Just a note.....

.....on one of the things wrong with Guatemalans and Guatemalan-Americans.

I went back to Guatemaltecos.com, which I consider to be a sort of an alma mater which I dropped out of for the sheer frustration that was in it. Well, two of the three reasons for my departure are still at it, fussing and fighting and dancing around the subject at hand, choosing instead to ridicule others surely to impress themselves and their audience, which is quite captive on that site as most Guatemalans are chismosos anyway and love a good dog fight. Anyway, the very same guys are the ones at it, and they are saying the very same things, about freedom of speech and other freedoms that they avail themselves of while refusing to let others do the same lest it make them look bad. I saw some discussion of serious topics going on that had just degenerated into an "I'm entitled and you're not" scenario. That is not only counterproductive to discussion, but it makes Guatemalans look like a bunch of disorganized and argumentative heathens, which of course feeds into the existing stereotype. Speaking of the stereotype, it has also come out in the news that the survivors of the floods and mudslides are fighting each other for food supplies, as they haven't had any for close to a week. I can find no problem with that since it is in human nature to try like hell to guarantee yourself and your people survival. But those of us who live the high life, comparatively speaking, have no reason to step all over each other just so we can outshine everyone else.

But what bothered me most, and I mean no offense to the gentleman who runs the site for he cannot possibly tell his forists what to discuss, nor should he, is the lack of real discussion of the flood/mudslides. There are two discussion threads on that topic. One has one response to it and the other has maybe five or six, and four of the posts are to report problems in posting. I saw much more discussion about who gets to say what when and where, and about the lastest Guatemalan singer-songwriter. Of course it's OK to discuss frivolities like the latter subject, but I'm sorry to say we have bigger fish to fry these days. That's something that always disappointed me about the Guatemaltecos.com site. Some of those people are flojos, lax. They don't have anything relevant to say.

I started the day upset at the lack of coverage in the United States of the tragedies going on as I write in my country. Now I am upset at the lack of coverage the tragedy has gotten among Guatemalans themselves.