The ugly duckling of political seasons is, to my mind, conspiracy season, when politicians point and quiver, red-faced, and claim some mano negra is out to drag them down. The recent bar brawl at Perón's reburial didn't seem to offer the raw ingredients for whipping up a conspiracy, but how wrong I was. Just a few days later, President Kirchner's minister of interior and guard dog Anibal Fernández was explaining to all who would listen that the fight at San Vicente was actually a grand scheme to embarrass Kirchner (who decided not to attend because of said brawl). I'm not entirely sure how it embarrassed Kirchner, but Fernández's statements had all the dark vaguenesses of a well practiced conspiracy spinner. He said, "I'm sure that they are more than sufficient elements" to prove a plot; that "When the moment arrives, we'll present the proof." That last one is my favorite of the old conspiracy saws, that head-nod to the bag of evidence in the back room.

The folks at La Nación, no great fans of Mr. K, take the opportunity to elaborate all the conspiracies Pres. Pingüino and his people have claimed, laying the average at one conpiracy per annum. The weary response from the judge in the San Vicente case, César Melazo (apparently not a big K supporter either) is classic: "The theme of plots is something I've been hearing for two years: they're the same theories that are never brought to light, not with proof; they seem to be something scary, but no one ever brings forth evidence so we can investigate them."

Last week the anger recently reopened by new trials into the government-sponsored killings (up to 30,000) during the 1976-83 "Dirty War" jumped into journalism's backyard. On Friday, the Washingotn Post published a story by Buenos Aires correspondent Monte Reel about the reopening of the trials, framed as a pair of pro- and con- he-said/he-said profiles of atrocity trial judge Carlos Rozanski and former army lieutenant colonel Emilio Guillermo Nani. On Saturday, Argentine journalist (and former WaPo writer) Santiago O´Donnell responded with acid in Página/12, where he snidely suggestsed that Reel has never left Barrio Norte, noted that Reel reported alongside US GIs in Irak (presumably to suggest that he's pro-military), and said that via Reel, the WaPo published:

...una incalificable apología del terrorismo de Estado en la Argentina. Incluye referencias a desaparecidos que estarían en Europa y reflota la teoría de los “excesos” supuestamente cometidos en medio de una “guerra sucia”. Dice que “el Gobierno y sus tribunales” están poblados de ex guerrilleros y que ésta sería la causa por la que se reabrieron los juicios de derechos humanos, que no buscan justicia sino venganza. Sugiere que el juez de la causa Etchecolatz es casi un terrorista encubierto y que el pensamiento retrógrado del coronel retirado Nani representa a buena parte de los argentinos. Recomienda “no avivar las brasas” del pasado.

In the end, everyone comes out poorly. The article by Reel (who I should note I've met and liked) suffers from an extreme case of the injustice of Two-handed Journalism (one one hand...on the other), whereby a paper tries to be "evenhanded" by quoting examples of both sides of a debate but fails to note that one side is so much more morally tenuous than the other. A group that used the state aparatus to kill up to 30,000 people in "response" to rebels groups who killed maybe 1,500, and members of the society that suffered those killings--and, yes, may have sympathized with the rebels--don't deserve equal moral weight. Without enough context (especially for US readers who don't know history), it makes it seem like there is an actual debate about whether or not the dictatorship was a bad idea.

Then again, while Reel's piece may have lacked context, it seems to have correctly understand and quoted its actors. Weirdly for someone who obviously speaks fluent english, O'Donnell seemed to have mistaken Nani's words for Reel's (they're plainly in quotes) and taken them as a launching point for an emotional, ad hominem attack on what he calls Reel's "apology for state terrorism". While I didn't think Reel's piece was the greatest produced in the history of American journalism, he doesn't deserve that.

As we reported in a September post, a group of four Maradona fanatics (and members of the church founded in his name) from Mar del Plata have ginned up a huge sculpture of "The 10" that was to be installed wherever he saw fit. Well, the man himself has let his wishes be known: at La bombonera, for all the world to see. And it will last, like the pyramids of Egypt. As the creators write (and let me tell you how glad I am that I'm on the mailing list):

Este Maradona, con la base que lo sostiene, posee más de tres metros de altura, pesa 300 kg y está íntegramente realizado en fibro cemento, con terminación símil bronce y protegido con técnicas de conservación para que la obra no sufra el paso del tiempo.

No word on whether Maradona himself will continue to suffer the passage of time. (The monument goes up October 30.)

A little gem recovered through the egotism of self-Googling (auto-Googling?): An article I wrote for the Wall Street Journal back in July about rare art films one can find on YouTube and other sites was translated and reprinted in the Paraguayan paper La Nación a few weeks later. So I'm famous (sort of) in Asunción.

Which is nice.

Update: Hernán from the Wall Street Journal Americas writes that it's not just Paraguay that's grooving to out WSJ beats. "I read in your blog today that you found yourself being read in Paraguay. I'm coming with more news: that story was published like that, in Spanish, in Colombia, Dominican Rep., El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Not the most glamorous countries, but a handful." Hey, glamorous enough for me! I'm shocked and honored.

After a friendly late Tuesday interview with Clarín.com writer Natalia Laube we are happy to report that on Wednesday afternoon we were most kindly featured on the site in a piece about resident alien bloggers titled "Así nos bloguean". Besides the obvious pride we feel for being in Argentina's Biggest Newspaper, we'd also like to note that our website traffic went through the friggin'roof.

Fight at the Perón re-reburial

As if to provide a perfect object lesson of Karl Marx's (slightly edited) quote, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce," former President Juan Domingo Perón's latest return erupted in fisticuffs and a few wild gunshots. At his most recent reburial at his former weekend retreat in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Vicente, opposing bands of Peronists clashed, beat each other with bats (above) and one shot off a few bullets, in a pathetic, skim milk remake of the massacre that came to pass when Perón returned to Argentine after 18 years of exile in 1973. Not surprisingly, President Kirchner decided not to attend.

So. Very. Sad.

We've been babbling about the BA Boutique Boom for a while, now we've gotten paid for it. Here's a Wall Street Journal article I did on the subject (only good for a few more days, then you need to be a subscriber).

Fatal bus crash in Santa Fe; 10 students die

As we've noted and noted some more, the lack of driving chops shown by professional bus and truck drivers in Argentina is frightening. But even by Argentine standards, what happened last week on Route 11 was beyond the pale. A bus full of high school students from Villa Crespo (Buenos Aires) were returning from the province of Chaco, where they'd help build a school; on the way back at 10 p.m., an out of control truck slammed into the bus, killing 12 (including 10 students). The truck driver and his assistent were apparently very drunk.

I don't want to get on my soapbox and rant about something so simple, but as has been noted, highways here are out of control. The fact that La Nación felt the need to run a map of the country's most dangerous roads says something; so does the fact that I find it hard to sleep--out of fear--on long distance buses. But let's stick to stats: according to Luchemos Por La Vida (We Struggle For Life), an Argentine safe roads group, 7,138 people died in accidents in the country last year, about 20 per day. In 2001 (the most recent data they had), that was 1,058 deaths per million vehicles, which compares really, um, badly to the U.S. or Spain. They have rates of 196 and 211. It's an obvious thing to say, but something has to be done: at 7,000+ deaths per year, it would take 4 years and 3 months for 30,000 people to die. It took the last dictatorship some seven years to kill that many people.

Here 's some fallout from last weekend's fútbol games here in Argentina. How the cop didn't know that you never root for the visiting team unless you're in the visiting bleachers I do not know:

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An Argentine policeman has been suspended for 10 days without pay for cheering a goal while on duty at a soccer match and sparking violent protests by fans.

