Hector Varela

I am going to miss my dear friends, John and Patricia Wade.  I think that my first encounter with this unusual couple was in 1995 at a Miami-Dade County Zoning Appeals Board Hearing as they advocated, of course, against a gargantuan suburban sprawl project which was deleterious to the environment and for the future generations of Miami-Dade Countians.  In 1996, I ran for a seat on the West Kendall Zoning Council and much to my surprise won against much better connected opposition candidates.

During my first four year stint as a councilman, John and Patricia Wade appeared in front of our council in its then substantive role as the elected Zoning Appeals Board for our district, together with other speakers such as the water conservation coalition, agricultural preservation association, Everglades restoration folks, and other anti-suburban sprawl advocates.  Their arguments were almost always belittled by the developers zoning lawyers.  The activists, however, opened my eyes to the impact that unsustainable development was having on our community.  I truly began to understand the extreme influence of suburban sprawl on the environmental crisis affecting everything, from food to fuel, to quality of life for future generations through their arguments. Overpopulation,  and the astonishing and expansive overdevelopment has and will continue to affect Miami-Dade County in ways which are bound to erase quality of life as we know it.  The only industry we have is tourism, agriculture and the building of house busts and condo busts.  NAFTA wiped out winter food agriculture farmers on small scale.

Patricia and John Wade saw early on that Government at all levels- local, state and federal was shackling Miami-Dade through (all growth is good) illusory sprawl and was draining the urban core of human capital and adversely affecting mentally and economically all those that remained in the city’s core.  It was clear to them and a few others that developers in collusion with banks were complicit in selling the suburbanization of the County until it appeared as the manifestation of the will of the masses to sprawl towards every corner of land not designated as a National Park.  Local, state and federal officials came on board the suburbanization of the county.  The American Builders, Latin Builders, land bankers and the Real Estate industry did in fact become the gang consortium that led America, and particularly Miami-Dade, away from prudent considerations by greasing the wheels of roads to suburban McMansions on zero lot tracts miles from the daily necessities of work and commerce.  The complicity of the financial industry in the debacle is obvious and ongoing.  Even as the Federal Government commits our taxpayer’s money in the hundreds of billions on financial rescues, trillions in wealth are being wiped out in real estate, stocks, mutual funds assists and greedy projects.  Meanwhile, here at the local level our greedy hogs went to the feeding trough and obtained an approval for a gigantic housing development called Parkland, two miles from the Everglades.  Unbelievable…  This, notwithstanding the fact that our community is now labeled as the foreclosure Riviera of America by 60 Minutes.  We will see what the Commission does.  For more on the Parkland project sham, please read Alan Farago’s extraordinary article on this subject at http://alanfarago.wordpress.com and read all his stuff, not just Miami-Dade sprawl.  He is a gifted man.

My friend Dr. Patricia Wade has lived in Miami-Dade County all of her life.  She recently retired from lifelong scientific pursuits at the University of Miami Medical School.  As a professor there she taught medical students cardiac-biochemistry and spent most of her time in collaborative research in cardiac immunochemistry and prostate immunochemistry.  She has collaborated on many published scientific trials that I looked up and that I’ll not pretend I remotely understand by describing.

In 2000 Patricia decided to run against Mister Bill Losner, who was the President/CEO of the 1st National Bank of South Florida.  Mr. Losner in 1996 had won a seat on the Redland Zoning Appeals Council.  I did not think that she had much of a chance against his access to developers “contributions” but she simply out worked him and his slimy political campaign.  She won against a rich, entrenched incumbent who was supported by the gang of helter-skelter developers and financial interests lobbies.  To Pat Wade it was simple.  She went personally to every neighborhood in Southwest Miami-Dade, the good, the bad, and the indifferent,  and asked the people for their individual votes.  A daunting task.  Every ethnic neighborhood received visits all day long from Dr. Patricia – white enclaves, black hoods, projects, agricultural workers, supermarkets, shopping centers, parks, and even the tomato fields.  She won the seat and then founded a newspaper called the Redland Country News that was a success for the concerned and a pain for the unconcerned land developers halter-skelters from the housing boom gang consortium.

