Rumanian Rites to Destroy the Undead

warren "transmetropolitan" ellis (of course) found this bbc article and waved it around this morning. entitled death rite unnerves romanian eu bid,

haunted by strigoi - the undead - villagers on the slopes of the carpathian mountains exhume a corpse from the graveyard and drive a stake through its heart to banish the evil spirit.

they burn the remains of the heart, mix the ashes with water from the local well & drink it to complete the macabre ritual.

apparently, this isn't exactly startlingly unusual behaviour for rural romania, which is what makes eunionists nervous. speaking of an article in the rumanian-language daily evenimentul zilei, the bbc continues,

it describes romania as a land of "sold girls" and "romany kings fighting over gold coins", where pre-christian faiths endure in spite of "internet cafés opened in villages in the old communist culture houses".

so they have a couple draught beers with corpse-ash mixed in. yee haw. honestly, i've heard worse. i mean, hell, look at how americans act - it's not altogether as inconsistent or insane as it sounds. our frelling president thinks jesus is going to arrive on earth to judge the sinners in a few years.

and rroma ("gypsies") selling their children to each other might be a cause cé�lè�bre - & a very just concern at that - but i know in which glass house i reside. i ran into a new book at the library just yesterday entitled predators, prey & other kinfolk: growing up in polygamy. i was going to check it out but i couldn't handle it. (i already had picked up army of roses : inside the world of palestinian suicide bombers & eunuchs & castrati : a cultural history; how much pain can one person check out of the library at one time without adversely affecting her sanity?)

bend over, beckham. here comes the reality enema. rumanians got trouble. we got trouble too.

so wah! to the eunionists, may they crack down on antifeminist, archaic nastiness. can we now bother to do the same? pree-haps? can we toss out utah until they make it stop?