As IF Times

link Anti-government protests in Libya – Yahoo! News Photos.

Here’s a brilliant idea for a business and it’s amazing no one has thought of it sooner.  The effigy business.  In particular of political figures.  Naturally, the American figures will be the most popular since it’s pretty much expected that demand for them will be at a constant high level.  We can be sure of both domestic and international demand.  Someone could have a warehouse stocked with effigies of the current President at the ready, for immediate shipment to any hot spot in the world.  Imagine the money that could have been made during George Bush’s term in office.  It’s likely that he had more effigies and images burnt of him than even Ronald Reagan when he occupied the Presidency.   The fact that they are burning Obama effigies is a bit surprising given that his ascent to power was supposed to appease the masses.  But I guess there’s no pleasing some people. 

On the other hand, sensibilities aren’t what they used to be.  A president can be burnt in effigy now at the slightest of provocations.  Because of the volatile temperaments of many in the middle east, the President’s effigy could be burnt only because  he backed the wrong sports team, which by coincidence, he generally does.  The recent round of Obama burning was caused by Qaddafi loyalists unhappy over the U.S.’s recent bombing campaign in Libya.  Well, you just can’t win.  If Obama had bombed the other side, perhaps someone would have torched an entire airplane of people in real life, never mind effigies.

However, these impolite acts of disrespect shouldn’t faze this or any President.  Obviously, you can’t have all the people love you.  There are people who don’t like Ronald McDonald and he represents food and laughter.  What chance does a guy have who drops Prius-sized bombs on people?  They should take the perspective of the Chinese.  In that culture, images of consumer goods are burnt at the sending off of a deceased person so that they may receive them in the afterlife.  Imagine if this were to actually work.  When the Muslim martyrs arrive in heaven to receive their 24 virgins, they’ll also be met by the countless amounts of American Presidents they burnt during their protests.     Allah may be great, but hopefully he also has a sense of humor.

link News from The Associated Press.

There is an iconic German expression,  author unknown,  which goes, ” stadluft macht frei”, which means “city air makes you free”.  In the day when this was first coined, it meant that to live in the city away from the constraints and prying eyes of a rural community gave one the freedom of anonymity and therefore freedom to do as you wished.   In the city of course, there were many, many people and no one really cared what anyone else was up to.   In theory, this is a fertile environment for novel intellectual thought and so living in the city was supposed to foster intelligent discourse and a civilized society.

In the crucible of a great metropolis like New York, we can observe if this notion still has validity.  According to articles like the one in the link, being free these days means to be willfully indifferent to your social surroundings.  The article cites instances of people carrying on in the subways with all kinds of activity as if they were in their own living rooms, things such as eating, picking noses and inexplicably, clipping toenails.  Not being a resident of New York, I can’t comment on whether or not clipping toenails on the subway is common and acceptable behaviour.  If we see clippers for sale at the kiosks, then we’ll have our answer.  In addition, it’s difficult to imagine enjoying a twirl of spaghetti in the close confines of a subway car filled with the bodily gases of dozens of people. 

It appears that the ‘freedom’ so offered by city air has morphed more into outright anarchy as people’s behaviour has deteriorated to reflect only personal conveniences to the exclusion of the consideration of others.  Presently, in our society, the lines separating what is considered to be individualistic, eccentric and crazy are faint to non-existent.  So much so, that even the most outrageous behaviour rarely raises any eyebrows these days.  So many things are being done for publicity and shock value, that most everything appears routine.   When few things have any shock value, people as a whole become cynical, aloof and disengaged from the rest of their society.  Perhaps it’s no coincidence that we observe so many ‘celebrities’ engage in self indulgent and anti social behaviour.  They are living in a time when virtually anything they do has positive consequences, at least as far as publicity is concerned, which is really what celebrities crave.  It can’t be that hard to find any number of people on any given day in the New York subways that are real life Charlie Sheens. 

If unfettered behaviour is the hallmark of a civilized society, it may be time to be a bit less civilized.  It wouldn’t hurt to put up a few signs in the subway restricting activity that you would otherwise see in the Bronx Zoo.  I’m all for distinguishing  primate species.  At the very least, use deodorant.