Monday Funnies

The whole situation kinda makes me nostalgic for the “Merry Christmas” vs. “Happy Holidays” thing.

You can’t pit a cage fighter against a two year old boy, which is in the same way your argument follows. Sure you can put two extremes together and watch the inevitable slaughter commence, but honestly was it a a real fair fight? To say that if there is nothing you would not create in mind or paper then you can go ahead and reprint these “cartoons” is loading the deck Adam. I’ll admit, I lean a little to the right, I watch Fox News and shudder a bit when I see how unfair and balanced they are, but I also come here for a little balance, that said I do believe that there are rights that transcend one groups personal beliefs. There is no one powerful and correct people anymore, they died in War World II with Hitler. Typically I agree with your crack brained ideas, but this had the stench of hesitation all over it from the beginning. “Warning: This post will offend you. I’m not kidding. It will. It’s supposed to. You’ve been warned.]”. Are you saying that the ideas that our country was founded on should be changed to represent the new world and all of its short comings? Personally I think the violent protesters are picking up their ball and going home. I’m afraid I don’t have much respect for violent people in general, or those that would Celebrate! tragedy. I did not see the whole of America take to the streets in joy when Shock and Awe happened. I didn’t see Brittan toast to the resulting war. I’m all over the place and I will wrap up with this. How can we be here talking like we are today without having offended someone in the past, present, or future.

I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who isn’t sure where to come down on this one.

The original Danish cartoons are just rude. They are discourteous to Muslims and to the Prophet, and there’s a strong feeling of “because we can” about them, an attitude which makes my skin crawl. I agree completely with Adam about the people who are reprinting them all over the place; they’re just drafting along in the wake, getting the controversial exposure while saying, “Oh, but we didn’t draw those - it was those Danes!”

On the other hand, free speech is meaningless if it doesn’t include the freedom to be rude and discourteous. At that point you judge the speaker on his performance, without impacting his ability to make whatever kind of fool of himself he wants. And my support for free speech, as you probably guess, is one of the strongest beliefs I have.

I’m really not willing to accept the suggestion that, since Muslim law prohibits images of the Prophet, no one anywhere should ever draw the Prophet, whether they are Muslim or not; which seems to be the position the more extreme protesters are taking. In fact, it’s possible to get the impression from all the shouting that Islam doesn’t support free speech at all because you really can’t say things the Prophet has forbidden. I don’t know if that’s true; but it bothers me. If it is true, this may be the really irreconcilable divide between Islam and the West; and if that’s so, we are all in deep yoghurt, Muslim or not.

I agree with George Cochard in having no respect for people who resort to violence. I hope he’s right when he says the violent protesters are “picking up their ball and going home,” but the photos I saw in today’s paper don’t support that.

Two hundred fifty or so years ago (mid-1700s), in what was then the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or in many places in Europe including England, any of the images Adam described would have gotten him hanged or burned as a blasphemer. Probably tortured first, too. After the Thirty Years’ War, the Protectorate in England, etc., what we now call “western civilization” (which, as Gandhi said, “would be a good idea”!) collectively decided (without ever really stating it) that it wasn’t worth the effort and pain to fight to the death over differences of religious opinion. Probably most Muslims today agree with that; but the Islamic extremists still seem to feel that to differ publicly with their religion justifies a death sentence. Until they move past this, we in the west will have an ongoing problem.

It might help if we extended ordinary courtesy to Muslims.

To me, it seems pretty clear. Some Danish cartoonists were allowed by their newspapers to state their opinions in the form of editorial cartoons. Then a bunch of people, who were either genuinely offended by those opinions or merely seized an opportunity to become involved in the controversy, started burning down embassies. It is a basic human right to have opinions, even unpopular ones, and to state them peacefully. It is nearly always a felony to commit arson. Having said that, one who chooses to state or to allow others to state an unpopular opinion must be prepared to face the consequences in an imperfect world.

Did the refs steal that game last night or what?

Answering the question – how much are you willing to limit “free expression” for the sake of communal harmony? – requires some thought concerning the society that will result (ergo, it can be good to refuse to ride in the back of the bus) and the amount of truth in the expression (ergo, Jews do not use the blood of children to make matzah and it is flatly wrong to claim that they do). You seem to advocate a purely relativist approach in which all forms of expression, regardless of purpose and content, are to be considered equally bad based on subjective considerations (ergo>, will anyone’s feelings be hurt). Thus, you seem to be saying that if I can conceive of a cartoon that would offend me, I should understand the offense taken concerning these cartoons.

