John McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America in the 1980s. As the head of the IRI, he helped finance coups against democratic governments in Haiti and Venezuela. Were those governments fairly elected? The 1984 elections were perhaps the freest and fairest in Nicaraguan history. Aristide...won the first free and fair election in the country’s history with 67 percent of the vote. In Venezuela, all of Chavez's victories in elections were monitored and certified by a variety of observers including the Organization of American States, the European Union and the Carter Center.
posted by shetterly on Oct 11, 2008 - 33 comments

Eric Volz Freed. Following a thirty-year sentence and a later appeal, Eric Volz was set free by a Nicaraguan court. As discussed in The Blue previously. His family's statement.
posted by John of Michigan on Dec 23, 2007 - 10 comments

Here's an odd unforeseen consequence of the Columbian drug trade: fishermen along Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast have been been getting rich off of "white lobster"—cocaine dumped overboard by Columbian drug traffickers that, through a fortuitous arrangement of sea currents, washes ashore. [more inside]
posted by Weebot on Oct 31, 2007 - 17 comments

Eric Volz, an American, is serving 30 years for a murder he did not commit. His DNA didn't match any of the evidence found at the crime scene, and there's plenty of very serious evidence showing that he didn't commit it (such as the fact that he was in a town two hours away while the murder was being done.) This needs as much media attention as possible. (First link is a Youtube video)
posted by premiumpolar on Mar 22, 2007 - 63 comments

Contra Café: Wake Up With Freedom Fighters.
posted by stammer on Jan 22, 2007 - 20 comments

Latin America Turning Left? From the top: Lula da Silva*, Lopez Obrador, Nestor Kirchner, Hugo Chavez*, Alvaro Uribe, Michelle Bachelet*, Ollanta Humala, Alfredo Palacio, Oscar Berger, Leonel Fernandez, Oscar Arias, Tony Saca, Tabare Vazquez, Martín Torrijos, Evo Morales* Manuel Zelaya, Nicanor Duarte, Daniel Ortega, Rene Preval*.
posted by airguitar on Apr 13, 2006 - 30 comments

Bring down the government! Flickr collection of scans from a CIA published guide for revolutionaries in Nicaragua; many of the suggestions are universally applicable. I myself have been guilty of at least one...
posted by jonson on Dec 3, 2005 - 19 comments

Experts Study New Sign Language System A new system of sign language developed by deaf children in Nicaragua may hold clues about the evolution of languages. When the country's first school for the deaf was established in 1977, children were not taught sign language but developed a system of signs to communicate. Childhood learning may determine linguistic rules ...They found that older students used hand signals resembling the gestures employed by hearing people, mimicking the entire event physically. But younger pupils - who had interacted with other deaf children from an early age - used a more complex series of signs. They split the scene into component parts and arranged these sequentially to convey the incident. The constructions resemble the way words and sentences are built in verbal languages, using segments structured in a linear fashion. This indicates that way the younger children learnt the sign language helped reshape it according to these linguistic rules.
............... Fascinating... /Mr. Spock
posted by y2karl on Sep 18, 2004 - 20 comments

Some pig! In September, a Cincinnati artist carved a pig with wings...out of 7,000 pounds of Ivory soap. (It was commissioned by the chamber of commerce for an economic conference.) Now "Sudsie" is being sent on tour to Nicaragua to promote a kids' handwashing campaign.
posted by Vidiot on Mar 15, 2004 - 5 comments

Nicaraguan Murals 1930-2000.
posted by plep on Aug 27, 2003 - 5 comments

Our Bastard(s) Somoza Speaking of brutal Nicaraguan dicatator Somoza, Harry Truman is supposed to have said "He's a bastard, but he's our bastard." Looking for a source for this quote, I discovered it's attributed to Truman, FDR, and Nixon. This is such a broad chronological range that I figured I could narrow it down by finding out when Somza lived. No such luck: according to two biography^*/histories, there were actuall three Somozas: Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who fathered Luis Somoza Debayle and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and the Somoza dynasty that ruled Nicaragua from the mid 1930s through the late 1970s. All three of those presidents could well have made the comment. But I'm still stuck for a source...

* This link (the first history/bio) requires anyone clicking from an outside page to go through an extra "Welcome Mat" page on the first time through. Annoying, but no registration required.
posted by namespan on Nov 11, 2002 - 18 comments