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But instead, you had to go to the Dominican Republic, eh? As if that country didn't have enough problems, already. I'll get back to this.

Over a month ago, my wife and I decided to go on vacation. We'd been through a very tough year, which included one major surgery each, my changing jobs three times, and both of us moving out of our apartment, due to Airbnb doom that had turned our once happy building into hooker central station. Being so exhausted and needing to relax, we did something we normally avoid: we made reservations at a big, all-inclusive resort. We picked a room in La Romana, Dominican Republic.

A few days before our departure, though, my wife found a news article about American tourists dying at a seemingly alarming rate precisely in La Romana (not at our resort) and a couple more places on the island. What to do, what to do? I started monitoring the web for more news. As days went by, our worries grew: more and more tourists suddenly recalled their own stories about getting sick there and surviving by a miracle. American media went into a frenzy, and Canadian media seemed to follow suit. We even considered canceling our vacation, although that would mean no refund.

But then it dawned on me that we were probably just letting irrational thoughts manipulate our minds. Two main points puzzled me: first off, no correlation was being found among the deaths, other than perhaps adulterated liquor from the minibar of a single resort, which would have maybe linked three deaths to each other. And second, why were people suddenly recalling being sick there? Could that be due to simple suggestion? Rather than listening to random, panicky reports, I got myself informed and reasoned as such:

1) Last year, 14 American tourists died in Canada (that's almost twice as many as the current count in the Dominican Republic), yet nobody is calling for an investigation against us

2) Well over 2.5 million Americans (and about 4 million more from the rest of the world) travel to the Dominican Republic every year and make it safely back home

3) As far as I could tell, most tourists who died had serious preexisting conditions. It doesn't really matter whether or not their doctors told them they could go on vacation: when you have a heart condition, and/or are obese, and/or you're on heavy medications, you're always at risk

4) No matter the frenzy, the US was NOT (still isn't!) recommending against travelling to the island

5) I had a very strong suspicion that at least some of these people, by simple stats, had acted like plenty of tourists do on vacation: they ate too much, drank too much alcohol and not enough water, got severely sunburnt, and kept going from extreme heat at the beach to extreme cold in their rooms.

Long story short, I announced to my wife that there may be some truth to the adulterated alcohol, so we could simply avoid drinking from our minibar, drink little alcohol in general, and monitor how we felt, at least in the beginning. She agreed and we both decided to stop worrying while sticking to our plan.

Enter madam "I could have went to Greece" and all her cohort: as we boarded the plane (around 8 AM), alcohol started flowing. Within an hour, the woman sitting in front of me had already gobbled down a glass of wine and a can of beer. Now, if you think that having so much alcohol by 9 in the morning is normal, I've got news for you: either you've lived under a rock your entire life or you're most definitely an alcoholic. By the time we landed, a good number of people were clearly on the happy drunk side of life. When we got to the resort, we were welcomed with more alcohol, which we put down two seconds later, almost untouched. By the end of the day, guess what? We noticed lots of people who were eating like pigs, drinking like crazy, had serious weight and health problems, and acted like they didn't.

In the end, we spent an amazing week there - as a matter of fact, it was one of the best holidays of my life. We were very much pampered, the staff was professional, courteous, and went always the extra mile for us. The beach was gorgeous, the ocean was nice, the snorkeling was fun, the food was good, and the little alcohol we had (too hot to drink!) was fine. Full disclaimer: we didn't always drink enough water and we got nicely sunburnt, but that was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

You know when trouble came? When we flew back to Montreal. There was a huge storm over the area, so we were forced to land in Toronto, instead, and fly back home the next day. As we were circling over the city, the drunkards and the stupid all came to life: they started screaming against the crew, adamantly stating that the airline had planned for that mess right from the start (they wouldn't explan why, of course), and demanding a huge refund. The level of "smartness" is fully encapsulated in what "madam Greece" screamed at the top of her lungs, dramatically trying to convince every single passenger that it takes about 6 hours to fly to Greece from Canada, which is an obvious lie. The same lady and another group of five idiots proceeded then to make phone calls, exchange text messages, and even browse the web during our descent to Toronto, because of course safety is just not an issue to certain douchebags.

So, my plea to you: avoid giving in to a panic that is seriously hurting the economy of a friendly, amazing country like the Dominican Republic. Be wary of sensationalism, take things with a grain of salt, and, if at all possible, be a smart tourist!

Still not convinced? I'm sure these articles will put things into perspective for you:

Tourist Trap

Media frenzy over Dominican Republic deaths causing more harm than good

Recently during one of our regular morning conversations before we get up and start our day, my sweetheart and I talked fondly about our childhood memories, we both feel blessed to have experienced a somewhat idyllic childhood. We’re Baby Boomers  to give you a reference on when we grew up, and we’re white so that certainly played into the equation, but this isn’t going to be about race, it’s going to be about the safety and security of our parents and why I wasn’t able to provide that to my children.

As a kid during summer vacation in Quebec my friends and I would wake up, swallow something edible for breakfast walk out the front door, screen banging behind us, “Don’t slam the screen.......” fading in the background. At the end of our walkway I would look both ways down the street to see if anyone else was already out, then decide who to join, barefoot of course. We held contests to see who had the dirtiest feet before our parents would compel us to wash them. We wandered freely in and out of each other’s homes, pocketing snacks and drinks to take with us on a journey to the park, the next kid’s back yard or basement or “The Woods’. The community park in our neighborhood was large, well, at least in my memory it is, in fact it’s HUGE! There was a playground, a pool, a baseball field, a hockey rink and a community center where the teens hung out.

We left our homes in the morning, came in around lunch and dinner time to graze, left again and were out ‘until the street lights came on’; that was the general rule for most families in the neighborhood during summer. Sometimes my friends and I would walk to Woolworth’s which was about 6 blocks away and we had to cross a busy street to get there. Alone. Unsupervised by adults. We were about 10. “The Woods” was an area also unsupervised that we frequented to catch tadpoles, pick trilliums and wander and tell stories. The tadpoles occasionally grew legs but not once were we successful in having one grow to full adult frog. Poor tadpoles. In the winter this park had a hockey rink and a separate skating rink plus a great hill for sledding. The boys would play hockey in the street and yell in unison, “Car!” followed by moving their goal to the side to allow the car to pass through.

Yet, I did not allow my children the same freedoms that I had as a child. Why? Because I was afraid. I was afraid of kidnappers, rapists in woods, molesters at the swim center and bullies at the local store. Are my memories jaded or do we live in a different world? Sadly, I think we live in a different world. As we discussed the difference in our childhood experience versus our children’s experience we both arrived at the same conclusion- that world doesn’t exist anymore. The question is what happened?

This is the theory that we developed; because people don’t have stability anymore and with stability comes security. When we were kids the homes on our street were filled with similar families with fathers who had stable jobs and sometimes working moms with stable jobs. We weren't rich but stable. We and our neighbors lived in our homes for a long time and we became familiar with everyone- we knew who lived in each house. Our teachers lived in our neighborhood and our doctors and our nurses and our mechanic- they were familiar and they knew us. If we stepped out of line we knew that by the time we got home our parents would already have been called. Our friend’s parents felt comfortable enough to tell us, “Behave yourself.” and we did. We called our parents friend’s Mr. and Mrs.

Our parents also knew that if they did their best at their jobs they could look forward to retiring from those companies with a pension. The word ‘lay-off’ didn’t really exist for our parents. Some of our parents learned a trade, some went to college, and they all knew they would get a good paying job that they could depend on. Not so for my generation and definitely not so for my children’s generation. I hate to think of what is in store for my grandchildren’s generation. When my friends and I graduated or left trade school we struggled to find work and many of us had to take lower paying jobs and then work our way up and then came the familiar pattern of, closed conference room doors, followed by announcements of how many would be laid off. This pattern would repeat many times over the years. In my circle of friends and acquaintances I only know of 1 person who has never experienced a lay off. Just one. My children have already been through the layoff grind before they were 30. Job worry makes it hard to feel secure. It makes it hard to plan for your future. Job worry makes it hard to decide where to live or whether to buy a home if you can afford it.

Without job security and with layoffs being a part of a normal career life the need to move and change locations creates less stability for ourselves and our children. Our neighbors are experiencing the same. My family has moved 16 times and at least half of those times were directly related to job loss. If we aren’t living in the same home for long periods of time, neither are our neighbors so we don’t take time to get to know them. Thus we don’t trust our neighborhoods the way our parents could. As Taylor Clark says in an article about stress: “Stress in American Life”, one reason is “America's increasing loss of community.”

We have withdrawn into our homes and replaced outside time with TV or Internet time and what does the media tell us? “The world is a very dangerous place!” It has become a circle of worry, we think the world is dangerous and unsafe with no stability so we withdraw more. Steven Pinker provides a wealth of data in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature to support that the world in many ways is actually safer but our gut still tells us no. As Eric Dietrich Ph.D. describes in his article, ‘Is the World More Dangerous Now Than Ever?’ we love fear.  And our media and our personal experience keep us afraid. “we tend to think that all the bad news is the whole truth. But it’s only a small part of truth......So the world is today significantly less dangerous than it used to be. Most of us will die of old age, not in a hail of bullets. But try telling our psyches that. “

When we reminisce about pleasant times we are usually thinking of times when we felt safe and secure, which for most of us, was childhood. My childhood was different from the childhood of my children. I never, ever doubted that my mother or father would lose their job at any moment. My parents could plan for their future because they could depend on some things being stable. I could not, so my children learned that sometimes Mommy and Daddy could afford to buy them new shoes or take them to Disneyland but just as easily they knew that Mommy and Daddy would be wondering how to continue to pay for the roof over their head.

Add to the worry of job loss those that have jobs are compelled to spend more and more time involved with their job, even when they come home they are still tied to their boss via email or text message. How can we raise secure children if we aren’t fully engaged with them in the few hours we have at home unencumbered with our job? Tell your boss home time is your time? You just added your name to the next layoff list. “Employees work more today than they did 25 years ago -- the equivalent of a 13th month every year. Staff are getting downsized but the work remains, so workloads are getting upsized."

This year a new instability has been added to our lives- health care, just as many of us were finally starting to feel the positive effects of the ACA, (and yes, it is not perfect and yes it does need to be modified) that safety net is about to ripped out from under us. Another reason to hole up in hour home and not venture outside, more burden to be added and less to hope for. All of the rights and advantages that the middle class has worked for since the birth of our nation are being dissolved away in front of our eyes. It’s hard to plan a safe and secure for your children if you don’t know where you will be working or living within a few years.

So why didn’t I let my kids ride their bikes all over town or go to the park unattended? Because I was worried. I didn’t know my neighbors. I didn’t trust my neighborhood. I didn’t have much but at least I had my kids and I didn’t want anything to happen to them. We all long for some past time that we remember as safe and happy and it can be different for each person. If we all want the same sense of security then why aren’t we demanding it of our leaders? Why are we allowing them to take away our benefits and rights and opportunities? Many are fighting to hold on to them but so many others seem to be eagerly offering up to a wealthy few as if they care about us at all. We threw off the shackles of royalty for a reason, why would we give ourselves back up to a few who repeatedly prove they don’t care? For a brief epoch we were on the right track, job growth, civil and gender rights were improving. A strong, secure and stable middle class is healthy for us all, even the wealthy.

“Economists and business leaders alike point to the lack of demand in the economy as the central challenge. And where does demand come from? Mostly from the spending money of middle-class consumers. And where does the spending money of middle-class consumers come from? From middle-class incomes. And what’s happening to middle-class incomes? They’re on the downturn—raises are few and far between, new workers are getting lower salaries than those of the workers they are replacing in the workforce, and the unemployed, of course, just have their paltry unemployment insurance (if they qualify).”  Michael Ettlinger

In a historic speech in Havana, Cuba, a president of the United States used no palliative terms to soften his description of the role played by both the government of the U.S. and that of the Republic of Cuba in sustaining the ridiculous Mexican standoff that has spanned the entirety of that same president’s very life! For the moment, that speech, which will shine in the annals of U.S. presidential profiles in courage, could have been delivered only by the likes of Barack Hussain Obama. The travel on that road toward enshrinement will of necessity be delayed, due not only to the horrendous images forthcoming from Europe, but also by the negative din emanating from the U.S. political cacophony.

