Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, Dies at Age 58.

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i can not see the significance of the fact that he was 58 when he died, but i do not know much about south american politics.

Nowadays many people live into their 70's. Also Chavez may have cut his life short by going to Cuba for treatment of his disease. That was a political statement on his part. He wanted to put his life in the hands of bloody red commies. Well he did and he may have paid a price for his choice.

ruveyn

so the number 58 is not very important in that headline? if it was 57 or 59, would the headline have been equally sensational?

i always wonder why, when i read reports of people's deaths, that the first reported fact is their age and the second reported fact is their gender and the 3rd most important fact is the location and the 5th most important fact is whether they were a parent.

i forget what the 4th most important fact is, but it is always the same. the statistical data associated with the victim is secondary to my interest in the circumstances surrounding their death.

i also do not understand why they use the present tense "dies" which is the pluralization of an instantaneous singular event rather than "died". one can not die more than once and so the word "dies" is not able to be understood correctly by me.

i spend much time trying to reconcile the linguistic validity of reports i hear, and that is at the expense of me incorporating what the news is actually about.

today i heard this series of words in a news report that prevented me from understanding the news item.

"there has been a catastrophic end to a light plane crash on the central coast".

that did not compute because the "crash" was a "catastrophic end to a flight" and not a "catastrophic end to a crash" which itself was the catastrophe. i can not explain it well but the more i delve into the meaning of words and phrases, the more confused i become.

In regard to the treatment of the poor - just the opposite. Hitler in fact broke Germany's unions, let the country's industrial barons get away with murder (literally, when you consider how they were allowed to work concentration inmates to death), and wages for German workers had actually dropped to lower levels than during the Weimar Republic. For all his talk of caring for the German people, Hitler in practice demonstrated little evidence of it. Say what you will of Chavez, he actually did care about his country's poor.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

He would call him "Mr. Danger"... "Mr. Danger, you are a donkey!"

Oh, what makes you think he had substandard treatment in Cuba? Cuba's health system is world renowned.

You mean the oil revenue?

Imagine the 43% export of oil that was never charged, now get charged. Their chummy buddies, will probable feel a bit screwed over.

Hugo Chavez was a despot - he overthrew the previous government, which the citizens elected into office, thus proving that he had no respect for decisions made by "common" people.

I shall not cheer for his death; neither shall I weep.

Good riddance. Chavez didn't achieve anything in Venezuela--the oil bubble did (and Hugo Chavez is not the one to thank for this).

Chavez had several journalists illegally executed, he removed what was left of the freedom of speech and was a grade A asskisser for Gaddafi, al-Assad, Castro, Ahmadinejad, Lukashenko and Mugabe. Too bad he died before the Venezuelan people knew.

Carlos Andres Perez, who broke all his promises overnight and gunned down hundreds who protested that in February 1989?

Some memorable quotes.

Comrades, regrettably, for now the goals we set were not achieved.

Marisabel, tonight I will give you what is yours.

Cuba is the sea of happiness. That's where Venezuela is going.

ALCA, ALCA... al carajo [Go to hell]!

You are a donkey, Mr Danger.

Yesterday, the devil was here. Right here, and it still smells of sulfur.

Don't mess with me, Condoleezza. Don't mess with me, girl.

Go to hell, sh***y Yankees!

I want to be your friend.

We will live and will win!

You have a pig's tail, a pig's ears, and you snort like a pig. You are a pig.

Give me your crown of thorns, Christ, give it to me, so that I bleed; Give me your cross, 100 crosses, and I will carry them for you. But give me life, because I still have things to do for my people and my country. Don't take me yet.

Choose Maduro as president of the republic. I am asking you this from all my heart.

We have arrived again to the Venezuelan motherland... Thank you, God. Thank you, my beloved people... I am holding on to Jesus Christ and trust my doctors and nurses... As always, see you in victory. We will live and we will win.

But had it not been for Chavez, who would have been the beneficiary of that bubble? Venezuela is second only to Canada in the Western Hemisphere on it's gini coefficient. Whatever else Chavez has done, he has narrowed the gap between rich and poor, a result that would not have resulted from increased petroleum revenues without government intervention. In almost every social indicator, Venezuela is a more prosperous, safer, better educated and healthier place now than when he took power. But he accomplished this through demagoguery, nationalization of industry, rigid control of the press, and mandatory food production and price controls.

Unlike the scenes in Pyongyang, however, I believe that the grief exhibited by many Venezuelans will be genuine.

They're both dead; that's all that matters now.

Well I am sad that he went in the manner that he did -- no one deserves to die of cancer. But it's probably best for the long term that he went. Chavez divided Venezuelan society, contributed to a permanent underclass, and created a sclerotic economy. And yes, the economy was his creation, for oil prices were at record highs for much of his tenure. Again, while it pains me to see Chavez died of cancer, Venezuela will be better off in the long term.

What worries me is the short term. Venezuela is a very divided society, and no one has the charisma or energy that Chavez did, at least no one obvious.

so you woulda preferred the overlords let the poor starve? starving peasants do drastic things en masse, as history has shown. if you wealthy types think you can definitively shield yourself against the teeming poor you look down your noses at, you are mistaken.