TEASING COVID

 

An increasing number of friends and relatives have caught Covid-19, fortunately for them, the Omicron variant.  Elderly, but vaccinated and boosted, they reported flu-like symptoms for less than a week and have recovered quickly.  The vaccine seems to offer an acceptable protection and as a result Covid Omicron no longer looks so scary and disruptive.  There is a new narrative in the media and government circles, that we will all get contaminated with the milder version (possibly several times!), so get on with our life.  Some of my friends agree and are becoming fatalist.  They consider relaxing social distancing to reclaim the old normal and our pre-pandemic routine.  In my building, many have decided that Omicron was no longer a big deal and they show their new found confidence by riding mask-less in the elevator in spite of the rules. 

Actually, even for those ready to take risks to nag Omicron, restrictions still exist.  Even if no one enforces them in our building, the mandatory indoors use of masks is well respected in Rio.  In addition, many areas are off limits to non-vaccinated folks, therefore less tempting for the virus.  However, after two years of social distancing, this change of course looks for many like taking risks and, for me in particular, the stakes are still high.  Covid is playing like a lottery, its symptoms range from lethal to mild, therefore we should try to improve our odds of success, not the contrary.

If I were to catch Omicron, I would rather catch it flying to New York City or Paris than riding our elevators.  To reduce Covid exposure in our confined elevators, I have upgraded my protection level: I wear a N95 face mask and manage to hold my breath during 10 floors!  Last December, I took risks and broke my Covid purdah to travel to New York City and to France.  I stood in many airport lines and boarded packed planes.  I still have not caught the virus.  I am proud to be (still) among the hold outs and although it may seem inevitable, I will try to minimize my exposure to Omicron during the next few weeks. 

I was sort of apprehensive to fly American Airlines to New York City because many American passengers like to tussle with the crew and refuse to wear a mask, a federal requirement, forcing the flights to turn back.  Fortunately, the majority of my fellow passengers were Brazilians for whom wearing a mask is an anti-Bolsonaro badge of honor! In New York, like in France, my visit coincided with an Omicron surge.  My last Manhattan visit was in November 2019 and I was eager to catch up with my friends, go shopping and enjoy the surviving culture.  

Jam-packed planes give a false impression of business as usual but the JFK terminal was rather idle and the huge luggage area was eerily empty.  Only one conveyor was working and my luggage came very quickly.  Slow business and Uber competition have not improved the yellow cabs’ ways.  It seems that the opposite happened! I was expecting a rude cabby but not a lazy one who refused to get off his seat to help me load my bag in the trunk.  He had no JPS and didn’t know where my Midtown hotel was located.  During the ride, he kept asking for the address.  When I got off, I told him that I was keeping the tip for myself, he didn’t even grumble.  A friend claims he was an accidental driver, replacing a cabby probably on sick leave with Omicron.

Tipping, in restaurants in particular has always been my pet peeve in Manhattan; tipping is a cultural thing which differentiates Americans from the more equalitarian Europeans and Asians.  Now the tip rate is 20 to 25% on top of the meal and during the pandemic grateful New Yorkers tipped even more generously.  I did some research on the origin of tipping in the U.S.  Many academics believes that it results from the history of racial inequality (handout given to Black people).  Even my Starbuck bill for a take-away cup of tea had a box for a tip! Tips have lost their purpose.  It is no longer a reward for good service, but a salary supplement for poorly paid employees.  Since tipping can be added on the credit card charge, it looks like an additional tax for non-American like me.     

Actually, I am not a total cheapskate.  I nicely tipped a waiter for his additional legwork: as result of Covid, many restaurants have been allowed to colonize the streets and sidewalks.  Restaurants have built fancy curbside dining sheds with overhead heating and comfy sitting.  Omicron may be milder on its vaccinated victims, but catching it is no option when your travel depends on a negative PCR test.  For this reason, I avoided eating indoors and friends and I selected al fresco dining sheds.  Outdoors’s dining takes a totally different meaning in Manhattan!  Covid gone, I wonder if the shed fad will endure. 

