la Vida Santiaguina

Latest Story

2009-01-20T22:26:00.000-05:00

Here's my latest story in Pavement Pieces.

New HIV/AIDS article I wrote

2008-12-12T15:00:00.004-05:00

Here's an article I wrote about HIV/AIDS and insurance, it was posted on the website last night. The photo above is of the woman in the lead, who was infected with HIV after being raped.

Quote

2008-11-15T18:35:00.001-05:00

Time is the most precious thing we own

Embedded at West Point

2008-11-15T15:53:00.009-05:00

Although I chose to attend NYU in part because of the opportunities New York would offer me, never did I imagine that through NYU I would spend a day at West Point. But That’s exactly where I was this past week.

As I’ve said in prior posts, my Reporting I professor believes in learning by doing (which is a nice way of saying, "learning by messing up"). She’s sent us out on assignments that most professors wouldn’t dream of assigning first semester students. Just the other day I overheard two professors marveling at the work our class did on election night; we were really thrown into the deep end and told, “swim.”

So when the professor was contacted by a major at West Point, located in upstate New York, interested in having journalism students spend the day embedded with cadets at the military school, she couldn’t possibly say no.

When she announced in class we were to be embedded I had visions of getting dirty in the trenches, jumping over barbed wire, and riding around in humvees a la Generation Kill. That wasn’t the case.

We were there to sit in on a simulated Baghdad mission. The aim was for the cadets to experience a simulation of working Baghdad checkpoints. We left at 10:30AM and didn't get back until after 8PM. I was surprised by how beautiful the West Point campus was.

During the simulated mission the cadets sat in front of computer screens showing images of where they were: various checkpoints in the fictitious Al Mansor neighborhood of Baghdad a la Grand Theft Auto. The cadets would have to make real time decisions about how to handle various situations, and man the radio reporting back to Headquarters.

Why did they want us there? In Iraq it’s not uncommon to have a journalist embedded within a platoon or company. So the West Point major wanted his cadets to gain experience interacting with journalists.

The simulation was bloody. Two insurgent car bomb attacks (VBIED’s in military parlance- Vehicle Borne Explosive Device) rocked the neighborhood, 25 Iraqi civilians, one US soldier, and five insurgents died. I was embedded with the radio operator at the platoon’s command post, we had a map but no computer, so I didn’t see anything.

For all the simulation’s benefits, it lacked the urgency and emotion of what I would imagine of a real Baghdad checkpoint. When the American soldier was killed, his partner radio back to the command post a flat toned, “Jim’s dead, over.”

After about 20 minutes the simulation was over. We journalists had to get that day’s Baghdad story: the two bombings and resulting deaths.

The most interesting part of the day was when we met with Lieutenant Colonel Hilferty, an army press officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some would call the talk he gave us candid; others would call it unprofessional. Here are some gems:

“I don’t feel bad about Pat Tillman dying, I feel bad about the way we handled his death.” – I knew what he was trying to say, but damn.

“On a personal level, I cannot stand Dexter Filkins.” – He said this to Ali, a guy who’s worked extensively with Filkins in Baghdad

“The English press officers are incompetent.”

Anyway, all in all it was a pretty good week. Here are some more pictures I took:

The Age of Obama

2008-11-08T14:08:00.008-05:00

The age of Obama is upon us. Last Tuesday night, as we all know by now, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama buried Republican John McCain to become the first black President. He even won North Carolina, a state that hadn’t gone blue since the Civil Rights Era.

Not bad for a half Kenyan Democrat with a Muslim name and little experience.

I spent election night at NYU’s Journalism building on Cooper Square where almost everyone was hard at work filing stories. Everyone but me.

I had been up since 6 a.m. and had already filed my two pieces; an article on Cuban voters in New Jersey, and a day-of story on the hearings at the Board of Elections in Elizabeth, NJ.

I gotta say, I wasn’t quite happy with how either article turned out. But I learned a lot from them. I became much more comfortable approaching people, and I learned that it’s never too early to call people. Learning, although rewarding, sure is frustrating.

After the election was called I walked by Union Square on my way home. It was around midnight and the square was packed with Obama supporters drunk on victory. It was electric. People danced. People sang. People hugged strangers. The crowd was so big it poured into the street, blocking traffic. Cars were honking- some to get by, other to show their Obama support- and the crowd grew even more riled up with each passing honk.

Two cops stood on the South side of 14th Street looking on. They pair didn’t look too worried; these were Greenwich Village people, after all. They were content to let the College students, Yuppies, and Hipsters celebrate.

Now comes the real work. Obama’s going to face more challenges than any other President in recent memory. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan. Iran. Al Qaeda and its supporters. Energy Policy. Health care. And that’s just what we know of. Let’s see what the next four years brings. At least it’ll be an interesting time to be a journalist.

Lectures

2008-10-29T17:14:00.002-04:00

One of the best things about going to NYU is the people the school attracts. In the last two weeks I’ve attended lectures with Dan Rather, Israeli President Shimon Peres and former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda. Last night a New York Times reporter came to talk to my Reporting class.

He looked to be in his late 30’s and entered the journalism world straight out of college when he began working at a small paper in North Carolina in the early 1990’s (he admitted that you can’t really do that today). He decided to be a journalist because he wanted to do something that could have a positive affect on the community while living an interesting and adventurous life. (and he has)

After a few years in North Carolina, he moved to the AP’s Miami Bureau. But he hated the AP job (too much sitting in an office), so he found a job at The Miami New Times, an alternative Village Voice type of paper.

Then love struck. He fell in love with a Colombian woman in Miami and when she went back to Colombia he went with her.

The relationship didn’t last, but he stuck around in Bogotá for six years where he wrote freelance and stringed for some big time places. He told us that the largest frustration of his career was a story he did on these mafia groups in São Paulo, Brazil for The New York Times Magazine.

The leaders of the mafia group he was covering were doing long jail sentences but, because they were so powerful, for all intents and purposes they controlled the jail. The warden was in their pocket and they decided who came in the jail and who came out.

Well, Semple worked on the story for three months, actually managed to smuggle himself inside the jail to interview these guys, and wrote a really long story; only for the magazine to kill the story when Bush launched the Iraq invasion and the editors stopped caring about Brazil.

He came back to the US in 2004 and landed at The New York Times. He reported from Baghdad from 2004 through 2007. Now he’s back in New York working for the Metro Desk, doing stories on immigration.
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What’s in the News:
• Obama is leading McCain in the polls
• Diego Maradona just took charge of the Argentine national team
• Charlie Rose is partnering with Slate to put video clips online (although that’s not really news)
• The price of oil dropped to $63 a barrel

Debate Clip

2008-10-16T22:47:00.005-04:00

Here's my first Clip in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The person I profiled really did me a favor in letting me interview her. I've known her for well over a decade and would be surprised if anyone has ever said anything bad about her. Although this is a short piece (around 300 words), she's very interesting and smart and, hopefully, I did her justice.

Dexter Filkins Talk

2008-10-10T22:10:00.017-04:00

New York Times war correspondent Dexter Filkins is probably the most talked about journalist in the country right now. And, just by chance, I saw him speak this past week at the New York Times’ building.

Last Tuesday I was covering a graduation ceremony for America’s VetDogs, an organization that provides service dogs to disabled veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our reporting I professor wants us out in the field as much as possible, so this week, instead of having class, she sent us an email listing events taking place that day in New York. We had to pick an event, report it, then write up the story and email it to her by midnight.

I chose the VetDogs event because I thought it was the most interesting and important. Apparently so did a lot of my classmates. Five other people from my class showed up, including Ali, the guy from Iraq I mentioned previously.

I’ve been friendly with him and after the event finished we chatted a bit. He knows I’m interested in the Middle East and we compared books we had read about the region.

The Assassin’s Gate? Check

Fiasco? Check

Imperial Life in the Emerald City? Check

The Looming Tower? Check

(Not only had he read the books, he knew most of the authors)

And then he told me: “I’m going to a talk about the future of the Middle East tonight at the New York Times building.”

“Oh wow,” I said.

“You wanna come?”

Do I wanna come????? Hell yeah, I wanna come!!!!

The talk featured Filkins, former Times Jerusalem Bureau chief Steven Erlanger, and Robin Wright, author of Dreams and Shadows. The tickets, $30 a pop, had sold out weeks in advance but I got in free because of my friend. Filkins and Erlanger didn’t seem too optimistic about the Middle East’s future. Wright, citing a democracy activist who’s spent most of his life in a Syrian jail cell, weirdly saw a bright future.

The three spoke about their experiences for 45 minutes, then opened the floor for a 45 minute Q&A. To summarize what they said:

Filkins at one point admitted that we (the Western world) don’t truly understand the Middle East. On a good day we can only catch a glimpse of it. He gave a story about Iraq as an example, saying that their were two conversations going on in Iraq: the conversation the Iraqis were having with the Americans, and the conversation the Iraqis were having with each other.

He returned to the US in December 2006 to write his new book, The Forever War, which was released a few weeks ago. His goal was to give a worm’s eye view of reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan. The book contained 91 chapters, he said. Each was a short-take about what it was like to cover the war.

Last month he returned to Baghdad and was blown away by the progress that had been made. People were cowering in their homes when he left in 2006. Public parks were a no man’s land, often littered with dead bodies in the morning. Now people were enjoying themselves in the street, women were walking around in jeans and T-shirts, and the vibe felt eerily relaxed.

He attributed the progress to the surge and the Sunni awakening councils, but warned that the situation could collapse tomorrow. Filkins explained that the surge was much more than just the addition of 30,000 troops. General Petreaus instituted a new counter-insurgency strategy, which was the real beneficial aspect.

The Sunni Awakening councils could not be under-estimated, he said. But the councils were made up of former insurgents (at one point he committed a Freudian slip and referred to the councils as “insurgent councils”). He recounted a meeting he had with a council leader whose last name was Al-Tikriti. The guy was from Saddam’s hometown, might’ve been related to him.

He said that the key to understanding the lull in violence was this:
Sunni insurgents saw the Americans as invaders and occupiers and fought them from the beginning. Then Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia came along. AQM targeted not only the Americans, but the Iraqi Shi’a as well, reasoning they were apostates.

The Sunni insurgents wanted to kill Americans all day long, but didn’t see the point in killing shi’a. This created a conflict between Al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents, and the insurgents were soon forced between a rock and a hard place.

The Shi’a greatly outnumber the Sunnis in Iraq, and control the new government being established. Shi’a death squads (many of which had links to the central government) began retaliating genocidally against the Sunnis for Al Qaeda's attacks.

The insurgents looked to their left and saw Al-Qaeda. They looked to their right and saw the Shi’a. Then they looked straight ahead and saw the Americans, who suddenly didn’t look so bad anymore. An alliance with the Americans was their ticket home.

So now we have the present situation: the former Sunni insurgents make up the awakening councils and we pay each council member $300 a month, basically not to shoot at us. And we’re their buffer against the shi’a. The central government now wants to disarm and break up the awakening councils. If they press too hard, everything could fall apart.

He said he had no idea what would happen in Iraq, and anyone who does is lying. The lull in violence is built on a house of cards. But a house of cards is better than no house at all, he added.

The discussion then turned to Afghanistan. Filkins said that the surge/awakening council strategy most likely would not work in that country. Doling out money to the awakening councils worked because, in essence, we gave money to the tribal leaders who then distributed it to their flock. Iraqi society, surprisingly, has a coherent and orderly tribal structure. If you make peace with the tribal leader, you make with the tribe.

Afghanistan does not have that. Afghan society used to be based on a similar tribal structure but, after about 30 years of continuous war, that is gone. The Taliban in particular saw the tribal leaders as a threat and went after them to consolidate power in the 90’s.

Now, Afghanistan is a free for all and there’s no tribal leaders left to pay to quell violence.

Furthermore, Afghanistan is stuck in the 4th century. They have like a 20 percent literacy rate, no roads or infrastructure, and no industry. Bombing them wouldn’t really do anything. And the Taliban are literally from another planet. There’s nothing the US could conceivably negotiate with them.

When the discussion turned to the November election, Filkins said most Iraqis would prefer McCain. If the Arab world could vote, they would overwhelmingly vote for Obama, he said. Except in Iraq. Iraqis get scared when they hear Obama’s pullout talk. They know that, if the Americans left soon, the house of cards would collapse and the bloodshed would be worse than imaginable. So they prefer McCain.

The other two didn’t have anything really new to say. But Erlanger did note that the recent news that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother is a big player in the heroine trade had been an open secret for years. He also stressed the labyrinthine element to the Middle East. Speaking of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Erlanger remarked that, if there were easy answers, they would have been done already.

The month that was

2008-10-04T19:01:00.009-04:00

I rushed to my Reporting I professor’s Cooper Square office before going to work last Wednesday morning. I was worried. One of my classmates had already begun interning at The Daily News, another had begun interning as a fact checker at The New York Times, and I thought I was falling behind. I hadn’t begun interning anywhere yet. I had only gotten my first clip (journalese for “published article”) the day before.

“Don’t worry,” the professor reassured me. “You’re doing better than most. If you weren’t, trust me, I’d tell you.”

Then she filled me in a bit more. The girl interning at the Daily News came into the program with years of writing experience. Fact checking doesn’t count for shit. If I wanted an internship, she would get me one, it was just a question of whether I was ready.

But I’m not ready yet. Internships are important. But it’s also important to do well at them, and that’s what I’m preparing for right now.

I have a story due for class every week. Often times we have to write a story during class as well. In the last month I’ve written about the reaction of female Hillary supporters to Sara Palin, what it’s like working by ground zero, Harlem’s African American Day Parade, A NJ hair salon owner who invested his retirement money in Fannie Mae last spring, Muslims breaking the Ramadan fast, and a former Chilean President’s visit to NYU(my first clip).

My professor has given me great feedback. She has no time for the, “it’s not bad, here’s what I might change,” bullshit. She gets straight to the point and has edited some of my stories to pieces. But I’m grateful for her attitude because I really see my writing improving.

Once my stories get good enough- probably within the next few weeks- I'll have plenty of opportunities to get more clips. Stories for class will be published on Pavement Pieces, a multimedia website run by the professor. The professor has also arranged for us to spend election day in real newspaper newsrooms, I'll be at the Star-Ledger, where we'll file (at least) two election stories. One story is to be around 1,000 words, the other about 650. November 4 should be intense. At the end of the semester the class will also do a big multimedia project on Aids.

That's right, I’ll be learning multimedia skills this year. I’m real excited about that. You only get out of school what you put into it, and I’m trying to squeeze NYU dry.
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Last month I read The Forever War, Dexter Filkins’ new book about his experience covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book is a fast read, it’s more a memoir of his experiences covering the war than a book like Fiasco, which was straight up reporting.
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What’s in the News?

A $700 Billion bailout was given to Wall Street by the US government. The bailout bill had initially been rejected by congress, but was passed on its second go round after minor changes. It’s unclear whether the $700 billion will be able to restore the proverbial floodgates. What’s the difference between a recession and a depression?

Sara Palin, the Republican VP candidate, either refuses or just doesn’t know how to answer questions coherently. In an interview with Katie Couric she struggled to compose sentences containing verbs; when asked what newspapers and magazines she reads, she responded, “all of them.”

Tzipi Livni is about to become Prime Minister of Israel. The outgoing premier, Ehud Olmert, is stepping down because of a corruption indictment.

Obama is ahead in the polls.

Clips, Class and the UN

2008-10-04T16:35:00.004-04:00

It was a perfect early fall morning- not hot enough to wear shirtsleeves, not cool enough for a jacket; the sky was cloudy, but not like it was ready to rain- and high school aged Jewish day schoolers, old people, and a contingent of pro-Israel Evangelicals stood outside the United Nations.

They were there to protest Iranian President Ahmed Ahmedinejad’s presence at the UN General Assembly. I was there to cover the protest.

The protest was staid, considering Ahmedinjead’s violently anti-Semitic rhetoric. There was no fist pumping or adrenaline raising chanting that I picture a protest having. More mid season baseball game than Latin American soccer match.

Ellie Wiesel, the holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate spoke. So did Natan Sharanksy, the Soviet Jewish dissident who, before being allowed by the USSR to make aaliyah, spent years in the gulag.

But the two, impressive if aging, failed to fire up the crowd.

Wiesel: Ahmedinejad wishes to follow in Hitler’s footsteps. This makes him an arche criminal. Honor is absent from his life and his vocabulary. Stop Iran now.

Sharansky: Iran is the evil empire. It must never go nuclear.

As I was scouring the crowd for interviews I bumped into a reporter from the New York Sun. I didn't get her name but she was young, probably around my age, and I shadowed her for a while. Although interviewing might look straight forward, it's not. So I wanted to see her MO for finding good people to interview and her way of asking questions.

Regrettably, the reporter is probably out of a job now. Last week the New York Sun closed its doors. Not good.
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The former President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, was in town for the UN General Assembly as well. He spoke at NYU- although he didn't really say much- last Monday evening and I covered it for the Washington Square News, NYU's student newspaper. It's not exactly The New York Times but hey, I got a clip.

Sarah Palin's Foreign Policy Experience

2008-09-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago the country was introduced to John McCain’s VP pick: Sarah Palin, a first term governor of Alaska. Not the most experienced person to ever be in a Presidential race (not to say Obama has a lot of experience either). But Palin’s foreign policy “credentials” are absurd. I’m sure it’ll only get worse as time goes on, but this is what we’ve got so far:

• She went to Kuwait (not Iraq) to address Alaska National Guard troops

• She’s been to Ireland- her plane refueled there on her Kuwait trip

• She’s seen Russia from an Alaska island

• She’s been to Mexico and Canada on vacation

Life is for the Pushy

2008-09-13T19:39:00.013-04:00

Last week I wrote my first article for class and, just as I thought, the professor tore through it (although she did tell me that it was decent for the first article). But the hardest part of it all was interviewing people. I’ve never been rejected by so many people in my life.

So on Sunday I asked Professor Serrin if he had any tips about landing interviews. He had organized a little party at his Greenwich Village apartment as a chance for the first semester students and third semester students to meet each other. (The journalism program is three semesters) The third semester students were all real cool and most remembered me from my visit to NYU last spring, which I appreciated.

“You gotta be aggressive but nice,” Serrin told me in response to my question. “Life is for the pushy.”

Then he told me a story to illustrate that you’ll never know what you’ll get if you just ask:

In the early 70’s he was on assignment in Miami for the Detroit Free Press. He was hanging out in a hotel lobby looking to interview people when he saw the light above the elevator flash. The elevator doors opened and an old Jewish guy stepped out of the elevator who looked a lot like Meyer Lansky.

But he didn’t just look like Meyer Lansky. He was Meyer Lansky, one of the most notorious organized crime figures in American history. The guy Hyman Roth was based on in Godfather II. The arch villain so smart the FBI actually gave up on catching him.

So Serrin walked up to him and asked for an interview. The old mobster looked at him and said, “sure thing, my boy.”

Lansky obviously didn’t tell him anything heavy. But he interviewed Meyer Lansky. All he had to do was ask. Life is for the pushy.
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Some things I learned in class this week:
• Never use “however” in a newspaper article
• Never start the lead (the first paragraph of an article) with a quote
• A journalist should “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”
• Never put your opinion in an article, no one cares what you think
• My dad knows a hell of a lot more about the Pentagon Papers than my Law & Mass Communication professor
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I finally got my third class and no, it’s not Arabic. I did everything I could but the Middle Eastern Studies Department told me to get lost. I couldn’t even sit in on the class the departmental director said. I’ll spare explaining the reasons why, not like I really believed them anyway.

But I will learn Arabic. It’ll help me a ton in my career.

In the end I registered for a class on US – Latin American Relations taught by Jorge Castañeda, the former Foreign Minister of Mexico (2000-2003). We have to read a book a week and I already have a background in Latin American history. But the big positive is that I’m taking a class with Jorge Castañeda. He seems like he has a firm head on his shoulders and is living in the real world, not like the classic ivory tower professor.

Back to School

2008-09-06T22:54:00.006-04:00

It’s weird to be back at school. The undergraduates that will graduate come May were high school seniors when I received my BA in May 2005. But back I am, at NYU for a Masters in Journalism.

I’ve wanted to be a journalist ever since I wrote some stories for the Santiago Times while in Chile two years ago. But breaking into the industry is tough. Impossible if you have no clips. So upon returning from Chile to the US in January 2007 I began working at a law firm.

But my journalism dream never vanished. I applied to J School at the end of last year, and I will now make my dream my reality.

The first we thing we did at orientation is sit around a big table- all thirty-something of us- and introduce ourselves. The dean of the program, Professor Serrin, went first. He’s somewhere in his seventies and seems like a warm guy who really cares about the students, plus he’s a Hall of Fame journalist, so to speak. He grew up in a blue collar family, wanted to write but couldn’t afford to move to Paris to write novels so he began working at a newspaper.

He moved up the writing ranks and made a name for himself in Michigan; he covered the National Guard at Kent State, striking steel workers, won all sorts of prizes, and then went to the New York Times where he was a big shot reporter for a long time. Pretty impressive.

Next is our turn: the students. Not too many people stood out- most are early to mid twenties, little writing experience- until about two-thirds away around the table when a middle-aged Middle Eastern looking guy introduced himself.

His name is Ali, and he’s from Iraq. Yes, a real Iraqi. In the flesh. He’s been living for the past year or so in Dearborn, Michigan. But prior to coming to the U.S. he worked at the New York Times’ Baghdad Bureau- first as a translator, then a journalist- where he covered the insurgency and Saddam’s trial and execution.

Oh, and he’s friends with Dexter Filkins- perhaps the greatest American foreign correspondent of his generation- and John Burns- the mop-topped legendary Times journalist. (On a side note, the very British sounding Burns actually grew up in Canada, who would’ve guessed?)
Hardly a bad guy to study around. Hopefully I’ll get to know him over the next year and a half.

After Ali introduced himself there’s a few seconds of silence. The vibe around the room was: Holy Shit.

Then someone asked Ali a question. Something about John Burn’s feelings on the war and whether he’s personally apologized to Ali about initially supporting the invasion.

What?!?! You’ve known the guy no longer than 13 seconds. I’d have a tough time ever asking him about the war, let alone about the thoughts of his friend while in front of at least 30 people. Who asks that?!?!?!

Well, a forty-something know-it-all with no discretion, that’s who. Regrettably she’s in one of my classes. In case you’re wondering, Ali stepped around the question. He essentially said they had had a number of conversations about the situation in the past . . . it’s a real tough issue . . . life under Saddam was hell . . . etc.
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My first class was Reporting I. The professor used to work at the Philadelphia Inquirer and just completed a book about Iraqi war veterans. She’s a proponent of the “learn by doing” school; so airy, theoretical talk will be kept to a minimum. “This is not a classroom, it’s a newsroom,” she says. We’ll be going out, finding stories, and writing articles.

Our first assignment was to interview female former Hillary supporters to see how they felt about McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. I think I did a decent job on the story but I’m sure she’s tearing it apart as I write this. I can’t wait to look at the article again a few years from now and think, “Oh my God, how could I have written such garbage?”

We’re supposed to be registered for three classes but currently I’m only registered for two: Reporting I and Media Ethics. I would like to take Arabic as my third course. It’s an undergraduate course which technically is not allowed so Professor Serrin is looking into it (he thinks it’s a great idea).

Anyway, it feels good to be advancing toward a goal again.

All the Jobs are going to India

2008-08-13T15:38:00.003-04:00

The Newspaper industry shrinks just as more people graduate from Journalism school. Many veteran journalists are consequently leaving the industry and a small but growing amount of young journalists are going abroad to make their bones. But rather than the charm laden Hemingway-esque European haunts of yesteryear, young American journalists are choosing to go to India. Salon reports.

Hamas Boot Camp

2008-08-12T13:12:00.002-04:00

Hamas Boot Camp Photo-essay courtesy of ForeignPolicy.com-- click on the image above.

The Good Neigbor Policy: Arab Style

2008-08-12T12:34:00.002-04:00

You come from a dirt poor country ravaged by years of war and terror. You have little remaining infrastructure and a tenuous supply of water. Your country needs all the help it can get. But the one thing you do have is oil, the blessing and the curse. Your country, Iraq, sits on the world’s third largest oil reserves.

With the price of oil being well over $100 a Barrel for the foreseeable future now is the time for you to cash in, right? So what does Iraq do? They cut a deal to sell neighboring Jordan discounted oil at $22 a Barrel!!!!!

Can someone explain this to me? What sense does that make? What is Jordan giving them in return?

Bad News from the Star-Ledger

2008-08-04T12:20:00.003-04:00

Almost every morning I wake up, make coffee, and browse the Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest and most respected newspaper. The Star Ledger has been with me for as long as I can remember and is one of the things which, in my mind, makes the state more than just a punch line for garbage, corruption, and mafia jokes.

And yet, I missed this front page story from last Thursday until my dad pointed it out. The Star Ledger is about to go under for all intents and purposes:
“The owners of The Star-Ledger announced yesterday they will sell the newspaper if they cannot win union concessions and persuade a large number of nonunion, full-time workers to take buyouts in the next two months.”

The paper’s owners, the Newhouse newspaper chain, has threatened to sell the paper off if 200 of the newspaper’s 756 nonunion full-time employees don’t take buyouts. The Ledger’s total workforce is 1,412, so we’re talking more than 10 percent of the paper’s staff.

While it’s not the New York Times or Washington Post, it’s no community publication either. It sells 350,000 papers daily and 520,000 on Sundays, and has won Pulitzers and other national awards for their investigative pieces. It’s exposed prostitution rings, ex-Newark Mayor Sharpe James’ corruption, Jim “I am a gay American” McGreevey’s sleaze (how was he not indicted, anyway?), and many other scandals.

Will the Ledger be able to keep up with a considerably reduced workforce? This is bad news for the people of New Jersey and good news for its corrupt powerbrokers and assorted malcontents. Here’s a piece from the Times about the whole thing.

More News from the Middle East

2008-07-30T12:25:00.003-04:00

The Forever War, a much anticipated book by New York Times correspondent Dexter Filkins, is scheduled to hit shelves this September.

Filkins is one of the best American journalists around. Since 2001 he has reported the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, prior to working for the Times he was the LA Times’ New Delhi Bureau Chief. The Forever War reportedly is a treatment of the America’s military involvement in the Middle East after 9/11.

News

2008-07-30T11:46:00.002-04:00

Ever wonder how life in New York compares to say, Baghdad? Well, here’s a cool post from the New York Times’ Baghdad Bureau blog by an Iraqi reporter visiting New York. He compares the sights, sounds, and happening in New York to those in the Iraqi capital.
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The New York Times also reports today that top level CIA officers traveled to Pakistan to discuss the Pakistani intelligence’s support of Islamic militants in the country’s tribal areas along its border with Afghanistan.

I personally have had a lot of concern about this for a while. Prior to 9/11 Pakistan’s intelligence service, known as the ISI, had a close relationship with the Taliban (and perhaps Al Qaeda). Although after September 2001 they officially turned against their former colleagues, many wonder whether the ISI is still supporting them clandestinely.

This raises a lot of hard questions. We give economic and military aid to Pakistan. Where does that money go? Is a portion indirectly funneled to the Islamic militants we are fighting in Afghanistan and other enemies?

Oil/ Saudi Arabia

2008-07-27T11:22:00.004-04:00

Washington Post: Don’t expect oil prices to go down significantly EVER AGAIN.
Here’s why. – This is the first in what will be a series of articles… interesting and informative.
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Also, I just finished Steve Coll’s The Bin Ladens, an excellent book that traces not only the history of the Bin Laden family from village poverty in Yemen to the multi-millionaires they are today, but also the history of 20th century Saudi Arabia.

"My grandfather rode a camel. My father rode in a car. I fly in a jet. My son will ride a camel." Saudi Arabian Proverb

The Zohan

2008-07-05T11:04:00.003-04:00

Well, I finally saw Don’t Mess with the Zohan, and I have to say that it was Adam Sandler’s best movie in years.

The Zohan can be summed up as: Moshe Dayan moves to New York to become a hairdresser. It was genuinely funny (although perhaps not everyone will understand all the hummus jokes), while at the same time maintaining a philosophical point.

The Zohan, played by Adam Sandler, is an Israeli commando who kicks ass and takes names; he can even catch a bullet between his thumb and forefinger. And yet, he’s fed up with the Arab-Israeli conflict. “When does it all end?” he’s constantly asking himself.

During a meeting to plan the apprehension of a terrorist the Zohan asks, “Why take him if we are going to release him in the end anyway?”

So he fakes his own death and moves to New York to pursue his dream: live in tranquility and make a living as a hairdresser.

High jinks follow but the film raises a key issue as Israel is preparing for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. The Israelis will supposedly be swapping Samir Kuntar, a convicted terrorist who, among other things, killed a Jewish child by crushing her skull. –I’m sure he will be given a hero’s reception in Lebanon and the Arab world- perhaps that says something.
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Best line: some WASPish business man refers to Arabs and Israelis as being “kaki” colored.

Some Interesting Quotes

2008-06-29T22:06:00.003-04:00

“The measure of prudence and resolution is to know a friend from an enemy; the height of stupidity and weakness is not to know an enemy from a friend.

Do not surrender your enemy to oppression, nor oppress him yourself. In this respect treat enemy and friend alike. But be on your guard against him, and beware lest you befriend and advance him, for this is the act of the fool. He who befriends and advances friend and foe alike will only arouse distaste for his friendship and contempt for his enmity. He will earn the scorn of his enemy, and facilitate his hostile designs; he will lose his friend, who will join the ranks of his enemies.

The height of goodness is that you should neither oppress your enemy nor abandon him to oppression. To treat him as a friend is the mark of a fool whose end is near.

The height of evil is that you should oppress your friend. Even to estrange him is the act of a man with no sense, for whom misfortune is predestined.

Magnanimity is to befriend the enemy, but to spare them, and to remain on your guard against them.”
- Ibn Hazm of Crdova (994-1064) from The Book of Morals and Conduct
(which I found in Bernanrd Lewis’s excellent From Babel to Dragomans)
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“Translations are like women: some are beautiful; some are faithful; few are both.”
-a “French wit” (also of From Babel to Dragomans)

A Week without News

2008-06-21T11:27:00.015-04:00

Israel is diplomatically engaging Syria, and now, for the first time, Lebanon. Here’s an analysis from the Council of Foreign Relations.

Israel and Hamas have come to a six month hudna/truce. This may likely have little long term consequence as both sides will probably be prepping for the next round.

Israel conducts war games exercise with Iran and her nuclear facilities in mind. I take this seriously.

Hezbollah may be preparing terrorist attacks across the globe as a response to the February assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the terrorist group’s operational chief. According to U.S. and Canadian intelligence agencies, certain Hezbollah terrorist leaders have left Lebanon (nobody knows why) and Hezbollah members were seen casing Ottawa’s Israeli Embassy and Synagogues in Toronto.

Opec and the other big energy players are convening an impromptu meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this weekend to see what can be done about oil prices, currently over $130 a barrel.
-Don’t get your hopes up-
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This is only a a minuscule summary of what’s happening in the world. But imagine if there were no news?

Ireland: Treaty of Lisbon Treaty of Shisbon

2008-06-19T12:00:00.010-04:00

Europeans conquered the world and were at the vanguard of everything in the modern era. Then came World War II. But why is the European Union- a rebuilt harmonious Europe of 500 million- not a real global power? Henry Kissinger summed it up best: “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”

The Treaty of Lisbon was to remedy this question. But last week, when the Irish voted down a referendum on the Treaty, the world found out Europe indeed may never be a global power. Rather, it will continue for the foreseeable future as a bureaucratic economic federation. But “the United States of Europe”? Unlikely.

The Treaty of Lisbon (O Tratado de Lisboa, as they say in Portuguese- sorry but I had to throw that in) was essentially a rewritten European Constitution that had famously been rejected in 2005 referendums by the French and Dutch publics. It was to (slightly) reform the European Union, and would have given it a real President and a Minister of Foreign Policy. In other words: people to call.

The Treaty of Lisbon had to be approved by every country of the 27 member EU, so the Irish referendum basically killed the Treaty (This time Ireland was the only country to put the Treaty to a referendum-which they had to do by Irish law).

Why did the Irish vote the Treaty down? Why did the French and Dutch do much the same with the proposed constitution three years ago? That’s what everybody is debating.

As a whole the EU has done wonders for Europe: it helped and continues to help bring peace, stability, and prosperity to the region (witness the histories of Ireland, Spain, Greece; and the newly integrated Eastern European countries).

Yet treaties and the like to further strengthen European Union institutions have been constantly rejected because, in my opinion, there is no real European identity. Countries and regions within countries have strong identities, but the idea of “Europe” doesn’t inspire passions. A man from Barcelona would die for Catalunya, and most likely Spain; but not for Europe. And that’s what these referendums and votes have really been about.

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Many commentators are saying the Irish are in essence hypocritical. EU membership has done wonders for the country. After the Irish joined in 1973 the emerald isle went from an impoverished place at the edge of the world known for getting their asses kicked by the English, emigration, potato famines, alcoholism, and leprechauns; to the “Celtic tiger,” an economic juggernaut with one of the best living standards in the world. People argue that because of this the Irish should be in favor of anything the Brussels leadership wants.

This criticism strikes me as patronizing. Yes, EU membership has been great for the Irish on the whole, but that does not mean they “owe” the EU anything and should back any proposal to strengthen the Union.

Just as Ireland (along with every other country to gain admittance) petitioned to be granted membership, the EU member countries in turn voted to grant them membership. Ireland is the equal of France, Germany, Italy, etc. If they prefer Europe in its current state that is their right and they should vote accordingly. If the Irish want to see changes, but not ones stipulated in the Treaty of Lisbon, it is their right to reject the treaty.
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Der Speigel has a pretty good special on the whole issue. Check it out (in English).

New Yorker Piece on Hugo Chavez

2008-06-17T11:45:00.003-04:00

Latin America is the U.S.'s backyard (sorry, it's true). It's also geopolitically unimportant and is largely ignored.

But one figure from the region stands out: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Who is Hugo Chavez? What does he want? Answers and more questions in this long New Yorker piece.

Accents

2008-06-10T12:05:00.008-04:00

Any American soccer fan knows that Mexican national team players tend to be sore losers. It’s always somebody else’s fault that they lost, no team ever plays better than them. But Mexican national team goalie Osvaldo Sanchez recently took classlessness to another level.

After Mexico’s win against Peru, American reporter Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Herald Tribune went to interview Sanchez in Spanish. Arroyave is of Latin descent and, while he speaks and understands Spanish perfectly, being American he naturally speaks with an American accent. Sanchez preceded to mock Arroyave by answering his questions in an exaggerated American accent (and the surrounding reporters laughed).

What a classless guy. I really feel for Arroyave and have suffered similar experiences when I was living in Chile. Where do some people get off? Once, upon checking into a hostel in Argentina, the woman working the front desk told me my accent sounded a terrible mixture of a Chilean and American accent. Really? How many other travelers checking in that day spoke any Spanish? One? Two? And not to toot my own horn but after a year in Chile my Spanish was pretty damn good, I can guarantee I spoke better than any other person in the hostel. So excuse me if I speak with an accent.

On that very same trip I took a long bus ride and put my bags in the baggage compartment below. Upon arriving to our destination a bus terminal worker began unloading the compartment. When he unloaded my bag I asked him to pass it to me. He heard my American accent and, as he gave me my bag, said, “I need teep.” That’s right, in making fun of my accent he mispronounced the word “tip.” Everybody else, who naturally spoke very little or no English, burst out laughing. I was going to say something to the guy but then thought better of it and just walked away.

But how much of a jerk off do you have to be? If somebody respects your culture enough to take the time to learn your language (and learning a language is far from easy), you should at least show them a modicum of respect and not make fun of their accent. It’s very simple really: I don’t speak like a native because, just like the aforementioned reporter, I am NOT a native.

Altidore to Villarreal

2008-06-04T16:00:00.006-04:00

Josie Altidore, the latest great hope for American soccer, will soon be joining Freddy Adu –the other great hope- on the Iberian peninsula as he has just inked a deal with Villarreal of the Spanish league for $8 million. (Adu signed a little less than a year ago for Benfica, Portugal’s top club)

Altidore, an 18 year old forward for the New York Red Bulls, is one of the best prospects the United States has ever had.

Villarreal, known as the yellow submarine for their yellow uniforms, are a great team. They finished second in the recently 2007/2008 season and will be playing in the Champions League this fall. Altidore will probably find it difficult to get playing time as Villarreal are a strong team boasting players like Robert Pirés and Nihat. But he should learn a lot and it could take his play to a new level.

If I’m not mistaken Altidore will be the first American to play in the Spanish premier league (Tab Ramos played in the second division). American soccer sure is progressing, albeit not as fast as fans would like—did people really expect something other than a 2-0 loss to England at Wembley?

Here's a highlight reel of some of Altidore's goals courtesy of YouTube.

First Contact in the Amazon

2008-05-30T09:53:00.002-04:00

Images of an uncontacted tribe deep in the Brazilian Amazon. They have spears and bows and arrows and are preparing to fire on the photographer snapping pictures from a helicoptor. Pretty cool.

Cool Quote

2008-05-27T17:42:00.001-04:00

“While it’s true that knowledge is power, mystery has its own special sweetness.”
-David Grossman, The Zig Zag Kid

Negotiation

2008-05-26T17:09:00.013-04:00

Last week President Bush touched off a media firestorm which is sure to rear its head again this fall. He lambasted “appeasers” who “believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.''

Ironically Bush uttered these words in Israel, a country that is currently doing the very things he was condemning. The Israelis are indirectly negotiating with Syria (through Turkey) and Hamas (through Egypt). The Syrians are state-sponsors of terrorism; they give money, training and sanctuary to both Hamas and Hezbollah, and are strongly suspected of being behind the 2005 assassination of Lebanese President Rafik Hariri. Meanwhile, Hamas – who violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007- indiscriminately fire missiles onto southern Israel and are responsible for innumerable suicide bombings.

Let’s put aside for the moment issues like the correctness of criticizing from abroad (personally I don’t really care) or whether an outgoing President should inject himself into the new Presidential campaign (Bush’s comments were –at least in part- a shot at Obama after all). The President is speaking to a fundamental issue regarding our way forward in the Middle East and the fight against terrorism.

There are those who compare negotiating with terrorists and their state sponsors to Neville Chamberlain’s naïve 1938 dealings with Hitler. Hitler very clearly spelled out his intentions in Mein Kampf and letting the Germans take hold of the Sudetenland was futile. In no way did it stop the Nazis from carrying out the rest of their agenda.

Like Hitler Iranian President Ahmedinejad has made in very clear what he wants to do: acquire nukes and “wipe Israel off the face of the map.” Consequently, negotiating with Iran would be an act in futility as well.

The other side of the coin is that diplomacy and appeasment are not the same. We lose nothing by sitting down to talk with our enemies. We negotiated many times with the Soviet Union (even under Ronald Reagan) and under Bush's watch have done so with Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

I have to say that I’m more inclined to talk with no preconditions (with nation states, not terrorists nor any other non-State entities). However, deep down I harbor doubts that this indeed may be naïve, and I do think we should be very careful in what and how we negotiate. Here are two good op-eds from the New York Times on the issue: Yes, We Should ------ No, We Should Not
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For an excellent read I highly recommend The Shia Revival, by Vali Nasr. It’s a real eye opening book that summarizes the split between Sunnis and Shia and their history of relations. But the crux of the book is about the sectarian conflict(s) unleashed by the War in Iraq, why they came about, and why they are so important, not just to Iraq, but to the entire region.

Gregg Graduating

2008-05-26T11:27:00.005-04:00

As I grow up- well, I’m done growing- as I age, the years come and go faster and faster. It seems only yesterday that I graduated from college, yet in truth I graduated three years ago. Last weekend my family and I packed up two cars and set off from Jersey City on an eight hour journey through cornfields and cow pastures to Pittsburgh. We were headed to Carnegie Mellon University to see my little brother graduate from college.

He graduated with a BS in Physics and will begin a PhD program in the fall (my little brother the mad scientist). It’s nice to see him succeed, but damn.

Rain was forecast for the day of the graduation but just as the ceremony began the sun poked its way through the clouds. Al Gore was the primary speaker and he gave a decent if unspectacular speech about energy policy (to my dad’s disappointment he held off on declaring himself a candidate for November). As he was talking I playfully asked my uncle why Gore wasn’t recounting how he invented the internet. My uncle murmured something back about the former VP not wanting to perjure himself.

But the speaker who really moved the crowd was CMU Computer Science professor Randy Pausch.

Professor Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and given three to six months to live… last August (no, he hasn’t “beaten” it though, it didn’t look like he had that much longer to live), and he gave a short, truly inspiring speech about living life to the fullest, if you want to watch the speech -about six minutes long- it's posted below.

For a much longer version of the speech check out Pausch's homepage here and scroll down a bit to "the Last Lecture" (it’s like 70 minutes but it’s good).

During the ceremony the CMU President also announced the university had just graduated its first class on its Qatar campus (that’s right, Qatar, the small Middle Eastern country).

Carnegie Mellon’s Qatar campus isn’t a study abroad site. It’s a local Carnegie Mellon with local matriculating students. Now, I’m not sure quite how I feel about CMU’s Qatar venture, but they’re not the only American university to do this (NYU, where I will soon be attending again, is in on the game as well), but it’s pretty interesting and is a story that I’m sure most Americans do not know about.
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Which brings us to other Middle Eastern issues.
Life is now moving forward in Lebanon once again as the various factions have come to a power sharing agreement. But I'll save writing about this for another day or so.

And no, I’m not so presumptuous as to think anybody either does or should care about what I think regarding the all too explosive events- both literally and metaphorically- in the Middle East. I write about it (and other things) to attempt to organize my thoughts and further my own understanding of the world. It’s a vitally important region of the world and will only continue to be. Its problems (and by extension ours) aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Tom Friedman Again, Almodovar, and Doug Feith

2008-05-14T12:03:00.010-04:00

Is New York Times columnist Tom Friedman back from the dead?

He wrote a touching Mothers' Day column last Sunday and today wrote a well reasoned column regarding Iran, and Middle East policy. He's come to some pretty illogical conclusions in the past (like the 2006 election of Hamas being a GOOD thing for peace because it would moderate Hamas policies-- just as the Nazis moderated their policies after being confronted with governing), but his latest columns have been pretty well reasoned and have added to the conversation. Take this for instance:

"The big debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is over whether or not we should talk to Iran. Obama is in favor; Clinton has been against. Alas, the right question for the next president isn’t whether we talk or don’t talk. It’s whether we have leverage or don’t have leverage."

He also points out that, like Afghanistan, in the past Lebanon has been a graveyard of imperial dreams.

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I just read in Spanish newspaper El País that Pedro Almodóvar is filming another movie with Penelope Cruz. Almodóvar's one of the top directors in Europe. His last film, Volver, was good but not great, but he's won a plethora of awards and his movies are always very interesting. Watch the first half of La Mala Educación (with Mexican Gael García Bernal speaking with a Spanish accent), it will blow your mind.

The movie's called "Abrazos Rotos" (Broken Hugs), the article didn't reveal anything about the film's plot but, judging from Almodóvar's past work, I can assure you that their will be a love component and some really fucked up sexual thing (incest, child molestation, crossdressing, whatever. It's always there in his movies). Once you get past that stuff his movies are always entertaining and original.

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Also, I almost forgot but former Under-secretary of Defense Doug Feith (an ideological architect of the Iraq War) was on the Daily Show the other night promoting his new book, War and Decision.

Jon Stewart(who I'm not always a big fan of) conducted one hell of an interview, much better than you'd see on CNN. No soft ball questions, and did his best not to let Feith talk his way out of anything or "misremember" the past. here it is:

Gracias a la vida

2008-05-11T13:44:00.008-04:00

Gracias a la vida/ que me ha dado tanto/ me dado la sonrisa/ y me ha dado el llanto
-Carlos Gardel (Tanguero de los Tangueros)
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I've been critical of Tom Friedman in the past, but this really is a great Mothers' Day column. I especially appreciate the Israeli General telling Friedman he's an optimist because he's so short he can only see the full half of the glass.

Is America Finished?

2008-05-10T10:49:00.004-04:00

Here's an interesting review of Fareed Zakaria's new book, The Post-American World, from the New York Times Book Review. The review addresses why talk of America's demise may be premature.
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Also, Zakaria has a new Foreign Affairs show premiering on CNN this June which I am looking forward to. He is a very intelligent analyst (and the editor of Newsweek International) and hopefully his show can raise the level of dialog like Charlie Rose. Here's a link to his website.

New Maradona Documentary

2008-05-10T08:00:00.001-04:00

In other news. . . . A touch more light hearted than the preceding posts. . . . .

I attended Santiago’s film festival a year and a half ago and saw Amando a Maradona, a documentary of the life and crimes of Diego Maradona, one of the best players to ever touch a soccer ball but also known for his tragic drug addictions. True story: At the summit of Zidane's career in 2000, Michel Platini- a former French soccer great himself- was asked to compare Zidane with Diego. He responded, “what Zidane can do with a soccer ball Diego could do with an orange."

Now at next month’s 61st annual Cannes Film Festival one of the headliners will be “Maradona” another documentary of the soccer great. The doc's been produced by the award winning Emir Kusturica (his name means nothing to me, I have no idea who he is). I Can’t wait to see it though.

Here's a song about Diego by Manu Chao, with footage of him playing as a youth:

La vida es una tombola (Life is a lottery)

Whither Obama

2008-05-09T21:04:00.004-04:00

Back to domestic politics. I’m not thrilled with any of the Presidential hopefuls, but then again I’m a cynic.

It now appears that Obama is a few steps away from securing the Democratic Presidential nomination. Now, when Obama speaks he moves me, he really does. Next to him any other politician seems like flat soda; and I agree with most of his policies.

And yet… I don’t think he’s adequately explained the Reverend Wright fiasco. (By the way, the reverend’s latest ramblings are pretty comical, really: By criticizing Wright’s inflammatory sermons people are criticizing the black church. Criticizing the black church is the same as “talking about his mother,” and if you think Wright’ll let anybody talk about his mother, “you’ve got another thing coming.” -- That's literally what he said, watch it on YouTube)

Obama has since (rightfully) disowned him, nevertheless by Obama's own admission Wright has been a very influential figure in his life. How exactly so? How has he influenced his thinking? Where exactly does he agree and disagree with him? There are many churches that do community service without the whole “God Damn America” thing (and in his sermon he said “America,” not “the U.S. government of 1847 that did _X_," give me a break) or the rhetoric about the government being responsible for the AIDS virus. Why did he stay at Trinity Baptist all this time?

Why did he stick with Wright for so long, and even have him baptize his children? Lately Obama supporters have been portraying Wright as a “crazy uncle.” However crazy he may be, he was Obama's “uncle” by choice, not by blood.

What else worries me is Obama’s (lack of) experience. Yes, he is very intelligent, but at the end of the day he’s a first term senator and has basically been campaigning for President since he arrived in the Senate.

He’s going to need someone with a lot of experience for VP (Richardson, anyone?) which brings us to the proposed Barack-Hillary ticket. There is a better chance of Osama Bin Laden converting to Judaism than Hillary being Obama’s VP candidate.

All this talk of how Hillary can pull in white working class votes is utter nonsense. Yes, she can do that in Democratic primaries against a black man with a Muslim name. But that does NOT mean she can do it in a general election against John McCain.

She’s one of the most divisive figures in America. A very conservative friend of my father’s registered as a democrat in the New Jersey primary solely to vote AGAINST Hillary. Ask yourself, would any other politician inspire this much revulsion?

She's battle hardened and has survived everything the Republicans have attacked with? I would bet you all the money in my bank account that for years Republicans have been collecting everything they can about her and just waiting until she's the candidate. They have files full of scandals and circumstantial evidence of anything and everything. Lying about dodging sniper fire won't be anything. Hillary coming anywhere near the Democratic ticket would be the best thing that could possibly happen to the Republican party since Ronald Reagan.

Moreover, do you think Obama wants Bill meddling in his campaign?
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With all that said, I just cannot see Obama winning come November. I’m no fan of McCain either but I’ll post about him another time.

The News from Beirut

2008-05-09T15:15:00.002-04:00

The state is the organization that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence
-German Sociologist Max Weber

The more things change, they more they stay the same. Lebanon again looks to be on the brink of civil war. In the past few days Hezbollah has seized control of entire districts of Beirut and has violently clashed with pro government forces. See the New York Times article here.

These current Beirut events should put to rest the claims that Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization but are “noble patriots fighting Israeli imperialist aggression.” In reality this argument should have been given up after Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in the summer of 2000. Perhaps Hezbollah stuck around to combat the imperialism of the Syrians who formally occupied Lebanon through 2005? Oh, wait, that's right... they get funding from Syria.

What makes them a terrorist organization? Look no further than their 1994 bombing of AMIA, Buenos Aires’ Jewish Community Center, which killed upwards of 85 people (while treating the attack very seriously, Argentine authorities have yet to make any arrests after 14 years of investigation).

Now it should be evident to even Noam Chomsky and his acolytes who these people really are: An extra-national Shiite terrorist organization with links to Iran and Syria that contribute to the instability of Lebanon and the greater region.

Too Old to Learn a New Language?

2008-05-06T18:28:00.000-04:00

There are many things I wish I could do. Playing soccer again is one of them, but that’s a story for another time. I wish I had more money, I wish it were a nice day out, but above all I wish I could speak Hebrew, the language of my people.

Learning a language is hard though, and very time consuming. Especially a non-Indo European language. That’s why I envy little kids for their language ability. Who cares if you can’t cross the street or tie your shoes, when you’re four years old you can learn a language in mere MONTHS. Even more, a four year old will learn to speak with a NATIVE accent, that’s almost super human. Oh, to be young again.

When I was 17 I spent a month touring around Israel. Upon returning to beautiful exotic New Jersey I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a Hebrew language text book. I was going to learn the language of my people. Yet here I am lamenting years later so there’s little need to recount the outcome of this noble endeavor.

But six months ago I decided to take a Hebrew course at the 92nd Street Y. The class was relatively small, we met once a week, and the teacher was a Sabra, a native born Israeli. Yet the class didn’t go so well. We moved though the material very quickly. I was still struggling with the alphabet when we were reviewing past tense verb conjugations. Moreover, due to personal issues I was having, I didn’t have time to study the vocabulary or do much work on my own.

Now I’m thinking of ordering a Hebrew Rosetta Stone program. This (quite pricey) computer program is supposed to be highly effective in foreign language acquisition and is what the U.S. State Department uses with its Foreign Service Officers. Click here for a free demo

The program takes its name from the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artifact (shown right). Egyptian hieroglyphics had long baffled western archaeologists when Napoleon’s army invaded Egypt and in 1799 uncovered the stone. It was engraved with an ancient Greek text, along with translations of two different sets of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Archaeologists of that era were familiar with ancient Greek and used it to break the hieroglyphic code. This proved to be a watershed moment, archaeologists then used the deciphered text to make sense of other hieroglyphics which had been prior deemed undecipherable. The computer program is supposed to work the same way and be an invaluable tool in learning a new language. We’ll see.

Israel Turns 60

2008-05-06T12:54:00.000-04:00

Sixty years ago this week David Ben Gurion gave a wink to all our ancestors, then he icily smiled and gave the finger to Hitler and his Nazis, Torquemada and his inquisitors, the Cossacks, Islamists, Romans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Ancients Egyptians and every other anti-Semite who has ever lived when he announced the founding of the State of Israel.

This post is meant to celebrate the Jewish state and all it’s achievements in the last sixty years. I am not attempting to refute anti-Zionists/ anti-Semites, nor condemn anybody for any policies. Nor am I attempting to call Jimmy Carter an asshole (all this, perhaps, will be done another time).

TO ISRAEL: L’CHI-AM!!
“Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.” –Moshe Dayan

“Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.” –Golda Meir

"Many say the message of the Holocaust is to never forget. I disagree. The message is, it's harder to kill us when we have AK 47's."
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There are articles everywhere you look about Israel’s 60th. Why? What makes the Jews so special? Do you know how few Jews there are in the world? There are more Basques than there are Jews. If you're now asking yourself who the Basques are do not feel discouraged, what does the average person know about the Basques? Nothing. There are only 13 million of us Jews the world over, yet our name is known where ever the wind blows. I’ll post my thoughts on this issue another (more sober) time.

Here’s a thought provoking piece from Jeff Goldberg of the Atlantic (again) on Israel’s future. It’s been much discussed in the blog world, some people love it, others hate it. Here’s an op-ed from the International Herald Tribune.

The Death of Ari Ben Canaan

2008-05-02T11:57:00.000-04:00

The real life Ari Ben Canaan dies at home in Tel Aviv.

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*Israel's turning 60, I'll post about that, and other developments, soon.

China Learns English

2008-04-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

China, as you know, is getting set to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. What you perhaps didn’t know is that the Chinese have been mounting a historic campaign to teach English to millions of their citizens in time for the Games (guess how that’s going…)

Courtesy of the New Yorker here’s an engrossing story about China’s efforts to master English, told through the prism of one of its foremost English instructors and motivational speakers.

To summarize the article, China only recently turned to English to help them develop. After Mao Ze Dong ascended to power they turned to Russian over English. Only about ten years ago did serious English language learning come to the fore once again. Now there’s a huge push to learn Shakespeare’s tongue; many people see speaking English as offering life changing possibilities (I agree wholeheartedly).

I know very well how hard it is to learn a foreign language. Moreover, as a former English language teacher, I have a lot of respect for Li Yang, the guy profiled. Teaching English effectively is really hard work. Not only do you have to be able to explain grammar concepts effectively, you have to inspire the students to want to learn, and you have to foster an atmosphere in class where students feel comfortable making mistakes.

Al Qaeda Complains

2008-04-23T10:58:00.000-04:00

Don’t you just hate it when someone else gets credit for something you did? All that time, all that hard work you put in, only to see others bask in the glory. Anybody can understand the frustration.

Well, that’s how Ayman Zawahiri and the rest of Al Qaeda feel when people blame 9/11 on “the Jews.” -----See the BBC article here

Zawahiri, on a recently released audio recording on some Islamist website, claims it as an idea propagated by (shia) Iran to discredit the Sunnis.

Please, don’t forget to rub this in the face of any conspiracy theorist/anti-Semite you might meet in the future.

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As an addendum, the Onion beat me to it:

Me and my Brother

2008-04-22T11:42:00.000-04:00

“Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousins; me, my brother and my cousins against our nonrelatives; me, my brother, my cousins and friends against our enemies in the village; all of these and the whole village against the next village.”

-Arab Proverb

What I'm Reading

2008-04-22T11:20:00.000-04:00

The history of the twentieth century was a clash of ideologies: Communism, Fascism, and Capitalism. Will the 21st century be an ideological/civilizational clash as well? Capitalism? Secularism? Zionism? Whabbism? Salafism? And God knows what else?

Over the past year I’ve been trying to read up on the Middle East. History, literature, journalism, you name it. I really want to know every detail of how the U.S. got itself into Iraq, how the Middle East came into it’s present state, and what the future holds.

I just finished The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker. Published in 2006, the book traces the rise of Islamic fundamentalism from the mid-century writings of the intellectual Sayyid Qutb to 1970s Egyptian jails to Soviet occupied Afghanistan to Al Qaeda and 9/11 with a lot of stops in between. It’s a very informative read, it illuminates a lot of issues, and brings even more questions to the fore. Wright is a great story teller and really moves you through the book, no easy task given the subject matter.

Next up is Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski on the 1970s overthrow of the last Shah of Iran. In addition I’m planning to read Once Upon a Country by Sari Nuseibeh.

I am also itching to read War and Decision, Douglass Feith’s recently published memoir of his time in the Bush administration. Feith is the former Undersecretary of Defense -he worked for Rumsfeld- and has (in)famously been called “the stupidest fucking guy on the planet” by General Tommy Franks (ret). He was one of the driving forces behind the decision to invade Iraq. It’ll be interesting to read his side of events, and his self-criticism – I’m assuming it’ll be there anyway. (But I’ll wait until the book comes out in paperback).

Of Popes and Pedophiles

2008-04-15T11:16:00.000-04:00

Way to stake out a position on a tough issue, Pope.

Pope says pedophiles not welcome in Catholic church.
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Thoughts

2008-04-14T23:46:00.000-04:00

It still rankles me that Al Gore got a Nobel Peace Prize. He made a documentary, that’s it. Perhaps he could’ve been awarded something by a documentary association, but a Nobel Peace Prize?

And no, he wasn’t the figure to put Global Warming on the map. Growing up my generation watched countless environmental and global warming documentaries in school. Anytime we had a sub in science class that was what we watched. All those films (whose producers didn’t win Nobel Prizes, mind you) must’ve sunk in because it’s a big issue for my generation.

This year I think they should give the Peace Prize posthumously (I don’t even know if they do that) to Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Follow the link; he’s a guy that deserved it, fuck Al Gore.
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All the petty sniping between Hillary and Obama really rubs me the wrong way. Can the Democrats please pick a candidate already so we can move on? Hillary claims Obama is an elitist? Look, honestly, if you don’t think you’re better than most people, you probably shouldn’t be RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.

Labyrinth of Borges Quotes

2008-04-06T20:53:00.000-04:00

Jorges Luis Borges was an iconic figure in 20th century Latin American literature. He never published any novels, only collections of esoteric short stories, but the stories could blow your mind (as long as you could understand them). Here are some interesting things he said:

"Democracy is an abuse of statistics."

"The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb." –referring to the 1982 Falklands War between England and Argentina

"Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone."

"Reality is not always probable, or likely."

"To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely."

"Censorship is the mother of metaphor."

Check out this (kinda rambling) essay about Borges from Slate.

White People

2008-04-03T19:24:00.000-04:00

Check out this crazy funny website: Stuff White People Like. Although they say white people, they are really referring to upper-middleclass suburban progressives.

Some gems:
-Most white people choose a favorite soccer team based on either a study abroad experience or a particularly long vacation to Europe or South America.

-The best thing you can do is to act impressed when a white person talks about critical theorists. This helps them reaffirm that what they learned in graduate school was important and that they are smarter than you. This makes white people easier to deal with when you get promoted ahead of them.

-When engaging in a conversation about corporate evils it is important to NEVER, EVER mention Apple Computers, Target or Ikea or anyother store white people actually frequent.

Black Hole to Destroy the World

2008-03-29T13:00:00.000-04:00

This is for my little brother: Crazy mad scientists attempting to create a black hole to destroy the world.

Another clip of Obama's pastor

2008-03-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

Now, up until now I've been ambivalently pro-Obama. I was just as moved as the next democrat by Obama's speech addressing racism earlier this week and would vote for him over Billary (little did we know that they were co-Presidents after all these years!!), and most likely take him over McCain as well.

But what to make of this clip?

This is Reverend Wright, Barak's "spiritual adviser" of twenty-some-odd years, clearly an influential guy in the candidate's life. Up until last week he was very much a part of Obama's campaign. What else has this guy said that we don't know about yet?

It gives me pause. It makes me "scurred."

Graham Greene Quote

2008-03-22T23:05:00.000-04:00

How I should have concluded my prior entry on Iraq:

"God save us always...from the innocent and the good."
Graham Greene, The Quiet American

How Soccer explains Economic Globalization

2008-03-22T17:24:00.000-04:00

Click here for a (shallow) take on the Globalization/Soccer theme.

Firstly- intellectuals, pundits, and Franklin Foer: STAY AWAY FROM SOCCER. Just because the sport is known as “the beautiful game” doesn’t mean you can use it to explain everything. Take the preceding op-ed. Yes, on the whole the Bosman Ruling (which the author doesn’t mention, but really is what he is talking about) has been good for players. But it has not been good for small clubs who use to survive by churning out young quality players and then selling them off for a tidy profit.

He also says that Egypt has positioned itself to take advantage of soccer globalization; his evidence is that they have won five African Nations Cups. What he doesn’t point out is that nobody gives a shit about that particular tournament. How many World Cups -the true barometer for national team progression- have Egypt qualified for? One, in 1990, where they were knocked out in the first round. Neither have they produced any world-class players.

He then contends that Egypt has a strong domestic league. I have no idea where he got this notion because the Egyptian league is not strong at all. How exactly has Egyptian soccer used globalizing forces to “enhance their domestic capacities”? If they have done this I would be very interested to find out how, but I just don't see any reason to argue that they have.

I have no problem with someone arguing that countries should prepare themselves to take advantage of globalization. But please do not use forced and illogical soccer analogies. It doesn’t make the argument more accessible. It only makes you look like a idiot.

Five Years in Iraq. Now what?

2008-03-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

This week marked the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It’s really hard to believe it’s been that long.

Why did we invade? There was circumstantial evidence Saddam Hussein possessed WMD (we later found out the evidence was purely circumstantial), they were financing terrorism (indeed they were, but no more than any other Arab regime and certainly less so than our ally Saudi Arabia), and we thought we could turn Iraq into a flowering democracy (I’m speechless).

So, where are we now? Well, we didn’t have a thought out post invasion plan (again I am speechless) and the country basically fell apart. Tribal identities came to the fore, Iraqi Shiites (with links to Iran- how strongly is disputed) and Iraqi Sunnis began fighting each other. The Kurds up north look half a step away from declaring sovereignty (which would begin Iraq's official disintegration and potentially spark a fight with Turkey). And most people hate us.

Violence levels are certainly down with the surge (but to 2005 levels). The thing is, the surge was designed to keep violence levels down so that the Iraqis could gain breathing space to make political progress. Scant political progress has been made and not much looks likely in the future.

Militias formerly fighting against us are now our allies, but only because we pay them, not because they have any allegiance to the central Iraqi government. Sure, they are fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, but many analysts contend they are really just consolidating as much ground as possible for a future civil war once US Forces leave.

So what do we do now? I have absolutely no idea.

Nevertheless, I do not think we should withdraw. By toppling Saddam Hussein we knocked the cover off of Pandora’s Box (I like Greek mythology). We’re now in charge of the situation, we broke it so we bought it. Withdrawing from Iraq would open another Pandora’s Box, potentially more devastating than the first one opened five years ago. There’s a very strong likelihood Iraq could turn into 1970’s/80’s Lebanon. There could be a regional war, there could even be a genocide, and God knows what else. I’m not arguing these things will happen, just that we have to entertain the possibility. Whatever does happen will be on us.

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The best book I have read about the war is George Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate. Packer, a staff writer at the New Yorker, traces the Neoconservative movement from its intellectual conception, the pre-war debate over whether it was the right thing to do, and the actual war and insurgency through 2005. He’s a very gifted storyteller and presents a nuanced picture, something hard to come by.

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I have one request for people who were against the 2003 invasion. Can you please stop saying, “we never should have invaded in the first place,” when discussing what we should do NOW? It’s hardly relevant. The fact is that we did invade.

This Land Belongs to Who?

2008-03-19T14:33:00.000-04:00

The Imperial History of the Middle East

What will this map look like in 20 years time? Will the Islamists have their caliphate? (I doubt it) How many countries will there be between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates river? Four? Five? Six? Or will the map be exactly the same?

It's anybody's guess.

here's a (long) article published in the Atlantic about the Middle East's future by Jeffrey Goldberg- one of my favorite journalists.

Quote from Lula (Prez of Brazil)

2008-03-17T14:31:00.000-04:00

"No Brasil tem uma coisa que eu queria que vocês compreendessem bem: tudo que a gente faz para pobre é gasto; tudo o que a gente faz para os setores mais ricos é investimento."

TRANSLATION: “There’s something in Brazil that I want you to understand: everything we do for the poor is ‘spending’ and everything we do for the rich is ‘investment’.”

-Lula, President of Brazil (quote taken from today’s Jornal do Brasil – see link here)

Arab Literary Prize

2008-03-13T12:04:00.000-04:00

While the Muslims were erecting streetlights in Córdoba bathing was a once in a lifetime experience for the barbarians living in present day England. Yes, it’s true. The Arabs were once renowned for their culture and sophistication.

Although this might sound politically incorrect, nowadays when one sees the word “Arab,” literature isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. Sure, they produced The Arabian Nights (which is at the top of my list of books to read), but that was well over a millennia ago. Since then roughly 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic- the amount of books Spain translates in a year.

But this wayward story might soon change course with this year’s inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The prize is managed from Abu Dhabi (in the Untited Arab Emirates) with some sort of link to the Booker Prize Foundation, a prestigious British literary award.

This year’s prize- the very first- was won by Egyptian author Baha Taher for his book Sunset Oasis. Taher was awarded $10,000 (along with the five other finalists), and Sunset Oasis, along with every other book to win the prize, will be translated into English.

This bodes well for the future. I am a big fan of literature, not because I like to over-analyze everything, but because I think literature can (potentially) shed light on the human predicament and questions we ask- both individually and as a society. By reading another society’s literature we can begin to grasp who they are.

I’m looking forward to reading Taher, along with other authors to win the prize, in order to expand my knowledge of the Middle East- something I (probably we) know next to nothing about.

RIP, The Wire

2008-03-11T14:08:00.000-04:00

The Wire, 2002-2008
Rest In Peace
Thank you for the memories Omar, Avon Barksdale, D’Angelo, Gus, Marlo, Bunk, McNulty, Rawls, and everybody I missed. But most of all, Thank you BALTIMORE for the tale of an American city.

Full opening quote from the Wire’s last episode on Sunday night: " ...as I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings."
-H.L. Mencken, 1953

When Moshe Dayan became a Hairdresser and Indiana Jones

2008-03-08T18:00:00.000-05:00

A lot's been going on in Hollywood lately. The writers' strike, the slow motion ten car pile up that is Britney Spears, I could go on. But the twos most important developments.... Below are two summer previews.
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Zohan was a decorated war hero. Zohan was a Mossad secret agent. Zohan wants to move to the States and become a hairdresser. (What type of name is Zohan? Doesn't really sound Hebrew to me)

What the Fuck? This new Adam Sandler movie’s coming to a theater near you this summer.
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Indiana Jones (no intro here, pretty self explanatory)

CUBA: Exit Fidel

2008-02-26T15:01:00.001-05:00

Cuba is back in the news. Last weekend, after 48 years in office, Fidel Castro relinquished power, passing the reigns to his younger brother Raul (who’s 76). Although this official transfer of power is important, Raul has been de facto running the island since July 2006 when Fidel “temporarily” gave up control of the island because of some mysterious yet grave ailment (nobody really knows what he is suffering from- the CIA once again missed the mark when they predicted he would be dead by December 2006).

Despite the prognostications of some experts, nobody really knows what’s going to happen in Cuba. Raul has been called a pragmatist, but was also a hard line communist. Last weekend he called for unspecified degrees of reform, yet simultaneously put old guard hardliners in key positions. Life could continue the same. Or there could be some vague Chinese style democratic opening. Or there could be a true transition to democracy. It’s anybody’s guess. All the same, I would venture to say that nothing substantive will happen until after Fidel is officially dead.

I spent a month studying in Havana while I was in college. I could never say a month is sufficient time to really know a place, but I found Cubans to be very nice and friendly. I also found the Cuban regime to be very repressive (although I’ve met other Americans who studied on the island and found that “Cubans love it!”).

Case in point: in one of my first few days in Havana some friends and I met a local “fixer” named Mike. Fixers are fairly common in the third world. They are very enterprising street-smart people who, for a price, offer to show tourists and foreigners around. Good ones can get you some really nice deals and take you to some really cool places (alternatively, bad ones can get you kidnapped).

Mike was a rapper who styled himself the Cuban Tupac Shakur (he had “Thug Life” tattooed on his stomach) and was very disenchanted with life on the island. He spoke little English but had managed to learn “Fuck Fidel” and “Fuck Socialism.” He was constantly going on about how life was so much better before the collapse of the USSR (which more or less bank rolled Cuba) and how he wanted to move to the United States. At one point we were walking down the street and he was spouting forth some critique of the regime, people around us began to glance at him worriedly (or maybe fearfully), telling him to take it easy. His response was that he didn’t give a shit anymore.

At one point he asked us how life was in the States. We told him that life wasn’t as easy back home as many people thought, especially if you don’t have an education. “But if you work hard, there’s a chance you could succeed?" he then asked. "Here there’s no chance. Fidel decides.”

Ronaldo Done?

2008-02-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

He was born to a poor family in a Rio de Janeiro favela in 1976 and discovered his true love as a young child: soccer.

In Spain they called him the Extraterrestrial, in Italy they called him the Phenomenon. The world knew him as the new Pelé. Despite his injuries he went on to be one of the best players of all time, winning three World Player of the Year awards. Two before his 21st birthday.

Now Ronaldo's career might be over. He was injured in September and finally made his latest long awaited comeback last weekend. But, only minutes after coming on as a substitute in AC Milan's win against Livorno his knee buckled again.

Here's hoping you do return to the pitch, oh bucktoothed one. But if you don't, well, thanks for all the memories. Your sublime goals have left millions around the world with their mouths agape in wonder.

Here's a highlight reel via YouTube.

Riddle me this

2008-02-11T10:30:00.000-05:00

I see said the blind man to his deaf daughter as he picked up his hammer and saw.

What's Love?

2008-02-08T14:22:00.000-05:00

Last year I recounted a heartache I had suffered to one of my Chilean friends. So she told me about a hit Chilean song from the 80’s: No se puede vivir del amor. You can’t live off of love.

Here it is courtesy of YouTube

USA 2 - Mexico 2 Analysis

2008-02-07T12:02:00.000-05:00

Last night the US national soccer team played the Mexican national soccer team to a 2-2 tie in Houston, Texas. Like most games between the two teams, it was a very intense affair with back and forth action. There are definitely some kinks to be worked out, but overall I was fairly encouraged with the US team’s performance.

The Good:

Josie Altidore. Altidore is one of the brightest prospects we’ve ever had. He’s only 18 years old but will start his third season with the MLS’s RedBulls this spring. He’s a bonafide goal scorer (something we’ve never had) and has already drawn interest from Real Madrid.

Last night he held his own against Mexico’s best defender, Rafael Márquez, and scored his first international goal on a header that any other of our current strikers would have blown. It’s still a little early to say that he’s “arrived” but he’s one to keep an eye on for the future.

Our Tactics. It now looks like we are moving away from playing with a target striker a la Brian McBride. This strategy worked well for us against teams in our region and with the limited player pool we had.

But let’s face it, we’re never going to be successful playing a European team with a target man. We cannot outmuscle Europe like we can with say, Guatemala; and if we want to really be taken seriously at the World Cup we have to come up with something else. With the player pool we have, it looks like we can now do that.

We have Clint Dempsey, DaMarcus Beasley (who’s currently injured), Donovan, and some talented young players. Let’s see how Altidore, Freddy Adu, Michael Bradley, and Benny Feilhaber progress in the coming years. We might have a real team here.

The Bad:

Landon Donovan. Yes, I said it. Apart from ten minutes in the first half, he did absolutely nothing last night. Granted, this is the off season for him and midfield distribution was very poor last night, but if he wants people to believe he’s as good as he says he is he needs to step up in games like this.

The midfield pairing of Michael Bradley and Ricardo Clark. I like both of these players, but they don’t seem to compliment each other. They're both hardnosed destroyers but don’t distribute the ball very well. This became even more evident once Bradley came off for Benny Feilhaber. Feilhaber is a more technical player than either of them and the US held onto the ball much better with him on the field. Who knows what type of player Bradley will turn out to be as he continues to progress in the Dutch league, but for now I would pair one of them with Feilhaber.

Ramiro Corrales. He was above average in MLS but is NOT a national team caliber player. He got burned by Mexican attackers all night and shouldn’t be on the field for us again.

Set Pieces. The team gives up way to many goals from free kicks and corner kicks. Definitely something for coach Bradley to work on.

Mexico played with their top players minus Nery Castillo and Andrés Guardado who were both injured. Coach Hugo Sanchez is also grooming a lot of young players like Gio Dos Santos, and Carlos Vela. Some commentators are frustrated that he hasn’t given them more time already.
Lest we forget, Sanchez is one of the greatest strikers of the last thirty years. Great players do not necessarily make great coaches. Nevertheless, to be that good a player you certainly have to know more than a thing or two about the game. I would trust Sanchez in what he’s doing. Mexico could truly have a scary team in a couple years.

It's Classified

2008-02-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

Nobody knows what happened for sure, all we are really certain of is that on September 6, 2007 Israeli Air Force planes entered Syrian airspace. They might or might not have bombed a building in Eastern Syria. The building might or might not have been a nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactor might or might not have been a joint project with North Korea.

Adding to the mystery, the Israelis were mum and Syria did not retaliate at all.

The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh investigates.

Edwards Out

2008-01-30T22:06:00.001-05:00

John Edwards dropped out of the Presidential race today. Honestly, I was a bit surprised. He constantly said that his campaign wasn't about himself; it was about the issues his campaign was raising (health care, inequality, corporate power), and pledged to stay into the race until the bitter end. I'm not saying I believed that his campaign wasn't about himself to an extent, you have to have a pretty big ego to run for President, after all; but I did think he would stay in until the end.

So, now the Democratic nomination will go to either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Their policies are basically the same so I think it will boil down to who is more likable. OBAMA, ahem. That man moves people whereas Hillary comes off as cold and calculating.
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Judging from the rhetoric of the Democratic and Republican primaries, in November 2008 we will elect either the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, or the Second Coming of John F. Kennedy.

Interesting Essay about Globalization

2008-01-26T16:03:00.000-05:00

Check out this interesting polemic about Globalization from this weekend’s issue of the New York Times Magazine. The author, Parag Khanna, is a senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation. He argues that the 21st century will be a multipolar world with the United States, China, and the European Union as the true world players.

Whether you agree or not with his analysis (and I’m not saying I necessarily do), it’s bound to make you think. But who knows what will happen in the coming years, just because they're experts doesn't necessarily mean they're on the mark. On the eve of World War I,many experts said that the fighting wouldn’t last a week.

Interesting Quotes

2008-01-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

"Those who have all the answers don't understand the questions."
-Anon

"If people knew each other better they'd hate each other more."
-Ennio Flaiano

New York Times Op-Ed Page

2008-01-03T12:19:00.001-05:00

I just read Roger Cohen’s new op-ed in the New York Times. Apparently, he spent New Years in Brazil (he had great things to say about it- like everybody who visits but has never lived there), where he resolved to act more Brazilian; which is to say, not be angry at the existence of other human beings. Among other trifles that a normal person wouldn’t spend any time thinking about, he pledged to not get annoyed when he hears people say “wait on” when they mean “wait for.”

He also vowed not to be irked by "globalized brunch" (um, what the fuck is that?), "offshore wind turbines" (???) or "Brian Williams’s bristling chest."

Of all the terrible things in this world, these are things that really get your blood boiling, Roger? Do you have some latent homosexual thing with Brian Williams's chest? You’re at the top of your profession. You write for the New York Times, one of the most prestigious papers in the world. Moreover, you're an op-ed columnist. That means you get paid big bucks to sit on your derrière and share your opinions. Success isn’t everything but why do you seem like such a miserable person?

In related news, on yesterday’s Op-Ed page I read these fateful words: Thomas L. Friedman is on book leave.

Wow.

Now, I have great respect for Tom as a reporter (yes, I’ve been reading his columns for so long I can use his nickname). His work covering Lebanon and Israel in the 80’s is jaw dropping and his first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, although dated, is a very informative primer on the Middle East.

From his past columns I can only guess he’s jumping on the Al Gore wagon and his upcoming book will be about Environmentalism/the Green Movement. If Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for making a documentary, I’m sure Tom should have a shot at the prize for writing a book, too.

If my sarcasm in the last paragraph wasn’t sufficient, I’ll go into detail about why I no longer rate Tom. Firstly, His writing style and royally-fucking-up of similes and metaphors leaves a bad after-taste. But he’s also a globalization/free market evangelical. For Tom, economic globalization is an unalloyed positive. There is no nuance or any caveats. He travels the globe, lounges at five star hotels and chats with CEOs, then writes about how great globalization is for the world.

Then there’s Iraq. He was a big proponent of the War during the months leading up to the invasion, and swayed many people who were on the fence over to the pro-War side. I’m not a far left liberal (anymore), but the war was a very bad idea and in Beirut to Jerusalem it would seem he would argue against it (especially because, even before the 2003 invasion, he admitted in his columns that he thought Saddam probably didn’t have WMD). He would reason that we shouldn’t go into Baghdad for the same reasons neither we nor Israel should have gone into Beirut.

Some how that logic went out the window. I have never seen anybody raise this issue with him (whether on TV or in print), but I suppose he would use the standard "September 11 changed everything" response. This is an evasive answer, no one ever specifies what exactly 9/11 changed. Many times the more broadly people speak, the less they're actually saying.

For a hilarious article about Tom by Matt Taibbi, click here.

Indiana Jones part IV

2007-12-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

I grew up on movies. I didn’t just watch Disney stuff either; by the time I was five I had already seen films like Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that one of my early childhood heroes is returning to the big screen this summer. No, not Ari Ben Canaan, I’m talking about Indiana Jones.

In May, 2008 the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is slated to hit theatres. The movie’s called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The plot’s been kept completely secret (I couldn’t find any real information from a google search, anyway), but it has been revealed that Indy’s son is focal point of the script. Indy had a son?! What?! And it’s not that Chinese kid from Temple of Doom?! Should be interesting.

Let’s hope Sean Connery has a big role, too. He absolutely made The Last Crusade.

Brazilians going back to Rio

2007-12-07T12:03:00.000-05:00

The New York Times ran a story a few days ago about undocumented Brazilian immigrants living in the United States heading back home in large numbers.

This is a fascinating story, check it out. (see link here)

al Mutanabi Quote

2007-12-02T12:31:00.000-05:00

"When a lion shows its teeth, do not assume he's smiling at you."
-al Mutanabi (medieval Arab Poet)

Annapolis

2007-11-28T11:02:00.002-05:00

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, but the Annapolis Conference/
Meeting/whatever-you want-to-call-it finally happened yesterday. Both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) pledged to negotiate an agreement to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict by the end of 2008. They even shook hands.

I’m skeptical. First of all, weak leaders cannot make concessions and stay in power, only strong leaders have the political capital to do so. Neither Olmert nor Abbas are strong leaders. Abbas has lost control of Gaza to Hamas, and only has tenuous control of the West Bank. (As a side note, Abbas is universally hailed as a moderate but is also a Holocaust denier. Until recently I thought that “Moderate” and “Holocaust denier” were mutually exclusive, I guess not.)

Meanwhile, Olmert’s popularity sank after the 2006 War in Lebanon (which most see as botched), he’s under investigation in a number of corruption probes, and is so unpopular he can only envy Bush’s 28% approval rating. Neither leader can afford to make unpopular decisions and hold on to power, but most importantly, the decisions would not be seen as legitimate.

Let’s take a look at some of the issues from the Israeli side.

Israeli Settlements in the West Bank. The settlements and outposts (illegal settlements) give Israel a terrible image abroad and inflame Palestinians. Nevertheless, the settlers have huge lobbying power in the Israeli government (akin to the NRA’s power). Olmert should at the very least suspend the building of all new settlements. But if he were to do just that his parliamentary coalition would fall apart.

Then there's the Palestinian Right of Return. This is a HUGE stumbling block, much more so than most people think. About 800,000 Palestinians were displaced after the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. There are presently over 3 million descendants of these refugees (mostly living in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon) and they are a cause-celebré among the European Left. What is often times forgotten is that these people were displaced during a war their leaders in fact initiated. But forgetting that for the moment, the problem is that the Palestinians are demanding the descendants of these 800,000 refugees have the “Right of Return” into Israel.

This is unfeasible for Israel and furthermore is contradictory to the Two State Solution. The Two State solution provides for a Jewish-Israeli state, and a Palestinian-Arab state. Each side would give up whatever claim it believes it may have to the other’s land. So, each side would have Right of Return to their own land; no Palestinian would have Right of Return to Israel because they’ve given up claim to it.

Next up is “the Wall/Security Barrier,” what Jimmy Carter and others see as a symbol of “Apartheid.” I disagree. The security barrier was actually an idea of the Israeli Left and the Israelis began constructing it in 2002 as a response to the second Intifada. Now, one could certainly argue that it should be constructed along the Green Line and not cut deep into Palestinian territory, but without a doubt the barrier saves lives. It prevents Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating Israel and blowing themselves up in buses and pizzerias, which in turn prevents the Israeli military from invading the West Bank to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure - as happened in 2002 with a lot of collateral damage.

Anyway, you can agree or disagree but you know where I stand. I’ll add more about the whole thing later, if you’re really interested in the conflict I encourage you to read articles from Bitter Lemons. This website presents the thoughts and analyses of journalists, intellectuals, policy figures, and others from both sides of the conflict. It’s a forum for discussion and ideas, rather than negotiation.

Spanish Cartoonists Fined 3,000 Euros for Making Fun of the Royal Family

2007-11-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

Those European political cartoonists, first they desecrate Mohammed, now it’s the Spanish royal family. Last July Spain passed the “cheque- bebé” law, which awards 2,500 Euros ($3,450) to couples for having a baby. Shortly afterward satirical magazine El Jueves ran a cartoon on its cover (shown right) depicting Prince Felipe, and his wife, Princess Letizia, having sex; and the Prince saying, “this is the closest thing to a job I’ve ever had!”

However, the government didn’t find the cartoon very funny. The two cartoonists responsible for the picture, Guillermo Torres and Manel Fontdevilla, were charged with defamation and bringing injury upon the royal family.

Today in Madrid a judge found the two guilty and fined them each 3,000 Euros. That’s not a small sum of money for these guys who probably aren’t millionaires, I hope they win on appeal. Click here for more information (in Spanish).

But what about this cheque-bebé law anyway? The Spanish government is basically paying people to have sex. As it turns out, this is now a common practice among many European nations. The EU is rapidly aging and this could become even more of a problem down the road for them.

This is an actual photo of the Prince and Princess. A gust of wind caused a "wardrobe malfunction" at some official event in 2006.

Marcelo Birmajer: the Argentine Woody Allen

2007-11-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

“Argentina is full of Jews,” so said a lot of people I met in my South American travels a year ago. Actually, there are about 200,000 Jews in Argentina, a country of about 38 million people. A community? Yes. A country full of Jews? No. However, there are more Jews in Argentina than in any other Latin American country, and Argentine Jews take a big role in the country’s media and politics.

Take for example Marcelo Birmajer, who wrote El Abrazo Partido, a critically acclaimed movie which came out in 2004. Birmajer is Jewish and has been dubbed Argentina’s answer to Woody Allen. El Abrazo Partido is an interesting movie set in El Once, Buenos Aires’ Jewish neighborhood, and is about a 20-something Jew trying to get a Polish passport so he can immigrate back to Europe. Here’s an interesting feature from Haaretz (a prominent Israeli newspaper) about Birmajer, his writing career, and the contradictions of being Jewish in Argentina.

Cristina Kirchner President of Argentina

2007-11-08T22:10:00.000-05:00

Argentina’s Presidential mansion is called the Pink House, and now that name has new meaning. For the first time in its history, Argentina has elected a female President. Two weeks ago Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the Argentine elections, gaining about 45 percent of the vote (compared with 23 percent for the closest runner up).

She is commonly called “Cristina” and many compare her to Hillary Clinton- and on more than one level. Her husband, Nestor Kirchner, is the out-going President. Nestor was elected in 2003 and still enjoys strong approval ratings, yet he chose to step aside to let his wife run. Kind of weird, right?

Or perhaps Machiavellian. Argentine law does not set a term limit, but it does stipulate that a President can serve no more than two consecutive terms. Supposedly, The Kirchners plan to heed off the inevitable lame duck years of the second term by handing the Presidency back and forth.

Presently there is no real Argentine opposition (they’re worse than the Democrats in 2004) and, providing the Kirchners can handle this juggling act and their popularity remains high, their power will never diminish.

However, take the Kirchner strategy with a gigantic caveat which more than one Argentine has remarked to me. Predicting what will happen in Argentina in five years is like predicting what will happen in the U.S. in 100 years.

Here’s a decent post election analysis from the Guardian.

Brazil to host 2014 World Cup

2007-11-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

Last week FIFA announced that Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup. This shouldn’t come as any surprise as Brazil were the only country to formally place a bid. I think this is great news for soccer. The World Cup tournament hasn’t been to South America, where the game is lived most passionately, since Argentina lasted hosted in 1978- that’s a pretty long time.

Furthermore, Brazil truly has a special relationship with the Beautiful Game. They are the only country to have won five World Cups and consistently produce wonderful players a la Ronaldinho, Robinho and Kaká.

It should be a truly special World Cup (the last two have been disappointing) and I hope to be reporting on it from Brazil.

Yalla ya Nasrallah

2007-11-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

In July, 2006 Israel went to war with Hezbollah, a Shiite terrorist organization led by Hasan Nasrallah. Soon after the war began a certain song became ubiquitous on both Israeli and Lebanese airwaves: Yalla ya Nasrallah (loosely translated to Bring it on Nasrallah).

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

In Israel the song became a rallying cry and at the same time lightened people’s tense minds. In Lebanon the Israeli Defense Forces periodically hacked into television stations to broadcast the song.

As an addendum, here’s a pretty good post war analysis. It’s from a German newspaper, but was written by an Israeli Journalist.

Garry Kasparov's International Relations Analysis

2007-10-23T12:33:00.000-04:00

A few nights ago former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov was interviewed on the Bill Maher show. Apparently he’s running for President of Russia, he has little chance of winning (he is very vocal about not liking Putin), but he offered an interesting take on International Relations.

Putin and Iran have been cozying up to each other and many blame this on the Bush Administration’s foreign policies. They argue that all Bush really does is unite people against us (Chavez also is warming up to Iran, and there has been a huge surge in anti-Americanism worldwide). However, Kasparov stated that Putin is in fact making a very calculated move. The Russian economy heavily relies on oil production. If oil prices fall so does the Russian economy, which would give Putin a lot of internal problems.

To ensure that oil prices are high he supports Iran. Iran is de-stabilizing the Middle East. It is attempting to get nukes, it is financing (at least in part) the Iraqi Shiite insurgents, and talks of invading Israel; indeed Iran might be the U.S.’s next target. This leads to marketplace uncertainty, nobody can very accurately predict how much oil will be on the market in the future, which leads to high prices.

This also sheds light on Chavez, who's pseudo-socialist economy also needs high oil prices. But why does it always seems that the U.S. foreign policy establishment is playing checkers while other countries are playing Chess?

Quote from Don Quixote

2007-10-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

"It is better to lose with too many cards than too few, because 'this knight is reckless and daring' sounds better to the ear of those who listen than 'this knight is timid and weak.'"
-Don Quixote, Chapter XVIII

Hebrew: the Aleph

2007-10-11T13:07:00.001-04:00

The symbol to the left is the Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and it’s the most appropriate way I could think of to begin this entry. It’s been gnawing at me for a while now that I don’t speak Hebrew. I’m Jewish (although I don’t know whether I’m a believer) and I’m a Zionist, so I should speak the Jewish language. With that in mind I signed up for a beginner Hebrew class at the 92nd Street Y and last night I began my Hebrew Odyssey.

After the typical introductions the instructor, a young Israeli woman who speaks perfect English, started speaking in Hebrew. I now know first hand the frustration and turmoil my English students experienced last year in Chile. The only words I was able to make out were “Shalom” and “Ivrit” (Hebrew).

Learning this language promises to be much more challenging than Spanish. English and Spanish share a vast amount of words due to the huge influence Latin and French played on the English language’s development. Hebrew, on the other hand, has very little in common with English (or Spanish for that matter).

By the end of the session we had already learned a lot. Well, we learned a tiny bit, but it really felt like a lot. I’m looking forward to the homework.

There's Nothing New Under the Sun

2007-10-11T13:03:00.000-04:00

This is a link to an article about a modernist style painting done in present day Syria around... 9,000 BCE.

40th Anniversary of the Killing of Che Guevara

2007-10-09T10:15:00.002-04:00

His back was to the wall and his head was held high as he spoke his last words, “be easy and aim well. It’s a man you’re going to kill.” Then, on October 9, 1967, Che Guevara was executed in a rural Bolivian school house. The bullets pierced his arm, his shoulder and his heart. Today marks the 40th anniversary of Che the human’s death and the birth of Che the symbol. Although it’s barely mentioned in the American media, it’s a pretty big story in the Spanish language press.

Most of us know Che Guevara superficially through his romantically heroic image emblazoned on t-shirts and Motorcycle Diaries, a 2005 movie starring Gael García Bernal about Che's youthful adventures. Indeed, in 2004 a very conservative friend of mine told me he admired Che because he fought for “freedom.” Sure, his image sells a lot of T-shirts, but who was Che Guevara? He was a leader of the Cuban revolution; but he was not Cuban and Che wasn’t even his real name.

He was born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna to an upper middleclass family in Rosario, Argentina (a city about 3.5 hours from Buenos Aires) in 1928.

He was a sickly kid and after graduating from high school studied to be a medical doctor. Upon graduation from medical school he began traveling. He practiced medicine pro-bono throughout Latin America until the early 1950’s when he met Fidel Castro and Co. in Mexico. He and his then-wife joined the Cuban independence movement. On December 2, 1956, the Cuban revolutionary forces set sail from the Yucatan peninsula on a rickety boat to fight against Cuba’s (then American backed) dictator Fulgencio Batista and conquer Cuba. They engaged the Cuban army in guerilla warfare on the Eastern side of the island. To be sure, they were not the only band of revolutionary fighters, they were one of many. But they were the most visible fighters and Fidel in particular was a hugely charismatic figure.

Ernesto transformed into Che while fighting in the Cuban jungle. Che is a popular term in Argentina, it means “hey/yo” and sometimes “dude,” and it’s a term Cubans do not ordinarily use. Guevara naturally used this term a lot and, to poke fun at him, his Cuban comrades began to call him “Che.” It quickly became his nome-de-guerre.

The Revolutionary forces toppled the Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959 and Ernesto the sickly child was long gone. Out of the jungle emerged Fidel, his right hand man Che, and their band of fighters.

Fidel was able to maneuver himself to the lead among the various revolutionary factions and quickly consolidated control. Che took responsibility for executions, and was responsible for killing hundreds of people at the Cabaña prison. He killed Batista loyalists (and their families), ‘capitalists’ and dissidents who spoke out against the new Fidel-led regime. Many took to calling him “the butcher of Cabaña prison.”

He was a staunch, dogmatic communist and admired Joseph Stalin. He approved the killing of innocents, even children, if it strengthened his communist cause. He also dreamed of having “one, two, three Vietnams,” to kill as many Americans as possible and have a global communist revolution.

In 1967 Che left his wife and five kids in Cuba and traveled to Bolivia, where he hoped to spark a Communist insurgency. However, he never fermented local Bolivian support. On October 8, 1967 Bolivian forces, with the help of the CIA, captured Che. Forty years ago today he spoke his last words. Then Che was executed in a small school house in La Higuera, Bolivia. Perhaps Capitalism’s ultimate revenge is that his image is now used to make profits. But think before you wear that T-shirt.

(Does Che remind you of anyone in particular? How about Ayman al-Zawahiri? Al Qaeda’s number two and a qualified medical doctor.)

Christopher Columbus: A Portuguese Jewish Spy?

2007-10-08T14:31:00.000-04:00

Today is Columbus Day. It’s a national holiday, but I’m stuck at work (at least I’m not broke like I was last year). Depending on who you are, you are either: 1 celebrating his discovery of the New World, 2 protesting the post-discovery era, or 3, you don’t really give a shit.

Anyway, when I was 13 I read a magazine article that alleged Christopher Columbus was… Jewish. Ever since that fateful day in my adolescence I’ve been fascinated by Columbus’ life story. He is one of history’s most famous figures, yet we actually know very little about the man and his background. Indeed, how did a slightly above average Genovese sailor gain access to the Spanish court?

People have contended that he was really a Portuguese spy, a former Catalan rebel, even a Marrano Jew. All of these theories are very interesting, if not all HIGHLY circumstantial. Here’s an article from today’s New York Times about attempts to trace his DNA.

Francis Ford Coppola Robbed in Buenos Aires

2007-10-08T12:28:00.001-04:00

Francis Ford Coppola (the director of the Godfather) has been working on a new movie, entitled Tetro. The film is set in Buenos Aires and is about the rivalries in an Italian immigrant family of artists. He and his production company have been in Argentina for the past six months preparing to begin filming in February, 2008; But that date might now have to be postponed.

Two weeks ago a band of thieves broke into his Buenos Aires apartment, which doubled as his work station. They made off with a number of valuables, one of which was his personal computer, containing Tetro’s screenplay. The famous director is now offering a reward to get his material back.

This is terrible news for any movie buff or fan of Argentina (I consider myself a member of both categories), and I’m sure Coppola is distraught over all this as well.

If by any chance one of you thieves is reading this: Que le devuelvan sus cosas! Pelotudos!!

BRAZIL 3 - ARGENTINA 0

2007-07-15T22:52:00.003-04:00

Today Brazil won the Copa America final 3-0 against Argentina; Brazil won and the sport of soccer lost. No, that’s not an outlandish statement. Brazil is known the world over not just for winning, but winning in unmistakable style. However, today they tossed their “beautiful game” aside for the “efficient game.” They did what they had to do to win- nothing more, nothing less.

The Argentines came out soft and let up an early goal to Brazil’s Julio Baptista. They then just couldn’t get going. Riquelme and Verón were unable to distribute effectively, so Argentina failed to adequately use the wings.

Brazil then nailed Argentina into the coffin with two more goals, both coming form counterattacks. Brazil were deserving winners of the game, but not the tournament.

To be sure, the way the Brazilians came together to battle adversity throughout the tournament was impressive. But they didn’t deserve to win the cup. Overall the Brazilians played very lackluster. Argentina played a bad match today but should be considered moral winners of this addition’s Copa América. Furthermore, Argentine coach Basile has found a good base of players to build upon for the 2010 World Cup, while Brazilian coach Dunga has made little long-term headway.

Copa America Update

2007-07-09T22:04:00.002-04:00

The group stage and quarterfinals are over and only four teams remain in the Copa America: Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Brazil should win handily against the Uruguayans tomorrow night, but the Wednesday night match up between Argentina and Mexico should be a memorable encounter. Argentina has steamrolled all oponents in their path, scoring a remarkable 13 goals in just four games. However, Mexico, under the tutelage of Hugo Sanchez, has made magnificent strides this month. Mexico (with the exception of Brazil) appears to be the only team capable of taking on the Argentines. Mexico's fate rests on the shoulders of Nery Castillo, Mexico's new young talent (the man is one hell of a dribbler).

I think Argentina will win the encounter. There's just so much to be said about the Argentine team. Alfio 'the Coconut' Basile has assembled a breathtaking, attacking lineup; man for man they are undoubtedly the best team in the world. They don't just win and score goals, they do so with a style that makes even Brazilians salivate. The past four games they have consistently strung upwards of 15 passes together. The game is played on the field, one only needs to look at the 2002 World Cup to recognize that, so I'm certainly not attempting to predict anything definitively, but I hope Argentina wins, they deserve it.

Copa America 2007 Preview

2007-06-26T22:07:00.001-04:00

Ever since I can remember I’ve been infatuated with soccer. I still recall the summer the United States hosted the World Cup. It was 1994 and I was eleven years old. Every morning I woke up early to dig through the newspaper to find the Sports Section. Soccer in the US was even less popular than it is today, but the World Cup coverage in New Jersey was intense. I read every article at least twice, trying to absorb every bit of information I could. I still remember being heart broken when Maradona was found to be taking performance enhancers, the antics of Mexican goalie Jorge Campos, and all of Roberto Baggio’s clutch goals for Italy.

Most people abroad don’t believe an American could ever truly follow the sport. Yet it’s true, I did and I still do (I will post my thoughts on the USA-Mexico Gold Cup final in a few days). This summer my love affair with the beautiful game continues with the Copa América, kicking off tonight. The Copa América is the South American nations’ soccer championship- think of it as a regional World Cup- and Venezuela is hosting the three week tournament for the first time. Brazil and Argentina- the two countries to historically dominate South American soccer- are this year’s favorites. Argentina probably has a slight advantage.

Currently Argentina has, in my estimation, the best side in the world. For the first time since my unforgettable summer as an eleven year old, Alfio ‘el Coco’ Basile is back coaching the national side, known as the albicelestes,. The Argentine senior side hasn’t won a competition in fourteen years (the 1993 Copa América during el Coco’s first stint in charge), and will be out for blood. The albicelestes have brought in a full strength side featuring a good mix of veterans and youth. Look for them to play attractive attacking soccer. Success will hinge on how well playmakers Juan Roman Riquelme and Sebastián Verón combine in the middle of the park. Also, Lionel Messi is ready to lead; he’s 20 and is the newest ‘new Maradona.’ If the team clicks they could steam roll the opposition.

Probable Lineup: (4-4-2)

- Abbondanzieri -

- Zanetti --- Ayala --- G Milito --- Heinze -

- Mascherano -

- Cambiasso ------------------ Verón -

- Riquelme -

-Messi - - Crespo -

Juan Pablo Aimar and Carlitos Tevez will make key contributions off the bench.

Brazil, while still a favorite, is not coming with its full strength squad. No Ronaldinho, no Kaká, no Ronaldo, no Adriano. All the same, Brazil is Brazil. The seleção has heaps of talent and will rely on young players eager to make an impression on new coach Dunga (Brazil’s number five from the 1994 World Cup winning team).

The two standout players of the group, Robinho and Diego, know each other well from their years together in the youth ranks and senior side of Santos (Pelé’s former club). Their success will depend on how quickly they come together as a team and the productivity of Robinho, who’s coming off a mediocre season with Real Madrid. Striker Vagner Love could be the tournament’s break out star.

Probable Lineup: (4-4-2)

Hélton

-Maicon --- Alex --- Juan --- Gilberto

- Mineiro --- G. Silva -

- Elano -------------- Diego -

- Vagner Love - -- Robinho -

Lost in Spanish

2007-01-18T15:35:00.004-05:00

I’m leaving Chile this weekend, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. But I do know what I’m going to miss the most. A year ago I spoke very formal Spanish. I addressed people using “usted” (to show respect) and didn’t know how to use too many curse words. My boss quickly put an end to that.

“You’re Spanish is decent, and you’re improving a lot, but you still sound really stiff,” Claudia, my boss, told me one day. I had been in Chile about a month and a half and was slowly getting used to my new life in a foreign land. “Many times, instead of naming the object we’re referring to, we just call it a “hueá,” she told me. Claudia was the coolest boss I had ever had. She was in her early thirties and always had a story ready, and by the way she carried herself you could tell she had seen her fair share in life. She was fast becoming my mentor on all things Chilean and my first lesson was how to speak “normally.”

“Write this down and study it,” she said. “Huevón and machucao both mean friend,” ‘Use the bathroom’ is ‘echar la pulenta’.” Then, as she got up from her desk to throw away her coffee cup, she stubbed her toe. “¡Concha-su-madre!” she exclaimed.

That night, eating another bland dinner with my then-Chilean family, I decided to try out what I had recently learned. I asked my 35 year old host brother- who was a dick- to pass the salt. “hey machucao, could you pass me that hueá?” Everybody dropped their forks and stared at me, speechless. Ackward. “Who taught you that?” one of them finally asked after regaining composure. “My boss,” I said, still with no idea what was wrong. “Well, those words aren’t appropriate for the dinner table,” they told me. What I had just said roughly translated to, “hey motherfucker, pass me that shit.”

Fast forward six months and a string of bad words later. Claudia and I had already become friends and were catching up after mid year break. She asked me how I had been fairing with the Chilean ladies. "You know, some hits, some misses. . . nothing special." She started grilling me. “You mean you still don’t have a girlfriend here? I’ll tell you why you don’t, you know what I’ve noticed about you lately? You curse too much in Spanish. If you want to find a girlfriend you can’t use words like that!”

“Yeah? Well I wonder where I learned those words Claudia!”

“Hey, I taught you them, but I didn’t teach you to use them so much. So don’t blame me, huevón!”

. . . Fast forward to September and I'm walking down a twisting street close to my house. It's a beautiful spring day and the birds are chirping. I'm looking for a place to sit down, have a coffee, and plan my lessons for the week. As I stroll by one café the store front sign catches my eye:

--café con leche and muffin, 800 pesos--

That’s interesting, I think to myself. American breakfast food is hard to come by here, so I hadn´t had a muffin in months. I pass through the propped open door, take a seat, and the waitress approaches. “Un café con leche y muffin, por favor.” English words are often mispronounced here so I intentionally hispanized muffin, “moo-feen,” I said.

“Excuse me? What’s a moo-feen?” the waitress asks.

“You know, from the offer in the window.”

“Ooh, okay, but that’s pronounced ‘muffin.’ It’s an American breakfast food.” Chile 1, Me: 0.

Hardly anyone speaks English here and I’m almost positive the waitress knows less than 30 English words, but you never can tell which words they’re gonna get right and which ones they’re gonna butcher. Go to a liquor store and ask for Johnny Walker and the attendant will blankly stare at you. Instead you have to ask for a Joanie Wall-care. Hip hop, fairly popular in Chile, is pronounced ‘hip hope.’

But at the same time I’m certain I massacre Spanish words. To make matters worse, most Chileans aren’t actively trying to learn English whereas one of my reasons for coming here was to become fluent in Spanish. After close to a year here I’ve come a long way (on my resume I now say I’m ‘conversationally fluent’), yet I’m not quite where I want to be.

My Spanish skills go through ups and downs. Presently my Spanish is on the upswing, in September expressing myself was a gargantuan task, the last two weeks in October my Spanish was flying. I’m always trying to practice, learn new words, and improve.

Everyday I make the hour and a half journey from my place in downtown Santiago to San Carlos de Apoquindo, one of Santiago’s rich suburban neighborhoods in the foothills of the Andes. If it weren’t for the Andes- On a clear winter day the snow covered mountain tops glisten just a few hundred yards away- or the barbed wired fences- Chileans are extremely paranoid about crime- it would look like upper class American suburbia.

But an hour and a half is a hell of a commute. On the bus I listen to loads of music. I’ve now extended my Spanish language musical interests way beyond the typical Caribbean fare available back home. I especially like ‘los Fabulosos Cadillacs,’ a now defunct legendary Argentine rock group from the ‘90’s. I also read. Cafés supply newspapers here free of charge, so every morning I read El Mercurio, Chile’s largest- and slightly right wing- newspaper, over a cup of coffee. I’ve also read a lot of books in Spanish over the last few months. Gabriel García Márquez, Miguel de Unamuno, Eduardo Galeano, and Julio Cortázar are some of my favorite authors.

But the best way to improve is by, obviously, speaking. But speaking is easier said than done (there’s a pun in there, but I’m too tired to sort it out). Most of my friends here are fellow English teachers. We came down here at the same time not really knowing anyone, and began working together; so it was only natural that we would become friends. Chileans, in contrast to other Latin Americans, although very nice, are at first a little closed and standoffish. Moreover think about it, back home, when we meet foreigners our reaction isn´t, “hey! Great to meet you, let me be your friend!” It’s hard to form new friendships anywhere, much less in a foreign culture and in a language you still haven’t quite mastered.

In fact, the most I’ve connected with anyone here was a girl I randomly met in Argentina. This is the back story: Some friends and I were at a Santiago bar last June watching Argentina devastate Serbia 6-0 in a first round World Cup game. Convinced that Argentina would win the cup we bought bus tickets to Mendoza, an Argentine city just the other side of the Andes, for the weekend of the final. As luck would have it, Argentina was knocked out in the quarterfinals, but we didn’t care. We were going and that was that. The bus ride is normally seven hours, but in the dark Andean winter it took close to twelve. It was snowing heavily over the mountain pass and the international crossing, Chile’s most trafficked road with its largest neighbor, was temporarily closed. But we finally made it and were ready to party a lo argentino.

We had a great time, we went clubbing, had too much to drink, watched Italy win the World Cup and Zidane headbutt his defender (in the chest, damn), and met loads of people. Then Monday morning rolled around and we had to return to Santiago, it was the last week of the semester and we had lots of tests to grade and forms to process.

But there was one problem. An avalanche had fallen over the mountain pass. There was no way we could get back. “This happens every year,” the guy working the hostel front desk told me. He was sympathetic to our plight but couldn’t help but smile.

“Really? Well when do you think the pass’ll re-open? Tonight? Tomorrow morning?” I asked hopefully.

He laughed in my face. “Start dreaming on Friday.”

“¡Concha-su-madre!” I said. “We´re fucked.”

But it wasn’t so bad. I spoke to Claudia and she told me not to worry, I wouldn’t be fired. We made it back to Santiago Thursday afternoon, but in the meanby we were stuck at the hostel.

The last day there my friends and I met some Argentine girls around our age who were also staying in the hostel. Now I’m not generalizing to all Chilean females, but the vast majority of girls I have met here have been boring and/or dumb. Admittedly I am no Einstein or Picasso either, but when girls start telling you about their favorite colors. . . or that Chile is unique in the fact that different regions of the country have different accents. . . I mean come on.

But these girls on the other hand were really bright and interesting. They were in college studying International Relations, were much friendlier than their Chilean counterparts, and. . . actually had opinions.

But of the three the one who I connected with most was Cecilia. She was smart, easy to talk to, and "re-buena onda" - super cool. We talked about tons of stuff. But as the night wore on my Spanish started to slip. I had been up since dawn trying to figure out how to get back to Santiago, and now I had a few glasses of cheap wine in me. I was disappointed that I couldn’t say some of the things I wanted to, but this was the most I had bonded with anyone since I had come down here. If she had lived in Santiago I would’ve asked here for her number, but she didn’t so I asked for her e-mail address instead. She smiled and gave it to me. But, pointing her finger, she said, “improve your Spanish!”

Latin American News

2007-01-06T16:28:00.000-05:00

Two interesting articles on the two most controversial topics in Latin America: Hugo Chávez and Cuba.

The New Yorker covers the paradox that is Hugo Chávez.

Foreign Affairs Magazine takes a look at post-Fidel Cuba and analizes recent U.S./Cuba Relations.

Mi Buenos Aires Querido... Random Thoughts and Observations

2007-01-06T09:11:00.002-05:00

I just left Buenos Aires and I miss it already. Santiago's cool, but Buenos Aires is on a whole other level, it's got "onda" that intangible feeling that things are really happening. I would even venture to say that it's the only city I've been to that's comparable to New York. The city seems to go on forever and there's always something going on.

People from Buenos Aires look derisively at Chile, similar to how New Yorkers esteem say, Ohio. Upon telling Buenos Aires natives- called porteños- where I had been living the past year, they couldn't help but smirk and say, "Chile, heh."

The food in Buenos Aires was good... if you like meat and pasta because there's not much else. Fortunately I like meat and consider myself a spaghetti connoisseur, so no problems there.

More than a few people told me I had a "terrible mixture of a gringo and Chilean accent." Yeah well fuck you too, buddy. No but seriously, I was more amused than offended, but I was also envious because I loved the Argentine accent. I'm glad I learned Chilean Spanish. It's very difficult, Chileans speak very fast and chop off the beginnings and endings of tons of words, so next to Chilean Spanish other accents are a piece of cake. Argentines, on the other hand, speak relatively clearly, yet their accent is unmistakable. They speak with an almost Italian rhythm, and pronounce "LL's" and "Y's" as "SH" ("Sho me Shamo" instead of "Yo me LLamo"). I'm pretty good at the Chilean accent, but anytime I attempted the porteño accent people thought I was from Spain (¡coño!).

Everyday, around four or five o-clock, everyone would drop what they were doing and meet a friend or two for café con leche and a few sweet mini croissants called medialunas- literally "half moons."

Buenos Aires FEELS like a city. It has a cosmopolitan vibe and a lot of charm.

Many porteños know a fair amount of English. This got a little frustrating when, hearing even the hint of an American accent, they began speaking to you in English. That almost never happens in Chile.

Poverty was much more in your face than in the U.S. or even Chile. Every evening, no matter where I was I saw cartoneros (the homeless, many of them complete families), picking through the trash for scraps of food. According to porteños I met, the cartoneros are much more ubiquitous in the city now than before the late 2001 economic crash.

Rosario: While in Argentina I took a three day trip to Rosario, Argentina's second or third largest city depending on who you talk to. It's about four hours north of Buenos Aires and has a very different feel. It's much more laid back and Rosarinos (people from Rosario) were easier to meet than their Buenos Aires counterparts. It's also Che Guevara's birth place.

Argentines celebrate Christmas very differently than Americans do. They start the evening among family, but around 2AM everybody goes out and hits the clubs. It's one of the biggest party nights of the year.

I checked out all the tourist sites. I went to la Recoleta cemetery- where my grandfather used to sell flowers. I went to the Obelisco (whoever designed that had a Napoleon complex for sure). I went to la Boca, a historic neighborhood that sits next to the waterfront, if you walk two block away from el Caminito- the touristy street- you're in the ghetto. I bought some books on Avenida Corrientes and clothes in plaza Serrano. Even yet, I don't feel I know the city well at all. It's definitely a place I'd like to live in someday, and I hope that day is gonna come sooner rather than later.

The Death of a Latin American Dictator

2006-12-17T13:17:00.000-05:00

Augusto Pinochet died an old man of 91 last Sunday, December 10. He was being treated in a hospital after suffering a heart attack the week before. He had been improving until Sunday afternoon when he passed away after experiencing a massive stroke. He died at 2:15 in the afternoon. Five seconds later every TV channel and radio station in Chile began broadcasting the breaking news. The information broke everyone’s day.

People began to mourn outside the hospital where he was being treated. A huge crowd of well-wishers, mostly elderly women, had been holding vigil outside the hospital. Upon hearing of Pinochet’s death many broke down crying and sobbing, all with an undertone of bitterness over what “they” had done to him.

Meanwhile, in downtown Santiago… Crowds began to form independently in the Plaza Italia and in front of la Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace, popping champagne, throwing ticker tape, and chanting victoriously. In front of la Moneda the scene later turned violent. Rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the ready-for-anything-decked-out-in-riot-gear police. The violence finally ended only after the police sprayed tear gas, brought out water canons, and made arrests. There was also similar violence and protests in the “poblaciones” Santiago’s poor outlying South side neighborhoods.

Monday morning things had returned to normal. The buses were running and people went to work. There were no big protests. Life went on. But what happened in Chile the day before was now front-page news the world over. “Pinochet Dead.” My favorite headline was Argentine left wing daily Página 12’s “What Has Hell Done to Deserve This?"

So who was Pinochet? He was… In order to talk about Pinochet one first has to talk about Salvador Allende. Allende was the Chilean socialist party presidential candidate in 1972. He won the election. Chile, at the time, was an extremely poor country and Allende’s economic policies did not help things. The CIA was also no help, paying workers to go on strike and fomenting unrest. The country as in turmoil then came September 11, 1973. Allende’s chief of staff, Augusto Pinochet, who conversely had a reputation for loyalty, led a coup to oust his commander in chief. He surrounded la Moneda with tanks and demanded Allende relinquish power and flee the country. Allende instead committed suicide in his la Moneda, which was then made rubble by the Chilean air force.

Pinochet then dismissed congress and took full control of the government, first along with a few other generals, then consolidating power for himself. He killed and or tortured many former Allende supporters, left wing activists, union leaders, and assassinated dissidents abroad. He created a secret police, the DINA to clamp down on dissent.

He also firmly aligned himself with the US government and Margaret Thatcher. He embraced neo-liberal economic policies. He called in young Chilean economists, known as the Chicago Boys because they were mentored by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. After some initial pitfalls the Chilean economy boomed, growing at least 4.5% every year after 1984. The Chilean standard of living increased and the foundation was set for today’s Chilean economy- the strongest in the region.

However, by 1988 Chile was being ostracized and isolated internationally for not embracing democracy Pinochet finally succumbed to pressure and called a national plebiscite to determine whether he would remain in power or if elections would be held. He never thought he’d lose the plebiscite… He lost. As a post script, he was later found to have upwards of $25 million in foreign bank accounts.

That’s a basic outline of events, it’s a very interesting story, so if you want to learn more, read a book.

It’s now 2006 and even though Pinochet doesn’t loom like he once did over Chile, he’s still in the back of man minds. He’s a very controversial figure and you never really know what a Chilean is going to say about him. People can’t even agree on what to call him. The left- as does the international community- calls him a dictator, while the right refers to his regime understatedly as “just a military government.” The country is split on his legacy.

One Position:
Coups are not in a general’s job description. Chile had a democratically elected government and a long democratic tradition, all of which were made rubble when la Moneda was bombed to the ground and Pinochet ascended to power n 1973.

After basically assassinating the President, he had death squads roam the country hunting for communists and socialists and anyone deemed “undesirable.” He turned the national soccer stadium into a quasi-concentration camp where many people were tortured and/or killed. There was no freedom of the press or of expression. After he left power he was found to have upwards of 25 million dollars in foreign bank accounts. Ahem, corruption?

Opposing Position:
Pre 1973 Chile was in a very dire situation. The economy was in shambles and many people didn’t have enough to eat. Pinochet came in and, after years of tumult, steadied the ship. No more protests, no more disorder, and the economy drastically improved.

As for the killings and disappearances: for a long time Pinochet followers claimed that the reported torture and killings were propaganda and never actually happened. The disappeared simply packed up and went elsewhere. After it became all too evident that horrible things really did go down, they began to contend that anybody killed was a “terrorist” and that he (Pinochet) should have killed more people- that’s a direct quote from the lady I used to live with. Simultaneously many argued Pinochet wasn’t aware of everything going on.

His millions stashed away? It wasn’t him. It was his wife and kids who were corrupt and pilfered all the money (some seriously argue this).

What do I think?
Allende’s government was no walk in the park. Nevertheless it was a democratically elected government. I’m an opponent of all dictatorships, be they left or right. There’s simply no excuse for a coup and an ensuing repressive 18 year dictatorship. As for Pinochet no knowing about the torture, killing, and corruption; he famously quipped while in power, “not even a leaf moves in Chile without me knowing.” He was a Latin American caudillo dictator who happened to institute sound economic polices.

Endearing Things to say to a Chilean

2006-12-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

Endearing things to say to a Chilean:

1. I heard that the pisco in Peru is better.
2. You guys suck at soccer.
3. I love George Bush, in fact, I worked on his last campaign.
4. Chilean wine is over-rated.
5. A Completo is just a hotdog.
6. Argentine girls are better looking.
7. Argentine wine tastes better.
8. Anything good about Argentina.
9. What's up with your funny accent?
10. ¡Huevón! (pronounced way-OWN)
11. ¡Re-ándate a la concha tu ma're, ahuevonao machucao!

10 months in Chile: Reflections

2006-12-05T20:34:00.000-05:00

Last February I came to Chile to teach two semesters of English at DuocUC, a DeVry-esc post-secondary institute in Santiago. December has now descended upon us and the second of the two semesters is coming to an end. There only remain final oral presentations to hear, papers to grade, and students to fail (just kidding upon failing students… well, not really).

Last semester I had a relatively good bunch of students. They were generally interested in learning English so long as they didn’t have to work too hard, and we had some fun in class. In contrast, at the opening of the second semester my new students didn’t really care for English at all. They saw my class solely as a requirement -or obstacle- they had to take on to get their degree. I tried not to become jaded but I felt whatever magic there was from the first semester had disappeared. However, things began to change somewhere around the semester’s midpoint. Class started to improve, unfortunately I have no idea why, and the students began to show a better attitude. Many have told me they want to take English with me again next semester. To be sure, I’m uncertain if this is because I was an effective teacher or an easy grader.

Before I left a year ago I tried to act cool. “A year abroad ain’t no thang,” I said to myself and people I knew. But honestly I was scared out of my mind. I had studied abroad in Madrid for a semester in college, but that was for four months. I spent most of my time with fellow American students and came into little contact with the local population. On the other hand this was the real deal. I’d be living daily life for a year in a foreign country to which I had never been. “How would I feel six months down the line? How much would I miss my family? My friends? The New York mindset?” A year, I thought, was a pretty long time to spend away from home, and I was taking a dark step into a completely unknown situation.

So how do I feel almost a year on? Pretty damn good, actually. Sure, I’m not going to lie and say I don’t go through patches where I feel home sick. That’s only natural. But what I’ve learned is that a year is not that long to spend in a foreign country. I feel like I’m just now getting to know Chile. Moreover, everyday here potentials presents a new challenge. I never know when I’m going to discover something new. Teaching English, while not my career goal, is a pretty cool job. It’s much more interesting and fewer hours than whatever I’d be doing right now if I were in New York.

So I’ve decide to stay a bit longer…

Are you Brazilian?

2006-11-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

“Could I ask you a question... Are you Brazilian?” asks the lady working behind the counter at my neighborhood coffee shop. Someone asking me where I’m from is perfectly reasonable as my accent gives me away as a foreigner here in Chile. Nonetheless a Brazilian accent in Spanish is very distinct- like an Italian accent in English- and my Spanish does not sound Brazilian by any means.

“No, why? Do I sound Brazilian?” I inquire, playing along.

“Not really, you just have very special eyes. I’ve only seen eyes like yours a long time ago on a trip to Rio.” I was flattered, too bad the woman looked to be in her 50’s. But I couldn’t help but think, “what do eyes, even a pair as beautifully jaw dropping as mine, have to do with being from Brazil?”

Apparently reading my thoughts, she replied, “You just have that look to you.”

It doesn’t hurt one’s self-esteem to be taken for Brazilian, but the preceding incident is hardly the first time I’ve been asked something of the sort. I just have that “look” of ethnic ambiguity. I’m 5’7’’ with black hair, light brown eyes, and olive skin. I could plausibly be from a host of different places, and I get mistaken all the time for anything and everything across the olive-complexioned spectrum. Brazilian... Italian... Lebanese... the list goes on. But the situation gets messier once I reveal my true identity. “Soy de Estados Unidos,” I’m a gringo.

“¡No puede ser!” It can’t be! People respond in bewilderment, almost challenging what I've just told them.

Most people I have met here in Chile have a pre-conceived notion of what an American is supposed to look like, and I certainly don’t fit that bill. “I thought all Americans were tall and had blond hair and blue eyes!” they say, half to me, half to themselves.

“Well, George Bush doesn’t have blond hair or blue eyes...” I retort.

“Yeah but it’s not the same. He still looks American.” Not wishing to argue the point as to what an American is supposed to look like, I drop the subject and move on. But slightly different variations of the same conversation happen so often it begs me to ask myself, why do people here believe Americans are all lily white skinned blondes? After all, it's the United States of America, not Northern Europe.

Chileans come into contact with very few Americans. As I have written in previous posts, Chile is surrounded by natural barriers, the Andes to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the West. Moreover, it's far from the United States, very far. Because of the infrequent contact, they obtain most of their information about the U.S. and its citizens from exported American pop culture, namely movies and TV shows.

If you're in the US right now then turn on the TV and take notice. If the show you've just tuned into isn't marketed towards a minority group then the characters- while not necessarily blonde and blue eyed- have a vaguely waspish look. This is especially true of the American shows broadcast in Chile, Orange County being a prime example. On the big screen non-wasp looking actors are few and far between unless the movie is about drug dealing or the mafia.

After people here arrive to the acceptance stage of my being American the conversation moves on to this. "So, tell me, what do people in the U.S. think of Chile?" Basically all Chileans ask me this question. Okay, perhaps that's an exaggeration; let's say 99 percent of them. I should add that this represents a massive cultural difference. Would we, as Americans, ever ask a foreigner that question? No, probably not. It would be a very loaded question for an American to ask a foreigner, but it's more than that. We, to put it plainly, don't really give a shit. There are positives and negatives to that attitude, but it's true nonetheless.

But what do we Americans think of Chile? Take a few seconds to think... That's right. Nothing. Maybe we confuse it with Mexico or the Dominican Republic, but that's about it.

I've been in Chile for about nine months now, which really is not that much time. But what do I think of Chile? That's for my next post.

Update: La Pensión

2006-11-01T12:52:00.002-05:00

About a month ago I moved from the Chilean household where I had been living to a pensión. The pensión, a cross between a boarding house and a hostal, has been great so far. It’s located in Barrio Brasil, a neighborhood in downtown Santiago that, while historically poor, is rapidly gentrifying. Santiago is basically an ugly city and there are not many memorable places, but Barrio Brasil is one of the few exceptions. It is one of the few neighborhoods with character, there are a lot of old buildings, hole-in-the-wall bars and cheap restaurants. There’s also a plaza with street musicians, a fairly size-able Peruvian population, two subway lines and a plethora of bus lines run five minutes from my new place.

Why did I move out of my old place? It just wasn’t working out. Officially I had been living with a “Chilean family.” Nevertheless, that is deceptive phrase. Often times, in an effort to genuinely emerse themselves, travelers choose to live with a host country family. In theory the idea sounds great, but it’s very hard to get a “family.” Many times the host family doesn’t take you in seeking a true cultural exchange, they’re just trying to find some extra cash. Other times it's just a person with a spare room rather than a family.

My situation fell into both aforementioned categories. I lived in Providencia, an upper-middle class Santiago neighborhood, with Chely- an old, grumpy, aristocratic Chilean woman- and her dog Wilburt (I swear to God that was the dog’s name). Willburt, a black lab so big he could’ve taken down a lion, was a great dog. Chely on the other hand was aloof and uninterested in most of life. She rarely left the house and was so fond of Augusto Pinochet (Chilean Dictator from 1973 to 1988) that she had framed pictures of him in almost every room of her home (a few were even signed). We hardly ever spoke for more than two or three minutes at a time and I can count on one hand the times we ate a meal together. Granted, Chilean mores are very different from American ones, but a picture paints a thousand words:

Chely employed a housekeeper, Rosita. There were miniature bells placed throughout the house and, instead of calling Rosita over to help with something, she would just ring the nearest bell. Imagine Rosita’s daily humiliation having to respond all day to a bell... Needless to say, Rosita didn’t stick around too long.

The only benefit to Chely’s place was that it was extremely cheap. But I finally found a different place with a comparable rent, so I peaced the hell out, nah mean?

Compared to Chely’s the pensión is astounding. I now have daily human contact at home. Most of the people there are Chileans from outside Santiago who have come to the capital looking for work. Almost all of them are super cool and everyone has a story to tell. A random gringo tourist or two is usually thrown into the mélange, and I’ve become the unofficial pensión translator (I’ve drastically improved since Legal Aid). To be sure, the pensión’s Crown Jewel, is the family that both administrates and lives there. There’s a mom and pop with their four daughters- ages two, six, eight, and ten- an aunt, and “la uelita,” the grandmotherly matriarchal figure who’s the true mover and shaker of the pensión. So ironically even though I ditched my Chilean “family,” I’m actually living with a real one now.

As food is not included in the rent, I’m also cooking on my own - it couldn’t have come sooner either, Chely’s food tasted like rain soaked five year old cardboard. I never really learned how to cook, so now I’m learning on the fly. It hasn’t been easy, a few weeks ago I messed up rice- don’t ask. But now, after some trial and error, I’m proud to say I’ve mastered pasta. I make my own meat sauce too, take that Emeril!

The only gripe I have is that I’ve been dubbed Martín. My first day there “la uelita” mistakenly referred to me as Martín. “Ummm, it’s actually Benjamín,” I politely told her. “Oh right, sorry,” she said. But she never could get it and kept calling me Martín.

After the umpteenth time correcting her she finally informed me, “look, I’m not young anymore, there’s a lot of stuff I can’t remember, your name being one of them. You look like a Martín, so that’s what I’m going to call you.”

I don’t know what the expression on my face conveyed, but- basically telling me to get over it- she then added, “but don’t worry, I like the name Martín a lot. It sounds really nice.” What could I do? So now I’m stuck for a while with this lifeless, colorless name. ¡Puta la hueá!

2006-10-18T11:18:00.000-04:00

"To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without style. To do a dangerous thing with style, is what I call art."- Charles Bukowski

Money and Robbie Williams

2006-10-11T18:33:00.000-04:00

As I write this I’m breathing a big sigh of relief. I found new students to tutor on the side. I just had my first tutoring session today- it lasted an hour- and the cash feels pretty damn good in my pocket. My new student, Carolina, is 25 and works at a travel agency, so English is important for her to know. She is also willing to pay 16 Lucas (about $32) for two hours a week of classes. She has a very basic level of English but that’s a positive because the learning curve will be steep; she will start to see results immediately.

Nevertheless the best private students are the really advanced ones. Their English is really good- maybe even borderline fluent- and all they want to do is practice through conversation. You get paid to literally sit and talk to someone for an hour. You don’t have to prepare a lesson nor worksheets, nothing. Those students are very hard to come by though and they usually don’t last too long either . If I can find one more person to tutor I’ll be in a good position financially.

It’s officially spring in Santiago and its finally beginning to really warm up. Today you didn’t even need a jacket.

What do ‘has been’ British pop stars do instead of retiring? Apparently they play concerts in Chile. Last night Robbie Williams performed here. Anybody know who he is? If you’re reading this and you’re American (probably most of you) then most likely you have no idea. He’s a British pop star who tried to break into the US market about five or six years ago. He never made it in the US but he’s huge in the rest of the world (he has one song, Rock DJ, that’s okay, other than that I’m not a fan). Although it’s winding down now, the last month has been Robbie-mania. His face juts out at you from billboards all over Santiago and his concert was advertised all over TV and the radio. Such a fuss was made upon his arrival to Chile that you would have though he was a Head of State or something.

Last week I also moved into a new place, but that’s a story for another day (e.g. the next blog entry).

British vs American English

2006-10-09T12:27:00.000-04:00

The first day of the semester many of my students are disappointed. They hope for a British teacher. Someone who speaks, “inglés inglés,” real English. But what they got was some guy from New Jersey.

On some level I sympathize with them and their preference for British English. I have to admit, most American accents are fairly bland and monotonous. But I don’t have just any old accent. I have a New York accent. I speak fast, and with an unmistakable rhythm. An English friend once told me that although she didn’t particularly care for American accents, mine was alright. Nevertheless this argument has never won the students over. The only students appreciative of my New York cadence are those who listen to hip hop.

But to be sure they are only superficially enamored with British English. Many are pretty unmotivated to learn English- or any foreign language for that matter- in the first place. The Chilean mindset is similar to the American one concerning foreign languages. “99 percent of the people I know speak Spanish. I’m probably never going to leave Chile, so why should I learn a foreign language?” Moreover, they have no strong appreciation for British culture, and besides; as much as I like British accents, other accents are much sweeter sounding. If you were learning English, wouldn’t you want to take on an Irish accent? Or how about that Australian outback accent? A British accent would probably be way down on your list.

So why do they want to learn British English? For starters they are under the (false) impression that British English is more “authentic.” Actually, the accent closest to Shakespeare’s is spoken south of the Mason-Dixon Line. They also feel that British English is easier to understand. Only a non-English speaker would ever argue this. The ‘BBC accent’ is wonderful and all, but not too many people really speak that way. You wanna hear a British accent? Watch Snatch.

I think there preference for British English is more about Anti-Americanism than anything else. My students didn’t choose to study English, it’s something being thrown at them. Over the past decade English has gained importance and become much more prevalent in Chilean society. English is all over the radio and television, and its influence is only growing. Many see this- whether rightfully or wrongfully- as American cultural imperialism. Couple this mindset with a very strong anti Bush sentiment and enmity over the US government’s numerous ‘military interventions’ in Latin America since the invasion of Cuba in 1898, and what you get is a strong anti-American sentiment (I’m not getting political, just calling it like I see it).

By learning British English, they are (albeit symbolically) rejecting American English and, by extension, perceived imperialism. However, this is a paradox. The British Empire- by definition imperialistic- lasted approximately 400 years. You cannot make a statement rejecting colonialism/ neo-colonialism/ imperialism by learning British English.

So what’s the solution? I propose Jamaican English. Go listen to Bob Marley. Everybody loves Jamaica, they have a beautiful accent, and their Bob-sled team is fuckin' nasty.

A Rant

2006-09-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

One of my earliest memories is sitting at my grandparents’ kitchen table in their worn out Brooklyn apartment listening to my grandfather tell stories about Argentina, a country he had lived in for so long. After a while my brothers would grow disinterested but I was enthralled. I would sit there for hours listening to my grandfather and those stories had a profound effect on my life. It made me learn Spanish, and major in Latin American studies in college. Traveling to and potentially living in South America was always a dream of mine, and at 23 I'm fulfilling it. However, one thing my grandfather always commented on, and which I usually ignored, was the region’s pervasive anti-Semitism. This situation would have probably been very familiar to my grandfather:
The other day I told a Chilean friend I was Jewish. He just stared at me for a good 30 seconds. Literally, just stared. I understand that there are very few Jews in this country and I'm probably the first one he's (knowingly) met. But really, what the fuck? Don't stare at me like I have six heads, it's rude.
I have had a ton of very similar experiences, and there comes a point where you just get fed up, and that's me right now. So here it goes...

I hear this particular conspiracy theory a whole lot from people who know I’m American but not Jewish: "The Jews are an extremely powerful people in American society and are the driving force behind the decisions and actions of George Bush." This harks back to Jews being blamed for the Plague in Medieval Europe. Unequivocally, George Bush is responsible for George Bush's actions. Not the Jews. Bush is an evangelical Christian, not a Jew. How many senior administration officials are Jewish? Zero. How many oil execs are Jewish? Zero. Jews traditionally have highly valued education; hence we are disproportionately represented in white collar jobs. However, about two percent of Americans are Jewish . Because we are so few in number, most white collar workers are NOT Jewish, it’s a mathematical impossibility. Nor are most people in positions of power Jewish. Nevertheless, even if that were the case- that a majority of powerful people were Jewish- that alone would still be insufficient evidence of a conspiracy. I'm not saying that conspiracies do not exist. One need only look at the Iran Contra Affair or the rumor that McDonald's is a front for the CIA (okay, I just made that one up, but you never know, McDonald’s is everywhere), but come on.

What I also hear lot: "Why are you Jews treating the Palestinians so badly?" Don't get me wrong, I love to argue about politics and I probably do it too much (sorry... Dad especially). With that said, five jotes (a mix of coke and cheap wine) into the night, I'm not trying to have a heated debate concerning Israeli-Arab relations - playa's just tryin' to get his drink on. With that said, I don’t agree with a lot of Israel’s policies and actions, however the aforementioned statement is inherently anti-Semitic. Jews can be from anywhere, people who live in Israel are properly referred to as Israeli, just as people who live in Nigeria are Nigerian. It is far from a black and white issue, but get one thing straight: the Israeli government is the actor, not US JEWS.

Instance number three. On a trip last July to Mendoza (Argentine city about 7 hours from Santiago) a friend and I met some Argentine girls. We got to talking about the United States and how diverse it is. I mentioned that in New York, you could find just about any race/ethnic group in the world. Chinese… Dominicans… Irish… Jamaicans… Jews… Upon which one of the girls remarked, “Oh of course, there are a lot of Jews in New York. the Jews are a very capitalistic people (i.e. greedy) and New York is the center of world capitalism, so a lot of Jews immigrated there.” At the time I just brushed the remark aside. But really, read a history book, watch a documentary, or shut the fuck up.

To be sure, this is not the Third Reich, and the rest of the world is probably equally as anti-Semitic. I can only comment on my experiences in Chile, and to a lesser extent Argentina. I like Chile a lot and most of my experiences here have been quite agreeable. Sometimes you just gotta vent though.

This semester....

2006-09-24T22:15:00.006-04:00

So, I spent yesterday posting fliers throughout my neighborhood advertising my services as an English tutor (I included my being from New York, they seem to be impressed by that here). I've been trying to find individual students to tutor for a while now, but so far I haven't had much luck. I'm going to be posting more fliers tomorrow as well, so we'll see what happens (I'm cautiously optimistic).

I really need more money though. I hate being broke and I hate asking my parents for money, it really makes me feel like shit. I need some private students. Fast.

We're about a month and a half into the new semester and, so far, things haven't been going well. Last semester I really had a great bunch of students, I just didn't realize it until now. This semester I am teaching five sections, three Basic II classes and two Advanced II classes. I get the feeling that my basic students don't like me too much. My basic students almost exclusively study gastronomy and are known throughout the institute for not being "the sharpest tools in the shed." Most of them are lazy, much lazier than last semester's students, who by no means could be labeled 'workaholics.' My current students have very little enthusiasm for learning a foreign language, most just don't see what's in it for them; accordingly their English level is very low, I'm not sure how some of them passed Basic I.

I've been trying to make class more interesting, but it's hard when the students show no enthusiasm for learning and on a personal level are down right dull. For instance, over half of my current students report that "watching TV" is their hobby... You're 20 years old and your hobby is to passively sit on a couch and absorb whatever crap the television set throws your way?!... I mean come on, you can't think of a remotely better way to spend your time?

With that said, a good teacher should be adaptable and able to inspire. So that's my job for this semester. I need to figure out a way to reach them.