COLOR SPLENDOR / Day 5 -- GREEN

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Peeps,

This week's last post is devoted to the color green.  As we all know, green is the color most auspiciously associated with money (and greed).  ' Green with envy, ' and ' doing anything and everything for the green-backs ' are common sayings that aren't quite positive, and one should try not to get described as such.  ' Going green ' today has a positive connotation, signifying a respect and adherence to environmental principles which aim to maintain a steady equilibrium in matters concerning our planet's ecology/oceans/forests/skies and so forth vis-a-vis ourselves.  Optimism abounds in all quarters!!

Today's visual treat is a beautifully decaying garden-room in Cuba (from the impressive portfolio of photographer Michael Eastman), and undoubtedly quite stunning.  Ironically, interiors (and the structures which house them) such as this may soon become a thing of the past.  The government of Raul Castro recently relaxed stringent rules governing the ownership of property/real estate.  It is now possible to purchase one's dwelling (formerly everything belonged to the state as part of Fidel Castro's policy of nationalization) as well as a place in the country, provided that the source of one's funds can be verified.  Relatives abroad will be able to help in the purchase and renovation of buildings throughout the island-nation where since the establishment of Communism, building materials had been unavailable (or only for party-liners and cronies), prohibited, or limited to black-market transactions.  Were the trading embargo with Cuba ever lifted, building materials, architectural and construction professionals, as well as preservationists, archivists, and various other trades-persons could have their schedules easily filled as the Cubans prepare to embrace home-ownership (and their version of the Cuban empanada).


Perhaps, like the Berlin Wall, an embrace of materialism will do much to sway the more archaic policies of the new regime in Havana.  You scoff?  Thaddeus Russell (author of A Renegade History of the United States) posits that "American popular culture--what was often called the worst of our culture in many cases--has actually done more for liberation and our national security than anything that the 82nd Airborne could do."  He adds that, " Any regime at all depends on social order to maintain its power.  Social order and sensuality, pleasures of the body, are often at odds."  In short, boats leaving these shores for Cuba (loaded with much needed and wanted goods like kitchen cabinets/stoves/floor tiles etc etc) are much more persuasive to Cuban minds (especially that of the regime), than the ongoing economic embargo.  Also would give a much needed boost to our struggling economy, which seems to be short of the green(s).....


Hope you enjoy today's visual treat.


Sincerely,
Shane


PS: On today's featured color, Jean Genet writes:  "I'm homosexual... How and why are idle questions.  It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green."