April 26: We will have clips from several films, depending partly on your interest.  I viewed Dona Flor and her Two Husbands over the weekend and found it disappointing.  It is of interest because it was Sonia Braga's first film, and one of the first Brazilian ones with fairly explicit though R-rated sex.  I had confused it in my memory with another movie, Eu Tu Eles (Me, You, Them) about a woman with three husbands.  That one was produced by the same person who did Central Station, Andrucha Waddington.  I ordered a copy but don't have it as yet.  There is a trailer online but without subtitles. 

In any event, more useful for our class is one I do have that deals with the relationship between the US and Brazil as well as with class and racial differences in Brazil.  We will watch the first part of it, up until her disastrous trip to the US when she was rejected by the Brazilian audience who thought she was making fun of Brazilian culture.  She was born in Portugal, but the musical inspiration for her work was Afro-Brazilian.  Paola has already introduced us to Miranda, of course.:  Here are some notes on the film:
Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business
Brazil/USA 1994. Director: Helena Solberg
Cast: Erick Barreto, Letícia Monte, Cynthia Adler

"The exotic character Carmen Miranda carefully created and lived with during her Hollywood career has been parodied by many entertainers -- mostly men -- with a fascination matched by few other American pop-culture icons. What most people don't know, however, is that before she became famous in America by wearing fruit hats, Carmen was already an established, abundantly talented entertainer in Brazil. The character she later became -- the costumed, heavily accented, "I seeng you song from Brazeel" parody of women from the Bahía region -- created a rift between her and the Brazilian press, who claimed she packaged her talent to cater to the American public. Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business, a truly engaging documentary sensitively assembled by Helena Solberg, reveals this and more about the `Brazilian Bombshell.' Using archival footage, re-creations of key events -- featuring female impersonator Erick Barreto as Carmen -- and interviews with the people closest to Carmen's life, Solberg provides a little-seen perspective on Carmen's pre-Hollywood career" (Ramiro Puerta, Toronto I.F.F.). "Complex and probing . . . a fascinating account of the onetime megastar as not only a torn and tragic person and underrated artist, but also as the eventual prisoner of a giddy image reflecting various intertwined political and cultural agendas . . . As enjoyable as it is thought-provoking" (Godfrey Cheshire, Variety). Colour and B&W, 35mm, in Portuguese with English subtitles. 91 mins.

Another we will see part of is.  We will see a clip towards the end of the movie where the youth break out of the juvenile detention center:
Pixote( a lei do mais fraco - the law of the weakest)

Brazil 1981. Director: Hector Babenco
Cast:Fernando Ramos da Silva, Marília Pera, Jorge Juliao

Described by Pauline Kael as "shockingly lyrical," and often compared to Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados, the unforgettable Pixote offers a deeply unsettling look at the plight of Brazil's homeless children (said to number 3 million at the time the film was made). Pixote, a 10-year-old street urchin, is nabbed by police and sent to a juvenile detention centre, where he and his fellow inmates endure a brutal regimen of abuse, exploitation, rape and even murder. Later, he and a group of friends escape back to life on the streets of Brazil's urban slums, and a mind-numbing, survival-of-the-fittest routine of stealing, pushing, pimping and killing. Director Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spider Woman) derives extraordinary performances from a non-professional cast of actual street kids, including Fernando Ramos da Silva, the baby-faced youth who appears in the title role; da Silva returned to street life after Pixote, and was killed in a scuffle with police in 1987. Pro actor Marília Pera, as the aging alcoholic prostitute pimped by Pixote and his pals, "has an Anna Magnani-like presence -- horrifying and great . . . She's the whore spawned out of men's darkest imaginings" (Kael). The film was a major art-house hit in the 1980s. "Acutely affecting . . . nothing in recent cinema comes close to the devastating account of brutalisation and exploitation offered in Babenco's film" (Martyn Auty, Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Portuguese with English subtitles. 127 mins.

I also have Madam Satã on DVD. 

