Community...

I've been thinking about what would like to have close by where I live, and I've come to the conclusion that mainly I'd like to have places like parks and more plazas.

Places that would let the community where I live to come together, and have a greater sense of belonging. I think that is people feel that they are an important part of the community they live in, it would bring an improvement to the quality of life of the people who live in it.

At the end, when people feel like close to the place they live they actually do things to take care of it.

But, if there aren't places that bring the community together, it becomes difficult to bring people to care about their community and the people living there.

Is important to build the sense of belonging to the community on which we live in.

Change...

While there are many who view change with fear, it is something that can give us the room to grow and make ourselves better.

In a way, change is part of what keeps individuals and societies healthy. They both need to adapt to new set of circumstances, and it means that changes are needed to face the circumstances as they show up. Everything around us is constantly changing, and if we don't change and adapt accordingly we'll not survive for long.

Even tough most of the time we can't control how things change, we can control how we adapt to those changes. And, we even can make those changes work for us.

At the end, the choice is adapt or die.

Change can not be avoided, it will happen we like it or not. But, we can choose to become better and stronger with it, or be simply be overwhelmed and destroyed by it. History is full with examples that the winners are the ones who better adapt to change, and use it to their advantage.

It's not easy to do so, and the success is not something that can be taken for sure, but it beats the alternative of dieing the slow death of doing nothing to adapt to the new circumstances around us.

Change is not good or bad by itself, all depends what me make out of it.

Labor unions...

It's sad to see how some of the labor unions are not doing what they should do, protecting the rights of the workers that form them.

Some have become a platform on which the leaders use to get money, or power.

The structure of those unions has been corrupted to serve the interest of a few, and the power that they have amassed make it difficult to fight them. Even the workers within those unions have a hard time getting their voice heard.

Unions that truly defend the interest the needs of the workers are needed. They serve both the workers and the employer interests, if the union really conducts negations in a pro positive and constructive manner. They balance the power, and generate a healthy relationship between workers and bosses.

The truth is that if unions do their work as they should, their are beneficial to society at large. They generate a balance, and enable a better working environment for everyone.

Yet, some have been corrupted and no longer serve the original purpose they were created for. So far, some of the key unions have become the instrument used for personal gains of their leaders or the way to control the people by the government.

If we want a better society, we need unions who truly represent the interests of the workers.

Be a part of the solution...

It feels odd that many people seem to take criticism as an insult.

Apparently, if you say something about what isn't being wrong or how things could be done better you are against them. It's even worse if you point out things that are actually being done wrong.

It needs to be understood that criticism is needed to keep things in check. It's also useful in order to correct things that are not being done correctly, and to make things work better if needed.

Criticism is useful, specially if it comes alongside possible ways to do things in a better way.

As a society, we need to understand that we should accept or dismiss things on face value. We need to dig deeper into the how and why of things, and praise or critique accordingly. Not everything that is done is good or bad, all depends on the context.

We need to pay attention to why each action is to be undertaken, and how it'll be undertaken. In order to gain a better quality of life, we shouldn't just accept whatever is given to us, or dismiss things just because they haven't been done before.

All changes in time, so we need to adapt to the changes. And make sure we make sure we do it in the best possible way. There are no perfect solution, or one that applies every where, every time.

Is up to us to find what works in our particular context.

Powers of government...

It's somewhat ironic that society expects the President to meddle with the Judicial system, but at the same time society asks of him to solve problems that are not in his hands.

What we can ask the President to do, is to let the Judicial branch of government to do it's work without interference from the Executive branch. The procurement of justice is not in the hands of the President, he is only in charged of executing whatever he deems necessary to the betterment of the country.

There is a need to understand that in our political system, each power has certain powers and responsibilities. Therefore, depending on what need is to be meet is to what branch of the government is the one we ought to look at to make things happen in order to find a solution.

We live in a system made in a way that no single person or entity concentrates to much power. So, different powers and responsibilities are vested on different persons or institutions.

And it's on our best interest that the powers if each of the branches that compose our government are kept limited and in check.

If we let a single person, or entity, hold to much power over the others it could lead to a system that works against our best interest. Society should hold the bulk of the power, only delegating to the government those powers that it deems necessary to serve the societies interest the best.

At the end, the government exist to serve society, not the other way around.

Market...

I find it hard to see why there is so little infrastructure work being done to modernize some of the markets at Cuernavaca.

The is some real and urgent need to modernize current markets, to bring them to modern safety standards, to make them a lot more hygienic and comfortable to use. But there should be new one built too.

With the population increment that has been happening over time, current markets are not enough to meet the needs of the city. The current markets are over crowed, making them unsafe, since they haven't been modernized to meet the increased affluence of costumers attending to them.

Also, as the city expands, there is need to build markets at those new locations. It's ridiculous that you can't build markets or general stores to serve those new centers because of the land use laws.

There is a lot of changes that need to happen, and most of those changes should have happened already. We need to make things happen, and do it with an eye in the future.

Importance of criticism...

I'm not sure if it's funny or sad the way some people say that it's not right not criticize our elected officials for whatever they do at their post. It may be a mixture of both.

I do agree that the criticism should be given in a constructive manner, not doing it just for the sake of it. Most importantly, it should be given with valid arguments of why you don't agree with the way the officials are doing.

Also, we need to understand that even though the officials should be open to criticism they don't have to act on it. There are times, when the one doing the criticism doesn't have all the relevant information on the given subject; but still there could still have valid points.

It's important to understand that just because someone is in a position of power, doesn't make them right on everything or every time. Therefor, it's important to keep tabs on what, and how, they do things because their actions have an effect on many people.

This is specially true on the public sector, since they manage resources that belong to the public.

But, it's important to keep in mind that not all criticism is bad. If it's given in a way that creates an environment that makes it easy to correct that what was made wrong, or to make things better, is actually beneficial for the community at large.

At the end, the important thing becomes differencing what criticism is for good and which for bad.

Challenges...

I find myself in a point were I'm thinking why people aren't challenging the way things are done around them.

It seems that as a society, we expect that someone else to do something to fix things. Even though part of the solution is our own responsibility, many are afraid to do something about it.

We need to understand that, if we want to things to get fixed, we need to do our part to fix what need to fixed. Not doing something about what is going on, makes us part of the problem. Even if we blame someone else, things will remain the same.

Also, we shouldn't do things expecting to be rewarded. We need to do them, because it has to be done. The reward should be that you did what had to be done, when it had to be done.

But, we are not doing things because we expect someone else to do something about it.

Democracy...

As much as Mexico's democracy has advance since the mid-1990's, there is long road ahead.

Society at large is more aware, and is a lot more participative in a wider range of aspects of our democratic life, but sometimes it show that most people don't really inform them selves about whatever they might be interested in more than the basics. On many cases, they just know whatever a single source told them.

This attitude is troublesome to me, because this makes the people more vulnerable to be swayed as the one handling the informations wants them to. If we want to avoid this, is important to use as many sources as you can. And to try to look beyond of what you are being told.

Objectiveness will always be relative, since we all filter informations trough the lens of our values and what we believe in.

This is why, if we want our democracy to grow and mature, we need to try to compare and contrast our ideas and beliefs with the one's of other's. No ones has the absolute truth, so what might apply to one may not apply to another.

All I hope for, is that we don't lose our way.

Next handset...

I've been thinking about what mobile phone I should get to replace my current mobile phone.

So far, I've decided that my next mobile phone should run Android. What I like the most about Android, is that is open source and that it's Linux based. Linux is my favorite operating system, that makes Android specially enticing for me.

The only thing now, is what handset should I get. For the time being, I've narrowed down my list of choices to handsets from Motorola, htc, or Samsung. I still need to do some research, but as far as I'm concerned, this three manufactures offer the handsets that are more akin to my needs.

I really want to make sure my next handset runs on open source software, since then both my computer and handset would run on open source. Currently, I run Ubuntu on my laptop. So, moving to an Android based handset is a natural move for me, since both Android and Ubuntu are Linux based.

It's just a matter of time.

Work in progress...

Sometimes, is rather frustrating to see how the infrastructure projects are handled at Cuernavaca, and Morelos as a whole.

It seems that in one hand, the government isn't capable of explaining itself about how the project being proposed would come about. Most importantly, the whole process is not as transparent and open to the public as it should be. Key information is often hidden, and when it's asked for is denied for the wrong reasons.

The people who handle those projects don't seem to understand that since these are public projects built with public funds, all the information that comes with it needs to be open to the general public. These includes costs, papers about environmental impact, and all relevant documents of the project.

On the part of society, what frustrates me is the fact that instead of making sure that the projects being proposed and build are the one needed are dead set of preventing anything new is being built or enhanced.

What worse, there seems that as some of these groups aren't able to make alternate proposals. Or what would be the ideal, to propose projects that would solve problems that need to be solved.

To be honest, the ideal thing to have would be both society and government proposing and building to prevent problems to happen. Instead to building, or adapting, infrastructure to solve current problems we should be building with an eye on the future.

Needs of life will be always changing, with new technologies and other thins that life brings, our cites our always work in progress.