21 de julio de 2009
EL ESPACIO, LA PRENSA Y UN TOQUE DE FILOSOFIA
Recordando a Apollo 11
Muchas gracias por la invitación a participar en este evento, y a la doctora Carmen Pantoja por enviarme el material publicado en El Mundo sobre este evento único e increíble, que tanto orgullo y optimismo y asombro provocó, y que en algunos, estoy seguro, un sentido de terror ante la inmensidad del misterio del universo.
Leer el material en El Mundo fue como meterme en una capsula de tiempo y regresar, no solamente a la noche del 20 de julio de 1969, sino a esa época.
Quiero hacer brevemente dos puntos.
El impacto, por supuesto, fue asombro por la hazaña de ingeniería, tecnológica de llevar tres hombres a la Luna, y dos a la superficie. Debemos recordar que para aquella época, todos los lanzamientos de hombres al espacia creaba en nosotros una tensión ante la complejidad y el peligro, una tensión que crecía día a día, hora a hora en los ocho días que duró la misión.
Y debemos recordar los terribles golpes que sufrimos en esa época, y las terribles decepciones, comenzando, por supuesto, con el asesinato absurdo, irracional, emocionalmente brutal de John F. Kennedy en 1963. Muchos teníamos a Kennedy en mente, reviviendo el dolor de su muerte, cuando vimos en la pantalla de televisión los dos americanos pisando el suelo gris de la Luna. De hecho, fue natural que el editorial en El Mundo del día siguiente fue principalmente sobre Kennedy.
Recordemos también que poco más de un año antes el mundo se estremeció de nuevo con el asesinato de Martin Luther King, y de nuevo en junio de 1968 con el de Robert Kennedy. Ya la guerra en Vietnam había dividido profundamente al pueblo americano provocando conflictos y odios que parecían estar llevando a la nación a otra guerra civil. La democracia misma parecía en crisis: la convención demócrata en Chicago el verano de 1968 fue una orgia de violencia. Estados Unidos y el mundo entero estaban en medio de la terrible Guerra Fía. Nadie sabía quién iba ganar especialmente a mirar a un mapa global y ver gran parte de la Tierra pintada de rojo. El verano de 1968 el mundo vio los enormes tanques soviéticos aplastando el movimiento liberal en Praga. Y aun mas terrible ¿quien podía sentirse seguro que no iba estalla una guerra nuclear poniendo fin a la civilización humana? Y fue en 1968 que para muchos murió la leyenda de Camalot ante la chocante noticia que Jacqueline Kennedy se casaba con Aristóteles Onassis.
Necesitábamos todos, el pueblo americano, nosotros los puertorriqueños, todo el mundo, una buena noticia.
Ustedes saben que nosotros los periodistas somos profesionalmente, sino genéticamente, pesimistas en el sentido de que nos dedicamos a buscar lo que fracasa, lo que falla – no siempre, pero casi siempre, lo que consideramos noticia es negativo. Y esa noche, y hasta que regresaron sanos y salvos a la Tierra el 24 de julio, recuerdo sintiendo fuertemente ese temor. ¿Cuándo algo va fallar? De hecho, en una de las columnas en el material que envió Carmen,, escribo que a ver Armstrong y Aldrin pasando tanto tiempo brincando en la Luna, parecían estar divirtiéndose, jugando como muchachos, quería gritarles: ¡Basta ya! Regresen al Modulo antes que algo malo ocurra.
Nada malo ocurrió. Las centenares, las miles de cosas que tuvieron que salir perfectos, salieron perfectos. La gran buena noticia que tanto necesitábamos fue más grande de lo que podíamos esperar.
Y naturalmente hubo la explosión de optimismo. Esto era el comienzo, como Kennedy dijo en 1961, de la más grande, y la más difícil, aventura en la historia humana – la exploración humana del espacio. Esa noche el vicepresidente de Estados Unidos habló de una comisión para comenzar la planificación de poner hombres en el planeta Marte. El principal científico de la Casa Blanca señalo la increíble complejidad de esa misión, pero aseguró que podía lograrse en 20 anos. El genio alemán de cohetes responsable por llevar hombres a la Luna, Warnher Von Braun, dijo que si se proponía hacerlo, podía llegar el hombre a Marte en 1982 o 85. Uno de los artículos de El Mundo cita a un científico ingles diciendo que ahora había que eliminar la palabra “imposible” del idioma.
Y como señala Ted Sorensen en su biografía de Kennedy, Kennedy siempre vio el programa espacial como una puerta, una oportunidad, de sobreponerse a la Guerra Fría: por eso repetidamente, en su discurso inaugural, ante las Naciones Unidas, hizo llamamientos a Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética a juntos explorar el espacio.
La idea que la exploración del espacio seria una fuerza a favor de la paz mundial parecía evidente. El titulo de otra columna en el material de El Mundo que envió Carmen es “La Ciudad en la Luna”. En el optimismo del momento, no tenia duda que la Ciudad iba ser una realidad, y sin duda superior a cualquiera en la Tierra. En el espacio el hombre se libera de los conflictos ideológicos, raciales, nacionalistas que creamos tan absurda e innecesariamente y que tanto daño le hacen a la humanidad. Ver todos los días la Tierra subir por el horizonte de La Luna tiene que despertar en los habitantes de esa Ciudad la realidad de que somos una sola humanidad, milagrosamente subsistiendo en ese pequeño planeta azul, tan bello y tan frágil.
Y tengo que mencionar que parte de mi emoción, y optimismo, esa noche era que mi hermano mayor, que hace poco falleció, vivía y trabajaba en Cabo Kennedy, parte del equipo de IBM que había producido las computadoras que llevaron los astronautas a la Luna y los devolvieron sano y salvos.
Bueno, han pasado 40 anos y eso es mucho tiempo si pensamos que cuando Armstrong y Aldrin y Collins viajaron casi medio millón de millas a la Luna, hacia solamente 65 anos que los hermanos Wright volaron el primer avión por todo de 120 pies en 12 segundos. Que solo había pasado ocho años del primer hombre, el ruso Gagarin, en el espacio.
El columnista Charles Krauthammer en el Washington Post la semana pasada pregunta: “¿Cómo es posible que hayamos retrocedido de la Luna?” Dice que el deterioro en el programa espacial americano es tan grande, que en 14 meses, para un astronauta americano regresar al espacio tendrá que ir en una nave rusa o china.
Hemos perdido no solamente el liderato en el espacio sino nuestra visión, lamenta uno de los astronautas del Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin, en otra columna en el Washington Post la semana pasada. Por ahora, NASA planifica regresar a la Luna en 2020, por primera vez desde diciembre de 1972, para el cincuenta aniversario de Apollo 11. China se prepara para ir a la Luna también en el 2020. Tremendo, dice Aldrin, pero como otros, pregunta: ¿por qué pensar en pequeño? Vamos a pensar en mucho mas grande. Vamos a dedicarnos no a la Ciudad en la Luna, dice, sino la Ciudad en Marte, y lo podemos hacer en dos décadas.
Y en un articulo particularmente fuerte, el ex administrador de NASA, Michael Griffin, lamenta que es increíble que hoy no podemos lograr lo que hicimos hace 40 años. “¿Qué clase de gente somos?, pregunta que hemos cedido a otros el liderato en extender la frontera humana.
La verdad es que siempre ha habido oposición a gastar miles de millones en el espacio, cuando hay tanto horrorosos problemas aquí en la Tierra. ¿Por qué no usar los fondos para salvar el ambiente de nuestro planeta, o para eliminar la pobreza, o las terribles enfermedades?
Y en este argumento, creo, hay otra pregunta algo filosófica: ¿No es malgastar dinero, y energía intelectual, buscar algo que nunca vamos encontrar? Es decir, ¿puede la mente humana llegar a entender el asombroso e interminable misterio del universo? Hace poco leí el libro “The Black Hole War” del físico teorético de Stamford, Leonard Susskind, que describe algunas de las teorías increíbles del ultimo siglo, pero que comienza el libro diciendo que millones de años de evolución humana ha producido un celebro que sencillamente no esta “alambrada” (wired) para entender los números, las distancias del universo. Estamos programados para visualizar 100, pero no, como señala otro libro, que un año-luz consiste de nueve trillones de kilómetros o que un rayo de luz toma 30,000 años para ir de nuestro planeta al centro de nuestra galaxia?
