Heir today, goon tomorrow
“When I get to Africa, I have to worship him,” said Elizabeth Osei, part-time first lady of the Akwamu people of eastern Ghana, speaking of her husband Isaac, who is the Akwamu chief.
“When I get back, he has to worship me” — because Elizabeth is the president of the couple’s New York City taxi company, where they work 12-hour days when they’re not Ghanian royalty.
Isaac’s reign, according to a New York Times report, covers several months a year and requires divine-like wisdom in adjudicating his people’s disputes.
Another New Yorker with a prestigious double life is Mohamed Mohamed, a state transportation bureaucrat, who recently returned to his cubicle in Buffalo, N.Y., after nine months as prime minister of Somalia.
The Buffalo News reported that the Somali native, though shocked by the level of the country’s dysfunction, at least got to stand up to “terrorists, pirates and warlords” and “address dignitaries from the United Nations.”
Russian myth
goes flat
The convenient Russian myth that “beer” (up to 10 percent alcohol by volume) is a “soft drink” will end shortly, following the enactment of restrictions signed by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Beer had been rapidly replacing vodka as the country’s primary alcoholic beverage, as people drank it with impunity around the clock in public places — since they pretended they were consuming nothing more powerful than a “cola.”