RAPIDINHAS

Behavior
Skinny Days

Xuxa
That Brazilian staple of car-repair shops, the pin-up calendar, has survived '70s' feminism, '80s' conservatism, and the '90s' political correctness. The increasing presence of women on their premises, however—30% of the 250,000 Brazilian auto-repair shops' clients are female—has forced calendar makers to tone down on the erotic nastiness of the pictures. Showing of pudenda, until recently a must, is now out.

The stars of the 1998 crop of calendar girls are pretty women whose names were recently in the news, among them landless activist turned Playboy's cover girl Débora Rodrigues. This disrobing-for-the-masses activity is on the résumé of more than one celebrity. Case in point, Maria das Graças Meneghel, better known as Xuxa, graced one of these wall ornaments well before becoming a known-all-over-the-world children's TV host. Around the time she acted in softcore porno movies, Xuxa also posed for the Esso—as Exxon is still called in Brazil—1982 calendar.

Débora Rodrigues

One of the best proofs that this exposed-skin marketing works is that the Brazilian state oil monopoly, Petrobrás, apparently cannot live without it. When the oil giant threatened to stop printing the naked-girls calendar a few years ago, the protests were so loud that the idea was promptly abandoned. The first time around the Petrobrás calendar had a mere 5,000 copies. For this year edition 380,000 calendars have been printed. Petrobrás has paid $10,000 to Viviane Araújo to show it all in the company of a soccer ball. Petrobrás hopes that her appearance will inspire the national soccer team to win a fifth championship when it goes to France for the World Cup in June and July.

Politics
High-level
Lowness

The recent exchange between two former Brazilian presidents and a would be candidate to the presidency had parents rushing to the mute button on their TV remote. The terms they used to describe each other were not only downright rude but also obscene. The war of words started with an interview given to the weekly magazine Isto É by impeached president Fernando Collor de Mello. Collor called his successor, Itamar Franco, who was his vice-president at the time he was forced to leave the presidency in 1992, a "perfect idiot who hides the most absolute ignorance about everything." "Ciro Gomes is a coward," Collor also said referring to Ceará's ex-governor, former ex-finance minister and a wannabe presidential candidate in October's elections.

Oblivious to the words of his senior aides, who asked him to ignore the offense and keep on high ground, Franco invited the media for a press conference. Then he theatrically threw on the floor the magazine with the interview and read a 17-line note calling Collor an "outlaw": "Very early during his work at the presidency I noticed he was a scoundrel, a fact that was proved by his removal for pillage."

Ciro Gomes was even more generous in the use of adjectives to classify his attacker. Liar, delirious, unscrupulous, rogue were some of the terms with which he presented Collor, concluding: "All of this shows total lack of scruples by a tramp, and doesn't deserve further consideration."

Collor from his office in Miami would end the war he started with the lowest blow. In a note entitled "Response to a Deviant", the ex-President wrote: "To Itamar and company. It is not my fault if you looked in the mirror and didn't like what you saw. I ask you to shove up your intimacies the aggressions against me. Finally I am already tired of tantrums, very fitting for restless boys."

"In a fight between husband and wife, I don't put my spoon," commented an amused Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the PT's (Partido dos Trabalhadores—Workers' Party) candidate to the presidency. The same week of the uncharitable exchange Collor also saw the end of his hopes to run again for the presidency this year. For seven votes to zero the Supreme Court rejected his motion to annul the senate's sentence, which prevents him from seeking any public post before December 30, 2000.

History
Re-discovering
Brazil

Some basic facts of Brazilian history starting with its discovery and discoverer might be in for a revision. Beginning in first grade Brazilians learn that their country was discovered on April 22, 1500 by Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral who disembarked in what is today the state of Bahia. The official version also says that Cabral's stumbling on Brazilian lands while trying to get to India was due to serendipity.

This is not quite the truth according to recently-published A Construção do Brasil (The Construction of Brazil), a book by Portuguese historian Jorge Couto, who is a professor at the Universidade de Lisboa. The author's findings had ample exposure in Brazil at the end of November thanks to a cover story on the subject by the weekly magazine Isto É. Less than two years before the celebrations being prepared to commemorate its discovery the country is learning that Duarte Pacheco Pereira might have come to Brazil in November or December 1498 in a secret mission organized by Dom Manoel I, King of Portugal at the time.

