Everything Has Changed in Nicaragua 2009

I came back from Nicaragua this May a sadder but wiser "wise fool" than when I headed down in January 2009. Strangely enough, I spiralled into a clinical depression down there this year, as I realized how dire things are with the peasantry of Northern Nicaragua and how hopeless I felt and still feel about exerting any change there: in 15 years of building bridges in Teote, nothing at all has changed for the better--though there have been better moments--things are getting worse, and I'm getting too old and unhealthy and poor to carry all that burden.

It's clear that my convenience as a channel of funds from North America (mostly personal dolares) has built me a house of Nica addiction to my money--Damn, Damn, Damn! Something I tried so hard not to do!--and my funds have mostly blown away with the Winds of Wall Street now: going down there fairly empty-handed was unhappy for me and too much bad news for the Betancos. Nothing worked right. To top it off, I felt unsafe there for 5 months because there's such crime and street violence, such starvation and homelessness and need, and everyone I know there came begging because they still think I'm a rico, which I have never been, because, to them, "all Norteamericanos are ricos." When people are living at the survival level, anyone with a steady income is a rico, no matter how small the income.

While I read a ton of books and worked on my garden in Teote, had a few happy times and new experiences, I came back up here depleted, shocked, even a bit traumatized by the trip, and I've been working to get back to emotional health ever since, with resilient success, thank Goodness. But I won't be headed back to Nica next winter.

Conditions will need to change there before I'll go back, though I'll still communicate with the Betancos.

Instead, I'm moving in with my brother in Elizabeth CO by October 1, ending my long residence in Glenwood Springs and Center, exchanged for a more cosmopolitan life lived under rural Ponderosa Pines in Kiowa County, much nearer to my kids and grandkids, concerts, ballet, and other fruits not available on the Western Slope.

New Page for CenterDoug to write on; I doubt if I will start calling myself "ElizabethDoug," however.

Gracias, CenterDoug

Sorry to Say . . . . !

Sorry to say, all you bloggers, that I haven't been very active on CenterDoug since May because I've been focusing on my MyBO Blog, "CenterDoug's Obama Blog" almost entirely. I and a MyBO friend have created a further Community Blog on MyBO titled "Obamans for Change in the Americas (CITA)" which focuses on President Obama's Administration in relation to bettering relationships in the Western Hemisphere and improving the lot of our Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. An interesting blog with verrrrrry interesting bloggers in the group:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/ObamansforChangeinCentralAmerica

You'll notice we widened our focus to all the Americas after entitling the Blog and can't change it on the URL. I consider both CITA and the "CenterDoug's Obama Blog" posts as part of my GLOBAL LEGACY to my children: it's that important to me. Check them out.

Gracias, CenterDoug

Peruvian Amazonians

Well, having gotten back somewhat intact from Nicaragua during swine flu emergencies and plenty of fusbal games, it's strange to be back to Blogger, but, here I am, and now I am totally immersed in the mostly unreported crisis in Peru (June 5-7) where the National Guard nixed 60 indigenous people seeking to protest the development of the Amazon Headwaters in Peru, their heritage, a direct result of Free Trade Agreements with the US. Sad to say. The extant FTA policy promotes the decimation of the Amazon Headwater Rainforests--and the destruction of tribal lands where there had been NO TOUCH before, and--yikes, these people need not to be touched, by our rather poisonously-progressive culture.

So, I'm pushing for Obama mediation in this crisis, to begin his quest for Latin American partnership and to protect my breathing past tomorrow, since the Peruvian Amazon Headwaters, which should be a World Wildlife Park, undisturbed, is a major lobe in the "lungs of the world." For more on this issue, check out my CenterDoug's Obama Blog.

Gracias, CenterDoug

Back From Nicaragua, Again

Goodness knows, it's been a long time since I visited this spot, but, for some reason, I was blocked from the site when I tried to get to it, down in Northern Nicaragua. God only knows why? Anyway, I'm back in the States now, it's June, with a bunch of new insights, but, mostly, a sadness because one of my friends among friends, Dave Harmon, passed on in May, while I was still in Teote. Harmon introduced me to Teote back in 1993, selling a Third World/First World compassion trip to Nicaragua which changed my life. This blog is therefore dedicated to the memory of don David Harmon and others who gave their hearts and (some, their lives) to foster liberty and social justice in Northern Nicaragua. When I finally settle into Glenwood Springs once more, I'll be working to build a place of reflection in honor of don David up on Spring Valley Campus, CMC, where he helped students to empower themselves as global citizens for 25 years.

