Some time I picked to stop blogging about Venezuela, right? Yeesh! OK, so call this the first of a series of – hopefully rare – Ilan Chester-style guest posts from the other side of retirement.

-Quico.

Maybe exposure to tear gas causes learning difficulties.

There’s a lot of ferment right now, a lot of excitement, as a brand new generation of kids relearning, en cabeza propia all kinds of things that nobody ever learns en cabeza ajena.

Like Juan, I’ve seen this movie before. And so I sort of know how it ends. So – SPOILER ALERT – here are the seven lessons that today’s students are eventually going to figure out, but not before a huge amount of heartache and, well, just plain normal ache:

1. The one thing chavismo can’t do without is an enemy, preferably one that its followers can feel good about hating, a convincingly menacing yet…