Monthly Archives: June 2009

Juan Cristóbal says: -As I write this, the deposed President of Honduras is giving a speech to the UN. As I write this, all TV and radio stations in Venezuela are forced to carry the speech live. Yes, you read … Continue reading →

Quico says: So I wrote up a thing on the Honduran mess over at The New Republic’s mass blog, The Plank. A taste: If anything, the hemisphere’s unanimous, outraged reaction to events in Tegucigalpa–which, for once, saw Washington and Caracas … Continue reading →

Juan Cristóbal says: – Hugo Chávez on last week’s events in Iran: “The Bolivarian government of Venezuela expresses its firm rejection of the ferocious and unfounded campaign to discredit, from abroad, that has been unleashed against Iran, with the objective … Continue reading →

Quico says: …is that, these days, the world just isn’t set up for that way of doing things. Take the Eastern Shore of Lake Maracaibo oil service company expropriations. Chávez never stopped to calculate that if you just grab the … Continue reading →

Quico says: It’s remarkable to realize how much of the political life of Venezuela these days is about Globovision: an influence entirely out of proportion to the station’s coverage, both geographic and ratings-wise, that seems proportional to nothing so much … Continue reading →

Quico says: “Indispensable” is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot. But this story demonstrates why El Chigüire Bipolar has become genuinely indispensable in Venezuela. In three paragraphs, they deconstruct the dysfunctions of the oppo media more … Continue reading →

Quico says: “Así estarán las vainas que when we manage to get the National Guard to show up at our factory, we celebrate,” The Exporter says, savoring how counter-intuitive his sentence sounds. “Huh?” “Well, sure. They make you jump through … Continue reading →

Juan Cristóbal says: – Leopoldo López, the former mayor of Chacao and an early front-runner for the 2012 opposition Presidential nomination, made some important news this morning. In an article by Roberto Giusti in today’s El Universal, López makes a … Continue reading →

Quico says: The sun was setting by the time he got to the farm gate, so it wasn’t immediately evident to Kenneth that the guys loitering there were soldiers. Sure, they were toting assault rifles, but they were wearing plain … Continue reading →

Juan Cristóbal says: In the last few months, the government has ratcheted up the pressure against the only opposition TV station left in Venezuela, the small all-news outlet Globovisión. Chavismo is going all out, charging the company and its executives … Continue reading →

…to everyone who came last night. You reminded me of why this blog’s biggest asset is its readers. And if you missed it, well…what happens in 360, stays in 360, ‘mafraid.

Juan Cristóbal says: – Thousands of citizens march on highways, demanding the elites in power recognize popular will. Students protest against a fraudulent election, the power of a petro-state hanging in the balance. Armed government militias roam the cities freely, … Continue reading →

Quico says: My trip here’s been extremely hectic, so I apologize for the sparse posting. Every day, I seem to add one or two topics to my list of issues-the-media-really-isn’t-covering-nearly-as-well-as-it-should. And I notice that a lot of those have to … Continue reading →

Quico says: Last year, these posters blatantly politicizing Venezuela’s olympic team made a bit of a splash in the opposition media – especially after the government’s brazen stunt catastrophically backfired when “the sporting revolution” failed to bring home a single … Continue reading →

Juan Cristóbal says: – My friend Roger used to be my mole in the government. A committed escuálido working undercover deep inside chavista bureaucracy, he somehow managed to tolerate the mind-numbing paper-pushing and the constant backstabbing from colleagues and underlings … Continue reading →