Now that's just bad taste

From Reuters: Shop pulls "Lolita" bed for young girls:

LONDON (Reuters) - A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens.

Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection.

In "Lolita," a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter -- but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it.

Hence they saw nothing wrong with advertising the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about six until a concerned mother raised the alarm on a parenting website.

"What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either," a spokesman told British newspapers.

"We had to look it up on (online encyclopedia) Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now."

Woolworths said the product had now been dropped.

Never heard of Lolita? Ya. Sure. And I thought the Americans didn't read. Incidently, for those who care, Lolita is a very surprisingly well-written book. I'm hoping that that's why it became a classic, and not because of its content.

What's even worse is this one from Reuters: Scandal gnaws at Buddha's holy tree in India:

BODH GAYA, India (Reuters) - Tales of corruption, looting and religious rivalry are swirling around the spot where Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment in eastern India some 2,500 years ago, sullying one of Buddhism's holiest sites.

Buddhist scriptures describe it as the "Navel of the Earth", and 100,000 pilgrims and tourists visit every year, packing the town of Bodh Gaya in Bihar state and its Mahabodhi Temple.

But with the tourists and pilgrims comes money, and with the money has come mounting charges of less than saintly behavior.

Priests and monks allege that thousands of dollars in temple donations have mysteriously vanished, that a thick branch of the ancient holy Bodhi tree was lopped off and sold in Thailand in 2006, and that ancient relics have disappeared.

Charges have been brought against the powerful former secretary of the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee, a Hindu, as well as the committee's former public relations officer and the former Buddhist chief priest of the temple.

A police report obtained by Reuters accuses the three men of "nefarious activities" and asks for their private wealth to be investigated.

Witnesses questioned by police said the priest had ordered an employee to cut off "substantial parts" of the tree and take them to his home.

The trio were also accused of selling off fallen leaves to pilgrims and pocketing the proceeds.

Former temple secretary Kalicharan Yadav denies the allegations, saying the branch was removed in 1978 when the tree was pruned, and said the charges against him were political, trumped up only after his party lost power in Bihar.

I love how people mix religion with politics. Love it.