Thursday, February 26, 2009

Snake Food

A friend of ours, while on a temporary hiatus from vegetarianism, once hiked into the Uruguayan (Paraguayan?) jungle with some hunter and gathers, who, nearly starving to death, killed a gigantic snake, cut a pig out of its belly, found a fetus in the partially digested pig, and ate the fetus, which was cheerfully shared with our friend.

Wait!

I may have lost the object of that sentence. Just to be clear: our vegetarian friend ate a pig fetus from a pregnant pig that was removed from a gigantic snake's gut by hunter and gatherers who were nearly starving to death. Our friend was also starving, and was, temporarily, not a vegetarian.

Clear?

Here, for example, is an anaconda (?) regurgitating a tapir (?) after being harassed.



To be fair, this snake may have previously eaten humans. I'm just sayin' ...

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Catch a falling star

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal first appeared on our radar screen months ago when much ado was made about an article he'd written in 1994 about witnessing an exorcism. (LoS wanted to profile the man at that time but nothing came of it.) The article is quirky, but it seems to end with some doubt as to what he'd actually witnessed, a fact not mentioned--much to their discredit--by most people who refer to the article.

Did I witness spiritual warfare? I do not have the answers, but I do believe in the reality of spirits, angels, and other re­lated phenomena that I can neither touch nor see.

Hell, even we believe in phenomena that can neither be touched nor seen. Radio waves....love....Spidey senses....

Given the attention focused on Jindal as one face of the future of the Republican Party leading up to his (now widely panned) response of Barack Obama's Sate of the Union address, we thought it was time to shine a lamp on him and see what strange shadow puppets we could cast on the wall of the Laws of Silence.

Judging by the responses we've read to articles about his rebuttal, one of the things that seems to anger people about Jindal (other than his hard right positions) is his seemingly wholesale rejection of his ethnic heritage.

First of all, there's the name. Legally, he's still Piyush Jindal, son of Indian immigrants. But since the age of four after he named himself after Bobby Brady (Brady Bunch) he's been Bobby Jindal. Now, if this story is true (and we don't say "if" to cast him as a liar, but we've gotta cover all the bases; damned sure not going accept this story as true based upon the endless repetition of it by the media), it's no big deal. Deciding that one would go by Bobby as an adult facing a political career is not the same as renaming oneself as a four year old. In both cases it boils down to just wanting to fit in, but in the former it's coldly calculating. In the latter it's more innocent, even touching. Kids are cruel and Bobby fits in a lot better with the Johns, Michaels and Christophers than Piyush. It was, after all, 1975 in Louisiana. Besides, immigrants from all walks of life choose new names for themselves. We've known Chinese immigrants who go by Tony, or Anna. A lot easier to get by than with Yu-Wei.

The second is his religion. Apparently he left Hinduism for Catholicism in high school. "Long before he embarked on a political career...." Uh, not really; he must've graduated in '89 or so. By '96 he'd been appointed secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Was he being shrewd in his choice, already gunning for political office and changing his faith in order to fit in? LoS tends to shy away from this kind of "secret Muslim/Hindu"-type banter. He seems to have been covering all bases though, studying biology and public policy. Accepted by Harvard Medical and Yale Law schools, he chose instead to study political science at Oxford. So one might speculate that he adopted Catholicism as an astute (evidently brilliant) young man in order to make things easier for his if he decided to run for public office. A good Catholic named Bobby, why not?

Which brings us back to the exorcism thing. Unless he was aiming for the hardcore religious right vote, this article he wrote would hardly be the thing to write if he was cynically rearranging his life to be a more appealing candidate. If that were the case he would have come out pentecostal and focused his writings on the evils of abortion. No, we feel his faith is genuine, his name not unreasonable.

Other bloggers have derided his "obviously" phony accent and delivery. We object. The man was born in Louisiana after all, and grew up there. The accent is real. There is a kind of decollage, however, between that voice and delivery--a bit patronizing, half Mr. Rogers/half Suday school teacher--and the look of Jindal. This dusky fellow with the too-large jacket, the angular cheek bones, the dimpled smile which seems a bit strained....he's an odd-looking figure. And very smart. Which puts a damper on the old liberal truth that right-wingers are all a bunch of ignorant morons.

Not that LoS gives a flying fuck about right-wingers or Bobby Jindal. He's just a curious specimen is all. At one year younger than both Daurade and The Gid, he's just a tad bit more accomplished.

And on June 25, 2008, he signed the "Sex Offender Chemical Castration Bill", authorizing the chemical castration for those convicted of specific sex offenses.

All of which begs the questions:
  • Is Bobby Jindal a cannibal?
  • If you happened across a fat anaconda, slit it open and Bobby Jindal popped out, still living, what would you do?
  • Why is is so fun to sing "Bobby Jindal" to the tune of Shelley Fabares' 1962 hit "Johnny Angel"?
  • Are Jindal and General David Petraeus clones from the same mysterious source?
  • Are volcanoes more whimsical than hurricanes? and
  • If they are in fact equally innocuous, should we abolish the National Weather Service?

