Hopefully, this blog won’t cause the above title to actually accur, but I found this amusing article on Islam and the big cartoon fiasco.
However, if Al Quaida is watching, barnson.org is originated in UTAH, not Maryland! 😉
My $.02 Weed
Jihad on Barnson.Org!!!!
Hopefully, this blog won’t cause the above title to actually accur, but I found this amusing article on Islam and the big cartoon fiasco.
However, if Al Quaida is watching, barnson.org is originated in UTAH, not Maryland! 😉
My $.02
Weed
Danish Imams
I think it’s interesting that the Danish Imams, however, fabricated three images which were much more offensive than the original 12, and added them to the page they distributed in order to stir up dissent. One ostensibly portrayed Mohammed with pigs ears (later found to be a grainy version of a famous French pig caller doing his routine), another showed the caption “Why Muslims Actually Pray” with a picture of a dog mounting a kneeling man, and a third showing a Mohammed with horns holding a child in each hand and accusing him of being a pedophile.
Offensive, surely.
But these are entirely a fabrication of Danish Imams (Islamic religious leaders) who are inciting to riot based on trumped-up claims. Those dudes should be the ones getting the threats, not the cartoonists who didn’t do anything remotely that offensive.
I love the Internet. It results in a lot of lies, like these of these Danish Muslim leaders, being exposed. But unfortunately, most of the same people out there rioting due to the offensive images they were shown in church aren’t the ones with Internet access, able to learn that their own leaders are, in fact, deceiving them for idealogical gain.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
I gotta say, I really feel
I gotta say, I really feel bad for the cartoonist who drew the damn thing. Not that I’m in any way saying that cartoons should be censored, or that the numerous deaths from rioting in the past few days are his fault. Christ, at times like this, the last thing we want to do is point blame.
It’s just got to really, really suck to see what bitter fruit your labour has brought forth. Genuinely, he must be going through hell right now.
argh
Come on Weed, an article from Ann Coulter? That skinny ***** is only one step behind bin Laden on the crazy scale.
— Ben
Non-Discrimatory
See, I try to not to care where my entertainment comes from, as long as it entertains me. That’s how my musical taste can run from the Beastie Boys to Van Halen to U2 to Eminem to Midnight Oil to the Dixies Chicks to Digital Underground.
If I filtered what I read, listened to, watched, etc to non-insane, normal people without vices or failures, I’d be severely limited in my selections.
I definitely wouldn’t have been able to enjoy Wayward Sun back in the day 😉
My $.02 Weed
Insane in the Membrane
Point taken. 🙂
— Ben
Wayward Who?
What is this band you guys keep referring to?
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
OMG, that was an Ann Coulter
OMG, that was an Ann Coulter article?
No wonder I experienced some deep, subliminal, loathing when I read it, as though some dark primal aspect of the human collective was reaching out from our long-ago tribal past and equivocating reading that article with eating the spiney, brightly colored fruit that made Lothar die in some prehistoric epileptic fit.
On a related note, say what you will about Al Franken, but he writes great chapter titles. From “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them:”
Chapter Two – Ann Coulter is A Psycho Nutjob. Chapter Three – You Know Who I Really Hate? Ann Coulter
She’s Getting Fat
I saw a picture of her the other day, and it looks as though she’s getting fatter. Regardless of her weight, she is a psycho nut-job. Reading that article, I wonder if she’s ever visited a Muslim country?
It’s her kind of superiority logic that continues to divide the world.
I must admit
I didnt’ know squat about Ann Coulter before I posted this blog. Having done some quick research, she does seem a little out-there. I can see why the more liberal-leaning members of this board would be offended by her.
That being said, I do remember Mr. Graber writing a song with lyrics about sexual escapades turned hermaphoditic (or cross-genderal). Sometimes entertainment must border on offensiveness before it can entertain. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than the latest lawyer-speak from ORL about student conduct. Don’t say anything remotely offensive. Make sure you take EVERYONE’s feelings into account before you speak.
Before long we’re all going to sound like the peasant in “The Holy Grail”…”Help, help, I’m being repressed!”
Without approving or diapproving of Ms. Coulter’s views, I liked the fact that while the media was backpedaling and backpedaling over the cartoon issues, most of us were thinking to ourselves, “Jeesh, they’re just cartoons!”.
While it would be more fodder for the militant Islamics, if I were the leader of the free world, I’d say, “Hey, we’re sorry you’re offended, but get over it. It’s just a cartoon. Don’t buy their newspaper anymore.” The president of Iran can say the Holocaust was a myth, but Allah forbid we depict Mohammed in a cartoon.
I’d like to start a religion where I’m offended if women wear clothes around me. Can we start that one?
My $.02 Weed
The problems I have with Ann
The problems I have with Ann Coulter have nothing to do with her being conservative, for the record. They have everything to do with her being a b@(#$. My issues with people like that cross all political and social boundaries.
I had a classmate in my college’s theatre department who was both gay and hispanic, and in his quest to fight off the opression of ‘his people’ he developed a superiority complex that in his mind allowed him to say whatever he wanted with absolutely no regard to the feelings of other people. He once accused me of disliking him because he was gay and/or hispanic. I replied that no, I disliked him because he was an a@#-h@($.
Being offensive, either in order to entertain or to speak truth to power, is important and at times very much needed. But when it becomes your bread and butter, your way of life, when you start throwing around half-cocked ideas without truly counting the cost of what you say, then you lose my support.
Words are power. Plain and simple. In my personal opinion, people like Ann Coulter abuse that power for their own aggrandizement. And I have very little respect for that, regardless of whether or not I agree with what they’re saying.
I agree
I agree with you wholeheartedly in that I don’t support people who aggravate simply because it gets a reaction. Honestly, even though I thought the article was amusing, if I had known anything about Ann Coulter, I wouldn’t have posted it.
However, now that I know about her, I’ll just ignore her. Once I know someone is on stage just to rifle my feathers and act like they’re superior to all, I just ignore them. To give them any sort of attention is just what they want. The best thing is to let them fade away.
Plus, if you know someone is like that, and you allow yourself to get agitated by them, then it’s shame on you. I take the blame for posting the article without knowing the history behind the author, so that rule doesn’t apply here. But if I had said “Here is an article by Ann Coulter” and then you got all upset reading it, then you need to control your emotions better, because you knew what you were going to get before you read it. I have the same feelings about Limbaugh and The Rev Je$$e Jackson.
Note the “you” in the above paragraph is the generic you, not a specific person.
My $.02 Weed
“But he wouldn’t let me, this girl was a guy”
I’m all in favor of offensive humor, but Ann Coulter is the chick who, after 9/11, suggested that we kill all the leaders of Middle East nations and forcibly convert the people to Christianity.
She’s out there.
— Ben
True
I don’t argue. But she’s a journalist/talking head. That’s what she does. That she has a view from the extreme far right is immaterial. I have apologized for quoting her without giving fair warning.
But it’s not her job to be right, or fair, or even sane. it’s her job to get ratings numbers high so whatever media she appears on can charge advertisers a higher rate because more people will be listening when she on.
It’s sad, but we’re past the day where we cn safely assume our news is brought to us accurately and without bias. Luckily, we have the internet where we can verify anything ourselves.
Ann Coulter has said some horrible things. But she HASN’T flown a plane into any buildings. One is a use of the First Amendment that may rub you the wrong way but is perfectly legal. The other killed 2000-some people. Point being Ann Coulter being allow to rant is exactly why we’re the greatest country in the world. That and your freedom to think she’s a psycho nutjob and tune her out.
I bet a lot of people were thinking along her lines immediately after the attacks. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and we didn’t attack any countries solely for oil.
Oops, that’s another blog.
My $.02 Weed
Just one quick thing I
Just one quick thing I wanted to add. Weed, I apologize if any of my posts on this topic gave you the impression that I was in any way angry or put out by the fact that you posted an Ann Coulter article on Barnson. If you find that any article provokes thought when you read it, then I think you should absolutely post it, regardless of who wrote it.
If anything, I actually got excited when I found out it was an Ann Coulter article, because, hey, another chance to mock Ann Coulter. 🙂
Yeah
I’m agreeing with Rowan here. This isn’t a criticism of you (weed) for posting this article. I just love to hate Ann Coulter.
