Brazil: Snafu

PTB DEMANDS CTI ON CL IN GBA, announced the headlines in Rio news papers. Too much bottled cheer in the composing room? Not at all. As savvy Brazilians saw at a glance, it was the perfectly normal way of saying that President Joao Goulart's Brazilian Labor Party demanded a parliamentary investigation into the actions of Governor Carlos Lacerda of Guanabara state. In their casual conversations, Brazilians can be just as cryptic, leaving the befuddled stranger convinced that, letter for letter, Brazil is the world's most overalphabetized nation.

BAP, BAM, BUM. Not even...

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