Love is in the air.

It’s a good thing we all communicate through the written word here, because Hugo Chavez died today, and I’ve already decided the first person I hear call him “Oo-go” is going to have to go. Will have to oo-go.

This is just my personal prejudice. Carry on.

My favorite Chavez story isn’t a story at all, but a picture, of him on a rope line of sorts. A woman is coming forward to shake his hand with a baby on her breast. V-neck pulled down, kid in one hand, the other outstretched to her president. He’s not looking anywhere but at her smiling face. Hey, a kid’s gotta eat.

Guys, I have little to say today, even though was a good one. Got out for two whole hours in some fine late-winter sunshine, strong enough that it actually warmed my face as I drove. You know spring is on its way when that happens.

And scanning around for bloggage, I don’t even have much of that. How about a piece of graffiti I ran across last week? From the p.s. off to the side — “she said yes!!! March 2012” — it’s a bit dated, but it’s interesting that in a year, it hasn’t been defaced yet. True love!

marryme

Posted at 7:55 am in Detroit life, Same ol' same ol' |
 

66 responses to “Love is in the air.”

  1. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 6, 2013 at 8:04 am

    Don’t mess with love.

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  2. alex said on March 6, 2013 at 9:03 am

    Well, we got ten inches last night. I watched a neighbor having to get dug out of the middle of the road because her snazzy new ‘stang was hopelessly stuck and the car is now in the well plowed driveway of another neighbor. Taking my time getting ready to leave for work today. So this was the biggest snow of the winter and they’re predicting temps in the 50s on Friday.

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  3. brian stouder said on March 6, 2013 at 9:13 am

    Alex – all was going swimmingly for me, this morning.

    Our street has fire-house 7 on the corner, so the city keeps it well-plowed. I parked nose-out on the driveway yesterday, to make exiting the driveway easier; and with school canceled*, Grant gets driveway duty.

    All I had to do was clear off the windows, and then rock and roll…until I somehow detached my windshield wiper blade, and then could not re-attach it. (Pam will figure it out this evening, I’m sure)

    *is it “canceled” or “cancelled”? Reading the crawl on one of our local stations last night, either its BOTH, or else typing the crawl is a duty that falls upon multiple people

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  4. beb said on March 6, 2013 at 9:15 am

    It’s too legible to be a real tagger. I’ve heard that tagger tend to respect other tagger’s work.

    The Freep’s website had the weirdest spelling of Hugo Chavis’ name. It was like they throw up a pronunciation guide wen all they meant was to spell his name correctly.

    To the extent that Chavez was standing up for the little people in Venezuela I respected him but over time it seemed like he was more into showboating than good governance.

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  5. beb said on March 6, 2013 at 9:20 am

    According to the spell-chek on my browser it’s one “l”, which makes sense since you add “ed” to make it past tense, but I have the same problem, at least with travelled. Some how the two “l” look right, or look better but spell cehk says only one “l.” I wonder if this is a British spelling thing, like colour?

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  6. Julie Robinson said on March 6, 2013 at 9:31 am

    The 10 inches here drifted to 18 in front of our garage. It’s times like this we miss having a kid at home.

    On the same day Chavez died, the Venezuelan Vice President and heir apparent accused its imperialist enemies of infecting Chavez with the cancer that killed him. This doesn’t give me high hopes for Venezuela’s future.

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  7. LAMary said on March 6, 2013 at 9:41 am

    All the local news people here are pronouncing it Oo-go. Not an exaggerated version of it but definitely no H sound. I’m ok with it. It’s how it’s pronounced. I have a problem with Aaron Sanchez, the chef, who speaks English with a Tex-Mex accent. He goes way over the line with his accent when he pronounces the names of ingredients when he’s on Chopped or Top Chef. Give it a siesta, Aaron. I respect your heritage and your cuisine.

