Sunday, June 10, 2007

Mandatory celebration isosceles trapezoid

Part of what makes blogging about tyrants such a pleasure is reading the bizarre articles from dictatorships that have been either poorly or hastily translated into English. Such is the case with this blurb from the Syrian Arab News Agency which hails the arrival of something called the "al-Mahaba carnival" to the city of Aleppo. The article breezily informs us that that:

al-Mahaba (amity) carnival arrived in Aleppo, the capital of Islamic culture, celebrating the re-election of of President Bashar al-Assad. The carnival, held by several economic and culture activities in Syria, set out from Damascus, crossing the Syrian cities from the south to the north. It marched through the streets of Aleppo city where people gathered and welcomed the arrival of the carnival.

The only photo included in the article doesn't really look much like a traveling "carnival" so much as it resembles a vaguely menacing isosceles trapezoid floating down an empty street, daring the terrified natives to behold its power, magnificence, and triumph over gravity. Compared to the way some other dictators glorify themselves, this is a pretty low rent display of self-glorification by Bashar al-Assad. I'm aware Junior is a pretty bush league kind of dictator compared to his old man, but surely he can do better than this, right?

UPDATE: The trapezoid arrives in Idelb!

No comments: