evaluating Chavez' record in Venezuela . . .

One of my pecuniary vices is my subscription to the New Yorker . . . I do enjoy the covers, reviews, cartoons and humor, but it is often the articles titled "Letter From . . . " that I enjoy . . . of if not a "letter from somewhere or other" then just the articles talking about a certain place or certain culture, usually with ample background and most usually any political or cultural bias of the author is not that apparent . . . the current edition has a piece about Venezuela and Chavez "the Slumlord" . . . I found its author's biases very apparent . . . and am glad this morning to have stumbled across a review of the article by Jim Naureckas on Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting that puts the article in perspective and besides, it agrees with my own assessment to a very large extent . . .

Of course, the idea that the Chavez-hating architect represents the majority opinion in Venezuela more than the Chavista community leader is dubious. As Anderson admits toward the end of the article, Chavez has won "one election after another." But that just makes Venezuelans "the victims of their affection for a charismatic man, whom they allowed to become the central character on the Venezuelan stage, at the expense of everything else."

. . .

Anderson's acknowledgment of this could hardly be more grudging: "The poorest Venezuelans are marginally better off these days," he writes. It seems like for the New Yorker, rising standards of living for the poor don't matter much when weighed against the fact that rich people lost some property they weren't using.