Your Turn: Reading Matter

This book-suggestion affair is very amusing.
For me in this picture it looks like Obama is asking for permission to receive the book.
I remember when Chavez did almost the same thing with Bush and the Chomsky book at the U.N.
I also like this one : http://www.daylife.com/photo/0cnM4MC26g62s?q=Barack+Obama%2C+chavez%2C+book%2C+April+18%2C+2009 and this one http://www.daylife.com/photo/09qCaAVashdxI?q=Barack+Obama%2C+chavez%2C+book%2C+April+18%2C+2009.

michael, thank you. i was just looking at this photo on a news site, and hoping it would be offered here, and lo and behold, here it is.
the picture bothered me, b/c it shows chavez as happy (almost jubilant) to talk to/meet obama. chavez is facing obama, eyes locked directly on him, while obama is facing away, not looking happy (maybe that’s a consequence of talking), and not even fully shaking hands, as his finger points at the book (don’t know what the book is about, unfortunately, cause that might help in interpreting this scenario). however, regardless of book, i think this picture is significant for three reasons.
first, b/c of chavez’s past relationship with US prez’s (e.g. his 2006 comment to the UN re: Bush speaking the day before ‘the devil came here yesterday,…and it smells of sulfur still today’), wherein he appears to have an entirely different attitude towards obama, yet is rebuffed.
second, b/c, within a meeting like the summit of americas, venezuela is, to me, a force to be reckoned with, one to be taken seriously (if also entertainingly) as addressing, and attempting to rectify indigenous & international injusticies as they affect the country. not that i’m saying that chavez is right in all he does, but certainly, his administration has offered an interesting proactive and provocative approach to such issues, one which i think the US could learn from (tho perhaps not directly mimic).
third, it bothers me on a more gut level, cause it seems like obama is telling him ‘look, i’m not down with you’ which seems to align obama more with bush, an association i don’t really like.
thanks again for posting it!

Seems to me it’s more likely Obama is saying something like, ‘I know this dude’s work.’ I’d be surprised if he hadn’t read Eduardo Galeano already. Galeano’s work is highly regarded and literarily significant — less ‘leftist’ (as if that would dismiss him) than simply accurate.

It’s just an awkward shot in a sequence where he’s giving Obama the book, like a still from a film. In this one it looks like Chavez is pushing Obama over, to Hillary Clinton’s delight. (She’s in the background in a turquoise pantsuit.

I share your concerns, and prefer to believe Jody’s assumption, otherwise he would be wise to read Galeano.
However on reviewing the body language of these two leaders in ‘the book giving scene’(context) from 0:10 – 0:41 conjures up ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’ or A Rumble in The Board Room where Obama is Muhammad Ali and Chavez is Geoge Forman. Possessing an over active imagination I hear “floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee’ in observing Obama’s smile as he sits down. Is that a stinging smile or one expressing, surprise, nervousness, cynicism, mirth, glee or indicates a degree of sarcasm ? (as in, oh him again !)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X5JPguUpTE&feature=player_embedded
Jorge, fwiw there is a brief interview with Galeano from August 2005 and your link doesn’t seem to work

From time to time even a skilled performer forgets a line, especially if there’s a distraction on stage. Obama looks like he’s saying, You didn’t tell me anything about a book – what is this?
Obama was more comfortable winging it when he was running for office, but he’s unsure of his instincts now that he’s got the job. The press picks up on things that ultimately aren’t important and reports them as “gaffes.”

I haven’t noticed the same uncertainty, in the sense of self-doubt, but I do see a “WTF is this / is he serious?” in the slightly furrowed brow and finger-point, here.

With Jody, I imagine Obama has read Galeano. He seems too broadly thoughtful a guy not to have. Open Veins of Latin America is the classic, beautifully written, statement of the wrongs done to Latin America by US supported rapacious market capitalism, originally published in 1971. Galeano is one of the premier writers of the southern hemisphere, expressive of that continent’s rage, pain — and beauty.
If Obama was paying any attention to current affairs the 80s, he has read Galeano.

But apparently the White House is saying that Obama will not read the book because it is a Spanish language edition: “President Barack Obama’s advisers cited a long reading list and the fact he doesn’t read Spanish as reasons the U.S. leader might not read the book Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave him.” There is a good English translation available, but it seems the White House hasn’t heard of it.

That’s really lame. And insulting.Try Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Open-Veins-Latin-America-Centuries/dp/0853459916/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240170439&sr=8-1

Hey, look:
Chavez’s gift to Obama swiftly becomes best-seller
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090419/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_summit_chavez_s_gift

You may not be able to read a “sales ranking” but may I suggest you order books from Powell’s, an independent unionized bookstore, as opposed to amazon? Of course, they’re on backorder now as the publisher scrambles to print more.
Even in the video footage Obama seems to be attempting to disassociate from Chavez. Photo #3 from the previous posting is the best shot of him actually seeming to engage with Chavez.

[ President Obama, facing criticism at home for appearing too cozy with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, defended his overtures on Sunday, saying the handshakes and polite conversation the two leaders shared here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.” - NYT ]
These “interests” of the U.S. over Latin-America are the obstacle to a united american continent. The U.S. proves once again his internal wellfare is in opposition to the prosperity of other countries.

I see a different uncertainty, as if Obama is saying, “does this guy think he’s going to school me?” To me, it appears to be just a shade away from the look one player gives another on the basketball court, a look of incredulity mixed with bravado to face the coming competition.

After summarizing his experience at the Summit, Obama responded to a reporter about the picture, that he was a reader, and smiling said Venezuela had 1/600 the military budget of the US ! – (he had to made some disparaging remarks about Venezuela and Cuba) but he pointed out that many leaders at the Summit indicated how necessary the Cuban Doctors were in many countries of the hemisphere ! and suggested that the US must advertise its good works in that part of the world (Of course could not say that a sizable numbers of US students were getting a free medical education in Cuba) Obama handled the Q and A masterfully – I’m looking for a transcript – right-wing nuts will be going berserk – should be fun.
(It was reported that Lula recommended the sixth summit be held in Havana.)

My conclusion on the 5th Summit of the Americas:
Beneath the apparent sociability between the participants, the final declaration was only signed by Patrick Manning Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and the host of this year’s summit. There’s was no final agreement as the document is “approved by some but not others” . Although some countries like Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua and Bolivia announced beforehand they were going to veto the document, in fact no other country signed it including the U.S. president.
This reveals the distance between the visual-politics and the actual outcome from this kind of events. This might be the staging of a ‘unified’ and ‘effective’ political language (democracy) to cover the polarization of society inside our respective countries (This is evident in Mexico, and is starting to become more clear in the U.S.).
I understand now by what Galeano meant in the interview he gave to CNN: “I’m more scared by the world around me. This planet of ours that is becoming a madhouse and a slaughter-house. I think in many ways things have become much worse”.
In relation to this disparity, even the summit’s site shows the picture of the 2005 edition, where Bush and Vicente Fox appear: [Screenshot taken about 11:30 Central: http://bayimg.com/maPeCaabC ]. It looks like Wikipedia updates its information faster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Presidentes_en_V_Cumbre_Am%C3%A9ricana_.jpg .

They just updated the site : http://fifthsummitoftheamericas.org/ , http://bayimg.com/napEmaaBc . Things look very depressing Patrick Manning sitting by himself signing the paper. It looks like everybody else was in a hurry to get back home.

ᴄʜᴀᴠᴇᴢ: President Obama, at last we meet!
ᴏʙᴀᴍᴀ: Who is this guy?

If you had been paying attention you would know that this is their second or third meeting at the Summit of the Americas

[...] didn’t Obama mangle a Bush indication for unfamiliar process (talk, don’t bully) in an early encounter with Chavez? As such, we consider this ad is indeed truer to [...]