Cartoon Protests

Okay – is anyone else as tired as I am of hearing about people killing each other over a damn cartoon?

Yes – it was insensitive of that guy to draw it.

Yes – the papers shouldn’t have published it.

Yes – the Italian guy shouldn’t have put it on a t-shirt.

(Okay – I’m lying! Being the “exacerbator” that I am, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I first heard what he had done. Kudos to the Italian guy!)

But unless you are an idiot or have been in a cave for the last 20 years, you should know that a large majority of Muslims tend to overreact just a wee bit in situations like this, at least as seen through the lens of the non-Muslim world. When messing with an extremist religious group, there is always a price to be paid. I am somewhat surprised that some guy wearing a C4 t-shirt has not made himself wallpaper in the offices of the Danish newspaper that first printed it.

Of course everyone around here at work keeps talking about how stupid the Muslims are and how they are just trying to stifle free speech. So in fairness (because I am a Libra) I have to point out to them that the Muslims are actually practicing free speech by killing people. It’s what they do!

My argument is also usually met with silence. Especially when I point out that this whole thing reminds me a whole lot like the John Lennon “the Beatles are more popular than Jesus” fiasco. (In case you aren’t up on your history, John Lennon commented in a 1966 interview that Christianity was dying and that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. And if you aren’t up on your history, shame on you!) After his comment, religious groups around the world protested and started burning Beatles records in public in cities and towns across America and Beatles songs were banned from radio stations everywhere. Granted, no one was killed, but the KKK did make death threats against the mop-tops. And we all know that they are good at killing people. They are also an extremist religious group.

Hmmmm… I wonder what the Muslim counterpart to “Prussian Blue” would be?