Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Never filled out an application, got plenty work.


“You broke it, you pay for it. You owe us $35 million.”


- Bad Break: Talk about catching a “bad break.” ZIIIIIIIIIING! What a horrid pun. Anyway, I’m glad this wasn’t my bad. It’s like something out of Punk’d, huh?

- Saul Williams: Man, if Saul Williams would actually make rap music, I’d probably be really into it. That “Twice the First Time” shit is amazing. He’s got a new book though for those that are interested.

- Don’t Draw Muhammad: Call me stupid and/or ethnocentric, but I didn’t even realize it Islam banned the depiction of the prophet or Allah himself. Frankly, I think it’s a pretty cool rule: it seems to capture the notion that “representation” in art is always and necessarily a form of violence done against the referrant—in other words, art can never truly capture and/or accurately “represent” what it is attempting to refer to. I think it’s kind’ve a beautiful sentiment and a rather interesting way to show respect. But, regardless, this whole Danish newspaper cartoon thing is pretty nuts. It brings up a lot of fairly serious issues about freedom of speech/expression as well as folks’ rights and/or duty to respect other folks beliefs and values, regardless of how strange they may see. One thing’s for sure though: in today’s volatile religious climate, it certainly wasn’t smart for those idiots to do some shit that was almost definitely gonna incite a certain ire amongst Muslims. I don’t want to argue that dude didn’t have the right to draw the cartoon, but (a) it certainly wasn’t very smart and (b) it really wasn’t that funny and/or insightful. Perhaps if the cartoon really had some sort’ve important point I’d be more willing to stick up for it, but it was a picture of Muhammad with a bomb under his turban. That’s a cheap laugh, not important socioreligious commentary.

-e

1 Comments:

At 10:45 AM, Blogger Drew said...

Crazy story. I agree that the cartoon doesn't seem particularly appropriate, but it kinda sucks that all Danish people are being scrutinized by Saudis even though the gov't has essentially no control over the free press. They're shooting themselves in the foot, though--a boycott of Danish goods?! No more delicious cookie tins for y'all.

 

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