Articles by mgedwards

The end of the Internet universe

I found the end of the far reaches of the Internet today.  The Internet is a very big place with information on virtually everything…
 
…except for a full version of Robert Southey’s epic poem, "A Tale of Paraguay" published in 1825.  Southey, who?  Thou might aske if ye, like mee, be navght an accoemplished scholare of English literatur.  You know, Southey, the English poet who was a member of the "Lake Poets" which including the distinguished William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  It was Southey who first penned the famous children’s story, "The Three Bears."  I read about Southey’s tale of Paraguay in another book and wanted to read it.  Southey never visited Paraguay, but he used lands such as Paraguay (and Brazil and the American frontier) as settings to extrapolate his political ideals.  In "A Tale of Paraguay," Southey turned the prose of Jesuit Priest Martin Dobrizhoffer into an allegory promoting the idea of missionary colonialism in the British colonies, just as the Spaniards and Portuguese permitted in their colonial empires.
 
I searched the Web for a full version of this poem and found several books on Southey’s poetry, but I could not find a full version of his poem.  Instead, I found snippets of it available here for your reading pleasure (click on the links):
Unfortunately, to read the entire poem, I have to locate a book of Southey’s poetry and either check it out from the library or buy it online.  The copyright on this poem expired years ago, so "A Tale of Paraguay" is an excellent example of a work in the public domain that should be available online.  Of course, some publishers are still profiting from Southey’s work by publishing collections or analyses of his poetry.
 
Today, I found the end of the Internet universe.  His name is Robert Southey.

The automobile dairies

I read an article in The Economist about the Argetinian wine industry and its quest to overtake the Chilean wine industry as the largest in South America.  Chilean wines are the most famous in South America and considered by many to be superior to Argentinian wines.  However, in reality most Argentinian wines are on par with Chilean wines and even superior.  Here is a link to the Economist article:
 
 
Unfortunately, the article is now only available only to those who subscribe to The Economist, so I will refer to the article and discuss Chilean and Argentinian wines in a future blog entry.  Tonight I want to write about my South American dream inspired by Che Guevara and South American wines?
 
What, you ask, do wine and Che, a deceased revolutionary, have to do with one another?  Simply put, travel.  During 1951-52, Che Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado embarked on a journey through Latin America on a motorcycle.  His famous journey is well chronicled in his autobiographical account of his trip, "The Motorcycle Diaries."  Che and Granado traveled from Argentina to Miami, Florida for over a year.  During their journey, they passed through South America’s wine country, which at the time was a shadow of what it is today. 
 
While I have no plans to travel for a year and re-enact "The Motorcycle Diaries" on a 500cc motorcyle, I dream of taking my family on a road trip by car from Asunción, Paraguay to Valparaiso, Chile through Argentina and back over the course of a week or two.  I think that the best way to explore South America is on the ground.  This route is not considered overly dangerous, and we would visit Córdoba and Mendoza, Argentina, two of the country’s secondary cities, as well as Santiago, Chile.  The highlight of our trip would be a multi-day stay at a hacienda (ranch) in the Argentinian wine country near Mendoza, where we would relax, ride horseback, and enjoy Argentinian barbeques and wine in the shadow of snow-capped Andean peaks.  We would also tour Argentinian and Chilean wineries and eat seafood in Valparaiso.  More than any other trip we’re planning, this is the one I want to do most of all before our tour in Paraguay ends.

Making progress

I took my Spanish language progress test today.  I started Spanish about five weeks ago on March 5 and will finish at the end of May.  The results were mixed.  I tested about where I should be, and my tester commended me on my improvement in a very short period of time.  Nevertheless, she gave me a 50% chance of achieving the required level of Spanish by the end of May.  She said that it is very difficult to achieve that in just seven weeks, but she also said that she was optimistic that I could do it given my past performance.  The news is not as positive as I would have liked to receive, because it means I have to work even harder.  I haven’t worked as hard as I probably should, although I have to give myself credit for learning quickly and meeting my target set thus far.  My wife is also doing well.  She started Spanish from scratch about two weeks ago and is already trying to make complicated sentences.  She’s more bold than I would have been had I started from scratch.
 
OK, now back to studying Spanish…