"They have been drinking live fish from goblets of wine in the Belgian town of Geraardsbergen for more than 600 years."

"But a ban on animal welfare grounds drew protests over the weekend from traditionalists who wish to defend the custom. The Flemish town’s Krakelingen carnival celebrations were first recorded in 1413 and revolve around the throwing of ring-shaped bread crackers, or 'Mastellenworp,' by town worthies dressed as druids on the Oudenberg hill. Before the throwing of the breads, after a costumed procession from the town, the local church priest, the mayor and aldermen drink a sip of wine with a live fish from a 400-year-old silver cup...."

From "Animal welfare laws stop tradition of drinking live fishThe ban on the 600-year-old practice, which sipping wine from a goblet at Geraardsbergen’s carnival in Belgium, has prompted protests from locals" (London Times).

Here's some older video that demonstrates respect for the tradition:

"During the second week of Lent, on 'Cat Wednesday,' cats were tossed to their deaths out of the belfry tower onto the town square below."

"At the time, the animals were seen as a symbol of witchcraft and evil, so their deaths were celebrated. The last live cat was thrown in 1817, but Ieper (also called Ypres in French) developed Kattenstoet in 1937, a tradition to both acknowledge the city’s gruesome history and celebrate cats. The parade, which was held on Sunday, May 12, is filled with elaborate floats, costumes and performances. Afterward, a person dressed as a jester tosses stuffed animal cats from the belfry, down to the onlookers below."

From "A City With a Medieval History of Killing Cats Now Celebrates Them/Cat lovers from around the world gathered for Kattenstoet, a cat parade in Iepers, Belgium" (NYT).

I expended my second-to-last free gift link of the month on that because there are some cool and amusing photographs of the place. And there are still 10 more days — and all that Trump-trial business still remaining! Too bad! Belgians twirling in cat costumes and tourists cavorting in cat ears beat out NYT reporters informing us, moment by moment, about whether Trump's eyes are open or shut.

"Job centres in Belgium have started asking if out-of-work Belgian actors would like to try their hand at starring in pornographic films.

"Actiris, a public employment agency in Brussels, has been the subject of criticism from politicians, who are demanding that the question be struck from a list for jobseekers. Penalties can be imposed by Actiris on people refusing to work, which has only intensified the controversy.... "

The Express reports.

"It's our humour... just fun... It's our parade, our humour, people can do whatever they want. It's a weekend of freedom of speech."

Said Peter Van den Bossche, the mayor of Aalst, Belgium, quoted in "Belgian city of Aalst says anti-Semitic parade 'just fun'/A Belgian city has defended as 'just fun' a carnival featuring caricatures of Orthodox Jews wearing huge fur hats, long fake noses and ant costumes" (BBC).

Other floats mocked UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brexit, climate activist Greta Thunberg, and Jesus Christ on the cross. There were also people parading in Nazi SS uniform...

[S]ome caricature Jews posed with a mock-up of the Western Wall - often called Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, a holy site for Jews. It was labelled "the wailing ant", in Dutch "de klaugmier". The Dutch for "wailing wall" is "klaagmuur".

"This doesn't encourage anti-Semitism; the reaction last year was over the top," Mr Van den Bossche said. "Two hundred percent it's not anti-Semitic."

"Brussels has decided against decorating its iconic Manneken-Pis statue in a Michael Jackson costume as planned for the 10th anniversary of the US pop icon's death, officials said Friday."

"The decision was made in the wake of a new documentary, 'Leaving Neverland,' which since its release this year has revived claims the singer sexually abused children. Brussels' famous Manneken-Pis statue of a nude young boy has been cheekily urinating into a Baroque fountain for 400 years. He is dressed about 130 times a year in various outfits often donated by organisations or embassies to mark a special occasion or event, such as the Chinese new year or the start of football's World Cup."

Yahoo reports.



Well, at least the Belgians aren't clamoring to take down the statue taken down (which is the incipient practice in the United States). What can they do when the thing is such a landmark? How many tourists assemble at the foot of this little boy every day?

Manneken Pis (About this sound[ˌmɑnəkə(m) ˈpɪs], meaning "Little Pisser" in Dutch) is a landmark 61 cm (24 in) bronze sculpture in the centre of Brussels (Belgium), depicting a naked little boy urinating into a fountain's basin. It was designed by Hiëronymus Duquesnoy the Elder and put in place in 1618 or 1619. The current statue is a replica which dates from 1965. The original is kept in the Museum of the City of Brussels.[ Manneken Pis is the best-known symbol of the people of Brussels. It also embodies their sense of humour (called zwanze in the dialect of Brussels) and their independence of mind.

At that last link (to Wikipedia), there are several photos on the Mannekin Pis in costumes (and the explanation that the statue is dressed in costumes several times a week). I'll just pick one, the Dracula:



By the way, the Belgians have installed a female version of the Manneken Pis, the Jeanneke Pis, erected in 1987. Also in Belgium, Het Zinneke (Zinneke = bastard), a statue of a dog urinating. Why Belgians want to be associated with pissing, I'm not so sure. I guess once one thing is very famous, other things will refer to it. Or maybe I just need to understand more about zwanze:

Not easily defined, zwanze is characterised by mockery, self-deprecation, a wariness of power and an incredulous response to all types of authority, which on occasion is too forgiving of official blunders.

"Zwanze is a bit like gueuze (a Belgian beer) and grenadine,” remarks [the author Alain] Berenboom. “It is a combination of bitter beer and sweet syrup, two apparently incompatible products Belgians like to mix to make a drink called Mort subite [Sudden death], which is only fatal for cranky people... "

"With the start of the new year, Belgium became the latest European country to ban traditional Jewish and Muslim animal slaughtering practices."

"The move was applauded by animal rights activists but condemned by religious leaders who see the ban as a threat to their communities. At issue is whether to allow religious exemptions to European Union rules that state animals must be knocked out before they are slaughtered, which supporters say is more humane. The United States has similar regulations, but allows for religious exemptions.... Religious leaders say minimizing an animal’s pain has always been central to their traditions, and a ritual slaughter — carried out with a sharp blade to the neck — should be quick and almost painless. When they are stunned, animals are rendered unconscious through blunt force, electric shocks, gassing or a steel bolt that penetrates an animal’s skull. Stunning has been used for decades and
'promotes animal welfare and meat quality,' according to the North American Meat Institute, a trade group that represents 95 percent of American red-meat producers.... Beyond the concern for animals, Jewish and Muslim leaders see darker motivations behind the effort to outlaw the practices. The historical precedents are grim. The Nazis also cited cruelty to animals when they prohibited slaughter without stunning in 1933."

From "Is Stunning an Animal Before Slaughter More Humane? Some Religious Leaders Say No" (NYT).

Street art in Brussels: Gigantic and very gory details copied from famous 17th-century paintings onto the outside of building.

One is a gutted, bloody corpse hanging by its feet, painted 7-stories long on an apartment building. The instinct to condemn it outright is modified by the realization that it is a detail from the painting "The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers" which is on display in the Rijksmuseum.*

A stealthy anonymous artist accomplished the work "on a few bitterly cold nights in Brussels while dangling down a rope and staying out of sight of authorities."

The mural depicting a lynched De Witt brother can be seen far and wide, including by hundreds of thousands of commuters on Belgium's busiest stretch of railway.

Many art insiders suspect the painter behind the murals is the same one who created huge frescoes of human genitalia a few months ago....

"The artist is trying to give the public an answer to all of these people talking in the press," about the genital murals, [said  Bjorn Van Poucke, curator of the Crystal Ship, a major European street art festival on the Belgian coast]. "So he actually says with these last two works that if you still think these are shocking, please be aware that it is inspired by two historical paintings over 400 years old."...

"Some people say, 'Yeah, it really has to stay,' but then you ask them 'What would you think if you had the same violent image in front of the school of your children or in front of the bedroom of your children?' and they say "Ooh, I would not like it,'" [said  Brussels alderwoman Ans Persoons]. "And that makes it interesting art."

The current political solution is to leave the artwork where it is.

________________

* "The ultimate humiliation: the nude, flayed corpses of Johan and Cornelis de Witt on public display in the Groene Zoodje, the execution ground on the Vijverberg in the middle of The Hague. On 20 August 1672 they were assassinated by their political opponents. Johan had been the most powerful man in the Republic for close to twenty years, steadfastly supported by his brother Cornelis. But they were held responsible for everything that went wrong in the year 1672, known as the ‘Year of Disaster.'"

"Brussels attacks were a terrorist interrogation failure..."

