This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 5; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-2016-isil-games-opening-ceremony-pt5.html
The Opening Speeches: It is a matter of IOC protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature a speech by the head of the local organising committee and a speech by the head of the IOC. There must also be a speech by the Head of State of the host nation declaring the games open.
This round of speeches was opened by Carlos Arthur Nuzman - the head of the Rio 2016 organising committee. He began by welcoming more than a billion people from all five of the World's continents to Rio for the games. This was a reference to the five Olympic Rings which are said to represent the five continents.
The problem with this is that there are seven continents. As such this could be viewed as a little dig at the IOC. After all it would be interesting to hear them explain which are the two continents they don't think are important enough to be included in the Olympics.
Guzman went on to reassure the World the Brazil is most certainly not deeply ashamed to be hosting this celebration of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated Islamist terror groups. Well he told us how proud Brazil was to be hosting the games around 17 times in the space of a minute.
Finally Guzman moved to introduce Thomas Bach - the head of the IOC. Here Guzman suffered a terrible slip of the tongue. He meant to say that Bach has; "Always believed in the success of Rio." However what he actually said was; "Bach has always believed in the SEX of Rio." This made Bach sound like some sort of predatory sex tourist.
A visibly shaken Bach used his speech to talk about the darkness to the World currently finds itself enveloped in. He claimed this darkness was being caused by people who believe in superiority and division.
This was a reference to the fact that these current ISIL games have frequently been likened to the 1936 Summer Olympics that were held in Berlin, Germany.
There the IOC flocked to celebrate Adolf Hitler and his Nazi ideology of racial superiority. They are probably most famous for American black athlete Jesse Owens. Unfortunately on this occasion the US sent Ibtihaj Muhammad in celebration rather than resistance.
I personally think that the better analogy is the Summer Olympics of 1940 or 1944. With the horrors of the Nazis genocide and ethnic cleansing as clear as ISIL's are at the moment and much of the World locked in battle against them it was impossible for the IOC to continue to celebrate their support for such things. As a result both of those games were cancelled.
Bach then tried to claim that the IOC is an alternative to such darkness stating that it was a movement based on equality. He was quite quickly picked up on this by a number of people who pointed out that the entire purpose of the Olympics is to promote the notion of superiority so the superior can be allowed to stand atop a higher platform than the inferior.
Bach proceeded to fully endorse the genocide and ethnic cleansing of ISIL and their associates by pointing out that the IOC was celebrating people being forced from their homes on grounds of race and religion by formalising the process with a refugee team.
Bach then went on to announce a new element of IOC protocol to be carried forward into all future Opening Ceremonies - the Olympic Laurel Award.
This first Laurel Award went to Kipchoge Keino - a middle-distance runner who represented Kenya at the 1968 & 1972 Summer Olympics. He is a strange choice for such recognition because he is the current head of the Kenyan Olympic Committee (KOC). The KOC is currently mired in doping & corruption allegations.
Keino however received the Laurel Award for his charitable work operating a number of residential homes for Kenyan orphans.
In the year that "Spotlight" dominated the Oscars handing out awards for running children's homes would strike a lot of people as the IOC formally endorsing paedophilia and institutionalised child sexual abuse.
This is particularly true for viewers in the UK because the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal that broke just a month after the 2012 London Olympics ended the UK has become even more obsessed than usual with the sexual abuse of children.
For example we have the long running and remarkably ill advised Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). This hit the headlines again just four days before the Opening Ceremony when its Chair Justice Goddard resigned. The sexual abuse of children in residential homes has also been a major theme in many BBC dramas this year - most notably "Line of Duty" and "Peaky Blinders."
The issue of child sexual abuse and in particular child prostitution has been a long running one in the build up to both the 2014 World Cup held in Brazil and these Rio games.
That is because at the time it was awarded the World Cup back in 2007 Brazil has no legal age of sexual consent. That meant that sex with a child of any age was legal within Brazil provided violence was not used to rape them in the same way that rape amongst adults is defined. As a result child prostitution was rife within Brazil with the nation being a popular destination for paedophiles across the globe who wished to legally have sex with children.
Although I still can't remember any of the important details such as the defendant's name one of the key cases that led to Brazil introducing age of consent legislation concerned a man who was convicted of rape after having sex with a prostitute of around 11 years old. He had his conviction overturned because with the prostitute having multiple sexual partners both before and after his encounter with her and no violence being used it could not be proved that the child had not given her consent.
It was one of those cases that sticks in the memory because nobody involved - including the law - was in the right.
Rather than hiding away from this unpleasant subject Brazil actually made it front & centre of discussion surrounding its hosting of the 2014 World Cup and these games. The purpose being to force the nations where the paedophiles and sex tourists were travelling from to help Brazil put a stop to child prostitution by cutting off the demand.
This is one of the issues I would have liked to have followed in detail in the build up to the Rio games. However 2012 Olympics ended with me picking up Rihanna. That lasted until the 2014 Olympics. Since then it's just been war. The same damn war.
As he was being presented with his award Keino was accompanied onto the stage by a number of extremely photogenic children dressed in virginal white. This was done to really underline the paedophilic undertones of the award.
It then fell to interim Brazilian President and Head of State Michel Temer to issue the declaration formally opening the games. This is all he did and despite speaking for all of ten seconds he was widely booed.
That is to be expected because amid growing discontent over the governments handling of the economy Temer has only become President after former Dilma Rouseff was impeached. Rouseff supporters are accusing Temer of mounting a 1964-style coup. Even if most Brazilians don't believe Rouseff's claim the unelected Temer still has to drive through a raft of deeply unpopular austerity measures.
The Olympic Flag & Anthem: It is IOC protocol that every Opening Ceremony features the parading and raising of the Olympic flag and the singing of the Olympic anthem.
The parading of the Olympic flag was particularly stripped back by the Brazilian organisers. It is something of a tradition that the flag is paraded by figures of significance.
I think in London 2012 this duty was carried out by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and prominent human rights lawyer Shami Chakrabarti. In Sochi 2014 it was carried out by the likes of Anastasia Popova - a journalist for the Russia-24 channel who made documentaries about the Syrian war and the rise of ISIL and Valentina Tereshkova - the first woman in space.
However in Rio the flag was simply paraded by prominent Brazilian Olympians.
The raising of the flag was similarly low-key. It was accompanied by the singing of the Olympic anthem by a children's choir to continue the paedophilic theme.
The Olympic Oaths: Again it is IOC protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature the Olympic oath being recited by an athlete, a coach and an umpire on behalf of all athletes, coaches and umpires. In this ceremony there is really nothing more that I can say about this segment.
At around 16:10 on 18/8/16 (UK date) I'll back to pick this up after dinner.
Edited at around 18:35 on 18/8/16 (UK date) to add above and below;
Quick! Do Something Interesting: With the agonisingly long two and a half hour Parade of Nations being followed by almost an hour of tedious protocol and speeches it was unlikely that there was anyone in the World - let alone the stadium - still awake at this point.
Therefore it fell to the hosts to throw in a final creative sequence in order to wake everybody up for the end of the ceremony.
This began with an older man who I assume is a very famous Brazilian musician even if no-one seems to think he's worthy of naming teaching a young boy to Samba dance.
Samba is of course one of Brazil's most famous cultural exports. Although disputed it's claim that the word derives from the Angolan word "Semba" which further highlights Brazil's history and rich cultural diversity.
However this spectacle of an older man forcing this young street to dance and entertain him also carried with it references to paedophilia and child prostitution.
The young boy's Samba dance suddenly grew as he was joined by the Samba schools from Rio's globally famous Carnival returned to flood the arena.
In the middle of this mini-Carnival three very famous Brazilian singers - Anitta, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil - performed the song "Isto Aqui, o que É?" by very famous and Oscar nominated Brazilian composer Ary Barroso.
19:05 on 18/8/16 (UK date).
Thursday, 18 August 2016
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
The 2016 ISIL Games: Opening Ceremony Pt.5
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 4; http://watchitdie.blogspot.in/2016/08/the-2016-isil-games-opening-ceremony-pt4.html
The Olympic Rings: It is a matter of IOC protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature the ceremonial unveilling of the five Olympic rings.
In dealing with this sometimes tedious bit of protocol the Brazilian Opening Ceremony was particularly creative.
As is tradition the Brazilian team as hosts were the last to arrive in the arena in the Parade of Nations. They were immediately followed by a parade of 12 Samba schools from the annual Rio Carnival that Brazil is particularly famous for. The Samba schools were followed by the silver seed banks that had been used during the Parade of Nations.
Amid the organised chaos this created in the arena the seed banks suddenly took centre stage and from their tops suddenly appeared the Olympic Rings in the form a plant leaves.
This could obviously be interpreted as a reference to the environmental theme of the ceremony. Particularly the Amazon Rainforest and the reforestation efforts that led to the athletes being invited to plant seeds in the seed banks.
However it could also be interpreted as a reference to another type of plant. The Marijuana plant.
Attitudes towards Marijuana use is currently a big talking point across North, Central and South America. A number of US states such as Colorado have completely legalised the recreational use of Marijuana while around 25 others have legalised the medical use of Marijuana.
The picture is similar across much of Central and South America. Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador and Mexico along with the hosts Brazil have all decriminalised the personal use of Marijuana. Guatemala has called for the legalisation of all drugs at the United Nations (UN).
Uruguay which never made Marijuana use illegal has even go so far as to legalise the production of Marijuana. Columbia seems to be following suit issuing export licenses for commercial Marijuana export even if it has yet to legalise commercial Marijuana production.
This new trend towards Marijuana legalisation across Latin America is driving largely by a desire to free the region from the grip of the drug cartels.
Prior to the US' CIA teaming up with Pablo Escobar to fund the Honduran Contras Marijuana was the main illegal drug being produces across Latin America. It was only the CIA's decision to open the US market to Cocaine in the 1980's that saw production shift dramatically towards Coca.
The hope being that legalisation of Marijuana will shift production back from Coca. Even if this doesn't completely remove the influence of the cartels it should help reduce the levels of violence.
After all it is widely accepted that Marijuana users and dealers are significantly less violent than Cocaine users and dealers. Crack Cocaine dealers are of course the absolute worst.
The main barrier that Latin American nations face in trying to remove the destabilising influence of the drug cartels is US President Barack Obama.
Through the migration policy that Donald Trump has helped put a stop to Obama and the Democrats of course aimed to partner with the drug cartels in their people trafficking efforts. Thus boosting their profits and influence.
As part of his commitment to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Obama has made a point of commuting the sentences of predominately Crack Cocaine dealers. Anyone who has any experience with both drugs, their users and the people that sell them knows that Crack Cocaine is a far more serious drug than Powder Cocaine.
Therefore any discussion of drug policy in Latin America only serves to further underline that Obama cannot be considered a serious President and the Democrats cannot be considered a serious party.
Marijuana use is also something of a hot topic within the Olympic movement itself. Particularly as it tries to welcome in some of the newer sports such as Surfing, Skateboarding and Snowboarding.
Although I don't want to stereotype participants in those sports have a reputation for using Marijuana recreationally. Particularly as global legislation has moved towards decriminalisation this has led to people arguing that Marijuana should no longer be on the list of drugs that are banned by the IOC.
The problem with this is that Marijuana has strong performance enhancing, medical properties. For example it acts as a powerful muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory. This means that it cuts athletes recovery times and allows them to build more muscle faster.
Therefore even if they are only using recreationally Marijuana users will gain an unfair advantage over athletes that do not use Marijuana.
One of the most controversial athletes when it comes to discussions of Marijuana is Team USA's Michael Phelps. He is the US' most decorated Olympian with some 23 Gold medals and was selected as the US' flag bearer at these games.
The problem is that Phelps is a serious and habitual drugs cheat. In 2004, 2009 and again in 2014 Phelps was found to have been using Marijuana. However rather than being stripped of his medals and banned from all future competitions Phelps simply got off with repeated warnings because the US falsely claimed that Marijuana was a recreational rather than a performance enhancing drug.
At the swimming events that almost immediately followed the Opening Ceremony Michael Phelps and many of his teammates appeared sporting this strange geometric red circles on their bodies.
These were the result of an ancient Chinese therapy known as "Cupping." Its purpose is to relax muscles and cut inflammation in order to reduce recovery times enhancing athletic performance. The jokes about Phelps once again falling asleep on his Marijuana bong pretty much wrote themselves
On Monday (15/8/16) the US Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced that it is going to continue classing Marijuana as a dangerous illegal drug alongside Heroin and Crack Cocaine. Their reasoning being the false claim that Marijuana has no medical or therapeutic benefits.
This was rather like the US saying it would rather see Latin American burn than admit that Michael Phelps is a drugs cheat who along with all of Team USA should be expelled from the Olympics.
Just like the US has been trying to have the entire Russian team banned.
17:15 on 17/8/16 (UK date).
The Olympic Rings: It is a matter of IOC protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature the ceremonial unveilling of the five Olympic rings.
In dealing with this sometimes tedious bit of protocol the Brazilian Opening Ceremony was particularly creative.
As is tradition the Brazilian team as hosts were the last to arrive in the arena in the Parade of Nations. They were immediately followed by a parade of 12 Samba schools from the annual Rio Carnival that Brazil is particularly famous for. The Samba schools were followed by the silver seed banks that had been used during the Parade of Nations.
Amid the organised chaos this created in the arena the seed banks suddenly took centre stage and from their tops suddenly appeared the Olympic Rings in the form a plant leaves.
This could obviously be interpreted as a reference to the environmental theme of the ceremony. Particularly the Amazon Rainforest and the reforestation efforts that led to the athletes being invited to plant seeds in the seed banks.
However it could also be interpreted as a reference to another type of plant. The Marijuana plant.
Attitudes towards Marijuana use is currently a big talking point across North, Central and South America. A number of US states such as Colorado have completely legalised the recreational use of Marijuana while around 25 others have legalised the medical use of Marijuana.
The picture is similar across much of Central and South America. Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador and Mexico along with the hosts Brazil have all decriminalised the personal use of Marijuana. Guatemala has called for the legalisation of all drugs at the United Nations (UN).
Uruguay which never made Marijuana use illegal has even go so far as to legalise the production of Marijuana. Columbia seems to be following suit issuing export licenses for commercial Marijuana export even if it has yet to legalise commercial Marijuana production.
This new trend towards Marijuana legalisation across Latin America is driving largely by a desire to free the region from the grip of the drug cartels.
Prior to the US' CIA teaming up with Pablo Escobar to fund the Honduran Contras Marijuana was the main illegal drug being produces across Latin America. It was only the CIA's decision to open the US market to Cocaine in the 1980's that saw production shift dramatically towards Coca.
The hope being that legalisation of Marijuana will shift production back from Coca. Even if this doesn't completely remove the influence of the cartels it should help reduce the levels of violence.
After all it is widely accepted that Marijuana users and dealers are significantly less violent than Cocaine users and dealers. Crack Cocaine dealers are of course the absolute worst.
The main barrier that Latin American nations face in trying to remove the destabilising influence of the drug cartels is US President Barack Obama.
Through the migration policy that Donald Trump has helped put a stop to Obama and the Democrats of course aimed to partner with the drug cartels in their people trafficking efforts. Thus boosting their profits and influence.
As part of his commitment to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Obama has made a point of commuting the sentences of predominately Crack Cocaine dealers. Anyone who has any experience with both drugs, their users and the people that sell them knows that Crack Cocaine is a far more serious drug than Powder Cocaine.
Therefore any discussion of drug policy in Latin America only serves to further underline that Obama cannot be considered a serious President and the Democrats cannot be considered a serious party.
Marijuana use is also something of a hot topic within the Olympic movement itself. Particularly as it tries to welcome in some of the newer sports such as Surfing, Skateboarding and Snowboarding.
Although I don't want to stereotype participants in those sports have a reputation for using Marijuana recreationally. Particularly as global legislation has moved towards decriminalisation this has led to people arguing that Marijuana should no longer be on the list of drugs that are banned by the IOC.
The problem with this is that Marijuana has strong performance enhancing, medical properties. For example it acts as a powerful muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory. This means that it cuts athletes recovery times and allows them to build more muscle faster.
Therefore even if they are only using recreationally Marijuana users will gain an unfair advantage over athletes that do not use Marijuana.
One of the most controversial athletes when it comes to discussions of Marijuana is Team USA's Michael Phelps. He is the US' most decorated Olympian with some 23 Gold medals and was selected as the US' flag bearer at these games.
The problem is that Phelps is a serious and habitual drugs cheat. In 2004, 2009 and again in 2014 Phelps was found to have been using Marijuana. However rather than being stripped of his medals and banned from all future competitions Phelps simply got off with repeated warnings because the US falsely claimed that Marijuana was a recreational rather than a performance enhancing drug.
At the swimming events that almost immediately followed the Opening Ceremony Michael Phelps and many of his teammates appeared sporting this strange geometric red circles on their bodies.
These were the result of an ancient Chinese therapy known as "Cupping." Its purpose is to relax muscles and cut inflammation in order to reduce recovery times enhancing athletic performance. The jokes about Phelps once again falling asleep on his Marijuana bong pretty much wrote themselves
On Monday (15/8/16) the US Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced that it is going to continue classing Marijuana as a dangerous illegal drug alongside Heroin and Crack Cocaine. Their reasoning being the false claim that Marijuana has no medical or therapeutic benefits.
This was rather like the US saying it would rather see Latin American burn than admit that Michael Phelps is a drugs cheat who along with all of Team USA should be expelled from the Olympics.
Just like the US has been trying to have the entire Russian team banned.
17:15 on 17/8/16 (UK date).
Monday, 15 August 2016
The 2016 ISIL Games: Opening Ceremony Pt.4
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 3; http://watchitdie.blogspot.in/2016/08/the-2016-isil-games-opening-ceremony-pt3.html
The Climate Change Headbutt: In reading some of the coverage of the Opening Ceremony many people referred to it as making a nod towards Climate Change. Even I though found it to be much less subtle then that.
This sequence set out to inform the World of the dangers of Climate Change through three videos.
The first showed the concentration of Greenhouse Gases (ghg's) in the atmosphere and how they move about. The second showed how these ghg's are causing global temperatures to rise. The third showed how these rising temperatures are causing ice caps to melt raising global sea levels putting many coastal areas at increased risk of flooding.
Each video began with a stark description in black text against an orange background. These were intended to resemble a health & safety warning such as; "DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!"
The purpose of this sequence was to show these warnings to a global audience who may never have seen them before.
However having been heavily involved in the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations I have seen hundreds if not thousands of this type of video before. As a result I can assure you that their content is widely accepted and not really in dispute. Also they don't seem to have been designed to target particular nations.
The first video showing the global atmospheric concentrations of ghg's however does seem to have been included to emphasise that most ghg's are concentrated in the northern hemisphere. This is a result of developed nations in what is sometimes referred to in UNFCCC jargon as; "The Global North" starting to burn fossil fuels and emit ghg's far earlier then the developing nations in what is sometimes termed; "The Global South."
This historical disparity in emissions has been a key part of the developing nation's position during UNFCCC negotiations. Under the Kyoto Protocol it led to what is termed; "Binary Differentiation."
Essentially this means that only the 37 nations who are classed as "Developed" have to cut their emissions while the other 156 nations are free to grow their emissions by as much as the like.
It was extremely noble or perhaps extremely foolish of US President Obama to concede to China and allow Binary Differentiation to continue as the basis for the so-called "Paris Agreement" to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
After all with 156 nations being left free to grow their ghg emissions Obama's vanity project certainly won't do anything to combat Climate Change.
Following those stark and scientific videos the Opening Ceremony returned to a more artistic bent.
Within the arena a small boy found a sapling growing amid the concrete. We were then shown a video of people farming and generally interacting with the natural environment across Brazil and the World.
During this sequence we were read the famous poem "A Flor e a Neusea" (broadly; "A Flower Amongst the Chaos") by famous Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
On a very superficial level this poem tells the story being played out in the arena. A sapling is found growing amongst the grime and chaos of the city and passers-by are urged to protect the flower as it grows.
The Portuguese version of the poem was read by famous Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro. She is probably best known globally for the 1998 film "Centro do Brasil (Central Station)" for which she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. The first Brazilian and the first Latin American actress to be nominated for the award.
The English version of the poem was read by equally famous British actress Dame Judy Dench. This seemed to be another reference to the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, UK from which Rio was rather picking up the baton.
The London Opening Ceremony featured a sequence in which Daniel Craig in his "James Bond" character met with the British Queen to receive orders for a special mission. The two were then shown apparently parachuting from a helicopter into the stadium at the start of the ceremony.
Up until 2012's "Skyfall" Dame Judy Dench played James Bond's boss known simply as; "M." Even British people like myself occasionally confuse Dame Judy Dench with Dame Helen Mirren who played the British Queen in the 2006 film; "The Queen."
In that context the poem was not simply about a flower growing amid the chaos of the city. Instead it was Britain's assessment of me which formed such a large theme at the 2012 Summer Olympics. I being the strange flower of unknown origin that suddenly appeared.
The Parade of Nations: It is part of International Olympic Committee (IOC) protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature the national flags of competing nations being paraded into the arena by members of the national team.
In many ways this is actually the most important part of any Opening Ceremony. It puts the athletes without whom there wouldn't be any games at centre stage providing them with the opportunity to make memories that will hopefully last a life time.
However in terms of writing it all up there's not really much I can add to; "Man/Woman Walks Forward Waving Flag. Doesn't Fall Over."
For example if you want to know why Tongan flagbearer Pita Taufatofua was such a big hit you'll probably need to ask a woman. Or a certain type of man. After all he certainly seems to need some advice on how much lube to use.
In keeping with the Geometry theme of the ceremony the Parade of Nations took place along a relatively short, ruler straight almost runway along the centre of the arena.
This runway was formed by hundreds of stewards/performers all wearing a tabard adorned with two arrows pointing from right to left. This design also paid reference to the blue & white stars and red & white stripes of the US flag.
In short the stewards had come dressed as the campaign logo of ineligible Democrat nominee for the US Presidency Hillary Clinton.
I suppose you could have viewed this as Brazil showing its full support for Hillary Clinton.
However you could also have viewed it as Brazil turning the Parade of Nations into a long list of countries that will be destroyed by a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
And my god. At almost two and half it was a long list of nations.
At around 20:45 on 15/8/16 (UK date) I'll pick this up tomorrow.
Edited at around 14:40 on 17/8/16 (UK date) to add;
That the Parade of Nations was agonisingly long was entirely the fault of the IOC. Despite there only being 193 nations the IOC decided to include 207 Olympic delegations.
Some of the these such as the Palestinian delegation helped represent what are termed UN Observer States which lack full nation status. However others were included as part of the IOC's own extreme political agenda.
For example athletes from Serbia's southern Kosovo province could compete for either Serbia or Albania. There is certainly no nation of Kosovo.
The much talked about extra delegation this year was the IOC's "Refugee Team." This is far from the first time that refugees have competed in an Olympics. However they normally appear as part of the "Independent" team under the IOC's flag.
This year the Independent team was made up exclusively of athletes from Kuwait. Due to forbidden government interference in its sporting federations Kuwait is currently not recognised by the IOC.
Quite apart from their desire to celebrate ISIL and their ethnic cleansing and genocide I think the refugee team was included this year because the IOC didn't want the refugees to be so publicly associated with the type of Gulf Monarchy that is creating all these refugees.
Due to these games being hijacked as a celebration of ISIL and associated Islamist extremists there was a particular problem with the delegation from Saudi Arabia.
In an effort to show their utter domination over the IOC after they arrived in the stadium the Saudi delegation kept trying to force its way through the stewards onto the runway and throw its flag into the path of the other delegations to pick up to give the nation maximum screentime.
When the delegation from Saudi Arabia's great regional rival Iran arrived in the stadium much later they too started throwing their flags around for all the see. This led to some very visible tension between the Saudi delegation, the Iranian delegation and the stewards.
The Opening Ceremony was attended by a number of World leaders including French President Francois Hollande.
France of course has suffered more than most at the hands of Islamist terrorists not least during the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres and the July 16th 2016 (16/7/16) Nice terror attack.
Due to this substantial security threat France has been forced to cancel a number of traditional summer events over the threat to public safety. The traditional Catholic pilgrimage to Lourdes which began on Tuesday (15/8/16) has only been able to go ahead under military guard.
Despite France struggling to cope with providing security to its existing summer events Hollande still wants to see France host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Due in part to French foreign policy it is far from guaranteed that the war in Syria or the threat from ISIL and associated - French backed - Islamist terror groups will have ended by then.
As a result it seems that the French security establishment is in almost open revolt against Hollande.
During the Opening Ceremony news broke of a number of people being killed in a fire/explosion at a nightclub/bar in Rouen in the French province of Normandy. This of course is the same town in which a Catholic Priest was murdered by ISIL terrorists on July 26th (26/7/16).
Amid the initial chaotic reports of an explosion and a large number of casualties this obviously created a fear that France had once again come under terrorist attack. Even once it had been revealed to just be an accidental fire the spectacle of Hollande laughing, joking and generally enjoying himself during a significant national tragedy was not a good one.
It is also worth noting that the majority of the 13 killed not by the fire but from inhaling toxic fumes from Chloride based insulation. In short they died of Chlorine gas poisoning. That is normally all it would take for France and others to accuse the Syrian government of carrying out a Chemical Weapons attack.
The delegations came out for the Parade of Nations in alphabetical order according to their Portuguese names. This year that decision serves to illustrate the type of pressure that the host nation and the IOC often find themselves under.
NBC who are broadcasting the games in the US spent many weeks ahead of the Opening Ceremony locked in intense dispute with both the Brazilian hosts and the IOC.
Firstly NBC wanted the entire Opening Ceremony moved back by a full hour so it would fit into the US Prime Time schedule. This is despite it being on at completely the wrong time for the entire rest of the World. Secondly NBC wanted the parade to take place in accordance with the English alphabet.
NBC were obviously defeated on both of these points. However the fact that the day after the ceremony the US swim team appeared sporting these strange geometric circles on their bodies from the ancient Chinese muscle therapy of "Cupping" makes you wonder whether these were serious requests from NBC. Or simply attempts to squeeze advance previews of the Opening Ceremony from the hosts.
As is traditional the delegation of the hosts Brazil were the last to arrive in the arena. In a break with tradition they were led out not by their flag bearer but by the Brazilian model Lea T who is probably most famous for being transgendered.
Transgenderism has been something of a hot talking point recently particularly in the US. However it was appropriate that the issue was referenced during the Opening Ceremony because the Olympics has played an important role in making it a global talking point.
This current round of discussion over transgenderism really began back in 2009 when South African athlete Caster Semenya won the women's 800 metres and 1500 metres at the athletics World Championship.
In response many nations disputed the result claiming that Semenya was in fact a man. This led to Semenya being subjected to lengthy and complex gender tests with resulted in doctors from all IOC nations agreeing that Semenya is neither male nor female but in fact transgendered. This production of scientific evidence has probably done more than anything to convince people that transgenderism is a genuine medical condition.
Semenya's participation in women's events including at these games continues to be hugely controversial. Following the 2009 enquiry Semenya began taking drugs that restricted her levels of the male hormone testosterone to the normal female levels. Whilst taking those drugs Semenya's performance as an athlete collapsed. Now Semenya is now longer taking those drugs and effectively competing as a man in women's events suddenly she's outstanding again.
While I don't want to prejudice wider discussions about transgender rights from a purely competitive standpoint that sounds a lot like cheating.
Also mentioning transgender issues provides yet another opportunity to mock US President Barack Obama.
After all Obama seems completely opposed to Binary Differentiation when it comes to the binary matter of gender but fully supportive of Binary Differentiation when it comes to the completely non-binary fight against Climate Change.
As they finished their parade the athletes were invited to plant an individual seed that was then placed in a number of seed banks. Those seeds will then be planted close to the athlete village to hopefully grow into a forest. That is obviously very in keeping with the ceremony's commitment to the environment. Particularly reforestation.
However it also provided the hosts the traditional advantage of slightly knocking the visiting athletes off balance. After all many of them had come to Rio to participate in their chosen sport. Not to do a bit of gardening.
Also I think it's widely accepted that semen is often referred to as; "The Seed of Man." As a result this seed planting exercise also carried with it an uncomfortable air of sexual innuendo.
15:55 on 17/8/16 (UK date).
The Climate Change Headbutt: In reading some of the coverage of the Opening Ceremony many people referred to it as making a nod towards Climate Change. Even I though found it to be much less subtle then that.
This sequence set out to inform the World of the dangers of Climate Change through three videos.
The first showed the concentration of Greenhouse Gases (ghg's) in the atmosphere and how they move about. The second showed how these ghg's are causing global temperatures to rise. The third showed how these rising temperatures are causing ice caps to melt raising global sea levels putting many coastal areas at increased risk of flooding.
Each video began with a stark description in black text against an orange background. These were intended to resemble a health & safety warning such as; "DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!"
The purpose of this sequence was to show these warnings to a global audience who may never have seen them before.
However having been heavily involved in the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations I have seen hundreds if not thousands of this type of video before. As a result I can assure you that their content is widely accepted and not really in dispute. Also they don't seem to have been designed to target particular nations.
The first video showing the global atmospheric concentrations of ghg's however does seem to have been included to emphasise that most ghg's are concentrated in the northern hemisphere. This is a result of developed nations in what is sometimes referred to in UNFCCC jargon as; "The Global North" starting to burn fossil fuels and emit ghg's far earlier then the developing nations in what is sometimes termed; "The Global South."
This historical disparity in emissions has been a key part of the developing nation's position during UNFCCC negotiations. Under the Kyoto Protocol it led to what is termed; "Binary Differentiation."
Essentially this means that only the 37 nations who are classed as "Developed" have to cut their emissions while the other 156 nations are free to grow their emissions by as much as the like.
It was extremely noble or perhaps extremely foolish of US President Obama to concede to China and allow Binary Differentiation to continue as the basis for the so-called "Paris Agreement" to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
After all with 156 nations being left free to grow their ghg emissions Obama's vanity project certainly won't do anything to combat Climate Change.
Following those stark and scientific videos the Opening Ceremony returned to a more artistic bent.
Within the arena a small boy found a sapling growing amid the concrete. We were then shown a video of people farming and generally interacting with the natural environment across Brazil and the World.
During this sequence we were read the famous poem "A Flor e a Neusea" (broadly; "A Flower Amongst the Chaos") by famous Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
On a very superficial level this poem tells the story being played out in the arena. A sapling is found growing amongst the grime and chaos of the city and passers-by are urged to protect the flower as it grows.
The Portuguese version of the poem was read by famous Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro. She is probably best known globally for the 1998 film "Centro do Brasil (Central Station)" for which she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. The first Brazilian and the first Latin American actress to be nominated for the award.
The English version of the poem was read by equally famous British actress Dame Judy Dench. This seemed to be another reference to the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, UK from which Rio was rather picking up the baton.
The London Opening Ceremony featured a sequence in which Daniel Craig in his "James Bond" character met with the British Queen to receive orders for a special mission. The two were then shown apparently parachuting from a helicopter into the stadium at the start of the ceremony.
Up until 2012's "Skyfall" Dame Judy Dench played James Bond's boss known simply as; "M." Even British people like myself occasionally confuse Dame Judy Dench with Dame Helen Mirren who played the British Queen in the 2006 film; "The Queen."
In that context the poem was not simply about a flower growing amid the chaos of the city. Instead it was Britain's assessment of me which formed such a large theme at the 2012 Summer Olympics. I being the strange flower of unknown origin that suddenly appeared.
The Parade of Nations: It is part of International Olympic Committee (IOC) protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature the national flags of competing nations being paraded into the arena by members of the national team.
In many ways this is actually the most important part of any Opening Ceremony. It puts the athletes without whom there wouldn't be any games at centre stage providing them with the opportunity to make memories that will hopefully last a life time.
However in terms of writing it all up there's not really much I can add to; "Man/Woman Walks Forward Waving Flag. Doesn't Fall Over."
For example if you want to know why Tongan flagbearer Pita Taufatofua was such a big hit you'll probably need to ask a woman. Or a certain type of man. After all he certainly seems to need some advice on how much lube to use.
In keeping with the Geometry theme of the ceremony the Parade of Nations took place along a relatively short, ruler straight almost runway along the centre of the arena.
This runway was formed by hundreds of stewards/performers all wearing a tabard adorned with two arrows pointing from right to left. This design also paid reference to the blue & white stars and red & white stripes of the US flag.
In short the stewards had come dressed as the campaign logo of ineligible Democrat nominee for the US Presidency Hillary Clinton.
I suppose you could have viewed this as Brazil showing its full support for Hillary Clinton.
However you could also have viewed it as Brazil turning the Parade of Nations into a long list of countries that will be destroyed by a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
And my god. At almost two and half it was a long list of nations.
At around 20:45 on 15/8/16 (UK date) I'll pick this up tomorrow.
Edited at around 14:40 on 17/8/16 (UK date) to add;
That the Parade of Nations was agonisingly long was entirely the fault of the IOC. Despite there only being 193 nations the IOC decided to include 207 Olympic delegations.
Some of the these such as the Palestinian delegation helped represent what are termed UN Observer States which lack full nation status. However others were included as part of the IOC's own extreme political agenda.
For example athletes from Serbia's southern Kosovo province could compete for either Serbia or Albania. There is certainly no nation of Kosovo.
The much talked about extra delegation this year was the IOC's "Refugee Team." This is far from the first time that refugees have competed in an Olympics. However they normally appear as part of the "Independent" team under the IOC's flag.
This year the Independent team was made up exclusively of athletes from Kuwait. Due to forbidden government interference in its sporting federations Kuwait is currently not recognised by the IOC.
Quite apart from their desire to celebrate ISIL and their ethnic cleansing and genocide I think the refugee team was included this year because the IOC didn't want the refugees to be so publicly associated with the type of Gulf Monarchy that is creating all these refugees.
Due to these games being hijacked as a celebration of ISIL and associated Islamist extremists there was a particular problem with the delegation from Saudi Arabia.
In an effort to show their utter domination over the IOC after they arrived in the stadium the Saudi delegation kept trying to force its way through the stewards onto the runway and throw its flag into the path of the other delegations to pick up to give the nation maximum screentime.
When the delegation from Saudi Arabia's great regional rival Iran arrived in the stadium much later they too started throwing their flags around for all the see. This led to some very visible tension between the Saudi delegation, the Iranian delegation and the stewards.
The Opening Ceremony was attended by a number of World leaders including French President Francois Hollande.
France of course has suffered more than most at the hands of Islamist terrorists not least during the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres and the July 16th 2016 (16/7/16) Nice terror attack.
Due to this substantial security threat France has been forced to cancel a number of traditional summer events over the threat to public safety. The traditional Catholic pilgrimage to Lourdes which began on Tuesday (15/8/16) has only been able to go ahead under military guard.
Despite France struggling to cope with providing security to its existing summer events Hollande still wants to see France host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Due in part to French foreign policy it is far from guaranteed that the war in Syria or the threat from ISIL and associated - French backed - Islamist terror groups will have ended by then.
As a result it seems that the French security establishment is in almost open revolt against Hollande.
During the Opening Ceremony news broke of a number of people being killed in a fire/explosion at a nightclub/bar in Rouen in the French province of Normandy. This of course is the same town in which a Catholic Priest was murdered by ISIL terrorists on July 26th (26/7/16).
Amid the initial chaotic reports of an explosion and a large number of casualties this obviously created a fear that France had once again come under terrorist attack. Even once it had been revealed to just be an accidental fire the spectacle of Hollande laughing, joking and generally enjoying himself during a significant national tragedy was not a good one.
It is also worth noting that the majority of the 13 killed not by the fire but from inhaling toxic fumes from Chloride based insulation. In short they died of Chlorine gas poisoning. That is normally all it would take for France and others to accuse the Syrian government of carrying out a Chemical Weapons attack.
The delegations came out for the Parade of Nations in alphabetical order according to their Portuguese names. This year that decision serves to illustrate the type of pressure that the host nation and the IOC often find themselves under.
NBC who are broadcasting the games in the US spent many weeks ahead of the Opening Ceremony locked in intense dispute with both the Brazilian hosts and the IOC.
Firstly NBC wanted the entire Opening Ceremony moved back by a full hour so it would fit into the US Prime Time schedule. This is despite it being on at completely the wrong time for the entire rest of the World. Secondly NBC wanted the parade to take place in accordance with the English alphabet.
NBC were obviously defeated on both of these points. However the fact that the day after the ceremony the US swim team appeared sporting these strange geometric circles on their bodies from the ancient Chinese muscle therapy of "Cupping" makes you wonder whether these were serious requests from NBC. Or simply attempts to squeeze advance previews of the Opening Ceremony from the hosts.
As is traditional the delegation of the hosts Brazil were the last to arrive in the arena. In a break with tradition they were led out not by their flag bearer but by the Brazilian model Lea T who is probably most famous for being transgendered.
Transgenderism has been something of a hot talking point recently particularly in the US. However it was appropriate that the issue was referenced during the Opening Ceremony because the Olympics has played an important role in making it a global talking point.
This current round of discussion over transgenderism really began back in 2009 when South African athlete Caster Semenya won the women's 800 metres and 1500 metres at the athletics World Championship.
In response many nations disputed the result claiming that Semenya was in fact a man. This led to Semenya being subjected to lengthy and complex gender tests with resulted in doctors from all IOC nations agreeing that Semenya is neither male nor female but in fact transgendered. This production of scientific evidence has probably done more than anything to convince people that transgenderism is a genuine medical condition.
Semenya's participation in women's events including at these games continues to be hugely controversial. Following the 2009 enquiry Semenya began taking drugs that restricted her levels of the male hormone testosterone to the normal female levels. Whilst taking those drugs Semenya's performance as an athlete collapsed. Now Semenya is now longer taking those drugs and effectively competing as a man in women's events suddenly she's outstanding again.
While I don't want to prejudice wider discussions about transgender rights from a purely competitive standpoint that sounds a lot like cheating.
Also mentioning transgender issues provides yet another opportunity to mock US President Barack Obama.
After all Obama seems completely opposed to Binary Differentiation when it comes to the binary matter of gender but fully supportive of Binary Differentiation when it comes to the completely non-binary fight against Climate Change.
As they finished their parade the athletes were invited to plant an individual seed that was then placed in a number of seed banks. Those seeds will then be planted close to the athlete village to hopefully grow into a forest. That is obviously very in keeping with the ceremony's commitment to the environment. Particularly reforestation.
However it also provided the hosts the traditional advantage of slightly knocking the visiting athletes off balance. After all many of them had come to Rio to participate in their chosen sport. Not to do a bit of gardening.
Also I think it's widely accepted that semen is often referred to as; "The Seed of Man." As a result this seed planting exercise also carried with it an uncomfortable air of sexual innuendo.
15:55 on 17/8/16 (UK date).
The 2016 ISIL Games: Opening Ceremony Pt.3
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 2; http://watchitdie.blogspot.in/2016/08/the-2016-isil-games-opening-ceremony-pt2.html
The Girl From Impanema: Following Alberto Santos-Dumont's flight around Rio this next sequence began simply.
On a stage in the centre of the favela structure at one end of the arena Daniel Jobim sung his grandfather - Antonio Carlo's Jobim - famous song "The Girl From Impanema."
Essentially a song about watching a pretty girl walk along Rio's Impanema beach this became a massive worldwide hit back in 1964. Back when being a worldwide hit meant something.
In those days if a song was to be a hit across the globe it had to be pressed onto hundreds of thousands of individual vinyl discs. Those discs then had to be put onto ships and moved between countries. Once they arrived in port import taxes needed to be paid and they had to be placed on trucks to be taken to shops for people to buy. There was none of this streaming nonsense.
During this period the World was a much more isolated, less globalised place. International air travel was reserved for the select few and the Internet hadn't even been dreamt of. As a result The Girl From Impanema was many people's first taste of this strange land called Brazil and of this Bosa Nova, Jazz style of the song.
Therefore an entire generation of people have fond, often romantic memories associated with the song. That generation is I think best encapsulated by the US TV Show "Mad Men" with the Jazz/Beatnik generation making way for the so-called "Swinging Sixties."
Unfortunately that generation is very much before my time so I can't talk in much detail about it. However The Girl From Impanema was released in July 1964 just three months after the US installed a military dictatorship in Brazil as part of the "Brother Sam" operation.
As such the success of The Girl From Impanema could well have been part of a US-led public relations exercise for the Brazilian military dictatorship. The idea being to make ordinary members of the public look fondly on Brazil so they would support the dictatorship and pray the nation didn't fall under the evils of Communism.
As the song was being sung from the stage at one end of the arena at the other Gisele Bundchen entered from the other of the arena and proceeded to walk the length of the arena towards the stage. An internationally recognised supermodel and wife of American Football star quarterback Tom Brady Gisele Bundchen is probably the most famous non-footballing Brazilian in the World right now.
Bundchen also serves to further highlight Brazil's rich racial diversity. As the name suggests she is of German heritage and part of the roughly 5 million German Brazilians who migrated to Brazil towards the end of the 19th and start of the 20th Century.
There is of course a second period of immigration from Germany that Brazil is less proud of.
Despite Brazil officially being at war with Nazi Germany since 1942 some of Brazil's German population remained loyal to the Nazis. So much so that towards the end of the Second World War the Nazis dreamt up a plan to escape Europe and continue their Reich in the Amazon Rainforest on the border between Brazil and Guyana.
Although this plan for a Nazi colonisation of the Amazon Rainforest was always more pipedream rather than reality some 9,000 Nazi war criminals did succeed in fleeing Europe for South America using the so-called "Rat Lines." The most famous of these was probably Adolf Eichmann who was captured in Argentina in 1960.
However the Commander of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps Franz Stangl was captured in Brazil in 1967. Gustav Wagner who was deputy Commander at Sobibor and nicknamed "The Beast" for his role in exterminating some 200,000 Jews was captured in Brazil in 1978. Obviously Brazil's 1964 to 1985 US-backed fascist dictatorship played a crucial role in sheltering Stangl, Wagner and others.
The UK commentator on the Opening Ceremony in particular was at great pains to make clear that Gisele Bundchen was not descended from that generation of German immigrants.
As Gisele made her extremely long walk across the arena very fluid, flowing, curvaceous lines were video projected onto the arena floor.
These were a reference to the visual style of that other extremely famous German Brazilian - architect Oscar Niemeyer. Who is not to be confused with current Brazilian football star Neymar. Niemeyer is widely considered to be the father of the "Modernist" architectural movement.
Although Niemeyer worked on the planned city of Brasilia the "Brutalist" style of that city is merely a sub-genre of Modernism. I'm sure you can see difference between Niemeyer designed buildings such as the Cathedral of Brasilia or the Brazilian National Congress building and the Brutalist Hubert H Humphrey Building in Washington D.C, US or the Unite d'Habitation building in Marseilles, France. Particularly if you make use of Google image search.
With the purpose of these ceremonies primarily being to promote conversation I'm sure you could find a talking point in the contrast flowing lines of Niemeyer's designs and the stark geometry of Brutalism as a metaphor for the difference between the libertarian Socialism of South America and the dour authoritarian Socialism of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Bloc.
During the dress rehearsal this sequence caused quite a bit of controversy because it feature Giselle being robbed by a favela kid. Primarily I think this was due to the intense focus the dress rehearsal comes under as people try and steal the secrets of the ceremony. Therefore the director simply threw in fake sequences to throw people off the scent.
However I would have been impressed if the robbery sequence had been included in the actual ceremony. All to often these ceremonies are used to portray the host nation as some sort of utopia where everything is happy, glorious and there are no problems. Therefore I think it would have been artistically brave to make reference to some of Brazil's problems. After all every Olympic host has its problems even if they try and pretend they don't.
That said with the favelas having previously been linked to crime and the pollution problems in the Rowing and Sailing venues I think a further reference to crime would have set the wrong tone for the next sequence.
At around 15:40 on 15/8/16 (UK date) I'm going to have a coffee break to order my thoughts slightly.
Edited at around 16:20 on 15/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The Voice of the Favelas: This sequence was intended as celebration of the favelas who'd been much maligned for their crime and pollution in an earlier sequence.
This began with a performance of "Passinho" dance. This is a style of modern, urban/street dance that was invented in Brazil's favelas. It has recently become popular in American hip-hop, black pop culture. It's inclusion here gave Brazil an opportunity to remind the World who invented it and who's just ripping it off.
The demonstration of Passinho dancing was accompanied by a performance by Brazilian singer Ludmilla who is dubbed "The Brazilian Beyonce."
Apart from showcasing another famous Brazilian this helped to serve as a timely reminder of the role that US ghetto culture has on Brazilian culture. After all the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that both US President Obama and Beyonce celebrate is the sort of thing foreign intelligence agencies do to nations that they hate.
The Passinho showcase made way for a small performance by Elza Soares. Born in Rio favela Soares was reasonably famous across Latin America and the US during the late 1960's and 1970's - the era associated with the birth of disco music. Crucially she was also married to star Brazilian footballer Garrincha.
Garrincha was part of that World captivating Brazilian national football squad of the 1970's that included players such as Socrates and Pele. Garrincha briefly played his club football alongside Socrates at Corinthians.
That Corinthians side very famously eschewed the traditional style of team management. Instead all decisions about how the team played were made by democratic votes amongst the players and their fans.
This helped teach a generation of Brazilians about democracy and show them that democracy was the key to success. In a country run by a military dictatorship at the time that was an extremely brave thing to do.
It stands in sharp contrast to all the cowardly Olympians who have swarmed the Brazil to selfishly celebrate the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated Islamist terror groups.
Playing up Soares' role in the birth of disco provided an excuse to break out the big Afro hairstyles that were popular at the time.
As I've mentioned Brazil is rather unique in its racial diversity having no dominant ethnic group. However that does not mean that Brazil is a nation completely free of racial tensions.
What is interesting though is that the racism that exists in Brazil is not based on skin colour. After all even the German Brazilians have very dark skin to go along with their fair hair. Instead racism in Brazil is focused on hair type with those who have curly Afro-style hair considered to be less attractive and worthy then those with straight Caucasian-style hair.
The big Afros of the disco era help highlight this uniquely Brazilian take on racism.
Throughout this sequence all the action took place on the physical favela structure at one end of the arena.
However brightly coloured graphics were video projected onto the floor of the arena in the geometric style of a graphic equaliser that you would find on a stereo. At one point performers on wheeled toboggans slide down from the favela onto the arena floor.
This was all intended to pay tribute to the favelas role as the cultural heart and soul of Brazil flooding the grey city with colour and life.
The cheapness of these wheeled toboggans seemed intended as contrast with the excess of the London 2012 ceremonies.
The London Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony featured performers riding these small motorbikes that appeared to be powered by giant fans on the back. Each one of these strange contraptions had been specially designed and built by a team of engineers just for the ceremony at great expense. The Brazilians simply used what appeared to be children's toys that had been brought cheaply and would no doubt be donated to the favela children after the ceremony.
Next tribute was paid to the influence of Caribbean culture on Brazilian life. This was done through a performance by Brazilian dancehall MC's Karol Conka and MC Sofia.
Part of the bundle of issues that Brazil inherited from the London 2012 games was the popstar Rihanna who of course is from the Caribbean island of Barbados.
Back in 2014 Rihanna did the song "Can't Remember to Forget You" with Colombian popstar Shakira. In promoting the single Shakira talked about choosing Rihanna because they were both girls from the Caribbean. This had even people like me who really should know better looking at a map and going; "Oh yeah. Brazil's neighbour Columbia sits on the Caribbean Sea."
As apparently the 2012 Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony was mine and Rihanna's wedding ceremony I also know that Rihanna's mother isn't from Barbados at all. Instead she's from Brazil's Guyana. As such it seems that Brazil has more legitimate claim to Caribbean culture than the US which is where a lot of people assume Rihanna is from.
The ceremony then paid tribute to the World famous Brazilian martial art of "Capoeira" by video projecting someone doing Capoeira onto the arena floor. Back in November 2014 Capoeira was recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was part of the World's intangible cultural heritage.
Next the ceremony went on to warn of the perils of racial discord and disharmony. These sequence began with fire dancers represented the flames of conflict.
Then from one end of the arena performers emerged wearing strange full-body furry red costumes. I'm assured that these costumes are an important part of Brazilian carnival culture. However the nearest thing I can compare them to are the "Elmo" the Muppet from the US TV Show "Sesame Street." These Muppets were each twirling a ball on a piece of rope as if preparing the hurl a rock from a slingshot.
The red rock throwers were supposed to represent Obama's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. As they approached the centre of the arena they were meant by almost an opposing army made up of performers in similar full-body furry costumes. Some of the opposing army wore gold while other wore silver and others wore the same red as the stone throwers.
As the two armies lined up against each other they broke up into small square units and the lighting around them became very discordant constantly shifting and jumping in and out of focus.
This was intended to represent the pieces on a Chess board. The pieces on a Chess board are of course intended to represent soldiers in battle. In Chess there is a saying that you need to learn to think at least three of four moves ahead.
With US President Obama we wish he'd learn to think of the move he's actually making at the time.
After all as I write his Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement are tearing apart yet another US city let alone the influence it's having on the rest of the World.
This sequence ended with the multicultural army of golds, silvers and reds bitch-slapping - with the help of a little video projection - the stone throwing muppets and harmony was returned to the ceremony.
At around 17:40 on 15/8/16 (UK date) it's dinner time.
Edited at around 18:50 on 15/8/16 (UK date) to add above and below;
Having once again warning US President Obama against his attempts to spread racial disharmony and discord across the globe the Opening Ceremony returned to celebrating Brazil's racial diversity.
This involved famous Brazilian singer Jorge Ben Jor and famous Brazilian TV personality Regina Case leading the entire World in a rendition of the song "Pais Tropical (Tropical Country)."
This is massively famous song in Brazil that everybody knows the words to and can be relied upon to get any party started. For any visitors who didn't know the words they were shown on big screens around the stadium so absolutely everybody could join in.
The arena was then flooded by performers in colourful costumes all dancing and singing along. Particularly prominant amongst the costumes were Afro wigs in various garish shades. This again was a reference to Brazil's racial diversity and the rather unique hair based racism it has spawned.
At the centre there was the Brazilian pop group "Gang do Electro." This helped to further emphasise Brazil's links to Asia because Gang do Electro have a very furturistic style to them that is popular in Asian pop music. Plus if you're hearing it for the first time their name can easily be mistaken for "Guangdong" - the Chinese province.
The particular dance being performed was a form of Brazilian line dancing whose name completely escapes me. Some people may have found it surprising that a style of dancing more usually associated with US Cowboys and Country & Western music is acutally hugely popular in Brazil and other South American nations.
Cowboy culture however is far from unique to the US and is actually more common across South America. That is because cattle ranching is hugely important to the economies of many South America countries. I think Brazil in particular is the World's largest producer of beef.
The way that much of the Amazon Rainforest is being continually cut down to make way for cattle ranches is a big problem in the fight against Climate Change and one that comes up frequently in UNFCCC negotiations. After all it involves replacing trees that absorb Greenhouse Gases with cattle that emit Greenhouse Gases.
The shared Cowboy culture also serves to highlight the link between Brazil and the US that it born from many US Democrats picking up their slaves and heading south after they were defeated by the Republicans in the US Civil War.
It also seemed to serve as a little nod of support to the US state of Texas - home of the Dallas Cowboys American Football team - over their role in blocking US President Obama's corrupt and inhumane immigration reforms in the US Supreme Court.
19:10 on 15/8/16 (UK date).
The Girl From Impanema: Following Alberto Santos-Dumont's flight around Rio this next sequence began simply.
On a stage in the centre of the favela structure at one end of the arena Daniel Jobim sung his grandfather - Antonio Carlo's Jobim - famous song "The Girl From Impanema."
Essentially a song about watching a pretty girl walk along Rio's Impanema beach this became a massive worldwide hit back in 1964. Back when being a worldwide hit meant something.
In those days if a song was to be a hit across the globe it had to be pressed onto hundreds of thousands of individual vinyl discs. Those discs then had to be put onto ships and moved between countries. Once they arrived in port import taxes needed to be paid and they had to be placed on trucks to be taken to shops for people to buy. There was none of this streaming nonsense.
During this period the World was a much more isolated, less globalised place. International air travel was reserved for the select few and the Internet hadn't even been dreamt of. As a result The Girl From Impanema was many people's first taste of this strange land called Brazil and of this Bosa Nova, Jazz style of the song.
Therefore an entire generation of people have fond, often romantic memories associated with the song. That generation is I think best encapsulated by the US TV Show "Mad Men" with the Jazz/Beatnik generation making way for the so-called "Swinging Sixties."
Unfortunately that generation is very much before my time so I can't talk in much detail about it. However The Girl From Impanema was released in July 1964 just three months after the US installed a military dictatorship in Brazil as part of the "Brother Sam" operation.
As such the success of The Girl From Impanema could well have been part of a US-led public relations exercise for the Brazilian military dictatorship. The idea being to make ordinary members of the public look fondly on Brazil so they would support the dictatorship and pray the nation didn't fall under the evils of Communism.
As the song was being sung from the stage at one end of the arena at the other Gisele Bundchen entered from the other of the arena and proceeded to walk the length of the arena towards the stage. An internationally recognised supermodel and wife of American Football star quarterback Tom Brady Gisele Bundchen is probably the most famous non-footballing Brazilian in the World right now.
Bundchen also serves to further highlight Brazil's rich racial diversity. As the name suggests she is of German heritage and part of the roughly 5 million German Brazilians who migrated to Brazil towards the end of the 19th and start of the 20th Century.
There is of course a second period of immigration from Germany that Brazil is less proud of.
Despite Brazil officially being at war with Nazi Germany since 1942 some of Brazil's German population remained loyal to the Nazis. So much so that towards the end of the Second World War the Nazis dreamt up a plan to escape Europe and continue their Reich in the Amazon Rainforest on the border between Brazil and Guyana.
Although this plan for a Nazi colonisation of the Amazon Rainforest was always more pipedream rather than reality some 9,000 Nazi war criminals did succeed in fleeing Europe for South America using the so-called "Rat Lines." The most famous of these was probably Adolf Eichmann who was captured in Argentina in 1960.
However the Commander of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps Franz Stangl was captured in Brazil in 1967. Gustav Wagner who was deputy Commander at Sobibor and nicknamed "The Beast" for his role in exterminating some 200,000 Jews was captured in Brazil in 1978. Obviously Brazil's 1964 to 1985 US-backed fascist dictatorship played a crucial role in sheltering Stangl, Wagner and others.
