Devotional Kitsch - An Argentine Update

The Costanera Norte offers river access to the residents of Buenos Aires.

Not far from our Buenos Aires apartment, leading northwest from the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport, the Costanera Rafael Obligado provides direct access to the Río de La Plata shoreline for city residents. It’s a popular spot for walking, fishing and asados (barbecues) and, at its northern end, the Parque de la Memoria is an open-air memorial to the tens of thousands who disappeared under the military dictatorship of 1976-83.

One area “attraction” I’ve always ignored is Tierra Santa, a Disneyland for the devout that displays a kitschy version of ancient Jerusalem and its spiritual legacy (as depicted in the video above). About the only thing I can compare it with is Tennessee’s farcically fake Ark Encounter which, deservedly, appears to be approaching financial collapse. On one level that’s easy for me to say—I’m not a believer—but why would any sensible person spend a single peso to watch an hourly mechanical resurrection when genuine devotional sights are so close at hand?

Carlos Menem renounced Islam for Catholicism in order to become Argentina's president in 1989.

The Catedral Metropolitana is Buenos Aires's most conspicuous religious landmark.

It’s worth noting that, for many Argentines, religion is fungible. For instance, former President Carlos Menem—of Syrian descent—converted from Islam to Catholicism to run for office, since that was a constitutional requirement at the time. Buenos Aires, of course, has many important Christian sites, starting with the classic Catedral Metropolitana and even the handsome Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa of San Telmo. But the Middle East’s other Abrahamic faiths are represented by landmarks such as the Templo de la Congregación Israelita and the Centro Islámico Rey Fahd—both of which are open for free guided tours.

Palermo's Centro Islámico Rey Fahd is the largest mosque in South America.

None of those, of course, is a theme park—for that, visitors to Argentina might be better advised to visit the city of La Plata, whose República de los Niños, where children can explore scale model replicas of diverse structures that even include a mosque. For my part, though, I prefer more offbeat devotional locations that fetishize folk saints.

La Plata's República de los Niños has a scale model mosque for kids to explore.

Rather than a biblical theme park, I would urge visitors to see the syncretic Santuario del Gauchito Gil, where pilgrims pay homage to a Robin Hood figure from the northern province of Corrientes. It also has the advantage of proximity to the Esteros del Iberá, Argentina’s great subtropical wetlands preserve, to view the most diverse concentrations of wildlife within the country’s borders.

Who needs a mechanical Jesus when you can stand before the altar of Gauchito Gil?

Alternatively, in the western province of San Juan—also an underappreciated wine district—the Santuario Difunta Correa memorializes a maternal figure who, according legend, died in the desert while suckling her newborn (who, miraculously, survived to be found by passing muleteers). In truth, she probably never existed, but her story is more plausible—and far more intriguing—than what supposedly happened in the “Holy Land.”

San Juan's Difunta Correa is a legendary folk saint whose infant son supposedly survived at her breast after she died in the desert.

For those unable to visit either the Gaucho Gil or the Difunta, do not despair! Spontaneous roadshrine shrines—some of them quite large—are common on the country’s highways and along some city sidewalks.

Even in sophisticated Palermo, the faithful leave water for the Difunta.

Attack of the Anteaters?

I’ve always found it odd that athletic teams at the Irvine campus of the University of California go by the nickname “Anteaters.” It’s even stranger than the fact the teams at the University’s Santa Barbara campus go by the nickname “Gauchos,” even though colonial California’s horsemen went by the Mexican term vaquero (“buckaroo” is a likely corruption of the Spanish original).

Still, maybe the usage of anteaters isn’t so inappropriate for a potentially dangerous competitor - as two Brazilian hunters recently learned but cannot regret at this point. That’s because the hunters became the hunted or, at least, their presumptive prey turned the tables on them. One was a farmer who approached the animal with a knife but didn’t reckon on the beast’s long sharp foreclaws, which caused “deep puncture wounds in his thighs and upper arms.” The man bled to death.

There is no evidence that giant anteaters, which range from Honduras into northernmost Argentina, are aggressive toward humans, but will defend themselves, even against jaguars. They have poor eyesight, though, and may strike out accidentally (or not) against humans. If you’re fortunate enough to see one in the wild, keep your distance.

