Grigovia fights nutritionism

For the health and safety of current citizen and growing fetus alike, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia launched Operation Real Food Now (ORFN). A nationwide program aimed at gathering and disseminating traditional recipes and empirically-based eating advice passed down through the ages from grandmother to son and grandfather to daughter, ORFN emphasizes the consumption these items: fresh fruits and vegetables grown without pesticides; chemical-free oats, millet, and barley; dairy products fermented from cows living organically; eggs from chickens that eat bugs in the grass and live in the sun; and a minimal amount of meat. Questioning the merits of nutritionism (which is the idea that food can be broken down into its component parts, bombarded with trace minerals and vitamins, and processed back into food-like substances without harming the being consuming it or depriving him of what his body needs to live a disease-free life), Minister of Health Dr. Hheiryest Ondiest, said, “How our grandmothers taught us to eat is how it is healthiest to eat – a variety of unprocessed but cooked vegetables, yellow butter from roaming bovines, as little wheat as possible, lots of teas, an egg or two now and again, and meat only on the sacred days.” ORFN began in the Spring of 2013 with a country-wide ban on fast food. At the end of five years, the Ministry of Health will thoroughly measure the overall health of the Grigovian citizenry, its reaction to ORFN, and whether it has been eating its peas and carrots.

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Grigovia employs seniors

Reluctant to lose the collective knowledge of its aging generations, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia recently established the Wisdom & Heritage Institute (WHI) at Queen Pylta the Terrible University, in Pyltagrad. At the Institute, knowledgeable persons older than sixty years are invited to share their wisdom and talents with the general public in a structured, scholastic environment. “We have much to learn from the people who came before us, from patriots who fought for their freedom against both Nazi and Soviet,” said Derogast Olyindt of the Center for Graceful Aging, a private charitable organization. He continued, saying, “For too long have we let them rot away, alone and sad, in elder-care facilities. I applaud efforts currently under way to engage with individuals of such value.” Classes will be held on the campus of WHI, a refurbished former industrial site on the Yalung River with views of both Lady Liberty and the distant, towering Yiptlong massif. “These our latest efforts were born primarily from American and European studies,” said Dr. Hueiyue Yen, head of geriatrics at Grig's own Yündlennd Healing Hospital. “Numerous meta-studies show that when an older person is valued by his society for more than his ability to die slowly in a nursing home, he leads a healthier, happier, and more independent life, right up until its end.”

A majority of the curricula at the Wisdom and Heritage Institute will focus on vanishing native arts such as basketry, storytelling, animal husbandry, and celestial navigation. A few senior citizens have signed up to teach martial arts, wilderness survival skills, yoga, cat-burglary, and bicycle repair on-the-fly. (The Institute apologizes that these courses filled up within hours of becoming available; it invites persons with experience in these fields to come teach.) In addition to classes, WHI will hold workshops in which older mentors will be paired up with and learn how to guide and assist their younger counterparts along life's twists and turns. Once again, the organizers of the Institute mined primarily American and European studies for methods to combat mental decay and physical atrophy among older citizens.

Classes are provided free of charge once applicants submit detailed declarations of purpose written on no fewer than three pages (single-spaced and using the font Heraldic New). The Institute aims to build camaraderie amongst all strata of Grigovian society while serving as a breeding ground for new ideas and a safe place to test them out. “Students should not expect formal testing, rote memorization, or chalk on blackboards,” said Mrs. Hilde Wendoyend, PhD., head of the Ministry of Education, a co-sponsor of WHI. “What they should expect is the unexpected: making blood stew from goat freshly slaughtered or learning how to pick a pocket while juggling, skills the average person can use on a daily basis.” Donations to the Wisdom and Heritage Fund, which helps to finance the WHI, can be made On-line or dropped off at any branch of the Grigovian National Bank. For more information about being a student or teacher at WHI, please contact your local censor.

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national bird selected

The discovery by field researchers of a breeding pair of pygmy burrowing snow owls (nyctea scandiaca pyltaregina) in the Pylta The Terrible National Ecological Protection Area (PTTNEPA) has buoyed the spirits of the Grigovian people. “I remember, as a child, seeing these birds whilst vising relatives in the dizzyingly-high valleys north of Pyltagrad,” said Dorevtha Mouiryindt, 72, who now lives in the southern city of Pryaghdoyest. “Try as we did, my cousins and I could never catch a bird, let alone get close enough to touch one. They are wary, watchful, and quick – the perfect choice for our national bird.”

