Penis Thefts

In Congo there is a wave of penis thefts.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/080422/15/16ktt.html

Well, add that to the list of reasons for not visiting Congo.

My first reaction to the story was to dismiss it as a bunch of superstitious simpletons caught in a wave of mass hysteria. Then I realized I’ve worked with a few penis shrinking sorcerers myself. I don’t think they do it intentionally. But anyone who can turn a banana into an acorn in five seconds is obviously a witch.

I assume the victims in Congo don’t have access to the Internet. If they did, they’d get hundreds of offers a day for pills that can cure their problem so thoroughly that photographers would try to affix cameras to their heads. Maybe the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation can get those folks together.

This would be a bad time to be a Congo police officer. The first five or six times you have to evaluate the scene of the crime it might seem amusing. After that, you’re just gay. And not impressed.

And what the hell happens when the police dust for prints? The phrase the police inspectors must hear more than any other is “Never mind.”

Comments

[Tom]

Where on earth do you get the constant feed of nonstop non-sense you use as fodder for your thoughts ?
Phew I think I know :)
I read almost the same things that you read ... The only thing .. i dont blog it .. and I dont have a fan following ... Is that good or bad ?

[Joe Smoe]

An emerging market for The Club?

[Windows XP]

Wow. This is the first I have heard about this. Do you know how many police officers/investigators that lose their job over this since they decide they don't want to touch another guy's penis? Just wondering..

Besides, why would anyone want to steal some penises?!

[Miky Schreiber]

Hey,
you can call it dicknap (instead of kidnap).
:-)

[Dan]

hahaha that was funny hearing it in the news.

[Thomas Beck]

There's a very good reason to *go* to the Congo, which is to see all the famous bonobos.

Of course, considering exactly what it is that bonobos are famous *for*, that's kind of ironic in light of the topic of this post.

[Ginger]

I clicked on the link for this and I SWEAR there was an ad for Qantas Airlines with the headline: Meet the biggest member of the Australian Olympic team.
....It just boggles the mind.

[Piotr Zieliński]

I know some penis enlarging sorcerers :)

[Azi]

Hmmm... I was actually in the Congo that week... pretty relieved to get out with my life and health intact, although at times it felt pretty touch & go. This thing about the penises is worrying... those mobs really don't behave rationally. Saw a 12-year-old kid get brutally savaged by the mob because they thought he'd stolen a handbag, but the real thief got away. Still, hate to be in a crowd when one of them points at you and screams, "He just stole my penis!" No way you're getting out of there alive.

[Tanya G]

Gosh, If I were a superheroine and this was my super power I wonder what I'd do with it. I'm very glad there are no breast thefts, but then in my case there'd not be much to steal...

http://lostandloster.blogspot.com/

[Marie]

Just remember, all cultures are equal.

[Jeff]

Jeez. Clearly they're not tiny, someone stole their penis!

Sounds like somebody's excuse to a disappointed lover that got out of hand.

[Barfo Rama]

Detachable Penis... hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm...

[Sick of Mo's]

Mo,

What are you doing about these problems? Are you out there in any of those places making things better? I don't know. We really don't know anything about any of the other commentors except one thing: we all took a moment out of our day for entertainment and that includes you. If you came to this blog for anything else other than philosotainment, you're an idiot.

[Dim Sum]

I'd be suspicious if I shared a taxi with someone and it caused them to enlarge. Perhaps a good reason to abolish all taxis and replace them with unicycles.

[jeff]

Rita Mae must be on holidays. I thought she'd be all over the penis.

[John Reedy]

My cold shower is apparently some sort of witch.

http://awritersblock.com

[minister of silly walks]

So that's what happened to it! Penis stealing sorcerer thieves from the Congo! And here all this time I thought it was because I was getting old ....

[CD]

The post reminds me police jokes about visiting the place of occurrence in rape cases.
Btw, the syndrome is usually found in China and South-East Asia. There were newspaper accounts of about such syndrome being reported in tribal population in North-East India where witchcraft is practiced to cure the syndrome. A good business without any capital, he he. To add some more countries to your list please visit http://candiddiary.blogspot.com/2006/06/grs.html#links.

[Lillihavn]

Yeah, and I suppose the police report would say "Insufficient Evidence".

[h]

maybe it would be good to read the associated articles more thoroughly: "He was trying to raise funds to provide a rest stop for lorry drivers in Paranagua, a major port for agricultural products." Not the most noble goal i supposed but still charitable...

[Jan]

BTW I like the RSS-feed on dilbert.com

Thanks!

[mo]

Guess what I heard about the Congo?..there is an all out genocide going on amid a desperate food crisis.

Remember Rwanda? Did no one wonder where the murderers went? They are in the Congo doing exactly what they did in Rwanda and does anyone care?
No.
It's much more amusing to write penis jokes.
Congo
Darfur
Chad
Sudan

Never forget my ass.
The holocaust is being repeated all over the world and still no one really cares do they?

[RT Wolf]

What I love is this bit right here at the end of the article:

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )

Uh...I'm against penis thieving?

[Chris]

Geez, your right, there is another reason not to go to Congo. Love yoru comment about the victems not having internet access too =)

[Empirical Poppa]

In the 15th century witch-hunting classic Malleus Malleaficarum, there is a section on how witches can steal a man's genitalia. So apparently the same thing was not unheard of in Germany then.

[Tutu]

Ahhh... so it wasn't my fault, the ex must have been from the Congo!

[Soni]

LOL!!! Invisible penis!!!

[CJ]

Never mind.

[Dwight Schrute]

Banana my ass. Try plantain.

[burt]

i read a similar article. apparently a couple years ago a mob actually lynched 20 people accused of penis sorcery.

burt (congo-avoiding) trub

[tillerman]

Surely the first question the police would ask when confronted with such an alleged crime would be, "Do you have a photo of the missing property, sir?" and/or "Did the missing property have any identification marks or number?"

[tajna]

Scott,
you have waaay to much time on your hands :)

[Jeannette Hector]

Someone shrunk my boobs!

[jerry w.]

There are two dicks (one even named dick) that I'd like to see disappear,

however, prayers don't seem to work as they're still in the white house.

If these prayers violate federal law, I'm just kidding.

Sort of.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[D. Mented]

Before we all start feeling superior to a culture that can produce men that can hear a policeman say "look, your penis is still there, you're alright" and see the thing hanging out like it belonged there, and still not believe it:
The Maleus Maleficorum - used by the church in the systematic prosecution of witches - contained an anecdote about just the same thing.
A man had slept with a witch, and when he woke in the morning, he found his penis was missing. He persuaded her to give it back to him, so she directed him to a tall tree, with a bird's nest at the top. Climbing up, he found a number of penises in the nest, crawling around like worms. She said he could choose any one he wanted, but when he was about to pick a nice big one, she said - from the ground below - not to take that one because it belonged to a priest.
To us, this makes a pretty good joke. If it hadn't been written centuries before Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it would sound a bit like plagiarism. ("She stole my penis!" "Doesn't look like it's missing." "Well, she gave me another one.")
Sadly, to the people of those times, it was justification for torturing, hanging, drowning, or burning anyone accused of witchcraft.
I don't know whether to laugh or to scream.
On the other hand, any charismatic con-artists out there can go to Congo and make a fortune selling penis protector charms...anything from cheap copper bracelets to brightly colored jockstraps would do - it's all in the sales pitch...I wish my parents hadn't made me so honest...Come to think of it - a penis-restoring potion that included a dose of Viagra would also sell quite well.
D. Mented

[RJI]

I'm just wondering if they got a scetch artist involved. Check you milk cartons.

[Victor Prometeo L. Frankenstein]

Hi Scott,
I was terrified by article You mentioned.
Think of the “conservation energy law” (equivalence mass-energy) and You’ll understand my reason for being panicked. Maybe if we wait long enough we’ll be able to see with our eyes who the warlocks are, ‘cause this in not a crime in which the thieves will be able to conceal their identities simply hiding their faces in their hands. Given the nature of the problem, it’s possible that they’ll have in their hands other fishes to fry.

Bye.

V.P.L.F.

P.S. There would be other reasons to be caught by panic, but (…only one t) I prefer to fly over.

[Aditya Simha]

Ha ha! This was hilarious! Penis-thefts, indeed! What'll they accuse us poor witch-doctors of doing next?

[Bill Harting]

A quote from the referenced article

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said."

That is just priceless

[Real Live Girl]

Suspected Penis Snatcher. Now there's something you don't want to see on a resume.

[Sherlock Homie]

With time, the thief will reveal himself. Look for individuals who measure in feet...

[jC from Tn]

News like this will kill their tourist industry.

[bb]

Actually, this might be the work of the spammers.

Once they steal or shrink your penis, I bet you won't ignore their email anymore. In fact you might just email them first.

[Slap D. Monkey]

It's funny to see penis and snatch in a headline and it not be about sex.

Do you think Lorena Bobbit was a penis-snatching sorceress? No. She was probably just a hack.