“LA PAJITA Esta que era una niña de cera; pero no era una niña de cera, era una gavilla parada en la era. Pero no era una gavilla sino la flor tiesa de la maravilla*. Tampoco era la flor sino que era un rayito de sol pegado a la vidriera. No era un rayito de sol siquiera: una pajita dentro de mis ojitos era. ¡Alléguense a mirar cómo he perdido entera, en este lagrimón, mi fiesta verdadera!”

“…las mujeres suelen caminar más que los hombres y usan menos el transporte motorizado. En Hanoi, 54% de los viajes diarios realizados por mujeres son caminando, versus 38,7% de los hombres; en Ouagadougou, esos valores alcanzan 56% y 33%, respectivamente (Cusset, 1997). En Nueva Delhi, los modos privados de transporte son usados principalmente por los hombres, mientras los autobuses y las caminatas aparecen como los principales medios de las mujeres (Sharma y Gupta, 1998).”

“Sobre calidad democrática en Chile: “Although Chile has made considerable steps forward with respect to democratic quality, some center-left observers identify certain systemic weaknesses, due mainly to the following six factors: (1) The coalitions governing Chile after 1990 had neither the political space nor the will to impose higher taxes. Therefore, the main Achilles’ heel of Chilean democracy today is the worsening income distribution. (2) Certain forms of political discrimination inherited from the military dictatorship remain in place, such as restrictions in voting rights for Chileans outside the country, for prisoners even if not yet found guilty, and for military troops. (3) A media system that depends highly on an economically oligopolistic group, which limits the formation of a pluralistic public sphere. (4) The country still faces unsolved ethnic conflicts, which trigger state actions that fail to respect the civil and political rights of ethnic minorities. (5) Politics is still dominated by individuals and groups that unite economic and political power. High-level politicians and civil servants still mainly originate from the same narrow circle of families from which they have always come, ensuring that officeholders do not represent Chilean society as a whole. Taking into account the importance of private campaign financing, it is not surprising that one of the country’s richest persons has now acceded to the Chilean presidency. (6) Although corruption does not influence politics as much as in some other Latin American countries, there is a phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the previous point: Some people from elite circles gain public positions only by swapping high-level political or public administration jobs amongst one other. It is also rare for people who do not perform their job well to be replaced by someone from outside this limited circle.””