Chileno - Living in Santiago, Chile Travel Blog

Book Review: Tinta Roja by Alberto Fuguet

2008-05-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

When it comes to writers of unembellished prose who pierce the core of Western Man's dehumanized, lost and isolated condition, French author Michel Houellebecq is a sappy sentimentalist. In Platform, narrator Michel Renault's world is painted with the blunt and unambiguous strokes of contemporary France's meaningless consumerism and radical Islam's vapid violence. Against all odds, however, Renault finds true love. It's an improbable French love story. It's an inspiration to us all.

Tinta Roja "Red Ink", by Chilean author Alberto Fuguet, is far, far bleaker. This is because its main character Alfonso Fernández never finds love. At least, nothing that I can recognize as such. Even though Fernández would be much less likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression than Renault would, Red Ink paints a much gloomier picture of humanity, sending you on your way without a trace of redemption.

The story begins in the voice of a matured Fernández reflecting on his life, one which briefly shared the spotlight with the Chilean glitterati. He's a well-known author, past his prime but brimming with thoughts of upcoming projects, yet reduced to editing a credit card magazine. He's got a crush on the art director Cecilia Méndez who he frequently travels with, but he's not sure if she'll reciprocate.

In both work and love, he's not only semi-satisfied, but also hopeful. Vaguely content and still ambitious, he lives a comfortable, compromised bourgeois life - it's so realistic, understandable and therefore sinister. Renault, for his part, rejected extracting any sort of meaning from his daily (pre-love) existence, and drew sharp contrasts between the real and the meaningless. Fernández actually celebrates his own tepid, lifelike mediocrity.

A few pages into the book, the story abruptly glissando's to young buck Alfonso (and leaves you there till for most of the remaining 400-some-odd pages), fresh out of provincial journalism school and trying to make it in the big city of Santiago. He interns at a daily tabloid El Clamor (fictional version of La Cuarta), and what follows is a rapid succession of brief, movie-ready chapters each containing a neatly packaged anecdote which are usually violent, gripping, ironic and funny.

Not only is young Fernández working for the trashiest paper in town, but he gets thrown out onto the crime beat. The first assignment is to go cover a graveyard suicide-by-rope corpse, which swings lazily as the rope makes a quiet groaning sound. As the book progresses, Fernández' gag reflex cauterizes, somewhat, and his writing improves.

His boss, Saúl Faúndez, who schools him in the fine art of tabloid prose, is a dirty old man with a widow fetish. Fortunately, there's ample supply of those on the crime beat. During and in between that and equally inappropriate behavior, Faúndez' ribald musings on life are pure gold.

Faúndez never had a son to speak of, and Fernández never had a father to speak of, so they get on famously, in an oedipal kinda way: Fernández detests everything his surrogate dad is about, but ends up becoming just like him, kinda.

Oh, before I forget, really the only reason to read Red Ink is to improve your Spanish comprehension and pick up some nice Chilean slang, modismos or chilenismos. One of the best lines is when Faúndez asks his young apprentice:

Desde cuándo que no remojas el cochayuyo, Alfonso?

Which means, like, "when's the last time you soaked your seaweed?"

Another comical character is Escalona the photographer, who's a veritable expert in yellow journalism. One great example when they go to cover the corpse of a recently hit pedestrian. Due to profuse bleeding, the police on the scene have covered the body with newspapers. But there's a problem. It's the competition. So Escalona has Alfonso go to a kiosk and buy a stack of El Clamor, with which they drape the cadaver, on the sly, before Escalona can begin shooting.

Escalona considers himself a True Artist. When they all go out one night with call girl dates to an upscale titty bar, Escalona totally unloads upon a humble photographer who's going from table to table selling Polaroid portraits to willing couples. Escalona vehemently warns Fernández that a True Artist never stoops so low as to sell his Art as if it were a cheap commodity.

LOL.

One of Faúndez' most persistent lessons to Fernández throughout Red Ink is that in order for one to write of Truth, or write anything worth reading at all, it has to be a painfully uncomfortable experience. That's a nice little pearl of wisdom until you take a step back and ponder how anything in Red Ink could have been, in any way conceivable, uncomfortable to write. And if it was uncomfortable to write, then Fuguet is totally shallow. And even then, it's hardly worth reading, so it's material evidence against that very lesson. Right?

Perhaps that's the whole point. Fuguet's entire labor of love, highly autobiographical, is a dispensable piece of airport trash. Talk about bleak.

Still, I highly recommend this as an easy-intermediate leg up on Spanish reading comprehension and knowledge of Chilean slang, via a series of silly stories and many recognizable Santiago landmarks. I believe Fuguet's "Cine York" is the fictional version of the real-life Cine Normandie, although Tap Room is cited in all it's non-fictional glory.

So click here now to buy Tinta Roja by Alberto Fuguet new or used for cheap on Amazon.com

But wait there's more. Before reading the book you might want to study up on the meanings of these Spanish vocabulary words, so that you don't have to always reach for the Spanish-English dictionary while you read the book. So here are a few select mood-setting Spanish words and their meanings in English:

bufete - lawyers practice
terno - three-piece suit
lupanar - brothel
sollozo - sob
estocada - stab, thrust
tugurio - hovel
pichula - dick
azafata - stewardess
estupro - statutory rape
saña - visciousness, malice
cafiche - pimp
vagar - wander, roam
lumpen - underclass

Hopefully this will give you a necessary foundation to "get" what's going on.

Remember you can buy a cheap copy of Tinta Roja here on Amazon.com.

Outdoor Photos of Nature in Santiago, Chile

2008-04-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

Continuing my series of innocuous Chilean nature photos, I present to you pics of Cerro Pochoco, the best place to go hiking in Santiago, Chile, a great way to occupy yourself if you crave unskilled, but highly cardiovascular, outdoor activity.

By evening:

Morning:

Afternoonish:

Chilean Tiger Spider vs Brown Recluse, Araña de Rincón

2008-04-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

I found this spider on my wall, don't kill it!

It's called Araña Tigre, or Tiger Spider, it's harmless to humans. But it is the principle predator of the Araña de Rincón (Loxosceles laeta), or Chilean Recluse.

Here's a picture of the Araña de Rincón:

This Chilean Recluse is even more dangerous than its really dangerous North American counterpart, the Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa).

Hobo Spider Web Site details a history of the Araña de Rincón:

Recluse spiders were the first spider group to be recognized as a causative agent of the disease state now known as necrotic arachnidism, and this condition, when caused by a recluse spider, is properly termed loxoscelism. Loxoscelism was first recognized in 1872 when Chilean physicians linked a peculiar skin lesion known as the "gangrenous spot of Chile"...

All recluse spiders...are now considered venomous to humans...Most species have a mild temperament, and bite only when accidentally pressed against skin, but others, such as the Chilean recluse, are less even tempered.

Chilean paper El Observatorio provides a Spanish-language guide to reducing the Arana de Rincon threat, note they also advocate building a shrine to the Tiger Spider.

Ohio State University gives us an even-tempered, North American fact sheet on dealing with Brown Recluse spiders, all of which applies to the Chilean Recluse.

Remember, don't kill the Tiger Spider!

Italian Art, Hot Dogs in Santiago, Chile

2008-04-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

Go check out the new exhibit Viaje al Arte Italiano at the Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda:

Open 10AM to 7:30PM every day, Ch$600. Not sure when it ends but you've got time. BTW, the Cybersyn exhibit, or at least some reduced form of it, is there till the end of the year.

I was pretty destroyed and starving when I stumbled outta there. Fortunately, Chile's actually been doing contemporary Italian art for quite a while. The following is a picture of an "Italiano", because of the red, green and a subtle splash of white:

In honor of the tri-colored flag of Italy I ate three.

Alternately you could have a "Completo" which is a hot-dog with diced tomatoes and sauerkraut. Last time, I said the best place to eat a completo in Santiago, Chile was "Bavaria" but it looks like the place is actually called Patagona. From La Moneda walk cross the Alameda and down Paseo Bulnes a few blocks it's on your left, tables outside.

On the right side of Paseo Bulnes you may find a place called the Tap Room. About a decade ago the Tap Room was a hot spot for Chilean high society. Now it's an ungodly coke den.

Your Lonely Planet Chile Travel Guide Book is a Fake!

2008-04-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

All of them are fake. Even the originals. It's all made up! Lonely Planet Brazil, Colombia, South America, the Caribbean and Venezuela. And tons more, too!

Do the right thing, pile all your copies of Lonely Planet in the center of the room, douse them in kerosene and light the match. If you don't have any Lonely Planets to burn, you can buy one here.

Who's the shadowy figure behind the lies? None other than the Unabomber of the travel publishing industry, Thomas Kohnstamm.

Oh. My. God. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yes, his initials are T.K. - just like Ted Kaczynski!!!

And just like Ted Kaczynski, our T.K. sent neatly packaged bombs to his editors. And by "bombs" I mean fake travel reviews!

T.K. recently told Australian media that he'd plagiarized a bunch of stuff, then he retracted, but still, in his new tell-all biography he gloats about conjuring up the entire nation of Colombia:

"They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco," he says in the book. "I got the information from a chick I was dating -- an intern at the Colombian consulate."

Listen, guys! He's telling us that Lonely Planet doesn't pay shit and we should be outraged at the poor working conditions of our fearless freedom fighter.

But to be fair, my hat's off to Random House for identifying a cheap date.

I mean, for all his punk rock Seattle grunger 20-something slacker chic, T.K. is actually 32, and the Unabomber, and look if you pay him next to nothing (but more than Lonely Planet did) the little bugger will hussle, he'll work the press and help broadside the reputation of the world's biggest travel writing brand to generate pre-order buzz. Not a bad deal! And look I am falling for it I'm just a pawn in his twisted plot:

On April 22, 2008 T.K.'s new book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? is on the shelves, click here to pre-order your very own copy from Amazon.com today!!!

It promises to be a rollicking - I'm sorry, "Swashbuckling" - Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism.

Alternate title:

Sadly, No. Travel Writers Don't Go to Hell, Because Hell Doesn't Exist - But Yes, Poor Rich White Kids can Sleep with Brazilian Whores for Free, and then Make Money Writing About It.

Five in the sky, bra.

I'm not gonna ask for a complimentary copy, as I know he's on a budget 'n all.

Someone who I assume is definitely not getting comped is Wayne Bernhardson. You may remember Wayne from such titles as Lonely Planet Chile, Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires (plus coastal Uruguay), Chile (plus Easter Island), and Patagonia (plus the Falkland/Malvinas Islands).

You may also remember Wayne from such travel blogs as his blog about travel in South America called Southern Cone Travel, a supplement to Moon guide books.

Wayne's blog blows all other Chile blogs to pieces. In-depth, up-to-date and expert (25 years covering the region), of course. But what I really like about it is the textured insight he brings to each entry, debunking the Buenos Aires is Like Paris cliché as not only passé, but patronizing, and distilling esoteric economic headlines - that the Chilean Central Bank is buying billions of dollars to devalue its own currency and boost exports - into practical advice for travelers: Chile travel is going to be cheaper next summer.

Wholly hokey was his dubbing Chilean metal heads "copperheads", but if you read the post it all ties together because, no surprise here, Wayne is a real writer. (That makes three of us, in the anglophonic Chile blogosphere).

Best yet, Wayne actually does visit Chile and I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt because I met him at the Santiago Times! He was mooching internet and bitching about his car. I'm sure he doesn't remember meeting me, but it's okay we've become friends again, I commented on his Buenos Aires post and helped coax out the true meaning of the post: how the World Bank's GINI coefficient applies to Chilean nanas.

So if there were a Hell, I wouldn't wish it on Wayne. But I can't wait to see what he writes about his colleague Thomas Kohnstamm.

Bathroom Birth & Inflation Offset: Chile Delivers

2008-04-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

This week Chile's government apologized after a Peruvian woman couldn't hold it any longer and had to give birth in hospital bathroom, and Bachelet announced a relief package going to poorer Chileans to offset inflation, all of 45 bucks per family.

This is all very personal to me. I didn't realize the atrocious state of Chile's public hospitals, nor how dear a few dozen dollars are, until I got bit by a dog in Providencia, Santiago.

It was a couple years ago, I was walking on a sidewalk completely unaware that two kids and their chain-leashed mutt were proceeding on foot out of a private driveway hidden by one of those hateful Providencia hedge-rows.

A sharp, powerful stinging sensation on my left calf first clued me in to their presence, and was quickly followed by the dog's rapid-fire barking (as well as the sound of my own cursing).

Their mother brought out the iodine, my wound looked more like a ruddy scrape than anything, there was no missing flesh or dangling tendons, no sparkling tunnel vision brought on by severe blood loss.

Nevertheless I figured a check-up would make sense. She told me she wouldn't pay for me to go to a private clinic, but rather I'd have to go to a free public hospital (way to buck up, dog-owner).

I didn't know better, and so I actually went to the public hospital.

In the cement-floored waiting room, there were no lights on, but the afternoon sun poured in through huge bay windows, as well as the doors that were left open to provide relief from the sweltering heat.

These doors opened directly onto a parking lot. I could hear the popping sound of tires rolling over gravel and broken asphalt. This outside sound mixed together with inside sounds: distorted blaring from a lone TV monitor, babies crying and families, both poor and Peruvian, murmuring fearfully as they squished together on cracked, plastic airport seats lined up in rigid rows through the center of the room.

The receptionist, boxed off in a cube of Plexiglas, told me she had no idea how long I would wait, and honestly probably wouldn't get seen at all that day, considering my condition wasn't urgent.

(Not that urgent cases are always attended either, of course).

To the right of the receptionist's cube, a door swinged open occasionally to let stretchers or masked surgeons through. Peering beyond this door, I could see nothing but pure darkness.

I left.

Eventually, I dropped 40 bucks on a private clinic. It was clean, well lit, and comfortable. The doctor gave me the assurance I needed that I would be fine. Call it excessive, or prudent, but I think I was well within my bounds.

So I was irked, but not surprised, when the dog-owner flatly refused my request for reimbursement. In her mind the public hospital was somehow a viable option that I was free to avail myself of. When I told her "not really" she began screaming and hanged up. I think at a certain point she explained that 40 bucks was way outside of her tax bracket or something.

Somehow, of course, that doesn't explain how she pays for dog food.

Luckily for me, though, it was only 40 bucks.

But while her unwillingness to pay displays a craven lack of personal responsibility, it also speaks to her economic poverty, and that of Chile's so-called "middle class".

Put it this way: 40 bucks doesn't go that far in Santiago, but it's hard to come by. So to help offset inflation in Chile, President Michelle Bachelet is handing out 45 bucks per family. Assuming that means a family-of-four, that's under 12 bucks per person. One time only.

Call me a persistent pessimist, call me crazy, but I just can't get excited about this supposed boon to Chile's poorest. Bachelet has a history of half-assed gestures that do nothing to address the underlying class inequality in Chile, fundamental problems of human capital development and upward mobility seem to be hardly a priority.

Instead, she employs brazen, if heavily watered-down populism to boost her own popularity.

Last year she raised the minimum wage by approximately 16 cents per hour. This year she launched a shameful Ethical Wage dog-and-pony show. A couple weeks ago she padded poor peoples' retirement pensions barely squeeking them in over Chile's artificially low poverty line, soon she'll boast a virtual elimination of poverty, she's made equally ridiculous claims before.

Yes, strictly speaking, it is progress. But is it really better than nothing? I'd argue that it's worse. Token, bare-minimum gestures like these help take pressure off the president, yet preserve the status quo. Chile has the best economy in South America, but wealth distribution is the worst in the world.

Chilean FrankenSalmon's Friends and Foes

2008-04-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

After the New York Times took a juicy Chilean FrankenSalmon by the tail and slapped it against the industry leaders, gringo supermarket chain Safeway stopped stocking the Chilean freakfish (reason given: it's not the Times article, just that your salmon sucks), and Chilean Minister of Economy Hugo Lavados is trying to downplay the economic and image problems brought on by the racist, lying Times.

But the article's impact is real, and FrankenSalmon PR didn't miss a beat:

MIAMI, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chilean Salmon Industry Association deeply regrets the numerous errors of the article, offering a biased view of our industry and product, which is consumed daily by over 6 million consumers worldwide.

The Chilean ambassador to Washington Mariano Fernández followed in lockstep by sending the Times editor a letter:

The salmon and trout industry in Chile accounts for more than 50,000 jobs, $2.2 billion in exports in 2007, and 45 percent of the total imports of salmon and trout to the United States. I agree with American officials and Chilean executives when they reject the notion that Chilean salmon industry practices are unsafe and reaffirm that the virus called infectious salmon anemia is not harmful to humans.

Up to now the letter's fine but moving on it could be better, obviously English is the author's second tongue. The awkward syntax and poor vocabulary choices might be standard fare for this sort of thing, I really don't know, but look at it like this: the issue at stake could make a major dent in your economy and the Times is huge and you're the Ambassador, for Christ's sake, would it kill you to raise the bar?

Up to me I'd have given it another once-over by a qualified native English-speaker. Look:

To give further assurances to American consumers, it is important to remember...

The fact remains that Chile shows a remarkable record in prevention and management of food safety in this field.

"Shows"? Why not just "has"? Sir, your nephew boasts an advanced level of English composition, he can keep his job, all I'm saying is that a little editing goes a long way.

But La Nacion sniffs a scandal (read the English version here), noting that the Times snipped a few of the more tedious paragraphs. So should I be upset the Times has compassion for its readers?

Of course the scandal element does seem faintly secondary to La Nacion's blaring headline: THE NEW YORK TIMES PUBLISHES A LETTER BY AMBASSADOR FERNANDEZ. But you gotta fill up the rest of the fish wrap somehow.

Anyway, the former President of the American Chamber of Commerce Michael Grasty pretty much nailed it in an interview he gave to the Santiago Times:

Grasty says Chile’s salmon producers “are going about it all wrong.” Rather than blame others for their difficulties, salmon farmers ought to address the problems and get in tune with the times, environmentally speaking. “The salmon industry isn’t green enough.”

Read the interview. By outlining the straightforward steps to un-FrankenSalmon Chile's FrankenSalmon, he leaves little wiggle room for those who prefer not to take action but rather whine about the wild fibbing Times single handedly destroying pobre Chile.

Instead of publishing indignant PR's and sending in second rate letters, why not make real news by changing your ways?

1971 Socialist Internet In Chile

2008-04-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the early 1970's Chile had the Internet, which is a big revelation to all you newshound tipsters who sought to impress me with the New York Times piece about that nation-wide network of e-socialism called Cybersyn. Old news: Andy Beckett wrote about Chile's retro-Net five years ago for The Guardian, dubbing it "a sort of socialist internet, decades ahead of its time".

I discovered Beckett's article last year, as it makes fascinating apocrypha to his book Pinochet In Piccadilly (the veritable Gospel of Chile according to Matt, who recommended it to me, but written by Beckett) a marvelous work tracing Chile's British roots back from the time the land masses were still connected (18th Century) to the 1998 arrest of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in a London clinic.

A continuation of his keen and sometimes Where's Waldo-ish scouting for the British influence in Chile, Beckett's Cybersyn story duly tickles its author because the mastermind of the revolutionary network was a gregarious Brit named Stafford Beer, perhaps a not-so-quiet echo of the Scottish Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, who in 1818 was invited by Chilean leader Bernardo O'Higgins to command Chile's Navy and win key battles, helping, er, navigate Chile toward independence from Spain.

No such eventual luck for Beers' bosses, though you can't fault his project. Despite seeming fantastical for its time, it worked. And while full functionality was not achieved before power changed hands in Chile, Cybersyn nevertheless helped defray the effects of the crippling trucker's strike, part of the Nixon Administration CIA-instrumented economic strangulation strategy, a line of attack that ultimately failed to topple Allende's government, and so preceded the September 11, 1973 Coup. The Times writes:

Cybersyn’s turning point came in October 1972, when a strike by truckers and retailers nearly paralyzed the economy. The interconnected telex machines, exchanging 2,000 messages a day, were a potent instrument, enabling the government to identify and organize alternative transportation resources that kept the economy moving.

Stepping back for a moment, when first I saw this Times article I was suspicious because, as everyone knows by now, the same New York "Kleptomaniac" Times just doesn't care and has gone on a craven bender, recklessly pilfering Southern Cone journalism left and right, giving itself a hefty five-finger discount on absolutely all stories Argentina, from every news source imaginable.

Fortunately, as far as I can tell and haven't really looked that much, this troubling trend doesn't seem to have braved the Andean passes over into Chile; while the Times piece on Cybersyn was likely inspired by Beckett's, it's fresh enough and certainly plenty originally-reported that it even has a hook: there is an exhibit in La Moneda Cultural Center showcasing replicas of the trekki-esque chairs and other apparatusses found in the Santiago Cybersyn HQ.

(UPDATE: my friend who works there says: Si hasta una semana más en el Centro de Documentación del centro Cultural Palacio al moneda.)

But while both articles are necessarily historical, Beckett's feels moreso as he mines the richness of Beer's character, his upbringing, his entrance on the Chilean stage, and the political and theoretical backdrop for a socialist Internet in Chile. He writes:

As in many areas, the Allende government wanted to do things differently from traditional marxist regimes

and quotes Raul Espejo, a senior advisor to Allende's minister Fernando Flores:

"I was very much against the Soviet model of centralisation...My gut feeling was that it was unviable."

But soon into the Allende presidency, the results of nationalization efforts were haphazard. So an important Cybersyn objective was to wire up factories throughout Chile and aggregate vital stats so that Santiago could measure national productivity in real time.

Worth noting that an improvised form of nationalization came about when factory owners opposed to Allende stayed home, on strike. In The Battle of Chile, a film by Patricio Guzman who documented the buildup to the 1973 Coup (view Part 1 here), there are several interviews with factory workers who formed part of a larger movement: despite their bosses not showing up, these workers continued to man the factories to salvage the economy.

A Chilean who was watching this part of the movie with me was bowled over by the passionate solidarity these workers displayed, the timbre in their voices, the idealistic glint in their eyes. She was amazed that people from her country could ever show so much enthusiasm for a common cause. The Chile of today has been completely transformed.

In Pinochet in Piccadilly, Beckett interviews Sergio Rueda, a leftist activist who was tortured by the Pinochet junta and exiled to England, where he assimilated and continued to live, returning regularly to visit family since the dictatorship ended in 1990. Beckett writes:

Visits back to Santiago had changed his view of Chile...increasingly he found it difficult to gain a mental foothold in his former homeland: "There are some raw materials from the past, but people have changed. There is an entrepreneur kind of mentality. You will find people that you know will say, 'Oh, you are abroad. We can do business. I am selling doors.'"

Macleans says Pinochet turned Chile into "a nation of entrepreneurs." Snarky Napoleon once called England, "a nation of shopkeepers." Beckett I'm doing your work for you.

The Thieving Times also loves entrepreneurship, so they definitely come down on capitalism's side, in the little "where are they now" sub-section of the Cybersyn story. Flores, who was active in the project, is celebrated:

He later was one of the inventors of the Coordinator, a program that tracked spoken commitments between workers within a company, one of the first forays into “work flow” software. He became a millionaire and returned to Chile, where today he is a senator representing the Tarapacá Region.

I'm a shopkeeper too - Click here to buy Pinochet In Piccadilly today!.

Chilean Thieves Hold German Soldiers Hostage

2008-03-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a band of Chilean ruffians held nine German soldiers hostage at their accommodation in Chile's northern port city of Iquique.

Local Chilean police Col. Rolf Reiman cited a motive for the assault: "apparently they knew they were foreigners and assumed (they) had money."

The Germans are here to train the Chilean soldiers on their 118 new Leopard IIA4 tanks, which round off an extensive list of Chilean arms purchases reported by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs:

Since around 2000, the Chilean military has gone on a buying spree, spending $2.8 billion for weapons, ostensibly to modernize its old and obsolete equipment. The purchases, which have led to expressions of alarm in neighboring Argentina, Peru and Bolivia, include 10 Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter planes acquired from the United States, 18 second-hand similar warplanes from the Netherlands, frigates, two submarines and 118 Leopard IIA4 tanks from Germany.

Based on a 1978 law dictated by military junta Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 10% of copper revenue (not profits, revenue) goes to the Chilean armed forces and they have carte blanche (meanwhile schools go underfunded, and universities are privatized so that profit trumps quality).

This week, Chilean Defense Minister José Goñi acknowledged a "national willingness" to change the way military funds are allocated. So he's unifying the budgets of each branch of the military so that they can't shortlist on their own, but rather together. That's it?

According to COHA, the Chilean government is essentially powerless before the largely autonomous military:

From a practical point of view, the country is not facing any conceivable external military threat. The wide range of military purchases over the past few years demonstrates that the previous Socialist-led administrations of Ricardo Lagos as well as the current one of President Michelle Bachelet, for all their leftist rhetoric, are reluctant to confront the country’s powerful military establishment over how it should spend its budget, and would far rather appease it. This customary appeasement only makes Chile’s military aggressive and demanding, if not belligerent, as it faces its neighbors, but it also illuminates the inherent timorous nature of civilian rule in Santiago, vis-à-vis its voracious uniform services. (Bold font added).

Despite not being at war for over 120 years and militarily dwarfing its neighbors, Chile continues to amass might. At best, this is government spending gone out of control. The so-called Miracle of Chile, a model of free market prosperity, turns out to be state-run copper company that severely misallocates funds. Noam Chomsky puts it this way:

Chile is claimed as being a market economy but that's highly misleading: its main export is a very efficient state owned copper company nationalized under Allende. You don't get correlations like this in economics very often. Adherence to the neoliberal rules has been associated with economic failure and violation of them with economic success: it's very hard to miss that. Maybe some economists can miss it but people don't: they live it.

