Long ago, it was not important to know about ourselves. It was essential for the colonized to know the history of the colonizer as written by the latter. So, we learned that King James I of England translated (his version of) the Bible. He also wrote a doctrine called the divine right of kings.

    The right of kings to govern was divine because it came from God. And the English people may even have believed it until they got fed up of the divine right of kings to govern badly, and chopped off the head of King Charles I in 1649.

    In contemporary times there is a close cousin of the doctrine: it relates to the ownership and control of the resources of the earth. Just change a few nouns and epithets and you encounter the dogma, that only a small group of people, especially white people, have the divine right to own most things. They also have been uniquely endowed by the Creator with the capacity to manage those resources.

    Can it be that dogma -unwittingly of course - that drives President Bush to make war with Iraq, against all odds and position taken to the contrary by the rest of the world? This will be subject for a different piece. This current article is motivated by a local event.

    Yesterday, October 6, 2002, we in the Fortune area suffered an electricity blackout (or outage??) for some thirteen hours. I tend to complain only about the most outrageous and frustrating circumstances. But those outages are frequent, and may or may not be scheduled.

    To add proverbial insult to injury, you often do not get a response when you attempt to call the electricity company to complain about such matters.

    Ownership of Domlec was assumed by CDC in the nineties with high hopes and promises. CDC would provide better management through a management contract. To date we have seen nothing to suggest that CDC's managers, sent here from on high, have performed better than their predecessors.

    I own a "fridge" not merely to cool or freeze water. It should protect and preserve the meat I bought on Saturday at the market. I open a can of evaporated milk; the unused portion is placed in the fridge to delay the contamination process. I cut an avocado, the other half is placed therein in order that it may not rot that quickly…, etc…

    A thirteen-hour blackout makes a mockery of the refrigerator and is a threat to the health of the population. Our foods go bad.

    If CDC has the divine right to own and control our resources, they should also have the moral and legal obligation to manage properly and to cut out those blackouts.

    It would be "uncivilized" to chop off heads in 2002. But at least, we should exact accountability and responsibility from CDC management.