One of the things about the city of Buenos Aires that appeals to me is how the city retains an individual character. In many cities I see a homogenization taking place. New York is a prime example, in that since the Guliani and Bloomberg administrations took hold, the city has not only gotten safer on a police level, but safer on a character level. Tourists from any midwest US region now can walk Time Square and feel at home with all the theme restaurants and big name stores. There are less and less neighborhood mom and pop hardware stores and more locations of Home Depot, Blockbuster, Starbucks, Bed Bath and Beyond, The Gap, etc.,…

A side effect of globalization, nowhere in the world is free of this trend. In Buenos Aires, McDonalds, Burger King, and various chain stores from Spain, France, and Chile are filling the cityscape more and more. Walmart already exists in the suburbs, and the first Starbucks recently opened here. Gentrification is happening here like everywhere too, with working class families getting pushed out or trendy developments. Historic low-rise colonial buildings that give the neighborhood its character are being demolished to make way for clean-lined hermetic luxury apartment towers. In San Telmo, the neighborhood where I live, one historic building was undergoing renovations when the contractor “mistakenly” removed the entire building rather than just part of one floor as the permit allowed. Now in place of a rundown historic building that was home to various low income families there is a fenced-off empty lot with a stop-work order.

One small change that is happening here is the focus of the photos you see here of sidewalks. A native of the US, I have been impressed at how the sidewalks here are all constructed from tiles of all designs, from the top neighborhoods to the most humble. In all of Argentina the sidewalks are tiled and not cemented, and every morning people are outside thoroughly cleaning them with brooms, hoses and sometimes kerosene. The latter is used more in other parts of Argentina and gives the sidewalks a special luster, while leaving them spotless. Maybe a bit extreme, but you see the character of the sidewalks gives Buenos Aires and every last village a warmer character, making the city a bit more humane.

The new leader of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, made a campaign promise of fixing potholes, etc. He may have been elected on this promise (and the fact that he was once the president of the most popular soccer club in all of Latin America, a job given to him because his father was a powerful businessman). Anyway, the well advertised refurbishment has now begun in several barrios, and I happened across an area downtown where construction crews are at full speed. Blocks and blocks of tiled sidewalks are being ripped up and being replaced by cheaper concrete surfaces. Walking is a becoming a little more comfortable in some parts of the city, but I fear that this is one more change to taking more character away from Buenos Aires to make it more homogeneous and plastic.

I feel like I am saying the all-too-obvious when I say that Barack Obama’s candidacy is important for racial reasons. In the general campaign he himself has emphasized what he offers aside from his African heritage. Hillary Clinton and John McCain too have mostly tiptoed around the race issue. As a liberal white male I too feel a little awkward speaking about race. I don’t know first-hand what it is like to be a person of African descent growing up in the US, nor do I know what it is like to be a white working class person in West Virgina or Texas.

After a week of so much buzz about Barack Obama as the inevitable nominee, I was at first confounded by why he had not tried harder in West Virginia, and why Hillary Clinton was able to win by a margin of over 40%. Polls have shown that race played a much larger role in this dominantly white, working-class state than in other places. Most people do not admit they are racist, and I am not so naive that racism has not been a factor in many voters in every precinct in the US, including people of all races and backgrounds. But I saw a result of an exit poll from West Virginia, where 1 in 5 openly admitted that race was a factor in their vote. The bottom line is that there are too many people who cannot accept there being an African American in the White House, regardless of other issue.

When they were first married in the 1950’s, my parents lived in Virgina, solidly south of the Mason-Dixon line. My mom has told me stories from those days for example about her naively sitting near the back of the bus and being told by another white passenger that she should move forward as the back is for the colored people. As west coast Jews my parents where definitely shocked by the racism they witnessed, to see other humans regarded as something much less than human. Well a lot has changed in those times, and they were recently in North Carolina and Alabama for the first time since those days and my mom remarked how things have changed. She was saying how she is very content to see the tables turned in these places as the people strongly support the candidacy of Barack Obama.

But concurrently with the racist vote in West Virigina, I read about Obama campaign workers being confronted with blatant incidents of racism. At first I was outraged to hear about this, and I still am, but I see a silver lining too. Such a serious candidacy by a black man is forcing people of all walks of life to confront their fears of race. Like good psychotherapy, it brings these buried dark things to the surface. In all of us there exists some form racism; it is in our culture. But having a man of African heritage as the leader will force us all to come to terms in this. One guy cannot solve racism, but his candidacy alone is having such an impact, that already it may nudge the evolution of race relations to a better place. If he wins, no one could deny his significance, like the Jackie Robinson of politics.

Recently I have been discussing various current events in Argentina. There has been the farm strike, the persistent smoke from extensive prairie fires, plus other tidbits. These two themes are still quite present with a new rural strike beginning yesterday. We’ll see if the meat disappears from the neighborhood markets again. Meanwhile, the fires from the farms way to the north of Buenos Aires are still affecting the city. Yesterday morning the smell was strong, with my eyes burning, and a heavy smog color in the air.

However, I wasn’t entirely sure if that color in the sky was from the fires in the north or from the eruption of a volcano in Patagonia. This is a major geological event. El Bolsón, a town in the south that I love in the heart of the Patagonian Andes, has been covered in ashes. Over Buenos Aires, 2000 kilometers to the northeast of the volcano, there is a big cloud of ash at 3500 meters altitude. In the city there is a hazy feel in the sky, but not too much else; but this cloud is strong enough that airline flights to the US and other places have been suspended.

Here in Argentina, airline travel is nowhere near as important as in the US and Europe. The pending meat shortage is given much more importance in the newspapers. Still, what was really talked about most yesterday was the early elimination from the Liberty Cup playoffs of the second most popular soccer team in Argentina, River Plate.

Me, we’ll I am whining about the high inflation here with three-peso empanadas, and also the paving over of the distinctive tiled sidewalks here with concrete. The latter will be the subject of my next installment.

One morning last week I first noticed the smell of a campfire. Then the other afternoon as I set out to walk with my dog Clyde there was a thick smoky haze in the air and a strong smell of fire. Enough to irritate my eyes and lungs. I asked a neighbor on the street where the fire was and he said it was to the north, a couple hundred kilometers. This week, the city of Buenos Aires is shrouded in smoke quite a bit, all depending on which way the wind blows.

I don’t know how big big fires are. They say that this one is 70,000 hectares, which is 173,000 acres. That sounds like a lot to me, though it may not measure up to some of the biggest wildfires historically. It is said to be contained within that area, but within the contained area it is very difficult to fight because it is in the delta area and there are lots of islands, plus the smoke is so bad that helicopters cannot get close to drop water. In addition to that I know that in Argentina there are not so many fire fighters. In the cities and towns all the buildings are made of cement and masonry so house fires are rare, and the overall population is relatively small. It is not a danger unless you are driving, and the police have closed some important highways due to visibility problems.

Well there are other menaces. When the smoke is over Buenos Aires, it is strong. Not only is the smell a nuisance, but it’s heavy pollution, like a bad day in LA in the 1970’s. Or like New York City in September 2001. I stay inside with the windows closed when the smoke is bad, and outside sometimes I can feel the burn on my eyes. They say that yesterday the carbon monoxide levels were fairly high (and lower today). Still not a grave danger, like I said, probably like a bad day in LA in the 70’s. And at least it is trees burning, not chemicals. My friend Pato was diagnosed recently with asthma, so I am sure it bothers him more. And fortunately most of the daytime yesterday was smoke-free. But it was back last night and is still here this morning.

In Colonia, Uruguay, it is worse, with burnt leaves raining down. And in Montevideo they can also smell the odor. Ironically, in Argentina there has been a hot political conflict for a few years against Uruguay for constructing paper mills that would be big polluters of the river between the two countries, but now it is Argentina who is polluting Uruguay.

This morning I picked up the newspaper. I thought it was a joke when a headline blamed the smoke on the soy farmers. But I learned that what is burning is not a single fire, but an amalgamation of 292 fires! They are lit by farmers. The farmers admit this. And they claim that the fires are a routine every year, and in a way they are, and that they got a little out of control this time. Some make the following analogy: that these fires are the cheapest way for the farmers to clear the land for agricultural purposes. The connection to soy is that since so much pasture land has been converted to soy production, that they are now clearing land to reclaim more space for cattle.

Sounds believable to me, and some of these farmers are friends of former president Carlos Menem, who I see as the Dick Cheney of Argentina. Menem helped out his powerful business associates to the doom of the entire country. And this resulted in the economic crash of 2001, and huge foreign debts than continue today. So you have to look at them skeptically.

In Rosario, the second largest city in Argentina, people are content with these events. Though this time the fires are much worse, these fires have affected them each year going back 10 years. Argentina has a peculiarity because though is a large country, but many things only matter if they happen in Buenos Aires. The Rosarians are content because since this fire affects the city of Buenos Aires this time, finally everyone is taking notice.

I think for people who have lived in Argentina their whole lives, what is happening now is just another one of those things that happens from time to time. Whether it be an economic crash, an agricultural strike, or a natural disaster. People here roll their eyes at these things.

First I must state my personal disclaimer. I believe that there is no such thing as “bias-free journalism.” If a journalist or newspaper is doing their job, they must interpret what they see and also decide what or what not to put on paper. All writing demands decisions like this. A journalist’s personal perspective decides what is relevant and what is not, and chooses the words; and each journalist and each newspaper has its own perspective or bias. That’s not something sinister, it’s good reporting.

This morning I happened to read a story about a Barack Obama quote that both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have turned against him. It concerned him characterizing working class Pennsylvanians as “bitter.” Clinton and McCain said that Obama’s remarks were “out of touch” and “condescending.” As a consistent reader of the New York Times, I know that they had endorsed Hillary Clinton in the New York primary. To see another perspective on the controversy, I turned to the Washington Post web site. In both newspapers I found the same quote from Obama, but edited slightly differently. (It may be a bit confusing with Obama quoting McCain and Clinton.)

The New York Times:

“Here’s what’s rich,” Mr. Obama said. “Senator Clinton said, ‘Well I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania. I think Barack is being condescending.’ John McCain said, ‘How could he say that? How could he say that people are bitter? He obviously is out of touch with people.’ Out of touch? Out of touch? John McCain — it took him three times to finally figure out that home foreclosure was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch?”

The Washington Post:

“Here’s what’s rich: Senator Clinton says, ‘I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania. I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘He’s obviously out of touch with people.’ Out of touch? John McCain, it took him three tries to figure out the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit-card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt — after taking money from the financial services companies — and she says I’m out of touch?”

The New York Times, the newspaper that endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, left out the final sentence that was critical of her. I could not find out who the Washington Post endorsed, or if they endorsed anyone, but Obama won the primary there by a huge margin. I am not calling either newspaper unethical, but pointing out that their editing of that one quote was probably influenced by who the editors wished to win the primary.