"When Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the logistics chief for an Islamic State terror cell, was captured, Belgian officials followed law enforcement procedures with precision. They provided Abdeslam a lawyer, told him he had the right to remain silent and put him into the Belgian criminal justice system. Four days later, the terror cell carried out bombings in Brussels that killed 35 people — including at least four Americans — and injured hundreds more. Astonishingly, officials did not question Abdeslam at all for his first 24 hours in custody. He spent Friday night in the hospital recovering from a leg wound sustained in the raid. When he was finally returned to the police on Saturday, he was questioned by authorities for a grand total of . . . two hours – and then was not questioned again until after the attacks. Why? 'He seemed very tired and he had been operated on the day before,' a senior Belgian security official told Politico. He seemed tired? That’s precisely when they should be interrogating him. The CIA used sleep deprivation as one of its most effective interrogation tools. But for Belgians, a terrorist’s exhaustion is a reason to stop questioning, not intensify it. But here is the most incredible part: During those two hours of questioning, The Post reports, 'investigators did not ask... about his knowledge of future plots.'"

"The other way to neutralize a bad analogy is with an equally bad analogy that cancels out the first one."

"For example, as of today, the Trump=Hitler analogy is partly neutralized by Belgium=USA-with-porous-borders."

(That's Scott Adams, and his first idea for canceling the Trump=Hitler analogy is an appeal to identity, saying something like "We’re Americans, and the instinct for freedom is in your DNA. Have some confidence in our constitution and in our people that a dictatorship can never happen on our shores.")

The world’s wealthiest failed state... a population that’s complicit.... a very strong implantation... politicians who don't want problems....

"[D]espite its success in arresting [the alleged leader of the Paris massacre Salah] Abdeslam, Belgium continues to present a special security problem to Europe."

The country of just 11.2 million people faces widening derision as being the world’s wealthiest failed state — a worrying mix of deeply rooted terrorist networks, a government weakened by divisions among French, Dutch and German speakers, and an overwhelmed intelligence service in seemingly chronic disarray....

“This shows the limits of the actions you can undertake in a state of emergency,” said Philippe Hayez, a former official with the D.G.S.E., the French external intelligence service.... But unless you occupy it militarily, you don’t hold a town just by circulating police cars. We’re talking about guerrilla terrorism. And there’s a population that’s complicit.”...

[Alain Juillet, who helped reorganize the D.G.S.E., said:] “We can easily see that Belgium has become a hub. So that when you arrest someone” — he referred to the arrest Friday of Mr. Abdeslam — “there will be a reaction... All of this is to say that the implantation of the network is more firm than we thought... The police were efficient — and yet this happened. So, there is a very strong implantation in Belgium"....

“The Belgian police are excellent,” said another former D.G.S.E. official, Alain Chouet. “The problems are political. They let develop violent Islamist currents. They were not disrupted because they didn’t want problems with the Muslim community.”

"A series of deadly terrorist attacks struck Brussels on Tuesday..."

"... with two explosions at the city’s main international airport, and a third in a subway station at the heart of the city."

The report now is of 13 killed in the airport and 15 killed in the subway.

Prime Minister Charles Michel is telling his people to "avoid all movement."

Vous avez détruit un transport (#métro) et des vies mais vous ne détruirez jamais notre route ni la vie ! #Bruxelles pic.twitter.com/XM3CgWlRXa

— Jamal Ikazban (@ikazban) March 22, 2016

Where doctors perform euthanasia even on non-terminal patients and pronounce it "very magical."

From a New Yorker article titled "The Death Treatment/When should people with a non-terminal illness be helped to die?"

In Belgium, euthanasia is embraced as an emblem of enlightenment and progress, a sign that the country has extricated itself from its Catholic, patriarchal roots....

[P]eople have... been euthanized because they had autism, anorexia, borderline personality disorder, chronic-fatigue syndrome, partial paralysis, blindness coupled with deafness, and manic depression. In 2013, Wim Distelmans euthanized a forty-four-year-old transgender man, Nathan Verhelst, because Verhelst was devastated by the failure of his sex-change surgeries; he said that he felt like a monster when he looked in the mirror. “Farewell, everybody,” Verhelst said from his hospital bed, seconds before receiving a lethal injection.

The laws seem to have created a new conception of suicide as a medical treatment, stripped of its tragic dimensions. Patrick Wyffels, a Belgian family doctor, told me that the process of performing euthanasia, which he does eight to ten times a year, is “very magical.”...

ADDED: Speaking of "sex-change" surgeries... one might say that someone who wants suicide is seeking to have his or her body transformed to correspond to the identity that exists in the mind, that of a dead person.

"In at least 20 incidents, taxi drivers blocked Uber cars as they attempted to pick up passengers, threw eggs and in some cases dragged passengers onto the street..."

"... Filip Nuytemans, Uber’s general manager in Belgium, said Monday."

In Belgium, doctors — following the law — kill depressed patients who want to die.

(Via Live Action News, which says: "A new PBS documentary glowingly features euthanasia in Belgium [and] will send chills down the spine of any sane person who watches it.")

IN THE COMMENTS: Richard Dolan said:

So, this is what life-and-death looks like when it's reduced to bureaucratic, form-shuffling banality. Not pretty.

"It is said that every city, every country, has its smell."

"Paris, they say, smells or used to smell of acrid cabbage. Cape Town smells of sheep. There are tropical isles that smell of roses, musk, or coconut oil. Russia smells of leather. Lyon smells of coal. The Orient generally smells of musk and corpses. Brussels smells of black soap. The hotel rooms smell of black soap. The beds smell of black soap. The napkins smell of black soap. The sidewalks smell of black soap."

Notes for a book about Belgium, by Charles Baudelaire, who died in 1867, without having written the book.

"Belgium’s euthanasia guidelines are a mere veneer that can be violated without consequence."

"When violations finally come to public light, lawmakers simply amend the law to reflect actual practice."

Belgian doctors have provided euthanasia to: "a transsexual repelled by the results of a sex change operation... a depressed anorexia patient who wanted to die after being sexually exploited by her psychiatrist... deaf twins, who asked to be killed together when both began losing their eyesight... elderly couples who preferred immediate death to eventual widowhood."

They harvest organs in the process too, when they can.

"The Congo Free State was a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians...."

"Under Leopold II's administration, the Congo Free State became the site of one of the most infamous international scandals of the turn of the twentieth century. The report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of white officials who had been responsible for cold-blooded killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903, including one Belgian national for causing the shooting of at least 122 Congolese natives. Estimates of the total death toll vary considerably. In the absence of a census, the first was made in 1924, it is even more difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. Roger Casement's famous 1904 report estimated ten million people. According to Casement's report, indiscriminate 'war,' starvation, reduction of births and tropical diseases caused the country's depopulation."

The Congo Free State included all of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is our "History of" country today.

"European explorers and missionaries.... compared the organisation of the kingdom of Burundi with that of the old Greek empire."

"It was not until 1899 that Burundi became a part of German East Africa."

Unlike the Rwandan monarchy, which decided to accept the German advances, the Burundian king Mwezi IV Gisabo opposed all European influence, refusing to wear European clothing and resisting the advance of European missionaries or administrators. The Germans used armed force and succeeded in doing great damage, but did not destroy the king’s power. Eventually they backed one of the king's sons-in-law Maconco in a revolt against Gisabo. Gisabo was eventually forced to concede and agreed to German suzerainty.....

With WWI, Belgium took over, running things "through indirect rule, building on the Tutsi-dominated aristocratic hierarchy." Independence came in 1962, and "Tutsi King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng established a constitutional monarchy comprising equal numbers of Hutus and Tutsis." Horrific events follow.

In Burundi, today's "History of" country.

"French control over Flanders steadily increased until 1302 when an attempt at total annexation by Philip IV met a stunning defeat.."

"... when Count Guy (who had the support of the guilds and craftsmen) rallied the townspeople and humiliated the French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs."

It looked something like this:



That was long ago in the place that we call Belgium... our "History of" country today.

Belgian doctors give suicide injections to 45-year-twins who were going blind.

Marc and Eddy Verbessem, who were deaf, decided they didn't want to live anymore, and the doctors fulfilled their death wish.

Euthanasia is legal under Belgian law if those making the decision can make their wishes clear and are suffering unbearable pain, according to a doctor's judgement....

Mr Dufour, the doctor who presided over the euthanasia, told RTL television news that the twins had taken the decision in 'full conscience.' He said they were 'very happy' and it had was a 'relief' to see the end of their suffering.

'They had a cup of coffee in the hall, it went well and a rich conversation,' Mr Dufour said. 'Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful. At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.'

This is a shocking story. We're told the men were "terrified" of being institutionalized once they went blind. But they hadn't gone blind yet, and they hadn't attempted to learn how to live independently while blind and deaf. Why not at least wait until they actually became blind? Why advance-euthanize? And what kind of a society facilitates death for the disabled while scaring them with the loss of their freedom? When are the blind institutionalized?

Where was the "unbearable pain"? There was no physical pain, only mental anguish, accepted as pain. And the anguish seems to have been premised on a fear of institutionalization. Why were they threatened by that? If their fear was reasonable, something is wrong with the treatment of the disabled in Belgium. If their fear was unreasonable, their decision should not have been enough even in a system that authorizes physician assisted suicide.

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo (who is a doctor) offers a passage from Robert Jay Lifton's book "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide."