Argentine politics are really interesting, as it turns out - now that I
can actually understand the rapid-fire news announcers or the people on 6-7-8, this type of political debate show we watch at dinner every night.
The first debate of the night was over a new law that will break up (to some extent) the monopoly that the Clarín group has over Argentina's media by restricting the number of media licenses per proprietor. According to my host family, this company has control of most of the television news networks as well as Argentina's largest newspaper (clarin.com) and as such can hugely sway politics. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is the first president to oppose the media group's boa-constrictor-hold (note: she decided to do this after she was elected) and as such is encountering significant difficulties in getting her law through. Unsurprisingly, bad press from Clarín's media is also causing her support among the people to decrease.
La Presidenta (getting a little peeved there)
Now, the second large ongoing controversy here is a little more history-related, and a lot more depressing - fitting, as a it's a result of the dictatorship. Probably some of you know the background to this; and it seems kind of really obvious to me because it's such a big entrenched thing here, but here's a sum-up anyway: during the Dirty War of '76-'83, the right-wing military dictatorship was slyly and massively 'disappearing' anyone they even vaguely suspected of leftist activities or Peronism. President Kirchner was a member of the Peronist Youth in the 1970s - which means she had definitely been at risk of being 'disappeared.'
The 'disappeared' people were literally that - they'd go to the store and not come back, or be dragged out of their houses and into Ford Falcons in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Apparently some were tortured or held in prisons; many (this is grisly) were flung out of planes into the Atlantic Ocean so there were no bodies and no evidence. It gets more upsetting: many of the desaparecidos were young, and some of them were pregnant women whose children, it is now evident from DNA tests, were given to people who supported the dictatorship, or members of the upper class who would pay for them. It's suspected that up to 30,000 people were disappeared; it's bad enough that the government wouldn't even persecute those responsible for some time - in the name of 'moving on.' Now that these children are surfacing, it's obviously a big conflict - the relations of the desaparecidos want the children found, or even 'given back;' the adopted parents might or might not want the children to know their history...
Here's where the yellow journalist in me starts salivating: In 1976, Ernestina Herrera de Noble, who has been the director of Clarín since 1969, adopted two infants. You can guess where this is going: in 2002 the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo filed a lawsuit against her demanding that she submit them to DNA tests; she fought to deny the demand. Apparently the case is still in litigation, with Kirchner proposing in 2009 that in cases related to crimes against humanity, the submission of DNA samples be compulsory. Of course, Kirchner's opponents took it as a personal attack on Mrs. Noble, with whom (juicier still!) until recently Kirchner had maintained 'cordial relations.'
Mrs. Noble and her adoptive childers.
Obviously, I'm probably only skimming the surface of this whole thing - I just learned about it, and I'm getting portions of my information from answers.com - but wow. It's practically a telenovela. Baby-stealing and all. (I wonder what Mrs. Noble's kids - who're what, in their 30s now? - think of this. And why they're letting their adopted mother decide for them).
In case you didn't tune in for an excitable and generalizing sum-up of very serious history, according to my Lista de Heladerías, I've visited eight. This is very distressing news, as though I've visited a good number of those twice (and I'm sure a couple I haven't written down), I found an article in my hostel in Uruguay on historic heladerías en Buenos Aires that gave me the names of twelve more, not to mention the eight other ones I've already written down and haven't gone to yet. Gotta get cracking! I suppose I could cross some off the list for completely failing to put their addresses online or in the article, too...
My favorite so far: Persicco, which is kind of expensive but so very worth it: the chocolate amargo (that's bitter, which is code for most chocolaty) is... I don't know, my friend described it as "rich enough to ice a cake with." Yummm. And the limon (not mousse de limon) is everything anyone would dream of when they're out for a week with a brain-boiling fever. Which I did, all those months ago.
The ice cream article I read listed this one place where apparently Gardel (that's Carlos Gardel, the famous tango singer martyred in a plane crash) was a 'fanatic' of the lemon flavor... so that will be fun.
I forgot two words yesterday!
One: matear - yup, the process of drinking mate has its own verb.
and two: cicatriz, which is a far superior way to say 'scar' than English has.
Apologies for being an ice-cream- and word-snob (I just like them, damnit)
oh, and ¡Viva Cristina!,
Lindsey
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