O Homem que se Chamava Free Lolita Pictures

Queria escrever uma história em que um homem se chamava Free Lolita Pictures. Ele nunca conseguia usar o email, porque quando as pessoas liam o nome dele achavam que era spam. Daí Mr. Free Lolita Pictures ia para uma reunião de pessoas com o mesmo problema - onde encontrava Mr. Russian Rape Pics, Mr. Enlarge Your Penis, Mr. Enlarge Your Penis Jr., Mr. Your Girlfriend Told Me Your Dick is Too Small e Miss Nigerian Scam. Comiam bolachinhas e contavam seus problemas. Chorando, Mr. Free Lolita Pictures dizia que sua filha, a pequena Miss Free Lolita Pictures, sofria muito na escola nas mãos das meninas más; e depois dizia pensar em ir para um cartório e mudar os dois primeiros nomes da filha para Barely Legal, e tudo estaria resolvido. Mr. Russian Rape Pics, que queria ser chamado só de Mr. Pics (ou Russian para os íntimos), dizia que sempre tinha achado o nome Barely Legal a damned fine name, mas que queria trocar o nome da própria filha para Preggie Wife. Todos concordavam que Preggie Wife era um nome lindo - especialmente considerando-se que o nome da família do noivo dela era Sucking-Horses. Aí Miss Nigeriam Scam dizia, impressionada, que os Sucking-Horses eram uma família muito respeitada na Cornualha, com membros conhecidos das colunas sociais, como Lady Hot Model e Lord Bloody Faggot. No final, você sabe - aparecia um negão brasileiro chamado Oportunidade Imperdível e comia todo mundo, com madeleines.

emprestado pelo Alexandre Soares Silva

Bush Gives CIA Director More Power

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush signed executive orders and directives yesterday bolstering the authority of the CIA director over the nation's intelligence programs and budgets, signaling a renewed effort by the White House to shape the national security debate roiling Congress and the presidential campaign.



The White House characterized the changes as an interim step toward the naming of a national intelligence director, which must be done by legislation, and the administration signaled that it is prepared to move closer than previously indicated to the far-reaching recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.

In its best-selling report, released last month, the bipartisan panel advocated naming an intelligence director with broad powers to shape budgets and make personnel decisions across the government. Bush had previously endorsed such a position in name but had not indicated how much authority the person would have and disagreed that the director should work alongside the president.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the changes will "improve our ability to find, track and stop terrorists."

But Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), the Democratic vice presidential candidate, characterized the moves as an acknowledgement that Bush has "failed to enact the intelligence reform needed to keep our country safe."

"The proposal announced today does not get the job done," Edwards said in a statement. "Expanding the powers of the existing director of central intelligence is a far cry from creating a true national intelligence director with real control over personnel and budgets."

Among other things, the orders released publicly yesterday give the CIA director more direct control over the intelligence budgets of other departments, including defense. The orders give the CIA chief the ability to transfer funds between agencies or to halt spending that is not consistent with national security priorities.

The change is a blow to the Defense Department and a major boost for the embattled CIA, which is currently run by an acting director and has faced intense criticism in recent months for its handling of intelligence related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war. The head of the Senate intelligence committee, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), proposed legislation earlier this week to dismantle the agency.

Under Bush's interim plans, the acting CIA director, John E. McLaughlin, who replaced Director George J. Tenet, would have the power to approve or disapprove of items in the budgets of all 15 intelligence agencies, including a vast array of programs overseen by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The Pentagon controls about 80 percent of the nation's estimated $40 billion intelligence budget. Bush has nominated Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) to take the CIA post permanently.



Bush's orders yesterday also created a national counterterrorism center to oversee anti-terrorism efforts at home and abroad, called for devising standards "for secure and reliable forms of identification" for federal workers and contractors, and created a board within the Justice Department to monitor government laws and policies for civil liberties violations.

The orders, which amounted to an administration endorsement of many of the Sept. 11 commission's key recommendations, came on the same day that a leading Senate Republican issued some of the strongest criticism to date of the panel's proposals.

Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the senior Republican in the Senate, said the commission failed to adequately take into account the organization changes and improved coordination between intelligence agencies since the 2001 attacks.

"I don't see how it would be anything but a step backward to approve the 9/11 report," Stevens told reporters. "We need more consideration of the 9/11 report. I would hate to see it rushed to judgment."

He added that there had been "fantastic change" since Sept. 11, 2001, largely because "the walls are down" between agencies.

The leaders of the Senate Government Reform Committee, which is spearheading intelligence legislation in the Senate, also issued a joint statement playing down the importance of Bush's orders. Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and ranking Democratic member Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) said the changes were "important steps forward" but "are only steps and ultimately will not be able to substitute for the legislation we hope to move in a bipartisan fashion" by Oct. 1.

A senior White House official who briefed reporters declined to specify how much further the administration would go in giving a national intelligence director budget and personnel authority, which is likely to be strongly resisted by Rumsfeld and other department heads. Bush will support giving the director "all the power they need," said the official, who cannot be identified under the terms of a conference call with reporters.

In addition to increasing the power of the CIA director, Bush signed orders establishing a counterterrorism center that would encompass the duties of other entities formed since the 2001 attacks, including the CIA-run Terrorist Threat Integration Center. Other orders set guidelines for improved intelligence sharing among agencies.

Staff writer Dan Morgan contributed to this report.

editorial

O Gambá é uma revista diária de opiniões. De todo o tipo de opiniões. E por isso tem opinião própria que exercerá quando os seus editores estimem pertinente. Este é um desses casos.

A presidenta do Panamá decidiu anistiar cinco terroristas cubanos. É uma decisão sua. Mas é uma má decisão. É acima de tudo, uma decisão que num mundo post 11 de Setembro envia uma mensagem errada. Os cinco homens, ou pelo menos quatro deles, provocaram nos últimos 40 anos muitas lágrimas, sangue e desgostos a muitas familias cubanas, na ilha e em Miami, no Chile, na Guyana, em Barbados, na Coreia do Norte, no Panamá, nos Estados Unidos, na Venezuela, na Italia, na Polónia e em Portugal e Angola, sem esqueçer El Salvador e Nicarágua. Nalguns casos, os culpados foram levados aos tribunais e condenados, noutros foram absolvidos, mas nunca foi feita justiça às suas vitimas.

E, uma anistia não é nunca uma justiça para as vitimas dos algozes.

Os cinco estavam presos no Panamá desde o ano 2000 quando foram apanhados numa tentativa de assassinar um chefe de estado estrangeiro num país que não era o seu. Pondo assim em perigo a estabilidade democrática de um país como o Panamá, num momento em que todo o continente assiste a uma real força de vontade de aterse aos instrumentos de convivencia democrática.

Não há terrorismo bom nem terrorismo mau. O terrorismo é mau, venha de donde vier. Mas é pior ainda quando se envolve numa falsa vontade libertadora que visa unicamente a recuperação de espaços e a restauração de políticas que foram, manifestamente, desfeitas por vontade popular.

Hoje em dia, o poder não se conquista na ponta de uma espingarda, mas na boca das urnas. Qualquer tentativa de inverter estes valores deve ser condenada ao fracaso. Mas qualquer tentativa de prostituir eses valores baixo um manto de pretensa preocupação por direitos humanos é, acima de tudo, um insulto não só à inteligencia humana como à memória dos tombados em defesa da perpetuação da defesa dos direitos humanos.

A relação de Cuba com o Panamá não é milenar mas é intensa. Económica e politicamente. A maior parte do mandato de Moscoso decorreu dentro desse esquema. Ela nunca o renegou, possivelmente até que se deu conta que os panamianos estavam a ponto de deixar de lhe pagar as contas e decidiu o seu destino.

Obviamente a presidenta do Panamá, que sempre governou como quem toma conta da cozinha lá de casa, é soberana no seu próprio país; mas também as vítimas dos homens que ela perdoou teem o direito à indignação. Mireya Moscoso tomou a decisão de amnistiar cinco homens no final do seu mandato, quando não necesita sequer de tirar dividendos do seu gesto. Mireya Moscoso nunca tomaria essa decisão nem sequer no meio do seu mandato porque sabe perfeitamente que o seu país miserável, desprovisto de personalidade, precisa até de parceiros económicos como uma pequena ilha sem recursos económicos, que vive ao dia e paga fiado.

Mireya Moscoso não teve colhões para ser consecuente até ao fim. A ilha sempre se vai lembrar disso. E os Estados Unidos que ela tanto ama, e onde escolheu passar os seus últimos dias, também. E a vão desprezar.

O Gambá tem a certeza que Mireya Moscoso vai morrer profundamente só! [RF]

A Sofia

Rafters meld their lives into the Miami mosaic

By ANA VECIANA SUAREZ

Deep into the night, after his wife has gone to sleep and color beckons from the darkness, Sergio Lastres paints. He paints until his eyes can no longer focus. He paints until his limbs give out. He paints with fury, with grief, with all the nostalgia of a man who left his homeland behind.

His work is stacked up behind the furniture, lined against the stairs, hung from every available inch of wall -- a reminder, as if he needed it, that he is finally free to dream. In Cuba, he wasn't allowed to show his work, and if he was lucky enough to find paint or canvas, it was inevitably through the black market.

That is one reason he risked his life, leaving everything he had known behind: ``In Cuba, I couldn't breathe.''

Lastres, 39, was one of more 35,000 Cubans who left the island in homemade rafts in the summer of 1994, in the largest exodus since the 1980 Mariel boatlift. He and his wife, Elsa, 47, spent eight months at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, eight months during which Lastres painted to his heart's content. Living free in South Florida, he spends every hour outside work in a corner of his tiny living room in Hialeah putting thoughts and feelings into images.

VISIONARY: Sergio Lastres sits in front of a self-portrait

depicting him as a child, his journey to the United States,

and the mother he left behind in Cuba.

