Thoughts with Coffee

The store at the corner of my job got robbed around 8 am by gunmen, who shot three shots and run over a pedestrian while they were escaping. They got caught, though, and will probably get processes swiftly, and maybe just as swiftly let go after a ridiculous prison sentence, so that in a couple of years - if not a couple of months - they can come back and continue their burgeoning criminal lifestyle. Will this make it to the news? Nah, not likely. This is one of the many crimes commited in the capital city, so why would it make the news unless something truly amazing happens - okay, they did catch the robbers quite quickly... so maybe they'll be in the news after all.

That store was the one I used to go to every workday for the past three or four years to score myself some snacks or breakfast stuff (coke, yoghurt, Red Bull, croissant or bread, sour cream, salted and sliced green mango...you know, the usual breakfast stuff), except on those days that I felt really, really lazy and rather ordered breakfast from one of my favorite express companies, most often than not, from Bagelmens', because I'm crazy about bagels.

Most main streets are collapsed, and my Twitter is full of messages from people who got caught in yet another traffic jam caused by the Governments ultimate ineptitude AND lack of any care about fixing the General Cañas highway, which has been giving problems for a while now, but particularly since the "platina" case, and now with a rather large crater, further "sinkings" which end up also in a crash - because people here just don't drive like in Europe - turning a Friday morning drive to the office into an impromptu parking lot case. Imagine, waking up early in the morning and rushing only to get trapped into the dark machinery of a collapsed highway. It's like the Hunger Games: you don't even kill the engine because you want to believe, you want to hope that you will be able to make it. (BTW, I saw that movie again on the plane - I also saw Iron Lady, which I didn't like much, 21 Jump Street, which wasn't so bad, but I'm glad I didn't pay for it, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and this time around I didn't like it much.)

I'm back in Costa Rica, to the amazement of many. A lot of my coworkers stare at me as if I just came back from the grave. "Holy Shit! She's alive!", and many ask why I came back, and all of them simply assume I must be devastated for being here. Weird, I'm not. It feels just like having taken the train to go to another city. A city with much more rain, much more criminality and wider lanes. Oh man, how I love to drive!! And how I love my car!

I'm acconditioning again both my place and my office, fixing meetings, appointments and dates with friends, banks and all sorts of bureaus. I'm loving the weather! I'm still deskless, which I hate, but as I slowly get back in track, things go falling in their old place. For how long? That's the question in many people's mind, but only a few know the answer, and that's the way it will remain.

Welcome to the End of The World - Been There, Done That

Salaam alaikum and Blessed Be, my dear readers! This year started to me as many others before: celebrating the New Year abroad. Ok, ok, maybe Hungary shouldn't count for me as "abroad", BUT, as I've had had my New Year in Paris, my New Year in Sofia, this year the New Year came at the Caribbean shores of Santo Domingo, the capital city of Dominican Republic. This time around it was my boyfriend flying all the way from Hungary to Costa Rica for the end of the year, and not the other way around, for reasons well known for those who need to know them. 

We talked about going to Dominican Republic in spring, but ended up going to Panama City due to lack of proper organizing. This time around, however, with much more time to do the planning - which is the key to everything - we made it to this lovely island, where we enjoyed the Caribbean culture and history. Yes, there were strange and odd things, like the tourist harrasing people at any step of the way, I wrote about in the last post of 2011, however all in all - particularly after taking a walk down Calle Conde - it was wonderful. I wouldn't say it was "magical", because there was so much earthy, human quality in it, that all supernatural forces were erased. Even the shores and the waves seemed like part of the effort of a nation that does know how to work it, but also know how to take it easy, not rush it, but live it.

Part of a trip - at least for me - includes the mandatory cruising of the tax and duty free stores at the airport, where I usually stock up with magazines and candy. My selection this time around included the december number of Latina - a magazine I haven't seen before, as I noted in the last post -, Vogue, Vanity Fair and The Economist. Normally I would go searching for Marie Claire, which had been my favorite magazine for ages, but as things have come by, this magazine has changed going from a smart, women's issues focused magazine to yet another shopping catalogue, with all traces of brain neatly supressed. It does upset me how the roaring "buy more, think less" wave expands to more and more newspapers and magazines, making it harder each time to actually find an article that can absorb you mentally, show you something you didn't know about, educate you, fill your braincells with useful, interesting information, and challenge you. 

After Marie Claire's plunging in quality, bigger concern with adds and pictures of clothes and accessories you don't really need, and lesser with showing the world of women around the planet, how can we otherwise get to know about them? What other way do we have to get informed from a different point of view? Which other source do we have to get glimpses of the history and the present of women all over the world? Yes, snipets can be found, but magazines are far more concerned with rags that won't last three months than the stories behind human trafficking, or efforts towards breaking new and more areas in women's labor fields. Glossy paper has become all about the superfluous and stupid, taking away any trace of thought, any trace of awareness, if not sponsored by a company or a group of them on a trendy topic, such as "Breast Cancer", or any other thing that doesn't challenge society or economical order. Anything to make you spend.

From the batch I purchased, gladly Vanity Fair kept up to the standard I set, though more leaning on the political matter, rather than foccused on the women's issues, even though this last issue had no other than Lady Gaga on the cover. I keep blinking in disbelieve how such an ugly, outrageous person can be so celebrated. Other than that, holding in my head a piece written by Joseph Stiglitz is delightful. However, before I even got around to Vanity Fair, I checked out the overly popularized and commented Vogue magazine. The magazine is an icon in fashion - as many know so - has been subject of songs, movies, books, documentries, and their Editor in Chief, Anna Wintour, quite known and celebrated. The magazine and Ms. Wintour have been also the underlying subject of the book and movie "The Devil Wears Prada" (a great movie, a terrible book, written by a disgraceful, untalented Lauren Weisberger). The magazine is certainly a stack of paper about fashion, with not much thought about any other issues - as I would have expected it to - so in that sense it came way under my expectations. Sure, "Vogue" isn't "Runway", but from no socially striking articles to no-brain articles there's quite a gap, and one that this famed magazine does not manage well at all. As you page through it, you can't see any of the "elitist" style oozing from it that the critics talk about - unless you call Kardashian-like no-brains-only-money style - but the kind of audience it seems to carter for is one you really, really don't want to belong to, specially if you have a university degree and believe in real hard work (not the maniac straining yourself for intrascendental things the magazine calls "hard work"). How can you monthly spend time reading pages that suggest you to dress like a clown, fast yourself into a toothpick and spend regardless of whether you have money or not, because "the trend" says so?

It was still interesting to see Meryl Streep on the cover, so I had to read the article on her to see if there was any mention at all about the afore mentioned movie, where she played Miranda Priestly, the homologue of Anna Wintour. Well, it made me smirk how evidently the sting of the book and the movie hasn't been overcome, as the praising of the actress was all over the place, and the moving was mentioned only passingly, in the middle of a list of other movies. It seems that "the cool people" can't put themselves past the booklet a mediocre writer wannabe composes, and keep the grudge until the end of days. Then again, who are we calling a mediocre writer, when Ms. Wintour's editorial is flat and the rest of the "articles" are blah, abundant in a language that seeks to detail luxury and a sense of grandeur, but that never get's to the nerve of things. It's all on the brands, and the mixes of humble attitude with knowing what's trendy and luxurious, but with not a word thrusting deeper into the vein, going to what's aside from the brand and the fresh oysters and "working hard".

Work hard, work hard... a phrase used up and down to describe successful people who have lots of money and still don't hit the bed before 4 am, are up in 4 hours and do this "work" thing constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah... so, now tell me what's that "work" about. Is about organizing foundraisers and trips to bring aid packages to depressed areas, or is it sticking your nose to your computer trying to find a way to get millions of American workers to get rid of their debts, or how to create the missing 4 million jobs and make sure they stay? Is it hard work proselitizing for a candidate or a party, maybe a bill about tax cuts, or is it about waking up at 3 am to work on the fields? Or maybe it's hard work to be up until late trying to decide which picture would look better as the cover of your shallow, no-brain magazine?

So yes, there were no articles, so I paged through the magazine looking at the latest trends, what's to come and realizing once again that fashion lately has nothing that could or would hold my interest. There was then a piece (I can't call it an article) about the tendencies and how - unlike with previous times of economical crisis - the tendency isn't towards minimalism (which I like), but towards overaccesorizing. Necklaces and bracelets measured in pounds, not in units, and chandelier earrings. The lines to introduce the tendency were rather insulting, from the social and economical proint of view, basically saying "you can face the times of crisis with frugality and saving, bracing for the hard time, or you can give it the finger and put on every luxury item you can get". Okay, so we are living hard times, millions of jobs have been suppressed in the States, people have been unemployed for years, and their proposal is "overaccesorize and give the crisis the finger". The excuse to do this? "Because youth is doing it and many of them are unemployed and have no money". Oh really, so here we are, adults, trying to get a job or hang into the one we have, with bills and responsabilities to face, realizing that living on a credit card isn't doable anymore, and we need to cut the unnecesary expenses, save some so the next time the economy fucks it up we don't get it up the ass, and here comes a fancy little magazine telling you to fuck the crisis, let's go bolder and still pretend we can max our credit cards and everything will be dandy. Where are we heading to? (In Vanity Fair, meanwhile, Kurt Andersen writes about how it seems that style has remained stagnating the last 20 years, with much of the same when comparing 1992 and 2012, so that makes you think where all this "we like" and "we think" you see in these magazines actually get anywhere in a society quite depleted of resources, with trend gurus that can't get over themselves, but continue to push their own, little, outdated agenda everywhere.)

The way I see it, we are heading towards the absolute stupidization of the population, but not as part as some conspiracy, but also because of ourselves. If the magazines and newspapers dish us day after day articles and pieces of the lowest quality - and that can be seen in the very grammar and composing of many of the articles, where you would expect at least some average manage of the language - in every sense of the word. Shallow articles that not only don't grasp the surface of the matter, working the topic more as if it where a trailer of a topic rather than an article about it, but also because many of the subjects picked are not really that important. What would be more relevant, Demi Lovato's disorders or the levels of poverty reached by many countries, and what that slide down the socio-economical ladder entail? If you ask the magazines and the newspapers, Demi Lovato's issues, no question about it!

Yes, they are consistently working on making us stupid, but what are we doing about it? We keep buying their issues, we keep reading their shit, we don't demand for anything that isn't directly supplied to us. We don't demand, we take. So, demand. Demand! Don't buy the crap, but be clinical, and if you are bored, find new sources, but don't give them your money, nor be an instrument for them to get money out of you and your data for things you don't really want. We complain a lot about quality, but what are we doing to make them improve it? What are we really doing? Me, I'm doing something: Marie Claire is striked from my list, and so is Vogue now. Now it's up to you.

Apps

Those who have iPhones - or many other smartphones with similar bahavior pattern - know about apps, those little programs that you download onto your phone for free or a fee, and help making your mobile phone into a device that does much more than just calls and SMS, to the point of almost making the calls and SMS into another of the apps - basic apps. The whole point of them also is to customize them, to have on your handheld - hardly even worth calling it a phone, for you basically use it to LIVE in it, rather than simply make a call - the apps and thingies You want to have. Not the preordained goodies the manufacturer decided to include. Your games, your outlook, your calendar, your clock, your calculator... often for a price. You didn't really thought you'd get the goods for free, right? Some are free though, so don't fret it.

The advertisement of Apple reminds you every now and then, that ther are apps for anything and everything. Games, maps, measurements, weather, step counter, sound recorder, calorie counter, music player, internet browser, spotlight... you name it. Some are probably even stupid apps you wonder who the heck would even think getting them. Just Google "useless iphone apps" or "stupid iphone apps" and you'll see. Allegedly Apple does check them - when it gets to them - and rejects some. What's the criteria we don't know, but after the one released today on the news, we'd sure want to.

As an act of Hyne-knows-what it seems that a Christian group  - not my kind, I would like to point that out right now - released an app to "cure homosexuality". In the sweet name of chocolate, what the fucking hell where they thinking?? I assume it comes from the same morons who say Global Warming is a myth and all that's happening is because The End is Nigh. Well, certainly no self-respecting gay person would take this crap seriously, but what raised many eyebrows is how Apple hasn't rejected it. I mean, it's not funny, it's insulting, and it's insulting not only for the gay community, it's insulting for the straight community as well, and the Christians all across the globe.

Sorry, I don't fuck women, but that doesn't mean I'm not sensitive to the issues of those women who do, or the men who choose to fuck men. You can't cure homosexuality as much as you can't cure your skin color or gender, and anyone would think that this far into the XXIst century people would know that much. It's already  abhorrent how a group of close minded people take for themselves the right to uphold from others the right to marry whomever the fuck they want, but to come up with an app like this? Really, get a brain.

Honestly I am offended, and the only Apple product I have is iTunes, yet still, the company should know better than lending space for this sort of display of bigotry.

In a way, for me, it was interesting how this article came in the same paper, in the same issue where not much appart a movie was discussed which presents the topic of gay couples to children, "Le Baise the la Lune". This attitude, both promoting it as well as allowing it, generates only hate, and not only homophobia, but also heterophobia. Personally I find it real stupid to make a war about who we choose to love and who we choose to sleep with.

Apple should know better, and some Christians should make everybody a favor and either shut the fuck up or hasten their own Apocalypsis and drop dead.

Moín Port, Limón, Costa Rica

From the earlier Administration, Costa Rica has inherited a series of outrageous cases of corruption that could easily dunk it among the countries with abhorrent levels of corruption. The former president - who got a second term in less-than-legal ways in a country where reelection was prohibited after a couple of brothers, the Tinoco brothers, nearly extinguished all shreds of democracy - pushed his influences up and down forcing the rigging of a referendum to pass the conflictive CAFTA, which - as foreseen by its oppositors - brought nothing but worse labor conditions and none of the rise in employment levels as promised, he signed a permit and a National Interest Decree to allow a Canadian Mining Company to dig an open pit gold mine not 3 km from the border with Nicaragua, delimited by a river - San Juan river - which flows into the Caribbean sea. This even after the prior Administration signed a permanent moratorium to anykind of industrial mining in the country, in order to defend the environment. This after the same Company (Crucitas - Industrias Infinito) had opened another pit near the Pacific Ocean, and had to abandon it due to a rupture in the membrane of pool containing cianide.

This former president - Oscar Arias - and his brother took all sorts of aids and used them to pay their friends and cohorts. When his brother, the then Prime Minister, Rodrigo Arias, was questioned, they twisted arms to get the Attorney General to dismiss the case. Just as an example, a donation from the Government of Taiwan to build 150 social interest houses, was all spent on consultors and advisers, and not a penny was left for the houses.

The building of roads was given in rather rigged procedures to certain companies, that cashed the money and laid a road that doesn't even match up to the current traffic requirements, over crumbling lands, cutting people living there (there's a case of a family that was left without water supply, electricity and phone service, because the company cut pipes and powerlines. The family, depending on the production of milk, has slumped, since there's not a working fridge to keep the milk and cheese they used to produce and live on), and the landslides happening around had already taken the life of a woman. A "highway" that charges about 60 times more than any other paying highway in the country. The reply? "You don't have to travel through it if you don't like it." Is it only me noticing that's not a matter of which road I take, but where is my tax money being spent?

It's certainly interesting how Mr. Arias traveled often before assuming being elected, to China - in secret -  only to continue when elected - bringing on the official trip his whole family, enve those who weren't working in the Government - to end up severing ties with Taiwan, halting the aid recieved from them - aid China didn't pick up, reason for which a bridge fell in a small town, killing many - to then have telecommunication contracts awarded to Huawei (in an interesting move, where all competitors, promoted by Huawei, decided to not participate to declare the licitation void, only to have Huawei present their offer in the last 20 minutes), and put a Free Trade Agreement in motion with this particular nation, for which, in exchange, they built us a new National Stadium, with Chinese workers (including architects and engineers), who then stayed around for all the new buildings privatelly awarded to the Chinese company. I bet that does wonders for the economy, particularly in the construction industry.

Thing is that there was yet another "mine" to squeeze, the Caribbean Port. This port is in the hands of the State, and sadly, it has one of the country's strongest unions, SINJATRAP. As part of a cunning scheme to pass it to private hands, for years the Arias brothers and their posey made sure funds were cut from this port, to the point of leaving it  in really decadent, shameful conditions. To add insult to injury, the Caribbean province has been let slide down, slumped into levels of abandonment no one has seen since Katrina. Most of the province grew thanks to the port, but as things have been left to rot there, people had to go back to the people-exploiting plantations, where the corruption and the types of abuse towards workers and to the whole human and natural environment are proper of a horror story... or China. Knowing the importance of the port, the union has struggled to keep it there, in the hands of the State, and thus keep a place where the Caribbean workers are not exposed to the abhorrent hunger and profit lust that comes from the privately owned companies.

The Arias brothers made an attempt earlier, to bribe the workers of the port, offering to distribute among them a total of US$131 million if they agreed to let the port be given in concession to private companies. The Union stepped up and said that no private concession was needed, but instead of distributing a BRIBE of US$131 million, if they were willing to invest US$80 million in the port, they could pump it up to modern standards and have it working like a clock. As response the Government decided to get rid of the Union's board, and ILEGALLY elected a new board that did its biding. Now, this should not come as a surprise, specially after Mr. Arias promised to the ILO to strenghten unions in Costa Rica and improve labor conditions, but did the entire opposite, or that he condonned several ilegal moves during the referendum campaing about the CAFTA, many of which were included in a memorandum known as "Memorandum del Miedo" (Fear Memorandum). However, Unions don't scare so easily. All unions got together to fight the legal board to be instaurated, and finally, with lots of hardworking and international claims of help, it was instaurated.

A Government promoted campaing to soil the Union was started, accusing them of corruption, claiming they wanted to slum the whole region into poverty, of obstructing progress. The Union continued to say the same: "Save the taxpayers US$51 million, don't spend that money on bribes, spend it in improving the port, and leaving it in the hands of all Costa Ricans". The Arias, furious, refused. It was the bribe or nothing, and made an intense campaing - almost like a coca-cola ad - to sell people the idea that the only way to pull the port and the whole region up was by giving the port to a private concession. 

This people know about private concessions. They know about the United Fruit Co. making them work to death, torturing them if they dared to form a union, refusing to pay them in money, but giving them tickets they could only exchange for goods at their own stores, at absurdly high prices. They finally have a place to work, which is State owned, where they get a good salary, can get organized in a Union, have the right to sick days and sick leave, to vacations, and are not worked to death, and for some coins they are being cooed into going back to the mistreat?

The Union had elections recently, and the old board was reelected again, to which the president, Ms. Laura Chinchilla, portegée of the Arias brothers (well, their puppet, as they have often undermined her authority, by starting political campaings to get Rodrigo elected for president for 2014-2018 the same day she was taking the Presidency from Oscar, and holding political meetings and press conferences to keep their agenda and define politics before Ms. Chinchilla is even asked), claimed her Administration has no Plan B for the case the concession doesn't go through. They put their eggs in the rigged board, and the President herself held press conferences to campaing for that board, claiming the same thing her pupetmasters have: "Limón has no other choice, it's the concession or deeper down in poverty". The Union workers decided by an appalling majority, to save the port, to keep the old board and keep the port in State hands, and the rigged board - elected originally in an ilegal, rigged, secret meeting - claims the elections have been arranged to favor the old board. The President claims her hands are tied and there are no other options available for the port but the concession.

What about the US$80 million to pump it up to shape? Or would that go against the wishes of the campaing donors and other patrons, who would resent not having that strategic port in their hands?

Big is My Country

With much joy, today Costa Rica woke up to Hope in its Legal System. Industrias Infinito, a Canadian Goldmining enterprise found its outrageous demands halted by the Court, as after their pretentious behavior, daring to disregard the judges, disrespecting them, confronting their rulings and behaving in manners proper of kinder garden children, their earlier obtained permits were revoked, and found themselves fined to pay for the environmental damage dealt to a protected primal forest.

Their bullying didn't work here. Big shot lawyers didn't do the trick. The judges weren't awed with the big names and big signatures that backed them. If anything, this process stripped down the State to its most shameful facts. Dodging questions, pretending to get out of trouble simply by the volume of their shouting, disregarding facts, trying to hide them under their screaming.

A well prepared team of environmentalist lawyers brought donw the facts brick by brick, exposing the lack of studies, lack of due procedure, the lack of the minimal requirements, the outrageous disregard of the Law, where the head of the concerned Ministry had the nerv to say she had no knowledge of the ban on all mining activities, ruled two years before.

Over the head of the former President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias Sánchez, looms now this charge as well, for the Court ruled the Public Ministry shall consider opening a procedure against him for signing a National Interest Decree to favor the Goldmining company.

Crucitas, the case of bribing the Caribbean Port workers and illegally deposing the head of the Union, and maybe even the case of Autopistas del Sol and their poorly built and managed road to the Pacific. Oscar Arias, who dared to claim that Hell would freeze before anyone could prove a case of corruption in his Administration may need an anorak on his way downstairs. It seems this is the time when snowflakes have a good chance in Hell. :-D

Perfectionism

In an article by Penelope Trunk (got to me via Central America Data), she claims that Perfectionism is a Disease and that it should be fought. It surprised me. It actually horrified me even more when the line "Accept that it’s okay to do a mediocre job on a certain percentage of your work" was so casually dropped in the middle of it. Is it me or that sounds like a perfectly good excuse to be mediocre? Yes, because "a certain percent of your work" could go from 0% to 100%, as both of them are, indeed, a certain percent. The allegations, well, lets not go there, but it crassly overlooked the fact that "perfectionism" doesn't necessarily means work short sightedness. From the way in which Ms. Trunk describes perfectionism I believe she really means "detail obsession", as a true perfectionist looks not only at the detail but also at the big picture. A detail obsessed person, on the other hand, looks only at the small things and forgets about the big picture.

Through my working life, I have met people - a real nightmare to work with - who can't get anything done because they can't see the whole matter, and overwhelmed by the size of the task - no matter the size at all - they choose to focus on one small part, regardless of how it interacts with the rest and tries to fix only that, and then goes to another and thus things get out of their hands.

Let me explain you this another way: imagine the work at hand to be a Rubik Cube. A mediocre would say the work of unscrambling the cube is finished when there are some blocks of the same color together on the same side, but none of the sides would be finished. A detail obsessed will tackle each side one by one, and if you have played with the Rubik cube you know that tactic will get you nowhere. The detail obsessed will realize that the work isn't done, but wouldn't know how to get it done, but at least would finish one side. The Perfectionist would take the cube, study it, take its time, and start woking on it, with a method, managing to unscramble it, not stoping until it is unscrambled and then will turn it around to make sure all sides are perfectly finished.

The article above mentioned, however, seems to say that the Rubik Cube can't be unscrambled and simply any level of playing around with it shall sufice.

If you've been working in a company for a while now, and you have a solid work ethic base, you surely have realized that there are more and more people, and an alarmingly growing tendency towards mediocrity. It appears with things like someone telling you that "only because you are hardworking and dedicated, you can't expct others to do the same" ( I was actually told by a boss that just because I'm intelligent and do an excelent work, I can't expect others to do the same. I was floored since I am really, really an average person with a very average 126 IQ). Continues with "it's okay to do this or that half assed because it's not like anyone will notice", and then some "it's okay to prepare a document all by copy-pasting old documents and Internet documents because nobody will read it anyway" to "I don't have time to check it, sure everybody did its job so it must be fine". In my line of work I have had the dubious pleasure of facing some abhorrent papers and mistakes that had climbed this far only by being patronized by Saint Medi Ocre. Crass mistakes that a bit of care, a bit of thinking, a tad of simple common sense would have fixed.

This satanized "perfectionism" - but the real one, the one that solves the cube - wasn't questioned back in the day. It used to be perfectly clear that when you did something you would do it well. Remember that saying? "Do it well or don't do ir at all". Then again, back in the old days all jobs had a clear vision of the long term, of the future. A project was supposed to be out there and function for an extended period of time, and you were expected to respond for it. Perfectionism, then simply known as being thorough or careful, was a natural, expected step into ensuring your responsability over something. Today, however, people seem to hop around in their jobs like detached and irresponsable. They don't care all day about anything but looking for escape goats. Why to move a finger doing something of good quality, when you can do nothing and pin it on someone else? Or why to do something well, when you can do less than the bare minimum and reply that being a "perfectionist" is a sick thing and thus you rather work with a "certain percentage of mediocrity"?

I imagine that these people would also consider a lie or a simple fairy tale the proverb "For want a Nail, the Kingdom was Lost". However, truth is that if we allow mediocre work, it will build up, accumulate, until you have a lot of people paid doing a lot of useless, misguiding, misleading, mistaken stuff. A doctor or a nurse, allowing some mediocrity into its work, could kill the patient (just look at Jamie Merrett in England), an engineer who allows mediocrity could kill lots and lots of people who use their designed and built buildings, infratructure, machinery, etc. Mediocre planning in factories could produce dangerous toys that could kill children, or poisoned food.

Okay, you may say here that these are "special circumstances". Well, lets go to the administrative sphere, where mediocre work seem to cause less damage. Truth is that it does not, but it can spread worse. As a matter of fact, mediocre planning in the Government could bring serious shortage problems, resources sent to areas that don't need it, while others that do need it remain unatended. Imagine scholarships for priviledged kids, instead of those same scholarships for underpriviledged children. Imagine health care aids for patients of common flu, or vanity-driven, unnecesary plastic surgery, instead of that same aid aimed at cancer patients, AIDS patients and other high risk populations. Perhaps your Internet or your phone services could be better, cheaper if the people in charge of that would do the work they are supposed to instead of sitting in a meeting room making up figures. Maybe there wouldn't be so many foreclosures if the people at the banks would really look at the figures, would pay attention before granting a loan, instead of hanging on the phone talking to the other end of the planet and racing each other of a number.

And what can you tell me about your gas? Maybe it could be cheaper, and less destructive if they would care for the proper training fo the workers, if they would lay down the right infrastructure, as it should be done, thus avoid spillings and accidents, and then, perhaps, taking a moment to look at real figures, real data and not speculate about the figures they want to see in the future and then fix all numbers to fit that forecast.

One thing is to make mistakes, we are all human, and that's why we double check, but another thing is to swap everything under the rug shielded by the right to be mediocre.

Maybe it works for people like Ms. Trunk, and others, maybe they rather do a half assed work (and the picturing of the perfectionist does show she pledges to what she preaches) than take their time and make sure everything is fine. Okay, but then they should also take the responsability for the part they wouldn't do. No excuses. If you choose mediocrity, take it then like a man/woman, and shoulder the consequences. And as part of that believe, well, the next time you have a bad customer experience because someone wouldn't do their job, or wouldn't do it as it should be done, all complaining rights are revoked. After all, really, you can't request from others what you are not willing to give. Am I right?

This Last Week When I Was Out

It's been a week since I last wrote, and not few things happened in this week. First of all, there was the "building matter" and this time it wasn't another evacuation - though I would have really enjoyed that - but an article that appeared in the newspapers about the building and how Supercalifragilistic it is.  This, well, rose a lot of reactions, like some utterly stupid - there's no other word for it -  reader who wrote a comment at the electronic site of the paper saying that we "shouldn't be so lazy" and instead of waiting 45 minutes for the elevator, perhaps we "should climb the stairs". Yeah, why don't that s.o.b. come here and climb 16 flights in those stairs and see how he or she likes it? I mean, I would personally climb the stairs, and I was prepared to it, but I really, really need air, not to mention how unpleasant it is to work steated up. Dude, really, think before opening your trap.

To my surprise, I also found people IN the building upset about the article for an array of reasons. So said that such a note shouldn't have been published, that the problems we experience in the building are "absolutely normal" and proper of "a new building to which one has to get used to". Dude, the building was inspected before we moved in, tests were ran - so it was said - it took an extra month to receive it because it had to be corrected (the Fire Department requested for an external emergency exit, which hasn't been built yet, nor it looks like it would), and we get here and there's not a single day, since June 16th that something doesn't work? The freaking building is supposed to be smart! Or perhaps it is smart, but also spoiled and it's throwing a temper tantrum? (That, or the building is Smart. Yeah, Maxwell Smart.)

Also heard comments berating the publishing, saying that by venting this in the eye of the public, the image of the company would deteriorate. Hn. Let me see: the Government don't allow the company to do any investment, as th money is needed to pay the Governments trips and stunts. Add to it, a former employee of quite a high position is in a trial, where also a former President is charged with accounts of corruption in the Alcatel case. Some years ago the Director of Mobile Telecommunications of that time summoned a press conference to announce the opening of prepaid mobile services, when the service wasn't ready and the technical tests weren't positive, and said Director happily anounced the sale in three days. Three days later he was burried in his office or out of the country on the money of the company and let the technicians to explain why the service couldn't be offered. Then the most recent former CEO of the company, discharged this May, is being held on trial for fraud, as he used public funds for his personal use, as well as allowing his wife, who was not an employee of the company, to run it to her like and destroy the work of experienced employees, not to mention to use public funds for her own means. So no, I don't really think that this note on the building is the stain that would mar the company.

I do understand that things must be kept in the company and seek to solve them without pulling a Lohan or a Spears on the deal, but when the management is oblivious about the matters and the problems are issued with e-mails belittling the sitaution, things must be escalated.

This week also, I've got a new phone. ^_^ But please, don't think it's (yet another) compulsive purchase of mine. It was a real need. Really. My old phone, an adorable purple Sony Ericsson w380 broke. I bought it around two years ago (perhaps a week or two before I met Kari) and I loved it! Phone in Hungarian, preloaded with PannonGSM (now Telnor) stuff and all that, and lets be honest: I'm a sucker for technology in Hungarian. However my phone was reaching the 2 years, which makes it old - for me - so I was thinking in replacing it anyway. I definitively needed something with Internet, since I'm a Twitter and I'd love to tweet my way around like all my other Twitter friends, not to mention going bonkers tweeting during out #twittertours. Then, of course, there's also the matter of my PDA. After years of using my PDA it broke. Yes, I had a Palm Pilot m130 that worked adorably, but before I could replace it Palm Pilot closed the business and sould out to HP, and you know when will I buy HP: on neverday. (Have enough HP experience at the office with the HP laptops and printers and stuff, I really know what they are like and I'm not paying for them). Ever since the begining of this year I went back to basics, with a small agenda. Yep, paper agenda. You know, those that don't beep, that have only one way to be looked at, that require you to write up every single event of a given repetitive task, that don't expand when you need to accomodate more activities. Yeah, those. Well, a few ups, however: don't need batteries, don't disappear on you if you haven't charged them, let you stick stickers, draw, write in code, use colors... One thing for the other, right? 

So, the point is that I needed a new phone, and I was planning on getting it by the end of this year in Hungary. Well, after an improptu decision, I was going, so I might as well use the time to update my phone, right? Not to mention that it doesn't look swell to work on the telecommunications business and have some old phone on you.

Since I'm basically a Sony Ericsson-gal, I was checking their offer and was really thinking about an Xperia. When, how much and all those questions were faraway from me. Someday, some, somehow. The idea of an iPhone also fluttered around my brain. Then it happened. The Happening.

It was early Friday morning and, as usual, my phone rang to wake me up. Yes, only I left it charging and as I reached for it it fell on the floor and the joint between both sides of the clamshell broke. Oh hell. Clamshell phones are quite delicate, particularly this joint as it controls stuff like the answering of an incoming call and so on. The phone itself was still working, but when you opened it or closed it, it didn't have that claa that push it open or close, as it should. It was getting stuck. Well, I wasn't going to walk around with a broken phone, nor I was going to wait for it to finally die on me. Once at the office, I went down to the Lobby, to the Kölbi store and checked out the phones. I didn't really had any phone in mind, so I just saw a big banner of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, which was a Sony Ericsson and had all I needed, and pointed at it.

"I want that, but I want it in a plan, with Internet."

The salesguy got me the phone, programmed it, printed out the contract, talked over the monthly fee ($80), told me I'd be paying it from next month on, and just like that, I had a new phone. It gave me a lot of trouble, truth to be told, as the new thing wasn't behaving like any other Sony Ericsson I have had so far, and I had have so far three of them!, but little by little we have been getting acquainted, and even though it hasn't behaved like any of my other SE, this one and I are getting along swell. Haven't named it yet, and I haven't named any phone lately, but I think this one deserves a Scandinav/Scandinavish name. Vesa? Eric?Sven? Sven-Eric, like the cop in Sunstorm? Solstorm? Still to be decided.

Then this same week I had this rich, wrapping messaging with a new penpal of mine, with whom I've took off and flew across the pink and purple skies of the soul. The long, almost daily messages written in such a fashion I felt as Henry Miller penpaling with Anais Nin (me reading Tropic of Cancer may have something to do with the feeling, but may not also), were topped with a delicious letter from her in my P.O.Box on Saturday. Oh the delight! Her letters telling ne as much as her words, the scent of the paper wrapping warm arms around be, from a new friend greeting me as an old one.

This past week felt as heaven!

Well, not to mention that I've worked on fixing the last chapter of the thesis and I've got an SMS from the tutor sayin that "we should unify the document for lecture and defense". We are one step ahead of you, Sir!

To finish it up, I've come up with an idea for a book. After reading a half-assed article in Harper's Bazaar, I've decided I'll compose a book on how to pack for a travel, based on my experience in the matter. Kinda like a "how to do" book with some frappy title like "How to pack and don't kill yourself or the suitcase in the process". How about that?

Happy new Week!

Ingrid

The news about the super-famous ex-hostage, Ingrid Betancourt can't but raise eyebrows across the globe. French-Colombian politician, presidential candidate of said country, she gained notoriety due to her kidnapping by the FARC in February 23rd, 2002. The big boom regarding her - and her hostage mates, as they seem to be swallowed by oblivion - came, however in 2008, after 6 years in the hands of the FARC, when her case became much more present in the media. Foreing Governments, including the French Government, lead by Nicholas Sarkozy, moved the chips and pressed all the needed buttons to work on her release.

The press, including fashion magazines were filled with heart clutching pictures of the thin, pale, hopeless woman of long hair sitting sadly on a bench in the middle of nowhere. Such pictures, and the detail of her story fed the emotions of millions, billions of people who cheered along with friends and family when, in July 2nd, 2008 she was finally released. Tears of joy and emotion swelled in many eyes looking at the fragile woman in combat clothes descending from the plain, reuniting with her family after six years of horror.

Little after stories sipped to the media from her hostage mates, telling disappointing stories about her, how she was selfish, prone to temper tantrums, seeking constantly her own benefit, even against the well being (however small) of her mates. It was said that she kept a radio hidden from her mates, which  she used to  hear the news and know what was going on. She even refused to later share the news with the other hostages. A note even mentioned that she often used crying to get away with her will, even with their captors. The stories were small and were soon swapped under the rug as meaningless, mean stories of mates less notorious that wished to either take a shine in the spotlight or ruin hers.

Two years passed after that, and her name faded into oblivion. Whatever her life was, it was more private, more hers, more of her family's and her friends', or so we thought. Many, perhaps imagined her seeking therapy, working hard to recuperate from the trauma and have a normal life again. Either way, her name was lost from the collective memory as other things took the stage, such as Barack Obama, Neda, Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan, Angela Merkel, Bernard Madoff and others of the size. 

This, well, until recently, when the news hit us all in the face, that she was sueing the Colombian Government  for $6.8 million over her kidnap. The news hit us like a slap out of nowhere. It was like looking a blown up case of some trivial trial, where someone sues the doctors who took care of him or her after an accident for not doing it sooner. It was the Colombian Government, that worked organized the operation to rescue her. Brave men and women risked their lives to release her and her hostage mates, and her response, now that her name is not in the papers, is to sue them?

Like many said, "was, perhaps the Colombian Government the one that kidnapped her?" "why don't she go sue the FARC?".

I was petrified by the shamelessness she showed with this demand. I was angried, however, with today's news where she ads insult to injury by crying on public, say that she would never want to harm Colombia, it was never her intention to attack those who had released her, and that she would not pursue the matter "if the negotiations outside the courthouse fail". Well, what would she say if the Colombian Government decided to charge her for all the expenses of her releasing? If the FARC decided to charge her with the bill of six years of feeding her and giving her the whatever shelter she got?

Her image of fragile woman shattered for ever in the eyes of the world, and now her tears are seen with disgust. They no longer seem honest, but part of her spoiled brat act. She cries to get out of trouble. How awfully we feel after supporting her and praying for her. Is she also going to sue all the Governments that intervened in her release because they didn't do it quicker?

This is how you fall from grace, this is how you waste a tremendous media capital you could have invested in something human, something good that would have given back to the world that worried for her. I guess, like they say here "árbol que nace torcido nunca su tronco endereza".

Violence Now?

Sunday papers include segments that retakes, and reprocesses topics of the week or the month that keep hanging in the air, and dedicates to them a bit more than the 500 words they usually get, arranged around big pictures and 50 word notes-in-a-box. One of the topics, not much developed, I found was this about the violence among children and teens, which pushes bullying to extremes never known before all the way to shooting classmates, teachers and principals.

An American expert was consulted, evident from the tone of the interviewer, for magical tips and solutions to fix the problem and enforce the preconceived ideas that lurked that dark, stupid head. Instead nothing concrete, nothing really important came out of it. It did made me think though, again starting from my theory of the self, about the root of this "newly developed violence in kids".

These kids... what's different in them or around them, from what it was for us? Back in our youth we were afraid of teachers and principals, played out in the street, watched TV... Saying that Today's kids live surrounded by more violence is not exact, as we grew up hearing about wars, guerrillas, Cold War and so on. History books were filled with presidents and heroes executed, kings and rebels beheaded and subjected to horrible tortures and deaths. As today's kids can learn how to make a molotov cocktail from youtube, we also had our sources to learn how to harm and kill, not to mention the classic, basic methods, of simply setting something on fire or beat it.

We got depressed, we did stupid things, so what changed? We had bullies in our time too, and as a matter of fact, recorded in novels, we also know that in prior generations kids used to play war by throwing stones at each other. So, if today's youth is exposed to as much violence as we were, what has made them react the way they do?

One thing that is different is the attention these kids get. Though the relationship and the attention that ultimately matters is the one that happens with the self, it is important to notice that children and teens have no firm definition and relationship developed with themselves, and though they need to learn it, as the notion of knowing and loving oneself do not come embedded with everyone. From birth to adulthood, children and teens learn the ways of life and humanity from their surroundings, sucking up everything like sponges. By adulthood the sponge is saturated, and thus it works with what it has.

Today's kids are often surrounded by adults that do not pay attention to them, teachers that do the job for the paycheck, not for vocation, who are eager to pass on the kids as soon as they can, and parents that consider them something short from an annoying expense to be controlled. Today's adults, and you can see that everywhere, even at the office, are addicted at placing guilt, pointing fingers, and are allergic at taking responsability. Today's adults fuck, have a kid and can't wait to put them on someone else's tab, but this tab isn't picked up by the teachers or principals or orientating/school shrinks because they are not there to raise the kids.

Parents "have so much to do" and are "so busy", and "life is not easy now and they have to work so hard" and all that crap, while teachers "are not the parents of the kid and they have to take care of other 200 kids as well". And so kids are suspended between the "grade giver" and the "food and shelter provider", but nowhere else to go. So they grow up on the TV and the Internet, finding ways to make friends, seeking love and aproval from whatever source they can get it. Lets be clear with something: kids do need guidance and aproval, since they are learning. We all do when we are learning not only to know what to do, but also if we are doing it right. However, when no wise, constant, trustworthy role model is available, the sources kids tap can be dubiuos.

I'm amazed when parents don't know their kids, and don't understand why they act the way they do. Honey, if you haven't been paying attention to them, if you haven't been there actively giving them what they need, who did you thought would fill the blanks? Faeries? I'm astonished when teachers can't believe who this or that kid went postal and can't explain why. Don't they have a class at the university about treating kids and reading the signs of troubled kids? Or the assigned school student shrink (whatever the name they give to it, we call it "Orientador")? Got the job for a political favor or capacity?

Today's kids are not a product of the Internet or the TV, and it is irresponsible to blame sources that can't defend themselves. Today's kids are the result of the adults around them.

UCR: A Case of Conditioned Universitary Autonomy

Yesterday something quite kafkaesque happened here in Costa Rica. The ripples of these events ran through the different social networks (Twitter, Facebook), through the news, as well as in different blogs all around. Well, at least all around the country. The situation was triggered by many, many things, starting with a law enforcement recount of events that has more versions than the number of fanfics ever written on Harry Potter, and continued by the students and professors of the University that reacted fast and angrily at the intrusion. Here's quickly what we can gather from the media, which, by the way, is doing an awesome job out of showing how tendencialist they are, and how, in the name of making some look bad, they care sheer nothing about the quality of the information.

Yesterday, it seems that a corrupt officer, who is  - in the same article or reportage - a traffic officer or a security employe of the University, tried to get money out of a bus driver in exchange of not writing him a ticket. (As far as I know, University security officers do not write traffic tickets, or any tickets.) Since this happened in the morning, the bus driver told the man that he had no money, but since we was working with a University bus service, he could meet him later and give him the money. The "officer" accepted, and they decided to meet at noon by the Radio Universidad, on the Eastern side of the campus (number one in the map). However, the busdriver decided to call the police to inform them about the case. Quite amazingly, because such things don't happen that way in Costa Rica, and should I know since when I went to report a stalker at the police station they told me that unless I was actually harmed, hopefully killed, they could really do nothing, the police, in this case, assigned him quite an army of OIJ agents, to capture the corrupt traffic officer/University officer.

At noon the bus driver and the suspect met at the Radio, but when the undercover officer of the OIJ went to arrest the suspect, this ran away. Now please direct your attention to the map I've included. According to the law enforcement recount, the suspect ran away from the OIJ, and entered the campus through the gates at the Law Faculty, at the Western side of the campus. It has been said that he did so in order to be protected by the Universitary Autonomy. People here know about this since in the times of great national strikes, many students took refuge in the campuses. So, according to the official recount of the events, and please follow the map, the suspect IGNORED the entry inmediately to the South, by the Architechture Faculty, as well as the entry through the North by the General Studies, and instead ran around the entire perimeter of the campus, ignoring any other entry, particularly entries that can be made by foot and not by vehicles, all the way (route shown in purple) to the Western entrance, a wide entrance where vehicles can enter. The suspect went from point 1 to point 2 to take advantage of Universitary Autonomy.

The agents were stopped at the entrance, since the police can't enter the campus (unless not unauthorized), and they didn't notify or ask the help of the Universitary Police in the case (since the traffic officer-University officer... was a University officer?). The Attorney Office, the Supreme Court Chief, a judge... it seems they gave permission to do so (it's important to point out here that no warrant was issued and none was mentioned), and somewhere-somehow-sometime (you know, details. They are not all that important) they like notified the University, though strangely the Rector complained about the intrusion, the sudden, unanounced, unlawful intrusion, and since the police and the OIJ have the absolute right to go anywhere, enter any place in order to capture a suspect (said so by the director of the OIJ), they ran into the campus chasing him.

This is were students and professors, seeing the Autonomy of the University so blatantly violated, stepped up to defend it. This is were Hell went loose. Suddenly an insane amount of police officers, OIJ agents fought the students and the professors in a display of violence that had little to envy from those displayed in less democratic countries. They weren't chasing the suspect, but beating, grabbing students and professors. Acording to the press, it was a mob composed by students and Unions. You know, National Evil, Unions. In the shots taken by the media cameras, you see police officers attacking with clubs and fists the students, one hitting a woman in the head, another grabbing a student by the neck and bumping forcefully his head into the side of the police car.

There were five people arrested: one teacher and four students. Now, it is not a matter of maths, but no matter how much I make my numbers, I just don't find the suspect among the arrested people. You know, the corrupt officer being chased in the first place. Oh yeah, he was arrested too, but the marked money wasn't found on him. The students, professors and the Rector went to the police station where the professor and the four students were held and there the Rector negociated their release. Two students suffered serious injuries. The Rector promised to press charges against the OIJ for the unlawful entrance, and the violation of the Universitary Autonomy. The Director of the OIJ says there was no violation because "in these cases there's no such thing". Still, help me out here, would you? IF the University was noticed, as the law enforcement says now, why was the Rector, the one who SHOULD BE informed, pressing charges and not aware of the situation?

Now, there IS such a thing as the Universitary Autonomy, it's not an invention of the Unionists or the UCR, and that's not ma mechanism to protect criminals. From my standing point, though the students and the professors may have overreacted, may have not waited getting properly informed before charging like Chuck Norris (though I would chase with a pan anyone just irrupting in my house without prior permission), the fault was entirely on the OIJ and other law enforcement agents and personal. They knew before head that a posible arrest was to happen near the campus, so they could have coordinated before hand with the Universitary Police to keep an eye on the suspect, or issue premits, and Universitary Police Escorts for the OIJ agents. I mean, if I am in the University and see the OIJ agents WITH the Universitary Police I would assume they have permits to be there. But that's just me. IF the OIJ for whatever reason wishes to keep the Universitary Police and the University out of the matter, why didn't they place undercover agents in the area? The campus isn't exactly unknown, uncharted territory. Given the agreed location of the meeting with the suspect, they could have placed agents in strategic places to cut his escape routes. I mean they did have a lot of agents to beat up students, why not to place some around the perimeter to more effectively catch the suspect?

I'm proud of the University, even if it isn't my Alma Mater, I'm proud of them because they stand up for their rights. Just like the police can't run into an Embassy to catch a suspect, it can't run into the Universitary Campuses either.

Stand up for your rights, University! Show the country how rights must be defended against those who wish to take them away!

China Mines

So, China. Yeah, interesting country, rising economical power, or so people say. I'm still skeptic, for though it might be able to rise and buy wills, but then there come an article in the newspaper that leaves you wondering just how solid or how hollow the whole Chinese structure is. This time is coal mines. Yeah, you know, dangerous places, and not only because they make hideous movies with hot guys in there (such as "My Bloody Valentine". Mr. Ackles, really.), but because people like "die" in them. Oh, not talking about Das Kapital and the stories about the incipient, canibal, blind capitalism that sent six year old children into the mines to get coal and such, and got them killed in around 2 years or so; I'm talking about "modern" mines in present-day China, with people working in them and dying.

2007, August: 181 miners killed in a mining accident in Shandong.

2007, December: 105 miners killed in a mining accident in Shanxi.

2008: 3200 people killed in mining accidents according to state made (could there be more? It also makes 267 a month, or 9 people per day.)

2009, November: 140 miners killed (accounted so far) in Xinxing.

If this is the kind of country that will rise to be the next economical power of the world, what would it say about us?

Guru

First of all, I'd love to let everybody know that I'm very happy and very touched at all the nice things you people have said about my little doodle from yesterday. I had been thinking about making my own doodle for my avatars and icons instead of picking pictures from the net, and though I had already did so once with a sign I came up with some years ago, this is the first time I actually put on my own doodle (kind of my mark, the same way Kurt Vonnegut had his own representation of self), so I'm really, really happy of all the warm, fuzzy comments I've received through many ways.

Today I was reading the news, starting with Le Figaro, of course, and saw this article about some guru who did something to an aristocratic family of France. Well, I had to actually read the article twice and then look it up in English to understand what the hell was it about, and once I did my eyebrows rose so high in my forehead I could have done cosplay as Voldemort. A con-artist, known as Thierry Tilly convinced eleven members of the Védrines of some story pulled out from some blockbuster, and held them pretty much hostage for years selling all they had. You can find an article (in English) about the case here. From the reccounts of the few articles I've read, he pretty much weaved up a story that mixes The Da Vinci Code with Wanted, into some kind of "You are the Last Hope of Earth" speach. This family, the members brainwashed into this scam are smart people (or so the papers say), so the guy must have been pretty good at goofing them. I dunno, but if someone were to come to me and tell me that I belong to a Earth Protecting Secret Society and what not, and I have to help protect the Universe, I'd tell them where they can stick it. Sorry, I'm not one for saving the Universe, mankind or even the cast of my favorite sitcom.

However, as usual, this got me thinking.

Perhaps a lot of people, such as me, would read this story and think about how stupid does someone has to be to believe such a stupid story. What? They'll also believe that EVA's do exist (actually they do, only they are not machines to kill angels... Hell, hope Castiel won't get face to face with one of them), or that people named after numbers are out there driving Gundams? However, a lot of people, people who is considered smart by others, and who regard themselves as smart, fall for these kinds of stories, and others of similar nature. The "con-artists", so to call them, are often refered as gurus.

As soon as a guru pops up, people go crazy buying their expensive books, paying big loads of money to assist to their seminars, and wrap themselves in the bubble of "guruness" around the given person. Often companies are also pulled into this and they pay loads of money to these people and their institutions, believing that by it they'll acquire some leverage, some higher knowledge, that's often reduced to common places and quotations from books like "The Art of War". The whole environment around them reminds me a bit of Castiel, from Supernatural, as he in some episode (Season 4, I believe) mentioned that pretty much their duty is to have faith and obey, and that doubt is a crime paid with death. Well, the attitude towards gurus is just the same. People don't question why do they sell as their own discovery the saying of our grandmothers, nor question them when something is not clear.

Once we had this "guru" here, at the Institution, and I remember I was forced to assist to one of his seminars. He mislead people, didn't correct them when they were mistaken and then commited HUGE mistakes. An engineer sitting next to me commented in a low voice that this man should be so smart and so elevated, because no matter how much he explained thing, he couldn't understand a word of what he said. I felt terrible for the guy, specially because I realized that the guru was talking non-sense. People left those seminars feeling overwhelmed, with an undeserving sense of being stupid, while they were not (or not as much as they thought of themselves at that point). An obscene amount of money was paid to this man and then vital things were changed at the office on the step of what this con-artist said.

The man is still walking free, cashing huge checks and spreading his word to those wealthy enough to pay and stupid enough to believe.

Like Castiel, somehow there's a feeling among people that we are not smart enough to question, that we should leave the thinking to others, when it's not like that. Sure, there's smarter and less smart people on the world, but no one is free of some degree of ignorance, or flaws. A question can help you reduce your ignorance, increase your knowledge, and it could even point out a flaw that still can be worked out perfected and improved.

Newspaper Oddities or News, B Side

A bloggerine friend of mine, Luna de Abril, wrote today a post about "B Side Music", which was pretty much about that "other side" of you, and specifically the "other side music", which is that music you can't resist even though is not part of your Top 40, iTunes Hits or All Time Hyper-Favorites. She asked her readers what was their "B Side Music", and there she caught me on the headlights like a cat. O_O Dude, I listen to a whole arrange of "B Side Music"! Many times don't even know the name of the singer or the title of the song, but I simply like it. So I was in trouble. I'm not a "rocker" or a declared "hip-hop" chick or anything of the sort, so I don't really feel I've "that odd and secret kind of music I rather not talk about". Actually, as a matter of fact, the question "What's your favorite kind of music?" is the one I dislike the most because I don't really-really have that kind of definition. I mean, I know I basically dislike the 80's fashionwise and musicwise, but other than that... I dig a lot of things.

However the "B Side" matter stuck with me until perhaps an hour ago I found my "B Side". I've "B Side News". You know, those news and those articles you usually are not looking for, because you look for other stuff, but if they cross before your eyes you HAVE to read it. In my "A Side News" I pretty much go for the usual: Telecommunications, Economics, Global Politics, Political Scandals (these are my Gossip-feed!), National Politics, stuff related to the Attorney General, the Fed, Major Banks, Fraud, and NO MIDDLE EAST. The name of any Middle East location is enough to make me leave a topic. Africa in general pulls me, particularly political and social issues, but the whole Israelies and Arabs and their stuff gets me S-I-C-K. This is my "mainstream". There were the "Infiltrated" ones, which I never really considered, because often we think we "don't read them that much", but it happens that my "B Side News" are... quite strong in my reading. I can't say no to crime news. Murdered children, passional crimes, serial killers, corpses found, runaway kids, people abused by others, human trafficking.

Perhaps it's not so shocking, giving the fact that I watch loads of crime shows (all CSI's available, NCIS, all Law&Order available, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, Cold Case... you name it), but it did surprise me, since there's a "thing" about reading this stuff. You shouldn't be avid to read it... or is it just my imagination?

Well, death does pull a lot of interest.

Bridges

A few weeks ago started officially the political race towards the presidency of Costa Rica. I say officially because up until one or two weeks ago only one party had its ads posted all over the place... for the last two years. Naturally said party was the one currently on power. Of course that's not a legal thing to do, and our Political Constitution (like our Magna Carta, or simply our Constitution) do not allow it, but then again, it's not like our politicians were subject to The Law, particularly not our President.

This elections come to the country with a somewhat sour taste, as the memory of the last elections, won by twisting arms and changing our laws so that this men could reelect himself as president again, and loot on our country is still fresh. Fresh is still as well the memory of the Referendum, won by the supporters of the CAFTA, where the President, who should have remained on the margin of it took every available chance to talk about it, promote it and even blackmail people, to my understanding (I've been told there's a video about him pretty much conditioning the building of schools and roads to the approval of the CAFTA), where the political truces were not observed by the CAFTA party, where public funds were diverted to fund this campaing, where nothing was done when humble factory workers were threatened with their jobs if the CAFTA didn't pass, were offered rides to vote if they voted yes, and they had to present a picture taken with a cellphone of their vote, their SECRET vote to prove they have kept their end of the bargain.

So what's running two years ahead to wash people's mind? Presenting the face of a woman that has little to none empathy and she has showed it often, turning to what the President had to offer rather than listening to the people. like her mentor, she refused to go to public debates with other presidential candidates, and lies. Her campaing is nothing but a carbon copy of that of her mentor, filled with empty words, devoided of concrete plans and actions. It's a popularity race, not one of ideas and proposals. Behind her gathered strong political and financial arms to put her in the Presidential Chair by May 1st, 2010, by any necessary means. Indeed the troop is not above cheating, as they have often proved it.

However slowly the bridges came to trample the "unblemished" image of the new pupet of the Government. There was a "situation" with the Juan Santamaría International Airport, which wasn't adecuate, with half done renovations in the hands of private concessionaires what needed more money to finish what they had promised with an already offered and aproved licitation contract. And so it seems that our Transport and Infrastructure Minister paid them. There are also some ports, among them the Caribbean port, an important port for Costa Rica, currently in Public hands, with a strong Union, which this Government is trying to give to private hands. (Okay, I kind of see it dangerous to give away all ports, air and sea to private hands, specially when much or four economy, if not all, depends on them... but that's just me.) Interestingly the Government offered around $130 million to the workers of this port so that they give up the port. When you see these numbers, and lets not think about the blatant corruption going on here, the buying of wills, you'd say that the Government has money.

A lot of roads and highways are given in consession to be "built" when they are already built, and the only thing that happens is an annoying traffic jam for month only to end up with the exact same road or highway now with a 100 m segment of 8 lines (the rest is your average 2 line road) to accomodate 8 tollboots to charge $2,5 for a pass that used to be $0,15. Good thing I have no car nor I live that way. And this is done to several already existing roads and highways. Of course, there's another highway that have been in project some 40 years already (my dad was a kid when the project started), but it hasn't been... well, ain't even hald way, for what I've heard, BUT they are already charging for the already built part.

I guess part of that money must come back to the Government, not to mention all the taxes you must pay for cars, which is another reason I don't want a car (in Costa Rica. I'll most likely have one in Hungary). So, I'd say, there's money there.

Then a metallic piece in a bridge between Alajuela and San José... and pretty much in Heredia... goes loose. It has to be replaced. There are HUGE traffic jams, and a private enterprise replaces this piece, known in Spanish as "platina". It was a whole lot of money to replace that thing. Next day the "platina" fails. Dude, for so much money, at least let it be good for a year before it goes bad again! It's replaces again for a whole frigging lot of money and it's still "not so good". Okay, this starts to look bad on the Government. It's an important road connecting two, even three populous provinces, with heavy traffic and no real alternative roads. The "Masterminds" decide that repairing the bridge will take four to six months during which it should be closed in both directions. So how to reroute the traffic? No idea. Either alternative route is already collapsed. It has been since 20 years ago (curiously since the middle of the first period of our current President. Isn't that odd?) The Twitters go crazy with #laplatina topics all over the place. It's a stain, but the Government, the President and his current presidential candidate pupet do what they do best and ignore the topic. They are above any platina issue, and they pretend nothing has happened.

Well, yeah, only that this past Thursday another bridge put yet another stain on their campaing and Administration.

If you live or have been to Costa Rica, you've probably seen those "hanging bridges" in the non-capital-city or non-province-capital-city areas that really test your bravery. Yeah, those "Converting Bridges" (converting because whether you believe in God or not, you feel fear and cross muttering "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God", and when you reach firm land you sigh and feel like falling on your knees, kissing the land and break into prayer and adoration to the Lord who has saved you. A positively religious experience). Costa Rica has many and I have been "blessed" with the experience of crossing some of them.

This Thursday in Turrubares the prayers weren't answered, the bridge fell and five people died. But before you go blaming God, let me remind you that God is not in charge of the Infrastructure and Transportation Ministerium. This bridge was one of the several in critical conditions around the country. It was one of the bridges presented a year ago in a news' piece about life threateing bridges in the country. The images of the wavering brigde back then were shocking. Notes and letters from the communities and concerned comissions were sent to the Minister with no answer.

For this particular bridge there was a program sponsored by the Government of Taiwan. The money, the planning, everything was done and ready to be replaced. Clean donation money. Then our President decided wisely to break relations with Taiwan in order to tie relations with China. Well, Taiwan in a gesture of grandeur said it won't leave projects half done, but would finish them. (So, technically the clean donation money for the bridge is still there??) China offered no bridges, but hey, they made a crater where our National Stadium used to be, mamed birds and dogs around it, filled it with Chinese workers (not a dime goes to Costa Rica for even their wages are paid IN China), build walls and isolated them completely, and as result they'll give us a new National Stadium... scribbled on the walls with Chinese legends, far bigger than their translation to Spanish. (Kind of feel like our Indian ancesters when the Spanish came over.)

So, somehow there was no new bridge and after a bus crossed it, there was no bridge at all. Strangely, a few hours after the catastrophe, the neighbours noticed how personel from the Ministerium run to place brand new signs all over the place indicating that the bridge was dangerous. By then there was no bridge, so there was no danger. Of course, the Minister tried first to say that it was the fault of the bus driver because he should have known that the bridge was dangerous. The whole town shut her up signaling that the signs were placed AFTER the bridge fell. Besides yes, everybody KNEW the bridge was dangerous, prove of it are the hundreds of letters sent, but the Minister did nothing.

The Minister did all in her power to pin the blame on anyone but herself. The busdriver for crossing the bridge, enven though the route was aproved by the Ministerium, and said Ministerium never really went checking that a transbord were done at the bridge. The bus company for running an unauthorized bus, as if the evil were the given bus and it wouldn't have happened under any other car. And then again, wasn't the Ministerium the one that authorized the route and failed to check on it? Then came the excuse that there were a lot of problems that couldn't be tackled in 3-4 years. Is it so? But, this Minister was the Viceminister of the same Ministerium in the prior Administration, so she has already been there.... 7-8 years?

Then there was the excuse of being no money. Okay, a study by the people involved in the Taiwan project, as well as the Engineering Craft indicated that you needed $900 thousand to build the bridge. The Minister said they needed $15 million for 10 bridges. That would be an average of $1,5 million per bridge, and if we don't think that there's a ruse here, some corruption, then why not starting with the cheapest bridge? The one that takes only $900 thousand? Yes, right, I forgot: No money.

Okay, I'll recap:

1. There's money to pay Alterra when it exceeds its estimated costs for improving the Airport.
2. There's money to concession roads and highways that are already there.
3. There are $130 million to bribe the Caribbean Port workers.
4. There's money to pay TWICE a failed platina.
5. There aren't $15 million for 10 life threatening bridges.
6. There aren't $900 thousand for reparing a bridge, which could have saved 6 lives.

Add to it, the materials needed to build the new bridge were rusting and rotting away in the wearehouse of the Ministerium for already 2 years. Since a year ago they had a note issued by the Engineering Craft, the highest Authority in the matter, that the bridge wouldn't make it to 2010. And then, wasn't it true that Taiwan was going to finish the projects signed here? What happened with that?

Pressure built upon the Minister until she finally resigned yesterday. Up to the last moment the President said that he supported her and that he was HAPPY with her work. He added "I put her there, and only I'll decide if she leaves or stays. And I'm happy with her work". What work? Wasting money and killing people? And now, even after she resigned (curiously her resignation isn't irrevocable), the President said he expects her to think things over.

He shows again his superbity is taxing for the country. If the people doesn't think the way he wants then to think, then he will bully them into it. He separated the Government from the people, mocking them when he or his brother were questioned, berating the powers, bullying. But now, mocking, disregarding so blatantly he outrage and pain of the people will cost him, and could very well cost his party's presidential candidate the election. So close to the elections, which will be held the first Sunday of February, this isn't something that could be washed away. Not when the Minister declared in a press conference that the Government, the State (and therefore the Party and the President) have failed the people.

There's only one way to win these elections. Mark my words. Through heavy duty corruption.

Bridges and death are opening Costa Rica's eyes.