I reject your relativist approach for this one. I may be too something or other to post on this site, but the cartoons that are causing all of the flap in the Muslim world these days are presenting caricatures that were created by Muslims. The cartoonists only drew the pictures. The religious fanaticism written into the Hamas Covenant, the use of the Koran in the videos taken of suicide bombers on the eve of their “martyrdom,” the sermons given at Friday prayers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, and elsewhere legitimize the cartoons. I think you should listen to what the extremists say in the name of “Allah and His Messenger.” Presenting “the Apostle” in the image of those who claim to follow in his footsteps may rile a lot of Muslims, but perhaps there are some others who will recognize that the path that the riled ones are trying to lead them (and the rest of us) down, needs to be redirected.

You and I share more views in common when it comes to Republicans. Would you stop writing about the direction Republicans are taking us and advocate refusing to publish cartoons of Mr. Bush, if the “Christian Right” thought he was inspired by God? What if they started to protest? What if they started to bomb abortion clinics?

While reading this, after reading the disclaimer, I found myself waiting to be offended. And it never came. I must be really jaded.

Does that mean I disagree with your point? No. But I’m wondering if there is a middle ground between the extreme of willing to publish any cartoon and the extreme of being only willing to publish cartoons that no one finds offensive. If I don’t find something offensive, but I know a certain group does, would I withhold publication for their benefit? Does it matter how many members the group has? Does it matter how non-mainstream the group members are? Does it matter whether I’ve decided that not only do I not find it offensive, but also that the minority who does find it offensive is comprised of overly sensitive and objectionably-oriented people? Does it matter that I find their offense offensive?

How to sort this one out? Wow. But this one matters so fundamentally that ya gotta try.

True, the cartoons don’t offend me, partly because I’m not Muslim, but mainly because I do not take them seriously. They’re nonsensical. For the same reason, none of Adam’s examples offend me, any more than the drawings of a deranged mind would.

I wanted to see what the cause of the destruction was, so it seemed appropriate to want to see the cartoons. I would never reproduce them, except to send to a friend or colleague as part of a discussion. I would take no delight in the cartoons themselves, nor would I see any sense in flaunting the goddamned things. But I also understand why the other newspapers might not want to leave the Danish paper twisting alone in the wind. I was one of the gang of six who showed The Last Temptation of Christ at my community college, because a sister institution had shown it and come under intense pressure from the fundamentalist Christian organizations in the area. We did not want to leave them to fight this battle for freedom of expression by themselves. This battle divided even the faculty of the college.
Another reason I would not champion these cartoons themselves is because they are lies, and unworthy of the editorial page of newspaper. I would expect to find them in some extremist publication.

However, if push comes to shove, freedom of speech is going to have to take precedence over some belief system’s attempt to ban certain types of expression. Just as the death decree against Salman Rushdie represented a fundamental divide between freedom and a criminal religious decree, if fundamentalist Islamists believe they have the right to wreak physical havoc on anyone, anywhere, who would dare violate one of their religious beliefs, we could well be facing another insuperable divide.

I personally wanted to burn the RNC headquarters when they ran the Willie Horton ad in the ‘88 presidential campaign. I was offended on a truly profound level by something that racist, that cold-blooded, and that socially destructive. But criminality is criminality, no matter how personally justified I might feel. And criminality is the higher crime here. But I do feel contempt for delighting in reproducing the cartoons, especially to the extent that this celebrates the already explosive tensions between the predominantly Muslim world and the West.

The invasion of Iraq, the behavior of occupation forces in attempting to “secure” Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, right wing hatemongering against Islam in general (no less that Billy Graham’s son) - we are up to our collective asses in really destructive stupidity, which unlike genius, clearly has no limits.

Oh, yeah, I think Adam did a good job of raising a very important point.

