Bill Hobbs, Tennessee blogger and Lipscomb University graduate, resigned from his job at Belmont University (more links at Mainstreet Journal and Michelle Malkin). His resignation followed a hit piece by a “professional” journalist — whose anti-blogger agenda is apparent in the first sentence: “If, as the saying goes, all politics is local, then what do you make of a medium that allows people to broadcast their most provincial, reactive and often vile thoughts to millions of people with the mere click of a button?” The hit piece then goes on to criticize Hobbs as un-Christian for publishing a cartoon of Mohamed during the height of the Cartoon Jihad:
But by deliberately desecrating Islam’s central figure—“the ‘Prophet Mohammed’ †as Hobbs sneered, using quote marks for sardonic emphasis—he attacked an entire religion, not a group of fanatics who pervert the religion’s teachings. Then he drew him as a bearded stick figure holding a bomb and said he “blows.†It seems bearded Muslim terrorists are the new big-nosed, money-grubbing Jews. The more things change….
That’s rich. Comparing the association of terrorism with Islam to anti-Semitism. Oh the irony! It’s not like those depictions of big-nosed, money-grubbing Jews are a thing of the past. They are regularly on display in the state-run newspapers of several Muslim countries and left-wing newspapers in several free countries. As for putting prophet in quotes, since when is it compulsory to acknowledge a central tenant of a religion you don’t adhere to? If you don’t believe Mohamed was a prophet, why should you be forced to preface his name with that title?
You would think that journalists would be less enthusiastic about surrendering the First Amendment freedoms upon which they base their living. It’s doubly disgusting to see journalists actively assist in the targeting and shunning of someone who publishes a provocative idea. But, I guess some “professional” journalists have more to fear from a vital and free blogosphere than from a press ruled by Muslim sensitivities. Any hitman-for-hire willing to submit to dhimmitude will always be able to find a job reviewing the latest edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — or as a censor for Comedy Central.
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This is rich… I just sent an email a couple of weeks ago to my local Public Radio Station telling them that the two times in the past 4 months I had listened to a local program that highlights theatre, music and arts in the city, it had involved theatre highlighting homosexual behavior. The most recent play focused on the ficticious life of a baseball player who “came out” the night before the World Series and the “struggles” he faced. The other play came out just before Christmas and was partilarly offensive. The storyline involved the premise that Jesus and his apostles were homosexuals and how Scripture could be viewed in that light. The commentator interviewing the director of the Jesus play indicated he thought the city’s population was “sophisticated” enough to handle that subject matter. That GREATLY offended me, and I told them so, and I got a nice vanilla email back telling me they were sorry I was offended and they certainly didn’t mean to imply I was not sophisticated! But to date, no one at the radio station has lost their job and the theatre company is still doing similar plays. That’s a lot more than just a cartoon. Why is trashing Jesus OK and trashing Mohammad not OK? I’m missing something…
For the record, John Spragens is hardly a “professional” journalist in the sense that he is rugged and weathered from years on the job. He is a 23 year old positioning himself for a gig with a local politician to whom Bill Hobbs was a hostile opponent.
Motives?
It doens’t surprise me that a writer from Nashville Scene would write such a piece. Not to say that all of there writers are looking for people to bash, but I certainly read my fair share of inflammatory pieces about people and various subjects when I was in Nashville. I usually just got it for the concert listings because the articles were never very good.
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