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.

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.]

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.

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.

The Larva's Number Is Up

The image is indelible to open-eyed and open-minded observers of Election Night 2008, as newly-elected governor Luis "The Larva" Fortuño was trying to speak to the crowd outside of the party's headquarters. Television reporters had already commented on how New Progressive Party (neither one, nor the other, nor the other) """leaders""" were openly angling for legislative presidencies and in fact, some of their speeches had already shouted out their intentions. Then, with the Island's vote tally at about 85% complete, it was the new governor's turn to spew, er, speak.

And as soon as he started saying that legislative positions were not be discussed until later, Thomas "Mad Dog" Rivera snatches the microphone from The Larva and contradicts him.

Game. Set. Match. The Larva's days were clearly numbered and beyond any shadow of any doubt in any way, no one can deny that The Larva's governorship will end in 2012.

Because it was over in 2008.

Back to that night. The Larva had only 3 possible responses to that blatant and humiliating insult he received in what should have been his moment of (temporary) glory:

1) Continue his speech and then decapitate Mad Dog and his cronies during in-party meetings prior to occupying La Fortaleza.

2) Force a confrontation right there, at the mike, to make it clear that The Larva was the supreme leader of the party and the upcoming government.

3) Punch Mad Dog in his BB-sized nuts.


The Larva did none of these, and with three years of ineptitude on the books, some of it caused by in-party divisiveness, 2012 is the curtain for this (non)governor. His countdown is in single-digits at tbis point.

There is one number that will literally kill The Larva: 1,136, the number of murders committed in Puerto Rico during 2011.

The previous record was 985, so 2011 marked a 15.3% increase in murders, 151 deaths beyond what was Our bloodiest year ever. Tack on the declining employment stats, reduced federal funds because The Larva's party harbors thieves and encourages them to steal, increased taxes and fees, declining population and total trashing of Our credit and you are looking at a Larva about to be crushed.

[While I'm here, why the hell don't We have a recall system in place? Either that or baseball bats upside the head, but We have to implement a system to get Fools out without waiting for the calendar and the idiot vote.]

Even a party as flat(ulent) as the Popular Democratic Party (neither one, nor the other, nor the other) can beat The Larva, even with their Loopy Pony of a candidate, Alejandro García, a dark horse looking for a race he can win...but a race implies competition and that's where the Loopy Pony stumbles.  However, given the in-party fighting that The Larva faces, even if the PDP beats the incumbent, it doesn't mean that they will win: they have to look beyond The Larva and beat down the Mad Dog, too.

(That We as the people don't win no matter who gains La Fortaleza is a given; I'm just focusing on the Mad Dog and Loopy Pony show here.)

And as if that weren't enough, behind the Mad Dog (in a figurative sense, not in a supportive sense) lies Jenniffer "Gluttonny" González, a Queen Kong in the (temporary) shadow of a Bark Vader. So the Loopy Pony is not even in a match race: he's in a stakes race, the stakes being "Puerto Rico" and the stakes being driven through Our chests, to push a metaphor to beyond the breaking point.

Which is where We are and have been for years. The Larva's number is up; Ours really is, too. We can see what's going to happen to the pencil-brained feeb...but can We see what's going to happen to Us?

And care enough to avoid it?



The Jenius Has Spoken.

TEDx San Juan: We're Not Alone

Oh yeah, I was wrong.

TEDx San Juan was a rousing success. As I tweeted: I'll eat some of My words, happily.

Let Me dismiss My off-targets first: I sill don't agree with hiding the speakers line-up until just before the event. Sharing of anything is enhanced by symmetry and symmetry means We have the same or as much of the same (information) as possible. I would have gone to TEDx San Juan no matter the line-up, and...

Given that over 1,000 people applied and only 100 were allowed (My second point) by TED guidelines (for a first event), then there would have been no problem filling up the event. Only 100 was a stipulation, not a whim: I would have liked to know that beforehand. So picking Me to attend was not a mistake (I don't know what criteria applied), but a a pondered decision that actually honors Me.

Now for the positives: TEDx San Juan is the first event I have ever attended locally that exceeded My expectations. My biggest Congratulations go to the organizing team: Ramphis Castro, Iván Ríos, Marcos Polanco, José Padilla, Arelys Rosado and Héctor Ramos. They did a magnificent job.

A special Congratulations goes to Marcos Polanco for coordinating the speakers. I understand the selection was made by a group, but Marcos had the direct responsibility for the line-up and the agenda and his choices in both regards were impeccable.

Another special shout-out goes to Jenial Friend Luis Herrero as his company was in charge of the video and livestreaming, which I understand was world-class.

The speakers deserve their own recognition, to wit:

Justo Méndez, Nuestra Escuela: Born from the tragic loss by auto accident of his daughter, Nuestra Escuela takes in troubled kids and gives them back their capacity to dream and reach that dream.

Fernando Lloveras described why he created an organization to rescue Puerto Rico's rapidly-diminishing land area, preserving it for Our future.

Jorge Rigau presented his two proposals, a Metropolitan Walking Paths project that could easily and economically provide San Juan with some 3,000 miles of "urban walking paths," rescuing little-used spaces and a project, already done once, to convert a 35-kilometer irrigation canals infrastructure into a passive recreation/tourism attraction.

Dr. Daniel Colón talked about the exponential impact and importance of basic research, so strongly-maligned now, in healthcare and broad-based public benefits.

Tara Rodríguez described her Department of Food company, linking organic farm products with urban and suburban deliveries of high-quality vegetables and fruits.

Jorge Gaskins spoke about microalgae and the enormous potential they have for both food and fuel. Key number: microalgae can produce over 10,600 gallons of biofuel per acre per year; no plant can produce more than 780 gallons per acre per year.

