Somehow "like" doesn't seem an appropriate response to this essay. It was interesting and informative, but too disturbing and worrisome to say that I "liked" what I read. Conditions like this lead to desperation and rebellion if they go on too long. It all sounds pretty grim. Stay safe down there.
This is awful beyond my ability to say. What you are describing here sounds like the things we've read in our history, books.............just before war overtook even the best leaders in the world at the time. I can't even think of one thing here that could give us hope. Can we at least hope that wiser heads will prevail.......soon?
I have wondered.... I come across the occasional article in The Guardian about Argentina and have thought of you. I knew that you'd write about the reality there when and if you chose to. Thank you for this. And your photos are superb. Your choice of B&W is perfect.
The excuse we heard for flying Gadsden flags up here was "pride in their southern heritage". Yeah, right. What exactly are those flags supposed to represent in Argentina?
I agree - cannot hit the little heart symbol for this post - they need to add a heart that's torn in two. But I appreciate the "right there in it" information - we don't hear enough about it up here.
Thanks for this somehow simultaneously brief and detailed dive into the situation. You’ve referred to many of the elements before, but this post sticks it all together. What you don’t do, of course, is speculate about specific future happenings, and I can see why. Are there any positive signs, though? Of course, that would probably be an entire new post, so you may not want to put the time into laying it out, of course.
I feel a kinship with this post. I’m back in east Ukraine, 20 miles from the front line, hanging out with my friends who make bombs in their living room and trying to explain it in an accessible way on Substack. Sometimes people who are deeply committed but not 100% part of a place are in the best position to bridge the gap between locals and puzzled observers.
No sign of positive signs yet, except maybe his inability to get anything through Congress. Will update. But yes, it is a challenge to write about these things for readers far removed. I say too much. I say too little. And it's a tiger by the tail for me as well.
Grim. And this is what's staring us in the face here in the US as well, should the November elections tilt rightward. The main difference being that Trump has promised to tear down a government and an economy that are both on the rise and doing much better than the majority of our so-called news would have us know. Why they should be so invested in national catastrophe is beyond me, unless, like most current US corporations, they're looking no deeper into the future than the next quarter's revenues, and that next quarter will be a rich one for them if the election is running close to even. As for why Trump would, that's an easy answer and the only one one needs to know to understand him - personal power and enrichment.
I'm going to hit the "Like" button for your posting and for several of the current replies. But by doing so, what I really mean is "Appreciate" - there's nothing to like about great nations flushing themselves down into disaster. Best wishes for your future, Richard, and for ours.
I'm sorry...I'm anxious with the politics here in the US and can not imagine the sadness, anger, desperation that must be pervasive there. I remember in North Hampton this winter, during your show you were waiting for the election results ... when I left that night I was thinking how difficult it must have been to continue touring with that level of disappointment and hopelessness... is there any way the international community can help? Once again, Words and Music takes me to a place beyond chord structure and guitars to a world most of us never see or experience. Thank you and I hope there is hope for something better, someday soon.
As a retired fella just starting into my 70’s (& remembering the music from the 70’s, hah), I have two friends whose American born kids have taken up life in Argentina. Thanks for the firsthand information. I generally only hear the good things about the country from them (gorgeous scenery, “cheap” for an American
to live there , etc.). Thanks for filling me & others in with your observations. My “The Guardian” subscription, the BBC, PBS, NPR, seem to jive with your views. The political trends most everywhere seem troublesome, generally boasting of simple answers to complex questions and problems. Ahhh, if it were so.
Thank you for the heartfelt and sobering note. I fear that we may be in for someone similar if a certain former president wins the election. The song is beautiful. the string interlude (cello? Violin?) sounds like a plaintive voice. Hope your voice has recovered from viruses and travel.
Guys like Milei are everywhere, waiting for platforms and networks to raise them up so they can cash in, like CNN did with DT in 2016. Seems to work for them.
It's cathartic to write about it, and to helpful for me to speak a little about where I live.
I believe that instrument is a viola. Played by the wonderful Sara Milonovich.
Thank you for the heartfelt and sobering note. I fear that we may be in for someone similar if a certain former president wins the election. The song is beautiful. the string interlude (cello? Violin?) sounds like a plaintive voice. Hope your voice has recovered from viruses and travel.
Difficult to like or comment on such a chilling post Richard! The world keeps turning and the news keeps getting bleaker !
Thank you for including this song , your voice is always.so good to hear ! I hope you have recovered from the virus and life despite the politics of everyday is good ! Take care . ❤️ for solidarity !
Very much enjoyed reading this. And I really like that song 😀.
I won't bore you with details of the state of the UK, or England, more specifically. Suffice to say, I spent lockdown carefully planning my escape from London and my new life and business. I look back at my projections from 2020, and it would be laughable if it wasnt my life. . I had professional advice for those figures; fuel, materials, electricity, all wildly wrong now. I'm winding my business up. And I can't afford to heat my home (and now you know what the weathers like in Durham 🙃) and I'm winding up my business.
We are told this is all due to Russia. Of course it is. Nothing to do with f****** Brexit, selling off national resources or tax cuts for the ridiculously wealthy. Not that at all. No, not at all.
