Tom Tuerff's Glob -- er, Blog, or something

SOMETIMES, EVEN RELIGIOUS PEOPLE MAKE SENSE.

I gotta admit, maybe the Muslims have a point here.

http://www.uriasposten.net/pics/JP-011005-Muhammed-Westerga.jpg

You know, if I'm the artist, I'm either real cocky, or scared shitless right now. Because I LET THEM PRINT MY NAME WITH THE PICTURE!

I think ignorance is partly at fault here. The non-muslim world chooses not to learn anything about it, so they go about their merry way, and when they want to make a political statement, they do it, not worrying about whether they're offending some tenet (like, say, Muhammed is never depicted in art).

Really, all the guy had to do to make his point was show the guy in a turban that didn't say "Muhammad" on it.

At the same time, the fact that the entire Muslim world has nothing better to do than get their titties in a ringer over a five-month-old drawing is rather disturbing. No one should be that fanatical about anything. I mean, I like the Beatles, but if you relieved yourself on Ringo's lawn I wouldn't call for your beheading.

While I'm not very religious I consider myself to be at least cultrually Jewish, but that doesn't mean I agree with every damn thing that Israel decides to do politically. That would be silly. Wouldn't it?

When I was Catholic I certainly didn't agree with much of the Church's historical decisions, such as burning a guy at the stake for translating the bible into English, or essentially destroying hundreds of years of medcial and literary knowledge when they evicted the Jews and Muslims from Spain in the 1400s. (I also had a problem with the fact that for a single-god religion, there sure seemed to be a lot of gods and goddesses disguised at saints and saintettes. Oh, that and God as a pack of Certs: Three! Three! Three Gods in One!)

Roy Harper has a song he wrote around the time of the whole Salman Rushdie thing called "The Black Cloud of Islam" which I imagine immediately kept him from going to any parties at Cat Stevens's house:


Well Im sick to the death, of the news on the screen,
of the hisbullah scum, and jihad the obscene,
whose men plant the bombs,
and then live feeling free,
to watch women and children, be killed on TV
Underneath the black cloud of Islam


What kind of publicity
needs so much blood,
thats not for some
sad diabolical god,
Ive not read the book
so I cannot recite
but I'll bet Salman Rushdie
was just about right

And the butchers who've
got all this blood on their hands
are the ones who need
God to be stood where he stands
Blessing this kidnapping
murder and war,
with books written hundreds of ages before

And women in veils walk in paces behind
it doesnt sit easy in my kind of mind,
it speaks of oppression,
and no other choice,
than rigid reliance to the loudest voice
Which is underneath the black cloud of Islam

You can put a lead bullet
clean through this guitar
cause Im not over joyed
with the story so far
sharing this world with the nutters of god,
is as good as being six feet under the sod,
And I am the prophet so dont believe me,
Im the same as the old ones except that Im free
to give you a piece of my mind which is this
Your the worst of Jehova's blind witlessnesses
with your feet in the door of the deepest abyss
which is underneath the black cloud of islam

Jingoistic? Yeah. Brimming with a lack of knowledge about why those people think that way? Yeah.

Dynamite singing and capable guitar playing? Most certainly!

Did it get him his own personal Fatwah? No.
Did the world collapse because he spoke his mind? No.
Did anybody buy the album other than me, because Kate Bush sang backup on one of the tracks? Maybe.
Will the enitre Moslem world collapse because of a cartoon?
Nopers.

TT