    Madame Satã is inspired by the legends and myths that grew up around the real-life character João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976), also known as Madame Satã. The film is set in 1930’s Rio de Janeiro in the bohemian neighborhood of Lapa as João Francisco is about to achieve his dream of becoming a stage star. A tall black man—a Brazilian version of Jean Genet—a proud rogue, female impersonator, gangster, convicted prisoner and adoptive father, João Francisco spent most of his life in the bohemian streets of Rio de Janeiro.
    Madame Satã, the film, is as feverish as Madame Satã, its protagonist. We get to know the cast of characters who surround João Francisco in the sordid, yet lively world of Lapa—a cast of pimps, prostitutes, deviants, samba composers and bohemians.
The film is made up of a series of defining moments in the life of João Francisco and his close friends, which, taken together, evoke a crucial time in his life, the period immediately before the Madame Satã myth was created. João took his alias from the title character of Cecil B. De Mille’s 1930 film Madame Satan, which he was passionate about.
Throughout his 76 years—27 of which were spent in prison—João Francisco dos Santos constantly challenged the stigmas of being illiterate, black, poor, and homosexual. With a remarkable ability to enter the skin of different characters, he defined himself as “son of Iansã and Ogum [deities of African origin, originally worshiped by slaves], and devout follower of Josephine Baker.” He created for himself a number of personae, such as: The Negress of the Bulacoché; Jamacy, the Queen of the Forest; the Shark; and the Wild Pussycat. Through the character of João Francisco, a son of ex-slaves, the film also celebrates the blossoming of a pulsating urban Afro-Brazilian culture that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the post-abolition years. This culture was forged as an expression of resistance in a society that had no use for black people after the abolition of slavery in 1888. Madame Satã not only evokes a fascinating real-life character, but also brings to life a crucial moment of the Afro-Brazilian diaspora.

Others we might see a little of are Quilombro, a historical saga of runaway slaves in the northeast in the 17th century, and The Boys from Brazil (soccer documentary), with longer clips of historic soccer games. 

We will also view the part of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's lecture Reflections and Lessons from a Decade of Social and Economic Reforms where he talks about social indicators in his second term.

Style in Brazil.  :go to NY Times Magazine Page. 

Here are some notes on Brazilian cuisine,mostly from Lonely Planet Brazil:  (The Cafe Brazil did a feijoada for us even though it was not a saturday.)

The basic Brazilian diet revolves around arroz (white rice) and feijão (black beans and farinha (manioc flour) .  It is possible to eat these every day and in some places it is hard not to.  The tasty black beans are typically cooked in bacon.  The white rice is often very starchy.  Manioc (cassava, mandioca in Portuguese) root the staple of the Indians, slaves and Portuguese for hundreds of years is a hardy root that grows everywhere.  It’s a bit of an acquired taste for some palates.  It often comes gently toasted and mixed with tiny bits of onion or bacon, under the name farofa.

From the rice-bean-flour core, meals go in one of three directions:  meat, chicken or fish.  One of these, plus maybe a bit of salad goes to make up the typical Brazilian meal.  Meat, chicken and fish are, well, cooked and that’s about it.  It’s generally good quality, but Brazilians don’t do much with it.  Steak, big and rare, is the national passion, the best cut is file.  Sausage is lingüiça.  Chicken is usually grilled, sometimes fried.  Fish is generally fried.

There are regional variations, the food from the state of Salvador (Bahia) is the most interesting with a lot of African flavorings and interesting fish stews.  Most expensive restaurants serve European food, "comida tipica Brasiliera" is served in buffet restaurants where you pay by the kilo.  The Cafe Brazil is that kind of restaurant, but with fewer dishes than you would find in a restaurant in a Brazilian shopping mall (where they compete with Italian restaurants and American fast food chains).  The "national dish," feijoada, is usually offered on Saturdays only and is a meat stew with rice and black beans.  It varies depending on what animal happens to be walking through the kitchen while the chefs are at work.  Orange peel, peppers and farofa accompany the stew.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - For the 14th year, the nation was in the grip of military juntas that held on to power with secret police,

attack dogs and torture. For the swelling underclasses, though, repression more often took the form of beggarly wages and a lack of worker rights.

By summer 1978, the laborers at a Volkswagen plant near Sao Paulo had had enough. They called an illegal strike that rallied 78,000 workers nationwide.

It was a watershed for Brazilian democracy - and for a quiet Franciscan who one day would be among the papabili, or leading prospects for pope.

The labor rebellion was too big, too hot, for the generals to quash by force. They instead asked Claudio Hummes - bishop of St. Andrea Diocese, home of the auto factory - to mediate.

At the talks, the generals' negotiators gestured for him to sit with them.

"I cannot sit with injustice," Hummes replied, and took his place among the strikers.

Across Latin America, it was an exhilarating, dangerous time for Roman Catholic clerics lifting the banner of "liberation theology," which held that the Gospels compelled them to take up an almost Marxian class struggle against oppression.