— Ben
If Anything
If anything, I feel sheepish because I had no idea who she was. It’s like walking into class and hearing, “I hope you’re all ready for your test today” and not having a clue that a test was coming.
Takes one to know one
What suprises me about most of the comments is that they’re directed at Ann, not the article. I’m only minimally familiar with her opinions, etc., although I realize she’s along the same vein as Rush. If you want to call her a “kook” though, you’re probably implying she’s illogical in her worldview. The irony, which I trust isn’t really lost on anyone here, is that saying, “It’s from Ann, so it’s ludicrous,” is a patently illogical (ad hominem) assertion itself.
Now, in the linked article she certainly throws in some unsubstantiated stuff meant to agitate or incite readers (like the bit about feminism and “car-burning cult”). But her central premise, I think, is that expressing outrage over the depiction of Mohammed (and Islam) as a terrorist by burning flags and rioting is the kind of thing you expect of a 2-year-old, not a “religion of peace.” And I’m right there with her on that one. I mean, for the press to call the White House hypocritical because they condemn a cartoon mocking an injured soldier while condemning the Muslim rioting shows a lack of moral reasoning that is astounding. Let’s just call it like it is–somebody in Denmark hit the nail on the head. Obviously not all Muslims think this way, but when a tax-payer-funded statue of a crucified Jesus dipped upside-down in blood and cow manure is put up in Central Park, nobody’s going to be rioting.
Words (and cartoons) are powerful, yes. But they are a far cry from actions. Offensive ideas (as opposed to direct threats) never justify violence.
Accepting advice from a known idiot
Actually, there’s corollary to ad hominem that is, itself, a logical fallacy. It’s called “accepting advice from a known idiot“.
Ad hominem is not unjustified in a rational argument, if the character flaw is pertinent to the discussion at hand. If you’re considering hiring someone to a position in your company, discussing their educational, personality, and experience shortfalls is appropriate.
Similarly, Ann Coulter is a well-known demagogue, and that anything she says in public should be viewed with skepticism due to her propensity for exaggeration and appeals to the prejudice of her readers/listeners.
(The following block-quotes are entirely Ann Coulter, not Daniel anymore)
Of course I don’t think we should disregard all of her arguments. But to accept even her core premise at the start of her arguments is to accept a biased, and prejudicial viewpoint:
Right off the bat, she draws a correlation between the belief of a million Muslims and the actions of a few dozen radical extremists. On the whole, Islam is a religion of peace. But when you have a billion members of your religion, the radical 5% fringe of any religion amounts to fifty million radical fringe-ists.
That’s more than the entire asserted population of several mainstream Christian denominations.
Misuse of statistics for political gain. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) once said, “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts: for support rather than illumination.” I think that’s an entirely appropriate assessment here.
Argument from ignorance. Yes, three cartoons made political points, but it’s apparent that Coulter (at least at the point she wrote this article) was ignorant of the fact that Dutch Imams added three more highly offensive cartoons to the page in an effort to stir up protest. Even if she’s taken off her demagogue robes for the day, she’s ignoring the major cause of the trouble.
While I agree that their reaction was unwarranted, she’s using a spurious cause as a poetic device. The rioters, by and large, believed this Dutch newspaper popularized an image, with the caption “Why Muslims really pray”, which portrayed a dog mounting a man. I agree, I wouldn’t riot if a major newspaper popularized a Photoshopped image of me doing something unspeakable with an animal, but I would be upset. It was a hoax, a scam perpetuated on the Muslim community by their leaders, but it’s not a blatantly hypocritical reaction as Coulter suggests.
(Note: I’m not defending them. I’m deflating Coulter’s misguided assertion.)
Here she’s denigrating the movement which gave women the right to vote, called attention to the (ongoing!) wage disparity between the sexes in the US, and fought to allow woment to defend their country. More demagoguery, pandering to the effete Limbaughian Right who hate Civil Rights.
Straw man. The most common conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 spring from the American Left, who place the blame — where else? — on the American Right. She’s making up an argument and ascribing it as the majority opinion of 1/5 of the planet’s population.
