Still Searching the Horizon

Just got off the phone with the company handling my move. You know, the one that started in March?

Well, it took four days to get someone to take my call over there. And when I finally got the woman handling my account, she said that she has no idea when my stuff will be released from customs because it hasn't been assigned to an inspector yet.

Sure - this is not her fault. But lurking behind such a response is always several layers of future disappointment. When the inspector finally releases my container, how long will it take for her to get around to assigning someone to remove it? When will the contents be transferred to a truck? When will that truck come to my apartment in São Paulo? How long will it take to unload it? Naturally, she didn't bring any of this up, nor do I expect she's even thinking about it.

And each of those steps to follow the inspection (all of which ARE her responsibility) is likely to be delayed by slowness, unresponsiveness, sloppiness....the usual round of unkept promises and failed time commitments. And what role will each weekend play, not to mention the fact that I have to work (and travel) for a living and can't be sitting here for months waiting for the phone to ring?

In October, when my things arrived in Brazil, I was told that the week of November 26th was a possibility. I didn't hold out much hope, expecting it would be the week of December 3rd. Now, she is telling me "maybe on Wednesday" (December 5th) --- which probably means the week of December 10th. And I will be in California on business until the morning of December 12th. Which then probably means we won't get delivery scheduled until the week of December 17th. Yes, right before Christmas, when the country shuts down. One slight delay at that point would then push this whole enterprise into January.

See how this works? When they say "maybe Wednesday" it could literally mean over a month after Wednesday.

I called Vini this morning to tell him about all this, and he was at work, probably dealing with his own stress (which he is increasingly keeping to himself rather than sharing with me, which is only making everything worse). He didn't seem in the mood to hear me vent. So, I have to just swallow it yet again. As you well know - that is not my favorite thing to do.

Last week, with Vini's full support, I scheduled a Christmas Party at our apartment for December 15th to have something to look forward to at the end of this nine months of anxiety from this move. I wanted to transfer my anxiousness over the arrival of my things toward something fun and positive, something very me -- a party, scheduled long after we were expecting my stuff. So I made up an invitation and sent it to everyone I know in São Paulo. Now I find myself unable to escape from the prospect that we will still not have my things in place in this apartment until after the party. Perhaps well after.

Okay....I'm really trying, people. I'm really, really trying to hang in there....

Turn a Blind Eye, Cristina?

We're two weeks away from the inauguration of Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as President of Argentina, and it comes at a time of both tremendous promise and serious danger for the Argentine economy. The recovery from the unprecedented national meltdown of 2001-2002 has been impressive, and growth is galloping forward while poverty and unemployment are heading down. But classic problems and imbalances are also developing in plain sight, and the open question remains -- will Cristina be bold and confront the growing issues threatening Argentina's stability again? Or will she do as every Peronist has done since the days of Evita herself and turn a blind eye to them as the glories of power envelop her?

The basic economic conditions that Argentina faces are textbook issues from any beginner's course in economics. The inflow of productive investment is very low. Public spending is high. So the government is forcing down the value of the peso against the dollar to bolster exports to keep the engine going. This has produced inflation and shortages, not to mention bottlenecks. The long winter featured energy supply problems, and the feverish growth rates of 9% and more are stretching the nation's grid to the limit in any weather. In short, the economy is overheating.

Why is investment not coming in? Because of the unresolved issues from the crisis, and most of them are unresolved because of simple arrogant Argentine pride. The previous regimes, with their doddering and blinkered management of the country, accumulated a mountain of unsustainable debt that resulted in the biggest default in world history, triggered the collapse of the political system and tore the social fabric of the country at the end of 2001. To his credit, Kirchner held a debt swap in 2005 for private bondholders hurt in the default -- an offer of about 30 cents on the dollar -- and wiped out over three-quarters of that debt burden. But among the things Kirchner did right during his four years in office, there is the usual mixture of prickly pigheadedness, like his adamant refusal to settle the remaining debts in default as a matter of "sovereignty" and national dignity or setting conditions that break with international norms. Because these debts remain unpaid, including $6 billion to the Paris Club of lending nations (the G-7 plus several smaller European countries) that Argentina could easily pay from its $45 billion foreign reserves, banks will not issue competitive credits to foreign companies looking to invest in Argentina. So, the investment is not rolling in.

