Eleven ships sank in 2009. That is almost a ship sank for each of the past 12 wretched months that visited these islands. While we all know that the country has been a sinking ship, a rudderless vessel just going aimlessly in circles, losing almost a dozen ships to what could have otherwise been preventable tragedies is the closest representation of the state of national affairs.

For most of us, these maritime disasters are mere news reports we heard and read about from the media. But for some of us, these tragedies have struck too close for comfort. Some of those lost to these heartbreaking misfortunes are known to us – neighbors, workmates, or even family and loved ones. People we wish were still with us, and with whom we could spend more days of our lives.

We would have wished that in their place instead were some of our more notoriously corrupt and uncaring government officials. But fate sometimes have this cruel tendency to play games with our sentiments.

These very shameless officials are ultimately responsible for these tragedies. Their incompetence, their lack of concern for the people's welfare, and their selfish interests – these all played a role in the unraveling of these tragic tales. By now, we should be tired of being passive spectators to these caricatures of governance and statesmanship. While these clowns and criminals are strutting around like peacocks with their bloated sense of self-importance, we have failed to do anything that could have jolted them out of their cozy sound stages.

Smart? Global? Broadband?

No amount of TV time can ever convince consumers that a wireless broadband service is the fastest in the market. And as Globe and Smart are busy trading thinly veiled insults and tirades, the actual end users can only grin and bear it as they make do with the unreliable wireless broadband services that these rivals provide.

Online discussion groups are loaded with posts detailing how Tattoo and Smart Bro are failing to live up to their advertised quality-of-service and reliability claims. For the past couple of months, my family and I have been using prepaid Smart Bro wireless broadband. Although, being "abused" would have been a more accurate description of what we have experienced with the service so far.

Too frequent drops, unreliable and painfully slow connection are just some of the irritations that Smart's wireless broadband service has given us. We might have been a family of masochists, for we kept hoping that Smart's wireless Internet service would improve sooner or later.Obviously, our hopes were in vain. This corner, however, is still giving our wireless operators time to improve their respective broadband services, along with as much benefit of the doubt that we could muster. We would like to believe they are trying their darnedest best – buying and installing infrastructure elements that would sooner or later enable them to provide wireless broadband services that approximate their copywriters' imaginations.