I can imagine the scene now. I am in the little cubicle that I have been given on the periphery of heaven. It is July 29, 2054, and I am reading the morning newspaper. Looking at the inter-galactic section (a bit bored with only heavenly news), I notice a photo of Hugo Chávez.

I was comfortably seated on a Mexicana flight from Mexico City to Caracas a few years ago, when the attendant passed out the morning newspapers. However, before the plane had left the runway, I was suddenly uncomfortable with what I saw on one of its pages.

In his 1970 book, Future Shock, Alvin Toffler wrote about the difference between a fad and a trend. And, if my memory serves me correctly: the first could be found by reading the big city dailies; the latter by observing smaller newspapers scattered throughout the U.S.

It is no longer a secret that TIME magazine chose Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Bono as their people of the year, 2005. But probably relatively few will be aware that a magazine published in Colombia, SEMANA, has named Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, as their man of the year. In Ecuador, the daily EL COMERCIO put Chávez at the top of their list of international leaders that they consider to have been the “winners” of 2005. (They also placed President George W. Bush at the top of their list of “losers.”) Time (not TIME) will tell which publications had the better judgment and whether we are looking at fads or at trends.

I have often said that my living in Latin America the past twenty years has been similar to being hit over the head daily, but in a very positive sense. I have had to see so many things from an entirely different perspective.
It probably should not have been a surprise to me, therefore, when I heard a Venezuelan colonel tell a group of visitors from the U.S. that Venezuela was in possession of missiles.
Then he clarified the matter.

Cuando El Principito de Antoine de Saint-Exupery visitó el planeta Tierra, encontró un rey que creía que gobernaba el universo. Si El Principito hubiese vuelto la semana pasada y hubiese aterrizado en Venezuela, habría tenido un intenso momento de déjà-vu.

El rey creía que era tan poderoso que incluso los planetas obedecían sus órdenes. Pero cuando El Principito pidió ver una puesta de sol, fue informado de que debía esperar hasta las 6:40 pm porque el rey solamente daba sus órdenes de forma que éstas ocurrieran de todas maneras.

Por siete años, la oposición al gobierno de Hugo Chávez ha actuado como si ellos gobernasen esta pequeña parte del universo. Una de sus actuales líderes, María Corina Machado, incluso sostuvo una entrevista personal en el Salón Oval con el dios de las guerras, George W. Bush.

Popular wisdom and concern in Venezuela was that the only option open to the opposition here to get rid of President Chávez would be to assassinate him. After trying a coup, a two-month long lockout/strike and finally the legal referendum to remove him from office, killing him seemed to be the only remaining possibility for them to try.
However, in recent days there is movement in another direction.

Last night I dreamt that I met George W. Bush. He and I were in a Caracas barrio attending a family “parilla,” a Venezuelan style cookout.

Not too long ago I was about to leave Caracas for the U.S. I knew that Delta Airlines wasn’t going to give me anything to eat between Atlanta and Denver and so before running out of my house, I made me a ham sandwich. It was confiscated by customs in Atlanta.
I wanted to eat the sandwich but the customs agent told me that I should have eaten it while I was still onboard the plane. However, after stepping on U.S. soil, I would have been breaking the law in doing so. He threw the sandwich into a box.

WARNING: the following article is a theological reflection on shit and why it happens. If you do not like the word “shit” you may substitute “excrement,” “fecal material,” “poop,” or any other word you prefer to describe the matter that smells and looks like shit.

The July 11, 2005 issue of Time in the United States carried an article about the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez (“Tracking Hurricane Hugo”).  The first paragraph lacked one word.  It said, “Since he became President in 1999, Chávez has publicly, in Spanish, called Bush an a_____ who is trying to assassinate him.”

The omitted letters immediately whetted my brain.  What word did Time not want to print?  I thought of “animal.”  That would not be a nice thing to say about the president of the United States.  “Assassin” was another possibility, but I figured that Time wouldn’t have hesitated to use that word since they used its derivative verb in the same sentence.

I finally thought that maybe the word was “asshole,” possibly prohibited by Time since I believe it is one of the very few parts of the anatomy that has not been seen in its pages.

I decided to call Brian Ellsworth who, together with Tim Padgett, wrote the article.  No, he confirmed, it wasn’t meant to be “animal” nor “assassin.”  The “asshole” guess was the correct one.  It is also an incorrect translation.