And just when I thought that the world could not get any stranger...

Recently discovered in the Amazon, a homóptero (photo by Pedro Lage Viana of Geoma):
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The article about these recently discovered new species can be found on the site of BBC Brasil:
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/reporterbbc/story/2007/08/
070815_amazonia_especies_dg.shtml
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3 Blogs de Outras Mulheres

I. Caminhar de Laura Vive, postagem de 27 de agosto 2007:

Women in Art



II. De blog de Camélia de Pedra, postagem de 3 de agosto 2007:

"Fui assaltada a 40 metros de casa

Há tres dias fui assaltada dobrando a esquina de casa..."


III. De blog de Claudia Perotti (Cor de Dentro):

Terça-feira, 21 de Agosto de 2007

Saudades...

Guardo-te em mim,
segredo tão meu,
dentro do coração,
perto da alma...

Guardo na lembrança
os pensamentos teus,
as letras, os desejos
e as estrelas que torna o teu olhar único
e o mais lindo de todo o universo.

E nas noites escuras
quando uma lágrima
transbordar dos meus olhos
e escorrer por minha face,
delicamente, molhando os lençóis,
é em ti que estarei a pensar.

E na lembrança
essas estrelas
tão tuas
iluminarão
e velarão os meus sonhos
até o dia raiar.

Saudades!
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In Living Color: Men On Art

Men On Vacation
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Men On Films
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Men on Film
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Men on Film II
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Pêssego Maravilhoso!!!

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This photo was taken with a Fujifilm Finepix F30 by kaefem.el, and posted on flickr.com
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Pfirsich(e)
Originally uploaded by kaefem.el

Click on this photo! You will not believe your eyes!
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ENTREVISTA Larry Rohter, ex-correspondente do NYT

This is from the August 20, 2007, post to the ARQUIVO DE ARTIGOS ETC blog.

A entrevista, sem comentário:
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http://arquivoetc.blogspot.com/2007/08/entrevista-larry-rohter-ex.html

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ALSO:

From the New York Times, March 16, 2007, by Larry Rohter:

'SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Frustrated by their own government’s timidity but encouraged by recent court rulings in Argentina and Chile, Brazilian human rights groups are seeking to overturn an amnesty for human rights abuses that went into effect in 1979, when a right-wing military dictatorship ruled this nation.

A family of five jailed earlier in the 1970s has filed a civil action against Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who was then the commander of Center for Operations for Internal Defense here. A judge has agreed to hear the complaint, the first time that a Brazilian military officer has been formally called to account for the torture of political prisoners during the dictatorship.

“This has a lot to do with historical context, and not just in Brazil,” said Cecilia Coimbra, a leader of the human rights group Torture Never Again. “Other countries have advanced a lot further, both in terms of punishing those responsible for abuses and opening their archives. And since our government still insists on sitting on the wall, we have to take the offensive ourselves.”

The complainants say that they are not seeking to have Colonel Ustra jailed or forced to pay damages to former prisoners. “Our objective is merely to establish the truth, which is that torture was not an isolated practice, but institutionalized,” said Criméia Schmidt de Almeida, one of the plaintiffs. “We want the state to recognize that he was a torturer, for the sake of the historical record.”

The original law, approved in 1979 by a compliant Congress, granted amnesty for all “crimes related to politics or committed with a political motivation.” Over the years, that phrase, apparently purposefully ambiguous, has been taken to mean that neither the leftist opponents of the military dictatorship, including former armed guerrillas, nor their jailers and torturers, could be held legally accountable for their actions.

“It was a broad, generalized amnesty, for terrorists and torturers alike,” said Jarbas Passarinho, a former army colonel, senator and justice minister who has emerged as one of Colonel Ustra’s main defenders. “I favor the idea of turning the page and moving on, in the interests of national reconciliation.”

But lawyers here who have volunteered their services to human rights groups contend that torture cannot be regarded as a political offense and that it is therefore excluded from the amnesty. And because torture has no statute of limitations under Brazilian law, Colonel Ustra and others could theoretically be indicted under a law outlawing torture that was passed in 1997 meant mainly to prevent police abuses.

The total of those who died or disappeared during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 numbers in the hundreds, rather than the thousands who perished in Argentina and Chile over a much shorter period. In the past, governments here had focused on compensating victims and their relatives, but when the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president in 2002, human rights groups hoped for a more forceful approach.

Mr. da Silva, however, has disappointed those expectations. When, for example, the military was caught in late 2004 trying to destroy incriminating records and issued a public statement justifying its mistreatment of political prisoners, the president declined to fire or even rebuke military commanders, which led his civilian defense minister, José Viegas, to resign in protest.

“Everything depends on the political context and political will, and I don’t see the political will in Lula’s administration,” José Miguel Vivanco, the executive director of the Americas program of Human Rights Watch, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “Politicians are rational actors. They are willing to challenge the status quo only if they have a constituency or some pressure, and I don’t know if that constituency exists in Brazil the way it does in Argentina and Chile.”

Speaking on behalf of Colonel Ustra, his wife, Joseita, declined a request for an interview with him, saying he is recovering from surgery. But in recent speeches made to military groups before his hospitalization, he suggested that he was not the human rights groups’ only target.

“I am the first, but tomorrow there will be others,” he said in a speech to an audience of more than 400 fellow officers and sympathizers at the Military Club in Rio de Janeiro in January. “I am being judged for a crime I did not commit. It is the revenge of those who were defeated in 1964, many of whom today find themselves in power.”

Colonel Passarinho said that among the people Colonel Ustra had in mind was Dilma Rousseff, Mr. da Silva’s chief of staff. As a member of an armed revolutionary group, Ms. Rousseff, then nicknamed “the guerrilla Joan of Arc,” was involved in a $2.5 million robbery in 1969 and was captured the next year, tortured and held in prison for three years.

Colonel Ustra, 74, is the founder of a group called Terrorism Never Again, formed as a counterpoint to Torture Never Again, and the author of a book, “The Suffocated Truth.” The book was intended to, in his words, “undo the myths, farces and lies to manipulate public opinion” about the period of the dictatorship. He acknowledges that some of his subordinates may have committed abuses, but he insists that he never personally participated in torture sessions. That claim has been contested by human rights groups and former prisoners.

“As commander, he not only knew what was going on, but personally tortured me when I was seven months pregnant,” said Ms. Schmidt de Almeida, a former guerrilla. “He used electricity to shock me not on the anus, mouth and genitals, which was the standard practice then, but on the hands and feet, and he beat me about the head.

“It’s not just me, but Brazilian society as a whole that is living with the consequences of that repression,” she added. “It’s a difficult thing to confront, but there have been important advances in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, and for our own well-being, we need to resolve this issue, too.” '

Copacabana from the air, by George Rocha

This unique photo of Copacabana was taken by Brazilian pilot George Rocha. He has an extremely informative blog called "No Ar." http://www.globoonliners.com.br//icox.php?mdl=pagina&op=listar&usuario=363
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Anyone with an interest in either the Gol or the TAM tragedy should have a look at the technical information and explanations that he has provided, which he has written in layman's language so that those of us who are not commercial jet pilots can understand most of what he is trying to explain.

UPDATE: George Rocha will be removing his blog from globoonliners. His new blog is already on the air at:
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http://aviationtroubleshooting.blogspot.com/
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Muito além do Cidadão Kane: Parte I, de BBC, 1993

Christiane Torloni is at it again! More power to her! Where is everybody else? Where is Ana Maria Braga? Why didn't she join the protest march in SP?

Minc evita polemizar com Torloni

O ministro Gilberto Gil e o secretário-executivo do Ministério da Cultura, Juca Ferreira, evitaram ontem polemizar com a atriz Christiane Torloni, que, em entrevista à colunista Mônica Bergamo, da "Folha da S. Paulo", fez duras críticas à atuação do governo na cultura. Torloni, que recentemente aderiu ao movimento "Cansei", disse que o desempenho do governo na cultura levou a nação a um "apagão cultural", referindo-se à greve dos servidores federais, que completa hoje três meses – no momento, a paralisação está suspensa para uma rodada de negociações. Indignada, a atriz sugeriu que os integrantes do governo parem de fazer festas, como as juninas promovidas pelo presidente Lula, em Brasília, e por Gil, no Rio.

– Como festejar algo sem ter soluções para a questão da cultura e dos acidentes da Gol e da TAM? – pergunta ela.


SOURCE: O Globo, online edition of 16 August 2007, front section, page 10.


Here is a link to a YouTube video of Christiane Torloni talking about her opinions.

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=8fuK7812W1U

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I think it must have been during the PAN that I happened to catch a glimps of Ana Maria Braga's morning program, which I am not in the habit of watching as I am not very domestic (understatement of the year). But, there she was, dressed in dark clothes, in mourning for the TAM accident victims. She stated that she would be joining the protest march in São Paulo on the upcoming Saturday morning -- a march that would end at the site of the crash. She encouraged the members of her viewing audience to join her. I was amazed! Awed! I thought: Can it really be possible? Is it really going to happen? Will Globo permit her? The next morning, she appeared in her usual white clothes and talked about recipes, and, as far as I can tell, no, she was not at the march. Why is it that Arnaldo Jabor is permitted to be nearly merciless in his criticism of the government, but Ana Maria Braga must speak about recipes?

The Honourable Judge Mônica Labuto -- Hats Off!!!

From the site of G1: Jornal do Globo
http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Brasil/0,,MUL86629-5598,00.html

"Uma juíza decidiu trabalhar na calçada em um subúrbio em frente a um fórum no Rio de Janeiro. Mônica Labuto, da Vara da Infância e da Juventude do Fórum Regional de Madureira, havia planejado uma blitz em casas noturnas da região e pedira para ficar no fórum até mais tarde.

O prédio, no entanto, que só tem um vigia, foi fechado por falta de segurança e o pedido da juíza negado. Sem poder entrar, Mônica realizou os despachos na calçada.

Um policial foi enviado, quase no final da noite, para reforçar a segurança do fórum, a pedido do Tribunal de Justiça. Mas, por falta de quem abrisse o portão, ficaram os dois na calçada.

"A gente deve chegar a um consenso e estudar todos juntos, segurança pública, presidentes, juiz, corregedor, para tentar resolver da melhor forma possível como a gente pode atender melhor à população e o seu interesse", disse a juíza.

Segundo Mônica Labuto, quatro casas noturnas foram autuadas durante a noite por terem permitido a entrada de menores de idade. O presidente do Tribunal de Justiça do Rio, José Carlos Ribeiro, disse que a juíza tem que seguir a hierarquia, a disciplina e os horários de funcionamento do fórum."

Ladybug

Ladybug
Originally uploaded by Zuiun

It doesn't get any better than this! The photographer's nickname on flickr is Zuiun. He uses a Canon Eos, Canon flash, and a Sigma 105 mm lens. Notice the gel-like transparency of the antennae. Even where the flash reflects on the ladybug's shell, the very fine and subtle variations of color are recorded. Click on the photo to enlarge it to its original size.

Marisa Monte sings "Bem Que Se Quis"

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I just love to hear her sing! This is a live performance from 1988.

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The audio on the video above is very slightly delayed. Go to this link for better picture quality video, but the audio way behind the picture: http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwl2efZPX8A
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Mother Teresa by Phil Hansen

This portrait is a montage of 24 photographs of dandelions.
See other work at his site: http://philinthecircle.com/MotherTeresa.html

Brazilian Air Traffic Controllers in Manaus Ask for Public to Support Them

Friday, August 3, 2007

MANAUS: Controladores de vôo pedem socorro

Controladores de vôo pedem socorro em carta
28/07/2007

Um texto elaborado por controladores de vôo e enviado à reportagem do Estado neste sábado revela que a crise dentro do Centro Integrado de Defesa Aérea e Controle de Tráfego Aéreo (Cindacta) 4, em Manaus, está longe de acabar. Os militares se dizem "perseguidos" pelo comando da Aeronáutica e pedem "socorro" à sociedade.
De acordo com os controladores, a prisão do presidente da Associação Amazônica dos Controladores de Tráfego Aéreo, tenente Wilson Alencar, "está recheada de irregularidades e arbitrariedades"
Wilson Alencar foi detido na última quinta-feira, por determinação do comando da Aeronáutica, no Amazonas, sob o argumento de ter faltado ao serviço. Na versão apresentada pela Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB), Alencar não justificou o motivo da ausência ao serviço no dia 5 de julho deste ano.
Segundo controladores de vôo, Alencar faltou ao serviço para acompanhar a esposa ao médico. Mesmo tendo justificado a ausência com um atestado médico e um termo de acompanhamento da esposa, o tenente recebeu, em 6 de julho, uma Ficha de Avaliação de Transgressão Disciplinar (Fatd) e foi imediatamente transferido para o Sétimo Comando Aéreo Regional (Comar), em Manaus. Na ocasião, era o sexto controlador afastado do Cindacta 4 Como registram os militares, só no dia 26 de julho, 21 dias depois da falta teoricamente não justificada, e quando já estava atuando no Sétimo Comar, Wilson Alencar recebeu a notícia de que ficaria detido por quatro dias.
"Vale ressaltar que o regulamento prevê que o detido seja comunicado três dias antes de sua punição, para que o mesmo se prepare", dizem os controladores "No Cindacta 4 estamos sendo queimados vivos simplesmente por exigir melhores condições de trabalho e maiores coeficientes de segurança. Qualquer pequeno motivo é objeto para responder por transgressão", dizem os militares, no texto.
"Pedimos socorro a todos", registram. "Está chovendo cadeia aqui em Manaus. Infelizmente, nossos superiores não aprenderam com duas tragédias. Se valem do pretexto de hierarquia e disciplina para enforcar todos aqueles que ousam relatar as inúmeras falhas do sistema", concluem.

Fonte: Agencia Estado

My source was this blog: http://atcbrasil.blogspot.com/2007/08/manaus-controladores-de-vo-pedem.html
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For All You Rockhounds: Tapado Agate

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Another beauty from flickr.com
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The photographer's nickname is dardilrocks. The stone is from Mexico. Click on the photo to see the large size.
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Grécia x Alemanha, or Greece vs. Germany

This Parrot is No More!

"Fly! Be free!" -- Ovos em Ipanema

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SEM COMENTÁRIO GENTE!!!!!!!!!
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(OK, so I was only deceiving myself on that one.)
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Film starring Narcissista Tamborindeguy (her own words speak loudly for themselves: http://www.narcisa.com.br/entrevistas.html and http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcisa_Tamborindeguy) and Bruno Chateaubriand (wikipedia says it better than I ever could: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Chateaubriand).

Ok, if you can't watch the YouTube video, this would be due to the lawyers who work for these millionaire fools working overtime to get every single copy removed from YouTube -- I think there were hundreds, but I am really not sure about that. I noted that one copy had been viewed over 38,000 times!

Right now, you can see the videos at these links, but who knows for how long. I will, however, keep reviewing the situation, because I feel sure that this video will not stay off of the air.

Here are the current links to "Part I" and "Part II," respectively:

http://extra.globo.com/geral/video/2007/2589/default.asp

http://extra.globo.com/geral/video/2007/2590/default.asp


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Is this the only country in the world where "socialite" is considered a legitimate profession?
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More "professionals": http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Socialites_do_Brasil
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ADDENDUM: I found this on orkut, but I have no idea if it is a real quote from Narcissista: PALAVRAS DE NARCISA COM DESCULPAS VEJAM ISSO :
PALAVRAS DELA RETIRADAS DE UMA RESPOSTA DO ORKUT DELA :

" eu concordo contigo!! mas ninguem se machucou!! foi uma encenação entende????? só tinha gente da televisão todo mundo pensa q foi real e não foi
! gostaria q entendessem isso poxa! "
"foi o menino que filmou, e achou bacana, colocou no youtube e até achamos uma edição bacana nunca pensamos que iria tomar essa proporção"
"volto a dizer ! foi um viseo trash caseiro, em familia no aniversario de minha filha aonde toda a familia brincou que tacou ovos e etc...mas nãoaconteceu nada!! vc acha que com minha odades iria tacar coisas agora?? taquei muito quando era garota , poxa que chato toda essa midia..."
"comprrendo a revolta de todos!! mas foi uma brincadeira!!! nunca pensamos q alguem de fora veria entende?""

High Dynamic Range Imaging Photography

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I must profess that I have been out of the field of photography for many, many years. So it was with some surprise that I saw photos with this technique used. I am not sure how I feel about it, because I prefer natural lighting and effects above all else. For more info on HDRI, see the page on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging) from which I lifted the present photo.