Norman Clarke’s Weblog

Starbucks is finally coming to Buenos Aires - this picture was taken at Alto Palermo on the corner of Coronel Díaz and Beruti.

According to this account rep at AOL, at least.

For those that dig that retro-funk 70’s sound - check out Clube do Balanço.

Here’s a pretty nice little piece someone put up on the train tracks near my place a few days ago.

From an editorial by Roger Cohen in today’s New York Times:

Honesty feels heady right now. For seven years, we have lived with the arid, us-against-them formulas of Bush’s menial mind, with the result that the nuanced exploration of America’s hardest subject is almost giddying. Can it be that a human being, like Wright, or like Obama’s grandmother, is actually inhabited by ambiguities? Can an inquiring mind actually explore the half-shades of truth?

Yes. It. Can.

The unimaginable South African transition that Nelson Mandela made possible is a reminder that leadership matters. Words matter. The clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years.

Hillary Clinton said in January that: “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.” Wrong. America’s had its fill of the prosaic.

Video from an R&B singer / rapper from São Paulo - the chorus is from the song is “Eu Sei (Na Mira),” written by Marisa Monte.

Seu Jorge = cooler than you.

..or at least one of the reasons:

Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning.

But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. — as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.

From an editorial in the NY Times.

A sickening statistic revealed in today’s New York Times: 1 in 100 American adults are in jail or prison.

We need to stop locking up nonviolent criminals and focus more rehabilitation and correction over mere punishment - this is simply inexcusable beyond all comprehension for a country that prides itself on freedom and fairness.