dagblog - Comments for ""Sweet Micky" Is Haiti's Next President: Democrat or Demagogue?"

Great point.I am a pretty

artappraiser — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:49:06 +0000

In reply to A few years ago, when Sudan

Great point.

I am a pretty strong believer of the "wisdom of old age" thing, especially as regards a populace that doesn't have a lot of formal education, but also in general. Don't consder myself an oldster yet (maybe I should ) but I have lived long enough to see a lot of examples of that on my own, people getting wiser over time simply by interacting with others in numbers, tempering irrational views or beliefs or prejudices learned through family or culture or religion or whatever that they had started out life with.

President Sweet MickyBy

artappraiser — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:47:45 +0000

In reply to "Sweet Micky" Is Haiti's Next President: Democrat or Demagogue?

President Sweet Micky
By Joshua Keating, Foreignpolicy.com, April 5, 2011

....Despite his outsider, populist image, Martelly actually comes from a fairly privileged background: he's the son of an oil company executive and attended private school and junior college in the U.S. before launching his music career. He's all had a fair bit of help from celebrities and image consultants in his campaign in his transition from the bad boy of compas to polished politician:....

I wonder if Vodun as

EmmaZahn — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:12:11 +0000

In reply to Sometimes it's tempting to

I wonder if Vodun as practiced here is as original as Wicca, that is, almost wholly reinvented.

I will have to put that on my list of things ot look up. :)

A few years ago, when Sudan

EmmaZahn — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:07:33 +0000

In reply to Sometimes it's tempting to

A few years ago, when Sudan was the trending hot spot I looked it up in the CIA Factbook and noticed the median aga seemed very young. I think it was just a little less than 17. I wondered how that compared and lucklily the CIA Factbook includes a field listing that makes it easy. Just about every then hot spot had a very young median age. Gaza and Uganda being the youngest.

Haiti's median age is currently 21.4 and the Congos 17 and 17.4. Not countries for old men people. No way should they be expected to govern themselves in traditional ways when they have few elders around to teach those ways. They need a benevolent dictator or trustee for a generation or two to grow into self-government. The dictator part is easy. It is the benevolence that is hard.