Hummes seemed destined to become a star of that man-the-barricades church, a figure standing defiant as junta choppers whirred at him during a stadium Mass for strikers.

But "Dom Claudio" didn't stay a radical liberationist for long.

Now 70, his hair thin and gray and his face dotted with age spots, Cardinal Hummes, archbishop of Sao Paulo, enters the conclave tomorrow variously labeled a theological conservative, a social progressive - and, in the eyes of some of his old liberationist cronies, a traitor.

In short, the cardinal thought to be one of the likeliest non-Europeans to ascend the papal throne defies categorization. And that could work in his favor inside the Sistine Chapel this week.

He is pledged to John Paul's stance against abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. In 2000, he spoke against a suggestion by Brazilian bishops that it might be morally acceptable for those with HIV/AIDS to use condoms, to contain the disease.

Yet he also advocates for Brazil's landless and for the cancellation of Third World debt. At a conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, he asked, "Does not today's terrorism have as one of its ingredients a revolt against an imposed poverty?"

"He is bright, pastoral, moderate in outlook, terrific on social justice issues, but with enough caution and common sense that he doesn't frighten or alienate people," said John Allen, Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter.

Hummes' personal prospects are rosier than those of Roman Catholicism in Brazil, and, indeed, throughout Latin America. For decades, the church has been losing members - a "very worrying" situation, he said in an interview with The Inquirer late last year at his gated villa in Sao Paulo.

"I am optimistic," he noted through a translator, "but I must also be realistic." And that reality, as he foresees it, is a "minority" church for Brazil - much like that in the United States, which is less than one-quarter Catholic.

The numbers do not argue against him.

In a 1970 census, 92 percent of Brazilians called themselves Catholic. In 1990, 84 percent did. In 2000, with the country's population at 170 million, 74 percent said they were Catholic. Of those, the Catholic Church estimated, 10 percent attend Sunday Mass.

Brazil's Catholics have been siphoned away by many of the same forces that have drained church membership elsewhere in Latin America.

One is rapid urbanization, which has turned eight of every 10 Brazilians into city dwellers.

Growing as fast as concrete sets, megalopolises such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero have drawn tens of millions, mostly poor and working-class, away from the rural interior and their traditions. On that journey, a small but increasing portion has shed institutional religion. In 2000, 7.5 percent of the population claimed no affiliation, almost doubling in a decade.

But the turbulence of suddenly modern life - be it in the destitute, crime-ridden shantytowns known as favelas, or in the endless ranges of office towers - has sent tens of millions of Brazilians into the embrace of high-intensity Protestant denominations, as well as African spiritist religions.

Far from endangered, Catholicism in Brazil was an unshakable monolith of 500 years' standing when Hummes - one of 15 children, the great-grandson of German immigrants - joined clerics consumed by the "liberation" of the underclasses.

That era, recalled with awe by activist Catholics, began in the mid-1960s, after a neofascist military junta seized the government. Galvanized by the Second Vatican Council's radical new constitution for the "Church as the People of God," liberal bishops became the fiercest force of opposition to the generals.

They found a friend in Pope Paul VI, who appointed progressive prelates across Latin America in the 1970s. When John Paul II came to power in 1978, however, he swiftly condemned liberation theology as a false "rereading" of the Gospels. He loathed communism; talk of class struggle smacked of Marxism.

It has never been clear whether the young Bishop Hummes developed a similar dislike of liberation theology, or wanted to curry the new pope's favor. What is clear is that he parted ways with the movement early in John Paul's pontificate - and enjoyed the Pope's favor.

Hummes was given the largest archdiocese in the southern hemisphere, Sao Paulo, in 1998 and made a cardinal in 2001. John Paul also named him to the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican's two most powerful offices - and invited him to give the 2002 Lenten lectures to the papal household.

The lectures are a chance for papabile cardinals to hint at what they think a pope should be. Hummes talked about less Vatican control over dioceses and a more "collegial" approach to decision-making.

That freedom from Rome's reins would allow Latin American clerics to remold the church, and possibly pull it out of its downward spiral. Catholic traditionalists may blanch, but among the ways Hummes hopes to do that in his own homeland is with high-emotion services modeled on Pentecostalism. The Catholic charismatic renewal movement already has attracted an estimated seven million adherents in Brazil alone.

In the Inquirer interview, Hummes spoke of the need to "inculturate" Catholicism with liturgies that speak to varied ethnic groups and cultures. Without that, he said, "the church's work is not complete."

