Here’s a news flash :
Tbilisi, Georgia (the former Soviet Union region, not the Peachtree State): “Sausage-wielding extremists” (There’s a phrase to ponder, right?) invade a vegan café –Café Kiwi–during a film festival in the neighborhood and proceeded to fling meat and fish at the café patrons. The ten to fifteen men, wearing sausages around their necks and waving skewers with chunks of meat on them, started hurling meat and insults at the diners, causing fights to break out, which then spilled into the street. The neighbors joined in—on both sides—and it was quite a to-do until the police arrived…only to allow the assailants to escape and not do much about attempting to apprehend them. Who knew that chowing down on tofu would get so political…and so dangerous? The owners of the establishment—a pair named Egoo and Skvo…would I make this up?—claimed that the intruders were neoNazis and that all of the vegans (who don’t eat any meat or animal by-products like eggs or cheese or even honey) were “quite traumatized.” Mercy!
Those extremists might want to consider a move to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where the residents have apparently just decided that they’re perfectly happy to be called “Hattiesburgers”. (Want fries with them?) There was a brief dust-up over what should be designated the official name and a vote was taken among residents; “Hub City” and “Hattiesburgan” lost out to “Hattiesburger” fair and square. Sort of reminds one of the “Boaty McBoatface” story about the British research ship, doesn’t it? When did this all get so political? And so silly?
Oh,…the bat has not returned…yet. Have not seen it since that first fly-through, but that definitely does not mean that it’s gone. Maybe this is just a sort of vacation summer cottage and they come in when they have reservations. The B.C. cartoon strip in the paper the other day had a great couple of panels. Requires some thought. The one cave guy, B.C., is talking to the other cave guy, Peter, who is standing inside an apparently new cave. B.C. looks in and up and says, “Wow. Are those bats?” (You can see little critters hanging upside-down above Peter standing in the front of the cave) Peter replies, “They came free with the cave.” B.C. then enters (Bats are still hanging there )and is shown treading carefully, stepping high and looking down. He says, “Wow. Interesting carpet.” Then Peter says, “It comes free with the bats.”
Eeeewwww!
Another overseas news bulletin from Debrecen, Hungary : There’s a competition going on to determine the finalists for a regional championship for—get this, now—gravediggers. The BIG finish will be held in Slovakia later this year with teams from , well, the region, whatever that is. The participants in the contest are judged sort of like ice skaters or gymnasts, being evaluated not only on the basis of speed, but getting points for style—the look of the grave mounds. Presumably the actual users of the facilities—the graves—won’t be able to add their opinions, nor will the next-of-kin, but the groundskeepers and maintenance supervisors will. The competition, according to the organizer, is intended to “boost respect and recognition for gravediggers and attract more people to the job.”
So…. Do they get medals? Ribbons? Interviews with the news media? Can they advertise their skills and increase their revenues? This is a whole new field of entrepreneurship. Somebody in this country is probably thinking, at this very minute, of how they can get one of the Kardashians or some NFL star or Donald Trump to endorse (for a fee, certainly) their particular form of expertise. It’s come to that. Oy!
Ramadan, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, began at sundown (based on the sighting of the crescent moon) on Sunday this week (June 5). Give any Muslims you deal with a little leeway; they’re fasting from sunrise to sunset for a month. A person could get kind of edgy not eating or drinking anything for that long—depending on the season, twelve hours or more is not unusual. It marks the revelation of the Q’uran to Mohammed. It ends with the Eid al-Fitr, when normal patterns of eating and drinking may resume—there’s often a party…well, wouldn’t you?
And parties are on the schedule for the foreseeable future—graduations, Father’s Day, weddings.
Graduations and weddings are such hopeful occasions. June is a perfectly good month to have them both in. Get them over and done with before haying season starts, I say.
The Old Farmer’s 2016 Almanac doggerel for this month starts out with , “Stay inside. Here comes the bride! Thunder clears the bleachers, drowns out graduation speechers.”
That pretty much covers it.
