Mail in Venezuela has always been bad but in the last couple of years it has gone from bad to useless. I cannot tell you how many problems I have had with some people outside of Venezuela that cannot understand why a letter will take at the very least a month to reach me. But today was just too much... I went to my POBox to check it out after a week absence. And there were 5, FIVE, issues of Scientific American. FIVE fucking issues arrived at once! For a monthly magazine!
You could tell me "Daniel, get the online subscriptions and get over it" and I will reply that my Internet has got to be wireless where I live for a variety of reasons and that it keeps crashing all the time, that I cannot use it between 5 PM and 9 PM, and that once I am done with mail and blog matters I have no stomach to deal with that shit further..... IPad is of course out of question where I live since I will pay a bunch for a dedicated cel phone line which will be temperamental in the best of times.
Why oh why? Because chavismo has absolutely no interest in people being informed and if it were for chavismo alone, Internet would be like in Cuba, reserved for bureaucrats.
In San Felipe today I cannot have decent Internet, I cannot receive mail on time, I depend on satellite TV for my news because there is only neutered or pro chavista TV, I stopped listening to radio a long time ago as it is either bland, chavista or salsa; and forget about local papers who are adept at self censoring and propaganda.
In Venezuela today, if you are not in a major urban area, you really need to go out of your way to remain informed, to escape chavismo propaganda.
In Mussolini days trains at least run on time, or so the legend goes. The mess of chavista Venezuela will remain legendary, I can assure you that much. You know what? Venezuela might become the first mail free country and not because of Internet.....