Noel Quiñones spoke about and showed excerpts of his documentary about a school in Maricao that after 9 years of failing the standardized department-wide tests, and facing closure if it failed again, dramatically rocketed its scores to pass the tests...in 60 days.

Lawrence La-Fountain spoke of "sexiles," Puerto Ricans who leave the Island or are marginalized because of their homosexuality and how they respond through artistic expression to that exclusion.

Andrea Pérez (daughter of My Friend Lovely Laura) spoke about her personal decision to truly give, consciously developing sustainable charitable work, based on her experiences in Sudan (yes, Sudan) and Haiti.

Giovanni Rodríguez reconnected with his Puerto Rican roots and described his path to becoming a (cheer)leader for social engagement, social media use that foments change amongst Latinos, the "original retweeters." (In joke...)

Mayra Santos, accomplished writer and teacher, told Us two powerful truths: We need to lose Our fear of literature (We don't read enough) in order to tell the world Our stories, for without Our stories, the world and Us are diminished from full potential.

Four videos were shown: Emiliano Salinas on the attitude change needed to properly face up to the horrendous crime wave in his native Mexico; the Khan Academy's re-framing of education; Joan Halifax on the powerful nature of compassion and a brief video with Joachim de Posada indicating that delayed gratification--not eating the marshmallow for 15 minutes (watch the video)--is an almsot 100% predictor of success.

Three artistic presentations, a TED conference requirement, had strong impact as well: Y No Había Luz, Andanza and Time Machine Squad.

For My money, every speaker was a huge hit. I was especially moved by Andrea Pérez, Noel Quiñones and Lawrence La-Fountain, intrigued by Fernando Lloveras, Jorge Rigau and Jorge Gaskins and I fell in love with Mayra Santos (who is a sex symbol and rightly so.)

I must give a special thanks to Dana Montenegro who served as an energetic, quirky and hugely engaging emcee. I can offer no greater praise than "I couldn't have done it better."

Suggestions? Tables so attendees can sit and share, better monitoring of time so We can start/finish and explore with each other during the event and some stronger form of "connecting," like maybe setting up the tables with names so that you end up sitting with a group of (hopefully) strangers that you can then engage with.

But these are minor quibbles, at best. TEDx San Juan was interesting, dynamic, moving and impressive. Three thoughts came together during the event:

1) I'm so used to events like these being "what could have been" that I have become too cynical about "what could be." I won't do that again.


2) I, and We, are not alone. There are plenty of My Brethren who not only want to make a difference, they actually are making a difference.


3) The next TEDx has already begun. And it will be even better than this one.


The Jenius Has Spoken.


[Update: 11 December 2011: Videos of the TEDx San Juan speakers are here.]

TEDX San Juan: Stale Cracker Or Artisan Bread?

As I write this, TEDx San Juan, first edition, is to start in 17 hours.

I have no idea who's speaking. Or what they'll talk about.

The only information I have is that the theme is "Bursting the Bubble," referring to My Brethren who are pushing the envelope, boricuas breaking new ground. Good. Marvelous. But to be blunt: so what?

Now for the two of you who don't know what the TED events are, they refer to a series of brief (10-20 minute) presentations on topics related to technology, education and design--TED. (Careful: the website is addicting to curious minds. The average statehooder will be bored.) The driving force behind the concept is to bring to light new ideas and have them create synergies. For that to happen, information must flow...so not sharing information defeats the whole purpose of TEDx.

Let Me point out something else: to be able to attend TEDx San Juan, you had to be selected. By who knows who based on who knows what. My feelings about this are best defined by quoting Marx: "I don't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member." What's the idea behind this? (And the Marx quoted was Groucho.)

If the purpose is to "create a better atmosphere/event," then it begs the question: Better for what? And for whose benefit? With no criteria/explanation/definition/reason/plausible excuse offered, then I think the only reason for this little exercise in pedantry is ego: the organizers want to exert a "zero-sum" level of control over an event that is meant to be the total antithesis of that (poor) posture.

More proof? No agenda yet, a "You can't prepare for this until we say you can" gambit.

Now maybe, as friend Kevin has pointed out, the idea is to enhance the event's appeal or manage expectations by using "surprise" as a marketing tool. I give these a 3 on a scale of 1-10 for marketing ideas, with 1 being tossing a dead cat on the salad bar. I don't buy these as good marketing, much less for a TEDx-caliber event. On the other hand, I've also been told that I shouldn't seek conspiracy where incompetence can be the answer.

I know two of the lead organizers of the event; one I have direct negative experiences with and the other I know only through e-mail exchanges. Of the one I know well, this petty power play seems quite in character, the kind of action a low-level bureaucrat would take in office politics. Given his background of several years in government, where his endeavors labeled him as nothing more than a stale cracker in an artisan bread convention, I can see where TEDx is shaping up to be a severe letdown.

(Clarification: The government of Puerto Rico is by no stretch anywhere near being as good or as productive as an artisan bread convention. I was using the analogy so I could write "stale cracker." My blog, My rules.)

So Jenius, if you're so down on the event, why are you going?

Because I could be wrong. I could be wrong that the agenda, when it is finally revealed, will be a flop, a collection of butt-buddies brought in to present a skewed shadow of "Bursting the Bubble" excellence. I could be wrong that the speakers chosen qualified more as "personal networking" for the Speaker Coordinator than as the antithetical proof that We don't need to live with a zero-sum mentality. I could be wrong that TEDx San Juan has a somewhat hand-picked audience solely/primarily in order to establish a power-base for one or more of the organizers. I could be wrong that I shouldn't have been "selected" to go (and buy a $20 ticket) over others I'm aware were told "You aren't worthy." I could be wrong that this event will fail to coalesce its enormous potential and become another in a long line of "what should have beens."

