"I’m not putting lives in danger. We’re not getting things blown up," – David Unger, owner of New York Press, as reported by Harry Siegel, the editor.
I know Harry and trust his word. This is what is occurring. The American media will not publish these images because they are afraid. And so the Islamists have already won one victory. You think they will be content with just one?
"Thank Allah for Islam who put check on people like you. Other wise you will turn world into big brothel full of homosexuals & child abusers. Do not try to teach morals to muslims while people like you are busy making/watching blue films."
I’ll let y’all know when I do my next porn flick, ok?
It’s been an embarrassingly painful few weeks for your loyal blogger. I guess when you reach your forties, you should expect your body to fall apart bit by bit. But there’s something faintly embarrassing about my own acquired malfunctions. I snored too much; my teeth were falling apart; and I got plantar warts on my feet. CPAP machines are not exactly sexy; root canals are no fun; but having warts burned off your feet is another thing entirely. I’ve now gone through three separate burn-offs, and only a couple of teensy warts disappeared. So last Friday, the podiatrist went for what he called the nuclear option. He injected bleomycin crystals in liquid form into each wart. You just don’t know how many nerve endings there are in your feet until someone sticks a needle in them.
I was completely nonchalant to begin with. There are five warts left and I casually said I had no problems with having them all blasted in one setting. "Get it all over with" was the idea. The doc said that most people couldn’t take more than one in a session. I scoffed. Then I yelled. The first injection was in my ankle – an anaesthetic. It hit a nerve and had me leap off the chair. Then I had the sensation of having my entire foot go to sleep for a few hours, which is weird when you have to walk on it. And then the actual injections. Although I couldn’t feel anything on the sole of my foot, the pricks nonetheless triggered nerve endings on the top. Ouch. Then there’s the result. Ever since, I haven’t been able to step on my right foot without extreme pain, or now, the feeling of small pebbles in your shoe. This Friday, I go in for the left foot. The pain and discomfort are no fun, of course. But then I recall that thirteen years’ ago, I prayed to reach my forties, and fully expected not to. In that context, the indignities of middle age seem perfectly tolerable, warts and all. Or as Ronald Reagan used to quip when teased about his advanced age: "It’s better than the alternative."
I keep getting emails from people saying that Pim Fortuyn was not murdered because of his views on Islam. It’s true that he was not killed by an Islamist. He was killed a leftist who symathized with Islamists. From Wikipedia:
Months later, Volkert van der Graaf confessed in court to Holland’s first modern age political assassination, possibly the first since the lynching of the De Witt brothers in The Hague in 1672 (excluding WW II events). Van der Graaf claimed that he shot Pim Fortuyn "to defend Dutch Muslims from persecution." Facing a raucous court on the first day of his murder trial, van der Graaf said his goal was to stop Fortuyn from exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the weak parts of society to score points" to try to gain political power. Van der Graaf said: "I confess to the shooting. He was an ever growing danger who would affect many people in society. I saw it as a danger. I hoped that I could solve it myself."
Fortuyn was not murdered for wearing fur or supporting lower taxes. He was murdered for standing up to Islamist intolerance and hate. He was murdered by a far leftist who supported the Islamists. It’s amazing how the media has managed to cover this up.
The notion of Muslims attacking Dante is not as far-fetched as I thought. Anthony Burgess wrote about the idea in his epic poem, "Byrne," published thirteen years ago. A reader tells me:
One scene in the book involves a big, mealy-mouthed, vague European Union "culture conference" that’s bombed by Muslim extremists offended by the big plastic statue of Dante among the Euro-great pantheon on display. A few choice stanzas from pages 116-119 follow:
‘Liberium arbitrium‘, Tim sighing said.
‘Not even Muslim nonsense can deprive
The questing soul of that. Go right ahead
But one who is Islamically alive
May not prefer to join the Christian dead.
Between the two of you you may contrive
To bring about a literal martyrdom,
But she can choose – liberium arbitrium.’[…]
‘Urbis praefectae honorablilis‘
(Epithet used just once by Cicero),
‘Legati, nuntii‘ (was that a hiss?),
‘Civites, vos salvere jubeo.’
He got no further in his speech than this.
The bomb was deafening, a gleam, a glow,
Screams, shouts, collisions, runnings, eyes dilated,
Horrified howls. Dante disintegrated.[…]
Switch off, doze, wake, give the bouton a push, de-
Siring news of bigger worlds without.
The sex-life of ex-President George Bush, de-
Linquencies no one cared a bit about.
A failed West End assault on Salman Rushdie.
Islam again. A loud Koranic shout
From Tehran, an imperious demand
That Dante’s works be mondially banned.Tim felt uneasy. He’d as good as doffed
The Christian armour meet for holy war.
The secular hardware was over-soft.
Should tolerance meet intolerance? Once we bore
Panyim-defying banners high aloft.
The Christian West was rotten to the core,
A culture facing in its deliquescence
The rigour of a million stars and crescents.
My dissent from Burgess: I do not think we are rotten to the core. I believe there is a deep and broad consensus out there that this kind of bullying must stop. If only we had leaders courageous enough to say so.
More push-back from the court. And evidence of abuse.
There’s now a legal injunction in South Africa to prevent publication of cartoons already reproduced in the Muslim nation of Egypt. Here’s the Christianist position in defense of banning blasphemy:
"It’s blasphemy whether it is Mohammed, Jesus or a figure of any other religion depicted that way," said Rev Cyril Pillay, spokesman for the Global Network of Christian Leaders. Pillay said that while he appreciated that the press should have freedom, it should not be allowed to desecrate other religions. "Religious tolerance is of paramount importance, especially in a democracy. Muslims were offended by this cartoon so I can understand and appreciate their stance," he said.
A rabbi agrees, even though he admits he has no idea what he’s talking about:
Rabbi Hillel Avidan, of the Temple David synagogue in Overport, said he had not seen the cartoons but, from what he had heard of them, they were "a terrible insult to Muslims". He said cartoonists and journalists needed to be more sensitive to people’s religious beliefs and, if the need arose, withhold anything that may offend those beliefs. "My sympathies rest with the Muslim community," said Avidan.
Notice how he conflates the entire Muslim world with the fanatical intolerance of the Wahhabists. Who needs Osama to make that point when you have sensitive, Western rabbis doing the same?
So we now discover that the hideously offensive and blasphemous cartoons – so blasphemous that CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, won’t publish them … were reprinted last October. In Egypt. On the front frigging page. No one rioted. No editor at Al Fager was threatened. So it’s official: the Egyptian state media is less deferential to Islamists than the New York Times. So where were the riots in Cairo? This whole affair is a contrived, manufactured attempt by extremist Muslims to move the goal-posts on Western freedom. They’re saying: we determine what you can and cannot print; and there’s a difference between what Muslims can print and what infidels can print. And, so far, much of the West has gone along. In this, well-meaning American editors have been played for fools and cowards. Maybe if they’d covered the murders of von Gogh and Fortuyn more aggressively they’d have a better idea of what’s going on; and stared down this intimidation. The whole business reminds me of the NYT’s coverage of the Nazis in the 1930s. They didn’t get the threat then. They don’t get it now.
If you want to see what the NYT won’t let you see, but Al Fager had no problem publishing, click here.
Contrast and Compare.
This is not exactly a sign that the Republicans are turning over a new leaf.
The Dish 
