31 January 2012

Lethal Farce

How's this for juxtaposition just dripping with irony and a sitting duck for sarcasm?

--Our police farce--force, I mean--has been granted authority to use lethal force--no farce--based on their judgment of the situation.

--A convicted ex-nonrepresentative is placing conditions on his arrest for corruption.

The first element, a more "violent" police force, stems from an order that originated from the (non)governor's office, which means The Larva, which means Republican, which means We are looking at the same militarization and increased "protect the status quo" policy that is shredding the Constitutional rights of gringos up north.

How much more "lethal" do We want Our police to be? Over the past two years, 21 citizens have been killed at the hands of state and municipal forces; the previous 5 years, the total was 19. And for you estadistas out there, The Larva has been (non)governing the last 2 years.


With a police force so corrupt that it took federal intervention to carry out a cleaning-house raid, is changing the Rules of Engagement to "shoot quicker" a truly good idea?


It is if you want to intimidate the average citizen. And that's the whole purpose of this order: to make it harder for Us, the law-abiding citizen, to stand up against the police force's abuse.


You think criminals and crime-committing dregs give a flying crap about this new order? They'd piss on it, the police superintendent and The Larva if given half a chance. But to the average citizen, the slowly-rising tide of upset people that are making their voices rise above the chaos, the notion that Our already-trigger happy goons are now "empowered" to shoot faster is cause for pause.

Now on to the shitbag. Iván Rodríguez was dumped from the outhouse of nonrepresentatives after being convicted in camara of receiving bribes. And oh-so-not-parenthetically, guess what party he belongs to?

"Bribe Me" Iván was tossed out despite the fact that his own party dominated the votes and procedures, which given the sewage-level ethics of the estadistas means "Bribe Me" Iván was (a) guilty as hell and (b) too stupid to cover up for.

So what does this putrid piece of offal do when a warrant for his arrest comes out, based on 8 charges of corruption? He places conditions for his arrest. [Note: After the posting, I learned he arranged to be arrested with newspaper coverage beforehand. What a crock of shit.]

Now the principle of the law is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, or if they have enough money, they are innocent until a technicality can be found to make them "not guilty." Everyone is entitled to this claim...but if you've been dumped from elected office by your own fellow thieves, your claim of innocence is moot. And since you're just a citizen even when you were an elected official, you don't set conditions for your arrest: you either show up or you get taken when caught. 

Conditions? Here's your condition, "Bribe Me" Iván: you're going to jail. Period.

Juxtaposing a little here, for the sake of fun, why don't We let the police go ahead and implement their new "lethal force" order on "Bribe Me" Iván?

Oh, I forgot: the police are just as corrupt as the estadistas. My bad. Moving on.


The Jenius Has Spoken.

30 January 2012

What's Spanish for "Thief"? Estadista

The list keeps growing. Of the latest, a few lowlights:


Juan Rivera Guerra, nonrepresentative, admits to illegally building two houses, stealing power and water for years and not paying taxes on the properties.


Glorimari "Gorila Rim" Jaime, mayorass, I mean mayoress of Guayama, also owes thousands in back taxes on properties.


So does nonrepresentative Waldemar"A(hole)" Quiles.


The common link--aside from their propensity for greed, fraud and graft--is that they are all members of the New Progressive Party (which, I repeat, is none of the three). The NPP--Numerous Political Pilferers--are the stalwart brown-noses for statehood, shuffling mumbling squatting rejectors of dignity and national pride, forever acting like a creaky musty old whore pursuing a dreamy future with a suitor she repeatedly tries to pickpocket while begging on her knees and in the odd moment when the suitor can't stand her anymore he tosses a sawbuck in the dirt for the overly-painted drooling strumpet to get wet over as she scrabbles gibbering to secure it before anyone notices.


Am I painting a picture here?


It was said that the Pedro Stupid Rosselló (mis)administrations of 1992-2000 were the most corrupt in Our history. In total, 26 highly-placed elected, government or Numbnut Pandering Pickpocket members were brought up and charges and found guilty, including the president of the outhouse of nonrepresentatives and vice-president of the senate, the noneducation secretary, the general secretary of the Nanosized Penile Pundits, the leading aide to Stupid Rosselló AND his fucking campaign manager, amongst 20 others in the legislature, cabinet (screw capital letters) and party hierarchy.


(That's why Rosselló is forever Stupid here: ALL that corruption, in his fuck(ing) face, over 8 years and yet, he "knew nothing" about it. Stupid as shit. Or a lying sack of shit. I go with Stupid, to annoy his followers: they love liars.)


But since 2000, especially since 2004, the Nincompoop Pus Pimples have systematized their theft, simultaneously expanding their reach while reducing their exposure, to the point now where "fringe" elements of this prick pack (We can call them pendejos, for a bilingual pun) are thinking they can get away with whatever they want.


Like building houses without permits. Like stealing thousands of dollars worth of power and water. Like not paying taxes. Like cohorting with drug dealers under the guise of "community relations." Like creating dangerous public projects to funnel money to cronies. Like taking money for any reason except actually working legally.


What We're seeing here is the slip, the "oops factor," the so fucking-dumb-they-make-shit-look-smart attitude that led to the downfall of a weasel, Jorge Il Castrao De Castro, so deep in his own pile of crap that the Keppler telescope can only see the stench fumes.


What We aren't seeing is the polished sewer the Nightsoil Plundering Prevaricators have created, running deep and wide…or are We?


--The F.B.I. raids Our police force and asks the federal Justice Department to investigate its corruption; Justice agrees.


--The federal government cracks down again and again on Our (mis)education department, where millions of dollars are disappearing again and again.


--Our Supreme Court is being investigated.


--And a petition to have Congress investigate corruption in Our senate, as well as asking the President to look at Our """Justice Department""" is making its way up to 25,000 signatures.


Some signs are small: the company selected to royally fuck up the Guánica Dry Forest has experience ONLY in managing audiotours in Old San Juan. And even that they don't do well.


Some signs are big: the GasoDildo project, despite being rejected by the Corps of Engineers, failing to adequately complete ecological studies and failing to show it is actually a solution to anybody's energy woes, continues the profiteering-disguised-as-expropriation process.


Are there thieves in the other major party, the Popular Democratic Party (again, none of the three)? Of course there are. Wasn't their latest (non)governor Aníbal "The Jellyfish" Acevedo brought up on fraud charges while he was (non)governor? (That he ended up "not guilty" is a minor point, spineless commonwealthers, or have you forgotten that Stupid has yet to have charges pressed against him?)


Thieves abound in the Pusillanimous Dickweed Pantywaists, but they have two differences: they get caught less and they have yet to create a large elaborate system to rape Our pockets, Our present and Our future. Not that they haven't tried: it's just that they haven't """succeeded""" to the extent the Naturally Parasitic Pricks have.


We do have a solution to this unprecedented level of chicanery, fraud, graft, plundering, embezzlement, abuse and stealing: the voting booth.


But given what We do there, let Me give you another translation to join "thief = estadista": "voting booth = letrina."




The Jenius Has Spoken.

26 January 2012

TEDx San Juan: Marcos Polanco

[Apropos of this interview, Global Voices Online did a review of five Caribbean-area TEDx events, which quote Me. What can I say, except "Thanks"?]


Marcos Polanco was the Speaker Coordinator of the TEDx San Juan event in November, 2011. Our paths have crossed several times in the past decade, not always in positive or even neutral terms. But that day in November, I gave him his due, for the TEDx San Juan speakers were phenomenal. (I will interview the rest of the TEDx Event Coordination superstars in the coming weeks; I know Marcos better than I know the others, so I started with him.)

Marcos is a serial entrepreneur, with Silicon Valley experience, who came back to Puerto Rico after, in his own words, "crashing and burning" in California. Working in start-ups, he made approaches to government agencies and was invited to become a consultant. One of the first lessons he grokked there was that government work was no meritocracy: talent and brains mattered little, if at all. As Marcos pointed out, he'd just come from Silicon Valley, where brilliant ideas rule; in Our government, brilliant ideas were ignored. As Marcos noticed, an idea would make some small measure of progress if the person submitting it had power or leverage to make the listener do something.

