Today, Mexico is no longer just a transit country for drugs bound for the United States. It is a country of drug users as well
Drug trade, once passing by, takes root in Mexico
By James C. McKinley Jr
THE NEW YORK TIMES
ZAMORA, Mexico
When she gets her high, Lupita Díaz says she enters a sweet illusion of peace, a respite from her pain and self-loathing. She lies on her back in a meadow on the edge of town here with other addicts, looks up at the stars and plays aimlessly on a battered blue harmonica.
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The international Gay World Cup of soccer chose Buenos Aires for its first foray into Latin America
Buenos Aires welcomes 2007 Gay World Cup
By Dan Fastenberg
For the Herald
Just a generation ago, the corner of Comodoro Rivadavia and Avenida del Libertador in the northeastern Nuñez neighbourhood of Buenos Aires was a symbol of the worst forms of repression within Argentina. At that intersection is the notorious Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) used during the 1976-1983 Argentine military dictatorship as clandestine centre, but this past Saturday, September 29, across the street at the soccer stadium of the Defensores of Belgrano soccer team, upwards of 1,000 fans attended the finals of the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association (IGLFA) championships being played there.
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Editorial Roundup
Jyllands-Posten
— on Putin considering becoming Russia's prime minister AARTHUS, Denmark
Russia has had a hard time with democracy ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, and during his nearly eight years as president, Vladimir Putin has made no effort to push development in that direction, although it has been his declared...
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World of wine
Wine with a touch of iron(y)?
Wine with a touch of iron(y)?
By Dereck Foster
for the Herald
A couple of years ago — it might have been three — I happened to discover a new packaging for wine. It was at one of the many wine exhibition/fairs which keep us tied to BA without the need for travelling all the way to Mendoza, and was hidden away in a small corner without much to draw attention except for the fact that a large sign proclaimed in large letters IRON WINE. This was indeed something to be investigated. Wine from rust (perhaps), instead of grapes? It sounded too impossible to be true, so I stopped by to see what it was all about.
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Is that so?
Oyster lore
By Howard Nelson
for the Herald
Oysters are one of natures special gifts to gourmets. Like many gifts throughout history, this one comes with a twist. While agreeing that oysters are to be eaten and enjoyed, there are those who believe that they should only be eaten raw, while others insist, just as strongly, that oysters are best appreciated with a little help from the kitchen. It is an argument that shows no sign of coming to an agreement.
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Kia's corner
United we eat
By Fereydoun Kia
FOR THE HERALD
Presently, the international news media are full of reports from the ongoing United Nations General Assembly in New York. We see and hear about world leaders gathering, holding speeches and meeting behind the scene.
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A new exhibition traces the intersection between images and sounds from the Velvet Underground and beyond
It’s only rock and art, but they like it
By Dorothy Spears
THE NEW YORK TIMES
The strobe lights flicker hypnotically and the dancers move robotically when the haunting face of the chanteuse Nico appears in “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” the 1966 road show of art, music and film organized by Andy Warhol. Amid the Velvet Underground’s droning guitars, Lou Reed’s voice emerges in all its steely grit.
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The Czech government still has some time to win its people over
Czechs grateful to US, but many say hold the radar
By Nicholas Kulish
THE NEW YORK TIMES
PRAGUE, Czech Republic
To understand just how divisive the proposed U.S. missile-defense radar system is here, talk to Josef Rihak. Better still, talk to both of them.
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In 1977, he was convicted of second-degree murder after one of a turbulent decade's most celebrated trials
Three decades a prisoner, at 89 he’s ready to confess
By Sam Roberts
THE NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK
It could have been the perfect crime. A wealthy heart surgeon from Long Island injected his 48-year-old invalid wife, the mother of their six children, with a lethal dose of a painkiller. The death certificate recorded the cause as a stroke.
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One of the most intriguing twists in O. J. Simpson's most recent brush with the law is that the items police say he went to retrieve actually are of little interest to most legitimate sports memorabilia collectors
For troubled stars, a fickle memorabilia market
By Steve Friess
THE NEW YORK TIMES
LAS VEGAS
As public and media attention refocused on the off-field life of O.J. Simpson, Kathleen McCarthy of Maple Springs, N.Y. thought it might be time to make some money off an autographed book about the football Hall of Famer that her father had found years ago.
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Break dancing is back in Russia, with more artistic freedom after Soviet times
Thumbs down to America (except the Bronx)
By Paul Lauener
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MOSCOW
On a cordoned-off street in the heart of this city, Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia's great 19th-century poet, watched an unusual sight before his carved stone eyes. Not the hundreds of soldiers and police marching by, which he would have seen before. Nor the thousands of Muscovites carrying balloons and flags to celebrate the 860th anniversary of the founding of the capital.