In captivity, they can also be dangerous - in 2007, a zookeeper in Buenos Aires Province also died from an anteater attack. At Rincón del Socorro, in Argentina’s Esteros del Iberá wetlands where Douglas Tompkins’s conservation initiative is reintroducing this endangered species to the region, there’s a large wired enclosure for an adult male anteater that killed its owner – yes, someone was keeping it as a pet – in the city of Santiago del Estero.

I actually have some first-hand knowledge of this latter case, which concerned a gentle beast (pictured above) that licked my hand through the fence with the long slender tongue it uses to consume the contents of large antmounds. All the same, lacking fear of humans, it’s literally capable of killing someone with affection. For that reason, they can’t risk letting it loose in the wild, but it’s also a good cautionary tale against keeping wild animals as pets.

South America Talk Radio

And now for something completely different: My recent appearance on Montreal's "Armchair Traveler" radio show is now available for streaming at http://tinyurl.com/l6mjxzk (in English, fortunately, not my desperation language of French).

Onward to Patagonia: I Acquire a New Vehicle in Chile

Last April, I received an anxious phone call from my Santiago friend Marializ Maldonado, to whom I had loaned my trusty 1996 Nissan Terrano (it’s a Pathfinder in most other countries) when I was last in Chile a year earlier. As she was running some errands in Santiago’s Quinta Normal borough, a young man ran a stop sign and hit her directly on the drivers' side of the vehicle. Fortunately, she was not seriously hurt, but my truck (seen below in the Argentine village of Colonia Pellegrini, after a mudbath in the Iberá marshes) was a total loss, the cost of repairs exceeding its market value.

Worse yet, my insurance with BCI Seguros, its collision coverage valid only for total loss, had apparently lapsed and the young man in question had no coverage whatsoever. At the same she told me, though, that his family had sufficient resources to pay for the damage. Meanwhile I learned, to my surprise, that BCI had automatically renewed my policy even though I had not paid a single peso of the premium, and would pursue the case on my behalf.

It took eight months, but yesterday came the reward, as BCI presented me with a check for 2.5 million pesos (roughly US$5000) which I could devote toward a replacement, a 2005 Suzuki Grand Nomade that my trusted Santiago mechanic Mauricio Donoso found for me. I won't divulge the final purchase price, but I'm delighted with a comfortable vehicle that's suitable for the Patagonian roads that lie ahead. BCI did deduct the unpaid cost of my unpaid premium from the settlement.

Finishing the purchase, though, wasn't quite so simple as I had hoped. This morning I met the seller - Mauricio's cousin María Elena León - at the Registro Civil in the borough of Vitacura, where an ill-mannered civil servant refused to transfer the vehicle because I did not have the original copy of my RUT, the Chilean tax ID that's obligatory for all such transactions. In the Terrano’s glove compartment, it was lost in the accident’s aftermath.

Instead, he directed us to go to a notary public who could verify my photocopy of the tax ID and complete the process. As I wrestled with the idea of arranging a long-term rental with option to complete the purchase, everything went smoothly and, now, I'm almost ready to start my road trip to Patagonia, the region I love most.

Conservation Conversation: Kris Tompkins's Patagonia, Part 2

Last week, I published the first part of a lengthy interview with environmental philanthropist Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, wife and partner of Doug Tompkins, about Chile’s proposed new Parque Nacional Patagonia, conducted during my visit to Estancia Valle Chacabuco earlier this year. Today I’m publishing part two, which starts with a couple questions about Parque Nacional Corcovado, near the town of Chaitén. We also touched briefly upon the Esteros del Iberá, the wildlife-rich subtropical wetlands in Argentina’s northwestern province of Corrientes.

WBB: I don’t know much about Corcovado (pictured above). Are there any facilities open to the public?

KMT: Corcovado is not inaccessible, but it’s accessible by sea. You can see it from the highway, but you can’t get in from there. I mean, I guess you can if you’re Robert Scott…

WBB: With regard to [Estancia Valle Chacabuco, pictured above], I’ve been looking at the style – it’s very different from the traditional sheep estancia.

KMT: It comes more from the Argentine Patagonian style, from the English…

WBB: Well, you see similar details at the big house at Monte León (pictured above, now a guest house). Some of those resemble the little details here, though the cladding is very different…

KMT: This came about, we have a series of photographs we’ve been taking for years of classic and beautiful houses we found in Argentine Patagonia, and when we started here because we have all this rock, which comes out of the valley, this is what we decided to use here. It’s emblematic of the Patagonian, not the Chilean necessarily, because the English weren’t here.

