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.

BY THESE DAYS I have been following the fate of the 33 Chilean miners of the Atacama Desert.

To the surprise of all Colombians, the Minister of Agriculture has said the government wants to put forward an agrarian reform.

IN SOCIETIES THAT HAVE Latino heritage, like ours, there is a particular liking for abstract discussions.

Mauricio García Villegas' intervention in the launch of the book "and they refounded the homeland... On how the mafia and politicians reconfigured the Colombian State".

DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION OF Juan Manuel Santos, Armando Benedetti, the new Senate president, began his speech by lamenting that Colombia was one of the most unequal countries in the world.