One Man's Opinion

A while back, I wrote about what was going on at Kabul Bank; essentially, that Karzai, his family and his cronies were using it as their private piggy bank. Now we know that they were all dipping into it to the tune of $900 million. No wonder Karzai is such a snappy dresser, while Afghanistan is in the mess it's in! There's an interesting sideline to all of this. Contrary to some pundits' opinions - including Mario Vargas Llosa's considered one - Wikileaks is much more that a gossipy tabloid. In this instance, thanks to documents revealed by it, we know that the American government was aware of, at least, questionable dealings at the bank, but chose to ignore it, I suppose in pursuit of a "greater good" in Afghanistan. Here comes another bank bailout...

Like most of the rest of the world, the Chinese are facing the problem of a fast-aging population. As in other countries, many old people there are left to fend for themselves, due to the indifference of relatives. Suicide among the elderly is on the rise. But, the Chinese are not taking this lying down; instead, they are contemplating, among other things, mandating visitation of the elderly by their sons and daughters, on a regular basis. Although implementation of such a law would be kind of tricky, something along these lines has to be done to prevent that old people be abandoned, leaving them to be wards of the State at taxpayers' expense. We'll have to wait and see if the law is finally enacted and how it actually plays out, but the rest of the world might soon be forced to do something drastic to ensure that relatives take care of their own when they are unable to take care of themselves due to old age or infirmity.

I'm all in favor of ideas that save the environment, but there are things that seem to make sense on paper, but end up being problematic in practice. This is why I'm not surprised that car-pooling hasn't really caught on in permanent fashion. There are just too many things that can go wrong, for it to be a viable alternative to driving by yourself. People have their pet peeves and idiosyncratic behavior, and giving or getting a ride from someone who is obnoxious is hell. There are just too many wackos out there, to take a chance of meeting one of them. Also, people's cars are often as messy as their personal lives. Some look and smell like the city dump, and you wouldn't be caught dead in one of them. So, for my part, I'll continue to ride alone, sharing my mess with no one, listening to the music I like and cursing the traffic jam to my heart's content.

Better late than never. Chilean justice is reopening the inquest on Allende's death in 1973. Although it's been widely held that it was suicide, recent findings seem to suggest that it was not the case, given the "fact" that there were traces of wounds from two different weapons. Whatever the outcome of this inquiry, it was Pinochet that, ultimately, killed Allende. This particular investigation is part of a bigger one that the Chilean government has undertaken to clear up as much of that long and dark period of its recent history. They are to be commended for it, setting aside the ill-gotten amnesty for those that preach a false reconciliation based on impunity and forgetting the dead.

Granted that you wouldn't expect to find much of anything resembling ethics in a tabloid, but, still, hacking phone conversations is somewhat outrageous, even for an English "rag."  Driven by the sick need to get the scoop on the private lives of celebrities of all kinds, "yellow journalism" knows no bounds and will go to any length to find out whatever there is to be found out. As with any other liberty, freedom of the press is constantly abused to satisfy the morbid interest of the masses.  In this case, fortunately, the culprits have been exposed, albeit rather belatedly, and heads have rolled for it. Democracy, freedom and the rule of law are, admittedly, cumbersome and inconvenient, at times. The temptation to use illegitimate means to get results is ever present, but must be resisted, if we are to live in a civilized society with a modicum of dignity and peace of mind.

Are we supposed to believe that it's just a coincidence that a few hours before Obama's speech to Congress Gen. Petraeus gave an upbeat account of the war in Afghanistan? Moreover, are we supposed to believe that rosy picture? The American government must think that everybody is stupid enough not to notice that the General is just helping out his Commander-in-Chief at a critical time and that, as in Vietnam, "victory" is always one step away. If only the military had a few more soldiers, money and time, it would get the job done. Those of us that were young adults in the Vietnam years see the same pattern of deceit and obfuscation all over again. Petraeus is lying, and time will prove it. Obama is doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the 60s and early 70s. Both he and Petraeus don't want to appear as losers against all those backward people in the Middle East, so they stubbornly cling to the ridiculous notion that they can win in Afghanistan and Iraq. Poor fool...

There's a report out that states that American students, from grade school through high school, do extremely poorly in science. It has been pointed out that, as a consequence, there will be less and less doctors, engineers and other scientists in the U.S. in the foreseeable future, if not for the immigrants from countries that Americans look down on and, generally, love to hate. The fact of the matter is that this is not a new development; it has been going on for some time now. American education has gotten increasingly mediocre, and that is reflected in a lower productivity of its workforce and of the quality of its goods and services; thus a part of the economic crisis the country faces. I think that Americans got complacent about being "the envy of the world" and underestimated everybody else. They thought that they didn't need to do their "homework." But, intelligence and talent is not exclusively American, and that  hubris has caught up with them.