Lights, camera, action

Today is Día del Veterano de Guerra y de los Caídos en la Guerra de las Malvinas, a public holiday here in Argentina. The day is observed to remember those Argentine soldiers who died during the brief Falklands War with the UK in 1982. About 650 Argentine soldiers were killed during the 74 day war, and there is a monument here in Buenos Aires with all of the names of the fallen soldiers carved into a black marble wall. We didn't have class today, so Holly and I spent a slow morning at our corner cafe. A former president of Argentina, Raul Alfonsin, died two days ago, so all the TV's here are tuned in to his state funeral. Alfonsin was a champion of democracy, and many of the banners and signs lining his funeral route reference his contributions to helping return democratic rule to Argentina. It seems like he was a very popular man. Here is a link to his NY Times obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/world/americas/01alfonsin.html?partner=rss&emc=rss.

During the covereage of his funeral, the camera was panning through the crowd, looking for people that were showing outward displays of emotion. The cameraman stopped for a while on a man who appeared to be wiping tears from his eyes, but then quickly panned away when it became obvious that he was merely scratching an itch.

This mistake reminded me of another cameraman's gaffe to which we were treated while watching a live boxing match on TV at a bar in San Martin de Los Andes. In between rounds, the camera was doing the usual boxing match activity of scanning the crowd, looking for attractive women in revealing outfits. It stopped a couple times on various young women, got some applause, then moved on. The third woman it stopped on was seated, but was showing an impressive amount of cleavage. She remained seated, and the camera stayed on her for a while. Eventually, the man seated in front of her got up to go to the bathroom, revealing why so much of the woman's chest was visible. She was breastfeeding a baby. At two a.m. At a boxing match. Ringside.