Comments on Drawing a Line

RIGHT ON!!!!!! I am printing it up and putting it on my dart board. My picture of Christ giving Mosses a blow job was getting to trashed.

I'm guessing Dan's not working in the office this week.

You know what would impress me, Dan? How if The Stranger runs Sibel Edmonds' revelations -- the ones that no major American media outlet will touch with a ten-foot pole?

Tim Keck would probably end up in the slammer, but it'd be a great day for American journalism.

(It may be that The Stranger is not considered "major", and so nothing would come of it. But why not try it and see?)

Shouldn't this post be called "Drawing a Face"?

Nothing wrong with comics or cartoons.

I think the ones you're upset about @3, are the ones the Muslims made themselves, not the ones that were printed.

Of course, now that media is banned from saying such things in the Middle East, we'll never know what they think about this.

How ironic that the radical Muslim factions are like, "How dare you draw a violent cartoon! It's offensive." Then rioting and violence ensues.

nice work.

that's pretty ballsy.

way to be, denmark. way to be.

@6-time will tell if this apparition sets off a pattern of violence.

It's funny to contrast this with Dan's earlier "call to arms" against the New York Post for embarrassing kinksters in print. I know, I know, he's not advocating murder or violence in any way, but his indignation in the face of the right wing paper's provocation is amusingly ironic in light of this scab picking/beehive kicking...

When France passed their law prohibiting the hijab in public classrooms, I was really opposed to it. With each incident like this, I start to understand it more and more.

The response from the Islamic communty will be the same:
"What Hypocrasy! If a muslim kills a woman for being raped, beheads someone while screaming 'God is great', kills someone for being gay, burns down a church or synagog you put them in jail.... yet someone can draw the Prophet Mohammad without being punished!! Double standards!!!!!!!"

It's increasingly scary how anti-Islam otherwise open-minded liberals here seem to be. Is it really that hard to draw a distinction between certain behaviors and ways of life and a massive religion as a whole? Jesus Christ, people.

@6: it's not the violent portrayal that is actually the problem. It's the visual representation of the prophet. Big no-no in the Muslim world.

Maybe they are upset that the "prophet" looks like the late actor, Sebastian Cabot.

Friggin' awesome.

I would have liked to see Denmark's leading newspapers do this immediately after the original printing (you know, when all the riots were happening and people were getting threatened). At this point, Muslim rage at Denmark over this particular issue is all but exhausted, and a reprinting is pretty safe.

Good for them. About time Europe, even one part, stood up to the threats and took a stand for free speech.

@13:
It's not Islamists, it's religious fanatics. If an extreme Christian group murdered people for drawing pictures, we'd be against them, too. If scientists killed someone because they drew Darwin with buck teeth, we'd be anti-those-scientists.
We're not anti-Islamist, we're anti-asshole.

@4 drawing a line in the sand.

@17 "all but exhaused" except for, you know, these guys trying to kill the artist.

It's increasingly scary how anti-Islam otherwise open-minded liberals

There is nothing anti-Islam about resenting the fact that nowhere in the world can one live in peace if you make Muslims mad. It's a fact that much of this is due to the Muslim immigrants that these countries took in under a very generous attitude towards immigrants of all religions and ethnicities. You have a lot of Budhist and Hindu refugees too and they do not cause the same resentment so it's not western bigotry that's the problem but the prejudice of many immigrants that are Muslim and come to the west and demand society change to accomodate their prejudice. You can make women, gays, jews and christians mad and you will not have to live the rest of your life under police protection. That's not Islamaphobic, it's an objective statement about the world we live in. Muslims always speak out against Jews using the 'victim card'... but God forbid we make the same demand of them.

With a lot of commenters here as well as in general in the U.S., though, you won't find a lot of effort to differentiate "Muslims who believe in violence and murder to avenge religious slights" and "Muslims in general."

Dan: ballsy!

Confidential to @12: If "the Islamic community" responds, they'll probably spell "hypocrisy" and "synagogue" correctly.

@13 - hell yes. thank you.

Why not go for the cover?

It's an outrage! I declare a fatwa on all of your browsers!

@19, 21: what heroes you are, and so "generous" and "objective", too. Pat yourselves on your backs for your brave willingness to anonymously support provocatively striking a blow against people who dare to be offended at what they view as a blasphemous slander of their religion and appropriation of their prophet's image in a racist cartoon appearing in a right-wing newspaper. How noble of you for being willing to outrage a community for vocalizing their anger and for being courageous enough to lump millions of followers of a religion and culture together with the actions of a few of their number.

I can't help noticing a mention in the most recent AP story about this case that the Danes felt there wasn't enough evidence to prove that this supposed plot to murder the cartoonist had gotten very far.

And what a monster this Muslim spokesman is, for voicing his sadness over the cartoon being rubbed in their faces again:

[Islamic Faith Community] spokesman Kasem Ahmad said even though printing the cartoons "was like a knife in our hearts," the group would not take action this time.

"We have no plans to travel abroad or export this problem," he told reporters at a mosque in Copenhagen. "Now we have decided to neglect and ignore any possible provocation."

The Stranger offices are relatively safe. Between the stench from KFC, the hordes of fags that encircle the block, the lingering bums crapping in the entryway and the world's slowest elevator, the offices are pretty much impenetrable. (except to Valerie Solanis-esque admirers of Adrian Ryan)

And if Stranger staffers capture any suspected terrorists, they can always tie them to that nasty water fountain and threaten to waterboard them.

I agree with @25. Cover!

@ 27:
How courageous I am to "lump millions of followers of a religion and culture together with the actions of a few of their number."? I said precisely the opposite thing in my post.
...unless you were talking about assholes. And only the most ignorant assholes would be "forced" to violence over something as trifling as a drawing, using "blasphemy" as an excuse. They are simply assholes, and their religion doesn't matter in the slightest.

@27:
Also, the spokesman you quoted is clearly not being an asshole...although the implicit threat of "no violence 'this time'" isn't the kind of heartwarming statement one would (supposedly) expect from a man of God.

#18, Denmark is technically a Scandinavian country (not a European one), but the more important point is that Europe doesn't slack when it comes to freedom of speech. Honestly, we're the ones with the problem in that department...Censored news and freedom fries anyone?

@31,

It seems to me that the spokesman was referring to nonviolent protest. Within Denmark the protests were peaceful. In the Middle East, not so much. Hopefully he and his organization have learned the consequences of stoking the anger of their coreligionists elsewhere in the world. I also hope that this is a sign that they starting to learn how to deal with living in a secular democracy.

There is nothing anti-Islam about resenting the fact that nowhere in the world can one live in peace if you make Muslims mad.

Okay, that's a big of an exaggeration. But, even assuming it weren't, then, yes, it's kind of fucked up.

But how does it compare with not being able to live in peace anywhere in the world should a people choose to choose a course of socio-economic development independent of that approved by the United States?

What did the Indochinese ever do to us? They kicked the French out; therefore, we slaughtered five million of them.

What did the Cubans ever do to us? They overthrew a dictator; therefore, we subjected them to a forty-year terror campaign.

What did the Chileans ever do to us? The Nicaraguans? The Iranians? The Timorese? The Haitians? The Venezuelans? The Salvadoreans? The Iraqis? The Koreans?

And for those that do assent to the so-called "Washington Consensus": 50,000 deaths per day linked owing to hunger and poverty-related diseases.

So, again, yeah: the Muslims aren't exactly being very nice. But, you know, Papulas observatis alienas, obsiti plurimis ulceribus (and stuff like that).

Okay, that's a big of an exaggeration.

Oops. Meant to say "bit of an exaggeration".

Here is a site that displays images of Mohammed throughout history:
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

@32 Since when are the Scandinavian countries not European as well?

And no, as much as everyone likes to drool over Europe, they have more strict limitations on free speech than we do here, generally speaking.

My favorite quote from the PI: "Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry."

Idolatry: worship or divine honor paid to a created object

Such as, perhaps, being willing to kill over a drawing?

how do you even know that's the prophet muhammad? because there was a picture of him they modeled the cartoon on?

does it say "muhammad" on the turban?

this is all fucking retarded. "like a knife in our hearts"? arab hyperbole serves no function.

Good thing no local Muslims read Slog. Because they would be deeply offended by this. Maybe even offended enough to write you an angry letter. It's okay, though, they're just dirty brown people and their religion is a bunch of nonsense. You know. Typical 'liberal' Seattle attitude.

they're just dirty brown people

Actually Greg, a lot are white as chalk. Like the ones from Kosovo. Remember, em?
But by labelling Muslims as "brown" it makes it easier for anyone who critcizes them to be labelled a racist. Which is what you want to do.
There are many "brown" Christians but no one is ever called a racist for calling them on their bullshit.

Hey Greg, guess what, their religion is a bunch of nonsense and not only is it a bunch of nonsense but a significant number of Muslims are total dicks. Now if they wanted to live in shitty countries like Dubai, Sudan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that wouldn't be a problem. But they don't want to live in those countries because those countries really suck. So they want to come to the West where they can have a standard of living better than that of a ninth century goat herder but then they also want to bring all of their stupid religious Islamic bullshit with them, not realizing that the reason why the West doesn't suck like their home countries do is because we had this thing called "The Enlightenment" a few hundred years ago and decided to put our stupid religious Christian bullshit behind us.

Now I know you're trying to score points by showing what an incredibly wonderful and tolerant contrarian you are in attempting to condemn some liberal Seattle attitude that exists only in your tiny little brain, but unfortunately you're just not smart enough to to do it. Also just because you're a liberal doesn't mean you can't tell people that they're full of shit, even if they are dirty and brown.

People who get their fucking panties (or turbans, or magic Mormon underpants) in a twist because someone makes fun of their religion are full of shit. If you've really got the key to the scripture, the pearl of great price and what you believe is the way, the truth and the light then why should you care if unbelievers mock it? Presumably they'll all be punished in the afterlife by whatever imaginary big juju daddy in the sky you worship.

@ 42 guess what? You're a bigot.

following up on 39. If all images of the prophet are forbidden, it must be impossible to actually depict the prophet, since one would have to know what the prophet looked like, in order to state that it really was a depiction of the prophet. So what is actually being condemned as blasphemy is making an attribution, which can never be proved or disproved, of what the prophet looked like.. Sooo if I take a picture of a roll of toilet paper wrapped around my ass, am I committing blasphemy or is the viewer by assuming that I am referring to the prophet?

Have any of you whining multiculti fucks ever read the Qur'an? I got about two chapters in and gave up in disgust. Islam is a bunch of nonsense, and vile as well, based on the text it claims as the revealed word of God. There's nothing racist about taking a negative view of people based on their _choice_ to adhere to a detestable faith.

[Islamic Faith Community] spokesman Kasem Ahmad said even though printing the cartoons "was like a knife in our hearts," the group would not take action this time.

"We have no plans to travel abroad or export this problem," he told reporters at a mosque in Copenhagen. "Now we have decided to neglect and ignore any possible provocation."

Great. That's exactly what can be expected from any citizen of a free country.

If we cower in fear because of the threat of violence, maybe we don't deserve freedom. I like it when freedom loving people are willing to stand up to threats. Even if it means death. Isn't that how this country began?

@42: Thanks for making my point with your racist bullshit.

@48: And just what did 42 say that was racist? In fact, he specifically said "the reason why the West doesn't suck like their home countries do is because we had this thing called 'The Enlightenment' a few hundred years ago and decided to put our stupid religious Christian bullshit behind us." If he were a racist, he could have made it much shorter by saying instead "the reason why the West doesn't suck like their home countries do is that it's full of white people." See the difference?