A stone's throw / Um tiro de pedra

para Ero -- saudades sempre

2009-10-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

Paisagem / Landscape

2009-08-19T12:41:00.001-07:00

Some thoughts, trans-Atlantic, on the arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates

2009-07-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

Though this episode is to be rightly viewed largely through the prism of race (through the racialized life experiences and scripts borne by the two immediate actors and all of us who witness it in its unfolding as a public, discursive event), there is a dimension that I wonder may be left submerged, even more untouchable. It is the question of the relationship between citizen and armed authority in the U.S., after a prolonged period of submitting, willingly or otherwise, to the national security state and the fear that is its lifeblood. In early responses to the arrest of Dr. Gates, even those sympathetic to his perception of racial profiling noted his mistake in not showing deference to the police officer, in not quietly and completely submitting to armed authority even as it was already established that no laws had been broken. Of course, we won’t know precisely who said what to whom and who overreacted and “played the race card” first and last, but I would guess that it was not only race that impeded an actual functional dialogue between Dr. Gates and Sgt. Crowley. As I read and heard about this incident fresh off the plane from Portugal, I was immediately reminded of some recent encounters with police officers that serve for me as comparison and contrast. Ero told me of a recent trip to the beach in Connecticut with a couple of friends while I was away. After the two-hour drive, they arrived at the parking lot entrance which was cordoned off and stood guard over by a group of police officers. As she approached and rolled down the window, in the hopes of getting a suggestion for where she might park, the police proceeded to aggressively and repeatedly shout at her, “FULL CAPACITY, FULL CAPACITY.” Obviously, dialogue was not an option. This was all they were willing to say, or rather, shout at her. Last year, returning from a conference in Montreal, I had to catch a very early flight, and found myself in the line for U.S. Immigration in the airport well before dawn. Admittedly less than adequately caffeinated and a little slower than usual, I didn’t immediately notice that a window had opened, obscured as it was behind another immigration officer’s post. I can’t say for how many seconds or in what manner the officer tried to get my attention, but what did work was when he very angrily shouted, “HEY! GET OVER HERE!” Though I knew I had done nothing wrong and was perfectly in my legal rights to cross this border, I could not protest the officer’s inappropriate, aggressive, and authoritarian behavior out of an anxiety that he might declare me uncooperative or disorderly. These are, we might say, minor, inconsequential events, and they certainly don’t even nearly rise to the level of authoritarian policing that haunts your average man of color. But I think they speak to a gulf that has grown between citizens/civilians and representatives of armed authority, who, while deserving of our respect, increasingly cannot seem to be expected to return that respect, to be expected to be willing or able to engage in a dialogue. Certainly, there are plenty of law enforcement officials who are respectful and do engage in dialogue with the civilians they encounter through their professional activities, but is this something that we truly expect of them now, or do we simply breathe a sigh of relief when this is what we encounter, expecting the worst? By contrast, I recall a scene in Lisbon. On the centrally located Camões square, normally bare cobble-stones surrounding an imposing statue of the 16th-century poet of the discoveries, workers were laying down sod and setting upon it saplings, creating a lushly novel park-like setting. There were many families and groups of young people taking advantage to lay about the unexpected grass. Near the center of the square, a small group of about 10 anarchist activists had strung up two banners between some saplings. The banners denounced capitalist exploitation of the environment and announced solidarity with Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon who have recently been battling the government over the proposed expansion of oil and mineral exploration. There seemed initially a reasonable coherence to the protest and the laying of the sod, but after a few minutes a group of police officers approached the group of protestors, obviously charged with the removal of the banners (it turns out the sod was part of a marketing campaign for something, and the banner was upsetting the photo-ops). There were at least half a dozen officers, and they could have quite easily just taken the banner down unilaterally. What I witnessed, though, was, from my recent experience in the U.S., quite extraordinary. The group of officers good naturedly stood with the protestors and conversed, for a good twenty to thirty minutes. Moreover, the police officers were for long stretches silent, but obviously intently listening to what the protestors were saying to them, hearing them out, in effect. It was a true dialogue, at the end of which, the protestors removed the banners themselves. Why is it that I cannot imagine this scenario here in the U.S.? I recall that the memory of April 1974, when the Portuguese overthrew a nearly 50-year fascist dictatorship, still weighs heavily there, and perhaps still informs expectations, among civilians and police, regarding the possibility of dialogue with authority rather that absolute, unquestioning submission to it.

stumbling upon poetry in Lisbon

2009-07-15T16:16:00.000-07:00

O Valor do Vento

Está hoje um dia de vento
O vento tem entrado nos meus versos de todas as maneiras e
Só entram nos meus versos as coisas de que gosto

O vento das árvores o ventos dos cabelos
O vento do inverno o vento do verão
O vento é o melhor veículo que conheço
Só ele traz o perfume das flores só ele traz
A música que jaz à beira-mar em Agosto

Mas só hoje soube o verdadeiro valor do vento
O vento atualmente vale oitenta escudos

Partiu-se o vidro grande da janela do meu quarto

The Value of the Wind

Today is a windy day
The wind has entered into my verses completely and
Only things that I like come into my verses

The wind through the trees the wind through locks of hair
Winter wind summer wind
The wind is the best vehicle I know of
Only it carries the perfume of flowers only it brings
The music that hangs on the water’s edge in August

But not until today did I learn the true value of the wind
Wind at the moment is worth eighty dollars

The large pane of glass of my bedroom window has shattered

-- Ruy Belo (1933-1977)

Meus vizinhos aqui em Lisboa (os outros ainda nao conheci) -- My Lisbon neighbors (the others I still haven't met)

2009-07-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

Pormenores II -- Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

2009-07-05T17:03:00.001-07:00

Pomba Espírito Santo

Pormenores I -- Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

2009-07-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Pés de apóstolo

Feline inspiration

2009-06-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

okay -- I'm wary of the cat-people moniker and try to moderate urges to proclaim the extraordinary specialness of my cat, but hey, Salmon's quirky sleeping habit has made him modestly famous in certain Brazilian poetry circles. That's worth the risk of some crowing, in my estimation.

Here's the link to the poem and the inpirational image:

http://vidamiuda.blogspot.com/2009/06/nirvana-iv-felino_20.html

And here's a quick translation:

Nirvana IV (feline)

Distant from the multitude
of cells that are him,
from desires that inhabit him,
from people that think
they know more than his
feral eyes, from galaxies
that make of him less
than the infinitesimal of dust,
from light-years that will come
and that have gone in the duration
of divinities and theories
that pass for truths,
distant
from the photo that caught him
and from this poem, crooked
and imprecise, he sleeps
(in a bowl)
the precise and simple sleep
of the continuous fury of a body
(by chance) feline.

Last Moments of a pre-post-Bush world

2009-01-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

Here we go. The cloud lifting. Hard to say what we'll now see as possible....

New Terror Weapons Being Used in Gaza

2009-01-19T14:52:00.001-08:00

White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?

(from Democracy Now -- Jan. 14, 2009)

Israel is coming under increasing criticism for its possible use of banned and experimental munitions. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of illegally firing white phosphorous, which causes horrific burns if it comes in contact with the skin, over crowded refugee camps in Gaza. Medics and human rights groups are also reporting that they are seeing injuries distinctive of another controversial weapon, Dense Inert Metal Explosive, known as DIME, that was designed by the US Air Force in 2006. Those struck by the weapon who survive suffer severe mutilations and internal injuries. We go to the Gaza border to speak with Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch and to Norway to speak with Dr. Mads Gilbert, who just returned from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He says Gaza is “truly a scene from Dante’s Inferno.” [includes rush transcript]

Guests:
Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch. He is on the northern border of Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who worked at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza during the Israeli assault.

