Archives for April 2003

I’m Off to Laguna QuilotoaNo postings for the next several days. We’ve got the rest of the week off school, so some friends and I are leaving tonight for Laguna Quilotoa, a crater lake atop a dormant volcano. It’s a seven-hour bus ride north to Latacunga (south of Quito), and then a four-hour ride west […]

Say It Ain’t SoTortillas, a burrito joint in Atlanta, is closing. Too bad. I had many a great meal there when I was in college. Although the atmosphere was arguably better than the food–the place was always full of disaffected, blue-haired students and musicians and the like. (Thanks to Mike W. and Jack W. for […]

A Presidental Runoff in ArgentinaEither former President Carlos Menem or Governor Nestor Kirchner will be Argentina’s next president.

Democracy in ParaguayThe New York Times‘s Tony Smith says that “on a continent that has been swept by grass-roots movements against more than a decade of market reforms, the leading opposition candidate in presidential elections scheduled here for Sunday is swimming in the other direction.”

John Snow on Ecuador, Foreign Investment, and CorruptionReuters: “Ecuador could attract a much greater flow of foreign investment, particularly from oil producers, if it took aggressive action to curb corruption to create a friendlier business climate, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Thursday.”

Lockhart SteeleSome excellent postings from Lockhart Steele of late. Baseball, book publishing, MetroCard pricing, satellite radio: the guy covers it all.

VilcabambaI had a great time last weekend. A bunch of friends and I took the bus six hours south, to the village of Vilcabamba. We stayed at the excellent Hotel Madre Tierra and ate good food and swam and hiked and drank beer and slept in hammocks.

Book Publishing’s “Dirty Little Secret”Sara Nelson says it’s tough to get accurate numbers on book publishing sales because publishers don’t reveal how well books have actually done: “The fact that very few people in this country read books is publishing�s dirty little secret, and it�s one executives are, understandably, desperate to keep.”

Colin Powell on the Allende CoupColin Powell: the US was wrong to help Pinochet gain power in Chile in 1973. Henry Kissenger’s aid: we didn’t do anything improper. (Via Reenhead.)

www.WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.comMuhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister, has a fanclub.