Grade This! - February 27, 2006
The latest news wrap-up: Goats go down the aisle, nerds go down to Mardi Gras.
By Brian Beutler
Monday February 27, 2006
 Ethnic Uncleansed
I think the lead to this BBC story says it all: “A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his ‘wife’, after he was caught having sex with the animal.” Though penalties for bestiality vary far and wide across the globe, doesn’t this strike you as a little juvenile? Especially in a part of the world where the punishment for adultery can be death? Isn’t this something like what your kindergarten teacher might assign as punishment if she caught one of her students, er, well, you get the idea. Asked for an explanation of the penalty the goat’s owner—distinct from the goat’s husband—said he went to tribal elders for advice: "They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife." Sounds logical enough to me.
Goat: B (poor, poor goat)
Kindergarten teachers: B- (Take that Ms. Nelly!)
This whole, twisted story: A+
News of the Perfectly Ordinary
In a perfectly unexceptional SNAFU, former President Clinton was denied access to an Australian golf course because they had already booked the entire club for a championship event. Though the gentleman who originally fielded the president’s call says he didn’t believe that it could possibly be the actual Bill Clinton, he now freely admits, “if I had’ve known it was legit, we would definitely have found room.” Thank God Drudge put the news front and center, just below this edifying story about one of Oprah Winfrey’s more celebrated guests.
Former President Clinton: A (for not threatening to nuke Australia)
Golf: C-
Drudge: D-
Oprah Winfrey: D (for offenses similar to Drudge’s)
Getting Involved in a Virtual Land War in Asia
The normal everyday killing and bloodshed of online gaming has been interrupted by really creepy killing and bloodshed in online gaming. Online multiplayer role-playing games like Lineage, where users pay a monthly fee to play medieval characters slaughtering monsters (and each other) are so popular in China that players will actually pay real-life money for in-game items and treasures. The Lineage item trade has become so profitable that businesses in China that grind away at the game 24 hours a day to acquire items for sale to other players have now branched onto game servers in Korea, much to the Korean players’ dismay. The result is a virtual ethnic cleansing on Korean Lineage servers, as players have begun seeking out and killing any Chinese players they encounter. For some reason, there’s something very disturbing about attacking people based on their racial origin while pretending you’re an elf.
Online games: A
Playing online games so much you’d actually pay real money for fake items in the game: C-
Being so invested in an online game you’d spend half the time on it stalking people to kill them for stealing your virtual stuff: D-
August J. Pollak, Campus Progress and Andrew Fong, Harvard University
The Buffet Didn’t Sound That Bad
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo escaped a coup attempt last week and imposed a state of emergency. In what could have been an amazing scoop, Time magazine had a reporter on hand for the rebel’s last meeting, but ultimately came up with this, uh, lackluster description: “While Cojuangco’s daughter Mikee kept the buffet table piled high with chicken sandwiches, macaroni salad, corn and cookies, Pastor Saycon, a businessman and longtime Arroyo critic, planned for a new government.” That’s some picnic—but not a whole lot of meat about the actual plans. They do report that one Philippine businessman, a high-level plotter, was in contact with a Washington official to assure him that the new government would retain a friendly relationship with the United States—just not with China. You know. That pesky li’l neighbor to their west.
Coups: D, usually.
This coup attempt: F. Literally.
Macaroni Salad: A+
Fish Out of Toxic Water?
This Newsweek essay, titled “A Defiant New Orleans Celebrates Mardi Gras,” is actually about how brutalized and crippled the city is, and how there is no Mardi Gras in the Crescent City, per se. Even still, the reporter calls New Orleans “America’s most flavorful city,” which, if you take into account the sour edge to the toxic water, is arguably still true. However, one question remains: Why would Newsweek send their high-tech columnist to cover what was supposed to be a huge party? Isn’t that like inviting a Trekkie to a football game? He reports, “On Monday we visited the French Quarter. ‘Slow’ is too generous a description for how business was going.” But neglects to mention what time it was, or whether it might be better on, like, say, Friday night. Perhaps their newsroom is stretched a little thin.
Mardi Gras: A
Dork Reporting on a Party (like a high-tech reporter at Mardi Gras): A+
Maudlin Tributes to the Big Easy…at least at this point: C-
Illustration: August J. Pollak
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