AMY GOODMAN: As the assault on Gaza enters its nineteenth day, Israel is coming under increasing criticism for its possible use of banned and experimental munitions. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of illegally firing white phosphorous over crowded refugee camps in Gaza. White phosphorous shells cause horrific burns if they come in contact with the skin. Under international law, phosphorus is allowed as a smokescreen to cover troop movements and protect soldiers or to be used for illumination, but it’s considered illegal if used against people.
In addition to white phosphorous, medics and human rights groups are reporting they are seeing injuries distinctive of another controversial weapon. The munition, called DIME, for dense inert metal explosive, was designed to create a powerful blast over a small area. It was developed by the US Air Force in 2006. Those struck by the weapon who survive suffer severe mutilations and internal injuries. The weapon causes the tissue to be torn from the flesh. Unlike traditional munitions, there is said to be no shrapnel. Instead, particles of metals can be found in the bodies of those affected. Those residues have been found on victims in Gaza.
Israel has denied it’s using either white phosphorous or DIME weapons.
Joining us now on the phone from Norway is one of the doctors who first accused Israel of using the DIME explosives: Dr. Mads Gilbert, an expert in emergency medicine. He and his colleague Erik Fosse have just returned from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where they were volunteering through the aid organization NORWAC. Shifa Hospital is the largest hospital in Gaza.
We’re also joined by Marc Garlasco on the northern border of Gaza. He is a senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, investigating Israel’s use of white phosphorus.
Marc Garlasco, on the border in Gaza, I want to start with you. You worked for the Pentagon. You know your weapons well. What are you seeing?
MARC GARLASCO: Well, when you stand on the border of Gaza, you watch every day as white phosphorus rounds are lobbed over with 155-millimeter artillery. We watch as Cobra and Apache gunships fly in and do strafing runs, run after run after run. You can see Heron drones overhead dropping bombs, additionally F-16s, and F-16s come in occasionally to drop aerial ordnance. It’s much quieter now than it was days ago. But still, it’s a continuous barrage, particularly lately on the refugee camps and in closer to Gaza City, which is where we’re looking at.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’re making a very serious accusation: the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, as opposed to illumination or a smokescreen. What evidence do you have of this?
MARC GARLASCO: Well, we have not stated that Israel is using it as a weapon. We’ve clearly stated that we’re standing on the border, observing day after day the Israeli Defense Forces firing white phosphorus into the refugee camps and Gaza City. Now, we are not there on the ground to observe any further how it’s being used. I’m about like, say, a mile away. And so, from that distance, you can see very precisely that it’s going in. Whether it’s being used as—you know, right now, we can tell it’s being used as an obscurant, but we have no further information to state whether or not they’re using it as a weapon, and we have not stated that.
AMY GOODMAN: In terms of what happens when it comes in contact with the skin?
MARC GARLASCO: Well, clearly, I would say we need to talk to Dr. Gilbert about the specifics, but from our understanding, you’re looking at third-degree burns that continue to burn until the fuel is exhausted. Fuel from white phosphorus burns for approximately five to ten minutes, as it’s creating the smoke, and if it goes onto the skin, it has to be removed. Otherwise, it will continue to burn.
And that’s clearly one of our gravest concerns. Our concern is that Israel is not taking all feasible precautions to spare the civilians from harm and that we’re going to see civilian casualties from white phosphorus use. You know, it cannot determine who is a target, who is a military target, and who’s a civilian, because it covers an area up to 250 meters in diameter, quite large. And these are densely populated refugee camps we’re talking about.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me go to Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has just returned from Gaza, the Shifa Hospital. He’s back in Norway right now. What did you see, in terms of the casualties, both when it comes to white phosphorus and also with this new weapon that you have been talking about called DIME?
DR. MADS GILBERT: I will answer that, but I think it’s important to understand that the most devastating weapon they are currently using is actually the siege of Gaza, which has been on for eighteen months, which means a lot of starvation, lack of food, water, power supplies, medicines, napkins, anything that people need to live. So it’s one-and-a-half million people who basically is now without their absolutely necessary means for living their lives, and that is, of course, illegal.
When it comes to the weaponry, we did not see clear evidence in patients that we received that they had been hit by white phosphorous, but we were told by the doctors and colleagues in Shifa that during the first days of the invasion, the ground invasion, they had seen this affecting as a side effect of the smokescreen use of the white phosphorus. And that was inhalation injuries, meaning that people have been breathing the phosphorus damp into their lungs, and burns. Also, by the end of our mission, when we left, there were fierce attacks in the south, and again the doctors in the European Hospital in South Gaza reported the same thing: burns and inhalation injuries. So it seems like my expert on the [inaudible] is right, that using such chemical means in so densely populated areas, as Gaza is, you will evidently have to affect also the civilians.
When it comes to the DIME weapons, we have seen a substantial number of amputations, where the amputees do not have shrapnel injuries. On the contrary, they have torn apart their legs, often one or two or even three limbs, their arm also. Some of them are beyond salvage, because the amputations are so high and so fierce that it also affects the lower part of the body. Some are survivable. But typical for these amputations is that there is no sign of metal fragments or shrapnel. It is only this very brutal amputations caused by some extreme power and small rice grain, rice, corn, pieces of some kind of substance, not metal, but—you know, the DIME weapon is a mixture of metals, nickel and cobalt, in a composite cast, not in a metal cast. And that’s explaining why you don’t see shrapnel.
The additional effect in animal studies on the DIME weapon is that the residuals in the muscle in mice will cause a very severe form of muscle cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, which easily spreads to the lungs. This remains to be shown.
I underline we don’t have proof, but we have strong evidence that these amputations we’ve been seeing in Gaza for the last eleven days must come from some type of weapon that we don’t know of.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more fully these kinds of amputations, Dr. Gilbert?
DR. MADS GILBERT: You know, often, if you have a grenade amputation or an amputation from any kind of metal fragment, it will be more like you had a hatch or an ax or a huge knife that cut through your bone and the muscle. What we see in these suspected DIME amputations is that the whole limb is crushed in a way that must suggest some sort of immense power that has hit the lower part of the body. And we know that these small bombs, which the DIME bombs are, explodes in a way so that it will mainly affect the lower limbs. The limbs are—you will have multiple very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose. And you also have quite severe burns where this energy wave has hit.
If you look at pictures from sites where these patients have come, you don’t see fragments in the walls in the house around, maybe fifteen, twenty meters apart from the explosions. And you see only some stripes of power in the sand on the ground, and these actually are the examples that the power dissipates very quickly, maybe within five or ten meters of the explosion, so that you will not have this kind of collateral damage, as it’s called. But in Gaza, again, so densely populated, that these DIME weapons will have a devastating effect. Also, they are, by some, classified as nuclear weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: Nuclear weapons?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Well, the EU Commission on nuclear matters have stated clearly that these weapons, since they are based on a fission process, you need to investigate more the residuals, if that is radioactive. That has not been done. It was not done in Lebanon in 2006, when these weapons were first described. And it has not been done in Gaza in 2006 and now this—I saw the similar injuries in Gaza around Easter 2006—excuse me, 2008, that is, during the incursions in Jabalya, exactly the same types. And I believe there are some sixty-six cases described at Shifa Hospital before this war.
AMY GOODMAN: Marc Garlasco, you worked for the Pentagon. These DIME weapons, dense inert metal explosive, were developed by the US Air Force. Do you know about them?
MARC GARLASCO: Well, only what we’ve read about. I mean, I left the Pentagon long before these were developed. These weapons were developed in 2006, so they’re extraordinarily new. I’ve been on a number of battlefields, and one of the problems is that from what we’ve read in literature, when the DIME explodes, you’re looking at no residual pieces. And so, it becomes very problematic to go in on an investigation looking for forensic evidence, when it, in effect, eats itself up in the explosion.
And you have to remember, these weapons, interestingly, were developed to save civilians, to minimize civilian casualties, so that if the weapon explodes and kills anyone within the blast radius of, let’s say, ten meters to twenty meters, it immediately drops off in power, and so no one dies outside that area, whereas the standard bomb today, when it explodes, you have many hundreds of meters of blast and fragmentation damage. So if it is, in fact, being used, which we have no proof that it is, and civilians are dying, it’s most interesting, sadly, that it was originally developed to, in fact, spare civilians from harm.
AMY GOODMAN: Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch, if DIME isn’t yet licensed, technically still under development, would the US have to give permission to Israel to use it?
MARC GARLASCO: Well, the US has very strict requirements, as far as when a weapon finally gets through its process of acceptance, where it gets both a legal and a medical review, as well as effectiveness review. It remains to be seen how Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons from the United States under some agreement, or if they’ve in fact licensed or developed their own type of munition.
To be honest with you, we have to remember one thing. At this point, there are a lot of rumors, and nothing has yet been substantiated. Only until we’re able to get on the ground and do the work that Israel is stopping us from doing will we really know what’s going on in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further. We’re talking to you on the border. Why aren’t you in Gaza right now, Mark Garlasco?
MARC GARLASCO: Well, Israel refuses to allow the international media and human rights monitors entry into Gaza. And I have worked in Gaza numerous times, and this is the first time that we’ve been denied access. We do have one individual, who is our Palestinian worker, who’s in Gaza right now. His father was killed by the Israelis earlier this week, and his house was destroyed yesterday in an air strike. And his wife is giving birth today. So he’s got a lot going on in his life. Our thoughts are with him and all the other Palestinian civilians there, with the Israelis who are coming under fire from the Hamas rockets. And hopefully, we will see this end very soon, and we will be able to get in on the ground and do our investigations.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Dr. Mads Gilbert, you’ve just come back from Gaza. You worked in the hospital. We were talking about white phosphorus. We were talking about DIME. But the condition in the hospitals right now?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Well, I have to underline what my friend on the border is saying. There’s been a palpable absence of international presence. In fact, Dr. Fosse and myself were the only two Westerners in Gaza for those first ten days we stayed there. And it’s absolutely incomprehensible that we, in 2009, we do not have the press on such war ground as Gaza is. And I think also it’s urgent to have international agencies come in and exactly do the examination on the ground to find out what kind of weapons are used.
The condition in Shifa Hospital and in the other hospitals in Gaza is horrifying. I’ve been to Gaza for the last ten years, in and out, teaching and training people in the medical field. I’ve never seen anything like this. I mean, all windows in the Shifa Hospital are out, due to the bombing of the mosque across the street. They have very unstable electricity. They lack supplies, disposables, surgical equipment, trolleys, beds even. They have a fantastic staff, who are working heroically to save their patients, but we have been doing surgery with, almost regularly, two patients in each OR, on the wall, on the floor, in the corridors. The lifts are barely working. The ICU had to triple its capacity with makeshift ICUs.
It is really, truly a scene from Dante’s Inferno. It is these loads of patients coming in. We had 120, 130 patients coming a day, children, women. And I would say approximately 90 percent—I repeat, 90 percent—of the killed and injured that we have seen are civilians. Up ’til yesterday, 971 people have been killed; of them, one of three is a child below eighteen. 4,500 injuries, as of yesterday at 4:00; among them, every second is a woman or a child. So this is really targeting civilian Palestinian population. And we had a large number of pediatric cases with head injuries, with complicated fractures—
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you for being with us, Norwegian doctor, just back from Gaza. Marc Garlasco, still on the Gaza border—Israel won’t let him into Gaza—with Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch has called for Israel to stop using white phosphorus in military operations.