Department stores were busy, but I noted no pre-holiday pandemonium and except for mask wearing and bottles of sanitizer, specific Covid restrictions were not in evidence.  My comfort zone was either strolling along 5th Avenue, which was not as crowded as usual or visiting museums.  

The shortest route from Rio to the south of France is through Amsterdam.  During the Xmas holiday, Amsterdam was in lockdown.  Dutch-type lockdowns are nonsensical by world standards: gyms and tattoo parlors are open but museums are closed!  Schiphol airport was in a semi-lockdown.  Hurried and frustrated passengers were mulling around shuttered cafes and semi-shut stores.  Customers were not allowed inside and goodies had to be ordered from the entrance.  I managed to buy some aged Gouda cheese by queuing (no social distancing) in front of the shop and the shop attendant picked up the cheese for me.

France was also in the grip of an Omicron wave, but in the village of Calvisson nobody noticed.  I spent two weeks visiting friends en petits comités, enjoying apéritifs al fresco, taking long walks in the garrique (Mediterranean scrubland) and visiting outdoors exhibitions.  In Rio, all my friends are vaccinated, but in tiny Calvisson I know two people who refused the jab.  One is my swimming pool handyman, vaccine-hesitant until he got infected with the virus.  He is now scheduled for his delayed first shot.  The other is a neighbor, a wholehearted anti-vaxxer.  Since, I believe in good rapport with neighbors, I met him at arm-length in the parking lot.  I am obviously deaf to his many arguments and since we avoid talking about the pandemic our chats were refreshingly wide-ranging. 

Carnival has been postponed, so no need to escape the city and tease Covid.

 

 

 

. 

 

 

THE JANUARY CALENDAR BOYS

There are three of them: Eike Batista of Brazil, François Fillon of France and of course Donald Trump for the whole world. At first sight, they don’t look like hot calendar guys as they are all past middle age. Physically, they could not be more different. Batista (known as Eike in Brazil) dons a shaved skull; Fillon proudly displays bushy eyebrows and the Donald’s inscrutable comb over hairdo now has a life of its own.

The three come from worlds apart, but scratching the surface one can find many common traits among them. They have oversized egos, yearn for recognition and display obsessive self-aggrandizement bordering on fantasy. They see themselves on a messianic mission to restore their respective nation’s pride. They share the same foes: media and judges. They blame the first for disclosing their shortcomings or too closely scrutinizing their business, and the second for blocking their whims and pet projects. This love-hate relationship with the traditional media stems from being both media creations and media targets. Lastly, they believe that their big shot status gives them divine rights to be above the law and to act like modern carpetbaggers.

They run their large families like small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in a very paternalistic fashion. They like their wives sexy, exotic and immigrants; they dote on them for looking pretty and keeping their mouths shut. Machismo is their common trait, either bourgeois patriarchy or nouveau riche crude misogyny. Their brood is less docile and far less discreet, happy to splash daddy’s money or benefits from his social and political privileges. They live in mansions, ostentatiously or discreetly.

Coincidentally, they all believe that they can deal with President Putin of Russia.

Eike Batista (60) may not be a household name outside Brazil, but he is a favorite of business magazines. His, is a riches to rags story. He is the brash and flamboyant guy who lost US$ 34.5 billion in 2013 when his mostly oil conglomerate went burst. He makes the Guinness book of record for suffering the largest and quickest corporate collapse of all time. A year before, according to Forbes magazine, he was the seventh richest man in the world and the richest Brazilian with a lavish lifestyle to match. He liked to be photographed with his Lamborghini and Porsche parked in his living room. In January, he flew to New York City, allegedly to avoid arrest but decided to return. Now, his hair shaved courtesy of the jail barber, he is sharing a cell with common criminals in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. He stands accused of paying US$ 16.5 million in bribes to a former governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, who is also in jail. For good measure, he is also charged with money laundering and insider trading. His cozy relationship with corrupt politicians explains his meteoric rise and abysmal fall. Nonetheless, he blames his incompetent directors for the collapse of his empire.

Eike vows to make a comeback, no longer peddling speculative oil deals but promoting instead a generic version of Viagra, a tooth paste to regenerate enamel and a miraculous capillary treatment for which he will be the perfect poster boy.
 
