Cameron Diaz has committed a fashionista faux pas in Peru:<\/p>\n
While explor[ing] the Inca city of Machu Picchu* high in Peru’s Andes, Diaz wore over her shoulder an olive green messenger bag emblazoned with a red star and the words “Serve the People”<\/a> printed in Chinese on the flap, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao’s most famous political slogan.<\/p>\n
While the bags are marketed as trendy fashion accessories in some world capitals, the phrase has particular resonance in Peru, where the Maoist Shining Path insurgency brought Peru to edge of chaos in the 1980s and early 1990s with a campaign of massacres, assassinations and bombings.<\/p>\n
Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the insurgency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While it puts one in mind of the famous “How to Serve Man<\/a>” episode of The Twilight Zone, one can hardly imagine that Diaz intended any sort of message at all by wearing the
albatross<\/strike> bag. Certainly, during the Cultural Revolution one who had acted in the sorts of “decadent” dreck that Diaz had would either have been liquidated outright, or become part of the leadership’s harem (and then, probably, liquidated). The plain fact is that she is too ignorant to know how that might have been interpreted, given the historical context.<\/p>\nIt’s certainly valid to criticize her for her manifest dopiness<\/a>, but what did one expect<\/a>? It reminds one of the intemperate frothing of self-identified moderates at the Paris Hilton jail saga, because she was purportedly a “moderate Republican<\/a>.” I don’t actually expect that she’s informed enough to have coherent political views. There are certainly people and ideas worth getting exercised over, but I hardly think either of these ladies is one.<\/p>\n
*Built by the ancient celebrities as a refuge from paparazzi.<\/p>\n
I’d link to Mrs. R at Wuzzadem, but she uses language that I simply cannot countenance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cameron Diaz has committed a fashionista faux pas in Peru: While explor[ing] the Inca city of Machu Picchu* high in Peru’s Andes, Diaz wore over her shoulder an olive green messenger bag emblazoned with a red star and the words “Serve the People” printed in Chinese on the flap, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao’s most famous political slogan. While the bags are marketed as trendy fashion accessories in some world<\/p>\n