I can only imagine how difficult life is for my many friends and former students in Argentina. My heart goes out to them. In the meantime, here is more troubling news from The Guardian:
Dengue fever in Argentina broke a record this year. In the first eight weeks of 2024, authorities reported 57,461 confirmed cases and 47 deaths, a 2,153% increase compared with the same period last year. Recent data from the health ministry indicates a new record was reached in March when cases rose to 233,000 and deaths to 161. The spike in cases occurred in the same year Argentina registered record temperatures, providing the conditions for the Aedes aegypti mosquito to thrive. An as-yet-unpublished report from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet) associated with the University of Buenos Aires, two leading Argentine institutions, paints a picture of the current state of the epidemic in the country. “Our study shows that the thermal favourability for the mosquito to continue acting for longer has increased and, in this year’s case, has spread among more people,” says Sylvia Fischer, a researcher at Conicet and a co-author of the forthcoming report. “The conditions of large cities, with a large part of the population living in densely populated areas, is another significant factor.” On 2 April, the health ministry published a note on X that questioned the vaccine’s efficacy, saying it would wait for “more scientific evidence” before offering it to the public. “The vaccine is not a validated tool for controlling the transmission of the disease in the context of the outbreak, as expressed by the Pan American Health Organization”, the note said.
Thank you for this Michael. Good to hear from you! I can confirm. The mosquitos are no longer just an annoyance. In Argentina dengue has always been seen as something that happened in tropical zones, or only in the northernmost parts of the country, just as in the US it might be seen, let's say, as a southern phenomenon. Those days are over here, and soon to be over in the Northern Hemisphere. May I be wrong.
Another effect of the economic crisis is that the supply of bug repellant can't keep up with demand. Those shelves are empty. Stupid of me not to have brought some when I flew down from NY. Wasn't thinking. But a friend recently came back from Brazil with shopping bag full. Never expected I'd be so happy to receive a tube of bug spray. We know two people who have had dengue. Both survived. But it's a nasty, painful process.
As for Conicet, the very entity charged with investigating and proposing solutions is one these fools have talked about eliminating. They'll have a difficult time coming after the hard sciences. But we're worried about humanities and social sciences, not to mention staff jobs.
Somehow "like" doesn't seem an appropriate response to this essay. It was interesting and informative, but too disturbing and worrisome to say that I "liked" what I read. Conditions like this lead to desperation and rebellion if they go on too long. It all sounds pretty grim. Stay safe down there.
I would interpret the heart as solidarity!
This is awful beyond my ability to say. What you are describing here sounds like the things we've read in our history, books.............just before war overtook even the best leaders in the world at the time. I can't even think of one thing here that could give us hope. Can we at least hope that wiser heads will prevail.......soon?
I have wondered.... I come across the occasional article in The Guardian about Argentina and have thought of you. I knew that you'd write about the reality there when and if you chose to. Thank you for this. And your photos are superb. Your choice of B&W is perfect.
The excuse we heard for flying Gadsden flags up here was "pride in their southern heritage". Yeah, right. What exactly are those flags supposed to represent in Argentina?
Thanks Georgette. Around here I think it just represents Libertarianism, the right-wing sort.
Rhyming cyclotron. Kudos! Another hauntingly beautiful and poignant RS musical vignette.
I agree - cannot hit the little heart symbol for this post - they need to add a heart that's torn in two. But I appreciate the "right there in it" information - we don't hear enough about it up here.
I would interpret the heart as solidarity. So click away!
Thanks for this somehow simultaneously brief and detailed dive into the situation. You’ve referred to many of the elements before, but this post sticks it all together. What you don’t do, of course, is speculate about specific future happenings, and I can see why. Are there any positive signs, though? Of course, that would probably be an entire new post, so you may not want to put the time into laying it out, of course.
I feel a kinship with this post. I’m back in east Ukraine, 20 miles from the front line, hanging out with my friends who make bombs in their living room and trying to explain it in an accessible way on Substack. Sometimes people who are deeply committed but not 100% part of a place are in the best position to bridge the gap between locals and puzzled observers.
No sign of positive signs yet, except maybe his inability to get anything through Congress. Will update. But yes, it is a challenge to write about these things for readers far removed. I say too much. I say too little. And it's a tiger by the tail for me as well.
Grim. And this is what's staring us in the face here in the US as well, should the November elections tilt rightward. The main difference being that Trump has promised to tear down a government and an economy that are both on the rise and doing much better than the majority of our so-called news would have us know. Why they should be so invested in national catastrophe is beyond me, unless, like most current US corporations, they're looking no deeper into the future than the next quarter's revenues, and that next quarter will be a rich one for them if the election is running close to even. As for why Trump would, that's an easy answer and the only one one needs to know to understand him - personal power and enrichment.
I'm going to hit the "Like" button for your posting and for several of the current replies. But by doing so, what I really mean is "Appreciate" - there's nothing to like about great nations flushing themselves down into disaster. Best wishes for your future, Richard, and for ours.
That is very succinct and well stated!
I'm sorry...I'm anxious with the politics here in the US and can not imagine the sadness, anger, desperation that must be pervasive there. I remember in North Hampton this winter, during your show you were waiting for the election results ... when I left that night I was thinking how difficult it must have been to continue touring with that level of disappointment and hopelessness... is there any way the international community can help? Once again, Words and Music takes me to a place beyond chord structure and guitars to a world most of us never see or experience. Thank you and I hope there is hope for something better, someday soon.
Not hopeless. Thanks Gary.
As a retired fella just starting into my 70’s (& remembering the music from the 70’s, hah), I have two friends whose American born kids have taken up life in Argentina. Thanks for the firsthand information. I generally only hear the good things about the country from them (gorgeous scenery, “cheap” for an American
to live there , etc.). Thanks for filling me & others in with your observations. My “The Guardian” subscription, the BBC, PBS, NPR, seem to jive with your views. The political trends most everywhere seem troublesome, generally boasting of simple answers to complex questions and problems. Ahhh, if it were so.
It's everywhere. I'm describing our local version of something that's happening all over, including the US.
We did see a juggler performing in traffic in Puerto Madryn a couple months ago and made me think of your song and made us smile.
Wonderful! Hope you saw some whales too.
Thank you for the heartfelt and sobering note. I fear that we may be in for someone similar if a certain former president wins the election. The song is beautiful. the string interlude (cello? Violin?) sounds like a plaintive voice. Hope your voice has recovered from viruses and travel.
Guys like Milei are everywhere, waiting for platforms and networks to raise them up so they can cash in, like CNN did with DT in 2016. Seems to work for them.
It's cathartic to write about it, and to helpful for me to speak a little about where I live.
I believe that instrument is a viola. Played by the wonderful Sara Milonovich.
Thank you for the heartfelt and sobering note. I fear that we may be in for someone similar if a certain former president wins the election. The song is beautiful. the string interlude (cello? Violin?) sounds like a plaintive voice. Hope your voice has recovered from viruses and travel.
Difficult to like or comment on such a chilling post Richard! The world keeps turning and the news keeps getting bleaker !
Thank you for including this song , your voice is always.so good to hear ! I hope you have recovered from the virus and life despite the politics of everyday is good ! Take care . ❤️ for solidarity !
I concur with Wayne Simpson’s post. He expresses what I feel. Take care of yourself and stay safe always.
Very much enjoyed reading this. And I really like that song 😀.
I won't bore you with details of the state of the UK, or England, more specifically. Suffice to say, I spent lockdown carefully planning my escape from London and my new life and business. I look back at my projections from 2020, and it would be laughable if it wasnt my life. . I had professional advice for those figures; fuel, materials, electricity, all wildly wrong now. I'm winding my business up. And I can't afford to heat my home (and now you know what the weathers like in Durham 🙃) and I'm winding up my business.
We are told this is all due to Russia. Of course it is. Nothing to do with f****** Brexit, selling off national resources or tax cuts for the ridiculously wealthy. Not that at all. No, not at all.
I can only imagine how difficult life is for my many friends and former students in Argentina. My heart goes out to them. In the meantime, here is more troubling news from The Guardian:
Dengue fever in Argentina broke a record this year. In the first eight weeks of 2024, authorities reported 57,461 confirmed cases and 47 deaths, a 2,153% increase compared with the same period last year. Recent data from the health ministry indicates a new record was reached in March when cases rose to 233,000 and deaths to 161. The spike in cases occurred in the same year Argentina registered record temperatures, providing the conditions for the Aedes aegypti mosquito to thrive. An as-yet-unpublished report from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet) associated with the University of Buenos Aires, two leading Argentine institutions, paints a picture of the current state of the epidemic in the country. “Our study shows that the thermal favourability for the mosquito to continue acting for longer has increased and, in this year’s case, has spread among more people,” says Sylvia Fischer, a researcher at Conicet and a co-author of the forthcoming report. “The conditions of large cities, with a large part of the population living in densely populated areas, is another significant factor.” On 2 April, the health ministry published a note on X that questioned the vaccine’s efficacy, saying it would wait for “more scientific evidence” before offering it to the public. “The vaccine is not a validated tool for controlling the transmission of the disease in the context of the outbreak, as expressed by the Pan American Health Organization”, the note said.
Thank you for this Michael. Good to hear from you! I can confirm. The mosquitos are no longer just an annoyance. In Argentina dengue has always been seen as something that happened in tropical zones, or only in the northernmost parts of the country, just as in the US it might be seen, let's say, as a southern phenomenon. Those days are over here, and soon to be over in the Northern Hemisphere. May I be wrong.
Another effect of the economic crisis is that the supply of bug repellant can't keep up with demand. Those shelves are empty. Stupid of me not to have brought some when I flew down from NY. Wasn't thinking. But a friend recently came back from Brazil with shopping bag full. Never expected I'd be so happy to receive a tube of bug spray. We know two people who have had dengue. Both survived. But it's a nasty, painful process.
As for Conicet, the very entity charged with investigating and proposing solutions is one these fools have talked about eliminating. They'll have a difficult time coming after the hard sciences. But we're worried about humanities and social sciences, not to mention staff jobs.