Except insane.
Posted on 02/05/2006 8:43:23 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
ANKARA (Reuters) - An Italian Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in his church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon on Sunday, police said.
They gave no more details, but CNN Turk television said police were looking for a young man aged about 17 years old seen fleeing the scene.
CNN Turk showed a small crowd of onlookers near the Santa Maria church where the priest was killed. The state Anatolian news agency identified the dead man as Andrea Santaro, aged 60. Other Turkish media said he had been in Turkey about five years.
Anatolian quoted Trabzon governor Huseyin Yavuzdemir as saying: "We condemn this attack against a man of religion ... There are witnesses. The police are trying to catch the suspect based on information the witnesses gave."
The gunman's motive was unclear. Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim and has only a tiny Christian population.
Turkey, like many other Muslim countries, has seen regular protests in recent days against cartoons published in several European newspapers depicting the Prophet Mohammad.
Turkish leaders have expressed strong distaste at the cartoons, but have also called for calm and better understanding between different cultures and religious faiths.
Turkey's non-Muslim clergy, including Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, have also condemned the cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper.
Violent attacks on Christian clergy are virtually unheard of in Turkey, which takes pride in its history as a meeting place of different cultures and religions.
An Italian Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in his church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon on Sunday, police said.
Thanks for posting. If you get a chance, go to Michelle Malkin's website and The Jawa Report to check for updates on the cartoon jihad.
'Sensitivity' can have brutal consequences
February 5, 2006
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
I long ago lost count of the number of times I've switched on the TV and seen crazy guys jumping up and down in the street, torching the Stars and Stripes and yelling ''Death to the Great Satan!'' Or torching the Union Jack and yelling ''Death to the Original If Now Somewhat Arthritic And Semi-Retired Satan!'' But I never thought I'd switch on the TV and see the excitable young lads jumping up and down in Jakarta, Lahore, Aden, Hebron, etc., etc., torching the flag of Denmark.
Denmark! Even if you were overcome with a sudden urge to burn the Danish flag, where do you get one in a hurry in Gaza? Well, OK, that's easy: the nearest European Union Humanitarian Aid and Intifada-Funding Branch Office. But where do you get one in an obscure town on the Punjabi plain on a Thursday afternoon? If I had a sudden yen to burn the Yemeni or Sudanese flag on my village green, I haven't a clue how I'd get hold of one in this part of New Hampshire. Say what you like about the Islamic world, but they show tremendous initiative and energy and inventiveness, at least when it comes to threatening death to the infidels every 48 hours for one perceived offense or another. If only it could be channeled into, say, a small software company, what an economy they'd have.
Meanwhile, back in Copenhagen, the Danes are a little bewildered to find that this time it's plucky little Denmark who's caught the eye of the nutters. Last year, a newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published several cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, whose physical representation in art is forbidden by Islam. The cartoons aren't particularly good and they were intended to be provocative. But they had a serious point. Before coming to that, we should note that in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags. When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.
Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith.
Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.
Jyllands-Posten wasn't being offensive for the sake of it. They had a serious point -- or, at any rate, a more serious one than Britney Spears or Terence McNally. The cartoons accompanied a piece about the dangers of "self-censorship" -- i.e., a climate in which there's no explicit law forbidding you from addressing the more, er, lively aspects of Islam but nonetheless everyone feels it's better not to.
That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.
One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.
No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."
And doubtless the British foreign secretary also appreciates the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And the "sensitivity" of the Dutch film director Albert Ter Heerdt, who canceled the sequel to his hit multicultural comedy ''Shouf Shouf Habibi!'' on the grounds that "I don't want a knife in my chest" -- which is what happened to the last Dutch film director to make a movie about Islam: Theo van Gogh, on whose ''right to dissent'' all those Hollywood blowhards are strangely silent. Perhaps they're just being "sensitive,'' too.
And perhaps the British foreign secretary also admires the "sensitivity" of those Dutch public figures who once spoke out against the intimidatory aspects of Islam and have now opted for diplomatic silence and life under 24-hour armed guard. And maybe he even admires the "sensitivity" of the increasing numbers of Dutch people who dislike the pervasive fear and tension in certain parts of the Netherlands and so have emigrated to Canada and New Zealand.
Very few societies are genuinely multicultural. Most are bicultural: On the one hand, there are folks who are black, white, gay, straight, pre-op transsexual, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, worshippers of global-warming doom-mongers, and they rub along as best they can. And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.
One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there's very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity and Sharia. As a famously sensitive Dane once put it, "To be or not to be, that is the question."
© Mark Steyn, 2006
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn05.html
News Break
USS Cole attack planner escapes
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-02-05-yemen-escape_x.htm
We are all Danes now
Jeff Jacoby
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/02/05/we_are_all_danes_now/
Iran Vows to Continue Nuclear Work, Says `Middle Ages' Are Over (When it's convenient?)
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aStBsy1BUozs&refer=home
News Break
Europeans change their tune after Iran's nuclear threats
Diplomatic channels may not be enough to stem the inflammatory statements from Tehran.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060205/OPINION01/602050330/1008
Except insane.
Saudis Shred Bibles, Rights Campaigners Claim
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/1331096.html
Unchallenged, a man poses as a suicide bomber. Police stop press taking pictures
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/05/nflag105.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/05/ixnewstop.html
Two Jordan editors are arrested
Two Jordanian newspaper editors who published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been arrested.
Jihad Momani and Hisham Khalidi are accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law.
Mr Momani was fired from the weekly Shihan after reproducing the cartoons - originally printed in Denmark - which have caused a global storm of protest.
One of the cartoons depicts Muhammad as a terrorist. Any images of the Prophet are banned under Islamic tradition.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4680948.stm
From Bulldog Pundit:
A Message To All Those Muslims Rioting Over Cartoons....
If you are one of those Muslims that is rioting and setting embassies ablaze because of some Danish cartoons depicting Allah is a terrorist I just want to let you know that you are all "bleeping" insane nutcases that the world would likely be better off without. Perhaps you all should use your energy to coming out of the stone age, teaching your women to read and drive, and aspiring to something other than getting 72 virgins in exchange for blowing infidels to bits.
Hey, if you're offended by the cartoons, get over it. Does it suck to be offended? Sure, the first reaction that sane people have to getting offended isn't to kill people and destroy things. And keep in mind you're getting worked up into homicidal rage - BY FRIGGIN CARTOONS!!!! For any of you who say there's no difference between their culture and our own, keep in mind this is all happening because of FRIGGIN CARTOONS!!!
So again I say to those rioters that instead of killing people and shouting "Allahu Akbar!!", it might be a better idea to bring your bass-ackwards culture into the 21st century so that instead of having time to burn the nearest embassy you all could make meaningful contributions to the world and let the rest of us get on with our lives without having to worry about the next batch of suicide bombers and terrorists coming out of your midst.
http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3094
Meanwhile, in our wonderful country...
Appeals Court Upholds Nativity Ban in NYC Schools
http://www.townhall.com/news/ext_wire.html?rowid=46537
But the star and cresent are permitted btw.
I love when religion imposes its peaceful dogma upon the world through bloodshed. It is the height of hypocrisy and absurdity.
"The gunman's motive was unclear. Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim and has only a tiny Christian population."
The latter sentence explains the former. ROP my ass.
Something to keep in the back of our minds (it may not be so 'out there'):
MAARTEN SCHENCK:
An interesting side-effect of the Danish cartoon affair might be the invasion of Syria by U.S. forces. As you can read in this CNN article, the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus were burned down by angry mobs on Sunday.
Now, depending on the level of (passive) involvement by the Syrian regime, one could make the case this is an act of war. And since Norway and Denmark are both NATO members, Bush can invoke article V of the NATO charter that says an attack on one member state is an attack against all of them...
Presto! Legal casus belli... and no need to find further justifications in hidden WMD's, terror sponsoring or the need for 'regime change'. Just point the tanks in Baghdad to Damascus and start driving...
http://maarten.typepad.com/brusselsblog/2006/02/can_bush_now_le.html
From Glenn at Instapundit... spread the word.
HERE'S A GALLERY CONTAINING IMAGES OF MOHAMMED throughout Islamic history. Apparently, portraying the Prophet isn't quite as much a no-no as some have claimed.
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
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That has been proved to be a concern which is lacking among those who profess faith within the Muslims.
If it were to be a true religion of peace, then it would be Muslims heading up the fight against terrorists and not Christians and others.
Sadly, this isn't reality.
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