At the University of Georgia, my course assignments consisted in much reading. I spent many, many hours at the library surrounded by the books and two or three dictionaries and encyclopedias in English and Spanish and also in French. I would read until I was done. It was a very tedious way to read and […]
In 1966, my father told me about an offer for a Rotary Club scholarship in the United States open to children of Rotarians. I applied and obtained it. I had to freshen up my English after a hopeless year at the British Institute while I was at the Journalism school. I took six months of […]
These terms have been used interchangeably, especially by communists who see socialism as “ early stage communism”. They are economic philosophies that advocate for public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange of goods. The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, […]
One day, while still working at the Public Relations office at the University of Chile, I was assigned to go interview a scientist that had just retuned from the US. He had obtained a scholarship at Stanford University because of his work in Chile on DNA. When I met him, he had a white coat […]
After my arrests it was obvious that I could not continue as a professor without having freedom to teach. The sister of my housemate was in favor of the coup and we contacted her to tell her about the situation that was totally unbearable. She said that if we wanted to get a pass to […]
On September 11, 1973, the armed forces overthrew the government. They bombarded the Government Palace and the president died in a controversial way. The military suppressed 40% of the media, the Congress, the Constitution (valid since 1931), and established a stage of siege. First thing they did was to censor the press and arrest and […]
Socialism is defined as the first step toward communism. It is designed to produce a transition between capitalism and Communism. Under socialism, you can still own property. However, industrial production, or the main means of generating wealth, is owned in common and managed by a democratically elected government. This is what started happening in Chile […]
Let me go back to 1969. As part of a Human Relations class I was teaching at one of the branches of the University of Chile in the south of Chile, I took 25 of my students to a hospital. They were Home Economics majors. We were taken into a room where the malnourished children […]
We were all waiting for somebody to pick us up after school. It was kind of a rainy day and this guy on a bike came right in front of the gate of the school carrying a sack. The sack was suspiciously moving and all the girls start shouting. “Its an animal.” The small door […]
It is hard to remember exactly why my parents took me on a train to go to San Fernando from Santiago but I think it was on the occasion of my baptism. I was only a few months old. It was also my first trip on a train. My parents carried my stroller, my playpen […]
An Ear by Mistake 
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