The news (via Normblog) that the Iranian justice system has strung up a mentally incapable and unrepresented 16-year old girl for getting to know a boy shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone who has heard the stories of those who escaped the revolution or the various officially sanctioned torture and murder squads thereafter, to say nothing of the war with Iraq. However, the strangest story I’ve heard–but not verified–has nothing to with infants killed because of what their grandparents may once have said at a party but with The Purge of the Zionist Cows.

Around the time of Gulf War I and for reasons I can’t recall–thirst may have played a role–I spent an evening drinking whisky with an Iranian who had something to do with a large and complex transaction involving the theocrats and European beef traders.

Iran has a considerable dairy tradition, and one of few good things it seems that the Shah did in the 70s was to introduce breeding stock from other countries with a view to improving the industry. This was noted in the relevant quarters, said my friend, and so it was that, come the revolution, one particular band of thugs thought it would be original, leave the businessmen for someone else, and go down the model farm to execute the Zionist cows, Israel having been a donor to the Shah’s scheme. Once the initial confusion about which exactly were the Jewish cows had been cleared up, the friends of progress were happily executing away and about to start on some hapless Canadians when a better-armed and more pragmatic gang of beards turned up and put a stop to the whole thing.

Again, I don’t know if this really happened, but, with no apparent prospect of internal-driven change in Iran, one would hope for more discussion of possible extensions to US forces’ Iraq mission during the three months to November.

Tags: cows
Categories: Splog, Theatre

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