Dawn | Alvorada

 

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

It is raining. The weather has become very cold suddenly. When we evacuated, we were wearing summer clothes – I evacuated in shorts and T-shirt. I bought a jacket yesterday because I anticipated this would happen. I wear the jacket and cover myself with a blanket.

My heart goes out to all those in schools, hospitals and the ones who have recently fled and haven’t found a roof to sit under yet. What are parents thinking of right now – are they hugging their children tight so they won’t feel the cold? How many people will be sick? How many will survive?

It started getting colder a while ago but not as strong as today. Two days ago, my sister was talking to her friend and her mother who evacuated to one of the schools. The mother, who fled wearing light prayer clothes, told her she had just a light blanket that she covers her stomach with to sleep at night.

How long will this misery last?

 

The Irish Rover - The Dubliners & The Pogues

On the fourth of July, 1806
We set sail from the sweet cove of Cork
We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks
For the Grand City Hall in New York

 

'Twas a wonderful craft
She was rigged fore and aft
And oh, how the wild wind drove her
She stood several blasts
She had twenty-seven masts
And they called her The Irish Rover

 

in MEMORIAM SHANE MACGOWAN 

Casa de Artes

 

Famílias sem chão

 

Remoções forçadas, indenizações irrisórias, omissão estatal… O desastre provocado pela Braskem é muito mais profundo do que se vê nas crateras

"A gente não tem mais cabeça para lidar com isso. Minha esposa até adoeceu, agora toma remédio controlado”, desabafa Antônio Domin-
go dos Santos, ex-funcionário da Braskem
e morador do Flexal, um dos bairros ame-
açados de sucumbir devido à imperícia da
empresa na extração de sal-gema do sub-
solo de Maceió. A família de seis pessoas
precisou abandonar a casa às pressas, em
29 de novembro, após receber um alerta
da Defesa Civil de Alagoas sobre o risco
iminente de desabamento. Resistiram até
o último minuto, porque não queriam se
desfazer da residência onde a sogra de
Santos vive há 70 anos sem a certeza de
ter outro lugar digno para morar.

 
O antigo montador de andaimes preci-
sou abandonar a profissão após ser aco-
metido por uma hérnia de disco, que cau-
sa dores insuportáveis na coluna ao me-
nor esforço. Desempregado há quatro
anos, sobrevive de bicos. Reconstruir a
vida em outro local não é tão simples pa-
ra o trabalhador. O drama de Santos so-
ma-se ao de outras 60 mil famílias atin-
gidas pelo desastre geológico desde 2018,
quando a capital alagoana começou a sen-
tir os primeiros tremores de terra. Racha-
duras tomaram conta das paredes de ca-
sas e prédios. Crateras se abriram em
algumas ruas. À época, parte dos mora-
dores foi removida pela prefeitura com
a promessa de um aluguel social, porque
ainda não havia comprovação da respon-
sabilidade da Braskem. De lá para cá, pro-
vou-se que o desastre não tem causas na-
turais, mas boa parte dos moradores se-
gue sem garantia de uma moradia segura.
Na outra ponta da vasta área atingida,
no bairro de Pinheiro, o pastor Wellington
Santos denuncia que ao longo dos últimos
anos nem o Poder Público nem a Braskem
fizeram propostas razoáveis para prote-
ger, realocar e indenizar as vítimas. “As
primeiras pessoas que saíram, seja pe-
la via do aluguel social, seja por meio de
acordos com a empresa, logo depois se sen-
tiram lesadas e quiseram voltar. Mas vol-
tar para onde? Só há escombros por aqui.”

 
No vilarejo fantasma, a Igreja Batista do
Pinheiro, onde Wellington celebrava seus
cultos, também acabou interditada pela
Defesa Civil. “Isso abalou muito a socie-
dade. Só aqui, neste bairro, 12 pessoas co-
meteram suicídio. O mais recente foi em
março deste ano. Um homem foi à fren-
te da casa onde morava e deu um tiro na
cabeça. Claramente, foi ato de desespe-
ro e protesto”, lamenta o líder religioso.
O risco de colapso é iminente. Na região
da Mina 18, o solo afundou quase 2 metros
desde o início das medições da Defesa Ci-
vil, no fim de novembro. A arquiteta e

banista Isadora Padilha, autora do livro
Rasgando a Cortina de Silêncios (Ed. Ins-
tituto Alagoas), explica que esta área pró-
xima da costa concentra os bairros mais
antigos de Maceió. “Bebedouro, por sinal,
possui numerosos imóveis tombados pelo
patrimônio histórico. É uma das primei-
ras áreas povoadas da cidade, os registros
remontam ao século XVIII.”

