My friend Ben Baruch has a new toon out. You can check it out here.

I know where I’m going to be spending my lunchtime from now on…

The New York Times op-ed page was full of the Danish cartoon controversy last weekend. In an effort to give a range of views it included a very critical piece from Martin Burcharth, the US correspondent for the Danish newspaper Information.

The piece explained that:

Denmark’s reputation as a nation with a long tradition of tolerance toward others…is something of a myth.

[...]For 20 years, Muslims in Denmark have been denied a permit to build mosques in Copenhagen. What’s more, there are no Muslim cemeteries in Denmark, which means that the bodies of Muslims who die here have to be flown back to their home countries for proper burial.

[...]After the flag burnings, the Danish news media began to refer to the white cross on the flag’s red background as a Christian symbol.

There was something discordant about this, for we’ve come to connect the flag less and less to religion. Denmark, after all, is one of the most secular countries in Europe. Only 3 percent of Danes attend church once a week.

Still, the news media were right. Up to a point. Legend has it that the flag fell from heaven during a battle between the Danes and the Estonians nearly 800 years ago. It was a sign from God, and it led the Danes to victory. Now that flag has become a symbol around the world of Denmark’s contempt for another world religion.

Shocking and embarrassing, I thought, until I received the following email from a relative in Copenhagen:

I have just seen an article in JP about Martin Burcharth’s article in NYT. He has now admitted that there were factual “errors” in his article, but that he “regrets nothing”! He explains that his article was rewritten several times and the last revision was made “under difficult circumstances”. Incidentally, he hasn’t lived in Denmark for many years!

His wrong information was apparently reproduced in a programme on New York’s National Public Radio this week by a Professor Mahmood Mamdani in a discussion with Die Zeit’s Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff.

The professor had no other source than this article and could not substantiate his allegations. It was however pointed out that he contradicted himself by referring to the desecration of exactly the Muslim graveyards which don’t exist!!!!

The experienced German correspondent also totally rejected his generally negative description of conditions in Denmark and said that Denmark was well-known for its well-functioning democracy and respect for human rights, and this respect for other cultures and thought was what made the country particularly attractive for Muslim immigrants.

There are many mosques in around Denmark in existing buildings where Friday prayer is practised every week, and there is no ban against building any new ones either. But there has been no agreement amongst the many different Muslim communities as to which school of Islam a new mosque should belong, and there has been a financial problem as well. Mosques have to comply with local town planning regulations like all other buildings, but that has not been an issue.

Also, his suggestion that the white cross in the Danish flag is now assuming a new religious significance for the irreligious Danes is just ludicrous. We have taken the flag burnings remarkably relaxed and with a forgiving shaking of the head. And the old myth that the flag came down from heaven….yes, surely we all believe that it came straight from God!

A very tendentious article all the way profiling the journalist at the expense of the truth.

I caught the train home from Union Square about 8.15pm the other night. I was leaning against the door reading the newspaper but I was distracted by an intermittent noise.

CLIP – CLIP – CLIP.

I tried ignoring it but the noise was so familiar. And so repellent. It sounded like someone cutting their nails.

CLIP – CLIP – CLIP.

A young man, probably about twenty years old, was leaning against one of the poles in the subway car and was slowly, carefully cutting his fingernails.

I looked down at the woman sitting in front of him. And she looked at me. Both of us were disgusted and at the same time amazed. He stopped clipping and started filing his nails.

The clipping and filing continued through Canal Street and over the Manhattan Bridge. The only reason he stopped before De Kalb Avenue was because the train was held up for a few minutes.

Is cutting your fingernails on the Subway, especially when you’re standing over seated passengers, a little rude? Or am I just being too polite again?

