[Really-OT] Rio is at a state of war

[Andre Garzia]

Stephen,

Thanks for the email. Yes, things are bad in here and it appears that it
will get worse before getting better. I live in Niteroi, neighbor city of
Rio. Just a 20 minutes ride from here to there where I work. My parents are
from São Paulo which is their own criminal nightmare in itself. Rio has a
really odd landscape/topography with the city at sea level and the slums on
the hills and small mountains, makes everything hard.

Our new president is an ex-guerrilla fighter who kidnapped U.S. Ambassadors
in exchange of liberty for political prisioners, she is also very hard to
deal with according to my girlfriend who is a journalist. I don't like the
new president, almost cried when she got ellected but hey, there were worse
options...

damn this country will get crazy the next four years...

Not enough people know about Rio and Brazil in "Real Life", all they know is
old Hollywood stereotypes. If they knew that here in Rio, the violence
already killed more than the vietnam war then they would think twice about
calling this a peaceful place. At least now they are seeing on TV that it is
a war, finally, after 30 years someone is telling the truth.

Eeek! the army just deployed 800 soldiers in Rio right now, things are about
to get ugly...

:-/

Well, I will be at the next conference, it will be good to have some days of
this whole situation.