Categories
Society

A Poet’s Darkest Verse: Malva Marina, The Daughter Pablo Neruda Abandoned

The Nobel Prize-winning poet was a renowned defender of humanitarian causes through much of the 20th century. Yet he had no time or interest for Malva Marina, his only child, who was born with hydrocephalus. Neruda’s mistreatment of his daughter is one more part of his biography that has feminist activists denouncing him after revelations of sexual assault and other predatory behavior.

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Green Society

Upcycling In Argentina: Latin Textures Lift A Fashion Trend For The Ages

Several Argentine fashion designers are among the pioneers of upcycling, turning used textiles from the home into unusual clothes with a focus on cultural regeneration and respect for the environment.

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Society

Grandparent Babysitting Burnout Is A Real Thing

Some call it “Grandparent Slave” syndrome, where grandma (and sometimes grandpa) are increasingly forced into caregiving duties that leave them exhausted and can even affect their health.

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas special series Trump And The World

War, Peace And A Plea For The Diplomacy Of Realism

The post-liberal world needs an added dose of cautious and realistic diplomacy, and the United States remains its natural promoter. Yet there is little evidence, for now, that the Trump administration has an interest in diplomacy to keep the collective peace.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

How Trump’s Revival Of The Monroe Doctrine Looks From Latin America

In the past, the Monroe Doctrine has pushed the United States to meddle in hemispheric affairs to strangle Soviet and communist subversion. Will incoming President Donald Trump revive this 19th-century U.S. foreign policy position to keep China out? And what would that mean for other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Categories
Future

Who Owns Memes? From “Hide The Pain Harold” To “Success Kid” — It’s A Copyright Jungle

A look into how copyright laws may or may not be applicable to memes, which normally use an existing image without any consent. The question is a reminder of how the Internet has changed the basics of communication and commerce.

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Food / Travel Ideas Society

Dieting Is Hard — Archeologists Can Help Explain Why

Banning flour and carbs from our diet is unfair considering our history with the grains that helped our ancestors survive. The key is to reduce refined flours — and our guilt.

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Future Ideas Society

Digital Overload: Screens Promise Connectivity, Deliver Atomization

We are drowning in digital hyper-production, or the vast torrent of pictures and data coming out of our screens. There is no room for mystery or creativity. The art of delay, essential for contemplative thought, is definitively lost in the culture of digital immediacy. So what can we do about this?

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Economy Ideas

Latin America v. Asia: One Rose Out Of Poverty, The Other Just Keeps Talking

While Latin America’s leftist leaders and even the Pope keep urging the West to give generously to the developing world to end poverty and curb migration, decades ago Asian states just “put on their big boy pants” to work their way to immense prosperity.

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Economy Geopolitics

A Year Into Milei’s Libertarian Experiment, Argentina Is Alive — And Kicking

Observers thought the libertarian maverick could never transform the Argentine state’s entrenched welfare system without unleashing social chaos, but one-year later and disaster has yet to strike amidst a modest uptick in economic indices.

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Society

The Argentine “Quadrouple” Redefining Polyamory And Open Relationships

In a polyamorous relationship for almost 20 years, with another man and woman, Juan Pablo D’Orto and Cecilia Figlioli have pioneered research into the socio-cultural origins of our notions of love and relationships. They explain that by letting go of our rules and prejudices, we could live — and love — another way.

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Geopolitics

Ortega’s Power Grab: Why Trump Is A Glimmer Of Hope For Nicaragua’s Opposition

As Nicaragua’s weakened opponents expend themselves in jail or exile or in rivalries, communist strongman Daniel Ortega has amended the constitution yet again, to lock himself and his family into perpetual power. Could Donald Trump’s reelection become a miraculous glitch in his plans?

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas

Worms And Blackouts: Cuba’s Dark Reality Of Missed Opportunities

Cuba’s current energy crisis is a dramatic illustration, symbolic and otherwise, of the overall downfall of a country that could have followed the successful models of its Asian cousins. Faced with a socioeconomic dead-end, record numbers of Cubans are fleeing the country.

