As the snow piles up i'm debating whether having another snow day would be a good thing or a bad thing. I could use the extra time to work on a few assignments and maybe bake some tofu and do some laundry...but then again, I could also use the money that would be a result of my shift in the morning. Even more so with Spring Break looming and the store being closed next week.

My political philosophy midterm requires me to reflect on this whole Danish cartoon controversy. It's an interesting dilemna. I can certainly appreciate the principle of refraining from displays that will offend deeply-held beliefs such as this is for certain groups within Islam, and I know enough about Islam to realize that it's a much bigger deal than it would be for, say, the majority of Christians. I also recognize that Muslims have been the subject of unacceptable racism in the West in recent years...and the argument that the newspaper editor was originally trying to make in the article accompanying the cartoons - that censoring religious criticisms is inconsistent with freedom of speech - could easily have been made without including the drawings. It was an irresponsible bit of journalism, especially in a time of such conflict and sensitivity.

That said, I have a problem with people forcing their religious rules on others, and the issue originally stemmed from an author who couldn't get his book illustrated because the artists he approached were scared off by ACTUAL VIOLENCE AND MURDER committed against others who had depicted Mohammad in their work.

It's also interesting that the most offensive images in the dossier given to Islamic world leaders were not in fact published in the newspaper in question, and one of them was taken completely out of context - it was some French dude in a pig-squealing competition or something. So does anybody even know where these came from? Somebody intentionally trying to escalate the furor? Because I seriously doubt that the original 12 drawings, although a few of them are highly questionable, would have led to embassies being torched. Some Islamic groups strongly oppose the depiction of Mohammad, but it's been done before plenty of times - on South Park, for crying out loud - and that failed to arouse anger on this scale.

There was an interesting comment in a letter to the editor of the Globe last week: why is it that the reaction of Muslims to to those who use their religion to justify unspeakable acts, so much weaker than the reaction to a set of cartoons? I would argue that it's not so much that the reaction against extremists distorting their religion is necesarily WEAKER, it's that it's more PEACEFUL...and unfortunately peaceful doesn't sell newspapers.

Anyway sorry for the disjointed and possibly incoherent post. I'm just trying to work through a compliated issue and, well, I'm simple. I really think that this needs to be discussed openly and the media have shrunk into a very guarded discussion of it so as to avoid further controversy. Comments?