One Man's Opinion

Not to be outdone by scandals in the Catholic Church and other Western religious institutions, Buddhist monks in Thailand continue to  compete very favorably in the wide world of religious scandals. In complete contradiction to their core beliefs, a somewhat significant part of the country's monks have embraced greed, lust and the other capital sins, with great enthusiasm. While some of their fellow monks burn themselves as protest against repressive regimes, these Thai monks are on their way to burn in hell for their worldly ways.

You gotta love this Pope! It's not just for his new and bold takes on so many issues, moral and otherwise, but for a most endearing and redeeming quality: his sense of humor. Twice now, he has joked about the Argentine reputation for being arrogant, and he has done so in a most unusual way. The first time, he joked about how a countryman of his might commit suicide, which, of course, is a sin.  The second time, he has just said that, being from Argentina, people expected him to take the name Jesus II as Pope, which shows that he's not afraid to "take the Lord's name in vain." No better Pope than one that cracks a good joke...or two.

Needless to say, what is going on in Baltimore is inexcusable. Destruction and looting have nothing to do with legitimate protests over Freddie Gray's death. But, at the same time, one can  understand the anger and frustration of blacks in the U.S. as they watch what has become a common practice: the killing of black men by police in dubious circumstances. There have been too many of these cases, and not much seems to de done about it. In a very real way, for blacks,  the police is the enemy,  and there's no escaping from it. Most of the time, they get away with murder. Black lives don't matter.

We are told that Russian hackers have read Obama's email. Why shouldn't they, if he has read most of the world's leaders'. There really is no way in which he can complain that a foreign government is doing to him what he has done to them ten times over. Anyway, this will be material for the "stand-up routines" he is so fond of.

Traffic safety is no small thing, and everything that can be done to enhance it should be done. Speeding  is the major cause of accidents, so fines for it should be stiff, in order to deter drivers from it. The Finns have a very strict view on this, coupled with a system of fines in which the amount not only reflects how serious the speeding is, but also the driver's capacity to pay it. In other words, the rich pay more for the same traffic violation. Much more. Many thousands of dollars more. So much so, there is a real issue of fairness in such a scheme. People should be punished based on what they do and the consequences of what they do. Punishing them on the basis of their wealth is just wrong, and does not speak well of an enlightened society in so many other ways.

In the final analysis, it's the facts that truly matter, not what you call them. The systematic killing of a large group of people  -- 1.5 million -- of one race or national origin is an atrocity, an abomination, whether one chooses to call it "genocide" or not. Turks who refuse to accept this historical reality only demonstrtate the kind of fanaticism that led them to engage in the extermination of Armenians in the first place. The Armenians know the truth. So does the rest of the world.

It's oops time once again! Obama has apologized once more for a drone  killing of, this time, two men who had been kidnapped by al-Qaeda. So, in order to get rid of the "bad guys", the innocent victims get killed in the process. But, the President has said that this is " war", so we all must grin and bear it. This is what happens when " war" is conducted by remote control, as if part of a video game. Pretty soon, the dead are just figures on a screen.

It seems that the British military has taken a page out of the American military handbook as to how to behave on foreign soil, and while in Canada, sexually assaulted a woman. Four Navy members of a hockey team wanted to "score" no matter what, so, in a typical hockey brute-force fashion, they forced themselves on the woman. As I said, just like American servicemen in Japan and the Philippines, especially...

Another day, another black man killed by the police in the U.S. This is something so outrageous, that it is difficult to comprehend how a society tolerantes this kind of behavior over and over again.  The latest case is the one in Baltimore, where a black guy in police custody mysteriously sustains a spinal injury that ends up causing his death one week later. It's going to be interesting to see what the police are going to come up with to explain how this came to be. I suppose that they will end up claiming that the víctim twisted and turned so much resisting arrest, that he ended up breaking his spine.

In spite of Pope Francis'  great strides towards a "new and improved" Catholic Church, the institution is still notoriously slow in acting decisively and forcefully on many issues, none more urgent than the righting of one of the greatest wrongs in its history: pederast priests. That it has taken three years for the removal of an American bishop convicted of failing to report a priest that engaged in child pornography is apalling. There can be no excuse for such a lack of due diligence on the part of the Church hierarchy on a matter such as this. You would have thought that the lessson had been well learned by now. Apparently not.

Like the CIA and the Secret Service, the FBI hasn't had the best public relations lately. Its current Director has made waves by being candid about certain issues like racism in policing, but now he has come under fire from Polish authorities for suggesting that Poles were either Nazis or their enthusiastic collaborators. Poles are outraged, partly because they have been associated with the Holocaust for a long time, and I suppose they regard the Americans as allies and friends. With friends like these...

The hypocrisy of it all! The U.S., which is always on "peace missions" around the world, especially in the Middle East, is the biggest arms dealer there. So, one would have to conclude that when, say John Kerry, goes to that region for "peace talks", he invariably has an arms deal on the side. The truth is that the Americans will not pass up an opportunity to do business, especially one so profitable as selling hi-tech weapons. Peace be damned!

As well it should! The Spanish Prime Minister has pointed out that the investigation of former Minister Rodrigo Rato, one of the ruling party's stars in the Aznar regime, "hurts the party." Well, of course. The man was at the center of a major financial scandal, and had gotten a free ride up until now. But, it seems that his luck has run out and he will get his comeuppance. Rajoy is only worried because he anticipates a crushing defeat at the polls later this year. He has said nothing about Rato's wheeling and dealing.

You have to hand it to the Americans. When it comes to bigotry and discrimination, nobody does it better. Not that it had ever gone away, but homophobia and racism are making a strong comeback in the U.S. And it's doing so in a very "creative" way. American state governments are passing laws that supossedly protect people from having to do business with people whose lifestyle they object to on religious grounds. But, we all know that is a subterfuge to get away with openly discriminating against homosexuals, people of color and other "undesirables", according to twisted interpretations of religious beliefs. With those examples in mind, people in the business communities are coming up with these strategies  on their own, boldly challenging the rights of minorities to equality under law. Because of the high visibility of what goes on in the U.S., I would not be too surprised to see these kinds of tactics employed elsewhere.

Here's an idea! Since Obama is unable to run again in the U.S., and he's so popular in Cuba -- even Raúl Castro says he's "an honest man"-- Obama should move to Cuba and then run for President there. Then, he can implement all the policies he deems necessary for the good of the Cuban people, including recognizing and respecting human rights, as his government has done so for such a long time in Guantánamo.

Have you noticed how slow the U.S. is when dealing with the deportation of Nazi war criminals or right-wing dictators or their henchmen? The latest case is the one of the former Salvadoran general accused of, of all things, the murder of three American nuns back in 1980, along with many other Salvadoran people who were also tortured. As some sort of "reward", the guy was admitted to the U.S. in 1989, where he had been living since. Now, 35 years after the fact, and 26 years after he was allowed to live in the U.S., he has been sent back to his country...where, thanks to an amnesty law, he won't be charged for his crimes.

Well, what do you know! Another one of those peculiarly-American myths has been shattered. That FBI that is always portrayed as being a great law-enforcement institution hasn't tested its agents for physical fitness for the last 16 years . So, quite a few of them have gotten fat and become depressed, and probably are not in shape to do their job the way Hollywood and TV would lead us to believe. Now, we have the CIA, full of drunks and prostitute clients, and the FBI, full of flabby and sad-sack agents. The American Empire is going down the tubes.

It's really astonishing that a man was convicted of two murders, spent almost 30 years on death row , and now has been cleared, based on the fact that the shots were fired from more than one weapon, none of which were his. But, then, the man is black and this happened in Alabama, which explains everything.

The world's obsession -- following the U.S. lead -- with North Korea as an evil country with no redeeming qualities has ignored South Korea's considerable failings of its own. While everybody concentrates on the North Korean leader's haircut and so forth, the South Korean leader has been doing some cutting of her own, on the privacy rights of her citizens, to be exact. Taking a cue from her American mentors, she has been using modern technology to spy on her people, all in the name of national security and fear of the neighbor to the north. So, at least hypocritically, after worrying so much about North Korea, the world finds itself now in the position of having to condemn South Korea's shameless invasion of privacy of its own citizens, which, of course, includes the press and political adversaries. Embarrassing, to say the least, for all those who have made a distinction between the two Koreas.

Little by little, the little people make some gains against big business and interests. First, it was Walmart, and now it's McDonald's, which have been forced to raise the pay for its employees. For too long a time, they had taken what those two corporate giants deemed appropriate -- basically, subsistence wages -- but, once they decided to forcefully demand a raise in the hourly pay, the bosses have had to relent somewhat on their stinginess and exploitation. It goes to show how taking a firm stand against unfairness does "move mountains."