Free Republic

Spanish villages are toning down traditional fiestas, in which dummies representing the Prophet Mohammed are blown up, for fear of offending Muslims. One eastern Spanish village, Bocairent, decided to abandon the custom of packing the head of a dummy representing Mohammed with fireworks after seeing the angry Muslim response to a Danish newspaper's publication last year of cartoons of him. Spanish newspaper El Pais also found that several other villages in the Valencia region had also held back on celebrations this year. It carried out the investigation after a Berlin opera house decided last week to cancel performances of Mozart's...