Some simpleton artist (that’s become almost as nonsensical term as “consultant”) started it off. A bunch of musalmaans got mad at her (and the world in general), another portion got mad at the Pakistan government (and those in power in general), and a tiny minority just shifted in their seats, let out a fart, and changed the channel.

It’s one thing for some content artist (again, I use the term loosely) to rile up a third of the world’s population because of some issue with the censoring South Park (which I’m not sure even happened). She gets three squares a day, probably can use the public transport system without fear of injury, sleeps soundly on a full stomach at night. So, what can she protest? It’s quite a difficult life, I understand: not knowing what you should protest against? Killing baby seals? SPCA’s all over that. Gun control? Charlton Heston will part the Atlantic before that happens. Civil rights for robots? Good idea. Unfortunately it’s still a decade away. So what can she do in the meanwhile, and generate enough celebrity for her eventual opus of promoting same-hardware robot marriage. (Hmmm… gay robots. there’s a story there somewhere.)

Of course, with musalmaans now the global whipping boys, let’s take aim at them. She might have been oblivious to the furore she caused – hence a “simpleton artist.” Freedom of speech, anti-censorship, artistic license and what not. The rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately it’s not. It’s present day. And I have to live with it. Now, I don’t care about the rest of you people out there: neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances. You can all catch ebola and ooze pus on each other. If it interferes with my comfort, I get miffed. Nothing, but nothing does that.

I don’t even use the banned website. And Youtube doesn’t have smut, so it’s rarely visited. What irritates me is the frivolity of it all. That artist bird (name withheld, since I’m too lazy to look it up) is living in a first world, secure  environ, with a full belly and can afford to sit back on a lazy Sunday think of what she should protest (it’s very similar to deciding which shoes she should buy for next Friday’s party at the new art exhibit down the street and to your left).

Most of us don’t have food. Or water for that matter. Shelter is a foreign concept for a significant amount. And more than half the people wouldn’t know the internet from a raving bull elephant. Oh, and not to mention the mini civil war going on in the country. And that people get killed over party politics almost every other day.

Yet, this issue is what gains our courts’ august attention. Forget the pillaging of the country. “Let’s ban this website. In fact, let’s ban a whole bunch of websites. Just for kicks. And push the hearing for that double-murder rape cannibal extortionist till next decade. What’s for lunch?”

And then people give inane comments like, “our justice system has made us proud to be Muslims and Pakistanis.” I’m jealous. They get praise for not doing their job. Just once I’d like to say to my superiors, “I didn’t meet my sales targets for the year; but I trimmed the hedge outside the office,” and get a pat on the back.

We’re a banning nation. A banning people actually. If we don’t like or agree with something, we shut it down, ban it, kill it (if it were human, or if humans were involved), and then stage demonstrations about how we did the right thing. No one who disagrees with us can win.

Never has it occurred to our collective consciousness that debate might be better. That convincing another to your point of view is an enduring victory. That instead of hurtling abuses at those that offend you, you might want to sit down and talk with them. And that breaking your own property doesn’t hurt the other.

Never has it occurred to us. Perhaps it never shall.

This irritates me to no end.

Which commercial entity does that? Tell consumers to use less of their product, since they can’t produce more?

Imagine if Lindt started asking consumers to keep a check on their chocolate intake. Or Unilever, “We request consumers to wash their hair less often, and use shampoo no more than once a week, since supply is limited; if you run out, you’re on your own.”

I’d like to see that.

well it did. that’s why i gave it two stars, though initially i though of three… but then the image of John Hannah’s butt action with a slave popped into my head. In the bath, mosaic flooring, flowers in the water, with Lucy Lawless watching, John Hannah’s ass… damn you Omar… have to get this image out of my head now!

CGI is right our of SciFi’s Hercules (if anyone remembers that show) or The Middleman. I would’ve thought that production values might warrant a bigger budget, especially considering other period dramas like Rome or The Tudors. And John Hannah in a lead role makes me take the show less seriously. Somehow in my mind he doesn’t make the leap from bumbling idiot in the Mummy series to a shrewd businessman in this one. But the plentiful boobs and blood manage to hold my attention still.

All in all, a good time pass.

Two Stars: **