Jornal do Brasil, Sunday , 9/10/2006
The city, p. A22, “
Abusively
Members
of the court’s office denounce the irregularity as a violation of the
Constitutions’ 5th article.
………………..
O Globo, Tuesday, 9/12/2006
Opinion, p. 7, Luiz Garcia
The Devil on Vieira Souto Av.
Tired of being beaten, one day
the Devil decided to establish his own church. The doctrine was simple: to
condemn all virtues and stimulate al sins. It made a hell of a success, to use
an adequate adjective. Everybody joined it.
Nevertheless,
as time goes by humanity begun to practice virtues – timidly, at the beginning,
but, soon, openly. Astonished, the Demo complained with the Lord, who, from the
heights of his long experience, comforted him: “It’s the eternal human
contradiction.”
This,
up there, is an abstract of a famous Machado de Assis’ short story, “The
Devil’s Church”, published in 1874. It inspired cariocas who stuck in their heads the madness of attempting to induce
the community to think with some originality. A few days ago, they performed a,
let’s say, Devil’s little church on Vieira Souto Av. Some of the posters they’ve
carried made the apology – obviously ironic – of buying and selling votes.
Others reproduced parts of Machado de Assis’ story, with the name of author and
year of publication. The inspiration was as obvious as the intention.
One of its
organizers latter explained: “What we do are artistic actions that we set up on
public space, with no announcement, promotion, or authorship vindication.
Incident over a local reality, not rarely these actions face difficulties for
its setting.”
In the
Vieira Souto case, the difficulties were serious. Called by astonished ipanemenses, two TRE (
For the
judge and the officers the group was – and may still be: the arrested material
was, until yesterday, kept by the TRE – guilty for the apology of the electoral
crime of vote buying and selling.
It would
be funny if not serious. Vote buying, and selling, certainly occurs in the
Brazilian elections. But persons with responsible functions on the electoral
justice should be able to suspect that the practitioners and defenders of this
peculiar commerce usually have the knowledge not to do it openly. As well as
the prudence to avoid defending it publicly.
Whoever
spends an effort to expose the existence of this shameful commerce, on the
streets or in the media, only does it, obviously, to denounce it. When the
denunciation is ironic, with a help of an irony master of Brazilian Literature,
the civil act tends to be more efficient – as the blade is more efficient to
kill than a hammer.
Possibly,
in the judge’s view, this last sentence makes the apology of homicide.
.........................
Jornal do Brasil, Sunday, 9/24/2006
The city, p. A22, “
Risky culture
After three weeks without a
legal justification for the arrest, the
The
court does not inform, justify, or return the posters, thus perpetrating an
abusive censorship and a flagrant crime against freedom of expression. The
owner of the posters made the effort to enumerate some chapters of the
Individual and Collective Rights and Duties on the Federal Constitution,
remembering that the expression of intellectual, scientific and communication
activities are free, independently from censorship or license. It was
worthless.
................................
Jornal do Brasil, Saturday, 11/4/06
The city, p. A18, “Rio’s affairs” (Fred Suter)
On screen
After the last month’s arrest
in Ipanema of sandwich-man type posters showing pieces from Machado de Assis’
stories, is now time for Rui Barbosa to be remembered.
The TRE
officers, who arrested the posters, certainly never read any of the two
authors.