Special Commentary
Around Antigua – Coming To Terms
A number of attacks in Antigua on the night of August 18 sparked a CNN iReport post entitled “Bloodbath in Antigua,” a stern warning from the US Embassy, and the spreading of alarming rumors on origins of the violence and its possible connection to narcotraffickers, gang violence, political corruption or a mixture of all three.… »
Special Commentary – Political Realities and Surrealities in Los Estados
Presidential candidate Herman Cain, at the Family Leader Presidential Lecture Series in Pella, Iowa, promised that in his Administration no congressional bill longer than three pages would be signed into law. It’s on YouTube, if you want to see it. If he is elected president, he will only pass “small bills” that “you’ll have time… »
Special Commentary – Health Care Reform in the United States – Part V
The Spring 2011 version of the health care debate has taken on the look of Russian matryoshka dolls, although one measures the risk of conspiracy theory in even mentioning the term. Health reform has become nested within a broader debate about Federal deficits and national debt, which, in turn, is nested in an emerging debate… »
Special Commentary – Health Care Reform in the United States Part IV
As Barack Obama stepped to the microphone, Joe Biden, with a stage whisper said, “This is a big deal.” He added an expletive for emphasis. And a big deal it was. Our endless health care debate had somehow become law.
At least six twentieth-century Presidents had advanced comprehensive health care reform. All had failed.
President Lyndon Johnson’s… »
Special Commentary – Health Care Reform in the United States Part III
The cable chatter about Scott Brown’s surprise – to everyone but Massachusetts voters – victory in the US Senate race to succeed Edward M. Kennedy focused primarily on how it might affect the debate on Health Reform in the United States. Sixty Democratic Senate votes in favor had become fifty-nine, and in the math of… »
Special Commentary – Health Care Reform in the United States Part II
The December 2009 edition of the Archives of Ophthalmology reported an explosion in the incidence of myopia during the past thirty years. In 1971-72, twenty-five percent of Americans aged 12-54 had myopia. By 1999-2004, the number had jumped to 42 per cent. We are becoming nearsighted. The big picture is increasingly out of focus. That’s… »
Special Commentary – Health Care Reform in the United States Part I
While Congressman Joe Wilson’s, “You lie!” distracted public attention from President Obama’s September 9 health reform speech to the Congress, the President’s real fib that evening went almost unnoticed.
“I’m not the first President to take up this cause” (without a doubt), “but I am determined to be the last.” No way! Whatever happens this year,… »
Special Commentary – Guatemala’s Undeclared War
A flash of light was burning on my skin, immediately followed by sounds that penetrated my body, leaving behind my cold flesh and taking my dreams forever.
In recent months Guatemala has been experiencing yet another period of senseless violence that make up so much of its history. It is just another example of a state… »
Special Commentary – Dead Man Shopping
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the engine of job creation. – Ronald Reagan
I never met a small businessman yet who didn’t have one finger up his ass and the other on the scales. - Mad Dog Howard
Like many older married men, I’d rather… »
Special Commentary – Dams, Reparations and Genocide
The following story explores some recent developments in the central tragedy of modern Guatemalan history – the genocide which took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Maya during this country’s long civil war. In an email conversation with La Cuadra Dr. Barbara Rose Johnston shared additional information about the international financing of the Chixoy… »
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