Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day! Wikipedia has an interesting history of Valentines Day (also called Singles Awareness Day). From Saint Valentines, Cupid and other origins through modern day and other parts of the world.

Happy Valentines day to my dear wife ... the love of my life.

Suspension of Disbelief

Modern television and movie producers often rely on a suspension of disbelief. We accept things on the screen that in real life would seem absurd. We accept it for the sake of the storyline. Is it just me, or have we gotten desensitized to the point they now expect us to accept the overly absurd? And I don't mean in just science fiction or fantasy shows. Many shows on TV or in theaters today can be entertaining to watch just from the snark-fest potential. They are so overly contrived that you can have fun guessing what the next absurd thing to happen will be ... and sometimes you're right (or you come up with something better than they did).

Akin to this is the writers stretching for a reaction. I don't know how many times I've overheard my dear wife watching TV exclaim something like "How can they do this?" to some plot twist or contrived plot device. My answer? "The writers do this so you'll react and say "how can they do this?". Pretty good, aren't they?". Mostly through unexpected twists and heinous acts...

If they did what we expected we wouldn't watch for long. It is amazing what we've come to expect.

Thanks a Lot, Danish Assholes

We are getting a lesson in the downside to freedom of speech. While we accept that freedom of speech does not include the freedom to threaten, advocate harm or cause damage, we also accept that freedom of speech means "you do not have the right to not be offended". Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend, but not harm.

For anyone not familiar with the recent situation, in September a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that Muslims find offensive. Rather tame, as far as caricatures go. Protected by modern notions of freedom of speech and expression. But something the Muslims find unforgivable. These have since been republished in roughly 40 other western countries in publications citing the noble protection of "freedom of speech". These include republication in the United States and United Kingdom.

Only about 2% of Denmark's population is Muslim, so the Dane's are fairly safe and smug in publishing their portrayals of someone else's prophet. Unfortunately there are other countries with much higher percentages of Muslims who are taking it as a religious affront and demonstrating, protesting and committing acts of violence. Since there aren't that many Danish targets out there, the majority of destruction is to American and British property with the usual "Death to America" rhetoric.

So, we have the Danes offending the Muslims, whose religion bans any images of religious prophets (including Jesus) as being sacrilegious. The Muslims protest. Other nations republish the offensive drawings and fuel the dispute. The Muslims take it out on the most convenient targets. Will this escalate to become another "holy" versus "freedom" war? Repressive self-censorship vs insensitive freedom of speech? Let's try to figure our way out of this one...