Pot Pourri

This past week Muslims in the Middle East rioted over depictions of their Prophet in cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. The cartoonist depicted the Prophet as a less-than-nice person, which added insult to the injury, in Muslim perceptions, of the crime of portraying him at all.

There is no law anywhere in the world except Muslim religious law -- Sharia -- forbidding the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. The Danish government does not operate under the rules of Sharia.

However, most Danes are or used to be Lutheran, which fact entered into play when the same newspaper declined to publish cartoons of Jesus a couple of years ago, by the same cartoonist. These showed the Christian Savior jumping out of holes and popping out of walls during the process of his bodily resurrection. In one, gnomes were rating his performance and awarding style points.

The newspaper's editor says he turned down the cartoons not because they were sacreligious, but because they were silly. He didn't say whether he was Lutheran, or ever used to be.

In this country, an artist was criticized for portraying Osama bin Laden as Jesus. Personally, I didn't think the picture looked anything like bin Laden or Jesus. He looked a bit like Tuli Kupferberg.

In other news, Senator Barbara Boxer asks, "Why doesn't President Bush want to answer questions about Jack Abramoff?" Answer: "Because he doesn't feel like it."