Bad decisions – a rant

Dear readers,

Not a long post. More of a rhetorical question mixed with a rant.

Yes, as the title suggests, it’s about decisions. Vague, I know. But decisions. Why are people not very good at making them, especially those in power? I’m not arrogant or vain enough to believe I’m the best decision-maker in the world. I know I’m not.

Let’s get back to those in power. That’s my beef.  Those who make decisions based on personal or political interest or just plain idiocy that affects billions. Those behind the banking crisis, for example, but then hide themselves when the judges come calling. These decisions are nothing new; they’ve been going on since at dawn of civilisation, which seems more and more like an intrinisic flaw in our species. Yet only until recently we’ve been able to see these decisions to their fuller extent. Social media, the internet and 24 hour news ensures it comes at us thick and fast and aplenty. And each decision feels more and more depressing, omnious and out of our control. To me anyway; I’m not sure about you.

What decisions are you talking of then, sad sacks? I hear you saying. Those made by the current folk in power. Trump is obviously a great case study who’s made a few. From trying to provoke a war with North Korea, to sacking the head of the FBI, to adding higher taxing money transfers of immigrants in the US sending money back home to pay for a wall to, supposedly, keep them out (all based on vindiction, especially the last, which is not a strategy to prevent immigrants feeling the need to travel in the first place). These are decisions made powers who don’t really know what their doing.

FIFA. They’re also bad decision-makers. Corrupt decision-makers, let’s say, very much in bed with politics. The self-proclaimed football family is possibly the most hated in the neighborhood called planet Earth, whose family values are based on arrogrance, lies and fear, where sacking ethics judges investigating corruption to hide their wrong-doings and then shamelessly blame the press. Every decision they make now whiffs of corruption. Yet they get away with it.

Then you get decisions portrayed as “in the best interests of the people” yet there’s a huge slice of self-interest or bullshit and it whiffs up high above the fog mundane words. Politicians, the most machiavellian, are artists at this. David Cameron and Theresa May, especially. Forcing a referendum and then deciding on the worst possible option for an EU exit. The folk they serve are merely fodder for their reckless, self-interest. Intelligent they are. But the most round-about decisions they make. Every decision is a cascade, but it’s the public that crash on the rocks.

I’m sick of decisions. Sick of people who are useless at making them doing so ony behalf. It’s depressing. 

Yes. All this could be seen as a meaningless ramble. But I’m glad to have vented it.

I read the other day that Stephen Hawking once said that “human greed and stupidity are the greatest threats to Earth.”

He might well be right.

Death to bad decisions. Viva the sane ones. 

Little voice

Dear readers,

A little poem for my wife, who is a superstar with a million brilliant talents.

Little voice

Love is a glorious thing,

Especially when I hear my wife sing,

Even in the early hours,

When the dew’s being sucked by the waking flowers,

Even when the song’s a bit daft,

Bringing harmony to regaeton is her craft,

Even when she’s humming notes in the shower making me late for the job,

The curing chords makes the day less of a slog.

Yes, she’s the one who brings a smile to my tiring face,

Knowing her voice is just for me, in our place.

Vicente José Rogers Cruz

Dear readers,

No. Vicente is not our son. Not our human son, anyway. Hondurans have a culture for labelling their pets as their “hijo or hija“. But I assure you my wife was not nine months pregnant with the puppy in the picture attached (don’t worry, mum). Nor with Frida, who by the way is actually Frido, as she has been confirmed a he. My wife insists he is still a she, or transgender at least, but I think it’s due to her fondness of the artist Frida Kahlo and/or she likes to over do the fact that Frido suffers from female jealousy. 

Frido’s gender was confirmed when I went to an animal rescue centre in Colonia Kennedy called Casa de Noé – Lacaden to look at puppies. Quite an adventure, I must say. The centre is pretty much a porch which contains a zoo of animals, all of which have been found, abandoned or injured. Along with dogs and cats, there are monkies, owls, falcons, possums, parrots, doves, turtles and, the bizarrest of them all, a cat-rabbit. I didn’t realise they existed until I saw one. It has the facial appearence of a cat but the hind legs of a rabbit. I didn’t think to ask if it meowed or about its diet (nor what it tasted like, for that matter), but it did feel that I was in the presence of a mutant. It’s wrong and insensitive to say, I know, but it did leave me a little freaked for a couple of days.

Anyway, in one of the cages were white fronted amazons, the same as Frido. I said that I had always been suspicious of Frido’s gender, and I was right to. It turns out females wings are all green, while males have coloured plumage. She showed me the difference and there was no doubt that Frida was in fact Frido. The gender complexes Frido must have now…

Back to Vicente. My dearly beloved, by who I mean my wife, turns 30 this week. She is a dog person, and I think those who know me well are aware I am not (and having a dog only confirms even more to me that cats are far smarter). Despite this, I was determined to pleasemy wife by introducing a puppy to the household. I must admit, I knew relatively little about dogs. I still do. I had originally wanted to surprise my wife, but it proved impossible. I kind of let it slip, as I learned Pamela would be on vacations for a couple of weeks which would give her time with the puppy. She had been dreaming of it for a while, because she had a name in mind before even looking at the puppies. Vicente José. Named after the Mexican ranchero singer, Vicente Fernandez (I think), and José due to a family tradition of naming one of the male off spring by that name. I liked the name Tufts Vicente, as his ears looked like tufts. Tufts sounds like toughs, and having a dog that looks a little like a German Shepherd and Rottweiler cross needs a thuggish name that sounds like toughs. Suffice to say, the look on Pamela’s face when I told her of my idea about the name Tufts was all I needed to know that it was a name that wouldn’t stick.

It was my idea to have a street dog. Sorry, wrong. It was actually my brother-in-law’s, Juan José, who told me that mixed dogs, or street dogs, are often more humble and easier to manage than pedigrees. Vicente so far seems chilled (to an extent), but I have nothing to compare him with really. All dogs seem to be needy and attention-seeking. As suggested above, I’m a cat man. I have always been wary of dogs, especially after being bitten by one which left me with stitches on my abdomen. Furthermore, it used to wind me up (and it still does) that some dog owners don’t see that their dogs can be seen as potentionally dangerous. So adopting a street dog that is part German Shepherd, part Rottweiler, probably goes against the grain. So far, Vicente has been like therapy. A great addition to the family.

As it is the wee hours of the morning, I need to finish and get some sleep. Part two will be up in the coming days.