The UK commentator on the Opening Ceremony in particular was at great pains to make clear that Gisele Bundchen was not descended from that generation of German immigrants.
As Gisele made her extremely long walk across the arena very fluid, flowing, curvaceous lines were video projected onto the arena floor.
These were a reference to the visual style of that other extremely famous German Brazilian - architect Oscar Niemeyer. Who is not to be confused with current Brazilian football star Neymar. Niemeyer is widely considered to be the father of the "Modernist" architectural movement.
Although Niemeyer worked on the planned city of Brasilia the "Brutalist" style of that city is merely a sub-genre of Modernism. I'm sure you can see difference between Niemeyer designed buildings such as the Cathedral of Brasilia or the Brazilian National Congress building and the Brutalist Hubert H Humphrey Building in Washington D.C, US or the Unite d'Habitation building in Marseilles, France. Particularly if you make use of Google image search.
With the purpose of these ceremonies primarily being to promote conversation I'm sure you could find a talking point in the contrast flowing lines of Niemeyer's designs and the stark geometry of Brutalism as a metaphor for the difference between the libertarian Socialism of South America and the dour authoritarian Socialism of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Bloc.
During the dress rehearsal this sequence caused quite a bit of controversy because it feature Giselle being robbed by a favela kid. Primarily I think this was due to the intense focus the dress rehearsal comes under as people try and steal the secrets of the ceremony. Therefore the director simply threw in fake sequences to throw people off the scent.
However I would have been impressed if the robbery sequence had been included in the actual ceremony. All to often these ceremonies are used to portray the host nation as some sort of utopia where everything is happy, glorious and there are no problems. Therefore I think it would have been artistically brave to make reference to some of Brazil's problems. After all every Olympic host has its problems even if they try and pretend they don't.
That said with the favelas having previously been linked to crime and the pollution problems in the Rowing and Sailing venues I think a further reference to crime would have set the wrong tone for the next sequence.
At around 15:40 on 15/8/16 (UK date) I'm going to have a coffee break to order my thoughts slightly.
Edited at around 16:20 on 15/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The Voice of the Favelas: This sequence was intended as celebration of the favelas who'd been much maligned for their crime and pollution in an earlier sequence.
This began with a performance of "Passinho" dance. This is a style of modern, urban/street dance that was invented in Brazil's favelas. It has recently become popular in American hip-hop, black pop culture. It's inclusion here gave Brazil an opportunity to remind the World who invented it and who's just ripping it off.
The demonstration of Passinho dancing was accompanied by a performance by Brazilian singer Ludmilla who is dubbed "The Brazilian Beyonce."
Apart from showcasing another famous Brazilian this helped to serve as a timely reminder of the role that US ghetto culture has on Brazilian culture. After all the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that both US President Obama and Beyonce celebrate is the sort of thing foreign intelligence agencies do to nations that they hate.
The Passinho showcase made way for a small performance by Elza Soares. Born in Rio favela Soares was reasonably famous across Latin America and the US during the late 1960's and 1970's - the era associated with the birth of disco music. Crucially she was also married to star Brazilian footballer Garrincha.
Garrincha was part of that World captivating Brazilian national football squad of the 1970's that included players such as Socrates and Pele. Garrincha briefly played his club football alongside Socrates at Corinthians.
That Corinthians side very famously eschewed the traditional style of team management. Instead all decisions about how the team played were made by democratic votes amongst the players and their fans.
This helped teach a generation of Brazilians about democracy and show them that democracy was the key to success. In a country run by a military dictatorship at the time that was an extremely brave thing to do.
It stands in sharp contrast to all the cowardly Olympians who have swarmed the Brazil to selfishly celebrate the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated Islamist terror groups.
Playing up Soares' role in the birth of disco provided an excuse to break out the big Afro hairstyles that were popular at the time.
As I've mentioned Brazil is rather unique in its racial diversity having no dominant ethnic group. However that does not mean that Brazil is a nation completely free of racial tensions.
What is interesting though is that the racism that exists in Brazil is not based on skin colour. After all even the German Brazilians have very dark skin to go along with their fair hair. Instead racism in Brazil is focused on hair type with those who have curly Afro-style hair considered to be less attractive and worthy then those with straight Caucasian-style hair.
The big Afros of the disco era help highlight this uniquely Brazilian take on racism.
Throughout this sequence all the action took place on the physical favela structure at one end of the arena.
However brightly coloured graphics were video projected onto the floor of the arena in the geometric style of a graphic equaliser that you would find on a stereo. At one point performers on wheeled toboggans slide down from the favela onto the arena floor.
This was all intended to pay tribute to the favelas role as the cultural heart and soul of Brazil flooding the grey city with colour and life.
The cheapness of these wheeled toboggans seemed intended as contrast with the excess of the London 2012 ceremonies.
The London Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony featured performers riding these small motorbikes that appeared to be powered by giant fans on the back. Each one of these strange contraptions had been specially designed and built by a team of engineers just for the ceremony at great expense. The Brazilians simply used what appeared to be children's toys that had been brought cheaply and would no doubt be donated to the favela children after the ceremony.
Next tribute was paid to the influence of Caribbean culture on Brazilian life. This was done through a performance by Brazilian dancehall MC's Karol Conka and MC Sofia.
Part of the bundle of issues that Brazil inherited from the London 2012 games was the popstar Rihanna who of course is from the Caribbean island of Barbados.
Back in 2014 Rihanna did the song "Can't Remember to Forget You" with Colombian popstar Shakira. In promoting the single Shakira talked about choosing Rihanna because they were both girls from the Caribbean. This had even people like me who really should know better looking at a map and going; "Oh yeah. Brazil's neighbour Columbia sits on the Caribbean Sea."
As apparently the 2012 Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony was mine and Rihanna's wedding ceremony I also know that Rihanna's mother isn't from Barbados at all. Instead she's from Brazil's Guyana. As such it seems that Brazil has more legitimate claim to Caribbean culture than the US which is where a lot of people assume Rihanna is from.
The ceremony then paid tribute to the World famous Brazilian martial art of "Capoeira" by video projecting someone doing Capoeira onto the arena floor. Back in November 2014 Capoeira was recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was part of the World's intangible cultural heritage.
Next the ceremony went on to warn of the perils of racial discord and disharmony. These sequence began with fire dancers represented the flames of conflict.
Then from one end of the arena performers emerged wearing strange full-body furry red costumes. I'm assured that these costumes are an important part of Brazilian carnival culture. However the nearest thing I can compare them to are the "Elmo" the Muppet from the US TV Show "Sesame Street." These Muppets were each twirling a ball on a piece of rope as if preparing the hurl a rock from a slingshot.
The red rock throwers were supposed to represent Obama's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. As they approached the centre of the arena they were meant by almost an opposing army made up of performers in similar full-body furry costumes. Some of the opposing army wore gold while other wore silver and others wore the same red as the stone throwers.
As the two armies lined up against each other they broke up into small square units and the lighting around them became very discordant constantly shifting and jumping in and out of focus.
This was intended to represent the pieces on a Chess board. The pieces on a Chess board are of course intended to represent soldiers in battle. In Chess there is a saying that you need to learn to think at least three of four moves ahead.
With US President Obama we wish he'd learn to think of the move he's actually making at the time.
After all as I write his Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement are tearing apart yet another US city let alone the influence it's having on the rest of the World.
This sequence ended with the multicultural army of golds, silvers and reds bitch-slapping - with the help of a little video projection - the stone throwing muppets and harmony was returned to the ceremony.
At around 17:40 on 15/8/16 (UK date) it's dinner time.
Edited at around 18:50 on 15/8/16 (UK date) to add above and below;
Having once again warning US President Obama against his attempts to spread racial disharmony and discord across the globe the Opening Ceremony returned to celebrating Brazil's racial diversity.
This involved famous Brazilian singer Jorge Ben Jor and famous Brazilian TV personality Regina Case leading the entire World in a rendition of the song "Pais Tropical (Tropical Country)."
This is massively famous song in Brazil that everybody knows the words to and can be relied upon to get any party started. For any visitors who didn't know the words they were shown on big screens around the stadium so absolutely everybody could join in.
The arena was then flooded by performers in colourful costumes all dancing and singing along. Particularly prominant amongst the costumes were Afro wigs in various garish shades. This again was a reference to Brazil's racial diversity and the rather unique hair based racism it has spawned.
At the centre there was the Brazilian pop group "Gang do Electro." This helped to further emphasise Brazil's links to Asia because Gang do Electro have a very furturistic style to them that is popular in Asian pop music. Plus if you're hearing it for the first time their name can easily be mistaken for "Guangdong" - the Chinese province.
The particular dance being performed was a form of Brazilian line dancing whose name completely escapes me. Some people may have found it surprising that a style of dancing more usually associated with US Cowboys and Country & Western music is acutally hugely popular in Brazil and other South American nations.
Cowboy culture however is far from unique to the US and is actually more common across South America. That is because cattle ranching is hugely important to the economies of many South America countries. I think Brazil in particular is the World's largest producer of beef.
The way that much of the Amazon Rainforest is being continually cut down to make way for cattle ranches is a big problem in the fight against Climate Change and one that comes up frequently in UNFCCC negotiations. After all it involves replacing trees that absorb Greenhouse Gases with cattle that emit Greenhouse Gases.
The shared Cowboy culture also serves to highlight the link between Brazil and the US that it born from many US Democrats picking up their slaves and heading south after they were defeated by the Republicans in the US Civil War.
It also seemed to serve as a little nod of support to the US state of Texas - home of the Dallas Cowboys American Football team - over their role in blocking US President Obama's corrupt and inhumane immigration reforms in the US Supreme Court.
19:10 on 15/8/16 (UK date).
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
The 2016 ISIL Games: Opening Ceremony Pt.2
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 1; http://watchitdie.blogspot.in/2016/08/the-2016-isil-games-opening-ceremony.html
Urbanisation: The previous sequence saw the green canopy of the Amazon Rainforest gradually replaced with the geometrically perfect fields and hedgerows of modern agriculture.
This sequence saw those fields and hedgerows suddenly replaced with the grey of concrete. From one end of the arena Parkour runners entered and acrobatically ran across the grey floor. As they ran Brazilian-style urban buildings appeared beneath their feet.
It took you a while to realise that these buildings weren't actually physically rising from the floor but an optical illusion created by a video projection. The way that the performers movements were co-ordinated with each phase of the video projection was highly impressive.
I think this type of video projection was first used in an Olympic ceremony in Beijing, China in 2008. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada also made some use of them.
In the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, UK also partially used video projection in its ceremonies but mainly focused on physical stage furniture. For example the Opening Ceremony saw an actual rural field physically built in the centre of the arena.
When Russia used video projection during the Opening Ceremony 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi the UK raised many complaints about how the use of video projection rather than physical structures made it hard for viewers to follow the action.
The Russians responded by sarcastically making the video projections progressively bigger and clearer throughout the remaining three ceremonies.
The Brazilian use of video projection here made reference to that argument between Russia and the UK. After all watching from the fixed viewing position of the camera this optical illusion worked perfectly for me. However I did find myself wondering whether people watching from the other side of the stadium had a clue what was going on.
This sequence of course represented the Urbanisation of Brazil as its people moved from rural farms and villages into urban towns and cities.
Much of Brazil's Urbanisation occurred between the 1950's and 1970's.
During this time the architectural school of "Brutalism" was dominant across much of the World. Inspired heavily by the Socialist Utopian ideology of Communism Brutalist design focuses on repeated geometric zones of specific function being grouped together into a unified whole encased in concrete.
Following this design school many Brazilian cities are built around an economic city at the centre containing offices and businesses. Surrounding that you have numerous satellite or dormitory cities where people live and sleep only travelling into the central city to work.
This geometric pattern of a central circle being surrounded by a ring of much smaller circles seems to have heavily influenced the strange golden sculpture that adorns this year's Olympic cauldron.
This type of urban design is far from unique to Brazil. In fact Croydon where I grew up was built in the 1950's to act as a dormitory city for the UK capital London. The 2012 Olympic Park in Stratford now functions as a dormitory town for central London.
The problem with this type of urban design is that it utterly destroys any sense of community.
The economic city is of course teaming with life during the working day but absolutely empty at night. Similarly the dormitory cities are ghost-towns during the day and filled with people sleeping in their beds at night. This all stems from the Communist ideal that people are not individuals but simply worker bees dedicated to the greater good of the nation.
Despite being a Socialist idea the lack of a sense of community causes huge problems in terms of social cohesion and social exclusion.
That has probably been most dramatically highlighted recently in France.
Following the Second World War France underwent a massive period of reconstruction in the 1950's and 1960's. This too followed the Brutalist school with many French cities being built with around a city centre (Ville-centre) ringed by a housing area (Banlieue) which in turn is ringed by a suburban area (Couronne periurbaine).
This occurred at the same time as a mass immigration of predominately Muslim migrants from former French colonies in North Africa. Those migrants became settled in the Banlieues and basically became stuck never able to move out in the richer Couronne periurbaines and properly integrate with wider French society.
The last big explosion of rioting occurred in 2005 when the Paris Banlieues tore themselves apart for 17 days. However a smaller degree of rioting and urban disorder seems to occur in one or other of France's Banlieues every summer.
Just in the last two weeks or so there has been rioting in Beaumont-sur-Oise following the death of a young black man in police custody on July 19th (19/7/16). That has arguably been fuelled by the corrosive effect of US President Obama's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
The way that the lack of social cohesion created by this type of urban design can fuel terrorism was put on sharp display by the July 14th (14/7/16) terror attack in Nice, France.
Nice is famous for its picturesque seafront where millionaires and tourists flock. However behind the old city leading up in the mountains you have these vast, impoverished housing estates where the people of Nice actually live. It was in these estates that the attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was recruited by a small terrorist cell.
Following the attack the federal authorities ordered the local authorities to delete all of their CCTV footage. The local authorities claimed that this was part of a cover-up. However it struck me as the federal authorities trying to avoid an awkward conversation about how many local authority employees who live on those housing estates would fail a background check.
As such this extremely dry topic of urban design actually makes a significant contribution to the discussion about immigration, integration and terrorism that was such a huge feature of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.
Apart from adding to the problems of social cohesion this type of urban design also presents huge problems for the other main theme of this Opening Ceremony - The Battle Against Climate Change.
Obviously if people do not live in the same city in which they work they cannot simply cycle or walk to and from work. Instead they have to use some sort of powered transport. Even if they're using public transport like trains or buses rather than private cars more transport miles means more Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions and therefore more Climate Change.
Before US President Obama decided to come in and destroy it a lot of people hoped that a new global Climate Change agreement would rely heavily on developing nations who are just entering the urbanisation phase being almost mentored by nations such as Brazil so they don't make the same mistakes.
In an effort to help pay for both the construction of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics alongside generally boosting government revenues in 2013 bus fares were raised across a number of Brazilian cities including Rio. Although I don't have the exact figures for Rio to hand generally these increases were only around 6-7%.
However the way that Brazilian cities are designed in order to get to work people will have to get at least one bus from their dormitory city to the economic city. They would then have to take at least another bus across the economic city. They then have to repeat that journey on the way home.
As a result a 7% rise in a single bus journey quickly turned into a 28% rise for a daily commute and a 140% increase for an average working week.
That very quickly took a huge chunk out of the average Brazilians pay packet and triggered several months of rioting in at least 100 Brazilian cities between April and July 2013. These are sometimes referred to as; "The Confederations Cup Riots."
Faced with similar mass protests over Gezi Park Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that both the Brazil and Turkish protests were the work of the same global Zionist conspiracy. The Brazilians largely ignored him.
With the protesters calling for an end to government corruption it was really these protests that set in motion the chain of events that saw the Brazilian Senate vote yesterday to hold an impeachment trial of Dilma Rousseff over charges of corruption.
This topic of Brazil's urbanisation is also hugely and specifically important to the history of Rio de Janerio where these games are taking place.
Up until 1960 Rio was Brazil's capital city. Then inspired by the Brutalist design school the Brazilian government decided to design and build a specially planned new city - Brasilia - to become the new capital.
With the seat of government moved to Brasilia by the 1980's all of the government agencies had also left Rio. This caused all of Brazil's financial institutions to leave moving their headquarters to Brasilia. In 2000 the Brazilian stock exchange moved to Sao Paulo leaving Rio as a ghost town with high levels of unemployment and little hope for the future.
The big idea behind hosting the games in Rio was to end this decline and reinvigorate the city.
As the Parkour performers reached the opposite end of the arena a physical structure of buildings emerged from the wall. The Parkour performers dressed in sort of construction overalls then proceeded to climb all over this structure.
For this small period I think the structure was intended to represent Rio's 21st century buildings and serve as a tribute to the great construction effort that had gone into preparing for the games.
If you looked closely at the Parkour performers during this phase you may have noticed that they seemed intended to resemble Japanese Brazilians. This was a little nod to the fact the next Summer Olympics in 2020 are to be held in Tokyo, Japan.
If you were looking closely enough you may also have noticed that the climbers were using the sort of hand-grips common in artificial climbing walls. This was a little nod to the fact that Sport Climbing is to be included for the first time in the 2020 games.
However with the very acrobatic climbers pulling off moves that seemed far more complicated than any sport climber could manage this seemed to be the traditional Olympic sport of Gymnastics looking at the sport climbers and snobbishly going;
"Oh. You think that's difficult enough to be considered a proper sport do you?"
This type of rivalry between the old and new is actually quite common in the Winter Olympics. There the Skiers tend to take a great deal of pleasure in looking down on the Snowboarders.
Although we talk about these being the summer games as the cancellation of rowing events today have demonstrated Rio is currently in the depths of its winter.
However the northern Brazilian state of Roraima is currently enjoying the height of its summer. States such as Amazonas and Para which have the Equator running through them are deeply confused.
At around 17:25 on 10/8/16 (UK date) I just realised I've missed a huge chunk out above. I guess I'll have to be back after dinner to fix that.
Edited at around 18:50 on 10/8/16 (UK date) add above: Urban design and bus fares. Always thrilling.
Edited at around 15:35 on 11/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The large physical structure at the end of the arena then seamlessly morphed to represent Brazil's Favelas or slums. This is a meaning it maintained throughout the rest of the ceremony.
Favelas are unplanned shanty towns built illegally often on land that nobody else wants. As a result it is not really possible to talk about the design features of a favela because the main feature is that there isn't a planned design.
However I think the favela that will be most recognisable to particularly visitors to the Rio Olympics is the Rocinha favela.
This is Brazil's largest and is located in Rio's South Zone a short distance from the famous Copacabana and Impanema beaches. Parts of it are built up the hillside leading the Christ the Redeemer statue.
The Rocinha favela is located close to the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas where the rowing events are being held and the Marina da Gloria where the sailing events are being held.
In the run-up to the games much has been made about concerns of the water quality at these venues. They're said to be littered with physical debris like plastic bags along with raw sewage and all the different types of bacteria and microorganisms they bring with them.
The main problem with the water quality at these venues is the Rocinha favela. Being an unplanned, illegal settlement Rocinha like most favelas doesn't have access to basic sanitation services like sewers and garbage collection. As result all the garbage and sewage simply gets chucked into the river to flow downhill into the sea.
The Parkour acrobats in construction overalls then began passing simple boxes made of wood and paper down from the top of the favela to the bottom. At the bottom of the favela these boxes were used as bricks to build a wall between the favela and the city.
On one level this is simply a reference to the fact that the favelas surrounding Rio are often walled off from the city itself as a security measure.
The Brazilian government has put a lot of effort into what is termed "Neighbourhood Pacification" to oust the drug gangs from the favelas and connect the residents to basic services. However many favelas are just so violent simply walling them off is all the government can do to protect citizens in the formal city.
For example on just the first day of the games the media centre at the equestrian venue was hit by gunfire. On Tuesday (9/8/16) a media bus travelling from the hockey venue close to the "City of God/Cidade da Deus" favela was also hit by gunfire. Rather than being attacks on the media these were simply the result of stray fire from the gun battles that rage daily in and around the favelas.
You could though also interpret this building of a wall as a talking point on US Republican Party Presidential nominee Donald Trump's plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico.
If you were a Hillary Clinton supporter you may also have been tempted to think that Brazil were mocking Trump's plan.
Unfortunately if you'd said that aloud you would've immediately exposed yourself as a fool who understands little of Trump's immigration plans and even less about the Democrats attitude towards migrants.
After all whenever the you hear the Democrats appeal to the Hispanic vote you do get the impression they think that all the 19 nations spread across two sub-continents south of Texas are all; "just Mexico." To Portuguese speaking Brazilians that's a little offensive.
I often talk about the Cold War being the golden age of the Olympic movement. However referring to the period between 1945 and 1990 as a "cold war" will often lead to snorts of derision from people who live in the Americas.
It was of course a period in which the US and the Soviet Union fought an almost constant stream on proxy wars for control of the Americas.
For example in April 1961 the US launched the failed "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba to oust the pro-Soviet Fidel Castro. In October 1963 the World was brought to the brink of destruction when the Cuban government allowed the Soviet Union to station nuclear missiles on the island.
Brazil itself got off rather lightly with the US conducting a military coup in the country named "Brother Sam" in 1964 leading to Brazil being ruled by a military dictatorship until 1985.
Similarly Brazil's neighbour Argentina only had to suffer through the decade long US sponsored "Dirty War" and a US-backed fascist dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983.
It was Central America that was particularly hard hit. There it was almost a weekly occurrence that some US-backed fascist group would stage a coup only for a Soviet-backed Communist group to stage a counter-coup and the entire process would continue.
One of the main fascist groups the US backed were the Honduras based "Contras" or "Counter-Revolutionaries" who were trying to overthrow the government of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in neighbouring Nicaragua. Due to their brutal methods including death squads US Congress eventually cut-off funding to the Contras.
So the CIA simply teamed up with Panamanian drug lord Pablo Escobar to help the Contras sell crack cocaine in the US to fund their war.
With that the South American drug cartels that continue to destabilise the entire continent were born. And along with them the US "Ghetto Culture" that Obama and Black Lives Matter are so proud of.
The violence of first the US-backed fascists like the Contras and then the violence of the drug cartels has torn much of Central America to pieces. For example Honduras currently experiences one of the highest murder rates in the World with people being killed in numbers to rival a warzone.
In turn this violence has destabilised those nations making them even poorer which in turn fuels more violence.
This endless cycle of violence, poverty and instability has left many in Central America trying to escape to the safety of the US.
To do this they pay the drug cartels huge fees of around USD20,000 to smuggle their children up through Central America across Mexico's border with the US.
As people traffickers tend not to be very nice people a lot of those making the journey are killed or seriously injured in the process. If the parents can't pay their debts in time the children are frequently sold into forced labour (slavery) or child prostitution.
This epidemic of human trafficking is every bit as horrific if not worse than the conditions experienced by irregular migrants on the Balkan route into the European Union (EU).
It also further destabilises the countries through which these migrants are trafficked. At the moment there is a big row brewing between Costa Rica and Panama over Panama's decision to open its border allowing a new flood of migrants into Costa Rica.
The US Democrat Party and in particular US President Obama have looked at this trail of human misery and seen nothing but an opportunity to consolidate their own power.
Back in November 2014 Obama announced plans to violate the US Constitution in order to grant amnesty and then citizenship to 5 million+ of these migrants through executive action.
Obama's thinking being that these freshly minted US citizens would owe such a debt to the Democrat Party they would help the party win traditionally Republican states such as Texas.
Obama and the Democrats didn't seem to care one iota that by ending the deportation of families with children under 18 he was formalising the drug cartels business model encouraging more parents to smuggle more children into the US.
This of course means more profits for the cartels making the violence and poverty worse further destabilising Central and South America.
Thankfully due to the public opposition led by Trump's call to; "Build That Wall!" the Democrats horrific and exploitative alliance with the drug cartels has been stopped in its tracks.
In January 2016 the Obama administration was instead forced to work with the United Nations (UN) to establish screening centres for refugees in Central American nations such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Operating rather like the system for Syrian refugees people in Central America now have an alternative to paying the drug cartels by applying for refugee status in the US. Those who are successful will then be safely transported to the US.
However much to the Democrats disappointment being classed as refugees they won't be able to vote n US elections.
Quite apart from taking the fate of these people out of the hands of drug cartels and treating them with basic human dignity the fact that the US is now classifying people fleeing violence in Central America as refugees opens the door to the possibility that the US will admit to its role in destabilising the region causing the violence that people are fleeing.
That day may be coming sooner rather than later. Just two days ago the US announced that it will be making public files on its role in Argentina's Dirty War.
As a result I think you'll find many Central and South American nations will be overjoyed to see Trump beat out Hillary Clinton in November.
At 17:45 on 11/8/16 (UK date) I still not finished this section.
Edited at around 19:05 on 11/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The box wall made way for a model of the box-plane that Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont flew on October 23rd 1906 (23/10/06).
Although this came almost three years after the Wright brothers made the first powered flight on December 14th 1903 (14/12/03) there were no witnesses to confirm that the Wright brothers flight ever took place. As such Santos-Dumont continues to be recognised both in Brazil and by the French Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as the man who made the first powered flight.
Beyond showing off a famous Brazilian and teasing Americans further this provides a way to bring up that despite its reputation as "Not a Serious Country" Brazilian actually has a thriving high-tech sector including in aviation.
The company Embraer which makes military, cargo and private aircraft regularly competes with Canada's Bombardier for the title of third largest aircraft manufacturer behind Boeing and Airbus.
This rivalry between Embraer and Bombardier is so great that they sued each other in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO ruled that both the Brazilian and Canadian governments had illegally subsidised Embraer and Bombardier respectively.
The model of Santos-Dumonts' plane then proceeded to take off and soar out of the arena.
This provided an opportunity to show off more optical trickery. Initially only the video projected runway beneath the model moved backwards give the impression the model was moving forward. However the model itself then began to move forward being towed along an almost invisible rail.
The Opening Ceremony then cut to a partially computer animated video sequence of the "plane" flying around the skies of Rio.
This obviously allowed the organisers to give TV viewers an idea of what Rio looks like.
However it also gave them opportunity to clear and re-arrange the arena in preparation for the next sequence.
19:40 on 11/8/16 (UK date).
Urbanisation: The previous sequence saw the green canopy of the Amazon Rainforest gradually replaced with the geometrically perfect fields and hedgerows of modern agriculture.
This sequence saw those fields and hedgerows suddenly replaced with the grey of concrete. From one end of the arena Parkour runners entered and acrobatically ran across the grey floor. As they ran Brazilian-style urban buildings appeared beneath their feet.
It took you a while to realise that these buildings weren't actually physically rising from the floor but an optical illusion created by a video projection. The way that the performers movements were co-ordinated with each phase of the video projection was highly impressive.
I think this type of video projection was first used in an Olympic ceremony in Beijing, China in 2008. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada also made some use of them.
In the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, UK also partially used video projection in its ceremonies but mainly focused on physical stage furniture. For example the Opening Ceremony saw an actual rural field physically built in the centre of the arena.
When Russia used video projection during the Opening Ceremony 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi the UK raised many complaints about how the use of video projection rather than physical structures made it hard for viewers to follow the action.
The Russians responded by sarcastically making the video projections progressively bigger and clearer throughout the remaining three ceremonies.
The Brazilian use of video projection here made reference to that argument between Russia and the UK. After all watching from the fixed viewing position of the camera this optical illusion worked perfectly for me. However I did find myself wondering whether people watching from the other side of the stadium had a clue what was going on.
This sequence of course represented the Urbanisation of Brazil as its people moved from rural farms and villages into urban towns and cities.
Much of Brazil's Urbanisation occurred between the 1950's and 1970's.
During this time the architectural school of "Brutalism" was dominant across much of the World. Inspired heavily by the Socialist Utopian ideology of Communism Brutalist design focuses on repeated geometric zones of specific function being grouped together into a unified whole encased in concrete.
Following this design school many Brazilian cities are built around an economic city at the centre containing offices and businesses. Surrounding that you have numerous satellite or dormitory cities where people live and sleep only travelling into the central city to work.
This geometric pattern of a central circle being surrounded by a ring of much smaller circles seems to have heavily influenced the strange golden sculpture that adorns this year's Olympic cauldron.
This type of urban design is far from unique to Brazil. In fact Croydon where I grew up was built in the 1950's to act as a dormitory city for the UK capital London. The 2012 Olympic Park in Stratford now functions as a dormitory town for central London.
The problem with this type of urban design is that it utterly destroys any sense of community.
The economic city is of course teaming with life during the working day but absolutely empty at night. Similarly the dormitory cities are ghost-towns during the day and filled with people sleeping in their beds at night. This all stems from the Communist ideal that people are not individuals but simply worker bees dedicated to the greater good of the nation.
Despite being a Socialist idea the lack of a sense of community causes huge problems in terms of social cohesion and social exclusion.
That has probably been most dramatically highlighted recently in France.
Following the Second World War France underwent a massive period of reconstruction in the 1950's and 1960's. This too followed the Brutalist school with many French cities being built with around a city centre (Ville-centre) ringed by a housing area (Banlieue) which in turn is ringed by a suburban area (Couronne periurbaine).
This occurred at the same time as a mass immigration of predominately Muslim migrants from former French colonies in North Africa. Those migrants became settled in the Banlieues and basically became stuck never able to move out in the richer Couronne periurbaines and properly integrate with wider French society.
The last big explosion of rioting occurred in 2005 when the Paris Banlieues tore themselves apart for 17 days. However a smaller degree of rioting and urban disorder seems to occur in one or other of France's Banlieues every summer.
Just in the last two weeks or so there has been rioting in Beaumont-sur-Oise following the death of a young black man in police custody on July 19th (19/7/16). That has arguably been fuelled by the corrosive effect of US President Obama's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
The way that the lack of social cohesion created by this type of urban design can fuel terrorism was put on sharp display by the July 14th (14/7/16) terror attack in Nice, France.
Nice is famous for its picturesque seafront where millionaires and tourists flock. However behind the old city leading up in the mountains you have these vast, impoverished housing estates where the people of Nice actually live. It was in these estates that the attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was recruited by a small terrorist cell.
Following the attack the federal authorities ordered the local authorities to delete all of their CCTV footage. The local authorities claimed that this was part of a cover-up. However it struck me as the federal authorities trying to avoid an awkward conversation about how many local authority employees who live on those housing estates would fail a background check.
As such this extremely dry topic of urban design actually makes a significant contribution to the discussion about immigration, integration and terrorism that was such a huge feature of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.
Apart from adding to the problems of social cohesion this type of urban design also presents huge problems for the other main theme of this Opening Ceremony - The Battle Against Climate Change.
Obviously if people do not live in the same city in which they work they cannot simply cycle or walk to and from work. Instead they have to use some sort of powered transport. Even if they're using public transport like trains or buses rather than private cars more transport miles means more Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions and therefore more Climate Change.
Before US President Obama decided to come in and destroy it a lot of people hoped that a new global Climate Change agreement would rely heavily on developing nations who are just entering the urbanisation phase being almost mentored by nations such as Brazil so they don't make the same mistakes.
In an effort to help pay for both the construction of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics alongside generally boosting government revenues in 2013 bus fares were raised across a number of Brazilian cities including Rio. Although I don't have the exact figures for Rio to hand generally these increases were only around 6-7%.
However the way that Brazilian cities are designed in order to get to work people will have to get at least one bus from their dormitory city to the economic city. They would then have to take at least another bus across the economic city. They then have to repeat that journey on the way home.
As a result a 7% rise in a single bus journey quickly turned into a 28% rise for a daily commute and a 140% increase for an average working week.
That very quickly took a huge chunk out of the average Brazilians pay packet and triggered several months of rioting in at least 100 Brazilian cities between April and July 2013. These are sometimes referred to as; "The Confederations Cup Riots."
Faced with similar mass protests over Gezi Park Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that both the Brazil and Turkish protests were the work of the same global Zionist conspiracy. The Brazilians largely ignored him.
With the protesters calling for an end to government corruption it was really these protests that set in motion the chain of events that saw the Brazilian Senate vote yesterday to hold an impeachment trial of Dilma Rousseff over charges of corruption.
This topic of Brazil's urbanisation is also hugely and specifically important to the history of Rio de Janerio where these games are taking place.
Up until 1960 Rio was Brazil's capital city. Then inspired by the Brutalist design school the Brazilian government decided to design and build a specially planned new city - Brasilia - to become the new capital.
With the seat of government moved to Brasilia by the 1980's all of the government agencies had also left Rio. This caused all of Brazil's financial institutions to leave moving their headquarters to Brasilia. In 2000 the Brazilian stock exchange moved to Sao Paulo leaving Rio as a ghost town with high levels of unemployment and little hope for the future.
The big idea behind hosting the games in Rio was to end this decline and reinvigorate the city.
As the Parkour performers reached the opposite end of the arena a physical structure of buildings emerged from the wall. The Parkour performers dressed in sort of construction overalls then proceeded to climb all over this structure.
For this small period I think the structure was intended to represent Rio's 21st century buildings and serve as a tribute to the great construction effort that had gone into preparing for the games.
If you looked closely at the Parkour performers during this phase you may have noticed that they seemed intended to resemble Japanese Brazilians. This was a little nod to the fact the next Summer Olympics in 2020 are to be held in Tokyo, Japan.
If you were looking closely enough you may also have noticed that the climbers were using the sort of hand-grips common in artificial climbing walls. This was a little nod to the fact that Sport Climbing is to be included for the first time in the 2020 games.
However with the very acrobatic climbers pulling off moves that seemed far more complicated than any sport climber could manage this seemed to be the traditional Olympic sport of Gymnastics looking at the sport climbers and snobbishly going;
"Oh. You think that's difficult enough to be considered a proper sport do you?"
This type of rivalry between the old and new is actually quite common in the Winter Olympics. There the Skiers tend to take a great deal of pleasure in looking down on the Snowboarders.
Although we talk about these being the summer games as the cancellation of rowing events today have demonstrated Rio is currently in the depths of its winter.
However the northern Brazilian state of Roraima is currently enjoying the height of its summer. States such as Amazonas and Para which have the Equator running through them are deeply confused.
At around 17:25 on 10/8/16 (UK date) I just realised I've missed a huge chunk out above. I guess I'll have to be back after dinner to fix that.
Edited at around 18:50 on 10/8/16 (UK date) add above: Urban design and bus fares. Always thrilling.
Edited at around 15:35 on 11/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The large physical structure at the end of the arena then seamlessly morphed to represent Brazil's Favelas or slums. This is a meaning it maintained throughout the rest of the ceremony.
Favelas are unplanned shanty towns built illegally often on land that nobody else wants. As a result it is not really possible to talk about the design features of a favela because the main feature is that there isn't a planned design.
However I think the favela that will be most recognisable to particularly visitors to the Rio Olympics is the Rocinha favela.
This is Brazil's largest and is located in Rio's South Zone a short distance from the famous Copacabana and Impanema beaches. Parts of it are built up the hillside leading the Christ the Redeemer statue.
The Rocinha favela is located close to the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas where the rowing events are being held and the Marina da Gloria where the sailing events are being held.
In the run-up to the games much has been made about concerns of the water quality at these venues. They're said to be littered with physical debris like plastic bags along with raw sewage and all the different types of bacteria and microorganisms they bring with them.
The main problem with the water quality at these venues is the Rocinha favela. Being an unplanned, illegal settlement Rocinha like most favelas doesn't have access to basic sanitation services like sewers and garbage collection. As result all the garbage and sewage simply gets chucked into the river to flow downhill into the sea.
The Parkour acrobats in construction overalls then began passing simple boxes made of wood and paper down from the top of the favela to the bottom. At the bottom of the favela these boxes were used as bricks to build a wall between the favela and the city.
On one level this is simply a reference to the fact that the favelas surrounding Rio are often walled off from the city itself as a security measure.
The Brazilian government has put a lot of effort into what is termed "Neighbourhood Pacification" to oust the drug gangs from the favelas and connect the residents to basic services. However many favelas are just so violent simply walling them off is all the government can do to protect citizens in the formal city.
For example on just the first day of the games the media centre at the equestrian venue was hit by gunfire. On Tuesday (9/8/16) a media bus travelling from the hockey venue close to the "City of God/Cidade da Deus" favela was also hit by gunfire. Rather than being attacks on the media these were simply the result of stray fire from the gun battles that rage daily in and around the favelas.
You could though also interpret this building of a wall as a talking point on US Republican Party Presidential nominee Donald Trump's plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico.
If you were a Hillary Clinton supporter you may also have been tempted to think that Brazil were mocking Trump's plan.
Unfortunately if you'd said that aloud you would've immediately exposed yourself as a fool who understands little of Trump's immigration plans and even less about the Democrats attitude towards migrants.
After all whenever the you hear the Democrats appeal to the Hispanic vote you do get the impression they think that all the 19 nations spread across two sub-continents south of Texas are all; "just Mexico." To Portuguese speaking Brazilians that's a little offensive.
I often talk about the Cold War being the golden age of the Olympic movement. However referring to the period between 1945 and 1990 as a "cold war" will often lead to snorts of derision from people who live in the Americas.
It was of course a period in which the US and the Soviet Union fought an almost constant stream on proxy wars for control of the Americas.
For example in April 1961 the US launched the failed "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba to oust the pro-Soviet Fidel Castro. In October 1963 the World was brought to the brink of destruction when the Cuban government allowed the Soviet Union to station nuclear missiles on the island.
Brazil itself got off rather lightly with the US conducting a military coup in the country named "Brother Sam" in 1964 leading to Brazil being ruled by a military dictatorship until 1985.
Similarly Brazil's neighbour Argentina only had to suffer through the decade long US sponsored "Dirty War" and a US-backed fascist dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983.
It was Central America that was particularly hard hit. There it was almost a weekly occurrence that some US-backed fascist group would stage a coup only for a Soviet-backed Communist group to stage a counter-coup and the entire process would continue.
One of the main fascist groups the US backed were the Honduras based "Contras" or "Counter-Revolutionaries" who were trying to overthrow the government of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in neighbouring Nicaragua. Due to their brutal methods including death squads US Congress eventually cut-off funding to the Contras.
So the CIA simply teamed up with Panamanian drug lord Pablo Escobar to help the Contras sell crack cocaine in the US to fund their war.
With that the South American drug cartels that continue to destabilise the entire continent were born. And along with them the US "Ghetto Culture" that Obama and Black Lives Matter are so proud of.
The violence of first the US-backed fascists like the Contras and then the violence of the drug cartels has torn much of Central America to pieces. For example Honduras currently experiences one of the highest murder rates in the World with people being killed in numbers to rival a warzone.
In turn this violence has destabilised those nations making them even poorer which in turn fuels more violence.
This endless cycle of violence, poverty and instability has left many in Central America trying to escape to the safety of the US.
To do this they pay the drug cartels huge fees of around USD20,000 to smuggle their children up through Central America across Mexico's border with the US.
As people traffickers tend not to be very nice people a lot of those making the journey are killed or seriously injured in the process. If the parents can't pay their debts in time the children are frequently sold into forced labour (slavery) or child prostitution.
This epidemic of human trafficking is every bit as horrific if not worse than the conditions experienced by irregular migrants on the Balkan route into the European Union (EU).
It also further destabilises the countries through which these migrants are trafficked. At the moment there is a big row brewing between Costa Rica and Panama over Panama's decision to open its border allowing a new flood of migrants into Costa Rica.
The US Democrat Party and in particular US President Obama have looked at this trail of human misery and seen nothing but an opportunity to consolidate their own power.
Back in November 2014 Obama announced plans to violate the US Constitution in order to grant amnesty and then citizenship to 5 million+ of these migrants through executive action.
Obama's thinking being that these freshly minted US citizens would owe such a debt to the Democrat Party they would help the party win traditionally Republican states such as Texas.
Obama and the Democrats didn't seem to care one iota that by ending the deportation of families with children under 18 he was formalising the drug cartels business model encouraging more parents to smuggle more children into the US.
This of course means more profits for the cartels making the violence and poverty worse further destabilising Central and South America.
Thankfully due to the public opposition led by Trump's call to; "Build That Wall!" the Democrats horrific and exploitative alliance with the drug cartels has been stopped in its tracks.
In January 2016 the Obama administration was instead forced to work with the United Nations (UN) to establish screening centres for refugees in Central American nations such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Operating rather like the system for Syrian refugees people in Central America now have an alternative to paying the drug cartels by applying for refugee status in the US. Those who are successful will then be safely transported to the US.
However much to the Democrats disappointment being classed as refugees they won't be able to vote n US elections.
Quite apart from taking the fate of these people out of the hands of drug cartels and treating them with basic human dignity the fact that the US is now classifying people fleeing violence in Central America as refugees opens the door to the possibility that the US will admit to its role in destabilising the region causing the violence that people are fleeing.
That day may be coming sooner rather than later. Just two days ago the US announced that it will be making public files on its role in Argentina's Dirty War.
As a result I think you'll find many Central and South American nations will be overjoyed to see Trump beat out Hillary Clinton in November.
At 17:45 on 11/8/16 (UK date) I still not finished this section.
Edited at around 19:05 on 11/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The box wall made way for a model of the box-plane that Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont flew on October 23rd 1906 (23/10/06).
Although this came almost three years after the Wright brothers made the first powered flight on December 14th 1903 (14/12/03) there were no witnesses to confirm that the Wright brothers flight ever took place. As such Santos-Dumont continues to be recognised both in Brazil and by the French Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as the man who made the first powered flight.
Beyond showing off a famous Brazilian and teasing Americans further this provides a way to bring up that despite its reputation as "Not a Serious Country" Brazilian actually has a thriving high-tech sector including in aviation.
The company Embraer which makes military, cargo and private aircraft regularly competes with Canada's Bombardier for the title of third largest aircraft manufacturer behind Boeing and Airbus.
This rivalry between Embraer and Bombardier is so great that they sued each other in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO ruled that both the Brazilian and Canadian governments had illegally subsidised Embraer and Bombardier respectively.
The model of Santos-Dumonts' plane then proceeded to take off and soar out of the arena.
This provided an opportunity to show off more optical trickery. Initially only the video projected runway beneath the model moved backwards give the impression the model was moving forward. However the model itself then began to move forward being towed along an almost invisible rail.
The Opening Ceremony then cut to a partially computer animated video sequence of the "plane" flying around the skies of Rio.
This obviously allowed the organisers to give TV viewers an idea of what Rio looks like.
However it also gave them opportunity to clear and re-arrange the arena in preparation for the next sequence.
19:40 on 11/8/16 (UK date).
Monday, 8 August 2016
The 2016 ISIL Games: Opening Ceremony.
"(Woman engaging in sport) is the most unaesthetic sight human eyes could contemplate."
Those are the words of French Baron Pierre de Coubertin - the founder of the Olympic movement.
He was inspired by William Brooks a British surgeon and Magistrate who founded an annual sporting contest in the town of Wenlock in the UK in 1850 to "promote the moral and physical improvement of the working classes by the encouragement of outdoor recreation."
As such the Olympic spirit has always been the exploitation of the greed and selfishness of the working class in order to make them better servants of the elite aristocracy.
With exploitation and subjugation being so central to the ethos of the Olympics it is almost natural that the 2016 Summer games has become a mass celebration of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) associated Islamist terror groups.
Before that got underway though Brazil who have the misfortune of hosting this atrocity in Rio de Janerio attempted to set an alternative agenda for the games through Friday's (5/8/16) Opening Ceremony.
These ceremonies traditionally allow the host nation/city to introduce itself, its culture and its history to the world.
On this occasion even I would find that useful because living in Europe and been particularly focused on the Middle-East and Africa events in South America have long represented a void in my knowledge.
With the Middle-East in particular being extremely busy at the moment I was looking forward to the opportunity to fill in some of the gaps of my understanding of the region.
One thing I do know about Brazil though is that in global politics at the moment they are really famous for to main things.
The first of these is Brazil's impressive racial diversity and racial integration.
Although it is far from compulsory you can say that people in Britain tend to be white. People in China tend to be Asian. People in Nigeria tend to be black.
You really cannot do this in Brazil because there is no dominate ethnic group. In fact most individual Brazilians themselves tend to be a mixture of races.
For example during the Opening Ceremony I spotted one female performer/volunteer. She had Hispanic, white skin, Afro hair and Oriental features. That is far from a unique look in Brazil.
The second thing Brazil is famous for the Amazon Rainforest. Although it isn't located exclusively within Brazil around 60% of it is and it takes up around 60% of Brazil's total landmass.
Being responsible for 60% of the World's largest Rainforest has forced Brazil to act as something of a leader within global efforts to combat Climate Change.
Rather than being a cheap boast this has placed a huge responsibility on Brazil within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was actually born out of the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janerio.
Within UNFCCC negotiations Brazil has had to represent the views of all the Rainforest nations such as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As one of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Brazil has also had to represent the views of all the developing nations. As a South American nation Brazil has also had to represent the views of all the South American nations.
This sees Brazil torn in many different directions by the competing interests.
For example Brazil really founded the Reducing Emissions Deforestation and Degradation Plus (REDD+) program. In UNFCCC jargon this is known as a non-market based mechanism based on government-to-government spending rather than free market economics. Despite this Brazil is not ideologically opposed to free market economics.
However within in South America there are a number of nations - particularly Venezuela and Bolivia - who are ideologically opposed to capitalism and free market economics.
These nations and others across the globe were backed by China to block any free market solution to Climate Change. However making ample use of free markets themselves China is only blocking those solutions as a way of making sure it doesn't have to reduce its own Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions.
If you're confused by all that you're just starting to get a small taste of what Brazil has been up against within Climate Change negotiations.
The Video Countdown: It is a tradition that all Olympic ceremonies begin with a short video sequence which prominently feature a countdown from 10 to 1.
The purpose is to allow all the local broadcasters who are taking the official International Olympic Committee (IOC) video feed to co-ordinate their coverage so they don't miss the start of the ceremony itself.
Brazil's video sequence featured different sports being done in different locations in and around Rio. So you had people swimming in the sea. People running through the city. People cycling in the mountains. People swimming in a city pool. Someone Hangliding over that famous forest etc.
The sequence featured both traditional cyclists and a BMX rider along with surfers and skateboarders. This is a reference to the fact that Surfing and Skateboarding are to be introduced as new sports at the 2020 Summer Games while BMX is at its second games having been introduced in 2012.
What I found interesting is that after every single one of these Olympic sports you saw people playing football or soccer on a traditional pitch, in the street and even on the beach.
This seemed to be Brazil's way of saying that it was much more excited about hosting the 2014 World Cup than the ISIL games. That in turn promotes discussion about how the IOC can get this football mad nation more interested in Olympic sports.
The big thing however about the video sequence is that it broke with tradition by not including a 10 to 1 countdown.
Geometry: As the video sequence ended the action moved to inside the arena. Here hundreds of performers dressed head-to-toe in silver foil stood in groups of four each holding the corner or a silver foil - I suppose pillows.
This of course was a reference to the foil blankets that emergency workers hand out to refugees/irregular migrants who have just been rescued and the victims of terrorist attacks. Although it was far from the most horrific of the day the image of the corpse of a small child shrouded in a foil blanket following the July 14th (14/67/16) terror attack in Nice, France is likely to stay with me for a while yet.
As part of their celebration of the terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide of ISIL this is an issue the IOC has been very keen to have dominate these games. They've even gone so far as to include a Refugee Team made up of people who would normally compete as independents under the Olympic flag.
Terrorism and irregular migration have certainly been major issues across much of the Middle-East, Europe and Africa. Particularly at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.
Throughout this sequence the performers moved their pillows about to form a variety of Geometric shapes. This was to introduce the main, recurring theme of the ceremony - the mathematical discipline of Geometry.
This is obviously quite a strange theme for the type of ceremony that normally focuses on the artistic rather than the scientific. However back in the 1960's Brazil was labelled - by one of its own diplomats - as; "Not a serious country."
What they meant by this is that Brazil is great at organising spectacular carnivals and street parties but utterly terrible at things like science, maths and general good governance. The idea of Brazil bidding for and being awarded the 2016 games was to give it an opportunity to show that it can do the serious business alongside all the fun.
It was during this sequence that the giant 10 to 1 countdown finally made its appearance being projected onto the performers inside the arena.
This was intended to promote discussion over whether we still need the traditional video sequence countdown. After all broadcasting technology has certainly moved on dramatically in even just the last 15 years.
This issue of time passing and the world moving on is particularly relevant to the Olympic movement.
The golden age of the Olympics was really during the Cold War period between 1945 and 1990. Since then the value of the Olympics as a global political, cultural and sporting spectacle has utterly collapsed almost leaving it struggling to find a purpose in the modern era.
I certainly will say that allowing the 2016 games to be hijacked by a small group of extremists certainly does nothing to help the Olympics regain its relevance to the modern world.
During the countdown phase the performers started banging on their pillows effectively turning them into a type of traditional Brazilian drum - I think a Ring-Repique - which is used in Brazil's famous Samba music.
This was a reference to the 2008 Opening Ceremony in Beijing, China which featured thousands of traditional Chinese drummers. Depending on how you look at it this could be viewed as Brazil showing support for China or providing a Brazilian alternative to China on issues such as Climate Change policy.
The sequence ended with some of the performers arranging themselves in formation and turning over their pillows to form the traditional Peace Sign. However this particular Peace Sign was upside down and had leaves growing from its branches giving it the appearance of a tree.
This could be a reference to Brazil's large ethnically Japanese population. After all the Japanese symbol for "Tree" is basically a line drawing of a tree. The Japanese symbol for "Wood" is two trees. The Japanese symbol for "Forest" is three trees.
However I think this was mainly to introduce the other main, recurring theme of the ceremony. A call for "Environmental Peace."
Basically that we end the war against nature the human race seems to have been fighting for the last 200 or so years.
At around 17:45 on 8/8/16 (UK date) obviously I'm going to be back to add a lot more after dinner.
Edited at around 19:00 on 8/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The Brazilian Flag & National Anthem: It is part of IOC protocol that every Opening Ceremony must feature the raising of the host nation's national flag and performance of its national anthem.
As the Brazilian flag was raised the Brazilian national anthem "Hino Nacional Brasileiro/Brazilian National Anthem" was performed on an acoustic guitar by a man wearing suit and an open collared shirt. He was surrounded by a string quartet in traditional white tie who didn't play a single note.
This was obviously in stark contrast to the pomp and pageantry of many national anthems. The Russian national anthem in particular is a force to be reckoned with.
This contrast helped highlight Brazil as a not quite poor but certainly developing nation along with it's famously casual and laid back reputation.
The Birth of the Nation: In telling the history of the nation the Rio Opening Ceremony went back a great long way. All the way back to the birth of life on earth itself.
So the sequence began with the waves of the ocean. This was followed by the emergence of microorganisms such as bacteria amid the water. Then became insects, plants and the Rainforest before finally you had the emergence of man.
These different stages of biological development were represented by sculptures that were wheeled around the arena.
Those familiar with the beginnings of life of earth will know that originally that there was only a single continent known as "Pangaea."
The much mocked amongst experts 2006 film on global warming "An Inconvenient Truth" makes rather famous reference to this with Al Gore telling a story about how Brazil used to physically part of West Africa.
The fact that the earth used to be one big continent destroys this claim that certain groups of humans are indigenous to certain nations. This has been a particularly large issue amid recent climate change negotiations.
Taken in that light the start of this sequence with life emerging from the oceans before heading into the Rainforest could be viewed as a reference to how the people who like to claim to be indigenous Brazilian indians in fact are migrants arriving by sea from places such as Micronesia.
Indigenous rights are not only a big issue within climate change negotiations but are also a big issue in domestic Brazilian politics along with the politics of many other South American nations.
As such this pointing out that the indigenous indians aren't actually that indigenous could be seen as something of a mockery of those protesters. However it's the government's refusal to take them seriously that has got them protesting in the first place.
Particularly at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest the American Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement's inability to realise that so-called Native Americans are not only ethnically Caucasian but immigrants from places like Scandinavia and Russia has become a convenient way to mock the group's founder and current US President Barack Obama.
The story of human life in Brazil did indeed though begin deep in the Rainforest with the indigenous tribes. The forest was brought to life through the use of lots of green light and a video projection onto the floor to the arena that represented grass or the green of the forest canopy.
The centrepiece though was dozens if not hundreds of giant elastic bands dangling for a beam running almost the length of the arena.
Natural rubber of course comes from the Hevea brasiliensis tree. As the Latin name suggests this tree is native to the Brazilian Rainforest.
The way that the Amazonian tribes are able to manufacture rubber without killing the trees is an example of man living in harmony with the natural environment rather than being in constant conflict with it.
The performers in this sequence who were all indigenous indians who live in the Amazon almost made the rubber bands dance forming a range of geometric shapes and patterns. They finished by twisting them to form three "Ocas" which are traditional indian huts.
The main theme though was to bring the rubber bands out into the shape of a tent.
This was a reference to the way that the canopy of the Rainforests acts as the main shelter for the indians. This in turned served as a metaphor for how the earth's atmosphere - particularly the Greenhouse gas layer - serves to shelter all life on earth. Including humans.
I personally found that to be a particularly poetic way of making a complex point.
Next came the Portuguese colonialists of Pedro Alvares Cabral. To the ominous sound of thunder they arrived in the arena in ship structures which were wheeled around. As you would imagine their arrival led to a strange stand-off with the indigenous indians which at the same time managed to be curious and hostile.
Almost immediately as the Portuguese had arrived the African slaves the brought with them followed. These were shown in the yoke of a ploughing machine with big blocks on their feet representing their shackles.
What I found interesting is that the Portuguese were done up in white-face to signify that they were lighter skinned than the indians. The African slaves were also done up in white-face to signify that they were the property of the Portuguese.
If you've heard of things like "The Black & White Minstrel Show" you would know that doing up white people in black-face was a comedy staple in the US for much of the 20th century. However the practice is now effectively banned as extremely racist and offensive to black people.
By doing black people up in white-face the Opening Ceremony seemed to be celebrating Brazil's racial diversity and integration. Whilst at the same time seeming to further mock US President Obama and Black Lives Matter who relish racial division.
We were then introduced to more groups immigrants who come to make Brazil their home.
This began with merchants from the Middle-East and Syria in particular.
Rather than being a reference to the current war in Syria this simply reflected that a large number of Syrian and other Middle-Eastern merchants moved to Brazil in the 18th century. People of Syrian ancestry make up around 1% of modern Brazil's population.
Sadly that does touch on the threat to the Rio games from Islamist terrorism. After all if you thought that Brazil doesn't have a pool of potential Islamist recruits you would be quite wrong.
