Life Surrounded by Mountains in Central Chile
Remember my comments about the wine made on my street? Viña Seña? It is ranked 3rd in the world by James Suckling. Here is the report: https://www.jamessuckling.com/wine-tasting-reports/top-100-wines-2017/
musicmz, the price is going to go up even more for the 2015 vintage, even without taking the drop in the US dollar.
I adopted Rachel 10/9/2007 from the JAC. She had been dumped and later picked up by the animal control officer at the Reservation after having puppies; she lived at the JAC for two years, so Rachel must be between 14 and 15 years old. About two weeks ago she got up from her bed and walked swaying from side to side like a drunk. I was horrified. On her own she got better that same day, but a few days ago she was walking while dragging her back legs on the ground; she appeared to have no feeling on her back legs. Less than two weeks ago I had the vet put Jake to sleep (he was about 13), because his legs went on him, not only could he not walk much, but he couldn't get up. He cried, so that I would help him stand up.
I didn't want Rachel to get hurt while her legs dragged behind her like the blankets on her bed do, so I put her back on the bed, and she kept getting up. After a few hours she was walking like a normal dog. There is a neurological issue, and given that my dog Viva also died of neurological issues, I immediately recognized the danger. She is living on borrowed time. Vet says it's probably a disk issue, but surgery is out of the question at her age; she also has catarats and extremely limited hearing.
Yesterday she was playing with the pup that I rescued off the street, Jeremy, and I was happy to see that she felt so well, but at the same time I am concerned that she might hurt herself. Rachel is loved and protected, and she knows it. I tell her I love her about a dozen times a day.
Those two, Jake and Rachel, were two peas in a pod. Their relationship got better and better with time. Rachel has been grieving, but I try my best to help her. While at first she didn't want to play with the pup, Jeremy, now she does. Many people know Rachel from her time at the JAC, and the difficulty she had finding a home that suited her. After multiple tries she found one.
When she was picked up from the Reservation, Debbie Hadu said she looked for the puppies for hours and never found them. Last year I rescued a litter of puppies dumped on a country road before they were run over by a truck, I got them shelter, food, medical care and eventually a good home. In the meantime she had the opportunity to enjoy them. I hope that scar has healed.
Where do I begin? Ten days ago students began to protest the rise by approximately US$0.00042254 the cost of a subway ride, and now the President's cabinet has been asked to resign, the legislators rescinded the increase of the cost of the subway ride, billions of US dollars in damages have been made to the subway system, supermarket chains, electric service, as well as any entity which is deemed abusive by looters. Nothing is safe, even the Cathedral of Valparaiso was attacked and damaged.
Where I live, an ecological reserve, is far from the main highway (Panamerican Highway); it's about 14 - 15 km away, so we are safe from the roving anarchists who burned all the toll booths within view of our exit. However, the village located at the exit from Highway 5 suffered two fires to wooded areas and flower cultivation fields. In a nearby town the avocado fields were set on fire, because they use too much water, a resource that is scarce in this semi-arid desert. The copper mines also use the little water we have, which comes from the Andes, but they have huge resources to hire guards with permits to fire guns. The angry mobs leave them alone.
In my development we organized ourselves to repel any group which would likely want to start a fire. I live in an area which is identified as a high-risk zone for fires; we have a very similar biome to Southern California. So every night we take turns as guards prepared to raise an alarm should we be approached by a mob. Yesterday we received an alarm of smoke which turned out to be protesters who set tired on fire on Highway 5.
Yesterday more than a million Chileans demonstrated on the streets of Santiago. All Chileans were asked to wear yellow to indicate support for peaceful protests on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow several labor unions have called for national strikes. The looting and destruction has dramatically slowed down, but when will this end? President Piñera has apologized for not being more sensitive to the needs of Chileans, and he has met with all opposition political parties to craft legislation that addresses the issues driving people to protest: low pensions, high health care costs, low wages, high cost of tuition, etc..
I am sure that you can read all of this in your local paper, so let me conclude. The trend looks good: everyone is going to the streets (except for me) to protest peacefully which seems to have taken the attention away from the criminals. The UN is coming tomorrow to investigate charges of excessive use of force by the Army and Police. Meantime we also have a drought, so I spend my days watering the garden and at night playing security guard on the nearby hills (known as mountains in flat environments such as Maplewood).
When I was a teenager I wanted a revolution. Thank you I didn't get my way.
