Tuesday's plane crash in São Paulo is on everyone's mind here. The newspapers on Wednesday all had enormous front-page photos of the conflagration, and there's much talk about blame and the lack of political will to improve the air traffic system. I have not watched any television here (this is a habit I brought from home), but I imagine it's a major preoccupation on tv, as well. Here are some follow-up stories from the New York Times and BBC.
Yesterday in class, students were giving group reports in which they used Bitzer's vocabulary to identify recurrent situations in Brazil and genres associated with them. Two of the four groups chose aircraft accidents. Other situations they discussed included assault and armed robbery, social violence, and various inadequacies of the public health system in Brazil. Once the trend of the discussion became clear, one student noted that it would be surprising if I ever came back to Brazil. Just to round out the selection of topics, others included the opening of the Pan American Games in Rio last Saturday and the job application and graduate school application processes. But it was impossible to miss the trend--there was some cynicism about the prospects for improvement but mostly a dissatisfaction that comes from high expectations and pride in their country.
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