Livro - Le Crépuscule des lumières

 Pena não haver no espectro nacional, meia dúzia, sei lá, dois, pronto!, um livro que aborde estes temas...

The Spectator - Class clowns: the triumph of inanity over academia

 

(personal underlines, silent mockeries...and regrets!)

https://spectator.com/article/class-clowns-the-triumph-of-inanity-over-academia/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260813%20%20AL+CID_0a2de7bbdcb39ff491025dc400f54e8d

Class clowns: the triumph of inanity over academia

Lara Brown

Daniel Defoe observed that plague victims ‘never perceiv’d that they were infected’ until they discovered the ‘tokens’ on their skin. By that point, ‘nothing could follow but certain Death’.

Something similar might be said of Britain’s universities. In recent days, the Jason Arday affair has captured the world’s attention because of its absurdity. But the humiliation of Cambridge is not an early sign of infection. It is just a particularly visible bubo.

At one level, Arday’s fall reveals how, even in our most elite universities, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) dogma has warped intellectual standards to the point of madness. Yet a deeper examination reveals poor Jason to be merely a poster boy for the increasingly fetid system that is British higher education.

Take the London School of Economics (LSE), which has produced 21 Nobel Prize winners, was ranked number one in the UK by the Times Good University Guide last year and is internationally acclaimed for its teaching on economics, finance and politics. However, all first-year students must now take LSE100, the university’s ‘flagship interdisciplinary course’. Students may choose to study one of three modest questions: ‘How can we transform our climate futures?’; ‘How can we control AI?’; or ‘How can we create a fair society?’. One student described the course as ‘famous for being a massive waste of time’. What is lost in academic discipline is made up for in ideological indoctrination.

LSE students who opt to study ‘How can we create a fair society?’ discover a course description asserting: ‘As the expanding billionaire class increasingly dominates political systems, while gender and ethnicity gaps widen, the question of how to reach a fairer world is both urgent and contentious.’ Even stranger than the courses are the people who teach them. Among them is Dr Alex Frankovitch, whose PhD thesis was entitled ‘Fucking and Being Fucked: Towards a Sexual Ethics of Sex on Drugs’. One student recalls asking Frankovitch about Warren Buffett, only to discover that they (to use Dr Frankovitch’s preferred pronoun) had never heard of him.

Dr Carolina Are is, according to LSE’s website, a ‘digital criminologist… researcher-activist and content creator’ who won a Sexual Freedom Award in 2019. She gives lectures on reducing ‘online harms’ and ‘how we can control AI’. When not contemplating man’s struggle against machine, she is a pole-dancer and instructor. The website linked to her university profile contains her showreel and invites visitors to ‘learn a pole dance choreography, pole tricks, floorwork or twerk with me via Zoom!’ Sadly, Friedrich Hayek, the father of modern free-market economics, did not offer similar services when he taught at LSE.

Are is entitled to do what she wants in her free time. But what sets alarm bells ringing about her academic standing is that pole-dancing seems to be not just an outlet for relaxation, but the focal point of her research.

One of her most recent papers is called ‘“Sexy jail” and performative transparency: Evaluating shadowbanning notifications and appeals in Instagram’s Account Status amongst pole dancing content creators’. It examines the treatment of pole dancers, ‘a demographic greatly affected by algorithmic precarity in the creator economy’, and concludes that Instagram’s system has been ‘ineffective and discriminatory’. An important finding, no doubt, but is such material what LSE students signed up for? One student complains of having to be careful not to use any technical language in submitted work due to Dr Are’s lack of expertise.

When asked how students should put together a presentation for the course, to be assessed for their final grade, Dr Are allegedly answered: ‘I really hate when a white man gives the presentation… It’s just so boring.’ An LSE spokesperson said Dr Are ‘has a relevant PhD and is qualified to teach on the course’ and that she denies making the ‘boring’ comment.

It would be comforting to dismiss all this as an eccentricity peculiar to the LSE. But so many universities across the country are wasting student time in much the same way. At Exeter, you can study for an MA and PhD in magic and occult science. At Liverpool, you can pay £6,850 a year to do an MA in ‘The Beatles, heritage and culture’. At Falmouth, students can undertake a BA in ‘Esports & Livestreaming’ at the university’s ‘renowned Games Academy’.

Students of global sustainable development have previously had the chance to enrol in a ‘surviving the apocalypse’ module at Warwick. Given the growing instability of the world, that may sound potentially useful. Yet the syllabus suggests projects on ‘mushrooms and zombies’ and insists the course has a ‘subtle (?) but unmasked convenor neurodiversity (ADHD) guiding its set-up and delivery’. I’m not sure I’m sufficiently neurodiverse to understand what that means.

Students on all these courses are eligible for undergraduate or postgraduate loans. It’s impossible to know what percentage of that financial support will ever be repaid to the taxpayer.

And it’s not as if prudent students can escape the madness by pursuing more conventional subjects. Those studying English and comparative literary studies at Warwick, for instance, can pick up 15 credits by studying a module on ‘Queering the Literary Landscape: LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture in the Contemporary World’. Even a maths degree offers no refuge. Students at Edinburgh might be surprised to learn that the school of mathematics is committed to ‘decolonising’. The faculty claims that ‘the history of mathematics typically centres cisgendered, straight, white European men’ and recommends that students should take implicit bias tests.

Madness in the lecture theatre is just the more visible by-product of a much longer production line. Before students can study zombies, pole dancing and astrology, academics must first turn these subjects into recognised fields of research.

Earlier this year, a team of five researchers published a paper on ‘Decolonising the sciences: Enhancing the experience of staff and students from racially minoritised ethnic groups using LEGO® Serious Play®’. This work was the culmination of a study across three northern English universities in which 50 adult students, researchers, academics and professional staff were asked to build Lego models representing their experiences of racial inequality, institutional barriers and decolonisation. Participants constructed walls, ladders and bridges out of Lego as metaphors for racism. Somehow this childish activity now constitutes academic research.

There’s more. A researcher at Rose Bruford College, in south-east London, is investigating ‘the lack of career development support for established drag performers’. The project is intended to contribute ‘to drag studies as a growing academic field, addressing a current lack of attention about how to sustain this historically working class and popular performance form’.

Meanwhile, at Bath Spa, a senior lecturer in organisational behaviour and leadership has received a grant to investigate ‘cognitive and emotional costs of identity regulation among ethnically diverse early career professionals’. The project bemoans that ‘professions in the UK often promote values like competence, meritocracy and individual achievement, reflecting white and western norms’.

