Lars Holger Holm's window to the virtual world

This is the electronic rostrum of author Lars Holger Holm. Here you find articles, essays, reflections and excerpts from published as well as current works in progress, all written by yours truly. As a forum on the net dedicated to universalist, and therefore necessarily subversive, ideas in an era of over-specialisation and general conformity, this site allows for a wide variety of speculative ideas, philosophical whims and animated discussions.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Daily exercise!

During my recent month long visit to the tiny Caribbean island of Old Providence I enjoyed the privilege of swimming nearly a kilometer a day along this enchanted beach... And yes: the perfectly temperate waters, seen through a diving mask, were crystal clear! Fish? You name it!

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Incidents of Travel in Latin America, Chapter 1, Part 3.

Going up the coast from Miami Beach towards Fort Lauderdale ending with the exploration, before take-off, of down town Las Olas Boulevard.

Back on the Beach, the city, north-bound, stretches into again Jewish dominated Surfside, Bal Harbour and thereafter reaches the strait over which a bridge carries pedestrians and motorists to the Utopian sounding Sunny Isles, fittingly beginning with a mile long nudist beach hidden behind a line of dense vegetation. Sunny Isles is also home to the City of Aventura, rife with huge condominium high-rises and a gigantic shopping centre. This futuristic looking part of the coast in turn comes to an end at the Golden Beach, where greater Miami’s most expensive and privately owned seaside (as opposed to lagoon-side) mansions are located – name says it all.

To the north of these luxury villas, many of which have been bought by industrial Venezuelan money, discreet Hallandale makes its entry – a silent and nostalgic memory of once roaring 1970s Hollywood, with its huge traffic circle and adjacent night life, and Dania Beach, even more secretive than Hallandale, and lost further into the shadows of time, provide the last landmarks on this coastal road, since at Dania it comes to an abrupt end. Before the inlet for heavy commercial maritime traffic and cruise ships to Fort Lauderdale, overlooked by the Hollywood International Airport, there is the Wilderness Beach, once the private property of a Mr. John U. Lloyd, who in his will bequeathed it to the state on the condition that nothing must ever be built or otherwise constructed on this stretch of virgin territory, protecting a narrow lagoon lined with huge industrial cranes on its opposite shores. It’s the only stretch of original beach in this part of Florida, and whenever I walk its dunes I find myself watching out for the Aleph, hidden under a mangrove tree.^{^[1]}

All these facets of south Florida – as well as many others here unmentioned – had begun to sparkle in my mind as I was finally released by the infamous – sometimes downright obnoxious – Homeland Security and allowed to leave the airport. As soon as I found myself comfortably installed behind the wheel, I pressed the pedal of my Mercury Grand Marquis and was catapulted down the dusky I-95 in grand American style to become one with my experience. A week later, after having immersed myself to satiation in slow-flowing rivers of vehicles, I had to take leave of this rolling fortress only to again be assailed by outside reality.

When the local city bus began to move I was surrounded by returning day shift Haitian airport workers chatting exotically in their French-Creole vernacular. I was indeed on my way to the Las Olas Boulevard, but at only 4 PM, decorum suggested it was a fraction too early to start having drinks, so I stopped at Starbucks, which for once had a staff able to interpret ‘a double espresso’ without having to resort to the menu board naively asking if, per chance, I wanted a doppio? The initial ‘Can I help you?’ I couldn’t get around. But I did put the clerk to the test by asking him what kind of help he had in mind. A tired smile semi-lit up his face as he pontificated: ‘And what can I get for you, Sir?’

But you can only stretch a coffee for so long. Though I managed to bring a newspaper together with a cigarette outside, I discovered little in it worth glancing at, not to mention reading. Incidentally, southern Florida was just suffering its first cold spell for the winter. Newspapers and presumably (you would only witness their comments via the text machine on the TV screen) high-pitched news anchors warned owners that shivering crew cut rats on diamond leashes could catch cold if allowed outdoors after sunset. Dressed for the tropics I soon found myself in the street throwing apprehensive glances into warm and festively lit restaurants, where armies of waiters in black shirts swirled around the tables preparing the set for the night’s performance.

But something in me vaguely objected to the idea of being tied to the attention of six ostentatiously aftershaved men, all introducing themselves by first names, giving me odd compliments for my excellent choice of pizza toppings only to in the end expect huge tips for their trite jokes – it’s a very common idea in the US that relieving you of your plate before you even finished eating while simultaneously throwing the bill on the table, is synonymous with excellent service, as though every second that half-empty plate is staring back at you would be an eyesore to you and a testimony to the laziness of the staff. Typically, if a couple dines out, and one of the two finishes before the other, the waiter will promptly remove the empty plate, as if indicating to the person taking his time that he’d better hurry up.

What finally drew me in to an establishment named Caffe Europa was the appearance around a high bar table, close to the window, of three immaculately manicured, and expensively enhanced Latina beauties. Routinely I gazed in their direction as I entered the premises; apparently they couldn’t care less. So I modestly took a seat at the bar from where I could at least enjoy observing three women dressed to kill, pretending to converse with one another. Here I also met with Paul, a gentleman from New York about my own age, having dinner. He introduced me to the bartender, describing her as a friend of outstanding talents.

