In Defense of North America

Roy Beck, American journalist and public policy analyst,  is right when he says immigration can't accomplish the goal of relieving world poverty.  I don't think the government ever stated that it could.  Too bad his message offers nothing constructive, no suggestions about ways to reduce poverty or hunger, or provide aid to these poor countries, or even links to service organizations. In his final comments he says that we should let the citizens of these poor countries, many of them under the thumb of dictators, 'bloom where they are planted.'  Well, it's a little hard to bloom when you haven't any water. Beck leaves the stage, and they're left high and dry as his audience applauds. 

His is an apples and oranges argument, the aim to confuse and obfuscate, and incite fear and anger toward people in this country 'not like us' - i.e. not born and raised here -- who use our resources and take our jobs, never mind that they also produce jobs, or that we've got the room. Even highly populated U.S. cities can't compare to the crowded conditions in Mumbai or Shanghai.

North America IS fortunate. What did we do differently?  We gave priority to education, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to worship as you please; we wrote the Bill of Rights into our Constitution, championed the democratic process. Women are not oppressed or subservient--at least not at the moment; we have equal rights, reproductive rights and effective birth control methods--at the moment. Our smaller populations demand and consume fewer goods and services. We are provided better health care.

Maybe North America could be called 'lucky.' But other countries like New Zealand, Switzerland, Singapore, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, the continent of Australia, and cities like London and Paris fare well too. The people suffering for one reason or another -- mainly because of an oppressive or corrupt political system, poor industrialization, fewer resources, lack of birth control or women's rights, lack of religious freedom, little education -- will continue to suffer. If they're going to find their way to better lives, education is essential. The hurdles are great, maybe insurmountable, and we, who live in 'lucky' countries, have an opportunity to help. The world is interconnected and interdependent, like it or not. 

Smoking

I confess that I am rather critical of smoking. At the very least, it is an inconsiderate habit when someone feels he has the right to smoke around others whether they like it or not.  My parents were both very heavy smokers when I was growing up.  I'd often get car sick because the car reeked of cigarettes and I was breathing the smoke. To this day, my stomach tightens if I'm in a car frequented by smokers.  Just walking along a street I can pick out a smoker's car, his house, simply by the smell. Eating next to a smoker at an outdoor restaurant? Forget it. I'll move to another table.  Does the smoker care that I do so?  Probably not.  It's his right to smoke outside. Should I be forced inside just so that I'm not ingesting smoke with my food? On a cold day I think:  Look what your addiction is doing to you - affecting your quality of life to the extent that you freeze out here, just because you have to smoke.

But much more than that, I think that an addiction to tobacco is as harmful as an addiction to alcohol.  How many forest fires have destroyed acres of beautiful trees, homes, wildlife habitats, killed firefighters, animals, and used up natural resources like water to control the blaze?  How many homes have burned to the ground, sometimes killing the inhabitants, because a careless smoker fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand?  What about the cancer statistics -- the proven fact that tobacco causes cancer of the mouth, esophagus, lungs?  Non-smokers - people forced to breathe second hand smoke - are at risk of cancer too.  If a smoker doesn't kill himself with tobacco - often prematurely - he may kill someone else, usually a loved one.  How selfish is that? My aunt (my mom's sister) died of lung cancer. She was only in her 50's - and a heavy smoker. My mother was completely devastated, and the family felt the loss for some time. The silver lining was that both my parents gave up smoking on the spot, cold turkey, and never smoked again.  Doing so probably prolonged their lives.

On the Amazon

The Brazilian Amazon River is a muddy brown color and immense. Clusters of people live along the banks, which are visible most of the time. Our first stop was Santarem (pronounced SantaREEM) - a big city.  We walked a couple of miles but found little to see except a fish market selling lots of unrefrigerated fish. I wondered what they did with the fish that didn't sell. A boat ride reminded me of the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland.  It was a similar kind of scene, except for a few differences:  At the meeting of the muddy waters of the Amazon and the blue waters of the Tapajos Rivers (called the Meeting of the Waters), we found pink dolphins leaping around. On the banks were horses, cows, chickens, dogs, goats and small farms.  Living conditions, in most cases, were horrendous.  We were given the chance (?) to catch piranhas.  There are three varieties - black, gray and red.  I didn't care to try, but 3 people caught 8-10-inch black ones. The guide was very pleased. Evidently, the black piranhas are considered viagra.  :-\  He said the crew would have them for dinner.  The day was hot and humid so we arrived back on our ship ready for showers.

The next day we took the tender to a small village called Boca Da Valeria that mimicked the way Indians lived centuries ago. Children were dressed in Indian costumes, others held parakeets, sloths, iguanas, monkeys, and parrots (for the purpose of having their picture taken for a dollar).The kids treat sloths like teddy bears and one had gotten himself wrapped up in the cord around his neck and was strangling. I pointed this out to the man with him who got the sloth untangled. Further on, we saw a young child holding a puppy by his paw, like a rag doll.  I went over to him and moved his hand so that it went around the puppy's middle, and hoped the lesson would stick. One child had a tarantula on a leash. 

We wandered away from the village and found some actual dwellings where people lived in pretty rustic conditions with their dogs and cats and chickens. The language (Portuguese) made it impossible for us to say much more than the basics like thank you and please.  

During the rainy season the water rises about 10 feet and where we walked is underwater.  The heat was dramatic.

Along the Rio Negro we hiked with a nature guide into the jungle.  It was hot and steamy, even in the shade, but, surprisingly, we were not swarmed by bugs.  Along the way, we learned a great deal about the way of life of the indigenous people in stone-age times, and the valuable knowledge they still possess about plants, trees and insects. We saw black, poisonous ants an inch long.  One sting can kill you. Three sings will kill you. They looked pretty scary.  Somehow (our guide didn't explain how) the poison is harvested to make poison darts once used in hunting.  We drank tea made from cinnamon bark, clove bark, and a tree I can't pronounce that produces quinine. We also ate a bit of the leaf. Quite bitter.  Our guide pointed out another tree whose milky substance is supposedly a cure for some types of cancer. And my husband was brave and ate the larva of the dragonfly that is often found inside a small coconut shell.  (The hole in the shell is the giveaway.)  He said it tasted like a coconut jellybean. We drank water from a root. Tasted very sweet.