Stories about Latin America from December, 2006
Cuba: Christmas traditions
Cuba-based blogger Kaloian Santos Cabrera posts an excerpt from a book on traditional Christmas observances in San Juan de los Remedios, Cuba, plus some photos.
Some lessons about blog attacks in the spanish-language blogosphere
Spanish version here: Algunas enseñanzas sobre los ataques a blogs In the last weeks there have been a series of quite similar attacks to popular blogs in Spanish. The series began at the immensely popular Chilean tech blog FayerWayer [ES], which not only was hacked, but also got all of...
Lusosphere: Who? Me? You!? Why not Hugo?
TIME Magazine's choice of ‘You’ as the ‘Person of the Year’ has created interesting reactions in Lusophone blogs. The coddling move from the editorial giant towards the new class of content creators among its audience initially seduced the web 2.0 crowds. Many commentators were quick to agree effusively with the...
Argentina: Private Clubs No Longer So Private
Ian Mount, who recently published an article in the New York Times about the rise of private clubs in Buenos Aires describes what he calls the “sausage factory” of how the article came about. Unsurprisingly, blogs played a big role.
Colombia: Lack of quorum sinks same-sex partnership bill
“So the bill was actually brought to the floor for a vote but some cowardly legislators jumped up and left their seats. Incredibly disappointing if not necessarily surprising.” So says Andres Duque who has been covering the proposed legislation to grant legal privileges to same-sex partnerships. The bill died last...
Cuba: The newest threat …
Greg of Two Weeks Notice links to an article on “the newest threat to Cuba” … rock climbing.
Argentina: Rare Rock MP3 Blog
Fernando Casale introduces the newish MP3 blog Incunables Posludios “whose objective is to rescue rare treasures of Argentine rock with the premise that they should be unattainable in record stores.”
Argentines: Books of 2006
Jeff Barry lists the recommended 2006 foreign and Argentine books according to Ñ magazine.
Venezuela: Elizabeth Schön and God
Guillermo Parra translates a piece by Ana María Hernández G. about the latest book by Venezuelan poet Elizabeth Schön.
Argentina: Last.FM en español
Argentine blogger Mariano Amartino celebrates the Spanish-language launch of last.FM, a music-focused social networking site.
Mexico: Five Best Viral Videos
Eduardo Arcos highlights the five best “viral videos” of the year.
Venezuela: The best Christmas music you've never heard of
“There were two very notable things about Christmas in Zulia that I immediately became aware of: the temperature (around 90 degrees) and La Gaita Zuliana,” writes Jennifer Woodard Maderazo about the Christmas protest songs of Venezuela's Zulia state.
Chile: Two new Regions
The Chilean congress has approved two new regions in Chile. Currently, Chile has 12 regions and the capital, Santiago. As iquiquenoticias(ES) explains: Los miembros de la Cámara de Diputados aprobó con 106 votos a favor y 1 abstención, las modificaciones propuestas por la Cámara de Senadores al proyecto de Ley...
Puerto Rico: Do you see what I see?
Gil the Jenius enlists the help of refrain from a Christmas carol in his diatribe against what he sees as some of the administrative and political problems affecting Puerto Rico.
Bolivia: Politics Falls Apart, Christmas Comes Together
This week's Bolivian blog summary was written by a guest collaborator, Miguel Buitrago, a Bolivian currently pursuing his Ph.D in political science in Hamburg, Germany. His Bolivian blog is called MABB. As the year winds down, and Bolivians prepare to celebrate what is considered one of the most important holydays...
Bloggers on the new US Congress and the US policy on Cuba
Not much has been said in the blogosphere about how the results of the recent mid-term elections in the United States, which put the Democrats in control of Congress back in November, can affect the future of current US policy regarding Cuba. The truth is that several Democratic representatives (and...
Haiti, Dominican Republic: Slaves in Paradise
Says Collectif Haiti de Provence (Fr):”For International Anti-Slavery Day, May 10, 2007, Pour Que L'esprit Vive Association is organizing a series of activities to denounce living conditions in [Dominican] bateys: photo exhibits, roundtables with Haitian and Dominican intervenors, films. The event will be titled ‘Slaves in Paradise’.”
Chilean Christmas Consumer Behavior
Christmas is coming. This post takes a look at Chileans’ consumer behaviour during holidays. Writing about what Chileans are buying for presents, Luis Alarcon (ES) describes top-selling present: El éxito de esta navidad, poleras (polos, tshirt) con las pólemicas imágenes de Allende y el reciente fallecido Pinochet. Los encargados aseguran...
Costa Rica Blog Wrapup: CAFTA, Christmas and arts.
Highlights from Costa Rica's blogs these past weeks. We have more on the CAFTA, complaints on Christmas, and posts on artistic and cultural events. We'll begin with a touch of humour: Lachi in Prueba de Artista posts a video taken during an Anime-manga event where they got an undesired dose...
Festival Internacional de la Cancion de Autor
Panamanian songwriter Gonzalo Horna has a review about the first Festival Internacional de la Canción de Autor in which he participated as the opening artist. Read more about this event.
Argentina: Music: Holy – Cascarano
With English lyrics and “melodies that combine pop, rock, folk, and dub” the latest Holy production, Cascarana, has been released under a 2.0 Creative Commons License. Fernando Casale has all the tracks available for download.