Venezuelan Blogger exposure

I am quite pleased to list a few achievements that Venezuelan bloggers have reached lately. Perhaps courtesy of Chavez electoral treachery, but at least such crass manipulations by chavismo are bringing attention to what is going in Venezuela and so far the verdict is not very favorable to chavismo. Or why else would the CNE be paying full adds in Venezuelan papers to illustrate only the "good" part of the OAS report? A bad part? Nahhh! All peaches and cream in Venezuela!

It is the awards season

Wizbang is at it again with its best of blogs contest. This blogger won a hard fought duel against Babalu last year where Val even offered to shave his legs if he were to win the election. Since then he has become quite a force in the anti Castro movement and has added many writers to his roster, got paper interviews, etc... He is probably going to win as he is has become the darling of the enlightened right. Not to mention been banned in Cuba, the highest honor one blogger can get!

I would have probably endorsed him as a worthy adversary and a witty writer but there are two Venezuelan bloggers nominated this year and my heart must go to them; an action made easy since both have a distinguished blogging career, showing all of us, including me, how it is done. Thus Miguel and Alek are running and I am urging you to vote for your favorite to make sure that at least one of them makes it to second position. And who knows, maybe a stunning upset since I doubt very many want to see Val's shaven legs. Please go there every day as you can vote once a day, make it a book mark for this week as not only we vote for a South American blog, but we also need to score a few votes against the other categories who will get thousand of votes! This endorsement does not detract from the other worthy blogs in South America, and this year the list is much more open on the South than last year. I urge you to visit all the blogs listed in the contest page, but do vote for your favorite Venezuelan blogger. And no, I am not going to say for which want I will be voting.

There is a sour note. When consulted by Wizbang I suggested that no past winners should run again in order to make room for new blogs. Well, this seems to have been interpreted as me not wanting to run again (true) but in the other categories we are seeing past winners happily running again. I think it is a mistake and of course I am very disappointed. I hope that next year this will not happen again. I also allow myself to write an anti endorsement recommending NOT to vote for past winners even if they are your favorite. They had their moment under the sun and this is not a permanent contest.

Meanwhile I will enjoy my little award badge as when the new winner is announced I will have to move it to a less prominent position in the page.

[PS: I was wrong, I must have gotten early information. When the final polling form came up, most past winners were not running in their same categories. My apologies for the above comment, which stays up as I never withdraw what I post. Crow eating is crow eating, though it would have been nice that all past winners withdrew.]

Bloggers on the air

Well, the Venezuelan electoral fiasco has generated a flurry of radio programs where it seems that now consistent bloggers are invited to talk. The media is catching on!

First there was Alek in a one hour show that he saved here. One hour long. Need some anti sycophancy pills.

The yours truly was asked by the BBC Radio Five Live for a short 5 minutes interview, all through Skype, the way of the future it seems. The outline names me as Ducanard, but I find this funny since I explained to the host that the duq was pronounced like the bird, duck. Hence the probable confusion. The interview is on the first quarter of the program, about 4 minutes into the show.

And then comes tonight discussion where I shared with Miguel Octavio a one hour conversation with Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez and Political Science prof Daniel Hellinger from Webster University and also another person but I do not know who it was as I lost communication for a few minutes. At any rate, Hellinger introduced the Venezuelan situation on a rather pro Chavez way but OK. Then Alvarez had the show for him for a few minutes which is normal as ambassadors are not supposed to debate. Let's just say that he did his job as expected which means justifying his boss acts in the new foreign policy of Venezuela. Then there was Miguel for some economical talk and I came in last for some civil rights and legal discussion. Some give and take. All well prepared and presented by the host. You can hear it all there tomorrow at one affiliate from Lowell (9 AM Eastern time Thursday, click the Open Source Link on the right, I suppose) or wait a little bit until the show comes up on line in a few days. Please, try to leave a comment to encourage them to do more Latin American stuff: many dead liens are coming such as Bolivia (and who knows what else on Venezuela).

Enjoy and make fun at us.

PS: It is already on there.