Job Discussion Forums

[Luder]

On a flight across the Atlantic a few days ago I watched "Hotel Rwanda" (I wouldn't have, naturally, but the other choices were "Hitch," some execrable caper movie with the awful N. Cage, and a Simpsons episode I'd already seen). Now at least I have a clear idea of who the bad guys were in Rwanda. Before, I could never remember if it was the Hutus or the Tutsis or the Hutsis or the Tutus.

And I remember now because every time a genocidal Hutu addressed or even alluded to the Tutsis, apparently an elite (an oligarchy, if you like) favored by the former colonial masters, he called them "cockroaches." "Tutsi cockroaches!" cries the murderous Hutu before going on the rampage.

I bring up Rwanda on the Latin American forum because the situation there--as depicted in the movie, at any rate--reminds me a bit of the situation in Venezuela--as depicted in this forum, at any rate--with the chavistas, or whatever they're called, always screaming "escu�lido!"

For some reason, the word I'm trying to write keeps getting beeped. But it's just an insect that scurries disgustingly over the floor and on countertops at night. "Escu�lido," it seems to me, is far worse.

So, is Venezuala going the way of Rwanda?

[Justin Trullinger]

The "censor" program just cuts out certain letter combinations. I think the bug you're thinking of starts with four letters, which by themselves would be a semi-dirty word.

I understand why they use it, but it does accidently do funny things.

Dick Cheney. Exactly.

[Aramas]

You'll just have to wait until Fox makes a movie about Chavez. Then we'll all know the real truth

[moonraven]

Don't get carried away too fast into the Land of False Cognates. When you actually live in a place--or read its literature--you become sensitive to the real meanings of words.

The escualido reference is to folks who are excessively thin. The oligarchy in Venezuela apparently took the Duchess of Windsor at her word when she said, "You can never be too rich or too thin"--because they jumped on the bandwagon big time of anorexia and concentration camp thinness as fashion.

And that is why Chavez began to refer to them as escualidos--sorry I can't put accent marks except in Arabic from this keyboard--to differentiate them from his own charming chubbiness--(or, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote--his "body of reinforced concrete") which they were constantly screeching about on radio and t.v.--complaining that a "fat African" president reflected poorly on Venezuela.

[Luder]

Okay, Moonraven, I know perfectly well what escu�lido means, and I certainly don't need language lessons from someone who can go on in post after post about "wholistic" (sic) approaches to education!

What I didn't know, and what I'm glad you described, is the Venezuelan context for the use of this word. As a comeback for being called a "fat African," it is indeed charming and funny. But the way you use it in your posts is not. And worst of all, it even seems that you've picked up an acolyte or two.

[moonraven]

Check this yahoo page:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=wholistic&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

I believe it says: 1 to 10 of about 1,010,000 entries for wholistic. Guess there are other illiterate folks like myself out there who prefer to use that spelling.

As a chavista, I am using the word in my posts the same way any other chavista would use it. I am not doing so to be charming or funny in regard to what is also called by chavistas--including Hugo Chavez--the "rancid oligarchy".