The high votes obtained by the candidates from the extreme right in the presidential campaigns currently being conducted in France and the United States was astonishing. Last Sunday, in France, Marine Le Pen, National Front candidate, obtained 18% of the votes, well over 11% earned by Jean-Luc Mélenchon from the extreme left. While the winner of the contest was François Hollande from the Socialist Party (28% of the votes), the votes for Le Pen were very high and it converts her party into a major political player for the elections of 2017.

The Summit of Cartagena became a debate over the image of Colombia to the world. Did this event really improve that image? Naturally, there were two positions. The optimistic and pessimistic.

A fundamentalist is someone who always accommodates reality to his beliefs and, because of that, is never willing to adapt its principles to the changes occurring in the world.

The most beautiful definition of affection between friends I know I read it in Aristotle: "Friendship, says the philosopher, is a soul caught between two bodies." Following the logic of this definition, when one of these bodies has a disease, the shared soul of the relieved friend suffers almost equally.

There was an Ecuatorian president whose motto was "Death to the Constitution and long life to religion."

Hope is an ambiguous feeling.

I've always loved the Hungarian proverb: "If your sword is too short, take one step forward."

In 1757, in France, Damiens was caught after he tried to kill Louis XV.

The fight is not between Bogota and Medellin, but between progressive and reactionary "paisas". This short paper re-enacts the story of an Antioquia that punctuated progress and modernity in the midst of a prudish country, and the other Antioquia which has lately been at the forefront of the extreme right. Who will prevail?