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Ballad of the Singing Loo

There is, at work, a toilet that for several years has periodically sounded a sort of whistle, somewhat like a bagpipe, only more singular and somewhat more cheerful like a toy tugboat whistling while working or a teapot on a chilly day, and so somewhat unlike the more baleful and duplicitous unharmonies of the bagpipe, but sharing a certain timber nonetheless.

I once mentally composed a silly about "The Ballad of the Singing Loo" but forgot it while washing my hands.

Anyhow, I brought my guitar tuner to work today. After a cup a coffee I hit the facilities and waited for the whistle, tuner in hand.

It starts around a "C" and gathers steam before blowing a perfect "D."

Whoooo-EEEEEEEE!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too


In Japan, you can go to a restaurant and dine on a faked human corpse that bleeds when cut and contains anatomically correct organs made of sushi.

For more money, you can "pork your pork": approximately $7,000 U.S. dollars lets you "have your way" with a chicken, dog, pig, or goat which is then cooked up to your preference.

Elsewhere, you can get penis and balls served up from horse, pigs, goats, dogs ... even cock's cock.



Meanwhile, skeptical anthropologists are casting doubt on the reality of cannibalism outside of nut-jobs and starving desperation, which leads us to wonder: Has capitalism reached such decadent lows that it about to recreate horrors that never existed?

In a time when artists eat fetuses, is life imitating myth?

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Horse Tails

The Man is baffled by the mysterious swiping of horse tails. The tails, we're told, could take 10 years to grow back, which equates to a lot of mosquito bites on the fanny.

In England, they blame a cult of "horse rippers" who have, after cutting tail, bled horses to death and left stones arranged in as Satanic symbols.

We have our own theory after learning of a hair weave that stopped a speeding bullet.

Meanwhile, we'll leave you with this thought from an old time horseman: "If they were mean horses, [the thieves] would have never gotten away with it."

So what's your take?

* Violin bow makers?
* Rump shot affectionadoes?
* Bullet proof wig makers?
* Mistaken for a goat?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Edotorial decision-making in action

Daer LoS:

I have a matter to bring to your intention regarding an article in the Washington Post about the Iraqi shoe-thrower.

This article reads:

But the scene was largely jubilant, as women in black abayas ululated triumphantly, their high-pitched shrieks reverberating in the courthouse lobby.

But when I first read it it said something different. I searched for the missing phrase and preserved by Google, it read:

Iraqi Defends Shoe-Throwing Incident - washingtonpost.com
19 Feb 2009 ... But the scene was largely jubilant, as women in black abayas ululated triumphantly, their tongue-flapping, high-pitched shrieks....
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021900322.html?hpid=topnews - 8 hours ago - Similar pages -

Voila! The frame is adjusted, an offending phrase removed, more efficient than Winston Smith cutting and pasting, pneumatic tubes to incinerators and all that.

Please consider this post for you site.

Sincerely,

Mortimer Hawkins, Iowa

P.S.

If you'd like to learn to ululate, btw, there are some good tips at a forum on tribe.

Their banner rocks:

Looking for "tongue-flapping shrieks"?

P.P.S.

Googling "ululation" in images does not lead to what you might expect.

Chimp Attack!

If a chimpanzee shares 99% of its genetic material with a human, is it cannibalism when a chimp starts gnawing on a human?

And if that chimp surfs the net and drinks wine from a stemmed glass?

Enter Travis, a heretofore fairly domesticated beast who went wild on its master's friend, mauling her so badly that nurses at the hospital have had to go for counseling. The chimp, you see, had taken his prey's eyes, nose and jaw while intermittently chewing on other parts of her body. Her hands, for example....

A cop had to shoot the animal after it had a go at him. It made its way back into its home to die.

Animal experts are baffled by chimp attack says one headline from the AP.

But let's go back to 2005: AP reported Chimp attack doesn’t surprise experts after an attack on St. James Davis. It was reported that chimps "chewed most of Davis' face off and that he would require extensive surgery in an attempt to reattach his nose....the chimps also tore off Davis' testicles and foot."

As of February 19, 2009, 2017 GMT, CNN International's exclusive is this story about a young Iranian woman blinded and mutilated by an acid attack from a spurned man, wooing her with unwanted contact and stalking, the kind of stuff all girls love, right? So our lad attacks her with acid:

"What felt like fire on her face was acid searing through her skin.

"I was just yelling, 'I'm burning! I'm burning! For God's sake, somebody help me!' "

The acid seeped into Bahrami's eyes and streamed down her face and into her mouth. When she covered her face with her hands, streaks of acid ran down her fingers and onto her forearms."

Disfiguration could well be the name of this year's new fragrance.

Gotta be careful which stories to juxtapose. You might find yourself being accused of comparing a Persian guy to a chimp.

Editors all across the country are screaming at their cartoonists: "For God's sake! Chimps are out! For the next four years at least, got it? Chimps are out!!"

