So, there I was quietly going about my business of reading the news websites, gradually coming closer to the over-optimistic conclusion that perhaps nothing really stupid would be reported today. Perhaps I could spend a day not worked up into a near-maniacal frenzy, ready to chew the arms off my chair in frustration? Just one free day? Because I can't not go and look. It's a moth-flame scenario. My only way out is for the whole world to conspire to be rational for a day.
So, I found this on the BBC News website. And I read it, and I can't have been paying attention because I got to the end and did a very realistic Scooby Doo double-take. I'd like to say I said "Zoinks!" but I lack the self control for such self-censorship. So, basically, a woman is likely to be sent to prison or whipped bloody because she allowed her school-pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad in Sudan (As in the teddy is in Sudan, it's not a surname, that'd just be silly). Let's take a moment and remember that Muhammad is about the most common name in any Muslim society. It's OK for mummy's ungrateful delinquent snot of a child to be named after the prophet but when it's a stuffed animal it's time to bring the law in and apply brutal corporal punishment.
Great. And there are quite a few countries with similar systems of Islamic law with whom western governments deal on a regular basis, apparently not batting an eyelid at torture, excused only by the flimsiest of excuses. Not that there are many convincing excuses for torture.
I'm the first to admit that the UK doesn't have an untarnished record so far as human rights are concerned, but seriously. Even looking down from the lofty heights of mediocrity, this whole thing is inexcusably, primitively, barbarically stupid.
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