Herouxic (heroic) Measures

Town to Immigrants: You Can't Kill Women -- OTTAWA (Reuters) - Immigrants wishing to live in the small Canadian town of Herouxville, Quebec, must not stone women to death in public, burn them alive or throw acid on them, according to an extraordinary set of rules released by the local council.

The declaration, published on the town's Web site, has deepened tensions in the predominantly French-speaking province over how tolerant Quebecers should be toward the customs and traditions of immigrants.

"We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here," said the declaration, which makes clear women are allowed to drive, vote, dance, write checks, dress how they want, work and own property.

"Therefore we consider it completely outside these norms to ... kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc."




OK, just where exactly are these immigrants coming from? And why on earth would they have left? I mean if their woman acted up, apparently they got to drag them out to the ol' rock pile and got to whale on them until somebody's throwing arm got sore. I'll bet the demographics show that men live longer than the women in that country.

They probably control their women with just a look. You know, that one eyebrow arched, "I'm going to burn you alive when we get home," stare. Which is probably pretty easy to accomplish because I picture these guys having a mono-brow wearing a Cossack hat and baby seal skin mittens. I can see them practicing in front of the mirror, raising and lowering that single eyebrow, trying to decide which eye is better to intimidate with.

My only guess is that they immigrated because the fishing dried up or the women were all dead. Or it could be the wrong kind of people began moving into the old neighborhood.

But now, these men, these once mighty spoilers of female plots, sit together in the town square of Herouxville, reminiscing about the good old days and not feeling too much like heroux(s) themselves. What is the point of life if you cannot get angry at the bosses at work and go home and throw acid on your woman?

However, the really interesting part of this story is that the town leaders are issuing a decree and warning these guys that that behaviour is unacceptable. So, apparently, the first few times a woman was forcibly circumcised for talking to a man on the street or burned alive for writing a check -- they just let it slide. But now they are issuing a harshly worded warning.

It sounds to me like the town leaders have a few women of their own that they would like to deal with before they raise their warning to the level of that activity actually being against the law. So far they have merely proclaimed how "things are done around here."

I'm sure that once the mayor and members of the town council have chosen between their mistresses and their wives and have lured the unlucky ones to the stoning pit, things will settle down and some kind of law will be written.

If they ever think it's necessary.

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