Wednesday, August 27, 2008

THIS IS WHY WE TRAVEL

We travel to see what is different, and what is the same. We travel to experience history, and cultures, and to learn more about ourselves. We travel because people in other places are insane. Proof?

In Villa Park, Illinois (home of a branch of the B family) a law is being considered that would (a) ban people in bars from dancing on the bar, on tables, or on chairs, and (b) ban bar employees from being drunk at work. The pros? "'Do we want to give the image of the tattooed person dancing on the table?' Trustee Richard Illian said. 'We're trying to clean up the village. We have an image to protect.'" The cons? "'Dancing on the bar -- you're taking away their freedom of expression,' Shepard said. 'I don't think this board or this town should walk into a business and tell them how to run their business.'"

Wow. Where to start? Tattooed people? The horror! How would Villa Park ever overcome the shame of having people with ink dancing on a table. Freedom of expression? Turns out that Barnes (no relation) already settled that. Seems to me that if they can make you wear a g-string and pasties, they can keep you from "expressing yourself" on a table top.

Meanwhile, in beautiful Baghdad (100 degrees, 14% humidity today) there are big plans for the future. Apparently the city is contemplating building the Eye of Baghdad, which would look similar to this and be over 650 feel tall. In addition, there are plans for a Romantic island in the Tigris, and a SIX star hotel/spa in the city (the sixth star is for sexy). What, no Pleasuredome in this new Xanadu on the rivers? Instead of all that they should build a really tricked out, MTV-Cribs-if-you-have-to-ask-it's-too-expensive palace. That'd be cool.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pasties Australian style, from Wikipedia:

Various parts of Australia including South Australia, particularly the Yorke Peninsula, where many immigrant Cornish miners settled in the 19th century. As well as being produced by large commercial bakeries such as Balfour's and Vili's, most local bakeries in South Australia produce pasties (pronounced "pahsties" in Australia). They are offered for sale alongside, and in South Australia are generally as popular as, Australian meat pies. However, in other Australian states (those with less Cornish heritage) pasties can often be purchased from bakers as an alternative to sausage rolls or meat pies. In a perculiar twist, these bakeries are largely run and staffed by Australians of Vietnamese descent. Australian pasties traditionally contain no meat, although this is not universal and popular recipes are today often based on sausage meat.

9:59 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home