Asking for votes, but no longer in the nude

Why is one person’s morality less important than someone else’s? asks former porno actor David Mech, who’s looking for a seat in the Palm Beach School Board.

This man, with two Doctor’s degrees, has a website that speaks very well of him. It says he’s interested in five main issues that affect the School Board: technology, innovation, equality, sexual education and secular values.

I know, this might sound scandalous but Mech has not broken the law or done nothing as bad as what happens every day right before our eyes and seems to us quite natural. No need to give examples.

In fact, Mech himself is conscious of that and is proud of his candidacy. “I respect the law,” he says. “I shouldn’t be discriminated against by my own government for having followed its rules.”

Tony went there to sing

Cuban singer Tony Ávila was invited to a program of Miami-based América TeVe. To sing, naturally. And he sang. The lyrics of his song said, in part: “Last night I was assaulted. Luckily, I had no money.” That part appeared to amuse her fellow panelists, mostly women in their 50s. Tony finished, the panelists applauded. The program’s hostess, a nervous blonde, thanked him for playing.

Then, before Tony could put down his guitar, the woman said that a topic was pending from the previous day’s program. The topic was a statement that Cuban troubadour Silvio Rodríguez made to a Cuban journalist, Leandro Estupiñán, in a recent interview. And she showed a slide with Silvio’s words: “I have learned that the people [in Cuba] are screwed, a lot more screwed than I thought.”

Everything became clear. Tony had not been invited to sing, just sing, but to respond to accusations that he had once struck some Ladies in White, in the city of Cárdenas.

That kind of ambush is nothing new here. I remember how David Calzado, director of the musical group La Charanga Habanera, rattled and irked TV hostess María Elvira while she tried to wring from him offensive statements about the Cuban government.

And I also remember how another popular singer, Pablo FG, broke up with his agent and walked out of a program after the interview to which he had been invited — supposedly to talk about music — turned into an inquisition, as if he, Pablo FG, were a politician, not a popular musician.

In Tony’s case, the correlation of forces was disproportionate: four women in their 50s, a couple of old men and a dandy formed a gang whose intention, suspiciously uniform, was to provoke Tony, to make him blow up.

On the other hand, Tony was a sitting target and he chose to keep silent. Offended by viewers who phoned the program, threatened on screen, Tony’s only crime was that he didn’t want to opine. Nevertheless, when asked what he thought of Silvio, he spoke out: he said Silvio was sincere.

How to judge the Chinese?

Read this statement: “Thirty years ago, Europe and the United States were our most important markets. But now, new markets such as Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are becoming important.”

Those are the words of Ma Hua, assistant director general of the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the province of Guangdong. And the province of Guangdong is the kingpin of Chinese manufacture, and China is the kingpin of the world’s manufacturing industry.

Now, let us consider an idea that, repeated so often, has become a useless cliché: China is capitalist. Not even those who defend this idea, proposed recently at the Chinese Trade Fair in Miami Beach, can deny that they have their reasons. (The fair enabled Asian businessmen to connect with thousands of potential buyers in the American continent.)

Let’s assume these reasons:

(a) China is the world’s second economic power, according to its nominal GDP.

(b) The Chinese are everywhere.

(c) China is the world’s leading exporter.

(d) The Chinese work night and day.

(e) China is the world’s second importer of goods.

(f) The Chinese are many, very disciplined and they live in hives.

Let us assume other, similar reasons. Let us say that the Chinese spend very little and that their spirit is inspired in The Four Books of Confucius, so they’re patient and understand that happiness consists in walking the straight path.

Now then, have we achieved anything? Have we even made the Chinese turn their eyes toward us while we spend the time labeling them, calling them one thing or another?

There is a pending debate: Is China capitalist or not? But first there is a promising, convincing and final fact: China is not stopping, and it won’t stop even if we defend a divorce between its economy and communism.