Text and Photography by Harvey Lloyd

Editors’ Note: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of TheX-Press or its editors.

This blog is part of a series entitled Secrets of Eternal Youth.

Secrets of Eternal Youth

The Blog of Everything
From A Globe Circling Forever Youthful Adventurer Artist/Photographer
Who Hangs Out of Helicopters & Flies “The Dead Man’s Curve” Over Every Continent
With New Studies On How To Keep Your Brain Young

(Italics my comments)

HAVANA (AP) — President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro tussled Monday over differences on human rights and democracy but pledged to keep working on a new path forward between their two countries . . . (Obama bowed to Raul’s insults).
Asked by an American television reporter about political prisoners in Cuba, Castro seemed oblivious, first saying he couldn’t hear the question, then asking whether it was directed to him or Obama. Eventually he pushed back, saying if the journalist could offer up names of anyone allegedly imprisoned, “they will be released before tonight ends.” (Cuba arrested hundreds days before Obama came to avoid protests in Havana.) “What political prisoners? Give me a name or names,” Castro said. He added later, “It’s not correct to ask me about political prisoners in general.” (Political correctness from a dictator!) After responding to a handful of questions, Castro ended the press conference abruptly, declaring, “I think this is enough” (Allowing free press briefly in for Obama made him very uncomfortable as with any dictator.) In a history-making meeting in Havana, Castro praised Obama’s recent steps to relax controls on Cuba as “positive” but deemed them insufficient. He called anew for the U.S. to return its naval base at Guantánamo Bay to Cuba and to lift the U.S. trade embargo. (More baksheesh for the Castro dictatorship) “That is essential, because the blockade remains in place, and it contains discouraging elements,” Castro said . . . Castro worked to turn the tables on Obama by saying Cuba found it “inconceivable” for a government to fail to ensure health care, education, food and social security for its people a — clear reference to the U.S. (Most Cubans live far below the poverty level. Almost all Cubans struggle to live on twenty to twenty five dollars a month.) “We defend human rights,” Castro said. “In our view, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are indivisible, interdependent and universal.” (This from a brutal dictator whose brother imprisoned and slaughtered tens of thousands.) “The future of Cuba will be decided by Cubans not by anybody else,” Obama said. “At the same time, as we do wherever we go around the world, I made it clear the U.S. will continue to speak up about democracy, including the right of the Cuban people to decide their own future.” (Raoul no doubt laughs on the way to the bank with new funds from the U. S.) As Castro prepares to step down in 2018, he’s held firm against any changes to Cuba’s one-party political system. (In short, he told Obama to go to hell with his democracy.)

A historic meeting to cement the dictatorships of the Castros and their secret police and armies. Havana decked out with new hotels and American and other tourist monies. The Cuban people living on twenty five dollars a month.

NEWS & NO NEWS IN MASS MEDIA

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack
what is contained there.
–WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

Guys and gals, Wit Obama, Trump or Sanders, an maybe Hillary and all de rest, it is difficult to get de news from de press or social media. Cuba, forget it. One media is corrupt crooks, de other is mainly full of gossip, selfies and tweets. You gotta know what’s goin’ on if you wanna stay young. Don’t wait for no one to tell you what is goin’ on! De media can go to hell in a flaming bucket full of hoss shit along with de Castros an all de udder dictators, and we can prowl de Internet and check dem out for dere paid off lies. De empty liar’s brain, bad used, bought or barely used is on de dark road to de short and miserable life. News media are liars on both sides of de political spectrum from de radical left to radical right! I damn well say it again to dem! News media hirelings and dere reporters are liars because dey get paid to be liars!

One of seven emotions, Cochin, India

De rap is dat he who pays de piper calls de tune from de bosses of de once honest NY Times slinking to de left, to de right-wing tricksters of Fox and CNN and de lying fascist one sided left- wing radicalism of de likes of Democracy Now (never) and Counterspin which spins like de loaded dice. Add to dat de Bernie guys and gals and its a stewpot of lies. And on de right, Trump and de broken elephant of de GOP don know from nuttin and don wanna know!

You don’t like de rap dat I am spouting, dat’s your prob. Get yah own bullshit! I grew up in de streets of Brooklyn along wid dat demigogue Bernie and was chased by all de Jew haters. De great days of honest newscasting, Ed Murrow, Huntley-Brinkley, Walter Cronkite and de rest are gone. Bill Moyer’s going soon. NPR is joy juice for idiots. Some of de good guys left kiss de asses of de celebrities. A few good guys and gals newscasters stick if out, and de vast spaces of de worldwide Internet is de place to find dem. Blogs and social media, not de cheap perfumed lies of de paid courtesans and pissing contests from de castrati of de lying media. And dis rant aint goin’ viral, cause
I aint no virus!

Mermaid Day, Coney Island, Bklyn

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
–THOMAS JEFFERSON

Dat’s because de Jeff, he aint around now. De worldwide web has everyting. You gotta look for de real news somewhere and everywhere, and I says it again whether it’s phony Goodman, Amy Goodman’s radical left “Democracy Now”propaganda and de Counterspin on de radical left, or Bill Reilly, Fox News, CNN and Ann Coulter in de pits of de right. Looking far, wide and hard and tossing out de decaying media dead and stinking fish, helps keep our plastic brains young growing new neurons. Dats what I read and I believe it and to hell wit shrinking brains. I’m a news junkie for brain food! I search for de news around de world. I got a gigantic fishing net and dere’s a good few edible fish in a fishy news world. It’s our world, you own it, we own it, and keeping track of it helps keep you guys and gals eternally young, living long and strong so you can kick de media’s asses!

Central Park, New York City

On de main broadcast and Internet media, dere’s little or nuttin left but de shouting, rude, mean, brain dead macho guys and de shrieking politically correct women yelling at you and me and at each other, along with dere politically motivated stuffed wid de green bucks, right wing perverted views of the news of de world. You gotta sieve de news like de gold miners and hope de nuggets of gold and an occasional diamond will remain.

De dissent is politically uncorrect. Global warming “deniers” and objectors is worse. Without de deniers dere would never be any truth. De truth comes from looking at your own mindsets and prejudices in de face and telling dem and de rest to go to hell! What de guys or gals dont like what I say makes for de kind of noise de democracy needs, not trying to shut down de university meetings dat you don’t like like Nazis,Klu Kluzers or worse.

Frigate Bird courting, Galapagos

Try tellin’ somebody there ain’t no global warming, and dere aint no scientific proof of global warming, and you betta duck. De five billion dollars and more a year in U. S, government grants to dose who agree with the government on global warming, and nuttin to dose who don’t, makes de choir sing yassah to de massah.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.
–EDWARD R. MURROW

For corrupt media

You gotta know what de damn hell is goin’ on! You got de Internet and a helluva a lot of media to listen to, even if most of dem are liars. If you eternal youth guys and gals, all my buddies, don’t like my damn raps in de street slang I grew up with long, long ago in Brooklyn, dat’s my business, I am everyman, you are everyman and everylady, and de devil with de rest!

Yuh can’t stay young unless yuh tell de media to go to hell with dere miserable lowdown depressing fake stories about de world. Here’s de great gone buddy, de H. L. Mencken, de famous curmudgeon (If yuh don’ know what something means, look it up on de Internet, like I do, good food for de brain.). I tink it means something like he’s a mean complainer, and hater of de corrupt liars.

Clown, Beijing Opera

Mencken hated de press and said “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.” He said, “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out . . . without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”

So what de hell else is new! You gotta know what’s going down to upchuck it, keep sane and live young, long and strong! Here’s anudder from de Mencken! “It is even harder for the average ape to believe he has descended from man.”

They hated him in de town where he was born and lived for a while because he told them duh same scat about demselves. Fame brings you back home. A sculpture of him is now on de back of his old home in West Baltimore. A helluva guy wid de biggest mout’ around. a blessing to de democracy dat he bashed and bludgeoned. He said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” Dat means you and me, brothers and sisters.

Arab at Pyramids

But we don’t take kindly to being dis’d by anybody, so de hell with de big mouth curmudgeon Mencken. He blew everybody out wid his big brain and mout. You was a good man, and I love you, but what a pain in de butt!

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked
by the laughter of the gods,
–ALBERT EINSTEIN

We eternal youths, brothers and sisters, gotta work like hell to know who is doing what to us like de Supreme Court gang of de five radical right-wing justices (all five of them Catholic!). De sixth, a Hispanic Catholic liberal and de three liberal Jews make up de rest of the nine! De five right wing Catholic criminals are destroying our country and de Constitution and freed de corporations to buy our elections. Scalia, de right wing Catolic, he gone now, and “I never wish for anybuddy to die, but I don’t feel bad reading some obituaries,” said Clarence Darrow.

Cristo of the Andes

Dese five ascist Catolics made corporations into people, and we sleeping with dem corporations and getting screwed by dem and dere crooked billions rmoney. Then de robber court stopped the states from regulating de individual campaign contributions! De individual anywhere in any state can give millions or billions to buy or rig any election.Here come de Koch brothers and dere billionaire buddies.

Multi- billionaires will try to buy the elections with superpacs, etc., like de billionaire Koch Brothers of coal mining infamy. Dere agenda is to get you off de Social Security, Medicare, Affordable Health Care, food stamps, anything dat de government spends or “wastes” money on to help the ninety nine percent of us poor bastards. That’s the last big sums of money dey can steal, what’s still left with de middle class and de poor, and to damn hell wid you and me and all de rest all de time.

Masai women, Kenya

De economy booming a bit again when I write dis during Christmas of 2015 and now, which may change things a bit. I hope some of de green do re mi gets down to you and me and de rest of the country. Listen to Warren, who knows which way de wind is blowin.

I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.
–WARREN BUFFET

Yuh stay young here in America becuz most of you is free like nowhere else, ‘cept if you be black, yeller, tan or a few udder tings dat get beat up, jailed and worse here. I love dis country and I been to over a hundred other countries around de world. Dere’s much worse dan us! Too many places where de young have no hope, short lives, no food, shelter or medicine, and dey are prime candidates for de jihadist sto recruit. Dey pay dem to blow demselves up and go to dere heaven.

De greed of too many of our corporations and oligarchs and de rest of de rich developed nations impoverishes and brutally keeps down much of de rest of the world. Developing countries can’t develop. Kids and dere parents are doomed and dey can’t get nuttin, neider food, shelter, clothes, medical help, nuttin! De ISIS Jihadists run wild and dey getting de recruits like crazy! We gotta take care of dis country and keep it strong. De crazies want us dead!

I been aroun’ a long, long time and I don’t plan to leave dis beautiful spinning green planet for a long time and dat’s becuz you and I, eternal youths, guys and gals, have what de rest of de world don’t have. Dat’s unlimited opportunity. You and I are masters of our fate, “If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am for myself alone, what am I? If not now when? wrote de rabbi Hillel. We gotta take de bits in our mouts and stampede down de roads of democracy an destroy de radicals on every side. Here’s to eternal youth, guys and gals, long and strong, and to our plastic brains dat keeps us young forever.

Cherry tree, Kyoto

Iguazu Falls, Brazil

Herod’s Castle, Masada, Israel

All photographs copyright © Harvey Lloyd 2016