Thursday, November 13, 2008 A bottle of goodness By Noemi C. Fetalvero Two Empty Bottles
EVERYBODY is lauding the conduct of the U.S. elections and the efficiency upon which the results came in.
The right to suffrage is always taken seriously by citizens of America. All systems are locked so that any attempt to rig the election is impossible. Democracy at work includes clean and honest elections: no vote buying, no hocus-pocus at the counting, no flying voters.
We, as a people, have a selective memory. We are quick to imitate, we readily assimilate foreign ways but we are rather slow at emulating remarkable traits.
Cheating has become an inherent part of our daily behavior as a people. That is part of the reason why we always question
the integrity of the ballots cast during elections.
When the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, there is reason to be suspicious.
Cheating requires skills; honesty on the other hand, only needs conscience.
Marketing low quality or sub-standard products is a subtle way of cheating the end consumers.
Have you ever used a piece of tissue paper that disintegrates before you even get to use it properly? Or opened a bottle of vinegar that has lost its acidity because it has been diluted a couple of times; or used a phone card whose load is diminished even before you are connected to a party?
How reliable are the weighing scales at the market? Not to mention the whole chicken injected with water so that it may weigh heavier.
Some markets package vegetables and fruits. When you open a package and find that half of what you have paid for is bad, you know why they packaged it. Some companies have resorted to high-tech systems, such as thumb-mark identification of employees who go in and out of the offices.
This is done not just for security reasons but because some employees let somebody else punch their time cards for them.
There may be just a fraction of the population who may be guilty of such forms of cheating but as the adage points out: “A rotten apple spoils the rest.”
For once, let us fill our two empty bottles with behavioral patterns that we can at least be proud of. If we cannot trust our fellow citizens, who will?