People from the Middle-East may complain that the way the Middle-Eastern immigrants were represented in the ceremony made them look more as if they came from India and Pakistan.
However that was done really to kill two birds with one stone rather than cause offence because a lot of immigrants from Indian and Pakistan arrived in Brazil at the same time as those from the Middle-East.
Finally the Japanese arrived waving their red banners.
Following the end of slavery many Japanese labourers arrived in Brazil to work on coffee plantations in the early part of the 20th century. Many of them made Brazil their home and as a result Brazil has the largest ethnically Japanese population outside of Japan.
This came as something of a surprise to a lot of people during the 2014 World Cup when Japan suddenly emerged as one of the best supported teams in the competition.
Also during UNFCCC negotiations I once mistakenly attributed a Brazilian idea to Japan. I tried to cover my error by jokingly claiming it must have been a Japanese Brazilian who came up with the idea.
As each of these new groups arrived they cut a path through the Rainforest canopy that continued to be projected onto the arena floor. The Portuguese and the Japanese in particular laid down tracks of elaborate geometric tribal art. It was the circular designs in particular that caught my eye.
It is tradition that as one Olympics ends a package of ideas and issues is handed from one host to the next. With the previous 2012 Summer Olympics being held in London, UK I am actually quite a large part of the package handed over to Brazil.
During the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 Para-Olympics much was made of the fact that I have an elaborate circular, geometric tribal tattoo. That tattoo was done by a Brazilian artist under the supervision of an Israeli.
Mainly though as the different groups cut through the Rainforest they left in their wake the geometrically perfect fields and hedgerows of modern agriculture. This is particularly true of the African slaves and their giant plowing machines.
This was a clear reference to the way that much of the Amazon Rainforest has been cut down to make way for agriculture - particularly cattle ranching. This is a continuing problem and one that is increasing ghg emissions making Climate Change much worse.
Through its leadership in UNFCCC negotiations and in particular the REDD+ program along with market based mechanisms such as carbon trading Brazil has been trying to solve this problem.
The idea being that people pay to allow the Rainforests to scrub their ghg emissions out of the atmosphere.
This would allow Brazilians to become the farmers of the forest rather than forcing them to chop it down to grow cash crops like sugar cane.
20:50 on 8/8/16 (UK date). Part 2 to follow.
Those are the words of French Baron Pierre de Coubertin - the founder of the Olympic movement.
He was inspired by William Brooks a British surgeon and Magistrate who founded an annual sporting contest in the town of Wenlock in the UK in 1850 to "promote the moral and physical improvement of the working classes by the encouragement of outdoor recreation."
As such the Olympic spirit has always been the exploitation of the greed and selfishness of the working class in order to make them better servants of the elite aristocracy.
With exploitation and subjugation being so central to the ethos of the Olympics it is almost natural that the 2016 Summer games has become a mass celebration of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) associated Islamist terror groups.
Before that got underway though Brazil who have the misfortune of hosting this atrocity in Rio de Janerio attempted to set an alternative agenda for the games through Friday's (5/8/16) Opening Ceremony.
These ceremonies traditionally allow the host nation/city to introduce itself, its culture and its history to the world.
On this occasion even I would find that useful because living in Europe and been particularly focused on the Middle-East and Africa events in South America have long represented a void in my knowledge.
With the Middle-East in particular being extremely busy at the moment I was looking forward to the opportunity to fill in some of the gaps of my understanding of the region.
One thing I do know about Brazil though is that in global politics at the moment they are really famous for to main things.
The first of these is Brazil's impressive racial diversity and racial integration.
Although it is far from compulsory you can say that people in Britain tend to be white. People in China tend to be Asian. People in Nigeria tend to be black.
You really cannot do this in Brazil because there is no dominate ethnic group. In fact most individual Brazilians themselves tend to be a mixture of races.
For example during the Opening Ceremony I spotted one female performer/volunteer. She had Hispanic, white skin, Afro hair and Oriental features. That is far from a unique look in Brazil.
The second thing Brazil is famous for the Amazon Rainforest. Although it isn't located exclusively within Brazil around 60% of it is and it takes up around 60% of Brazil's total landmass.
Being responsible for 60% of the World's largest Rainforest has forced Brazil to act as something of a leader within global efforts to combat Climate Change.
Rather than being a cheap boast this has placed a huge responsibility on Brazil within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was actually born out of the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janerio.
Within UNFCCC negotiations Brazil has had to represent the views of all the Rainforest nations such as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As one of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Brazil has also had to represent the views of all the developing nations. As a South American nation Brazil has also had to represent the views of all the South American nations.
This sees Brazil torn in many different directions by the competing interests.
For example Brazil really founded the Reducing Emissions Deforestation and Degradation Plus (REDD+) program. In UNFCCC jargon this is known as a non-market based mechanism based on government-to-government spending rather than free market economics. Despite this Brazil is not ideologically opposed to free market economics.
However within in South America there are a number of nations - particularly Venezuela and Bolivia - who are ideologically opposed to capitalism and free market economics.
These nations and others across the globe were backed by China to block any free market solution to Climate Change. However making ample use of free markets themselves China is only blocking those solutions as a way of making sure it doesn't have to reduce its own Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions.
If you're confused by all that you're just starting to get a small taste of what Brazil has been up against within Climate Change negotiations.
The Video Countdown: It is a tradition that all Olympic ceremonies begin with a short video sequence which prominently feature a countdown from 10 to 1.
The purpose is to allow all the local broadcasters who are taking the official International Olympic Committee (IOC) video feed to co-ordinate their coverage so they don't miss the start of the ceremony itself.
Brazil's video sequence featured different sports being done in different locations in and around Rio. So you had people swimming in the sea. People running through the city. People cycling in the mountains. People swimming in a city pool. Someone Hangliding over that famous forest etc.
The sequence featured both traditional cyclists and a BMX rider along with surfers and skateboarders. This is a reference to the fact that Surfing and Skateboarding are to be introduced as new sports at the 2020 Summer Games while BMX is at its second games having been introduced in 2012.
What I found interesting is that after every single one of these Olympic sports you saw people playing football or soccer on a traditional pitch, in the street and even on the beach.
This seemed to be Brazil's way of saying that it was much more excited about hosting the 2014 World Cup than the ISIL games. That in turn promotes discussion about how the IOC can get this football mad nation more interested in Olympic sports.
The big thing however about the video sequence is that it broke with tradition by not including a 10 to 1 countdown.
Geometry: As the video sequence ended the action moved to inside the arena. Here hundreds of performers dressed head-to-toe in silver foil stood in groups of four each holding the corner or a silver foil - I suppose pillows.
This of course was a reference to the foil blankets that emergency workers hand out to refugees/irregular migrants who have just been rescued and the victims of terrorist attacks. Although it was far from the most horrific of the day the image of the corpse of a small child shrouded in a foil blanket following the July 14th (14/67/16) terror attack in Nice, France is likely to stay with me for a while yet.
As part of their celebration of the terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide of ISIL this is an issue the IOC has been very keen to have dominate these games. They've even gone so far as to include a Refugee Team made up of people who would normally compete as independents under the Olympic flag.
Terrorism and irregular migration have certainly been major issues across much of the Middle-East, Europe and Africa. Particularly at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.
Throughout this sequence the performers moved their pillows about to form a variety of Geometric shapes. This was to introduce the main, recurring theme of the ceremony - the mathematical discipline of Geometry.
This is obviously quite a strange theme for the type of ceremony that normally focuses on the artistic rather than the scientific. However back in the 1960's Brazil was labelled - by one of its own diplomats - as; "Not a serious country."
What they meant by this is that Brazil is great at organising spectacular carnivals and street parties but utterly terrible at things like science, maths and general good governance. The idea of Brazil bidding for and being awarded the 2016 games was to give it an opportunity to show that it can do the serious business alongside all the fun.
It was during this sequence that the giant 10 to 1 countdown finally made its appearance being projected onto the performers inside the arena.
This was intended to promote discussion over whether we still need the traditional video sequence countdown. After all broadcasting technology has certainly moved on dramatically in even just the last 15 years.
This issue of time passing and the world moving on is particularly relevant to the Olympic movement.
The golden age of the Olympics was really during the Cold War period between 1945 and 1990. Since then the value of the Olympics as a global political, cultural and sporting spectacle has utterly collapsed almost leaving it struggling to find a purpose in the modern era.
I certainly will say that allowing the 2016 games to be hijacked by a small group of extremists certainly does nothing to help the Olympics regain its relevance to the modern world.
During the countdown phase the performers started banging on their pillows effectively turning them into a type of traditional Brazilian drum - I think a Ring-Repique - which is used in Brazil's famous Samba music.
This was a reference to the 2008 Opening Ceremony in Beijing, China which featured thousands of traditional Chinese drummers. Depending on how you look at it this could be viewed as Brazil showing support for China or providing a Brazilian alternative to China on issues such as Climate Change policy.
The sequence ended with some of the performers arranging themselves in formation and turning over their pillows to form the traditional Peace Sign. However this particular Peace Sign was upside down and had leaves growing from its branches giving it the appearance of a tree.
This could be a reference to Brazil's large ethnically Japanese population. After all the Japanese symbol for "Tree" is basically a line drawing of a tree. The Japanese symbol for "Wood" is two trees. The Japanese symbol for "Forest" is three trees.
However I think this was mainly to introduce the other main, recurring theme of the ceremony. A call for "Environmental Peace."
Basically that we end the war against nature the human race seems to have been fighting for the last 200 or so years.
At around 17:45 on 8/8/16 (UK date) obviously I'm going to be back to add a lot more after dinner.
Edited at around 19:00 on 8/8/16 (UK date) to add;
The Brazilian Flag & National Anthem: It is part of IOC protocol that every Opening Ceremony must feature the raising of the host nation's national flag and performance of its national anthem.
As the Brazilian flag was raised the Brazilian national anthem "Hino Nacional Brasileiro/Brazilian National Anthem" was performed on an acoustic guitar by a man wearing suit and an open collared shirt. He was surrounded by a string quartet in traditional white tie who didn't play a single note.
This was obviously in stark contrast to the pomp and pageantry of many national anthems. The Russian national anthem in particular is a force to be reckoned with.
This contrast helped highlight Brazil as a not quite poor but certainly developing nation along with it's famously casual and laid back reputation.
The Birth of the Nation: In telling the history of the nation the Rio Opening Ceremony went back a great long way. All the way back to the birth of life on earth itself.
So the sequence began with the waves of the ocean. This was followed by the emergence of microorganisms such as bacteria amid the water. Then became insects, plants and the Rainforest before finally you had the emergence of man.
These different stages of biological development were represented by sculptures that were wheeled around the arena.
Those familiar with the beginnings of life of earth will know that originally that there was only a single continent known as "Pangaea."
The much mocked amongst experts 2006 film on global warming "An Inconvenient Truth" makes rather famous reference to this with Al Gore telling a story about how Brazil used to physically part of West Africa.
The fact that the earth used to be one big continent destroys this claim that certain groups of humans are indigenous to certain nations. This has been a particularly large issue amid recent climate change negotiations.
Taken in that light the start of this sequence with life emerging from the oceans before heading into the Rainforest could be viewed as a reference to how the people who like to claim to be indigenous Brazilian indians in fact are migrants arriving by sea from places such as Micronesia.
Indigenous rights are not only a big issue within climate change negotiations but are also a big issue in domestic Brazilian politics along with the politics of many other South American nations.
As such this pointing out that the indigenous indians aren't actually that indigenous could be seen as something of a mockery of those protesters. However it's the government's refusal to take them seriously that has got them protesting in the first place.
Particularly at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest the American Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement's inability to realise that so-called Native Americans are not only ethnically Caucasian but immigrants from places like Scandinavia and Russia has become a convenient way to mock the group's founder and current US President Barack Obama.
The story of human life in Brazil did indeed though begin deep in the Rainforest with the indigenous tribes. The forest was brought to life through the use of lots of green light and a video projection onto the floor to the arena that represented grass or the green of the forest canopy.
The centrepiece though was dozens if not hundreds of giant elastic bands dangling for a beam running almost the length of the arena.
Natural rubber of course comes from the Hevea brasiliensis tree. As the Latin name suggests this tree is native to the Brazilian Rainforest.
The way that the Amazonian tribes are able to manufacture rubber without killing the trees is an example of man living in harmony with the natural environment rather than being in constant conflict with it.
The performers in this sequence who were all indigenous indians who live in the Amazon almost made the rubber bands dance forming a range of geometric shapes and patterns. They finished by twisting them to form three "Ocas" which are traditional indian huts.
The main theme though was to bring the rubber bands out into the shape of a tent.
This was a reference to the way that the canopy of the Rainforests acts as the main shelter for the indians. This in turned served as a metaphor for how the earth's atmosphere - particularly the Greenhouse gas layer - serves to shelter all life on earth. Including humans.
I personally found that to be a particularly poetic way of making a complex point.
Next came the Portuguese colonialists of Pedro Alvares Cabral. To the ominous sound of thunder they arrived in the arena in ship structures which were wheeled around. As you would imagine their arrival led to a strange stand-off with the indigenous indians which at the same time managed to be curious and hostile.
Almost immediately as the Portuguese had arrived the African slaves the brought with them followed. These were shown in the yoke of a ploughing machine with big blocks on their feet representing their shackles.
What I found interesting is that the Portuguese were done up in white-face to signify that they were lighter skinned than the indians. The African slaves were also done up in white-face to signify that they were the property of the Portuguese.
If you've heard of things like "The Black & White Minstrel Show" you would know that doing up white people in black-face was a comedy staple in the US for much of the 20th century. However the practice is now effectively banned as extremely racist and offensive to black people.
By doing black people up in white-face the Opening Ceremony seemed to be celebrating Brazil's racial diversity and integration. Whilst at the same time seeming to further mock US President Obama and Black Lives Matter who relish racial division.
We were then introduced to more groups immigrants who come to make Brazil their home.
This began with merchants from the Middle-East and Syria in particular.
Rather than being a reference to the current war in Syria this simply reflected that a large number of Syrian and other Middle-Eastern merchants moved to Brazil in the 18th century. People of Syrian ancestry make up around 1% of modern Brazil's population.
Sadly that does touch on the threat to the Rio games from Islamist terrorism. After all if you thought that Brazil doesn't have a pool of potential Islamist recruits you would be quite wrong.
People from the Middle-East may complain that the way the Middle-Eastern immigrants were represented in the ceremony made them look more as if they came from India and Pakistan.
However that was done really to kill two birds with one stone rather than cause offence because a lot of immigrants from Indian and Pakistan arrived in Brazil at the same time as those from the Middle-East.
Finally the Japanese arrived waving their red banners.
Following the end of slavery many Japanese labourers arrived in Brazil to work on coffee plantations in the early part of the 20th century. Many of them made Brazil their home and as a result Brazil has the largest ethnically Japanese population outside of Japan.
This came as something of a surprise to a lot of people during the 2014 World Cup when Japan suddenly emerged as one of the best supported teams in the competition.
Also during UNFCCC negotiations I once mistakenly attributed a Brazilian idea to Japan. I tried to cover my error by jokingly claiming it must have been a Japanese Brazilian who came up with the idea.
As each of these new groups arrived they cut a path through the Rainforest canopy that continued to be projected onto the arena floor. The Portuguese and the Japanese in particular laid down tracks of elaborate geometric tribal art. It was the circular designs in particular that caught my eye.
It is tradition that as one Olympics ends a package of ideas and issues is handed from one host to the next. With the previous 2012 Summer Olympics being held in London, UK I am actually quite a large part of the package handed over to Brazil.
During the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 Para-Olympics much was made of the fact that I have an elaborate circular, geometric tribal tattoo. That tattoo was done by a Brazilian artist under the supervision of an Israeli.
Mainly though as the different groups cut through the Rainforest they left in their wake the geometrically perfect fields and hedgerows of modern agriculture. This is particularly true of the African slaves and their giant plowing machines.
This was a clear reference to the way that much of the Amazon Rainforest has been cut down to make way for agriculture - particularly cattle ranching. This is a continuing problem and one that is increasing ghg emissions making Climate Change much worse.
Through its leadership in UNFCCC negotiations and in particular the REDD+ program along with market based mechanisms such as carbon trading Brazil has been trying to solve this problem.
The idea being that people pay to allow the Rainforests to scrub their ghg emissions out of the atmosphere.
This would allow Brazilians to become the farmers of the forest rather than forcing them to chop it down to grow cash crops like sugar cane.
20:50 on 8/8/16 (UK date). Part 2 to follow.
Saturday, 6 August 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 25, Week 2, Day 7.
In my previous post on the topic I highlighted the importance of a stretch of the border between Turkey and Syria which has become know as either; "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road."
This area stretches for roughly 100km (60 miles) between the town of Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east. It extends around 55km (35 miles) south to Aleppo City. It functions as the main supply route for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the associated Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist coalition. It can also serve as an escape route for these terror groups as they are finally driven from Iraq and Syria.
I also highlighted how Erdogan's Pocket has come under intense pressure recently. To the east the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) coalition have been conducting an operation to liberate the town of Manbij which sits on the western bank of the Euphrates. To the south the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) have been moving the block Erdogan's pocket as it enters the north of Aleppo City via the Castello Road.
This of course is not the first time that Erdogan's Pocket has come under intense pressure. It's not even the first time this year.
Back in January the SAA backed by Russia airpower managed to liberate the village of Rabia from the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) who are an irregular and therefore illegal division of the Turkish military currently operating within Syria as part of the JAF coalition . Rabia sits roughly 35km (20 miles) north-west of Latakia City and around 105km (60 miles) south-west of Aleppo City. The liberation of Rabia meant that the STB had been completely ousted from Latakia province.
Following that success Russia decided to support the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the so-called "Afrin Canton" who operated outside of the QSD coalition. Their objective was capture first the town of Tall Rifat which sits around 15km (9 miles) south of Azaz which they achieved. From there they were expected to continue their western advance until the linked up with the QSD on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Thus sealing Erdogan's Pocket.
It was at this point the supposedly independent and impartial international aid agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations (UN) along with many western human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch and much of the western media suddenly decided that there was a looming humanitarian catastrophe in the town of Madaya. This sits around 25km (14 miles) north-west of the Syrian capital Damascus.