At least that’s privately funded. The government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has just shelled out for a project at the University of Essex entitled ‘Towards a queer communism: Past, present and future horizons of liberation’.

None of this is new, of course. Frivolous and absurd studies have been pouring out of higher education institutions since at least the 1970s. In 2012, Robert J. Wallis of Richmond University published a paper analysing people’s experiences jumping on a life-size inflatable Stonehenge, concluding that ‘bouncing on the artwork-cum-plaything provided an immediate sensory and visceral experience which was meaningful in relation to the real Stonehenge’. This somehow gazumped Spinal Tap for Stonehenge silliness.

The difference today is that the rot appears to have spread throughout academia, from top to bottom. Even respected journals aren’t safe. I was surprised to find an article in Shakespeare Quarterly ‘refusing to celebrate’ the quatercentenary of the publication of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. The author reasoned that we should not be ‘dedicating our energies, at a time of international emergency, to the production of ever more scholarship on a 400-year-old book’. If this is really his view, we have to wonder what he is doing in the English department of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge.

The author goes on to blame the Folio for climate change, arguing that Henry and Emily’s Folger Shakespeare Library collection ‘was built from the money he made working for the Standard Oil Company and its later derivatives, which became the progenitors of ExxonMobil’. He then asks us to reflect ‘on the extent to which modern cultural dispensations float on an often unacknowledged reservoir of fossil fuels’. Drill, baby, drill.

Professor Jason Scott-Warren, who wrote the article, is the director of the Cambridge Centre for Material Texts. He supervises graduates on English and European Renaissance literature and has been arrested several times for his environmental protest actions.

Sane students complain that, even in more prestigious universities, it is nigh-on impossible to find a normal supervisor for a dissertation, so preoccupied is everyone with queering, decolonising or sticking themselves to motorway bridges. It’s a lot easier to condemn Shakespeare for causing climate change than it is to properly analyse his work.

We will never really know what is going on in lecture theatres and supervisions. The University and College Union has long objected to unannounced lesson observation to assess an academic’s competence and most students don’t complain. But in the pointless courses, the insane modules and the absurd journal articles, we can see the symptoms of a morbid university disease in this country.

Faculties and academics have all broadly been left to their own devices for decades. The Office for Students doesn’t regularly inspect what is happening inside university classes. Even after the introduction of the revised Teaching Excellence Framework, starting next year, no one will ask if academia is providing any valuable insight or skills.

Student finance has guaranteed cash flow for many institutions which, judging by the quality of their offering, should have gone under. But the sickness is terminal for some. This month, after years of difficulty, the University of Kent completed its merger with Greenwich. Greenwich’s vice-chancellor is CEO of the new ‘super university’ – a triumph for the former polytechnic.

It would be easy to rue the decline of a formerly prestigious institution. But a brief glance at how academics at Kent have spent their time and resources tells a different story. Why did they fund a study into ‘what drives sex toy popularity’ in 2023? Why is one of the senior lecturers in 18th century studies currently supervising a project on queer readings of fan fiction and the ‘omegaverse’?

It’s not all decay. Many universities still have healthy organs, uncorrupted by ideological inanity. Researchers at Kent, for instance, were responsible for developing the retinal-imaging technology now used in many hospitals, as well as genome sequencing parrots to understand beak and feather disease. Yet while scientists slave away, their peers in Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology are busy publishing research about ‘racial and economic disparities in coastal access and engagement’.

Academia lacks a proper incentive structure. There is no higher authority to differentiate the value of curing cancer compared with producing yet another autoethnography. Trusts like Wellcome, and our own government, are happy to hand out grants for the latter without pausing to ask what it’s all for.

If your life’s great passion is the study of bouncy castles, pole dancing or writing essays on autoethnography, there ought to be nothing to stop you from working at Toys R Us, a gentleman’s club or the Guardian. But these people have all chosen to pursue academia. They are attracted to the status it confers. This was the world in which Jason Arday thrived. His colleagues at Cambridge were carrying out research on how fairy tales can break the gender binary in playgrounds or writing ‘a self-portrait of an artist who teaches’. Is it really surprising that his error-ridden thesis didn’t stand out against this backdrop?

Série - Rivages

 

The Spectator - The mawkish madness of Dobby’s ‘grave’

 

(personal underlines, silent mockeries)

https://spectator.com/article/the-mawkish-madness-of-dobbys-grave/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260813%20%20AL+CID_0a2de7bbdcb39ff491025dc400f54e8d

The mawkish madness of Dobby’s ‘grave’

Douglas Murray

I don’t know how many readers have visited the grave of Dobby the house-elf, but any who have should immediately be sectioned and have their subscriptions to The Spectator cancelled.

This strong course of action occurs to me after reading one of those stories that can make you laugh, cry and smack your head into your hands all at once. It relates to a ‘memorial’ which apparently sits on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The area is run by the National Trust – a charity which used to look after our nation’s heritage sites.

The beach in question was where filming took place for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Since then, fans of the film – which spawned a new generation of mewling, ungrateful actors – have been laying stones and pebbles at the spot at which Dobby died, many of them with messages on (‘Here lies Dobby, a free elf’). The National Trust has already asked fans not to leave socks on the pile (don’t ask), but stones to form a kind of cairn appear perfectly acceptable.

At this stage it might be worth noting that ‘Dobby’ is a fictional character. No such house-elf ever existed. Therefore you might think this rather whimsy-infused ‘memorial’ should not detain us much longer.

Except that this is one of those increasingly typical moments in modern Britain when a fantasy world and the real world come into conflict – and the real world loses the encounter. A £430 million undersea cable linking the UK and Ireland had been due to pass through the area but – thanks to Harry Potter fans complaining in their hundreds – was rerouted. Indeed, the cable now passes nearer to some Bronze Age human burial remains in order not to disrupt the non-existent grave of the never-existent Dobby.

The project manager of this farrago told the media that the hundreds of complaints the company had received had ensured that it took the issue very, very seriously. Simon Ludlam said that, in the end, the cable ‘went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby’s grave’. This solution made ‘a lot of people very happy’, he added, ‘and Dobby’s happy’.

At this point I would be happy to pull my head out of my own hands and smack Mr Ludlam around the face with a sock, a stone or anything else that came to hand.

