July 21, 2019 Father O’Toole would be mad but talking about Puerto Rico,

July 21, 2019

Father O’Toole would be mad but talking about Puerto Rico, the latest example of a Latin American country flirting with “shit-hole” status, leads to constructing durable universals from never ending tangible, God-awful examples of particulars. No matter how many particulars there are, there are never enough to construct a truthful or valid universal, or so the above-named priest taught me decades ago. Thank God that Clio, my favorite muse, was lingering nearby.

Haiti is a place that makes Cook county look like Geneva. What the Hell happened to all the loot that Clinton/Bush raised after the last hurricane, earthquake, tsunami. plague, famine, cholera outbreak, psoriasis outbreak, mass identity theft, an outbreak of alopecia, locusts, boils, a cyclone of stripes and plaids? Truly there is no end to troubled days.

And I hate to be a judge but what happens after each and every single tree is cut down for firewood? There are better ways to cook dinner, aren’t there?

I’ll say this for Poppa Doc. 

If he had trains, they would run on time.

Which brings us to Argentina.

200 years of SNAFU to FUBAR.

If God ever blessed a place it was Argentina.

Snap shot memories of Argentina, not to be confused with Rich Coast or Rich Port, must include a President who cherished his autographed picture of Hitler, his hooker wife being considered for sainthood, predictable default on international obligations, a continuous disregard for the rule of law, a climate and soil that has allowed omadhauns to grow wheat and raise cattle, and the grifter’s ability to recognize that if fools have money it is his duty to separate them.

Papa Francisco was raised in Buenos Aires by an upper middle-class family. His father, like Curly Biden’s father, was quick to recognize the “buttered side from the dry”. And when he saw his opportunities, “he took’em”. Alas, he still thinks that that is the business model that enabled this country to put a man on the moon, perfect the ZIPPO lighter, the hula hoop, the TV remote, and cure polio. Which is why people come from all over the world and are willing to die to get in.

And that’s why he proves, every time he speaks about the City of Man, that William F. Buckley Jr. was right when he spoke about the Catholic Church post Vatican 2 as Mater si, Magistra no.

Natural resources – What else, other than the work product of its intellect, does Hong Kong or Switzerland export? – an excess of protein – Did protein give us the Renaissance? Send a SASE – it should be in the top tier of countries. It isn’t. In almost 200 years of identifiable sovereignty it has made but one lasting contribution to the Western Canon: the tango. And let the record show that they stole that from the Eye-Ties. From the South, I believe

Must I speak of Paraguay? 

Which brings us back to Puerto Rico.

3 years before I was a Peace Corps volunteer there, I worked 2 years for a frozen food company whose sole overseas customer was the Puerto Rican food industry. Although hot stoves were seldom needed there, trust me, if they appeared in bulk los ladrones would have stolen them in bulk. And they wouldn’t have been too proud to ask for help.

My Hudson County, New Jersey background came in handy when I was building what would be called low income housing near Utuado. I knew, being from Bayonne, what it meant when the inspector was always hanging around.

Thievery in Puerto Rico, corruption in government are double-helixed into its DNA. It’s what they are born to do. 

The Governor and the loud mouth bruja alcalde de San Juan should be flogged.

I look, in vain, for Latin American success stories. Individuals? Si como no; countries? No!

If I were to mention Cuba and Venezuela would that be piling on?

Puerto Rico is the catcher on the shot-put team because that’s what they want. If they didn’t want it, they would change it. Colombia did.

I won’t cry for you.

WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET