The Road to Hell

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- The leading local newspaper here, El Tiempo, griped that Mr. Bush's visit was too short, and featured a front-page headline that read, "Bush: Seven hours are enough?" Above it read a smaller headline listing the visits by the last two United States president to visit the city: "Kennedy (1961, 13 hours) and Reagan (1982, 5 hours)."

Mr. Chávez, on his own tour of the region, gave a speech at a military base in Bolivia in which he accused Mr. Bush of plotting to assassinate him. Mr. Chávez, while pledging financial support for Bolivian flood victims, said capitalism was "the road to hell."

Sometimes I think money itself is the material used to pave the road to hell.  Nobody really thinks so.   As one of my bosses once said in a staff meeting, "We all want more money."  She was encouraging us to develop an ad campaign for a business ethics program to be offered by the college where I worked.  She seemed to think the way to sell ethics to business was to say ethics increases profits. 

I couldn't wrap my head around that idea.  Needless to say, they fired me.

Another boss at an agency once told me I had to be ambitious.  But I wasn't.  I couldn't get excited about promoting soy starches.  Or making money.  Money is kind of fun, but I already own too much stuff.  It's harder to throw stuff away than it is to accumulate it.  I don't want more stuff.

I always get fired.  The only place I ever would have fit in is New York City, but circumstances and that lack of ambition and then children prevented the move.

The only thing I really miss is travel, which I used to do with regularity (and without money -- I hate tourism).  Just a couple of years ago, I spent a month in Colombia.  I lived in a city north of Bogota and visited villages and people in the countryside. 

George W. Bush may have all the money in the world, but he couldn't spend more than seven hours in Colombia.  It's so sad.  I'll bet he had a nice hotel room and all, but -- in my opinion -- he really missed out.