A prayer-poem for 2009 / Um poema-reza para 2009

2009-01-02T05:09:00.000-08:00

Idea and Deed
(Will Oldham, after Dick Gaughan version)

what's the winter's cold negative press
what's the spring with its air of rebirth
to those felled under wildest duress
trading freedom for a false sense of worth
let the love of our own sacred rites
to the love of our people succeed
let friendship and future unite
and flourish in idea and deed
let the costume distinguish the strong
place riches in lowest esteem
it's for excess that people do wrong
and to liberty honesties lean
letting one minute go on
without seeing yourself with an eye
that is watchful and kindly and strong
is as letting the soul drop and die

----------------------------

o que é o peso frio negativo do inverno
o que é a primavera sem seu ar de renascimento
para eles vencidos pelo mais selvagem encarceramento
trocando liberdade por um falso sentido de valor
que o amor para nossos ritos sagrados
seja sucedido pelo amor para nosso povo
que amizade e futuro se unam
e florescam em ideia e façanha
que o desfarce distinga os fortes
que se ponham as riquezas na menor valorização
é por excesso que as pessoas fazem mal
e para liberdade que a honestidade tende
deixar um minuto passar
sem se olhar com um olho
que seja atento e bondoso e forte
é como deixar a alma cair e falecer

novo acordo ortográfico

2008-12-28T08:15:00.000-08:00

Arrrgh! Acabei de aprender as regras agora velhas! Estou postando aqui algumas das novas, para minha referência .... Sendo muito cínico quanto a esta "reforma," acho boa principalmente para estimular a venda de dicionários atualizados, encher o saco dos professores, e, quem sabe, consolidar um grande monopólio editorial lusofonista ....
-------------------

25/12/2008 - 22h00
Conheça regras de acentuação do novo acordo ortográfico
da Folha Online

O Acordo Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa, que entra em vigor em 2009, vai alterar a acentuação de algumas palavras, extinguir o uso do trema e sistematizar a utilização do hífen, entre outras mudanças significativas. No Brasil, palavras como "heróico", "idéia" e "feiúra", por exemplo, deixarão de ser acentuadas.

O livro "Escrevendo Pela Nova Ortografia" , feito pelo Instituto Houaiss em parceria com a Publifolha, apresenta o acordo na íntegra, com observações e explicações sobre o que mudou. Saiba mais sobre todas as mudanças e veja mais informações sobre o livro.

Veja abaixo as novas regras de acentuação para oxítonas, paroxítonas e proparoxítonas, retiradas do livro.
*
Divulgação

Da acentuação gráfica das palavras oxítonas
1º-) Acentuam-se com acento agudo:
As palavras oxítonas terminadas nas vogais tónicas/tônicas abertas grafas -a, -e ou -o, seguidas ou não de -s: está, estás, já, olá; até, é, és, olé, pontapé(s); avó(s), dominó(s), paletó(s), só(s).
Obs.: Em algumas (poucas) palavras oxítonas terminadas em -e tónico/tônico, geralmente provenientes do francês, esta vogal, por ser articulada nas pronúncias cultas ora como aberta ora como fechada, admite tanto o acento agudo como o acento circunflexo: bebé ou bebê, bidé ou bidê, canapé ou canapê, caraté ou caratê, croché ou crochê, guiché ou guichê, matiné ou matinê, nené ou nenê, ponjé ou ponjê, puré ou purê, rapé ou rapê.
O mesmo se verifica com formas como cocó e cocô, ró (letra do alfabeto grego) e rô. São igualmente admitidas formas como judô, a par de judo, e metrô, a par de metro.
b) As formas verbais oxítonas, quando, conjugadas com os pronomes clíticos lo(s) ou la(s), ficam a terminar na vogal tónica/tônica aberta grafada -a, após a assimilação e perda das consoantes finais grafadas -r, -s ou -z: adorá-lo(s) (de adorar-lo(s)), á-la(s) (de ar-la(s) ou dá(s)-la(s)), fá-lo(s) (de faz-lo(s)), fá-lo(s)-ás (de far-lo(s)-ás), habitá-la(s) iam (de habitar-la(s)- iam), trá-la(s)-á (de trar-la(s)-á);
c) As palavras oxítonas com mais de uma sílaba terminadas no ditongo nasal grafado em (exceto as formas da 3ª- pessoa do plural do presente do indicativo dos compostos de ter e vir: retêm, sustêm; advêm, provêm; etc.) ou -ens: acém, detém, deténs, entretém, entreténs, harém, haréns, porém, provém, provéns, também;
d) As palavras oxítonas com os ditongos abertos grafados -éi, -éu ou -ói, podendo estes dois últimos ser seguidos ou não de -s: anéis, batéis, fiéis, papéis; céu(s), chapéu(s), ilhéu(s), véu(s); corrói (de corroer), herói(s), remói (de remoer), sóis.

2º-) Acentuam-se com acento circunflexo:
a) As palavras oxítonas terminadas nas vogais tónicas/tônicas fechadas que se grafam -e ou -o, seguidas ou não de -s: cortês, dê, dês (de dar), lê, lês (de ler), português, você(s); avô(s), pôs (de pôr), robô(s);
b) As formas verbais oxítonas, quando, conjugadas com os pronomes clíticos -lo(s) ou la(s), ficam a terminar nas vogais tónicas/tônicas fechadas que se grafam -e ou -o, após a assimilação e perda das consoantes finais grafadas -r, -s ou -z: detê-lo(s) (de deter-lo(s)), fazê-la(s) (de fazer-la(s)), fê-lo(s) (de fez-lo(s)), vê-la(s) (de ver-la(s)), compô la(s) (de compor-la(s)), repô-la(s) (de repor-la(s)), pô-la(s) (de por-la(s) ou pôs-la(s)).

3º-) Prescinde-se de acento gráfico para distinguir palavras oxítonas homógrafas, mas heterofónicas/heterofônicas, do tipo de cor (ô), substantivo, e cor (ó), elemento da locução de cor; colher (ê), verbo, e colher (é), substantivo. Excetua-se a forma verbal pôr, para a distinguir da preposição por.

Da acentuação gráfica das palavras paroxítonas
1º-) As palavras paroxítonas não são em geral acentuadas graficamente: enjoo, grave, homem, mesa, Tejo, vejo, velho, voo; avanço, floresta; abençoo, angolano, brasileiro; descobrimento, graficamente, moçambicano.

2º-) Recebem, no entanto, acento agudo:
a) As palavras paroxítonas que apresentam, na sílaba tónica/tônica, as vogais abertas grafadas a, e, o e ainda i ou u e que terminam em -l, -n, -r, -x e -ps, assim como, salvo raras exceções, as respetivas formas do plural, algumas das quais passam a proparoxítonas: amável (pl. amáveis), Aníbal, dócil (pl. dóceis) dúctil (pl. dúcteis), fóssil (pl. fósseis) réptil (pl. répteis: var. reptil, pl. reptis); cármen (pl. cármenes ou carmens; var. carme, pl. carmes); dólmen (pl. dólmenes ou dolmens), éden (pl. édenes ou edens), líquen (pl. líquenes), lúmen (pl. lúmenes ou lumens); açúcar (pl. açúcares), almíscar (pl. almíscares), cadáver (pl. cadáveres), caráter ou carácter (mas pl. carateres ou caracteres), ímpar (pl. ímpares); Ajax, córtex (pl. córtex; var. córtice, pl. córtices), índex (pl. índex; var. índice, pl. índices), tórax (pl. tórax ou tóraxes; var. torace, pl. toraces); bíceps (pl. bíceps; var. bicípite, pl. bicípites), fórceps (pl. fórceps; var. fórcipe, pl. fórcipes).
Obs.: Muito poucas palavras deste tipo, com as vogais tónicas/tônicas grafadas e e o em fim de sílaba, seguidas das consoantes nasais grafadas m e n, apresentam oscilação de timbre nas pronúncias cultas da língua e, por conseguinte, também de acento gráfico (agudo ou circunflexo): sémen e sêmen, xénon e xênon; fémur e fêmur, vómer e vômer; Fénix e Fênix, ónix e ônix.
b) As palavras paroxítonas que apresentam, na sílaba tónica/tônica, as vogais abertas grafadas a, e, o e ainda i ou u e que terminam em -ã(s), -ão(s), -ei(s), -i(s), -um, -uns ou -us: órfã (pl. órfãs), acórdão (pl. acórdãos), órfão (pl. órfãos), órgão (pl. órgãos), sótão (pl. sótãos); hóquei, jóquei (pl. jóqueis), amáveis (pl. de amável), fáceis (pl. de fácil), fósseis (pl. de fóssil), amáreis (de amar), amáveis (id.), cantaríeis (de cantar), fizéreis (de fazer), fizésseis (id.); beribéri (pl. beribéris), bílis (sg. e pl.), iris (sg. e pl.), júri (pl. júris), oásis (sg. e pl.); álbum (pl. álbuns), fórum (pl. fóruns); húmus (sg. e pl.), vírus (sg. e pl.).
Obs.: Muito poucas paroxítonas deste tipo, com as vogais tónicas/ tônicas grafadas e e o em fim de sílaba, seguidas das consoantes nasais grafadas m e n, apresentam oscilação de timbre nas pronúncias cultas da língua, o qual é assinalado com acento agudo, se aberto, ou circunflexo, se fechado: pónei e pônei; gónis e gônis, pénis e pênis, ténis e tênis; bónus e bônus, ónus e ônus, tónus e tônus, Vénus e Vênus.

3º) Não se acentuam graficamente os ditongos representados por ei e oi da sílaba tónica/tônica das palavras paroxítonas, dado que existe oscilação em muitos casos entre o fechamento e a abertura na sua articulação: assembleia, boleia, ideia, tal como aldeia, baleia, cadeia, cheia, meia; coreico, epopeico, onomatopeico, proteico; alcaloide, apoio (do verbo apoiar), tal como apoio (subst.), Azoia, boia, boina, comboio (subst.), tal como comboio, comboias etc. (do verbo comboiar), dezoito, estroina, heroico, introito, jiboia, moina, paranoico, zoina.

