THE United States may be a world leader in a lot of things, but we're pikers when it comes to a good ol' sex scandal. Scum makes the world
go roundSophistymikated countries like France don't understand why the American press has gone bonkers about allegations of sexual shenanigans in the president's Oval Orifice.
Why we should care what the French think about anything is beyond me. I've never seen anyone speaking French complete a single sentence without having to pause three or four times, as if they are making up the language as they go along. They think it is, how you say ... charming to ... ahhhhh, speak as if you ... oooooh, are pulling the, how you say ... words ... right out of zee ... voila! ... air.
Anyway, it's hard to have a sex scandal in France, unless it involves a poodle and a vat of mayonnaise.
Other countries know how to have a sex scandal, boy. In Kenya, for instance, villagers cut the hand off the local pastor because he was cheating on his wife.
"While he was sleeping at (his lover's) home early one Sunday morning, villagers burst in and set upon him with sticks. One man chopped off his hand with a machete," according to the news report.
I guess Hillary Clinton was right, it does take a village. Lucky Bill doesn't live there.
The Kenyans did have the decency to take the handless preacher to the hospital -- in a wheelbarrow.
Japan is probably the best country at staging sex scandals. It's such a small place with so many people that good manners are very important.
As a result, there are many frustrated, sexually repressed Japanese. To relieve the frustration they occasionally open strange theme bars that would be raided by the politically correct police if we tried it in America.
FOR instance, one bar was decorated to look like a white-collar business office. The waitresses dressed like office clerks and male patrons were allowed to sexually harass them while they boozed it up.
You have to wonder where this kind of thing will lead. Is the "Club Kill Your Boss" or the "Punch A Policeman Pub" far behind?
The current sex scandal in Japan involves a Ministry of Finance official who is accused of frequenting a "no-panty" restaurant.
I was shocked when I read this, mainly because it never occurred to me that someone would operate a restaurant where the female help didn't wear panties. On purpose.
I like people handling my food to wear as much clothing as possible.
Not so in Tokyo. The ministry guy denied going into a "No-Panties Shabu-Shabu" restaurant. (Shabu-shabu, for those of you from Fargo, is not a sexy way to serve sushi, it's a boiled meat dish.)
The Japanese parliament apparently is getting to the bottom of the controversy, leaving the rest of the world largely perplexed about the whole concept.
It does cast the Clinton sex scandal in better light. Clinton's biggest restaurant scandal involves sneaking off to McDonald's for a couple of cheeseburgers.
I've yet to see a wire story reporting what the French think about no-panty restaurants. I'm sure their haughty response would be something like: "What is zee, how you say, beeg deal? In France, we often do not wear even zee .... how you say .... pants ... during zee dining."
I don't want to be too judgmental about the Japanese. Americans just sort of assume that restaurant employees wear underwear. Without U.N. inspectors, we'll never know.