Happy Independence Day, Costa Rica

(Which was a relatively peaceful event, but into every history, some asshats must fall. This particular one came from Tennessee.)

On this day in 1821, Costa Rica, quietly obtained its independence from Spain, as did most of Central America, with the exceptions of Belize and Panama. Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948, and people here are very proud of the reputation they've built as a peaceful, tranquilo country. They've avoided many of the hardships suffered by their neighbors, starting with colonization. Not that the colonizers didn't come. Of course they came. They just didn't amp up the raping, pillaging, and murdering to the levels they enjoyed elsewhere. They did pass around some smallpox because that's just the colonizer's calling card. A given.

When that genocidal asshat, Cristóbal Colón, (You may know him as Christopher Columbus) came a-sailing in 1502, he dubbed this place Costa Rica, meaning "rich coast", believing it to be rich in gold.  It wasn't. Nor were there enough indigenous people for old Cristóbal to pull his usual stunt of enslaving them and forcing them to work their own land for his pleasure and profit. The settlers on the seemingly Rich Coast were largely left to their own devices, meaning they had to do their own work. Needless to say, Costa no-muy-Rica was mostly ignored while the Spanish colonization *cough genocide cough* continued in golder pastures.

Likewise, Costa Rica hasn't been affected by military conflict, dictators, corruption, or the effects of the drug cartels to the extent that its neighbors have. They did have to fend off an attempted takeover by one William Walker, a member of the Southern Confederacy who hailed from Tennessee. Willy decided he wanted a couple of Central American countries of his very own, by gawd, so he pulled a Cristóbal and decided to just go take them. Willy planned to convert Central America into a slave territory, extending the land of cotton right on down to the land of bananas.

Manifest Destiny wasn't just heading west, y'all.

He declared himself president of Nicaragua in 1856, and then set his sights on his neighbors to the south. The Costa Rican president rallied his people and raised a substantial militia in short order. Armed with farming tools, rifles, and (of course) machetes, they tracked down our Nashville native and commenced an ass-whooping. The Battle of Santa Rosa lasted about 15 minutes, ending with the would-be usurper high-tailing it for Nicaragua.

They followed him.

This is where the story takes on the stuff of legend and folks start with the toasts. Having cornered Walker and his men, President Mora asked for a volunteer to carry a torch and set fire to the building in order to drive the evil-doers out. A humble drummer boy, Juan Santamaría, bravely stepped forward, asking only that his mother be cared for in the event of his death. Our courageous boy-soldier did his duty and, tragically, met his end, but he succeeded in flushing out ol' Willy and his merry band of assclowns.

Costa Rica prides itself on its claim of being the only Latin American country whose national hero is a campesino, a humble laborer, rather than a politician or military hero. Juan Santamaría was also of mixed race, being partly of African descent, though you won't find that reflected in any of the statues. (French sculptor. What are you going to do?) Our main airport is named after Juan Santamaría, so if any of you head down, now you know the story behind the name.

This is the Costa Rican national anthem. I like how it reflects peace, the beauty of nature, and working the land with your hands. It briefly mentions defense in the context of the pueblo -- here meaning the people -- exchanging their tools for weapons to defend the country's honor, in the tradition of the militia that schooled William Walker.  No rockets' red glare, no bombs bursting in air. I like the idea of a national anthem being about peace, work, nature, and the land providing sustenance and shelter for its people.

The video has some nice scenes of Costa Rica. Give a listen. It's short and sweet. (Lyrics in the comments)

The anthem sounds sweeter to me this year, as I just received notification that my Costa Rican citizenship has been approved. In about a month, I should have my cédula, or national ID card, making me an official, card-carrying citizen of Costa Rica, or as my favorite taxista likes to say, más tica que gallo pinto. (You're more Costa Rican than the national dish. Yeah, flattery, but I'll take it.)

Feliz Día de la Independencia, Costa Rica.

And So, Once Again...

“My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. I can’t cry about it. In a way I’m inoculated."
~Joni Mitchell

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Joni wrote this piece in 1969, as a "friend of America" during the Vietnam era. Now, just shy of 40 years later, the words are, almost eerily, still relevant.

This is an a cappella piece; I've always liked it. Nothing but her pure voice and the lyrics, which somehow punctuates the gravity of the message itself. The musical intervals aren't what you'd expect, and it's no cakewalk to sing a piece like this sans instrumentation. But, she's Joni.

I hope you'll give it a listen. Lots of Joni's songs transcend time, but this piece is particularly fitting in today's political climate.




The Fiddle and The Drum - Joni Mitchell I guess Joni realized just how relevant this piece is, in current times. Last year she collaborated with the Alberta Ballet on The Fiddle and The Drum, a project in which ballet dancers perform to her music, against a backdrop of her art. The theme has to do with the warring nature of humans, and how we're affecting the earth.

Happy Birthday, Joni

Down on your knees, all of you! Wow, so many of you were already there...

It is the birth date of my personal goddess, one Joni Mitchell. This here is a call to worship, people. Actually, Joni wouldn't want a big deal made...

"I never wanted to be a star. I didn't like entering the room with all eyes on me. I still don't like the attention of a birthday party. I prefer Christmas, which is everybody's holiday."

It's weird, whenever I read her words, I hear them in her voice, sometimes with her laugh. So, in celebration of her artistry, genius and all around beauty, Joni's words:


Songs are like tattoos
~Blue


You know the times you impress me the most
are the times when you don't try.
~Woman of Heart and Mind

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too.
~All I Want

I can't go back there anymore
You know my keys won't fit the door,
You know my thoughts don't fit the man
They never can,
They never can~I Had a King



Marcie's faucet needs a plumber
Marcie's sorrow needs a man~Marcie




Some get the gravy, some get the gristle.
~Banquet


It seems such a shame
We start out so kind and end so heartlessly~See You Sometime


There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes
And the lips you can get,
And still feel so alone
And still feel related~Coyote

But now it's cloak and dagger
Walk on eggshells and analyze
Every particle of difference
Gets like mountains in our eyes~Good Friends


He reached past the wine for my hand to hold
And he saw me young and he saw me old
And he saw me, sitting there.
~The Priest


He's the warmest chord I ever heard~My Old Man



And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
~River

I know you don't like weak women
You get bored so quick,
And you don't like strong women
'Cause they're hip to your tricks
~You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio



Now she rallies her defenses,
For she fears that one will ask her
For eternity
And she's so busy being free.
~Cactus Tree


One minute she's so happy
Then she's crying on someone's knee,
Saying laughing and crying
You know it's the same release~People's Parties

Sitting in a park in Paris France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had~California

Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on~River




With kids nearly grown and gone
Grown so fast,
Like the turn of a page
We look like our mothers did now,
When we were those kids' age
Nothing lasts for long~Chinese Café


And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on the carousel of time,
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came,
And go round and round and round
In the circle game~The Circle Game

Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you darling,
And I would still be on my feet...
I would still be on my feet~Case of You



Happy Birthday, Joni.

Jesus Land

I just finished reading Jesus Land, a memoir by Julia Scheeres. Her story is written from the perspective of her 17-year-old self, and is both sweet and brutal. Her writing is very honest, sometimes disturbingly so, and her sarcastic dark humor flavors the agonizing experience that was her childhood.

Julia spent her teen years in rural Indiana, raised by fundamentalist Christian parents in the 80s. Her parents adopted two African American boys out of a sense of Christian guilt. Much of the story revolves around Julia's close relationship with her "twin" brother, David.

Their parents had no clue about raising a child of color in the cornfields of the Bible belt; the brothers' daily experiences with racism, both out in the world and at home, are central to the story. The parents were emotionally distant and abusive with all their children, and were physically abusive to Jerome and David. They were heavily into the whole Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child deal, to the point of having that bit of Biblery engraved on the two large paddles hanging on the wall.

My high school years were spent in the rural Midwest in the 80s, immersed in The Way, The Truth, The Life as well, so parts of the book had a familiar feel to me. Fortunately, I did not have the home life that Julia and her siblings dealt with -- my parents were not abusive, and though my mom was very religious (as was I), she was not a fundamentalist. The community though, from the school to food, dress, landscape and attitudes, could've been my town.

One thing that personally freaked me out a bit, was the music. Throughout the book, Christian music is the backdrop for the story. Mom continuously blasts Rejoice Radio over the home intercom system, and hymns and religious songs are often referenced. (The intercom is also used to eavesdrop on the kids' conversations, in case any heathenism is going down.)

I knew every single song in the book.

