At 11:39 03/06/2007, jim wrote:
here are some letters to the editor of the L.A. TIMES that seem relevant:
Re "Chavez didn't start this media war," Opinion, May 30
People such as Bart Jones are willing to embrace tyrants as long as
these tyrants speak against the U.S. government.
SNIP
GUSTAVO CORONEL
McLean, Va. [interesting location...]
--
Gustavo is an old vzlan oil guy-- think he was on
the BoD of the old PDVSA. His most interesting
(to me) outburst from a while back:
They are bringing Lebowitz in
the eighth inning but the game
is already 9 to 1
By Gustavo Coronel
December 2, 2003
----------
Left hander relief pitcher
<http://www.sfu.ca/economics/faculty/mike_lebowitz.html>Mike
Lebowitz walked slowly to the mound of the
Caracas baseball stadium. He had been brought
at the last minute from Havana, from the Vedado
neighborhood to be exact, where he had been
living for a while, trying to understand Latin
American baseball and politics. As he walked
to the mound he felt like a beached whale. He
had no knowledge of the opponents, not even a
good feeling for his own team. He had been
reading a book by
<http://www.rebelion.org/harnecker.htm>Marta
Harnecker, "Harnecker" as he calls her, but he
knew that Chileans do not play baseball.
Furthermore the book was in Spanish. From what
little he had seen so far, his team was not
even revolutionary in the orthodox sense of the
word. At best the game was being played by two
teams of the bourgeoisie, not by a truly
revolutionary team opposing the hated
oligarchies. And there he he was, coming in to
pitch for a team which seemed to be simply
looking for a political reshuffling and not for
a true change. "What am I doing here?" he
thought. But as he thought that, it was already
too late. Manager
<file:///C:/DOCUME~1/michael/LOCALS~1/Temp//impossible_mission.htm>Gregory
Wilpert was handing him the ball.
The problem with Lebowitz is that he is not a
baseball player. He probably plays good hockey,
at least he looks like a hockey player, but
they brought him to Caracas to play a game he
did not know anything about. His knowledge of
Latin baseball was only theoretical. In the
case of Venezuelan baseball it was only based
on whatever books Marta told him and this is
not the proper way to play the game. The
pitcher he was relieving,
<http://gregpalast.com/columns.cfm?subject_id=20&subject_name=Latin%20America>Greg
Palast, had gone back to London in disgrace,
after allowing several runs by the opposition.
Manager Wilpert only had Lebowitz left in the
bullpen. The star of the team, first baseman
Chávez, has had a disatrous performance. He
committed several costly errors which allowed
the opposing team to build a comfortable
lead. Lebowitz felt this was unfair. The game
is already lost, he felt, and no matter how
good I look in relief I will not get any credit.
He decided, therefore, to do the minimum
possible effort on behalf of a team he did not
trust. For all he knew, the good guys were the
others. He would be going back to Havana, where
he would write an esay on the unusual type of baseball played in Venezuela.
The main problem with Lebowitz is that he lives
in a predominantly theoretical, academic world.
If you pitch "this way," theory says, the
batter will strike out. But whenever he tries
to put this theory into practice, he gets
clobbered. Considering his significant cultural
limitations, he did as well in Venezuela as a
Venezuelan would have done shoveling snow in British Columbia.
© 2003 Gustavo Coronel
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
http//:centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
