Publicado!

If you can't get your articles about Brazil published anywhere in the states because of Iraq and the goddamned election (believe me, it's been impossible for like 6 months now), then what other course but to publish an article in Brazil about the goddamned elections?

Read it and weep, my first clip in a foreign language (and hey, I wrote in Portuguese. Not bad.)

For those who read Portuguese, let me say that the original was funnier and sharper, that this all happened very quickly with zero time to review the editor's cuts. But whatever, it's newspaper.

For those of you who don't read Portuguese, suffice it to say that the article is brilliantly argued, beautifully constructed, and possessed of an eloquence heretofore unseen in gringo prose.

The article basically pats the Brazilians on the back for having such clean elections and such great electronic ballot boxes (gotta work the crowd, after all), and rails us yankees for what is looking like it will be one of the sleaziest elections of all time. I point out something I'd like to write about in English as well: that in Brazil, where the vote is obligatory, a national strategy that relies on systematic disenfranchisement ("suppress the Detroit vote") would simply be unthinkable. Since many here want to make the vote optional, I thought they should at least know about the good work of Nathan Sproul.

The irony here is that readers of Jornal do Brasil now know as much or more about Voter Outreach of America than readers of the NY Times. Go Team USA!