Lost Time

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6502432.post-1140360944701227832006-02-19T15:17:00.000+01:002006-02-20T12:17:58.286+01:00Lost TimeI haven't blogged in about a week. It isn't that I've lost interest in what's going on. It's not even just that I've been too busy. (I have been, but I can find time when I need to.) It's that every time I see something in the news that I feel compelled to blog about it, I start a post, am unable to finish it in the time I've got, and then when I finally do have time to finish it there's something else in the news that I'm even more anxious to write about. Off the top of my head, I can remember wanting to write about <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700414.stm">the Swedisih government's shutting down</a> of a private party's website because it hosted pictures of the cartoon; the <a href="http://newsroom.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=11770&group=Politics">Finnish prime minister's apology</a> to the Muslim world for the cartoons having been hosted on a private site in Finland; the reaction of various Danish Muslims to the Prime Minister's <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4708312.stm">meeting with only one particular group</a> of Muslims; the <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15255121.htm">momentary political shift</a> in Denmark away from the Social Democrats and toward neither Venstre or the Conservatives but the Danish Folk Party; the ongoing lack of concern about Silvio Berlusconi's self-description as "<a href="http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-02-12T175341Z_01_L1289005_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-ITALY-BERLUSCONI-JESUS.XML">the Jesus Christ of politics</a>," especially when compared to the furor over another government minister's having been <a href="http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20060219&hn=29948">forced to resign</a> for having worn a tee-shirt with one of the cartoons upon it; and, lastly, the dismally unfolding reality that while most western individuals on the left and right really do seem to "get it," our media and governments have put up their white flags. Maybe that's because they're the media and governments and are so used to triangulating their statements, or trying to maintain the illusion that they're doing so, they've lost all common sense. Because the common sense I'm hearing from pretty much everyone I talk to or correspond with, of every political persuasion, is this: whatever you think of the cartoons or the paper, the paper had the right to publish them. And the government has no authority to take any action against the newspapers for having done so. And Danish businesses and the Danish people certainly don't bear any collective responsibility for the behavior of a single newspaper. And Muslims around the world have every right to be offended, to express their offense, even to conduct peaceful though wrong-headed boycotts. It's also common sense that when you start burning effigies, issuing death threats, inciting riots, attacking innocents, and burning down or attacking diplomatic installations, you've left the realm of the "peaceful protest." Anyway, instead of trying to get caught up and make up for lost time, I'm just going to post this great link to Flemming Rose's own account of "<a href="http://www.jp.dk/english_news/artikel:aid=3566642/ ">Why I Published Those Cartoons</a>." It's in English. I'll try now to resume posting on my regular erratic schedule.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03391154252801691765noreply@blogger.com