Smart is the new Stupid

Rio de Janeiro. If cars were bread, the city would be the world´s largest, moldiest, most immobile basket. But cars aren´t edible, and therefore we have the blingest, bestest, most smartest city in the world, full of a thousand hidden treasures and a million kilometers of traffic jams. We can all thank the brilliant privatization initiatives and urban operations and mega-events for the wholesale prostitution of urban space and commodification of our increasingly bare lives. We are being led into an impossible smart future by the rising star of hyperbolic, back room, smart guy glad-handing. In the past weeks, Rio de Janeiro has been selected as “the world´s smartest city” at the Smart City Expo World Congress and his royal munificence Eduardo Paes was elected president of the C40 group of the world´s largest cities. 

Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. It´s just that the city is more dysfunctional than ever, the urban future is being built upon car and bus transportation, the bay and the ocean are too polluted for human use, half of the city is controlled by militias, the other half by drug gangs and a brutal military apparatus,  the mayor wants to build a ski slope in the Madureira park and is more concerned with Woody Allen than with reforestation.

Truly, the marketing machine of the city and state governments are the smartest elements of RJ. I have not done a formal analysis, but Rio de Janeiro must be the only city in the C40 that does not have a map of its bus routes. It must be the only port city that does not use the water for mass transportation. It is the largest city in the Americas with one metro line, which does not a metro make. It may be the world´s largest city that has privatized all of its public transportation and continues to blast highways through dense neighborhood fabric without ever having demonstrated that those lines aattend present or future demand. The Olympic bid books have become the de-facto urban planning documents. Rule by decree, violations of human rights, rampant deficit spending, mega event after mega-event, bubbling sewage, increased congestion, violent police, voracious real-estate speculation undertaken by the state, attempts to close high performing public schools, the elimination of Olympic training facilities and tens of thousands of forced removals. This is the toned and bronzed face of the new smart city.

Now, as we welcome another gang of “global experts”  in the form of the Clinton Initiative (with Chelsea! and the president of Nike, Otavio Marques de Azevedo, presidente da Andrade Gutierrez; Candido Botelho Bracher, presidente e CEO do Itaú BBA; Alessandro Carlucci, CEO da Natura; Sylvia Coutinho, CEO do UBS Brasil; Andre Esteves, CEO do BTG Pactual; Angélica Fuentes, CEO do Grupo Omnilife/Angelíssima; Eduardo Hochschild, presidente-executivo da Hochschild Mining; Jorge Gerdau Johannpeter, presidente do conselho de administração da Gerdau; Kurt Koeningfest, CEO do BancoSol)  - as we receive this cavalcade of the lords of the planet, we will again hear how great Paes and Cabral are performing for this brutally limited audience.

On the positive side, the only really intelligent plan to come out of RJ in recent years has won an important international prize. The Plano Popular da Vila Autódromo (link to download), developed in conjunction with the residents of the Vila Autódromo (whose residents possess title to land and whose existence has been personally threatened by Mayor Paes for 20 years), has won the London School of Economics / Deutche Bank Urban Age Award. The recognition of a plan that emerged through the collaborative efforts of residents, universities and urban professionals is an important political statement on the part of the Urban Age. This will give political muscle to the Plan,  forcing the city and state to work with the V.A. to urbanize. It will also make it even more difficult for Rio 2016 to “clean” the Olympic site for its London-inspired urbanization project. More, the recognition that collaborative, grassroots, bottom up planning can have significant and positive effects on urban environments and social relations should be taken as proof positive that despite being smart, there is still hope for Rio de Janeiro.

Petulant Provincials

It is always a bit of a shock to come back to Rio. The flights are usually long and then one is greeted by immense lines at immigration. The Federal Police have simply not figured out how to do things quickly. In the recently reformed Terminal 2, there are five booths with ten agents controlling all of the international arrivals. There is no room for expansion, just desperation. Arriving from Europe on Monday it took two hours to process a full Lufthansa flight. Imagina na Copa.

There is, of course, no public transportation from the airport and I had forgotten that the King of Smart City had decided to destroy one of the main traffic arteries for a multi-billion dollar real-estate scheme (aka Porto Maravilha). That tied up traffic rather nicely and I spent another hour and a half in a taxi on my way home. As the Cariocas will tell you, there is no more beautiful city to be stuck in traffic. 

Before I jaunted across the pond the upper crust of the state and city governments had sponsored, in conjunction with Deutche Bank and the London School of Economics, a conference on cities. Neither the Governor the Mayor nor the head of the Porto Maravilha (CDURP) project had the courage to show their faces. This is a consistent theme in Rio – when they have to face difficult questions or the well-conceived and executed plans in other parts of the world, they always find a reason to stay in bed with the sheets pulled up. They don´t even feel the need to give notice, which might seem normal in the local social context but when dealing with international visitors smacks of petulant provincialism.

This particularly endearing characteristic of the city government was on full display last week during a faked “manifestação” of “residents” of the Vila Autódromo. OBobo, the media hegemon of Brasil,  was quick to declare that the Vila Autodromo residents, instead of demanding to stay, were now demanding to leave. This was patently untrue as the city had paid people to get into buses, shipped them to the center, provided a few with banners while the majority that had gone simply took the free ride and then went about their business in the center. There is no end to the underhanded tactics that the government will use to divide and conquer. This is but one in a long, uninterrupted sequence of petty brutalities visited upon Rio´s poor. There will be a real counter protest of the Vila Autodromo this Thursday in front of city hall.

Little known sustainability fact: there is no place to lock a bicycle in front of the Rio 2016 headquarters. Or city hall. Or the Institute of Brazilian Architects. Or at most grocery stores. Or in front of the train station. Or at the ferry.The BRTs have no bike lanes. Bikes in Rio are only for leisure or the poor or the insane. The vast majority of metro stations have no bike parking and it is prohibited to take bikes on public transport except on Saturdays and Sundays (with the exception of the ferry, which, because of the elimination of the main traffic artery to downtown has become over stuffed, making it even more unpleasant to bring a bike on). In short, mobility projects are essential to urban functionality. Rio is flowing uphill.

On the front page of Obobo yesterday was the following: “Maracanã to receive record public” for the Flamengo x Goias Copa do Brasil semi-final. Those with a memory that extends past the year 2000 will know this to be a clever falsehood – but what of Rio´s  Gen Me? They will have never known the Maracanã with a capacity of 130,000 and might very well think that if they go to the Mararacã they will be part of the stadium´s biggest ever crowd. The clusterbumble of the Porto Maravilha, the Muesu do Amanhã,  telefericos, Eike Batista, OBobo and the State and City governments are a coalition of spaces and agents that are carrying off a deliberate and, sadly, historically consistent project to eliminate Rio´s architectural and cultural history in favor of the ephemeral, botoxified simulacra that is THE OLYMPIC CITY. Blah.

Keeping with the Maracanã theme, Soccerex, the global showcase for white men in suits to gladhand, was cancelled yesterday. The Soccerex CEO said that is was a political decision based on the threat of manifestations. The state government is hiding under the covers. The probable reason was that there is no private sector interest in Brazil to sponsor these global trough feedings because the football industry is relatively small and controlled by amateurs. Over the past three years, the state government has shelled out tens of millions to host Soccerex but decided that this year, they couldn´t or wouldn´t meet the price tag of the consortium that runs the Maracanã. It is doubtful that this means we have entered into a new era of fiscal responsibility, but it could signal that the government is a bit more cautious about blowing millions on more public football events. [except for the R$20 billion being shelled out on the Decmeber World Cup Draw]

And for a brief account of how my presence at the International Football Arena conference went over, have a look here: http://www.insideworldfootball.com/ifa/13529-ifa-closes-with-passionate-debate-on-the-future-for-mega-events

“The highlight of the session was always likely to be the match-up between outspoken academic and author Chris Gaffney who has written widely on the social impact of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and is a visiting professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminese, and FIFA's director of communications and public affairs Walter De Gregorio.

