Local family embarks on epic sea adventure

A local couple, together with their one-year-old daughter and pet dog, is preparing for a sailing trip that is expected to take four years to complete. This epic sea adventure aims to cover all the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories and to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of the first Portuguese sailing trips to Asia.
João Gomes, 40, will be accompanied by his wife, Nae, who is from Thailand, and their daughter, Maria. The family’s departure date is scheduled for February from the Dominican Republic, where the boat called the “Dee”, named after Maria’s second name, is being prepared.
The route will include nine countries and territories where Portuguese is an official language, including Macau, with the passage here expected to occur by the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015. In addition, stops are planned in several other countries around the routes used by Portuguese sailors centuries ago.
“The idea to embark on this trip was conceived many years ago. I have lived in Macau since 1997, and dreamt for a long time of sailing around the world. The plan was to do it before my fortieth birthday, but my daughter was born this year, in January, so we postponed the trip for a year,” João Gomes told the Times. “We want to sail around the world, but, at the same time, the trip has a cultural purpose. We wish to showcase the Portuguese culture and try to bring together the Lusophone countries,” he added.
João Gomes, who is a civil servant, initially intended to start the trip in Macau, but the costs of bringing the vessel from the Dominican Republic are estimated to be around MOP400,000. In addition to this, the sailor didn’t receive the financial support requested from the local government in order for them to do the trip with a Macau-flagged boat, which, in a way, would represent the region.
“The government was not interested. I got a written reply from the Tourist Office (MGTO) where they stated that they could not envisage how the Macau name could be promoted with this trip,” Gomes said.
With plans to start the route in Macau flawed, the trip will begin in the Dominican Republic and, from there, will cross the Panama Canal into the Pacific, stopping at several islands on the way to the Asian continent and Australia until reaching East Timor. Arrival in East Timor, where Portuguese is an official language, is expected to land around late 2014 or early 2015. From Timor, the “Dee” will head to Macau, before docking in Malacca, Goa, Daman and Diu (which once formed the Portuguese India), Mozambique, and, passing the Cape of Good Hope, Angola. The trip will proceed with stopovers throughout the African coast, including Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. The final stages will include Brazil, North America, the Azores and Lisbon. 
According to the voyage promoter, the above mentioned route could be made in three years. “But we want to go smoothly and, overall, safely. That is why we set four years as the expected time to finish. We want to have time. In the Lusophone countries we will go to schools and associations. We plan to stay two or three months in each of those countries,” Gomes said.
Besides the family, parts of the trip, especially the longest ones, will be made in the company of friends. Stressing that the boat is prepared to sail with a short crew, or “short-handed,” João Gomes says that he is not overwhelmed by the task, since his navigation experience “is enough” to overcome the challenge. That a one-year-
old baby will be part of the small crew also causes no alarm. “I admit that there are risks, but we try to minimize them. (…) The lifestyle she [the baby girl] will have will be healthier than in the city.” 
“Many couples do this kind of trip and they mention that the adults usually have more trouble than the kids, who adapt very well,” João Gomes adds.
To follow the trip in real time, the website, www.salingdee.com, will be updated with information, photographs and video. Details of the trip will also be published regularly in the local weekly, O Clarim (where João Gomes writes a column), and in magazines in Hong Kong and Thailand. The family will also host a TV crew to film the trip in order to produce a TV series, probably to be broadcast on the Portuguese public TV channel. At the end of the long trip, the couple also plans to publish a book about their travels and to organize an exhibition.
(by PB, in MDT)

GRANDE malha:

Isto é verdade?!

A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.

The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.

Each bomb carried a payload of 4 megatons – the equivalent of 4 million tons of TNT explosive. Had the device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city – putting millions of lives at risk.

(...)

Though there has been persistent speculation about how narrow the Goldsboro escape was, the US government has repeatedly publicly denied that its nuclear arsenal has ever put Americans' lives in jeopardy through safety flaws. But in the newly-published document, a senior engineer in the Sandia national laboratories responsible for the mechanical safety of nuclear weapons concludes that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United Statesand a major catastrophe".

Writing eight years after the accident, Parker F Jones found that the bombs that dropped over North Carolina, just three days after John F Kennedy made his inaugural address as president, were inadequate in their safety controls and that the final switch that prevented disaster could easily have been shorted by an electrical jolt, leading to a nuclear burst. "It would have been bad news – in spades," he wrote.

(in Guardian)

NESTE site podem encontrar-se textos muito bem escritos e ilustrados sobre filmes clássicos. Um exemplo: Jules et Jim

For the amusement of our readers

NOT being able to comment on the AL election results, since at the time of writing residents are still casting their votes, I propose an exercise for the amusement of our readers. Here are some predictions that went wrong:

“The director of the Xinhua (news) agency in Macau, Wang Qiren, said that the gaming sector will continue after 1999, but Chinese companies wont be able to invest in that sector” – in Futuro de Macau, June 9, 1995.

Talking to the Associated Press, diplomat José Calvet, the Portuguese Consul in Hong Kong, predicted that betting and gaming activities would be gradually suppressed in Macau, until finally becoming extinct in 1949.

“Casino king Stanley Ho has a lot to lose when China takes control of the Portuguese enclave of Macau in 1999. The 68-year-old Hong Kong businessman is doing everything to make sure the odds are in his favor. He is weaving his Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, operator of the enclave’s five casinos, deep into the fabric of the Macau economy to ensure that the future Chinese leadership has no choice but to let the company continue to prosper. (…) This strategy will strengthen Ho’s bargain power should Peking insist upon taking partial or even total control of STDM. This is a real possibility: in Hong Kong, Peking-controlled companies have already begun to buy strategic stakes in local utilities, transport companies and banks, with an eye towards holding the ‘commanding heights’ of the territory’s economy.” – in Far Eastern Economic Review, September 1990

“Democracy will be dead by 1950.” – in “A Short History of the Future” by John Langdon-Davies, 1936

“It will be years – not in my time – before a woman will become Prime Minister.” – Margaret Thatcher, 1969

“Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look.” – United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as the lead in the 1964 film, ‘The Best Man’

“There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.” –  General Tommy Franks, March 2003

“Romney will be elected the 45th president of the United States.” – Fred Barnes, editor of the Weekly Standard

“Some in the media and elsewhere claim there is a housing bubble, and that it will eventually burst, similar to the stock market bubble debacle in 2000. As I demonstrate throughout this book, their reasoning is flawed.” – in ‘Why the Real Estate Boom will not Bust’ by David Lereah, 2006

“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” – Darryl Zanuck, movie producer for 20th Century Fox, 1946

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932

I close with this self-evident truth that, whilst I don’t know why, reminds me of the local elections:

“Monsieur de la Palisse is dead,
he died before Pavie,
Fifteen minutes before his death,
he was still quite alive.”

Couldn’t one state that the local elections were alive fifteen minutes before 12 lawmakers were indirectly elected and another seven appointed by the Chief Executive?

(in MDT, 16/9/13)

wearing the collar, by Charles Bukowski

I live with a lady and four cats
and some days we all get
along.

some days I have trouble with
one of the
cats.

other days I have trouble with
two of the
cats.

other days,
three.

some days I have trouble with
all four of the
cats

and the
lady:

ten eyes looking at me
as if I was a dog.

(from You Get So Alone at Times that It Just Makes Sense)

Crazy Wisdom: The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics from Kate Linhardt on Vimeo.

GOOD FUCK WITH DENISE

Good fuck with Denise                        she laying face down                                       from her rear                                                I pounding in                                       squashing against her ass, good long full come                              with cock joint twisting in                                              good throbbing the feeling inside cock near joint good feeling there. Sleeping outside on wooden platform, bat sweeking flying around in dark. Working day tomorrow carprentary naked good color on my ass & balls & hip & groin sections, very luckey this summer! My first time in 41 years I get to work naked How luckey can I be! There arent maney people in the world this summer who can boast working tan assed man on the job                        nailing roff on                        putting up board & batton                        painting rafter beams waterproof                        nailing tung & gruve floor boards tight a wooden jem retreat meditation little house we built in Serra Nevadas                        & quite a few times                        the sun gave me a warm kiss                        on the center of my ass hole wile bending deep down doing some funney work. Aug 5th, 1974 Sierra Nevada by Peter Orlovsky

ALGUNS destes gajos eram revolucionários:
FRIED SHOES COOKED DIAMONDS from costanzo allione on Vimeo.

UMA carta de Putin publicada no NYT; para ler e reflectir: It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies

NA continuação do post anterior (ou, para ser mais preciso, predecedendo os acontecimentos do post anterior), este excelente documentário descreve os efeitos nefastos da caça âs bruxas (i.e., aos comunistas) na Indonésia em 1965, que redundou num dos mais graves e impunes morticínios do século passado: calcula-se que entre 500 mil a um milhão de pessoas tenham sido assassinadas pelo exército ou por populares arregimentados pelo poder (e mais ou menos forçados a matar, sob pena de serem mortos). Tudo isto com o recém chegado ao poder Suharto nas rédeas e com o beneplácito dos EUA, então, como sempre, pouco preocupados com "detalhes"  e em busca de mais negócios para as suas corporações. Uma história suja, que tem que ser contada:
40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy (Film) from Elemental Productions on Vimeo.

A coragem de um jornalista que faz as perguntas mais incómodas a nada mais nada menos do que o então presidente americano, Bill Clinton. Foi isto no dia de indepência de Timor Leste e de via ser mostrado em todas as escolas de jornalismo:

Quem perguntou foi este senhor

GOA parece estar em decadência, de acordo com esta reportagem do Guardian. Quando visitei há 10 anos, a antiga colónia portuguesa mantinha ainda uma espécie de inocência. Mas já dava para ver que as coisas podiam dar para o torto, com governantes xenófobos que recusam a herança cultural goesa e agentes turísticos pouco escrupulosos (dois donos de hospedarias tentaram roubar-me, em Panjim e em Margão).
Goa tornou-se mesmo num sítio sujo e perigoso, e o MNE inglês emitiu este esclarecedor aviso:

The Foreign Office travel advisory notice to Britons thinking of visiting Goa warns: "Throughout Goa there have been reports of drinks being spiked and travellers, including British nationals, subsequently being robbed, sexually assaulted or dying. In 2012, 29 British nationals died in Goa. Some of these deaths were attributed to drug/alcohol abuse. There has been a series of high-profile incidents in Goa of alleged rape against foreign nationals, including Britons. Avoid beaches after dark. There is a risk of being attacked by packs of stray dogs, robbed or sexually assaulted."

Uma pena...