The Whiskey Chronicles (in Buenos Aires)

The Whiskey Chronicles (in Buenos Aires)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

It's Official!



Mom took the oath of office yesterday and is officially a U.S. citizen now. She was one of a handful of Brazilians sworn-in by a state judge originally from Guyana. All told, there were about 300 people from 65 countries at the ceremony. Mom was interviewed by our local paper, Florida Today, but her quotes weren't used. You can read the story here.

We'll post a few more photos in the coming days. And thanks to everyone who emailed or called with their support. It's meant a lot.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Don't Call It a Rat



The fossil remains of a 2,000-pound rodent -- imagine something bigger than a cow -- were identified by a couple of underpaid scientists across the river in Uruguay last week. The skull of the 2-million year old creature, which looks more like a capybara than a rat to me, was sitting in Uruguay's natural history museum for 10 years before anyone had the time and money to look into it. Click the blog title for a link to the story.

One of the scientists told me the skull was found by an amateur paleontologist strolling a beach near Colonia, the old city that is just a 45-minute ferry ride from Buenos Aires. The image above shows the rodent's head compared to its only living relative, the endangered pacarana. Who knows what else is sitting in the museum's basement.

Dana update from Jerusalem coming soon! Maybe today.

Friday, January 11, 2008

What's In Your Luggage?



Alejandro Antonini flew from Caracas to Buenos Aires on a private jet paid for by Argentina's state energy company, arriving at 2:45am with $800,000 of undeclared cash in his suitcase. When the "bomba" above caught him with the cash, he decided to abandon it rather than pay half in fines. Why he was there, where the cash was from, and who it was going to were the subject of a long investigation by all of us in the Buenos Aires bureau and a handful of colleagues in the U.S. The link to our much-longer-than-normal story is attached to the title.