After being a consultant, Marcos was asked to help coordinate with McKinsey Consulting on a major report about Our economic present (in 2003) and future. Marcos realized that since China had outsourced manufacturing and India had outsourced services, Puerto Rico had to find a different business model to offer the world. He found one: federal contracts, primarily based on engineering. Puerto Rico's largely-unknown deep pool of top-notch engineers was a resource that We could leverage for federal projects with little or no global competition.

His insight came in September, 2003, barely less than a month after InfoTech had secured a contract with Pratt & Whitney to take on federal defense contracts and set up shop in Mayagüez, a success story that led to several other "reverse brain drain" projects bringing Our engineers back to Our shores. Marcos played pivotal roles in that development, as he entered the Puerto Rico Industrial Company, PRIDCO, to help develop the Information Technology Business Unit.

PRIDCO--My eternal nominee for "Gilded Busted Sump Pump of the Century"--turned out to be a revelation for Marcos.  In his words, it took him "several months" to figure out its complexity and "about a year" to see how "utterly brilliant" PRIDCO was. As an economic attractor, sales arm and industrial developer for Puerto Rico, PRIDCO was "utterly brilliant...for 1955."

(Made Me spit out coffee, he did. Cracked me up.)

PRIDCO was the main agency of the economic miracle that defined Puerto Rico's success from 1947 to 1972.  But Marcos found its indifference to change "heartbreaking," for not only is the model broken, but there's no will to change it at a wide enough level. Therefore politics rule what should be a practical reality. As Marcos said, when an entrepreneur brings a project to PRIDCO, they ask 3 questions: how much are you investing, how many jobs are you creating and how many square feet of space do you need. These 1955 questions were pertinent then, but the current economy, where 2/3 of all new jobs are coming from new companies (mainly Internet-based), these 3 questions are far removed from reality. In addition, for PRIDCO, a job is a job, so 300 minimum-wage jobs with drone workers means more to the agency than 50 high-wage knowledge worker jobs. When salary is not important it means Our public economic policy is short-sighted and self-limiting, tossing away true growth in pursuit of "political numbers."

To describe where We are as an economic entity on the global stage, Marcos used the analogy of being once a major stop on Route 66 and when the interstate was built, you are literally "off the beaten path." To Marcos, Puerto Rico has long been off the beaten path, and yet he firmly believes that We can move Ourselves to get back where We belong, because the "shift" isn't physical, but conceptual.

But to do so, We can't rely on PRIDCO or other government agencies. As Marcos pointed out, some agencies have to look outside to deal properly with their functions (like the Government Development Bank and bond traders in New York, PRIDCO with multinationals or Tourism with the travel industry.) But if PRIDCO is so wrong in outlook, despite almost constant "outside feedback," what can be expected of the other "inward-looking agencies" of Our government? In other words, Marcos thinks Our political architecture--as well as Our economic architecture--need to be fundamentally changed for progress to occur.

However.

Politics rules to an overbearing extent. Marcos notes that with about half Our population is in poverty and nearly 27% of Our workers employed by the government, political leaders spend their 4 years in office trying to get more money from the "Sugar Daddy" up north to benefit the poor and government workers, the biggest voter mass We have. Entrepreneurs and knowledge workers, the key elements of 21st century economic innovation, are a diminishing middle class that means diddly-squat (My term) in terms of votes. Not enough votes means no attention which equals indifference and inertia. A sad formula for getting stuck in neutral.

Along those lines, Marcos is appalled that Our continuing and increasing brain drain is not a national emergency. Almost 100% of Our best-rated engineers leave the Island (other professions are close to that, with nurses leaving at a 55-70% clip, doctors at about 40-50% and lawyers at about a 35-40% rate...so there is a silver lining to this brain drain, I guess.) and the loss of human resources in Our "unreal economy" is a powerful blow. It is an unreal economy since Puerto Rico makes what it doesn't consume and consumes what it doesn't make, so its economy is not "directly affected" by most of Our actions. We have little or no control over speeding up cash cycles, which drives economic growth, so Our only true tool is human talent and drive.

And yet, even today, PRIDCO accounts for about 11% of all jobs in Puerto Rico, so it still has a degree of relevance, aside from it being the precursor agency to other government departments (the Ports Authority, for example). As such, it holds sway over economic development and innovation, currently being ridden by the biotech industry sectors (mainly related to the big pharmaceutical companies here), for although innovation is more than biotech, no one in government seemed to have a clue and the biotech sectors gladly accepted the gift of being able to guide economic policy their way.

Marcos is not a pessimist, though. He believes Puerto Rico can become a global player because the technology for globalization is now in the hands of the individual. Marcos himself works with colleagues in Africa, Europe, Asia and the U.S. of part of A. in his latest start-up. Location doesn't matter, but knowledge, energy and will do.

On the other hand, Marcos thinks that trying to turn Our Island into a Silicon Reef (backhand jab of Mine at the Center for the New Economy and their decade of uselessness) won't work because We aren't early tech adopters (willing to take a risk on the cutting edge), Our venture capital is barely-there and wrongly-focused on spending only for "the big score" (ignoring the more secure and proven course of portfolio growth rather than "lucky hit") and We still see Puerto Rico as "the market." In Marcos' example, if your only focus is on 4 million people, it's like you're trying to sell your company's offer to downtown Los Angeles only.

To counteract that, Marcos believes We need to focus on the monetization capacity of the Web. He pointed out that Groupon set a record by becoming a billion-dollar company in just 2 years; the previous record was four years. It's only a matter of time--pun intended--before a company reaches the billion-dollar mark in one year.

And maybe, just maybe, We could play a major part in it.

As Marcos emphasized, We don't have to wait for permission, We don't have to wait for anyone, no one can stop Us...if We believe We can do it, We focus on the global markets and We decide to do it.

Funny how it comes back to choice...



The Jenius Has Spoken.



25 January 2012

"Get Out!" Movement, Part 2

This won't take long...

The basic idea of My "Get Out!" Movement is to punt political parasites out of their cushy tushy-kissing moronic excuses for """jobs""" and make way for a (hopefully) new crop of less-egregious parasites. Now Puerto Rico being Puerto Rico (tautologies suck, but I'm stressing a point here), any name on a "Get Out!" list will be seen through party-politics prisms.

Not good, because as We've seen for decades, My Brethren vote under the notion of "He might be a fucking crook, but he's MY party's fucking crook." In other words, We vote stupid.

Hence, the "Get Out!" Movement. I placed 3 criteria on who to kick out: legislators in key positions (presidents, vicepresidents, etc. of their respective (fart)gas chambers); legislators with more than 12 years of bloodsucking """service""" and mayors who have also spent 12+ years living high off Our pig-stupid voting.

One more thing is needed: a centralized website that does the following:

A) Identifies the "Get Out!" targets under the specified criteria.

B) Targets each, uh, target, their ads, utterings and """service record,""" to make sure that kicking them out is clearly a boon for Us, humanity, several star systems and simple decency.

C) And the clincher: the "Get Out!" website needs to make clear that ANY elected official can be targeted, that once s/he is targeted the website will strive to kick their ass out of office as soon as possible and that the criteria for being on the "Get Out!" list are NOT ideological, NOT status-related, NOT party-politics-as-usual but a citizen's movement to enforce the government We deserve.

So, political parasites in the scope, don't like being on the (future) "Get Out!" list? Here are My three immediate responses:

1) Fuck you.

2) Resign immediately.

3) Do your job right by and for Us and you will drop off the "Get Out!" list.

Some of you may be wondering: And what good does that do, Oh-So-Brilliant Jenius?

Here's My (almost) immediate reply: What good are We doing now?



The Jenius Has Spoken.

