Zeno’s Paradox

Rio de Janeiro, the city famously celebrated by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes in prose and song, is now officially dead.

Yesterday armed drug gangs killed 18 people all over the city, including 7 who died when a tourism bus full of passengers was set on fire.

The reasons for such acts of terrorism? Aparently, armed militias are challenging the power of drug gangs in the favelas of Rio.

That’s right, armed militias. Just like in Iraq. When the State cannot provide its only duty – security for the citizens – then private groups are formed. Just look at Colombia’s example to see how nasty things can get.

Others say that the reason for the attacks is simply a message to the new Governor: “behave, or else…”

It doesn’t really matter – it’s been years since the State, local, regional or federal, has no authority whatsoever over the favelas. They are controlled by armed gangs fighting one against the other. What’s happening now is that the population outside the morros is paying each time a heavier price.

The original song called “Cidade Maravilhosa” was composed in 1934 by André Filho, and the singer was Aurora Miranda, sister of the more famous Carmem Miranda. Now its lyrics sound ironic, or just plain sad.

Cidade maravilhosa
Cheia de encantos mil
Cidade maravilhosa
Coração do meu Brasil

Berço do samba e das lindas canções
Que vivem n’alma da gente
És o altar dos nossos corações
Que cantam alegremente

Jardim florido de amor e saudade
Terra que a todos seduz
Que Deus te cubra de felicidade
Ninho de sonho e de luz

Cidade maravilhosa
Cheia de encantos mil
Cidade maravilhosa
Coração do meu Brasil

Since nobody reads this blog anyway, I tought I might stop writing about politics, international news and other boring stuff and just post a few notes about a poem by Yeats hat I like:

THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Now, the poem is apocalyptic in tone and pessimistic in its message, so in a sense it has not lost its power. Written in 1920, inbetween two World Wars, it seems however more apt to the times we live in.

Its theme, of course, is the decay of Western civilization. All the first stanza provides images of discontrol, loss, despair. “The falconer cannot hear the falconer”. “Things fall apart”, and of course, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” Indeed, even now the worst murderers and sonofabitches – islamic terrorists, neocommunists, murdering dictators armed with nuclear bombs – are full of passionate intensity while the best… Waver. Falter. Or are not really sure of what to do to stop the tide of insanity. Perhaps there’s nothing to do. Perhaps Yeats is right and we have reached the end of a 2000 year cicle. A beast slouces towards Bettlehem, and the world will plunge into the New Dark Age…

Sleep well, folks.

Às vezes fico até consternado de ver o esforço que brilhantes intelectuais conservadores, como o nosso José Guilherme Merquior, dispenderam em impugnar idéias esquerdistas. Ser bem sucedido nesse esforço não significa nada, quando as idéias não valem por si e são só a camuflagem de alguma operação mais discreta. Se um vizinho safado vai jogar baralho na sua casa com a intenção de ficar passando a mão na perna da sua esposa por baixo da mesa, não é vantagem nenhuma você vencê-lo no jogo. O que importa é virar a mesa e encher o sujeito de porrada.

(Olavo de Carvalho, “Por baixo da mesa”)

Theodore Darlrymple, in a new article, asks whether the Iraqis have free will or “it’s all Bush’s fault”.

While the Shia-Sunni conflict continues, Bush promises “hard choices“, but doesn’t say what they are. We’ll see soon enough I guess.
Spengler argues that this is all just a part of a proxy conflict between (Sunni) Saudi Arabia and (Shia) Iran for oil, religious dominance and regional power. I tend to agree.
Omar from Iraq the Model favors “a lethal blow to Sadr and his militia in order to render him unable to inflict harm on Maliki and other members of the UIA.” I tend to agree too.
And the ISG Report seems, fortunately, dead.

Argentina keeps growing, says The Economist. More (in Spanish) in La Nación.

Found it, oddly enough, through Samizdata.

Responsible Holiday Drinking

While searching on Google for something completely unrelated, I casually came upon this article:

Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

I’m not particularly religious, but I never thought religious – and particularly Christian belief – could lead to high murder and abortion. Just how the researcher (a certain Gregory Paul) arrived at this conclusion?

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

So, basically, casting aside all possible explanations, all other differences between the US and the UK, ignoring other religions such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Bhuddism, and lumping together religious and non-religious people in each country, the researcher comes to the conclusion that religion is the root of all evil. Seems sloppy research to me.

Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina.

Why? He lives in Baltimore!

He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.

The existence of God scientifically proven? Tough chance. Well, there’s Gödel’s argument.

Sandmonkey asks what an “Iranian moderate conservative” means, referring to the way Hashemi Rafsanjani, victorious in the latest Iranian polls, is called by the media.

I don’t know about the “conservative”, but considering that this guy has (already in 2001) called for the nuclear destruction of Israel and has an arrest warrant by the Argentine government for cumplicity in the 1994 bombings in Buenos Aires, he doesn’t seem very “moderate”.

Iran, meanwhile, menaces Argentina (with new bombings?):

Otra amenaza de Irán contra la Argentina « El Rejunte.il

UPDATE:

Danish students place ad with “secret message” in Tehran newspaper (read initials vertically for full apreciation)

An interesting interview with André Comte-Speville (in Spanish). Can’t say I agree with it all, but his views are interesting and dispell many myths of the radical left:

-¿En quién recae la responsabilidad moral de una sociedad?
-En el individuo. La moral sólo existe en primera persona. ¿Por qué siempre acusar al sistema capitalista? El sistema capitalista no es nadie. ¿Cuánta gente conoce usted que es egoísta -como usted y yo- y echa pestes contra el egoísmo del sistema? El sistema no tiene por qué ser generoso; son ellos los que deberían serlo. Como no lo son, se excusan condenando el sistema.

(The morality of a society lies in the individual. Morality only exists in first person. Why accuse always the capitalist system? The capitalist system is not a person. How many people do you know who are selfish – like me and you – and yet complain about the “selfishness of the system”? The system doesn’t have to be generous; each one of us should be. Since most people are not generous, they excuse themselves accusing the system.)

-No, la globalización no es responsable de la pobreza del Tercer Mundo; más bien es lo contrario. Si los países ricos aceptaran abrir un poco más sus mercados a los productos africanos o sudamericanos, las economías de esas regiones irían infinitamente mejor.

(No, globalization is not responsible for the poverty of the Tird World; it’s actually the opposite. If rich countries opened their markets to African and South American countries, the economies of such regions would improve much.)

Plagiarism?