Today it is raining in northern Patagonia, and I am drinking tea. One might think this is excellent posting weather, but it is not. Computer connections are slow, and people wait in line to use them.
This not being a travel weblog, I am not attempting to make any sort of general report. I will say, however, that the city of Santiago de Chile is in the twentieth century. It has two features I had not seen in some time: functioning telephone booths, and movie theatres which are not multiplexes and that you walk into from city sidewalks. The day I arrived, the day of Pinochet´s funeral, the monument to Salvador Allende was covered with flowers, poetry, and letters to loved ones killed by Pinochet and his denizens. Some of these last are now being formally charged with human rights abuses.
On the other hand, the newspapers have printed many letters to the editor favoring Pinochet. My favorite one said that the fact that Pinochet´s detractors still don´t like him, thirty years after the coup, shows that they are full of hatred, and should have been repressed.
I have never been as far south as northern Patagonia. As one might expect, it seems like the far north. Today is the solstice, summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I expect it to be fully dark just before 11 PM. The Pacific coast here looks like the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, with inlets, islands, fishing boats, and fjords.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Judged against the criteria of functioning telephone booths and movie theatres which are not multiplexes, my home city of Glasgow is in the twentieth century also. Yet I could have sworn…
But we have only the usual, acceptable human rights abuses here so all is well.
Louisiana is in the twenty-first: gone are two signs of civilization, functioning public phone booths and movie theatres not in multiplexes/malls, and we are in the post-human rights United States!