The Devil's Excrement

Today rather than a march it was a concentration with a mass. As usual it was huge, I guess size is no longer relevant. People were asked to bring their icons of virgins to the concentration. Parishes brough their statues from the churches nearby and even the Virgen of Coromoto, patron saint of Venezuela was brought from Guanare where the church in her honor was built. Guanare is a few hundred kilomteres from Caracas. It was definitely very emotional, clearly there is a lot of religious fervor in this country where 90% of the people are Catholic. It was very emotional, I saw people with tears in their eyes during the whole mass and it was indeed moving when the priest asked everyone to hug all the people surrounding them as if they were family. I was definitely moved… Below left, the altar built in the middle of the highway, right the Virgin of Coromoto brought all the way from Guanare.

Inside in the Pictures section lots of photographs from the march, the icons, the people and the sights.

Ernesto Leon, whom I don’t know, but apparently lives in Houston, sent my a note about his site with a collection of old pictures of Venezuela, which is very interesting, at least for us Venezuelans. The filthy, polluted Guaire river that two men dared canoe last Saturday, is seeing above on the left in a 1918 postcard that says on the upper right corner in English: “Greetings from Caracas”. The one on the right is the Catia lagoon in 1924. Catia is today the “West” of Caracas and I think it would be hard to find where the lagoon used to be. There are other pictures of the Presidential palace, the Legislative palace, the Guaire River, Country Club and many others. Very nice and very interesting. Thanks to Mr. Leon both for sending it and for doing it!

Today was “Youth day in Venezuela”. there was a large march in Caracas with a rock concert. Most universities sent huge delegations to protest their treatment. Meanwhile a small crowd saw Hugo Chavez celebrate youth day saying “Blood that does not overflow is not blood”. Whatever he meant with it…(Picture from UR)

Orlando Urdaneta is a TV announcer who nightly tells us about “tomorrow’s headlines” where he takes shots at Chavez’ revolutions and shows clips of things that Chavez has said and then finds another where he has contradicted himself. I posted one of these where he says that if a million people take to the streets he would resign. Well, Mr. Urdaneta has now taped this clip in Spanish, English and French calling it : The Futile Revolution. The images may be better than the text, they include the infamous and disgusting belch by General Acosta Carles…..enjoy.

(Thanks to Guadalupe for sending it in)

While the Government tries to dismiss accidents at the El Palito refinery as “normal” when starting up a refinery, there is nothing normal about this pictures of a fire on February 8th. taken by a fired PDVSA worker from the outside of the refinery. The truth is the refinery, which was working when PDVSA workers were forced to hand it over, has been shutdown for six weeks now. During this time there have been two major fires. (Picture from Gente del Petroleo)

31 years working for my country, family and PDVSA, in four you have destroyed everything, I will not allow it

This and more good pictures inside, sent by Oscar

Two guys decided to canoe the Guaire river, that cuts accross Caracas, yesterday during the march. The Guaire is absolutely filthy and polluted and the symbolism was that they were traversing “The Sea of Happiness” of Chavez’ revolution. Hugo Chavez once said that Venezuelans would one day cruise through the Sea of Happiness of the Cuban people, well, we are getting there……

(Picture sent in by Maruja)

Venezuelan Flag Kite                          My wife, fired from PDVSA proudly wears her ID card

A special marcher                                   What can I say….

The flag all over her                                  Gral. Gonzales Gonzales, one of the dissident military

Nice pic, no?                                                           Nice Body, no?

Well preserved momma   with kids                                Oil well

Religious symbols reportedly scare Chavez                  Two more…..

not one more death                              From Chavez’ home state: we are driving him crazy

You are kicked out                                   PDVSA will not surrender

                                                                Looking  for opposition boyfriend preferably ex-PDVSA

My march T-shirt                                        Keep Fighting