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Friday, May 26, 2006

Of Spinning Cones and a Jealous God

Posted by on May 26 at 11:38 AM

The Enlightenment happened at half past 12 a.m. in Burger King, Park Royal.

That is an excellent first sentence. It happens to be from an interview with a young British Muslim who has cost Burger King “thousands of pounds” in package redesign. It seems that last September, at half past 12 a.m., in Burger King, Park Royal, the young man realized that the “spinning cone” design on his ice cream lid actually spelled “Allah.” Rather than see this as a happy miracle, as a devout Catholic might, the young man was offended and shouted his displeasure from the figurative rooftops. Burger King apologized and agreed to a redesign with guidance from the Muslim Council of Britain.

(Plenty of folks already have, and will, jump up and down and howl about Islam and its cultural totalitarianism. Other than the crazy young man, this story has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with profit motive. If I were to shout at Burger King about some offense to Christianity in its packaging, they would laugh me out of the office because they are already secure in the global Christian market. Burger King sacrificed secularism of its own accord. It is the agent in this story, not the victim.)

You can read an interview with the young man here. It’s very good. The tantalizing first sentence kicks off a swelling of righteous rage that concludes with the Wagnerian rumble of the final sentence:

I’m going to bring this country down.

Judge Burger King’s offense for yourselves:

icecream.jpeg


CommentsRSS icon

Burger King's lid looks nothing like Arabic, let alone the Arabic word "Allah"

i agree, it looks nothing like "allah" but it -does- make me want an ice cream real bad.

I don't believe in God, and neither does my Uncle Frank.

Jolt Cola is sacrilegious to Thor. And Zeus.

The battle is joined.

(I've also seen chocolate swirls on certain truffles that look like the cranky desert-god's name, too. Down with See's.)

Gotta love those religious nutbars...

Good heavens, this is like the Seattle Police Dept. cleaning house and re-organizing because of the "Seattle Police Is Commuuuuunissssst!" crazy dude that camps out by the pottery barn downtown.

The contest between christians and muslims over who can get the most worked up about stupid shit continues.

this guy must be a distant relative of that gal that found the image of Mary on her burnt toast or whatever.

It looks like a dog turd to me. They just need to add a little yellow Dubya flag, and then nobody would confuse the dog turd for the Arabic inscription.

Lest I offend anyone, I'm NOT saying the name of Allah is a dog turd. Or George Bush is a dog turd. I'm only saying that the ice cream label looks like a dog turd. And that flags with George Bush on them should be used ON dog turds. To identify them. For information purposes only, not to suggest identity.

I'm also not saying that Burger King serves dog turd ice cream. I'm only saying their label on the ice cream looks like a dog turd, but not enough so as you'd be sure, so they should help clearly identify the label (not the ice cream, the Bush or the Allah) as being a turd.

Bush is smiling in the picture on the flag and that is happy. So nobody ought to mind, OK?

The fear of God, the love of God, the love of not letting anyone disrespect God. Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad.

So why exactly is God not able to take care of Himself?

What about Burger King? BK would claim the moon is made of green cheese, if it maintained the bottom-line and kept its shareholders happy. Its craven cave-in to an Islamist fruitcake - and by extension, The Muslim Council of Britain - is hardly surprising or troubling, in that context. This is about money, not religious sensitivities. BK wants to sell as much of its slop to as many people as possible, sectarian or secular, pure and simple.

Right. That's the real issue—not how craaazy the young man is, but how Burger King subsidizes his lunacy. Which is as troubling as the environmental/health/labor issues the fa(s)t fooders normally catch hell for.

I want to stone the Burger King's embassy.

What I find more troubling are governments - not driven by any profit margin - 'subsidizing lunacy.' All it took was a single Christianist wingnut to cause the Springfield, IL city parks dept. to quake and shake and change the design of a local playground, out of fear of Satan.

You see spineless corporate caving, I see opportunity. What other corporate logos can we claim are offensive to some desirable demographic? I say, let's go after the Nike swoop -- I think it mocks the Book of Mormon. Or something. Plus, isn't Nike a pagan god? It's an outrage!

Exactly. I'm with flamingbanjo - opportunity knocks. And not just with corporate logos, either. Let's not forget landmarks. The Ice Cream Idiot had to turn the offending confection on its side in order to fully grok its evil. If I stand on my head and gaze at the Space Needle, it clearly points straight to hell. Outrage.

If a Jewish group was offened by something in an ad for a product in, say Pakistan or Iran, because it included that words "kill the Jews" or "i love Hitler" would they change it? Of course not, the Muslim world never accomodates other religious, uh, sensitivities, but cries "Islamaphobia" at the drop of a hat. If I may skew a quote by the
(ex)prime minister of Malaysia: Muslims rule the world by proxy. And those who fight their battle are some multicultualists and people who consider themselves progressive who will do ANYTHING and condone ANYTHING to apease Islamacentrics.

"Muslims rule the world by proxy."

right... and the black helicopters are showing up when. I need to know so I can put my tin foil hat on.

Why the hell was a muslim eating at Burger King in the first place?

Uneducated people + Poverty + Religion = crazy, no matter what deity we're talking about.

Since we've been standing on the throats of the people in the Muslim nations for at least a century, we end up with a lot of angry Muslims.

If the middle east were populated by Christians, we'd have a bunch of angry Christians.

It's as simple as that.

It doesn't matter which fairytale you were bought up on, this is about litigation.

Any lawsuit based on personal religious intolerance is pathetic. Why can't people keep their beliefs to themselves? When can we have freedom from religion?

Cool page
with html

incest father and daughter with mother and son!

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