Jambalaya and Evil Prehistoric Dodo Birds

My weekend was fairly uneventful yet not boring. If you read my 'downtown' blog you may be shocked to find out that I only went downtown once this week. My liver and credit card statements both owe me thank you notes after the last few weekends [DISCLAIMER: I have multiple family members who read this blog so I feel obligated to reiterate that 1) No, I'm not a raging alcoholic. 2) My liver is quite healthy 3) Yes, mom, I follow the disclaimer on Bud Light bottles that advise one to 'drink responsibly' and there is no cause for alarm or reason to worry at night.] On Saturday night, I actually went to the driving range and realized with the help of a friend that my golf technique is quite awesome with the exception of nearly every aspect of my swing and my handling of of a) irons b) woods c) the putter. I do, however, have under control the operation of the ball retriever for those times when I aim for the water. Time to hit the reset button on my golf game.

On to the main topic of discussion. As I was eating the chorizo and bell pepper jambalaya that I made for lunch, I realized that there was nothing of particular interest to me on television. So I ended up watching this show on BBC called "Primeval". I had heard it did pretty well and had decent ratings and I admittedly was quite the dinosaur nerd as a kid so I figured the show had to be awesome. The premise of the show is apparently that anomalies start appearing all over England that allow 'creatures' from both the past and present to travel into our time period, of course wrecking havoc on everything in sight. There's a British intelligence agency apparently set up to track and contain these anomalies. So, apparently you get to see both dinosaurs and alien-looking things from the future in one show. How cool is that? (as a kid I was a huge space nerd. I'm definitely losing cool points with at least one person reading this blog). At first I was somewhat into it, it seemed (and still does seem) like an interesting concept for a show. Yet... the show kinda sucked. By posting this, I'm hoping that some Primeval fan out there reads this and runs to the defense of the show to explain to me how the show makes sense. I'm really just confused as to how such a big network could produce something so terrible. (I should point out that I did hear BBC declined to renew the show this year, but it took them a few seasons to figure it out.)

First, these anomalies are apparently just doorways from other time periods which you can go through from either direction. I don't claim to know anything about aliens from the future, but why would dinosaurs (in this episode the evil creatures were actually prehistoric birds that looked like dodo birds) see a doorway of blinding light and feel obligated to run INTO it. Then, apparently running through the anomaly gave these dodo looking birds a massive injection of rabies AND supernatural steroids because they proceed to chase after every human in sight with no good intentions AND when these poor folks try to speed away in their shiny new SUV the dodo birds OUTRUN them and cause them to wreck. Really? Apparently the natural instinct of a giant bird placed in unfamiliar surroundings is to kill and eat everything in sight. I suppose acting confused and bewildered would be too boring. Luckily, one of the main characters devises an ingenious, fool-proof plan to kill one of the birds. As everyone is fleeing through a field of unexploded mines he steps on the trigger of one of these mines. He waits until the bird catches up, and jumps off of the trigger just in time for the mine to detonate and obliterate the bird into "featherines" [pardon my newly created corny word]. Somehow, the person is so quick that he gets away unscathed. I've never stepped on an unexploded mine, but I have a feeling that minefields would be a lot less dangerous if you could simply run REALLY fast and outrun the blasts. In the end, the birds are fooled into running back through the anomaly by one of the humans cleverly deciding to play the sounds of a prehistoric dodo bird distress call via record player. Doesn't everyone have at least one vinyl of the classic prehistoric dodo bird distress call in their collection? The acting and story line were also far from exemplary. It was one of those shows where someone says "I think they're gone" and you immediately know that 3 seconds later the birds are going to somehow appear as if on cue.

The preview had me enticed to watch the show again for a few seconds until I remembered that I was not enjoying the episode that I was already watching. Please don't watch this show. On second thought, please watch it and tell me if the show I saw was a fluke or if BBC executives really were shortsighted enough to hire either the writing staff from the last "Indiana Jones" movie or perhaps some ninth grade English class from Iowa. Apologies to crystal skull fans and Iowans.

Why the U.S. Should Support the "Coup" in Honduras

The most obvious question I ask of myself right now is: why am I sitting down to write a blog entry on Friday, July 3? Have I no life? I console myself with the fact that I did just get off work (yes, I had to work today) and ... the events that I'm seeing in Honduras right now are.. very troubling to me and I'd like to spread the word.

As you may already know, there was recently a coup in Honduras, with the president being exiled out of the country at the crack of dawn. The U.N. has almost unanimously condemned the coup, with even President Obama calling the coup illegal. Most of the world is isolating Honduras and demanding that the president be reinstated. The problem is... from what I can tell, it's not a coup! The actions of the Honduras military are legal and fall within the country's legal framework. Before reading further, it should be noted that the person who took over in this "coup" is actually from the same political party as the president who was ousted! I found a chronology of events on another blog called 'Atlas Shrugs' by Pamela Geller. While I haven't independently verified all of the facts, the chronology conforms with what I've been reading in The Wall Street Journal, which also maintains that the "coup" is legal and should be supported by the United States. I'm going to for the most part copy that chronology here, as it is already well worded. I've removed some background and events that I've deemed less important or more speculative. The original chronology builds background by painting Mr. Zelaya as an extreme leftist. That may be so, but he was democratically elected so I have no issue with that. What's important is that we help Honduras maintain their democracy. Keep in mind that the chronology is not written by me but by a source of the author of the blog I mentioned earlier:

[

· Mel Zelaya was elected 3 ½ years ago with an underwhelming 49% of the vote. He was seen as a fairly conservative member of the liberal party.

· Somewhere along the way, Mel decided to take a lesson from his mentor (Chavez) and arrange it so that he could remain in power for as long as he wanted. There was a little problem with this. The Honduran constitution, enacted in 1982, has 378 articles. 6 of these articles are “cast in stone”, meaning that they can NOT be changed. These 6 articles deal with defining the type of government, territory claims, and presidential term limits. They are the basis of the Honduran democracy.

o One other tidbit from the constitution – Article 42, Section 5 says that anyone who is found to “incite, promote, or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President” would face loss of citizenship. Remember this one later on in this saga.

· To further complicate things for Zelaya, ANY changes to the constitution have to be initiated by the legislative branch. The congress has to convene a constituent assembly. That’s basically a group of people selected by the congress to analyze any proposed changes and form those ideas into the new constitution. After the proposed changes are formulated, the congress would approve them to be put to a national referendum. The executive branch (the President) has nothing to do with that process.

· Mel didn’t think that the congress would go along with his ideas of staying in power so he decided he’d call his own referendum. He doesn’t have the authority to do that – remember that constitutional changes can only be done by the legislature AND the term limits are one of the articles cast in stone – but he goes ahead and calls one anyway.

· The Honduran Supreme Court says “Sorry Mel, you can’t do a referendum. That’s not within your power as president”.

· Mel, or more probably one of his advisors, figures out that if a referendum can’t be done, we could probably do a survey or a poll instead! Great idea – nobody will figure out that the poll that we’re now going to do is exactly the same thing as we were going to do with the referendum.

· Damn those people on the Supreme Court! They figured out the ruse! They ruled unanimously that regardless of what you call it, if it acts like a referendum the president can’t do it. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . .

· Mel continues to talk of doing the poll on June 28 regardless of the Supreme Court

· The Congress looks at the poll that Mel wants to do and gives an opinion that the poll would be illegal and they will not support it. Remember that Mel’s own political party is in control of the congress.

· The Attorney General also analyzes the poll and determines that it is illegal. Over the course of the weeks leading to June 28, the AG reiterates many times that the poll is illegal and anyone participating in the poll would be committing a crime and could be arrested.

· Mel runs into another logistical snafu. He needs some ballots printed. The entire political structure of Honduras (except him) has ruled that the poll is illegal. It’s a pretty sure bet that he can’t get the government to print the ballots for an illegal referendum so he asks his buddy Hugo Chavez to print the ballots. Of course Hugo says “No Problem Commrade!”

· The rhetoric in the 2 weeks before the “poll” gets tense. Every legal opinion in Honduras says that the poll is illegal. The Supreme Court reaffirms its ruling that the poll is illegal. The Attorney General keeps saying that the poll is illegal and that anyone participating is committing a crime. Mel’s own political party says that the poll is illegal. There literally is not one legitimate group in the country that is siding with Mel about the poll.

· Traditionally the military handles the distribution of the ballots and voting materials. The head of the military, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez says that the military will not participate in the poll because the Supreme Court is the entity that determines what is legal and what is illegal in Honduras. The Supreme Court has determined that the poll is illegal, so the military will not participate.

· Mel Zelaya promptly fired Romeo Vasquez. The other heads of military (Navy and Air Force) as well as the Minister of Defense resigned in support of Vasquez.

· The next day the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Vasquez was fired without reason and demanded his reinstatement. Zelaya refused.

· The ballots arrive in Honduras (from Venezuela on a Venezuelan flagged plane). The Attorney General demands that the ballots be confiscated and held at a military installation.

· Mel decides that if the military won’t distribute the ballots, he’ll get his own people to distribute them

· Mel gets a couple of buses and a few cars full of supporters. They drive to the Air Force installation that was holding the ballots. They forcibly entered the installation and took the ballots. Not only was this “breaking and entering” it was a complete betrayal of a lawful order of the Attorney General

· The Attorney General says that the President has committed treason and asks for him to be removed from office. The congress created a commission to examine Zelaya’s actions and determine if removal from office is appropriate.

· A side note here about removal from office. I’m in no way a Honduran constitutional expert, but from what I understand, there’s not a clear means to impeach a sitting president. In a lot of constitutions, the impeachment of a president would be done by the legislative branch. In Honduras, there’s no such structure. There could be criminal charges brought against the president and the trial would be handled by the judicial branch. Not much different than anyone else accused of a crime. I’ve not heard of any provision to temporarily remove a president from office until the criminal charges were adjudicated. What would you do? Let a man accused of treason remain as the sitting president until the trial was completed? That would be insane, but that may be the only choice.

· On Saturday, June 27, Mel got most, if not all, of the ballots distributed around the country. The polls were set to open at 7am on Sunday.

· The Supreme Court voted to remove Zelaya. The Congress decided to remove Zelaya. The Attorney General stated many times that Zelaya was committing illegal acts and in fact committing treason. The military determined that the poll was illegal and that their responsibility was to uphold the constitution as opposed to supporting the president.

· Early Sunday morning, about 6am, the military went to the president’s house and removed him from the building. He was put on a plane to Costa Rica. This was done to enforce the ruling from the Supreme Court.

· This is where Article 42 of the constitution comes into play. The way that I read that article, Zelaya should have lost his Honduran citizenship at this point.

· Once Mel had been removed, the President of the Congress (Roberto Micheletti) was sworn in as the new President of Honduras. This was exactly the person that is indicated by the constitution. It was a proper and legal succession of the presidency. The first thing that Micheletti did was confirm that the regularly scheduled elections would be held in November. His post is temporary until the new President was duly elected.

END.]

Wow. If all this is true than we are doing a great disservice to the people of Honduras by condemning them for trying to protect their democracy from the illegal actions of their president. Public opinion of the United States in Latin America has already been damaged by years of neglect. Let's do the right thing and support a country that has actually taken a stand against attempts to hijack it by a president who tried to over-ride every other branch of his government. This is a perfect weekend to reflect on and be grateful for the freedoms that we have as U.S. citizens. As a country we should also reflect on the role we play in supporting freedom and democracy around the world. If this concerns you, please spread the word. Now that I've posted my thoughts I think I'll spend the rest of my weekend doing more exciting things than thinking about Honduras. Happy July 4th.