While laboring mightly on a post that examine the responses to the Danish Cartoons and the freedom of speech issues surrounding them, I asked myself would these be cartoons that I would either draw (if I could draw) or originally publish? I would have only gone with the one captioned "Stop, stop, we've run out of virgins" because I think its at least funny (yes, I laugh at and have told St. Peter jokes - the ones that involve St. Peter and the Pearly Gates and people trying to get into heaven) and captures the western amazement at the thought that people who blow themselves up with innocent civilians think that the reward for such a heinous crime is an afterlife filled with sex with 39 virgins.
The others are all too bland and innocuous or inside jokes except for the one with the bomb in the turban which I don't care for because it is too general. I understand that it may be an honest representation of the cartoonists feelings -- that he associates Islam with bombers -- but I think that subject is best tackled at length so that you can make clear that only the lunatic fringe of Islam are bombers but you worry that too many of the rest are at least sympathetic to such acts. Rather than be insulted by the cartoon, Moslems should examine why so many people outside Islam worry that the lunatic fringe is Islam. Hey, if they can demand a law that nobody in the world gets to insult the prophet , I think I can make the counter demand that they act in a way that doesn't bring reproach on the prophet. And before you submit a laundry list of why you think that either the US or Christianity is just as bad as a defense, let me remind you that my dirty laundry does wash your dirty laundry clean, it just adds to the pile of dirty laundry.
But it wouldn't have been because I was worried about offending anyone. I do try to think about what I say or write before I say it and the effect it has on others, but generally I try only to change the form so that it is an inoffensive as it can be and still be an accurate reflection of what I think, but that doesn't mean that I can make it offense free. I need to curb my tongue out of love, not fear. I try to avoid being needlessly offensive [mighty big of you -- thanks]. I don't always succeed. Sometimes the truth hurts.
