Note: this J.C. holding a winchester 30-30 lever action is another amendment to the previously posted pics. I didn't want to play favorites with the bomb in Mohommad's turbine pic. ~mft 
Hitchens: ...last week, almost every Danish newspaper made a deliberate decision to reprint the offending cartoons. Perhaps, if you live in most of the countries where this column of mine is syndicated or reprinted, you wonder what all the fuss can have been about. Certainly, if you live in the United States or Britain, you will be wondering still. This is because your newspapers have decided for you—as with Butz—that you must be shielded from the unpalatable truth. Or can it really be that? We live in the defining age of the image and the picture; how can it be that the whole point of an entirely visual story can be deliberately left out? (To see the original cartoons, by the way, click here.) I have a feeling that the decision to protect you from the images was determined this time by something as vulgar as fear.
[Note: this pic is an additional gift for my buddy and the most recent FCP arrival, DJB, and a Jesus Horse for balance below. Enjoy!]
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13 comments:
Fear? Ah, mais non, mais non, will say the Versaillists. Chickening out in the face of evil (nay, cheering it on, and ullulating with joy at each new atrocity it commits), while blaming the US for all the evils in this world, is the supreme sign of pinko-limo fortitude.
American and Canadian journalists and editors are trying to pull the fleece over the eyes of their readers.
I sure like that Danish front, though.
By the way, where is JJ? Hiding under the table, is he?
Ah, finally, I disagree with everyone...kinda. I don't think that newspapers should be afraid to run the comics, and if people want to see them then hey, print what the people want. But I think there's something left to be said for general decency and respect. Everyone focuses on the question, "why shouldn't we print them?" I think that's fine, but we should also be asking, "why should we print them?" And ai, I have to point out the sweeping nature of the implications in your comment. Not all austere Muslims are "evil" or even necessarily extremist or evangelical in their views or religion. Et non, je ne suis pas de Versaillist. ;)
First off, let's all welcome DLB to this degenerate blog of ours! Here's to beers with DLB! Okay, now it's time for me to check his reality (and I'll be over drinking your beers soon enough, dlb).
DLB said: I think there's something left to be said for general decency and respect. Everyone focuses on the question, "why shouldn't we print them?" I think that's fine, but we should also be asking, "why should we print them?"
Because, as with all art, one of its over-riding goals is to offend, provoke, and so on. Artists pursue what they individually deem as "Truth." And while not all Muslims (or believers in general) adhere to the tenants of their respective religion, it's always nice to push free speech toward new boundaries.
Or, more universally, the only sacred in my book is that nothing is sacred.
Hi, DLB, welcome to the board. And, let me tell you, your question is what is classically called "raising a strawman" (or, around this place, "Mr. Straman", for reasons too complicated to explain). So, where did I say that "all austere Muslims are "evil" or even necessarily extremist or evangelical..."?
ai: I guess when you wrote "chickening out in the face of evil" I took it to mean that any Muslim who dissents to the printing of the images is evil. I am familiar with "Mr. Straman" to use the local term, but wasn't intending my first post to be quite that flimsy, logically speaking. I think perhaps I just misunderstood your meaning.
mft: I agree, but art is also not just any stupid crap that happens to offend. The Jesus pic that was posted is funny and clever to me. Putting a bomb on Muhammed's head barely rises to the level of 10-year-old humor to me.
The Jesus pic that was posted is funny and clever to me. Putting a bomb on Muhammed's head barely rises to the level of 10-year-old humor to me.
Value-judgments are variable when it comes to art. In the anthropological sense, please also recognize why the bomb in Muhammed's turbine came about, especially by a Danish artist: female circumcision (conscious 5-to-8 year old girls are "purified" by holding them down while a holy Islamic surgeon slices off their clitoris and then sews up the bloodied vaginal opening, all while the mother looks on with smiles of approval), forced marriages, throat-slashings, stonings, and honor killings -- the perpetrators justifying it in the name of Islam -- going on in today's Danish neighborhoods. In saying this, I'm not calling for one religion to be supreme over another. No sir, not at all. But religion makes itself a target of ridicule, especially when so many kill in its name. Can we at least agree on this latter point?
