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Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 14:05:09 -0800
To: <saranli &AElig cs.bilkent.edu.tr>, <improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu>
From: "Eva Revesz" <erevesz &AElig ScrippsCollege.edu>
Subject: Re: view the infamous cartoons, support free speech, buy legos
Status: O

Hello, Uluc!
I complete agree with your stance on this. Not worth getting all worked up over, either way.
Hope all is well with you.
Best,
Trixie 


>>> Uluc Saranli <saranli &AElig cs.bilkent.edu.tr>  >>>

Well, realistically, I don't think doing it this way will go very far in 
improving the world.

My reaction to this will not be from a religious standpoint, but a 
psychological one. As some of you know, I am by no means a religious 
person (despite the *very* useful indication of "Islam" as my religion on 
my Turkish ID :)) so I don't personally care any depictions of any prohet 
in any way.

Back to my take on this. The worst way to convince somebody on a topic is 
to spit on their face, tell them their mother is a bad woman and start 
loudly calling them names. Except a few people who are exceptionally 
mature and calm, this will almost surely get you some sort of physically 
or verbally violent reaction in response. Don't get me wrong, I am not 
trying to justify any of the bombings or the obviously stupid reaction of 
the muslims, but as the "defenders of all things good", I would think the 
west could have been a bit more knowledgeable about basic human nature.

To me, this whole episode about cartoons seriously feels like a 
primary-school kid fight than an intelligent exchange about free-speech or 
religious rights or any meaningful topic. And this partially includes your 
excited posting of the cartoons on your web page, Dan. This is not to say 
that censoring is ok and we 5A5Ashould be intimidated by terrorist 
actions.  So, in that sense, it's great you can, and did post them up. 
However, from a practical perspective, this will achieve very little to 
further our cause of improving the world since it is an action which 
conveniently ignores the personalities of the very people you are hoping 
to change.

You can either get all worked up about the Muslim reaction to this and 
take silly actions in the name of free-speech to infuriate them further, 
or you can sit down and think of constructive ways of inducing change. 
Constructive criticism and creative solutions to dealing with immature 
idiots are very hard to construct. It saddens me that we, as people who 
claim to know how to improve this world, cannot go beyond participating in 
the cat-fight.

Your discussions on radical/constructive feminism was not conclusive on 
this either, so I don't expect there to be consensus this time around. So, 
bring on the flame! (you can call me names, it's ok :))

- Uluc.

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, Daniel Reeves wrote:

> And by the way, I'm completely serious about this. I think this is a way that 
> improvetheworld can literally improve the world.
>
> Also, please don't be shy about chiming in on this.  Once the first message 
> is sent it's really no more burden for people to delete the whole thread (as 
> long as you leave the subject line intact).
>
>
> (PS, I can see from the web logs that lots of you have viewed the pictures 
> already so don't pretend you're not listening! :)
>
>
> --- \/   FROM Daniel Reeves AT 06.02.04 17:03 (Today)   \/ ---
>
>> A Danish newspaper recently published cartoons depicting Mohammed and 
>> muslims as terrorists.  Muslims are up in arms about it.  In fact, they've 
>> burnt down the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria, as a start.
>> 
>> It's all over the news but no US newspaper has the backbone to print the 
>> cartoons.  I guess terrorism works. So this is an opportunity to fight for 
>> free speech by helping make sure the agenda of the radical religious right 
>> backfires.  And so, improvetheworld brings you:
>> 
>>  http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves/itw/mohammed
>>    (or google improvetheworld)
>> 
>> Oh, and since muslims are calling for boycotts of Danish products in 
>> response to those cartoons, you should also buy more Danish stuff.  Like 
>> Legos.
>> 
>> <ducking>,
>> Danny
>
> -- 
> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"
>