A Poor Shoeing

Remember the octo-craze? Well, that's old bananas now. Enter the flying shoe.

With a forceful flick of his wrist, Muntadar al-Zaidi changed the landscape of the pop culture cliche. What may have once been a strong political statement is now fodder for the unoriginal upstarts of the world.

In case you want to catch up on your airborne-footwear stories, glance at this laundry list.

That's pathetic. If you're angry enough for your cause to warrant losing shoes over it, why don't you get your thinking cap on and come up with something original? Shoe soles are obviously insulting in the Arab world - does that make them just as insulting in India? Or France? I'm pretty sure these places have their own insulting imagery that they can chuck at passing dignitaries.

Take the protests in London and Strasbourg over the recent G20 conference. Smashing windows, busting offices, blah blah blah. Though I am grateful no shoes were thrown, this makes for boring and ineffective protesting. Again, can't these people come up with something original? I thought angry liberals were the creative type.

Maybe I'm just wistful for the days when a protest really meant something. Not so much the Paris of '68, but perhaps the Varberg, Sweden of '01. No reason, no copycat method, and open to interpretation. A classy and, quite literally, tasteful protest.

progenitors in the art of political dissent

Really, if everyone started throwing cake or pies, wouldn't that be a promising sign? Nobody's really a fan of hardcore protesters as destroying public property tends to give you a negative image. But a pie in the face? Just imagine if someone had landed a banana cream right in Cheney's mug, circa 2005. Fame, fortune and a light prison sentence await those savvy enough to grasp the open mantle of effective protest.

P.S. - Only related to the above picture: when Photoshop goes too far.