What's the harm?

The next time someone tells you that superstitions are harmless, show them this article.

"I beat him severely with canes until they broke, yet he never shed a tear," said Eshiett Nelson Eshiett, 76. "One day, I took a broom to hit him and he started crying. Then I knew he was possessed by demons. ... Nigerian witches are terrified of brooms."
...
"Children accused of witchcraft are often incarcerated in churches for weeks on end and beaten, starved and tortured in order to extract a confession," said Gary Foxcroft, program director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a nonprofit that helps alleged witch children in the region.

Many of those targeted have traits that make them stand out, including learning disabilities, stubbornness and ailments such as epilepsy, he added.

It's sickening that this is still happening. It's a reminder that in some parts of the world, people still live in the 17th century.

We scoff at that, of course, because here in the United States, some of us are all the way up to the mid-nineteenth century!

The moral? If your new Nigerian husband wants to burn your two kids for witchcraft, now that's a dealbreaker, ladies!