Call Me Ray

Vermont Intercultural Semester in the Himalayas

Here is a message from our friend Thayer MacClay, 18, of Warren, Vermont.  Thayer is taking a year off before entering college (Colorado College) to put on 7 League Boots to explore the world and help people at the same time.  I thought you would enjoy this. He is spending the fall in  Ladakh in the Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir.  I wish I were there in those high Himalays on the Tibet border!

Ray 

Vermont Intercultural Semesters 

Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh 

Dear Friends and Family,

A lot has happened since my last update. Now, the VIS ( Vermont Intercultural Semester)  group and I are well settled into SECMOL (Student Educational and cultural Movement of Ladak h) and it's way of life. A typical day starts at 6:30 for the Ladakhis. They tend to study in the morning and some milk the cows along with some other chores. Then, at 8:00 there is breakfast. Curd and tea almost always are available, accompanied by teemok (unsweetened, cinnamonless, and greaseless cinnamon buns) or chapatti (thick barley flour tortilla), and lentils

or some other vegetable dish.  After washing our own dishes, we hang out in the morning sun until 9:00 when work hour begins.

My good friend Oliver Hoblitzelle

Well, I'm back! Sorry to have been away for so long. Someday I'll explain it all. But for now, what I want to say is that kids are so important to our world and our future. So, here are some stories about the passion for fishing by my good friend Oliver Hoblitzelle. I'm sure you will enjoy them as much as I have.

P.S. If you are a kid and want to send in a story or pictures or art or anything that you created, please do and we might put it on the blog. Ask your parents permission to do this.

Thanks,

R. A.

Striped Bass Daybook — By Oliver Hoblitzelle

Last weekend I went fishing for stripers with Max in Charlestown. On Saturday afternoon, my mom drove me to his house. When we arrived at 2 o’clock, I sat down with Max, and we made our plan for the weekend. We decided that we were going to wake up at 3:30 am on Sunday morning. Almost immediately, we got bored with sitting around and decided to go fishing right then in the pouring rain. We walked to the bridge and decided to fish off of a small platform right near the locks. We both cast our six-inch storm swim shad into the current.

CHOICES. IT’S ALL ABOUT CHOICES

Choose Your Own Adventure is all about choices. In a way it is a simulation model, an approximation of reality without the risks of the real world.  You make choices leading to different endings.  If you don’t like the ending, you can start again with different choices leading to a different ending. 

We as individuals and as societies make choices all the time.  The history of our species is amazing: fire, numbers, alphabets or pictographic language, medicine, architecture, money and banking, art, music, laws etc. Choices got us there.  We are still making choices both as individuals and societies.  Not all of them are good---but, we can change the bad choices, we hope.

So, here is something that was sent to  me the other day.  Give it a listen. Send it on, if you wish.

THE GREEN CUP CAFÉ, Waitsfield, Vermont

This is my second restaurant review.  This is another winning restaurant.  Small, intimate, excellent service and wonderful food. Flavors are fresh, scallops taste as though they were still in the sea, salads are almost a main course and are unique without trying for uniqueness.  If you want meat, the steak frites is excellent, and the fish is done so that the flesh remains true to the fish but never undercooked. If you want a large portion of twice-cooked ziti to nurture yourself, it is one of Jason’s mother’s old recipes and his family’s favorite.
     The wine list is small, well chosen and well priced. Desert?  Yes, more than equal to the moment.
    Prices?  For this food and this ambiance and the entire experience I would pay 50% more and not think about it.
     This is another  ‘run don’t walk restaurant.’

THE TIME IS NOW!!!!!

OBAMA.  What more needs to be said?  The world needs a leader, a person who can renew belief in humanness and decency.

Obama is just that.  Enough of venality, greed, dishonesty, and power- grabbing. Enough of war-making and preventative strikes  (neo-con).

Strong defense; strong leadership, fairness and leadership. Obama will give us this.

Here is our chance; and he needs our support as we need his leadership.

May the wind be at his and our back!

~Ray

PS: For your reading enjoyment, a Washington Post article

A break

Ray asked me to pop on and say we are on a mini Hiatus. A couple of things are on his plate that are devouring his creative time. Could it be another book? Maybe! He's not sharing.  He should be back wowing you with his wordsmithing soon. Thanks for your time! Check back soon!

~John (the Web Guy)

THE TIME IS NOW

IT RAINED last night and this morning the outside world was a luminescent green seen only at this time of year for a very brief time. Faust would say, Ah, moment, but stay a while!“ But that would be a bargain with the devil.  Never a good deal, although that lesson  doesn't seem to have great currency in this country of later.

So, with the rain comes another burst of growth: Obama!  It is time for change to spread and take root.  Would that Ms Clinton  would read the tea leaves and step aside gracefully. Let's hope so.

Alia y'acta est!

Spring

ONE DOLLAR A DAY

YOU got that right.  $1.00 per day is all a family of four has to live on in many parts of the world where poverty is the mother and father and the grandparents of all.

Now rice prices have gone through the roof.  Drought. Scarcity because of a shift to other crops like corn to produce gasohol, plain old greed, and population growth are at work.  People living in poverty spend about 70% of their income on food as compared with 10 or 15% for developed countries.  Even less if you are wealthy.

How can these people survive?  Will there be a Malthusian contraction of population to offset rice and wheat scarcity?  Will there be a massive program of food support from the wealthy 1/3 of the world to the needy?  Will a virus or plague wipe out many particularly in the poverty areas where their health is already at risk because of malnutrition?

Will the rains return to Australia so that rice will flourish again and push out wine grapes as the crop of choice?  Will alternate energy become a reality to free us from the dependence on fossil fuels?  Will we all learn to consume less?  How much will global warming contribute to the problem and its solutions?

One dollar a day.  Not even a Euro.  Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime?

WELL, WELL, WELL, THREE HOLES IN THE GROUND

I wish I could embrace the day with a really positive attitude; but I can’t.  The politics of this country dismay me.  Clinton’s mean, nasty, negative campaign is another smear on what used to be a country where decency and civility were the way of life. Not that politics and business were ever clean—they weren’t and won’t be. BUT…… the Clintons both Hill and Bill appear as old, political hacks.  We need better than this if we are to survive in this increasingly competitive globalized world.

      We just don’t seem to get it, do we?   Obama is a leader like Churchill, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Ghandi and the  Clintons rip and tear at him. We don’t want and don’t need more dynasty building--- 2 bushes and 2 clintons would be a disaster.

     Is it time for the nation to split into several different parts?  I hope not, but we are creaking along.

     On the other hand, Bucky Fuller in his wide open optimism said something like,  “Never has there been a time when humankind could do more for all than now!!!”

     Obama gets it. The Clintons and McCain don’t.