Editorial
RIO DE JANEIRO – We’ve been planning our one year anniversary party, and it’s going to happen on Thursday, April 1st. Obviously April Fools Day seems like an odd choice, but we wanted it to happen as March was ending, and the Thursday before a long holiday weekend seemed like a good time to have a party…
What is April Fools Day anyways? According to the always accurate Wikipedia; The earliest recorded association between April 1st and foolishness can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392).
Also in the Middle Ages, New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25th in most European towns, often a week-long holiday ending on April 1st. So it is possible that April Fools originated because those who celebrated on January 1st made fun of those who celebrated on other dates.
In-any-event, it’s a foolish idea, and we’re a serious news company – so we’re going to have a party… really.
Brazil is leading the world in voting systems, leveraging biometric technology fingerprinting to ensure people only vote once, and that they are real, living people. Conversely, the STF (Brazil’s supreme court) in 2008, rejected TRE-RJ’s (Rio de Janeiro’s Regional Electoral Tribunal) “Fichas Sujas” (dirty records) campaign, allowing politicians who were being tried or who had been condemned of crimes to participate in elections for public office.
In other landmark developments, the Ipanema landscape is set to be transformed by the Cantaglo elevator, although behind schedule. The social impact of the project is remarkable, and it feels like the wave of progress is overwhelming, even if the architectural vision is perhaps overly… dramatic.
This week we featured some interesting small business, the new Gringo Café in Ipanema looks set to serve up some Americana, and Shakti Activewear stretches into it’s potential. If you find fun in cooking, a botique service that makes Brazilian cuisine easy is Cook in Rio.
To wrap up the week, if you find U2’s passing of South America unbearable, explore some cachaça in Rio, and of course, make sure to come to our one year anniversary party.