One Man's Opinion

The attorney for 14 Guantánamo prisoners who have been cleared for release for years  has reminded us of the hollow promises of President Obama, once again in his State-of-the-Union message. Victims of the biggest Kafkaesque situation, if there ever was one, these detainees are languishing in prison, trapped in a legal limbo that no one seems to know how to get them out of. Obama appears to be unable or unwilling to correct this miscarriage of justice. Congress has no interest whatsoever in dealing with this issue. And so it goes that these human beings have gone insane, committed suicide or will eventually die of heartbreak, despair and sickness. What a legacy for Barack Obama!

Ultimately, the Italian Mafia's biggest crime won't have anything to do with guns and violence, but with making people sick with cancer and killing them with it. The Camorra , one of the Mafia branches, has been involved in disposing of toxic waste illegally and dangerously. The places where the camorristas have dumped this waste have an unusually-high rate of cancer and death from the disease. As is the case with this organization's other unlawful activities, the authorities have been unable to put a stop to it. Environmental experts have concluded that the damage is so extensive that it will be impossible to do anything about it. Long after the crime bosses have died, they will go on killing their paisanos.

Here's an easy one for the Pope. The German 80-year-old Cardinal who said that a Catholic family is worth three Muslim ones had asked to retire, but the Pope said no. The Cardinal had recently repeated his request to retire. He will surely get his wish now. Though the man probably has had these same views all long, there's no question that elderly people tend to be as inconveniently candid as little children. Having them in positions of authority or power runs the risk of these embarrassing or hurtful statements that reflect poorly on the institution of which these people are part of.

CELAC is on the right track. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is an organization that does what should have been done a long time ago: set our own course, free of undue influence of the U.S. Ever since the infamous Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. has treated Latin America as its "backyard", a term that speaks volumes about American attitudes toward its neighbors in this hemisphere. Thus, history shows that the U.S. has pretty much had its way in the region, intervening --mostly, on the wrong side of things -- in our countries. Many of our problems have been created or worsened by American meddling. So, this effort is long overdue. Latin America has to start saying no to U.S. "aid" and other forms of its intervention that come with too many strings attached. Depending on American "grants" and accepting other more subtle ways of their having their greedy fingers on too many of our pies has to be put behind us, so that we can get rid of this n

Abroad. Back by the 28th, God willing.

There are traditions that are worthy of being followed and honored, but others should be discarded as unwanted relics of a time when discrimination and oppression were largely accepted. To oppose the performance of female choirs at Canterbury Cathedral is ludicrous in this day and age. The fact that only men have sung there for a thousand years does not mean that it is the right thing to do. For too long a time, women were excluded absurdly from all sorts of venues. To use those illegal and immoral practices as "precedents" to continue denying women equal participation in all walks of life and opportunities is patently absurd and offensive to the most basic notions of justice and human rights.

As my son likes to say: "Why am I not surprised?" The U.S. Government, from Obama on down, has been lying about the  alleged "50 terrorist plots" that have been averted by the intelligence gathered by the NSA spying program. An independent study has determined that this is a false claim put forth to justify the illegal program. The American government tries to convince its people that the spying is needed and useful, in order to keep them safe, when, in actual fact, very little of what is gathered this way is really useful. Informants are still the main source of intelligence of any value. Tapping phones and reading e-mails indiscriminately and on a large scale add very little to the productive intelligence effort. Of course, the U.S. Government had to come up with an excuse for this outrageous violation of constitutional rights and international law, so, true to form, it chose to lie.

Much is being made these days of the killing of the Venezuelan actress and former beauty queen and her ex-husband. It is only natural, given her fame and notoriety, as well as the country's high crime rate. But, I have the feeling that enemies of the Maduro government, both at home and abroad, have seized the tragedy to, once more, play politics. You would think that Maduro killed them both personally. This is one more thing for which to blame him; another example of his dysfunctional regime. The fact of the matter is that we live in an extremely-violent world. Can we in Puerto Rico cast stones at Venezuela in this regard? Can Americans? Of course not. Very few countries in the world can really boast about a low crime rate. The rest of the world should stop holding Venezuela to standards that almost none of it is able to come up to. We all have plenty to take care of in our own countries, to be so "concerned" with what goes on in Venezuela.

The rich and the powerful -- one and the same -- very often feel superior to everybody else and look down on them. Though they may make an effort to conceal their true feelings, once in a while, they will do or say something that reveals them. This is what seems to have happened to the Thai beer heiress whose remarks about rural people's lack of political sophistication have caused an enormous backlash against, among other things, the family business. By, essentially, calling many of her customers stupid, she has done a very stupid thing herself. Now, sales of the family beer have dropped dramatically, and the business"goodwill" has, overnight, turned into "ill will." The woman forgot the golden rule of business. Although the people may be "wrong" politically, the customer is always right.

