Sao Paulo OK's "Straight Pride"

The city council of Sao Paulo, Brazil has approved a bill calling for a "Heterosexual Pride Day" to be celebrated on the third Sunday of every December. Whether the event becomes a reality or not appears to depend on the mayor.

Sao Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab must sign the legislation for it to become law and has said only that he is studying it. His office declined Wednesday to say whether he supports the proposal. The legislation's author, Carlos Apolinario, said the idea for a Heterosexual Pride Day is "not anti-gay but a protest against the privileges the gay community enjoys." As an example, he mentioned how Sao Paulo's huge gay pride day parade is held every year on Paulista Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in this city of 20 million people, while the March for Jesus organized by evangelical groups is not allowed on the same avenue. "I respect gays and I am against any kind of aggression made against them," Apolinario said. "I have no trouble coexisting with gays as long as their behavior is normal." The Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Association criticized the legislation, saying it could provoke homophobic violence. "How many LGBTs will be attacked because of the message that only heterosexuality makes someone a moral person and a good citizen," the association said in a statement.

Sao Paulo is the most populous city in the western hemisphere (by some measures.)

Sao Paulo OK's "Straight Pride"

The city council of Sao Paulo, Brazil has approved a bill calling for a "Heterosexual Pride Day" to be celebrated on the third Sunday of every December. Whether the event becomes a reality or not appears to depend on the mayor.

Sao Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab must sign the legislation for it to become law and has said only that he is studying it. His office declined Wednesday to say whether he supports the proposal. The legislation's author, Carlos Apolinario, said the idea for a Heterosexual Pride Day is "not anti-gay but a protest against the privileges the gay community enjoys." As an example, he mentioned how Sao Paulo's huge gay pride day parade is held every year on Paulista Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in this city of 20 million people, while the March for Jesus organized by evangelical groups is not allowed on the same avenue. "I respect gays and I am against any kind of aggression made against them," Apolinario said. "I have no trouble coexisting with gays as long as their behavior is normal." The Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Association criticized the legislation, saying it could provoke homophobic violence. "How many LGBTs will be attacked because of the message that only heterosexuality makes someone a moral person and a good citizen," the association said in a statement.

Sao Paulo is the most populous city in the western hemisphere (by some measures.)

The Terminal: Polish man spends 18 days stranded at Brazilian airport

Remember The Terminal? A reminder:

From the UK Telegraph, reality meets fiction:

Robert Wladyslaw Parzelski flew from London to Sao Paulo on June 17 but did not have a return flight or any money for accomodation and a friend he was expecting to meet did not turn up.

He got through customs and then simply decided to stay where he was, sleeping on a concrete bench.

Unable to speak any Portuguese, Parzelski simply responded: "I'm Poland" when staff at the airport asked how he was.

The 44-year-old electrician was then labelled 'the German' by workers who could not understand him but gathered food, cigarettes and even vodka for him.

Eventually a 70-year-old Polish doctor living in Sao Paulo was summoned to talk to Parzelski, who claimed he had been sent to Brazil to collect two telephone handsets.

Parzelski was ordered to leave Brazil on Tuesday after 18 days and boarded a plane to Switzerland before returning to Britain.

He didn't get a job. Or a hot hostess. No indication that he got those two telephone handsets either.