When Caricatures Aren't Funny.

Consulting the diplomatic playbook - ok, right, page one. Condemn violence. Check. I'm condemning the violence.

No 'but' there.

Still, when I read 'Muslims set fire to Danish Embassy in Lebanon; protests in Afghanistan, Iraq', there's a part of me that wonders what started this whole bit of planetary idiocy. I wrote an open letter to Michelle Malkin over something not too dissimilar. Sure, she didn't draw caricatures, I know, but what I am talking about is media globalization. The internet has torn down the walls between cultures, and some things really piss people off. And when people feel that when they have communicated that they are upset and the message doesn't seem to get through, you get violence.

I'm not in the middle of this. I looked at the drawings. They don't upset me. I have to put up with a confederacy of dunces who don't understand Buddhism anyway, and all the little idiocies that people misconstrue. That's OK. I leave you to yours and mine to mine.

But we have the U.S. Addicted To Oil and we have Israelis and Arab countries not playing well together in the Middle East, we have the United States invading Iraq unilaterally, and the whole Iranian Nuclear issue. And some cartoonist in Denmark does some caricatures, and tips things to a boiling point.

It's no secret that extremist Muslims are creating problems for the world - including Muslims who are not extremist. It's not secret that the Muslim world has taken a LOT of bad press since September 11th. When I read anti-Muslim comments like this, it's easy how things can be seen to be coming to a head.

Here's why: More and more people are aware of how others perceive them, of how they speak about them, and sometimes they don't like it. I'm not saying walk on eggs, but what I am saying is that expecting Western values and culture to be imposed on another set of values and culture is just as idiotic as the reverse.

Is there an easy solution? No. But there is a workable solution if people communicate - which means both talking and listening. While the Muslim world may want to consider how they react to things which they don't like, the Danish press may want to consider just how far they go with making fun of Allah and the Muslim beliefs.

Wars have been started over those things.

But it's not just a caricature issue here. You don't get an explosion like this over one caricature. There's a very deep and ugly thing that the media is perpetuating, as Ethan notes.

I'm glad I'm just a tourist here. The natives are quite confusing. The angry Muslims (not to be confused with all Muslims) are clashing with angry non-Muslims (not to be confused with all non-Muslims), and I'm betting that the majority of the world just doesn't care what a Danish newspaper does - including, perhaps, Danish editorial staff.

But in this case... overreaction everywhere. The over-reaction, though, is at least partly because of under-reaction on other things. Maybe Muslims in general shouldn't be portrayed as evil bad people. Maybe terrorists and Muslims shouldn't be made synonymous. Maybe the media needs to be more responsible - even the alternative media, the blogosphere. After all, I don't think that the Muslim world has been too awfully upset when there have been caricatures of Osama bin Laden. Poking fun at Allah isn't the same thing... and language and culture divides magnify the difference.

Responsibility in the media, even the new media, extends beyond geopolitical borders. Get used to it. People know what you say about them more and more.

Maybe you all just need to get a grip.

Maybe the real issues that caused this should be looked at instead. But lazy people will just tear things up and draw caricatures while the rest of the world tries to make that work less relevant.