ODDLY SENTIMENTAL

odd'ly: in a manner differing from the ordinary, usual, or expected. sen'ti-men'tal: marked or governed by feeling, sensiblity, or emotional idealism; expressive of tender emotions, such as love, sympathy, gentleness, & nostalgia.

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Location: St. Louis, MO, United States

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Penis theft panic hits city...

My sister wrote a blog about this article, and I had to share! It's so freakin' funny that I had to look up the article to make sure it's legit; here's the link. The last line of the article is perfect!

Penis theft panic hits city...

By Joe Bavier, Wed. Apr. 23

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)

Friday, April 18, 2008

Maybe it's our marriage...

Last night, Tyler and I woke up around 4am-ish to our house shaking (by the way, I'm married now, I'll blog about that some other time). In a surprisingly calm and chill-lax manner, this was our following conversation:

"Hey... is this an earthquake?"
"No... couldn't be."
"How are you so sure?"
"It would be a lot stronger."
"Nu-uh! Earthquakes have different levels, you don't even feel some earthquakes."
"...Nope..."
"How do you know? Have you ever been in an earthquake?"
"... no... but I was in the movie Tremors..."
"...maybe it's our marriage..."

We both laughed, made some jokes about Kevin Bacon and our marriage being on shaky ground, and then went back to sleep. We had a 5.2 earthquake. Really not as exciting as I hoped one would be. I don't know what people from California complain about... whooses...