Chileno - Living in Santiago, Chile Travel Blog

Who Killed Victor Jara?

2009-05-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

With and autopsy report of 44 bullet wounds in body, it was apparently group effort that took down the poet and folksinger in the bloodbath that accompanied Pinochet's rise to power. Recent court testimony is getting closer at the truth of exactly who did what, and names explicitly the captains, commanders, agents and conscripts involved and overseen by Nelson Edgardo Haase Mazzei, pictured above among friends enjoying the archetypal pastime of the scot-free.

You can find the names of everyone involved, and a description of how Victor Jara was killed, on Tomas Dinges' blog.

Dinges' post is a fine English-language summary of the investigative piece by Jacmel Cuevas of investigative site CIPER Chile detailing the testimonies about those who killed Victor Jara.

Thanks for pointing this out go to Marc Cooper who remembers Victor Jara as a remarkable Chilean folksinger of the pre-Pinochet years.

Russ Feingold Never Went to Chile

2009-04-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama just released CIA memos detailing how "War on Terror" detainees were tortured under former President George W Bush. Among those disappointed by this decision was Ronald Reagan's speech writer-now-teevee-pundit Peggy Noonan. Quotes the Huffington Post:

"Some things in life need to be mysterious," Noonan said on Sunday about the release of the torture memos. "Sometimes you need to just keep walking."

Romantic.

To be applauded is Senator Russ Feingold, who lashed out against Noonan. He said he'd "Never Heard Anything Quite As Disturbing".

Well, I have. I spent over two years in Chile.

Read about Feingold's criticism of Noonan

Pinochet Victim Faked Death, Got Cash?

2008-11-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a shady ethical debate question. Would you have the foresight to fake your own death by coup d'etat because eventually government would change again and reparations would be made?

Maybe it's just a question of smarts.

Either way, it might be what Communist Party member German Cofre did. Might have done. Here's an excerpt from this breaking story:

Soldiers surrounded Cofre's house in 1973 and led him away to a secret prison. His wife never saw him again before she died in 1997.

An employee of the city street cleaning department and a Communist Party member, Cofre was one of thousands of leftists rounded up following the 1973 military coup.

Some, like current President Michelle Bachelet, were eventually released. Many others were known to have been killed. And some just vanished — presumably tortured, killed and buried in clandestine graves or tossed into the sea.

But Cofre apparently was released, and fled to the Argentine city of Mendoza, where he established a new family.

Back in Chile, his wife had him declared legally dead in 1991. A funeral was held in 1995 after experts wrongly identified as his remains found at a local cemetery. Deputy Interior Minister Felipe Harboe said the family received a government stipend granted to victims of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

So, was it cool what this guy did?

I'm not telling you what I'd do, hypothetically. Apparently my Robin Hood Advice Features disqualify me permanently from ethical debate questions.

So, I'll leave it up to you.

???

Scandal At Santiago Times!

2008-11-09T14:10:00.000-08:00

It's heart wrenching to have to report this but it's newsworthy: An intern at The Santiago Times is disgruntled! And only after like one week!

So, okay. Highlighting expert photographer JDKSnaps' balanced recommendation about whether or not to intern at The Santiago Times is representative of many other past interns' exact same feelings, not an isolated anomaly, but it is the latest. And last time I checked that's what "news" means. JDKSnaps writes:

To say that I'm having a frustrating time here at my current 'internship' would be an understatement. It is amazingly disorganized and lacks leadership, with the chief editor stating that he wants basically no involvement with any of photography decisions. There is no photo-editor position here, which means that the current "photographers" (in scare-quotes because the photogs here have less experience than me...yet act like they have been working for the NY Times for 10 years, yikes) are left to work things out.

Of course, you can find many happy interns too. Like me. I love The Santiago Times, despite their typos, and I love JDKSnaps. Which is why it pains me to see these two going at it so.

But as much as it hurts, I'm obliged involve you. JDKSnaps wants to know which photo you think is better. His:

...or that of some overexposed and underexperienced hothouse "intern" chick:

Let the voting begin (Go JDK!).

Chileno's Endorsement for President of the United States of America

2008-10-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

The world - and Chile is no exception - has an intense interest in the outcome of the 2008 US Presidential Election. Not just the interest generated by crazed global media coverage, but rather a far greater material interest in the strength of each candidate's capacity for empathy.

Much is made of John McCain's time spent as a POW during the Vietnam War. Yet Chileno believes the time spent abroad by Barack Obama will prove to be far more instructive to the chief shaper and executor of US foreign policy.

This morning NPR reported how Obama's time in Indonesia coincided with the brutal Suharto dictatorship. In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama describes how hundreds of thousands were killed or imprisoned by the US-backed regime. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham calls this "a very tactile experience of foreign policy." He continues:

Obama has been right in the thick of a messy, asymetrical, fluid situation in a country where power moves quickly and which can be a pawn in a larger game, in this case the Cold War.

When you look at how he wants to govern if he were to win, he is someone who I think is more conscious of what American power feels like on the receiving end, than on the giving end.

I think he understands the law of unintended consequences because he spent part of his childhood in a country in chaos in which America has played some role in creating or trying to capitalize on that chaos. I think you have more empathy with the people whose lives we are affecting. Not saying that you're sympathetic to them, let me be very clear, but I think you can imaginatively put yourself in the position of another country, of another region and how that region or that country may respond to overtures of American power.

Empathy suggests that you will be able to think a couple moves ahead of what the implications of an expression of American power would be and so i think the direct lesson of what Obama's written about in both Dreams of my Father and The Audacity of Hope is that what we do is often uncontrollable, when you unleash forces abroad it's very, very hard to manage them.

Emphasis added. Chile is no exception. The same CIA that backed the overthrow of Chile's democratically-elected Salvadore Allende later picked up intelligence on a 1976 assassination plot against a US Congressman by Pinochet's men - the very people the CIA backed!

Obama's opponent also had a very tactile experience with a pawn in the Cold War. And I don't mean Vietnam. Documents recently unearthed reveal a secret 1985 meeting between John McCain and Chile's ruthless dictator Augusto Pinochet, one arranged without preconditions and which followed several days of pallin' around with the Terrorist's cronies in Chile's verdant, sparkling south.

Tomás Dinges cites an AP report on torture in Chile that McCain should very well have been aware of at the time:

Since 1981 the US State Dept has recorded 286 cases of torture in Chile with the number increasing each year. Statistics kept by the Chilean Commission for Human Rights are more than three times higher.

Piercingly, Tomás writes, "McCain. How could you? What has changed in your judgment between then and now?"

Chileno wonders the same. In the final presidential debate, Obama lauded his rival's position against torture as "commendable." If only that commendable position could be relied upon. Chileno won't bite. McCain can't be trusted. He falls far short of Obama's capacity for empathy on the world stage. McCain is unworthy of the task of leading the United States of America and, by extension, much of the world.

Chileno endorses the living daylight outta Barack Obama.

John McCain Met Terrorist Pinochet Without Preconditions

2008-10-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

In 1976, Augusto Pinochet's intelligence agency killed Orlando Letelier with a car bomb in Washington DC. The CIA also learned they were planning the assassination of US Congressman Ed Koch. But a decade later, then-Congressman John McCain met with Pinochet, a rogue terrorist, without preconditions.

John Dinges broke the story this morning on The Huffington Post:

According to a declassified U.S. Embassy cable about the meeting secured by The Huffington Post, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet "as friendly and at times warm, but noted that Pinochet does seem obsessed with the threat of communism." McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.

Click here now to read more.

UPDATE: You can read a Spanish-language story about John McCain meeting a foreign dictator on CIPER.cl. Click here now to read the story.

Pictures of Chile: Andes Mountains, Glaciers, Sunset & Camping

2008-10-19T06:31:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering where to go camping in Chile, the Andes Mountains aren't bad. More specifically, Parque Andino Juncal.

It's Tomás Dinges' and his aunt's project. A bunch of us went up there a million years ago and got really drunk and went hiking and almost froze to death it was great. Bring warm clothes.

Click here to find out more about reserving campground or cabin lodging in the refuge.

Ride The Subway For Free in Santiago de Chile

2008-09-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

A while back I told you how to ride the bus for free in Santiago, Chile. Now, as promised, here is my secret to Riding the Santiago Subway for Free. It really works.

Basically, all you have to do is tell a yellow-vested station operator that you got off at the wrong stop.

What makes this trick so great is that I didn't even think it up: a station operator taught me! See, every month I had to pay my Internet bill at the Telefonica office which happened to be located in a strange little mall right inside a Metro station. (In Santiago they call it "Metro", not "Subway").

But the very next station was where my gym was at.

So one day I told a yellow-vested lady my predicament - while I really didn't have it in me to walk all the way to the gym from there, I was not about to pay full fair just to travel one more stop.

Of course, she couldn't just let me through the normal card-swiping beeping pay gates. But what she did do was tell me to walk over to her colleague and explain that I'd accidentally gotten off one stop shy of my destination. Her colleague, you see, was guarding the normal gates for staff and emergency crews (and now me!) to get through w/o paying.

The key to making this work is to walk in from outside and go straight toward the platform exit gates. Once there, walk away as if you were just getting off the metro. Then slow down, look around, look lost, look for the entrance gates and the nearest station operator.

If you've ever called in sick to work, you've enough acting skillz to make this work. For plausibility's sake, it's best if you say that you disembarked one stop early, or one stop late. But from there you can travel the whole length of Santiago for all they know.

This way, Sara, you may never have to buy a BIP card again.

Good luck!

Smog in Santiago de Chile (Bill Callahan)

2008-09-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

Haha, not this smog, but Smog. Looks like Disorder.cl is giving away free tickets for the September 13 show in Santiago de Chile at 10pm.

I saw Bill Callahan in San Francisco a couple years ago at The Independent. The best comment a friend made that evening was, "Nice music, but I could use a sofa". (Watch the Youtube clips and you'll understand).

Well, the Chilean venue is Cine Arte Normandie, meaning they've got seats cuz it's a movie theater. But some seats! Only martyrs for Art go there, but at least you'll get to sit down. I went to plenty of movies at Cine Arte Normandie, and only paid 3 bucks because I lied and said I was a student, but even the full price is 5 bucks.

Now, Smog is charging like $28. Or if you buy in advance, $20. Ridiculous. I swear I didn't pay more than $10 to see them in SF. That's so third world: inflating prices so only the pretentious elite in the local country can show up. Remember, in Chile a server makes approx $2/hour.

Reminds me of some show sponsored by The Clinic a while back where they were charging about $12 to get in. That price listed right next to their motto "firme con el pueblo". It was an irony-free poster I suppose.

Anyway, I'd say it's only worth going to the smog concert to sit down and be bored if you can get the free tickets, otherwise I wouldn't but you might be more into them than I am.

New Research: Smog = 300 Cigarettes Daily

2008-08-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

Not to be alarmist or anything, but some folks have been curious why non-smokers are getting smoker's diseases, like lung cancer. (A disease which kills 85% of patients within the first 5 years of diagnosis).

WaPo reports it starts with air pollutants known as free radicals (copper, iron, etc) that were previously thought to disperse in the atmosphere after being created by car exhaust, factory fumes, the homely hearth, etc.

But now they're saying these free radicals attach themselves to smog particles that are also created by car exhaust, factory fumes, the homely hearth, etc. So the free radicals live on for days. That's why they're called persistent free radicals. Meaning, as long as there's smog, there's also free radicals.

Where else can you get free radicals? In cigarettes. But lead researcher H. Barry Dellinger seems to fear the dangers of cigarettes are dwarfed by those of smog:

one would have to smoke about 300 cigarettes a day to be exposed to the same level of environmental free radicals found in moderately polluted air.

I'm not sure what "moderately polluted air" means. I assume it's relative to first world cities that start warning their populations when PM-10 particle per cubic meter hit 50-60. So, perhaps "moderate" means 40? Santiago's smog goes untouched till about 200.

Nazi Literature in the Americas

2008-08-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

The day military dictator Augusto Pinochet died, I captured some of his supporters on the digicam as they held vigil outside uptown Santiago's Escuela Militar:

Marc Cooper, former translator for Salvador Allende, also blogged Pinochet's death and pointed to my video to corroborate the veracity of another nazi photo circulating at the time, which some of his readers had found hard to believe:

Chileno provides us with a video of these same Young Nazis holding their own sort of sad Nuremberg street rally for Pinochet. Like most card-carrying fascists, they look both stupid and dangerous.

Stupid for sure. With over 34,000 views by now, the video has spawned endless comments on the skin color of many of those seen employing white supremacist symbolism. And of course those knuckleheads are dangerous, too. But while nakedly illustrative of everything Pinochet stood for, there's a risk that highlighting such extremist elements of the pro-Pinochet crowd could belie the far more sinister among them: the "smart and dangerous."

Mariana Callejas, for example, was not only one of Chile's literary elite hosting a dazzling writer's salon, but also a DINA member and ex-wife of Michael Townley, a high-profile assassin for that terrifying intelligence agency.

