Okay, what kind of mixed messages is the administration of Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva sending when Rio goes and bans sexy postcards while the national prison system is holding beauty pageants, complete with swimsuit-clad contestants competing in beauty, poetry, prose and congeniality categories? Then again, seeing how we're talking about a society that puts a hundred foot tall statue of Jesus overlooking the thong'd and topless masses on the beach at Ipanema, maybe the contradiction isn't so surprising after all.- J. West

· "Angolan wins biggest Brazil prison beauty pageant" (reuters.co.uk, via Attu)
· "Captives on the Catwalk" (smh.com.au)
· "Brazil's Miss Penitentiary: A Prison Beauty Pageant" (gallery @ savemanny.blogspot.com)

Previously: Caged Tushy

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