Hopefully This Isn't the Source of the Cheese's Smell...

The small Belgian city of Limburg now can boast of having the Best Flemish Graveyard, announced recently at the annual Funeral Awards. You've got to be good at something: we in the U.S. have Emmys, Pulitzer Prizes, and Oscars. Here, they've got Best Boneyard.
It was evidently a hot contest between Limburg and two other cities in northern Belgium. I'm sure they were all dying to win. Sorry; it was there; I had to use it.
Nearly all cemeteries here are stand-alones, not affiliated or collocated with any particular church, so funerals are always held elsewhere. So, just what then are the criteria for this coveted award, you ask? Awards are given in the categories of services (you dig a hole, you fill it - this one seems like a no-brainer), suppliers (of what? Dirt? Shovels?), quality of website (you haven't lived until you've checked out a cemetery site), and - I'm not making this up - best idea for the disposal of crematory ash.
What I've been wondering about is just who they get to MC this annual gala event?

An Unpaid Political Commentary

This doesn't have a darned thing to do with Belgium, but having lived within a stone's throw of the Berlin Wall for over 6 years, I humbly submit the following for your consideration:
About the only people I could ever envision lauding the border policies of the former East Germany would be 1) members of now-defunct eastern European politburos, or 2) anyone else who has never gotten around to reading a single book on 20th century European history. Enter Joe Miller, Tea Party Senate candidate from Alaska (the state that has already given us the Republican's version of Albert Einstein...).
Candidate Miller was certainly never a politburo member and, as a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he most hopefully cracked open the cover of at least one history book during his four years of study. But I might be wrong.
He draws comparisons between the current border problems in the southwestern U.S. and those same nagging "problems" which tormented the East German regime 50 years ago. He states that East Germany was "very able to reduce the flow. If East Germany could, we could." The tiny, insignificant distinction between the two circumstances seems missing in his argument: foreigners hopping across our borders in search of a better life; in East Germany, its citizen-prisoners trying to escape tyranny to reach a better life, often killed in their attempts.
Say what you will about the policies of Democrats, but in this wild year of politics I have yet to hear one discuss the merits of a "2nd Amendment solution" to politicians who simply espouse views different from your own, or praise one of the most heinous dictatorships in post-World War II Europe for its effective border policing.
Assuming that Mr. Miller has in fact read a history book at some point in his adult life, it must have been published by the same company that provided Sarah Palin her book on world geography.

First Trip to Athens

As is so often the case, the weather gods (Sunnyos and Almostas Cloudlos) were on my side during a business trip to Athens this week. Once the daily work ended around 5, I put on walking shoes and hit the uneven, rocky streets, to see the sights. On Friday I covered about 6 miles in 3 hours but, as you can see, it was well worth it.
It was interesting to see that the city's stray dogs all have collars and are totally well-mannered, never approaching you, begging for food, etc. Better than humans in some cities.
The food was very good, although I'd advise the Greeks to pay a visit to Belgium see how French fries are supposed to be prepared. Apparently wanting to live up to the name "Greece," in Athens the cooks plop the fries into semi-hot oil for a minute or two, then throw them directly onto your plate, still swimming in grease and oil. If you could somehow wring them out before eating, it might be fine. But I think there's no comparison between fries in Greece and nearly everywhere else on the planet. I think they'd be better off sticking to souvlaki and Ouzo.

Love Those Letters, or, Zeta - It's Not Just for Catherine Jones Any More...

Just returned from a great week-long business trip to Athens, where several of us noted that all the license plates there use letters common to any language throughout most of Europe, as opposed to using any Greek-only letters. My guess is that this is probably based on some European Union law (it there's one thing the EU is good for, it's creating new laws...covering everything), aimed at making policing easier in countries north of Greece. But can you imagine if this weren't the case, and that Greek cars could have plates with letters like Psi, Rho, and Sigma? Picture a radio call from a cruiser to his station, reporting on a speeding Greek car:
"I have the vehicle in sight. Here is the license number: 529 . And the letters that follow are...er...um...well, OK, the first one is sort of like three sticks sideways, with the top and bottom ones wider than the middle one, then there's a big vertical line with the little zero stuck in the middle of it, and the final one is a long, bending stick, held up by another, smaller one, below it and to the left."
Suffice it to say, by this time the perp has had plenty of time to get lost in traffic, safely headed back to the driving chaos that is Greece.

120 Days and Counting

"Functioning government? We don't need no stinkin' functioning government!"
- possible quote by nearly all Belgian politicians.

Yup, that's politics, a la Belge. They held national elections here 4 months ago and some party or another won. Not that it matters. As if things aren't complicated enough in this tiny country, you have two separate sets of parties, one set in the north speaking Dutch, and the other in the south speaking French. This doubles the possibilities when it comes to procrastinating, name calling, wasting money, and generally letting a nation go to hell in a hand bag.
So, 4 months later, there is still no functioning government in Brussels. Rather poor timing, considering that Belgium presently holds the 6-month, rotating European Union presidency. When they took over in early July, the Belgians claimed to want to pursue an "ambitious program." Right now, just agreeing on who the heck the prime minister is might be ambitious enough.
Who is actually running the country? A "caretaker" administration, primarily made up of members of the previous administration. Kinda takes the sting out of losing an election if you know that, say for the better part of a year, you don't have to move out of your office and take up a real job. Good work if you can find it.