Suburban Guerrilla

Feed on: Posts; Comments

« Humble Pie

Kindness »

Headline of the Day

Apr 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm by Susie

“Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital“

Posted in General

5 Responses to “Headline of the Day”

on 23 Apr 2008 at 4:19 pm1Bob

“You can have my penis when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”
The rallying cry of the NPA.
on 23 Apr 2008 at 4:43 pm2clio

This reminds me of Malleus Maleficarum.

In the Middle Ages [think Black Death, famine, social upheaval, massive income disparity (what an understatement) in Europe] the church and people in general became convinced that witchcraft was rampant, dangerous, and the cause of many of these ills. While it’s always easier to place blame rather than initiate social change, the mindset of the time actually forbade changing or challenging what was perceived to be God’s will, and in fairness the Black Death was far beyond any remedy the era had.

The definitive text on witchcraft, Malleus Maleficarum was published in the late 1400s, underwent several revisions to keep it topical, and was published well into the 17th century.

Vanishing penises are a staple problem in all editions, and must have been a form of hysterical conversion since even the authors of Malleus note that the supposedly vanished member could be easily seen to be present by everyone but the afflicted man. Sometimes it reappeared when the witch had been appropriately disposed of (torture and the stake), sometimes not. These spells, variants of which were common, were called glamors, and the idea of spell binding charm persists in word glamour to this day.

It’s instructive, if unnerving, to see that the hysteria and irrationality of witch blaming, closely related to every other form of bigotry, is alive, well, and given credence by many supposedly “modern” state authorities. [see also Pleas for condemned Saudi 'witch']
on 23 Apr 2008 at 6:26 pm3Macjazz

Now THAT’s a headline!! Whew! Good one Susie! Clio is right, of course, and it is mindboggling and sad to see this kind of stuff being taken seriously in any way today … but still, that headline is pretty damn funny! It’s author had to have been chuckling when it was written.
on 23 Apr 2008 at 10:16 pm4Izquierdo

Well that explains it. I thought it was just shrinkage.
on 24 Apr 2008 at 6:29 am5John

Seems normal. If my penis vanished, I’d panic too.

Comments RSS

Bad Behavior has blocked 11078 access attempts in the last 7 days.

Headline of the Day

5 Responses to “Headline of the Day”

Leave a Reply

Recent Posts

Archives

My Liberal Identity:

Categories

Tags

Pages