Close, but no pinot grigio

My comments about Alice O'Keefe's latest New Statesman article were actually read by someone at the NS (amazing, I thought they had abandoned the forums after they began to fill with the hate and bile that random types feel compelled to leave there, especially whenever Venezuela is mentioned) and published in the print edition. Unfortunately they don't archive letters so you will just have to take my word for it.

They sent me an email asking for permission to use the comments and I agreed. When they found out I was one of their writers they replied that they couldn't use my comments (no reason given apart from it was "the rules") but then ended up using them anyway, without explaining why they had broken said rules. I'm guessing that they had had a disappointing mailbag that week and got desperate for copy. I'm just disappointed I didn't win the £25 wine voucher for Letter of the week.

The lttle-discussed left vs left result of Colombia's intractible civil war

Alice O'Keefe has written an interesting piece in the New Statesman about Colombia. She argues that the FARC are strangling political debate in Colombia by de-legitimising the non-FARC aligned leftwing political movement. It's an easy card for Uribe's rightwing election machine to play, dismissing the opposition as being aligned to the cocaine rebels. The Colombian people don't want to know anything about leftwing politics as long as they have these corrupt hostage-taking drug peddlers running their rural areas by force.

The NS have asked for permission to use my forum comments in the print version of the magazine. It's nice to see them paying attention to the stuff that people write there. I'll put the edited version of my comments up here once they are published.

Heating up...

The debate is getting interesting following the publication of the New Statesman article. It hasn't stooped to name-calling (yet!) which is good, as people are engaging with some interesting issues. Check it out here.