RAPIDINHAS
Advertising
Mommy Blue
Several advertisers
intent on paying homage to mother in May, and hoping that in return they
would get some customers for their clients, had the same non-original idea:
putting mom together with her baby. All of these ad professionals also
decided to add a twist to the trite mother-infant solution: they had the
baby hungrily sucking the mother's breast.
Melitta, a manufacturer of coffee-making products took out a spread in the weekly newsmagazine Veja (1.2 million circulation), showing its sucking baby and the clever question, "Lembra do seu primeiro café da manhã?" (Do you remember your first breakfast?). In Portuguese, the word coffee (café) is part of the morning first meal. "A kiss to all mothers," concluded the ad copy created by Ammirati Puris Lintas.
Address, a health
management firm, placed between the baby's hungry mouth and a visibly erect
nipple this message in red (and in English): Happy Hour.
"Healthy Children. Every mother adores getting this present," was the clincher signed by ad agency Eco Mkt & Com. The gorgeous tiny girl used by Rio's Fashion Mall seems sound asleep while she sucks away. Next to the source of her meal there is the message: "Do you remember when you had everything you wanted in just one place? You still have it." The piece was designed by V&S.
Johnson &
Johnson used Mother’s Day to push its tampons. Once again, Ammirati Puris
Lintas was in charge of creation. Topping a totally uncovered belly shown
in profile, the ad copy says, “Homage to all the women who for sometime
stopped wearing our product.” The product is o.b. (the name comes from
"ohne Binde," without a pad, in German).
Another Carioca
(from Rio) mall used a woman's perfect, guitar-shaped naked body in profile
to celebrate motherhood. Rio Sul conveyed its message (by ad agency Salles/DMB&B)
by building a growing stomach with parallel semi-ellipses of text. The
first reads: "One month. It happened with the first nausea and a little
belly that only she noticed." The fourth and last line, simulating
a big belly, says: "Nine months. The appearance is like someone who
ate a watermelon. A big one." It makes the filial devotion flow.
Politics
Going,Going,
Gone
The scandals' mud tide that is taking over Brazil is getting closer to the presidency, until now presumed to be above any suspicion. So close, in fact, that after the latest episode of politicians buying and being bought, president Fernando Henrique Cardoso sent his closest adviser, communications minister Sérgio Motta, to Paris for some fresher air. There has been nothing proven against the tough, shoot-from-the-hips Serjão, but the simple mention of his name on a secretly taped conversation between two congressmen about the loot they received for siding with the government on a vote, was enough to turn on all the red lights and alarm bells in the Palácio do Planalto, Brasília's White House.
The damage to the President's image was severe. In less than two weeks, his popularity index fell seven points, according to a Datafolha poll, showing that his Teflon coating has been wearing off. While on May 5 Cardoso received from 41 percent of those polled excellent and good marks for his job in the presidency, this number decreased to 34% in a poll taken on May 16. There was also a tumble in the stock market for Telebrás, responsible for 60 percent of the São Paulo stock market movement. It forced the index down by 3.42 percent in São Paulo, the biggest loss since February, and by 2.87 percent on the Rio stock market. Even in New York, the Telebrás papers had a 4 percent decline.
The latest of a series of scams came to light after Brazil's largest daily, Folha de São Paulo, began publishing on May 13 transcripts of two House representatives from Acre state revealing that they had sold their votes to support a constitutional amendment that would allow Cardoso to be a candidate for reelection, something now forbidden by the Constitution. The taping monitored by Folha was carried out for five months by a character whom the paper calls Mister X.
Ronivon Santiago and João Maia, both from Acre state and both from the PFL (Partido da Frente Liberal—Liberal Front Party), confided on tape that each had received $200,000 for the vote and implied that the money had come from Motta through Amazonas state governor Amazonino Mendes. Motta, who is famous for putting his foot in his mouth, has assumed a leading position in the Lower House battle to assure the government's victory in the reelection war.
The PFL was swift in applying its summary justice. "Does anyone here doubt the authenticity of the Folha de São Paulo report?" asked the leader of the party, Luís Eduardo Magalhães, in a meeting to discuss the matter. There was a condemnatory silence in the room before Magalhães announced his decision to eject from the PFL both congressmen.
