No time now (I’m rushing to finish my LASA paper), but MABB has a post on the fast-approaching August 7 deadline to end to Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly. There are still several unresolved issues.

As expected, the debate over whether to move Bolivia’s capital continues. Yesterday, there was a mass demonstration in Sucre in favor of democracy, national unity, and returning the capital to their city. The estimated attendance was 200,000. The demonstration is significant because Chuquisaca (the name of the department) voted in December 2005 for a MAS prefect candidate (David Sánchez, w/ 42.3% of the vote). The department was borderline, but it was still squarely in the MAS camp. Recent events are putting that into doubt; an alliance between the comité cívico movements in the media luna (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija) and Chuquisaca-Sucre is a growing possibility. Has “¡la sede si se mueve!” become the banner to unify the anti-government opposition?

A quick look at the Facebook primaries numbers is merited following the Democratic presidential candidate debates (hosted by CNN & YouTube). I’m not so much interested in number of supporters (every candidate gained supporters), as much as percent change in number of supporters (7/23—7/25) relative to the previous percent change (7/17—7/23). Note that 7/23 recorded figures are pre-debate figures.

One of the things I personally selected for our wedding registry was an ice cream maker. This summer, one of my “personal” (not-work-related) projects was to learn how to make ice cream. So far, I’ve made cinnamon, coffee, and maple walnut ice cream. I’ve been searching to try some more exotic, spice-based flavors. First on my list? Anise. I’m glad to discover I’m not the only one: sour cream anise ice cream.

Facebook (and the internet in general) is transforming life as we know it. Including academic life. I recently joined a Facebook group for those interested in teaching comparative politics (the admin is Patrick O’Neil, author of Essentials of Comparative Politics). There’s also a companion blog: Teaching Comparative. Enjoy!

Eduardo Avila at Global Voices has more on the recent cabildo in El Alto against moving the seat of power (La Paz). The post includes a number of links to Bolivian bloggers from different points of view.

It’s more precise to refer to La Paz as the “seat of power” (sede de gobierno), since it’s not technically the capital (Sucre is still the “constitutional” capital of the republic). Meanwhile, residents of Sucre are mobilizing tomorrow.

The latest installment of my Facebook candidate updates: Not much has changed, though Mike Huckabee (1,820 supporters) has moved up a notch (squeaking past Sam Brownback, 1,802) in the GOP race. Barack Obama still has more supporters than all the other candidates combined (109,847 to 92,752); Rudy Giuliani still has no Facebook profile; Chris Dodd’s (930) profile picture is now a Simpsonesque drawing. There’s also a new “independent” candidate: Ray McKinney (15).

Internet Exploder doesn’t handle layered CSS very well. I’ve fixed the site now so it should work better w/ IE. Let me know if it (still) looks odd. If you’re forced to use Windoze, I recommend Firefox (it’s standards compliant & faster).

In a recent post, listed a recent article by Martin Brienen (“Interminable Revolution: Populism and Frustration in 20th Century Bolivia”) . The article was published in the most recent (Spring-Winter 2007) issue of SAIS Review, which has a number of interesting articles on populism around the world (not just Latin America).

For months, Evo Morales has argued that Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly (elected July 2006) is “plenipotentiary.” Now he’s arguing that the Assembly actually does have limitations, areas in which it doesn’t have “competence.” That area is the question of the republic’s capital. This is ironic for two sets of reasons.

Now La Paz can claim its own cabildo (the link takes you to 21 stories from La Razón). Santa Cruz has had several, including a recent one three weeks ago, to demand regional autonomy. Recently, the media luna (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija, and now perhaps Chuquisaca) opposition have also called for moving the capital back from La Paz to Sucre. So the La Paz cabildo was meant to demand that the Constituent Assembly respect “national unity” & remove moving the capital from the agenda.

I went on my first tour of a hospital (Holy Spirit in Mechanicsburg) yesterday. I’ve never been on a “hospital tour” before, though I’ve never been expecting a baby before, either. So this is all new to me. Mostly, we met in a room full of other pregnant women & men to learn about car seats, why babies shouldn’t be shaken, and such. Basically, mostly common sense information & probably meant to protect the hospital from potential lawsuits. But it was nice to see the place where we may have to drive 20 minutes to at 3am some winter day in December. We’re also scheduled to visit the Harrisburg Hospital (the other place we may have to drive 20 minutes to).