I always read with interest Alejandro Gaviria' op-eds and I share his concern for improving the quality of national public debate, too biased by opinions that, as he says, "confuse experience with militancy, discourse with analysis, and consistency with paranoia. "

It's a long list of reasons that help explain the recent electoral defeat of President Obama.

IN THE GAME OF LIFE, Daniel Santos sang as follows: "Four doors are open / For those who have no money / The hospital and the jail / The church and the cemetery."

IN MY OP-ED last week I spoke of Columbus Day and tried to explain the significance for Latin America of the Spanish conquest and how much we are still tied to the colonial world.

This weeks celebration of Columbus Day, just in the Bicentenary year, is an event of great importance, which accumulates all our colonial and republican history on the same date.

Columnists are not only critical but receive criticism in droves.

SOMETIMES you get the impression that societies, like people, have their temperament, their personality. Some are lively and spontaneous, others are secretive and impenetrable, some disciplined and obedient and others impulsive and creative.

To understand a criminal code it is less important to know the crimes than to know how they are ordered according to crime severity, from the most serious to the most soft one.

Parents know very well that when it comes to banning something it is better to remain silent than to impose a sanction that children will not comply or that they will not be able to impose.