What We're Watching
Bolsonaro's Coup Commemoration Day – Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, generated considerable controversy this week by ordering commemoration of the day in March 1964 when Brazil's army moved to seize power from President João Goulart and established a dictatorship that lasted until 1985. Bolsonaro insists the takeover was not a "coup" and has said it's a shame more leftists weren't killed during the period of military rule. We'll be watching to see if "Coup Commemoration Day" is as over-the-top cool as Carnival. And we're betting it's not.
Our Girls Freed – In Burundi, three schoolgirls arrested two weeks ago faced up to five years in prison for insulting President Pierre Nkurunziza by doodling on photos of him printed in their school textbooks. To protest these charges, social media users then created their own extravagantly altered versions of Nkurunziza's photo with the hashtag #FreeOurGirls. Score another victory for political satire, because the girls have reportedly been freed.
What We're Ignoring
The Modi Movie – Critics of Narendra Modi say that a new film, which is billed as the Indian prime minister's life story, is little more than propaganda meant to boost Modi and his party ahead of national elections in April and May. Check out the poster, which depicts a pious Mr. Modi surrounded by adorable smiling children wearing the national colors with the tagline "patriotism is my strength." We don't know whether this film violates India's election laws, as some are insisting, but we're ignoring it, because it looks like a crappy movie.
The Female Spacesuit Shortage – NASA, the US space agency, had to cancel plans this week for the first all-female spacewalk because the agency doesn't have two spacesuits small enough to fit the two women chosen for the big event. The walk will go forward, but one of the women has been replaced by a man. President John Kennedy once said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Here's hoping it will soon be less hard for NASA to find outfits for two female astronauts at a time.
