Esfuerzos a los boricuas

Last night I watched a program on PBS about the blackout in Puerto Rico and that the causes, broadly speaking, were two-fold:

1) natural -- as a result of Hurricane Maria, and the logistical challenges of relief due to Puerto Rico being an island;

But also just as importantly 2) man-made -- as a result of a constellation of conditions: Puerto Rico's territorial status; aging infrastructure in Puerto Rico; policies by both domestic Puerto Rican governments and the U.S. federal government towards Puerto Rico; and unscrupulous, potentially unethical, behavior by Wall Street in the trade of Puerto Rican bonds.

After watching the program, my sense and inclination is that Puerto Rico should become a U.S. state. It's a complex issue that certainly requires some more education than watching a one-hour documentary, but that was the sense I had.

I give a lot of credit to the man at the end of the video, Oscar Carrion (if I heard his name correctly), who took the matter of re-electrifying his community into his own hands (beginning at the 50:12 mark). His reflection on not wanting his children to experience living in the dark is heart-wrenching and puts a human face on the worst black-out in U.S. history . . . which is still ongoing . . .