as i'm sure anyone who takes a passing glance at the "Americas" section of the NYT, BBC, Globe&Mail, etc. will have noticed, Argentina's first democratically elected president (post-military junta), Raul Alfonsin, died April 1st.  my lack of knowledge in 20th century political science in general and 1980's argentine politics in particular preclude me from making any editorial comment whatsoever.  even my in-depth survey of (count 'em) 4 authentic argentines provided little in the way of conclusive statistical evidence concerning the overall popularity of Señor Alfonsin (2 respondents thought him to be a good leader "mas o menos", one thought him a bad man and one respondent felt it irresponsible to answer given that she was not yet alive when he was in power).  i'm not taking this in any particular direction other than to comment that the 20th century (particularly its latter half) was quite obviously littered with the rotting political corpses of leaders who took it upon themselves to lead their bruised and battered countries out of the darkness implicit in any dictatorship.  i'm quite certain even the most well-intentioned of leaders would fail in the face of 700% inflation. at any rate, i'm in no positon intellectually to be hammering on at length on such topics (or any topic come to think of it) but truth be told, i was searching for a feeble segue into the topic of military dictatorships and their horrific architecture thus enabling me to post the above photo.  nothing says military dictatorship like a concrete monstrosity.