Y si queremos números grandes mas cerca, ya que la evolución nos ha dado un celebro que consiste de 100 mil millones de neuronas y 100 trillones de conexiones, ha creado un celebro que no esta “alambrado” para descifrar la increíble complejidad de si mismo.
Y esto me trae al filósofo, a veces también actor y director de cine, Woody Allen. Vi la otra noche en TV su película “Manhattan.” Para el final, esta acostado, frustrado por el fracaso de su vida amorosa, y, es evidente, como en otras de sus películas, su inhabilidad de contestar la pregunta: “¿Por qué existo?”. Y en su acostumbrado monólogo, dice que todos los conflictos en este planeta son creado por el hombre con un solo propósito: no tener que pensar en el universo.
Entiendo lo que dice. Si no podemos entender el misterio del universo, ¿como vamos a comenzar a entender el misterio de nuestra propia existencia?
Buena pregunta. Pero hay una contestación. Y aquí llego al segundo punto y con esto termino.
Otro articulo en el Washington Post de este sábado cita a otro astronauta americano, con el nombre de Franklin Chang Díaz:
“Los humanos eventualmente se trasladarán al espacio. No hay manera de parar ese movimiento hacia afuera. Si Estados Unidos no provee el liderato, otros lo harán. No se trata de qué país, sino de cuándo.”
¿Cómo lo sabe? La contestación, en mi opinión, es que la evolución que ha programado al ser humano, a Woody Allen y a muchos de nosotros hacernos esa pregunta: ¿Por qué existo?, nos ha programado a ir al espacio. Estamos alambrados a ir a Marte. Y aunque debemos olvidarnos de los famosos “wormholes”, como nos dice el físico Susskind, pero si resulta que sí se puede viajar mas rápido que la luz, vamos a las estrellas, y a otras galaxias.
Como dice Chang Díaz, no hay manera de pararlo.
Muchas gracias.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
For Pilots and Politicians, Experience Matters
By A. W. Maldonado
When I took off in my first solo flight some 40 years ago, experienced mattered.
I was not afraid that my small Cessna would fail. I was afraid about myself: panic. And I knew that confidence avoided panic, and that confidence is the product of experience.
Paradoxically, as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist, experience did not matter. I wrote about issues, many of them of importance, some of them complex, in which I had no direct
experience. This, in fact, was a professional asset: it reinforced my credibility: it was
seen as giving me the distance, detachment essential to “objectivitive journalism.”
And through the years, I witnessed the same paradox in the democratic system that gives men and women the power to govern us. In our lives, we normally value experience highly, especially in moments of fear, as in a commercial airplane bouncing around in bad weather, it comforts us to know that the pilots in the cabin are experienced: or as we are wheeled into an operating room, knowing that the surgeons are experienced.
But not in politics. As in journalism, experience is seen as a negative. To be anaccomplice of the mistakes of the past that created the crisis we are in. To be part of the “problem” and not the “solution.”
That Barack Obama had, as the Washington Post put it in a recent editorial, an “experience deficit” added to his great appeal and critically reinforced the perception that he represented “change.” The dynamics of the campaign made the point. As the national anxiety over the Iraq War receded, so did Obama's appeal. When the country fell into the financial and then economic meltdown, the Obama campaign recovered. As national anxiety grew, it turned more to the by far lesser experienced candidate for President.
Now, many argue that was is crucial is the talent, the intelligence of the President and his ability to sorround himself with men and women of exceptional experience. There is no question that Obama has the talent, the intelligence and has attracted an impressive team. And there is the argument that. again, the "experience deficit" may prove an asset making possible the open-mindedness, the flexiblility needed to make decisions and adopt policies, as Obama says often, "that work."
But lets go back to the pilot analogy. In recent weeks two commercial airlines went down. In both cases the pilots hit the moment of potential panic when life-or-death decisions are made instantly. In one, a highly experienced pilot, who happens to be a national expert in flight
safety, made the decision to “go into the Hudson.” It turned out to be the right decision as he executed perfectly and landed on the water.
In the other, according to the latest reports of federal investigators, an inexperienced pilot (qualified to fly this type aircraft in December), appears to have made the wrong decision when the plane stalled on approach in Buffalo.
Obama had great confidence in himself. I can’t conceive anyone running for President without it.
But the fact that he has assembled a team of impressive talent and experience gurantees that he will get different and at times conflicting advice on issues of mind-boggling complexity.
He must decide. How can he possibly know what is the right decision, what "will work." It has surprised no one that in his first weeks in office, facing terribly difficult and complex issues, he has stumbled. If it is true that a good part of the world economic crisis is "psychological," and if the experts are right in that the crisis will be prolonged, as much as the nation and the world want him to succeed, how many more times can Obama stumble before he begins to lose the confidence of the people in him, and of himself?
“Solo” is Spanish for alone. When I flew my first solo, leaving behind my instructors with all their experience back on the ground, I faced the reality that it was totally in my hands: either I landed or I crashed.
With pilots or politicians, experience guarantees nothing. But in moments of crisis, there is no substitute. Experience matters.
to landing.
Obama had great confidence in himself. I can’t conceive anyone running for President without it.
Yes, he has assembled a team of impressive talent and experience, but this only guarantees that he
will get different, and at times conflicting advise on issues of mind-boggling complexity.
As he must make decisions, who is right, who is wrong, I think he must feel a pilot in his first solo flight.
“Solo” is Spanish for alone.
When I flew in my first solo, leaving behind my instructors with all their experience back on the
ground, I faced a simple reality: either I land this airplane, and I crash.
It is, to say the least, an exhilarating experience. Taking a risk is often exhilarating. American voters
have often elected Presidents with significant “experience deficits.” One cannot know it the man
elected will become another Abraham Lincoln or another Jimmy Carter.
There is no escaping that as exhilarating as Obama’s election is, it is a risk. With pilots or politicians,
experience guarantees nothings. But in moments of crisis, it matters.
By A. W. Maldonado
When I took off in my first solo flight some 40 years ago, experienced mattered.
I was not afraid that my small Cessna would fail. I was afraid about myself: panic. And I knew that confidence avoided panic, and that confidence is the product of experience.
Paradoxically, as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist, experience did not matter. I wrote about issues, many of them of importance, some of them complex, in which I had no direct
experience. This, in fact, was a professional asset: it reinforced my credibility: it was
seen as giving me the distance, detachment essential to “objectivitive journalism.”
And through the years, I witnessed the same paradox in the democratic system that gives men and women the power to govern us. In our lives, we normally value experience highly, especially in moments of fear, as in a commercial airplane bouncing around in bad weather, it comforts us to know that the pilots in the cabin are experienced: or as we are wheeled into an operating room, knowing that the surgeons are experienced.
But not in politics. As in journalism, experience is seen as a negative. To be anaccomplice of the mistakes of the past that created the crisis we are in. To be part of the “problem” and not the “solution.”
That Barack Obama had, as the Washington Post put it in a recent editorial, an “experience deficit” added to his great appeal and critically reinforced the perception that he represented “change.” The dynamics of the campaign made the point. As the national anxiety over the Iraq War receded, so did Obama's appeal. When the country fell into the financial and then economic meltdown, the Obama campaign recovered. As national anxiety grew, it turned more to the by far lesser experienced candidate for President.
Now, many argue that was is crucial is the talent, the intelligence of the President and his ability to sorround himself with men and women of exceptional experience. There is no question that Obama has the talent, the intelligence and has attracted an impressive team. And there is the argument that. again, the "experience deficit" may prove an asset making possible the open-mindedness, the flexiblility needed to make decisions and adopt policies, as Obama says often, "that work."
But lets go back to the pilot analogy. In recent weeks two commercial airlines went down. In both cases the pilots hit the moment of potential panic when life-or-death decisions are made instantly. In one, a highly experienced pilot, who happens to be a national expert in flight
safety, made the decision to “go into the Hudson.” It turned out to be the right decision as he executed perfectly and landed on the water.
In the other, according to the latest reports of federal investigators, an inexperienced pilot (qualified to fly this type aircraft in December), appears to have made the wrong decision when the plane stalled on approach in Buffalo.
Obama had great confidence in himself. I can’t conceive anyone running for President without it.
