A successful birthday party

Here are a few photos of Ruthie and her friends at her birthday party.

Ruthie is Six!

Rainy Sunday

UPDATE -- Tuesday, September 29. Clearly all went well with the playdate:



Well, I am just now recovering from the second bout of stomach virus in just two weeks. Ugh. No more about that. Only this: please, no more viruses!

We have just completed something of a spring cleaning around here (it is spring here, after all!) on a cold and rainy day. Really, the impetus was the imminent arrival of a brother and sister pair of friends of Jonah and Aviva, Matias and Celeste. They are, by all accounts, very nice kids and happen to live a block away (with six other siblings!). So, we all hope it goes well.

We went to shul yesterday to find a little more than a minyan there on Shabbat Shuvah. We had a nice time completing the circle that links most Jewish people in the world to Carol Weinbaum, within about two degrees of separation. It turns out that her good friend Harriet Rosen has become good friends with one of the two rabbis at Bet El, Silvina Chemen. We had a nice talk and we let be known that Ruthie wants to be a rabbi. Silvina kindly offered to sit down and provide some advice, perhaps a few years from now.

Aviva and I spent the afternoon at the Jumbo and then the Easy, better described as Home Depot. We took Uncle Brett's quick and easy sukkah recipe (heavy on PVC pipe) and tried to match it. With the help of a patient employee and my broken Castellano, we acquired sixteen meters of pipe and a whole bunch of connectors. I carried the four-meter-long (that's a little over 13 feet) tubes up to checkout and then -- this is the way they do things here -- I cut them up with saws they provide. We then tramped home looking like itinerant plumbers. Throughout Aviva was the star of patience and helpfulness.

Now we need the rain to stop so we can build this thing and figure out where to get some skah (say that word while sneezing and you will get a fairly accurate sound of the word in Hebrew).

A sweet year to all of you!

Protesting Layoffs, North and South

Protest over the firing of Hyatt workers in Boston:

http://www.boston.com/business/gallery/hyattprotest/

Protest over the firing of Kraft workers in Buenos Aires:

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/12846

in the news....

If we didn't need further reminder of how current the issues of dictatorship, and of the AMIA bombing in 1994, remain in Argentine society, these two issues were on the front page today: President Cristina Kirchner calling on Iran to release those suspected of masterminding the AMIA bombing; and another announcing the capture of one of those suspected of flying the Vuelos de la Muertos -- "death flights" -- that originated at ESMA. He was working happily as an employee of a Dutch airline but was apprehended while on a stop in Valencia, Spain, which has a strong law concerning crimes against humanity. Argentina hopes to extradite him here for trial.

In English on the Buenos Aires Herald site:

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/12702
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/12695

ESMA

Today, Eve and I took a tour of the one of the most notorious detention centers, which efficiently managed to detain, torture and ultimately murder some 5,000 people between 1976 and 1983. ESMA -- The Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (Technical School of the Navy) -- is a 35-acre campus in the northern part of Buenos Aires, in the barrio of Nunez. It was founded in 1924 what was then a fairly rural area and served as the Navy's main training school until just a few years ago. But during the dictatorship it was home to Grupo de Tareas 3.3.2 (something along the lines of "Task Force 3.3.2), one of the mainly secret police groups whose sole purpose was to seek out people deemed dangerous -- Peronists, revolutionaries, people who read leftist literature, labor union activists, etc.

This is one of the key points made in the tour and it is absolutely right: the death of 30,000 people was not the result of "unfortunate" excesses by a few rogue military leaders. (That reasoning should sound awfully familiar). Rather, it was a systematic effort to eliminate a set of people deemed "dangerous" to the rejuvenation of the nation. I believe this is called genocide. In numbers it did not reach the levels we have seen elsewhere in the last century, but it bore the imprint of those models.

Carlos Menem, president beginning in 1989, pardoned many of those convicted of human rights crimes during the "Dirty War" and proposed completely demolishing ESMA in order to create a "national reconciliation park." This was halted by the courts and ultimately the property was taken from the Navy, returned to the city of Buenos Aires (who essentially "loaned" it to the Navy for use as a school). In 2004, it was officially designated to become a center for the promotion and defense of human rights, run by a coalition of human rights organizations.

