strambinha strambloga

Quem mora em Malmo, Suécia, pode emprestar muçulmanos, homossexuais e dinamarqueses da biblioteca local. Por 45 minutos. Not a Swedish Joke saiu no Wall Street Journal de ontem.

(…) Ullah Brohed pioneered the “Living Library” project earlier this month. “You sometimes hear people’s prejudices and you realize that they are just uninformed,” she says. And since a library exists to educate, she decided to give Swedish bigots the opportunity to come face to face with the prejudice of their choice. The Malmo library also offers a Danish man (since some Swedes and Danes don’t get along too well) and, to our great mbarrassment, even a journalist. “Maybe not all journalists are know-it-all and sensationalist,” Ms. Brohed says.

Inspired by this example, a library in the Dutch city of Almelo plans to start its own human lending program next month. “The customers can rent a veiled Muslim woman and finally ask her all the questions they would never dare to ask if they met her on the street,” says the director, Jan Krol. (…)

Não deixa de ser interessante, mas este artigo no NY Times de ontem sobre o uso medicinal de sanguessugas e vermes embrulhou meu estômago: Age-Old Cures, Like the Maggot, Get U.S. Hearing.

Leeches, it turns out, are particularly good at draining excess blood from surgically reattached or transplanted appendages. As microsurgeons tackle feats like reattaching hands, scalps and even faces, leeches have become indispensable.

(…)

As for maggots, they are unparalleled in their ability to clean festering, gangrenous wounds. For diabetics and others whose wounds fail to heal, maggots, pressed into dying flesh by wire-mesh bandages, can save a limb and speed healing.