Peruvian Posts Between August and September

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santa rosa lima

In the time that has passed since my previous compilation of posts, the people of Perú Político have published three summaries of the weekly happenings, which have to do mostly with events from the government's political actors and the opposition. They are: weekly chronicle (16 to the 22 of August) [ES], weekly Chronicle (23 to the 29 of August) [ES] and weekly Chronicle (of the 30 of August to the 5 of September) [ES]. It really doesn't seem to me that so much time has passed, but so it has. Someone else who will be spending a long time, but locked up, is the member of the Superior Court of Justice that was captured after receiving a bribery, as Politikeando comments on in “Corrupt and Foul Judicial System”:

Hace unos días un vocal superior, Eduardo Palacios, fue descubierto aceptando un soborno a cambio de favores judiciales. Los medios, como es lógico, hicieron eco de la noticia y una vez más sale a la luz la podredumbre en que se encuentra el sistema judicial. Pero en realidad casos de corrupción judicial hay a diario, de todo tamaño y de todo precio, en el ámbito empresarial o civil, además a tarifas para todos los bolsillos.

Days ago a member of the supreme court, Eduardo Palaces, was discovered accepting a bribe in exchange for judicial favors. The media, as is logical, echoed the news and once again the corruption of the judicial system came to the light. But, in reality, cases of judicial corruption happen daily, of all size and all price, in the business or civil sector, in addition to pocket briberies.

This news is obviously still on the front page, because it appears that others were involved. What is also already a topic in the media is the beginning of the political campaigns for the next municipal and regional elections to be held on November 19. On this and the possibility of future acts of corruption it Comunicación y Desarrollo Peru reflects in the post Governing with friends: The advantage of collaborative power [ES]:

Sabemos que la mayoría de nuestros caudillos hace política para dejar una que otra obra coyuntural, egocéntrica y visible, para servirse y servir a “sus colaboradores” (amigos, amigotes, ayayeros y parentela). ¡Ah¡ y cuando no cumple con los “colaboradores” surge la división y la traición; pues se quebró el antiprincipio: poder para sacar provecho colaborativamente. Gobernar con los amigos es, como nos damos cuenta, otra marca descarnada de nuestra pervertida forma de hacer política, la forma colectiva que adquiere la corruptela en grupo, en clan, con el entorno.

We know that the majority our caudillos make policy to leave one or another contextual works, their ego-centricity and making themselves visible, to serve him or herself and “her collaborators” (friends, buddies). Ah and when they don't achieve with their “collaborators,” division and treason arise. The “anti-principle” gets broken: to be able to benefit collaboratively. To govern with the friends is, as we realize, another emaciated mark of our perverted form of making policy, the collective form that acquires vice in groups, in clans, with the surroundings.

Leaving the subject of politics, and perhaps with regard to the discussion stemming from the use of the Quechua in the Congress of the Republic, post Quechua and Aymara Online [in English!!] of the blog La Peña Linguística (“The Linguistic Club”) recommends some excellent sites with information, resources and debates on these two languages of the Andes. La Peña Linguística is maintained by Miguel Rodriguez Mondoñedo, a Peruvian linguist residing in the USA, just like Gustavo Faverón Patriau, who is responsible for the blog Puente Aéreo where he has recently published the post, “A book is not the news,” [ES] on the depressing state of literary criticism and book reviews in Peruvian journals:

Una revisión rápida de los espacios sobre libros en la prensa peruana nos lleva a una conclusión fácil: hay muchísimas personas capaces de escribir sobre libros, pero casi no existen los medios de comunicación que juzguen eso una tarea importante.

A fast review of the spaces about books in the Peruvian press gives us an easy conclusion: there are many people capable of writing about books, but space in the media hardly exists to judge this important task.

