Muhammad: The "Banned" Images Blog Free Speech at Risk

Against the Mosque, Part IV

Though its reasoning is poor, at least the ADL openly opposes the Islamic attempt to build its symbol of victory -- a mosque near the World Trade Center.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/nyregion/31mosque.html?_r=1&ref=religion_and_belief

The British Are Coming (I Hope)

While the Obama administration's welfare statism pushes us closer to tyranny and economic collapse, the Cameron administration in Britain is executing wholesale decontrol.

The latest is a radical plan to "make enormous cuts in the public sector" by "putting power in the hands of patients and clinicians . . ." To achieve this, the Cameron plan will cut $30 billion by laying off "tens of thousands" of bureaucrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/world/europe/25britain.html?ref=world

A Phoenix Rises in Alexandria

In a region of the world being suffocated by the mysticism of Islam, there stands a man of reason. In this region that longs for the darkness of ignorance, there stands a champion of education and of the Enlightenment. In a world of appeasers, there stands a man of conviction and courage. His name is Ismail Serageldin. He is the director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt.

His mission is to make the library "a worthy successor to the Ancient Library of Alexandria. That great Library was a unique ecumenical effort of the human intellect and imagination, and remains engraved in the memories of all scientists and intellectuals to this day."

He openly embraces early Renaissance Muslims such as Ibn al-Nafis who promoted scholarly inquiry and scientific investigation -- a healthy this-worldly turn away from the supernaturalism of the Dark Ages. As the NYT puts it, "[h]is goal is to help spark the Arab world's own age of reason . . ." And he condemns Islamists and statists who, he argues, are the enemies of liberty.

Mr. Serageldin is a man of mixed philosophic premises in that he attempts to reconcile reason and faith. But it is beyond remarkable for a prominent individual, who lives where fatwas are issued like they are parking tickets, to say: "let us not be afraid of opinions and ideas."

http://www.bibalex.org/aboutus/message_en.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/world/middleeast/03egypt.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20voice%20in%20egypt&st=cse

Plato Lives . . .

"Our first business [as government planners] will be to supervise the making of fables and legends [i.e., of art], rejecting all which are unsatisfactory . . ." (From the _Republic_.)

. . . In Russia

A well-known museum director and a curator were both convicted "on charges of inciting religious and ethnic hatred in an exhibition called 'Forbidden Art — 2006,' which displayed works that had been banned by Russian museums."

The Platonist "prosecutors argued that the men’s activities were extremist and meant to inflame religious strife."

Supporting the censorship were "fundamentalist Russian Orthodox activists dressed in black T-shirts decorated with the Orthodox cross, skulls and crossbones and the words 'Orthodoxy or Death.'" (Anybody for a "Everybody Draw Russian Orthodox Day"?)

So much for the idea that centuries-old, abstract philosophy has nothing to do with real life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/design/13curators.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=organizers%20of%20art%20show&st=cse

Government Control Over the Means of Hair Cutting

What, in principle, is the difference between this:

"A Little Off the Top? Only if Tehran Approves" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/world/middleeast/07haircut.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a+little+off+the+top&st=cse

And this?

In California, as in other states, one can cut hair, but only if the state approves -- with requirements that include: "Completed a course in barbering from a school approved by the board (1,500 hours). Completed an apprenticeship program in barbering approved by the board as conducted under the provisions of the Shelley-Maloney Apprentice Labor
Standards Act of 1939, Chapter 4 (commencing with Section 3070) of Division 3 of the Labor Code." http://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/licensees/licensing_faqs.shtm