The Tower of David

I watched a recent episode of Homeland. The first series of the TV show was an impressive study of post 9/11 paranoia . The second and third series were greeted with less favour having jumped the shark ( the reference is to an episode of Happy Days were Fonzie while water skiing jumps a shark - it meant le fin du Happy Days).

Brodie is the former jihadi (?), former Vice President and former marine on the lam in Caracas . His paramour is the bi polar CIA operative Carrie Mathison currently ensconced in the funny farm. The critics have a point - credibility is not a strong suit. This is not an entry about Homeland - it's about the extraordinary sight of Brodie's hide out in Caracas .

I had never heard of the Tower of David. It is is an unfinished skyscraper in Caracas named after the tower's investor David Brillembourg. The construction of the tower began in 1990 but was halted in 1994 due to the Venezuelean banking crisis. The government took over the building and a housing shortage led to occupation of the building by squatters .

I read about the building in an article in the New Yorker. It is an extraordinary sight. A gleaming monument to capital turned into a high rise shanty town for the poor and dispossessed . The article was largely hostile to the now deceased President Chavez. I am not qualified to comment on his time in office though America usually disapproves of Latin American socialists who distribute wealth to the poor. The distribution of wealth to the rich is much more acceptable.

If you get the chance check out the Tower of David. It is a monument of our time.