This story reminded me of a quote...

Althouse is expertly mocking Anne Lamott's wicked article about the writer's visit to India. The mockery is pretty powerful, but it is dull and un-imaginative compared with how pathetic Annie sounds on her own. With most people you would not even need to mock Annie - it would be quite sufficient to read aloud the writings of this self-absorbed, mentally undeveloped, intellectually retarded and emotionally hysterical author - and have people crawling on the floor with laughter.

On a second thought, I would probably give up a year of my life for an opportunity to debate debase this wrinkled princess on TV. She is the poster face of liberal ideology, and I cannot stop giggling every time I read anything she writes. I mean, really, can anyone be so stupid - and don't even realize it?! Does she even understand how pathetic she is - and always has been, and always will be - from the moment she was dragged out of her mother's vagina - to the moment when she draws her last breath?

But fear not, comrades, I will write a nice story that would make you all smile. Be warned - it won't be a culturally enriching story about a monkey lost in Anne's hair. While Annie feels excited when she meets foreign customs, and she is particularly excited about Indian traditions - some Westerners are grown ups and that makes them a little bit more skeptical about these other developing backwards nations.

In India, the local population used to have a peculiar tradition "sati" of burning alive the wives of recently deceased men. The British decided to intervene - which understandably led to a criticism by the local "multi-cultists" that Indian people should have been allowed to murder women. The British General Charles Napier had this to say in response to their objections: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Interestingly enough, when I pushed American liberals about the British reply on one of the blogs, some of them had the temerity to claim that British attitude towards burning defenceless women alive was imperialistic, racist and intolerant. Sometimes, I feel like Annie should have been born as an Indian woman during those dark times, and lived in the Indian areas which still followed the old traditions. That would have taught her to appreciate the Western views a little bit more and care for the monkeys a little bit less.