Bill's Notes

Read this first. Jeff Goldstein has a brilliant essay.

While we can't say what offends someone else, we can make a determination whether or not the person's offense is reasonable. Reasonableness is not culturally determined. Others disagree. Jeff explains why these others are wrong.

And they better be wrong. Because if they're not, then power politics controls everything. Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short ...

This is really funny. (Not entirely work safe.)

Fran puts in his two cents on free speech. His take is less moderate than mine :)

All the nations of Europe are being sorely tried by the Muslims they've foolishly let into their domains. Not one is without strife from these violent, intemperate barbarians. Unless the Europeans stiffen up properly and show a firm hand to these not terribly covert subverters of liberty and civilization, soon the Old World will no longer be to any degree free; it will merely be old.

But with equivocal statements like those of Sean McCormack issuing from Washington, suggesting that the Danes really ought to censor themselves in the future as a security measure, how likely are the Europeans to bare their swords before the Islamic threat? How likely are they to drop to their knees, as the most vocal elements of their intelligentsia have been clamoring for them to do?

While I have defended my position that free speech isn't open for debate in free societies, I understand commenter Ron's point that you don't need to go looking for trouble. And this controversy was probably needless and has made our life more difficult in the War on Terror.

Let's take a quick rundown on these "offensive" cartoons.

1. Mohammed with a sword and two women in burkas. Mohammed converted by the sword; Islamic women wear burkas; thus it's fair comment and not remotely offensive. (One caveat: The offense is that Mohammed is depicted, not that he is acting in an atypical or offensive way.)

2. A lineup. Mohammed may not even be there, and the butt of the joke is a Danish editor. Not remotely offensive.

3. A cartoonist hovers his drawing. A nice statement about the threats of violence that hang over anyone who fails to submit to Islamic rules of society -- even if it's not their society. Fair comment.

4. A nice little pastoral scene: Mohammed walking with a donkey. Not remotely offensive.

5. This one is weird. I don't know what it's supposed to be. There are crescents and stars of david; the writing accompanying it on the oppression of women is certainly fair comment. If it's offensive, maybe Muslims should look at how they treat women.

6. This one is silly, but not an unfair poke in the eye.

7. Mohammed with a bomb for a turban. Heh. The frustration at anyone who lives near Islam's bloody borders will understand this. Fair comment, and not a poke in the eye. More an important statement. Muslims should look in the mirror before screaming about this one and ask themselves, "Gee, why do people think our religion is violent, and not holy?"

8. This one takes a shot at the Danish editor, and so can't be an issue.

9. Mohammed is advocating restraint. This is a positive portrayal!

10. Nice little portrait of Mohammed and the Islamic crescent. Nothing offensive about that.

11. A cartoon making fun of the Danish editor, and a stick figure. Not really even about Mohammed.

12. Mohammed with a crescent halo. Not remotely offensive.

These are not caricatures, not vicious in intent, and not motivated by malice. Indeed, the question is simply this: Can a free society depict Mohammed without local Muslims going ballistic and threatening violence? The answer is no -- Muslims demand special treatment -- or else threaten violence.

Okay, sign me up for the blogburst.

Michelle Malkin has an excellent round-up of links on the Danish cartoon issue.

You can find the cartoons, which are pretty much innocuous, here.

The issue of cowardice is simple: CNN wouldn't have hesitated to show something offensive to any other group. But they're afraid of Muslims, so they created a pretense of respect.

The issue of real respect is different. Ron, in the comments to the last post, discusses how as an editor he would've shown respect for both Muslims and Christians. Fine. That's one thing.

But CNN has never hesitated to talk free speech before. And now, suddenly, in the face of intimidation, they find religion. Better stuff is at Michelle's Web site.

This is a crucial fight. Muslims need to understand that they simply cannot come to our countries and dictate terms to us. If they can't live with free speech, they need to get the fuck out of our countries. Pretty simple.

CNN writes in its story regarding the Danish Mohammed-cartoon controversy:

CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam.

There it is. Can you imagine CNN allowing anyone else to tell them what they can and can't publish?

Wow. Pure cowardice. They're well-prepared to become dhimmis. Didn't think I'd ever see that.

... are great.

I finished Heather King's Parched last night. What a change from the first part of the book: As soon as Ms. King moved into the roach motel and went to law school, the whole memoir fell into place. The book didn't miss a beat after that. Not a false note. Just terrific.

It's a lovely, memorable book. I'm glad she wrote it.

I'm reading Heather King's Parched. I read a piece by her in Publisher's Weekly and thought her writing was well-written, insightful and interesting, so I bought her book. I'm about two-thirds of the way through it.

I've also checked out some of the reviews on Google, and everyone loves it and praises the writing. Um. Are they reading a different book? Don't get me wrong. The book is all right, and I'm going to finish it, and it contains some nice passages. But it's missing something, and the only way to get what's missing in is a complete re-write. This is my professional opinion :) (By the way, Heather King seems like a very nice person.)

What's missing?

Easy. The Holy Spirit.

Huh?

The Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The book is weak in the Holy Spirit.

I'm speaking, of course, about Dorothy Sayers' taxonomy on how to diagnose writing problems from Mind of the Maker.

God the Father is the Goal. When you are writing, you are trying to communicate something. Writing weak in the Father is something unfocused, it just goes this way and that, blown about, because it doesn't know what it wants to say.

God the Son is Technique. This is grammar, logic, composition, classical rhetoric, and all the regular creative tools. Writing strong in the Father knows what it wants to say, but weak in the Son just doesn't say it well.

God the Holy Spirit is "reader focus." This is the mystical part of writing — it's the understanding how your writing will be read. When writing is strong in the Father and Son, it knows what it wants to say and artfully says it. But if it's weak in the Holy Spirit, it still doesn't get how the reader is likely to receive it. It ignores the following two criticisms: "bully for you!" and "so what?"

Heather King knows exactly what she wants to say. And she knows how to say it — she artfully composes one sentence after another. What she's missing at time is a strong sense of how many people are likely to react to the individual details. The result is a shaggy dogness about the story.

Let's take an example. Ms. King probably introduces us to 100-150 characters in this book. Seriously. Many are introduced in a few sentences or a paragraph of physical description. We learn everyone's hair-style (seriously), how they smell (too much usually) and assorted other details. And then Heather just drops the character. Or it's a three-paragraph anecdote that really doesn't go anywhere, not even a laugh. And then the person disappears. It's as if she dragged 100 cannons onto the stage, and didn't fire them off. Or fired one or two. You're like, "What's with the other 98 cannons?" It's like she's writing to the people in the book who were already there, rather than to a general audience.

Reader attention, like any attention paid to you, is a gift. You pay it back by taking into account what's important to the person to whom you're speaking. (I learned this later in my life, for those of you who are my friends from way back.) You've got to have some kind of point besides, "I used to drink a lot" and "there was this interesting person." You need to tell me why someone's interesting in a convincing manner, and why I care that you used to drink a lot, and how this all fits together in the context of the larger story. It sounds cold, but there it is. You need to leave people out who don't contribute to the larger story.

Of course, having said all this, the real problem with the book could be me — the book could just a little girly/metro for me. Your mileage may vary.

My friend has accepted my apology. Thank you.

Thanks for the comments in the "trouble" post. I'm still thinking about a solution. Meanwhile, I have a deadline.

Thanks again.

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