Summer vacation just ended here, and it’s a new year as well. As businesses get back to full steam, you notice how everything costs a bit more than it did last year. Everyone here is used to prices creeping up a little at a time, but some things suddenly. Right now there is a big political controversy because meat prices rose 30% in one month. For example, I noticed that one of the most popular cuts of meat had more than doubled in price between say November and February.  The government blames the corporate farmers, and the opposing party supported by those farmers blames the government. It’s a serious problem that threatens the entire economy as do oil prices in the US. Aside from this recent event, inflation has been quite high in Argentina ever since I arrived in late 2004, and it is embedded in everyday life. Continue »

If are a native English speaker and have a typical high school knowledge of speaking Spanish, or something similar, you may want to fine tune your phrases before traveling to Argentina. Admittedly, after five years of living in Buenos Aires though I communicate well enough here, I can’t hide my gringo-ness 100%. Still, if you follow these few pointers you will avoid appearing fresh off the tour bus. Continue »

An article today in the New York Times, though talking a lot about the rise of the beef industry in Uruguay, also says plenty about what is happening in Argentina, where beef production is retreating to make way for more soybean production.

This article does not fully explain this is happening. While it points to government price controls and short-term droughts, the lessening of beef production is largely due to the large farm interests converting pastureland to maximize soybean production for export. In the short run this is much more profitable. In the long run, it not only is hurting Argentina’s reputation for beef worldwide, but is bad for the land, the air, and the general population in Argentina. Continue »

I walk outside to find a couple nuts and bolts I need. I have the measurement, so it should be no problem. First of all, I am disappointed to be told that in Spanish there is no word for bolt, just a big screw. I guess that the phrase “nuts and bolts” only works in English then.

The other disappointment was that it wasn’t so simple to find what I needed, and I bounce from one hardware store to the next. Finally, I end up at one in the center of the transvestite district, and they have what I need. Ahead of me in line is a trannie buying a padlock. The clerk giggles as she/he leaves. The clerk still giggling tells me that the trannie has not shaved yet. Her boobs were all there, but also a 5-o’clock shadow.

After I pay I head home and pass by the train station. On the side of a newsstand are several porn magazines displayed. (You see that on any newsstand in Buenos Aires.) The headline of a gay one screams out “Hotwired.” I wonder if my former employer from the early dotcom days would have been more successful had we used that name to sell sex.

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games over a few other cities, including the United States candidate of Chicago. This was played up in the press as a failure of the US Olympic Committee. But living overseas one detail of the process stood out, a question posed to the USOC that President Obama himself fielded.

IOC member Syed Shahid Ali of Pakistan said that foreigners entering the US “can go through a rather harrowing experience,” and asked how would the US deal with that when thousands travel there for the 2016 games. Obama responded:

“One of the legacies I want to see coming out of the Chicago 2016 hosting of the Games is a reminder that America at its best is open to the world. And, as has already been indicated, we are putting the full force of the White House and the State Department to make sure that not only is this a successful Games, but that visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people.”

As many have pointed out, Obama is good with words (and I laud him for saying them) but they are just words. Those words can not alone reverse years of US intolerance not only to immigrants, but also to tourists. Continue »

Finally the international swimming board has come to its senses. It is banning the use of those high tech all-body suits we came to know in the Olympic Games last year. There are obvious competitive reasons, but more important is how this policy improves things for the spectators. Competitively speaking, as long as regulations are consistent for everyone, there really is no difference between the all-body suit and brief-style except in times. I imagine the same athletes will place equally no matter which suits they use, just that with everyone in briefs their times will be a few hundredth’s of seconds more.

More significant is to consider the male swimmer’s body. Most would agree a well-trained swimmer has a beautiful physique that brings pleasure to gay men and female office workers around the world. Continue »

“The United States has not always stood as it should with some of these fledgling democracies [in Latin America], but over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don’t always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable towards the United States.”

– US President Barack Obama

Formerly just another gay flight attendant, he endeared much of Argentina. Fernando Peña passed away suddenly on June 17. Even though there remains a lot of machismo and homophobia in this country, Argentines of all walks of life were fascinated by Fernando Peña and mourned his death.

I don’t know the story so well as I have only been becoming acquainted with him and his personalities, yes his personalities, but I’ll try my best. I say flight attendant because he became a celebrity at 30,000 feet. Fernando worked for American Airlines, Aerolineas Argentina, and others and his humor on the planes became known. I imagine he was a bit better than the typical one-liners  you hear on Southwest Airlines. He knew English pretty well, because he lived in Miami and New York for a period of time. Continue »

The recent events in the streets of Iran due to the contested election, has possibly done more in one week to inspire “regime change,” than George W. Bush could have ever done. (Regime change in the Middle East had been a stated goal of Bush.) This is a popular movement, and seems very spontaneous. The entire world is watching the people of Iran, and learning how a public can act against a repressive government. These events came more than from the supposed fraud in the election, but a general dissatifiction with a government that has drifted far away from serving its people and has resorted to intimidation as a last resort.

If Bush were still president (and probably if John McCain had been the winner in November), the US response would be lots of  axis-of-evil blabber, accompanied by threats. This would have played perfectly into Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hands. He would respond with his usual anti-US rhetoric,  mobilizing the public against US meddling. Although there still would have been protests, they would not have been so widespread as we are seeing. Meanwhile Bush would circle the ships near the waters of Iran, and call for international measures. The French government would be upset by the US arrogance and instead of spending energy criticizing the events in Iran, would be in a political fight with the US government.

The US economy may have not been any worse than it is today, but surely more unstable with unprincipled actions. This would be from plenty of aid going to industries and corporations who are friends of Bush and “tough love” going to everyone else. There would be no method to this, and a heightened sense of unease in the US, motivating the public to rally behind Bush in his standoff with Iran. Troops would be diverted from Bagdhad to the Iran border, thus heightening tensions. And in response, Ahmadinejad might start hastily  putting together an imperfect nuclear weapon that would not be able to reach a precise target, but create plenty of havoc.

Ahmadinejad, like the Bush Administration knows how to use fear to control people. Too bad for him his partner in crime is now missing.

“Ayatollah Khamenei blamed ‘media belonging to Zionists, evil media’ for seeking to show divisions between those who supported the Iranian state and those who did not, while, in fact, the election had shown Iranians to be united in their commitment to the Islamic revolutionary state.”
–The New York Times

It seems that much of the news about the unrest is coming from Iranian citizens individually publishing things on Twitter and YouTube. If what Ayatollah Khamenei says is true, then he must be surrounded by a citizenry of thousands or millions of evil Zionists right there in Iran. It can be argued that the government of Israel has done some evil things, but I don’t believe that causing the public unrest in Iran today is one of them.

He also said that the margin of votes was so large that there is no way it could have been falsified (I think that’s a reference to G.W. Bush who falsified an election with thin margins). Yes, those numbers are impressive, but just being large does not mean they are to be unquestioned. It is suspicious that Moussavi lost in his home district in an election where he lead convincingly in the nationwide polls. Maybe the outcome was accurate and no cheating went on. If so, end the debate and invite the staff of each losing candidate to verify the results.

Further he says, “street challenge is not acceptable.” But “street challenge” was acceptable when it  brought his predassesor to power 30 years ago. Free expression is more than a human right that I believe in strongly, no matter how much the person speaking may abhor me, it is uncontainable. Does this guy realize how ridiculous he sounds? I think that Khamenei’s arrogance is out of touch, and these words will only motivate the protests more.

The majority of the Iranian people are intelligent and free-thinking, and their rulers do not recognize that. The rest of the world can only sit back and watch this unfold. Stay tuned for big changes in Iran.