23 January 2012

Admitted Criminal? No, Just "Negligent"

Summary: A prick of a legislator builds houses without permits, connects them to power and water illegally--therefore getting them both "free"--and doesn't pay taxes on either property. Lies about it at first, then admits the facts: fraud, theft, mendacity and ethical violations as an elected official.

What happened to this pure shitbag, something called José "What? Me Follow Laws?" Rivera?

1) The ethics committee of the outhouse of nonrepresentatives (capital letters imply respect), led by a fatbag of fatheadedness Liza "Morbidly Obtuse" Fernández, decided that "there was nothing to investigate," even though the houses are there, the years of monthly bills were there, the prick's statements were there and the fucking ethical standards of the outhouse are fucking there. No, according to the fatbag, there's nothing to investigate. And lest We be remiss, the 9-member committee voted 6-3 to not investigate, the votes cast impurely along political lines. Can We say statehooders are fucking thieves and just make it part of their platform for 2012?

2) The bigger fatbag of fatheadedness in the outhouse of nonrepresentatives, something called Jenniffer "Gluttonny" González, makes a big hullaballoo about asking the prick (believe Me, not her favorite thing by ANY stretch of the imagination) for "papers," apparently to sop up the grease from her latest quaint meal for four that she ate alone, because she did diddly-squat with the "evidence." Her object was to get some airtime and she succeeded at that; useless to anyone but her ego.

3) Faced with public pressure and the absolute open fucking shamelessness of the prick and fatbag and the whole shitty excuse for a party, the lame-ass ethics committee decided--against the "evidence" of THEIR OWN previous shit-headed decision--to suspend the prick 10 days for "negligence."

The only way that last sentence would please Me is if they hang Lying Thief Rivera by his own prick (if they can find it) for 10 days.

Here's why this is making My language and attacks so beyond the pale: We are seeing the reality of Puerto Rico...and nobody's getting pissed off enough to do serious harm to the perpetrators.

Options abound: firebomb the prick's houses (no, I am not kidding; I'll tell you when I'm kidding); march on the outhouse and break a few doors with several heads; run the fatbags off the road and make them eat a diet meal (okay, now I'm kidding: make them eat ground glass)...or vote the fuckers out, with extreme prejudice.

Let's start the target list: José Rivera, Liza Fernández, Jenniffer González and the five majority-party members of the pig sty commission that couldn't find ethics in a one-word dictionary dedicated solely to the topic: Elizabeth Casado, Albita Rivera, Jorge Luis “Borgie” Ramos, Angel Peña, Jr., José “Pichy” Torres Zamora.

These 8 should be on Our GetOut Movement list. They are worthless parasites, scum I wouldn't wish on Osama Bin Laden's dead ass. But We have them all to Our own until We decide to treat them exactly as they deserve: flush them out with the rest of the sewage.




The Jenius Has Spoken.


20 January 2012

Fun With Economics!

It's Friday, Friday, Friday, and now that I've dumped that earworm in your head for several hours, here's a bitter pill of economic information about My Island.

How screwed are We? On a scale of 1 to 10, about a 9.5. And that's not My opinion, but that of the Center for New Economy, a puppet of Old Economy interests, that occasionally drops data on Our heads. This simple chart, apparently created by CNE Executive Director Sergio Marxuach, traces the amount Our Larval (non)government budget pays in debt service (bonds, junk bonds), seen in pink, and how much of the budget is now being invested in "permanent improvements":


Roughly, the ratio is now 3-to-1 debt service over government investment in crooks, thieves and assorted other vermin, a.k.a., the GasoDildo Gang and ilk.

But.

In Our subjugated economy, the only strong method of boosting growth is government-led construction...IF aimed more at true public improvement rather than private enrichment. In this cockroach-frenzy corruption-fest of a (non)government, 3 dollars are going out of Our economy for roughly every dollar practically stolen in queer-as-hell deals. Our debt limit has been reached, so We're facing issuing future debt to pay current debt and the private sector is not receiving investment, either. I'm no economist, but that doesn't sound like a formula that could build national wealth in a million years. And it all starts with not managing debt properly, creating it now (for short-term personal gains) in exchange for an increasingly-iffy future...that the verminous parasites don't give a shit about.

However, Let's be fair here. It isn't only one party at fault. Statehooders may be perfecting the "politics of plunder," but the commonwealth party has often been the initiator and willing partner in crime. (Independentistas used to do their share, but now they're on the Olympic Plan: every 4 years they show up for 2 weeks, make a lot of noise and then vanish.)

Plenty of blame to spread around; We're just seeing the end result of a parasitic gang mentality pushing Our economic future deeper into a latrine in order to plunder the few thin veins of gold flakes left. To blame The Larva and its ilk for where We (yes, I called him an "it"; 'bout time) are is like blaming pneumonia for killing a cancer-stricken patient: yeah, the pneumonia could have been avoided, but the patient was already in bad straits.

And yet.

We. Are. The. Patient. 


But We act like We aren't. Fool Me once, shame on you. Fool Me every day for 40+ years...

Sigh.

Fun with economics. On Friday, Friday, Friday...



The Jenius Has Spoken.

19 January 2012

Ecological Disaster: $3 A __________ Pop

Hey! Let's play "Fill in The Jenius Blank"! The rules are simple: toss in the expletive you feel best completes My sentence! Be creative! Be filthy! Be hilarious! I am!

Today's topic: allowing four-tracks to run through the Guánica Dry Forest, the only semi-tropical dry forest in the __________ world! See? We're already playing!

A walking piece of dog _____ pretending to be in charge of Our Natural Resources Department has granted permission to let "ecological vehicles" race through the Guánica Dry Forest--at $3 per person. Or __________ vehicle. And by "ecological vehicle" We're really talking about mother_____________ four-tracks.

Not content with this aberration, Daniel "Dog _____" Galán, principal skanky _______ in the coming orgiastic _____fest raping the Dry Forest has also allowed a private company to """manage""" the Visitor Center facilities, in a UNESCO World Heritage Preserve, for the __________ total of $300 a month. On a 5-year contract. Renewable for 5 more mother________________ years if the Dry Forest simply refuses to die.

In the spirit of Orwellian double-speak--in reality, ____________ lies--here's My description of "Dog ______" Galán in his role as overseer of Our Natural Resources: "fucking whore."

I don't do double-speak. And I filled in a blank for you!

First of all, how in the ______________ hell can a site as unique as the Guánica Dry Forest be tossed like a used lottery ticket into the hands of a ________ private company? To run _______________ four-tracks--an estimated 1-_____-thousand a month--across a terrain that has NO twin anywhere in the world? And to allow access to bicycles and excursions beyond that...for 300 ___________ dollars a month?

Obviously, the federal government hasn't signed off on this. Which means that "Dog _____" Galán, aside from being a "_________ whore" (I let you fill in that one!), could be a ________________ thief, extending a non-enforceable contract to a private company in exchange for who-knows-what. That or he is truly _________________, _______________ and _________________ stupid beyond belief.


Thank you for playing "Fill in The Jenius Blank!" Remember, "Dog ______" Galán is a ______________ whore who wants to ___________ the Guánica Dry Forest! I say We ____________ him first. Repeatedly. And sideways, too.




The Jenius Has Spoken.


[Update: 31 January 2012: The ___________ audiotour company with ZERO ecological management experience decided not to take on the contract. Goes to show that even in this ______ for brains chaos We call """government""" We can make enough noise to stop some of the _________________________ parasites from multiplying.]

[Update: 9 February 2012: Over 20,000 trees have been cut down by the ___________________ department of (un)natural resources on land bordering the Guánica Forest. Purpose? To erect energy-producing windmills...which can be placed elsewhere, ____________.  Any one of those trees is worth more than the ____________________________ director of the ____________________ department of (un)natural resources.]

18 January 2012

TEDx San Juan: Mayra Santos-Febres

Mayra Santos-Febres was the brilliant closing speaker of TEDx San Juan, with her topic about Our fear of literature and reading. As she said then, We refuse to read because it makes Us more insecure, and We refuse to write because it reveals too much about Us.

I interviewed her to explore these thoughts. Like many of Us here in Puerto Rico who love to read, as a child she noticed that reading was cast in a negative light. Comments like "You'll go crazy" or "It will hurt your eyesight" were common, along with "It will make you think" and "Men don't like women who are smarter than they are."

For Mayra, this anti-reading bias was not really gender-based, or race-based, but based on class. Her middle-class upbringing placed a premium on "being private," of keeping matters under wraps, which extended to "keeping one's place" as well. Class mobility was not a virtue or a realistic possibility, so reading--which could encourage dissatisfaction, give one new ideas or reveal intimacies--was seen as dangerous. In Mayra's keen-eyed phrase, there was an imposition of "necessary silence."

This "necessary silence" could only be maintained through auto-censorship, so communication was per force oblique, hinted, veiled and incomplete. Mayra said she felt as if her family was constantly hiding a secret, and yet never knowing what that secret could be. Reading and writing were thus cast as tools of investigation--and discovery--the two enemies of secrets.

Mayra Santos-Febres
This secretiveness and view of reading/writing as dangerous stems, Mayra feels, from how closely interconnected Our families are, thus creating a tightly-woven society. Our social links within Our classes are strong, cementing identity with it, even if We also engage in linking "above" or "below". With numerous and close links, anonymity is harder to achieve. So is solitude, that fundamental nest of creativity.

In other societies, where anonymity is easier or stronger, literature flourishes. I mentioned to Mayra that while living in Oxford, Mississippi, I regularly spoke to a woman who knew William Faulkner and said she despised him. Her only other comment about him was: "All he did was write down what he heard around here." For insular societies--whether they are islands or backwaters--exposure of the dark sides is betrayal most heinous. But the South affords anonymity that Puerto Rico simply doesn't, where writers have to literally isolate themselves within the isolation or leave the Island to pursue their desire. The few voices that rise above Our "necessary silence" tend to pay a heavy price for their perceived defiance in threatening that silence.

The fear and rejection of reading and writing in Puerto Rico has another class component, according to Mayra. In her view, Our upper class, the wealthy movers and shakers, have less power than in other societies, so they are more fearful. I confess that hadn't occurred to Me and at first glance, I'm inclined to disagree, but Mayra's observation has an undeniable fact: We don't control Our economy, so how  "powerful" can mere managers be, even if they are "executive managers"? Those with some greater degree of local power are thus aware that it can be as easily taken from them from "above" as from "below," simply because they cannot isolate themselves enough from either.

This sense of isolation, energized by secretiveness and insecurity, permeates Our culture to the point of leaving Us ignorant (My word) of the outside world. As Mayra says, "the world" to Us is the "the United States and maybe Cuba and the Dominican Republic." The rest? Doesn't exist. And about the Dominican Republic, We have a prejudice, as many of Our families have relatives there and tend to deny that fact.

Another fact Mayra is aware of, as a university professor, is the growing number of women who are outpacing Our men in achieving higher education goals. She sees that trend as emerging from a societal viewpoint that believes that "For men to be men, they must be brutes" (strong, forceful, not bookish), with their primary school being "the street." For women, their primary school IS school and the home, thus pre-disposing them to achieve more. As to what that will mean 20-25 years from now, she doesn't know (no one really does), but she did note that, for now, men still have the dominant share of power in business and politics, and that maybe a more equitable power structure will emerge in those 20-25 years, possibly leading to great changes.

One change We agreed upon is that of overcoming "Our national dream." As I described My post about this topic to her, she almost said the same thing I did: whereas I said "Rescue Us," she said "Solve this for Us." Mayra and I agree that a society that waits for others to do what's needed isn't a society that will produce a large number of writers, that We are in fact Cinderellas without a prince to escort Us to the palace. If We could only understand that no one has to give Us permission to be what We choose… As Mayra pointed out in her TEDx San Juan presentation maybe We don't read so We don't feel worse about Ourselves. 

To overcome this aversion, Mayra targets education and "the Island," i.e., Our pursuit of fragmented efforts. Schools need to upgrade and expand their curriculums and include more modern works, as well as a greater variety. As for society, too many well-intentioned projects, from book fairs to literary contests to curation, are running helter-skelter, each too small to have a great impact, fighting against each other for money and resources, eschewing collaboration and cooperation because of ego and/or the fear of being considered a "politicized" organization. As Mayra emphasizes, more could be done if a centralized policy were pursued, one aimed at creating a central repository of information about Our literature, past and present, and Our myriad literary-related events.

That's Mayra's dream: a digital collection of Puerto Rican literature. Not a single-spot archive, but a directory, a digital doorway into Our novels, poems, essays, plays, music and more. Maybe the burgeoning world of digital publishing could also serve as a platform for a "Neo-Boricua" literary movement, much in the way that blogging has become a platform for Our random and not-so-random thoughts.


Some interviews are drags, others are dances and a very few are days unto themselves. To speak with Mayra is like sitting on a beach veranda, a sunny sky and warm breeze as the setting of an easy flow of words. Not one is wasted. Her thoughts move along with the grace of a generous spirit, one that accepts what it sees because it is; no sense in rejecting it for what it should be. I could spend several days enjoying that scenario, engaging Mayra's mind and spirit, exploring that which is so different and yet so much like Me.

Not surprising at all, because when you think about it, that's what reading is, too.


The Jenius Has Spoken.

17 January 2012

Obama Extends The Fascist Regime

I mentioned the trend in 2004: of 14 defining characteristics of fascism, the U.S. of part of A. was exhibiting 10 outright and 3 were at the tipping point. It's gotten worse.

Back then, the murderous moron was president, product of two stolen elections. (Facts are facts: both elections were stolen by Republicans in outright fraud. Deal with it...although We haven't, really). The murderous moron and his hyena cabal are gone, but is the slide into fascism reversed under Barack "Hope, I Offered" Obama?

--Corporations are now people--PEOPLE--with a """right""" to free speech meaning that these non-men/non-women can spend as much money as they freaking please to support political candidates. This even though bribery is legal in the form of """lobbying.""" What it does is allow corporations--"""people"""--to outright buy political control of the government and use the media to further their control of the government, a pattern the fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini would easily recognize as the path to fascism.



These corporations are many of the same entities that received trillions of dollars in """necessary""" bailouts, most of it going to rich corporate executives and yet to be recovered, but citizens were barely helped by """economic recovery""" programs that basically amounted to "Hang on while We watch the rest of the world recover faster." Makes sense: bought politicians used Our money to enrich """people""" who will buy them again, while "The People" got screwed.

--Military tribunals and "secret courts" now have the power to arrest, incarcerate and keep imprisoned ANYBODY they fucking choose--WITHOUT a warrant, WITHOUT due process, WITHOUT explanation, WITHOUT public evidence and WITHOUT guaranteeing that the person will ever emerge alive. That's right: the military and "secret agencies" have the legal power now to kill your ass, on U.S. of part of A. soil or wherever, merely on """suspicion"""...and never have to really explain what if anything you were under suspicion for.

--Along those lines, the use of military force against the citizens--the posse comitatus concept--has been struck down. The military forces your taxes pay for are now free to pound you into the dust if someone in power decides to unleash them in your neighborhood, not because of some natural disaster (the traditional "safety" role of the military), but because someone declares a """terrorist""" situation or """other condition."""

--If you are deemed an "ally" or "abetter" of terrorism, you can be killed. Legally. Without a trial. And if (when) the government makes a mistake and waxes a U.S. of part of A. citizen who was actually innocent, the family gets shit, for the president can decide where the trial is held, whether it will be a federal court (citizen's-based process) or military tribunal (kangaroos be hopping process). What this means is that the government is now above the law. Remember that phrase, because it's coming up again.