What has been Kirchner's response to inflation? He's taken a couple of pages out of the old Peronist playbook -- his government bullies companies into "agreements" that amount to state-imposed price controls. When the National Statistics Institute (INDEC) is going to put out a monthly inflation report he doesn't like, one of his cronies simply gets out an eraser and changes the numbers and puts out a phony report.

Energy shortage? "There is no energy shortage," says he, his wife and his entire cabinet.

The accumulation of new debt over old? Kirchner has turned to the only country that will float Argentina's bonds on the world market, wrapped in its own packaging to hold off litigating private creditors --- Hugo Chávez's Venezuelan autocracy, where the Central Bank is soon to be constitutionally under the president's thumb. (Of course, with Hugo the favors always come at a price, and in this case it has been Argentina's deafening silence as the Bolivarian tyrant has systematically stamped out all vestiges of democracy at home.) Thanks to Venezuela, Argentina has been able to keep up its bond maturity payments, that is on bonds issued in the post-default world, and isn't sliding toward another default any time soon.

Any 25 year-old who has his own check book can tell you that Argentina's "economic model" is unsustainable. Inflation won't obey the will of an empirical presidency, and when prices are rising far faster than incomes, the voters and the captains of industry will inevitably get fed up. Meanwhile, despite the record high price of oil, Venezuela is no safe bet to keep floating Argentina's sovereign finance system for very long, as Chávez's insane and messianic destruction of the country's political and economic institutions is gathering speed every day while its oil industry is rusting and creaking along without necessary upgrades and investment. Productive investors run from risk; Argentina's country-risk rating from Moody's is sky-high for a country with such impressive growth rates. The only ones hungrily waiting at the door are the speculators, who had a hand in the last crisis and wouldn't terribly mind another one. When you see vultures circling overhead, you don't usually get a warm and fuzzy feeling about your health.

Some in the forever byzantine and scheming world of politics in Buenos Aires -- including some well-connected and intelligent folks -- have said that the reason Néstor stepped aside after only one term was because he knew himself well enough to know that he could not go the next mile that Argentina needs to travel. That he's too stubborn and inflexible to cut deals with the outside world to put the nation back in its accustomed place of eminence in Latin America after its humiliating fall from grace. And so, he cleared the way for Cristina - who has been in politics longer than he has - to take it all up a notch and still bask in the glory of her triumph, securing his legacy for all time.

But many, many others see the other side of the coin instead. They see this all as business as usual for Argentine leaders. It's about sustaining a dynasty in power, protecting the family's many cronies in the remote southern province of Santa Cruz, and feathering as many nests in their circle of simple-minded acolytes as possible to hold onto power. There are few illusions in this camp -- the ham-fisted attack on INDEC and prices and the government's tediously long dance with the Paris Club are a blatant confirmation of how the whole Kirchner gang will govern no matter if it's done in a suit or a skirt. There will be no surprises coming when the country's economy breaks down again, albeit less spectacularly this time. And therefore, they advise that if Cristina will be keeping things the way they are now, then investors should return the favor and remain out of Argentina.

Judging from the business press, the betting in New York, Washington and all of Europe seems -- for the moment, at least -- to be with the march of Peronism's history, that Cristina is probably not going to do anything differently from her husband in terms of policy and management. This will, of course, spell a lot of trouble for Argentina in the coming four years. The hope among us who see enormous potential for transformation in this part of the world is that the skeptics are wrong, at least partly.

But why would the music change in mid-tango when the lady knows all the steps by heart?

Thanksgiving in Jardins

The whole Thanksgiving strategy this year turned out to be a stroke of genius.

My parents arrived on Tuesday morning and were in joyous spirits, and we have had a wonderful week so far. On Thursday, Claudia hosted all of us at her apartment down the street -- along with her whole family -- for our holiday dinner. This was mostly because my things have still not arrived from the United States, and we had no ability to prepare such a meal since the kitchen is only minimally equipped.

It was a wonderful night. The table was jammed with people and food, and the spirit was festive in a very unique way. Veuve Clicquot poured next to Mendoza cabernet and 51 cachaça, and a big brigadeiro cake alongside the apple crisp. In a matter of 15 minutes the 14-pound turkey was nothing but a skeleton. And amidst the three languages spoken, the whole room was happy. The folks here (especially Vini) got a sense of what the holiday means to Americans, and my parents got a very good look at how good life is here for me. For the first time in memory, my father didn't want to leave at the end of a gathering.

Starting next year, Vini and I will go home to Salisbury for Thanksgiving. But I have no doubt this year's unusual celebration will be remembered for a long time. Thank God I got over myself and saw the whole thing through instead of being too nervoso for my own good. I'm getting more Brazilian every day.