For those of you not deemed worthy and who believe that not sharing basic information is cool, you can tune into the live stream of the event.

And don't bother looking for @GilTheJenius tweets or live-blogging during the event. I'm not going as a reporter, though I can. I'm not going as a social media user, or even as a blogger: I'm going for My sake, to see if My vision of what's possible in Puerto Rico has been discovered by TEDx San Juan.

If their intent was to control the event to manage My expectations, they failed: I have My own. Always have, always will. Bottom line now is that the organizers have to prove to Me that they can live up to Mine.

Good luck.



The Jenius Has Spoken.

Yocasta Brugal Has Screwed 570 People...And Counting

So the San Juan Bautista Hospital has fired 300 employees as part of the $5.1 million bankruptcy buyout by Menonita Hospital Group.

That's what Brugal MendDacious and her lying liars were hiding: that the bankruptcy deal would leave 300 professionals without a job, many of whom had not been paid in months.

What a piece of work this Yocasta Brugal, huh? Screwed the hell out of 270 students by being so massively incompetent and possibly criminal that the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine lost its accreditation (and got it back only by going to court) and now her """leadership""" has royally screwed 300 employees of the Hospital she claims she "didn't run," but made practically every major decision for.

Let Me ask this, finally: Why the hell is this Brugal thing in that position? What the fuck is going on that a woman so demonstrably and viciously incompetent (see the list below) is nevertheless allowed to continue screwing people?

Here's what's on Brugal MenDacious' resumé, since she took over and squatted at the SJB School and Hospital in 2007:

* BOTH the School and Hospital lost accreditation and regained it only only by outside intervention, i.e., not because she and her lying liars did anything to improve either institution.

* The Hospital went even deeper into debt to the point of tossing it into bankruptcy, with no debt reduction perceived in 4+ years.

* Hundreds of employees were treated no better than slaves by having their paychecks unilaterally curtailed or cut off. And now they're fired.

* And as detailed in My previous post, the SJB had received almost $23 million in federal funding over a 5-year period UNTIL 2007-2008, when--you got it--Brugal MenDacious plopped her incompetent fundament at the helm and suddenly...no more funds.

A summary looks like this:


* The SJB School: Lost accreditation, now on probation.
* The Hospital: Lost accreditation, got it back because the local Health Department intervened directly, no debt reduction causes bankruptcy and a sale for $5.1 million, with 300 employees fired.
* Federal funds: Down from $22.8 million to $78,000. And under investigation for possible commingling of funds.

Okay, I'll ask it again: What the fuck keeps this incompetent lump in her job?

If she were a politician, her record would be "average." Ask The Larva, who tried to buy police votes with lies. As an administrator, her record proves she has the Sadim touch--the opposite of the Midas touch: everything Brugal MenDacious touches turns to shit.

The School? A shitstorm with the loss of accreditation that Brugal MenDacious caused and then hid from the students.

The Hospital? A shit sandwich diet shoved for years down the throats of 300 employees, fired today.

Federal funds? A shitfest that's about to hit the fan.

Again: Why is Brugal Sadim still at the helm of the SJB? Why hasn't the Board of Trustees--also known as the Mon(k)ey Cage--fired her incompetent Sadim ass? How long are the employees and students of the SJB School of Medicine going to sit back and watch the (bull)shit fly into their faces? Are they going to react only when the whole crapload is thrust down their gullets, like the Hospital employees?

And now I can turn My attention to the Menonita Hospital Group, who I considered blameless in a straight-up deal But this is not a straight-up deal. The Menonita Hospital Group (MHG) is no better than a self-righteous pimp exploiting a crack whore and calling that "missionary work." Taking over the Hospital is a good thing: knowingly doing so at the expense of 300 employees is wrong. All the MHG has shown here is that it is willing to descend to Brugal's level in dealing with employees, the mushroom level: keep 'em in the dark and shovel shit on them.

So here's what I want to see:

Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars fired. Now.

The Menonita Hospital Group dragged to court and spending $5.1 million to defend itself...and losing the case.

But first steps first: Fire Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars now. Am I sounding like a broken record? That's only because Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars are the very epitome of a broken--a very broken--record.



The Jenius Has Spoken.

22,848,733 Reasons To Fire Yocasta Brugal & The SJBullshitters

In 2002, the San Juan Bautista Medical Center was awarded $5,986,306.

In 2003, the SJBMC received a $6,233,513 grant.

In 2006, the SJBMC received another grant, this one for $5,660,545.


In 2007, the SJBMC received a $4,968,329 grant.

It seems that the 2002 award was deemed a good start and the 2007 award was the crashing end. (Kind of like what happened with the accreditation thing.)

So what happened with that $22,848,733?

Let's close a circle around that question, shall We? For comparisons in funding, between 2000 and 2008, the SJBMC received exactly four federal fund awards, for the total of $22,848,733 over that span. Now granted (pun intended), this is not revenue with a lot of profit, but it does denote an institutional ability to get jobs done.

In that time span, tracking only the two other private medical schools in Puerto Rico, you will find the following awards:

2000:
Ponce School of Medicine -- $5,008,075.

Universidad Central del Caribe Medical School -- $6,092,289.


2001:
Universidad Central del Caribe -- $550,289 and $5,576,264.

Ponce School of Medicine -- $5,317,538.


2002:
Universidad Central del Caribe -- $237,740 and $332,844 and $7,765,360.

Ponce School of Medicine -- $7,672,536.


2003:
Universidad Central del Caribe: -- $208,935 and $251,951 and $7,584,175.

Ponce School of Medicine -- $7,417,070.


2004:
Universidad Central del Caribe -- $262,394 and $392,541 and $6,349,547.

Ponce School of Medicine -- $8,045,161.


2005:
Universidad Central del Caribe -- $358,970 and $6,972,037.

Ponce School of Medicine - $5,793,999.


2006:
Universidad Central del Caribe -- $5,994,906.

Ponce School of Medicine -- $7,088,814.


2007:
Ponce School of Medicine -- $5,220,078.

Universidad Central del Caribe -- $6,505,781.


2008 (only Quarters 1 & 2):
Ponce School of Medicine -- $497,469.


Over the same time span, the other two private medical schools in Puerto Rico had at least the following totals:

Ponce School of Medicine:  $41,735,127 (averaging $5,216,890 a year).

Universidad Central del Caribe:   $55,436,323 (averaging $6,092,297 a year).


So SJBullshitters: What happened to that money stream?



What happened with the federal fund stream that pumped $22,848,733 into the SJBMC over a 5-year period?


Why did the federal fund stream dry out around 2007, when the School received its accreditation? 

How is it that the School listed for the LCME Status Report (covering 2010 data) only $78,220 in federal funding for 2010? Yet it also declared a total revenue of $7,657,164, with $5,319,348 in expenses, leaving a gross profit of $2,337,816.


What happened to that profit, SJBullshitters?


While the other medical schools add $5.2 million and $6.1 million a year to their revenue stream, the SJBullshitters can only claim $78,220 for one year. No wonder the School gets 70% of its revenue from students: Brugal MenDacious and the SJBullshitters fucked up the SJBSOM's federal funding potential.


So how did they do it? Could it be that the SJBullshitters--as a commenter suggested--were caught commingling funds, robing Sam to pay Pedro, or Enrique or Marta or someone who shouldn't have been paid with federal funds? Or did they violate some other financial, legal and/or ethical standard? Again?


And another thing: how bad is the SJbullshitters' incompetence? Even when they were allowed to compete for federal funds, they were unable to match the other local private medical schools in leveraging the three huge advantages they share for federal funding:


1) A region with higher poverty levels than almost anywhere in the States.

2) Minority (Hispanic) status, with the concomitant sociocultural angles.

3) Unique (in the U.S. of part of A.) socio-economic demographics and health-care infrastructure.

[I'm not saying these are good things, only that they are relevant to every aspect of procuring federal funds.]



How much would $4 million a year, less than the other two schools average, help the SJB School of Medicine? How much would it have helped to avoid the precarious situation the School has been since 2007, culminating in the loss of accreditation? Why isn't that funding making a difference now? 


Because these questions are fundamentally relevant to firing the SJBullshitterss, We have to ask Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars, loudly, insistently and with ferocious intensity: What happened to take the reality and potential of federal funding away from the SJBSOM?




The Jenius Has Spoken. 




[Update: 28 Nov 2011: San Juan Bautista Hospital employees protest that their jobs are about to be terminated under the new deal with the Menonita Hospital group. At this time (5:44 PM), no SJBullshitter has responded to either employee requests for information nor provided a written response to a local TV news department (WAPA-TV), as they said they would. Lying liars need to be hit. Hard.] 

If True, Then Kick Yocasta Brugal & The Board Out NOW

From the Comments to My previous post Stiff Yocasta Brugal & Her Lying Liars concerning the situation at the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine (SJB):

One little known fact is that the chairman of the Board Aracelis (sic) Roque hired her son to be the lead attorney for SJB...  


Feds are looking into a commingling of funds problem...  


Fraud, misrepresentation lawsuits being prepared, SJB has to be taken over in order to survive, the name should be changed and a new identity given by a reputable institution of higher learning.


The anonymous commenter has left Us with a few points to ponder. Let's take the first one, that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees Aracelys Arroyo de Roque hired her son to work with the SJB.

First of all, Arroyo might be the Chairman of the Board, but she's listed only as a member of the Board (along with legendary golfer Chi Chi Rodríguez) in the 2008-2010 SJB catalog. That would mean she rose to the Chairmanship after 2007, in other words, after the SJB received its accreditation.

Why is this significant? Because it means that Arroyo has been privy to what the SJB administrators, particularly Yocasta Brugal MenDacious, have been saying or doing for the past 4 years, the period covering denied accreditation/granted on appeal/withdrawal of accreditation/placed on probation after appeal. Toss in the Hospital fiasco and you have a log that looks like the last 8 hours of the Titanic...only with barely enough lifeboats.

This places Arroyo in a position of full--let Me repeat that--full responsibility for what has happened in the SJB and for what the SJBullshitters have wrought. If from that position she has committed a serious ethical breach along the lines of hiring her own son to be the legal counsel for the School, then she not only confirms what We've been thinking about the SJB and its pusillanimous Board (and what I've been saying with sneering contempt), she has placed herself and the Board squarely in the argument of "Dump them as part of the SJBullshitters."


Point two. Commingling of funds is not proper financial management, crossing legal and ethical lines. It simply means using money entrusted for one purpose on another.  In the case of the comment above, one needs to stress that federal funds are never--repeat, never--to be commingled. Quoting: "The federal government especially forbids commingling their funds with other funds because they want federal grants to be used only for the purposes intended by Congress... If you do...they will pull the plug on the program and take their money back plus a penalty."


The commingling issue is made very clear at every step of the federal funding process, from RFP to grant award to funding award and subsequent audits. If the commenter is accurate, then We have further potential confirmation that the SJBullshitters did a shitty job with money management and federal funds, causing the School to lose potential monies that nearly every other medical school uses broadly. That incompetence led to decisions like straining already over-used clinical resources by bringing in students from other Caribbean med schools in a desperate search for cash flow...a key issue in the subsequent loss of accreditation.

So is the commenter's closing paragraph any surprise? Is there any doubt that the shadow spasms of incompetence desperate to cover their baboon asses is emerging into sharper focus? And is there any doubt that pushing the SJBullshitters out NOW is the only way to truly correct the chaos?



