Sambodia: “This Tragically Horrendous and Inhuman City”

AT THE BIENNIAL OF THE VOID. The Unknown Pichador makes his pitch for fifteen minutes of postmodern infamy. Source: Folha de S. Paulo

O vazio e a fúria: “The void and the fury.”

Fernando De Barros e Silva writes in the Folha de S. Paulo about the young girl locked up for tag-bombing the Biennial of the Void.

The author edits the Brazil (National) section of the paper and is the author of a biography of singer-songwriter Chico Buarque.

Back story:

• Sambodia: Down and Dirty Street Art Wars in the Cidade Limpa?
• Sambodian Cultural Observer: “The Biennial of the Void”

Columnist Élio Gaspari also recently issued a plea for the young woman’s liberation, noting that a man indicted for a heinous murder had recently managed to get out jail faster than this spray-can vandal.

Caroline Sustos (sobrenome de guerra) está presa há mais de 50 dias. Ela integra o grupo que pichou um dos andares do pavilhão do Ibirapuera na abertura da Bienal de São Paulo. Aquela que ficou conhecida como Bienal do Vazio virou, enfim, um caso de polícia.

Caroline Sustos (a nom de guerre) has been in jail for more than 50 days. She is part of a group that tag-bombed one of the floors of the Ibirapuera pavilion during the opening of the São Paulo Biennial. The event known as The Biennial of the Void has, in other words, become an item for the police blotter.

Susto means panic or fright.

A prisão desta jovem me parece um exagero absurdo e cruel. Sim, há a lei. Mas imagine o leitor se os “artistas” da especulação imobiliária fossem em cana a cada predação do bem público que patrocinam, não raro em conluio com o poder público, para construir esta cidade tragicamente horrorosa e desumana.

The jailing of this young woman strikes me as absurdly cruel and excessive. Yes, the law is the law. But just imagine if the “artists” of the speculative real estate market were to go to jail with every predatory confiscation of public property they perpetrated, not infrequently in collusion with the government, in order to construct this tragically horrendous and inhuman city.

“Tragically horrendous and inhuman.”

Daniel in the Lion’s Den: Deciphering the Dantas Drives

PRETTY DAMN GOOD PRIVACY. PGP on a BlackBerry gizmo. Source: Sorry, I forgot to note it down.

FBI ajudará Brasil a abrir arquivos de Dantas: The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation will help the Brazilian federal police decrypt five hard drives apprehended at the Rio de Janeiro apartment of banker Daniel Dantas, recently convicted of bribery of a federal police agent here.

So Último Segundo reports (at second hand.)

The banker is free pending appeal. He also faces charges of money laundering, tax evasion, and financial (accounting) fraud. Or the local equivalents. I am not a lawyer.

Dantas also faces a separate case, dating back to 2004, of industrial espionage. He and a former Kroll executive, and I think some crazy ex-Israeli military guy, too, allegedly bugged government officials, Dantas’ business partners in Brasil Telecom, and journalists who covered him negatively.

Prosecution of that case was set back recently, however, with a ruling by a federal court that it does not have jurisdiction over the spying case.

The Brazilian federal tax authority is nicknamed “the lion.” Nobody anywhere likes the tax man much, do they?

BRASÍLIA – O Instituto Nacional de Criminalística, em Brasília, jogou a toalha. Cinco meses depois de a Polícia Federal ter apreendido cinco discos rígidos de computador no apartamento do banqueiro Daniel Dantas, o órgão concluiu que não tem condições de quebrar a senha que protege os arquivos ali guardados. Vai pedir ajuda ao FBI, a polícia federal dos EUA. As informações são do jornal “Folha de S. Paulo”.

The Brazilian National Criminalistics Lab (INC) in Brasilia has thrown in the towel. Five months after the federal police apprehended five computer hard drives from the apartment of banker Daniel Dantas, the agency has concluded it does not have the capability to crack the password that protects the files stored thereon. It will ask help from the American federal police. The report is from the Folha de S. Paulo.