Balls O' Na

Many years ago I was in the State of Paraná, Brazil, listening to the roar of the greatest (by volume) waterfall in the world. The Chilean girl I was with giggled at the name and explained that, in Santiago, this was a way of saying 'useless'.

Jair Bolsonaro seems certain to be elected President of Brazil later this month on a ticket of shooting blacks. Balls O' Na doesn't quite put it that way, of course, but that's what it amounts to. Balls O' Blood won't be going out there himself to do the shooting, naturally: young Brazilian worker boys will be paid to take the bullets while he and his generals sit in Rio sipping cachaça, counting the reais and chortling.

Well, so what? If the people of Brazil want to shoot their blacks, or at least have them shot, what can one do but grimace and turn to the sports pages? The idea of sending in the gunboats to try to instill a bit of civilization into the Savage World is not only unfashionable but too expensive. No doubt there'll be murmurs, protests, perhaps a boycott or two. 

But then I read that Balsa Wood also wants to open up the Amazon to mining, roads and cattle ranches. More beef! Heavy trucks! Gems! Just what the world needs! Though I guess in the end, before we all choke, those fine diamond necklaces will make good garrottes: a splash of rubies in the set.

Sorry, Balls O' Wood, the Amazon doesn't belong to you and your fat beef baron backers. We need it. Existentially. If you and the people of Brazil can't take care of it then you lose it.

I hope, and in a sane world this would already be happening, that a UN armada is hoisting sail ready to move up the Amazon river and establish a protectorate.

The Monroe Doctrine? Again, in a sane world the USA would be leading the fleet, but one suspects that under its present dispensation the C in C is more like to take a photo of Balls O' Bub to the Oval Office to have a wank.