Gaffney, in a previous interview with Insideworldfootball, maintained that the top down imposition of mega events on countries, developing countries in particular, needs to change. Entering the lion's den of a predominantly football business audience his opinion was no less forthright.”

And finally, a bit of my presentation at the Play the Game conference in Aarhus, Denmark. This is definitely one of the best sports conferences in the world and brings together a wide range of people in journalism, academia and the world of sport. I will see if I can link the audio of this presentation to the video, but for now, here is the prezi that has a bit of useful data in it.

The Milkmen of Human Kindness

The Lord Mayor of Rio deigned to receive members of the Popular Committee for the World Cup and Olympics last week. This surprising yet calculated move was a response to the growing pressure from civil society to reverse the privatization of the Maracanã, preserve the athletics, educational and cultural facilities there and to put an end to all removals in Rio de Janeiro. The meeting had two potentially positive outcomes. One is that the Vila Autodromo appears to have escaped the mayor’s bulldozers. This hugely important victory has come after years of unseen struggle and more than a decade of organized fighting on the part of the residents of the Vila Autodromo. The collective actions of residents, social movements, academics and media actors managed to block autocratic and truculent moves on the part of the city government.

The second important element of the conversation with the mayor was the “tombamento” of the Escola Municipal and the Museu do Indio. This was not the work of one international organization (as Meu Rio would have us believe), but rather the concerted work of hundreds of people and dozens of organizations over many years. Tombamento means that the buildings cannot be destroyed. However, Paes made clear in his decree that the function of the buildings was not guaranteed, just the buildings. So it is possible that the school will be removed and the building maintained, just as it is probable that the Aldeia Maracana (the indigenous community) will be removed and the building turned into a whiskey bar for Snoozman and his IOC buddies. The mayor is clearly under pressure to respond in some way to the continuing battles raging in the city and his move to meet with the Comitê, as well as his semi-capitulation, is a sign that things can be achieved with direct social action on the streets. However, Paes’ move should be understood as entirely political, likely reversible and totally incomplete. He will continue to hear loud and insistent knocks on his door.

The city as a whole appears as if it is going to implode. Three weeks ago, just after the Pope took his millions of poopers out of town, a water main broke in the West Zone killing a 3 year old child. Other problems with the sewerage system have also appeared. Is it a coincidence that after millions more users enter the system for a few weeks that things start to blow apart in strange places? There appears to be nothing done about sewage treatment in the Zona Sul, so how bad must it be in Barra and other “forgotten” parts of the city. Neither the public nor private sectors are capable of delivering quality services.

The goons that parade about in Military Police uniforms began throwing rocks at protesting professors in front of the state assembly. Seriously? Protesters have occupied city hall for nearly two weeks. Cabral (Governor) and Beltrame (Sec. of Security) do not appear to have much say in how their troops behave. There has never been any meaningful reform of the police, the Rocinha UPP disappeared a resident, and Brazil’s former golden boy, Eike Batida, has pulled the plug on his UPP funding. For those of you watching from the North, because CNN is not covering any of this does not mean that the social movements have gone away since the end of the Confederations Cup. The Brazilian marketing machine is running in high gear, as ever, and there are some that continue to believe in the magic potential of ill-conceived projects to deliver long-term benefits. Believe it or not, one professor of architecture is calling the clattering abomination in Cuiabá an Elefante Dourado (Golden Elephant). Just to be clear, the public paid for the construction, maintenance and destruction of the old stadium, the construction and maintenance of a new one, and will have to pay elevated prices to go to games and events. Portugal has decided to tear down a number of the Euro 2004 stadia because their maintenance costs are too high. The Brazilian parade of White Elephants will eat everything we have and leave gigantic, steamy piles for unskilled, unhealthy, uneducated people to clean up until they are destroyed. The post-Cup future is golden indeed.

