With such an education level, Venezuela is read for...

Here you can take a look at what Venezuelans watched on state television this week (courtesy of Emilia). The channel is Tves, a channel that replaced RCTV station when Chavez decided not to renew RCTV's license. The event described is one of Phelps' competitions.

The journalist says nobody had managed to get as many as 8 medals before...only "Michael Phelps in the Olympics of Munich of 1972 in Hitler's Germany, when Hitler did not want to give him the medals".

He probably thought of Jesse Owens in the Olympics of 1936, a US American who got 4 medals . The TVves journalist "merged him" with Mark Spitz, who got 7 medals in the Olympics of 1972.

I have watched sports commentators from several countries, including Germany and the US saying the most stupid things, but I think this is a little bit over the top. It shows no real knowledge of history of the XX century, no sense of perspective. It also goes in the same wave with Hugo Chávez's statements on Angela Merkel, whom he has related to Nazis. Even if there were Nazis who later went to the CDU after the war Angela Merkel has nothing to do with them, certainly she is less connected to those people than Chávez with people who supported Stalin or the Mufti of Jerusalem.

Hugo Chávez said in one of his Sunday marathon shows mankind was about 20 centuries old. He then asked "Francois", probably one of those European communists "living (off) the new Socialist experience", if it was more. "Yes, more, more". Chávez asked: Like 25 centuries? And the €-socialist assented: "Yes". "Thanks, brother". What else could the European visitor do? Contradict el Comandante? No way, José.

Now, Chávez has said a thousand times to foreign journalists he came from a very poor family and he had to walk without shoes many times. Well, his parents were, like mine, teachers. Even if teachers back then did not earn much, they did earn something. I had shoes and more and my family was living in a more expensive state than Barinas. Chávez's parents were earning the same but in the countryside. Chávez went to a free school, like I did. Chávez had to study, like me, at least Universal History, History of Venezuela, Arts 1 (with History of Arts), Geography 1 (with quite some geology) as well as at least 3 years of biology, where he got quite some about evolution (I did 5 years, but in Venezuela some people do more science and others more humanities). Chávez also started some studies of political science at the Universidad Simón Bolívar, although he stopped one year before he made his bloody coup. It is not like Chávez had no resources, no choice, as if he were "the poor child" who came from nothing. He was rather an average Venezuelan with a very particular attitude to knowledge.

What kind of attitude do Chavistas have to have nowadays? Actually, there were people who supported Chávez at the beginning and were well prepared. One of them was Jorge Olavarría, a historian who, surprising for me, supported Chávez. He was one of Chávez ministers at the very start, in 1998, but he realised in 1999 (too late for me) what kind of error he had done and he gave a famous speech in the Congress. Like him, other gullible idealists have already left the wagon. Now it is all in for the ones who want to profit from oil boom.

Chávez lost the referendum of 2007, but he has said repeatedly he wants to propose again a reform in order to be further reelected. Several bloggers like Quico and Juan and Miguel have being reporting on all the moves by Chavismo to consolidate in power. Most people with a real desire to learn and improve humanly are stepping off the Chavismo track. What kind of people will we have in a couple of years ruling the country? Informing on TV?