Musa Ibrahim, spokesman of the Gaddafi administration. Now of course, just that much makes him eligible for some standard-level asshat nominations every other day or so. But really, he pulls in front of the pack by the specific ways in which he manages to represent what is looking more every day like one of the worst governments in history. Case in point: when Iman al-Obeidi burst into a foreign press room to tell journalists that she had been gang-raped by Gaddafi's soldiers, Ibrahim told the press (after she was dragged away by secret police and hotel staff) that al-Obeidi was drunk and mentally ill. Now just to let the rage subside so I can continue typing................................. ok, it's not subsiding. We the Blog have some personal and professional issues tied up with this question, so let's just keep it simple: discrediting a politically oppressed person's story of abuse by saying they are mentally ill is insidious and evil. It is also the second-oldest trick in the book (right after "she's a woman, you know how they are"). As evil as it is, being intimidated is just what he wants, so let's just call Musa Ibrahim what he is: just some loathesome asshat who can't even keep his own story straight for two weeks.
Oh and since then? He's announced that's she's being charged with defamation.
Deep breath.
Next up:
The Florida GOP, for chastising Rep. Scott Randolph (D) for using the word "uterus" on the statehouse floor (pictured is spokeswoman Katie Betta). Now here's a case that really demonstrates the versatility of this category by going from the evil end of the spectrum to the stupid end. This is easily the most idiotic thing I've heard all year. Would only it were an April Fools' Day joke. GOP officials expressed concerns that young statehouse pages were hearing the absolute smut that is the word "uterus." Hey Florida GOP: your page program is for kids 12-14. If those kids haven't heard the word "uterus" yet, and they're your example of Florida's best and brightest, you are doing Florida wrong. Although to be fair, I'm not sure anyone has ever done Florida right. In conclusion, uterus uterus uterus uterus uterus. Vagina.
And finally, mounting a comeback long after we kind of forgot about them (man, it's nice sometimes to not be the Gulf Coast, isn't it?), we've got the executives of Transocean, who gave their highest-paid executives bonuses for having a banner safety year after Transocean's cooperation with BP on the Deepwater Horizon drill resulted in a months-long oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico that many consider the worst ecological disaster in North American history as well as the loss of eleven lives, nine of which were Transocean employees. Either every other site Transoceans works on is so safe and pure the employees ride unicorns, or those internal safety goals were mighty damn low.
Asskickers of the Week:
Iman al-Obeidi. Hey, guess how hard it is to publicly announce you were raped. A few days ago. In Libya. To a bunch of foreigners. Being chased by the secret police who are part of the same organization responsible for your rape. And continuing to fight them and the complicit hotel staff for nearly an hour as they break cameras, threaten you with knives and try to physically muffle you. And knowing that eventually they will succeed in dragging you away. Let's give al-Obeidi the credit she deserves here: holy crap did she work hard to make sure people knew that Gaddafi wasn't who he said he was and that not all of Tripoli is happy with him. There's been reports that she's been freed from the official authorities, but if she has, her family still doesn't know about it. Honorable mention to the journalists who tried to protect her, but she had to have known they wouldn't be able to-- that's why she started telling her story as soon as she got in the door.She knew this was coming when she did what she did. And she's astounding for it.
Olga Kotelko, of Canada, is 91 years old and holds most of the track and field records for her age group for the fairly simple reason that 91-year-old women do not tend to compete in track and field. However, although it's impressive to begin with that she's out there, she's beating the people closest to her in age by significant margins. She doesn't skimp on events either, competing in running, jumping and throwing events. This is just plain awesome, in both the modern and more accurate uses of the term.
Seana McKenna and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. McKenna is going to be the first cross-gendered lead in Richard III at the festival this summer. Women have done Hamlet before, and of course there's lots of gender-bending all through Shakespeare, but Richard III is "the character actor's Hamlet" and hasn't been done before. That being said, this isn't breaking any particular social barrier or anything: it's just a wicked awesome idea, it's got some good thoughtful reasoning behind it, it's a team of excellent artists... and let's face it, she looks pretty kickass as Richard. Art! It's pretty cool!
And finally we've got Hideaki Akaiwa, whose story of Asskickery is good enough to make it worth going to work on Monday even in the face of all those asshats. When Akaiwa, of Ishinomaki, Japan, realized the tsunami was imminent, he put on scuba gear and dove into the tidal wave.
Let's just pause and let that sink in for a minute.
Somehow Akaiwa swam all the way to his home, where his wife was trapped inside the house and quickly running out of air. They shared his scuba respirator until he got her to safety, then he went back into the water to find his mother in her house and rescue her. Both women survived. Akaiwa has continued to hit the water daily in hopes of finding more survivors.
Humankind: Some of us are jerks, most of us are mediocre, but a few of us are gorram superheroes.
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