POR AHORA….

Rave, why are you picking at those scrambled eggs? Too dry for you?

“Not at all. They’re nice and soft. Actually, I am tempted to smear them on the computer screen. Reading these news bits is like watching a soap opera called ‘As the Stomach Turns’.”

Anything in particular turning yours today?

“The twin towers of belligerence and cowardice. here we have Condolences Rice in Germany exercising her ‘diplomatic language’, saying that the US has no plans to attack Iran FOR NOW.”

For now…por ahora. Interesting that she used that phrase on the anniversary of Chavez using it in 1992 after his failed coup in Caracas.

“Hadn’t thought about that. Well, Here’s Chavez meditating with some of his coup associates.”

Meditating?

“That’s what the headline says. And speaking of stomachs turning, Colombia’s president Uribe is apparently turning his in a naval hospital in Cartageña, instead of meeting with Chavez about the Granda kidnapping in Caracas.”

I read several stories about that. First he said an ear condition had caused his stomach problems. Then they said it was food poisoning and that he needed at least 4 days of bedrest.

“The leg bone is connected to the collarbone? His grasp of anatomy is pretty fluid, isn’t it? He just didn’t have the nerve to meet one-on-one behind closed doors with Chavez. A fine example of cowardice.”

You have a point, Rave. When the kidnapping caper blew up in his face, he wanted to have a summit of presidents discuss the incident. But Chavez said it was a bilateral matter, and that he would only deal with it one-on-one.

“Then Lula got in the act. And somebody from Peru prevailed upon Fidel to mediate the crisis—whatever that means.”

The long and the short of it is that Uribe is a pip squeak and a US puppet—the Bush Gang will try anything to get Chavez.

“I just read an interview with a CIA-DISIP agent who said that the CIA started scheming against Chavez in 1994 when he got out of prison. Interesting interview—the woman talked about brainstorming sessions to determine Chavez’ weakness.”

What did they come up with?

“Nothing. She said he was ‘invulnerable’. That he was completely congruent from when he got out of prison until now.”

That IS interesting. In 1999 Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote an article called “The Enigma of Hugo Chavez”, in which he said that what first struck him about Chavez was his “body of reinforced concrete”.

“This CIA woman wasn’t talking about him in physical terms.”

I understood that. But the physical appears to be congruent with the psychological and political.

“No wonder Uribe doesn’t want to meet up with him in a dark office in Miraflores.”

Well, I wouldn’t mind meeting up with him there….

“Oh oh. I think we’ve entered waters that are over my head.”

Sorry Rave, but we don’t all have the same reaction to the crisis of conscience in the world. Some of us smear eggs on their computer screens. And some of us indulge in moments of fantasy.

“Yeah. And some blow themselves—or others—up with car bombs. And others blow women and children to bits in Iraq.”

And others have to resign their department chair positions in universities in Colorado because the US had 9/11 coming to it for its policies of genocide and interventionism. Which is what I said on Mexican t.v. on 9/11, come to think of it.

“And others snarl in their Senate confirmation hearings, and sneer hypocritically about using diplomacy.”

While others are cashing in on being ethnic minorities who conveniently don’t remember recommending 150 plus lethal injections in Texas and God only knows how many broom handles up the butt in Baghdad prisons. We could continue with this litany till the end of the Thirteenth Baktun, Rave. Right now I prefer my moments of fantasy.

Raven rolls his eyes and pours himself an espresso.

“Women!”