Here's my story from today, a second-dayer on the expulsion of the "New Tribes Mission" missionaries from Venezuela. It was the top story on the Yahoo Latin America page for awhile, until fucking Brazil had to come along and get its beef exports banned by Argentina and Chile. Bastards.

(Kris and Paolo, I am looking in your general directions)

Yesterday, our bureau chief flew to the southern plains in Venezuela, to this remote village where Chavez was granting land titles to the "Apure" tribe and others. It's also no coincidence this is going down on Columbus Day. You might be stunned to learn Chavez is not a big Columbus fan.

And you also might have heard, but there's this big, divisive land ownership controversy down here. The government's coming down hard on land owners - making them prove ownership, that the land's not just sitting there idle, etc.

So we're watching the land title ceremony on TV in the newsroom - it drags on for several hours...and then all of a sudden Chavez pulls a Chavez - he just goes off railing on these missionaries and the CIA and colonialism and how they're gone and it's a done deal.

...Did he just say that?

And the story changes completely - suddenly the land titles are an afterthought. It's like that scene in Animal House - you know, where the kid's on his bed reading Playboy and all of a sudden the float-girl flies through the window and lands in his lap and he looks up and yells "thank you God!"?

That's why I'm here, I guess. There are just too many of those Chavez "thank you God!" moments to pass up. Hopefully I bag a few more float-girls before I leave this place. It's such a bizarre story, I love it...