Aw, they went and ruined all my fun. The headline on Page 8 of my New York Times today says English Ban Indoor Smoking. But some killjoy has gone and changed the online version to the more correct British Ban Indoor Smoking…

For anyone who wants to find a hint of sanity in the world you could do far worse than looking in the comments section of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee(MPAC) website. Here are the comments at the end of a story which claims the Danish cartoons were part of a Zionist/Neocon conspiracy to drive a greater wedge between Islam and the West:

MPAC take yourselves seriously!
Written by Yahya on 2006-02-13 10:34:52
Please MPAC we need an organisation like you.
That’s why it pains me to see you refering to ultra right-wing American conspiracy nuts like Christopher Bollyn and the AFP.
MPAC is playing in the big leagues now – start acting like it.
Associate yourselves with the lunatic fringe who rant obout the conspiracy theory and the “New World Order” and you hand all of our enemies ammo to use againsts us. We might as well ask David Icke to support us.

Not everyone who hates Israel is in our side. Our enemy’s enemy is not necessarily our friend.
agree
Written by Rock on 2006-02-13 12:12:11
I agree wholeheartedly with Yahya

To Yahyah and MPACUK
Written by Agreed on 2006-02-13 12:29:18
Yahyah put it perfectly – please if you want to be taken seriously don’t try and turn yourself into a laughing stock by publishing this tosh.
Countries like Syria & Iran are not controlled by the Zionists but by evil police states. Their governments promote these protests to rally their people around a common enemy – the West – in order to take pressure of the corrupt dictators who run their countries into the ground.

Link to wacky extremist conspiracy article (that I found via Harry’s Place) here.

I’m not particularly opposed to an Iranian newspaper publishing cartoons about the Holocaust. Iranian editors can do what they like (ha!). But after reading this report from the BBC about anti-Semitic literature for sale in Egypt I started to wonder what was so controversial about publishing anti-Semitic cartoons in an Iranian newspaper. Iranian newspapers are probably full of hate directed against Jews and the US and the UK already. A case of dog bites man perhaps?

Now, a cartoon aimed at bridging the gap between East and West, that would be shocking…

Everyone seemed in a good mood today in the city as they navigated puddles and shuffled along patches of icy sidewalk. In weather like this you have to keep your eyes firmly on the ground to avoid obstacles. Because of this you also have to be more observant of people around you. I think the end result was that everyone was in a conspiratorial mood today—and therefore more forgiving of each other for getting in the way. I give it one more day before we’re all sick of getting soggy feet.

Record snowfall? I don’t doubt that it was a record in the New York region but in our part of Brooklyn, and judging by Manhattan today, it can’t have been so extreme. I remember visiting New York a couple of years ago (2002 or 2003) around this time and there was much more snow in Brooklyn and in the city. It really did come up to your thighs. And it stuck around for days. Anyone else feel like the hype outsnowed reality?

Unmissable link for today:
For cute-baby-in-the-snow pics see here.

The other day I was waiting for the Brooklyn-bound Q train at Canal Street around 6pm. The platform was very busy and I was standing well down towards the front of the train.

As soon as the train pulled into the station and the doors opened people started pouring out. In my usual polite British way I stood well to the side to allow everyone to exit—I can’t stand it when people start pushing to get in while everyone is still trying to get out. As the last person exited the carriage and I moved forward to get onto the train the doors closed and the Q pulled out of the station. I looked down the platform and I was the only one who hadn’t got on the train—a victim of my own politeness.

A set of doors on the following Q train refused to close at Union Square, so the next train into Canal Street was empty and passed straight through. A journey that should have taken 20 minutes turned into about 45 minutes.

Ordinarily this kind of thing would infuriate me but since the NY Subway runs so well all I could think was “well, at least it doesn’t happen all the time”. In fact, I struggled to remember the last time the Subway had let me down and I really couldn’t remember when or how.

When I lived in London during the late 1990s I used to have to wait for two or three trains every morning before I could find one with enough room to squeeze on. Not to mention all the delays and closures due to maintenance or malfunctions. And the expense. And the fact that the damn thing stopped running around midnight.

I’m sure the Tube has improved a lot since then. At least, I hope it has. But the next time you get stuck on the Subway in New York try to remember the last time it let you down. And if you can’t remember, then what are you complaining for?