Now, you don’t necessarily fancy your bartender to have a facial expression betraying a hundred years of boredom with human affairs. But there is also the other extreme: the female bartender who is your cheerful, ever so attentive, eye-blinking gal from the word go: ‘What can I get for you – Honey?’ ‘We have the best pizzas in town’, freely alternating with gossip, a little hutch-hutch, blink-blink, ‘see what I mean’, and ‘would you like another glass of wine Love?’ presented with such candid enthusiasm that you’d have to have a heart of stone to refuse such an offer at your own expense. To be both honest and kind, she actually was a pleasantly spontaneous, entertaining lady who in solidarity with her husband had spent part of her life locked up in what had been, by then, a US owned Venezuelan oil or mining town – one of those corporate islands guaranteeing the commodities of corned beef, watered down American beer and chewing gum, even in the midst of a Congolese jungle.

And what about Paul? A New York expat teaching journalism and mass communication at Miami University. He looked slightly haggard and pale, but it might just have been the habitual complexion and state of mind of an East Coast Jewish university professor in cultural, if not (God forbid!) ethnic exile. It transpired he was in a rather intricate parental situation. Apart from having fathered a now adult woman living in California, he had also more recently spread wild oats in South Africa, the consequence of which was a 14-year old girl living with her mother in Johannesburg. I believe he also mentioned having a relationship with another woman at present. He recommended the fish – steamed with fresh vegetables in aluminium foil – finished his glass of white wine and ended his meal with a dessert. It occurred to me that I might finally have met the other person in South Florida who ever reads anything beyond newspapers, fashion magazines, the TV Guide and this year’s best sellers. He handed me his business card and encouraged me to get in touch whenever I’d be in town next.

With Paul gone, the two seats next to me were occupied by men of a quite different order, the older of them a teary-eyed crocodile dividing its hunting hours equally between business and business. He proudly flaunted his ring, a huge diamond in its midst, which he had allegedly obtained for twenty bucks at an auction many years ago while no one besides him had realised that the stone really was a genuine diamond.

The other man – from the interminable plains of an equally interminable Midwest – could just as well, and rather, have been a used car salesman, covering up any knowing dishonesty with a laughter a bit too loud and too long. It so happened that he was the local art dealer – we’re talking Picasso and Warhol originals (not that I would know the difference between a genuine Warhol and a fake one, or be able to even see the relevance of such definition). His gallery was situated next door.

Mr. Diamond jested that he’d just bought a piece of art which would prevent him from buying another one over the next couple of weeks. He then switched the subject to real estate, wondering if the art dealer could help him find a two bedroom condo in Lauderdale with beach access. The art dealer assured me that both he and Ron – along with their presumably well-to-do mutual friends – were just a bunch of (and these were his exact words): ‘nice, ordinary, hard-working people’. The two of them had a couple of glasses of red wine. They were paid for by the art dealer, apparently owing his client before going back to his store that would close at 10 o’clock. He invited me to pop in for a look. I said I would, but then the next guest in the hot seat kept me posted.

My new neighbour was yet another distinct character. A Brazilian businessman from Sao Paolo, of the type that you would easily identify as the typical Latin playboy, though no longer one in his absolute prime: still mainly dark, wavy and curly hair; expensive accessories (including an impressive Patek Philippe wrist watch), clear, if a little roughly cut facial features. Matrimonial ties to a woman and two young sons in no way deterred him from throwing curious glances at all women in sight. ‘I like poossi’ he spelled with virile emphasis in my ear while eagerly searching the attention of two newly arrived gringas (the Latina models were gone by now), taking seats around the semi-circular bar.

He had ordered an entire bottle of Californian Riesling with his food but drank very little. Instead he offered me most of it. Time flew. Don Pedro, while giving the project a fair chance, seemed unable to lastingly catch the interest of the gringas, although I saw them eyeing him up and down whenever he looked the other way. ‘American woman very different than Brazil’, he frustratedly concluded, and left me alone with them as well as with the remains of the bottle.

I on the other hand knew better than trying to make an impression. Besides I too soon had to leave. Shirley, the bar maid, volunteered to get me a taxi but I told her I’d manage on my own. After having paid my dues (making it a point of honour not to exaggerate the tip, in fact keeping it ever so slightly under the suggested minimum) I entered the street, took a deep breath in the crisp air, hailed down a cab and set off to the airport.^{^[2]} A couple of hours later I again hit ground. This time in a coastal Colombia where the night – if nothing else – was a good deal warmer than the one I had just left behind.

^{^[1]}A first reference in passing to Jorge Luis Borges ́ short story El aleph, entailing the quest for a point (el aleph) that contains all other points.

^{^[2}It seems this kind of European stinginess has since been effectively counteracted by the management. On a recent revisit to the establishment I was surprised to learn that the cheque, without warning, included an added service charge amounting to 20% of the grand total. As if this seemingly compulsory charge was not enough, even greater tip percentages were suggested in print. I was in the company of a lady whom I had invited for dinner and so would have embarrassed everybody had I protested against this outrage and asked to speak to the manager. But that's what I really wanted, because it wasn't mentioned anywhere on the menu that forcing the customer to tip was now standard practice. My first thought was: is this legal? The second one was: bastards! I know: Americans usually consider Europeans lousy tippers. Be that as it may. Please bear in mind, though, that it never occurred to us that the customer, as opposed to the employer, is responsible for hiring and paying the staff. Read me rightly. I certainly don't mind rewarding truly good service with a couple of extra bucks, but I don't want to be forced to do it. I find a 15 dollar extra fee – on top of the advertised price plus taxes – for being served exactly, and in order of appearance, a glass of wine, an ice tea, a chicken pasta, a pizza, and a Tiramisu a rip off. Besides that, I now have enough evidence to proclaim Caffe Europa the financial maelstrom of the entire city, the background being the following. I was at said Caffe Europa also some days before the event described above and managed to have my car ticketed although I was sitting six feet from it and only went inside to pay an espresso for 3.50 at the bar. During that brief absence ´someone´ managed to paste a parking ticket to the amount of 32 dollars onto my windshield and disappear in the blink of an eye. Now, if that is not ominous, I don't know what would be. You'd probably say: Why on Earth do you keep returning to that damned place? My only answer is: The moth is attracted to the ever luring flame even if it will devour him and beautiful women seldom seem to mind all this bull since in the end somebody else is paying for their expenditures. To conclude: it's a nasty game, but someone's gotta play it!

Monday, May 16, 2016

Today's Word of Wisdom

I never wrote a word to endear someone's heart. But everything I have written, I wrote from my heart. I believe there is a difference.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Incidents of Travel... Chapter 1, Part 2.

In which Papa Hemingway is being revisited, Miami is likened to a modern Garden of Eden and the crucial question is asked : where does all the money come from?

The very last of these is the liberal haven Key West where Papa Hemingway settled down in the 1930s in order to be as close to Cuba as possible without having to deal with the Cubans themselves. I have to admit that I belong to the non-negligible category of people that is more fascinated by the extravagant Papa Legend than by Papa’s books. I wish I could say that I truly enjoy the latter, but to me Hemingway’s prose, though so often praised precisely on this account, appears frugal and simplified to the point of sterility (the only one of his books that truly captivates me from the beginning to the end is The old Man and the Sea). I thus fail to fathom its hidden depths and underlying symbols, of which critics and connoisseurs have spoken so eloquently.

It’s therefore all the more surprising, and indeed gratifying to be able to marvel at the titles of his books, since they are almost invariably (A Movable Feast is in my opinion a notable exception) charged with rich suggestion. I don’t know if he made them all up by himself, if it was his editor, his wives, or some other person with a particular genius who invented them. Whatever the case: they’re just perfect. Please do me the favour of listening to the inner reverberations of titles such as: The Sun also Rises; not ‘Farewell to Arms’, but precisely A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Absolutely not ‘The Snow of Kilimanjaro’, which would have been trite and commonplace, but again, precisely, The Snows of Kilimanjaro; The Old Man and the Sea; and my personal favourite: Across the River and into the Trees. It’s very possible that I shall one day have to change my appraisal of Hemingway’s works, based on yes, unprejudiced, but also limited and, above all, face value reading. I do wish it would happen. For now I stay with the titles that have always haunted my imagination.

If Hemingway’s prose sometimes, per chance, seems flat, this is even more accurate about the Florida ground he walked. From Jacksonville in the north to Key West in the south, Florida is not only thoroughly developed but also flat like a pancake – the only hills you’d come across are either made from landfill garbage or they are highway overpasses. South of Jupiter, to the north of West Palm Beach, palm trees, precisely, gradually come to dominate over and against various ferns. This is not just because of the latitude but has to do with the Mexican Gulf Stream which runs closely along the coast to this point and then branches off into the Atlantic Ocean, in this way ensuring South Florida’s year round tropical climate. A predominant eastern trade wind, heated by the surrounding tropical waters, effectively shields off southeast Florida from the incursion of northern winter storms, making cold spells rare and almost relished as a temporary contrast.

Original nature scenery on the other hand – exception made for the inhospitable Everglades – is scarce in the southern part of Florida. Seen from the air, the immensity of Miami-Dade and Broward County’s two-dimensional urban grid becomes apparent; it might even dawn on you that you don’t need to be stranded in Alaska to realise how infinitesimally small your personal, physical existence really is. A look at this cityscape at night from an airplane reveals a geometrically precise system of highways and other thoroughfares lit up by endless rows of white and red light dots. There are myriads of cars on the roads even late into the evening. They meet, part and blare their horns in intersections enclosing square residential blocks, like the symmetrical arrangement of atoms as revealed by the electron microscope in quest of the vanishing point of matter.

1 Å (Ångström) = 10⁻¹⁰ (one ten-billionth of a metre) or 0.1 nanometre.

