"Uribe y Fox el pupu de Bush viva Chavez!"

That's fresh graffiti from this morning along my route to work, coinciding with the Argentine president's visit to discuss with Chavez an alternate trade bloc to Bush's proposed "Free Trade of the Americas," which is backed by the Colombian and Mexican presidents.

Man, Caracas gangs sure are up-to-date on their current events! I didn't even fucking put it together until I got in and read the AP's latest briefing.

Both of you might remember how I keep getting sent out on the street to do interviews for different stories.

Well, here's one of those stories. You'll both notice that it's really well written - better than most of the stuff I post here.

(You'll also notice it's not my byline.)

But the citizen interviews are all me, and they're just a tiny fraction of the quotes I got, from various shades of the political spectrum - I really wish more of them made it in.

It's funny...well not "ha-ha" funny, but you wander down the crappiest streets in Caracas, talk to these hard-luck street vendors, and I swear they have so much more to say than Joe Citizen back in the U.S. They seem so much more politically plugged-in to what's going on in Venezuela and the world, on average. And yet they're selling stuffed penquins and pirated Playstation games on a street corner that hasn't been cleaned since the Carter administration.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you are all worthless imperialist pigs and I hate you. That's really what it comes down to.

*sigh*