Immigration authorities mixed up the arts fest Artwallah with the word ‘Allah’ and detained a desi author for hours, complains Anar Ali in the NYT. Man, I bet residents of Walla Walla, Washington are really screwed:

Anar Ali, temporary detainee

I was detained for three hours en route from Calgary to Los Angeles when the South Asian Arts festival I was attending in 2004 was suspected of being a radical Muslim group. The festival’s name, Artwallah, is a play on words, a mix of the words “art” and “wallah.” Wallah is a Hindi-derived word that denotes a profession; examples include taxi-wallah and chai-wallah. The presence of (w)Allah in the festival name raised flags. [Link via SM]

Border agents get my applause for behaving much like conservative Muslims who saw blasphemy on the lid of an ice cream cone.

I’d also like to point out that ‘mom’ is clearly a pun on DOD, the Department of Defense. ‘Baseball’ contains the word ‘base,’ an obvious reference to Al Qaeda, ‘The Base.’ ‘Apple pie’ contains the words ‘apple,’ whose seeds contain a cyanide precursor, as well as the mathematical term ‘pi,’ a phrase clearly referring to research into biochemical weapons.

The ‘Pentagon’ is an oblique reference to the satanic pentagram. The ‘Republican Party’ is a clear reference to nuclear weapons expert Hans Blix. And the ‘Democratic Party’ sounds like demolishing Kratos, or fighting British counterterrorism.

Border agents clearly need to get down with the brown. Meanwhile, Artwallah might consider using the simplified and post-colonialist-spelling suffix, ‘walla.’ Just to avoid another alien domestic anal probe.