Today’s Moron: The Runaway Arsonist Groom

Today’s Moron is Tatsuhiko Kawata of Tokyo, who was supposed to get married on the weekend but suffered the world’s hottest case of cold feet.

See, Tatsuhiko is already married. He was having an affair, and ended up engaged, and never worked up the nerve to tell his fiancee that he already had a Mrs. Kawata. And as the months went by, plans were made. Rings were bought. A dress was purchased. Tuxes were rented. A hotel was booked for the ceremony, dinner and celebratory dance. Invites went out, and a caterer was hired. And as the big day closed in, Tatsuhiko ran out of ways to get out of the thing. So he did what all stupid, spineless wimps do: he came up with a grand plan to get out of the impending marriage, one that ran the risk of sparking a bigger problem than actually being married.

He set fire to the hotel.

“I thought if I set a fire I wouldn’t have to go through with the wedding,” he told police, as reported by a newspaper called Yomiur. And that’s where Tatsu’s logic is faulty. Because he should have known that a burning hotel would only draw his fiancee closer to him, as they had survived a terrible ordeal together, but they lived, so fate must mean they should be together, right? Trust me. I know how this works. I’ve been married a ton of times.

Nobody was hurt in the fire, which is lucky, but the hotel had to be evacuated in the wee hours Saturday. Police figured out who started the fire after hotel officials reported that their groom-to-be was acting strangely and clearly didn’t want to go through with the wedding.

There is no word from Yomiur as to the almost Mrs. Kawata’s current state of mind, nor that of the current Mrs. Kawata. I’m guessing Tatsu is going to get his wish – no new marriage, and no old one, either. But that’s okay. Where he’s going, there’s a different kind of domestic arrangement.

Things You Probably Don’t Know About Skinheads

Two alleged halfwits were arrested today in the U.S. south for allegedly planning the alleged assassination of Barack Obama and also allegedly planning an alleged attack on an allegedly mainly black high school.

That’s one of them at the top of the page. I don’t usually identify people who have only been accused of a crime, but this time I’m going to, because whether or not they’re guilty, they’re white power skinheads and thus not deserving of any respect from me.

They’re Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tennessee, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. That’s Cowart up there with his swastika tattoo. The ATF says these two widgets planned to dress up in white tuxedos and drive a car right at Obama, shooting him while screaming slogans. Before that, though, they were going to this high school somewhere to kill 88 black people, including 14 by beheading. The numbers 88 and 14 apparently carry some relevance for white supremacists; 88 is their average IQ, 14 the average age of their mothers at their birth.

I’m not a big fan of racist skinheads, for obvious reasons. So here are 10 things you probably don’t know about these moronic thugs.

• Very, very few of them have chins, and the ones that do have too much.
• They blame their lack of education on Jews who control schools, not their own dumbassedness.
• They drink like fish, except for the ones who don’t, who are called straightedge. They’re the really scary ones, because they believe their shit without chemical influence.
• If they can’t find anyone to beat the crap out of, they kill each other.
• The one at the top of the page appears to be wearing makeup. This is a new one on me. Are skinheads into makeup now? It would explain why they’re always hanging around in these all-male packs, jumping on each other’s backs and rubbing each other’s bald stubbly heads.
• There are lots of different kinds of skinheads, including all-gay, all-black, anti-fascist, etc. I think. To be honest, I think that might be a myth. I’ve never actually seen one without a swastika in close proximity.
• They like to justify their racism by calling it ‘White Pride,’ saying all they are are good white people who want to boost their racial identity. Apparently this means threatening to kill blacks, Jews, homosexuals, etc. Hey, I’m proud to be the mutt I am, but you don’t see me demonstrating that by hating on, say, the French.
• They have their own music, which is to good music what their bare heads are to good hairstyles. Screaming, angry punk played too fast and recorded on home tape decks does not a musical subgenre make. It’s called crap.
• Neo-Nazi skinheadism is on the rise in the United States. Pleasant, eh? This has something to do with Mexican immigration, apparently. I think these guys resent that someone else is willing to come and do the shitty minimum-wage jobs the skins themselves would normally not be qualified enough to do.
• If you see a skinhead with a racist facial tattoo, you know he’s pretty much given up that dream of going to medical school. Like this guy, below. This is an interesting and informative chart from the Anti-Defamation League; all it missed was the stupidest tattoo of all: the Doc Marten boot tattooed on this loser’s nose.