| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Al-Arabiya TV Linking Global Warming and Terrorism
Ordinarily, concern about global warming is one of the last
things you'll hear coming out of the Arab world. And why is
that? Well, probably because it has absolutely nothing to do
with the singular, overriding obsession du jour of that unlovely
realm of the planet: the Arab-Israeli conflict; or, more
specifically, the unjustifiable existence of that nasty little
Jewish enclave in the midst of holy Islamic soil.
And anyway, global warming is the kind of thing that only
cockamamie infidels obsess over because what could be more
uncontrollable than the weather? That is the province of God
and, as they say in Arabic, when it comes to the weather or
anything else, insh'allah ("if God wills it").
But wait just a minute, says Al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based
satellite TV channel set up in 2003 to directly compete with al-
Jazeera TV. Maybe there's something to this global warming
after all. Or at least, maybe it can be used to make a point that
is conducive to the Arab point of view, which is to say, maybe it
can be used, even if in a convoluted and downright goofy way,
to justify desperate people resorting to terrorism.
What follows is the transcript of a brief spot, presumably a
kind of public service message, that appeared on Al-Arabiya on
January 18, 2008. See if you can follow the logic.
Man in a restaurant: I'll have the grilled chicken, please.
Voice-over: The preferred food for millions of chickens
around the world is green soy beans. It is mainly imported from
Brazil by ships like this one, which release tons of carbon
dioxide, causing the ice at the poles to melt, and the sea level
rises, and as a result, the water floods some of these beautiful
islands, whose inhabitants flee to refugee camps, where some of
them might undergo terrorist training, and from time to time
demonstrate their "fine arts" to the world.
Suicide bomber detonates a phone-bomb.
These regular people are then compelled to change their
clothes into military uniforms, ready to fight one of the new
wars of the world – a war might jeopardize the world's energy
supply, forcing the ships that carry green soy beans to cancel
their journeys. Thus, it is impossible to ship soy to feed the
world's chickens.
The outcome is:
Waiter: There is no chicken today.
"Al-Arabiya -- So you know more."
And there you have it. Who knew that global warming was
being caused primarily by ships hauling chickenfeed from
Brazil? But that's really beside the point. The main point
seems to be that when "regular people" get screwed in some
way, they might then feel the need to "from time to time
demonstrate their 'fine arts' to the world."
We're not told in the spot where those hypothetical "beautiful
islands" that got flooded by global warming are, which seems to
infer that they could be anywhere on Planet Earth, which would
suggest that any of the world's "regular people," if faced with
such circumstances, might naturally resort to terrorism as a
perfectly understandable means of redressing their thoroughly
justifiable grievances.
All of which goes toward pushing the idea that if innumerable,
seemingly crazy Muslims are now infiltrating every corner of
the globe and self-detonating and taking out as many innocent
people as they can find glommed together in one place, well,
then, maybe that's what any "regular" person would do if they
were in the same grievanced circumstances.
It's a stretch, to say the least. In fact, it's demented, unhinged
and bereft of reason. But that's what passes for a public service
message in the Arab world.
"Al-Arabiya -- So you know more."
It's a catchy slogan, but it needs to be a bit more honest: "Al-
Arabiya -- so you don't know squat and continue to fall further
and further behind the rest of the civilized world."
Ordinarily, concern about global warming is one of the last
things you'll hear coming out of the Arab world. And why is
that? Well, probably because it has absolutely nothing to do
with the singular, overriding obsession du jour of that unlovely
realm of the planet: the Arab-Israeli conflict; or, more
specifically, the unjustifiable existence of that nasty little
Jewish enclave in the midst of holy Islamic soil.
And anyway, global warming is the kind of thing that only
cockamamie infidels obsess over because what could be more
uncontrollable than the weather? That is the province of God
and, as they say in Arabic, when it comes to the weather or
anything else, insh'allah ("if God wills it").
But wait just a minute, says Al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based
satellite TV channel set up in 2003 to directly compete with al-
Jazeera TV. Maybe there's something to this global warming
after all. Or at least, maybe it can be used to make a point that
is conducive to the Arab point of view, which is to say, maybe it
can be used, even if in a convoluted and downright goofy way,
to justify desperate people resorting to terrorism.
What follows is the transcript of a brief spot, presumably a
kind of public service message, that appeared on Al-Arabiya on
January 18, 2008. See if you can follow the logic.
Man in a restaurant: I'll have the grilled chicken, please.
Voice-over: The preferred food for millions of chickens
around the world is green soy beans. It is mainly imported from
Brazil by ships like this one, which release tons of carbon
dioxide, causing the ice at the poles to melt, and the sea level
rises, and as a result, the water floods some of these beautiful
islands, whose inhabitants flee to refugee camps, where some of
them might undergo terrorist training, and from time to time
demonstrate their "fine arts" to the world.
Suicide bomber detonates a phone-bomb.
These regular people are then compelled to change their
clothes into military uniforms, ready to fight one of the new
wars of the world – a war might jeopardize the world's energy
supply, forcing the ships that carry green soy beans to cancel
their journeys. Thus, it is impossible to ship soy to feed the
world's chickens.
The outcome is:
Waiter: There is no chicken today.
"Al-Arabiya -- So you know more."
And there you have it. Who knew that global warming was
being caused primarily by ships hauling chickenfeed from
Brazil? But that's really beside the point. The main point
seems to be that when "regular people" get screwed in some
way, they might then feel the need to "from time to time
demonstrate their 'fine arts' to the world."
We're not told in the spot where those hypothetical "beautiful
islands" that got flooded by global warming are, which seems to
infer that they could be anywhere on Planet Earth, which would
suggest that any of the world's "regular people," if faced with
such circumstances, might naturally resort to terrorism as a
perfectly understandable means of redressing their thoroughly
justifiable grievances.
All of which goes toward pushing the idea that if innumerable,
seemingly crazy Muslims are now infiltrating every corner of
the globe and self-detonating and taking out as many innocent
people as they can find glommed together in one place, well,
then, maybe that's what any "regular" person would do if they
were in the same grievanced circumstances.
It's a stretch, to say the least. In fact, it's demented, unhinged
and bereft of reason. But that's what passes for a public service
message in the Arab world.
"Al-Arabiya -- So you know more."
It's a catchy slogan, but it needs to be a bit more honest: "Al-
Arabiya -- so you don't know squat and continue to fall further
and further behind the rest of the civilized world."