WBB: Actually, the English were a little farther north. Lucas Bridges was here.

KMT: Yes, he was here, his house is up on the border.

WBB: Are you going to preserve any of the existing buildings?

KMT: Well, his house is preserved as an historical monument. It’s on the Entrada Baker, as you go across Paso Roballos [toward Argentina] up there.

WBB: I did not know that. Is it visible?

KMT: Yes, you can drive in there. We’re going to fix it up and there’ll be a sign that says “homesite of Lucas Bridges.”

WBB: What about any of the existing buildings here?

KMT: No. These were not really classic estancia buildings. I mean, we’ve painted them, we’ve fixed them up. It was an army barracks here.

WBB: I look at things like, say, the wool shed, which is something that is sort of typical in both Argentina and Chile.

KMT: No, people will see that up on the border, where we have an historical site, but not down here.

WBB: But you will have something about its legacy as a sheep farm?

KMT: There will be an information center here.

WBB: Who were the original owners of this property?

KMT: It was leased to some people, but there was no kind of title on the land until…I think the De Smets were granted the first actual titles, not to the current outline. The reason that Reserva Nacional Tamango exists is that the De Smets family had to cede that out of the ranch to get titles. I don’t pretend to be the storyteller on this one, but it was very complex getting the titles to this property for that family.

WBB: How long were the De Smets here, do you know?

KMT: Well, they came down from Chile Chico, that’s where all the Belgians landed. His father, I’m going to say 45 or 50 years ago, but that was not the whole ranch, that was their presence here.

WBB: So not that long ago?

KMT: Well, for one family, down here, pretty far from everything, that’s quite a bit actually. Lucas Bridges was here long before the De Smets, there were people ranching here before the De Smets came. Anywhere there was grass, people were ranching. There weren’t many fences in those days. There were shepherds and sheep all over the place, that’s why the place is so beat up.

WBB: Have all the fences been removed now? Is work still proceeding?

KMT: No, that’s going to be a long job. We’ve gotten most of the easy ones. We probably 200 miles left to go, probably more, maybe 250.

WBB: That’s one of the big volunteer jobs? How many volunteers do you have coming down here?

KMT: Well, this year we cut it back. We have about a hundred. We had over 500 people.

WBB: What are the terms that they come on?

KMT: You have to stay a minimum of three weeks, pay US$15 per day for food, you have to get yourself to the crossroads down below [on the Carretera Austral], and then we pick you up and drop you off. Some people stay three weeks, some people stay two months, some people stay six months. It depends on what their personal plans are.

WBB: So it sounds, given all the land you have, that it’s a selective process?

KMT: We’re running two different sorts of programs. There’s sort of an internship where you are actually coming here for a specific job. Like the guys here in the lodge, they came to work in the lodge, so you’re more selective with them because you’re looking for certain types of experience and skills. But the bulk of the volunteers is more physical labor; we have a pretty extensive volunteer site on our website and people go in there.

WBB: How many people are here at any given time, then?

KMT: About a hundred. It depends how many construction guys are here. Right now we’re starting the new information center and museum and so, once they get that cracked open the number will go up significantly.

WBB: One of the new buildings I saw going up across the creek here, what’s that?

KMT: That’s all housing for employees, they’re apartments.

WBB: That would be permanent full-time staff? Presumably there would also be seasonal employees? Are those mostly foreigners?

KMT: Yes, for people who will be here after it’s a national park. Everybody is Chilean. Everybody. The only foreigners are Doug, myself, Nadine [Lehner, Conservación Patagónica’s publicist], the guys in San Francisco [CP’s US office], that’s it. Obviously there are foreign volunteers, but in terms of employees our policy is everybody is Chilean or everybody is Argentine. We have one exception in Argentina, at Iberá, Ignacio Jiménez is a Spaniard and he’s one of the top wildlife guys around.

WBB: For what it’s worth, this is an opinion of my own, but I’ve been to Iberá at least half a dozen times and it always astonishes me. It’s such an extraordinary place and I’m always telling people that if you really want to see something interesting in that part of the country, skip Iguazú and go to Iberá. I think it’s so much more interesting.

KMT: I don’t know, I’m pretty addicted to those falls but I agree, you see the falls and then you go to Iberá immediately.

WBB: Iguazú is an impressive sight, but I don’t like what they’ve done with it, it’s become Disneyfied and just overrun with people. Iberá gets not even one percent of the visits that Iguazú gets. It’s become a mass experience, Iberá is so much more intimate.

KMT: Have you been to Rincón del Socorro [pictured above]?

WBB: Yes, I have, it almost sounds like stalking, but I was there last year about the time your plane landed, just shortly after. I coincidentally happened to be coming through and spoke with Leslie Cook, whom I’ve known for quite a few years. I’ve visited the place before, though I’ve never stayed there. I had come from Iguazú, just when it started raining and the road turned to crap.

KMT: Yes, it’s quite bad, sounds familiar.

WBB: Do you have anything else you want to tell me?

KMT: I think it’s important that people know that one of the reasons we’re here is we have between Tamango and this property a little over or under 10 percent of the remaining huemul [Andean deer, pictured below] population. We’re working very hard, along with Conaf, to try to see these numbers go up. We’re doing a lot of support of studies that are going on here, to find out what the threats are. This area has all its species intact, another reason that it’s a real conservation priority, and also it has every kind of ecosystem found in the Patagonian Southern Cone in one place.

WBB: What are the threats to the huemul in this area?

KMT: Primarily, livestock everywhere, loss of habitat. Hunting and poaching, dogs coming up from Cochrane that are feral and don’t get fed down there, so they’re hunting. That’s a big problem here in this population, probably the most critical. So it’s the same thing everywhere, and the thing is there are only an estimated 1,500 of them left.

WBB: In the country? In this area?

KMT: No, everywhere. That’s the world population, both the Argentine and Chilean sides. This is one of the largest grassland restoration projects in the world today.

WBB: We’re right on the edge between the forest and the steppe.

KMT: That’s what I mean when I say all the Patagonian ecotones that exist from rock and ice down to arid, though this is mostly semi-arid. You don’t see the kind of landscape that you see out on the coast, you don’t see those severe arid areas like you find around Monte León, but everything else is here. The water systems here are pure, there are no trout in this lake system and river system other than the Chacabuco, and the upper lakes have not been stocked with trout. So you have a pure water system, and it’s a significant system, especially considering the Patagonian region, there are lakes, streams, lagoons, and wetlands, it’s very unusual. That’s why Conaf and Conama have wanted to put this into conservation for decades, but they never could. So there are a lot of reasons why we’re here.

WBB: So the huemul is the signature species for this area, but are there any others?

KMT: Well, guanacos of course, but they’re abundant. The mountain vizcacha is also red-listed, and we have populations of them all around here.

WBB: I haven’t seen vizcachas here, are these the same as in the Norte Grande or are they a different subspecies?

KMT: I can’t answer that. But they’re not the same as the ones in Iberá.

Author’s note: Related to the chinchilla, the mountain vizcacha to which Kris refers is the same species as occurs farther north, in Bolivia and Peru as well as Argentina, but it is not on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. In Argentina, there are two endangered species of vizcacha rats, a totally different rodent, with very limited ranges.

Conservation Conversation: Kris Tompkins's Patagonia, Part 1

Earlier this year, I stayed at the new lodge at Valle Chacabuco, the ambitious Chilean conservation project of environmental philanthropists Doug Tompkins and Kristine McDivitt Tompkins. In the course of my brief stay, I had the opportunity for an extended conversation with Kris (pictured above, center, at the lodge) over the proposed Parque Nacional Patagonia, including several topics related to the park and their other projects.

Because the conversation was so lengthy, I’m breaking it up into two parts; part two will appear in the near future. It covers their projects in both Chile and Argentina, under the auspices of the non-profit NGO Conservación Patagónica (CP).

WBB: I’ve met Doug before, and I’ve met you extremely briefly. Doug is in the press a lot more than you are.

KMT: A lot more.

WBB: I don’t know much about you personally – can you give me a nutshell biography?

KMT: I was born in California…fourth generation ranching family. I went to college, graduated and started working with Yvon Chouinard, who had climbing equipment for a couple years and then in 1973 we started Patagonia company. I started running that business a couple years later and retired in 1993 to move to southern Chile with Doug to start working in conservation.