But the fact that he has assembled a team of impressive talent and experience gurantees that he will get different and at times conflicting advice on issues of mind-boggling complexity.
He must decide. How can he possibly know what is the right decision, what "will work." It has surprised no one that in his first weeks in office, facing terribly difficult and complex issues, he has stumbled. If it is true that a good part of the world economic crisis is "psychological," and if the experts are right in that the crisis will be prolonged, as much as the nation and the world want him to succeed, how many more times can Obama stumble before he begins to lose the confidence of the people in him, and of himself?
“Solo” is Spanish for alone. When I flew my first solo, leaving behind my instructors with all their experience back on the ground, I faced the reality that it was totally in my hands: either I landed or I crashed.
With pilots or politicians, experience guarantees nothing. But in moments of crisis, there is no substitute. Experience matters.
to landing.
Obama had great confidence in himself. I can’t conceive anyone running for President without it.
Yes, he has assembled a team of impressive talent and experience, but this only guarantees that he
will get different, and at times conflicting advise on issues of mind-boggling complexity.
As he must make decisions, who is right, who is wrong, I think he must feel a pilot in his first solo flight.
“Solo” is Spanish for alone.
When I flew in my first solo, leaving behind my instructors with all their experience back on the
ground, I faced a simple reality: either I land this airplane, and I crash.
It is, to say the least, an exhilarating experience. Taking a risk is often exhilarating. American voters
have often elected Presidents with significant “experience deficits.” One cannot know it the man
elected will become another Abraham Lincoln or another Jimmy Carter.
There is no escaping that as exhilarating as Obama’s election is, it is a risk. With pilots or politicians,
experience guarantees nothings. But in moments of crisis, it matters.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Letter to Tina
December 4, 2008
Dear Tina,
Again, thank you for inviting us to the art donation event that, in every sense, had the taste, quality, class that I have always associated with you.
I just read the message, Sharing a Legacy, where you describe your life-long love for art. As I mentioned to you, art, specifically painting, was my “first love” and I spent the first three years of college as an art student. I am moved to write what I fear will be a long letter (not as long, I hope, as those maddening memos I sent you and Lee decades ago.)
I am enclosing a Wall Street Journal article, in case you have not seen it, that begins asking a good question: “What is a masterpiece?”
The answer, I think, is implicit in the article. The author tells us that the painting “Portrait of a Woman Holding a Booklet” was “venerated” in the 19th Century as a “Chardin masterpiece” but then “fell out of favor” when it was discovered that it was painted by a lesser-known artist. The article then tells us that the painting “Christ Carrying the Cross” was totally ignored for almost 500 years, until it was cleaned up, the signature and date were seen, and “voila – an instant masterpiece.” And the article ends telling us that what greets Vermeer’s “The Astronomer” is “silence.”
When I read this article, it brought back a lot of memories. I remember vividly when I decided to give up my art “career.” It was 1953 and I could not understand why people throwing paint at a canvas was considered “art”. I had read the 1934 Irving Stone’s novel “Lust for Life” and, like everyone else, I was convinced that if it was a Van Gogh, it was a “masterpiece”. Even more so after seeing the movie with Kirk Douglass.
But, as I am sure others have asked, exactly what makes them masterpieces? If we did not know who painted these twisting cypress trees, crazy stars in the sky, would everyone call these paintings “masterpieces?” If we did not know that Van Gogh had a pathetically tortured life, that many of these paintings are the expression of clinical pathology, if we did not have all those letters to his brother Theo describing his agony and his paintings, would we call them “masterpieces”?
Well, for years, I thought that if the experts said so, if they hung these painting in the greatest museums of the world, they must be. I would go to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan and see all those strange things – a solid white canvas with absolutely nothing on it, but, I guess, for white paint. Obviously someone “who knows” sees something I don’t see.
In September 2007, there was a big commotion in London as “Van Gogh’s final masterpiece”, the Fields, was expected to ignite one of the greatest “bidding wars” in Sostheby’s history. Art lovers and museums had been trying for years to buy this “masterpiece”. But in fact almost everything I saw written about this historic event had to do with Van Gogh and not the painting itself. It hung up on his wall while he was bleeding to death after shooting himself. Was this really his “final” painting? Art critics and Sostheby experts were quoted saying why they considered this such a “great” painting. One scholar wrote: “Here is an artist literally on the verge of taking his life and filled with tremendous despondency … We know this is a man barely holding on to his will to live yet he is able to separate his energy and focus on what he sees before him.”
Interesting. But is this what makes it a “masterpiece”?
Picasso was certainly not suicidal. He was, of course, a genius, and I don’t think, as you said, that he was “crazy.” A better word, I think, would be “diabolical.” He was a monumental egomaniac, capable of monumental meanness, especially towards women that made the mistake of loving him, and I think monumentally cynical. As the British historian, Paul Johnson, points out in his excellent book, “Art”, Picasso got very rich at a young age. If it was not cynicism, how else to explain that he used his genius, his enormous vigor and talent, to produce some of the ugliest, most grotesque things created in human history? And seeing “experts” dying to lavish their praise on these “masterpieces.”
Although I think Picasso did great damage to art, and I have no idea what so much of abstract, non-objective art is, of course there have been many great artists in the past two centuries, and there has been artistic talent in Puerto Rico, some of it demonstrated in the works you donated to the museum. (You may recall, or may not want to, a talented and, yes, somewhat “crazy” young artist I brought to El Mundo, Carlos Irizarry.)
But I have found myself irresistibly drown more and more to the paintings of previous centuries in the great European and U.S. museums. I find myself irresistibly going back in time.
Is Velasquez the greatest painter of all time? Has anyone, will anyone, ever again capture space as he did? But there is Caravaggio. Has their ever been a more creatively “revolutionary” painter? Then we go back to Rafael. Will anyone ever capture beauty as in the face of his Madonnas? Vermeer, ignored for over two centuries, today more and more revered. Is he, after all, the greatest painter of all time? Yes, there is magic in how he captured “light”. But he captured something else. He captured silence.
But no, still going back, to be exact, 1433. At the National Gallery of Art in Washington there is the Annunciation. Isn’t Jan Van Eyck the greatest artist of all time?
Wherever they are available, I always use those portable audio tours and want to know as much as I can about the paintings and the artists. But I don’t need anyone “who knows”, or anyone else, to tell me that I am standing before a masterpiece. I don’t need stories of tortured souls cutting off their ear. Except for Caravaggio, who was a violent man, the geniuses that painted these masterpieces, as far as we know, led ordinary, normal lives. We know little about Vermeer but his paintings are masterpieces even if we knew nothing about him. As the WSJ article tells us, our silence tells us.
A word on a different subject. If I heard you right (the noise and you know I am half deaf), you commented that the mistake I made was to become a “political columnist.” I was, of course, in the sense that I wrote about politics, although I was always personally more interested in economic realities. And, of course, I always wrote with a point of view. But always totally independent: beholden to no political party, ideology, no political leader. I and El Mundo were, of course, attacked as the “tool” of a political party. I like to think that if I earned the respect of people like Muñoz, Moscoso, Benítez, even Ferré, it was because they knew I was no one’s “tool.” I know that you and Lee, having gone through together the brutal demagoguery of those tough years, believed it.
Now, I hope you know something else. The art lover hidden in me, irresistibly, irrepressibly going back in time to earlier centuries.
Alex
December 4, 2008
Dear Tina,
Again, thank you for inviting us to the art donation event that, in every sense, had the taste, quality, class that I have always associated with you.
I just read the message, Sharing a Legacy, where you describe your life-long love for art. As I mentioned to you, art, specifically painting, was my “first love” and I spent the first three years of college as an art student. I am moved to write what I fear will be a long letter (not as long, I hope, as those maddening memos I sent you and Lee decades ago.)
I am enclosing a Wall Street Journal article, in case you have not seen it, that begins asking a good question: “What is a masterpiece?”
The answer, I think, is implicit in the article. The author tells us that the painting “Portrait of a Woman Holding a Booklet” was “venerated” in the 19th Century as a “Chardin masterpiece” but then “fell out of favor” when it was discovered that it was painted by a lesser-known artist. The article then tells us that the painting “Christ Carrying the Cross” was totally ignored for almost 500 years, until it was cleaned up, the signature and date were seen, and “voila – an instant masterpiece.” And the article ends telling us that what greets Vermeer’s “The Astronomer” is “silence.”