So, although word about the atrocities being committed at ESMA began to leak out in the late 1970s (and provoking the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to visit the country 1979 and investigate potential crimes), there is a feeling that this site is just now taking shape. Debates continue as to what should happen in the Officer's House (where the detainees lived), what should happen to the larger site, how much restoration should take place. At the moment, tours are by appointment only -- about five thousand people visit per year. The interpretive material in the various rooms are pretty thin and focused on what was there now and what had changed. This is a little too "inside baseball" for most visitors, I think. (Although it is fascinating that what prompted much of the remodeling of the building was the impending visit of the human rights commission in 1979; the regime shipped the detainees off to a Catholic church in Tigre for the duration of the commission's visit, and changed the plan of the building around so it wouldn't match the memories of the few survivors). Most want to learn about what happened here, learn the larger context, hear from the survivors. All of this awaits an expansion of the tours, the development of a real museum, perhaps an introductory video.

I am especially taken by the debate between some -- especially the survivors (some 200 people managed to come out alive) -- who want to preserve the whole thing essentially as is, keeping it as a reminder of the atrocities, and others -- including the Madres de Plaza de Mayo -- who want to bring life back to where death once ruled. They want to make this a cultural center, for young and old to make art and music, and turn the military school into a summer playground. I am sympathetic to this idea, and it fits with the ideas I put forward for what should happen at Ground Zero in New York. It is a fundamental debate, I think, that we should be engaged in: do we continue to produce more and more monuments whose purpose is almost exclusively to remember, or do we choose to honor the victims by invoking Harold Bloom's translation of the Hebrew "baruch," usually simply "blessing" but which he reads as "more life!"

I think there is room for both at ESMA: it seems clear that the Officer's House will remain largely as is, with tours and interpretive signage, but little physical transformation. But the rest of the site -- and most if the buildings were not used by the Grupo de Tareas -- should be revitalized as a living place for portenos. Is that not always the best answer to factories of death -- bring vibrant, democratic life back?

The issue of ESMA will only become more important when the long-awaited trials of the ESMA leaders begins in October. Yes, twenty-six years after the end of the dictatorship, some of the ESMA leaders are finally going to be forced before a judge. Those not pardoned by Menem managed to outlast the statute of limitations. But in 2003, then-president Nestor Kirchner (succeeded by his wife, Christina) helped get the statute lifted, opening the way for new trials. It took five more years, but they are now beginning, in Cordoba this month, and in Buenos Aires next.

Suffice it to say, I will have more thoughts on the issue of these sites of memory.

A first playdate

Here's a photo of our trip on Sunday to the Zoo with Aviva's school friend, Micaela. And one more of the elephants, for Uncle Brett.

Autopista and Palacio Barolo

Yesterday I spent a good part of my day under the Autopista de 25 de Mayo -- a major highway that goes from the harbor westward. One of the artists I have befriended -- Carolina Andreeti -- did a fascinating project to uncover and critique the effect of this highway, built by the dictatorship in the 1970s. She herself lives a block from the highway in San Cristobal but by chance and determination she found members of a family who lived in a house that was demolished to make way for the highway. She interviewed them, looked at their photographs, learned everything about their home and then identified the actual spot beneath the highway where the house stood. Using a more durable form of chalk, she drew the plan of the house. At a nearby community center, she had an installation with images of the house, plans for the highway, and recordings of interviews with the family. It reminded me of my colleague Gretchen Schneider, who together with a group of high school students, outlined the neighborhood that once stood where the spaceship otherwise known as Boston City Hall and its landing pad (the red brick expanse surrounding it) now lives a precarious existence. Both projects were a temporary way -- and they were both intended to be temporary -- of reminding us of the violent effects of what Jane Jacobs liked to called "cataclysmic" planning.

Carolina and I hopped on a bus that paralleled the autopista and ended up in San Telmo, very near where we met Tatiana Kaler on one of our first days here. We walked back under the autopista this time to see what looks like an ancient pyramid reaching almost up to the underside of the highway, about a hundred feet up. Closer up, you realize the site also goes down below the grade of the street, and that it really is an archaeological site. What strange ancient Mayan site is this? It turns out to be much more recent -- these are the remains of "El Atletico," one of about 600 illegal "detention centers" set up during the dictatorship, where kidnapped people were brought to be tortured and, as often as not, drugged and then dropped out of planes into the Rio. El Atletico only operated for about a year, but it has gotten a lot of attention due its relatively recent discovery there beneath the autopista. We weren't able to get in because there is little space to walk around and a school group was there. But I will return to get a closer look.

