READERS WRITE
UNDRESSED
Carrying my 90 years with me, I go to my office downtown every workday, dressed in the same way I used to before the pandemic struck. And, with incredible frequency, someone rather ridiculously praises me for my elegance! This has given me a lot of food for thought, lately. It is a fact that in general, people – in particular men – leave their homes dressed in an appalling manner, more distant than ever from the elegant way they looked decades ago, in our country. One gets the impression that, after having been locked down for so long in 2020/2021, they come out on the street clothed as if they were at home, simply adding something on top for warmth. Not to speak, in the case of the masculine gender, about the lost habit of shaving every morning.
Why has this come about? Is it the result of post-pandemic depression, the low spirits due to the sad condition of the society we are living in, or both? Whatever be, the result is a loss of personal self-respect which only serves to increase the individual’s despondency, with its negative influence of his or her surroundings and, consequently, on society in general.
Will these lines be of much use? Not on any large scale. But the objective is, simply, to at least get the message through to those who read them, for the sake of the realisation that, if we want to effectively contribute to the reconstruction of our country, we inevitably need to face the biting wind and cheer up first, so as to then be able to charge ahead, because: “It’s the Republic, dammit”!
Harry Ingham, City
TIT FOR TAT
President Alberto Fernández and Vicepresident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner look very much like one of those dysfunctional couples where the husband is henpecked by a domineering wife. So much has she demeaned him that he seems to have suddenly decided to strike back.
It is public knowledge that Cristina and members of her entourage speaking on her behalf have systematically been viciously hostile, calling the president the most humiliating of names and, though he seems to have been calm and passive, the truth of the matter is that it appears his repressed anger has been building up so much that he now cannot but unleash it.
“Have I ever requested a dime to help you win a contract in public works?” he asked an audience of key business heads at IDEA, the Spanish acronym for Institute of Business Development in Argentina. The rhetorical question rings a bell with most Argentines as it has to do with the corruption that Cristina has been charged with and for which she is standing trial.
Alberto Fernandez is as changeable as the weather but what if he has decided to get even with Cristina very much like what happens in the War of The Roses? In the film the revengeful wife makes sure that her husband’s rabbit ends up in boiling water. If I were Alberto, I would keep an eye on Dylan, his pet, lest he (the furry friend) suffer the same fate.
Adrian Insaubralde, Santa Fe
WHAT FOR?
Believe it or not, Alberto Fernández keeps blaming Mauricio Macri for the utter failure of his administration (“¡Ah, pero Macri…!”). Furthermore, during the October 17 “Loyalty Day” celebrations, he quoted from Macri’s new book, Para qué, as if he were his press agent or manager.
I dare say the president’s clumsy tactics could backfire. As for me, I felt the urge to rush to the nearest bookshop and buy it. Fernández keeps looking in the rear-view mirror, instead of looking ahead. He’s stuck in the past, unable to move forward. We are all stuck in the past, due to decades of Peronism/kirchnerism. Since we are at it, let me quote James Neilson’s definition of the latter: “Kirchnerism, a variant of Peronism whose exponents seek to recreate the climate prevailing in the 1970s, when belligerent young people persuaded themselves that Juan Domingo Perón, who was comfortably domiciled in Francisco Franco’s Madrid, was really a leftwing revolutionary.”
We are missing the boat once again, while the Titanic is sinking and the band keeps playing. Sigh …
Irene Bianchi, Ringuelet, La Plata
BATTLE OF THE BULGE: PART 217
Dear Sirs,
The odd tricephalous Kirchnerista/peronista (mis)government we are currently enduring saw fit to celebrate ‘Loyalty Day’ last Monday at three different locations and omitted to invite President Alberto to any of them. Droll!
Inflation appears to be easing somewhat, as the last three monthly registers give evidence (7.4 percent last July, 7 percent last August and 6.2 percent last September), but this is poor consolation for the great majority of wage and salary earners, not to mention the poor old pensioners, whose income adjustments are always moving in arrears, in real terms, when the aggregate price curve is evolving at this spanking rate of knots. No doubt the word ADJUSTMENT is the keynote here.
The present (mis) government is cunningly trimming the real incomes of the private sector by about 20 percent whilst doing likewise by about 10 percent with the incomes of the bloated public sector, of which they form part. All this to play ball with the IMF, which is bank-rolling the whole affair, and keeping fingers crossed. Clever.
David Parsons, via email