When I read this article, it brought back a lot of memories. I remember vividly when I decided to give up my art “career.” It was 1953 and I could not understand why people throwing paint at a canvas was considered “art”. I had read the 1934 Irving Stone’s novel “Lust for Life” and, like everyone else, I was convinced that if it was a Van Gogh, it was a “masterpiece”. Even more so after seeing the movie with Kirk Douglass.
But, as I am sure others have asked, exactly what makes them masterpieces? If we did not know who painted these twisting cypress trees, crazy stars in the sky, would everyone call these paintings “masterpieces?” If we did not know that Van Gogh had a pathetically tortured life, that many of these paintings are the expression of clinical pathology, if we did not have all those letters to his brother Theo describing his agony and his paintings, would we call them “masterpieces”?
Well, for years, I thought that if the experts said so, if they hung these painting in the greatest museums of the world, they must be. I would go to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan and see all those strange things – a solid white canvas with absolutely nothing on it, but, I guess, for white paint. Obviously someone “who knows” sees something I don’t see.
In September 2007, there was a big commotion in London as “Van Gogh’s final masterpiece”, the Fields, was expected to ignite one of the greatest “bidding wars” in Sostheby’s history. Art lovers and museums had been trying for years to buy this “masterpiece”. But in fact almost everything I saw written about this historic event had to do with Van Gogh and not the painting itself. It hung up on his wall while he was bleeding to death after shooting himself. Was this really his “final” painting? Art critics and Sostheby experts were quoted saying why they considered this such a “great” painting. One scholar wrote: “Here is an artist literally on the verge of taking his life and filled with tremendous despondency … We know this is a man barely holding on to his will to live yet he is able to separate his energy and focus on what he sees before him.”
Interesting. But is this what makes it a “masterpiece”?
Picasso was certainly not suicidal. He was, of course, a genius, and I don’t think, as you said, that he was “crazy.” A better word, I think, would be “diabolical.” He was a monumental egomaniac, capable of monumental meanness, especially towards women that made the mistake of loving him, and I think monumentally cynical. As the British historian, Paul Johnson, points out in his excellent book, “Art”, Picasso got very rich at a young age. If it was not cynicism, how else to explain that he used his genius, his enormous vigor and talent, to produce some of the ugliest, most grotesque things created in human history? And seeing “experts” dying to lavish their praise on these “masterpieces.”
Although I think Picasso did great damage to art, and I have no idea what so much of abstract, non-objective art is, of course there have been many great artists in the past two centuries, and there has been artistic talent in Puerto Rico, some of it demonstrated in the works you donated to the museum. (You may recall, or may not want to, a talented and, yes, somewhat “crazy” young artist I brought to El Mundo, Carlos Irizarry.)
But I have found myself irresistibly drown more and more to the paintings of previous centuries in the great European and U.S. museums. I find myself irresistibly going back in time.
Is Velasquez the greatest painter of all time? Has anyone, will anyone, ever again capture space as he did? But there is Caravaggio. Has their ever been a more creatively “revolutionary” painter? Then we go back to Rafael. Will anyone ever capture beauty as in the face of his Madonnas? Vermeer, ignored for over two centuries, today more and more revered. Is he, after all, the greatest painter of all time? Yes, there is magic in how he captured “light”. But he captured something else. He captured silence.
But no, still going back, to be exact, 1433. At the National Gallery of Art in Washington there is the Annunciation. Isn’t Jan Van Eyck the greatest artist of all time?
Wherever they are available, I always use those portable audio tours and want to know as much as I can about the paintings and the artists. But I don’t need anyone “who knows”, or anyone else, to tell me that I am standing before a masterpiece. I don’t need stories of tortured souls cutting off their ear. Except for Caravaggio, who was a violent man, the geniuses that painted these masterpieces, as far as we know, led ordinary, normal lives. We know little about Vermeer but his paintings are masterpieces even if we knew nothing about him. As the WSJ article tells us, our silence tells us.
A word on a different subject. If I heard you right (the noise and you know I am half deaf), you commented that the mistake I made was to become a “political columnist.” I was, of course, in the sense that I wrote about politics, although I was always personally more interested in economic realities. And, of course, I always wrote with a point of view. But always totally independent: beholden to no political party, ideology, no political leader. I and El Mundo were, of course, attacked as the “tool” of a political party. I like to think that if I earned the respect of people like Muñoz, Moscoso, Benítez, even Ferré, it was because they knew I was no one’s “tool.” I know that you and Lee, having gone through together the brutal demagoguery of those tough years, believed it.
Now, I hope you know something else. The art lover hidden in me, irresistibly, irrepressibly going back in time to earlier centuries.
Alex
Saturday, November 29, 2008
THE END OF THE COMMONWEALTH ERA
A.W. Maldonado
It was no surprise. Five months before the elections, June 1, 2008, I began a column:
“The Popular Democratic Party is headed toward a catastrophic defeat with historic consequences for Puerto Rico. “
It was evident that Acevedo was doomed by the economic crisis. Long before the March 27, 2008 federal indictments for campaign finance irregularities, the polls showed that there was no way that Acevedo could get reelected. A November , 2007 poll had him losing to Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño by no less than 37 points.
But he made a fateful decision after the indictments. Against reality, he convinced many Popular Party leaders, including the mayors that are crucial in elections, that he would pull off a “political miracle.”
Acevedo has always been a resourceful politician. Now he used the federal indictment to convince many PDP leaders that the U.S. government had immorally, undemocratically, abusively intervened in island politics to destroy him and favor Fortuño. The Puerto Rican electorate, we now know, did not believe him. But many PDP leaders, in patriotic indignation, did and rallied to his side.
Fortuño and Resident Commissioner-elect Pedro Pierluisi represent a new generation and they will bring energy in attacking Puerto Rico’s overwhelming economic and fiscal crisis. They are both intelligent and honest and there is no doubt they sincerely want to serve this island well.
But they will have to suppress two forces within their party. One consists of a number of vindictive and destructive leaders, passionately loyal to ex-governor Pedro Rosselló, that dedicated themselves to obstruct the Acevedo administration, and then to destroy Fortuño himself. Fortuño’s first test, crucial to the success of his administration, will be whether he will prevent these militants from controlling the Legislature.
The second force that Fortuño will have to suppress is the status passion within the New Progressive Party. With absolute control of the government of Puerto Rico – the governorship, the resident commissioner, the Legislature, the vast majority of the municipalities, and eventually the island Supreme Court – the NPP will have the power to launch a crusade for statehood, here and in Washington, as never before in island history.
Fortuño and Pierluisi are statehooders. They repeatedly declare that they will do nothing here nor in Congress that is not consistent with statehood. This was precisely the mentality that drove then governor Rosselló in the 1990’s to go to Congress to eliminate Section 936.
But they will face the reality that to lift Puerto Rico from the deepening economic recession they will have to do things that are inconsistent with statehood. The island economy depends on manufacturing and manufacturing depends on Puerto Rico being part of the U.S. but exempt of U.S. taxes. We know today that the elimination of Section 936 was a serious blow to manufacturing costing this island thousands of jobs.
So the fundamental question is whether Fortuño’s and Pierluisi’s extraordinary electoral victory means the end the Commonwealth Era.
Let’s define precisely just what the Commonwealth Era was. This is not just about a political status, but about an era. In most of the first half of the 20th century, it seemed nothing worked in Puerto Rico. Nothing pulled this island out of deep extreme poverty, not hundreds of million in federal funds. The politics was superficial, irrelevant. Everyone in Puerto Rico said that the fundamental cause was “colonialism.” But in fact, Puerto Rico has placed itself in an impossible dilemma. It was believed that the only way out of “colonialism” was statehood or independence. But statehood was economically, culturally, politically impossible. And the vast majority of the Puerto Ricans rejected independence.
It occurred to a number of island leaders, and Congress agreed, in the early 1950’s, to liberate Puerto Rico from this paralyzing dilemma by creating a new status, Commonwealth. It was unique, and in some ways defective, but it was a solution. And it worked. By the end of the 1950’s, Puerto Rico’s liberated energy and talent has carried out an “economic miracle” and made this island a Mecca for world-famous musicians, artists, poets, intellectuals.
