Tag Archives: Reuters

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Christmas Cometh

It’s Beginning to Look
Like It’s Busy Out There

A full moon and Asteroid 2003 SD220 (NASA has a rot way of spoiling the fun for everybody with these coded names), are two rare events for a Christmas Eve. But you will see only one of the them. Just don’t be skittish: there’s no way neither of them will hit us anytime soon.
The moon, which hasn’t looked this big since 1977, is 28 times closer to us than that cigar-shaped rock, however large it is, so no alarm. And it won’t return before your 25th-generation nephew dies of old age either. But it’s good to know that we’re keeping an eye on it, just in case.
So, even if your Uncle Bob brings up that time when the moon split up violently from Earth, ions of years ago, don’t lose your appetite over it. It now sits far – and still pretty, thank you very much – from us and, most likely, is moving even further.
As for rocks falling off from heavens and finishing us all off, well, there’s really not much we can do about it at this time. So let the comet come, and the comments pour with the wine, and laughter freely flow. For what else is there to do?
We’re stardust and to ashes will return, so enjoy the preternaturally warm weather in some parts of the planet, before it gets unbearable, and count your blessings. Not everyone is so lucky but they’re all still important to your own worth in this life.
Up above, astronauts watch over us, and all around us, people go out of themselves to do good, specially when no one is around. Lend a hand, if you can. And even if you’re standing in the soup line, give yourself a break; we’re very glad you’re still around.

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Photo Retouch

Photographer Known For Essay
on Albino Family Dies in Brazil

The plane crash that killed Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos this week threw the country’s succession of President, and still front runner, Dilma Rousseff, into grief and turmoil. But it also may help us correct an injustice of sorts, in a completely unexpected way.
Along with Campos, eight other people also died: the two co-pilots, two political aides, a cameraman, and a photographer, Alexandre Severo, well known in Brazil for an essay on a rare multiracial family that counts both black and albino kids among its members.
As it turns out, Colltales had published a post on albinos last year, and included a photo of the Fernandes de Andrade family, taken by Severo. Except that his name was not mentioned on the credit of the picture, only Reuters’, its license holder, which is correct but incomplete.
Severo, 36, had already an established career when he portrayed the unique group in 2009, black mother Rosemere, and her two black and three albinos kids, all from Severo’s homestate city of Olinda, Pernambuco. Chances for that to happen: one in a million.
Actually, to prevent yet another correction, let’s say that those odds are estimates; we don’t have scientific data to support such claim. Nevertheless, there’s no need to estimate the challenges for such a poor group of Brazilians for it’s downright hard to even fathom what they go through every day.
As far as we know, the five are doing fine, but again, we have no data to back that up. So we hope, just like albinos do, that they are, and that health issues don’t get in their way to a fulfilling life. Also, that we all come to understand their condition and, more importantly, that our prejudices don’t hamper their right to be loved and respected.
That was the point of our story, anyway. But not of this one. For this is a due correction that we needed to make, and a sign that Severo’s work will outlive him and honor his legacy. In his short life, he managed to link his name to a theme of love and racial equality, almost as rare today as the genetic mutation that triggers albinism.
Tip of the hat to you, brother.
_______
Read Also:
* The Hunted

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Bloody Throes

The Hiroshima Reminder
& the Age of New Killings

Capping a few particularly blood-drenched weeks for thousands of civilians around the world, today’s the 69th anniversary of the mass killing of almost two hundred thousand residents of Hiroshima, by the first ever U.S. atomic bomb attack. It sealed the end of the World War 2 and started the nuclear age.
Meanwhile, Israel’s has withdrawn for now its ground troops from Gaza, but bombs continue to rain over Ukraine and Iraq. Plus, 100 years ago last Monday was the beginning of WW1, while around the same time, 50 years later, the first American combatants were sent to Vietnam. Blood soaked time, indeed.
Yet, for a breed of beings that’s been waging war since its inception on this planet, we’re surprisingly coy to call this game of mutual extermination for what it is. When it comes to rile up the troops and send them to the slaughtering fields, we’re often like bad parents, and lie to them that it won’t hurt. But it always does.
We insist in giving the carnage a catchy name, and promise it won’t last, but it always does, no matter how jazzed up the latest campaign is marketed to be. Remember ‘Shock and Awe?’ Almost like what the schoolyard bully would promise to do with us, at the end of the classes.
The writer H.G. Wells, best known as one of the forefathers of modern sci-fi literature, could’ve spared his legacy from a tragic miss, when he gave that first international conflict a pompous sobriquet: ‘the war to end all wars.’ 37 million dead, and two decades later, he couldn’t believe the world was ready to have another go at it.
To bury Japan’s imperial dreams of taking over where Hitler’d left off, the U.S. leveled two entire cities – Nagasaki was destroyed three days later, with almost another hundred thousand killed -, using atomic power, and justified it by claiming that such a power could not be topped, and it’d be forever a deterrent against war.