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  8. Dorothy said on March 6, 2013 at 9:41 am

    We lucked out with maybe 3 inches or so. That seemed to be the approximate height when I wiped the snow off our vehicles this morning. Columbus seems to be much worse off, which is odd because they predictions said the further north you were, the more snow you’d get. It was already melting while I swiped this morning, and the 33 degrees on my car display confirmed that. Galoshes will be valuable when I walk the dogs this weekend in the muddy yard!

    Has anyone seen the Staircase series on Sundance channel? I am behind reading Entertainment Weekly – it came on this past Monday and they really praised it. I’ll catch it on re-runs this Saturday while I’m home sewing or knitting. Seven hours is a lot to devote to a case I can probably read about on the web, but I’m curious so I’ll avoid reading anything on line.

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  9. coozledad said on March 6, 2013 at 9:53 am

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/report-too-much-money-spent-in-iraq-for-too-few-results.php?ref=fpblg

    The most idiotic military decision since Barbarossa. Took a nation from its peak of power, stability and influence, and revealed its most fundamental weakness: we’re never more than a few votes shy of being ruled by brain damaged Christianist blowhards.

    Admiral Byng faced a firing squad for better decision making than this.

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  10. Heather said on March 6, 2013 at 10:02 am

    “Cancelled” is the British spelling.

    In Chicago we got maybe five or six inches? No biggie. I shoveled around my tires to get out of my space but I probably didn’t need to. No one seemed to be saving their spaces with old chairs and crap, which makes me happy. I hate that “tradition.”

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  11. MarkH said on March 6, 2013 at 10:10 am

    Dictionary.com confirms “canceled”, noting the British “cancelled”.

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  12. Deborah said on March 6, 2013 at 10:16 am

    63 here in Santa Fe on Thursday but it’s supposed to snow on Saturday and Sunday, so not over yet.

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  13. nancy said on March 6, 2013 at 10:18 am

    Not a flake here. Bright sunshine yesterday, bright sunshine today, no worries mon. (Except we need the moisture.)

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  14. Connie said on March 6, 2013 at 10:30 am

    Same as Nancy. We may be in the same metro area but we are a long long way away from each other. I can get to Lansing in an hour. How much longer does it take you Nancy?

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    • nancy said on March 6, 2013 at 10:45 am

      Forty minutes. Thirty-five if the wind is at my back.

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  15. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 10:41 am

    By most accounts, Chavez was a disaster as Venezuela’s leader. Yes, he helped poor people, but that isn’t hard to do when you have a fire hose of money at your disposal. I just wonder what’s going to happen to Venezuela’s oil money now that he’s gone.

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  16. MichaelG said on March 6, 2013 at 11:00 am

    Rain last night and today lots of snow in the high country.

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  17. Judybusy said on March 6, 2013 at 11:05 am

    We got about 9″ Monday through Tuesday. Light, fluffy stuff that was easy to shovel. I took my time, watching the snow fall and listening to the dueling cardinals. Luckily, I could work from home yesterday, and the streets were in good shape this morning. My evenings are a bit busy till the weekend, so I’m hoping to get out and squeeze in some last XC skiing over the weekend. Last year, it was 80 on St. Paddy’s day, and the long-range forecast is for low 50s in two weeks.

    Spring is coming. I did a new seed-starting thing this year, after reading about it from another master gardener. I filled up some milk jugs with starting mix and planted cold-hardy seeds of poppies, lupine, foxglove and sweet peas and set them outside. The jugs are cut in half to do the planting then taped shut, with the lid kept off. It’s a mini greenhouse. Charlotte, have you ever done anything like this?

    Returning to the language discussion of yesterday, “ain’t” is used a lot by well-educated people in 19th century novels. I’ve been reading Trollope (British) and Constance Fenimore Woolson (American) and it seems more common in Trollope.

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  18. brian stouder said on March 6, 2013 at 11:12 am

    I’m still pondering:

    we’re never more than a few votes shy of being ruled by brain damaged Christianist blowhards.

    In light of Justice Scalia’s benighted and bluntly – indeed proudly – racist comment from the bench the other day, I think Cooze’s statement is literally and provably true.

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  19. Mark P. said on March 6, 2013 at 11:17 am

    Back home in Georgia, my wife reports a dusting of snow on the ground, same as she reported on Saturday, when I was walking to the beach in California in 80-degree weather.

    Pronunciation of non-English words in English can be a problem. In general I call foreign cities and countries by their English names. Germany instead of Deutschland, for example. But names of people are different. People in Venezuela generally don’t pronounce the H in Hugo. Why should we if we know better?

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  20. Deborah said on March 6, 2013 at 11:21 am

    Reading about Chavez and the poor in Venezuela led in a round about way to this shocking video of wealth distribution in the U.S. It’s about 6 1/2 minutes long, animated info graphics, but very well done and eye opening:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM

    sorry about the non-embedded link.

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  21. nancy said on March 6, 2013 at 11:26 am

    Here’s my problem with native pronunciations by speakers of other languages: It’s too inconsistent. There are enough Spanish speakers in this country that it’s pretty common to hear Oo-go and Hwan and so forth, but you never hear the same done with, say, Russian names. We say Mik-hale and not Mik-ha-eel, which is how the former Soviet president’s first name is correctly pronounced. The French capitol is Par-iss, not Par-ee. I guess I would argue that if we’re speaking English, say it with an English pronunciation.

    My personal exception: If a person wants you to say it a certain way, you say it that way. Common courtesy.

    I do like the gradual shift away from colonial pronunciations and spellings, however — Bombay to Mumbai, Peking to Beijing, etc. Again, it’s a matter of respect and courtesy.

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  22. brian stouder said on March 6, 2013 at 11:39 am

    Just for the record, I would have written “capital” rather than “capitol” –

    (and, as always, I would have been wrong)

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  23. alex said on March 6, 2013 at 11:40 am

    I don’t recall things ever being so unseemly as they are today, particularly as regards Supreme Court justices wearing their politics on their sleeves and making the sorts comments that would get most people fired from their jobs. I’m sure Scalia’s dissents in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases will be breathtaking.

    Well, it looks like I’m snowbound for the day. My big truck couldn’t make it out of the driveway. The plows haven’t been down my road yet. Probably a good time to catch up on my reading.

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  24. Charlotte said on March 6, 2013 at 11:43 am

    Judybusy — let me know how that works for you — I have a big cold frame, which is where flats go after I’ve started them in the mudroom (heat mats and lights). Haven’t started anything yet, I usually wait until after March 15 — I really can’t put anything tender out until the end of May and I’ve found that starting any earlier just results in legginess.
    Of course next year, I’ll have a lovely glass room to play with … trying to be patient.

    And Nancy — just turned on PRI’s “The World” podcast which opened with … a big, fat. OOOO-go. Sigh.

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  25. Connie said on March 6, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    Years ago we were in a veteran’s organization where I was introduced to Jesse. Then I heard someone else call him Hay-soos. So I asked him which he preferred. His answer: “you can call me Jesse or you can call me Hay-soos, just as long as you never call me Jesus.

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  26. beb said on March 6, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    This showed up on Boingboing today. Would have fit right in with yesterday’s discussion of chronic and habitual sexism.
    http://boingboing.net/2013/03/05/connecticut-state-rep-tells-1.html

    I can’t believe he said to to a high school girl, and I’m disappointed that he’s a Dem. His defense is that he would have said there was an elephant under his desk that would cure her of shyness if she had been talking about elephanta instead of snakes. Al Franken answered that years ago when Limbaugh called Chelsea Clinton the new White House Dog. It wasn’t a mistake because there was no way for that bit to be funny with any other picture. Saying I have an elephant under my desk is plain absurd. Snake is the only word that fits and it was wrong of him to say that.

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  27. adrianne said on March 6, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    Hudson Valley is going to get sideswiped by the big ol’ storm, thank God. I’m no fan of March snowstorms, although that’s traditionally when Syracuse, N.Y., my former town, gets slammed. Memorably, the highest ever inch count for a winter storm – 44 inches in 24 hours – happened in late March of 1993. Even for snow-hardy Syracusans, that was a major event!

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  28. Prospero said on March 6, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Whole enchilada:

    http://www.zimbio.com/watch/f_q1DAi7iEE/Enchilada/Saturday+Night+Live

    I got a new Robyn Hitchcock album in today’s mail. Damn that guy sure sounds like young John Lennon. Strange lyrics too.

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  29. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Dilbert once had a series of strips about a worker named Jesus with obvious parallels: He had disciples whom he took to a Last Lunch, he was betrayed by Wally for 30 stock options, etc. Every strip opened with the words “It’s pronounced Hay-soos” over the front panel. One of the funniest Dilbert bits ever.

    If only Scott Adams would stick to producing Dilbert and stay away from idiotic musings about rape, men’s rights, etc.

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  30. Peter said on March 6, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    Beb, the Boing Boing tape would be a lot better with a “ba-da-boom” added in.

    Hey, this has been a great hearing, I’m in session all week, try the veto override, and don’t forget to tip my aide.

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  31. Dexter said on March 6, 2013 at 1:08 pm

    I certainly am no prude, but I have been reading The New Yorker for over fifty years, and they edit so well I have never caught a typo. They spell cancelled, travelled, and most verbs ending in “L” will get double “Ls”. That is why I use that style.
    My spelchek just underlined “travelled” but not “cancelled” .

    Love in between the sheets…not happening here :
    http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/images/UserFiles/File/Xmas-billboard-09.jpg

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  32. Dexter said on March 6, 2013 at 1:21 pm

    This morning I heard that Alvin Lee passed away after routine surgery.
    He was 68. He performed at Woodstock, he was an incredible guitarist and showman.
    “6 March 2013 Last updated at 12:58 ET

    Alvin Lee Lee became acclaimed for his guitar solos at Woodstock in 1969

    British rock guitarist Alvin Lee, a member of the band Ten Years After, has died aged 68.

    His family announced on his official website that he unexpectedly died on 6 March following complications during routine surgery.

    The Nottingham-born musician rose to fame after appearing at the Woodstock festival in 1969.

    The band, who had eight Top 40 albums in the UK, had their biggest hit in 1971 with I’d Love To Change the World.

    “We have lost a wonderful and much loved father and companion, the world has lost a truly great and gifted musician,” said the statement from his wife and daughters.”…BBC….

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  33. Danny said on March 6, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    Don’t mess with love.

    It sounds like this lion did not get the message. He not only “messed with “love,” but it appears he downright “defaced” it.. so to speak.

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/442888/20130306/lion-mauls-woman-death-zimbabwe-having-sex.htm

    A lot of people remark how that they would like to draw their last breath while making love, but this article gives one pause…

    “Perhaps,” said the Zen Master…

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  34. Danny said on March 6, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    What a shame about Alvin Lee. Way too soon for him to go. Iwas wondering if he was any relation to Albert Lee, but it appears not.

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  35. mark said on March 6, 2013 at 2:14 pm

    Chavez leaves behind quite a mess. OOOh-noo. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/in-the-end-chavez-was-an-awful-manager.html

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  36. Prospero said on March 6, 2013 at 2:24 pm

    Jeff tmmo@1:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSQqCugnAhw

    I wouldn’t say Alvin Lee was a great guitar player, but that boy was mofo fast.

    http://www.myspace.com/video/kermit-la-grenouille/alvin-lee-quot-i-39-m-going-home-quot-live-woodstock-39-69/5860873

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  37. coozledad said on March 6, 2013 at 2:26 pm

    Ain’t no cure for survivalist blues:

    Within a couple of days of being in the wilderness, your personal stench is merely disgusting. By the end of the first week, the putrid, toxic paste that develops around the groins of men becomes a risk to health and safety and can cause serious diseases. Within another week your feet develop a cocktail of fungal infections, and within another week the skin begins to fall off of them.
    Around this time sores develop across your entire body…

    If the dull substance of my thought were flesh,
    Tinea cruris should not peel my nuts,
    For then despite no shower I would smell afresh,
    In woodlands far remote, where I drain my guttes,
    No matter where although my foot might land
    Upon the selfsaid earth removed from mee,
    For nimble thought can jump from arse to hand,
    As soon as hand rubs foot where shite there be.
    But ah, thought tells me that my nuts do sting
    I’d leap large lengths of miles to leave them gone,
    But that too little of that soape and water thinge,
    I must now attend, my barking lizard with my moan.
    Receiving nought by failing to remove,
    But heavy tears, badges of smegma’s glove.