The Commonwealth Era did not, of course, end the status conflict. But it did bring about a kind of truce. If someone invented a meter to gauge the ups and downs of status passion in island history, I think it would show a correlation: the higher the status passions, the more superficial island politics, the more ineffective the government.
So the question is: how high will Fortuño and Pierluisi raise the status passion meter? They say their priority is attacking Puerto Rico’s economic and fiscal crisis. But will they resist the enormous pressure to launch another statehood crusade?
And this brings us back to Acevedo’s fateful decision. Closing one’s eyes to reality is never a good idea. For a political leader the consequences can be serious. Acevedo did and led the PDP to the worst defeat in its history. The stakes were too high to depend on his promise to pull off a “miracle.” He should have given way to someone else with a better chance of at least avoid the PNP landslide: with at least a chance of winning, say, control of the Senate.
Will Fortuño and Pierluis also close their eyes to the reality that if they revert Puerto Rico to the sterility, the futility of the impossible status dilemma, all the enthusiasm and promise of their big victory will flounder in failure? The reality that this is what will happen if they bring aboutthe end of the Commonwealth Era.
A.W. Maldonado
It was no surprise. Five months before the elections, June 1, 2008, I began a column:
“The Popular Democratic Party is headed toward a catastrophic defeat with historic consequences for Puerto Rico. “
It was evident that Acevedo was doomed by the economic crisis. Long before the March 27, 2008 federal indictments for campaign finance irregularities, the polls showed that there was no way that Acevedo could get reelected. A November , 2007 poll had him losing to Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño by no less than 37 points.
But he made a fateful decision after the indictments. Against reality, he convinced many Popular Party leaders, including the mayors that are crucial in elections, that he would pull off a “political miracle.”
Acevedo has always been a resourceful politician. Now he used the federal indictment to convince many PDP leaders that the U.S. government had immorally, undemocratically, abusively intervened in island politics to destroy him and favor Fortuño. The Puerto Rican electorate, we now know, did not believe him. But many PDP leaders, in patriotic indignation, did and rallied to his side.
Fortuño and Resident Commissioner-elect Pedro Pierluisi represent a new generation and they will bring energy in attacking Puerto Rico’s overwhelming economic and fiscal crisis. They are both intelligent and honest and there is no doubt they sincerely want to serve this island well.
But they will have to suppress two forces within their party. One consists of a number of vindictive and destructive leaders, passionately loyal to ex-governor Pedro Rosselló, that dedicated themselves to obstruct the Acevedo administration, and then to destroy Fortuño himself. Fortuño’s first test, crucial to the success of his administration, will be whether he will prevent these militants from controlling the Legislature.
The second force that Fortuño will have to suppress is the status passion within the New Progressive Party. With absolute control of the government of Puerto Rico – the governorship, the resident commissioner, the Legislature, the vast majority of the municipalities, and eventually the island Supreme Court – the NPP will have the power to launch a crusade for statehood, here and in Washington, as never before in island history.
Fortuño and Pierluisi are statehooders. They repeatedly declare that they will do nothing here nor in Congress that is not consistent with statehood. This was precisely the mentality that drove then governor Rosselló in the 1990’s to go to Congress to eliminate Section 936.
But they will face the reality that to lift Puerto Rico from the deepening economic recession they will have to do things that are inconsistent with statehood. The island economy depends on manufacturing and manufacturing depends on Puerto Rico being part of the U.S. but exempt of U.S. taxes. We know today that the elimination of Section 936 was a serious blow to manufacturing costing this island thousands of jobs.
So the fundamental question is whether Fortuño’s and Pierluisi’s extraordinary electoral victory means the end the Commonwealth Era.
Let’s define precisely just what the Commonwealth Era was. This is not just about a political status, but about an era. In most of the first half of the 20th century, it seemed nothing worked in Puerto Rico. Nothing pulled this island out of deep extreme poverty, not hundreds of million in federal funds. The politics was superficial, irrelevant. Everyone in Puerto Rico said that the fundamental cause was “colonialism.” But in fact, Puerto Rico has placed itself in an impossible dilemma. It was believed that the only way out of “colonialism” was statehood or independence. But statehood was economically, culturally, politically impossible. And the vast majority of the Puerto Ricans rejected independence.
It occurred to a number of island leaders, and Congress agreed, in the early 1950’s, to liberate Puerto Rico from this paralyzing dilemma by creating a new status, Commonwealth. It was unique, and in some ways defective, but it was a solution. And it worked. By the end of the 1950’s, Puerto Rico’s liberated energy and talent has carried out an “economic miracle” and made this island a Mecca for world-famous musicians, artists, poets, intellectuals.
The Commonwealth Era did not, of course, end the status conflict. But it did bring about a kind of truce. If someone invented a meter to gauge the ups and downs of status passion in island history, I think it would show a correlation: the higher the status passions, the more superficial island politics, the more ineffective the government.
So the question is: how high will Fortuño and Pierluisi raise the status passion meter? They say their priority is attacking Puerto Rico’s economic and fiscal crisis. But will they resist the enormous pressure to launch another statehood crusade?
And this brings us back to Acevedo’s fateful decision. Closing one’s eyes to reality is never a good idea. For a political leader the consequences can be serious. Acevedo did and led the PDP to the worst defeat in its history. The stakes were too high to depend on his promise to pull off a “miracle.” He should have given way to someone else with a better chance of at least avoid the PNP landslide: with at least a chance of winning, say, control of the Senate.
Will Fortuño and Pierluis also close their eyes to the reality that if they revert Puerto Rico to the sterility, the futility of the impossible status dilemma, all the enthusiasm and promise of their big victory will flounder in failure? The reality that this is what will happen if they bring aboutthe end of the Commonwealth Era.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A SPECTACULAR SHIP COMES TO SAN JUAN
A.W. Maldonado
In the doom and gloom of the economic news, its good news that six cruise ships will visit San Juan for the first time in the coming months. One of them was the Celebrity Solstice this Tuesday. In fact, San Juan was its first port-of-call in its first voyage.
USA Today travel writer, Gene Sloan, wrote that Solstice is “the most innovative, stylish, beautiful ship in the seas.” This is the kind of reviews the 2,850 passenger, 122,000 ton ship has received when the media was invited to preview it this past weekend.
But first the good news about the cruise industry in Puerto Rico. The head of the Ports Authority, Fernando Bonilla, and Tourism Company head Terestela González Denton, announced that this past fiscal year, 2007-2008, there was an 8.9 increase in cruise passengers arriving in San Juan: a total of 1,496,853, 118,116 more than the previous year. What is impressive, they pointed out, is that this is significantly higher than the worldwide growth of 5 percent, the 2 percent increase in the U.S. , the 1.7 percent in the East Caribbean.
In addition to the Solstice, also making first visits to San Juan this winter season are the 2,044 passenger Holland American Eurodam and the 1,800 passenger Statedam, the 3,000 passenger Carnival Spendor and the Carnival Pride, the 3,600 passenger Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas, and the Artemio of P&O Cruises.
Bonilla and González also announced that two other big ships, the 3100 passenger Caribbean Princess and the Carnival Victory have made San Juan their winter season home port.
Now, why the rave reviews for Solstice?
A group of journalists and travel writers were seated at one of the ten restaurants on this ship. Yes, ten: each one different where you will find from exotic Asian fusion to Italian to classic and modern continental cuisine. We were at the main dinning room, the spacious Grand Epernay that features a two-story tall glass wine tower.
I was curious to get the reaction of the veteran travel writer, Dr. Laurence Miller, who told me that he has made “well over 300 cruises.” What do you think, I asked? He answered with a thumbs-up gesture. Since Celebrity has the reputation for outstanding food, Miller wondered if Solstice will be able to improve on it. Everyone seemed to agree with Gene Sloan: this is a “beautiful ship.” There are, of course, differences between cruise ships: between, say, the Queen Mary II, the Crystal Symphony, the new Caribbean Princess. I must say that I have found every ship I’ve been in one way or another “beautiful.”
But the moment one walks into this ship, and looks up at the 15-story atrium and see a real, full-grown tree, up there half way up, you know this is indeed different. Or when you go up to what is called the “Lawn Club Desk” because there is a real lawn there: to be exact, over a half acre of real grass. As you walk around, there seems to be live music everywhere – from a classical string quartet, four pretty young women, to a full dance orchestra. And one keeps coming up to a work of art, some of them exquisite, or coming up to still another bar, some of them half hidden so they will surprise you.
