Damn. Traditions can be pretty screwy. I was walking past a fireworks display today, and paused for a moment to watch a crowd of children and adults dancing and cheering as a man-sized dummy was burned at the stake. It chilled me a little. Then I realised I'd been doing the same thing for 20-odd years without a second thought. I wonder if half the people around that bonfire really knew what they were symbolising? I mean, not only is burning someone at the stake a pretty morbid thing to get excited about, it's also pretty nasty to be celebrating the horrid death of someone by such means for a couple of hundred years, no matter what they did to "deserve it".

Of course it could be just me. This crack pabs sold me is pretty nasty...