Belarusian officials have requested tapes of Elton John’s past performances before his upcoming concert in Minsk. Their fear? That Elton John would convert concertgoers into homosexuals:
The Public Council for Morality is to study recordings of earlier performances by the British singer to make sure “they have no elements inconsistent with the law and morality,” the head of the organization said.
“We have requested the organizers of the concert to give us records of Elton John’s earlier performances,” he said.
Sexual minorities have become active in the country of late and “even attempted to hold a gay parade in Minsk,” Cherginets said. The attempted parade was broken up by police.
Cherginets said the Council had already prevented outbreaks of “immorality” during a May concert by German industrial metal band Rammstein in the Belarusian capital.
“If we had not interfered, there would have been sex on stage and the relief of physical needs right in front of the audience,” the official said.
(Photo: Wikipedia)


Photo: Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters
Every month, National Geographic publishes a very neat photo gallery called Vision of Earth. This particular one, from the June 2009 selection (third pic, you can see the uncensored version there – warning: clear shot of the behind of a naked, 69-year-old man):
Belarus—Naked on an 18°F day, Valentsin Tolkachev clears an icy canal for swimming. The 69-year-old started the Optimalists—a Minsk-based club with 200-some members—in 1989 to promote hale activities in rural settings.
Your task, after you wash your eyes, is to caption the photo. Funniest one will win a custom black and white Monkey drawing by Adam Koford. Place your caption in the comment section of this post – one caption per comment, please, though you can enter as many funny ones as you can think of. Good luck!
Update 6/19/09 – Adam has picked the winner! Congratulations to jj who won with this caption: The season’s first snow always reminds me of my childhood, of crazy Uncle Hank teaching me to swim like a man.