The blog reprinting reminds me just a bit of a tv-show the other week dissecting what humor really is. The topic at hand was offensive humor, or more specifically how offensive one could be. The setting of the show was at a conference of sorts for comedians here in Sweden, and the guy at the mic was Henrik Schyffert, a famed Swedish comedian. At the beginning of the show, Henrik asked the comedians how plump one could be. Most agreed that you could be as plump as you liked, i.e. there is no humor too offensive. Later, Henrik performed some mildly offensive stand-up. Everbody seems to be enjoying it up until the last joke; “How do you make a five-year old cry twice?” The answer was censored on tv, but afterwards you could hear a needle-pin dropping, but after a while, someone yells out “You can’t fucking say that!”

The joke was “You set her doll on fire after you’ve raped her”, or something quite similar.

The point being equivalent to what you’ve just said, although a bit more offensive to me personally.

Well written post, Adam!

Whew.

A long-ago perfesser of English once told me that no paper on medieval England was truly considered well-researched unless the scholar had spent some time reading the pipe rolls in the original Latin (or Middle English). With that in mind, I went looking for the Danish newspaper, and they have helpfully put together an English-language archive of related articles, so we don’t have to learn Danish.

This article mentioned that several cartoons circulated widely in the course of the “flap” were never published in that paper. When asked about them, the Danish mullah who headed up the delegation that went around publicising the cartoons refused to give information about their true source.

Who knows? Also, some of the cartoons are explained pretty clearly in a related Wikipedia entry, and the context is a little different from a Danish point of view.

Who knew that in Danish, to say someone had “an orange dropped in his turban” meant that he’d had a lucky windfall? Apparently this all stems from the problems of an author, who couldn’t find any illustrators willing to do drawings for his chilren’s book about the Prophet. The free publicity, to say the least, will worth a lot to him (if he survives).

Soooooo, when and where can i get the video mentioned at the end?? I’m a patriot after all and want to do my part to support the American Way.

George Cochard,

If you mean my right wing jab, that was sloppy on my part. I don’t really have the correct descriptor for the reactionaries who delight in hatemongering (Ann Coulter et. al.). Count this as a moment of carelessness in tossing an ill-considered, undeserved insult at a whole group of people. I did it once before back when I first started commenting on FA. Really careless considering the degree of respect I have for Charley Reese, a very conservative columnist.

Is it our duty to understand everyone’s personal beliefs as so we do not offend them inadvertently?

No, it’s not. Nor do I believe that Adam or anyone else has suggested this.

But I think that if we want to live in a world with 6 billion other people, it’s important that we try to refrain from being gratuitously offensive, to the degree that we can manage it. This isn’t political correctness; this is not behaving like an ass.

I don’t think the Danish paper was being deliberately provocative, or realized that trouble was afoot. But the folks who are reprinting the cartoons have to know that they are pissing off people for no particularly good reason. Perhaps they think you can teach First Amendment principles by sticking a thumb in the students’ eyes?

Just to argue on the other side for a moment - isn’t the purpose of newspaper editorial cartoons to offend people, or at least to jolt them enough to make them think?? Consider the last time Pat Oliphant or Toles took on the Bush administration. This would only apply, of course, to the original publication…

I still think courtesy is a good idea, as Hannah suggests.

There is a crucial difference between something that’s offensive and something that’s purposely provacative, as I believe at least a few of those cartoons were. Not all of them, but when I look at some of those cartoons, I honestly think they weren’t just trying to make a commentary, which was their stated purpose, but that they wanted to offend Muslims. Both should be allowed in a free press, I’m not trying to deny that, and those who break the law responding to this were completely in the wrong, but the former motive is defensible and the latter is much less so.

You have to realize, the issue for many of the Muslims who reacted well within legal limits is not just that a newspaper printed these cartoons, but that they were also completely ignored when they protested. The Danish Prime Minister refused to even talk to the Muslim ambassadors about it, which can easily be seen as an implicit approval. This, and the blatant disregard that many newspapers have shown by reposting cartoons they already know are extremely provocative are why this is such a big issue for so many Muslims.

Again, I am not trying to excuse any of the arson or other illegal acts. Those people were clearly in the wrong. I am just saying that the blame has to be shared equally among all sides here.

If you want tasteful portrayals, here are some:

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

It seems to me that these should be more offensive than the cartoons, because they tend to be beautiful and thus encourage idolatry.

Whereas the cartoons are either clearly the work of unbelievers or Muslims in dubious standing with the ayatollahs, and therefore are irrelevant.

The burning Danish flags, I would argue, have very little to do with either cartoons or the prophet.

p.s

Oh, but there is a very clever one near the end portraying the prophet’s right testicle…

… And, more to the point, if you’re burning down my house because I drive the same kind of car as the guy you’re actually mad at, you’ve blown your opportunity to convince me of the righteousness of your cause.

Adam,

You’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. It’s okay to called religeous extremists jackasses (whatever faith) but those who just print those cartoons for sensationalism are also in the firing line to be mocked. I am a firm believer in the ‘F*** Bush’ line of thought, and the ‘F*** Blair’ too, So there’s another series of deaths for me to add to the collection as their fault.

As for righties going liberal and lefty’s conservatism, I find it a hilarious state of affairs.

:P

“Free speech” in the U.S. Constitutional sense does have its limits. The classic example is falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. That is speech that is NOT protected by the First Amendment.

The true parallel in this country is not political cartoons. I think most of us accept that the aim of political cartoons is exactly to afflict the comfortable and those in power. The Bushies may think that their guy is being singled out, but I think an unbiased review of the past 100 years whould show that cartoonists have come down equally hard on Dems and Reps alike.

It seems to me that the true “free speech” parallel for us is our attitude towards pornography. This is a battle that has been going on for years, the current situation being that pornography is off-limits for children, child pornography is off-limits for everyone, and adults are entitled to view or read pretty much everything else. But not everyone is happy with this, and seeks to further expand or shrink the boundaries.

Not being Muslim, not being raised in that culture, I have to accept on face value the assertion that any depiction of the Prophet is offensive to several billion of the world’s population. To willingly and knowingly offend, even if legally, is rude at best and un-civilized at worst. I’m not excusing the violence, by any means, but apparently sometimes that’s what it takes to get the world’s attention.

DAAAYum…

Apparently the issue of the lunatic preacher and his perverse congregation is going to hinge on whether a funeral is a public or a private event. To the credit of the people being harangued, they haven’t torched the idiot’s church (yet?) or sought to kill any of the members of this cult.

I think this disruption of a funeral is in a way trickier than the issue of cartoons, which are expressions of abstractions, although the more I think about the indifference to the anguish of Muslim true believers on the part of the cartoonists, the more disgusted with them I become, even though I personally have no reaction to the cartoons other than that they make no legitimate point.

Given the reactions to these cartoons in the Muslim world, I do wish the notion that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor had carried the day. I also think the editor of the paper could have legitimately refused to run the cartoons because they lacked merit, although that is a two-edged sword. I would have said I wouldn’t run them because they don’t express a truth and they will enrage a hell of a lot of people for no good reason. Submit them to a hatemongering publication if you really must.

On the other hand, I would have liked to see the West be less discrete regarding the death decree against Salman Rushdie.

Stephen, the fact that you’re breathing is “offensive to a large group of people”, and your “civility” won’t keep them from cutting your head off. Matt. 24-11

By the way, I am assuming you are refering to my being Mormon, not some larger American v. Terrorist? Interesting since most Mormons would side with your view points rather than against them.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t offended at all. I do not agree with the imagery but, then again, I’m not supposed to agree with it or even find it very palatable.

If someone wants to draw those cartoons up, I’ll defend their right to do so. I won’t grace any site or paper that believes in them with my patronage, in the same way as I never watch anything on Fox (sorry, Adam) or read the Investor’s Business Daily, but that’s what a free press is about.

Stephen,
You assume too much. No reference to Mormons intended. A couple of my favorite right wingnuts are Mormon and I haven’t cut either of their heads off.

Wassup, Ice? Glad to oblige.
It’s probably just me, but I keep waiting for that Imam/Sheik, whatever, in London to pull a guitar out from under his robe and scream “Are you ready for some football?”…

Adam:

I haven’t posted a copy of the Bomb Mohammed cartoon on my site. Yet. You’re right that the cartoon is more offensive than it’s generally given credit for, and that right-wing conservatives’ sudden newfound enamoration for free speech is amusing at best and suspicious at worst.

Not being a right-wing conservative myself, though, here’s how I’m inclined to view things:

1. I probably would decline to republish any of the hypothetical cartoons you depicted right up to the point where someone demanded that they be censored, let alone that they were worth killing over. After that, I’d feel like I had no choice but to republish one, just as a matter of principle.

I find Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” tasteless, vaguely repugnant on a visceral level, and patently offensive on an intellectual one, but as soon as somebody decided that it was worth violently demonstrating against, let alone demanding the complete obliteration of, I’d have to see about getting a copy. I fundamentally reject the notion that there are bad thoughts which you must not think, or bad images which no one must be allowed to see.

2. There is a lot of loose talk, much of it from the aforementioned right-wing conservatives, about the Muslim community and what it does or doesn’t do to demonstrate its disavowal of terrorism. I find most of that talk an easily-dismissed exercise in double standards, but the fact remains that I’d be a lot more sympathetic to Muslims’ outrage over the cartoons if it had been preceded by a comparable demonstration of outrage, at any time between September 2001 and now, of what had been done in their name. If such a demonstration happened, I missed it.

3. While the Bomb Mohammed cartoon is, as you say, intrinsically offensive, that’s not the actual issue, or at least so we’re told. The supposed issue is that you may not depict the Prophet, period. This gets to be a problem the moment you start demanding that non-Muslims adhere to your standards. Suppose that I founded the First Church of Selene, and adopted as one of its precepts the idea that you may not in any way depict the moon in a public context. What sort of response do you think I’d get if I politely requested of Islam as a whole that it expunge depictions of the moon from its public iconography?

Yeah. Didn’t think so.

Adam, your original conclusion was:
“[I]f you’ve reprinted this Mohammed drawing and there’s a cartoon in all the world that you personally would not reproduce for an audience…then all you’re doing is making a judgement about Bomb Mohammed. You’re merely saying that those Muslims must be wrong, because you personally don’t find it all that offensive.”

I don’t think that the premise justifies the conclusion—in fact, I think it’s uncharacteristically reductive. First, you assume that the issue is whether the cartoons are offensive, second, you focus exclusively on one of the most provocative cartoons in the group, and third, you assume that the papers in question have a different motive than the original Danish newspaper.

The issue for the Jyllands-Posten was NOT whether the images were offensive. Nor was it making a “freedom of the press” statement, which is by definition directed at the government. The paper was instead making a statement about upholding Western standards of artistic freedom in the face of threats of violence. Remember, this was originally a response to the dilemma of an author of a children’s book about Mohammed. The author couldn’t find an illustrator because so many were afraid of violent attacks, regardless of the tone of the book. The paper wasn’t saying “You shouldn’t find this offensive”; it was saying “Your standards of what is offensive do not dictate what Danish artists should be free to do. IN DENMARK.” Because the issue wasn’t whether the cartoons were offensive, the question of who determines the level of offensiveness (”…those Muslims must be wrong”) seems irrelevant.

Second, focusing on “Bomb Mohammed” sidesteps the question of whether it was per se wrong to print illustrations of Mohammed, and skews your argument. If the papers had printed only the non-critical images, many Muslims would still have been offended. Do you really think that all books and newspapers everywhere should refrain from printing any image of Mohammed because it would be offensive to Muslims? What if the image is offensive to only some Muslims? There is not a universal Muslim response to this issue, just as there is not a universal female response to pornography (which, of course, is also acceptable in Denmark).

Third, if we can set the actions of bloggers aside—they’re all over the map regarding motives—you assume that the other European newspapers cannot have shared the original motive of the Jyllands-Posten, whose actions you are not condemning. What do you base that on? Why do you challenge their motives, but not the motives of the Danish newspaper? Can they not have been making a similar statement about threats and intimidation?
Finally—although this is not a part of your argument—does or should the level of violence these cartoons provoked affect your opinion on these issues? If women are offended by pornography but do not become violent about it, or if Christians are offended by “The Last Temptation of Christ” but do nothing more than protest, are we simply saying that they weren’t offended ENOUGH to affect the decision-making process of publishers, directors, and theatre managers?

It’s interesting how many people have spent days talking about this vast grey area because of a group of people who only see things in black and white.

Dan Martinez,

You overlooked a very important point regarding the Muslim world. There was a great deal of good will toward the US because of the 9/11 attacks throughout the Muslim world. Bush was handed an amazing opportunity to foster world unity in a cooperative context. The radical Islamists are a decided minority and were pariahs because of 9/11, and Bush managed to destroy the good will and elevate the acceptability of militant Islamists out of a sense of fear of the Bush war machine. Bush was intent on invading Iraq, the Muslim world be damned, and impose full spectrum dominance on the Middle East, and ultimately the entire globe (their terminology, their stated goal. Check out PNAC - I’m not making this up).

Regarding Piss Christ, if you do not know the name of the work or the fact that the crucifix is suspended in urine, I think you might be struck by the beauty of the artwork. And it is a crucifix, not Christ, in the urine. Also, if you allow yourself to think about it for a minute, there are multiple implications worth considering. It places Christ in an utterly basic aspect of reality, but out of that shines some pretty intriguing beauty. Andres Serrano was a gifted artist. Just wanted you to know it is possible to admire that work and see it as both an artistic expression of what the world did to him (crucifixion) and an exaltation by way of the beauty that emerges.

Adam,

I have to agree with the conclusion to your last post. That is where we are at at this point, and little green shitheads et. al. are having a field day.

“We’d ought to start thinking about how to keep more people from dying over a cartoon.”

I’ve got it, Adam. Let’s pass out chill pills to all over the top Moslems! I mean, I do think they are over-reacting more than a bit. When the Capitol building in Columbia, SOUTH Carolina had the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy proudly flying high and you didn’t have masses of blacks storming and sacking. They probably wanted to, but they fought the feeling and got on with their lives. The average person in the Middle East doesn’t have a life, a job or much hope to speak of. I say the effort needs to start there and their sorry-shit rulers ought to be making it happen instead of stirring them up.

cooper-
Yeah, but if the sorry-shit rulers weren’t stirring them up, they’d have to be actually working for the life, job, and hope. This way they can take things at their own pace and direct anger elsewhere.

This is not to be interpreted that I believe the governments of the Middle East are to blame for this controversy. I’m just responding to cooper’s last statement.

Really. I promise.

All I’ve got to say is at least it wasn’t ‘The Fusco Brothers’

So do the mullahs who are reproducing and distributing these cartoons also go on the “must be punished for grave offense against Islam” list? Seems kinda like a “Wow, this smells awful - here, smell it!” situation.

In my early morning fog I watched CNN interview the editor of the Danish Paper that first published the cartoons. I forget the name of the woman who interviewed him, it wasn’t Solidad. The first thing that struck me was that she asked a question, and when he was part of the way through answering it, she interrupted with another question. He insisted on being allowed to answering the first question. (I guess that he is unaware of how our TV news casting works). During the answer he held up an illustration that they also had printed showing a bomb with the Star of David on it. When he tried to hold up a cartoon (I assume offensive to Christians) they cut away to the female questioner. Not being prepared to be on camera while her guest was talking, she looked surprised and uncomfortable. Later in the interview he held the cartoon up again and again CNN did what they could to not show it.

His point was that they weren’t trying to offend Muslims (only), they were also willing to offend Jews and Christians.

CNN courageously managed to censor his cartoons, proudly proving how important the 1st amendment is to them.

I’d love to see this segment again but I’m guessing that they will bury this mistake.

Adam,

I thought you might like to read what one of those “others” I mentioned had to say. I don’t know how to post a link, but here is where it is:

muttawa.blogspot.com/2006/01/prams-toys-rattles-and-dummies.html

ba-dum-tishhhh!

Sheesh. And here I was all prepared to blame Karl “Bush’s Joseph Goebbels” Rove for stirring up this long-dormant issue. The situation does seem well-timed to distract from the latest round of Bush failures and crimes - but, hey, that stuff never goes out of season, does it?

Pete IVDL,

The stereotypical cartoons of Jews Adam draws on have been kicking around in my beloved South for as long as I can remember, courtesy of the KKK and other virulently anti-semitic hatemongers. Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion have always been available (and taken seriously) here in the land of magnolias, azaleas, camellias, and jasmine and wisteria. I always thought the anti-semitic Muslims were just drawing from the tsars and imitating the White Citizens Councils.

But then we Southerners have a terrible tendency to frame everything through the lens of the center of the universe. We’re still trying to figure out how you Aussies can spend your whole lives hanging upside down.

Dan,

Hashcash stole my longer response. Maybe that was a sign. Just wanted to say I pretty much agree, especially regarding symbols v. reality. You make some excellent points.

