Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Macedonia

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (so named as a result of a copyright dispute with neighboring Greece [for a brief time, FYR Macedonia was designated only by an unpronounceable symbol that looked kind of like a stick figure doing a jumping jack (no particular significance, they just thought it looked cool)]) is a nation in southern Europe that has a much harder time ignoring Serbia than most of us. Once a part of ancient Paeonia, which I've never heard of, Macedonia was later conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which sounds at least reasonably familiar to me. In 1910, Macedonia produced its most famous native of the 20th century: Mother Teresa, who was not, in fact, anybody's mother, but rather a nun of Albanian descent who was charitable as hell and probably smelled terrific. Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Macedonia became a part of Yugoslavia, but they'd probably rather I didn't talk about that period because it really didn't work out for anybody.

At 66 meters, the Millennium Cross in Skopje, Macedonia is the world's largest cross. If I were the world's largest heretic, I'd steer clear of Macedonia.

No comments:

Post a Comment