--Your privacy--no matter who you are or what you do or don't do--can now be invaded with warrantless surveillance. No justification, no evidence need be presented, no legal process needed, just a government order...and even that could be kept secret. Want to sue or demand your rights? HAHAHAHAahahahahafuckyou: judicial review of surveillance against you is forbidden. Denied. Fuck off, """citizen"""...because if you don't and become too much of a nuisance, the government can now grab you and pack your ass off to some other country. Leave you there, kill you, tell no one you're in jail there, whatever.

Think I'm joking? You think this is NOT the U.S. of part of A. you live in?

THINK AGAIN.

All this is real. Jackboots on the ground and happening as We speak. You are being watched, monitored, tracked and recorded. You have no right of habeas corpus, you have no protection from the government and you have no appeal process to protect you. You are at the mercy of government goons, military thugs  and """secret agents""" that owe allegiance and accountability to nobody but themselves.

Read 1984. Read Animal Farm. The hateful and hated concepts therein that were once the abominable traits of tyrannical regimes "over there" are now visible every day in """Our""" government, right here.

Open your eyes and mind and watch how the tangled web of repression is woven, at your expense, to serve those who aren't you. Notice how your rights are increasingly lost to "serve the public good" or "to protect vital interests" that again, are not really yours. Watch as the government that doesn't represent you tries to """protect""" you by increasingly making you the target and victim of repressive laws and processes, treating you worse than a criminal to keep you safe from """terrorists""" that aren't even in this country.

"An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will...Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely."

What We have now--and that Obama has perpetuated--is a government not of the people, by the people and for the people, and not under the rule of law, but a government of corporations that are not people, acting against the people, buying the people in power to control the government and excusing said government from the rule of law. THIS is the U.S. of part of A. now. And no amount of propaganda and double-speak can hide it...unless you simply don't want to look.

We are siting ducks, because as Lord Acton warned, We cannot expect that these near-absolute powers will be used wisely. Not even by the two-faced specter of a president who offered "Hope" and should he win in 2012, will have no reason to hold back or keep """Hope""" (barely) alive.

Prepare yourself: it's only a matter of time.


The Jenius Has Spoken.


[Update: 20 Jan 2012: From Daily Kos, an overview of how voter registration laws are increasingly-aimed at limiting minority votes. And what a coincidence! The strongest pushes are made by Republican-led legislatures against these traditionally-Democratic Party bases. Voter fraud is a'comin'? Nah: it's been here for a long time.]

[Update: 26 Jan 2012: Think that "freedom of the press" is going to keep you safe? Think again. According to Reporters Without Borders, the U.S. of part of A. is now 47th--forty-freaking seventh--in journalism freedom, a drop of 20 from its previous position, ranking below Hungary, Ghana and Botswana, but thankfully above Romania, Latvia and Haiti. Leader of the free world? No way. Leader of the censorship movement? Yeah, pretty much...]

[Update: 4 February 2012: Just to put it in terms of numbers, 27 of the 35 proposed Articles of Impeachment against the murderous moron apply to Obama. That's 77% and counting.]

13 January 2012

The Get Out Movement

[Jenial Thanks to Janine Mendes-Franco, of Global Voices Online, for selecting two posts, about Our rising emigration and the changes in Our inner voice.]



What kind of voter movement would make the biggest difference in Our deteriorating PanoRama?

First, what would a voter movement be and is one needed? Taking the last question first: crime up, murders way up, education dropping even more than its Third World rating would predict, corruption up, jobs down, economy tanking, government bond debt limit reached, government credit rating dropping, stupid political leaders playing kissie-assie with each other, emigration rising... If anyone thinks the current sewage dump of """leaders""" is going to change their thieving, me-first bullshit, then they are retarded and should not vote.

As for why a voter movement and not some other "peaceful" process: short of a violent overthrow and non-existent recall solutions, the simplest and most direct path to change Our (non)government is through the elections. Since every electoral office is up for grabs every 4 years, the only real chance We have to make minimal or wholesale changes is at the ballot box.

Moving on. The voter movement I envision would obviously have to cross party lines, galvanize abut 350,000 - 425,000 votes and focus on taking out entrenched Fools.

Why?

1) Cross party lines: The average voter wants to feel that his or her vote "wins" in some way. Appealing to only one party or ideology group will cause the average voter (species name: Voticus ignoramus) to fear that their vote will "be wasted." Of course, they don't see that voting for anyone already elected is "wasting" their vote because those already in power are parasites living off Our indifference.

2) Galvanize 350,000-425,000 voters: The average election in Puerto Rico has about an 85% turnout and that means about 1.8 million votes cast. Twenty percent of that number is 360,000, a substantial number that will cause all Fools to take the voter movement extremely seriously. Especially when the movement focuses on point 3...

3) Taking out entrenched Fools: There are folks in Our government that have the morals of an opium fiend with the willies, the ethical standards of a child-molesting priest and the intellectual development of week-old gumbo. Yet these scumbuckets are making decisions about Our economy (crashing), Our education (crashed), Our taxes (crushing) and thus Our future (crushed.) For that privilege, We are paying many of them salary and benefit packages that are simply ridiculous when compared to Our averages: mayors making over $100,000 a year, legislators making over $110,000, Cabinet officials over $190,000 and even support staff is making over $80,000. And what about consultants making over $125,000 on each of two or three "legitimate" contracts?

By attacking the incumbents, the voter movement automatically becomes one "of change, for change." Rather than attack all the incumbents, a series of targets are selected, primarily from the legislature. (Folks, I don't capitalize words for institutions I don't have at least a modicum of respect.) To make the biggest change, targets from each major party are selected and the criteria are simple: Those holding key legislative positions (president, vicepresident, speaker of each chamber, etc.) and those with the longest incumbencies (long-term parasites.)

A quick scan means that media tumors and crap merchants like Jenniffer "Gluttonny" González and Tomás "Mad Dog" Rivera would be targeted alongside commonwealth party tapeworms like Antonio "You Haven't Caught Me" Fas and José "I Look Up to Tapeworms" Varela. As the statehood party currently controls the legislature, there will be more names from that party than from the other, but that's how these changes work: by targeting those who have the most to lose.

In that sense, all legislators elected "by accumulation," i.e., not tied to any senatorial or representational district, are the best targets, for they are often """party leaders""" who use their ""widespread mandate""" to fuck Us. (Notice the absolute lack of quotation marks around fuck Us. Twice.)

Also amongst the targets are certain mayors, who have become entrenched to the point of idiocy. Two examples are Carlos "I'm A Businessman Like the Mafia Is a Brotherhood" Méndez, of Aguadilla and José "City Hall Is My Closet" Rodríguez, of Mayagüez. Why them? because they've been in that chair for over 12 years; their time is past, if it ever was.

The voter movement would focus on kicking out incumbents, targeting them with direct questions, deep analysis of their shortcomings and raising awareness of how utterly useless these high-profile, long-squatting pisspots are. Rather than trying to change the entire political system, the voter movement would narrow its focus to a true leverage position: shaking the foundation of the most ambitious and entrenched.

Nothing strikes more fear into the heart of a Fool--more so than an F.B.I. badge--than a voter group that the Fool cannot buy. A voter movement aimed at knocking off incumbents, that crosses party lines in order to make changes happen, is a powerful force: when that force is applied well, it makes change inevitable.

And once the voter movement proves its worth, it need only target other high-profile, long-squatting smegmacups to make them pay attention to Us. Because that's the whole point of this voter movement: to make the Fools understand that they work for Us and that We hold the power, not them.

A name? Okay, how about Junta Electoral Nacional Independiente Organizada: JENIO.

Yeah, I know that's "Jenius" in Spanish, but it does have a certain ring to it, dissonant yet affecting.

However, for populist appeal, We could go with Movimiento Pa' Fuera, the Get Out Movement.

I know, Brethren: the trilling rhythms of "¡Pa' fuera, pa' la calle!" are already ringing in your ears...


The Jenius Has Spoken.

12 January 2012

Voting Fraud A-Comin'!

The Larva signed a deal with Unisyn Voting Solutions for e-voting this November. As sure as corruption rots Our government, voting results fraud is guaranteed. Book it.

