(invisible) Mountain climbing cats

(update) I have since been back with a decent camera and here is a new video where the cats described below are actually no longer invisible.


I'm staying at my uncle's in Rio. The apartment has a view of Aterro do Flamengo from the living room and of the Morro da Viuva (widow's mountain/peak/hill) from the back bedrooms. I've been working out of one of the back bedrooms for a few days now and Morro da Viuva has kept me company just outside the window while I worked. It's a great rock!  To my surprise I have discovered that there are cats living on this rock. I've seen between 6 to 8 cats roaming around the rock face.  My window is on the 15th floor plus two levels of garage and a playground, so technically it's the 18th floor. Cats roam around the at rock window level!!  I don't have a video camera with me, so the video below is horrible, but in the center of the shot there is a yellow cat who had been napping on a ledge just outside my window and decided to climb down. It's hard to see, actually it's almost impossible to see, sorry.  You'll have to take my word for it that there is a cat in the shot.

Here is another impossible to see cat, this one is black also mid-shot, there is a little more contrast because he's black.  He's the black spot on the right. Next time I'll bring a video camera....

This one gives you a better sense of the size of this rock and where these cats live. Yes I said cats! There were cats in these videos... really there were, trust me.

Brazilian Christmas is out to get me

Brazil is a tropical country.  Always has been. Christmas in Brazil is smack dab in the middle of summer, a tropical summer.  Temperatures hover around 32C and 38C (89-100F), needless to say there is not one single solitary flake of snow anywhere in the country.  It’s a large country but you can look on the highest mountain top and the lowest valley, you’re not going to find snow. Not one spec of it.  Brazil also has a varied culture based on African and European ancestries and Brazilians in general are proud of their heritages and traditions.  So explain something to me, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.  Why is this the Christmas decoration in every single shopping center in the country?

Why does Santa wear a long winter coat and warm winter hat while dripping with perspiration and cursing Christmas, his damned job and probably every child who sits on his lap? There are no candy canes here people! There is no candy cane tradition, Brazilians have never seen an actual candy cane.

Somewhere along the way American and European shopping centers discovered that Christmas decorations increase sales.  Brazilian shopping centers imported the concept along with the temperature and country inappropriate decorations and presto.  Here we are. 

Personally I’m convinced it’s a plot to annoy me.  Yes, me personally.  I’m the only one who seems to mind the ice skating polar bears and snow sleds, everyone else thinks they are great.  Don’t you just hate it when an entire holiday conspires to annoy you personally?  Well I’ll just show it!  Next year I’m going somewhere with snow and Brazilians can photograph their dancing penguin decorations and watch their culture sell-out and deteriorate in the name of higher shopping center sales. There are those who say I should simply not care and enjoy the holiday, obviously those are just crazy people who don’t understand that the Brazilian Christmas is out to get me. Next year I'm going to get a snow shovel, just like Mel Edison in Prisoner of Second Avenue and I'll show them. I'll show them all, bwa ha ha.

glitz and glamour

I’m bored! You probably look at me and think my life is all glamour and beauty…Ha! Let me tell you something, it ain’t!  Sure I look great, sure I cost a pretty penny and everyone is always so careful around me.  Apparently I break.  I watched a plate break the other day, horrible. So now I’m bored and afraid someone might bump the table and break me. Bored and afraid that’s my life.  Not to mention this ridiculous pose I have to hold - get this - for the rest of my freaking life!  Bored, bored bored. 

The phone’s never bored, but what a gossip… besides there are four of them in the house… I’m unique.  Unique, bored and afraid, yep that’s me.  Hand-painted, yesiree bob, every inch of me. Every time they reach for that stupid gossipy phone I think they’re going to knock me down. 

Take it from me, glitz and glamour are not all they seem to be. Most of the time you’re just bored and afraid.

Porto Alegre

My mailing address has only read "Porto Alegre" three years, two years during high school for one year recently. All of the rest of my four decades my mailing address has been elsewhere in the world. So it’s surprising that every time an airplane takes off from Porto Alegre, ripping me out of the city as it climbs, there are tears in my eyes.  It never fails, as I watch Salgado Filho airport out of the plane’s window and the plane takes flight, as it distances itself from the ground, it rends my soul.  There is a bit of my soul that must remain behind because it can exist nowhere else. It's childhood memories and a hundred years of buried ancestors, it's long summer days of now faded vacations and the lesson that a loving carefree childhood must give way to whatever this is that I take on the plane with me. The soul that is mine today rips apart from the bit that must remain behind and comes with me on the airplane, and I cry. The soul I leave behind sits there, rooted to that spot on earth and whimpers, calling me to return. Over the decades I have learned to live without that piece of soul, over the years I have heard it call to me and I have felt the pain of a soul wanting to be whole again. But humans learn to live with pain and this was no different, I could almost forget I was in constant pain. And when I've answered the call and returned, my soul reunited with that bit of soul that remained rooted, whimpering and malnourished in the Porto Alegre soil and the pain subsided.

Now I know that leaving Porto Alegre will kill me some day.  Not a quick instant death, but rather a slow prolonged wearying of the soul that drains the life out of a person. And I understand more of a self destructive nature that plans to someday leave this place.

The founder of WikiLeaks is under arrest for having sex without a condom

Here is what CNN is not saying or stressing. American media is censoring the story to the extreme extent that Twitter will not trend #wikileaks and CNN accuses Assange of 'rape' without qualifying the charges in any way.  The implication is that Assange is guilty of  'rape' as defined by the American legal system which is always an extremely violent crime involving non-consequential sex. By accusing Assange of 'rape' without qualifying the story, CNN and other American Media are painting him with the same brush as violent criminals that are little more than animals. That is not the case. That CNN chooses to paint such a picture shows the extent of the decline of the American press.  Unbiased and free press no longer exists!!! DON'T KID YOURSELF THAT IT DOES.   Here is what the international media is qualifying the story, information that is not readily available to mainstream American audience.

