Category Archives: Writing

On the Nature of Responses to the Question “Why”?

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The answer to the most fundamental of questions, “why”, may be very enlightening concerning a person’s fundamental cognitive programming.  Among the diverse potential responses, two are very brief, precise and telling.  They are “why not” and “because.  Seemingly similar, they are introspectively very different, one is passive, “why not”, shifting the burden of response and leaving all possibilities open, and the other is active and aggressive, “because”, an exclamation point implied, shutting off debate.

Of course, the answer may be a long, complex and complicated discourse, also enlightening, but making it almost impossible to summarize the diverse parts of the cognitive spectrum on which it may fall, and, again of course, the lengths, complexities and natures of possible responses are almost infinite, say infinity divided by ten, for arguments sake.

“Why”?

“I don’t know”.  And “I don’t know is frequently, perhaps, the most honest answer but one most people are not secure enough to consider.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

On the Ironic Nature of the Emerging Financial Crisis

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The Biden administration’s economic policies are clearly a disaster, largely because of the administration’s insane efforts to destroy the Russian and Chinese economies, rather than concentrating on improving our own.  That is not a partisan issue as both major political parties bear at least some blame, but the architects of this disaster are clearly Barak Obama, Joe Biden and their Ukrainian misadventures.

The latest problem, that of failing banks, very large banks, involves something that impacts all banks, large and small, and that involves the diminution in the value of their investment portfolios, especially the fixed, legally required portion invested in United States government securities.  The diminution is not the fault of the bankers, regardless of what the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission seek to imply.  It is a direct result of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to curb the inflation caused by poorly thought out economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union all over the world.

By raising interest rates to curb inflation, the Federal Reserve causes interest on all new debt to rise, making new debt more desirable for investors, including all kinds of financial institutions, than debt previously issued.  The older debt comprises a major portion of the assets held in portfolios. Consequently, the value of the principal on old debt decreases compared to the value of higher interest paying new debt.  It does so in order to equalize yields.  For example, a $100,000 dollar bond paying interest at the annual rate of five percent yields a $5,000 annual return.  If new $100,000 bonds paid ten percent, their annual yield would be $10,000 and in order to compete, that is, to yield a comparable return (10%), the old bonds, rather than having a price based on their face value, would have to be deeply discounted, in this case, to $50,000.  That would vastly reduce the value of portfolios holding the older debt.

That is exactly what happened to Silicon Valley Bank’s portfolio, seriously impairing its liquidity by souring initially sound investments, and putting the depositors’ savings at risk.  More seriously, that is what is happening to the portfolios of every financial institution required to maintain a portion of their assets in United States’ securities, securities issued by the same Federal Reserve that is responsible for the national banking system.

So, it is the state itself that is guilty of the disaster for not taking into account the consequences of its actions that resulted in inflation in the first place when imposing economic sanctions, getting involved in expensive armed conflicts abroad, and taking other reckless economic actions, such as forgiving debt, etc., and then the reactions to combat the resulting inevitable inflation

There is a belief in the United States, especially among Democratic Party strategists, that the United States can merely print its way out of the problem, increasing the national debt and inflation; but the world is no longer as accepting of such conduct.  Acceptance of irresponsible United States fiscal policies relies totally on maintaining the United States dollar as the world’s medium of exchange.  However, the arbitrary imposition of economic sanctions and the freezing of other countries assets are quickly resulting in the evolution of mechanisms to clear international transactions in currencies other than the dollar.  In addition, no longer will most countries feel secure in maintaining their assets, their gold, etc., in facilities subject to United States or even European Union control, and as that happens, a different doomsday clock approaches an economic apocalypse.

Fasten your safety belts and hang on.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on Alexander

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On June 11 of this year, 2023, it will be two millennia, three centuries, four decades and six years since the death of Alexander III of Macedon, really of Macedon, Greece, Persia, Asia, and the world.  And not just the “world” he ruled but from many perspectives, our own world as well.

His dynastic family[1] was the Argeadai (Ἀργεάδαι) which colonized Macedonia from Argos (famous for the Golden Fleece sought by Jason and the Argonauts) around 750 b.c.e., 400 years before Alexander’s birth. “Argeadai” was the family name his ancestor, Alexander I, used to prove to the hellanodikai (the judges who decided if you were Greek), that he was Dorian, and as a Dorian, Alexander was thus also part of the Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι, the purported sons of Heracles).  More proximately, he was known to his contemporaries as Filipidis (Φιλιππίδης), son of Philip, which was his father’s name.  Almost everyone, everywhere today however just refers to him, in whatever their native languages are, as “Alexander the Great”.  That’s been true for more than 2,346 years now.