Up on the Lawn Deck one will come across several furnaces were a number of Corning master glassblowers demonstrate how they make beautiful glass objects. This too, I must believe, is different.
We spent two nights on the ship and saw two shows in the huge Solstice Theater, built especially for European style theatrical circus shows, with acrobats flying all over the place. I sat up in the balcony and suddenly where was this acrobat dress as a ram flying by, inches away from my nose. Yes, this is different.
The media had an opportunity to meet and question the Chairman of Royal Caribbean, the parent of Celebrity, Richard Fain, the President of Royal Caribbean International, Adam Goldstein and the President of Celebrity Dan Hanrahan. Yes, they said, the company as the entire cruise industry has been hit by the world-wide economic and financial crisis. But it will weather the storm because cruising, they said, is still such a “big bargain.” Hanrahan several times compared the price of a cruise, with food, entertainment and a lot more included, to “spending $300 a night for a hotel room in San Juan.”
Fain and Hanrahan demonstrated their optimism pointing out that there are four other “Solstice class” ships on line to be inaugurated in the next four years. Asked if the economic crisis may force them to change their plans, Hanrahan answered with a firm “no.”
The “naming ceremony” (once called the “christening”) of the ship, at the home port in Ft. Lauderdale last Saturday, was also “different.” It was held inside the Solstice Theater. We were told that for the first time a scientist is Godmother: marine biologist Dr. Sharon Smith, who has spent her life around the globe studying the ocean food chain, mostly the minute zooplankton. A moving video of her life work was projected, including her battle, twice, with cancer. Then a live video was projected of a Champaign bottle sliding down a cable and crashing into the hull.
The Celebrity Solstice, arrived at San Juan at two pm Tuesday, from the outside looked pretty much like the other new big ships. But from the moment I walked inside, the word that kept coming to mind was: “spectacular.”
A.W. Maldonado
In the doom and gloom of the economic news, its good news that six cruise ships will visit San Juan for the first time in the coming months. One of them was the Celebrity Solstice this Tuesday. In fact, San Juan was its first port-of-call in its first voyage.
USA Today travel writer, Gene Sloan, wrote that Solstice is “the most innovative, stylish, beautiful ship in the seas.” This is the kind of reviews the 2,850 passenger, 122,000 ton ship has received when the media was invited to preview it this past weekend.
But first the good news about the cruise industry in Puerto Rico. The head of the Ports Authority, Fernando Bonilla, and Tourism Company head Terestela González Denton, announced that this past fiscal year, 2007-2008, there was an 8.9 increase in cruise passengers arriving in San Juan: a total of 1,496,853, 118,116 more than the previous year. What is impressive, they pointed out, is that this is significantly higher than the worldwide growth of 5 percent, the 2 percent increase in the U.S. , the 1.7 percent in the East Caribbean.
In addition to the Solstice, also making first visits to San Juan this winter season are the 2,044 passenger Holland American Eurodam and the 1,800 passenger Statedam, the 3,000 passenger Carnival Spendor and the Carnival Pride, the 3,600 passenger Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas, and the Artemio of P&O Cruises.
Bonilla and González also announced that two other big ships, the 3100 passenger Caribbean Princess and the Carnival Victory have made San Juan their winter season home port.
Now, why the rave reviews for Solstice?
A group of journalists and travel writers were seated at one of the ten restaurants on this ship. Yes, ten: each one different where you will find from exotic Asian fusion to Italian to classic and modern continental cuisine. We were at the main dinning room, the spacious Grand Epernay that features a two-story tall glass wine tower.
I was curious to get the reaction of the veteran travel writer, Dr. Laurence Miller, who told me that he has made “well over 300 cruises.” What do you think, I asked? He answered with a thumbs-up gesture. Since Celebrity has the reputation for outstanding food, Miller wondered if Solstice will be able to improve on it. Everyone seemed to agree with Gene Sloan: this is a “beautiful ship.” There are, of course, differences between cruise ships: between, say, the Queen Mary II, the Crystal Symphony, the new Caribbean Princess. I must say that I have found every ship I’ve been in one way or another “beautiful.”
But the moment one walks into this ship, and looks up at the 15-story atrium and see a real, full-grown tree, up there half way up, you know this is indeed different. Or when you go up to what is called the “Lawn Club Desk” because there is a real lawn there: to be exact, over a half acre of real grass. As you walk around, there seems to be live music everywhere – from a classical string quartet, four pretty young women, to a full dance orchestra. And one keeps coming up to a work of art, some of them exquisite, or coming up to still another bar, some of them half hidden so they will surprise you.
Up on the Lawn Deck one will come across several furnaces were a number of Corning master glassblowers demonstrate how they make beautiful glass objects. This too, I must believe, is different.
We spent two nights on the ship and saw two shows in the huge Solstice Theater, built especially for European style theatrical circus shows, with acrobats flying all over the place. I sat up in the balcony and suddenly where was this acrobat dress as a ram flying by, inches away from my nose. Yes, this is different.
The media had an opportunity to meet and question the Chairman of Royal Caribbean, the parent of Celebrity, Richard Fain, the President of Royal Caribbean International, Adam Goldstein and the President of Celebrity Dan Hanrahan. Yes, they said, the company as the entire cruise industry has been hit by the world-wide economic and financial crisis. But it will weather the storm because cruising, they said, is still such a “big bargain.” Hanrahan several times compared the price of a cruise, with food, entertainment and a lot more included, to “spending $300 a night for a hotel room in San Juan.”
Fain and Hanrahan demonstrated their optimism pointing out that there are four other “Solstice class” ships on line to be inaugurated in the next four years. Asked if the economic crisis may force them to change their plans, Hanrahan answered with a firm “no.”
The “naming ceremony” (once called the “christening”) of the ship, at the home port in Ft. Lauderdale last Saturday, was also “different.” It was held inside the Solstice Theater. We were told that for the first time a scientist is Godmother: marine biologist Dr. Sharon Smith, who has spent her life around the globe studying the ocean food chain, mostly the minute zooplankton. A moving video of her life work was projected, including her battle, twice, with cancer. Then a live video was projected of a Champaign bottle sliding down a cable and crashing into the hull.
The Celebrity Solstice, arrived at San Juan at two pm Tuesday, from the outside looked pretty much like the other new big ships. But from the moment I walked inside, the word that kept coming to mind was: “spectacular.”
Sunday, August 31, 2008
PUERTO RICO’S SELF-INFLICTED CRISIS
For Puerto Rico’s private sector, and a number of economists, the economic recession crisis is self-inflicted. So what can Puerto Rico do about it?
This island, of course, is seriously affected by global economic forces that are beyond its power: the brutal increase in the price of oil, the banking and mortgage credit crisis. But because the severity of this island’s economic recession is self-inflicted, once the global situation changes, unlike in the past, Puerto Rico will continue sinking in recession.
There are three things, according to the private sector and economists, that this island must do. One, the political parties in power must recognize that the endless partisan warfare of the past three years, the shared government where the Governor and Legislature belonging to competing parties had led often to gridlock, has damaged the economy. The partisan gridlock has obstructed the government in attempting to respond and adjust to the global challenges.
Second, Puerto Rico needs a consistent economic development policy. The Governor and the Legislature, as a result of the partisan warfare, one day enacts a pro-growth measure and the next day annuls it with an anti-growth measure. The result is that no one on this island, or in the world, today can say if the Government of Puerto Rico is “pro-business” or “anti-business.”
Puerto Rico needs a deep tax reform, including significantly lowering Puerto Rico’s high corporate income tax – today one of the highest in the world. It needs to stop legislating politically-motivated economic benefits that, in the end, cost Puerto Rico thousands of jobs making this island less and less competitive in attracting investment.
But, third, nothing will work unless Puerto Rico greatly reduces the bureaucratic monster: the enormous dead weight of over two hundred thousand government employees that soak up the billions in tax revenue.
But there is something else.
Lets assume that come January, 2009, the political warfare that has so seriously hurt the economy comes to an end. Either the newly- elected Governor and Legislature belong to the same party. Or we have again a “shared government” but this time the parties decide to work together to confront the recession.
