Yesterday, while at the gym doing my 35 minute of cardio (hey,it takes work to get in the shape I am) I was fortunate enough to have 3 seperate TV's in front of me, all turned to CNN. During that time I was exposed to 35 minutes of non-stop, hard-hitting, shoe-throwing reporting. The story of an irate Iraqi TV reporter throwing his shoes at President Bush was pretty much the only story. I did have my mp3 player but not to worry, the tv's all had closed captioning so that I wouldn't miss a single shoe-throwing minute of this story. I am not going to put the video up here but here is a link for the three of you who may have missed it; shoe throwing. I was exposed to another hour or so last night as this story was on every channel repeatedly.

I don't have any problem with this being a newsworthy story. Someone attacking a head of state should definitely be reported on. My problem is with the way the brain trust at CNN and the other networks keep harping on about how serious an insult it is to throw a shoe at someone's head in the Muslim world.

"Really? Throwing shoes is bad?"
"How about two shoes? Can I throw two shoes?"
"No? That's bad too?"
"Huh. All these years I've been chucking shoes ... I never realized."
"Thanks, CNN."

That's some good reporting there, Lou.

Now, it may indeed be the case that there is some special cultural significance to throwing shoes in the Muslim world that is different than for us in the West, just as I am sure that mooning someone probably has more meaning to an American than it does to your average Muslim. That doesn't mean that when Achmed drops trow in Abdul's direction that Abdul isn't going to be able to figure out the general meaning of the gesture.

My favorite quote was from some genius CNN reporter;

"You know Tom, had this occurred in a public street between two Muslim men events would have quickly escalated to violence."

Nice insight there, fella!

I don't know about you, but if I was walking down Beacon Street in Boston and someone started chucking shoes at my head I am pretty sure that events would soon escalate toward violence, and I have never even seen a Koran.

I think the bigger story here is where was the secret service? Aren't they supposed to be throwing their bodies in front of the president when projectiles come his way? Shouldn't one of them have put his body in between the president and the shoe? Or at least, the second shoe? I mean, come on, the guy threw a shoe, missed, and then had time to take the second shoe off of his foot before he threw it.

"Excuse me, agent Smith, how come you didn't put youself between the president and the shoes?"
"What? Are you kidding? We train to throw ourselves in front of bullets. Shoes? Forget it. We're completely helpless."

I will have to say this though, president Bush has got some moves for a 62 year old man. He was like a ninja up there. I guess that comes from being so well rested.

Cheers,

John