Three things

Okay, I know I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, posting all up in here a mere three hours after the most recent post, but I gots some things to say. I'm about to get all riled up and make not so much sense, but bear with me.

First of all, that's my "blue steel" look, a la Zoolander.

Secondly, my mom's doing well after her operation on her hand yesterday to try to fix her carpal tunnel problems. She's chillin' at home with the dog and being all one-handed. When I go home, I will get to be her other hand.

Third, I learned that the state of affairs in Bolivia is no good. Okay, wait. I'll explain a little, because that's probably obvious, or will be shortly.

We watched a video in my cultural anthro class today, Coca and the Congressman [the congressman is Evo Morales]. It was heartbreaking. There are all of these families growing coca plants, some of which are later used to make cocaine and some of which are used by cocaleros [growers of coca] and the indigenous people of Bolivia. The problem is that the U.S. sees the cocaleros as the bad guys in the "war on drugs" in the U.S., so they're trying to stop the problem at the source. Fair enough, until you learn that the Bolivian government is getting money from the U.S. to make coca growing illegal and that Bolivia will only get the money. Meanwhile, the cocaleros and their families are trying to make a living selling the coca, because it provides much more money than, say, bananas. And the reason they can make so much more in selling the coca is because people from the U.S. buy it to make cocaine and feed their drug addictions.

It's a vicious cycle, at any rate, and I don't think I explained it very well. The moral of the story is a message to the U.S.: Butt out.

It's stunning how oblivious one can be to the state of affairs in the world. They don't teach you these sorts of things in social studies, that the growth of agricultural society (into a capitalist economy) has caused more population growth and stratification and inequality. I mean, seriously. It made me want to go to Bolivia and try to help people, but of course I wouldn't know where to begin, nor what I was doing in the first place.

Why can't we go back to hunting and gathering? Things worked so much better that way ...