The Jenius Has Spoken.

Stiff Yocasta Brugal & Her Lying Liars

Happy Thanksgving! Thank you for visiting The Jenius any day of the year. 



In a surprise announcement, the San Juan Bautista Hospital (SJBH), affiliated in some nebulous way with the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine (SJBSOM), incompetently run by the SJBullshitters (SJBullshitters), reports it is to be purchased by the privately-owned Menonita Hospital Group.

In one action, the SJBSOM's lack of clinical resources could--could--be improved. Given that the School is on probation now, after a fulminating loss of accreditation in early October, strengthening an obvious weak point, a vital component for accreditation, seems like the right move.

Seems.

The Menonita Group purchase of the SJB Hospital might be honest...from the Menonita's side. They currently operate two successful hospitals in nearby Cayey and Aibonito, as well as a handful of clinics in the same areas. A geographic expansion into a larger regional city, albeit with a troubled hospital, is a good move. But is this as clear as it appears to be, the straight-up salvaging of a weak hospital?

Let's be objective:

1) It is possible that the Menonita Group (MG) was already negotiating with Brugal MenDacious before the LCME arrived in March after finding out--from a press report--that the SJBH had filed for bankruptcy in February. Maybe placing it in bankruptcy was part of the "sweetening" of the deal to make the Hospital more appealing to the MG. (It happens.) But if that is the case, and given the enormous weight the LCME gave to the SJB's very weak clinical resources since 2007, why didn't Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars not mention any of this potential deal in their """defense""" of the School's accreditation? 

The Menonita Group would benefit more from the School being accredited, the Hospital would be more valuable to the LCME (for SJBSOM accreditation purposes) under MG than under the SJBullshitter's fecal-foolish follies and the deal could conceivably have bought the School time and not lose its accreditation. Any of these reasons would make at least mentioning the potential deal an absolute must, never mind all three--but only if the deal was already in the works.

2) Conclusion: the MG deal is recent, at least no older than late September. Why? Because the Appeal Panel hearing was in mid-September, and if--a huge "if"--Brugal MenDacious had the brains God gave a gangrenous bone(-headed) tumor she might have anticipated the School getting hammered badly and opened a channel to the MG as early as mid-September. But that would be giving her credit she hasn't shown she deserves. Ergo, the deal dates from after the loss of accreditation letter on October 3rd, meaning that Brugal MenDacious and whatever lying liar she used as a go-between (I'd look to the Board of Trustees on this one...) basically put this deal together in about 6 weeks.

Think about it: if Brugal MenDacious were operating from a basis of honesty and good faith at the (broken) helm of the SJBSOM and Board VP of the SJBH, would she have any reason to not talk about the Menonita Group? If she were operating in the best interests of the SJBSOM and the SJBH--a postulate with about as much evidence behind it as creationism--(a) couldn't she have avoided the loss of accreditation mess and (b) wouldn't the timing of this deal be different, i.e., earlier?

3) Given these premises, doesn't it seem that the deal is not exactly a godsend, but is probably another "trick" in the lengthy "Cover Lying Asses" saga of the SJBSOM and the SJBullshitters? To wit: what did the SJBH and the SJBSOM give up to close the deal? Note I'm not accusing the MG of any wrongdoing; Let's face it, they don't have to do anything even remotely off-center to get this hospital because the urgency is entirely on the other side. It's a buyer's market...and the seller is a desperate group of shitheads.

Did the SJBSOM get a good deal? Depends. The students should benefit from an expected exponential improvement in the Hospital, as well as having additional clinical resources. But is the School better off? What's going to replace the roughly $1.7 million revenue the SJBH gave the SJBSOM, an amount so significant that Brugal MenDacious made a point of including it in the Status Report appeal to "prove" that the School didn't receive 70% of its total revenue from student registration and fees, but only 50%...when the national average is 4%.

What exactly did the SJBSOM give up? What exactly are they hiding with this deal? And for those of you objective (or foolish) enough to ask "Why would they be hiding anything, Jenius?", let Me reply: read every Jenius post and comment made on this issue, as well as the Status Report and other documents. They hid the hospital's bankruptcy. They hid the loss of accreditation. They hid(e) the Status Report. They hid(e) their finances. The SJBullshitters have earned that nickname repeatedly. What makes anyone think they are changing stripes now?

So here's My call: Stiff Yocasta Brugal and her lying liars. (And that's funny because Brugal MenDacious is a forensic specialist, or as Jerry called them, a deadhead. Please feel free to chuckle at leisure.) Students, don't register until Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars are fired. Dumped. Tossed out like garbage. Their argument, and that of their feeble-minded apologists, that the School needs money now that it is on probation is facetious at best and fraudulent at worst. The School always needs money, but a well-run School earns it: no need for begging. And without a trustworthy administration, collecting student registrations and fees for a semester that could knowingly end in disaster is tantamount to theft on their part and outright foolishness on yours.


Put the pressure on Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars. Get her out of her fouled nest before she and her lying liars leave on her own terms, gained at your expense and that of equally-mistreated employees. Do it now...or watch as the whole lying house of cards collapses in the coming months.

As one of My commenters said, in closing: You have been warned.



The Jenius Has Spoken

Yocasta Brugal: Fire Her Now

In a surprising development, the Liaison Commission on Medical Education (LCME) reversed the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine's loss of accreditation (Public Announcement, 18 November, 2011). The SJBSOM is now under probation, pending a visit by the LCME in late January/early February 2012. The good news: The students, including Mrs. Jenius, can continue or complete their studies under accreditation, a huge academic and professional difference. The bad news: I was wrong about the possibility of a reversal, but I can take that because the right decision was made and I have been right about everything else.