Alexander has always fascinated me.  I named my second son after him.  My first’s son’s Greek name, “Basileus” (“great king”, the title by which Alexander was addressed) was also, from my perspective, a link to the Alexander that I so admired.  My fascination was not premised on his renowned military prowess or on his charisma, but rather, on the fact that he considered all men brothers, regardless of their nationality, their race, their religion or their sexual orientation, and that he treated those his armies conquered as one people, much to the distaste and despair of his Macedonian brethren.  An attitude which, after more than 2,346 years, we have yet to fully accept although hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people have claimed to do so, unfortunately, usually, in an extremely hypocritical manner.

His tomb, eventually located in Egypt’s Alexandria, a city Alexander founded, was revered for hundreds of years.  Both Iulius Caesar and his grandnephew, Octavian, visited it almost three centuries after Alexander’s death.  Unfortunately, as so often happened in antiquity, the tomb was looted and his amazingly preserved body, it apparently refused to decay, has vanished.  The Roman emperor Gaius (Caligula), may have been to blame; he wanted Alexander’s armor, but other Roman emperors or popes evidently eventually needed the gold of his sarcophagus, and ultimately, apparently looters just wanted whatever they could get to sell, although there are legends that it was Christians from Venice who stole the body, believing it to be that of Mark the Evangelist, or perhaps Matthew, or maybe Luke.  Christians and looters are synonymous to people all over the world, especially in the Americas.

His vision of the brotherhood of man was adopted by the stoic philosophers, and eventually, by the early Christian churches, adopted but pretty much ignored.  An attitude all too similar to ours today.

What might he have accomplished had he lived beyond his span of a bit less than thirty-three years?

We could sure use an Alexander, in the latter sense, today.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Information obtained from a post by Achilles Monomaxos.

The Former Right to Protest, now a Restricted Privilege

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Protests in the United States, once a sacrosanct right, have become tolerable only when deemed politically correct by politicized leaders of the criminal justice system (an oxymoron) and their rubber stamp echoes in the lazy, politicized judicial system.  The purported guardians of the truth and defenders of the citizenry from governmental abuse, the “fourth estate” (i.e., the “press”) have, for the most part, switched sides.  Just consider what happens now to real journalists like Julian Assange and Seymour Hersh.

It’s no longer the nature of the protests that matter (whether peaceful or violent), but the subject matter.  While perhaps, to an extent that has always been the case in the United States, it has now become the rule.  Contrast reactions to protests during the four years immediately following the 2016 presidential election, when apparently anything was fair game including looting, arson, mayhem and murder, with the protests following the presidential election in 2020, when less severe political protests became anathema.  But the bastardization of the right to protest and of the related right to freedom of expression, has now taken a massive leap backward, a backflip, if you will.

On March 9, 2023, Peoples Dispatch, formerly The Dawn News (an international media project which seeks to assure that the coverage of news is not restricted to the rhetoric of politicians and the fortunes of big companies but encompasses the richness and diversity of mobilizations from around the world), published an article, without identifying the writer, perhaps for obvious reasons, entitled “Protesters Charged with Terrorism in Atlanta”.  The article, as is so often the case, was published in Consortium News, one of the very few reliable sources of information still available, and dealt with the spreading tendency to treat political protest in the United States as “terrorism”.  Atlanta is once again a focal point.

This time, protests involved the perversion of the government’s eminent domain powers to create what residents called a “cop city”, a proposed $90 million police training complex in the City of Atlanta, Georgia.  The government’s reaction seems not only perverse, but, with the cooperation of the media, was orchestrated to create the false impression that the protestors were not local residents but rather out of state provocateurs.  In recent years, when convenient for electoral purposes, Georgia has become a magnet for out of state activists who have been urged to participate in second round elections, even if they voted elsewhere in the initial rounds, but evidently, they are only welcome when convenient for Deep State purposes.

