NPR | No Portuguese Reporting

Support — WordPress.com, offiline until tomorrow, has nothing on the «cheatin’ uh?» error message that continues to bar access to my PT-Br blog. This, according to the error message,

for a violation of our Terms of Service.

I am still able to use the «Press This» shortcut to cut and paste a fair-use amount of text from a URL I want to comment in English.

Invoking my spirit animal the same way, the same mechanism is applied to an original mockup of the Bicho-Preguiça — the three-toed tree sloth — blog, above, which now appears instead of the blocked version.

I find myself polishing my Portuguese more often than I do attempting to English the complicated reality of Sambodia, which is not in Kansas by any means.

For this reason, I had wanted to translate part of an essay that ran in Counterpunch recently, about the K-Street revolution that taken over NPR like a Maoist intellectual cabal over the last decade..

The following, by  HELEN REDMOND, are my thoughts exactly.

I admit I listen and I don’t pay.

Because NPR doesn’t air the views of all sides.

All things are not considered.

The so-called “experts” NPR interviews are pro-government, pro-war, and promote the ideas of right-wing think tanks. A faction of former national security advisors, defense department officials, ambassadors, ex-pentagon generals, and military commanders.

Inside the DC beltway.

The government to K-street, to think tank, to NPR pipeline.

I would head the list with private sector experience, or at least insert it at some strategic crossroads in this career trajectory. Astonishing, the number of boards the developers of Facebook and Twitter, and their employees, are on.

PPP Brasil | Pensamentos Programaticos Parciais

Acho que foi o filósofo Merleau-Ponty que disse algo como «o meu eu á soma dos sendeiros do meu corpo». O Jorge Luis Borges traçou os «sendeiros que bifurcan».

O mesmo pensamento aplice-se também a este blog modesto cada vez que  tornamos ao estudo de redes como um método de jornalismo visando perfilar os  relacionamentos sociais de instituições: os teóricos desse ramo falam do «path» e o «walk» entre os nós para falar de densidade, influência, e tantas outras medidas.

Entretanto, os caminhos dessas duas linhas de pesquisa se cruzam na noção de diretorias entrecruzadas — criticadas pelo marxismo clásico e festejados pelos evangêlicos de inovação social, da escola de Castells & Cia.

Esse tipo de análise é ensinado sem entrar em disputas ideológicas no livro dos autores do software Pajek, aplicado nesse caso a diretorias entercruzadas na Escócio no começo do século passado.

Nós podemos fazer o mesmo tipo de análise. Sugiro, ainda, que um ponto interessante de partida seria o PPP, a Parceria Pública-Privada, o método mais avançado hoje em dias segundo os expertos de ponta na gestão.

Tomemos o exemplo de Sérgio Ephim Mindlin (Presidente do Conselho Deliberativo do Instituto Ethos). Duvido que houver um ser humano mais «enredado» do que isso.

Sócio-fundador do Instituto Ethos; sócio-diretor da consultoria Ação Responsável; fundador e membro do Conselho Deliberativo do Instituto Akatu; membro do Conselho Curador da Fundação Roberto Marinho e da Fundação Orsa; membro do Conselho Estratégico do Centro de Empreendedorismo Social e Administração do Terceiro Setor (Ceats), da Universidade de São Paulo (USP); engenheiro de produção graduado pela Escola Politécnica da USP, mestre em comportamento organizacional pela Universidade de Cornell (EUA) e doutor em administração pela Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade (FEA), da USP; ex-diretor-presidente da Fundação Telefônica; ex-presidente do Conselho de Administração e ex-diretor-presidente da Fundação Abrinq pelos Direitos da Criança; ex-membro do Conselho de Administração e diretor-presidente da Metal Leve S.A.; membro fundador e ex-coordenador do Pensamento Nacional das Bases Empresariais (PNBE).

.Eu acho que qualquer entidade com uma estratégia softisicada de gestão de capital social devia ser capaz de apresentar estes meta-dados em um formato legível por uma maquina, se bem que não passe de uma planilha ou tabela de HTML.

Falta checar o cálculo dessa existência em rede. Fazendo-o de mão basado na página informativa sobre os conselhos do Ethos, por exemplo, faz muito trabalho.

Que tal fornecer um arquivo FOAF, or algo parecido? O quê aconteceu com este projeto badalado do complexo blogagem-industrial de Harvard?

Pista: a página do usuário no LinkedIn fornece links que podem ser rapidamente navegados.

Mas me parece que fornecer um «flat file» — acima — é uma forma de agressão passiva, garantindo que as informações serão o mais difíceis possíveis de recolher e entrecruzar.

