I would think most of us remember the song from the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There's news I have purposefully avoided. 9/11, which threw me into a long depression. The war in Iraq. The day those contractors were chopped and their pieces burned and hanged, that was it. The night after this presidential election, the non-suspense of four more years yelled by porkers, hysterically. The Decider against the Flopper. Fifty-nine thousand votes in Ohio.
credit goes to U of M team Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi and Mark Newman. Map represents demographics.
Today I must break this one promise on war news. At Gitmo three men were found dead, allegedly of suicide. Hummm, the news rings so familiar to me. There was an era when nearly all of South America was in the hands of puppet military dictatorships. All of the generales had perfected torture skills under the teachings of gringos. Brazil had its own torture technique, the pau the arara. The arara is a type of cockatoo, and the pau is its perch. Prisoners are hung on the perch hands and feet tied to it, as if they were chicken in a rotisserie machine. As if the position weren't painful enough, they get shocks every now and again.
In 1976 two men with ties to the PCB (Partido Comunista Brasileiro) were found dead in their cells. The Redeemer said the causes for both deaths were suicide, now you get it? These men were a worker and a journalist. Their deaths set a public movement against the Redeemer, and slowly the dictatorship came to an end in Brazil.
There are 640 men at Gitmo, according to the NY Times, if you can ever trust ever again the paper that gave cover to Judy Miller, who gave cover to I.Libby, Dick Cheney's staffer who apparently outed the CIA agent, but that is yesterday's news. The Muslims held at Gitmo die and rebel inside the prison without ever having been tried. And that is why we call our form of government a democracy. To me it is more like a demonocracy.
What is so weird, like, totally, is the fact that Islam abhors suicide. Isn't it a little strange, even to you, living comfortably in your Red State, that Muslims would be attempting suicide?
Why did this piece of news remind me of days long gone in Brazil? The Idiot is sure he was appointed by the Lord. I hope the Lord has mercy on my soul. After all, I broke one promise today.
On lighter notes, maybe darker of skin, Sweden tied Trinidad-Tobago and unfortunately Argentina is beating Côte D'Ivoire, Two nihil. But a team with a guy named Drobga, which is close enough to "no good" in Portuguese, "droga" can't expect much. Oh, well. Second promise broken.
Finally, on a much lighter note, the first bloggers convention, in Vegas, not for the putas or gambling but for the room prices. You can tell the bloggers, those pale whiter-than-white people in bermudas and slippers with socks, a flat wide ass and nerdier than nerd look, both men and women. Then there are the journalists, wondering if they should risk it all to blog. Finally, there are the Democratic party folks, Hillary was a no-show, Bill Richardson a last-minute show (governor, New Mexico, a FOB) and Wesley Clarke. Although organizers of the event said Republicans had been invited, they were nowhere to be seen. This is also from today's NY Times.
Tina blogs from a PowerBook G4, 17"screen, made by Apple
While bloggers are recognized as a force here in the USA, in Brazil the lusophone wikipedia has turned down several articles regarding blogs and even one definition of blog. Strange, fantastic, extraordinary!
Finally words by Montesquieu, philosopher pre-French Revolution:
"Neither the State nor its sovereignity can be an end in themselves; they are to serve humans and are limited by human rights."
And the very contemporary Fifith Article of the Declaration of Human Rights:
"Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. "
Maybe the problem is that the USA signed it but the men in power have collective dyslexia. After all, elephants do not forget.
political commentary
Gitmo
torture
USA
Blogger Convention
Brazil
Futebol
1 comment:
I am not alone. The father of one of the dead said his son was happy and would never do that. The Saudi embassador found the whole scenario unlikely -- This was in the Los Angeles Times.
Nobody really wants to poke at a wasps' nest, do they?
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