Walking through a Chicago store, a Muslim activist spotted the perfect birthday card for the Fox News-hounds in our lives, featuring an adorable hijab-wearing doll with an explosive secret. Why is a tasteless greeting card newsworthy? Well, it turns out there's a little more going on behind the veil here.
The baby-faced "Talking Doll" on the card, it's suggested, has some C4 for Allah strapped on underneath her modest flower-print dress. "Pull string for message if you dare!" the card shouts. "She'll love you to death! She'll BLOW your brains out!" (The gag, apparently, is that you, dear reader, should be so luck to have a "BLOW OUT!" birthday, ha ha ho ho.)
The card's biggest problem—besides its post-Boston potential to offend, or the fact that it's more head-scratcher than knee-slapper—may be a copyright issue, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Chicago Monitor:
To make matters more disturbing, the card is based on an actual doll designed by Desi Doll Company (www.desidollcompany.com) called “Aamina, the Muslim Doll.” The doll teaches kids religious greetings and sayings in Arabic with messages like “Assalamu Alaikum is the Muslim greeting, and it means peace be upon you” and “Let’s play together insha’Allah, insha’Allah means if God wills it.”
Let's hope Desi Doll Company doesn't sue the card maker, Noble Works, and put it out of business, because we would be losing so much. Noble Works has many hilarious and smart, original, edgy political cards, like the one about John McCain doing a closed-eyed impression of a Korean dictator. Or a Hillary Clinton pic asking: "Does the vast right-wing conspiracy make my ass look fat?" Or Ernesto Guevara next to Barack Obama, saying, "Che hello to my little friend." (Because, you know, Che is one of those Latins, like the Scarface cocaine mountain guy!)
To be fair, Noble Works publisher Ron Kanfi—who claims to be the brains behind the terror-bombing card—says right on the company's website that it strives to impart "a sick, provocative, and sometimes controversial spin" to politics, religion, and current events:
In fact, our other slogan is "Dare to Laugh." I can only imagine folks and friends, who receive or read our cards, can help but wonder as to whether ‘laughing’ is the appropriate thing to do. But as our moto [sic] goes: "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!" (did I mention we love using the F word wherever possible? Fuck yeah!
Are CAIR's members just being a bunch of oversensitive multi-culti buzzkills in their condemnation the bomber card? "There are those who will claim Muslims do not have a sense of humor," the CAIR-Chicago director Ahmed Rehab writes. "But one would like to think humor comes with (even a minimal degree of) intelligence."
Pshaw. Clearly Rehab has never seen Noble Works' "Suicide Helpline Hilarious Card," the cover of which features a woman on a phone. "HELLO. You've reached the IRAQI SUICIDE HELP HOTLINE," she says. "Please press one if you own a driver's license and can drive a small truck." ("Hope your birthday's the bomb!" Har har! Smart take. Hey, don't judge, libtard.)
[Photo via Chicago Monitor]