I wouldn't mind getting one! Why not?! By MELISSA SATTLEY The Monitor McALLEN — Call it bad taste or bad timing but local retailers Rene and Lala Karam recently learned McAllen residents find little humor in images connected with the recent terrorist attacks — including the likeness of Osama bin Laden on a piñata. The Karams, who own JJ’s Party House in McAllen, received 10 papier-mâché bin Ladens from a Reynosa piñata maker Wednesday. But since stories about the piñatas aired on local television and nationally on CNN, the couple has suffered a rash of angry phone calls. "I apologize if we have offended anyone," said Lala Karam on Thursday afternoon. "Our hearts and prayers are with everyone who suffered in the attacks. If these offend people, we don’t want to sell them." Over the years, the Karams have sold a virtual Who’s Who of notorious and notable figures in papier-mâché, from Monica Lewinsky to Saddam Hussein. To date, only the bogus bin Laden has sparked this kind of reaction. "I’ve received at least 100 calls since (Wednesday)," Rene Karam said. "People are saying, ‘How can you be so greedy as to make money off a national tragedy?’" Bin Laden is widely believed to be responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. More than 400 are confirmed dead with 6,000-plus missing and presumed dead. Karam said he only thought of having the piñatas — the traditional effigy from Mexico that children beat with sticks until they break — produced after a radio station in California called to ask if he could find a piñata maker in Reynosa to construct them. "I guess they were too afraid to make them in Tijuana," he said. Karam said he also received some calls from people asking if he had any bin Laden piñatas. Callers continued requesting them after the news segment aired on local television Wednesday, he said. "I could have sold all 10 of the piñatas by this morning if I had wanted to," he said. But selling the dummies is the last thing on the Karam’s mind now. "I had planned on sending the proceeds to the New York firefighters," he said. "But now I don’t even want to sell them." And so the 10 figures of one of the world’s most hated and hunted criminals sit lined up in the Karams’ garage, waiting for the piñata maker to pick them up. Karam said the man plans to find a market for them in Houston and Austin. Karam, who is of Lebanese descent, said that many callers Thursday complained that he was reinforcing negative stereotypes of people from the Middle East by selling the piñatas. "It’s a touchy situation," he said. "I never intended it to cause prejudice in people — I guess this has been an eye-opener for everybody."
