Friday, February 10
Me in the Sun
Yesterday I was interviewed, via email, by a reporter at the Toronto Sun. Here's the story (syndicated to the Vancouver edition)...
Weblogs take on the cartoon controversy:
"Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle didn't think twice about republishing controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad on her website last week, even as they sparked violent protests around the globe."
***
The journalist I spoke to has his own blog, and talks about the interview and the cartoon controversy here.
***
Here's everything I said, via email:
Q: Did you post them on your blog or simply link to them? I'm convinced I
saw them on your site.
A: Yes, I published them on February 3. US blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin called for a blogburst, that is, for as many bloggers as possible to post the actual cartoons on their sites, all at the same time. I downloaded a sort of "contact sheet" from her site, which offered thumbnails of all the Danish cartoons (not the 3 forgeries that actually caused all the controversy as it turned out -- at that point those forgeries were not really on anyone's radar screen.) We all thought the Muslim rioters were mad about the original Danish cartoons, so that's what we posted.
Q: What were your reasons for doing so?
A: My reasons were probably no different than any other bloggers'. Western civilization is under attack by radical Islam, and has been for some time, arguably since Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK in 1968. Freedom of speech is a cornerston of that very civilization, so it must be defended, and those who would try to silence us must be mocked and defied at every turn. I didn't give posting those cartoons a second thought.
Were they deliberately provocative? Of course. Deliberate provocations are also part of the great Western tradition, from the Boston Tea Party to the Sex Pistol's first single. And many people deserve to be provoked. It will do them some good.
Q: What's the reaction been like?
A: I've been posting about this subject for some time now, and if my web site traffic is any indication, people are very interested. My traffic has never been higher, about twice as much as normal.
I've only received one (rather pathetic) piece of hate mail (from a non-Muslim leftist, not surprisingly), even after Antonia Zerbisias at the Star spent three paragraphs of a column earlier this week comparing me to a torturer from the Spanish Inquisition. When you're a Catholic, you get used to all the tired old "Spanish Inquistion" cliches -- they're the first tool in every simpleminded secularist's little box of insults. Anyhow, all she did was send me traffic from around the world, as people googled my name and blog to see for themselves what I was all about.
Q: What do you think of the decision by mainstream media in Canada not to publish? Should they?
A: Well, that is their decision. So many "controversies" we face today would be more easily solved if we simply asked ourselves, "Whose property is it?". And as blogger Colby Cosh put it so much better than I can, Big Media has lots of very big, expensive buildings they'd rather not see blown up, so you can kind of see their point...
However, I do hope journalists will now stop trying to portray themselves as the courageous, morally superior avant guarde, "speaking truth to power" and so forth. This incident has proven yet again that they are for the most part just a bunch of cowardly, careerist conformists on the wrong side of history.
As well, most journalists are religious illiterates, so perhaps it is just as welll that they leave us bloggers to handle important situations like this. I mean, you have one of their heros, reporter Robert Fisk, who can't even get the birthplace of Jesus right in his new book. And CTV mentioned that the star drawn on Muhammed's head on one of the cartoons was "the Soviet star"!
When idiots like that are employed by Big Media, it comes as no surprise that they can't report this story competently.
Q: Were you concerned about your own safety, site, etc.?
A: No. I get asked that the odd time, because I don't spare Muslims for criticism on my blog. Of course, I'd have less to criticize if a) they stopped killing people and b) moderate Muslims would do their job and tell their co-religionists to chill. I'm beginning to think that moderate Muslims are an urban legend, like the crocodiles in the sewers of New York.
I also make fun of the Amish, Buddhists and yes, even the Vatican -- their pathetic statement about the whole cartoon controversy was one of their typical exercises in mealy mouthed, Euro-trash, diplomatic bureaucratic butt-covering nonsense.
No one is spared on my blog if they do something foolish that I happen to think is worth writing about.
I don't buy into this notion that religion is automatically deserving of "respect". We've been hearing that word a lot lately. The other people who use the word "respect" a lot (or, more likely, "disrespect" -- as a verb...) are those thugs who make Toronto's streets so unsafe for decent people. When thugs, be they gangstas or Mafia types or Islamic crazies or other macho bores, complain that we are not showing them adequate "respect", what they really mean is that we are not showing them adequate FEAR.
Well, why put up with such foolishness? I wasn't raised by nuns for nothing. Anyone who decided to kill me in the name of Allah would only be sending me to heaven and himself to hell. It is sad to think that an atheist like Theo Van Gogh didn't have that belief to confort him while his head was being sawed off. By a Southern Baptist. I mean, Muslim...
Not all belief systems are worthy of respect. If your beliefs can't stand scrutiny or mockery, perhaps you beliefs are stupid, no? I am a Catholic, not a Muslim; I am under no obligation to observe their strictures about "blasphemy" -- we're not living under sharia law. Yet.