Even remade, though, Brazilian Catholicism will move toward a "mission" form, Hummes predicts - smaller but stronger. Numbers, he said, will not matter as much as its followers' depth of devotion.

His vision is modeled on a mostly Protestant nation 5,000 miles north - a surprise perhaps to Catholics there who see fault lines in that foundation.

"In the United States, the church is a minority, but it is an important presence," Hummes said. "Its voice is heard."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact staff writer David O'Reilly at 215-854-5723 or doreilly@phillynews.com. 

April 14:  VIDEO:  A 17 minute Interview and 101 minutes of Reflections and Lessons from a Decade of Social and Economic Reforms at the World Bank, December 9, 2003.  We will listen to 15 minutes of the second video where FHC speaks about "Social Development as an Economic Growth Theory"

April 12:  Maria Garris and Stuart Ross's presentations.  Discussion of  Theories of Development
and Fernando Henrique Cardoso book.    World Bank on Trends in Poverty. 

April 7:     Wikipedia on Capoeira    Capoeira Videos   Capoeira.com 

2 complete shows at The  Kennedy Center -RealPlayer
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

Music Links from Maria Garris's presentation (from Amazon.com - they provide short illustrative clips):
Carmen Miranda  -  João Gilberto  - Gilberto Gil -  Samba -  Bossa Nova -  Tropicalia -

April 5.  Brazilian Art Powerpoint (in WEBCT).  Links:  Museu de arte Virtual.  Centro de Media Independente. 
Abstract Brazilian Art.  Brazilian Electronic Art.   Brazil:  Body and Soul at the Guggenheim.  Bitnik:  A journal for Modern Art.
Acervo da Pinacoteca Municipal Sao Paulo. 

April 1, 2005 = NY Times      Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

30 Killed on Rio Streets and Rogue Police Officers Are Implicated

By LARRY ROHTER

IO DE JANEIRO, April 1 - At least 30 people were killed in drive-by shootings in a pair of gritty, working class suburbs here late Thursday night and early today, in what local authorities described as perhaps the worst "bloodbath" in the history of this often-violent metropolis.

At a news conference here today, the secretary of public security for the state of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Itagiba, implied that the gunmen were military police officers angered by a recent campaign to crack down on police violence and corruption. Arrests of rogue officers may have incited others "who do not know how to use uniforms and badges" to take reprisals against the civilian population they are supposed to defend, Mr. Itagiba suggested.

"We have an operation to weed out bad cops," Mr. Itagiba added. "If this was the police, they will be the first ones to be exposed and unmasked, because they are not police officers, they are beasts."

Witnesses said victims of the shootings, including a 7-year-old child and teenagers, were mowed down by eight men in two cars. Some of the dead were shot as they stood outside a car wash, while others were killed in front of a bar, at a plaza called "Bible Square," as they were running towards a highway to seek safety, or simply walking down the street on an unseasonably warm autumn night.

Earlier this week, two men in the same area - one a convicted drug dealer - were abducted from a bar and killed, with the head of one of them then being thrown over a wall into a police station. According to local news accounts, surveillance video cameras showed eight men, seven in police uniforms, driving up to the station and dumping the bodies. On the basis of that information, eight military police officers were arrested on Wednesday.

Human rights groups in Brazil and abroad have long criticized police forces here for their violent behavior, including dozens of summary executions. In recent years, accusations that the police offer protection to, and take bribes from, the drug gangs that control Rio's slums have also proliferated.

Until Thursday's mass killing - which local news organizations immediately began calling a "slaughter" and "massacre" - the most notorious incident of violence here occurred in 1993. That was when 21 people were slain in a squatter slum, in what authorities later said was retaliation for the killing of a group of police officers reportedly involved in drug trafficking.

A few weeks earlier, gunmen sprayed bullets at 45 street children who were sleeping outside a downtown church here, killing eight of them. Military police officers were also accused of carrying out those killings, but three of the six charged were cleared by a jury more than a decade later.

The region where the shootings occurred, known as the Baixada Fluminense, is home to more than two million people and is known for its poverty and crime.

During the military dictatorship that controlled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, military and police death squads operated with impunity there, killing thieves and other petty criminals, sometimes at the behest of storeowners or security companies frustrated by the slow pace of the justice system.

April 5:  I received the following letter about an event for all Honors College students.  It doesn't say how long it will go, but we can start class once it is over:

The Transparency International Global Corruption Report contains the rankings of countries in a report by Johann Graff in the "Research I" file. 

O Globo Slideshows  and Specials.   Immigration to America. 

