Archive for 'Essay'
Fernando Botero’s paintings of torture at Abu Ghraib prison
by George Allen Santiago’s Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos is a block long rectangular concrete and glass building outside of the sprawling Quinto Normal Park. The front entrance of the museum is [...]
Don’t Shout: The obnoxious Gringo tourist in Mexico
by Robert Joe Stout Tourists are funny creatures. (Funny strange, not funny ha-ha.) Having decided on a Mexican vacation they pack clothes they’d never dream of wearing at home: floppy hats, outlandish shorts, sandals that [...]
The Marijuana Policy Project on Political Events in Latin America
By Morgan Fox The Mexican election will certainly be an interesting one in terms of the drug war. While Calderon’s initial cry of all out war against the cartels was extremely popular when it began [...]
On Affairs of Literature
By Erik Berg There’ve been a few times I’ve been drained enough at night, when there’s nothing left in the tank to write, and I think of literature as is, the way I think of nature, [...]
Happy Aniversary Buenos Aires
by Vivi Rathbon Two years went by in an instant. An airplane landed in Buenos Aires. I closed my eyes and inhaled. I opened my eyes and exhaled, and it is two years later. Moving [...]
How to End the War on Drugs
Today The Washington Post worried out loud that drug money could affect the 2012 Mexican Presidential election. They wondered whether tainted political contributions and outright threats could put the presidency back into the hands of the [...]
Why Christopher Hitchens Matters
The usual duty of the “intellectual” is to argue for complexity and to insist that phenomena in the world of ideas should not be sloganized or reduced to easily repeated formulae.–Christopher Hitchens The reason I like [...]
Could the Mexican War on Drugs Spread to Chile?
Here in Chile HBO is showing a new made-in-Chile production called “Profúgos” ( meaning “fugitives”). The opening episode showed a gun battle between this group of narcotraficantes and the PDI police in the port of Valparaiso. [...]
Why I Got Rid of FaceBook
Here is my view on FaceBook. Last night I watched again the film “The Social Contract” about the founding of the company. I was thrilled to have downloaded and read a copy of the Aaron Sorkin [...]
What does it mean to be Hispanic and why the Americans have got it Wrong
The Tea Party Republicans plan to make an issue of immigration in the upcoming presidential election as they have done in the past. They decry the surge of what the Americans call “Hispanic” immigrants. I would [...]
The Gringo and the Harvest
Fernando Botero’s paintings of torture at Abu Ghraib prison
Thought-provoking...
Give me a Grandparent
I am blessed with 7 grandchildren. I am making copies of this poem t
Give me a Grandparent
As I spend more and more time with more and more wonderfully different
George Orwell’s other Novels
In Latin America, kids don't read Orwell. I wish they did.
George Orwell’s other Novels
Animal Farm and 1984 are about any kind of dictatorship, not just comm