2 + 2

Two news stories caught my eye today. One of them because I thought it was funny and the other because it was dark. So here goes.

1. Italy - Io sono deficiente

PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - A teacher who forced a pupil to write "I am a retard" 100 times was acquitted by an Italian court on Wednesday of abuse charges.

The teacher, whose identity was withheld to protect her privacy, forced the punishment on the 12-year-old boy after he blocked a fellow pupil from going to the toilet and called him "gay" and "girly."

The parents had sought 25,000 euros ($33,580) in damages and a public prosecutor had called for a two-month prison sentence, but the court cleared the teacher, a court source said.

The teacher said her punishment of the boy had been appropriate, particularly after a widely publicized case of an adolescent who committed suicide in Italy, apparently after receiving taunts at school about being homosexual.

Gay rights groups had called for the charges to be dropped.

"I never intended to humiliate the boy," the teacher told journalists after she was cleared.

In Italian, she made the boy write: "Io sono deficiente," which literally means "deficient" but is more commonly used as a disparaging term meaning "moron" or "mentally retarded."

"I explained, discussing with him and his classmates, that deficient means 'lacking'. He was 'lacking' sensitivity for one of his classmates," the teacher said.

2. Nigeria - Machete prices drop 50% after election

ABUJA (Reuters) - The price of machetes has halved in parts of Nigeria since the end of general elections in April because demand from thugs sponsored by politicians has subsided, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria reported.

NAN surveyed prices in the northeastern state of Gombe and found that a good quality machete was now selling for 400 naira ($3) compared with 800 naira before the elections, which were marred by politically motivated violence in many states.

"A price survey on machetes, which served as a popular weapon among political thugs in the state, indicated ... a drop in the price of the implement," NAN reported over the weekend.

Machetes are primarily used as a tool for farming in Nigeria but they are also popular among political gangsters.

"Before the conduct of the general elections, I was selling a minimum of seven machetes daily but can hardly sell one a day now," said Usman Masi, a trader quoted by NAN.

Africa's most populous country returned to civilian rule in 1999 after three decades of almost continuous army rule but violence remains a feature of politics, especially during the build-up to elections.

European election monitors estimated that at least 200 people were killed in politically motivated violence during months of campaigning ahead of the April polls.

I submit to you Tony Blair as the Asshole of the Week. I'm not going to lay it on thick about Iraq or even the evisceration of British civil liberties. His appointment as Asshole of the Week is in conjunction with him leaving office, finally, but popping up days later, like herpes, as a UN Middle East envoy. Hasn't he done enough? So, Anthony Blair Esq., Asshole of the Week. While appreciating the sleazy grin and mullet, just remember that this man ran one of the world's largest economies for ten years and, much like the joke about the rooster crossing the road, followed Bush to war for much the same reasons.

By the way, the joke is:

Why did the rooster cross the road? Because his dick was stuck in the chicken.

Okay, so I subscribe to a news digest from Information Clearing House which comes into my inbox pretty much whenever the guy who compiles it can put it together and send it out. Yesterday it came in and one of the articles in the digest was a posting on The Progressive's website about Independence Day. Rather than listening to me tell you what it says, Zinn's article is here:

http://progressive.org/media_mpzinn070106

Basically he says that instead of waving flags and singing songs on July 4th the American people would be better served by thinking about giving up the concept of nationalism altogether. Rather, they should perceive themselves as global citizens and dispense with the idea that an American life is worth more than a foreign one (Zinn cites Pearl Harbour vs. Hiroshima as one example of this, September 11th vs. Iraq and Afghanistan as another).

What blew me away was the vitriol of the responses to the guy. I mean, fair enough, he's a bit of an old fart and he likes his high horse a little too much (see also Chomsky and Pilger) but, like Chomsky and Pilger, in with the half-blind uber-morality guff there is an undercurrent of fairly sensible social thinking. The majority of the responses to Zinn's article, however, were in the vein of "If you don't like it, why don't you fuck off to Iran?" which, frankly, strikes me as being a little harsh.

So, enough preamble. Time for me to take to the soapbox. My first entry into the lexicon of 2 + 2 is the fundamental paradox of people expounding the glory of American freedom while telling anyone who asks them to think twice about it to get out of the country. This is clearly a bunch of hooey, or, to be less cute about it, a cunting pile of wank. How can you love your so-called freedom while simultaneously shouting down anyone who questions the manner in which it is provided? People who do this don't love freedom, they love themselves. They watch their televisions, go to their places of worship, fly their flags outside their suburban homes and generally float along on the prevailing stream without a second thought. When someone suggests that maybe a second thought is warranted, they respond like a child who is told he has to stop watching cartoons and go take a shower, namely "I DON'T WANNA!".

If people engaged their rational minds, they would see very quickly that all of this noise about flags and patriotism and love of country is just that, noise, and contributes nothing to the actual debate about the behaviour and responsibility of nations, governments and most of all, citizens. Many are the people who have marched and sung their way to an early grave on the crest of a wave of patriotism and nationalism. Even worse, many are the people who those others took with them. Of course, the majority of Americans who scream bloody murder whenever someone suggests that their way isn't necessarily the best usually hold this opinion because the people being killed in their name and with their taxes are far away and darker hued.

There's a lot more I could say, but if you scroll through the comments left at the end of Zinn's article you'll find far more eloquent proof of their idiocy and in their own words.

Until next time, just remember, if it doesn't add up to 4 then somebody's bullshitting you.