PETER ANDREW BOSCH/HERALD STAFF

He was typical of the exodus -- young, male, dissatisfied with a system that allowed no dissent and gave him minimal control of his life. A decade after taking to the sea, some of the rafters have been very successful; others have struggled mightily to adapt to an unknown way of life. The majority have managed to settle into a middle-class existence consisting of work, family and an abiding hope that they can soon bring over relatives they left behind.

Jorge del Rio, 39, a geographer in Cuba who is now running an environmental consulting firm, finally feels at home in Miami. Enel ''Tito'' Puentes, 38, managing to put his life together after a run-in with the law, now wants to make up for lost time.

HOLDING FAST TO DREAM

Once merely a hobby, painting is now Lastres' passion. Over nine years, the self-taught painter has been part of 40 shows in the United States and abroad. He has sold paintings for several thousand dollars and managed to pique art collectors' interest.

''I would like one day to live off my art, to have time to devote myself entirely to that,'' he said. ``I know it's a dream, but it is my dream.''

By day, he works for an interior design company painting murals and faux finishes. He likes his work, and he is elated finally to have an apartment he doesn't have to share with another family.

It wasn't always like this. When Elsa and Sergio arrived, they roomed with former neighbors from Havana. They walked to their jobs. Elsa studied to become a medical assistant. With savings, they bought an ancient Nissan that proved to be more bane than boon.

''One of the things we learned is that some people were taking advantage of the balseros who didn't know their way around,'' Sergio said, adding, ``Our own people.''

Housing was more difficult. They bunked with friends, with fellow balseros, even with in-laws of friends. At one point, they were both living in the Florida room of a family they had met through acquaintances. The family's teens played video games into the night while the Lastreses tried to sleep on a sofa. With one landlord, Elsa helped clean houses but was never paid.

''You feel impotent; you feel like nothing,'' Sergio recalls. ``You want to send money home to help your family, but you can barely survive here.''

The Lastreses tried to remain upbeat. ''After you survive in Cuba, anything else you do is comparatively easy,'' Elsa Lastres said. ``We told ourselves we couldn't doubt.''

RESHAPING A LIFE

But doubt haunted the balseros early on, even those who eventually made it. Jorge del Rio's optimism about his future is contagious now, but there were times, at the beginning, when he wondered whether he had done the right thing.

A geographer in Cuba, del Rio is the senior environmental scientist at Walsh Environmental. He is hoping soon to buy the consulting outfit. ''Where else but here can this happen?'' he gushed.


IN IT TOGETHER: Elsa Lastres watches her

husband, Sergio, paint in their Hialeah apartment.

'After you survive in Cuba, anything else you do is

comparatively easy,' she said of their early struggles

in the United States.

PETER ANDREW BOSCH/HERALD STAFF

Though born after the Castro revolution of 1959, del Rio remembers dreaming of the United States every time his relatives sent letters and photographs from abroad. It wasn't until college, however, that he became completely disillusioned with the communist system.

His first attempt to flee ended in his arrest. He was successful in his second attempt, in August 1994, after surviving a terrible storm at sea.

After Guantánamo, he worked as a handyman while studying English and computers at Miami Dade College. His computer skills eventually got him his first professional job, and slowly he moved up the ranks of Walsh Environmental.

''I was willing to sacrifice the job and the money for a while so I had the time to study,'' he said. ``It was the way to a better life.''

But the better life did not come easy. He lived in 15 places before finally buying a home in South Miami. During the first few years, he was often lonely for his family and the small fishing village where he had grown up.

''I missed the family very much, and everything I knew,'' he recalls, ``but one day I realized that this was home. I realized this was the natural place for me. After a while, it became so much part of me that I could have been born at Jackson.''

Del Rio has managed to bring over his sister, his parents and his grandmother. His brother, also a balsero, lives here, too.

Last time he went to Cuba, ``I was ready to come back after a few days. This is the place where an immigrant can start from zero and get somewhere.''

Along the way to somewhere, however, have been some stumbles -- figuratively and literally. Elsa and Sergio Lastres were finally getting on their feet after a series of low-paying jobs when an injury from a fall left Elsa unable to work. ''I'll come back from this,'' vows Elsa, who seems to wear a perpetual smile. ``We've come back from worse.''

HARD LESSONS LEARNED

For others, the stumbles have been even more serious.

Puentes tried to leave Cuba a dozen times before he and his then-wife succeeded in August 1994. Once in Miami, he worked at a series of jobs -- as a courier, in a kosher food establishment, selling Carico pots and pans -- before self-publishing a 330-page book of his experiences.


CONTENT:Jorge del Rio plays with his dog, Danny,

in front of his home. Del Rio, who was a geographer

in Cuba and now runs an environmental

consulting firm, says he finally feels at home in Miami.

PETER ANDREW BOSCH/HERALD STAFF

Guantánamo Bay 94: Dos Caras de una Misma Moneda Coin (Guantánamo Bay 94; Two Sides to the Same Coin) brought Puentes an unexpected measure of fame and fortune. He quit his job and bought a house, he said.

''It was a big thing for me, but I wasn't prepared for it,'' he now says. ``I didn't save, I didn't invest, and I spent it all.''

As the money began to run out, he gambled at the Miccosukee Resort and Gaming Casino in West Dade. When that didn't bring in enough cash, an acquaintance at the casino suggested another form of employment -- buying and selling luxury cars stolen in New York, their ID numbers altered, the cars shipped to Florida.

Accused of grand theft, among other charges, he said he worked out a deal in which he would make monthly restitution payments over a period of years. He was relieved at the opportunity to stay out of prison, but by then his wife had divorced him and his daughter, born in 1998, was growing up without him.

''It was stupid and unnecessary, a bad, bad mistake,'' he says, shaking his head. ''There are many legal ways to earn money here.'' A criminal record has proved to be a major stumbling block.

''One mistake, and the spot is there forever,'' he says, pressing his finger on a place mat for emphasis. ``All I want is a second chance. Everybody deserves a second chance.''

Slowly, Puentes is rebuilding his life. He works as a construction subcontractor, is engaged to be married and recently put a down payment on a house in Kendall that should be finished by March. He is adamant about not looking back and insists he has never harbored any nostalgia for Cuba.

''I can't lose any more time,'' he says. ``I'm ready for my new life. I still believe nothing is impossible in this country. You simply have to work hard at it.''

(C)2004 The Miami Herald

Passatempo

North Korea: "Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade."

SEOUL — North Korea today described President Bush as a "tyrannical political imbecile" — and said Pyongyang could see no justification for talks with his administration.

Six-party, working-level talks on the country's nuclear-weapons ambitions had been planned for this month, but have yet to materialize.

The September date for more senior talks is also in question, although diplomats note Pyongyang often raises its rhetorical voice before attending talks or compromising.

In a statement published by the official news agency, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bush had hurled "malignant slanders and calumnies" against Pyongyang's leadership under Kim Jong-Il.

"This clearly proves that [North Korea] was quite right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality as a human being and a bad guy, much less being a politician," the spokesman said.

"Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade."

Bush angered the North Koreans by saying in a campaign speech last Wednesday that he had made the decision to bring in other countries to help persuade Pyongyang not to produce nuclear weapons.

The North Korean spokesman said it had been impossible to hold working-level talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States because of hostile U.S. policy.

He said the latest comments had made matters worse.

Some North Korea analysts say the bluster masks Pyongyang's true aim: to bide its time until it is clear whether Bush or John Kerry is elected in November.
Reuters

Não se riam, mas isto dito pelo regíme estalinista de Pyongyang até tem a sua piáda. É como este outdoor que apareceu esta semana numa esquina de Miami. [RF]

Opción Cero

Senate Republicans Propose Dismantling CIA

by Michael J. Sniffen

Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans proposed removing the nation's largest intelligence gathering operations from the CIA and the Pentagon and putting them directly under a new national intelligence director.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., the committee chairman, unveiled on Sunday the most sweeping intelligence reorganization proposal offered by anyone since the Sept. ll commission called for major changes. In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Roberts acknowledged that full details had yet to be shared with either the White House or with Senate Democrats.



"We didn't pay attention to turf or agencies or boxes" but rather to "what are the national security threats that face this country today," Roberts said of the bill endorsed by eight GOP members of the intelligence committee. "I'm trying to build a consensus around something that's very different and very bold."

But he immediately ran into some resistance from a Democrat on his own committee. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said that before appearing with Roberts on the CBS show neither he nor the committee's ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, had seen the full proposal.

"I think it would be better to start on a bipartisan basis," Levin said. "I think it's a mistake to begin with a partisan bill no matter what is in it."

The commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks called for a powerful national intelligence director who could force the nation's many agencies to cooperate.

Up to now the debate has focused on how much power to give that official rather than on retooling agencies. Most Democrats have supported the commission's proposal that the new director have authority over hiring and spending by the intelligence agencies. President Bush has endorsed creating the position but has not reached a final decision on what powers the office should have.

Roberts said his aides had spoken with White House officials and would share the details of his proposal with them on Monday.

Roberts' bill would take the CIA's three main directorates -- Operations, which runs intelligence collection and covert actions; Intelligence, which analyzes intelligence reports; and Science and Technology -- and puts them into new, separate and renamed agencies, each reporting to a separate assistant national intelligence director. It also would remove three of the largest intelligence agencies from the Pentagon.

Although the measure would essentially dismantle the CIA, Roberts said in a paper he released: "We are not abolishing the CIA. We are reordering and renaming its three major elements."

"No one agency, no matter how distinguished its history, is more important than U.S. national security," the paper said.

Equally drastic changes were proposed at the Pentagon.

The nation's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency, which intercepts electronic signals around the world, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes satellite pictures, would be removed from the Pentagon and put under direct control of an assistant national intelligence director for collection.

The Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence collection activity would become a separate agency, like the former CIA directorate of operations.

Both would report to the same assistant national intelligence director for collection. This official also would have direct line control over the FBI's counterintelligence and counterterrorism units, although they would continue to operate within the FBI administratively and would still be subject to attorney general guidelines.

The Pentagon's huge National Reconnaissance Office, which operates spy satellites, would work under an assistant national intelligence director for Research, Development and Acquisition. That same assistant would also run the CIA's former directorate of science and technology as an independent agency called the Office of Technical Support.

In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld advised moving cautiously in restructuring the intelligence community.

"If we move unwisely and get it wrong, the penalty would be great," Rumsfeld said. "We would not want to place new barriers or filters between military combatant commanders and those agencies when they perform as combat-support agencies."

Perhaps mindful of that warning, Roberts' plan would create a separate assistant national intelligence director for military support and a four-star director of military intelligence who would run Defense Department tactical intelligence units and report directly to the defense secretary.

Michael J. Sniffen is a Associated Press Writer

President Bush Reacts to US Intelligence Reform Proposal

Armed Men Snatch Munch's 'Scream' and 'Madonna'

OSLO - In a dramatic daytime raid, two masked robbers forced an employee at the Munch Museum to take down a version of "The Scream" and another important work, "Madonna," at gunpoint. They escaped from the scene in a car driven by a third man.

The pictures, worth millions of dollars, were cut from their frames which were found discarded and broken later in another part of the city.

"A female employee of the museum was threatened with a handgun and forced to take down two pictures," said police spokeswoman Hilde Walsoe. "They took two paintings, 'The Scream' and 'Madonna.' "

'The Scream' is regarded by many as Munch's most important work and an icon of existentialist angst.

"No one has been physically injured, and the suspects escaped in an Audi A6. We are searching for the suspects with all available means," Walsoe told The Associated Press. “We found the escape car, and we have found many pieces of the frames."

Police cordoned off the area, informed Interpol and alerted airports and border crossings in the hunt to track down the thieves who snatched the Munch masterpieces, Reuters reported. A helicopter hovered around the area in search of clues to the getaway.

Many museum visitors panicked and thought they were being attacked by terrorists.

"He was wearing a black face mask and something that looked like a gun to force a female security guard down on the floor," visitor Marketa Cajova told NTB public radio.

"What's strange is that in this museum, there weren't any means of protection for the paintings, no alarm bell," Castang told France Inter radio.

"The paintings were simply attached by wire to the walls," he said. "All you had to do is pull on the painting hard for the cord to break loose, which is what I saw one of the thieves doing."

Castang said police arrived on the scene 15 minutes later. Visitors were ushered into the museum's cafeteria.

"We don't have all the details on the situation, but we are searching for the suspects in the air and on land," Police Spokesman Kjell Moerk told the public radio network NRK.

Art experts said Munch produced four versions of "The Scream." The stolen version consists of tempera and pastel on board.

It was the second time in 10 years that "The Scream" has been stolen. Another, and perhaps better-known version, of the painting was taken from Norway's National Gallery in a break-in in February 1994, on the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

A $1 million ransom was refused by the government, but the picture, which is on fragile paper, was retrieved undamaged nearly three months later and remains in that gallery. Three Norwegians were arrested.

The other two versions are in storage at the Munch Museum.

Munch, who lived from 1863 to 1944 and who was a founder of modern expressionism, made several copies of his key works, including "The Scream." He painted the work in 1893, as part of his "Frieze of Life" series, in which sickness, death, anxiety and love are central themes.

In the foreground of the picture, on a road with railings, is a figure hands raised to his head, eyes staring, mouth agape. Further back are two men in top hats and behind them a landscape of fjord and hills in wavy lines against a deep red sunset.

The stolen “Madonna” was painted in 1893-1894, depicting an eroticized madonna with a blood-red halo in a dark, swirling aura. Munch later produced woodcut lithographs with a similar depiction.

The National Art Museum owns 58 paintings by Munch.

Chipping Away at the Wall

by DAHLIA LITHWICK

Nearly 80 years ago in Dayton, Tenn., an epic trial pitted the literal truth of the Bible against modern science. And when the Scopes monkey trial concluded, the presiding judge closed the proceedings as he'd opened them each day - with a prayer.

In his wonderful book, "Summer for the Gods," Edward J. Larson paints a picture of America in the mid-1920's that's oddly familiar: torn between modernism and religious fundamentalism, Americans felt an old-time burning need for a burning bush. Horrified by the moral and cultural declines of the Jazz Age, they turned away from internationalism and intellectualism.

Welcome to 2004 and "Summer for the Gods Part 2: Revenge of the Public Officials." In a new wave of religious fervor, we resent that secular courts have chased God out of the public square. Again we want public institutions to carry water for our churches. And again, public officials happily flout the law to advance personal religious agendas. Consider:

In Horry County, N.C., last week, local officials opened their council meeting with a prayer to Jesus, despite the fact that the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had ruled the practice unconstitutional. "This is a nation that gives us great freedoms: freedom of religion, not freedom from religion," said the council chairwoman.

A Republican congressman called for a civil rights investigation last week, after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill declined to recognize a Christian fraternity for refusing to accept non-Christian members. Every other student group on campus is held to the university's nondiscrimination policy. The basis of the complaint: Such policies discriminate against Christians' right to religious freedom and association.

During the recent confirmation hearing of a federal judge, J. Leon Holmes, several senators - concerned by his religious writings - questioned whether his extreme views would prevent him from applying existing civil rights and abortion law. Holmes's supporters countered that the Senate is anti-Christian, that federal judges cannot constitutionally be subject to "litmus tests."

The Defense Department confirmed last week that a senior military intelligence official violated internal rules by giving speeches, mostly at Baptist or Pentecostal churches, in which he said that America is a "Christian nation," depicted President Bush as having been anointed by God, and described the war on terror as a battle against "Satan."

Add these incidents to the national furor over the amputation of "God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, and the president's decision to hobble stem cell research for religious reasons, and it's clear there is a growing wave of public officials convinced that their own, personal religious freedom renders the notion of a wall between church and state personally offensive and legally irrelevant.

The twin religious protections enshrined in the First Amendment - that one can freely exercise one's religion, and that the government cannot establish a state religion - are forced onto a collision course when public officials insist their personal religious freedom allows them to promote sectarian views in office. Yet with ever-increasing shrillness, we hear from elected or appointed officials that it's religious persecution to ask them to suspend sectarian prayer or practices on the bench, in the legislature or at the schoolhouse gate.

To be sure, the courts have made a hash of the First Amendment religion jurisprudence. A crèche on government property is constitutional so long as the manger includes a Malibu Barbie; and state aid to religious schools is constitutional if it's triangulated through the alchemy of parental choice. But the courts have not backed down from the principle that imposing sectarian religion in the public square violates the Constitution. Religious Americans have every right to insist they shouldn't have to be religious in the closet. But that doesn't give public officials some free-floating constitutional right to exercise their religion at the expense of everyone they ostensibly serve.

At the end of the monkey trial, H. L. Mencken wrote that Tennessee had seen "its courts converted into camp meetings and its Bill of Rights made a mock of by its sworn officers of the law." We are there again. Maybe the judge and the jury were right to convict Mr. Scopes for teaching something so absurd as Darwinism. We haven't evolved one bit.

Dahlia Lithwick, is a senior editor at Slate.

Religion Feeds Sudan's Fire

By MARC LACEY

FURBURANGA, Sudan - In the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, the killers pray toward Mecca. The million displaced people do as well. Marauding men on horseback, the women raped by them, the rebels who incited the fighting and the politicians, soldiers and police officers who have failed to control it, nearly all are Muslim.


An unidentified man turned to Mecca to pray at dusk in the desert just outside a

displaced persons camp near Abushouk, Sudan. Muslims from opposing sides met

in Furburanga to air views of the conflict.

There was the man from one of Darfur's African tribes who walked into an empty field near the refugee camp he now calls home and prayed - for life to return to normal, for his family's suffering to end, for his fear to dissipate. He stood, then knelt, then touched his forehead to a small mat, and the despair around him faded, he said, if only for a moment.

But at some of the burned-out villages that now scar Darfur's landscape there are signs of disregard for religion - charred pages from Korans scattered in the rubble, makeshift mosques leveled.

Sudan has a history of Christian-Muslim frictions and war. A rebel movement in the south, dominated by Christians, has fought the Islamic government in Khartoum for decades, largely over religious freedom. That conflict now appears to be petering out, partly because of involvement of the United States.

But instead of peace, Sudan is now mired in a grievous conflict in Darfur. Political rivalries, ethnic strife and poverty have fueled the clashes - but that has not stopped combatants from invoking religion and challenging the devotion of their rivals.

In the long history of the Muslims, "it is not uncommon for people to question each other's version of Islam," said Arif Shaikh, a representative of Islamic Relief U.S.A. who visited Darfur in April. "But this is really a political, not a religious, dispute. So much animosity has built up, and that's why it's gotten to this level."

While the Muslims fight, many Sudanese revert to their historic grudges, directed against Christians, the United States and foreigners in general.

Inside the mosques of Khartoum, which follow the Sunni branch of Islam, there has been plenty of discussion about Darfur but little success at finding a way to end the bloodshed. No religious leader has yet publicly chastised the combatants, either Arab or African. But America-bashing, long a theme at Friday Prayer, is as fierce as ever.

"We caution our people in Sudan and our people in western Sudan against trusting the U.S.A., that it wants to help them," an imam, Abd-al-Jalil al-Nathir al-Karuri, said in a sermon broadcast on television in early August. "What is being done now is for the interests of one country - Israel."

Another imam, Isam Ahmad al-Bashir, in a sermon translated from Arabic by the BBC, urged his followers at another Friday Prayer service to resist foreign intervention.