After this dark excursion, I headed to hell...and purgartory...and paradise. Palacio Barolo, the Woolworth Building of its day (tallest building in Latin America from 1923 to 1935, grandest speculative office tower), is a monument to Dante (who has a strong hold in the cultural history of this city of Italian immigrants). The textile king, Luis Barolo, commissioned a building that would embody Dante's Divine Comedy. He divided the building into three parts for the three parts of the Divine Comedy, and planned an elaborate mosaic at the very center of floor of great entry hall to hold -- I kid you not -- Dante's remains. He pleaded with the Italian government but to no avail. The rest of the building is organized around Dante's work -- 100 meter high (for the hundred cantos); with the correct number of offices per floor to match the number of verses in that particular canto; the main hall has nine arches for the nine circles of hell, etc. The best part is the view from the top (which housed a lighthouse that was designed to be seen by Barolo's sister building in Montevideo; alas, he miscalculated the curvature of the earth and the two lighthouses shine in vain). I made it safely down from Paradise (in a lovely 1920s devil-red elevator -- Dante certainly didn't travel as elegantly or as easily between realms) back to the earthly mess and made my way back home.

First Class

Some of you have asked about my first class at Universidad di Tella, which I had last Friday. Part of the reason I haven't written is that I was already sick that evening (the class meets Friday night, every other week) and I didn't recover until a day or two ago. But it was also rather uneventful. It is a big class of graduate students from two programs -- history of cities and architecture and historic preservation who come every other week on the weekends (because they all work -- virtually no one is a full-time graduate student). Some of the students were surprised that the class would be in English and their speaking ability certainly varies widely. (Eve's Spanish teacher was shocked to hear I would be teaching in English -- that never happens, she said). But we managed to have a decent discussion about a difficult text (Pierre Nora's essay on history and memory) and I have a slide lecture about the key issues in historic preservation in the United States. I think it is good that they have two weeks to read the amount of pages I usually assign for one week. We'll see how it goes....

The Last Thing You See At Night

Giving Jonah his nightly backrub (how's that for service? Actually, Eve is first choice for this duty, but I get called in when she is away or resting), I looked out the window and it struck me how different this last view of the day is compared to Amherst. Here, from our eighth-floor apartment, he or Aviva or Ruthie (the nightly musical beds continues here) can see a horizon of tall buildings, in a way a picture-perfect image of a city -- the distant view of twinkling lights as the moon rises above them. It reminds me of the feeling of going one flight up from my six floor walkup in Soho (where I had a Jacob Riis-like view across the air shaft to the next tenement) and suddenly finding myself able to see from the world Trade Center towers up to the Empire State Building with one twist of the neck. Or arriving in the New York Public Library and finding inside that heavy marble colossus the Main Reading Room, one of the grandest and lightest spaces I’d ever been in.

There is something powerfully uplifting and inspiring for the imagination about the distant views within a city.

And then I think of Jonah's view from his room at home. With the rhododendron bush pushing its flowers right under his windows, he could look out onto the trees hanging over our house or, in winter, could see right into West Cemetery and Emily Dickinson's gravestone. Some of my fondest memories are waking up slowly and listening to that same chickadee sing his song from the maple tree right outside my window.

I wonder how dreams and thoughts and life direction might be shaped by that last view of the day.

A few morning thoughts about stores

I walked the kids to school today (which is a major step forward in my slow recovery from a weekend and more of stomach virus -- Eve has been doing everything, allowing me to sleep and wallow) and thought again about stores. The differentiation of stores is remarkable. The "Maxi Kiosko" sells candy, period. Well, not true -- some also have telephones or even internet booths. But they definitely don't sell newspapers. And the newspapers stands do not sell food of any kind. They are true to their calling (although they also sell some real books, maps, transit guides, etc.).

We participate in the invasion of the megastore by going to the Jumbo. But I do not sense this has caught on in a major way, although perhaps this is the blindness of the urbanite. It may in fact be that Wal-Mart has started its march of progress in the suburbs of Buenos Aires and other major cities in Argentina. But here the small stores with very specific purposes remain dominant.

I wonder if they will have the joys of our American nomenclature: mall, new mall, old mall, dead mall, and then just Target, Wal-Mart. Perhaps we will ultimately have that 1984-style utopian vision: The Store.

del Potro

There was much excitement here as we all watched the Argentine, Juan Martin del Potro beat Roger Federer. However, I suspect that this might have little effect on the overall malaise that has hit since Argentina's disastrous month of soccer. While the TV and newspapers are trumpeting del Potro's amazing (and totally surprising) defeat of Federer, Eve got a hint of how important it is when she spoke to the security guard downstairs and asked if he would be watching? He waved his hand in disgust as if to say -- "That sport? No one cares."

Chinatown

After a late night last night (more about this in the next blog), we all slept late and headed to shul around 11. We took a cab and found, for the second time, that the cab driver did not know how to get to the Conde and Sucre. Part of the problem is that the train line runs at grade and there are only a few places where cars can cross. After a long, circular journey, we arrived, walked in, and found a few stragglers at kiddush. Friday was a holiday for all the schools -- Dia del Maestro (Day of the Teacher), for which Eve made some delicious cookies to give to each of the kids' teachers -- so I suspect many people went away for the weekend.

We took a long walk (it was a beautiful spring day here) back across Cabildo (the main avenue through Belgrano) and over to the miniscule Chinatown. We had a decent lunch, although we made a note to return to the all vegetarian restaurant next time -- the one we went to was recommended for its rabbit and venison.

But then we stopped into the Chinese supermarkets and found them full of wonderful, and cheap goods -- including Manteca de Mani (peanut butter, available almost nowhere else), beans and even vegetarian ramen (which seems to no longer be available in our Stop and Shop back home). We made a note to return with a big backpack.

Home for a little "spud" playing at our nearby park (on John F. Kennedy Boulevard, in the shadow of the Embassy, and beneath a towering statue to FDR (surrounded by a huge gate, which seems to have kept out graffitti artists, but also cleaning people. Right-arm raised, he has seen better days).

We returned to watch a little more of the US Open. They were replaying for the seventh time...the Argentinian Del Potro's quarter final match. You would think there was only one person playing in this whole tournament.

And soon I'm off to bed -- I have been sick to my stomach for a day now.

Strike

We were warned. A two hour strike would stop all the subways from noon to 2. Then, this morning, there were signs that this could be resolved. If the union "received a call" from the government indicating that they were prepared to discuss the issues (which has to do with a new union of transit workers demanding recognition; the government only allows one union in each sector. You can read more here: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/11515). But, alas, it was not to be. I arrived at 12:15 and found the station open. But a minute later the screens that had just indicated everything was fine indicated that the whole network was stopped. Up I went to get a bus. Eve found herself stuck on a stopped train and ended up walking three miles back home (after having walked five miles downtown!).

PHENOM hosts Frank Rich, September 21

I have been doing best to focus on research, teaching, and life in Buenos Aires, but a few issues from home will creep in.

Like PHENOM, the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts, which I care deeply about.

On September 21, at 6 pm at Westfield State College, PHENOM will host a reception for Frank Rich, columnist for the New York times and friend of liberals everywhere.

I hope you'll attend and support PHENOM.

See phenomonline.org for more information.

Gov. Sanford itinerary

I was told today that the paramour of South Carolina's Governor Sanford (at least for today and probably tomorrow) lives on Av. Republica de la India and that the happy, clandestine couple spent many a meal at Guido's Restaurant, a much-praised Italian restaurant on the same street. Perhaps they'll put up a plaque.

Obama and Futbol

Tonight we created a merger which I believe my yield some deep meanings, although I have yet to discover them. At first we had the television on cnn "en espanol" during Obama's speech. The President was being simultaneously translated, so that he sounded like a very deep-voiced Argentinian man. Not a bad voice for him, actually. But then we decided to listen to the speech via the internet. So I switched the television to the more important event here: Argentina vs. Paraguay. This was the last gasp for Argentina, which needed to win in order to guarantee a spot in the 2010 World Cup competition. So as Obama argued for health care, Diego Maradona stood stoically listening, not at all impressed with what was going on and, frankly, seemed quite worried. As the speech/game moved along, with high and low points, moments of pathos and moments of humor, some angry fans (was that the South Carolina representative yelling at Maradona?), many thrilled Paraguayans and liberals (the public options lives to die on another day!), I wondered whether the comparison of soccer (or, more specifically, soccer hysteria) and the health care debate might have more in common than an accident of technology. I'm simply going to hope that, if tonight's game was somehow predictive of the fate of healthcare policy, that Obama has Paraguayan blood somewhere in his lineage.

Train Stations and Public Life

The Coghlan station in Belgrano is in decay. The century-old stations on both sides of the tracks are run-down, wood-paneled ticket offices shuttered, adjacent trees growing wild (which led to major power shutdown when branches brought down the lines, and gives pigeons perfect aim to drop their donations on waiting passengers). Planters with dying plants are littered around the outside of the stations. Everything is gray.