Firstly, due to matters of taste. Of all the sentimental attitudes which are most painful, surely the worst is this sort of modern British ‘whimsy’. It is as one with the sort of people who, after the death of Elizabeth II, chose to leave Paddington Bear toys among the flowers, or pass around memes online of Paddington leading the late Queen towards the gates of St Peter.

The Queen Mother’s favourite poem – ‘The Gate of the Year’ – includes the line that on treading into the unknown you should ‘put your hand into the Hand of God’. It seemed telling that by the time her sovereign daughter died the country had ditched the hand of God as hard to put faith in and replaced it with a theology in which the departed should instead place their hand into the hand of Paddington Bear before being received into glory.

Until the past few years, I would have dismissed such sentimental claptrap as being distinctly un-British. Further, I would have said that while such mawkish sentimentality might still thrive among the Irish, the British would surely keep it at bay. I mention the Irish with justification. Some years ago, a motorway bypass in County Clare had to be altered in order to protect a ‘sacred’ fairy bush. Local ‘experts’ had claimed that if the fairy bush was destroyed to make room for the £100 million bypass then the new roadway might suffer a ‘curse’. More recently a new housing scheme in County Wicklow found itself at the centre of a similar row after a ‘fairy tree’ was put at risk. Fortunately the fairy tree survived as the builders built around it.

In relating these stories I do not intend to plant in the minds of readers any idea that the Irish are a superstitious and backwards people. I do not say that at all. But it does seem slightly regrettable that protecting the sacred fairy bush of County Clare, or the fairy tree of County Wicklow, seems like perfectly sensible propositions beside diverting an undersea cable in order to avoid disturbing the site of a fantasy character’s burial place.

Which brings me to the second problem in all this: that such a story seems awfully telling about a country and its priorities. Over recent years Britain has found it impossible to complete almost any major infrastructure projects. Most of the time this is due to the discovery of a rare earthworm or – as anyone who has tried to restore a property in the countryside will know – that there is evidence of bats. You do not have to have seen a bat, merely have evidence that bats may once have eyed up your property, and you’ll discover that your house is no longer your own but has fallen into the joint custodianship of Dave from the local council and any passing bat.

Even this is merely a good-ish intention taken to a typically bureaucratic extreme. No such excuse can be made for the Dobby’s grave phenomenon. It is simply indicative of a country where the adults have all taken leave of their senses and handed over the decision-making to children who were never told ‘no’.

I suppose that if these are the new rules of the game there is an argument for playing along. I would be happy to start by claiming there is a horcrux to be found somewhere in the oil reserves in the North Sea and that unless we start extracting all that oil we risk not finding it and therefore failing to defeat the Dark Lord. Which is not the maddest energy policy I’ve heard lately.

The Spectator - Cambridge has fallen

 

(personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/cambridge-has-fallen/

Cambridge has fallen

The Spectator

‘What distinguishes Cambridge from Oxford,’ A.A. Milne said in 1939, ‘is that nobody who has been to Cambridge feels impelled to write about it.’ Four decades later, Tom Sharpe would prove him wrong about Cantabrigian reticence with Porterhouse Blue – his riotous satire of the conflict between an idealistic new master and the stuffed shirts of the senior common room. It’s a shame that Sharpe isn’t around to enjoy the Jason Arday scandal – a farce so absurd that even he may have dismissed it as being too silly.

When Arday was announced as Cambridge’s professor of sociology of education, he was lauded as the university’s youngest-ever black professor. His biography had a whiff of Hollywood. Arday had been diagnosed with a developmental disorder at the age of three. He was said to be mute until he was 11 and illiterate until he was 18. But he rose from two GCSEs in P.E. and textiles to complete a PhD, raise £5.5 million by running 30 marathons in 35 days – an achievement so stirring it inspired Andy Murray – and become, in the Guardian’s words, ‘a highly respected scholar of race, inequality and education’.

As Lara Brown writes in her article, Arday’s claims have now been ‘comprehensively debunked’. His published works were discovered to contain dozens of passages lifted wholesale from – or bearing an uncanny resemblance to – other academic papers; his biographical assertions were exposed as hollow and ludicrous, including a suggestion that he had starred in the TV show Seven Up, which began 21 years before he was born. The Guardian has since investigated Arday’s claims, such as an assault by a masked man and an assertion that a pig’s head was posted to his parents after his appointment to Cambridge. When the paper found no evidence to support these claims, they asked him for comment. ‘To be honest, I thought you’d just believe me,’ was Arday’s reply.

Cambridge is sticking by its man. Arday, the university claims, has been the victim of ‘a vile smear campaign to undermine his credibility’ – or, as it is also known, journalism. As Lara points out: ‘Arday’s ascent is a stunning indictment not just of the incuriosity of Cambridge but its corruption.’ Seemingly, ‘no one ever checked Arday’s academic CV, the papers he’d put out for publication or the data he used’. The best explanation is that, amid the Black Lives Matter hysteria, Cambridge hired Arday so he could be sent on ‘an endless, self-flagellating media round’, berating the institution for its past racism and then praising it for improving. In this role, being a fantasist was no hindrance.

Two years ago, the classicist David Butterfield wrote in these pages that Cambridge was in decline due to ‘politicised teaching, grade inflation, authoritarian campus policies and lurid, even laughable, research grants’. Progressive posturing and social engineering had been put before academic standards; an expensive bureaucracy was strangling the freedom on which worthy scholarship was based; an explosion in mental health claims had stifled intellectual development. Those who dissented from Cambridge’s progressive orthodoxy meanwhile had been hounded out.

Some might find the focus on one institution myopic and elitist. But Butterfield argued that the ‘ambitions of our whole education system are ultimately pegged to the achievements at the very pinnacle’.

A fish rots from the head. Cambridge exemplifies flaws across British universities: grade inflation, campus wokery, academic corruption, vice-chancellor greed and a loss of purpose; Arday is part of a much wider problem.

The greatest victims of this decay are the students, paying ever more for ever less. A third of graduates are not in graduate jobs; some 45 per cent of English higher education institutions are running a deficit, with rising costs becoming harder to meet amid restrictions on student visas.

What is needed is a more ambitious university system demanding higher standards with more sustainable finances. But, while ministers can push for reform, the impetus must come from within the universities, which have become lost in their avarice and dogmatism. If they cannot find their way back, what worth is their teaching?

