Oxymoron of the day: Argentine political culture

Post written with Mexfiles in mind.

The recent Nobel Literature prizewinner Mario Vargas Llosa is on something akin to a tour of South America right now and has just landed in Argentina. To mark the occasion Argentine politicos have been on full "oh yeah I just love them there book things" toady alert, with the usual hilarious consequences including:

1) José Adrián Pérez, idiot member of Argentina's national congress said that he was "a good author", but when pushed by a reporter said that he'd done "a lot of valuable things, for example 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'."

2) Diana Conti, another idiot member of congress (and ex-Senator to boot), noted Vargas Llosa as "a man true to his principles" but also the dude that wrote 'The Open Veins of Latin America'.

I'm pretty sure Galeano would have a good chuckle about it all, but it'd be fun to know what García Márquez thinks. Thus ends another day in the paradise that is South America, ladies and gentlemen.

Mario Vargas Llosa: 2010 Nobel literature prize, Announcement - Video and News

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".

Click the figure below to see the video and news.

Zoom

Mario Vargas Llosa

 The excellent portrait photo El Comercio is running on its front page today. 

Click to expand cos it get very big

Congratulations. This Nobel Prize for literature is 100% deserved. On thinking, I really haven't agreed more fully with a Nobel decision ever. A cheer for MVLL, for his home town of Arequipa, for Peru, for his adopted Spain, for South America, but mostly a cheer for the beauty of his written word.

UPDATE: Another take:

Even better on this link

Peru's cabinet reshuffle

Today's the day Twobreakfasts reshuffles his cabinet, with many ministers about the get resigned going  happily because they want to run for this-or-that job in next year's election round (e.g. the current PM). But one name, Defence Minister Rafael Rey, is going because of this story nicely encapsulated by Reuters last night

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's embattled President Alan Garcia asked Congress on Monday to repeal a decree he issued two weeks ago that gave virtual amnesty to hundreds of people accused of atrocities during a civil war that killed 69,000.
Garcia backtracked only hours after acclaimed Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa harshly criticized him in a letter in which he resigned as head of a commission appointed to build a museum to honor victims of the 1980-2000 conflict, which was one of the bloodiest ever in Latin America.
Garcia's decree said that defendants in trials for human rights crimes committed before 2003 must be sentenced within 36 months of the start of their trial.
As most of the hundreds of pending cases have been bogged down for years, Vargas Llosa called the measure an "amnesty in disguise." Other critics have said the measure could violate the U.N. agreements on human rights signed by Peru.
Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that widespread rights abuses occurred during the 1990-2000 presidency of Alberto Fujimori and, to a lesser extent, during Garcia's first term in the 1980s.
Fujimori has been convicted for rights crimes, and activists say they want to put Garcia on trial, too.
"This is truly a disgrace that will revive political divisions in the country, precisely at a time of exceptional (economic) progress and during an election that should be used to reinforce our legal institutions and democracy," Vargas Llosa wrote in his letter CONTINUES HERE

As pointed out in the piece it was Twobreakfasts himself who signed off on the decree, but the real brains behind this disgusting piece of legislation is Rafael Rey, nasty shit, two faced rat, Opus Dei stalwart, Fujimori defender and general nasty piece of work in the oldschool LatAm political style. After receiving Vargas Llosa's resignation letter, Twobreakfasts apparently rang Mario, told him that Rey was toast and immediately sent to overturning proposal to Congress (where it'll get approved today).

So another chapter in PeruPolitik written. By this time tomorrow another set of stuffed suits will run the country on autopilot, the ones that are looking to parlay their power next year get free rein and one of the badduns will, hopefully at least, drop out the scene forever. Have a nice Tuesday.

UPDATE: JFS at Hemispheric Brief does a better job than IKN of recapsulating the anmesty decree issue right here. Good digest as always.

The LatAm right's idea of cultured debate and conflict resolution

Just punch a guy in the eye as he walks over to greet you. And not any old dude, either. If you're going to be a thug, why not be a thug to a Nobel laureate? And hey, great idea! As you know the person you've just violently attacked from out the blue is a good and kind person you know he won't make a scandal about it and tell the world. Here's the report that has finally come to light over 30 years after the incident between Nobel winner Gabriel García Marquez and the psychotic Mario Vargas Llosa and here's a translated taster:

He (Gabriel García Marquez) went over to him (Mario Vargas Llosa) to greet and hug him. "Mario!" was the only thing he managed to say as a welcome, because Vargas Llosa greeted him with a punch that knocked him on to the carpet with a face covered in blood.

Violent attacks on friends without any warnings that were the result of irrational jealousy? Sounds like just the kind of stable character that the LatAm right wing admires....should make a great President of Peru one day. Not.

Rush Limbaugh owns Barack Obama

The events of last weekend were monumental in significance for the Obama presidency and for the ever-rising credibility of the sane and right-thinking right wing, so we should take a closer look at what happened:

• Rush Limbaugh was attending the "Freedom First!" conference in Washington DC with a group of other non-reactionary, non-polemic right wing intellectuals (Pat Buchanan, Dick Cheney etc)

• Rush remembered that Barack Obama had decided to make this weekend's Presidential Radio Address a live version from the White House, so at the DC conference issued a challenge to Obama to make the airtime into a debate over policy and ideology.

• Obama was told about this and quickly replied: "Yes of course. The conference speakers can come over and we'll set aside the airtime for an in-depth debate between their team and our team. This is good for the democratic process".

• But Rush didn't like that idea and shot back, "No! Just you and me, Barack. Rush versus Obama in a live debate that will show the world just how wonderful I am."

• Obama refused the debate. "Look dude. Time to get real. I've offered you a platform to debate policy with my team but a one-on-one with me just ain't gonna happen. I'm the POTUS, for cryin' out loud! I'm Major League, you're in the AAAs."

• Limbaugh refuses the team debate, calls Obama a coward and claims moral victory. "How dare he refuse my offer? What he did was against all forms of free speech."

Conclusion: If all this sounds weird and confusing, dear IKN Reader, just swap the name Barack for Hugo, Rush for Mario, Washington for Caracas and that's exactly what went on last week. Mario Vargas Llosa is a dickhead. The end.