Posting During the Holidays

With the holiday season fast approaching us, we will be changing our weekday schedule for our posts over the next few weeks:

• December 16 to 20 and December 23 to 24 – Two posts per day consisting of “Daily Headlines” and the return of “World Watch.”
• December 25 to January 3 – No posts.
• January 5 to January 8 - Two posts per day consisting of “Daily Headlines” and “World Watch.” 
• January 9 to January 10 – No posts.
• January 13 – Resuming regularly scheduled posting.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you very much for your kind attention and readership. 

Happy holidays!

Video Source– YouTube user juancachorrin

Today’s Video: Cleaning Up

Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on The Latin Americanist headquarters in New York City with the worst conditions expected to hit later today.  Due to the strong possibility of power outages we may be unfortunately offline for several days.  If that does happen then we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. 

Sandy’s heavy winds and rains caused immense material and human damage for several parts of the Caribbean last week.  At least sixty-nine deaths have been attributed to the storm including fifty-two in Haiti and eleven in Cuba.  The death toll could increase after a group of six or seven French citizens have gone missing somewhere near the islands of Martinique and Dominica.

"This is a disaster of major proportions," Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told the Associated Press. His statement certainly seemed very accurate especially after watching the following video via ITN News of post-Sandy destruction in Cuba:

From the Archives: First

The Latin Americanist blog was born on September 3, 2005 as the brainchild of a group of students at New York University’s Center for Latin American Studies. Seven years and over 7300 posts later the blog still continues with the same goal it had when it was conceived: to provide an English-language forum for issues pertaining to Latin America.

Today we will take a look at the first article that was published on this blog.

There is a cliché that states, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” This saying can apply to the first post on this blog, which was the following:

Chavez earns scorn from The Economist

The Venezuelan president incurs the disapproval of the British mag after clamping down on the private sector. article

Since then the renown international affairs magazine has not let up on its criticism of the Venezuelan leader. The publication’s latest article on Venezuela reported on last month’s fire at the Amuay oil refinery as a potential liability for Chavez’ reelection campaign.

Additionally, an article published in April claimed that diplomatic officials worried about urban violence “found Venezuela's security services underwhelming” while a January headline asked if Chavez and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were “brothers in arms?”

Video Source– YouTube via Voz de America (“The Economist” analyst Robert Woods provides his views on Venezuela’s upcoming presidential election in this February 2012 video from Voice of America’s Spanish-language channel).

Online Sources - The Economist, The Latin Americanist

Today’s Video: It's (Not) the End of the World as We Know It

We're going to usher in the New Year by taking a few days off but we will definitely return this Wednesday (January 4th) with posts on news stories around the Americas.

In the meantime, we urge you to please vote in our Headline of 2011 poll and also please fell free to contact us via e-mail at ourlatinamerica@yahoo.com with your feedback.

It has certainly been an eventful year here at The Latin Americanist, which included an appearance on Al Jazeera English's Listening Post program. We cannot thank you enough, our esteemed readers, for your attention and opinions throughout 2011.

We will strive to do a better job in the upcoming months by providing you timely and thorough reporting on news throughout the region. Plans are in the works to improve both the quality and appearance of this blog so please stay tuned!

For now we'll leave you with the following video of what will likely be one of the most overhyped stories of 2012: the supposed end of the world based on an inaccurate interpretation of the Mayan calendar.

Video Source - YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources - Space.com, Al Jazeera English

Today’s Video: Flowers in the sand

Before getting to tonight's video there are a few blog matters that need to be discussed:

1 - We're going on a brief hiatus on Friday; hence, there will be no new posts on that day.

2 - We hope to write several posts over the weekend in order to make up for the embarrassing lack of posts over the past week.

3 - Hopefully starting on Monday we'll try to resume our old schedule of publishing 4-6 posts every weekday including different features on areas like music and film.

With that said, the following video via NTN24 English shows a poignant and powerful anti-violence protest that took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week:

Video Source - ntn24english via YouTube

The upcoming return of The Latin Americanist

As you may have noticed there has been an unfortunate absence of posting on this blog for the past three weeks. I made the terrible miscalculation of assuming that I would have regular access to the Internet during my family vacation to Colombia. Yet for a number reasons (which I won't get into) today is the first time since mid-December since I've been more than a few minutes online! Worse was my absent-minded decision not to seek a guest blogger for my time abroad.

ln short, I screwed up big time and I want to fully apologize to you, our readers, for my mistakes.

I'll return with "Daily Headlines", "Today's Video" and our usual mix of posts next Tuesday, January 11th. Don't forget that you can still vote in the top news stories of 2010 poll, which will close on Monday the 10th.

Thanks for your time, feedback, and loyalty since this blog was founded over five years ago.

Happy New Year everyone!

Our new comments policy (updated)

Update (June 9, 2010): Our comments policy has been modified in order to bring you, our readers, fair and relevant comments. Here are the new guidelines:

Any and all comments that are:

1. Explicitly racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, and/or discriminatory;
2. Personal attacks/and or insults against blog readers, contributors, and/or commenters;
3. Spam and/or advertisements disguised as comments;
4. Violating copyright law;
5. Irrelevant to the topics discussed in a post;
   

will be immediately deleted from this blog.

Repeat offenders of The Latin Americanist's comments policy will be banned at the discretion of the blog administrator(s).

Update: Our new comments policy is as follows:

Any and all comments that are:

1. Explicitly racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, and/or discriminatory;
2. Personal attacks against blog readers, contributors, and/or commenters;
3. Spam and/or advertisements disguised as comments;
4. Violating copyright law;
   

will be immediately deleted from this blog.

Original Post: The motto of this blog since its inception has been to act as an “English-language forum for all things Latin American”. As such we try our best to provide a platform where all sort of ideas and opinions can be freely discussed and disseminated.

Earlier tonight an anonymous individual left a particularly heinous and vulgar rant against one of our contributors. While most comments are courteous and on the topic, the disgusting comment we read has forced us to institute a new comments policy.

The following policy goes into effect immediately and will be posted on the sidebar starting on Monday:

Comment Policy

Any and all comments that are:

1. Directly racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, and/or discriminatory
2. Personal attacks against blog readers, contributors, and/or commenters
3. Spam and/or advertisements disguised as comments
   

will be immediately deleted from this blog.

We always appreciate your readership and hope that this new policy will not discourage you from participating on this blog.

Please e-mail us at ourltinamerica@yahoo.com should you have any questions or concerns on the comments policy or any other aspect of our blog.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Update: Thanks to your feedback supporting our blog as well as providing suggestions to the comments guidelines. We will modify the policy slightly and then post it on the sidebar on Monday.

Thanks again!

Happy third birthday to us!

On September 3^rd, 2005 an NYU grad student created a unique forum for the discussion of news and issues pertaining to Latin America. The first trio of posts on that day examined topics as varied as The Economist’s view on Hugo Chavez, Costa Rica’s downgraded credit rating, and protests in Argentina. Who would’ve imagined that this blog would continue strong after three years, over 3500 posts, and mentions in media outlets like the Washington Post or this month’s Latina magazine?

In the name of the entire The Latin Americanist team, thank you all who read, comment, and enjoy our blog. We always work hard to inform you, principally, but also to provide our own viewpoints. You are the reason we work hard to disseminate information and insight regarding Latin America and its impact on the world. We are grateful that you trust in us, and we will continue to strive to continue being the forum that this blog intended to be.

On a purely personal note, I would like to wholeheartedly thank Taylor Kirk whose foresight allowed this blog to be created and for permitting me to contribute to this wonderful site. I’m deeply indebted and grateful to all my fellow contributors- Maegan, Alison, and Michael- whose advice and knowledge are immeasurable. Lastly, but certainly not least, thank you to all our readers for their attention.

Hopefully this blog can continue for many years to come so let’s keep moving forward!

Image- Guardian UK (I don’t like the color pink, but that cake certainly looks savory!)

Sources- The Latin Americanist, Blogger, Washington Post, Latina