A very idyllic picture was created in the Wall Street Journal article “Why Can’t the World Bank be More Like a Bank” which suggests:

Under this proposed policy, the Bank would establish, manage, and oversee individual accounts for citizens or institutions in Third World countries, as well as directly contribute to those accounts. New technology — electronic fingerprint recognition — can be used to ensure that only one account is opened for any given Third Worlder. The accounts would serve three functions: checking, saving and investing…The accounts would be the private property of their owners, who would be free to add to or withdraw from their balances via ATMs located at home or abroad. Overnight, developed countries, other development banks, NGOs, private charities, and private individuals would have a means of directly helping Third Worlders. They’d simply write out a check to the World Bank, designating the country they wanted to help. The Bank would then uniformly increase the balances of all account holders from that country.

However a number of major flaws in the ‘new plan’ have either been glossed over or ignored. Allow me to present the hypothetical story of a young woman from sub-Saharan Africa whose country has recently adopted the ‘new World Bank’.

My cousin from the city has sent me word that we are all entitled to a bank account with the World Bank. I am not sure if the news is true since we have limited communications here in the countryside but it does sound like a nice idea.

Our local representative has confirmed my cousin’s story; soon we will have our bank accounts. We need to prove our citizenship first and then have our fingerprints scanned but I’m sure they will send someone here to do all that soon.

The registration center will be arriving in our village next week. Our local official has advised us that there will be a small charge to register which he will collect before giving the list of eligible villagers to the people from the capital who will do all of the paper work for us.

There was another fee charged by the registration center to include our village in the national registry, I now have no money left to deposit but other countries will be giving us money soon so that we can get things like medicine and electricity.

Our bank accounts have money in them now. I spoke with father about using some of the money to take a computer course in the city but he says that I must give it to my brother instead so that he can buy a car to start a taxi business. I will do as he says of course because that is my duty to my family.

My brothers’ car has broken down and we haven’t received any additional money from the rich countries, he will not be able to work until the rich countries decide to give us something else.

The government says they can’t fix the bridge across the river. Our local official spoke with the heads of the other villages on this side of the river about using some money from each of our accounts. The other villages say that we should pay more since we are closest to the bridge but my father and the other men think that they are just trying to take advantage of us.

The local center is charging a new withdrawal fee, our accounts were supposed to be free but they say that maintaining the sites and technology is getting too expensive, if they don’t get enough in fees we will have to walk six hours to the next closest center.

The irrigation channels that bring water to our fields are running dry. The local official says that the dam upstream is not being maintained any more because the government doesn’t have enough money. All of the villages decided to get together to fix the dam but nobody knows anything about dams so we will have to bring someone in from the city. It will be expensive to do that but we have no choice.

Father says that I must give him the rest of my money so that he can go to the city to find the man to fix the dam. I will give him my money and pay the withdrawal fee because somebody needs to fix the dam so that we can grow our crops. I wish we had a bridge so that my father could drive to the city, that is assuming, of course, that we could get my brothers’ taxi working again.

Ok it’s been a while since I’ve had a good rant so here it goes…

Since when did laws become the absolute moral standard? Ok equating laws against rape and murder with a basic moral stance against rape and murder is fine but it seems now that people are more and more often saying “It’s not illegal” as an explanation for being impolite and inconsiderate. (As in its not illegal to smoke outside therefore it’s ok that I dangle my cigarette over your baby carriage).

Yes, laws are in place to protect us but they must allow for some freedom in choice and actions which means that our actions on a daily basis should not be defined by laws alone. Laws set the absolute, basic, minimum moral standards; we each need to strive on our own to achieve more.

For example, the guy who backed out of the offer that we had accepted on our place in DC (causing us to lose probably $20,000 since we already rejected the other offers) was legally allowed to do so without giving us a reason, but it would have been very nice to know why he suddenly decided to screw us over. When I mentioned this, ‘its within his legal rights’ was the excuse that was given for his rudeness and suddenly I felt like I was accused of being the bad guy because I wanted him to waive his rights or something. No, I just want him to be polite, I just want a fax that says ‘sorry due to unforeseen circumstances’ or something not the fax he sent (I am withdrawing my offer, send my deposit to this address).

And our neighbors, well the law clearly states that no construction in residential areas can take place before 7am but that doesn’t mean that it’s polite of them to start working on the wall directly behind our bed at 7:01. There are plenty of other places that they could be working that wouldn’t wake us up, the wall behind our kitchen for example but this solution hasn’t seemed to cross their mind. Their reasoning is, “we’re legally allowed to start now so we have fulfilled all obligations to our neighbors.” You have fulfilled your obligations to the legal system of the city of Montreal; you are choosing to do no more for your neighbors!

Anyway perhaps I am being naïve, expecting people to do more than the absolute minimum but gee wiz people, stop hiding behind the law. You might be a law-abiding citizen but your still a rude, inconsiderate sob!