François Fillon (62) needs help but not from miraculous capillary treatment. Actually, some female journalists got under his skin by implying that he needed epilation. Fillon is a professional politician continuously elected since age of 26. In November 2016, unexpectedly and by an impressive margin, he won the primaries of the center right party, Les Républicains. His Trumpism “light” and his aura of integrity carried him to victory over his opponents. He became the blue-eyed boy of the media and his path to the French presidency seemed assured, until his Mr. Clean image was shattered by disclosures made by the nosy satirical weekly newspaper, le Canard enchainé[1]. The Canard claimed that Fillon had paid his British-born wife Penelope and two of his kids with parliament funds to do no measureable work. An under-the-radar-political wife, Penelope lived in the family’s 12th century chateau in the countryside and received close to a million euros in salary for two decades.

The hiring of family members to provide MP assistance is legal in France, but increasingly controversial. To be paid at taxpayers’ expense for doing no work is still illegal in France!
A financial prosecutor is investigating and the scandal is a boon to the media. With his poll figures nosediving, candidate Fillon has become an embarrassment to his party. He intends to fight on, and repeatedly blames lynching by the media lynching for his falling from grace. He also denunciates the judicial investigation as politically motivated. Fillon’s defense is seen out of sync with the current French mood; people have no tolerance with nepotism and the impudent use of the parliament budget for family benefit. Populist movements consistently blame the privileged political elite for all the country’s problems.

Finally, Donald Trump (70), America’s 45^th president is the oversized January calendar boy. An obsessive twitter, he is every day on the front page of the world’s news media. If Twitter is the Trumpism mouthpiece, the White House is morphing into a Kardashian-type casino where everything is for sale or negotiable. America continues to be controlled by a perverse and hypocrite moneyed elite. Wikibea-carioca is too unassuming to compete for hype, hysteria and alternative facts. Eike crashed, Fillon is crashing and Trump? Stay tuned.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

---

[1] “Canard” means duck in French or newspaper in slang. “Enchainé” means chained up. The satirical newspaper is left leaning, but has disclosed scandals affected both right and left wing politicians.

Brazil is not for beginners

 
The phrase is attributed to bossa nova singer and composer Tom Jobim. It implies that the country is not only soccer, samba and beaches which his famous song A Garota de Ipanema (The Girl From Ipanema) is about. Brazil is intrigues, dramas and also fascination.

In Brazil, the year started with a real carnage, a drug related carnage in several of the country’s hellish jails. Some 100 inmates may have lost their lives in atrocious conditions. Scores of headless bodies were dumped over the prison walls and body parts are still to be collected. Riots are common in overcrowded jails, but this year they spread out of control and were particularly gruesome. As long as gang wars take place within prison walls, Brazilians are not very concerned: a dead gang member is better than a live one, goes the saying. Gang factions are fighting over supply and territory.
                                                      


Corruption and neglect have resulted in the government’s loss of control in several jails which are de facto run by the gangs themselves. They recruit members among the new comers, and run their business from the relative tranquility of their cells. Petty delinquents commonly wait for their trials in jail; conscripted into gangs, expandable, many die before having their day in court. Brazilians are certainly ashamed, but there is no sympathy for the reason that 15 policemen have been killed by gangs since the beginning of the year in Rio. I am honestly shocked by the situation, but since the government is powerless to regain full control, I think some drug use should be decriminalized.

If 2016 was the year of the zica virus, 2017 may be the year of yellow fever. So far, 32 people and scores of monkeys have died in the state of Minas Gerais. Again, the culprit is Aedes aegypti, a multi-task mosquito which spreads nuisances such as dengue, chikungunya and zica. Aedes is an old resident of Brazil; originally from Africa it came on board the ships bringing slaves in the 16^th century. Fortunately, a vaccine exists against yellow fever and recent research indicates that it is good for ever with no need for a booster every 10 years. Carnival revelers should not worry, as long as Aedes does not get out of control, the World Health Organization will not issue a travel warning to Brazil.

