Previously….

Picking the right time of the the year for your trip is probably even more important than learning the native language. Even if you graduated from an unaccredited school district you probably know that Argentina is located in the Southern Hemisphere where the seasons are opposite to ours and people are walking upside-down at all times. Going during the South American summer will probably not be so pleasant if you are visiting Buenos Aires and areas to the North, where it gets pretty hot; at the same time Southern Argentina won’t be frozen and snowed in. Going during the winter, like we did, is likely to be the the most pleasant time in Buenos Aires but you are gambling on being rained on for days in-a-row. During our visit the day temperatures in Buenos Aires were around 65-70F and 35-40F at night. Beautiful, sunny weather was a huge factor in our enjoyment of the city, made long walks and sightseeing pleasant and refreshing, considering the heatwave that was hanging over Kansas City at the same time. During our 10 day visit it rained only once and not for long. At the same time, our trip to the Cataratas del Iguazú fell on three most coldest, rainiest, foggiest days in the history of the waterfalls, not what we expected in the tropics even in the wintry August. It was so soggy and chilly that the hotel personnel started a fire in the lobby fireplace. Sitting near the fireplace and seeing palm trees in the window is something you don’t expect to go together.

If you are to inquire about the must-see wonders of Argentina, the Iguazú Falls will probably be at the top of the list, and deservedly so. Competing with the world-famous Niagara and Victoria falls in beauty and size, Iguazú (which most of the time in Argentina is referred to as “cataratas” , meaning “waterfalls”) should be on your itinerary if your time and finances allow. However, despite what your travel agent might tell you, you can accomplish this trip in one day. Leaving from Buenos Aires around 7am will put you in Iguazú little after 9, which will give you all day to explore the waterfalls and return to Buenos Aires late the same evening. Granted, it will be one long day, but unless you are a waterfalls connoisseur and would like to see every inch of the natural wonder from every possible direction (including Brazilian side, requiring a visa which costs $140 per person), you will have a sufficient look of the waterfalls and be back in Buenos Aires for your morning cafe con leche. We used a local travel agent and got stuck with a 3-day trip. Little town of Puerto Iguazú where you’ll be staying is nothing to write home about, where numerous hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops and a bus station compete for your attention with the omnipresent red mud. Besides the waterfalls, the only other attractions in the area are the precious stone mine and a place called Tres Fronteras, where one can see both Paraguay and Brazil while standing in Argentina.

Just in case you don’t know what to do with your time but want to save some money, you can take a bus from Buenos Aires to the cataratas which is said to be super-comforable and takes about 17 hours.

Seeing the waterfalls on the grayest day ever probably wasn’t as impressive as it should have been; even the parrots that are rumored to live there were gone and the tourists had to take photos of a lone bird who was too lazy to find shelter. I am saying this to preface my mediocre photos and a short video.

Continue reading →

In 1959 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev visited the USA.

On his visit Khrushchev had two requests: to visit Disneyland and to meet John Wayne, Hollywood’s top box-office draw. Due to the Cold War tension and security concerns, he was famously denied an excursion to Disneyland. He did, however, declare Iowa corn superior to Soviet corn.

On his California visit, the Soviet leader got a show of American consumerism and the American way of life. This marked the first time a Soviet leader set foot on U.S. soil. But he was annoyed that the main event of his first day was a lunch with 300 movie stars and other celebrities and a visit to the set of the movie Can-Can at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, rather than an inspection of an aerospace plant.

After Khrushchev left the studio, gawkers pasted tomatoes on his limo as the doubly offended leader and his 30-car, heavily guarded caravan made its way through city streets. Local authorities would later report that a bomb was planted in a tree along the route and that a man who said he was deer hunting was arrested on suspicion of carrying concealed weapons just moments before Khrushchev’s motorcade passed by a Los Angeles street.

Khrushchev declared himself offended by the chilly reception and even threatened to go home. “The thought sometimes — the unpleasant thought sometimes creeps up on me here as to whether perhaps Khrushchev was not invited here to enable you to sort of rub him in your sauce and to show the might and the strength of the United States so as to make him sort of … so as to make him shaky at the knees. If that is so, then if I came — if it took me about 12 hours to get here, I guess it’ll just — it’ll take no more than about 10 and a half hours to fly back.”

Khrushchev’s visit to Coon Rapids Farm in Iowa forever has changed the Soviet agriculture – upon his return home he insisted that corn is the answer to all of the problems which resulted in corn being planted everywhere from the Arctic Circle to the desert, sometimes when it couldn’t possibly survive. Khrushchev’s name is forever associated with corn in the Russian people’s memory.

 

 

Continue reading →

A new video clip by a popular duo Potap and Nastya Kamenskih is made in the style of the Soviet VIA – Vocal-Instrumental Ensembles – which dominated the music scene of the 1970’s and 80’s.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7sE-lhVLg

Continue reading →

This tagline struck me as being weirdly funny, but I don’t write them, I just copy them. Without further ado – some photos from the William M.Boyle Jr. testimonial dinner conducted in Kansas City in October of 1949. William M.Boyle Jr. was the Chairman of the DNC at that time.

Banquet of the Century. The home folks of Kansas City were proud of Bill Boyle—none more vociferously than shrewd, elephantine Roy Roberts, Republican president of the Kansas City Star— and they had vowed to give him the banquet of the century. By the time the President entered Kansas City’s vast civic auditorium that night, they had come comfortably close to success.Three thousand men & women in evening dress were sitting at tables on the great floor (at $15 a plate). Among them were virtually all the ranking officers of the Administration and all shades of local politicos, including Democratic Boss Charlie Binaggio, who had just been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to tell what he knew about the revival of racketeering in Kansas City. Six thousand non-diners watched and applauded from the flag-bedecked balconies. An army of harried waiters served 3,000 tenderloin steaks without allowing more than minor peripheral cooling to set in—no mean achievement since all had come from the kitchen of the Muehlebach Hotel, three full blocks away.

Notice the caption: “Democrat Boyle: Bureaucracy Thrived On Bureaucracy“. Also of interest is the price of yearly subscription for the Time – just $6.

in 1951, (Boyle) was implicated in an influence peddling scandal involving loans made by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. While a Senate investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Boyle, he resigned later that year due to “ill health”

This article in the Time “Boyle’s Law” talks about his rise to prominence, connections to Truman and Pendergast, and shady machinations for which he was investigated. Some passages in the article read like they were written today.

Some names you might have recognized: Charles Binaggio, Jim Pendergast, Roy A. Roberts.

Continue reading →

Most people come to Hutchinson, KS to visit its world-class museums – Kansas Cosmosphere and the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. Only few visit prairie dogs. Even fewer do all three. We were in the smallest of minorities who did all that and had a dinner at the Dutch Kitchen restaurant.

Note to a future visitor: Visiting the Salt Museum takes about 2 hours, while the Cosmosphere can keep you busy all day. Plan accordingly and attend the latter when you have plenty of time.

Given Hutchinson’s salt-mining roots and multiple working and abandoned mines in the area, it’ no surprise that one of the biggest museums of that kind in the world is located there.

Although numerous old people are seen approaching the building with the sign “Underground Bound”, it’s not an old people recycling facility. Many of them actually make it back to the top.

Continue reading →