A Quick One While It's A Wednesday

     Quick, friends and neighbors! It's time once again for the long awaited, much anticipated, perhaps a little behind but never quite outdated (that rhymed), not exactly annual or even consistently held (that did not) contest you all know and love! That's right, you fortunate flock of folks, it's the return of the World's Greatest Country Contest!
     LET'S! GET! TO IIIIITT!!
     That was too loud, wasn't it?
     NO IT WAS NOT!!
     Anyway...
     First up, we have a wonderful and sturdy entry from our dear beloved friends in Colombia. It seems a company there that makes bulletproof vests has begun making -so awesome- armored clothes for kids. And not just vests, I'll have you know. You can also purchase, if you feel the red blooded need, protective undershirts and, my favorite, backpacks with ballistic protection.You know what that means, right? You can use them as shields! Kids with shields! YES!
     Turning your kid into a gunfire ready vigilante will cost you up to $600 per piece, and rest easy freedom fighters, because a U.S. distributor has already been found. Just imagine how much better you'll feel when you drop off your kids at school, and watch as they join ranks and march off to class.
     But hey, if something as ridiculous and sad as making kids wear bulletproof backpacks to school is what it takes to keep our guns and ensure we don't have to actually deal with a deeply rooted national problem, then that's the way it has to be, right?
    Right?
    Congratulations on the bronze, Colombia. Keep it up.
    The Silver this time around goes to none other than the often controversial, always exciting, world center of all things joyful and fashionable, Israel. At the beginning of this year, they put into effect a law that would ban models who are too skinny. Models must now maintain a Body Mass Index of at least 18.5, and I assume some of you know what that means. Don't tell me though. I'll wait for the movie. Now, on the one hand, I like this, because I'm tired of how so many models look like broom handles, and advertisers expect us to like it. Let's make this clear, once and for all: if you're built like a pre-teen child, and you're not one, then something is wrong with you. Eat.
     On the other hand, the idea that a government has the right to demand someone look a certain way before they can work as a model is off putting at best. Plus, this law seems to focus primarily on aforementioned BMI's, instead of actual physical health. Some people are just skinny, you know? It seems to me the time and money spent on this law (as with many laws) could have been better spent otherwise, such as educating the public on things like body image, nutrition, and physical health.
     Either way, any country whose collective image of beauty is so dangerously unhealthy that it's government has to legally regulate it deserves second place, I figure.
     And finally, our first place, gold prize winner: China! (Like it could be anyone else. They make most of our stuff now, we owe them.)
     Here's why:
     There was a big protest over there recently, because of some pretty heavy censorship of a newspaper article. The censorship was handled, as most things of this nature are, by the Propaganda Department, and was so overtly done that it sparked all kinds of shenanigans, including the big protest, as well as many people in the newspaper industry refusing to lend support to the censoring folks in charge. Finally, a deal was made, wherein propaganda officials will no longer directly censor newspaper articles before publication, and all the people involved would not lose their jobs. Oddly enough, however, many people refused to be named publicly, for fear of future retaliation. Imagine, a government that punishes its people for dissent, instead of just plying them with cheap fast food and twenty-four hour news that provides more opinion than fact. Also, most of the other longstanding regulations and controls will remain in place.
     Anyway, China doesn't win first prize only because of a tiny victory in the face of censorship. It also wins because they have a Propaganda Department, which sounds like something from the Ministry of Magic in one the last few Harry Potter books, and because writing about it made me type the word 'censor' (in its various forms) more than I ever have in any one paragraph, I think.
     If not, then just scratch that part out.
-John

p.s. I just wanted to take a second to say thanks to the small handful of you who repost this silly thing every week (or whenever I write it), be it via your preferred social media site, or your own actual web site. So, thanks.
-J