Good Luck, lesser of two evils

So elections are today. It looks like the Dems will handily take the house, but the senate will be close. But what's on my mind is how can they NOT win? I'm not sure if I should blame the decisively superior organization and fundraising abilities of the GOP or the stupidity of the American voter, but either way, people sure keep going back to the Republicans. The last good argument I heard against voting for Dems was that they screwed up the economy, which is true - at least, it was true 30 years ago! I mean come on, pretty much every serious candidate is a pro-free-trade, mostly laissez-faire monetarist these days - and regardless of you feel about those types of policies, the point is that both parties are on vitrually the same page economically. I mean Clinton was the guy who pushed through NAFTA and expanded the War on Drugs, which the GOP is usually all about, but the GOP decided that the real focus of the country should be a blow-job (hey, at least he wasn't writing 'naughty emails' to underage boys, or looking the other way while 'a few bad apples' stripped away the humanity - and sometimes lives - of citizens in a country we're supposedly trying to help). I mean combine that with the ordeal they made over Terry Schiavo, and one wonders whose business the GOP won't mind. I thought this was the party of small government, yet they have made a renaissance over telling people what they can do in the bedroom, and what they can put in and do with their bodies. Combine that with their zeal for putting people of a certain ethnicity into special camps without access to any of the protections of law that our country was founded on, and I don't think responsible government, I think fascist. And you know what, my Grandfather helped fight a war to defeat assholes like that, and I don't appreciate them running our country.

Anyways, go not-Republicans. I mean Democrats.

Nothing much happened today, unless you count what happened in the bank and what happened on the street afterwads:

I was in the bank today trying to get change for my 100 sole notes, because that's what you get out of ATM's here, but go anyplace in the country and they balk at having to change anything bigger than a 10. I even had an English guy tell me that he tried to pay with a S/50 note at a restaurant, and they took it (he assumed to change it) and they brought it back torn almost in half and said 'we can't take this, it's ripped.' Anyways, lacking small bills is inviting annoyance, so I went to change my S/100 notes. The bank I went into today requires that you take a number, and there's a screen with four different numbers on it showing which number is up next (four numbers because there's 20 tellers). So I look at my number, which is 994. Which number is currently being served? 860. Que? That's right, 860. It's one of those funny little things that just totally blows the rational circuits of your mind, because there is obviously not 134 people in front of me, but nonetheless it took 45 minutes for me to get up to the counter - despite, as I said, 20 tellers. I have no idea how it took that long, but I did see a couple gringo girls that looked on the verge of tears they had been in there so long. The funny thing is, I'd gone into a couple banks to get change in the past few days, and the wait was always like that, so I'd kept putting it off until all I had was S/400 in S/100 notes and a S/2 coin. So hear-hear for apparently efficient first-world banking services. Bigots say that Jews control the banks in America, but I say they're doing a fantastic job, because let me tell you, our supply of small bills is ample and our banks are efficient. We should count ourselves lucky. Speaking of bigots, I hope everyone goes to see the 'Borat' movie, because I can't and I think that Sacha Cohen has perhaps created the most brilliant - and hilarious - satire of Western bigotry and ignorance we've seen in a while.

You know a lot of left-leaning folk think that all business cares about is cheap labor and low environmental standards, but that's just not true. Case in point with banks, there's a lot businesses care about besides wages and regulations. The fact is that the developed world has a much stronger rule of law, less corruption, better developed infrastructure and more efficient information and money-management technologies, which is why 4 out of 5 foreign investment dollars flow from one rich country to another, instead of flowing to poor countries as rich-country corporations 'outsource' jobs. I mean there's a reason that so few businesses invest in most any African country, a region of the world that isn't exactly a hot-bed of labor unions and environmental organization.

Of course, a lot of right-leaning folks think that monetary profit equals social good, which is wrong for a whole other host of reasons, but I wasn't reminded of any of those as I waited to complete a seemingly simple transaction such as changing bills while I was tortured by a television with the volume too high showing movie previews that were too stupid ('My Super Ex-Girlfriend'? Are you serious?).