Her husband, John Wade, was ecstatic.  As was I.  John is a veteran of the U.S. Navy’s elite Nuclear Submarine Service. There are no dumb submariners in our Navy.  The men that prowl underneath the seas ready to launch attacks that would annihilate continents are handpicked carefully for their intelligence quotients.  They are not average in any other way.  As a personnel specialist in the U.S. Navy I went to special schools to administer intelligence testing (IQ), and to interview, interrogate and counsel people.  During the Cold War, that I think continues under the seas as you read this, the U.S. Navy launched thousands of secret missions against the Russian Bears.  John went to Nuclear Power schools while in the Navy for two and one half years before he was assigned to the silent service.  The Navy requires that an individual not talk about where, how fast and how deep you have been.  Generally, the agreement is for eighty years and it is a signed agreement.  John served on board the attack submarine USS Tautog that in June of 1970, while shadowing a Soviet missile sub in the Northern Pacific made the Russian Commander suspicious.  The Russian ordered a looping turn for possible trailing hunter killer Americans.  The Soviet submarine propellers struck the USS Tautog.  The Tautog withstood the blow but the Russian wasn’t so lucky.  The USS Tautog sonar operators listened to the ghastly sounds as the Russian submarine broke apart and died.  That information has been declassified.  The movie, “Hunt for Red October,” awakened interest in the general public about our elite force of submariners.  Their superior bravery won acclaim by some of the general population.  John served for seven and one half years, was honorably discharged and spent his working life at our Turkey Point Nuclear Plant.  I hope they employ a lot of Navy submariners just like John.

Thank you John and Pat for everything that you have done for our Community.  From training future physicians to ensuring the safe operation of our electrical nuclear generators.  Miami-Dade’s loss is Citrus County’s gain.  I love you both for the beautiful human specimens that you are.

Hasta luego queridos amigos,

Hector Varela

There are 26.4 million veterans alive in the U.S.  That sounds like a lot until you stop to think that it is only 12% of the total of the U.S. population.  Although the United States Armed Forces continue to be manned by the humblest amongst us, they are the most patriotic, idealistic, and the very best of us.  Without their consistent service and brotherhood, America, as enjoyed by hundreds of millions, would not have been possible.  The concepts of liberty and justice for all have always fed off of the sacrifices of our veterans.

I am an Army brat and soldiers were my heroes since I was a boy-child.  I served eight years in the U.S. Navy, from 1960 to 1968.  My first duty station was Ellyson Field in Pensacola, Fl.  There I was smiled upon by fate and became buddies with a guy named, Larry Barrett.  Larry, was a very sharp contemplative country boy, that in restrospect was protected by angels.  I was an embittered Army brat whose most formative years had been spent in a Puerto Rican ghetto and a slew of paradoxical Army bases.  We became fast friends and he never saw me as the spic.  What a stand-up guy that Larry Barrett turned out to be.  I like to think that we learned to be righteous men together.  By the time Larry was only twenty-five years old he was promoted to Chief Petty Officer.  Chiefs ran the U.S. Navy.  He spent seven years on a destroyer and was present and ready to engage in the Cuban Missile Crisis, did engage in Vietnam, and flew our colors all over the Mediterranean.  He left the Navy after twelve years.  I left the Navy after eight years.  Larry found me as a result of a Google search and the publishing of my novel which placed me high on the search results.  We were best buds and shipmates who had to grow up in a hurry, and as all of you out there know that are protectecting us now, those are friendships that are sacrosant, even though you don’t always acknowledge it at the time.

Thanks for your service from the bottom of my heart, Veterans of America.  Take a look at the brother next to you, go the the head and look in the mirror.  You have just looked at the best that America produces.  The very, very best!

By: Hector Varela

    In the name of progress and growth we have managed to possibly steal the future from our children.  Since the first North American oil well was drilled in the State of Pennsylvania in 1859 we lost all sense of life as it should have been lived. Prudently.

     We allowed ourselves to become ostentatious consumers of the nation’s energy wealth, and when it peaked in the 1970’s, we began gobbling down the energy wealth of other nations.  Now the world’s growing economies have accelerated into what is going to be the last of the oil that is now peaking in OPEC member nations.  The acronym stands for Oil Producing Export Countries, just in case you have forgotten, or were not around in 1973, for their embargo.  We have consumed the last of the cheap petroleum on earth.  The competition for the natural resources of our globe is now more than intense.  It will soon pit in a very deleterious manner, America against Russia, India against China, and China is definitely going to want to eat the nations of South America.  The competition will be massive, dramatic and may very well shatter humanity.  The prices of nearly every natural resource imaginable – gold, silver, coal,copper and iron will surge, fall, surge even higher, and as the depth of the scarcity becomes palpable and real to everyone we will begin to demand angry answers.  Some will probably go into denial and attribute the shortages to conspiracies.  The techies will for a time say, “but dude, we got technology!,” which is true.  Sadly though, we do not have technology that surpasses that of thermodynamics.  That is to say, we can not create energy.  We can only change it and harness it as we have imprudently done for over a century.  As recently as five years ago, there existed in China many little villages that are today sprawling cities with sky-scrapers, factories, multi-laned highways and planes, trains and automobiles. 

     Our gigantic trade deficit with the Chinese is putting hundreds of billions of dollars into their booming population of over a billion people.  Guess who sold them the factories and convinced them to become another nation of consumers?  And folks, they want it now!  Double capacity computer controlled refrigerators, heavy duty air conditioners, large capacity water heaters, washing machines, dryers.  Then, there are the cars and trucks that quadruple every quarter.  China’s consumption of iron-ore for steel manufacturing, aluminum, copper and nickel has doubled since 1990, and will double again by 2010.  China and India have engaged in unimaginable bidding wars for oil assets all around the world.  They have competed over the oil assets of Kazahkstan, Nigeria, Ecuador, Sudan and Brazil with China winning by virtue of American dollars furnished through this globalization craziness that has afflicted us and the numb-nuts that exported our manufacturing capacity and jobs who did so to obtain cheap labor, in the name of greed.  When John and Jane Q. public, (the average citizen), woke up, their jobs in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere, were gone forever.  First, the jobs trickled to Mexico, and then, the switch was to China, with spoken communications going to India.  If you watched the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics and you missed the subliminal message of the human energy of a China that will devour you, I suggest you watch it again!  Conspicuous consumption of hard manufactured goods has hit the Chinese palate with gusto.  They want it all and they want it now.  The Chinese are in fact seeking long term commitments for the Arabian Petroleum assets as you read. The assets which we thought we had contracts on. 

     By the way, has anyone told you that the Cantarell oil field in Mexico is in decline?  Precipituos decline!  Where is the border fence and protection for Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico?  They’ll be the first to fall if a civil revolt completely paralyzes the inept and corrupt government of Mexico. One of the first things that we have to do is close our borders and drastically cut immigration into the United States regardless of where the imigrant population comes from. We are already dangerously overpopulated! No matter what you have heard about the good of growth, this is just not true ….. Growth, over the capacity to sustain the American way of life, is a cataclysm waiting to happen. 

     This is the first of a two part series.

Written by: Hector Varela

Last month, an admired and beloved friend came from Puerto Rico to visit me with his wife Gloria. They stayed with me and Carmen for a couple of days breaking bread together and reminiscing about the Miami of the 1980’s. Guillermo Colom was one of three men, in my experience, whose presence in a room inspired good will and love. He worked as an agent of U.S. Customs all of his life. He was a father, husband, and a loyal friend. When we first met I was a Metro-Dade street cop. His positive optimism for the human condition never failed to motivate me to be better than I really was.