WHERE LIFE’S CHEAP, WAR’S MOST FOUL
And yet, many more followed. Speaking of justification, the Vietnam War, perhaps the most traumatic conflict the U.S. got ever involved, was triggered Aug. 4, 1964, with a confrontation with North Vietnamese forces at the Gulf of Tonkin, by covertly operating American ships.
The incident prompted Congress to give an unfortunate carte blanche to President Lyndon Johnson, and later Richard Nixon, to escalate a war that even now remains difficult, to well, justify. Coincidentally, Nixon signed the end of the war in 1973, and resigned from office 40 years ago this coming Saturday.
What we didn’t know then was that the only thing that the atomic bomb could possibly sustain was fear. Out of it, another war lingered, the Cold one, just enough to reset borders and redesign political alliances. Once we were done with it, Continue reading →

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Who’s the Ass Now?

But They Blow Up
Donkeys, Don’t They?

When news broke in Gaza that the Israeli army had blown up a donkey, claiming it had been loaded with explosives by Hamas, it’s likely that few thought much of it. After all, way before Jesus got to Jerusalem mounting one, animals have been butchered for the sake of humans.
But for reasons that have little to do with biblical tales, and a lot with the way life cheapens at the sight of a gun barrel, a disturbing poignancy about such a minor casualty refuses to remain unnoticed, at least for those not concerned about their immediate survival.
That’s us, if you wonder. For while some may say that exposure to horror, to too much blood and gory, desensitizes and freezes our empathetic bones, we too refuse to swallow the brutality, however common, if only to vainly assert to ourselves that we haven’t gone completely numb. Not yet, anyway.
Horses, a better regarded member of the family, have had big roles in wars, of course, dutifully used to transport, terrorize, conquer, and run away from whatever human tragic folly is at hand. And so have elephants, camels, dogs, birds, pigs, rats, dolphins, and sea lions. All forced to slave and soldier on even where humans fear to tread. By the way, cats apparently refused to be enlisted.
But jackasses, or mules or burros or jennies or, well, you get the gist, despite their lower ranking, have been used mainly for work, not to be treated as bomb mule, pardon the pun. They have in fact this almost beatific status among impoverished communities around the world, to which they serve and are vital.
Asses are smart too, according to Continue reading →

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Cold Cups II

The Fan Who Sold His Honor & the
World Cup Coach Who Can’t Drive

Even if Fifa were a model of probity, which recent allegations have shown it clearly is not, or street rallies against its costs had cooled off with the start of the games, which they haven’t, the World Cup in Brazil has already provided a whole plethora of political drama.
From the multicultural bleachers to the quarrels over refereeing, from the quality of the grass drainage to antiaircraft artillery on civilian buildings, matches and goals have been thrilling, for sure, but what’s going on beyond the pitch may as well upstage it all.
As Brazilians protest the money bacchanal, brokered by Fifa and funded by its mega sponsors, and the competition heats up with record goals and relatively few surprises so far, one wonders whether there’s even space on the coverage for anything else. As it turns out, we make room for just that sort of thing.
For appalling mistakes committed by field officials are as much a part of the game as its players’ cheap theatrics, and with all certainty, will remain the theme of late night, heated discussions over tears and beers for years to come. It’s what’s not so obvious, though, that we’re most interested.
Thus, while that Barcelona star may be executing a perfect curvy free kick, out of sight and in the middle of a sea of multicolored tribute jerseys, someone may be giving a whole country a black eye, or a sympathetic one, by just flicking their wrist. At times, cameras may capture the moment but mostly, they may miss it.
And, just as life itself, the so called ‘teaching moments’ go beyond the walls of these temples of football, or through another march against high ticket prices on a street nearby. World Cup-related news, not so breaking but weird just the same, may be happening right across from the stadium, atop some apartment building.
The reach of this tournament may have a surprising sway both at the confluence of sports and morality, and as far as some court decision across the ocean. Coming July 13, regardless of who’ll lift the trophy, we’ll have gone through a common experience of such a planetary scale that each of these stories may count as much as the goals scored.
And you may thank your lucky shirts for we’re skipping altogether anything about the tragic Nigeria blast, that killed several people (in a replay of Uganda four years ago, remember?) or the Mexican drugpin who got nabbed by the Feds after he bought a ticket to the World Cup… on his own name. Smart.

