Unplugged

It is National-Turn-Off-Your-Screens-Week. I caved before breakfast the first day. For me it was not the television or the cell phone. It was this Blog. If you are reading this, and it isn’t April 28, you obviously didn't make it either.

Screens are everywhere. TV’s in every room. On airplanes. In restaurants. People with headphones staring at tiny screens with little lines of text telling them that there friend Fred is thinking about cold beer right now.

Celebrities like Britney Spears and Congressman Ron Paul are paying people to write their twitter-tweets. So when somebody asks what you do for a living, you can say, I’m a twitter-tweeter. George Bush is supposedly writing 1500 words a day on his memoirs. All by himself? I don’t believe it.

We are all worried about the environment and willing to do our part, right? So why are housewives in Spokane, Washington, smuggling Electrasol dishwasher soap from Idaho to undermine the city’s phosphate ban. Better question? Why do we pass laws that can’t be enforced?

Voicemail is the next technology on the chopping block. I know boomers; we love voicemail. But twitter-heads find it too slow and cumbersome. All that dialing, listening, and deleting is so lame! Google is working frantically to accurately transcribe your voice into text. We may never have to talk to our children again. Or more to the point, they won’t have to talk to us.

NASA is working on space age underwear that can be worn for two weeks without smelling gross. Is this good news?

The Swedish government says is not going to give one Swedish krona to bail out Saab. Volvo is in trouble too. Don’t they realize the headaches this is going to give mothers in privileged neighborhoods over here in the USA?

In Germany the government is paying people to trade in their gas guzzlers for newer economical vehicles. Vehicles that German car companies don’t make. Why don’t they just give the money to Japan?

We're all looking forward to overhauling our bloodsucking health care system. But be careful what you wish for. A man in England, whose father died in 2007, was unable to halt correspondence from the National Health Service insisting that his parent come in for kidney dialysis. Finally the man showed up with his dead dad's ashes to have his blood purified.

A recent study found that we all start to rot, that's right rot, at age 27. Sorry thirty-somethings, you are already on the slippery slope. Memory starts to go at 37 years old. We do continue to accumulate wisdom as we get older, but unfortunately we soon figure out that it is too late to do much with it.

Now, turn off that @*#%@#* machine and take a walk.

Cold beer sounds good too!

PIRATES, ARGGGH!

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The United States has a long and messy history with piracy.

There is a ferry that runs from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island. It takes about thirty minutes. So, when I read that the Destroyer Bainbridge was called to deal with a bunch of pirates holding a U.S. ship and its captain hostage, I got curious.

Sure enough, both the island and the destroyer are named for the same man, Commodore William Bainbridge, who also was once captured by pirates and held hostage.

Bainbridge’s frigate, The Philadelphia, ran aground and was captured in Tripoli Harbor in 1803. Commodore Bainbridge and his crew were held hostage for 19 months.

A band of American naval volunteers boldly snuck into Tripoli harbor and set the frigate ablaze to keep it out of the pirate’s hands.

The United States has a long and messy history with piracy.

During the Revolutionary War, lacking a navy, the newly formed US Government engaged 800 vessels, called them privateers, and set them loose to inflict havoc on British merchant shipping.

Some like John Paul Jones became national heroes. Once the war was over these pirates became a problem. With the introduction of steam power in the beginning of the nineteenth century, it became easy to chase them down in U.S. waters. By 1850, few remained.

But the United States had a bigger problem, the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1778, no longer under the protection of the British as a colony, or the French by treaty, the United States became responsible for protecting its own ships and citizens.

By 1800, our government was paying 20% of U.S. annual revenue in ransom and tribute to the Barbary Pirates, openly sponsored by Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. In 1801, determined to stop the bleeding, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched six frigates to the “the shores of Tripoli.” Among them The Philadelphia, commanded by one Commodore William Bainbridge.

During the war of 1812, the British approached the pirate Jean Lafitte for help in fighting the U.S. in that war. Lafitte declined and joined Andrew Jackson in the battle of New Orleans.

The Confederate States of America enlisted pirates during the Civil War to counter blockades by the Union navy.

And just a few days ago, the destroyer USS Bainbridge, named for our own Commodore William Bainbridge, successfully rescued Richard Phillips, Captain of the Maersk Alabama, after he was captured by pirates demanding ransom off the coast of Somalia.

