[GPSCC-chat] Current reading

[spencerg]

Hi, Wes:


<in line>


On 12/19/2010 11:31 AM, Wes Rolley wrote:
> Spencer,
>
> Life is complex.  Viewpoints differ.  Screen Rashomon 
> <http://sccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1009008016_rashomon>.
>
> What she relates is her personal spiritual journey and always trying 
> to learn from her own mistakes.
>
> One key scene in the book comes when she has a Bible to read and 
> ponders the meaning of the story of the Wedding at Cana.  Why did 
> Jesus not immediately accede to his Mother's request for more wine?  
> Because he had a choice... as we all do, every day.
>
> The book makes almost no points about policy other than the fact that 
> she ends up be very anti--FARC from the view that you can not win over 
> the people of a country by acting as terrorists against the people 
> themselves while financing your terrorism with drug money.

Thanks.  The FARC is not the only group that fails to understand that 
it's hard to win people's hearts and minds by killing them.  That's my 
one-line summary of the the current US war as well as the US war in 
Vietnam.


Spencer

>
> Wes
>
>
>
>
> On 12/19/2010 9:27 AM, spencerg wrote:
>> Hi, Wes:
>>
>>
>>       Can you give us a hint of what, if anything, she says about US 
>> involvement in Columbia?
>>
>>
>>       US involvement in Columbia has been documented elsewhere.  For 
>> example, the meticulously documented McCoy (2003) The Politics of 
>> Heroin:  CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade:  Afghanistan, 
>> Southeast Asia, Central America, Columbia (Lawrence Hill Books) 
>> strongly suggests that if drugs were legalized in the US, it could be 
>> a great advance for democracy in many parts of the world, e.g., 
>> Columbia, Afghanistan, Mexico.
>>
>>
>>       Thanks,
>>       Spencer
>> p.s.  Betancourt did NOT get along well with fellow captives from the 
>> US, who claimed she was arrogant, demanding more than her share of 
>> limited food and living space because of her high status.  This may 
>> work in Columbian and French society, but her American fellow 
>> captives were negatively impressed.  
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Dngrid_Betancourt)
>
>


-- 
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Operating Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567