I borrowed an Olympus E-1 system for this trip. This is an interesting camera idea in which new lenses have been designed specifically to fit the typically smallish digicam sensor area. Here’s an example photo from this morning: Otavalo Animal Market.
Reflections from Hacienda Pensaqui, where Simon Bolivar was a guest several times… El Libertador described democracy as “a government so sublime that it might more nearly benefit a republic of saints.” He simultaneously wrote to a friend that “our [Latin] America can only be ruled through a well-managed shrewed despotism.” Bolivar addded “Do not adopt the best system of government but the one that is most likely to succeed.”
Charles Darwin was in some measure of agreement with Bolivar. In 1833 while in Argentina he wrote “[Paraguay] will have to learn, like every other South American state, that a republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honor.”
One wonders what Bolivar and Darwin would have done in Iraq.