Copihue said:
Where do I begin? Ten days ago students began to protest the rise by approximately US$0.00042254 the cost of a subway ride, and now the President's cabinet has been asked to resign, the legislators rescinded the increase of the cost of the subway ride, billions of US dollars in damages have been made to the subway system, supermarket chains, electric service, as well as any entity which is deemed abusive by looters. Nothing is safe, even the Cathedral of Valparaiso was attacked and damaged.
Where I live, an ecological reserve, is far from the main highway (Panamerican Highway); it's about 14 - 15 km away, so we are safe from the roving anarchists who burned all the toll booths within view of our exit. However, the village located at the exit from Highway 5 suffered two fires to wooded areas and flower cultivation fields. In a nearby town the avocado fields were set on fire, because they use too much water, a resource that is scarce in this semi-arid desert. The copper mines also use the little water we have, which comes from the Andes, but they have huge resources to hire guards with permits to fire guns. The angry mobs leave them alone.
In my development we organized ourselves to repel any group which would likely want to start a fire. I live in an area which is identified as a high-risk zone for fires; we have a very similar biome to Southern California. So every night we take turns as guards prepared to raise an alarm should we be approached by a mob. Yesterday we received an alarm of smoke which turned out to be protesters who set tired on fire on Highway 5.
Yesterday more than a million Chileans demonstrated on the streets of Santiago. All Chileans were asked to wear yellow to indicate support for peaceful protests on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow several labor unions have called for national strikes. The looting and destruction has dramatically slowed down, but when will this end? President Piñera has apologized for not being more sensitive to the needs of Chileans, and he has met with all opposition political parties to craft legislation that addresses the issues driving people to protest: low pensions, high health care costs, low wages, high cost of tuition, etc..
I am sure that you can read all of this in your local paper, so let me conclude. The trend looks good: everyone is going to the streets (except for me) to protest peacefully which seems to have taken the attention away from the criminals. The UN is coming tomorrow to investigate charges of excessive use of force by the Army and Police. Meantime we also have a drought, so I spend my days watering the garden and at night playing security guard on the nearby hills (known as mountains in flat environments such as Maplewood).
When I was a teenager I wanted a revolution. Thank you I didn't get my way.
Thank you so much for the update. I am so glad you are safe. We haven't heard much in the news about conditions in Chile but there was some coverage when the violence first broke out. Obviously, this is about far more than the rise in subway fare. Lets hope there is a peaceful solution to the underlying issues. Please keep us updated on the situation where you are.
You compare your climate with that of Southern California. Hopefully, you are not dealing with the massive wildfires that are burning so much of California right now with so little containment. In parts of California, the power company has been suspending service so as not to provide fuel to spark more fires. Problem there is extremely dry conditions compounded by strong winds.
This is what was done to the brand new mall where I do my shopping. Since they didn't get all the loot the first time, they went back again and again. The video is instance #2. Yesterday police arrested over 50 individuals who were identified as partaking in the looting. I am going to continue to send comments, so that you don't say "Oh, that horrible government which is hurting people". Yes, people are getting hurt, but there are peaceful marches in which they can partake with no danger. Looters, pyromaniacs, and anarchists who destroy property with no purpose at all are simply criminals. Criminals belong in jail. The government is doing all it can to make sure that order is restored without abuses. There are two sides to this story. The chaos in which we live is not OK, under any reason. I now have to drive an aditional 10 miles to do my shopping.
I think it should be possible to condemn the excesses while still admitting that there are real problems. The LA riots were a terrible thing and many innocent people were hurt during the course of them but the fact remains that the police were torturing and killing African American people for no reason other than the color of their skin. That this continues today speaks to the futility of violence but you can only kick people so much before they kick you back.
I think this article from the Guardian does a good job of explaining some of the roots of this movement.
Many of these same criticism could be justly applied to our own society.
Klinker, I am so glad that you posted that article. Those people are not looting, they are not setting anything on fire, they are not vandalizing. They have a right to protest, and I support it as most Chileans do.
What is upsetting is that the other side of the story is not coming through: people have lost their jobs because their businesses have been destroyed, the majority of the dead died in factories and grocery stores that were being looted, and the mall near my house was attacked three times until everything had been stolen. There were no cops to protect those businesses. Now I have to drive much further to get supplies which adds to my budget. My neighbors and I spend our evenings making rounds through nearby streets to make sure that we spot a pyromaniac who lit three fires already in time not to burn down this entire reserve. We live with tension that makes it difficult to focus.
Without a doubt there is abuse in Chile, terrible distribution of wealth which makes for laws that are truly a weapon to keep practically everyone down to some extent. No one is arguing to continue those policies. We will applaud when they are changed. But my neighbor has a running buddy who bragged about how much loot he stole from that mall that you see in the previous video. That side of the story is not told when Chile is written about in the press.
