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Health & Fitness

Spring Fever in Cartegena

This morning's discussion was all about the Secret Service scandal. What a mess!

Recently, we were discussing the news out of Cartegena about the President's advance team for the Summit of the Americas. How embarrassing. What seems to be the most irritating is that the agent in question was unwilling - or maybe unable - to compensate his escort for services rendered. How vulgar!

We agreed unanimously that the poor woman was really ripped off!

I looked at some online brochures for travel in Colombia and  I couldn't find any reference to legalized prostitution. But the Huffington Post says it is "just a part of life" in Colombia.

Cartagena was founded in 1533, but habitation dates back 7000 years. It is a dignified city, filled with history. Monuments, castles and archaeology sites are abundant.

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And Colombia is no stranger to scandal. La Violencia was a period of great unrest and civil war between the liberal and conservative factions from about 1948-1958. They argued over the distribution of wealth; Spain had stolen the land from the peasants, leaving them doomed to a life of poverty and landless-ness. This happened throughout South America, and in mid-century gave rise to an expression of discontent that evolved into FARC and many other organisations, and guerrilla warfare. Over 20% of the population of Colombia was affected, hundreds of thousands killed, and hundreds of thousands more injured and homeless.

La Violencia set a trend for a type of random killing and senseless violence that is endemic in the current cartel culture. To address grievances, Colombia changed their political system to allow equal representation for both the liberal and conservative parties in a rotating fashion so all voices would be heard. This appeasement of the parties went a long way toward the appearance of endorsing Pablo Escobar and his Cali Cartel. Escobar successfully ran a shadow governement based on fear and drugs that errupted into lawless violence.

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By the time Escobar was finally executed he had crossed some serious boundaries. He ran the country on brutality, even achieving election to a legislative seat he could not hold on to. But Escobar was a brutal enemy - his henchmen would maximize violent killings in public, in daylight and eventually, in prison just for the effect it had on people. It worked.  Ultimately, he felt he could do anything he wanted and all he asked was for the government of Colombia to leave him alone. They almost did. The only thing he feared was extradition to a United States court of law. I don't think he would feel that way today. 

It is hardly surprising that a woman who, allegedly, at the age of 24 has a nine-year-old child, would become a working girl. How else could a 15-year-old reasonably expect to support herself and her child? Unfortunately, that equation has not changed one iota since the beginning of time, and neither has the eensy-beensy brain of the men who use their services!

As for our international reputation, this doesn't do much. Last time we had such a stupid sex scandal was when Clinton was president, right? The United States is endowed with money and riches and these working girls were only too happy to be sharing in the riches - for services rendered, of course. They may or may not have known who these guys were - their story is that they did not. But that is what a spy would say too, right? Anyhow, those agents were throwing around money and drinking it up. It was probably very attractive, like a fly to honey. That's just good business.

Of course it is entirely possible that the president's security may also have been endangered. Isn't that the way it is often done? What about JFK and Ellen Rometsch? That is another non-scandal issue - minimized as much as is possible, given the microscope that JFK died under. But nevertheless, JFK is alleged to have insisted on carrying on with Ellen - despite numerous appeals for him to stop. Who knows? Assasination is rarely neat; she goes to bed with him and pulls out a gun or something. Maybe, as many of the biographers say, l'affaire Russian had a hand in President Kennedy's assasination. Regardless, the whole thing is playing very loosey-goosey with the protection of the Most Powerful Person In The Whole Wide World.

The questions this, the GSA scandal, the Solyndra affair, and the $5 Trillion debt raise are numerous. I like the sexy ones; they are meatier and offer more tidbits of insight into human nature. But taken together, it means something.

In the end, it is insignificant who is to blame. What matters is that we fix the problem and the problem. While government is only too happy to create programs of entitlement to ensure that the next election goes in their favor - this raises the question about entitlement WITHIN the government. Who's money do they think they are spending? And who do they think they are?

The point is that they are thinking with those same little itty-bitty brains again. . .

The New York Times has a wonderful story detailing the plight of this unnamed woman. She bristles being called a "prostitute" and makes the distinction that she is an "escort," which means she is socially more presentable than a streetwalker. These horn-dog agents made the determination that they were good enough for the high-class women - and in the end, they could barely come up with $225 of the $800 that he owed her. After a night of drunken debauchery the scandal errupted because their JUDGEMENT was OFF. Of course it was! 

Now it comes to light that the same guy who was unable to pay the high class call girl was also ogling Sarah Palin

He bragged about it on Facebook! What an idiot!

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