Speaking on a global scale, political scandals seem to be a pretty regular occurrence throughout different societies regardless of culture or country, whether it's the recent allegations against the fiercely anti-drug Philippines' President's son being linked to a massive (as in over $150 million worth) drug bust, the President of United States and his alleged affair (and hush money bribe) with porn star Stormy Daniels (not to mention all that stuff about Russia), the corruption scandal currently brewing in Argentina... I'm apt to think that this says something profound about human nature, something about power and corruption and all that jazz. We've all heard the cliches, right?

As an American, scandal in the U.S. seems old hat and almost depressingly routine. Growing up I heard endless rhetoric on the radio about that one president who got his jollies with an intern who performed "oral sex", whatever that meant (because as a kid I was blissfully clueless). I've seen politicians quite literally dance and sing about bombing far-off countries with glee and watched the mandatory mournful spiel given after the planes hit the towers one brisk September morning 17-odd years ago. As serious and meaningful as these moments have been for America, and the world, as the ripples of their fallout continue to settle, there is a degree of ineffectuality that lingers around them. A sense of hopelessness, of powerlessness. I know those who would argue adamantly that what makes America such a great place is our ability to get out there and enact change if we sign up and make ourselves heard, but the great wave of free love seems to have crested in the 70s, and the movement could be said to be failed. The wars have broiled on in their various guises, under various excuses and justifications, ever since.

"So now....you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

But scandal, in another country, where the insane allegations and dramatic upheaval will largely be of no impact to my personal existence and I have no power, period? This puts a whole new level of surreal spin on the proceedings... in the end, I can say that I was there, I witnessed it, during the whole shebang. And that's something, I suppose.