And as culture is something that the media does not privilege, the advances in Internet also are left to the side by our educative system altogether, and in general by most of the society, in spite of noble intentions and efforts that have been had. This is the subject covered by the post Weblogs: a revolution held up [ES] from the blog Psicosociales:

Son cerca de 50 millones (de blogs) los que hoy tienen la posibilidad de hacerse escuchar, hablar de lo que viven, sienten, sueñan, de lo que son testigos, de lo que otros callan o pretenden distorsionar cuando no pueden encubrir. Sin embargo, de esos millones todavía somos muy pocos en nuestra Sudamérica; al parecer aún estamos muy lejos del millón de bloggers, de usuarios de bitácoras. Brasil, con cerca de 45,000 blogs aproximadamente, encabeza la lista. En Perú aún no llegamos a 5 mil, y en Bolivia quizás no lleguen a los 2 mil.

They are nearly 50 million (blogs) those that today have the possibility of being heard, to speak of what they live, they feel, they dream, of how they are witnesses, of those who others try to silence or try to distort when they cannot conceal. Nevertheless, of those millions, we are still very few here in South America; apparently we are still very far from a million bloggers, of users of online journals. Brazil, with near approximately 45,000 blogs, heads the list. In Peru we haven't yet arrived at 5 thousands, and in Bolivia they might not arrive at two thousand.

Nevertheless, an example of what, with a little imagination and initiative, can begin to spread new technologies is that which is shown on the blog, Diario de un Blogfesor, of Thomas Ramirez, professor of the school Juan Pablo II from Arequipa city, where he teaches and motivates his students in the course “Education for Work.” Really no effort is small nor should be left aside, because one never knows which of the thrown seeds will plant and the less when it gives fruit. And Imagination and initiative, but poorly applied, is what is behind the post Blogs – No Oficiales by Perú: País de las Maravillas:

Un hecho que llama mi atención es el creciente fenómeno del “blog no-oficial” que, en su gran mayoría, son de autoría peruana: bloggers anónimos que toman el nombre de algún personaje o personajillo de los medios de información peruanos y elaboran un “espacio” acorde a la personalidad y estilo de su “admirado(a)”. Así, por ejemplo, surgen los blogs de Andrés Oppenheimer (no es peruano, pero su programa es televisado por un canal de cable peruano) Jaime Baily, Cecilia Valenzuela, César Hildebrandt (que cuenta con más de un blog no-oficial) Beto Ortiz (uno de los que sí está enterado de esto, lo que lo motivó a escribir una línea sobre el asunto en uno de sus artículos dominicales) entre otros.

Something that calls my attention is the growing phenomenon of the “unofficial blog” that, is mostly authored by Peruvians: anonymous bloggers that take the name of some Peruvian celebrity and elaborates a “space” according to the personality and style of his/her admired star. Thus, for example, we see blogs from Andrés Oppenheimer (he is not Peruvian, but his program is televised by a Peruvian cable channel) Jaime Baily, Cecilia Valenzuela, Caesar Hildebrandt (who has more than one unofficial blog) Beto Ortiz (one of whom found out about it, motivating him to write a line on the subject in one of its Sunday articles) among others.

And in a satirical vein, or “cachacienta” as we say around here, blogger Diego Avendaño decided to confess to us that he is not Diego, but someone else (and better) in the post Unofficial Blog [ES] in his blog Desde la Clandestinidad. Following with the trend of confessions, Mágico y misterioso Carlitos tells us he had to assassinate the she-blogger that he created in Resaca post-BlogDay [ES].

Regarding events in Lima, Polaroid de Locura says to us: Antanas Mockus in Lima… BRILLIANT! about the visit of the ex- Mayor of Bogota to our city. And Autobús informs to us into next artistic, musical activities in two posts: Urbe & Arte [ES] and Vibra [ES].

Finally, the image that begins this post corresponds to the celebrations of another anniversary of Santa Rosa de Lima, on the 30th of August, and was taken by the servant of circumstances who narrates here [ES].

Translation of original post by David Sasaki.

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