¿What? ¿Me Worry?
t has been said that there are two days that people worry most about but should actually worry least about: Yesterday and Tomorrow. We worry about yesterday - the mistakes we've made and what we would like to do over or differently. Yet, there is nothing we can do to change yesterday. Our worries are wasted. We also worry about tomorrow - the problems it may bring and the challenge we may face. Yet, we cannot control tomorrow. It is out of our grasp. So again, our worries are wasted. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." —Matthew 6:34  READ MORE

Holy Week...
by Don Jíbaro
Is the most important Christian set of Holidays,  and it has a very strong impact because it depicts the last 8 days of Jesus Christ on Earth. Puerto Rico, being for the most part a Catholic society, celebrates those days with the utmost reverence and devotion.

The Protestant part focuses on spiritual significance and personal applications. Both are required without compromising what the Bible teaches about it, of course.

Holy Week or Semana Santa, is a time of reflection within our lives on how we can grow in the knowledge and purpose of Christ's sacrifice. Yes, it is sacrifice, but He knew He had to do it... "Father," he prayed, "my Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet not what I want, but what you want." (Mar 14:36)

During that week He spoke about compelling things that annoyed The Pharisees and other religious leaders in town. They falsely accused of making Himself as God, blasphemy of the Torah and disregarding the Law of Caesar with contempt. The people incited Caesar to crucify Jesus, even choosing a murderer (Barrabas) instead of Jesus when Caesar gave them the choice of which prisoner they wanted free.


The rest of the week culminates with Good Friday (Jesus crucified)
and Resurrection Sunday (Easter)


But the Resurrection is the Icing on the Cake... with it we are promised The Gift of Eternal Life, because He lives, we'll also live.

THINGS YOUR MOTHER
SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU!!

1. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

2. Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

3. Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

4. Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

5. To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.  READ MORE TIPS

NOAH, the MOVIE
Some people are complaining that the movie "NOAH" is not faithful to the Bible.... ¿Hello? --- IT'S HOLLYWOOD, people!!... Movies are never faithful to the books they were taken from, hence... READ THE BOOK ! -- I copied Noah's story from the Bible and put it here for U2 read.

READ NOAH's STORY

The phrase "easy does it" is an idiom... which means it is not meant to be taken literally but has a commonly understood meaning instead. When a person says easy does it, he usually means accomplishing something in a calm, smooth, slow manner. The phrase also means avoiding hard or jerky movements. For example, if a person needs to lift and carry something of great value that could easily break if he is not careful, he might say, "Easy does it," in an effort to remind himself or others to be very careful in moving it.

Often, people use words and phrases to mean something other than their literal meanings. This is often done in order to make spoken words more interesting or colorful. This type of speech, however, is also used because it becomes a common way of expressing something. The idioms that are commonly used tend to vary from country to country and even by different regions within a particular country. In some countries, such as the United States, the idiom "easy does it" is commonly used to mean slowly and carefully.

When an individual is trying to understand the meaning of the phrase "easy does it," he may have the best luck if he considers an example. For instance, this phrase might be used in a situation in which a person is supervising the moving of a very tall and elaborate wedding cake. In such a case, he may use the phrase to advise those moving the cake to use slow and careful movements as opposed to fast, hard, or jarring movements that could lead to the ruining of the cake.

A person may also use this phrase when he is talking about the movements of a person. For example, if a person must climb a steep hill or a ladder on which he could injure himself, an individual who is helping him with the climb or even just observing may say, "Easy does it." In this case, the person who uses the phrase simply means to go slowly and carefully.

Typically, idioms such as easy does it are well accepted in casual speech. For example, they are often used in conversation with friends or family members as well as with coworkers and sometimes business associates. They are generally not used in formal speech, however, unless the speaker is using them in a joking manner. Likewise, they aren't usually used in formal writing.

The Amazing Gospel of Garlic!
To use the word “gospel” is no heresy… after all, the word "gospel" just means “Good News”

by Don Jíbaro Barbablanca
When I was a ten year old child in Puerto Rico sometimes I’d eat dinner at my friend’s house next door, if I happened to be there at dinner time. My friend’s mother cooked the most delicious “arroz y habichuelas colorás” that I had ever tasted. Yummee! That lady could cook! Her rice and beans needed no meat! When I asked her how did she cooked such tasty beans and if I could learn to cook like that, she said her secret was “culantro y ajo” (coriander and garlic) but the main ingredient was garlic.
 
I was turned on to the marvelous world of Garlic by a passage in the Bible where the Hebrews don’t want to follow Moses anymore after he has given them the Then Commandments. Instead, they want to go back to Egypt where, as slaves, they were kept strong for making bricks for the Pharaoh's pyramids with a diet of “garlic”.

--"We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost... also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"-- (Numbers 11:5-6)

Even back then, the ancient Egyptians knew that garlic was an incredible health booster. They knew it had something special. The claims of garlic as a miracl herb are not supported by mere scientific evidence, but by people who “been there-done that” READ MORE

You gotta see THIS

The $3 Billion Dollar Pockets
Analysis by Don Jibaro
Unfortunately, and since Puerto Rico has not been in control of its own Economy, poverty and unbalanced budgets has ruled the lives of the population since the beginning of modern times.

This has led to an Exodus to the Mainland to the point of leaving the Island with virtually NO resources, not even college graduates; graduates being a grand export in the past few years.

You see, American businesses have gone to PR to recruit graduates with the promise of a fair salary and a bright future. This leaves the Island not much professional talent.

The struggling commonwealth of Puerto Rico is offering $3 billion in municipal bonds with yields that range between 8.6 % and 9 % for maturities between 2022 and 2035, according to preliminary price talk circulated to investors Monday. Order-taking for the highly anticipated deal will begin Monday afternoon, and the deal is expected to price on Tuesday.

The sale is a test of whether junk-rated Puerto Rico, which has struggled with persistent budget problems, will be able to finance its operations long enough to enact financial reforms. The commonwealth's debt is widely held in municipal bond mutual funds due to exemption from federal, state, and local taxes. Like Detroit, Puerto Rico has been losing population, which can hamper economic growth and leave a smaller and poorer group of people responsible for repaying the debt.

Doubts about the credibility of Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds have been growing, especially since Detroit has proposed resolving its bankruptcy by sharply reducing its payments on such bonds. The Puerto Rican secretaries of the treasury and justice have added an unusual provision to their bond resolution, requiring that any legal disputes be settled in federal court in New York, rather than in Puerto Rico.

The provision, described in materials circulated by the Wall Street banks selling the bonds, is meant to reassure investors who believe they would find a more creditor-friendly judge in New York than in Puerto Rico, people briefed on the sale said. The offering circular notes that a New York judge would still have the power to send any bondholder complaints to a Puerto Rican venue if that would be “more suitable on grounds of judicial fairness to the parties involved.”

For all investors’ concerns about Puerto Rico’s liquidity, many say they are heartened by the commonwealth’s success at cutting its pension expenses and reducing its budget shortfalls. Still, Puerto Rico’s financial problems are complex and are not always immediately apparent — the result of multiple debt obligations of many government agencies. Sorting out those complexities will be a delicate task. Nevertheless, PRAYER can always help!

TOMATO SALSA DEPT.
Two of the most remarkable classical pieces in music history have been converted into salsa by the genius of Sverre Indris Joner... Wait! These are the Symphonies like you never heard them before. Pay attention to the syncopation and the relationship between two or more melodies that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent. WoW!

Air in G -  Air Bach

Beto's Fifth (not Don Q Gold)

We call each other Boricuas but others don't call us that... they call us Puertorriqueños. I believe the Taino blood has been so diluted thru the centuries that it is hard to tell by inherent (not adopted) behavior.

A study funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation years back, shows (averages) that 61 percent of all Puerto Ricans have Amerindian mitochondrial DNA, 27 percent have African and 12 percent Caucasian. (Nuclear DNA, or the genetic material present in a gene's nucleus, is inherited in equal parts from one's father and mother. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from one's mother and does not change or blend with other materials over time.)

So we have Taino blood but we don't go around dancing around the fire; We drive SUVs. In our minds we call ourselves Tainos and Boricuas because the HONOR it carries. Borinquen is a POETIC name, not Political. What happened to our Tainos was a tragedy, a cruel and not uncommon tragedy.

Let's live, therefore to lift up the reputation of our culture through GOOD works... The culture that others sadly continue to defile. It's up to US to thrive and bring back the honor. Think about it. HONOR.

Watch this Puerto Rico Historical video
Only if you have an extra 90 min to spare

The Ponce Massacre of 1937
was a police slaughtering over a peaceful civilian march, taking place in 21 March 1937 at 3:15 pm, in Palm Sunday, Ponce, Puerto Rico, that killed 19 people and wounded over 200 others. It is the largest massacre in Puerto Rican history. The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873. The march was also protesting the U.S. government's imprisonment of the party's leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, on alleged sedition charges.



An investigation by the Hays Commission put the blame squarely on the U.S.-appointed Governor of Puerto Rico, Blanton Winship. Further criticism by members of the U.S. Congress led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remove Winship in 1939 as governor. Governor Winship was never prosecuted for the massacre. No one under his chain of command - including the police who took part in the event, and admitted to the mass shooting - was ever prosecuted or reprimanded. READ MORE

Puerto Rico National Guard begins cleanup work on Vieques
(JAN 23) FINALLY... A group of 30 experienced Puerto Rico National Guard engineers has launched a cleanup effort focused on areas of ecological and tourist interest on the island of Vieques, which the U.S. Navy used as a bombing range for more than 40 years.

Lt. Col. Ruth Diaz Calderon, spokeswoman for that military force, a component of the U.S. National Guard, told Efe that the group of experts began working Tuesday on the project and that their goal is to establish an eco-tourism project in a 393-hectare (970-acre) area of the island-municipality.

"Our goal is to improve quality of life and help with this project. We want the residents of that island to know that we want to restore its splendor" as a tourist attraction, Diaz said of the small island, located just east of the mainland of the U.S. commonwealth. Brig. Gen. Juan Medina Lamela hailed the cleanup effort, saying that Vieques' residents "deserve the best quality of life" and that the National Guard's support would help restore an area with great eco-tourism potential.

The U.S. Navy used much of Vieques and the nearby island of Culebra as a bombing range for nearly 40 years until May 2003, and it also leased those areas to other countries for their own military live-fire training exercises. The four decades of military maneuvers left munitions debris in waters off the island, an area of great ecological value.

Local groups say the high incidence of diseases and conditions such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension and respiratory ailments on Vieques relative to mainland Puerto Rico is attributable to the U.S. military activity. The U.S. Navy, however, says there is a lack of objective studies to link the health problems to the military exercises. EFE

The Arecibo Observatory to Reopen
San Juan, Jan 19 (EFE).- The Arecibo Observatory, located on Puerto Rico's north coast and the site of one of the world's largest radio telescopes, will reopen this week after a review undertaken as a result of the earthquake that hit the northern part of the Caribbean island last week, officials said Sunday.

"What we're inspecting is a cable that suffered some kind of damage. The cable is one of the ones that supports the telescope ... which is very heavy," Carlos Padin, chancellor of the island's Metropolitan University, told Efe.

The radio telescope's facilities were closed last Thursday after inspectors from New York's Ammann & Whitney Bridge Construction, who have been tasked with inspecting the Arecibo observatory site since 1972, took a close look at the facility.

The magnitude-6.4 earthquake occurred at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 13 and its epicenter was located under the ocean 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Arecibo and 98 kilometers (61 miles) northwest San Juan.

The observatory is administered by the Metropolitan University, which forms part of the Ana G. Mendez University System, or SUAGM, in conjunction with SRI International and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).

