What is this world coming to? There is war in the Middle East, Mel Gibson has been arrested for anti-semitic driving, Fargo temperatures hit somewhere around one thousand nine hundred and fifty degrees, and Paris has banned topless sunbathing and thongs along the Seine. Life as we know it is changing, folks, and it doesn't seem to be for the better. Banning thongs, for Christ's sake! Why God, why?

Well, at least, in times like these, there is still a place on this earth a man can go stand on a wooden platform and fling a giant dead eel at another man. No? You mean that's gone too?

It seems the glory days of eel flinging, or conger cuddling as it is known locally, are over for the small English fishing village of Lyme Regis. The ancient game, dating from as far back as 1974, was an annual event in which teams of men stood atop wooden platforms and swung a dead eel at one another trying to topple the opposing team members from their perch (the platform, not the fish). The eels used in the event were collected by the fisherman, who from time to time find them dead in their nets, and were frozen until time for the contest. But, thanks to one animal rights activist with a vendetta against good clean eel flinging fun and, probably, against Democracy, the event has been canceled.

The activist threatened to bring negative publicity to the event by filming it, most likely with help and narration from Michael Moore who would likely say things such as, "That eel could have been president one day," and "This makes me hungry," then distributing the footage to news organizations. The threat was enough for the town to cancel the event, saying "We decided that it really wasn't worth upsetting anybody by going ahead with using a dead conger." Then adding, "But it's a dead conger, for Pete's sake. I shouldn't think the conger could care one way or another."

I never thought I'd live to see the day when drunken fisherman no longer had a venue in which to stand on platforms and smack each other with a dead 25 lb. eel. Actually, I never thought I'd live to see the day on which they did have such a venue. But after they did have that venue, then I never thought I'd see the day when they didn't. But they don't, even though they did, because they no longer do. Yep.

Anyway. The world is going to hell in a hand basket, people, and the hand basket is a no thong zone. Its time for one and all to take a stand in support of the freedom to be stupid and naked before the liberties of ogling over barely clad French booties and smacking each other with deceased sea life are gone forever. Now is the time to rise, take off your pants, and smack someone with a trout. Its for the good of us all.