I’m just going to stop there. Every religion has its extremists. Every race has its kooks. The unjustified actions of a few European Muslims are atrocious, vile, and wholly without merit, but Coulter’s response is simply way out in Right Field. Believing her opinion regarding Muslims is accepting advice from a known idiot.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: It doesn’t much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out next morning it was someone else. — Will Rogers
Advice
And what was Ms Coulter advising us to do?
As you’ve posted before, I wouldn’t be nearly so bold if I knew you to believe my every word (that’s an absolutely horrible paraphrase, but I’m too lazy to look it up ;). I wasn’t posting this as a call to arms against Muslims or as right-wing propaganda. I simply found it amusing.
I find NWA’s music entertaining. It’s some of the most violent, misogynistic crap out there, but the music is wonderful. Have I ever slapped a ho or put my 9 to the side of his m**** f***** head? Do I even talk like that? No. It is entirely possible to enjoy something absolutely evil and not evil yourself.
That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with your take on her post, when broken down and studied. She’s out there and can’t be taken seriously.
The average Muslim is probably either headed to or coming home from work, wondering how to pay his bills, hoping his kids are behaved and wondering if he’s gonna get any from his wife that night. Maybe playing sports or reading a book. I’ll go higher and guess 99% of the Muslim population fits into that role.
But I find it tedious to constantly read things and go, “They can’t say that, it’s offensive.” Sometimes I like to let my natural inner bias out. I’ll feed the fire that says we’re the greatest nation in the world and should smack the world around a little bit.
However, what separates me from my cat is that I can realize those primal feelings are BAD for civilization and ignore them for the reason and calm I find here at barnson.org.
And Matt, pick apart an argument that’s worth your time. Leave Ann for the lightweights 😉
My $.02 Weed
Oh, ye who worship at the
Oh, ye who worship at the altar of logic, forever gazing on nothing but its unblemished form… such a perfectly constructed cage you build around your soul…
Sorry, I was in the mood for wanton, unwarranted, massive literary hyperbole tonight.
To follow up on what I said earlier.. I don’t write Ann Coulter off because she’s illogical, I write her off because she’s a b*@#$. She’s just mean, dude. My problems aren’t with the arguments she makes so much as the way she makes them. I believe she has become so obsessed with her own worldview that, quite literally, she has started to lose respect for the essential humanity of those who disagree with her. And I find it very hard to give credence to any argument that comes from someone who so blatantly lacks compassion.
And, as Matthew put it, I think it is an entirely sound method of thinking to allow yourself to be prejudiced against someone’s argument based on their previous arguments. I’d never turn a 100% deaf ear. I mean, I did genuinely read the article and I’ll read any Ann Coulter article that someone puts in front of me, but it’s going to be a lot harder for such an article to win me over than if I were reading something by, say, Gandhi.
I mean, if I posted an article saying “Hey guys, they found this one essay that Hitler wrote a while back… kind of makes sense,” I don’t think it would be in any way an illogical reaction to think “Not bloody likely.”
(Note, Hitler and Ann Coulter not the same. Not remotely. Am not Straw Manning. Am deliberately exaggerating to better clarify my point. 🙂 )
So yes, the next time I come across an essay by Ms. Coulter, my first thoughts will most likely be “It’s from Ann. It’s ludicrous.” It may be an illogical premise, as you say. But I’ll bet my right arm that it will be a correct one.
Doesn’t matter
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
— Ben
Back to our roots
For the Mormons and former Mormons on the blog, this cartoon row must feel eerily familiar to the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, the local rag that Joseph Smith ordered destroyed before it could expose some of the sexual indiscretions of the Mormon leadership. Even though this led directly to the arrest of Smith, and that his subsequent incarceration led directly to his murder, I suspect a lot of Mormons aren’t aware that they should be standing in solidarity with the Muslims.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. – Marx
Matt, I liked the boy in the toilet a lot better…that thing is freaky. (Yes, I know who it is.)
I love Gollum!
I love Gollum. I just figured my avatar… well, it was time for a change. The kid in the potty is like a year out of date now, too.
Must figure out something clever.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Wait, there was a Gollum
Wait, there was a Gollum avatar and I missed it? Why was it taken down? 🙁
Shift-Reload
Shift-Reload is your friend 🙂 You’re probably still seeing toilet boy from your cache.
—
Matthew P. Barnson