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Showing posts from November, 2010

The Goal is Gold.

Big money breeds corruption, and big sport is no exception, as the current FIFA controversy amply shows. Sport, which is universally touted as an antidote to most social evils, is just as susceptible to crime or improper behavior as any other human endeavor. The bigger it gets, with all sorts of contracts and sponsors, the more attractive it becomes for people who are looking for a quick and easy profit. Members of committees in charge of choosing cities that will host international sports events are logical targets for bribes.  There is simply too much money at stake, and, in the sports arena, as everywhere else, money will win at the end of the day.

No Kidding!

Analysts and experts often conclude the obvious.  In reporting on sales at the start of the holiday season, it has been pointed out that discounts over the weekend were responsible for a surge in consumer spending.  But, of course. You don't need a college degree to realize that all that overpriced merchandise will not sell until prices come down considerably.  So, consumers will postpone buying it, until stores become convinced that no one is going to pay the current price, and they have to apply a discount. The fact of the matter is that most goods on the market are not immediate necessities, so, if the consumer finds them too expensive, all he has to do is wait for the price to come down, which will surely happen, sometimes very quickly, as a mounting inventory is untenable.  Common experience bears this out yearly.

"He Who Must Die"

I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: sometime soon, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is going to die of "natural causes" or have a fatal "accident."  The U.S. will not continue to be embarrassed, to say the least, internationally, by the things that he publishes on his website.  Right now, the whole intelligence community in the U.S. must be planning how to get rid of Assange permanently. You can bet your bottom dollar on it.

Casting Stones

The case of an Australian homosexual painter who was illegally in Mexico for five years and then detained illegally brings to the fore Mexico's own dismal record with illegal immigration.  Ironically, Mexicans, who, as illegal aliens, are subject to discrimination and harsh treatment in the U.S. are doing no better themselves with those that enter their country illegally. One would expect them to be much more sensitive to the plight of the thousands of Central Americans who  cross their borders in order to get to the United States.  Instead, they are locked up without any due process.  In the Australian's case, he spent four months without being formally charged or given the opportunity to present his defense. Once again, the victims of discrimination turn out to be discriminators themselves with others that they deem inferior.  What a shame!

Yeah, Canada!

Now that Canadian authorities have announced that they are not going to subject passengers to the American-style pat downs, I suppose that everybody and his brother in the terrorist world is going to fly to Canada to bomb the hell out of them. Instead, this is just another way in which Canadians distance themselves from their neighbors to the south, in pursuing their own interests as a truly "kinder, gentler nation." Americans have reacted aggressively, hysterically and with acute paranoia since September 11, 2001 to any and all threats or perceived threats. Canada, as well as other countries, are dealing with the security concerns in a more reasonable way. In the end, the best protection is to respect other cultures and religions. If you do not bomb and invade them, they won't feel compelled to bomb you.

A Really Dumb Brunette

In any other case, I would attribute it to a slip of the tongue, but given Sarah Palin's track record, I doubt it.  While being interviewed on a radio talk show, she called for the U.S. to support  its ally, North Korea, in the current situation. It wasn't until the host pointed out her mistake that she corrected herself.  This is the same woman who claimed to be qualified to speak on matters pertaining to Russia, just because, on a clear day, she could see it from Alaska, and other nonsense. Palin for 2012? The American Empire is really in trouble.

A Common Cause

Student unrest in England mirrors our own in Puerto Rico, both caused by significant tuition hikes in an economy that provides few jobs and dwindling incomes.  Students, as well as workers, are expected to bear most of the burden of a situation created by greedy businessmen and unwise government economic policies.  So, students, understandably, have taken to the streets, both in London and San Juan, to air their grievances against unresponsive governments that justify these measures as "unfortunate but necessary" ones to deal with the economic "crisis."  Of course, one never hears of cutting back on the privileges of the ruling class.  It is only the poor and the needy who must sacrifice still more for the good of the country. Such cynicism will not be taken lying down neither in the U.K nor here.

Really? We Hadn't Noticed.