GREED & CIVILITY AT THE STANDS
Speaking of most Brazilians, they may be fighting the good fight against corruption, but apparently José Humberto Martins is yet to get the memo. Last week in Natal, he was one of the thousands wearing a plastic poncho during the rain soaked Mexico vs. Cameroon game.
According to his own account, at some point, he was approached by a drenched tourist who offered to buy his cheap garment, unaware it was on sale for $14 elsewhere at the stadium. Not one to let the chance to make a buck pass, torrential pouring notwithstanding, José agreed to sell it on the spot: for $200!
The good name of soccer fans everywhere was rescued from the mud the following day, though, Continue reading →

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The Whirled Cup

Five Bullet Points On Brazil

& a Split-Decision to Strike

World Cup 2014 LogoYou may not know this but to most past World Cup hosts, the occasion was for national joy and jubilation, if not much for settling social scores. Brazil, though, is not buying into that placid template: in case you haven’t got the memo, Brazilians are actually angry.
They may have a point. But apart from all disturbing news about the (poor) preparations for the world’s biggest sports event that starts next week in São Paulo, here are five curiosities that go from the promising to the ‘peculiar’ to the far out.
We’ll get to them. But about that anger and the unsettling news: yes, it’s all true. The most expensive World Cup in history may turn out to be, arguably, the turnaround for Brazil’s dreams of being perceived as a global power, capable of handling its moment in the spotlight with composure.
A quick review of the staggering numbers shows that Brazilians are paying between $13 to $18 billion for the right to stage the games, but most of it has been invested either in riches that will quickly evaporate from the country, coming August, or will rot in some stadia built in the middle of nowhere.
Over 200 thousand people have been displaced to accommodate infrastructure projects for the cup and for the 2016 Olympic Games, also to take place in Brazil, according to a Mother Jones infographic, but many of such projects may not be finished for the opening kickoff, or may remain incomplete forever.
Discontent with the way funds have been diverted from needed and more permanent works, and public perception that President Dilma Rousseff hasn’t been fully cognizant to how Brazilians feel left out of the big party, have taken the country by storm and may only get louder during the cup.
In fact, she does seem less concerned about them than how the massive street rallies critical to what was supposed to be a celebration of Brazilians’ passion for the game, will impact the estimated one billion worldwide, expected to follow the month long competition.
But even as those problems have been called out over and over, and may be inseparable from the games this time around, it doesn’t mean we’re not working hard to provide you with some interesting alternatives to experience it all, insights that may be unique to this particular edition. And here they are:
1. THE WALKING STEAD
Talking about the opening kickoff, few know that, technically, it won’t be given by a human foot. Or it’ll but not exactly how one’d expect it. If all goes well, on June 12, a paralyzed person will walk on the field wearing an exoskeleton created by Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis.
The technology behind the mind-controlled full-body suit has the potential to revolutionize mobility for millions of people. It’s not the first time that robotics is applied this way, but it still scores a kick in the arse of common indignities associated with being handicapped.
No word yet on who’ll be walking towards the middle of the Arena Corinthians and, with a thought or two, command the suit to help the foot kick the Brazuca. But you can bet your soccer shoes that, for many around the world, it’ll be as historical as the tournament’s winning goal.

2. WELCOME TO FAVELA INN
Some six million soccer fans are expected for the games, the last of them probably on their way in as we speak. But so is a severe hotel room shortage, with prices upwards of $380 a night to boot. So what choices a late comer has to rest their tired bones and avoid crashing in some godforsaken public square?
What about a shantytown? For a bargain $30, one can find a place to stay in one of the thousands of tiny houses, cramped together like jigsaw pieces, in one of Brazil’s hundreds of favelas, conveniently located in most state capitals and often with a much better ocean view than many a pricy hotel.
After all, this is a country where the so-called informal economy Continue reading →