For one, the statehood party has the morals of a brain-damaged crack whore with seeping wounds. For two, the commonwealth party is almost as bad...but they're not in power; however, voting results will get them that power...right? And for three, The Larva has not one, not two, but three elections going on that fubar November day: general (where the brain-damaged crack whore with seeping wounds party will knife the Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus, Barney, Elmo, several Care Bears and Tinkerbell to stay in power...poor Elmo); a status referendum worth even less than the b-d.c.w.w/s.w. party and the patently-manipulative and worth even less than the status referendum "cut the legislature size" referendum.

All this for a slug whose chances for winning the 2012 elections are fading daily, and they were bad to begin with. The Larva's already stacking the deck, what with these two referenda that will be sold--mark My words--as being intrinsically tied to The Larva, so that not voting for  it (yes, it) would seem to be a vote against statehood and against reducing the size of the legislature.

Pifflegab. Or in more polite terms, bullshit. The Larva is stacking the deck, but not content with that, he's now marking the deck and hiding the scorecard. The only step reamining here is for him to just run the election in his new Unisyn voting system--without Us--and announce the result.

Farfetched? No. Foregone.

Unisyn Voting Solutions is a subsidiary of Malaysian-owned International Lottery and Totalizer Systems. They yap a lot on their website about "compliance this" and "certification that," tossing out words like "security" and "transparency" like British Petroleum flings "environment" and "community." In other words, it's just words, because e-voting systems are the perfect environment (short of using guns and tanks at polling places) to cheat and steal an election.

And don't think The Larva didn't try to find tanks...

Although I'm not a techie, I firmly believe that open source software and platforms based on it (like Unisyn) are ultimately superior to proprietary software and systems. But elections are also a perfect environment for hacking, for cheating, for breaking the system and making it do something else. Just ask Republicans...of which The Larva is a "darling."

In 2008, University of California Santa Barbara researchers proved repeatedly that voting machines were deeply flawed; some of them could be reprogrammed in 3 seconds using a common USB drive--and the cheating could never be uncovered, even with a paper ballot trail.

But Jenius, that was 2008! Wake up! We're in 2012!

Correct. And the hackablilty of these systems is still a problem. In September of 2011 several parties showed that Diebold voting machines, the primary provider of voting systems that year, could be hacked by remote control. For about $30 and with roughly an 8th-grade education. Sound secure to you? The method involved blocking the signal of the vote (when a button is pressed) and replacing that signal with the chosen frequency, i.e. vote changing. Simple and every system on the market could be hacked in the same way.

But what about Unisyn's "paper receipt"? That would prove which vote was made!

Really? That system of "Voter Verifiable Paper Trail" (VVPAT) was exactly what the UCSB researchers proved was hackable and ultimately untraceable. Why? Because the machines could be rigged to "prove" the falsified data.

Think about it. You go to vote, push several buttons for your parasitic asshole of (limited) choice and get a slip of paper that records your vote. You check it, see that it matches your choices and leave.

What the system can do to cheat you is alter the tally of your selections. Say you vote for parasitic assholes A, B and C. The machine's receipt says A, B and C, but the votes are logged as A, B and D, or some other combination chosen by the current parasitic assholes in power. It even "prints" an A-B-D receipt during "verification" so that whatever tally it was programmed (or reprogrammed) to display, it will.

At that's the key: the machines can be rigged to cheat or changed to cheat, invisibly and by practically anyone with a little knowledge, cheap electronics and a few minutes. 


Even if the cheating is limited to certain areas, or bungled, the end result will be either a rigged election or confusion. And who gets the benefit of electoral confusion? Whichever party holds sway in the local Supreme Court...the same Court The Larva packed with statehood-supporting offal a year ago.

Now I'm sure The Larva didn't plan that far ahead, but never forget that the principal goal of government and those in it is to consolidate power to sustain themselves. Packing the Supreme Court (it went from 7 to 9 judges, 6 of them named by The Larva) is just consolidation of power, but power that isn't used is not power.

Are We headed for voting results fraud? In a country where one party shows up every 4 years just for the cash handout (¡Arriba independentistas!), where both major parties see the game as having power to use it for their own benefit, where corruption and ethical lapses in said government are encouraged and thus expected, where law enforcement and "justice" is secondary to political affiliation and where voters are largely as smart as a rutabaga (but thousands of times more noisy) and three voting procedures are going on at the same time?


Oh yeah. There'll be rampant cheating. Our 2012 elections will be a fraudfest.

Book it. (Electronically or in print.)


The Jenius Has Spoken.

[Update: 31 January 2012: Voting machine hacked to display Pac-Man, without breaking the "tamper evidence" seals.]

[Update: 3 March 2012: E-voting system hack gets Bender, of Futurama fame, elected as school board chairman...for Washington D.C.  Oh yeah, Our elections in 2012 are going to be a pro-statehood party hackfest.]

11 January 2012

One Vote, One Bullet

Somebody needs to get shot.

A man builds not one, but two houses, without the proper permits. At both houses, he has been receiving electrical and water services for years without a legal hookup...and without paying for the services. He has never paid property taxes on either house. Bad stuff, huh?

He admits all this. I said: He admits all this in public. Accepts that he has done these things and broken the law. And he, Luis "Slimy Tumbleweed" Rivera is a member of Our (Out)house of (Non)representatives. Worse stuff of all, right?

Wrong. This bag of shit, who OBVIOUSLY belongs to the statehood party, has just had his """Ethics Commission""" investigation...dropped. Dropped, I said. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Apparently the fat tub of goo (yes, that's a personal insult: fuck it) called Liza "Fat Tub of Goo" Fernández, chairperson (or with her size, sofaperson) of the unethics commission and OBVIOUSLY a member of the statehood party decided that what Slimy Tumbleweed had done, what with no permits for two houses and getting free power and water for years and not paying taxes, well, that's all copacetic. That he is a member of the highest-paid and least-valuable legislature in the freaking free world and thus SHOULD be held to a higher standard is, to the Fat Tub of Goo, irrelevant. She can't stand to see a standard just like she can't see her feet when standing.

So.

There are no standards. Fuckers like Slimy Tumbleweed, whose main claim to fame so far was rolling along the pavement after being hit by a car (thus, his sobriquet) can flout the laws over and over and over and over and over again, and then again and again and again and again, and as long as they are part of the Inner Circle-Jerk of Ass-Sucking Slimebags known as the """New Progressive Party leadership,""" they will get out of trouble...as long as its with local """authorities."""

Luis the Freeloader, who was most likely impotent and retarded (yes, that's a personal insult: fuck him for being a crook) before he turned into pre-roadkill is one of too many in Our (non)government who need to be told: "One vote, one bullet. Choose."

What I'm saying here is that We MUST hold these shitbags accountable and if We're not going to do it with votes, then I'm saying We consider doing it with bullets.

Bad taste, Jenius. Too many murders on this Island, too much violence and you're tossing out this piece of demagoguery?

It isn't demagoguery because I'm not making a false claim, a promise or seeking power. I'm saying this: Unless We stop these motherfucking bastards in BOTH parties, they will continue to rape Us. And We can stop them with votes...or violence.

But what about non-violence, peaceful protests, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

What about them? Wonderful ideals, great concepts, heroic leaders...but whacking a few of these motherfucking bastards will change things instantly. We've run out of time for patience and soft-selling solutions. And We can whack them at the voting booth, nonviolently, peacefully, instantly.


Think about it: Two houses, NO permits, STOLEN power and water services for years, NO taxes paid for years, a representative of the people...and NO charges, NO investigation, NO punishment.


Do you have two houses? Free power and water? Don't have to pay taxes? THEN WHY SHOULD HE?

Slimy Tumbleweed as a human being is worth less than the shit I scrape off My shoe. He's a thief, a liar and a panderer. And if I had to choose between running him over or avoiding a dead dog on the road, I'd avoid the dead dog and gun it. The engine, I mean. I think I mean the engine...

