Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

ALFONZO, Argentina -- When Héctor Farroni married a few years back, he took his new bride for a swing through Iowa. The silos and windmills, the spider-like combines, the wide, flat fields all reminded him of this region of eastern Argentina, part of a fertile farm belt that has propelled the country's economy since the 19th century.

The two regions have seemingly infinite potential and serve as breadbaskets to the world. But the similarities end there. While subsidies and low-interest loans sustain American farming, Argentina's government raises export taxes and calls the country's farmers greedy traitors out to topple the state. Now Argentina's heartland is being lashed by an economic crisis that has come in like the winter storms that blow off the Andes and across the pampa.

Washington Post

If a US politician called a farmer a traitor he would be tarred and feathered. The amerikan farmer part of our mythos like the cowboy. But most farms here are owned by large corporations who have a powerful lobby so that explains the tarriffs and subsidies.

Meanhile our food prices keep going up and up but I don't hear much about it in the news.

Some people blame it on the corn crop being used to make ethanol to fuel cars. Which seems like a waste of ethanol to me. I would much rather drink it than put it in my gas tank.

yeah, "traidores a la patria" was a very usual statement always in peronismo.

"They say they want to redistribute wealth, but they do not redistribute anything," he said. "The only thing they are redistributing is poverty."

I agree with that for different reasons (possibly) and from a different place than the farmer.

and yeah, it rained very little this year during 8 months and this USA crisis with the deflation of soja prices somehow inverted the situation that almost paralized the country only five months ago (high soja prices, high accumulation in farmers sectors, homogeinic government desitions benefiting -as/for exception- only big corporations... well, the last one maybe never changed)

I´m still waiting that our president will be molested by the big crop corporations and put taxes to oil and minerals extractions among other things (also with the now too much used word/promise of redestribution). Instead of that she (& company in charge) lie about inflation rates, announce "blanqueo de capitales", to "forgive" taxes to the empresas that didn´t pay until now, and credits for consumo out of reach to people that earn the media salaries here. She´s becaming too bizarre and incoherent. Each time more difficult to swallow, really.

meanwhile the opposition seems to turn to the right. Really freak but not new. I wonder about future menus Yeah, to think the system inside the system is really a drag...

This weekend I was listening in the national tv to Santiago Kovadloff talking to his last essays book "El enigma del sufrimiento". And it seems it will keep being a right to left bestseller here!

gracias for the article, friend!

She´s becaming too bizarre and incoherent. Each time more difficult to swallow, really.

Sounds like a female George Bush.

I have been thinking about the enigma of suffering inflicted on mankind by men. Not enough we have diseases and natural disasters, we also have ourselves.

I have been thinking about Robert Mugabe a lot lately. The president of the former breadbasket of Africa. How well nourished the cadre of people around him look in the newspapers


Thanks for mentioning Kavadloff, I never heard of him before.

In addition to his philosophical works, Kovadloff also writes wonderfully droll books for children. These stories carry children away to a bizarre, surreal world, which inspires them to make new discoveries.

Santiago Kovadloff is a writer whom I very much admire, not only intellectually but also and primarily spiritually and emotionally, because for me poetic thought penetrates deeper than logical thought, and spiritual values rank higher than everything else.

Ernesto Sábato

Perhaps I need to do less thinking and more drinking.

Sounds like a female George Bush.

mmm... not exactly, the latest Bush´s precursor here was without doubt Carlos Menem

Perhaps I need to do less thinking and more drinking maybe, you´ll know it... but be careful with the alcohol!

gracias for reading!

Menem does not sound as bad as Bush but I am not sure how much I trust wikipedia.

With regards to the military, Menem ordered the forceful repression of a politically-motivated uprising on December 3, 1990, and thus ended the military's involvement in the country's political life. Menem also effected drastic cuts to the military budget, and appointed Lt. Gen. Martín Balza as the Army's General Chief of Staff (head of the military hierarchy); Balza, a man of strong democratic convictions and a vocal critic of the Falklands War, had stood up for the legitimate government in every attempted coup d'état throughout his senior career, and gave the first institutional self-criticism about the Armed Forces' involvement in the 1976 coup and the ensuing reign of terror. Menem also abolished conscription in 1994, decisively eroding the military's caste spirit and its self-perceived role as an institution that "made men out of boys".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Menem

"made men out of boys".

I have been thinking about bonobos a lot lately. How peaceful their matriarchal society is compared to patriarchal chimps.


I hardly ever drink, but I enjoy it when I do.

I had a shot of vodka for my birthday. The first drink I had in months. Maybe I drink a liter a year if that much.

Thank you for taking the time to reply

Menem also abolished conscription in 1994 yeah that was good! on the (other) hand he stops the trials concerning the last dictadura... and beyond that he was a plain disaster. But you´re right, no comparison is possible, he was our president!

enjoy your vodka, friend!

Thank you

George Bush will never face any trials I don't think
Even though his body count is higher than the dictadura