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The Woes Cup

Eleven Fouls in Brazil
That Deserve a Red Card

Among many overinflated sobriquets Brazilians attach to their passion for soccer, ‘the country of futebol,’ which is how the game’s know there, has some truth to it. The only team to have won five times and never missed the World Cup has something to do with it.
But another cliche about football makes sense too: the saying that it’s evolved only within the pitch. For all the exuberance and sophistication of Brazil’s game and culture, beyond the green rectangle, everything else may be as rot as a political dynasty of a banana republic.
Yes, Brazilians are crazy about the filigranes and the curve kicks, the euphoric pass and the gravity-defying goal. But about what it takes to make a street play into a tool for social change, not so much. It’s not their fault, but then again, to some extent, it most surely is.
As many sleepless aficionados agonize about the chances for the national team, the Seleção Brasileira, of winning it all, for a growing segment of the population, the cup won’t change anything, or bring an iota of relief to the daily grind of a still underachieving nation.
Thus we prepared another seleção, of mainly old foes that always stand in the way of Brazil reaching its potential future of land of opportunity to its citizens. To make it instructive and have some fun with it, we associated each of these ‘players’ to real positions in a soccer team.
Defenders, middle-fielders and attackers will be surely engaged during the cup and beyond, doing what they’ve done for ages: preventing fair play, a level field, a clean slate and a win for all. They’re the formidable enemies of Brazil, whether or not it wins the trophy.
One last thing about that: no one knows why Brazilians care so much about the World Cup. The fact that it was chosen to host it for the second time goes way beyond settling old scores; by the looks of it, it’ll be another sad miss, regardless of any magic that Neymar & Co. may bring to the fore.
THE 11 PLAYS TO LOSE
Let’s start with the goalkeeper, Maracanazo. That’s how Brazil’s first national soccer tragedy became known, when it lost the final of the 1950 World Cup to Uruguay, at Rio’s Maracanã Stadium, then the world’s biggest, a disappointment five world titles haven’t erased.
Playing defense, familiar foes: Crime Play has always been there, committed by underpaid cops and gang members; Pollution Kick was raised by untreated sewage, carbon emissions, and lack of infrastructure investments. It’s also related to Traffic Jam, a big player in Brazil’s cities, always ready to clog arteries.
Sex Tourism has for too long been Brazil’s dark side of its supposedly upbeat culture. The fear is not about the socially aware sex workers, but pedophiles and child predators, expected to descend in mass and incognito to Brazil. A dirty and despicable player.
Middle fielder Lethal Accidents has been responsible for a dozen deaths of workers at World Cup construction sites, and it’s wreaking havoc in Brazil’s rising, and invisible, illegal immigrant demographic. Unfortunately, safety and decent labor conditions are still aliens for the current building boom.

FROM MIDDLE TO THE END
Attacking midfielders Blackwater Pass and White Elephant are an odd pair. The infamous U.S.-based war contractor group has been hired by the already truculent Brazilian police and one may expect widespread tragic clashes with civilians. By the way, have you seen the new Robocops to be deployed during the cup?
White Elephant will dot the land as totems to excess and absurd expenditures. Brazil’s building, or reforming, 13 venues, or at least five too many, according to those who saw what happened in Greece, after the Olympic Games: built in cities without even soccer teams, they’re destined to turn into skeletons.

The attack of this team is unlikely to play the jogo bonito associated with the Seleção. Take Cost Overrun, for instance. The most expensive World Cup in history will set Brazil back over $13.7 billion, an amount enough to have put together the Continue reading →

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The Blunder Games

When Olympic Ideals Boil Down
to Saving Dogs From Being Killed

There hasn’t been any shortage of despicable reasons to abhor the Olympic Winter Games starting today in Sochi, Russia, but its Organizing Committee has managed to win the prize for the cruelest of them all: it ordered a hunt to kill the city’s stray dog population.
And it’s one bid that may’ve been actually completed by the eve of the opening ceremony, unlike the athletes’ village and the visitors’ transportation hub, both still under construction, and running and potable water at some of the press corps’ hotel accommodations.
Add to that too a hostile climate towards gay and basic civil rights, appalling conditions faced by laborers, many still unpaid and some already deported, and a general menace lurking about the games, after countless threats of terrorism made by Vladimir Putin’s political opponents.
This Olympics were to be his crowning achievement after 12 years of unquestionable power over everything big and small in the Russian society. It’s shaping up to be, however, a gigantic blunder that has cost billions of dollars, even if so far, not many (human) lives. Let’s hope that it keeps that way.
Everything about this exercise of self-aggrandizing has gone counter Putin’s ambitions, and one would expect, may serve to undermine his steel grip over Russia. It wouldn’t be a bad result for such arrogant enterprise, if that actually happens. History, though, usually proves us wrong.

THE RACE IS ON
To be sure, the problem of stray dogs in big metropolis around the world is not a monopoly of Russia, even when considering those in the streets of Moscow, for example, legendary urban features. Not long ago, bankrupted Detroit had to face a similar problem, with thousands of dogs wondering its neighborhoods.
There, animal organizations, mostly non-profit, plus a sympathetic population have come to the rescue, and many famished canines have found homes and suitable shelters, according to reports. But the problem persists, as efforts to educate people about sterilization and other measures take time until producing palpable results.
Elsewhere, in cities like Rome, Paris and Rio de Janeiro, passionate debates about what to do with strays and feral cats and dogs continue Continue reading →

