I ran across a couple of mentions that there were “extra,” extra-offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him, if that is the proper phrase). The sources were a little too tinfoil for me to quote and link verbatim, so I went looking around.

Wikipedia led me in the direction of the Danish newspaper that originally published a set of 12 cartoons – the originals are reproduced (in a very tiny format) on the Wiki page. If you really want to see them, you may… especially for comparison purposes.

The Danish paper has an English-language section on the Middle-East/Islamic cartoon flap”:

Latest Jyllands-Posten

On 30 September last year, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten published 12 different cartoonists’ idea of what the Prophet Mohammed might have looked like.

The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.
In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.

Since then a number of offensive drawings have circulated in The Middle East which have never been published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and which we would never have published, had they been offered to us. We would have refused to publish them on the grounds that they violated our ethical code.

Related articles (in English) at the Jyllends-Posten are here.

Wikipedia notes:

A Muslim religious organisation in Denmark, Islamisk Trossamfund, played a large part in bringing attention to the cartoons to Muslims of the Middle East during a recent tour; allegedly, it added three additional images to the group and claimed that they had been published in Jyllands-Posten as well.[58]

These three images are all considerably more obscene than the published cartoons, and none of them had previously been published by Jyllands-Posten or any other mainstream media outlet. On February 1 BBC World aired a story showing one of these three images, and incorrectly claimed that it had been published in Jyllands-Posten. [59]

Akhmad Akkari, spokesman of the Danish-based European Committee for Prophet Honouring[60] which co-organised the tour, claimed to be unaware of the origin of the three pictures and said that they had been sent by unknown persons to Muslims in Denmark. Arkkari purported to justify the use of the three drawings as providing “insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims.” However, when Akkari was asked if the Muslims who had received these pictures could be interviewed, Akkari refused to reveal their identities.[61]

The bracketed note numbers refer to footnoted links on the Wiki page. Keep in mind that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone with a login, although they have a large group of volunteer editors who mostly succeed in keeping it factual.

So – where did those 3 cartoons come from? Were they really sent anonymously to Muslim Danes? Or were they inserted to ginger up the rest of the collection? Admittedly, the image of the Prophet with the bomb in his turban is considered one of the most offensive, and it’s definitely one of the original cartoons.

The other question being batted around by the more… reality-challenged of the blogosphere is the mysterious availability of Danish flags to burn in a variety of Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. Who knows? It does seem surprisingly well-orchestrated, although it took several months to really heat up.

Well, she’s gone. I never read “The Feminine Mystique” for some reason; maybe it was considered “old hat” or something when I was taking Women’s Studies classes.

I had a personal encounter with her several years after college: I was drunk, silly, and sitting next to her in First Class on a flight home from a SABRE training class in Dallas. Ms. Friedan asked the flight attendant to move me far away from her, and be quiet.

Heh. Well, I guess that was the real reason I never read her book, even though I respected her as a pioneer. But I don’t know why it wasn’t a required text in the classes I took.

Technorati Tags: BettyFriedan

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Bush told Blair we’re going to war, memo reveals

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was “solidly” behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion’s legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 – nearly two months before the invasion – reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

“The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning“, the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was “solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam”.

Look at them. Look at them. So smug and full of secrecy, because they’re going to war and the Hell with anyone else, but no one else will know that the diplomacy and the appearance of getting the UN’s approval was a sham. And they’ll make sure the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

Except that we pretty much did know, and we always knew, that there was something not quite right about going to war in Iraq. The intelligence was always pointing the policy that way, but the policy was always making damn sure that only the “right” intelligence was used. Thousands of people, military and civilian, have died, and God only knows how much money has been wasted on an incapably fallible Dope’s errand. Money that we could use to rebuild the Southeast. Manpower and equipment, ditto.

I really hope that the wheels come off the Right’s little red wagon, maybe by this fall (or the next big storm). And I hope that no more soldiers, sailors, Marines, Iraqis, or American citizens neck deep in dirty water die needlessly… because I think entropy, anarchy, and the rot are setting in, thank God, at last.