The Power of Art

Who'd have thought that a dozen cartoons lampooning Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists would have caused Danish bacon to be struck from the menu? Do the Danes export anything else? Anyway, I didn't think Muslims were supposed to eat pork.
The West has a great tradition of lampooning its political leaders as well as its enemies. In fact newspaper cartoons are one of our most popular art forms. Lampooning nutters who blow themselves up on the promise of being showered with virgins when they reach Paradise is the best way to treat them. It's the only way. You can't imprison a corpse, even if you can find all the pieces. But you can and should take the Mickey out of the insanity which produced that corpse. Young men of all persuasions want to be heroes; the last thing they want is to become a laughing stock.
What scares me is that neither ABC News nor BBC News has had the guts to publish these contentious cartoons on their websites. What are they afraid of? Those deluded terrorists hate the West simply because it exists, and they've made it clear that they're determined to kill as many of us they can. So what have we got to lose? Probably a lot less than normal, decent Muslim women. Where the Fundamentalists take over, a woman's life becomes hell. And they destroy world art treasures! Barbarians!
Come on, ABC and BBC. Publish and be damned. If we daren't take the Mickey out of those lunatics, Western civilization is losing the war.