Rusted Sky

Or in this case, a pig. Or, to be even more precise, Piglet.

From Winnie the Pooh. Yeah, that piglet. See title of last post for what I think about this.

Telegraph | Opinion | Making a pig's ear of defending democracy

After all, how daffy does a Muslim's willingness to take offence have to be to get rejected out of court? Only the other day, Burger King withdrew its ice-cream cones from its British restaurants because Mr Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe, after a trip to the Park Royal branch, complained that the creamy swirl on the lid resembled the word "Allah" in Arabic script. (IF you turn the label a quarter turn and squint. ed.)

It doesn't, not really, not except that in the sense any twirly motif looks vaguely Arabic. After all, Burger King isn't suicidal enough to launch Allah Ice-Cream. But, after Mr Akhtar urged Muslims to boycott the chain and claimed that "this is my jihad", Burger King yanked the ice-cream and announced that, design-wise, it was going back to the old drawing-board.

Offence is, by definition, in the eye of the beholder. I once toured the Freud Museum with the celebrated sex therapist Dr Ruth, who claimed to be able to see a penis in every artwork and piece of furniture in the joint. Yet, when I suggested one sculpture looked vaguely like the female genitalia, she scoffed mercilessly.

Likewise, Piglet is deeply offensive and so's your chocolate ice-cream, but if a West End play opens with a gay Jesus, Christians just need to stop being so doctrinaire and uptight. The Church of England bishops would probably agree with that if, in their own misguided attempt at Islamic outreach, they weren't so busy apologising for toppling Saddam.

....

It has been clear since July 7 that the state has no real idea what to do to reconcile the more disaffected elements of its fastest-growing demographic. But at some point Britons have to ask themselves - while they're still permitted to discuss the question more or less freely - how much of their country they're willing to lose. The Hundred-Acre Wood is not the terrain on which one would choose to make one's stand, but from here on in it is only going to become more difficult.

There's an old Arabic saying - "When the nose of the camel is in the tent, the rest of the camel isn’t far behind." The question is, do you shove the nose (those who subscribe to the Religion of Perpetual Offense - not Islam per se) out of the tent? Or let it inch in until there's no room for you?

That's a question that will be more and more relevant as time passes, and more 'offending' things are found.

Whoops. Looks like LASSIE would be next. Apparently dogs are even MORE reviled than pigs.

They'd better figure out what 'tolerance' means pretty quick. If they don't... well, there's a whole lot of dog lovers that won't put away their calenders and coffee cups so easily...

J.