In the Chilean presidential election, Socialist candidate Michelle Bachelet looks like the favorite to win. Bachelet and her family were victims of the United States-backed fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet, so her electoral triumph is a great sign of progress. As is the fact that the former dictator Pinochet is under arrest and faces charges (albeit very belatedly) for his horrific abuses of the Chilean people.

If she wins, Bachelet would also become Latin America's fourth elected female leader, signaling perhaps a move towards greater gender equality in the region. Do you think that maybe we could have a woman president here in the United States sometime soon? I certainly hope so, although I am not sure whether either of the stuck-in-the-past major political parties in the USA (Demublicans or Republicrats) are ready to make such a bold move. After all, only once have either of those parties even nominated a woman for vice president (Geraldine Ferraro in 1984).

In United States political news, Eugene McCarthy has passed away at the age of 89. The former Minnesota senator is probably best known for his bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1968, when his stand against the Vietnam war led incumbent president Lyndon Johnson to withdraw from the race. We could use someone like Gene McCarthy again, with the US military bogged down in another unjust and unwinnable war.