There were few finer critics of closed-minded, work-shy students or priggish, over-remunerated academics than the late Rod Liddle. Since this issue is a tribute to Rod, he should have the final word. In 2021, a group of Durham students walked out of a speech he gave at the institution. He wrote afterwards that British universities make ‘proud proclamations of their commitment to freedom of speech followed by the immediate disavowal of that commitment, and the persecution of anyone who has taken that proclamation at face value. The kids, meanwhile, will continue hearing only one view, because who now would invite a social conservative to speak at a British university?’

Cartoon - Jim Unger (Herman)

Ou...o que é a "Arte"? 

Observador - Seguro quer fronteiras inseguras (Miguel Morgado)

 

(sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/seguro-quer-fronteiras-inseguras/

Seguro quer fronteiras inseguras

É assim que os nossos governantes, juizes e “activistas” de vária estirpe nos têm imposto os seus sobressaltos éticos que tornaram a Europa num caso único de desregramento e descontrolo.

Miguel Morgado 

16 ago. 2026, 00:25

Não há outra maneira de dizê-lo: o Presidente da República Seguro sempre conviveu bem com o caos fronteiriço e migratório do governo Costa; e, agora, hostiliza a orientação do actual governo para repor alguma racionalidade e sobriedade à integridade do Estado e da sociedade portuguesa. O requerimento que tornou público há uma semana de fiscalização preventiva da constitucionalidade da chamada “lei do retorno” (o normativo que regula a entrada, permanência, expulsão de estrangeiros, além dos procedimentos para os requerentes de asilo) torna tudo cristalino. Mas podia poupar-nos à farsa das suas profissões de lealdade com os acordos europeus ou com o direito soberano de qualquer Estado, incluindo o nosso, de regrar as suas fronteiras.

De facto, quem lesse apenas as primeiras linhas do requerimento de Seguro ao Tribunal Constitucional não poderia adivinhar que a substância da sua solicitação fosse tão hostil para com as intenções do governo. Nessas primeiras linhas o Presidente é todo juras de lealdade ao que os líderes europeus em 2024 acordaram em matéria de admissões, expulsões e asilo. Todo ele é amor à autonomia do Estado português para regular as entradas de estrangeiros em território nacional. Mas rapidamente se percebe que é tudo conversa fiada.

Seguro nem sequer quer clarificar juridicamente uma questão que, mais tarde, podia ser objecto de litigância e, assim, de imprevisibilidade e incerteza. Não, Seguro quer destruir a lei do governo porque prefere o estado actual de permissibilidade, mesmo que vá ao arrepio do grande consenso europeu corporizado no chamado Pacto das Migrações.

Não se trata apenas de algumas das normas postas em causa pelo Presidente serem transcrições de directivas que exigem transposição para o ordenamento jurídico nacional. Seguro quer recriar um suposto conflito entre os consensos políticos europeus e o seu produto legal, por um lado, e a Constituição da República, por outro. Vale a pena notar que Seguro faz certamente coro com os que a toda a hora reivindicam “soluções europeias”. Agora que existe uma “solução europeia” procuramos novos patamares de “consciência ética humanitária” na nossa própria Constituição para repudiar a dita solução consensual. No fundo, o Presidente quer exibir uns quantos preconceitos que a sua família política socialista insiste em converter em mandamentos universais sem aceitar o custo de os fazer corresponder explicitamente à sua consequência política directa: a imigração ilimitada e desregulada.

Todos os obstáculos que Seguro agora enuncia, quer seja sobre sobre os procedimentos a aplicar aos requerentes de asilo, quer seja ao tratamento a dar aos menores, colidem com a necessidade imperiosa de conciliar a possibilidade de tornar os fluxos migratórios geríveis com as condições práticas proporcionadas pela situação concreta do Estado português, dos seus serviços administrativos, policiais e judiciais, e dos incentivos dados aos migrantes. Seguro não quer saber dessas minudências para nada. Ele paira nas nuvens da superioridade ética cosmopolita que bate no peito para as câmaras das televisões ao mesmo tempo que escapa à responsabilização pelos efeitos reais da sua inconsciência. Resta agora a impossível esperança de que os juizes conselheiros no palácio Ratton mostrem a sensatez que manifestamente escapa ao Presidente da República.

É assim que os nossos governantes, juizes e “activistas” de vária estirpe nos têm imposto os seus sobressaltos éticos que tornaram a Europa num caso único de desregramento e descontrolo. Termo-nos tornado ridículos aos olhos do mundo, como recentemente o governo marroquino deixou dolorosamente óbvio, já seria mau. Mas a vulnerabilidade e a fragilidade autoinfligidas por governantes que elegemos, e por juizes que acatamos, é a cereja no bolo da ironia.

Observador - WNBA: A liga feminina que não sabe o que é uma mulher (Rodrigues do Carmo)

 

(sublinhados pessoais, lamentos silenciosos)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/wnba-a-liga-feminina-que-nao-sabe-o-que-e-uma-mulher/

WNBA: A liga feminina que não sabe o que é uma mulher

O que é uma mulher? Por enquanto, a pergunta continua sem resposta aceitável, numa liga desportiva para mulheres e , de um modo mais geral, no  manicómio em que se encerrou uma certa esquerda.

José António Rodrigues do Carmo 

14 ago. 2026, 00:24

Começo por dizer que este artigo não é sobre basquetebol, assunto sobre o qual as minhas certezas são bastante fluidas.

A WNBA é a liga profissional americana de basquetebol feminino e, até há  pouco tempo, era apenas uma espécie de condomínio woke, acompanhada sobretudo por familiares das jogadoras, activistas e jornalistas de causas progressistas. O jogo em si, era de somenos importância.

A sua presidente, Cathy Engelbert, explicava que a  WNBA partilhava os valores da “inclusividade, equidade e advocacia” e que só queria parceiros que defendessem os mesmos princípios. A própria Liga apresenta-se oficialmente como ousada e progressista, comprometida com a DEI (diversidade, equidade e inclusão), a responsabilidade social e o combate às desigualdades racial e de género. Resumindo, a  DEI é a religião, o departamento de marketing e a política de recursos humanos da WNBA.  O basquetebol aparecia algures, entre a equidade e a “mudança transformacional”.

Até que surgiu Caitlin Clark, uma talentosa jogadora caucasiana, e tudo mudou. Os espectadores subiram em flecha e o dinheiro  começou a jorrar.

