Something is Not Rotten in Denmark ...7:47 pm
From the Times Online:
THE Danish editor who brought the fury of the Muslim world on his country by printing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad defiantly declared yesterday: “We do not apologise for printing the cartoons. It was our right to do so.”
As protests continued for a second day in Gaza with shouts of “Death to Denmark’, Flemming Rose, the culture editor of the centre-right daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, sat in his book-lined office declaring his surprise at the reaction.
He said that he had to stand his ground because, as in the Salman Rushdie affair, freedom of speech was being threatened. “There is a lot at stake. It would be very naive to think this is only about Jyllands-Posten and 12 cartoons and apologising or not apologising.
“This is about standing for fundamental values that have been the (foundation) for the development of Western democracies over several hundred years, and we are now in a situation where those values are being challenged,’ he said.
“I think some of the Muslims who have reacted very strongly to these cartoons are being driven by totalitarian and authoritarian impulses, and the nature of these impulses is that if you give in once they will just put forward new requirements.”
…
Addendum: A French newspaper called France Soir has now reprinted the cartoons in question. From the BBC:
France Soir said it had published the cartoons to show that “religious dogma” had no place in a secular society.
Their publication in Denmark has led to protests in several Arab nations.
Responding to France Soir’s move, the French government said it supported press freedom - but added that beliefs and religions must be respected.
Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet Muhammad or Allah.
Under the headline “Yes, we have the right to caricature God”, France Soir ran a front page cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud.
It shows the Christian deity saying: “Don’t complain, Muhammad, we’ve all been caricatured here.”
The full set of Danish drawings, some of which depict the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, were printed on the inside pages.
France Soir has a website but doesn’t appear to have this story online.
Now, RWB definitely thinks it’s good practice and good manners not to make fun of anyone’s religious figures. This, however, has become an issue of to what extent Western societies will give in to threats, intimidation and violence in order to appease the followers of a radical Islam that daily proves itself incompatible with modernity and freedom. Vive la France Soir.
Addendum II: Now following suit (via the BBC again) is La Stampa of Italy, El Periodico of Spain, and Germany’s Die Welt.
Addendum III: Michelle Malkin has a story of another cartoon, and a different way of expressing outrage.
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Google, Evil, etc. ...12:15 pm
Thanks to the reader who writes “You’ve yet to be deemed censorable by China/Google,” and affirms that this site is still the number one search result at http://www.google.cn for “Right Wing Bob.” And welcome to the millions of Chinese now getting all their news about the outside world from RightWingBob.com. The first thing you need to know: out here in the Occident, we’re all obsessive fans of this Bob Dylan guy. His is the prism that shapes our reality.
Joking aside, Google’s kow-tow to the Chinese government is contemptible, of-course. And in the light of their recent resistance to varying attempts at interference or data collection by both the U.S. Government and the E.U., they are effectively demonstrating that they are only willing to compromise their precious database and their high-minded principles if asked to by a communist regime.
Assumptions were already common about the inherent leftist tilt of Google’s founders and operators, but this double-standard regarding censorship (unacceptable if sought by western democratic governments; “just tell us what you’d like us to leave out!” if sought by commies) is pretty stomach-churning. What is this if not a kind of romanticization of communist motives for censorship, versus what others might do in the realm of, for example, obscenity? And Google, more than anyone, was surely in a position to leverage their position and make a stand for freedom of information.
This website uses Google in a variety of ways. It still appears to be the best functioning search engine around, and serves my purpose for this site better than any alternative I know right now. I’ve found Gmail convenient and useful. I run some Google Ads in an attempt to harvest a few pennies. I’m not about to hop precipitiously on a politically-motivated boycott of the some of the best web technology available, but I’m reviewing my options, no doubt like a lot of people. Basically, by doing what it is doing, Google is damaging its public persona and reputation, and competitors should take note and should take advantage.
…
While we’re at it, the Google search of the day must be “Bob Dylan antichrist,” by which some curious surfer found this site a little while ago, ranked at number three on the Google Hot 106,000. I trust that this surfer had his/her fears allayed … but who knows?
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Monday, January 30, 2006
Times Sneak Peek! ...9:47 pm
Great news: a dear friend of RWB (FORWB?) motored down to San Diego yesterday and saw The Times They Are A-Changin’, the new Broadway-bound musical of Bob Dylan songs directed by Twyla Tharp, currently in previews at the Old Globe Theater.
Even better news: she called and told me about it today. (more…)
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Sunday, January 29, 2006
Dans Le Jardin ...8:37 pm
Dylan played in the town of Lille, in France on March 22nd, 1995. The eleventh song performed that night was In the Garden.
(If you listen till the end of that track, you’ll hear some charming band intro talk from Bob; roughly: Thanks everybody! All right! I want to introduce the guitar player: J.J. Jackson from … J.J. from … I can’t remember where he is from. On the drums Winston Watson, give him a big hand! [ applause] Not too big a hand! Over there on the steel guitar, that’s the one and only Bucky! Bucky Baxter. Played about 300 shows with me. Only about 2 drunk! On the bass guitar Tony Garnier. We’re gonna get out of here right now.
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Don’t Ask ...3:02 pm
From SignOnSanDiego.com today:
From the moment the show was announced, “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ’ has been shrouded in secrecy (more…)
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Saturday, January 28, 2006
You that Hide Behind Walls ...10:03 pm
After leading hundreds of thousands of no doubt enraged Cuban citizens to protest the U.S. Mission’s electronic sign in Havana (as referred to in a previous post), Castro has come up with a suitably blunt solution: build a wall.
Cuban workers wielding jackhammers and other equipment have begun erecting a structure that observers believe is likely to block the view of the sign, which transmits messages from people including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and President Bush.
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent,” Lincoln’s quote reads.
Also passing slowly on the 5-foot-high ticker, which is on the building’s fifth floor and is illuminated only at night, is a quote by Voltaire that reads, “Man is free in the moment he wishes to be free.”
Harry Belafonte couldn’t be reached for comment.
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Bono in Antichrist Flap ...9:22 am
A U2 fan attended one of their recent concerts in Madison Square Garden, New York, and came away a little taken aback:
About five songs into their set, Bono stopped the show and strapped on a headband with writing on it. I stared up at the JumboTron to see that the handwritten lettering said: COEXIST.
Coexisting sounds like a great idea. I fully support the peaceful philanthropy that Bono has encouraged, and this seemed like another way that he was trying to spread the message.
Except, it started to feel like more than a political message. The “C” in “coexist” was the Islamic crescent moon, the “X” was the Star of David, and the “T” was the cross of Christ. Bono pointed at the symbols on his headband - first to the cross, then to the star, then to the crescent moon - and he began to repeat:
“Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true. Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true.”
He repeated the words like a mantra, and some people even began to repeat it with him. I suddenly wanted to crawl out of my skin.
Later:
After the show, I ran into a friend who had been sitting in the back row of farthest. “What did you think of that headband thing?” I asked. “Well, I couldn’t hear what he was saying because it was bouncing off the wall behind me, and I couldn’t read the headband, because I wasn’t near a JumboTron. But honestly, I felt like I was witnessing an antichrist.” I stood frozen as she spoke. I’d had the same feeling.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying that Bono is the Antichrist. Perhaps he’s just guilty of being overzealous about his politics. But I hope that if he is a believer, the Holy Spirit will convince him that equating Christianity with other religions is false prophecy.
Well. Putting aside the problematic theology that the Reverend Bono is promulgating (assuming that this whole account is true*), doesn’t it seem like he is pushing that “COEXIST” message to an audience for whom it is rather redundant? I mean, New Yorkers? Does Bono have the impression that people are being slaughtered for their faith out on 7th Avenue every day? And he’s just the guy to teach them how to be tolerant?
Now, say U2 put on a free concert in Saudi Arabia (what a great idea!). Maybe near that place with the pillars where they stone the devil. Bono can wear the “COEXIST” headband there, and preach, “Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true.” I think it might be very eye-opening for the audience. And maybe for the Reverend Bono too.
…
Addendum: Thanks to John Murphy for emailing me a correction to this post. That is: Bono’s in-concert coexist rant appears to be slightly although significantly different to what is quoted above. As on this YouTube clip, he says: “Jesus, Jew, Mohammed it’s true … all sons of Abraham.” And then he calls on Abraham to call on his sons to stop fighting, essentially.
Well, you can argue that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all Abrahamic faiths; in fact they are officially considered such by those experts who make these kinds of designations. So Bono’s statement, as such, is not egregiously or even technically incorrect. The question remains, however, as to the value of him stating it to huge and almost entirely Christian audiences, versus taking it on the road to Mecca and Medina …
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Friday, January 27, 2006
Peekaboo ...1:44 pm
I’ll bite. This article in the Washington Post by Gene Weingarten, about a children’s entertainer called “The Great Zucchini,” is being linked around a lot today, with good reason. It’s long, but just long enough.
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Shocked! ...9:44 am
Unintentionally hilarious headline of the day is this from VOA: Israelis, Palestinians Shocked by Hamas Landslide. You would think it must include interviews with man-in-the-street Palestinians, saying something like, “Sure, I voted for Hamas because I like their policies about killing the Jews, destroying Israel and establishing an Islamic theocracy in its place. But I always thought I was the only one!” Such quotes are not to be found, however.
More presumably unintentional yuks at the end of the piece:
Israel is also scheduled to transfer customs revenue to the Palestinian Authority that it collects on behalf of Palestinians. On Friday a senior Israeli finance official voiced concerns about how to transfer funds to any future government that calls for Israel’s destruction. Palestinian officials say if they do not receive the funds soon they will not be able to pay an estimated 135-thousand Palestinian civil servants. And that, one Palestinian official warned, would be a recipe for violence.
I’d like to know what doesn’t constitute a “recipe for violence” on any given day with these types. That would be informative.
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