Wired Mesh

The Newly-Pious Newsroom

The Stranger, a Seattle alt-weekly, has become the first American newspaper to publish the Muhammad cartoons. I have little time today for thoughts beyond a passing "Godspeed, you mocha-drinking libertines," but my usual interlocutor offers a cutting parallel:

I was watching The Magnificent Seven last night and heard a line which perfectly expresses the attitude of the North American press toward the cartoon controversy. A travelling salesman is trying to convince an undertaker to accept $20 to bury an Indian in Boot Hill, the local cemetary. The undertaker admits that it's only fear of local prejudice that keeps him from interring an Indian amidst the "murderers, cut-throats, and derelict old barflies" that are already there, but he adds that regardless of his own opinions on the matter, there's no hope of convincing his driver to make the journey. The salesman asks, "So, he's prejudiced too, uh?" To which the undertaker replies, "Prejudiced? When it comes to a chance of his head getting blown off, he's downright bigoted."

The analogue for the members of our irreverent and frequently viciously and aggressively secular media: "Sensitive to religious interests? When it comes to a chance of being beheaded, we're downright devout."

Also, my comments are allegedly working again. We're open for invective.