Hey! Happy Easter. Christ died for your sins. I was reminded of that by the butcher—the one that looks like Ronnie van Zant. Not that he said so in as many words, but I could feel it in his eyes as he handed over the brown paper package of Italian sausages. He was on the phone to his mom, always seems to be on the phone to his mom when he’s working, mobile phone jammed between a cheek like blanched ham and his shoulder, and he wished me a happy easter with a squinty, insinuating little look that said as much. And I thought to myself (a figure of speech meaning I didn’t have the balls to say this to a 300 pound zebella baida gorilla with a meat cleaver in its paw), thought “How do you think that makes the Jews feel?”

I thought Jesus died as part of some internal bickering about whether to allow a currency exchange office on Temple Mount—or the “Haram al Qudsi al Sherif” as they say in the old country—so I looked it up when I got home. Turns out Easter isn’t even mentioned in the bible. What a fucking fraud! All those easter egg hunts, all those cute baby bunnies and dyed chicks slowing expiring between the sticky fingers of gleeful little children exercising their protean parenting skills on disposable lifeforms. All as dust cast in our eyes by Madison Avenue. Makes me feel all queasy in the stomach region, unsure of what to do next. Like George Bush at an Iraqi birth control clinic.

Sorry. Giddy today.

So. Is it possible that someone was taking the piss down at the Weekly back in 2005, or was the governor of Sohag really named Beltagui? I mean, it would certainly explain a lot if the place was being run by Beltagui and his security chief Goha (seriously, read the piece, halfway down the page), but can it really be so?