Brazilian: Goddamn Gummint as Single-Payer Broadband Provider

From the Correio Braziliense — not a notorious pro-government mouthpiece, exactly — today, under the headline <Popular Capitalism>:
O governo federal está metido numa boa empreitada: criar as condições para universalizar o acesso à internet de alta velocidade. Avalia inclusive entrar no mercado de provimento ao consumidor final. A iniciativa deverá servir, pelo menos, para forçar [...]

Honduras: Drugs and Thugs on the Slug Line

Amid a heavy crackdown on the press by the military, the Honduran daily El Libertador is doing amazing independent journalism.
Item: It is claimed that coup leader Roberto Micheletti is linked to the Colombian cocaine cartels in an official document prepared for the DEA by the Honduran military.
It is asked whether the DEA has been [...]

NOVOLACERDA: The New Brazilian UDN

Item: O arsenal udenista está de volta, o que poderá detê-lo? – Carta Maior
I remember some years back buying a copy of Veja magazine for a long bus trip. The issue had a password for access to online contents, and the password was an homage to CIA asset Carlos Lacerda: NOVALACERDA.
The leftist press and Internet [...]

Epistle to the Brooklynites and Alto de Pinheirians, I

The Sousaphone has fallen silent lately as you may (but likely have not) noticed. It is a useless pastime anyway, but the demands of work, as well as a brutal series of tropical maladies (topped off by the dreaded 96-hour piriri), have left no time for it.
Still, everything seems brighter after a thorough and long [...]

Lies, Damned Lies and Latin American Opinion Polling: A Case in Point?

Conversa Afiada is the PSDB and mainstream-media bashing blog of Record TV interviewer Paulo Henrique Amorim.
In suggesting that Brazil’s major media cartels still lie, cheat and purvey disinformation for the sake of a specific political clientel (the right and center-right), the following item is not atypical of Amorim.
Denúncia: FHC, Folha , Abril, Serra [...]

Nixonian Geisel Audits the Alt.Press to Death

Geisel fez cerco à imprensa nanica: The Estado de S. Paulo on a secret program to use Orwellian tax audits to silence 41 Brazilian alternative press publications between 1976 and 1978.
The cultural wasteland thus created, with the media landscape dominated by the likes of the Folha, Globo, Abril, RBS, and Estado groups, is only just [...]

Ronaldo the Phat

The Folha de S.Paulo reports: Ronaldo the Fat is now Ronaldo the Phat — or Ronaldo the Phenom, if you like.
Graças aos pés de Ronaldo, o Corinthians está prestes a colocar as mãos no Paulista.
Thanks to Ronaldo’s feet, Corinthians is about to get its hands on the São Paulo state championship cup.
I am perfectly aware [...]

The Welfare Queen Is Alive and Well and Living With Dr. Mengele in Bertioga

A reader of Luis Nassif notes, regarding media coverage of the Bolsa-Familia income subsidy and a related social program, the ProUni higher education subsidy, here in Brazil:
Reinventaram aquela história dos “bolsa-família” que compraram geladeira ou máquina de lavar.
They have recycled that whole spiel about Bolsa-Familia recipients who bought refrigerators or washing machines.
Ali Kamel, journalism director [...]

“Down With the Dictatorship of Hollywood”

Abaixo a ditadura hollywoodiana: From the weekend cultural supplement of Valor Econômico, Brazil’s principal national-circulation business daily.
I must say that it is very disappointing to move to an exotic tropical nation in another hemisphere only to find that all that cable TV has to offer is the same programming you get [...]

Dantas’ Inferno: Showdown at the Eldorado Corral

“Smile, you’re being manipulated”: commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Globo television network.

Banco Opportunity, founded by MIT-trained convicted briber of federal officers Daniel Dantas, owns a cattle ranch in Pará which the Brazilian federal police suspect may have been used to launder money.
Apparently the capital gains represented by new calves are very hard to document [...]