A seven errors game with Obama

Try to find the errors in the pictures below.

What did you see?

I found in the pic on the right, an Obama with grey hair and eyebrows, with twinkles and wrinkles. Very distinctive from the charming young looking guy who enchanted many women.

The photo illustration was made by CNN and projects what president Barack Obama may look like in four years. The president ages twice as fast while in office, according to a theory advanced by Dr. Michael Roizen, a chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

As the years go by, according to Dr. Roizen, with the demanding job, the body starts showing signs of tiredness and aging: shoulders slump a little and his energy may seem sapped

Barack is 47 years old. If he’s president for eight years, at the end of his presidency he would have aged 16 years, in other words, he would be a 55 years old man, but with the appearance and health condition of a 63 years old grandpa!

Leaving the jokes behind, I wish the new president wisdom to make the required decisions and the power of listening, a crucial toll for success.

To check out former presidents click here

New year, work done and new projects coming soon!

A family reunion. That was the reason that brought Rosa from Brazil to the United States four years ago with her two kids: a girl who was 7 years old at the time and a boy, only one year old. Her husband was already living here before their arrival. Once settled in the new country, Rosa got a job, they rented a house in the suburbs, bought a family car and the kids started school.

Differently from Rosa, what brought Carlos to the U.S was the chance for a better life. In his hometown called Governador Valadares, known in Brazil for being the city with the highest number of residents who migrated to America, he had a job at a local newspaper as a designer and was earning around 500 dollars a month, which is not considered bad by Brazilian standards. But he wanted more and decided to move to the U.S three years ago.

Nelson is 19 years old, a college student who speaks English as an american, has an american girlfriend, but has seen his dreams go away because he does not have a social security card.

The only difference between Rosa, Carlos and Nelson from the thousands of new immigrants who arrive every year in the US is that they are considered illegal in the country, or better said, undocumented workers. They are part of a statistic of 12 million foreigners who live without proper papers in the U.S. 

They own properties, make money and work but are still not being seen as part of the American society, they are considered as a group a part instead. Ricardo, Cleide and her kids made to the U.S. by sneaking across the Mexican border like many other thousands try each year. Nelson was brought to the country when he was eight years old by his parents on a tourist visa.

INVISIBLE, a 16 minutes documentary, explores the life of undocumented workers in the United States by approaching the subject from their perspective, their relationship with the American culture and its people, adapting to a new place and how they see themselves in the new culture.

Soon you guys will be able to watch the film, but for now I have a short trailer. So check it out.

To learn more about my projects visit: bibiroseproductions.com

The stars can get mixed up, but the orixás can't

The stars announced that 2008 would be a difficult year for the world: Financial crisis, global warming, one more year of Bush administration and other ghosts. The orixás (gods of Brazilian afro religion Candomble), however, told me that it would be a complicated year, but also a year of big changes that would make 2009 more colorful. Between you and I, I have to confess that 2008 was fantastic for me.

I got married, got a job, made new friends, became vegetarian, started blogging, spent the holidays in Brazil and to finish the year: Yes, we can!

Listen more. This is my New Year resolution. In 2009 the world needs more understanding. Get along with the differences without being conniving with the indifference.

I wish you all peace, success and positive thinking in 2009.

Axé!

Obama: Hope won over racism

The name wasn’t very attractive, Barack Hussein Obama. Black, son of an African immigrant and young, he gained the spotlights with insane ideas of hope and change like putting an end on two wars that have dragged the country for already seven years, improve the education and health systems and, finally, a fairer economic redistribution.

For his belief he was called socialist. Quickly, he fired back: “If because I divided my sandwich in school with a friend I am considered socialist, then I believe I am one of them”.

One-hundred thirty eight years ago was “given” the right to vote to african-american men, but with limitations. In 1964, the 24th amendment was approved turning illegal the collection of electoral taxes, what had made difficult for black people to vote. Fifty-three years ago Rosa Parks was sent to jail for refusing to give up her seat in a bus for a white man litting up the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King’s fight. And, in 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States.

Did the racial barriers fall? Probably not. But those who look at capacity had outnumbered those who rather see skin color.

The task to govern a country sunk in a financial crisis, where each day thousands of people lose their homes for not being able to pay their mortgage or go bankrupt because the insurance plan did not cover the Cancer treatment will not be a easy one. But Obama was elected because he saw what was wrong in the country.

Hope won over racism

Italian journey

Hi guys!!!!

We are getting ready to leave for Italy in 2 weeks. While I was revisiting my old papers, I found this article that I wrote in 2006 about my first experience in Italy. I hope you enjoy it. We promise to update you soon with our italian adventure 2008

Eating, eating and eating ...

I think I can summarize this trip to Italy with this simple and essential verb. Back to the United States with a little more weights, however happier. The journey meant food for the soul and for the heart.

We visited Milan, a gray city that seems a little sad, but where you can breath culture. There we met some friends and, obviously, we ate and manjamos (to eat in Italian).

In fact. I ate a lot, but at all just high excellence food. In our first day we went to the house of the mom’s friend to eat, of course. That was no break….. “eat, eat.. you’re sou slim...”.
You know that is impolite to deny food in I… You can break the heart of a Italian mother.

Leaving to Venice by train….. the city seems that stopped in the time. Our goal was to get lost among alleys and lanes of the city without watch

Every walk a new surprise… from a street to a procession from there to a typical Italian bar to taste a good wine and salami.

I don’t need to tell you how romantic and mysterious the city is… everybody knows its.

From Venice we took a train to Brindisi… lollo’s hometown. I met his parents, sister, friends and a timid sun for the first time. Ate, ate and ate more than during the whole trip. I couldn’t “insult” my mother and father-in-law, could I?

Ending the journey… time to go back home. I was missing New York.. its smell, diversity of people and culture. In Italy everybody is very similar… big noses, whites and Catholics… well not exactly in this order either not at all is true… but Cheer the diversity in Brazil and New York!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go Mets, go!

Baseball… according to Wikipedia, if you trust such website, “is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond”.
Simple, isn’t it? Well, not at all.

In going to a baseball game, more important than the game is the set of complex rituals that takes those thousands of people to the stadium to watch a game that lasts usually no less than three hours.

Last month we received two tickets to watch a game between the Mets, a New Yorker team, against the Texas Rangers, as the name suggests, from Texas. As soon as we arrived at the Shea Stadium, in Queens, we could smell the king of all American sports, His Majesty the hot dog. With rare exceptions, including Lollo that chose a burger, everybody was enjoying a hot dogs with beers or for kids, some kind of colorful soda that we still can’t figure out. We bought our meals ($20 for a hot dog, a burger and a beer) and headed to our seats. Bibi got the tickets from the TV station where she’s interning in the summer.

As organized as Americans are, all tickets are numbered. By the way, Lollo said that in Europe seats are also numbered. Well I guess that only in Brazil we operate in a “first come, first served” fashion.

Anyway, it took us some time to figure out our seats which were really good, very close to the field and uncovered. Bibi, used to enjoy games at Maracana worried about what people from the upper seats would throw on her new hair do forgot that the my hot dog was overloaded with ketchup and mustard that started dripping onto her white short. But since nothing was coming from the sky after 15 minutes of game, we relaxed and tried to understand the game.

We tried really hard to read the wall of numbers on the score board and the elusive action triggered only occasionally by the bat hitting the ball. But right when we was getting into the game, there he came, Mr. Met.

Mr. Met is the mascot of the Mets, kids of all age love him. So the game paused for a minute and on a jumbo TV screen, the biggest ever seen, appears Mr. Met, a baseball-headed humanoid wearing a Mets cap and uniform. The music starts full blast and the crowd joins in to take part in his choreography.

Then he goes away for a while and the game restarts. At that moment we were no longer interested in what was going on with the game, but rather we followed the multimedia presentation of music and slides shown on the jumbo TV screen.

Couples kissing, thousands of commercials, pics of the players, more Mr. Met, and so on. But everything is done in such an interactive way that we started believing that the main objective of going to the stadium is to interact with the TV.

Think about it for a second. The TV in our homes doesn’t really go the whole way. Here we are talking of true vertical integration where the commercial triggers you appetite, then vendor walks by you selling the very same nachos that made your mouth watering a minute earlier at a premium price, it’s consumer’s paradise. The stadium is a TV who talks to you and most of all: it smells. What else can you ask for in life?

Finally after more or less three hours of this interactive dance, and variety show, the game had not yet finished, but we decided it was time to go home.
After all, the greatest thing about going to the game was to observe our American friends happily respond to the music and games that took place around the ball game as if for over 3 hours there shouldn’t be a single dull moment looking more like a circus than with a sport event.
Bibi & Lollo

Making Dinner Conversation

We thought that a blog on today's American culture should address a key element of the initial culture shock that any foreigner in this country would experience and will find most entertaining and somehow disturbing: the obsession to be politically correct!

As educated young professionals we both thought that applying common sense would be enough to guide us through a dinner conversation without hurting the varied and complex sensitivities of our conversation partners but most times than not we kind of sensed that pleasing everybody in a conversation and express your true and honest point of view is virtually impossible. 

The obsession to be politically correct has permeated all levels of society and everything that you knew, the difference between right and wrong has somehow shifted and became an exercise in which nobody is right and nobody is wrong where the focus is on making sure nobody feels bad about anything, where you cannot express a judgement, your very own opinion because somebody somehow will take one of the forbidden words that came out of your mouth and distort them to read a negative judgment. Yes, because positive judgements are acceptable negative ones have to be wrapped or repackaged in some positive ones. For example, Bibi was being introduced to a group of fellow interns at CW11 and when she was told she would be working closely with Antonia she asked which one was Antonia since they were at a distance and the other person was trying to describe Antonia without mentioning her ethnicity althogth she was the only African-American (I will be politically correct). After a difficult 5 minutes in which Antonia was described as the person wearing black pants, although two persons were wearing black pants, and she had short hair although there were other persons wearing black pants and had short hair, Bibi decided to relieve the politically correct person by suggesting that Antonia was the only black girl (Bibi is allowed to say black, because she's black, so much for equality). 

All in all, one of America's greatest pride, the freedom of speech is now locked in a check mate position where you can only stand still and talk about the weather and what the Yankees did. 

In order not to hurt anybody's sensitivity, what makes nowadays dinner conversation is stuff that is so boring and stale that many people prefer to keep their mouth shut rather than go  walking on egg shells.