One thing is sure, no one will be bitten by mosquitoes sitting in the Maracanā stadium because it is locked up. The iconic soccer stadium has fallen in a state of abandonment, “the broken legacy of the World Cup and the Olympic Games”[1]. Maracanā is the collateral victim of a tug of war between the bankrupt state of Rio de Janeiro and the management company embroiled in the Petrobras corruption scandal.

This year carnival revelers won’t be able to enjoy the chic B&Bs and trendy restaurants which had cropped up in Rio’s hillside favelas. With gang wars resuming in previously pacified favelas, business crumbled and several have closed down. This year again, the hedonistic carnival season will be less than exuberant as the recession lingers.

The once seventh-richest-man in the world (2012, Forbes), Elke Batista is now an Interpol fugitive. After losing his multibillion-dollar fortune, he is wanted for allegedly paying US$ 16 million in bribes to the jailed former governor of Rio de Janeiro. According to several tabloids, Batista has taken residence in a Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan.
                                                    

                                                              
Happier times: Elke Batista and Sergio Cabral, former governor of Rio

In spite of the gloomy situation, it is fascinating to watch Brazilian reveling; as the Guardian newspaper wrote[2] “austerity does not come naturally to Brazilians.” Brazil has become a cliché. In the 30s, Viennese-born novelist Stephen Zweig described Brazil as the land of the future; naysayers think it always will be. In the 60s, a grumpy General de Gaulle claimed that Brazil was not a serious country. Brazilians do not care as they believe the local proverb that God is Brazilian. For me, Brazil is the land of soap opera, spirited with farfetched twist and turns and happy endings.

---

[1] The Sun. January 10, 2017.
[2] January 12, 2012.

2017: Fasten Your Seat Belt

 
This is my last blog of 2016, the 14^th of the year. My blogs are written to entertain my friends and stimulate my intellect. Conveniently, inspiration comes a little more than once a month. I like to share attention-grabbing tidbits, and endeavor to give a new spin to better known facts and information. My blog’s topics are eclectic at best, but Brazil, my primary residence is a bottomless source of inspiration. Blogging is an unpretentious therapeutic exercise started six years ago out of boredom and curiosity. Sadly, my blog mentor has passed away, but I like to think that I continue blogging as a tribute to his memory. Blogging is first and foremost a vehicle to stay in touch with my friends.
My blogs are dispatched to some 30 friends and acquaintances. I have no way of knowing if they are read and . I obviously appreciate receiving comments. Most are posted anonymously, and keep me guessing. At the same time, I understand that the innocuousness of some of the blogs doesn’t deserve any reaction from my busy friends.
In Brazil, 2016 is ending the way it started, enmeshed in the jumbo Lava Jato (car wash) corruption scandal. Car Wash is the most stimulating and probably the longest Brazilian telenovela (soap opera). But contrary to soap operas, Car Wash gets better as it progresses. Since I wrote the Tropical Marie Antoinette blog in November, two Marie Antoinette reincarnations are now in jail: Sergio Cabral, the former governor of Rio de Janeiro and his jewel-obsessed wife. For good measure, another ex-governor of Rio de Janeiro was also dispatched to jail: he stands accused of vote buying.
Brazilian male prostitutes are world famous. The highest concentration of them is found in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital where congressmen and senators have been falling over themselves to trade their favors to the highest bidder, mainly construction companies. Odebretch, Latin America largest construction conglomerate not only bribed politicians to win contracts but it paid lawmakers from all sides of the aisle to pass legislations favoring the company’s interests. The kick-back money (US$ 599 million according to the investigation) was mainly used to illicitly finance their election campaigns and occasionally line their pockets. Michel Temer, Brazil unpopular substitute president (after Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment), is also on Odebretch’s beneficiary list.
All the juicy tidbits came out in the wash, namely through the hundreds of testimonies for plea bargains tycoons and executives have signed. Bribing was so institutionalized that Odebretch set up a special division to handle it. It is estimated that during the last decade, the company paid US$ 30 million in bribes to Petrobras executives, the state-owned oil company at the center of the Lava Jato probe. Lawmakers received even more. For expediency sake, Odebretch purchased a bank in a fiscal heaven solely dedicated to its money laundering activities. Brazilian conglomerates exported their bribery expertise to Latin America and Africa. This business extension was allegedly orchestrated by former president Lula da Silva.
Schell shocked by the result of the American presidential election, I wrote a short blog titled The Fox In The Chicken Coop. As I suggested, Donald Trump has selected men (mostly rich men) to head departments they wanted to dismantle in their previous lives. The president-elect could just as well have selected thieves as bank tellers! I also hinted that Trump will run the White House like a casino. He regards himself as deal-maker-in-chief; his cabinet picks have a combined wealth of US$ 14.5 billion (WSJ), more a Fortune 500 club than a cabinet. A Trump administration will certainly expose clashes of egos, expect some rough and tumble like his real estate business. For a start, autocrat Putin who openly bet on Trump and helped him win may soon ask for a pay back. As the bloodshed in Syria indicates, Putin takes no prisoner and the bromance may end before it starts. I have no crystal ball, and your guess is as good as mine, so fasten your seat belts. The world is probably in for a rough ride.
                                                  