MAIS NA REPORTAGEM DE MARIANA SERAFINI

Mim Mim Mim

MIGUEL PAIVA 

 

NANDO MOTTA 

 

 

 

QUINHO 

 

 

 

ZIAD IN GAZA

Ahmad joins us in the room. He tells us today he saw his friend who is an artist. He was in the street, boiling some water to make tea to sell. His friend had no gas canister, instead, he was burning wood. Ahmad was surprised to see the man using the frames of his own portraits to burn. “I need to make some money, I have a family to feed,” the friend told him.

Even wood is becoming scarce, and some are selling it to be used to boil water and in cooking. What else is left to be sold? Air?

 

 

Palestinians forcibly displaced into Gaza scrubland

 

al

 

“We will die here because of hunger.” Palestinians say the Israeli army is forcibly displacing them to an area of barren scrubland in south Gaza with no water or electricity, where they face another fight for survival."

see the video> Palestinians forcibly displaced into Gaza scrubland | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera:

O pior leilão de petroleo e gas

 

ANDRÉ TRIGUEIRO 

 Vem aí o pior leilão de petróleo e gás da história da @anpgovbr ! Dos 603 blocos de exploração que serão ofertados no próximo dia 13/12 pela Agência Nacional do Petróleo, 94,2% violam alguma diretriz ambiental da própria agência. Há blocos sobrepostos sobre Unidades de Conservação (como Fernando de Noronha e Abrolhos!), terras indígenas, comunidades quilombolas e outras. Levantamento do instituto @arayaraoficial detalha os impactos do 1º leilão do gênero do atual governo. Abaixo seguem apenas alguns deles:

- 366 km² de Unidades de Conservação em risco direto

- 23 Terras Indígenas afetadas (22 na Amazônia)

- 5 territórios quilombola afetados

- 11 blocos sobrepostos a Fernando de Noronha

- 12 blocos sobrepostos a região de Abrolhos

- 1 bloco ofertado está a 2,4 km da área de mineração de sal-gema da Braskem em Maceió

Apesar do risco de judicialização, a @anpgovbr mantém o leilão sob o pretexto de que eventuais problemas deverão ser resolvidos (depois que os lotes forem arrematados) no processo de licenciamento.

Essa estratégia não faz o menor sentido porque não elimina a insegurança jurídica do processo. Foi o que aconteceu num outro leilão da ANP quando a BP arrematou o bloco de exploração da Margem Equatorial da Amazônia sem conseguir abrir um poço sequer por aproximadamente uma década. O bloco foi passado para a Petrobras que aguarda há um ano licença para a exploração.

Moral da história: a @ANPgovbr realiza leilões completamente desconectada das implicações jurídicas que a exploração de certos blocos representa desde já.

Lembrando que tudo isso acontece no embalo da #cop28 onde o Brasil tem a maior delegação dentre todos os países e o presidente confirmou em vários pronunciamentos a urgência do mundo proteger o meio ambiente e se livrar dos combustíveis fósseis.

É pra valer isso?

Paquetá

 

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

Today is cloudy, which is good for those on the street since they won’t be burnt by the sun. However, this means that no one will be able to charge their devices. The only source of energy these days is solar, and just a few families or shops have solar power, so all the neighbours and evacuated families go there to charge their devices, to have connection with the world, to remind themselves they are still alive.

Today, we couldn’t charge our devices. Another day to forget we are still alive.

 

Tetê Espíndola - Outro Lugar

Não sou daqui

Nem sou de lá

Sou sempre de outro lugar

Mas o que sou

É onde estou agora

Na lágrima no riso que aflora

Não sou daqui Nem sou de lá Sou sempre de outro lugar Mas o que sou É onde estou agora Na lágrima no riso que aflora

Não sou daqui Nem sou de lá Sou sempre de outro lugar Mas o que souNão sou daqui Nem sou de lá Sou sempre de outro lugar Mas o que sou É onde estou agora Na lágrima no riso que aflora É onde estou agora Na lágrima no riso que aflora

Toda a cratera

AMORIM   

 

 

 

 

 

ARNALDO BRANCO 

 

 

 

QUINHO  

 

 

Tamba Trio - Consolação (Live) - (Baden Powell)

'Só me arrependo de não ter ficado mais rico', diz ex-miliciano

 

 

"O ex-miliciano diz nunca ter matado. Questionado se sente arrependimento, afirma que "queria ter colocado mais a mão na massa e ter ficado mais rico". Hoje, em liberdade, alega não integrar mais o grupo. Não perde, contudo, o hábito miliciano de provocar o medo.

Com receio de ser identificado e morto, ele puxa a mão da jornalista. Finge, então, acender um isqueiro na ponta de uma caneta e, em seguida, a coloca debaixo de uma das unhas da repórter. "Alguém pode te pegar, colocar essa caneta com ponta quente debaixo da sua unha. Você vai dizer meu nome a alguém. Com a mais leve tortura", diz.