The singularity of that particular U.S. presidential pronouncement also was noted by an astonished, Cuban television viewer. Stunned by all of the prohibitive expressions being widely disseminated through the media of his thought-and-word-restricted, island home – especially in the presence of one bearing the patronymic borne by two individuals who have been the successive purveyors of those restrictions – with amazing perception, this long-silenced soul remarked, “He is saying things that no other U.S. president has had the courage to say.”

Yes, indeed, as Raúl Castro sat, probably wondering why he, himself, had opened that very dangerous can of worms, Barack Obama proceeded first by saying all of the proper things about the horrific occurrences in Brussels, Belgium. He then began a review of the U.S.-Cuban standoff that began the same year his father came to America. Not only did Obama cover the political and military missteps on both sides, he also delved into those historic social and racial aspects of each country that usually are ignored by the leadership of both countries. While pointing out the failings of the U.S. government, in some aspects, he also pointedly demonstrated how those failings had been overcome through difficult but effective democratic expression in word and ballot. Obama strongly suggested that such radical applications of human expression might even be achieved on a politically besieged Caribbean island. The unease caused by such blatant heterodoxy, unleashed in the presence of Raúl Castro was noted in the hesitancy of the applause, which had been strong for all of the kumbaya pronouncements. One could imagine all of the hands-over-mouth astonishment rippling before radios and television sets throughout the island.

It was apparent that few in the U.S. were paying attention to the speech. The mere fact of Obama’s presence in Cuba was sufficient fodder for all the usual suspects. His attendance at a baseball game and continuing on the Argentina was to much for those even not among the usual suspects. The general consensus seemed to be that he should have returned to the U.S. or proceeded to Europe. No one, it appears, considers the fact that Air Force One is better fitted for global communication than the Oval Office.

***** ***** *****

BHO is caught in a web.

Where he doth roam, doth good sense ebb.

At the Pearly Gates,

Said by one who hates:

“Git! This here’s reserved for the Reb!”

First they Came For..............

Do you know that poem written by Pastor Martin Niemöller? He wrote it due to his experiences in Nazi Germany. He spent most of WWII as a POW, 1937 thru 1945, confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. It is a statement about the dangers of political apathy.

The majority of Americans have no idea what it is like to live in conditions of war, we have been pretty lucky as a nation to not have much of a history of war on our soil in current memory and experience. Our returning soldiers do, our companions who survived 9/11, and immigrants from WWII Europe and Vietnam do but most, the majority of, Americans do not. We as citizens have not lived through constant air raids and food rationing. We have been fortunate. Pastor Niemoller saw all of that and more. We have wounded warriors who saw it in Afghanistan and Iraq, some have seen it Rwanda and Somalia. It can seem overwhelming to consider how many terrible, frightening places in the world there are due to violence and war. I share that sentiment and sometimes I have to turn it off. Slowly though this poem seems to seep back in to my psyche as a picture of a drowned little boy on the shores of a beach on the other side of the world, one of many fleeing hopelessness. We think we are safe in our America but as the events in Paris, the Boston Marathon and 9/11 show us- we are not. We could be a victim of terrorist insanity. Like you, I don't want to live like the people in Syria, or any other place like that. Read the poem and hopefully at the end of this article you will understand why we can't just stand by and watch from the safety of our living room.

"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."

Depending on your accident of birth you may be a Syrian or a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew. In the poem you can substitute the words socialist, unionist and Jew for any group of people that aren't you but by the end of the poem there is only 'me' and that is all of us, no matter our background. It could be us. We are being asked to help people from one of the largest mass immigrations since WWII and encouragingly many people are stepping up to the plate in countries around the world. People here in the US are sending donations and are offering what help they can. Doctors Without Borders are helping. The Red Cross is helping. Thousands of small actions lead to big action and you can contribute even if it is just a tiny contribution.

