Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Let’s Compare Protests

The past few weeks, many European countries, or people from Western nations living in the Middle East, have cowered in fear as they Muslims throughout the world raged against the publishing of the Mohammed Cartoons by a Danish newspaper. People were killed, embassies were burned, and the world panicked as Muslims took to the street. What role the cartoons actually had in this controversy is debatable, but no question, this was a serious protest.

Well, over the past week, another protest has started, but I’m not nearly as scared of the ramifications with this protest.

A struggling lingerie store in Augusta, Maine, your typical small town USA, needed to pick up sales, so they took a new tact. They hired live lingerie models to pose in their windows leading into Valentine’s Day, targeting the holiday as an essential period for good sales.

At first, the models really had no effect. Sales stayed low, and the store was thinking they would have to lay off the models before Valentine’s Day. But then, the protests came. The citizens of August marched on the little lingerie store, demanding they remove the models from the window. And lo and behold, the protestors brought customers with them.

As coverage of the protests grew, more and more people came to the lingerie store. A second lingerie store, directly across Water Street from the first lingerie store, hired live models for their window. And now an empty store front down the street has been rented by a third lingerie store, making Augusta, Maine a virtual lingerie hub in Northern New England, where they come juuust short of selling sex.

Oh, those fearsome protests in the West. When people march in the United States, they obviously make a huge difference. For my part, I am apparently the root of all evil, as I printed one of the Mohammed cartoons, and I am ready for a road trip to Augusta. What can I say, it sounds like fun. Wasn’t there a store like that in the Will Smith movie, “Enemy of the State”? Anyway, I thought the dichotomy was funny.

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Posted by Scottage at 11:24 PM / | |