Yesterday's Guardian offered a nice roundup of history of the Anglo-Argentine Malvinas/Falklands dispute recently disinterred by Los K upon the arrival of petroleum rigs in the islands (oil sure would make those islands--whether or not you think they're populated by ovejeros tarados--very valuable). I've been there and written about the islands and it never ceases to impress how such a tiny and largely godforsaken series of rocks can fire up tensions between the two countries. You can never know what if, but you can't stop being amazed at the sheer stupidity of the Argentine dictatorship's Wag the Dog decision to invade to prop up the failed Galtieri regime. Maybe the islands wouldn't be Argentine today if they hadn't, but they might be on the way, a la the Hong Kong of the South Atlantic. With the invasion, and especially if they do find oil, I don't see them ever becoming Argentine (or returning to Argentina, depending on your view).

[Thanks for the headsup to Jim Danky]

In the "Better Late Than Never" category, we're proud to throw our support behind the Shankees (logo to right), the Almost All American baseball team (13 Americans, 1 Venezuelan, and 1 Nicaraguan) playing in the local baseball liga. They're kicking off the season at 14,30 hs. today at the Estadio Nacional de Beísbol against the toughest team in the liga, Ciudad Jardin, a group of semi-pro players that have played in European, Carribean and Japanese leagues. We will update tomorrow with the score as well as highlights and tales of cheating by the opposition.

No hotdogs (yet) but there are beer, burgers and sunflower seeds available in the stands.

For more info, visit the Shankees homepage or Yanqui Mike's blog.

Sunday's Guardian had a lengthy piece on the ravaging effects of the cocaine-based junk drunk Paco on poor Buenos Aires neighborhoods. The piece was well written and I for some reason found it more affecting than a previous NYT Paco piece that came out 2 years ago. Don't know why--have I just been here longer, or was it better?--but I think they both deserve a visit.

And this is from the BBC:

The general manager of the Chilean mint has been dismissed after thousands of coins were issued with the name of the country spelt wrongly.

The 50-peso coins - worth about 10 cents (6p) - were issued in 2008, but no-one noticed the mistake until late last year.

Instead of C-H-I-L-E, the coins had C-H-I-I-E stamped on them.

The coins have since become collectors' items and the mint says it has no plans to take them out of circulation.

[Thanks to Jim Danky]

The Recycled House of Alfredo Santa Cruz and Family

Today I came across a post on Treehugger about a house in Puerto Iguazú made entirely of recycled materials. Alfredo Santa Cruz and his family used 1200 PET bottles to build the walls and more than 1300 Tetra Pack cartons for the ceiling. And that's not counting the tables, bedframes, windows...the list goes on.

In the words of Mr. Santa Cruz:

"Domestic waste can be transformed into useful stuff. We developed our own technique, which allows people to build a house that's perfectly functional at a very low cost and with their own hands. This is not just a project, but a reality."

And if you're thirsty, you can always nip a drink out of one of the bricks in the wall.

What? They're empty. Oh.

Still, v. cool.

...and I thought, "That sounds just like me!" And then I realized it was me. And I was tickled. Very tickled.

Journalist Ian Mount's THE LAST VINEYARD: Taming Argentina's Wild West and Putting Malbec on the Map, a riveting tale of commerce, science, history, and wine taking us from Argentina's humble past to its booming present as an industry powerhouse, to Tom Mayer at Norton, at auction, by Alanna Ramirez at Trident Media Group (NA).

Today's paper brought the sad news that yesterday Argentine writer Tomás Eloy Martínez passed away at the age of 75. Most famed for his fictionalized journalism books about Evita and Juan Domingo Perón, Eloy lead a liv\fe that took him from Argentina into exile in Venezuela and then to the U.S. to run the Latin American Studies program at Rutgers University. I only read one of his novels, Santa Evita, a truly amazing re-imagining of Evita's death and the long peregrination her body took after death before returning, years later, to Argentina. I can't say it showed me "what it was like" to be in Argentina then, but it contained a clear ring of truth (even though it was fiction). It tells the story in an engaging novelistic form intermixed with first person commentary from the investigator/writer/Eloy Martínez. Read it in Spanish if you can: the language is straightforward and contemporary (he's no Cortázar) and is worth the effort.

A sad day for Argentine letters.

Usually when you talk about pork and politicians, you're referring to budgetary earmarks for legislators' pet projects.

Unless you're talking about sex.

This CFK quote from a recent Reuters story:

"I've just been told something I didn't know -- that eating pork improves your sex life. I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez told leaders of the pig-farming industry.

She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."

Néstor Kirchner.

Nekkid.

Shudder, shudder.