Caught In The Net

CAUGHT IN THE NET 23-1

Robert Pelton World s Most Dangerous Places

ROBERT PELTON is the author and publisher of one of 1998 s more unlikely literary bestsellers, The World s Most Dangerous Places and, if the exploits recounted in it are anything to go by, a look at his psychiatric records would be almost as much of a good read as the book itself.
Pelton specialises in travelling to places like Sudan, Chechnya, Eritrea, Moldova and Cambodia the kind of countries where the foreign envoys have all been recalled decades ago and the final few American stragglers left behind are clambering onto the last helicopter out of town.
He s survived a plane crash on the Indonesian island of Borneo; an encounter with the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist nutters who control Afghanistan; and most jaw-droppingly of all a sojourn as the only foreigner in Algeria without an accompanying bodyguard. Think of him as a Sir Richard Burton for the information age.
In February of last year, Pelton undertook the onerous task of chronicling the world s worst troublespots one by one, sending his frantically-typed and quickly-scribbled diaries to ABC News website. Worryingly, the text on the site s title page promises that they ll run a new one every Friday, as long as they last .
Pelton is at pains to state that he s innocent of all charges of thrill tourism , an accusation which is frequently levelled at him. Indeed, in his book, business travellers are routinely referred to as professional victims , while unwary tourists are described as fodder for fiends .
The following extract from Pelton s Afghanistan journal should give some insight into the sheer perversity of his I love trouble, me approach. As if the prospect of spending untold weeks in perhaps the world s least hospitable state wasn t gruesome enough, he opted to go and watch a public execution on his first full afternoon in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Over 35,000 people gathered in the Afghan national stadium to watch the killing of Bahram for the murder of Asadullah, he writes.
First, the father and brother of the killer pleaded with the Taliban Chief Justice for the life of their brother to be spared. It was not. As is the custom here, the family of the victim also has the right to shoot the murderer or to forgive him. The family chose qisas , or revenge. The victim s brother picked up an AK-47 and shot the man twice.
The second act was the flogging of an accused rapist. He was beaten with a leather strap while standing on the football pitch kick-off spot.
In Pakistan, the trip back along the Khyber to get to Afghanistan seems short. At the border in Torgram, it definitely looks like the space-port from Star Wars. Grubby kids carry scrap metal from the Afghan side, and characters of all types wait to cross into Taliban country. On Afghan territory, there is something missing. There are no consumer goods. Everything and everybody is brown, worn and dirty. Heroin poppies grow next to wheat. The men all look tough and sunburned.
Afghanistan is half an hour ahead of Pakistani time and six centuries behind the rest of the world. The year there is 1376 calculated from the moon. That night, I go to sleep to the sounds of barking dogs, grinding diesel trucks and then silence.
They like me, Pelton says with regard to the fearsome warlord types he meets on his travels, lbecause I m the only one who writes down exactly what they say.n
Hyperlink: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/dp/dp

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF JESSE THE BODY VENTURA
YOU MAY recall that some issues back, the Hot Press sports column Foul Play carried a short piece about the election of former pro wrestler Jesse The Body Ventura as Minnesota state s new governor.
His newly-established website, The Ventura Files, bills itself as Ground Zero of the Ventura Revolution , and it s a handy catch-all guide to the activities of this most American of chancer politicians.
As well as regular updates on how he s getting on during his first few weeks in office, the site also carries some absolutely priceless bon mots from the mouth of The Body . How about this:
Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.
Or this:
Being able to put two rounds into the same hole from 25 metres! That s gun control.
Or even this: (on why he favours gay and lesbian rights)
Love is bigger than government.
The rest of the site is in much the same vein. One highlight comes when acclaimed US novelist Garrison Keillor is verbally abused as a quintessential chicken-necked geek , in return for recently calling Ventura this great big honking bullet-headed shovel-faced mutha who talks in a steroid growl and doesn t stop in Time magazine.
If you really want to get some idea of the spirit in which Ventura s conducting his political career so far, bear in mind that on January 4th of this year, at his official swearing-in as governor in Washington DC, he winged his inauguration speech, making it up as he went along without recourse to notes.
In a separate development, New York publishing houses are reportedly falling over themselves to secure the rights to Ventura s imminent autobiography.
http://www.venturafiles.com/

Online Surgery
AS IF to prove that there really is no limit to how disgusting the World Wide Web can get, the sickoes who run the medical TV channels at America s cable networks (on which the viewer can watch live operations taking place) have belatedly expanded their foul schtick into cyberspace.
Online Surgery brings you grisly footage of hips being removed, silicone breasts being implanted, lipo being suctioned, and colostomies being bagged, all in vile technicolour. And every second of it is broadcast live, in real time.
Several lucky people have already won operations from Online Surgery, such as one Connie Nowlan, who will receive a free facelift procedure, and Kim Dang, the recipient of a liposuction job.
You can even e-mail the site at: [email protected] #should you so desire, with any queries you may have about your upcoming operation to remove that mysterious red lump on your left buttock.
http://www.onlinesurgery.com/

Dumb Laws
A WISE man once said that America has always produced three things in unnecessarily huge quantities: country music, fat people, and insane civic by-laws. Here are a few of the latter, taken from the Dumb Laws website. The following statutes, incidentally, are all on the constitutional books of the states of North Carolina and Iowa, just in case any of you are planning your holidays soon.
Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants.
One-armed piano players must perform for free.
It is unlawful for any male person to wink at a female person with whom he is unacquainted.
Elephants may not be used to plow (sic) cotton fields.
Masturbation is illegal.
While having sex, you must stay in the missionary position and have the shades pulled.
http://www.dumblaws.com/

Rio PMP300
IT S A small, personal Walkman-like gadget that plays Web music files, it s going to be retailing at under $200 (#135) and it is capable of storing up to 60 minutes of digital quality sound. Welcome to the world of the Rio PMP300, the machine that may change the face of Internet music retail as we know it.
Smaller even than an audio cassette, the Rio has no moving parts, thus eradicating any irritating skipping sounds you often get with portable CD players. It s powered by a single AA battery and provides up to 12 hours of continuous music playback.
However, it may be a while before we get to use it. The RIAA organisation (which keeps tabs on the regulation of music-related commerce in cyberspace) recently filed a lawsuit against Diamond Multimedia in the hope of preventing them from putting the Rio into the marketplace.
The RIAA were claiming that the Rio violates the Audio Home Recording Act, but it failed to persuade a judge to grant a permanent injunction. As 1998 drew to a close, the RIAA were appealing the judge s ruling, while Diamond were counter-suing them for violation of state and US federal anti-trust laws. Watch this space.
http://www.diamondmm.com/products/current/rio.cfm #http://www.mp3.com/ #