Although Guillermo Colom was tranferred from Miami, we maintained and nurtured our friendship through these many years and every time I visited Puerto Rico I would go and see him in Aguadilla. He was a church going man who put his family before all things. He never strayed from the path, as I ashamedly did long ago. He was a quiet hero, who persevered through his journey with dignity and love for all. No wimp, an expert marksman with revolver and pistol. We spent a lot of time together at the firing ranges polishing our firearms skills.

Guillermo Colom called me very early on the morning of April 28th to see how I was. I’m irreversibly ill, according to the learned MD’s. Sometime later that day, Guillermo Colom died. So here are a few lines from Walt Whitman, just for you – dear Guillermo Colom, trusted and beloved loyal friend!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths- My Captain does not answer. O Captain! My Captain!

You will always be my hero, Guillermo Colom…

Hector Varela

My brother, Vitín, sent me five pounds of real chicharrón de Bayamón.  These are fried out pork skins that are traditional to this town and are tangy with spices that crack with sharp sound when you split them.  When I opened the FedEx box the delicious smell took me to another dimension.  Back to the days when I thought that I was “cool” and I rode all over Borinquen on my motorcycle.  That was post the Vietnam Tet offensive of 1968.  In 1968 America lost its soul and then the people took it back.  I worked for Daniel Construction, later to become Fluor/Daniel.  We designed and built more pharmaceuticals and chemical plants in Puerto Rico than anyone else and we were second in number of employees only to the Puerto Rican government.  I worked for a great man whose name was Roger Maldonado and in those days there was an unspoken rule that to work for him you had to have good military experience.  It was the way it was. We paid the best wages and all of our employees had health insurance from day one.  All of them.  That was his legacy.  Very seldom did we have labor unrest of any kind.  It was up to the field personnel managers to keep all of our projects open shop by ensuring that justice prevailed in everything, from hiring, performance evaluations, grievances and terminations.  Often, on my jaunts through the island, I would wind up in the “come y vetes” on the military highway to toss back a few cold Corona beers and snack on whole pieces of chicharrón from Bayamón.  Half crocked I’d jump back onto my motorcycle and zip home with the wind blowing through my hair, I had hair then, and the mellow throbbing of my V-twin engine instigated my idiot part to three quarter throttle.  Traffic wasn’t a problem; I rode in between lanes, impervious to the reality that all it would take was for a car door to be opened and ‘adios morón Héctor’.  Youth is like that.   

When I wrote Affinity for Trouble, available at Amazon, I returned to Puerto Rico to get the right feel for my beloved island.  I wanted to get all the details right.  I was eleven when I first left and twenty-five when I returned from eight years in the military.  It took me three years to reconnect with Puerto Rico and its unique contradictions.  In 1980, my wife Carmen and I left for good.  When I next really searched for Borinquen, her people had evolved in such a way as to be as unrecognizable as all environmentally degraded places that I have ever traveled to.  After roaming for a week, I wept for two days and said good bye forever.  “¿Qué sera de mi Borinquen, cuando llegue el temporal?”  I’ll never know, as now I’m irreversibly ill of body, according to learned physicians.  Yeah, the guys with MD after their names.   

I still hope that we can go forward in Puerto Rico by eliminating the per capita consumption of alcohol, the propensity for violence and crime, and to educate kids like we used to.  We need libraries and schools instead of poverty for lack thereof.  We need to be economically stimulated by the return of the 936 and 937 IRS exemptions rescinded by President Clinton and we need to restart our manufacturing capacity.  We need to stop the acrimony between the leading political parties.  We need cops with par to the U.S. salaries and benefits.  Ditto for the teachers, who will hopefully return to society children that will take their trash with them when they leave the beach.  Maybe they will even be able to read.  Empower them with disciplinary discretions such as a rap in the hand for the deliberately unruly.  Give children love, but don’t spare the rod. 