Gracias, don David! CenterDoug

Happy

How in the world am I going to get back to simple? Won't I be glad when I'm there! Or, will I? In less than three weeks, I'll be in Teote; I may be Internet-disconnected, save for a weekly trip to Jalapa on the chicken bus; I will certainly be rising with the sun and going to bed early and eating mostly rice, beans and tortillas, with plenty of chicken soup on the side. And lots of ketchup--they call it salsa, down there, but it's Heinz 57.

My gosh, my life's a complicated dynamo, these days: the global and local projects I've undertaken, the energetic way I'm getting my voice out, the writing projects, they've got whirlwinds beat by at least 60 miles an hour! Yikes! And I've built gravel paths through wilderness and marble paths through meadows and lasting paths of peace, on the ground in Colorado and in the mid-air, on the ObamaBlog. What a trip! Zip! It feels only weeks ago, I left for my life up here, instead of 8 full months. Time rips the sonic fabric when I'm happy.

Hello, CenterDoug

Goodness Gracious! Hello again to my beloved CD Blog. I'm about to get much more focused on Hello, my beloved Blogger Blog.

I'm back from my Obama-Work-Vacation, and will be more focused on this blog as I'm headed to Nicaragua on January 15th, as long as the planes are still flying. God knows any more what we can count on, except life, death, and taxes, and, for me, Barack Obama. My focus these days is very much in support of the Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere, including my family in Nicaragua. I'm co-coordinating a new Obama Community Group on MyBO tofurther communication in the States with all of Latin America and the Caribbean. Very wide ranging, with some superduperstar Obamabloggers signed on. It's hot, I'm excited, and this blog should be linking to all my other blogs about now through Intense Debate. I may end up an unofficial Ambassador to Nicaragua yet, just through my blogposts, anyway. I think I posted that early here: I applied to be appointed Nicaraguan Ambassador in Obama's Administration, and, while it is a cosmic longshot that this Cosmic Caballero would ever be considered, hey, WHY NOT? (said Robert Kennedy in 1968) and I've pretty much operated that way ever since. I could do some good there, but it would be a very different Embassy than what has ever been, for sure.
Gracias, CenterDoug

Ay Chihuahua!

So, strange. Only 32 days to Nicaragua, most out of Glenwood. Here's my happiest seasons greetings to all of you. CD

Navidad in Nicaragua

©Doug Evans 2008 (767 words)

For The Glenwood Post Independent (December)

Christmas Day starts early in Teotecacinte, Nicaragua, at least in my sister Marta’s casa de palomas, on the southern skirts of this peasant village where I spend my warmer winters. No sleeping-in is allowed, in Marta Betanco’s house, not even on Navidad. Except for me, of course, off in my cloistered wing: since I’m considered a North American angel of God down here, she grants me special license, at least on high holy days; she said, with a chuckle, last night, “Angels need their sleep, Dugla, particularly at Christmas, when they’re so very busy.”

My life is very sweet in Nicaragua.

Marta’s up at 3 am, probably, for an hour of prayer on her knees, after lighting the kitchen fire. The rest of the family gets rustled up by the mamacita at 4 am, to help her clean house (including washing the adobe walls of the sala and the kitchen stove with fresh, clean mud). Every inch of the dirt floors is swept by Estania, Marta’s daughter, with her handmade broom. In the kitchen, Marta’s steaming nacatamales in their banana leaf wrappers, poised in an iron kettle above a simmer for 5 hours. The water mustn’t boil off, or all-day-yesterday’s prep work will scorch, ruining the coming feast.

Cesar, the papa of the house, is scrounging firewood to keep the boil going. Even Arnoldo, the teenage son, has a duty: he’s gone fishing for tilapia in the rio Limon, hoping to catch a big one to give his grandmother on Christmas Day. I know all this is happening, of course, even from my sequestered spot, because Marta’s voice carries quite well in still-humid December. It’s now 9 am on Christmas Day in Teote. The only sound louder than her commands was the rooster “Hallelujah Chorus” at daybreak, 4:47, today, when I awoke. Even sleeping angels need to wake up sometime, I guess; it might as well be to crowing, for joy at the coming of light.

