Sunday, January 06, 2008

Lost Dog

LEWISTON (NEWS CENTER) -- Members of the Somali community in Lewiston say a poster put up in front of a local Somali owned store is an insult to their religion.

The poster depicts a vicious "lost" dog named Mohammed. That's the name of the Muslim prophet. It says that the dog is not good with children and can't be trusted.


Hussein Ahmed, the owner of the store, says the phone number on the poster is fake and that the only place it was put up was right near his business.

"This is really a religious statement," said Hussein Ahmed, "that is an attack on our religion which we don't feel comfortable with. We see this as a very bad insulting situation."

Let the rioting, destruction, and carnage begin.

No wait... No one riots in Maine. It just isn't done. Even the Somali Muslims in Maine are a rather sophisticated, aloof, and urbane lot. For instance, Honor killings there are passe' - always the very last resort for humiliated relatives... And would be considered an unenlightened exercise in bad taste under most circumstances.

Maybe Hussein felt somehow obligated to alert the media... As one might feel moved to pass on a humorous or amusing anecdote... And his words were twisted by the press.

Still, it's odd what passes for news these days. Pranks = Hate Crimes... I suppose.

10 comments:

SkyePuppy said...

I wonder if Janice has received any Whine-O-Grams from CAIR yet. I expect them to milk this for all they can, pushing for prison time for the perpetrators.

Must have been a slow news day up there in Maine...

Jacob said...

How about I go and sodomise a statue of Jesus out the front of your house?

What a marvellous prank!

Malott said...

Jacob,

It wouldn't make the news.

Jacob said...

But you see that it just isn't a prank. That whole treating others like you'd like to be treated? That applies here.

janice said...

No whine-o-gram, yet. There's been a shakeup in the organization here in Columbus I've been watching.

The "prank" was just that, a joke. I said before that muslims seem to be so thin-skinned and wear the mantle of victimhood. Quite an impediment to social development and cultural assimilation.

Mojo_Risin said...

Remember when South Park showed a menstruating Virgin Mary statue? Or when they showed George Bush pooping on Jesus? It was hilariously icky, and of course, Christians didn't get THAT joke... but they get this one.

Go figure.

Jacob said...

WORD TIMES A MILLION.

Good point, Mojo. Why didn't I think of that?

SkyePuppy said...

Mojo (and Jacob),

There's a difference between South Park and this story. South Park is a public, worldwide show, and the icky stuff was an intentional insult to all Christians.

This lost dog poster was intended for one guy. It was the victim, not the perpetrator, who made it public.

People who are not hypersensitive would take the poster down, say some curse words about the guy who made it (or maybe question his parentage) and then throw it away. When someone takes a cheap shot at you, do you go to your local newspaper, for pete's sake?

And why do you keep assuming it was a Christian who did it? It was more likely some idiot drunk guy with no real religion at all, who was thinking, "Look, an easy target."

I'm a Christian. I "get" the joke, but I don't think it's particularly funny, because I can't get past the way Mr. Ahmed must have felt gut-punched when he figured out the poster was a fake.

But then he overreacted and went to the press with it. Good thing the Somali Muslims in Maine are sophisticated, aloof, and urbane, or we'd have had rioting on our hands over it. And, of course, Christians would have been blamed.

Mojo_Risin said...

Puppy, that's the weirdest argument I've ever heard. Because this was an insult to ONE person's religion, it's a prank, but if it insults a religion of a lot of people at once, it's a sin? But wait, isn't the store window where this was posted public? Then doesn't this fall under the same argument of "public" you used against South Park?

Turn your argument on yourself. So you're saying that if the Christians weren't so hypersensitive about their religion, they would have just cursed South Park and moved on their way? Well, that didn't happen, did it? There were boycotts and editorials involved.

Seems to me you're just reaching for an argument.

Oh, and Malott, you're saying if some guy went and cut a hole in the statue of Jesus, lubed it and went to town, there wouldn't be a news story about it? There's a news story when someone knocks over a Nativity scene, my man.

Just keepin' y'all real...

Malott said...

I think we can all agree that it's wonderful to live in countries where we can say and write what we want... And not have to look over our shoulders for the secret police.

I don't want South Park to be legally punished because they made-light of the Christian religion. But when you publicly insult on such a grand scale... Some are going to strike back... In a legal and peaceful way if they're Christians.

And I still think the poster was just a prank... And that Skyepuupy is right when she said a Christian... And by that I mean a true believer... wouldn't do such a tasteless thing.

And if it had been a Christian's place of business... The poster would have been thrown in the trash and we would have heard nothing (Refer to Janice's comment).