I noticed in the news that the Afghanistan minister of tourism was assassinated. What possible threat could the minister of tourism have posed to anybody? What power could he have wielded? How much influence could he have had? It's not like somebody's likely to say, "Oh, honey, where should we go on vacation this year, Paris or Kabul?"
--Bob Newhart
So sad, Kirk. Who knows what sense people make of politics far afield. It's hard enough to understand what goes on in one's own back yard.
ReplyDeleteBob Newhart? When was this quote? Sadly, it could have been any number of years. And yet, Afghanistan looks like such an incredibly beautiful place.
ReplyDelete@Dreamfarm--I heard Bob Newhart say it on Tavis Smiley's TV show about six months ago. I was going to quote him then, but something came up, and I forgot about it until now. The minister of tourism, Mirais Sadeq, was killed in 2004. Originally it was reported as an assassination, but afterwards it was claimed he was killed in "factional fighting". Either way, it doesn't seem a particularly safe job to hold. In fact, the man who held the job before him was lynched by a mob!
ReplyDelete@Elisabeth--You're response is interesting, Elisabeth. Here's how the comment came about. Tavis asked Newhart, a popular US comedian (in case he's not known in Australia) how he comes up with material. Newhart replied that comedians just seemed to notice, more so than most folks, the things in the world that just don't make sense, of which the assassination of the Afghan minister of tourism was a prime example. I don't think Newhart meant the man's death was funny in and of itself. He was just commenting on the absurdity of it.
Mirais Sadeq