Creepy Degrees of Separation

[deluxestogie]

The former dictator of Guatemala, Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, was just convicted by a Guatemalan court of genocide of the indigenous Maya people, back in the early 1980s. Do I know this guy? I had never heard of him.

During the 1980s, when I was living in Illinois, my home was across the road from the entrance to a country club--golf course, etc. Because of that handy location, a friend prevailed upon me to allow a large campaign sign to be placed in my yard. It was for the initial run of Republican Jerry Weller for the House. He was elected. I met him once, briefly.

Years later, he married a wealthy Guatemalan woman. Weller has subsequently been accused of failing to report a number of large Guatemalan land transactions, while he was still a member of the House. Also, as it turns out, his wife is the daughter of the now convicted Guatemalan dictator.

Somehow, I feel tainted by that connection.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

Everywhere I try to go with this one just feels like dangerous ground. Chicago politics, etc. All I can safely say is that you aren't tainted.

 

[DGBAMA]

Small world. Make of it what you will, take from it what you have earned, protect that which you care about; and let someone else worry about the rest.

 

[deluxestogie]

Although Ríos Montt and Weller are political figures, my comments are about unexpected connections to the bizarre. I think what I'm feeling about that is similar to Don having grown up near where the kidnapped women were recently found.

In the 1970s, when I lived in San Francisco, my colleague's home was broken into one night, while everyone was asleep. Nothing was taken. The intruder(s) left without awakening anyone. At the Charles Manson trial, one of the accused testified of entering a (unidentified) home one night, but upon seeing children's drawings displayed on the refrigerator--which the Manson clan interpreted as symbols of protection--they immediately departed. Creepy.

Back in 1983, when I was stationed with the USAF in Saudi Arabia, I participated in a group dinner with the Saudi Defense Minister, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, in the Al-Yamamah Hotel. [I remember the dinner well. The main course was grilled quail, which was brought to the table in a huge pile, on a 4-foot silver platter. It looked like the funeral pyre of a hundred bats.] He was a member of the enormous royal family, and later became the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It turns out that he was central to one of the world's largest arms scandals, now known as the Al-Yamamah Arms Deal (it has its own Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal). Sultan died in 2011, before ascending to the Saudi throne.

When I was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, my youngest sister came for a brief visit. She stayed at a motel in Ft. Walton Beach. Several years later (after I had moved away), when a tornado struck Ft. Walton Beach, the national newspapers showed a front page photo of that very motel totally destroyed.

Each of us has close connections to odd events.

Bob

 

[leverhead]

Connections to odd events are OK, if you survive them. The connection to the House Rep. I wouldn't worry about either, I've been embarrassed by people I've voted for. That's as far as I'll let it go. I think we need thorough background checks on anybody running for office and make them public. Maybe it will keep them from getting their hands on an office and hurt somebody.

 

[Chicken]

so were you into the hippie movement,?????

damn i was born when it was going on 68'

to be 18 in 68' would have been SWEET<!!!!!

 

[Knucklehead]

so were you into the hippie movement,?????

damn i was born when it was going on 68'

to be 18 in 68' would have been SWEET<!!!!!

Dang Chicken, now I can't get the picture of Bob in bell bottoms and tie dyed shirts out of mind! I guess he was called Deluxespleef, mon, in those days.

 

[deluxestogie]

Generally, the Hippies were societal dropouts, though with many exceptions. Although I did wear wire-rim glasses, and the fashions of the day (along with shoulder-length hair, and a full beard down to my chest), I stayed in school--almost forever. By the time I finally moved to Berkeley, CA, the free speech movement and student protests of the late 1960s were becoming a distant memory.

Once my education was complete, I volunteered for the USAF--not very hip, but these turned out to be among the best years of my life. Along the way, I absorbed the defining characteristic of the Hippie movement: skepticism toward traditions, social norms and received knowledge.

[My Cozy Can flue-curing chamber is a testament to my not giving a rat's ass about how you're supposed to do something.] Even though I enjoy going off on wild tangents, I try to prepare for them by acquiring detailed knowledge of the traditional way to accomplish a specific task. Once I understand how something actually works, then I have the freedom to identify the unnecessary fluff, and eliminate it.

I would label myself as a tightly-wound, loose cannon. This is in comparison to my eldest brother--an engineering professor at Virginia Tech--who rides his collection of Harleys while garbed in full-up black leathers. He's a loosely-wound, tight cannon. [On the subject of creepy degrees of separation, at the time of the VT shootings, which occurred within a campus building that he frequently spent time in, he was out of town that day, at a conference.]

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

I envy your travels and your diverse experiences. I've lived most of my life in a five mile circle. I've moved 5 times in the past 44 years, all within that 5 mile circle. I'm slowly working my way west to Texas. lol.

 

[Fisherman]

At that rate you will get here and Texas will once again be a free republic

 

[leverhead]

At that rate you will get here and Texas will once again be a free republic

Or under the Gulf of Mexico.