Welcome to Bizarro World!

There is a world in which the laws of logic have been suspended.  It is a world in which the things that you think make sense, quite simply don’t.  In this world, the obvious is not so obvious and the reality is a little surreal.  For many people though this is quite normal, but why don’t you judge for yourself.  Close your eyes and let me take you on a tour of this crazy place, a place I call Bizarro World…

Our first stop is an institution called the United Nations.  This is an institution founded after World War 2 to promote peace and dialog between the nations of the world.  The UN was founded almost 70 years ago, and unfortunately, hasn’t actually solved any real problems…yet, but they keep trying, which is good.  They do, however, do great things for the economy in New York, and the diplomats who attend get to hear all kinds of exciting speeches from famous leaders from all over the world.  They are also very fond of passing resolutions – especially against a plucky little country called Israel.  They are led by a fellow called Ban Ki-moon, who’s quite an emotional and athletic chap.  You often see him jumping up and down complaining that no one is listening to him – which is not true.  In a recent speech, he said something… about… not really sure… human rights… maybe?  Sorry – wasn’t paying attention!

They also have a great committee called the United Nations Human Rights Council.  Fortunately, to join it, you don’t need to be democratic, support human rights, or treat your citizens humanely, but the fun thing is that you get to judge other countries that are democratic, compassionate and uphold human rights!  Current distinguished members include Saudi Arabia – you know that country where woman aren’t allowed to vote, or drive… a lot of hands get chopped off…  You may have heard of them around the 9/11 attacks… 15 of the 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists were from there.  Pakistan is also another well-known member… quite a hospitable country, hosted a fellow called Osama Bin Laden for quite a while… also known to persecute minorities, including Christians, Hindus, Ahmadiyya, Shia, Sufi and Sikh…  But seriously, this group do great work – and in the recent war between Hamas and Israel, where Hamas used human shields and fired missiles against Israeli civilians from UN schools, the United Nations Humans Rights Council have acted immediately and set up a committee to investigate… Israel!  Israel?  Oh… I get it – it was because the flyers Israel dropped, warning people to leave the area, may have contained ink that might be hazardous to your health if inhaled indiscriminately in large doses for an extended period of time…

There is so much more to talk about, but we must continue on our journey, and this time we find ourselves in Africa and the Middle East!  We join a country called Syria led by a benevolent dictator, a country steeped in history, with well-known sites such as Saladin’s Castle, the 8th century Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and various Roman ruins.  It’s also currently hosting a civil war, in which almost 200000 people have been killed.  But don’t worry – the UN is on the case!  Well… kind of on the case… I mean… they’ve heard of Syria… I think… Then there is Iraq, or there was Iraq, but currently called the Islamic state, or ISIS, or ISIL, or ISM, or ISOTOBE, or something like that.  America invested over 1 trillion dollars in that endeavour, but current returns are a bit lower than expected.  George W Bush did say that freedom was on the march, but I think their GPS might not have been working, as it appears it marched right on by…  Well, at least Afghanistan is safe and secure.  I mean… not the whole country… but the main city of Kabul… or maybe not all of the city, but at least a city block… or maybe not the entire block… just the street… or part of the street… maybe a desk or two… Fortunately there is democracy in the Palestinian territories, and they now conduct regular elections, with the next one due in 2009, which is… um… soon…?  Ah, then there is Boko Haram, also known for their nation building in Nigeria, which happens to involve the massacres of thousands of innocent civilians.  The world will surely unite to fight this terror, wouldn’t they?  Um… anyone… hello…  hello… anyone?

Wait a second!  We are hearing that there is an unconfirmed report that a Jewish settler may have built an adjoining toilet in his backyard, so all the above issues will need to wait as the UN Security Council is convened in an emergency late night session to condemn this unprovoked provocation and attack against world peace!

There are many interesting characters in this world – another one of them is John Kerry – the US secretary of State.  In his tenure as Secretary of State, Russia annexed the Crimea and is invading more of the Ukraine, the Hamas-Israel war erupted, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks went from dead to very dead, Syrian civil war rages on, Iran continues to build nuclear weapons and the Islamic State has risen.  Suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where Al-Qaeda is considered the…. moderate ones??  The good guys??  Could it be that Al-Qaeda and the world will unite against the Islamic State?  Maybe they’ll share a glass of lemonade together after a hard day of fighting.  I suppose anything is possible in Bizarro world.  President Obama has said that John Kerry has done a remarkable job and I have to agree.  John Kerry has done a remarkable job… on his hair!  How can anyone still have hair after all these failures?  At least he doesn’t give up though – and his achievements above will go some way to securing that Noble Peace prize he so desires.  Maybe even a seat on the UN.

But as fun and enjoyable as this brief tour of Bizarro World has been, the hour is late and we need to return home.  So let’s close our eyes, click our heels three times together, and say there’s no place like home.  And when we open them you’ll find that we have gone… absolutely nowhere!  Because this crazy, insane, illogical, nonsensical place called Bizarro World, just happens to be our world.