Virada Cultural Paulista | The Second Life Effect

Why we avoided the Sambodian Virada Cultural Paulista | 2012, or, traduttores traditores. Neuza and I have not been consuming our fair share of Sambodian culture lately, owing both to ennui and to the odd work schedule of a traduttore traditore. We are also somewhat puzzled over the latest pet project supported by federal and state [...]

Green Machines | Braskem’s Sugar Cane Gains

The Estadão reports: Tigre will introduce a new line of drainage grills using polyethylene produced by Braskem from sugarcane. Known as the Tigre Eco-Grill, the product line marks the entry of «green» plastic into the construction market, the company says, without revealing further details of the deal. “Our investment in this new line shows that we are [...]

Toucans of a Feather | The Hot Potato of Privatization

Item: A volta das privatizações? | Carta Capital. With the publication of a critical historical study of the privatizations carried out by Brazil’s nominally social-democratic, center-right PSDB during its 8 year tenure in the federal presidency, a political hot potato is already emerging for the municipal and state elections later this year: Who is the most [...]

Musical Electric Chairs | Electricity Regulation in Brazil

AES Eletropaulo has just returned to us a crispy stereo and burnt-out microwave oven, both fried in a lightning strike or massive surge or something of the kind last month. Big Government made them do it. We filed a complaint with the company and receive a voucher in return for repairs services from any one [...]

How to Boycott Fox in Pindamonhangaba

How to boycott NEWS Corp in Brazil, a consumer campaign suggested by Alberto Dines of Observatório da Imprensa? Rodrigo Vianna has some timely tips, which I translate, as always, in haste. In fact, boycotting Fox in Brazil means boycotting either Sky and  NET – the “convergent oligopoly” of pay TV – or  Globo. The pay [...]

Initiating Tracking | Tropical R&D

The tools provided by the SIMILE project and used to develop this timeline gizmo in Drupal really are useful. . It is useful, for example, to see Mr. Sorrell of the WPP group dining with President Obama not long after buying Blue State Digital, the agency that handles the spectacle of Obamism. I follow the company, [...]

Summit of the Syndicates | Labor-Management in Talks On Labor Peace

When you live in a Third World country like the U.S.A., you often find that trade unionists have been hunted to extinction, as still occurs in Colombia. The result is that there is no one left to sit around a table, smoke cigarettes, and hash out what all sides can agree on. The result is [...]

Brazilian Capital Market Machine | Writing the Meltdown Manual

The great Sambodian smoking hole, above: Collapse of excavations at the future Pinheiros Station of the São Paulo Metrõ system. After all these years, and thank you for your concern, Brazil seems to have adequate control over its nuclear reactors — even if the location Angra dos Reis along the south-cenral coast, teeming with life, [...]

“The Secular State Is The Antichrist” | Eros

Um panfleto anticlerical — the Estado de S.Paulo calls a public lawsuit seeking to ban religious education in the public school ‘an anti-clerical screed.” The author is a recently retired Supereme Court justice, Eros Grau, once referred to by the Estadão as “a fish out of water” on the Supreme Court. One day we will [...]

Explosions and Urban Drought | Where Are We, Fallujah?

Diário do Comércio reports: We are not the only neighborhood to suffer from exploding electrical transformers in the greater metro area. These explosions, which never fail to scare the hell out of me, are regular occurrences during heavy rains, which peak in the summer months of Januray through March. An AES Eletropaulo tranformer burned out [...]