This is what is called progress through privatization.

It is a common story: public services and infrastructure that serve people well are privatized (because the IMF demands it; because there is a budget crisis and it is assumed that selling off public goods will help; or because someone believes -- by "believe" I mean something much closer to faith than conviction based on fact -- that it will lead to greater efficiency). We are still in the midst of a revolution that has led to the privatization of much of what was once done publicly, i.e. by the government, with public service as its primary mission. The result has been, almost universally, higher expense, worse service, and greater profits for the companies who were supposed to be providing more efficient services at less taxpayer expense.

Such is the case with Coghlan. Once an elegant train station (even though the neighborhood is wealthier than it has ever been), with a staff of five or six who took tickets, tended the landscape (including trimming the trees so that the birds were not perched over the heads of customers) and kept the place clean. The resulting privatization eliminated those jobs (there is one staffperson for the whole station), raised prices....and transferred the profits "northward" (i.e. to the corporate offices).

I visited Coghlan on Wednesday because my new friend and artist Patricio, an Argentinian trainspotter with an obsession with train lines on par with Sasha (my brother), surreptitiously brought back the original signage for the station, introduced more benches to the platform which had exactly one. He has worked with a small "Friends of Coghlan" group to preserve the station. But they have had little luck. Patricio was only able to return the original sign design because the private company didn't care enough to notice that he had returned the sign to the station.

This visit reminded me of a panel I was on not long after 9/11, at NYU. I'm not sure the title of the panel, but we were each talking about the future of New York after 9/11. I spoke, with bad luck, right before Richard Sennett (well, the good luck was that because people knew he was next, stayed to hear my presentation). One point he made stuck with me. He spent half the year in London and he said that when he returned to the United States he always felt that when he used public services in the U.S. he was moving back in time - the underinvestment in public services had left the U.S. an underdeveloped developed country.

Coghlan reminded me of how much poorer countries (although Argentina was, at the beginning of the 20th century, one of the wealthiest countries in the world) often have far greater investment in public life. It also reminded me that one of the U.S.'s most significant and latest exports is the notion of selling off public goods, leaving a world of run-down stations and pigeon droppings.

New York in Buenos Aires

I've long wanted to write (and discussed with the editor I have written for at the New York Times, Connie Rosenblum (check out her new book -- Boulevard of Dreams)), an article about how so many cities, in the U.S. and beyond, have New York "sites."

It is not just the presence of Subway fast food stores, or the occasional clothing store with New York in its name, but that whole sections of the city take on New York place names (or are given them by developers or city officials).

My interest -- more like an occasional hobby -- began long ago when, in the summer of 1988, I traveled to Phoenix (thanks to Yale's Richter Summer Fellowship) to investigate mutual housing associations, a model of affordable housing I had first learned about in Berlin. I remember talking to a city planner who described an area of town as "our Greenwich Village." You've been to Phoenix? There is much to like there, but it is about the furthest from being New York as any place in the world. But they were convinced that by naming an area they might be able to mimic the attributes of that New York district. It is a form of flattery, or cheap economic development, or, perhaps just wannabeism.

So, here is what I have found so far in Buenos Aires:

Palermo Soho (the neighborhood very close to us -- it is unclear as to whether or not people here refer to it that way. It is defined by expensive restaurants and bars, and tourists).

Luna Park -- the early-1900s grand music, dance, and boxing venue, where we saw the Tango finale, named, certainly, after the Coney Island amusement park.

Manhattan Disco in Belgrano -- complete with a three story facade that look just like the top of the Chrysler Building

And just now, walking back from the Japanese Garden: "Wall Street Advertising." This company seem to control much of the signage, on century-old signposts that are on all major avenues. (We have seen, by the way, the changing of the huge signs on Av. Santa Fe -- a remarkable feat of ballet, featuring a man below throwing up (with total accuracy) folded up canvas sheet which are then applied by his comrade who is balancing from a very, very tall ladder, piece by piece, across a twenty-foot long billboard. A little bit of old Times Square....)

