Mutatis, Mutantes | Is Civita The Tropical Murdoch?

Civita is our homegrown Murdoch: The Observatório da Imprensa (Brazil) reprints this editorial response from CartaCapital magazine. The little newsweekly that could — brainchild of Veja founder Mino Carta and like-minded friends —  deconstructs a recent O Globo editorial alleging that the argument «Roberto Civita is our homegrown Murdoch» fails to mutante the mutatis properly, and allegedly stems from [...]

Virada Cultural Paulista | The Second Life Effect

Why we avoided the Sambodian Virada Cultural Paulista | 2012, or, traduttores traditores. Neuza and I have not been consuming our fair share of Sambodian culture lately, owing both to ennui and to the odd work schedule of a traduttore traditore. We are also somewhat puzzled over the latest pet project supported by federal and state [...]

The Tupi Tabloid, Decline and Waterfall

Bicho de sete cabeças: Racketeer «Captain» Guimarães (left) with Rio mayor Cesar «The Naked» Maia (second from left), Carnval 2007. A steady drip of confidential criminal intel maintains the diversified gambling racketeer Carlinhos Cachoeira — «Charlie Waterfall» — at the top of the Brazilian newshour, 24-7. The vigorous Rashomon effect observed seems to flow in [...]

On The Antonin Scalia School of Tropical Jurisprudence

R7 reports on a jaw-dropping moment of political incorrectness,. The story runs above the fold  the front page of the Folha de S. Paulo and other dailies this morning, but the racial overtones are deemphasized. I translate the gist. An interview by Consultor Jurídico with former chief justice Cezar Peluso served as a pretext for Minister Joaquim Barbosa [...]

Corruption | Waterfall in Nextel Hell

Today, via Vlad, a newkey man in one of my endless siftings through egocentric networks in Portuguese. It is not for nothing that the Brazilian press picked up on the compliment paid last week to Brazil’s President Dilma by her fellow iron lady, Hillary Clinton. As a major political scandal shifts to high gear in the [...]

Demise of Demóstenes | Amateurs Get the Dropbox on MSM

A reasonably thorough scanning of Brazil’s «progressive blogophere» turns up a Wikileaks moment: Lei dos Homens offers the entire federal police and prosecutorial case file on the corruption case that has led the political opposition into yet another ugly crisis . Dropbox, however, is informing me that the customer account is receiving too much traffic and cannot [...]

Ere I Saw Elba Ester | AMLO on the Comeback Trail

At first I found it mildly irritating. Now I find it utterly abhorrent. The U.S. press is reporting on this year’s presidential race in Mexico as though it were a Manichean choice between two sharply defined alternatives: the return of the PRI or the perpetuation of the PAN. The result of this crude statistical hack [...]

Demóstenes Torres | Numbers Are Up?

Item: Torres Hires Daughter of Supreme Court Justice | Viomundo. Senator Torres, of the DEM, or Democrats, is heard on 300 wiretaps conversing with a numbers racketeer and political power broker in his home state of Goiás, which surrounds the federal district of Brasilia. The former governor of the federal district, also a DEMocrat, José [...]

«Clean Slate» Law | The Decline and Fall of Senator Torres?

Leandro Fortes of Carta Capital magazine breaks an astonishing story. In 2006 the federal police obtained evidence of ties between gambling racketeer Carlos August “Charlie Waterfall” Ramos and Senator Demóstenes Torres (DEM-Goiás). Three reports signed by Deuselino Valadares dos Santos, head of the financial crimes bureau in Goiânia, reveal that Torres received 30% of the gross from [...]

Abril Fools & The Downfall of Waterfall

Brasilianas.org,a Ning community anchored by economic and  business journalist Luis Nassif — I am a subscriber-contributor — once again raises the specter of corruption in the relationship of the major news weeklies to organized crime. This takes some guts, seeing as how Nassif found himself on the wrong end of a a series of defamation [...]