Some good discussion from a variety of perspectives on Democracy Now today. I do share Pete IVDL’s concerns with what is unfolding, but for practical reasons of the moment, namely feeding the culture war objectives of Ann Coulter et. al. We might be in the dilemma of needing to try to keep a cartoon conflagration from assisting the neocon PNACers in their bellicose intentions toward the entire Muslim world (How can we allow the distribution of oil to be under the control of a bunch of fucking upstart towelheads?) I find the argument that this is now essentially being exploited by those folks, just as was 9/11, distressingly likely.

Merd, just merd, dammit.

Dan M & Ann, I see where you’re coming from. Most people, regardless of race or religion, can easily distinguish between a symbol and the actual idea. And a very real argument can be made that the “mum and dad” muslims are a) genuinely outraged (in which case they should take a chill pill and learn to distinguish between the symbol and the act); or b) listening to the “wrong kind” of imam (in which case, see a)); or c) too frightened not to be seen out with the rest of the mob. Then there’s d) all of the above, or e) none of the above.

I don’t even pretend to think I can begin to know why they’re doing it, but the fact is, they are doing it, and regardless of how we (and maybe even they) think they should react, they are reacting this way, and further provocation isn’t helping the reaction go away.

From my (admittedly westernised) reading of the Qur’an, Mohammed didn’t say things like “put your women in shapeless sacks and treat them like shit”, he said “women, it’s not appropriate to show your ankles” (or words to that effect). I’m not saying he was right, in wording or intent, but it’s the interpretation of what he said that’s caused all the problems since then. So the cartoons depicting the prophet causing all the grief are wider of the mark than if “subsequent interpreters” had been depicted; and as far as that goes, it seems to me that it was the worst possible choice of representation. If a “generic imam” (whatever the hell that may be) had been depicted, I think much less gut-reaction would have ensued, both in the beginning and subsequently.

Of course, my natural disgust at anyone twisting facts to control other people is a factor here; whether it’s any organised religion, the political administrations, or newspaper editors/blog writers, it’s always perverse. My main problem here is that I usually lurk and smirk in my natural “logical superiority”. But I can’t easily do that here. Damnit.

What I mean, Pete, is that the cartoons were in response to the belief—reasonable belief—by illustrators that they would be in danger if they drew a picture representing Mohammed. (Of course they couldn’t actually draw a picture OF Mohammed, since no one knows what he looks like.)
So a picture of a “subsequent interpreter” would not have made the point that the Jyllands-Posten intended to make at all. Any critical or satirical points that the individual cartoons conveyed were in addition to the main point. Sadly, those cartoons—and additional ones unrelated to this newspaper—were used to stir up sentiments in the Middle East in a blatant and cynical political move.

I’ve been trying to nutshell this situation (nutshell being here used as a verb), and all I can come up with is:
The Jyllands-Postern was wrong to print the damned cartoons, and the Islam community is wrong to react in the way that they are.

But then that means we’re probably right to be scared spitless.

Pete IVDL,

As a consequence of a similar struggle, listening to a lot of different commentary, and trying to figure out where in hell to place this in the great human debacle, I have to agree with you (at least today’s personality does). One interesting Islamic commentator’s take: why is it getting such disproportionate attention, since what riots there are do not represent Islam, nor are the riots disproportionate to other riots by others, including non-Muslim rioters, for other reasons.

She also said the cartoons did not kill any demonstrators. Trigger-happy police, at least in the case of Afghanistan, did. Charlton Heston should agree with that argument.

The reason to be scared spitless is the tenor of violence infecting the planet thanks to Bush, Blair, and your reigning bozo, whose name escapes me at the moment. And now a Canadian cretin is signing on to the uber-Anglo insanity. I argue, by extension, that Christians are more violent than Muslims, at least in recent history, and certainly now.

Here’s to the WWI German soldiers’ belt buckles, in solidarity with the industrialized West in general: Gott mit uns.

hedera,

We must have been posting at the same time. There is a raging debate ‘mongst ‘em about which one is the evil twin (can like 9 or 10 personalities loosely refer to themselves as twins?) I do wonder what the hell difference what is done with or to the prophet’s image makes as the polar ice caps melt and the Amazon rainforest goes up in smoke. But then, Gas it up and floor it seems to be the continuing economic mantra, never mind any “externalities,” and the only things not to be tolerated are civil unrest and attacks on property.

hedera,

Just clicked on to SuperJebus. Love the website (like so much out there in cyberspace, it’s new to me down here in Green Swamp Land). Wonder if the Air Force Academy will adopt SuperJebus as their logo? They already have de facto.

