Author: Kathy Niclaus (---.nwrknj.east.verizon.net)
Date: 04-26-06 18:30
Commercialism by definition is engaging in any sort of exchange of goods or services for monetary or proprietary gain. Frank are you suggesting that the numerous guesthouses which have sprung up on the island are charitable retreats owned and hosted by non-profit organizations? If so, where may one view their charters with the Government, or their Mission statements for that matter?
If it is necessary for parents to sequester their children on an island hundreds of miles from the nearest coast of the mainland USA in order to induce in them the motivation to read a book or engage in some non-electronic entertainment, than that parent has already failed. A child should be taught to entertain him or herself from pre-school age how to engage themself without the constant use of the electronic babysitters which are the convenient fallback of parents too busy to engage themselves. Or maybe a parent who has had too many cold ones on a weekend? Frank, do you have a DVD player in your vehicle? How many TVs in your house? One in each child's bedroom?
You obviously are not particularly literate yourself, else you would have noticed that I said that some, not all, of the hoteliers and innkeepers on Culebra were gouging and taking advantage of the guests with ramshackle properties. I made no reference to luxury, but there is such a thing as fair market value, good working order, providing what is advertised, and a liveable environment. There are some lodgings and owners who fall far short of the most rudimentary of these standards, even by IYH standards. (Now go do a Google search to find out what IYH means, because I doubt you have ever stepped inside of one, let alone slept in one as an adult, as I have)
As for everyone being "nice", you must be looking at the world through those beer goggles of yours. To think that there is any place in the world where the entire population is comprised 100% of ethical, kind, totally honest people is delusional. Sociology and genetics refutes that soundly. Hmm, hasn't every serial killer been described by his unsuspecting neighors as "the nicest guy ever, so quiet and polite?" Besides, isn't it the job of the people who are making a hefty profit off of you to be nice to you? Like I said before, doesn't someone who's paying a prostitute expect her to kiss him and tell him he's handsome, endowed, and that he's the best she ever had?
Personally, ending up as a bug isn't so bad. It means contributing to the ecology, which is more than most Americans do- they just move in, take over, take out what's of value, then move on once they've wasted a place. It wasn't good enough for the ancestors of the Americans to move to North America and kick out the natives, push the Mexicans who owned half the USA into down into the crappy part of Mexico and take over the west under Manifest Destiny, and let all the latter immigrants come in and get their chance to make a good life. No, the grandchildren of these people now aren't content to live in the richest nation in the world, they have to spread out to the territories and beyond and exploit a little more, because they've screwed up what the preceding generation died to provide them.
Yeah, being a bug would be good, splat on a windshield, then a bird can eat me, and s**t on you and Debbie's heads, that would be fun!
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