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 Marcelo Ballvé is a native of Argentina, but grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. He has worked at mainstream and alternative news organizations in the U.S. and Latin America and is currently writing neo-gauchesque literature in Buenos Aires.
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 Ramsar and the Backrooms of Global Water Politics
Post, Marcelo Ballvé, Jun 13, 2007
What is Ramsar? Ramsar is shorthand for the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands—an important and yet low-profile intergovernmental treaty named for the place where it was signed, Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. Think of it as the United Nations for water. It is arguably the most powerful organization overseeing the world's water—especially freshwater—resources, though very few people know of its existence, or the relatively unconventional manner in which it operates.
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 Going to the River: Part 3
Essay, Marcelo Ballvé, Jun 08, 2007
Puerto Madero is the name of the redeveloped old docklands in Buenos Aires. They have been transformed from rusty, univisited relics to an upscale district. Like many planned communities, Puerto Madero is a highly regimented area. Once I'm on its sidewalks I immediately notice the environment's artificiality. Many familiar features of the Buenos Aires street landscape are absent: there are no towering sycamores, cracked sidewalks, or deep rain gutters clogged with leaves and refuse. There are no newspaper stands or overflowing trash cans. There are no lottery vendors standing on street-corners, spools of numbers in their hands.
Photo by Christian Denes
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 Living the Story: the Journalism of Ryszard Kapuscinski
Essay, Marcelo Ballvé, Apr 28, 2007
These days it seems journalists have become less popular than lawyers. The widespread perception of journalism is that it is a field full of pedantic windbags and hacks with hidden agendas. For anyone who might be looking for evidence there is such a thing as a journalist with something mind-expanding to say, whose work is potentially as life-changing as a great film or novel, I recommend Ryszard Kapuscinski. His books might serve to dissuade journalist-haters from their blanket dismissal of our kind, the scribbling tribe. See related link dossier: Kapuscinski: Racist, Liar or Path-Breaking Writer?
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 Tropicália: Portrait of a Revolution
Essay, Marcelo Ballvé, Feb 22, 2007
It was exactly forty years ago that the musical revolution that came to be known as Tropicália was introduced to Brazil, and the world. Tropicália's genesis can be dated with some precision. It came when two musicians in their mid-twenties, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, courageously took to the stage at a 1967 song festival in São Paulo with compositions that they knew would sorely stress the boundaries of musical taste. Their performance was epoch-defining. It was a kind of big bang from which much that came afterward in Brazilian pop music history evolved.
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 Going to the River: Part 2
Essay, Marcelo Ballvé, Feb 02, 2007
If I think long enough about the black water slinking along formidable gutters and gushing into the reinforced drains of this street, I might see it as evidence of low-lying land, a clue that this area's true loyalty is to the river. Then again, the buildings along it belong to the century before last, so it has been a long time since the river has exercised rights to this patch of land. Photo by Christian Denes
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 Going to the River: Part 1
Essay, Marcelo Ballvé, Oct 31, 2006
I call it going to the river. Once or twice a week, I leave my apartment building and head east, toward the river. I always walk down the same street, paved with cobblestones for most of its length, which descends toward the river after passing through the heart of our neighborhood, San Telmo, in the oldest part of Buenos Aires.
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 Shame
Essay, Marcelo Ballvé, Oct 04, 2006
It is not a matter of blaming at this point, but assuming responsibility, and admitting that all of us, Democrat or Republican, citizen or immigrant, hawk or dove, anyone who has a stake in the country must share in the shame of the United States at this point in its history. No half-measures are possible at this point. We must feel this shame, admit to it, and repair what we can.
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