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  38. Prospero said on March 6, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    Right, Mark. Chavez was somehow a Marxist boogeyman, headed for Brownsville, and everything to do with him is fucked up. How about two credit card wars with attendant tax cuts. Seems like a worse legacy than potholes in Puerto Ayacucho. When you basic idea is along the lines of:

    restoring equilibrium between the rich countries and the rest of the world

    There is always a Shrub family out to stop you.

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  39. Peter said on March 6, 2013 at 2:54 pm

    Well, I will miss Alvin Lee more than Ooogo Chavez. But I’ll leave that up to you.

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  40. coozledad said on March 6, 2013 at 2:54 pm

    Nationalizing your country’s natural resources against the will of the Saudi-Texas fuckpile is always risky. Chavez would have been taken out by force, but Bush already had us fucking a different chicken.

    Bush’s class had to be mighty perturbed when Evo Morales nationalized the Bolivian coca market and created a partnership with other coca states. That’s a direct slap in their goddamned coke-pinched faces.

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  41. Mark P. said on March 6, 2013 at 3:58 pm

    About Hugo … the fact that we might not pronounce it exactly as Hugo did does not really excuse not trying. To me it is a matter of showing respect not necessarily to the individual, but to the culture. And it really is the effort that counts. My parents once spent several months in Mexico. They took some adult ed courses in Spanish before they went, and then they tried to speak Spanish. Of course they were far from fluent, but the people they met respected their efforts and tried to meet them halfway, or more. Same with Hugo.

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  42. Prospero said on March 6, 2013 at 4:07 pm

    Actually, I went back and read Mark’s link. Some fine whine paropaganda there. Making Chavez out to be the Marxist bugbear is so fracking lame it’s hilarious.

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  43. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 4:12 pm

    Mark P.: I would suggest that there is a difference between trying to speak a foreign country’s language when you’re in that country, and pronouncing a name according to the rules of one language when you’re speaking another.

    This is all beginning to remind me of that SNL skit where actors portraying Sam Donaldson and (IIRC) Diane Sawyer outdid each other trying to say “Nicaragua” with a Spanish accent.

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  44. Charlotte said on March 6, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Oh. My. Fine fine piece by Jacob Bernstein on his mother, Nora Ephron’s last days: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/nora-ephrons-final-act.html?pagewanted=all

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  45. Dexter said on March 6, 2013 at 4:59 pm

    …lots of fans here at nn.c of the late Nora Ephron…here ya go…
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/nora-ephrons-final-act.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

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  46. Dexter said on March 6, 2013 at 5:00 pm

    Sorry , Charlotte! I didn’t notice you posted this 3 minutes before I did…like minds think alike. 🙂

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  47. Mark P. said on March 6, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    Bitter Scribe, you must have missed my earlier comment in which I said I use the English name of foreign countries, but that personal names are different. In English, we actually have English names for most other countries and we use that rather than the name in the native language. But we do not have English names for the names of people. I don’t say “John” when someone’s name is Juan; his name is not John, despite the fact that Juan is the equivalent of John. I don’t try for the properly accented Spanish pronunciation (whatever that might be in the particular country Juan comes from), but I do at least nod in the direction of the proper pronunciation of the person’s name. It is condescending to insist that Juan (or Hugo) must have his name pronounced as we Americans pronounce it rather than its actual pronunciation.