WBB: Do you spend all your time here in South America? I understand you spend the summer in Pumalín and the winter in Iberá (Argentina).

KMT: Yes. I mean, we’re residents of the United States, we go between Chile, the United States and Argentina, but the great majority of our time is here. Our time is spent six months in Chile and six months in Argentina, being based out of those two places – we move around a lot.

WBB: With regard to Valle Chacabuco (pictured above), when did you acquire the place? Did you do so with the idea of creating a park?

KMT: In 2004. When we started coming through here in 1993, we looked at it as the kind of place you would like to turn into a park. We talked to the owner about it and he wasn’t necessarily interested, so we just went on and did our things and then, several years later, we heard that it might be up for sale, and that’s how it got started.

WBB: These were the Belgians? How long did it take to arrange the purchase? Were there any other bidders?

KMT: Yes, it was Francisco De Smets. To answer the first part of your question, it took about a year and four months from the time he said he was considering selling to the time that we actually took over. A lot of that was spent negotiating the price that we were prepared to pay versus what he felt was acceptable. Once a deal was struck, it got out into the press that and there was a group, non-government related, that was opposed to the deal. They put up a competing bid and that took about four months of very public back-and-forth about who would end up with Valle Chacabuco. Finally, at the very last hour, we were able to make a bid and close in a way that the owner thought was appropriate. It was brutal.

WBB: Who was the competitor? Was he planning to continue it as a wool estancia?

KMT: Ricardo Ariztía. Mr Chicken, though he has many other holdings besides chickens. He and about five other guys, for anything but conservation.

WBB: What’s the area of the estancia?

KMT: We originally bought about 173,000 acres. Since then, we’ve added three of four nearby inholdings to the park. We have one neighbor who’s not interested in selling. He’s surrounded by us and a touch of Reserva Nacional Jeinimeni. He has sheep and cattle.

WBB: How does this differ from Pumalín in setting it up, since this is not going to be a private nature reserve? What's the difference between the two projects? Will Conaf take over?

KMT: Well, of course, the landscape is different. We hope Pumalín will become a national park too. Both will fall under the new Ministry of the Environment, and will be going to whatever new national park system that they are going to create.

WBB: Is there a timeline?

KMT: The timeline was to have Valle Chacabuco donated by 2017. That was always the timeline, but these things are very opportunistic, often politically driven, so it could be sooner. It just depends on who the president is and all the infrastructure is set, and we feel the park is ready to go toward a donation. Then you have to see what the timing is. Our idea is not to hold onto it, but to make it into a national park.

WBB: By the infrastructure, you mean finishing the buildings, campgrounds…?

KMT: Campgrounds, trails, everything you’d find in a world-class national park.

WBB: Where are the campgrounds going to be, mostly along the highway?

KMT: The principal ones, certainly, the biggest of them all will be at the foot of this valley, and another at Casa Piedra as you go up toward the [Argentine] border. We will have a few campsites up in Lago Chico and other places, such as Lago Cochrane. They won’t be big fancy campgrounds, but there’ll be designated places where people can camp.

WBB: Does this property extend south to Lago Cochrane?

KMT: We go all the way to the lake, and then all the way to the border along the lake. The national reserve is contiguous.

WBB: How open to visitors is the park at the moment? Are there enough campgrounds functioning at the moment?

KMT: That’s the thing, that’s why we need to get two campgrounds going immediately because we’ve got visitors and, other than the lodge (pictured above), we have a little campground back here where stragglers and volunteers camp out, but that’s not a public campground per se. People can use it, but it’s not what you want visitors to be using. So people are welcome, but usually for the day, or they’re stuck in the working campground.

WBB: Will the facilities resemble those at Pumalín, in terms of what they offer in the campgrounds and such?

KMT: Yes, you know, a group area for cooking, some individual campsites, with little quinchos, and then a lot of places where people put up their tents and use the public bathrooms and showers.

WBB: Cold showers?

KMT: Yes.

WBB: Before we get onto that, I want to bring up the issue you mentioned of presidential power, whoever happens to be in power at the time. How has the current president responded to initiatives like this?

KMT: As Chilean presidents go, I think Sebastián [Piñera] has got a real chance to be remembered as a president who is very concerned about conservation. He has his own conservation project.

WBB: I have been to Tantauco, at least on the edges of it.

KMT: He’s also declared some areas as new protected areas. Is it a lot, well, he’s only been in office a year, but he certainly understands the necessity to have active protected areas, and that’s pretty rare.

WBB: Can he bring along the rest of his constituents, or his party, on the issue? If not, can he bring along enough of them?

KMT: I have no idea, but I doubt it. Teddy Roosevelt didn’t either. Chile has changed a lot since we started 20 years ago. We had a guest here the other night, a friend of ours, from the business community of Chile, and he has a significant place here on the other side of Lago Cochrane, and he really sees that as a private conservation initiative. Andrónico Luksic has a place down in Villa O’Higgins that they consider to be a conservation project. Little by little, things shift, just as they did in the United States.

WBB: Even now there remains a lot of opposition to expanding protection of public lands in the United States. Just in terms of infrastructure, I was surprised when I got in here yesterday to see the size of the restaurant. Are you anticipating tour buses coming through?

KMT: Yes. In another 25 years, you have to imagine Yellowstone when it was first designated a protected area, not a national park yet, there was almost no way to get up there until they put the train in. You have to imagine this park and other parks like it 25 or 50 years from now when there will be a lot of people coming, up from El Calafate and over, when Ruta 40 is paved.

WBB: That’s progressing faster than the Carretera Austral.

KMT: I mean, it’s happening fast over there and here.

WBB: Would you expect an expansion of something like the lodge here?

KMT: That’s not in the master plan, I can tell you that for sure. But after a certain point, we won’t be the ones to decide that.

WBB: You are encouraging people who have an interest in conservation, who have the means, to become donors.

KMT: We have an active fund-raising program for this project. Little Conservación Patagonia cannot possibly create this 650,000-acre park without partners. Impossible. It’s too big. CP started in the year 2000, the first project we did was the Monte León National Park. Have you been there?

WBB: I have been to Monte León (pictured above) several times. Looking at it from a distance, it seems it was simpler to accomplish that project on the Argentine side, or at least quicker, than it was to do this in Chile, at Pumalín. Would that fair to say?

KMT: They’re so different. Pumalín (pictured above) is almost 800,000 acres, and Monte León was a one-purchase, 155,000-acre sheep estancia that was going broke. It’s so difficult to compare the two. Monte León was fast because right after we made the donation, [the late former Argentine president] Néstor Kirchner came into power and he’s from Río Gallegos, and in order to make it a real national park you have to cede jurisdiction from [Santa Cruz] province to the federal government, and the provinces hate the federal government. But Kirchner came into power just months before the Río Gallegos legislature had to vote on that and he called up and effectively said, “I don’t want to look like a schmoe, everybody get in line and vote for this thing.”

WBB: So it was good timing.

KMT: So much in life is good timing. Monte León would have languished as a national park, but without real jurisdiction if Kirchner hadn’t happened to come into power then. He’d been governor forever of Santa Cruz and was able to strong-arm them – ceding jurisdiction requires a 100 percent legislative vote. Imagine trying to get that – that’s why it was so fast. We did it in 18 months. Little CP can manage that kind of project, which we did and we did it fast, but the scale and complexity of this project is different, and so this is the only project we have where we have partners and we absolutely couldn’t do it without them.

WBB: This is the first one where you’re using partners? How many partners are there? All foreign partners, or Chilean partners as well?

KMT: It’s the only one. There are many partners. Ever since we brought the property, I couldn’t have waltzed in here and spent enough money to have bought the initial property, US$10 million. We could do a lot of that, but we couldn’t do all of it.

The partners are mostly foreign, some European, one Chinese man who’s a business partner and the rest from the States.

WBB: Do you still run into objections because the participation is so overwhelmingly foreign?

KMT: We don’t get any objections to it, because this project is 100 percent run by Chileans. This project pays Chilean taxes, people have never cared nor would they analyze where all the funding has come from, they know that CP is a US-based public charity. Where the funding comes from, we don’t hide it, it’s no secret, but what people care about is who’s working here, who helps make the decisions about what’s going to happen, just as they wondered about with Pumalín and Corcovado, will we make national parks out of it? Well, now we have a track record for doing so, so I don’t think people worry about that. Certainly the government’s not worried about it.

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