Why all the secrecy? Very simple, says Couto. The lands he found belonged to Spain, according to the 1494 Tordesillas Treaty, which divided all lands to be discovered between Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese historian's main source is a 200-page manuscript written by Duarte Pacheco himself around 1508. The document, which resurfaced after having disappeared for close to 400 years, is called Esmeraldo (apparently an anagram using the Latin name for the king—Emmanuel—and for the discoverer—Eduardus) De Situ Orbis, meaning sites of the earth.

Nursing
Mary

With the blessing of the Church, a Madonna exposing her right breast while feeding baby Jesus is being used in Brazil in a campaign to encourage mothers to nurse their babies up to the age of six months. The unknown author's work is believed to have been painted in the 17th Century in Russia and a copy of the painting is being used in the Brazilian mother's milk crusade.

Ninety seven percent of Brazilian mothers nurse their children at birth, but by the third month this rate falls to 57%. The educational effort will last one year getting exposure through billboards, T-shirts and space and time donated by TV and the press. Promoted by the Health Ministry, the campaign was launched in December in the presence of first lady and anthropologist Ruth Cardoso, who posed for pictures exhibiting the campaign's T-shirt.

Where's
the Beef?

In a section called Wired Travel, the October issue of Wired magazine, the digeratti's Bible, has dedicated six whole pages to what it calls "low-budget, low concept" Brazilian TV. "All cultural imports," writes Patrick Symmes, "seem to pass through a filter that reframes them, producing in the end something utterly Brazilian." He also touches on Brazilian TV imperialism: "Hundreds of millions of Chinese watch Brazilian shows, Nicaraguan are obsessed, Scandinavians are hooked, and even Lech Walesa and Fidel Castro are fans."

Symmes traces the origin of the all-too-present novela (soap opera) to Fidel Castro. Upon his storming of Havana on January 1, 1959, Cuban radio-novela writers fled the country. Some of the scribes exiled in Argentina wrote what became the first Brazilian soap operas. As for the self-attributed so-called "Globo standard of quality," the Wired writer couldn't detect any of it amid Globo's productions' "clumsy special effects and embarrassing horror music."

His conclusion: "Night after night the evidence poured in, until I could no longer deny the obvious: Brazilian TV wouldn't win any Emmys." Symmes recognizes though that Globo's novelas fare better than decades-old trashy soap General Hospital, but it's "nowhere near" such Yankee prime-time shows as ER.

Less
Appealing

In Brazil everybody hates them, their perceived laziness, incompetence and downright nastiness, but at the same time everybody seems to be willing to be one of them, a public worker, that is. That's because despite a low salary, public servants have some sweet perks you will not find in your run-of-the-mill private sector job, such as getting upon retiring the same salary as those who continue toiling—in the private sector, retirement benefits cannot exceed $1,000 a month—and the guarantee of not being fired.

This latest item, however, will be changing soon. The Câmara dos Deputados (House of Representatives) has just voted in favor of ending public workers' so-called stability, a privilege introduced in the 1934 Constitution during Getúlio Vargas first round in the presidency. By the way, such a benefit was also enjoyed by anyone in the private sector after ten years on the job. This privilege though was eliminated in 1967 by general Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, the first president of the military dictatorship (1964-1985).

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso got personally involved in the House vote, which ended up 322 to 157 against lifelong jobs. After final approval of the law by the senate, municipal, state and federal government will be able to fire employees due to poor performance on the job as well as when more than 60% of the budget is being used to pay workers. Proportionally, the U.S. and France, for example, have more public servants than Brazil.

The biggest problem in the country is the uneven distribution of the work force. While there are too many drivers, secretaries, and cleaners, there is a lack of specialized workers. Twenty of the 27 Brazilian states are spending more than 60% of their budget with their work force. In the prosperous states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, for example, expenses with personnel represent 80% of the budget, and Espírito Santo is going bankrupt expending 92% of what it makes in salaries and benefits to its active and retired workers.

The federal government, with half a million workers is in better shape than most states, applying 50% of its budget on personnel. The new law might provoke a stampede of the best qualified public workers to the private sector. Cardoso recently was forced to give a 30% raise to his cabinet cadres so he wouldn't have to govern the country with novices fresh out of the university.

