Interesting OpEd from Barron's...

motordavid · #1 02-14-2006, 12:14 PM

I am a huge Alan Abelson fan: I think he is one of the best writers in the press, today. Look past the politics or eye poking, (which is not really, imo), and his lead op ed in Barron's always amuses and/or makes one think.
BR,md

Monday, February 13, 2006 UP AND DOWN WALL STREET By ALAN ABELSONOff With Their Heads
LET THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME. So we're in complete concord with the idea that seems to be catching on among Islamic fundamentalists the world over: Those feckless journalists who dared to publish cartoons making light of Muhammad ought to be beheaded. At the very least.

For one thing, from what we gather, the cartoons weren't very funny. And if there's anything more horrifying than an unfunny cartoon, please, let us know. But just suppose those cartoons had evoked a chuckle, however fleeting. Heads would have to roll anyway, since it's downright blasphemous to depict Muhammad in any shape or form, period.
Of course, it strikes us that would have made it awfully tough for the paparazzi to scratch out a living back in the waning decades of the sixth century. If, of course, they had had cameras, much less paparazzi, back then. So perhaps there's no point in commiserating with the theoretical plight of the paparazzi in the sixth century, especially since we find them more than a little repulsive, anyway.

The slowly burning fury incited by the publication of those cartoons in Europe (it takes some folks several months to realize they've been insulted) erupted into furious demonstrations by bloodthirsty mobs, wherever bloodthirsty mobs are prone to gather. We're happy to note that only a smattering of U.S. papers reprinted them, notably the New York Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer, thus absolving the great bulk of the American press from any insinuation that it's not politically correct.
We, for one, are determined to show our solidarity with the iconoclastic European journalists under threat from the beheader's ax each and every morning by consuming our Danish as ostentatiously as possible in our favorite Starbucks window seat. Lest we be the target of a fatwa (remember Salman Rushdie), let us say we understand perfectly why those angry Islamic mobs are so angry. All they're demanding, after all, is that you observe their customs when you're in their country and you observe their customs when you're in your country. Seems perfectly reasonable.

One of the most enthusiastic fanners of the global intifada set off by the cartoons is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new president of Iran, who's mad at the world and who would be mad at the universe except he's not a big-picture man. After due consideration, we've finally figured out what his problem is. He's a size 36 who always wears size 42 suits. And that's more than enough to give anybody an inferiority complex, especially when the poor guy, who deep down is dying to be dapper, doesn't even own a tie.

We could do everybody a big favor and maybe even persuade Mahmoud he really doesn't need a nuclear bomb by giving him a gift certificate for a custom-made set of threads at Paul Stuart or Barneys. Yes, we realize, those are outrageously pricey shops. But it'd still be cheaper than starting another war. We mean, Iraq will cost us something like $120 billion this year and, for that much, we could buy the little irascible chap two suits, throw in a sports jacket. and still come out ahead.
The other possibility to defuse the tension with Iran is not only to encourage the Iranians to build a nuclear weapons facility but to insist on building it for them. We could contract the job out to the same outfits that are in charge of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. They wouldn't even have to move the equipment very far, and we can't think of a better way to further the cause of nonproliferation.

What the fuss and furor over those cartoons of Muhammad point up graphically is not so much a culture clash, but a more profound difference.

We have a sense of humor, even if we sometimes misplace it. Islamicist fundamentalists don't. But then, humor has always been one of the qualities that separate humans from the beasts.