One Man's Opinion

I suppose that the Republicans will say that this confirms what they have been saying all along: Obama is a socialist, with even Chávez supporting him. The Venezuelan President has said that, if he were American, he would vote for Obama, calling him a "good guy", in the process. This, of course, could turn out to be a "kiss of death", for those who still see a Communist conspiracy in everything. I don't quite see Obama returning the favor...

In a little over a week, we'll know if Chávez will continue to be President of Venezuela and a thorn on the U.S.' side. For now, he has just launched a second satellite through the Chinese space agency. Not bad for a guy that was supposed to roll over and die, to please his adversaries in Venezuela, the Americans and people like the Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, who celebrated his cancer.

We always knew that the Catholic Church was big business, but now we know how businesslike it really is. In Germany, the Church has decided not to allow members who don't pay the tax that supports it to have full participation in the liturgy and other religious activities. "No ticket, no laundry", so to speak. As in other European nations, in Germany there is a special tax that is allotted to the taxpayer's denomination. The economic downturn has prompted many people to opt out of their religious affiliation, so as not to be forced to pay this tax. At the same time, some of them still want to participate in the life of the Church, especially in activities such as christenings and weddings, which the Church refuses to provide to those who don't pay the tax. Martin Luther wouldn't be surprised.

As a firm believer in independence for Puerto Rico and democracy, I find it untenable that anyone would oppose the exercise of self-determination in a referendum such as the one sought by Catalonian authorities. If the people there vote to secede from Spain, so be it. Either we believe in democracy and the voting process or we don't. If votes are good enough to elect who is to govern, then they are certainly good enough to determine if people from a nation want to be a part of a bigger political entity. To resort to the judicial process to stop this free expression of political rights is, frankly, a perversion of the Law and what the Court stands for. This being a political question, it has no place in the judicial system, no matter at what level. No Constitution worth its name can stand in the way of the will of the people freely and peacefully expressed at the voting booth.

Throughout my teenage years, Andy Williams was one of my favorite singers. Not only did he have a beautiful and powerful voice, but also his repertoire was excellent. I used to sing at school, both as a member of the Glee Club, a quartet and a soloist. It was as a soloist that I sang many of the songs that he made famous. I had all his records, which I played over and over again. I admired him tremendously. He was part of my youth, and, with his singing, made it a very special time in my life. Thanks, Andy!

I find it quite interesting and significant that the U.S. seems so cautious when dealing with former Nazis who, being American citizens, have been accused or investigated for war crimes. It's as if the government were very reluctant to cooperate with countries who request the extradition of those individuals. In a recent and well-publicized case, the proceedings took so long that the man died without their being a resolution to the case. Now, there is another case in which Germany wants to prosecute a former guard at a concentration camp, but the man has been living in the U.S. since 1952, when he was 27 years old. His "defense" is that he was drafted when he was 17, and that he was just a perimeter guard that had nothing to do with the extermination of Jews that went on inside the camp. You would think that the Americans would be very interested in seeing that justice is done in a case like this. That they would be horrified to find out that they have been harboring

Sensible people predicted it, and it has come to pass: the persecution of undocumented workers in the U.S. has produced a critical shortage of agricultural workers and, consequently, a significant loss of crops and money in the billions of dollars. The reason is simple and clearly predictable: domestic workers are not interested in harvesting crops, a job that is seen as menial, fit only for inferior people from other countries who are desperate. Not even in a situation such as the current one, with the worst drought in 80 years and a food shortage that keeps growing, are the American farm workers willing to go out into the field and save what crops there are. But, evidently, xenophobia is stronger than self-preservation of American agriculture or even hunger itself. That's a lot of hate of foreigners.

People in the U.S. will sue over anything and everything, and judges and juries will accept any claim, no matter how far-fetched or self-produced. A man who ate two bags of popcorn a day has been awarded $7 million for a lung disease caused by the fumes from the butter in microwave popcorn. Now, any idiot who eats two bags of popcorn a day -- or of anything else, for that matter -- should be put away permanently in an institution. Even accepting that there was a harmful ingredient in the product, the fact of the matter is that it was the overindulgence in it that brought about the health problem. Even the safest of foods will harm you if you eat them in huge quantities or too often. It seems to me that the jury did not take this into account when it rendered its verdict.

And I thought that our politicians had the sleaze market cornered! An independent candidate for mayor in Bosnia has resorted to offering porn as an incentive to those who support his candidacy through a website of his. Candidly, he admitted that, when he realized how many people sign in to porn sites in the Internet every day, he saw the possibilities for his political gain. Obviously, the man has no morals, and he has been banned from the electoral process. One can only imagine what he would have done, had he been elected. Free porn on the town's main square?

The fact that sports ministers from the European Union have called for a joint effort to face match-fixing  speaks volumes about how widespread the problem is and how difficult it is to contain. To soccer's black eyes for racism and violence in the sport, we now have to add this cheating scandal. Human nature being what it is, big sports' big money breeds corruption. Betting, legal or illegal, will always prompt unscrupulous people to make sure that the results are favorable to them. Mens sana in corpore sano,  fair play and a level-playing field are just desiderata  that seem progressively unachievable in a world obsessed with winning and making a quick buck at everything.  

Although it may amount to nothing much in the practical sense, the ruling by the Supreme Court of Italy that upholds the conviction of 23 Americans that engaged in the kidnapping of an Egyptian, to deliver him to a country where he could be tortured without the U.S. taking the blame for it, is significant, being the first time that people are convicted, albeit in absentia , for such a practice. For those of us who believe in the rule of law, it's important that there be a clear rejection of any and all ways of circumventing of civil, constitutional and human rights and safeguards. No matter if those 23 Americans never serve a day in prison for what they did. The important thing is that somewhere in the planet they were officially condemned for it; that it wasn't swept under the rug, as if it didn't matter. Italy has had the courage and decency to act on behalf of all of us around the world who refuse to accept lawlessness in the name of counterterrorism.

Not to knock Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner, but wasn't she elected to serve in her country's Parliament? It seems to me that she spends most of her time traveling all over the world, instead of taking care of business at home. One can understand that someone who has spent so many years under house arrest would want to go places all the time, but, the fact is that people voted for her to occupy a seat in the legislative assembly, not as ambassador at the rest of the world. She has a specific political duty to perform, and she may be failing to do so properly, as much as people who sympathize with her might think that she is using her celebrity wisely to further the cause of democracy and freedom in Myanmar.

Time was when the term "boy scout' was synonymous with squeaky-clean behavior and a host of other positive things. Well, not anymore. We now know that, just as the Catholic Church was covering up pedophile priests by the hundreds, the Boy Scouts were doing much the same with their scoutmasters and other employees or volunteers that were engaging in the same crimes. Like the Church, they were more concerned with their image and reputation than with doing the right thing. So, they allowed the culprits to resign quietly and did not bring these crimes to the attention of the police or prosecutors. In other words, for decades, they kept up a facade of normalcy to cover up the sexual abuse of minors that were entrusted to them. Scout's honor.

Imagine living in a country where, at any moment, out of a clear blue sky or a dark one bombs fall on everyday people, and their loved ones have no way of stopping this from happening and no recourse against the anonymous people who do the killing. Eight more women have been killed by a NATO airstrike in Afghanistan, in a horrific routine attack that is barely acknowledged and excused as a necessary evil in the fight against terrorism. Imagine the sense of impotence and outrage that the Afghan people have felt all these years. That death from the sky is the real terror in their lives.

Americans truly believe that the rest of the world is dumb, naive and plain stupid. It's a particularly American conceit that just because they make a statement about anything, it's automatically true beyond a reasonable doubt, and the rest of the world must accept it without questioning it. The U.S. is always issuing "report cards" on the other countries, grading them on everything from human rights to drug enforcement or their efforts against terrorism. Of course, this is only the American perspective on these issues, but its arrogance is such that it takes on the quality of magister dixit . A current example is the American report that states that -- you guessed it -- Bolivia and Venezuela top the list of nations that have a poor track record of fighting the drug traffickers. Really? Isn't it a little odd that both countries have regimes that are not subservient to the U.S.? Is this just a coincidence? If you believe that it is, you are crazier than the wor

O.K. People -- even famous ones --  should be entitled to some privacy. But, by now, celebrities know that their every move is being watched and recorded. So, when they are on vacation and choose to take their clothes off and go out on a terrace, for example, they must be aware of the very real possibility that they will be photographed or filmed doing it. Kate Middleton was incredibly reckless in exposing herself this way. She should have known better than to be topless out of her room. It is unfair, but it's part of the price she has to pay for her royal status. Had she remained a commoner, no one would be bothering to take her picture at every turn.

By the way, am I wrong or wasn't Chávez supposed to be dead by now, according to that "well-placed source" used by Dan Rather? I saw Chávez on TV the other night, and he didn't seem to be at death's door. The only thing dead by now is Dan Rather's credibility as a journalist.

It may very well be that the Venezuelan government is overreacting at the recent border incident involving an American former soldier and now, at the incident of the weapons found on board a cargo ship from the U.S. But, really, can you blame it, after all that history teaches us about U.S. interventions in Latin America. The first deadly sin in politics is to be naive. Chávez knows that he can't be too careful, or he'll end up dead or out of office...permanently

Human Rights Watch has blown the whistle on the CIA's lies about its very limited use of waterboarding and other torture methods. (Of course, the U.S. official position is that waterboarding is not torture.) The truth that keeps coming out is that they used it much more widely than admitted. Not only that, but also that the U.S. gave up prisoners who were fighting the Libyan dictator, and his regime, in turn, tortured them. The Americans did not distinguish properly between those who fought against them and those who were fighting for their freedom in Libya and other places in the Middle East. There are people in that group who were tortured, now are part of the Libyan government and have testified about their treatment at the hands of the U.S. Anyway, why should we be surprised by these and other CIA lies, when that is its modus operandi ?

They must be doing something right in Costa Rica. A 7.6 earthquake did very little damage. Other recent quakes of similar magnitude haven't caused a lot of damage either. So, I guess that we should all be looking at its building code, for some clue as to why, in spite of the regular occurrence of strong earthquakes, that country is able to withstand them successfully. Which goes to show you that you don't have to be rich and powerful to have a decent quality of life in the most basic of things like public safety. I suppose it helps that, having no army, Costa Rica is able to use its resources more wisely than buying weapons and maintaining an "army" of corrupt officers...

Israel, a country born of the ravages of intolerance and persecution, has increasingly practiced its own brand of both by extremists who seem to act with impunity. The burning of mosques and desecration of holy places of other faiths are disturbing signs of a radicalization of religious and nationalistic factions. The latest in a series of incidents of vandalism has occurred at a Christian monastery where, among other things, they spray-painted "Jesus is a monkey." Although the government has condemned all those attacks, nothing much has come of it, which calls into question the will to fight against them. The persecuted have become the persecutors.

I suppose that they'll say that these are the rantings and ravings of a senile old man. But, Desmond Tutu, once the darling of the Western democracies for his stand against apartheid and for human rights everywhere, has boldly called for the prosecution of Bush and Blair, on account of their war on Iraq under false pretenses. He's right, of course, but, in this world, "might makes right", and those war crimes will go unpunished. So, Tutu will have to wait for the afterlife, to see justice done in this case.

Sorry, but I can't let this one go by. Two weeks before his death at 85, the former cardinal of Milan --I suppose with the "fear of God" in him -- passed a very harsh judgment on the Catholic Church. This wasn't any old cardinal, but one that was considered a successor to John Paul II, until Parkinson's disease took him out of the running. In a nutshell, he said that the Church is about 200 years out of touch with the rest of the world (I think it's more like 400 years.) and called for its radical transformation, in order for it to be relevant to the present and future generations. Words of wisdom that, unfortunately, will go unheeded.

Here I go again. But, as you'll see, it's not my fault. The Catholic Church must have a "death wish." Otherwise, how can one explain blunder after blunder, at a time when its image, reputation and moral standing in the world are at its lowest point? The statements made by a friar who appears regularly on the Eternal Word Television Network, suggesting that the victims "seduced" the pedophile priests and, consequently, the perpetrators shouldn't go to jail for a first offense are not only outrageous but also reveal the mindset that produced this tragedy in the first place. Although he has since apologized, and others have excused him, on account of his advanced age and infirmities, the truth is that statements such as this one express the true thoughts and feelings of an individual. Invariably, the apology comes after the public outcry over the statement, and is insincere. This incident is just one more proof of the kind of warped mentality prevalent