One Man's Opinion

In order to fully grasp the nonsensical nature of the piece of legislation passed yesterday by the U.S. House of Representatives on the status of Puerto Rico, one only has to consider the following. The bill calls for a two-step process to consult the people of Puerto Rico on the kind of political relationship that they want with the U.S. The first vote would be on whether they want to continue with the present status or not. Obviously, if the majority were to vote yes, there would be no need for a second vote. If the majority were to vote no, then there would be a second vote to choose between statehood, independence, free association and - guess what - the present status. Now, would someone explain to me how is it possible to include the status rejected in the first vote, as one of the valid alternatives in the second vote? As it has been pointed out countless times, if the present status is the problem - otherwise, there would be no need to go through this process - by simple ...

Laura Bush has waited all these years to come clean about the car crash, in which, when she was 17, she killed a young man.  The fact is that she was speeding, got distracted, ran a stop sign and killed him.  According to her, she hasn't had a good night's sleep since.  Of course, she got away with it.  Hell, she even married a future President of the United States...not that he was much of one. Maybe, if justice had been done, by her being punished in some fashion, she wouldn't be so haunted by the memory of that tragedy.  I suppose she knows, deep down, that she deserved to pay for what she did.  Ultimately, she has ended paying for it all her life.

Now, I'm against the Arizona immigration law as much as anyone, but the fact of the matter is that this is to be expected in a country as racist as the U.S. is. No one with the least notion of American history should be surprised with this initiative. Other states will follow suit, and pretty soon you will have quite a few with the same legislation. As I've said before, this is no coincidence; it's all part of a plan to give Obama a hard time and challenge his leadership. Governors are defying the Federal government, by claiming that they have the right to pass laws that fly in the face of the U.S. Constitution, a Presidential directive or a Congressional mandate. The Union is crumbling fast, and there is very little that Obama can do, if enough states decide to go their own way in matters of public policy and a national agenda. They are determined to make the Black President fail.

I suppose that, sooner or later, it will happen to the best of us: we lose our mind.  Stephen Hawking, the brilliant physicist, has begun to talk about aliens and speculate on what they might look like and how they might behave.  In science fiction tradition, Hawking has said that they will be "dangerous", probably out to colonize us. For all we know, he could be right, but this whole scenario seems to be taken from one of those B-movies of the 1950's, in which aliens always had bad intentions towards Earth.  At 68, Hawking could be showing the early signs of some sort of senile dementia and is becoming delusional. A [great] mind is a terrible thing to [lose].

Wal-Mart , the world's biggest retailer and private employer, is facing a huge class-action suit by female employees who claim that they were discriminated against in terms of pay and promotion, based on their gender. The company has been fighting it since 2001, but it now appears to be headed for trial. Corporate giants feel that they can crush "the little people" and get away with it, as is wont to happen. But, once in a while, they have the fortitude to fight back for as long as it takes, to make them pay for it. Let's hope that this is one of those times, and that, at the end of the day, justice is done.

A year ago, former bishop and now President of Paraguay Fernando Lugo made headlines when he had to admit that, literally, he had been a father while being called one as a priest. Now, he makes headlines by signing a law that suspends certain basic criminal procedure rights for 30 days, so that, supposedly, it is easier to deal with a guerrilla group that is a major problem. Lugo has said that this doesn't really alter the rule of law in the country. Really? On the other hand, I find it interesting that the law will only be in effect for 30 days, as if that is all that it will take to get rid of the rebels. It seems to me that Lugo has given in to the first temptation of heads of state in a democracy: take a page out of the book of fascism, to make it "easier" to meet the challenges they face. But, in the end, that will only lead to totalitarianism, something the Paraguayans know all too well.

The signing of the immigration bill by Arizona's governor is the latest in a growing trend of defiance of the Federal government. Obama is being challenged every step of the way. Whites are on the move against the Black man in the White House. They are, literally, up in arms, witness the recent demonstration in which the participants were fully armed. Secession or something worse is the next step. Certain states are saying, in effect, that they do not recognize federal authority over them, and they won't abide by Federal law. The ink wasn't dry on the health reform law, when various states' Attorneys General were suing Obama over it, in a clear sign of the disrespect that they feel for the man. In a way, a "civil" war has begun in the U.S. Let's hope that it doesn't reach a climax similar to the one in the theater in the previous one.