I am upset that the state of emergency was uplifted, because that car that drove through the door of the mall happened when the President said that we didn't need the military in the streets. There is a cost to that decision. There is a cost to constantly telling soldiers to be careful when they try to bring rioters under control, because neither police officers or the army want to be charged with crimes for bringing mobs under control. They pull back. I don't want people to get hurt, but we've all had enough. It's time to stop the protests and allow for the legislature to push through needed reforms.
It is nauseating to see the Communist Party bring charges against the President and his cabinet for simply trying to bring peace and tranquility back to the street. These politicians get on tv, and they speak one *()))U^% sentence, if any at all, saying that the violence needs to stop and the next 30 minutes discussing the poor looter who got hit over the head with a club.
No one is saying that we need to go back to the past. It will take time to make the changes necessary, and in the meantime we live wondering whether this is the night that our house will burn down. It's sad to see what has taken so long to build: the subway system, the malls, COP25 and Apec meetings all gone. I hope all the turmoil is worth it.
Indeed, let us hope for a peaceful resolution to that frees the protesters from the need to protest. The brutal atrocities committed by the Pinochet regime remain fresh in the minds of everyone who is familiar with Chile and her people. I can't help but wonder whether the current President's cozy relationship with that regime isn't part of the problem. Let us not forget that while protesters may be breaking windows today, it wasn't that long ago that Pinochet's thugs were breaking the fingers, legs and skulls of anyone who dared to dream of a more egalitarian Chile.
I don't think that Piñera is like Pinochet; if I did, I would never support him. Pinochet would have never apologized for not having realized the difficulty of everyday Chileans. While on guard duty at night the neighbors sit about and talk, and they say that the disorder that we are experiencing will never be stopped as in the old days. It is a universal theme that this is going to take time to resolve. Meantime on tv the ministers are everyday repeating that abuses will be investigated thoroughly. Piñera summoned Bachelet (former president and now head of U.N. human rights organization) to come to investigate. It is difficult for us who live with this to see so much caution when we see so much mayhem about us, but is will all be worthwhile if we are in the throes of growing into a fully developed nation.
Great reading here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/pinochet-economic-model-current-crisis-chile I read a similar article last week from an academic of the University of Chicago who specializes in Chile. The article appeared in the local papers.
An interview with the previous Minister of Defense and Interior of the administration of President Bachelet who is from an opposition party to President Piñera. He is asked to give his evaluation of the decision to send the Army to patrol the streets, the behavior of police and the army and other issues related to the declaration of an emergency. Well balanced assessment of what is happening from the inside of the events: https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/jorge-burgos-exministro-del-interior-defensa-no-comparto-nada-la-critica-violacion-sistematica-derechos/885468/
I don't know, militarizing a civil conflict in a country where many people, particularly of a certain class, have family members who were murdered by the military, it has a certain unfortunate resonance.
Copihue said:
I don't think that Piñera is like Pinochet; if I did, I would never support him.
Are you a Chilean citizen?
If I post these articles in Spanish, does anyone read them? I think many in Maplewood can read Spanish. Anyway, this is a nice piece of writing that tells the story of what people are fighting over: https://www.latercera.com/la-tercera-domingo/noticia/las-voces-la-rabia-piden-los-marchantes/886153/ Understanding another language allows you to get under the skin of someone else, to discover that you are the same.
The vandalism hasn't stopped, and it is difficult to understand it. The park in the Center of Santiago which has a zoo was set on fire. That's equivalent to setting fire to Central Park. Why do that? what is the sense of it?
My friend just called me, and she says that there is a park in Santiago called Dominoco with a theater belonging to one of the universities. They destroyed the stairs to the theater which are made of cement, as well as the sidewalk also made of cement. What were they thinking?
Ever since I arrived I have been reading that during protests anarchists wearing hoods over their heads mix into the protestors and create mayhem. They seem to want to destroy all sign of becoming a developed nation; I have never heard of this happening anywhere else in the world.
Naturally, all services are disturbed, store hours are shortened, and it is difficult to plan. Prices are going up, and in the cities it's difficult to get from one spot to the other. Everyone's taking their cars to get to work, and what used to take less than an hour now can even take 3.5 hrs..
Two of my closest friends literally got sick, and I noticed that there are days when I simply feel exhausted from the tension and stress. I live in a remote area, so I am OK, yet we worry than someone might want to set fire to the national park which is designated a reserve of the biosphere by the UN. It would be easy to do, and because we are living in a drought, it would be extremely difficult to stop.
