Is Lopez Obrador totally whacked? This isn’t a question until I asked until after the election. See, before the election, I just knew he was slightly off kilter, but now? Come on, talk about a sore loser. Before, he could have commanded a decent numbers of voters to support him, but once he lost the election and has decided to revolt against the system, the people who previously supported him have “gone bye bye” in the words of my son.

I was just reading an article on the International Herald tribune site. It talks about Lopez Obrador starting up a parallel government, one that will go for change with a parallel capital and all the other vestiages that a crazy man can dream up. His goal is total revolution. Is Mexico really in need of total revolution? Lopez Obrador seems to think so and every day more and more people come to realize that he is off his rocker.

If you use a Motorola phone to access the internet through GPRS, you are not alone. I use it extensively, including the Motorola V220, the Motorola L6, and the Motorola C390. All of them have mini usb plugs and for Windows the drivers are easily found online. I always assumed it would be very difficult to get my Motorola phone working with Ubuntu or other flavors of Linux, and even tried to find difficult explanations online. I could never get it to work until I dissected several different online informational posts. I pieced together a way to make it work and you know what? It is even easier than setting up a Motorola gprs modem on Windows. Here is how I did it.

1. Plug in the motorola phone. It should be recognized as ttyACM0.

2. Open a terminal window and type:
sudo wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf

You get a long list of checks that it runs. Basically it checks for a modem and the location.

3. next type:
sudo vi /etc/wvdial.conf

In the file, you need to edit a few entries, like edit out the semicolons at the start of the line for phone number, password and username. For user name and password, you can enter anything for those values. For phone number, I used *99#.

Next, add a line:
Stupid Mode = 1

You might want to change the baud rate, I used 230400 even though it detected that it could do 460800. GPRS is slow so I can’t personally think of a good reason to send data to and from the modem 10 times faster than it can deal with it.

4. Save the file.

5. Next open another terminal window and type
sudo wvdial

You are now connected to the internet and you can surf. I don’t know if you can close the window and keep the connection or not. I am just happy to be connected. I can deal with any quirks.

I hope this can serve as a little bit of help to any searching the forums for how to use a gprs modem with Ubuntu/Kubuntu. It seems really simple, but I have been searching on and off for 6 months for a way to connect through Ubuntu like this.

I found this very interesting entry on being a free lance journalist abroad. Great advice, but after reading it, one paragraph sticks out in my mind and makes me ask myself a question. The question is just how many magazines and newspapers are there in the UK? I would have assumed there were a lot, but now I am left wondering.

Now read this paragraph:

Finally, buy a copy of every single magazine and newspaper published in the UK and pack them in your suitcases. There is no substitute for having the original copy in front of you to get a feel of a publication before writing that all important pitch.

It now appears that there are not nearly as many as I thought since it is possible to put a copy of every magazine and newspaper published in the UK in your suitcase. I am shocked to say the least.

It irritates me the recent news of people celebrating in Miami because an old man has fallen ill. He needs to undertake surgery and knows that his recovery will be a long recovery so he turned over day to day running of the country to his brother. Fidel Castro loves Cuba and has committed his life to the betterment of Cuba. Can’t people just let him be? Why must people celebrate his illness?

Every one was a theory on what is going on with many pundits in the US and Cuban-backed Miami trying to instigate a destabilization plot against Cuba. They are trying to paint a picture of destabilization in an effort to try to show to everyone that Cubans do not want Castro and are just itching for a chance through off the supposed ball and chain. All they are doing is showing the world their limited grasp of reality.

The average Cuban is much better off now than they were under the Batista regime. One doesn’t need to look far to see how there life could be like. They could be like the people in Haiti, Dominican Republic, or even the Philippines, but they are not. Children do not go to sleep on the streets of Cuba, all people have access to education and to health care. This is Fidel’s legacy. I laughed when I read an anti-Castro goon talking about his joy to return to a Castro-free Cuba. He talked about going to the theater and symphony because they are so cheap in Cuba. This man didn’t for once realize that the reason Cuba has an excellent symphony and theater is because of Fidel Castro and his vision. If the anti-Castro goons have their way, Cuba will become another basket case where the rich profits from the poor, where people lack medical care, educational is only given to the rich, and symphony and theaters will disappear.

I am not worried at this point. I have a perfectly simple explanation for Fidel and Raul being out of the limelight for the last week. Fidel is slowly recovering from his surgery and will quickly be on his feet attending to the affairs of Cuba. Meanwhile, Raul Castro has been in the shadow ensuring the smooth function of government. It would have been rude of him to have come forward so quickly. His brother is battling a very serious medical problem and it just wouldn’t be right for Raul to plaster his own image all over the media. There is a time for that, but the time is not right now.

The only joy I get out of all of this is the let down that all of those Miami Mafia goons will get as they discover the real truth. Fidel, Raul and the revolution will continue.

I am not Jewish but I sometimes play one on TV. Seriously though, I don’t like to make a habit out of eating shrimp, crabs, fish or other seafood that feeds on the dropping or carcasses of other fish. I find it gross to say the least. If a fish is kosher then I am pretty well ok with eating it, even if the taste is bad, at least I know it isn’t gross. I found this website with information about Kosher Fish and it is great.