Vacation

In case it wasn't too obvious, I'm off this week.

My parents arrived yesterday morning for their first visit since I moved, and my father is staying for a week. Mom is staying for two weeks, and we're going to Buenos Aires for a long weekend before she heads back.

So, barring some intense need to escape from my vacation and achieve a level of sanity, I doub't I'll be blogging much for the next week or two...

See you all soon, and Happy Thanksgiving!

More From Locoland

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez sent another dispatch from the inner recesses of his insane mind, regarding the contretemps at the Iberoamerican Summit in Santiago de Chile.

"Hitler was elected by the Germans, does that mean that nobody can attack Hitler? That's so absurd, and that's the absurdity Zapatero came up with."

Yes, he said that.

I don't even have to say a word, do I?

Gays Should Be Hanged, Says Iran Minister

I still find it amazing that some people think the Iranian regime is one that civilized countries can do business with. It has always been a frightening thing to contemplate living in Iran since the extremists took over in 1979, marking their arrival in power by invading the U.S. Embassy and taking hundreds of innocent diplomats hostage. The current president of the country, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is clearly a lunatic bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. And thanks to the ridiculous blundering from start to finish by the United States in Iraq, the proper consensus to confront Iran on its terrifying ambitions may never be possible to achieve.

And for those on the left (especially in Europe) who are eager to capitalize on the catastrophe of the U.S. adventure in Iraq, there is virtue in defending Iran today. How they sleep at night, I don't know. For me, it is not possible to imagine any truck with a religious extremist regime or organization for any reason at all. Iran supports bloodthirsty terrorists all over the world, including those who twice bombed Buenos Aires in the 1990s, killing hundreds of innocent people. It continues to issue dark threats to the Argentine government over the effort to bring the Iranians responsible for these terrorist acts to justice. And it cozies up to Hugo Chavez, who is also all too happy to hug and kiss Iran's butchers simply because his insane hatred for the United States is so blind.

It is a regime seeking to be a world power through the terror of nuclear attack. And it's a regime that shamelessly murders gay people, even teenagers. It is almost with glee that these monsters kill their own citizens under some insane religious notion that gays deserve to die simply for being who they are. So why should it surprise anyone that a minister in Iran's government was quoted as saying that gays and lesbians deserve to be hanged? (He quite generously changed his characterization from "tortured" to "hanged" when pressed, apparently.)

This is, of course, after President Ahmadinejad quite famously told students at Columbia University recently that there are no gays in Iran, and was laughed at in the hall. Maybe, some pondered, the president felt he'd finished them all off already? Who knows.

I'm glad the picture above was taken in 2005 of Mahmoud Asqari and Ayad Marhouni, two teenaged gay Iranians, as they were about to be hanged from a crane in a public square in Mashhad, Iran. They were in love, and their male relatives participated in the execution. Their lives meant absolutely nothing to Iran - not to the government, not to their own families. But their lives, and the love they shared, meant everything to me, and to millions of gay people in the West. And thank God for that.

For anyone who thinks that Iran is anything but a murderous society, bent on putting the heel of its boot onto the neck of the civilized world, look at this picture. Imagine what they will do with nuclear weapons.

Tuesday A/V: ¿Por Qué No Te Callas?

This is the video that all of Latin America is talking about right now, and for good reason. What a deeply, deeply gratifying moment it was last weekend in Chile, at the Iberoamerican Summit, where Hugo Chávez went too far (yet again) and was told to shut up by the King of Spain.

Indeed, I have never had any affection for socialist Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, not since his grinning satisfaction at being elected in 2004 on the heels of the murderous Al Qaeda train bombings in Madrid as the anti-American candidate. But this was one of those moments where you put aside your partisan leanings and embrace the defense of democracy against egomaniacal dictators like Chávez. Zapatero was elegant, restrained and wonderful. It shows what skills anyone picks up when forced to govern a true democracy.

Chávez had, during his usual rambling speech, referred to Zapatero's defeated predecessor José Maria Aznar as a 'facist' and a 'snake' and 'less than human', to which Zapatero asked for a point of personal privilege and demanded respect for his country's democratically elected governments.

"I am not close to Mr. Aznar," Zapatero said, which is of course a gigantic understatement. Their election battle in 2004 was very, very bitter. "But ex-Prime Minister Aznar was elected by the Spanish people. And I demand....I demand....I demand this respect for one reason only..."