While all that’s going on in prep for the family feast at noon, I’m playing “Christmas Carols, ‘Round the World” on my laptop, stretching in the growing light, and being grateful for another day, especially this one, in my 64^th year. Time is very precious to me, and I make the most of it. The sound of Perry Como singing “Ave Maria” brings Marta to my door with café and “Feliz Navidad!” She’s picked a favorite coral rose as a special gift, this morning of mornings. We hug, then she scurries back, sure the nacatamales are burning. I look at the rose and know, once again, that my life is full of angels, right in front of me: it took Nicaragua to let me see that. It’s a gift I’ll carry with me, I hope, and live up to, as well.

With the swish of Estania’s broom and the tinkle of holiday laughter in the air for company, I head for my laptop and three hours of daily writing. Even on Christmas. Heck, because of Christmas! In a few hours, the whole extended family of Betancos will descend on la casa de palomas, 89 strong this year, counting all the new babies, and I’ll need to kiss my Christmas solitude “Good-Bye.” We’ll be decorating the chimbomba, the Christmas tree, this year a potted Norfolk Pine, my treat, brought all the way from Esteli by taxi, which we’ll plant in my garden at Tierra Mia after the 12 Days of Christmas are over. In the late afternoon, we’ll all troop to church for Christmas mass. We’ll vow to make each day a new beginning.

In Nicaragua, Christmas dances on for almost half a jolly month past the Christmas service, culminating in gift-giving, a multiplicity of hugs, another feast on the 12^th day, when the Wisemen arrived at the stable with their offerings. As Nicaraguans rarely have cash for gifts to emulate the Magi, love and handmade tokens take their place. It’s a time to honor babies, birth and parenthood, and every human life on the planet, a time for cherishing familia, not for shopping.

This year, I helped a friend fold 89 origami storks to pass out, then, hang from fishing line above my family’s beds and hammocks. I’ve been folding the first folds on and off since August, but I know they’ll be a triumph. I mean, they’re crimped by an angel from the States, after all; I even added sparkles with glitter, so they’ll twinkle in the Nicaraguan night.

Feliz Navidád, mi amigos en Glenwood Springs and all the international bloggers now my friends. CenterDoug

From Now On, Cultural Creatives: Us!

From this post on,
I will be refocusing this blog much more often on my daily life as a multicultural global citizen, triumphant in the USA and in Nicaragua, in the Now. I will be focusing my Obama Blog [http:www.my.barackobama.com (Obama Doug's Obama Blog)] on networking those who are interested in learning about the exploited and magnificent peoples of the "Land Bridge" between North and South America, the heartland of the Western Hemisphere, Central America, from South Mexico to Nicaragua.

This Blog, CenterDoug, will focus on furthering understanding, mostly for myself, on the current paradigm shift we undergo presently.

Gracias, CenterDoug

A Shift Towards Compassion

A shift towards compassion:

I’ve been playing with the concept, for a while, of the “Paradigm Shift,” primarily a rise to higher collective consciousness, accompanying our movement from a 20^th century “Old America” to a 21^st century entity I’m calling “New America,” a very transformative, millennial vision that’s still mostly perfumed air and dreams, right now, that I’m seeing only in tantalizing, ghostly shimmers. Admittedly, I live and think and act from the very-most fringe of contemporary being. But, right now, most everything out there seems to have turned inside-out, to me: so maybe, just maybe, the fringe has become, at least for a moment, the epicenter of synergy. Certainly, questioning looks better all the time, at every level.

We’re in a very transitional Transition, at the very least from a current President to a bright-shiny new one. Everything is transitioning, let us hope, with grace. We may, as well, be in the midst of a tsunami of a Consciousness Shift—Blip!--leaving everything (including, by the way, each of us!) looking somehow different, as from a never-seen-before perspective, while staying almost exactly the same.

Imagine it: Something uniquely new, that isn’t just another expensive toy!

And, I’ll tell you what. I feel it’s already happened.