Guess only born agains should be wing commanders, kind of like nuke sub commanders (do you remember The Fugs’ Star Peace - if not, google up and buy, beg, borrow, or steal a copy).

WWVADISAROPRLMD?

What Would Violence-and-Death Inured Self Aggrandizing Radical Opportunist Pat-Robertson-Like Mullahs Do?

Could it be that variations on that acronym are the passwords to enter the inner sancta of all faith-based warmongers?

A fellow asked a question in #85 up the thread. His question had an answer, and I posted it. I copied the quotes I put in it from one of the major university websites in the U.S.A. (I don’t recall, exactly, but I think I used the Hadith database at USC). However, Adam Felbers apparently did not like the fact that there is an answer, or he did not like the answer. I do not know which. I only know that what I posted is now gone. I made nothing up. I said nothing offensive. I quoted sources that are accepted as inoffensive EVERYWHERE in the Muslim world, but they were too much for Adam Felbers’ sensitivities, so the post is gone.

Well, Adam, what was so offensive to you that you decided to censer the post? I see the question the post answered is still up the thread. If the question is not offensive, why is the answer? Why do YOU want to make believe there is no answer?

If you knew anything at all about Islam, you would know there is Koran, and Sunnah. The Sunnah comes from Hadith, and Bukhari and Muslim are the two most respected collections. What I quoted is accepted in Islam, but not at Fanatical Apathy. Why?

Adam: Excellent post. You’re dead on–those who don’t understand, or who reject, your point of view, and especially those who are printing/posting the image, are sneering at Muslims, “What, you don’t like this? How ’bout if we reprint it here, and here, and here, too?”–kind of like when one sibling pokes another in the side with an index finger, gets a negative reaction, and just keeps doing it over and over again. Insightful cartoon ideas, too.

Dear The Visitor, I am embarassed that I only just noticed your complete and thorough answer to my question! And remember, if a response mysteriously does not get posted (as has happened to a few of us once or twice), it’s usually the fault of Fannie the Rat getting a little over-enthusiastic about filtering out comment spam.

I found the_visitor’s very complete post most interesting (by the way it was NOT the post at #91 when I looked yesterday! Glad it finally made it in). It seems, though, to be an awfully minor point to be taking up the attention of the Prophet - or anybody else. If I read this correctly, the Prophet instructed his followers to dye their hair and beards, only because the Christians and Jews didn’t do so.

This reminds me of the early Christians’ conclusion that there must be something immoral about bathing regularly, because the Romans bathed regularly and the Romans were immoral; and look what that led to: almost two thousand years of stinky people. Regular bathing didn’t come back into general fashion until the Victorians. This may be because the indoor heated running water the Romans had also didn’t exist (again) until the Victorians…

Nonetheless, if the followers of the Prophet want to dye their hair and beards, who are we to object? Given that at least 3 members of my gym have hair dyed in brilliant neon colors (magenta and neon blue seem popular)… If only hair dye were the only issue between us and the Muslim world.

Looks like this one has tailed off, but just in case, here’s a link to an interesting discussion by James Zogby:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021406F.shtml

I hard about that. Sounds to me like it’s a challenge to the Palestinian authorities - “Whatcha gonna do? Arrest me?”

Crackpot theory time: Mohammed was a cartoon character in an episode of South Park that aired two months and a week before the September 11 attacks (Episode 504, “Super Best Friends”, aired July 4, 2001.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends

There wasn’t much uproar over this cartoon that I recall, at least nothing that made the news in the U.S. - but could 9/11 have been in some small way connected to it?

Typos in the posts are just too entertaining (so long as they’re someone else’s, of course…), so fuck it, Harold. Besides, you get to do the follow up “Oh, shit” post.

Thanks for the tidbit regarding South Park. Interesting fact. Of course, maybe South Park is only watched by even-tempered Muslims (besides, American Muslims are so up to their asses in profiling that they can’t say anything, even if they are offended - kind of like blacks in the pre-Kennedy/Johnson/and in some ways Nixon, even as he exploited racism with his “southern strategy” South).