Buena Vista Social Club

Ry Cooder. A most unusual name. I'll bet there wasn't one in your high school. Mine either.

But he's a gifted guitarist, one who appreciates the rich traditions and roots of music that we take for granted. That's why he and his son journeyed to Cuba around 1996-97. They were looking for vestiges of the Afro-Cuban style that developed in Cuba in the first half of the 20th century.

Up until 1959, Cuba was ruled by an aristocratic military dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Batista welcomed wealthy tourists from the United States. They went to Cuba looking for romantic flings, drinking, dancing, gambling and all that music. They left their dollars there and came home with lots of Cohiba cigars. We didn't seem to care about human rights abuses, vice, rampant corruption and the poverty of ordinary Cubans so long as this dictator blew in our ear, said the right things and allowed the money to flow freely our way.

Things changed radically after the 1959 revolution. Fidel Castro, educated in New York City as a lawyer, went back to Cuba to take his country back from the aristocracy. At first, Castro and the United States were buddies. Then we had a falling out, and it's never changed. Castro went to the Soviet Union for help.

Cuba went communist. It still is. And ever since, Americans have been prohibited from traveling there. We do almost no business there. We are estranged. Two generations of Cuban Americans have grown up in the "little Havana" section of Miami, Florida. Everybody once knew Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. She's not Mexican-American.

Ry Cooder and his son faced sanctions from our government for traveling to Cuba. But what a treasure they found! Not only music but also some of the aged musicians and singers from those days long ago. They gathered in the Egrem Studios in Havana and began to play and record. There was Compay Segundo with his amazing voice and zest for life, seemingly as energetic in his 90's as many 40-year-olds. There was Barbarito Torres who can play--behind his back-- the laud, the Cuban variant of a lute-guitar with origins tracing back through Moorish Spain all the way to Arabia. There was Ruben Gonzalez, an extraordinary pianist with arhtritis in his fingers, so poor that he had no piano of his own and hadn't touched a keyboard in 10 years. And finally, there was Ibrahim Ferrer with his thrilling voice and spirit. Cooder said, "It was like Nat King Cole just walked in off the street. We didn't even know about him."

With many others, they recorded music. And they performed in public first in Amsterdam to a rapt audience. Only after achieving international acclaim were these muscial treasures allowed to come to the USA and play at Carnegie Hall. The documentary film Buena Vista Social Club has footage I will never forget. The sight and sound of Ruben Gonzales' amazing fingers on the gleaming black grand piano and his sense of style are truly works of art. Thank you, Ry Cooder!

Funny. Cuba is right off our shores, but they are our enemy. Fidel Castro is no longer in power. His younger but aging brother Raoul is, but not forever. Canadians have been able to go to Cuba and trade with Cuba for two generations. Doing so has not brought fire and brimstone from the sky, hasn't caused their brains to rot.

"But Cuba is Communist! There are human rights abuses there!" our leaders protest. In the words of Dick Cheney, "So?" Those very things haven't stopped us from not only going to China, trading with China and embracing China. We have, in fact, mortgaged our very souls to China. Our country can no longer exist without China because over 90% of the stuff we sell in our stores is made there, and we depend on China to finance the debt we have racked up in order to fight wars we have said are necessary for our nation's survival. Your car is probably riding on Chinese tires.

There are no prospects for changing this anytime soon--if ever. This we have done by choice because we are lazy and addicted to cheap and abundant stuff, even if it means selling our nation's stability and future security. We are truly hypocrites about communism.

Meanwhile, we hold Cuba at arm's length and hold our noses. For God's sake, why? They are our neighbors while China is not. Why? Because we are afraid of losing electoral votes in presidential elections since everybody knows you don't win the White House without Florida's electoral votes--even if you have to rig the elections (Katherine Harris) and get the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that a rigged result is legitimate.

As we contemplate Communist Cuba and Communist China, whom we love and whom we hate, we might ask this question. When was the last time we suspected that Cuba had hacked into the computers of the Pentagon, the financial and telecommunications systems and major utilities in the U.S.? When was the last time Cuba sent toxic children's toys, counterfeit music and medicines, jewelry laced with heavy metals and contaminated foodstuffs to this country? Whom should we really fear? Which nation has nuclear weapons and unclear ambitions in the world? Which nation effectively has us by the throat?

When will we have the wisdom and grace to do the right thing with our neighbors? We make more friends by being friends than by being enemies.