Then, as I left the bank, it was raining, so I stopped to pull my raincoat out of my bag. Unfortunately, stopping in the street to do something means it's pretty tough to just walk by touts, and they know it, so naturally one approached me and played friendly, which is a pretty common ploy. And it's a ploy that is lose-lose for the potential customer, because it means if you ignore them you're a jerk and if you don't you're trapped into being pressured to go on a tour of alpaca-clothing factories or buy drugs or 4-wheel through the jungle or who knows what else. I opted for a combination of the two - trying to act completely non-interested while at the same time not ignoring him completely. But as my friend Kerry says, a hybrid of two options gives you the worst of both, because as I donned my coat the tout said 'here, this is for you. It's tourist information.' So I took it and put it in my bag, and went to leave and he said 'hey, look at that' and I replied that I was on my way home and would look at it when I get there, and I hadn't taken two steps when he started cursing at me in Spanish. So I turned around and asked him if he wanted his brochure back, and he said 'what's your problem, man?' and I said I didn't have a problem, but It's raining and I'm going home, and I'll look at the brochure later. That seemed to placate him some. But I think we were both pretty mad.

I know I shouldn't let him bait me like that, but it's tough because this stuff happens so often every single day. I took 5 steps from the pamphlet guy and I was swarmed and my path literally blocked buy two guys selling cigarettes, who I had to tell - in Spanish - that I don't smoke 3 times before they decided I wasn't going to buy anything. I mean every time this happens and I get mad, I feel three things: I'm a jerk for getting angry, because there's really no point and these guys are just trying to make a living; that these guys still should have some boundaries, because everyone in Peru is trying to make a living, and I never had cigarette vendors hassle me like this anywhere else in the country; and lastly, I laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing and think that maybe being in Cusco for low season isn't so hot, because I stick out a lot more.

My home-stay situation I continue to define as 'strange'; I ate a lovely dinner alone tonight of white rice and the most under-cooked burger I think I have perhaps ever seen. Fortunately I figured out the microwave (last time the door was closed, but the microwave didn't think it was closed, so it wouldn't run) so that situation was simple to remedy. I left the house today to be startled by a parrot in the bushes, which I watched for a while before one of the kids came out and I asked if the parrot lived in the house. He said it did, which made it a lot less exciting to watch, plus reinforced the fact that I know almost nothing about my host family. Pets, number of children (ostensibly three, but I don't know which ones they are as there are multiple families living in our courtyard and I've never actually had a meal with the whole family), etc.

In more upbeat news, my Spanish classes are going well. I can feel my comprehension and confidence building and it's only been two days. I have a teacher named Valerie that is really great and funny, and was teaching us listening comprehension today by having us listen to Manu Chao. And I have two other people in my class that are pretty fun and nice, and we're going out for salsa lessons tonight. So that should be fun.

I also saw a cool group of Mardi Gras-esque dancers perform a dance complimented by stilt-walkers and a tower of fireworks, although the event was tarnished somewhat when I realized it was being done for the benefit of a VIP group of wealthy gringo tourists. I videotaped it, and it's funny because I got the end, which was when target audience had been ushered inside the museum for some sort of fancy wine-and-dine and the performers IMMEDIATELY dropped out of character, stripped of their masks, and walked off. The band quit out as quickly as the performers. Some lit up cigarettes. They were over it so fast, I mean the very second the last gringo had stepped over the threshold, it surprised me. Such is Cusco, I guess.

I'm contemplating wandering through the Sacred Valley for a week to check out ruins and small towns if the weather improves a bit. It's been raining a lot, but then again it is rainy season, so I might just do it anyways. Or I might not. It might depend on how Spanish lessons go and how long I want to do those. I guess if you want to find out you'll have to keep reading.