When a country gears up for war, most of the work is handled by the politicians. Want to protest? Go ahead. They'll ignore you and do what they want anyway. Now if you want to support the war effort, that's a different story. Put a flag outside your house, or go shopping at the mall, you can show your patriotism either way. So what do the Iraqis do? According to this story, they stop drinking Coca Cola because now they've got an alternative: Zam Zam Cola—Allah the taste, Allah the time.

In fact, the whole Islamic world is being urged to boycott American multinational products, like McDonald's, Starbucks, and Nike, and many are actively doing so. But Zam Zam is the heavyweight in the competition. Described as a "slightly sickly version of Pepsi," over ten million bottles of Zam Zam have been shipped to Saudi Arabia and OPEC countries over the last four months, giving locals a chance to put their soft drinks where their hearts are.

The big deal, naturally, is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, whereat sales of bottled water and yoghurt drinks are astronomical—and Coke and Pepsi have traditionally been big players in the market. Zam Zam has done so well, in fact, that other entrants are scrambling to get into the picture, with French Muslim entrepeneur Tawfiq Mathlouthi leading the herd with his Mecca Cola that promises to give "10 per cent of the profits" to a Palestinian children's charity. Hard to compete with that.

Coca Cola has been wounded severely already, with sales down "20 and 40 per cent in some countries," and Ramadan will mark the official beginning of the Western boycott, so dump that Coke stock now if you're holding it.

The Islamic cola warriors say this is an easy way for Muslims to feel they are punishing George W. Bush.

Humor aside, it pays to keep in mind that the West is dominating Islamic fast-food, soft-drink, clothing, and cigarette markets. Their domestic versions, as you can imagine, suck. This is part of the angst that drives their militancy: if we weren't flooding their world with superior products, their inferiority wouldn't be so evident. Zam Zam is very important in this respect because it gives the average Muslim in the street a chance to reject Western culture. They are doing so in such numbers that Zam Zam is now negotiating distribution rights with Denmark, the company's first European client.

The Zam Zam flagship commercial is predictable:

You've been stoning the village harlot and now it's time for refreshment—grab an infidelicious Zam Zam
Mujahadeen at Israeli bus stop: (pulling open coat, bottles of Zam Zam strapped around waist) "It's the bomb!"

7:18:23 PM       

In Lombard, Illinois, a couple of parents are in court for beating their child, and, as usual, somebody got the whole thing on tape. This is getting ridiculous—you can't administer a little discipline anymore without some do-gooder showing up with a handicam and ruining everything.

Frank Barney, and his wife Marylynnette, don't seem to have much of a defense since the prosecutors have a video that shows Frank viciously savaging their 15-year-old boy with a "2-foot-long wooden stick." It looks especially bad when dad hands the chastised youth an ice pack, and you can hear mom saying in the background, "What's the point in hitting him and then giving him an ice pack?"

Now the story gets a little strange. The video and audio in question come from the Barney's own videocamera. Turns out their neighbor has some kind of weird high-tech wireless security system (understandable, living next to people like the Barneys) and due to some freak coincidence the neighbor's system picks up signals from the Barney's camera. So the neighbor records four of these high-spirited correctional incidents and turns them over to the cops, but the Barneys' lawyers are arguing that the tape was illegally obtained and should be inadmissable as evidence. Yes, but the facts here are that the child has an IQ of 45, and one of the beatings (which we will consider representative of the rest) is being administered because the boy "took an extra hot dog at dinner." The Raven says the Barneys should do some jail time and the kid should go to a loving home. After all, the neighbor was only able to pick up the video signals because obviously Marylynnette is filming the beatings herself (for later home viewing over a bowl of popcorn, no doubt).

Strangers with Books

You probably know Amy Sedaris, star of Strangers with Candy and guest appearer on shows like "Just Shoot Me" and "Sex and the City." But this story isn't about her, it's about her brother David Sedaris. He's been getting a lot of NPR time lately, and his books are taking off. I read his Holidays on Ice a few years back and became an instant fan. Me Talk Pretty Someday is also pretty good. The link above takes you to an amusing interview with David who's promoting an odd, Mark Twain-esque sort of theater show in which he sits and reads around 50 pages of his latest material to the audience, who reportedly laugh a lot because David is very funny. He's also charmingly modest, as seen here commenting on his dislike of being called a "writer":

"I've been suspicious of titles like that. I went to art school and you'd meet someone who says they're an artist and I'd say, 'I don't know about that.' Wait till the world calls you something. I write, but I'm reluctant to call myself a writer. A lucky typist sounds better."

The Ravenous Beast

I promised myself I absolutely would not comment on the Washington-area sniper, and I won't, but the media frenzy around the case is worthy of a few remarks.

By now you've all seen the CNN clips of some bogus "Tarot Expert" or whatnot demonstrating what every teenager born after 1960 knows: The Death card doesn't mean death in the literal sense. In fact, there's pretty much nothing about Tarot cards that should be taken literally because they're symbolic by their very nature. But what you've got here is the media machine whipped into a lather and every reporter who can wing a ticket is dropping into the D.C. metro area to cover the story. And they're all milling around and there's no story. The head honcho in this case is Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who hates the press and gives hostile 10-minute press conferences in which he says nothing at all beyond, "I can't tell you about that," and "when we want the media to assist, we'll ask you to."

So the reporters go into a self-feeding orgy of cannibalism and start tearing apart whatever they've got. Bring in Tarot experts, bring in a police marksman for the "Sniper's View," and check with the Secret Service, who offer these "tips" on "how to avoid being shot":

Avoid unnecessary errands, go shopping with someone else and don't linger in parking lots.

9:25:48 AM