While technically part of the genus nyctea scandiaca, pyltareginae differ significantly. Brightly-colored plumage clusters around face and foot and lead edge of wing; to some observers, the birds resemble flamenco dancers dressed for carnival. (The birds appear to use the colorful bands during courtship and to demarcate territory.) “We find few opportunistic predators this size that have evolved such attention-getting plumage,” said Yue Zhishuou, 39, an ornithologist at the University of Stockholm. “But the birds, when they hunt during the day, hunt in packs, using tactics similar to those used by other top predators, including killer whales. After locating their prey, they fly away from it in different directions. Then, with piercing screams in their throats, they come floating back on wings of silent menace, dropping from the sky directly above their victim with talons snapping and beaks grasping for purchase. Most often, they run their quarry in circles until it trips over its own feet and collapses into a panting heap, whereupon they pounce.”

“The uhuiyendt are fascinating creatures,” said Hennu Yiptlend, Grigovia's Secretary of the Interior – Natural Resources, using the local name for the birds (uhuiyendt, pronounced oo-whoo-ee-yend-t). “They form family bonds that last for generations, they defend their territory with reckless ferocity, they use tools to reach deep into anthills, they can punch through a foot of iced-over snow while hunting vole in wintertime, and they do all these things dressed in bold plumage replete with dazzling bursts of color.” The minister tied our steppe ponies to a stunted tree just below the top of a wind-swept ridge. We walked to the summit and glassed down onto a flock of uhuiyendt hunting rodents in the sparse Autumn grasses. My host directed my gaze to where a few birds had chased a field mouse out into the open. They screeched and dove at it until the little beast – confused and panicking – ran into the waiting talons of a big, red female. In the early morning sun, her plumage was so bright that I had to lower my binoculars and blink the sunspots from my eyes. The owls started diving at us a few minutes later, loosing their piercing screams at ear level and chasing us off their ridge with quick efficiency. “These birds live nowhere else – they are ours alone,” said Mr. Yiptlend as we were working the horses down a series of switchbacks. “The flock we just saw will defend that ridge from other predators for the next three months but not bag from it, so that, when they return to hunt, vole is fat and mouse is lazy. There are few birds as fierce, efficient, and cunning as the uhuiyendt, few nations a resilient and egalitarian as Grigovia. Long live the People's Republic.” (For more information about the uhuiyendt, and to see pictures of its colorful plumage, please visit pyltaregina.avian.gv.)

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virus attacks Grigovia

May, 2012; Grig – In what appeared to be a concerted attack launched by an as-of-yet unnamed foreign body, critical network nodes and sensitive hardware sites around this small, mountainous nation went suddenly off line in the early hours of Friday morning. Contrary to initial fears, the attacks – which appear to stem from a single finely crafted, specifically tailored virus – have had little affect on this rugged nation's civilian or military infrastructure. The average Grigovian is accustomed to rolling blackouts, heating material shortages, state neglect, and having to rely on his wits 99% of the time, so losing something as insignificant as the telephone network, and not being able to log onto the web, are everyday occurrences; such services as were lost during this week's virus strike prompted few, if any, lifestyle changes.

“We teach our grandchildren to be hardy, and to sit patiently in the dark not making a sound,” said Hennrig Yuyulong, 82, owner of an already dismal and smoke filled publick-house in the pulsing heart of this nation's capital. “We are not like soft-skinned American who cry when they skin their knees and who whine like children until they get their way. In Grigovia, we do things for ourselves, by ourselves, using our own resources, or we do not do them at all.” Analyses of the virus indicate that it was fabricated by highly advanced military algorithms similar to those used by U.S., British, Russian, and Chinese armed forces. According to Pitr Mohammad Yilyilanov, MIIG's senior press agent, the most recent attack is not the first such assault on this small, isolated nation's electrical and communications grids. “Most of our systems still run on old Soviet technology,” Mr. Yliyilanov declared at an early morning press conference. “This means that they are slow but reliable, cumbersome but also harder to hack, and backed up with backups for each backup. The systems affected during the breaches were responsible for all but the most peripheral systems such as our wi-fi and Internet servers, but, since most Grigovians do things by the old-fashioned methods, by the methods that have worked for generations, the only persons truly affected were sick or old, persons visiting our fine hospitals, and a loose smattering of bloggers who live in the band of industrial sites and abandoned warehouses known as Yidyidlenkov that encircles cosmopolitan Grig.”

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