4º-) É facultativo assinalar com acento agudo as formas verbais de pretérito perfeito do indicativo, do tipo amámos, louvámos, para as distinguir das correspondentes formas do presente do indicativo (amamos, louvamos), já que o timbre da vogal tónica/tônica é aberto naquele caso em certas variantes do português.

5º-) Recebem acento circunflexo:
a) As palavras paroxítonas que contêm, na sílaba tónica/tônica, as vogais fechadas com a grafia a, e, o e que terminam em -l, -n, -r ou -x, assim como as respetivas formas do plural, algumas das quais se tornam proparoxítonas: cônsul (pl. cônsules), pênsil (pl. pênseis), têxtil (pl. têxteis); cânon, var. cânone, (pl. cânones), plâncton (pl. plânctons); Almodôvar, aljôfar (pl. aljôfares), âmbar (pl. âmbares), Câncer, Tânger; bômbax (sg. e pl.), bômbix, var. bômbice, (pl. bômbices).
b) As palavras paroxítonas que contêm, na sílaba tónica/tônica, as vogais fechadas com a grafia a, e, o e que terminam em -ão(s), -eis, -i(s) ou -us: benção(s), côvão(s), Estêvão, zángão(s); devêreis (de dever), escrevêsseis (de escrever), fôreis (de ser e ir), fôsseis (id.), pênseis (pl. de pênsil), têxteis (pl. de têxtil); dândi(s), Mênfis; ânus.
c) As formas verbais têm e vêm, 3 a-s pessoas do plural do presente do indicativo de ter e vir, que são foneticamente paroxítonas (respetivamente / t ã j ã j /, / v ã j ã j / ou / t j /, / v j / ou ainda / t j j /, / v j j /; cf. as antigas grafias preteridas, têem, vêem), a fim de se distinguirem de tem e vem, 3a -s pessoas do singular do presente do indicativo ou 2 a-s pessoas do singular do imperativo; e também as correspondentes formas compostas, tais como: abstêm (cf. abstém), advêm (cf. advém), contêm (cf. contém), convêm (cf. convém), desconvêm (cf. desconvém), detêm (cf. detém), entretêm (cf. entretém), intervêm (cf. inter- vém), mantêm (cf. mantém), obtêm (cf. obtém), provêm (cf. provém), sobrevêm (cf. sobrevém).
Obs.: Também neste caso são preteridas as antigas grafias detêem, intervêem, mantêem, provêem etc.

6º-) Assinalam-se com acento circunflexo:
a) Obrigatoriamente, pôde (3ª- pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo), que se distingue da correspondente forma do presente do indicativo (pode).
b) Facultativamente, dêmos (1ª- pessoa do plural do presente do conjuntivo), para se distinguir da correspondente forma do pretérito perfeito do indicativo (demos); fôrma (substantivo), distinta de forma (substantivo: 3ª- pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo ou 2ª- pessoa do singular do imperativo do verbo formar).

7º-) Prescinde-se de acento circunflexo nas formas verbais paroxítonas que contêm um e tónico/tônico oral fechado em hiato com a terminação -em da 3ª- pessoa do plural do presente do indicativo ou do conjuntivo, conforme os casos: creem, deem (conj.), descreem, desdeem (conj.), leem, preveem, redeem (conj.), releem, reveem, tresleem, veem.

8º-) Prescinde-se igualmente do acento circunflexo para assinalar a vogal tónica/tônica fechada com a grafia o em palavras paroxítonas como enjoo, substantivo e flexão de enjoar, povoo, flexão de povoar, voo, substantivo e flexão de voar etc.

9º-) Prescinde-se, do acento agudo e do circunflexo para distinguir palavras paroxítonas que, tendo respectivamente vogal tónica/tônica aberta ou fechada, são homógrafas de palavras proclíticas. Assim, deixam de se distinguir pelo acento gráfico: para (á), flexão de parar, e para, preposição; pela(s) (é), substantivo e flexão de pelar, e pela(s), combinação de per e la(s); pelo (é), flexão de pelar, pelo(s) (ê), substantivo ou combinação de per e lo(s); polo(s) (ó), substantivo, e polo(s), combinação antiga e popular de por e lo(s); etc.

10º-) Prescinde-se igualmente de acento gráfico para distinguir paroxítonas homógrafas heterofónicas/heterofônicas do tipo de acerto (ê), substantivo e acerto (é), flexão de acertar; acordo (ô), substantivo, e acordo (ó), flexão de acordar; cerca (ê), substantivo, advérbio e elemento da locução prepositiva cerca de, e cerca (é), flexão de cercar; coro (ô), substantivo, e coro (ó), flexão de corar; deste (ê), contracção da preposição de com o demonstrativo este, e deste (é), flexão de dar; fora (ô), flexão de ser e ir, e fora (ó), advérbio, interjeição e substantivo; piloto (ô), substantivo e piloto (ó), flexão de pilotar; etc.

Da acentuação das palavras proparoxítonas
1º-) Levam acento agudo:
a) As palavras proparoxítonas que apresentam na sílaba tónica/tônica as vogais abertas grafadas a, e, o e ainda i, u ou ditongo oral começado por vogal aberta: árabe, cáustico, Cleópatra, esquálido, exército, hidráulico, líquido, míope, músico, plástico, prosélito, público, rústico, tétrico, último;
b) As chamadas proparoxítonas aparentes, isto é, que apresentam na sílaba tónica/tônica as vogais abertas grafadas a, e, o e ainda i, u ou ditongo oral começado por vogal aberta, e que terminam por sequências vocálicas pós-tónicas/pós-tônicas praticamente consideradas ditongos crescentes (-ea, -eo, -ia, -ie, -io, -oa, -ua, -uo etc.): álea, náusea; etéreo, níveo; enciclopédia, glória; barbárie, série; lírio, prélio; mágoa, nódoa; exígua, língua; exíguo, vácuo.

2º-) Levam acento circunflexo:
a) As palavras proparoxítonas que apresentam na sílaba tónica/tônica vogal fechada ou ditongo com a vogal básica fechada: anacreôntico, brêtema, cânfora, cômputo, devêramos (de dever), dinâmico, êmbolo, excêntrico, fôssemos (de ser e ir), Grândola, hermenêutica, lâmpada, lôstrego, lôbrego, nêspera, plêiade, sôfrego, sonâmbulo, trôpego;
b) As chamadas proparoxítonas aparentes, isto é, que apresentam vogais fechadas na sílaba tónica/tônica, e terminam por sequências vocálicas pós-tónicas/pós-tônicas praticamente consideradas como ditongos crescentes: amêndoa, argênteo, côdea, Islândia, Mântua, serôdio.

3º-) Levam acento agudo ou acento circunflexo as palavras proparoxítonas, reais ou aparentes, cujas vogais tónicas/tônicas grafadas e ou o estão em final de sílaba e são seguidas das consoantes nasais grafadas m ou n, conforme o seu timbre é, respetivamente, aberto ou fechado nas pronúncias cultas da língua: académico/acadêmico, anatómico/ anatômico, cénico/cênico, cómodo/cômodo, fenómeno/fenômeno, género/gênero, topónimo/topônimo; Amazónia/Amazônia, Antó- nio/Antônio, blasfémia/blasfêmia, fémea/fêmea, gémeo/gêmeo, génio/ gênio, ténue/tênue.