To get this done with the urgency of now, we need Senator Barack Obama as President.  This man is charged with a spiritual energy that I have not seen in my lifetime.  So vote for him in the primary.  All of America needs Barack as President now, and remember that Puerto Ricans are Americans.  Let us fix this thing.  From the bottom up.   

Last night I dreamt that I was real young again and wandering around the Plaza del Mercado in Santurce as I did as a waif.  I came upon a man weeping and instantly realized that it was Don Luis Muñoz Marín.  “Why are you weeping, Governor?” I asked.  “I weep from shame, boy.  Haven’t you heard about Aníbal?” he asked.  I had heard about Governor Aníbal Acevedo’s tribulations.  I took the hand of this man whose love was Puerto Rico and we wept together in the strange dimension where passer byes did not seem to see us.   

In talking to my brother, Vitin, who lives in Puerto Rico and votes in Puerto Rico, I was as excited as he is about the upcoming primary between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, right there, on our little island.  They are actually contemplating fighting for Puerto Rico’s fifty-five delegates, right there, in our cities and mountain island towns. 

Puerto Rico has been serving America since we were handed to this great Nation in 1898, as War booty by Spain.  The U.S.A. made us American citizens in 1917.  A Democratic President named Harry S. Truman, worked closely with our first native-born elected governor, Luis Munoz Marin, to create the compact that resulted in the present Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and granted us local autonomy.  America lifted us from incredible poverty.  Puerto Rico was once the “Poor House of the Caribbean”, and the United States of America with the prodding of Luis Munoz Marin provided the mechanisms to engage Puerto Ricans in modern productive work, eventually making us “The Pharmaceutical Capital of the World,” a title which we lost.  This was acquired  through IRS exemptions 936 and 937 and Operation Bootstrap.  Essentially, what the exemptions accomplished was for the Fortune 500-type corporations to repatriate the profits made in the Commonwealth without further federal taxes.  The tax savings guaranteed their investments. 

President Bill Clinton, while President of the United States, in his obsession with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), rescinded this privilege.  Senator Hillary Clinton, much like Judas, now denies NAFTA.  And, she could be telling the truth that she did not agree with it in its inception.  After all, she was just the First Lady.  Only she, Bill and her hairdresser know for sure.  

I pray that Senators Clinton and Obama both visit Puerto Rico and fight for the fifty-five delegates.  There is a spiritual energy about this campaign which I have never seen in my lifetime.  I want the world to get a glimpse at the Democracy which Presiden Harry S. Truman helped us create.  We have the highest voter turn-out in America.  When Puerto Ricans have an election the turn-outs are in the high eighties.

To lift Puerto Rico from poverty Luis Munoz Marin was forced to swallow his national aspirations for independence and use his love for people to create an autonomous covenant that would thankfully make us Americans forever.  That of course, is pure hope on my part, the hope for a “forever.”  

Senator Obama has a commonality with Boricuas, who are mostly like me, multiracial and have benefited from the necessity of food stamps and other personal experiences that have to be lived to be thoroughly and completely understood.  Puerto Ricans believe in miracles.  After all, weren’t we adopted and given the most coveted citizenship in the world?  What are the odds against that?  Senator Clinton has visited eighty countries, but she has never lived, or, worked or studied in them.  America needs change.  Puerto Rico needs change.  It necessarily must come from the bottom up with the least influence possible from Washington’s business as usual corporate lobbyists.  Who is best defined by this? 

Yes, we can do this.  We can have the first historical primary battle in Puerto Rico.  Welcome to Puerto Rico, Senators Clinton and Obama.  May the best man or woman win.  Yes, we can.  

By: Hector Varela 

Author: Affinity for Trouble, A Puerto Rican Story      

Since Puerto Ricans are Americans, they should know that there is an ongoing war between the United States of America, Europe and Asia for the economic dominance of the world.  Most pseudo-intellectual members of the media do not write about it, because simply, they have been convinced, in the pursuit of their journalistic careers to believe, that we the people, are just simply too stupid to understand it.  Their editors of course, demand that if they do write about such a thing, it must be done at the fifth grade level, where we the people, can then understand it.  That is not easy.  Our media likes facile, catchy soundbites.  Our education system gave up on reading a long time ago.

