Octopodial Chrome

Christopher Westley & his wife gave up television for Lent in 1995—and they never returned. I did the same thing when I graduated college in 2000; back then I watched an absolutely horrifying about of TV (well, in relation to others perhaps it wasn’t quite so horrible, but I disliked it anyway), and decided that I’d rather have that time to do with as I wish. I have a TV set and a DVD player (and in a closet somewhere there’s my old VHS VCR), but there’s no cable or antenna. When I want to watch a movie or a TV series on DVD, I do—when I don’t, I don’t. There’re no commercials, no previews of shows I’d rather not see; I can pause to answer a phone or the call of nature, or to head out the door and see friends.

I mean this quite seriously: everyone should do as I & Prof. Westley do; they would be happier and have more free time for the things which really matter.

Mohammedans the world over are rioting over a dozen cartoon caricatures of the founder of their religion. They have burnt embassies; they have destroyed property; they have generally made pests of themselves. You’ll note that the founder of my religion, Jesus Christ, is mocked on a daily basis (indeed, the latest Rolling Stone apparently features a rap musician costumed as Christ)—and yet we Christians are not rioting in the streets over it. And remember, Mohammedans consider Mohammed to be merely a prophet; we consider Jesus Christ to be God and the Son of God. Moreover, images of Mohammed have been around for a very, very long time.

Sadly, almost no-one cares about freedom of speech. Our own State Department condemned the cartoons; the Vatican stated that freedom cannot imply the right to offend religion, which is patently absurd: the Mohammedan’s freedom to call Jesus a man offends me, and my freedom to call Mohammed a fraud offends him. Freedom means tolerating that which is unacceptable, not accepting that which is tolerable.