The newly-elected government will be faced with a gigantic deficit now calculated at nearly $1 billion that may well get bigger. The more the economy slows down the lower the tax revenue. From 2007 to 2008, corporate tax revenue declined by 21.8 percent: $437 million. Individual tax revenue went down by 9 percent: $278 million. The lower the tax revenue the greater the budget deficit and the less the government can do to spur the economy.
And caught in this vicious circle, it becomes extremely difficult to enact a deep tax reform. Puerto Rico learned decades ago, as now have most economies in the world, that paradoxically the way to increase tax revenue is precisely lowering taxes that will generate economic growth. Politically, needless to say, its easy to lower individual taxes for the middle class, but extremely difficult for high income people and corporations, precisely what will ignite economic growth.
But of all the things the newly- elected government must do, there is one that will be the most difficult. And here we get to the “something else.”
Recently the head of the Government Budget Office, Armando Velez, pointed out something critically important. Since the Governor Anibal Acevedo administration took over in 2006, it has reduced the bureaucratic monster. It has reduced the number of employees in the Executive Branch by 16,631 – from 207,536 to 190,903. This is a lot. There are 4,000 less employees in the Education Department: 3,000 public workers less in the prison system.
Yet, he said, the government payroll has continued to increase. And the reason, he said, is “collective bargaining.” Law 45 approved in 1998 by the Governor Pedro Rossello administration legalized public employees to unionize with the right to negotiate salaries and economic benefits. The Budget Office, he said, desperately cutting costs wherever possible, had to come up with $200 million more for salary increases recently negotiated, or approved under great union pressure.
This is not exactly news. Back in May, the private Center for the New Economy analyzed the 2009 budget and found precisely the same. While the number of public employees declines, and in fact, total government spending declines, the public payroll increases.
But, again, as Puerto Rico sinks deeper and deeper into recession, it is now more critical than ever to understand the implications of what the head of the Budget Office is saying. Faced with a billion dollar deficit that may get much worse, cutting employees as much as it has, the administration is in fact powerless to control salaries. And if it cannot control salaries, it effectively does not control the government budget.
There is reason to believe, I think, that after the November elections, there will be a truce in the destructive partisan warfare. But working together in itself does not guarantee good economic policy. There is no better example than Law 45. All the parties came together in support of it back in 1998, and still support it today.
And there is no better example of how Puerto Rico’s economic crisis is self-inflicted than Law 45. No one should hold their breath waiting for the political parties to amend it, much less repeal it. But this does not change the reality. To pull this island out of the deepening recession, it is simply essential that the government regain the critical power it surrendered in Law 45 – the power to control the public payroll. That is, the power to control the government budget: the power to control the bureaucratic monster.
For Puerto Rico’s private sector, and a number of economists, the economic recession crisis is self-inflicted. So what can Puerto Rico do about it?
This island, of course, is seriously affected by global economic forces that are beyond its power: the brutal increase in the price of oil, the banking and mortgage credit crisis. But because the severity of this island’s economic recession is self-inflicted, once the global situation changes, unlike in the past, Puerto Rico will continue sinking in recession.
There are three things, according to the private sector and economists, that this island must do. One, the political parties in power must recognize that the endless partisan warfare of the past three years, the shared government where the Governor and Legislature belonging to competing parties had led often to gridlock, has damaged the economy. The partisan gridlock has obstructed the government in attempting to respond and adjust to the global challenges.
Second, Puerto Rico needs a consistent economic development policy. The Governor and the Legislature, as a result of the partisan warfare, one day enacts a pro-growth measure and the next day annuls it with an anti-growth measure. The result is that no one on this island, or in the world, today can say if the Government of Puerto Rico is “pro-business” or “anti-business.”
Puerto Rico needs a deep tax reform, including significantly lowering Puerto Rico’s high corporate income tax – today one of the highest in the world. It needs to stop legislating politically-motivated economic benefits that, in the end, cost Puerto Rico thousands of jobs making this island less and less competitive in attracting investment.
But, third, nothing will work unless Puerto Rico greatly reduces the bureaucratic monster: the enormous dead weight of over two hundred thousand government employees that soak up the billions in tax revenue.
But there is something else.
Lets assume that come January, 2009, the political warfare that has so seriously hurt the economy comes to an end. Either the newly- elected Governor and Legislature belong to the same party. Or we have again a “shared government” but this time the parties decide to work together to confront the recession.
The newly-elected government will be faced with a gigantic deficit now calculated at nearly $1 billion that may well get bigger. The more the economy slows down the lower the tax revenue. From 2007 to 2008, corporate tax revenue declined by 21.8 percent: $437 million. Individual tax revenue went down by 9 percent: $278 million. The lower the tax revenue the greater the budget deficit and the less the government can do to spur the economy.
And caught in this vicious circle, it becomes extremely difficult to enact a deep tax reform. Puerto Rico learned decades ago, as now have most economies in the world, that paradoxically the way to increase tax revenue is precisely lowering taxes that will generate economic growth. Politically, needless to say, its easy to lower individual taxes for the middle class, but extremely difficult for high income people and corporations, precisely what will ignite economic growth.
But of all the things the newly- elected government must do, there is one that will be the most difficult. And here we get to the “something else.”
Recently the head of the Government Budget Office, Armando Velez, pointed out something critically important. Since the Governor Anibal Acevedo administration took over in 2006, it has reduced the bureaucratic monster. It has reduced the number of employees in the Executive Branch by 16,631 – from 207,536 to 190,903. This is a lot. There are 4,000 less employees in the Education Department: 3,000 public workers less in the prison system.
Yet, he said, the government payroll has continued to increase. And the reason, he said, is “collective bargaining.” Law 45 approved in 1998 by the Governor Pedro Rossello administration legalized public employees to unionize with the right to negotiate salaries and economic benefits. The Budget Office, he said, desperately cutting costs wherever possible, had to come up with $200 million more for salary increases recently negotiated, or approved under great union pressure.
This is not exactly news. Back in May, the private Center for the New Economy analyzed the 2009 budget and found precisely the same. While the number of public employees declines, and in fact, total government spending declines, the public payroll increases.
But, again, as Puerto Rico sinks deeper and deeper into recession, it is now more critical than ever to understand the implications of what the head of the Budget Office is saying. Faced with a billion dollar deficit that may get much worse, cutting employees as much as it has, the administration is in fact powerless to control salaries. And if it cannot control salaries, it effectively does not control the government budget.
There is reason to believe, I think, that after the November elections, there will be a truce in the destructive partisan warfare. But working together in itself does not guarantee good economic policy. There is no better example than Law 45. All the parties came together in support of it back in 1998, and still support it today.
And there is no better example of how Puerto Rico’s economic crisis is self-inflicted than Law 45. No one should hold their breath waiting for the political parties to amend it, much less repeal it. But this does not change the reality. To pull this island out of the deepening recession, it is simply essential that the government regain the critical power it surrendered in Law 45 – the power to control the public payroll. That is, the power to control the government budget: the power to control the bureaucratic monster.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
ARE THE FEDS OUT TO NAIL ACEVEDO?
Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila’s essential defense is this: I am being accused of doing what every politician does to raise money in the campaign. Why pick on me? The answer is that they, the federal prosecutors in Puerto Rico, are out to nail me. The answer is political persecution: a conspiracy to destroy me so that I lose the November elections.
Lets look at this defense.
The first question that pops up is: why would the federal prosecutors in Puerto Rico want to get involved in Puerto Rico’s elections? They are not running for office in Puerto Rico. In fact, if they are doing what Acevedo says they are, they are putting their own jobs and careers at risk.
Just days ago, Attorney General Michael MuKasey, in a major speech before the American Bar Association, repeatedly declared that he will not tolerate any federal prosecutor doing precisely what Acevedo accuses the prosecutors in Puerto Rico of doing. Since Mukasey has pledged that if he sees any evidence of politics playing a role in the department’s investigations and prosecutions, his response will be “swift and unambiguous,” why would any federal prosecutor in Puerto Rico or anywhere else want to test if he means it or not?
The answer, Acevedo said repeatedly last Wednesday after he was indicted for five additional counts, is that behind all of this is “hatred and vengeance.” He was referring to former Governor Carlos Romero Barcelo whose original complaint of campaign finance fraud led to the federal investigation and indictment of Acevedo. It should be recalled that before that, Acevedo accused Romero of campaign finance fraud using a sworn statement that turned out to be false. Romero retaliated trying to get Acevedo disbarred.