March 22: 
Today's News: Mother of a Fourth Soccer Player Kidnapped.

We will start with the movie Four Days in September which takes us back to 1969, a period in which the Zeitgeist was very different everywhere.  In fact the difference in the "climate of the times" may be greater than the difference between Brazil and the USA in this case. 

At the time, many people were quite certain that the "Third World" was rich because the "first world" was exploiting it.  Some people still argue this, as you can find in the book Latin America in Crisis by John W. Sherman:, a 2000 edition of a text widely used in Latin  American Studies courses.

"U.S. policies toward the Third World have revived the domestic economy and introduced an age of rising and sustainable standards of living, because they have fundamentally shaped a new economic order in which Americans live at the direct expense of the world's poor."  (pp. 183-184.  

"The primary reason why America's economic good times are sustainable is the near-endless supply of slave-like Third World labor."  (183)
The WTO and the GATT preserve the world's low-wage marketplace.
"That the rich of the world live at the expense of the poor should not surprise us."  (191)
 "It is true that Bill Gates - whose net worth is more than the entire GDP of Central America - gave $100 million to immunization program sin 1999.  But his wealth, like that of America's, is now largely gleaned from the sweat of the poor." (193)

"Latin America has entered an era of crisis without an end in sight…at least for the foreseeable future, there is no escape."  (173)

At that time, the big debate was between Modernization Theory and Dependency Theory, both of which are inadequate, but today Modernization Theory is in revival.  Here is a critique from a leftist who dislikes both, positing abandoning industrial society as the alternative:
Failure of Modernization and Dependency Theories.

March 10:  Midterm to be held in BSB 117 using WEBCT.

March 8:  We will finish up The Burning Season, and do some preparation for the test on Thursday.  A study guide is available. 

March 3:  Introductory PowerPoints from the Purdue University Writing Labs called  Finding Your Focus: The Writing Process   Organizing your Argument.  Lab class.  Getting all the hyperlink essays up on the WEB, using powerpoint, organizing a presentation, Practice Test test in WEBCT.

March 1:  We will see more of The Burning Season the Chico Mendes Story.  The events in this story are being replayed in the murder of Dorothy Strang which has led to a manhunt, troops being sent in, demonstrations throughout the country, and a move by the government to make the whole area a nature preserve.  Slide Show.  The killers have been arrested, although not the man who hired them.  They claim the mayor of Anapu, a PT member and supporter of Strang, was involved.  In this midst of this, an environmentalist, . Dionisio Ribeiro Filho, 59, was shot in a reserve near Rio de Janeiro.  Slide Show.  Arrests have also been made in this case.  Lula has made angry speeches, protesting that Brazil is not the wild west, people will not be able to cut down forests with impunity.  The problem is not a lack of legislation, it is a lack of effective enforcement.

Feb 24:  We will discuss afro-Brazilian religion, hear some more music and watch the last third of Black Orpheus. 
Music:    Dansa Brasileira by Camargo Guarnieri.  Track Seven on Homage to Arthur Rubenstein, Vol 1, Musical Heritage Society
               A Floresta do Amazonas by Heitor Villa-Lobos.  Selections from A Floresta do Amazonas CD.
    These are selected to show illustrate of Brazilian natural or folkloric themes in classical music.  This would be an example of a topical theme for a presentation on Villa Lobos or Brazilian classical music. 
           Future assignments:

1. Prepare a multi-slide presentation developing a thematic topic as well as a biographical one, e.g., The role of supermodels in Brazilian culture, corruption in the Brazilian economy, the image of the mulata in the writings of Jorge Amado, etc., Brazilian nationalism's roots in the Vargas era.  This can be done either in power point or in html.
2. A magazine article developing the same theme, suitable for publication in Brazzil magazine.  These should be 750 to 1000 words.

Feb 22:  We had presentations on Carmen Miranda, Laurindo Almeida, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Heitor Villa Lobos.  Two of these are already available through the Student Web Pages site, they all should be after March 3. 

Feb 17:  We had several presentations of Hyperlink Essays.  These will be available on WEBCT.  News:  Brazil Launches Manhunt for Nun's Killer.  Brazil sets aside vast Amazon reserve. 

Feb 15:  Our discussion will focus on economic development in the context of Brazilian crony capitalism.  Everyone should read "The Political Economy of Crony Capitalism."     The first few pages of "Sustaining Economic Performance under Political Instability" are also useful, although they refer empirically to Mexico, they help to explain why crony capitalism has coincided with periods of rapid economic growth in Brazil.  We'll start with the presentations of Getulio Vargas, Luis Carlos Prestes and Fernando Collor de Melo.

News:  American Nun Killed in Brazil.  Industrial Growth Accelerates.  Illegal gambling at Carnival.  Supermodel Naomi Campbell at Carnival.  Carnival Video. 

Feb 10:
Comments on outlines for Hyperlink Essays:  don't try to do too much, focus on a few key points.  If you get three points across, it is a lot.  For our purposes, I'm most interested if you use your person to illustrate something about Brazilian culture or society.  Why is this person important?  What is specifically Brazilian about them?

 Meet in BSB 117  to work on creating personal WEB pages.  I will create a class home page, similar to the one for my Communications class last semester, and you will create WEB pages similar to the ones those students did.   Instructions are available online.  We can use the old instructions for publishing with Netscape (or Mozila) Composer instead of using Webdrive.   It is important to PUBLISH materials to your WEB directory (using ftp or Webdrive or the publish button on Composer) rather than just saving there from the lab.  If you save them, it sets the permissions wrong, in which case you can go to the reset permissions page.   I will be taking digital photos today.  If you can email me a digital photo, or bring in a print, I can use your photo instead of the one I take. 

Here are some definitions and pointers that should be clear at the start.

html is a file format used on the World Wide Web.  It is a markup language with codes in <angle brackets> that tell a browser how to display the file.  You can see the codes on any html file by clicking on "view" and "page source".  If you get serious about html programming, you learn the codes and how to put them in yourself.   For most purposes, however it is more efficient and certainly easier to use a word processor that knows how to insert these codes.  Mozilla Composer, Microsoft Frontpage, and Macromedia Dreamweaver are software programs designed to do this.  You can also use a standard Word Processor such as Wordperfect or Microsoft Word, as long as you tell it to save the files in html or "web page" format.  This means that you can easily convert files written in Word into html, but you lose some of the formatting.  html files have the file suffix *.html or *.htm (but it is best not to use the three letter version).

a web site is a folder on a server, a computer set up to host web sites.  The server we are using is clam, its address is clam.rutgers.edu.  Your web site folder is probably labeled public_html.  You can have as many files in this folder as you wish.

a home page is one of the files in your web site folder.  It is the file people go to first and it serves to introduce you and to provide links to the other files on your site and elsewhere.  It must have the file name index.html   Do not give it any other name, such as MyWebPage.html or Whatever.html.  The server software is set up to take people to the index.html file

Your working copy folder is where you store the materials you have prepared for your WEB site.  It also serves as a backup for your materials. This includes text files in html format, graphics files in jpg or other formats, and also music and video files.  When working in the lab, you can use the  htmlworkingcopy on your h drive as your working copy folder, or on a file on your hard disk at home, or even on a floppy disk or flash drive or zip drive.  It is important to keep all the materials for your WEB site in one file, especially when you have photographs that you want to appear on your page.  Otherwise the codes get messed up and the photos don't come up.

To publish materials on your WEB site, you must place them there with a file transfer program, such as WSFTP, or Webdrive.  The computer center hopes to require everyone to use Webdrive because it has higher security.  However, they still allow FTP, which is easier, so that is what I recommend.  FTP is build into Mozilla Composer, so you can just click on the "publish" button in Composer, enter the proper information, and publish your files.  The information on how to do this is available online.  This works exactly the same from home as from Rutgers.

A common mistake when working on campus (you can't do this from home) is to save material to your public_html directory (instead of publishing it).  If you do this, the material will be there, and you can see it, but no one else can because the save utility resets the security settings on the file.  If this happens, anyone trying to view your file will get a "forbidden" message.  If you have this problem, you can go to the the reset permissions and reset  your permissions.


For this class, you should create a home page which will have your name, your picture (when you get it) and a link to your hyperlink essay.  The hyperlink essay is a separate file from your home page, with any name you like, such as BrazilEssay.html.  Thus, your directory will contain two html files:  index.html  and BrazilEssay.html.  Later, it will also include at least one graphics file, the one with your photo.



Feb 8:  Documentary "Notes from a Personal War:" is on the DVD for City of God.  We will discuss the outlines for the Hyperlink Essays and talk about writing.  Two Power Points on this may be useful: Finding Your Focus: The Writing Process   Organizing your Argument.

