perfidy

In which attention is paid to the stupid, and makes the petty feel better about themselves.

For the week ending 7DEC04

Spotlight Bangladesh: In the face of threats from an Islamic group, Bangladesh cancelled its national women's swimming competition. The group, which carries the unintentionally hilarious moniker "Anti-Islamic Activities Prevention Committee" decided the event was un-Islamic. And it wasn't the first time; last year the same group shut down the women's wrestling event as well. Because God HATES wet women and chick fights.

People's Theocratic Revolutionary whatever of Iran: Iran's supreme court upheld an adultery conviction and approved the death penalty be applied in the case, but in a fit of conscience did commute an associated prison term for the defendant AND disallow she be hanged. So she could be stoned instead. The noose does still await the other defendant, a 17 year old boy. When remarking on the recent spate of lady executions in Iran, a female parliamentarian made some sort of weird remark about killing prostitutes that didn't make alot of sense, so won't repeat.

Spotlight Thailand: In an effort to defuse simmering inter-religious tension, Thai PM Thaksin Shiawatra approved airdropping 100 million origami birds across the largely Muslim south as a message of peace. Officials, volunteers, and schoolchildren folded each of the tiny cranes. And within hours of the gesture,

"the owner of a tea shop in Pattani was slain by gunmen, grenades were thrown at the homes of two policemen in the same province and arsonists set fire to a state school in Yala and a teacher's house in Narathiwat."

Gestures really only work if all parties understand the symbols at play. Lovingly crafted paper cranes might mean peace and reconciliation to me, but there's no reason why I should assume they WOULDN'T mean "react with arson and explosives" when others were faced with origami.

Spotlight every frat stereotype: A frathouse at the University of Georgia was the venue for a "Revenge of the Nerds" reenactment, when Ogre burns the frat house down. Except instead of the whole house, some dupe burned himself badly enough to wind up in the hospital after an accident with open flame, an oil lamp, and 190-proof alcohol. There was also a nod to "Dr Strangelove" ("Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?"), every zombie flick ever (the burned victim's "skin was hanging off his fingers, chest, abdomen, side and back"), "Animal House", and every school principal you ever heard ("to make sure these types of accidents don't happen again.")

Spotlight Massachussetts' fat ex-wife: Police and workers at an Auburn, Maine food bank are trying to figure out how a 20-pound bale of weed got into their shipment of watermellons. The most puzzling part of course is the choice of venue. Sure, you'd expect a 20-pound bale of weed in a big shipment of cookies, say, or Cheez-its, but watermellons? The cops and DEA exhibited exemplary behavior by harshing everyone's mellow and confiscating the bale, in clear and blatant violation of both the Constitution's Finders Keepers clause AND common goddamned decency. C'mon guys...if a fella has to get his food from the food bank, at Christmas even, you can't let him have a little extra in his stocking this year?