The next big Brazilian import from Miramax is selling like hotcakes in the pirate market in Brazilian cities. Here's a Paraguayan preview, of a training scene reminiscent of Kubrick's "Full-Metal Jacket."
TV Record soap opera Vidas Opostas ("Opposite Lives") tackles an issue that the news media tackles only in a sporadic and sketchy way: The militias of Rio de Janeiro. I have gisted a passage from the program for your English-language edutainment.
Rio military police get into a firefight in downtown Rio. The local TV news defines the term "banana republican" with its Lacerdist, CNN-style "coverage" of events. Later, a police official is arrested for finagling the release of the ringleader of the attempted invasion of a retail point of sale by the Comando Vermelho. Welcome to hell
Psychiatrist: "Environment is the most significant factor" in determining corrupt behavior. Globo: "Corrupt persons are born! Not made!" Globo gabbles reliably. A true textbook case of the "folklore of corruption."
A little exercise in analysing press-government relations as the Ecuadorn government uses YouTube to promote talking points omitted by press coveage it considers inflammatory.
Telephone conversation with governor is recorded; opposition alleges electoral crime. Have a listen. Plus: There's something funny about Glenn Reynolds's "An Army of Davids" ...
Crazy alagamento experiene in São Paulo. It's a Tupi entupido thing, you would not understand. Soundtrack: Tzadik, from "17 Lyrics of Li Po" by Harry Partch.
Video taken by pollwatchers inside an IFE office on July 11. In the presence of a PAN official and the local IFE chief, they are opening ballot boxes and manipulating ballots without judicial authorization. Caught red-handed by a PRD film crew, they say they are complying with an order to "clean up" the ballot boxes by "removing trash."
Telemundo takes a look at Televisa and TV Azteca, media monopolies operated as instruments of social control and political corruption ... who now want to operate in the U.S. Spanish-language market. Subtitled for the Romance-language impaired.
Haven't we already imported enough Tex-Mex style democracy for one decade?
TV Record covers a shootout in a Rio shantytown. The ranting anchorman denounces human rights groups, says "The Colonel" is a personal friend of his, and says that overemphasis on police corruption is "Communism." Fairly typical populist TV journalism.
Telemundo interviews a man who helped to fix five elections in Mexico. He mentions a case in the recent election which perfectly illustrates the technique he describes. NMM-TV presents it to you MTV-style.
![Brazil\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/-e_a0zOzdHw/2.jpg "Brazil\")
![NMM-TV: RJ No Ar Covers \"The Mineira War\"](http://img.youtube.com/vi/eLMVVLjtOwA/2.jpg "NMM-TV: RJ No Ar Covers \\"The Mineira War\\"")
![TV Globo: \"Corruption is an Incurable Disease\"](http://img.youtube.com/vi/FCwW58iAlTU/2.jpg "TV Globo: \\"Corruption is an Incurable Disease\\"")
![NMM-TV Presents: Mexico\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/8Qk-lvu6BWw/2.jpg "NMM-TV Presents: Mexico\")