"Se te pegarem, vai de boa, porque no porta-malas é ruim", completa. Indagado se já passou por essa experiência, diz que sim, mas que foi um "mal-entendido da firma", como ele chama a milícia."

leia reportagem de BRUNA FANTI 

'Só me arrependo de não ter ficado mais rico', diz ex-miliciano

How Israel is squeezing 1.8 million Palestinians into an airport-sized area

 

 

Israel has declared an area smaller than Heathrow Airport as a safe space for Gaza’s displaced people to move to.

"A team from Sky News visited al-Mawasi to investigate the situation there. They found no shelter arrangements, such as agency tents or food kitchens. The area has already been facing a severe lack of healthcare facilities."

read more>>

How Israel is squeezing 1.8 million Palestinians into an airport-sized area | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera:

Toda a quadrilha

DUKE

 

ZIAD IN GAZA

 He was not my friend, but some people just grow to become a part of your life. He was the head waiter of my favourite cafe. I had known him since I was a university student when the restaurant was very small and not well known. With time, he became the symbol of the place. When he was not around, people would ask for him. Some would only go when he was working. The restaurant expanded and he would move from one branch to the other and people would choose to dine where he was working.

He had beautiful green eyes. Everyone loved him. He listened to his customers; in a way he was a kind of therapist. He would give advice, guidance and support. If he recommended a certain dish, we would order it immediately. If he advised you not to order your favourite meal, we would trust him.

Two years ago, his eldest son graduated high school. He was very happy, he told us that he will study journalism. He mentioned that, in addition to him loving what he does, he works very hard, many shifts, just to secure a good life for his family.

I am walking in the street when my friend calls me and tells me he has been killed. I stop walking. Not him … no, no, no. I stay silent in the middle of the street.

Though he was not a friend of mine, he was a part of my life, a part of the many happy memories I have lived. I wish I could have protected him. I wish I could have kept him and his loved ones safe.

I want to cry, yet I keep silent and continue walking.

 

 

No mundo da subjetividade

 

JOTA CAMELO 

 

 

GILMAR  

 

 

 

AMORIM  

 

 

Jacob do Bandolim - Radamés Gnattali e Orquestra - SUITE RETRATOS - gravação de 1964 .

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

I am wide awake. Not because of fear, exhaustion or the lack of a moment of peace we have been experiencing for more than a month now, but because I can’t stop thinking about the phone call I had last night. My friend lost her brother. She was devastated, I tried to talk to her but couldn’t. I was able to reach friends around her. “She is grateful that they found the body of her brother in one piece, unlike the others whose bodies were cut into several parts,” one told me.

Is this what we’ve come to? Praying that we die in one piece? Has dying in brutal circumstances become the inevitable destiny of Gazans?

I remember a story told in my mother’s family. A story about two women who had a feud for more than 40 years about which of their sons is buried in a certain grave. Both bodies were cut into pieces and till this day the truth is not known. Each of the ladies would go to the graveyard and mourn her lost child. “But why does it matter?” I remember asking.

“It is all that matters,” an old neighbour answered. He said knowing their loved ones were buried in dignified manner, in a known spot, makes them feel sure that they are in a “safe place, taken care of”, and it helps them to let go and start the journey of moving on.

One of the two ladies died past the age of 85, the other one is still alive to this day. I am sure that the one who died is no longer angry with the other mother, because now she is with her son, in a much better place – away from graveyards, away from death, away from sadness, away from the cruelty of this word. She is hugging him, and he is very happy, because he is finally safe with his mother.

I wonder how many decades it will take a lot of Gazans to process the agony of not knowing where their loved ones are buried, or the fact that they couldn’t have a final look at them, hold their hands and say goodbye.

 

Não é coincidencia: é projeto

 

 de Lilia Schwarcz

Sempre me impressiona a capacidade que temos de naturalizar atrocidades e fazer tudo funcionar numa pretensa normalidade. Faz algum tempo que lemos sobre o perigo que corre Maceió e assistimos impávidos à desgraça alheia que em geral se abate por sobre os menos privilegiados.

Sinal de que “a coisa vai mal” apareceu faz pouco tempo. A Braskem cancelou sua participação na Conferência Climática da ONU, a COP28, justificando que “a crise em Maceió se agravou”. Regiões inteiras da capital alagoana estão sob risco de desabamento devido à possibilidade de colapso em uma das minas de extração de sal-gema da empresa. Em nota à Reuters, a companhia alegou que “achou melhor cancelar sua participação em alguns painéis para evitar que o assunto sobrepujasse quaisquer outras discussões técnicas, dificultando eventuais contribuições que a empresa pudesse oferecer”.

Não entendi? Como é que o “assunto”. Poderia não “sobrepujar” outras discussões. Qual a separação entre “discussões técnicas” e humanas?

E para deixar claro como está pisando em terreno no mínimo inseguro, o presidente executivo da Braskem, Roberto Bischoff, declarou nesta segunda-feira, 4, que existe a possibilidade de acomodação do solo na área de mina 18, que está em risco de colapso, mas que não é possível afirmar qual será o resultado. Já a Defesa Civil de Maceió afirmou em nota que a cidade permanece em “alerta máximo” com “risco iminente de colapso” da mina 18, localizada abaixo do bairro de Mutange.

Enfim, tudo em risco e nada assegurado. A tragédia está logo à nossa frente e as imagens andam cada vez piores. Mas continuamos seguindo a tese de reagir ao imediato e negar o que é previsível. Faz parte do nosso tempo a insensibilidade diante dos desastres alheios e da dor que não é minha. Não entendi a parte do programa que pede “esperar” para ver o que acontece. Se algo acontecer não será coincidência; é projeto.

Garoto de Pobre - Teresa Cristina (Geraldo Filme)

Garoto de pobre
só pode estudar
em escola de samba
Ou ficar pelas ruas
jogado ao léu

implorando a bondade dos homens

aguardando a justiça do céu

Seu lápis é sua baqueta
que bate o seu tamborim
ninguém olha este coitado
Senhor qual será o seu fim?

Nixon & Kissinger: bigotry crude and rancid

 JEFFREY ST, CLAIR

+ In a June 1976 meeting with the Argentina Junta, Kissinger, fearing the Republicans would lose the upcoming presidential elections, advised the generals, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.” (Deaths during Argentina’s Dirty War: 30,000.)

+ Often suspicious and jealous of each, Nixon and Kissinger found common ground in their bigotry, which was crude and rancid. A few examples:

Here’s RN to HK on Indians:“To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me…I don’t know how they reproduce!”

Kissinger to Nixon: “The Pakistanis are fine people, but they are primitive in their mental structure.”

After a phone call with India’s PM Indira Gandhi…

Nixon: “This is the point where’s she’s (Indira Gandhi) a bitch.” Kissinger: “Yeah. The Indians are bastards anyway.” Nixon: “We really slobbered over the old witch.”

During a meeting of the Washington Special Actions Group, Kissinger said, “If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be antisemitic. Any people who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong.”

From the same profile in The Forward: “During a Vietnam War-era chat from October 1973 with Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Kissinger found American Jews and Israelis ‘as obnoxious as the Vietnamese.'”

Kissinger in 1973: “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” (That ‘maybe’ gives insight into the moral void that was Henry Kissinger, where every life–indeed, millions of lives–could be reasoned away for his own advancement, assuming he took the time to think of them at all.)

Bar da Noite | Maria Bethânia (Bidu Reis = Haroldo Barbosa)

Garçom, apague esta luz

Que eu quero ficar sozinha

Garçom, me deixe comigo

Que a mágoa que eu tenho é minha

Homens promovem ataque virtual em massa contra quadrinista

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Ito recebeu comentários em tom de ameaça e com ofensas ao compartilhar trecho da recém-lançada HQ “Siriricas Tristes”

Homens promovem ataque virtual em massa contra quadrinista - Ponte Jornalismo

O elefante na sala

 

]"A democracia está sob ameaça. Não na América Latina. Os Estados Unidos são a bola da vez. Esse é o alerta feito por Steven Levitsky e Daniel Ziblatt em Como salvar a democracia. O novo livro dos cientistas políticos não é propriamente uma sequência de Como as democracias morrem, publicado em 2018. O foco agora são os Estados Unidos, isto é, a democracia a ser salva, a que está a morrer, é a norte-americana. Nesses termos, ao diluir ou deixar em segundo plano o objeto do livro, o título adotado em português tem algo de enganoso. Quem ameaça a democracia norte-americana é a minoria branca e religiosa. Para evitar leituras apressadas, vale ressaltar que minoria está no singular. Para dar nome aos bois, ou melhor, ao elefante que passeia pela sala, a minoria tirânica a que o título em inglês se refere é aquela representada pelo Partido Republicano."

leia resenha por Fernando Limongi 

 Quatro Cinco Um: a revista dos livros:

Hostilities erupted again

"Rather than responding to its failure to achieve anything of decisive military significance during the past 55 days by searching for an offramp, it appears convinced that where overwhelming force has failed, even more force will succeed.
 
Finally, it’s also important to recognize that Israel can legitimately be characterized as an irrational state. Not just radical, but irrational. This has only partly to do with its knee-jerk resort to extraordinary levels of violence, routine genocidal statements by its leaders, and the like. Primarily on account of the West’s consistent refusal to confront Israel with any consequences for the policies of its increasingly radical and fanatic governments, Israel has become ever more radical and fanatic.

To the point where it is a state that is no longer capable of inhibition or self-restraint. This is most evident in how it treats its closest allies. "

read post by MOUIN RABBANI 

Thread by @MouinRabbani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

 

Dear Santa

Every year around the first days of December, we put our Christmas tree in its spot and decorate it. Our cats love staying under the tree and playing with the big decoration balls and ornaments. The tree stays until mid-January, until my sister decides it is time to put it away. She says it is to “keep the Christmas joy and spirit, and to feel happy every year”. I am Muslim. Muslims in Gaza love Christmas. Christians and Muslims gather every year to light up a huge Christmas tree in the YMCA centre to celebrate the happy occasion.