The administration's reaction also came fast. Worried about losing more ground to the opposition, the government gave two ministries to two PMDB (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro—Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement) congressmen. Eliseu Padilha, from Rio Grande do Sul, was awarded the ministry of Transportation and senator Íris Resende from Goiás got the Justice ministry. Not bad at all for someone who a few weeks earlier had led a defeated revolt against Cardoso's reelection.
Commenting on the shaky moral grounds of Cardoso, Veja wrote: "When President Fernando Henrique decided to make the reelection its number one priority, he placed his government in the same shady world in which a predecessor, José Sarney went, battling for a five-year mandate, and another, Fernando Collor, tried to avoid impeachment. Sarney used radio and TV concessions to win. Collor utilized money and loans from Banco do Brasil and he lost. Fernando Henrique has placed Serjão in the reelection's battle forefront, and the government has entered a new considerably less bright phase."
Congress has been a frequent counter for exchanging influence for money in the last few years. There was the PSD (Partido Social Democrático—Social Democratic Party) campaign to increase its ranks when house representatives were offered $30,000 a head for those willing to join that party. Then there was the bingo lobby that allegedly paid $300,000 to São Paulo's congressman Marquinhos Chedid. Representative Pedrinho Abrão had the spotlight on him after trying to get a 4 percent commission on a $42 million project for which he helped to get congressional approval. And there was of course the infamous budget's midgets scandal in which a whole gang of legislators were getting their cut on federal monies they helped to secure.
Obituary
More than ABC
As if they were answering to an imaginary roll call, people present at the wake for Paulo Freire started to scream in unison when the 75-year-old educator's body was leaving São Paulo's Catholic University Theater (TUCA): "Professor Paulo Freire, present now and for ever." Just a little earlier, first lady Ruth Cardoso, representing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, tears rolling down her face, was barely able to give her farewell to a dear friend. "I am here to remember the good friend and great educator," was all she managed to say. "He got more respect in the United States and in Europe than in Brazil," remarked Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva bitterly, leader of PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores—Workers' Party), a party Freire helped found.
The educator died in São Paulo of a heart attack at age 75. Born in Recife, state of Pernambuco, Freire was just starting to make his impression on Brazilian education when he was jailed and then forced into exile in 1964 by the military dictatorship, which took over the country in April of that year. He was then President João Goulart's director of the National Education Plan, a project with the lofty goal of teaching reading and writing basics to 16 million adults in just four years.
Essentially a monoglot, in the ensuing 16 years of banishment he would become an international authority on pedagogy, teaching classes at Harvard and Geneva (Switzerland) University. His works were translated into more than 20 languages. A tribute to his worldwide influence, the 766-page tome Paulo Freire: uma Biobibliografia (Paulo Freire: a Biobibliography) published in Brazil in April 1996, contains essays by 150 authors who cite close to 3,000 of his admirers in every corner of the world.
The Paulo Freire method—there was never a Paulo Freire school of education as with Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget and Italian educator Maria Montessori—was tested for the first time in 1963 with 300 illiterate adult farm workers from Angicos, in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte state. They all learned to read and write in 45 days.
The basic idea behind the method is to teach students utilizing the keywords from their daily life. Highly politically charged, the Freire method maintains that people so taught are also being prepared to take charge and change the world if needed.
Massacre
A Matter of Honor
In a 14-hour rampage, former army soldier Genildo Ferreira de França, 27, terrorized São Gonçalo do Amarante, a little town in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte, in a methodical, personal revenge mission that left 15 people dead. Surrounded by police, he released Valdenice Ribeiro da Silva, 16, and his own five-year-old daughter whom he was using as hostages, and then killed himself.
França had a list of 20 people who he believed had in some way offended him and who deserved to die, among them a driver who killed his little son two years ago, and his second wife with whom he lived. He accused her of starting a rumor that he was homosexual. After killing his wife, he made Valdenice write: "I dare anyone to prove that I was homosexual. I wasn't and I will not be. All this tragedy was caused by such a commentary." He also asked forgiveness for not having vindicated the son's death.
