The Smell Of Sulphur

Chavez, the dictator and Devil, was finally defeated by the forces of democracy. I mean Hugo in Venezuela, not my dance instructor Emilio in Ballard, though they both have faces only a Mayan could love. (Curse you, Emilio: I will learn to Merengue yet!)

While glorious, victory was a close-run thing, righteousness out-pointing Chavez by 51-49. Even the Devil can overreach when he's possessing you, and that's when you can push him over the cliff while he's taking refuge in the bodies of pigs. As the Good Book says, behold, my name is Legion, for I am many. (Luke 8:30) Praise be to God and USAID!

You know what I don't get, though? Why Chavez lost the election. I mean, nothing else but divine retribution makes sense. No self-respecting dictator loses an election! Augusto Pinochet (Chile), god rest his Christian soul, never lost an election, at least not until the unwashed, misguided heathens voted him into exile in 1998. Alfredo Stroessner (Paraguay), the hardest working man in smuggling, never lost an election in 45 years. Tacho Somoza (Nicaragua), winning his first contest by the resounding score of 107,201 votes to 100, never lost an election to a living opponent, and even passed the baton on to his sons after he was killed by a commie poet. Rafael "Medals" Trujillo (Dominican Republic), the great patron of self-sculpture, never lost an election in 31 years. Not even to his own family!

I could go on, but let's skip over Haiti, Guatemala, Argentina, Panama, Honduras, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Brazil. And of course Cuba, the unholy mother of Miami. Dictators and devils should at least be reliable, and Chavez is a sorry, most untrustworthy dictator. It almost looks like he believes in democracy, which I find very disquieting. My faith is still strong, but in fact I can't decide whether to take comfort in the scriptures, or to sin by picking up that Harper's magazine that's been beckoning to me like a sway-hipped strumpet at the supermarket stand.