Does it not feel to you as if everything’s somehow gone inside-out? Gone topsy-turvy? Turned upside-down? And, all the while, everything has, yet again, stayed the same? That’s the way I felt when I faced third world poverty and starvation in Nicaragua, in 1993, as an “entitled American” with spiritual issues. Things happen when we’re ready for them, even if we don’t know it. Back then, I suddenly became very grateful for what I’d taken for granted before and found a pair of global shoes to fill. Now, that somersaulting sense, intuitively, signs the Collective Shift that most Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray, The Cultural Creatives) have been awaiting and working on in their millions of private American lives, since the 1980’s: that moment when “enough” people are living their lives as conscious, grateful, global people, being the change they want to see, from every level of the warp and woof of both our American tapestry and the rest of the globe’s people.

Life’s a test we’re always ready for, if we’d only listen, from the inside-out.

It might be true (but, who knows what’s true, when everything is somehow different?) that those who’ve relied on institutions to save them, even from themselves, might be a bit panicked right now, since not much is working “rightly” out there, except, perhaps, the promise of Obama and continued American ingenuity; some might be afraid to do their own thinking for a change. In my estimation, self-responsibility is still rather new a concept in America, since we tend to forget to include responsibility for others in the equation. We might all be wise to take our lives reasonably lightly, right now, held in hands of love and gratitude, honoring the current craziness with the salsa of humor and a juggernaut of compassion for our brothers and sisters, some of whom might be cracking up, under the strain, right now, of tribulation.

We’re going through an evolutionary shift in thinking, together, even if we do not know it. Those who do know it might choose to serve others, right now, at least with a compassionate ear. It’s all up to each of us, right now, after all, as it’s almost always been, but, maybe, more of us know it.

We voted for change, and it looks like we’re going to get it. We might as well welcome it, then, grow and prosper.

Gracias, CenterDoug

I Can't Believe It's Almost December!

I'm here in Aurora,
with my daughter Melissa and her family, so life is sweet and millennial in my life. In retrospect, I certainly have been travelling, in and out, on the other side of the paradigm shift, and I certainly have had fun imagining in virtual reality quite a few interesting possibilities. Still, it's about time to pack for my return to Nicaragua in the middle of January, so I better get crackin'. I still have a 64th birthday to celebrate with my Current Lover, Christmas in 12 different places in Colorado, New Year's resolutions, 2 Grandson Birthdays: Ay, Ay, Ay! When will I have time to pack with all this birthing to party over? It always feels to me that this turn to January is a good time for forgiving the old ways and embracing new beginnings, but this year I've nothing I need to forgive: I've been celebrating newness in my life for a year! Season's Greetings to all, from this old codger, the artful dodger!
Gracias, CenterDoug

Down is Up in Obama-Land

"Down is Up in Obama-Land"

BALANCING THE TENSION OF THE OPPOSITES WORKS: Here’s how the Universe probably works: all things exist in tension with their opposites in an exquisite balance that can be intuited but not measured. The Universe is both expanding and contracting, all at once, a crazy paradox, of course, because the essence of the Universe is paradoxical mystery. Light is both a wave and a particle, physicists say, exerting characteristics of both in a seemingly impossible way: its essence is the tension between these opposing states of being. Get it? Another example: We are both living and dying in every minute: the quality of our living and dying depends on the way we hold the tension of these opposite states within our personalities. If we see ourselves as dying every minute (which we are) we live a different life than one who sees himself as living every minute (which we are). The most transcendent approach: to recognize that both states are true in every minute, then to be grateful for the energy this paradoxical tension develops in our understanding of who we are.

“So what?” say my Earth-bound friends; “Of course!” say my cosmic-flyer-cohorts. Somewhere in between the two is a space where I’m both grounded and flying at once: to me, this is the miraculous moment, the NOW, where all things and their opposites are One.

THE MARKET MELTDOWN: So, now we have the Market’s falling spiral, and we know from the above, when something’s falling, there must be something intrinsically connected to it that’s rising as well: Let’s look at that intuitively for a minute. What immediately comes to mind is TRUST/DISTRUST in this economic issue. The Market’s fall marks the lowering levels of investor trust, individually, then collectively, in our economic system: It continues to deepen and re-create itself in negatively-synergistic ways. We no longer trust that “business as usual” works.