This, then, is Romero’s “revenge. ” But regardless of whether this has any credibility or not – that Romero, a national Democrat, has in fact that great influence in Washington, what about Acevedo’s essential legal argument that he is the target of what is called “selective prosecution.”
If you prove in court that the investigation and prosecution were not done “in good faith and in nondiscriminatory fashion,” the judge can throw the case out, whether the indictment is factually correct or not.
The latest indictment states that Acevedo used fraudulent means to accept $250,000 in campaign donations from a private firm that had multiple business relations with the government. Acevedo, the indictment says, personally and through aides assisted the firm. And to hide the donations, the indictment declares, the firm paid the money to the Governor’s public relations and advertising company for fictitious services: that is, to pay invoices that were fraudulent.
Now, it is generally believed that this is common practice in Puerto Rican politics. As the costs of campaign advertising increase, candidates find themselves accepting and hiding donations that exceed legal limits. A campaign is a desperate race and when one candidate sees the other winning because he or she is spending much more in advertising, the pressure to do the same becomes irresistible.
Acevedo denies that he did or authorized anything illegal. But his essential “selective prosecution” argument is: if this is the way we all play the game, and have for years, why single me out? Why not go after the other politicians that have done exactly the same? If this is not “bad faith, discriminatory prosecution”, what is?
Proving “selection prosecution” in court, however, is not easy. Island attorneys point at a 1983 case in Delaware, State v. Holloway. Herman Holloway was accused of violating state income tax laws. If there was ever a defendant that seemed to be victim of “selective prosecution”, it was him. He was a liberal, often controversial Democratic member of the state legislature, an outspoken militant in favor of the Democratic candidate for president, a radical Teamster leader, and he was black. Why, he asked, didn’t the state go after so many others that violate the income tax law? The answer, he said, was obvious: because he was outspoken, controversial, Democrat and black.
The court did not agree. By necessity, prosecutors must chose which cases to prosecute, and which not. The state cannot possible investigate all suspected violations of income tax laws. To prove “selective prosecution” the defense must go into the prosecutor’s motives and judgments to come up with the “bad faith.” Furthermore, the court said, it is permissible for the state to select for prosecution a “high profile” personality precisely because of all the publicity that will serve as a deterrent to potential violators.
Now, Acevedo, needless to say, is now engaged in fighting, not a legal, but a political battle. Everything he does and says has one aim: help him win the November elections. But when he made the fateful decision that he would not resign as candidate back in March, he mixed into one his legal and political battles. It is one thing for his attorneys to attempt to convince the judge that the defense meets the legal requirements of “selective prosecution”, it is another, in this political campaign, to hammer again and again to the people of Puerto Rico that the U.S. Justice Department, indeed the U.S. Government, is persecuting him because of the “hatred and vengeance” of an aggrieved political rival.
In 1960 something incredible happened in Puerto Rico. Catholic Church bishops organized a political party to condemn Governor Luis Munoz Marin as “anti-God.” It didn’t work. Munoz was again reelected and the party disappeared. But the bitterness of the emotions tested Puerto Rico’s belief in the separation of Church and State.
There is today a similar test. It is simply not credible that the accusations are purely politically motivated: that, yes, the Feds are out to nail him. Yet Acevedo’s decision to stay and fight is also arousing bitter emotions that put to the test something as essential as the separation of Church and State, the confidence the people must have in the vital institutions of Puerto Rico’s relationship to the U.S.
Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila’s essential defense is this: I am being accused of doing what every politician does to raise money in the campaign. Why pick on me? The answer is that they, the federal prosecutors in Puerto Rico, are out to nail me. The answer is political persecution: a conspiracy to destroy me so that I lose the November elections.
Lets look at this defense.
The first question that pops up is: why would the federal prosecutors in Puerto Rico want to get involved in Puerto Rico’s elections? They are not running for office in Puerto Rico. In fact, if they are doing what Acevedo says they are, they are putting their own jobs and careers at risk.
Just days ago, Attorney General Michael MuKasey, in a major speech before the American Bar Association, repeatedly declared that he will not tolerate any federal prosecutor doing precisely what Acevedo accuses the prosecutors in Puerto Rico of doing. Since Mukasey has pledged that if he sees any evidence of politics playing a role in the department’s investigations and prosecutions, his response will be “swift and unambiguous,” why would any federal prosecutor in Puerto Rico or anywhere else want to test if he means it or not?
The answer, Acevedo said repeatedly last Wednesday after he was indicted for five additional counts, is that behind all of this is “hatred and vengeance.” He was referring to former Governor Carlos Romero Barcelo whose original complaint of campaign finance fraud led to the federal investigation and indictment of Acevedo. It should be recalled that before that, Acevedo accused Romero of campaign finance fraud using a sworn statement that turned out to be false. Romero retaliated trying to get Acevedo disbarred.
This, then, is Romero’s “revenge. ” But regardless of whether this has any credibility or not – that Romero, a national Democrat, has in fact that great influence in Washington, what about Acevedo’s essential legal argument that he is the target of what is called “selective prosecution.”
If you prove in court that the investigation and prosecution were not done “in good faith and in nondiscriminatory fashion,” the judge can throw the case out, whether the indictment is factually correct or not.
The latest indictment states that Acevedo used fraudulent means to accept $250,000 in campaign donations from a private firm that had multiple business relations with the government. Acevedo, the indictment says, personally and through aides assisted the firm. And to hide the donations, the indictment declares, the firm paid the money to the Governor’s public relations and advertising company for fictitious services: that is, to pay invoices that were fraudulent.
Now, it is generally believed that this is common practice in Puerto Rican politics. As the costs of campaign advertising increase, candidates find themselves accepting and hiding donations that exceed legal limits. A campaign is a desperate race and when one candidate sees the other winning because he or she is spending much more in advertising, the pressure to do the same becomes irresistible.
Acevedo denies that he did or authorized anything illegal. But his essential “selective prosecution” argument is: if this is the way we all play the game, and have for years, why single me out? Why not go after the other politicians that have done exactly the same? If this is not “bad faith, discriminatory prosecution”, what is?
Proving “selection prosecution” in court, however, is not easy. Island attorneys point at a 1983 case in Delaware, State v. Holloway. Herman Holloway was accused of violating state income tax laws. If there was ever a defendant that seemed to be victim of “selective prosecution”, it was him. He was a liberal, often controversial Democratic member of the state legislature, an outspoken militant in favor of the Democratic candidate for president, a radical Teamster leader, and he was black. Why, he asked, didn’t the state go after so many others that violate the income tax law? The answer, he said, was obvious: because he was outspoken, controversial, Democrat and black.
The court did not agree. By necessity, prosecutors must chose which cases to prosecute, and which not. The state cannot possible investigate all suspected violations of income tax laws. To prove “selective prosecution” the defense must go into the prosecutor’s motives and judgments to come up with the “bad faith.” Furthermore, the court said, it is permissible for the state to select for prosecution a “high profile” personality precisely because of all the publicity that will serve as a deterrent to potential violators.
Now, Acevedo, needless to say, is now engaged in fighting, not a legal, but a political battle. Everything he does and says has one aim: help him win the November elections. But when he made the fateful decision that he would not resign as candidate back in March, he mixed into one his legal and political battles. It is one thing for his attorneys to attempt to convince the judge that the defense meets the legal requirements of “selective prosecution”, it is another, in this political campaign, to hammer again and again to the people of Puerto Rico that the U.S. Justice Department, indeed the U.S. Government, is persecuting him because of the “hatred and vengeance” of an aggrieved political rival.
In 1960 something incredible happened in Puerto Rico. Catholic Church bishops organized a political party to condemn Governor Luis Munoz Marin as “anti-God.” It didn’t work. Munoz was again reelected and the party disappeared. But the bitterness of the emotions tested Puerto Rico’s belief in the separation of Church and State.
There is today a similar test. It is simply not credible that the accusations are purely politically motivated: that, yes, the Feds are out to nail him. Yet Acevedo’s decision to stay and fight is also arousing bitter emotions that put to the test something as essential as the separation of Church and State, the confidence the people must have in the vital institutions of Puerto Rico’s relationship to the U.S.
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