The founder of WikiLeaks is under arrest for having sex without a condom
Swedish law considers unprotected sex a type of sexual violence.
For having had sexual relations with two Swedish women without a condom, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now faces sexual violence and rape charges and awaits for possible deportation to Sweden where the charges were filed.

The case spurred public curiosity not only because it involves a famous defendant, who is hated by many powerful people, but also for involving a complex system of laws.

Assange’s actions, based on testimony from the his two ex-lovers, were interpreted by the legal system as "rape, sexual abuse and illegal coercion", as stated by the Swedish prosecution.  Both he and the women state, however, that sex was consensual.  The only problem was the absence of the preservative, which would have been requested by both women, but denied by the Australian.

Having unprotected sex in Sweden is punishable by a minimum of two years in prison for rape.  According to Assange’s lawyer, in a declaration made in August when the accusations were made, the term used to classify the crime is a "target for mockery” and “dramatically” damages the reputation of the accused.  All of this under a legal system that is a benchmark of modernity.

In both relationships, Assange had problems wearing a condom.

Criticism aside, one of the Swedish women with whom Assange was involved says that the condom broke during the relations, according to the British newspaper Daily Mail.  In this case, under the laws of the country, consensual sex that starts with a condom and ends without it become a type of non-consensual sex.

The other lover alleges that twice she had relations with the founder of WikiLeaks, once with a condom and once without.  That time she requested the use of a condom, but Assange would have refused.  Again the law is on the woman’s side.

The lawyer for the women denies a political ploy.

For the Australian, his arrest is part of a political ploy designed to prevent the publication of secret documents by WikiLeaks.  The lawyer for the women, Claes Borgstrom, states that his clients are not involved in any sort of conspiracy against Assange.

Borgstrom also said that the Swedish women’s statement is plausible and that there is a great chance that Swedish justice will accuse Assange, if he is extradited and heard in testimony in the country.

Assange surrendered to the police in London and should be under arrest until December 14, when he will again be deposed.  He stated that he will fight his extradition.

Translation of a news article published by R7 Notícias Brazilian online newspaper on 12/09/2010
 

Brazilian oil and the 1967 Palestinian border

Well if you live in the world and occasionally read the news you might have heard that yesterday (Dec 3) Lula, the Brazilian president, declared that Brazil recognizes the Palestinian state respecting the 1967 borders. Specifically [translated]:

“The recognition of the Palestinian state is part of the Brazilian conviction that a negotiation process resulting in two States that live in peace and security is the best path to peace in the Middle East (…) Brazil will always be ready to assist as necessary.”

Furthermore, the Brazilian government stressed that the announcement will not damage its relations with Israel, which have never been so strong.

You probably think I’m going to comment on the wisdom of this decision and saturate this post with impassioned personal opinions and convictions… wrong. This issue has nothing to do with ideologies, peace, or even the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Nothing at all. It has everything to do with oil, Brazilian oil.

A few years back Brazil discovered billions of barrels of offshore oil, it is called the Pre-salt layer.  Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company was state owned until a few administrations ago when a large portion was privatized. Now the Pre-Salt oil belongs to Brazil and a few international oil companies like Shell, BP etc, but still Brazil stands to change its fortune with the discovery.  Recently another phenomenal reserve was found, in even deeper waters, and these reserves had not been earmarked or negotiated to any other country or company, they belong entirely to Brazil. Jackpot. So how is Palestine’s 1967 borders and deep water Brazilian oil related? Simple: Iran.

How you may ask.  Consider several factors:

• Lula’s 8 year administration has sought to move the Brazilian economy forward and away from the historically tight grasp of the United States. 
• Brazil does not have the technology to explore deep water oil, and it would take years to develop such technologies.
• The US is not willing to provide the technology unless it is once again invited to sit at feast.

Brazil’s problem then is how to acquire this technology without once again kowtowing to the US?

Brazil had to find a partner for the technology it needs, a partner that is not simply a mouthpiece for the US.  Countries like United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, occupied Iraq, etc, could not be relied upon for a partnership that excluded the US.  A moment of thought and you will see that the choices are very few.  Recently Brazil has been grooming its relationship with Iran.  Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery was publicly offered asylum by the Brazilian government.  That is, until Iran thanked Lula for his concern and told him to butt out.  There have been other signs of a relationship between the countries, a relationship groomed to acquire Iranian technologies to explore the Pre Salt layer.  The latest indication is the recognition of the Palestinian state.

Today Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority. 

“(…)and lobby the United Nations to recognize Palestinian statehood, bypassing negotiations entirely. "I cannot accept to remain the president of an authority that doesn't exist."

Why did he Abbas make such a statement? did you guess ‘oil’? Here is how the dots connect:  If Brazil now recognizes the Palestinian state in the UN, it will have more power to pass. Brazil recognized the Palestinian state because it was pressured to do so by Iran, so that Iran will provide Brazil with the technology to explore the pre-salt layer which contains… yes OIL.

Oil baby.  It’s all about the oil. It has nothing to do with peace in the region, political and religious ideologies, history or any such thing. Only oil. But when you watch the interviews and the news they will all tell you that it’s in pursuit of peace in the region and the well being of the world’s population, saving the environment, stopping global warming, leaving a better legacy for our children and saving the whales. So maybe it actually is all about the bullshit…  I’m off to put some cow manure in my tank and see how far I can drive.  You can draw your own conclusions!