Carandiru (2003) - Movie Trailer

Hailed as the triumphant return of Hector Babenco, you may be forgiven for asking, "Who's he?" As the Brazilian director of Kiss Of The Spider Woman and Ironweed in the Eighties, he became the breath that freshened the air of Hollywood - briefly.

Now, he re-emerges on home ground with an epic prison movie, based on Drauzio Varella's experience as the sole medical officer at the notorious Carandiru jail in Sao Paolo, before it was demolished after riots.

The recreation of life behind bars for murderers and drug dealers is depicted with astonishing energy and style. The performances are uniformly good, while, at times, shaking the foundations with unrestrained verocity.

Unlike another Brazilian street movie, City Of God, there exists at its core an underlying sentimentality. The prison has an organic life. Inmates look after each other and administer rough justice for acts of violence that are deemed to have broken a code of honour. The guards stay back and allow the rule of law - convict law - to keep the pressure of confinement from blowing the roof off. There is a flexibility, based on acceptance, between governor and governed, respecting the rights of each and the other, while recognising their shared humanity.

Babenco focuses on a handful of prisoners. With the use of flashbacks, their lives and crimes are superficially investigated, while the doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos), who performs the role of educator and Everyman, remains in the neutral zone.

A rich man's morality is wasted on the hardcore; killing seems easier than sleep. Carandiru is another country, with its own idiosyncrasies. Cliches are noticable by their absence, although the lags are surprisingly well equipped with human qualities and the degree of self-expression allowed by the prison staff reflects Christian decency on a scale hitherto unimaginable.

Babenco conveys the big picture, including the vicious suppression of dissent, deemed worthy of riot status, extremely well. It's on the personal level that a softening occurs, as if pain as raw as this needs to be diluted to make it palatable for public consumption.

~ Watch Carandiru Bloody Memories ~

IMF Resistance 2010

Resist the International Monetary Fund
October 7th-11th
Washington D.C.

imfresistance.org

Two new scientific studies reveal hallucinogens are good for your mental health

LSD and ketamine, two powerful hallucinogens, are also potential cures for depression, OCD, and anxiety. Two studies published this week, in Science and Nature, confirm that hallucinogenic drugs stimulate healthy brain activity, even promoting the growth of neurons.

Ketamine and depression

The study in Science, released today, focused entirely on the drug ketamine. Used frequently as an animal sedative, ketamine can also be used to sedate humans and is also taken recreationally because of its hallucinogenic and euphoric effects. Molecular psychiatrist Nanxin Li and colleagues dosed rats with modest amounts of ketamine, and observed that the drug boosted signaling between neurons in the brain, and even led to healthy growth of synapses. (Chronic depression can be linked to inhibited synaptic growth.) Ultimately, they concluded that ketamine might be useful in treating depression because it increases brain activity instantly - so there is no need to wait weeks or months for the drug to take effect.

LSD and OCD

In the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Franz X. Vollenweider and Michael Kometer gave a broad overview of research into hallucinogens over the past half century. They gathered together research from hundreds of studies on how hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, and ketamine affect the brains of healthy people - as well as people suffering from depression and other disorders.

Like Li and his colleagues, they found that countless studies show that hallucinogens promote healthy neural activity in the brain. The researchers also created a chart to show what test subjects' states of mind are, according to studies, when under the influence of various substances.

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The politics of relief: Aliens in their own land

The government and local clerics refused to shelter around 500 flood-affected families belonging to the Ahmadiya community in South Punjab's relief camps. Not only that, the government also did not send relief goods to the flood-hit areas belonging to the Ahmadiya community, The Express Tribune has learnt during a visit to the devastated Punjab districts of Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.

For its part, the government claims that all relief goods are being distributed among survivors without discrimination. And that all survivors have been sheltered in relief camps without distinction. The flood-devastated families from the Ahmadiya community have strongly criticised the government's “discriminatory attitude” even at a time when the entire country is reeling from the ravages of the worst flooding in living memory.

Of the 500 Ahmadi families, 350 belong to DG Khan, 60 to Muzaffargarh and 65 to Rajanpur district. According to Ahmadiya community leaders, over 2,500 members of their community have been displaced and are now living with their relatives while some of them have left for Rabwah, the community's headquarters.

Aziz Ahmad Khan, a local leader of flood victims from the Ahmadiya community in DG Khan, told The Express Tribune that all members of his family have complained of discrimination in DG Khan. He said 200 families from Basti Rindan and Basti Sohrani, 60 from Chah Ismaeel Wala, three from Rakh Mor Jangi, 18 from Ghazi Ghat and 12 from  Jhakar Imam Shah of Ahmadpur. Khan alleged that 200 families, who have been displaced from Basti Rindan and Basti Sohrani by flooding, took shelter in a state-run school at Jhok Utra but within days the local administration forced them to leave the school. He said the local administration later told them that people from the surrounding areas did not want the Ahmadis in the relief camp. And that the administration could not allow them to stay at the camp as it could create a law and order situation.

“So we left our cattle and other belongings in the area and took refuge in the homes of our community members on higher grounds,” he said, adding that some of them even migrated to Chanabnagar.

Muhammad Iqbal Sohrani, a member of the Ahmadiya community told The Express Tribune that around 40 Ahmadi families who took shelter in a state-run school at Jhakar Imam Shah near Sumandri, some 40 kilometres from DG Khan, have not received any relief either from philanthropists or from the government. He alleged that relief packages were being distributed through local lawmakers who have been told by the district administration that the Ahmadis are not eligible for any support.

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WAC Switzerland @ Bilderberg-Meeting 2010 - Vorschau