The Transition to Global Exchange

So I had to say goodbye to my family on Saturday as I joined up with the Global Exchange part of my tour. They were always very nice and patient with me over the last 5 weeks and it was hard saying goodbye.

I have a lot to say, but little time. Unfortunately, from now on it appears I´ll have sporadic Internet access. I´m in an Internet cafe as I type this.

There are a total of 9 of us on this tour which is just about the right number to converse with and move around. All of them are wonderful people and we get along very well. Its so nice to also have a tour guide whose lived here all his life to ask questions of. So far we´re staying at a hotel in Caracas, but tomorrow we´ll be leaving for Barquisimeto.

Please remember to send some comments and emails. I know you have a lot of questions, because I know I haven´t covered a lot of stuff. I´ll try to get to them when I can.

A look back home

I want to share some particularly striking news articles I've read recently on the social and economic state of my home country.

American Inequality Highlighted by 30-Year Gap In Life Expectancy

The United States of America is becoming less united by the day. A 30-year gap now exists in the average life expectancy between Mississippi, in the Deep South, and Connecticut, in prosperous New England. Huge disparities have also opened up in income, health and education depending on where people live in the US, according to a report published yesterday.

The American Human Development Index has applied to the US an aid agency approach to measuring well-being - more familiar to observers of the Third World - with shocking results. The US finds itself ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in survival of infants to age. Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death and although the US is home to just 5 per cent of the global population it accounts for 24 per cent of the world’s prisoners.

U.S. Health Care Still Ill, Survey Finds

The United States also lags behind other countries in health-care results, Schoen said. "Even where the U.S. average improved, other countries have improved much more rapidly," she said. "As a result, we are falling further behind the leaders."

For example, the United States is now last among 19 industrialized nations in premature deaths that might have been prevented by better access to health care. In 2006, the United States was 15th on the list.

The scorecard also contended that 100,000 lives -- and some $100 billion -- could be saved each year if health care were improved in the United States.

Unfortunately, as the economy falls into recession and the housing bubble deflates, things are only going to get worse for many Americans, especially those about to retire. A recent CEPR report gives us a glimpse into this world.

Housing Market Meltdown Will Cause Massive Losses in Household Wealth

The report projects that if house prices stay the same through 2009, the median household headed by a person between the ages of 45 and 54, those in their prime earning years, will have 24.7 percent less wealth than did the median household in this age group in 2004. These households will have accumulated just $113,268 in net worth in 2009, barely $15,000 more than their counterparts in 1989, whose net worth totaled $97,600.

If real house prices fall 10 percent, the median household in the 45 to 54 cohort will see a 34.6 percent loss in wealth compared with the median in 2004 while families in the 18 to 34 cohort will lose of 67.6 percent. If prices fall by 20 percent, the most pessimistic scenario, families in the 55-64 cohort will experience a loss of 49.6 percent of their wealth compared to the same cohort in 2004.

What you've been dying to know...

I known the question you've all been wondering: just how much does gas cost down here in Venezuela?

Well, after a family tour of Caracas and a pit stop at the local gas station I can finally answer that question. There were two grades of gasoline: one at .07 Boliviar Fuertes per liter and other at .097 Biolivar Fuertes per liter. Doing a quick calculation from the numbers in the photo:

(.070 VEF/ 1 L) * (3.785 L / 1 gal) * (1 USD / 2.152 VEF) = $0.12 per gallon

(.097 VEF/ 1 L) * (3.785 L / 1 gal) * (1 USD / 2.152 VEF) = $0.17 per gallon

So there you have it, $0.12 per gallon for the standard grade. Double checking on the Internet confirms this number. I'm sure pompous Hummer owners everywhere must be salivating at the thought. Unfortunately, I've noticed a few of them down here too.

More on U.S. Interference

Here is a very recent interview with Eva Golinger, a human rights lawyer and author, who has done a lot of work investigating the U.S. involvement in the coup in 2002 using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

An interview with Eva Golinger

The most conclusive facts and evidence includes a series of documents classified Top Secret by the CIA, dating from March 5, 2002 to April 17, 2002, which clearly refer to plans for a coup against Chávez—who, how, where and when—everything laid out in detail. One in particular, dated April 6, 2002—five days before the coup—emphasizes how the opposition sectors, the CTV, Fedecámaras (the country's main business federation), dissident soldiers, the private media, and even the Catholic Church were going to march through the streets in those first weeks of April and the coup conspirators would provoke violence with snipers in the street, causing deaths, and then they would arrest President Chávez and other important members of his cabinet.

What's more interesting though is some of her comments on things that are still happening in the country.

The U.S. embassy in Venezuela is very active. These days, its main strategy is subversion. This is manifested by USAID, NED, IRI, Freedom House, CIPE, etc. funding opposition groups, but there is also an attempt to penetrate pro-Chávez sectors and communities. This last tactic is one of the most dangerous and effective.

and a bit more...

The CIA and the State Department maintain various fronts in the country, as they always do. There is Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a U.S. corporation based in the El Rosal sector in Caracas, which functions as a filter for funding from USAID to opposition NGOs and groups. Then there is the Press and Society Institute, part of the Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) network, which receives funds from the NED, USAID, the CIA, etc., to execute its pro-U.S. policy and to accuse the Venezuelan government of being repressive and of violating the rights of free expression and a free press. Freedom House and USAID are also financing right-wing student leaders and movements, sending them to Belgrade to train with experts in the Orange Revolution (Ukraine) and other so-called processes for "overthrowing dictators." Recently, the neoliberal right-wing Cato Institute, which advises Bush and receives funding from Exxon Mobile and Philip Morris, awarded a "prize" worth $500,000 to an opposition Venezuelan student.

Venezuelan Movies

I've added a few great movies on Venezuela to the sidebar on the right. Many of them deal with the U.S. supported coup attempt to overthrow President Hugo Chavez in 2002. This failed coup is perhaps the defining moment of recent Venezuelan history. It jolted the poor awake with a massive show of people power and it allowed and empowered Chavez to deepen the social revolution. Thus, if you want to understand Venezuela you must understand what happened in 2002. Unfortunately, the mainstream media does a failing job at conveying this, but watching a couple of these movies will go a long way into nullifying that.

Enjoy and please let me know what you think and any other videos you would recommend.

World Bank Report: Biofuel Caused Food Crisis

I've been working on the issues of agrofuels for a long time now giving presentations and workshops on this false solution to climate change. They are not only a bad idea to begin with, being extremely inefficient to produce (corn ethanol using more fossil fuels than it substitutes), but they are also extremely bad for the environment and global warming by, for example, encouraging the destruction of more and more rain forest land for industrial monoculture.

Read more here.

Today we learn the World Bank has a secret report essentially pinning the blame on agrofuels for the current world food crisis:

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at [the] global financial body.

Secret Report: Biofuel Caused Food Crisis

This is huge. Why isn't this on the front page of every newspaper? Millions are starving and dying around the world because they cannot afford to pay for food and there is barely a peep. The insanity needs to stop. DO SOMETHING.

Language Tools

Since I'm a geek, I'm always interested in exploring and finding new ways that technology can be applied to solve problems and make life a bit easier. Learning a new language is naturally my current focus so I've been doing a bit of personal research on how technology can help me with that. I wanted to share some of things I've found for any other aspiring language learners out there.

The first thing I want to share is this interesting program called 200 Words-a-Day. Their whole focus is making it easier to learn a language by helping you associate vocabulary words with imagery, thus making the strange words easier to remember. I downloaded the demo and it looks quite good. From my past reading about the mind and how memory works this seems like exactly the right approach. I don't know how well this product does with other rather important factors in language learning like the formation of sentences, but at least they've got vocabulary building down pat. If I had known about it before reaching Venezuela I probably would have ordered myself a copy. Unfortunately, I think if bought it now, it'd take too long for the CD to reach me.

Some other tools that I have been using are more easily accessible and free. They include some of the many language add-ons for the Firefox web browser. In particular, I've taken a liking to the Babel Fish Instant Translation add-on which allows me to instantly translate a word I don't know in Spanish by double clicking it. It displays the English translation in a tooltip next to the Spanish word without disturbing my reading. This is another great way to pick up new vocabulary. I've been reading a lot of online Spanish news articles this way.

More cool tools I've been using include stuff for my iPod touch. There is a free dictionary application called weDict. I've downloaded an English-Spanish and Spanish-English dictionary for it. It certainly makes the process of looking up words a lot quicker than riffling through a book. There is another cool app called iStudy which essentially works just like flashcards, but without the paper. The app could use a bit of polishing, but it's a good start and you can't beat the price.

That's it for now. Let me know if you have any other great tools or ideas.