moshi, moshi Osama

Say hi to my new Osama bin Laden keitei (cellphone) strap. This is one of my more noteworthy purchases from our last visit to Tokyo. Actually I found this little gem in a vast shopping complex in Yokohama. It was the last one left on the rack, guess it must've been a pretty swift seller. It's shocking... and a must buy.

Buying it is not endorsement of murderous radical Islamic fundamentalism. And I don't feel that it's shocking to buy some piece of kitsch like this. I was shocked however to find it being sold at all, and next to Hello Kitty and Dragonball Z paraphernalia at that. It's shocking for a number of reason's, one certainly being that it highlights how the market place has absolutely NO inherent morality (which really isn't a surprise) but more striking for me is how it illustrates the distance here from the current climate in America. The whole thing just seems so absurd and distant here. I mean Al Qaeda frogmen?!?!? Are you serious? Back in America, the coastlines are being fortified against a non-existent threat and here? it's dangling from my keitei. It's just about the scale of the response.

I'm just keeping the bogeyman close.