I don’t mean to be a party pooper, so enjoy the holidays, and start the New Year with optimism. I plan to keep blogging and promise to write shorter blogs. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friend Caryl who, during all these years, has had the patience to edit my writing, even when the subject was of no interest to her or she did not agree with my comments. The red pencil has been replaced by computer track change: however new editing technology does not make the exercise less time-consuming.
Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all.
P.S. Cartoon freely copied from O Globo newspaper.

A yellow hair fox in the chicken coop

 

America has done the unthinkable, electing a man who may run the White House like a casino. Hillary Clinton was the common sense candidate, but democracy is not a logical game. Shell shocked, the media carried out an exhaustive soul searching to explain the cause of this unexpected and against nature election and figure out why their projections were so wrong. Let bygones be bygones. At 70, Donald Trump will become the 45^th and oldest president of the United States[1]. He is also the strangest and most oddball of the lot, even by US presidents’ standards.

Trump was elected because a sizeable segment of the American people, mostly living in the flyover states is fed up with the Washington establishment, which is regarded as out of touch, uncaring, and doing nothing for them. In other words, being a political novice was Trump’s comparative advantage. Ironically, to compensate for his lack of political savoir-faire, Trump is now busy recruiting a team of Washington insiders.

If Trump is not the first oddball to move into the White House, he is first real estate tycoon and billionaire to do so. As a brash, ostentatious and tasteless billionaire, one wonders whether he and his extended family will enjoy the quaint coziness of their new abode.

At this stage, only a fortune teller with a crystal ball can tell what the future holds for America and the world. For clues, one can look at some former unconventional American presidents and consider experiences from other countries which were once run by billionaires.

The Trump election brings to mind the case of John Tyler, the 10^th American president better known as His Accidency. Unaligned with any political party, his moving into the White House was an accident of sort due to the death of the incumbent, William Harrison after only one month. Lawmakers wanted a new election. Historians consider him in low esteem and his legacy insignificant. He is mainly remembered for escaping an impeachment and having a veto overridden; the first overridden veto of any American president. His claims to fame are his 15 children and the annexation of Texas in 1845. Ironically, His Accidency is responsible for the first Latino migration into America.

Warren Harding is also seen as one of the worse US presidents. Before entering politics at his wife’s urging, the 29^th US president was a wealthy newspaper publisher. The Republican candidate won the election in a landslide promising to roll back the progressive legislations of his predecessor; he favored pro-business policies and a limit to immigration. He launched a tax cut program which benefitted the richest segment of the population, and imposed protective tariffs on imports. His presidency was tainted by corruption in his cabinet and by his extramarital affairs. He was a consummate poker player and in one night lost the White House china set. His presidency (1921-23) was cut short by a fatal heart attack.

Chile, Italy and Ukraine have experience in billionaire leaders.

