Time to grow up

What is it about all things foreign? A trip to the Museu das Belas Artes (Fine Art Museum to you and me) in Rio gives it away. Brazil still maintain a sense of cultural inferiority in relation to Europe. And so it is proved again this weekend.

How many read this Folha article in which the Financial Times and the Observer have both monitored the ongoing parliamentary inquiry into the current dodgy goings on in Brazil's banks? According to the Observer, "in many counties, parliamentary inquiries are a fundamental rock of a democracy. But in Brazil they run the risk of turning into a farce."

Cue mumblings and shamefacedness among Brazil's political elite.

Of course if this was an American publication, chances are the journalist in question would be deemed to be disrespectful to the nation and banned from ever entering (just like the recent example when a journalist's credentials were revoked for passing comments on President Lula's drinking habits).