The policeman cheered the third goal scored by Estudiantes de La Plata, the city where he is based, in their 3-0 win at Lanus Saturday and was pelted with objects thrown by home team supporters until he was removed, Argentine media reported.

And a related NPR story.

On Tuesday (October 17th), a union-led group will be heading a march/pilgrimmage/PR stunt that will disinter former President and working class folk hero Juan Domingo Perón from his current resting place in the working class Chacarita Cemetery and move the corpse to Perón's former suburban retreat in slightly less working class San Vicente (above), where he will be replanted. In a country with corpse obsession--Evita's corpse was spirited all over Europe for two decades; somebody broke in Juan's crypt and cut off his hands--this is not without precedent, nor controversy (or hope: some Peronists yearn to someday move Evita to be with her ex-hubby). A woman named Martha Holgado who claims to be Perón's daughter filed suit to stop the move, while one of Evita's relatives will not let her corpse be moved. And of course there's not chance it will be used for political gain by the various strains of Peronism and the oppostion. Current (Peronist) President Kirchner will preside, while former Presidents Duhalde (Peronist), Alfonsín (Radical) and Menem (Peronist) will attend.

Perón's battered bod's next stop? Disneyland. Obvio.

Update: The day after we posted this, Larry Rohter of the NYT has a nice profile on the project and the fight put up by the alleged daughter. A favorite bit about the why Perón's supporters say that Holgado couldn't be his daughter: "For years, to undermine the swaggering macho aura Perón had as a dictator, his enemies spread rumors that he was impotent. Mr. Rodríguez Perón tried to modify such claims by saying Perón was sterile because of an accident in 1913, when he was an 18-year-old cadet in the military, that crushed his testicles."

With the arrival on newstands of the November issue of Budget Travel and it in a story by Yours Truly, we were most pleased and honored to get a pleasant shout out from the folks at the travel blog Jaunted. To whit:

So we managed to get our grabby hands on the new issue of Budget Travel, which as usual is packed with fun tidbits. One particular piece snagged our attention: BA blogger Ian Mount's "Buenos Aires... Then What?", an eight-page package on three great places to visit once you've had your fill of buttery beef and sultry porteños dancing tango (too bad that it's not online yet).

In a classic "only in Argentina" political moment, today in Buenos Aires the Senate had to evacuate its chambers while debating an oil exploration bill because members of the group Quebracho tossed a stink bomb into the Senate and began shouting "The Fatherland, yes. A colony, no."

By way of background, the ten-year-old Quebracho (Wikipedia profile) is a far left group that aims for the elimination of private property and likes to fight with representatives of the state. Most recently, it hit the news when it protested outside the Israeli embassy during Israel's recent invasion of Lebanon, its members wearing the combination of Palestinian-style headscarves with "Argentina" shirts and carrying photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (above) and picked fights with local Jewish groups like the AMIA.

I suppose that makes stink bombs a stepping down of the rhetoric.

I was going to apologize for our more-or-less absence for these last few weeks, but I won't: I think the whole new-baby-in-the-house thing gives us the best excuse ever. But this postlet heralds a return of sorts. With it I give you a picture Cintra snapped of grafitti near our house, a stencil that takes a bit of piss out of President Kirchner via his famous wall eye. Is it kind? No. But funny? Oh, yes.

Today my brother Roddy would have turned 32. Pics here are of his first b'day, back in 1975. As many readers of this blog already know, Roddy died in 2005 from diabetic ketoacidosis. He died on the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere (March 21). Our son Henry was born on first day of spring here in the southern hemisphere--a sure sign of rebirth in the world.

In other memorial news: This past weekend, Team Hot Rod raised over $5K for diabetes research in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes in Manhattan. The second annual walk benefiting my brother's memorial fund was very very wet, but friends and family braved the downpour & my mom, at least, even enjoyed it.

Missing my brother -- and wishing he could have been an uncle to Henry --
www.roddyscott.com