Plots or plotz? Who took Chavez from Venezuela?

Let the narrative unfurl slowly and don't ask questions about the headline meanwhile, please. Although, to tell the truth, I am not totally sure about the second part of the headline. It could as easy have been "Who took Venezuela from Chavez". Whatever.

Anyway, this post is about a few articles in the Iranian MEHR (“Mehr” in Persian means: kindheartedness, they say on the site). The subject of the articles is the suspicious demise of Mr Chavez. And, I have to say, MEHR have made a grand job of building up the conspiracy.

To start with, an opinion from the horse mouth, so to say:

Chavez: Another CIA assassination victim

A little over a year ago, Chavez went on Venezuelan national radio and said: “I don’t know but… it is very odd that we have seen Lugo affected by cancer, Dilma when she was a candidate, me, going into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina… It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It’s at the very least strange, very strange.”

Now that you've got the basic outline of the plot, some other people started to build on it.

A Russian chief communist echoes the suspicion, somewhat thoughtlessly:

6 world leaders got cancer simultaneously!

According to MNA, Gennady Zyuganov in an interview with Russia 24 TV Channel said: “how did the leaders of six Latin American countries, who were against the US policies, simultaneously diagnosed with one disease, cancer?”

Why "thoughtlessly"? Cause Caudillo said more or less the same thing a bit more than an year ago, and look where he is now. I shall put Zyuganov on my personal watch list immediately.

One of the Chavez's bosom buddies, Evo Morales, calls for investigation:

Morales calls for Chavez’s death investigation

Following the statement by the president of the Russian Communist Party, regarding the abnormality of the six Latin American leader cancer infection and further investigation request into his death, and also request by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman to investigate the matter further, Evo Morales called the Chavez death suspicious.

A voice from the far North is even more certain than all the previous ones:

Obama issues directive to assassinate Chavez

There is nothing I found of interest to quote from that one, but the author of that screed, one Michel Chossudovsky, is certainly a character you may want to spend a few minutes to get acquainted with. The linked Wiki entry reads as a "How To..." book for a professional conspiracy theorist. And I especially enjoyed this quote from that entry:

In a 2006 op-ed by Terry O'Neill in the conservative Canadian news magazine, Western Standard, Chossudovsky was included on the list of "Canada's nuttiest professors, those whose absurdity stands head and shoulders above their colleagues."

Yup.

And now we came to the first part of the headline ("Plots or plotz?") and a related article that caused me some uncertainty, thankfully resolved with the help of the Urban Dictionary. Here is the article, by Ehsan Movahedifar:

US plots finally takes Chavez from Venezuela

There is nothing especially new in the article itself after all the above ones, aside of a somewhat strange turn of speech at the end:

Now, his has left us, but the revolutionary spirit he promoted is a symbol of his, and hopefully, the path to independence and progress taken by Chavez is continued by support from Venezuelan people.

(emphasis mine)

His what has left us? And a symbol of his what did he promote? Was it something secret, blanked out by the Iranian censor?

No matter, the headline is the real tough nut here. Have you noticed that inconsistency between the plural "plots" and the rest of it? To start with, I have thought (just as you do now) that this unneeded "s" is a simple typo.

Well, I can't say that the real answer is simple. Only my paranoid Elder's mind and a slight sprinkling of Yiddish lead me to it. The "plots" is a typo indeed, but not in the way I (and you) were thinking. It should be "plotz", and the earlier mentioned Urban Dictionary proves why:

1. to collapse or faint, as from surprise, excitement, or exhaustion.
2. From Yiddish, to fall down from extreme excitement or abhorrence. When i heard she had slept with my roommate, i was about to plotz!
3. burst, with surprise. When I heard that, I almost plotzed!
4. to faint, fall over, shit pants with excitement. Word is famously used in the film "Donnie Brasco" when they arrive at the King's Court in Miami. "Wait until you get a load of the banquet room. You're gonna plotz!"
5. to burst, as from laughter. Moishe told a joke that was so funny, I almost plotzed.
6. To shock, surprise, take aback, astound to the extent of fainting or "shitting oneself". Krusty: I opened for The Who at Woodstock. I came out in a Beatle wig with a ukulele. Hendrix said he almost plotzed -- his exact words.
7. The act of farting or accidentally pooping while urinating or cumming. Often used to express extreme responses to humor, pleasure or fear. That Youtube video was so funny I plotzed myself. I nearly plotzed when I saw that Stormtrooper bikini!

Wondrous, ain't it? Seven meanings and each one fits the situation. So we can consider the great conspiracy of the dear departed leader resolved, I suggest.

But if you are still not satisfied, the priceless Urban Dictionary offers more suggestions:

see also

• shit
• crap
• duty
• ferklempt
• turd

"Duty"? Oh well, enough is enough.