The situation has become so obviously bad that even people like João Maximo, who wrote an obsequiously apologetic introduction for a 60th anniversary book of the Maracanã in which he basically clamored for its deform, has become predictably nostalgic. Why? A Fla x Flu with less than 40,000 people is considered a big crowd. Minimum ticket R$80. Brazil continues to have the most expensive tickets in the world in the most expensive stadiums ever built for a World Cup. But please, ignore all this, close your eyes and wait for the milkmen to come with an extra pint of kool-aid.

Passando dos Limites / Going too far

The monthly salary for a public school teacher is around R$1600. I do not know people who work harder with fewer resources to do society`s most important and least valorized work. I can only imagine the complete indignation and revolt of public school professionals when the announcement came that the city government spent more than a million reais (US$500,000) to buy 20,000 copies of a board game to be distributed to the city`s schools. The game, presumably, will become an obligatory element of the curriculum. The game is called Banco Imobiliário Cidade Olimpica, or Olympic City Monopoly.

What are the UPPs about again?

It is difficult to know where to begin criticizing the idea that schoolchildren be indoctrinated with the ideology that the public places and spaces of the city be treated as mere commodities used to accrue personal wealth and power. We could begin with the fact that only the current administration`s projects are highlighted in the game, giving the impression that the mayor, governor and their cronies have produced the urban landscape since taking office. We could also highlight the fact that arbitrary monetary values are assigned to public places, eliminating any and all conception of use value for those that have paid for these things (the public) and transforming every element of the urban into something that can be traded on the open, deregulated market. How about the “sorte” (luck) card that says: “the value of your home increases after the favela in your neighborhood was pacified, receive R$75,000”. Paulo Freire is turning like a rotisserie chicken in his grave.

Just when I was starting to lose the hard edge of permanent pessimism, the perverse pedagogy and poor taste of the mayor took physical form in the public space of Copacabana Fort. In the fort, which is a federal property, a private club has opened to attend to the beautiful people [sic] of Rio`s Zona Sul who can no longer tolerate the hoi polloi and undifferentiated tourist mass of Ipanema and established a clubby off world inside the fort. Veja`s coverage was nauseatingly apologetic: “Club attracts high class clients in search of vip treatment and the experience of sharing the beach with people of the same profile”. A mere R$250 gets you into the club that has a pool, discreet waiters, blaring electronica, hot tub, R$5000 bottles of campaign, R$80 face towels and a lax security force that ignores the clouds of pot smoke drifting off the dance floor. If you are surprised that rich, white Brazilians are able to smoke weed bought in favelas inside a military fort while the favelas themselves are occupied by the military, then you clearly haven`t spent enough time playing Banco Imobiliário.

A few weeks ago I reported on the judicial victory of the Aldeia Maracanã. During the negotiations the government had offered to work with the Aldeia in some regard in order to maintain the site as a part of Brazil`s indigenous heritage. Incredibly, but unsurprisingly (another of Rio`s characteristics is that you are not surprised at being shocked), the brain trust of Rio 2106 and the State Government announced that the indigenous people would be expelled and the site transformed into an Olympic museum with all profits acruing to the IOC! Huh? This is the same set of intellectual heroes that have programmed the destruction of an Olympic swimming pool and an Olympic training center in order to prepare the city for the Olympics. It is a sadly transparent attempt to turn a judicial defeat into a victory. 

These paradigms of competency in public planning have also determined that the facilities constructed for the 2007 Pan American Games are almost completely inadequate. You know the situation is dire when OGlobo starts criticizing the R$1.6 billion that will have to be spent on the 2007 facilities to make them viable for 2016. To wit: the velodrome is being destroyed, the aquatics center will only host water polo while a temporary diving center will be built at the Copacabana Fort (someone better get rid of the rich potheads first), the basketball arena will only be used for gymnastics and every other installation will have to undergo massive upgrades. Of course, there is still no budget for the 2016 Games, and even if there were why should the public pay any more attention to it than the Games organizers themselves? 

