Good day not to be in the religion forum, as one can easily predict the discussion over there.

Bryant

as it's all over GD and LBN. They're almost gleeful in having an occasion to broadbrush and really swing for the fences. My ignore list is expanding like a newborn universe.

I feel sorry for them.

And part of that is an inability to see Muslims as individuals, just pasting the same negative stereotype onto all.

I was out haunting the art supply stores.

Was just a mean spirited day here and I am glad it is over.

Cold, though. We're having about a week of winter down here.

Warmer here, but we're desert creatures!

One is the real issue of the day - which is, is there any satire, no matter how hurtful, that should be cause for execution? The answer to that question is no - I don't care how hateful it might be, nobody deserves to die for expressing an opinion.

The problem with that debate is that everybody is pretty much on the same side of that debate.

Another debate is, were the cartoons posted appropriate or valid or good or funny or worthwhile. That's not really an ideal thing to discuss while 12 people are dead. But it is a subject on which everybody can have an opinion and there can be the sort of fiery debates and discussions DU likes.

The problem with those debates is that suggesting that some forms of satire aren't the best automatically implies that, on some level, the 12 people dead there deserved it. So while I do think talking about satire is a relevant and useful discussion, it's not a good discussion to have this week.

Bryant

But at least this should be a heads-up that perhaps publications that handle this sort of material should consider increased security.

But I suspect that the French can rise above such primitive vengeance-seeking in 2015 better than Americans could in 2001-2003. Of course, having such monsters as Cheney and Bush in power was no help. But it's still astonishing that "punish Iraq for what the Saudis did" and "hate the French and Germans for not supporting us" could have gotten any traction at all back then. The media were in full blown "hate is sweeping the country" enabling mode in a way that still scares me to think about. France is more civilized than to descend into such madness. But DU reactions are those of Americans who have been subjected to Islamophobic propaganda for a long time now.