First day of winter -- Northampton -- Primeiro dia de inverno

2008-12-21T18:29:00.000-08:00

Paradise Pond and detail from Leonard Baskin's "Owl"

(Baskin, I just learned after taking this shot today, taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith from 1953-1974.)

I set out to get some wintry shots -- we've gotten about two feet of snow in three days -- and these are the favorites. I need to go out again, though, and find some birches. Our friend Pam -- always has the most inspiring projects tucked away and that are once in a while are revealed in glimpses -- sent me an e-mail asking the nearby whereabouts of birches for a photo of a photo she needs to do. She somehow knew I pay attention to these sorts of things rather than others. I told her of some downtown, and on her way she spotted others on a block about two blocks away I never walk down. And, associations being the game today, snow led me to Robert Frost which led me past his snowy woods and onward to his poem, "Birches." We'll see if I stay up late enough to translate it, but here goes the original:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust --

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch cows --

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

The he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from the earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

(1916)

A poem a Saturday

2008-11-29T08:34:00.000-08:00

Mark Strand -- (b. 1934, Prince Edward Island). He'll be here at Smith to do a reading on Tues., but alas I have another event I cannot miss, so I'll miss him. He spent 1965 in Brazil and is a translator of Drummond, and their affinity seems clear in this poem, from the collectiion "Sleeping with One Eye Open" (1964).

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Mantendo inteiras as coisas

Num campo
Eu sou a ausência
de campo.
Isso é
sempre o caso.
Onde eu estiver
eu sou o que está faltando.

Quando eu ando
parto o ar
e sempre
o ar volta
para encher os espaços
onde meu corpo esteve.

Todos temos motivos
para nos movermos.
Eu me movo
para manter inteiras as coisa.

(tradução minha)

Mom and Dad's Mobile Photo Gallery

2008-11-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Mom and Dad for the new mobile wildlife and landscape photography booth which they've put together for arts fairs and farmers' markets in and around the Couer d'Alene area. Here's a couple of images -- the "barraca" itself, and an "alce americano" in Priest Lake.

Obama

2008-11-06T08:24:00.001-08:00

I’m still digesting all of the monumentality – historical and emotional – of the election of Barack Obama as president of my country. There’s too much to think and feel through. Overwhelming. Where to begin. Perhaps, with my possessive pronoun above. It’s been some time, perhaps since before any real sense of political awareness or awareness of history, that I’ve been able to fully utter “my” country with a feeling of complete, unqualified pride. There was always pride, in the principles, unperfected but prophetically imagined in the founding of this nation, but it was tinged with a deep ambivalence, an awareness of and responsibility for the still unresolved histories of racist imperial expansion that the nation has protagonized, first on this continent and then ever increasingly abroad. These histories are still there, of course, and are ongoing, but with this election, we have demonstrated hope again not only for the perfectability of our egalitarian founding principles but also a willingness to examine the different sides of that history, to re-consider the ways in which we define our national exceptionality, to perhaps even place ourselves among and not above the rest of the world. This is my hope and pride right now.

I’m thinking hard about two of Obama’s speeches, both worth watching and reading repeatedly. I'm so encouraged by the thought that future generations will read and watch them too. Of course, the victory speech, and its solemn invitation for shared responsibility and continued mobilization to solve the major problems that confront us and that are truly global in scale. After three decades of radical individualism – recall Margaret Thatcher telling us that “society doesn’t exist” – we are reminded of the responsibility we have to each other, to lift each other up and to look out for the vulnerable among us. Call it what you want – communitarianism, neighborliness, fraternity, socialism, whatever – it’s a shift away from the ideology of monadic self-interest that has oriented our public discourse and policy for far too long. I was also impressed again by the invitation in Obama’s rhetorical style to dialogue, to thoughtful, sustained reflection, to open-endedness and complexity. This is a marked shift away from the monologic, blustering, simplistic, from-the-gut certainty that our macho, mediatized culture and perhaps the political moment has seemed to favor in recent years. I think that conservative New York Times commentator David Brooks has it right: the Republican Party has ridden the horse of faux-folksy anti-intellectualism into the ground. (Fox news just reported yesterday that according to campaign aides, Governor Palin did not understand that Africa was a continent, not a country, and did not know what countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement.) Nobody wants to be patronized or spoken down to, but I think the electorate has demonstrated an awareness that the problems we face and the solutions we need to come up with are complex and will require sustained intellectual effort, reflection, curiosity, and a more profound awareness of the world.

I’ve continued to think about Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race, in the throes of the Jeremiah Wright “scandal.” This semester I’ve been teaching a course on race, national identity, and narrative in Angola, Brazil, and Cuba. As I re-read a number of Brazilian and Cuban writers with my students, I’ve been struck by the possibility of a sort of Latin Americanization of race relations and racial identities in the U.S. as embodied by Obama’s candidacy and its narrative of ancestry and self. Obama is simultaneously our first African-American president-elect and our first mixed-race, mestiço/mestizo, or mulatto president-elect. At the same time we all considered the historical weight of Obama’s candidacy as a Black man, we were reminded of (and some voters perhaps soothed by) his simultaneous Whiteness, even up to the end, as we learned of the death of his grandmother in Hawaii, the “rock” of his family. Obama points to himself as the embodiment of a transcendence of racial division in a way that evokes the discourse of mestiçagem/mestizaje – of race mixture – which became a fundamental dimension of national discourse in both Cuba and Brazil over at least the last 100 years. The effects of this narrative, and its permutations, in actually effectively making progress to resolve racial conflict and inequalities in those two countries should be considered as we contemplate its future here in the U.S. In this vein, a couple of Nicolás Guillén poems keep coming to mind as I think about this election.

The first perhaps evokes Reverend Wright:

Ancestry

Fabio, from what you say,
your grandfather was an archangel with his slaves.
My grandpa, on the other hand,
was a demon with his masters.
Yours died cudgeled.
Mine they hanged.

The second evokes the Obama of Philadelphia, willing, forcing by the fact of his own being, his own two grandfathers to embrace.

Ballad of the Two Grandfathers:

Shadows which only I see,
I'm watched by my two grandfathers.
A bone-point lance,
a drum of hide and wood:
my black grandfather.
A ruff on a broad neck,
a warrior's grey armament:
my white grandfather.

Africa's humid jungles
with thick and muted gongs . . .
"I'm dying!"
(My black grandfather says).
Waters dark with alligators,
mornings green with coconuts . . .
"I'm tired!"
(My white grandfather says).
Oh sails of a bitter wind,
galleon burning for gold . . .
"I'm dying"
(My black grandfather says).
Oh coasts with virgin necks
deceived with beads of glass . . .!
"I'm tired!"
(My white grandfather says).
Oh pure and burnished sun,
imprisoned in the tropic's ring;
Oh clear and rounded moon
above the sleep of monkeys!

So many ships, so many ships!
So many Blacks, so many Blacks!
So much resplendent sugarcane!
How harsh the trader's whip!
A rock of tears and blood,
of veins and eyes half-open,
of empty dawns
and plantation sunsets,
and a great voice, a strong voice,
splitting the silence.
So many ships, so many ships,
so many Blacks!

Shadows which only I see,
I'm watched by my two grandfathers.

