Deep in the Amazon

By Amit Singh | Sunday, February 8th, 2009 | Catch-All

I am finally back from my vacation through the rainforests of Brazil where I had an excellent time. As in most of my international trips one of the best parts is meeting the locals and other travelers and this instance was no different. One person in particular who I enjoyed getting to know was a gentleman from Oregon who has visited over 120 countries in his lifetime and shows no sign of stopping. Since we didn’t have TVs in the Amazon we spent a lot of time discussing a variety of topics. Our new friend told us he voted for Obama and was very happy about it but then to my surprise expressed a deep concern of the “socialist policies” he may implement. He simply told us that in all the countries he had traveled, he simply did not see big government solutions serving the people well. Granted his observations were rooted in visiting a location for days and weeks and he himself made it known he wasn’t a political or economic scholar. But regardless, here was a smart ordinary man with extraordinary international experience telling us what he saw on the ground. I guess it turns out that Americans are not unique when it comes to doing things better themselves and being happier about it.

Other than that, the only news we heard about were Daschle’s tax problems, cold weather in the Northeast and some welfare woman having 8 babies at once.