In other words, if Chile were powered strictly by the Free Market, things would be a lot worse. Certainly debatable (too bad Bill Buckley's dead), but whether you ascribe Chile's current economic boom to copper or the Free Market, the point is moot for most Chileans:

Chile continues rank among the worst most economically unequal countries. Skeptics, here's the latest data.

Flush with cash and hiring German trainers on its new German tanks for its Prussian-modeled forces, Chile meanwhile reduces its poverty-stricken citizens to acts of thuggery befitting a Banana Republic, imperiling the self-same German soldiers flown in on cash that could be better spent funding schools and increasing educational opportunities for developing human capital domestically.

Why doesn't Chile slash pointless military spending and instead train Chileans to process & implement copper before shipping it overseas, and thus add value to the local economy? For example.

But that's just crazy talk. In the meantime, most Chileans remain uneducated and economically depressed and it follows that foreigners in Chile are still seen as walking banks, (if it's not overt attacks it's rampant, questionable friendliness toward gringos) but how dare I call Chile a Third World country. It's the Prussia of South America (whatever that means).

Chile's FrankenSalmon Poisons Environment, Humans

2008-03-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

It was going to be tonight's fillet. Was, but for that Chile's biggest seafood supply is now dead to me.

The latest viral infestation in the Chilean fish is not, exactly, what a Chilean human might describe as filete (which means "tubular"). No, it's pretty bad.

But in case the whole story turns out to be yet another smear piece by the New York Times, I have taken the necessary steps to secure my investment by cryogenically freezing the fillet.

If what I was about to eat tonight is not, in fact, a slab of parasite infected, antibiotic drenched, hormone injected, retina-damaging colorant dilated FrankenSalmon then someday I will restore the poor, misunderstood fish and cook it to death for a buttery delicious grilled gourmet experience with sautéed mushrooms, garlic, green onions and red bell pepper.

But at this point it's not looking good.

Bloomberg reports that Multiexport Foods SA (MULTIFOO:CC) shares are plummeting since the Times began their ruthless hate campaign against the Republic of Chile, stirring up ancient rivalries between the Northern and Southern hemispheres as the gringo fan who sent me the tip cries out (via IM):

That shit is fucked up. They're ruining the environment, needlessly through greed, killing off the other fish, and fucking up humans with the antibiotics and growth hormones...If Loch Duart can do it in Scotland, they can do it RIGHT in Chile, too. It just won't be as lucrative, but it's the right way to do it.

But never mind him. Chile is Eden because Antonio Skarmeta told us so and if it turns into Paradise Lost (or Parasite Gained?) then it won't be poor little Chile's fault because Chile only contributes to 2% of global warming.

So okay it's First World appetite that drives salmon production greed and First World companies that exploit it as overcrowded FrankenSalmon pens become cesspools of infection but hey, if Chile's so First World as everyone likes to say - or even the cutesy "Second World", as many a mealy mouthed defender of the Free Market will offer - then why don't we get some First-or-even-Second-World regulations up in this casita chiquita y muy linda or would that be too much to ask?

The Free Market has regulated itself so well up to now that I've already dosed up on plenty of diseased FrankenSalmon and I'm down three or four bucks (unless i unfreeze the slab) and, most shockingly, thanks to the Free Market's fantastic environmental record, Chilean FrankenSalmon has become almost as appetizing as Marco Antonio Solis' tribute to England of the Pacific, Scandinavia of the South, Dubai Down Under (but much more charming), Chile. One is as bad as the other, but so help you God if you watch this video while eating the the FrankenSalmon from Chile Lindo:

President Pokemon: Pinochet, Teen Sex & Chile Culture Wars

2008-03-22T12:10:00.001-07:00

Newsweek recently offered up a scintillating Web exclusive exposé on an emerging, media-hyped, sexualized subculture that's rocking teens in Chile.

The so-called "urban tribe" is really called Pokemon, a moniker so unoriginal as to be not only asinine (and stultifyingly anime), but frankly apt: who can blame these kids entirely for the poverty of their cultural influences and creativity when raised by parents living in a virtual Teletubby-land of ahistorical, post-dictatorship, credit-card consumerist Chile?

Who can be surprised that a she-Pokemon interviewed for the story insists on calling herself Strawberry? Surely she's not alone among her friends' litany of artificial fruit flavor nicknames analogous to the artificial coloring in their hair, and as impressive as the Flinstone-faux bones sticking through their noses.

So "Pokemon" it is. Certainly can't blame the messenger. But Ashley Steinberg, who I know because she interned at the Santiago Times, is blamed for plenty, including a terrible semantic inaccuracy. She, or her editor, made no bones about breaking into Ashley's Newsweek break (congrats, Ashley!) with one of the most controversial lines of the article:

The teens call their public orgies ponceo.

That brought out the torches and pitchforks and dictionaries en masse as the commentards smugly corrected Ashley for getting the definition of "ponceo" wrong. One warrior-for-accuracy writes:

Does your magazine have a fact checker?? If so, please fire him/her. Most of the information here is misleading. I live in Chile and although Pokemones do exist it is not "all over the city" and "ponceo" is about kissing not "oral sex".

Firstly, despite the quotation marks surrounding "all over the city", Ashley never wrote that. More importantly, though, is that this retard and the ensuing mob blame Ashley for screwing up the definition of "ponceo". But let's look, again, at what she actually wrote:

The teens call their public orgies ponceo.

Ashley is not one of the teens. She is a reporter. She's reporting what the teens said. She's waaaay in the clear. And furthermore, from a linguistic perspective, I think the teens she's sourcing are absolutely right. Here's why:

Only a fool would assume that the classic dictionary definition of ponceo applies in all its rigid, unchanging sameness to the Pokemon speech community. Newsflash: language changes. Especially slang. It would hardly be surprising that ponceo, which meant "kissing" or "making out", would now cover "orgies" as well.

Think about it this way. The word "Pokemon" used to just mean some form of Japanese anime. Now it is also defined as a Chilean teen subculture. The word had one definition, now it has two definitions. Jesus is magic. Christ, can we move on now?

So overall I think it is a fine article. Ashley effectively illustrates the freakish vapidity of teens emerging from a generation of parents who were bludgeoned into a state of fearful abnegation of real social values such as solidarity, workers rights and democracy - values which flourished in Chile before the US-backed military junta of Augusto Pinochet violently persecuted its political opponents. Sure, Pinochet invoked "Almighty God" to justify his military junta, but the resulting Satan-spawn of Pokemon tells a different story (read El Dios De Pinochet by Miguel Rojas Mix, to learn more about how Pinochet effectively waged a Holy War against his own citizens. A real creep).

