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Brazil has a unique history compared to other Americans countries. It started as an independent nation under its own monarch in 1822. Our greatest monarch was instrumental in moving the country toward what it is today. But his memory also shows us that monarchs belong to history.
The Question: What was the biggest news story in your country last year [in 2007], and why?
Corruption is a disturbing problem in Brazil. It is a threat to our 22-year-old democracy, and it is undermining the faith in politics and in a representative system of government. So it was especially relevant when forty of Brazilian President Lula’s aides, former aides, and government party leaders were brought to trial. It became Brazil’s most important news story in 2007.
The Current Discussion: Australians are voting online for a "Word of the Year" from a list of new words to be included in the dictionary: among the frontrunners, "Chindia", "globesity," and "password fatigue." Create your favorite new word of the year that tells us something about trends in your country.
Past-iology – noun; a political view entirely dominated by the past and incapable of looking ahead. A pathology spreading now in Latin America, spearheaded by the leader of the pastiologism: Hugo Chavez. To understand more about the syndrome, read the story below.
Oliver Stone parachuted into South America several weeks ago as if he was rescuing the Truth, captive in a new kind of Vietnam. He was welcomed by a man dressed in an olive green military jacket and a red beret. The famous film director then told the press what he was doing in the middle of the Venezuelan-Colombian jungle this Christmas Eve: he wanted to prove that a group that had kidnapped more than 700 people was, in fact, no more than “some peasants fighting for more decent lives”.
The Current Discussion: For Valentine’s Day, this question: What is the future of love?
A beloved Brazilian poet, one of the composers of the song “The Girl from Ipanema,” Vinicius de Moraes, wrote in one of his most beautiful sonnets that love cannot be immortal, because it is a flame; but it has to be infinite while it lasts.
This is the perfect recipe: lovers have to believe the sentiment is everlasting even if it lasts only a single night.
Some romantics are mourning the end of love. They are wrong. Yes, the duration of the sentiment seems to shorten each day, as some bonds emitted by some unreliable debtors. But who cares about duration, if we can have intensity? A brief love is not a sub-prime sentiment. Actually, love can be on the verge of another dimension of its existence.
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