Mushrooming zombies, moaning Muslims and Mickey Mouse trials
Friday, August 20th, 2010
Now, this is quite interesting:
“The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns ants into zombies and makes them stagger to their death has been uncovered by scientists. The gruesome hallmark of the fungus’s handiwork was found on the leaves of plants that grew in Messel, near Darmstadt in Germany 48m years ago.”
Of course, human beings don’t need a fungus (or any outside help, be it animal, vegetable, mineral or Scriptural) to behave like staggeringly stupid zombies – as the following story shows:
“Poll held before Ground Zero mosque furore finds 18% of people believe US president is Muslim, not Christian.”
Talking of stupid zombies – and Muslims:
“A Muslim woman who works as a hostess at a Disney-owned restaurant filed a discrimination complaint against the entertainment giant Wednesday, saying they have repeatedly sent her home without pay for refusing to remove her headscarf at work.”
It probably should leave me feeling confused and unsatisfied but I actually find it quite liberating – at times even exhilarating – that more and more news stories of a confrontational nature have me snorting in contempt for all the parties involved, which very much includes the journalists or TV talking heads who feel the need to feed us this pap…
… which is less wholesome, tasteful or ethically sourced than a Central Park hotdog at the tail-end of the Fourth of July (or a kebab at the fag-end of a Friday night pub crawl in Newcastle.)
The only question this sorry piece of journalistic fast food shite raised with me was if there was a Halal/Haram viewing list for Disney characters…
… or for working with them, since my other thought was that the litigious Imane Boudlal could simply have worn her headscarf under one of those mascots’ heads.
Back to that vexed question of kosher characters though.
Ducks are obviously okay but those three little pigs should be a big no-no.
Equally, Mickey’s faithful companion, Pluto, would be terribly Haram, dogs being unclean and all.
It’s harder to give a simple answer about the suitability of a Mickey suit (or mere head, if you don’t feel the need to go the full burqa.)
One simple Google search told me that you do have Halal mouse pads. On the other hand, the mighty Google also informed me that mouse paddies are decidedly Haram, so perhaps a good Muslim shouldn’t wear a Mickey head, whatever a certain Palestinian TV programme suggested…
… which could, on the other hand, explain how some, slightly less sophisticated Muslims might believe working for Disney would be the dream job for any true believer, wearing a headscarf – or a Kalashnikov:
















