pulled a swift one by deleting a big blog entry before i could post it

I wrote a 750+ word plus rant last night on how unfortunate it was that Governor Schwartzenegger didn't grant clemency to Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the nobel prize nominee on death row who started the Crips but later wrote childrens books and worked to undo the cycle of violence that he helped create. My rant was more political than usual so maybe it's a good thing that I accidentally either overwrote, misplaced, or failed to save the right copy of it and all I've got, besides what I'm writing here, is like the first 2 sentences on my hard drive. I suppose that was bound to happen sooner or later. I'll paraphrase: the guy I've been working with at the place I've been volunteering asked me if I'd heard about the execution, which happened yesterday morning, and I said yes. I was really surprised that he even knew about it, since people here seem to randomly know some things that go on in the States and not others. He said that people in Brazil were following it closely, and my rant went on to deride the current US administration for usurping the leadership position of the US for its own ends and dashing the hopes of the world for a better future, which, unknowingly to many Americans, is what the US is for a lot of people, particularly poor people, around the world. The guy (Ivanildo) also asked me whether or not I believed in God, what religion I had, if any, and we got onto a relatively complex philosophical discussion which is remarkable mostly because it was possible even with my pidgin Portuguese - more to his credit than mine since through experience with foreign volunteers he's gained the ability to express himself in short, choppy sentences.