the sawpit

Christmas in Goa, Part 2

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Shortly before we left for Goa, Marina's nephew mentioned that a friend had just returned from Mumbai where he'd gone to have some dental work done. Having just had the work on her own teeth estimated on Carnaby Street at ten thousand pounds plus, Marina was interested and the day after we landed she was at a dentist's office in Candolim. Their price was one-tenth that of Carnaby Street and Marina gave them the green light. After three weeks of intermittent appointments she now, as my Aunt Patsy used to say, 'looks like a million bucks'.

And she wasn't the only one. We became aware that repairing the chops of the westerners was an avowed business strategy of the dentists with a practice in the beach towns (the Indians couldn't afford them) and we bumped into Brits, Swedes and Russians who had traveled to Goa specifically for a new smile and a tan. Notice that all the nationalities mentioned ostensibly have socialized medicine and dentistry. Why would all these folks spend the money? One reason is that few of their national health plans cover cosmetic work; another is that their own dentists have full appointment books and extensive work can take months. In Britain the National Health dentists are becoming harder and harder to find as they scramble to open a private practice and escape the government's red tape. The Goans profit, the patient saves and the strain on the National Health is alleviated; it would seem that dental tourism produces only winners.

If this info is of any interest to you, look for a cheap package deal and spend a couple of weeks alternating between a dentist's chair and a beach chair.

Cookies Baked With Love

Happy Holidays!

Watching the Watchers

Who is watching the watchers? That's the question which comes to mind when you realize that our government went underground in the 1950s. People began to suspect that something wasn't right after the Kennedy and King assassinations, and the Watergate break-in. Yet many Americans were in deep denial about what its government was doing in the shadows until the Iran-Contra scandal exploded in November of 1986. Although that investigation didn't go far enough, it did expose the secret foreign policy apparatus operating from the basement of the Reagan White House whose sole mission was to circumvent laws designed to restrict the clandestine operations of our intelligence agencies. In this case, they were violating the Boland Amendment which made it illegal to fund the Nicaraguan Contras -- the terrorists Reagan called the moral equivalent of our founding fathers. The weapons-for-hostages deal was exposed when a plane loaded with guns was shot down over Nicaragua. It quickly came to light that several Central Intelligence Agency operatives were directly involved in the operations, and that drugs sales were also being used to fund the Contras. Reagan went on television that November to explain why the White House had allowed weapons to be sold to Iran. If all this hadn't been bad enough, a cover-up had started once the operation had been exposed. I quote here from Wikipedia:

The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between November 21 and November 25, 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary Fawn Hall testified extensively about helping North alter, shred, and remove official United States National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House.

Two decades later, we have the House Intelligence Committee issuing a subpoena for Jose Rodriguez, a former CIA official who oversaw the 2005 destruction of videotapes documenting the secret interrogation and possible torture of several terrorist suspects. Here we go again. The AP reported yesterday that:

House Intelligence Committee staff members want to know who authorized the tapes' destruction; who in the CIA, Justice Department and White House knew about it and when, and why Congress was not fully informed. The committee, which had threatened to subpoena the records if they did not get access this week, also wants to know exactly what was shown on the tapes, which document the harsh interrogation of two al-Qaida suspects in 2002.

A lawyer for Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, David Remes, claims the CIA may have violated a court order which prohibits government agencies from destroying any evidence potentially relevant to an active case. U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy heard arguments today from Justice Department lawyers that the courts should let the Justice Department and the CIA conduct the investigations to determine whether or not the destruction of the tapes violated a court order to preserve all interrogation evidence. From the AP today:

"The Justice Department may have sanctioned the destruction of these videotapes," attorney David Remes said. "Now they are asking the court to stay out, on the ground it is investigating the destruction of these videotapes."

So, now we are back to the question: who is watching the watchers? I daresay that we are at a pivotal moment in our history. We can continue to allow the secret government to operate with almost no accountability, or Congress and the courts can grow spines and force our intelligence community to respect the rule of law, or face a grim future of criminal investigations and rigorous prosecutions. We must not allow these criminals to hide behind a smoke screen of "national security" in order to avoid accountability. Our republic is too fragile to withstand such self-serving excuses and lies.

Christmas in Goa

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Once upon a time, back in the mezzo-twentieth century, I returned to Delhi after six months up along the Nepalese border, intending to catch the first available flight and be rid of India forever. In the evening, while taking a stroll toward the bazaar, I was passed by a horse-drawn taxi with bells on the reins. It hit me: It was Christmas day. I had seen nothing on the streets to remind me.

I mention this because I have, in fact, broken a longtime promise to myself and returned to India; only it's not really India and I'm surrounded by Christmas decorations. Marina and I are in the former Portuguese colony of Goa and it bears as little relationship to the India I knew as Bangkok does to Vatican City. When the British departed India they left behind their language and their form of government. When the Portuguese pulled out of Goa what remained was their culture and their religion. Over 75% of the population is Catholic, they drink and they merrily slaughter cows and pigs and eat them. Even a Hindu restauranteur will will not blush as he serves you a cheeseburger. The Goans are, in the main, an easygoing and honest people. This is so dissimilar to the rest of Brahmin-run Hindu India that Goa is virtually a separate country.

The fly in the ointment is that Goa is also a tourist Mecca which attracts every shady conman and peddler from several states around. This angers the Goans but there is nothing they can do about it. Nothing but emigrate, which they are doing in great numbers, leaving the place to avaricious Kashmiris and get-rich-quick Maharashtrans who are slowly but steadily trashing the place. Marina, who has been here a number of times, almost broke down in tears when she saw what had happened to Baga Beach. So many huts had sprouted up to sell beer and trinkets that the the restaurant owned by some friends of hers no longer had a view of the beach and water and business was suffering. This is symptomatic of the entire place.

Anyway, happy holidays