With Dubya conveniently evading
bad news about Hurricane Katrina by making a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday, there was
ample airtime given to Afghan leader (sic) Hamid Karzai...and his nightmarish hat.
This made me recall something I wrote for
Veg News nearly four years ago:
If the corporate media ordains you a player, you can get away with practically anything (Just ask Henry Kissinger). A recent example of this criminal/social nexus is the hand-picked-by-corporate-America Afghan leader (and former lobbyist for the UNOCAL oil company), Hamid Karzai. Dubbed "the chicest man in the world" by Gucci's Tom Ford and "the most elegant man on earth" by Yves Saint Laurent, Karzai was featured in the business section of the New York (com)Post on April 25, 2002 in a piece called "Karzai's topper is a popper." The purpose of the article was to heap praise upon Karzai's hat of choice, an ambassador-style cap called the "karakul." Later in the article we learn that such a hat costs $35 (or more than one month's salary for the average Afghan). Then we learn the karakul is made of an "exclusive" material: the skin of a Karakul sheep fetus. This fact seemed to make the Post reporter, Lisa Marsh, a tad squeamish but she found a way out when she explained how "style-savvy New Yorkers can copy Karzai's look without embracing all of Afghanistan's culture." All we need do is visit J.J. Hat Center on Fifth Avenue where ambassador-style hats are made of the more acceptable "fully-born Persian lamb" and sell for $250. Marsh tosses one off for those not into wearing death on their head: faux-fur versions are $30--still out of the reach of the average Afghan dodging U.S. bombs, but enough for any of us to feel like a corporate-sponsored criminal for a day.
