One Man's Opinion

As I've pointed out time and again, the U.S. has a double standard when judging other countries and itself. In this, Obama is no better than his predecessors. Sadly, because he knows better. But, he repeats the same old script that calls for him to denounce and warn other countries about what they do at home and abroad. Russia, which is still the "evil empire", is lectured about what it might or might not do in the Ukraine. Meanwhile, why doesn't anybody warn Obama about what the U.S. has been doing in Puerto Rico for the last 115 years ?

As usual, the departing U.S. Ambassador to -- in this case, China -- almost any country takes some parting shots at the country he or she leaves behind. Once again, the Americans lecture the rest of the world on democracy and human rights. You know, issues in which the U.S. has always had a perfect record and has the moral standing to scold others. I would love, if only once, to hear a departing ambassador from another country call out the U.S. for its treatments of blacks and other minorities, the detainees at Guantánamo, a political prisoner such as Oscar López Rivera and last, but, certainly, not least having Puerto Rico as its colony in the 21st century. How about them apples!

Anyone who has ever taken up the guitar, however modestly, has to be saddened by the death of Paco de Lucía, the world's greatest flamenco guitarist, and one of the greatest guitarists ever in any musical idiom. Luckily, a career that spanned more than 50 years gave the world ample opportunity to experience his dazzling virtuosity. He, quite simply, changed flamenco forever. Mere words are insufficient to do him justice. The best homage has been paid by guitarists everywhere who have been his followers in style and technique. His music and legacy live on. He has achieved a well-deserved immortality.

Explain this to me. How is it that creating chaos in every possible way, including stopping traffic, is going to help fight crime and poor economic conditions? So, do you demand increased public safety by creating unsafe conditions all over a city? Is the economy going to improve if people take to the streets every day and do nothing but protest against the government? Are you going to hold a new election every time you don't like some public policy or decision? Is it, then, fair for the other side to do the same, once your side wins? When will it stop?

Money buys most things, including political appointments. If only you got your money's worth, then it wouldn't be so bad. But, sometimes, those who are appointed for ambassadorships, for example, are clearly unqualified, by being painfully ignorant. In recent confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate, three of Obama's picks embarrassed themselves by failing to answer simple questions about the countries they were going to. In the case of Hungary, the woman was at a loss to explain important issues she would have to face. The ambassador-to-be to Norway thought that the governing political party was the opposition. They guy going to Argentina has never been there. Besides their dumbness, the link between them is the fact that they have been important donors or fund raisers for the Obama campaign. Once again, Obama talks a good game, but he has come up short on the promises of change.

Obama is really out of luck. On top of being a "lame-duck" President, and having some key parts of  his agenda blocked by the Republicans, he bet a couple of cases of beer -- a questionable move, to my mind -- with the Canadian Prime Minister over the hockey teams at the Winter Olympics. As we all know by now, both the U.S. female and male teams lost to Canada. Not only that, but the men's team finished out of the medals entirely. Lucky for him, he won't be around for the next Olympics.

By now, the whole world is aware that some of those striking images that supposedly depict police brutality and other abuses by the Venezuelan government are false, that is, pictures taken of conflicts in other countries. This is no small matter because it shows the kind of people who present themselves as defenders of democracy, freedom and human rights. These values have to be defended with the truth. If the people in the opposition resort to this type of dishonesty, they have no credibility and have disqualified themselves as legitimate alternatives to the present government.

Sex in religious circles is rampant. It's not just Catholics -- although they seem to have a commanding lead in it -- but other religious denominations who are being led astray by "the world, the flesh and the devil." At the second-biggest monastery in Bulgaria, an Orthodox bishop was taped in an orgy with four women. One supposes they were all adults and this was consensual sex, but, still, the bishop was dismissed. Somehow, I don't think that sending him to a monastery for prayer and reflection would do him any good...

It's certainly newsworthy that the editors of three of Spain's major newspapers have been replaced in a very short time period. Coincidence? Not likely. The more plausible explanation has to do with their stance on very sensitive issues, such as the troubles at the Royal House, government corruption and the Catalonian independence movement. It seems that what they published ruffled too many feathers, so they were plucked from positions in which they could reveal more embarrassing information and create a public opinion contrary to the interests of those in power. All this goes to show that freedom of the press is a very relative thing, and that even countries that decry the lack of freedom elsewhere are the first to curtail it at home when it suits their purposes.

There must be some message in this. A giant sinkhole has swallowed eight expensive Corvettes at the --get this -- Kentucky's National Corvette Museum. To get a sense of the disaster, a member of the -- get this too -- Long Island Corvette Owners Association said about the museum: " There's a sense of awe and you get a lump in your throat when you walk inside." There's definitely a God.

It's a scary thought that, in 2014, one in four Americans and one in three Europeans don't know the Earth orbits the Sun. Four-and-a half centuries after Galileo, there are still millions of people in the so-called developed world that are, in a sense, in the Dark Ages. This is why they are so gullible and easy to manipulate politically, and are willing to do what any fanatic tells them to. So much money spent on education has really gone down the drain, when people have the wrong information on basic and common knowledge. No wonder they elect such bad leaders and favor stupid policies! They have no clue about elementary concepts and no reasoning skills. In spite of mankind's progress in so many areas, ignorance is still widespread and contagious.

Another snake-handling preacher has bit the dust, bitten by a poisonous snake. The man believed that God would protect him from the venom, so he refused medical treatment, and died. Why this fascination with serpents? I suppose that it has to do with the Garden of Eden story and the one about Moses and one of the plagues on Egypt. People who take all of the Bible as true end up doing stupid things, hurting themselves and others. The idea that you can put God to the test by taking insane risks, expecting that He will save you is...well, insane. Religious instruction and preaching need to communicate that faith does not extend to circus-like acts or tricks.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that the U.S. is behind the street protests in Venezuela, in some way or fashion. This is no conspiracy-theory raving, but what experience dictates. Forty years ago, the world saw similar "spontaneous" protests against Allende in Chile. Decades later, declassified dispatches from the American ambassador there revealed U.S. involvement, including the fact that Washington had authorized an $8 million budget to destabilize the Allende government. So, let's not be naive and think that all this going on in Venezuela is just a popular movement with no foreign intervention. Nothing just happens in countries governed by people who are not subservient to the Americans. The U.S. will fund the opposition and will resort to every trick in the book, including mayhem, murder and sabotage, to topple a government that it is unable to defeat at the polls.

Maybe they should have mutinied. The crew of the Bounty replica, that is. An investigation of the October, 2012 sinking has determined that the captain was to blame, for his recklessness in sailing into Hurricane Sandy's path with a 50-year-old ship and an inexperienced crew. This modern-day Bligh, presumed dead, shared the hubris and insanity of his 1789 predecessor, causing the death of a woman crew member whose last name was Christian . The poor woman had been on board just five months, when she met her untimely death. I suppose that those who believe in such things must be thinking that there's something that makes the captain of the Bounty do insane things...

Like the Catholic Church, Spain takes its time to right its wrongs. (The fact that Spain and the Catholic Church were one and the same for centuries must be duly noted.) The Spanish government is on the verge of passing a law that will allow people of Sephardic-Jew ancestry to apply for Spanish citizenship. More than 500 years have gone by since the injustice committed in 1492 with the expulsion of Jews from Spain. One would have thought that it should not have taken so much time for Spain to recognize it and make amends. But, prejudice dies hard, and countries, like individuals, find it extremely difficult to apologize sincerely and do what is right after an unjust situation has gone on for a long time. One can only think of the millions who suffered so much needlessly and died with a broken heart, all because of religious differences.

If you're like me, you think that France is synonymous with haute cuisine , and so it is, but, in this world in which we are constantly surprised and disappointed, we now find out that a good number of French restaurants have been "cheating", by not disclosing the fact that they use frozen and pre-packed foods in their menus. So much so, that the French government wants to pass a law that would force restaurants to advise its clients of the fact that a dish is either made with fresh ingredients entirely or not. A sort of "truth-in-dining" loi. The truth is that the French food industry is quite good --I can attest to that, given my frequent visits -- and its products are of homemade quality. Still, I'm all for full disclosure in all matters, and the fait maison label is a welcome development that should be adopted worldwide.

As any well-informed person knows, the Bible is not "Gospel-true" in everything it says. Its fundamental Truth does not extend to all it encompasses. Much of it is not to be taken literally, but as literary conventions with a didactic and moral purpose. Indeed, the "Devil" is in its details. For example, we now know that camels were not in existence in Israel and its environment during the time period covered by Genesis. So, all those references to them -- more than 20 -- in stories about Abraham, Jacob and Joseph in the Old Testament are simply not true. The explanation is  a rather simple and well-known one: much of the Bible was written and rewritten a long time after the events took place. Thus the anachronisms. Luckily, by the time Jesus was born, the Three Wise Men had camels to ride on...

From the looks of it, Japan is a sort of sexual playground for the U.S. Armed Forces, which -- pun intended -- force sex on Japanese women. There is ample documentation that indicates that U.S. military personnel abuse women there and, by and large, get away with it. Although the sexual abuse goes on wherever there are American troops at home and abroad, in Japan's case, there is a higher percentage of cases in which the culprits are either never brought to justice, or their punishment, if any, is negligible. The military -- a power unto itself -- takes care of its own, and, in doing so, it has gone to great lengths to protect them from prosecution for sex crimes. Much has been said about this situation, in which military commanders have the final word on what happens with these cases, but very little has been done to change its self-serving nature. So, the impunity goes on, in spite of congressional and executive-branch disapproval. Which goes to show who really calls the shot...

This is a biggie! They are announcing a recall of almost 9 million pounds of meat  in the U.S., that was allowed to be put into the marketplace during one full year, without being properly inspected. Which begs the question about how much good is this recall going to do now. According to the U.S. Government, the consumption of these meat could have "serious, adverse health consequences or death." All this in a country that is always boasting about its quality control and health and safety regulations, while bad-mouthing everybody else's around the world. Ha!

The Amanda Knox case in Italy has been seized upon by the American media to portray her as a victim of that country's corrupt and inefficient criminal justice system. Not true, says Alan Dershowitz, whose legal credentials are widely known and recognized. In a recent interview, he has said three very important things. First and foremost, that, contrary to what has been published in the U.S., there is more than enough evidence of Knox's guilt, not only to convict her in Italy but also in American courts. Second, that American media has painted an unfair picture of the Italian justice system, as something akin to kangaroo courts. Third, that the U.S. has no moral standing to criticize Italy, given how the American legal system treats minorities and the poor. I rest my case.

Clearly, the American government has a reckless disregard for the rest of the world, and does very little to be diplomatic about it. The comment by Victoria Nuland, U.S. "top diplomat for Europe", about the European Union is the latest and clearest example. As previous leaks by Assange and Snowden have shown, Americans think very little of even their supposed allies or friends. When caught in these embarrassing situations, they focus on who leaked the information. Who cares if it was the Russians? The important thing is that this is what the person who represents the U.S. in Europe really thinks about the whole continent. I assume that she will be fired or asked to "resign", but the damage has been done. After all the revelations about the U.S. spying on them, now it's official. The American diplomatic policy is: Fuck them!

Is it just me or U.S. media harps on any and all things that go wrong in China and Russia? I get the sense that there is a propaganda motivation behind this constant reporting about accidents and malfunctions that happen in these two "rivals" of the U.S. It's as if to show that things there are not as good as in the USA. So,  a dozen people die in an accident in China -- with a population of 1,200 million -- and it makes headlines in American media. Something breaks down in Russia, and it gets reported ad nauseam . The impression that is given is that Chinese products and services are trash and nothing works in Russia. Consequently, the U.S. is secure in its God-given role as not only the "leader of the free world", but also the best at everything it does. How pathetic!

Obama has clearly lost his way in a host of issues. Afghanistan, for example. True, he inherited the problem, but he hasn't done much to extricate himself from it. As is the case in Guantánamo, the President has shown himself to be a hostage of the Generals. The "military-industrial complex", as Eisenhower so aptly put it, is the real power behind the Oval Office, and it has imposed its will on Presidents past, current and future, most likely. So, now, Obama wrestles with the problem, while he hand-wrestles with "his" Generals, but they have the upper hand. In a scenario that repeats itself over and over, the U.S. invades a country, puts a government in place that ends up being as bad or worse than the one it replaced, and then is unable to pull out in a reasonable time period, while getting its youth killed for no reason. After 13 years, the Americans have not accomplished anything of lasting value in Afghanistan, but they can't let go of what was a losin...

The American ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, has resigned after just two years on the job. As is so often the case, he wants to "spend more time with his family", which had been living with him but returned to the United States recently. The truth is that the man made a mess of things, mainly because he was anything but diplomatic. He went to Russia to consort with the opposition and communicate with people outside official channels through a blog and a Twitter account. In short, either the guy didn't have a clue as to what his role there was, or he simply didn't care the impression he made in his host country. Either way, he was clearly unfit to be ambassador anywhere.

Americans who have had the opportunity to go to Cuba are discovering that it isn't all that bad, and are coming out in favor of ending the U.S. embargo. In other words, they are finding out that their own government has been portraying Cuba unfairly, while doing all it can to make things worse for the country. People of good will realize that the U.S. has no business punishing Cuba for having a different system and doing things its own way. Also, they come to understand that the human rights issue is a sham, given the fact that the U.S. has perfectly normal relations with autocratic governments and dictatorships of all kinds throughout the world. Why single out Cuba? The U.S thought that letting Americans go to Cuba would help change Cubans' attitude toward its government. Ironically, it's the Americans who are having a change of heart on the matter.

The death of Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great loss for acting, and a sad reminder that talent is frequently associated with character flaws that, ultimately, destroy it. Hoffman was one of the best actors of his generation, but his drug habit proved to be the death of him. At 46, he surely had a lot of wonderful performances in him still. He will continue to live on in his movies, and we'll think of what might have been.

In an unusual twist on things, a Catholic priest in Colombia has been arrested for leading a far-right militia group. Usually, the case has been that priests, inspired by the "theology of liberation", have taken up arms or, at least, given aid and comfort to leftist guerrilla groups, Colombian Father Camilo Torres being the best example of this. In this case, though, the priest organized what amounted to a death squad against people whom he thought were rebels. He had been convicted, but was a fugitive, until a few days ago. Maybe he thought he was doing the Lord's work. The Lord of Darkness, that is.