Words fail me

Every once in a while, I run across a story that's just too weird to make fun of. This seems to be one of those instances. I give you (and I'm not kidding—this is the actual headline!) "Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job."

A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.

Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burned down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.

"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.

"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added.

But the plan went awry when the dog being cooked burst into flames and set fire to the school's main office and then the classrooms.

What the fuck? The guy sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum "on the sly"? Dogs being killed and bursting into flames? And is dog meat really such a special treat that it can keep your colleagues from ratting you out because of your illicit sale of said entire arboretum?

There are certain things about America that are kinda fucked-up, but it's an incident like this that reminds me how absolutely batshit crazy the rest of the world actually is.