One of my favorite ways to spend a rainy English afternoon is making a big pot of Witch’s Soup. Its a personal recipe that I have been developing for years. The best thing about it is that its a flexible recipe that, depending on your stock of spices, can be altered to suit whatever is at hand.
It takes about an hour to make all told. A little longer to cool.
Witch’s Soup
vegetables:
1 whole leek 2 large onions 5 medium sized mushrooms 1 large carrot 2 celery stalks 1 spring onion 1 cup of pearl barley
Chop leek, onions, mushrooms and carrot and fry them in a pan with 2 tbsp of oil. Stir in black pepper (1tsp), basil (1 tbsp), and other spices. Cook until edges are browned.
In a large pot boil 2 liters (quarts) of water.
Add a pinch of salt and a cube of veg stock.
Add a cup of barley and the contents of the frying pan to the boiling stock.
Add chopped celery and spring onion.
Reduce heat and cover. Cook on low for 30 minutes, uncover to cool.
Chop 3 garlic cloves thinly and add to soup as it cools.
“'Forgive them, Monster, for they know not what they do.’ Elder Pastitsios praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.“ – Image by JohnAntóno
ATHENS – I became acquainted with the Flying Spaghetti Monster when I was 17 or 18 years old. I was immediately conquered by divine pasta love. See, when the Kansas State Board of Education decided in 2005 that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in science classes, Bobby Henderson, a physics graduate, wrote an open letter claiming that if intelligent design taught schoolchildren that the Christian God created the universe, then his religion, which made the claim that the creator of everything is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, should be taught at schools too.
There is nothing fun about this religion though. In fact, it is not uncommon for FSM believers to stop at nothing so their religion and their rights as believers will be officially recognized. They are often persistent enough to succeed, especially through the courts. Besides, why should the state be interested in your deepest and most personal beliefs, and why should you not be able to define yourself however the hell you want? This is what our Great Spaghetti Lord stands for.
Well, this and delicious pasta dishes. Speaking of which, if you ever try Greek Cuisine, go for pastitsio (baked pasta with minced meat and béchamel). It’s divine (wink, wink) but beware, as it comes with heavy political baggage. When Filippos Loizos, 27, created a Facebook page called Elder Pastitsios – a pun on the name of popular Greek monk figure Elder Paisios, whose face was depicted on the page as a pastitsio – he was targeted by the neo-Nazi organization Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn MP Christos Pappas even made an inquiry to Parliament about the “blasphemous” page.
Note that Elder Paisios lived and died some 20 years ago in “Holy Mountain” Athos – an autonomous peninsula of 129 square miles where women and female animals are banned – and his image has been recently exploited by far-right and fundamentalist groups, who tend to ascribe to him beliefs surprisingly similar to their own. A lot of it revolves around how women should or shouldn’t behave, how immigrants will destroy Greece, and how gay people should be “fixed.”
The hoax – the parodic “Elder Pastitsios” account – was created by Filippos Loizos and started through his relatively low-profile satirical Facebook page, yet was quickly picked up on as fact by several conservative Christian blogs. The satirical account even made some newspaper headlines – all of which seemed to miss the point. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The Online Crimes Police Department, prompted by Golden Dawn’s official parliamentary inquiry (!) tracked Loizos down and prosecuted him for blasphemy. He was tried in January 2014 and sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended. As no insulting content could be found in what he posted, he was convicted on the grounds that he failed to erase insulting comments made on his page. During the trial, the judges kept asking the defense witnesses badgering questions, like if they thought the page was funny, or if Loizos was unemployed or had other hobbies besides Facebook.
Judges repeatedly, aggressively asking if something is objectively or not funny reminds me a bit of the Queen in Alice in Wonderland who decapitates anyone who doesn’t entertain her. Of course, in that story, the Queen has an ulterior motive. At the same time that Loizos was found guilty of nothing less than blasphemy, the Greek government issued an announcement demanding that opposition leader Alexis Tsipras publicly deny or confirm his atheism. Further, amendments were repeatedly proposed that would allow the Church to create companies exempt from audits, grant members of the upper clergy public land and protect clerics (who are state employees) from potential layoffs. When taken in context, it paints a bleak picture. Satire, and by extension, free speech, is on trial. And the Church, a holy business, literally, is implicated. Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Especially when it comes to unholy web pages.
Για όσ@ δε το έχετε ήδη πάρει χαμπάρι, το news247 έχει δωρεάν streaming το Golden Dawn Girls για περίπου 48 ώρες ακόμα.
Μαζί με το:
Φασισμός Α.Ε (Α.Χατζηστεφάνου/Infowar/Movemienta)
το Χρυσή Αυγή: Προσωπική Υπόθεση (A.Kourounis)
το Burning From the Inside (M.Tzivara)
το docu του TRT (Nazis in the mediterranean)
και το The Cleaners (K.Georgoussis/Channel4)
είναι κάποια από τα ντοκουμέντα που αξίζει να δείτε.
(links σε PM για torrent ή streaming αν δε τα βρείτε. Το The cleaners δυστυχώς δε το έχω ούτε εγώ. Μπορείτε να βρείτε μόνο trailer και αποσπάσματα στο Youtube)
Remember Greece’s Golden Dawn political party? You know, the one with the guy who channels Hitler when he speaks, and won 21 seats in recent parliamentary elections? They’re back in the headlines again after spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris assaulted candidates from the rival SYRIZA and Communist parties during a televised debate. (Jump to 1:10 in the video. It’s crazy.) A warrant has been issued for Kasidiaris, who is also scheduled to go on trial Monday for his role in a separate mugging incident. source