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  48. MarkH said on March 6, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    Why does everything have to have a George W Bush equivalency? Why can’t how Chavez left his country stand on its own? The post-Oogo turmoil down there hasn’t even started yet, and there will be plenty. Are some of you are pissed off that Bush didn’t take overt military action against Chavez because it robbed you of more blame to level at him? Make no mistake, I am NO fan of W.

    So answer this: how does an avowed socialist enter the presidency of his country with nothing, leave more poor people in his wake than when he started, and wind up with a net worth of $2 billion, and come off as some sort of hero?

    This editorial from the Miami Herald explains a lot and can be placed right along side the NYT piece from mark:

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/05/3268749/the-plundering-legacy-of-hugo.html

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  49. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 5:11 pm

    Propsero, I don’t know why you’re so breezily dismissive of that NYT piece. The guy who wrote it spent plenty of time in Venezuela and even appeared on a TV talk show with Chavez. He probably knows a lot more about it than you, me or anyone else on this board. And he did not make Chavez out to be “a Marxist bugbear,” not even close. I think your comment is what’s “fracking lame.”

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  50. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 5:14 pm

    Mark P.: Calling Juan “John” is changing his name. Pronouncing “Hugo” in the English way means you’re speaking English. What’s condescending is insisting on native pronunciation, no matter how jarring it is in context, just to show how “authentic” you are.

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  51. Prospero said on March 6, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    That NYT piece is a nitpicking hatchet job, and I don’t care is the writer was Chavez’ best bud. Chavez managed to live to govern again after a coup run by the Shrubministration, and W’s back in Crawford or whatever.

    http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/bush-administration-tries-to-hide-role-in-venezuela-coup/

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  52. Deborah said on March 6, 2013 at 5:59 pm

    I was wrong, our Venezuelan friend in Chicago is not dancing. She said they are taking a cautious step but she expects everything to become chaotic there for awhile. What a mess.

    Thanks, Charlotte and Dexter for the Nora Ephron link, loved her.

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  53. Mark P. said on March 6, 2013 at 6:57 pm

    Bitter Scribe, I’m not suggesting that you pronounce Hugo as a native would, I’m suggesting that you simply use the person’s name, not the name you think he should use. Do you pronounce the “J” in Juan?

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  54. Prospero said on March 6, 2013 at 7:17 pm

    The once mighty factories of Ciudad Guayana, an industrial hub by the Orinoco River that M.I.T. and Harvard architects planned in the 1960s, are rusting and wheezing, some shut, others at half-capacity.

    That’s the money graf for why I don’t buy much about that NYT piece on Chavez. He refused to recognize Yanqui superiority and respect the white man’s burden. I mean, Harvard and MIT? Why aren’t them bastards grateful to US Big Brother?

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  55. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 7:50 pm

    Prospero: That “nitpicking hatchet job” corresponds with everything else I’ve read about Chavez and Venezuela. If anything, the writer was mild. And if letting factories founder is your idea of “refusing to recognize Yanqui superiority and respect the white man’s burden,” all I can say is, you have a very strange idea of what constitutes political protest.

    Mark P.: We’re going around in circles. If you say a person’s name, you’re using his name. If you say it in English, you’re using his name while speaking English.

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  56. Mark P. said on March 6, 2013 at 8:21 pm

    Bitter Scribe: You have made a philosophical point: Is a person’s name how he writes it or how he says it? My vote goes for how he says it, since names are often pronounced differently from how they look like they should be pronounced in English. You didn’t say whether you pronounce the “J” in Juan; I assume not. Based on that assumption (and it is only an assumption), it seems to me that you probably pronounce names correctly if you are familiar with them, and however you want to if you are not.

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  57. Deborah said on March 6, 2013 at 8:46 pm

    This whole credit card deal is really, really irritating now. They were supposed to deliver a new card to me today via Fed Ex and of course it has not come, I stayed home all day to be here because I have to sign for it. It has been very confusing trying to get Fed Ex tracking info. It is about 6:45 here in Santa Fe and I suppose there is still the possibility of getting it yet this evening but I am not optimistic. I don’t really need it immediately but this is what was promised. Grrrrrrrr.

