Big Brother

I'm not a TV addicted, when I have time, I'm pretty much interested in sports events and some live music performances. Once in a while I zap to a movie.

However, every beginning of a new year, maybe because i have lots of spare time, I get my attention directed to a certain reality show. First I say, huummm the contestans this year are not that interesting. It's an attempt to not stay tuned to that. But it's just a matter of time, in this case the first eviction. It's done. I'm already contaminated by this virus. What is really intriguing for me is to observe the different personalities living together, dealing with their own demons/conflits and fighting to stay the longest possible in the show. Here goes a little description of this show across the globe. Big Brother.

Big Brother is a reality tv show where, in each series, a group of people live together in the Big Brother House, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras. Each series lasts for around three months, and there are usually fewer than 16 participants. The housemates try to win a cash prize by avoiding periodic evictions from the house. The idea for the show came during a brainstorm session at the production house of John de Mol Produkties (an independent part of Endemol) on September 4, 1997. The first Big Brother broadcast was in the Netherlands in 1999 on the Veronica TV channel. It has been a prime-time hit in almost 70 countries.

Though each country has made its own adaptations and changes to the format, the general concept has stayed the same: "housemates" are confined to a specially designed house where their every action is recorded by cameras and microphones at all times and they are not permitted any contact with the outside world.
In most versions, at regular intervals, normally once weekly (introduced in the UK version, although in most early series it was every two weeks), the housemates are invited to vote to have one of a number of nominated housemates evicted from the House. In some cases, two housemates may be evicted simultaneously (a "double eviction"), or rarely, no housemates will be removed for that week. At the end of the game, the last remaining housemate is declared winner of that particular series and receives prizes, often including a large amount of money, a car, a holiday and (in some editions) a house.

Big Brother Brasil has introduced a currency, the "Estaleca" (Z$), used by the housemates on the weekly shopping of groceries and other useful goods for the house. It also introduced the "Big Phone" feature, which consists on prizes or punishments to whomever answers the phone (or, if allowed, to someone else of their choice); sometimes housemates are sent straight to the elimination match just because they answered it.
The 9th Brazilian season featured the "Bubble", a glass house built inside a mall in Rio de Janeiro where 4 housemate-wannabes lived for a week until 2 of them were voted to enter the actual household. Later in the same season, a new "Bubble" was built inside the Big Brother household, with another 2 housemates living inside it for a week until they were voted in and the glass house dismantled.

Brazilian Winners:

Season 1, 2002: Kléber de Paula

Season 2, 2002: Rodrigo Leonel (cowboy)

Season 3, 2003: Dhomini Ferreira

Season 4, 2004: Cida da Silva (nanny)

Season 5, 2005: Jean Wyllys

Season 6, 2006: Mara Viana

Season 7, 2007: Diego Gasques (The German)

Season 8, 2008: Rafinha Ribeiro

Who's gonna be the next big thing? Let me know your guesses!!

Muslim World

This week, we've discussed about Culture differences in some countries. Many cultures have millenary traditions such as: Japanese culture, Chinese culture, Indian culture and the Muslin culture just to mention some. As the Muslin world is quite different from the reality we are accustomed in Brazil, it is important to have a look at some cultural aspects on these people.

The term Muslim world (or Islamic world) has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Muslims, adherents of Islam. This community numbers about 1.3-1.5 billion people, roughly one-fifth of the world population. This community is spread across many different nations and ethnic groups connected only by religion.

ROLES OF MEN AND WOMEN

1) Wives are considered the sexual property of their husbands.
Qur'an 2:223 Your wives are a tilth (cultivated land) for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and send beforehand for yourselves.

2) Muslim wives are to be totally dependent and obedient to their husbands.
Qur'an 4:34 Men are the maintainers of women, with what Allah has made some of them to excel others and with what they spend out of their wealth. So the good women are obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded. And those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the beds and chastise them. So if they obey you, seek not a way against them.

3) Men can divorce and remarry the same women many times.
Qur'an 2:230 So if he divorces her (the third time), she shall not be lawful to him afterwards until she marries another husband. If he divorces her, there is no blame on them both if they return to each other (by marriage), if they think that they can keep within the limits of Allah. And these are the limits of Allah which He makes clear for a people who know.

4) Men can marry up to four women if they can support them currently.
Qur'an 4:3 And if you fear that you cannot do justice to orphans, marry such women as seem good to you, two, or three, or four; but if you fear that you will not do justice, then marry only one or that which your right hands possess. This is more proper that you may not do injustice.

5) Childbearing Muslim women should be fully covered in public.
Qur'an 24:31 And say to the believing women that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions and do not display their adornment except what appears thereof. And let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms. And they should not display their adornment except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or guileless male servants, or the children who know not women's nakedness. And let them not strike their feet so that the adornment that they hide may be known. And turn to Allah all, O believers, so that you may be successful.

6) Only old women can go out in public without being fully covered.
Qur'an 24:60 And women past childbearing, who hope not for marriage, it is no sin for them if they put off their clothes without displaying their adornment. And if they are modest, it is better for them.

MUSLIM FORBIDDEN FOODS

1) Faithful Muslims cannot eat bacon or sausage for breakfast in the name of Jesus Christ.
Qur'an 2:173 He has forbidden you only what dies of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that over which any other name than that of Allah has been invoked.

2) Faithful Muslims cannot eat a ham sandwich for lunch in the name of Jesus Christ.
Qur'an 5:3 Forbidden to you is that which dies of itself, and blood, and flesh of swine, and that on which any other name than that of Allah has been invoked, and the strangled animal, and that beaten to death, and that killed by a fall, and that killed by goring with the horn, and that which wild beasts have eaten - except what you slaughter; and that which is sacrificed on stones set up for idols, and that you seek to divide by arrows; that is a transgression.

3) Faithful Muslims cannot eat pork chops for dinner in the name of Jesus Christ.
Qur'an 6:146 Say, I find not in that which is revealed to me nothing forbidden for an eater to eat thereof, except that it be what dies of itself, or blood poured forth, or flesh of swine - for that surely is unclean - or what is a transgression, other than the name of Allah having been invoked on it.

4) Faithful Muslims will starve unless the food is blessed in the name of Allah only.
Qur'an 16:115 He has forbidden you only what dies of itself and blood and the flesh of swine and that over which any other name than that of Allah has been invoked.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

1) Allah is the only true god and Islam is the only true religion.
Qur'an 3:82 Seek they then other than Allah's religion? And to Him submits whoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned.

2) Islam will prevail over all religions, cultures, and countries.
Qur'an 9:33 He it is Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religions, though the polytheists are averse.

3) Muslims are warned against converting to Christianity.
Qur'an 3:99 O you who believe, if you obey a party from among those who have been the Book (the Bible), they will turn you back as disbelievers after your belief.
Note: Anyone who abandons Islam faces the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.

4) Religious dialog with Muslims will be almost impossible.
Qur'an 61:8-9 They (Christian apologists) desire to put out the light of Allah with their mouths (not with guns), but Allah will perfect His light, though the disbelievers may be averse. He it is Who sent His Messenger with the guidance and the true religion, that He may make it overcome the religions, all of them, though the polytheists may be averse.