It does mean that we may have to step outside our comfort zone and do something uncomfortable even scary but perhaps our small action will lead to something bigger than our selves. Among those refugees may be the person who will find a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease or the invention of clean sustainable energy. Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel, Werner Von Braun were people that many Americans at the time may have felt we should not allow in the country. Von Braun had worked with Nazi's on building bombs and rockets, it was a risk allowing him to live here but he went on to develop the rockets that launched America's first space satellite and first series of moon missions. Godel is now in the same league as Aristotle and Gottlob Frege, and considered one of the most significant logicians in history who made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century. Steve Jobs biological father is Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a Muslim from Homs, Syria. Brilliant genius minds do not come along every day. It is tragic when we lose people who are close to working on important advances in the progress of human enhancement. This is one argument in favor of allowing refugees to call America home. Scrutinizing and researching a refugee's qualifications and background would be an essential part of asylum and it  is already a part of the process. Secondly, consider the sense of pride and honor and gratitude a person who has given up everything and escaped with meager belongings will have to their new country. I have the honor of knowing many immigrants, some from WWII, one woman lived in the sewers of Germany to hide from the Nazi's, and she has lived a productive and fruitful life as an American citizen. Another was a POW in a Nazi camp and he has made contributions to our military program. My father sponsored a family from the Ukraine during the fall of the USSR- today they are industrious, hardworking people contributing to their community.

Unfortunately, American does not have a heart warming record of refugee treatment. We know now that a quarter of the 908 Jewish refugees from Germany we turned away on the MS St. Louis died in death camps. The Japanese Internment Camps are a stain on our collective culture. An excellent article by Nick Wing and Chris McGonigal of the Huffington Post strengthened my compassion for the plight of the Syrian people. The photographs are difficult to see but paint a bleak picture of the life of our fellow humans. Equally disturbing are some of the comments below the article, hopefully they represent the minority.

Currently we have about half of our states vowing to not allow Syrians into their states despite international and Constitutional law that compels us to accept refugees. Proudly, Governor Brown of my state of California is not one of them, Brown: "I intend to work closely with the President so that he can both uphold America's traditional role as a place of asylum, but also ensure that anyone seeking refuge in America is fully vetted in a sophisticated and utterly reliable way. You can be sure that we will do everything in our power to protect the people of our state." 

Having the pleasure of knowing immigrants and refugees personally, my life has been enhanced by their stories and their gratitude. I am reminded of a line from a U2 song, One,

"We're one
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other"

Bono wrote, 'we get to carry each other" He did not write, we 'should' or we are 'obligated', song writers are very careful in their word choice, he used the word 'get' and it implies privilege, honor. We are fortunate to be able to help another. "From a very simple message comes a very powerful meaning: we cannot get along with each other all of the time. There will always be conflicts, and relationships always take work and sometimes fail. However, we all must be responsible for each other if we are to keep our world going."

This particular wave of refugees is not exactly like us, they have different beliefs and different religious views but they are also like us in that they have children they want to protect, they are doctors who want to serve, they are scientists who want to discover new ideas, they are adult children who want to protect their parents in old age. It is possible to be gracious to them without bringing harm to ourselves. We can do it by improving our vetting process. We can do it by the skills of our immigration people and the technology that we have. If I have inspired you to want to help (and I hope I have) here are some places to start. "How to help Syrian refugees? These 6 groups you may not know are doing important work."

If you are concerned about terrorists hiding among refugees, remember- these people are leaving EVERYTHING behind to get away from terrorists but here is a graph that may help ease your mind. "The history of the refugee resettlement program has a nearly spotless record when it comes to ensuring that those offered a place in the U.S. are not inclined towards committing acts of terrorism."

We could continue to be fortunate and never need someone to speak for us, and I hope you and I never do, but then again we may and hopefully the words, "Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." will not haunt us because we did nothing.