January 08, 2005

Don't Cry for Me Argentina

There are certain things you just don't do while traveling abroad. Take for instance these few scenarios.

You don't go to France and ask for California wine. You don't travel to China and remove a piece of the Great Wall. You don't go to Greece and tell every single Greek Alexander was gay. Never go to the cape South Africa and swim with blood-stained clothes in the ocean.

These sound like common sense to me. You risk offending the natives, being arrested and dying. When you travel, you just have to realize you are going to a different culture with possibly a different set of rules to abide by than your own.

Well, this guy just doesn't understand.

A BACKPACKER, believed to be from Queensland, is in a police lockup in a remote area of Argentina, facing a possible jail term for allegedly desecrating the country's flag.

The incident allegedly happened at a wine bar in Ushuaia, a town on the South American nation's southern tip that is a base for tourists travelling to Antarctica.

The 28-year-old Australian, a British man and a South African are in police custody.

Witnesses said the tourists were drunk when they saw the flag hanging outside the bar, opened a window to tear it down and then left and trampled it outside before throwing it in a bin.

Other tourists called police who arrested the trio.


So a tourist gets drunk at a bar, fair enough, but then proceeds to take down the Argentina flag and stomp on it? First off, what is his vendetta with Argentina? Did he think the Madonna movie was good only to find out many people cried for Argentina? Secondly, does he not have an ounce of intelligence in his booze-infested brain to realize people might take offense to a tourist trampling on their flag?

What a moron. I don't agree that he should be in jail if it is for desecrating the flag, if it's for disorderly conduct or moronic behavior, then he deserves to be there.

Cross-posted at In the Bullpen

By at 01:39 PM | |