Chávez, of course, spouted off angrily the moment Zapatero landed the blow, demanding respect for himself (as "I", "me" and "Chávez" are always synonymous with Venezuela in his pronouncements). The King couldn't take it anymore and asked, with a heaviness, "Why don't you shut up?" as Chávez kept interrupting Zapatero.

You could hear a collective cheer in the hearts of hundreds of millions of Latin Americans everywhere. The King used a form of "you" that was both familiar and diminutive, and used a tone of a usually kindly but very angry grandfather talking to his hot-headed grandson. The moment could not have been more culturally ripe or politically biting. Indeed, the press in every democratic Spanish-speaking country around the world fell squarely on the side of the King in reaction, and some couldn't contain their glee. (Fidel Castro, penning his usual op-ed from his deathbed, made a vague reference to the "European left" in defending Chávez.)

Ironically, Chávez was crying that he wasn't being respected because he didn't have the right to disrespect everyone else. "He's a fascist! Tell him (Aznar) to respect our people!", he kept yelling at Zapatero so rudely. The classic Chávez mind-pretzel. A man who claims legitimacy for his establishment of a dictatorship because he was elected. A man who says he is championing the dispossessed while using the word "I" to refer to the state itself. You only have to listen to his rambling, self-obsessed speeches to know how insane he has become in power.

Zapatero went on to defend the right of all democratically-elected governments to be respected, "all of us at the table, all Latin Americans, want all of their democratically-elected governments at this table, to be respected -- today and tomorrow." The applause at the end was very gratifying, as it showed just how isolated Chávez is when you strip away his various boogeymen and you see a man who fundamentally believes that he cannot be held to any standard that he doesn't define himself. (The old reheated communist, Daniel Ortega, jumped in to grab some attention, too, by railing about the Spanish ambassador to Nicaragua, only to offend the King so much that he left the room rather than sit there and listen to the nonsense any longer.)

And most important of all, the United States was not at the table, nor did it pipe in with its unhelpful comments from abroad. This was Chávez at his most exposed, his most vulnerable. And it's the way his brand of lies and destruction will be stopped, eventually, from infecting the rest of this region.

(Coverage courtesy of TV Catalunya of Spain)

The Malcontent......Dead?

After weeks of nervous waiting and hoping, the far-more-popular blog of our beloved Club Whirled alum Matt seems to have gone from intensive care to the morgue.

Is this truly the end of The Malcontent??

I don't want to write its obituary just yet, but the technical death spiral lasted so long, without any sufficient explanation, and then all of a sudden it was gone -- replaced by a WordPress dummy page, inexplicably called "Azamandzali" and with a totally un-Matt-related blogroll.

Can someone tell us wha' happen??

Goodbye, George

It's sad when things are so bad in the global finance system that you have to take advice from a supermodel. But alas, the daily dose of bad news on the dollar is making life impossible for ex-pats who earn their living in the increasingly worthless greenback.

In the few days before Gisele Bundschen announced she will no longer accept payment in U.S. dollars, there was a sort of buzzing panic among the folks I know here who also hold their savings and assets in the United States. After all the news about the Canadian looney, the soaring euro and the strengthening mortgage crisis in the U.S., you could sense the coming disaster. Furthermore, the yields on basic money market accounts here in Brazil are just incredible for any American who has grown wearily accustomed to cheering anything that covers your annual account fees. Of course, I've been stuck in the usual bureaucracy for the past two weeks as my soon-to-be new bank here is taking it's sweet time getting my account open. See, without this slip of paper from the federal police that I had to get after my permanent visa was approved, I would not be able to open an account here and bla bla bla -- nothing happens soon enough. So as the bank was puttering along, Gisele's announcement came. Nothing crystallizes a panic like the feeling that a supermodel is ahead of you in making vital decisions about your personal finances.

And this was, of course, punctuated by an interest rate cut by the Fed, word that the Chinese Central Bank was going to "diversify" its trillion-dollar foreign currency reserve investments (i.e. shifting away from the loss-producing U.S. currency), more dreadful news from the U.S. about Citigroup and increasing signs of a coming recession while oil flirted with $100 a barrel. I decided it was time to dump my dollars for good and move everything here, where the Brazilian real is appreciating faster than I can keep track. Plus, all the medium-term economic indicators for Brazil look stable and attractive, despite the U.S. financial crisis and the generally elevated risk of emerging markets, and the news was topped off by Friday's announcement of a masssive oil reserve discovery in Brazil's Tupi region, making it possible that the nation will soon rival Venezuela as a petroleum giant on the world stage. The majority of analysts who follow Brazil on Wall Street and in the City of London think that Brazil's general economic uptick is just beginning.

