In Brasília …
Shooting blanks?
Well, it’s certainly been a gift to editorial cartoonists and headline writers: the Brazilian government authorized purchasing 35,000 doses of Viagra, plus $700,000 worth of penile implants, for its military. “Our hospitals don’t have enough medication, and [President Jair] Bolsonaro and his crew are using public money to buy ‘the little blue pill’,” an opposition politician told The Times of London. The Defense Ministry’s defense: the pills were actually bought “to treat patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.”
Observers could hardly contain their glee. According to the newspaper, the ministry has been ridiculed in “cartoons featuring tanks with drooping cannons,” and on Twitter, where someone noted how “this explains why the military’s support for Bolsonaro just rises and rises.” Well, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a standing army, is there?
