Pooping Peasant Popular in Spain

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

(12-20) 17:33 PST BARCELONA, Spain (AP) --

The Virgin Mary. The three kings. A few wayward sheep. These are the figures one expects to find in a traditional Christmas nativity scene. Not a smartly dressed peasant squatting behind a rock with his rear-end exposed.

Yet statuettes of "El Caganer," or the great defecator in the Catalan language, can be found in nativity scenes, and increasingly on the mantelpieces of collectors, throughout Spain's northeastern Catalonia region, where for centuries symbols of defecation have played an important role in Christmas festivities.

During the holiday season, pastry shops around Catalonia sell sweets shaped like feces, and on Christmas Eve Catalan children beat a hollow log, called the tio, packed with holiday gifts, singing a song that urges it to defecate presents out the other end.

These traditions, in the case of the caganer dating back as far as the 17th century, come from an agricultural society where defecation was associated with fertility and health.

While the traditional caganer is a red-capped peasant, more modern renditions have gained popularity in recent years.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/12/20/international/i131658S93.DTL

Ok......God has been talking to Pat Robertson.......AGAIN! Pat says God told him there will be a terror attack on U.S soil sometime after semptember. Stay tuned......I guess. I think this nutcase might actually hire some terrorists to carry it out so he looks right, and perhaps so he can hurry up the process of "The Rapture" while he is still on this side of life.Hugo Chavez was not available for comment.

I was flipping the radio dial around and actually listened to Rush Limbaugh for a while today. ( Laurel and Hardy were not available). Rush of course gives out his phone number for calls, and was talking about gerald Ford and the times he hung out With Gerald and Betty Ford. I was gunna call in and ask Rush if had had spent more time with Betty Ford in person, or more time at the clinic named afer her. But I didn't.

This actually happened to Sandy and me tonight, while waiting in a checkout line at Publix (local supermarket down here). The lady in front of us presented a large unopened clear packaged bag of Bavarian Sauerkraut to the checker, and demanded a refund because there were "bugs" in it. After a few minutes of back and forth, with me laughing like an idiot the whole time, the cashier finally convinced the lady that Bavarian Sauerkraut has caraway seeds in it and that, unless some of the seeds were crawling, there were no bugs in it! By now, I was practically rolling on the floor, and Sandy had to elbow me in the ribs to get me to stop. Incidentally, the lady got her refund anyway, with an admonition by the clerk to never buy Bavarian Sauerkraut again because the lady obviously didn't know what it was.

Only in Florida! Strange but true...(really!)


mikey

LOL. I never knew that about sauerkraut. But then again I don't care for sauerkraut lol...

Hi!!!
There are a funny game of this tradition.
http://www.jocspolitics.cat
It's great!

Pooping Peasant Popular in Spain

There's a couple of photos of the "little pooper" in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer

I think I need a few to decorate my yard! Beats a garden gnome!

Found a site that has mooning & squatting gnomes and one that blows bubbles from it's... well, you know where this is going, don't you? Lots of other weird stuff that would appeal to warped minds like mine!

http://www.prankplace.com/gnomes.htm

Thanks, Zap! You've already solved my yearly dilemma about what to get my Sis for Christmas, and on Jan. 4--that's a record!

De nada, as they say in the land of El Caganer, Shelly! Happy to be of unintentional assistance. But, don't forget El Caganer's motto, "All things must pass!" or "Things have a way of working themselves out in the end."

Now if we could only train that eagle on the presidential seal to poop on george's head................but then again, who would notice?

lest you should forget!!

http://www.freethegnomes.com/

Bra Slows Bullet Fired Into Air in Florida

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Jan. 5) - A woman watching New Year's Eve fireworks from a picnic table found out that her bra can do more than lift and support: It also slowed a falling bullet.

The .45-caliber bullet struck Debbie Bingham, 46, after someone fired a gun into the air about 20 minutes before midnight. She still needed stitches, but the wound might have been much worse except for the bra strap, police spokesman George Kajtsa said.

Bingham, who was in town from Atlanta, said she is thankful for the undergarment, which she said was "very cheap."

"I'd love to have a couple more of those bras," she said.

Bingham said she was listening to music and enjoying the fireworks with her daughter and son when she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder.

Then Solanda Bingham, 30, noticed blood seeping through her mother's white shirt, and they found the bullet lodged halfway into the gold-colored bra. The other half was barely breaking the skin, Bingham told WTSP-TV.

Kajtsa described the wound as a "big scratch with bruising."

St. Petersburg police were searching for the shooter to determine if the shooting was intentional, Kajtsa said.


01/05/07 17:01 EST


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Somehow, I just knew that _one_ day a bra would come in handy.

The St. Petersburg PD is now issuing bras as standard equipment for all officers!

Maybe they'll come out with bullet proof bras. Sounds like a good idea to me after reading this...

Well, I've heard of bullet bras, but never bullet-proof bras! Ever notice how all these strange but true stories originate in Florida?


mikey