Chile elected Sebastián Piñera (net worth US$ 2.5bn, 2016) in 2010 for a four year term. Piñera comes from a patrician family and Huayna Capac, the last Inca emperor, is one of his ancestors. The soccer club, airline and television tycoon made his fortune in the credit card business. Before taking office he sold his stocks and placed the rest of his business in a blind trust. His term started inauspiciously with a 6.9 earthquake shaking his inauguration ceremony. In 2012, the Economist, the British weekly labeled him an “inept president.” He was famous for his lapses and gaffes. In the United States, he is remembered as the guy who sat down at Barack Obama’s desk in the Oval Office. Apparently the first person to do so. Actually, Piñera could offer Trump his unique expertise in mine rescue. Trump wants to revive the West Virginia run-down coal industry and coal mining is notoriously accident-prone. Piñera is the man who stood on the spotlight while 33 miners were pulled alive to the surface after spending 70 days trapped underground in October 2010.

In 2014, Ukraine elected Petro Poroshenko, the Chocolate King (net worth US$ 1.3bn, 2014) as its president. Pro-western Poroshenko promised to resist further Russian aggression after Putin snatched Crimea and supported the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Putin closed Roshen confectionery factory in Russia and seized its assets. Trump’s bromance with Putin doesn’t augur well for the Ukrainian leader who will certainly be persona non grata in Washington. To aggravate his case, Poroshenco visited Hillary during the campaign. To break the ice, Poroshenco phoned Trump and invited him to visit Ukraine, a greenfield country for luxury hotels.

The third billionaire is Silvio Berlusconi (80 and asset valued at US$ 5.9bn, Forbes, 2016), the on and off Italian prime minister during the period 1994-2011. After Trump’s surprise election, the disgraced former prime minister claimed that they are both cut from the same cloth. There is some truth is this statement as both are consummate salesmen, narcissists with oversized egos, bullies, gaffe prone misogynists and have tacky tastes in everything from women to buildings. Finally, both used their wealth to force the doors of politics without having any formed ideology. The media plaid a critical role in both men’s ascent to power. Berlusconi depended on the support of his media conglomerate, while Trump’s victory stems from the relentless and counter-productive bashing from the media establishment. Under Berlusconi’s leadership Italy became a reality television show. Forza Italia, Berlusconi’s anti Establishment party was more a vehicle for political permanence than political ideology. At the end, Berlusconi lost popular support because he could not deliver on his job creation promises, and Italians got tired of his scandalous lifestyle (remember the infamous bunga parties) and the corruption surrounding his business. There was no fire wall between public goods and Berlusconi’s business interest.

A Berlusconi clone has become the president of a respected democracy relishing its own Brexit moment.

Trump may have outfoxed Hillary, but the chicken usually come home to roost.

P.S. These fellows do not deserve any additional promotion, no pictures.

---

[1] Actually there are only 44 presidents, as Grover Cleveland was twice elected for nonconsecutive terms.

Tropical Marie Antoinette

 
In the confined and shameless world of Brazilian politico-corporate corruption, it is more Versailles than Greenwich, Connecticut! With more trips to Rue Montaigne than to Wall Street, the loot is spent ostentatiously rather than invested with discretion. Last week a Brazilian newspaper ran an article entitled Fashion Week in Curitiba. Curitiba is the small capital of the small state of Paraná in southern Brazil. Since March 2014, the city’s claim to fame is not fashion, but Lava-jato, the Car Wash police investigation of the billion dollar corruption probe at state oil company Petrobras. It is the biggest graft and money laundering investigation ever held in Brazil. Curitiba is the seat of the investigation, and the city jails have become a social hub for jailed construction tycoons, crooked politicians and their respective lawyers and families.
Claudia Cruz, the 48 year old wife of Eduardo Cunha[1] the former speaker of the lower house, visited her jailed husband dressed in Chanel. What else could she wear? There is only couture in her closets. Cunha is an Evangelical Christian and a leader among his peers. He is also the most reviled and wicked Brazilian politician, the poster boy of greed and hypocrisy. The family’s life style is more Kardashian than evangelical austerity. Cunha is accused of pocketing millions of dollars in bribes from contractors involved in Petrobras operations and squirreling his loot in offshore bank accounts. The police believes that he has between US$ 13 and 20 million hidden away in several foreign bank accounts. The Swiss government has already identified US$ 5 million.
Between 2008 and 2014, Claudia Cruz is suspected of having spent over US$ 1 million in clothing, hotels and restaurants in Paris, New York City and Miami. She spent US$ 60,000 on tennis lessons in Miami. A day in Paris does not come cheap either: US$ 10.000 is an average. These figures came to light after the police tallied her credit cards charges. Her splurging in couture fashion did not pay off, as she never made it to the best dressed list. Because many bank accounts are under her name, she may soon have to leave her couture in her closet and switch to a prison uniform.
 

                                                                                                                                                                 
                                                         Seen on the Curitiba catwalk
 
The Marie Antoinette’s lifestyle of the Cunhas is not uncommon among Brazilian political families. The former governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral, who coincidentally is from the same party as Cunha, also made headlines with his extravagant lifestyle. If his spending pattern was similar, his paying methods were different. He did not charge on his own credit cards but that of his corporate friend Fernando Cavendish. Alternatively, he charged the state. In 2014, Cabral resigned as governor to run for the Senate, but dropped his bid when it was disclosed, among other failings, that he had used a state helicopter to commute to his beach house, carry his kids and nanny to school and dogs to the vet.

                                                                                                                   
                                                           Happy Times in 2012. 
Governor Cabral (left), Elke Batista (the guy who lost US$ 35 billion in less than 365 days) and president Dilma Rousseff (impeached) 
 
Now, the anti-corruption judges are catching up with him. Cavendish, his former friend is in jail, and has agreed to a plea bargain. Cabral and his wife, Adriana Ancelmo loved luxury junkets to Paris and Monaco, all expenses paid for by Cavendish’s construction firm. The firm, which is appropriately named DELTA became the governor’s private travel agency. In return, Cavendish received juicy state contracts at inflated costs. During the “friendship”, the Cabrals indulged in luxury hotels, such as Hotel de Paris in Monaco (standard room rate €500.00), restaurants like the Louis XV (three Michelin stars) and gifts. One particular gift attracted the investigators’ attention: In 2009, Cavendish gave Adriana Ancelmo a Van Cleef & Arpels diamond ring as a birthday present. The price tag was €220,000.00! When Cavendish was investigated, the friendship ended and the gift was returned. Cabral claims that he never knew the value of the ring.
Fortunately, for Cunha and Cabral there is no guillotine in Brazil.

---

[1] Rio de Janeiro is his political base. He has been given many derogatory nicknames; my favorite is Xicun Cunha, pronounced like chikungunya.

