy Kimmel Live”), I have to say it is all, including the straight NBC Today show stuff–all very funny material as most critics go after the lack of completion when it comes to the accommodations, to wit your friendly Russian hotel concierge states, “I will break you!” (credit the film genius of Rocky III, circa 1982, two years after the now defunct Soviet Union held the summer Olympics), isn’t that right Roker? So far I have seen some great hockey games, Japan v. Canada, or was it Finland? Oh well, I know I saw the ’skiathlon’, a brutal cross country skiing track, that takes man to the physical ends, with the dramatic finish of the winner crossing the finish line with absolutely no gas left in the tank. The weather seems to be the big story however, with temperatures yesterday hitting seventy degrees in the Olympic village and sixty three on the mountain where all the the skiing and snowboarding is taking place…can someone say mashed potatoes? Tough sledding indeed. It is like spring conditions in the Rockies, as opposed to traditional cold winters associated with Mother Russia. But it could not be global warming, for that is a hoax they only play in the good ‘ole US of A, am I right Senator Inhofe? There I go again. Keep it on the games man! What’s wrong with you? Sorry about that, so Sochi is located on the southern most tip on this giant land mass, with the mountains on one side and the Black Sea on the other. Very beautiful, as the host country still leads this hockey game 2-1 in the third period, great game, yes, these Olympic games are wonderful despite global warming, crappy hotels, stray dogs (may all of them be saved, like the hero from Colorado, an Olympic snowboarder, who saved five of them, shipping those Russian pups back to that great state, keeping one for himself, Kudos bro!), too much alcohol and Matt Lauer in a hot tub thank you very much!, right Al?, lots of empty seats in many venues, melting snow, Russian’s anti-gay agenda, Aeroflot Airlines, the threat of terrorism and NBC Today show coverage, just kidding comrades, yup, even with all of that, when you take the time to look into the eyes of these young athletes, it simplifies life a bit–those eyes reflecting the exemplification of what hard work and opportunity, magically mixed together with family, friends and community support look like–pure GOLD. Perfection incarnate. The Olympian represents all that is, dare I say, God like in human beings. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are two sides to the same coin, a coin that represents all of our lives. In this country, the U.S., the problem of the haves and the have nots is also a coin with those very same traits. Except in the USA, go USA! go USA!, the game of life is rigged in the favor of the haves, or the infamous 1%, where “opportunity” is laid before their (plutocratic) feet, making it nearly impossible for them to lose much of anything, let alone becoming homeless; whereas a homeless man will never become the President of the United States, because he has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever clawing his way out of poverty, a vicious cycle that keeps most in this nation down and out, or on a treadmill where they work their whole life and realize in their nineties that they have been used and thrown away, like so much garbage. The real garbage is within the tea party ideologue’s policies. Poverty has been thrust upon the masses now because of similar policies dating back to their inception in the early 1980’s, under then President Ronald Reagan, poster boy for the troubled economic philosophy of ‘trickle down economics’, a ruse that has solidified the top one percent’s income, bolstering it during that thirty plus year period by 278 percent, while the bottom 90 percent have seen their wages actually go down, while productivity continues to skyrocket. Gerry ‘meandered’ districts now buffet the head winds of change, with scared little politicians in their ’safe’ districts spinning out lie after lie about their opponents with the monies they legally attained from ‘The Brother’s Koch’, not to be confused with the “Brother’s Grimm”, who wrote scary fairy tales about creepy people kinda like the one’s I speak of presently. These districts are for the most part white and rich, thus republican, normally not voting democratic, therefore keeping crazies like Ted Cruz in power, while the majority of the American people suffer. They also keep the power by knowing that upwards of perhaps 50 percent of the ‘little people’ will vote against their own best interests, as they are lulled into a trance by the likes of FOX “NEWS” or radio hacks/haters like Rush Limbaugh, who convince them that these tea party nut jobs are the boys to help them find their wallets, when all along it was their puppet masters who stole it to begin with.
Looking out onto the harbor now, I can barely make it out, as the rains are coming down in sheets, falling furiously from the Heavens, and I am quite sure the power just went out. Fear not though, as I am actually writing this blog today the old fashioned way, long hand, so I will be able to finish this post and wish you and yours and very fond and fine farewell for now (as I hopefully won’t be swept out to sea!), imploring you to tune into NBC’s myriad of stations covering the XXII Winter Olympic Games over in Sochi, Russia, as we enter into the tenth day of competition, with USA v. Russia facing off Saturday morning, 7:30 a.m. live, check it out. These games are truly a great break from the miserable politicians in Washington D.C., what with their backward, short sighted, narcissistic and greedy ways, drawing up their districts in their own images, or rather the image of their “donors”, as they attend to the best interests of said donors, who are actually their plutocratic overlords who spent all of that money putting them in that puppet position to begin with…by golly!
And don’t you forget it or we will throw you off of a fu@cking balcony…“I must break you!” (credit that crazy jingoistic Rocky III movie from 1982 once again, to wit ‘ole Rock states to his giant Russian boxing opponent, “Go for it”…). Sorry I could not tell you the score of the game I was watching. I am still writing to you under candlelight, so I will make this brief… have a great day and week end folks! Skol! Go Norway! (my grandfather Aakre hails from that great country!!) and Go USA! The Olympic Spirit is everywhere you look. It is not always ‘out there’, rather it is ‘in here’, inside US all. Find it and strive to win, for every dog has it’s day and for one little happy guy, he will be waggin’ his tail high in the Rockies soon! That is what this humble reporter at seacapecod.net is talking about…LOVE. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