Don Federico yells at me
and Taita Facundo is silent;
both dreaming in the night
and walking, walking.
I bring them together.
"Federico!
Facundo!" They embrace. They sigh,
they raise their sturdy heads;
both of equal size,
beneath the high stars;
both of equal size,
a Black longing, a White longing,
both of equal size,
they scream, dream, weep, sing.
They dream, weep, sing.
They week, sing.
Sing!

(translations from Spanish by Roberto Marquez, colleague and new friend in the valley...)

Nas quintas, uma foto ou duas // Thursdays, a photo or two

2008-10-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

Quem diria que tem (outros tipos de) elefantes em Idaho? Fotos tiradas num museu caseiro numa cidadezinha (esqueci do nome... alguém ajuda?) do norte de Idaho, durante uma visita à minha família dois anos atás.

Who would have thought that there are (other sorts of ) elephants in Idaho? Pictures taken in a little museum in a tiny North Idaho town (I’ve forgotten the name ... can someone help?), during a visit to my family a couple of years ago.

A Poem a Saturday (well, almost)

2008-10-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Congresso Internacional do Medo

Provisoriamente não cantaremos o amor,
que se refugiou mais abaixo dos subterrâneos.
Cantaremos o medo, que esteriliza os abraços,
não cantaremos o ódio porque esse não existe,
existe apenas o medo, nosso pai e nosso companheiro,
o medo grande dos sertões, dos mares, dos desertos,
o medo dos soldados, o medo das mães, o medo das igrejas,
cantaremos o medo dos ditadores, o medo dos democratas,
cantaremos o medo da morte e o medo de depois da morte,
depois morreremos de medo
e sobre nossos túmulos nascerão flores amarelas e medrosas.

The International Congress of Fear

For the time being we will not sing of love,
which has taken refuge in subterranean depths.
We will sing of the fear that sterilizes embraces,
we will not sing of hatred, because this does not exist,
there is only fear, our father and our companion,
the enormous fear of the wilderness, of the sea, of the desert,
the fear of soldiers, the fear of mothers, the fear of churches,
we will sing of the fear of dictators, the fear of democrats,
we will sing the fear of death and the fear of what comes after death,
then we will die of fear
and upon our graves will grow flowers, yellow and tremulous.

Jaula / Cage -- Astrid Cabral

2008-10-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

We were honored here at Smith to host this Monday a visit by the Brazilian poet, Astrid Cabral, and her translator, Alexis Levitin, for a lunchtime reading of poems from her collection, "Cage," newly published in a biligual edition by Host Publications. These are beautiful poems, in both languages, many evoking the animals, real and imagined, of Astrid's childhood in the Amazon region of Brazil -- Astrid grew up in Manaus. It was great to hear them in her voice, and it was exciting to see such interest expressed here on campus, with more than 40 people in attendance.

Here's one of my favorites among this collection -- about watchng whales, on t.v.-- in Portuguese first and then in Alexis' translation. (Photo above courtesy of Pamela Petro.)

Baleia Albina

Pelo úmido azul
a baleia albina baila
e assombra
a sala em penumbra
barbatanas rêmiges
a massagear
volumosa massa d’água
o trêmulo transparente
corpo marinho...
Marítima mamífera
a espraiar
a cútis de elanca
enquanto as gordas vastas ancas
nadam dançam
se lançam
pelos pastos salgados
de algas e sargaços...
Será menina
a baleia albina?
Será adulta
a náufraga lua animal?
Ou centenária
a submarina cetácea nau?
Senhora dona do aquático sítio
supondo-se
solitária soberana
desfila tranqüila na líquida passarela
e revela
coreografia de estrela
e solfeja
cantiga de amor arquiantiga
e corteja
sem saber-se a prima-dona
de um mega espetáculo
sem pressentir
a intimidade exposta
à ribalta de mil olhos
pelo globo em volta…
Como o mar tão vasto
cabe entre sofás?
como nos toca o mar
se a pele não nos molha?
À noite os gatos são pardos
À noite somos jona e pinóquios
acomodados na barriga da sala
essa estranha baleia
cujas paredes entranhas
o oceano invade
e lambe até tarde…
Somos então outra casta de peixes
pescados nas malhas
de eletrônica rede.

White Whale

Through humid hued blue
the white whale weaves
a startling dance for
the darkened room
fins fanning
massaging
vast masses of water
transparent trembling
body of the sea…
Marine mammal
stretching out
its elastic sea…
while its vast and massive hips
weave wave
wander
through salty pastures
of branching thallus and sargasso…
Could it be a child,
the white white whale?
Could it be an adult
shipwrecked animal moon?
Or centenarian
a submarine cetacean ship?
Lady mistress of that aquatic place
imagining herself
solitary sovereign
she parades tranquil on the liquid runway
and reveals
the choreography of a star
and sings solfeggios
of old love songs ancient of ancients
and flirts
without knowing herself the prima donna
of a mega-spectacular
without foreseeing
that intimacy exposed
by the footlights of a thousand eyes
throughout the whole surrounding globe…
How can the sea so vast
fit between sofas?
How can the sea touch us
if it doesn’t wet our skin?
At night all cats are black
At night we are all jonas and pinochios
housed in the belly of the room
that strange whale
whose walls bowels
the ocean invades
and laps till it grows late…
And so we are another sort of fish
caught in the meshes
of an electronic web.

Open Letter to Senator Obama on U.S. policy in Latin America

2008-10-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

October 12, 2008

Dear Senator Obama:

We write to offer our congratulations on your campaign and to express our hope that as the next president of the United States you will take advantage of an historic opportunity to improve relations with Latin America. As scholars of the region, we also wish to convey our analysis regarding the process of change now underway in Latin America.

Just as the people of the United States have begun to debate basic questions regarding the sort of society they want-- thanks in part to your own candidacy but also owing to the magnitude of the current financial crisis-- so too have the people of Latin America. In fact, a recent round of intense debate about a just and fair society has been going on in Latin America for more than a decade, and the majority are opting, like you and so many of us in the United States, for hope and change. As academics personally and professionally committed to development and democracy in Latin America, we are hopeful that during your presidency the United States can become a partner rather than an adversary to the positive changes already under way in the hemisphere.

The current impetus for change in Latin America is a rejection of the model of economic growth that has been imposed in most countries since the early 1980s, a model that has concentrated wealth, relied unsuccessfully on unrestricted market forces to solve deep social problems and undermined human welfare. The current rejection of this model is broad-based and democratic. In fact, contemporary movements for change in Latin America reveal significantly increased participation by workers and peasants, women, Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples-- in a word, the grassroots. Such movements are coming to power in country after country. They are neither puppets, nor blinded by fanaticism and ideology, as caricatured by some mainstream pundits. To the contrary, these movements deserve our respect, friendship and support.

Latin Americans have often viewed the United States not as a friend but as an oppressor, the guarantor of an international economic system that works against them, rather than for them-- the very antithesis of hope and change. The Bush Administration has made matters much worse, and U.S. prestige in the region is now at a historic low. Washington's tendency to fight against hope and change has been especially prominent in recent U.S. responses to the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Bolivia. While anti-American feelings run deep, history demonstrates that these feelings can change. In the 1930s, after two decades of conflict with the region, the United States swore off intervention and adopted a Good Neighbor Policy. Not coincidentally, itwas the most harmonious time in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations. In the 1940s, every country in the region became our ally inWorld War Two. It can happen again.

There are many other challenges, too. Colombia, the main focus of the Bush Administration's policy, is currently the scene of the second largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with four million internally displaced people. Its government, which criminalizes even peaceful protest, seeks an extension of the free trade policies that much of the hemisphere is already reacting against. Cuba has begun a process of transition that should be supported in positive ways, such as through the dialogue you advocate. Mexicans and Central Americans migrate by the tens of thousands to seek work in the United States, where their labor power is much needed but their presence is denigrated by a public that has, since the development of opinion polling in the 1930s, always opposed immigration from anywhere. The way to manage immigration is not by building a giant wall, but rather, the United States should support more equitable economic development in Mexico and Central America and, indeed, throughout the region. In addition, the U.S. must reconsider drug control policies that have simply not worked and have been part of the problem of political violence, especially in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. And the U.S. must renew its active support for human rights throughout the region. Unfortunately, in the eyes of many Latin Americans, the United States has come to stand for the support of inequitable regimes.

Finally, we implore you to commit your administration to the firm support of constitutional rights, including academic and intellectual freedom. Most of us are members of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), the largest professional association of experts on the region, and we have experienced first-hand how the Bush administration's attempt to restrict academic exchange with Cuba is counter-productive and self-defeating. We hope for an early opportunity to discuss this and other issues regarding Latin America with your administration. Our hope is that you will embrace the opportunity to inaugurate a new period of hemispheric understanding and collaboration for the common welfare. We ask for change and not only in the United States.

Sincerely,

SIGNED:Eric Hershberg, LASA President 2007-09, Professor of Politics and Director of Latin American Studies, Simon Fraser University

Sonia E. Alvarez, LASA Past President (2004-2006), Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Politics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Charles R. Hale, LASA Past President (2003-2004), Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin

Marysa Navarro-Aranguren, LASA Past President (2003-2004),

Charles Collis, Professor of History, Dartmouth College

Arturo Arias, LASA Past President, (2001-2003), Professor of Spanish and Portuguese University of Texas, Austin.

A poem a Saturday

2008-10-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

Nelson Ascher (do livro Parte alguma, presente da nossa querida amiga, Lucia, no Rio):

Elegiazinha

i.m. nikita (gata da inês)

Gatos não morrem de verdade:
eles apenas se reintegram
no ronronar da eternidade.

Gatos jamais morrem de fato:
suas almas saem de fininho
atrás de alguma alma de rato.

Gatos não morrem: sua fictícia
morte não passa de uma forma
mais refinada de preguiça.

Gatos não morrem: rumo a um nível
mais alto é que eles, galho a galho,
sobem numa árvore invisível.

Gatos não morrem: mais preciso
-- se somem -- é dizer que foram
rasgar sofás no paraíso

e dormirão lá, depois do ônus
de sete bem vividas vidas,
seus sete merecidos sonos.

---------------------------------------------------------

Brief Elegy

i.m. nikita (inês’ cat)

Cats don’t ever really die:
they are simply reintegrated
into the purr of eternity.

Cats don’t in fact ever die:
their souls steal away
chasing after the soul of some mouse.

Cat’s don’t die: their fictitious
death is nothing more than a
more refined form of laziness.

Cat’s don’t die: it is headed toward
some higher level that they, branch by branch,
climb an invisible tree.

Cat’s don’t die: more precisely
-- they disappear -- that is to say
they went to scratch couches in heaven

and there they will sleep, after the onus
of seven well lived lives,
their seven well earned naps.

(translation i.m. vicky (joel and barbara’s cat))

Importance/difference between having and being.

2008-10-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

Erich Fromm , “To Have or To Be.”

Flower in a crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you there, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower-but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
(Tennyson, English poet)

When I look carefully
I see the nazuna blooming
By the hedge!
(Basho, Japanese poet)

I walked in the woods
All by myself,
To seek nothing,
That was on my mind.

I saw in the shade
A little flower stand,
Bright like the stars
Like beautiful eyes.

I wanted to pluck it,
But it said sweetly:
Is it to wilt
That I must be broken?

I took it out
With all its roots,
Carried it to the garden
At the pretty house.

And planted it again
In a quiet place;
Now it ever spreads
And blossoms forth.
(“Found,” Goethe)
Ero.

" O espirito da Nova Inglaterra."

2008-10-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

Apesar da gripe que me atormenta neste momento, tudo continua indo bem, ainda mais quando tem as cores espetaculares do outono da Nova Inglaterra por toda parte. Ero

The good news of the bad news

2008-10-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, for those who know us, you might have expected this wouldn't be all poetry and pretty pictures. Yes, there will be our own humble rants and raves on politics, or our pointing out others' rants and raves we think more people should be paying attention to.

First stab: the good news among all this financial and economic calamity is that it seems to point to an exhaustion -- probably just temporary, of course -- of absolute, religious-like faith in the free market(as Thomas Frank's "Baffler" called it a few years ago, "The God That Sucked") as the ultimate all-wise and fair arbiter human good and progress, of orthodox neo-liberalism positing that publicly minded regulation of capital was inherently bad. The message is reinforced by the awarding of the Nobel prize to Paul Krugman -- certainly no radical, but one who warned for years that the housing bubble was in fact a bubble like those before it that would burst, but of a scale that would be systemically calamitous. He didn't get the prize, as least mostly, for his NYT editorializing, but even his academic work was instrumental in pointing out the mixed bag of neo-liberal globalization and -- what a breakthrough! -- of pointing out that what benefits a multi-national corporation does not always benefit the people in the nation where that corporation is headquarted. Stunningly simple for a change -- corporation is not synonymous with people -- and odd that we would need to be reminded of that, still.

As a good overview of the crisis, and the need to still be wary of the still ongoing canonization of neoliberal rhetoric and ideologues, lest they return after the state once again stabilizes the private sector, see this great talk by Naomi Klein, speaking against the naming of a building or something at the University of Chicago after the godfather of radical free-market ideology, Milton Friedman, himself the winner of a Nobel prize in another now bygone moment. Maybe the U. of Chicago would like to update their naming rights, and give the building to Krugman?

Naomi Klein: Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neoliberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism
As the world reels from the financial crisis on Wall Street and the taxpayer-funded $700 billion bailout, we spend the hour with Naomi Klein on the economy, politics and “disaster capitalism.” The Shock Doctrine author recently spoke at the University of Chicago to oppose the creation of an economic research center named after the University’s most famous economist, Milton Friedman. Klein says Friedman’s economic philosophy championed the kind of deregulation that led to the current crisis.

http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/oct/video/dnB20081006a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=10:52

A poem a Saturday

2008-10-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

A little habit I'd like to pick up from my friend Adriana, who blogs from Boulder. Just a poem a week, not much with hopes for a whole lot. This week, a poem from the Czech poet Miroslav Holub (1923-1998), from a little Penguin paperback I picked up while working at Meyer and Meyer Used Books in Moscow, ID, and that I'm now sending off on a belated whim to Joan, whose last name I think she shares, mostly at least, with Miroslav. -- Malcolm

Love

Two thousand cigarettes.
A hundred miles
from wall to wall.
An eternity and a half of vigils
blanker than snow.

Tons of words
old as the tracks
of a platypus in the sand.

A hundred books we didn't write.
A hundred pyramids we didn't build.

Sweepings.
Dust.

Bitter as the beginning of the world.

Believe me when I say
it was beautiful.