It is always far easier to write about something I don’t like. I like being snide. I am particularly good at being nasty or as I like to think of it, dry, very dry. I don’t even mind a little lie if it gets me to the punch line.
So this post will be, well difficult, as we really liked Buenos Aires. I would love to live there for a year or two. It would take me that long to understand their accent. It took me almost a day to figure out that they were speaking Spanish.
We stayed in a modern apartment in the Palermo district overlooking a beautiful park. It is in a middle to upper-middle class area, filled with parks, good museums, the national library, good restaurants, and wide, tree-lined boulevards. Buenos Aires is very European, both in its charm, style and the ethnic backgrounds.
But the most important aspect is what it lacked. There were no security guards, no police with machine guns on the corners, no piles of trash, no constant reminders of grinding poverty waiting to explode, no old women on the street begging for the money to fill prescriptions, no hand-grenades rolled into crowds. (Still, I miss Mexico.)
Buenos Aires is one of the centers of culture, art and literature in Latin America and indeed the world. It may not be as big as Mexico City and São Paulo, but there are multitudes of theaters, books stores (for those of you old enough to remember what a bookstore is), concerts, dance, galleries, and energy.
The city, which has a population of 3 million, has great food (beef, more beef and great pastas), great wine (the good, the great, and the all too-expensive malbecs) and clusters of pampered dogs on leashes with dog walkers in the parks.
Buenos Aires is not cheap place to live. Food in particular is expensive. Wine is even more expensive, which surprised me. But then again, the best Argentine wines tend to stay in the country.
We went to the MALBA, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. Its current exhibition is a staged, live performance piece, using models, dancers, and artists. While the show didn’t excite me (I work hard at being jaded, as you know), it is art of the 21st century and speaks of a dynamic, creative environment.
Argentina has its problems. Its history is one economic crisis after another. It defaulted on its foreign debt in 2001, 2014 and most likely again this year, thanks in part to U.S. vulture funds. Like Greece and Spain, there have been demonstrations, strikes, bitterness and anxiety.
Its political history is another, darker story. In addition to the normal run-of-the-mill South American history of coups, nationalists, great leaders, anti-Semites, saints, sinners and saviors, the Argentine Military overthrew the elected government in 1976 and began the Dirty War. An estimated 30,000 “disappeared” into clandestine camps to be tortured and eventually murdered. Many victims were then pushed out of aircraft into the ocean to dispose of the evidence in 
los vuelos de la muerte, the flights of death.
This is old history. The question is can it come again?
How many of you out there never thought we would be talking about an Islamic Caliphate in the 21st century?Raise your hands now. I am counting.