The Pope has "discovered the Mediterranean" in 2010.  It has finally dawned on him that there are homosexual priests, although he claims that they are few and far between.  Really?  If he truly believes that, then he is more out of touch with reality than I thought.  No one in his right mind can seriously doubt that the priesthood has been a safe haven for homosexuals for the longest time.  Then, he has gone on to say that homosexuals cannot be priests.  If that directive is to be carried out strictly, there are going to be a lot of empty churches around the world. The Church will continue to do what it does best: look the other way and pretend that all those homosexual priests don't exist.  It's the only way that it can survive.

Safety, Yes, But...

The legitimate concern over air-travel safety seems to have gotten out of hand with the scanning equipment and the pat downs that passengers are being subjected to.  News of a scanner operator masturbating and a woman whose vagina was touched in a pat down are alarming.  Human nature being what it is, this was to be expected, once you give people that kind of authority and opportunity.  Hysteria and paranoia drive people to abuse power.  There are no sure-fire methods to prevent terrorist attacks.  Taken to its logical conclusion, we should all strip and have all of our body cavities searched, to ensure that we carry nothing that might be used as a weapon. We need to get a grip on ourselves and go back to reasonable security measures.  Extreme practices are not only embarrassing, but also end up being a "terrorism" of sorts, by making us feel like citizens of a police state that knows no bounds of decency.

Equal But Separate

I believe in equality across the board, especially in the basic things in life, such as employment and housing, but I also believe that there should be room for men and women to be by themselves with members of their own gender in private settings of their own choosing.  This is why I think that men-only clubs in England should not be forced to accept women as members, although, if they do so, then women should have the same rights and privileges as men.  We all need to get away from the opposite sex for a while, to be able to do and say things that one does not do in their company. Ultimately, this may turn out to be a non-issue, since very few women will want to join a club that is predominantly male.  Men, certainly, would not join a woman's club.  Discrimination is only illegal when it is unreasonable, but, as I have pointed out, there are valid reasons for having separate institutions of this sort, that is to say, for leisure and recreation purposes, that in no way affect fu

Yale Yields.

Finally, Yale University has agreed to do the right thing.  Of course, it took a lawsuit and the threat of a criminal complaint to shame it into it, but the important thing is that the 46,000 artifacts taken from Machu Picchu 100 years ago will be returned to Peru.  This shouldn't have taken this long; the law and a sense of common decency were on the Peruvian side.  In this and other similar cases, Third-World countries were plundered, sometimes in the name of conservation or preservation of priceless relics from the past.  Maybe at the time those countries were in no position to take proper care of that part of their heritage.  But, situations change and there is no excuse for holding on to something that doesn't belong to you. No matter how prestigious, rich or well-intentioned you may be.  

The Path to...

I'm not sure if this is what Buddha had in mind, but the discovery of more than 2,000 aborted fetuses in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok is certainly striking, to say the least. Although there doesn't seem to be any evidence of the abortions being performed there, there is, clearly, a connection to an illegal activity, by providing a way to dispose of those fetuses.  The very number of fetuses shows that this was no spur-of-the-moment thing to help out an individual, but something carried out in an organized way and on a long-term basis, hardly the kind of activity that one would expect from Buddhists or any other similar group. Even if one were to favor the freedom to choose to bring a pregnancy to term or end it, the latter is to be done in a controlled and responsible way, not as part of a clandestine operation that smacks of other illegal activities.  That would be the "enlightened" thing to do.

Safe Deposits

The city of Córdoba, Argentina, has joined a growing list of others who have banned the use of cell phones in banks, both by customers and employees, to prevent their use in setting up robberies from within.  The rationale is that accomplices relay information, both orally and visually, through cameras, to others outside the bank. To me, there's a more important reason for the ban: too many people talk incessantly on the phone, while waiting in line at the bank.  Due to their proximity, you hear every little detail of their never-ending chatter, driving you crazy and making you fantasize with strangling them. So, before we decent folks get violent, let's turn the cell phones off in banks, regardless of its effect on bank robberies.

Courage and Decency

The verdict that has acquitted the Guantánamo detainee of over 200 counts and found him guilty of just one is definitely proof positive that the whole process by which people have been detained for years on charges of terrorism is, to say the least, grossly invalid.  If after all these years, having had plenty of opportunity to build a case against someone, a civilian jury has found him not guilty in such a vast number of charges, then one has to conclude that there was never any basis for this person to have been locked up. This is why the military insisted on trying these people in their courts; ones that they could manipulate to render the judgments that they want.  Those jurors are to be commended for resisting the peer pressure and all that "super patriotism" that, based on hate and prejudice, calls for vengeance, not justice.

A Victim of His Own Success

The Celtic's Dream,  Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel, has turned into the author's nightmare.  Pirate copies are being sold on Lima's streets in broad daylight, and there doesn't seem to be too much that anyone can do about it.  Luckily, legitimate sales have been good, numbering 20,000 copies, with an additional 10,000 being printed. I suppose that most of his countrymen want to read the book by the Nobel-Prize winner, but can't afford it at bookstore prices.  Then, as in other third-world countries, they resort to piracy, an unfortunate but "necessary evil" in today's economy.

A Monumental Hypocrisy

Although not entirely unknown, the full extent of how the U.S. took advantage of Nazi scientific expertise after WWII has now been revealed in an official report that was kept secret for a long time. While publicly condemning the Hitler regime, the U.S. did everything in its power to recruit top German scientists, in spite of their ties to the Nazis.  This wasn't the case of not doing proper background checks of these people, and then finding out about them, but of knowingly giving them refuge, in order to take advantage of their superior talent in areas such as missiles and rockets for military purposes. Once again, the truth is very different from the official story - propaganda is the better word - that passes for American history.

Blame the Devil.

Catholic bishops in the U.S. gathered together this weekend for a training on exorcism.  This could be a first step on the way to a general claim that pedophilia in its ranks is the work of the Devil.  In other words, "the Devil made me do it."  So, all those priests and the bishops that covered them up were really "possessed" by the Evil One, not being responsible for their actions. Sounds like a bad made-for-TV movie...

They "Got Lucky."

Those who hold that "porn is bad for you" should reconsider their position, in light of the fact that some folks in Detroit won $129 million with a lotto ticket bought at a porn shop.  It seems that "the way of the flesh" is the way to go, and that God isn't all that keen in punishing all those sinners who indulge in carnal pleasures.  Ironically, some of the winners have announced their intention of giving a part of their winnings to a local church. We'll see if the church takes the donation, given its doubly "sinful" origin, since gambling is frowned upon by most religions, and porn is, obviously, a "biggie" in the immoral context.

The Man From Tennessee

Should we be surprised by the Tennessee Congressman's remarks about illegal immigrants - that is to say Latinos - breeding like rats to take advantage of  welfare benefits in the U.S?  Of course not.  The man is an American from Tennessee, for God's sakes!  What is one to expect from that background and pedigree? Calling for the extermination of those rats, I suppose...

Coming to the Right Place

Things must be really bad in the Anglican Church, for five bishops to jump ship to the Catholic Church.  Not only that, but there is, supposedly, a movement within the Church of England to go back to the good old days before Henry VIII in 1534.  Now, ordinarily, that wouldn't surprise anyone, but anyone who even considers becoming Catholic these days should have his head examined...or chopped off, in the tradition of which those Anglicans  seem so fond of.  Apparently, those people that are considering the move to Catholicism are disgusted with liberal or progressive stances embraced by the Church of England, which, as everybody knows, grew out of an act of adultery. So, if medieval thought and practice is what they're after, they will find it to their heart's content in the Catholic Church.

"Lost in Space"

The U.S. government inability to explain what that "thing" in the California sky was is noteworthy.  History shows that the government has played fast and loose with the truth frequently, giving all kinds of explanations to make sense of things that they wish to ignore or downplay, at least.  I suspect that this may have been an error on the U.S. part -  a misfired missile, for example -  because, had it been something that could be pinned to  another country, we would've heard about it by now.  Had it been a natural phenomenon, they would've pointed it out, as someone from the Defense Department has done, albeit as a lone voice in the matter. We''ll see if the truth pans out or this goes down in history as another one of those unsolved mysteries...

"Man's Inhumanity to Man"

Better late than never. Like many other countries, for most of its history, Australia's treatment of its aboriginal people has been appalling, going so far as taking children away from their families and putting them in institutions to, I suppose, "save" them.  In recent years, the government has formally apologized for these policies and the mistreatment and neglect of the Aborigines.  Now, it is moving to recognize them in the Constitution as part of the people of Australia. It makes you wonder how is it possible for the people of a country to have been so blind and cruel to their fellow man, just because they have a darker skin and a different way of life.