February 3:  Meet in BSB 117 Computer Lab

February 1.  The Brazilian Class Structure, described in the State Department Country Study.  Is Brazil's middle class shrinking?  The Brazilians divided the classes into "The Haves" and the "Have Nots," a duality reminiscent of the Communist Manifesto, but in reality it is more a matter of "have mores" and "have less".  We often talk about "social stratification" instead of "social classes".  In Marx, ownership of the means of production is the key determinant of class, but Max Weber pointed out that control of the means of administration (government) or of coercion (military) can also be potent. Joseph Page stresses control of the state as a factor that reinforces the privileges of the "haves".   Ideological hegemony can also reinforce class rule, as the author argues in the the chapter on O Globo.  Class is also a matter of neighborhood and community, especially for young people.  Class values are transmitted through schools and communities.

People typically sort society into classes such as the following: 

Upper Class -  lives off of wealth, not work.  Can be divided into Old Wealth and Nouveau Riche.  But where do computer entrepreneurs go?

Middle Class -  Generally with a college education.  Have a career rather than a job.  White Collar.  Can be subdivided e.g., upper middle, lower middle, or professional-managerial class.  Small business, family farmers...

Working Class -  Have a job, hourly pay, more likely to do manual labor or service work.  Unionization can be very important.  Divided into craftsmen, skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled.  Farm labor may go here.

Lower Class, lumpenproletariat, welfare recipients, homeless, etc.

Here is a Brazilian version of this:   Another from a market research firm. 

How does this picture differ between Brazil and the US? 

The upper classes today are the most global, much the same in both countries.

Brazil has a sharper line between white collar and blue collar.  Middle class people have servants.  Big split between "formal" and "informal" economy.  The upper class is more statist in ideology, corruption is much more prevalent, the state is expected to take the lead in economic development (Vargas).  Page attributes this to the system of captaincies established by the Portuguese - political rule is a source of wealth.  He does mention the middle class on p 127

Immigrant entrepreneurs perhaps more important in Brazil.  Francisco Matarazo and Jose Emirio as an example.  Italian entrepreneurs very important in Sao Paulo.  Roberto Campos tried to wean the Brazilian elite from dependence on the state:  FHC did much the same with privatization, but the PT has more of a statist tradition.  Delfin Netto, author of the "Brazilian Miracle" under the military regime.  Financed by inflation which got out of control and borrowing petrodollars, crashed after the oil crisis of 1973.  Paulo Salim Maluf, upper class politician - he steals but he gets things done...
At the end of the chapter Page portrays Lula as the candidate of the "have nots" and FHC as the candidate of the "haves".  Is this a fair comparison based on what we know now??

Chapter 6:  controlling Brazilian Minds.  Does the Media control our minds?  The "liberal" media or the "corporate" media.  Or does that just mean people don't agree with whomever is making the comparison.  A web site on  "O Globo". Started by a wealthy family, as was the NY Times by the Sulzbergers.  O Globo has an "ultraconservative" line and controls a lot of TV.  They built the first big TV network, were strong supporters of the military regime.  Relied on the private sector for finance.  Supported Tancredo Neves from the opposition.

Chapter 7:  the have-nots.  Favelas, Rocinha vs. luxury neighborhoods such as  São Conrado, adjacent to each other in Rio.  Increasingly controlled by drug gangs, sometimes making open threats against shopkeepers, the police.  One can argue that the root cause in land distribution, forced off the land.  Rural workers migrate to the cities.  Povertyin the Northeast, related to drought.  Downtown Recife abandoned to ambulantes.  This is not true any more, it is now a tourist center. 

Chapter 8:  Lula and the Workers Party speak for the voiceless.  Suppression of the CP by Vargas.  But he did build industry, which created the conditions for workers mobilization.  After the 64 coup, further repression of labor.  But the 70s had rapid economic growth, especially in SP.  Lula born in Garanhuns, Pernambuco.  Moved on an open truck to Sao Paulo with his mother.  Started as a vendor, but got training in lathe mechanics and became a lathe operator and union organizer. Ran for governor in 1982 and got only 10%. The workers party is based on auto and steel workers in the industrial suburbs of SP, more the labor aristocracy than the lumpenproletariat.  Lost presidency to Collor and FHC, but won in 2002.  The PT just lost the mayorship of Sao Paulo.  Power Point on Lula is available in WEBCT.   Review of Lula:  O Filho do Brasil by Denise Parana in Brazzil magazine. - hyperlink essay version.   Other things in Brazzil magazine:  Giselle.  Underage Models.  Carmen Miranda bio.  On The Trail of Antonio Carlos Jobim.  Ronaldinho Superstar  
January 27.  We discussed Brazil's geography and five main regions.  The power point for this discussion is on WEBCT page.  We saw a promotional tourist video from the http://www.braziltourism.org/ site and the first part of the video The
Burning Season:  The Chico Mendes Story. 