Honestly, public orgies are probably the most innocuous manifestations of this subculture. People make out on park benches in a Latin Country. Wow.

Sure, Newsweek knows the best way to hype a story is through sex. And on the bright side, as a rather intelligent article steeped in sociology, perhaps even anthropology, sex is actually a highly appropriate angle. And to be fair, it's not just smooching on a park bench, it's adding multiple partners and oral sex to the mix, and so I guess that's pretty noteworthy in a conservative Catholic country. Or not. Sex is forbidden in the Chilean home, so it's exported to the park. Same as always?

Now, in the US, the park bench is out of bounds. It's referred to as
PDA - Public Display of Affection. In most European and Latin American countries, PDA is no big deal. In the Czech Republic, it reaches levels of public exhibitionism that puts Chile to shame (if only because Czechs tend to be much more beautiful).

So sex is important, but Ashley doesn't just join the media circle jerk. Instead, she raises the bar (no pun intended) and posits that the way these kids sex is an expression of consumerist frenzy and it's a point well made. She points out how "girls count up their partners just as boys do" and elucidates one teen's more classic version of consumerism:

The group's consumerist tendencies have not been lost on the retail goods industry, which ferociously markets its products to the Pokemon demographic. Commercials for hair straighteners, MP3 players and cell phones run during talk shows that feature Pokemones complaining about their overprotective parents or catty best friends. "This week I bought two T-shirts and a webcam," says Pablo Gutierrez, 18. Sticking out his tongue to reveal a piercing, he adds, "And a new tongue ring. I was sick of my old one."

Whoa there, big spender. Two T-shirts AND a Webcam???

Therein lies the pathos of Chilean materialism.

Yes, conspicuous consumption in North America is sick. But at least it's done right. If you're going to plunge your entire identity and sense of self-worth into material goods, then it better be, well, good. Two T-Shirts, a Webcam and a piercing doesn't cut it, kid. As Virgin Mobile might say, "You Rule?"

Now you might make the argument Chile's booming economy is injecting money into lower-classes and blossoming subcultures, similar to the explosion of wealth in the US after World War II giving spending power to blacks, as described by Tom Wolfe in his book The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Bullocks. The Chilean story is completely different from the US story, it is practically impossible to compare, although everybody wants to. What happened in the US was a real explosion of wealth, that really did get distributed somewhat. What's happening in Chile is the introduction of consumer credit with no significant increase in wages. Credit is available but wealth is not distributed.

I mean, if it were getting distributed, then why would Chilean pols on both sides of the aisle posture about an Ethical Wage, all but admitting the critical, unsustainable disparity between the cost of living and workers' wages in Chile?

Now Ashley's story comes two years in the wake of my friend Cristobal Edwards' lucid piece on Culture Wars in Chile in Time Magazine.

The biggest flaw in Cristobal's article is the lack of park bench sex. By not including that, he avoided torrents of hate speech comments, and I'm sure Ashley would tell him he's totes missing out.

The piece also could be criticized for seeming to puff up Chile's progressive patina. But that was sorta trendy around when Michelle Bachelet, Chile's first woman president, was elected. And to be fair he does write that a "recent opinion survey by the MORI organization suggests Chile's values may not be quite as liberal as the recent trends suggest."

And for the sake of argument I'll paraphrase another friend's criticism of Cristobal's article: bullshit, there aren't culture wars in Chile - most Chileans are just waking up to the fact that they exist. In other words, the notion of Culture Wars is still something relegated to the upper echelons of society, most Chileans don't have the luxury of Culture Wars, and fundamentally Cristobal's piece is elitist.

Keep that in mind as Ashley writes:

In fact, one of the Pokemones' main meeting spots is outside the television studio where their favorite program, "Diario de Eva," is filmed. The channel is owned by right-wing presidential candidate Sebastian Piñera, a billionaire businessman who, incidentally, made much of his fortune by helping bring credit cards to Chile. The irony is lost on the Pokemones, however, as they gather on the lawn near the studio's entrance.

Now, I'm as big a fan of 'lost irony' as the next guy, but I think Ashley's definitely guilty of reaching at this point. Or her editor. Trying hard to contort the narrative into a formulaic balance between shock and condescension: savage "urban tribes" become dumbfuck teens in just over 1,300 words.

But any schoolchild can tell you the fastest way off Pokemon Island would be to point to Pinera's studio across the street and say, "Hey, isn't this funny - on a purely socio-historical level, of course - that you're the 7th boy I've sucked off this afternoon and, well, it's just amusing to me that my impending volcanic mouth herpes are going be the indirect result of Sebastian Pinera's introduction of credit cards into the Chilean economy."

While I get the point Ashley's making that Pokemon members particularly lack self-awareness when compared to other subcultures, I don't know any social group at any socio-economic level that is so painfully self-analytical. (Except, perhaps, sociologists).

In other words, of course the irony was lost - there was never a place for irony to begin with!

Even the oh-so highly evolved North American "hipster-irony" would have the Pokemons, at best, printing up T-Shirts that read "Who Killed Pinera?". It'd be so Pokemon in its complete lack of originality. Is that how these teenagers will recapture their lost irony?

Back to Culture Wars, I'd say that regardless of whether Chileans are awake to them, regardless of whether the irony is lost or found, that they are real in Chile. Especially if you go by the Tom Wolfe theory that as cash (or credit) is more available at more levels of society, subcultures blossom. It's not just the upper class because poor Chileans have credit cards. And if some of the commenters on the Newsweek article are to be believed, many Pokemones are lower class.

Sure, even with credit they don't have mountains of cash. Two T-Shirts and a Webcam isn't that revolutionary. Pokemon, like the others, is a consumer-based subculture in Chile that's a best a pale imitation/evolution of first world trend-setters, and ultimately they just look dumb and remind us all why poor people are so depressing.

But then again, are rich hiptards all that smart and uplifting?

I would love to talk more about Cristobal's culture wars but we're running out of time. Suffice it to say that if you're remotely interested in Chilean Pokemons then it's required reading. Be forewarned, though, that Eugenio Tironi is a douchebag - but don't blame the messenger.

UPDATE: Here are some more resources on Pokemon subculture in Chile. Here's a forum discussion of the Newsweek article and the Chilean Pokemon phenomenon, some pictures of Pokemon, random blogging about Chilean Pokemons, Kotaku blog mocks a ridiculous freelance defender of Chile's pristine image, and after watching this video I want to become a Pokemon:

But I changed my mind after watching this video:

Chilean Social Security: You Had Me At "Handout"

2008-03-16T23:50:00.000-07:00

During last week's little dust-up over Chilean social security, a rock of conservative wisdom was launched from the din:

Giving pensions to people who did not pay into the system is a disincentive to work.

At a simple squeeze of the fist, that rock stays firm and does not crumble like all its dirt clod compatriots. Why? Because social security is the same as welfare. Welfare is giving money to unemployed people of working age. Social security is giving money to unemployed people who are not of working age. There is no difference.

Now I know you bleeding heart Latte Liberals, you Cappuccino Communists, you Macchiato Marxists would pose some false choice like:

A hungry 30-year-old is offered a job. He will:

a) take the job and stave off starvation
b) refuse the job and why worry because in 35 years he knows Uncle Higgins is going to hand feed his lazy baby face with a tax-payer funded silver spoon

Sure those Triple-shot Trotskyites want to Manchurian Candidate us into choosing "a" but you can't fool me: there's a rabid mob of rank-in-file 30-is-the-new-20-something Eurotrash wannabes poised to pounce at the chance of starving while the government foots the bill.

And don't think I've forgotten about you Recreational Retirees who're now milking the system for all its worth after a life spent prancing about the south of France or, as the liberal biased media would have it, being:

the poor and self-employed, housewives, street vendors and farmers who saved little for retirement

Cry me a Riviera. I hope you're enjoying these retroactive government handouts that disincentivized you from working. But while I detest your Bohemian lifestyle, I have to handout it to you: that's a card well played.

Bachelet Bail-Out for Pinochet Pension Plan

2008-03-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

President Michelle Bachelet just signed in the relief package for victims of Chile's private pension system, calling the initiative "one of the most important social reforms in decades."

Sadly, she's probably right.

But the net result of this US$2 billion annual cash infusion to pad the dismal retirement pensions of Chile's lowest wage earners seems more like a slimy populist gesture amounting to little more than a backhanded slap in the face for Chile's poor. As the AP reports:

Monthly pensions will start at about $125 and will rise next year to $158. That will boost pensioners above the urban poverty level of $95.

Yes, it is true. If you make more than $95 per month in Chile, you are not considered poor. (How else could Chile have already pushed its poverty level down to 13%? Even The Economist, in a patronizing elegiac to Chile's so-called progress, had to note that by European standards 27% of Chileans would be poor).

So this pension reform will most likely take a huge bite out of perceived poverty in Chile. Perception is everything. But what can an elderly person - even without medical expenses - do with 158 bucks a month?

Let's see, when I first moved to Chile I got a fantastic deal sleeping in a closet in downtown Santiago for $160. That means that if some old lady depending on Bachelet's "reforms" got the deal I did, she'd have to wait a year and still be two bucks short on rent.

Not to mention utilities. And food. But old people don't need to eat.

However, all this doesn't stop a starry-eyed FOB like Joel from smugly reprinting the International Herald Tribune's absurd and omission-packed praise for Chile's pension "reform".

Seemingly incapable of any original analysis, Joel does his small part to elaborate on the "miracle" of Chile, demonstrating his advanced computational knowledge by cutting and pasting the following paragraph and even bolding (me too!) some of it:

The private funds earned an average 10 percent return since their start, ensuring that typical workers who contributed since 1981 now collect about 85 percent of their final wage upon retirement. That’s more than double the average 40 percent paid to full-career, middle-income Social Security recipients in the United States, according to a study by James last year.

Double the USA? No way! That's it - we're moving to Chee-lay!

For Christ's sake, Joel. It doesn't matter that retired Chileans make 85% of their shit Chilean wages or 200%. Given a choice, I would take 40% of a US wage anyday. So would you.

And don't give me this "cost of living" crap. Don't tell me that 2x the pension percentage goes twice as far as the USA, so that somehow Chileans are getting a good deal with .85 cents to the dollar - on $1/hour wages! Santiago is the costliest city in South America and scores of expenses here cost as much or more than the USA. Internet. Food. Entertainment. Public Transportation. Gasoline. You name it, dude. And even rent - currently I'm in a studio apartment paying only $150 less than I could for the same-sized place in California's Bay Area. Just to put things in perspective. (UPDATE 3/13: Rent just went up I'm only paying $70 less).

Anyway, this pension reform idea is nothing new. Actually, it was supposed to be passed in 2007. I wrote about Chile's private pension "reform" back in November of last year. That's when subcomandante Claude released his third Political Irony video: Chileans Should Die by 60. True then, true now.

In that post I also point out the New York Times editorial from 2006 that points out the horrors of Chile's private pension system, one that president George W. Bush lauded as a beacon of exemplariness for his miserably failed effort to privatize social security. (The fact that other countries copied Chile's broken system doesn't make it right. The US, for the time being, has been spared such an ignominious fate).

Read the editorial now, Joel. And now read this excerpt from Marc Cooper's LA Times Bestseller Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti-Memoir. (You can read the whole chapter online here). In it, he reports the perspective of a 35-year-old Chilean woman named Cecilia, despite her leftist upbringing, is reduced to making a living by selling these private pension plans:

She explains in surreal detail the corruption and unfairness of Chile's privatized Social Security system. Thanks to "pension reform" imposed by Pinochet in 1981, all workers in Chile, whether employed or self-employed, must contribute a percentage of their income every month to a private retirement fund managed by one of a half-dozen investment companies known as A.F.P.s. Unlike in the United States, where both worker and employer pay 7.5 percent each into Social Security through payroll deductions, Chilean employers no longer make any contribution at all toward worker pensions. They retain, however, the right to withhold employee contributions from workers' paychecks, and news stories are legion of this or that company that "forgets" for months and sometimes years to deposit workers' funds into A.F.P.s. And because so many Chileans are self- or marginally employed, almost half the fund-holders don't keep their own required contributions up-to-date. An equal number have been revealed to have less than a $1,000 balance-hardly enough to support retirement.

As if it wasn't already abundantly clear, the Bachelet bail-out is yet another admission that the Chilean private pension system is completely broken. And like I said, this relief package called "reform" is really the least Chile's government could do for a populace victimized by this defunct system that Pinochet started and left wing governments have been all too happy to maintain.

It is absurd that the media nevertheless manages to spin this "reform" as somehow a testament both to Pinochet's economically sound legacy and to Chile's continued progress. A far more accurate description goes like this: Pinochet smashed the system into smitherings, and now "socialist" Bachelet has managed a to patch it together with a shameful farce, a disaster relief plan pushed on Chile with the progressive patina of systemic "reform". But like I said, perception is everything. Just as Bachelet sang the praises of a "reduction" in Chile's poor, she'll no doubt rest well on these threadbare laurels of pension reform.