Today’s hotbeds of piracy are the Strait of Malacca near Singapore, and the Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia and the eastern Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal.

Piracy is still a fact of life, and perhaps on the rise in Southeast Asia and parts of the Caribbean. The tactics and weapons are increasingly sophisticated; the prizes now run into the millions of dollars. Ransoms and hostage taking remain at the center of the game. Violence is increasingly common.

Most agree the solution to piracy is more than military. Piracy challenges the rule of governments, civilization, and humanity.

The causes remain remarkably the same: increased commercial traffic, poor economic conditions, and a regional breakdown in the social fabric of life. Piracy also offers a tool to battle colonialism, which is how Americans employed it to wage war against perceived British tyranny, one of the main things that distinguish us from Canadians.

It seems likely that piracy in one form or another will persist into the future. I am sure precocious pirates are already dreaming of hijackings and ransoms in outer space. Maybe we’ll send a space shuttle named Bainbridge to the rescue.

Cuba Contradictions

It was not illegal for an American to go to Cuba, but it was illegal to spend money there.

Six years ago I flew to Cuba. It was not illegal for an American to go to Cuba, but it was illegal to spend

money there. To cover my tracks, I flew from Miami to Jamaica. The Jamaican entry officer stamped my passport "En

route to Havana." Before I even arrived I was in trouble.

Once in faded and crumbling Old Havana I forgot all about that. Pre-revolutionary Buick’s, Chevy’s and Plymouth’s cruised the streets alongside Russian Volgas. Soon I was drinking daiquiri’s at La Floridita in the footsteps of Hemingway, walking the Malecon, and who would have guessed they have a China Town.

Cubans, for the most part, are poor. But, unlike other poor countries, they are healthy, well-educated, clean, and fashionable. They are overtly friendly, cool-headed, and polite. Violent crime is almost non existent. Traveling for a month, I carried a pocketful of cash and never felt threatened. US credit cards are useless, so no ATM’s.

You can rent a car in Cuba, but you have to pay American cash dollars. The roads are in horrible shape, but traffic is orderly. There is so little fuel, there is no gridlock. If you have empty seats, people expect you to pick them up out of courtesy and saving energy.

As though life had a soundtrack, music is everywhere: mambo, salsa, son, and rumba. People dance. Cuban bodies are made of elastic. It makes us gringos feel thick and pathetic.

There is no advertising, except for government propaganda. Without advertising, blonds don’t have more fun, so there aren’t many flaxen Cubanas.

Prostitution is illegal, but difficult to prove. Buying meals, going dancing, and showering gifts is not a crime. It’s not uncommon to see a fifty year old German man with an eighteen year old Cuban girl. A date with a tourist (male or female) can be worth a month's salary.

The best jobs are frequently in places were the tourists are. There is a story about the wife of a neurosurgeon who left her prestigious husband for the doorman of a modest hotel. The doorman got tips.

There are three currencies in Cuba. The national peso, the US dollar, and something the Cubans call “stupid money,” which is US dollars unashamedly printed and coined in Cuba with no value anywhere but on the island.

Capitalism is creeping into Cuban culture like a snail. The government is schizophrenic when it comes to tourism. They want your dollars, but they want to decide how you spend them and who gets the prize.

Meeting Cubans is easy, but expensive. If you befriend a Cuban, you will inevitably buy them food, drinks, and heaven knows what else. After all, they have very little money of their own. But, they want to show you a good time.

An older Cuban man asked my impressions of his countrymen. “The truth,” I said. "Everyone seems to expect something."

"Of course," he laughed. "They think you are Santa Claus."

If you travel alone it is almost impossible to be lonely. If you sit on a park bench within minutes there is someone sitting next to you. If you can imagine being annoyed by too much attention perhaps you can imagine Cuba.

Contrary to popular belief, modern Cuban food is not hot and spicy. It is bland and starchy. Cubans eat a lot of chicken, but only the dark meat. You wonder how they raise all those thousands of chickens without breasts and wings. “The white meat goes to Varadero,” they tell me, once the favorite beach of all Cubans, now a Cancun-like resort where ordinary Cubans are not welcome.

I didn’t see any signs of therapists on the island. No one told me they were taking Prozac. Cubans tend to sit in groups, talking, eating, and laughing. I went to the beach with a foreign friend and her Cuban husband. When she saw piles of Cubans all in one spot, she insisted on walking farther down the beach to be alone. Her husband protested to no avail. Later she told me she has a therapist at home because she feels lonely and alienated.

On my last day I took a cab to the airport in Santiago. It was 96° and very humid. The doors handles of the cab were broken. I negotiated with the driver. We settled on nine dollars.

As we approached the airport the car stalled.

"Are we out of gas?" I asked.

"No," he said, smiling, showing gaps between his teeth. Dentistry is free in Cuba but only for extraction. "I can't take you ALL THE WAY to the airport." I see the photos of his children on the visor. "I will be arrested. I am an illegal cab."

I wasn’t happy. I got out, paid him $10, and I gave him a nice tip. I shouldered my backpack, and started the long walk in the heat. It wasn’t his fault. It was just part of the contradiction that is Cuba. People aren’t happy the way things are. But they are afraid of what the future may be.

When I reached Miami, a U.S. Customs officer asked me where I've been.

"Jamaica," I say.

He flipped the pages of my passport. My hands got clammy. He focused on something. Flipped some more pages. Then, he picked up his stamp, and hit the page. Ka Pow. I was home.

Click here for an armchair trip to Havana.

50 Plus Dating

Starting over is never easy. But harder still if you are past 50. At the risk of sounding flip, one of the best tools for survival is humor.

Dating after 50 and shopping for a used car have some things in common. In both situations, we are looking for compatibility and trustworthiness. Some are tempted to buy the first sporty model they meet. Experts advise we slow down and ask a few simple questions from this handy checklist before even considering taking that vehicle for a test drive.

1. Ask yourself, how much car you can handle?

Despite what your brain is telling you, you probably don’t need a Porsche Carrera. At our age, it’s not how fast we get from zero to sixty, but if we make it onto the highway at all.

2. Why is this vehicle on the market?

Who was the previous owner, and why did they sell it? If the answer is, “That asshole didn’t know how to drive,” or “She didn’t understand a car like me,” you might want to keep looking. However, “Traded in for a newer model,” often suggests a high-quality automobile, with lots of good miles left.

3. How many miles on it?

It is illegal to turn back the odometer on a Chevy Malibu, but no law against doctoring up human beings. But, why worry? He/she is only as old as they look. Right???

4. What condition is it in?

Botox and bondo have a lot in common. They are both hard to detect. Film directors complain that screen stars are looking younger and younger, but they can’t make facial expressions. On a car you can test for bondo with a magnet. On a person you test for botox by asking them to raise an eyebrow, or wrinkle their forehead.

5. Does this vehicle have special accessories?

Some models come with expensive add-on’s that are pricey when new, but don’t necessarily raise the cost all that much in a used vehicle. A nice house on the beach in Malibu or being the heiress to a small fortune can compensate for lots of dents and scratches. Don’t overlook job benefits. Health care is expensive.

6. How many times has this vehicle been sold?

Some say three is the charm. However, according to an article in Enrichment Journal, "The divorce rate in America is 41 percent for a first marriage, 60 percent for a second marriage, and 73 percent for a third marriage." Don’t worry. It’s only a statistic.

7. Was this vehicle ever involved in an accident?

Accidents can be minor or severe. There is the fender bender, the side-swipe, and the ‘totaled.’ There is the bankruptcy, the joblessness, and the homeless. You want to have some idea what you are buying.

8. Do you have the service records?

It is not feasible to get under the chassis with a flashlight and look for leaks. You do, however, want to know if he/she is looking for a companion, or a nurse?

9. How much is this vehicle going to cost down the road?

Some vehicles require expensive tune-ups and frequent repair. Although there is no consumer report on people, you can take a clue from their ornamentation. Shoes, suits, purses, belts, clothes, watches, and makeup are a good indication of what this excursion is going to cost.

Be forewarned. Using this handy car buyer’s checklist does not guarantee success in future relationships, but it may weed out some of the lemons.

Also, be honest with yourself. What is the condition of the vehicle YOU are selling? How are your dents and scratches? Ever been in an accident? How many miles on your clock? The person sitting across the table from you is sure to be asking these same questions. Or you should hope so.

PS. Please direct all angry mail to the Edmund's Used Car Buyers Website.