The aristocratic academics, who know nothing about real life, propose that what is going on in Iraq is a clash of civilizations between Christians and Muslims.. Islamists, Hindus and other religious groups readily swallow this horse-poop thesis.  Why?  Because they do not realize that Europe and America are secularist nations that pay scant attention to Christianity.  Hindus, Muslims and Buddists will readily lay down their lives for their religions, so they believe that Europeans and Americans would do likewise.  Nothing is farther from the truth.  They readily apply their own religiosity to the common people of Europe and America and focus on the ongoing war in Iraq as the Crusaders against the East.  The fact of the matter is that we would be hard pressed to find one hundred Europeans ready to lay down their lives for religion. As for the Americans, well we just hire it out to the lower classes. Patriotic symbolism seems to work. Americans do not understand the East, simply because we apply secularist human measures in our attempt to understand their zealous religiosity. 

Our befuddled leaders, who could care less, know that Iraq sits on oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia.  Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq stopped accepting U.S. dollars as payment for crude oil.  The Euro is kicking the hell out of a dollar currency that is in imminent danger of collapse.  There is no humongous debt of over ten trillion attached to the Euro. So it can become the new fiat currency of the world.  America is not teetering on the edge of recession.  We are in the recession ship, slowly sailing into Antarctic waters and an iceberg, named Depression, is looming.

We shipped our jobs overseas and they will never come back.  The protection of our borders is non-existent.  The IRS, quietly and without protest, jerked the rug out from under Puerto Rico by rescinding the 936 and 937 exemptions, effectively hanging us out to simply dry.  America’s ace in the hole is to me clear. 

Repudiate our external debt and bank on the mightiest Armed Forces that history has ever known and go after the Euro with our Amero.  Seal those borders pretty fast!  Remember, that in this economic war, Germany and France oppose every solution that America has come up with.  So please, rethink those Beemers and Mercedes Benz automobiles.  Let me know what you think.

In the meantime, buy yourself Gold American Eagles or Krugerrands and stock-up on long duration emergency foods.  Do not buy paper certificates that promise you gold.  Take delivery on the real McCoy.

Hector Varela �

When I was a child and through to my eleventh year on earth, I had never heard of Santa Claus. Of course we were poor and the American culture had yet to trickle down to us titeres in the arrabal. I did know about Jesus and everybody that I remember went to mid-night mass to acknowledge his message of hope. I wasn’t quite sure then what the entire message consisted of but I did know that we ate a lot better and adults acted as though they were happier within the neighborhood. The music scene was especially  vibrant and everybody went on trullas Navidenas singing Christmas music to all, and spontaneous parties would spring up everywhere. It was delightful in the urban core of Santurce. No Santa, and yet everybody was happy, singing, dancing, sharing food and drink and not one mugging, car-jacking, or armed assault took place during this Puerto Rican tradition. Si the creias que yo no venia….. Little people such as me, my little brother Vitin, and my sister Myrna knew that the three Wise Kings would leave a little something on January 6th provided that you left them a little water and some grass in a box to sustain their camels. There were no credit cards and no Plaza Las Americas Shopping malls. I don’t remember hearing of anybody going into debt over Christmas presents. I wish that I could have those times back. I’d gladly trade my present house for the little casucha on Calle Los Pinos. It was right next to my Grandmother’s house. Her name was Provi and boy could she cook! As a matter of fact I wish that I had all of them back. My mami Letty, my papi Guelo, Paula, my two first cousins Jose Antonio and Miguel Angel who died premature deaths with the latter succumbing to senseless gunfire in Villa Palmeras. I wish there existed a time machine so that I could get back all of the talent that Puerto Rico lost to drugs and gunfire. I could then ban the importation of drugs and guns. I could make it work too!! In the meantime I wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year. This comes from the very bottom of my heart. Oh yes, and thank you for buying my book “Affinity for Trouble- A Puerto Rican Story.” It nourishes my body, such as it is, and my spirit. It also proves that Boricuas can do anything in any language without that darned Santa Claus.�

Hector Varela   

Both places at first glance from your approaching airliner seem to be idyllic tropical paradises. But both are in a state of critical environmental collapse. The Loiza River in Puerto Rico winds down from a hilly country side and on through a big coconut palm plantation. When I was a very young man you could ride your bicycle from Isla Verde to the mouth of the river and board the hand-pulled ferry which could take a couple of cars, bikes and foot passengers to the other side of the river and right on to the town of Loiza. The old ferry is long gone. I don’t have the precise date when it was discountinued. It was obsolete the moment they built their superbridge. Besides, the river is nothing like what I remembered on my visits from 1960 to 1968 when I was discharged from military service, some time after the Tet offensive. I left the service in 1968 when America became obsessed with the Vietnam question. It was sort of like now with the Iraq question, but Americans were not nice about it and did not in fact see members of the military as any kind of heroes. Anyway, if you get near the river and look up stream you will see every imaginable piece of trash that you can find at the dump, including animal carcasses. Puerto Rico is ranked as the best place to live in Latin America, being under the U.S. Flag and all. Puerto Ricans are fast learners because now Puerto Rico is 2nd only to America itself in per capita production of garbage at 1,420 pounds per person a year. Just like South Florida, Puerto Rico works very hard at keeping out of the news the fact that minimally treated human effluent is pumped into the ocean. Just like Florida, a few weeks ago, Puerto Rico was forced to temporarily close six beaches because of coliform bacteria. Puerto Rico’s rapid development has also starred in polluting half of its surface water and 99% of its reservoirs.

Officials in Miami-Dade County cannot allow Puerto Rico, which is nothing more than a territory, to pull ahead in any statistics. So we, in Miami-Dade County, are happily pumping minimally treated waste water into our ocean at six different spots in South Florida. I understand from divers that grouper are in tune to eating this stuff. But I have no doubt that we will soon catch and pass Puerto Rico in these statistics. Our own Mayor, the Honorable Carlos Alvarez, recently said that there is no evidence to compel the closure of these pipes.

“How would you like your grouper prepared, madame, grilled, or, perhaps baked?”

By: Hector Varela�

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 In the early morning, just before sunrise, I often get up to a marvelous sight.  The sunlight seems to suddenly be everywhere vanquishing the darkness, that even now, in the age of technology; we don’t know how to quantify.  Let there be light and I can see the beauty of His trees: the mangoes, the avocado, the pomegranate that is now bearing fruit, the bananas, and a date palm gifted to me by Sgt. Matt Garrison, 4^th ID after his 2^nd tour in Iraq, they are from seeds brought back from Fallujah.  All these trees with their quiet distinct leaf patterns, together with the many flowers planted by my wife, Carmen, in His garden, bring ecstatic joy to the duality of my being.  They are all on my land, but do not belong to me, because I belong to them.

I hope that all humanity somehow stops every effort to subjugate others while in pursuit of religious, political, national, commercial, tribal and feudal interests, and instead, find their own spirits so that the light goes on from within to illuminate others with plenitude, equality, justice, and above all things, love. 

I thank America for being a self-correcting democratic Republic.  I thank Al Gore and John Kerry for not having started and for discouraging others from starting protests that could have led to serious consequences when they had clear evidence to do just that.  I thank President Bush for the executive order that allows active and retired certified law enforcement officers to carry weapons everywhere under the American flag.  I truly regret not being able to sincerely thank him for anything else.

I thank God for having been born in Puerto Rico from the criollo lineage that makes my spirit hum and my body want to dance to our Afro-boricua music.  I also thank the people of Puerto Rico for their patience, persistence, excellence and love.  But most of all I want to thank the men and women of the U.S. Military for their dedicated service under such trying conditions as those in the middle-east.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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