Which brings Us to worst news: Yocasta Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars are still at the head of the SJBullshitters. And the possibility that they will get kicked out on their fat asses anytime soon seems remote. My guess is that they won't be kicked out before the LCME visit and I would LOVE to be wrong about that.

But I won't be.

The reasons to kick these incompetent lumps of uselessness out are legion, and many of them have been detailed in previous Jenius posts and the comments. (Check out "Yocanda Brugal: Incompetence Recognized" for a lengthy comment thread.) There are plenty of reasons, in truth, a veritable excess of plenty of reasons why Brugal MenDacious and her ilk have to go. The disease is diagnosed, the remedy is obvious and has proven quite often to be the successful cure for the disease. But the will to act is missing. And without the will, the action doesn't exist.

The will can only come from two collective minds: the Board of Trustees, a gang of monkeys with the total integrity of a frog's cloaca. Their interests--based on their inaction so far--seem to be deeply intertwined with that of Brugal MenDacious and the lying liars, so the incentive to dump their partner/ally/crony/shield/protector/benefactor is virtually nil.

The second group is composed of the students. If the students raise their voices in clear objections to giving the S.S.JBullshitters back to the captain and crew that piloted the leaky vessel into rocks, eventually that captain and crew will be replaced. Staying silent, acquiescing, granting approval by simply continuing with business as usual will doom the SJBSOM to lose its accreditation in 2o12. And this time, it will be for a very long time. I have absolutely no doubt on that point.

A comment on the post linked above called for the students to refuse to register for classes until Brugal MenDacious and her lying liars leave. Good start. But more needs to be done. There are three flanks to attack:

1) Revenue: Why is the SJBSOM begging for scraps from Antigua and the Dominican Republic?

2) Federal grant funding: Why is the SJBSOM so utterly useless in securing funding that nearly every other private medical school receives in bulk?

3) Clinical services: In a nation with a huge population density and complex widespread health problems, why can't the SJBSOM develop alliances and programs strong enough to secure accreditation?

Here's the crux of the matter: the SJBSOM is a miserable failure as a healthcare resource, and its recent actions prove it is also a miserable failure as a school. For the students, some 30-40 of whom have already chosen to leave, the battle must be seen as more than "getting Mine now": it has to be seen as "getting better for all Our sakes."

The chance to turn the SJBSOM from a pigsty run by retarded barnyard rejects into a worthy institution has to be won now...for if it isn't, if the animal farm is allowed to continue its manure-dumping ways, then the SJBSOM will quickly become shuttered, ignored by everyone as it closes its doors.

At that point, it would be very much like locking the door after the horse is gone, so why don't We focus on kicking the horses' asses out first and then making sure the barn is run by competent people?


The Jenius Has Spoken.

It's My Birthday!!

Yes. It's that magical tiME of the year (and those who know ME know I MEan "almost all the year") when the world celebrates My Birthday! The cakes have been baked, the candles have been warehoused in hangars (very funny, people) and the chili's hot enough to strip chroME from a new bumper. So We are ready!

What can I say about a year that saw ME get married and be happy? Well, for one thing, I can say: Thank You, Mrs. Jenius! I love you!

What can I say about a year that saw My Son excel in school (MEdals enough to start a museum) and on the basketball court (All Star selection and solid MVP candidate)? I can say: Well done! You're admirable in so many ways! I love you!

What can I say about a year that saw true friends step up and others lose the label "friends" as they pulled away in haste? To My Friends: you're all gifts from the Universe. To the others: I'm giving you back to the Universe. I expect refunds.

What can I say about a year that saw My Family struggle to deal with daily life and eMErge tempered? Family is the heart of a society, and as for My Family, its heart beats strong.

What can I say about a year where My Island sinks ever lower into a morass of violence and corruption? I can issue a warning: the reckoning is coming, jackals. It won't be pretty. For any of Us.

What can I say about life in general as I tack on another digit to My age? That it is tiME for a fundaMEntal change in My life. The groundwork has been laid for Me to move on to new challenges, to wholeheartedly pursue My ambition and push My talents to the utmost.

To My chagrin, I haven't challenged Myself seriously in almost four years. That's just wrong. What's the point of Life if not to tackle new challenges and explore new horizons. "Life is either a grand adventure or it is nothing." Helen Keller said that. And if she could pull that off, why can't I? Why can't We?

So here's to Me, to My Birthday and the chance to whoop it up with loved ones near and far. And here's to facing Life's challenges, from the personal to societal, with verve, will and integrity. It has been--overall--a great year for Me; I can foresee next year being even greater.

Hopefully greater for all of Us.



The Jenius Has Spoken.

Yocasta Brugal Should be Fired

Yes, I've been fairly quiet lately. Steaming, if you want to know. But I have some announcements to make, so here they are:

1) Yocasta Brugal should have been fired as Head Dissembler of the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine.

2) That the SJBSOM's Board of Trustees has not done that is because they are cowards, "spineless sea cucumbers" I called them, whose lack of integrity is another cesspool in the SJBullshitter's arsenal. (Think about it and you'll agree I'm right. Again.)

3) I have read the LCME's Status Report that triggered the decision to take away the SJBSOM's accreditation in June of this year. Doubt Me? Here's a quote that has not appeared (as far as I know) in the public documents of the case: The financial health of the school of medicine depends heavily on student tuition/fees. Aside from one contract to provide mental health services to the Commonwealth's correctional facilities, there are essentially no other revenue sources.

Furthermore, a quick bit of research indicated that the average revenue percentage a private medical school receives as student tuition/fees is 4%; at the SJBSOM, it was 70%.

Seventy. Percent.

Where are the service contracts for the SJBSOM? Is providing mental health to cons the only thing the SJBSOM is good for? Apparently so, according to Brugal MenDacious.

Where are the federal funds that support research and community-based studies, a bread-and-butter staple of nearly all private medical schools? Is the SJBSOM somehow unable to access these funds? If so, why? Could it be lack of resources? Could it be a lack of initiative, talent, imagination and competence by the SJBullshitters, led by Brugal MenDacious? Or is it that in some way the SJBSOM is barred from seeking and securing federal funds?

Where is the decisive action from the Board of Trustees? Again, quoting Me: "Their job is to ensure that the SJB stays on track, legally, ethically, academically and financially." It is beyond ANY doubt that Brugal MenDacious and her raving band of deluded lunatics have failed to protect the SJBSOM academically. In doing so, they have seriously transgressed ethical bounds, have seemingly gutted the school's finances (the stated "Net Revenue" of the SJBSOM for FY 2009-2010, Total Revenue minus Total Expenditures amounted to $2,337,816--that's gross profits people) and have, through their demonstrable incompetence and venality exposed the School to massive legal action. So why hasn't the Board acted?

Because they are useless. Or they are part of the abject failure. Or most likely, both. "Thick as thieves," as Theodore Hook would say.

Yocasta Brugal should have been fired. Summarily. That "summarily" also goes with "executed" is nothing but a conscious choice on My part.

This coming Monday, the 14th, something called a Dr. Márquez will lead the (cough-chuckle-spit noisily) """charge""" to rescue the SJBSOM from the new Court-ordered Appeals Panel. As the evidence hasn't changed and the primary missions on both sides remain the same as well, I foresee another unanimous bitch-slap against Brugal MenDacious and the lying lumps of lamebrains masquerading as "administrators" and "trustees."

I'd tell these sacks of human waste to "Fix this!" if it weren't for two facts: they will never--never--know how and they never--never--should have made this happen in the first place.



The Jenius Has Spoken.

GasoDildo, Monkeys And Richard Branson

Having had My head all up in horse's asses masquerading as medical school administration and accreditation officials, I find Myself in the need of catching up on certain topics that whiffed by as SJBullshitters and LCMEBackstabbers played shitball with some Our medical students.

And yes, My vocabulary has gone to potty over the past two weeks.

Item The First: Over 200,000 of My Brethren are fraudulently receiving free phone service. I think I'm in the majority of My People when, upon reading that headline, I thought: Only 200,000? The subsidy, obviously meant for the very poor and the elderly who live on a meager fixed income, became a boondoggle for morally-inept intermediaries and bare-faced liars. (And there I go again, talking about the SJBullshitters and the LCMEBackstabbers! Damn My multi-laned super-expressway no-speed-limit mind!)

There will be, of course, an investigation, and We can expect that, oh, about 20,000 of those riding the airwaves free will be dropped from the list. But the pattern that emerges is: Something "free" offered, it gains traction, attracts "players" who become "agents" extending the "free," greedy bastards get into the "free," there's a "discovery," fru-fru ado, a few greedy bastards get dropped and the scheme gets more lucrative for the "player-agents." Watch the pattern emerge, if you can stomach it.

Item The Second: From the venerably-senile Washington Post comes the news that "hundreds of non-native monkeys" have been eliminated in southwest Puerto Rico. Okay, good start. First because it's about non-native monkeys, seeing as how Our only native monkeys are in government and media, with a small sickly tribe of them trying to run a medical school under the bossiness of a non-native addled ape. Second, it's about My part of the Island. And third, because it highlights the serious danger these monkeys pose to Our local economy and health. And for those with brain PETAchiae, shut up. Yes, the monkeys didn't ask to be brought here, but unless you're willing to pay to have them all captured and sent back "home," shut up. The sooner We eliminate all the monkeys, the better. And the non-native ones, as well.

Item The Third: From the venerably-senescent New York Times comes the "news" that the GasoDildo has plenty of critics. Really. It actually does, from the home-owners who are about to get raped in the expropriation process to the environmentalists who rightly point out that a 93-mile gas pipeline is fucking ridiculous and dangerous to the Army Corps of Engineers who keep saying "No, you can't build the GasoDildo any way you want, you have to actually build the damn thing." The subtext: No, you can't simply take the money and run, you have to actually make an effort to steal it.

Will the GasoDildo save Us money on Our electrical bills? Probably. Our electrical bills will most likely go down, seeing as how they are artificially-inflated right now. But there's costs and then there's costs: what the GasoDildo represents is a huge widespread cost to Our economy, integrity and well-being versus a tiny individual cost reduction. To be blunt: do you want Us all screwed for a "savings" of a few dollars a month? I certainly don't know about you, but I'm not a whore...much less a cheap one.

Item The Fourth:  U.S. of part of A. Education Arne Duncan was here, eyeing the macabre state of (mis)education We have. Pretty much coinciding with his visit, We all learned that the local Education Secretary was stealing electricity, the same charge (pun intended) that cost the Executive Director of the Power Authority his job. Yes, government """"leaders"""" stealing electricity, which means We ol' common folk have to pay more, thus KY Jellying the way to a GasoDildo gang-rape/brazen theft, which in terms of getting screwed by hypocrites and liars does have some parallels with the SJBullshitters and the LCMEBackstabbers.

Where the hell was I? Oh. Arne Duncan. Comes down here and prosletizes that We must "de-politicize" Our education department. Really. He is absolutely right, for We have had it (or should have had it) with a system that changes direction every time it changes color, with one party eliminating what the previous party did because it was there and jamming the whole latrine with even more turds.

But. (Near-pun intended.)

