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2.13.2006
Terrorism?
I've kind of stayed out of the whole "Mohammed cartoons" thing because it seems like it's too big to get around (on the one hand, if the group reacting to the photos were here in the States, I'd probably dismiss them out of hand as crackpots and crybabies -- but because it seems like it's now at least a couple of sovereign nations doing the "crying", it's harder for me to be so glib.)
But then I see things like this:  and it's harder to be quite so undecided. (The photo is an AP photo from Nairobi, Kenya; the link is here.) Found this at the Volokh Conspiracy, where I also saw this story about similar reaction to an editorial cartoon published in the Akron Beacon-Journal which (I thought, anyway) very clearly pokes fun at the way in which news organizations are dodging coverage of the issue rather than the Islamic religion itself. You can read for yourself, but the gist is that Muslim groups in Akron are condemning the paper for even that. ... Not wanting to leave a poor taste in everyone's mouths after that, I'll relate a story from yesterday's Mass at St. Francis. I don't know how it came about, but a couple of guys from Turkey -- Muslims -- were hosting a special feast in the church basement after Mass. One of them made his invitation pitch from the pulpit at the end of Mass, and from what I could gather (his accent was pretty thick), it was a celebration in rememberance of Noah and the flood, a story present in both Christian and Muslim traditions. After the flood, Noah and his family had to mix together all of the meager food they had on the Ark and made some kind of pudding with it in order to share and celebrate being saved, and apparently the tradition now is that you cook this pudding up and share it with friends and neighbors, Christian and Muslim alike. Anyway, so this guy got up and gave his spiel in heavily accented English, and when it was all done, the whole church applauded. I don't know exactly why (it's not like everyone who gets up to make an announcement gets applause), but it was nice to see.
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