What you don’t always think about when you (a single ant within the entire colony) drive past one residential block after the other, which in any given neighbourhood, and in the absence of topographical land marks, all have a tendency to look the same, is that the number of villas and their adjacent gardens is not just accumulating numerically but by the square: what seemed to you a row of 15 houses enclosed within the intersections of main roads in reality is a cluster of 150 residences. This exponential repetition ad infinitum adds an almost hallucinatory dimension to the city, as splendid and monotonous as the ocean surrounding it, and gives a vertiginous idea of the staggering number of humans in this once unforgiving marshland which, wherever asphalt and concrete subside, has an artificial tendency to transform into a tropical garden.

It really is an Eden of sorts. There are many Adams and many Eves. There might be a God-Father somewhere too, and an archangel announcing his will and ultimate condemnation of mankind. But the most conspicuous other character in this scenario remains the snake holding out his promise of the apple. Not only are there many explicit casinos and gambling spots. All of South Florida really is a gigantic money making machine. This is more paradoxical than it might seem at first glance. Some of the money is obviously made here, most notably by the commerce generated in the harbour area at the estuary of the Miami River. It’s the first East Coast port of call for cheap Chinese merchandise to Wal-Mart and also home to an impressive fleet of Caribbean cruise ships. Next to it there is the Miami downtown, featuring a wealth of bank and corporate skyscrapers. Consequently there is a constant need of various kinds of maintenance crews – sun, wind and salt take a relentless toll on any man-made structure. Aspiring to be North America’s only tropical Paradise, the place also is in constant need of gardening, gardening and more gardening. Finally there is the tourist trade of Miami Beach.

But apart from these evident sources of income, Miami-Dade County possesses no real industry. Conclusion: the vast middle class apparently thriving here must either have made enough money to be financially secure, and/or be engaged in the social service sector. A whole society built on providing services – for what, for whom? The inevitable question rears its head: what do all these people live off? The answer is probably akin to what I imagine applies to Los Angeles on the other side of the continent: there is a giant influx of money and investment from other places gathering and circulating in the internal economy of South Florida. Money that doesn’t primarily come from the sales of local dairies, orange juice and avocados, but from all the peoples of the north who have saved throughout their lives to be able to buy a place in the sun, in the rays of which they now bask hoping to spend some more of their money. This said, in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial depression, an astonishing number of brand new condominium high rises still gape eerily empty all year round on the sandy eastern beaches, meaning someone must recently have lost tons of money by investing in them.

The text above is an excerpt from:

http://www.amazon.com/Incidents-Travel-Latin-America-Holger/dp/1910524557/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1463168828&sr=8-4&keywords=incidents+of+travel+in+latin+america

Today's Word of Wisdom

Animals, supposedly, can neither cry nor laugh. That tells us something very essential about the human condition.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Incidents of Travel in Latin America. Chapter 1, Part 1.

Incidents of Travel in Latin America

Lars Holger Holm

Planetai (πλανῆται) means Wanderer. This book is dedicated to all Lonely Planets.

1. At the Gate

My plane to Barranquilla, Colombia, wasn’t delayed but it had proved impossible to prolong the car rental without paying through the nose. Since that would have been an ugly sight, I decided to return my stately vehicle hours before take-off. This left me with time to kill. I figured Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale would be the place, and entered the local bus servicing the Hollywood International Airport. Truly, it would have been easier to say hasta la vista to a Corolla. But this was a state-of-the-art American beauty, with all that goes with it. The reason I ever enjoyed the privilege to hang out with her for so long was the following.

As I arrived in Miami one month earlier, the compact cars were in such demand that the rental dealership didn’t have enough of them available. To make up for the vehicle shortage they’d thrown in some Mercury Grand Marquises – a more elegant edition of the Ford Victoria preferred by police forces and cab drivers nationwide – in the lot, offering them at economy price. Generally unable, even under normal circumstances, to resist temptation, I jumped at it. My European heart made an extra beat at the mere thought of turning the key to an eight-cylinder monster with a 4.6 litre engine, knowing I was deliberately and willingly indulging in sin. Since Miami (or to be precise, Miami Beach herself) is pretty much the emblem of it, there simply couldn’t be a better way to arrive there^.^{^[1]}

South Beach is a case in point. In the 1970s and 80s its population was up to 80% Jewish and South Beach itself is practically still a ghetto. Before before World War II Jews, though allowed to buy property anywhere, could only settle south of 5^th Street and this restriction on their activities was only suspended as late as in 1949. After that, South Beach became known as ‘the waiting room of death’ as increasingly older people found it desirable to retire there. At this time there was nothing really fancy or upscale about it. If designer perfumes nowadays permeate its atmosphere, back then the streets smelled of mildew and gefilte fisch and on a visit you would overhear a wild array of eastern European languages blending with Brooklyn twang and Yiddish – it’s no coincidence that Michael Corleone in order to visit with businessman Hyman Roth in the second Godfather film has to go to Miami.

The Jewish scene was to remain relatively unchanged until the late 1970s, when Fidel Castro opened all of his prisons and mental asylums and poured their contents into clandestine boats destined for Miami, thereby creating a tsunami of crime inundating its beaches. South Beach quickly became one of the most dangerous places in all of North America and the Jews began to move northward. Then came the Art Deco renaissance, initiated by prominent Jews of the modern art scene determined to save the beach and restore it to pre-war glory. Some TV shows – pioneer among them had been the iconic Jackie Gleason Show, since the mid-1960s produced in Miami – and criminal series (Miami Vice, followed by the contemporary CSI Miami) helped to put it back on the map, and in the 1990s it began to be hyped up to its present level of mediatised hysteria. Although today in many ways synonymous with Sodom, South Beach is simultaneously home to a large Orthodox Jewish community that has gradually come to supplant the original population of more liberally oriented Jews, and paradoxically seems to thrive in the shadow of its frivolous glitz. Or perhaps not so paradoxically, after all.

Besides, it isn’t just Rabbi Rabinowich who knows how to profit from it, even if he occasionally gets caught with his pants down. We also have the heritage of pushers and dealers in the grand Cuban tradition of Scarface. We have Cuban Jews and Israelis mixing freely with Colombian, Venezuelan and Russian goy mafiosi distinguished by gold chains so heavy that they can hardly keep their necks straight. Their women, (as artificially big-chested as they are self-absorbed – that is, when they’re not absorbed by their cell phones) prefer diamond rings and necklaces since their values never decrease. Add to these a set of modern day WASP retirees populating the entire Florida coastline, but in particular its south, as well as the steady coming and going of foreign tourists and well-to-do Europeans taking refuge there during the winter season.

If Asians don’t make up any significant portion of Miami’s population by and large, Latin families do, clustering around Calle Ocho (SW 8^th Street), Little Havana and West Little Havana, with their rather picturesque mixture of small malls, cash only gas stations, restaurants, shops and Latin bakeries, seedy one-night stand motels with names like Venus, Stardust and Jamaica, strip joints, dry cleaners, PC repair shops, dollar stores and lawyers advertising for clients needing help to file for bankruptcy, divorce or to get off the hook for speeding or ’Drinking Under the Influence of Driving’.

Like an oasis appears to the south of mid Calle Ocho the wealthy and serene Coral Gables (by no means off limits for Latinos who have made it) with its lavish golf courses, long tree adorned alleys, manicured gardens, elegant mansions in a variety of colonial styles, streets with Spanish and Italian names marked in black print on whitewashed corner stones, a chic downtown and a jeunesse dorée pitching camp in the gardens of the Biltmore Hotel. It also, somewhat surprisingly, includes within its perimetre a token trailer park for people of considerably lesser means, symbolically located next to a funeral parlour and a cemetery.

The contrast is immediate and only announced by the drive-through archway and extended gable made from coral that have given the name to this town. Driving south on 49th street – which is another thoroughly Latino dominated residential backwater tucked in between the major traffic artery Route 836 (separating it from the airport), and 8^th Street – you find yourself transported, once you have crossed over 8^th Street into the Gables, by the fairy’s magic wand.

Here the rather inconspicuous SW 49th Avenue completely changes appearance, like Cinderella going to the ball, congenially assuming a new name resounding of saga and history: Granada Boulevard. Whereas the single plane villas to the north of 8^th Street would no doubt announce a wealthy neighbourhood in Managua and Tegucigalpa, they are just plain ordinary in Miami. From the absence of barbed wire to protect the residents from unwanted intrusion you can tell you’re actually not in Managua or Tegucigalpa, but doors and windows are indeed covered by iron bars, just as in those places.

Once you’ve entered Granada Boulevard on the other hand, bars in front of the windows would be an unpardonable faux pas, giving you away as a despicable nouveau riche from the Third World. Here we don’t rely on iron bars but on the Coral Gables Police, discreet cameras, alarm systems and Neighbourhood Watch. The streets are clean – not a dog turd as far as an eagle’s eye can see – and hardly frequented by pedestrians. Although there are perfectly maintained pavements in place everywhere, there are times of the day when the residences of Coral Gables are akin to a vision of serene, golden America painted by a late Edward Hopper.

The effect of its flowery gardens and long canopies of trees arching the streets for miles give a surrealistic impression: on a clear day the colours are overly vivid and, seen through a pair of good sunglasses, almost psychedelic. Adding to the enchantment is a full scale lighthouse in Moorish style overlooking the green sea of the golf course with its huge Banyan trees. I have sometimes remained motionless in front of the lighthouse thinking I’m the only witness to the world on Day One without humans. It’s rather like the dream in which you wake up to a perfect world but there’s nobody besides yourself in it. So, like a King Midas everything you touch does turn into gold, but you also starve to death by the means that made you rich. A memento to ponder for sure.

Add to Coral Gables the various Central and South-American nationalities populating communities such as Fontainebleau and the City of Doral. In the middle of it sits, as the heart of ultra-urban civilisation, Miami Airport set against the vibrating, silvery skyline of downtown. To the north of the airport is Latin Hialeah, and the predominantly Afro-American scene of Little Haiti, North Miami and Miami Gardens, which, in spite of its seducing name, features many a thorny, unkempt shrubbery. Some houses look more like abandoned tool sheds, flaunting rebar and naked concrete. Aluminium chairs litter the grass and loaded boat trailers clog up the driveways. There are entire blocks filled with military looking barracks (housing projects) with people aimlessly hanging in street corners, or drifting in and out of utility and second-hand stores – that is, when they’re not actually pushing a department store trolley ahead containing all of their belongings, including a cardboard mattress custom made from a FedEx delivery box.

As a contrast there is the strange amalgamation of former hippie homes at the opposite end of town, tucked away in quaint Coconut Grove, with its vaguely bohemian younger generation and wealthy Coral Gablers ‘with a difference’, living practically next door to the Bahamian ghetto around the intersection of Grand Avenue and Douglas Road, where rape, abuse, robbery and murder allegedly are still on the weekly menu and police cars are frequently transfixed, flashing their strobe lights for hours.^{^[2]}

The Miami University campus is further down, constituting Coral Gables’ southwestern corner along the US 1, also called South Dixie Highway.^{^[3]}Continue down that main stretch and you reach South Miami with its interminable automobile showrooms and car sales parking lots. Off to either side, tranquil Pinecrest, Cutler and Palmetto Bays to the east, Kendall, Homestead to the west, and still more remote neighbourhoods which the imagination is keen to populate with alligators lurking in the swamps.

Having passed these vast areas there remains only the frontier town of Florida City with its last call discount liquor stores still within the limits of Dade County, as well as the 18 mile long desolate causeway through crocodile infested mangroves bringing the traveller to the endless Florida Keys, where a different story begins.

http://www.amazon.com/Incidents-Travel-Latin-America-Holger/dp/1910524557/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1463168828&sr=8-4&keywords=incidents+of+travel+in+latin+america

^{^[1]} I think it’s fair to say that this type of car still sits in a no-man’s land between ‘no longer modern’ and ‘still not classic’ (the last models rolled out of the Detroit factory as late as 2011). As of today it primarily appeals to Latinos and Afro-Americans as the epitome of the American Dream within reach even for the not very rich. It is indeed a well-manufactured vehicle in the grand tradition of full-size sedans that takes on the long, straight US Interstate Highways in the same manner as a mature Côte-du-Rhône takes on a ripe Roquefort cheese – it’s a marriage made in heaven!

^{^[2]}In this connection it might interest movie watchers that the marital comedy Meet the Fockers from 2004, featuring Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand as the “once” hippie couple, receiving in their charmingly rundown and luxuriously overgrown Miami home the ever so slightly stricter parents of the to-be-bride, congenially personified by Robert de Niro (who also produced the film) and Blythe Danner, is set in the Coconut Grove. The children to be married are played by Ben Stiller and Teri Polo.

^{^[3]} To the newcomer in Miami it can be more than just a little confusing that some streets have up to four different names, so that although you're correct in assuming you should make a right turn onto SW 22^nd Street, you won't find it because you're supposed to know in advance that at this particular junction it’s marked out as Coral Way, and at another one as The Miracle Mile. Though you just might be able to figure out that the above mentioned Calle Ocho is identical with SW 8^th Street, you also need to know that another synonym for it is the Tamiami Trail, as well as Felipe Vals Road. It goes without saying that East 8^th Avenue is also and better known as Le Jeune Road, or simply as 42^nd Avenue and that East 9^th Street is of course identical with NW 62^nd Street, in turn identical with Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Nothing could be simpler!

The Fall of Europe and the Fall of Rome

This was an article I wrote as the tide of human migration into Europe from Asia, Middle-East and Africa was about to reach its peak last year, and very few politicians within the larger EU-establishment seemed willing to react to the danger.

Although the situation has since somewhat changed for the better, at least superficially, I believe the essence of the problem remains the same, because the underlying political attitude, allowing this calamity in the first place, hasn't changed at all.

The text was originally published on a Net Forum for independent political observers called RightOn on October, 2, 2015.

Lars Holger Holm

The Fall of Rome and the Fall of Europe

What can we learn from history? That there is nothing new under the sun? That we seem bound to repeat the mistakes of the past regardless of whether we're aware of them as such or not?

Flashback to the Fall of the Roman Empire

In the first century CE, Roman emperors began ordering the construction of a vast defence system that was later to be referred to as the limes (plural limites). In Europe these often consisted of earthen walls, or dikes, crowned with palisades running along the river banks of the Rhine and the Danube. At every other kilometre along these lines there was a fortified tower and, at longer intervals, whole fortresses containing infantry or cavalry, or both. This system, deploying myriads of soldiers to keep watch over the vital waterways – coinciding with a natural border between Roman civilisation and the impenetrable woodlands teeming with barbarians beyond its pale – was on the one hand, and for the longest time, very efficacious. On the other hand it eventually became a tremendous financial burden to the Empire. It also allowed the interaction of Roman soldiery with these barbarians, who often ended up as mercenaries in the Roman army.

