Huh? 68 Dead In Shiite Holiday. Media Divided.

These bloody Muslims (I mean that literally, see the photo) are not the victims. Rather, they are having a good time by cutting their heads with knives during an Ashoura procession to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in Basra. Nice, huh? And you thought St. Patrick's Day could get crazy?

But wait. To my mind, the big story isn't more of the same old, predictable Muslim self-flagellation and fratricide, it's the mind bogglingly different news reports from Associated Press and from the Washington Post. You'd think they were occupying parallel universes.

According to an Associated Press report, "Hundreds of thousands of frenzied Shiites beat their heads and chests in unison and whipped themselves with chains Saturday across Iraq to honor the martyrdom of one of their most revered saints. The processions were marred by violence with a deadly bombing in northern Iraq and clashes south of Baghdad." More at MSNBC...

But wait, wait. Above, we read from AP that "hundreds of thousands" of people battered themselves, bloodied themselves, and that a deadly bombing killed people. Right?

So what the hell is this headline from the Washington Post: "Iraqi Shiite Festival Escapes Bloodshed"??? To read the Washington Post report, you would think that the celebration was one big love fest. Only the last paragraphs reveal that "Men wearing black or white robes danced in circles and chanted as they swayed in unison. They pounded their chests, slashed their heads and beat their bloodied foreheads with the flat sides of swords and knives." Say, "bloodied foreheads" sounds like bloodshed to me. How about you?

But this weird paragraph was near the beginning of the Washington Times piece:

The high holy days in Karbala passed absent the slaughter of pilgrims witnessed in the years since the U.S.-led invasion nearly half a decade ago, but militants did assault gatherings of Ashoura worshippers elsewhere.

Whah? So, in the minds of the Washington Post, killings "elsewhere," that is, outside of Karbala, don't count as bloodshed? What a bizarre outlook. Imagine a news report about the Fourth of July celebrations across the U.S. Imagine that 68 people are slaughtered in Smalltown, USA, but nobody is killed in New York City. Then imagine the BBC reporting that "US Independence Day Celebrations Escape Bloodshed." You'd think the BBC editors in London were spiking their tea with something stronger than lemon. Perhaps the editors at the Washington Post enjoy the same kind of tea.