To the dearly departed, STAKE TO THE HEART!

[HaemishM]

So at first I thought this story might be an April Fool's Joke, but the date is Mar. 24th.

Romanian Families are all kin to Van Helsing

If a relative dies and another of the family gets ill, time to do some vampire slaying. YEEE-HAAAA!

[daveNYC]

I'm putting the bit about the sewing needle in my will.

[WayAbvPar]

Hard to believe there are people that backwards in Europe still. I could see it from some tiny island, but Europe? Jeebus.

[Alluvian]

Why don't they just bury everyone with the needle and be done with it?

[Alluvian]

I think this would make a really interesting documentary though.  Learn more about the views of their vampires, where the traditions came from, how the police view them and carry on the investigation, maybe even go along on a 'vampire hunt'.

[Nosartur]

Romania, hell there are people in The good old USA that are that backward.  Some of them even believe that THEY are vampires.

[Paelos]

...and that Vampires work at Domino's

[Joe]

Shit, man, that's pretty cool.
When I'm dead, I think I'm going to insert a proviso into the will demanding such treatment before anyone gets my life insurance.

[HaemishM]

Good point. I guess if they are hardcore enough to burn my heart and drink a aortic ash cocktail, they probably deserve the 15 cents I'll leave them.

[TripleDES]

Why don't they just bury everyone with the needle and be done with it?

Do you think that stupid myth would still exist down there, if they'd be actually smart enough to think of that idea on their own?

[nach0king]

The Romanian state police is largely comprised of absolute scum; somewhere between 16 and 60% of Ceacescu's old Securitate eke out a living with the current regime's police. If killing a few vampires gets them hot under the collar, so much the better.

[nach0king]

Hard to believe there are people that backwards in Europe still. I could see it from some tiny island, but Europe? Jeebus.

The United States has places that are fairly backward, too. They're commonly referred to as "The South."

[WayAbvPar]

Hard to believe there are people that backwards in Europe still. I could see it from some tiny island, but Europe? Jeebus.

The United States has places that are fairly backward, too. They're commonly referred to as "The South."

Fair point. After all, these idiots are all over the Appalachian mountains-

[Alluvian]

I was having a fun time thinking about people who believed in vampires, and then you had to go and bring in the snake people and make me depressed about humanity again.  Poor snakes.

[HaemishM]

Here comes a good ole Southern boy anecdote.

My father tells me a story about my great-grandfather. Now, I am apparently (and if you see the picture, quite obviously) a dead ringer look alike for my great-grandfather. He was, later in life, a minister. This past weekend I saw his ordination papers; ordained as one of Mississippi's first Assembly of God ministers in 1931. After that, he spent years going around rural Mississippi, building churches deep in the backwoods. That's probably where I get my oratory/rant style, from the fire-and-brimstone like sermons I'm sure he used to give.

Well, one Sunday morning when my dad was a little child, my great grandfather takes the family (including his wife, my granddad and dad and any uncles that were alive at the time) to some backwoods or "corntry" church. I mean you drive down dirt roads to get to it. So my great grandfather is preaching away and notices these fellers walking out the back door. From all my dad could gather, my great grandfather gives a subtle signal to my great grandmother, who promptly begins ushering the kids and everyone else directly out the door. My great grandfather keeps on preaching ALL THE WAY OUT THE DOOR. Meanwhile, those two fellers who walked out the back have come back in bearing cages which seemed to rattle and hiss.

He may have been a preacher, but my great granddad was no fool.

[Alluvian]

Nice story, could have managed to be abit longer, the payoff would have been worth extra exposition.

:)

[Teleku]

Ok, I'm going to need a brief explination on the snake thing.  Seems like I've heard of something in the south involving religion and snakes, but I can't remember what the hell for.  Will help put the story in better light.

[Alluvian]

basically kooks who believe the serpent is a symbol of evil and if you are pure and a man of god they will not harm you, and even if they bite you will not be harmed by the poison.  So they handle snakes to re-affirm their faith.  Beyond just handling, they do all sorts of fucking idiotic things with fully venomed deadly snakes.  There are similar belief systems around the world, not TOO far off the snake charming bit of east indians.

I am probably off on the specifics.  Maybe Haemish can provide more insight.

[SirBruce]

Someone should tell them about this guy:

World-Record Snake Handler Dies of Lethal Bite

Bruce

[Murgos]

Someone should tell them about this guy:

World-Record Snake Handler Dies of Lethal Bite

Bruce

Like that would do any good, the greatest thing about religion is you can make up any excuse for any action you want.

Loose all your money playing cards?  Blame the sin in your heart.

Kill several 10's of thousands of people who believe the same religion you do?  Gods loves them and they get to go immediately to heaven so it was a 'good thing'.

Snake handling religius cook gets bit by one of his snakes and dies?  He wasn't pure enough.

Etc, etc...

[Alluvian]

Snake handling religius cook gets bit by one of his snakes and dies? He wasn't pure enough.

Or god was calling him home...

Dumb fucks.

[HaemishM]

Snake-handling as I understand it is "confronting the symbol of ultimate evil" i.e. Satan in the form of a serpent and surviving the confrontation. This involves either grabbing snakes and playing around with them while singing hymns and looking like a dumbfuck, or sticking your hand in a box full of rattlesnakes that the preacher just shook up to get the snakes "right ornery." If you can put your hand in the box and not get bitten, you are clean/pure/sin-free/lucky as David Fucking Copperfield.

You'd think that if the snake is Satan, or a close approximation thereof, that cavorting around with them would mean that you were consorting with evil. But I guess logic has no place with these fucking nitwits.

All my snake-handling knowledge is second and third hand, mind you. Had I been in a church where these retards brought out the serpent soiree, this little Southern boy would have booked it like the devil himself was on my heels. I see a snake in the grass, I'm Jesse Motherfucking Owens, dig?

[WayAbvPar]

Someone should tell them about this guy:

World-Record Snake Handler Dies of Lethal Bite

Bruce

I wish that the American snake handlers would use mambas too- that would thin their ranks in a big fat hurry. Black mambas aren't nearly as cuddly as the water moccasins and rattlesnakes the hillbillies handle (they are widely considered the most aggressive venomous snake), plus mamba poison is several times more lethal than rattlesnake or water moccasin or copperhead.

[Alrindel]

Everything I know about snakes in American culture I learned from Harry Crews.

[DarkDryad]

Actually it really doesnt have anything to do with evil per sey.  Sepent handlers are fundamentalists, and to the dedicated believers they are just carrying out the words of Jesus in St. Mark 16:17-18:

"And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues: they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."

Its basicly just a reaffirmation of faith. A dumb fucking affermation but one none the less. Sometimes I am embarrased to come from the south....

[personman]

Having lived half my life in the north and consulted up there another decade I can safely say I found far more intolerance and outright racism there then in the South.  Boston and Detroit particularly were real eye-openers for me.

[Tebonas]

Can't they just "drink any deadly thing" and leave the poor snakes alone?

If they survive that, they are free to try everything else...

[daveNYC]

Can't they just "drink any deadly thing" and leave the poor snakes alone?

If they survive that, they are free to try everything else...

The stupid ones probably already tried that.  The smart ones watched all the stupid ones die off and decided to go with snakes.

[HaemishM]

Can't they just "drink any deadly thing" and leave the poor snakes alone?

If they survive that, they are free to try everything else...

HEMLOCK FOR JESUS!

[Captain Poopypants]

They're commonly referred to as "The South."

As someone who has lived his entire life in a 30 mile radius in the Deep South, I can tell you that anything bad you could say about a culture shot community applies here as well. I live in and around some appreciable $150k+ properties;  everything south of a humoungously uncared for shitopolis has decent commercial and residential districts, hell some of them might be considered... nice.

Go north a bit past the major shithole and suddenly the landscape is dotted with post-ww2 coal miner villages (you have to see them...) and stores/ workshops/banks/general 1-story buildings that are older than most freshly graduated medical students and have NEVER been remodelled. Most of the residents here like to tug their trashed vehicles behind (or in front of) their ugly anchient houses and let them rust away and collect vegetation for all of eternity. And then's theres the shithole, which I am to embarassed to admit I live a few miles away from. Water services are filthier than the abandoned portion of the Love Canal, the pollution occasionally gives LA a run for it's money when the troposphere isn't circulating as well as it should be, the crime rate justifies carrying a pepper sprayer-stun gun-flare gun at all times for defense, and just like the whites in the rural areas, the blacks do a pretty good job of turning their subdivisions into dilapidated sphincters.

Still, I've found nothing here that compares with 'strigoi' of Bumblefuck east europe. Yeah, infantile ignorance and super short attention spans a plenty, but little superstitiousness.

 And I'd hate for anyone here or over there to have met the Blood Countess.

[WayAbvPar]

More fun with snake handling- link.

As my brother put it- he probably didn't believe in natural selection. Oh, the irony!

[HaemishM]

The sheriff says he doubts any charges will be filed, because, in his words, "it's their belief."

Funny, I didn't know that unbelievable stupidity was a belief system now.

[Alluvian]

And I always thought it was the foundation of most belief systems.

[WayAbvPar]

The sheriff says he doubts any charges will be filed, because, in his words, "it's their belief."

Funny, I didn't know that unbelievable stupidity was a belief system now.

Unfortunately, it isn't a crime either.

[Roac]

And I always thought it was the foundation of most belief systems.

"Belief systems" as most people would understand the phrase means to accept something as truth without sufficient evidence, or indeed even when faced with contraditory evidence.  This is true whether the system is religious in nature or not.

What's ironic about this is that most religious systems DO have a foundation in truth - more so than those who would call them stupid.  Out of all the possible belief systems a culture could adopt, they adopt the one they have because of many reasons - often good ones, at least at the time.  For example, many people in India praise cows above almost all else - some to the point of worship.  Some would call them stupid, but they would also be the less intelligent of the two.  Their praise of cows is a life-saving and culture-saving stance.  Their economy and society would fall to pieces without it.  For them, it would be far worse than the Great Depression for Americans.

No, sticking your hand into a box of poisonous snakes doesn't offer a lot of direct rewards, nor does ripping the heart out of your dead family member and making a nice tea out of it.  They do these things for real reasons, however.  What do people do instead of trying to understand these reasons (or just leaving them to do their own thing)?  Laugh at them for acting in a way contrary to one's own belief system.  The pot is calling who what again?

And since the people I'm mostly speaking to are too slow to get the point of what I'm saying, I'll reduce it a bit to be intelligible:

Shut the fuck up you stupid assmastic discriminatory netwaste.

And to everyone else:  have a nice day.