2014 is nearing the end; perhaps before its time, perhaps too
late in coming but… ready or not, the New Year is ready to roar to life…
A review
of the year’s happenings is a “de-rigueur” thing to do about this time. Every radio
or TV program has its own mini history reduced into a few thousand pixels or
sound bites of what went on during the year.
On a TV
show I saw recently for a few minutes, there was a review –with graphic
pictures- about the deaths of several renowned actors and singers. Seems people
can’t get enough of their idols, live or dead…
As
citizens of a country which has grown to accept violence as a somewhat normal day-to-day
issue, Mexicans have adjusted to living in this uncertainty… but even they were
shocked into action by a mass murder which took the lives of 43 young students
for expressing themselves against abuses of the local political czar.
Not too
far south, Venezuela has become the second most dangerous country in the world,
under the totally inept leadership of Chaves’ handpicked successor. Like in other
so called “neo-socialist” governments in Latin America, leaders are more
concerned about building up their personal power base and bank accounts than about running the
countries they lead.
Chaves at
death was worth almost 2BillionUS$; the Castro family has several accounts
estimated at well over that figure. Kirchner’s son lives in a huge sprawling
ranch in the outskirts of Buenos Aires valued at well over US$2M and so on… All
this while the average person in some of these countries has to stand in long
lines just to get his/her hands on the basic daily foodstuff items for their
families.
We all
hope this next item will fall into the “looking into the bright side” category:
after 56 years there has been a beginning of a change in the US-Cuba relationship.
The concept is welcome; however, the execution of the initial process has been
highly criticized by most knowledgeable pundits; it lacks of any type of review,
guarantees for the common people, monitoring of developments; freedom for
political prisoners or a promise of –at least a possibility- of free, internationally
supervised elections at any time soon. The jury will be out on this one for a
while… At least this juror.
The rest
has been business as usual… terrorists killing each other, old eastern bears
trying to regain glories past at the expense of others, while here in the US, politicians
are beginning to put themselves into position for the 2016 run at the
presidency… On the virtual front, people are relying more and more on all the last
minute electronic gadgets that didn’t exist a few years ago but without which,
life would be considered null and void now.
As for me…
well, I am a year older but not necessarily –I think- wiser (yes… I’ll say it before you do…) Every
step along the way has become a teacher of some sort, showing me that much is
not what I thought was, that a new lesson is just waiting around the corner… and
that there are many, many corners to be turned yet.
Have a
grand new year; I truly hope it brings us all the reality of our dreams, the
ability to help others improve, a big bright smile and some health and love in
the company of family and friends.
Be Well … Be Back!!!
Final
Notes:
· Pray for those who are fighting an illness
which may take them away from their loved ones… Every request is heard, and
counts!!
· Follow us on Twitter … @RJAsPandora
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