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  58. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 8:53 pm

    Mark P.: Why the hell would I pronounce the “J” in Juan? That occurs in no recognized version of that name in any language that I am aware of.

    Since you seem so goddamn interested in how I pronounce “Juan”: When I’m speaking English, it mostly sounds like “wan.” If I were trying, God help me, to speak Spanish, I would go for “hoowan.” Saying that while I’m speaking English would just sound silly.

    Sorry if I seem cranky, but I don’t like it any better than Nancy does when someone calls me out and demands answers to a question I consider inane.

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  59. Charlotte said on March 6, 2013 at 9:18 pm

    Deborah — that happens sometimes out here in the more rural outposts of Fedex-dom. My guess is it probably missed the truck this morning … or the driver couldn’t get to you before he had to head back in so the outgoing stuff could get on the plane. I’ve been known to go driving around town looking for the FexEx guy when waiting on computer stuff (also, was in the City/County building getting my dog licenses when the Fedex guy came in. He looked at me and said “oh, I just left a package on your porch.” Welcome to small town life.)

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  60. Mark P. said on March 6, 2013 at 9:32 pm

    Bitter Scribe: Sorry if I offended you. I did not intentionally call you out. I gave my opinion that we ought to try to pronounce a person’s name the way that person pronounces it, whether it’s a familiar English name or a Spanish name. You pronounce Juan in an approximation of the Spanish pronunciation, in which the J is not pronounced as it is in English. The name Hugo is directly analogous. Why do you consider it different, other than that it is not familiar?

    Regarding Nancy’s comparison to Russian names, the fact is that Russian names and Hispanic names are different for Americans because we have very little familiarity with Russian pronunciation, but we share a hemisphere as well as a country with a whole hell of a lot of Hispanic people, and it seems only polite to try to pronounce their names correctly, or as correctly as we can. Maybe someday we Americans will be cosmopolitan enough to give that courtesy to other languages. I do not consider that issue to be inane.

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  61. Bitter Scribe said on March 6, 2013 at 9:43 pm

    Mark P.: No, Hugo is not directly analogous to Juan in terms of English pronunciation. The difference is that an alternate, i.e. English, version exists wherein the H is pronounced, and that is why pronouncing the H is the thing to do when you’re speaking English, so as not to sound like a pretentious git. No radically dissimilar pronunciation of Juan exists in English.

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  62. Deborah said on March 6, 2013 at 10:25 pm

    Charlotte, I wish you were right but it turns out the card hasn’t even left American Express yet, so we were given inaccurate information that it would be here today. Now they are saying it will be here tomorrow, that it will leave Amex sometime soon and arrive whenever tomorrow and I have to sign for it, so that means I have to change my plans another full day waiting for it. I don’t blame Fed Ex, I blame Amex. Double grrrr. I have no confidence that it will be here tomorrow. The irritating thing is that some criminal caused all of this and I am helpless to do anything about the inconvenience. I would have been fine if they had told me in the beginning that I wouldn’t get it for a week, but this full day to day waiting is infuriating. On top of that the Amex rep was rude and unhelpful.

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  63. brian stouder said on March 6, 2013 at 10:32 pm

    You’d think they could FedEx it to a neutral sight; either one of their Chicago storefronts, or to your bank – so that you could pick it up after confirming that the damned thing was delivered.

    Funny how technology and razzmatazz allow the crooks to zap dollars out of the ether, but cannot keep from wasting two or three of your days.

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  64. dull_old_man said on March 6, 2013 at 11:18 pm

    As I remember the Chicago Manual of Style, for past tense of two-syllable verbs ending with -el, it’s -ed if the accent is on the first syllable and -led if the accent is on the second syllable. canceled, traveled, impelled, compelled.

    I love that because of the apparent inconsistency.

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  65. Mark P. said on March 7, 2013 at 12:34 am

    Oh well, everyone here is an intelligent, well-read, polite, considerate and cosmopolitan person, so I’ll leave it to them to decide how they want to pronounce the Hispanic Hugo.

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