The massacre started around 7 PM on May 21 when França took a taxi, shot and killed its driver, and then used the car to put his plan in action. Some people he killed after drinking with them, a policeman who tried to stop him was also shot dead. Before killing Edílson Nascimento, he screamed, "Now I want you to see you saying that you screwed me."
Still No Answer
The Alagoas police had closed the case. The death one year ago of Paulo César Farias, also known as PC, the man involved in a series of money rackets and with ties to impeached President Fernando Collor de Mello, was a case of a love affair gone awry. According to this official version, Suzana Marcolino, PC's girlfriend, who was found dead at his side in bed, had killed the lover and then pointed the gun at herself. The conclusion was made just a few hours after the tragedy. The Faria family was satisfied with the report, and a renowned coroner from Unicamp (University of Campinas in São Paulo), Fortunato Badan Palhares, invited to study the case concurred with this conclusion.
Prosecutor Failde Mendonça, however, believes that she now has enough evidence pointing to a double murder. "We are going to investigate everything," she declared. "And if possible, we will indict a criminal. The police report presents a series of details that were not studied and that need to be explained."
The decision to reopen the case came after a panel of experts concluded that there was no way for them to prove scientifically that Suzana killed herself and that PC was murdered in the same room his body was found. Congressman Augusto Farias, PC's brother, didn't appreciate the reopening of the case. "They are using this for a personal dispute among experts," he said. "The best solution would be to invite foreign experts for a definitive probe."
Jail Break
Brazil is experiencing a spate of prison rebellions this year. By mid-May, there were 56 in the state of São Paulo alone. On May 19, for example, there were four mutinies going on at the same time in different parts of the country. The main complaint is always the same: overcrowding.
In Taubaté, São Paulo, 312 inmates took over a jail with room for only 80 prisoners. In Florianópolis, Santa Catarina state, the 57-hour mutiny undertaken by 160 prisoners only ended when authorities agreed on transferring 134 inmates to other jails. The state of São Paulo is in need of 25,000 new vacancies and several new prisons are being built right now. But the state will never catch up with the demand, says João Benedito de Azevedo Marques, São Paulo's state secretary in charge of the prison system. "It makes no sense placing someone condemned for the first time with hardened criminals," Azevedo Marques said.
Tough Talk
"I have been tolerant and patient because this is the way I am and because this is the duty of someone who has the people's mandate to govern the country. The limit of patience and tolerance is democracy."
It was a harsh speech that was delivered by Fernando Henrique Cardoso on May 22. The President had never before seemed so upset since being inaugurated on January 1995. He went on to condemn the invasion of private and public properties by protesters opposing his government.
The opposition saw Cardoso's blasting oratory as the desperate reaction of an authoritarian regime losing the total control of the nation it enjoyed until now. "The government has to learn to be humbler and change direction if it wants to establish a serious and constructive relationship with the opposition," said Workers Party (PT) representative José Genoíno. "The government has completely controlled the game and ended up throwing out many balls and now is complaining about lost time," Genoíno concluded.
In the span of less than one week in May there were at least four large protest demonstrations. On May 10, a group of homeless shouted slogans against Cardoso in front of the President's residence in Higienópolis, a neighborhood in São Paulo. The homeless crowd along with some 2,000 people then invaded City Hall four days later demanding that 20 percent of the budget for building new houses be given to the protesters for self-help programs. That same day in Brasília, farm workers from the Grito da Terra (Land's Yell) movement invaded Agriculture minister Antônio Kandir's cabinet with a goat, a pig, and a peru (turkey), which in Portuguese is also synonymous for penis. The group emptied the cabinet's refrigerator and made several long-distance telephone calls, even some to foreign countries.
And in Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, where Cardoso went for a meeting of commerce ministers of the Americas, protesters with their heads covered by hoods and T-shirts and armed with stones and Molotov cocktails attacked police, leaving five policemen hurt. Ironically, they also burned U.S. flags while the President was condemning American economic policy towards Brazil. In an editorial, conservative daily O Estado de S. Paulo demanded a tougher stand from the government: "It is necessary that police discourage these violent demonstrations, using adequate energy, and more than that, do not allow that the ruffians' leaders stay free and unpunished."
Castro Helpers
No other country sent more brigaderos to Cuba this year than Brazil. The Associação Cultural José Martí alone sent 105 of them. They came from Bahia, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, and São Paulo to join the so-called international brigades of solidarity.
Most of these volunteers were teenagers who used their summer vacation time (from January to March) and had to pay $850 for the privilege of working for two weeks in an orange plantation in Caimito, an area 45 minutes by bus from Havana. Despite the military-like schedule that included waking up at six in the morning and sweating the shirt in the fields, the youngsters seemed to love the experience.
"That's better than Disneyland," said 16-year-old Eduardo Pessoa de Andrade in an interview with Rio's daily O Globo. The Carioca (from Rio) upper-middle-class student, who wants to be an architect, should know. He made a trip to "the happiest place on earth" when he was ten.
Case Closed
After Guilherme de Pádua it was his former wife Paula Thomaz's turn to be condemned for the December 1992 murder of TV star Daniella Perez. On May 16, a split jury (4 votes against 3) considered her guilty and judge José Geraldo Antônio condemned her to 18.5 years in prison, just six months less than the ex-husband. Incredibly, the law allows for Guilherme and Paula to be free on parole starting next year. After all the mutual accusations, there is actually talk of a reconciliation between them.
Protecting the Fauna
The five upper-middle-class youngsters from Brasília who doused an Indian sleeping at a bus stop with gasoline and then set him on fire—and later justified their murder with a "we-thought-he-was-just-a-beggar" argument—will be judged by a court of law. The Pataxó Ha-ha-hae Indian, Galdino Jesus dos Santos, 44, was burned alive on April 20 by Tomaz Oliveira de Almeida, 18; his younger brother G.A. (Brazilian law forbids the publication of names or photos of minors involved in crimes); and Max Rogério Alves, Eron Chaves de Oliveira and Antônio Novély Cardoso de Vilanova, all 19 years old.
Since Novély is the son of a federal judge, the Pataxós applauded the decision of taking the youngsters to the ordinary jurisdiction and not the federal one, and they are hoping they will receive at least a minimum of impartiality. What they didn't understand was the line of reasoning used by prosecutor Márcia Domitia who wanted them to be tried in federal court. "The Indians are a species in extinction," she said, adding: "Santos's murder was a grave crime against our fauna."
A Place on Space
A Brazilian astronaut is not a far-fetched idea anymore. If everything works as planned, in 2004 the first Brazilian in space will be wearing that funny suit and teaching the world some Portuguese. To have this privilege, Brazil will have to accept NASA's invitation to be part of a 14-country group that will build an international space station. Brazil will be the only participant from Latin America and will have to dish out $100 million. Peanuts, when you consider that the project—which involves nine European countries, Japan, Russia, Canada, and the United States—will cost a total of $42 billion.
Gays in Uniform
In Brazil, a country in which military service for men is compulsory, homosexuality in the Army is a crime punished with up to one year in jail. This fact hasn't intimidated or prevented Flávio Alves, 27, former Navy corporal and out-of-the-closet gay, from starting a national campaign encouraging gays to enlist in the Army. Yellow billboards with red and black characters being displayed in São Paulo, Rio and Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais state, say, "Gays from all of Brazil, on your 18th birthday enlist yourselves. Military service is everyone's right."
Black Eye
Just before the start of a May rodeo festival in Pirajuí, in the interior of São Paulo, a bag was opened and from it jumped a confused and naked eight-year-old little black kid. While people screamed and laughed, the boy didn't know where to run. The scene was shown on national TV. Pirajuí's mayor, José Ortega, can't believe the flack he is getting from some quarters. "What's all this fuss about?" he asked. "We do this all the time."
No Butts
Tired of answering in the negative to the question, "Have you insured it?", Carla Perez, 19, the blonde owner of the most famous buttocks in Brazil has finally insured her most precious asset—for $12.6 million! A pool of national and foreign companies, led by mid-sized Nobre, is guaranteeing the integrity of the national treasure. The insurers ran into a serious problem when it came time to write the policy: How to say bumbum, the equivalent to butt in Portuguese, in a so-serious document? The gray-suited businessmen opted for a body part very close to the one insured: the quadris (hips).
Name That Tune
It has been so long since their songs had been banned that some composers did not even remember that they had written the lyrics. A recent opening of the Federal Police's Public Entertainment Censorship Division's (the infamous SCDP) archives is giving a glimpse of the criteria (or lack of) that the military dictatorship used to suppress information and protect the public from the deleterious effects of rebellion or sensuality.
When the censors didn't have a clue of what the words were saying, they would veto them anyway, just to be safe. This happened, for example, with the late Raul Seixas, who in "Rinoceronte III" (Rhinoceros III) created neologisms such as "Ahpaté, ahpatetado/ Gosgordo/gosgordura/ Urrantes, Urrantejoulas..." The song was forbidden without any explanation for the veto.
For 24 years, from 1964 to 1988 when it was finally closed, the SCDP examined more than 60,000 music titles. Even romantic ballad composer Roberto Carlos had lyrics banned for erotic and political reasons. The SCDP vetoed lyrics from composers as diverse as Gonzaguinha, Tim Maia, Luis Melodia, Zé Rodrix, and Geraldo Vandré. For some people, their names alone on a composition were enough to guarantee a ban.
Composer Julinho da Adelaide had several compositions approved before the censors noticed that the royalties of his songs were being paid to Chico Buarque de Hollanda. Naturally, Julinho was Chico's nom de plume. Aldir Blanc and César Costa Filhos's never-recorded "Antes e Depois" (Before and After), vetoed for indecent assault, exudes innocence:
Pedias suplicante
Que eu não fosse só amante
E te amasse como a derradeira vez
E fizesse do meu ser o teu
Depois de amar
Adormecias qual menina
Desmaiada e pequenina
Que mentiu que era mulher
You asked supplicant
That I be not only lover
And loved you as though it were the last time
And made of my being, yours
After making love
You slept as a little girl
Fainted and very little
Who lied that she was a woman
Jaw Breaker
The always-creative soccer crowd in Brazil has invented a new cry to animate the stadiums. After months of success, the immensely popular "Uh Tererê" has given way to the "Ah, eu tô maluco" (Ah, I feel crazy) refrain. As with the prior motto, the new one came from the funk balls of the Rio's favelas (shantytowns). Its creator, Jorge Silva da Rocha, 22, earns $250 a month selling shoes on the streets of Madureira, a Rio suburb. He says that the craze started after a January bet with friends during a ball at Portela's samba school. He won 50 bucks by stepping on the stage and screaming, "Ah, eu tô maluco."
The phrase was used by rappers and it soon became all the rage. But it might also soon be forbidden by dental associations all over the world. Fat Boy, one of the rappers who adopted the chant, uses to invite male members from the audience to prove that they are also "malucos." The test consists of submitting their faces to the blows the maluquetes, a group of dancers, deliver with their prominent derrières. Some of the happy-go-lucky volunteers have lost dentures and teeth in the adventure. The public, as expected, always asks for more.
Film
Auto da Fé
Navalha na
Carne (Razor in the Skin), Plínio Marcos's classic play
about prostitute Neusa Sueli written in the '60s has finally made
it to the big screen. Directed by Neville de Almeida, the film was
shot in a red light district of downtown Rio, giving Cariocas a
glimpse of movie making. Former Miss Brazil and TV and movie star Vera
Fisher, 45, is the star.
In one day alone in April, La Fisher gave a show of interpretation, playing an angelic bride in the morning and then a crucified whore at night. "It's a wrap," screamed Neville when the crucifixion scene set on a hill close to the Santa Tereza neighborhood ended. The shooting of Navalha na Carne was concluded. "It was tough, but worthwhile. I am already missing Neusa Sueli," said Vera Fisher, after her tour-de-force.
