Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Oh my

Danes offer to publish Holocaust cartoons

NEW YORK - The Danish editor behind publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that ignited deadly riots in the Muslim world said Wednesday he's willing to publish cartoons on the Holocaust from Iran.

"My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them," Flemming Rose of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten said Wednesday in an interview on CNN's American Morning.

The Iranian newspaper Hamshahri said Tuesday it would hold the competition to test whether the West extends the same principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to caricatures of the Prophet.

Full article.


I can'tguaranteee it, but I'm betting that if these cartoons get published there won't be too much embassy-burning in Tel Aviv.

I have to confess I'm fascinated by all the freedom-of-the-press issues this incident has brought to the fore. I was quite surprised to see a few American editorials counseling caution; most journalists - and certainly those in training here at Ohio U - practically turn the First Amendment into the 11th Commandment. Personally, I think it wasn't too bright or sensitive for the Danish newspaper to publish the cartoons.

But the worst thing that could happen would be if the European press allows itself to be intimidated, which looks to be happening in some cases. Sure, it was a dumb and offensive editorial choice. But the publishers have every right to put it out there. The offended public in general can see for itself that the managing editor is a few aces short of a full deck, and formulate its opinions about the quality of the paper accordingly.

Suffice it to say that the rioting is insane.

UPDATE on a much less serious issue: Last night I got my Tampico orange juice chugging time down to one minute, eight seconds. Close, so close! I'll have to try again tonight... ;)

2 comments:

  1. If they keep shooting the protesting muslims eventually things will quite down.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hmmm, somehow I doubt it... anyway, if they would just stick to peaceful protests, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

    ReplyDelete