One of my daily treats is reading the latest blog entry of circumstance. So I did just five minutes ago. Only to find out, that back home in Styria regional elections were held recently.

There is absolutely nothing funny about the results, what with the right-wing party once lead by the late Jörg Haider winning big time. As much time as I used to spend bashing Haider way back when, at a time I still followed Austrian politics, as deeply I regretted his passing away, when I found out, how bad his successor HC Strache was. At least Haider had two ounces of brain to call his own, he just used both of them wrongly, in my humble opinion. But this HC Strache figure was – and still is – beyond any description.

Born-and-bred Styrian that I am, I always knew about the high percentage of xenophobe folks living there. The only consolation being, that in neighbouring Carinthia things were far worse. Kind of gave me absolution for telling all these jokes about Carinthians. Now the results of the recent election suggest, that my own people have become far worse than Carinthians ever were. I have stopped following Austrian politics a long time ago, but this is really bad news. I might have to turn my attention back to it for a while, lest I get the blues.

But there are some fun facts about learning the bad news:
1. It takes an U.S. citizen to tell me about it. On blog.de. In English. That’s funny in itself, I think.
2. There are a few sarcastic, Styria-bashing graphics circulating on the internet, that are funny, albeit part of my Styrian heart bleeds, having to look at them. Nevertheless, here we go: