Some of you will have noticed my little motto, and maybe I don't always live up to my claim. But today, from wired, there is a piece which certainly fits the bill. I don't know whether this is in good taste or not frankly, but it shows I am not the only person who feels that trying to be optimistic involves looking for the funny side of life. It makes me feel that when he goes, we could also suggest Wim Duisenberg would make a good talk-show host.
Iraq's irrepressible Information Minister is fast becoming a major cyber-celebrity on the Web, thanks to what fans see as his great sense of gallows humor. In the last few days, the official mouthpiece of the Iraqi regime, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, has become the subject of fan sites, spoof weblogs, petitions to get him a TV show and merchandise like coffee mugs and T-Shirts. While most of the press took al-Sahaf semi-seriously, and a lot of the public dismissed him simply as a brazen liar, many American and U.K. Web surfers perceived something else in his words: a unique brand of black humor in the face of overwhelming defeat. Al-Sahaf's patently absurd claims about the course of the war, his florid insults against U.S.-led forces and the fact that he appeared to be about to bust out in laughter -- all have been recognized by many as signs that the minister was enjoying an outrageous private joke."I was just crying laughing," said Jim Jonas about al-Sahaf's daily press briefings from Baghdad. "It was incredible how he could keep a straight face through this stuff. He could come up with some incredible invective."
On Tuesday, Jonas helped launch the We Love The Iraqi Information Minister website, which has dubbed the minister "history's funniest straight man," and collects his best quotes.Jonas said it was obvious to him, and the four friends who helped create the site, that the minister was making fun of his own bleak situation. As U.S.-led troops stormed central Baghdad, al-Sahaf nearly burst out laughing as he made statements like, "Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad." "He's the Buddy Hackett of international diplomacy," Jonas said. "He was so over the top it was extremely comical to watch." In the last few days, the site has sold hundreds of coffee mugs and T-shirts emblazoned with the minister's insults through a CafePress store. One item, an apron, contains one of al-Sahaf's best lines: "God will roast their stomachs in hell." The five friends behind the site come from both ends of the political spectrum -- doves and hawks -- Jonas said. Jonas, a Web developer from Denver, is a former Republican political consultant, while another collaborator, Kieran Mulvaney, is a former Greenpeace activist living in Alaska.
Jonas said the site doesn't want to make light of the war, but he and his friends wanted to celebrate al-Sahaf's sense of humor. "We can only hope he's still alive and will turn up on a talk show somewhere," said DJ Lachapelle, another of the site's creators. "He's completely hilarious." Jonas said one of his favorite moments came as American soldiers stormed central Baghdad. Al-Safah dismissed the grenades and gunfire around him as a media con, referring to the 1997 movie, Wag the Dog, in which an American president manufactures a media war to deflect a scandal. The site collapsed on Thursday under the weight of visitor traffic. Jonas said the site was getting 4,000 hits a minute, and they were busy setting up mirror locations. Jonas said if al-Sahaf survives the war, he clearly has a future in PR. "He's exactly what the tobacco companies or Enron need right now," he said.
Source: Wired News
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