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Sudan's famous goat 'wife' dies
BBC News ^ | 5-3-2007 | BBC

Posted on 05/03/2007 11:04:10 AM PDT by Timedrifter

he best-known goat in Sudan has died months after being "married" to a man in the South Sudan capital, Juba, the BBC has learned.

Local elders ordered a man found having sex with the goat, later called Rose, to "marry" her last February.

"The idea was to publicly embarrass the man," says Tom Rhodes, editor of the Juba Post, which first ran the story.

The BBC's story of the "wedding" caught the public imagination and became one of the best read internet stories.

Rose, black and white, is believed to have died after choking on a plastic bag she swallowed as she was eating scraps on the streets of Juba.

'Sense of humour'

After the marriage, Rose had a male kid - but "not a human one" - Mr Rhodes said, hastily.

The "husband", Charles Tombe, said he was drunk at the time but has since refused to comment on the issue. The kid is owned by Mr Tombe.

Wow - what have we done? We have triggered a monster Tom Rhodes Juba Post

More than a year after the BBC story was first published, it is still picked up by various web forums and being emailed across the world. Recently it got more than 100,000 page views for five successive days.

Over time, it has received several million hits - making it historically one of the biggest-hitting stories the BBC News website has published.

A Google search uncovers more than 1m different web pages, based on the same story.

Mr Rhodes, a Briton who helped found the Juba Post in 2004, was shocked when he learned how many people around the world had read the story his newspaper had originally published as a short, light-hearted account and not even bothered to publish on its website.

map

"Wow - what have we done? We have triggered a monster," he said.

He said that he had seen that it occasionally returned in the BBC's "Most read stories" and was worried that he would have trouble with South Sudanese, accusing his paper of tarnishing the image of the region - now trying to rebuild after 21 years of war.

But he says he has not come across any such anger.

"It doesn't portray Sudan in a bad light - it shows the Sudanese have a sense of humour," he says, referring to the elders' original punishment.

He has, however, had people come up and say to him: "Oh, you're the goat man."

Mr Rhodes explains that South Sudan remains a conservative society.

If a man is caught sleeping with a girl, he is ordered to marry her immediately in order to save her honour and that of her family, he says.

This was the basis for Mr Tombe's punishment, after the goat's owner found him with his animal and complained to local elders.

They ordered him to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50, at the time) and also named the goat Rose.

Afterwards, he left with the goat, not quite hand-in-hand, more hand-in-hoof, to his home in the Hai Malakal suburb of Juba - and not in Upper Nile State as we originally reported.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: alternativelifestyle; chatroom; culturewar; samesexmarriage; slipperyslope
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1 posted on 05/03/2007 11:04:13 AM PDT by Timedrifter
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To: Timedrifter

“believed to have died after choking on a plastic bag”

Nope......not gonna say it !!!!


2 posted on 05/03/2007 11:06:20 AM PDT by Jeffrey_D. (Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Timedrifter

Well, I married a jackass some years ago.

Just joking....flame me.


3 posted on 05/03/2007 11:06:39 AM PDT by dforest (Fighting the new liberal Conservatism. The Left foot in the GOP door.)
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To: Timedrifter

Check the insurance policy.


4 posted on 05/03/2007 11:06:42 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Timedrifter; Owl_Eagle; Sam's Army; Lazamataz; Darksheare; pissant; najida; r-q-tek86; blackie; ...
YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SH*T UP PING!!!!!!!!!

5 posted on 05/03/2007 11:07:14 AM PDT by Jersey Republican Biker Chick (RIP Eric Medlen. You will be missed.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

ping :)


6 posted on 05/03/2007 11:07:26 AM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; The majority are satisfied with a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: Timedrifter
After the marriage, Rose had a male kid - but "not a human one" - Mr Rhodes said, hastily.

So she was cheating on him?

Harlot.

7 posted on 05/03/2007 11:08:44 AM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah (tired of voting for the lesser of two evils)
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To: Timedrifter
Local elders ordered a man found having sex with the goat. .....Over time, it has received several million hits - making it historically one of the biggest-hitting stories the BBC News website has published.

I see a film in its future.

Deep Goat

8 posted on 05/03/2007 11:08:54 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Timedrifter
Mr Rhodes explains that South Sudan remains a conservative society.

Backwards, knuckle-dragging, stupid society ... you know ... conservative.

9 posted on 05/03/2007 11:10:03 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented worker' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed phar)
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To: Mr. Mojo

“Deep Goat”

Now that’s funny !


10 posted on 05/03/2007 11:10:04 AM PDT by Jeffrey_D. (Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Jeffrey_D.

oh, that’s so baaaaaaaa-aaaaaad!


11 posted on 05/03/2007 11:10:12 AM PDT by KingRonnie9
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To: KingRonnie9

“oh, that’s so baaaaaaaa-aaaaaad!”

But I never said it........such minds!


12 posted on 05/03/2007 11:11:41 AM PDT by Jeffrey_D. (Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Timedrifter

13 posted on 05/03/2007 11:11:42 AM PDT by jdm (OMG, tell me I did not just hit the 'back' button!)
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To: Timedrifter

Welcome to the third world, the place the radical left wants to take us!


14 posted on 05/03/2007 11:12:08 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
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To: Timedrifter

lol

Just think...

My wife is always badgering me to take out the garbage.

This guy had a “wife” to whom you could just simply feed your garbage to!


15 posted on 05/03/2007 11:17:16 AM PDT by DogByte6RER ("Loose lips sink ships")
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To: Timedrifter
Lest we ever forget ....

Jerusalem
January 2, 2006

 Sharon Tendler met Cindy 15 years ago. She said it was love at first sight. This week she finally took the plunge and proposed. The lucky "guy" plunged right back.

In a modest ceremony at Dolphin Reef in the southern Israeli port of Eilat, Tendler, a 41-year-old British citizen, apparently became the world's first person to "marry" a dolphin.

Dressed in a white dress, a veil and pink flowers in her hair, Tendler got down on one knee on the dock and gave Cindy a kiss. And a piece of herring.

"It's not a perverted thing. I do love this dolphin. He's the love of my life," she said Saturday, upon her return to London.

Tendler, who said she imports clothes and promotes rock bands in England, has visited Israel several times a year since first meeting the dolphin.

When asked in the past if she had a boyfriend, she would always reply, "No. I'm going to end up with Cindy." On Wednesday, she made it official, sort of. While she acknowledged the "wedding" had no legal bearing she did say it reflected her deep feelings toward the bottlenosed, 35-year-old object of her affection.

"It's not a bad thing. It just something that we did because I love him, but not in the way that you love a man. It's just a pure love that I have for this animal," she said.

While she still kept open the option of "marrying human" at some stage, she said for now she was strictly a "one-dolphin woman".

She's hardly the jealous type, though.

"He will still play with all the other girls there," she said, of their prenuptial agreement. "I hope he has a lot of baby dolphins with the other dolphins. The more dolphins the better."

16 posted on 05/03/2007 11:17:28 AM PDT by NYer ("Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" - Ignatius of Antioch)
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To: Mr. Mojo

Aw geez, LOL!


17 posted on 05/03/2007 11:19:17 AM PDT by Vinnie (You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Jihads You)
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To: Timedrifter
lol Sex with a goat might guarantee a meeting with this "goat" in the afterlife... Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
18 posted on 05/03/2007 11:20:47 AM PDT by DogByte6RER ("Loose lips sink ships")
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To: NYer

Kook.


19 posted on 05/03/2007 11:21:16 AM PDT by henkster (Al Gore is the second coming...of Trofim Lysenko)
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To: Vinnie; Jeffrey_D.
Maybe in a double feature with Sheep throat.
20 posted on 05/03/2007 11:22:54 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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