On When People Have the Higher Hand

This is a repost

Should we talk about the Arab Revolution unfolding under our very eyes or should we talk about another mine blast that has left 21 dead in Colombia?

Perhaps about another whistle-blowing website
which is now currently in the works to compete with the one we all know? The Royal Wedding of the century?

As to the Arab Revolution and the killing of protestors by mercenaries, we have noticed that the reaction by the Washington-London-Brussels axis is really, really strange. They are not sure whether they say Ay or Nay. Funny to watch. You see, leaders in those power zones have to come out and say something. Usually, very funny. Or not. THERE is a lot at stake...

Plus the fact that there is an endemic under-reporting of "substance" (spin!) here in our side of the pond... Why bother?

Mine blasts have become banal. We need not waste our breaths on the subject. New Zealand, China, Chile, Colombia, The United States...

Whistle-blowing web sites? There must be more than meets the eye. Let us think...

The Royal Wedding to which neither the Obamas nor Elton John have been invited. Folks over in the British Isles need the diversion. It is also a billion-dollar business in China: plates, spoons, and portraits...

Related articles

• Colombia deficient in mine inspectors (foxnews.com)
• REFILE-UPDATE 1-Colombia wants mine safety review after blast (reuters.com)
• OpenLeaks Site Leaked Before Launch (informationweek.com)
• Cut-price parties for Royal wedding (thesun.co.uk)
• National Wedding Show: Royal Wedding Cake Inspirations (bridalwave.tv)
• Elton John Says He Won't Be Invited To Royal Wedding (perezhilton.com)
• Few Americans interested in royal wedding: poll (reuters.com)
• Beckhams, Kanye West, Elton John Invited To Royal Wedding As Sarah Ferguson Is Snubbed (popcrunch.com)
• VIDEO: Royal Wedding helps china industry (bbc.co.uk)
• Arab revolts: Another good week for social media, a bad week for dictators (venturebeat.com)
• Germany: Frankfurt Demo in solidarity with the Arab Revolution (aboriginalpress.blogspot.com)
• Gaddafi cruelly resists, but this Arab democratic revolution is far from over | David Hirst (guardian.co.uk)
• Arab Revolutions: What to Do After So Many Years of Hypocrisy? (socyberty.com)
• Arab leaders should take heed after velvet revolution (thehill.com)
• 'We are witnessing today an Arab people's revolution' (cnn.com)

Am I Following Your Blog?

Am I following everyone following my blog? I hope I am. Do let me know.

I've been meaning to edit some of the blogs for quite some time now and I have just done so.

I have realized that I cannot hope to follow four hundred thousand blogs if I can't keep pace with them all and pay them proper homage.

If you can spare the time, you ought to check out the eclectic mixture of blogs I'm following. They all have something substantial to say (and to show!), I guarantee.

Related articles

• Why No One Reads Your Blog (theantisocialmedia.com)
• The Scary Trend of Becoming a Follower (blogworld.com)
• Failing real estate blogs - why are there so many out there? (agentgenius.com)
• When In Doubt, Blog? (hollabackhealth.com)
• How to make your company blog connect like a personal blog (businessesgrow.com)
• 7 Things to Look For in a Co-Blogger (dailyblogtips.com)
• TechBlog Coalition (teknophilia.wordpress.com)

On Any Day of the Month

Image via Wikipedia

Thank Heavens for public transportation. It makes my life a whole lot easier.

It's dawned on me, as it did to Machado de Assis, in  4th of July 1883, to list a few clauses, five to be precise, that aim to bring order out of the chaos that the excess of democracy brings to buses

Art I - On the Sad

Sad, depressed folks should not talk to their friend, the one that managed to grab a seat next to me, about matters arising from their quiet and sleepy little lives often laden with petty gossip. After all, there is always the chance that the batteries in my "Walkman" are not charged enough.

Art II - On the Hunky and Good-looking Guys

Handsome boys, it behooves me to warn you that it is forbidden for you to inch closer and touch my thighs which are yin in nature with yours which are strong and energetic, more yang, when you get a place near me, lest you raise incongruous behavior with the collective setting of the vehicle. I'm telling you!

Art III -  On the Ill-humored

Will the grumpy ones please remain in their beds and do you not dare leave your pestilential cocoons to spread poison and thereby polluting the prana that I use to stay alive.

Art IV - On the Old and Sassy

It would be wise and for everyone's good that old folks stay in their rocking chairs in their yards, telling stories to their five-year-old grandchildren, reminiscing about what they could have done with their lives and did not do, rather than coming to take my favorite seat at seven o'clock in the morning. Have a heart! Banks open at ten.

Art V -  On the Drivers and Collectors

To these it is vetoed the exchange of information relevant to their profession. It comes with a typical, unswallowable verbiage for people who think they are the queens of the black coconut brittle. Due to the distance from the driver's seat to where the collector sits, we, the passengers, will be left wondering why we are subjected to such drivel. Voice carries.  Keep my mind free and my ears safe.

The other five articles are left to the reader's imagination which, I'm sure, has as much essence as does mine.

Pictured:

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1838-1908).

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒoaˈkĩ maˈɾiɐ maˈʃadu dʒi aˈsis]), often known as Machado de Assis, Machado, or Bruxo do Cosme Velho^[1] (June 21, 1839, Rio de Janeiro—September 29, 1908, Rio de Janeiro), was a Brazilian novelist, poet,playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature.^[2][3][4] However, he did not gain widespread popularity outside Brazil in his own lifetime.

Machado's works had a great influence on Brazilian literary schools of the late 19th century and 20th century. José Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom are among his admirers^[5] and Bloom calls him "the supreme black literary artist to date."

Wikipedia

On When the Police Plays Dirty

This has happened in Recife, in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, Brazil.


Folha de São Paulo


A video posted on the internet in which two men, in custody, are forced to kiss each other. The footage seems to have been made at a police station. In the background, a man in police uniform, with a hood on his head, is watching the whole scene.   


Brazilian police forcing two suspects to kiss and taunting them with sentences like: "How Cute!", "Stick out your tongues!";  and halfway through the video, referring to them as "... These monkeys". 

The Pernambuco chapter of the Brazilian Bar Association deplores the act and says it will look into the matter....

Clearly, those law people were playing with Human Rights... Serious stuff!

What says you?

This video has been removed by user