Corruption as the norm
IN THE SEVENTIES A group of economists argued that, in certain stages of country development, corruption is not only inevitable but is a beneficial disease. It’s a kind of social fever that may be necessary to achieve modernization.
Read MoreSocial division of mourning
ON THE OCCASION OF THE murder of judge Gloria Constanza Gaona the president of Judicial Asonal, Mr Nelson Cantillo, complained this week that, except for the condolences he received from his colleagues in the Judiciary (and one more from the mayor of Medellin) no one from the government or other public or private entity regretted the fact before Asonal.
Read MoreParochial feeling
Earlier this year I wrote a column in which I criticized the national anthems. I said that almost all of them had lost the basic connection they once had with reality and therefore seemed anachronic and even ridiculous. The columnist Daniel Mera Villamizar disagreed with this view and this week answered in these pages.
Read MoreStoicism and discipline in Japan
OF THE MANY terrible images that have circulated on the accumulation of disasters that occurred this week in Japan, there is one that draws my attention: a video shot inside a supermarket during the earthquake, in which employees are seen holding shelves that swing from side to side, ready to collapse and from which bottles, tins, and all sorts of products fall, amid a deafening noise and a shaky floor in which they can hardly balance. How is it possible that these employees do not go running? That they stay calm? That they don’t even shout?
Read MoreEducational apartheid in Bogotá
Education should create cultural capital and encourage social mobility. However, when rich and poor study in separate schools and there is great difference in the quality of their formation, school only serves to perpetuate social hierarchies. Results of a careful study of the case of Bogota.
Read MoreSimulate what we are not
IN THE LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE, Octavio Paz says that simulation is one of the forms of habitual behavior of Mexicans.
Read MoreTechnology and democracy
When my children were young, a few years ago, we used to have a conversation called “what did not exist when …. ”
Read MoreThe two Spains
This week marks 30 years of the failed military coup of February 23, 1981 in Spain, most known as the coup of 23-F.
Read MoreWho controls lawyers?
This week’s arrest of lawyer Ramon Ballesteros reminded (once again) that lawyers are a key part in the actions of the mafia and the paramilitaries.
Read MoreGeography and the Constitution
COLOMBIA is a country that has been conceived, organized and managed from the mountains.
Read MoreDaniel Samper Pizano Talks about Discrimination in Discotheques
The columnist from the newspaper El Tiempo, Daniel Samper Pizano talks about the discrimination against the afro-descendants that presented a lawsuit because of their rights violated by 3 night clubs in Bogotá. He also urges people not to be tolerant with this type of attitudes and to restrain from going to these places.
Read MoreThe Justice of the Bankers
It´s important that the bankers preoccupy about the problems on the judicial system in Colombia. But that does not means that their visions and solutions are to be accepted, as is shown in the interview on Sunday in El Tiempo. to Luis Carlos Sarmiento.
Read MoreThe Judges and the Government
Every country has its evils. Poverty, without doubt,is the most common and extended from them all. But many countries face their own difficulties: In Bangladesh they fight against an inclement nature; in Georgia they try to contain the Russian imperialism; in Belgium they do the possible to avoid the dismember of the country; in Ukraine they combat the aging of the population, etc. And in Colombia? Well here, their is no lack for poverty – 60% of the population suffers it – as well, we have problems typically ours and these are minimum: drug trafficking, violence and armed conflict.
Read MoreLatin American Congress on Justice Reforms
The Congress presented experiences from different Latin American countries that have had processes of justice reform. Exponents from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and others, presented how they have worked on reforms in their countries, both the successes and the difficulties. This Congress has carried out on occasion the launch of the book by Dejusticia “Justice for All”.
Read MoreCaracol Radio Talks about the Ruling from the Supreme Court on Racial Discrimination
Color became a Barrier in three Bars from the North of Bogotá
That was what found out six afro-descendants who were not allowed to enter to the night clubs Gavanna, Sirocco and Genoveva. The discrimination against the young made that the Supreme Court emitted a transcendental ruling.
Read MoreSupreme Court Sanctions Discotheques in Bogotá for Racial Discrimination
On September 25, the Supreme Court dictated a ruling in trial o
“Historical Ruling against Discrimination”: El Espectador
The Supreme Court ruled against three discotheques in Bogotá. The owners must present their public apologies to six afro-descendants that presented the legal action because of the denial of the owners of the discotheques to let them in. Furthermore the Court said that the National Government and the Local Government must rule this type of acts.
Read MoreForgive Them because they don´t Know what they are Doing
I write from a small, miserable, farmhouse in the Department of Sucre where the only thing that the paramilitaries were unable to dominate was the natality rate.
Read MoreGod and Politics
The traditional hostility between the liberal thinking and religion does not let see that both have coincidences.
Read MoreWith women like that…
Sarah Palin, candidate to the Vice-presidency of the United States, can be one of the worst representative of the feminine causes.
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