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Showing posts from August, 2012

The Sad Ecstasy of Being Right

The bitter sweet sensation, is like a drug for those that've felt the scorn of being condemned for daring to speak what others don't want to see. To cover ourselves with the knowledge of being right and comfort ourselves from that scorn is but a poor substitute. It's easy to be right. If you've ever felt the scorn of being rejected for seeing the truth you know the seductive ecstasy of hiding behind the "I told you so." It's easy to be right. The drug-like effects comfort you in the cold loneliness. You feel vindicated, the lone-hero, the one who saw where other failed to see. Yet it's a sad song to hear, a bitter comfort, for the real power lies in being convincing. Lately I've heard interviews with Paul Krugman, nobel prize winning economists, about how he is mostly right about his economic predictions. I thought to myself, what a way to go for the low hanging fruit. The dare, the challenge, is to be convincing. To not just say what's

The Sad State of Puerto Rico

This past month has been fun. Univision declared a celebration for Puerto Rico's independence, an event that hasn't happened. And the Huffington Post shared a racist tweet from the adviser to the speaker of the Puertorrican House of Representatives. In other news Canada has the same crime rate as Puerto Rico . No, no, I mean the BBC reports Canada has less number of murders ( 598 ) for a population of around 35 million that Puerto Rico has with just 3.5 million (around 1,000 ). But what's a factor of ten between friends? Yet friends of mine on Facebook still defend Puerto Rico as if it wasn't that bad. It was bad in 1993 when I finished H.S. and we had almost 1 murder per day. Now it's at over twice that. What's going on? From afar you have a different perspective that from inside. But all I'm seeing is the fulfillment of trends that have been a long time going. 1. Brain Drain . This was a problem 15 years ago, but it was pretty much ignored. N