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A few readers have written me asking my opinion of the news stories that are starting to apppear about TheDaVinciChallenge.com, the website that the public-relations professionals at Grace Hill Media have set up to promote and/or debate the upcoming movie about you know what.
The cartoon controversy (far too weak a word at this point) is causing some interesting divisions on the right as well as the left. The debate that I think deserves the most serious news coverage concerns the role of Islamic moderates and what they do or do not believe about the freedoms of the West.
Yes, I know that it is the newspaper of a far-right political party, a fringe group that wants strict immigration controls and has little or no mainstream role in Swedish politics.
Let me offer many thanks to the Divine Ms. M and young master Daniel Pulliam for doing so much in the past few days to keep us in touch with the tidal wave of stories about the Danish cartoons. I literally do not know where to begin and, during five days of travel, I have felt somewhat stunned and confused by what I am reading. I am home again and starting to catch up.
I spent most of the day on the move from Wheaton, Ill., to downtown Chicago and then on to Grand Rapids, Mich. Thus, I am only now — late at night — getting to some of the major stories of the day.
As much as we here at GetReligion like to prod mainstream local newspapers to do a better job of covering religion news, we really should pause, every now and then, to discuss an even bigger problem. Hardly anyone in television news, national or local, has created a religion beat.
The following is a rumor. But it is a rumor I have heard many times in the past decade or so. I have heard it enough to believe it is (a) one of those rumors that may be true or (b) a rumor that is just a rumor, but a rumor so widespread that it has begun to affect reality.
Earlier this week, the divine Ms. M weighed in on the escalating story of the cartoon caricatures of Muhammad and the raging reaction in the Islamic world. Frankly, I must confess that I am feeling overwhelmed with all the coverage of this out-of-control story.