Clark não fez nada de especial, limitou-se jogar basquetebol (bem, segundo os especialistas)  e a fazer com que milhões de pessoas quisessem vê-la jogar. E isso trouxe receitas, patrocinadores e elevou a salários e benefício. O mercado em funcionamento é fascinante. Contudo, num ambiente “progressista”, agradecer a Clark seria blasfemar, até porque alguém poderia  sugerir que o mérito individual existe.

Embora Clark tenha feito tudo para evitar ferir susceptibilidades ou proferir comentários controversos, fartou-se de levar pancada das adversárias  e tornou-se uma das jogadoras mais detestadas da modalidade,  porque joga muito bem, não é “people of colour” e não encaixa no paradigma woke para as mulheres.

A questão racial torna o incómodo ainda mais requintado por  que,  numa modalidade em que apenas uma em cada cinco jogadoras é branca (tal como na NBA, o equivalente masculino), foi precisamente uma mulher branca, pouco interessada em sinalizar virtude e converter as conferências de imprensa em acampamentos de Verão do Bloco de Esquerda, que tornou o negócio interessante.

Clark fez até uma vénia ao catecismo woke, reconhecendo o seu “privilégio branco”, mas nem assim passou no exame. Na liturgia woke, a confissão serve apenas para confirmar a culpa.

Foi neste ambiente de excepcional pluralismo que Sophie Cunningham (SC), também caucasiana, e colega de equipa de Clark, disse que as raparigas não deveriam ter de competir contra homens. Acrescentou que havia espaço para todos e que também as mulheres possuíam direitos. O senso comum é bastante temerário em instituições onde ainda não recebeu formação em diversidade, pelo que SC foi logo  transformada numa perigosa extremista. Levou com vaias, manifestações nos jogos, bandeiras transgénero, camisolas de protesto e declarações lacrimejantes, indignadas, demagógicas e redondas.

Houve até jogadoras que garantiram que acolheriam atletas transgénero nas suas equipas ou contra as suas equipas, e que não viam nisso problema algum. Como actualmente não existe qualquer atleta transgénero na WNBA, esta coragem declarativa é gratuita e bastante popular nas redes sociais e no campeonato da sinalização de virtude. O delírio é tal, que as virtuosas parecem não perceber que, se entrassem atletas masculinos em número suficiente na WNBA, elas acabariam no banco ou a ver basquetebol pela televisão.

O sindicato das jogadoras, agora mais rico por causa do capitalismo, esclareceu que “abraçamos a justiça, a equidade, a diversidade e a inclusão (JEDI)”, e que  estes valores protegem o desporto feminino e produzem  “mudança transformacional”. Condenou obviamente a “demonização” das pessoas trans e prometeu que as jogadoras não seriam utilizadas como peões políticos.

Um manifesto político que termina exigindo não ser tratado como manifesto político é uma pequena obra-prima da ciência das pescadinhas de rabo na boca.

Notavelmente o contrato colectivo da WNBA determina que  só podem jogar mulheres. Parece bastante claro, mas pelos vistos não se sabe bem o que é uma mulher.

O que é então uma mulher?

A Presidente da Liga prometeu  abordar o assunto em conformidade com os “valores históricos” da Liga, preservando a integridade do jogo e a competição justa, isto é, chuva no nabal e sol na eira ao mesmo tempo.

Anunciou reuniões, sessões de auscultação e uma task force. Nem Kafka, assistido pelos Monty Python, teria pensado na complexidade de  determinar quem pode jogar numa competição feminina onde só podem jogar mulheres.

Aproveitando a convicção da WNBA, de que definir o que é uma mulher é algo inaceitável, racista ou coisa parecida, dois antigos jogadores da NBA ( Enes Kanter Freedom e Royce White)  anunciaram a intenção de se inscreverem na liga para 2027. Afinal, se a auto-identificação basta para transformar alguém numa mulher, quem pode dizer que estes calmeirões não são mulheres? Numa bolha em que a  biologia é ofensiva,  “mulher” é um conceito amorfo que não pode ser definido e a JEDI é a mais elevada forma de virtude, que argumento poderá impedir que estas duas atléticas e entroncadas mulheres vivam os seus sonhos, desenvolvam as suas experiências pessoais e joguem de forma inclusiva na Liga feminina?

Ora isto é irritante porque joga a realidade em cima das activistas da Liga e  obriga-as a seguir a sua lógica até ao ponto em que ela lhes morde os tornozelos. Com que fundamento podem recusar? A Liga precisa pois de uma comissão para responder a uma questão que a  biologia, ciência menos sofisticada e até fascista, resolve num segundo.

Entretanto  a jogadora DiJonai Carrington passou à acção.  Num jogo decidiu aplicar um correctivo ideológico à cotovelada e  atingiu fortemente a “transfóbica” SC, que ficou a sangrar. Foi naturalmente  expulsa e correu para as redes sociais, a  denunciar o “privilégio branco”.

Seguiu-se um tumulto que ainda reverbera, com algumas activistas a sugerir até que a agredida é que deveria ter sido expulsa.

A WNBA conseguiu assim produzir uma ilustração perfeita do catálogo vitimista woke:  uma jogadora negra agride uma adversária branca, é expulsa e responde invocando a cor da pele.

A própria treinadora de SC, perfeitamente doutrinada na virtude woke,  em vez de defender a sua atleta, declarou não acreditar que a agressão tivesse sido intencional, a agressora era apenas uma rapariga competitiva. Provavelmente pensou que  a sua jogadora agredida devia aceitar com humildade, como reparação de abstractas injustiças, as consequências do entusiasmo competitivo da Dijonai, dado o seu estatuto de vítima cósmica.

Imaginemos agora Clark ou SC a desancar uma jogadora negra e, minutos depois, a publicar “privilégio negro”.

Creio que não seria necessária uma task force para saber que se seguiriam condenações, indignações, denúncias de ódio e racismo,  comunicados, suspensões, seminários, genuflexões empresariais e talvez uma nova comissão JEDI.

Em suma, a Liga alega proteger as mulheres, mas não sabe o que é uma  mulher. Condena a politização, mas fez da política o seu produto. Proclama a igualdade racial, mas interpreta disputas individuais através do filtro da pele. E no intervalo disto tudo, recita o catecismo delirante que Manuel Maria Carrilho designou como a “Nova Peste”.

Que se instala quando se substituem regras  por slogans JEDI, biologia por pronomes, mérito por identidade e disciplina por passaporte racial.

Caitlin Clark e SF trouxeram o basquetebol à WNBA e, com isso,   público, dinheiro, patrocinadores, senso comum e uma pergunta aterradora para quem vive num ninho de cucos: o que é uma mulher?

Por enquanto, a pergunta continua sem resposta aceitável, numa liga desportiva para mulheres e , de um modo mais geral, no  manicómio em que se encerrou uma certa esquerda.

Tudo isto tem pouco a ver com desporto.

The Spectator - There’s a logic to Donald Trump’s incendiary diplomacy

 

(personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/theres-a-logic-to-donald-trumps-incendiary-diplomacy/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260813%20%20AL+CID_0a2de7bbdcb39ff491025dc400f54e8d

There’s a logic to Donald Trump’s incendiary diplomacy

Blake Neff

On his very first day as Colombia’s new President, Abelardo de la Espriella received a dramatic house-warming gift: a billion dollars, courtesy of Donald Trump. Three days later, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the country – but correlation is not causation.

The President’s ten-figure donative arrived as aid for the militarised crackdown de la Espriella has promised against Colombia’s fearsome drug cartels and jungle guerillas. And de la Espriella quickly showed himself eager to align with President Trump by adding Colombia to the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s signature new venture in Latin America.

With this old-fashioned exchange of gifts, de la Espriella became the newest member of the eclectic global club of Trump allies. This is not a stable alliance. It is an ever-changing club of men, some of them well-known (Javier Milei, Mohammed bin Salman); some more obscure (Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa) and some freshly departed (farewell, Viktor Orban).

Every American president conducts foreign policy, and plenty of presidents have had famous friendships with foreign counterparts. But no American chief executive has ever brought such a personal dimension to all his international forays: Trump allies himself with individual leaders.

He gets along well with so many Latin American leaders in no small part because his brash, aggressive, ‘big man’ personality perfectly aligns with Latin America’s caudillo tradition. In the Middle East, the gaudy splendour of the Gulf monarchies matches the President’s own tastes, as does their enthusiasm for making (or at least promising) big investments into the American economy. And it is worth wondering if Trump’s genial relationship with Japan derives as much from its leaders’ unfailing politeness towards him as it does from their readiness to expand their military to contain China.

What stands out most, though, is the frankness of Trumpian diplomacy. For decades America favoured the bland language of global leadership, superficial fairness, democracy promotion, rhetoric for a Cold War victor whose global power looked absolute if not permanent. The New York tycoon is more straightforward: America is a powerful country, but not an invincible one, with interests it feels no shame in pursuing, and an agile readiness to befriend leaders who are amenable – or turn on those who are not.

The result has been a diplomatic cascade. Leaders who play ball with Trump’s priorities and pay him an adequate amount of respect can expect both his support and eventual rewards (or averted punishments) for their countries. One member of the club, Honduran President Nasry Asfura, won a narrow election victory after Trump not only endorsed him, but denounced his opponent as a communist and explicitly warned of an aid cut-off if he won.

In Argentina, Milei received $20 billion in currency swaps to support the Argentine peso just before a critical midterm election, with Trump bluntly saying his support was for Milei more than anything else: ‘If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.’ (Milei won and the swaps were promptly repaid.)

In Asia, Trump has had the US Treasury sell off billions of euros to buy the Japanese yen, bolstering its value in the face of a long-term slide. If America had made such a move in the past, it would have relied on rhetoric about altruistically acting to contain a broader contagion and provide stability for global markets. This rhetoric would have been believed by exactly no one outside of the Beltway, but dutifully supplied anyway.

But Trump has no patience for such palaver. America was backing up Japan, he said, because it had been a reliable ally and being friendly with America brings rewards. Or, in the President’s more memorable phrasing: ‘Japan’s been very good ‌to us, with the exception of Pearl Harbor.’

America has long picked sides in foreign elections and favoured some parties over others. What Trump brings is greater transparency and honesty about doing so – fewer think-tanks promoting ‘freedom and democracy’ with a wink and a nudge, and more transactional salesmanship. Telling a smaller country it will lose US aid if it votes the wrong way might get blasted as ‘election interference’ but is it worse than staying silent, then following the same policy?

The reverse of a president who races to help his friends, of course, is one who can quickly sour on everyone else, especially older allies he feels have let him down. Twice Trump has floated the idea of a total trade and travel embargo on Spain over its lack of enthusiasm for the Iran campaign. Quips about potentially quitting Nato have become an almost monthly tic.

His sour treatment of Europe has been a boon to others. America’s past collaboration with the Arab gulf monarchies was coloured by discomfort over their old-fashioned authoritarian governments. Trump, on the other hand, has made it clear that what matters to him is assisting America’s military, stabilising its energy markets, and making big investments. Do that, and you’re an excellent ally – and can be spared annoying lectures about representative government.

The President, then, is happy to shake up America’s friendships like no leader since the second world war but to do what? Trump’s enemies will say his actions are nearly random or motivated solely by personal vanity. Look at his quips about annexing Canada or his long-shot bids to seize Greenland. But these headline items obscure what is actually a sharply realist agenda. Despite his grandiose rhetoric, Trump has the most limited goals of any American president in recent history.

Because even if he dreams of absorbing Canada, what sets him apart from his predecessors is his sharp pivot away from preserving America’s shaky pretension of being a global hegemon. Gone are bold aspirations of bringing down Vladimir Putin or China democratising through western influence. Instead, Trump wants to get specific, line-item achievements closer to home. He wants hostile regimes in Venezuela and Cuba gone. He wants a Middle East whose long-term problems are finally resolved so that America can escape its endless samsara-like cycle of interventions, and he wants economic rebalancing sufficient that America is not vulnerable to trade-based attacks from China or anyone else. All of them are major challenges. And yet, they are also genuinely limited goals.

The President’s national security strategy (NSS) de-emphasised dramatic great power rivalry as a core feature of American diplomacy. It disavowed aspirations of ‘global domination’ in favour of balance of power, dialled back prior anti-Russian rhetoric and placed a strong emphasis on America’s western hemisphere backyard. When it speaks of Europe, the NSS frets about a continent losing its ‘civilisational self-confidence and western identity’ rather than one endangered by Russian aggression.

