By now, I’m sure most of our readers know that Rep. Ahn Joseph Cao, the Vietnamese American congressman from New Orleans, had this to say to BP America President Lamar McKay following a suggestion from a colleague that McKay should resign: “Well, in the Asian culture we do things differently. During the Samurai days, we just give you a knife and ask you to commit harakiri.”
It was a little strange to hear a Vietnamese official call for the suicide of a top corporate execute via a ritualistic Japanese samurai ritual, but I totally understand where the congressman’s coming from. Cao’s district is one of the hardest hit by the oil spill and BP’s continued incompetence and lack of transparency in the aftermath so if Cao wants to tell McKay to go kill himself, I have no issues with that. What I do have issues with is the method the good congressman suggested.
Harakiri involves plunging a sword or knife into one’s abdomen and “moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion.” You’re basically disemboweling yourself. That means your intestines and guts and a whole lot of blood will be spewing out of your body like…like…hmm, what would be a good metaphor? Oh yeah, like a whole lot of oil spewing out into the Gulf—how’s that for a metaphor? And if BP’s handling of the clean up in the Gulf is any indication of their skills in this area, we should be looking for a less messy but still appropriate form of suicide for any interested BP executive.
Think about it—the aforementioned intestines, guts and blood have sprayed all over the place. Someone needs to clean that shit up. Do you know how hard it is to get intestines, guts and blood out of the carpet? It’s damn near impossible, trust me on this. You think it’s hard to get one small spot of red wine out before it stains? Multiply that by a hundred thousand million. And knowing these BP guys, they probably won’t even commit harakiri at their own place. No, they’ll come to your house, do it there, leave a big mess and they’ll be like, “Oh sorry, our bad. But don’t worry, we’ll clean it up. We care about the small people.” And then they’ll disappear; leaving you to deal with their shit on your own.
So let me suggest a more appropriate form of suicide for any interested BP executives. Sure, they could avoid the bloody mess by taking an overdose of pills or go old school with a traditional noose hanging, but the one quality that harakiri possesses which makes it appropriate in this case is its theatricality and ritualistic nature. Whatever the new method of suicide used by any BP executive is, it should embrace this quality and make a point. So here’s what they should do instead:
Take all that oil and sludge and shit that’s been recovered from the spill and eat it. Just take a seat and keep eating that crap non-stop until your bodies can’t take anymore. Shove that shit down your throat until it poisons you and you choke and vomit and drop dead. That would be a completely appropriate form of suicidal poetic justice. When samurais used to commit harakiri, they would often do it in front of an audience to publicly acknowledge their shame so the whole thing could also be televised live and/or streamed on the internet. You could even sell ads for the live program which could be used to fund the relief efforts. This would be a ratings champ so that’s potentially a lot of money for a good cause. Hopefully this modest proposal will be an acceptable alternative to the good Rep. Cao’s suggestion.
I say just have them go HANDS-ON and join the cleanup crews every day…..and get the same pay as the crews (not their usual megamillions salaries).
Since Cao is Vietnamese, perhaps he should’ve suggested the BP execs set themselves on fire. I think we’d all like to see that.
Yeah, they can douse themselves in the same oil that’s spilled out of the gulf before they immolate themselves.
I’m still waiting for some vigilante prankster to throw a bucket of used motor oil all over these execs, a la PETA and blood on fur coats.
I’m 100% down with Cao’s suggestion. It’s ’bout time we bring some Asian justice to these here parts.
the Brits used beheadings right? that could be dramatic, no? all severed heads fall into a barrel of oil. yeah…
Wow, that is just… GORY.
A sequel to “Seven?”
honestly, I can’t find it in myself to get mad at Cao for asking BP exec to commit harakiri. I think a LOT of people would pay good money to see that. The great thing about harakiri is that nobody has to go to jail for murder.
Oh, the justice–them shoving down that oil down their throats is a form of empathy on their part…now they can empathize with how all those living creatures in the gulf feel when that shit is going down their throats and killing them.