WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

This week is already consumed with important and worthy remembrance and discussion about 9/11, what it means, and how far we might still need to travel.

But I want to take just a moment to acknowledge the very first 9/11, the one that took place in Chile in 1973, when the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende was deposed by a military coup that was heavily supported, with both intelligence and finance, by the U.S. government.

In 1973, an American-fueled coup in Latin America was, in many ways, nothing new. In the 20th century alone, there had been multiple coups in Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Panama, Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil...

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Let me start by saying that, come November 2012, I will vote for Barack Obama.

Not because I’m happy with him. And not because I’m not grateful either. I’m in a constant state of dismay about him: the jobs situation, the endless wars , Guantanamo, the late and politically convenient ways he has approached immigration; the fact that he just surrendered on the environment yet again today.

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This afternoon, the Feria del Libro de Girón Books caps off the city’s book fair season; it runs through Monday. Call it the Girón Books Book Fair in English instead, it’s the biggest Spanish-language book gathering in the Midwest, with about 30,000 people expected for the dozens of readings, book signings and other events.

Among the biggies is a signing by Cuatemoc Cárdenas, the former three-time presidential candidate, who’ll be presenting his memoir, Sobre mis pasos/In my steps Friday at 2 p.m. The fair takes place at Sam’s Club parking lot in Cicero, at the corner of 26th Street and Cicero Avenue.

The emphasis his year, especially in the readings, seems to be on non-fiction, but Benjamin Anaya González, the fair's organizer, says, “I think the Latino community reads plenty of fiction but general interest topics, like politics, drug trafficking, self-help and general non-fiction has really picked up interest. Books can go deeper, document better than the news media.” This year is particularly important to the fair because, besides celebrating its 25th anniversary, the event marks a comeback.

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Busy with dealing with Libya, Gadhafi, earthquakes in New York and hurricanes in D.C., the Obama administration still managed to release its 2010 State Department report on countries that sponsor terrorism, the so-called “terrorist countries” list.

On it: Iran, Sudan, Syria and, holding the all-time spot since 1982, Cuba.

Off it: Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Now look at the report’s opening graf: “Al-Qa’ida (AQ) remained the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States in 2010. Though the AQ core in Pakistan has become weaker, it retained the capability to conduct regional and transnational attacks.

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I met Jorge Luis Borges once -- the man behind today’s birthday-celebrating Google Doodle -- when I was writing for the Chicago Sun-Times.

The assignment should have never been mine -- I was just a kid -- but he was Hispanic and I was Hispanic and I think somebody very concerned about the growing Hispanic population must have trumped book editor Henry Kisor’s good sense.

In any case, Kisor suggested only one question -- about the ongoing Falklands War -- and sent me off. Titled, "Jorge Luis Borges: A blind literary artist who paints with memory" the article ran on Sunday, May 9, 1982.

Jorge Luis Borges is a relic.

Although he has hardly a wrinkle on his face, Borges’ features have little definition. They seem to melt from his face. His mouth in particular appears to be making an effort to stay horizontal. Each corner drops mutely unless Borges pulls it up while speaking.

Small, frail, and much like a boy when excited, the Argentine peppers his conversation with anecdotes about an old romantic reality.

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Now that Moammar Gadhafi is pretty-much out of the picture in Libya, what will happen to the Al-Gadhafi International Prize for Human Rights? Known as Gadhafi’s Nobel, the award put $250,000 USD in the hands of folks sympathetic to the Libyan strongman and his ideas.

Among the winners? The Latin American socialist quartet of Evo Morales (who won twice!), Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.

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I have been in the same room with Fidel Castro only once. It was years ago, when he was still Cuba’s No. 1, and even though it was not an accident, it was still something of a surprise.

Some friends and I had managed to get tickets to a VIP reception at the Karl Marx theater in Havana celebrating the 26th of July anniversary of the disastrous Moncada attack, which is, paradoxically, the centerpiece of the Cuban Revolution’s mythology.

We had crashed the party out of simple curiosity. I’m not sure what I thought I’d see, or what I expected, but what we experienced on arrival was pretty staid: Hundreds of party loyalists -- mostly older, mostly male and mostly white -- hanging around as if at a cocktail party, chatting amiably. The curtain on the stage was still drawn, the lights up.

We didn’t know very many people, though we spotted the minister of culture up front, and a few minor bureaucrats and senior writers who’d been recent recipients of national awards and whose presence there was de rigueur.

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