Venezuelan bloggers hit the airwaves
Dan sent this link to Open Source, which aired two days ago. The show's host is nearly orgasmic in his praise of the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelans. His guest Daniel Hellinger, professor of political science at a college in Missouri, had certainly memorized and rehearsed the pro-Chávezspeak we've become so familiar with in the past couple of years. However, if you can sit long enough past the first several minutes, you will get to hear two Venezuelan bloggers, Daniel Duquenal of Venezuelan News and Views and Miguel Octavio of The Devil's Excrement. Daniel raised the very important point that Chávez so far has allowed a certain freedom of the press because the courts and the legislative branch are totally under his control, so the kind of reporting that might otherwise bring about investigations, lawsuits, or any kind of negative repercussions to the government, is totally uneffective.

Daniel Duquenal was also interviewed by the BBC's Up All Night show.

Aleksander Boyd was also on the radio, in a panel moderated by Nadim Mahjoub. Aleksander describes his experience in his article The power of truth.

The gig started with Venezuelan drums, songs from Ali Primera,

which I consider a true mark of sandalista condescention to thirld-worldlers, so I wasn't surprised by Aleksander's description of the other panel members are justly described as a "sycophant's den".

Andres Oppenheimer's article points out that Oppenheimer: Both sides lost in Venezuela congressional elections. At the end of the article Oppenheimer quotes

Reuters news agency special correspondent Bernd Debusmann reported recently that, according to Venezuela's information ministry, Chavez averages 40 hours a week making live TV broadcasts.

Hugo spends the rest of his time thwarting CIA-orchestrated plots to kill him, and annoying Kofi.

No wonder the guy needs to go awol every so often.

(technorati tags Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, Revolutions, Cubazuela)