Every single one, y'all. Every hymn, every contemporary Christian hit, every camp song. After all these years, the words, melodies, harmonies -- in some cases multiple verses and even the tenor harmonies -- all still in there.

These songs have been running through my head for the last three days. It is freaking me the fuck out. I'm talking songs like,

Just As I Am
Power In the Blood
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord
All to Jesus I Surrender
Old Rugged Cross
Go To Dark Gethsemane

... like that. The Rejoice Radio hits too -- Sandy Patty, Amy Grant, Keith Green, Petra, those were my tunes in the 80s.

Secular music was sinful. It encouraged wild kids to have sex and become drug addicts. No bump and grind for me, no sir, I put my Keith Green in the tape deck and got my religion on.

So apparently, religious music is still in there, locked away among my neurons and synapses. Scary.

Anyway, this book kind of got in there for me. The racism that David and Jerome dealt with just tore at my heart. Adoption across racial lines is a whole'nuther post. I am not saying I think it's wrong in every circumstance, but I do believe that in many situations it is not the best option for the child. I may get a lot of disagreement on that. I'm in no way saying that every situation of interracial adoption is detrimental. I do think that it is often done by well-intentioned white folks trying to do a good deed who have no understanding of or connection to that child's culture. So the way of dealing with differences lots of times is to just assimilate the child into white culture, as a way to "make things easy" for them. So the child will "fit in" and be "accepted".

That shit doesn't work, in the end. You can assimilate your ass all day long, but it will never be white enough for society to afford you full membership privileges, and then you've lost connectivity to your culture and ethnicity to boot.

These particular parents should not have adopted any child, black or white; they had no concern or understanding of the issues that they brought upon these kids. Mom's answer to everything was "turn the other cheek". It broke my heart and pissed me off, to think of David living this life with no control over his situation, no one to understand, no one to get him the fuck out of Dodge. He was taken as a baby and given unto Jesus and and a white world of ignorance and hatred.

This book made me think of my own choice not to move back to the Midwest. It breaks my mom's heart to have us so far away, and I can't help but feel I'm going to reap what I've sown big time in the Karma department. I have this fear of my own kids scattering to the winds after they leave home, that I will not really be part of their lives, that it will be my Karmic reward for not being an actual presence in my parents' lives as an adult. (not fishing for comments about how that's not true and it will be fine -- I know in my head it's some weird guilt game, but the feeling is still there. Whaddya gonna do.)

My reasons for not moving back to the Midwest revolve largely around the conservative mindset there, and the levels of racism, right-wingery, and Bible-thumping the kids would be regularly exposed to. Not that you can avoid it anywhere in this country, but let's face it, some places are a whole lot worse than others.

I can't say it's just for the kids -- I don't think I could deal with living in that environment any more. Every time I go back to Ohio, it just sets my teeth on edge. A lot of it is subtle. A lot of it is blatant to me, but not really noticed there. I like living in a blue state, I like progressive thought being the norm.

So I struggle with that -- did I make the right choice? I don't know. My mom has MS and can't travel. I knew that, and that's part of the equation. I don't make the kind of money that would allow me to travel back and forth with three kids.

I miss my parents terribly.

On the other hand, the thought of raising kids of color in the Midwest was not something I could reconcile. We -- my ex and I -- made the conscious choice to bring each one of them into the world. I may not have understood all the ramifications at that time, but it's my responsibility to do the best I can with what I know now.

My folks say it's changed, it's not that bad, but their perception of "not that bad" is not the same as mine. Mom says, "There are a lot of East Indian and Asian kids in the schools now; they're so smart! Such good students." (I am just "looking for negatives" when I bring up the whole model minority thing.)

Anyway, this book got me thinking and remembering. I kind of got off on a tangent there. I'd suck ass as a book reviewer. I don't want to give away the story line, so no spoilers, but the story goes a lot deeper than I've mentioned here. I'm glad I read it, and will be looking for future works from this author.

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The Radical Bohemian daughter and I are heading to Value Village to drop off some donations and see if she can find any funky clothes to get her style on. Then tonight we are going to see The Tallis Scholars, hello, at St. James Cathedral. Yes, I said The Tallis Scholars, hell yeah! OK, so it's only four of them, performing with the students from their annual summer school, but still. The daughter and I saw the whole group at St. Mark's once -- I have no words to describe that experience. If you like Early Music, you've got to check these guys out. They rock.