Monthly Archives: November 2010

So, what date did Hugo Chávez choose to sign Unasur’s new anti-coup d’état “Democratic Charter“? November 27th, of course! If you’re young and/or not Venezuelan, that date may not say that much to you. Otherwise, you’ll remember it like this: … Continue reading →

The Wikileaks U.S. Diplomatic Cable data-dump – or rather, the first few shards of it, which is all we’ve seen so far – is a subject of deep fascination for me. There’s just something about the voyeuristic thrill of looking … Continue reading →

It’s easy to forget – and weird to think about – but there was a time when the foreign-backed fascists really did try to murder a massively popular, elected, progressive Venezuelan leader. It happened on June 24th, 1960. The car-bomb … Continue reading →

Not three months ago, in reading through the responses to one of those occasional, naively-hopeful, instantly-pounced-on, ultimately-misguided Guardian pieces I like to write, I was amazed when one of the bolshies in the comments section actually took me to task for … Continue reading →

Sorry about the radio silence, folks, I’ve been travelling. Still, I felt strongly like I need to comment on Juan C.’s possibly inevitable Constitutional Assembly post, because it rattled me. I really feel Venezuela’s long run tendency to change the … Continue reading →

The headline in the conservative blog The Daily Caller? “We could eat socialist arepas together…” In case you’re wondering about this, on his trip back from a NATO summit in Portugal, Barack Obama joked around with reporters in the Press … Continue reading →

Just a quick shout-out to two books from long-time readers of this blog. Vicente Ulive-Schnell is the author of “Yo maté a Simón Bolívar.” I haven’t read it, but no, it doesn’t appear to be based on the forthcoming forensic report … Continue reading →

Miranda governor Henrique Capriles Radonski was interviewed by Maracaibo’s La Verdad newspaper. It’s well worth a read, if anything to begin getting a feel for the message he will try out. Capriles’ coyness about 2012 did not lend itself to … Continue reading →

Last September’s Parliamentary elections showed that, even with the cards stacked against it, Venezuela’s opposition could win the popular vote. Knowing this will serve us well in 2012, when the next Presidential election will take place. So, in the spirit of … Continue reading →

That’s the number of people employed by the Alcaldía Metropolitana, Caracas’ Metropolitan Mayor’s Office. You know, the one that Chávez basically hollowed out. The one that he insists is only a shell and whose only job is to “coordinate” policies with the … Continue reading →

Our youthful friends over at the Spanish-language blog “Sin el Chivo y el Mecate” have a new post up. In it, they address the fact that Venezuela’s top military officer, alleged drug king Henry Rangel Silva, said that the Armed … Continue reading →

With the shift back to a Comments Free For All comes a necessary rehash for all the reasons not to have one in the first place. Here, I hope, comes my last comment on the subject. As somebody smarter than … Continue reading →

Yesterday, the Central Bank of Venezuela published its quarterly report on economic activity, covering the third quarter of 2010. Since these documents are close to impenetrable for a lot of people, I thought it would be a good idea to … Continue reading →

So far, I’ve avoided discussing Hugo Chávez’s Twitter account. But let’s face it – the thing is downright depressing. Chávez’s last tweets were on November 1st, and they dealt with Cristina Kirchner and Dilma Rousseff.

I kind of dug this video on the history of Maracaibo, based on the Bolívar Films archives. At 51 minutes, it’s a bit long, but well made. (Full disclosure – the person they interview at 5:50 is my father)