Brazil is in chaos and don't you wish you were there?
The Oi Rio Pro is off again and our heroes have yet another day to explore the host country Brazil. The problems there are clear and present and everywhere. The pollution was such they had to move the event site, crime is so bad that soccer star Rivaldo said, “Don’t come!” The Olympics, only eighty some days off, is in shambles and a Zika epidemic threatens the world. Amir Attaran, a lawyer at the University of Toronto, said, “The question is really — and it’s an ethical one — is it worth having the games in Rio when you could have it elsewhere or just delay your pleasure a little bit so as not to run the horrible risk of — I hate to say it — shrunken baby brains?”
But you know Mr. Attaran loved to say it! You know he’s been waiting much of his adult life to use the phrase “shrunken baby brains” in an appropriate context. And yesterday, to top everything off, President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in what she, and her supporters, called a coup. A coup! While our heroes are roaming the mean streets! I tell you this, and I tell you honestly, I am heartbroken not to be in Brazil right now. I cannot think of a more exciting place in the whole world. Do you think Nat Young appreciates the gravity of what he is witnessing? Do you think he wakes up, reads the news and then steps out with a notebook and camera? Do you think Ryan Callinan knows that he is nuzzled up to the bosom of history?
If I were in Brazil I would be getting detailed analysis of the geopolitical situation from the keen minds on tour. Davey Cathels on Brazil’s Budget Laws. Matt Wilkinson on double digit inflation. Adam Melling on new president Michael Temer’s cabinet choices. I feel it would be a big hit. I feel CNN would be given a run for its dwindling money.
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Watching a pro contest in what looks like shitty Bay Street is shrinking my baby brain.
tire…
My God you Americans are just terrified of everywhere else aren’t you.
Um, yeah, kinda…. especially Australia, with its batch of unsophisticatedly nicknamed criminals suffering from tall poppy syndrome!
Somehow getting beat up/murdered on vacation isn’t all that appealing. If I want that I can just go to Livonia Ave in Brownsville any night I want and avoid the jetlag.
Yeah, or all the pesticides they sprayed that just “happened” to coincide with the majority of the microencephaly cases. Or the fact that no one has actually proven a causal relationship between Zika and shrunken baby brains, despite how obvious the media & government has told you it is. Or the fact that Zika has been around for decades and never been associated with shrunken baby brains. Golly, what could be the reason that this is coinciding with the governmental upheaval in Brazil? The mass media narrative is propaganda for stooges. Don’t be a stooge (unless you be hangin with Iggy.)
“Rio de Janeiro is more affected by Zika than anyone expected, rendering earlier assumptions of safety obsolete.”
“Rio is not on the fringes of the outbreak, but inside its heart.”
http://harvardpublichealthr…
You guys should hit up Mr. Attaran to get his take on the WSL having a surf contest in Rio and how everyone involved will fly home to their respective locales across the world. Heck, maybe there’s an opportunity for the WSL to do some synergistic branding? I can see the press release now… “WSL partners with the WHO and the Zika Virus to understand the virus’ global implications. Powered by Samsung, driven by Jeep.”
Brilliant.
My favorite part is where they refer to the Olympics as “Bread and circuses”.
nobody gives a shit about brazil except you
whoa lem lem, whoa
incorrect.
South/Central America has had close to 50yrs of independance to sort their shit out and yet they still havent managed a functioning democracy for more than a few years. Its either coups or fanatical dictators all round. Bar chile maybe. Wonder why this is?
big country to the north has had a pretty heavy hand in all this. read ‘World on Fire: Democracy, Globalization and Ethnic Violence’ for a good glimpse.
“50yrs of independance”
*200years then.
Now we’re getting somewhere! And what did they get independent from? And what did that structure introduce to the world and accelerate? And how functional can law be under this structure?
Why, the Spanish, French + Portuguese of course my dear fellow! Dont tell me you still blame them after all these years?
WHAT, not WHO. Not a people, a process…if it was a people we’d have to add in those cunts of a nation in the UK, not to mention the Dutch and the Turks…
It still takes a people to concieve such a process and to perpetuate it. I blame the illumanati, those dogs.
Your logic is worse than Italo’s English.
What is your ‘process’ theory you are hinting at?
His ‘process’ is that it’s always somebody else’s fault. TPPA, colonialism, blah, blah,blah, Mariano is a classic leftie. Everything gets done to you, not by you.
Of course now that Trump is the republican candidate we can all see the evolution of democracy , with Hilary still possibly being indicted , Trump vs Sanders? and Trumps them all!
Yes, screw democracy. Viva la corporate fascism!
Evolution of capitalism MC. On the plus side looks like western society is going to crappers faster then I expected. Lists of death by firing squad? Start with the whole WSL commentary team, dressed in wsl jerseys and outerknown alpaca beanies
50 years? Yeah, things often change that quickly.
50yrs is long enough for major social change i reckon