One Man's Opinion

India is up in arms over a book that strongly suggests that Gandhi was bisexual, having had a very intimate relationship with a German architect in his youth in South Africa. There are letters by Gandhi that are seen as quite compromising. On the other hand, it's well known that, in his old age, he shared his bed with young girls, both for warmth and as an exercise in maintaining his celibacy. This reminds me of another book published some years ago, in which the author revealed a rather strong relationship between a young Lincoln and his roommate. In this case also, there were letters that showed an affection that bordered on the romantic. Great men are, at bottom, men, with the same passions as the rest of us. Their sex lives need not concern us, except to show how human they really are.

Boy, here in the West, we have the right to a speedy trial, a legal doctrine inspired by the well-known principle that "justice delayed is justice denied." But, it seems that the "new and improved" Afghanistan has an even speedier way of handling criminal matters. Here's how it works. A high-level government official is accused of corruption, and before you can say "Afghanistan", President Hamid Karzai calls his Attorney General on the phone and has the guy released. In the latest - probably, not the last - case, a presidential adviser on financial matters had been detained and the Attorney General had just announced it in a press conference, when Karzai called and ordered him to release the official. As I said, this has happened, at least, once before. So, there you have it: "speedy justice", Afghan style.

Dishonesty is rampant, and the healthcare business is no exception. A study reveals that most physicians who participate in writing the guidelines for treatment of, for example, heart diseases in the U.S. have financial interests in companies that would be affected by those guidelines. Not only are these doctors members of the groups, but they are also their leaders. Some claim that disclosing these conflicts of interests should be enough; others want those conflicts banned. In my view, disclosure is a rather cynical approach to the problem, because it allows the improper situation to continue, as long as people are made aware of it. This is too serious a matter to take such a lenient approach. Doctors who have a vested interest in recommending or rejecting treatments shouldn't have any bearing on supposedly impartial scientific reviews and medical care guidelines.

Little by little, justice is being done in countries such as Argentina and Uruguay, where 30-odd years ago, right-wing dictatorships disappeared, killed and tortured thousands of people, as part of Operation Condor, which also included Brazil, Chile and Paraguay, with, at least, the tacit approval of the U.S. Very cleverly, after the fact, those thugs and their sympathizers managed to pass laws that, in essence, gave them immunity from prosecution, in the name of an ill-conceived "reconciliation." Now, following Argentina's lead in bringing their dictators to justice, the Inter-American Court for Human Rights has condemned Uruguay for the abduction and disappearance of a famous poet's daughter in 1976, serving notice that impunity is over. It's to be expected that many more cases will surface, and that the Uruguayan people will be forced to fully come to terms with that dark period in their history.

A recent U.S. Department of Justice report confirms what many have known all along: the FBI is the equivalent of those secret polices that represented the worst totalitarian regimes around the world. After 2001, especially, rules were put in place that allow the Bureau to, essentially, spy on American citizens on the flimsiest of excuses. Now, ten years later, it's still doing it with impunity, supposedly as part of the fight against terrorism. In typical Madison-Avenue fashion, the FBI calls these investigations "assessments", a rather bland term that doesn't really convey what it entails. Even the Obama Administration, as much as it has tried to portray itself as respectful of civil and human rights, has been unwilling or unable to "change" such a policy. All this goes to show that there isn't all that much difference between "friends and foes", when it comes to fascism in totalitarian or reputedly-democratic societies.

The evidence of the Catholic Church's involvement in pedophilia on a grand scale is overwhelming. As time goes by, there are more and more cases from all over the world. The Jesuits of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. have just settled a lawsuit for $166 million brought by almost 500 Native Americans who, as very small boys and girls were repeatedly abused sexually by priests and nuns during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The regional Company of Jesus, as it is officially and in a self-aggrandizing way known, has filed for bankruptcy. They've been morally bankrupt for a long time.

Bolivia may take Chile to court, to force it to provide access to the sea. Shame on Chile! Just because 130 years ago, Chile won a war, thus securing a territory that would allow Bolivia access to the sea, that doesn't give it the right to keep Bolivia landlocked. When a plot of land has no access to a road, for instance, the law forces the owner of the land that stands between that plot and the highway, to provide access. If that is the law between private parties, international law can't be different for a country that is subject to an oppressive condition such as this one. Chile earned a lot of good will and support around the world with the rescue efforts for its miners a while back. I hope it sees fit to do justice to the Bolivians, without having to be dragged into court for refusing to do the right thing.

One of the five U.S. soldiers who, not only killed three Afghan civilians wantonly, but abused and made fun of their corpses in gruesome fashion, has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the others. For that , he will get 24 years in prison, but he'll be eligible for parole in seven, which is a sweet deal, given the fact that, otherwise, he would've gotten life in prison. You can bet your bottom dollar that he will get parole, because, deep down, Americans find it almost impossible to really condemn one of their own for killing people from other countries. We'll see what happens to the other defendants in this case, but life is cheap when foreigners are concerned, and, if convicted, they won't do much time.

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for two counts of rape and several other counts of sexual harassment and other sex crimes. Although the Israeli legal system is to be commended for having the moral courage to investigate, indict, prosecute and convict a former President, the sentence seems extremely light, in view of what he was guilty of. I find it hard to believe that the Israeli Penal Code is so condescending with sex crimes, especially rape; in this case, two at that. It's as if this were a sort of token punishment, meted out to appease the masses, but not fully proportional to the seriousness of the crimes. Still, at least, he didn't get away with it.

The fact that Utah has seen fit to have a "state firearm" as one of its symbols proves that its government is really out of touch with reality and extremely insensitive. Although it has tried to pass this as a recognition of the inventor of the pistol that's been chosen for this dubious honor, the mere idea of having a weapon as part of the state symbols is, in this day and age, an insult to all those who have suffered at the hands of people with guns. As long as there are people who refuse to accept that the gun culture is a big part of the problem of violence everywhere, there will continue to be killings and massacres all across the country. It's really sad that Americans have a fatalistic view of this whole thing, and, therefore, seem to feel that these tragedies are inevitable and a necessary price to pay for their precious "right to bear arms."

When it rains, it pours for the Catholic Church. On top of its major scandal over its pedophile priests, now comes the revelation that, for decades, in Spain, nuns who worked in hospitals were part of a scheme to steal babies from unwed mothers, leftists and other "undesirables" and sell them to more suitable parents. The Church, who was always a partner-in-crime with the Franco regime, helped to fake the babies' deaths, so that the natural parents would accept "God's will." Now, all these years later, the truth is finally coming out, and the Church, once again, is shown to be a corrupt organization, willing to engage in illegal and immoral behavior, when it suits its purposes.

The United Nations took the U.S. to task on its human rights record, forcing it to recognize its failures and violations and pledge to do better. As far as I can remember, this is the first time that the U.N. has dared to pass judgment on the U.S. on anything, much less find it wanting.  At the same time, this is the first time that the U.S. has admitted being less than perfect at anything, and assure others that it will improve its performance. The U.S., invariably, will not be accountable to anybody or anything. What with all these earthquakes and tsunamis, and this U.S. mea culpa, the end of the world must be at hand.

I find it amusing that, when a U.S. ally - a term that encompasses a broad range of subservient governments - gets into trouble by behaving improperly against its own people, Washington is oh-so-very careful about speaking about it. These days,  Hillary Clinton - looking older by the minute - is "alarmed", "concerned" or "disappointed" at what goes on in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, while trying to recruit everybody and his brother to get rid of the Libyan leader. Far from me to defend the Colonel, but the U.S. would have much more credibility, if it condemned its "friends" or "partners" with the same force, when they get off the democratic and human rights track.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has sued some top executives of the U.S.' biggest savings bank for $900 million, charging them with "reckless lending practices" that, ultimately, did the bank in. This is the kind of aggressive government action that's needed to hold irresponsible individuals accountable for egregious malfeasance in handling financial matters. Since the burden of proof in civil cases is not as high as the one in criminal cases, it's more practical to sue than to indict. It's also more of a deterrent of future misbehavior, given the fact that these people would rather lose their freedom than their money...

"Might makes right" and "money talks." The CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis with an illegal weapon has been released after "someone" paid between one and two million dollars to the victims' families. The American alleged that he had killed the men after he had been attacked by them. The U.S. government first claimed that he was a diplomat and, therefore, had diplomatic immunity. Later on, it changed its story to the one that he was a CIA contractor. Now, I don't know about you, but this playing fast and loose with the truth is a dead giveaway of improper behavior. I wouldn't believe anything that the U.S. says about this case. They just bought this guy's freedom because, in all likelihood, he knows too much and is not expendable.

"Bad news" for WASPs! According to a recent study, the number of Hispanics in the U.S. is increasing faster than previously figured. There are close to 40 million in just 33 states, making that one in almost eight Americans are of Hispanic origin. No wonder all those white, blue-eyed people are hysterical. As if their own blacks weren't enough of a problem, the brown people from south of the border are gaining on them. People who speak Spanish, are mostly Catholic, eat and dance salsa and have all kinds of "weird" customs. Ugh! Genocide, anyone?

There's a recall vote scheduled for tomorrow for the mayor of Miami. It seems that, while taking extreme measures to balance the city budget, he was spending money on himself and some of his cronies. This is the case all too often: politicians who claim to be "doing the right thing" by tightening the public belt, are, at the same time, favoring themselves and their friends at the taxpayers' expense. On the one hand, they fire low-level public employees; on the other hand, they raise the salaries of executives and other high-level personnel, spend money on fancy cars and use public employees as personal assistants. On this issue, there's very little difference between Miami, Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

A U.S. State Department spokesman has been fired for speaking his mind about the treatment being given to the  American soldier that has been detained for collaborating with Wikileaks. It seems that the public official was so sickened by what amounts to torture in this case, that he couldn't keep silent anymore. So, while the U.S. lectures the rest of the world about human rights, it keeps this soldier in inhumane conditions, and punishes anyone who dares to tell the truth about it. Which goes to show you that the Wikileaks revelations about American double talk and deception all over the world are right on the money. This is American hypocrisy at its worst, and no one should pay any attention to what the U.S. has to say on anything.

The full-body scanners at airports have been at the center of a great deal of controversy, mainly on the privacy issue. But, now, comes a disturbing report about their radiation levels, which pose a serious health concern. It seems that the Transportation Safety Administration hasn't been forthcoming about tests that have been conducted,claiming that the readings were just "record-keeping errors." Yeah, right. The public is right to be wary of these "explanations" that always downplay dangers from technology that goes awry. Time and time again, the government will tell people not to worry about something or other that, ultimately, turns out to be true.It's standard operating procedure to deny, deny, deny, until there's no denying that can be made. We'll soon see if this is the case in this instance.

As far as we know, Japan has withstood this major earthquake with less casualties than were to be expected, due to its strict building code and excellent building techniques.  This is a powerful lesson for many other countries, like our own, in which construction companies and developers have the upper hand and have used it to cut corners and dilute standards, in order to cut their costs and increase their profits. Let's hope that we never have to put those standards to the test in a significant way.

Those who would quarrel with some of my views on current events, especially those pertaining to the U.S. and its relations with the rest of the world, keep having a hard time, given the daily headlines. Case in point: the U.S. Government has hastily apologized - again - this time, for some disparaging remarks made by a top diplomat in Japan about Okinawans. This is nothing new; Asian people have routinely been belittled by American public officials. I invite the reader to read the Congressional Record of early 20th century, on how Congressmen viewed Filipinos or Puerto Ricans, for that matter. Over a century has gone by, but instances such as this one show that, deep down inside, they still feel the same way about black, brown or yellow people.

Following up on the story about how, in the late 1940s , the U.S. Government used 700 Guatemalans as human "guinea pigs" to experiment on them by injecting them with syphilis, and a few months ago, Hillary Clinton and Obama both apologized for it, at the time no mention was made of any compensation whatsoever to the victims or their heirs. Now, the Guatemalans' legal counsel has served notice that, come next Friday, if the U.S. doesn't offer their clients a decent settlement, they will go to court. You would've thought that, upon learning of such abhorrent actions and admitting them, to the point of apologizing publicly, the U.S. would've offered those poor people some compensation, without having to be threatened with a lawsuit. But, it seems that the government thought that Guatemalans were not worth the effort, and that they would let something like this slide. Which goes to show you how insensitive Americans are, when it comes to other people's suffe

While the U.S. is so "concerned" with protests in Libya, it should pay more attention to what is happening in Iraq, where it maintains a decisive presence, to say the least. As it happens, the Iraqi government has shut down two opposition-party offices, allegedly as part of an eviction process to reclaim buildings for public use. Yeah, sure. The U.S. has been significantly silent on this move by its puppet regime, that, as in the case of Afghanistan, continues to embarrass it by acting in ways contrary to the supposed democracy that they are establishing in those countries under American stewardship.

Robert Gates has "apologized" to the Afghan people for, once again, killing civilians; this time nine boys who were gathering wood. In this same trip, it is reported that he "choked up" when asked by some soldier what kept him up at night, and he responded: "You all." It's worth noting that, when he talked about the death of those boys, he did so matter-of-factly, without any emotion. I've seen the CNN video of his remarks, and I invite all of you to look it up in the Internet. As I've said time and time again, to the U.S., it's only American lives that count. Gates is close to tears when he thinks of American soldiers in danger, but there's no emotion when he speaks about nine innocent boys that were killed by his troops. Enough said.

In just about two weeks, unless the U.S. Government comes up with some $56 billion, it will have to shut down, once again, because it won't have enough funds to meet its payroll. In other words, the "Almighty Dollar" just isn't anymore. The U.S. finds itself, for all to see, in the embarrassing position of having no money to pay its federal government employees. This, from a country that relentlessly proclaims itself as the "greatest" and is always advising others on how to run their affairs. Anyway, they can always take out another loan from their bankers of choice, the Chinese, who already "own" the United States of America...

Just when you think that the Catholic Church has learned its lesson in the pedophile scandal, you find out that it's still up to its old tricks. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has kept 37 priests who have been involved in the scandal active in several parishes, after not one but two grand jury investigations of these practices. Which goes to show everyone that the Church hasn't really owned up to its failings; that it still feels that it doesn't have to answer to anyone, that it will drag its feet to comply with the law, and will only do so "kicking and screaming." The Church won't do anything unless it absolutely has to, and will look for ways to circumvent the law, because it still thinks that it is a power unto itself, answerable only to a God that it very conveniently claims to represent  on earth.

Here's an interesting item. A former CIA-station chief in Algeria has been convicted in the U.S. of sexually assaulting a Muslim woman over there. The judge, very judiciously, sentenced him to almost two years more than what the prosecutors requested, because of the particular circumstances in this case. First, the assault took place at the home provided to him by the CIA. Second, the woman was unconscious. Third, she was married , so he figured that, given the harsh penalties for adultery in Islamic law, she would keep her mouth shut. Although it doesn't say why the woman was unconscious, one can imagine how a CIA operative would have no trouble in this regard. This is just one of many such incidents in which American military or diplomatic personnel go about their business raping or abusing women in other countries, taking advantage of their status and power, and one of many reasons why people in those countries are opposed to their presence as soldiers, advisors or any oth

In Argentina's continuing quest for belated justice bringing to trial those responsible for the crimes committed by the military regime during the so-called "Dirty War", putting on the dock four top officials from that government for stealing babies from the detained and the "disappeared" is an important human rights question. Along with the murder and torture of thousands of people, the taking of their children and giving or selling them to members of the ruling class, to pass them off as their own, is one of the most cruel and outrageous abuses of power ever committed by the junta. Those who participated in this scheme, no matter how old and sick they may be, have to be punished. There can be no "reconciliation" with monsters who thought such a thing up and carried it out for years. Although these four members of the governing elite have already been convicted of other crimes, it's important that they are also convicted of these ones, so that

You know that you can count on me to keep you posted on the latest shenanigans by the pharmaceutical industry.  The FDA has just ordered the removal from the market of more than 500 cold and allergy prescription medicines , because there's no data to prove they are effective, there are indications that they don't work the way they are supposed to or, quite simply, they were never submitted for approval by the agency. Now, this is very serious, given the fact that colds and allergies are as common as, well, the "common cold", and most people take them on a routine basis. What this points to is how ineffective the food and drug regulation in the U.S. really is, allowing hundreds of untested or badly-tested products to go on the market, endangering countless lives.    

Some Catholic Church bishops in the U.S. have come out in support of unions, rightfully pointing out the human and moral aspects of trying to, in essence, do away with them that started in Wisconsin and has spread to several other states. Good for them. This is what the Church should be doing more of, instead of siding with the rich and powerful, for "thirty pieces of silver."