Pope's Poop

As expected, the Pope in Spain has warned against "secularism" and issued a call to arms to defend the "traditional family."  Spain, which is mostly Catholic - at least in name - has thrown off the shackles of religious dogma in public affairs and recognized the values of a pluralistic society.  The Church, of course, resents not continuing to have a sort of veto power over fundamental questions, as it did for much of the country's history.  Th so-called "traditional family" is in no danger of becoming extinct there or elsewhere.  Heterosexuals will continue to marry and have children; so will homosexual couples.  It's just a matter of choice; no one is forced to marry nor people of a certain sexual preference are going to change it to marry someone who doesn't share that preference. Even Catholics all around the world have realized that the Church's views on a host of things are a remnant of a past full of ignorance and intolerance, and

SEAL Trick

They've caught an American Navy SEAL smuggling 80 high-powered weapons from Iraq and Afghanistan into the U.S.  Evidently, the guy thought that, if all those private contractors were making tons of money over there, he certainly could go into business for himself, after completing his second tour of duty fighting for the American way of...getting rich quick. Two things stand out in this case.  First, the SEALs are part of the elite forces, the cream of the crop of military personnel.  These are people who are carefully selected and trained to the highest standards of everything.  Or so the legend goes.  Second, in this day and age of so much homeland security, with multiple checkpoints and all kinds of scanning devices, how could he have smuggled 80 big weapons . Obviously, either he had a lot of help or all that security is just another American myth.

Haiti: Why?

Will the suffering in Haiti never stop?  How is it possible that one country has to endure so much tragedy and hardship?  Nature and human nature have both singled out that God-forsaken country to deny its people a normal life.  It's as if all of the world's ills were directed at Haiti over and over again.  As human beings, we know that life is often unfair, but in this particular case, it has been and continues to be  grossly unfair to people who are, in the final analysis, no better or worse that anybody else.

Before It's Too Late

The Germans have acted swiftly and decisively against the Neo-Nazi radio station.  They have learned the lesson that these things have to be taken seriously from the very beginning, lest they get out of hand.  Hate speech and extreme xenophobia, if left unchecked, can grow until it starts to hurt people and challenge the State as a genuine threat to law and order. Freedom of speech can be abused, leading to a situation in which there is no freedom of anything.  The world certainly doesn't need the "Fourth Reich ."

[Greedy] Old Party

Greed is back!  This, the year of the sequel to Wall Street , the Oliver Stone film, has also brought us the Republican victory in the U.S. midterm Congressional elections.  "Money never sleeps", indeed.  It has been at work during these past two years, waiting for its opportunity to put the people that best represent it in power.  They can't wait to get into office to, in the name of "limiting government", start eliminating or cutting back all those reforms that may help the poor, the sick and other undesirables. "Gordon Gecko for President!"

The Woman From Brasilia

The American media has already begun to subtly badmouth Dilia Rousseff, Brazil's President-elect.  Sensing that she will continue Lula's refusal to be a puppet of the U.S. government, it has started to list her "defects" or "shortcomings."  First and foremost, she was a Marxist and a guerrilla fighter.  No matter that it was against a right-wing dictatorship that jailed and tortured her, the latter being somewhat disputed.  On top of that, she has no manners or comes across too strongly, even with her subordinates.  She has no international experience.  The only reason why she was elected is because Lula stood by her during the campaign.  In short, she's a disaster waiting to happen. So, from the American perspective, one is to suppose that the Brazilians have made a huge mistake in electing her by a comfortable margin.

"Doing God's Work"

I've said it before, but it bears repeating : on the whole, religion has been bad for mankind.  Not because it is bad in itself, but because of the way that it is usually taught and practiced.  Most people are taught that theirs is the one true faith and that they have an obligation to preach to others to convert them, so that they too can be saved.  Since this is the most important thing in life, then anything and everything is permitted, in order to achieve such a lofty goal.  The history of the world is full of examples of how religious beliefs have caused wars, persecutions, tortures and countless horrors. In 2010, we are still suffering from the religious plague on agnostics, atheists, infidels and unbelievers of all kinds.