But then, that's Me. I'm fed up with all this crap. So I'm making it very clear: One vote, or one bullet. It's time We picked one to make the change.


To quote John Kennedy: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.



The Jenius Has Spoken.

10 January 2012

Political "Go Fish"

The Larva, Our pathetic excuse for a (non)governor, goes by the name of Luis Fortuño, signed a measure to place into the upcoming referendum the notion of reducing the size of Our legisalture. This as a result of a referendum voted on in 2005 that ended up saying "Reduce the size of this $!@&#%&*@ legislature."

Why is a 2005 result, condemned and then ignored by his own party (and Let's be fair: by the other major party as well, whose then-governor actually put it out there) coming up for "debate and vote" in this here 2012?

Backtracking: The Jellyfish, then-governor Aníbal Acevedo, attacked the legislature, led by the opposition, with this idea of reducing their size, and thus their "power." He took it to the masses who were massively indifferent to the whole thing. (I didn't vote.) About 28% of the eligible voters said "Reduce it," and the legislature...farted on the whole thing.

In Our system, the legislature votes about itself, so changes like a reduction in membership size or a salary hike, are voted on purely on institutional self-interest. The battle in 2005 was not about the size of the legislature (as it should have been, because it's too damn big), but about appealing to voters for "momentum."

Same as in 2012.

The Jellyfish had a contrarian legislature hell-bent on screwing him over at every step. "The hell with running the country and helping it grow: this is politics!"

The Larva (he wishes he had a sting, like The Jellyfish, but he's just not "big" enough to have one) has a contrarian legislature hell-bent on screwing him over at every step. The difference: in 2012, both branches are under the control of the same party.

Historians say that civil wars are the worst, because they pit brother against brother. In Our case, The Larva's (non)administration has pitted slimebag versus slimebucket in another sickening bout of "The hell with running the country and helping it grow: this is politics!"

What did The Jellyfish gain in 2005? A political "card" he could toss on the table to (A) hint that the legislature didn't listen to the people; (B) distract the people from whatever pissant problem he didn't want deal with or (C) claim speciously that he had the people's best interests on his side.

Did it work? Not well. Maybe the 24 charges filed against The Jellyfish in federal court took the sting out of the legislature reduction card. (He as found "not guilty" on all counts.)

What could The Larva hope to gain with this card now?

Ignorant votes. The best kind, cuz We got plenty of 'em!

Here's The Larva's fiendishly transparent plan, in monologue form (smartened up to make it worthy of being placed here):

"Doh! I'm gonna lose the election! Crime! Moiders! De economy! Edumacation! It all sucks! I'm being blamed! But wait! A referendum on status could scare people into voting for me!! We could sell it as if a vote for me is a vote to stay sucking on Uncle Sam's...tit. Yeah!! But that isn't enough!! OH NO! What to do?! [Several weeks later...with a HUGE headache...] I got it! Make another referendum that makes the meanies in the legitasor--legisrazo--Capitolio look bad AND confuses people into voting for me!! The 'cut the numbers' vote again!! Yeah! Hey, where am I?*"

The Larva is trying to stack the deck for his benefit, not Ours, and to try to gain some measure of control in his own party. When the opposition--his own party or the other---attacks him as expected, he will play one or both cards, to hint about the opposition, distract the media and masses or whitewash his pathetic image. 


The opposition will say "Crime," and he will play "Status." The opposition will say "Jobs" and he will say "Cut the ones in the lesligato--Capitolio." And because neither card means anything or matches anything truly relevant to Our current situation, this game of "Go Fish" will have no valid conclusion, no true measure of progress, until Election Day.

And after that, some other totally worthless and immensely stupid game will take its place.

Politics as usual.



The Jenius Has Spoken.


*Freebie: Waldo joke.

09 January 2012

A Change In Inner Voice

Stopped at a gas station, for petrol. (Look it up.) Read a banner about a jazz fest. Weekend event. City park known more for being "kiddie-oriented" and across the way from the Central American and Caribbean Games facilities in Mayagüez, about 20 minutes from Chez Jenius. Borders the ocean. Nice place. The park; not Chez Jenius, which is a nice place, but not near the ocean. Sometimes in a lake, though...

Jazz. Not my favorite kind of music. None of the musicians and groups rang a bell. (Maybe while performing...) But Mrs. Jenius and I have a habit of just taking off and going places, seeing things, exploring. Our inner voices on events like this are a combination of "Could be fun," "Never done that," "What else can We discover?" and in My case, "What will I end up writing about?"

Personally, My inner voice adds sub-vocally: "I hope it isn't crowded." Don't like crowds. Can deal with them well now, but still don't like 'em.

Back to the jazz event. Colorful poster. No Jenius plans for that weekend. Mrs. Jenius and I always looking for a something new. Close by. Different. (Mrs. Jenius is a clarinetist, but jazz is not her main musical taste, either.) And then, My inner voice pipes up...

"Yeah, but what if you get shot?"

Public event, across the street from a housing project, a couple of thousand people expected, beer galore, on an Island where murders are close to 100 a month...

Made Me pause. My inner voice was definitely yapping negative. Made it shut up. But the point had been made.

It's not the same Island, is it?

Shook My head. Drove to Chez Jenius. Thought about the poster, the event, the location, My inner voice...Mentioned the event to Mrs. Jenius. Took her a second to answer...

"Sounds good. But what if something happens?"

The "something" Mrs. Jenius referred to wasn't "something good," or "odd" or even "awkward." The "something" was "something bad." This from a woman who hiked into the Amazon and has also voluntarily tended to the sick and injured along the Haiti-Dominican Republic border and the drug-filled streets of San Juan. She's not the sunniest optimist, but she's not the gloomiest pessimist, either. Her inner voice has changed, too.

And for the sunniest of optimists, like Me, that change in Our inner voices is heart-breaking.

We blame the pathetic excuse We have for a (non)governor and his hyena pack of vandals, and yes, they deserve part of the blame. But I've said many times: We are to blame as well. What brings Me back to that topic now is that when Our inner voice changes, everything else changes as well. Mine is going from "adventure" to "caution," while that of many of My Brethren is going from "I don't care" to "I'm getting out of here."

So I ask: does that sound like a formula for success?

That's My inner voice making itself heard. Wonder what your inner voice says in response...


The Jenius Has Spoken.

05 January 2012

Emigration: What Does It Mean?

Over a 6-year period, covering 2005 to 2010, more than 178,000 of My Brethren left Our Island, a reported 28,000 in 2010 alone. The true number is almost certainly higher, suggests the Statistics Institute of Puerto Rico, but Let's just use 178,000 for now. It's bad enough.

What does this historic reversal of Our population dynamic mean? Beyond the evident flight from crime, limited economic opportunities, higher taxes, corruption (a particularly distinct form of crime) and diminished quality of life, what does this emigration really mean?

{You mean that isn't enough, Jenius? No. Many other places suck worse than Puerto Rico, but haven't lost almost 5% of their population. There is more here than meets the eye. That's what I'm here for. You're welcome.}

There are three distinct sub-texts to this emigration that also need to be addressed:

1) It is brain drain multiplied. The average age of Our latest emigré has dropped to 28. That means that most emigrants are old enough to have completed college and a graduate degree. Old enough to have gained work experience or career-related experience. Old enough to have established a network...that can be influenced to join the emigration.

My lovely friend Laura told Me six years ago, in late 2005, that nearly all her social circle had left Puerto Rico. Though most were above 28 in age (and thus in the median of the emigration age at the time), they were all connected in more than one way: school, work, hobbies, social organizations, etc. They moved en masse, with their valuable experiences, talents and energy leaving Our day-to-day society. As the study quoted in the article notes, many of the emigrants are doctors and engineers in their mid-30s and early 40s, key cogs in any society. Losing bright minds is never a winning proposition.

2) It reveals how divided Our society is. The Puerto Rican emigration of the 1940s and 1950s--a so-called "diaspora" by people who live inanely for melodrama--was largely a search for jobs and growth. But the latest emigration is quite divided: a very large group of "brain drain" qualified professionals who leave to expand their career opportunities and a shockingly large group of young, single men who move to the States...and don't get a job.

The obvious difference between the 40s and 50s and now is welfare, but there's a deeper current here: young, working-age men who can't or don't want a job here moving "there" to not work is a basic formula for crime. Or a backlash. Just as the "Puerto Rican welfare mom" was a cliché, the"Puerto Rican welfare bum" could become one. And Let's note that Our decades-long increase in women earning college and graduate degrees, exceeding the number of men by far, means We're looking at a society where women are generally better-qualified for most jobs than men, that they outnumber the qualified men and yet, must battle a machista society strangled by its own ignorance and barnacle-grip of the past.

It is possible that the emigrating men are a reaction to this "women are better qualified" trend, or that the "natural" tendency of Our men to think they can "hustle" their way to success--gansos ganseando, literally geese goosing their way up--has come home to roost. Or maybe the rise of the drug trade combined with the wholesale failure of the educational system has created an alternate path to economic success, one that involves investing several years in prison as part of the price. (We are exporting convicts...to Oklahoma. Steve, how's that for a connection between Us?) (Folks, that's a personal aside. My blog, My personal asides.)

3) This emigration means We aren't fixing Puerto Rico: it's headed for collapse. No, I'm not being melodramatic. Think about this closely: the economy has shrunk by double digits, the population decreased by about 5%, crime is rising dramatically [no matter what Our idiotic Larva of a (non)governor keeps prattling to the moronic contrary), corruption shreds the Island's socioeconomic fabric, education by imbeciles turns out ill-prepared adults (almost half not even completing high school), what passes for leadership in this country makes the average retarded monkey troop look like a Mensa meeting...

What, in Our panorama, gives Us the hope that collapse is not Our destiny?

Nothing.

Not. A. Thing. Because the people We need to right this foundering ship are leaving. With some of the rats.

To "fix" Puerto Rico doesn't take money; money is a tool, not a cure-all. It doesn't take a "status consultation" or "status fire drill" or "status tomfoolery"; We simply don't give a lab rat's cloaca about status and only demagogic pissheads ever have. It doesn't take "outside intervention," particularly not by Our gringo neighbors who are mired in fascism--President Obama's abject betrayal of the Bill of Rights now a fait accompli--and can't find their own lab rat's cloaca with a map.

No, only We can "fix" Puerto Rico. But the more of the key cogs leave, the harder it gets. Even when some of Our rats also leave, too many indifferent, ill-prepared, lizard-brain-first numbskulls remain...most of them in government.

Those of Us who have long seen what's happening would look around in 2005, 2006 and say "We have to get the others who think like Us together to make a difference." Now We look around--and this is hard to admit--We make plans to leave, because We certainly don't want to be one of the few left behind when the feces hit the fans.

Or the only one.

Damn it.


The Jenius Has Spoken.


[Update: 21 Jan 2012: From New America Media, a darker picture of Our emigration trend than reported in major mainstream media.]

04 January 2012

Propaganda Over Police "Work"

Here, from Leo Gómez, comes a statistical fact that nails The Larva through his non-existent genitalia:



In brief, the budget for the Police Department's Criminal Investigation Program decreased 30%, a roughly $40 million reduction, while the Police Department's advertising budget--I said "advertising budget"--shot up from $57,000 in a 4-year period to over $7.5 million in a 3-year period.

Makes Me wish The Larva were shot so he could "benefit" from the reduced investigative capacity of the Police, but be forgotten with the next new "Police release."

Now, Let's try--just because I have a few free minutes--to figure out why Our pathetic excuse for a (non)governor would sit and watch this happen. (Yes, watch: I don't think he could actually do this all by himself.)

--The Program is no longer needed? Puerto Rico did establish its first 25 detectives in 2009-2010, i.e., police officers specifically geared to major crime investigations. Are 25 enough? Not with 1,136 murders in 2011, a rise in drug trade and serios bone-deep corruption within the Police itself.

--The Program was over-funded in the first place? Okay, so We drop the budget some $40 million and someone--obviously a person with ad agency connections--decided to shift $7 million of that to whitewash the Police force's cruddy-crappy image? This sounds likely, though it does nothing to excuse the abject stupidity of the act itself.

--The advertising was meant to divert/diffuse/confuse issues? Obviously. That's what propaganda is. To paraphrase what's attributed to Lenin, a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. Advertising the Police, for the Police, is a useless activity. If the ads were not "about" the Police, but for public service, then why attribute it to the Police's budget? Look at the numbers again: $57,000 for 4 years, $7.5+ million for three. Is this accounting legerdemain or a satchel of corruption?

Given the track record of Our governments, of The Larva and his 40,000 thieves, of the corruption-riddled Police...then yes, this is another satchel of corruption.

Now Let's ask: what ad agencies got the bulk of this $7.5+ million windfall? 

Prediction: The same ones that did most of the work for the Statehood party's campaigns.

I'll even call it now: I'm 1-for-1 in 2012.


The Jenius Has Spoken.

03 January 2012

Shots Fired...At The Wrong Targets

New Year's Eve. Largely a happy time, if you're actually happy or in denial. A sad time for many folks. And a rousing invitation to crass idiocy for too many others.

About five minutes before 2012 arrived, a young pair, brother and sister, capture on video a fusillade of bullets fired in the air and in who-know-what-direction. The young man, an Iraq veteran, immediately recognized the sounds for what they were: AK-47s, illegal under the law, required on the drug-infested streets We harbor.

Watch the video and listen to the sheer number of shots being fired. The constant ratchet of sound is, with every passing second, a slap in the face of ordered society, of community, of the rule of law. What is worse: the people in the video, by all accounts law-abiding, "average" citizens, sit in the living room, calmly discussing the barbaric display.

Why don't I embed the YouTube video? Because We come to the worst part of the story, to the absolute shit-hole depths of Our stupidity: too many people complained about the video.

Let Me repeat that: too many shit-heads complained about this video of criminal activity.

Not that it was the only one...

Arnaldo and Sariely didn't take the video to make money: they uploaded it for free. It was quickly picked up by CNN as part of their citizen-journalist effort. Despite the siblings' efforts, hundreds if not thousands of people expressed the opinion that their video was "intrusive," " a violation of privacy," accusing them of being "rats," of "demeaning Puerto Rico," of "ruining the island's image," of being "nosy busybodies" and implying they were of--how to put this in politer terms?--"deviant" sexuality.

Here's My reply to the people who criticized Sariely and Arnaldo about this: kiss My ass. You're all fucking cowards and to put it bluntly, worthless.

One aspect of the criticism is true: Arnaldo and Sariely risked their lives by posting this video. The vermin that preys on Our streets--on so many more of Our streets now--will react in their sewer-lizard way and try to harm them, most likely kill them. But look and listen to that video again: are those the actions of people you want in your community? I have no fear that any of you will say "yes" because those inclined to do so can't read English. Or Spanish, for that matter.

Armed gangs are taking over Our streets, just as they took over Our housing projects, isolated wards and urban cul-de-sacs. Drug and gang-related deaths are happening in Our malls, Our highways, bars and even softball games. The reason these fucking vermin spread is not because they are many--they aren't--it's because We allow them to. We choose cowardice over confrontation, fear over facedown and hiding over honor, dignity and quality of life.

In that sense, Our stupid excuse for a (non)governor represents Us perfectly, for he too is a piss-himself-first coward who avoids confrontation, hiding behind walls and words, getting comfort from the increasingly-pathetic notion that "It's all happening over there."

It's happening right here, right now. As the thousands of bullets flying through Our air every day prove, We are living in a war zone, and instead of fighting back, instead of firing back at the true targets on the other side, We are taking stupid potshots at the brave, peashots at the craven and shots of rum to drown out the rattling sounds of Our cowardice.



The Jenius Has Spoken.

Note: " target="_blank">Here's an embed code for the CNN video.