But, then, if trust is falling into distrust there, where is distrust spiraling upwards into trust, in my life and in the life of the collective American spirit? A very important question. When I listen for an answer to that question, what bubbles up with truth-shining is “my own inner trust.” How rare and right that is, for me, at least. In the last three months of activism for President-Elect Obama, I’ve come to a flowering of my own formerly-wounded spirit. I’d chosen to be too disaffected in my native land. Now, I feel I’m busting out with purple (red + white + blue) roses! I can almost smell their musky scent, wafting up within me.

I’ve come to trust myself, my balanced mind and heart, my instincts, my microcosm dancing within the macrocosm of America: the key here, though, is not me, though I do believe in growing, but that this flowering evolved from my active participation and dance with the collective, rather than just within myself: in this blog; upfront in people’s faces; on doorsteps and sidewalks and out to the streets of Glenwood, a tango-fest in the face of oncoming rush hour traffic, the day before Election Day’s Victory, a jitter-bugging fool with my Obama/Biden yard sign. Hoo-Hah!

THRILLING STORIES: I’ll bet every active Obama supporter can write a similar story. I’ve read many of them on MyBO and www.change.gov. They thrill me, these stories of personal growth from active service in a mutually beneficial world. Our individually-rising trust in ourselves as worthy and functional, walking our talk, changing our world, being the change we want to see, has raised not only the collective self-esteem of Americans, even of both Parties, but the esteem of the enthralled billions globally as well, who rejoice with us in Obama’s—and Our--victory. We’ve become a stronger people as a result of this election and our participation in it. I’m grateful. I can hardly tell you how proud I am to be an American, on the cresting wave of the future.

The world’s a stronger world, as well, from the gift of hope in affirmative change that we all inspired, this mindful mandate, signaling American maturity to the planet. None of us need to be reminded of why the world has rarely if ever thought of our electorate or our politicians or our culture as being mindful, but it surely does now. I’m mindful; most of you are mindful; we all are more mindful because we’ve been trusting in and observing a very mindful leader, such an honorable man, with remarkable self-esteem. We're reflecting him like shiny candles in multiplying mirrors of wonder! This bodes well for the state of America and all humanity.

We have much reason to be humbly proud.

MARKET IS DOWN, SERVICE IS UP: Thus, as trust in the economic systems falls, we find ourselves, even in the face of all that paper collapsing, trusting in ourselves to survive, to create, to share with our brothers, to love, to link ourselves together for affirmative change. We want to keep our passionate hearts open. “Coloradans for Obama” has moved on from the election to filling food banks across the state with a mouse-click, to feed our hungering people, as well as continued networking for Obama. 100,000 meals have been raised in the first two weeks! That’s inspiring, and only one miracle among millions occurring among us now, at the grassroots level, in the very fertile soil of our linkage. We’ve learned we can work transforming miracles of--Let's name it!--grace, through mutually-beneficial service. I truly believe that America’s gearing up for blooming, regardless of the rotten garbage out there. Blooming out of “business as usual,” service linkage is emerging, and a breathtaking garden begins to evolve, even if it still has some prickers. Who wants a rose garden, without the thorns? How boring!

OUR FUTURE IS RAINBOW: What our “new” way of doing business will look like is anybody’s guess--it could come down and up to barter, as in Nicaragua, or to federally-linked service, here and abroad that serves the world mutually, also with a mouse-click--or a more meaningful life. Of course, I have a guess, too. We’re each responsible for its evolution in our individual, transformed ways, but our linkage synergizes our personal ways together: mutual service to our fellow human beings will most likely be its foundation; electronic linkage its probable engine; and rising self-esteem (and gratitude for it), its synchronizing energy.

Dynamo!

Service linkage builds new work and meaningful jobs that both matter and pay. Let's "follow our bliss" (Campbell) into the rainbow garden of American life.

While President-Elect Obama is our most visible miracle worker, it is all of us who'll make his miracles happen, as we did in retaking our nation. We may send our prayers and hopes to lift up Obama, but let's take our highest expectations for change upon ourselves.

Come on, now, Obama-bloggers, smell the sweet and sexy scent! It’s not all bad out there; we’re blooming like rainbow-roses, all over Obama-Land.

We did it once; we can flower again and again: Yes, We Can! Yes, We Will!

