Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The News is the News

It seems to me sometimes that the news coming out of India is part of some big Hollywood farce. Now, I'm perfectly aware that we here in the US get a heavily skewed version of what actually happens in India. The place is largely peaceful and more or less functioning (by International standards, at least). It's a huge nation and one with many of the same obsessions and quirks of Americans, although always with a strange Indian twist. Because the average American doesn't care much about the real news in India, we get a steady trickle of man bites dog type stories.

For example, my Google Reader today brought me news that an Indian woman was awarded a divorce because it was ruled that her husband was excessively cruel when he banned her from watching soap operas. And that's not even getting into things like sperm thieves and men marrying dogs to lift curses.

In non-Indian news, a ship with a North Korean crew has recently been captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia. I imagine this is how it will turn out:

Kim Jong Il will send in a squad of crack special agents to rescue the crew, who were secretly shipping a load of fine French cognac to the dorky despot. This team of agents will be driven into a beserker rage by the prospect of their families' receiving a 2,000 calorie diet from the state upon successful delivery of the booze. The safety of the crew comes second the booze.

Using this goal of a less famished life for their children as motivation, the North Korean team successfully boards the ship under the cover of night. They are discovered when one of them passes out from a combination of malnutrition and excitement. As he goes down, his head bangs against an empty oil drum, alerting one of the pirates. This pirate, enraged by the fact that the ship was boarded under his watch, charges the Koreans with a shout of "Allahu Akbaaaaaaar." (Get it? He is a pirate, so he says "ar". I'm also assuming that he is Muslim.) This is should not be considered offensive to either pirates or Muslims. This is my imagining of the events that will happen, and in my version this pirate is a very devout Muslim who is conflicted about his having to steal in order to feed his families. Before our conflicted Muslim pirate reaches the Koreans with his cutlass, the Koreans are able to load their guns with their one bullet each, come to a consensus over who shoots, and kill the pirate, who was running very slowly because he was wearing heels. Our conflicted Muslim pirate is not a cross dresser. Those were just the only shoes he could find when he woke up late to go into work that day. He has very tender feet and he had to wear something. Besides, they made him feel confident.

This commotion wakes the rest of the pirate crew, and they come up to the deck. Upon seeing their comrade lying in a pool of blood in front of a semicircle of very slender assassins one of them asks aloud, "Why didn't Korfa just use his gun? And why is he wearing a ruff collar? The heels I understood. The ruff collar seems rather unnecessary. He did realize we weren't that sort of pirate, didn't he?" I'm translating from the Somali, of course.

The Koreans take this moment of Somali confusion to their advantage and start to fire at the pirates. The only problem is that an unexpected wave suddenly rocks the ship, causing the the bullets to veer past their intended targets and harmlessly into the bodies of a group of children playing on the beach nearly a mile away.

The pirates were unaware that North Korea spent most of its money on cognac, nuclear research, and elaborate musical productions, leaving almost no money for bullets for crack special ops teams, so they took cover waiting for the next round of fire. About this time, Kim Jong Il got bored and decided to test his latest nuclear-capable missile. He keyed in the ship's coordinates and pressed the button. This time the missile did not explode on liftoff but made its way quickly to the designated target, where it failed to detonate. Once again, North Korean scientists proved to be fairly incompetent at their work, probably because food is necessary for proper cogitation. Instead, the rocket caused an electrical fire on the ship that ignited the fine French liquor, killing all on board and a baby whale who was being birthed nearby.

The end.

If only this would happen, maybe some of the pressure on India to produce farcical news stories would be removed.

3 comments:

Julie said...

Well I guess you've got your story for next year when you finally get around to participating in NaBloWriteANovelMo.

Le Meems said...

soap operas, hilarious.
there's gotta be more to the story than that tho ...

Chris said...

Excellent. I would absolutely read that story, although I don't understand why the baby whale had to die at the end. (just a nod to Kim Jong Il's cruel whimsy, I guess)