Posted on 04/25/2006 5:34:41 AM PDT by Dark Skies
A Cologne brothel touting for clients with a World Cup-themed banner has blacked out the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia after threats from Muslims.
The giant banner on a high-rise building shows a semi-naked woman and the flags of the 32 countries in the World Cup, which kicks off in June.
The Pascha brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advert.
He said they had accused the brothel of insulting Islam by using the flags.
First there were telephone threats of violence, then about 30 hooded protesters armed with knives and sticks turned up outside Pascha on Friday, the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported.
"The situation was explosive," Mr Lobscheid told the paper.
"Some of the people compared our ad to the Danish Mohammed cartoons," he said, referring to cartoons which sparked violent protests in several Muslim countries in February.
The Tunisian flag - bearing the Muslim crescent symbol - remains on the ad, however.
'Overlooked'
The slogan on the ad reads: "The world is a guest of female friends" - a variant of the official World Cup slogan: "The world is a guest of friends".
Mr Lobscheid said the banner had been commissioned in a normal business deal and "we certainly didn't intend to insult anyone".
He said the significance of the flags' symbols had been overlooked.
Prostitution is legal in Germany, where the authorities are preparing for a possible boom in the sex trade during the World Cup.
What they can't discern is fantasy and reality. Sex in the City is Fantasy, Islamic terror is reality.
Hollywood and a liberal media in Europe have created the "image" of the US.
Heres a good one. When I was still there and the last elections were impending, I explained to some (in casual; conversation when politics came up) that Bush might win. In fact its very likely he wins. They were:
1. Shocked that I could actually say that. After all, who would vote for such a horrible president?
2. Thought I was crazy and that Bush would loose by a landslide to Kerry. Why do they think that way?
Because this is where the average German gets his information from: http://www.spiegel.de/ and http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/index.html . A few, a real small percentage might have vacationed in Florida. Those are then the "experts" reporting on what the US is all about.
Example: All they hear about Iraq is one sided. Their government is today silent (The want to no agitate the situation) but under Schroeder was actively making statements negative to the war, its justification, outcome and costs. Then add in a media that is even MORE left than in the US. Imagine a media where what they call right is at best slightly left of center in economic and security matters compared to us. What they call center is what we call liberals and what they call left we call freaks, whackos, who no one plays attention to here. Der Spiegel for example is one of Germanys main weekly papers and is in bed with guess who? The NYTs. But Der Spiegel is even a tad bit further left than the NYTs if you can believe that?
The German perception of the US is a bunch of simplifications, clichés and a one sided view. Just like the average American really does not know much about Germany, they know little about the US. But of course they will snicker and think the American is uneducated because he does not know the capital of Austria. But does the German or Austrian for that matter know the capital of California? After all, California has a larger GDP, population, land mass, bigger military with its National Guard and even has a former Austrian as their governor. Walk up to an average European once and ask him: Whats the capital of NY? California? Texas? Ironically their media tells them we are stupid because we dont know the capital of Denmark.
Back to the point They get blasted by an extremely left media which even told them to be afraid of that evil Rupert Murdock and his right wing FOX news. Of course the Germans that say this never have seen FOX for the most part, but thats again another side bar conversation of its own. Also the minor fact that the German media is partially state run (ARD, ZDF, HR3, SWF, DW, WDR, NDR
.) is a slight detail that the German does not seem to worry much about.
The Germans maybe should get a clue from indicators like when Fahrenheit 9-11 sells better there than in the US; when Bowling for Columbine sells better there than in the US; when the NYTs is loosing ground in the US but does well selling stories in Der Spiegel
. What the Germans want to believe, and have been told, is far from what we are.
"The Germans maybe should get a clue from indicators like when Fahrenheit 9-11 sells better there than in the US; when Bowling for Columbine sells better there than in the US; when the NYTs is loosing ground in the US but does well selling stories in Der Spiegel
. What the Germans want to believe, and have been told, is far from what we are."
They can retort what you said here with the clinche "those who don't want to face the truth won't face it and thus won't watch it". We can only persuade them with direct evidence - that whether Michael Moore and NYT have spoken the truth.
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