The United States Declaration of Independence and its Constitution of 1787-89 (which replaced the first constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation), both unequivocally enshrine the right to protest government actions, and not always peacefully.  The Revolutionary War was hardly peaceful.  But the Deep State is, with the collaboration of the corporate media, the Department of Justice, the intelligence agencies, the Democratic Party and traditionalist (non-Tea Party) Republicans, as well as a lazy and politicized judiciary, doing away with such right.  It is now merely a privilege afforded to the politically useful, e.g., supporters of black lives matter groups, pro-abortion groups and anti-Trump groups of all kind (e.g., the vagina hatted, the “resistance”, the Russiagated crowd, etc.). 

An example of where we find ourselves is reflected in the information being made available to the public, despite large scale obstruction by the Democratic Party, the Capitol Police, the Justice Department and the corporate media concerning the events that really took place on January 6, 2020, events which were the subject of orchestrated, televised hearings by a special committee of the House of Representatives and of thousands of prosecutions by the Biden “Justice” Department.  Police videos, frequently withheld from defendants, show how completely false and out of control the Deep State has become in seeking to impose and maintain control over an uncooperative electorate.  Trumped up charges of terrorism and espionage, perverting completely the original intent of legislation that authorized drastic curtailment of civil rights under extraordinary circumstances, have now become common, and the cooperative judiciary acts, not as a neutral arbiter, but as a collaborative prosecutor, impeding rights to present relevant evidence in kangaroo court proceedings.  The events in Atlanta were a logical extension of the prosecutorial improprieties in the trials of defendants charged with criminal violations for their participation in events at the Capitol on January 6, 2020.  And it is unlikely that the tendency will end in Atlanta.  We have gone from a libertarian state, to an authoritarian system tending towards totalitarianism, the things of which our Deep State has so often accused other states.

The image of Julian Assange, incarcerated and tortured in a maximum security British prison at the request of the Biden administration which seeks to extradite and try him for telling the truth tells it all.  Magna Carta, like our Bill of Rights, seems now useful primarily for purposes of post fecal hygiene.

We were warned this would happen.  We were warned in 1948 by George Orwell, we were warned by Aldous Huxley, we were warned by Kurt Vonnegut, and we were warned by many others, and despite a blackout on real news by the corporate media, we are constantly being warned by courageous independent journalists like Julian Assange (and you know where he is), Seymour Hersh and the varied writers who publish in Consortium News (a donation supported news source) and other alternative news sources like Truthdig, and Common Dreams and now Substack.  We were warned by brave whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, among many others (most either jailed, formerly jailed or in exile).  All of the foregoing have done their best to keep any who care informed.  Unfortunately, as this article illustrates, the tide is in favor of the corrupt, the power mad, the warmongers and of their insipidly silly supporters who ironically identify as the “woke”.

Our situation today parallels that which was the subject of a poem following World War II by Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892.  A version of his poem is enshrined in the United States Holocaust Museum, as follows:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It may already be too late to turn things around, but, like Troy’s Cassandra, some of us will keep trying, and if it’s too late for the United States, that may not be the case with the global south. 

From the Republic of Colombia, … here’s hoping.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

On the Journalistic Ethics of Tucker Carlson

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Tucker Carlson, one of the most followed political commentators in United States media (he appears on Fox News), is one of the most reviled journalists by his colleagues, and for some time, has been a designated enemy of the Deep State and its primary tools: the intelligence communities, the corporate media, the Democratic Party, traditionalist Republicans and easy to dupe faux progressives.  The latest criticism centers on his willingness to criticize other purported journalists in their reporting on Mr. Trump, characterizing purportedly legal actions against him as politically motivated, and criticizing government (especially Department of Justice) reaction to the political protests against what many feel was a corrupted presidential election in 2020.  I would assume that Mr. Tucker’s experiences are helping him to mold a more positive attitudes with respect to the travails of his fellow journalist, the imprisoned Julian Assange (whom I admittedly admire).  The specific target of the latest anti-Carlson criticism centers on leaked personal communications where Mr. Carlson indicates a deep personal antipathy towards former president Trump, but nonetheless, continues to ignore his personal bias in his reporting.  Apparently, objectivity in journalism is now anathema.

If Tucker Carlson indeed personally despises former president Donald Trump, then his journalistic insistence on Mr. Trump’s being treated fairly is laudable rather than despicable.  It mirrors my own attitude, although I would not characterize mine as “hate”.  I find Mr. Trump’s personality and method of communicating extremely obnoxious and have for many decades had a visceral personal reaction to him, in a sense, inexplicably so.  I met him once at a fundraiser for cancer research where he was featured, that was shortly after publication of his book, the Art of the Deal.  I should have admired him then for his charitable work, but the chemistry was all negative.  I found him pompous, conceited and obnoxious.  Many years later I did have cause to look down on him, when his alma mater, New York Military Academy, sought his assistance during a financial crisis, and he ignored them, a point I made to fellow Citadel graduates when he appeared at my own alma mater.  But notwithstanding the foregoing, I have written criticizing the dishonest and hypocritical manner in which the corporate media has consistently attacked him for daring to defeat their darling, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 presidential elections, and for suggesting that NATO was a dangerous anachronism, and for urging the closing of US military bases abroad and reducing military expenditures in favor of domestic infrastructure reform and lower taxes, and for avoiding meddling in the internal affairs of other countries (all policies I support). 

Kudos to Mr. Carlson for bucking that trend, even though it has put him in the Deep State’s cross hairs.  Journalistic courage seems passé, especially given the current unjust imprisonment of Julian Assange, but Mr. Carlson is a rare exception.  Journalistic ethics involving objectivity, full disclosure, adherence to truth and rejection of hypocrisy are today usually available only from independent journalists, independent because they have been fired, or not hired, or discarded from traditional media sources (such as the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., e.g., Seymour Hersh), but Mr. Carlson seems an exception, and that is a rare ray of hope for those who value verity, and democracy, and liberty and peace.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on the Feminine versus the Transgendered on International Women’s Day, 2023

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International woman’s day falls on March 8 this year, 2023.  A Wednesday, smack dab in the middle of the week.  An interesting coincidence given the nature of this article.

It is, of course, more than anything, a commercial holiday.  One designed to induce men to spend more money or else be considered inconsiderate, insensitive cads.  But as superficial as that reality is, there is an underlying verity and it’s not limited to one day.  It involves the transcendental importance of the feminine in our lives, and that is true whether one is a matriarchalist-feminist (possibly a neologism) or patriarchialist-misogynist (also possibly a neologism).  I wonder if rather than concentrating on the superficial requisite compliments, obeisance and, of course, gifts, one might not consider the challenges being faced by women not only from men, but now also from men who have decided to compete directly against women through gender reassignments of varying degrees.  Most noticeably in athletics, but also in areas of aesthetics formerly the realm of women and, when one considers the issue seriously (as it deserves to be considered), in a number of much more important areas. 

The transgender issue is highly volatile and controversial with purportedly “woke” cancel culture warriors (dedicated to ever increasing polarization and avoidance of empathy) forbidding serious discussion concerning its controversial aspects.  Aspects such as how it relates to the rights of minors versus the societal duty to protect them (e.g., the concept of statutory versus assault based rape).  Aspects involving quota based allocations in the area of employment, political candidacies (in Colombia for example, half of all candidacies are reserved to women), economic and employment set asides and commercial opportunities.  I believe the transgendered, whether male to female of female to male, have a fundamental right to be free of official discrimination but how does that conflict with the special set asides to promote the ability of women to compete in diverse fields?  Whose rights should prevail?  How valid are the arguments on both sides?  Is there an area for reconciliation?  What date has been set aside to honor the transgendered, one might ask, and then, is one day enough, shouldn’t there be two, each based on the original biological gender?  And what about the non-binary?

There is now an ideological as well as practical battle among liberals and progressives between feminine oriented feminists on one side and transgender activists on the other, a fundamental rift involving a number of critical areas, a conflict as serious in many ways as is the battle between feminists and misogynist, perhaps, in reality, even more so.  This is an issue former Congresswoman and current army reserve lieutenant colonel Tulsi Gabbard has raised, firmly supporting the side of the feminine oriented feminists (Tulsi, whom I admire, very much exudes the aroma of a presidential candidate wannabe).  But, of course, there’s another side to the argument.  One with its own champions although their arguments appear poorly articulated, appealing more to woke ideology (if it exists) than to reasoned logic.  A seemingly objective and charismatic spokesperson akin to Tulsi on that side is essential if any equitable resolution is ever to be attained.

The foregoing is easy to ridicule, but ridicule and calumny are really the toys of the purportedly woke, not of those seriously interested in fairly and equitably resolving important societal problems (rather than using them to promote personal political agendas).  These issues have profoundly serious as well as superficial components and perhaps, on this day, a day dedicated to honoring women, they merit serious consideration and active, objective discussion.

Something on which to reflect in a non-judgmental fashion, one free of censorship, on this eighth day of March in 2023.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Vague Memories

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The space on the page is still warm, although perhaps now only tepid.

It had, once upon a winter’s day, been occupied.  Occupied by a very special calid phrase, one subsequently erased, but the message’s essence remained, remained aware, somewhere in time, if no longer in space.  Indelible, ineradicable, ineffaceable. 

Destiny is not, by its nature, kind.  But perhaps it knows best.

Still, echoes of misplaced emotions resonate and ephemeral rainbows endure, albeit hidden amidst profoundly deep, dark shadows.  And anyway, notwithstanding the past or the present or the future, somewhere, some-when, hummingbirds play with dragonflies while flowers and willow o’ the wisps in season sing of might have beens.

Vague memories strayed far from home.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Sane

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A call on Americans and sane people everywhere of all political persuasions, political parties and civic movements to move away from war, from armed confrontations, from massive military spending, from stationing armed forces abroad and from violating the sovereignty of foreign states and to instead, concentrate on resolving transcendental domestic problems such as infrastructure, healthcare, education, social security and the common welfare, all of which can be accomplished with the savings from a sane military budget, one no greater than double that of any foreign country.

A call to end politization of the judiciary, the bureaucracy, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

A call on all of us to minimize discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender and national origins.

A call for empathy and respect instead of intolerance and polarization. 

A call to return to sanity and regain control of our destinies.

We urge that this be accomplished on a non-partisan basis under the leadership of people like Democrat Dennis Kucinich, independent Tulsi Gabbard and Republican Rand Paul, as well as former Senator Jim Webb and others dedicated to peace and survival, answering Bobby Darin’s call more than half a century ago to end war in his antiwar anthem, a Simple Song of Freedom.

The time is now, while we’re still around.

Please!!
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Nirvana

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Is Nirvana one with the singularity posited by some physicists and mathematicians? 

Or perhaps, striding into metaphysics, is it one with a pre-singularity, one before it attained any mass at all and encompassed only inchoate infinity? 

Or is Nirvana, in another sense, inchoate chaos, where chaos refers to all possibilities existing concurrently?

Thoughts for an afternoon in late February, some-when in inchoate eternity.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Damn-damn-triple-damn: a silly micro story

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He was not in a good mood.  He wasn’t sure why.

The day had dawned pretty “normally”, not a beautiful day but not dreary, just, perhaps a bit hazy, probably because of ashes from the nearby quiescent volcano.  The haze obscured the four nearby snowclad peaks which often made the day interesting.

It was a Sunday, a sort of quiet Sunday.  His wife’s domestic assistant had arrived and both were engaged in the weekly apartment cleanup but because of a crick in his back (for reasons unknown), he was not being very helpful, more of a hindrance really, and the crick kept him from sitting without a stinging pain, so writing or researching did not seem great ideas.  Perhaps bedrest would help, but he resented having to curtail his activities.

Damned uncooperative body!!!

He did have books to read, and baseball was finally back, albeit only spring training.  Second games today, a split squad, but the Yankees’ manager, a nice guy, was awful during yesterday’s opening day game.  He seemed to be using spring training to practice awful managing; the first game had been lost 7 to 4.  It was as though the terrible three in charge were setting the stage for finding the silver lining in too many losses, and that did not help his mood.

Damned uncooperative Yankees, he despised Hal and the Cash Man, and felt a bit bad about his disdain for Aaron (bleeping, at least in Boston and now for very different reasons, in New York) Boone, but he was so damned inept as a manager.  The terrible trio certainly had Yankees’ fans polarized, the cheerleaders-no-matter-what on one side, and those desperate to maintain classical Yankees’ traditions on the other (hoping that failing to make the grade was not replacing winning-at-all-costs as the norm).

What to do, what to do? 

Damned uncooperative back, or was it his left hip.  He had tennis on Tuesday and insisted on getting better before then but his body seemed set on teaching him a lesson on its proper use, and the consequences of its abuse.  Maybe bed rest was really called for.  He did have a few books he was reading.  He liked to read several books concurrently as the themes and scenes and dialogue mixed in his mind to create a composite image, and that, in turn, helped with his own creativity.  But he did not write in bed.

He hated pills but had asked his wife for a few.,  She was a beautiful and highly competent chemical engineer and knew a good deal about just about everything, but not in a know-it-all fashion.  He was a pretty lucky guy.  But his damned back, or was it his hip.  The pain seemed to enjoy confusing him as well.

Damn, damn, triple damn.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and, in this case, the protagonist) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.