For some strange reason, the image of Gary Cooper on that famous Solidarity poster popped into my head today. So I Googled it and was surprised to see that today is in fact the twentieth anniversary of the elections, and the successful Solidarity candidacy in those elections, that the poster promoted. The poster is doubly iconic, both because of its historical significance and because the image of Cooper from 1952’s “High Noon” was already iconic when the poster was produced. If you haven’t seen “High Noon,” by the way, go see it. Right now. And shame on you.

This being that anniversary, it’s a good day to recollect how much passion, honor, and gritty philosophy went into those old Westerns, how much they can still teach us today, and how much good the American Western has done not just for America, but for the world: the image of Cooper walking alone down that dusty black and white street is a reminder that sometimes when you do good, you have to do it alone. (more…)

Valentine’s Day was the 20th anniversary of the death fatwa issued against The Satanic Verses novelist Salman Rushdie by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, whose stern expression glowered down from many a wall-sized banner throughout his country, and whose declaration, “There is no fun in Islam,” is a masterpiece of comical understatement.

In another notable understatement (considering that the Islamist foothold in England is so great that it gave rise to the expression “Londonistan”), BBC arts correspondent Lawrence Pollard said recently that the Rushdie controversy galvanized “a stronger sense of Muslim identity in Britain.”  Nothing like having a blasphemer to behead to bring some people together, I guess.  “Until that time there had been assumed support for the broad principle of free speech,” Pollard adds.  “The Rushdie affair introduced the question of how far free expression should be limited to avoid offending religious feelings in a multicultural society.”

No, it introduced the question of how far expression should be limited to avoid the hysterical, worldwide, lethal mob violence of Muslims, since no one in the media, especially the BBC, gives a second thought to offending the religious feelings of Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, animists, Satanists and especially Christians, because none of those groups will kill you for it.  Indeed, taking pop culture potshots at Christianity is such a common pastime for the Western media that Christians can barely even muster the energy for an angry e-mail or two. (more…)