Pic of the Day 05.01.09 (Our 1,000th Post, Bitches!!!)

What do a Serbian Union official, protesting, and a dismembered pinky finger have in common?

Sure, journalistically speaking, you're never supposed to open an article or post with a question, but this one was just too hard to pass up on. So, you have any inkling as to what the fuck I'm talking about?

This past Tuesday, my good friend Tony Bel Mario photocopied an article for me from one of the city's free, daily rags -- The Metro -- knowing that it would hold a dear place in my very Serbian heart.

When I read the headline, "Man Eats Finger Amid Wage Fuss," I thought to myself, "Only in Serbia."

Apparently, a Serbian union official decided to chop off his finger and eat it in a protest over wages to show how desperate he and other workers are.

"We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example," Zoran Bulatovic said.

In the understatement of this young century, Bulatovic added, "It hurt like hell."

Mr Bulatovic, a union leader at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar, southwest Serbia, used a hacksaw to cut off most of his left-hand little finger -- is this reminding anyone else of the last scene from the film "Four Rooms"?

Mr Bulatovic decided to act after his deputy, a single mother of three, said she would chop off her finger.

"I could not allow her to do that," he explained.

Instead, he did what any real Serbian man would do. He cut off his own finger.


Some employees at the factory have not been paid for years, only collecting social benefits, like free medical care.

Last year, about two dozen workers went on a 19-day hunger strike.

They want the company's debt to be swapped for state-held equity and a welfare programme for those nearing retirement.
Mr Bulatovic said his comrades will not back down from their demands.

However, he said they will postpone planned self-mutilations at least until unions have held talks with government officials.

Now, thanks to Mr. Bulatovic, Serbs can had finger-hacking to the list of things they're good at -- basketball, soccer, killing babies, water polo, and shooting. Although it's too bad, because I don't think they'll ever turn finger-hacking into an Olympic sport.