Walk like an Iranian, throw a shoe

I admit it, I am just wasting time. I should be writing a lit review for a grant application, but alas, I just can't seem to stay focused on the work.

I am surprised by how much the shoe throwing journalist has generated buzz. No not by our snarky media in the US,,,,I figured it would be a big deal here. Lots of jokes as has happened. But how Arabs and others in the middle east are responding to it, surprises me. I'm not sure this incident needs Jay Leno to keep it going.

I heard on the BBC this morning, that in Iran, street vendors are setting up targets of Pres Bush and people take out their frustrations by throwing their shoes at him. So, here is my little Iranian street vendor,....

According to Time,

And one major issue will undoubtedly be case of shoe-tossing journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, who became a hero on
the streets of Iraq and much of the Arab world after his failed attempt to bean
President Bush at a press conference. Zaidi is to stand trial on New Year's Eve,
Abdul Satar Birqadr, the spokesman for Iraq's High Judicial Council said Monday,
on charges of "assaulting a foreign head of state visiting Iraq." Even if
putting Zaidi on trial appears to risk igniting public hostility, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
may yet seek to make the case work to his a political advantage ahead of next
month's poll, for which some 17.5 million are registered to vote.

The former speaker of the Iraqi Parliament praised Muntader the shoe thrower as "brave."

The newly resigned Iraqi parliament speaker on Wednesday praised the
journalist who threw shoes at President George W. Bush and said the legislature
should have supported him.

Is this a sign of a maturing democracy where "Muntader the shoe thrower" becomes a celebrity and hero of the political opposition aka Joe the Plumber? Such political characters have a long history in the US, so why not in Iraq?

But the effects of Muntader the shoe thrower go beyond just Iraqi politics. It has become a basis for pride and self esteem for Iraqi outside the borders of Iraq. For instance,

“

The Iraqi people are courageous people,” a taxi driver in Amman, Jordan, told me
a few days ago. It was strange to hear this praise after hearing years of verbal
abuse from Arabs in Jordan and Syria. When my uncle was shopping in the market
in Amman recently he heard a voice yell: “Are you Iraqi?” In the past this would
be followed by a speech about the war and the Americans. Instead the man yelled
to my uncle: “You made us proud.”

If this raises Iraqi's pride, egads, what would something more, erhm, lethal have done? Makes me kind of wonder. Political violence is one thing, but makes me feel good violence is another.

I don't really get it. But then, I didn't really get the outrage at the Danish cartoons. Ha, ha. And we should all be able to laugh a bit at ourselves. Now, I can laugh at Muntader the shoe thrower, but I don't get 'brave' (perhaps misguided, impetuous, maybe even dumb). I think it goes to show how different our respective perspectives are. And how much folks in that part of the world dislike us. I don't think it is just Pres. Bush (I really wish it were), but he is a stand-in for the rest of us.

Crisis Constructing so we need a Manager

just watch it....you'll laugh and be informed.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=186052&title=clusterf#@k-to-the-poor-house

Cartooning the candidates

Maybe one reason it is hard to make fun of Candidate Obama is because, well, at least cartooning him, he cartoons very similar to our current president. Now, routinely President Bush is referred to as a "chimp" but to refer to Sen Obama as a chimp, no matter how chimp-like the cartoonist might make him, would create a firestorm, right or wrong.








Notice the resemblance to cartoons of President Bush:














Cartoons of John McCain are not too simian:

Is it us, is it them, or a bit of both?

An interesting bit of news from the Int'l Herald Tribune:

In his recently published book, "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq," Scheuer argues that the United States faces more trouble because its leaders refuse to recognize what drives terrorism.

President George W. Bush argues that terrorists "hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote." But polls show that the bedrock of support for militancy among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims is the detestation of U.S. foreign policies.

Scheuer faults U.S. leaders for failing to acknowledge the grievances that bin Laden laid out in precise detail, which were adopted by the followers he inspired. They were: the U.S. presence in the Arabian Peninsula; unqualified support for Israel; U.S. support for states oppressing Muslims, especially China, India and Russia; U.S. exploitation of Muslim oil; U.S. support and financing of authoritarian Arab regimes.

Tony Blair, at his speech at DePauw University on 3/3 echoed George W Bush's arguement that it is a clash of values and not policies.

I suspect it is a bit of both. Even Mr. Blair said, that fixing the Israeli-Palestinian problem was necessary to defeating terrorism, which is now his main focus, as special envoy to the Middle East.

The article noted this bit of irony:

Polls show that radicals - potential suicide bombers and hostage takers - and moderate Muslims are in favor of moving toward more democracy, a process stifled in many places by authoritarian rulers who enjoy the backing of the United States.

It cemented its reputation as the superpower of hypocrites after one of the very few democratic elections in Middle Eastern history, the 2006 vote in which Palestinians opted for the Islamist party Hamas over Fatah, the corrupt ruling bureaucracy built up by Yasser Arafat. The closely monitored election was deemed free and fair.

The United States responded by boycotting Hamas and backing Fatah

Just because there is an election doesn't mean we (the US) have to like who is elected. Just ask Hugo Chavez, or Allende, to name just two off the top of my head.