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January 29, 2009
Portogallo
or an exercise in frivolous commentary on what's going on in the little rectangle by the sea as seen from the living room sofa. C reads the Portuguese headlines, the American R comments.
(published on the Guardian on the day after the 1974 revolution)
C: The teachers are on strike again.
R: Why?
C: They don't want to be evaluated and don't want their career progression to depend on the evaluation.
R: Are they all incompetent?
***
C: So, this sociologist says that only peasants would care to think of a personal achievement like Cristiano Ronaldo being elected best football player in the world as something that a country could be proud of and claim responsibility for. And that the silly optimists in the government are trying to use it to make people believe Portugal is better than they think.
R: Hasn't he heard of role models? Of an enabling environment? Of self confidence being the key to achieve stuff? You people need to be less hard on yourselves.
C: Well, he says that there are more important achievements like the lowering of the child mortality rate.
R: Yeah, the crowds go wild when you throw data at them.
***
C: The Portuguese are the most pessimistic in Europe about the economy.
R: About everything... you people need to relax.
***
Watching the Pt news online on Inauguration day. Supposedly, a happy day as seen from the heights of American optimism. Wrong.
R: Why are they spending so much time on Ted Kennedy?
C: They're saying his seizures at the luncheon ruined the whole day.
R: What?? The images we're watching right now of Obama and his wife smiling and shaking hands with the people are from after that happened. Do they look like their day was ruined to you?
C: Anyway.
The anchor addresses the american correspondent and asks him if the americans were disappointed at the speech.
R: What?? That's the first thing she asks? Why would they be disappointed? What the hell? You people are so negative.
Fast forward to "reactions from other heads of state to the inauguration". Somehow, the conclusion of the segment lingers gloomily on Putin's "From great expectations come great disappointments".
R: That's it. I'm not watching this crap anymore. I'm pretty sure the show ends with someone singing a weepy fado.
***
C: Ooops. There's a possibility the current PM got a 4 million euro bribe years ago when he was the Minister for the Environment...
R: Who's investigating it?
C: What do you mean? The Police, the DA...
R: Oh, so he doesn't control them?
C: My country isn't a banana republic!
R: Well, you started out the conversation by saying your PM might be corrupt...
C ignores him.
Posted by claudia
Comments
Posted by eddy at January 29, 2009 09:13 PM
Posted by Claudia at February 2, 2009 08:48 PM