A piece in Buenos Aires’ leading newspaper today, printed before anyone knew Nestor Kirchner had died, argues that corruption would undo the career of the once and (wanted-to-be) future Argentine president. De mortuis nil nisi bonum (never speak ill of the dead), a Roman aphorism in which I have never believed, now has an entirely new meaning, one that may occur to Nestor’s widow, sitting President Cristina Kirchner.
Click here for the whole news analysis (it’s in Spanish).
Ingrid Betancourt’s hold on the French imagination is astonishing. The Colombian former presidential candidate, kidnapped in 2002, the subject of a haunting song by Cecilem (no relation) and a spectacular rescue in 2006, is now satirized and reviled by her fellow former captives. She repays the favor in Even Silence Ends. We care because?
Read the story here.
No, this is not a “color” story about about a cemetery employee. A “digger” is a soldier from Australia or New Zealand. This one was killed in Afghanistan in an explosion, while training the local army. His wife was pregnant.
In the photo accompanying the story, Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney appears dressed up as a celebrity (white tie on black shirt), next to his infant daughter and young wife, in a white dress with black straps (almost a reverse) also looking glamorous. They are standing in the driveway, coming from or going to a social occasion.
Hannah Arendt might have called the scene “the banality of happiness.” Fragile, then gone.
cecilieaux