Over his dead body

Perón, Perón, qué grande sos... Unlike most other Argentine news I report here, the bizarre battle over Perón's corpse that took place yesterday was reported by top international media. Juan Domingo Perón, three times president of Argentina and founder of an infinitely malleable political subculture, was moved from La Chacarita to a museum-mausoleum in his former residence in San Vicente, where (according to his old-time friends) he wanted to be buried in the first place. The ceremony was attended by thousands, among them a number of labor union leaders and their associated mobs, bodyguards, drum players, the people you lift from the slums to populate political meetings with the help of a few pesos and maybe some free bad wine. At some point, some guys clashed with some guys, stones and bricks were hurled, guns drawn... the usual. Pathetic, surreal, infuriating, inexplicable. I'll have more on that later... this will be in the spotlight for days anyway.