Meanwhile, thank God for ambassadors like Ry Cooder who won't be stopped. Buy the (now) old CD Buena Vista Social Club and enjoy the extraordinary music. Rent the movie if you can. Most of the major artists are no longer alive. Sometimes, you only get one chance in life to do the right thing even if you're 50 years late in doing so.

Amen.

Roger

Jobs Are Job 1

I watched President Obama last night. I heard all the emphasis on jobs. More power to him!

I listen to all the Republican opposition calling for more tax cuts while simultaneously insisting on spending for wars that we've never asked Americans to pay for. They say they have a better way to bring the jobs back. More power to them if they do!

BUT.....

All the stuff the Republicans say will help was done in the last decade, and all the "growth" we supposedly had was on paper because we kept shipping jobs overseas--our biggest export.

So I'm wondering whether any of our so-called "leaders" really have a clue.

Jobs? Doing what?

A week ago, I broke down and bought a new pair of running shoes. I was resigned to buying a pair of Nikes made in Vietnam. At least they weren't made in China. I figure we owe Vietnam a few things.

But the store no longer had the model I had looked at two weeks prior. So I started searching afresh. Then I about dropped my sox. I found this pair of New Balance shoes that were actually assembled in the USA! The materials were imported, but at least some work was done here. I bought them in a heartbeat, gladly paying 20 extra dollars for that little label that said USA.

Now, mind you, I did try them on--and they were the lightest, most comfortable running shoes I've had on my feet in decades.

Two years ago, I overhauled the engine in my wife's car. The gasket set had parts made in five countries--including the USA. And the label could tell me where each part was made.

So when somebody says we can't label food to tell us where it came from, tell 'em it ain't so hard. If they can do it on Fel-Pro engine gasket sets when there isn't even a legal requirement to do so, why can't we do it on everything?

Oh, and if we want to create jobs, you and I need to buy as much of what we need and use from our nearby neighbors--even when we have a choice that's cheaper. No employer hires workers to make things that can't be sold and for which there is no market. That means it's up to us, the buyers.

So let's be choosy about the country of origin on our purchases, as choosy as we would be about the food we put inside our bodies. We have more power to create jobs than we know. And just maybe, we have the only power to do so. All with the dollars we spend every day for ordinary things.

The jobs we save may be our own. Maybe our neighbor's. Maybe our kid's.

Roger

PS. Forget import tariffs. Let's make it a requirement to put this label on everything that comes to us from the most populous nation on earth:

MADE IN COMMUNIST CHINA

My little friends

I love little piggies. Of all the creatures we had on the farm when I was growing up (a few steers and heifers for beef, 500-600 laying hens, Muscovy ducks, a Guernsey milk cow, a tired Shetland pony, cats, dogs and hogs), the little oinkers we by far my favorite.

Contrary to popular urban myth, they don't like to be dirty. In hot weather they need to stay cool. But clean the pen and provide fresh straw for little feeder pigs, and you can find no more joyful and grateful creatures on earth.

As a group, they would agree on one corner of the pen to do their business in first. When that was thoroughly soiled, they would move to the next and the next. It was a sad day for them when they had to use their remaining sleeping quarters for their bathroom. And when the opportunity finally came for us to clean the whole thing, they would run and play like the happiest kids when school lets out. (That was before video games paralyzed our children.)

We Americans are chronic complainers, I think. And yet, we are the most empowered people on earth in so many ways. We get to choose where we spend our dollars. A week ago I needed some clear tape for shipping cartons and some strapping (filament) tape. I went to the local Fred Meyer grocery/variety. I had my choice between tape made in China, or clear tape from Canada and strapping tape made in the USA. I bought the North American products for several reasons:

1. They were shipped a far shorter distance.
2. They would have been manufactured to higher standards of quality.
3. They would have produced less industrial waste handled more responsibly.
4. They would have been made with cleaner electric power.
5. They would have given somebody on this side of the globe a job.
6. They were more expensive.

You get what you pay for.

Yeah, the label of these little piggy banks says, "Made in China". They are in the grocery store where we buy most of our food. Most of that still comes from here, fortunately.

If I'd gone to Wal Mart, I'm sure I would not have had a choice between North American or Chinese tape.

Save money. Live better. Wal Mart.

Not always. Every choice is a voice. Every dollar is a vote. We're staring a "jobless recovery" in the face. There's no secret trap door for our economy like there is in this Chinese piggy bank.

There will only be jobs for our neighbors nearby when we buy what our nearby neighbors make. When they buy what we make.

Every choice is a voice. Every dollar is a vote for what the world and our country will look like in the future. We have incredible power over those choices.

You get what you pay for.

Pax,
Roger