President Obama, for 8 Great Years!

Gracias, CenterDoug

Could Fantasy Become Reality?

I donated five bucks

this morning to the Obama Transition Team, greasing the Presidential Choo-Choo enormously, I'm sure, but since my net worth has been halved on paper this Fall, I've had to economize. As a result of the donation, though, I was asked once more to "Share My Vision for America" with the Team, and, of course, being the big-mouth I am, I did, and, in that process, came up with a rather strangely perfect job for myself in the Obama Administration, for 8 Great Years: Picture this! Doug Evans Betanco, Ambassador of the United States to Nicaragua.

Yikes, I love it! I'd look great, now I'm thinner, in a cut-away or tux and I sort-of speak the language, and the Embassy party scene in Managua is hotter than can be believed! I could truly do some good there, especially for the peasants, even if I were surrounded by a viper's nest of CIA gentleman-representatives still living as if Reagan were President. My first task would be to bring my staff into 21st Century Transformative Diplomacy. Cool, Old Man. Very cool.

Now, now, I can hear you saying, "Good God! Doug's gone off to cloud-cuckoo-land, for sure!" And, believe me, I'm really not counting on Federal work to keep me out of the breadlines, because I know I simply do not fit the mold of Beltway Bubble Believers very well, at all. I've considered my government here at least as wacked as I am for thirty years: I live on the other side of the paradigm shift that's happening. Anyway, I've probably flunked out already (See post below on applying for a position in the Obama Administration) because of my FBI dossier, which I'm sure is extensive because I created a crazy stir back in the 70's that involved a former President, sort of a secret that everyone knows. Oh, well, I've grown since then.

Gosh, I could forge such links in Latin America from that perch, and really, we'd better start forging good ones because South of the Border, my friends, is a newly-emerging dynamo of capital and development in this Hemisphere which currently is very wary of involvement with the manipulations of the Old Imperial America.

OOOOOOOOOH! I've got to start thinking about forging links in Latin America, to the mutual benefit of all the peoples involved.

So, anyway, This is the essay I send to the Obama Transition Team, today:

"My Vision for America"

My New America keeps its word, internally and externally, and walks its talk with maturity and courage as One with the rest of the world, an honorable nation among nations. Acting maturely means being peaceably responsive to the needs of all the world's peoples, not just the rich elites; honoring international law and World Court decisions, even when they go against us; and, especially, owning to our past mistakes, rectifying them when possible, and choosing in the future to forge a higher path.

My New America, for instance, would honor the World Court's decision in the case of Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua vs the USA in the 80's: the Court found for Ortega, found the US guilty of "conducting a terrorist operation" against the State of Nicaragua from 1979-88, and levied reparations in the billions against the USA. This has been ignored by the State Department for 20 years, and the whole world knows it. If we expect our fellow nations to honor that Court’s decisions, we need to honor them ourselves. When we don’t, we build support for world-wide terrorism’s ad campaign on the ground against us. Honoring this debt is in both the national interest and for the world’s security.

My New America would honor that debt by paying those reparations with interest and monitoring the funds so at least half gets into the pockets of some of the world's poorest people, the campesinos who comprise 90% of Nicaragua's citizens and who have borne the brunt of the ruinous hardships this US action catalyzed. Nicaragua’s economy is ruined, perhaps irretrievably. While the funds might technically go to the current Ortega government, they must be administered by a third party, perhaps The Carter Center, to assure that our tax money does not end up lining only the pockets of the Nica elites. The people at the bottom of the world's economic beanstalk need nourishing, if the beanstalk is not to topple out of starvation at its roots. As well, the USA needs to honor its own laws, in order to stand taller in the world.

My New American President Obama would need to re-educate the American public to understand the truth about Nicaragua: the Sandinista Insurrection of 1979 was both reasonably peaceable and justified, very much like the American Revolution in intention and inspiration, and in no way a "Communist takeover" by wild-eyed guerrillas; the only terrorists in Nicaragua were the Dictator Somoza's National Guard, trained by the US to subjugate the population; after the Triunfo of the Sandinistas, we paid the Guardsmen who had fled the country to terrorize the new and legitimate government of Nicaragua from Honduras and Costa Rica.

The New American people need to understand that the spin-dance of Old-American foreign policy vis-à-vis Latin America in the past no longer exists in the New Millennium, that we will not be lied to anymore, because our New America will no longer lie to its citizens or to the world.

My New American President Obama would travel to Nicaragua to offer both apologies for our dreadful past together and gratitude for the opportunity to make amends, so that we can move forward to stronger democratic and economic bonds. I want to accompany him on that trip because, In my New America, I would like to help build those bonds, if only by this suggestion, or, even better, in a more visible and responsible role. It would bring great honor to my "family" there and to me, here and in Nica. As I've bonded with the people of Nicaragua and lived part time there for fifteen years and spent my time both here and there forging stronger links between these two American countries, I'd just leap for joy to see brotherhood and honor reign in both. The rest of the world would fall to its knees and pray, in a thousand languages, "Thank God, the US we know and want to love is back with us today!"

Gracias, Charles Douglas Evans (aka, in Nica, Doug Evans Betanco)

It's funny, yet true, that when I returned to the States last June from a winter in Teote, I was calling myself in this blog Ambassador Evans Betanco because Teote had asked me to be its voice in Glenwood Springs. Unfortunately, the work with Nicaragua has no more buy-in here in Colorado, so that FCE focus is gone from my life. Why kick a dead horse alive? But, I really would love to be a really real "Hon." And, while I was doing all that ambassadorial stuff, I could be plowing money of my own into building my English Language Academy in Teote. Hoo-Hah!

Gracias, CenterDoug

Applying for Obama's Administration

Good Lord!
I just finished an application for a position in the Obama Administration. Cool, old man! I applied to be court jester, or even better, because being jester might be very hard this first four years, for position of Editor to the Obama Bloggers' Digest, a daily compendium of links and summaries and some full articles, videos, etc. from the National Obama Blog to the President's Ear (my idea). That one I could do from home, both here and in Nica, on the Net, and I'd love it.

You can access the Obama Job Search at www.change.gov. Click on "Jobs," but, be aware, it's an extensive application when it comes after the preliminary app, so have a resume to upload before you start.

Oh, well, it would certainly be more fun than working at Wal-Mart, where I'll probably be headed when I return to the US in June, unless the stocks start rising. I'd make a great Greeter! And probably love that job as well. Attitude is All.

Gracias, CenterDoug

99.44% Pure Democracy

99.44% Pure Democracy

©Doug Evans 2008 (729 words)

For the Glenwood Post Independent

On November 3, 2008, the day before Vote Day in America, my intuition led me to rush down to Obama HQ in Glenwood Springs, to volunteer for standing in the middle of the busiest intersection in the City, Grand and Sixth, at the Bridge. I felt I had to do something different from phone-banking, canvassing, and walking downtown in Obama regalia, and “dancing in the streets” with my Obama/Biden Yard Sign fit the bill! Full of joy and fervor, having chosen to believe the President-Elect would win in a blue-state landslide a month earlier, centered in Colorado, this sign-dance would not only be good exercise, practicing The Stroll and the Cha-Cha and The Frug in traffic, but, also, maybe one of my former students from CMC might decide for the Dems because of my example. I’d also carried a “Vote, Please” sign in downtown Glenwood on Election Day, 1976, for Jimmy Carter: it felt like a way to get out the vote and integrate parts of my life, as well.

When I got to the Bridge at the 4:30 rush hour, two other Obama supporters stood with their signs, so my dance floor shrank a little, but the company was great. We really got it together as a chant team out there, yelling “President Obama, For 8 Great Years,” while I twirled and whirled and boogied—There were even some ballet leaps, at the start!—shaking my power-stick-sign at passing motorists like a Ute Shaman on the warpath for “Liberty and Justice for All.” It was, as they say in London, “quite brilliant!” Horns were honked, more often than not; thumbs went up as much as down; I only saw a few middle fingers, which made me laugh. I honestly have not had such fun since I played Sancho Panza in “Man of La Mancha," singing about impossible dreams!

Then, the rest of the world intruded on my patriotic-trance-dance.

From out of the “Road to Nowhere,” as if by magic, 20 men, women and children appeared along the edges of the intersection, carrying McCain/Palin cardboard signs, soon flooding the island in the middle and all the other corners with ardent Republicanism.

“Uh-Oh,” I thought, “this could get ugly.” So, this crazy-minded-wise-old-dancin'-fool began to laugh at the top of my diminished lungs, just giggling hysterically at the comedy life was showing rather than dwell on potential tragedy. It was—and it became even more so—a laugh riot, for some time, out there in front of the Hotel Colorado, with everyone having chuckle fits of excitement. I’ve been told many times that my laugh is infectious, especially by directors of comic plays who want me in their audiences, so maybe my giggle made a difference. At any rate, we were all most civil and joyful, for two hours of red-white-and-blue; some of the kids broke away from their Moms and picked up Obama signs, balancing the ratio; four passing Glenwood High students also got into the spirit with more OBAMA placards, doing their patriotic duty with gothic flair; and every car honked for one or the other candidate, so I’m sure the Valley echoed all the way to Carbondale. It must’ve sounded in Glenwood Park like the world’s longest wedding caravan!

Reporters and photographers then showed up to make us part of the City’s visual history, and-- Goodness Gracious!—I ended up looking stern and somewhat patriarchal, probably because my back hurt, on the front page of the Post on Election Day! Now, I guess I really am a star, though I wish the photo showed me giggling: that’s what I’ll remember. And this: All of us had the thrill of participatory democracy in action. All of us felt “special.” All of us knew we were witnessing a unity of purpose above partisan division: we were all there To Get Out The Vote for America.

What a great lesson for all those young kids holding signs with us older patriots! People who are divided over issues or candidates or campaigns can still be united by our common values of fair play, free speech, and respect for law and order. We could’ve been clubbing each other with our signs! In other places in the world, that would've happened. Instead, we participated in a Happy Birthday Party for a New America, Proudly Walking Its Talk. Perhaps, I should rent myself out as the happiest dancing clown.

Pure Democracy in Action

[CenterDoug Notes: after two months of intense political activity--not since 1976 have I carried a candidate sign, though I've always voted and marched against the Rocky War in 2003--after all those phone banks and door knocks and sign-shakes and letters and blogposts for Obama, I've "Sayonara'd" my CenterDoug's Obama Blog now that he's going to be President, I'm sure for 8 Great Years. It'll remain up there at as a testament to my service to this Transformative President and his Transformative Presidency. Maybe I'll publish it, as it is timely. I even sent the Obama National Blog a lengthy tome of political philosophy that flew out of me, full-blown and amazing, down in Center three weeks ago [ ]. All in all, I posted almost 30,000 words of encouragement, high-road tactics, analysis, insight, along with some ludicrous folly. I think it's worth a read in the cold of winter coming, if for no other reason than to connect to the empowerment of the moment we are feeling now. It's also a chronicle of my own rather eccentric evolution as a contemplative activist for the American Democracy. CD]

Pure, Principled Democracy in Action

This 2008 Presidential Election, besides, I think, restoring the potential of America to Americans on the ground, also electrified the "Cultural Creatives" here, who've been living and evolving, mostly out of politics and under the media radar, for many silent years. Who? Oh, you know, "Them," the long-haired crazy rainbow hippies of the Sixties and their children, raised to believe that Principles acted out in front of and in us are more important than the American economy to the health of our global humanity. 50 million adult Americans, most of whom have not heard of this nebulous almost "virtual" group, have been quietly transforming the world every day by transforming themselves into empowered, present-moment, authentic people, whatever their walk of life. Most of those principles are in the masthead note on the Title Page of this CenterDoug Blog.

I'll be spending some time here, in the next few weeks, exploring the paradigm shift that most Cultural Creatives have been working towards: to move the world from the bottom up to elevate the principles of balance, mutuality, connection and gratitude, out of the greed, egotism, and parochialism, past the massive abuse of the human condition as well as of our Planet Earth to which we are witnesses in treacherous times. I do believe that shift in consciousness has already happened--or at least a tipping point was reached in the results of Election Day 2008. I'm quite convinced that the swing voters and workers and new registrants in this election are mostly Cultural Creatives who jumped on the Obama bandwagon because Obama speaks with the voice of the Now, and we all heard it and moved mountains of past karma aside by upholding the principles of Equality and Tolerance in America.

More, later. I have to get all those yard signs off my line and write an article for the Post.