Banana Pundits

So, we face a new drought in posts. It’s sort of inevitable, though. Cisco has never been able to help much with the blog, and I haven’t had much success in finding others to contribute translations. For my part, I have 13 days to write a 50-plus pages monograph in order to graduate. Add to that a job and the fact it takes me about 1-2 hours to translate a piece, and you may understand why bloggin should be light at least ’till the end of the month.

On a happier note, though, Google’s Brazilian office in Belo Horizonte has finally delivered its first project, and was I glad to know we finally have a version of Google News. It should help me broaden this blog’s sources (which mainly revolves around Folha de S. Paulo and NoMínimo, only because those are the ones which RSS feeds I sign) and posting smaller, to-the-point hard news.

So, for the eventual reader who checks in on this blog every once in a while, please don’t cross us off your bookmarks yet. By December it should be back in somewhat “full” motion, and I might also be able, then, to start researching the idea of hosting it on a dedicated server, as well.

Solon Brochado: President Lula is a man of few words, at least in regards to the press. He spent almost all of his first year as president without giving interviews, whether exclusive or not. On the other hand, if released from having to answer reporters’ questions, he can be a very eloquent man: the president adresses the population on a daily basis, through pronunciations at innaugurations, festivals, rallies and such.

So it was with much anticipation that every one turned their attention to the show Roda Viva, at TV Cultura (the public TV network), this monday. It would be the president’s first interview after the beggining of the whole political crisis, way back when an aide to then chief-of-staff José Dirceu was charged with negotiating public tenders with bicheiros [those involved with the jogo do bicho - or “animal game”, an illegal form of lottery], in exchange of bribes and contribution to electoral campaigns, which eventually led to the CPI [Parliamentary Inquiry Comission] dos Bingos.

Roda Viva is a one hour long live interview show, where about 15 reporters and pundits from different backgrounds sit on two round benches, surrounding the interviewee, who sits on a rotating chair. Questions tend to come in waves, which is usually bad news for someone trying to make some story up on the fly, since they’ll most often than not be caught in contradiction. Being literally surrounded with people asking questions, above you, also doesn’t seem to help those interviewed.

It seemed unusual then that the president, so wary of journalists and interviews, would decide to break his silence at such an inhospitable environment. But it turned out things were not so inhospitable after all. First, the president wasn’t interviewed in the usual set, but at the Palácio do Planalto [the federal government’s office]. He didn’t have to sit in an uncomfortable rotating chair, surrounded by journalists, but rather could feel like he was heading a reunion with supporters. Also, there were less interviewers, and they all seemed a little intimidated by the situation, or at least were less agressive than usual.

So, the next couple of posts will be translations of two articles, written by Guilherme Fiuza and Villas-Bôas Corrêa, both from NoMínimo, discussing how the interview went. I’ll also try to post some of the interview’s repercussion in political blogs, like Ricardo Noblat’s and even [Roda Viva’s director and host] Paulo Markun’s.

Solon Brochado: Sorry for the lack of posts this last couple of days, but other commitments didn’t leave me with enough time to translate anything. We’ve had two events of some importance, though: president Bush’s visit to Brazil; and president Lula’s interview for the Roda Viva show, this sunday. We’ll try and post content related to thatt. Before we resume work, though, I’ll like to make two notes:

Solon Brochado: With over 80% of the ballots counted, the result is official: Brazilians have said “no” to a ban on the commerce of firearms. It seems that not one State has had a majority in favor of the ban. According to the Electoral Justice website, the closest margins are in the 55%-45% range, while States like my native Rio Grande do Sul have seen over 85% of voters say “no” to the ban.

The next couple of days should be full of news, data and spin doctoring. I see that the subject has made its way into the Volokh Conspiracy, so I guess it’s only fair we try and post as much translations as possible, from all sides. If any reader is willing to contribute, please fell free to e-mail me your translations or even at “solonbroATgmailDOTcom”, with “BananaPundits” somewhere in the subject.

Yes, the blog is going through some difficulties, namely managing multiple authors. The solution might be migrating to a dedicated server, which might happen in the next week or so. It is a shame that, in days of so much debate about the referendum on gun commerce prohibition, we haven’t benn able to keep a steady flow of posts. But I’ll try and go back to posting something on a daily basis this week.

Over at TPMCafe, Matthew Yglesias notes how difficult it is to find nuanced political commentary on the German elections, written by Germans. I tend to read quite a few political blogs every day, and I must say I haven’t seen any links to German newspapers’ op-eds, let alone to German political bloggers. What little information we can gather is either from news agencies (and pretty much devoid of any perspective) or from American bloggers (usually drawing conclusions based on information from the same mainstream media they’re so used to criticize).

This is certainly not a new or unusual problem. Take our good ole’ Brazil, for instance. If you look for news in English about our current political crisis, you’ll be stuck with Larry Rohter’s rather untrustworthy dispatches for the New York Times. Maybe a more thorough and fitting piece on The Economist. But you’d be hard put to find out what is actually being written in Brazil’s newspapers or magazines.

The idea behind Banana Pundits is to try and gather some of this information (I was gonna say ‘wisdom’, but that may be too strong a word for some of the things we’ll be posting here), and make it available in English. So, our main purpose is to translate articles and news, from sources either interesting or renowned. Yes, it means we’ll post things we disagree with or downright make fun of, as well as that which we thing is coherent or even intelligent.

And while there will be the occasional “personal post” by the authors, it shouldn’t be the rule. We’re here to translate the pundits, not be pundits ourselves. Which is not to say we won’t comment or at least introduce whatever we translate (we don’t expect US readers to know who Ricardo Noblat is, or how influential a journalist he is, for example). In the end, it should turn out like any other political blog, with two peculiarities: 1) it will be Brazil-centric, with original content written by brazilians; and 2) instead of quoting just part of a piece, and linking to the original, we’ll post whole pieces.

We’re aware there may be copyright issues involved in some of the things we translate, as well as the author’s pride. For now, at least, we’ll just carry on and see what comes out of it. It should also be noted that, right now, we are only two translators/bloggers, with jobs and college to worry about, so blogging should be light at this point. We’d be happy to add new members to the crew, and especially happy if eventually some of the pundits would start sending their own translations.

Enough, then. To the hard work. Hope our job may be of some use to someone.