A series of fires have occured in the Autodromo de Jacarepagua, site of the future Olympic Park. These are not ordinary fires but massive conflagrations of discarded tires. The toxic smoke has infiltrated the Vila Autodromo over the past weeks, creating a health and environmental hazard. This could be another manifestation of the pressure tactics used by the government to encourage people to leave their homes or at least to reconsider their negotiating position. When there is not grave incompetence in public administration there is likely malice and vice versa. Somtimes it is both. 

Evidence to support this last statement came from the Largo do Tanque this week where a series of forced removals occurred as the municipal government races to complete the Transcarioca BRT before the World Cup. The reports from Tanque are as disturbing as they are tragic. There is evidence that agents of the municipal government are negotiating the price of homes with the residents as the bulldozers circle the house. This is not the “key for key” policy dictated by Brazilian law and international statutes but rather an underhanded and divisive approach to eliminating social resistance to the invented needs of massive urban interventions. A few years ago there were a series of signs along Flamengo Beach that spelled out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those signs, along with the rights, have disappeared in the Cidade Maravilhosamente Especulativa.

The involuntary interment of crack addicts and homeless people continues throughout the eastern and southern parts of Rio. Rio`s program of forced interment is widely criticized by health care professionals as doing nothing to solve problems of mental health, physical addiction or the social conditions that produce such large numbers of homeless in Rio. There have been few investigations into the conditions of the internment centers, no data released on how long people are kept, what happens to them upon release or the efficacy of the program in decreasing crack use. Though it might be a stretch, the BRTs are no more a solution to Rio`s mobility problems than is the involuntary internment program a solution to drug addiction and homeless. In both cases human rights are violated while being sold as necessary for the betterment of the city.

The General Osorio metro station opened in 2010, bringing the Metro to Ipanema 35 years after its inauguration. Last week the General closed his doors for 10 months so the extension to the one and only metro line in the state can start. Just to be clear, two years ago the line was extended to Ipanema with the full knowledge that it would have to be further extended for the Olympic transportation project. Instead of planning for that extension without needing to close the station the top-notch intellects at Rio Metro closed the tunnel system and therefore have to pick up where they left off in 2010. In addition to the inconvenience of the closure, the astronomical sums of money and urban disruptions of the Linha 4 [sic] are causing protests and revolt among even the stodgy lovers of the status quo in Leblon.

And finally, the call for proposals for the privatization of the Maracanã was launched on Monday. The companies that are bidding for the 35 year “concession”, IMX and LusoArenas, will have one month to submit their proposals and then a committee comprised of ONE PERSON will rule in favor of one or the other. As IMX was the external consultant that devised the economic feasibility study it looks as if Eike Batista will be able to add another of Rio de Janeiro`s iconic spaces to his Banco Imobiliário. The billionaire with the ten dollar toupee has not been having much luck financially lately, but was recently granted his long-time wish to build a nine-story convention center in the Marina da Glória. The agency responsible for protecting Rio de Janeiro`s architectural and cultural heritage, IPHAN, has once again surfed the wave of privatization. There are likely no cards in the Banco Imobiliário game that represent IPHAN or IBAMA or INEA (environmental regulatory agencies), much less something that would make one pay for an impact study or have to spend money and time consulting the public about the future use of public space.

This Thursday, 28.2.13, the Comitê Popular da Copa e das Olimpiadas is sponsoring a seminar that will treat the Maracanã in all of its symbolic, historical, political and cultural complexity. The seminar will begin at 2pm in the auditorium of the the Associação Brasileira de Imprensa, on Rua Araujo Porto Alegre, 71. More details can be found on the Comite`s site: www.comitepopularrio.wordpress.com

The Olympic Flag is made of Korean Silk

There are so many interesting things about the Olympic Flag that I am bursting with excitement to report that I gave away the punch line in the title. I was astounded that after so many years of researching the Olympic Games that something so elementary, so symbolic could have escaped my attention. Korean silk!!!! Who knew?

As the devoted readers of Hunting White Elephants will no doubt have heard, the London Games are over, save for the three weeks of Paralympics that receive almost no media attention whatsoever. The missile batteries might be coming down off the roofs and tourists will start heading back to London. The party cost British taxpayers more than 11 billion pounds, around 5x over the original budget. Eduardo Paes and the Rio team have learned that lesson well, now refusing to talk about the budget beyond what was presented in the Bid Books in 2009.

We do know that the original budget underwritten by Lula was R$31 billion. Can we go 5x over? Maybe. Part of the problem is identifying what is Olympic and what is World Cup, what is ordinary investment and what is related to the megas. When transportation systems are conveniently directed to serve the Olympics, they are part of the Games project. When they are part of the budget, they are not. Any and all increases in the Gross Product of Rio are attributed to the Games, any increase in water pollution is not. When projects make the numbers tick in the right direction for marketing, yeah Rio 2016! There are no other numbers.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. There is no evidence to suggest that mega-events bring a public return on public investment. To the contrary, this is a regime of public risk for private profit that will use the militarization of urban space to control local populations and extract as much value from the city in the shortest timeframe possible before moving Istanbul for 2020.

Protest brining the 'evicitions trophy' to the mayor

The press conference yesterday was an interesting look into the way the 2016 Olympics will be run. As we received media credentials, we signed up to ask questions only to be informed later that only 5 questions would be allowed because the Governor, Mayor and Snoozman were tired after their flight from London. The questions were typical of the Brazilian media: innocuous, staged, soporific, irresponsible and stupid. The SporTV reporter asked the mayor to explain the emotion of brining the Olympic flag back to Rio. The Globo reporter asked if the mayor was going to bring the actual flag around the city or if they were going to use a replica. This gave him the chance to bring up the medal winning boxers as “security”, highlight the honor guard of the Guarda Municipal (wearing pith helmets), and to suggest that if the Olympic flag needed more security he “would have Cabral call in BOPE.”

The only decent question came from the BAND reporter, who, in response to the stimulation of the protest by the Comitê Popular outside the too-small, low-ceilinged INFAERO conference room (itself a testament to the poverty of investment in public infrastructure) asked about forced removals and the fate of the Vila Autódromo. This clearly irritated the mayor who leaped to his feet, protesting any suggestion that there had been at any time anything but democratic, open discussion with all of the communities removed for Rio’s Olympic project.

Conflating various key phrases of Paes, he said “there have been hundreds of people removed along the trajectory of the Transcarioca in the Zona Norte, middle class people, and no social activists were making a fuss about that because we did things democratically [HWE: removing individual houses is easier than removing whole communities]. We’ve bought land for the people of the Vila Autodromo [HWE: a project that the government had to go back on because the land belonged to one of Paes’ major campaign donors] and everyone is going to live in a nice apartment [HWE: whether or not they want to] only 500 meters from where they are now [HWE: this project is not going to happen]. No one is going to be removed violently [HWE: ask the people in Metrô, Restinga, Vila Harmonia, Recreio II about that!]. Once we deal with this situation we’ll see these political agitators disappear like they always do [HWE: taking a pot shot at his opposition in the coming elections].”

He added, “We need to move on from people resisting progress and cursing the government. This should be a thing of the past.” The elimination of alternative voices in the Olympic Era was well documented in London, another lesson learned. Of course, none of this addresses the wisdom or necessity of projects in and of themselves; project planned by a public relations firm in conjuntion with their governmental, meida and corporate bedfellows. A philandering foursome that goes alem do pornográfico.

There were some other tendencies on display that should be taken note of by journalists and researchers. In the blowing, normative discourses of Cabral, Snoozeman and Paes, there is a continual conflation of two presidents, Dilma and Lula. “O presidente” is Lula, “a presidenta” is Dilma, as if they were both governing at the same time. Lula’s role in bringing the Olympics is never far from the lips of those who drank so profusely from his overflowing cup of charming good-ol-boyism.

This is a closed circle of self-referential and self-interested parties where no contrary or alternative hymns will be sung. Thus, the World Cup slogan, Juntos num só ritmo, can be understood to refer to the larger political project of the Olympics as well as the elimination of alternatives. The Olympics take this to the next level.

On a positive note, after the press conference as the medalists put on display by the government were carrying their own bags to be stuck into a van (instead of the limousine escort afforded their lordships), the protestors from the Comitê Popular engaged them in conversation. All of them were adamant about their support for an Olympics without forced removals and for the production of peaceful and socially inclusive Games.

Dam the River

Things are about to get messy in Rio.

The Rio+20 environmental [sic] conference is going to blast millions of tons of pollution into the air, clog traffic, generate thousands of tons of waste and overload the already taxed sewage system while purporting to resolve global environmental issues. Not that I’m skeptical, but unless we convince China and the USA to back off of coal consumption, or convince Brazilians and Indians to stop buying petrol consuming cars, or design our cities a little more intelligently, is there any way that this conference is going to do anything but make things worse? In the midst of a global economic crisis that not even the CRIBS have managed to avoid the first thing on the long list of trivial concerns is the environment. Second is health care, third education. As Zizek has told us, the capitalists can’t live without the environmentalists and vice versa, making them part of the cycle of creative destruction that keeps our happy globe tilted at 23.5 degrees.

The solutions for our collective problems are more likely to come from the parallel conference of the Cúpula dos Povos that will take place on the Aterro do Flamengo between the 15^th and 23^rd of June. While the VVIPs and heads of state are shutting down the city with their motorcades, regular people will be discussing more serious issues than the medieval concept of carbon credits (which to my mind are much like paying the Pope for indulgences). I’ll be giving a talk at the session sponsored by the Conselho Federal de Psciologia on the 15^th in their session: A Psicologia e o Compromisso com a Construção do Bem Comum (Psychology and the Promise to Construct the Common Good).More specifically, we’ll be talking about  Direito Humano à Mobilidade: Crimes de Trânsito e Meio Ambiente (The Human Right to Mobility: Crimes of Transit and Environment). Should be interesting.

Federal Universities, meanwhile, have just entered into greve, that is, we’re striking. This is a huge novelty for someone who worked at universities in the southern USA, where it was/is ILLEGAL to form a union of state workers. There hasn’t been a real wage increase at Brazilian federal universities in ten years, the buildings are falling apart, and there is a noticeable shift towards the privatization of public institutions, ala the recent turns in the UK (that followed the sad trends in the USA). There is probably still some lingering perception out there that the Worker’s Party is a leftist government. While they do have some progressive policies, the general trend is towards privatization and letting the invisible hand of the market wiggle in mysterious ways. Most people get a solitary and salutary finger, while a chosen few get rather more happy endings.

The strike at Federal Universities means more, not less, work for professors and students. The demands and justifications for the strike can be found here (in Portuguese).

The IOC is visiting Rio this week for another series of closed meetings. Transparency continues to be a major problem.

The Vila Autôdromo, long targeted by our Sun King mayor for removal has proposed an alternative plan for urbanization of the community. The Vila is located in the northwest corner of the Olympic Park project, but was included in AECOM’s winning design, even figuring in the 30 year urbanization plan. However, Snoozman at the COB has said that there needs to be a transportation link between the Olympic Village being constructed by Carvalho Hosken (at a cost of R$500,000 per apartment) and the Olympic Park and that this transportation  line needs to pass through the Vila Autôdromo. Right. Now that there is a counter proposal on the table and the entire world is watching to see what the government is going to do, let’s see if they decide to do the right thing and open a conversation with the Residents’Association.

There will be a march from the Vila Autôdromo to the site of the Rio+20 conference on the 20^th of June, starting at 8am.