"The inspectors found that the cable did not suffer in any significant way, but as a preventive and safety measure the test will be performed. Tomorrow they will do a test to determine if the the damage is superficial and on Wednesday the observatory will reopen," Padin said, adding that this type of inspection is also conducted after hurricanes hit the island.

With a single curved dish with a diameter of 305 meters (about 1,000 feet), the radio telescope is visited annually by thousands of tourists and its facilities are used by hundreds of scientists, especially on projects connected with planetary astronomy and atmospheric studies.

The radio waves collected by the gigantic dish are captured by 12 antennae that are attached to a 900-ton platform suspended by heavy steel cables some 150 meters (about 500 feet) above the dish.

 Who in The World Was Juan Tizol?
Juan Tizol, The Puerto Rican Trombonist
that Made up Duke Ellington's Band

Duke Ellington - piano, composer - Fred Guy - banjo - Wellman Braud - double bass - Sonny Greer - drums - Arthur Whetsol, Cootie Williams, Freddy Jenkins - trumpets - Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton - trombone, Juan Tizol - valve trombone (behind the bass) - Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Barney Bigard - reeds - Freddie Washington - dancer READ Juan Tizol Story

Is It Possible to be Positive in Anytime?
eeling good and being positive isn’t about saying your affirmations or looking at cute animal pics on the internet for 10 minutes—especially when your intent is to shift your dominant vibration (although that’s certainly a good start). It’s really about what you’re thinking and feeling, how you’re responding to your Now experience in the other 23 hours and 50 minutes of your day. READ MORE

   USE at YOUR OWN DISCRETION

LECHON ASAO a la vara ►SEE RECIPE HERE◄

The Importance of Jesus Christ
by Don Jíbaro
Is Jesus Christ really part of our lives
or is He just an Icon at Easter and Christmas?

We "talk the talk" and more often than not, we "walk the walk."  It's consequently and imperative that we get to know that part of our culture that our ancestors staked the essence of their existence on... their faith in The Lord Jesus!

Yes, Jesus Christ is Lord to at least 2.35 BILLION humans throughout the world, even respected by those who don't even know Him. There's no doubt, we distinguish The Lord Jesus from other "deities". Your grandma knew that!

So, why do you think that most people do not have this peace and abundant life that God planned for us to have? Simply it is separation from God. Admit it. your own WICKEDNESS has separated you from God; so much that he won't hear you. The Cross, however, is the one symbol that talks to you. Jesus Christ really died on the Cross and rose from the grave JUST like the Bible says. That might be a mystery to you but the Scriptures are true... READ MORE

The Empty Bed
or The Fallacy of Friendship
few years ago I was playing my guitar at home. I came upon this old tango my Dad used to quote... La Cama Vacía" (The Empty Bed). I remembered the lyrics and went on to sing it as I played. Half way through the song I began to weep. I didn't stop playing, and my singing became a cry of sadness.

With tears in my eyes, I stopped! The words were too sad, so sad that I had the image flashing in my head while my heart was pounding in my chest. I was "living" the story... the empty bed... I was so brokenhearted that I had to translate this tango into English and share it in my website. The sadness lies in "the fallacy of friendship" and the fact that the words of the song are so true... so moving that you can't avoid "living" the story. ►Read More

"It's better dry bread in peace, than a
feast in a house full of fighting." Prov.17:1

Breeding  Boricuanism in USAricans
By Irene Frances Vázquez

hen I saw the movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, I realized how other cultures can identify with it. A group of people can immigrate to another country and still bring their culture with them, bring up the next generation, their kids to be like them… loving the food, the language and marrying into their own race.

Now, those who’ve seen the movie, know that the parents seemed to overdo their culture by ignoring the ways of the land that they live in or looking at the other ethnic groups in a negative way. The heroine of the movie seemed to look into the American way of life wistfully rather than into her Greek’s family’s. Yet, she recognized and understood the traditions … she spoke the language and ate the food. She knew the folkloric ways that identified them. She marries a non-Greek who embraces her culture, seeing the uniqueness of it and makes it his own. READ MORE