Tomorrow = a holiday to eat

25 of May -- celebrating Argentina's May Revolution that resulted in its independence from Spain (officially declared on the 9th of July, 1816) -- is a big day for eating. All day should be spent at an asado (bbq), where beef is slow cooked over the parrilla. As if an Argentine would need reminding... "Festeja el 25 con asado," urges the butcher shop/ fruit stand on Borges near GoodAirs HQ in the left photo. (I'd been looking for an excuse to snap a pic of the fruit-filled tub.)

But actually, there has been a lot of reminding in my Body Pump classes this week. In anticipation of Friday's pig out -- or, atracón, as I learned in the article about Madonna in this month's Argentine Elle -- Body Pump has been particularly grueling, leaving me barely able to lift my 19-pound baby between sessions. Before Buenos Aires, I'd never heard of BP, but it turns out it's an international phenom. Its official website claims 96 gyms in Buenos Aires and 2 in my little hometown of Princeton, NJ up north. BP is goofy fun, with plastic barbells to rest on the shoulders while doing squats until your legs scream.

Happy holiday weekend -- with Friday off for Argentina & Monday off for the USA (Memorial Day), I think I'll take half off each of the two...

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Cheto o Blitz?

Today, Grant of WUBA pointed me to the best of all blog posts (okay, I'm exaggerating, but only a bit), a post on Lake y su bizarre streaming of a 1981 cover of Gente magazine and the inside socioeconomic quiz, "¿Usted es cheto o es blitz?"

So how do you know where you stand in the chetoblitz universe? Well, for example, you're cheto if...

You say 'man' every other word.
You wear a copper bracelet on your left wrist.
You always go out in groups.
You wear your Walkman alllll day, even in the disco

.
And you're blitz if...

You wear Texan cowboy boots.
You drink champagne from a highball glass...with ice.
You summer in Punta del Este.
You know how to ski.

It's all brilliant, really. And with a few replaced words, it could have been written today...

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Bloom Off The Penguin?

I've always been impressed with Nestor Kirchner. Not with his grasp of economic policy or institutional strength, mind you (though I did enjoy his arm-twisting of the IMF [ed note: my bad, that should be the arm twisting of bond holders and hard talking of the IMF]). Rather, I was always amazed at how someone with such a pronounced--how do we say this kindly?--charisma deficit managed to inspire such profound love among the public. Here's a guy who combines an oratorical style that's simultaneously irritated and boring with a walleye, a lisp and the posture of Shrek at rest and yet for years he's had 172% approval ratings--though I think INDEC may have manipulated those figures. (Now that I think of it, the charisma deficit and style make the polar opposite of Menem, which may explain why people like him.)

But, anyway, delving into his popularity with the lazy man's focus group (taxistas, plomeros, the guy standing behind you in the checkin line while waiting out an Aerolineas strike), I started to repeat the mantra I heard, "Yes, it's been shown repeatedly that price controls and replacing lifelong professionals with loyal flunkies are bad policies, but Argentina is different. It's needs a President who can grab it in his fist and manage it, first and foremost, and Kirchner knows how." I thought, great, a guy who feels the country like only Peronists do, just less corrupt than usual. Maybe this is be the guy who will turn Argentina from being a wonderful country suffering a slow, inexorable rot (punctuated by bursts of spastic, unmanaged growth) into a place that inspired hope.

Well, it's been a bad week for the Penguin K and I'm beginning to think that maybe gravity applies here just like everywhere else. First, the Skanska pipeline kickback scandal, which had claimed the hide of the head of the government gas regulatory body Enargas, widened to 12 other construction firms; then in came out the beef exports had fallen by a third since 2005 (spurred in part by export controls meant to keep prices low in-country) and knocked Argentina--Beeflandia--from third to seventh in world rankings; and now it seems that K's approval rating has fallen to a measly 57% (something that, admittedly most Presidents, including the rocket surgeon occupying my country's corner office, would die for).

What's next--a viable opposition party?

As elections near, Argentina's Kirchner in midst of political crisis [McClatchy Washington Bureau]
String of setbacks has Kirchner down in polls but still unbeatable [Mercopress]
Exportaciones de carne: cae la Argentina en el ranking mundial [Clarín]
Argentine Corruption Scandal Widens [AP via Forbes.com]

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Total chaos

With all five subway lines halted, city transportation was described as, well, hell today. City buses were bursting at the seams and taxis were hard to hail, thanks to the subway strike, which was expected to last until midnight today. (Update: Ian tells me the A line is now running...and is free, to help handle the city's transportation emergency.)

This comes on the heels of a surreal riot by train passengers Tuesday night in estación Constitución (see photo below). I turned on the TV set to see the live images Tuesday night and struggled to understand that, yes, passengers started the riots because the trains running south of the city were delayed again. Teenagers blazenly threw rocks at police officers in riot gear... Today those trains were running, with delays, for no charge. (Ticket booths were burnt down, so that makes some sense.)

Getting out of the city by plane is no picnic either. Ian's reporting a story in Mendoza, so he got us tickets this week (bonus: we can get tickets at residents' cost these days). First, he reserved some nicely priced ones on LAN Argentina, but they haven't managed a domestic flight all week,due to workers' strikes. So then he got slightly more expensive Aerolineas Argentinas tix, so here's hoping they don't strike and the radar works...

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Food for thought

Baby's first (puréed) Argentine steak! Had to capture that milestone. He looked a little dubious or concerned at first, but he indicated that he wanted more by gnawing the table afterwards.

More tidbits:

Today, Rev Ken -- the Unitarian-Universalist minister who married us (and a friend of Ian's since childhood) -- has a thoughtful opinion piece in Philadelphia Daily News: "The Rule of Law at Guantanamo"

Yesterday, Yahoo! News ran a story that caught my procrastinating eye: "Ceiling Height Alters How You Think." After reading that high ceilings encourage freer, more abstract thoughts and lower ceilings favor getting concrete tasks done, I'm wondering if our tall ceilings are the reason I'm starting up new projects, but not quite, ahem, following through.

This past weekend, the New York Times Sunday Book Review gave a glowing endorsement of Rebecca Barry's "marvelous debut work of fiction," Later, at the Bar. In NYC, reading tomorrow at Astor Place Barnes & Noble, 7 PM. Wish I could be there. (RB is a favorite friend since our shared days at Seventeen Mag.) [Review: Bad Behavior, Within Reason (registration req'd)]

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