Weblogs take on the cartoon controversy:
"Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle didn't think twice about republishing controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad on her website last week, even as they sparked violent protests around the globe."
***
The journalist I spoke to has his own blog, and talks about the interview and the cartoon controversy here.
***
Here's everything I said, via email:
Q: Did you post them on your blog or simply link to them? I'm convinced I
saw them on your site.
A: Yes, I published them on February 3. US blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin called for a blogburst, that is, for as many bloggers as possible to post the actual cartoons on their sites, all at the same time. I downloaded a sort of "contact sheet" from her site, which offered thumbnails of all the Danish cartoons (not the 3 forgeries that actually caused all the controversy as it turned out -- at that point those forgeries were not really on anyone's radar screen.) We all thought the Muslim rioters were mad about the original Danish cartoons, so that's what we posted.
Q: What were your reasons for doing so?
A: My reasons were probably no different than any other bloggers'. Western civilization is under attack by radical Islam, and has been for some time, arguably since Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK in 1968. Freedom of speech is a cornerston of that very civilization, so it must be defended, and those who would try to silence us must be mocked and defied at every turn. I didn't give posting those cartoons a second thought.
Were they deliberately provocative? Of course. Deliberate provocations are also part of the great Western tradition, from the Boston Tea Party to the Sex Pistol's first single. And many people deserve to be provoked. It will do them some good.
Q: What's the reaction been like?
A: I've been posting about this subject for some time now, and if my web site traffic is any indication, people are very interested. My traffic has never been higher, about twice as much as normal.
I've only received one (rather pathetic) piece of hate mail (from a non-Muslim leftist, not surprisingly), even after Antonia Zerbisias at the Star spent three paragraphs of a column earlier this week comparing me to a torturer from the Spanish Inquisition. When you're a Catholic, you get used to all the tired old "Spanish Inquistion" cliches -- they're the first tool in every simpleminded secularist's little box of insults. Anyhow, all she did was send me traffic from around the world, as people googled my name and blog to see for themselves what I was all about.
Q: What do you think of the decision by mainstream media in Canada not to publish? Should they?
A: Well, that is their decision. So many "controversies" we face today would be more easily solved if we simply asked ourselves, "Whose property is it?". And as blogger Colby Cosh put it so much better than I can, Big Media has lots of very big, expensive buildings they'd rather not see blown up, so you can kind of see their point...
However, I do hope journalists will now stop trying to portray themselves as the courageous, morally superior avant guarde, "speaking truth to power" and so forth. This incident has proven yet again that they are for the most part just a bunch of cowardly, careerist conformists on the wrong side of history.
As well, most journalists are religious illiterates, so perhaps it is just as welll that they leave us bloggers to handle important situations like this. I mean, you have one of their heros, reporter Robert Fisk, who can't even get the birthplace of Jesus right in his new book. And CTV mentioned that the star drawn on Muhammed's head on one of the cartoons was "the Soviet star"!
When idiots like that are employed by Big Media, it comes as no surprise that they can't report this story competently.
Q: Were you concerned about your own safety, site, etc.?
A: No. I get asked that the odd time, because I don't spare Muslims for criticism on my blog. Of course, I'd have less to criticize if a) they stopped killing people and b) moderate Muslims would do their job and tell their co-religionists to chill. I'm beginning to think that moderate Muslims are an urban legend, like the crocodiles in the sewers of New York.
I also make fun of the Amish, Buddhists and yes, even the Vatican -- their pathetic statement about the whole cartoon controversy was one of their typical exercises in mealy mouthed, Euro-trash, diplomatic bureaucratic butt-covering nonsense.
No one is spared on my blog if they do something foolish that I happen to think is worth writing about.
I don't buy into this notion that religion is automatically deserving of "respect". We've been hearing that word a lot lately. The other people who use the word "respect" a lot (or, more likely, "disrespect" -- as a verb...) are those thugs who make Toronto's streets so unsafe for decent people. When thugs, be they gangstas or Mafia types or Islamic crazies or other macho bores, complain that we are not showing them adequate "respect", what they really mean is that we are not showing them adequate FEAR.
Well, why put up with such foolishness? I wasn't raised by nuns for nothing. Anyone who decided to kill me in the name of Allah would only be sending me to heaven and himself to hell. It is sad to think that an atheist like Theo Van Gogh didn't have that belief to confort him while his head was being sawed off. By a Southern Baptist. I mean, Muslim...
Not all belief systems are worthy of respect. If your beliefs can't stand scrutiny or mockery, perhaps you beliefs are stupid, no? I am a Catholic, not a Muslim; I am under no obligation to observe their strictures about "blasphemy" -- we're not living under sharia law. Yet.
