DPs. Places that aren't dangerous

[Caliban]

There I was this morning, minding my own business, having just bought the paper at a local supermarket and walking back home. As I walked across the car park to the pedestrian ramp that leads out onto the road I was vaguely aware of a small girl of about 4 years of age standing at the bottom of the ramp looking back up it towards where what I presume was her mother and siblings were walking down the ramp about twenty yards away from her. Obviously, as small children do she had enjoyed the simple pleasure of running down the ramp and dutifully was waiting at the bottom for her family.

Now as I say, I was only vaguely aware of her because she was standing directly in my path on the route I was taking. I only became fully aware of her when I was about 3 or 4 yards from her and realised that she was pointing at me and looking back and forth between her mother and me with a look of abject fear on her face. I walked past her and a second or so later past her mother who I noted was staring at me.

The only conclusion I could come to is that this womans paranoia has been fed to such a degree by news, media and god knows what in relation to paedophiles and abductors that she has her children haunted with the terror and fear of strangers.

Is this what society is coming to? Taking this childs innocence away with the terrors that she is being warned to be frightened of, to the point when any individual walking down the street becomes her nightmares personified? Good grief!

Stories make the news and are sensationalised and over reported out of all proportion so that stupid,or ignorant,or uneducated, or simple, or naive sheep believe there is a danger around every corner. What a sad and unrealistic world is being painted in these people's minds and then being pasted vacariously into their children's minds. Paranoia meets Munchausens by proxy.

Elsewhere on the flag someone posted about a book outlining the reality of these kind of fears and I think it illustrated that if that child was left at that ramp it would be 15000 years before she would be abducted !!! I can perfectly understand a parents fears for their children and they should be taught the realities but it seems that the reality has been thrown away and as if the outlandish fears have taken control and almost become self fulfilling prophecies of fear. Perhaps my job, the two edged sword that it is, equips me both to see where the unfounded fear comes from but also to see that for the most part it is unfouded. The Jamie Bulger case is still always on people's lips when talking about child abduction and murder but that was nearly twenty years ago and perpetrated by two ten year olds not by some generic adult monster. I cannot remember a similar incident in the area or for that matter Merseyside of stranger abduction of a child since . Twenty years . Surely showing that these fears are way, way out of line with the reality.

We are creating a sad old world for these little children to grow up in.

and maybe I'll have to stop wearing a gimp mask when I go to buy the sunday paper.

[coldharvest]

and maybe I'll have to stop wearing a gimp mask when I go to buy the sunday paper.

...well, that or put trousers on.

[Woodsman]

and as if the outlandish fears have taken control and almost become self fulfilling prophecies of fear.

I agree with you to a great extent. I left part of that quote in bold to outline the importance of such an issue - and although it may not have its roots in logic, if there were any grey area between irrationality and logic it relates directly to that theory.

I think the world to a larger degree than logic would dictate *and the actions that occur in this world* are based merely in perceptions and thoughts of the world by its inhabitants.

[vetparatrooper]

As our access to information in the world has increased due to the advent over the last 100+ years of things like the telephone, Television, radio, the internet, and "virtual worlds", etc....so, as well, has our ability to make ourselves easily frightened, but nonetheless still quite ignorant about the things we feel a need to be afraid of, as well as some weird sadistic need to pass that same fear right along to our children.

I think you should still wear the gimp mask and then just stand on the street corner across from the local elementary school, and when any child dares pass too close to you, pull out the longest knife you can get ahold of, and glare menacingly at the child, while saying "I'LL Give you something to be SCARED ABOUT!!!!!"

[Texas Carnie Roadshow]

[friendlyskies]

One of my mom's friend's pinged me a couple of weeks ago to let me know, breathlessly, that Rick Steves is visiting Nicaragua and El Salvador right now!!!1! And posting his missives on Facebook! So, I friended him to keep up.

Now, if you don't know who Rick Steves is, he's an enviably prolific, marketably milquetoast, and cartographically challenged travel writer who moistens the panties of the post-menopausal set and sells a cubic fuckton of guidebooks. He mainly covers Europe, has a TV show or something, and never really interested me much since, well, adorable B&B vineyard tours of Tuscany are pretty far off my radar.


You thought Justin Beiber was non-threatening.

But, hey, he's coming to Nicaragua and El Salvador? That's kind of awesome! He can show a whole new set of travelers how fucking awesome Central America is, and maybe show that, despite the poverty and crime issues, both countries are safe for travelers with verdant hillsides, crashing waves, charming villages nestled into the pristine countryside, and whatever other stock travel writing clichés he wanted to ascribe to the place. Hey, that's good for Nicaragua and El Salvador, good for me, and good for his gray-haired groupies.

BUT NO. Oh. My. God. In three weeks, he has not visited a single tourist attraction! Fine, you know, that's fine if you're just traveling, but you're a travel writer, it's kind of your job, if you're covering Spain, to go to Barcelona. But no, instead, he decided to "keep it real" and go to poor and working-class neighborhoods, and stay in the capital cities - Managua and San Salvador - of both.

OK, even though 99% of tourists visiting either country go to the beaches, Spanish colonial towns, mountains, and national parks, the capitals are all right. Managua is kind of a shithole, but there's cool stuff, like Puerto Salvador Allende, or the Sandino Monument, or the Dario Theater. And San Salvador fucking rocks, it's an awesome city, with great nightlife, amazing museums, awesome, safe neighborhoods, and incredible natural and historic attractions within a few minutes of town. Did he go do any of that? NO! Why go check out Lake Managua, or El Boquerón, or MARTE? When you could sit in your hotel room and take photos of the pool? I'm not even kidding.

What did he do? Complain, and complain, and complain, about the poverty and crime rate. I was like DUDE, can we discuss something else? Jesus, the USA is waaaaay more dangerous than Nicaragua, and El Salvador slightly safer, and they're both safer to travel in than Costa Rica (I mean that both statistically, and from major amounts of personal experience). And yes, there are poor people, but bitching and moaning about them isn't going to make it go away! Get over it! Probably some Saudi fucker comes to East Jesus, Arkansas, and thinks they're all scary poor. Get over it.

Oh god, the El Salvador missives were fucking retarded. I mean, in Nicaragua, he made naive, incorrect observations, but nothing malicious. In El Salvador, you might have thought he was in Mad Max Landia.... I mean, his final post was entitled, "Barricaded in the Hotel." He was at the Hilton! In San Benito! There are so many armed guards there that you could walk around in a miniskirt made out of US$100 bills at 2am and nothing would happen. Oh, and then he bitched and moaned about the armed guards. DUDE. Seriously. Grow a pair.

Seriously. And the tard guard backing him up on facebook was like, "Thank you for telling me this, Rick Steves *dreamy sigh*, now I know to never go to El Salvador or Nicaragua, where everything is scary and gross." Seriously? I made some snide comments, but Jesus, there's no cure for stupid. People kept posting things like, "I go to El Salvador fairly often and never have problems, because I don't smuggle cocaine, I surf." To which a frantic mother would reply, "My son is going there on a mission.... should I stop him and save his life?" Yeah, because the churches won't have figured out, after running 57,000 mission groups of teenagers, that they shouldn't smuggle cocaine.

Fuck you Rick Steves. Seriously, fuck you in the ass with a baseball bat. I'm going to bitchslap him someday.


Yeah, more like 25 months left until I find you and do what no Nicaraguan or Salvadoran
would do. Because I'm a USAmerican, and we have a higher crime rate than both of them
put together, so get lubed up bitch.

[friendlyskies]

EDIT: And of course, I would never actually rape Rick Steves with a baseball bat, that was hyperbole, and moreover would be illegal and probably hurt me more than him. But I will steal his fucking weed.

[Ultra Swain]

You are sexy when your mad.

[Hitoru]

Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!Friendly!

[Caliban]

Once again an eloquent rant , almost shakespearian.

Do you think "Barricaded in the hotel" means the locals were actually holding the doors closed from the outside to keep him in? He sounds like a perfect person to engage in conversation and then everytime he starts to speak flick wet balls of tissue paper at him.
Easier on your carpal tunnel nerves than a baseball bat but still with that real world perspective of contempt

[rickshaw92]

You are sexy when your mad.

You really gots to meet her.

[marie-angelique]

so get lubed up bitch.

kudos, ms friendly, i love your rants :)
please come visit your east bay homeland one of these days, we'll throw a fête in your honor.

[friendlyskies]

Well, after reviewing all of Rick Steves' missives again, I should note that he did, in fact, visit a couple of tourist attractions, although he mostly bitched and moaned about how they weren't as nice as Europe. And he stayed at the Sheraton in San Salvador, not the Hilton, which is a couple of blocks away, in San Benito. My bad. Yes, he even did call Granada and Suchitoto "charming." After starting his final essay by saying, "But I come home thinking that Nicaragua and El Salvador are actually not enjoyable places to visit. I don't like the dirt, the fear, the pervasive sentiment that poor people should just shut up and make do."

FUCK YOU. Have you ever heard of the Sandinistas or the FMLN, who are in power, you twit?

And what was his final verdict on my beloved El Salvador? It's a "low grade herpes virus." Seriously. That's what he got out of it. Fucking A, man. Those of you who are my Facebook friends can look through my photos of El Salvador and see if that's the best fucking thing you could come up with as a way to describe it. Seriously, I am going to find him, and steal all of his weed. ALL.

[friendlyskies]

Oh, and as long as I'm noting my mistakes in my original rant, he was here nine days, not three weeks. That's just how long he was publishing the missives for. Still, all his weed is MINE.

Man, I wonder if he has any idea how his fear of poverty and laziness in regards to visiting the amazing things these countries have to offer could royally fucked tourism here. Jesus. His opinion..... based on fear of poverty? Or things not being all fucking tidy like Munich? Or elegant like Paris? Or serving fine pasta like Italia? HERE'S A CLUE, DUMBASS, CENTRAL AMERICA DIDN'T GET A MARSHAL PLAN AFTER THE WORLD POWERS DESTROYED IT IN THE COLD WAR. YARGH.

You know, it's like when my cousin and her friend came down to Costa Rica, and all they did was complain because they'd really wanted to go to Destin, Florida. And I was like, "There's only one Destin, if you relax and enjoy yourself, you might like Costa Rica!" But they hated it, my cousin's friend was so afraid of monkeys that she refused to leave the hotel for three days. Barricaded, you could say, in the safety of her hotel room, lest she be attacked by fucking howler monkeys.


You don't have to deal with this kind of horror on the Champs Elysees.

Shit. You don't come to Nicaragua and El Salvador expecting Dubai and Beverly Hills. Fucking A. You don't go to Iran expecting to get a great suntan. You don't come to the USA to experience the refined art of living. IS THIS NOT COMMON SENSE PEOPLE? AT LEAST FOR A FREAKING PROFESSIONAL TRAVELER?

Ugh. Fuck. Spit. Hiss. My mom's friend just emailed me to ask what I thought (she came to visit me in Nicaragua a few years ago, and loved it. But then again, she lived in Brazil for a while.) I told her that I'd like to kick Rick Steves in the balls, but he doesn't have any. Ugh.

[Sri Lanky]

Sounds like your cousin's friend is the howler monkey. She's probably scared of her own monkey.....BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAA