One Man's Opinion

The Palestinian triumph at the United Nations is remarkable in and of itself, and sends a signal of hope to other oppressed people around the world. For the first time, the U.S. and Israel's imperialistic wishes have been thwarted. The U.N. is no longer totally subservient to the U.S. Voting to accept Palestine as a non-member observer state was so decisive that, even those countries which have traditionally gone along with the Americans either voted against them or abstained. Significantly, even if they had voted with the U.S., they would have still lost by a substantial majority. Those of us who favor Puerto Rico's independence see this as a hopeful development towards a U.N. vote in the near future demanding that the U.S. grant us our independence, as a matter of international law and "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind", as Jefferson so eloquently put it when he wrote the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

But, of course! The autopsy done by U.S. authorities on the corpse of the Guantánamo prisoner found dead in his cell reveals that he committed "suicide." They have concluded that, somehow, he saved enough medication for his psychiatric condition , to kill himself last September. This man was held there for ten years without being charged, and when he challenged that legally, no less than the Supreme Court did nothing to end this Kafkaesque travesty of justice.  So, in a way, he had all the reasons to kill himself. No wonder he went mad! The question is: Did he kill himself? Is it possible that someone in his position, being watched and scrutinized so closely, could have done what they now claim he did? Even if we were to accept this official explanation, it does not absolve the U.S. of its responsibility for his torture and death. A responsibility that runs all the way to the top of the Executive and the Judicial Branches of the U.S. Government.

Long overdue, Argentina continues to clean house in the matter of the official crimes committed during the 1976-1983 military regime. Now, it's the turn of pilots who engaged in the "death flights", from which detainees were dropped alive but drugged into the river or the sea. Thousands were disposed of that way, and 68 people are standing trial for it. Some of them have been known to brag about what they did, completely unrepentant, because they were getting rid of "leftist terrorists." This is what happens when people of a different ideology are demonized, that is to say, stripped of their humanity, thus rendered unworthy of any humane treatment and subject to the most egregious violations of their dignity and human rights by "monsters" who feel justified in doing anything to stop the "enemy."

According to a recent survey, cheating in U.S. high schools is decreasing. Let's put aside for a moment that those self-reporting surveys are highly self-serving and untrustworthy.  I very much doubt that high-school students are really more honest now, but, even if this is the case, where do all those cheaters in universities come from? The fact is that cheating in college campuses is on the rise, even in those Ivy-League institutions that are taken to be on hallowed ground. A cynic would say that maybe it's because high school has gotten easier and college much more difficult, so there is a greater need to cheat at the higher level. Maybe. But, I wouldn't put too much credence in that explanation. I think that cheating is as common as ever; now easier than ever before, with all the gadgets and information technology available to everybody, students and teachers, who themselves have been caught plagiarizing other people's work. So, let's not celebrate the rise

Maybe it's all those lies it has told for so long, but, now, the Catholic Church has started to come clean on some basic beliefs. Like Jesus' birth and early years. The Pope, no less, has written a book in which he admits that Jesus' date of birth is all wrong, there were no animals in the manger and no singing angels either. Wow! Now, I ask myself: When did the Pope and his scholars realize all this? More importantly, what else is not true?  The thing is that all along there have been serious people who have said that a lot of what has been taught about Jesus was simply not true. And yet, the Church dismissed them as enemies of the faith. Now, all of a sudden, the Pope accepts what we knew all along: there is a lot of myth in the Biblical story of Jesus and the rest of Scripture. After 2,000 years, the Truth is finally coming out and will really set us free.

By now, it's abundantly clear that the "Arab Spring" has had its "Fall." After all the blood, sweat and tears that went on getting rid of those bad guys, in order to bring democracy, freedom and human rights to the region, there isn't all that much to celebrate. Take Egypt, for example. President Morsi, duly elected, is on a fast track to become a dictator. He has just issued an edict whereby his decisions are not subject to judicial review. So, much for an independent judiciary, a basic tenet of a functioning democracy and the rule of law. Maybe thousands of years of pharaoh rule are too much to erase from spring to fall.

Better late than never. Spain has decided to right a very old wrong, by awarding its citizenship to Sephardic Jews that present proof of their ancestry, without having to have lived in Spain for two years, as previously required. As we all know, in 1492, Spain expelled Jews from its territory, except those who converted to Christianity. That was not only unfair but unwise, given the loss of intelligence, scholarship and talent it entailed. But, prejudice -- especially religious -- is very powerful and dies hard. So, it has taken the country these five centuries to correct that big mistake. Maybe, if there had been more Jews in Spain all these years, they could have lent their financial talent to avoid the economic crisis the country finds itself in.

Oh, my God! The Pope has been talking about prison reform and the rights of prisoners, urging European authorities to focus on rehabilitation, not just on punishment. Either he's cynical or senile -- maybe both -- because in the recent case of his butler, the man has complained that, while in custody at the Vatican, he was kept in a tiny cell with the lights on constantly for about three weeks. Of course, this is the same institution that came up with the Inquisition, so...

Unless I'm very much mistaken, something tells me that the Spanish prosecutor who has requested a $10.5 million bail for the King's son-in-law in the corruption case won't be around much longer. Such a high amount clearly implies that the man is considered a huge flight risk, and that can't sit well with the monarchy, which is already beleaguered by this scandal and others of its own making. To doubt that this man will appear in court to answer whatever charges may be brought against him is somewhat of an insult to him and reflects badly on the Spanish crown also. So, I wouldn't be surprised if, like in judge Garzón's case, some "reason" is uncovered for the prosecutor's dismissal or demotion, or charges of some kind are brought against him.

There is a definite worldwide movement to change how marijuana is dealt with. For a long time, it was just the Dutch who had a radically different public policy on the matter. But, now, somehow, more and more people have become convinced that , in certain circumstances and under certain controls, it is permissible to use marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes. There is a growing trend to decriminalize it and, ultimately, legalize it in places as disparate as Uruguay and various states in the U.S. Of course, there is still a majority who feels that the world is "going to pot" -- pun intended -- if  a more lax approach to marijuana use is adopted. But,  it seems that sometime in the not-so-distant future there will be an international consensus on a more realistic way of dealing with this issue

I suppose Hamid Karzai has to show that he's not just a puppet of the U.S. as president of Afghanistan, so, from time to time, he comes out demanding this or that from the Americans or denouncing some of their excesses there. But, in the end, it amounts to nothing because he has no real power, except that which the U.S. has vested in him. All that grandstanding is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to look "presidential" before his own people and the rest of the world, but to no avail. We can all see who's pulling his strings.

Talk about a double standard! Leon Panetta, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, has just been in Cambodia holding talks with its leader, a former Khmer Rouge thug of "killing fields" repute. Once more, this shows how the Americans pick and choose the regimes they deal with not according to their human rights record or its "democracy", but to how useful they may be to the U.S. interests in the region in which the countries are located or how accommodating they are to American wishes.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense has ordered an investigation of the moral debacle among military top brass, based on not just the Petraeus and Allen affair but also on some other recent ones. Since Panetta doesn't seem to have a clue as to why the "best and the brightest" behave like the worst and the dumbest, let me give him a couple of hints. First, graduating from Annapolis or West Point doesn't change human nature; those people are still human beings subject to the failings and passions of everybody else. Once, you start believing that "officer and a gentleman" propaganda you're in trouble because you lose the proper perspective and miss the signs that are usually there, as well as you tend to make allowances for things that, ultimately, get out of hand. Second, people who put on a uniform feel special and entitled, and all that admiration and adulation; all that hero worship, sooner or later, affects their moral compass. Needless to say, these are

Half-a-century ago, the Catholic Church went through aggiornamento , a process of updating itself, as a result of the Second Vatican Council. One of its most visible reforms was allowing the mass to be celebrated in each community's language, instead of the Latin version. This was a significant step in bringing people closer to the Church and its major liturgical event. Now, inexplicably, the Vatican is calling for a comeback to Latin, claiming that some of the trouble that the Church finds itself in is due to the fact that its hierarchy and rank and file have gotten away from the wisdom that the texts in Latin contain. In other words, in order to go forward, the Church has to go back to the time when ordinary people didn't have a clue as to what was being said. I suppose that, sensing that it is losing ground in the modern world, the Vatican has opted for an extremely conservative position on everything, including language. But, it seems to me that, except for some clearly-d

The man who would destroy the Sphinx, the Pyramids and other Egyptian antiquities is deranged and very dangerous; a cultural terrorist. As in other parts of the world, those treasures in Egypt don't just belong to the people there but to the rest of mankind. To destroy them would be a crime against humanity, to be punished in the harshest way possible. There is absolutely no justification, religious or otherwise, for the barbaric act of depriving the world of such wonders. Egypt must be very vigilant of any move on his part, and act swiftly to prevent  him from doing any harm to its cultural treasures.

On top of everything else, the Vatican now reveals itself as a sore loser. Furious over the fact that homosexual marriage is being steadily recognized legally all around the world, it has gone on a sarcastic tangent predicting that this could lead to polygamy and polyandry being recognized also. In other words, the end of civilization as we know it. All this from an institution that has carried out the most comprehensive cover up of child-sex abuse in history, and has absolutely no credibility, moral or otherwise.

As usual, the Catholic Church engages in denial, equivocation and splitting hairs, when it tries to disassociate itself from the crimes committed by the military junta in Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Videla, the former dictator, has pointed out that the Church was an accomplice of his regime, which killed or "disappeared" close to 30,000 people, as well as kidnapped babies of those killed or disappeared to sell or give to members of the ruling class. There is a pattern here very similar to what the Church in Spain did during the Franco regime, which gives credence to what Videla has revealed. The Church allied itself with the far right against what it perceived as communism or any other Godless creed, not caring too much about what was being done in the name of fighting it.

They just don't get it. The U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting next week, but it won't be discussing the case of a bishop that two months ago was the first to be found guilty of covering up a priest who dabbled in child pornography. So, in typical Catholic-Church fashion, they won't talk about it, sort of pretending that it never happened. The convicted bishop, by the way, will be in attendance, given the fact that he was granted probation. In light of things like this, why anyone would have any respect for the Church hierarchy is beyond me.

Al those millions spent on scientific polls, and an old witch doctor in a Kenyan village correctly predicted the outcome of the tight U.S. presidential race. Granted that he lives in the village of Obama's ancestors, but, still, the man knows how to work those bones and shells. Maybe there is something more than meets the eye there.

By now, it's abundantly clear that child sexual abuse has been and is a major social scourge all over the world. Worse than that, that institutions such as churches, universities, non-profit and governments have, in different ways, engaged in covering up these crimes, mostly to keep up appearances and protect their images. People who thought that they had gotten away with it, now find that the past has come back to haunt them. This is the case in Wales, where twelve years ago they conducted an investigation that now appears to have been superficial and is undergoing a closer scrutiny by the British government. It's embarrassing, to say the least, that public institutions have failed to do proper investigations of such heinous crimes, and now find themselves having to go back and make things right.

Time was when it was almost an article of faith that the Army -- or the Armed Forces, in general -- "made men out of boys", meaning that military discipline was beneficial to rebellious or otherwise troubled youth. (I never believed that, for a minute.) Now it seems that every day we find out how far from the truth that stereotypical notion really is. The latest episode has taken place during a visit of a U.S. Navy ship to Vladivostok. Although all of the facts have not been disclosed, heavy drinking was involved and we can pretty much guess the rest of it. It was serious enough to cause the commanding officer and some other officers to be relieved of duty. So much for all that "An Officer and a Gentleman" myth.

Americans, Left and Right, frequently say that they will move to Canada, if politics doesn't go their way. It's a recognition that, in many instances, Canada has a better system than the one put in place in the U.S. Be that as it may, Americans or anyone else, for that matter, should stay home and fight for a better country. Leaving does no good. If people of good conscience leave the country to those with the wrong values, there will never be any social progress. So, as hard as it might be to take, there is a great deal to be said for staying in one's homeland, especially, when things are going badly.

There must be something in the water or in the air. American armed forces personnel keep attacking Okinawans, as regularly as taking part in one of their war games on the island. Usually, it's raping a woman, but, in the latest incident, an airman went into a family home, attacked a 13-year-old boy and "flew" off a third-story balcony. At this time, there are no more details, but I would hazard a guess that this is some kind of homosexual rage fueled by drugs. Whatever the cause, it comes on the heels of last month's rape, which prompted a nighttime curfew that this airman violated. Which goes to show that, as long as those troops are there, there will continue to be these kinds of incidents, no matter what measures are taken. Both American and Japanese authorities are clearly powerless to stop them. Okinawans will continue to be victims of both governments' indifference. They may be concerned about "national security", but are totally oblivious to ind

Here's an odd and interesting little news item. Former President George Bush, Jr. has forbidden press coverage of his speech at an investment conference at the Cayman Islands. Why all the secrecy? It can't be for any good reason.