I am not sure you received the updated lists of Gaza children, but this year, many children in Gaza are dead. No, Santa, they were not naughty. Angelina Jolie once gave a speech about how difficult it is for her to understand how another woman, who is way more talented than her and has the ability to make better films, is located in a refugee camp, unable to find food for her children and has no voice. Just like that woman, the Gazan children’s only fault was where they were born: in Gaza, facing death, every single minute.

I read once that “the soul is healed by being with children”. Not our children, Santa. Our souls are aching because of being with them. Yesterday, over the phone with my friend who is a mother of two adorable children, she told me that I am lucky not to have any. “My kids are sad all the time, they are cold and they are scared. My son told me he wishes to eat his favourite chocolate one more time before he dies.”

But her children are lucky because they found a shelter over their heads. Many children are in tents during these very cold times, some of them have poor parents who cannot afford to get anything for them. In the past days we had a ceasefire, and we were relieved for a while, but now it is over and the situation is very difficult. Nobody is safe.

This year, if you come to Gaza, and please do, would you change the gifts you bring. I know that you and the elves work all year to prepare them, but the priorities have changed. Don’t bring dolls and bicycles to the children. Instead, bring some blankets, because they are cold. And although I love my friend’s son, don’t bring him his favourite chocolate; bring some food and flour, because children in Gaza are hungry.

Also, can you bring an insulin shot for the woman who has a diabetic son and is seeking one at any price? Can you bring with you milk for our friend’s two-year-old daughter? Can you bottle safety and hope and bring them to our children? And if any is left, to us, the adults, too?

You will not see Christmas trees, not because children stopped believing or welcoming you, but because the trees have been burned as wood to stay warm at night. And there will be no chimneys, so please, look for the schools where thousands are displaced. Look for the tents, there are children in there.

Santa, if you come to Gaza, you will not recognise it. Buildings are gone and places that witnessed happy occasions no longer exist. There is no electricity. Recently, I have been remembering a quote I read years ago in a book entitled The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

“This moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder.”

Will you believe me if I told you that seeing lights over buildings is as equal as realising that I am alive. My friend told me that her biggest dream is for someone to call her and she can say, casually: “I am doing nothing. I am just at my home, chilling.”

This year, everything is being tested: our survival skills, our patience, our faith and our humanity. We are exhausted, terrified and not sure if we will survive. Death is everywhere around us, we don’t have the ability to cry over our loved ones, to hug them one last time or to grieve.

Maya Angelou said: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

The amount of feelings and experiences bottled inside my head, heart and soul could fill this whole world we are living in. Can you imagine the agony all Gazan children, mothers and fathers have right now? How many have already died without even sharing their dreams with the world. How many have lost their futures without having a fair chance to achieve them?

Days ago, I was with the neighbour’s son of the hosting family we evacuated too. We heard about a man who sells wood, so we walked for over an hour to reach him. Since there are no containers or bags to put the wood in, he tied the pieces with a wire to keep them together. On our way, it started raining heavily. The evacuating people, looking for necessities, still wearing summer clothes, were shivering. All of us stood by the side of the road to wait for the rain to be over.

I look at the boy and tell him that I believe in the power of prayer, especially during rain. I ask him to pray for something. Santa, he did not pray for the game he had spoken about for almost an hour with me, nor did he ask for clothes. He said that he prays this whole nightmare will be over, and that he and his siblings will be safe.

I wonder, by 25 December, will this be over? Will I be alive, will I gather with my friends, exchange gifts and sing together Jingle bells?

Sending you love,

from Gaza.

 

Made in War

ARNALDO BRANCO 

 

 

CAU GOMEZ  

 

 

 

ULISSES ARAUJO 

 

 

 

Áurea Martins - JANELAS ABERTAS - Antonio Carlos Jobim & Vinícius de Mor...

Mas
Quero as janelas abrir
Para que o sol possa vir 

iluminar nosso amor

Por entrada na Opep+, Brasil recebe antiprêmio 'Fóssil do Dia' na COP28

 

 

""O Brasil é o vencedor do dia por aparentemente confundir produção de petróleo com liderança ambiental","

LEIA MAIS>> 

Por entrada na Opep+, Brasil recebe antiprêmio 'Fóssil do Dia' na COP28 | Tribuna Online | Seu portal de Notícias

The truce in Gaza has been more painful than the 50 days that preceded it

 

 

"Many of us did not dare go out on the first day of the temporary truce in Gaza. We were too afraid it would not hold. On the second day, we gathered our courage and stepped out.

The daylight illuminated the destruction caused by Israel’s non-stop bombardment of Gaza over the past seven weeks. We did not recognise our neighbourhoods and streets.

