Month: September 2006

So the Pope’s been taking quite a bit of heat for quoting a Medieval text that described Mohammed as “inhuman” and evil (according to the Koran itself, he was a brutal warrior and assassin). The Pope didn’t mention the brutality of the early Catholic Church. I guess he forgot about that. But what do we expect… he’s the Pope. Neglecting to mention the Church’s own brutal history is disappointing, but not exactly surprising.

Here’s what bugs me more:

Is it just me, or are killings, fire-bombing of churches and wanton destruction a piss-poor way of responding to someone who quotes a statement about your religion being violent?

Now, the man who tried to kill the last Pope warns of a potential assassination should Pope Benedict visit Turkey. From London’s Evening Standard:

Pope Benedict faces a growing chorus of demands to make an unequivocal apology for remarks seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, despite attempts by Western leaders and churchmen to defuse the crisis.The calls came as it emerged papal hitman Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981, has written to Pope Benedict XVI from jail, warning him not to go to Turkey as planned in November in the light of his remarks.

Agca, a Turk gave his ominous warning in a letter to an Italian daily newspaper. For many Muslims, the Pope’s attempt to explain himself on Sunday did not go far enough and observers were waiting to see if he would speak about it again at his general audience at the Vatican.

The Pope enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil “such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.

The leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics said on Sunday he was ‘deeply sorry’ for the reaction caused – but stopped short of apologising for his words or retracting them. In a telegram to the order of an Italian nun killed in Somalia who may be the crisis’ first victim…
Read the rest…

Most Muslims in the world haven’t responded to the Pope’s predictably one-sided comments by being total whack-jobs (and some have denounced the violence) — but as usual when it comes to organized religion, the few morons out there are doing everything they can to validate the negative stereotypes.

This is representative of the feedback to today’s cartoon about Joe Lieberman and the mainstream media:

By candor do you mean your opinion?—no humor?

Most people do not want a time table to pull out of Iraq.The people who are against privitization of SS don’t have an alternative solution.Most people don’t want to raise taxes to supprt universal health care.I’m sure the people you surround yourself with don’t think Lieberman is a moderate,but most Americans do,based on facts,not the”mass media”.–Is your comic ever humorous?–it so one sided.

-Steve N.

…And my response…

1. As recently as last month, 57 percent of Americans supported a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
–source

2. The people who are against privatization of Social Security DO have an alternative solution: it’s called Social Security. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A plurality of the country believed in 2005 that the system wasn’t broken, and modest changes to the system, along the lines of the changes made in the ’80s, would keep it solvent for generations.
–source

3. Most people do want universal health care, even if it meant raising taxes.
–source

In short, you’re wrong on every count — which leads me to believe that your assessment of the humor in Candorville is probably equally faulty. Thanks for taking the time to write!