Dec
11
2010
‘Obama Does Not Mind Announcing His Islam if That Pleases Republicans‘, was one of Al Hayat’s very interesting headlines today.
Image courtesy: Kabobfest
WHAT?! Obama is a Muslim AND he wouldn’t mind announcing it either?
The article quotes a recent article that appeared on The Huffington Post.
What Al Hayat’s reporter and editor did not know is that the article was written by a satirical comedian! A very funny one too.
What amazes me is that even if the editor did not get it, since the article did somewhat appear as a serious one, which is the whole point of satire, but couldn’t the genius figure it out by the last bit of the article:
Elsewhere, moments after his capture in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said, “I knew I shouldn’t have signed up for Foursquare.”
And now to some expected and well-deserved mockery:
- “The Borowitz Report is proud to be the official news source of the government of Saudi Arabia. Better us than Fox News.”
- Saudi Media Fall for Muslim Obama Joke
Al Hayat should really just stick to gathering their news from main stream media. Let’s just hope they won’t take Andy’s latest post seriously!
Verdict: #FAIL
P.S: At the time of this post, the article is still on Al Hayat’s website. Wonderful.
2 comments | tags: Facepalm, Fail, Humor, Media, Politics, Saudi | posted in Facepalm, Fail, Media, Politics, Saudi
Jul
8
2010
Look at that cute octopus!
Octopus?
Oh wait, it’s a … dolphin!
Although the headline says: “The Octopus Beats Germany!” – of course referring to Paul the Psychic Octopus, who now by the way has a wikipedia entry – for some reason I can’t fathom, the editor of this Saudi-based newspaper decided to put a picture of a dolphin!
I don’t think you’d disagree with me when I say that the editor needs a new pair of optics for this octopus!
2 comments | tags: Facepalm, Fail, Media | posted in Facepalm, Fail, Media
Jul
4
2010
I recently read, and ranted, about a ridiculous article that appeared in the first edition of Elle Arab World. I was surprised, to say the least.
As you can see below, the provoking piece encourages misconduct by highlighting where people can have public sex in Dubai. See if it were a blog, it would have been less of an issue, but this is a magazine, in its first issue, mind you, that is printed and published regionally and one which targets readers in the Middle East in general and the UAE in specific.
I suppose the only element the story lacked is the jail terms for each of these misconducts. Perhaps something along these lines:
Catch the drift here?
In their next issue, however, the magazine apologized to the UAE authorities and the readers “a 1001 times” and even went as far as to announce that it has subsequently sacked the author of the above-mentioned piece.
Now I don’t think blaming it all on the scapegoat, i.e. the ignorant reporter, is fair. I mean for sure a magazine such as Elle, especially in its first issue, would have assigned stories to each of its staff members.
Even if they didn’t do that and gave their writers absolute freedom to choose which topics they want to cover, does that mean their stories get filed and printed without going through some sort of an approval process?
Surely, someone else agreed on the idea and context of the story, then reviewed it, and then edited it, then proofread it, then approved it, then laid it out, and then finally granted permission for it to go to press. So clearly it’s not just the sole mistake of the reporter here, yet he was the only one to be blamed and fired.
I’m sure in his mind, the writer thought well. Perhaps he thought he was doing Dubai residents a favor by spicing up their lives, but alas, you can’t always get what you want.
Having said all that, and for the sake of boosting my testosterone, that has dramatically decreased in my attempts to write this post, back to its normal levels, I feel a pressing need to highlight that I don’t really read Elle and the entire issue was pointed out to me by one of my colleagues.
5 comments | tags: Dubai, Elle, Facepalm, Fail, Media, Sex, UAE | posted in Facepalm, Fail, Media, Sex, UAE
Jul
3
2010
Uruguay's Luis Suarez
For going down in history as the man who robbed Ghana of the chance of winning the world cup, and for breaking the heart of the entire African nation.
In the Ghana vs. Uruguay quarterfinal match, one of best matches of the World Cup 2010, Mr. Suarez decided to play goalkeeper right at the last minute of the extra time by deliberately stopping a guaranteed goal for Ghana with his hands.
Luis Suarez Swats the ball
As the pressure and tension were immense, Asamoah Gyan, very unfortunately, missed the penalty shot.
Now shit happens, and it could always be worse (it could’ve been the final match), but what infuriated me the most is that the Uruguayans considered this to be an act of heroism. “Taking one for the team”, the Uruguayan coach said.
The BS doesn’t stop here, Oscar Tabarez, adds:
“You are telling me the player had to let the ball go in? Is that football? I think you’re missing something really important here.
“I think you call it cheating when you try to score a goal with the hand, to take advantage when the referee cannot see that.
“We are missing something really important. When you are naive, you don’t win football games.
“Suarez put himself in front of the whole country and because of that Uruguay is in the semi-finals.”
What Tabarez is basically saying, it’s not cheating if you’re doing when you really have to. The ends justify the means.
I hope no one takes his words seriously or we’ll be seeing more sleazy acts of “heroism” and “taking one for the team”.
Now off to see some Germans getting their behinds kicked by the Ar-kh-antina!
2 comments | tags: Fail, Football, Sports, Worldcup | posted in Fail, Football, Sports, Worldcup
