A DEATH GLORIFICATION CULTURE

David ET

Everyone is an expert on "Jousnalism"! People have been throwing cakes, paint and tomatos on officials for ever.

shoes, microphones, cellphones and bullets

Soon to attend press conferences and all the public official gatherings people have to take off their shoes? (we already have to in airports)

This was great for our rights , as long as they are not throwing shoes at us and the people we like  ?.

How about throwing microphones? Headphones? cellphones? Pens? dirty
Underwears? laptops? bullets?!! So much that journalist can do to
express their views.

For NOW lets support, laugh, justify and enjoy the freedoms ...while we still have them.

Few Arabic insults

These are few Arabic insults that I know.Burping,releasing gas,showing the bottom of your feet when sitting crossed legged, and the worst is when offered sweet tea, leaving the spoon in the cup when finished drinking your tea .

Shame of shame

Unlike here, in oppressive societies as ours in Iran, many intellectuals pick journalism as their profession so they can publish their views with some degree of immunity. In that regard it is unfair to compare Muntader al-Zaidi with someone like Dan Rather. What al-Zaidi did is not an act of terrorism, or extremism, but an act of defiance and insult to the head of a government that is responsible for destruction of a nation. If by calling him an idiot one means that he is not in control of his mental function, that might be correct since when billions of dollars worth of bombs are dropped on a nation some of the people might go crazy. It’s natural, there is on shame to it.

Freedom of shoepression

If this idiot is called a journalist and now even a hero, we need to change the true meaning of those words in dictionary.

Its sad that we have been reduced to defending, justify and celebrating shoe bombers and shoe throwers instead of proper forms of expression ...

Opposing one extremism with another will not get us anywhere... From a distance they both are the same ....and all that those who defend one or another do is to fuel the fires, the bombs (from the sky or hidden in backpacks) ...and the aggressions on all sides ....

We used to respect journalists'' pens and cameras and now we clap  for disgraceful shoes

SHAME

White House press secretary sports black eye - from shoe attack!

White House press secretary sports black eye - from shoe attack!

//politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

I wonder if she smelled anything?!

Okay if it is "just the

Okay if it is "just the smell" it is ok. I thought there was more to it. Although I know for a fact that many disagree with you and say it is far more than "just the smell". So if I see you agreeing with those who say it is more than just the smell, I know you were tarofing!

Just the smell! Ajab Rajb

You wanted to discuss the smell factor.

Once you smell them, you don't want to stick around to see what else stinks about them. Like their personality?

And I don't think one needs to have a Phd to realize that a pattern is developing when every Arab that passes by smells the same way. 

By the way, you may want to register your Ajab Rajab name, It is so much faster to post.  I could not wait for the moderation, so I double posted as a result but it is easier and faster now that I have done it.

What was the value of this insult?

Sign of weakening image of America, unfortunately;

Bush has done more harm to America than Iraq. True that Iraq lost few hundreds of thousands of innocent people, but I think Iraq is going thru growing pain as Iran has been going thru. Sadly, Middle-east is the playground for this critical transition of world power for the next era in the history of mankind.

America itself is also the victim in this play. MAnkind has a terrible track record in the history.

Shoe and Bush

This is plenty of evidence as to how pathetic and futile our resistance to tyranny has become in our age. All we can do is to throw a shoe at a tyrannt and a war criminal. Instead we must have a war crime tribunal for Bush and his neocon gang.

Irandokht

The language and vocabulary of MKO is clear (dajal) you are just wasting your time with these people if you think they are interested in anything but spewing their vocabulary on the rest of us.

dear 500

Why does it have to be one or the other?

The Iranian students are brave and we all support them and praise their courage. But does that mean the reporter was not brave?

your message is very confusing. 

IRANdokht

As usual, "Morghe" hemsayeh Ghaazeh!!

The guys threw his shes at President GWB to show his contempt for------(fill-in the balnk). Good for him. As usual, instead of concentrating on our people's heroic struggles against one of the most vile regimes that is brutalizing Iranians on a daily basis, we have those who are jumping up and down and getting excited about an evanet that can only happen in a country that has been liberated by the same guy, GWB who is receiving this insult. Now, compare this incident with the following:

دانشجویان دانشگاه تهران عكس خمینی دجال راپاره كردند
6:52:37 AM 1387/9/26
تظاهرات دانشجويان دانشگاه تهران

روزنامه حكومتی كیهان در شماره امروز خود اعتراف كرد: ”در جریان سخنرانی روز گذشته خاتمی، دانشجویان شعارهایی را علیه خاتمی سر دادند. اعتراضهاى اما به همین جا ختم نشد چنانکه در اعتراض به حضور خاتمی در دانشگاه تهران در سالن محل برگزاری سخنرانی را شکستند و یکی از اوباش، تصویر امام خمینی را که بالای در نصب شده بود، پاره کرد. و با آتش زدن تصاویر خاتمی و همچنین ریختن تصاویر وی در سطل زباله به حضور رئیسجمهور سابق در دانشگاه تهران اعتراض کردند. كیهان ولی فقیه افزود: در میان حاضران در سالن دست نوشتههایی مبنی بر تحریم انتخابات به چشم میخورد“. دانشجویان با شعارهایی مانند «آزادی، مساوات، تحریم انتخابات»، «انجمن سنتی تو مایه خفتی»، فضای این مراسم را متشنج کردند. این طیف افراطی همچنین شعارهای متعددی علیه دولت سر دادند“.

Who is more brave, the shoe thrower at GWB, or those who tear up Khomeini's picutre in a country that is the Number One Sponsor of Terrorism? GWB was laughing at the incident, do you guys and galls who are the shy supporters of the IRI think that a Heyvan like Ahmadi Nejad or Khamenehi or Khatami will do the same against those who have torn Khomeini's picture in public?

Smell factor? Don't even go there.

Ajab Rajb wrote:"About your specific questions at the end, I think the idea is to have as stinky of a shoe as possible! The kind of shoe doesn't count, the smell factor does!"   

If the reporter wanted to hurt Bush, he should have hugged him or stood really close, he did not even have to throw his shoes.   

Pretty much all nationalities including people from Eastern and Western Europe, who do not take a shower every day have noticeable body odor. 

Indians and the people of Indian subcontinent have pretty potent B.O.

Iranians especially, the Mullahs and Shebh Mullah types often reek of B.O.

But if you want to know the foulest odor that your nose has ever smelled, you need to hang around Arabs.  Arabs have taken the B.O. to a different level.   I once quit a perfectly good Engineering job because, I could not take the smell of the Jordanian Arab dude in the next partition.   

Several years earlier in college, I had to move from an apartment building because of a Syrian man who lived two doors down the hallway.  I could smell him passing by and after he was gone; the smell would still remain in the hallway for another hour.

Folks, this is not an Arab bashing message.  So, please do not make an arabophilliac comment and do not post tear jerker Arab poems about Palestinian plight.  This is based on my personal experience with statistically significant sample size.

The Arab smell cannot be controlled by ordinary deodorants and dispensers, it has a persistent presence. It is a kind of odor that attracts flies in search of moist turd. 

It is a smell that includes weeks of sweating, cigarette smoke on clothing and variations of dead animal left to rout.

If you face it, just pick up and run. 

I can speculate how Arabs invaded Persia, The Persian army smelled them coming and chose to run away instead of facing the smell. Pretty much the way, much larger animals run away from skunks, fearing that it might spray them.

So, I agree that the reporter's shoe can be a stink bomb.  But not nearly as bad as his whole body.

Simorgh I take it you don't

Simorgh I take it you don't like Arab's BO. Fair enough, anything else or is BO your only issue? Any other previous personal experience?

Any extensive readings or publications or anything else we should also know about? We have a lot of PhDs (and PhD want-a-bes) here and without knowing what you claim as your eduction I want to make sure we cover all the bases.

Smell factor? Don't even go there.

Ajab Rajb wrote:
"About your specific questions at the end, I think the idea is to have as stinky of a shoe as possible! The kind of shoe doesn't count, the smell factor does!"

If the reporter wanted to hurt Bush, he should have hugged him or stood really close, he did not even have to throw his shoes.

Pretty much all nationalities including people from Eastern and Western Europe, who do not take a shower every day have noticeable body odor.
Indians and the people of Indian subcontinent have pretty potent B.O.
Iranians especially, the Mullahs and Shebh Mullah types often reek of B.O.
But if you want to know the foulest odor that your nose has ever smelled, you need to hang around Arabs. Arabs have taken the B.O. to a different level.
I once quit a perfectly good Engineering job because
I could not take the smell of the Jordanian Arab dude in the next partition.
Several years earlier in college, I had to move from an apartment building because of a Syrian man who lived two doors down the hallway. I could smell him passing by and after he was gone; the smell would still remain in the hallway for another hour.
Folks, this is not an Arab bashing message. So, please do not make an arabophilliac comment and do not post tear jerker Arab poems about Palestinian plight. This is based on personal experience with statistically significant sample size.
The Arab smell cannot be controlled by ordinary deodorants and dispensers, it has a persistent presence.
It is a kind of odor that attracts flies in search of moist turd.
It is a smell that includes weeks of sweating, cigarette smoke on clothing and variations of dead animal left to rout.
If you face it, just pick up and run.
I can speculate how Arabs invaded Persia, The Persian army smelled them coming and chose to run away instead of facing the smell.
Pretty much the way, much larger animals run away from skunks, fearing that it might spray them.
So, I agree that the reporter's shoe can be a stink bomb. But not nearly as bad as his whole body.

It was all pre-arranged

I cannot believe for a second that this shoe throwing incident was a genuine one. Why? Because the secret service men were far too slow at taking any action against the first throw and even slower when the guy threw the second shoe. This couldn't have been real. These men are trained to react at spilt second to the slightest of suspicious moves. They could have shot they guy when he bent over to pick the send shoe and better still when he physically threw it. Yet they didn't. More importantly the timing of the incident was too good to be true. It came when GWB had finished his speech. The "Shukran Jazeelan" ending of the speech was the prompt to activate the thrower. GWB was at the peak of his readiness to dodge the shoes.

Motiif? To prove that in the new democratic Iraq one can throw an object at the most powerful guest in the world and not get shot a few minutes later.

"Dhirgham al-Zaidi, the

"Dhirgham al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower's brother, said the journalist hated the "material American occupation" and Iranian influence in Iraq."

Does this mean he doesn't like Iranians or just Iranian's influence in Iraq? He has a lot of friends in Iranians who don't like Arab's influence in Iran!

//www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/16/shoe.rep...

Shoicide of the President

This Georgy guy ducked the shoes with such grace, it's as if he is used to ducking from things thrown at him. This sez a lot about his wife. :)

CY

One important question (option) you forgot to mention is ....

Which shoe to throw first has more effect "savaab" ? as it is a very important issue in Islam that Right shoe should be used first.

The funniest comment ever!

Cy and Shoe Writer, afarin! Kheili khandidam!

You asked for it

Based on my personal research on the ritual of shoe throwing among Arabian and Middle Eastern, I would like to answer some of your questions, if I may:

Is it more of an insult to throw an old dirty shoe than a new or recently shined one?
There is no difference between the two. I’ll give you an example to clarify this: If the king of Saudi Arabia throws his brand new shoe at one of his subjects, the poor man would immediately be considered guilty of the most heinous crimes, and immediately put to death by beheading. On the other hand if the poor man throws his old dirty shoe at the king, he would immediacy be considered to have committed the most heinous crime and immediately be put to death by beheading. So as you can see there is no difference between clean new shoes and dirty old ones.

If you throw an expensive dress shoe at someone, are you insulting him respectfully?
It depends on the situation. These matters have evolved over several millenniums, or until recently when first modern shoe factories were built, I have not studied it thoroughly yet, but never the less I’ll try to explain a couple of situations here to differentiate subtle differences of the act that is to be considered. In a lavish wedding ceremony a highly respected and expensively dressed groom finds out that his newly purchase bride is not a virgin and throws his she at her, this is not to be considered a respectful insult but a vicious one. One the other hand if Khamenei throws his expensive she at Ahmadinejad, that would be considered a respectful insult.

Is it a minor insult, if you throw children’s shoes?
It depends on the gender and age of the children. Throwing shoes belonging to boys under 15 and girls under 9 are considered to be minor insults, otherwise they are major insults.

Since in Islam and the Arabian societies, a woman is considered half as important as a man, is it proportionally more of an insult, if you throw a man’s shoe?
No, a man’s insult is just one insult, on the other hand four woman’s shoes is needed to be equal to one man’s insult.

If you want to insult someone and have a specific amount in mind, can you make fractional insults? For Example, one man shoe, two women shoes and a child one.
Yes, absolutely. I once witnessed 1759 man’s shoes, 7036 woman’s shoes, 12564 boys shoes, and 18364 girls shoes thrown at a woman who had committed adultery, that was because throwing stone was prohibited in that part of the Islamic world, and the judge was trying to figure out how many shoes equals to the number of stones required the kill the woman.
Since there is a certain protocol in Islam and potentially the entire Arabian culture that you can only use your left hand for personal hygiene, does it make a bigger insult, if you throw the left shoe with your left hand first?
Forgive me for saying so but this is an ignorant and racist question. As we all know soap was first divorced in the Middle East thousands of years ago, and Middle Easterns regularly wash their hands every time they use the bathroom, but the racist colonialist who use toilet paper think their hand are clean just because they say they didn’t touch any thing. Muslim hands, either one, are clean, so it does not make any difference which hand is used to throw the shoe, the insult is the same, but it’s better for the right handed people to use their right hand, left handed people their left hand, and ambidextrous people to use either hand.

If you throw football cleats, is it an unsportsmanlike conduct or an insult?
It is an insult. 1,400 years ago shoes did have cleats, so it’s all the same, just insults.

If you throw your sandals at someone, are you insulting them casually?
No. 1,400 years ago most everyone wore sandals, so it’s all the same, just insults. There is no such a thing as casual insults.

If you throw your riding boots, are you really insulting them or just horsing around?
You will be insulting them and at the same time you could say you were horsing around with them. This phenomenon is one of the rarest exception to the ritual of shoe throwing, because it is a fact that Arabian horses have been around for thousands of years but back then when this insulting custom started they did not have boots, so when they just begin to wear boots several thousands of years later one day someone threw his shoe at one of the numerous sons of king Faysoof and then because he didn’t want to be headed he said I was just horsing around, and the SOB had mercy of him and horsing around excuse with throwing a boot became acceptable.

If you throw a horseshoe at someone, is it a beastly insult or a good luck wish that you don’t mean?
The rules are very clear on this one, If the person who is throwing the horseshoe is wearing it, it is a beastly insult, otherwise it is a good luck wish.

If you miss and can’t hit them with the horseshoe, does it still count?
If the horseshoe is thrown by the person who wore it, yes it counts as one insult, regardless of whether it hits the target or not.

I strongly recommend everyone to read my upcoming book called “Go Ahead Insult Me With Your Shoe”. I wish it would be published before this incident with the president; I could've made a million by now.

The loser and his ilk can

The loser and his ilk can only throw shoes to the President of a country that has advanced the course of humanity more than anywhere else.  Of course, he could not do that to a stupid arab like Sadam because 1)Sadam did not hold any news conference

2)He would not make it out of the room alive if he had attempted to insult Sadam even in the mildest manner

3)  His daughter would have been raped by Sadam's sons.

I was amazed how President Bush made a joke out of the situation.

God Bless America

Ajab Rajab

Thank you! very well said!  

IRANdokht

Bush managed to "shoe" them away

cute...:-)

I honestly can't imagine that the journalist's career is going to suffer at all!  I won't fly the "hero" flag but I do think the guy had balls.  I would almost think that his reputation is going to reap BIG benefits of this!

Dodging .... surely he's got it down to a fine art ?

I guess he's well practiced at dodging things and I took the 'shoe' thing to equate to throwing your shoe at a annoying dog or something like that? Or is that just to do with my opinion of him? But I reckon that it might have also been the only thing that closely resembled a missle, that the reporter was allowed to take in the room with him. He made his point. I hope his shoes were smelly!

 Javaneh

MRX1

You are correct. You really are. This journalist didn't throw shit at Saddam (and when Americans leave and Iraq falls into mayhem he won't throw any more shoes. By then throwing shoes is such a passe :-)

I love America and in the past 30+ years America has been far more good to me than not. So why would I have any personal resentment? I don't. I love it and when I go home I try to tell the truth and tell people about what freedom is all about and what we do in America in general.

For the past 8 years I am so mad at seeing America's prestige go down the tube, day by day, month by month and year by year. Recently in his recent "goodbye" interviews Bush is alluding to the wrong intelligence reports and how he bascially f****d up. He wouldn't say it in the earlier years and just say knowing what he knows now, he'd do the same. Saying something like that is BS, no matter how you cut it. He could have taken the high road and said knowing what we know now we would not have invaded Iraq and created so much havoc, death and destruction.

People were not suffering as much as they were suffering during Saddam. And they were not dying and being maimed and orphaned as much as during Saddam.

Watching the evening news tonight I hear a lot about Iraqis are screwing up themselves. Like what you say here. I agree with you and the news media. But who took it upon himself to make it right for Iraqi's by interfering and starting a war? Bush.

So he should deserve the good and the bad. Had he made things good in Iraq, sure he should get all the credit. Now that about a million has died and countless injuired for life and as you say things are going to get worse when he leaves office, why should we blame Iraqis? This is America's making. I hope it works but don't blame them.

This act of throwing shoes was just a reflection of how Arabs feel. You can have your opinions and convictions and look away but it is what it is. This guy threw away his career and did what he did. Many in this website want people to react the same when they talk about IRI (oh IRI :-) but when they see someone actually do it, they are like what a gutless act!

I wish things were different but they are not. All I can hope for and WILL look forward for is the future when someone can straighten up this mess and America can once again be respected in the world. Everyone was in America's corner after 9/11. Bush managed to "shoe" them away!

His staff prepared him well

His staff prepared him well for the press
conference.  They taught him a nursery rhyme:
"See George duck.  Duck, George, duck"

من به ستایش

من به ستایش کفشهایی میروم

که شیواتر از هر شاعری می سرایند

و گویاتر از میلیونها زبان سخن می گویند

و از بزرگترین بمب ها ی عمو سام هم مخربترند.

 و حتی از ترازوی سردر دیوان قضا هم دادگرتر.

it was wonderful to see

Alas... would that his aim had been a little better...:-)