Archive for News
Blackout In Middle of Chavez Anti-Bush Speech
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” category, strongman Chavez was taking a page from brother Obama’s playbook by giving a speech in which he was blaming all the world’s problems on former President Bush when the power went off.
Friends in Venezuela tell me conditions continue to worsen in the worker’s paradise. I think it’s hysterical to watch the predictable endgame play out in Marxist economies while US politicians promise the masses that national socialism is the answer to every human desire. Meanwhile the Chinese prove they’re smarter than we are by quietly embracing free market economics and simultaneously begin to dump US debt. Como se dice, “Will work for food” in Mandarin?
Along those lines, I was with a Ladino the other day who actually admitted to voting for Colom. He said he liked the idea of giving the Indians 300Q a month (or whatever the figure is), a plank of Colom’s election campaign, and it was one possible reason he won every department other than the capital.
I told this Chapin that he was just suffering from ‘white guilt’, and explained the history of politicians building electoral constituencies by stoking racial tension and using a redistribution of wealth . Setting the issue of whether state sanctioned theft is moral, he said, “Yeah, but they are poor”, to which I responded, “In the US we have spent trillions of dollars buying votes on welfare, which hasn’t changed much in the way of poverty but has gotten decades of Democrats elected, bankrupted the treasury and tricked the uneducated into a lifestyle of dependency. It’s economic bondage, courtesy of Karl Marx.”
My amigo thought about it and said, “Perhaps that’s what the rich and powerful wanted all along.”
And who said Chapins can’t think critically?
Oops
Posted by: | CommentsSantiago just called to inform me that the roar we heard Sunday night was not Fuego, but in fact Endeavor, the space shuttle breaking the sound barrier as it came through the atmosphere. They heard it in Belize as well.
My apologies to all readers as GuateLiving’s accuracy rating has just hit an all-time low of 99.1%.
Did You Hear That?
Posted by: | CommentsShortly after 10pm local time tonight, we heard a loud, prolonged rumbling. I wasn’t sure what to do, realizing at once that the noise was unusual but at the same time not certain that we should flee the house when the ground did not appear to be moving. (A check of the USGS confirmed no reported earthquake).
The rumbling continued for about 30 seconds, and I watched Fuego from my southern windows to see if Fuego had suddenly gone strato on us. Fuego was obstructed from view by heavy clouds, but I still half expected to see a mile high lava mushroom. Alas, the clouds prevented me from seeing whether there was even anything to see, but there was no doubt the noise was coming from that direction. As disturbing as the rumbling was, it was equally unsettling in the moments afterwards to realize that there was absolutely no noise outside; no dogs barking, no birds chirping, absolute silence.
Within a few minutes, the phone started ringing, answering for me the question I was pondering as to how loud it actually was around the rest of Antigua. It’s a surreal feeling to experience what everyone else was calling a ‘roar’ but to not see or feel anything. The Wife asked, “What would we do if Fuego had exploded?” As I shared in an earlier post, I think the only real answer is “Don’t panic, decide what you want to be doing when you die and start doing it.” There are very few ways out of this place and the roads would be instant bottlenecks of human misery.
Interesting Political Updates
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been so busy lately with business and normal (and not so normal) family issues that I haven’t had the time to update readers on some of the bizarre-but typical-developments here in Guate. I was about to pen a lengthy update on several subjects when I noticed Trudy had done a write up which I’ll just quote for you:
The political scene in this country is a never-ending telenovela, y’all.
First, the famous Rosenberg case, in which an upper-class lawyer was gunned down, having left a video behind with himself in it, stating that if the video was aired, it meant he had been murdered by order of the president and some of his cabinet members.
Became big cause célebre. Mass protests. International coverage. Mind you, nobody is directing mass protests for the bus drivers in marginal areas who get gunned down every single day!
Anyhow, an international commission led by the European Union conducted an investigation and found that–I kid you not–Rosenberg had orchestrated his own death, down to hiring the sicarios who gunned him down and faking the death threat calls he kept receiving. Real or not real, can’t deny it is a soap opera. Either way, end of story.
Meanwhile, the former president of the nation, Alfonso Portillo, had been extradited from Mexico to face huge corruption and fraud charges in Guatemala. Things like diverting hundreds of millions of dollars destined for poor children’s meals and public education, to his private offshore accounts. Same old, same old.
He walked into the courtroom for his arraignment–all smiles and smirks–the judge pronounced a fine for one million quetzales–something like 120,000 US dollars–Portillo pulled the check (clearly previously written out for that amount and signed) from his breast pocket and handed it to the judge, turned around smiling and walked out, a free man.
He walked out smirking and giving thumbs up sign, as if he were some skanky rocker bailed out after being arraigned on a petty drug charge. The ensuing scandal seemed to make him even more gleeful.
Well. He was running up and down the nation, playing at being a future congress representative (Guatemalan politics, the gift that keeps on giving), when the US government filed an extradition motion against the man. Something about using US banks and offshore banks to launder money.
Instead of laying low, in his arrogant foolishness, he walked around bragging that he had congressmen in his pocket, that he would not be arrested and so on. Well, his friends and protectors must have felt the heat too much, because he was turned in and arrested, like a common felon, just this week.
Well. It remains to be seen if he is actually extradited to the US, but my guess is that chances are good that he will be.
He has become poison to his political amigos–heard about what happens to good weather friends?–and I don’t think anybody feels like taking any heat for him. Acting in-your-face cynical when it is only Guatemalans looking on is one thing, getting away with it when the US government bears down hot and heavy is another.
Sad, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles around here. At least it has been an amusing denouement. Thing is, all governments here have behaved this way and the present one appears to be no exception, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens when this administration is over.
Trudy also shares observations from her regular visits to Antigua, which, incidentally, don’t include a courtesy call on Don Marco.
Craigslist Guate
Posted by: | CommentsApparently the country is moving up in the world, as it now has a Cragislist page, something that was missing until very recently. I consider this a good sign since Craigslist gives regular consumers and entrepreneurs a chance to sell their stuff. Before leaving Phoenix we sold tons of stuff on Craigslist, then found our house in Mexico and were bummed to find there was no GuatePage on CL. No more!
I suspect that a year from now expats and locals alike will be buying and selling goods, finding jobs and doing real estate deals, all of which this country needs.
H/T: New Maya
Earthquake Rattles Antigua
Posted by: | CommentsAt 9:43am local, we experienced the strongest earthquake since I’ve been here. Our house shook and swayed and the rock ‘n roll lasted long enough to get me worried…things were still swaying by the time I secured my laptop, made it downstairs and outside. I’m looking out the window at Fuego and don’t see anything unusual, so I’m guessing it’s from deep within the earth.
Updates to follow…
Update 1: We had a minor aftershock at approximately 9:47am, lasting only a second or two and with a fraction of the shaking. Lights and internet have remained on.
Update 2: USGS is reporting the quake was 5.8 and offshore Guatemala. Glad it wasn’t Fuego going Minoan on us…
Update 3: We’ve had yet another aftershock at 1:37pm, the same intensity but lasting only 2 or 3 seconds this time. As the rock ‘n roll becomes as frequent as boombas going off, I’m beginning to ask myself, “Should I be relocating a little further away from an active volcano?”
Happy Thanksgiving
Posted by: | CommentsOn this day, some of us citizens of the United States of NorteAmerica celebrate Thanksgiving. Legions of others who identify themselves with hyphenated versions of ‘American’ reject this holiday and spend it in mourning but my family has fun celebrating the few pilgrims who survived that first winter near Plymouth Rock and enjoyed a bumper crop the following year.
Much of what you know about Thanksgiving is probably false, and there is a lot that you probably don’t know that is interesting. For example, the Pilgrims were frugal and didn’t want to pay John Smyth to guide them, which resulted in their landing at the wrong place, much further north than they had intended. The result was not only a more severe winter, but less productive soil.
This challenge with the soil, which was rocky and volcanic in nature, aggravated an already bad situation with ‘communal farming’, whereby the farming responsibility was centralized, much like is done in communist countries. One failure after another led to the communal farming technique being abandoned and individual families grew their own gardens. They also adapted to the soil and used Native American techniques, including the famous planting of the dead fish next to the crops to help fertilize the soil. Something about essential nutrients for the soil; I don’t really know what all that means but it sounds cool.
The Pilgrims were not the Puritans that are often portrayed as bumbling idiots today; they were hearty, adventurous people who loved to work and play, and their primary staple was beer, which of course was more potable than water. The First Thanksgiving feast lasted for three days, much like the feasts in the bible. In addition to turkey, venison, corn and the other staples, they probably also had a lot of seafood. The Native Americans almost certainly outnumbered the Pilgrims at the feast, and were happy to have the new allies and trading partners. You can have New England with her cold weather and poor soil, but I want some of your bling.
I think I’m officially 1/256th Mohican, so maybe I shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Maybe I should drop ashes on my head, wear a loin cloth and sit by the fireplace drinking firewater (kucha?), except the turkey with gravy, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, pumpkin pie and other stuff is too good to pass up. Maybe my great-great-great grandfather was related to Squanto who spent a few years in Europe and came to like the white man before returning home as a guide and is reputed to have welcomed the Pilgrims by saying, “Welcome to the Wampanoag Confederacy; did you bring beer?”
George Washington issued his first Thanksgiving Day proclamation in 1789, and Lincoln gave it new gravity when he used Thanksgiving in 1863 to celebrate the Yankee victory at Gettysburg. Nowadays Thanksgiving is known for being the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and sometimes good football games.
Feel free to share your own traditions, opinions and conspiracy theories.
P.S. My British friends tell me they don’t celebrate ‘Thanksgiving’ because they’re simply ‘grateful’ they never left the bosom of Her Majesty, the Queen.
It’s Illegal to Honk in Antigua
Posted by: | CommentsI’m not kidding. It’s now illegal to honk in Antigua. Apparently horns present a great threat to the city, far more so than say, water-borne bacteria leading to diarrhea and ultimately death.
I’m sure the chicken buses honk too much and I know that Guatemalans are far too fond of honking their horn instead of calling the person they’re picking up to say, “I’m here”, but as with most laws, it’s overkill.
The question I have is, since it is illegal now to honk, if I am in an accident in Antigua and a contributing factor to the accident was my inability to honk my horn-an action which ordinarily might warn others of danger-will the city cover my liability?
Since I moved here almost a year ago, it has become illegal to smoke my cigar, but not to drive a bus that in the course of passing through one intersection spews more toxins than I will smoke in a lifetime, and it is illegal for me to honk my horn but perfectly acceptable for someone to let their car alarm blare all day and night.
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