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Land Specks

Pop Up Isles, Sinking Atolls &
Havens for Snakes, Cats & Spiders

An unforeseen consequence of rising sea levels is that it puts a dump on that idyllic idea of retiring to a tropical island. Somehow the thought of waking up at its highest peak, with just enough time to hold your breath doesn’t have the same ring that it once had.
It’s a silly dream anyway. So when a 7.7 earthquake shook Pakistan last week, leaving over 500 dead and thousands homeless, in a nation already periodically visited by tragedy, only a heartless optimist would see the birth of a new island as a silver lining of sorts.
And yet, there it is, a 100 feet by 250 feet speck that’s now dotting the Arabian Sea. A rough, cracked piece of the ocean floor, pushed up by methane to 60 feet up above water. Almost like a natural monument and tribute for those who had to go for it to rise up so violently.
As you probably gathered by now, that’s our theme for this evening: islands, those mysterious orphans of continental drifts, giants underwater, tall enough to reach high above the waves, and yet frightfully tiny, once at the surface, always at ready to be swallowed by the vastness around.
They’ve been a surprising copious leit motif at Colltales, having graced these pages half a dozen times in less than three years. Perhaps its their endless diversity, or often violent origins, what pulls us towards them. Or that they can be placid and inhabited only by bugs Continue reading →

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Furry Tales

Rats vs. Nukes, Stray Cats vs.
Florida & a Dog Lovers’ Bacteria

For thousands of years, no other trio of animals have been so close to us. Whether you love or abhor their company, most of us have at least one funny story to share about a rat, a cat, or a dog we’ve met. But behold, for furs always fly when one fails to recognize their own stripes.
Some stories may start with a flamboyant set up: so a rodent, a feline, and a canine walk into this bar and… We’d rather tell you about the environmental bent of Japanese rats; the furious fight over southern feral cats; and a bacteria type that only people who love dogs carry.
To be sure, that’s not a threesome that you’re used to seeing mentioned in the same sentence either. Except, maybe, as the title of some obscure flick. And cats’ undisputed dominance of the Internet, viral video division, is inversely proportional to our own aversion, or general failure to fully understand, rats, mice, and the vermin attracted to our provisions since immemorial times.
With dogs, though, it’s another story, one that usually invokes feelings of companionship, loyalty, and not a small penchant for being subservient to our most spurious interests. It all points to our bottomless guiltless ability to subjugate animals in order to prevail in our daily grind against our own species.
If we could, for a moment, see the natural world through unbiased eyes, perhaps we’d have the clarity to recognize that having been bestowed with a sense of moral, we’re the first ones to betray it. And all other living beings are muted witnesses to our nefarious sense of supremacy and self entitlement.

RATS HATE NUKES
The final and sad toll of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which struck Japan’s Pacific coast in March of 2011, was close to 16,000 dead, with thousands more injured and officially missing. To that, one may add now a few rats, unsung heroes of an ongoing battle between environmentalists and government bureaucrats.
Along with death and destruction, another scary consequence of the catastrophe was the meltdown at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex provoked by the tsunami. It not just disabled the plants, but to this day it’s still generating radiation to Continue reading →

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Spring Quickens

Colors Are Bright But
Critters Are Crawling

We’re deep in the age of freaking out about nothing, while getting numb about what screws us up. If that sounds hyperbolic, take Spring’s arrival in the Northern Hemisphere, and its annual rites of wonder and obsession with sights, smells, colors, and specially, crawlers.
Yes, along with flowers and the birds, the music in the air, and the light afternoon breeze, there’s no end to the sheer terror of being touched not by an angel but by a bug. And there are plenty of them. We give you three of the most distinctive: cicadas, snails and cockroaches.
It may be hard to grasp why city folk is so terrified about the prospect of being covered by these minute aliens, utterly different from us, and yet, way more necessary to the natural world than our stinking behinds, but what’s really over the top is the language with which they’ve been greeted in the media.
‘Billions of Cicades to Swarm the East Coast.’ ‘Giant African Snails Invade Miami.’ Or ‘Roach Infestation Disables Greyhound Bus.’ Note the use of superlatives, of ‘enhanced,’ albeit cliche-ridden, imagery, all documented with detailed pictures of the little monsters in all their otherness and difference.
It’s all true, of course, even though that we are the ones who’re invading them, or at least causing them to multiply and seek refuge in our dwellings. Pollution, climate change, pesticides, it’s all our own doing, really. And the inclusion of roaches here is because, let’s face it, there are simply very few places on earth they won’t show up.
As for those who blame the media for all the alarm, let’s keep in mind that both language and imagery come from or are based upon the greatest compendium of advertising horrors we’ve ever known: the bible. That’s where such fears can be tracked to, plus the gory flair that pious writers, such as Dante Alighieri, have added throughout the years.