There are whole stretches of land where there is not a single building standing. Nothing has been spared: houses, residential towers, shops, bakeries, cafes, schools, universities, libraries, children’s centres, mosques, churches.

The destruction was the first thing we saw. Then came the pain."

READ MORE

The truce in Gaza has been more painful than the 50 days that preceded it | Gaza | Al Jazeera

Kissinger never even feigned repentance

 

JEFFREY ST., CLAIR

+ Like Robert McNamara, who went from supervising the Vietnam War to inflicting global misery at the World Bank, Henry Kissinger may have killed as many people in his five decades out of office as a globetrotting “consultant” as in his 8 years in office. Unlike McNamara, he never even feigned repentance.

+ When asked about the forced displacement of Micronesians from the Marshall Island so that the US could detonate nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll, Kissinger quipped: “There are only 90,000 of them out there. Who gives a damn?”

+ In his memoir, Kissinger claimed to be “deeply upset” by the Kent State massacre. But HR Haldeman’s diaries revealed that Kissinger was all for “clobbering the students,” who were protesting his illegal and murderous war on Cambodia. (P=Nixon, E=Ehrlichman, K=HK)… “K wants to just let the students go for couple of weeks, then move in and clobber them. E wants to communicate, especially symbolically … K very concerned that we not appear to give in any way. Thinks P can really clobber them if we just wait for Cambodian success.”

 

OPEP Inflamável

CLAYTON

 

 

 

AMARILDO 

 

 

 

 

AROEIRA

 

 

 

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

 

8am Falafel is one of the most popular traditional foods in Gaza. We call it “the poor people’s food” because it is cheap. Palestinians who travel abroad are surprised at the prices of falafel sandwiches, and I know I speak for everyone in Gaza when I say that we believe the ones made in Gaza are the best.

Luckily for us, in the area we evacuated to there were two shops selling falafel. Unfortunately, one closed soon after we arrived because the owner ran out of gas. But we are among the few neighbourhoods that still have the luxury of getting falafel. The remaining shop works two shifts, one in the morning and one from 3 to 5pm. They no longer sell sandwiches, only falafel, since getting bread is very difficult. I usually go in the evening, because until recently we didn’t eat breakfast. I would wait for about 45 minutes to get my order, but it is OK: now you have to wait for everything, if it is available.

Today, I decide to get some falafel for breakfast. I thought I went early, but the line is so long. I am told that people start queueing shortly after 6am to secure a spot. I try to count how many people are ahead of me and get tired after 85. I see my friend so we stand together and decide to spend “the journey of getting falafel” together. I send a message to my sister telling her it will probably take me a long time to return.

8.30am “In the sea?” I ask, surprised.

“Yes,” my friend answers.

We are talking about how miserable the situation is for people displaced in schools and hospitals. While waiting in line, I noticed a lot of flies buzzing around the neck of a man standing ahead of us. It is no surprise – people haven’t had access to hygiene facilities for more than a month now. Only the lucky ones have access to water, or at least money to buy deodorant.

My friend tells me that some displaced people who are next to the sea go there to wash themselves. “You would see mostly men and children. But even women go there to clean themselves. I know how annoying it is to have the remains of the salty seawater over your body, but it is better than being filthy.”

9am We have moved a little forward. My friend starts having a conversation with two men about six or seven places ahead of us. I take the opportunity to make some phone calls, checking on my friends. I can’t reach most of them due to the unreliable connection – at least that is what I tell myself, trying not to think about any bad thing that could have happened to them overnight. Finally, I get through to one who is a pharmacist.

Pharmacists these days are suffering. In the absence of effective hospitals and clinics, and with the difficulties in seeing a doctor, people go to pharmacies for medical support.

Every time I go to the pharmacy, which is a lot these days, I see pharmacists checking children, adults’ aches and pains, and hearing different symptoms of sick people, some of which are very complicated. People hope to get something to help them survive until they can see a doctor.

My friend tells me about a customer of his who called to remind him that she owed him some money, and she wanted him to forgive her in case something bad happened to her. “I was surprised. I told her that of course I forgave her, and we would meet after this is all over and she can pay me. Unfortunately, two days later, she and her family died.”

10am Standing in line, several arguments start about people jumping the queue. The owner of the shop has to come out and maintain order. It feels as if he is a school principal, but I understand that he wants things to move smoothly. Apparently, this situation has been going on for a month now. I was lucky not to eat breakfast before.

The shop owner is a kind guy. He makes his shop available to everyone to come and charge their phones and UPS batteries. One time I was passing and saw hundreds of devices connected to cords inside and outside the shop.

I think of the owner of another shop I was at the other day. I joked with him: “I bet us people who came from Gaza City or the north are annoying you now, so many of us and all our needs.” He smiled and said: “Not at all. If we don’t welcome you in the difficult times, when will we? You are people in need and it is our duty to help.” I later found out that he and his wife had left their home and moved in with their son to allow families from Gaza City to stay in his place.

10.30am We are still waiting in line. I ask my friend about his family and he says they are OK. He says: “I was talking to a friend and he wanted to tell me about something that happened to my house. I shut him up and asked him not to finish his sentence. If something happened to my house, I don’t want to know about it now. If we get out of this alive, I will deal with it later. I have no space to mourn the loss of my house.”

11am After standing in line for hours, they let groups of people enter, buy their falafel and leave. Now, we are inside with about 20 other people. No line any more, so everyone tries to get their order first. Everyone is frustrated. I hear a man saying that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t even eat, but he needs to get breakfast for his children “and there are no other options”.

 

11.30am We get the falafel. On our way out, the people still waiting jokingly start shouting: “Congratulations!” and saying phrases usually said when someone has a new baby.

Since the beginning of the whole situation, I have not taken a single picture of myself or anyone else. I believe that pictures are a way to keep great memories to look back on, but from these days there is nothing great or beautiful to remember.

However, I ask my friend if we could take a picture. “Looking like this?” he asks. I say yes. I suggest we get the falafel in the picture, but he refuses – he has boundaries. We put the falafel down and take the picture. I smile from ear to ear. I an not happy, and I am not pretending to be. But I have a positive feeling, I don’t know what it is, it is just that I saw my friend, we talked, we are still alive. It is a new day (or to be more precise, the middle of a new day now), and – we got falafel!

Leonard Cohen - Night Comes On

Now the crickets are singing
The vesper bells ringing
The cat's curled asleep in his chair
I'll go down to Bill's Bar
I can make it that far
And I'll see if my friends are still there

 
Yes, and here's to the few
Who forgive what you do
And the fewer who don't even care
And the night comes on
It's very calm
I want to cross over, I want to go home
But she says, "Go back, go back to the World"

Kissinger's only real talent

 

Jeffrey St. Clair

Kissinger’s greatest triumph–and perhaps his only real talent– was to seduce three generations of American political and media elites into believing that his diplomatic genius could be measured by the Himalayan heights of the body count he left in his wake.

+ Kissinger, a man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians from Vietnam to Cambodia and Bangladesh, East Timor to Chile and Argentina, got a prime slot in major newspapers to shape and warp public opinion whenever he wanted it, often, no doubt, in favor of his dark roster of clients at Kissinger & Associates. Over his career, he wrote more than 200 op-eds for the Washington Post.

Latin America remembers Kissinger’s ‘profound moral wretchedness’

 

 

"“Latin America was – for the arrogant policymakers of whom Kissinger was the top dog – our backyard. If we did not have control of what happened in our sphere of influence, Kissinger’s argument went, the rest of the world would not take our exercise of power seriously further away.”"

 

READ MORE>>

Latin America remembers Kissinger’s ‘profound moral wretchedness’ | Henry Kissinger | The Guardian

Israeli grid maps make life in Gaza ‘macabre game of Battleships’, say aid workers

 

 

"Israel has started using its new grid system for evacuation warnings, which breaks Gaza down into more than 600 blocks, and can be accessed through a QR code on leaflets and social media posts.

It appears designed to allow the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to try to shuffle civilians around in a shrinking battle space as they target Hamas fighters, by ordering them to leave areas that in some cases cover just a few blocks.

But on the ground, people said it had just added to their fear and confusion. After weeks of bombardment and blockades, most people have little access to electricity to charge phones and other devices, and even for those who can get online, the telecommunications system regularly collapses.

That means residents have no reliable way of accessing the map,"

READ REPORT BY EMMA GRAHAM-HARRISON

Israeli grid maps make life in Gaza ‘macabre game of Battleships’, say aid workers | Gaza | The Guardian

4 donas e seus cães

 

Like A Rolling Stone’ – David Bowie & Mick Ronson (Cover Bob Dylan)

Once upon a time you dressed so fine Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?

No Freedom to Move

 

"The current politics of immigration have turned and

twisted human nature against itself

and our own kind and are fostering unimaginable

maltreatment of those who wish only to survive and live a better

life. As Warsan Shire, whose family left

Somalia and then managed to relocate

to Britain, writes in one of her most

unforgettable poems, “no one leaves

home unless/home is the mouth of a

shark.” War, famine, religious and ethnic

strife, and natural catastrophes will

continue to drive thousands to leave,

despite the extreme danger

 

READ ARTICLE BY MARINA WARNER

À Sombra das Oliveiras

 

 

 

SERGIO AUGUSTO

 

Li, algum tempo atrás, um ensaio sobre a poesia de resistência palestina a ingleses e israelenses, substanciado por versos de poetas que, à exceção de Mahmoud Darwish e mais um ou dois, nem de nome eu conhecia.

Do pouco que minha memória reteve, destaco as “lições de paciência e bravura” que aquelas terras ensinaram a seus bardos, a onipresença de oliveiras e os mais vivos contrastes entre colonizados e colonizadores apontados pela palestina Noor Hindi: os ocupantes plantando flores e as crianças locais atirando pedras nos tanques invasores.

