Another mission

As of the first of July,  46 U.S. warships capable of carrying 200 helicopters and warplanes, plus 7,000 U.S. Marines ("who may circulate the country in uniform without any restrictions"), as well as submarines, are heading to the Costa Rican coast for "anti-narcotics operations and humanitarian missions'  until 31st December 2010.

They are going there to fight the "war on drugs." 

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Some Costa Ricans question the official reason given for the sudden encampment of troops and warships, feeling there is something more to it than that.  (A glance at a map might offer a clue to what they feel is a much more likely motive.)

There are other rumbles on the Internet suggesting that this has to do with something big about to go down in the Gulf of Mexico connected with the BP oil catastrophe, necessitating the possible massive evacuation of ships and people.  (BP drilled down miles into a geologically unstable region and may have set the stage for the eventual premature release of a methane mega-bubble.  According to some environmentalist experts, what's pouring into the land, sea and air from the seabed breach,  is "a chemical cocktail of poisons," threatening to make the Gulf a complete dead zone with chemically polluted air and poisonous rainfalls. This oil "spill" has everyone spooked.

But forty-six warships for a place the size of Rhode Island or Vermont ...? They haven't succeeded in stopping the drug flow coming into the US across the border from Mexico; maybe they can do something from the Costa Rica coastal side. Costa Rica is a small, neutral country with no army, no match for the sophisticated, well-funded and well-armed drug cartels. It's apparently been unable to secure its own coasts or stop the violence and flow of drugs, hence their calling in the U.S. Marines. 

The warships have been invited to stay in Costa Rica untill December. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what transpires in the next several months, how many drug lords they actually manage to put out of business. Let's hope another war or horrendous catastrophe doesn't erupt somewhere else in the meantime.  The US military is already stretched way thin, what with two other wars currently going on, in Iraq (7 years) and Afghanistan  (nearly 9 years). Weapons of mass destruction? (They didn't find any.)  Bin Laden? (Couldn't find him.  No one mentions him anymore.  He probably died years ago.  Hard to get dialysis treatment hiding out in a cave in the mountains.)  The enemy now:  Terrorism, and the drug cartels. 

As for the Gulf--there just are no words anymore, and fear seems to be replacing hope.   Meanwhile the anchortainment industry rumbles on:  "Which team do YOU think LeBron James will decide to sign up with?", CNN breathlessly asked of its viewers; Mel Gibson had another violent emotional meltdown;  the Clintons are buying an $11 million house in Westchester;  and, according to a chuckling newscaster, Americans spend $57 billion dollars a year on lottery tickets.   

Meanwhile;  they're planning to stone to death a 43-year old woman in Iran (99 lashes and imprisonment weren't enough) for alleged moral misconduct; an old friend has stopped talking and eating and won't come out of his bedroom, steeped in depression; another, whose insurance runs out in a few weeks, is battling her second cancer (different type this time), and yesterday,  while returning from grocery shopping, we passed members and friends of a local family standing out on the highway in the hot sun holding out tin cans soliciting donations for their child, whose treatment injections will cost over $40,000 a year.  The world turning, burning, churning, in a not-so-merry-go-round of dizzying disrupt, enough to suck the air out of you, if you let it.

On a lighter note:  they're auctioning off Roy Rogers's horse "Trigger"'s "remains" this week. Trigger died of old age and Roy had him taxidermied decades ago-- for posterity.[2]. Am trying to imagine why anyone would fork over up to $200,000, for a ... dead horse. "I thought his name was Silver," my mate said, when I told him about the horse. "Hi ho Silver a-WAYYYYYYYYYYYY" we both said at once, then cracked up laughing. Silver was the Lone Ranger's horse.   I forget Tonto's horse's name.

Gorgeous blue-sky day the other day. The heat wave passed, a cool breeze in the morning. Priceless.

Then it all came back. Leguminitis sets in again. Bring out the fan.