Martin World News

 

So last week about this time I vented about the news.  Sometimes you gotta let go and let God, and I didn't do so.  This week, I'm a bit less crotchety and a bit more level headed, so let me go seek the fun in the pages....

DW (Germany)- The headline is enough for a groan...

Headline: Baa-rgain hunters: 50 sheep visit German supermarket

Welcome to Burgsinn, Bavaria, where about 50 sheep decided to come shop at a Penny Supermarket.  It was a section of a herd that wandered away from the shepherd, and mistook someone's shopping bag for a feed bag, and followed them in.  Luckily for the store, they just kind of milled around the entrance, and an employee banging on a register scraed them off.  And luckily for us- and non-obvious jokes- the store wasn't a Woolworths.

Japan Times- Yeah, I don't see "White Day" catching on

Headline: From ‘senpai’ to ‘love hotel’: 11 new Japanese words enter the Oxford dictionary

This was a fun opinion piece on Japanese terms that made the latest update of the (slightly addled) Oxford English Dictionary.  While some of them the writer could kinda see, many times, the reaction of staff writer Mike Fu was, ' yeah, English speakers will really use that!'  I know two of them you are "dying" to hear, and one is this "Love hotel"- Which is basically the Japanese version of "no-tell motel."  Others of some note are: "Washlet", which Google AI tells us: A TOTO Washlet is a brand of electronic bidet toilet seat by TOTO that provides warm water cleansing, often with features like heated seats, warm air drying, and deodorizers, replacing traditional toilet paper for enhanced hygiene and comfort...

and the phrase "Mottainai" whose meaning pretty much sums up the whole list- "What a waste".

And White Day?  March 14th, when whoever receives a Valentines Day gift is required to return the favor.  What's "Another Hallmark rip-off" in Japanese? (answer: Mata shite mo hōrumāku no pakuri shōhin).

Xinhua: Somehow, I'm not as impressed as I was...

Headline: In pics: giant snowman at Qunli music park in Harbin, China's Heilongjiang

So, the interesting part of this was how big this snowman really was: "19 meters tall, measuring 14 meters in length and 11 meters in width".  The disappointing part, part one:  With 35,000 cubic meters of snow used, I thought, wow, thats a lot of snow!  So I asked how much snow would need to fall across the city of Harbin to get that much snow? Answer- less than a quarter inch. Somewhere between 4 to 11 feet per ONE acre...  I guess snow really piles up.  Disappointing part two:  As I scrolled down the article to learn more informastion, I found there was none... 10 different pictures, with the same 2 sentences attached to each one.

GB News: the Woke get woked

Headline: Woke outrage as Springsteen classic censored by UK radio station: 'Britain is a LAUGHING stock!'

I find it amusing that Bruce Springsteen, about as woke a celebrity is there is out there, got hoisted on his own petard, to wit:

A radio station in the UK has sparked outrage from music fans after reports emerged that it had been purposefully editing the lyrics of a classic Bruce Springsteen track.  Absolute Radio has reportedly begun censoring Mr Springsteen's 1984 classic Born in the USA, muting the phrase "yellow man" when broadcasting the track.

The term, which appears in the song's lyrics, is regarded as a derogatory slur against Asian people.  In the original recording, the 76-year-old rock star sings: "So they put a rifle in my hands, sent me off to a foreign land, to go and kill the yellow man, Born in the USA."

I would defend him over this senseless chunk of stupid, but Lord knows he'd run over me with his Cadillac, so screw 'im.

And now, the end, and I do mean, the end...

CTV News (Canada)- I really could just stop at the headline...

Headline: ‘Stop sending butt plugs to Bahrain’: Toronto sex store receives letters from U.S. Department of War

Toronto's Bonjibon sex-toy store has been fighting the tariff battle over returns from the US they've been getting.  But in examining a couple of returns, they got a surprise:

The letter was sent by the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command fleet logistics centre in Bahrain, an island neighbouring Qatar and Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf.

“During security screening by Bahrain Customs, pornographic materials and or devices were identified in a package addressed to you. This letter is to notify you that your parcel was returned to the sender,” the letter, with the subject line ‘Adult item Identified during X-ray Mail Screening,’ reads in part.

“Please notify the sender that pornographic materials or devices are not allowed into the Kingdom of Bahrain.”

Appartently, according to the owners of the shop, a middleman must have bought them and then shipped them to a US Military base in Bahrain. “We didn’t even know it (the product) was going to Bahrain until it came back to us months later, and it just kind of unraveled this whole … hilarious moment,” according to co-owner Grace Bennett.  CTV reached out to the Pentagon ("...don't have anything to offer on the topic") and to  Bahrain's Ministry of Interior Customers Affairs (crickets) to no avail.  

"They were a hoimecoming gift for... a friend..."