So when locusts showed up in city-size dark clouds over the Middle East, last month, that creaky mother of all qualifying cliches of news coverage trudged right along with it: ‘biblical proportions.’ Followed, of course, by words such as ‘plague’ and ‘apocalyptic.’ Never mind that the phenomenon, however its disturbing look and destructive power, has been happening since, well, biblical times.
It doesn’t matter. We’ll freak out about it all the same. War, poverty, hunger, slavery, exploitation, disease, all of which also playing leading roles in the gospels, seem to have somehow lost Continue reading →

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Spinning World

Fear of Losing the Internet, Your
Religion & the Best Things in Life

There are times when we fancy ourselves as a sort of keepers of the world. We pretend that bad things skip a beat under our watch, or look the other way. It may be all silly, but lately we’re only able to function under the illusion that things won’t turn that mad when we’re around.
Take the past weeks when we were off, for instance. You may argue, things unravel, as they wont to do, regardless of who’s at the helm. But eyeballs in a trash bin? An anti-atheist postal bias? An entire continent severed from the Internet by a pair of scissors? There’s more.
Guess what item is the current hottest U.S. export? But we’ll let you crave about this one for a bit, while we litter your Friday with a bunch of weird news, and a few signposts along the way first. For it wouldn’t be fair, otherwise. After all, we’re not talking about nuke threats from a diminutive Asian dictator here.
In fact, we’re the ones craving about these odd splinters we eagerly collect from the daily grind. As we said before, our files are stuffed with them, begging to be let loose. The only ground rules we’d consider would be to group them with like-minded items, under the general rubric of a world that’s lost its lid.
Which brings us back to the undercurrent theme of this fair Spring day: who can keep up with so much musings and rantings about ‘what I think,’ or ‘what I’d do,’ or how many ways one could count to appreciate the wonder of being themselves. But we digress. The point is to offer you a ride, a spin if you would, and see what still stands, when all is said and done.

THE NET, ITS TUBES & THE DIVING CUTTERS
The biggest, albeit hardly noticed, Internet attack ever recorded happened just the other week, to dismay of those who, by now, take online access for granted. As it turns out, this megabillion bytes digital highway has so many vulnerabilities to make us all fear for its continuous operation, if such attacks intensify.
And they will, we’re told. But we won’t bore you with the nerd details you probably already know, other than saying that your computer was probably made part of it, as a zombie, along with its printer and, hey, even your toaster, for that matter. What we should be asking, though, is why bother?
That’s because three men caught off the coast of Alexandria proved that disrupting the Internet is way simpler than that, at least in theory (and if you happen to be a diver, of course). They were attempting to cut through the SEA-ME-WE 4 undersea cable. Talking about the tubes of the Internet, well, this is it.
Disabling such a prosaic piece of hardware would be disastrous for millions of people in Asia and Europe. It’d immediately cut off the Internet in France, Italy, north Africa, the middle east and Malaysia. Cables like this run all over the world, making sure you get your porn at the click of a bottom.
The latest digital attack, by a shady organization called CyberBunker, has clogged up a staggering 300 gigabits per second of the Internet, so the threat of disruption by hacking is still pretty scary. If it were directed at a major utility, or a nuclear defense system, for example, it’d be downright nightmarish.
But many other nameless thugs may lack the technical expertise to bring the world online to its knees. So the next best thing may be Continue reading →

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Rain & Tears

Mudslides in Brazil or the
Predictability of Tragedy

It’s happening again. Almost every year, incontinent summer rains flood and cause tragic mudslides in and around Rio de Janeiro. Accordingly, headlines could be merely copied over and republished, with changes just in the number of victims and their names.
That’s because, as local and federal governments get elected, fulfill their terms in office, and leave, little is ever accomplished to prevent this sad cycle of despair and grief happening all over again in Brazil. As usual, the epicenter of this still unfolding tragedy is Petrópolis.
Despite the use of terms such as ‘unusual heavy rains,’ and ‘unexpected mudslides,’ the script is all too familiar. Rains come and the mountainous region around Brazil’s ‘marvelous city’ start to turn into a deadly, several feet-deep wave of mud and detritus, rushing down and burying everything on its path.
So far, the death toll (335, so far) hasn’t been as severe as it was in 2011, and we do hope it keeps that way. Still we thought it’d be appropriate to republish an exclusive and dramatic eyewitness report on the floods that affected the same area two years ago. As we said, there’s very little difference between then and now.
You may gather your own conclusions, of course, but since it’s still happening as we speak, we’ll abstain from making judgements or calling for accountability for now. At least until the weather gives a break to those poor Brazilians, and everyone is safe. Then, we most definitely should. In the meantime, here’s the story.

Exclusive

Left With Only Despair & the
Clothes They Were Wearing

Over 500 people got killed in the past few days, as intense rains caused floods and mudslides in five towns around Rio de Janeiro. The death toll is expected to rise as more rain is forecast and an unknown number of victims remains buried under land and debris from collapsed buildings. Here’s a report from a resident of Nova Friburgo, one of the most affected cities.

“Hi Chico,

Things here are really horrible. The rain inundated my mom’s house, she lost almost everything, many barriers broke down, there are many deaths, relatives of Fabio (my husband) lost everything and were left only with the clothes they’re wearing.
We had to leave home because things were getting pretty bad, without running water, power and risking getting sick, for the mud was already at the fourth step Continue reading →

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Papal Imbroglio

Argentina Beats Brazil in
the Vatican World Cup Final

In the end, it was as predictable as always: Jorge Mario Bergoglio beat Brazilian Odilo Scherer, who shares the same background of Latin America’s bloody military dictatorships of the 1960s and 70s, and became the first non-European pope. No African came close.
The church quickly picked the cardinal with the slightly better conservative credentials, as it was well aware that it could not afford any uncertainty about its choice to fester. Thus Francis I will rule at least until the next scandal calls for another early retirement.
Immediately, along with all the sponsored joy in Roma and throughout the world, those who survived Argentina’s cruel Dirty War, waged by the successive military juntas against their political opponents, have protested the choice, mentioning Bergoglio’s possible role during those dark times.
And at least one well-documented instance has been invoked: the kidnapping of Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, two Jesuit priests, in May of 1976, by paramilitary forces of the regime. They reappeared five months later, drugged and seminude, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
According to Horacio Verbitsky, a journalist who published an account of the episode in his ‘The Silence,’ Yorio accused Bergoglio, then a Society of Jesus official, in Argentina, of having refused to properly protect the priests, who were persecuted by the Junta for their work among the poor living in slum communities.
The generals, who ruled Argentina with an iron fist during the period, neither acknowledged their imprisonment, nor the reasons for it, naturally. Yorio passed away in 2000, and the case would be destined to become a footnote, if Bergoglio hadn’t now risen to the top position of the Catholic church. Then again, as pope, it’s even more unlikely that he’d have to defend his actions.
A SCHOOL OF INTOLERANCE
He offered his version of the events to his biographer, Sergio Rubin, portraying himself not as the facilitator, but as the liberator of the two priests from their harrowing experience. He told Rubin that he personally interceded on their behalf with the dictator of du jour, the infamous Jorge Villela, who then, completely out of character, granted the priests mercy.
But Bergoglio, as Francis I, may not need to deny the other, perhaps more relevant, charge against him: that of being a homophobic, who’s Continue reading →

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Women’s Day

Some Progress on Paper, But Old
Battles Still Need to Be Won Again

Past the first century by four years, the International Women’s Day continues to serve as lamppost to reassess and reaffirm its principles of equality, freedom, and all that. But unless we’re mistaken, we seem to be fighting one too many battles we thought had already be fought.
While the U.S. has renewed the long overdue Violence Against Women Act, both inside it and abroad there’s been no shortage of examples of ingrained prejudice and despicable acts against mothers, wives and daughters. But rejoice: there’s also Malala Yousufzai’s life to celebrate.
It’s been that kind of year. For a few achievements and heroic acts of note, it also brought back a whole struggle,needed to prevent a turning back the clock on women, their reproductive rights, access to education, safety to raise their families, and dignity as human beings. And somehow we wish such reality was not only conditioned to the U.S.
For perhaps not surprisingly, the past 12 months marked a reinforced charge by the Catholic church, through its minions in congress and elsewhere, to restrict even more the inalienable right of a woman to make choices concerning her own body, through a well-heeled campaign of terror and intimidation.
One’d think the church would have been busy coming clean out of the horrific accounts of child abuse in its midst, while restating its self-appointed spiritual mandate, opening its doors to the sex minorities it’s been rejecting for centuries, to the poor, and to those still seeking some kind of emotional rescue. But it’s been far from it.
Through much of the year, religion-affiliated colleges, and health institutions have formed an united front against women, in an attempt to undermine a few decades of improvement in public health that the women’s movement managed to bring to the whole of society. It’s been Continue reading →

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The Hunted

The Haunted Beauty of Albinos
& the Bigots Who Can’t Bear it

After months of relative peace, the brutal chase seems to be on again. Last week, a seven-year old Tanzania boy had his hand hacked off by thugs disguised as spiritual healers. That false beliefs and carnage never cease to fester in such impoverished land is no surprise.
As it’s nothing new that a supernatural being is ‘ordering’ the murder and dismemberment of innocent humans, exacted in the hands of their ignorant priests. But it’s still staggering that what’s essentially a medical condition would incite such unconscionable acts for so long.
We could spend the day here discussing this and many other cases, with their particularly gruesome patterns and all the gory details. Instead, we choose to celebrate what’s considered the ‘otherness’ of albinos who, after all, have to put up with all the limitations of their own condition.

The work and lives of South African models Thando Hopa, and Refilwe Modiselle, Tanzania Albino Society’s Ernest Kimaya, Afro-Brazilian Rosemere de Andrade, the India’s Pullan family, documentarian Harry Freeland, Brazilian photographer Gustavo Lacerda, plus a cadre of highly successful artists and thousands others, only assert the power of their dignity as human beings.
We offer today’s post as a solidarity gesture to albinos everywhere and their plight, not a repulsive patronizing pat on their scared backs, because it’s clear that neither such condition is an impediment to greatness, nor that to stand with Albinos requires preaching and outraged diatribes.
We hope the boy, Mwigulu Magessa, recovers, of course, he being only the latest in what appears to be an increasing series of savage attacks for their supposedly ‘magical‘ flesh. Let’s hope too that TAS gets the resources it needs to go after the culprits and those who cover up for them. In the real world, ignorance should never be a bliss.

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In Hot Water

Gassy Arctic, Melting Andes
& the Ongoing Sinking of Oahu

We’d hate to throw yet another bucket of stale water over the diminishing crowd of climate change skeptics. But even though humankind is already soaked with evidence (and bad water-based puns) of rising temperature and sea levels all over the world, there’s been almost no action about it.
In the meantime, change is beginning to impact some of Earth’s well-known landmarks, such as the age-old glaciers of the Arctic, in the North Pole, and South America’s Andes mountain chain, while in south Pacific, erosion and increasing flooding threaten the survival of Hawaii.
Just this past week, we had yet another sample of the destructive power of the natural world, specially if we sit on our behinds and choose not to act. But whereas an errant space rock hitting us is a random event, extreme weather is almost entirely our responsibility, and it’s imperative to minimize its effects.
As it is, though, tons of pollutants are thrown daily into the atmosphere, while we struggle to reign in on a powerful carbon-dependent energy industry, and on a wasteful society, that privileges comfort over ecologic awareness. Not even the agents of such a toxic mix can deny our role and obligation to reverse this process.
We remain as ineffective and paralyzed about the environmental decay that surrounds us, as we are about preventing one of those speeding heavenly bodies from sending us to oblivion. Yet the key to an Continue reading →

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Police Blotter

Trafficking Tides, 18 Human
Heads & the Criminal Lennons

It’s Thursday, so this must be file-clearance day. And we get a big kick out of it. There’s always a taste of the unexpected, the gory, and the slightly jocose in those files, and we’re glad to share them with you. As for whatever happened to our sense of decorum, the hell with it.
Who knew, for instance, that there’s a black market for Tide, the laundry detergent? Or that heads are routinely shipped around the country, heaven forbid if they’d lack proper documentation. Plus: guess how many John Lennons have been busted by the Brazilian police?
There’s a reason why we insist in collecting and highlighting these news of the weird, these reports from the bowels of weary precincts, these tales of fellow comrades, caught red-handed doing what any of us could, or have in the past, or, brace yourself, may still have in store ahead of us.
Our method for this madness is simple: whenever the world threatens to drown us all yet again in heartbreak and grief, look desperately for a Continue reading →

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Assembly of Errors

Rulers of Poor Nations Come for
U.N. Support, Stay for N.Y. Luxury

Most New Yorkers don’t mind the U.N’s annual General Assembly. Sure, security armies and traffic jams clog the city, and the east side’s all but lost for the count. But what’s that compared to what the organization stands for as symbol of dialog and peaceful resolution to conflicts?
So we may get annoyed with its sluggish politics, but we’re used to it. Now, shopping is a whole other story. And when rulers of some of the world’s most miserable countries are caught on a spree at the city’s most expensive retail joints, well, then forget all about ‘peaceful.’
Never mind the illegal parking. It’s nothing short of criminal to watch their entourages spending public money on luxury items for themselves and their hangers-on. And yet, year after year, such depressing spectacle plays on right under our jaded, despising noses.
The phenomenon is not new, or unique to New York, or even represents too much of a surprise. Two recent worldwide events have only asserted such glaring inequity: the near collapse of the world financial system in 2007, and the Arab Spring that swept north of Africa and Middle East countries less than a year ago.
When the banking structure failed and caused millions to lose their jobs, homes, lifetime savings and even their sanity, it also exposed the inconceivable amount of personal wealth those who caused the crisis had, and still have, access to. So far, no one of that rarefied income bracket has been held accountable for their crimes.
It was not much of a difference with the ouster of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh: the personal wealth of these three dictators amounted to huge percentages of their countries’ GDP, which all have some of the lowest per-capita income, even among Islamic regimes.
As with the bankers that almost bankrupted the world, these deposed rulers still managed to keep large parts of their personal wealth in Continue reading →