A ton of folks sent me this story this morning:
Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup’s coat of arms.
The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Göteborgs-Posten reports.
But although the army was eventually happy to make the changes in the interests of gender equality, the artist who designed the insignia was less than pleased.
“A heraldic lion is a powerful and stately figure with its genitalia intact and I cannot approve an edited image,” Vladimir A Sagerlund from the National Archives told Göteborgs-Posten…
But the castrated lion has already won the day and is now worn on the arms of all soldiers in the battle group’s Swedish battalions.
“We were given the task of making sure the willy disappeared,” Christian Braunstein from the army’s ‘tradition commission’ told Göteborgs-Posten.
That’s one task you can always entrust to the Europeans. Still, there may be a Wizard Of Oz remake in it…