Variety Pack 001

The Jenius wants to present a variety of matters today:

GOOD LEADERSHIP: In the current EnterPRize Competition, sponsored locally by the Guayacán Venture Capital Fund, 10 projects were selected as semi-finalists for the $100,000 cash award. Of the 10 projects, two are created by members of Open Source Minds: LasFinanzasPR.com and an event and location-specific content management system proposed by Kevin Shockey. The Jenius predicts that the cash award WILL go to one of those two projects.

GOOD LEADERSHIP: Speaking of Kevin, he will be in Brazil next week participating in the 6th International Free Software Forum. There he will not only present his conference, titled Teiniaguá and Open Source Java: Myths or Reality?, he will also present the SNAP Development Platform, created and developed here in Puerto Rico.

BAD LEADERSHIP: The Retailers' Union (Centro Unido de Detallistas) is continuing its traditional whiny "Protect-me-I'm-too-little!" sobfest by begging that The Fools get their act together (HA!) and "get the country moving again."

The Jenius has 6 words of advice to the Boo-Hoo Bunch: Shut up and get to work. If this so-called "Union" represents over 65% of the economic muscle of Puerto Rico, why the blazes are you asking for "protection" and government "support"? YOU should be telling The Fools what to do and how to do it, instead of treating those nincompoops like pashas granting favors. Here's some more free advice: Protection is akin to destruction. If you firmly believe We can't compete without protection, get the hell out of the way and let Us, who believe more in Us than you ever will, get the job done. You haven't done it, and at this rate, you never will.

GOOD/BAD LEADERSHIP: Estudios Técnicos, led by a former Chamber of Commerce president Joaquín Villamil, urged the private sectors to take action against government inaction and "let politicians know they don't own this country." Bravo! But in their Symposium on an Economic Direction for Puerto Rico, the stated recommendations range from trite (more effective and efficient government and private sectors; stimulate public and private investment) to the banal (unite academia, government and private sectors; develop tax reforms.) Here's The Jenius' shorthand reaction: Duh. These same ideas were proposed four decades ago and the fact that a Symposium of experts comes together and can only repeat these ideas as their recommendations is pathetic.

True, in trying to educate government, We are dealing with Fools, lower primates dominated by base instincts. So if We know this--and We do--it makes sense to find other ways to get the message across, because simply repeating it is useless. One definition of insanity is to continue the same behavior and expect different results. By that standard, this is lunacy.

GOOD LEADERSHIP: Andreica Maldonado Arroyo, from Inés Mendoza High School in Cabo Rojo won Third Prize in the International Science Fair held recently in Phoenix, Arizona. Competing against students from 40 countries, Ms. Maldonando won the Women Geoscientists Award for the project she developed with her science teacher, Mr. Iván Montalvo.

The news, and that of other Puerto Rican award winners, merited one-eighth of a page in the Island's so-called "leading newspaper." However, the anorexic (or bulimic) doings of women in Thailand merit page after page after freaking page in that same daily. Our media covers "news" like vultures: they circle only around stench. Time and again, Our Talent--Our True Talent--gets shoved aside in favor of crudeness, violence, idiocy and gossip.

Ms. Maldonado, Mr. Montalvo and the many thousands--yes, thousands--of Our People who achieve great things deserve much better. It's about time We gave it to Ourselves.

The Jenius Has Spoken.