Today in Santiago

Well, it has been a pretty hectic day in Santiago, from what I can tell by watching the news. You all should be aware that violent protests are a commonplace occurrence here, and the police in Chile have a lot of experience in dealing with it. Tomorrow is supposed to be worse.

I should point out that a lot of these protests are done by individuals who have not figured out that they need to do something with their life.

However, these protesters cause a tremendous amount of damage. They can erase a year's economic growth in a night. In a small country like Chile, several million dollars worth of damage can represent the amount that the economy grew in a year. This actually happened one year. The amount of damage that was done in rioting was the same amount that the economy grew in that year. So chile did not come out ahead.

Another thing that is damaging is that this rioting creates a culture of violence. For many years, Sept. 11 was when people rioted in the streets protesting the coup of Pinochet. There is no doubt that certain elements looked forward to it each year. This year I was beginning to think the country was getting past this, when we have the riots going on today.