I agree with the French guy

There are some interesting posts (1, 2) by Bob Krumm on the Danish cartoon thing. Bob says he hates it when we're wimpier than the French. Yeah, that's a tough one. And the French are talking a bit more sense on this one, too. French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy said that he preferred "an excess of caricature to an excess of censure". I also prefer that to an excess of crispy Danish embassies.

I have to say, I'm pretty perplexed by the attitude of both the State Department and the UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

According to this BBC piece:

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has praised UK media for not publishing them.

Mr Straw said the decision by some European newspapers to print the cartoons was "disrespectful" and he added that freedom of speech did not mean an "open season" on religious taboos.

And here's the US State Department line on it:

These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."

(Hasn't invading Iraq been the source of all kinds of religious and ethnic hatred? Just asking.)

You know what, every day is open season on religious taboos in my book. Every day that someone believes something that you don't agree with, you have the right to disagree, and you have the right to use art or words to make your argument.

Today some Muslims are offended by cartoons, before that it was toy pigs, what's it going to be tomorrow? Am I going to have to start going about in hijab, because someone's offended by my presence as a bare-headed woman? Where does it stop? (And this isn't just about Muslims - I'm looking at all the fundamentalists.)

I do try to maintain respectful conduct in my dealings with others. I really do. I don't actually want to offend people. I haven't published the Danish pictures of Mohammed on my blog partly because I couldn't decide if it was the right thing to do. But when I see pictures of people in the streets of my city calling for death to those who blaspheme Islam, it makes me angry. Really angry.

So, here we go. It's not the Danish cartoon image, but it's really a rather nice frieze on the US Supreme Court building - Mohammed's the guy with the sword - you can see this image and a whole lot more at the Mohammed Images Archive. Somebody over at the State Department better get a look at this.