Mongolia | Zaisan | Gaga Invasion

Yesterday was Children’s Day in Mongolia. I went downtown to get my mail (the kind lady at my branch post office now sends me a text message when I get mail) and noticed block parties for children, complete with balloons and loud music, everywhere. Then I returned to Zaisan. It turns out the apartment complex next to my hovel was having a big party in its courtyard, complete with hundreds, maybe thousands, of balloons (what’s with the balloon thing?), clowns in uniform, and a sound system that boomed music loud enough to be heard a half mile away. The music was—you know it’s coming—Lady Gaga’s latest album “Born This Way”.

It was on endless loop and played for at least three hours. Perhaps nine out of ten people listening do not understand English and thus do not know what she is singing about, but who cares? It is just a wall of sound. Now I am as big a Lady Gaga Fan as the next guy, but this was just too much. I tried to settle down with the book I had just received in the mail, A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World, but it was a bit hard to concentrate with Lady Gaga music playing loud enough to rattle the windows of my hovel. 

Lady Gaga has invaded Zaisan. There is no escape. Now we are all just vassals in Lady Gaga’s world. 

 Zaisan goes Gaga

World | Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On | Update

Update: Never let it be said I was not on top of this story!  See How I Started a Boobquake and Earth-Shaking Cleavage. And now Boobquake Aftershock: Iran Cracks Down On Suntanned Women.

Here’s my original post of April 20:

As I have mentioned, there was an Earthquake in Ulaan Baatar on January 9, 2010, and since there was been a spat of earthquakes elsewhere, the Latest One in the Tibet-China borderlands (see Tibet Earthquake Emergency and Updates). Clerics in Iran have now come up with an explanation for these earthquakes: Promiscuous Women:

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes. Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.  

"Many women who do not dress modestly . . . lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader.  

"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon Friday. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes."

 Wearing veils will hopefully cut down on Earthquakes

Different Approach: Let’em Shake! 

Lady Gaga: Don’t let her near the San Andreas Fault! She is also probably to blame for the Iceland Volcano, to say nothing of the Johnstown Flood. 

World | Lady Gaga and Jihad

A Wall Street Journal Editorial poses an interesting question:

“What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?”

 Lady Gaga: Can the Mahdi be far behind?

Then the folks at Tabir.net weighted in with Blame It On Lady Gaga, managing at the same time to invoke Pat Buchanan and Sayyid Qutb, the  “intellectual godfather of al Qaeda,” who said: 

“The American girl knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs and sleek legs, and she shows all this and does not hide it.”

Sayyid Qutb went on to denounce  “this [American] music the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires” (He must have had  in mind Little Richard).

So now it appears that Lady Gaga is to blame for everything, including the Cult of the Assassins, the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, and the Johnstown Flood. Give the girl a break!