So, today was the 40th day of protests in Sofia. I haven’t really been keeping you up to date on them, as they have really been more of the same (and by that I mean large and peaceful). I guess I’m as guilty as the media for not keeping up my effort to spread awareness about the issue. The birth of a child, with two eyes, one nose, and one mouth seemed to preoccupy millions of people. Amanda Bynes attempted to give the royal princeling a run for his money. Both, however, were orders of magnitude more important than the efforts of 65% of Bulgarians to fight for a better society.

Even stories about Bulgaria’s Sunny Beach were trending higher on my Bulgaria section in Google News than about the protests. Yesterday was the first time in over a week that I saw anything new written about the protests in Bulgaria in British/American/Canadian media. The European Union’s chief justice threw her support behind the protestors, and immediately acknowledged how little her support meant by stating that the EU doesn’t interfere with national affairs. That warranted an article or two.

In any case, protesters formed a human chain around parliament, refused to let lawmakers out. This continued for about an hour, until the police brought a bus to get the members of parliament out. The protesters then surrounded the bus, and refused to let it move. At that point, the police had to use “force” to clear a path for the bus to leave. 4 people knocked their heads, or got knocked in the head.

So the media, which had basically ignored the protests for 40 days, finally decides to cover the protests a bit. The headlines are wonderfully sensationalist. A reputable paper has run a story titled “Bulgaria Anti-Corruption Protests Turn Violent.” And when I say reputable paper, I mean The Wall Street Journal.

Wish we had a real life Will McAvoy.