Swimming
in Oil

Brazil has come a long way in oil self-sufficiency. In 1950 the country was producing 928 barrels of oil a day with little hope that it would ever be free from importing the product for most of its needs, although it relies mostly on hydroelectric plants for the production of electrical energy. At the end of 1997, Petrobrás, the state oil monopoly, had more to celebrate than the holidays, however. In December, for the first time, the company was able to produce 1 million barrels a day, meaning 60.1% of the domestic oil consumption, used mainly to move a fleet of 17 million automobiles.

In 1950, with a practically non-existent car industry, Brazil produced 1% of the oil it needed. This number had grown to 32.9% in 1970, when the number of cars was 3.1 million. In 1980, even though the production of oil had increased from 167,000 barrels a day the previous decade to 188,000 barrels, this amount covered only 16.8% of the nation's needs and its 10.8 million cars. Brazil now ranks 17th among the world's oil producers, which are led by the US with 8.6 million barrels a day.

Nature's
Bounty

Brazil got itself a first place in Washington in December and it wasn't for poverty, corruption or deforestation. According to environmental organization Conservation International no other country among the 17 that are called megadiverse due to their biological wealth, has more natural riches than Brazil. The country, says the latest report of Conservation International, has the largest number of wild forests, the largest amount of plants (55,000 species or 22% of all plants in the world), more mammal species than any other nation (524 of them, 25% of them occurring only in Brazil).

Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, believes that the Bio-17 countries should get as much respect as the G-7 nations. He is also convinced that the importance of Brazil has been overlooked among the nature-rich countries. While in the last 10 years Brazil received only 135 million from foreign countries to preserve its biodiversity, China—fourth in the rank—got ten times this amount.

Lawless
Land

In many regions of Brazil the "law of silence" continues to be the law of the land. And people who decide to open their mouth to denounce criminal activities are being silenced. That's what happened in November to radio announcer Eduardo Lopes de Faria. From Campo Grande, capital of Mato Grosso do Sul, Faria was killed in a bakery with 13 shots soon after announcing on the air that he would reveal the names of hit men in the region.

A just-finished report by the Human Rights Committee of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies concluded that death squads have the upper hand, killing politicians and businessmen's rivals in at least nine of Brazil's 27 states. The most violent region, says the document, is Mato Grosso do Sul, where 87 people were downed by gunmen in the first seven months of 1997. Most of the deaths involved arms smugglers, drug traffickers and personal revenge. Death squads were also found to be active in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Bahia, Pará, Mato Grosso, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte and São Paulo.

Culture
The Minimum
50

What's considered essential reading for an educated Brazilian? Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil asked this question to three writers—Ledo Ivo, Antônio Torres, and Flávio Moreira da Costa—and came up with a list of 50 books people should read during their formative years. They include reference works as well as literature classics and traditional poets.

Reference:

Almanaque Abril
Coleção Primeiros Passos
Dicionário Inglês-Português Michaelis
Enciclopédia Mirador
Literatura no Brasil by Afrânio Coutinho
Novo Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa by Aurélio Buarque de Hollanda

Nonfiction:

Casa Grande e Senzala by Gilberto Freire
Chatô—O Rei do Brasil by Fernando Morais
Chega de Saudade by Ruy Castro
Um Estadista do Império by Joaquim Nabuco
Formação do Brasil Contemporâneo by Caio Prado Júnior
O Povo Brasileiro by Darcy Ribeiro
Os Sertões by Euclides da Cunha
Raízes do Brasil by Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda
Teoria da Dependência by Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Viva o Povo Brasileiro by João Ubaldo Ribeiro

Fiction:

Agosto by Rubem Fonseca
O Ateneu by Raul Pompéia
Ciranda de Pedra by Lígia Fagundes Telles
Coletânea de Contos Infantis by Monteiro Lobato
Comédias da Vida Privada by Luís Fernando Veríssimo
O Compadre de Ogum by Jorge Amado
Corpo Vivo by Adonias Filho
Fogo Morto by José Lins do Rego
Grande Sertão: Veredas by João Guimarães Rosa
O Guarani by José de Alencar
A Hora da Estrela by Clarice Lispector
Laço de Família by Clarice Lispector
Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade
Memórias de um Sargento de Milícias by Manuel Antônio de Almeida
Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis
Memorial de Maria Moura by Raquel de Queiroz
A Morte e a Morte de Quincas Berro d'Água by Jorge Amado
O Mulato by Aloísio de Azevedo
Nariz de Vidro by Mário Quintana
Para uma Menina com uma Flor by Vinícius de Moraes
Quarup by Antônio Callado
Quincas Borba by Machado de Assis
O Quinze by Raquel de Queiroz
São Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos
O Tempo e o Vento by Érico Veríssimo
Tocaia Grande by Jorge Amado
Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto
Vidas Secas by Graciliano Ramos

Poetry:

Castro Alves, Obras Completas
Cruz e Souza, Obras Completas
Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Obras Completas
Gonçalves Dias, Obras Completas
Manuel Bandeira, Obras Completas

Bash Time

Ready for Carnaval? Rio is always ready for carnavalescos. For those going to Rio for a live close-up experience all the information is on the Internet at http://www.rio.rj.gov.br/riotur. Prices for tickets vary from $3 for bleachers to $350 for special seating close to the action. The main parades with the so-called special Escolas de Samba will happen on Sunday, February 22 and Monday, February 23. Here is the list for the samba schools in the order they will appear. On Sunday: Caprichosos de Pilares, Salgueiro, Vila Isabel, Grande Rio, Porto da Pedra, Mocidade, and Portela. On Monday, Tradição leads the big parade followed by Mangueira, Imperatriz, Viradouro, Beija-Flor, Unidos da Tijuca and União da Ilha.

Language
Rio's
Newspeak

Slang is by nature often a very ephemeral happening. Most of the new expressions created by youngsters and criminals to communicate among themselves are very localized and don't last more than a few seasons. Some of the most popular gíria originated in Rio, however, usually get national acceptance as with the recent "Ah, eu tô maluco (Ah, I'm just crazy), meaning I am overjoyed. Much of the creation and spreading of new slang in Rio these days get help from Carioca (from Rio) DJs. A sample as compiled recently by the daily newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo:

Alemanzar—(lit. germanize) become foe
Boboionga—ugly woman
Boca da caverna—(cave's mouth) ballroom's corner for petting
Camunguela do brejo—(swamp's beast) ugly woman
Choque de monstro—(monster's shock) fabulous
Dar um CB—to stop talking to someone
Dar um sacode—(to give a shake) to date
Demorou—(it took long) well done
E aí, choque?—how is it?
E aí, do processo?—how is it?
Embaçar a idéia—(to dull the mind) to smoke pot
Estar zulu—to be high on drugs
Estar de bob—to have spare time
Estar tampado—(to be closed) to be full of cops
Eu tô maluco—(I am crazy) I am very happy
Formigueiro das almas—(souls' anthill) cemetery
Jogar jaca—(to throw the jaca fruit) to leave your date with someone else
Lombrou, lombrou, cumpadi—the cops arrived
Molho vermelho—(red sauce) cool dude
Na esquação da felicidade—(on happiness equation) very happy
No tijolinho do mocotó—(on gelatin's little brick) in a cool way
Pancar o barraco—to fight
Pancadão—the liveliest song
Trem das onze—(the 11 o'clock train) a slow person
Zoar na comédia—to try unsuccessfully to be funny

Ads
Santa Claws

Famous as much for the slick lingerie it manufactures as for its on-your-face tactics to advertise it, DuLoren has taken an unusual step after its Christmas ad spreads provoked the readers' ire: it pulled out the piece, interrupting what should have been a month-long campaign. The ad showed an awfully obese and naked Santa Claus being scolded by a young beauty in a lacy bra and panties ensemble with: "You dirty old man. You live surrounded by little deers." Adding to the grotesque caricature of the gift-bearing kind-old-man of children's fantasies, the word used for deer (veado) is also commonly understood as queer.

"We may have crossed the line," said DuLoren's owner Roni Argalji, in a rare admission of wrongdoing. Argalji, who doesn't allow pictures of his own face to appear in the media for fear of being kidnapped, has also explained what he calls the Dulorian woman: "She does things on her own initiative. She knows when and with whom she wants to make love. She is not betrayed, she is the one who betrays."