O PPP e a Sociedade-Rede

Agredeço o doutorando Spyrous Angelopoulos da faculdade de negócios Warwick para seu ensaio sobre

Emergence of networks within Public-Private Partnerships
Spyros Angelopoulos, Warwick Business School
University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

O seja, «a emergencia de redes dentro de parcerias públicas-privadas.» Traduzo um trecho que estabelece as definições metodológicas cabíveis a nosso projeto jornalistico — chamado por minha mulher de «aquele das linhas e setas».

A PPP é um empreendimento financiado e tocado por uma parceria entre (a) o setor público e (b) pelo menos uma empresa do setor privado. Todas as tentativas de definir a PPP tem três pontos em comun para levar em mente quando formular uma definição mais abrangente.

(1) Envolvem pelo menos uma empresas do setor privado e uma organização do setor público.

(2) Essas compartilham metas comuns para a criação de valores sociais;

(3) Concordam em dividir tanto os gastos como os bens produzidos.

Sendo redes complexas, com uma diversidade de interesses e agendas em jogo, entre cooperação, colaboração e concorrência, as PPPs heredam os rasgos de uma sociedade em rede baseada na noção de valor agregado mútuo.

Projetos que utilizam o modelo PPP são obrigados a gerenciar responsibilidades por meio de redes de vários agentes. Aplica-se este ponto a parcerias verticais e horizotais em canais tanto internos como inter-institutcionais. Embora a gestão dessas formas distintas ainda não é muito bem entendida, pode se dizer que elas apresentam as partes interessadas com «problemas malditas» na coordenização a fiscalização de projetos.

Os desafio do gestor nesses processos são significativos e complicados pela interação de diversos sistemas sociais em vários níveis. Uma PPP pode ser pensado como uma rede cujos nódulos estabelecem laços tanto formais como informais. Os formais tendem a envolver trabalho, os informais à amizade

Assim, pode-se visualizar o ambiente organizacional da PPP como uma rede de redes, uma rede que relaciona as redes subordinadas, tanto pública quanto privada.

Preguiça Censurada?

Algo curioso está acontecendo com esse blog lusófono meu.

O WordPress informa que meu diário sobre a vida Sambodiana está fora do ar por causa de violações, sem explicar quais são.

Ainda assim, Consigo postar normalmente ao blog em inglês, o Sousófono Lusófono.

O ataque parece focar o comando Press This, um atalho que abre a janela de edição com um laço ao conteúdo a ser comentado.

Não entendo a mensagem críptica querendo saber se eu estou trapaceando. Vocês têm alguma dica sobre isso? Este internauta está com o mesmo problema. De imediato, não estou achando uma resolução que não seja muito técnica. O problema aparece pela primeira vez há seis anos, aparece.

Suporte técnico está fechado até o dia 6, vou tentar ver se surgisse alguma solução nos fóruns.

Pajek | Ineffective Elective Affiliations

I have come to an impasse in my reading of the Pajek manual and hope that someone will be able to point me to the exit of this tangled Webs we weave …

Chapter 5 of the Pajek social networking textbook is uncharacteristically less than a model of clarity when it comes to 2-mode networks, I am finding.

The problem at hand is to analyze 2-mode relationships as relations between two or 1-mode relationships.

The example given — one that interests me a great deal in this work I work on during downtime — is a network of interlocking directorates among late-19th century Scottish heavy industry players.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum | GIFiles on Brazilian Media?

According to the lefty Fazendo Media | Brazil …

WikiLeaks has begun to publish the Stratfor Global Intelligence Files, which provide evidence of, among other things, relationships with Brazilian news media between July 2004 and December 2011.

Your assignment is run down this rumor and fact-check it silly.

Result | There is at least one sign of such a relationship, above, from a list of  «signed partnerships» with global media outlets. Agência Estado is also named, as is the Terra portal. No indication of what the partnership entails.

 

Awaiting the complettion of full-text indexing, we continue to pore over the material.

The document in question, meanwhile, is mirrored here. Who should we ask about these relationships at the respective media companies?

And then there is this e-mail, No. 5502132i in the Wiki-leaked archives:

Yesterday I met with the main POC as well as the head of the paper
to discuss how we could make our partnership more productive.

One of the things the paper requested from us was a list of particular
items we are interested in. Our POC is willing to put us in contact to
the various reporters that are experts in our areas of interest. These
people will be available for general chats and also specific questions.
So, what I need is a list of items that we are interested in. They need
to be a nice balance between specific versus general.

Globo x Record | RICO in Rio

Incumbent Globo and up and comer Record are always good for instances of bareknuckle corporate «vale-tudo».