And I still have no word from the bank that my paperwork is complete and my account is open.

Another Fed rate cut is expected in the coming weeks, which could be a tipping point for what outgoing IMF director-general predicted as a rapid and dramatic plunge by the dollar in the near future. Since my spending power has already been cut by almost 20% since my arrival in March, I have no fear whatsoever about dumping the bulk of my dollars the minute I hear the word. I know that only last May, as the dollar fell below R$2.00, I wrote that it would be "stupid" to keep all my money in Brazil. But as my life becomes more focused here, and the stupefying decisions and chicken-roosting back in the United States outweigh the conventional wisdom of decades of history, it seems the only stupid thing to do now as the dollar soars downward to R$1.70 would be to wait any longer.

Confirmed: Landouar Murder Was an Anti-Gay Murder Directly Linked to Gay Pride Parade

In an excellent cover story in Veja São Paulo, satisfyingly entitled "Wild Boys and Cowards", a group of intrepid reporters give the most thorough and in-depth picture yet of the real story behind the wave of attacks and murders by punks and skinheads in the Jardins neighborhood over the last year, as well as horrifying murders and gang attacks in other parts of town. The latest was the brutal stabbing death of a pizzeria counter worker in the Centro neighborhood by a group of punks who demanded a discount on a R$1 slice of pizza and didn't get it.

And the story confirms what was obvious to many of us from day one about the murder of Gregor Erwan Landouar in front of the gay restaurant Ritz in Jardins, hours after the world's largest gay pride parade had ended only blocks away:

With major repercussions, the death of French tourist Gregor Erwan Landouar, stabbed in Jardins on the 10th of June, had a homophobic explanation. The victim had participated in the Gay Pride Parade. "He said in court that he was disgusted when he saw two people of the same sex kissing each other and decided to murder the first person he saw in front of him," said public defender Mauricio Ribeiro Lopes, referring to Genesio Mariuzzi Filho, or "Anthrax", who is being held as the suspect who killed the Frenchman.

So we finally hear what the police didn't want to admit, and from the killer's mouth no less. And it fits with the eyewitness accounts reported early on.

In fact, as the article explains, there is more to this story. There are various skinhead gangs and various punk gangs in São Paulo. The skinheads follow a nationalistic and racist set of beliefs in defense of an extreme sense of order amidst the chaos of Brazilian society. But the punks consider themselves anarchists and rebels, wanting to promote extreme chaos in reaction to whatever it is they find so upsetting about the world around them. And the two sides are at constant war with each other, but the majority of murders appear to happen to innocent people who are unlucky enough to get in their way.

The Veja reporters (Edison Veiga, Fabio Brisolla, Leonardo Genzini and Maria Paola de Salvo), however, make it clear that there is nothing noble or ideological about these murderous kids on either side. They tend to come from middle class backgrounds, and share a burning hatred of gays and dark-skinned people, but are not so much ideological as emotionally unbalanced:

Some of them spout anti-semitism, others patriotism, and there are those that show hate for Nordestinos (people from Northeastern Brazil), blacks, gays. A majority of these mohawks or muscle worshippers, however, little understand the theories they defend. The city is full of police files on punks, skinheads and whatever else that are increasingly involved in preying on people, fights and murders. In this year alone, the actions of these gangs have resulted in the deaths of six people. ...

...With characteristic clothing (skinheads use combat boots, suspenders, camouflage pants; punks wear band t-shirts and torn jeans), they are frequently identified in some parts of the city. They circulate among stores at the Galeria do Rock, around Avenida Paulista, at bars on Avenida 13 de Maio and clubs on Rua Augusta. According to witnesses, the punks behind the latest episode of this urban battle were leaving the nightclub Hangar 110, an alternative hangout in Bom Retiro. "There wasn't a fight inside because I have security and keep everything under control," said the owner, Marco Antônio Badin. "The problem is that these snot-noses confuse anarchy with vagrancy, and protest with violence."

However, there is a weak point. The article points out that the gangs are known to hang out around Bar du Bocage, a very popular gay bar on Rua da Consolação where a huge number of younger gays and lesbians congregate on the sidewalk and in the street on weekends, but this is the only cited reason that the punks or the skinheads come to Jardins. The article fails to point out that the only reason they could be attracted to that area is because of the vulnerability of so many unarmed, young gays and lesbians and transsexuals coming and going from the area. There is nothing else in that immediate area that could be attracting them. John Clayton, who is named in the piece as a murder victim of the Devastação Punk gang, was chased down and stabbed to death early one Friday night less than 100 meters from Bar du Bocage. And Ritz, where Landouar was the unlucky (and heterosexual) victim of homophobic rage, is two blocks below there.

The recent report of arrests made by the Policia Militar of a gang of skinheads on Rua Augusta was good news, but why isn't there an organized, coordinated effort along with the state police force (which is chiefly responsible for criminal enforcement) and the city authorities to visibly protect this neighborhood's gay population? I mean, I stand in solidarity with all the law-abiding residents of this city against all forms of criminal violence, but the skinheads and the punks are not targeting rich old ladies or hand-holding straight couples in Jardins. Let's get real. We have the biggest gay pride parade in the world, but it was so poorly policed this year that the organizers were worried that even basic crowd control was not being observed. What does this all mean? Is anything truly being done to prevent the next murder here?

I hope the media will go deeper, and follow the story to where it needs to go.

Hats Off to Barney Frank

There are times for us to debate as a community, and sometimes to debate with a great intensity. And there are times -- sadly very few opportunities, and nearly all of them have been negative -- when something happens and we take a breath and come together in unity.

I've had a hand in saying plenty about Barney Frank over the last 15 years, especially during my time on staff at Log Cabin Republicans. I don't take back a word. We worked on improving ENDA and collecting Republican votes in favor for many years, and we also engaged in a debate within the community about what real value ENDA would and would not have to the community. In all cases, Barney knocked us around, and we knocked him right back. In some cases it was lively and, I think, very constructive and "of the times", such as the exchange that Rich Tafel and Barney had in the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review of December 1997. And others, it was part of the necessary posturing that must go on in the debates of Washington, when there are serious points to be argued despite procedural and partisan smoke and mirrors that try to distort them.

But this is one of those moments when you put it all aside. Hats off to Barney. Even though so many people had a hand in this legislation since before and since it became ENDA in 1994, given all that has happened in the past months it was brought into stark relief that this moment belonged to Barney. And the passage of this bill, setting the first truly important benchmark vote for the House under its new Democratic rule (and for the Republican ranks that I once toiled in however decimated today), was more Barney's doing than anyone else's.

No one can deny that he is passionate about the cause of gay rights, even if we've differed with his political maneuvers, or his associated motives at times. And this floor speech yesterday was indeed a moment where he was absolutely right on the points, and the opposition was absolutely exposed for its true intents. He was right to push this bill every year. He was right to dismiss the National Organization for Women's opposition to it in 1994. He was right to fight off the trans-or-bust boomlet. And he was right to be sharpening his verbal sword for this moment of moral clarity in the well of the House yesterday, to call everyone out on what they were really for and against.

And, frankly, the fact that Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and other left-wing Democrats in the trans-or-bust crowd voted with the Republican opponents against final passage should not be forgotten. Those 'no' votes cast them into the same pit with Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who led the opposition. And their shallow ideological stand was no different in moral terms from the empty political cowardice of the soulless Congressional disciples of James Dobson and his army of hate.

Avoiding that U.S. Stopover on Vacation...

Chris Crain has commented on a thread raised first by Andrew Sullivan, about the disrespectful treatment that gay couples and families receive when coming through customs and immigration in the United States from abroad. I guess I have to join in, because as the majority of the gay political blogosphere back home is consumed with the pointless navel-gazing fight over ENDA, it would be nice to remind them all that a legislative accomplishment would be nice after a nearly uninterrupted run of horrendous legislative victories for the other side, the products of which cause repeated and scarring denigration to many of us in ways that never seem to get much attention from the gay Democratic elite.

Because of the state of federal law on the definition of family and marriage, and the absolute exclusion of people with HIV gaining normal access to any sort of visa, any of us who make the decision to travel into (or back to) the United States as a couple or a family face an often humiliating experience that the old ghetto experience of Chelsea, Logan Circle and WeHo tends to happily filter out.

And a reasonable disclaimer should be added: going through U.S. customs and immigration is a degrading experience for most people, and the main reason for the dramatic drop in foreign tourists choosing to visit the United States.

Bruce Bawer, and old friend of mine, also joined in as he (like Chris and me) has moved abroad to be with his partner. He writes about how one time while entering the U.S. together, he insisted on declaring his partner (who was on the line for foreigners) as a family member on his customs form, as they are a family under the laws of their home country, Norway. The immigration officer testily said he was not his family member in the United States, and crossed off the designation, putting in a big zero under family members accompanying him.

Dan Savage added his two cents, saying he "feels for Bruce," but has it worse somehow. He and his (American) partner travel with their adopted son to Canada often, and when they return they have to deal with their child being subjected to the kind of dehumanizing treatment that African American children faced during segregation. They can't pretend he isn't their son, like gay couples can go along with pretending they're just "friends", so they have to face the expressions of disgust from immigration officers.

And at the end of this one-upsmanship of woe, Chris reminds all of us that he'd love the chance at some disrespect for himself and Anderson, because not only do they face the same legal issues as the rest, but the added aspect of U.S. visa policy toward Latin American countries makes it impossible for Anderson to even get a visa in the first place.

I probably land much closer to Bruce on the continuum of all this, as Vini comes from a wealthy family and has already studied in the U.S. so he was able to get a tourist visa. Privilege plays a decisive role out here in the developing world, and Chris and Anderson are not as lucky as we are. But it doesn't change the fact that I have to live here in Brazil in order for my relationship with Vini -- the one I have waited for all my life to have -- to have a chance.

Even with his relative privilege, Vini can only live in the U.S. for reasons that have no connection to the needs of our relationship, such as study or a position at a company, and therefore our life together would be at the whim of the Department of Homeland Security and the school or business that was sponsoring his stay. But he'd have to lie to the U.S. government, and so would I -- either actively or by omission -- or the results would be disastrous.

From my wide consultations with people who have taken the legal route to settling in the U.S., I learned that if any of these entities (DHS, school, job) learned we were living as a couple and didn't like it, it could be grounds not only for Vini's deportation, but also of the cancellation of any future visa chances for good. See, Vini is from Latin America, and that automatically makes him more of a risk for jumping his visa and staying illegally (in the eyes of DHS, both at the U.S. visa section here and back in the United States). And therefore, if he is living in a gay relationship, he has a good reason (hey think) to want to overstay given the fact that we cannot legally reside together as a same-sex couple, so the risk is therefore too high. Yeah - welcome to Cuckooland.

In short, they acknowledge the intensity of our commitment to each other, and expect it will lead us to break the law, so it would be best if he was barred altogether. I have heard of many, many true life examples of this from people I have personally talked with. I also lived this story from 1999 to 2000 when I sponsored a foreign boyfriend to come to the U.S. and live with me, and the strain was enough to destroy a hope of our relationship surviving. It was very traumatic for me.

So, Vini and I chose not to live such a suffocating life, and I chose not to have to look into Vini's eyes and see the strain and the agony of such a life for him, being the target of such suspicion, like in my previous experience. I can only imagine what it would do to Anderson, who is one of the sweetest people I have ever met and doesn't deserve a moment of that.

Still, Vini and I had choices. Albeit, all of them bad. Anderson doesn't have a choice, and from that neither does Chris, except choosing to end his relationship. (From somewhere I hear Andrea Lafferty's evil cackle, as this is exactly the 'choice' they want all gays to have.)

So I feel for all of you who have to deal with this matter in any way. And there isn't a qualifier to it. As anyone who has read this blog (or who knows me in real life) can attest, I did make the commitment to my relationship over my old life, and the leap from the cozy protection of Logan Circle to the harsh world out here has not been easy at all.

But I count myself as extremely lucky among the group of us who face this. Brazil's laws are much better on this question, and our life here is off to a good start in terms of legal questions. Also, an American lives a lot better here than he would in most cities back home because socio-economic inequities in most parts of the world tend to favor people with American education and experience. And while you lament the distance from your family, your homeland and your old life -- all hastened by profound injustice -- you have to also admit to yourself that it's an adventure to move abroad and test your mettle in a life situation you never imagined. Moving to a young democracy is even more interesting, I think. The stakes are so much higher in every single issue, and the social questions so much more dramatic and fascinating than whether Paris Hilton's handbag matches her belt.

But my tenaciousness in seeing a silver lining in everything doesn't lessen the wrongness of the Defense of Marriage Act or the 1993 law which codified the travel entry ban on people with HIV. These are the two legal culprits for all the agony that we face on this issue, and the foundations of why so many American gays are forced to leave the United States. We should remember that President Bill Clinton -- the lion of the gay movement and the husband of the likely next president -- was the man who signed both of these into law. And we should remind ourselves that these two laws, along with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in the U.S. military (also a Clinton accomplishment) are the only major pieces of federal civil rights (wrongs?) legislation that have been adopted in the last 15 years of interest to our community. So all this self-defeating nonsense over ENDA is not only politically stupid, it's an outrage to gay Americans at home and abroad who continue to suffer the effects of anti-gay laws and are yearning for the legislative pendulum to start swinging in our community's direction for once.

And the longer the failures and defeats go on, as the so-called gay political leadership continues acting out its Keystone Cops routine back in Washington, I can personally report that there are once-red-bloodedly proud Americans who are totally losing heart and giving up, simply because we only get one life, and it's time to live it.

Count me as number one.

(more on this soon)

Tuesday A/V: Gimme More Shoes

It was, of course, inevitable. And thank God for that.

Federal Police Nab Skinheads in Jardins Near "Ground Zero" of Anti-Gay Attacks

For those who have been following the story here of the wave of anti-gay attacks and murders in and around the Jardins neighborhood, finally we can report some good news. Indeed, we can chalk one up for the Brazilian authorities, and my heartfelt thanks goes out to the Military Police (PM), the federal police force that has some jurisdiction over large-scale criminal conspiracies.

Officers of the PM arrested a gang of skinheads last night around 11:00pm as they were walking on Rua Augusta, very near where gangs of skinheads (who may be connected to this group) murdered Gregor Landouar in front of the gay Bar Ritz, and 19-year-old John Clayton, an openly gay waiter who was chased down and stabbed to death in cold blood. According to O Globo, the gang was stopped by the PM officers and questioned about what they were doing in the neighborhood, and began to get visibly nervous. The police found them to be carrying an arsenal of weapons, and racist, anti-gay literature on their persons:

The young men, between the ages of 20 and 25, were armed with two brass-knuckles, an ax and a retractable club. Along with this, they were carrying pamphlets on nationalist theory and with criticisms of homosexuals. ... The four skinheads were descending Rua Augusta in the direction of downtown, when around 11:00pm they were approached near 1245 Augusta by PMs from the 3rd Company, 7th Battalion. According to the police, the group became nervous when they saw the authorities coming toward them. The PMs found the weapons upon searching them. Two of them carried documents showing they practiced martial arts.

From Agencia Estado, the wire service of O Estado de São Paulo, it is reported that the PMs "didn't trust the behavior of the young men, who were walking rapidly on Rua Augusta, near Avenida Paulista. Conflicts among punks, skinheads and other gangs who show intolerance have left the police more attentive, principally in the region of Jardins."

Upon questioning, both news agencies reported, the gang said they were only carrying the weapons for self-defense, and that they had no plans to attack anyone. However, one of them wore a t-shirt inscribed with the gang name "Carecas do Subúrbio" (Suburban Skinheads), a known gang implicated in various attacks and criminal activity. Another had the letters "CS" tattooed on his arm. They also found pamphlets from an extremist, anti-gay organization which the skinheads said they were distributing. Agencia Estado says that "according to the police, the attitude of the young men was such that they already had a motive, and were heading directly to the area where they intended to attack someone."

Just the fact that the PM is finally patrolling this neighborhood, and had the competence to see a group of skinheads on Rua Augusta and know that they didn't belong in Jardins at 11:00pm on a Sunday night, is progress enough for me. The skinheads cannot be held for the extremist literature they were carrying, of course, despite the fact they admitted they were distributing the pamphlets called "Combatants for the Nation" which lashes out at "anarchists, homosexuals and drug users." But roaming around heavily armed in a neighborhood known for its gay residential population, after similar groups have recently committed brutal hate-motivated murders in the same area, is a highly justifiable reason to stop them, arrest them for the weapons violations, severely question their motives and activities, and publish their names for the public to see.

I say bravo to the Policia Militar, and to the local media, for doing their jobs. Let's hope they keep it up.

Here We Go

As I head back home to São Paulo, the road ahead is as glorious as the crater-filled, rain-swept bouncefest from the hotel to Norman Manley Airport in Kingston where I will begin this journey. And since I must fly American Airlines, with whom I have no status whatsoever, I look forward with all sorts of glee at the joys of flying in coach with a U.S. carrier.