Fútbol Gratis

It turns out Argentina's government is absolutely a dictatorship.

Fútbol (soccer) here is such a powerful and integral industry. With their teetering economy, the government has decided to boost morale or fútbol attendance or concession sales or something ridiculous along those lines by taking money out of retirees' pensions to make fútbol tickets free to the public. My host mom Luisa is retired, and there's nothing she can do about it.

Last night on the news, their top reporter was giving a speech about how a major law in the works right now absolutely needs to be "decided by consensus;" as if it were a revolutionary concept. I realize i am so blessed to be shocked by an alternative to democracy.

There was also a very real-looking story on their regular news channel about how some bus driver returned 2 million pesos to the owner. Luisa took one look at that and said it was bologna. I asked her how did she know? And she said with experience, you just know these things. Half the stories on the news are fake--just to get watchers. What the heck??