Finding Our Leslie Fraidstern

Shabbat has ended here and ours was a lovely one. We all slept late (after a great dinner at a restaurant I assumed was nothing special -- "Super Pizza" is its name. It turned out to have some of the best fresh pasta and pizza we've had here. Right around the corner) but made it up to Bet-El in time to hear the end of the haftarah. The kids immediately took out their books (we allow this in order to keep them quiet and relatively happy in shul). A couple of old men nearby kept looking over and Eve and I both felt like they were annoyed. Quite the opposite. After services, Aldo (who turned out to the president) greeted us, and welcomed us with a level of warmth that only could be called Fraidsternian. (For those who don't know, Leslie Fraidstern is a member (and former president) of Congregation Bnai Israel and our personal hero. Specifically, he greets everyone, new and old, on Shabbat, raises tens of thousands of dollars for the shul, and thinks our children are the greatest. It seems those characteristics -- especially the last -- should pretty much guarantee him eternal appreciation). Aldo immediately said "This is your home!" He told us about Shabbat afternoon activities for the children, their Camp Ramah in December, and when we asked about getting tickets for High Holiday services, he waved his hands -- "Done!" He then introduced us to the rabbi, who promptly told us to call on Monday and ran to his office to get a me a book on the memorials I have been seeking out (the curbside memorials). Aldo said goodbye and said he expected to see us next Shabbat.

Suffice to say, we felt the open arms of this community.

We made our way home and then took a lovely springtime (yes, we have hit the reverse button and are now re-experiencing springtime) walk to the Japanese Garden...until Jonah felt very sick. We are back home (he seems to be doing better!) watching the U.S. Open, blogging and (Eve is) preparing dinner.

N.B. I was thrilled that at Bet-El they sang Ein Keloheinu to the tune that I remember so well from Bnai Jeshurun in New York, with Ladino verses interspersed with the Hebrew) and which for a period of several months way back when I sang to Jonah, Aviva and Ruthie every single night -- "Daddy Special Way" was its official name.

Curbside Memory

I have continued to take photographs of Ford Falcons around the city, haunted by the image of these symbols of state terrorism (more on this phrase in a later blog) cruising down the same streets, a quarter century after they were literally vehicles of death.

My new friend, Patricio Larrambebere, an artist and encyclopedia of knowledge about Buenos Aires, told me that the model during the time of the dictatorship was characterized by boxy headlights that were instantly recognizable. (For car maniacs, you can see more than you would ever want to know about Ford Falcons here).

My wanderings around the city have led me, sometimes accidentally and sometimes purposefully, to the sidewalk plaques to those kidnapped and murdered by the terrorist. They are meant to mark the birthplaces and homes of those who were taken -- los desaparecidos (a name, incidentally, invented by the military). But also seem to mark the parking spot, where these green, plate-less Falcons stopped. It is a meeting of the murderers and the murdered, with memory having the last word.

These curbside shrines are so simple -- sometimes just bronze letters set in stone; many also have colorful mosaic frames -- that they are often missed. Even when I have sought out a particular memorial, using my new guidebook to the city -- Memorias en la ciudad -- I have had trouble finding them. But when I come across them, I am moved again and again. It is a dirty city and the streets are routinely defaced by dogs and trash. So, to come across these small acts of love and defiance, and pure loss, is powerful.

Please note the phrase in the last image, as it is commonly used and says a lot about political discourse here: "por el terrorismo de estado" -- "by the terrorism of the state." I am struck by the very sound of the words, and their meaning.

In a lecture I just read by Jorge Borges, he notes the first time he began reading works in English with his students. He notes that "what always happens, when one studies a language, happened. Each one of the words stood out as though it had been carved, as though it were a talisman."

So, too, this phrase -- "terrorismo de estado" -- has an effect on me because as a beginning Spanish speaker I hear and see each letter anew. There is a directness in that phrase that is devastating, but also refreshing in its honesty and clarity, especially as on this very day I read about Dick Cheney's defense of torture and the continuing euphemisms the press and political leaders use to describe the system violation of our Constitution. It feels as if here there is a clarity -- at least among many -- about what happened.

I am not suggesting an equivalence between our national torture scandal and what happened here -- the system kidnapping, torture, and murder of upwards of 30,000 people under the direction of a dictatorship.

But I am impressed and struck by the honesty and succinctness of the words used to describe the tragedy. It was simply that -- state terrorism -- and it is proudly carved into granite (at the Parque de la Memoria) and into the humble curbside memorials.

Biggest Regret So Far:

Missing "Heschel, el Musical" at Instituto Bet-El. With "en escene que te va a estremecer de emocion" -- "with scenes that will make you tremble with emotion."