Chiming into the whole Mohammed cartoon fray, these things both confound me and totally don't surprise me. It's so funny, and yet so sad and predictably uncivil.

Freedom of speech is sacrosanct in modern Westernized cultures. It's a fundamental right and as sacred as anything gets in the secular world. It was fully within the rights of the Danish publication to run the cartoons.

I don't think they should have. Why should the prophet Mohammed be treated any different than any other religious figure open for caricature and lampoon? Because the Muslims have explicitly said this is forbidden in Islam and would be highly offensive to them. Rights aren't a carte blanche to abuse, they need to be balanced with responsibility and respect.

But as I said, it's still their freedom of speech, so I don't condemn the publications even though I think they should have used better judgment. Once the act was done, it was heartbreaking to see the visual and vocal response, i.e. the one the world sees, is violence.

Kidnapping, killing, riots, boycotts are not the way of peace, and is un-Islamic, I would think. And I look at the ratio of how many Muslims in the world are not being violent to each Muslim who is being violent, and even without numbers I think it's clearly a fringe minority who are being violent.

I don't think the violence is a Muslim reaction, even though much of the world will perceive it as such, even if the perpetrators intended it as such. I think the violence is more about the cultures, the human beings in the culture, and the circumstances within the culture, which might touch on Islam-related things, such as feeling oppressed by the Western world.

I can't say since I'm not Muslim, but I imagine a more Islamic response would be a worldwide call from the imams to engage in a dialogue amongst Muslims and non-Muslims to understand and explain why any portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed is prohibited and offensive.

As for newspapers across Europe re-printing the cartoon in solidarity with the Danish, I can hardly blame them for that. That's the natural response caused by the violent uproar in the Muslim world which in effect posited the issue as "freedom of speech vs. religious fanaticism". It becomes all a part of the escalation with no one wise enough or strong enough to de-escalate.

Alright, that's enough. This post can go on and on, and it's really just an exercise to go on about something. It's not a topic that is near and dear to me. And in my own training, I shouldn't even be writing this because of the way it's training my mind to think and act and move in the material world, when my practice is to be liberated from it by not treating it as reality, as if my words mean something.

In short, the Danish publication shouldn't have published the cartoon, but had the right to. Muslims were right to be offended and outraged, but the response should have not been a resort to violence and didn't have to be. To think people thought the end of people's lives were worth this is horrific. When you woke up this morning did you think you would die today? Do you think they did? That their lives would end that day? A dialogue would have been more effective in teaching non-Muslims about the true nature of Islam, and would have had a better chance of eliciting an apology from the Danish publishers. It would have shown that Muslims respect freedom of speech, but understand the responsibilities that freedom requires. Christians need to stop thinking that people not believing in Jesus the Christ are going to hell because that's a horrifying mindset to have in itself and is just priming themselves for a hell-like existence.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Rebel Girl (Bikini Kill)
2. I Grieve (Peter Gabriel)
3. Here's Where the Story Ends (The Sundays)
4. Two Is Enough (Seam)
5. Itoshi no Happy Days (Dreams Come True)
6. Now (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
7. Dhak Dhak Karne Laga ("Beta")
8. Things We Said Today (The Beatles)
9. Yo Yo Yo (Please Don't Fall in Love) (+/-)
10. Kooks (David Bowie)