Every time that people start to speculate about Fidel's death or poor health, he shows up, just to spite them. A few days after the 55th  anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban revolution, at 87 , he attended the opening of an art exhibition. My father used to say that Fidel was proof-positive that there was nothing to bad faith, curses, ill-will or voodoo; otherwise, he would have been dead a long time ago. Even the CIA and the FBI, with all their combined "dirty tricks", gave up trying to kill him. Astrologers and other prognosticators no longer bother to predict that "Fidel will die this year", so that they don't continue to embarrass themselves. As I've said time and again, he will die when he wants to.

The pettiness in politics! It is now quite clear that, at least, members of New Jersey Governor's staff went about ordering the closure of traffic lanes over the George Washington Bridge, just to get at a New Jersey mayor who did not endorse the Governor. For four days, this went on last September, causing chaos, while these people exchanged e-mails gloating over the whole thing. This is no youthful prank or practical joke, but an egregious abuse of power, that shows that, for all its political propaganda, U.S. politics is just as bad as, if not worse, than that of other countries that Americans like to look down on. 

"Going through the motions" is the best way to describe what the German authorities are doing with some of the Nazi war criminals that are being brought to trial now that they are in their eighties and nineties. No wonder they are letting a 92-year-old man accused of murder go, for "gaps in evidence", due, in large part, to the fact that key witnesses are dead . If you wait long enough to prosecute someone, witnesses will die or turn senile, documents will disappear, or the accused will die of old age. Now, they are prosecuting an 88-year-old former member of the SS charged with the murder of 25 French citizens in 1944. More than likely, it will all come to naught. German authorities are doing this, in order to be able to say that they are doing something about these war crimes, but it's clear that their hearts are not in it. They are just doing it to be "on record" as being anti-Nazi. This is just too little, too late. Way too late.

Trying to be funny all the time can get one in trouble. Most of the people that have had to apologize publicly for a remark recently have made the mistake of going too far looking to appear witty, and have ended with egg on their faces. The tasteless "humor" about Mitt Romney's adopted black grandchild is a case in point, made more outrageous by the fact that a black TV journalist was in on it. It was a senseless attempt to be funny about something that was clearly hurtful to the child's family. The fact that Romney is a public figure is no justification for making fun of this baby and his relationship to Romney and the rest of the family. People have to learn when to just shut up, so that they do not have to apologize afterwards.

When Death comes looking for you, it will find you, no matter what. Imagine someone getting killed by a bomb dropped 70 years ago. That's what just happened in Germany, where a person was killed and 13 -- unlucky number -- others were injured by a World War II bomb set off by a bulldozer. The explosion was so strong that it was heard and felt almost 20 miles away. Witnesses say that the surrounding area looks like a battlefield. That war may be over, but it's still killing people long after. A sad and tragic reminder of why "war is hell."

Come October, Toronto will have the opportunity to make things right, by booting its mayor out of office, given that, not only has he refused to step down, but also that he has filed his candidacy for another term. Even if it were true that, as some people claim, he has been a good mayor, he is clearly unfit to continue in office. Only those who hold that his personal life has nothing to do with his performance as mayor fail to see the problem, and it would be a waste of time trying to explain it to them. Let us hope that these people are a minority of those who will vote in October.

I would be very much surprised if Obama were to heed The New York Times' call for clemency for Snowden, or, for that matter, The Guardian's  one for a pardon. The fact that both newspapers have come out in his favor shows that the legal issue is not of paramount importance in this case. No one disputes that Snowden broke the law. But, as so many before him, he did so for a higher purpose. As a lawyer, I have a healthy respect for the law, but I also believe that sometimes you have to break it, in order to expose its inconsistency with what's decent, fair and just. As the NYT has so correctly put it, Snowden has done his country and the rest of the world "a great service." Too bad that Obama will not see it this way.  

"The world is going to pot." Literally. Like other social developments of this past year, such as same-sex marriage, the legalization of marijuana is a growing trend that is unstoppable. Sooner, rather than later, many other countries are going to follow Uruguay's lead. Today in the U.S., Colorado makes it legal to buy it for recreational use by people over 21. By the end of 2014, Colorado won't be the only state to have done so. Slowly but surely, marijuana is becoming socially acceptable all over the world. The myths associated with its use are being challenged and replaced with a rational public policy. Non-smokers of tobacco like me won't touch the stuff either. But, it's a choice we make that should be based on the correct information. Personally, I don't believe in inhaling smoke of any kind. But, I don't mind if someone else gets a kick out of it.