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Society

Pink Cocaine, How The Designer Drug Cocktail Became A Favorite Of Argentina’s Elite

Former One Direction member Liam Payne, who died last after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, reportedly had “pink cocaine” in his system. Also known as “Tuci,” this “designer drug” has been spreading in Latin America and globally over the past decade.

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Geopolitics

How Smaller Nations Can Profit From Superpowers Fighting Over Supremacy

It’s called Active Non-Alignment. The end of a bipolar world and of Western supremacy has created a more fluid, and threatening, geopolitical map. For smaller powers, especially in Latin America, this is the time to “get the best deal” for themselves with the superpowers.

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Ideas Society

Censorship 2.0: Why The Fight For Free Speech Is Never Over

Advances in the fight against direct and indirect censorship have forced the enemies of freedom of expression to seek other, more subtle methods to distort and weaken public debate.

Categories
Green Society

Inside The Gabriel García Márquez Library, A New Barcelona Architectural Icon

The prize-winning García Márquez library in Barcelona has joined the ranks of the Catalan city’s designer buildings, showing with its runaway popularity the enduring appeal of civilizing, communal spaces.

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Economy Geopolitics

Mexican Judicial Reform: Boost To Democracy Or Gift To Drug Cartels?

Mexico’s ruling party has reformed the constitution, forcing judges to run for office, supposedly to make them accountable to the people. But given the country’s history and singular problem with crime, it may turn them instead into ordinary politicians vulnerable to bribery and mob terrorism.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Can Democracy Survive This Fragile Moment? A View From Latin America

Critics are right to denounce crooked politicians or elected leaders for undermining the democratic system of checks and balances. But defending those checks and balances is not the key to restoring democracy — because people’s pervasive distrust and discontent with politics is a much deeper problem to address.

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Geopolitics

How Can Maduro Get Away With It? Look At What Lula And Pope Francis Refuse To Say

The Left’s reluctance to denounce President Maduro’s fraudulent reelection in Venezuela may seem tactical or expedient to itself, but is nothing short of stabbing the very principle of democracy at a challenging juncture in modern history.

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Food / Travel Society

Salt Shakers, Knives, Toilet Seats: What And Why We Steal From Restaurants

Restaurateurs in Buenos Aires are baffled at the phenomenon of paying customers stealing cutlery or fixtures after paying for a meal. While many don’t bother to make it police matter, some admit they relish humiliating a culprit if caught.

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Geopolitics Ideas

From The U.S. To Brazil And Venezuela, The Military As Final Arbiter Of Democracy

The armed forces have been dragged into political and electoral spats across the Americas, from the United States to Brazil to Venezuela. Is this another sign of liberal democracy’s decline in the West?

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Ideas Society

The Problem With Our Modern Quest For A Pain-Free Existence

We live in a political, social, economic and fundamentally cultural environment that viscerally rejects all pain and suffering as irrelevant. For the modern individual, it is not so much a case of being free to do this or that, as to be free from whatever limits us.

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Ideas Society

The Words “Failure” And “Success” Are Slowly Destroying Modern Life

Modern times and capitalism have given the words failure and success an emotive charge and excessively personal connotations, turning mechanical, humdrum notions into engines of angst.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Remember When Venezuela Was A Haven Of Freedom And Democracy?

Today, Venezuela is barely recognizable as the prosperous and liberal state of the late 20th century that gave refuge to regional dissidents, thanks to the resolve of the late Carlos Andrés Pérez — the “roguish” president whose commitment to democracy has put his socialist successors to shame.

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Ideas Society

Friendship, The Secret To Senior Happiness

Maria Branyas Morera, the world’s oldest person who has just passed away at age 117, once talked about the importance of socializing in old age. Even if the aging and elderly tend to wind up confined to family circles, studies have shown the often untapped benefits of friendship in our later years.