January 25:  Although the "Brazil and the USA" pamphlet ended with "And finally, citizens of both Brazil and the US fervently believe they live in the best country on earth," the introduction to The Brazilians begins on a negative note.  Death squads are killing off street children, the rain forest is being decimated, and many Brazilians are saying that the best way out for Brazilians is the airport.  Everyone in Brazil knows the saying "Brazil is the country of the future - and always will be."  Brazil seems exotic, but appearances are deceprive.  Capoeira is Angolan foot fighting disguised as a dance...

 
Here are some links to things in the introduction to The Brazilians:
Favelas   -  Globo News -  Black Orpheus (we will see clips) -   City of God, a movie about crime in a favela in Rio.  -  Racial categories in Brazil -  Brazil to go to G7 -=
 

January 20:  We will discuss the similarities and differences between Brazil and the US, as discussed in the Brazil and the USA pamphlet and in the introduction to The Brazilians.   For a statistical comparison, go to the CIA World Factbook.
Here are some of my observations:
-  both are settler nations
  -  both had relatively dispersed "hunting and gathering" native populations, although some archeological evidence questions this for the Amazon region
- both relied on the African slave trade for plantation labor, although Brazil resembles the US south more than the north in this respect.
 - Brazil remained primarily an agrarian country until the 1930s, the US industrialized much earlier (why?)
-  Brazil abolished slavery gradually without a civil war
 - Geographically, much of Brazil resembles the high plains country of the midwest, although it also has the Amazon basin.  No major mountains in Brazil.  The size of the countries is similar.
Both had significant immigration in the 1920s and 1930s, much of the economic vitality of the Sao Paulo region comes from immigrants.
Brazil is primarily Catholic, the US predominately Protestant.  Implications.  US has separation of Church and State, Brazil only since 1889 proclamation of the Republic
Portuguese heritage vs English heritage
Failure of the revolution against Portugal (Tiradentes) vs success in the US. 
Low military spending and involvement in warfare, other than the war with Paraguay in 1865-70.
Brazil is much poorer, much more inequality.
Crime and violence in urban areas is much worse in Brazil.
Brazil has a history of political instability and military intervention in politics...

January 18:  After going over the syllabus we viewed two Powerpoint presentations, one comparing South American countries and the other highlighting some "Eminent Brazilians" (available in WEBCT( that would be good topics for class presentations.  We watched the first 16 minutes of Central Station (Central do Brasil) a 1998 movie.  Some WEB sites that comment on this movie are IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Yahoo Movies. 

If you would like to try your hand at reading Portugues, here is a comment by a Brazilian viewer:

Os filme brasileiros sempre tentando a mesma formula para conseguir ou tentar fazer um filme interessante ,mas o central do brasil fica devendo muito conforme o esperado ,não chega nem a ser um bom filme ,mas sim um filme muito regular que deixa muito a desejar.
Os brasileiros sempre usando essa imagem suja ,um som muito ruin ,não entendo a interpretações da montenegro foi igual a das atrizes globais ,mas não tirando o seu merito ,acho que o cinema nacional tem muito a melhorar ,para varias o filme conta com uma otima fotografia ,acho que o ponto alto do cinema nacional é a fotografia ,pois geralmente os filmes nacionais sempre contam com uma boa fotografia .
Central do brasil começa com um menino perdendo a mãe que é atropelada ,e nisso ele precisa achar seu pai ,e para isso ele vai conatar com a ajuda de uma mulher que fica escrevendo cartas por 1 real em uma ferroviaria(não sei se ferroviaria é o neoma mais apropriado) ,até ai o filme até qie ia bem ,mas depois disso cai em um ritmo frenetico e chato com uma trilha sonora que não segura ,o filme fica monotono ,mas o ponto alto do filme foi conseguir demonstrar o amor que a mulher acabou pegando pelo garoto ,mas é só ,o filme é regular ,mas pelo menos abriu as portas para o cinema nacional que começou a produzir muito mais depois do grande sussesso que foi esse filme.......mas espero que da proxima vez os dirotores os produtores tentem fazer algo novo ,fugir dessa formula antiga do cinema nacional ,que ainda tem muito a evoluir ...........espero!