Venezuela health minister fired over mortality stats

[Igel]

6. My Russian prof in '88 and '89 was occasionally moved to tears.

We had to read newspaper articles (often several on a given theme) and summarize/discuss them.

Once a student got up and talked about the suicide stats published in some news articles. He lurched out of his seat and pulled the photocopies she'd made out of her hands, read them, and started to cry. Not for those who'd killed themselves, but because his entire life the newspapers said there was no suicide in the worker's paradise and could be no suicide. It was a large chink in the media blackout of all things politically incorrect for official mention.

He was nearly as weepy over the report of a plane crash, for the same reason. For decades, no planes had ever crashed in the USSR. For one to crash would mean that the government was fallible.


A perfect government can make no mistakes, esp. if it leaves its citizens in penury. Once mistakes are made, trust is lost.