But the good news is that maybe Trump days are numbered. The US also seems to be like an unbelievable work of fiction, and the more I think of it, there may be parallels in what the two countries are undergoing at this time. The vandals want to reduce the country to the lowest common denominator and Trump wants to dismantle every protection for the environment, every treaty to encourage global trade and norm in a country that is supposed to be ruled by law and reason.
Just want to say that I am thankful for your insightful reports from the front lines in Chile. The mindless vandalism breaks my heart. What do they hope to accomplish? I hope your national Park gets through this unscathed. As for Trump, I’m sad to say that it is very premature to think his days in office are numbered.
I just read in the paper that the fire dept. took control of that fire in Santiago's City Center; they threw everything they had at it: forest rangers, helicopters, fire dept, etc. and they extinguished it. And a good friend told me that my neighbor turned in that friend of his who was boasting about being one of the looters in the video that I posted above. He's not going to do well if he is condemned. The men where I live want to take him to the back of the wood shed, and this is a small community where everyone knows everyone else. It's a small number of people who appear to be causing the damage with is now estimated to be $1.2 billion dollars, but they are organized and in control.
When people talk about who is behind this instability they mention the Venezuelans. There has been a large wave of immigrants from Venezuela, and President Piñera has criticized Maduro in various international organizations along with many other world leaders in the recent past. It's possible that Maduro sent people to disrupt Chile's growth, but for sure some hard working immigrants who simply came to live in peace and to be able to have a future for their families without hunger will now be hurt from their association to Maduro.
Others suspect communists and socialists. A legislator from the Communist Party asked for the resignation of Piñera on the second day of protests, and now they want to change the constitution. That seemed out of place in the middle of a crisis as well as very early in the mayhem. The constitution was changed just a few years ago, and the way that legislators are chosen to govern now is not simply by the person who gets the largest number of votes. It's a complex formula that groups candidates essentially by party, and the % of the total vote each party receives determines the % of legislators which will be chosen from that party. So that at the last election senators who had been elected for decades lost although they had a larger number of votes than those who were elected. It was a change to give minority parties such as the communists a voice. The talk is that they want more power.
It is sickening to see what is being done to this country, and I hope that those who are staying on the sidelines don't decide to take the situation in their own hands, because then it would be much worse.
OK, it's official. The President of Chile has stated that the vandalism is organized by people willing to destroy everything for the purpose of destabilizing the country. The president of one of the political parties UDI whose headquarters were set on fire goes further: the organizers come from the radical left. It's what everyone has been saying for some time.
Piñera, the President of Chile, announced a series of initiatives sent to Congress not only to address the concerns of most Chileans unhappy with the unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, but he also proposes to change the penalties that may be applied to individuals charged with participating in the vandalism and looting.
Proposals for increased security, some discussed above. Practice your Spanish.
Today they identified the first vandal who was identified as having thrown gasoline in one of the subway stations in Santiago. He is a sixteen-year old soccer fan who belongs to a fan club of the local soccer teams which is known for creating mayhem during games.
After reading the paper I drove to the bank which is now a 1.5 hr ride back and forth from my house; twice what I used to spend going to the bank. Every time I go there are marches through the center of town, and I couldn't park where I normally do, but I found a spot on the street next to the police station. I did my business, and when I returned I found that my car was at the center of the march. The marchers were all high school kids in school uniform, with bandanas to partially cover their faces, one kid had a mask and they were shouting vituperations at police. They did not disturb my car in any way.
They are kids.
The incident above was reported as a serious incident in the stats kept by the government and reported by the newspaper in Santiago. Wow! It looked like a volatile situation, but I wanted to go home, so I just walked to my car and drove off.
There were about thirty kids shouting at police who were looking at them behind a high metal fence. There were a few adults milling about while watching the kids. I wondered then what they were doing, maybe they were the organizers, but I wanted to get out of there safely, so I didn't give it much thought.
This is why I hate hearing criticisms of the government, today in Chile: https://www.latercera.com/nacional/noticia/los-incendios-azotaron-la-jornada/898545/ and my ride to my student's work this morning was met with burning tires on the highway. I took a video, but the file is too fat to upload it.
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HUGE Rummage sale to benefit the Bloomfield High School Robotics Team Sale Date: Apr 27, 2024
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I find it fun to do what I did for ten years in a different country, because I can compare people's reactions, and so far it has been a very pleasant surprise. I am told that no one visits customers in Chile, and they like it.