{"id":8262,"date":"2019-06-11T14:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/?p=8262"},"modified":"2019-06-11T14:00:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T14:00:13","slug":"the-metaphors-of-our-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/the-metaphors-of-our-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"The metaphors of our Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bom dia, queridos leitores! Como t\u00eam passado? Good morning, dear readers! How have you been lately?\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Metaphors are a figure of speech that create new <em>significados<\/em> (meanings) through comparisons and analogies. They <em>funcionam<\/em> (work) very well in the literature, in poetry and in the arts when you want to express something. But do they work that well in politics? Brazil\u2019s current<em> Ministro da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o<\/em> (Minister of Education) of Brazil seems to think so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abraham Weintraub rose to power with promises to be more moderate than his predecessor, former Minister Ricardo V\u00e9lez Rodr\u00edguez, who was <em>no cargo<\/em> (in office) for only four months. However, this is not what we have been seeing so far. To <em>justificar<\/em> (justify) some of his very contradictory <em>medidas<\/em> (measures) such as expressive cuts in public education, he has used some unusual, not to say strange <em>met\u00e1foras<\/em> (metaphors). In order to explain a 30% <em>corte<\/em> (cut) in higher education <em>bolsas de pesquisa<\/em> (research grants) and staples such as cleaning and personal care products, the<em> atual<\/em> (current) minister recorded a video along with President Jair Bolsonaro explaining the cuts with chocolate bars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Weintraub showed that only a small<em> parte<\/em> (share) would be<em> &#8220;contigenciada&#8221;<\/em> (&#8220;contingent\u201d) &#8211; the term that the current <em>governo<\/em> (government) uses for the cuts &#8211; and that the remainder would be maintained normally, President Jair Bolsonaro did not restrain himself from eating some chocolate bars, basically ruining the already weak metaphor. Ironically, one of the chocolate bars used for his &#8220;math&#8221; is called <em>Prest\u00edgio<\/em> (&#8220;Prestige&#8221;), a very common <em>doce<\/em> (candy) in Brazil. In addition to being <em>ruim<\/em> (bad) in metaphors, he is also bad at math, seen as the <em>quantidade<\/em> (amount) of chocolate bars used to represent the budget cuts does not correspond to the actual <em>n\u00fameros<\/em> (figures).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ministro da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o usa chocolates para explicar cortes no ensino superior\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kKC0HxjusBE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On another occasion, shortly after two major <em>manifesta\u00e7\u00f5es<\/em> (demonstrations) against cuts in public education took over the nation, Weintraub again attacks with his &#8220;lyrical spirit.&#8221; In his twitter account, the current Minister of Education published a video where he appears with <em>um guarda-chuva<\/em> (an umbrella) dancing the classic &#8220;Singing in the rain&#8221;. All this to say that it was raining <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fake News<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> about the budget cuts for the recovery of the National Museum. This <em>chuva<\/em> (rain) metaphor is in bad taste, since the most important museum in Brazil was actually destroyed by a<em> inc\u00eandio<\/em> (fire) last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"pt\" dir=\"ltr\">Mais uma <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FakeNews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#FakeNews<\/a>. Agora, sobre o contingenciamento de verbas no Museu Nacional, do Rio de Janeiro. Descubra a verdade! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dPE520ndGR\">pic.twitter.com\/dPE520ndGR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Abraham Weintraub (@AbrahamWeint) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AbrahamWeint\/status\/1134072894567456768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it is no surprise that the minister does not know how to create his metaphors well, since literature does not seem to be one of his <em>pontos fortes<\/em> (strongest suits). On a certain occasion, Weintraub <em>confundiu<\/em> (confused) the renowned Czech author <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Franz Kafka<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with the traditional Arabic dish <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kafta<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. The minister has already indicated that his connection with <em>leitura<\/em> (reading) is confined to the alleged pocket guru and astrologist, Olavo de Carvalho, who happens to be the one who <em>indicou<\/em> (appointed) both Ministers of Education to occupy this position. What about you guys, what do you think of the way the minister uses a <em>linguagem<\/em> (language) to explain his political decisions?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ministro da educa\u00e7\u00e3o confunde o escritor Franz Kafka com churrasco de kafta\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w0E9F2YlhhE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you want to know more about the fire in the National Museum and about Olavo de Carvalho, just click on the links below:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"vKhyrEQtCE\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/who-is-olavo-de-carvalho\/\">Who is Olavo de Carvalho?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Who is Olavo de Carvalho?&#8221; &#8212; Portuguese Language Blog\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/who-is-olavo-de-carvalho\/embed\/#?secret=mjSJbuuVvk#?secret=vKhyrEQtCE\" data-secret=\"vKhyrEQtCE\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"1HwHkdr0Jo\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/the-museu-nacional-fire\/\">The Museu Nacional fire<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;The Museu Nacional fire&#8221; &#8212; Portuguese Language Blog\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/the-museu-nacional-fire\/embed\/#?secret=GK4KZN9oZt#?secret=1HwHkdr0Jo\" data-secret=\"1HwHkdr0Jo\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Uma semana incr\u00edvel a todos! An amazing week to all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bom dia, queridos leitores! Como t\u00eam passado? Good morning, dear readers! How have you been lately?\u00a0 Metaphors are a figure of speech that create new significados (meanings) through comparisons and analogies. They funcionam (work) very well in the literature, in poetry and in the arts when you want to express something. But do they work&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/the-metaphors-of-our-minister\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1845,1846,3,1849,4,10,109542],"tags":[507925,507857,507717,507924,507914,507926],"class_list":["post-8262","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-brazilian-news","category-brazilian-profile","category-culture","category-economy","category-entertainment","category-literature","category-video-2","tag-brazil-government","tag-brazil-president","tag-brazilian-politics","tag-economy-brazil","tag-jair-bolsonaro","tag-weintraub"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8263,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions\/8263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}