Is No One Paying Attention ?

Before I go off on my rant, let me give a disclaimer: I can not say that I ever paid much attention to this stuff before I moved to Venezuela. I was a busy working mother with a full social agenda that did not involve long talks about world events or politics, and frankly, I believed the government of the United States was more than capable of protecting me and my family - so why would I care?

Since moving here, I have slowly began to pay more and more attention to the events in the world around me. I have lived in a country where people openly critizied the president - sure, Clinton and Bush II immediately come to mind, but I did not know anyone personally that was calling for their deaths. I mean, we have the luxury of "unelecting" someone after four years if we don't like him enough, or the other guy just looks better.

Now I live in a country where people either want the president dead - or will jump in front of a bullet for him. Kind of weird. I guess now that the people do not have the option of him being seriously "unelected" as he personally controls the legislature, judiciary and military.

I keep asking Chris - how did this happen? He was democratically elected 11 years ago and now he openly says he is going to take all of the banks, private land, private enterprise and turn them over to the government - all in the name of his socialist revolution. I keep wondering why this does not happen in the United States? What makes us so different from them.

I am not writing this because I think that anyone should really care as much as I do about the government in Venezuela - other than they supply 30% of the oil needs of the United States and are the Venezuelans biggest customer.

What is freaking me out is that Venezuela is aligning itself very comfortably with IRAN, CHINA, and RUSSIA. It has signed away its natural resources to China in exchange for money. By the way, the oil is not out of the ground yet and it is years away from being produced. Kind of like selling the plasma of your unborn child. Since I have moved here Ahmadinejad has visited, shook hands and kissed Chavez. Russia is selling massive amounts of arms here, oh, and don't forget about Hugo's BFF's the Castro Brothers of Cuba where Raul is a frequent visitor.

So today I was reading about Iran being really upset about the UN sanctions - due to their refusal to stop enriching uranium and all. In a speech in Shanghai today, Ahmadinejad said that Israel was doomed and singled out US President Barak Obama for scorn after the UN agreed to a to the nuclear sanctions. I also read about many countries in Latin Americas open criticisim of Hilary Clinton's comments during her tour of Latin America recently.

I immediately went to CNN.com to see what they had to say about it. NOTHING. The only information is about the World Cup on the entire front page. The New York Times website did mention it on the front page http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/world/middleeast/11assess.html?hp (were they not supposed to be one of the most liberal newspapers in the world, or did I miss something?). The Los Angeles Times and USA Today had nothing either.

I guess I worry because I have more time on my hands now and I am steeped in it. But I wonder, does anybody else really care? I see an open alignment of countries increasingly critical of the US - many of which would not shed a tear at our demise - and the front page of USA today has POP QUIZ: Do you know celebs and entertainment?

End of the School Year

Some end of the year highlights:

Katherine won the technology award for 3rd grade! She was as surprised as me. I told her sometimes it was nice to get an award for things that just came naturally to you.

Katherine completed her Mini-Society Unit. She created a product (purses) and sold them at the market, and made a profit. At first she thought that charging more than what your raw materials cost was not fair, then we had a long talk about free markets and feeding your children and it made more sense to her. I think teaching capitalism might be illegal in Venezuela - but since we are not recognized as a "real" school by the government, we can get away with it.

Madeline graduated from Kindergarten! It was so cute, as they had the stage dressed up exactly as they did for the High School Graduation. When they enter first grade (through 5th) they wear white shirts instead of red, so here she is receiving her white shirt

Beautiful Madeline in her new white shirt, and graduation cap.