A recent report in Globo’s top weekly, Época magazine, illustrates the media group’s disdain for the fabulously wealthy Protestant denomination known as IURD, which bankrolls the rival network.

The result is something of a running rhetorical war of  religion, as in the cover story referred to, an otherwide interesting look at the construction of venues for mass religious ceremonies, by Catholics and Protestants alike.

As to the religion known as futebol, Portal Imprensa reports from Rio de Janeiro …

In an official statement released Wednesday, the Record network expressed surprise at the decision by the international governing body, FIFA, to extend the Globo network’s existing broadcast rights to World Cup 2018 and 2022 without allowing for competing bids.

In the note, Record said it had been told in an e-mail from FIFA TV director Niclas Ericson after the 2010 Cup in Africa that a competitive bidding process would  award transmission rights for 2018 and 2022.

At the same time, in the Brazilian national congress, enabling legislation for the funding of the upcoming Olympics and World Cup and FIFA is progressing slowly.

FIFA, meanwhile, suffers from terrible public relations migraines relating to João Havelange, who resigned from the boards of both Cup and Olympiad last year in the wake of corruptions charges.

Waterfall Is Bingo Busted

Rio state government proposes conversion of "one armed bandits" into teaching machines for public schools

The Estadão reports:

SÃO PAULO -  The leaders of a gang specializating in one-armed bandit gambling machines were arrested today as part of Operation Monte Carlo, a joint effort by the federal police, the federal prosecutor’s office and in a supporting role, the federaltax authority.

The factoid dislodges a memory of my very first day in Sambodia, leaving my rented flat near the corner of Augusta and Estados Unidos. The entire Avenida Paulista was swarming with gambling halls. I met my first glue-sniffing street urchin –pixote — outside of one.

A court has ordered 8 orders of preventive detentions, 27 temporary arrests, 10  subpoenas, and search and seizure orders for a variety of locations. Among those arrested and taken to federal policy HQ was the leader of the scheme, Carlinhos “Charlie Waterfall” Cachoeira, a man with control over what gambling halls could do business in his personal territory.

The federal police say the racket has operating for  17 years with the assistance of public officials, in locations such as Goiânia and Valparaíso de Goiás, and counted on police and prosecutors who had been paid off to look the other way or support the day-to-day operations, including interventions in non-sanctioned gambling joints, and tipping off racketeers as to when police would move against them, so that the machines could be moved before the raids arrived.

During 15 months of investigation, Monte Carlo has uncovered the bribery of two federal police officers and six precinct captains in Goias, together with four military police corporals, three lieutenant colonels, a captain a major, two sergeants and 18 privates, all from Goias. Also investigated were a federal police secretary, a highway patrol officer, and others.

Ginga | Stuck in the Middleware

The Brazilian government’s controversial commitment to the sponsorhip of open source software and standards for government use has not been as unwavering as advocates — painted as Communist plotters by the opposing lobby — had hoped.

In 2009, President da Silva claimed savings of some $250 million from such projects.

I have tracked a couple such projects myself, and found dedicated but hungry programmers on the other end of the line, promoting PostGreSQL and Plone. The program’s Web site recounts few success stories. Friends of mine from the Social Forum milieu blame the usuals villains — you know who.

One key piece of technology is the Ginga set-top box for cable television, introduced as a project to reclaim the role of value-adder for Brazilian firms in the tax-free  manufacturing zone in Manaus.

TELETIME reports.

Today, February 26, the federal government announced Inter-Ministry Order 140, signed by the M of Development and Science & Technology. The order sets a standardized procedure for the incorporation of the Ginga set-top box into television sets.

As this news service reported last week, the government dropped the demand that manufacturers adopt the Ginga box in 2012. Adoption will not mandatory until 2013, when the market share of domestically produced televisions with Ginga will rise to 75% of TVs produced and 100% connected. In 2014, the target will rise to 90% of all TVs.

The federal order also now requires that manufacturers open the IP communication port of Ginga-connected TVs in order to enable real interactivity. There has been concern that manufacturers might not offer this capability, restricting IP access to the native middleware of the TV set and its proprietary applications.

I recently tried to open a Word for Windows XP document in Windows 7, only to be told that Windows 7 could not open the outdated format. It then offered to sell me the software I needed to complete the job.

If manufacturers decide to start production of Ginga-enabled TVs this year, they could lower the number of sets to be produced in 2013, so long as they respect the minimum of 60%.

The government is betting that, along with this order, another boost to the Ginga program will come from e-government initiatives and applications subsidized by public investments.  These programs are expected to intensify, starting now.

March Media Maneuvers | Brasilianas

Brasilianas alerts us to rumored structural readjustments of the Brazilian media sector.