Earlier in her history, while she was still expanding, Rome had primarily relied on new conquests to fill her craving belly, but when the defensive strategy mentioned above was developed, culminating in the wall that Emperor Hadrian bespoke as a bulwark against Scottish tribesmen, the army had to be financed through levies and taxes raised in urban centres such as Rome. Unsurprisingly, the burden of these taxes was not equally distributed, nor adjusted according to economic capacity among the Romans themselves. On the contrary, they widened the gap between rich and poor, creating further social tension and the threat of riots. Already in the first century the emperors felt compelled to subsidise the urban proletariat by providing it with panem et circenses (free bread and entertainment) in order to mitigate its blind fury. This worked for a while; yet it was a precarious truce.

Meanwhile, the armed forces became an increasingly decisive factor, to the detriment of the Senate, in the choosing and crowning of new emperors, of whom many met ‘unnatural’ deaths at the hands of their political enemies or even their own bodyguards. By the end of the third century Diocletian, who was elected Emperor by his troops, didn’t even care to travel to Rome to receive the traditional, albeit purely formal, investiture by the Senate, a gesture clearly indicating how utterly unimportant the opinions of its remaining members were considered to be (many of the old aristocratic families traditionally providing candidates for public offices and members of the Senate had been eradicated in political vendettas and purges over the previous centuries).

Steadily, fewer of the Roman soldiers were in fact born Romans, but barbarians originating in the vast hinterland of the limes. The dwindling Roman population might have thought that these barbarians would be immensely impressed by the mere existence of such magnificence as the city of Rome, but it is doubtful that this was ever the case. To many of them it might have seemed as nothing more than a perfect place to loot, if only the circumstances would allow for it. Eventually they did, and the inner proletariat of Rome joined forces with the barbarians to home in on the carcass of the dying Roman wolf from all sides. By this time even the last vestiges of dignity had been stripped from the imperial title, and the rapid coming and going of Germanic emperors during the period of the final decadence of Rome merely added fugitive names to a list devoid of any historical significance.

It might thus be said that the mightiest empire the world has ever seen went out with a whimper rather than a bang, leaving oblivion to preside over a nation, the native citizens of which were both ignorant of and profoundly uninterested in the stoic Republican virtues and iron will to power that had forged and united the nation in a common endeavour during the earlier days of her history. It rather dissolved from within due to spiritual exhaustion, brought to its knees by centuries of political corruption, financial mismanagement, and a cynical hedonism among the rich which was matched only by the starved frenzy of its immigrants. Deprived even of the belief in its own reason to continue to exist, and at the mercy of any stranger who succeeded in laying claim to its blood-soaked purple for a brief moment, Imperial Rome quietly slipped out the back door, leaving the historical stage to budding Christianity and the motley crew of immigrants henceforth spreading freely across its heartland.

Back to the Present

In 1989 there was hope across Europe that the reign of Bolshevik state terror over and against millions of people in Eastern Europe was finally coming to an end. No more walls; no more barbed wire; no more land mines, tanks, and machine-guns along the borders. Ever. But the fanfare of hope had hardly sounded before it was muted. The nation of Israel, ‘light unto the other nations’ in her own opinion, initiated the retrogression by erecting walls and fences along her new-fangled borders. The United States followed suit by erecting a fence along its Mexican border.

For the moment these measures have proved reasonably successful in regard to their intended objective: to keep the ‘barbarians’ out of the promised land. But when a small country, on the fringes of European civilisation, began to do the same, with the openly avowed aim of protecting its borders (which had been completely disregarded by both Hitler and Stalin in the recent past) and its culture against the flood of barbarians, which had been unleashed by joint American and Israeli policies and military interventions, then the world by and large is incited to condemn its government as anti-human, racist, and savage. No one seems to realise that the same pejorative epithets, if accepted, by elementary logic must also apply to the US and especially to Israel – a country that to this day has not allowed a single Syrian refugee to remain on ‘its’ soil. On the contrary, the Israeli government openly boasts of its efficiency in keeping unwanted ‘strangers’ out of the country, while steadfastly defending the Jewishness of their national home which in 1948, through acts of bloody terror sanctioned and even carried out by the country’s soon-to-be political leaders, declared itself a sovereign state in the midst of Arab territory, and has remained so ever since.

If we compare this situation to the existence of the limites of Latin antiquity, we can see that although these barriers were insufficient in the long run to prevent the barbarians from gaining a foothold within Roman territory and to then proceed to eventually conquer its western provinces, it did halt them for quite some time, giving Rome a respite to ponder its own demise in the course of a majestic decline. But there is little doubt, I think, that if the Romans hadn’t even tried to stem the tide of the barbarians, the decline of Rome would have been a much speedier affair and probably resulted in her being sacked repeatedly already under what is now considered its golden Indian summer, partly coinciding with the benevolent and politically cautious reign of the Antonine dynasty.