Nenhum deles alterou minha preferência, na lírica regional, pelo israelense Yehuda Amichai, a quem também fui apresentado em inglês pela revista The New Yorker. Se ainda vivo (morreu há 23 anos), Amichai talvez fosse um dos signatários das cartas abertas e manifestos de escritores, editores e intelectuais – em boa parte judeus – contra a blitzkrieg israelense na Faixa de Gaza, que já se contam aos milhares – de signatários e de bombas.

Impressiona a solidariedade global ao sofrido povo palestino e o incentivo à divulgação e leitura de seus autores por centenas de livrarias mundo afora. A carioca Leonardo da Vinci tomou a si a iniciativa de estender a resistência até nós.

Aqui ainda não corremos o risco das mesmas hostilidades experimentadas lá fora por quem se declarou abertamente solidário à causa palestina, ao cessar-fogo imediato e ao fim da estúpida confusão entre o Hamas e o Estado da Palestina. Robert De Niro teve seu discurso na entrega dos prêmios Gotham parcialmente censurado por algum ectoplasma macarthista (o ator acabou lendo o trecho censurado direto do celular) e a poeta, ensaísta e prêmio Pulitzer como editora de poesia do New York Times Anne Boyer largou o emprego para não se comprometer com as “mentiras belicistas” e os “eufemismos macabros” do jornal a respeito da guerra em Gaza.

Foi, aliás, por conta do conflito que fiquei conhecendo o poeta Mosab Abu Toha, cuja recente prisão pelas forças de Netanyahu repercutiu como há muito não se via na mídia internacional. Ele ficou pouco tempo detido, mas o suficiente para sujar ainda mais a encardida imagem do atual governo israelense.

Ex-poeta visitante na Universidade Harvard, Toha ganhou espaço e prestígio em publicações importantes dos EUA, cada vez mais receptivas às suas observações, algo irônicas e melancólicas, sobre a vida (em especial sua vida familiar) em Gaza. Achei tocante o seu necrológio (Obit) da “sombra que deixou para trás, escondida na escuridão da noite e à espera de sua volta a Gaza” e também a descrição de uma pelada infantil em que oito crianças morrem durante um bombardeio, quatro de cada time, forçando o árbitro a encerrar o jogo empatado em 4 a 4.

Adorno acreditava ser impossível escrever poesia depois de Auschwitz. Os poetas de Gaza nunca pararam para pensar nisso.

ESTADÃO 

Maozinha | The Hand

 

The Pogues - Sally MacLennane (The Tube, 11.01.1985)

Well, Jimmy played harmonica in the pub where I was born
He played it from the night time to the peaceful early morn
He soothed the souls of psychos and the men who had the horn
And they all looked very happy in the morning

 

in memoriam SHANE MACGOWAN

Lula’s bid to style himself climate leader at Cop28 undermined by Opec move

 

"Foreign ministry officials say Brazil will also act as a defender of the world’s most ambitious climate goal, to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, despite growing scientific evidence that this target may be breached sooner than expected. For there to be even a remote chance of preventing this, emissions have to start declining, and rapidly, which will require a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels.

This is where Brazil – like the US, UK, UAE, Norway and a host of other countries – is on shakier ground, because all these countries are planning to approve new oil projects that are incompatible with the 1.5C target. The day after Cop28, Brazil will stage an auction for hundreds of oil drilling blocks, many of them in ecologically sensitive areas such as near the mouth of the Amazon river, according to Carol Pasquali of Greenpeace."

read report by Jonathan Watts

Lula’s bid to style himself climate leader at Cop28 undermined by Opec move | Cop28 | The Guardian

ZIAD IN GAZA

 Not surprisingly, the continual checking is growing less. My friends who used to call several times during the day now call once every couple of days. Those who were glued to the screens watching the news are now focusing more on their everyday lives.

This nightmare has been going on for two months, and I am sure that they, too, are drained, in their own way, by the whole situation. Even I try to distract myself from the reality whenever possible. It is just sad and scary. People think that being in a ceasefire is a festive thing, they don’t realise the burden and agony we are still going through.

There is an Egyptian proverb that says: “Like those who danced on the stairs: neither seen by those above nor those below.” I wonder, are we Gazans the ones dancing on the stairs“? No one saw or heard us dancing and building happy memories and lives, no one saw us planting flowers and achieving dreams, no one heard us singing and ululating during weddings and other happy occasions. And, right now, no one is seeing us, dying every moment, crying for help?

I turn on music and listen to a piece by the Arab musician, Omar Khairat. It’s called “Mrs Hickmat Conscious” and refers to an old TV show with the same name. The small cat decides to sit on my belly and listen with me. I close my eyes and think of Gaza beach, the delicious breakfasts I had with my friends, the night lamp I had next to my bed, my childhood photos and my perfume bottles.