A friend has placed himself at the centre of the Mohamed cartoon controversy. His name is Peter March and he teaches philosophy at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. It is apparent to me that our "impartial" "non-partisan" but highly politically correct news media is sort of hoping that Peter will get some sort of Zundel style comeuppance for this. After all, that would make more interesting news than the relatively non-event of a university professor of philosophy doing what that sort of person has been doing since the time of Socrates.

News media actually began with Guttenberg. Mass producing the Bible in vernacular languages, starting with Latin, had been his life’s goal, but he never made any money at it. In fact attempting to do so bankrupted him. In fact he subsidized his project by publishing what we would today call “tabloids”. What he found to be the topics people most wanted to read about has not changed much to this day.

Horace Greeley set a famous baseline for what is news,

“ If a dog bites a man, that’s not news, but if a man bites a dog...”

These days it’s different. If a dog bites someone, that can get national or even international coverage if the dog happens to be a pit bull. If, on the other hand, a man bites Cujo the feminazi werebitch, the news media will go to great lengths to keep that a secret. Unless the “bite” is in the form of satirical cartoons posted on the internet (let’s face it they will never be published in print media) and feminist academics advocate making that a hate crime on SOW’s website.

In these days of post secondary institutions being the very headquarters of Political Corrections Canada, Peter March is something of a rare gem. I can remember sitting with a group of people in the Halifax Public Gardens on the benches near the gazebo where the bands play, in surroundings that were the Victorian notion of beauty as a flock of pigeons circled and landed among us. Peter was expounding on the practical limits of freedom. A thought crossed my mind...I count myself among the luckiest people who have ever lived for having had the opportunity to savour that moment......that memory is one of my “happy places”.

On the other side of the issue are the Moslems who take much more offence than is actually warranted by these relatively innocuous political satire cartoons. After all, it’s not like they were not permitted to give it back in kind....unlike some other points of political correctness on our campuses.

And to those who are exemplary Moslems, role models of what great spiritual traditions bring out in people, when you live in North America you have to sort of get used to a certain waggish attitude on the part of us infidels.

It is not Islam that is being mocked by these cartoons, it is the political actions associated with those who call themselves Moslem but who have asserted their own will rather than submit to the will of Allah. The Prophet never said that submission would be easy compared to asserting your own will. It is not the Prophet who is being lampooned by these caricatures, it is the political evil that has been done in his name.

One of my favourite Buddhist parables dates from the time when Moslem zealots were massacring all of the Buddhists in India. A monk was about to be put to the sword. The Moslem who was performing the execution said:

“Godless infidel, what will become of you when I strike you down?”

“ I shall be re-incarnated one hundred times as a wilfully ignorant jackass in order that I might be worthy....and then I shall go directly to Hell”

“If that is the fate that awaits a Buddhist holy man then what is the point of Buddhism ?”

“If I was unwilling to go to Hell.......who would be there to teach you?”