I would therefore like to conclude this brief historical comparison by underscoring that if the Jews of Israel, as well as the American authorities, find it appropriate to fence off their territories, just as the Chinese did at one time, against peoples whom they consider inadmissible for whatever reason, I don’t think that any European nation should feel in the least ashamed of doing the same, since it is precisely the lack of shame that has made Israel and the United States so successful in the past.
Meanwhile it is the Europeans who have been forced to bear the full brunt and stigma of a bad conscience (originally, but no longer Christian), which Israel and its executive branch, the US, are only all too keen to wield as a supreme weapon against it. As long as these superpowers show no sign of turning the other cheek to the enemy when they are hit, there is absolutely no reason for Europeans to even consider being so infinitely meek and humane without inviting Israel and the US to join the philanthropic party.

We consequently know beforehand that the Israelis are always going to try to sell us the same old story: their situation is so delicate and special that it can’t be compared to any other historical circumstance ever to have appeared on Earth – yawn… To which the Europeans may rightly and naturally object, that as long as the fundamental weakness of the European predicament, namely an inveterate and millennium-old Christian tradition of ‘bad conscience’ is being ruthlessly exploited and administered by radical Leftists and their Zionist allies, the Europeans should just hit the moral missile back to the Israeli side of the pitch and be prepared to receive another curveball in return. At least the Europeans would still be in the match by the same token, and that is by far better than to just tolerate the intimidation and continue to admit that there is some kind of moral duty for only Europe (as opposed to Israel, Russia, China, or the United States) to receive masses of unidentified people on the move, having been induced to do so by the military aggression of Israel and the US in several Muslim states.

Beware of Pity is the English title of a Stefan Zweig novel (original: Herzens Ungeduld), and he was both Jewish and aware of the danger of letting compassion get the better of your reason. By fencing out what they perceive to be their enemies, the Jews of Israel still show a determination to preserve their ethnic, cultural, and religious identity. Their purist racial stance is probably just as doomed as was the Roman effort to keep the barbarians at bay, but at least it will buy them some time. Even if I don’t personally approve of the way in which this is done, I can respect that many Jews of Israel think of this as the only way to get ahead. Considering how they acquired the land which is now proclaimed as theirs for all eternity, I’m even inclined to agree that they have a solid reason to fear Arab vengeance.

But to have the Western media sing Hallelujah after claims to the unlimited benefits of unlimited Muslim immigration to Europe, and even to have these media pundits condemning any caution and restraint in this regard, is such a monumental act of hypocrisy that it should make us all wonder what the purpose of allowing Europe to become a future caliphate really is? In other words: who is the architect and chief engineer of the Europe of the future, and why on Earth does He want its native populations to be replaced as quickly as possible by Arabs and Africans? I mean, after all, the Leftist media depends on the Western style of ‘tolerance’ that is unlikely to last long in an environment subject to the worldview of people who are hardly noted for their appreciation of Western values. As far as Israel and its allies in Europe are concerned, there are still many secular, and even Orthodox, Jews who would like to remain, work, and thrive in Europe. So where’s the point in prematurely ruining it?

The motivations of radical Leftists are clear: they have long wished to destroy the last vestiges of traditional Europe, even at the expense of the very conditions which made their worldviews possible in the first place. But I have a hard time understanding the attitudes of liberal and certain westernised Jews in this regard. The only workable and reasonably realistic ‘explanation’ for the voluntary destruction of Europe I have been able to come up with so far is that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent, as well as repeated, invitation to European Jewry to leave Europe behind, and under favourable financial auspices settle in the Holy Land, corresponds to a long-term plan of draining the Middle East of Arab populations by gradually transplanting them to Europe. In this way European anti-Semitism will steadily be deflected towards Arabs, who will in turn shake their fists at absent Jews, leaving Israel free to expand her own territory in order to better accommodate her dispersed children, who will be eagerly seeking a new home as they find Europe growing more and more inhospitable for them.

Could it be that the Muslim invasion of Europe is thus part of a wider Zionist plan involving a quest for ‘Greater Lebensraum for the Jews’? If so, a natural consequence of this would be that the defensive walls and fences keeping non-Jews out of Greater Israel will one day be further extended. Quite contrary to what many Europeans might have come to believe, namely that the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe is deeply worrying to all Jews, it may in fact be part of a deliberate Zionist strategy, and consequently quite welcome to some of them. Only the future will tell whether a second ark, destined to rescue only certified Abrahamoids rather than animals this time, is about to be launched as this human deluge in the making hits Europe.

But even if such scenario remains an unverified hypothesis for the time being, what is sure and certain is that the idea of global multiculturalism – nowadays considered by many to be such a self-evident and unavoidable reality that it doesn’t even need to be argued – has so far also eminently served Diaspora Jewry by diffusing the origins of its concerted activity – financial, political, cultural – throughout the entire Western world. At the time when the Western nations were ethnically homogeneous, the Jewish presence was still clearly felt as something ‘alien’ that necessitated some time to digest. It even involved an effort on the part of the Jews themselves to at least assimilate some aspects of the culture hosting them. Today being Jewish is in itself synonymous with the norm for optimal societal integration and success, thus something we should all aspire to emulate to the best of our capacity. The Jews during the past two centuries have not only travelled far and wide by land and sea. They have also undergone a spiritual metamorphosis transforming them from pariahs into masters. By tacit Gentile consensus they have thus become our new role models.

Lars Holger Holm

Buy Now