What the world needs now -- Another preserved megalomaniac

and cult of personality. CARACAS, Venezuela — Hugo Chavez’s body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment given Communist revolutionary leaders such as Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh. Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state for “at least” seven more days at the museum, which will eventually become his permanent home. It was not clear when exactly he would be moved from the military academy where his body has been since Wednesday... ...“We have decided to prepare the body of our ‘Comandante President,’ to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong,” Maduro said. He said the body would be held in a “crystal urn” at the Museum of the Revolution, a stone’s throw from Miraflores presidential palace. The announcement followed two emotional days in which Chavez’s supporters compared him to Jesus Christ, and accused his national and international critics of subversion.

http%3A//www.washingtonpost.com/business/hugo-chavezs-body-will-be-preserved-and-put-on-permanent-display-a-la-lenin-and-mao/2013/03/07/3224c0fa-878c-11e2-a80b-3edc779b676f_story.html



• No cheers for the stiff?

• Stiff? I suspect animatronic is the next move, R1. Like the bears at Disneyland.

• If you stopped listening to Fox news and did a little independent research, you'd have found that in 14 years he reduced the level of poverty in his country from 45% down to 25%, provided free books and lunches to students, built hospitals and gave free health care to the poor. He took control of his country's resources, of the control of the American multi-nationals and gave those riches back to his people.

• Where does your unsubstantiated boilerplate leave Venezuela now, R3?

• Will they change his hairstyle and gown every 10 years so his look will never go out of fashion?

  Evita's Coiffed Corpse

• Not a wise move boys.

• If you're gonna park your carcass in Caracas you may as well do it in style.

• [quote]Despite having 18% of the world's proven oil reserves, the largest share for any country, Venezuela's annual output has declined by more than 20% since 1998 to 2.5 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency. With Mr. Chavez relying heavily on oil revenues to fund government spending, state-owned PDVSA has become a byword for under-investment and inefficiency, propped up by loans from the Chinese government. Exxon Mobil XOM -0.95% quit the country in the mid-2000s as the operating environment deteriorated. Yeah, he took control of his country's resources, all right.

  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324034804578344103856988828.html

• Sean Penn is already planning a yearly trip to worship at the corpse.

• What's sad is that so many indigenous folks are going to travel on pilgrimage to view him.

• Did the US kill him somehow to get the oil?

• He did some good things, but he also did some bad ones. Exhibiting his body is archaic and gross no matter how badly R3 wants to kiss his embalmed parts.

• Despite his one-time dressing down of george bush the younger in the UN, I found him to be generally disagreeable and he looked like a cross between Humpty Dumpty and Mr. Potato Head.

  Anonymous

• [quote]Did the US kill him somehow to get the oil? Cancer experts say no.

  http://gawker.com/5989283/could-the-us-have-assassinated-hugo-chavez-using-cancer

• Many of the critics here are angry because Chavez didn't like Jews. That's fair -- they don't have to like him, either. But they want everyone to hate him but don't seem to have the courage of their convictions, and criticize his other aspects, instead.

• Hmmm, this is the third Chavez thread in which someone has asserted that posters criticize Chavez because he "didn't like Jews."

• He sure liked Mahmud Ahmedinejad!

• It started with the post on why Democrats shouldn't like Chavez. This article included his dislike of Jews as one reason.

• And so you assumed that the people here criticizing Chavez must be mostly Jewish? Really? Chavez was an incompetent oaf who did not leave his country in good shape. And, no, I don't have the honor of being Jewish.

• He's dead and we never cared about that fat, bean-breathed person's opinion anyway.

  The%20Jews

• Years ago, I read an essay written by an Argentinian about corpse or death fetishism among a large portion of the Argentine population. The corpse of Evita Peron was preserved on displayed, too. I don't get it.

  Della

• What is it supposed to be about, Della?

• My parents said that when Peron was in exile in Spain, he brought Evita's preserved corpse with him and he would have his meals with her. I'd be interested in that article, Della, if you can recall an author or publication...

• I read it, let's see, I'd say 20 years ago. Blast it, I don't recall the author's name. I'll do a little research. If I find it, I'll link it.

  Della

• I read that too, Della. He'd prop he up at the table and dine.

• Here it is.

  http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/30/world/eva-peron-s-corpse-continues-to-haunt-argentina.html

  Della

• I was wrong to identify the reporter as Argentinian or the article as an essay. Forgive me, this was published so long ago. When remembering this I mistakenly identified one of the people he quotes as the author.

  Della

• Thanks, Della. I'd never heard a thing about the travels of her corpse. That's so odd.

• Thanks, Della! I'd always wondered if my parents' story was exaggerated or legend, but apparently not. I also heard R25's story about her being propped up at the table, but that one didn't seem real. But who knows? It was a very serious business for them. [quote]Mr. Ara also made several wax and vinyl replicas of Eva Peron's body that were indistinguishable from the original, according to the book by Mr. Martinez. The military later used these body doubles, and others it commissioned, to deceive those who sought the real corpse. Oh, lordy: [quote]Mr. Peron kept the body in an open casket on the dining room table of his villa, where he later built a shrine for it in the attic. His third wife, Isabel, combed the corpse's hair in a daily devotion, Mr. Martinez said.

• I am totally fascinated by the Eva Peron story and the fate of the body. Years ago I was a tour guide and I took a group to Yosemite. A woman in our group was from Argentina. She and her husband were exiled from Argentina and ended up in Australia. I got to send a week with them. She knew Eva Duarte and her sister very well. The tour was when Evita the musical was all the rage. This woman could not understand why we celebrating Eva, when she had done so many horrible things and bankrupted the country bribing the poor with projects and patronage jobs. Since she knew her personally she had a real, first-hand accounts of her. I was mesmerized listening to her. Well, it was very much like Chavez and now they are embalming him just like her. I suspect his body will suffer the same fate as hers someday. His VP will fall just like Peron did. It will only take a few months.

• I just remembered this. Another who gets "the works" embalming is the Pope. When JP II died, some news outlet discussed that the corpse received a very careful and top-of-the line embalming and was placed in a special glass-topped, super-sealed casket. IIRC, he was checked recently as part of the beatification process and said to be in tip-top shape. I just don't get this phenomenon. Creepy.

• Who really gives a rat's ass?...Doesn't please nor bother me. I don't care.

• A little bit of technical wizardry and he can share the stage with Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland.

• Completely inappropriate. He was a polarizing figure. It's as if George Bush decided to put Reagan in a glass coffin in a Mausoleum on the Ellipse.

• Wow, they are really not fucking around.

• Looks like they won't be able to do it as they waited to long before embalming. It makes me wonder how long he was dead before announced. I wonder if the German and Russian scientists have made an unsightly mess of him. By Mario Naranjo CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's government said on Wednesday it may not be possible to embalm the remains of late leader Hugo Chavez as planned because the process should have been started earlier. Chavez died last week aged 58 after a two-year battle with cancer. His body has been on display in a glass-topped coffin at a grandiose military academy in the capital Caracas, where millions of people have filed past to pay homage. The government had said it planned to embalm Chavez's remains "for eternity" in much the same way as was done with the remains of Soviet leaders Lenin and Stalin and communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong after they died. "Russian and German scientists have arrived to embalm Chavez and they tell us it's very difficult because the process should have started earlier ... Maybe we can't do it," acting President Nicolas Maduro said in televised comments on Wednesday. "We are in the middle of the process. It's complicated, it's my duty to inform you." Government sources said they expected a formal announcement to be made later this week that, despite the efforts of the team involved, it had not been possible to embalm Chavez. World leaders and celebrities paid a last tribute to the flamboyant late Venezuelan leader at his funeral last week. On Friday, his body is due to be transferred from the military academy to a museum on a hilltop overlooking the Miraflores presidential palace. Chavez's death has brought an outpouring of emotion in Venezuela, especially among his millions of mostly poor supporters, many of whom viewed him almost as a religious figure even before his death. Detractors say the adoration of Chavez is over-the-top and ignores his confrontational style and bullying of opponents. They accuse the government of manipulating emotions around his death to help Maduro win an election scheduled for April 14.

  http://www.datalounge.com/cgi-bin/iowa/ajax.html%3Ft%3D12553817%23page:postReply%2C12553817%2Cundefined

• *too long