LIKE A SNIPER OR THE EIGHT HUNDRED BUCKS SIEGE

I got tired of watching some future migrant/unemployed college students in the UPR, unable or refusing to pay some 800 bucks for tuition or whatever.

The whole crap the 800, has become a battle for freedom of expression, repression, police brutality and state terrorism.  Nothing, this people live in a life tunnel, dreaming of the 60's and 70's, acting, living, those fantasies as if they could travel back in time when real social struggles for this or that took place not only here, but every where.

What bother this sniper gardener is that, everybody else willing/unwilling to pay, but knowing they have to pay, have their classes disrupted, worried about the whole trip.

Meanwhile the FBI, captures over 700 hundred people in life insurance fraudulent crimes to Aflac, mostly from cities where the murder rate, heavy weight crime is not high.  A scam of over six million bucks. The  doctor,
signing them false claims is now a witness for the prosecutor. A real wise person. 

Puerto Rico has been a cave of thieves for the last fifty years.  Politicians, architects, engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, public employees, preachers or
family, church and state. 

The sniper shots hit the targets. But not many people are there/here to witness it. 

What is the big deal with college education? These students, on the average, take over six years to graduate.
When they do, if they do, they will have to drive taxis as they do in Cuba, or migrate to USA, in search of a job. 

Puerto Rico does it better, certainly. With a country falling, crumbling into pieces, bankrupt, hopeless and no direction, the pundits, some have blogs, others do not, are concerned about Egypt, torture, or write manifests to protect yourself from tear gas and pepper spray.

But there is nothing to worry about in Puerto Rico, USA. The high murder rate, the patch and pray roads/streets/highways, the money laundering, tax evasion, and now the insurance fraud is consequence of a lack of moral values and or principles. 

Time to go. apaga i vamonoh. 

NOTE

The footer photo demonstrates guerrilla gardening over concrete. The right seeds

at the right time, better before or after it has rained.  These are in the former San Carlos Hospital, parada 27. They are about 6 months old.  The tall ones are in the process of passing away, but the new generation, tens of them, are coming along.

USE ABUSE CHAOS ANARCHY: THE CONCEPT OF SPACE IN PUERTO RICO

ONE of the irritating, intolerable manifestations of the culture of this islanders,  is the absolute arbitrary use of public and private space

I will not get into justifying ALL our problems as a lack of autonomy, colonial relation with USA.  You can take that argument and shove up the ars.

In Puerto Rico any juan, and I mean any juan except TITO TRINIDAD, a black fellow, former boxing champ, fined 200 hundred thousand bucks for doing what Alberto Areces Mallea did in Parque Dona Ines being applauded, his irrational actions,  as  worthy of merit.  Destroying soil, vegetation, flora and fauna. 


Puerto Rico lacks ANY kind of fore sight or ability for the after thought, systematic maintenance.  For example,
when planning a housing project for profit. The cookie mold match box concrete design for house/walk up/condo from architects and engineers, housing developers, leaves no room for future: supermarkets, bodegas, drug stores, barber shops, auto repairs and so forth.


After five years or more, the concrete houses designed for living, are transformed  to everything mentioned above, without any obstacle.  You can bribe any juan and get the permits, or go ahead anyway, there is no accountability.


That is one aspect.  The chaos and anarchy, now explained by our government, church and civic leaders as a lack of moral values and principles is like a multiheaded snake.

In Puerto Rico, individuals, families, corporations do whatever they want, whenever they want and NO one will complaint, or enforce the law.


Check the pictures at right.  On San Agustin street, the proprietor of this residence with a remarkable token of the dominant trend, pendejismo paisajista garden, took the sidewalk for their private use with these ridiculous plastic pots with palms, right across the street from public enemy #1, Universidad Sagrado Corazon..


The next photo shows the other possibility, very popular on the sidewalks of Ponce de Leon avenue,  concrete pots.  No one except your not so humble servant notices them, or that
they are architecture barriers for the blind or people in two wheels.


The reason for the aberration? To stop cars from parking in the sidewalk. Believe it or not...Or in other situations, the owners feel they can add some aesthetics to the surroundings planting whatever in huge pots reducing the sidewalk walking space to one half.

The wildest, like the wild west in westerns, is the public sidewalk becoming a private parking. Coming soon. With a bonus, the street to dump cars, as in a long stay parking lot, forever.


Another example of using private space as you think suitable is Lucy Laborde's front yard dump,  with this pile of debris, growing like a pyramid in her front yard,  so we can enjoy it during the last sixty days.


Dear and not so dear reader, this could become a series. Puerto Rico is like Detroit, Michigan, or worst. The difference from what I read in the media, is that in USA, everybody knows, talk about it....Down here is all 'el espiritu de la alegria boricua' as in that bizarro blog
depuertorricopalmundo.

that is that

I

A NEW KIND OF TOURISM SANTURCE ALLEYS

I decided to go out again

after a long period

of dormancy at home
or surrounding streets.

The slow emptying of people in the vicinity of  Santurce is not the same in every sector.  Differences are evident.

Walking around with opened eyes presents opportunities to watch what happens to those with walking stamina, interested in nature and the process of structural and social decay. 

I am not really interested in human contact, the minimal, just to observe the  attractive or ugly scenery, not like a voyeur, but to keep things in focus.  Some beauty is found in the ugliness in some of these abandoned residences, in the eyes of this beholder.

About human relations...  I take my chances when necessary. I approach individuals willing to share any information about the space as I did with Carlos, attending his chickens when I took the photos.  But lets start with the pictures from bottom up.

This wooden unkempt house with a hot tin roof, shows an old building style gone for good.  I spent my childhood in a similarly designed structure 45 years ago. 


That is the time when bastards engineers, architects, private and public agencies and institutions with USA dollars vision, gave birth to the all powerful, everlasting concrete, with cinder blocks myth, later.


The myth was/is strong. It is simple, the theoretical security and protection per secula seculorum of concrete over wood.
At least in regards to hurricanes, earthquakes is another story.

It they were right, could someone explain why this house of over 60 years and still standing  went through all the hurricanes that passed by the Caribbean?


The blue concrete house above with a tin roof, a mango tree and horrendous cyclone fence is ugly as hell, I would knock it down.


On top concrete, roof less, with prominent aluminun, Miami style windows, (still around miraculously) is an abandoned duplex, one story in one my favorite alleys.


Callejon Buena Vista, formerly Rafael Alers according to Carlos who told the story. This house as many others is waiting (over thirty years), to be split among the heirs. Believe it or not.


This space would make an excellent restaurant for native islanders to balance the disproportionate amount of invaders, in the area.  At any rate, Carlos, keeps his thirty chickens under the shade of breadfruit, mango, quenepas and lemon trees.

The house on top of the rooster photo, is right next to the other.  I do like this house with a high roof for ventilation, nice elegant porch in an alley, where not many would worry about style. It stands out in any of the ten or so alleys I may feature here soon. 


Back to the issue of tourism.  In other countries wise people are providing tours to vicinities like this one.  You have had a minimal glimpse of the potential of this forgotten segment of the San Juan Metro Area.  At least for the curious about nature and habitats. architecture,

IGNORANCE IS BLISS

I have great difficulties to accept the crumbling of streets, sidewalks, quality of life, increased noise level from any power tools, blowers, trimmers, lawnmowers, loud stereos, loudspeakers in concerts that can be heard perfectly 3 hundred meters away, in a 25 square feet pub, car stereos with regueton, hip hop and house music.  Why can anyjuan listen to regue, ska, jazz, cumbias or even classical and baroque music to name six, with a volume to make your ear drums blow up, as  with the above?

Apparently, that is normal for most people, accepted as a rule of life, at least in Puerto Rico, USA.

Now, grab that chair in the footer, sit down carefully and virtually,(it is falling apart) and look at the pictures to your right.

Start at the bottom, the picture above the Ficus benjamina.   That was the first installation I restored and made, in Lomas Verdes, Bayamon City, circa  2002/2005.

It took some effort, energy and money.  Besides that, it allowed your humble grumpy servant to develop, my fundamentalist like ideas, concepts against lawns, palm trees and hedges. 

ALL of it, the whole destroyed, by illiterate, Rosa from La Espanhola, Kelvin, her son and Papo Munhiz the residents after we left.  Invader mother and son, culprits and Papo, aboriginal, accesory to the botanical crime. 90 species, the inventory  (appears in caribbean botanical review) left to maybe, ten.

It is pertinent to mention that Rengui, the matriarch had collected over sixty percent of the total during her 3 decades in that residence.  I was able to save perhaps ten, in my trend setting landmark garden in Santurce, Nueva Kiskeya.  I can not get all the credit.  Thank god for Rengui. 


NOW, allow me to extrapolate.  This apparently insignificant act of destruction is the rule in the majority of situations down here, my favorite, the barbaric destruction of twelve acres by Alberto Areces Mallea, Phd, Gabriela Ocampo, wife and the incredible cretins from Fundacion Luis Munhoz Marin.  They did the same, multiplied by 10 thousand times, considering the front and back size of the yard.

It took the fools above, a couple of days to destroy the whole flora and fauna on the premises, with a huge tractor.  Just like these pictures show, not published, but safe at home.

Some fans and foes believe the situation in the environmental scene, here and there (the world), is not that bad. That the populace overpopulated earth has some chances

Let the record show

Antigonum

disagrees. 

That is that.

Apaga i vete.

A DECADE OF TREE BUTCHERING IN PUERTO RICO, USA

THERE    are some people, the complacent, smiling jerks, 'noticias positivas de Puerto Rico', that abound in every country and culture. These scumbags are the most despicable, the ones looking the other way, individuals and institutions, the ones designing publicity campaigns consisting of planting trees left and right, not necessarily in the urban context where I rule, but the country side.

This is what planted trees anywhere in Puerto Rico, may expect of the better future destined to them. These photos were taken in private and public spaces. 

Without any further redue:

The Puerto Rican Equal Treatment TREE HORROR SHOW

BLAMING THE OTHER

 Please 

 Have a seat and relax...

IT is 2011, it seems that  nothing will change. If  it does, is not for the better.  The pictures  demonstrate the essential real estate scene with natural accomplices: banks, architects, attorneys, engineers, individual and institutional speculators who had a nice run while it lasted, in the background.

Detroit, Michigan comes to mind.  The amount of abandoned commercial buildings, condos, walk ups and  private residences in a five miles radio is astounding.

On the first picture, an old, probably 1960's four story rental apartment structure with nice balconies and view toward Placita Barcelo. Abandoned for many years.

The second picture shows a cute structure  in a too small space. Inflated prices, now in hands of the bank lending to the developer who got the building permits after some bribing, but ran out of luck. This building for all effect is abandoned.

Following picture,  these ugly concrete structures, are destined for families of four, with less than $25,000 income. With the amount of abandoned buildinds, old and new, there is no need for new construction. Restoring previously built houses make more sense, considering the acute lack of buyers.

On the fourth picture, four nice looking apartments, starting over $200,000, The developer ran out of money.  Abandoned. 

The whole structure of this New York Style Barber Shop was a house that keeps expanding, becoming taller and wider, without any construction permits as time goes by. Evidently, belonging to  exotic owners, renting to his compatriots. 

Last but not least, the second story house on the top picture, with wires and electricity poles as the view,  was illegally built while yours truly lived at 2011 Sagrado Corazon, Paseo del Bosque, a walk up. 

It was a maddening situation since it destroyed the 180 degrees view, we had to the Atlantic, a mile away.

In a very brief way, this shows the real estate situation in the Metro Zone of San Juan.  The housing developers claim 
20,000 new concrete units in their inventory, but if you add every other house and building, the numbers could triplicate easily. 

With these panorama, you can guess what is to expect regarding Flora and Fauna, ecology, environment and everything else...down here in the asphalt/concrete enchanted island...