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas Society

How Taxing The Super-Rich Can Calm Global Tensions

The biggest firms and richest people in the world have the money states need to invest in services that can improve the lives of billions of people. That could help stop a collective slide into acute social and political tensions.

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Economy Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Trump’s Plans To Undo The Western Alliance Is A Death Sentence For American Power

The West will be weakened should the United States turn its back on its alliances, but does the isolationist Donald Trump understand what that could mean for U.S. strength and security?

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Geopolitics

Maduro Claims Victory — This Is How Venezuelan Democracy Died

Venezuela’s Bolivarian regime has been trampling on democracy, by degree, for 25 years while deftly managing international opinion to avoid too much backlash. Now, with Maduro defying fair elections, there may be no turning back.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Can An Autocrat Ever Lose?  Venezuela Election Tests The Limits Of Democracy

What we are witnessing is the struggle of a people against their oppressors. This electoral process, although flawed, could become a milestone for Venezuelans to regain their freedom — and it is one that should concern everyone who believes in democracy.

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Ideas Society

How Grown Children Of Narcissist Parents Can Break Free, Finally

Narcissistic and other deeply self-involved parents can turn their children into diffident, dysfunctional adults. But it’s never too late to help yourself and decide to step away from their toxic discourse and manipulative games.

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Economy Geopolitics

Why Trade With China Weakens Mercosur — And How South Americans Only Make It Worse

Asia and above all China, have shown how the size of a market can drive state relations, and nowhere is this truer than in the Mercosur bloc’s increasing dependence on Asian exports. But regional integration in South America is stalling, as Argentina and Brazil are in another nasty spat.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Post-Shooting, Trump Appears Closer Than Ever To Returning To The Presidency

It is far too soon to tell whether Donald Trump’s attempted murder will have a decisive impact on the results of the U.S. presidential elections, but his backers will certainly milk the incident for all it’s worth.

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas

Javier Milei And The Destructive Art Of Anti-Diplomacy

Argentina’s rabidly neo-liberal president, Javier Milei, is downsizing the state at home and curbing diplomacy to the bare minimum of promoting the free market, lambasting communism, and nurturing ties with just two, cherished states, Israel and the United States.

Categories
Society Women Worldwide

Cosmeticorexia: The Risky Trend Of Teens Using Anti-Aging Skin Products

Influenced by social media, more and more teenagers in Argentina, and elsewhere, are using anti-aging products. Dermatologists warn that this trend is not only unnecessary but can also be harmful for their young skin.

Categories
Society

Ice Ice Baby: When Things Get Steamy Between Antarctic Researchers

Argentina’s Antarctic bases are staffed by isolated and often young scientists confined in close quarters.

Categories
Geopolitics

Will Evo Morales Use Bolivia’s Failed Coup As A Path Back To Power?

Bolivian President Luis Arce easily survived Wednesday’s bungled coup, which may suggest the populist Left is more resilient than it used to be. But it may also be the foreshadowing of the reigniting of an internal war with fellow Socialist and former President Evo Morales as unrest spreads around the country.

Categories
Society

Dear Love Letter, Where Have You Gone?

Whatever happened to the love letter? Many are sitting in literary archives, while today’s youth prefers WhatsApps and emojis.

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Geopolitics Ideas Society

What Happens When Violence Takes Over The Culture

Not for the first time in history, simplistic dualism is taking hold of people’s minds, often rooted in religious beliefs. Is this a prelude to even more violent intolerance and — in the worst scenario — another big war? asks Argentine poet and writer Miguel Espejo.

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Geopolitics

Milei’s Folly: Argentina Will Pay A Real Price For Bad-Boy Diplomacy

Argentina’s erratic right-wing president Javier Milei, seems to emulate Trump and Bolsonaro. But he has taken his bad diplomacy to a new level after last week’s spat with Spain’s Socialist party prime minister Pedro Sánchez.

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