Quite positive story on Chavez in Houston Chronicle

(Guess the new deals he's been signing with Texaco bought him favorable press..?)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2777856
<snip>
Now, with oil prices at an all-time high, the economy set to grow at least 10 percent this year and the opposition in tatters after Chavez won 59 percent of the vote in a recall referendum on Aug. 15, the president is in a stronger position than ever to carry out his much-heralded "Bolivarian revolution." On Aug. 29, Chavez spoke of a "deepening of the revolutionary process" that "shouldn't frighten anybody."

But Chavez's revolution, far from being Cuban-style, appears to be a unique blend of social welfare and grass-roots civic participation, with a strong dose of free market economics.

In the last year and a half, Chavez has launched subsidized food markets and soup kitchens, health clinics run by Cuban doctors and education programs ranging from literacy classes to university scholarships.

But there has been no attempt to confiscate private property or create state-owned enterprises. Instead, the government is handing out property titles to hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers and offering micro-credits — loans, usually at low interest — to small-scale entrepreneurs. These measures have been championed by free-market economists as keys to growth in developing nations.

<snip>

It goes on to discuss microcredit loans and small businesses.

One of the only skewed comments was this one: "Meanwhile, oil money is gushing in, helped by the continued investment from multinational companies including Exxon Mobil and ChevronTexaco." Thought it was funny the way it implies that there's tremendous money flowing in FROM Exxon & Chevron, as opposed to tremendous money flowing TO Exxon & Chevron..