Olympe and Mary, 18th Century Feminist Trailblazers

“So you have found love in Paris”, Olympe de Gouges greeted English war correspondent  Mary Wollstonecraft in her apartment in early 1793. Mary blushed, did not respond instead asking if Olympe was afraid of the guillotine.
Olympe did not answer the question but told Mary that she was happy to welcome her. She added that “France is at war with itself. The reign of Terror is destroying our new-found equality and the dictatorship of radical Jacobins is wiping out the freedom given to women by the revolution. Mary, beware, everybody can be reported as an enemy of Robespierre and his clique of blood thirty fanatics. Mobs are murdering people without trial and others are sent to the guillotine”.
Mary replied “I am concerned but not afraid. Do you know how is Théroigne de Méricourt doing? I heard that she had been seriously beaten by a mob of revolutionary women.”
Olympe answered “She is in the hospital with a bad head injury. Can you imagine that she was stripped naked by a gang of brainless, illiterate and vulgar women! They didn’t even understood that Théroigne was encouraging them to fight for their rights and be able to bear arms like the sans-culottes, their men folks. No, they didn’t understand. Equal rights for women are inconceivable and irrelevant to them! Mary, how right you are to encourage women’s education. Educated women can be independent and play a meaningful role in society.”
Mary replied “I am only able to do this because my book A Vindication of the Rights of Women has just been published. It has made me famous in England; now I am able to support myself and my two sisters.”
“Mary, you are a role model. I understand that in England, wives have even less rights than in France! Are they not at their husband’s mercy, their property? I also heard that their children are regarded as the father’s property. I wish you luck in your mission.” Returning to the fate of Théroigne, Olympe asked Mary when she had met her.
“Some time ago,” replied Mary. “I am very impressed by her dashing allure: she was dressed in a man’s riding habit with a large feathered hat. I listened to her haranguing a group of women patriots trying to convince them to form revolutionary clubs. She is a former actress and knows how to speak.”
Olympe arose and voiced her anger at the Jacobins who had started the bloody Terror. Louis XVI, the French king, has been guillotined at the end of January 1792, a mistake according to her. France was now at war with neighboring nations, and their rulers were trying to stop the trans-border spreading of revolutionary propaganda. On the defensive, the Jacobins were now targeting women, stripping them of their previous social gains; divorce and inherence had in particular been rescinded. A gag rule has been imposed, and women like her were prevented from involving themselves in politics.
“What are you planning to do?” asked Mary.
“I will sharpen my pen, and fight to the bitter end for the right to free speech,” replied Olympe. She looked at Mary and again asked her about her Parisian romance. This time Mary could not escape. At 33, she qualified as a spinster. She had nonetheless attracted the attention of Gilbert Imlay, an American in Paris who used his American Revolution credentials to launch a business in revolutionary France. His involvement in the American Revolution fascinated Mary, and she had fallen madly in love to the point of irrationality.
“We are soul mates”, said Mary. She did not want to admit that she was emotionally hooked on her American lover. “We are free to love each other without getting into a marriage contract. It is a match of equals.”
Olympe wished her happiness, but warned that “love goes hand in hand with pregnancies; this is our lot, and babies are our responsibility. Beware of men, many are weak and won’t feel guilty in abandoning an independent woman if she does not need their financial protection.”
They parted, promising to meet again to exchange views on the evolution of the revolution.
       
 
This is a fictional meeting, the fruit of this blogger’s imagination. In topsy-turvy Paris, during the Terror, Mary Wollstonecraft knew of Olympe de Gouges but never had the opportunity to meet her.
In 1791, Olympe de Gouges, the abolitionist, feminist playwright and political activist wrote the famous declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. She had famously declared that “if woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.”
Unrepentant and true to her ideas, she wrote pamphlets against the Terror until the guillotine chopped her head off on November 3, 1793. She was 45 year old. Portrayed as a virago by her executioners, she was the only woman executed for sedition (her political writings) during the revolution. Because of her gender, her avant garde views were either dismissed or received with hostility. She qualifies as the first feminist martyr.
If de Gouges were a man, she would have been buried in the pantheon of national heroes, but as a woman she remained shunned by 19^th century male historians. They could not accept that such progressive and equalitarian ideas sprouted from the head of a petite bourgeoise from a small town in France. De Gouges’ body of work was overlooked during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Finally, she is getting the recognition she deserves.
The same can be said about Wollstonecraft’s legacy. Her journalistic and philosophical works were discredited by the Victorian elite. In a way, she had her bad judgment to blame for the onslaught against her ideas and writings. The disclosure of her foolish, hysterical behavior and lack of self-esteem, during her liaison with Imlay damaged her reputation for a long period. Mary spent three years in revolutionary France, and wrote An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (published in 1794). To protect her from the reach of the blood-thirsty Terror, Imlay had registered her as his wife. In 18^th century, sex meant pregnancy, and Mary had an illegitimate daughter with Imlay. Mary, who had promoted women independence in peaceful England, discovered maternal bliss and longed for domesticity in troubled France. Back in England, Imlay, always in search of adventures both sexual and commercial, abandoned nagging “wife” Mary, leaving her emotionally devastated, suicidal and her freethinker reputation in tatters. Her craving for domestic dependency brought her intellectual downfall and she was branded as a hypocrite by her peers.
Finally, Wollstonecraft married William Godwin, a freethinker like her. She died in 1797 at the age of 38 soon after having delivered her second daughter Mary Shelley who made a name for herself as the author of Frankenstein. Mary Wollstonecraft lacked Olympe de Gouges’ emotional strength and strong judgement; however her psychological shortcomings do not diminish her contribution to women’s empowerment.
References: Gordon, Charlotte. Romantic Outlaws. Random House, 2015. A biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley.