Gus In The Real Life

By: Gustavo Lequerica-Calvo

A couple of days ago, I turned twenty-five years old; good age, good number but for some people getting older means an obsession with their looks; not many people think is a bless getting older as their looks will fade and they will feel they are not going to be appreciate it by anyone, is something sad that some people can grow older with dignity and they have to go under the knife just to feel better or feel that their jobs are going to last a little longer, i.e. fashion models, their looks will say if they are in or out, even actors can get that kind of feeling as their looks will rule their career.

I think I’m going to grow older with dignity; even if I have my own flaws and vanities I will grow up with dignity as an average human being, who is comfortable with himself rather to let others influence on his looks. Looking this in a sociological point of view I see that most of the time the fault of this obsession with the young and perfection lays on the mass desires to make their idols look young forever; but on a mainstream level, people want to look as their idols some of the times, other times people want to feel younger as they have a psychological chain to better times, they want to feel good as when they were young, so they try to remain young as long as they can as they associate it with a better time of themselves.

Society at the end can be cruel, but society is a reflect of every human being, society is a reflection of our self, a reflection we give to the word; so at the end we can be shallow and superficial as we tend to accept more the young and good looking rather than the older experienced individual; we could saw it a few weeks ago in Britain’s Got Talent when Susan Boyle appeared for the very first time, I guess it was a similar case as Paul Potts where to not so good looking individuals stunned the world with their talent, proving that you don’t need to be good looking to impress everyone; we can be extremely judgmental with age and looks.

I guess I am happy with the way I am, I don’t care being good looking or handsome, I am happy being myself, knowing that I am appreciate by my few friends and family because the way I am, I know I can grow older without worrying about my looks as my essence and soul are there, and that end those are the most important things ever because you can look like a Roman Deity, pure perfection in the outside; but if you are not happy with yourself and if you don’t treat people with love and respect, you are a just an immature individual who is scare of growing up.

Never be afraid of getting old, because if you have compassion people will love you without judging on the way you look, I learned that.

One face of immigration is families being broken by the distance, and in more extreme cases by the fear of being caught by the government as people emigrate illegally; is a situation lose-lose as much of the time children are placed in the middle of this nasty experience. As an individual who came by legal means I saw another side of the spectrum a calm one, a side who I knew I was going to sleep well at nights without worrying that I was going to be in the middle of a raid and I have to say I’ve been happy living here, but I know some people live in fear because the Government has taken much restrictions with the immigration topics since the Bush administration, but that doesn’t bother to move from their countries and live their dreams, even if they have to live in the shadows just to have some tranquility in their lives.

For me is been a year and 5 months since I move here, I been living happily even if there  is an economical crisis, I have some tranquility and I can go to the streets without feeling of being followed, but I know some people don’t have the same luck and going to the market is a situation of fear, almost to the point the prefer to hide… is something sad as immigration made this country, but something that is more sadder is that when children of illegal immigrants are separated from their parents because their parents are illegal and they aren’t as being born in American soil, they have to face the trauma of the raid and the separation from their biological parents. Is a situation where everyone lost as families are teared apart because of this situation and the government seems to do nothing as there are children involved in this… but I guess the parents of these children have to think more carefully before putting their offspring in a traumatic situation like this one.

I hope that everything in the next years will improve and this nightmare where children have to be exposed into raid disappear.  

So Amazon.com bans gay literature on their list because they think is offensive, but they don’t take anything related to the extreme left wing South American Socialism even if it’s really offensive and incendiary and shouldn’t be sold? Wow! what a wonderful twisted world we are living, where a “nut job” as Venezuela “President” Hugo Chavez can support his extreme ideology, is not fun this specially that a crazy guy like this can promote is twisted ideology but a gay man or lesbian can promote their books on this engine.

Seeing this week arrive of Bo, the “First pup of Usa” I been thinking if there is an hypoallergenic dog after all?, I don’t think so and after reading this article of the Tampa Tribune, I guess my suspicion was right, there is no such thing as a “free allergies” dog; as Malia I suffer from allergies to dogs and I can say there is no dog in this world that triggers a violent reaction to my nostrils; yes, there are some dogs little ones that are less intrusive to my health such as terriers but at the end I can’t be close to a dog more than an hour before I start feeling difficulty to breath.

Over a year I keep wondering what can be most frighting, a hurricane or a tornado?, after a year I can say at least in my opinion tornadoes are way more scarier than hurricanes; I guess I admire the people of the Tornado Alley for their tenacity of reconstructing their lives every time a tornado hit, is something remarkable how they keep doing it and how they face it. I think on a good news is that the people of Tennessee are starting with the reconstruction works. More info here .

Probably this is one of the best news we heard this year (and is only April),Obama is undoing the mess caused by the Bush administration and we couldn’t be happier because of that. One the first things we are going to see is a lift in the ban imposed by W. about Cuban-Americans visiting the island; you know that there are at least 1.5 million Cuban-Americans and those 1.5 million have family in the island who the were helping from here by transfering money and sending items that are impossible to find in the island, and with W. Bush the visits and the transferings were almost suspending leaving many Cubans in the limbo because they couldn’t receive money from their family and Cuban-Americans who couldn’t do anything because the President took a desition to cut more ties with the island.

Damn, what W. was thinking? he damaged many lives in his 8 year of Presidency and I am happy to see that President Obama is taking a positive action with human rights and letting Cuban Americans to start again having more ties with their mother land; but the only thing is that the issue hasn’t been sanctioned and we have to wait but we as the public and supporters of equal rights for everyone we can support the President decision by making posts like this one expressing that the people support you.

This are newsof hope in this climate of resesion, President Obama said that there is hope for economy, as slowly everything regains order. I hope his words are heard and people starts to show more confidence as is not the job of one man, or a small team to break this vicious cycle of unemployment, is the work of everyone; and, is the spirit and the work of the people that will lead the answer to this crisis, with the help of a strong leader.

So you won’t think that racism is valid at it was on the days of the Transcontinental Railroad or the 50’s; but is true still there is some kind of racism in the world and this time came from Texas State Representative Betty Brown, who said “Asian-Americans should change their names because they are hard to pronounce”, so how hard is to pronounce Ling, Park, Jung, Hashimoto, Shigeru? I don’t know, but they are easy to pronounce but the thing we can say is that Miss Brown is an ignorant by saying that hurtfull statement toward the Asian-American community, I guess she is a racist and a proud one because she resist on making an apologize, so how a racist person ended as a States Represantive?, only in Texas (hooray for stereotypes, not Asians or Texans but you Miss Brown, you are a stereotype yourself by saying that.)

I don’t know why people do this, I don’t know why with all the liberties we have we still face prejudice. This noose was found at a Valrico, Fl church, check the news here .