Accessa Sao Paulo

Access to the internet in Sao Paulo can be extremely difficult. You can be sure in the upscale neighborhoods and private residences in the cities west end of Jardim and Vila Nova, high-speed internet access can be obtained for a price.

Mauro told me that he noticed a Paulista and customer who lives in Vila Nova had a Apple iPhone. As of this point in time iPhones are not available for sale in Brazil and there is no service plan. However in discussing the iPhone, this owner said that he paid over a thousand dollars for an unlocked iPhonethat he could manage to use under an existing plan in Brazil.

But I can say without question, the people of Brazil need better, faster and freer internet access! All power to the people!

Okay, so let drop the pretense of FREE. In Brazil, the web of government bureaucracy, as is being threatened in America as well, has been thrown over the internet by regulators. Sure, if you can show me the clear and straightforward way that restricting freedom of speech, of access, of communication and invading citizen's privacy will stop human trafficing, stop porn, stop violence of man against man, stop drug kingpins, stop the rape of the Amazon, end crime in our time, bring peace to the Middle East, and stop terrorism than I will grant them the tyranny over the people they govern. But we all know that is a ruse and the stratagem of powerful manipulators to control individual freedom for personal gain. And it is a joke. Throwing a yoke around the throats of free citizens will end none of these ills.

This is true in Brazil and it is true in America.

The Lan House we visit to post our blogs will close without notice. Just yesterday we were told by the grapevine that the Lan House was open. So I rushed in an started making my post. Then they pulled the security doors shut while I was still inside. The proprietor told us that we didn't need to leave but that inspectors were coming around and had been shutting down Lan Houses all day. The reason he gave was that the inspectors were looking for "Christmas tips" -- tis the Season!

But a new generation of Brazilians need to rise up and show that freedom of information is a powerful tool in building a better and stronger more informed society. And our generation in America also needs to rise up and tell our government to stop restricting freedoms of American citizens, stop invading their privacy, stop turning back science and technology to promote narrow and backward ideologies of power because it will only cause all the people to suffer.

One thing I am discovering about being in Brazil, a third-world country albiet a BRIC* one is that human dignity is universal. Our problems aren't that different and our aspirations very similar. We are both faced with the problem of governments what wish to exceed their proper role of serving the people and whose power is restricted and their actions completely transparent.

I frequently hear the axiom - "Freedom comes at a cost." Yes, it does. It comes at a cost to the powerful interests of tyrants and despots like Bush and Cheney who wish to abuse government power. Our founding philosophers and writers of our constitution were absolutely clear that government power needed to be restrained and limited. They understood the greatest threat to freedom is powerful intrusive government and not free individuals.

* BRIC is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China and usually is used to describe third world developing economies with vast resources and a development strategy that is making them grow and prosper. Currently Brazil is experiencing economic prosperity but don't get into an argument with Mauro about who should take credit.

Escritorio politico

Olivio Nobrega is a Brazilian politican. His smiling face, uplifted eyebrow above wire rimed glasses and his silvery receding hair can be seen waving on a banner above a sign that also reads ADVOGADOS TEL: 4771-1259.

Olivio has served this district in Taboão de Serra for as long as Patricia can remember switching parties many times on the federal level. He currently serves in the Vereador a tier of government that would be similar to our city or Metropolitian Council.

But there is much more to this story.

Nobrega owned one, two and three of the shoulder to shoulder houses along the street where Mauro and Odelva reside. In one of these houses Olivio lived and raised his family. Another remains the offices for his adult lawyer advocate children Eduardo, Karina, Ferruanda, and his daughter-in-law Luciana Calandra. The other flats he rented out as homes and businesses to augment his elected offical salary.

Quite like Brooklyn New York, politicians in Bazil are oft regarded with contempt and are considered piviledged as well as corrupt. Certainly, a politician holding public office will earn more than a workingman's wage and probably appear to be barons by anyone living in a favela. But most start out as idealists wanting to change society and right the wrongs they have witnessed.

I am fairly certain politicians are not paid enough to get wealthy. Graft, on the other hand, such as in the time of Tammany Hall, or The Shame of the Cities might be more commonly assumed and wide-spread in the political culture of Brazil.

But one momentus event ten years ago caused Olivio to move his family off on this side street in Pinheiras Park.

While living in these modest quarters of mixed income residents, Senhor Olivio's teenage son was kidnapped in highly public hostage-taking act of violence. There is no question Olivio was targeted because of his public profile and his family observed by a gang of criminals who carefully research their victims and hatch schemes to collect ransom to earn a living.

In his book Cidade de Deus (City of God), Paulo Lins who grew up in a Rio favela describes the pull of the gun for desparately hopeless youth and basically how they execute holdups, taxi robberies as well as carjacking as a means to raise money for Canaval celebrations, buy dinner for a sought after girlfriend, or a single nights joyride. Mundane reasons for such grandoise action. Lins' book, when originally published lead to a public outcry and eventually the incredble Oscar nominated film by the same name directed by Fernando Meirelles.

If you can view the photographs of Tuca Viera now on exhibition in December at MASP, particularly Paraisopolis or Menino e Pistola by Andre Cypriano, you will gain a powerful visual bookmark for the wild turbulance that lies just barely underneath the surface of modern Brazil.

What strikes me is how the violence and stratified division has evolved to the point of being commonplace. Patricia's dear friend Luciano told me last night, "Sometimes I fear we are headed for a civil war here in Brazil. The violence has become a part of us. It's accepted." He went onto say after a awhile you don't feel moved by the shock of violence anymore.

Dramatically, Olivio's son was held for many days while captors negiotated terms with Olivio for his release. Kidnappings are common to Brazil and are often successfully undertaken by bandits who have perfected the techniques of apprehending targets, collecting their ransom and then quickly disappearing into the secret inner protected world of the favelas. Obviously, these carefully planned kidnapping are not as random as armed robbery or carjacking.

When Patricia was a teenager and worked at her first job at a bank in Taboão, the manager's family was kidnnapped and manager was instructed to empty money from the bank vault and deliver it to a isolated area without telling the police or anyone else, otherwise the family would be killed one by one.

After the son returned home, Olivio understandably moved his family out of this neighborhood. Frankly, I am surprised he still has his political office here and so many of his family members who felt tramatized and their safety violated by the kidnapping have retruned as advogadosto practice law in the very place they were violated.

It is one of those complex ironies of Brazil.



Olivio Nobrega's web site

Politics and civil discourse

Mauro and I like to talk politics, perhaps made more easy by the fact that we cannot really debate directly, except by aid of translation, he rants about his favorite dufus, Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) and I try to out rant him with my favorite dufus idiot President George W. Bush.

On some level our sentiments agree as long as we remain loyal to our countries and criticizing the incompetence, with great patriotism, of our leaders.

The other evening, while eating Oxtail, Mauro began explaining how Lula, as he is both affectionately and contemptuously called, wanted to make a temporary tax permanent. Mauro alleged that Lula was trying to claim his administrations economic policies were working as evidence the strength of the Brazil Real against the American dollar.

I told Mauro that America dollar is worthless everywhere, that even children begging on the streets of India refuse to accept American currency [see International Herald Tribune , Dec 15-16, 2007] because even they know it is worthless.

"Exactly" Mauro exclaimed, "Lula can't claim credit!"

"Bush must take the blame!" I passionately proclaim.

The reason, I say, is because the war in Iraq is costing Americans a billion dollars a day and Bush refuses to even count our debts against the revenues raised each year in taxes. Consequently, America must borrow these billions from China, Saudi Arabia, and other Asian and European countries.

"There is no confidence in the American dollar." I retorted and in this kind of parallel debate, it all works out for both of us.

And then we just grin at each other because what can we say? Not enough to offend.