Jon Lee Anderson: Twenty years ago, there were said to be 300 favelas in Rio. Ten years ago, the number had climbed to 600. No one knows exactly how many favelas there are today, but it is estimated that more than 1,000 exist. The air stinks heavily of raw sewage, but no one seems to notice.
One young fish to another: What the hell is water?
Donald Rumsfeld: Today can sometimes look worse than yesterday -- or even two months ago. What matters is the overall trajectory: Where do things stand today when compared to what they were five years ago?
Alfredo Sirkis: Nobody wants to make revolution any more. What these people with the guns want today is their immediate share of the consumption culture.
Joe Nocera: They just want theirs. That is the culture they have created.
A man who knows his place: Revolutionize your heart out. We'll still have this country by the balls.
Kenneth R. Harney: Don't feel guilty about it. Don't think you're doing something morally wrong.
Susan Signe Morrison: Filth in all its manifestations -- material (including privies, dung on fields, and as alchemical ingredient), symbolic (sin, misogynist slander, and theological wrestling with the problem of filth in sacred contexts) and linguistic (a semantic range including dirt and dung) -- helps us to see how excrement is vital to understanding the Middle Ages.
Seth Kugel: That's not grime you're seeing, it's historical charm.
Michelle Gillmartin: The world is full of things in need of embellishment.
Roy Wadia: At first glance, Rocinha is just another crowded neighborhood. Look again.
Jello: Go and live in the favela ...
John Rapley: As states recede and the new medievalism advances, the outside world is destined to move increasingly beyond the control -- and even the understanding -- of the new Rome. The globe's variegated informal and quasi-informal statelike activities will continue to expand, as will the power and reach of those who live by them. The new Romans, like the old, might not enjoy the consequences.
From the photo gallery: BOPE is a small group of well-trained officers infamous for their brutality. They are renowned for not carrying handcuffs.
It's Like The Middle Ages | 
