Perhaps A Lame Online Stunt Will Bring Serious Attention To A Boring European Political Crisis
Have you heard of Belgium? It's apparently a little country somewhere in Europe. Belgium used to own Africa and invented chocolate and/or french fries and has problems with UFOs and pedophiles. You may have even unwittingly visited Belgium, if you're a member of the European Union government or maybe traveled from England to "the continent" by boat in the days before the Chunnel train. To this day, some French people travel through Belgium by train on their way to get their heroin in Amsterdam.
Anyway, Belgium is having problems. The country is made up of two warring races, called "Flemish and Walloon." These creatures have politics of some kind but just can't agree on something or other, and this has been going on for a hundred days. A HUNDRED DAYS, PEOPLE.
As a result, the rest of the world has not paid any attention to the political crisis of the "Flemish and Walloon." Because, really, who cares? It's not like they have oil. (Alex plz have intern check that.)
The Economist , written by Europeans, did recently note that nobody gives a shit if Belgium exists. Seriously, this is the editorial position of the world's leading financial magazine, which is called a "newspaper" for some reason, even though it's a weekly magazine like Newsweek, but not so fucking stupid.
Other papers piled on, and as of today nobody cares if Belgium exists.
Belgian schoolteacher Gerrit Six is allegedly the only person in the world upset about the political crisis.
"I wanted to attract attention," said Gerrit Six, the teacher and former journalist who posted the ad. "You almost have to throw rock through a window to get attention for Belgium."
Instead -- because it's 2007 over there, too -- he just did some lame Internet prank, on eBay, that nobody noticed except for the AP guy stuck covering Brussels. The only mildly entertaining part of the story is the headline, "Someone tries to sell Belgium on eBay," which really captures the utter meaninglessness of it all.
Someone tries to sell Belgium on eBay [AP/Yahoo]
eBay Stops Sale of Belgium [AFP]
Belgium: Time to call it a day [Economist]