Last month Callejas was convicted for her involvement in one of Townley's international hit jobs, and I just found a great article about her dual life, a strange symbiosis of fine arts and fascism:

As the literati danced and debated upstairs, Chilean intelligence officers were downstairs torturing dissidents and manufacturing the toxic nerve agent sarin in a secret laboratory.

Chilean writer Roberto Bolano wrote about her, and I'll also point you to Bolano's book Nazi Literature in the Americas, as reviewed by the New York Times. Actually the review briefly mentions another of his works:

But what can it mean, he asks us and himself, in his dark, extraordinary, stinging novella “By Night in Chile,” that the intellectual elite can write poetry, paint and discuss the finer points of avant-garde theater as the junta tortures people in basements? The word has no national loyalty, no fundamental political bent; it’s a genie that can be summoned by any would-be master.

And the same question is explored further in Nazi Literature in the Americas, in which Bolano creates a "wicked, invented encyclopedia of imaginary fascist writers and literary tastemakers".

I haven't read the book yet, only the review, but from what I can tell the word "satire" would probably be too blunt to describe what he does with this imaginary world of sensitive, frighteningly human Nazi poets.

Having recently finished his book "The Savage Detectives," which is delightfully rife with both real and invented literary arcana, I'm convinced that whatever he does with those Nazis' poetic perversions, it'll be good.

I should point out, though, that in The Savage Detectives, the main characters are, as noted in the above-referenced review, "sometimes ridiculous," but "always heroic." As a reader I would laugh at his hapless heroes because I loved them. As does Bolano himself: in an online interviewBolano's translator Natasha Wimmer talks about the writer's "palpable fondness for his characters."

I wonder if such fondness extends to his invented Nazi poets. Not as apologism, of course, but rather as a way of humanizing them down to the disconcertingly familiar, in whose hands - or anybody's - their black art is anything but redemptive. I'll just have to read it and find out.

Probably the polar opposite of Ayn Rand and her comic-strip screeds against socialism, Roberto Bolano is sincerely self-aware, his characters multi-dimensional and his works recognized among the greatest Latin American literature after, if not above, that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Click on any of the links below to buy his books:

The Savage Detectives: A Novel

Los Detectives Salvajes/the Savage Detectives

By Night in Chile

Nocturno de Chile (Narrativas Hispanicas, 293) (Narrativas Hispanicas, 293)

Nazi Literature in the Americas

La literatura nazi en America/ Nazi Literature in The Americas (Biblioteca Breve)

Enjoy!

Angel Investing in Santiago Valley

2008-07-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

Santiago Valley is a play on words meaning Chilean Silicon Valley, it's the title of a magazine article-turned-blog post by Chilean Internet heartthrob Leo Prieto that I first read in a Sanhattan dentist's office, because at that point the dentist hadn't yet attached flat-screen HDTVs to the waiting room walls and operating room ceilings, although by now they should be up.

Leo reminds us once again that he was "there", getting more hits for his Mac site in its first year than Yahoo in its first, and because he's an industry leader we should believe him when he says that "there" is once again "here". So after wading through tired metaphors about the Wild Wests and Gold Rushes, one does see a tidy little list of buzz, all these Web startups proving that Chile is in its own special way somewhat where it's at.

One that stuck out was Needish.com because some totally gringa chick works there and commented on Chileno once. Also Meeting.cl because I interviewed Cristian Sepulveda, one of the founders, for an unrelated story. They wrastled down nice little grant from the Chilean government's Economic Development Agency (CORFO.cl). Because Chile is a Free Market invisible hand no handouts from uncle Samuel miracle.

Well, how about that. How does private investing work in Chile? Well, I found an interesting study on Angel Investors in Chile which I might read some day. Although - Spoiler Alert - I did scroll down to catch the conclusion:

Compared to other Latin American countries, local investors are perceived well by society and the legal and economic context is more friendly to angel investing. Thus Chile may not have yet the conditions to have a driving angel investing market as in the US, but local conditions seem to be much better than in the average Latin American country.

BTW: I have no idea when it was published.

Of course, Cristian is like always in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area complaining, rightly so, about BART prices, and that's where investors think outside the box or throw plates of spaghetti at the wall and hope the one noodle that sticks is the next Google. I did find a really cool-seeming new site that might make it easier to network with potential Angel Investors from anywhere. It's a resource for startup companies seeking Venture Capital, and also anyone who likes to throw money at startups, it's a resource for them as well. Leo's latest blog post is all about how hard it is to start up in Chile, and blames it on entrenched pessimism which is true but it's a tricky argument because without turning this into a materialistic pinko screed I'd like to suggest that people tend to be a whole lot more optimistic when there's more money lying around, so give Chile an Angel Investor or two! Or even its own version of a website that helps lubricate
Funding inside the country. See?

$500,000 Reward for Nazi Hiding in South America

2008-07-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

If you're traveling in Patagonia and want to buy a little extra vacation time you might consider capturing the 94-year-old Nazi, Dr. Aribert "Death" Heim:

+ wrinkles = $$$

The Times Online reports that the Nazi hunting group from some Wiesenthal Centre "plans to place advertisements in local newspapers to publicise a reward of 315,000 euros (£250,000) for Heim's capture."

Of course you can't arrest him really. Nobody can. Just, like, "capture" him. Nevermind, it's half a million bucks!

Oh, and:

Karl Lotter, a non-Jewish political prisoner who worked at the hospital at Mauthausen, testified that a fit 18-year-old Jewish man was sent to Heim for treatment of a foot inflammation. Instead of treating the prisoner's foot, Heim anaesthetised him, cut him open, castrated him, removed one kidney and dismembered the other. The victim's head was cut off and the flesh boiled off so that Heim could keep it on display.

Etc.

Definitely bumps down a notch the Eduardo Perez, a rogue backpacker whose worse crime is drugging gullible travelers and maxing out their credit cards, and for whom there's no damn reward anyway.

Nazi hot, Eduardo not:

Chile Police Violently Supress Student Protests

2008-07-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture I'm filching from Reuters:

Now, if it were the fashion police who had mowed her down with high powered water cannons and liquid teargas, then I'd be willing to look the other way.

Unfortunately, the cops attacked because she and hundreds others were protesting the education reform bill which, typical, isn't a reform at all.

Read the article about the persistent protests against passage of this bill:

...medics tended to one protester lying on the capital's main artery, the Alameda, who suffered a head injury after he was doused by a water cannon.

It's still unclear whether or not he was sporting a mullet.

Water cannons come out if you honk a horn it's nothing new, it's painfully routine, but of course Chile isn't Third World, it's all developed and stuff.

These protests against the education so-called reform bill have been going on for like ever including strikes so students can't study (unless they organize sessions on the sly), that was in May, not sure how long the strikes lasted.

The Latest in Chilean Music, Postcards, Guidebooks and More

2008-06-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

Here's what's going on:

- Chileno's compilation of Chilean music increases as Rodrigo Jarque (myspace, last.fm ethereal, melodic also apparently soundtracking for Matias Bize...in bed tee-hee) is recommended by Irene from the promising new music blog called crack and cowbells or something.

-Nothing like the Internet to not transcend antiquated forms of ~~clutter~~ communication, Kyle does Chile postcards.

-I vacation in Austria to learn German.

-Wayne begins a craven purge of all his South America guidebooks, so now you can get FREE GUIDE BOOKS TO SOUTH AMERICA if you register a pulse, that is, win one of his contests. Sadly, the first contest takes like 10 contestants before someone gets it right and then he has trouble getting the winner to claim the prize. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, folks, here's a clear opportunity to make a small fortune in arbitrage if you subscribe to his blog, check it hourly, pounce every time he opens up the lines, and clean him out.

Hugo Chavez (Re) Ig-nites Furor in Chile

2008-05-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

So last March the entire continent of South America almost imploded in nuclear war because Columbia stole a laptop from Ecuador and then Bogota said that the laptop said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave $300 million to terrorist organization ~~Sierra Club~~ FARC, and it's all so fake that it's true. Then it got even faker-truer because Interpol got Bogota's back, and with a winner of a one-liner Chavez fired back calling Interpol's secretary general Ronald Noble - are you ready? - "Mr. Ignoble".

Get it?

But now Chavez' rhetorical shotgun charge has sprayed well beyond Mr. Ignoble eliciting yelps from Chile! because the president of Interpol is from Chile! Yes, Chavez called Chilean Arturo Herrera, who's also currently the Chief of Civil Police here, "Mr. Ig-herrera". Actually, he didn't.

But what Chavez did do was impugn Mr. Ig-herrera's credibility by searching on the Internets and pointing out that the guy really is actually totally kinda "Ig-", if at least in a loose sense of the prefix, because he's way too close for comfort to DINA, the internationally mysterious, coke-addled, bitch-tapping and, oh-yeah, murderous SS Gestapo of Pinochet's military junta.

Of course the socialist, bleed-with-moon President Michelle Bachelet resoundingly joined Chile's shocked and offended conservative chorus in rejecting Chavez' accusations and then, appealing to propriety, she obsessively repeated the politically charged keyword "formal", as in, what Chavez isn't, ~~Copper~~ Banana Republic dictator that he is, thus kinda sidestepping the awkward truth that Mr. Ig-herrera, despite spending nearly half his career working closely with junta generals under patently shady circumstances, thrives with complete impunity and approval of Bachelet's own Interior Secretary, the Dutch-born, immigrant-hating, evidence-planting Felipe Harboe.

Fortunately for all of us, the Chilean Center for Investigative Journalism, CIPERchile.CL, has taken an in-depth Behind the Bluster look at the shady biography of the Interpol President and Chilean national Police Chief and, as it happens, Chavez hardly scratched the surface.

With almost 37 years of service, five and a half of which he has directed the Civil Police, Herrera Verdugo's [Mr. Ig-herrera's] trajectory has sufficiently more chiaroscuros and shades than...what the Venezuelan President suggested a week ago.

Furthermore, Chavez is only re-awakening discussion of Mr. Ig-herrera's past, which flourished last year while the crook so indefensible that even Bachelet wouldn't defend him, General Raúl Iturriaga, evaded incarceration for 52 days pending a 5 year sentence for the disappearance of 22-year-old revolutionary Luis San Martín Vergara.

Upon being detained in Viña del Mar by a group of detectives, the retired military officer said to his captors: "I know your boss very well."

It's a fascinating, action-packed article, if you haven't, then click here now and read it already! (in Spanish), here's my rough translation of the abstract:

Arturo Herrera developed almost half of his police career under the dictatorship. He first worked in International Police as a bodyguard and assistant to General Ernesto Baeza, who directed Investigations until 1980 and collaborated closely with DINA activities abroad. He later became one of the most trusted men of General Fernando Paredes', successor to Baeza and developer of an iron-cast, repressive institutional policy. It was Paredes who taught him to play golf and entrusted him with the barracks in Papudo, created for the purpose of protecting and assisting the relaxation of the old director in that hot springs resort. Two decades later, the past continues into the present under the direction of the current Chief of Civil Police.

Now, before discounting CIPER Chile dot CL as a militant left-wing propaganda machine just because they didn't take US $2 million from the CIA like Augustin Edwards, owner of El Mercurio, did, consider that CIPER Chile is fresh out of the gate but quickly becoming one of the most credible sources for investigative journalism in Chile, if not Latin America, acting as a wire service providing stories to Chilean media, stories built often by prosecuting to the utmost capacity the free release of public documents in the tradition of, and allied with, organizations such as National Security Archive and George Washington University, as well as Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Center for Public Integrity, etc., also CIPER Chile is backed by George Soros' London Open Society Foundation and COPESA and led by award-winning journalist Mónica González and award-winning journalist John Dinges so don't even think about it, just read the article now.

Air Quality: Smog Map of Santiago

2008-05-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a government smog map for Santiago Chile. It is a useful map, bookmark it and check it before you go outside to exercise or whatever. (This week it's been raining, so smog levels are temporarily way down).

But before using this map, there are two extremely important problems you should be aware of, and adjust for as best you can:

1. What is measured - ICAP
Santiago's Quality of Particulated Air (ICAP) only measures, well, particles in the air. More specifically, PM-10, which are counted per cubic meter. So when PM-10 levels reach 30, it means that for every cubic meter of air, there are 30 particles with a diameter of 10 microns.

PM-10 is a great place to start when measuring air quality. These microscopic particles dig deep into the respiratory tissue and increase the risk of throat cancer. Their PM-2.5 compatriots dig deep into lungs, and portend lung cancer. Once diagnosed, lung cancer patients have a 15% survival rate after five years.

But an accurate measure of air quality is so much more than just particles. There are chemicals, too, and Santiago isn't measuring them. Or warning its citizens about them. Or taking any direct action to reduce these chemicals.

As I pointed out last year in a post about air quality in Santiago Chile, a study conducted in 2004 by the University of Santiago points out that the government is failing to prevent 40%-50% of the days that Santiago residents are exposed to dangerous carbon monoxide levels.

Live Los Angeles air quality monitoring uses the Air Quality Index, which in addition to PM-10, factors the following:

-Ozone (O3)
-Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
-Carbon Monoxide (CO)

2. What is "good"
Santiago's ICAP declares that levels of PM-10 up to 100 is "good". Up to 200 is "regular". And only when it becomes "bad", at 200+, do vehicle restrictions begin going into place.

Unfortunately, half of what's considered "good" in Chile is considered extremely dangerous in the developed world.

An article about smog in Thailand notes:

In London, the United States and the European Union as a whole it is considered a serious pollution ‘episode’ if the PM-10 level exceeds 50...

In Chile, up to 4x that is A-Okay.

Patricio Pérez, the author of the above mentioned carbon monoxide study, was recently quoted in an article about smog in Santiago:

It's as if we were swimming at a beach not suitable to bathe in. Santiago's air, during four or five months (each year), is not suitable to breathe, and the government throws these lifesavers when there are people who are 'drowning', so that they don't 'die'".

It's true. The government only takes action after children and the elderly are forced into hospitals.

For all her motherly daycare initiatives, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet didn't once mention smog in her state of the union address Wednesday.

Last week was particularly bad. The Icelandic grad student who told me about the smog map writes:

I hadn´t noticed the smog too much (well of course I could see it) but it first started affecting me last week, when I started having sore eyes and coughing like crazy. It´s nasty shit.

And according to 123.cl, Santiago hospital visits for respiratory problems shot up by 30%:

María Teresa Parada, a lung and respiratory system doctor at Las Condes Clinic, said that, "it's like smoking, exactly the same. If this stays the same...it will provoke inflammatory damage that becomes chronic."

That's not hyperbole. And just like smoking, the negative health effects go on and on. Not only is air pollution thought to cause blood clots, but scientists believe children's mental development is impeded by smog.

In other words, raising children in Santiago is likely a form of child abuse.

And extending the analogy, the government's negligence to find and enact a real solution, as well as their abysmally unhealthy standards, is abuse of its citizens. From the article:

If the ICAP is higher than 200, an "environmental alert" is called, if it is greater than 300 "pre-emergency" an when it exceeds 500 an "emergency" is declared, for the damage that these particles represent upon entering the human respiratory system.

The objective of the government's package of measures is not very ambitious in this regard: it hopes not to exceed the 22 "environmental alerts" and the six "pre-emergencies" that were registered in 2007.

There are many causes of smog, and many solutions which aren't being taken. On the automobile end, if enough people stopped driving (as recommended) then it would completely collapse the already dysfunctional public transportation system in Santiago, Transantiago.

Pérez advocates that smoke-producing factories relocate outside of Santiago. There's a thought.

In the meantime, I suggest you stop breathing.

Book Review: Tinta Roja by Alberto Fuguet

2008-05-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

When it comes to writers of unembellished prose who pierce the core of Western Man's dehumanized, lost and isolated condition, French author Michel Houellebecq is a sappy sentimentalist. In Platform, narrator Michel Renault's world is painted with the blunt and unambiguous strokes of contemporary France's meaningless consumerism and radical Islam's vapid violence. Against all odds, however, Renault finds true love. It's an improbable French love story. It's an inspiration to us all.

Tinta Roja "Red Ink", by Chilean author Alberto Fuguet, is far, far bleaker. This is because its main character Alfonso Fernández never finds love. At least, nothing that I can recognize as such. Even though Fernández would be much less likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression than Renault would, Red Ink paints a much gloomier picture of humanity, sending you on your way without a trace of redemption.

The story begins in the voice of a matured Fernández reflecting on his life, one which briefly shared the spotlight with the Chilean glitterati. He's a well-known author, past his prime but brimming with thoughts of upcoming projects, yet reduced to editing a credit card magazine. He's got a crush on the art director Cecilia Méndez who he frequently travels with, but he's not sure if she'll reciprocate.

In both work and love, he's not only semi-satisfied, but also hopeful. Vaguely content and still ambitious, he lives a comfortable, compromised bourgeois life - it's so realistic, understandable and therefore sinister. Renault, for his part, rejected extracting any sort of meaning from his daily (pre-love) existence, and drew sharp contrasts between the real and the meaningless. Fernández actually celebrates his own tepid, lifelike mediocrity.

A few pages into the book, the story abruptly glissando's to young buck Alfonso (and leaves you there till for most of the remaining 400-some-odd pages), fresh out of provincial journalism school and trying to make it in the big city of Santiago. He interns at a daily tabloid El Clamor (fictional version of La Cuarta), and what follows is a rapid succession of brief, movie-ready chapters each containing a neatly packaged anecdote which are usually violent, gripping, ironic and funny.

Not only is young Fernández working for the trashiest paper in town, but he gets thrown out onto the crime beat. The first assignment is to go cover a graveyard suicide-by-rope corpse, which swings lazily as the rope makes a quiet groaning sound. As the book progresses, Fernández' gag reflex cauterizes, somewhat, and his writing improves.

His boss, Saúl Faúndez, who schools him in the fine art of tabloid prose, is a dirty old man with a widow fetish. Fortunately, there's ample supply of those on the crime beat. During and in between that and equally inappropriate behavior, Faúndez' ribald musings on life are pure gold.

Faúndez never had a son to speak of, and Fernández never had a father to speak of, so they get on famously, in an oedipal kinda way: Fernández detests everything his surrogate dad is about, but ends up becoming just like him, kinda.

Oh, before I forget, really the only reason to read Red Ink is to improve your Spanish comprehension and pick up some nice Chilean slang, modismos or chilenismos. One of the best lines is when Faúndez asks his young apprentice:

Desde cuándo que no remojas el cochayuyo, Alfonso?

Which means, like, "when's the last time you soaked your seaweed?"

Another comical character is Escalona the photographer, who's a veritable expert in yellow journalism. One great example when they go to cover the corpse of a recently hit pedestrian. Due to profuse bleeding, the police on the scene have covered the body with newspapers. But there's a problem. It's the competition. So Escalona has Alfonso go to a kiosk and buy a stack of El Clamor, with which they drape the cadaver, on the sly, before Escalona can begin shooting.

Escalona considers himself a True Artist. When they all go out one night with call girl dates to an upscale titty bar, Escalona totally unloads upon a humble photographer who's going from table to table selling Polaroid portraits to willing couples. Escalona vehemently warns Fernández that a True Artist never stoops so low as to sell his Art as if it were a cheap commodity.

LOL.

One of Faúndez' most persistent lessons to Fernández throughout Red Ink is that in order for one to write of Truth, or write anything worth reading at all, it has to be a painfully uncomfortable experience. That's a nice little pearl of wisdom until you take a step back and ponder how anything in Red Ink could have been, in any way conceivable, uncomfortable to write. And if it was uncomfortable to write, then Fuguet is totally shallow. And even then, it's hardly worth reading, so it's material evidence against that very lesson. Right?

Perhaps that's the whole point. Fuguet's entire labor of love, highly autobiographical, is a dispensable piece of airport trash. Talk about bleak.

Still, I highly recommend this as an easy-intermediate leg up on Spanish reading comprehension and knowledge of Chilean slang, via a series of silly stories and many recognizable Santiago landmarks. I believe Fuguet's "Cine York" is the fictional version of the real-life Cine Normandie, although Tap Room is cited in all it's non-fictional glory.

So click here now to buy Tinta Roja by Alberto Fuguet new or used for cheap on Amazon.com

But wait there's more. Before reading the book you might want to study up on the meanings of these Spanish vocabulary words, so that you don't have to always reach for the Spanish-English dictionary while you read the book. So here are a few select mood-setting Spanish words and their meanings in English:

bufete - lawyers practice
terno - three-piece suit
lupanar - brothel
sollozo - sob
estocada - stab, thrust
tugurio - hovel
pichula - dick
azafata - stewardess
estupro - statutory rape
saña - visciousness, malice
cafiche - pimp
vagar - wander, roam
lumpen - underclass

Hopefully this will give you a necessary foundation to "get" what's going on.

Remember you can buy a cheap copy of Tinta Roja here on Amazon.com.

Outdoor Photos of Nature in Santiago, Chile

2008-04-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

Continuing my series of innocuous Chilean nature photos, I present to you pics of Cerro Pochoco, the best place to go hiking in Santiago, Chile, a great way to occupy yourself if you crave unskilled, but highly cardiovascular, outdoor activity.

By evening:

Morning:

Afternoonish:

Chilean Tiger Spider vs Brown Recluse, Araña de Rincón

2008-04-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

I found this spider on my wall, don't kill it!

It's called Araña Tigre, or Tiger Spider, it's harmless to humans. But it is the principle predator of the Araña de Rincón (Loxosceles laeta), or Chilean Recluse.

Here's a picture of the Araña de Rincón:

This Chilean Recluse is even more dangerous than its really dangerous North American counterpart, the Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa).

Hobo Spider Web Site details a history of the Araña de Rincón:

Recluse spiders were the first spider group to be recognized as a causative agent of the disease state now known as necrotic arachnidism, and this condition, when caused by a recluse spider, is properly termed loxoscelism. Loxoscelism was first recognized in 1872 when Chilean physicians linked a peculiar skin lesion known as the "gangrenous spot of Chile"...

All recluse spiders...are now considered venomous to humans...Most species have a mild temperament, and bite only when accidentally pressed against skin, but others, such as the Chilean recluse, are less even tempered.

Chilean paper El Observatorio provides a Spanish-language guide to reducing the Arana de Rincon threat, note they also advocate building a shrine to the Tiger Spider.

Ohio State University gives us an even-tempered, North American fact sheet on dealing with Brown Recluse spiders, all of which applies to the Chilean Recluse.

Remember, don't kill the Tiger Spider!

Italian Art, Hot Dogs in Santiago, Chile

2008-04-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

Go check out the new exhibit Viaje al Arte Italiano at the Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda:

Open 10AM to 7:30PM every day, Ch$600. Not sure when it ends but you've got time. BTW, the Cybersyn exhibit, or at least some reduced form of it, is there till the end of the year.

I was pretty destroyed and starving when I stumbled outta there. Fortunately, Chile's actually been doing contemporary Italian art for quite a while. The following is a picture of an "Italiano", because of the red, green and a subtle splash of white:

In honor of the tri-colored flag of Italy I ate three.

Alternately you could have a "Completo" which is a hot-dog with diced tomatoes and sauerkraut. Last time, I said the best place to eat a completo in Santiago, Chile was "Bavaria" but it looks like the place is actually called Patagona. From La Moneda walk cross the Alameda and down Paseo Bulnes a few blocks it's on your left, tables outside.

On the right side of Paseo Bulnes you may find a place called the Tap Room. About a decade ago the Tap Room was a hot spot for Chilean high society. Now it's an ungodly coke den.

Your Lonely Planet Chile Travel Guide Book is a Fake!

2008-04-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

All of them are fake. Even the originals. It's all made up! Lonely Planet Brazil, Colombia, South America, the Caribbean and Venezuela. And tons more, too!

Do the right thing, pile all your copies of Lonely Planet in the center of the room, douse them in kerosene and light the match. If you don't have any Lonely Planets to burn, you can buy one here.

Who's the shadowy figure behind the lies? None other than the Unabomber of the travel publishing industry, Thomas Kohnstamm.

Oh. My. God. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yes, his initials are T.K. - just like Ted Kaczynski!!!

And just like Ted Kaczynski, our T.K. sent neatly packaged bombs to his editors. And by "bombs" I mean fake travel reviews!

T.K. recently told Australian media that he'd plagiarized a bunch of stuff, then he retracted, but still, in his new tell-all biography he gloats about conjuring up the entire nation of Colombia:

"They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco," he says in the book. "I got the information from a chick I was dating -- an intern at the Colombian consulate."

Listen, guys! He's telling us that Lonely Planet doesn't pay shit and we should be outraged at the poor working conditions of our fearless freedom fighter.

But to be fair, my hat's off to Random House for identifying a cheap date.

I mean, for all his punk rock Seattle grunger 20-something slacker chic, T.K. is actually 32, and the Unabomber, and look if you pay him next to nothing (but more than Lonely Planet did) the little bugger will hussle, he'll work the press and help broadside the reputation of the world's biggest travel writing brand to generate pre-order buzz. Not a bad deal! And look I am falling for it I'm just a pawn in his twisted plot:

On April 22, 2008 T.K.'s new book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? is on the shelves, click here to pre-order your very own copy from Amazon.com today!!!

It promises to be a rollicking - I'm sorry, "Swashbuckling" - Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism.

Alternate title:

Sadly, No. Travel Writers Don't Go to Hell, Because Hell Doesn't Exist - But Yes, Poor Rich White Kids can Sleep with Brazilian Whores for Free, and then Make Money Writing About It.

Five in the sky, bra.

I'm not gonna ask for a complimentary copy, as I know he's on a budget 'n all.

Someone who I assume is definitely not getting comped is Wayne Bernhardson. You may remember Wayne from such titles as Lonely Planet Chile, Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires (plus coastal Uruguay), Chile (plus Easter Island), and Patagonia (plus the Falkland/Malvinas Islands).

You may also remember Wayne from such travel blogs as his blog about travel in South America called Southern Cone Travel, a supplement to Moon guide books.

Wayne's blog blows all other Chile blogs to pieces. In-depth, up-to-date and expert (25 years covering the region), of course. But what I really like about it is the textured insight he brings to each entry, debunking the Buenos Aires is Like Paris cliché as not only passé, but patronizing, and distilling esoteric economic headlines - that the Chilean Central Bank is buying billions of dollars to devalue its own currency and boost exports - into practical advice for travelers: Chile travel is going to be cheaper next summer.

Wholly hokey was his dubbing Chilean metal heads "copperheads", but if you read the post it all ties together because, no surprise here, Wayne is a real writer. (That makes three of us, in the anglophonic Chile blogosphere).

Best yet, Wayne actually does visit Chile and I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt because I met him at the Santiago Times! He was mooching internet and bitching about his car. I'm sure he doesn't remember meeting me, but it's okay we've become friends again, I commented on his Buenos Aires post and helped coax out the true meaning of the post: how the World Bank's GINI coefficient applies to Chilean nanas.

So if there were a Hell, I wouldn't wish it on Wayne. But I can't wait to see what he writes about his colleague Thomas Kohnstamm.

Bathroom Birth & Inflation Offset: Chile Delivers

2008-04-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

This week Chile's government apologized after a Peruvian woman couldn't hold it any longer and had to give birth in hospital bathroom, and Bachelet announced a relief package going to poorer Chileans to offset inflation, all of 45 bucks per family.

This is all very personal to me. I didn't realize the atrocious state of Chile's public hospitals, nor how dear a few dozen dollars are, until I got bit by a dog in Providencia, Santiago.

It was a couple years ago, I was walking on a sidewalk completely unaware that two kids and their chain-leashed mutt were proceeding on foot out of a private driveway hidden by one of those hateful Providencia hedge-rows.

A sharp, powerful stinging sensation on my left calf first clued me in to their presence, and was quickly followed by the dog's rapid-fire barking (as well as the sound of my own cursing).

Their mother brought out the iodine, my wound looked more like a ruddy scrape than anything, there was no missing flesh or dangling tendons, no sparkling tunnel vision brought on by severe blood loss.

Nevertheless I figured a check-up would make sense. She told me she wouldn't pay for me to go to a private clinic, but rather I'd have to go to a free public hospital (way to buck up, dog-owner).

I didn't know better, and so I actually went to the public hospital.

In the cement-floored waiting room, there were no lights on, but the afternoon sun poured in through huge bay windows, as well as the doors that were left open to provide relief from the sweltering heat.

These doors opened directly onto a parking lot. I could hear the popping sound of tires rolling over gravel and broken asphalt. This outside sound mixed together with inside sounds: distorted blaring from a lone TV monitor, babies crying and families, both poor and Peruvian, murmuring fearfully as they squished together on cracked, plastic airport seats lined up in rigid rows through the center of the room.

The receptionist, boxed off in a cube of Plexiglas, told me she had no idea how long I would wait, and honestly probably wouldn't get seen at all that day, considering my condition wasn't urgent.

(Not that urgent cases are always attended either, of course).

To the right of the receptionist's cube, a door swinged open occasionally to let stretchers or masked surgeons through. Peering beyond this door, I could see nothing but pure darkness.

I left.

Eventually, I dropped 40 bucks on a private clinic. It was clean, well lit, and comfortable. The doctor gave me the assurance I needed that I would be fine. Call it excessive, or prudent, but I think I was well within my bounds.

So I was irked, but not surprised, when the dog-owner flatly refused my request for reimbursement. In her mind the public hospital was somehow a viable option that I was free to avail myself of. When I told her "not really" she began screaming and hanged up. I think at a certain point she explained that 40 bucks was way outside of her tax bracket or something.

Somehow, of course, that doesn't explain how she pays for dog food.

Luckily for me, though, it was only 40 bucks.

But while her unwillingness to pay displays a craven lack of personal responsibility, it also speaks to her economic poverty, and that of Chile's so-called "middle class".

Put it this way: 40 bucks doesn't go that far in Santiago, but it's hard to come by. So to help offset inflation in Chile, President Michelle Bachelet is handing out 45 bucks per family. Assuming that means a family-of-four, that's under 12 bucks per person. One time only.

Call me a persistent pessimist, call me crazy, but I just can't get excited about this supposed boon to Chile's poorest. Bachelet has a history of half-assed gestures that do nothing to address the underlying class inequality in Chile, fundamental problems of human capital development and upward mobility seem to be hardly a priority.

Instead, she employs brazen, if heavily watered-down populism to boost her own popularity.

Last year she raised the minimum wage by approximately 16 cents per hour. This year she launched a shameful Ethical Wage dog-and-pony show. A couple weeks ago she padded poor peoples' retirement pensions barely squeeking them in over Chile's artificially low poverty line, soon she'll boast a virtual elimination of poverty, she's made equally ridiculous claims before.

Yes, strictly speaking, it is progress. But is it really better than nothing? I'd argue that it's worse. Token, bare-minimum gestures like these help take pressure off the president, yet preserve the status quo. Chile has the best economy in South America, but wealth distribution is the worst in the world.

Chilean FrankenSalmon's Friends and Foes

2008-04-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

After the New York Times took a juicy Chilean FrankenSalmon by the tail and slapped it against the industry leaders, gringo supermarket chain Safeway stopped stocking the Chilean freakfish (reason given: it's not the Times article, just that your salmon sucks), and Chilean Minister of Economy Hugo Lavados is trying to downplay the economic and image problems brought on by the racist, lying Times.

But the article's impact is real, and FrankenSalmon PR didn't miss a beat:

MIAMI, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chilean Salmon Industry Association deeply regrets the numerous errors of the article, offering a biased view of our industry and product, which is consumed daily by over 6 million consumers worldwide.

The Chilean ambassador to Washington Mariano Fernández followed in lockstep by sending the Times editor a letter:

The salmon and trout industry in Chile accounts for more than 50,000 jobs, $2.2 billion in exports in 2007, and 45 percent of the total imports of salmon and trout to the United States. I agree with American officials and Chilean executives when they reject the notion that Chilean salmon industry practices are unsafe and reaffirm that the virus called infectious salmon anemia is not harmful to humans.

Up to now the letter's fine but moving on it could be better, obviously English is the author's second tongue. The awkward syntax and poor vocabulary choices might be standard fare for this sort of thing, I really don't know, but look at it like this: the issue at stake could make a major dent in your economy and the Times is huge and you're the Ambassador, for Christ's sake, would it kill you to raise the bar?

Up to me I'd have given it another once-over by a qualified native English-speaker. Look:

To give further assurances to American consumers, it is important to remember...

The fact remains that Chile shows a remarkable record in prevention and management of food safety in this field.

"Shows"? Why not just "has"? Sir, your nephew boasts an advanced level of English composition, he can keep his job, all I'm saying is that a little editing goes a long way.

But La Nacion sniffs a scandal (read the English version here), noting that the Times snipped a few of the more tedious paragraphs. So should I be upset the Times has compassion for its readers?

Of course the scandal element does seem faintly secondary to La Nacion's blaring headline: THE NEW YORK TIMES PUBLISHES A LETTER BY AMBASSADOR FERNANDEZ. But you gotta fill up the rest of the fish wrap somehow.

Anyway, the former President of the American Chamber of Commerce Michael Grasty pretty much nailed it in an interview he gave to the Santiago Times:

Grasty says Chile’s salmon producers “are going about it all wrong.” Rather than blame others for their difficulties, salmon farmers ought to address the problems and get in tune with the times, environmentally speaking. “The salmon industry isn’t green enough.”

Read the interview. By outlining the straightforward steps to un-FrankenSalmon Chile's FrankenSalmon, he leaves little wiggle room for those who prefer not to take action but rather whine about the wild fibbing Times single handedly destroying pobre Chile.

Instead of publishing indignant PR's and sending in second rate letters, why not make real news by changing your ways?

1971 Socialist Internet In Chile

2008-04-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the early 1970's Chile had the Internet, which is a big revelation to all you newshound tipsters who sought to impress me with the New York Times piece about that nation-wide network of e-socialism called Cybersyn. Old news: Andy Beckett wrote about Chile's retro-Net five years ago for The Guardian, dubbing it "a sort of socialist internet, decades ahead of its time".

I discovered Beckett's article last year, as it makes fascinating apocrypha to his book Pinochet In Piccadilly (the veritable Gospel of Chile according to Matt, who recommended it to me, but written by Beckett) a marvelous work tracing Chile's British roots back from the time the land masses were still connected (18th Century) to the 1998 arrest of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in a London clinic.

A continuation of his keen and sometimes Where's Waldo-ish scouting for the British influence in Chile, Beckett's Cybersyn story duly tickles its author because the mastermind of the revolutionary network was a gregarious Brit named Stafford Beer, perhaps a not-so-quiet echo of the Scottish Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, who in 1818 was invited by Chilean leader Bernardo O'Higgins to command Chile's Navy and win key battles, helping, er, navigate Chile toward independence from Spain.

No such eventual luck for Beers' bosses, though you can't fault his project. Despite seeming fantastical for its time, it worked. And while full functionality was not achieved before power changed hands in Chile, Cybersyn nevertheless helped defray the effects of the crippling trucker's strike, part of the Nixon Administration CIA-instrumented economic strangulation strategy, a line of attack that ultimately failed to topple Allende's government, and so preceded the September 11, 1973 Coup. The Times writes:

Cybersyn’s turning point came in October 1972, when a strike by truckers and retailers nearly paralyzed the economy. The interconnected telex machines, exchanging 2,000 messages a day, were a potent instrument, enabling the government to identify and organize alternative transportation resources that kept the economy moving.

Stepping back for a moment, when first I saw this Times article I was suspicious because, as everyone knows by now, the same New York "Kleptomaniac" Times just doesn't care and has gone on a craven bender, recklessly pilfering Southern Cone journalism left and right, giving itself a hefty five-finger discount on absolutely all stories Argentina, from every news source imaginable.

Fortunately, as far as I can tell and haven't really looked that much, this troubling trend doesn't seem to have braved the Andean passes over into Chile; while the Times piece on Cybersyn was likely inspired by Beckett's, it's fresh enough and certainly plenty originally-reported that it even has a hook: there is an exhibit in La Moneda Cultural Center showcasing replicas of the trekki-esque chairs and other apparatusses found in the Santiago Cybersyn HQ.

(UPDATE: my friend who works there says: Si hasta una semana más en el Centro de Documentación del centro Cultural Palacio al moneda.)

But while both articles are necessarily historical, Beckett's feels moreso as he mines the richness of Beer's character, his upbringing, his entrance on the Chilean stage, and the political and theoretical backdrop for a socialist Internet in Chile. He writes:

As in many areas, the Allende government wanted to do things differently from traditional marxist regimes

and quotes Raul Espejo, a senior advisor to Allende's minister Fernando Flores:

"I was very much against the Soviet model of centralisation...My gut feeling was that it was unviable."

But soon into the Allende presidency, the results of nationalization efforts were haphazard. So an important Cybersyn objective was to wire up factories throughout Chile and aggregate vital stats so that Santiago could measure national productivity in real time.

Worth noting that an improvised form of nationalization came about when factory owners opposed to Allende stayed home, on strike. In The Battle of Chile, a film by Patricio Guzman who documented the buildup to the 1973 Coup (view Part 1 here), there are several interviews with factory workers who formed part of a larger movement: despite their bosses not showing up, these workers continued to man the factories to salvage the economy.

A Chilean who was watching this part of the movie with me was bowled over by the passionate solidarity these workers displayed, the timbre in their voices, the idealistic glint in their eyes. She was amazed that people from her country could ever show so much enthusiasm for a common cause. The Chile of today has been completely transformed.

In Pinochet in Piccadilly, Beckett interviews Sergio Rueda, a leftist activist who was tortured by the Pinochet junta and exiled to England, where he assimilated and continued to live, returning regularly to visit family since the dictatorship ended in 1990. Beckett writes:

Visits back to Santiago had changed his view of Chile...increasingly he found it difficult to gain a mental foothold in his former homeland: "There are some raw materials from the past, but people have changed. There is an entrepreneur kind of mentality. You will find people that you know will say, 'Oh, you are abroad. We can do business. I am selling doors.'"

Macleans says Pinochet turned Chile into "a nation of entrepreneurs." Snarky Napoleon once called England, "a nation of shopkeepers." Beckett I'm doing your work for you.

The Thieving Times also loves entrepreneurship, so they definitely come down on capitalism's side, in the little "where are they now" sub-section of the Cybersyn story. Flores, who was active in the project, is celebrated:

He later was one of the inventors of the Coordinator, a program that tracked spoken commitments between workers within a company, one of the first forays into “work flow” software. He became a millionaire and returned to Chile, where today he is a senator representing the Tarapacá Region.

I'm a shopkeeper too - Click here to buy Pinochet In Piccadilly today!.