This weekend I finally accepted the truth of my main motivation in life. I am motivated not by a desire to do good, or even a good healthy lust for wealth or power; nope I am motivated by the need to prove people wrong.

For example:

In a past job I was working on building this inter-agency partnership on sustainable land management. After being given the task by my manager I started asking around to get feedback from other colleagues. Some of the responses I got were:
(a) It’s a nice idea but it’s going to be almost impossible to coordinate.
(b) There are some very big issues which need to be addressed before it’s going to work.
(c) The idea is a good one but the timeframe is far too ambitious, it’s just not realistic.
So I threw myself into building the partnership and after a little more than a year, when the partnership had a life of its own, I decided that it was time to move on to a different challenge. When I told my manager he said ‘How can you leave now when the partnership has only just taken off? I think you’re afraid of success Jaime.” I wasn’t afraid of success, it was just that the feedback I was getting from everyone was now ‘sufficient momentum has been built, the partnership will move forward no matter what.’

Then take my current position. I was drawn to the advertisement and decided to apply. Most people I spoke to about the position though said, ‘yes you could do the job but that won’t matter because you’re too young and the organization is too bureaucratic to overlook that’. So what did I do? I left my nice DC contract early and came up here to take a temporary position with a very long-shot at anything in the future. Now that I’ve convinced people here that I can do the job even though I’m young I’m really just going through the motions.

Now what do I want to do in my spare time? I want to write children’s picture books in verse. Why? Because every article I’ve read states that (1) it’s very difficult to do, and (2) even harder to sell.

So my dear readers, I need your help.

1. Am I normal?
2. Do most people react the same way to being told that they can’t do something?
3. Am I every going to find satisfaction in my accomplishments?

OK, so nobody had anything to say about my last ‘opinions please’ topic and I’m beginning to think that it’s because there’s nobody out there…hello…somebody…anybody?

Just in case there are people out there and my topic just sucked I’m going to try again with a completely different topic…what men want (and don’t).

Now I don’t pretend to be an expert on men, sure I grew up with two brothers, sure I’ve been living with one for six years now but I’m not a man…that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Here’s what I think I have figured out though; let me know if I’m on the right track or if anyone else out there has other pearls of wisdom.

Men DON’T want: to solve our problems when we reveal them during a deep, meaningful discussion

Men DO want: to solve our problems when we mention them as a casual passing comment

Men DON’T want: to have input on ‘silly little decisions’ such as where to go for dinner, what color to paint the living room, etc.

Men DO want: veto power on every decision that needs to be made including how small the onions should be chopped, what scent of candles should be put in said living room, etc.

Men DON’T want: women to try to trick them into getting into trouble

Men DO want: to demonstrate their prowess by pointing out the occasions when they’re too smart for women to trick them into getting into trouble…thereby getting themselves into trouble

Men DON’T want: women to clutter their living space with crap like priceless antiques, pictures of the family, or stuffed animals

Men DO want: to clutter their living space with gadgets: universal remote controls (times three), wireless routers (plus back up wires), computers with two…no wait, four screens (each bigger than the last), and the biggest damn tv that can fit through the hole in the wall that used to be the front door frame before we had to bust it out so that the tv could fit through

Men DON’T want: to understand women…really they don’t. I think it’s because men like a challenge, you know: eating more marshmallows than the next guy, running up more stairs before collapsing in an exhausted heap, hooking up more wires to their big screen tv (or whatever), running blindly into the minefield that is male-female relationships

Men DO want: women to read their minds so that their portion of communication can be reduced to “grunt, grunt, ug!”

Well…how’d I do?

We are currently going through this mini crime-wave in our neighborhood (something to do with ‘the final stages of transition’). Anyway in order to show solidarity, or something to that extent, the local neighborhood keeners are starting this ‘orange hat’ walk. You know, the whole orange hat thing is great in terms of people getting out there and making a difference but all I can think is “orange hats, damn I bet those are ugly”.

Moving on from the orange hats, crime waves are really scary in this country. When I’m out late at night walking my dog up in Canada I make sure I always have a good sturdy stick in mind in case I get accosted by a bear but here, well a big stick doesn’t do much against five fourteen year olds with handguns.

Actually the gang of 14 year old hand gun bandits has been caught due to their innate stupidity…which is why I’m concerned about them going to jail. I mean at the moment these kids are ineffective, they tried to rob someone who was out walking his dog and, of course, the guy had nothing on him but poo bags. So anyway they let him continue on his merry way and stayed in the exact same spot waiting for another victim to wander on by. Of course the guy called the police who went directly to the spot where the gang was hanging out and arrested them all.

My problem is this, if these kids get sent to jail they might actually learn something about how to be a criminal…I way prefer them stupid and harmless. Ok maybe one day they’ll grow up and be stupid and dangerous but I think that day will only come sooner if they’re getting private tutoring at the local penitentiary. It is with that in mind that I ask you (my - obviously very bored or why else would you be reading this – readers) to weigh in on the issue…whatever should be done with these stupid kids?