Such an approach is not so much a novelty as a 21st century reversion to America as it existed before the first world war – when the US was immensely powerful, but neither possessed nor aspired to the status of global hegemon. Both the NSS, and Trump’s own actions, reflect an awareness that American power is not what it once was. The old America was eager to present itself as almost everyone’s ally, and happy to involve itself in almost anyone’s business, because US dominance was so overwhelming that it could afford illusions of omnipotence.

Despite his boastfulness, Trump does not share such illusions. His conduct reveals an awareness that while America remains a great power, it is also vulnerable. It can no longer ignore nations free-riding under its military umbrella, or pretend that every region is equally worthy of its attention. Trump’s aggressive deal-making and rough treatment of Europe all flows from this logic. 

With American hyperpower no longer a sure thing, it makes the most sense to focus on achieving and preserving total mastery of its natural western hemisphere backyard. If America is going to be drawn into commitments further afield, then it only makes sense to be far more demanding of its allies: they should pay more and contribute more for the privilege of getting US support.

From there, the President’s own personality does the rest. Trump wants a legacy and he wants things done fast. Latin American strongmen ready to bomb cartels are ready friends. Europeans who get offended by Truth Social posts will not be treated lightly simply because Nato is about to turn 80.

This new approach to foreign policy carries dangers. The old Euro-American bloc, whatever its shortcomings, was durable enough to survive partisan political swings – a sudden win by Labour or a European socialist party didn’t mean a rapid collapse in relations. There could also be surprising alignments – Tony Blair and George W. Bush (tragically) had no trouble collaborating on foreign interventions.

Will Trump’s new alliance network prove similarly durable? It’s unlikely. His goals are rational but his personal style always inspires irrational responses. European leaders might recognise that their best long-term interest is to ignore Truth Social outbursts, cater to Trump’s style, and pony up a bit to keep Nato going. But when their voters fume not just about the Iran war but Trump’s incendiary style, it can be difficult to negotiate.

Meanwhile, in the Latin American countries Trump is cultivating, political instability isn’t just a possibility but a near certainty. From Chile and Argentina, to Peru and Brazil, elections are becoming razor-thin contests between ever-more radical leftists and increasingly bold rightists. The President can put his weight on the scale in those races, but that can go only so far, as was revealed when Trump ally Orban went down to defeat in Hungary despite Vice-President J.D. Vance campaigning for him. Any bad election result for Trump means losing an ally – which helps explain his affinity with monarchies where that isn’t a problem.

But long-term stability is a little besides the point. The President is not trying to build Francis Fukuyama’s mythical end of history. He is quite aggressively living in history, as it is made. There are communists to be toppled, cartels to be bombed, factories to be reshored. He is determined to leave his mark on the world, and that isn’t done by simply preserving what was handed to him.

If Trump’s goal of becoming a fifth face on Mount Rushmore remains a long-shot, then he is happy to dare greatly trying to pull it off.

Reflexão - Portugal no seu melhor (Tempos difíceis - Para mais tarde recordar)

Para mais tarde recordar...

Infraestruturas previstas (em 06.08.2026) para os próximos (?) anos.

(Nota - o aeroporto está estudado desde 1972)

 

Reflexão - LBC

Os sexto, vigésimo terceiro e quinquagésimo sentidos apuradíssimos dos animais, neste caso da nossa gata Tri, a evitar apanhar radiações nocivas...

Paciência! Senhores, que paciência... 

Observador - Lua eclipsa o Sol, Belém não eclipsa o socialista (Tiago Dores)

 

(sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/lua-eclipsa-o-sol-belem-nao-eclipsa-o-socialista/

Lua eclipsa o Sol, Belém não eclipsa o socialista

E quando aqueles “não-socialistas” garantiam que Seguro, em Belém, não faria fretes ao PS… Pois é: o PR enviou a Lei do Retorno e Asilo para o Tribunal Constitucional. Aí têm o vosso Tozé, tonhós!

12 ago. 2026, 00:22

Se calhar já não foram a tempo — e faço aqui, em solidariedade, aquele gesto de “dinheiro”, esfregando polegar e indicador — de aceitar a minha sugestão de férias da semana passada, Nova Iorque. Nada temam, ex-clientes da agência Abreu que aqui, sim, encontram boas dicas de destinos de férias. Hoje trago uma sugestão nova, muito mais quentinha, em especial nas últimas semanas. Querem conhecer todo o exotismo de mil anos de história, vivos em cada tradição de Marrocos? Visitem Ceuta!

A cidade espanhola é o destino certo para vocês. Pedro Sánchez e os media tradicionais — mas repito-me — garantem que todos os invasores já voltaram à origem o que, traduzido de PSOÊs para português, significa que permanecem em Ceuta milhares de novos imigrantes ilegais, muitos deles de origem não-marroquina, que Marrocos recusa aceitar de volta ao seu território. Oportunidade única, portanto, para uma experiência multicultural imersiva que dispensa passaporte. Desde que o turista esteja disposto a dispensar também a carteira ao virar da primeira esquina. A “taxa turística” à chegada não será de descurar mas, em contrapartida, os voos devem estar bem baratinhos.

E resolvido esse pequeno inconveniente de um “cheque out” logo no check-in, o resto só pode correr bem. Afinal, não é óptimo viajar ligeiro no verão?! Só é pena as senhoras da família não poderem viajar tão ligeiras, uma vez que passear ao sol com o reposteiro da sala só com dois buraquinhos para os olhos, a fazer as vezes de saída de praia, será mesmo a forma mais prudente de se movimentarem pela cosmopiolhita Ceuta.

Muito à conta destes estupendos avanços civilizacionais promovidos por toda a sorte de políticos europeus nas últimas décadas, a fascista veterana e primeira-ministra de Itália, Georgia Meloni, desencaminhou a fascista-nova e primeira-ministra da Dinamarca, Mette Frederiksen, para um comunicado conjunto a defender uma política migratória europeia mais estrita, com mais expulsões de imigrantes sem direito legal de permanência.

Agora, como é que a Mussolina meteu a Mette, colega de bancada do PS e do PSOE no Parlamento Europeu, nestas lides fascistas, é para mim um mistério. Terá sido bruxedo? Eh pá, essa é uma hipótese até um bocadinho misógina, associada a crenças ridículas que vitimaram tantas mulheres ao longo da história. Sem dúvida, esta hipótese fica descartada. O que desconhecia era que, também para as senhoras, o canto da sereia fascista representa uma tentação irresistível que conduz à perdição.

Nomeadamente à perdição — espera-se, digo eu — do direito de incontáveis e ilegais imigrantes se passearem livremente por essa Europa fora a distribuir amostras caríssimas de fundamentalismo islâmico. Sim, que muito longe vão os tempos em que a confiança permitia a descontraída expressão “De borla, até injecções na testa”.

Uma coisa é garantida: a base desta nova parceria M&M — a mais relevante desde o lançamento da versão amendoim do famoso chocolate — não foi decerto o bom senso, uma vez que o nosso referencial de imunidade a tais cantorias encantatórias, o nosso Ulisses de Belém, António José Seguro, permanece, Sanchíssimo, a despachar Leis do Retorno e Asilo para o Tribunal Constitucional. A Lua até pode eclipsar o Sol, mas Belém não eclipsará nunca o mais alto socialista da Nação.

E porque recordar é viver e, amiúde, ficar extra-deprimido, quem se lembra de todos aqueles “não-socialistas” que garantiam, em vésperas de eleições presidenciais, que um futuro Presidente Seguro jamais faria fretes ao PS uma vez que até era inimigo de António Costa e tudo? Aí têm o vosso Tozé, tonhós!

Observador - "Pole pole" (Nuno Gonçalo Poças)

 

(sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/pole-pole/

"Pole pole"

O nosso pole pole é «Ah, mas este solzinho não há noutro sítio do mundo». Ou «Sim, mas o peixe é muito bom».

11 ago. 2026, 00:24

Como todos aqueles que passam pela estúpida adolescência e descendem de agricultores semi ou totalmente analfabetos, eu também já tive a arrogância de julgar, por ter vivido sempre na cidade, por ter estudado e por ter uma vida que em nada se compara à dos meus avós, que sabia mais que aqueles a quem os que ainda mais sobranceiros que eu tratam por povo. Não há nada, na verdade, mais repugnante na intelectualidade, na política ou no radar mediático, do que a frasezinha que inclui a expressão povo. O povo, tão fofo, que nada sabe e que de tudo precisa, incluindo da suposta lucidez de algum outro estúpido autoproclamado brilhante, para não ser enganado por quem pretende abusar dele ou fazer dele bandeira. O povo, afinal, é estandarte de toda a gente, uma muleta que serve essencialmente para fazer distinguir positivamente aquele que, por alguma razão, se destaca desse mesmo povo, como uma superioridade anunciada totalmente carente de justificação. Antes houvesse, mas não há, de facto, menos estúpidos, menos broncos ou menos intelectualmente brutos naquilo a que se chama povo do que há naquilo a que se chama elite. Haverá nesta também autoproclamada elite lisboeta, nalguns casos mais felizes por jeito ou por hereditariedade, a elegância de saber pedir licença, de não tirar macacos do nariz, de não buzinar, de mastigar de boca fechada ou de não dizer ‘prontos’, mas o que separa a elite deste regime dos velhos lá da minha terra que me pediam para explicar o que ouviam na missa ou na televisão, é mais o estilo que a substância. Subsiste muita arrogância de casta que se julga uns patamares acima da banalidade dos comuns mortais que, na verdade, não passa de outra espécie de banalidade com a aparência da sofisticação.

De vez em quando, por exemplo, damos de caras com a tese do copo meio cheio para falar da situação social, económica ou institucional portuguesa. Não, as coisas não vão assim tão mal como pintam alguns profetas da desgraça, normalmente acusados de quererem lucrar de alguma forma com o anúncio dessa mesma desgraça. Não, não estamos assim tão mal, há cinquenta anos estávamos muito piores. E têm razão, que estávamos. Mas também nunca ninguém se lembrou, em 1974, de vir acudir aos recentíssimos democratas ou às esquerdas, ou mesmo às direitas, revolucionárias, dizendo-lhes que em 1933 estávamos muito piores, como se esse pudesse ser um argumento. Nunca foi. E não sei por que diabo o há-de ser agora. A tese do copo meio cheio é a validação da estagnação, é a salvaguarda da mediania, a versão moderna da alegria da pobreza que está nesta grande riqueza que é dar e ficar contente.

Há dez anos, numa aldeia de pescadores, em Zânzibar, cheia de miúdos paupérrimos a pedir doces, por entre cabanas e tijolos, visitei uma escola que tinha em si todos os graus de ensino e um director que dava aulas de todas as disciplinas. No grupo de gente onde me inseria, todos naturalmente ocidentais, uns com mais ar de miss Mundo do que outros, íamos fazendo perguntas sobre quantas pessoas ali moravam, quantas crianças ali estudavam, quantas conseguiam continuar os estudos, quem financiava tudo aquilo, entre computadores, livros, salários e obras. Estavam a construir, de forma muito lenta, segundo o que todos percebemos, um novo edifício para novas salas de aula. E um homem sueco, sem um pingo de sobranceria, apenas cheio de confiança e curiosidade, perguntou ao director qual era o prazo para a conclusão da obra. O director não compreendeu a pergunta. Deadline, replicou o sueco, julgando que não tinha sido claro na pergunta. E o director, sentado, levantou as mãos ao céu, estendeu-as pela secretária e explicou-lhe com algum orgulho que ali não havia prazos, que ali existe uma expressão para esse tipo de coisas que é pole pole e que significa “pouco a pouco”, assim como quem diz que é para se ir fazendo e logo se vê, se Deus quiser. O sueco estranhou, ergueu as sobrancelhas, torceu o nariz e, quando todos nós víamos que ele achava a resposta abominável, foi educado o suficiente para dizer qualquer coisa como «bom, está bem, se é assim que vocês funcionam…». O pole pole é assim como aquilo que todo o português, mais ou menos erudito, mais ou menos pobre, mais ou menos inteligente, costuma dizer sempre que alguém lhe fala das misérias do País. O nosso pole pole é «Ah, mas este solzinho não há noutro sítio do mundo». Ou «Sim, mas o peixe é muito bom». João Vieira Pereira, director do Expresso, escreveu na semana passada um texto procurando mostrar «um lado B de estudos encomendados que ao longo dos anos sistematicamente ridicularizam o povo português, nos tratam como mentecaptos, incapazes de nos governarmos e profundamente incompetentes. Todos nós preferíamos um país mais rico, menos desigual, mais moderno, com melhor Estado, mas nem isso consegue apagar o que temos conseguido na última década.» É o nosso pole pole.

Reflexão -LBC

 Aliás, hoje em dia todos somos fantásticos! Fantasticamente fantásticos!