Ele esta de saco cheio

Adam's well-argued tirade on Brazil, Anderson Varejao, and the NBA on McSweeney's.

"Varejao's Brazilian lineage appears to be one of the main reasons he receives such special treatment. Just as Brazil—as a monolith—has been fetishized by American consumers of culture for its unattainably exotic (e.g., "Portuguese, not Spanish") and uncontrived (see, "primitive") "cool," Varejao, in the same manner, is fetishized for his exotic and uncontrived "uncool." Varejao's admirers, rather than noting any specific Brazilian aspect of his identity, see merely "Brazil," which translates to him possessing a quality both alien and special: as if he were unlike anything we had seen before...

Perhaps most irksome is that, were the fetishizing of a Brazilian player to be performed in congruence with the obsession over Seu Jorge's Bowie covers, Favela Funk (not really sure what that is), City of God, Snoop and Pharrell's "Beautiful" video, and the explosion of blue-green-yellow flip-flops and T-shirts that emerged following Brazil's 2002 World Cup victory, the logical candidate to become Brazil's most beloved would be the Suns' Leandro Barbosa. Would Rick Ross be so keen to observe that Anderson Varejao is merely the more commercially viable Sergio Mendes to Barbosa's slicker Jorge Ben? There is no doubt of it."

Epilogue

The day I left Gitmo was the day of suicides and uprising. This is the best article on the whole thing. It was odd: I tried to extend my stay until Friday, because there was a press session on Thursday I wanted to attend, but all the flights were full and I had to take an early Thursday flight. Nonetheless we were in Camp 4 two days prior. I can only wonder if any of the detainees that I saw walking around took part, which cell block it was, and what really happened. It changes the nature of the story I'm writing somewhat, but I'm not sure how. A fairly dramatic development nonetheless, especially coinciding with the UN's call to close the facility.

That is actually something I don't quite understand. The explicit reasons for each detainee's detention should be made clear to them and to the world -- if these men are as horrible as the DOD would have us believe, it shouldn't be a problem to justify holding them through habeas corpus -- but closing the facility? Transferring people to other countries, particularly those with less than glowing human rights records, would not be a solution. It may be hypocritical of the U.S. to say they worry about people getting tortured upon transfer, but that doesn't make it less of a legitimate concern.

Whew. I was propellered back into Fort Lauderdale a few hours ago, safe and sound. Now to write everything up. In the meantime, I would like to wholeheartedly endorse the accuracy of this survey.

Tactical strategy

I am quite tired. If only I had a nickel for every response I got during an interview that began with, "That's an excellent question." For anyone who has never dealt with public affairs officers, said response is euphemism for either "I don't know" or "I can't answer that." The German public radio correspondent with us said she would keep a tally when reviewing her tapes. My guess is that her total will top fifty times in two days.

Tomorrow I go to my less cushy digs. (The ones I'm in right now are very very nice. Much nicer than my little beach studio in Miami, although the lizards appear to have followed me here. Where I am moving is more like a college dorm.) According to everyone here I won't have internet on the Leeward side, so this is the end of my newly-minted Gitmo blog. I'm sorry I've done such a poor job of describing the scenery. It merits a great deal of effort: enormous windmills slowly turning along mountainous ridges, spindly guard towers perched on cliffs overlooking the sea, the massive labyrinth of concertina wire known as Camp Delta. I have also failed to write about any of the people I've talked to and the things I've seen. I need a couple of days to mull over some things.

I almost bought a child-sized t-shirt today that said "Future behaviour modification instructor" in the NEX gift shop. Even viewed ironically, it was simply way too obnoxious.

Expect phone calls. That, it turns out, is much more easily accomplished here.

We substituted good grammar for intellect

The flight was in an 8-seat Air Sunshine plane, equipped with none of the usual buffers that serve to suspend the sensation of hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour. Sitting in the front seat, I was practically flying the plane, or at least close enough to see that the sun-cracked dashboard with its analogue buttons looked very, very old -- except for the pilot's small prayer plaque, which was in Arabic. He had nicely covered his seat in a large swath of gray fake fur. It went well with the overall ambience of protruding foam, cracked pleather, toxic fumes and deafening machinery. There was an Igloo mini-cooler with drinks on the floor. Due to the demands of bathroom scheduling, these were left untouched. When we landed they told us to look out for the propellers on the way down the ladder.

Then Gitmo: cacti, woodpeckers, and iguanas lounging in the shade. Much prettier than I thought it would be -- everything brown and pink and light blue.

Lots of new vocabulary words to learn and cages to visit. In one large cage: "The detainess co-recreate two at a time." Or in an old Camp X-Ray interrogation shack: "They are not interrogated Pavlovianly."

We look at lots of sample cells with little piles arranged on the beds. "Non-compliant detainee" pile includes orange jumpsuit and flip flops. "Very compliant detainee" gets prayer oils and backgammon. I have lots of pictures of small cots with boxes of soap, checkers, chess, and backgammon neatly laid out. These are called "comfort items." In some places, the detainees themselves sat in the shade, looking fairly bored, in spite of the basketball hoops and elliptical machines where they can co-recreate.

We are treated like babies: well-hydrated, air conditioned, transported, housed in little suites stocked with comfort items. The tour ends Thursday, when I am exiled Leeward. There are very few comfort items Leeward. Breeze, dust, cacti and sea. But there's a bar, it's quiet, I will be unescorted. And the NGOs arrive Monday for the commissions. But I keep hearing Demi Moore's voice in A Few Good Men. "Are you going to investigate at all?" she asks Tom on his visit to GTMO, "Or are you just here for the tour?"

I take it back though. Because it's different than that. We know that they messed up. They know that they messed up. But we pretend we're confident journalists, and they pretend they're proud soldiers. Not one person here has been here longer than eight months anyway, that we've met. The relationship of the journalists to the soldiers, and the soldiers to the detainees, is a lot like The Bluest Eye, the part Black Star quoted...

"We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength. And fantasy it was for were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave..."

etc. etc. Thieves in the night, etc. Pore old Pecola... Genius Toni Morrison. I probably can't put that in any sort of article but that's all this seems to be. Embarassment disguised with Orwellian language and trumped up ceremony.

Upcoming travels

Yes, it's been a while. Last Sunday I had a big birthday barbecue on Key Biscayne with Krishna and another friend. We set up under a small stand of palm trees on the beach in Crandon Park, placed a portable table and a hibachi grill in the sand, put some Smokey Robinson on the jukebox, mixed some mango juice and rum, and stayed there for seven hours. I think I like it here, suddenly.

But Monday marks a descent into banana rats and iguanas, as I travel down to Gitmo to witness legal limbo and eat Jamaican food at the Jerk House. The original plan was the four-day media tour, where the public affairs office shows you the former Camp X-ray and the kitchens where prisoners' halal meals are prepared (the ones that aren't being force-fed.) At the suggestion of another reporter, I asked if I could stay over the weekend and attend the military commissions the following week (the "pre-trial hearings" for a couple of the 10 prisoners -- out of some 490 -- that are actually being charged with something.)

They agreed to let me stay, although I'm told I'll be alone on the Leeward side for the weekend. I'll be there ten days total. We fly down in a charter plane with no bathroom that one lawyer described as "a minivan with wings." It's a three hour flight because they take the long way around Cuba and back north. For reasons I can't quite explain, I'm a little frightened.

In addition, I worry that there is no real news to break on the subject.

For anyone who cares, I'll be in Little Rock in early June.