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Day By Day: OKay - people - relax, chill out.
Mon, 06 Feb 2006

I try to live by the rule that people can do what they like, and its not my business to tell them what to do or how to do it. I also try to be respectful, and don't like to go around condemning anyone or anything - I was mouthier in my youth but I've mellowed out to my fellow man. Heck, I run a business online and its not wise to go aggravating people who could be potential friends and customers, but I'm not the sort to premeditate like that.. life by the cuff I say, as long as you're a decent person :) Anyway, permit me to descend into yet another annoyed rant. When you work as much as I do, it helps to get things off the chest ;) Time for my mind to wander... I hope you respect me in the morning ;)

I took a spin around some news sites recently, to see whats up; apparently a Danish newspaper posted some distasteful comics unfavourably portraying The Prophet and of course some Muslims are in uproar (is it only me that spies the irony.. being angry at a bomb-toting Mohammed comic by throwing bombs around?) Everyone who runs a newspaper should know better than to make light of any religion or ethnic minority, but .. why not, its their business? Of course, we also know many other religions are extra strict - but oh wait, we've got fundamentalist Christians too. Some nice folks are going after a Will and Grace episode (a terrible show anyway ;) because Britney Spears will be featured in some "Cruci-fixin's" meta-TV-show and it could potentially insult. Well, I'd be outraged too about featuring Britney... but I'm sure they're just salivating over having some reason to take down a show about homosexuals. At least they're not going after D&D, or rock music, or movies, or video games this time (one new attack-fad every decade you know..)

Anyway, cannot people just relax or is it only okay to make fun of white trash? If we cannot laugh at ourselves (and anyone else), then it is no wonder the world still has its problems. A Danish newspaper -- like come on -- certainly the Danes as a whole are not responsible for some editorial, and blaming the French and other Europeans as well? Applause to the Danish government for properly noting that its not their problem, that the outraged can refuse to buy the offending newspaper if they like. Obviously the editor in question needs a slap for permitting something that could perhaps be considered 'Hate', but making this an issue, reacting in violence..

Grow up.

Now before you get alarmed, I know a pile of gay folks, and Muslims, across every colour of person; Toronto is amazingly multicultural and I like to think I've a grand cross-section of friends. The Muslim folks I know are wonderful and generous people, and with many conversations I've learned many things and picked up extra vantage points. I can't see them over-reacting like this. Extremism, in any form, is usually (always?) a bad thing, so one can only hope that as the Earth gets another couple decades under its belt, that people start to warm up to each other again. Theres no peace until we stop featuring Britney Spears, you see :) I suppose the function of a newspaper is to polarize a nation, but who takes them seriously anymore?

Please, have a sense of humour.. and if you don't like someone elses sense of humour, just pass over it.

Edit; its been a few days, but it gets _worse_!

Some snips from CNN and Associated Press:

In Indonesia, video from a demonstration outside a U.S. consulate showed a protester with a bloody shirt sitting on the ground next to police. -- What does the US have to do with this? Isn't it between a Denmark newspaper and retardation?

And in the east African nation of Somalia, police fired in the air Monday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, triggering a stampede in which a teenager died, according to The Associated Press -- Wait, theres widescale protests? And people _died_? Over a _comic_?

A report on the state-run news agency IRNA said Iranian Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi stopped trade with Denmark as the government's response to the cartoons. -- an entire country cuts off trade with another country? Again, isn't this between a newspaper and people?

In Tehran, demonstrators protested outside the Danish Consulate and the Austrian Embassy. Austria is currently serving as president of the European Union. Reuters reported that about 200 people threw fire bombs and rocks. -- *sigh* This is why I think humans are idiots. Most of them are just incapable of intelligent thought. This is what fuels atheism as every religion is used as a tool for idiocy at some point. It breaks the heart to see good things tainted like this, and to see people killed over silliness.

Sometimes it makes you wonder if its safe to be on this planet.

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