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A new wave of support for Anne Frank’s ailing tree
By John Tagliabue
THE NEW YORK TIMES
AMSTERDAM
Sixty-two years after dying of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Anne Frank continues to haunt countless readers of her diary, with its youthful exuberance, dry humor and shattering hints of the violence that would sweep away her world. But fewer people know of the soaring chestnut tree that gave comfort to Anne while she and her family hid for more than two years during the German occupation.
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Shanghai’s Paramount ballroom is a palace of retro that has not only managed to survive since the first decades of the 20th century, but stands out
Where west met east, and then asked for a dance
By Howard W. French
THE NEW YORK TIMES
SHANGHAI, China
Somehow all conversations at Shanghai's Paramount ballroom manage to wend their way toward what might ordinarily be considered an unwelcome topic: the ballroom dancers' ages.
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Happiness
By Guido Minerbi
FOR THE HERALD
The balding gentleman drove to pick up the Herald on Sunday. He did not want it delivered, not to forego the rite of browsing through other dailies and weeklies.
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In southern Africa, a child's name is chosen to convey a specific meaning, and not, as is common in the West, the latest fashion
Africa, names for newborns often a sign of the times
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe
Thirty-two years ago in western Zimbabwe, a baby boy named Tlapi was born so sick that his parents feared he would die. They took him to sangomas, or traditional healers, and to Western-style doctors, but nothing worked. It seemed that God, not man, would decide his fate.
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A coach whose exercises are not meant to train your body. They are aimed at training your brain
Brain, oh don’t you fail me right now
By Sarah Tuff
THE NEW YORK TIMES
If Matt Fitzgerald was your coach, he would have you running against the grain. Squat jumps would be a weekly must: Crouch down. Leap into the air. Repeat.
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A station feared that by broadcasting “Howl” it could run afoul of the Federal Communications Commission’s interpretation of indecency and incur bankrupting fines
‘Howl’ in an era that fears indecency
By Patricia Cohen
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Those who happened to click on Pacifica.org on Wednesday could hear Allen Ginsberg intoning, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked," along with the rest of his classic poem "Howl."
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‘The shock doctrine’: it’s all a grand capitalist conspiracy
By Tom Redburn
THE NEW YORK TIMES
When Milton Friedman died last year, the acclaim for his work was nearly universal. Even his ideological opponents, like Paul Krugman and Lawrence Summers, treated this Nobel Prize-winning economist — who taught for decades at the University of Chicago — with respect.
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Horse trading ahead of China’s Communist Party Congress congress has colored almost everything Chinese leaders have done or said in recent weeks
With leadership shuffle, China is deadlocked on anointing new leader
By Joseph Kahn
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BEIJING
Just days away from a major leadership reshuffle, China's Communist Party bosses remain deadlocked over who should sit on the ruling Politburo Standing Committee and who should be anointed to succeed President Hu Jintao as China's No. 1 leader five years from now, party officials and political observers say.
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"When science is politicized, it is worse than wrong," Senator Hillary Clinton said in the interview. "It is dangerous - dangerous for our democracy’’
Clinton says she would shield science from politics
By Patrick Healy
THE NEW YORK TIMES
In a stinging critique of Bush administration science policy, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said Thursday that if she were elected president she would require agency directors to show they were protecting scientific research from "political pressure" and that she would lift federal limits on stem cell research.
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What Sputnik meant to a kid studying science
By Clyde Haberman
THE NEW YORK TIMES
If you were a teenager in the late 1950s, and made it into a brainy place like the Bronx High School of Science through merit or dumb luck, you might have paid more attention than most to an anniversary on Thursday. You might have remembered that 50 years ago, your world changed.
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A declaration signed on Thursday by the two leaders contained projects that could build closer ties, experts said
Korean summit results exceed low expectations
By Norimitsu Onishi
THE NEW YORK TIMES
SEOUL, South Korea
Expectations for what could be achieved at the first summit between the two Koreas in seven years had been low. Worries that South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun, a lame duck criticized for being soft on the North, would give away too much had been high.
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The props, costumes and relics in the Museum of Sex’s latest exhibit in New York evoke astonishment at how far humanity will go to stimulate pleasure or intimacy
‘Kink’ at the Museum of Sex: what’s latex got to do with it?
By Edward Rothstein
THE NEW YORK TIMES
If you get pleasure out of visiting the Museum of Sex — which calls itself MoSex and has been celebrating its fifth anniversary this week — is that a kink or a fetish?
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Expotrastiendas: here and now (and back a century)
By Marjan Groothuis
FOR THE HERALD
Expotrastiendas, a major art fair held yearly in Buenos Aires, is about to open its doors: on Friday, October 12th at 7 pm it is show time again for nine days in a row. This is the 7th edition of Expotrastiendas and judging by the amount of participants and additional events being organized it seems that this is their lucky number. This fair has surely matured over the years, from quite a modest first presentation in the Centro Cultural Borges to ever more square metres – 10.000 this year — in the Exhibition Centre of the city of Buenos Aires on the corner of Figueroa Alcorta and Pueyrredón avenues. Last year the fair drew well over 60.000 visitors, a figure the organization hopes to surpass this year.
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India’s art now booming and shaking
By Steven Henry Madoff
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MUMBAI, India
For an uninitiated Westerner, making your way to one of this city's new art galleries can be a disorienting study in contrasts. In the crowded streets behind the Taj Mahal Hotel Palace and Tower, where the air is heavy with the smell of gasoline and flowers, you are approached by women begging for money and food. Men shout invitations to enter their carpet shops or purchase wares like watches, magazines, leather jackets and cigarettes.
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Passing through what we all forgot: a cliché
By Cole Perry
For the Herald
Haby Bonomo’s Olvidos exhibition of paintings at the Museo Sivori in Rosedal park is fragile. The paintings are sparse with empty spaces and stark horizons, colored in different shades of gray, salt, and cream like Buenos Aires in the spring. Everything about them is passing, half there, and incomplete. This is one of the themes running behind the exhibition — incompletion. The other is indicated by the title: forgetfulness. Against this ephemeral grain there is the romantic principles of the painter himself. The clash between the three results in a contradiction that defines the show.
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Art auciton for museum
The Museum of Spanish American Art of the City of Buenos Aires is the most important institution of its kind in Argentina. It is housed in the beautiful Palacio Noel, the former residence of Architect Martín Noel, a unique oasis in the heart of the Retiro area of Barrio Norte....
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Art on display
• NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS - Av. del Libertador 1473. Tel. 4803-8814, 4803-8817 Permanent Collection (paintings & sculptures). European art, 12th-20th centuries. (ground floor). Argentine art of the 19th-20th centuries - permanent collection (first floor) -Spanish Art from the collection of the Museum- Precolumbian art - Maria Helguera, sculptures...
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British poets certain that poetry is alive and read and growing
By Andrew Graham-Yooll
HERALD STAFF
Funny thing, really. Few people buy poetry books, except when forced by a poet in the vicinity. And yet, poetry is the foremost form of expression, public and private. US poet laureate Robert Pinsky found evidence of a surge of poetic expression after the September 11, 2001, tragedy. In the Muslim world, the Koran warns against the duplicity of poets, and yet poetry is the foremost form of written and sung expression in Islamic culture.
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Buoyed and battered by globalization, people around the world strongly view international trade as a good thing but harbor growing concerns about its side effects
Globalization, according to the world, is good — sort of
By Brain Knowlton
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON
Buoyed and battered by globalization, people around the world strongly view international trade as a good thing but harbor growing concerns about its side effects: threats to their cultures, damage to the environment and the challenges posed by immigration, a new survey indicates.
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Kia's corner
The commoner
By Fereydoun Kia
FOR THE HERALD
If you ask any meat-loving person, like an average Argentine, what kind of fish he thinks is the most common in the world, it is likely that you would receive a reply in line with: “Who cares? They are all the same” or “How can you ask a question like that? Fish is fish!” When you then explain to the listener that there are a huge variety of fish of different sizes, textures and flavours, mentioning examples like salmon, merluza, lenguado and dorado, he may give you a nod of understanding, while continuing to think of how he is going to arrange his next asado.
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Platter chatter
A real Lulu of an experience
By Dereck Foster
for the Herald
The study, practice and consumption of food concentrates so many fascinating and entrapping features that its every manifestation is always a unique event. While much of the foods and styles that make up international cuisine has been transported and adapted with reasonable success, a great deal of the remainder suffers when removed and separated from its native and natural surroundings.
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OFF TOPIC
The world as a walk
By Kevin Carrel Footer
For the Herald
I am trying out a new theory on the streets of Buenos Aires. When walking through the most congested parts of town, where the crowds mill and pamphleteers prosper and hawkers hawk, I just let go. I don't resist the flow of the crowd nor try to pass the couple that meanders. I walk as if I were alone in the countryside -- not surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the Great Metropolis. I slowly drift in the direction I want to go, but I don't allow anything to become an obstacle. Instead of going up against the knot of people that won't let me pass, I wait until they have drifted apart. I take everything in stride.
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