Sometimes we need to be loud and vulgar if we want to draw attention to a cause. At least that's what one member of the Danish parliament did so she could at least get a methodology passed by the said parliament so Danish police could identify a religious (not just Islamic) honor beating or killing (the same as a Hate Crime in America) as such.
At least that's what one member of the Danish parliament did so she could at least get a methodology passed by the said parliament so Danish police could identify a religious (not just Islamic) honor beating or killing (the same as a Hate Crime in America) as such.
I haven't really thought through this idea before. If that surprises you then bear in mind, there are areas of the intellectual realms, media, world news and such that are wholly missing from my knowledge in the past 4 years: it's been replaced with obscure laws and legal arguments. That said, excellent point.
As to the first point, I do agree that value judgments on art are pointless here, but I'll fall back on something I remember from, I believe, "the dude." It's not that I think people are wrong, I just think they're assholes. If the bomb in the turban is somehow meant to draw awareness to stupid-ass honor killings and stonings and other such atrocities, then I am missing the connection, but, more turban bombs please.
Being Loud and vulgar to draw attention to a cause is fine if there's some palpable connection between the vulgarity and the cause. I am grateful for those who constantly push myself and others to expand their boundaries, but at a certain point you're just being a dick.
And this is hypocritical and biased, but seriously, the Jesus pics are much funnier. I have a lever action 30/30 Winchester. He's right, sell your f'in cloak.
I am grateful for those who constantly push myself and others to expand their boundaries, but at a certain point you're just being a dick.
Rather than a dick, I like to think of myself more as an intellectual asshole, but polite and such. My grandfather's name is Richard, so we'd be too easily confused if I went by his shorthand too.
We'll get this thing sorted out sooner rather than later. The Danes are coping with a problem that goes beyond bombs in turbans. And you, I know, as well as I, as well as AI, AA, JJ, (and Pepe, wherever he is), don't approve of the female circumcision. With that said, and since I think we all agree on this point, I'm finishing my letter to my bro-in-law in Iraq, and then going to bed (sorry, I didn't mean for that to rhyme).
Or maybe Jesus riding a T-Rex with a Winchester 30-30 on his hip, or something like that.
Also note the way a parody of J.C. is received throughout Western Civilization vs. the way a parody of Muhammed is received throughout Mesopotamia. The former typically illicits laughs, the latter fatwas.
And the dude always abides, man.
Also note the way a parody of J.C. is received throughout Western Civilization vs. the way a parody of Muhammed is received throughout Mesopotamia. The former typically illicits laughs, the latter fatwas.
Depicting the image of Jesus isn't blasphemy for Christians, and Christian beliefs do not blend into daily life for Westerners the way Islamic law does for Muslims.
However.
1) The dude does always abide.
2) This might be better discussed tomorrow evening over many beers, we're obviously the only two still at it.
DLB, good point about the beers. Also, J.C. is sacred amongst many monks these days, but they aren't about getting in anyone's face about it.
You know I'm a heathen and infidel, but I still think the reason that the majority of New Testament-ists don't bring thunder the way the Jihad Islamist Militants do is because there's an over-riding Forgiveness theme in the said New Testament. This is just a theory, however.
And the theory is seriously challenged by dipshit assholes such as the God-Hates-Fags outfit out of Westboro, Kansas.
This is why I argue that Professor-General Petraeus needs to route our Yankee Army through this secessionist outfit on his way back from Mesopotamia. There's a couple other Neo-Nazi targets in northern Idaho and southern Mississippi that I need him to tend to as well. Plenty of work ahead of us, both abroad and domestic.
But as you said, let's discuss it over beers...
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