Even though, when reading the news, it may seem like every day is April Fools\u2019 Day, today is the real deal. Although today, also called All Fools\u2019 Day, has been celebrated for many centuries by different cultures, the exact origins remain a mystery. A popular theory is that April Fools\u2019 Day dates back to 1582 when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, that was called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes.<\/p>\n
I mentioned earlier that, especially in Washington, it seems like we\u2019re living a perpetual April Fools\u2019 Day. Sometimes the line between what\u2019s a prank and what\u2019s not isn\u2019t always clear-cut. When Donald Trump announced he was running for president, it seemed like a prank\u2026 maybe it was, but the fact that he ended up winning \u2014 is it still a prank? I\u2019ll leave that judgement up to you.<\/p>\n
But in 1959 something almost similar happened in Brazil\u2026 students in S\u00e3n Paulo, Brazil were tired of the city\u2019s overflowing sewers and inflated prices, so they launched a campaign to elect a rhinoceros to the city council \u2014 and won. The rino\u2019s name was Cacareco (Portuguese for \u201crubbish\u201d) and was already a popular figure in S\u00e3n Paulo when the students launched her campaign. The four year old rhino had moved to the city from Rio de Janeiro when S\u00e3n Paulo\u2019s zoo opened, and was scheduled to return to Rio soon. When the students looked at the 540 candidates vying for S\u00e3n Paulo\u2019s 45 city council seats and feared that none of them would address the city\u2019s problems, they decided to make a point by asking people to vote for the popular rino instead. Cacareco won a city council seat with a whopping 100,00 votes \u2014 far more than any other candidate. Of course, she didn\u2019t end up serving on the council because the election board disqualified her. But she remains one of the most famous protest votes in Brazilian history.<\/p>\n
Maybe if a rhinoceros is on the ballot in 2020, the race might get a lot closer \u2014 or \u2014 maybe a runaway. Just remember, April Fools\u2019 pranks used to be pretty easy to spot \u2014 today, not so much sometimes. That says a lot about our world\u2026 I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s good or bad. But go play a prank on someone \u2014 it is<\/em> April Fools\u2019 Day\u2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even though, when reading the news, it may seem like every day is April Fools\u2019 Day, today is the real deal. Although today, also called All Fools\u2019 Day, has been celebrated for many centuries by different cultures, the exact origins … Continue reading
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