"We must all say, irrespective of our different affiliations and leanings, races and groups, a resounding 'no' to foreign intervention, which is lying in wait for our people," he said. "This is an issue that requires no bargaining. Divinity, morality and humanity is required in denouncing all forms of foreign intervention or we will be committing treason against God, religion and country."

Sudan has much experience with religious war. The continuing conflict with the Christians began in 1983 after the president at the time, Gaafar al-Nimeiry, began a campaign to make the country adhere more closely to Islamic law; his effort included amputations as punishments for theft and public lashings for alcohol consumption.

The current president, Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, took over in a coup six years later. He replaced non-Muslim judges in the south with Muslims and applied Shariah penalties to many non-Muslims in Khartoum and parts of the north. He also characterized the government's battle with southern rebels as a jihad.

The questions remain today: should Shariah, the Islamic legal code, apply to southerners who are not Muslim? Or should the government, dominated by Muslims, accommodate varying faiths?

Peace negotiations for the south that have been under way in Kenya have reached compromises: Shariah would remain in effect in Khartoum, under the tentative deal the two sides have signed, but the south would have its own legal code. Another agreement would give southerners the ability to hold a referendum for self-rule sometime in the future.

Some trace the conflict in Darfur to a power struggle among top Muslim leaders in Khartoum.

In 1999, Mr. Bashir stripped his rival, Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamic hard-liner, of his positions as speaker of the Parliament and leader of the governing party. Two years later, Mr. Turabi was arrested and charged with being a threat to national security for signing a peace deal with the southern rebels.

After his release, Mr. Turabi founded the Popular Congress Party and reached out for support to the Muslim black African populations of Darfur. Before being jailed again in March, he acknowledged supporting the rebels of Darfur. "We support the cause, no doubt about it," he told the United Nations news agency in December. "I didn't say I'm involved with the fighting," he added. "I said we have relations with some of the leadership."

Those rebels attacked the government, igniting the outburst of violence in Darfur. The government responded by unleashing militias, known as Janjaweed, on the rebels. Political analysts said it was Mr. Bashir's vice president, Osman Ali Taha, who was instrumental in developing the government's military strategy in Darfur. He was also given the task of striking a peace deal with the southern rebels. Once a protégé of Mr. Turabi, he is now a rival leader among Sudan's hard-line Islamists. "The personal rivalry between Vice President Taha and his ex-mentor Turabi for control of the Islamist movement and the country is being played out in Darfur, with civilians as the main victims," said a report published by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research center that has studied the origins of Darfur's war.

Here in Furburanga, a village just six miles from the Chad border, about a dozen sheiks gathered recently to explain their view of the violence. The Africans sat on one side and the Arabs clustered on the other.



An Arab sheik spoke first, saying the conflict could be resolved without outside involvement if everyone would simply follow the principles of Islam. "Prophet Muhammad says in the Koran that Muslims should talk and discuss and solve our problems," he said. "The Islamic religion has as its principle to love and be peaceful."

He then questioned the religious conviction of some combatants, particularly the black African rebels.

An African sheik spoke next. He questioned the devotion to Islam of those in the government-backed militias who attacked his people. He said he searched for a divine reason in all that had occurred.

"God has punished us," he said. "We just have to figure out why."

The Alchemy of a Political Slogan

By ALEX WILLIAMS

BY Nov. 2, fewer and fewer Republicans may be talking about John Edwards's former career as a trial lawyer, at least so says one Republican pollster. They will, however, be more than happy to talk about Mr. Edwards's past as a "personal-injury lawyer."


BRAIN PICKERS A focus group run by Doar, a Lynbrook, N.Y., company. Such

groups have given the country "climate change" for "global warming."

"A `trial lawyer' is someone you see on television during prime time, like one of the characters from `Law & Order,' " said Frank Luntz of the Luntz Research Companies in Alexandria, Va., who has been supplying Republicans with lethal locutions harvested from focus groups since working with Newt Gingrich on the Contract With America. "A `personal injury lawyer' is the person you see on TV at 1:30 in morning, saying to call him if you want to sue someone. A `trial lawyer' is O.K. It suggests you have a skill. A `personal injury' lawyer suggests you're a shyster."

Mr. Edwards, however, who happens to be one of the first trial lawyers (or whatever) in North Carolina to use focus groups to predict how testimony might play to a jury, generally avoids the phrase entirely when describing himself. "Trial lawyer" is often used by the political right to suggest a group that is antibusiness.

If you are a politician, perhaps nothing is more important than defining yourself before the opposition does, and one way you do so is with the words you choose.

If some Americans found it odd that Gov. James E. McGreevey of New Jersey chose to out himself using mannered terminology — "I am a gay American," as opposed to "I am gay" — they should not have. He did not choose it. As widely reported, it was supplied by a gay rights organization, which long ago tested it in focus groups as a way of shifting a public debate about sexual orientation to one about equal rights. In the same fashion, if voters find it strange that talk among Republicans in the presidential race changes mysteriously from "drilling for oil" to "exploring for oil," they will have focus groups to thank. Similarly, phrases like "climate change" and "death tax" entered into the public discourse only after the careful scrutiny of social scientists.

Focus groups are hardly new to American politics, but they have taken on new relevance in a country where the ideological divide — whether about gay marriage or John Kerry versus George W. Bush — has grown into a chasm, bridged only by a narrow group of undecided voters who may ultimately decide the issue. In such a landscape, it becomes increasingly crucial to test key phrases with the very people who might ultimately make the difference, if not to lift the words directly.

Focus groups, like many other modern political tools, have their origins on Madison Avenue. For decades, advertising copywriters have used them to vet slogans for products like laundry detergents, and Hollywood executives have relied on them to select endings for summer blockbusters. In the political world they were first used to test whether campaign ads were clear and compelling.

Despite often shadowy connotations, focus groups are simply small gatherings of regular people sitting around talking. Usually about a dozen, selected as representative of a particular demographic group, will sit with a moderator whose goal it is to prod them into candid debate on prescribed topics. The point, essentially, is to let the pollster hear their thoughts, and to give him a crash course in that demographic group's distinct vernacular.

"What you want is not only how your side views the issue but how the other side does," said Costas Panagopoulos, the executive director of the political campaign management program at New York University. "That way you can co-opt it and use it to your advantage."

Which is not to say that the parties themselves are eager to advertise that, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of "Packaging the Presidency" (Oxford University, 1997). The millions they spend to build their rhetorical arsenals would be wasted if the public knew explicitly what it suspects, that most political language is as processed as Velveeta.

Still, a savvy observer's head tends to cock, like a fox terrier hearing a high whistle, when he or she hears a few strains of distilled focus groupese. "Repetition is a clue," said Ms. Jamieson, who has moderated such groups. "It's safe to say that when you hear a phrase first in a speech, then it's repeated in ads and elsewhere, that it's been tested." To her ear, Mr. Bush's use of the phrase "turning the corner" sounds labored, unlike, say, Mr. Kerry's more generally extemporaneous promises of a more "sensitive" foreign policy. "It wasn't a smart choice of words, and it wasn't repeated," Ms. Jamieson explained.

With strong ties to Madison Avenue, Ms. Jamieson said, Republicans have tended to be at least one election cycle ahead of Democrats in adopting the latest marketing techniques, going back to the Eisenhower years. In the words of Lou Cannon, the Ronald Reagan biographer, Reagan experimented with "distant ancestors of focus groups" when running for governor of California in 1966. And they became de rigueur after Lee Atwater, the campaign manager for the first President Bush, began exulting about how extraordinarily the Willie Horton ads had tested.

While Democratic pollsters like Stanley B. Greenberg achieved minor celebrity working for Bill Clinton, Republicans continued to spin out poll-tested language as deadly as hollow-point bullets. It was focus groups that inspired Republicans to replace the phrase "tax cuts"— something an, ugh, politician provides — with "tax relief." Who could not use a little relief?

It was focus groups who reframed the "estate tax" as some odious-sounding affliction called the "death tax."

Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, recalls when it was suddenly no longer fashionable for Republicans to speak of Democratic congressmen. "It was `Democrat congressman,' " she said. "That's not even grammatically correct, but for some reason, it was considered more effective."

But the Democrats have tallied victories as well. In the early 1990's, Democratic pollsters were surprised to learn that the phrase "religious right" was not effective in scaring moderates, said Celinda Lake, a pollster with Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates, who is working for groups like Planned Parenthood and America Coming Together, a Democratic umbrella advocacy organization. This was in part because many people think "right" means "correct," whatever the context. What seems wrong to them is "extremism" — hence the sudden emphasis on "religious extremists."

"Global warming," Ms. Lake said, ran into similar confusion. "Every time we'd use the term in the winter, people would say, `It doesn't feel that warm to me,' " Ms. Lake recalled. So the talk these days is about "climate change," which sounds scarily permanent.

Activist groups have also found that the opposition can be useful in supplying the ammunition needed to beat it.

Governor McGreevey's phrase arose in focus groups run by pollsters like Ms. Lake and Geoffrey D. Garin, the president of Peter D. Hart Research Associates, for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based group, following what it considered the disastrous battle of gays in the military in the early 90's. "The problem was the rhetoric was all wrong," said Steven Fisher, the organization's communications director. "Gays had always talked about either sexual liberation or special rights, implying that they wanted something over and above what everyone else got. We adopted the phrase `gay American,' to neutralize the perceptions of otherness."

The main catchphrase of Naral Pro-Choice America — "Who decides?" — was originally blurted out by a woman at a focus group, Elizabeth Cavendish, the organization's interim president, said.

Activists of all types have learned similar lessons. In policy debates about the poor, Mr. Garin said, "any phrase that includes `working,' such as `the working poor' turns out to be increasingly credible — phrases that connote effort and responsibility. People are willing to do a lot once you've crossed the threshold of individuals making the best efforts on their own."

But not everyone is sold on modern scientific methods of rhetorical divination that would seem alien to Reagan, let alone to Cicero.

Kenneth L. Khachigian, a longtime Republican speechwriter who worked for both Richard M. Nixon and Reagan, insists that he never saw any language for a Reagan speech milled into a fine dust by pollsters before it was delivered (though Richard Wirthlin, the Reagan pollster, ran focus groups on speeches after the fact).

"If you took a focus group and told them that Jimmy Carter was going to attack Reagan on Social Security, and Reagan was going to respond, `There you go again,' you probably would have assumed he'd lose," Mr. Khachigian said by telephone from his office in San Clemente, Calif. "But you couldn't have tested the way Reagan was going to say it, the tone of voice, the look on his face."

"It brings to mind something Richard Nixon used to always preach to me," Mr. Khachigian added. "Politics is not prose, it's poetry."

Diego Luna: Tequila Sundown

MEXICAN STAR, RISING Diego Luna heading to dinner with Martha Sosa.


By STRAWBERRY SAROYAN

LOS ANGELES - DIEGO LUNA walked into the bar at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel the other day looking like a young matador crossed with a hip-hop star. He hugged Rafael Inclán and Martha Sosa, his co-star and the producer of his new movie, "Nicotina."

"I've known him since he was this high," Ms. Sosa, 40, said, gesturing to single-digit height. While Mr. Inclán had not met the 24-year-old Mr. Luna until recently, their smiles showed a connection.

Mr. Luna, who first made an impression on American moviegoers playing a sexy adolescent in "Y Tu Mamá También," had flown from Mexico City, where he lives, for a whirlwind 48-hour visit to Los Angeles. He had arrived on Sunday for a series of interviews that continued through Monday. He was leaving the next morning. Unwinding, Mr. Luna and Ms. Sosa ordered tequila and Mr. Inclán, 63, had a glass of white wine, whose chill made little bubbles on the outside of the glass.

"Nicotina," which opened on Friday, is only one of Mr. Luna's current films. He stars with Maggie Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly in "Criminal," which will open on Sept. 10. Though both are about lawbreakers, he plays different types. In "Nicotina," he is a lonely hacker who declares his love and is shattered irrevocably by a nearly silent encounter through a doorway with a girl, sending him deeper into the complications of a diamond heist. In "Criminal," a caper set in Los Angeles, a remake of the Argentine "Nueve Reinas" ("Nine Queens"), he plays a small-time bunco artist.

As the three friends sipped their drinks, Mr. Luna turned to Ms. Sosa, who was dressed in a silk dress and shawl. "You look beautiful," he said.

"I had to. I was having drinks with Diego Luna," she teased.

Their attention then turned to Mr. Inclán, who spoke English occasionally.

"If you go into the kitchen in any restaurant in L.A. and if there's a Mexican, ask, `Do you know Rafael Inclán?' " Mr. Luna said, making the point that his friend was a well-known movie star in Mexico.

After their drinks, they headed to Frida, a nearby Mexican restaurant. As they glided down Beverly Boulevard, Mr. Luna offered a pet theory: "The best Mexican food you can get is at the markets. It has to be a bit dirty to taste well. If it's too clean ——"

Ms. Sosa cut in, "Not dirty. . . ."

Mr. Luna then asserted, "The best tacos are the ones you eat standing up." They all nodded.

At the restaurant, they chose a table near the bar, where the chairs were stool-high.

"It's really close to eating a taco standing up," Mr. Luna said happily.

With tuna tostadas and rib-eye tacos on the table, Mr. Luna brought up his next film, which he was heading back to Mexico City to continue working on in the morning.

"It's a movie called — the translation would be `Only God Knows,' " he said, adding, "It's a love story between a Brazilian art teacher and a Mexican journalist."

Before long, Mr. Luna — who had been a bit rushed all evening — realized it was time for him to go. Ms. Sosa whipped out her camera. She wanted to get a shot of her two friends. They smiled, and Ms. Sosa smiled back at them. Then the movie stars — one old-style Mexican and the other as new-style Mexican as he could be — looked straight into the light.

Grande Otelo, de último aluno a primeiro ator

De nada adiantou a Grande Otelo ter caído nas graças de Orson Welles. Nem ter emprestado seu talento a uma centena de filmes e a outros tantos espetáculos. E, muito menos, ter ajudado a criar a Atlântida. O descaso com que o ator vinha sendo tratado nos anos antes de morrer, em 1993, reflete-se hoje no estado em que se encontra seu acervo. Não é preciso mexer muito nele para encontrar metáforas do esquecimento: o troféu que Otelo receberia em Nantes, na França, caso não tivesse tido um infarto no aeroporto de Paris, está quebrado. Dele, resta apenas o pedestal em que se lê “A Grande Otelo, pour sa contribuition au cinéma des 3 continents”. E um desenho daquele que devia ser o troféu inteiro.



Sem ter onde guardá-lo e muito menos como catalogar o acervo, Carlos, Pratinha, Jaciara e Mário, os quatro filhos vivos de Otelo acabaram deixando-o no apartamento de um amigo da família, na Tijuca. E nunca mais ninguém soube o que havia naquelas 60 caixas de papelão. Até agora.

Acervo será catalogado e digitalizado

Na sexta-feira retrasada, tudo o que Otelo guardava em seu apartamento em Copacabana antes de morrer saiu do quartinho onde passou os últimos anos e foi para a Sarau, produtora que, a partir de agora, cuidará, graças a um patrocínio de R$ 249 mil da Petrobras, da conservação, catalogação e digitalização do acervo. A mudança foi registrada pelo cineasta Evaldo Mocarzel, que está trabalhando num documentário sobre Otelo. E pelo GLOBO, que também acompanhou esta semana a abertura das caixas e o primeiro levantamento feito por Andréa Alves e Ana Luisa Lima, sócias da Sarau, do seu conteúdo.

Depois de dois dias, ficou claro que, apesar de muito cansativo — os filhos não se preocuparam em organizar o acervo antes de encaixotá-lo — o trabalho promete ser gratificante. Não há uma só faceta de Otelo que não possa ser esmiuçada com a ajuda do acervo. A começar por sua vida pessoal. Na caixa reservada às fitas cassetes, ao lado de gravações de artistas queridos a Otelo, como Carmen Miranda e Nelson Gonçalves, há dezenas de entrevistas. Numa delas, dada ao pesquisador Jairo Severiano, o ator explica como, de Sebastião Bernardes de Souza Prata, passou a ser chamado Grande Otelo. Tudo começou, como narra a Severiano, em São Paulo.

“Como Abigail, filha de Yara Isabel, que tinha me adotado, era nova, eu costumava acompanhá-la nas aulas de canto. De tanto ouvi-la, aprendi ‘La bohême’ e o maestro me testou, disse que eu era um tenorinho e que um dia cantaria a ópera ‘Otelo’”, lembra o ator, que, dali para frente, passou a ser chamado de Otelo. “Quando vim para o Rio e passei a trabalhar com Jardel Jércolis, ele achou que Pequeno Otelo não chamaria a atenção, mas que se me anunciasse como Grande Otelo e depois aparecesse eu, pequeno, isso já era uma piada”.

Não só em entrevistas, mas sempre que podia, Otelo tentava organizar a sua trajetória. Mais do que um currículo, o ator escrevia esboços de autobiografia. No acervo, há dezenas de anotações. Das mais prolixas, em que Otelo lembra o que fez ano a ano, às mais concisas, como uma dividida em décadas escrita em 20 de maio de 1986, em que lista as passagens pela Companhia Negra de Revistas (década de 20), Companhia Jardel Jércolis (década de 30), Cassino da Urca (década de 40), entre outras.

Graças a estes esboços, o pesquisador Sérgio Cabral, que foi convidado pela Sarau para escrever a biografia do Otelo, vai poder tirar dúvidas sobre a trajetória do artista. Em um de seus textos, Otelo esclarece, por exemplo, que a data que aparece em sua certidão como sendo a do nascimento é, na verdade, a do batismo.



“Não sei a data exata em que nasceu o Bastiãozinho”, escreve ele em terceira pessoa. “Sei que nasceu e foi batizado, por isso o aniversário dele é no dia do batismo — 18 de outubro — lá por volta de 1915, na cidade de S. Pedro de Uberabinha”.

Nos esboços, Otelo fala de sua passagem pelo Liceu Coração de Jesus, em São Paulo. Mas não entra em detalhes, limitando-se a dizer que “esta é outra história”. Talvez estivesse se referindo ao fato de não ser exatamente um bom aluno, como atesta o boletim de 1933. Com exceção de um dez em química, de um oito em inglês e de um sete em ginástica, as notas variavam entre zero e 60, fazendo dele, numa turma de 37 alunos, o trigésimo-sexto.

Roberta Oliveira/O Globo

... da coluna do Ancelmo Goes

Olha o Lula indo...

O novo Airbus de Lula foi comprado com a justificativa de que podia fazer vôos intercontinentais sem parar para reabastecer. Mas, agora, num teste, descobriram que a pista do Aeroporto de Brasília é curta para decolagem com tanque cheio. ...

Olha o Lula vindo...

Das duas, duas: ou o novo Airbus de Lula vai fazer baldeação para abastecer ou será preciso aumentar a pista de Brasília. Até sexta, a decisão era aumentar a pista. Mas, até a obra ficar pronta, o novo avião, como o do velho Sucatão 707, continuará fazendo parada intermediária.

Realismo nacional

por JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO

Vivendo e não aprendendo. Volta e meia, se bem deva ressaltar que é nas ocasiões em que me acho provocado ou convocado, tenho uns ataques de indignação a que dou vazão por escrito. E aí, no dia da publicação, retorna a sensação que me acompanha desde que peguei experiência em jornalismo: coisa mais besta, não adianta nada ficar falando ou reclamando, nunca adiantou. Sim, claro que, em oportunidades especiais (ou “tópicas” — tenho lido muito esta palavra e não sei bem o que querem dizer com ela, mas soa chique e resolvi usá-la, também sou filho de Deus), escrever sobre algum problema ajudou a resolvê-lo. Mas somente o problema, não a situação que o causou ou o estado de coisas em que sempre vivemos, embora piorado nos últimos anos. (Não estou falando mal do governo agora; olá, pessoal que adora ler nas entrelinhas, não tem entrelinha nenhuma, não estou falando mal do governo, estou falando da vida em geral nos anos mais recentes, garanto a vocês.)

Por mais que tente e faça conferências aos amigos e a mim mesmo sobre como é burrice ficar dando murro em ponta de faca, em vez de cuidar da vida como todo mundo de juízo, insisto nos maus hábitos. Dei até para achar que o dr. Fernando Henrique estava coberto de razão em descrever e anatematizar a categoria dos catastrofistas. Como muitas vítimas de certas enfermidades incapacitantes, passei por um longo período de negação, mas a verdade é que me descobri um catastrofista. Que me reste pelo menos a coragem de discutir em público problema tão toldado pelo preconceito, considerado tabu e até mantido em sigilo pelos familiares do padecente. O fato é inegável, eu sou um catastrofista e não sei se já criaram os Catastrofistas Anônimos, mas, se criaram, bem que eu podia freqüentá-los.

Vou combater o catastrofismo, não chegarei ao fundo do poço. E a Providência, sempre atenta aos necessitados, já me socorreu, acho que nem precisarei de outra ajuda. No domingo passado, encontrava-me eu no boteco, na distinta companhia de diversos notáveis cujos nomes a modéstia me impede de citar, principiando um comício sobre a decisão que, segundo li nos jornais, proíbe que as prestações de crediários sejam pagas em dinheiro. Vão ter que ser pagas em cheque, cartão, qualquer instrumento bancário. Isso invalida o curso livre da moeda nacional como meio de pagamento e obriga os pobres a ter contas bancárias. Todos pagarão taxas bancárias e CPMF, para quitar suas prestações. Coisa absurda, comecei a blaterar, mais uma manobra para dar dinheiro aos bancos e aumentar a arrecadação. Mas, assim que comecei a falar, fui gentilmente interrompido por um companheiro, que me fez ver não ser bom para minha pressão arterial ficar tão indignado assim. Naquele mesmo domingo, esta coluna já tinha saído meio belicosa. Nesse passo eu ia acabar tendo uma morte fora de moda, por apoplexia. Já pensara eu em que notícia desairosa? “Imortal morre de apoplexia.” Ia pegar mal, apoplexia não se usa mais. Muito chato para a imagem da Academia, ainda mais a troco de nada.

— Me diz uma coisa — falou o sábio companheiro —, você está vendo alguém ligando para esses negócios que deixam você tão fora de seu normal, que é tão bem-humorado? Alguém está ligando?

— Eu estou ligando, muita gente está ligando, o povo todo está ligando, qualquer um pode constatar isso.

— Você me desculpe, eu tenho grande respeito intelectual por você, não vai nisto nenhum demérito, mas é o contrário do que você disse. O que você pode constatar é que ninguém está ligando.

— Não concordo. Toda hora alguém fala.

— Fala! Isso é outra coisa. Mas ligar efetivamente, não. É uma boa ser revoltado, mas ser revoltoso dá muito trabalho. O Brasil é assim, sempre foi assim, vai continuar assim, a nossa é esta mesmo, está todo mundo satisfeito.

— Não está! Isso é uma completa maluquice sua.

— Desculpe, mas a maluquice é sua. Quando eu digo “todo mundo”, claro que estou generalizando, há sempre alguns, desculpe, um tanto fora de prumo como você, ou que estão com problemas e reclamam, mas ninguém está ligando, mete isso na cabeça de uma vez e pára de te aporrinhar à toa. Se o problema toca no sujeito, aí é diferente, aí ele vira bicho, vai brigar, entra na Justiça, faz carta pro jornal e promove até passeata. Que, por sinal, para muita gente aqui no Rio, é um programaço, até a azaração come solta. Mas, se não incomodar ele, pode deixar tudo aí, que está ótimo. Olha aí o boteco, todo mundo numa boa, não tem ninguém preocupado com merda de liberdade de imprensa nenhuma, nem com CPMF, todo mundo sabe que é isso mesmo e que o negócio é se arrumar, o exemplo começa bem em cima. Pronto, acho que consegui resumir. Enfia isto na cabeça, de uma vez por todas: o lema de todo mundo é “o único problema é o meu e o que interessa na vida é me arrumar”. Eu sei que você é idealista e tal, mas não é burro, tem que se curvar à realidade. E a realidade é essa, o negócio de todo mundo é se fazer, o brasileiro é assim. Até no seu caso, pode ter certeza de que muita gente acha que você está levando alguma vantagem nessas tuas posições. Ou então é inocente útil ou otário, o povo todo acha que o que interessa é se fazer. E para mim está certo, você sabe? O que é esta vida? É a que é que a gente leva. O povo está certo, o negócio é se fazer, porque é aqui que se vive e, se a gente não aproveitar agora, enterrado é que não vai aproveitar. Sacou, meu paladino? Como é, não vai mexer os pauzinhos pra levar a grana de nenhum prêmio literário este ano, não? Não vem me dizer que não se mexe pauzinho para ganhar esses prêmios, também assim você já está babacão demais. O cara, pra se dar bem...

JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO é escritor

AS LEIS DE SALAZAR

Salazar tinha uma polícia de costumes. Estes senhores zelosos e com eficiência eram uma farpa para os espíritos mais levianos da época. Salazar (Azar como deveria ser conhecido entre os que tentavam as delícias do prazer carnal em praça pública) tinha leis rígidas e multas pesadas para qualquer prática de atentado ao pudor. Não acreditam? Ora vejam lá:



emprestado de Enresinados

Olga, um filme de encher os olhos

Um dos lançamentos mais esperados do ano no Brasil, “Olga” é um filme de encher os olhos. De números — sua produção envolveu uma equipe de 250 pessoas e um investimento de R$ 8,8 milhões, o maior do cinema nacional — e, principalmente, de lágrimas. Entre o público e a crítica, o diretor Jayme Monjardim não hesitou em agradar ao primeiro. Planos fechados, trilha sonora forte, ambientes cinzentos, história carregada no drama. O que os críticos têm considerado pontos desfavoráveis é justamente o que faz os espectadores deixarem as salas aos prantos, como na pré-estréia carioca, no New York City Center. Produzido por Rita Buzzar, “Olga” estréia hoje em todo o país com 263 cópias e uma pergunta: Jayme Monjardim faz novela com jeito de cinema ou cinema com jeito de novela?

— Sou apenas um contador de histórias — ele mesmo trata logo de responder. — E meu desafio é contá-las da melhor forma possível. Não quero ser lembrado como um sujeito que criou um novo estilo de cinema, que revolucionou a linguagem, mas como alguém que produziu trabalhos que tocaram o coração do público.

Marinheiro de primeira viagem, como faz questão de dizer, Jayme levou para o seu primeiro longa-metragem, inspirado no livro homônimo de Fernando Morais, parceiros antigos da TV. Da produtora e roteirista, Rita Buzzar, com quem trabalhou em “A história de Ana Raio e Zé Trovão” (na Rede Manchete), à diretora de arte, Tiza de Oliveira, sem falar, é claro, na atriz principal, Camila Morgado, revelação da minissérie “A casa das sete mulheres”.

“Olga” é um filme de estréia com verba e tratamento de superprodução — “Carandiru”, o segundo mais caro já feito no país, custou R$ 7 milhões. Do número de figurantes, que em algumas cenas superou a marca dos 800, passando por uma tela especial de dois mil metros quadrados, confeccionada com tecido de pára-quedas para filtrar a luz tropical de Bangu, onde as externas do campo de concentração foram filmadas, tudo é grandioso no filme. Com a comercialização, seu custo atingiu a cifra de R$ 12 milhões. Mas será esse o caminho do cinema nacional, o das superproduções?

— Essa pergunta é muito difícil de responder. Eu acredito que não. Acho que o país sempre se destaca quando fala da sua história, de suas raízes. O que precisamos é de bons roteiros, de boas histórias, do Brasil descobrindo a si mesmo — defende Jayme Monjardim.

Para o diretor, a criatividade é a palavra-chave. De olho em prêmios? Ele garante que ver o público assistindo ao filme, se emocionando com a história da mulher que deixou para trás uma vida confortável para lutar por um mundo melhor, e sofreu os horrores do nazismo, já faz o filme valer a pena.

— Se a história que eu conto servir para que aquilo nunca mais se repita, vou me sentir realizado. Sinceramente, não estou nem um pouco preocupado com a crítica ou com prêmios. Dei o melhor de mim em “Olga”. E o que tenho como meta é sempre o público. Quero que ele vá ao cinema, goste do filme, pense sobre ele. E que esse filme o faça sentir vontade de voltar mais uma vez e ver um outro filme. Se isso acontecer, o motivo de ele existir estará plenamente justificado — discursa. [Maria Cristina Valente]

A celebridade da vez

Anita Leocádia Benário Prestes já nasceu celebridade. Nem tinha saído das fraldas e já motivava uma campanha mundial para impedir que fosse enviada a um orfanato nazista. Apesar (ou exatamente por causa) disso, a filha de Olga Benário e Luís Carlos Prestes faz de tudo para ficar longe dos holofotes. Tarefa cada vez mais difícil desde que “Olga” ganhou as telas.

No último sábado, logo depois de um debate sobre o filme com professores de história no Espaço Unibanco, Anita — que tem doutorado na disciplina e é do corpo docente da UFRJ — era só afabilidade com os colegas de profissão. Bastou ser abordada pela repórter para mudar o semblante e responder, em tom seco e decepcionado:

— Ah, você é de jornal...

Foto? Não. Um artigo para a revista? Não. Uma ou duas perguntinhas? Tudo bem, mas só enquanto se encaminhava para a saída.

Tempo suficiente para descobrir que as turbulências não acabaram na infância.

— Fui presa e exilada pela ditadura militar. Como se não bastasse o sobrenome, em 64 eu já era da Juventude Comunista — lembra.

Militância que mantém, faz questão de apregoar (“Sou uma comunista internacionalista, como a minha mãe”) e se reflete na avaliação racional que faz da tragédia vivida por sua família:

— Milhões de famílias sofreram tanto quanto a gente. Há mães que viram seus filhos serem mortos em campos de concentração.

Quanto ao filme, Anita faz apenas um senão: o final.

— Olga era esperançosa. O fim não tem essa esperança.

Choro? Tristeza? Emoção?

— Vivemos tudo aquilo. Foi muito mais triste e pesado. [Luciana Brum]

¿Latinoamérica será siempre Latinoamérica?

SANTO DOMINGO - Less than a week after his inauguration, President Leonel Fernandez has given top posts to four former officials charged with involvement in the disappearance of millions of dollars in public funds in the late 1990s.

Critics say the appointments contradict a key campaign promise to crack down on corruption as the Dominican Republic weathers its worst economic crisis in decades.

Fernandez

All four served in the first Fernandez administration from 1996 to 2000, and all have trials pending on charges stemming from the alleged disappearance of US$100 million from the Temporary and Minimal Employment Program, a fund intended to create jobs and quell strikes.

The program's ex-coordinator, Luis Inchausti, was charged with embezzlement three years ago, and this week was named to the Cabinet post secretary of state without portfolio, traditionally a top presidential adviser.

"This is a bad start,'' Pedro Catrain, a political science professor at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, said Thursday. îîEven if it turns out they are innocent, ethically Fernandez shouldn't have named them.''

The scandal broke in 1998 after an audit by the government Department for the Prevention of Corruption. Inchausti and three others were arrested in 2001. Prosecutors said those other three were in positions to have known the money was taken and were negligent in not reporting it.

They include ex-public works secretary Diandino Pena, now appointed to head a subway construction project; former administrative secretary Simon Lizardo, now the nation's top auditor; and former auditor Haivanjoe Ng Cortina, who will regulate the Santo Domingo Stock Exchange.

Those three are charged with negligence, and like Inchausti, all say they are innocent. They are free pending trials that have yet to be scheduled.

Corruption is a chronic problem in the Caribbean nation of 8.8 million people. A bank fraud scandal in 2003 cost the treasury US$2.2 billion and sent the economy into a tailspin.

AP

Agora só falta um ato institucional

por JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO

Em episódio que não sei mais se se estuda na História do Brasil, pois nem mesmo sei se ainda se estuda História do Brasil, nos contavam, às vezes com admiração, que D. Pedro, o da Independência, irritado com a primeira Assembléia Constituinte brasileira, por ele considerada folgada e ousada, encerrou a brincadeira e outorgou a Constituição do novo Estado. Decerto a razão não é esta, é antes um sintoma, mas vejo aí um momento exemplar da tradição de encarar o Estado (que, na conversa, chamamos de “governo”) como nosso mestre e os nossos direitos como por ele dadivados. Os governantes não são mandatários ou representantes nossos, mas patrões ou chefes.

Claro, há muito o que discutir sobre o conceito de praticamente cada palavra que vou usar — isto sempre, de alguma forma, é possível —, mas vamos fingir que existe consenso sobre elas, não há de fazer muito mal agora. Nunca, de fato, tivemos democracia. E a República não trouxe nenhuma mudança efetivamente básica para o povo brasileiro, nenhuma revolução ou movimento o fez. Tudo continua como era dantes, só que os defeitos, digamos, de fábrica, vão piorando com o tempo e ficam cada vez mais difíceis de consertar. Alguns, na minha lúgubre opinião, jamais terão reparo, até porque a Humanidade, pelo menos como a conhecemos, deve acabar antes.

Os tempos recentes têm sido um pouco menos ruins, levando-se em conta um bom indicador de democracia, que é a liberdade de informação e de expressão, bem como de opinião e criação artística. Nisto, vimos sendo felizes, pois de fato, dando-se o abatimento das limitações que qualquer um poderá arrolar indefinidamente, fala-se o que se quer e se manifesta o que se quer, dentro dos limites da lei. Se isso não é conseguido por alguém ou por grupos e setores, não se deve à ação direta do governo. No que diz respeito a ele, cada pessoa ou grupo pode pensar como quiser e dizer o que quiser. Não é assim?

Não, não é. Era, quando o governo atual estava na oposição, como, aliás, tudo mais em política. Naquela época, não havia denuncismo, não só na imprensa quanto entre os oposicionistas, como o presidente mesmo (não canso de lembrar: que excelente candidato foi o nosso presidente!), que chamava uns e outros de ladrão a torto e a direito e, sobre os deputados, cujo trabalho atualmente elogia, disse que não passavam de 300 picaretas, sem que ninguém, o que podia ter sido feito, procurasse a Justiça, para que ele provasse que pelo menos crime de injúria ou difamação não havia cometido. Mas, como alieno culo piper refrigerium est continua princípio basilar da vida, agora campeia a denúncia irresponsável e leviana, a que urge dar cobro.

Sim, repita-se a cantilena. A imprensa comete erros e excessos, como toda atividade humana. Para coibi-los, existem leis. Mas não foi o governo que deu ao cidadão o direito de estrilar publicamente contra o que ele faz ou não faz. O direito a pensar e opinar é básico para a plenitude humana. O direito a expressar esse pensamento também não é uma benesse do governo, faz parte da dignidade e da liberdade de cada um de nós. Agora, a pretexto de regulamentar uma atividade profissional bastante diferente, por exemplo, da de um médico ou advogado, o governo revive uma idéia de odor mussolínico e encaminha ao Congresso (ainda bem que não foi uma medida provisória, instrumento legislativo ditatorial hoje costumeiro e que o presidente, quando ainda não havia denuncismo, prometeu não usar e acabar e não só não a acabou como a usa mais do que faz embaixadinhas) um projeto que cria o Conselho Federal de Jornalismo, para “orientar, disciplinar e fiscalizar” o exercício do jornalismo. Tudo na melhor das intenções, é claro. É só com a trivial finalidade de regulamentar uma profissão como qualquer outra.

Não é. É o começo do arrolhamento da imprensa. E é um caminho para o peleguismo. Já existem, no projeto, os embriões completos de um sistema de censura e tutela, que poderá calar a boca de qualquer jornalista, mesmo que não faça denúncias, mas apenas críticas consideradas, digamos, destrutivas ou de mau gosto, como é o meu caso e o de incontáveis outros — nunca se sabe a que limites chegará o burocrata. Podemos esperar até ouvir de novo que o povo brasileiro ainda não está preparado para a democracia. Ou seja, eles nos deram o direito de falar, alguns de nós talvez tenhamos abusado e eles vão tirar esse direito, pronto.

Vão tirar uma conversa, não vão tirar coisa nenhuma. O povo, assim ou assado, por esse canal ou por aquele, por um jornal mambembe ou jornalão, numa rádio fuleira ou em cadeia, na tevê do condomínio ou em rede nacional, vai continuar a poder falar mal do governo e a dar curso ao que ouve e vê escancaradamente todo santo dia, em tudo quanto é canto para que olhe. O governo não tem nenhum direito, quem tem direito é o cidadão. Não se cumpre, mas está escrito e um dia se cumprirá: “Todo poder emana do povo e em seu nome será exercido.” Qualquer coisa que o governo faz só tem legitimidade se alicerçada na vontade popular. Dirão que tal vontade é expressa pelos representantes eleitos. Está certo, mas representantes eleitos que estão aí porque sua existência institucional contou com uma imprensa capaz de avaliar, criticar e denunciar. Vamos ter responsabilidade com denúncias, não vamos antecipar julgamentos, mas não vamos calar a boca, nem obedecer a manual de burocrata. Eu não vou calar a boca, ainda mais diante de um Estado que não só toma essa iniciativa como preparou, quase à sorrelfa, um plano cultural solertemente dirigista e assustadoramente policialesco. Mas que não há de prosperar. Porque, como mostrou a imprensa, nesse e em tantos outros casos, temos mente, boca e voz livres, e não foram um presente do Estado. O direito a elas é parte de nossa essência e nenhum conjunto de aspirantes a tiranetes o vai cassar.

JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO é escritor.

As eleições para a prefeitura do Rio estão animadas...

... por enquanto é só fumaça. Mas a gente está aquí à espera de quando começa a lambada, democrática e simples.

Candidatos a prefeito do Rio baixam o nível em dia de pugilato eleitoral

Três candidatos a prefeito do Rio reservaram o dia de ontem para as baixarias. Em cenas de pugilato verbal, Cesar Maia (PFL) comparou Marcelo Crivella (PL) ao malandro Azambuja, personagem de Chico Anysio. O senador não deixou por menos e disse que o prefeito é uma doença. E Luiz Paulo Conde (PMDB) aproveitou a oportunidade para atacar Cesar mais uma vez, chamando-o de palhaço.

O vale-tudo eleitoral começou com Cesar. Usando a língua ferina que já sapecou apelidos como Baleia Encalhada (em Conde) e Miss Rabanete (em Jandira Feghali, do PCdoB), o prefeito tentou colar em Crivella a imagem do malandro carioca:

— No debate da TV Globo ele se apresentou como surfista. No programa eleitoral, como taxista. Também é cantor, compositor, engenheiro, missionário... Enfim, é um personagem múltiplo da política carioca, o nosso Azambuja.

Para Crivella, Cesaré uma gripe e ele, a cura

Já o candidato do PL, abatido por uma gripe, batizou a virose com o nome do prefeito.

— Peguei a “Cesar Maia”, mas em 3 de outubro nós vamos distribuir a “Crivecilina”. É uma dose só, tem quatro anos de garantia e vai erradicar essa gripe — afirmou.

Conde não perdeu tempo e prestou solidariedade a Crivella, afirmando que Cesar transformou-se no “grande palhaço” da eleição:

— Com isso, ele assume um papel vergonhoso e triste.

Alan Gripp e Giampaolo Braga/O Globo

Woman's Dying Wish: Bush Defeated

This happened two weeks ago, but I only saw it today.
Nice wish. Hope will happen. Rest in peace, Joan. [RF]

MIAMI BEACH - A South Florida woman who died this week had an unusual last request. Instead of flower or contributions in her name to a charity, she asked those who loved her to try to make sure President George W. Bush is not re-elected.

Joan Abbey, shown here before her death, wanted most of all to have President George W. Bush lose the November election. Loved ones said that Joan Abbey was committed to her political passions, even in death.

Abbey was born in Montreal, but lived for many years in Miami Beach and Aventura. Family and friends came from as far away as Canada and California to remember Abbey at the Mount Nebo Jewish Cemetery in Miami.

Abbey, who was a lifelong Democrat, died Monday--coincidentally on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

Her sister, Tillie Shapiro, said, "She was just a caring person...She cared about people, and people who were disadvantaged."

Abbey was buried the day after the Democratic convention ended. Her unusual death notice in the Miami Herald said: "You can honor Joan's values by voting against George Bush and contributing to a liberal or Democratic cause."

Abbey's nephew, Martin Shapiro, said, "What she cared most about was improving circumstances in this country... getting rid of George Bush and making this a better country for all people."

Coincidentally, the presiding rabbi, Brett Goldstein, is a registered Democrat but is voting for Bush, and he questioned the timing of Abbey's message at such a sensitive time.

"My contention is that if there's any situation that's sacrosanct, it should be devoid of political ramifications," Goldstein said. "Although people have the opportunity and they can do it if they want to, it is not really appropriate at this time."

Shapiro said, "It was her (Abbey's) essence. It was her core value to try to see this country become a better place and become a more just society. And I think that was the last word she'd want to leave."

Abbey did not want her age known. Many friends said she remained forever young in spirit and staunchly committed to her beliefs.
August 3rd, 2004 2:24 pm

Ontem num estádio em Santo Domingo

Ilusões tem qualquer uma...

Celia le cantó a Fidel

Juan A. Moreno-Velázquez

El Diario/La Prensa

Nueva York/Especial — Celia Cruz le cantó al líder cubano Fidel Castro en el 1959 el tema “Guajiro, llegó tu día” en la estación radial CMQ en La Habana, según una grabación que obtuvimos.

Una copia del controvertido tema musical, fue recibida por este periodista en la mañana de ayer, con la inconfundible voz de la “Guarachera de Cuba” interpretando la canción “Guajiro, llegó tu día”, —confirmando—, de paso, la aseveración que hizo en su libro “¡Azúcar!”, el periodista colombiano Eduardo Marceles.



En esta biografía no autorizada, Marceles alega que escuchó la grabación del tema en Cuba mientras realizaba el proceso investigativo de su escrito. Sin embargo, en ese momento, el periodista no se adelantó a las consecuencias de su descubrimiento y olvidó asegurar una copia que confirmara su aseveración.

El hallazgo de Marceles sobre la diva cubana causó furor en Miami e incluso el manejador de la cantante, Omer Pardillo, amenazó con demandar al periodista, alegando que la cantante le había asegurado que nunca le había cantado a Castro.

De hecho, cuando Cruz fue abordada sobre el asunto hace unos años atrás por una periodista en España, la artista negó que fuera cierto y la invitó a que le presentase la grabación.

Una demanda en contra de Marceles no prosperaría ya que el escritor pudo obtener recientemente una copia de la canción. Además cuenta con los testimonios de dos testigos de la época que escucharon a Celia interpretar el tema.

En la copia de la grabación que obtuvimos, se puede escuchar claramente la voz de Cruz, acompañada por los músicos de la Sonora Matancera, interpretando el tema musical que alaba a la Reforma Agraria e incluso hace alardes de Cuba como una “tierra sagrada porque Dios mandó a Fidel”. El tema termina invocando a todos los hermanos cubanos “pa’ cooperar” con el líder revolucionario. Se desconoce quién fue el autor del tema.

Omer Pardillo, ex representante de la difunta artista, reaccionó incrédulo cuando le leímos la lírica del tema, manifestando que “tengo que escuchar su voz para creer que esto sea cierto”.

Una vez que le permitimos escuchar la grabación, Pardillo aceptó calmadamente la posibilidad de que ésta podría ser real.

Sin embargo, Pardillo fue claro al señalar que la carrera de Celia Cruz presenta a “una innegable defensora de todos los cubanos y una fiel creyente en la unidad patria. Una canción en el 1959 en nada cambia esa historia”.

A raíz de su muerte la cantante cubana, quién siempre fue reconocida como una fuerte adversaria del gobierno de Castro y como un portaestandarte del pueblo cubano en el exilio, se ha visto en el centro de sendas controversias luego del lanzamiento de dos libros que detallan su vida.

En su libro autobiográfico, “Celia, Mi Vida”, con la escritora y periodista Ana Cristina Reymundo, la cantante narra una situación donde tuvo que cantar frente a Castro en la residencia del editor de la revista Bohemia, Miguel Ángel Quevedo. Para ése entonces el administrador de dicha revista era Francisco Salaregui, padre de la presentadora de televisión Cristina.

En el libro, Celia comentó sobre Castro que “había algo en mí que me hacía rechazarlo”.

Cruz, fallecida el año pasado, había salido de Cuba el 15 de junio de 1960 hacia México en una gira con la Sonora Matancera y el 20 de noviembre de 1961, después de actuar en el Hollywood Palladium, en Los Angeles, viajó a Nueva York, donde permaneció.

El Diario/La Prensa 2004

FAREWELL

THIS IS THE LAST WALTER CRONKITE COLUMN

SYNDICATED BY KING FEATURES

by Walter Cronkite

In the olden, more graceful days, a writer temporarily or permanently deserting the profession surely would say that he was "laying down his pen." In our modern digital age, the equivalent declaration would be, I suppose, that I am unplugging my computer.

That would not only be far less graceful, but it would likely be erroneous. The computer will still be here, and occasionally it will be put to use, but no longer in the service of this weekly column.

This will be the last of these offerings through King Features Syndicate. That worthy organization a year ago gave me the opportunity to return to the profession I always thought of as my real home -- writing for print, working as a newspaperman.

That is what we used to call ourselves. When I entered the field as a cub reporter in Austin, Texas, 68 years ago, it was rare that we used the exalted word "journalist" to describe ourselves. There were but a few women among our midst, and I apologize that I don't recall what title we gave to identify them.

The "journalist" formality seems to have overwhelmed the profession sometime in the last half-century, perhaps necessitated by the advent of so many other sources of news -- radio, television and now the Internet.

In 1950, I deserted print to spend more than half a century helping to pioneer television news. Most of those years were spent traveling the world as the CBS anchorman on all the big stories: at home -- the political conventions, the national elections; and abroad -- the summit meetings in Vienna, Paris and Moscow, and the anniversary celebrations of D-Day, which I had originally covered as a United Press war correspondent.

Those television days unfolded into years and were rewarding -- and yet ... And yet they were not entirely satisfactory for an old newspaperman. The restrictions of time in television reporting were a constant frustration. There were space limitations in the newspapers, of course, but nothing like those brief headlines that passed for news stories on the magic tube. Thus it was that this yearlong return to the newspapers was such a happy conclusion to this newspaperman's career. It was a pleasure to feel that I was contributing at least a line or two to the newspapers' importance in the public dialogue.

This importance is not as fragile as might be assumed by the fact that yesterday's newspaper is such a handy wrapping for today's garbage. Yesterday's newspaper, carefully filed away, is the custodian of our history. From those newspaper files future historians will wring from the past the very essence of who we were and the world in which we lived.

The future of our civilization incubates in those newspaper files. From them will be extracted the knowledge that will point the way for future generations to avoid our worst mistakes and find the path to an even better world. Ah, yes, it is a heavy responsibility to the future that the newspaperman and newspaperwoman contributes by his or her daily effort.

I was proud to once again be a part of the newspaper world, but it has proved harder than I expected to fit the exacting deadline of a weekly column into my heavy schedule of television and radio documentaries and public speaking.

It is my hope that the writing you found here was at least adequate, but that, far more importantly, the reporting, and its fundamental research, was especially faithful, and, of course, that my conclusions were honest and fair, for these are the standards by which all newspapermen -- make that journalists -- should be judged.

Farewell to all of you loyal readers, and please accept my regrets that I found it impossible to answer your thousands of e-mail letters, which frequently offered most valuable opinion and comment that, indeed, broadened my own perspective on the important issues of the day. I learned a lot from you. I hope this was to some degree reciprocal.

I cannot depart without an inadequate word of thanks to two of my assistants who have made major contributions to my work. Dale Minor, a superb journalist who helped produce my daily radio commentary at CBS, has been an invaluable help in researching these columns, as has my longtime chief of staff, Marlene Adler. It has been a happy and rewarding experience for all of us -- particularly Marlene, who has perfected her talents at the trade, but, to her expressed regret, cannot quite claim to ever have been a newspaperman.

(c) 2004 Walter Cronkite