Breaking: Brazil’s well-loved President Jair Bolsonaro calls Rio’s Governor “dictatorial” for closing famous beaches!

Common sense for an uncommon time?

And who could have ever guess, some handful of months ago, when a hungry Chinese man sat down for a tasty bat that, some handful of months later, the entire world would be locked down and surfers, us surfers, would be the pointy tip of that debate?

Virtually unbelievable and yet here we are.

“Social distancing” has become the rule from Bondi to Belarus, Copacabana to Cardiff by the Sea but what does “social distancing” actually mean and how should it be enforced?

In Cardiff by the Sea the jackboots are officially stomping down the street. Surfing banned even though surfing is, typically, a self-isolating pursuit. Rage bubbles at the absurdity. The heavy-handed absurdity.

Likewise, in Copacabana and throughout Rio beaches are closed and surfing outlawed but Brazil’s well-loved President, Jair Bolsonaro, did not take the move lightly and let us go alone, together, to The Gray Lady for the latest.

In Brazil, a surf-crazed nation where urban beaches are often clogged before and after work, the debate has taken an acrimonious and even political turn.

President Jair Bolsonaro has berated Rio Governor Wilson Witzel for closing beaches, calling the move “dictatorial.”

Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a congressman from Sao Paulo state, just down the coast, argued in a Facebook post on Thursday for a decree to allow surfing that conforms with social distancing.

With or without a decree, many surfers are simply doing what they can to dodge attention – and each other.

Eduardo Bolsonaro for President of the World Surf League? Such fine common sense but back to the point at hand. With surfing now central to the debate on how socially responsibility should look shouldn’t we all be doing a better job to make asses of ourselves?

Like, really turning every future VAL completely off?

A VAL bust that sees post-pandemic participation numbers fall to record lows?

Or are we doing a fine enough job already?

More as the story develops.