UPDATE (3/14): I really recommend you read the comment string below. One of my beloved whack-job commenters graced us with the pernicious misinformation that by 2012, the minimum pension for those affected by the Bachelet bailout would be a monthly Ch$255,000 (about US$590 by today's exchange rate). Truth is it's just the opposite. Ch$255,000 is the maximum. Worth noting that I recently spoke with a 67-year-old retired copper miner whose monthly pension is currently Ch$260,000. Yes, he's driving a cab to make ends meet. Ch$260,000 gets you nowhere if you live in Santiago.

So without further ado I give you Chilean privatized social security after the Bachelet Bail-out in all its graphic glory:

Time Change in Santiago, Chile: Google vs Microsoft

2008-03-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I gloated that Santiago gained an hour and you know what I'd actually fact checked that one with Google. It's true. To prove I'm not crazy, I recently went back to take a screenshot of the truth-according-to-Google:

I mean, why look further? But if I had I would have found that Google had thrown me an hour off. Clicking on the first search result you get this:

Little did I know that this time battle has pit two internet titans against one another. Google says that Chile just fell back an hour and Microsoft says it won't Fall back until March 29, 2008. Microsoft, of course, in cahoots with the Chilean government by helping cripple Chile's technological future, no surprise then that they wouldn't miss a beat in reporting the government's strange extension of summer to save energy.

And judging by Microsoft's page they totally get Chile:

Because their market is a bleach bucktooth cuica facha who would go for an absurdly-priced piece of HP crap she has absolutely no idea what to do with but begged her plastic surgeon husband for it anyway because it's such an obscene status symbol she just can't do without. Oh, yeah, and bloggers who actually know about how sucky MS is compared to open source are, according to a chief Chilean MS exec, pelagatos or "nobodies" (gotta love the absurd medieval elitism that drives policy in Chile).

I'm going to side with Google on this one. I just gained an hour and nobody's going to take it back from me.

Stencil Art Circus: Insects

2008-03-09T14:24:00.001-07:00

Southern hemisphere just gained an hour and so I spent part of my 60-minute rebate by uploading some photos of stencil art found on the streets of Santiago, Chile. This week, the theme is insects and anything vaguely related.

Chilean Factory Workers Celebrate Free Trade

2008-03-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

The Chilean Free Market, Free Trade, frickin'...Freedom - how to express that love? In an explosive display of glee Aricans took up the lead by losing 900 jobs.

That's like a tenth of the population of Chile! Quite a gesture.

Actually the Aricans didn't really have much choice in the matter but I'm sure they were happy to oblige in any way when celebrating their GM plant shutting down. (Anyway factory work is so passé - Chile is a nation of entrepreneurs). You see these unemployed Aricans know they have a rasca country but nevertheless they are proud because Chile is on the up. Just ask them. I didn't.

Julie T. Beamer, managing director of the company in Chile, said...Chile's 'reduction of tariffs with automobile-producing countries has increased competitiveness of foreign providers,' she added in a communique issued by the company. 'As a result, it is no longer economically possible to assemble vehicles in Chile.'
Around 900 jobs will be lost as the plant closes in late July in Arica, a region that already has one of the highest unemployment rates in Chile, around 12 percent.

Late July? We might as well be in South America it takes you so long to get around to it. True patriots will walk off earlier and soon be putting the final nails in their kiosks, right about the time their welfare-state, freedom-hating lunchpale union thug compatriots are done scraping every last red cent out the free market that gave them so much, but no matter how much it gives, they just want more. No, true patriots will wisely state out that magical 6th kiosk position per block, fulfilling the Market's screaming demand for more chewing gum, forging the entrepreneurial destiny that would make this country so damn great.

Plane Crash Santiago Chile: Exclusive Unpixelated Carnage Photo

2008-02-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

Kyle from JMCS recently wrote about joining the native Chileans in their ethnic South American dance ritual called Aerobox which she found too easy and switched up for something more mainstream, salsa-ish. Basically her whole post, as I interpret it, is a frenzied diatribe about her experience doing group aerobics in Chile but listen up, girlfriend. The AP Reports that it could be a whole lot worse:

The Cessna 210 was approaching Tobalaba airport when it went down at the field in the Penalolen district, the air force's aeronautics department reported.

Penalolen Mayor Claudio Orrego said those killed on the ground were taking part in a gymnastics class sponsored by the municipality. Five of those on the ground also were injured.

Que heavy. I know they tend to crank up the music at these classes if it weren't so loud perhaps these poor souls would have had a running start?

Well, they didn't. And now for a Chileno red-ink exclusive I bring you unpixelated carnage thanks to a lazy El Mercurio staffer:

Whew, I've still got it in me. Okay, okay, it's not really "carnage" but no more so than the pixelated pair of legs in the foreground. Let's just not talk about that ungodly heap of mortal flesh in the background that nobody will go near.

Yesterday's Lunar Eclipse over Chile: Exclusive Photo

2008-02-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about my Canon PowerShot A520 4x optical 14x digital zoom is if you crank it up all the way and point it into the crystal clear Chilean sky you can see that the moon actually has a polar ice cap - who knew? And what's even more exciting is that it appears my camera captured a massive windstorm sweeping across that ice cap, kicking up clouds of snowdust miles into the air. Truly amazing.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Chileno, why don't you publish this in a scientific journal?"

Well, I'm flattered. But I thought you knew. Chileno is a scientific journal.

I'm the photographer because of my steady hand. But if you think, because you love science, that I could use a tripod before the next Chilean lunar eclipse rolls around, I've got one thing to say to you. The clock is ticking so buy me one now.

But seriously don't be all like thisand then expect me to believe you love science. I'm talking featherweight titanium, soundlessly collapsible, highly portable, expensive and preferably with a discreet low-carb whiskey flask enabled. It must exist. Browse around and follow your spirit-animal, you will know when you have encountered the right one because you will buy it for me.

Science thanks you.

UPDATE: Don't be fooled by lunar eclipse impostors from the "northern hemisphere" who would palm off these contrived images of yesterday's lunar eclipse on February 20, 2008 on you. I'm in Chile where it really happened. The ice cap is on the top of the moon. End of story.

Full Moon in Chile, Rising over Andes Mountains Sunset

2008-02-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

So the saying goes: there really are good things about Chile - not only the landscape. Hehe.

Various circles of hell are represented in Santiago, and the nice parts represent N. American, urban hell, sterile, sweltering and dull, while the poorer parts are more classically a lung-constricting third world hell. Nevertheless, barring excessive smog, the bordering mountains are visible and that makes up for it somewhat.