me on the bronx, visiting a friend of mine.
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we strolled around a BIG mall, to find some stuff for her new home. supersized chains. supersized ppl.
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gold bless america.

social niceties
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here in america, people are so polite that you have to use the thank you, i’m sorry and excuse me cards all the time.
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the good thing is that it really unties your karma, and makes you free to new heights. i know a lot of brazilian friends that prefer to die full of pride and regret than to recognize they’re wrong. the past haunts them precisely because they don’t accept it.
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below are some english/portuguese translations, classical and literal, side by side:
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in brazil, thank you is obrigado (or obrigada if you’re a woman). literally, it means i’m indebted to you. to thank means to recognize any good deed. to say obrigado says you admit you owesomething to the person. certainly nothing to be said carelesly. (some say arigato came from our obrigado, but i’m not sure)
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excuse me is com licença (the “ç” reads as “s”, like in french). so, grant me license (because obviously, you are in the way). for me, excuse means there’s something wrong with you to ask for some room, like if you are in an inferior position. although both agree the power is with the other one (hence the asking), in portuguese, you don’t apologize for the asking. in fact, you can ask as if it’s mandatory (dá licença), and you are just excercizing your right.
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i’m sorry is me desculpa. literally, unguilt me. come on, that’s sweeeeet. in english you are just relating your mood, but in portuguese, you are asking for forgiveness, to untie you and let you free again. you not only accept that you are guilty but understand and inform the only person that can set you free is the one you hurt. so, here in america you can say i’m sorry to nearly anything sad that happens to someone (because you are just showing that you are sympathetic to their loss). try to do it in portuguese, and it makes no sense at all - why should you apologize for something that’s is not your responsibility?

it was not enough to push a law like INDUCE act, that criminalizes any app that could be used to copyright infringement (like, ipods, cd-burners, backup solutions, and basically all the internet), lose the military papers about their own president.
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now, a federal system aims to mix commercial and state databases to find potential terrorists (or any other lame excuse their using now to peek into the private lives of their citizens).
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think about the name: Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or M.A.T.R.I.X.. yeah, after the blockbuster movie. doesn’t it sounds like the ultimate weapon of a lame arch-villain in a B-movie?
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plz, it’s not even scary anymore!

outfoxed
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every single subway ad here in NYC is written over by the users. i pay a lot of attention to the messages, because they tell me the american opinion better than the media conglomerates, and brings me relief, because people know what’s going on.
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this one i found on the lorimer station… it was an ad for fox news.
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the television here is sicken to the core. to compare american news and international news (both about america), you can realize how the american population has been living in a bubble, their opinion carefully controlled.

some links worth note
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• The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus [comic] in the same model of those silly xtian pamphlets, hilarious!
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• pornography, with pictures removed pornpix, with the bodies edited out. eerie! :)
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• John’s War [depoiment] from a “guy from the future”… i’m a sucker for those fringe depoiments… the concept of a new civil war in america fits like a glove on what i’ve been looking at… damn…
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• Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems [dictionary] from the principia cibernetica people (a bunch of serious transhumanists), to help you not to get lost in the buzzwords
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• Alice’s Adventures under Ground the original precursor of alice in wonderland, page by page
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• Fluidtime [concept] using cellphones to share & organize limited resources between members. that’s revolutionary

stakes are fucking high
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from paul krugman: “Mr. DeLay and his fellow hard-liners, whose values are far from the American mainstream, have forged an immensely effective alliance with corporate interests. And they may be just one election away from achieving a long-term lock on power.”

wi-fi kama sutra
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with a notebook, wi-fi card and no internet conenction at home, i’m exploring new places to work.
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first i was in the bryant park, nice and peaceful place, but now i’m in the chelsea piers. water. sun. wind. lovely.
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today is 4 july, and the fareheint-911 gives me hope american will rethink their dumb move. I would say “option” but i question the election). i didn’t see the movie, but jade did, and we discussed about it. and we drank wine, to the roots.
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(BTW, the 8 circuit theory of leary is here… we were addressing similarities between the 8 and 7 chakras)