Condaleezza Rice is a Human Freak… the Case for Hezbollah by Our Friend Norman Finkelstein

Norman Finkelstein, doing what he does best… speaking the truth in a world where speaking the truth often has serious consequences.  Why should we respect Hezbollah?

“Its a choice the Lebanese have to make:  Who they want to be their leaders, and who they want to represent them.  But there is a fundamental principal.  People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country.  And that to me is a very basic, elementary, and uncomplicated question.”

July 22nd, 2006 – Condoleezza Rice described the plight of Lebanon as a part of the “birth pangs of a new Middle East” and said that Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire.

Norman Finkelstein’s opinion on the Secretary of State’s description… “The Secretary of State said it was the birth pangs of a new Middle East.  That’s the statement of a freak.  A human freak would compare the birth of a child with the destruction of a country.”

And about Hezbollah’s militant resistance?  Why not support those Lebanese willing to accept terms dictated by Israel and the United States (meaning disarmament and marginalization of Hezbollah)?

Finkelstein hammers the point home again… to those who would welcome George Bush into their country less than two years after the war was over “Who the hell cares if George Bush was coming?  You should have declared him a persona non grata.  He’s not welcome here.  He destroyed your country.  He was responsible for the war.  You know full well that resolution could have been passed three weeks earlier.  He destroys your country and you couldn’t wait to greet him.  You have no self respect!  How can you expect people to respect Arabs if you don’t respect yourself?”

“I respect the Jews a thousand times more.  Never to forgive, never to forget.”

His comparison is to the European resistance to the Nazis during WWII, most countries in Europe chose to live under Nazi rule rather than to resist.  And he goes on to say that looking back we honor the resistance movements, not the appeasers.  Although Hezbollah does get some support from the Arab world, I would hardly compare it to the situation in WWII where the English and the Americans were at war with the Nazis.  Its more like the situation the Native Americans faced.  You can honor the ones who resisted all you want, but they perished at the hands of the US Army.  Those who accepted peaceful treaties had everything taken from them, but at least they survived.  Kind of a hard choice to make.

“Mad” As Hell…

Sorry, for all of those who have been checking this blog and asking me to add more content, I’ve got a lot of unfinished work that I’ve done for the blog, including 1000 words on the situation in the Middle East that decomposed into sewage and has therefore been abandoned, 340 words on the Economy vs. the Environment and whether manufactured economic recovery is really set to bring us to a viable long term solution or is it  just prolong the inevitable?  As well as a current events spinoff about South Africa’s decision to deny entry to the Dali Lama, and whether China’s economic influence is beginning take on the characteristics of the influence of the Americans since WWII.  I tell you this not to make excuses, but rather to tell you that like this blog my writing is a work in progress.  I’m much better at starting an article than finishing one, once the guts have been placed out all on the table.  I hope to have a clearer vision of what the end product will look like once the idea is spawned but at the moment I’m sloshing through the tenth circle of hell, which is trying to find your voice in print.

The following rant by Peter Beale is from the 1976 satire “Network” by Sidney Lumet, and I’d like to include it here as a post modern (i.e. stolen) video portrait of of the editorial side of my blog, which has been so kindly described as “rants” by those in my family.

Or maybe Charles Manson’s Epic Question is a better fit, you decide…

A Taste of Argentine Music

My friend Matt has a great page on his site Expose Buenos Aires dedicated to popular music from Argentina, rather than blantantly plaguerizing it, I thought I’d just link to it instead.  He’s got about a dozen music streams so check it out and brighten your day with some rockin’ Argentine music.

This link takes you to Matt's Argentine music page

Update: Matambre de Cerdo Roast

Well, the Matambre de Cerdo Roast came out quite nice, the meat was really succulent and the vegetables were delicious.

You lika da juice?

I cooked it in a pan with vegetables for about an hour and a half, adding only paprika, parsley, salt, pepper, and white wine.

Mario Says: I lika da juice!

I think I’ll try it again sometime soon, but I’d like to either salt crust the pork, or add some hot peppers and fresh pineapple to the mix.

The pig is a magical animal.

The vegetables really turned out wonderful, the fat from the pig really mixed well with the white wine and made a delicious juice, which really soaked into the vegetables, giving them a lot of extra flavor.  Though the arsonist in me would really love to see this sucker cook over hot coals, I think the smokey flavor would really go well with the panceta and prunes.  Gloria is a genius!

A Date with Gloria

Gloria is pictured here with a Matambre de Cerdo roast

This morning I had a date with Gloria, the Master of Meat… more specifically the Master of Pig, Lamb, and Guts.

Yesterday she agreed to prepare me a matambre de cerdo roast, of her own speciality stuffed with panceta and prunes, so today I went to visit her.  She was right in the middle of putting it all together for me, which was great because I got a couple of pictures during the process.

Now, I should explain that “matambre de cerdo” is nothing like the other matambre, which is made from beef and is essentially shoe leather.  Matambre de cerdo is a pork flank steak, which can be prepared over a parilla or cooked in the oven as I am preparing to do tomorrow.  Matambre de cerdo is not nearly as commonly found, and not available in every butcher or grocery store in Argentina which is a real shame because this is some of the most flavorful and delicious meat I have ever eaten.

Here she is stuffing it and tying it together

When Gloria told me how she prepares it I told her I would love to try it, and her eyes lit up.  A few days before I had passed her shop and spotted her “solomillo de cerdo”, which is pork tenderloin, and she spent a good 10 minutes telling me how to prepare it with sweet potatoes, green onions, and white wine.  Needless to say I followed her directions to the tee, and it turned out delicious.

This is the panceta which goes right inside

One thing I love about Gloria is that she is passionate about meat, and you can really tell that this woman has been doing this for a many years.

Here you can see her menu, which includes a number of items straight out of the Travel Channel show “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain… such as liver, kidneys, intestines, sweet breads,tripe, toungue, brains, heart, pigs feet, and blood sausage.

All kinds of good stuff!

Now, I’d never been the biggest fan of organs, until recently when a friend of mine took me to a a great parilla and we shared a “tabla de anchuras”.  A tabla de anchuras consists of chorizo (sausage), morcilla (blood sausage), chinchulines (intestines), rinones (kidneys), and mollejas (sweet breads).  I had wanted to try these things for the adventure of it more than anything and I have to say that with the exception of the kidneys, I really loved every bite.  These savory organs are rich and delicious, especially the morcilla, chinchulines and my personal favorite mollejas.

That being said, when I was asking Gloria about her morcilla, she asked me if I had ever tried it with green onions, and when I said no, she promptly cut me a piece to try right off of a raw morcilla sausage.  And with her unwashed hands that had just been preparing pork no less!  I was terrified but didn’t have the courage to say no, and actually it was delicious though I had visions of a trip to the emergency room.

A Trip to Mercado San Nicolas

This indoor marketplace is only two blocks from my apartment, and is a great place to shop for fruits and vegetables, spices and other dried goods, deli items, as well as any kind of meat product you can imagine.

Last week was the first time I took my dog in there with me, and was a little worried that someone would say something to me, but the funny thing is that this morning I was in there, and didn’t have my dog with me, and they were all asking about him.  Its a lovely alternative to the supermarket, the people are really friendly, and there’s something about buying meat from butcher, buying deli meats from a deli man, and fruit from a fruit man, that really appeals to me.

I ran into the lady who does my laundry at the spices, grains, and dried fruit and nut stand.  She was also asking about my dog, and I’m starting to realize that I’m known in my neighborhood as the big Yanqui with the little dog.

Hillary Clinton’s First Trip to the Middle East as Secretary of State

Secretary Clinton in the Middle East

In Secretary Clinton’s first visit to the Middle East, she made a two day visit to Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister-Designate Benjamin Netanyahu as he is busy trying to put together a new and ultra right wing government.  Her spokespeople emphasized that as this was her first trip as Secretary of State it would be “a familiarization tour, a listen and learn experience”.  She made it clear during her visit to Egypt that Washington is committed to pursuing a two state solution, which is clearly a great first step for the Obama administration to become involved in peace process during an extremely heated period in the region, in the wake of the destruction of Gaza and a report showing that Israel has plans to build an additional 73,000 homes in the occupied West Bank.  But is “the two state solution” really on the agenda or they just paying lip service to the peace process?  Is this really about trying to foster some kind of stability in Israel and Palestine while they really focuse on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran?  I’ll be keeping an eye on this topic during the upcoming weeks/months.

US Dollar Climbs to AR$3.62, Peso in Freefall

Today the US Dollar rose another 2 cents to close at AR$3.62, reaching a new 5-year high, and actually to find a weaker peso you have to go back as far as the end of 2002, about a year after devaluation when the US Dollar soared to nearly AR$4.00 against the USD.

Now this has far from been a steady rise, with the bulk of the losses occurring in the last six months, as this graph indicates.

The Dollar Versus the Arg. Peso since 2005

This graph is the Peso Dollar exchange rate, since I moved to Argentina in 2005.  As you can see, the Peso roughly kept pace with the Dollar between January 2006 and last July, 2008, a period of almost 30 months.  That of course was no extraordinary feat if we remember that during that period the US Dollar fell against roughly every major currency, most notably 15 percent against the British Pound, and 30 percent against the Euro.

1/3/06	1.00 GBP = 1.74 USD	1.00 EUR = 1.19 USD	3.03 ARS = 1.00 USD
7/21/08	1.00 GBP = 2.00 USD	1.00 EUR = 1.587 USD	3.02 ARS = 1.00 USD

It wasn’t until the events of last fall in the United States that the Argentine Peso descended into the freefall that continues today…

September 7, 2008: Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (ARS 3.02 = 1 USD)
September 15, 2008: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy protection (ARS 3.09 = 1 USD)
September 25, 2008: Washington Mutual is seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (ARS 3.11 = 1 USD)
October 1, 2008: The U.S. Senate passes HR1424, their version of the $700 billion bailout bill (ARS 3.13 = 1 USD)
October 6-10, 2008: Worst week for the stock market in 75 years (ARS 3.27 = 1 USD)
November 12, 2008: Treasury Secretary Paulson abandons plan to buy toxic assets under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). (ARS 3.30 = 1 USD)
November 17, 2008: The Treasury gives out $33.6 billion to 21 banks in the second round of disbursements from the $700 billion bailout fund. This payout brings the total to $158.56 billion so far. (ARS 3.31 = 1 USD)
November 25, 2008: The US Federal Reserve pledges $800 billion more to help revive the financial system. (ARS 3.34 = 1 USD)

The fall of the Peso is not a huge story down here, as Argentines are used to the rise and fall of their currency, usually the latter.  Inflation is going up, unemployment is going up, home values are going down…   but the people here don’t tend to dwell on it, if pressed they admit, “Yes, inflation is very bad” but if you press too hard they are quick to tell you how “It’s not as bad as it used to be.  You should have seen this country in the 70′s and 80′s. Now that was inflation!”

Well, during the my first two and half years here I thought inflation was pretty bad, around 10-15 percent annually was the consensus estimate, though certain sectors saw a much higher rise in prices such as gasoline and imported goods.  During the last 6 to 9 months inflation has spiralled out of control and though its difficult to get an accurate figure (government figures are utterly useless and fly in the face of what everyone can see), but its safely abover 20 percent annually, with food costs rising along with everything else.   But, as I said, no cause for alarm down here.  No one is panicking and few are even discussing it.  Unlike the soft and weak people of the north, Argentina has seen it all before.

The Queen’s Damned Undies

The British and American media is awash with news that Senator Kennedy has been awarded a honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, which was formally announced today by the Glaswegian Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he addressed both houses of congress. This announcement implies that Sen. Kennedy has chosen to accept this award, as nowadays recipients are contacted by Downing Street to confirm in writing whether or not they wish to be put forward for an honor long before any public announcement is made.

So far, in contrast to when former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was given the KBE (Knight of the British Empire) honor in 2002, the American media has not raised much controversy.  I suppose that his recent battle with brain cancer and his public seizure during an Obama inaguration luncheon that gets him a pass from the American media.  The only bit of outrage I can find comes surprisingly from the British old-schoolers, those who will never forget how that “drunken paddy yank interfered in ‘the troubles’ at Ulster”.

Lets all stand up and cheer… if you look closely you can even see the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne down there cheering.

Call me old fashioned but this kind of pompous display of shameless diplomacy disguised as well… shameless diplomacy, really makes me sick.  I mean we get it already…  America and the UK are friends.  NATO, the UN, the EU, and NAFTA aside, we are really BFF and like to pat each other on the back.  They have shown they will blindly follow us into war, and now we show that even a US Senator will accept an honor pledging allegiance to HM the Queen.  Forget that we had this little thing called the American Revolution, where we denounced the rule of kings, hereditary nobles, and priests.  Let the two houses of congress be united in proclaiming our support for the Queen!  Here, here.

Let’s leave the issue of legality aside, because while the US Constitution (Article I, Section 9) makes it pretty clear what the Framers thought about titles of nobility…

“No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

… it’s not actually so cut and dry whether Senator Kennedy is actually violating the law here, because its actually only an “honorary title”, rather than an actual knighthood.  And although no official consent for an honorific title has ever been granted by Congress, their riotous applause shown in the link above seems to imply consent.

So let’s put all that aside as it has been covered ad nauseum by many a “Jesse Ventura loving, YouTube vlogging, formerly apathetic,  frat party going, Campaign for Libery bumper sticker toting, Rudy Giuliani hating, Ron Paul supporter” back when Rudy-G insulted Doctor No in the Republican Primary debates.

What I’d like to focus on is the absurdity of titles of nobility in today’s world.  Have we undergone such a 180 degree shift in the philosophy of our government that this kind of nonsense is to be regarded as cute and even prestigious?  Are we really just estranged subjects of Her Majesty‘s Empire?  Didn’t we settle this matter a long time ago in Yorktown?

To the American revolutionaries these titles of nobility were far from cute, they were a symbol of oppression and hereditary rule, of classism and racism and all the other evil -isms that made the governments of the world feudalistic, tribalistic, and inherently unjust.  Thomas Paine had this to say in his essay “Reflections on Titles” from the Founder’s Constitution…

When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise the absurdity. The Honorable plunderer of his country, or the Right Honorable murderer of mankind, create such a contrast of ideas as exhibit a monster rather than a man. Virtue is inflamed at the violation, and sober reason calls it nonsense.

This was part of Paine’s justification for Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution (quoted above), but moreover it is a moral justification for the American Revolution itself.

To me Ted Kennedy’s acceptance of the KBE title is just further proof that in Post WWII America, diplomacy trumps ideology, and that in order to preserve and strengethen economic alliances our leaders are bound by no civic or moral underpinnings.