When
· Naughties
· · 2006
· · · February
· · · · 13 (3 entries)
Blasphemy · If you’re going to publish blasphemous pictorials about Middle Eastern prophets, the least you can do is be funny, as in Jesus and Mo. The quality is up and down, but I liked this one. Actually, I do have two serious comments about the Danish-cartoons/Muslim-riots story. First of all, a lot of people in Arab dictatorships genuinely have no notion that a press can be independent, so getting mad at the whole country is a little less loony than it sounds. If a Syrian paper published something nasty (actually, I suspect they probably do), it would be entirely appropriate for reasonable people to get mad at the Syrian government. Second, I have advice for religious people who don’t want their prophets or deities or symbols blasphemed against: curb your crazies. Let’s run through some newsmakers in recent times who claimed to be faith-driven. On the Muslim side, there’s Mohamed Atta, President Ahmadinejad, and various other racist crazies; for the Christians, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and their legions of smarmy grasping ditto-heads; and for the Jews, Baruch Goldstein and Yesha’s “transfer” genocidaire-wannabes. The Christian batshit-loonies differ from the others in being apparently less murderous but vastly more hypocritical. To all the excellent Christians and Jews and Muslims out there: I know you exist. But you’re vanishing from view behind the cloud of mucky dust being raised by your lunatic fringe; as of right now, in the twenty-first century, when someone claims to be deeply religious, that’s grounds for suspicion of bigotry, greed, and a predisposition to homicide. Which is one reason my little boy isn’t being taken to church, for the moment.
5✭♫: Come On-A My House · This song was made famous by Rosemary Clooney, but the version I’m writing of here is by Julie London, who recorded 32 albums but is no longer a household name. Julie’s version of Come On-A My House is just the thing for Valentine’s-Day week: Come on-a my house (my house), I’m gonna give you candy... Pure, pure sex. (“5✭♫” series introduction here; with an explanation of why the title may look broken.) ...
The Magic Middle · Dave Sifry’s posted Part 2 of the State of the Blogosphere and this may be the most interesting chunk ever. There’s a lot more than just numbers in there; what particularly caught my eye was the notion of the “Magic Middle”, 150 thousand or so blogs with between 20 and 1,000 inbound links. These people tend to have a lot of very specific topical authority and to be, in general, good. Perhaps a new thing in the world?