As I explained at the time the humanitarian situation in towns like Madaya is being created entirely by the JAF forces. What they do is seize any food aid provided by groups such as the UN and the ICRC. Then rather like drug dealers they restrict the supply of that food to the civilians they are effectively holding hostage in order to drive up prices. It is through these artificially inflated prices that the JAF fund their violence in an extremely nasty form of taxation.
However the supposedly impartial aid groups such as the ICRC and the UN who are effectively funding JAF decided to blame the entire situation on the Syrian government and Russia. They used the faux outrage their misleading statements produced to put pressure on the Syrian government and Russia to agree to a number of 'humanitarian ceasefires.' Thus stopping the YPG's operation on Tall Rifat dead keeping Erdogan's Pocket open for a little while longer.
The YPG operation against Tall Rifat and then Azaz was also halted by the fact the Turkish military started shelling them intensely from the Turkish side of the border. For some reason neither the US-led coalition Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) nor the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) were unwilling or unable to stop their member Turkey taking wholly illegal military action in support of ISIL in defiance of several UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.
Back in mid-April the JAF having been emboldened by the preservation of Erdogan's Pocket launched an operation to capture the M5 Highway from the SAA. This runs to the south of Aleppo City linking it up with the rest of Syria. The JAF's operation failed and the SAA responded by launching a counter-offensive to liberate Castello Road cutting Aleppo City off from Erdogan's Pocket.
In response to the SAA's counter-offensive the JAF coalition - specifically the Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets) division - launched a propaganda offensive. This used their favourite tool - Atrocity Propaganda.
They claimed that the SAA had launched horrific barrel bomb attacks against a number of hospitals in the areas of Aleppo City occupied by by the JAF.
As I explained at the time the problem with this claim is that there aren't actually any hospitals in Aleppo City to be bombed. Under the Geneva convention laws of war a hospital must be used exclusively as a medical facility with no military purpose. It must also be clearly marked as a hospital and have a clearly marked boundary surrounding it. It must also obtain what is termed an Article 18 certificate which allows all forces to be informed by the ICRC of the hospital's location.
The JAF simply refuse to do this because the propaganda value of claiming a hospital is being bombed is considered so high. Therefore instead they hide their medical facilities in or close to military bases. Therefore whenever any of these military targets are destroyed the JAF can pretend that it was a hospital.
Also you need to be extremely suspicious of these claimed barrel bomb attacks. Often they are actually the work of a weapon known as a "Hell Cannon." This is homemade mortar that fires a cooking gas cylinder packed with explosives. The intention being that it drops vertically onto the roof of its target smashing through all the floors before exploding. It is intended to mimic an airstrike.
Therefore what the JAF frequently do is fire a Hell Cannon at a civilian building or a hospital in an area they occupy in order to create an atrocity which can then be blamed on the SAA or the Russians.
The JAF's claims in mid-late April though were backed by a carefully marshaled social media campaign under the hashtag #AleppoIsBurning. The conventional media's failure to ask basic questions about the JAF's claims obviously helped fuel this campaign.
Obviously there are members of the UNSC who don't need an excuse. However the #AleppoIsBurning campaign was so effective that it prompted a special UNSC meeting on May 3rd (3/5/16). This resulted in the passing of a resolution condemning attacks against medical facilities and calling on all parties to refrain from doing so in future.
This immense diplomatic pressure of course stopped the Russian backed SAA operation to liberate the northern Castello Road in its tracks keeping Erdogan's Pocket open for a little while longer.
It should come as no surprise to anyone then what happened when the SAA launched its latest operation to liberate the northern Castello Road in the last days on June.
On July 6th (6/7/16) - the day before the SAA secured what is termed "Fire Control" over the Castello Road - we had the shooting of Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota, US during a traffic stop.
Obviously this could have been a complete coincidence.
However it is well established that through groups like the Nation of Islam there is a clear overlap between the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and radical Islamist groups such as ISIL. Due to its relatively large Muslim population Minnesota is the state which has sent more recruits to ISIL than any other US state.
The way that Castile's girlfriend Diamond Reynolds caused his death by streaming it live of Facebook for propaganda purposes was extremely similar to the behaviour of ISIL terrorist Larossi Abballa who murdered two police officers in Magananville, France on June 13th (13/6/16).
Therefore it is entirely possible that the entire thing was orchestrated by the JAF's backers as a threat to the US. Simply put unless the US prevents Castello Road being liberated Black Lives Matter would be unleashed to mount attacks like the one seen in Dallas, Texas on July 7th (7/6/16).
Obviously the US Democrats were already using Black Lives Matter through the July 5th (5/7/16) Alton Sterling case to intimidate the US defence & legal establishment into not excluding Hillary Clinton from the Presidential race over the 110 offences of espionage against the US she was found to have committed on July 5th (5/7/16).
Then of course there was the now obligatory claim of an atrocity in Syria. What was interesting about this one though is that it focused not on Russian/Syrian airstrikes in Aleppo City but on CJTFOIR airstrikes close to Manbij.
It appears that on July 19th (19/7/16) ISIL detonated a remote controlled bomb on a road out of Manbij killing 56 civilians who were fleeing fighting in the city. This is a very common ISIL tactic that the used numerous times in the battles for Ramadi and Fallujah in Iraq. However on this occasion ISIL filmed the aftermath of the attack and released the footage on the Internet claiming that it was the result of a CJTFOIR airstrike.
Again this story was taken at face value by much of the conventional media fuelling a social media campaign under the hashtag "#PrayForSyria." This campaign was clearly focused on pressuring CJTFOIR to stop providing air-support to the QSD in an effort to leave ISIL in control of Manbij keeping Erdogan's Pocket open a little while longer.
Ironically this practice of a social media propaganda campaign to aid either JAF or ISIL has become such a matter of routine that there was a dedicated session on this type of "Terrorist Messaging" scheduled at the ISIL coalition meeting the following day - July 21st (21/7/16).
The other thing that has thrown the fight against ISIL and their associates into a degree of chaos was the failed Turkish Rising of July 15th (15/7/16).
As the name suggests Erdogan's Pocket was established and is being kept open by Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The main way that he is doing this is by using it as the price CJTFOIR must pay for use of USAF base Incirilk in Turkey.
As I've said on numerous occasions Erdogan's ability to do this comes mainly from a complete failure of leadership by US President Obama.
After all simply invoking NATO's Article 5 would remove any choice Erdogan has over the use of Incirilk. Also between 2003 and 2011 the US had absolutely no problem flying combat missions from Iraq. If you look on Google Earth you can still see the US aircraft parked on taxiways on airbases in Iraq.
Although it was the US who crushed the rising by granting Erdogan airtime on CNN to address the nation Erdogan has responded to the rising by blaming it on the US is order to whip the Turkish population into an anti-American frenzy. This is being used to exert more pressure on the US over Incirilk.
For example immediately following the rising Erdogan sealed off Incirilk shutting down the airspace, blocking access and even cutting off the power supply effectively holding the 1,500 US troops and 50-90 US nuclear warheads stationed there. This continued until July 22nd (22/7/16).
This was followed up by a massive truck bombing in the Kurdish city of Qamishli on July 27th (27/7/16).
Qamishli is located right on the border with Turkey roughly 95km (55 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq and roughly 265km (160 miles) east of the Euphrates. It's main attraction is that it has an international airport with a runway large enough to accommodate civilian passenger jets let alone small military jet such as the American A-10. Therefore if Erdogan were to deny the use of Incirilk it would be extremely easy for CJTFOIR to operate from Qamishli instead.
As such this bombing in a city hundreds of kilometres from the nearest frontline seemed intended to increase CJTFOIR's dependence of Incirilk by giving the impression it was to dangerous to operate from Qamishli. I am still trying to get to the bottom of how the truck bomb arrived in Qamishli but the city of Nusaybin directly across the border in Turkey would be my first line of enquiry.
With Erdogan seemingly reassured of the importance of Incirilk pressured resumed there with Islamist, anti-American protests on July 28th (28/7/16).
On August 1st (1/8/16) U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford made the first official US visit to Turkey following the rising arriving at Incirilk. The night before Dunford's arrival Turkish security forces again sealed and raided Incirilk.
Officially this was for a "safety inspection." However it was intended to trigger rumours of another US-led rising stirring further anti-American feeling amongst the Turkish public. This then aids Erdogan to exert further pressure on the US.
Today it's been reported that Manbij has been fully liberated from ISIL while the JAF coalition have broken through SAA lines south of Aleppo City.
Still being in the process of catching up I'm yet to check those claims in detail.
21:55 on 6/8/16 (UK date).
This area stretches for roughly 100km (60 miles) between the town of Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east. It extends around 55km (35 miles) south to Aleppo City. It functions as the main supply route for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the associated Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist coalition. It can also serve as an escape route for these terror groups as they are finally driven from Iraq and Syria.
I also highlighted how Erdogan's Pocket has come under intense pressure recently. To the east the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) coalition have been conducting an operation to liberate the town of Manbij which sits on the western bank of the Euphrates. To the south the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) have been moving the block Erdogan's pocket as it enters the north of Aleppo City via the Castello Road.
This of course is not the first time that Erdogan's Pocket has come under intense pressure. It's not even the first time this year.
Back in January the SAA backed by Russia airpower managed to liberate the village of Rabia from the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) who are an irregular and therefore illegal division of the Turkish military currently operating within Syria as part of the JAF coalition . Rabia sits roughly 35km (20 miles) north-west of Latakia City and around 105km (60 miles) south-west of Aleppo City. The liberation of Rabia meant that the STB had been completely ousted from Latakia province.
Following that success Russia decided to support the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the so-called "Afrin Canton" who operated outside of the QSD coalition. Their objective was capture first the town of Tall Rifat which sits around 15km (9 miles) south of Azaz which they achieved. From there they were expected to continue their western advance until the linked up with the QSD on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Thus sealing Erdogan's Pocket.
It was at this point the supposedly independent and impartial international aid agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations (UN) along with many western human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch and much of the western media suddenly decided that there was a looming humanitarian catastrophe in the town of Madaya. This sits around 25km (14 miles) north-west of the Syrian capital Damascus.
As I explained at the time the humanitarian situation in towns like Madaya is being created entirely by the JAF forces. What they do is seize any food aid provided by groups such as the UN and the ICRC. Then rather like drug dealers they restrict the supply of that food to the civilians they are effectively holding hostage in order to drive up prices. It is through these artificially inflated prices that the JAF fund their violence in an extremely nasty form of taxation.
However the supposedly impartial aid groups such as the ICRC and the UN who are effectively funding JAF decided to blame the entire situation on the Syrian government and Russia. They used the faux outrage their misleading statements produced to put pressure on the Syrian government and Russia to agree to a number of 'humanitarian ceasefires.' Thus stopping the YPG's operation on Tall Rifat dead keeping Erdogan's Pocket open for a little while longer.
The YPG operation against Tall Rifat and then Azaz was also halted by the fact the Turkish military started shelling them intensely from the Turkish side of the border. For some reason neither the US-led coalition Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) nor the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) were unwilling or unable to stop their member Turkey taking wholly illegal military action in support of ISIL in defiance of several UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.
Back in mid-April the JAF having been emboldened by the preservation of Erdogan's Pocket launched an operation to capture the M5 Highway from the SAA. This runs to the south of Aleppo City linking it up with the rest of Syria. The JAF's operation failed and the SAA responded by launching a counter-offensive to liberate Castello Road cutting Aleppo City off from Erdogan's Pocket.
In response to the SAA's counter-offensive the JAF coalition - specifically the Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets) division - launched a propaganda offensive. This used their favourite tool - Atrocity Propaganda.
They claimed that the SAA had launched horrific barrel bomb attacks against a number of hospitals in the areas of Aleppo City occupied by by the JAF.
As I explained at the time the problem with this claim is that there aren't actually any hospitals in Aleppo City to be bombed. Under the Geneva convention laws of war a hospital must be used exclusively as a medical facility with no military purpose. It must also be clearly marked as a hospital and have a clearly marked boundary surrounding it. It must also obtain what is termed an Article 18 certificate which allows all forces to be informed by the ICRC of the hospital's location.
The JAF simply refuse to do this because the propaganda value of claiming a hospital is being bombed is considered so high. Therefore instead they hide their medical facilities in or close to military bases. Therefore whenever any of these military targets are destroyed the JAF can pretend that it was a hospital.
Also you need to be extremely suspicious of these claimed barrel bomb attacks. Often they are actually the work of a weapon known as a "Hell Cannon." This is homemade mortar that fires a cooking gas cylinder packed with explosives. The intention being that it drops vertically onto the roof of its target smashing through all the floors before exploding. It is intended to mimic an airstrike.
Therefore what the JAF frequently do is fire a Hell Cannon at a civilian building or a hospital in an area they occupy in order to create an atrocity which can then be blamed on the SAA or the Russians.
The JAF's claims in mid-late April though were backed by a carefully marshaled social media campaign under the hashtag #AleppoIsBurning. The conventional media's failure to ask basic questions about the JAF's claims obviously helped fuel this campaign.
Obviously there are members of the UNSC who don't need an excuse. However the #AleppoIsBurning campaign was so effective that it prompted a special UNSC meeting on May 3rd (3/5/16). This resulted in the passing of a resolution condemning attacks against medical facilities and calling on all parties to refrain from doing so in future.
This immense diplomatic pressure of course stopped the Russian backed SAA operation to liberate the northern Castello Road in its tracks keeping Erdogan's Pocket open for a little while longer.
It should come as no surprise to anyone then what happened when the SAA launched its latest operation to liberate the northern Castello Road in the last days on June.
On July 6th (6/7/16) - the day before the SAA secured what is termed "Fire Control" over the Castello Road - we had the shooting of Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota, US during a traffic stop.
Obviously this could have been a complete coincidence.
However it is well established that through groups like the Nation of Islam there is a clear overlap between the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and radical Islamist groups such as ISIL. Due to its relatively large Muslim population Minnesota is the state which has sent more recruits to ISIL than any other US state.
The way that Castile's girlfriend Diamond Reynolds caused his death by streaming it live of Facebook for propaganda purposes was extremely similar to the behaviour of ISIL terrorist Larossi Abballa who murdered two police officers in Magananville, France on June 13th (13/6/16).
Therefore it is entirely possible that the entire thing was orchestrated by the JAF's backers as a threat to the US. Simply put unless the US prevents Castello Road being liberated Black Lives Matter would be unleashed to mount attacks like the one seen in Dallas, Texas on July 7th (7/6/16).
Obviously the US Democrats were already using Black Lives Matter through the July 5th (5/7/16) Alton Sterling case to intimidate the US defence & legal establishment into not excluding Hillary Clinton from the Presidential race over the 110 offences of espionage against the US she was found to have committed on July 5th (5/7/16).
Then of course there was the now obligatory claim of an atrocity in Syria. What was interesting about this one though is that it focused not on Russian/Syrian airstrikes in Aleppo City but on CJTFOIR airstrikes close to Manbij.
It appears that on July 19th (19/7/16) ISIL detonated a remote controlled bomb on a road out of Manbij killing 56 civilians who were fleeing fighting in the city. This is a very common ISIL tactic that the used numerous times in the battles for Ramadi and Fallujah in Iraq. However on this occasion ISIL filmed the aftermath of the attack and released the footage on the Internet claiming that it was the result of a CJTFOIR airstrike.
Again this story was taken at face value by much of the conventional media fuelling a social media campaign under the hashtag "#PrayForSyria." This campaign was clearly focused on pressuring CJTFOIR to stop providing air-support to the QSD in an effort to leave ISIL in control of Manbij keeping Erdogan's Pocket open a little while longer.
Ironically this practice of a social media propaganda campaign to aid either JAF or ISIL has become such a matter of routine that there was a dedicated session on this type of "Terrorist Messaging" scheduled at the ISIL coalition meeting the following day - July 21st (21/7/16).
The other thing that has thrown the fight against ISIL and their associates into a degree of chaos was the failed Turkish Rising of July 15th (15/7/16).
As the name suggests Erdogan's Pocket was established and is being kept open by Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The main way that he is doing this is by using it as the price CJTFOIR must pay for use of USAF base Incirilk in Turkey.
As I've said on numerous occasions Erdogan's ability to do this comes mainly from a complete failure of leadership by US President Obama.
After all simply invoking NATO's Article 5 would remove any choice Erdogan has over the use of Incirilk. Also between 2003 and 2011 the US had absolutely no problem flying combat missions from Iraq. If you look on Google Earth you can still see the US aircraft parked on taxiways on airbases in Iraq.
Although it was the US who crushed the rising by granting Erdogan airtime on CNN to address the nation Erdogan has responded to the rising by blaming it on the US is order to whip the Turkish population into an anti-American frenzy. This is being used to exert more pressure on the US over Incirilk.
For example immediately following the rising Erdogan sealed off Incirilk shutting down the airspace, blocking access and even cutting off the power supply effectively holding the 1,500 US troops and 50-90 US nuclear warheads stationed there. This continued until July 22nd (22/7/16).
This was followed up by a massive truck bombing in the Kurdish city of Qamishli on July 27th (27/7/16).
Qamishli is located right on the border with Turkey roughly 95km (55 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq and roughly 265km (160 miles) east of the Euphrates. It's main attraction is that it has an international airport with a runway large enough to accommodate civilian passenger jets let alone small military jet such as the American A-10. Therefore if Erdogan were to deny the use of Incirilk it would be extremely easy for CJTFOIR to operate from Qamishli instead.
As such this bombing in a city hundreds of kilometres from the nearest frontline seemed intended to increase CJTFOIR's dependence of Incirilk by giving the impression it was to dangerous to operate from Qamishli. I am still trying to get to the bottom of how the truck bomb arrived in Qamishli but the city of Nusaybin directly across the border in Turkey would be my first line of enquiry.
With Erdogan seemingly reassured of the importance of Incirilk pressured resumed there with Islamist, anti-American protests on July 28th (28/7/16).
On August 1st (1/8/16) U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford made the first official US visit to Turkey following the rising arriving at Incirilk. The night before Dunford's arrival Turkish security forces again sealed and raided Incirilk.
Officially this was for a "safety inspection." However it was intended to trigger rumours of another US-led rising stirring further anti-American feeling amongst the Turkish public. This then aids Erdogan to exert further pressure on the US.
Today it's been reported that Manbij has been fully liberated from ISIL while the JAF coalition have broken through SAA lines south of Aleppo City.
Still being in the process of catching up I'm yet to check those claims in detail.
21:55 on 6/8/16 (UK date).
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