Untreated Spewage

I was looking through some of my travel photos on the computer the other day. A couple of friends asked to see the photos. I was hesitant to comply -- if they really want to see them they can look at my Flickr site -- but I clicked through some of the pix for them.

After a bit one of them asked, "why is it that people who travel always take pictures of the same things?" I thought about that for a moment, and realized it's quite true. Looking around on Flickr, I see many photos that are similar to -- albeit better than -- mine. A similar photo to the one posted here appears on the cover of a current travel catalog that arrived in the mail, although the travel catalog photo is sharp and clean, with rich saturated colors and a brilliant blue-sky background.

That's one thing about traveling: it's usually cloudy, or at least partly overcast, when I'm there, so things don't look as bright and rich and colorful as they do on TV or in books, travel guides, or National Geographic or Conde Nast Traveler. ( Collapse )

Fidel Castro is on his deathbed!

YAY! CELEBRATION!! CIGARS ALL AROUND!!!

After all, a country with the highest literacy rate in the hemisphere and universal health care for its citizens is a slap in the face to democracy, an insult to everything we hold dear under God and the Constitution, and deserves to be crushed out of existence.

And Cuban exiles in Miami are jubilant! I'm jubilant, too, reveling in the TV images of halter-top clad teenage hotties cruising the streets in pickup trucks waving flags. Never mind that they were born thirty years after Castro took power, they look good on television. I'm sure they're all looking forward to going "home," even though neither they nor their parents have ever actually, like, been there.