Upon checking BBC News this morning, I was quite amused to discover that Venezuela has created no less than its own Time Zone. Of course, it’s seen as a great political motive by Chavez for Venezuelan independence from any Western-approved system. Although some of the development he seems to have done for the Education in Venezuela has proved to be effective, his foreign affairs leave a little to be desired. Why a leader so blatantly socialist needs to maintain weapons deals with Iran- which ideologically ought to be its nemesis- serves no other purpose than to antagonise Bush Junior and his cronies in the White House.
Whilst some sources such as this forum deliberately view the new Venezuelan time zone as off-topic and humour, I can see where they’re coming from. BBC had a statement from Chavez this morning about his motives for it, in which he stated that ‘an earlier dawn will make the performance of the country improve’. To hell it will. I don’t care whether when I get up on the weekends is 2:30 PM or 3:00, it’ll still be far too late to do anything constructive save for this blog!
Of course, our favourite little Tories at the Telegraph entitled their report on this ‘Socialists left looking silly’. As incisive a title as we could expect from the Torygraph, but there we go. Chavez puts up with a lot of stick from the rightist press, even, as I learnt with a shock- the National Geographic. I stopped buying that ‘impartial glory’ of a magazine not a few months ago- one of the reasons was the obvious propagandist stance it maintained against Chavez, with the majority of those interviewed being Upper Class, cosmopolitan Venezuelans from the leafy suburbs of Caracas. Impartial? I beg to differ- anyone in their position with as many taxes levied to make the National Services in Venezuela up to scratch are bound to not be all smiles when it comes to mentioning their President. Other reasons were simply the fact that it was run like a multinational, not an independent magazine voicing concerns, and was deliberately dumbed down for many of the American public. Despite the fact that National Geographic is actually sold all over the world (I’ve seen copies in Turkish, Russian, and Thai), issues such as Global Warming seem to be deliberately ignored, and many articles follow an extremely American bent which doesn’t seem appropriate for what is an international magazine.
Personally, I prefer the Geographical a lot more. It may be a British magazine, but it’s not internationally sold (except in Borders’ magazine imports), so probably has more of an excuse if it’s quite Anglo-centric.
Anyway, Geographical Magazine rants aside, this move was Chavez’s first electoral defeat in nine years, with fifty-one percent of Venezuelans voting a resounding ‘NO!‘ to the (I believe) highly eccentric measure.
Chavez also changed Venezuela’s flag in 2006, by adding one more star and changing the direction of the galloping white horse in the coat of arms at the top left. His motive for this was [insert Bolivarian, libertarian rhetoric here]- seems more trouble changing the flag when there are doubtless so many more changes Venezuela could do with.
Maybe we should describe Chavez as 70% idealistic, 30% realistic.
Anyway. A Las Barricadas!
Mehmet XII