Duncan represents the epitome of politization of education. Education in the U.S. of part of A. system is a State responsibility, and since the 1980s, the Federal government has been encroaching and invading that responsibility, using money to literally buy into, if not outright bribe, state education systems. No Child Left Behind has been a disaster, seeking to impose one standard across all states, in exchange for billions of dollars.

And what "state" has the largest dependence on federal education funds? Puerto Rico.

Duncan, before you waft mouth-farts as if your soapbox placed you on high, shut the fuck up and actually dismantle the problem first. Yes, We have a problem and We've had it since 1968, but you came here to preserve the status quo, not change it. That makes you part of the problem.


Item The Fifth: Virgin Airlines, Richard Branson's corporate crown jewel, was born in Puerto Rico. Go ahead, read about it, and note the implied lessons for Us: (1) Rather than bitch and moan about his ploght, he took direct, practical action in an imaginative way; (2) He had the resources to do so, but if not, he would have negotiated and sold his way to them and (3) He created an offer that was fair and still led to profit.

Imagination, thinking big rather than small, looking beyond himself and his id, hard work, seizing an opportunity creatively rather than greedily, believing in himself... Richard Branson is a rare individual, not because of his character, but because he has used his character to make big things happen. But make no mistake: character comes first.

In Puerto Rico, We act like success creates character. We have got it so wrong.



The Jenius Has Spoken.


[Update: 26 October 2011: "Hidden" expropriations and lies going on with the GasoDildo in Utuado. Who do We have to shoot?]

SJB & LCME: Silence = Greed & Cowardice

From a Comment left on My very long "Bitch-Slapping Brugal, SJBullshitters And The LCME" post, just below this one:

Anonymous said... 

Absolutely, the whole steering committee for preparation for the LCME visit had to know as of at least June 13, 2010: 

Alvaro Perez 
Marta Garcia 
Shirley Valentin 
Sandra Chinapen 

ALL of the DEANS and likely more characters..


My response: Okay, they must have known. Looking at the situation, the LCME comes to the SJB in April, in a surprise visit directly-related to the Hospital's bankruptcy, pushes hard on the SJB to show its mettle (note the level and breadth of information requested), comes back with a hard-hitting Report (not yet revealed in public...yet) that suggests that the SJB's accreditation is seriously at risk and a letter to that effect--withdrawal--from the LCME to the SJB goes out June 13th. An appeals process is now a certainty.

Given this situation, wouldn't it stand to reason that:

A) Anyone directly involved in dealing with the LCME visit would want to know--or seek to find out--where the SJB stood after the visit?

B) That Brugal, no matter how incompetent or competent (chuckle...giggle...ROFLMAO) she may be, would HAVE to notify somebody and get other SJB personnel involved in fighting the withdrawal, and that the best allies for that defense would be the same people whose jobs it was to present the basic case and fight hard to save their jobs? (Note: NOT "help the students": SAVE THEIR JOBS.)

C) That the SJB--and the LCME--each adhering to their own convenient "best interests," ended up effectively CONSPIRING AGAINST THE STUDENTS, in essence, hiding behind "confidentiality" when that so-called "right" consistently and deliberately exposed the students they "swear" they serve to a chaotic situation that the students could have CHOSEN to avoid?

It is safe to say that the SJB imposed a very strict code of silence on their personnel to keep the SJBullshitters from being exposed as a pack of incompetent failures. It's certain that the employees--key and ancillary--were told that if they stepped out of line and told anyone about the SJB's situation, their jobs would be at stake.

But here's the thing: their jobs were at stake anyway. The SJBSOM had lost its accreditation and was very close to losing it for several years, a devastating blow that undermined every program they offered, if not directly, then indirectly by being painted as a school that wasn't up to LCME standards. The expected result of this accreditation loss would be a huge drop in registered students, possibly killing their new Nursing and Public Health programs. The SJB was in grave danger: and the students were deliberately not told.

Was the SJB required to tell them? Not according to LCME Procedures, for there are no guidelines about what a school is required to do or say when withdrawal of accreditation is decided.

However. How-motherfucking-ever...

On page 17 of the Rules of Procedures documents specifies that:

Any program placed on probation must promptly notify all enrolled students, those newly accepted for enrollment, and those seeking enrollment, of this accreditation status; failure to do so may result in withdrawal of accreditation.

That is for probation, a status that the LCME says allows the following: "Programs placed on probation retain their accredited status with all of the rights and privileges conveyed by such status... (Rules of Procedures, page 17; emphasis Mine.)

So let Me get this clear: A school placed on probation--where essentially NOTHING fucking changes--HAS to, is FORCED to, is REQUIRED to, is OBLIGATED and COMPELLED by the LCME to tell every student, enrolled or prospective, that the school is on LCME probation...but a school slammed with LOSS OF ACCREDITATION, under LCME Rules of Procedures, has NO requirement, NO obligation and is NOT forced to tell any-fucking-body?

And this is how a responsible organization """protects""" students? Really? Motherfucking REALLY??

Fuck the LCME and the horse's ass Rules of Procedures they rode roughshod over the students with.


Did the SJBullshitters fail, in a multiplicity of ways, including not being honest and responsible with students? Hell yeah, and We're going to find out much more; I guarantee it.

Did the LCME play coy with its own self-defined mission of """protecting""" students? Hell fucking yeah. Slapping a warning on a medical school to "shape up or ship out" merits a clarion call to students, but a decision that wrecks academic plans, maligns careers, wrecks budgets and hurts the students more than it could EVER fucking hurt the school is treated like "don't mention it" gossip?

SJBullshitters "followed orders," the infamous Nuremberg defense, though the crime here was mere selfishness and greed.

The LCME followed "rules" that were obviously flawed and in direct denial to a "responsiblity for a greater good." There's no need to label that attitude and behavior with a 20th-century label, because from time immemorial it's been called craven cowardice.


The Jenius Has Spoken.