As we are living in an uncertain, tumultuous time when the
volatile situations in the Middle East have the potential to affect
us all and change the course of history, I know you all have asked
yourselves the controversial question: How do you spell Koran?
I’ll get to that in a moment, but I should mention that
this comes up because recently Newsweek ran a story involving the
holy book in question and a toilet.
For those of you who don’t follow anything outside of
“American Idol,” there was recently a big fuss made
over this Newsweek story, where it was alleged that the
interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were desecrating the Qu’ran
in order to get the detainees there to talk.
Apparently many of them have confessed to, among other things,
terrorism, suicide bombings, attending a mosque, knowing people who
have attended mosques, wearing white after Labor Day and the
Kennedy assassination.
Now while it may be difficult to believe that prisoners being
held in the war on terror may have been abused, the real
controversy went down when Newsweek’s story was accused of
being slightly inaccurate, in the sense that it wasn’t true.
Newsweek later boldly retracted the story.
Apparently, Newsweek got all their information from either an
untruthful government official, or a misinformed fish swimming in
Guantanamo Bay.
Since the concept of an untruthful government official is beyond
the scope of most of our imaginations, I’m leaning more
toward the misinformed fish story.
Now I knew that the story of people flushing the Quraan down the
toilet wasn’t true when I first read it, based on the fact
that the Qu’ran is a pretty good-sized book and there’s
no way in hell that it’s going to fit down a toilet.
As far as I know, the only religious literature that has been
approved by the Food and Drug Administration as safe to flush down
the toilet is one of those pamphlets that the Jehovah’s
Witnesses send your way.
I also find this story hard to believe because, according to the
U.S. Department of Toilet Statistics, there’s only one
working toilet at Guantanamo Bay, and I really don’t think
that they’d put their only toilet out of commission for the
sole purpose of getting everybody all hot and bothered.
But just to be safe, I called up the official Guantanamo plumber
(named Earl) and asked him if he had fished any suspicious
religious literature out of the toilet recently. He said no, but
last month someone flushed down a banjo by mistake. He heard that
John Ashcroft was the culprit, but asked me not to quote him on
that.
So everyone is protesting, Congress is holding hearings, the
people at Newsweek have some major egg on their faces, and the
world has kind of forgotten that the people being held at
Guantanamo are in fact being detained illegally. Everything’s
back to normal!
Anyway, when I was reading all these stories and retractions, I
noticed that they had about a dozen different spellings for the
Koran. I wanted to know what the right one was, so I went outside
and asked a bunch of people on Bruin Walk, but none of them seemed
to know either.
Here’s an actual transcript of one of my interviews with
an imaginary person (who had not only a large sign on his back
denouncing, among other things, homosexuality, but also was wearing
a construction hard hat).
Me: So, what do you think of Newsweek’s erroneous story
involving a Quran being flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo
Bay?
Him: Cut your hair and get a job, hippie. Repent!
Me: OK, do you know how to spell “Koran”?
Him: No. Do you know who Bo Bice is?
Me: No.
Since my interviews weren’t entirely successful, I did
what anyone in my situation would have done. Namely, I wrote to
Dear Abby. She hasn’t written me back yet, but she’ll
probably just tell me to get some professional counseling
anyway.
So it looks like we’ll have to wait for her response. But
while we’re waiting, we can take a look at this wonderfully
random quote I found involving the safety of abortion clinics from
terrorists:
“We’re making sure our liaisons have kept up with
the clinics and to make sure the security clinics have is up to
date,” said Mike Campbell, spokesman for the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to the
Associated Press. “Most of them are very cognizant they can
be a target of anybody who doesn’t like abortion.”
So there you have it. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives is in charge of protecting American lives. Is anyone
else concerned?
Now first of all, “cognizant” is probably not a
word. Second, it would appear to me slightly unwise that we have a
federal bureau filled with alcohol, tobacco, firearms and
explosives, which as any sane person would tell you constitutes a
potentially lethal combination.
It is chilling to imagine one of their office parties getting
out of control, especially since inside information from Newsweek
has reported that this year’s festivities will be held at
Guantanamo Bay.
Well, that’s all the space I have for today, but
I’ll keep you all updated as our president consults his Ouija
Board of Foreign Policy, Newsweek hires Miss Cleo as their
executive editor, and I try to improve my spelling.
Spelling suggestions and “American Idol” votes
may be sent to Kaney at akaney@media.ucla.edu.