Prophet and loss

KHARTOUM, SUDAN, DEC 5, 2007. Three American cultural ambassadors have been arrested here for mocking the name of the prophet. Maurice Morton, Hammond B. Hamilton , and Edward Edwards, visiting Khartoum on a tour to promote understanding between Christians and Muslims, stood up to introduce themselves in a cultural exchange meeting at a local mosque. Standing in a row, they waved and said in turn, “Mo”, “Ham”, “Ed”. Sudanese participants in the conference immediately called the police and had them arrested. They are charged with deliberately “mocking, poking fun at, misspelling or making a rebus of” the name of the prophet, a crime punishable by beheading, stoning, whipping, or having your beard severely trimmed, at the discretion of the judge. At the very least, they will be deported on a plane normally used to transport camels.
Authorities contacted here said they were certain they were dealing with a plot to defame the prophet, not just an innocent mistake. “It does not even matter if they stood up and ‘edhammo’ or ‘hamedmo’ , said a police official. “We know what they were up to.” He also indicated that there may even be additional charges. “By God, we have examined their shoe soles to make certain they have not been walking about printing anti-Islamic propaganda in the sand.” The same official stated that the nickname “Ham” was offensive all by itself to Muslims, and added that Mr. Edwards’ fingerprints, “if you squint at them and hold them a certain way,” appeared to spell naughty words in Arabic, but he declined to name the words.
A lawyer for the defendants, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the law is very strictly applied, and has been used to punish spelling out the name of the prophet in a football cheer and using alphabet soup letters. He stated, too, that Sudanese citizens are forbidden to eat Danish since a Copenhagen Newspaper published controversial cartoons about the prophet last year.
Crowds of angry Sudanese rioted in the capital on news of the arrests, demanding death to all infidels and also an extra helping of millet. A spokesman for Sudanese President Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir hinted that the three men were Israeli agents and said the president would demand that western countries remove the syllables mo, ham and ed from all dictionaries or he would declare a jihad. But he added that if "somebody important" came to visit him and "brought a nice gift", the whole problem might go away.

Heart of Dogness

Republican candidates have been drawn into the controversy about Congo’s Law, a proposal in New Jersey to give judges wider leeway for mercy when evaluating dangerous animals. The law has been proposed in response to the case of Congo, a Princeton, New Jersey German shepherd condemned to die as a “vicious dog” for his attack on a Honduran landscaper.
While John McCain and Mike Huckabee have refused to comment, Huckabee pointing out that while the Bible does cover landscaping in the Book of Genesis, it gives no guidance on dog handling, the other candidates have already weighed in. Rudy Giuliani claimed that when he was mayor of New York, the number of attacks on Hondurans by German Shepherds declined by one hundred percent. “Not a single Honduran was bitten when I was Mayor, not even by a Yorkshire Terrier,” Giuliani stated proudly. Duncan Hunter declined to endorse the law, but attributed the problem to New Jersey’s strict gun laws. “If that Mex boy had him a Ruger up in his pickup, this never would have happened,” Hunter declared. Similarly, Ron Paul stated his firm opposition to new laws of any kind, while Fred Thompson stated that it was a private matter. “We are well past the day when a German shepherd could bite a person of color in public,” Thompson said. “But on private property, well, that’s another matter.”
Only Tom Tancredo expressed outright enthusiasm for the law, stating that any dog that bit an immigrant was a hero in his eyes. Tancredo not only approved of the law, but he called on the Governor of New Jersey to pardon Congo, and said that he would nominate the dog for the Medal of Freedom. “The only thing that bothers me is that his name, Congo, doesn’t sound very American,” Mr. Tancredo said. Mitt Romney, who waited until the other candidates had spoken before making any remarks, issued this statement through a spokesman: “It’s bad for dogs to bite. On the other hand, Mitt is concerned that if they do not pass this law, Princeton may become a sanctuary suburb where illegal immigrants can taunt American dogs and get away with it.”
Finally, President Bush, when asked what he thought Congo might say if he could speak, clenched his teeth as if talking through a muzzle and squeaked, “Arf. Please don’t kill me”.