Ah, to be a Foreign Correspondent...
More hardnosed Brazil reporting from Larry Rohter. Today's burning topic: Brazilians are fat.
I guess the occasional feature story, written in that classic Rohter/Times "aren't' the locals so darned funny?" style, would be acceptable as far as it went. (And hey, give the guy a break, he almost lost his visa.) But is this kind of thing destined to be the sum total of the Times' Latin America coverage? Is there really nothing more interesting to talk about?
How about Rio's increasingly absurd drug war? How about the continuing success of Brazil's AIDS policy (which included breaking the patent on American drug firms' absurdly expensive cocktails)? How about American biotech giant Monsanto's massive and ultimately successful lobbying effort to open up Brazil to Genetically Modified Organisms?
But hey, why break a sweat when you can just make up absurd historical revisionist arguments like this one from the now-infamous "Brazil's highest elected official is a drunk" article:
Historically, Brazilians have reason to be concerned at any sign of heavy drinking by their presidents. Jânio Quadros, elected in 1960, was a notorious tippler who once boasted, "I drink because it's liquid"; his unexpected resignation, after less than a year in office during what was reported to be a marathon binge, initiated a period of political instability that led to a coup in 1964 and 20 years of a harsh military dictatorship.
Forget the little I'm-a-carrer-foreign-correspondent-and-can-get-away-with-this-crap lapses like "what was reported to be a marathon binge" and just consider the broader implication: give a president the key to the liquor cabinet, and you're bound to have a 20-year dictatorship.
What went underreported in the hullaballoo over the Lula article and Lula's really stupid reaction (For those who missed it, here is a recap) was the derisive and insulting tone with which Rohter had consistently treated Lula from the getgo, in particular his background, and Rohter's addiction to really inappropriate innuendo (that would be hard to imagine in a Times article on domestic politics). From the drinking article, we have a really abject example:
Mr. da Silva was born into a poor family in one of the country's poorest states and spent years leading labor unions, a famously hard-drinking environment.
What about the Foreign Press Club, eh, Larry?
Natch, the new article on obesity moves quickly from the beaches of Rio to -- surprise -- Lula's past and his personal problems:
Some commentators here have suggested that Mr. da Silva's unwillingness to accept the study [on obesity] may stem in part from his personal history. As he never tires of reminding Brazilians and the foreign leaders he meets, he experienced hunger himself as a poor peasant child and can vividly recall the sensation of going to bed on an empty stomach.
Today, though, Mr. da Silva is one of those Brazilians who struggles to keep his weight under control. With a mixture of sympathy and amusement, the national press has chronicled his efforts to limit his consumption of barbecue, beer and buchada, a fatty tripe dish native to his home region that is the bane of nutritionists.
I mean, is it just me, or is Rohter being a real dick?
I guess the occasional feature story, written in that classic Rohter/Times "aren't' the locals so darned funny?" style, would be acceptable as far as it went. (And hey, give the guy a break, he almost lost his visa.) But is this kind of thing destined to be the sum total of the Times' Latin America coverage? Is there really nothing more interesting to talk about?
How about Rio's increasingly absurd drug war? How about the continuing success of Brazil's AIDS policy (which included breaking the patent on American drug firms' absurdly expensive cocktails)? How about American biotech giant Monsanto's massive and ultimately successful lobbying effort to open up Brazil to Genetically Modified Organisms?
But hey, why break a sweat when you can just make up absurd historical revisionist arguments like this one from the now-infamous "Brazil's highest elected official is a drunk" article:
Historically, Brazilians have reason to be concerned at any sign of heavy drinking by their presidents. Jânio Quadros, elected in 1960, was a notorious tippler who once boasted, "I drink because it's liquid"; his unexpected resignation, after less than a year in office during what was reported to be a marathon binge, initiated a period of political instability that led to a coup in 1964 and 20 years of a harsh military dictatorship.
Forget the little I'm-a-carrer-foreign-correspondent-and-can-get-away-with-this-crap lapses like "what was reported to be a marathon binge" and just consider the broader implication: give a president the key to the liquor cabinet, and you're bound to have a 20-year dictatorship.
What went underreported in the hullaballoo over the Lula article and Lula's really stupid reaction (For those who missed it, here is a recap) was the derisive and insulting tone with which Rohter had consistently treated Lula from the getgo, in particular his background, and Rohter's addiction to really inappropriate innuendo (that would be hard to imagine in a Times article on domestic politics). From the drinking article, we have a really abject example:
Mr. da Silva was born into a poor family in one of the country's poorest states and spent years leading labor unions, a famously hard-drinking environment.
What about the Foreign Press Club, eh, Larry?
Natch, the new article on obesity moves quickly from the beaches of Rio to -- surprise -- Lula's past and his personal problems:
Some commentators here have suggested that Mr. da Silva's unwillingness to accept the study [on obesity] may stem in part from his personal history. As he never tires of reminding Brazilians and the foreign leaders he meets, he experienced hunger himself as a poor peasant child and can vividly recall the sensation of going to bed on an empty stomach.
Today, though, Mr. da Silva is one of those Brazilians who struggles to keep his weight under control. With a mixture of sympathy and amusement, the national press has chronicled his efforts to limit his consumption of barbecue, beer and buchada, a fatty tripe dish native to his home region that is the bane of nutritionists.
I mean, is it just me, or is Rohter being a real dick?
posted by Benjamin Lessing at 4:24 PM
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