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Hunchbacks Cannibalized after CIA Assassinates Two Liberian Presidents

The Ugandan government recently issued a warning: Ritual murder is on the rise.

Within the last week, if we have successfully untangled several stories that may in fact be the same confused tale:

* In Bwaise, a suburb of Kampala, capital of Uganda, a witchdoctor was arrested (and has since died after being attacked by a mob) along with at least 9 others in connection with the ritual murder of 3 persons after severed legs were found in a latrine. Before dying, the witchdoctor, Musa Bogere, led police to a decapitated rotting corpse in a swamp where multiple dog carcasses were later discovered.

* In Sierra Leon, 14 people were arrested in connection with a corpse that "was missing its heart, tongue, breasts and sexual organs."

A special task force has been set up in Uganda to battle the troubling trend. Children, albinos, pregnant women, and hunchbacks are the favored victims, generally found with missing body parts that have been consumed in West African juju-marabou rituals.

Even more horrifying than last week's news: 3 people in Bibiani were arrested last August for eating a hunchback's "hump". Apparently, multiple victims were found, carved alive and bled to death.

In nearby Liberia, presidency comes with related risk. In 1980, President William Tolbert was either beheaded, disemboweled by future President Samuel Doe, or shot by the CIA, depending on which story you choose to believe. President Samuel Doe, in turn, was stripped naked and had his ears cut off before being murdered, all videotaped by captors sipping Budweisers -- captors supposedly let loose on Doe by, you guessed it, the CIA.

Now the world-weary authors and readers of LoS are probably not shocked by CIA incriminations nor bolted upright by tales of ritual murder (although the eating of hunchback humps while the victims lay bleeding to death is, you have to admit, particularly shocking), there is an element to all this that just doesn't seem to jive with our jaded attempts at understanding such depths of human horror.

Namely, cannibalism--like Holy Communion--is intended to convey some powers of the victim upon the consumer. Indeed, the idea behind the eaten victims detailed in this posting seems to be that the eater will be endowed some particular successes. In Tanzania, for example, "more than 40 [albinos] have been killed since 2007, sometimes right in front of their families, by gangs of men who hack off legs, heads or genitals and run away with them. In the last two years, rumors have spread in East [sic???] Africa that potions made with albino blood, shoes made of albino skin, tendrils of albino hair woven into fishing nets and amulets with albino body parts will make people rich."

Yet juju-marabou seems to single out albinos, hunchbacks, and the mentally disabled as proper ritualistic murder victims because they are believed to be evil.

How then, we wonder, does the consumption of evil bless the cannibals?

But before we get too smug in our attempts to outwit cannibals via logical debates on blogs, we should do well to remember that murder is leading cause of death of pregnant women in the U.S.A.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Forget love, 'hex your ex' on Valentine's Day

By Melissa Gray

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Love hurts, especially for jilted lovers on Valentine's Day.

With that in mind, a London tourist attraction is offering visitors the chance to curse former boyfriends, girlfriends or spouses -- and get a discount on the entry price at the same time.

"Hex your Ex" is the Valentine's Day promotion at the London Dungeon, a house of horrors that takes visitors through elements of the city's bloody, gruesome, and torturous past.

To qualify, visitors must bring a picture of their ex -- or anyone who has shunned them -- then rip it up and throw it in a smoking cauldron, spokeswoman Kate Edwards told CNN. Visitors can then select from a range of curses to inflict on their ex.

"If you happen to be single or freshly shunned, this is a way to move on and have a great way of doing it," Edwards said.

Hexing your ex will earn you £5 ($7.20) off the entry price.

"It's very therapeutic, but it means in times of the credit crunch, you get money off as well," she said.

The "curses" are meant to be taken lightly, she said. All were developed by the Dungeon's creative team. "They involve marvelously bad things happening to your ex," she said. "Nothing deadly, obviously. It's obviously tongue-in-cheek."

LoS comment:

This article is a bunch of silly nonsense. The "museum" looks like a total ball of turd and ridiculously overexpensive. Haunted house kinda hokum four sucker tourists.

What's really funny about this article is the ads that follow. Stoke the superstitious and then try and sell them snake oil. [蛇油, shéyóu] The article is the shill if you will, for the gentleman behind the link who's got the cure for what ails ya.

All the hex removal and counter-hex incantations you'll ever need. And if travel to London is required, well, that's taken care of, too.


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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

SS in Uruguay Egypt, sous un chapeau de paille eucalypt--us....

He was a Nazi doctor. He hid out in Egypt for almost 50 years. He died of rectal cancer in 1992. The fascinating tale is here. A book should be written about this. Any takers?

P.S. 13 Feb.

The title of this meager post comes from from a song on Serge Gainsborough's poppy Nazi-themed album Rock Around the Bunker (1975). The album leads off with a kitschy little number called "Nazi Rock" and finishes with "S.S in Uruguay." But not without first covering Harbach and Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"....