‘Stachoo…!’ Bless you’ (Poor thing’s become allergic to humans…)
Aretha Franklin once mentioned it in a song: ‘Respect.’
That’s hard to come by, these days. It used to be being old was enough to have the young ones sitting at your knees. Anyone with a handful of grey hairs could just say ‘Once upon a time’ and the whole world would listen to them.
These days, there simply is no respect.
So, you served your country, did well in the medal department and died without a whimper or a whiff of scandal – and what do you get…?
A life-size bronze statue of Olympic gold medal-winner Steve Ovett has been stolen.
Thieves sawed the life-sized sculpture from its plinth at Preston Park in Brighton.
Mr Ovett’s tribute has been the victim of two previous attacks. Just six weeks after it was unveiled in 1987 vandals pushed it face down into the mud, and eight years later it was splattered with white paint.
During the nineties it was subjected to numerous humiliations by pranksters who stuck an Alf Garnett moustache on it, covered it in a woolly jumper and dressed it as a schoolgirl.
Kids’ stuff, you say?
Just wait till they get older – and discover the true value of virtue, the worth of wisdom, and the reach and richness of the religious realm…
ELK RIVER, Minn. (AP) — The high demand and soaring prices for scrap metal appeared to be the reason a 7-foot statue of Buddha, covered in copper-laden bronze, was stolen from an outdoor temple shrine at the Thai Buddhist Center of Minnesota, police said.
The statue was specially made in Thailand for the center.
“It’s too bad,” said temple member Jay Cramer. “The whole community is real sad. It’s a sacred piece.”
But Cramer said there was some relief in knowing that the statue was stolen for money and not because of bigotry.
Ah yes, but that’s just the wicked, wicked West, of course.
When you turn yourself away from the evils of capitalism, consumerism and credit-card-company-isms you will move on to a much higher, far more spiritual level…
… and ever so much closer to the Buddha’s beautiful embrace:
BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai Buddhist temple has been reprimanded by religious authorities for selling amulets containing the ashes of cremated infants to raise money for a plot of land and a crematorium, an official said on Tuesday.
The bodies of 28 foetuses or infants who died of natural causes were cremated legally at the temple’s ageing incinerator, they said, as Thailand’s craze for Jatukam Ramathep amulets promising wealth showed no signs of easing.
The Thawee Kara Anant temple in a northern Bangkok suburb was taking advantage of a craze for the amulets that promise to make their owners “super rich” or “rich without reason” sweeping across predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
In July, it made 140,000 disc-shaped amulets about the size of a coffee-cup lid from a variety of herbs and human ashes and had sold most of them, a monk at the temple said.
Or, as our sweet Tammy sang: ‘Sometimes it’s hard to be a human…’
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