Universo Online, UOL, recently went private as part of a strategy dictated by shareholder Banco Pactual.

Market rumors are that the next step will be to go public again, this time in New York.

A second maneuver — and this remains in the realm of speculation, mind you — might be to acquire the daily Estado de S. Paulo, which has been on offer for some time now.

This would represent a step in the direction of concentration of ownership, I believe.

Ash Wednesday | The Criminal Record of Casa Verde

According to the Estado de S. Paulo, this year’s Carnaval celebration was marred by incidents that badly damaged the public image of its corporate sponsors.

The lensmaker Transitions saw its brand tainted with scenes of violence and vandalism during the tallying of judges’ scores on Tuesday. A member of the carnival society Império de Casa Verde, sponsored by Transitions, leaped over a police barrier and tore up the jurors’ voting forms. Worse, he did this while wearing the company’s logo on  his T-shirt.

“It was unexpected and deplorable”, said Vanessa Johns, marketing director, América Latina, for Transitions. It was the first time the company had sponsored a carnival society as part of its $R 22 million marketing budget for Brazil. tTransitions adopted Casa Verde because the theme of its presentation was vision.

Or perhaps Casa Verde took its theme from the sponsor, or as a result of more nuanced negotiations.

In 2006, police investigated the same samba society for links with the PCC, São Paulo’s reigning Bolivian marching powder and death dealer. From that report, …

… Court-authorized wiretaps caught Casa Verde members plotting criminal acts with Sidney Rogério de Moraes, 39, considered the principal bag man for the Northern Zone of the state capital. In that region,, the PCC is thought to collect some R$ 500 thousand per month …

Police say three members of Império da Casa Verde also belong to the PCC. Alexandre Constantino Furtado, 34, Rogério Sevilha Silva, 26, and Fábio Franco de Oliveira, 23, were indicted along with nine others for involvement in the scheme run by Moraes.

In 2007, the Estado de S. Paulo reported on alleged criminal patronage of football teams in smaller São Paulo cities.

Government and corporate subsidies have been raised to some degree in a bid to outbid groups traditionally supported by the barons of informality, such as bicho and bingo and caça-níqueis and milícias, aka mafias with badges …

Returning now to the present-day PR disaster …

“Transitions was very unlucky. No one could anticipate something like this”, said Grupo Troiano Branding director Ricardo Klein. In his view, the lens maker will suffer a blow to its image in the short term, as the images are still all over the TV. However, he added, ”It was so surreal that no one is going to think badly of the sponsor.”

In a similar manner, the film bio of the chain-smoking, beer and barbecue ex-president Lula da Silva was sponsored by Souza Cruz — big tobacco — and Brahma — big, bold beer, something of a Brazilian Duff.

The top follow-up story now involves whether the assault on the judges and carnival floats was planned in advance.

Six carnival societies are suspected of having incited the riot and invasion of a restricted area of the Sambadrome stadium on Tuesday afternoon, as results were announced in the contest for best in show, 2012.

SPTV | Globo showed footage of members of  Império da Casa Verde, Gaviões da Fiel, Vai-Vai, Camisa Verde, Tom Maior and Pérola Negra huddling together and then proceeding to the judging area. In the confusion, the scoring process came to a halt. After gathering with  leaders of the societies in question, Mocidade Alegre, leading as of the time the vote was interrupted, was declared champion. Two persons were arrested for theft of the ballot forms and destruction of public property.

Police from a special office of tourist security will take over the investigation. Meanwhile, though the lense of our disappointed sponsor,

The most significant victim is probably São Paulo’s annual Carnaval itself, said ESPM professor , Marcelo Pontes. The live broadcast on Globo was sponsored by such prominent brands as the Bradesco bank, TIM mobile telephony and brewer  Nova Schin. Brands such as Bombril cleaning prroducts and Pantene hair care sponsored individual societies.

By means of these sponsorships, advertisers hope  to reach audiences on a mass scale, says José Roberto Martins of the consulting firm GlobalBrands. “There is the risk of associating your brand with a less than positive activity.” Martins believes episodes such as this, along with the suspected rape on the Big Brother Brasil reality show, could cause sponsors to reconsider.

Even my supposedly libertarian self thought the episode of BBB in question — a candidate investigated on suspicion of an on-set rape by the federal police, was hastily dropped off in the waste heap of history –  was incredibly disgusting.

And not only that: What is left unsaid in all this commotion is that the party most at risk in this situation is Globo itself — it enjoys a monopoly and one would assume sets advertising rates accordingly.

The ratings leader among rival networks is Record — a highly professional group with deep pockets originating in the past and present televangelism of its founders. These network wars often get down and dirty.