plasticmadness

Queria falar um pouco sobre as reações de alguns socialistas ao plano do Brasil de importar seis mil médicos formados na Cuba.

Primeiro, deixe-me descrever a situação. O interior do Brasil não é bem desenvolvido. Em muitas cidades pequenas faltam serviços básicos. Coisas básicas como ruas pavimentadas, bancos, remédios, saneamento básico, conseguem estar em falta. Frequentemente as escolas não são boas. Como você pode imaginar essas vilas não são lugares atraentes para um profissional de classe média morar. Entre as várias coisas que podem faltar estão médicos.

Ler mais…

No Comments | In: Activism, Brazil, Cary, Health, International, Politics, Public Health Matters | | #

How fandom and ideology blinded the Brazilian left from seeing the blatant exploitation of Cuba’s doctors.

Read the full article here.

No Comments | In: Activism, Brazil, Cary, Health, International, Politics, Public Health Matters, Shared Links | tags: brazil, Communism, Cuba, labor, Marxism, medicine, physicians, Politics, Socialism. | #

(Reposted from my fiction blog.)

I discovered something remarkable today. More than remarkable really. I mean, I literally fell out of my chair (granted I was sitting on the edge of it already, but still).

Guam is an actual place.

All these years I’ve been tossing around this Guam shtick. Make jokes about it, talking about my secret volcano headquarters there, how we’ve recruited the “Easter Island guys” to defend it (alien weaponry in their hats, though weakened since all the brims fell off, but still bad ass), using it as an interjection and/or greeting, and so on.

But, lo and behold, there, in the South Pacific (nearish Easter Island – quite a coincidence!), is an island named Guam. To add insult to injury, it’s part of the United States, a country in which I was born and lived for 4 decades.

I’m wondering now what the Guamites (Guamese? Guamians?) think – or would think, if they aren’t already aware of it – of my fixation and how I’ve expressed it. Offended? Appreciative? Bored? Will they hunt me down and rough me up, demand an apology and get me to stop? Send an Easter Island Guy to take me out?

Comments Off | In: Cary | | #

One of the things I find most interesting about Portuguese is the two versions of “that” is uses. It’s interesting for a couple reasons. First, because it indicates a different way of thinking about locations, and second, because of how it’s carried over into other areas, beyond demonstrative pronouns.

First let me explain the two versions of “that” and how they’re used. I’ll stick to the masculine versions to keep things simple, just know that feminine versions exist.

Now, of course, in English we have “this” and “that”. This is used for something you have in your hand, or at least nearby (this mug [in my hand], this car [we're in]), while that is used for things further away or nearer the person we’re talking to (that mountain [on the horizon], that wombat [gnawing on your leg]).

Portuguese speakers differentiate between “that wombat [gnawing on your leg]” and “that mountain [on the horizon]“. For things near the person being addressed they use esse, while for things distant from you and the person you’re talking to aquele is used. It’s interesting to note that the word for this este, which is very similar to esse (nearby “that”). For physical locations, it’s easy to know which to use, but when referring to more abstract things it can be a tough to know.

This “near/far” distinction carries over into concept of there-ness. For a there next to the person you’re speaking to, aí is used, while lá is used to indicate a place neither of you is particularly near to.

The only parallel I can think of in English is when w

One of the things I find most interesting about Portuguese is the two versions of “that” is uses. It’s interesting for a couple reasons. First, because it indicates a different way of thinking about locations, and second, because of how it’s carried over into other areas, beyond demonstrative pronouns.

First let me explain the two versions of “that” and how they’re used. I’ll stick to the masculine versions to keep things simple, just know that feminine versions exist.

Of course, in English we have this and that and this is used for something you have in your hand, or at least nearby (this mug [in my hand], this car [we're in]), while that is used for things further away or nearer the person we’re talking to (that mountain [on the horizon], that wombat [gnawing on your leg]).

Portuguese speakers differentiate between “that wombat [gnawing on your leg]” and “that mountain [on the horizon]“. For things near the person being addressed they use esse, while for things distant from you and the person you’re talking to aquele is used. It’s interesting to note that the word for this este, which is very similar to esse (nearby-the-person-you-are-addressing that). For physical locations, it’s easy to know which to use, but when referring to more abstract things it can be a tough to know.

This “near/far” distinction carries over into concept of there-ness. For a there next to the person you’re speaking to, aí is used, while lá is used to indicate a place neither of you is particularly near to.

The only parallel I can think of in English is when we add “over” to “there” (or “over there” to “that”). If you tell an English speaker, “It’s over there”, she is not going to look for ‘it’ near you or herself.

Naturally the border between “aí” and “lá is not a sharp one, and worse still, another word for “there” exists. “Ali” is used for a there that’s still nearby the person you’re speaking to. As an example:

“The pillow is there (aí - at home where you are), there (ali, near you) on the couch.”

Versus:

“The bleach is there (aí - at home where you are), there (lá, away from you) in the laundry room.”

Not great sentences, but in informal or colloquial speech you will hear this sort of thing often enough.

e add “over” to “there” (or “over there” to “that”). If you tell an English speaker, “It’s over there”, she is not going to look for ‘it’ near you or herself.

Naturally the border between “aí” and “lá is not a sharp one, and worse still, another word for “there” exists. “Ali” is used for a there that’s still nearby the person you’re speaking to. As an example:

“The pillow is there (aí – at home where you are), there (ali, near you) on the couch.”

Versus:

“The bleach is there (aí – at home where you are), there (lá, away from you) in the laundry room.”

Not great sentences, but in informal or colloquial speech you will hear this sort of thing often enough.

Comments Off | In: Cary | | #

(Reposted from my writing site.)

For years and years I climbed the mountain: up and up, on and on. Never once had I seen its peak. Even on the clearest of days looking up was no different from looking down. My starting place was as lost in the distance as my destination. If I looked out over the plain I’d left to begin my climb, I thought I could see the ground. It was a dark shadow under the sky, but the horizon was indistinct. A bland blurriness where land and sky met. I could not even recall exactly how long I’d been climbing.

I had tried to keep track of course, to estimate how far I’d come along the slope and upwards. But what was the point? At the end, if I ever got there, I would have a few numbers in my head that, while surely impressive, were merely trivia.

I think the air thinned as I’d climbed, but I could have been fooling myself. I was older, more tired. If it was thinning with elevation the rate was miniscule. I was just as unsure about the plant life. It seemed more scraggly, more weathered, less dense, but maybe that was just the monotony. I still found enough berries to eat, wood to make an occasional fire to roast an occasional animal I’d managed to snare. My diet was as dull as the horizon, but I never starved.

While I could not say how far I’d come, or even how long I’d been climbing, my more recent memories were fine. I could give a reasonable, if dull, account of the last couple decades. It had been a few years since anything interesting had occurred – that being my last encounter with a living person. A woman who’d claimed she was coming down. Not for having given up, but from the top. From having reached her goal. (Or maybe not, who was I to say her aim had been so low.) She was mad and I, so unused even to sane conversation, had struggled simply to understand her.

Mad or not, the encounter with her had buoyed me. For several months before that I’d been morose over the last person I’d seen. A dead man, who had killed himself with a sharp rock his temple. One could hardly blame him.

Madness was not ideal, but it was better than braining myself.

Comments Off | In: Cary | | #

So, right, I watched this. (For free – I’m not crazy.) Utterly ridiculous – as most alien invasion movies are. For those that are not aware, it’s based on the 2-player board game of the same name. It’s important to note that this is one of the simplest board games ever. It consists of blindly “shooting” at your opponent’s navy by calling out positions on a grid. Keep this fact in mind for later.

Now, I’ll tell you straight away that the first 20 minutes can simply be skipped. This span of the movie is one of the more tedious attempts at character development ever. And hello, no one is watching an alien invasion movie based on one of the simplest board games ever for the characters. If they needed to pad for time, I would have liked some insight into the aliens’ motives. (I can hardly believe I am asking such a thing of this movie, but there it is.) Anyhow, skip the beginning, as you’ll easily figure out the two-dimensional characters’ simplistic motivations and relationships by watching the action parts of the movie.

After the blah-blah, the aliens land. One ship breaks up and smashes up a bit of China. The rest land near Hawaii and toss up a giant shield that not even Liam Neeson can get through, leaving only 3 human naval vessels (none of which are battleships) inside. Apparently the alien ship that crashed had all their communication equipment on it, so now they need to invade Hawaii to use some radio telescopes there to contact a (human) satellite to contact their home planet to tell them to send more ships to help invade earth. Yes, that’s right, humans have a modest-sized satellite that can contact other star systems, but aliens who can cross interstellar space don’t have the same technology on all their ships, only the one.

Moving on… oh, yeah, speaking of moving. The alien space ships – SPACE SHIPS – move by hopping in/on the water. I am not making this up. They look like Megatron trying to do the breast stroke. They never fly again, nor do they submerge again once they’ve surfaced near the beginning of the movie. They conveniently stay on the 2-dimensional surface of the ocean and fight the human naval ships pretty much like other, albeit spastic, human naval ships. Handy, eh?

Remember the point from the first paragraph I told you to keep in mind? Good. This is carried over into the film – aside from eyesight neither the human nor alien ships can detect one another. Now, clearly, we can expect that star-hopping aliens would be able to jam human radar and what not. However no explanation whatsoever is given as to why the aliens can’t track the human ships. Worse still, the humans cheat! The tricksy bastards use TSUNAMI DETECTION BUOYS to track the hopping alien ships. And with enough accuracy to shoot missiles at them and eventually hit them. I shit you not. (To be fair, it was a Japanese sailor who figured this out, so that’s probably why it worked. The only semi-intelligent characters in the movie are Caucasian females or Japanese males. Lucky for the aliens there wasn’t a female Japanese character or they would have been screwed right off the bat.)

So, now that the makers of this movie have crippled the aliens in ways only justifiable in the context of slavish devotion to a 70 year old game a 6 year old can play and that the humans are cheating, you have to start to wonder if perhaps the kids from “Super 8″ should get subbed in for the US Navy, since clearly there’s hardly a challenge in it for the military. But wait! The aliens have spiffy, flying, spinning, fiery, metal-chewing ball thingies that eat ships, helicopters and highways for lunch. Probably adolescent filmmakers too. So, with all the puny human ships now turned into scrap metal, what’s a bunch of socially dysfunctional heroes to do? You guessed it: grab a bunch of naval veterans, un-museum-ify the USS Missouri, and use this 70 year old battleship to fight the last alien STARship. And here you were worried there wasn’t going to be a battleship in this.

So, anyhow, now we have some serious action. The nine 20-inch guns of the Missouri pound the crap out of an alien vessel made out of trans-uranic elements no earthling (Japanese or otherwise) can identify. Also, the loser captain of the museum ship and the Japanese guy shoot out the windows of the alien ship using large rifles. They do this because the aliens, as it turns out, are invading a planet that is so bright they’re functionally blind on it without sun glasses. Seriously, my 90 year old grandmother could beat these guys at this point. Still, the heavily damaged last alien ship manages to spit out 3 of the spiffy, flying, spinning, fiery, metal-chewing ball thingies just as the Missouri shoots its last round off at the radio telescopes on Hawaii (to prevent the ETs from phoning home). Fortunately, the last alien ship was damaged enough that the giant shield is down and Liam Neeson is able to save the Missouri and our heroes with some of his aircraft carrier’s fighter jets. It’s worth pointing out that Liam knows his jets are so bad-ass that rather than launching all of them to help fend off an ALIEN INVASION, he only sends a few. It’s like he knew the movie was almost over or something and was trying to save jet fuel.

So, anyhow, what’s good about this movie? Nice action sequences. Good effects. Thus, I would say you should only see this movie under the following circumstances: 1) you don’t have to pay for it, 2) you can easily skip the first 20 minutes or so, and 3) you can ignore the idiocies enough to enjoy big metal human sea ships and big metal hopping alien sea ships knocking the crap out of each other.

1 Comment | In: Cary, Cinema, Culture & Entertainment, Uncategorized | tags: 2012 movies, humor, movie reviews, sci-fi, scifi. | #

Dona Zefinha specializes in northeastern Brazilian cuisine. The menu is extensive and has many traditional dishes from that area. The service was quite good.

Many of the dishes are for 2, and we got the Caramão Tropical Refeição: shrimp and rice served in pineapple halves with a rich cream sauce. One pineapple half held the shrimp and the other the rice. The sauce was divine. We stuffed ourselves happily, and then had tapioca de coco e doce de leite: tapioca (also common in the northeast) with coconut and dulce de leite.

I can’t wait to go back!

Address: Rua Lima e Silva, 776, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Phone: +55 51 3072-5557
Hours: Monday to Saturday – 5am to 1am
E-mail: atendimento@culinariadonazefinha.com.br
Web: http://www.culinariadonazefinha.com.br/

2 Comments | In: Cary, Culture & Entertainment, Food and Nutrition | tags: brazilian food, comida brasileira, comida nordestina, cuisine, food, poa, restaurants. | #

A lot of people are very critical of Norway’s maximum sentence being only 21 years in the face of the mass murders this past Friday. Some are even going so far as to hope that they will raise the sentence limit and apply the new limit to the crime.

To the first part of that, within the bounds of international laws and treaties to which it is party, Norway is free to craft its justice system however it wishes. It doesn’t have to fit your idea of justice, or mine, or Burundi’s, or whatever. Furthermore Norway has a very low crime rate, so it is difficult to level much legitimate criticism at it as being dysfunctional in any systematic way.

The idea that Norway should alter itsjustice system after the fact and applying it this crime is particularly odious. Regardless of whether you think this sort of emotional knee-jerk change is justified, it is not going to happen. Known as an ex post facto law, they are forbidden by the Norwegian constitution (as well as many other countries’, including the United States’ and Brazil’s, even Iran’s).

It is not like Norway is some banana republic rife with crime and corruption. If it were, I would add my voice right along side these critics.

I am not going to that one doesn’t rewire ones justice system based on one extraordinary event, Norway may decide that is something they wish to do. I will say that doing it in the heat of the moment is nearly always a bad idea. This is the same sort of emotional spasm that led to the US congress passing, without barely a debate, the tome of civil rights pummeling laws known as the Patriot Act.

According to some ideals, 21 years is not enough, but as this is a Norwegian crime, committed in Norway, by a native of that country. It is their ideals that matter here and now.

Comments Off | In: Activism, Cary, Human Rights, International, Politics, Social Media & Internet | tags: ex post facto law, international law, July 22nd shootings, justic, justice, Norway, Oslo bombing. | #

The boundary between early and mid- summer for me is marked by the Origins Games Fair, which generally falls on the last weekend of June. With the except of last year I’ve been to the convention since 2000, as well as a couple times before that.

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1 Comment | In: Cary, Culture & Entertainment, Gaming, Personal | tags: Culture & Entertainment, events, gaming, origins, rpg. | #