Gryphmon's Grumbles

Borders Books: Christ in Urine OK, but no Mohammad cartoons

News Item

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.The magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism in suburban Amherst, includes four of the drawings that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse.

Some how I doubt the "safety and security" line.  Could it instead have something to do with the recently signed agreement to franchise in the United Arab Emirates?

Press Release:

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 6, 2006--Borders Inc., a subsidiary of global book, music and movie retailer Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE:BGP), announced today that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Al Maya Group, a diversified corporation headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, to establish a franchise arrangement under which Al Maya will operate Borders stores in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

You know, I'm quite certain Borders didn't and still doesn't, have a problem with books and magazines showing the work of artists like Serrano, who's "Christ in urine"  piece raised quite a controversy  a few years ago.  Not to mention the Virgin Mary created from elephant dung by another artist.

Maybe Borders should consider if this potential new market would be worth losing the entire market in the US?  Then again, any large corporation is a multi-national these days, so you can't expect them to have any local or national loyalty.  -Meaning they really don't give a damn about American values.

If you want to boycott Borders, as I will, remember that they now also own the Waldenbooks and Brentano's bookseller chains.

You can also contact them here: 

Via e-mail.

Telephone: 734.477.1100

Address:

Borders Group, Inc.
100 Phoenix Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108

Hat tips to:  Andrew Sullivan, Marc Cooper, Instapundit., & Roger L. Simon.

Thank you Mudville!

Update: the Boycott seems to be picking up some steam.

Andrew Sullivan a Liberal?

Bruce over at Gay Patriot thinks that Sullivan isn't a conservative.  In Bruce's world, that means he is a goddam Liberal. (boo, hiss..) But then again, apparently in Bruce's world you are a Liberal if:

A)  You don't suck George W. Bush's dick 24 hours a day, 365 days a week.

B)  Are not willing to sacrifice every American principle of decency in the name of GOP Party loyalty.

Bruce and company etc. over at GP obviously have "issues" regarding Andrew Sullivan, (as well as many others no doubt).

And as the great Lesbian Separatist Sonja Johnson has said, in order to have "issues" you have to scrunch up your mouth real tight so it looks just like a .....

And just for clarity in case anyone doesn't know, I'm not "Patrick" the Log Cabin Club guy.  I wish... That man is a tall cool glass of water on a hot summer's day....Cheers!

The Red White and Blue Staters

Most people, straight and gay, seem to assume sometimes that we have absolutely nothing in common.  But also sometimes we do remember that we are still just Americans. Red White and Blue.

Here is one "militant" liberal gay activists experience when Rev. Phelps comes to town.

...Suddenly, the Westboro picket took a back seat in our focus. As I spoke with these wives, they all told similar stories. Their husbands were all deployed. One woman told me a good friend of hers was recently killed. Another said that her husband and his brother were both in Iraq. Army wife Holly Ahrens wrote, “A small group of people would like to get together to show support in what our men and women are doing in the war against terror.”

I know many in the gay community are ideologically opposed to the war in its current phase. Some of my fellow liberals even objected to getting involved because in their view soldiers were being killed for “a reigning tyrant, not democracy.” I felt we needed to close this rift. These were my neighbors, my friends, my family. Clarksville, Fort Campbell, and Oak Grove are all part of the same community. This was a chance to break down some barriers... Please read the full piece.  And thanks to Mudville.

Together facing the new totalitarianism

This was published in the same Denmark paper that published the cartoons.

Hat tip to: Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Manifesto:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

And Gryphmon Too!