One last example of recent craziness from around the world: Iran is banning smoking tobacco through water-pipes in public. Called the qalyoun in Iran, the water-pipe has been traditional and popular for centuries. Supposedly, it's being banned for health reasons, even though it's not as unhealthy as cigarettes, which are not being banned.
The Iranian government often seems to enjoy moral crackdowns for their own sake, but there is certainly nothing in the Koran against water-pipes (though of course there was no tobacco in Europe or Asia when Mohammed was alive). Which reminds of something else, that there's nothing against in the Koran, Viagra.
As a Baghdad pharmacist, Talid Abdul-Amir Shebany, recently told a journalist, "People are depressed, so they need Viagra and other drugs to give them interest in sex. Viagra sales have at least doubled since the war ended. Lives are not good. There's bombs and tension. When you see bodies and destroyed houses, you have psychological disturbances that affect sexual desire... The Koran does not forbid Viagra. In Islam, if a man can't sexually satisfy his wife, she can ask for a divorce. Viagra helps prevent this disaster...Psychologically, there is a need for Viagra and these other things. There are other reasons, too. More and more elderly men are marrying younger women because young men have no jobs and no money and can't afford to get married. And, these days, older men are going to need a little help if they have to satisfy three young wives."
Sources include AP-Europe, Trukeminstan.ru, ITAR-TASS, EurasiaNet, Charleston.Net, ABCNews.com, China Daily, Guardian Unlimited, Persian Journal Culture, BBC News Africa, and the Washington Times.
Greg Cannon, an El Paso native, is a history student at the University of Texas at El Paso who hopes to be teaching history in a few years. He's a vegetarian, agnostic, and often pretty nosey. He's a news junkie. He keeps track of today's history at www.geocities.com/gregcannon1/part2 with the vague idea of some day writing a history of the early 21st century.