Bull, Here and There

I notice in the news this morning that a 73 year-old man - who surely is old enough to know better - has been gored in the leg during the annual "Running of the Bulls" in Pamplona, Spain. This event, for those of you who may have spent your prior lives deep in caves trying to avoid the blazing sun, is an annual festival dating back more than 400 years during which a number of irritated bulls are released to run a cordoned-off course through the town of Pamplona, chasing a larger number of brain-dead, often drunken dumbasses who think it's fun to attempt to outrun large animals fully capable of killing them quickly and messily.

There are other festivals involving bulls that are much less dangerous, at least if you are not the bull. Heidi has written eloquently about the Montana Testicle Festival which features, for the expansion of your epicurean horizons, "Rocky Mountain Oysters" (deep-fried bull testicles), as well as events and customs dedicated to convincing comely ladies to reveal their breasts. This, of course, beats getting gored in the leg (or worse) by an angry bull who may have heard about that Rocky Mountain Oyster thing.

Here in the National Capital Region, we have our own bull-related events, notably when Congress is in session and when major elections are scheduled ... both of which are occurring this year. In comparison to the events in Pamplona, the danger you run from trying to avoid the bull in DC is mental rather than physical - your poor brain is so constantly pummeled with outright lies, half-truths, distortions, cooked statistics, and outright balderdash that it's hard to know what or who to believe at any given time. Think of it as being gored in the head ... and Al Gore isn't even involved.

Sometimes, I think I'd rather deal with the Pamplona bulls rather than the GOP/Tea Party and Democratic ones. After all, the Pamplona bull can only kill you once, whereas listening to the endless bovine feces pumped out by crass politicians kills you a little bit at a time, every day.

Have a good day. Protect yourself from the bulls ... and the bull manure.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo