Honduras’s deeply fractured political forces signed an agreement Friday that could reinstate the president ousted in a coup four months ago and end a crisis whose impact has spread far beyond the poor banana-growing country, igniting partisan battles in Washington and threatening to polarize the hemisphere.

Que feo que el Washington Post te diga país bananero tan impunemente.

• Hillary Clinton ganó un Grammy del rubro “spoken word” por un libro infantil en 1997
• Bill Clinton ganó dos Grammys (2004 por leer un libro infantil y 2005 por su autobiografía).
• Carter ganó el Nobel de la Paz de 2002 y… otro Grammy por un audiolibro en 2007.
• Al Gore NO ganó un Grammy, pero ganó un Webby (2005), un Oscar (2007), un Emmy en Televisión Interactiva (2007), el Nobel de la Paz (también 2007) y el Príncipe de Asturias (2007, linda cosecha para un sólo año)… pero esto no le alcanzó para ser la Persona del Año de Time que fue para Putin (el primer “malo” post 2001 que recibe esa distinción).
• Finalmente, el compañero Barack ganó su Grammy reglamentario en 2008.

Y eso sin contar cientos de nombramientos a la Orden de esto o aquello, o títulos honoris causa, ni premios a la gente copada menos marketineros.

Considerando las alternativas, nosotros la sacamos barata. Comparados con los casos más jodidos (las maras salvadoreñas, por ejemplo), creo que podemos decir que las barras del fútbol argentino son el menor de los males posibles.

Terminé de armar esta cuasiteoría cuando leí este párrafo en Wikipedia:

Chariot racing in the Byzantine Empire also included the racing clubs. The Blues and the Greens were more than simply sports teams. They gained influence in military, political,^[4] and theological matters. The Blue-Green rivalry often erupted into gang warfare, and street violence had been on the rise in the reign of Justin I. Riots culminated in the Nika riots of 532 AD during the reign of Justinian I, with nearly half the city being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.^[5]

Por lo menos, los nuestros en general se matan entre ellos, punguean, fraccionan y venden estupefacientes, pero no discuten teología ni incendian ciudades. Y estamos hablando de un estado que era la mayor potencia europea durante su apogeo, no de una zona marginal.

1. No podemos hablar de “posneoliberalismo”. Un prefijo por vez, por favor. En el arte, el romanticismo no fue el “posneoclasicismo”. Laburemos un poco para sacar nombres más pensables.
2. El debate en sí, interesante. Igualmente, sospecho que en un par de décadas la discusión será obsoleta: ¿para qué transmitir señales de radio y televisión, cuando vamos a tener acceso ubícuo a Internet inalámbrica (via un protocolo con nombre marketinero que seguro todavía no se inventó) para acceder a los mismos contenidos (y a otros) pero de manera desconcentrada?
3. No obstante el punto 2, hay que gobernar para el día de hoy y no para dentro de un par de décadas. Pero no estaría mal empezar a considerar la producción de distintos tipos de contenidos como materia opcional en el secundario. Hacer podcasts, escribir blogs, hacer tele casera no es difícil.
4. El proyecto oficial es perfectible, y es de esperar que a cambio de votos claves el oficialismo acepte cambios en algunos puntos. Pero en el peor de los casos, la alternativa (seguir con la ley actual) es aún más fea. No podemos ser vedettistas tratando de imponer un proyecto propio, por copado que sea.
5. ¿Puede ser que “el progresismo joven” seamos 20 estudiantes/jóvenes profesionales, todos de carreras de humanidades, tomando café con leche y medialunas en un hotel céntrico? ¿No sería lógico que haya militantes obreros, pequeños emprendedores, ingenieros, arquitectos, gente de las ciencias duras, artistas, médicos, docentes? ¿Sólo se gobierna con politólogos, sociólogos, comunicólogos y abogados?
6. Que buenas las medialunas de grasa.

Justo hoy recordaba una frase de Chesterton, y la encontré en el primer capítulo de Heretics. En el mismo capítulo encontré otras citas citables, así que decidí juntarlas acá, tanto para compartirlas como para referencia personal:

Sobre el culto a la rebeldía:

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word “orthodox.” In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law–all these like sheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was round him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical. But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh, “I suppose I am very heretical,” and looks round for applause. The word “heresy” not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word “orthodoxy” not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. All this can mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at least he is orthodox.

Sobre el fin de las ideologías:

Sixty years ago it was bad taste to be an avowed atheist. Then came the Bradlaughites, the last religious men, the last men who cared about God; but they could not alter it. It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But their agony has achieved just this–that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian. Emancipation has only locked the saint in the same tower of silence as the heresiarch. Then we talk about Lord Anglesey and the weather, and call it the complete liberty of all the creeds.

Sobre el culto a la eficiencia en la gestión:

Now, in our time, philosophy or religion, our theory, that is, about ultimate things, has been driven out, more or less simultaneously, from two fields which it used to occupy. General ideals used to dominate literature. They have been driven out by the cry of “art for art’s sake.” General ideals used to dominate politics. They have been driven out by the cry of “efficiency,” which may roughly be translated as “politics for politics’ sake.”

Sobre el oportunismo político y el culto a la victoria:

The opportunist politician is like a man who should abandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards, and abandon golf because he was beaten at golf. There is nothing which is so weak for working purposes as this enormous importance attached to immediate victory. There is nothing that fails like success.

Algo que parece apuntado al panoposicionismo actual:

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good–” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

Se­ñor Di­rec­tor:

“Escuché al señor «Pino» Solanas en un programa de televisión decir que el era peronista porque Perón nos sacó del modelo agroexportador que seguía el país en su momento.

“Supongo que tenemos que estar muy agradecidos, sobre todo los humildes, ya que si no, estaríamos como Australia o Nueva Zelanda, los otros máximos exponentes de ese modelo y que aún hoy mantienen.

“Por suerte seguimos inventando políticos iluminados que nos alejan cada vez más del primer mundo que tanto despreciamos.”

Lo que el señor epistógrafo no dice es  son los únicos ejemplos conocidos de países exportadores de recursos naturales que tienen un desarrollo económico con buenos niveles de inclusión social, que el sector servicios representa casi el 70% del PBI australiano frente al 5% del sector agropecuario, y, fundamentalmente, que la población argentina es casi el doble de la de los países que menciona sumados.

Confirmado: Es de clase media creer que sobra gente en este país. Idea para post futuro archivada.

Más en Goths in Hot Weather