Saturday, February 11, 2006
PALESTINIAN OUTRAGE REDIRECTED
Danes are the new Jews:
Angry Palestinians have gathered in East Jerusalem to protest against the publication in Europe of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
One group of menacing young men went up to a TV cameraman who was filming the event and demanded to know if he was Danish. He replied that he was Israeli. “Oh, that’s all right, then,” they said, and left him alone.
The Danes do have a few remaining friends, however, including James Morrow, who received this reply from Danish dairy firm Lurpak after sending a note indicating his family’s new all-Danish butter policy:
G’day James
Thank you for your interest and support for LURPAK.
We appreciate your support at a time when LURPAK products are not very popular in some parts of the world.
Hope you will enjoy your new habit of buying Danish products! (and Tuborg is not a bad beer either ...)
Best regards,
Mette Holm Andersen
on behalf of LURPAK
And South Australian reader Paul G. writes:
I’d been wondering whether anyone who doesn’t have regular access to the internet was paying attention to the Danish cartoon scandal. I went in to a very average Adelaide bottle shop this week to pick something up for myself. The person in front of me in line was a rough-as-guts truckie—the sort you’d expect to have a carton of VB or XXXX under his arm. Instead he had a six-pack of Carlsberg. As he explained to me, “I heard that the Saudis were banning Danish products, so I thought I should give ‘em a hand.”
UPDATE. Rhyming Canadians have conducted an anti-March march:
About 100 student demonstrators marched on Saint Mary’s University in Halifax to protest a professor’s decision to post cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on his office door.
The professor, Peter March, removed the cartoons after the university ordered him to do so ...
The professor later joined the protest march and, at one point, was surrounded by students who shouted, “Peter March is a fool, we don’t want him at our school.”
Marching is a pointless stunt, beloved of every stupid ... countrywide bans are now in place across Malaysia against circulation or possession of Mo-toons:
In a short statement confirming its order to shut down the Sarawak Tribune, the government of the mainly-Muslim nation said it had issued the ban to ensure racial harmony.
It is now an offence to publish, import, produce, manufacture, circulate, distribute or possess caricatures that may “jeopardise public harmony and safety, which may cause chaos, or endanger public peace or national interest”, it said.
UPDATE II. J.F. Beck:
I bought: Anton Berg dark chocolate covered brandied apricots; three kinds of cheese, including a triple cream blue that should be interesting; butter; and an organic spreadable butter blend. The satisfaction I got from buying the stuff made it well worth the premium price paid.
UPDATE III. Mark Steyn:
May I also put in a word for Lurpak? The unsalted version is one of my favorite butters on the planet.