Culture in the Blender

I finished Sam Harris’s The End of Faith yesterday. His central thesis is that faith itself – the practice of believing something without proof – is extremely dangerous and ought to end. It was piecewise an extremely scary book. The book emphasizes that it is only by reason and evaluation and discussion of facts that [...]

As always, pretty funny and to the point. I especially appreciate this:
“To judge the root problem here, let us first determine how the cartoons became an international incident. Last September, these comics ran beside a story about the hurdles encountered by a Danish author in finding someone – anyone – to illustrate her children’s book [...]

The more I think and read about the cartoons, the more strongly I feel that there can be no case made for that the cartoons should not have been published. The same points are made over and over again in commentaries, and regardless of circumstances basic cornerstones of liberal democracy cannot be sacrificed by Denmark. [...]

I wanted to see the cartoons for myself, and although I haven’t found them yet, I did find some other interesting things…
“Earlier this week, imam Abu Bashir appeared on BBC World showing a caricature of Mohammed with a pig’s snout and ears to representatives of the Arabic League. Bashir falsely claimed that the caricature was [...]

Yesterday, I was reading opinions on the Danish cartoons on BBC, and had some opinions that I wanted to write in my LJ. I sign on today, open BBC – and am greeted by this:
“Embassies burn in cartoon protest
Syrians have set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus to protest at the publication [...]