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Nice image of the new art museum on the Praca Maua, pretty close to Meio Mundo, with the soaring roof and the Policia Federal/FBI headquarters peeking out behind. And another showing the area where Meio Mundo is located. In front, way in the corner is the art exhibition space of the Mails Cultural Center, just to the right are the Casa Franca-Brasil exhibition space and directly behind and larger, Banco Brasil Centro Cultural, now with a large animation exhibition which followed a selection of Impressionist works from the Musee d'Orsay. And then to the right in the center of the Praca Pius/Pio X, Candelaria Church, right of that the twin buildings of Banco Santander and Seguros/Insurance Souza Cruz....and discretely hiding behind MEIO MUNDO. In the center of the shot is the main entrance to the naval base(I have been with two navy guys at Meio Mundo over the years and just to the west on the Largo Santa Rita is an outdoor semi-gay cafe where you can "encounter" others) and the currently being demolished, Perimetral/Elevated Perimeter Highway.

Had a nice day in Rio but it was wet and rainy the past few days and not supposed to clear up till Friday. We went to Club 117 today as today is their free Cabine (room) day. That means the boys and customers are packed in. Tuesday is always best at 117. We got there around 5PM to beat the rush and there were few customers there. There were several boys there and they keep coming in faster as the night went on. Club 117 is fresh and keeps getting updates, paint jobs, etc. The back bar area (outside area) is where I like to sit as there is more light in there and you can see really well. I met one guy I really like who is 18 and very sweet. He is also very very dark and new to the scene. I was going to go with him to a room but my friend Tom was heading out and I decided I was happy to test this guy another day. As we were leaving, one of my all time favorite guys walked in. I had not seen him in 7 years. He had lived with me at my hotel for months at a time in years gone by. He was an adorable tall blond twink surfer boy. He is now near 30 and not a twink anymore but he is still handsome. I told him I'd look for him the next day. We went to Point 202 and the place was pretty quite when we were there. There was no one really my type and I regretted not taking Marco from 117 so I left my friend Tom alone in the trongs of a few boys and headed back to Club 117. I got there but I never found my friend. The bar was packed and I did have to pay another 45R to enter but it was worth it to see if my friend was still there. I did see other boys I liked but I had my hopes up on one of my all time favorites. So, I'll try again another day.

Pentagon Papers lawyer on Obama, secrecy and press freedoms: 'worse than Nixon' Career First Amendment and transparency advocate James Goodale sounds the alarm about the current president Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 March 2013 17.40 EDT In 1971, when the New York Times decided to publish the Pentagon Papers leaked to it by Daniel Ellsberg, it knew it was triggering a major fight with the secrecy-obsessed Nixon administration. As expected, the Nixon administration sued the NYT in an attempt to ban it from publishing the documents, but the US Supreme Court, in a landmark decision for press freedom, ruled the prior restraint unconstitutional. The paper's general counsel at the time, James Goodale, said that he counseled the paper to publish despite "the more likely scenario that everyone feared was the fact that they could have gone to jail," and he subsequently became an outspoken defender of press freedoms. He now has a new book entitled "Fighting for the Press" in which he argues, as the Columbia Journalism Review puts it, that "Obama is worse for press freedom than former President Richard Nixon was." CJR has an amazing interview with Goodale, some relevant excerpts from which relate to many topics written about here: Let's talk about some of the challenges to press freedom now. "The biggest challenge to the press today is the threatened prosecution of WikiLeaks, and it's absolutely frightening. . . . "The one case that is troublesome and is still out there as we speak is the case of James Risen, who was a journalist who was leaked national security information in respect to the warrantless wiretapping program, which was disclosed by The New York Times. "He's won his case, but most people are going to be surprised if he can win it on appeal. It's been sitting on appeal for a year. Now what's going to happen — if the shoe drops and we're back to Judy Miller, it means Risen goes to jail. And if in fact it doesn't turn out that way and it turns out well, we'll have the question of whether the government will go to the Supreme Court and we will always have the question whether it will turn out well for the next Risen. And who's behind this one? Obama." Could you talk a bit about President Obama's approach to classified information and press freedom? "Antediluvian, conservative, backwards. Worse than Nixon. He thinks that anyone who leaks is a spy! I mean, it's cuckoo." Could you compare what we see in the Pentagon Papers and what we see in WikiLeaks? "Well, I think it's very much the same thing. We have a leak of classified information. And by the way — you've got to remember [bradley] Manning's the leaker. Everyone says Assange is a leaker. He's not a leaker. He's the person who gets the information. "So why we're so concerned about the prosecution of Assange is what he did is the same as what the Times did in the Pentagon Papers, and indeed what they did with WikiLeaks. The Times published on its website the very same material WikiLeaks published on its website. So if you go after the WikiLeaks criminally, you go after the Times. That's the criminalization of the whole process." So you think that if John McCain or Mitt Romney were the president and doing this, there would be a different response? "We'd be screaming and yelling and the journalists would be going crazy. And that doesn't speak well of journalists." Read the entire excellent interview here. This is from somebody who has worked on press freedom and excessive government secrecy for his entire career, including during the Bush years when he told PBS: "I think that Bush is as anti-press as the Nixon administration [was]". But citing Obama's unprecedented war on whistleblowers, targeting of core journalism, and expansion of radical secrecy doctrines, he's now sounding the alarm that Obama is worse to the point where basic press freedoms and transparency are seriously threatened. UPDATE One of the last chapters of Goodale's book deals specifically with Obama's record on press freedom and secrecy, while the other deals with the Obama DOJ's pursuit of WikiLeaks and Manning; and in those, he writes: "President Barack Obama has seamlessly carried forward the main ingredients of Bush's war against the press. . . . There is no easy way to explain why Obama the president is so different from Obama the candidate on national security matters. . . . Whatever the reason, Obama became a national security hawk. . . . "Obama is no better than Bush in many aspects of the war against the press––and in some respects he is worse. He has used the criminal system to plug leaks to the press in an unprecedented fashion. He has watered down a proposed federal shield law. He has asked a New York Times reporter to disclose sources. But there may be more anti-press action to come from the Obama presidency. Obama is presently pursuing Julian Assange for publishing information leaked to him by Bradley Manning. If he succeeds in this effort, he will have succeeded where Richard Nixon failed." Goodale is particularly compelling when documenting in detail all of the positions Obama claimed to believe in on these issues while in the Senate, and the way he has systematically breached all of them. None of this is new to readers here, of course, but the fact that Goodale is making this case, and making it with such ample documentation and detail, and so unblinkingly, is significant indeed. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/19/goodale-obama-press-freedoms-secrecy-nixon

Hospedagem Hostal in Ave. Gomes Freire at Rua Frei Caneca/Rua Visconde de Rio Branco Definitely a gay motel. Been there many times and never seen women checking into rooms. Right near a busy corner so until the garoto makes the turn into the doorway, he might be heading anywhere. Different than Alameda for example, across from 117 where there are very few other reasons for being near the motel's entrance. Nice rooms, with sauna and whirlpool suites as well. There are tons of motels all over Rio, Every day I seem to notice another one and I live here. But the gay angle is a bit harder to figure out. The one I mentioned definitely has a gay-leaning clientele. You do know that they all have covered parking lots with discrete entrances? So no one else should see him entering with you?

Even if not a sturm und drang trooper. In any event, thanks. I think!

National Security ! A-a-w-k ! ! ! War on Terror ! ! Don't know the answer but I'm becoming increasingly convinced the question is, "How do freedom and terrorism exist in the world together?" Until we figure that out, I expect freedom to continue taking a hit, no matter who's in the White House. Before 9/11, we had the luxury of not concerning ourselves with that balance but the pendulum has now swung mightily in the other direction. I'm not too surprised that we haven't yet found the answer to the question, as it's not an easy one, but I am surprised that no one seems to be asking it. Might as well start here. Any ideas?

As do many things in German, come to think.

I do not tend to get offended by words, rather the thought or feelings behind the use of the words. Frankly, I'm more offended by the term 'breeders' as seldom do I encounter that on gay boards when it does not seem pejorative.

Ich liebe dich sounds more like porn whether shouted or not. Best regards, RA1

Probably too old also but that is a different index, isn't it? Best regards, RA1

One of the fishing villages I was in last week.

Would deciding it is a muskrat turn the joke gay?

No matter how inexpensive, Tom vows this is the last time he'll order a merkin from Kazakhstan.

Temple was very very slow yesterday. Escape was also rather slow, but there were the same shows as usual, and maybe around 10 boys, so it it much more fun to go to Escape than to Temple. Went again with Pavel Vecera (aka Nikandro Sideropoulos). He spent the evening with me in Escape and then came to my place. His sucking and licking capabilities should be included in the UNESCO World Heritage list ...