Daily Headlines: November 23, 2011

* Venezuela: In order to combat high inflation the government introduced additional price controls on eighteen products.

* Mexico: Troops confiscated over $15 million suspected of belonging to Sinaloa drug gang leader Joaquin Guzman.

* Guatemala: Investigators identified the remains of two people suspected of being kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the military nearly thirty years ago.

* Chile: PolitiFact.com labeled as “False” U.S. presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s claim that Chile has a 72% national savings rate.

Image Source – Via Flickr user blmurch (market stall in Merida, Venezuela), (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources – Bloomberg, PolitiFact, BBC News, Reuters

Follow-ups on Hugo Chavez, beauty queens, and more

The following are a list of follow-up articles on recently reported stories here on The Latin Americanist:

• Not content with nationalizing Venezuela’s oil and telecom sectors, President Hugo Chavez (first image) said that the government may take over the country’s banks.
• The FBI will launch a civil rights investigation into the violent conclusion of a May 1^st immigrants rights rally in Los Angeles.
• Record numbers of Haitian migrants keep trying to make it to the U.S.; earlier today the U.S. Coast Guard found a capsized boat in the Caribbean with 20 Haitians dead and over 60 missing.
• Miss Mexico isn’t the only controversial beauty queen from the Americas- Miss Peru was chosen behind closed doors and is the daughter of the president of the main sponsor of the Miss Peru contest.
• Peru’s mining strike enters a fifth day with more unions joining protesting laborers.
• After being released from a Buenos Aires hospital in early April, soccer legend Diego Maradona entered a mental health clinic yesterday to be treated for alcoholism.
• “DC Madam” Deborah Jeanne Palfrey apologized for the resignation of the former head of USAID; Randall Tobias quit last week after he revealed that he procured an escort service featuring Central American women.
• FIFA president Sepp Blatter (second image) took back comments made on Monday over the possibility of moving soccer’s 2010 World Cup to Mexico or the U.S.
• Despite his recent faux pas over the significance of the Spanish language, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would be a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination should he choose to run.

Links- The Latin Americanist, International Herald Tribune, Living in Peru, Xinhua, Ireland On-line, news.com.au, WHBF, CNN, BBC News

Images- BBC News, Al Jazeera

WaPo: Bloggers react to Gingrich’s video mea culpa

Earlier today, Jose Antonio Vargas at the Washington Post reported on the reactions by bloggers and the public to Newt Gingrich’s video message on Spanish. As we mentioned yesterday, the former House Speaker created a YouTube video where he tried to clear up remarks made several days ago equating Spanish as a “ghetto” language.

In the article, Vargas had this to say about the response from blogs like ours:

“The remarks drew a barrage of comments from the Latino community, and were quickly repudiated on popular Web sites such as Latin Americanist, Latino Pundit and Vivir Latino-- U.S. Latino life in blog form. A headline on Vivir Latino read ‘Newt -- Not Ghetto Fabulous,’ with Maegan Ortiz, the site's New York-based editor, writing: ‘Don't you love how politicos use Spanish when it works for them and when it doesn't, they trash it?’

Added Ortiz, who…watched Gingrich's mea culpa Wednesday night: ‘It's just so ironic that he'd use a video spoken in his ghetto Spanish to say sorry about a nasty, racist remark directed at the Latino community. I mean this is a guy whose own official Web site has his own biography written in Spanish. How hypocritical is that?’”

Vargas’ report adds that reactions on YouTube have been mixed and range from agreement to repudiation to humor (e.g. “Newt makes Bush sound like an expert in Spanish.”)

Links- The Latin Americanist, YouTube, Washington Post

Image- CNN

Follow-up: Gingrich tries to backtrack from "ghetto" comments

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich posted a video on YouTube relating to remarks made a few days ago equating Spanish with the “language of living in a ghetto.” Gingrich speaks in Spanish in the video and tries to clarify that Spanish is “a beautiful language” and that he has been taking lessons in Spanish “for a while now.” Yet he does not back down from his political rhetoric against bilingual education, advocates English as a “single common language,” and refrains from directly apologizing for his original insult against Spanish:

So let’s see if I get this straight- Spanish is a “beautiful language” yet it’s also equated with abject poverty? But it’s “beautiful” only if famous well-to-do politicians like Newt Gingrich speak it? Yet if it’s “ghetto” in the first place then why try to learn it? I am confused.

However, I’m not one to keep a grudge, so I would like to provide Newt with the following suggestion if he is reading this blog post: why not go teach English at a local school in a lower-class community? If you truly mean what you said in your video communiqué then do something constructive or else cynics (like myself) will interpret your words as empty rhetoric. As the cliché goes, put your money where your mouth is.

(Hat tip: Wonkette).

Links- Huffington Post, Wonkette, YouTube, The Latin Americanist

Spanish is “ghetto” language, says Gingrich

First it was a Long island legislator saying that he would “load a gun” and shoot at day laborers that dared stand in front of his home.

Then it was presidential candidate Mitt Romney misinterpreting a popular quote by Fidel Castro during a speech to Cuban exile leaders.

Now it’s former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s turn to be afflicted by verbal diarrhea after he called Spanish "the language of living in a ghetto" during a speech on Saturday (image). Gingrich’s comment came during a discourse against bilingual education and multi-lingual voting ballots. (Hat tip: Hispanic Tips).

It absolutely amazes me when someone’s level of political discourse lowers itself to the level of juvenile and irresponsible remarks. You would think people ought to know better, but perhaps their hubris gets in the way of clear, rational judgment.

Maybe Puck was right all along:

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

Links- The Latin Americanist, Wonkette, WSB-TV, Hispanic Tips, eNotes,

Image- Seattle Post-Intelligencer